USA > Washington > History of Washington; the rise and progress of an American state, Vol. II > Part 15
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securing our title to it beyond dispute. No doubt that elab- orate and forceful special report, which he made haste to forward to Washington less than a year later, as soon as he had dropped anchor in New York harbor, had begun to take form in his mind, and he saw a special fitness in thus celebrating the anniversary of our nation's birth, on soil which there was so much reason to make indisputably our own. He accordingly gave the men leave to make such arrangements as they wished, for a day on shore. A fat bullock from the herds at the fort, and an abundant supply of fresh vegetables were procured, and ovens had been con- structed on shore near the observatory which were turning out each day as much fresh bread as was required. The sailors therefore prepared for an elaborate feast, as well as for such sports as men of the sea most enjoy when on shore.
A beautiful stretch of prairie near a shady grove, not far from the fort, was selected. Here the ox was slaughtered and spitted on a sapling over a fire which had been built in a trench, and a committee was appointed to watch and turn it until it was properly cooked. Another committee arranged the program for the ceremonies and the amusements. "Before 9 o'clock," the commodore says, "all the men were mustered on board, in clean white frocks and trousers, and all, including the marines and music, were landed shortly after, to march to the scene of feasting, about a mile distant. The procession was formed at the observatory, whence we all marched off with flags flying and music playing, Vendovi (a Fegee Islander who was with the fleet) bringing up the rear. Vendovi was dressed out after the Fegee fashion. It was truly gratifying to me to see them all in such good health and spirits, not a man sick and their clothes as white as snow, with happy and contented faces.
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"Two howitzers were carried along to fire the usual salutes. When the procession reached Fort Nisqually they stopped, gave three cheers, and waited sailor like until it was returned. This was done by only a few voices, a circumstance which did not fail to produce many jokes among the seamen. On reaching the ground, various games occupied the crew, while the officers also amused themselves in like manner. At the usual hour dinner was piped, when all repaired to partake of the barbecue. By this time the Indians had gathered from all quarters, and were silently looking on at the novel sight, and wistfully regarding the feast which they saw going on before them. At this time the salute was fired, when one of the men by the name of Whitehorn, had his arm most dreadfully lacerated from the sudden explosion of the gun. This accident put a momentary stop to the hilarity of the occasion. Dr. Fox, who was on the ground, thought that amputation of the arm above the elbow would be necessary, but it was deemed better to delay it for a time. The wound was dressed as well as it could be, and a litter was made on which he was at once sent, under charge of his messmates, to the ship. Men-of-war's men are some- what familiar with such scenes, and although this accident threw a temporary gloom over the party, the impression did not last long, and the amusements of the morning were now exchanged for the excitement of horse racing, steeds having been hired for that purpose from the Indians. This sport is always a favorite with sailors on shore, and in pursuit of it they had not a few tumbles, but fortunately none were seriously hurt."
During the day Rev. John P. Richmond, a Methodist mis- sionary who had come out the year previous in the Lausanne, and was now stationed at the fort, made an appropriate
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address to the officers and sailors, and later he and Mr. Anderson and Captain McNeil of the steamer Beaver dined with the commodore at the observatory. The latter had hoped to have Dr. McLoughlin also as his guest, but the diplomatic chief factor had lost the trail on his way over from Vancouver, and did not arrive until the following day. Possibly this mishap saved the foremost representative of British interests on the coast at that time, from some embar- rassment, as he was already beginning to be criticised in England for the liberal treatment he had accorded the American missionaries, and this criticism gradually became more severe after the settlers began to arrive in increasing numbers, and to require and receive assistance from him, until he finally resigned and went to live among them, as an American citizen.
He arrived at the fort on the 6th, the day after the cele- bration, and dined with the commodore. He was shown over the Vincennes, and examined everything with a great deal of interest, it being the first man-of-war he had ever been on board of. On leaving it, the yards were manned and three hearty cheers were given him, a courtesy he seemed to appreciate very highly. On the day following he returned to the Columbia, so that he seems to have made the journey simply to pay this visit to the ships and their commander.
