History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 18

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 1134

USA > Washington > Benton County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 18
USA > Washington > Kittitas County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 18
USA > Washington > Yakima County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 18

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We have said that Fort Vancouver was the great central fort. Others commanding the pivotal points upon the river and its tributaries were Fort Hall and Fort Boise on the Snake, Spokane House on the Spokane near the present metropolis of the Inland Empire, Fort Colville on the Columbia River at Kettle Falls, Columbia, Fort Okanogan at the junction of the stream of that name with the Great River, Fort Owen in the Coeur d' Alene region, Fort Walla Walla, first known as Fort Nez Perce, on the Columbia at the mouth of

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the Walla Walla, and Fort George on the former site of Astoria. These forts were all laid out in the same general fashion as Fort Vancouver, though no one was so large, elaborate, or comfortable. Besides the forts there were a number of small trading posts. The chief furs procured in the interior were beaver, and those on the coast were sea-otter. Many others, as the mink, sharp-toothed otter, fox, lynx and raccoon, were found in abundance.

The profits of the business were immense. Alexander Ross relates that he secured one morning before breakfast one hundred and ten beaver skins for a single yard of white cloth. Ross spent one hundred and eighty-eight days alone in the Okanogan country. During that time he collected one thousand five hundred and fifty beavers, besides other peltries, worth in the Canton market two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds, which cost him in his objects of trade only thirty-five pounds. That was while Ross was connected with the Astor Company.

In completing this necessarily hurried chapter on the fascinating era of the fur traders, we cannot omit a brief reference to the movements of the regular brigades of boats up and down the river, for these comprised a great part of both the business and the romance of the age. The course of these brigades was from the southern shores of Hudson Bay, through Manitoba, to the crest of the Rockies at the head of the Columbia. Water was utilized to the greatest possible extent, while at the portages and across the mountains horse-power and man- power were employed. Once afloat upon the Columbia, the brigades braved most of the rapids, paying occasional toll of men and goods to the envious dei- ties of the waters, yet with marvelous skill and general good fortune making their way down the thousand or more miles from Boat Encampment to Fort Vancouver. The descent was easy compared with the ascent. The first journey of the east-bound brigade of the North-Westers from Astoria to Montreal was in 1814, and it required the time from April 4th to May 11th to reach the mouth of Canoe River, the point at which they entered upon the mountain climb to the head of the Athabasca.

The boatmen were French-Canadians, a hardy, mercurial, light-hearted race, half French, with the natural grace and politeness of their race, and having the pleasant patois which has made them the theme of much popular present- day literature. They were half Indian, either in tastes and manners or in blood, with the atmosphere of forests and streams clinging to every word and gesture. They were perhaps the best boatmen in the world. Upon those matchless lakes into which the Columbia and its tributaries expand at intervals the fur-laden boats would glide at ease, while the wild songs of the coureurs des bois would echo from shore to shore in lazy sibilations, apparently betokening no thought of serious or earnest business. But once the rapids were reached, the gay and rollicking knight of the paddle became all attention. With keen eyes fixed on every swirl or rock, he guided the light craft with a ready skill which would be inconceivable to one less daring and experienced. The brigades would run almost all the rapids from Death Rapids to the sea, making portages at Kettle Falls, Tumwater or Celilo Falls, and the Cascades, though at some stages of the water they could run down even them except Kettle Falls. They always had to carry around those points in ascending the river. In spite of all the skill

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of the voyageurs the Columbia and the Snake, the Pend Oreille and the Koo- tenai, have exacted a heavy toll of life from those who have laid their compell- ing hands upon the white manes of chute and cataract. Many, even of the voyageurs, are the human skeletons that have whitened the volcanic beds of the great stream.

THE BOATS OF THE TRADERS

The boats used by the fur brigades were either log canoes obtained of the Indians or bateaux. The former were hollowed from the magnificent cedars which grew on the banks of the river, sometimes fifty or sixty feet long, with prow carved in fantastic, even beautiful fashion. They would hold from six to twenty persons with from half a ton to two or three tons of load, yet were so light that two men could carry one of the medium size while four could handle one of any size around a portage. But the voyageurs never took quite so much to the canoes as did the Indians, whose skill in handling them in high waves is described by Ross and Franchère as something astonishing. And even the In- dians of the present show much the same ability, though the splendid cedar canoes are no longer made, and only here and there can one of the picturesque survivors be seen.

