USA > Washington > History of Washington; the rise and progress of an American state, Vol. II > Part 2
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Of all these the most vigorous and the most successful was the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, organized and directed by Ashley. He was a man of great activity and courage, as well as of sound sense and good business judgment, and after amassing a moderate fortune for those days, in the fur business, entered political life and subsequently became suc- cessively lieutenant governor of Illinois, and a member of Congress from Missouri. He built a fort on the Yellowstone in 1822, and in 1823, with a party of twenty-eight men, he started for the Rocky Mountains with the intention of cross- ing them, but he was attacked in the country of the Aricarees, where fourteen of his men were killed and ten wounded. The next year, in company with a man named Green, for whom Green River was subsequently named, he ascended the Platte and Sweetwater rivers with a pack train, found the south pass, through which the Stuart party had returned from Astoria to St. Louis, and finally reached Green River, the largest fork of the Colorado. This was the first west- ward trip, made by any organized party over what subse- quently came to be known as the Oregon trail.
He established a trading station temporarily on Green River, which he supplied with goods brought by three hundred pack mules. Here he adopted the policy of assist- ing the weaker Indians against the incursions of their stronger and more warlike neighbors, especially toward the north. Almost as soon as his party had crossed the mountains and begun their trade, the Indians in the neighborhood were attacked by the Blackfeet, and William Sublette assembled the friendly trappers to the number of three hundred, as it
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
is reported, and went to the assistance of the Shoshones, who had hitherto been indifferently armed, and had been driven to live in this mountain region, which was but poorly supplied with game, and where their subsistence was very precarious, as it had been found to be by Lewis and Clark on their arrival there. Aided by the Shoshones, Sublette's party were entirely successful. They drove the Blackfeet far to the north and returned to the rendezvous with one hun- dred and seventy scalps, having only eight men wounded during the expedition.
This policy made the Shoshones and all the other tribes in their neighborhood the firm friends of the Americans, and so they continued. The traders supplied them with arms and ammunition, and they were soon able to maintain them- selves in their wars with their old enemies the Blackfeet, the Sioux, and the Crows. It was highly important for the success of the traders that these Indians should be friendly, especially in the neighborhood of the upper waters of the great rivers like the Snake and the Colorado, as it was in these regions that furs were most abundant. Here the trains stopped, the trappers dispersed in small par- ties, or went singly to prosecute their trapping enterprises, and returned at the end of the season to meet the traders, sell their season's catch, and lay in a new stock of supplies.
In 1825 Ashley again crossed the mountains, this time with one hundred and twenty-five men. He went still further into the wilderness, crossed the divide between the Green and Bear rivers, penetrated the Great Salt Lake country and built a fort on Utah Lake, leaving one hundred men in its neighborhood. Two years later a six-pound cannon was hauled by a team of two mules to this fort, and this was the
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
first wheeled vehicle to pass over the mountains into Oregon, and the Mexican territories.
Ashley retired from the fur trade at the close of that year. It is said that during the three years that he was engaged in it he brought to St. Louis furs to the value of $180,000. In the same year that Ashley hauled his cannon across the plains, the Missouri Fur Company sent out a party of forty- five men and one hundred horses, under the command of Joshua Pilcher, who crossed the mountains and went on to Green River. The next spring he went northward along the base of the mountains to Flathead Lake, where he passed a second winter, and in the following year, after discharging all of his party but one man, he went on by way of Fort Col- vile, into the main Columbia basin, and crossing the moun- tains eastward in company with a party of Hudson's Bay men, returned by the Athabasca and Red rivers to the Missouri.
After the retirement of Ashley, the business of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company was reorganized and carried on for several years by William Sublette, Jedediah S. Smith and David E. Jackson, and later by men like James Bridger, Milton Sublette, Frapp, Fitzpatrick and Jervais. In 1829 it sent the first wagon train up the Platte and along the Sweet- water to the South Pass, over the trail which the emigrants subsequently followed. This train consisted of ten wagons, each drawn by five mules, and two light mule carts, and was accompanied by eighty-one mounted men. It left St. Louis on the 10th of April, and by the 10th of July had reached the head of Wind River. On the way many difficulties were encountered, all of which were successfully surmounted. It was often necessary to make wide detours in order to get around deep gullies that the wagons could not cross. As
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
the summer advanced and a region was reached where water was scarce and the rains infrequent, the woodwork of the wagons shrunk so much that it was with difficulty that the wheels were kept from falling to pieces. They were also much shaken by dropping into the paths which the buffalo had worn, sometimes to the depth of a foot or more, in the soil of the prairie, which during the season of their emigration was loose and friable, but now from lack of moisture was almost as hard as rock. These paths or trails were some- times so thickly covered with the tall grass, that their pres- ence was not guessed until the wheels dropped into them. Now and then an axle would be broken, and mishaps of that kind were repaired with the greatest difficulty, because there was so little wood in the neighborhood. But the train was got through in safety, and the fact was reported by a letter to the secretary of war in October 1830. This letter declared the entire practicability of a good wagon road across the mountains, by way of the South Pass, to the great forks of the Columbia, and a copy of it was sent with a special message to Congress by President Jackson in January 1831.
