USA > Washington > History of Washington the evergreen state : from early dawn to daylight with portraits and biographies Vol. I > Part 9
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" In a fascinating vein La Page chronicles the adventures and observations of this learned aboriginal traveller. He details how he ascended the Missouri in its source to the Rocky Moun- tains, tarrying with Indian tribes to learn their language and inquire the way ; his crossing those 'Shining Mountains,' ex- ceedingly high and beset with dangers ; his march from thence to the beautiful river that flowed into the great ocean. He there met a tribe called the Otters, two of whose people, a man and a
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woman, accompanied him westward. His first view of the Pa- cific he thus described : 'I was so delighted I could not speak. My eyes were too small for my soul's ease. The wind so dis- turbed the great water that I thought the blows it gave would beat the land to pieces.' Can modern description better this much ? The author saw Niagara for the first time with very nearly the same feelings." Evans goes on to say :
" La Page is recognized as a reliable writer. He vouches his entire belief in the statements of the Yazoo explorer. That narrative, published as it was previous to any other person having crossed the Rocky Mountains or who had journeyed to the Pacific Ocean, which subsequent visits of travellers have found to be correct, would seem to carry intrinsic evidences of truthfulness, and its statements appear to have been based on actual information."
There had been, however, another and previous visitor to these same "Shining Mountains" (pity it is, we think, that the name had not been preserved, for all mountains are rocky, while this great American chain is, whether stony or snow-clad, specially "shining") ; and this first " pathfinder" was a French- man-one Vereudrye-whose story, as told by Evans, runs as follows :
" In 1731 Marquis de Beauharnais, Governor-General of New France, conferred authority upon Vereudrye, a fur trader, to equip an expedition to reach the head-waters of the Missouri. To avoid the dreaded Sioux, he had permission to ascend the Assiniboin and Saskatchewan rivers, and to follow any stream flowing westward into the Pacific. His real purpose was to establish the fur trade, and to ascertain the practicability of overland communication between New France (Canada and the province of Louisiana) and the Pacific Ocean. A line of posts was built, extending from Lake Superior northwestward, at available points to forts of the Saskatchewan, and at the junc- tion of the Assiniboin and Red rivers. From these forts expedi- tions were dispatched northward and westward in charge of his brother and sons. In one of these excursions, in 1743, the brother and son ascended the Missouri River to its source in the Rocky Mountains. They travelled south to the Mandan coun- try. Discovering no passage through this vast mountain chain, and warned of danger from the Sioux, they turned back and
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reached the Missouri in 1744. To this party belongs the credit of having been the first white men who had ever seen the Rocky or Shining Mountains."
" The first traveller to lead a party of civilized men through the territory of the Stony Mountains to the South Sea" should be engraved on some massive mountain-face of "the Rockies" in letters so large as to be visible to every passing passenger ; and this epitaph should be linked with the name of Alexander Mackenzie, a native of Scotland and a partner of the Northwest Fur Company, in honor of his then unparalleled achievement. He might well be called the Columbus of the wilderness, the pathfinder of the wooded sea. He himself, at the conclusion of one of his longest canoe voyages of exploration, in which he halted at what he calls " Vancouver's Cascade Canal," mixed up some vermilion and grease and inscribed in large characters on the face of the rock on which his party had slept the night before, " Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada by land, July 22d, 1793."
It was from this adventurous yet eminently practical man that the suggestion emanated that the Northwest and Hudson's Bay Company should combine and divide between them the interior and northern part of North America, beyond the frontier of the United States and the Canadas. He imagined that he descended the Columbia, the " great river" of the natives ; but, as was afterward discovered, was mistaken. The river he actually visited was the Fraser. He seems to have been a Napoleon in the breadth and scope of his commercial plans and generalship, as witness the following from his report :
"By opening this entire course between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and forming regular establishments through the interior and at both extremes, as well as along the coasts and islands, the entire command of the fur trade of North America might be obtained from latitude 48° north to the Pole, except the portion of it which the Russians have in the Pacific. To this may be added the fishing in both seas and the markets of the four quarters of the globe. Such would be the field for com- mercial enterprises, and incalculable would be the product of it when supported by the operations of that credit and capital which Great Britain pre-eminently possesses. Then would this country begin to be remunerated for the expenses it has sus-
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tained in discovering and surveying the coasts of the Pacific Ocean, which is at present left to American adventurers who, without regularity or capital, or the desire for conciliating future confidence, look altogether to the interest of the moment. They therefore collect all the skins they can procure and in any manner that suits them, and having exchanged them at Canton for the produce of China, return to their own country. Such adventurers, and many of them, as I am informed, have been very successful, would instantly disappear from the coast."
