USA > Washington > Lincoln County > An illustrated history of the Big Bend country, embracing Lincoln, Douglas, Adams, and Franklin counties, state of Washington, pt 1 > Part 3
USA > Washington > Adams County > An illustrated history of the Big Bend country, embracing Lincoln, Douglas, Adams, and Franklin counties, state of Washington, pt 1 > Part 3
USA > Washington > Douglas County > An illustrated history of the Big Bend country, embracing Lincoln, Douglas, Adams, and Franklin counties, state of Washington, pt 1 > Part 3
USA > Washington > Franklin County > An illustrated history of the Big Bend country, embracing Lincoln, Douglas, Adams, and Franklin counties, state of Washington, pt 1 > Part 3
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As Cortereal was among the earliest on the Atlantic seaboard, so Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, or Cabrilla, as the name is variously spelled, is admitted to have been the earliest navigator.
along southern California. It was evidently the intention of Cabrillo, to continue his voyage far higher on the Northwest Coast, for he, too. had heard of the mysterious "Strait of Anian," and was enthused with most laudable geograph- ical ambition. But fate ruled otherwise. Ca- brillo died in the harbor of San Diego, Cali- fornia, in January, 1543, fifty-one years after the momentous achievement of Columbus on the southeastern shores of the present United States. The mantle of Cabrillo fell upon the shoulders of his pilot, Bartolome Ferrelo. To within two and one-half degrees of the mouth of the Columbia river Ferrelo continued the exploration, tracing the western coast of the American continent along this portion of the Pacific, and to Ferrelo has been accredited the honor of having been the first white man to gaze upon the coast of Oregon.
But back of that dimly outlined shore which Ferrelo skirted, above latitude 42 degrees, far inland, lay the immense, wonderful territory which afterward became Oregon. It is not susceptible of proof that Ferrelo ever gained north of the present Astoria. although this claim was at one period urged by Spain. But a country which could solemnly lay claim to the whole Pacific ocean would not be at all back- ward in declaring that one of her navigators
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GENERAL HISTORY.
was the first to sight the Northwest Coast, and that, too, far above the point really gained by Ferrelo. It is not considered likely that he reached above the mouth of Umpqua river.
In 1577 Francis Drake, a privateer and freebooter, a pirate and plunderer of Spanish galleons, yet withal a man of strong character and enterprising spirit, attempted to find a northwest passage. Drake probably reached as high as latitude 43 degrees, and dropped his anchors into the shoals of that region. No in- land explorations were achieved by him, and he reluctantly abandoned the search for Anian, returned to Drake's Bay, on the coast of Cali- fornia, and subsequently to England around the Cape of Good Hope. En passant it is notice- able that during the famous Oregon Contro- versy, which obtained ascendancy in interna- tional politics two hundred and fifty years later, the discoveries of Drake were not presented by England in support of her claims for all terri- tory north of the Columbia river. Whether Great Britain was doubtful of the validity of discoveries made by a freebooter, or attached no importance to his achievement, the fact remains that they were not urged with any force or en- thusiasm.
Cabrillo and Ferrelo were not emulated in maritime discoveries in the waters of the Northwest Coast, until 1550. But on the shore-line of the Atlantic, Cartier, for six years, between 1536 and 1542, had made a number of inland voyages, ascending the St. Lawrence Gulf and river five hundred miles, past the site of Montreal and to the falls of St. Louis. . In the far south Hernando De Soto, contemporary with Cartier, had sailed coastwise along the Florida peninsula and penetrated that tropical country until forced back by swamps, morasses and everglades. Inland exploration in the mid- dle of the sixteenth century comprised, prac- tically, in its northern limitations, a line cross- ing the continent a few miles below the 36th parallel, from the Colorado to the Savannahs, Coronado advancing into the modern Kansas,
having passed the line at its central part. The Pacific had been explored sufficiently only to barely show the shore-line to the 44th degree of north latitude.
In the way of northern exploration on the Pacific coast Spain had, in 1550, accomplished little or nothing. But fifteen years afterward Spain became aggressive along the lines of mar- itime activity. Urdaneta, in 1565, planned and executed the initial voyage eastward, opening a northern route to the Pacific coast of North America. He was followed, from the Philip- pines, by Manila traders, eager for gain, and for two centuries thereafter, through the rise and decline of Spanish commercial supremacy, these active and energetic sailors reaped large rewards from the costly furs found in the waters of the Northwest Coast. It is fair to say that the spirit of commercialism contributed far more toward development of the region of which this history treats than did the more sentimental efforts of geographical science.
