An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 4

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

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It has been seen by those who have carefully followed the line of our record that as yet little or nothing was known of the Oregon coast. The sweep of discovery and explorations by the maritime powers of England and Spain had been far to the north and far to the south. The golden dreams that the vivid imaginations of the Span- iards had woven about New Spain, and the hope of England to find a direct passage from west- ern ports to the Pacific through the fabled Straits of Anian easily account for that fact. The prow of the Englishman's vessel turned toward that fabled passage; the Spaniard's toward the land of gold. Oregon lay between these objective points, and thus remained unknown. But the time was at hand when the land of verdure be- tween the ice-land of the north and the sun-

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

seared plains of the south should become the object of the explorer's search, as well as the subject of the ruler's covet.

In 1790, ten years after the return of the Resolution and Discovery from their eventful voyage, the Spaniards again, under the direction of the Viceroy of Mexico, dispatched a fleet of their vessels to the north, under the command of Lientenant Francisco Elisa, with directions to take possession of Nootka Sound, fortify and defend it, and use it as a base of explorations. This was done, and a series of explorations were at once entered upon. Lientenant Alférez Manuel Quimper, in the Princess Real, in the summer of 1790, left Nootka and entered the Straits of Fuca, examining both shores for a distance of 100 miles. He turned southward' into what was afterward called Puget Sound. Mistaking it for an inlet, he called it Enceñada de Caamaño. He gave Spanish names to vari- ons points in that region, all of which now bear names afterward given by Vancouver and oth- ers, except the main channel leading north, which he named "Canal de Lopez de Haro;" which retains its Spanish cognomen, a monn- ment of this first visit of a civilized keel in the 'waters of this great Mediterranean of the Pacific coast. On the 1st of August, 1790, Lieutenant Elisa took formal possession of that region in the name of the Spanish sovereign at port "Nuñez Guona," now known as Neah Bay.

In 1791, Elisa again entered the Straits of Fuca, in the San Carlos, and made more exten- sive and particular explorations of the Gulf of Georgia, as far north as latitude 50°. Observ- ing many passages extending inland, Elisa con- clnded "that the oceanic passage so zealously sought by foreigners, if there is one, cannot be elsewhere than by this great channel."

The most satisfactory explorations ever made by the Spanish in the Northwest were those made during 1791. But they had no longer a monopoly of discovery or trade on the coast. Other and more energetic nations had entered the lists of adventure in these seas. The new flag which the successful revolt of the British

colonies of the Atlantic coast had nailed to the mast of empire -- " the stars and stripes " -- was floating from the masts of a large number of vessels which were hovering along the coast and looking into every bay and inlet of their waters. Great Britain, too, having lost her colonial pos- sessions on the Atlantic south of the St. Law- rence, was more anxious than ever to secure others on the Pacific seaboard, and nine of her vessels, under the command of her boldest and most enterprising seamen, were guarding her interests and prosecuting her purposes all along the coast. With the nine English and seven American and one Spanish vessels, vigilant and keen-eyed, and filled with a spirit of national competition for new empire, added to the vigor- ous explorations of the Spanish ships, there could certainly little remain unknown along the coast line of the Northwest for many months longer. So when the year 1791 had gone and 1792 had come, the time for the fulfillment of the prophecy of these preparations for decisive discovery had come. We shall follow only the story of these vessels which, during this year, made important discoveries, and established, or attempted to establish, national rights that in- finenced the course of after history. By the . vessels representing them the governments of the United States, Great Britain, Spain, France and Portugal were all on this coast. Their con- flict, however, was not that of guns, but of en- terprise and discovery; one greater than that of broadsides, and determining the future of a vast empire.