We have suggested a memorial for Mr. Mackenzie, but fancy that the paragraph just quoted is as monumental in brass as any which could be erected. His report is well calculated to attract that " British credit and capital"' to which he refers. As Evans says, he foreshadows " British policy and intent," those also of the Empire Company, whose agent he was, and more- over defined the lines whereby England proposed to bound her claim to the territory of Northwest America.
Thomas Jefferson has been called, and has indeed won the right to be so considered, the " father of Western exploration," to which may be added that he was the first of our statesmen to appreciate and make some effort to explore and develop the possibilities of their almost unknown wildernesses lying between the Mississippi and the Pacific. Throwing the search-light of the present upon the history of the past for many years following our declaration of national independence, the apathy and want of foresight of the great mass of our American legislators to the securing new territories and opening up the far West seems incomprehensible. Jefferson alone seems to have possessed a keener eye and wider range of vision. While representing us as our Minister at Paris, as early as 1786, he met John Ledyard, of Connecticut, to whom we have already alluded as the adven- turous corporal of marines of Cook's visit to the Northwest coast. Their converse led to a suggestion from Mr. Jefferson that Ledyard should make a journey overland by way of the Russian possessions to Kamtchatka, and thence across by some ship of that nationality to Nootka Sound ; thence downward on the latitude of the Missouri, and explore that region to the United States. Ledyard, as enthusiastic as himself, eagerly embraced the plan. The consent of the Empress of Russia secured the needful passports. Ledyard proceeded on his jour-
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ney, reaching Irkootsk, within two hundred miles of the coast of Kamtchatka, in January of 1787 ; winters there ; is arrested in the spring on attempting to resume his journey by the Russian officials, who accuse him of being a spy, and forbid his return to Russia. His health fails, broken, as we are told, "by the severity of his treatment and the hardships of his journey." Thus was the first attempt of Mr. Jefferson to explore the inte- rior and western part of this continent frustrated.
Not discouraged by this failure, we find Mr. Jefferson again, in 1792, proposing to the American Philosophical Society the en- gagement of a competent scientist to "explore Northwest America from the eastward by ascending the Missouri, crossing the Rocky Mountains, and descending the nearest river to the Pacific Ocean."
Captain Meriwether Lewis, of the United States, afterward destined to distinguish himself as one of the leaders of the great expedition of Lewis and Clarke, now comes to the front and urgently solicits the command. But, possibly owing to French influence, presumably potent with Jefferson, André Michaux, a French botanist, who offers his services, is accepted, receives his instructions, and gets as far as Kentucky ; but being, as it appears, also in the service of the French Govern- ment, he there receives an order from the French Minister to relinquish his appointment and select some other field of re- search -a piece of European jealousy which defeats the second attempt at exploration, on which Jefferson seems to be deter- mined.
