An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 6

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

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Spain held her position in the sonth and west by a precarious tenure, and she so felt the feebleness of that tenure that she neither made nor eared to make any vigorous movements to extend her possessions or to strengthen her holding in America The United States, geo- graphically, held the center of opportunity, but the almost chaos of the era that followed the close of the Revolutionary war was over the face of her political history, and she needed time in which to gird herself for the strain of the future. But she had the strength to wait, for she, too, was Saxon. And so, with the parties in direct interest in the movements that were so surely to follow preparing for the race of empire west- ward, we come to the real opening of the era of discoveries by land westward of the great mountains.

These were begun solely by private enter- prise for individual gain. They early reached the Athabasca and Saskatchawan. But the field was too great for individual resources, and besides the Hudson's Bay Company entered the field with a combination which could only be met by combination. So the Northwest. Com- pany of Montreal was formed in 1784 for the express purpose of meeting and overcoming the competition of the Hudson's Bay Company, which had proved so ruinous to the individual traders who had ventured into the country be- fore. In a very few years this became a most prosperous and powerful organization, and its traders and explorers filled all the country east

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

of the Rocky mountains as far north as the Arctic and as far sonth as the Missouri.

The great headquarters of this company was at "Fort Chippewyan " on Lake Athabasca, and were under the charge of Alexander Mackenzie, a very resolnte and able man, whose enterprise in explorations stamped his name on the geogra- phy of all the west and north. In 1791 he or ganized a small party for a western explora- tion, intending to prosecute his journey until he reached the Pacific ocean. He had, two years before, discovered the river that bears his own name, and followed it from its source in Great Slave lake to where it discharges its waters into the Arctic ocean. Having thus ascertained the character and extent of the country to the north- west, he was determined to develop the charac- ter of that to the west by the expedition on which he was now entering. He left Fort Chippewyan on the 10th of October, 1791, and with much difficulty ascended the Peace river from Lake Athabasca to the foot of the Rocky mountains, where the party encamped for the winter. In June of the following year he re- sumed his journey, still following up the same stream, which he traced to its source near the fifty-fourth parallel of latitude and distant about 1,000 miles from its month. Only a short dis- tance from the springs of the Peace river he came upon those of another stream flowing westward, called by the natives Tacoutchee Tes- see, down which he floated in canoes about 250 miles. Leaving the river, he `then proceeded westward overland, and on the 22d of July, 1792, reached the Pacific ocean, at the mouth of an inlet in latitude 52° 10', This inlet had, only a few weeks previously, been surveyed by the fleet of Vancouver; and thus Mackenzie had connected the land and water explorations of Great Britain on the Pacific coast.

Mackenzie reached the coast far north of the month of the river on which he had sailed in his canoes so far to the southwest. On his re- turn to Fort Chippewyan, late in August, 1792, he learned of the discovery of the month of the Columbia by Captain Gray, when he at once

concluded that the stream he had followed so far was the upper part of that river, and it was so considered by geographers until 1812, or twenty years after Mackenzie's journey, when Simon Fraser, of the same company as Macken- zie, traced it to its month in the Gulf of Geor- gia, a little north of the forty-ninth degree of latitude. Since that time it has been known as Fraser's river. To Alexander Mackenzie doubt- less belongs the honor of making the first jour- ney down the western slope of the great Rocky mountain chain to the Pacific ocean, though it was made wholly north of the parallel that was subsequently fixed as the boundary line between the British possessions on the American conti- nent and the United States.

It is a somewhat striking coincidence that the first important American movement for an exploration by land of the country lying on the north Pacific coast was made the same year that Mackenzie accomplished his journey to the Pa- cific and that Captain Gray sailed into the mouth of the Columbia river. Thomas Jeffer- son, at that time the representative of the United States Government at the court of Ver- sailles, became deeply interested as an Ameri- can in this great western region. He proposed to the American Philosophical Society that a subscription be raised for the purpose of defray- ing the expenses of an exploration, and a per- son be employed competent to conduct it. He wished it to "ascend the Missouri river, cross the Stony mountains, and descend the nearest river to the Pacific." ITis suggestion was acted upon by the society, and Captain Meriwether Lewis, on the recommendation of Jefferson, was selected to lead the expedition; and Andre Micheaux, a distinguished French botanist, was chosen to accompany him. They proceeded as far as Kentucky, when Mr. Micheaux was re- called by the French minister at Washington and the expedition was given up.

