USA > Washington > Thurston County > Early history of Thurston County, Washington : together with biographies and reminiscences of those identified with pioneer days > Part 13
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Mrs. Chambers dictated her sketch to her youngest daughter, Nora, and the other daughters were so pleased with their mother's story that they had it preserved in the form of a booklet.
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The ten daughters of whom the mother speaks of so lov- ingly, were: Elizabeth, now Mrs. J. H. Hunsaker, of Everett ; Eliza, now Mrs. R. T. Grainger. of Puyallup; Addie J., now Mrs. G. N. Talcott of Olympia; Ella, who was Mrs. H. Ray- mond, but who has been dead for many years; Rheta, now Mrs. C. L. Denny of Seattle; Selma, who died about ten years ago; Margaret, now Mrs. Wm. Calhoun, of Seattle; Estelle and Edith, both of whom died in infancy. and Nora, now Mrs. W. T. Hoskins, living at present in Sacramento.
Mr. Chambers realized the wishes of his wife as expressed by herself, and ended a long and honorable career by passing away peacefully in the old home on Chambers' Prairie. He died in April, 1908. Margaret White Chambers survived her beloved husband a few years longer. but sank to rest in De- cember, 1912. Husband and wife sleep side by side near the scenes of their many trials, joys and sorrows, in the family plot in Masonic cemetery, near Olympia.
ANDREW CHAMBERS' STORY
My father's reading Lewis and Clark's Journal was the means of our crossing the plains. We started the first of April, 1845. Our company consisted of my father, Thomas M. Chambers. mother, Letitia Chambers, five brothers. James W .. David J .. Thomas J., Andrew J. (myself), John and McLain. and two sisters, Mary Jane and Letitia. My brothers, James and David, were married, and their wives, Mary and Eliza- beth, accompanied them. We started from Morgan County, Missouri, and crossed the Missouri River on a ferry at St. Joe. This place marked the last of the settlements. From this point we travelled the old emigrant road up the Platte River. Our journey led us through what are now the states of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Then this was a wilderness with only the old tracks of emigrants that had passed that way in 1834-5. We crossed the Kaw River about forty miles from St. Joe on a ferry; after that we forded all the streams to which we came. The first day that we saw buffalo was on the South Platte River and it was buffalo as far as the eye could reach. We
ANDREW CHAMBERS AND WIFE
THENEW YORK PUBLICLIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONO.
.
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camped and killed fifteen that evening. It took two days to jerk all the meat we wanted.
Buffalo and antelope were plentiful for twelve or fifteen hundred miles. Hunters sometimes put a handkerchief up on a stick and the antelope came around to see what it was, and often we killed them by shooting from the wagons. We had to go out to the edge of the hills to hunt buffalo, except the first day we saw them, of which I have spoken.
Opposite Ash Hollow we crossed the Platte River, which. though wide and shallow, was difficult to ford on account of the quicksands. We passed near to Chimney Rock, which rose like a great chimney from the level country. We could see this land mark for a number of days and passed it within five or six miles.
At Fort Laramie. on the North Platte River, measles brok" out in our family and we had to lay by fifteen days. We had overtaken other west-bound wagons on our journey and our party now comprised thirty wagons. While being detained here about one thousand wagons passed us and most of our company joined a party and left us at Laramie.
From Fort Laramie we traveled to Fort HIall, in Idaho. We had tried travelling with large and with small companie; and found that we got on much faster with small companies, but it was very hard to stand guard with only a few in the party. We fell in with a company of fifty wagons. Their teams had been scared by the Indians and had got in the habit of stampeding. They stampeded one day while we were with them. It was a terrible sight to see fifty teams running. each team of three or four yoke of oxen-about three yoke of cattle was an average team. There was no way of holding them ex- cept to hang on to the yokes and call to the cattle. It was an anxious time for the women and children in the wagons. One ox fell and broke his neck. This was the last day we travelled with them. After leaving Fort Laramie we had fallen in with the wagons of what remained of our old company. This was all that saved us from the stampede on that day.
