USA > Washington > Asotin County > Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Volume I > Part 7
USA > Washington > Columbia County > Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Volume I > Part 7
USA > Washington > Garfield County > Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Volume I > Part 7
USA > Washington > Walla Walla County > Lyman's history of old Walla Walla County, embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin counties, Volume I > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78
While the Northwesters were thus posting themselves at some of the vantage points of Oregon, the Americans were not idle. The reader who desires an extended view of the fascinating theme of the American fur-trade should con- sult that foremost book on the subject by Gen. H. M. Chittenden of Seattle, to which we here make our acknowledgments. What was to become the American trade began indeed with Frenchmen and Spaniards before the independence of the United States. In 1764 Pierre Liguest and Auguste Chouteau founded St. Louis, which became the center of all trading operations for many years. The Treaty of Paris of 1763 had as a matter of fact already delivered all the country west of the Mississippi to Spain, but the Frenchmen did not yet know it. In 1800
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the Louisiana Territory again became French, and three years later, by a happy juxtaposition of statesmanship and good fortune, it passed from French to American control. Then immediately followed, as already narrated, the Lewis and Clark expedition with its momentous results. After St. Louis became an American town the fur-trade was still largely in the hands of French and Spanish traders established there during the possession by their respective governments. Of these the most prominent were Pierre Chouteau. Jr., a Frenchman, and Manuel Lisa, a Spaniard. The first expedition to the Far West was that of Lisa in partnership with William Morrison, an American of Illinois, and Pierre Menard. a Frenchman, also living in Illinois. One interesting feature of this expedition . is that it occurred in the same year with the first of David Thompson. Another is that on the way the party met John Colter who had been one of the Lewis and Clark party, but on the return had decided to stop in the wilderness to trap and explore. He was on his way to the settlements, but was induced to return to the Rocky Mountains with the party. In connection with Colter we may very properly digress a little, for he was one of the typical adventurers of that period and some of the events of his career in the wilderness cast a vivid light upon the conditions of those times. Lisa proceeded with his party to the mouth of the Bighorn River and there established a fort. Desiring to notify the Indians of the arrival of the party, Lisa sent Colter all alone on a journey of several hundred miles to the Crows on Wind River and to the Blackfeet at the Three Forks of the Missouri. On this journey Colter became an unwilling participant in a battle between those two contending tribes. He was on the side of the Crows. and after rendering efficient aid to his side in winning a victory, was severely wounded in the leg. Nevertheless, nothing daunted, he set forth across the ranges of towering, snowy peaks to reach Lisa's fort. lle suceceded in the soli- tary and desperate undertaking, and in the course of it discovered Yellowstone Lake and the geyser region which now makes the Yellowstone Park one of the wonders of the world. Returning to the mountains, Colter was captured by the savage and cruel Blackfeet. Wishing to have a little sport with their hapless victim, the Indians stripped him and asked him if he was a fast runner. From his knowledge of their enstoms he understood that he was to be put up in a race for life against several hundred Indians. He gave them to understand that he was a poor runner, though as a matter of fact he was very fast. Accordingly they gave him several hundred yards start on the open prairie with the Jefferson fork of the Missouri six miles distant. Away he sped with the whole pack behind him like a band of wolves, with the war-whoop ringing over the plain. With his naked feet torn and bleeding from the cactus Colter soon outdistanced most of the pursuers, but half way across the plain, glancing over his shoulder. he saw that one swift Indian armed with a spear was gaining on him. With the violence of Colter's exertions the blood was streaming from his nostrils down the front of his body, and just as the Indian was almost within striking distance Colter suddenly stopped and turned, a ghastly spectacle, with extended arms. The Indian was so disconcerted with the unexpected move that in endeavoring to wield his spear he lost his footing and fell. Instantly picking up the spear Colter pinned his assailant to the ground and on he went again toward the river. The foremost of the pursuing Indians, finding their expiring comrade, paused long enough to set up a hideous howl and then rushed on. But Colter, though
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almost at the limit of his strength, drove himself on to the river ahead of the band, and breaking through the copse of cottonwoods which skirted the stream he plunged in. Just below was a small island against which drift had lodged. Diving beneath the drift Colter managed to find a crack between the trees where he might get his head in the air. There he remained undiscovered all night while the savages were shrieking around like so many devils. In the early morning he let loose from the drift and floated and swam a long ways down the stream, and when day fairly broke had got beyond the immediate vicinity of his enemies. But in what a horrid plight! Stark naked, with no food and no weapons for game, the soles of his feet pierced thick with the cruel spikes of the cactus! Yet such is the endurance of some men that in seven days during which his only subsistence was roots dug with his fingers, Colter made his way to Lisa's fort. "Such was life in the Far-West." The story was told by Colter to Bradbury, who narrated it in his book, "Travels in North America." Irving used it in his "Astoria," and it also appears in Chittenden's "American Fur-trade."