The next movement for the accomplishment of the same purpose was while the treaty was pending between Mr. Jefferson, then President of the United States, and Napoleon, then ruler

HISTORY OF WASHIINGTON.

of France, for the transfer of the claims of France to the whole Northwest to the United States. On the 18th of January, 1803, the president transmitted a special message to Con- gress in which he incorporated a recommenda- tion that an official expedition be dispatched on the same errand contemplated in the one that had been abandoned. An ample appropriation was made, and again Captain Lewis, then private secretary to the president, was chosen to con- duct it. He selected William ('larke as his associate.

The instructions issued to these gentlemen by Mr. Jefferson, while specific as to purpose, were broad as to geographical extent. In them he says:

"The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river and such principal stream of it as, by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific ocean, whether the Colum- bia, Oregon, Colorado, or any other river, may offer the most direct and practicable water com- munication across the continent for the pur- poses of commerce."

They were directed to thoroughly inform themselves of the extent and number of the In- dian tribes, their customs, and degrees of civil- ization, and to report fully npon the topography of the regions through which they passed, to- gether with the character of the soil, natural products, animal life, mineral resources, climate, and to inquire particularly into the fur trade and the needs of commerce. When these in- structions were given, Louisiana had not been ceded to the United States, and hence Mr. Jeffer- son continued:

"Your mission has been communicated to the ministers here from France, Spain and Great Britain, and through them to their governments, and such assurances given them as to its objects as we trust will satisfy them. The country of Louisiana having been ceded by Spain to France, the passport you have from the minister of France, the representative of the present sovereign of that country, will be a protection with all its subjects; and that from the minister

of England will entitle you to the friendly aid of any traders of that allegiance with whom you may happen to meet."

A few days before the expedition was ready to start the joyful intelligence was received that France had formally ceded Louisiana to the United States; hence the passport of the repre -. sentative of the French government at Wash- ington was not needed.

Captain Lewis left Washington on the 5th day of July, 1803, and on arriving at Louis- ville, Kentucky, was joined by Clarke. They selected their party, went as far as St. Louis, near which they went into camp, and remained until the final start was made, on the 14th day of May, 1804. The party now consisted of Captains Lewis and Clarke, nine young men from Kentucky, fourteen soldiers, two French Canadian voyageurs, an interpreter and hunter, and a negro servant of Captain Clarke. The party ascended the Missouri river as far as the conntry of the Mandan Indians, with which tribe they remained all winter.

Their westward journey was resumed in the spring of 1805. They followed up the Mis- souri, of whose course and tributaries and characteristics they had obtained very accurate information from the Mandans. Passing the mouth of the Yellowstone, or Roche Jaune of the French Canadian trappers and voyageurs who had already visited it, they continued up the Missouri, passing its great falls and cas- cades, and ascending through its mighty cañon crossed the Rocky mountain divide and de- scended its western side to the stream now known at different points on its course as " Deer Lodge," "Hellgate," "Bitter Root," " Clarke's Fork," and " Pend d'Oreille." Upon this stream they bestowed the name of "Clarke's river." From this river the advance party, under Clarke, crossed the Bitter Root mountains by what is now known as the Lolo trail. On these rugged heights they suffered intensely from cold and hunger. On the 20th day of Sep- tember they came to a village of Nez Perces In- dians, situated on a plain about fifteen miles

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

from the south fork of Clearwater river, where they were received with great hospitality.

