An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 11

Author: Hines, Harvey K., 1828-1902
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1056

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Affairs at Astoria were, meantime, progress- ing slowly toward a settled condition. The fort was completed, and everything put in readi- ness for the large trade which was reasonably anticipated with the surrounding tribes. Dur- ing the summer only one event occurred to ruffle the smooth flow of the somewhat monot- onous life of the past. It was this:

On the 15th of July a canoe, manned by

nine white men, was seen descending the river, and in a short time they landed on the beach. They proved to be a party sent by the power- ful Northwest Company, a British corporation, commanded by David Thompson, a partner in the company. He had been dispatched from Montreal the year before to anticipate the ar- rival of the Astor party, and take possession of the mouth of the Columbia before that party should arrive. His journey had been greatly hindered, many of his men had deserted, and now, with the few who remained faithful, he had arrived too late for the purpose for which he had made the long and perilous journey. The flight of the eagle had been too rapid for the crawl of the lion, and America had first possession in Oregon. Still there was that in the reception that McDougal, who had charge at Astoria, tendered to Thompson, the agent of an opposing and foreign corporation, that, if it could have been understood, boded no good to the interest of Astoria. McDougal had him- self been formerly connected with the North- west Company, and still cherished the warmest sympathy with it, and a still warmer sympathy with the principles and purposes of the British Government. Ilence Thompson's welcome was cordial; his wants were bountifully supplied; and, notwithstanding the fact that the very purpose of his presence was to thwart the very designs for which MeDougal and his company were there, he was sent on his return journey, eight days later, with the benefactions, if not the benedictions of MeDougal thick upon him. This visit of Thompson's was a most sinister one, and he is blind reader of history who can- not connect it, and the information and im- pressions he obtained in it, with events toward which our story hastens, and which will not be long to appear.

It is hardly necessary for us to trace the story of the various efforts of the company to extend its trade and establish outposts during the summer and autumn of 1812. They were but parts of this general historie enterprise which had its heart and pivot at Astoria, and,

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however interesting as individual incidents of adventure they might be, they did little to affect or change the current of events that was so rapidly flowing toward a historic point of great importance.

On the 9th of May, 1812, the ship Beaver, sent by Mr. Astor with re-enforcements and supplies, arrived at Astoria. Her arrival put the Pacific Fur Company in the best condition for vigorous and profitable service. After the discharge of her cargo, Mr. Hunt, who it will be remembered was Mrs. Astor's immediate rep- resentative in the charge of the company, set out in her for Alaska to fulfill the mission on which the ill-fated Tonquin had sailed, leaving Mr. Duncan MeDougal in charge at Astoria. The Beaver sailed on her voyage up the coast in the month of August. As the closing months of the year passed by, and the first of the next was following them, and she did not return, gloomy apprehensions of her fate settled down on Astoria. MeDougal, especially, gave way to the most unmanly despondency. He had nothing but evil forebodings and prophecies for the whole enterprise. At this juncture he was surprised on the 16th of January by the appearance of Mckenzie, way-worn and weather- beaten from a long winter journey, from his post on Snake river, with intelligence which brought to MeDougal confusion of mind, if not dismay of heart. It had been brought to the post of Mckenzie by Mr. John George MeTav- ish, a partner of the Northwest Company, and commanding a post of that company in the vi- cinity of that commanded by Mckenzie. While McTavish was delighted by it MeKenzie was as much alarmed, and lost no time in breaking up his establishment and hastening with all his people to Astoria. The substance of the news that thus delighted McTavish and dismayed Mckenzie, was that war had been declared be- tween England and the United States; that as the representative of the English company he was prepared for the vigorous opposition to the American, and he capped the climax of this, to him very pleasing intelligence, by saying

that the armed ship, Isaac Todd, was to be at the month of the Columbia river abont the be- ginning of March, to get possession of the trade of the river, and that he was directed to join her there at that time.

