History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 23

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 23
USA > Washington > Kittitas County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 23
USA > Washington > Yakima County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 23

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GOVERNMENT EXPEDITIONS

Soon after the close of Wyeth's enterprise, there were two notable govern- ment expeditions to the Columbia River. One was commanded by Sir Edward Belcher of the British Navy, and the other by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes of the American Navy. The Wilkes Expedition was one of the most interesting and important ever undertaken by the United States Government. The squadron consisted of two sloops-of-war, the "Peacock" and the "Vincennes," the store ship, "Relief," the brig, "Porpoise," and the schooners, "Sea Gull" and "Flying Fish." This fine squadron took up its principal station on Puget Sound, from which extensive surveys were made, one across the mountains to Fort Okanogan; another to the Cowlitz Valley and the Columbia River as far as Wallula.

One of the most important results of this elaborate Wilkes Expedition was to establish in the minds of officers of the Government the essential unity of all

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parts of the Pacific Coast and the boundless opportunities offered to American immigration. Wilkes and his intelligent officers readily grasped, and conveyed through an elaborate report to the Government, the idea that Puget Sound was an inherent and integral part of Oregon and that the Columbia Basin was essen- tial to the proper development of American commerce upon the Pacific. They may also have forecast the time when California, with her girdles of gold and chaplets of freedom, would spring, Athena-like, from the Zeus brain of Ameri- can enterprise. The control of the river was the key to the control of the entire coast from San Diego to the Straits of Fuca; and American ownership should have extended to Sitka.

A memorable calamity occurred to the squadron upon its entrance to the river, and that was the loss of the "Peacock" on the Columbia River bar. The oft depicted terrors of the river were realized at that time, and yet it was not the river's fault, for the "Peacock" was out of the channel. The spit is known as "Peacock Spit" to this day.

Among the many episodes connecting Wilkes with the early immigration was the building of the schooner "Star of Oregon" and her voyage to Califor- nia for cattle. This was in 1842. It will be remembered that Ewing Young had made a successful trip from California with cattle. But as the popu- lation of the Columbia had increased there was a great desire among the settlers to obtain a larger number of cattle to let loose upon the rich pasture lands of the Willamette Valley. A little group of Ameri- cans conceived the adventurous project of building a schooner of Oregon timber, sailing to California and there trading her for stock and driving the band home across the country. The schooner was built by Felix Hathaway, Joseph Gale, and Ralph Kilbourne. The oak and fir timber of which the vessel was built was cut on Sauvie's Island, at the mouth of the Willamette, and in due time she was launched and taken to Willamette Falls for fitting. A diffi- culty arose. Doctor McLoughlin refused to sell sails, cordage, and other ma- terials. He had the only supply in Oregon. In despair the enterprising ship- builders appealed to Lieutenant Wilkes. He felt a keen interest in their laud- able undertaking and made a visit to McLoughlin to try to change his resolu- tion. By assuring the Doctor that he would be responsible for all the bills, as well as for the good conduct of the party, he induced him to allow the requisi- tion for all materials necessary to complete the gallant craft. Gale was the only sailor in the party. Having satisfied Wilkes that he was qualified to command a ship, and having received from him a present of a flag, an ensign, a com- pass, kedge-anchor, hawser, log line, and two log glasses, the captain flung the flag to the Oregon breeze and turned the prow of the "Star of Oregon" toward the river's mouth. She may be remembered as the first sea-going vessel built of Oregon timber. Crossing the bar in a storm, she sped southward in a spank- ing breeze, all hands seasick except Gale. He held the wheel thirty-six hours continuously and in five days "dashed through the portals of the Golden Gate like an arrow, September 17, 1842."

As it was too late to get the cattle back to Oregon that fall, the party sold their schooner for three hundred and fifty cows, wintered in California, and the next Spring drove to the Columbia twelve hundred and fifty head of cattle,

