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Early days in Old Oregon. With numerous illustrations and four maps
British Columbia Historical Books Collection
Judson, Katharine Berry
"Bibliography [with useful annotations]: PP.253-260. ' ... a clear, straightforward account of the romantic discovery and settlement of Old Oregon, especially intended for children':Pref. by the Sub-Librarian of History in the New York State Library. 2d. ed. Chicago, 1919; 3d. ed. Portland, Or., Metropolitan Press, 1935; 4th.ed. Portland, Or., Metropolitan Press, 1936; 5th.ed. Portland, Or., Binfords & Mort [1944]" -- Strathern, G. M., & Edwards, M. H. (1970). Navigations, traffiques & discoveries, 1774-1848: A guide to publications relating to the area now British Columbia. Victoria, BC: University of Victoria, p. 150.
263 pages : photographs, illustrations, maps ; 20 cm
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I Early Days in w Old Ore %%S* By KATHARINE BERRY JUDSON, M.A. Author of "Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest,' "Myths and Legends of the Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes," "Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest," etc. WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS AND FOUR MAPS CHICAGO A. C McCLURG & CO. 1916 v **. i^^M^ZiteHiQ*™^ IJrtfare f~\UD OREGON was a mighty sweep of country, and a most romantic one. From the northern border of Mexican California to near Sitka in Russian America it stretched, nearly eight hundred miles. Eastward it stretched over a country of mighty mountain ranges from which at regular intervals rose the snow peaks, ever glistening white, over a country of dense forests, of mighty rivers and foaming mountain torrents, over a country of sand and sagebrush, and on still eastward over the "cut-rock desert where "men had songs for supper" and where no game could live, on and on eastward nearly a thousand miles until the limits of the Oregon country, at the crest of the main range of the Rockies, met the old-time, unknown Louisiana. The romance ever lingers. Still, as one stands on the green prairie at Fort Vancouver, for so many years the center of civilization on the lonely coast of Oregon, one hears echoes of the Brigade of Boats coming down the Columbia ; still one hears the gay voices of the voyageurs singing in time to the dip of the paddle. Romance still lingers in vague tales of the blue-coated, brass-buttoned Hudson's Bay Company men who followed the forest trails. Romance still lingers at old Fort Astoria, where a replica of PREFACE the famous old fort—a tiny thing for a protection in the wilderness—has been built in memory of the old days of a century ago. "When my grandfather came across the plains" — even now one hears that remark; and romance brings to sight the long line of white-winged prairie schooners winding their slow way over the endless green waves of the prairies, then over the long level of the plains, and the crashing and bumping as they plunged up and down the mountain sides—bound for Oregon. But what do the children of the present day know of the days of these grandfathers? What books have they to tell them of the old romance? None whatever. They know only that which they glean from someone else's remembrance of what their grandfathers said. One or two time-table histories, written entirely from secondary sources, and with many faulty statements, especially with regard to the claims of the British and Americans to the Old Oregon country—that is all they have. I have given four years of devoted study to Oregon history, three of them among the special collections of the Northwest, and over a year in London. In England I had full access to the documents of the Public Record Office, including unpublished accounts of the various explorations, and also, what was a far rarer privilege, access to the journals, diaries, and letters of the Hudson's Bay Company. Simple as this book is, every statement is based on original authority. Comment on the British and Amer- PREFACE ican claims to the country is founded entirely upon sources. These sources include- journals written by fur-traders in the mountains and on the march, private letters between themselves, official reports of chief factors to their Company in London, diplomatic correspondence of American and English diplomats, and published works, in original editions, of exploration and discovery. It has been my aim to make this volume a clear, straightforward account of the romantic discovery and settlement of Old Oregon, especially intended for children. Yet teachers of much higher grades, and perchance even those in college work, will find in the "Summary" at the end, as well as in the two chapters, "Who Owned the Oregon Country," and "Fort Vancouver and Dr. John McLough- lin," material from sources which have never before been made accessible. K. B. J. Sub-Librarian of History, New York State Library, Albany, N. Y. (EmttetttH CHAPTER PAGE I The First White Man's Ship i II Captain Cook's Adventures ... 5 III Captain Meares at Nootka Sound. Launching of the Northwest America ......... 13 IV The Battle in the Straits of San Juan de Fuca . . 22 V When Captain Gray Crossed the Terrible Bar . . 25 VI The Adventures of Lewis and Clark 31 VII How They Built Astoria 47 VIII That " Indian" Thief .—....' 58 IX An Exciting Horse Race ._ 66 X Adventures in the Yakima Valley 72 XI Danger at Fort Walla Walla 83 XII Fort Vancouver and Dr. John McLoughlin ... 96 XIII The First Apple in the Oregon Country . . . . no XIV The Adventures of the Whitmans 113 XV The Oregon Trail 127 XVI Who Owned the "Oregon Country"? .... 143 XVII Through the Nachess Pass 167 XVIII The Beginnings of Cities 178 XIX Early Adventures in Seattle . . 188 XX The Life of the Children 197 XXI The Great Council at Walla Walla 205 XXII The Battle of Seattle 216 XXIII How the Indians Lived 224 Appendix—A Brief Summary of the History of the Old Oregon Country from Original Sources . . 237 Bibliography 253 Index .261 h SUttjrftttiimui PAGE A Blackfeet Indian travois Frontispiece Captain Meares in San Juan de Fuca Straits 22 Launching of the Northwest America 22 The Lewis and Clark line of exploration 41 Fort Okanogan 56 An Indian buffalo hunt . 56 Indians stalking buffalo 74 Reclaiming Eastern Oregon 74 A war party 90 An Indian dance 90 Falls of the Willamette 126 The Oregon Country 128 The Dalles 142 The Willamette Valley 150 Mt. Hood from The Dalles of the Columbia 150 Old Oregon and the disputed section 157 American pioneer cabin 178 Oregon City in early days 178 Oregon City in 1845 179 Hauling the logs 182 Transportation by ox team . 182 The fallen monarch of the woods 183 Ocean-going log raft 183 Snoqualmie Falls, Washington 204 Indian houses 226 An Indian canoe tomb 226 Mt. Rainier 236 Early Days in Old Oregon CHAPTER I .