USA > Washington > Spokane County > Spokane > History of the city of Spokane and Spokane County, Washington : from its earliest settlement to the present time, Volume I > Part 11
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"The Cootanies inhabit a section of country to the north of the Ponderas
SPOKANE AND THE INLAND EMPIRE
along McGillivray's river, and they are represented as an uncommonly interest- ing people. They speak a language distinct from all the tribes about them, open and sonorous, and free from gutturals, which are common in the language of the surrounding tribes. They are neat in their persons and lodges. candid and hon- est, and kind to each other. I could not ascertain their numbers, but probably they are not over a thousand.
"North of the Cootanies are the Carriers, whose number is estimated to be 4,000, and south of these are the Lake Indians, so named from their place of resi- dence, which is about the Arrow lakes. They are about 500 in number.
"At the south, and about Colville. are the Kettle Falls Indians. Their num- ber is 560. West of these are the Sinpanelish (the San Poils) 1,000 in number, and below these are the Shooshaps, having a population of 575. At the west and northwest, next in order, are the Okanogans, numbering 1,050. Between Okanogan and the long rapids are detachments of Indians who appear poor, and wanting in that manly and active spirit which characterizes the tribes above named.
"South of the long rapids, and to the confluenec of Lewis' river (the Snake) with the Columbia. are the Yookoomans (the Yakimas), a more active people, numbering about 700.
"The whole number of the above named Indians is 32,585. This is probably a low estimate, and in the number there are not included the Fall and La Dalle Indians."
A general study of the Indian missions of the northwest will not be permitted by the scope of this history. We shall, however, enter into some detail with regard to mission labors among the Spokanes, and to some extent into the mis- sions conducted among neighboring tribes. A brief review of the events leading up to the establishment, in 1837-8, of the Eells and Walker mission, on Walker's prairie, twenty-five miles northwest of this city, will be found essential to a clearer understanding of the systematie effort that was made three-fourths of a century ago, to Christianize and civilize the various bands that then inhabited the region around the falls.
It will be recalled that Dr. Marcus Whitman, who accompanied Parker to the Rendezvous on Green river, returned to the east to stimulate interest in their courageous undertaking, and secure volunteers for the contemplated mission sta- tions in the Pacific northwest. In this effort he was successful in a most roman- tie way, winning at once a bride and a mission helper in the person of Miss Nar- vissa Prentiss, who was to share with him the perils and the pleasures of the wilderness, and. eleven years after, fall with the devoted martyr before the death- dealing tomahawk of the treacherous Cayuses, at their Waiilatpu mission, six miles from the existing city of Walla Walla.
Additional helpers were found in Rev. 11. HI. Spalding and wife, another bridal comple, and in W. Il. Gray, secular agent of the American Board. Dr. Whit- man, having learned that Mr. Spalding and bride had volunteered for mission work among the Osage Indians, and obtained the consent of the mission board. set out in an effort to overtake them on their way to the land of the Osages and induce them to change their plans and go with him to the Pacific northwest. He came up with them in the deep snows of western New York. They were travel-
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ing by sleigh, and Mrs. Spalding, who was convalescent from a long illness, was still unable to walk a quarter of a mile. With characteristie abruptness, Whit- man called out :
"We want you for the Oregon mission."
"How long will the journey take?" answered Spalding.
"The summer of two years."
"What convoy shall we have?"
"The American Fur company to the divide."
"What shall we have to live on?"
"Buffalo meat till we raise our own grain."
"How shall we journey?"
"On horseback."
"How cross the rivers?"
"Swim them."
Mr. Spalding then turned from Whitman to his bride:
"My dear," he said. "my mind is made up; it is not your duty to go, but we will leave it to you after we have prayed."
The little party eame presently to a tavern, and pausing there took a private room and each prayed in turn. With beaming face Mrs. Spalding emerged after a few minutes of prayer, and deelared :
"I have made up my mind to go."
The husband lovingly remonstrated with her zeal, pointing out the hardships, the privations and perils of the way, and as he reflected upon these dangers the brave man broke down and eried.
"What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart," was the bride's reply; "for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus."
Such was the spirit that carried these resolute men and women into the Ore- gon wilderness.
And so they came into the depths of the wildest west, and never before was bridal journey like unto this.
Dr. and Mrs. Whitman established their mission in the Walla Walla valley. The Spaldings located theirs at Lapwai, in northern Idaho.
And still the Macedonian cry went up for more workers in the heathen land, and Mr. Gray returned cast in 1837 to win the needed reeruits.