One of the partners of Lisa in the Missouri Fur Company, Andrew Henry, in 1810 built a fort on the west side of the Great Divide on a stream afterwards known as Henry's Fork. a branch of Snake River. It was near the present Egin, Idaho, and was the first structure built by white men upon Snake River or any of its tributaries.
We have given the extended narration thus far of fur-traders prior to any actual entrance by any of them into the region treated in this work, in order that the nature of the business and the manner in which all parts of Oregon were involved might become clear. We now bring upon the scene still another enter- prise which came yet closer to our own region. This was the Pacific Fur Com- pany of John Jacob Astor. This first of the great business promoters of our country was born in Germany, and coming to New York in 1784 began his great career as a fur merchant. Having made a fortune in the business almost entirely by operations in Canada, Astor conceived the project of a vast emporium upon the Columbia to which should converge the trade in furs from all the region west of the Rocky Mountains and south of the region definitely occupied by the Northwestern Fur Company. He contemplated also a lucrative business with the Russians centered around Sitka and Kodiak on the north, and the Spaniards on the south. It was a noble enterprise and worthy of all success. It would have had a most important bearing upon the progress of American enterprise and settlement in Oregon and might have materially changed certain chapters in history. That it failed of full accomplishment was due to various untoward circumstances, of which the chief were: first, Astor's own error of judgment in selecting the majority of his partners and employees from Canadians and also selecting captains for his first two ships who were not qualified for their im- portant task; and second, the War of 1812. It will be remembered that the Northwesters of Canada were thoroughly located upon the Athabasca and had crossed the Divide and as early as 1807 had built posts on the upper Columbia and Spokane and on the lakes in what is now Northern Idaho. Astor no doubt anticipated a strenuous contest with those bold, ambitious Canadians, but his own highly successful enterprises thus far had been with Canadians and he knew them well qualified. He reasoned that he could make it well worth their while to be loyal to him and to the company to which he admitted them. It is probable
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that all would have worked as he calculated had not the war with Great Britain defeated all his well-laid plans.
The part of the great .Astoria enterprise which more especially comes within the scope of our story is that of the journey of the land party across the Rocky Mountains and down the Snake and Columbia rivers, and the subsequent estab- lishment of forts and trading posts. The land division was under Wilson Price Hunt of New Jersey, the partner second in command to Astor himself. He was one of the comparatively few Americans in the company and seems to have been a man of the highest type, brave, humane, enterprising, and whole-souled, worthy of a place at the head of those Jasons of the Nineteenth Century who sought the golden fleeces of the Far-West. Both divisions got under way in 1810, the land division from Montreal in July, and the sea division in September. The latter, however, reached the promised land of the Columbia first, for after a tragic entrance of the mouth of the river, the Tonquin with the party on board brought to in Baker's Bay on the north side of the river on March 25th. Astoria was founded on April 12, 1811. A few months later, owing to the criminal obstinacy and bad judgment of Captain Thorn, the Tonquin with all her crew but one (from whom the story is derived) was captured by Indians and then blown up at a place presumably Nootka Sound or near there on the west side of Vancouver Island.