The intelligence brought by Mckenzie com- pleted the dismay of MeDougal. All hope of maintaining Astoria was abandoned, and the partners resolved to give up the post in the following spring, and return across the Rocky mountains. Meantime all trade was given up, and after a short stay at Astoria Mckenzie set off for his post on Snake river, to prepare for its intended abandonment, and also for the contemplated journey to the States. When the party was some distance above The Dalles of the Columbia, they met Mr. J. G. McTavish with two canoe-loads of white men, in the employ- ment of the Northwest Company, on their way down the Columbia to meet the Isaac Todd. The parties encamped together for the night like comrades rather than rivals, the two lead- ers holding very friendly consultations, and in the morning each proceeded on his way. With the exception of Mckenzie the partners in com- mand of posts in the interior did not agree with McDougal's determination to abandon the coun- try. They had been very successful in their trade with the Indians, and considered it un- manly to break up an enterprise of such magni- tnde and promise on the first difficulty. In this they were more faithful and courageous than their chief at Astoria.

The time for the annual gathering of partners with the products of the year's trade at Astoria was in June. Accordingly, on the 12th of that month, Mr. Mckenzie, Mr. Clark, and Mr. David Stuart arrived from the posts on the upper Columbia and Snake rivers, bringing a very valuable stock of peltries. They found MeDougal, representing the Pacific Fur Com- pany, and MeTavish, representing the Northwest Company, rivals both in trade and. nationality, in closest fellowship. McDongal's hospitality to McTavish was altogether uncalled for. and the more especially when the nation which he,

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as a member of the Northwest Company, really represented, was at war with the United States, and McDougal well knew that he was there for a hostile purpose. He treated McTavish and his party as allies rather than enemies and ri- vals. MeDougal had but to leave them to their own resources, and they must have abandoned the country immediately. The moral evidence of MeDougal's treason to his company is con- clusive, and the results soon justified the belief.

The ship Isaac Todd, which MeTavish ex- * pected to meet at the mouth of the river, not arriving, that gentleman applied to MeDongal for a supply of goods with which to trade his way back. They were furnished, and on the proposition of McDougal the posts of the Pacific Fur Company on the Spokane were conveyed to the Northwest Company. This established that company in the very garden of the trade of the Pacific Company.

McDougal and Mckenzie, who were at one in their sinister purpose, at length succeeded in influencing the minds of Clarke and Stuart, and the two other partners present, and the four signed a manifesto to Mr. Astor setting forth the most desponding representations of the con- dition of affairs at Astoria, and formally an- nonneing their determination to dissolve the concern on the 1st of the following June. This instrument was delivered to McTavish, who de- parted from Astoria on the 5th of July, to be forwarded to Mr. Astor at New York by the Northwest Company.

While these events were occurring on the Pacific, others of not less moment to Astoria were transpiring on the Atlantic. On the 6th of March, 1813, Mr. Astor dispatched the ship Lark with supplies for Astoria. She had scarcely sailed before it became known to him that the Northwest Company had for the second time memorialized the British Government, repre- senting Astoria as an American establishment of great strength, with a vast scope of purpose, and urging that it be destroyed. In answer to the memorial that government ordered the frigate Phobe to convoy the armed ship Isaac Todd,

of the Northwest Company, which was ready to sail with nien and supplies for a new establish- ment at the mouth of the Columbia. They were to proceed together to the mouth of that river, capture or destroy whatever American fortress they should find there and plant the British flag upon its ruins.

To meet this new and alarıning condition of affairs, Mr. Astor appealed to the Goverment, and the frigate Adams, with Captain Crane com- manding, was ordered to the mouth of the Co- lumbia, and Mr. Astor immediately proceeded to fit ont the ship Enterprise, with supplies and re-enforcements to sail in her company for As- toria. Just as the two ships were ready for sea the exigencies of the American naval service on lake Ontario called for more seamen, and those of the Adams were transferred to the squadron of Commodore Chancey, and the expedition was abandoned.

It would needlessly lengthen our work to at- tempt to trace the complicated movements of the different parties in one way or another con- nected with the various expeditions, by both sea and land, that in some way affected the history of the great enterprise of Mr. Astor. On the whole, taking into account the fact that the un- dertaking had such vast and wide ramifications touching all the possibilities of Indian trade in half a continent and of trade with China and Russia and other parts of the world, and that purchases, sales and returns over the world- wide sweep of Mr. Astor's plans would needs re- quire at least two years before any intelligent estimate of success or loss could be made, the conclusions of MeDougal and Mckenzie at Astoria, with which even Mr. Hunt had at last, with much difficulty, been persuaded to agree, appear to have been childishily hasty, or else wickedly disloyal to their patron and chief. Whichever it was, the result to the enterprise was the same, and its record can soon be made.