This event recalls the first Indians we saw. Father was captain of the company. He ordered the wagons into two lines, the women and children to stay in the wagons. except those able to carry guns. I can recollect seeing mother march- ing along carrying a rifle. All the horses and cattle were
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driven into the enclosure made by the wagons to protect them from stampeding. We never stopped, but marched along in two lines, with the wagons and the horses and cattle between them. Father stepped out to meet the chief, who was com- ing towards us. The Indians seemed friendly, but wanted to- bacco. As soon as father gave one tobacco another would step up and say "Me big Chief, too." Father gave them all that he had in his pouch. There was a large camp of the Indians and it appeared that this was a war party and that they had been out to fight other Indians. They were now on their way home.
On much of our way, wood was very scarce. We always sent a party ahead of us to find wood, grass and water. We found buffalo chips plentiful for at least a thousand miles and often we had to use them altogether for fuel. On the Sweet- water, in Wyoming, we caught a great many nice fish.
From Fort Hall, we travelled to Fort Bridgers, which was about 200 miles north of Salt Lake. A man by the name of Bridgers was located here and carried on trade with the emigrants and with the Indians. From here we went to Sal- mon Falls on the Snake River, and here we met a few Indians. but they were friendly. Until we crossed the Rockies through the Devil's Gate, we travelled up hill and up stream, but after we crossed the Snake River, the waters flowed westward. and we could almost see where the divide came.
From Salmon Falls we travelled two or three days down the river before we crossed. We found a place where there was an island in the river. We crossed to the island first and then went diagonally across the rest of the river, which was about three-fourths of a mile wide. We always took horses and rode across the rivers we had to ford and found out exactly where the wagons ought to go. The fords were always thoroughly prospected before the teams were driven into the water. We found at this crossing the deepest part was eight or ten feet wide, and deep enough to swim the cattle, the rest of it aver- aged about two feet deep. We blocked up the wagon beds as high as the standards would allow to keep our goods dry and hitched on ten or twelve yoke of cattle to the first wagon. The other wagons were fastened together, one behind the other. There was a chain attached to the tongue of the wagon follow- ing and that in turn to the hind axle tree of the forward
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wagon. The drivers went to the lower side of their teams to keep the cattle braced up against the current and to keep the direction slantingly up stream. They had to hold on to the bows of the yokes to keep themselves braced up, too. By the time all the teams were in the water, the lead teams were in shallow water and we were finally safely over, without wet- ting any of our goods.
Shortly after this our oxen began to give out. We be- came uneasy for fear we could not travel across the mountains, which were before us, on account of snow. To be caught on the east side of the mountains meant almost certain death. We began to break in the cows. We started across the plain? with about twenty milk cows. By the time we reached The Dalles, in Oregon, we had about all the cows broken in. They were lighter on their feet and travelled much better than the oxen. We didn't know at that time that we could have saved our cattles' feet by providing ourselves with shoes and nails before leaving the States.
Three or four days before we came to Fort Boise, we were camped on a creek and when supper was ready and each one had set down to his place on the ground. an Indian, standing there, knelt down at the place intended for a man named Smith. As soon as Smith finished washing himself, he knocked the man over with a stick and took the place himself. Stieks which the Indians had used for digging roots or for some other purpose, were lying around plentifully. The Indians looked very sullen after this, and next morning one of our horses was gone-stolen. We travelled on as though nothing had hap- pended for two days and came to a place where we thought it advisable to rest the cattle for a day, there being good grass and water there. James Chambers, Smith and myself con- cluded to ride baek that evening to the place where we had lost the horse, and it might be we would find an Indian camp and do something terrible. Smith wanted to kill an Indian. We rode all night and when we reached the place another party of emigrants were camping there and we found an In- dian there, riding on the horse which was stolen. Smith felt all the time that his aet had been the cause of our losing the animal and he was very anxious to straighten things out by killing an Indian. Brother James went around the camp one way and I, another. I came upon the Indian on the horse and
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I caught the horse. Immediately Smith insisted on shooting the Indian, but some of the campers interfered. They con- tended that we were out of the way and that if we killed the Indian his friends would come and take revenge on them. They also argued that this, maybe, was not the Indian that stole the horse and they urged us to make the women in camp feel easy by releasing the Indian. After considering for some time we decided to let the Indian go and give him something to re- compense him for being nearly scared to death. He was so badly frightened that great drops of sweat came out on his face. The next thing to consider was what to give the Indian. As it was coming on to the fall of the year, mother had sup- plied us well with shirts. I had enough to last me two years and I had on two at this time. They agreed that I must pull off one of my shirts and give it to the Indian. So I did, and all parties concerned, except myself, were well pleased, the In- dian most of all.