When they reached the Nez Perees village the party was nearly famished, and they partook of snch quantities of the food so liberally pro- vided by their Indian hosts that many of them became too ill to proceed until the second day, and among that number was Clarke himself. As soon as they were able to proceed, they went to the village of the chief, Twisted Hair, sitnated on an island in the stream. To this river Clarke gave the name "Koos-koos-kee," doubt- less slightly misunderstanding the words used by the Nez Perces in distinguishing it from the Snake river, into which it enters,-" Koots- koots-hee,"-which those acquainted with the Nez Perces tongue say is a descriptive term, and means " This is the smaller."

Here the two parties were united, and after resting a few days, journeyed on down the Clearwater. The company was now utterly ex- hansted. Many found it difficult to sit upon their horses. Captain Lewis was very ill. The weather was hot and oppressive. They felt that they could proceed no farther in their former manner of traveling, and the commanders re- solved to prepare canoes and prosecute the re- mainder of their journey in them. With Twisted Hair as guide, Clarke proceeded about five miles, where suitable timber was found, and encamped on the low ground opposite the forks of the river.

When their canoes were constructed, leaving their horses and equipage with Twisted Hair, they embarked on the Clearwater on their jour- ney toward the Pacific.

They were not long in reaching Snake river, which, in honor of Captain Lewis they called "Lewis river." Down that stream to the Co- lumbia was a quick and rapid passage. Down the Columbia it was not less rapid, and they reached the cascades of that stream on the 21st day of October. Making the portage of the cascades they embarked again, passed the month of the Williamette without observing it, and on the 15th day of November reached Cape Disap-

pointment and looked ont on the great ocean, which had been the goal of their journeying for more than a year.

They remained near the ocean, wintering in a Jog dwelling which they erected on the south side of the Columbia and they called "Fort Clatsop," in honor of the Indians who inhab- ited that region. Hoping that some trading vessel from which they conld replenish their stores would visit the river they delayed their departure homeward until the 23d of March, 1806. Before leaving they gave the chiefs of the Clatsops, and also of the Chinooks, who re- sided on the north side of the river, certificates of hospitable treatment, and posted a writing on the wall of their cabin in these words:

" The object of this last is, that through the medium of some civilized person, who may see the same, it may be made known to the world that the party, consisting of the persons whosc names are hereunto annexed, and who were sent out by the Government of the United States of America to explore the interior of the continent of North America, did penetrate the same by the way of the Missouri and Columbia rivers to the discharge of the latter into the Pacific ocean, where they arrived on the 14th day of Novem- ber, 1805, and departed the 23d day of March, 1806, on their return to the United States by the same route by which they had come ont."

To this paper were appended the names of the members of the expedition. Several copies of the paper were left among the Indians and tlic following year one of them was handed by an Indian to Captain Hall, an American trader, whose vessel, the Lydia, had entered the Colum- bia river. By him it was taken to China and thence to the United States. Therefore had the party perished on their return, evidence of the completion of their purpose would have been left behind them.

Their journey out had been so long and its expense so great that, on taking an invoice of their possessions on starting on the return jour- ney, they found that they had available for traffic with the Indians only six blue robes, one searlet

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

robe, one United States artillery hat and coat, five robes made from the national ensign, and a few old clothes trimmed with ribbons. Upon this scant store must they depend for purchas- ing provisions and horses, and paying tribute to stubborn chieftains through whose domin- ions they might pass on their long homeward journey.

On their return they proceeded up the south side of the Columbia, coming unexpectedly mpon a large river flowing into it from the south. On an island at its month was a large Indian village called " Multnomah," which name they understood to apply to the river they had discovered, of the course of which they made careful inquiry. The result of these inquiries was noted in the map of the expedition, making the river to flow from Cali- fornia to the north and west, and the Indian tribes that actually resided on the waters of Snake river to reside upon its banks. Their journey up stream was far more tedious with their canocs than had been their passage down owing to the numerous rapids and cascades; and at the mouth what they called Lapage river --- now "John Day" -- they abandoned their canoes and packing their baggage on the backs of a few horses that they had purchased from the In. dians proceeded up the southern bank of the Columbia on foot. Crossing the Umatilla river, called by them the You-ma-lo-law, they arrived at the mouth of the Walla Walla on the 27th day of April.