On the 7th of October a squadron of ten boats under the command of S. G. McTavish, who had with him Mr. J. Stuart, another part- ner of the Northwest Company, with some

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, clerks and sixty-eight men, swept around Tongné Point, and soon after landed and encamped un- der the guns of the fort, displaying the British colors. There were some young men in the fort, native Americans, who desired to run np the "stars and stripes," but MeDongal torbade them. They were astonished and incensed, as they would gladly have nailed the national en- sign to the staff even at the cost of a battle, but their protest had no influence with MeDongal. He had determined on a surrender of Astoria, and to prepare the way for it read to the young men of the fort a letter from his nncle, Mr. Angus Shaw, one of the principal partners of the Northwest Company, announcing the com- ing of the Phoebe and Isaac Todd " to take and destroy everything American on the northwest coast." This did not dismay nor convince the patriotic American youth, but they were power- less. MeDougal and McTavish hastened nego- tiations. On the same day the former agreed to transfer Astoria and all it contained. It was to be transferred to the Northwest Company on terms that were entirely satisfactory to the latter. Before the stipulations were signed, however, Mr. Stnart and the reserve party of the Northwest Company arrived and encamped with the party of Mr. MeTavish. He insisted on a reduction of prices and MeDougal obse- quiously complied, and on the 16th of October, 1813, an agreement was executed by which the furs and merchandise of all kinds in the entire conntry belonging to the Pacific Fur Company passed into the possession of the Northwest Company at about one-third of their real valne. Soon after the British sloop-of-war, Raccoon, arrived in the river, having come with high hopes that in the capture of Astoria her officers and men would be enriched by the trophies the Americans had gathered. They found instead that already the establishment had passed into the hands of the British subjects, and were sorely disappointed. On the 12th of December the formal raising of the British flag over the fort took place, and in the name of His Britannic

Majesty its name was changed from Astoria to Fort George.

About two months after this transaction, Mr. Hunt, in the brig Pedlar, arrived at Astoria, finding MeDongal a partner of the Northwest instead of the Pacific Fur Company, and acting under the British instead of the American flag. It was too late to remedy the grievons error and wrong, and it remained for him only to gather np the fragments that remained of the interests of Mr. Astor and his great company ; and on the 13th of April, 1814, he sailed away from the Columbia, sadly leaving the flag of Great Britain floating where should have streamed the ensign of America.

In concluding this chapter of Oregon-Amer- ican history the writer can hardly help adding the reflection that the key to the failure of Mr. Astor's grand enterprise is found in the fact that the most of its leaders were so largely for- eigners. Their very names had a foreign accent and orthography, and they loved the cross of St. George more than the stars and stripes of Columbia. They were not great enough to be true to principle and obligation against appeals to feeling and profit. And so the American establishment of Astoria became the British post of Fort George.

Matters at Astoria-now for a time to be called Fort George-remained the same until the war between the United States and Great Britain was terminated by the treaty of Ghent, in 1815. This treaty stipulated that "all territory, places and possessions whatsoever taken by either party from the other during the war, or which may be taken after the signing of this treaty, shall be restored without delay." The commissioners, however, could not agree upon a line of division between the possessions of England and the United States west of the Rocky mountains, and no action was taken in regard to Fort George. In July, 1815, in ac- cordance with its understanding of the terms of the treaty, the United States Government noti- fied the British minister at Washington that it

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would immediately re-occupy the captured fort at the month of the Columbia river. Great Britain made no official reponse to this notice, and for two years no further action was taken. At last, in September, 1817, the American sloop-of- war Ontario, commanded by Captian J. Biddle, was despatched to the Columbia, and the captain and Mr. J. B. Prevost were consti- tuted a commission instructed to assert the claim of the United States to sovereignty over the region of the Columbia. This decisive act compelled a decision also on the part of Great Britain, and resulted in negotiations which finally terminated in a formal transfer, in 1818,

of Fort George to Mr. Prevost as representative of the United States, thus putting that power again, at least nominally and formally, in the possession of the Pacific Northwest. Still the Northwest Company remained in actual posses- sion of the property of Fort George by virtue of its purchase of the same from the agents of Mr. Astor, as heretofore recorded. It was now a strongly built and thoroughly armed fortress, and remained practically as much a British post as before, until the final adjustment of the bonndary question, in 1846. But it had no history of its own separate from the general history of the coast.

