An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 18

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

USA > Washington > An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens > Part 18

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).

arrived emigrants, a total adult male population of abont four hundred, and a total white popu- lation of not far from two thousand souls.

The introduction of this number of American people, many of whom were educated and re- fined and all of whom were strong in purpose, and had wealth both of brain and brawn, lifted Oregon at once from a camping-ground for fur hunters and mountain men, and even from a field of mere missionary occupancy, to the con- dition of a civil community-a commonwealth -with the needs of a community, and with ability and dispositions to supply those wants. So the autumn and emigration of 1843 brought a new era to Oregon, the era of government, which will be considered in its proper place in this work.

The impulse of emigration to Oregon did not exhaust itself in 1843. The last emigrant wagon of that year had hardly disappeared westward of Missouri before the frontier was astir again with moving preparations for the emigration of 1844. This was nearly as great as that of the preceding year. It added about 800 to the American population of Oregon, 234 of them strong, able- bodied men. The emigration of 1843 came in a single column, under one captain, and with a semi-military organization. That of 1844 started from varions points, under different leaders, and divided up more and more as it progressed on the journey. This greatly added to the ease and facility of travel, and the various companies had comparatively little difficulty in their long journey. Besides, the several hundred wagons of the preceding year had broken down the sage of the plains, and made a clearly marked road as far as The Dalles. The larger divisions of the emigration started, one from Independence, one from near the month of Platte river, and one from near St. Joseph, and Cornelius Gilliam, Nathan Ford and Major Thorp commanded these divisions respectively. In this emigration were many names that have become honored in vari- ous departments of western history and that are worthy of notable record. Withont any in- vidions selections we name the Eadses, the Fords,

115

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

the Gilliams, Holinan, Minto, Rees, Simmons, the Shaws, the Thorps, J. S. Smith and many others whose industry made the country to bloom like a rose tree, and who in many ways contributed to its material growth and moral and intellectual progress.

Of the immigration of 1845 comparatively little record has been preserved, although it was larger than that of either of the two preceding years. The population of the Territory was now becoming so large that a thousand or two of people could melt away into the forn er ag- gregate without sneh manifest expansion of the population as before. And besides, when so many had preceded, it was not considered so strange that many others should follow. Hence the 2,000 people constituting the immigration of 1845 arrived, dispersed over the country from the California mountains to Puget sound, and became integral parts of the body politic, without having taking pains to make a roster for the benefit of history, on the perpetnity of their own deeds. Still a few can be mentioned, enlled here and there from fugitive archives, whose names must ever stand connected with some departments of the deeds of the pioneers of the coast. We instance T. Vault, the Way- mires, the Riggses, Gen. Joel Palmer and Wilcox.

The road from the Missouri to the Columbia liad now become a broad and beaten track. There was no difficulty and little danger in traveling it except such as arose from deficient preparation before starting or poor judgment in traveling. All that was to be done was to travel steadily onward, day after day, quietly and persistently moving forward as the patient ox swings slowly onward, and in due time the goal would surely be reached. But such pa- tience and endurance of effort are not common virtues. To face a horizon that never comes nearer, to push into space that never seems to get shorter, to lift at a burden that never grows lighter, are the severest tests of the strongest natures. So it was not wonderful that many of the weary and foot-sore immigrants became rest-

less of their seemingly endless travel, and felt inclined to listen to any one who came with the promise of a shorter road and speedier ar- rival at the goal of their desires.

This year this was painfully, almost tragically illustrated. When the immigrants reached Fort Boise Stephen H. Meck, a man who had been a " free-trapper " in the mountains, and for some years employed by the Hudson's Bay Company as such, and who had served as a guide to some small companies in 1842, offered to show them a shorter and more eligible route over the mountains, and one by which wagons could be taken into the Willamette valley with- ont the costly and troublesome transportation by water from The Dalles. The route he pro- posed to travel, leading through southeastern Oregon, and into the Umpqua valley far south of the head of the Willamette river, he had never traveled himself, but the country through which it passed was known to be open and far less mountainous than the country farther to the north. Quite a number were pursuaded to follow his lead. These left the old and traveled road at the month of the Malheur river, near Fort Boise, and turned southward up the valley of that stream, while the larger portion kept steadily onward in the beaten road, and in good time reached the end of their journey. The company that followed Mr. Meek soon became convinced that he himself was traveling by guess instead of knowledge. Of course they were in a panic at once. Mr. Meek became alarmed and deserted the people he had led astray and fled to save his life, as many had threatened to kill him on sight. The company undertook to return to the old road by turning to the north and traveling down the valleys of John Day and Des Chutes rivers, and at last, after the most exhausting efforts, and the great- est sufferings from hunger and thirst, reached the Columbia at The Dalles, and were thus res- cued from their very perilous condition.