From Boise we travelled to Grande Rounde and after we passed the valley and came down off the Blue mountains into the Umatilla valley we saw lots of Indians. Mary Jane, my sister, was then a comely girl, about sixteen years of age. In- dian chiefs offered my father fifty horses and a hundred blan- kets for her. They didn't care whether the girl was willing or not. They wanted a white "klootchman." This was their custom. to pay for their "klootchman." Mary Jane was frightened and she never showed herself when the Indians were around.
When we were within a few days' journey of The Dalles, and after we had crossed the Des Chutes River, two horses were stolen from us. We went back from Fifteen Mile Creek to a village near by and called on the Chief. He said he would have the Indians bring in the horses. We waited about his tent. keeping guard, until an Indian came in with the horses. They claimed that the horses had been stolen by some bad Indians and that a good Indian brought them back and that he ought to have pay for it. We had become accustomed to paying. so we were prepared to give a shirt. This satisfied them.
Our trip had not been a pleasure trip, for from the time we left St. Joe each one of us had to stand guard about once a week and from the time we left Fort Boise each one had to
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stand guard half the night every other night and after hav- ing had measles, this was no fun.
On October 15 we arrived at The Dalles. On account of the lateness of the season, we selected a place for winter quar- ters. This was on a creek about two miles from the Methodist Mission.
Here in November, we built huts for the family and large corrals of logs in which to keep the horses for their safety at night. We watched them during the day. Our cattle were at large. We looked after them to prevent their straying too far. We drove them together several times each day. Several par- ties left their stock in our care during the winter.
As soon as the family was in its winter quarters, father and I went down the Columbia River and up the Willamette River for a winter's supply of flour. This was about the 20th of November. At Oregon City we bought a skiff and about 1.000 pounds of flour. A young man by the name of Serog- gins and myself, started out to take the flour to the family.
Father stayed down the Willamette in Tulatin plains all winter, looking for a place in which to locate. When we reached The Dalles. James and his wife left their stock with ns. their oxen had given out, and went on and father remained with James and his wife until Spring.
Scroggins and I started with plenty of provisions for our trip, which we calculated would be about seven days. On ac- count of stormy weather, we were seventeen days. Below Cape Horn on the Columbia River, we had to lay by in one place for two days. Cape Horn is a rocky spur of the Cascade range, two or three hundred feet high and almost perpendicular.
This was the hardest seventeen days' work I ever did. It stormed almost all the time. We had the flour in sacks of 100 pounds each and we loaded and unloaded these sacks some- times as high as eight or ten times a day. The wind would stop blowing for a time and by the time we got loaded and ready to start it would begin again and we would be obliged to unload, the river was so rough we did not dare to risk becoming swamped with our heavy load. The wind blew either up stream or down stream. The family needed the flour badly, and we were anxious to get to them with it. Some days we would not go over a mile after working hard all day and then the wind would apparently abate, when we could not avail ourselves of
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the calm. Our supply of provisions were soon about all used up except the flour. Flour and water, without even salt, was not very good to keep up our spirits, as well as strength. We mixed the flour and water together in the top of a sack and made the dough into long strings, which we wrapped about a stick. We set the stick by the fire and baked the dough, which tasted pretty good after a hard day's work. We varied this with noodle soup made of water and flour. We were three days making the five miles of rapids and seven miles of portage. The last day on the rapids our boat took a sheer and the one on shore had to pull so hard against the current that the boat filled with water. In the face of this calamity I thought the family would starve. I was twenty years of age but in my anxiety. I cried. This was the first, last and only time I cried while crossing the plains.