In a time-stained book of records at Holden, Massachusetts, one still may find this simple item:
"March 5, 1838. Rev. Cushing Eells, of East Windsor, Conn., and Myra Fairbank were married by William P. Paine."
Fired by religious zeal, the young couple had volunteered for the African missions of the American Board. but altered their life plans at the solieitation of Mr. Gray. Rev. Elkanah Walker, of North Yarmouth, Maine. and Miss Mary Richardson, to whom he was engaged. also abandoned their Afriean plans to engage in the work in the Oregon country. Rev. A. B. Smith, of Connecticut, and his wife, likewise consented to come, and the matrimonial spirit running high, Mr. Gray found a bride in Miss Mary Dix. of Champlain. New York. The party
.
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was completed by the addition of Cornelius Rogers, who came in, the capacity of assistant missionary.
"On March 6. the day after their marriage," many years later wrote their son. the Rev. Myron Eells, "Mr. and Mrs. Eells began their bridal tour, which was not completed for more than a year, until the last of April, 1839. Then they were ready to receive callers in their own home of log huts or pens."
From New York, where the party had assembled. they traveled by boat and train to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania; from Chambersburg to Pittsburg, by stage; and from Pittsburg to Independence, Missouri, by steamboats on the Ohio, the Mississippi and the Missouri. As they were strict Sabbatarians, the question of Sunday travel gave them deep concern, and taking counsel at Cincinnati with Dr. Lyman Beecher, that eminent divine dryly observed that if he were on a ship on the ocean, he should not jump into the sea when Saturday night came.
At Westport, Missouri, twelve miles west of Independence, they found the annual expedition of the American Fur company. under which they were to have convoy to the Rocky mountains. Its caravan this year consisted of 200 horses and mules and seventeen carts that were drawn each by two mules hitched tan- dem. The missionaries had twenty-two horses and mules, and for a part of the way a wagon, taken to enable the ladies to find relief from horseback riding until they had grown thoroughly accustomed to that mode of travel.
"We generally stop about two hours at noon." wrote Mrs. Eells in her diary. turn out the animals, get our dinners and cat ; then we wash the dishes again, the men catch the animals and pack them. We mount our horses and are riding over rolling prairies, over high bluffs, through deep ravines and rivers, but through no woods.
"At night, when our animals are unpacked, the gentlemen pitch our tents. We spread our buffalo skins first, and then a piece of oilcloth for our floor. Then we neatly arrange our saddles and other loose baggage around the inside of our house. For our chairs we fold our blankets and lay them around, leaving a circle in the cen- ter upon which we spread a tablecloth when we eat. In the morning we get up at half-past three, turn the animals out to cat ; then we get our breakfast, eat and have worship. After this we wash and pack our dishes, our husbands catch the animals, saddle the horses and pack the mules. When we are fairly on our way we have much the appearance of a large funeral procession. I suppose the company reaches half a mile."
Buffalo meat was the staple food, but buffalo were not found that spring as early as had been expected, and when the supply came their flour was all but exhausted, barely sufficient remaining to make gravy. The change to green buffalo meat proved most trying, and the missionaries suffered intensely from illness. overwork and ex- posure. Mrs. Kells wrote in her diary. May 9: "All is hubbub and confusion. Camp wants to move early ; horses bad to catch ; dishes not packed in season. Oh, how much patience one needs to sustain him in this life."
And again, on May 12: "It rains so hard that notwithstanding we have a good fire we can not dry our clothes at all. Obliged to sleep in our blankets wet as when taken from our horses, Our sheets are our partitions between us and Mr. Gray. When it rains they are spread over the tents.
"13th, Sabbath. Arise this morning, put on our clothes wet as when we took
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them off. and prepare for a long ride. I am so strongly reminded of bygone days that I ean not refrain from weeping.
"24th. Mr. Eells and myself hardly able to sit up, but obliged to eat, drink and work as though we were well. Think it is trying. .
"Nothing but the restraining grace of God ean carry us through. I trust we both have this grace."
They crossed the North Fork of the Platte in boats made of willow frames, covered with buffalo hides. It rained here so hard that the eamp was flooded, and Mrs. Walker, though strong and vigorous. and ordinarily cheerful with a pleasant word for every one, fell to weeping as she sat on a pile of goods within the tent. In answer to efforts made to console her, she exclaimed, "I am thinking how eomfort- able my father's hogs are."