This diversion of a portion of the immigrants from the old line of travel, and the sufferings they endured in consequence, has caused con-

116

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

siderable very acrimonious discussion, seriously involving the motives of those who persuaded them into what proved such disastrous action. Still such discussion has failed to demonstrate that there was any specially wrong motive in them, but that they acted without any very ac- curate knowledge of the country to be traversed and consequently not with good judgment, and thus betrayed those who trusted their advice into a very costly and dangerous experiment. Many thrilling accounts of cases of individual suffer- ing and hardship and loss on the treeless and waterless wastes of the Klamath and Humboldt regions have been published, but it would serve no important purpose to transfer them to these pages. Certainly we cannot subscribe to the charge made by some writers that these parties were led astray under the inspiration and advice of the Hudson's Bay Company for the sole pur- pose of destroying them. Had such ever been the methods of the heads of that company in their dealings with the American immigrants, certainly they could not but see that the de- struction of a comparatively small portion of an immigration would have no other effect on the final settlement of the " Oregon question " than to hasten and make it more absolute against themselves. But sneh never was their method, as impartial history must determine.

Like the emigration of 1845, that of 1846 was divided into small companies, which reached the country at various times and by different routes, so that no record of names was kept. When it left the Missouri river it consisted of 2,000 souls. However, by this time California was beginning to divide with Oregon the at- tention of intending emigrants, and on reach- ing Fort Hall about one-half took the southern route down the Humboldt river and across the Sierra Nevadas into the Sacramento valley. The greater portion of those destined for the Willamette valley pursued the old ronte down Snake river, and reached Oregon City, then the goal of the journey, in good time, and without unusual incidents. However, about 150 people, with forty-two wagons, were induced, at Fort

IIall, to undertake a new route in the same general direction as the disastrous one selected by Meek the year before, and despite the un- fortunate outcome of that venture. The mis- adventure this year was induced by the presence at Fort Hall, on the arrival of the trains, of a number of men from among the most reputable and influential citizens of Oregon, mainly resid- ing toward the southern end of the Willamette valley, who claimed to have looked out a road from the point where they met the emigrants to that valley by the way of the Humboldt, Klam- ath lake, Rogue river and Umpqua valleys, much more feasible than the old one by the valley of Snake river. These men had actually passed over the route they outlined to the emi- grants on their way out; but, being on horse- back, and traveling without any incumbrances, it probably seemed much shorter to them than it really was, and certainly much shorter than it proved to the worn and weary emigrants, im- peded in their travels by wagons and all the incumbrances of camp life. It certainly cannot be supposed that such inen as those who led the party that surveyed the new route could have had any sinister or selfish motives in leading these families into the terrible straits through which they were compelled to pass. Still it cannot be possible for the historian to relieve these gentlemen from all blame, as they were all acquainted with the peculiar difficulties of emigrant travel, having themselves crossed the continent but a year or two before as emigrants, and knew that water and grass were prime con- ditions of safety with ox teams, and where these could not be found in abundance there could be no excuse for venturing, unless the necessity was absolute. From fifteen to twenty miles was an average full day's journey with oxen on the emigrant roads, and there were stretches of grassless and waterless desert of from twenty to fifty miles in width, over which they attempted to lead the forlorn party that had intrusted itself to their guidance. Of course there was much suffering. Many teams perished. Men, women and children were compelled to go on foot over

117

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

burning sands and cinereous rocks, to climb timbered summits and ford the roaring torrents of the mountains. The consuming thirst of the deserts of the sterile interior was at last relieved, it is true, by the springs and streams of the Sierras, but then gaunt hunger paralleled their earlier thirst. At last, however, man by man, or family by family, the worn and strengthless emigrants straggled down from the Siskinas into the Rogue river valley, or emerged from the Umpqua canon into Umpqua valley, almost withont cattle, or wagon, or clothing, welcomel to the end of their sad pilgrimage only by the chills of an Oregon midwinter. Taken all in all this was the most deeply shadowed page in the history of our immigration, and has left a heritage of more acrimonious and bitter discus- sions and heart burnings to the historian.

