USA > Washington > History of Washington; the rise and progress of an American state, Vol. II > Part 35
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Most of the pioneers have pitiful stories to tell of their sufferings, and those of their cattle, on this part of their journey. The women and even the little children walked in order to make the loads of the suffering animals as light as possible. Many oxen died from sheer despair. "They often seemed discouraged," says Mr. D. R. Bigelow, “ think- ing it was a journey without an end. I saw cattle die from no apparent cause but discouragement. Many of them became so weak that it was impossible to protect them at
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night from the wolves which howled all night long about the camps. In the morning some would be found partially eaten by these ravenous beasts, and yet still alive, and it was necessary to shoot them to end their misery."
At Ham's Fork of the Bear River, James Longmire's party camped one night near an abundant supply of fresh green grass, which they were quite surprised to find, as the supply had been short for several days previous. But in a little time they were horrified to find all their cattle becom- ing sick and manifesting the greatest distress .* They soon realized that the grass that looked so fresh and tempt- ing was poisonous, and that was why those who had pre- ceded them had avoided it. "Here we were," says Mr. Longmire, "eighty or a hundred miles from Salt Lake, the nearest settlement, in such a dilemma. We looked about for relief. Bacon and grease were the only antidotes for poison which our stores contained. We cut bacon in slices and forced a few of them down the throats of the sick oxen, but after once tasting it the poor creatures ate it eagerly, thereby saving their lives, as those that did not eat it (cows we could spare better than our oxen) died next day."
Mrs. Hester E. Davis says her party traveled all one day without water, in crossing one of these desert stretches.i Toward evening the men, hearing there was a creek not far distant, started with the stock for water, leaving none in camp. "They traveled until midnight without finding any, and returned to camp late next morning, tired, hungry and thirsty. The women had thrown out all the water and coffee, expecting fresh water. We were then left without a drop all day and had to travel on, with horses and oxen
* Aug. 21, 1892.
t July 17, 1892.
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already tired and thirsty. Most unfortunately the heat that day was excessive. We all suffered intensely from thirst, besides with heat and dust, and with our sore eyes, which became worse. The hot sun beamed down with sweltering power, and the dust rose in blinding clouds around us. The children cried and begged for water, and became so famished and sick that their tongues hung from their mouths and they came near dying. But we had to journey on, through it all, to reach water, which we did not until night. That was the most terrible part of our journey. Our sore eyes became so painful that they had to be bandaged, and there were scarcely any of us who could see to do anything. The children, who could be cared for, recovered, but sister Mary, who was obliged to cook and care for her children, became blind and remained so seven years."
Mr. J. B. Knapp says, "As we moved slowly along in the dust and heat our poor animals would drop in the yoke, unable to move farther. What could we do ? Nothing could be done but remove the yoke, tie the living mate of the dead ox behind the wagon, leave the yoke and chain by the road- side, bid good-by to the poor, faithful beast, turn aside and drive on. In a day or two another would drop in the same manner, and the old one at the tail of the wagon would be led up to take his place. The last half of the journey we were never out of sight of the carcases of animals that had died in this way .* Only the sick, and those who were too old and feeble to walk could be allowed to ride. Those who walked were frequently so weary, or so feeble that they could not keep up with the slow-footed oxen, and sometimes were hours behind their wagons."
* Oct. 9, 1893.
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At Fort Hall the trains divided, the larger portion taking the southern route to California, and the smaller following down the Snake River to Oregon. Here parties who had met for the first time at the crossings of the Missouri, and who had formed firm and lasting friendships in their trip across the plains and through the mountains, took final and sorrowful leave of each other. Many of these partings were as painful, and as long regretted, as if the acquaintance had been a lifelong one, instead of only a few months. Of those who went to California, many suffered even greater trials than those who went to Oregon, especially in crossing the Humbolt desert, and the sufferings of the Donner party in the Sierras forms one of the most terrible and pathetic stories ever recounted.
