USA > Washington > History of Washington; the rise and progress of an American state, Vol. II > Part 14
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Having made these assignments for the summer's work Captain Wilkes had a small building erected on the shore convenient to the anchorage, to which he removed such scientific instruments as would be required for the
COMMODORE WILKES.
Charles Wilkes was born in New York City, April 3. 1798. He entered the navy in 1818, and became a lieutenant in 1826. While holding that rank he was appointed, in 1838, to command a squadron of five vessels, sent on an exploring expedition, and in 1841, he made a painstaking examination of Washing- ton, Oregon and California. Upon his return to New York he hurried off a special report to Washington, which must have been of great value during the negotia- tion of the Ashburton treaty, as well as in that of 1846. The full report of his expedition, in four large volumes, was subsequently published by the government.
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
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rua for the summer's work . ll building erected on the there Indwaage, to which he removed such 0 u would be required for the
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observations he intended to have made there. One of these was the pendulum experiment for the purpose of ascertain- ing the force of gravity.
These preparations required several days. Nearly two- thirds of May was now gone, and nothing had yet been heard from the Peacock and the Flying Fish, although their arrival had been anxiously expected for several days. The commo- dore began to fear that they had encountered difficulty, and perhaps had attempted to enter the Columbia and been wrecked. He accordingly prepared to make a visit to Astoria in search of information. Having procured horses and a guide from Mr. Anderson, the trader then in charge of the fort, he set out, accompanied by Dr. Drayton and Mr. Wal- dron, two of the scientists who were with his party, and two servants for the Columbia. At the Cowlitz farms they found improvements which somewhat surprised them. Six or seven hundred acres were under cultivation, bearing luxu- riant crops. There was also a promising young orchard. Besides numerous farm buildings, including a dairy house, there were comfortable houses for the employees of the Com- pany and their superintendent, and the chapel and parsonage of the Catholic mission. The whole had the thriving look of a well-established settlement in one of the older territories.
Here the party secured as their guide for the remainder of their journey, one of the most interesting characters in the early history of Oregon. This was Simon Plomondon, who was for a long time an employee of the Hudson's Bay Company, but subsequently became an independent farmer, and in 1846 was a member of the legislature of the provi- sional government. He was one of the first settlers on Cow- litz Prairie. Nothing definite is known about the date of his arrival in this country; it is believed by some that he
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came with the Northwesters, and by others that he arrived at an even earlier day, though Wilkes says he was with Gen- eral Cass, and was coxswain of his canoe while on his journey to the Northwest territory, which was probably in 1820. He was a giant in stature, standing fully six feet two, and strong in proportion, and when more than eighty years old still stood straight as an arrow. Like Cæsar he was married when very young, "and many times after." Rev. P. F. Hylebos, who was for a number of years his pastor, says he was reported to have been married nineteen times, and that all his wives except the last were either native women or half- breeds. At a family reunion held only a few years before his death, nearly one hundred of his descendants were present.
With Plomondon for their guide, and a number of Indian paddlers to manage their canoe, the party made their way down the Cowlitz to the Columbia, and thence to Astoria, with very little delay. Finding that the Peacock had not yet arrived, and being unable to learn that she had been sighted in the neighborhood, they returned up the river, visited the chief factor at Fort Vancouver, and spent some days making a tour of the settlements in the Willamette Valley.
At Fort Vancouver the commodore found much to interest him. The fort was surrounded by about fifty comfortable log houses, all occupied by the employees of the Company and their half-breed families. The houses inside were occupied by the officers and their families, the clerks and those who worked in the blacksmith and cooper shops, and in the various stores and warehouses. There was quite a large community and every person in it seemed to be con- stantly and actively employed. The routine of each day
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began at early dawn, when the bell was rung for the working parties, who went immediately to their several employments, and the sound of hammers, the click of anvils, the rumbling of carts and the tinkling of bells, made it difficult for a visitor to sleep after the activities of the day had begun. ` Breakfast was served at eight o'clock and dinner at one, after which the work of the day continued until six o'clock. The com- modore was surprised to find that the employees worked so many hours for the small compensation of £17 a year, or less than $85, together with their food and lodging. Many of them complained of the fare they received, and said they were unable to live on the wages paid them, and most of them found themselves in debt when their term of service expired.
The houses inside of the fort were simply finished with pine board panels unpainted. Bunks were built for bed- steads but everything though plain was clean, and as com- fortable as could be desired.