But, sad as is this record, it is a bright one compared with the fate of a large party known as the "Donner party," that separated from the Oregon immigrants on Humboldt river, and attempted to scale the winter-clad Sierras into the Sacramento valley. These became entangled in the labyrinths of the mountains, were over- taken and overwhelmed by snow-storms, and, unable to proceed or return, many perished miserably by starvation, and the remainder were rescued more dead than alive by the cour- age and energy of a party from Sacramento valley. The place of the occurrence of this sad event bears the name of "Donner lake," which will forever monument this tragic climax in the history of the emigration of 1846 to the Pacific coast.

The immigrants of this year also signalized their courage and determination by an attempt to open the first wagon road into the Willamette valley across the Cascade mountains. Very seldom, indeed, in the history of exploration or adventure has a braver and more resolute deed been done. We hazard nothing in saying that in all the distance between the Missouri river and the Cascades there is no stretch of 100 miles that presented to the primitive engineer- ing of the emigrants anything like the difficul-

ties of the 100 miles between the open country east and the Willamette valley west of the Cascade mountains.

This is one of the most rugged and lofty ranges of the continent, and, unlike the Rocky mountains, it is everywhere most densely tim- bered. It is cut and gashed by fearful chasms worn down by the waters that break from be- neath the glaciers of Mount Hood and kindred peaks thousands of feet into the volcanic debris of untold ages. The average altitude of the wide, swampy summit of the range is not far from 10,000 feet. From foot to summit and from summit to foot again the whole surface of the earth is covered with the largest and loftiest firs, cedars, pines, tamarack and larch, and its undergrowth is an impenetrable forest of alder, vine maple, laurel, dogwood, hemlock and un- named varieties of rough and gnarled and inter- laced shrubs and ferns and brush. The ax, wielded by a strong arm, must ent a way into, through and out of this indescribable wilder- ness, or it cannot be passed.

Up to the autumn of 1846 all the wagons taken to Western Oregon were conveyed not far from 100 miles down the Columbia from The Dalles into the mouth of the Willamette and up that stream a few miles on rafts or in Hudson's Bay batteaux. To add to the diffi- culty a portage of three miles had to be made at the Cascades, and the wagons were taken piece by piece across it and reshipped again below. This 100 miles was the inost perilons and difficult part of the journey to the Willam- ette valley, and came to the emigrants when they were wearied and enfeebled by months of constant toil and care.

To relieve subsequent emigrants of this diffi- culty a few gentlemen of this summer's com- pany resolved to attempt crossing the mount- ains with their teams and wagons. At the head of this company were Mr. Samuel K. Bar- low and Mr. W. H. Rector. Turning sonth- ward from The Dalles along the eastern base of the range, they sought a promising place to enter it to the south of Mount Hood. After

118

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

abont forty miles travel over a very ronghi and hilly, though untimbered region, they turned westward up a gentle slope that appeared to lead south of the great snowy cone of Mount Hood, and began to cut their way into the dense forest. Some explored the ronte in ad- vance and blazed their way, others cut out obstructions and worked grades down and up the impassable precipices, and others drove the teams and cared for the families. Progress was very slow. It was late in autumn. The rains and snows beat upon them in the deep ravines and on the stormy heights. But they were resolute men, and resolved to push onward at every peril. After much effort they conducted their wagons about twenty miles into the wilderness, when the snow became so deep that to go forward or to go back was alike impos- sible. And besides they were not the men to go back even if they could. Nothing remained for them but to build cabins in which to honse their families for the long winter, which was fully upon them, and provide as best they could against starvation. This they did in the deep gorge of White river, a few miles below where its waters flow from beneath the glaciers of Mount Hood. A wilder place can hardly be imagined. On either hand the great mountain sides were covered with giant firs, with close around a dense black pine forest. The little river, whose dashing waters, whitened by the volcanic ashes washed down from the great mountain cone, rushed stormily by. Lone, desolate winter covered all.