§:■ THE FIRST WHITE MAN'S SHIP AN Indian woman was one day walking along the shore, near Seaside, Oregon, on her way back to the Clatsop village. Her son had been killed in battle the year before, and she often walked along this beach, wailing for him, as Indians wail for their dead. Suddenly she saw something lying on the beach. She thought it might be a whale and went toward it, because at that point her tribe caught many whales. When she came near it, she saw two trees standing up in this Thing. She thought: "Behold! It is no whale! It is a monster!" Then she reached that Thing that lay on the beach. All the outside was shining, as copper shines. Ropes were tied to those trees, and there were many pieces of iron sticking into it.1 Then a bear came out of tt. He stood on the Thing, near the trees. He looked just like a bear, yet his face was like that of a man. The woman was amazed. She thought this strange Thing had come from the Ghost-Land, because Indians believe in ghosts. So she at once turned away and went 1 Indians along the Northwest Coast used to pull out with their teeth from the planking of a ship any nails which had become at all loosened, so eager were they for metal. I CO EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON home, for she was afraid. As she walked on, she began to weep for her dead son. She wailed, "Oh, my son is dead, and the Thing we hear about in tales is lying on the beach!" |§| As she neared the Clatsop village, her people heard the long, wailing cry. The Clatsops said, " Oh, a person comes crying! Perhaps someone has struck her!" They took down their bows and arrows, thinking an enemy must be near. An old man said, "Listen!" The Indian woman was still weeping. She wailed, " Oh, my son is dead, and the Thing we hear about in tales is lying on the beach!" The Indians said, "What can it be?" They went running toward her, and said, "What is it?" The woman replied, " A Thing lies on the beach. And there are two bears in it; but they look like people." At once the warriors ran down the beach to this Thing. There it lay! Then the two "bears" came out of it with copper kettles in their hands. They put their hands to their mouths and pointed inland, giving their kettles to the Indians. They were asking for water. Seme of the Indians took the kettles and ran inland to a spring or stream, but others hid themselves behind logs because they were afraid. A few were brave enough, however, to climb up into this Thing. They found.it like a very large canoe, and when they went down inside it seemed full of boxes. One man who went down into the hold found there a string of brass buttons. Brass buttons [2] THE FIRST WHITE MAN'S SHIP had great value to his tribe, and he excitedly went outside to call his relatives. But they had already set the ship on fire. They burned this ship because they wanted the metal in it. All the Indians along the Northwest Coast knew metal —knew brass, and iron, and copper—and were very eager for it. Where they learned about it no one knows, for the earliest explorers found them willing to trade furs for bits of metal of any kind. When, therefore, they saw this ship, with its copper bottom and the nails in it, and the ironwork in the ropes, they at once set it afire to get the metal. It burned to the water's edge in a very short time —burned just like fat, so the Indians said. The Clatsop Indians also made prisoners of the two "bears." They looked at them very hard. One of the chiefs went up to them as they stood on the beach. He looked at their faces. He looked at their hands, and then put out his own hand. Soon he said to his people that they were not bears, but men. The Indians had thought they were bears because they were bearded men. No Indian ever wears a mustache or a beard—at least not until he becomes civilized. There was great excitement among the near-by tribes when they heard about the strange canoe with two trees in it, and all the metal. Other tribes wanted some of it. They came down in their canoes and began trading. Much of the metal was used for ornaments, for bracelets and anklets and great heavy eardrops. A strip of copper two fingers wide and long enough to go around the arm was [3] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON valuable enough to buy a slave. A nail would buy a good dressed deerskin. Several nails would buy a string of hiaqua shells, which were the Indian money. The two sailors, of course, were made slaves. The Clatsop chief thought he ought to have both of them, but the Willapa chief demanded one, and the tribes almost went to war over it. At last the Willapa chief took one slave, and the Clatsop chief kept the other. Whose ship was this? No one knows. Ships were blown across the ocean from Japan, but it does not seem likely these men were Japanese. They might have been Spaniards, or possibly Englishmen. Indeed, no one would ever have known anything at all about thfs ship except that when the white men came into Oregon, the Indians themselves told them the story of this Thing which lay on the beach many, many years before. CHAPTER II CAPTAIN COOK'S ADVENTURES DOWN from the north came a rip-roaring wind, and the two little sailing ships that, in March, 1778, were off the Oregon coast had to turn and run. Reef their sails and scud before the mighty blasts — that was all captains could do in those days. The ships were very small. Without steam power, the wind blew them this way and that; and wind and tide together often sent them crashing on the rocks amidst roaring breakers. So Captain Cook's two sailing ships, the Resolution and the Discovery, went scudding to the south, under bare poles, while the Storm King of the North blew the waves of the Pacific mountain-high. ;Then when the storm was over, the doughty captain unfurled his sails and let another breeze blow him north again. But squalls came, so tacking was necessary. Captain Cook had to stay far out at sea lest the wind and tide should send him among the white-capped breakers he saw through his telescope on the Oregon shore. "Our ships complained," wrote one of the officers of the creaking, groaning ships, blown by high winds and waves. Stop and think of the date. It was 1778. Over on the North Atlantic coast the American colonies were fight- ■ - [5] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON ing the Revolutionary War with Great Britain. But of the North Pacific coast no one knew anything at all. It is true a few Spanish explorers had been sent up this coast, but their reports were poor. Worse yet, they had not been printed; so the world knew little enough about the Spanish explorations on this coast. We know now, however, that one Spanish explorer was sure he saw a river mouth, or a "bay," on that North Pacific coast. There were sand bars across the mouth of this bay, and the waves broke high over them. He did not dare to cross the bar. Still, he named it the Rio San Roque; that is, the River of Saint Roque. Besides this rather uncertain river, it was thought that there was an inlet, or strait, somewhere along this coast. All that anyone knew