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 4
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Thompson returned to the east, but came back, and in July, 1811, started on a descent of the Columbia that was to give him the record of the first white man to follow that stream to its confluence with the Snake. Lewis and Clark having de- seended by way of the Clearwater and the Snake. At the mouth of the Spokane he erected a pole and tied to it a half sheet of paper, claiming the country north of the forks as British territory. This notice was seen by a number of Astor em- ployes, for Ross states that he observed it in August, "with the British flag flying upon it."
Franchere has recorded a more ciremustantial account of the invasion of the Northwesters. On June 15, ten days after the Tonquin had sailed away to de- struction. "some natives from up the river brought us two strange Indians, a man and a woman, They were not attired like the savages on the river Columbia, but wore long robes of dressed deerskin, with leggings and moccasins in the fashion of the tribes to the east of the Rocky mountains. We put questions to them in various Indian dialects, but they did not understand us. They showed us a letter addressed to 'Mr. John Stuart. Fort Estekatadene. New Caledonia.' Mr. Pillet then address- ing them in the Knisteneaux language, they answered, although they appeared not to understand it perfectly. Notwithstanding we learned from them that they had been sent by a Mr. Finnan MeDonald, a clerk in the service of the Northwest company, who had a post on a river which they called Spokan; that having lost their way, they had followed the course of the Tacousah-Tessch, the Indian name of the Columbia ; that when they arrived at the falls, the natives made them under- stand that there were white men at the month of the river; and not doubting that the person to whom the letter was addressed would be found there, they had come to deliver it.
-
int
JOHN JACOB ASTOR
T LIE-
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"We kept these messengers for some days, and having drawn from them impor- tant information respecting the country in the interior, west of the mountains, we decided to send an expedition thither, under the command of Mr. David Stuart; and the 15th of July was fixed for its departure."
Here appears, perhaps for the first time in printed record, the name "Spokan," and these wandering natives who had found their way to the mouth of the Colum- bia, in all probability were of that tribe. Lewis and Clark, it will be recalled, had heard of the river as the Skeet-ko-mish, but an explanation of this seeming conflict in nomenelature is found in the fact that the Indians had no well established name for any of the rivers of this western country, each tribe or band applying its own loeal name to that portion of the stream flowing through its partieular seetion. In this way it frequently was found that a single river bore half a dozen or even more appellations.
Stuart's expedition to the interior comprised four elerks-Pillet, Ross, MeLen- non and Montigny, and two natives from the Sandwich islands. Their three canoes were well ladened with provisions and goods needed for a trading establishment.
"The place which he pitched upon for his trading post (we quote now from 'Astoria') was a point of land about three miles in length and two in breadth, formed by the junetion of the Oakinagan with the Columbia. The former is a river which has its source in a considerable lake. and the two rivers, about the place of their confluence, are bordered by immense prairies covered with herbage, but destitute of trees. The point itself was ornamented with wild flowers of every hue, in which innumerable humming-birds were banqueting nearly the livelong day.
"The situation of this point appeared to be well adapted for a trading post. The elimate was salubrious, the soil fertile, (Okanogan boosters will please take notice) the rivers well stocked with fish, and natives peaceable and friendly. There were easy communications with the interior by the upper waters of the Columbia and the lateral streams, while the downward current of the Columbia furnished a highway to Astoria.
"Availing himself. therefore, of the driftwood which had eolleeted in quantities in the neighboring bends of the river. Mr. Stuart and his men set to work to ereet a house, which in a little while was sufficiently completed for their residence; and thus was established the first interior post of the company."
And thus was established the first American commerce within the broad eonfines of the Inland Empire. Momentous beginning, squalid though it seemed in the little depot built of driftwood from the banks of the Columbia, of a commerce and an industry which has now attained a magnitude far transeending the wildest flights of the imagination of the merchant prinee who, from his office in New York had launehed his daring enterprise and thereby contributed powerfully to the strength- ening of our title to this broad northwest at a time when British statesmanship and British enterprise were striving mightily to set their red ensign forever in these skies.
