USA > Washington > Benton County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 19
USA > Washington > Kittitas County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 19
USA > Washington > Yakima County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 19
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"Squire" Ebberts was a plainer and less unique personage than either Meek or Newell, but well sustained his character as one of the trappers and trail- makers of Old Oregon.
Such must suffice for such a view as our limits permit of the period covered by the era of the trappers.
In closing this chapter we desire to give a glance at the authors from whom we derive the history of the early American trappers.
The literature pertaining to the Hudson's Bay Company is much more ex- tensive and we shall make no effort here to enumerate its representatives. The chief original sources for our knowledge of the ocean journey of the Astor party, the founding of Astoria, and the prosecution of the fur trade in Walla Walla, Okanogan, Spokane, Yakima, Boise, and different parts of Snake River, are Gabriel Franchère, Alexander Ross, Ross Cox and Peter Corney.
The same writers narrate parts of the events of Hunt's land journey, though not themselves in the party, while for the early parts of the journey the chief authority is found in the journals of Bradbury and Nuttall, English naturalists who accompanied the party a portion of its course. Our knowledge of the doings of Smith, Ashley, Sublette, and others, is found in their various letters and reports, and these are most admirably exhibited in the authoritative work of General Chittenden, several times cited in this chapter. Over parts of the miscellaneous careers of the participants in that history, Washington Irving has cast the glow of his genius and in "Astoria," "Bonneville's Adven- tures," and the "Fur Traders of the West," he has provided a picture gallery of that era, incomparable in beauty of style and vividness of portraiture. Ban- croft has covered the period in his vast compendium. With much accumulation of valuable data he has distinguished himself by his sour and ill-founded criti- cisms of Irving. Any admirer of Irving who desires to see a due castigation of Bancroft may be gratified by reading Chapter XIV in Volume I of Chitten- den. Nothing is left to be desired in a suitable flaying of the ill-natured and voluminous compiler of the "Native Races," and other parts of Pacific Coast history. It may be added that while Bancroft is certainly worthy of an honor- able place as a collector of historical data, so much of his use of it is ill-judged and ill-executed that one can at times heartily encore the sentiment of Ambrose
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Bierce, that most caustic and brilliant of California writers, in regard to his fellow-townsman Bancroft. It happened once in San Francisco that a man named Bancroft died suddenly. The report at first was that it was H. H. Ban- croft, the author. It proved to be a stranger, and Bierce expressed his sym- pathy with the country on the fact that
"Death came so near, but missed the mark, And did his awful work so ill That Hubert H. is living still."
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CHAPTER VI
THE MISSIONARY PERIOD
THE "BOOK OF LIFE"-FIRST CHRISTIAN CRUSADERS-MRS. WHITMAN'S DIARY- THE WHITMAN CONTROVERSY-LOVEJOY'S LETTER-WHITMAN'S LETTER TO SECRETARY PORTER-MRS. PRINGLE ON WHITMAN-THE WHITMAN MASSACRE -ST. JOSEPH MISSION BURNED.
In the preceding chapter we learned that the various attempts of American trappers and fur companies to control the fur trade of Oregon failed.
The Hudson's Bay Company was too firmly entrenched in its vast domain to be loosened by any business of its own kind. Nor would there have been any special advantage to the United States or the world in dislodging the great British company and substituting an American enterprise of the same sort. The aim and policy of all fur companies were the same: i. e., to keep the coun- try a wilderness, to trade with the natives and derive a fortune from the lavish bounty of the wild animal life.
The Hudson's Bay Company was as good as any enterprise of its type could be.
The unfortunate fact was not so much that it was the British who were skimming the cream of the wilderness, as that the regime of any fur company was necessarily antagonistic to that incoming tide of settlers who would bring with them the home, the ship, the road, the church, the school,-in short, civ- ilization. Hence the necessary policy of the great fur company was to discour- age immigration, or, in fact, any form of enterprise which would utilize the latent agricultural, pastoral, and manufacturing resources of Oregon. This policy existed, in spite of the fact (of which we shall see many illustrations later) that individual managers and officers of the company were often of broad and benevolent character and predisposed to extend a cordial welcome to the advance guard of American immigration.
A few stray Americans had drifted to Oregon and California with the hope of inaugurating enterprises that would lead to American occupation. In general, however, the land beyond the Rockies was as dark a continent as Africa.