Yet a third time, and on this occasion with Americans at the helm, we find Jefferson, now President of the United States, taking advantage of the " Act for the establishment of trading houses with the Indian tribes being about to expire," to recom- mend their continuance ; and at the same time, in a confidential communication to Congress (January 18th, 1803), he recommends " An exploration to trace the Missouri to its source ; to cross the high lands (Rocky Mountains) and follow the best water communication to the Pacific Ocean." The reader will remark that it is the same plan. Congress makes the necessary appro- priation, and Captain Lewis, whose services were before reject- ed, but who has now become the private secretary of the Presi- dent, their common tastes for the increase of geographical
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knowledge having possibly drawn them together, obtains its leadership. Lewis requests that William Clarke be associated with him, and Clarke is accordingly appointed a captain in the army and ordered upon this service. "In April, 1803, the Presi- dent's instructions were submitted to Captain Lewis, and being duly canvassed, were finally signed on the 25th of June follow- ing. The governments of France, Spain, and Great Britain were notified of the expedition, and its purposes and passports issued to it by the ministers of England and France. Among other instructions we find the following :
" The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri River and such principal streams of it as by its course of com- munication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado, or any other river, may offer the most direct and practicable water communication across the continent for the purposes of commerce."
They are also directed to fix by observation the interesting points of the portage between the heads of the Missouri and the waters offering the best communication with the Pacific Ocean, and the course of that water to the ocean in the same manner as that of the Missouri.
Their orders go on to say :
" Should you reach the Pacific Ocean, inform yourself of the circumstances which may decide whether the furs of these parts may be collected as advantageously at the head of the Missouri (convenient, as it is supposed, to the waters of the Colorado and Oregon or Columbia) as at Nootka Sound or any other part of that coast ; and that trade be constantly conducted through the Missouri and United States more beneficially than by the cir- cumnavigation now practised. . On your arrival at that coast, endeavor to learn if there be any port within your reach frequented by the sea vessels of any nation, and to send two of your trusty people back by sea in such way as shall appear practicable, with a copy of your notes ; and should you be of the opinion that the return of your party by the way that they went will be imminently dangerous, then ship the whole and return by sea by the way either of Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, as you shall be able."
A persistent man, this President Jefferson, who, after seven- teen years of patient effort and waiting, notwithstanding the fail-
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ures of Ledyard's and Michaux's expeditions, finally carries out his plan and sends Lewis and Clarke into the field, who, with equal courage, in face of great opposition, carry out his ideas, fulfil their orders, and gain for themselves a name among the explorers of the earth.
The personnel of the expedition consisted, besides its com- manders, of nine young men from Kentucky, fourteen soldiers of the United States Army, who volunteered, two French voy- ageurs as interpreter and hunter, and a negro servant of Captain Clarke, all of whom, except the servant, were enlisted to serve as privates during the expedition. Three sergeants were appointed from their number. In addition, a corporal, six soldiers, and nine watermen accompanied the expedition as far as the Mandan nation -forty-three souls in all.
Leaving late in the season, Captain Lewis very wisely deter- mined to winter at the mouth of Wood's River, on the eastern side of the Mississippi. Here he made the needful preparations for an early start in the spring. That the reader may the better understand the route and great distance travelled by these, the first pathfinders going out under government directions to span the continent, we will quote Evans's résumé of their operations, and supplement it by Captain Lewis's own summary of their labors.
Evans condenses it thus :
" On the 14th of May, 1804, the party crossed the Mississippi River and commenced the ascent of the Missouri in boats cor- delled by hand. On the 1st of November, 1804, having jour- neyed 1609 miles, it went into winter quarters in the Mandan villages. On the 8th of April, 1805, the party, consisting of thirty-three persons, resumed their westward march, and upon the 18th of August had reached the extreme head of navigation of the Missouri River, upward of three thousand miles from its mouth. They had ascended the main river to the three forks, to which they had given the names respectively of Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin. Regarding the first named to be the main stream, they had followed it to its source in the Rocky Mountains. Captain Clarke crossed to the headwaters of the Salmon River (the east fork of Lewis or Snake River), but aban- doned it. The party then ascended Fish Creek, a branch of the Salmon, crossed a mountain ridge, and entered a valley of the
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Bitter Root, and ascended to the mouth of a creek now called Louhou Fork, by them named Traveller's Rest. From thence they passed over the headwaters of the Kooskooskie, and having reached a point navigable for canoes, constructed boats and fol- lowed the river to its mouth in the Lewis Fork of the Columbia (Snake River), which they reached October 7th. Lewis River was followed to its junction with Clarke's Fork, and thence the party proceeded down the main Columbia to Cape Disappoint- ment, on the Pacific Ocean, at which they arrived November 14th. They stopped but a few days on the north side of the river, but established their winter quarters at Fort Clatsop, on the south side near its mouth, where they remained until March 23d, 1806."