We come now to the founding, in the summer of 1812. of Astor's trading post at the mouth of the Little Spokane. some ten miles northwest of the present city of Spokane. It will interest our present day merehants, and the publie as well, to take a hurried inventory of that first stock of merchandise to be vended in Spo- kane county. As we have seen, the Northwesters had beaten the Astorians to this point, but as David Thompson had traveled overland from eastern Canada, and
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been deserted on the way by a large part of his expedition who had become dis- contented or alarmed and returned to civilization. it is evident that he could not have set up much of an establishment at this site. The fact that he was destitute of supplies when he arrived at Astoria, and was under the necessity of begging from the Americans, may be accepted as proof that he had not left much at his so-called post on the Spokane, probably nothing at all beyond some impedi- menta which he was glad to lay aside. Thompson was unaware, when he left the Spokane country for the month of the river in July, 1811, that an American estab- lishment had been erected there, and it is not probable. if he had had supplies to leave on the Spokane, that he would have ventured empty-handed down the Column- bia, living from hand to mouth.
Mr. Astor's stock, selected especially to appeal to Indian nature, included guns and ammunition, spears, hatchets, knives. beaver traps, copper and brass kettles, white and green blankets; blue, green and red cloths ; calicoes, beads, rings, thim- bles, hawksbells and other gewgaws. For provisions, there were beef, pork. flour, rice. biscuits. tea, sugar and a moderate quantity of rum and wines.
With this cargo a large expedition left AAstoria June 29, 1812, the party includ- ing three partners, nine clerks, fifty-five Canadians, twenty Sandwich islanders, and Messrs. Crooks, MeClelland and R. Stuart. who, with eight men were to proceed with dispatches to St. Louis. It traveled in bateaux and light built canoes, the former carrying eight men. the latter six. The goods were packed in bales and boxes, and the liquids in kegs holding on an average, nine gallons. Ross Cox informs us that from thirty to forty of these packages were placed in each vessel, and the whole was covered by an oilcloth or tarpaulin, to preserve them from wet. Each canoe and barge had from six to eight men, rowing or paddling. independent of the passengers.
Extraordinary precautions were taken to guard against attack by the thieving Wishram Indians at the Cascades of the Columbia, where a long portage was re- quired around the rough water. The expedition arrived at the foot of the portage on the evening of the fourth of July, and preparations were made for action. Each inan was given a musket and forty rounds of ball cartridge, and over his clothes wore an elkskin shirt, reaching to the knees. It was entirely arrow proof, and at eighty or ninety yards could not be penetrated by a musket ball. Besides the mus- kets a number had daggers, short swords and pistols; "and when armed cap-a-pie." says Cox. "we presented a formidable appearance."
So formidable, in fact. that the Indians, though gathered around in numbers and looking enviously upon such stores of wealth, had not the hardihood to assail the strangers, But at midnight, when the weary voyageurs were in a sound slumber, and the dark mountains and forests were but faintly illumined by the dying camp- fires, they were suddenly aroused and thrown into frightful confusion by the report of a gun and the cries of Mr. Pillet, one of the clerks, that he had been shot. "Every one instantly seized his arms and inquired on which side was the enemy ; but our apprehensions were quickly appeased on learning it was merely an accident. One of the gentlemen, in examining the musket of a Sandwich islander, to see if it was primed, handed it to him at full cock; and just as the islander had taken it, the piece went off and the contents lodged in the calf of poor Pillet's leg, who naturally enough exclaimed that he was shot. This was, however, in our present circumstances, a disagreeable event, as it rendered Mr. Pillet not only incapable of
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SPOKANE AND THE INLAND EMPIRE
fighting, but required three or four men to carry him in a litter over the various portages. The wound was dressed with friar's balsam and lint, the ball extraeted, the next day, and in about a month afterward he was able to walk."
At a point near The Dalles the party purchased five horses from the Indians. "The value of the goods we paid for each in England would not exceed five shil- lings," says the historian of the expedition. "As these horses were intended for the kettle. they were doomed to instant destruction. Our comparatively recent separation from the land of bread and butter caused the idea of feeding on so useful and noble an animal to be at first highly repugnant to our feelings; but example, and above all, necessity, soon conquered these little qualms of civilization, and in a few days we almost brought ourselves to believe that the animal on which we fed once carried horns, was divided in the hoof, and chewed the cud."