The bateaux were boats of peculiar shape, being built very high and broad so that in an unloaded condition they seemed to rest on the water almost like a paper shell. Both ends were high and pointed as prows. They were propelled with oars and steered with paddles. One of the usual size was about thirty feet long and five feet wide. Being light-draft, double-enders, capable of hold- ing large loads and yet easily conveyed around portages, more steady and roomy than canoes, these bateaux were the typical Columbia River medium of com- merce during the era of the fur traders. They, too, have mainly vanished from the scenes of their former glory. Canoes, bateaux, cries and yells of In- dians, songs of voyageurs, have gone into the engulfing limbo of the bygone, along with the keen-eyed Scotch factor and the sharp-featured Yankee skipper. Yet the swans and geese and ducks still darken the more placid expanses of the river and the salmon still start the widening circles in almost undiminished numbers, while the glaciated heights of Hood and Adams and St. Helens (we would rather say Wiyeast, Pahtou and Loowit) still stand guard over the un- changing water.

LATER AMERICAN FUR TRADERS

While the British fur interest in Oregon completely triumphed over the American, large and influential companies were organized and carried on in the Rocky Mountains with energy and success by the latter people, the chief outfitting point being St. Louis. The chief of these companies having any sphere of operations within the territory of the Snake and Columbia rivers were the Missouri Fur Company and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company already spoken of. The Missouri, however, was their main field of operations. The elaborate history by Gen. H. M. Chittenden, referred to on a preceding page, gives a complete view of these companies and their chief managers. The limits of our space forbid more than a brief summary of the achievements of four men who may be looked upon as typical of the fur traders, hunters, and trail-

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makers whom we are trying to portray. These four men were William H. Ashley, Jedadiah Smith, Nathaniel Wyeth, and B. L. E. Bonneville.

The first named was a native of Virginia, and went from his native state to St. Louis in 1802. He "grew up with the country," and became very prom- inent in the affairs of that then crude and wild region. He became lieutenant- governor in 1820, general in command of the state troops in 1822, and a member of Congress in 1831, serving three terms. In 1822 he formed a partnership in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, with Andrew Henry, who had, as we have noted, been previously a member of the Missouri Fur Company, and had built Fort Henry on the upper Snake. Ashley carried out the business of ex- ploration on the Missouri and Green rivers, and in the Salt Lake Basin with such energy and general success (though with some serious misfortunes and with Indian troubles), as to acquire an ample fortune for himself and to serve a most important part in discovery in the Rocky Mountain region and the Salt Lake Basin. In 1826, Ashley drove the first wheeled vehicle of any kind, a wagon with a six pounder cannon, up the North Platte, through South Pass to Utah Lake. In this connection it is interesting to recall that Milton Sub- lette, a member of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, went from St. Louis, leaving that point April 10, 1830, with eighty-one men mounted on mules, and with ten wagons drawn by five mules each, to the rendezvous on Wind River. That may be regarded as the initiation of the Oregon Trail, later the scene of the "great trek" of the American people to take possession of the Pacific Coast.

Jedadiah Smith was perhaps the most interesting and unique of all the- noted fur traders and trail-makers. The main operations of the Rocky Moun- tain Company of which Smith was a member were on the upper Missouri, Green River, and Salt Lake. Smith, however, made several most remarkable journeys to California and Oregon. He was a very unique character, a devout Christian aufdi yet one of the boldest of traders and discoverers. He might be- said to have carried the Bible in one hand and his rifle in the other. He usually began the day with devotions and expected his men to be present. Yet he- pushed his business and discoveries to the limit. His first great trip was in 1826. He proceeded from Great Salt Lake to the Colorado, thence across Ari- zona and southern California, to San Diego, a route unknown to whites before. After going up and down California hundreds of miles he crossed the moun- tains and deserts eastward the next Summer, following a more northern route abounding in perils and hardship. In 1827 the journey to California was re- peated almost immediately upon his return from the first. In the Spring and Summer of 1828, he struck out on an entirely new course. This was up the Sacramento and northwesterly across the lofty ranges of southern Oregon to- the Umpqua on the Oregon Coast. There with his nineteen men he did suc- cessful trapping, but a difficulty with the Indians resulted in the massacre of the whole party except himself and three others. Those three being separated' from the leader, he made his way in utter destitution and with great suffering to the Hudson's Bay Fort at Vancouver. Dr. John McLoughlin, the chief factor, with his usual generosity supplied the survivors of this disaster with their vital necessities and sent a well-armed party to secure the valuable furs. of which the Umpquas had robbed them. Most of the furs were brought to