Still, the latter spirit was not without its apostles and propagandists. Among them was one who called himself Juan de Fuca, a Greek of Cephalonia. His real name was Apostolos Valerianos. Acting, as had Columbus, under royal commission from the King of Spain, he sailed bravely away to find the legendary Strait of Anian-the marine pathway between the greatest oceans of the world. The name of Anian, a mythical northwestern kingdom, orig- inated in 1500, and is said to have been taken in honor of a brother of Cortereal. The real strait was discovered by Russians in 1750. These Russians were fur-hunting Cossacks, who reached the Pacific coast of North America in 1639. Their point of rendezvous was at Okhotsk, on the sea of that name.
Though the voyage of Juan de Fuca proved fruitless it must be conceded that it was con- ceived in the interest of science: a move in be- half of international economics, and honorable alike to both Spain and the intrepid navigator. In 1584 Francisco de Gali reached the Pacific
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GENERAL HISTORY.
coast, from the west, in 37 degrees 30 minutes ; some say 57 degrees 30 minutes. He was con- tent to sail southward without landing, but recorded for the archives of Spain the trend and shore-line of the coast. By the same route Cermenon, in 1595, met with disaster by losing his vessel in Drake's Bay, a short distance above the present city of San Francisco. Prominent among numerous other voyagers, mainly bent on profit, were Espejo, Perea, Lopez and Captain Vaca.
As has been stated, the earliest explorations of the Northwest Coast were maritime. They were, also, in the main, confined between lati- tudes 42 degrees and 54 degrees, mainly south of the boundary line finally accepted by Great Britain as between Canada and the United States. Even in that twilight preceding the broad day of inland discovery, there were wars between nations, with "Oregon" the issue, and some compromises. Later came the advance guard of inland explorers who found, at the occidental terminus of their perilous journeys, a comparatively unknown seaboard 750 miles in extent, below the vast reaches of Alaskan territory and the Aleutian Islands. From the far north came Russian explorers, and they en- countered Southern navigators who had come upward from the ambrosial tropics. They com- pared notes, they detailed to each other many facts, intermixed with voluminous fiction, but from the whole was picked out and arranged much of geographical certainty. Four nations of Pacific navigators came to what afterward was known as Oregon, related their adventures, boasted of the discoveries each had made, dis- cussed the probability of a northwest passage, the "Strait of Anian,"-and the Northwest Mystery remained a mystery still.
The Spaniards, between 1492 and 1550. were in the lead so far as concerns actual geo- graphical results, of all other European sailors. Spain, through the agency of the Italian. Col- umbus, had discovered a new world : Spain had meandered the coast-line for 30.000 miles, from
60 degrees on the Atlantis coast of Labrador, round by Magellan Strait, to 40 degrees on the coast of the Pacific. Vast were the possibilities of the future for Spain, and the world did honor to her unequalled achievement. From a broad, humanitarian view point, it is a sad reflection that so many of the golden promises held out to her should have, in subsequent cen- turies, faded away as fades the elusive rainbow against the storm-cloud background. But Spain's misfortune became North America's opportunity. England, too, and Russia, watched and waited, seized and assimilated so rapidly as possible, piece by piece the territory on which the feet of Spanish explorers had been first planted. That it was the survival of the fittest may, possibly, remain unquestioned, but it is a fact that Spain's gradual yet certain loss of the most valuable territory in the world has furnished many of the most stirring episodes in the world's history. Spain has lost, sold. ceded and relinquished vast domains to nearly all the modern powers. And not the least valu- able of Spain's former possessions are now under the Stars and Stripes.
Thus far has been hastily sketched the salient facts concerning the earliest maritime discoveries of the Northwest Coast. None of the Spanish, English. Russian or Italian navi- gators had penetrated inland farther than a few miles up the estuary of the Columbia river. It was destined to remain for a class of explorers other than maritime, yet equally courageous and enterprising, to blaze the trail for future pioneers from the east.