The greatest Indian chief of the Pacific coast, at that time, if not indeed of all tradition, was then at the head of the Walla nation. His name was Yellept. The story of his life and death, as handed down by the traditions of his people, ie of the most thrilling and romantic character, but belongs rather to such writings as Cooper's than to the sober chronicles of history. This powerful chieftain received the company with most generous hospitality, which eharmed the travelers into some lingering before they ventured farther into the wild gorges of the mountains. The journal of the expedition re-

cords the kindness of these Indians with many appreciative words and closes its notice of them by saying: " We may indeed justly affirm that of all the Indians that we have seen since leav- ing the United States the Walla Wallas were the most hospitable, honest and sincere."

Leaving these hospitable people on the 29th of April the party passed eastward on the great " Nez Perces trail." This trail was the great highway of the Walla Wallas, Cayuses and Nez Perces eastward to the buffalo ranges, to which they annually resorted for game supplies. It passed up the valley of the Tonchet, called by Lewis and Clarke the "White Stallion," thence over the high prairie ridges, and down the Alpowa to the crossing of Snake river, then up the north bank of Clearwater to the village of Twisted Hair, where the exploring party had left their horses on their way down the previous antumn. It was worn deep and broad, and in many stretches on the open plains and over the smooth hills twenty horsemen could ride abreast in the parallel paths worn by the constant rush of the Indian generations from time immemo- rial. The writer has often passed over it when it lay exactly as it did when the tribes of Yellept and Twisted Hair traced its sinnous courses, or when Lewis and Clarke and their companions first marked it with the heel of civilization. But the plow has long since oblit- erated it, and where the monotonous song of the Indian's march was droningly chanted for so many barbaric ages, the song of the reaper thrills the clear air as he comes to his garner bringing in the sheaves. A more delightful ride of a hundred and fifty miles than this that the company of Lewis and Clarke made over the swelling prairie upland and along the crys- tal streams between Walla Walla and the village of Twisted Hair, in the soft May days of 1806, can scarcely be found anywhere on earth.

For the purposes of this narrative it is not necessary to trace the explorations of these trav- elers farther, interesting as they would be, for they scarcely belong directly to this history. With the usual adventures of explorers in the

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unfrequented regions which they traversed they followed homeward the path of their outward advance, and reached St. Louis on the 25th of September, 1806, having been absent nearly two years and a half.

Their safe return to the United States sent a thrill of rejoicing through the country. Mr. Jefferson, the great patron and inspirer of the expedition, says of it:

" Never did a similar event excite more joy throughout the United States. The humblest of our citizens had taken a lively interest in the issue of this journey, and looked forward with impatience to the information it would furnish. Their anxieties, too, for the safety of the corps had been kept in a state of excitement by lugu- brious rumors, circulated from time to time on uncertain authorities, and uncontradicted by letters, or other direct information, from the time they had left the Mandan towns on their ascent up the river in April of the preceding year, 1805, until their actual return to St. Louis.

Captain Lewis, soon after his return, was appointed governor of Louisiana, and Captain Clarke was made general of militia of the same Territory and Indian agent for the vast region he had so successfully explored. Both had per- formed inestimable services for their country and were well worthy of generous reward. For themselves they had achieved a lasting fame. Their names will be remembered as long as the crystal waters of "Clarke's fork " or deep flow of " Lewis river " roll to the Pacific sea.

There is another incident of exploration which, perhaps, should have a place in our narra- tive, and which may appear here, parenthet- . ically, as suitably as elsewhere.