By the end of July the survey of the Sound was nearly completed. Lieutenant Johnson and his party had returned from their tour by way of the Yakima River, crossing the mountains over the same trail by which they had gone out. They had visited all the missionary stations, and most of the Indian tribes in what is now eastern Washington, and had seen some part of Idaho, and the northeastern part of the Oregon of today. Mr. Drayton, the cartographer of
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the expedition, who had parted with the commander at Vancouver, had accompanied Peter Skeen Ogden up the Columbia, as far as Fort Walla Walla, and had brought back a mass of detailed information in regard to the river and neighboring country. Lieutenants Case and Budd had surveyed Puget Sound and all its numerous inlets and also Hood's Canal, while Lieutenant Commandant Ringgold, and the numerous parties working under his direction, were finishing the work along the eastern shore of Admiralty Inlet. During the last days of his stay at Nisqually the commodore, accompanied by Mr. Anderson, the chief trader, and Captain McNeil of the Beaver, made a trip along the southern shore of the Sound, and thence up Budd's Inlet, which they named for the lieutenant who had surveyed it, to the Des Chutes River, to inspect the falls at Tumwater, after which they procured horses and rode out to Mound Prairie, to open and examine the curious mounds which he had observed there on his trip to the Columbia, but the inspection revealed nothing of scientific interest. They were evidently artificial, and were arranged in something like regular order, but they contained no relics or remains of any kind indicating by whom they had been built or for what purpose.
When the squadron was ready to sail, near the end of July, nothing had yet been heard from the Peacock. Three months had now passed since her arrival had begun to be looked for, and both officers and men began to feel that she certainly had met with misfortune. They did not learn of her fate until some days later, when they were overtaken in the San Juan Archipelago by a messenger from Nisqually, with news that the ship had been wrecked but her crew had been saved. After hurriedly completing the survey of the
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islands and of the shores of the strait, the squadron sailed for the south to complete its work. As it was leaving the strait a close watch was kept for that "exceeding high pin- nacle, or spired rock, like a pillar," which de Fuca had des- cribed. Such a rock was sighted and a drawing was made of it, which forms one of the illustrations of the fourth volume of the report.
On the evening of May 31st all the surveying parties ob- served a particularly brilliant meteor which was first seen at an altitude of about sixty degrees, and which descended through a zigzag course, until about twenty degrees above the horizon, when it disappeared. No explosion followed its disappearance but its track remained luminous for nearly half an hour.
At Neah Bay a few of the bricks from Fidalgo's old fort were found.
The Peacock went aground in attempting to enter the mouth of the Columbia on the afternoon of Sunday, July 18, 1841. The weather was not particularly unfavorable, but there was no one on board who had ever been in that neigh- borhood before, nor was it possible to obtain a pilot. The officers in charge had been supplied with some sailing direc- tions by Captain Spalding, of the Lausanne, whom Wilkes had met at the Hawaiian Islands during the preceding winter, but they were not very clear nor easy to follow. All the usual precautions had been taken before attempting to make the entrance. Captain Hudson was on the quarter deck and Lieutenant Emmous, an experienced sailor, had been sent aloft to give such assistance as he could from that vantage point. Both were of opinion that they were following the directions given them, and that they were as nearly in the channel as it was possible to determine, when
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the ship struck. As soon as she touched every effort was made to bring her by the wind and haul off, but all failed. She soon began to thump heavily, and every wave drove her farther and more firmly on the bar. The wind freshened, and the ebbing tide, meeting the waves with great force, soon enveloped the ship in breakers. With every sea she was lifted and struck more heavily. The cutter was soon stove to pieces, and it seemed doubtful whether the launch could be got afloat, so that the ship's papers and the lives of those on board could be saved. The ship began to break badly and the pumps were started. The helm had already become useless. The shot and other heavy material on board were thrown over, and by means of one of her anchors her head was turned to the sea, and her condition rendered less perilous. But before 9 o'clock the cable parted and the ship was again thrown with her broadside to the sea, and by midnight the water was knee deep on. the gun deck. At 6 o'clock in the morning a large Indian canoe came along- side with a pilot from Fort George on board, but he could be of no service, and such of the ship's boats as could be launched were made ready, and the crew sent on shore. One of these boats, in attempting to make a second trip, was turned end over end by a huge wave, throwing all her occupants into the sea, but none of them were drowned. All the other boats made a second trip in safety, and every man on board, together with all the scientific material gathered during the voyage, the ship's papers, and everything of value that could not be replaced, were saved. On the next morning the wreckage was scattered for miles along the shore, and nothing marked the spot where the ship went down but the cap of her bowsprit, projecting above the water on what has ever since been known as Peacock Bar.
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Wilkes arrived in the Columbia on the Porpoise, and sent his flag ship, the Vincennes, direct to the Bay of San Francisco. He purchased the brig Thomas H. Perkins, then lying in Bakers Bay, but under charter to the Hudson's Bay Company, to replace the Peacock, and then after sur- veying and mapping both shores of the Columbia, in the same careful manner in which the rest of his work had been done, he sailed for California. Before leaving, however, he found that he could not send the Peacock's launch which had escaped the wreck, along the shore to California with safety, and he accordingly resolved to leave her at the mouth of the river to be used as a pilot boat, and for the relief of vessels in distress. As Mr. Birnie, who was then in charge at Fort George, was without authority to accept the respon- sibility of her care, Dr. McLoughlin was asked to assume it, and gladly did so. The launch remained at the fort, and in the charge of the Company, until the provisional government was formed, when she was, upon request, de- livered over to Governor Abernethy.