THE "BOOK OF LIFE"
But in 1832 a strange and interesting event occurred which unlocked the gates of the Western Wilderness and led in a train of conditions which made American settlement and ownership a logical result. In 1832 a party of four Indians from the Far-West appeared at St. Louis on a strange quest ; seeking the "White Man's Book of Life." Efforts have been made by certain recent writers to belittle or discredit this event, for no very apparent reason unless it
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be that general disposition of some of the so-called critical school of investi- gators to spoil anything that appeals to the gentler or nobler emotions, and especially to oppose the idea that men are susceptible of any motives of re- ligion or human sympathy or any other spirit than the mercenary and mate- rialistic. But there can be no question about the journey of these four Indians, nor can there be any reasonable doubt that their aim was to secure religious instruction for their people. The details of the journey and the nature of the expectations of the tribe and of the envoys might of course be variably under- stood and stated, but the general statements given by reliable contemporary authorities are not open to doubt.
To what tribe the Indians belonged seems uncertain. It has been stated by some that they were Flatheads. That tribe, though quite widely dispersed had their principal habitat in what is now northern Idaho and northwestern Montana. Miss Kate McBeth, for many years a missionary to the Nez Perce Indians, and located at Kamiah and then at Lapwai, near Lewiston, thought that three of the Indians were Nez Perces and one a Flathead.
Nor is it known how those Indians got the notion of a "Book of Life."
Bonneville states in his journal that Pierre Pambrun, the agent at Fort Walla Walla, taught the Indians the rudiments of Catholic worship. Some have conjectured that the American trapper, Jedadiah Smith, a devout Chris- tion, may have imparted religious instruction. Miss McBeth formed the im- pression that their chief hope was that they might find Lewis and Clark, whose journey in 1805-6 had produced a profound effect on the Nez Perces.
It is interesting to note that Clark was at the very time of this visit of the Indians, the superintendent of Indian affairs at St. Louis. He has left no state- ment as to the location of these Indians, though he referred to the fact of their visit to several persons who have recorded his statements.
The first published account of this visit appeared in the New York "Chris- tian Advocate" of March 1, 1833. This was in the form of a letter from G. P. Disoway, who had charge of the removal of certain Indians to a reservation west of St. Louis. In his letter Disoway enclosed one from William Walker, an interpreter for the Wyandotte Indians. Walker had met the four Indians in General Clark's office in St. Louis. He was impressed with their appear- ance, and learned that General Clark had given them some account of the origin and history of man, of the coming of the Savior, and of His work for the salvation of men. According to Walker two of the Indians died in St. Louis. As to whether the others reached their home he did not know. The first account was confirmed in a most valuable way by George Catlin, the noted painter and student of Indian life. He was making a journey up the Missouri River on one of the first steamers to ascend that stream to Fort Benton. In the Smithsonian Report for 1885 can be found Catlin's account, as follows: "These two men, when I painted them, were in beautiful Sioux dresses which had been presented to them in a talk with the Sioux, who treated them very kindly, while passing through the Sioux country. These two men were part of a delegation that came across the mountains to St. Louis a few years since, to inquire for the truth of the representations which they said some white men
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had made among them, that our religion was better than theirs, and that they would all be lost if they did not embrace it.
"Two old and venerable men of this party died in St. Louis, and I trav- eled two thousand miles, companion with these two fellows, toward their own country, and became much pleased with their manners and dispositions. When I first heard the objects of their extraordinary mission across the mountains, I could scarcely believe it; but on conversing with General Clark on a future occasion, I was fully convinced of the fact."
Rather curiously Catlin speaks of these Indians as being Flatheads or Nez Perces, as though the two tribes were identical.
The letter by Disoway in the "Christian Advocate" was discussed in "The Illinois Patriot" of October, 1833, together with the statement that the subject had excited so much interest that a committee of the Illinois Synod had been appointed to report on the duty of the churches. The committee went to St. Louis and conferred with General Clark, receiving from him a confirmation of the report.