Along the Platte, in the mountains, and on the desert it was often necessary to relieve the teams in every way possible by lightening their loads. Such articles of furniture as could be most readily spared, the farming implements, and finally a part of the stock of provisions would be unloaded and left by the roadside. Even in Parkman's time this strewing of the way with goods and various articles of value had begun. "It is worth noticing," he says, "that on the Platte one may sometimes see the shattered wrecks of ancient claw-footed tables, well waxed and rubbed, or massive bureaus of carved oak. These, some of them no doubt the relics of ancestral prosperity in the colonial time, must have encountered strange vicissitudes. Brought, perhaps, originally from England; then, with the declining fortunes of their owners, borne across the Alleghenies to the wilderness of Ohio or Kentucky; then to Illinois or Missouri; and now as fondly stowed away in the family wagon for the interminable jour- ney to Oregon. But the stern privations of the way are little
FORT HALL.
This fort was built by Nathaniel J. Wyeth in 1834. on the south bank of the Snake River near the con- fluence of the Portneuf. Its walls were of adobe. Wyeth sold it to the Hudson's Bay Company, which long retained it. It was the second stopping place of the emigrant trains, which here divided, the larger number, after 1848, going to California, and the smaller continuing on to Oregon and Washington.
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Along the Platte, in the mountains, and on the desert it was often necessary to relieve the teams in every way possible by lightemiay their loads. Such articles of furniture as could he most readily »pared, the farming implements, and finally a part of the wack of provisions would be unloaded and left by the roadside Lven in Parkman's time this strewing of the way with goods and various articles of value had begun. " It & worth novising " he rays. " thet un the Platmo one may sometimes see the shattered wrecks of ancient claw-footed Eable, well waxed and rubbed, or massive bureaus of carved on These, some of themy no doubt the relics of ancestral papry iu the colomal time, must have encountered wany winsitudes. Brought, perhaps, originally from Engindi then, with the declining fortunes of their owners, borne avnat the Alleghenies to the wilderness of Ohio or Kentucky, ihn to Illinois or Missouri; and now as fondly stowed away to the family wagon for the interminable jour- ney to Oregon. But the stern privations of the way are little
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anticipated. The cherished relic is soon flung out to scorch and crack upon the hot prairie."
At the frequent crossings of the Snake River, which the pilgrims were obliged to make, in most cases, by such devices as they could themselves invent, much property and many lives were lost. For a time they were able to find fords, but as they progressed down stream the water gathered volume and became too deep to be crossed in this way, even by lift- ing the wagon boxes so high that the standards would scarcely hold them. Ezra Meeker says, "The incident I most dis- tinctly remember of all, was when I reversed the usual order and ran my wagon into the river over the wagon bed, and gradually moved out into deep water until the whole was afloat. The bed was so deeply laden that the least ripple in the water would slop over the sides, whilst I rowed the whole over to the opposite side. How it came I did not swamp I can now scarcely realize, but I know only that I got over safely, and that very minute wished myself back on the other side, for I knew not what was ahead of me at the crossings further down." "It was the most treacherous river I ever saw," says Mr. A. R. Hawk. "I have seen the emigrants swimming their horses and cattle across to islands in the stream in order to get better feed, and some of the stock would sink apparently without a struggle, and a great many men were lost the same way. The undercurrent was fatal in many places, and it required a man of nerve to undertake it. We never attempted to cross the river in order to better our condition." "We paid $4.00 for every wagon towed across the river at the upper crossing," says James Long- mire. "For two hundred miles we wended our weary way, on to Fort Boise, a Hudson's Bay trading post, kept by an Englishman and his Indian wife, the former being the only
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white person at the post. Here we had to cross Snake River again, which at this point was a quarter of a mile wide. The agent kept a ferry, and would not take our wagons over for less than $8.00 apiece, which was as much again as we had been paying at other crossings. I tried to get an Indian to swim our cattle over, but failing, Watt proposed to go with them if I would, which seemed a fair proposition, and as they would not go without some one to drive them, we started across. Watt carried a long stick in one hand, holding by the other to the tail of old Lube, a great raw- boned ox who had done faithful service on our long, toil- some journey. I threw my stick away and went in a little below Watt, but found the current very strong, which drifted me down stream. I thought I should be drowned and shouted to Watt, 'I'm gone.' With great presence of mind he reached his stick toward me, which I grasped with a last hope of saving my life, and by this means bore up till I swam to Watt, who caught on the tail of the nearest ox, thus giving me a welcome hold on old Lube's tail, who carried me safely to the shore. Only for Watt's coolness and bravery I should have lost my life at the same spot where one of Mr. Melville's men was drowned on the previous evening."