After completing his survey of the coast and the harbors and rivers of California, Wilkes sailed for Honolulu, whence he dispatched a letter to the secretary of the navy, in which he explains that he has not been able to forward the full report he had hoped to have ready at that time, on the con- ditions then prevailing in Oregon, the value of the country etc., because of lack of opportunity to digest and arrange the immense mass of information he had collected, but he prom- ised to have it ready by the time he should arrive in New York in the following year. This promise he faithfully kept. He reached that harbor on June 10th; and on the 13th the report was in the hands of the secretary. It has never been published in full, but extracts from it were copied
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into the Pendleton report, which was published in the follow- ing January. Its contents were without doubt known to the president, Mr. Webster and all the other members of the cabinet, as well as to the secretary of the navy, during nearly the whole time that the negotiations for the Ashburton treaty were going on. It does not seem possible that any- body could have furnished them more information about the country, or any that would have had more weight with them, than this which had been gathered by a scientific expedition sent out by the preceding administration, amply provided with means to collect it, and bearing upon its face, as it did, so many evidences of having been collected with great thoroughness and care.
The reason why this report was not sent to Congress and published, in response to the demands made for it by both houses, is now apparent. It contains a strong argument for asserting title to the whole coast as far north as 54° 40'. It also points out that the Hudson's Bay Company, and all its officers and stockholders, would be very averse to war to retain possession of the country, because of their stocks and herds, and their large investments in farming operations. Of course it was not desirable to publish a report coming from such authority, while negotiations in regard to the boundary were pending, and when other negotiations must soon follow.
Many of the statements contained in this special report were of special value at that time, and are interesting now. They will always have a special interest to those who will remember that Oregon, or at least that part of it north and west of the Columbia River, was then claimed by another power, and until this claim was finally disposed of there would always be a question as to which power would finally
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control it. Of the Puget Sound country the report says : "No part of the world affords finer inland sounds, or a greater number of harbors than can be found here, capable of receiving the largest class of vessels, and without a danger in them that is not visible. From the rise and fall of the tides (18 feet) all facilities are afforded for the erection of works for a great maritime nation."
Of the country generally it says: "In comparison with our own country, I should say that the labor required in this territory for subsistence, and to acquire wealth, is in the proportion of one to three-or in other words, a man must work three times as long in the States to gain a like competence. Few portions of the globe, in my opinion, are to be found so rich in soil, diversified in surface, or capable of being so easily rendered the happy abode of an industrious and civilized community. For beauty of scenery and salubrity of climate it is not surpassed. It is peculiarly adapted for an agricultural and pastoral people, and no portion of the world, beyond the tropics, is to be found that will yield so readily to the wants of man with moderate labor."
While possibly admiring nature as much, Wilkes makes fewer attempts at rapturous description of her beauties than Vancouver does. It is the practical that always appeals to him. He speaks occasionally, and often admiringly, of the beauties of the woods, and prairies, and of the grandeur of the mountains. He mentions the wealth of bloom that every- where met his eye-the syringa, dogwood, spirea, rhododen- dron, wild currant, and many other flowering shrubs that were seen on every hand during the months he was in the Sound country, but it is rather as a scientist who had counted their petals and stamens, and noted the arrangement of their
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leaves, than as a mere admirer of their color and fragrance. If he mentions the mountains his admiration of their symme- try, if expressed, is always coupled with some attempt to measure their height, or their distance from the sea, or an estimate of the altitude of their snow line. But he over- looks no detail as to the character and value of the soil, the quality and quantity of the timber, the nature of the geological formation, the number and condition of the Indian inhabitants, the progress made by the settlers, and at what cost in labor or money, and he notes with particular care all that the Hudson's Bay Company has done and is doing, evidently, as his special report shows, with a view of esti- mating the resistance it would make if attempt were made to dispossess it. The maritime advantages of the country are ever present to his mind, as would naturally be the case. About these he is enthusiastic, but they are all meas- ured with the eye of the ship-owner or the shipping agent. There are no hidden dangers in the channels, good harbors are numerous, the opportunity for cargo all that could be wished. It is always the practical, rather than the beautiful, that appeals to him.
Wilkes has been accused of want of patriotic interest in the country, because he did not advise the settlers in the Willamette Valley, as they hoped he would advise them. Some have suspected that he was a Catholic, and that he thus easily came under the influence of Father Blanchet, but this is not the fact; he was an Episcopalian. Gray has said this of him, in his History of Oregon: "To the disgrace of the leader of that squadron, the general impres- sion of all the early settlers of this country is, to the present day, that he understood and tasted the qualities of Dr. McLoughlin's liquors, and received the polite attentions of
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the gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Company, with far more pleasure than he looked into or regarded the wants of this infant settlement of his countrymen."