was that some two hundred years before, in 1592, an old Portuguese named Juan de Fuca had said that he had been in this part of the world, and that there was an inlet there which connected the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific. But no one else had ever seen it, and no one knows to this day whether Juan de Fuca really saw those straits or not. All nations were looking at this time for an inlet called the "Straits of Anian" — some water passage between the two great oceans which lie east and west of America. No such straits ever existed. Yet not many years ago an Arctic explorer found straits far north leading into the Arctic Ocean, so that a ship actually can go from the Atlantic to the Pacific now, if it goes by way of the icebergs and bitter cold of the Arctic Ocean. [6] _ CAPTAIN COOK'S ADVENTURES Now, Captain Cook had been sent out to look for these straits, and also to look for a rumored " River of the West' which the Indians said flowed toward the setting sun and emptied into the Bitter Waters. That was why he watched the shore so closely with his spyglass. All he could see of Oregon was that it was hilly, covered with trees, with low valleys between. But he could see no river. As he sailed farther north, he thought he saw a broad stretch of water leading toward the east. At first he flattered himself he had found those straits. Then he decided it was only a low, marshy land. But he was so disappointed that he called a projecting point of land Cape Flattery—and Cape Flattery it is today, on the southern shore of the Straits of San Juan de Fuca. On he sailed northward, this time with a breeze from the south, until he found himself at the entrance of a large sound. Just at sunset the ship sailed in. So far as Captain Cook knew, it had no name, so he called it King George's Sound, although it was later called Nootka Sound. Yet the Spanish had already seen it and they had called it San Lorenzo. Nootka Sound was a beautiful place after weeks on the stormy ocean with those "complaining" ships. The sun was shining and the sky was blue. The water rippled softly on many little islands, which were fresh and green in the early spring. On the shore were dense forests of tall straight trees which came down to the water's edge. The water was too deep to anchor. The sailors tied the ships to the trees with great hawsers. [7] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON The Indians had been watching them, but paid little attention to them that evening, though many canoes paddled around them. The next day they welcomed the ship in great state. Three canoes first came out. In the foremost were ten men, in the second six, and in the last were two. All were dressed in long robes of sea-otter skins, reaching from their necks to their knees. There were no sleeves of course. The robes were only skins fastened together. Their faces and legs were painted with red and black, in stripes and squares. Their long black hair was bunched up in club fashion on the top of their heads, and mixed in with it were spruce twigs. The green leaves of the spruce showed through the black hair. Over all this, downy white feathers were strewed. An English boy, who was a prisoner among them some years later, tells us exactly how they dressed when visitors came. As these canoes neared the ship, a chief arose in the foremost one to make a speech. He had a rattle in his hand which he shook when he talked. He talked a long time, indeed, in a very loud voice, and strewed the water about him with downy white feathers. That was a ceremony of welcome. Other Indians in the two canoes behind him strewed the water with a reddish powder. By all this, the Englishmen understood they were invited to come on shore. When the first chief became tired, another arose and talked in the same loud tone, still motioning the white men to the shore. These Indians were not in the least afraid of their white visitors. Then after a while the men began [8] CAPTAIN COOK'S ADVENTURES to sing one of their songs. It was a soft, pleasing melody, sung in perfect time, and they kept time to it by striking the canoes with their paddles. The English planned to stay in this pleasant harbor for a while. They needed fresh water and new masts; they needed also fresh meat, such as game and fish, and vegetables or greens of some kind. Besides this, the ships were going into the Alaskan waters where it was bitterly cold. When they saw the Indians with many furs they began to trade for them, for the men would need warm clothing and warm bedding such as bearskin rugs. When Cook and his officers began to trade for furs, to their astonishment the Indians would not accept as payment the bells and beads and looking glasses which the South Sea Islanders and the Hawaiians had taken. Nothing was accepted by these Nootka Sound Indians but metal. Like the Indians who burned the first white men's ship they saw for the metal in it, so these red men were eager for brass and copper and iron. And for a little metal they were willing to give many furs. You can guess what happened. The sailors sold the metal buttons off their coats; the brass handles were taken off their bureaus; candlesticks, tin cans, copper kettles, small knives, bits of iron, everything that was metal on the ship was sold to the Indians for furs. And some things were not sold; for the Indians would steal many bits they could not buy. They cut the blocks out of the tackle; even heavy iron pieces were cut from the ropes and tossed to a near-by canoe. I [9] I EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON They were clever thieves, the captain said. One Indian would talk to the sentinel on duty, while another, at a little distance, would pull the ironwork off and toss it overboard to some friend. But the Indians sold quantities of furs of all kinds— wolf, bear, fox, deer, marten, and many others, besides the beautiful sea otter skins and robes. The sailors bought more than they needed because the Indians were so eager to sell; and they knew that at least they would be warm in the north. So when all repairs were made, new spars put in place, fresh water in all the water casks, fresh game and fish on board for a few days, the men rested by their stay on land, and all was ready, the two little ships sailed out of the harbor northward. After a long time in the north, exploring, they went over on the Asiatic side. There, at Kamschatka, they found Russian fur traders who wanted to buy their furs. As Captain Cook was going to China then, the men and sailors did not need the furs longer and many were sold to the Russians. But the sailors did not know the value of these furs and did not ask high prices. Besides there were no shops in which to spend the money, and they did not know what to do with it. Russian silver roubles seemed of so little value that these pieces of money were kicked about the decks like chips of wood. Then the ships sailed southward and some time after reached