Hunt, with three other partners, Mckenzie, Crooks, and Miller, after having collected and fitted out a party of such miscellaneous material as they could find at various places between Montreal and St. Louis, left the latter place on October 21, 1810, and reaching a stream called the Nadowa, near the present site of St. Joseph, Mo., stopped for the winter. Resuming the long journey on April 21st of the next year, the party reached the abandoned Fort Henry on October 8th. They were now on the headwaters of Snake River. Down that wild stream they ran a losing race with oncoming winter. For before they reached the present vicinity of Huntington, Ore., the December snows fell thick upon them. Mckenzie and Mclellan with seven of the strongest men went ahead of the main party, and reaching the vicinity of the present Seven Devils country made their way after twenty-one days of struggle and peril through the great canyon of Snake River to its junction with the Clearwater, the site of the present Lewiston and Clarkston. They had a clear idea then of their location by a knowledge of the experiences of Lewis and Clark. They were then within the area of our four counties of this history and had no trouble in making their way, though in mid-winter, down the Snake, then at its lowest stage and not difficult to navigate, to that most interesting spot, the junction of the Snake and Columbia. Thus the advance party on this historic journey, the first of the fur-traders, though later than the Lewis and Clark expedition, reached the Columbia. With their canoes floating upon its broad waters they had an easy and pleasant journey, after their former desperate straits, to the rude stockade of Astoria, which they reached on January 18, 1812. The main party had a more distressing time. After nearly starving and freezing they turned toward the mountains from the present Huntington and must have very nearly followed the course of the present railroad from that point to the Grande Ronde. They were at just about the limit of endurance when on December 30th, looking down from their snowy elevation they saw far below them a sunny valley, looking to the
PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDING, DIXIE
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winter-wasted refugees like a vision of paradise. Thither hastening they found several lodges of Indians who took pity on their forlorn and destitute state and provided them with food and fuel. Irving gives with his graphic pen a brilliant narration of the celebration of New Year's day in this valley of salvation for this party. Rested and recuperated by these few days in the Grande Ronde, they essayed their last tussle with the mountains by scaling the snowy heights between their resting place and the Umatilla. Reaching that warm and beautiful valley they found that their deliverance was at hand, for there they took a two-weeks' rest. On January 21st, having started again, they beheld before them a blue flood nearly a mile wide hastening toward the sunset, evidently the "Great River." Their journey afoot down the river to the Cascades and thence in canoes to Astoria was a soft and gentle exercise after the arduous struggles through the mountains.
Such was the inauguration of the Pacific Fur Company in this country. While amid such suffering the Americans were endeavoring to launch their great enterprise, the Northwesters were employing great energy and skill in planting themselves upon the upper river. They, too, looked for new fields to conquer. In July, 1811, the redoubtable David Thompson appeared at Astoria expecting to file a claim on the lower river for his company. He was too late by three months, for Astoria had been founded in April. The Scotchmen of the Astoria Company fraternized with their countryman, but to David Stuart, one of the American partners, this was not pleasing. Hastening his preparations he hurried on his journey up the river. At the mouth of Snake River he found a British flag upon a pole and on it a paper claiming the country in the name of Great Britain. It was obvious to Stuart that there would be a contest between his company and the Northwesters. He wished to secure certain strategic points as far inland as possible and accordingly he pressed on up the Columbia to the mouth of the Okanogan, estimated to be five hundred and forty miles above Astoria. There on September 2nd, Stuart planted the American flag and started the construction of a post, the first American structure within the present State of Washington.
Of the interesting and varied events in the Okanogan and Spokane countries Alexander Ross and Ross Cox, clerks in the Astor Company, have given the most complete data. These events, important as they were, are outside the scope of our story. We will simply say that the rivalry between the Astorians and the Northwesters came to a sudden climax by the War of 1812. Misfortune dogged the course of the Astor Company. Hunt had gone from Astoria to Sitka in the second ship from New York, the Beaver, and had started a profitable business with the Russians, but on the return to the Columbia, the captain of the Beaver, finding his ship damaged by a storm, insisted on going to Honolulu, though Hunt's presence was sorely needed at Astoria. At Honolulu Hunt received the evil tidings of the wreck of the third ship, the Lark. With the cargo of the Beaver conveyed to Canton, while Hunt was wasting his vitally important time at Honolulu, the same timid captain, Sowles, lost all the best chances of the market, both for selling his furs and buying Canton goods. Thus the whole voyage was a failure. After an intolerable delay, Hunt chartered a vessel with which he left the Sandwich Islands and reached Astoria August 20, 1813, Vol. 1-4
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more than a year from the time of his departure. But his return was too late. The Scotch partners had sold the company out to the Northwesters.