When this pathetic story, together with the stirring appeal of the commit- tee, had reached the Christian people of the country, it produced a profound impression. The decades of the Twenties and Thirties were a time of deep religious sentiment. It was the beginning of the missionary movements of the century. To the sensitive souls of the time this unheralded call from the Far- West seemed a veritable Macedonian cry. From it sprang the Christian mis- sions of Oregon. And the missionaries were the advance guard of immigration. And the immigration decided that the American home builder and farmer should own Oregon, rather than that the British fur trader and the Indians should keep it as a game preserve and fur depot. It would indeed be too much to say that American ownership of Oregon would not have resulted, if it had not been for the missionaries. But it may safely be said that the acquisition would have been delayed and that there would have been many more chances of failure, if the missionaries had not fitted into the evolution of the drama just as, and just when, they did. The missionary period was an essential one, coming between that of the fur traders and that of the immigrants.
While the scope of our undertaking requires us to confine our narration mainly to the area covered in this history, yet in order to preserve the histori- cal continuity and to exhibit the forces which led to the subsequent develop- ments, we must enlarge the picture enough to include a glimpse of the mission locations outside of Yakima.
FIRST CHRISTIAN CRUSADERS
The first of the Christian crusaders to respond to the Macedonian call from Oregon was a party under Jason Lee of the Methodist Church. This party came to Oregon in 1834 in company with Nathaniel Wyeth, the Ameri- can trader. Reaching Vancouver, the missionaries presented themselves to Doctor McLoughlin, the chief factor. He met them with every expression of generous good-will and advised them to locate in the Willamette Valley rather than among the tribes from whom had proceeded the Macedonian call. As a
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result, Lee with his assistants located at Chemawa, near the present Salem, Oregon.
From that mission sprang the first permanent American settlement, the native name of which was Chemeketa, Place of Council, or Peace Ground. The missionaries gave it the Bible equivalent, Salem, a proceeding of more piety than good judgment. The Willamette University of the present is the offspring of the school started by the missionaries for the Indian children and within a few years modified so as to meet the needs of the white children. For that earliest mission, like the later, discovered that the great work, after all, must be for the white race, not for the Indians.
The next year after the coming of the Lee party, another movement was initiated which was destined to have a most intimate connection with Oregon history. In 1835 Dr. Marcus Whitman, in company with Dr. Samuel Parker, set forth on a reconnaissance to determine the advisability of locating a mission among the Indians from whom had gone the Macedonian call. Reaching Green River, the outlook seemed so encouraging that it was decided to part company, Dr. Parker continuing westward with Indians who had met them at Green River, while Dr. Whitman, the younger and more active of the two, returned to his home in Rushville, New York, and there organized a missionary band.
As a result of Dr. Whitman's return, a party consisting of himself and his bride, Narcissa Prentiss, and Rev. H. H. Spalding and his newly wedded bride, Eliza Hart, set forth in 1836 for Oregon. With them was William H. Gray as secular agent and general manager. With the party also were two Indian boys who had accompanied Dr. Whitman the year before on his return from Green River.
This bridal journey of 4,000 miles, most of it on horseback, has been often described. Aside from the momentous results in the history of Oregon and the United States, the story is one of heroism and devotion which had few parallels, and the record closes with a martyr's crown for Marcus and Narcissa Whitman.
MRS. WHITMAN'S DIARY
Among the precious relics in Whitman College are Mrs. Whitman's diary and that of Mrs. Spalding, of the journey. That of Mrs. Whitman was made by herself from notes on the way and was sent from Vancouver to her parents upon the completion of the journey. Its heading is as follows :- "Narcissa Whitman's Diary of a Missionary Tour West of the Rocky Mountains Per- formed in 1836. Being the first white female ever beyond the mountains on the continent. The journey was performed on horseback a distance of 4,000 miles. She, in company with her husband, Marcus Whitman, M. D., and H. H. Spald- ing and wife, left the state of New York for this tour in February of 1836- traveled through a part of Pennsylvania-Ohio, and finally arrived at St. Louis, in Missouri. Here they joined the Fur Company that crosses the mountains every year, and were also joined by Messrs, Suturly [Saturlee in Mrs. Spalding's diary] and Gray missionaries to the West. Matters thus arranged they all left St. Louis in March for the "far West." The further particulars of the journey may be learned from the following extracts from her journal taken on the way."