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six hundred head of mules and horses, and three thousand sheep. This was an achievement which made the way for immigration clearer than ever before, and in a most effective manner united the American settlers with the American Government. Some of the Hudson's Bay Company people could begin to see the handwriting on the wall. Doctor McLoughlin saw most quickly and most clearly, and as elsewhere narrated, began to transfer his interests to the Amer- ican side. This fine old man was big-brained, big-bodied, and big-souled, a nat- ural American, though compelled to work for the British fur monopolists for the time. He admired the independent spirit of the incoming Yankee immi- grants, even when the joke was on him. He afterwards told with much gusto of an American named Woods crossing the Columbia to Vancouver to try to get goods. He found his credit shaky, and somewhat piqued, he exclaimed: "Well, never mind, I have an uncle back east rich enough to buy out the whole of your old Hudson's Bay Company !" "Well, well, Mr. Woods," demanded the auto- crat, "who may this very rich uncle of yours be?" "Uncle Sam," was the un- abashed and characteristic American reply. "Old Whitehead" also appreciated, though he was obliged to manifest a dignified disapproval, when two young men from New York, having reached the fort on the river, were asked about their passports. Laying their hands on their rifles they replied, "These are an American's passports."

These small miscellaneous immigrations were in continuance from about 1830 to 1842. In the latter year a hundred came. In 1843, as elsewhere re- lated, the Provisional Government was instituted. At the very same time, the immigration of 1843 was on its way to the river.

THE GREAT IMMIGRATION

This immigration of 1843 was in many respects the most remarkable of all. It was the first large one, and it was a type of all. It will be remembered that Dr. Marcus Whitman had made his great Winter ride in 1842-43 across the Rockies to St. Louis, with a double aim. First he wished to see the officers of the American Board of Missions and then to enlist the American Government and people in the policy of holding Oregon. This was against the manifest aims of the British. There was already a tremendous interest felt in Oregon among the people of Missouri, Illinois, and the other great Prairie States. Whitman's opportune arrival and his announced purpose to guide an immigra- tion to the Columbia became widely known, and brought to a focus many vaguely-considered plans.

J. W. Nesmith, subsequently one of the most prominent pioneers and a member of each House of Congress from Oregon, has given a humorous ac- count of the manner of starting this immigration of 1843, of which he was a member, which is so characteristic that we quote it here. "Mr. Burnett, ( or as he was more familiarly styled, 'Pete,' was called upon for a speech. Mounting a log, the glib tongued orator delivered a glowing, florid address. He com- menced by showing his audience that the then western tier of states and terri- tories were crowded with a redundant population, who had not sufficient elbow room for the expansion of their enterprise and genius, and it was a duty they

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owed to themselves and posterity to strike out in search of a more expanded field and a more genial climate, where the soil yielded the richest return for the slightest amount of cultivation,-where the trees were loaded with perennial fruit,-and where a good substitute for bread, called La Camash, grew in the ground; where salmon and other fish crowded the stream; and where the principal labor of the settlers would be confined to keeping their gardens free from the inroads of buffalo, elk, deer, and wild turkeys. He appealed to our patriotism by picturing forth the glorious empire we should establish upon the shores of the Pacific,-how with our trusty rifles we should drive out the British usurpers who claimed the soil, and defend the country from the avarice and pre- tensions of the British Lion,-and how posterity would honor us for placing the fairest portion of the land under the Stars and Stripes. * * * Other speeches were made full of glowing description of the fair land of promise, the far-away Oregon, which no one in the assemblage had ever seen, and about which not more than half a dozen had ever read any account. After the elec- tion of Mr. Burnett as captain, and other necessary officers, the meeting, as motley and primitive a one as ever assembled, adjourned, with 'three cheers' for Captain Burnett and Oregon."

Peter Burnett to whom Nesmith here refers, was the same who became the first Governor of California.

By the walnut hearth-fires in many a home of the Prairie States and at the corn-huskings and quilting bees the talk of Oregon and the forests of the Colum- bia, and the rich pasture lands of the Willamette, and the salmon and game, and genial climate and majestic mountains, went the rounds. Interest grew into enthusiasm, enthusiasm waxed hot, and in the early Spring the great immigra- tion of 1843 set forth from Westport, Missouri, for the Columbia waters. Though the immigration of 1843 was the earliest of any size and the first with any number of women and children, it had perhaps the least trouble and mis- fortune and the most romance and gayety and enthusiasm of any. The experi- ence of crossing the plains was one which nothing else could duplicate-the hasty rising in the chill damp of the morning, the preparing the cattle and horses for the long, hard drive, the rounds of the wagons to strengthen bolts and tires and tongues, the loading of the rifles for possible hostile Indian or buffalo, the setting forth of the scouts on horseback, the long train strung across the dusty plain, the occasional bands of wild Indians emerging like a whirl- wind from the broad expanse, and then the approaching cool of night with its hurried rest on the tough prairie sod. Sometimes there were nights of storm and stampede and darkness. Sometimes savage beasts and savage men startled the train, or one of the stupendous herds of buffalo went thundering across the prairie. Then came the first glimpse of snowy heights, then of deep canyons, and then the summit was attained, and far westward stretched the maze of plains and mountains through which the Snake River, the greatest of the tributaries of the Columbia, took its swift way.