The favorable reports made by Ashley, Pilcher, Sublette, Smith and Jackson, of their enterprises in the mountains, which were widely published in government reports and newspapers, and much commented upon in Congress, attract- ed the attention of Captain Benjamin L. E. Bonneville of the army, among others, and in 1832, he obtained leave to undertake a fur-trading enterprise into the country west of the mountains on his own account, promising to com- bine public utility with his project, "by collecting statisti- cal information, for the war department, concerning the wild country and the tribes he might visit." Although his
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
enterprise was to be conducted without cost to the govern- ment, the condition of the leave granted him for two years was that he should collect such information in regard to the country and its native inhabitants as would be useful in case of war. He left Fort Osage, on the Missouri, in May 1832 with twenty wagons, laden with ammunition, traps and trad- ing goods, and hauled by oxen or mules. He had a party of one hundred and ten men, mostly hunters and trappers, who knew something of the wilderness, all or nearly all of whom were mounted. They made the journey in safety and without special incident, going over practically the same route that Sublette and Smith had followed, but pushed on across the mountains to the general rendezvous of the fur companies on the Green River. They arrived here late in July, and were the first to take wagons across the Rocky Mountains, and into the Oregon country.
Here Bonneville soon learned what competition in the fur trade really meant. The older traders were on the ground when he arrived, and while they received him with many evidences of good fellowship and hospitality, they took every advantage of his inexperience. They enticed his men away, undersold him in trade with both trappers and Indians, and knowing the habits and customs of both, as well as their pecu- liar tastes and fancies, while he was entirely ignorant of them, they managed to lose only a small share of their trade on account of his presence, and to render his undertaking almost profitless.
Having taken his wagons over the mountains, and so extended the road from Wind River to Green River, by demonstrating that wheeled vehicles could be taken that far, Bonneville did but little more to aid the trailmakers directly. He remained in the wilderness for a whole year after his
FORT WALLA WALLA.
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PROGRESS
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
leave of absence had expired, where he proved himself to be a poor trader, though a tolerably enterprising and success- ful explorer. He made two trips to the Columbia, one of which ended at Fort Walla Walla, where he was hospitably received and entertained by Pierre Pambrun, the trader in charge, who treated him generously as his guest, but when he applied to purchase some supplies of which he stood in need, his genial host "assumed a withering aspect and demeanor, and observed that, however he might feel disposed to serve him personally, he felt bound by his duty to the Hud- son's Bay Company to do nothing which should facilitate or encourage the visit of fur traders among the Indians in that part of the country."*
On his next visit to the Columbia Bonneville pushed on along the Oregon shore as far as John Day's River, where he was again compelled to turn back by lack of provisions and the lateness of the season. The Indians would furnish him nothing, being completely under the control of the Hudson's Bay Company, and fearful lest they might be deprived of their trade with that concern if they held any communica- tion with the Americans. A second application to Fort Walla Walla for supplies was courteously but firmly refused, and finding at last that he could not subsist in the country without bringing supplies overland by pack animals, and that it would be impossible to compete with a wealthy and powerful concern, already established, controlling the Indians and receiving its supplies by sea, upon such terms, he reluctantly gave up the contest.
During the years that he was absent on this fur-trading and exploring expedition, part of the time without leave, Captain Bonneville explored a large part of what is now the
*The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, Chapter XXXIV.
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
State of Idaho, and made a trip through Utah and Nevada to California. He also saw something of southeastern Wash- ington and more of northeastern Oregon. His journals, subsequently edited by Washington Irving, and published under the title of "The Adventures of Captain Bonneville" in 1837, with the recommendation of that popular author's name, were widely read and did much to awaken public interest in the far-away country which had now been ours by right of discovery for more than forty years, and by right of exploration and prior settlement for more than twenty, but which was now shown by Bonneville's experience to be in the firm possession of another people.
During all the year that Bonneville was roaming through Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California, a man with a far more definite purpose in view, was making determined and well directed efforts to establish an American trading station on the Columbia. He did nothing to extend the wagon road toward the west, but he did more than anyone else had previously done to locate and open the trail from the point on Green River where Bonneville's wagons had stopped, to the Willamette, and he brought with him more American settlers who remained in the country, than had previously come to it.