"The morning we left Salmon Falls," says E. A. Light, "we saw a drove of cattle, several hundred of them, going over the falls. The leaders got turned down the stream and the balance followed, and nothing could have stopped them. Some of the men barely escaped drowning. It was a terrible sight to see them rolling and tumbling over the rocks, yet some of them came out alive though terribly bruised.
Perhaps no family had a stranger experience on this part of the journey than A. R. Hawk's, though many may have
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had a similar one. "There were two miserable white wretches at Salmon Falls for the purpose of swindling the emigrants out of their stock," says Mr. Hawk. "They would induce the pilgrims to sell them their cattle and horses and convert their wagon-beds into boats and float down Snake River, telling them it was a pleasant trip. What a great relief it was to the tired emigrants to quit the dusty road and take to water. What a glorious change it would be, and the idea was hailed with delight.
"We converted our wagon-bed into a boat, and in order to make it watertight we took the hides from dead cattle, which were plenty, and covered the bottom of the bed. They were stretched on tight, which gave more strength to the bed and kept it perfectly dry inside. Father would not dis- pose of his team, for he thought if anything should happen to us we would have something to help us out of our diffi- culty. So Mr. Cline took the team and running gear of the wagon and hit the trail for The Dalles, where he expected to find us waiting for him. But the fond hopes and pleasure that we expected to enjoy on that boating trip were never realized. How many families preceded us I can't say. One I do remember-a violinist and his wife. We found, where their life journey had ended, two new-made graves on the bank of the river, where they had been buried by the Indians. We left Salmon Falls with a full crew. Besides our family of eight, we had Jim Riley and Bob Wallace. We drifted and paddled along where the current seemed the strongest, and were getting along very nicely, as Riley remarked, on a four-mile current. All seemed to be per- fectly satisfied with the boat, in preference to the wagon, until we got into quickwater, where the river seemed to stand pretty near on edge for about half a mile. It was impossible
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to make the shore. The boat and all hands were at the mercy of the angry waters. But we shot through those rapids so quick that it didn't give us time to realize the dan- ger we were in. From that on the boat hugged the shore pretty closely. We now began to discover the disadvan- tage of river travel. The river was a continuation of rapids for miles, and it required the greatest care to keep the boat from swamping. And then again for miles it would be with- out a ripple and but little current. At times we would be near the road, and could see the dust rising along the emi- grant trail. What a blessing it would have been to us if we had stopped when relief was near; but no, we kept on, drifting nearer trouble every minute. The river seemed to narrow down to half its width, and the current became very swift, and terminated in some very dangerous rapids. Mother and the children were put on shore, to get along the best they could, while the men with ropes let the boat down over the rapids, and from that on we only had one day of pleasant boating.
"The banks became so steep in places that it was impos- sible to manage the boat from the shore, so the men had to take to the water, and in many places it was neck deep. The men were compelled to manage the boat that way for days, and often in very difficult places we had to take every- thing out of the boat and let it down empty. Quite often we had to take the boat out and carry it around dangerous places.