The movements of the Spanish vessels were mainly limited to a repetition of the already oft repeated effort to discover a northwest passage. Spain reasoned, and correctly enongh, that if her vessels were compelled to double the Cape of Good Hope and then sail around Asia to reach the northwest coast of America; or, on the other hand, to pass around Cape Horn to reach the same point, it was not worth her while to seek for possessions in northwest Amer- ica. Hence, if the Straits of Anian were a myth she was ready to give up her attempts at north-

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west colonization. True, the Mexican Viceroy, representing the Spanish throne, directed his vessels in these waters to thoroughly explore the Straits of Fuca and the connecting waters, and to ascertain if there were not convenient points south of the entrance of those Straits for the establishment of Spanish settlements, but these objects were subsidiary to the main pur- pose of finding the connecting passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Lieutenant Sal- vador Fidalgo, commanding the Princesa, in pursuance of this subsidiary purpose, landed at

Port Nuñez Guona-now Neah Bay-just with- in the entrance of the Straits of Fuca and on its south side, where he erected buildings and for- tifications; but the main purpose failing, he re- ceived orders to abandon the post, and he rc- moved everything to Nootka. With the surren- der of this purpose Spanish efforts at discovery and colonization on the northwest coast practi- cally ended, leaving only Great Britain and the United States as rivals and contestants in these fields between the fifty-second and fifty-fifth de- grces of north latitude.

CHAPTER III.

EARLIEST DISCOVERIES, CONTINUED.

THE UNITED STATES BEGIN EXPLORATIONS-1791-'92-THE NORTHWEST SEAS FILLED WITH EX- PLORERS-SPAIN STILL SEEKING FOR THE STRAITS OF ANIAN-SHE RETIRES FROM THE CONTEST- GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES SOLE RIVALS-VANCOUVER- ILIS CAREFUL EXAMINA- TION OF THE COAST-PASSES THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA-HIS JOURNAL-CAPTAIN GRAY MEETS VANCOUVER-VANCOUVER'S VOYAGE NORTHWARD INTO PUGET SOUND- RETURNS SOUTHWARD-LIEUTENANT BROUGHTON ENTERS THE COLUMBIA -DISCOVERY OF THE COLUMBIA BY CAPTAIN GRAY-ANTECEDENT MOTIVES-BOSTON ASSOCIATION FOR DISCOVERY-THE COLUMBIA AND WASHINGTON DISPATCHED-THEIR VOYAGE-THE COLUMBIA RETURNS TO BOS- TON-HER SECOND VOYAGE-REACHES THE NORTHWEST COAST-MEETS VANCOUVER -- THEY PART COMPANY-GRAY DISCOVERS BULFINCH HARBOR-ATTACKED BY INDIANS -- ENTERS THE COLUMBIA RIVER-HIS JOURNAL-FIRST REAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE GREAT RIVER-THE SHIP COLUMBIA.

丁 HESE two rival powers were in the field: England with the stored and storied vigor of her Saxon thirst for empire; the United States with the flush and fervor of youth- ful nationality firing her to action, each eager, confident, determined; and each realizing the immense value of the stake for which this game of discovery was being played on these northern and western seas. First, let us read the story of Britain's cruisers and captains in 1792.

The two vessels that represented especially the interests of Great Britain in the Northwest were the Discovery, commanded by Captain George Vancouver, and the Chatham, com- manded by Lieutenant W. R. Broughton.

Captain Vanconver was already acquainted with the northwest coast, having served as a mid- shipman with Captain Cook in his voyages of discovery, to which reference has already been made. His services had been so eminent that he had reached the post of captain in the royal navy, and such was the confidence his govern- ment reposed in him that he was made com- missioner to carry out the provisions of the Nootka treaty between England and Spain. For this purpose he was on the coast; but Eng- land, ever awake to ulterior advantages, di- rected him to connect discovery with diplo- macy, and especially to examine the "supposed Strait of Juan de Fuca, said to be situated be-

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tween the forty-eighth and forty-ninth degrees of north latitude." Ile had arrived off the coast of California, near Cape Mendocino, in April, 1792. He lost no time in entering on a very careful examination of the coast from the point of his arrival northward; and, as so much of the subsequent history of the Northwest turned on the discoveries of the English cap- tain, George Vancouver, and the American captain, Robert Gray, we shall follow the story of their voyages more minutely than we have those of any other navigators.