During most of the journey Dr. Marcus Whitman was guide, physician, and friend. While severe controversy has arisen as to the extent of his services in organizing the immigration, the testimony is unvarying as to the value of his presence with the train. Last to bed at night and first up in the morning,

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attending the people, cattle, and horses in their sicknesses and accidents, ahead of the train on horseback to find the passes of the hills and the fords of the rivers, the watcher by night and the pilot by day, the missionary doctor was the veritable "Mr. Greatheart" of the immigration.

Great was the astonishment of Captain Grant, commandant of the Hud- son's Bay Company's Fort Hall on Snake River, near the present Pocatello, when the long train filed past the enclosure. Grant had known Whitman before and was aware of his stubborn determination and patriotic purpose. But Grant attempted just the same to dissuade the immigrants of 1843 from going farther with their wagons, declaring the Blue Mountains to be impassable. But on the immigrants went westward. A band of Indians from Waiilatpu, headed by Sticcus, came to meet the train, searching for Whitman, telling him that his medical services were in great demand at Lapwai. The much-needed guide turned over the pilotage of the train to Sticcus, and he himself hastened on to minister to the sick at Lapwai. As he passed through Waiilatpu he learned that the threatening conduct of the Indians had led Mrs. Whitman to go to Vancouver, and that during his absence the Indians had burned his mill and committed other depredations. But it was his lot to labor and suffer. He had become accustomed to it.

The event proved that Sticcus was a thoroughly capable guide. For though not speaking a word of English, he made his directions so well under- stood by pantomime that, as Mr. Nesmith has said, he led them safely over the roughest mountain road that they ever saw. And so in due time the train emerged from the screen of timber on the Blue Mountains. Stretched wide before them lay the plains of Umatilla and Walla Walla, while in the far dis- tance the "River of the West" poured through the arid waste. Yet farther the snow summits of the Cascade ridged the western sky. After a brief pause at Waiilatpu, the train reached the banks of the river. The immediate vicinity of the section of the river first reached is very dry in Autumn. Aside from the river itself, the immediate scene is desolate and forbidding. But probably those immigrants of '43 gazed upon the blue flood, a mile wide and hastening to the western ocean, with feelings almost akin to those which swelled the hearts of the Pilgrims landing from the Mayflower. This was another epic of state- making, and one generation after another of the Americans who have wrought such achievement may well turn back to join hands with those before.

Doubtless the immigrants, as they stood by the river in the pleasant haze of the October afternoon, felt as though their journey was substantially at an end. Being now at Fort Walla Walla on the river of that name, they paused to make ready for the last stage of the journey, little realizing what perils and sufferings it would entail. Doctor Whitman and Archibald Mckinley, the chief factor at the fort, advised them to leave their cattle and wagons to winter on the Walla Walla, while they pursued their way down the stream on flatboats. Part of the company accepted the advice, but a number determined to keep all their belongings together and to take the road along the bank of the river to The Dalles, and there make flatboats.

To those who remained on the Walla Walla now fell the difficult task of constructing flatboats. Huge, uncouth structures they were, made of timber

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gathered on the river bank. But when loaded and pushed out into the swift current, steered with immense sweeps in the stern, these floatboats afforded to the footsore and exhausted immigrants a delightful change. Out of the dust, off the rocks, away from the sagebrush, with more of laugh and song than they had had for many a day, they swept gaily on. For a hundred miles or more the elements were propitious. With the bright sunshine, the clear, cool water, the majestic snow peaks in the distance, the easily gliding boats, this seemed the pleasantest part of the entire journey. But after The Dalles had been reached and the two divisions of the company were again united and on their way down the River to the Cascades, disaster began to haunt them.