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Vancouver and McLoughlin paid Smith $2,000.00 for them. Remaining in Vancouver till March, 1829, Smith made his way up the Columbia to the Flathead country and thence along the Rocky Mountains to the Teton Range on the upper Snake River. This vast series of routes by Jedadiah Smith through Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado, was the most extensive that had yet been taken and did more than any other to give a comprehensive view of what became the west third of the United States. In 1831, lamentable to relate, this truly heroic and enterprising master-trapper was killed by Comanche Indians on the Cimar- ron Desert.

Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth and Benjamin Louis Eulalie Bonneville were practically contemporary, and in their adventurous careers crossed each other's trails. Wyeth was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and from the traditions of the family should have been a graduate of Harvard College. He was, how- ever, so eager to enter some active career that he did not complete a college course. He became quite fascinated with the utopian idea about Oregon given to the world by Hall J. Kelley, and in 1832 he started upon a grand enterprise toward the setting sun. He had conceived a general plan of a vast emporium of American business in furs and salmon, similar to that of Astor. With an ardent imagination and yet great practical good sense, Wyeth had the material for an empire builder. That he failed to fulfill his grand design was due partly to sheer bad luck, but mainly to the invincible monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company. The work of Wyeth was, however, an essential link in the great chain which finally led to American ownership of Oregon. The first trip of Wyeth was in 1832. He crossed the mountains in company with Sublette, a noted trapper of the Rocky Mountain Company, and after some disasters with the Indians, he traversed the Blue Mountains and reached Fort Walla Walla (the present Wallula) in October. Pierre Pambrun was the Hudson's Bay Company's agent at Walla Walla and he received the destitute and nearly fam- ished Americans with lavish hospitality. After recuperating a few days at Walla Walla, Wyeth descended the Columbia, with unabated enthusiasm, ex- pecting to find the ship which had left Boston in the Spring, well laden with stores, already waiting his arrival. But alas for human hopes! When he reached Fort Vancouver he learned that his vessel had been wrecked. His men had already suffered much and lost faith in the lucky star of their leader and asked to be relieved from further service. He was compelled perforce to grant their request, for he had no money. Spending the Winter in and around Vancouver, treated by McLoughlin with utmost kindness, and acquiring much knowledge and experience, but no money, the indomitable Yankee determined to return and raise another fund and challenge fate and his rivals again. Feb- ruary, 1833, found him again at Walla Walla. Thence he pursued a devious course to Spokane and Colville, across the Divide, down the mountains to the Tetons on the upper Snake, where he fell in with Bonneville. First planning to go with Bonneville to California, Wyeth suddenly decided to return to Boston and make ready for an immediate new expedition to Oregon. He made an extraordinary voyage down the Bighorn and finally down the Missouri to St. Louis in a "bull-boat." Safely reaching Boston in November, he brought

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all his contagious enthusiasm to bear on certain moneyed men with the result that he organized a new company known as the Columbia River Fishing and Trading Company. A new vessel, the "May Dacre," was outfitted for the voy- age around Cape Horn to Oregon.