Captain Vancouver with his lieutenant, Broughton, sailed slowly northward. Their ex- aminations of the shore-line were minute. Near the forty-third degree of latitude they sought carefully for the river which the Spanish navi- gators had represented on their charts as enter- ing the Pacific at that point, but could not find it. On his way up the coast Vancouver ob- served very carefully the "Deception Bay" of Mears, which the Spanish charts represented as the mouth of a river. That our readers may see just the conclusion reached by this really great English navigator as he passed up the Oregon coast, and by the mouth of the great River of the West, we give quotations from his carefully and ably written journals. He writes under date of April 27:

" Noon brought us up into a conspicuous point of land, comprised of a cluster of Immi- mocks, moderately high and projecting into the sea. On the south side of this promontory was the appearance of an inlet, or small river, the land not indicating it to be of any great extent; nor did it seem to be accessible for vessels of our burden, as the breakers extended from the above point two or three miles into the ocean, until they joined these on the beach, nearly four leagues further south. On reference to Mr. Mears' description of the coast south of this promontory, I was first indneed to believe it was Cape Shoalwater; bnt, on ascertaining its latitude, I presumed it to be that which he calls Cape Disappointment, and the opening south of it Deception Bay. This cape we found

to be in latitude of forty-six degrees nineteen minutes, longitude 236 degrees 6 minutes east. The sea had now changed from its natural to river-colored water, the probable consequence of some streams falling into the bay or into the opening north of it, through the low land. Not considering this opening worthy of more attention, I continued our pursuit to the north- west, being desirous to embrace the advantages of the now prevailing breezes and pleasant weather, so favorable to an examination of the coasts."

Thus Captain George Vancouver swept by the mouth of the great river only two weeks before Captain Robert Gray turned the prow of the Columbia into its crystal waters, having, as he believed, ascertained that "the several large rivers and capacious inlets, that have been de- scribed as discharging their contents into the Pacific, between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of north latitude, were reduced to brooks insufficient for our vessels to navigate, or to bays inaccessible as harbors for refitting. As justifying this conclusion, on the 29th of April he gave the following somewhat elaborate statement of his reasons for making it:

"Considering ourselves now on the point of commencing an examination of an entirely new region, I cannot take leave of the coast already known, without obtruding a short remark on that part of the continent, comprehending a space of nearly 215 leagues, on which our in- quiries have been lately employed, under the most fortunate and favorable circumstances of wind and weather. So minutely has this ex- tensive coast been inspected that the surf has been constantly seen to break on its shores from the mast-head; and it was but a few small intervals only our distance precluded its being visible from the deck. Whenever the weather prevented our making free with the shore, or on our heading off for the night, the return of fine weather and of daylight uniformly brought us, if not to the identical spot we had departed from, at least within a few miles of it, and never beyond the northern limits of the coast

HISTORY OF WASHIINGTON.

we had previously seen. An examination so directed, and circumstances so concurring to permit its being so executed, afforded the most complete opportunity of determining its various turnings and windings, as also the position of all its couspicnous points, ascertained by mnerid- ional altitudes for the latitude, and observa- tions for the chronometer, which we had the good fortune to make constantly once, and in general twice, every day. the preceding one only excepted. It must be considered a very singu- lar circumstance that, in so great an extent of sea-coast, we should not until now have seen the appearance of any opening in its shore which presented any prospect of affording a shelter, the whole coast forming one compact and nearly straight barrier against the sea."

The day on which Vancouver had written these statements had not passed before a sail was discovered to the westward, standing in shore. She soon hoisted the stars and stripes and fired a gun to leeward. At six she was within hail, and proved to be the ship Colum- bia, Captain Robert Gray, nineteen months from Boston. Captain Vancouver requested him to " bring to," and sent Mr. Puget and Mr. Menzie on board the Columbia to obtain such information as might be serviceable to the English captain in his future operations. This mainly relating to the Straits of Fuca and the waters connecting therewith, was very cour- teously communicated by Captain Gray. IIe also communicated another piece of information to which Vancouver gave little or no credit, and to which he makes the following reference:

" He likewise informed them-Mr. Puget and Mr. Menzie -- of his having been off the month of a river, in the latitude of 46° 10', where the outset or reflux was so strong as to prevent his entering for nine days. This was probably the opening passed by us on the forenoon of the 27th, and was apparently inaccessible, not from the current, but from the breakers that extended across it."