From the Cascades to Vancouver, the company suffered more than in all the rest of their journey. The Fall rains were at hand, and it poured with an unremitting energy such as no one can realize who has not seen a rain storm on the lower River. Food had become almost exhausted. Clothing was in rags. Tired, hungry, wet, cold, disheartened, the immigrants who had so jauntily descended the River to this "Strait of Horrors" presented a most woeful appearance. It actually seemed that many must perish. But in the crisis, help came. One of the party managed to procure a canoe and hastened down the River to Fort Vancouver. As soon as Dr. McLoughlin learned that nearly nine hundred men, women and children were beleaguered in the mist and chill, he equipped boats with flour, meat and tea, and, in his choleric excitement, waving his huge cane, bade the boatman hurry to the rescue. It was not business for the good Doctor to thus aid and abet American immigrants, and the directors of the Hudson's Bay Company and the cold-blooded Sir George Simpson, governor-in-chief, disapproved. But it was humanity, and that ever predomi- nated in the mind of "Old Whitehead." The next night he caused vast bonfires to be alight along the bank, and gathered all the eatables and blankets that the place afforded. When boat loads of the battered, but rescued Americans drew near the Doctor was on the bank to meet them, to hand out the women and children, to administer the balm of cheery words and warmth and food. Few were the travelers on the river, none were the immigrants of '43, who would not rise up and call him blessed.

After this happy pause at Vancouver, the immigration passed on to the Willamette Falls, then the center of operations in Oregon, and there they were soon joined by the chosen men who had driven their thireteen hundred head of cattle by the trail over the Cascade Mountains, a task toilsome and even distressing, but one that was accomplished. After an inactive winter in the mild, muggy, misty Oregon climate, the immigrants of '43 spread abroad in the opening Spring to secure land, each his square mile, as the Provisional Government provided, and as the American government was contemplating.

Such was the coming of the immigrants to the River. Subsequent immi- grations bore a general resemblance to that of 1843. Each had its special feature. That of 1845 was conspicuous for its size. It was three thousand strong. It was also illustrious for the laying out of the road across the Cas- cade Mountains, near the southern flank of Mount Hood. This noble and diffi- cult undertaking was carried through by S. K. Barlow and William Rector. It was a terrific task, and not completed the first year. Canons, precipitous rocks,

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morasses, sandhills, tangled forests, fallen trees, criss-crossed and interlaced with briars and vines and shrubbery of tropical luxuriance, such as no one can appreciate who has not seen an Oregon jungle-these were the obstructions to- the Barlow Road. But they were vanquished, and in 1846 and thence onward the inimigrants made this the regular route to the Willamette Valley. So steep. was Laurel Hill on the western slope that wagons had to be let down by ropes from level to level. The marks of the ropes or chains are still seen on the trees. of Laurel Hill. The immigration of 1852 was sadly conspicuous for the devas- tations of cholera. Many a family was broken in sunder and some even were. entirely eliminated by the dreadful plague. The immigrations of 1854 and 1855, were notable for the Indian outbreaks, and especially for the atrocious butchery of the Ward family, near Boise, in the earlier year, the most pitiless Indian. outrage in Oregon history.

From 1850 onward for some years the Donation Land Law of Congress. was a great lure to immigrants, for by it a man and wife could obtain a section of land. A single man could take up half a section. That situation encouraged early marriages. Girls were in great demand. It was no uncommon thing to- see fourteen-year-old brides. Some narrators relate having found married women in the woods of the Columbia who were playing with their dolls! But, though the immigrations varied in special features, they were all alike in their mingling of mirth and melancholy, of toil and rest, of suffering and enjoyment, of heroism and self-sacrifice. They embodied an epoch of American history that can never come again. To have been an immigrant from the Missouri to the Columbia was an experience to which nothing else on earth is compar- able. It confers a title of American nobility by the side of which the coronets. of some European dukes are tawdry and contemptible. Perhaps no one ever better phrased the spirit of Oregon immigration than Jesse Applegate, of the train of '43, one of the foremost of Oregon's builders, long known as the "Sage of Yoncalla." So fitting do we deem his language that we quote here an extract from one of his addresses :

"The Western pioneer had probably crossed the Blue Ridge or the Cum- berland Mountains when a boy and was now in his prime. Rugged, hardy,. and powerful of frame, he was full to overflowing with the love of adventure,. and animated by a brave soul that scorned the very idea of fear. All had heard of the perpetually green hills and plains of western Oregon, and how the warm breath of the vast Pacific tempered the air to the genial degree and drove Winter back to the north. Many of them contrasted in imagination the open stretch of a mile square of rich, green, and grassy land, where the straw -- berry plant bloomed through every Winter month, with their circumscribed clearings in the Missouri bottoms. Of long Winter evenings neighbors visited' each other, and before the big shell-bark hickory fire, the seasoned walnut fire, the dry black-jack fire, or the roaring dead elm fire, they talked these things over; and as a natural consequence, under these favorable circumstances, the spirit of emigration warmed up; and the "Oregon fever" became as a household expression. Thus originated the vast cavalcade, or emigrant train, stretching its serpentine length for miles, enveloped in vast pillars of dust, patiently wend- ing its toilsome way across the American continent.