There were several missionaries at the fort, besides the Catholic priest who officiated daily in the little chapel which had been provided for him, by the chief factor, who with his family were Catholics. Among them were Mr. and Mrs. Smith, who had left their mission at Kamiah, Mr. and Mrs. Griffith, and Mr. and Mrs. Clark of the self-supporting Congregationalist mission, Mr. Waller a Methodist, and two others. All of these, for the time being, were making Vancouver their home, and all had been kindly received, and well entertained at no expense to themselves. Religious toleration was everywhere allowed in its fullest extent. On Sundays Mr. Douglas read the service of the Protestant Episcopal Church for those about the fort, who, like himself, preferred that form of worship.
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There was in the fort at that time a considerable colony of children who were under the particular care of Dr. Mc- Loughlin and Mrs. Douglas. There were twenty-three boys and fifteen girls, and for these teachers were employed, who not only taught them in the school room but also gave them practical instruction in the fields, gardens and work- shops.
The company farm at Vancouver at the time Wilkes was there, was about nine miles square, and there were two dairies where more than one hundred cows were kept. There were also two other dairies on Wapato Island where there were one hundred and fifty cows, and where butter and cheese were made for the Russian settlements. The stock on the farm at this time amounted to three thousand head of cattle, twenty-five hundred sheep and over three hundred horses.
At some distance above the fort there was a grist mill and saw mill belonging to the Company. The grist mill had but one run of stone, but it was amply sufficient to supply flour for all the wants of the Company and the surrounding country. So much of the lumber cut at the saw mill as was not required for the Company's use, was sold at the Hawaiian Islands for eighty dollars per thousand feet. There was a blacksmith shop near one of these mills where axes and hatchets were made for the use of the trappers, and for sale to the Indians.
The commodore found that the Company's business, which was scattered over a wide area, extending from the Russian settlements on the north to San Francisco Bay, was managed with the utmost system and economy. The goods brought out each year for the Indian trade were of three classes. The first consisted of knives and tobacco, which
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were generally distributed as gratuities among the Indians. The second was of blankets, guns, cloth, powder and shot, and these were the articles of trade. The third was of shirts, handkerchiefs, ribbons, beads, etc., and these were used to pay for Indian labor and provisions.
These goods were distributed to the various subposts in the vast territory through which they were scattered, by large parties called brigades, which left the fort in the spring in boats, by which they passed so far up the Columbia and Willamette or the Cowlitz as they could go by that means of transportation, and thence by pack animals and on the shoul- ders of men and Indians to their final destination. They were made up for transporting in ninety-pound packages, for it had been found, by long experience, that packs of that weight could be most economically transported. Most of the men employed could carry one of these on his shoulders for a day's journey, even in the roughest country, without inconvenience. On the return trip the brigades brought to the fort furs and such other merchandise as the traders had collected during the season, and when all had been assembled, were sent to London by the annual ship.
The principal brigade was that which supplied the posts on the upper waters of the Columbia. This was under the charge of Peter Skeen Ogden, who, after the chief factor and Mr. Douglas, was most famous of all the Hudson's Bay men of his time on this coast. His father was chief justice of Canada, and the son had studied law in his youth, hoping to prove himself a worthy son of so eminent a father, but a defect in his voice discouraged him, and he went to New York where he found employment for a time in the office of Mr. Astor. Later he joined the Northwesters and came to the coast. After the union of the two companies
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he rapidly advanced to the position of trader and factor, and finally became one of Dr. McLoughlin's most trusted assistants. For several years he was practically in charge of all the interior stations that were supplied by the river brigade, and these extended from the Spanish line on the south to the Russian line on the north. The brigade with which he left Vancouver each year consisted of a fleet of boats each of which carried sixty bales of goods, and was manned by eight paddlers and a steersman who occupied the prow. Each also carried a square sail that was used when the wind was favorable. These boats were thirty feet long, five and a half feet beam, were sharp at both ends, and so light that they could easily be carried around falls and rapids when necessary. The portages they were required to make on each trip were numerous. At some of them it was not necessary to remove all the load from the boat, which, after having been relieved of so much of it as was necessary, was forced over the shallow places by poles, or dragged by ropes. Where all the load had to be removed the men carried the bales along shore so far as might be necessary, and later carried the boat also. The bales were carried by a stout band, which was passed under and around them, and then across the forehead of the voyageur, who usually carried two of these ninety-pound packs at one time, a second one being placed on top of the first after it had been adjusted to his shoulders. If the distance was not a long one some- times a third bale would be carried by a single person, and Wilkes was informed by a gentleman of the Company, that he had seen a voyageur carry six bales, a total of five hundred and forty pounds, at one time, but it was for a wager and the distance was not over a hundred yards.