But the English captain's mind was not at rest, and it is plain to be seen from the tone of

his journal that he was both asking himself, " What if I have made a mistake?" and at the same time trying to justify his conchisions by arguments that would palliate his doubts. So he recurs to the subject again on the day after his meeting with the Columbia, as follows;

" The river mentioned by Mr. Gray should, from the latitude he assigned to it, have exist- ence in the bay south of Cape Disappointment. This we passed in the forenoon of the 27th, and, as I then observed, if any inlet or river should be found, it would be a very intricate one, and inaccessible to vessels of great burden, owing to the reefs and broken water, which then appeared in its neighborhood. Mr. Gray stated that he had been several days attempting to enter it, which, at length, he was unable to effect, in con- sequence of a very strong outset. This is a phenomenon difficult to account for, as, in most cases, where there are outsets of such strength on a seacoast there are corresponding tides set- ting in. Be that, however, as it may, I was thoroughly convinced, as were most persons of observation on board, that we could not possibly have passed any safe, navigable opening, harbor, or place of security for shipping, on this coast from Cape Mendocino to the promontory of Classet [Cape Flattery ], nor had we any reason to alter our opinion, notwithstanding that theo- retical geographers have thought proper to assert in that space the existence of arms of the ocean communicating with a Mediterranean sea, and extensive rivers with safe and convenient ports."

Having thus apparently argued himself into the assurance that he was right and the Ameri- can captain wrong in regard to the existence of an important river on that portion of the coast, the British navigator proceeded to his survey of the Straits of Fnca, and the American captain bore toward the opening of " Deception Bay."

Before taking up the story of Gray's voyage, we need to follow Vancouver and Broughton in their survey of the Straits of Fuca and the adja- cent and connecting waters, as their survey of these fall within the limits of country and time to which our history is intended to be confined.

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On the first of May they sailed from Cape Flattery eastward, along the coast, following the track of the Spanish navigators. Vaneonver named the Port Quadra of Quimper, Port Dis- covery, after the name of his vessel. Just east- ward of this port he entered the mouth of the Canal de Caamano, as it was called by the same Spaniard, which he called Admiralty Inlet. This he explored to its head, more than a hundred miles from the straits, and the southernmost extension of it he named Puget's Sound, while its western branch he called Hood's Canal, and its eastern Possession Sonnd. On the shore of Possession sound the English landed on the 4th of June, and celebrated the birthday of their sovereign by taking possession in his name, and "with the usual formalities, of all that part of New Albion, from the latitude of 39 degrees 20 minutes north, and longitude 236 degrees 26 minutes cast, to the entrance of the inlet of the sea, said to be the supposed Strait of Juan de Fuca, as also all the coasts, islands, etc., within the said Strait, and both its shores." To this region thus claimed they gave the appellation of New Georgia.

After completing his survey of these waters, Vancouver sailed to Nootka to attend to his duty as royal commissioner, as before explained. This attended to he again turned his vessel southward, for the story of Captain Gray about the month of a great river was still exciting, if not troubling him. On the 20th of October he was again off Deception Bay. Lieutenant Broughton in the Chatham entered the mouth of the river on that day, but Vancouver was unable to take in the Discovery. and being still of the opinion that the stream was inaccessible to large ships sailed for the bay of San Fran- cisco, which he had appointed as the rendezvous for his vessels in case of separation.

This was the close of Captain Vancouver's work on the north Pacific coast. Lientenant Broughton spent some time in the river, reach- ing in a row-boat a point of land he named Point Vancouver, in honor of his captain, a place which has retained the name of the English

navigator through all the changes of discovery and history.

We are now ready to turn to the story of the discovery of the great River of the West by Captain Robert Gray. As the expedition which resulted in this most important event was dis- tinctively American, and was undertaken so soon after the United States had achieved independ- ence and becaine a recognized force among the world's great powers, it seems proper that we give it a somewhat particular setting forth. Be- sides it was that one venture that thus early gave the United States high place in the his- tory of maritime adventure and discovery, and, so far as claims from discovery and prior occu- pancy of any regions can, under international reasons, give any country a right to the posses- sion and ownership of newly discovered uncivil- ized lands, furnished the decisive ground for America's claim to Oregon. It will be well, therefore, if we, as Americans, pause long enough here to get both the antecedent motives and the real story of this expedition clearly set in our minds.