"One place we made a portage of about a mile. Go ahead we must, as to return was impossible. It seemed that it would be a great pleasure to all if the river would close in around us and wipe us out of existence. As the men were wrestling with the boat, as usual, one morning, I being
.
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ahead of mother and the boys, I found in a little eddy the body of a drowned man. I called mother's attention to it, and as soon as she saw the body she fainted, and in falling struck her head on a rock. She lay unconscious for some time. We called to father to come to our assistance, as mother was dying as we thought, but before father got to us mother came to and jumped up and ran screaming along the river bank. Father soon overtook her, and in a short time she became quiet, and soon recovered so that we were able to go ahead. To add to our trouble, the boat filled with water and our clothes and the most of our bedding was lost. How- ever, our troubles soon came to an end, as far as boating was concerned. The jumping-off place was reached. A per- pendicular fall of many feet ended our journey by water on Snake River. Our only hope of escape was to the south, and the most important question was, where is our savior, Mr. Cline and the team? Jim Riley and Wallace volun- teered to go in search of them. It was a difficult task, for after reaching the road it would be no easy matter to find the train. It might be ahead or behind. The only chance was to keep traveling and make inquiries. During their absence we put in the long days simply waiting for our friends to return. In about ten days, as near as I can remember, our hearts were made glad by the appearance of Mr. Cline and the team. It was the work of a short time to get that water-soaked bed on the wagon again and rolling over the prairie, and we were happy as a picnic party."
Mr. Meeker says that many others were induced by these sharpers to sell their animals and wagons, and entrust their lives, and those of their families, to the mercy of the river, and all with the same disastrous results. Many lost their lives, and all lost most of their property. A part of one
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family who escaped with their lives alone, were seven days without other food than roots and berries, before they found their way back to the trail.
From the Snake River the trains passed over into the Grand Ronde Valley, and thence over the Blue Mountains to the Columbia. This part of the journey was not made without difficulty, but the adventures encountered were not different from those the travelers had already passed through in safety. From 1843 to 1847, nearly all went by way of Whitman's station at Waiilatpu, where they recruited their diminished stock of provisions, and procured the first fresh vegetables they had eaten in many months. After the massacre they kept on down the Columbia to the Dalles, where, for several years, all the goods, the wagons and the women and children were transferred to such craft of various sorts as could be secured, and frequently to rafts hastily built for the purpose, and floated down the river to Vancou- ver and Portland.
Part of the trains of 1853 and 1854 crossed the Columbia at Wallula, and then followed the Yakima and Nachess rivers to the Nachess Pass, to reach which they crossed the river sixty-two times. Here they met the road which the settlers had partly opened to the Puyallup Valley. It was with one of the parties who were opening this road that Winthrop spent a night, as he has so entertainingly told us in his "Canoe and Saddle." They had cut away trees enough through the thick timber to permit the passage of teams in a single line only. They had bridged a few of the smaller streams temporarily and, where giant trees had fallen across their road, smaller logs were piled alongside them so as to permit the wagons to be hauled over. All this made a rough and rugged road indeed. To get started in it from
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the top of the pass, it was necessary to descend a succession of slopes so steep that the teams and wagons were got down them with much labor and at very serious risk of life and limb. Then another and still more precipitous descent was reached. A woman in one of the parties coming by this route, after looking down this steep mountain side, said, "Well, I guess we have come to the jumping-off place at last." Mr. Light has told how the descent was made. "It did not seem possible," he says, "that our teams could go down the first few hundred feet in the yokes, but unyoking them, we took them around singly on a sort of trail. We then rough-locked all the wheels and fastened a long rope to the hind axletree, the further end of which was wound several times around a tree, and by letting it out little by little, the wagons reached a place where it was level enough to again hitch the oxen to them. When my turn came I announced my determination to pass my team and wagon down without unhitching, whereupon there were many expressions as to my sanity. I also was called many undeserved pet names, especially by an old woman in the train, who seemed to think she had a peculiar right to give vent to her surprise and indignation.