June the twenty-third brought them to the American Rendezvous, on Wind river, and there they remained for three weeks, surrounded by as wild and motley a eom- pany as ever drank bad whiskey, or engaged in the savage sports of the wilderness. Mrs. Eells wrote, in her diary, July 5: "Captain Bridger came in about 10 o'clock with drums and firing, an apology for a scalp danee. After they had given Captain Drips' company a salute, fifteen or twenty mountain men and Indians came to our tent with drumming, firing and daneing. If I might make the comparison, I should think they looked like the emissaries of the devil worshiping their own master. They had the scalp of a Blackfoot Indian, which they carried for a color, all rejoicing in the fate of the Blackfeet in consequence of the smallpox. The dog, being frightened, took the trail, erossed the river, and howled so that we knew him and called him baek. When he came back he went to each tent to see if we were all safe."
They had been terrorized the night before by a party of drunken white men who eame to the tent and threatened to settle accounts with Mr. Gray, with whom they had previously been in altercation. While Gray loaded his gun within the tent, Mr. Eells remonstrated with them and they went away and gave no further trouble.
Under date of July 6 Mrs. Eells made this entry in her journal: "Last night twelve white men came, dressed and painted in Indian style. and gave us a dance. No pen can describe the horrible seene they presented. I could not imagine that white men, brought up in a civilized land, can appear so much to imitate the devil."
Hardships were endured, and dangers confronted, by the pioneer women who came into the Spokane country forty years after these mission brides crossed the continent and took up their abode near the pleasant river Spokane; but their expe- rienees when brought in contrast with the dangers and deprivations endured by Mrs. Eells and Mrs. Walker, seem little more than an entertaining outing.
At the Rendezvous flour sold for $2 a pound ; sugar, tea and coffee, $1 a pint; calico. $5 a yard : a shirt, $5; tobacco, $3 to $5 a pound ; and whiskey, $30 a gallon ; and yet the wild rangers of the plains and the mountains drank whiskey and smoked tobacco as though they had been millionaires and the price of these indulgenees were the normal rates going back in the United States.
From the Rendezvous on Green river the missionaries expected to have convoy by a party of the Hudson's Bay company. This year. though, the American Fur com- pany had become vexed over some grievance at the hands of the Hudson's Bay pro- ple, and instead of meeting the latter at the customary gathering place on Green river, had selected a rendezvous 150 miles north, on a tributary of Green river. By
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a narrow chance Mr. Ermatinger, in charge of the Hudson's Bay party, learned of the altered plans of his rivals and the mission party was saved from the alarming alternatives of returning with the American Fur caravan. of going to California with a party of trappers, or becoming stranded in the heart of the wildest part of the Rocky mountains. When Mr. Ermatinger came to the Green river Rendez- vous, he found, serawled in charcoal on the old storehouse door, this significant in- scription: "Come to Popoazua on Wind river, and you will find plenty trade, whis- key and white women." This told him the location of the mission party, and he hastened there to put them under the protection of his brigade.
From this Rendezvous they started for the Oregon country on July 12. On Sun- day. July 22, Mrs. Bells wrote: "The Indians are about our tents before we are up, and stay about all day. Think they are the most filthy Indians we have seen. Some of them have a buffalo skin around them. Mr. Walker read a sermon. and although they could not understand a word, they were still and paid good attention. They ap- peared amused with our singing."
Thus the summer wore away, and always it was travel, travel, travel; through mountain passes, by rushing rivers, and on the wind swept plains of the Snake river desert. But even a transcontinental journey of seventy-five years ago had ending, and under date of Wednesday, August 29, appears this entry in Mrs. Eells' journal :
"Rode seven hours, thirty miles ; arrived at Dr. Whitman's. Met Mr. Spalding and wife, with Dr. Whitman and wife, anxiously awaiting our arrival. They all appear friendly, and treat us with great hospitality. Dr. Whitman's house is on the Walla Walla, twenty-five miles cast of Fort Walla Walla. It is built of adobe, mud dried in the form of briek, only larger. I cannot describe its appearance, as I can not compare it with anything I ever saw. There are doors and windows, but they are of the roughest material, the boards being sawed by hand and put together by no carpenter, hut by one who knows nothing about the work. There are a number of wheat, corn and potato fields about the house, besides a garden of. melons and all kinds of vegetables common to a garden. There are no fences, there being no timber of which to make them. The furniture is very primitive; the bedsteads are boards nailed to the side of the house, sink-fashion; then some blankets and husks make the bed; but it is good compared with traveling accommodations."