Before setting out on their return eastward several written notices were left with the natives, and one posted up in the fort as follows :
" 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 whose names are hereunto annexed, and who were sent out by the Gov- ernment of the United States to explore the interior of the con- tinent of North America, did penetrate the same by way of the Columbia and Missouri rivers to the discharge of the latter into the Pacific Ocean, where they arrived on the 14th of November, 1805, and departed on their return to the United States by the same route by which they had come out."
" This ' note' fell into the possession of Captain Hill, of the brig Lydia, of Boston, which carried it to Canton and thence to the United States. On the back of it was sketched the connec- tion of the respective sources of the Columbia and Missouri, with the routes pursued and the track intended to be followed on the return."
The expedition returned by substantially the same route until reaching Traveller's Rest Creek, where the party divided. Captain Lewis, with nine men, pursued the most direct route to the falls of the Missouri, exploring the Maria's River ; Captain Clarke, with the remainder of the party, proceeded to the head of Jefferson River, where he left a small party to descend to the Yellowstone, himself advancing directly to the Yellowstone, and tracing it in boats to its mouth. The several parties reunited at
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the mouth of the Yellowstone on the 12th of August, and hav- ing travelled nearly nine thousand miles, reached St. Louis in safety on the 23d of September, 1806, without having lost a member of the party."
Captain Lewis's own summary tells us :
" The road by which we went out by way of the Missouri to its head is 3096 miles ; thence by land by way of Lewis River over to Clarke's River, and down that to the entrance of Travel- ler's Rest Creek, where all the roads from different routes meet ; then across the rugged part of the Rocky Mountains to the navigable waters of the Columbia, 398 miles ; thence down the river 640 miles to the Pacific Ocean, making a total distance of 4134 miles. On our return, in 1806, we came from Traveller's Rest directly to the falls of the Missouri River, which shortens the distance about 579 miles, and is a much better route, reduc- ing the distance from the Missouri to the Pacific Ocean to 3555 miles. Of this distance, 2575 miles is up the Missouri to the falls of that river, thence passing through the plains and across the Rocky Mountains to the navigable waters of the Kooskoos- kie River, a branch of the Columbia, 340 miles, 200 of which is good road ; 140 miles over a tremendous mountain, steep and broken, 60 miles of which is covered several feet deep with snow, on which we passed on the last of June. From the navigable part of the Kooskooskie we ascended that rapid river 73 miles to its entrance into Lewis River, and down that river 154 miles to the Columbia, and thence 413 miles to its entrance into the Pacific Ocean. About 180 miles of this distance is tide water. We passed several bad rapids and narrows, and one considerable fall 268 miles above the entrance of this river, 37 feet, 8 inches ; the total distance descending the Columbia waters, 640 miles, mak- ing a total of 3555 miles on the most direct route from the Mis- sissippi at the mouth of the Missouri to the Pacific Ocean."
Was ever the history of a grand and glorious achievement, so proud a victory over more than two years of continuous battle with the perils of the wilderness in every variety-mountain snows, rugged steeps, burning plains, desert wastes, savage foes- and exposure in every form more simply or modestly narrated ! It wears the stamp of truth, exact and careful portraiture from nature in every line. It masquerades in no garb of self-lauda- tion, no straining after dramatic effect. Pity it is that the youth
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of America, so eager to peruse the distorted, extravagant tales which attempt to portray a frontier heroism, where some ruffian in buckskin plays a melodramatic part, half love, half murder, and both equally disgusting, would not turn from such to the real adventures, quite as thrilling, of Lewis and Clarke and kin- dred spirits, who took a manhood and devotion to the duty of the hour with them in their journeys by plain and mountain, and ofttimes laid down their lives with no witnesses but an ap- proving conscience and an omnipresent God.