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The return trip down the river in the autumn was made more quickly than the outward trip in the spring, as the boats were less heavily loaded and fewer portages were required, besides the paddlers had the current in their favor. At some of the less dangerous places the boats were not even lightened of part of their burdens, but were shot through the rapids by their deft steersmen, who became so daring and venturesome that their leader often found it necessary to restrain them from attempting the most dangerous passes. On one of his trips Mr. Ogden lost a crew of ten men, who attempted to shoot the rapids at the Dalles, but their boat was caught in an eddy and dashed to pieces. All were drowned and the body of only one of them was ever recovered.
In addition to the brigades another and smaller party, traveling in the swiftest boats owned by the Company, was sent annually across the continent to York House on Hudson's Bay. This was called the express, and carried the reports of the year's business, the letters sent out by the Company's officers and employees to their friends in England or Canada, and it brought back the instructions of the governor and whatever else he cared to send, together with the annual mail.
The commodore also made a visit to the settlers in the Willamette Valley, having been provided with transporta- tion for the trip by the chief factor. He found the Ameri- can settlers were everywhere beginning to be anxious for a government of their own in some form. A committee of five, composed principally of the lay members of the mission, called upon him to ask his advice, but after listening to what they had to say, he says he could see no reason sufficiently strong to encourage such an attempt at that time. No crime seemed to have been committed, and the settlers were secure
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both in their persons and property. That this was the fact the members of the committee themselves admitted, but they urged that an organization would give confidence to those who might intend to settle among them, and would do much to accelerate the growth of their community. But the commodore did not look with favor upon their plans. They were not able to convince him that any such organiza- tion was necessary, and he was of the opinion that any laws they might establish would be but a poor substitute for the moral code which all now followed. There would besides be great difficulty in enforcing the laws they might make, and in defining the limits over which they had control. There was danger also that the Canadian element, which was Catholic and in the majority, would elect the officers and control the government in the opposite interest from that in which they hoped to establish it, and so possibly delay or even defeat the hope of ultimately establishing such a government as they wished for. From an earlier conversation held with Father Blanchet he had found him opposed to any other government, at that time, than that which then prevailed, because he did not think the number of settlers was then sufficient to warrant the establishment of a constitution, and as far as his people were concerned there was no necessity for one, and he was advising against it. Father Blanchet was at that time chairman of a com- mittee which had been appointed more than three months earlier, to draft a constitution, but this committee never reported. Holding these views and being at the head of the committee, it is easy to understand why no report was made.
During the remainder of his stay in the valley the com- modore visited the Methodist Mission and called at the
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houses of many of the settlers. He found the Americans everywhere in favor of organization, but found nothing to change his conviction that the time for it had not yet arrived, and that to attempt it in the condition of things then existing would be unwise, if not really dangerous.
He found so many evidences of lack of thrift and good management among the missionary settlers that it is hardly surprising he should have doubted their need of an organized civil government, and distrusted their ability to carry it on if organized. He had seen a field of wheat which he was told had been self-sown, the previous year's crop, estimated to have amounted to a thousand bushels, having been lost by neglect. He also saw a patent threshing machine, which must have been obtained in that country at considerable cost, standing in the road wholly unprotected, uncared for and slowly going to ruin. There was about the premises of many of the settlers an evident want of the attention that is necessary to keep things in repair, and an absence of neatness that he regretted much to witness. A large building which had been erected by Dr. White for a hospital was without patients, and was now occupied by four families. Dr. Babcock reported the country as healthy, except that during the months of August and September there were some cases of fever and ague on the low grounds, but they seemed to be decreasing in number each year. The grist mill and saw mill, at the principal station, were both under one roof, and so badly located that they were compelled to remain idle during the summer months, for want of water. There were about twenty lay members of the mission in the neigh- borhood of these mills, and about twenty-five Indian boys, who, he was told, "were not in a condition to be visited or inspected." Those he saw were nearly grown up, were
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ragged and half clothed, and were lounging about under the trees. "Their appearance was anything but pleasing and satisfactory," he says, "and I must own I was greatly disap- pointed, for I had been led to expect that order and neatness at least, would have been found among them, considering the strong force of missionaries engaged here." He could find no evidence that any fixed plan of operation had been formed for carrying on the work of the mission, and yet he was surprised to hear the missionaries talking of putting up extensive buildings for missionary purposes, although it was fully apparent that there was but little need for them, on account of the limited Indian population in their vicinity.