China. Now the Chinese were just as anxious for those furs as [10] CAPTAIN COOK'S ADVENTURES the Indians of Nootka Sound had been for bits of metal. The sailors were amazed at the prices paid to them, and yet very few of the furs were perfect. Some had been used for blankets in their bunks* some were partly worn when they bought them from the natives, and others again had been worn on deck and were spotted with tar and grease. Yet the Chinese bought them. Now when the sailors learned the high value of the furs, they were eager to return to Nootka Sound for more. They could make their fortunes so easily! They almost mutinied when the officers refused to allow them to go back. But this was a royal exploring expedition, not a fur-trading voyage. So back to London they went, arriving there in 1780. Captain Cook had been killed at the Sandwich Islands, but the journals of the expedition were published at once. Besides that, the sailors told everyone they met of the great wealth to be secured by trading with the Indians at Nootka Sound—how the Indians would sell furs for bits of metal, and the Chinese would pay high prices for the furs. That was the beginning of the fur trade along the north Pacific coast. Soon after these journals were published, ships began to go to Nootka Sound for furs. The first were English ships sailing from India and China. Captain Meares, of whom we will hear later, was an English trader from India. Immediately after, Yankee captains began to go from Boston and from other cities on the north Atlantic coast. The Revolutionary War was over and the vessels I . tttl EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON were almost idle. Captain Robert Gray was one of these New England captains. Both he and Captain Meares had some interesting adventures, as the next few chapters will show. [12] CHAPTER III CAPTAIN MEARES AT NOOTKA SOUND. LAUNCHING OF THE "NORTHWEST AMERICA" ON a bright May day in 1788 two little trading ships sailed into Nootka Sound. It was just ten years after Captain Cook, with his two exploring ships, had entered this same Sound. All the world by this time knew about this fur trade, and ships were beginning to go up the Northwest Coast of America on trading voyages. The larger of these two trading ships was commanded by Captain John Meares, though both were owned by his company and under his control. This was the captain's second voyage. His first had been up to Alaska, where he had been caught in the ice all winter and with all his men had come near dying from the cold. But two other English captains had found him there and helped him out. On his way south in that first voyage, after getting out of the ice, Meares had stopped at Nootka Sound, and again at the Sandwich Islands, as the Hawaiian Islands were then called. At Nootka Sound he found a chief called Co-me-ke-la, a brother of the great chief Maquinna, who wanted to see the world. Meares took Co-me-ke-la on board. At Oahu he found a Sandwich Island chief, [13] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON Tianna, who also wanted to go sight-seeing. So Meares took him also and they sailed away for China. Now, on this bright May day in 1788, Captain Meares was entering Nootka Sound on his second fur-trading voyage, and Co-me-ke-la and Tianna were both on board; so were many Chinese carpenters. His crew were Lascars from the Asiatic coast. Meares had a curious shipload with him. They came to anchor in that same Friendly Cove in the Sound where Captain Cook had found shelter ten years before. Maquinna, the chief, came to welcome him with all his people. Captain JMeares went on shore. He said Co-me-ke-la would shortly land. So the Indians all stood about to see this much-traveled chief. When he did step off shipboard, he was a wonderfully dressed Indian. His tribesmen gasped with astonishment. Co-me-ke-la wore a red military coat, with many brass buttons on it. On his head was a turned-back military hat with a big bright cockade on it. His shirt was linen and his trousers of dark cloth. But the most wonderful thing was this: many scraps of bright copper, gleaming like gold—pieces which he had begged and stolen—were fastened all over that bright red coat. A half sheet of shining copper formed a breastplate. Copper ornaments hung from his ears. His hair was long and black and braided. Fastened to this long black queue were so many copper handles from sauce-pans and frying-pans that he could not bend his head. By their weight and stiffness they bent his head back until his neck ached, and he was [14] LAUNCHING OF "NORTHWEST AMERICA" most laughable to look at. Last of all, he had taken out of the cook's galley, after a real fight with the cook, a great steel meat-spit—a spit on which the cook roasted his meats before the open fire. Oh, Co-me-ke-la was a wonderfully dressed chief! The Indians thought him gorgeous. But who shall say what the cook thought, when he looked at the pile of sauce-pans and frying-pans with the handles all broken squarely off, or when he wanted to roast his meats? Tianna was also finely dressed, but he was only a Sandwich Islander and these Nootka Indians did not care anything about him. Captain Meares began to build a house, after Chief Maquinna said he might, so the Chinese carpenters, with their funny blue blouses and their long black queues, clambered down off the ship and landed on the island. What Meares really wanted was a trading post, where his men could live and buy furs from the Indians; but as a fur- trading fort it was very different from those which the great fur companies built in after years. Captain Meares's house had two stories. On the ground floor were to be stored the furs, the rope and sails and ships' stores, besides the food supplies. In the second story were sleeping rooms for the men and fo^j: the officers, and also a large dining-room. Then a low barricade of brushwood and logs was put around the house, so that Indians could not surprise it too easily. But of course if they had wanted to fight, the fort would not have stood long. [15] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON After the house was finished, the Chinese carpenters were put to work building a small ship, of forty or fifty tons. This was to be a "coaster"—to run into and out of little harbors and creeks along the coast and buy furs at the Indian villages. While they were building this, Captain Meares sent the smaller of his two sailing ships north to explore and buy furs, while he went south in the larger one to do the same thing. Chief Maquinna said he would take care of the carpenters and the few white men left behind. Coasting slowly southward, on a pleasant June day in 1788, Captain Meares came to the entrance of a great inlet. It stretched far to the eastward, and one could not see land at the other* end. It had been seen the year before by Captain Barkeley, who named it, told other captains about it, and wrote about it in his log book. Captain