To Alexander Mackenzie. a native of In- verness, knighted by George III. is accredited the honor of being the first European to force a passage of the Rocky Mountains north of California. On June 3. 1789. Mackenzie left Fort Chipewyan, situated at the western point of Athabasca lake, in two canoes. He was ac- companied by a German, four Canadians, two of them with wives, an Indian, named English Chief. and M. Le Roux. the latter in the capac-
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GENERAL HISTORY.
ity of clerk and supercargo of the expedition. The route of this adventurous party was by the way of Slave river and Slave lake, thence down a stream subsequently named the Mackenzie river, on to the Arctic Ocean, striking the coast at latitude 52 degrees, 24 minutes, 48 seconds. This territory is all within the present boundar- jes of British Columbia, north of the line finally accepted as the northern boundary of "Oregon" by the English diplomats.
Singular as it may appear there is no authentic history of the origin of this term "Oregon." There is, however, cumulative testimony to the effect that the name was in- vented by Jonathan Carver, who pushed his in- land explorations beyond the headwaters of the Mississippi river ; that the name was exploited and made famous by William Cullen Bryant, author of "Thanatopsis," and late editor of the New York Evening Post; that it was fastened upon the Columbia river territory, originally by Hall J. Kelley, through his memorials to congress in 1817, and secondly by various other English and American authors. Aside from this explanation are numerous theories adduc- ing Spanish derivatives of rather ambiguous context, but lacking lucidity or force. It is likely that no more etymological radiance will ever be thrown upon what, after all, is a rather animportant, though often mooted question.
The expedition of Mackenzie, crowned with results most valuable to science and territorial development, comprised one hundred and two days. At the point he first made, on the Pacific coast the explorer executed, with vermillion and grease, a rude sign bearing the following inscription : "Alexander Mackenzie, from Can- ada by land, July 22, 1793." Subsequent ex- peditions were made by Mackenzie to the coast, one of them via the Peace river.
But now comes one M. Le Page du Pratz. a talented and scholarly French savant, with
the statement made several years ago, that neither Mackenzie nor Lewis and Clarke were the first to cross the Rockies and gain the Northwest Coast. Our French student claims to have discovered a Natchez Indian, being of the tribe of the Yahoos, called L'Interprete, on account of the various languages he had ac- quired, but named by his own people Moncacht Apé, "He Who Kills Trouble and Fatigue." M. Le Page declares that this man, actuated mainly by curiosity, a stimulant underlying all advancement, unassisted and unattended, trav- eled from the Mississippi river to the Pacific coast so early as 1743. This was sixty years before President Jefferson dispatched Captains Lewis and Clarke on their governmental expe- dition, the results of which have proved so im- portant and momentuous in the history of the development of Oregon and Washington. Moncacht Apé, it is claimed, met many tribes of Indians, made friends with all of them, ac- quired portions of complex dialects, gained as- sistance and information and, eventually gazed upon the same waters upon which Balboa had fixed his eyes with enthusiasm, many hundreds of miles to the south.
It can not be denied that hardly has a great discovery been heralded to the world ere some rival genius springs up to claim it. Possibly it is this spirit which may have actuated M. Le Page in producing the somewhat mysterious Moncacht Apé, to pose as the pioneer of North- western exploration. But we, of to-day, are in 110 position to combat his claims, reserving to ourselves the undeniable fact that Mackenzie, Lewis and Clarke were the first white men to gain. overland, the Northwest Coast.
From 1500 to 1803 this greatly abridged foreword has traced northwestern discoveries. We now enter upon a brief description of the glorious achievements of Lewis and Clarke in that portion of their journey so fruitful with results to Washington and Oregon.
CHATPER II.
MISSISSIPPI TO THE COAST.
Eleven years before the departure of Lewis and Clarke, on their expedition to the North- west, President Jefferson, in 1792, proposed a plan to the American Philosophical Society, in- volving a subscription for the purpose of em- ploying a competent person who should pro- ceed by land to the Northwest Coast. It is at this period that Captain Meriwether Lewis emerges from the obscurity of his military post at Charlotteville, Virginia. It had been ar- ranged that M. Michaux, a French botanist, should become the companion of Captain Lewis. These two had proceeded on their journey so far as Kentucky, at that time one of the western states, when an end was put to this initial enterprise by the French minister, who suddenly discovered that he had use for the botanical abilities of M. Michaux else- where. The latter was recalled.