Nathaniel J. Wyeth was well fitted by nature for such an undertaking as he had planned. Although he knew nothing of the fur business, nor of life in the wilderness, nor had ever had experience as a manager of any considerable under- taking of any kind, he succeeded as well in raising capital, organizing his two expeditions, conducting them across the continent and in meeting and opposing the difficulties which he encountered, as he could have hoped to do if he had been prepared by any sort of training or experience.
NATHANIEL J. WYETH.
This intrepid trader was a native of Boston, and one of the first Americans to make an effort to wrest a share of the fur trade of the coast from the Hudson's Bay Company. His first trip across the continent, made in 1832, failed. A second trip was made in 1834, in which he was accompanied by the first missionaries who came to Oregon. On the way out he built Fort Hall, on the upper waters of the Snake River, which he was later forced to sell to the Hudson's Bay Com- pany.
IST AND PROGRESS
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15
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
He was a native of Boston, was acquainted with Hall J. Kelly, the enthusiast who has already been mentioned, and the story of whose interest in and work for Oregon will be told more fully in another chapter. He had read his writings, and at one time had contemplated joining with him in organizing a colony to be settled on the Columbia, but finally concluded not to do so, thinking it impracticable for women and children to make such a long, arduous and dangerous journey. Having parted company with Kelly, and aban- doned the colonization idea, he determined to organize an expedition of his own for the sole purpose of establishing a trading post at or near the mouth of the Columbia River. His plans were much like those of Mr. Astor. A ship was to be sent around Cape Horn with supplies and trading goods, and as soon as a fort and principal trading station could be constructed, other ships were to follow as occasion required. A party, of which he would be the leader, was to go overland, select a site, build a fort and be ready to receive the ship when she arrived. If the business prospered other stations would be established, to which supplies and goods could be dis- tributed by pack animals. As goods could be sent in this way from Boston to the Columbia, as cheaply as they were supplied to the Hudson's Bay Company from London, it was hoped that the new undertaking, although started in this modest and unpretentious way, with a very limited capi- tal, might soon be able to compete successfully with the great English monoply.
Wyeth had but little capital of his own, but he easily induced a few of his friends and acquaintances to provide a sum sufficient to outfit his expedition, and dispatch the ship Sultana with goods and supplies for the Columbia. Then early in March 1832, with twenty men, he left Boston
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
by ship for Baltimore, from which point he went by various steamboats and such other means of conveyance as could be found, to Liberty, Missouri. At Baltimore the party was increased by four new members, but by the time Liberty was reached it had been diminished by three who had deserted, and the 27th of May three of the others left him. Falling in with Sublette and Fitzpatrick, the fur traders, who were making their annual trip from St. Louis to their rendezvous on Green River, and who were glad enough to have their small party augmented by eighteen or nineteen enthusiastic young adventurers, they made the journey to and across the mountains in safety, and without encounter- ing any noteworthy incident or adventure. At the rendez- vous the party was again diminished by desertions, to eleven. These started on July 17th for the Columbia, and ten of them arrived at Cape Disappointment on the 8th of November, the eleventh man having died on the way.
Soon after reaching his destination Wyeth learned, very much to his disappointment, that his ship had been wrecked at or near the Society Islands, and its entire cargo lost. He was therefore left without means to pursue his enterprise as he had intended, and all but two or three of his men requested their discharge, which was necessarily granted. Wyeth him- self spent the winter at Fort Vancouver, where he was most hospitably entertained, and where the two men who remained loyal to him-John Ball, first and for a short time, and Solomon H. Smith for a much longer time-were employed as schoolteachers. Ball soon returned to the East, because he was not willing to "follow the customs of the country," where white men took Indian women for their wives, but Smith subsequently married a native woman and remained in the country as a permanent settler.
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
Although Dr. McLoughlin entertained Wyeth generously as a guest, he was made to understand in various ways that all people who ventured to invade the country for purposes of trade, would be met by the sharpest competition, and that he himself, if he should undertake to renew his enterprise, would be treated in a similar way. But this in no wise dis- couraged him, and he set out as early in the spring of 1833 as he could do so with safety, to return to Boston by the way he had come, raise more capital and procure another stock of goods. Although his first undertaking had been disas- trous, and all the money invested in it had been lost, he had gained an experience and knowledge of the country that he believed would be worth all it had cost, if he could induce his associates to continue their support, and he was not dis- posed to waste it.
He made his way back to Boston, accompanied only by one man, during a large part of the journey. Arrived there he secured the capital he required for another adventure, with far less difficulty than he had anticipated, and early in 1834 he dispatched a second ship, the May Dacre, to the Columbia with a cargo of trading goods, and in February left for St. Louis, where he organized a party of seventy men for the return trip.