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Following this heading is a letter addressed to her parents, dated, Van- couver, October 20, 1836, in which she says that the journal covers the journey from the "Rendezvous," and that while at Vancouver they had been so situated that she could copy her notes taken on the way. The party had crossed the Great Divide on July 4th, and on that day celebrated the natal day of the coun- try, and as they looked down the long vista westward seem to have felt that they would claim possession of that western land in the name of the American Union and the church of Jesus Christ. They had reached the "Rendezvous" on Green River July 6th. After several days there, refitting and resting and conferring with Indians, they resumed the next great stage of the march with a detachment of the Hudson's Bay Company, under Mr. McLeod, bound for Walla Walla.
It was July 18, 1836, when they set forth under these new auspices. A ·company of Flathead and Nez Perce Indians also travelled with them. It ap- pears from the diary of Mrs. Spalding that the Nez Perces were very anxious that the party accompany them, but as they apparently wished to hunt on the way it was manifestly necessary that the party go with the traders. One chief- tain, Mrs. Spalding says, concluded to go with them, though it would deprive him of the privilege of securing a supply of meat for the Winter.
Mrs. Whitman tells of the tedious time which Doctor Whitman had with his wagon. This was one of the notable features of his journey. Some have asserted that he was the first to drive a wagon from the Missouri to the Colum- bia. This is only partly true. Ashley, Smith, Sublette, Bonneville, and other trappers, had driven wagons to the Black Hills, and to other points, but none of them had gone so far west as Whitman with a wagon. But when he reached "Snake Fort," near Boise, he left his wagon. In 1840 Robert Newell went clear through the Blue Mountains and reached Walla Walla. However, Doctor Whitman deserves all praise for his energy and persistence in pushing his "Chick-chick-Shaile-kikash," as the Indians called his wagon, even to Fort Boise and he may be very justly called one of the first wheel-track-makers.
It is interesting and pathetic to see how Mrs. Whitman craved some of her mother's bread. During part of their journey they had an exclusive diet of buffalo meat. Occasionally they would have berries and fish. They had sev- eral cows with them and from them had some milk, which was a great help.
They had to shoe their cattle (presumably with hide, though it is not so stated) on account of sore feet. With the cows were two suckling calves, which, Mrs. Whitman says, seemed to be in excellent spirits, and made the jour- ney with no suffering, except sore feet.
Soon after passing a point on Snake River, where the Indians were tak- ing salmon, Mrs. Whitman bade good-bye to her little trunk which they had been able to carry thus far, but were now compelled to leave. It is truly pathetic to read the words in her journal: "Dear H. (this was her sister Har- riet, to whom she is especially addressing the words). The little trunk you gave me had come thus with me so far and now I must leave it here alone. Poor little trunk! I am sorry to leave thee. Thou must abide there alone and no more by thy presence remind me of my dear Harriet.
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"Twenty miles below the falls on Snake River, this shall be thy place of rest. Farewell, little trunk. I thank thee for thy faithful services, and that I have been cheered by thy presence so long. Thus we scatter as we go along."
A little later it appears that Mr. Mckay rescued the trunk. Mrs. Whit- man shows that she had quite a sense of humor by recording when she found what Mr. Mckay had done, that her "soliloquizing about it last night was for naught."
The journal contains quite a glowing account of the beauties of Grande Ronde Valley, then of the toilsome zigzag trail out of it into the Blue Moun- tains westward. On August 29th, the party stood upon the open summit, from which they saw the valley of the Columbia, "It was beautiful. Just as we gained the highest elevation and began to descend, the sun was dipping his disk behind the Western horizon.
"Beyond the valley we could see two distant mountains, Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens." (The latter of those mountains was Adams, not St. Helens.)
Our missionary band were now in sight of their goal. It was not, how- ever, till September 1st, that they actually rode into Walla Walla. In fact part of the company, including the Spaldings, did not reach the Fort till Sep- tember 3d. It was a thrilling moment to that devoted little band. It seemed to them almost equal to what it would to one of us moderns to enter Washing- ton or Paris or London. Think of the journey of those two women, those brides, those hundreds of miles from St. Louis to Walla Walla, five months and mainly on horseback.
As they drew near the fort, both horses and riders became so eager to reach the end of the journey that they broke into a gallop. They saw the first appearance of civilization in a garden about two miles from the fort. That garden must have been nearly upon the present location of Wallula.