Horseflesh, in fact, was to become the staple diet at the posts on the Spokane and the Okanogan, and it is recorded that eighty cayuses were consumed in a single winter at Spokane.
After their association with the filthy, fish-eating, eanoe-squatting Indians around the mouth of the Columbia, the party were inelined to look upon the more cleanly interior tribes with an approving and indulgent cye. "The Wallah-Wallahs were decidedly the most friendly tribe we had seen on the river. They had an air of open, unsuspecting confidence in their manner that at once banished suspicion and ensured our friendship. There was a degree of natural politeness, too, evineed by them on entering their lodges, which we did not see practiced by any others. We visited several families in the village, and the moment we entered, the best place was se- leeted for us, and a clean mat spread to sit on ; while the inmates, particularly the women and children, remained at a respectful distance, without manifesting any of the obtrusive curiosity about our arms or clothing. by which we were so much an- noyed among the lower tribes."
Mercenary immorality, we are informed, was unknown among them. in admir- able contrast to the oil-besmeared women on the coast. Cox found that "the females were distinguished by a degree of attentive kindness totally removed from the dis- gusting familiarity of the kilted ladies below the rapids, and equally free from an affection of prudery; and I believe no indueement would tempt them to commit a breach of chastity."
At the junction of the Columbia and the Snake, present site of Paseo and Kenne- wick, the adventurers eneamped for three days, while buying horses for their jour- neys inland. David Stuart and party then proceeded up the Columbia in their canoes, to the post at the mouth of the Okanogan, and Donald MeKenzie and his party up the Snake river, to establish a trading post on its upper reaches.
"The natives of this distriet," writes Cox, "are called the Pierced-nose Indians, but as Freneh is the language in general use among traders in this country, owing to most of their workmen being Canadians, we commonly called them Les Nez Percés. They do not differ much from the Wallah-Wallahs in their dress or lan- guage, but are not so friendly, and demand higher prices for their horses. Their habitations are covered with large mats fixed on poles; some are square, others oblong. and some conieal. They are of various sizes, from twenty to seventy feet long, and from ten to fifteen feet broad. These dwellings are pretty free from vermin, and are easily changed when occasion requires.
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"The women wear leathern robes which cover the shoulders, part of the arms, the breasts, and reach down to their legs. The men have robes nearly similar, but not so long. with leggings which reach up half the thigh, and are fastened to a belt round the waist with leather thongs. They are clean, active and smart-looking, good hunters and excellent horsemen. They enjoy good health, and with the exception of a few sore eyes, did not appear to have any disorder. They are fond of their children and attentive to the wants of their old people. Their saddles are made of dressed deerskin, stuffed with hair; the stirrups are wooden. with the bottoms broad and flat, and covered over with raw skin, which when dry becomes hard and lasts a long time. The bridles are merely ropes made out of the hair of the horses' tails, and are tied round their under jaw."
After the purchase of twenty-five horses, the party proceeded up the Snake, some on land with the horses, but the greater part still in the canoes. In this man- ner they continued to the mouth of the Palouse river, where more horses were pur- chased, for here they were to leave the river and go overland to Spokane. The canoes and bateaux were stored away in a sing place and entrusted to the care of the chief of the village at that point, and as a reward for his oversight he was given a "fathom of blue cloth," an axe and a knife; and to his wife were given some strings of white and blue beads and three dozen hawkbells for her chemise de cuir. The village here comprised about forty mat-covered tepres.
Some conception of the toilsome character of a journey as then made to the interior may be gleaned from the fact that this party, leaving Astoria June 29, took till August 7 to reach the month of the Palouse on Snake river, and the preparations at that point consumed eight days more, so it was not until the 15th that it took up the overland journey for the Spokane. under the guidance of an Indian employed at the Palouse village.
The party now consisted of one proprietor, Clarke, four clerks, twenty-one Canadians, and six Sandwich islanders, with the Indian guide, and traversed the in- tervening Palouse country between the Snake and the Spokane in safety, the only incident of note having been the separation of Ross Cox from the brigade and his consequent loss and wanderings, alone, without means of making fire, and seantily attired, for a period of fourteen days, when he finally staggered into the camp of some friendly Indians on the Spokane, emaciated from hunger and hardship, and with feet so swollen and bleeding that he could scarcely walk.