On this second expedition he was accompanied by Prof. Thomas Nutall, lately of Harvard University, then the most eminent botanist in the United States, after Asa Gray, and by Prof. John K. Townsend of Philadelphia, an eminent orni- thologist, who had been an associate of Audubon, and his assistant in the preparation and publication of his works. He was also accompanied by Rev. Jason Lee, his nephew Daniel Lee, and two others who were the first American missionaries that ventured into the Columbia River
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
country, which was now just beginning to be known as Oregon.
At St. Louis Wyeth arranged to transport a considerable stock of goods to the rendezvous for Sublette and his part- ners, but on arriving there a disagreement arose and he found himself compelled to dispose of the goods direct to the trap- pers and Indians. In order to do this he built a fort at a point some two hundred miles or more beyond the rendez- vous, and about forty miles northeast of the present city of Pocatello in Idaho, which he named Fort Hall in honor of one of his partners. This fort subsequently became famous as one of the few points where supplies could be obtained, wagons repaired and teams rested on the Oregon trail.
The building of this fort consumed more than a month, but after it was so far completed that it could be easily defended, in case of attack, a sufficient number of men were left to defend it and carry on the trade with the Indians, some trapping parties were located in the tributary territory, and the remainder of the party resumed their march for the Columbia, which was reached on the 15th of September.
Near Oak Point, where the Winship brothers had attempt- ed to establish their station in 1810, Wyeth found his ship awaiting his arrival. She had only recently reached the Columbia, having been eight and one-half months on her voyage, during which she had been struck by lightning and so far injured as to be compelled to put in at Valparaiso for repairs.
It had been part of his plan for this second expedition, to engage in the business of taking and salting salmon for the eastern market, as well as in fur trading, but as it was too late to do anything in that line that year, the vessel was sent on a voyage to the Sandwich Islands with a cargo of timber.
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
She returned in the spring with a supply of cattle, sheep, goats and hogs, sufficient to start a stock farm, and found that during her absence ample preparation had been made to receive them. A site for the main station of the Company had been chosen on Wapatoo, now known as Sauvie's Island, a short distance below the confluence of the Columbia and the Willamette. This was the island opposite which the Lewis and Clark party had camped on their way down the river in November 1805, and where their slumbers were much disturbed by "immense numbers of geese, swan, ducks, and other wild fowl, who during the whole night serenaded us with a confusion of voices, which completely prevented our
sleeping." It was a most fertile spot, abounding in game, and had at one time been a favorite resort of the Indians. But the epidemic, which had prevailed so generally among the tribes all along the coast during the three or four years imme- diately preceding, had raged with peculiar virulence here, and the place was nearly deserted. In a letter written from this island in April 1835 Wyeth says of it : "On it there is considerable deer, and those who could spare time to hunt might live well, but a mortality has carried off to a man its inhabitants, and there is nothing to attest they ever .existed except their decaying houses, their graves and their unburied bones, of which there are heaps. So you see, as the righteous people of New England say, Providence has made room for me, and without doing them more injury than I should if I had made room for myself."
Here during the winter, while the ship was absent, the little colony built a fort, which they named Fort William, with houses enough to afford them shelter, shops for working both iron and wood, and barns for their expected animals. They also cleared a considerable tract of ground and in the spring
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
planted wheat, corn, potatoes, peas, beans and turnips, and some apple and other fruit trees. Every possible prepara- tion was made to make their stay permanent, and Wyeth had high hopes that he would be able to maintain successful competition with the Hudson's Bay Company. He expected that the salmon business would be sufficiently profitable to pay all his expenses, and by bringing out goods for trade with the Indians by sea, believed he would be able to send them on pack animals as far east as the rendezvous on Green River, at less cost than the American trappers could deliver them, and that he would even be able to undersell the Hud- son's Bay Company, at or in the neighborhood of some of its principal trading stations.
But none of these very hopeful expectations were realized. In 1835 Wyeth visited Fort Hall, taking with him a con- siderable stock of goods, and in the spring of 1836 returned to Fort William. But the salmon business proved a failure. Even with such help as he could obtain from the Indians, he was not able to secure more than half a cargo for his ship. The epidemic which had prevailed among them now attacked the white men with equal virulence, and some of them, including Wyeth himself, suffered from it for a long time. On the 20th of September 1835, he wrote: "I am now little better from a severe attack of bilious fever. I did not expect to recover, and am still a wreck, and the sick list has been usually one-third of the whole number, and the rest much frightened. Thirteen deaths have occurred, besides some killed in the interior by the Indians. . Our sal- mon fishing has not succeeded; half a cargo only was ob- tained. Our people are sick and die off like rotten sheep, of bilious disorders." In addition to those who thus died from disease fourteen members of the party were lost
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