Again with new men and equipment and with such experience from his former journey as made success seem sure, Wyeth started on his new expedi- tion from St. Louis on April 3, 1834. One interesting feature of this journey was that two conspicuous scientists, Thomas Nuttall and J. K. Townsend, and the advance guard of the missionaries, Jason Lee and party of the Methodist Church, accompanied the party. But even though better equipped than before and though seemingly having the sanction of both Science and the Church to bless his aims, the same old ill-fortune seemed to travel with him. He had brought, under a contract made on his return the year before, a valuable stock of goods for the Sublettes of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and now when on reaching their rendezvous he made ready to deliver the goods brought with so much toil and expense, the Sublettes refused to receive them. Their company was, in fact, at the point of dissolution. Though Wyeth had the forfeit money that they had put up with the contract, that was small recompense for his labor of transportation. But nothing daunted, the stout-hearted pro- moter declared to the Sublettes, "I will roll a stone into your garden which you will never be able to get out." In fulfillment of his threat he prepared to invade their territory by building a fort in which to store the rejected goods and from which to send his trappers to all parts of the upper Snake. The fort thus established was the famous Fort Hall, the most notable fort on the whole route, in the near vicinity of the present Pocatello. In spite of delays, the party seems to have traveled with unparalleled celerity, for leaving Fort Hall they reached the Grande Ronde on August 31st, a date at which previous parties had hardly reached the head of Snake River. In the Grande Ronde the party again encountered Bonneville. Three days more saw them at Walla Walla, and on September 6th, Wyeth was once more at Vancouver. Here came misfortune number two. He had expected to find the "May Dacre" already in the river with a good haul of salmon which they planned to salt and take east on the return trip. But the vessel reached Vancouver the next day after Wyeth's own arrival, too late for any effective fishing that year. She had been struck by lightning and had lost three months' time in repairs. With indefatigable energy, Wyeth inaugurated his plans. He sent a detail of men to Fort Hall with sup- plies. He conducted an extensive trapping expedition to central Oregon up the Des Chutes River. He built Fort William on Sauvie's Island. If any one ever deserved success, Wyeth did. But Doctor McLoughlin, though the kindest of men and though personally wishing every success to Wyeth, could not forget that he was responsible to the Hudson's Bay Company. He underbid Wyeth for the Indian trade and headed him off at every turn in opening new regions. Nothing but a purse as long as that of the Hudson's Bay Company could have stood the pressure. Worst of all, a pestilence broke out among the Indians from which they died like flies and from which some of Wyeth's own men perished. The Indians attributed the scourge to the evil "Tomanowas" of the "Bostons" and absolutely boycotted them. The brave fight was lost. Bad luck

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and the Hudson's Bay Company were too much for this all-deserving Yankee. Wyeth threw up his hands, sold out to the Hudson's Bay Company for what they would give, yielding to them possession of his cherished Fort Hall, which became one of their most advantageous posts, and made his way baffled but by no means disheartened, to his New England home. With his downfall it be- came clear that no ordinary force could dispossess the great British company from its vantage ground in Oregon.

But meanwhile Bonneville was upholding the Stars and Stripes as valor- ously, but not more successfully, than Wyeth. Bonneville was a Frenchman who came to New York in his youth, and who had most influential friends, and had also the extreme good fortune of attracting the favorable notice of Wash- ington Irving and becoming the hero of one of the most fascinating books of that leading American writer, "Bonneville's Adventures." Through this intro- duction to the reading public, greedy in those days for tales of the romance and adventure of the Far-West, Bonneville acquired a fame and vogue and became invested with a certain glamour beyond that of any of the fur traders of Old Oregon. By the favor and influence of Thomas Paine, Bonneville had earlier become a West Point appointee and graduated in 1819. When La Fay- ette came to America in 1825 Bonneville was detailed to accompany the "Hero of Two Continents" on his tour of the States. Greatly pleased with his young compatriot, La Fayette took him back to France on his return, and for several years the young French-American was a member of the household of that great man. Returning to the land of his adoption and resuming his army connec- tions, Bonneville became absorbed with the idea that he might gratify both his love of adventure and of money by entering the fur trade in the Far-West. Securing from the War Department an appointment as a special explorer of new lands and investigator of the Indian tribes, he was also allowed to make a personal venture in the fur trade.

H. H. Bancroft in his "Pacific Coast History" viciously attacks Bonneville as well as Irving who immortalized him. General Chittenden in his "History of the American Fur-Trade in the Far-West" defends both in a very spirited and successful manner.