Barkeley thought it might be the Straits of Juan de Fuca; he also called this broad inlet by that name. Both captains thought this inlet must lead either straight across to the Atlantic Ocean, or else connect with rivers that emptied into that ocean. Look at the map and see if it does this. This was the very same inlet which Captain Cook had looked for, but could not see. He thought it low marshy ground. The breeze blew Captain Meares slowly southward, until, near Cape Flattery, he came to a rocky island. Canoes soon were all about them, filled with savage- looking redskins. The faces of these men \ were grim [16] LAUNCHING OF "NORTHWEST AMERICA" enough, but red and black ochre and whale oil made them grimmer yet. Their large canoes held from twenty to thirty men, and each warrior was armed with bow and arrows, the arrows tipped with bits of ragged bone. Their large spears were also tipped with knife-like edges of mussel shell. Yet these savage, red-painted, oily Indians wore superb robes of beautiful sea otter skins, which they refused at all times to sell. The chief's name was Tatoosh, and his name was given to this rocky island. He came on board, a surly-looking fellow, not at all like the handsome, dignified Indian chiefs of many of the land tribes. Meares made gifts to him. The surly Tatoosh did not even thank the Englishman, let alone returning gift for gift, as was the Indian custom. More than that, he would not allow any of his people to sell furs to the traders. The captain looked about him. It was a wild scene. This little island was crowded and swarming with Indians, yet aside from fishing there could be no way of getting food. Even roots would not grow on these barren rocks. The surf beat on the rocky shores of the straits, both north and south. Above the dense black forests, which came down almost to the water's edge, rose the snowy ridge of the Olympic Mountains. Captain Meares sent the longboat to find an anchoring place, as he wanted to trade for sea otter robes. But at once war canoes gathered around the longboat, while Indians tried to jump into it and steal the small trading articles lying there. They jeered at the sailors, who I [17] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON were so enraged they wanted to fight. But the officer kept them quiet, else perhaps not a man on either the ship or in the longboat might have escaped. The boat was recalled immediately. But now the breeze had died down. Meares spread his sails and hoped to go farther south, but the sails hung lifeless. The next morning the ship was not four hundred feet from where it had been the night before. Tatoosh and his warriors, four hundred strong, came out in their war canoes and paddled around and around the ship. They seemed to admire it very much, but the captain took pains not to invite any of them on board. Then the Indians began to sing. It was a simple little melody, yet sung in exact time, and with so many voices, in the open air, it was very sweet. It almost made the Englishmen homesick. At noon the breeze sprang up. The captain sailed southward. He tried to enter Shoalwater Bay, but the water was too shallow on the bar. Then he sailed on until he came to what seemed to be an opening in the coast, like a river. He saw what might be a bay, or perhaps a river mouth. The bay was shut off from the ocean by long sand bars. Tremendous waves thundered over the bar. The great whitecaps were dangerous to any sailing ship. Captain Meares steered in toward this "bay." But the water began to grow shallow. "Nine fathoms," called the men with the sounding leads. "Eight fathoms," they called. Still it grew shal- [18] 1 LAUNCHING OF "NORTHWEST AMERICA" lower. "Seven fathoms," they shouted—and the breakers were right ahead. Captain Meares steered out. He was so disappointed that he called a high cape on the north side of the bay Cape Disappointment. The "bay" he called Deception Bay because he had been deceived—so he thought—into believing it might be a river mouth. Then he said in his log book, without the slightest respect for English grammar, "We can now with safety assert that there is no such river as that of Saint Roc exists, as laid down in the Spanish charts." Then the ungram- matical captain turned around and sailed back to Nootka Sound. This happened four years before Captain Robert Gray, from Boston, daringly sailed into that "bay" and found it was the mouth of the Columbia River. But the name Cape Disappointment sticks to that headland even today. When Captain Meares reached Nootka Sound again he was much pleased to find the new little coasting vessel, the Northwest America, almost ready for launching. Everything was all right. The Indians had been friendly. They had even made a trail through the rough forest, because the trees which the Chinese carpenters needed for building that little ship were back in the woods. The trees near by were too large. But in the Sound also were Americans, just out from Boston. Captain Robert Gray, in the Lady Washington, was there when Meares arrived; and shortly after, Captain John Kendrick, of the Columbia, sailed in. And these Americans were much surprised to find, on that wild, [i9] m EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON lonely shore, Chinese carpenters hard at work building a ship, while a house flying the British flag stood on the shore. At last, late in September that same year, 1788, the Northwest America was ready for launching. The British flag was hoisted and the tide was at just the right height. Maquinna and Co-me-ke-la, with all their wild tribesmen, had come from their winter houses back in the forest. Tianna, the Sandwich Island chief, was on board the new ship. Hawaiians live in the water, like ducks, and Tianna thought this was good fun. A gun was fired. The carpenters knocked down the props, and like a shot the little ship started from the ways. She slipped into the water with such speed, and dashed across the harbor so wildly, that she ran halfway out toward the open ocean. Nobody there knew much about launching a ship. Captain Meares says he did not, and no one would expect it of Chinese carpenters. So they entirely forgot to put a cable and anchor on her. But she had no sails yet, so small boats went out and towed her back to the dock. Tianna, on board, was much pleased. He capered about on deck as she dashed across the little cove, clapping his hands gleefully and shouting, "Mighty! Mighty!" And so was launched the first ship built on the Northwest Coast of America — the country had no other name yet—and it was a curious scene. It was a fur-trading ship, built by Chinese carpenters for an English captain, who, with his Lascar crew, often [20] —^——————— —————— LAUNCHING OF "NORTHWEST AMERICA" sailed under the Portuguese flag. It was built on a wild, lonely shore, uninhabited by white people, and launched under the surprised eyes of Yankees just out from Boston, and of Nootka Sound chiefs with all their