We finally got the boat to a safe place and baled it out. We were sure the flour was ruined. We took the sacks out and let the water drain off, reloaded and proceeded on our journey.
That night we built a fire and dried the sacks and found that the flour was not much hurt. We were lucky to find two white men and three Indians to help us carry our boat over the portage. Four days of travel up the river brought us to our winter home. We found all well and anxious for our return.
As I have said, father remained down the Willamette the winter of 1845, with Brother James and wife, looking for a place, and the middle of January, 1846, he and James came back to The Dalles to help build a boat to move us. There were plenty of boats then on the Willamette for emigrants who wanted to pass on down to the valley, but a very short time after we arrived at The Dalles they had all been taken off for the winter.
James was a boat builder. We selected a place close to the river to build our boat, where there was good timber. We chose two large trees for the purpose of making gunwales, the trees being about three feet in diameter. Then we picked out smaller trees for making the plank. We hewed out the timber the proper length and squared it. This we lined on both sides the thickness we wanted to make our planks. We chose a
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place on a side hill to make a saw pit. It was so arranged that one man could stand underneath the log and one man on top of it. Then the squared logs were put in place and we ripped out enough plank for a bottom and a false bottom and for the sides of the boat. We used the old whip saw which is now on exhibition in the Oregon Historical rooms at Portland.
This old whip saw told its own story, when in 1894, a gen- tleman asked it to tell of its adventures:
"I started for Puget Sound from Missouri in 1845 and. after passing through the trials and incidents of an overland journey of six months, reached The Dalles Oregon, where, with the assistance of four men, I sawed timber enough to con- struct a boat 16 feet long and fifty feet wide. On February 1, 18-46, the boat was loaded with myself among the passengers and we moved down the Columbia to the Cascades. At the Cascades I took passage in a wagon around a five mile port- age. Our boat was the first boat ever sent over the Cascade Falls. The craft was secured and proceeded to the mouth of Sandy River. From that point my travels varied, sometimes by land and sometimes by water, up one stream and down another. Finally, in the Spring of 1848, I reached Puget Sound, after a tedious journey behind an ox team. In the three years of my travels my master always found me of ser. vice. But during forty-seven years, after I reached what was to be my home, I remained undisturbed and unthought of in my master's tool house on Chambers Prairie. On April 26. 1894, the flames destroyed my home and I was ruined and de- faced almost beyond recognition."
We had no nails and the boat was put together entirely with wooden pins. It resembled a scow of today. Its capacity was large enough to carry fifteen head of cattle at a time in crossing a river and to store all of our wagons when they were taken apart, and all of our plunder that we had brought with us across the plains, as well as those members of the family who were not on shore driving the cattle.
When we got the boat ready and launched we loaded our effects, wagons and plunder and all the ox vokes and proceeded on down the Columbia River. When we collected the stock to make the start our cattle were in good condition. The snow rarely stayed on the ground on the southern slopes of the hills and the cattle had opportunity to do well. But
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not so with the horses. The Indians had managed to steal most of them during foggy weather when it was pretty hard work to guide them. We did not have more than three out of a lot of horses whose manes and tails had not been cut off. The mutilated animals looked horrible to us. There was always some "good Indian" to help me hunt the stolen horses. It appeared the Indians did not want the horses except to have a big ride on them and get their manes and tails. They made ropes out of the hair.
Our boat had long oars and when we started two mer attended to these. Brother James usually steered the boat and Father and David were ashore most of the time. We let the boat run with the current as great a distance each day as we could drive the cattle. Then we tied up and resumed our course next morning. We travelled on the north side down the river bottom until we came to Shell Rock, a place where the hills came right up to the river's edge. We could not drive over this rock. neither could we swim our cattle around it. Consequently we were obliged to ferry all our effects, and the cattle, to the north side. and travelled down that side until we came to the Cascade Falls. At this point we unloaded our wagons, put them together and loaded our plunder into them, hitched on the teams and started out to make our way to the lower end of the Falls.