One report alleges that Cox, who was a red-headed and somewhat impetuous Irishman, persisted in lagging along the way, and having been reprimanded by Clarke became insubordinate, and still persisting in his refusal to keep up with the party, was left far behind in the hope that it would serve as a wholesome lesson. Cox himself offers an entirely different and quite plausible explanation-in effect that attracted by the beauty of the banks of a little stream where the expedition had made a noonday pause, he strolled along till he came to a natural arbor and lay down to rest. Overcome by weariness and the heat of the August sun, he fell into a sound slumber from which he awakened several hours later to discover that the party was gone and he left alone in a wild and savage land. He followed the trail until it was lost on rocky ground, and then climbed a high hill, but the cavalcade was nowhere to be seen. His only clothing was a pair of nankeen trousers. a ging- ham shirt and a pair of worn moccasins, and he suffered intensely at night from cold
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and exposure. Not having even a pistol. his only means of subsistence were wild berries and roots, excepting one meal at a point where a party of Indians had made their camp the night before and left around their fire the remnants of some grouse upon which they had dined. In his description of his adventures, Cox seems to have exaggerated his experiences with wolves, bears and rattlesnakes, but for the rest his narrative is obviously a faithful record of his troubles.
Rev. Samuel Parker, who was sent into this country in 1835 by the American Board of Foreign Missions, and traversed the Spokane country that year, makes light of Cox's adventures and writes him down an arrant nature faker. Describing the Spokane woods, Parker says: "These are the woods in which Ross Cox was lost, about the circumstances of which he gives a very interesting description, but which, so far as I have had as yet an opportunity to judge, contains far more fietion than truth. But his multitude of growling bears and howling wolves and alarming rattle- snakes, of which I have seen only one, may yet come out from their Inrking places in hostile array."
Cox's account of his ultimate reseue by a family of the Spokanes is so pleasingly descriptive of the natural kindliness of "our first citizens of Spokane," that I in- corporate it here:
"On advancing a short distance into the meadow (where he had seen horses) the cheering sight of a small column of gracefully ascending smoke, announced my vicinity to human beings, and in a moment after two Indian women perceived me. They instantly fled to a hut which appeared at the farther end of the meadow. This movement made me doubt whether I had arrived among friends or enemies, but my apprehensions were quickly dissipated by the approach of two men, who came run- ning to me in the most friendly manner. On seeing the lacerated state of my feet, they carried me in their arms to a comfortable dwelling covered with deer skins. To wash and dress my torn limbs, roast some roots and boil a small salmon, seemed but the business of a moment. After returning thanks to that great and good Being in whose hands are the issues of life and death, and who had watched over my wandering steps, and rescued me from the many perilous dangers I encountered, I sat down to my salmon, of which it is needless to say, I made a hearty supper.
'The family consisted of an elderly man and his son, with their wives and chil- dren. I collected from their signs that they were aware of my being lost, and that they, with other Indians and white men, had been out several days, scouring the woods and plains in search of me. I also understood from them that our party had arrived at their destination, which was only a few hours' march from their habitation. They behaved to me with affectionate solicitude, and while the old woman was eare- fully dressing my feet, the men were endeavoring to make me comprehend their meaning.
"As it was too late, after finishing my supper, to proceed farther that night, I retired to rest on a comfortable conch of buffalo and deerskins. I slept soundly, and the morning of the thirty-first was far advanced before I awoke. After break- fasting on the remainder of the salmon, I prepared to join my white friends.
"A considerable stream, about ninety yards broad, called Coeur d'Alene river, flowed close to the hut. (The name invariably attached in early days to that part of the Spokane flowing between the lake and the month of the Little Spokane.) We crossed the river in a canoe, after which they brought over three horses, and having
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enveloped my body in an Indian mantle of deerskin. we mounted and set off in a smart trot in an easterly direction.
"We had not proceeded more than seven miles when I felt the bad effects of hav- ing caten so much salmon after so long a fast. I had a severe attack of indigestion, and for two hours suffered extreme agony; and but for the great attention of the kind Indians. I think it would have proved fatal.