CHAPTER VIII.

MISSIONARY OCCUPANCY.

INDIAN EMBASSY TO ST. LOUIS-DISAPPOINTMENT-INDIAN'S SPEECH-GEORGE CATLIN-LETTER PUBLISHED-CHURCHES RESPOND JASON LEE AND COADJUTORS CROSS THE CONTINENT- MR. LEE AND DR. McLOUGHLIN-LEE ESTABLISHES HIS MISSION-WORK OF THE MISSION -DECAY OF THE INDIANS-ACTION OF THE A. B. C. F. M .- MISSIONARIES APPOINTED- FIRST WHITE WOMAN TO CROSS THE CONTINENT-ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONS --- THEIR CHIAR- ACTER- CONFLICTS WITH THE PROTESTANTS-BLANCHET'S STATEMENT.

W E have traced the history of the north- west coast through the traditions of its ante-civilized state. It is now time that we turn to its initial occupancy for civil- ized purposes and life, without, at this point, discussing motives or philosophies of civiliza- tion, but giving a plain narration of facts.

In the year 1832 the attention of the churches of the United States was called, in a somewhat romantic and startling manner, to the country west of the Rocky Mountains as a promising field for missionary work among the native tribes. It occurred in this wise:

In some manner the Indians of the far north- west had become impressed with the great su- periority of the white man. With the natural superstition of uncivilized races, or, it may be, with the true instinct of universal humanity, they assigned that superiority to the marvelous

power of the white man's God. To find that God and avail themselves of the advantages that a knowledge of Him would give them, be- came the subject of earnest and repeated con- sultation among them. They had also heard that the white man had a book that cominuni- cated that knowledge, and they earnestly desired its possession. How these glimmerings of fact had come to their minds we cannot tell, though it was doubtless through some stray American trappers, or some wandering Iroquois who had come into contact with Christian teachings in Canada or New York. They were crnde at best, invested with the charm of supernatural- ism, always exciting and attractive to an In- diau's mind, and of course stirred their imag- inations to the very deepest. In the councils of the Flathead nation it was at last determined that an embassy should be sent on the long

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trail-they knew not how long-if haply they might find the Book and bring back the cov- eted light.

An old chief, celebrated among his people for bravery and judgment, and an old brave skilled in war were selected, and with them were asso- ciated two young braves for daring and perilous feats during the long journey, as the chosen embassadors of the waiting and expectant tribe.

The route they took was never recorded. They disappeared in the defiles of the Rocky mountains, stole their way through hostile tribes, traversed the wide, treeless plains that stretch between the mountains and the Missouri river, and finally appeared before General Will- iam Clarke, who had led the exploring expedi- tion over the Rocky mountains to the sea seven- teen years before, with the story of their peo- ple's desire and of their own journey for its gratification, in St. Louis, then a hamlet on the uttermost borders of civilization. General Clarke was then superintendent of the Indian affairs in the great West, and the man to whom they would naturally apply for the information they sought.

Without following the romantic speculations of many writers as to what was done and said by these Indians, it is necessary to add but little more than that their mission to them was a sad failure. The old Indian chief and his companion died in St. Louis, and after long and sad inquiry the two young men prepared to depart for their distant home. Before their departure they took a ceremonious leave of General Clarke, and one of them delivered a speech that for sad pathos and wild eloquence may safely be quoted as the equal of Logan's plaintive words. One who was present and listened to it thus puts in English its words:

"I come to you over a trail of many moons from the setting sun. You were the friend of my fathers, who have all gone the long way. I came with one eye partly opened for more light for my people, who sit in darkness. I go back with both eyes closed. How can I go back blind to my people? I made my way to you

with strong arms, through many enemies and strange lands, that I might carry back much to them. I go back with both arms broken and empty. The two fathers who came with us --- the braves of many winters and wars-we leave asleep here by your great water and wigwam. They were tired in many moons of journey, and their moccasins wore ont. My people sent me to get the white man's Book of Heaven. Yon took me where they worship the Great Spirit with candles, but the Book was not there. You showed me the images of good spirits and piet- ures of the good land beyond, but the Book was not among them to tell us the way. I am going back the long, sad trail to my people in their dark land. You make my feet heavy with your burdens of gifts, and my moccasins will grow old in carrying them, but the Book is not among them. When I tell my poor, blind peo- ple, after one more snow, that I did not bring the Book, no word will be spoken by our old men or by our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in silence. My people will die in darkness, and they go out on the long path to the other hunting grounds. No white man will go with them, and no white man's Book to make the way plain. I have no more words."