Everything had been removed from the boat and the sides boarded up. Brother James and two men who were willing to take the risk, went aboard. James acted as captain and the other men stood at the oars. We had several small boats so we took her out in the river and gave her a start. heading her straight for the falls. She went over, shipping only a nominal number of gallons of water. It was in February that we made this run with the first flat bottomed boat ever to pass over these five miles of rocks and rapids.
Having gotten safely over they returned, after tying up. to help us with the teams and stock. We had to blaze a trail to go through and prospect a road. We were obliged to go back about a mile from the river and pass through an Indian graveyard. In this graveyard the dead were all buried in houses, and we had to drive carefully between them. It was an ancient burying place, for the houses were all decaying. I think it could not have been used for many, many years.
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After travelling about six miles we came again to the river just below the lower falls. We re-loaded the boat and pro- ceeded as before. The drivers took the cattle along by the river until we reached Cape Horn. Here we were obliged again to leave the river and travel out into the country and around this high promontory. We had to drive very slowly and it was hard work. On this trip we took a little flour. salt and enough bread to do us the first day out. After that we tied up the calves so that we could get milk enough to make noodle soup with milk, flour and salt. It was nearly three days before we reached the river again. At the month of Sandy River we found the scow and the folks waiting for us. Here we unloaded again and ferried our stock across to the southern side of the Columbia, at the mouth of the Sandy. From this point we drove the cattle across the country by Oregon City to Milk Creek, near Molalla, where father had selected a place for us.
After ferrying the stock across at the mouth of the Sandy. we re-loaded the boat with our effects and ran down the Columbia to the Willamette and up the latter river to Oregon City. Here we sold the boat for $50. We put our plunder in the wagons and moved out to the place selected for our future homes, and set to work to build houses in which to live.
The citizens of Oregon were of the opinion that Uncle Sam was slow in extending protection to his people on the Pacific Slope, and they formed a provisional government and elected Abernathy governor. The representatives passed laws saying that a married man and his wife could take up 640 acres-a mile square-of land; a young or single man, half that amount, and that this could be selected any place, so that it did not interfere with other claims. Wheat was made legal tender for small debts at one dollar a bushel.
Oregon City, being located at the Falls on the Willamette River, the Hudson Bay Company had a flour mill and a store there. Up the Willamette, the old servants of the company had settled, and taken up a great many of the choice parts for fifty or sixty miles. One prairie. called "French Prairie." was settled by Canadian French, and most of the settlers had native wives.
The first settlers here cut hazel brush and made withes
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with which to bind their wheat. At this time the sickle and the reap hook were used. Then the cradle came into use and they learned to make bands of the wheat, oats. or other grain that was out.
After putting in one Spring crop and garden in the Molalla, we built a barn. I then went to Tualatin Plains, west of Oregon City. and stopped with Brother James and family. He had married a Mrs. Scoggins, who had a family of five children, three sons and two daughters. I. together with these children, went to school for one term. The oldest son was one of my best friends, and it was he who helped me to take the flour up the Columbia to my folks. Tualatin Plains. twenty miles from Oregon City, was settled principally by Hudson Bay men. English and Scotch. This was a fine section of the country. Plenty of wheat was grown here, and new- comers could get plenty of work by taking pay in wheat. at one dollar a bushel. The wheat could be taken to Oregon City and sold to the company, and taken out in trade at the store, and a receipt would be given for the remainder. This receipt could be used in trading with other parties for any- thing wanted. and they, in turn, could go to the store and get goods and groceries with it. There was very little money in the country. so people were obliged to use wheat and these receipts as a means of conducting business transactions. The emigrants to this country had spent mostly all their money for outfits and a great many. even then, were very poorly provided for provisions for the trip.
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