This invidious statement requires no comment at the present day. Wilkes' own work long since made sufficient answer to it.
CHAPTER XXV.
A CHAMPION APPEARS.
LEWIS F. LINN.
This senator from Missouri, and colleague of Thomas H. Benton, did more than was done by any other one man to save Oregon to the United States-If, indeed, it was ever in need of being saved. His bill to provide free homes to settlers furnished encouragement to those who wanted land, to go to Oregon and get it, and so settle the country. It was also the beginning of our present homestead law, one of the most benef- icent enactments of any legislative body. It has done more than any other one thing to settle all our Western States, every one of which owes Linn a monu- ment. Dr. Linn was born near Louisville, Ky., Nov. 5, 1795. He studied medicine at Louisville, and removed to Sainte Genevieve, Mo., about 1815. He was elected to the Senate in 1833, and served in that body until his death in 1843.
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A FTER the very full discussion of the Oregon question, in which so many senators and repre- sentatives participated during the session of 1828, Congress paid but very little attention to it for nearly nine years. President Jackson sent Lieutenant Slacum out to the Columbia to gather such information as he could without great cost, about the country, the Indians, the settlers and the British fur traders who were in control of it and them, and upon his return, the Wilkes expedition was dispatched to do something far more defi- nite and important, but Congress gave its attention almost exclusively to other matters. Floyd, Baylies and Everett, as well as several other of the more active champions of Ore- gon, had retired from the House. No one in the Senate seemed to remember it. The president, and his advisers, except in so far as above mentioned, seemed to give it no thought. Under the arrangement for joint occupancy the Hudson's Bay Company was enjoying sole occupancy, undisturbed except by the presence of a few inoffensive missionaries.
But in 1837 there arose a man who was to prove himself an effective champion. Heretofore all measures proposed had for their purpose the determination of what our claims and rights were: the assertion of those claims: the explora- tion of the country, the extension of our laws over it and the occupation of it by military force, with the view of ulti- mate termination of the joint occupation convention. As all these propositions seemed likely to lead more or less directly to war as a possible consequence, and to the slaughter of our trappers and fur traders who should be encouraged to make a contest with the Hudson's Bay Company for equal privileges on the Columbia, as a certain consequence,
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Congress hesitated and the people were not too urgent for action.
But in 1833 Lewis F. Linn of Missouri appeared in the Senate, having been appointed by the governor to succeed Alexander Buckner, who had died in office. Although American born, Linn was of Irish extraction, and pre- sumably inherited the natural aversion of his race for British authority, although he made no unseemly display of it. His generous nature and sanguine temperament permitted him to make no battle merely to gratify an ignoble passion. He preferred rather to be an aggressive American, than to appear to be a professional hater of Great Britain, and he had some reason to be both. He had been born in Ken- tucky, and had early imbibed the bold free spirit of the West. He studied medicine, and when still a young man had removed from the neighborhood of Louisville to Sainte Gene- vieve, Missouri, where he soon acquired a satisfactory practice. Always public spirited he took an active though dis- interested part in public affairs, and was soon elected to the State Senate. Later he was appointed a commissioner to decide on the validity of the old land titles in Missouri, and removed to St. Louis in order more conveniently to attend the meetings of the board, which he induced to confirm the Spanish and French grants.
When he took his seat in the Senate of the United States he was thirty-eight years old. He made no haste to obtrude himself or his opinions upon the deliberations of that body. For the first two or three sessions after his arrival his part was a modest though useful one, neglecting no duty, but seeking no undue prominence. His colleague was one of the great figures in that body, although Webster, Clay and Calhoun were there, and he was quite content for the time
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being to sit in the shadow of his colleague's greatness. But he was quietly preparing and perfecting plans that would have connected his name indelibly with those of the greatest in the expansion and upbuilding of the country, if he could have lived to see their fruits gathered. But unfortunately for his fame, death took him just as his work was advancing to completion, and much of the fame that belongs to him has for the time being gone to another.
Linn early saw and appreciated the greatness and value of the Mississippi Valley. He realized that it was capable of supporting a great and homogeneous people, who would be able, if need be, to bind together and hold together the populations beyond the mountains on either side of it, no matter how diverse their interests might be. He had full confidence also in our system of government, and had no doubt that it could be safely extended to all contiguous terri- tory, provided it could be settled by our own people. He had no part in or sympathy with the faint-hearted theory of Jefferson, which was still held by Benton and many others, that our possessions on the Pacific were to be inhabited by " a kindred people employing free institutions and a govern- ment like our own." He would have them a part of one integral whole, settled by our own people and governed by our own laws, and this idea became the essential part of all his plans and purposes.
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