red-painted followers; and it had on board, as it dashed into the water, a Sandwich Island chief who was fond of travel and wanted to see the world. [21] CHAPTER IV THE BATTLE IN THE STRAITS OF SAN JUAN DE FUCA CAPTAIN BARKELEY was the first man to see the Straits of San Juan de Fuca, so far as we know, and Barkeley named them, since he knew of that old Portuguese sailor who claimed to have seen such straits on the western coast of America. Captain Meares claimed that he himself named them, but this is incorrect. But just before going north to launch the Northwest America, that late summer of 1788, Captain Meares sailed his ship into a harbor just north of the Straits, and sent the longboat with one officer and thirteen men to explore the inlet. Did it lead to the Atlantic Ocean? How far away was the Atlantic Ocean from the point where they were? Or did this inlet lead to Hudson Bay, or to some river which emptied into the Atlantic Ocean? No one knew. But everyone, fur trader or explorer, who saw a new bit of the country, claimed it in the name of his own nation. When Meares sent his longboat into the Straits that July, therefore, he wrote to the officer: "You will take possession of this strait and the lands adjoining in the name of the King and Crown of Great Britain." He wrote this, instead of saying it, because he wanted it on record. [22] ..'*»— From an old print Captain Meares in San Juan de Fuca Straits From an old print Launching of the " Northwest America 1 Tr BATTLE IN STRAITS OF SAN JUAN DE FUCA The longboat party sailed and partly rowed the short distance back to the Straits. There was Tatoosh, the rocky island, again, swarming with Indians and crowded with the rough huts of the redskins. And the shores all around the entrance of the straits were dotted with these same small, rough, board houses. Paying no attention to the Indians, the men rowed into the inlet, just how far we do not know, but up along the northern shore. The Indians at first paid little attention to them, but as they sailed farther in things became more dangerous. One morning, as they were near the shore, the Indians began to show fight. Two canoes, with perhaps fifty warriors in all, came directly up to the longboat. They intended to capture it, and make the sailors slaves. Other canoes stood at a little distance, to help if they could. The shore was thronged with men, women, and children, most of them armed with slings and stones. So began the battle. The canoe warriors, armed with bone-tipped arrows and shell-tipped spears, began the attack. They tried to jump into the longboat and throw the sailors overboard; but they were forced back. Then the canoes drew back, while from the shore and the canoes flew showers of arrows into the boat and among the men. One Indian lifted a long spear to hurl it at the boatswain, not far from him. As he was about to throw it, the officer in command drew his pistol and shot the Indian. Then the canoes all drew off a little, while another shower of arrows came among the sailors. At last, after sharp fighting, the longboat gradually [23] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON I! got out of reach of the slings and arrows from the shore, and made its way down to the entrance of the straits again, past Tatoosh Island, out into the ocean, and northward to the waiting ship. Captain Meares was waiting anxiously for the boat. When it came into the harbor where he was he counted the crew. All were there. But as the boat came nearer, he saw some were badly wounded, and the boat damaged by arrows and stones. Yet none of the men were killed. One thing in particular had saved the sailors. Over the back of the longboat they had dropped the awning which, if drawn up, partly covered the boat. Sailors spend whole weeks in such boats, eating and sleeping there, hot, sunny days and cold, rainy nights; so they needed such an awning. Into this loose canvas many arrows had stuck. The awning also broke the force of the stones thrown by the people on shore with their slings. Another thing which had helped was that, by the motion of the waves, both the canoes of the Indians and the longboat of the sailors were in constant motion, so that their aim was poor. So ended this battle of the Straits. In later years, however, after American settlers had come into the Oregon country, and many had built houses in the little villages around Puget Sound, a small armed American ship was surrounded by the canoes of these Indians and captured. The Indians not only captured the ship, but destroyed it. [24] CHAPTER V WHEN CAPTAIN GRAY CROSSED THE TERRIBLE BAR OUT from Boston Harbor, in September, 1790, went a little sailing ship, laden with many things, bound for the Northwest Coast of America. On board was a cargo of coffee, tea, chocolate, sugar, flour, salt beef, salt pork, butter, cheese, molasses, and twenty-seven thousand pounds of hard, dry ship's bread. Besides food, Captain Gray had also on board sea coal, bars of iron and bars of lead, gunpowder, shot, guns, Indian trading goods, tar and pitch, and two thousand bricks. There were thirty men in the crew, and the vessel was armed with ten large ships' guns. These were for defense against pirates and Indians. This was the second voyage of Captain Robert Gray to Nootka Sound. The first time, two years before this, was when he stood with his crew and watched, in amazement, the launching of Captain Meares's coasting vessel, the Northwest America. Gray and Kendrick, who were sent out by the same firm of shipowners and fur traders, had exchanged vessels that fall. Kendrick now had the smaller ship, the Lady Washington, while Gray had the larger, the Columbia. Captain Gray, in the Columbia, had taken the furs of that [25] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON first voyage over to China, sold them there, bought tea, and had taken that around the Horn to Boston. Now he was off for his second voyage, with iron and lead and bricks in his hold. The lead was for bullets. The iron was for trading, after the blacksmith had made it into small articles such as fishhooks, armlets and bracelets, chisels, and many other things. But can you imagine why he took bricks? Fancy carrying two thousand bricks from Boston, down the eastern side of both North and South America, then around the dangerous Horn, and all the way up the western side of the two Americas again! Two thousand bricks are just enough to build a chimney. Captain Gray intended to build a small fort, similar to Captain Meares's, because he was intending to remain on the coast that next winter. He did build a log cabin at Clayoquot Sound, and spent the winter there. Now, when Captain Gray, just out from Boston on his second voyage, reached Oregon, he began trading up and down the coast, running into the little inlets and harbors and bays wherever he saw an Indian village. Like all other captains, he was always on the lookout for a friendly sail in those lonely waters. One