"About an hour after recommencing our journey, we arrived in a clear wood, in which. with joy unutterable, I observed our Canadians at work hewing timber. I rode between the two natives. One of our men, named Francois Gardepic, who had been on a trading excursion, joined us on horseback. My deerskin robe and sun- burnt features completely set his powers of recognition at defiance, and he addressed me as an Indian. I replied in French by asking how our people were. Poor Fran- cois appeared electrified. exclaimed "Sainte l'ierge!" and galloped into the wood vociferating: 'Oh mes amis, mes amis il est trouvé! Oui, oui, il est trouvé!' (Oh, my friends, my friends, he is found! Yes, yes. he is found !)
"'Qui? qui?' asked his comrades, 'Monsieur Cox, Monsieur Cor,' replied Fran- cois ; 'le voila! le voila!' (There he is, there he is!)
"Away went saws, hatchets and axes, and each man rushed forward to the tents where we had by this time arrived. It is needless to say that our astonishment and delight at my miraculous escape were mutual. The friendly Indians were lib- crally rewarded, the men were allowed a holiday, and every countenance bore the smile of joy and happiness."
The site chosen for the Spokane post was the neck of land lying between the Spokane and Little Spokane rivers, a short distance above the joining of the two waters. Cox describes it as thinly covered with pine and other trees, and close to a trading post of the Northwest company, under the command of McMillan, one of their clerks, who had ten men with him. The Northwest company had two other posts in the interior. one about 240 miles from Spokane House, in a northeasterly direction. for trading with the Flatheads. the other about 200 miles north of the Spokane, "among a tribe called the Cootonais ( Kootenais) in whose country there are plenty of beavers, deer, mountain sheep, and, at times, buffaloes."
That buffalo* were to be found among the Kootenais, occupying as they did the wild and deeply wooded mountains and valleys of the upper Columbia, may be ques- tioned. While there is abundant testimony that buffalo had formerly roamed over the great plains between the Rocky mountains and the Caseades, they had become extinct here prior to the advent of the first white men, and the tribes living west of the Rocky mountains had long been under the necessity of making long hunting trips into the country of the Blackfeet for their supplies of robes and dried buffalo Incat. In these expeditions the interior tribes, notably the Flatheads and the Coeur d'Alenes, had suffered frightful losses from savage attacks on their hunters by the Blackfeet. and a fierce and implacable fend had grown up between these tribes and
* From the journal of Dr. George Suekley, surgeon U. S. A., who doseended the Pend d'Oreille in a canoe in the autumn of 1553, I take this interesting excerpt: "Buffalo were formerly in great numbers in this valley, as attested by the number of skulls seen and by the reports of the inhabitants. For a number of years past none had been seen west of the ( Rocky ) mountains; but, singular to relate, a buffalo bull was killed at the month of the Pend d'Oreille river on the day i passed it. The Indians were in great joy at this, supposing that the buffalo were coming back among them.
FALLS OF THE PALOUSE
A> drawn by artist with Governor Stevens' Expedition, 1853
Tr .. NE
1
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the wild warriors of the plains. As the Blackfeet had come into contact with the fur traders operating east of the Rocky mountains, and had become possessed of firearms and ammunition before the establishment of trading posts west of the Rocky mountains, the Indians of the Spokane country suffered a terrible disad- vantage in their wars, and henee were eager to meet the western traders and ex- change their furs for guns and powder and ball.
The origin of the name Flathead, as applied by the French trappers and voyageurs to the superior tribe occupying the country on the western slopes of the Rockies, is veiled in mystery. It does not appear that these Indians had ever adopted the prae- tiee of flattening the heads of their infants; certainly they were not given to that custom when the white men came into the country, a strange custom that was eon- fined to a few tribes seated around the mouth of the Columbia. It may be the name was bestowed in derision or anger, sinee the term "tête plate" or Flathead has long been in use among the French as a term of reproach or villifieation. Rostand em- ploys it in "Cyrano de Bergerac" when he causes de Bergerae, in his angry outburst against Le Faeheux, to exelaim :
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