The series of expeditions undertaken by Bonneville extended over the years 1833-5. Those years were replete with adventure, hardship, romance of a sort, but very little success in the quest for furs. In the course of those years the adventurous army officer traversed and retraversed the country cov- ered by the watersheds of the Snake River and its tributaries, Green River and the Colorado, the Great Salt Lake Basin, and down the Columbia. One of the most valuable journeys of his party was through the Humboldt Basin, across the Sierras and into California, a new route somewhat similar to the earlier one of Jedadiah Smith. That, however, was commanded not by Bonneville him- self, but by I. R. Walker, Bonneville's most valued assistant. The most inter- esting part of Bonneville's expedition to the inhabitants of eastern Washington was his Winter trip from the Grande Ronde to the "Wayleway" (Wallowa), down the Snake to the present vicinity of Asotin, thence across the prairies of what is now Garfield and Columbia counties, to Walla Walla. He describes that region as one of rare beauty and apparent fertility and predicts that it will:

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some time be the scene of high cultivation and settlement. Reaching Fort Walla Walla, he was received by Pierre Pambrun with the same courtesy which that commandant had bestowed on Wyeth, but when he tried to secure supplies for his depleted equipment, Pambrun assured him that he would have to draw the line at anything which would foster the American fur trade. Like Wyeth, Bonneville discovered to his sorrow and cost that he was "up against" an im- movable wall of monopoly of the hugest and most inflexible aggregation of capital in the western hemisphere. He could not compete at Walla Walla. De- scending the Columbia River he found the same iron barrier of monopoly. He, too, threw up his hands. The American fur traders were at the end of their string. They retired and left the great monopoly in undisputed possession.

Thus ends, in American defeat, this first combat for possession of Oregon. Another combat and another champion for the Americans was due. Exit the trapper. Enter the missionary. Another chapter and we shall see what the new actor could do and did do on the grand stage of Oregon history.

SOME UNIQUE FREE TRAPPERS

We should not fail to mention here three men of unique character, who were for many years "free trappers" in the Rocky Mountains and became per- manent residents of Oregon, well known to old-timers in Oregon. A few even of the present inhabitants of Yakima no doubt have seen them, while a larger number are familiar with their names and deeds through the memories of parents or grandparents. These three men were Joe Meek, "Doctor" Robert Newell, and "Squire" George W. Ebberts. The first was a character sure enough. The author of this work when a boy saw Joe Meek many times and has regarded him as naturally one of the brightest men that he ever knew, though without edu- cation or an environment of a character suited to develop his larger qualities. He was one who "saved the day" in a certain measure at the time of the famous meeting at Champoeg, Oregon, in 1843, when the settlers met to discuss the question of a provisional government, pending the determination of whether they should decide to establish an American or a British connection. The ques- tion hung in the balance and so nearly were the two sides divided that the leader of neither hardly dared call for a vote, when Meek rose to his lofty stature (even in old age he had about the finest physique that the author ever saw) and in a stentorian voice shouted out : "Who's in favor of a divide? All that want to join the Americans follow me!" The spell was broken. The Americans fell in behind the former trapper, and by fifty-two to fifty, the assemblage declared its preference for the Stars and Stripes. That was one of the big days in Oregon history.

Later Meek made a Winter journey across the mountains to convey news of the Whitman Massacre to the Government at Washington. He called him- self "Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from the Republic of Oregon to the Government of the United States." He returned with the appointment as first United States marshal in Oregon. While well fitted for the militant and muscular duties of his office he was hardly fitted for its clerical and book-keeping end. His accounts were hopelessly confused at one time

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and having been questioned in court as to what had become of certain funds, he replied with the utmost sang froid and innocence, "Why, thar was barly enough for the officers!" a phrase which was a by-word in Oregon for many years.

Newell was almost as much of a character as Meek, but not so witty. A special thing to remember of him is the fact that he drove the first wagon across the Blue Mountains and into the Walla Walla Valley. That was in 1840. It should be remembered, however, that Marcus Whitman, the missionary and physician, had driven a wagon from St. Louis to Fort Boise in 1836. Whitman covered more new ground than any other of the first roadmakers of Oregon and without question overcame more obstacles and is more nearly entitled to the credit of being the first to demonstrate the feasibility of driving wagons to the Pacific, than any other.

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History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 18

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920 Publication date: 1919 Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke Number of Pages: 1134

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 1134