The only possible supply of food these win- ter-imprisoned men, women and children had for the months before them was their emigrant oxen, worn and poor from the long summer's journey from the Missouri river. These they slanghtered and dressed, covered their carcasses with the snow which was sure to remain until May, and resigned themselves to the awful task of keeping alive for the long winter. To live just for the purpose of living is the hardest task a human being ever performed. This was all there was for them to do. So they waited

and ate their scant rations of poor beef, drank water from the river or from melted snow, cut fire-wood from the pines abont them, and wore away the weary months.

When the winter snows were ten or fifteen feet deep on the mountains, two or three of the men undertook to scale them on snow-shoes and reach the Willamette valley, and there procure help to work their way backward with supplies before those left behind had perished from star- vation. The distance to Oregon City was not less than seventy-five miles, and fifty of that was untracked mountains. With a little beef wrapped up in a blanket on the back of each they left the lone cabins and their lonelier in- mates and started on their journey, hoping, yet only half expecting, to succeed. Rector was a remarkably strong, compact and sinewy man, Barlow was of slighter and sparer build, and less able to endure fatigue; and the stress of the long journey had already weakened him. He came near fainting, and one day when he felt he must succumb to his troubles and die he said to Rector, "What would yon do with me if I should die here?" "Roast and eat yon," growled the stronger Rector. Barlow burst into feeble tears. "Come, come," said the really kind- hearted Rector, "you are not going to die: rouse up, be a man and come on." He cheered and helped him, and these resolute " pathfinders" toiled on over the snowy waste of mountains for many weary days before they descended from their western slopes and entered the Willamette valley. Such men, rather than those who trav- eled in their wake under Government cominis- sions, and with all the abundance and comforts of Government equipments, were the true path- finders of the Rocky mountains and the Pacific coast.

On reaching Oregon City, Rector and Barlow obtained supplies for their families yet impris- oned in the snowy gorge of White river, and re- turned for their rescue. After the winter snows had gone they yoked up the oxen which they had brought back with them, and again began their slow and tiresome movement westward. Their

119

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

winter's camp was some miles east of the sumn- mit of the range, and np the steep ascent through one of the stateliest and darkest forests that stands on the earth they cut their toilsome way. Then after the summit was passed they floun- dered through a terrible cedar morass that covers the summit platean for miles, when they reached a western erest that stood sheer above the valley of a mountain river, whose upper wa- ters cleave the southwestern glaciers of Mount Hood. Into the fearful gorge into which it runs they dropped, rather than traveled, over the face of Laurel Hill, probably the most tremen- dous descent down which wagons ever rolled. And so they toiled ou, day after day, week after week, until the last mountain was crossd, the last forest passed, and the brave remnant of the emigration of 1846 entered Oregon at full mid- summer of 1847.

Quite a number of gentlemen, who in various departments of civil life became prominently associated with the progress of the conntry, at- tended this immigration. Among them was Mr. J. Quinn Thornton, a man of decided ability and fine acquirements, who became Chief Jus- tice under the provisional government. ' Unfor- tunately no roster of this immigration was ever kept, and hence our personal notices of those in it must be omitted.

We have now reached a period in the history of the immigrations into Oregon from which it becomes more and more difficult to trace any one of them in anything like a separate story. Still a few sentences must be given to that of 1847, as that was the last one that left the fron- tiers of Missouri for the farthest West, that serves to present much of an individual history. Those coming subsequently started on their journey over the now well-worn emigrant road in small companies, at different times, traveled at their individual convenience, and when they reached the end of their journey melted away into the mass of the people almost impercep- tibly, as streamlets from the hills blend into the eurrents of widening rivers toward the sea.

The immigration of 1847 was about 4,000.