Such was the untoward end of the vast undertaking of John Jacob Astor. The Americans were down and out. The Britishers were in possession of the fur territory of Oregon. By the Joint Occupation Treaty of 1818, both English and Americans were privileged to carry on business in Oregon, but the effect of the downfall of the Astor Company was to place the country in the hands of the Northwesters. That company had two great aims: first, to get rid of American rivalry; second, to prevent the entrance of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany. Having accomplished the first purpose, they set about the second. The upshot of that was the final coalescence of the two companies in 1821 with the name of the Hudson's Bay Company, but with the members of the younger company on equal terms, and as far as Oregon was concerned, with the advantage of profit in the hands of the partners of that company. And now for twenty- five years the Hudson's Bay Company, thus reorganized, lorded it over Oregon.
During all the years from the time of the entrance of the Pacific Fur Com- pany through the struggle between it and the Northwesters and then the united fortunes of the Northwesters and the Hudson's Bay Company down to American ownership in 1846, Walla Walla and the rest of the region which now composes the scene of our history were prominent in the affairs of the fur-traders. Per- haps the most valuable narrative by any of the Astor Company of entrance into the Walla Walla County, is that by Alexander Ross, one of the clerks, in a book of which the full title is, "Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River." In this narrative Ross tells of their first journey into the interior, beginning July 22, 18II. Describing the passage of the Cascades and the "Long Narrows" (The Dalles) and the Falls (Celilo) he mentions a river which he calls the Lowhum (Des Chutes), then the Day (John Day), then the Umatallow (Umatilla). He describes here a "large mound or hill of considerable height," which from its peculiar form they called Dumbarton Castle. This was doubtless the curious rock just east of Umatilla, noticeable to all travellers by steamer. Passing through the "colonnade rocks," the party soon found them- selves at a bluff where there "issues the meandering Walla Walla, a beautiful little river, lined with weeping willows." Here they found a great concourse of Indians, "Walla-Wallas, Shaw Haptens, and Cajouses, altogether 1,500 souls." Some were armed with guns and some with bows and arrows. Their chiefs rejoiced in the names of Tummatapam, Quill-Quills-Tuck-a-Pesten, and Allow- catt. The plains were literally covered with horses, of which there could not have been less than four thousand in sight of the camp. Passing beyond the Walla Walla, the party reached the junction of the two big rivers, noting the difference in color of the two. Noting also the fine salmon fishing, where, how- ever, Ross observed that not so many salmon can be captured in a day as on the Copper Mine River or in Kamtschatka. They soon reach the Eyakema (Yakima), and here they note that the landscape at the mouth of that river surpassed in pic- turesque beauty anything that they had yet seen. They are surprised at being overtaken at that point by three Walla Walla Indians on horseback who brought to them a bag of shot which they had accidentally left at the preceding camp,- an evidence of honesty similar to that experienced by Lewis and Clark among the Walla Wallas. From the "Eyakema" this party proceeded up the river to
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Okanogan, where, as already related, they built the first structure erected by white men in the present State of Washington.
It gives some conception of the hardihood of the traders of that time to note that Ross remained entirely alone at "Oakanacken," while the rest of the party went northward 350 miles to find a new fur region. During their absence of 188 days Ross secured from the Indians 1,550 beaver skins for 35 pounds, worth in Canton (China) market 2,250 pounds !
One of the most characteristic incidents of the life of that time is found in an account given in the narratives of Cox, Ross, and Franchere, about the Indian wife of Pierre Dorion, a hunter in one of the parties which had been located in the Blue Mountains south of Walla Walla. Following Franchere's account of this, it appears that while a party of Northwesters of which he was one were on their way in 1814 up the Columbia to cross the mountains into Canada, while they were in the river near the mouth of the Walla Walla, they heard a child's voice from a canoe call out: "Arretez donc, Arretez donc!" (Stop! Stop!) The woman with her two boys were in a canoe trying to overtake the party. Halting, they discovered that this pitiful little group were all that remained of the trappers that had been located among the Snake Indians. According to Madame Dorion's story, while they were engaged in trapping in January, the trappers had been attacked one by one by the Indians and all murdered. Secur- ing two horses the brave woman mounted her boys upon them and started for the Walla Walla. In the bitter cold they could not proceed and having no other food. the woman killed the horses and after spending the rest of the winter in the mountains made her way with the children to the Walla Walla, where the Indians treated them with kindness and placed them where they might find the boats of the white men. Think of the endurance and faithfulness of the woman who could win such a fight for life for her children.