As they rode up to the fort, Mr. McLeod (who had gone ahead to prepare for their coming), Mr. Pambrun, the commandant, and others, came forth to meet so new and remarkable an addition to the population of Oregon.
Mrs. Whitman has the enthusiasm of a child in describing the chickens, turkeys, pigeons, hogs, goats and cattle, which latter were the fattest that she ever saw, and then she goes into ecstacies over the breakfast of salmon, potatoes, tea, bread and butter, and then the room in the fort with its comfort, after all their hardships. The officers of the Fur Company treated them with the utmost courtesy and consideration.
Such was that momentous entrance of the missionaries and of the first white women into Fort Walla Walla, September 1, 1836.
The next chapter in the story of the Whitman party was their journey to Vancouver, the emporium of the Hudson's Bay Company. Leaving Walla Walla by boat the 7th of September, they reached the "New York of the Pacific," as Mrs. Whitman says they had been told to consider it, on the 14th. Mrs. Whitman expresses in her journal the admiration of the party for the beauty of the river, more beautiful she says, than the Ohio, though the rugged cliffs and shores of drifting sand below Walla Walla looked dismal and for- bidding. They found much to delight them at Vancouver, the courtesy and
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hospitality. of Doctor .McLoughlin and his assistants; the bounteous table, with feasts of salmon, roast duck, venison, grouse and quail, rich cream and delic- ious butter ; a picture of toothsomeness which it makes one hungry to read ; the ships from England moored to the river brink, and the well-kept farm with grain and vegetables, fruits of every sort, grapes and berries, a thousand head of cattle, and many sheep, hogs, and horses; a perfect oasis of civilized de- lights to the little company of missionaries, worn and homesick during their months on horseback across the barren plains and through wild mountains.
Doctor Whitman and Mr. Spalding, leaving their wives in the excellent keeping of the Hudson's Bay people at Vancouver, returned, in company with Mr. Gray, to the Walla Walla country to decide upon locations. They had ex- pected, so Mrs. Whitman says, to locate in the Grande Ronde, the beauty and fertility of which had been portrayed in glowing colors by returning adven- turers and fur traders. But discovering as they passed through that it was so buried in the mountains and so difficult of access from the rivers and the reg- ular routes of travel, they fixed upon Waiilatpu (Wielitpoo, Mrs. Whitman spells it) for one post and Lapwai for another. The Whitmans became estab- lished at Waiilatpu, "the place of rye grass" six miles west of the present Walla Walla; and the Spaldings at Lapwai two miles up the Lapwai Creek, and about twelve from the mouth of the Clearwater, the present site of Lewiston.
A few months after the location at Waiilatpu on March 4, 1837, a beam of sunshine lighted in the home of the Whitmans in the form of a daughter, Alice Clarissa, the first white child born west of the Rockies and north of California. It is interesting to note that the next white girl born in what is now Washing- ton was for many years a resident of Yakima, Mrs. Abigail Walker Carr, born at Tshimakain near Spokane, and dying in Yakima November 11, 1918. The Indians were extraordinarily pleased with the "little white papoose" or "Cayuse temi" (Cayuse girl) Alice, and if she had lived, the tragedy of a little later might not have occurred. In a letter preserved at Whitman College, from Mrs. Whitman to her sister and husband, Rev. Lyman P. Judson, of Angelica, New York, dated March 15, 1838, she says: "Our little daughter comes to her mother every now and then to be cheered with a smile and a kiss and to be taken up to rest for a few moments and then away she goes running about the room or out of doors diverting herself with objects that attract her attention. A refreshing comfort she is to her parents in their solitary situation."
With her parents so needing that child, fairly idolizing her and their very lives wrought up with hers, it is too sad to relate that on June 23, 1840, the bright active little creature wandered out of the house while the mother was engaged in some household task and took her way to the fatal river that then ran close to the mission house, though it now has a new channel half a mile away. Missing little Alice Clarissa, Mrs. Whitman hastened to the river, with a sinking dread, and there she saw the little cup where the child had dropped it. This mutely told the heart-breaking tale. An Indian, diving into the stream, found the body, but the gentle and lovable life, the life of the whole mission, was gone. That faithful and devoted father and mother had one less tie to life. The patient resignation with which the anguished parents endured this
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