California had begun to allure many toward her newly opened and sunny plains, and probably as many of those who started from the Missouri river for the West turned thitherward into the valley of Snake river as crossed the Blue and Caseade mountains into Oregon. But, in many respects, both as to men and things, it was one of the most marked and important of all the emigrations. Its members brought more prop- erty, more of those things necessary to make a home-like civilization than any that had pre- eeded it. Bands of fine cattle, ineluding pure Durham stock, and of the best breeds of horses, as well as fine bands of sheep, were driven from the Western States. A stoek of merchandise was brought by Thomas and William Cox, and a store opened by them at Salem, the now capi- tal of the State. Apple seeds, peach seeds and many other seeds of plants of which the country had been destitute before were brought. But that which attracted most attention, and was really of most importance, was what was called the " Traveling Nursery" brought by Mr. Henderson Lueling. He constructed boxes abont one feet deep and just long enough to fill his wagon bed, filling them with a compost of earth and charcoal, in which he planted about 700 trees and shrubs, of the best improved va- rieties, from twenty inches to four feet high. This wonderful "nursery" thus transplanted 2,000 miles was the parent stock of those mag- nificent varieties of apples, pears, plums, eher- ries, peaches, and other fruits that have given the Pacific coast a name and fame as the finest fruit country on the continent.

The immigration of 1847 contained quite a number of gentlemen who became quite promi- nent in the industrial and political history of the coast. Among these was the Hon. Samuel R. Thurston, who became the first delegate from the Territory of Oregon to the Congress of the United States, of whom we shall speak more at length in the appropriate place.

With this notice of the immigration of 1847 we elose our notices of immigrations as separate from the general course of Oregon history.

120

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

CHAPTER XIII.

PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT.

A NEW ERA-SUMMARY OF ARRIVALS FOR FIVE YEARS-POLITICAL TENDENCIES OF THE PEOPLE THE QUESTIONS OF GOVERNMENT-" INALIENABLE RIGHTS " VERSUS FOREIGN CONTROL-PETITION TO CONGRESS MEETING AT CHIAMPOEG IN 1841-DEATH OF EWING YOUNG --- ANOTHER MEETING

-INCIDENTAL CIRCUMSTANCES-DR. ELIJAH WHITE, INDIAN AGENT-ARRIVAL OF THE IMMI- - GRATION OF 1842-ARTIFICIAL ANTAGONISMS-PROPOSITION FOR AN INDEPENDENT GOVERNMENT -MEETING AT WILLAMETTE FALLS RESOLUTIONS OF MR. ABERNETHY-THE " WOLF MEET- ING" -- PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS-CANADIAN CITIZENS' ADDRESS-MEETING IN MAY-A CLOSE DIVISION-CANADIANS WITHDRAW-PROVISION FOR GOVERNMENT-FOURTH-OF-JULY CELEBRA- TION-REPORT OF LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE "ORGANIC LAWS"-OFFICERS CHOSEN-FIRST ELECTION -- GEORGE ABERNETHY ELECTED GOVERNOR -FORM OF OATH OF OFFICE-FIRST LEGIS- LATURE-DOCUMENTS TO CONGRESS-DR. WHITE-RESULT OF THE MEMORIALS CHARACTERIS- TICS OF GOVERNOR ABERNETHY-SECOND ELECTION-ABERNETHY RE-ELECTED-TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT ORGANIZED.

W E have now reached a period in our his- tory when Oregon began to assume the form of a political commonwealth. Heretofore its history was mainly that of the aboriginal tribes, the various fur companies that operated within its boundary, of the missionary establishments that had been founded among the Indian tribes, and of individual action and adventure. That part of the story that relates to the presence and action of white men who had any civilized or civilizing object in their presence in the country covers but a single dec- ade. This was the era of the missionary or- ganizations, and the period when the results of their presence were crystallizing into social con- ditions that called for civil and political order. The dreamy story of the Indian tribes simply changed into the story of fur traffic, scarcely less dreamy, and hardly more a civilization than the other. How little there was of anything that had the fragrance of civilization rather than that of the wigwam about it up to the close of 1840, will be seen by the following summary of the arrivals in the country up to that time. In 1834, the four gentlemen of the Methodist mis- sion and six other men. In 1835 there were

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 18

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