Few novels can compare in interest (for it has passed into a proverb that truth is stranger than fiction) with the narratives of Ruxton's " Life in the Far West," or Gregg's " Commerce of the Prairies." It has fallen to the lot of the assistant editor and compiler of this history to follow the steps of these explorers in the years gone by ; to gaze upon the island washed by the seas where Columbus saw the light upon the shore; to skirt the coasts and enter the harbors where the adventurers of Spain sought for gold ; to sail the seas of Gray and Vancouver, and follow on horseback the paths from ocean to ocean of the early voyageurs ; and perhaps he may be permitted here to step aside from the beaten track of drier history and dwell for a moment upon the charm which lured from the haunts of civilization, and, once beheld, kept forever in its wilds those old time path- finders. It was not the greed of gain-the rich furs, the spoils of the chase, so easy in those old days to come by-no, it was something far more subtle-the bluer sky,
" Unstained by village smoke ;"
the pure air of the " unshorn fields," boundless and beautiful ; of the prairie seas-the solemn stillness of " the groves" that " were God's first temples ;" the dash of hidden brooks and waterfalls ; the tinkle of mountain rills ; the great mountain peaks, the rock-ribbed guardians of the leagues of pine, wearing their white helmets, plumed by the mist-wreaths of everlasting snow. Pardon this digression, too long, perhaps, of one who knows whereof he speaks, for he has passed many a night by the camp-fire.
But to return : this successful adventure of Lewis and Clarke, as may well be supposed, caused no little commotion both in political and commercial circles, nor did its influence
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extend to our own land alone ; it was felt in Europe also. From a lesser and more selfish standpoint it seemed to open new doors to mercantile adventure and trade ; from a higher and more patriotic, it drew forth well-merited encomiums, and a sense of pride in these achievements of these explorers whose exploits had added new lustre to the American name. President Jeffer- son himself, in a tribute to Captain Lewis in 1813, says :
" Never did a similar event excite more joy through the United States. The humblest of its citizens have taken a lively interest in the issue of this journey, and looked with impatience for the information it would furnish. Nothing short of the offi- cial journals of this extraordinary and interesting journey will exhibit the importance of the service, the courage, devotion, zeal, and perseverance, under circumstances calculated to dis- courage, which animated this little band of heroes throughout the long, dangerous, and tedious travel."
It was not until the middle of February, 1807, that Captains Lewis and Clarke reached Washington. The services of the party -though republics are counted proverbially ungrateful-were not overlooked, but were rewarded by a considerable land grant. Lewis was appointed Governor of Louisiana, Captain Clarke was made the general of its militia, and soon after agent of the Unit- ed States for Indian Affairs. But, sorrowful to relate, the life of our principal explorer, so bright and promising, so glorious in results already obtained, was only too soon to be suddenly and violently extinguished. Even before he had prepared the jour- nals and reports of his explorations, he fell by his own hand while suffering from an attack of acute melancholy, to which he had been long subject. During one of these business compelled him to start for Washington. We will tell the story in Presi- dent Jefferson's own most appropriate and sympathetic words :
" On his journey thither he did the deed which plunged his friends into affliction and deprived his country of one of her most valued citizens. It lost, too, to the nation the benefit of receiving from his own hand the narrative of his sufferings and successes in endeavoring to extend for them the boundaries of science, and to present to their knowledge that vast and fertile country which their sons are destined to fill with arts, with sci- ence, with freedom, and with happiness."
How truthful and how prophetic ! Surely he must have
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written that concluding line under an inspiration which not only looked into the future, but beheld the fruition of its com- ing days.
We have given so large a space to the outlines of this expedi- tion and its results because it was in reality the most important and far-reaching in its effects of any which crossed the conti- nent, and destined to be no mean factor in settling disputed boundary lines and rival rights to possession destined erelong to shake the land as with an earthquake shock and bring about the yielding of larger concessions in the interests of peace than would now be wrested from the American people by threat of war.
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