The interview ended, the two remaining In- dian messengers turned their faces homeward. One died on the way, and the other, returning to his people, disappeared from historic record.

The fact of the coming of this embassy, and its disappointed return to the distant regions whence it came, was soon noised abroad as a very romance of religion. A young clerk in the office of General Clarke, having witnessed the interview and noted its sad disappointing end, detailed an account of it to friends in Pittsburg. George Catlin was then pursuing his studies and investigations in Indian lore, and enriching his gallery with Indian portraits and paintings. To him the letter was shown. He had met the two returning braves, traveled with them on the Yellowstone, and even taken their portraits for his gallery, and they had said

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nothing to him of the object of their visit to St. Louis and its failure. He therefore asked that the letter be not published until he had written to General Clarke and ascertained the facts in the case. The reply from the general came at length, saying: "It is true; that was the only object of their visit, and it failed." On Catlin's advice the letter was given to the world. In his "Indian Letters," Mr. Catlin speaks of the matter thus: "When I first heard the report of this extraordinary mission across the mountains, I could scarcely believe it; but on consulting with General Clarke I was fully convinced of the fact. *

* They had been told that our religion was better than theirs, and that they would be lost if they did not em- brace it."

The publication of the letter detailing these events stirred the heart of the Christian people of America as a call from God,-as who shall say it was not ?- for, though the one lone sur- vivor of this embassy returned sad and disap- pointed to his more disappointed people, his mission was far from being a failure, and, as we read history backward from to-day, this event seems a divine pivot on which turned not only some of the most thrilling chapters of individ- nal history ever recorded, but much of the des- tiny of the Indian people, and probably all of that of Oregon.

It was forever contrary to the genius and spirit of Christianity to leave a call so clearly within the limits of the Christian's idea of Providence unanswered. So, while all the churches of the land felt the thrill of this providential call, the Methodist Episcopal Church was the first to respond. She did not stop to experiment and explore, but through her constituted authorities sought for a man to lead the vanguard of the forces of civilization and Christianity over the Rocky mountains and down toward the western sea a full 2,000 miles beyond the westernmost fringe of American settlement. In a church whose typical legend was a man on horseback bearing a banner in- scribed, "The world is my parish," it conld

not be far nor difficult to find such a man, and, having found the leader, to find coadjutors and helpers in the work he adventured.

After due and diligent search the authorities of the church decided that Jason Lee, a young man of thirty-one years, who resided in Stan- stead, Lower Canada, only just across the line of the United States, born of New England parents, educated in Wilbraham Academy, Mas- sachusetts, under Wilbur Fisk, the most re- nowned educator of early Methodist history, was the man for the hour that had thus struck. The reasons for this conclusion were decisive. Mr. Lee was of unusual physical dignity and prowess. He was six feet three inches in height, and of most stalwart and manly mold. Erect, with open and manly and frank counten- ance, a clear blue eye, light complexion and hair, he was the impersonation of Saxon vigor and will. Upon him the seal that gave the world assurance of a man was set. Withal, his own heart was moved in the direction of the work to which the church, through her consti- tuted authorities, was thus calling him. When, therefore, his former tntor at Wilbraham, Dr. Fisk, put the question before him in behalf of the church, and also in behalf of the waiting Indian tribes west of the Rocky mountains, "immediately he conterred not with flesh and blood " but stepped resolutely through the open door thus unexpectedly opened before him, and gave himself to history as the pioneer of civil- ization and Christianity west of the Rocky mountains. Others, kindred in purpose, and of similar heroic quality, were soon associated with him. These were his own nephew, Rev. Daniel Lee, and Mr. Cyrus Shepard, of Massachusetts, who were also, under the appointment of the Methodist Episcopal Church, designated to share the honor as well as the peril of a missionary expatriation among the western tribes.

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An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 11

Author: Hines, Harvey K., 1828-1902 Publication date: 1893 Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company Number of Pages: 1056

Author: Hines, Harvey K., 1828-1902
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1056