But this plan, which had grown in devel- opment of detail since its inception, was not abandoned by Jefferson. In 1803, on the eve of expiration of the act for the establishment of trading posts among Indians, the president again brought forward the scheme which he had first proposed to the American Philosophi- cal Society. The object sought was to trace the Missouri river to its source, cross the Rocky Mountains, and gain the Pacific Ocean. This was most satisfactorily accomplished, and because this expedition first sighted the Pacific in latitude 46 degrees, 19 minutes II.7 seconds, it becomes an important factor, within the ter- ritorial limits of this history. The confidential message, transmitted by President Jefferson to congress, in January, 1803, had been favorably received, and results were far beyond his most
sanguine expectations. Not only had the orig- inal plan been fully approved, but it was consid- erably amplified in its details, and Captain Lewis had been given as a companion, William Clarke, brother of General George Rogers Clarke. To Captain Lewis, to whom was given full command of the expedition, instructions were imparted concerning the route, various objects to which inquiries should be directed, relating to geography, character of the country traversed, the different inhabitants, biology, and such other scientific information as it was possible to obtain.
Coincident with this momentuous under- taking another, and equally important negotia- tion was being carried to a successful conclu- sion. This was the Louisiana Purchase, from Napoleon Bonaparte, by which the United States acquired title to a domain whose extent and topographicl location made that other terri- tory to which Lewis and Clarke were en route, "Oregon," an almost absolute necessity. Louisiana, at that period extending from the mouth of the Mississippi river to the, then, indefinite boundaries on the north of Montana and the Dakotas, had been recently ceded by Spain to France. The latter power, by a treaty involving the payment to Napoleon of $15,000,000, ceded it to the United States.
Following the return of the Lewis and Clarke expedition, a donation of land was made by congress to the members of the party. This was in 1807. Captain Lewis was appointed governor of our newly acquired territory of "Louisiana." and Clarke was made agent of Indian affairs. But while on his way to Phila- delphia, to supervise the publication of his jour-
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GENERAL HISTORY.
nal, in 1807, Captain Lewis was stricken with death.
That portion of Lewis and Clarke's expedi- tion with which this history concerns itself re- lates chiefly to the achievements of these in- trepid captains after they had entered the terri- tory known as "Oregon," and from which the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho were carved : And what was this territory, at that period a terra incognita? Major Joshua Pitcher, early in 1800 contributes the following brief description :
The form or configuration of the country is the most perfect and admirable which the imagination can conceive. All its outlines are distinctly marked; all its interior is connected together. Frozen regions on the north, the ocean and its mountainous coast to the west, the Rocky Mountains to the east, sandy and desert plains to the south-such are its boundaries. Within the whole country is watered by the streams of a single river, issuing from the north, east and south, uniting in the region of tidewater, and communicating with the sea by a single outlet. Such a country is formed for defense, and whatever power gets possession of it will probably be able to keep it.
This was published in Volume I, No. 39, senate documents, Twenty-first Congress, sec- ond session. A more extended description is sketched later by Mr. Parker, who says :
Beyond the Rocky Mountains nature appears to have studied variety on the largest scale. Towering mountains and wide-extended prairies, rich valleys and barren plains, and large rivers, with their rapids, cata- racts and falls, present a great variety of prospects. The whole country is so mountainous that there is no elevation from which a person can not see some of the immense range which intersect its various parts. From an elevation a short distance from Fort Van- couver, five isolated, conical mountains, from ten to fifteen thousand feet high, whose tops are covered with perpetual snow, may be seen rising in the surrounding valley. There are three general ranges west of the Rocky chain of mountains, running in northern and southern directions; the first above the falls of the Columbia river; the second at and below the Cascades ; the third toward and along the shores of the Pacific. From each of these branches extend in different direc- tions. Besides these there are those in different parts which are large and high, such as the Blue Mountains, south of Walla Walla ; the Salmon River Mountains,
between Salmon and Kooskooskie rivers, and also in the region of Okanogan and Colville. The loftiest peaks of the Rocky Mountains have been found in about 52 degrees north latitude, where Mr. Thompson, astrono- mer of the Hudson's Bay Company, has ascertained the heights of several. One, called Mount Brown, he esti- mates at sixteen thousand feet above the level of the sea; another, Mt. Hooker, at fifteen thousand seven hun- dred feet. It has been stated, farther (though probably with some exaggeration) that he discovered other points farther north of an elevation ten thousand feet higher than these. Between these mountains are widespread val- leys and plains. The largest and most fertile valley is in- cluded between Deer Island in the west, to within twelve miles of the Cascades, which is about fifty-five miles wide, and extending north and south to a greater extent than I had the means of definitely ascertaining ; probably from Puget Sound on the north, to the Umpqua river on the south.