From the Atlantic coast the long journey had consumed 177 days; from the Missouri river, 129. Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding were the first white women to cross the Rocky mountains. Mrs. Bells and Mrs. Walker were the next to achieve an undertaking which well might have daunted the heart of a brave and rugged man.
Describing the Oregon country of 1838, Rev. Myron Bells informs us that in the broad expanse of what are now the states of Oregon, Washington. Idaho and Montana there were only thirteen settlements: the mission station of Dr. Whitman at Waillatpu in the Walla Walla valley. of Mr. Spalding at Lapwai among the Nez Perces, of the Methodists at The Dalles and near Salem, and the Hudson's Bay com- pans forts at old Fort Walla Walla on the Columbia, Colville, Fort Hall, Boise, Van- couver, Nisqually, Umpqua, and Okanogan, and the settlement at Astoria. Eells and Walker were to establish a fourteenth, on Tshimakain creek, six miles north of the Spokane river, and about twenty-five miles from the falls.
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When they arrived at the Whitman mission, there were only fifty Americans in the country of whom thirty were connected with the missions. Great Britain and the United States were in controversy over ownership of the greater part of the Oregon country, and had struck a truee under a treaty of joint occupation. It was even considered necessary for the missionaries to travel under passport.
CHAPTER VIII
FOUNDING A MISSION AMONG THE SPOKANES
EELLS AND WALKER MEET THE INDIANS AT CHEWELAH-BIRTH OF FIRST AMERICAN WHITE BOY IN OLD OREGON-EELLS AND WALKER FAMILIES LOCATE AT WALKER'S PRAIRIE, NEAR SPOKANE-LIVING ON HORSE MEAT-INDIAN CUSTOMS DESCRIBED MISSION LIFE AT TSHIMAKAIN-MISSIONARIES DEEPLY DISAPPOINTED-MIDWINTER FIRE-HYMN AS SUNG BY THE SPOKANES.
A FTER a fortnight's rest at the Whitman mission, Walker and Eells started northward. September 10, 1838, to explore the country preliminary to found- ing a mission among the Spokanes. At Chewelah they rested over the Sab- bath, meeting there many of the natives, and the next day pushed forward to Fort Colville to seek the counsel of Archibald MeDonald, factor in charge of the Hudson's Bay establishment there, second only in importance to the greater establishment at Vancouver under Dr. John MeLoughlin. At Colville the company grew annually abont 1,000 bushels of wheat, and maintained there a flour mill. Corn and vege- tables were grown there in abundance, a large herd of cattle added to the domesticity of the surroundings, and as the buildings were commodious, Mr. Walker exclaimed, as the valley scene rolled in upon their vision, "a city under a hill,"
Mr. MeDonald, a worthy, intelligent Scot. received them with great kindness, an attitude he maintained so long as he remained in charge. He advised that the mis- sion be located at Tshimakain, (the plain of springs) on the Colville-Walla Walla road, a place combining the advantages of soil, timber, water and accessibility to the various bands of the Spokanes. Thither they went, and with Indian help, and two axes borrowed from Colville, erected two log cabins fourteen feet long and about twenty feet apart. As winter was approaching, they suspended their work before the eabins had been roofed in, and returned to Walla Walla, by way of Spalding's Lapwai mission.
There they wintered with their families, and there, on December 7, 1838, was born Cyrus Hamlin Walker, thought to be the first American white boy born within the boundaries of old Oregon. Alice, danghter of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, drowned in early childhood, was the first American white child born within the same bounda- ries. Much of their time was devoted that winter to study of the Spokane language, the missionaries having for their instructor the famous Nez Perce chief Lawyer. who understood that tongue.
Late in February came the chief of the Spokanes, with four men and four women, to assist the party in moving to their new home, and on March 5, 1839, the wedding
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anniversary of both couples, they set their faces northward on the journey to Tshi- makain, arriving there on March 20.
Tents were pitched, and a messenger dispatched to Colville for provisions, and with these came back an urgent invitation from Mr. MeDonald for the ladies and baby to become his guests while their husbands were completing their cabin homes. The invitation was accepted. and it was the last of April when they returned and set up housekeeping.
At first the houses had only carthen floors, and pine boughs served for roof. As the spring rains quickly penetrated this rough shelter, earth was put upon the boughs; and still the roofs leaked. so bearskins were spread upon the heds to keep dry "our first families" near Spokane.