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"How familiar these scenes and experiences with the old pioneers! The vast plains, the uncountable herds of buffalo; the swift-footed antelope; the bands of mounted, painted warriors; the rugged, snow-capped mountain ranges ; the deep, swift, and dangerous rivers, the lonesome howl of the wild wolf; the midnight yell of the assaulting savage; the awful panic and stampede; the solemn and silent funeral at the dead hour of night, and the lonely and hidden grave of departed friends,-what memories are associated with the Plains across !"

FIRST IMMIGRATION THROUGH YAKIMA

To readers of this volume the most interesting immigration in many respects is that of 1853. This was the first to pass through the Yakima Valley and over the Naches Pass to Puget Sound. We have the inestimable privilege of the residence in Yakima County of a participant in that historic immigration. This is David Longmire, one of the most honored of pioneers, whose clear mind and tenacious memory make his recollections a treasury of valuable information about that immigration as well as other phases of history with which he has been connected, while his genial and kindly disposition has made friends of all who know him. Mr. Longmire prepared an account with a list of names for the Washington Historical Quarterly of January, 1917, which is so valuable that we incorporate it here.

Aiken, A. G .; Aiken, James; Aiken, John; Baker, Bartholomew C .; Baker, Mrs. Fanny ; Baker, James E .; Baker, John Wesley ; Baker, Leander H .; Baker, Elijah ; Baker, Mrs. Olive; Baker, Joseph N .; Baker, William LeRoy; Barr, James ; Bell, James ; Bell, Mrs. Eliza (Wright ) ; Bennett, William ; Biles, James ; Biles, Mrs. Nancy M .; Biles, George W .; Biles, James B .; Biles, Clark ; Biles, Mrs. Kate (Sargent) ; Biles, Mrs. Susan Belle (Drew) ; Biles, Mrs. Euphemia (Brazee) (Knapp) ; Biles, Margaret; Bourne, Alexander; Bowers, John; Burnett, Frederick; Brooks, Mrs. Martha (Young) ; Byles, Rev. Charles ; Byles, Mrs. Sarah W .; Byles, David F .; Byles, Charles N .; Byles, Mrs. Rebecca E. (Goodell) ; Byles, Mrs. Sarah I. (Ward) ; Byles, Luther; Claflin, William; Clinton, Wesley; Davis, Varine; Day, Joseph; Downey, William R .; Downey, Mrs. William R .; Downey, Christopher Columbus; Downey, George W .; Downey, James H .; Downey, William A .; Downey, R. M .; Downey, John M .; Downey, Mrs. Louise (Guess) ; Downey, Mrs. Jane (Clark) ; Downey, Mrs. Susan (Lathm) ; Downey, Mrs. Laura Belle (Bartlett) ; Finch, Henry C .; Fitch, Charles Reuben; Frazier, -; Frazier, Mrs. Elizabeth; Gotzen, G .; Guess, Mason F .; Guess, Wilson; Gant, James; Gant, Mrs. James; Gant, Harris; Gant, Mrs. Harris; Greenman, Clark N .; Hampton J. Wilson; Himes, Tyrus; Himes, Mrs. Emiline; Himes, George H .; Himes, Mrs. Helen Z. (Ruddell) ; Himes, Judson W .; Himes, Mrs. Lestina Z. (Eaton) ; Hill, Mrs. Mary Jane (Byles) ; Horn, Thomas; Horn, Mrs. Thomas; Johns, Benjamin; Judson, Peter ; Judson, Mrs. Peter ; Judson, Stephen; Judson, John Paul; Kilborn, Norman; Kincaid, William M .; Kincaid, Mrs. Susannah (Thompson) ; Kincaid, Ruth Jane (McCarty) ; Kincaid, Joseph C .; Kincaid, Mrs. Laura (Meade) ; Kincaid, James ; Kincaid, William Christopher; Kincaid, John; Lane, Mrs. Daniel E .;

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History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 23

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