Ross Cox gives an interesting account of his journey from Astoria to Spokane in 1812. He too commends the "Wallah Wallah" Indians for their honesty and humanity. He describes the immense numbers of rattlesnakes around the mouth of the Wallah Wallah, and-a more pleasing theme-the appearance of the mountains which he says the Canadians called from their color, "Les Montagnes Blenes." From what Cox says in this same connection, it appears that the name Nez Perces was a translation into French from the name Pierced-Nose, which had already been applied to the Indians up Snake River by Lewis and Clark.
The most important event in this stage of the history was the founding of Fort Walla Walla, at first called Fort Nez Perces. This was founded in 1818 by Donald McKenzie. This efficient and ambitious man will be remembered as one of Astor's partners, one who accompanied Hunt on his great journey and had been one of the most active and influential in the sale of Astoria to the North- western Company. Having been for ten years prior to his connection with Astor a member of the Northwestern Company, he felt more at home with it. and upon its establishment in practical possession of the fur trade of Oregon. Mckenzie became one of its most faithful and useful managers. Mckenzie seems to have been opposed by his associates in his desire to establish a post on the Walla Walla. But with a keen eye for strategic places and with a sagacity and pertinacity unequalled by any of them, he forced all to his views. Orders came from headquarters that he be allowed the needful men and equipment.
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and in July, 1818, with ninety-five men and our old friend Ross as his second in command, he set to work in the construction of the fort at the point half a inile above the mouth of the Walla Walla, long known in the annals of the Columbia during both British and American possession. At that spot the foundation of the fort may still be seen, and just abreast of it is the present landing of the Wallula ferry. The structure consisted of a palisade of timbers 30 inches wide, 6 inches thick, and 20 feet high. At the top were loop-holes and slip-doors. Two bastions and water tanks holding 200 gallons still further guarded against both attack from Indians and danger of fire. The enclosure was 100 fect square, and within it were houses built of drift logs, though there was one of stone. Subsequently adobe buildings were added, and some of those remained in some degree of prescrvation till the great flood of 1894.
From Fort Walla Walla, as it came to be known within a few years, Mckenzie carried on a great and profitable trade to the Snake country and the Blue Moun- tains. At one of his encampments while having a force of only three men, and with a very valuable stock of furs and goods, a crowd of piratical Indians tried to rush the camp and plunder the whole establishment. Mckenzie with his usual nerve seized a match and holding it over a keg of powder declared that if they did not immediately clear out, he would blow them all up. They cleared out and left him in possession. It is said that Archibald Mckinley performed a similar exploit at Walla Walla.
Many interesting things could be told of this historic fort. Gardens were started, cattle brought to feed on the meadow land of the Walla Walla, and by the time that the missionaries and immigrants began to come in the '30s and '40s the lower Walla Walla bore a homelike and civilized appearance. Other pasture and garden regions were added, one of the most extensive being that now known as Hudson's Bay, the location of the "Goodman Ranch," about fifteen miles southwest of the present City of Walla Walla.
Our limits forbid space for all the other fur enterprises and companies aside from the two important companies already described. There were, however, three Americans who come within the range of our story whose careers were so interesting and important that we cannot omit mention of them. These were Jedadiah Smith, Nathaniel Wyeth and B. L. E. Bonneville. The first named was a member of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, of which W. H. Ashley was founder. The main operations of the company were on the Upper Missouri, Green River, and around Great Salt Lake. Smith, however, made several remark- able journeys far beyond the earlier range. He was a very unique character, a devout Christian and yet one of the boldest of traders and discoverers. He might be said to have carried the Bible in one hand and his rifle in the other. He usually began the day with devotions and expected his men to be present. Yet he pushed his business and discoveries to the limit. His first great trip was in 1826. He proceeded from Great Salt Lake to the Colorado, thence across Arizona and Southern California, to San Diego, a route unknown to whites before. After going up and down California hundreds of miles he crossed the mountains and deserts eastward the next summer, following a more northern route abounding in perils and hardships. In 1827 the journey to California was repeated almost immediately upon his return from the first. In the spring and summer of 1828, he struck out on an entirely new course. This was up the
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