"I had the men who were tending the rope wound round the tree take particular precaution about letting it out, and told them to keep it tight enough to allow the oxen to lean their weight in the yoke. After making everything secure, I started over the precipice, reaching the lower level safely, where I hitched my cattle, that had been taken down before, to the wagon, and moved on down the mountain, out of the way of those who were to follow. The remaining ones on top of the mountain decided to follow my example, and all moved down the side of the hill like clock work, nothing
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happening until when Lane started down the precipice. From some mismanagement his wagon got away from him and went crashing down the mountain, where he left it until the next season. He packed his goods on his horses and we again took up our journey."
From this point to the Puyallup Valley most of the emi- grants, including the women and children, traveled on foot, as the road was too rough to make riding endurable. On the way they forded the Green River fifteen times, and the White seven, before they reached the end of their journey.
It not infrequently happened that children were born in these trains, and strange to say most of them lived, and their mothers lived. At least one such event occurred in the train with which Burnett and Nesmith came in 1843, and which, or a part of which, Dr. Whitman piloted. It happened in the Snake River Valley, the most trying part of the journey. Chroniclers of the event say that the doctor ordered the wagon out of the line about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. It drew only a few yards to one side of the trail, and the other wagons passed on, until the usual time came to go into camp. Next morning at the usual time of starting this wagon took its place in the line, and Dr. Whitman announced that both mother and child were doing well. In Mrs. William White's train "a bright baby boy" was born one night in the Blue Mountains, where the road was so rough that "the men were compelled to hold the wagons to prevent their turning over"; and two were born at one camp, in the train with which Hugh Crockett crossed. "Next morning," he says, "the old doctor decided there would be no danger in starting, so we yoked up and wound on as usual. The babies were both boys 'bound for Oregon,' which they reached in good time, and both grew to manhood."
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From the time they crossed the Missouri River in May, until they reached and crossed the Cascade Mountains in October, or later, the travelers were continually harassed by Indians, who were usually more annoying than dangerous. They gathered about them and began to steal their goods, as soon as they had crossed the Missouri. Parties of them fol- lowed the trains along the trail for days together, invaded their camps morning and evening, begging for food, for clothing, for anything that pleased their fancy or tempted their avarice. It was necessary to watch every article pro- duced from the wagons for use about the camp. Everything movable-knives and forks, spoons, the tin dishes from which they ate their food, kettles and frying pans, guns, axes and articles for use or wear of any sort, had to be looked . after every moment they were not in somebody's hands, or they would be hidden under the filthy blankets or buffalo robes of these vagrants of the prairie and carried away.
They made themselves annoying in another way. The early emigrants built bridges across many deep ravines and some of the smaller streams, which carried them safely over and were left for others who should follow them. At these bridges, parties of Indians would station themselves, and demand toll in money, guns, ammunition, or even cattle if these could not be obtained. If their demand were not complied with they shook their blankets in the faces of the oxen, and with yells and other noisy demonstrations tried to stampede them, and sometimes succeeded. The more timid travelers at first yielded to their demands, but as they continued, and grew more numerous as they progressed, they took courage and, following the example of the braver ones, they assumed a bolder front and, by a vigorous use of their ox whips, or a persuasive display of their revolvers
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and rifles, cleared the way. Urban E. Hicks, who crossed in 1851, says his train came up with a party, not long after they had reached the Platte River, who had been robbed of nearly everything they had with them. There were more women than men among them, and the men were apparently not much braver than the women. Supposing that resistance was useless they had given up without any effort at defense, and the Indians had left them nothing but their wagons. With the help of the Hick's party some of their goods were recovered, but not enough to enable them to continue their journey and the whole party turned back to the homes they had left. The Hicks' party were after- wards told that one young woman of this party had followed their train for several miles on foot, determined if possible to go through with them, but not being able to overtake them she had reluctantly returned to her friends.
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