The Willamette river, and a section of the Colum- bia, are included in this valley. The valley south of the Walla Walla, called the Grand Rond, is said to excel in fertility. To these may be added Pierre's Hole, and the adjacent country; also Recueil Amére, east of the Salmon River Mountains. Others of less magnitude are dispersed over different parts. To these may be subjoined extensive plains, most of which are prairies well covered with grass. The whole region of country west of the Salmon River Mountains, the Spokane woods and Okanogan, quite to the range of mountains that cross the Columbia at the Falls, is a vast prairie, covered with grass, and the soil is generally good. Another large plain which is said to be very barren, lies off to the southward of Lewis, or Malheur river, including the Shoshone country ; and travelers who have passed through this have pronounced the interior of America a great, barren desert, but this is drawing a conclusion far too broad from premises so limited.
Aside from Captains Lewis and Clarke, the party of exploration consisted of nine young men from Kentucky, fourteen United States soldiers, who had volunteered their services, two French watermen, (an interpreter and hunter), and a black servant, employed by Captain Clarke. Before the close of 1803 prep- arations for the voyage were all completed, and the party wintered at the mouth of Wood river, on the east bank of the Mississippi.
The start was on May 4, 1804, and the first reach, made on the sixteenth, was twenty-one miles up the Missouri. Of the many surpris- ing advantures encountered in ascending this river to Fort Benton, it is not the province of
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GENERAL HISTORY.
this history to recount. It was toward the Northwest Coast that their faces were set, and the advent of these pioneers into the future "Oregon" becomes of material interest to present residents of this section.
August 18, 1805, fourteen months from the departure of this expedition, it had reached the extreme navigable point of the Missouri river, stated in Captain Lewis' journal, to be in lati- tude 43 degrees, 30 minutes, 43 seconds north. The party was now, for a certain distance, to proceed by land with pack horses. Tribe after tribe of strange Indians were encountered, a majority of whom met the explorers on friendly terms. The party endured hardships innum- erable; game was scarce in certain localities, and at times the weather was inclement. They forded unknown streams, and christened many, Lewis river, Clarke's Fork, and others.
Particular inquiries were made regarding the topography of the country and the possibil- ity of soon reaching a navigable stream. In answer to such questions an ancient chief, who, it was claimed, knew more concerning the geography of this section of the northwest than any one else, drew rude delineations of the vari- ous rivers on the ground. It soon developed that he knew little about them. But some vague information was gained sufficient to show that the different streams converged in one vast river, the Columbia, running a great way toward the "setting sun, and at length los- ing itself in a great lake of water, which was ill- tasted and where the white men lived." Still another route was suggested, an analysis of which convinced Captain Clarke that the rivers mentioned debouched into the Gulf of Cali- fornia. He then inquired concerning the route used by the Pierced-nose Indians who, living west of the mountains, crossed over to the Mis- souri. According to Captain Lewis' journal the chief replied, in effect, that the route was a very bad one; that during the passage, he had been told, they suffered excessively from hun- ger, being obliged to subsist for many days on
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berries alone, there being no game in that part of the mountains, which was broken and rocky, and so thickly covered with timber that they could scarcely pass.
Difficulties, also, surrounded all routes, and this one appeared as practicable as any other. It was reasoned that if Indians could pass the mountains with their women and children, no difficulties which they could overcome would be formidable to the explorers. Lewis sets down in his journal: "If the tribes below the mountains were as numerous as they were rep- resented to be, they would have some means of subsistance equally within our power. They had told us, indeed, that the natives to the westward subsisted principally on fish and roots, and that their only game was a few elk, deer and antelope, there being no buffalo west of the mountains."
It was decided by Captain Clarke to ascer- tain what difficulty, if any, would be encoun- tered in descending the river on which the party was then encamped. Continuing down the stream, which runs nearly northwest, through low grounds, rich and wide, they came to where it forked, the western branch being much larger than the eastern. To this stream, or rather the main branch, was given the name of Lewis river. The party followed it until confronted by insurmountable ob- stacles; it foamed and lashed itself through a narrow pass flanked by the loftiest mountains Captain Clarke had ever seen. The Indians declared that it was impossible to descend the river or scale the mountains, snow-capped and repellant. They had never been lower than the head of the gap made by the river breaking through the range. Captain Clarke decided to abandon the route. It was determined to pro- ceed on their course by land. On being ques- tioned their guide drew a map on the sand, rep- resenting a road leading toward two forks of another river, where lived a tribe of Indians called Tushepaws. These people, he said, fre- quently came to Lewis river to fish for salmon.
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