The name of Captain Jonathan Carver, of Connecticut, who, ten years before the Ameri- can revolution, visited the regions of the upper Mississippi, has become connected with the his- tory of the Northwest, not so much from what he really did in the way of exploration and dis- covery as for what he desired or intended to do. Captain Carver has won some credit in the war against the French in which England has

wrested from France her American possessions, and was inspired with zeal to establish English ascendeney over the entire northern part of the American continent. From all that appears Carver's actual travels were limited to a visit to the regions of the upper Mississippi, which he reached by the way of Detroit and Michilimack- inac. His object, as stated in the introduction to his book, which was published in London, in 1778, was: "After gaining a knowledge of the manners, customs, languages, soil, and natural productions of the different nations that inhabit the region back of the Mississippi, to ascertain the breadth of the vast continent which extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, in its broadest part, between the forty-third and forty- sixth degrees of northern latitude. Hlad I been able to accomplish this, I intended to have pro- posed to the Government to establish a post in some of these parts, abont the strait of Anian, which, having been discovered by Sir Francis Drake, of course belongs to the English. This, I am convinced, would greatly facilitate the discovery of a northwest passage, or a commu- nication between Hudson's Bay and the Pacific ocean." Being unable to prosecute his pur- pose and to proceed " to the headwaters of the Great River of the West, which falls into the strait of Anian," he gathered what little infor- mation he could from the tribes with whom he came in contact; made somewhat large extracts from French journals and histories, and gave all to the world under the title of Travels Throughout the Interior Parts of North Amer- ica in 1766-'68." A notice of his work be- longs to these pages only because of a brief reference to the "Great River of the West," and the fact that he, so far as can be ascertained, first uses the word "Oregon" as the name of the somewhat mythical "Great River."

It is due to history, perhaps, that we tran- scribe the brief passage in which he speaks of the great stream which he thus designates. It is as follows:

"From these nations [called by him Nando- wessies, the Assinopolis, and the Killislionors],

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together with my own observations, I have learned that the four most capital rivers of North America,-the St. Lawrence, the Missis- sippi, the river Bourbon, and the Oregon, or River of the West, have their sources in the same neighborhood. The waters of the three former are within thirty miles of each other; the latter, known as rather farther west. This shows that these parts are the highest in North America; and it is an instance not to be paral- leled in the other three-quarters of the world, that four rivers of such magnitude should take their rise together, and each, after running sep- arate courses, discharge their waters into differ- ent oceans, at a distance of 2,000 miles from their sources; for in their passage from this spot to the bay of St. Lawrence, east, to the bay of Mexico, south, to Hudson's bay, north, and to the bay at the straits of Anian, west, -each of these traverse upward 2,000 miles."

It would hardly seem to the historian of the present, that there was enough in this para- graph, which embraces all Carver says respect- ing the Oregon, or the "Great River of the West," to associate his name in any way with Oregon history, and there really is not, except for his first using the name "Oregon." Though his nse of that name was not such as clearly to identify it with the river whose mouth was dis- covered by Captain Gray in 1792, and which he appropriately called the Columbia, it really did furnish the name for this vast region west- ward of the Rocky mountains, lying between the 42d degree of latitude and 54° 40', and includ- ing the present three great northwestern States of the American Union. Carver gives no ac- count of the origin of the name Oregon, and no authority for its use, and ap to this time no research has been able to discover them. There is little doubt but that it was invented by Car- ver, and that it has no historic or seientific sig- nificance whatever, except that it is associated with the mythical Great River of the West, and from that passed to represent the vast country through which it was believed to flow. At

length Bryant made it classic in his Thanatop- sis when he sang of

"The continuous wood where rolls the Oregon, And hears no sound save its own dashing."

So we trust to be pardoned for not pursuing a wearying investigation into the derivation or meaning of the name Oregon, since all the studies of antiquarians have failed to do more than reach the conclusion we have announced in a single sentence.

These two early expeditions, that by Macken- zie in 1772, under the auspices of a company wholly British, and that of Lewis & Clarke in 1805-06, under the direction of the Government of the United States, are, perhaps, the only ex- peditions across the American continent entitled to be classed as exploring. Those that followed these entered more into the fabric of the history of the regions by them brought to the knowl- edge of the civilized world; and they will, as far as necessary, be treated of as such in their proper places. If any exception to this is al- lowed it should refer to the expeditious of Cap- tain Fremont, to which, as they were under the auspices and at the expense of the United States Government, it seems proper that a brief refer- ence shall be made. They had for their object geographical and topographical information in relation to Oregon.

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An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 6

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