The luxury of a cookstove was unknown throughout the nine years' life of the mis- sion at Tshimakain. In lieu of window glass, cotton cloth, and later oiled deerskin, were used. A few years later there was much rejoicing over the receipt of a few panes of glass, sent in sailing vessel around the Horn by Massachusetts friends, and transported, with infinite care. to the distant interior.
For nine years the mission could boast of only a single chair. Three boards, three feet long. were packed 150 miles, and by driving four stakes into the ground, a table was constructed. Timber, riven and hewn. was used for other furniture.
In all the Oregon country there were two flour mills, both owned by the Hud- son's Bay company, one at Colville, the other at Vancouver. Flour at the Whitman mission was worth $24 a barrel. With the harvesting of the first crop of wheat at Tshimakain, the grain was taken in buckskin bags to Colville for grinding. "It was only seventy miles distant, and they could go and return in five days."
The plough was homemade, with rawhide on the singletrees in place of iron, and for nine years the wheat erop was cut with sickles.
"The beef," according to Myron Eells, "neither chewed the cud nor parted the hoof. It was made out of the Indian pony. Cattle were very scarce. Neither love nor money could procure one from the Hudson's Bay company. About half a dozen horses were killed for beef at Dr. Whitman's during the winter of 1838-39, and for several years Mr. Eells was accustomed to salt one down every winter. They were fattened on the rich bunch-grass, and with few exceptions were eaten with a relish, even by the fastidious."
Mrs. Eells once wrote: "I had the luxury of cating a picec of the first cow that was driven into the country."
Fire was made with flint. steel and punk. Mail from the east was brought out twice a year in vessels of the Hudson's Bay company. That for the mission was sent up the Columbia to old Fort Walla Walla, and when the missionaries learned of its arrival there, they would "go to the postoffice." 200 miles away, the round trip taking two weeks.
In January. 1814. Mrs. Eells wrote to her sister in Massachusetts: "Your letter dated September, 1811, I received July, 1813. a long time. sure enough, but. as the Indians say, 'I am thankful to get a letter of any date.'" To the same sister she wrote, in April, 1817: "I have just been reading your sisterly letter of December, 1844, and although it was written more than two years ago, yet since it is the last I have heard from you, it is like reviving conversation and talking of past events."
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In a letter written from the Whitman mission, soon after their arrival there in the fall of 1838, Mrs. Eells recorded her impressions :
"The country is large, and there are comparatively few inhabitants in it. The Hudson's Bay company has a number of trading posts, which are generally about 300 miles apart. Mr. Spalding and Dr. Whitman have each a station about 125 miles apart. The Methodists have two stations-one 150 miles, and the other 400 miles from here. Besides these settlements, there are no others in this great territory. Of course the people of each settlement must raise their own provisions, make their own furniture, farming utensils, houses and barns. Everything of eloth is brought from some foreign port. There is nothing yet to make eloth of, and if there were, there is no way to manufacture it. Had I known there is not a spinning wheel in this whole country, I should have been exceedingly anxious to have one sent with my other things. There are very few sheep here, and more have been sent for from California. Dr. Whitman has raised a little flax, though not mueh, for want of seed.
"There never having been any white women here before the missionaries, there has been no call for anything but Indian artieles of trade. The men wear striped cotton or ealieo shirts, sleep in Indian blankets and buffalo skins, and of course have had no need for white cotton eloth, and have none.
"Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding have obtained some earthern dishes, but think it doubtful whether we ean have any others until we order them from England, or the States. Perhaps you will wonder what we shall eat with. We have the dishes we used on the way, which we have divided so that we shall each have a tin dish and a spoon, each a knife, fork and plate. We must be contented with what books we have until ours come around Cape Horn.
"The Indians are numerous, but they live a wandering life. They live upon game. fish and roots, which are found in many different places. They have no houses. but live in lodges made of stieks set in a eirele in the ground, and drawn together at the top and fastened with a string, leaving a place at the top for the smoke to pass out. Over this frame they throw skins, grass, willows and the like. which make their covering. They build their fire upon the ground, in the eenter, around which they live and sleep. They generally have one kettle, in which they boil their fish, meat. corn and potatoes, if they have any. None of them have eorn and potatoes ex- cept what they get from some of the above-named settlements. Not many of them, have any dishes, knives or forks or spoons of any kind. They eat standing, with the kettle in the middle, their hands supplying the place of all dishes. They will often perform a long journey for a knife or blanket.
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