For the unknown ages "The Oregon" had rolled unseen " through the continuous woods" to the sea. From the middle of the sixteenth cen- tury the discoverers and adventurers of France and Spain and Portugal and England, as well as the "Freebooters" of all climes, had been sailing all oceans and spying all shores in keen quest of new lands to add to old dominions, or of treasures of gold and silver and precious stones to make more plethorie their national treasuries, or add new luster to their jeweled erowns. The independent rovers sought for any prizeon ship or shore that could add to their accumulated spoils, either of " beauty or booty." The Pacific ocean was the great field of their unrestrained roam. From the capitals of Europe it was across the Atlantic ocean and the American continent on the one side, and on the other behind the Indian seas and Asia; the largest continent of the globe. There they were secure from the direct interference of courts or kings, and limited only by their own wills or strength came and

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went at their pleasure. From island to main- land they coursed the ocean. From the Behring seas to Patagonia they traced the shore-lines of America. Trey discovered capes and head- lands, bays and straits until they supposed they had charted all the coast. Thus their work went on until 1780, and even later, and still "The Oregon" rolled nnseen to the sea.

A story that had come at last to seem a myth of some great " River of the West" that went down from the mountains toward the west, had floated, in some mysterious way, into the thoughts of geographers and explorers, and even a name -Oregon-had been given to it; but no eye save that of whatever barbarous hordes might dwell in its primeval solitudes had ever seen its springs or traced its course or noted its issue into the ocean. Faith in its existence was well nigh lost. How could it have been otherwise? It had been one great object of the quest of the navigators along the western coast. Mears and Cook and Vancouver, and all the navigators of the Pacific coast had sought for its mouth every- where from San Diego to where the Russian Bear guarded the bleak headlands of Mnecovian America, and it conld not be found. For them it did not exist. Still, in another quarter and among another people, events were drawing toward a conclusion that would greatly change international relations on the western coast, and instate a specifically American power among the European claimants of its soil and sovereignty. Let ns see what they were.

The publication in 1784 of Captain Cook's journal of his third voyage awakened, not in England only, but in New England as well, a pro- found interest in the possibility of an impor- tant and profitable trade on the Northwest coast. In Boston a number of gentleman took up the matter seriously, and determined to embark in the enterprise on their own account. The lead- ing spirit among them was Joseph Barrell, a gentleman of cultivated tastes, wide knowledge of affairs, high social standing, and acknowl- edged influence. Associated with him in close relationship was Charles Bulfinch, a recent

graduate from llarvard, and who had just re- turned from pursuing special studies in Europe. The other patrons of the enterprise conceived by these gentlemen were Samuel Brown, a pros- perous merchant; John Derby, a shipmaster of Salem; Captain Crowell Hatch, a resident of Cambridge; and John Mintard Pintard of the New York house of Lewis Pintard & Co. These six gentlemen subscribed over $50,000, and purchased the ship Columbia, or, as it was afterward often called, Columbia Rediviva.

The Columbia was a full-rigged ship, eighty- three feet long and of 212 tons' burden. A consort was provided for her in the Washington, a sloop of ninety tons, designed for eruising among the islands and in the inlets of the coast in the expected trade with the Indians. Small as these vessels seem to us in this day of pon- derous steamships, they were staunchly built, and manned by skillful navigators. As captain of the Columbia the company selected John Kendrick, an experienced officer, forty-five years of age, who had done considerable privateering in the Revolutionary war, and had since com- manded several vessels in the merchant service. For the charge of the Washington Captain Robert Gray, an able seaman, who had been an officer in the Revolutionary navy, and a personal friend of Captain Kendrick, was chosen. These able and experienced leaders had equally able subordinates. These were Simeon Woodruff, who had been one of Captain Cook's officers in his last voyage to the Pacifie, Joseph Ingraham, destined to be a conspicuous figure in the trade they were to inaugurate; and Robert Haswell, son of a lieutenant in the British navy.

On the 30th day of September, 1787, the two vessels in company sailed ont of Boston harbor on their long voyage. It is not necessary to our history to trace that voyage by the Cape Verde and Faulkland Islands, around Cape Horn and up the Pacific sea. On the way, on the morning of April 1, 1788, the vessels were separated in a storm, and each pursued the voy- age on its own account. The Washington with Captain Gray first saw the coast of New Albion,

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An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 4

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