Most of what he saw and heard convinced Wilkes that those who were most urgently in favor of forming a government at that time, were so because they hoped thereby to get places of influence and authority, although they could by no means be sure of securing them, if organization was attempted. He therefore looked upon the experiment as dangerous, as well as not at present either necessary or desirable. While a government was formed only two years later, and managed with entire success through a most try- ing period, and very greatly to the credit of those who formed and those who administered it, it must be remembered that conditions had then greatly changed. The number of the American settlers had been considerably increased, both by the stragglers from Farnham's Oregon dragoons, and by the immigration of 1842, numbering more than one hundred persons. The government party was also rapidly reinforced by the emigrants who arrived during the years immediately succeeding, among whom were many men of strong character and sound judgment, like Jesse Applegate, Peter H. Burnett, J. W. Nesmith, and M. M. McCarver,
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who by their skilful management, as well as by their num- bers, prevailed upon the managers of the Hudson's Bay Company to relinquish the control they had so long exercised over the country, and give the new government their counten- ance and support. A calm review of the history of this period must lead to the conviction that Wilkes' view of the situation was the correct one. At the time of his visit the number of settlers in the Willamette Valley was not large enough to require a government. Had an attempt to form one at that time been encouraged it must certainly have failed, and failure might have proved disastrous. Recovery from such a failure could hardly have been hoped for soon enough to permit a government to be formed as early as one was formed, and events proved that it was formed none too soon.
While on the Columbia during this his first visit, the com- modore was called upon by some members of a party of eight young men who were building a ship on one of the islands near the fort, for the purpose of making a cruise along the coast of California. They were dissatisfied with Oregon for the same reason that John Ball had left it seven years earlier-they saw no hope of finding wives in it, unless they married Indian women, and this they had no inclination to do. They had the hull and masts of their ship nearly completed, but were without anchors, cordage, instruments for finding their course at sea, and several other things that would be necessary for making a successful voyage. They had hoped to procure these at the fort, but had been disap- pointed, and were in a very ill humor about it. Dr. Mc- Loughlin claimed that they had attempted to procure what they were in need of by deceiving him, but this they denied. Finding upon inquiry that their purposes were laudable;
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that they intended after reaching the Bay of San Francisco to sell their vessel and cargo, and then return overland by way of Texas to the Eastern States, and that while none of them had ever been to sea, their leader Joseph Gale knew enough about the navigation and management of a ship to make it probable that he might conduct a successful voyage as far as the party intended to go by sea, the commodore helped them to make their peace with the chief factor, and to procure from him the articles they were in need of that he could supply. The remainder the commodore furnished himself, and also gave Captain Gale a sea letter as evidence of his authority to be abroad upon the ocean. The ship was subsequently launched, named "The Star of Oregon," and made her voyage down the coast successfully. This was the first ship built in Oregon by Americans. Some of her builders returned to Oregon from California and helped materially in organizing its first government.
The commodore now prepared to return to Nisqually. He had heard nothing from the Peacock, and his anxiety on her account was daily increasing, but he could accomplish nothing more, in the way of procuring news of her, or render- ing her assistance if in need of it, by remaining on the Columbia than by returning to his ships, where things might be requiring his attention, and he therefore prepared to set forth. Mr. Ogden offered to convey him as far as the Cowlitz farms in one of his boats, manned by fourteen experienced voyageurs. They left the fort with all the cere- mony and display of which the fur traders and their voyageurs were so fond. As the boat left the shore the paddlers, all of whom were gaily dressed and decked out with plumes, and ribbons of various colors, tied in bunches, with their ends fluttering in the breeze, struck up one of their favorite boat
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songs. They first paddled up the river for a short distance, then making a graceful sweep to reach the center of the broad flowing current, they passed by the spectators on shore with great animation. They went merrily on down the stream, each voyageur in succession taking up a verse of the song, and all joining in the chorus. In two hours and a half the mouth of the Cowlitz was reached, and a dis- tance of thirty-five miles had been covered.
The party reached Nisqually late in June. Mr. Ogden did not accompany them beyond the Cowlitz farms, but Plomondon, accompanied by his Indian wife and one child, guided them safely to their destination. The remainder of the month, and the first few days of July, were occupied in completing the scientific experiments, for which every- thing was now ready, and in receiving reports from and giving new directions to the surveying parties, all of which were making satisfactory progress with their work. The fourth of July fell on Sunday that year. All the men who were still with the ships were anxious to celebrate it with some ceremony, and the commodore was quite willing to give them a full day for the purpose. They had been in foreign waters on both the preceding anniversaries of this day, and now that they were on soil so nearly our own, it seemed peculiarly fitting that the occasion should be appro- priately observed. Two months had passed since they had entered the grand arm of the sea which Vancouver had called Admiralty Inlet, but which everybody now knows as Puget Sound, and since that time the commodore had made an extended excursion across the country to the Columbia and had learned much about it that he had not previously known. Every hour he had been more and more impressed with the value of the country, and of the importance of
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