morning, just at dawn, in the spring of 1792, he was hailed by a British exploring vessel. It was under the command of Captain George Vancouver, who had with him a smaller ship as a tender. Vancouver invited Gray to visit him, so the Yankee went aboard the British vessel for a friendly chat. They sailed into the Straits, in a thick misting rain, and while [26] " i WHEN CAPTAIN GRAY CROSSED THE BAR the captains and officers talked of possible rivers and bays and islands, the crews fished in vain from the wet, slippery decks for a mess of fish. Vancouver wanted to know whether Nootka Sound was on an island. He talked also about a mysterious River of the West which was supposed to be near there. Gray said that a few days before, near 460, he had stopped at a large "bay" which he thought must be the mouth of a large river. The ocean water near by was discolored with mud, and that was a proof. But Vancouver had also passed that "bay" a few days before. He said the muddy water might come from some small river near by, but there was no large river there. Now this "bay" — or was it a river? — near 460 was the very one which had puzzled so many other people. The Spanish explorer had said it was a river, and named it the Rio San Roque. Captain Cook saw nothing at all. Captain Meares thought it was a river, tried to sail into it, was afraid of the breakers, and sailed away, saying it was a bay of the ocean. Captain Gray thought it must be the mouth of a large river. Captain Vancouver was sure it was only a salt-water bay. Now Gray was a Yankee, and rather an independent man. If that really was a river, he wanted to know it; and there must be many furs in it. So when his ship sailed out of" the Straits of San Juan de Fuca, after his visit with Vancouver was over, he went straight south to that bay. [27] -' m EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON Back Gray went. He had waited there before, trying to get in; now he waited again. Indeed he waited for several days, because the wind was blowing and the waves were high. Gray's plan was daring. Seven miles long were those sand bars, outside the river mouth, and three miles wide, with only a narrow, winding channel between them, as he found afterwards. All the mouth of the river was choked with these sand bars, far outside of Cape Disappointment. The rushing water from the river met the waves thrown upon the bar by wind and tide, and the breakers were terrific. Roaring and thundering, day after day, the white waves crashed and beat over the bars. In the quiet of the forested hills, the uproar of the waters could be heard for miles. It was certain death to anyone caught in those white, foaming breakers. Then one day, May n, 1792, the wind quieted down, the waves were a little calmer, and though the breakers still dashed and thundered, Gray thought he could see a channel. In went the little sailing ship, depending only upon the breeze and the skill of the captain — in through that narrow, winding, unknown channel into the unknown bay. Carefully Gray steered while his men sounded the depth of water, until at last they were through the breakers and inside. Then the sailors found at once, as they dipped up the water, that it was sweet, fresh, river water and not salt water. Had it been merely a bay, the [water would have been salt. Captain Robert Gray had discovered the River of the [28] 1 WHEN CAPTAIN GRAY CROSSED THE BAR West which Indians many years before had said flowed into the Bitter Waters. Indians in their canoes now came out over the broad, gleaming river, dancing blue in the sunshine, as Captain Gray sailed up the river for fifteen miles or so. At last he anchored, and then they had a busy time. The Indians were trading furs and fish and roots; the armorer was hammering at his forge, working up those iron bars; carpenters were making repairs; painters were painting and caulking the ship; some of the sailors were washing down the ship, and others were refilling the water casks with fresh water. On a Tuesday, four days after they entered, Captain Gray and his mate " went on shore to take a short view of the country," so the old log book says. They did more. They took possession of the country in the name of the United States of America. That really did not amount to much because Gray was only a private fur trader, and no official report was ever made by him to the government, so far as we know. Gray hoisted on the Columbia River the American flag, and planted there on the shore some New England pine-tree shillings under a tree, and named the river after his plucky little ship. They named the two capes also: one was to be Cape Hancock and the other Cape Adams, after two famous New England men. But the old name, Cape Disappointment, was the one which, after all, stuck to the northern headland. Pine-tree shillings were just the thing to plant in the H [29] I % EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON Oregon country. There were a few pines along the Columbia River, though not many; but all the hills which rolled back from this broad, glorious stream were black with dense forests of other cone-bearing trees — spruce and fir and hemlock. Another interesting thing is that this river on the western coast was discovered just three hundred years after Columbus discovered America (1492 and 1792); and that the United States was only nine years old when the American flag was hoisted in the river and on the shore. Captain Gray stayed in the river some ten days, trading with the swarms of Indians who came out to his ship, and getting a fresh start. The old log book told just which days were bright and sunny and which were cloudy or rainy. But the old log does not tell us half as much as we want to know about the wonderful crossing of that terrible bar, and of the stay in the river. Gray's daring in facing those breakers and entering the river gave the United States the very first right she had to claim any part of the Oregon country; before that, Spain and Great Britain were the only ones having any real right to it. The crossing of that fearsome bar was a daring thing to do, with only a sailing vessel, tossed this way and that by the wind or the currents, to face those terrific breakers which roared and dashed and thundered at the entrance of the Columbia. In 1805 the Lewis and Clark expedition came overland from St. Louis, and they discovered and explored part of the river from the other direction. [30] CHAPTER VI THE ADVENTURES OF LEWIS AND CLARK THIRTEEN years after Captain Gray entered the Columbia River, a party of thirty-two men and one woman, nearly all Americans, were coming up the Missouri River on an exploring expedition. Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark were the two leaders, and nearly all their men were American soldiers. All were white except three. One of these was a slender little Indian woman of eighteen or nineteen, with her tiny papoose strapped on her back. A second was her husband, the guide, who was half Indian and half French. The third was a black, black Negro. Up the Missouri River, in 1805, came this party in the bright spring sunshine. The wide plains on each side were green with grass and black with buffaloes. Wild flowers were blooming, birds singing, the sky was blue overhead, and the green trees bordering the river waved their long branches in the fresh prairie breeze. Sometimes, it is true, the weather was stormy and rainy, yet much of the time it was beautiful. One thing these men were to do was to cross, and explore as they crossed, the new Louisiana Purchase, a vast stretch of country westward from the Mississippi [3i] I EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON River to the Rocky Mountains. Its northern border was then undecided. Another thing, was to cross the mountains and valleys and go through the Oregon country to the Pacific Ocean. Oregon, in those days, was that unknown stretch of mountains and valleys beyond the Rocky Mountains and north of California. It extended as far north as | Russian America," which is now Alaska; so it was a thousand miles wide, east and west, along its southern border. It was not so wide at the north because the Rocky Mountains trend northwestward, and the Oregon boundary followed the mountains. Along the seacoast it was about eight hundred miles long. No one had explored Oregon at all, except a few British fur traders in the north. In the southern part, Captain Gray had discovered the mouth of the Columbia River. Up and down the coast British and American fur-trading ships, like Captain Meares's and Gray's and Kendrick's, had sailed, and they had found that Nootka Sound was on an island—but that was about all that anybody knew about it at that time. So Lewis and Clark were to explore the southern part of Old Oregon, along the Columbia River. Day after day, that pleasant spring of 1805, they followed the windings of the muddy Missouri. Sometimes at night they camped upon an island in mid stream, feeling safer there from the Indians; sometimes they camped on shore. There were many dangers, from drowning, from Indians, and from other causes. But they had, on the Missouri River, [32] [THE ADVENTURES OF LEWIS AND CLARK abundance of food. Herds of deer, as well as black throngs of buffaloes, grazed on the broad, grassy plains around them. Wild geese and ducks floated on the river, or whirred over it when frightened. As the river narrowed (in what is now Montana), they watched for a great waterfall, because the Indians told them this fall was on the true Missouri, and they were afraid of getting into some branch of the river. Walking along the bank one morning, Captain Clark heard a distant roar like thunder; then he saw a cloud of mist blow over the plains. Hurrying happily to it, he found that it was indeed the roar of falling waters and misty spray driven by a June breeze. Very much excited, he sat down on a rock near by and waited for the boats, with his men and Captain Lewis, to come up. He named the place the Great Falls of the Missouri, and the city which stands near there today is named Great Falls. But now the troubles of the explorers began. The June sunshine was glorious, with fresh breezes from the mountains, the grass was green and the wild flowers beautiful. Buffaloes were plentiful around them, also, so that there was no lack of food. Yet their troubles for the next twenty miles were endless. First, on account of the falls which thundered down the river in cascades and in falls for nearly eighteen miles, they had to go overland. Boats, Indian trading goods, their written reports, their surveying instruments — everything had to be carried for twenty miles to smooth [33] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON water. They needed a rough wagon; but a wagon must have wheels. After whole days of search, they found the only tree within twenty miles of them that was large enough. They were in a treeless country. They cut down that tree, sawed off round pieces, bored a hole in the center of these slabs, and behold! there were the wheels—but such clumsy wheels! Then crosspieces held the whole together, and the canoes were loaded on. The men harnessed themselves to drag it all. Can you imagine the hardships? Up hills they went and down ravines and across gullies. The soft wood of the cross-pieces and the whiffletree broke constantly. Worse than that, the ground was covered with prickly pear cactus, and the hooked thorns cut through their moccasins. Their shoes had long since been worn out. Besides all this, the ground was the kind known as ¥ gumbo." It was soft and sticky during rains. Buffaloes had tramped over it while it was wet and soft, and had cut up the earth with their sharp hoofs into sharp, fine points. In the sunshine this ground dried as hard as a rock, and sharp points cut like pins and needles. Nor was that all. They had a terrific hailstorm in traveling that short distance. The hailstones were large enough to knock some of the men down; everyone was bruised by them. Yet actually their worst enemy was the grizzly bear. Grizzlies are always savage, but these bears were so used to attacking large animals, such as elk and buffalo, that they were not in the least afraid of men. And they were very strong. Even after they had been shot again and [34] . THE ADVENTURES OF LEWIS AND CLARK again — when wounded with six or eight bullets — they would run after the hunters. With blazing eyes, open mouth, and roaring loudly, they would rush after them with great speed and with outspread claws. The talons on some of these bears were four and one-half inches long. Again and again the hunters of the expedition escaped only with their lives—jumping down high bluffs, with the bear tumbling heavily after them. Those twenty miles of cacti, gumbo soil, hailstorms, grizzly bears, blazing hot sunshine, steep hills and ravines, and their heavy, clumsy, home-made wagon with its round wooden wheels, fairly wore the men out. Two weeks they spent in this way. But after that trying two weeks, the explorers put their canoes into the water again and paddled up the river. At last the water became so shallow, and there were so many rapids, they hid the canoes and started off on foot. They also cached all the Indian goods, and the powder and lead which they could not take with them. A cache, as the word was used in those old days, was a hiding place dug carefully in the earth. The hole was lined with small branches of trees and underbrush, to keep the goods from the dampness, sometimes lined also with buffalo robes. Then the goods were put in, covered with other robes, other branches, and earth thrown over the top. Everything was done as carefully as possible, so as not to show that a cache had been made. Day after day they followed the little stream, for the Missouri River was only a creek now. One morning [35] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON ; Sacajawea, "the Bird Woman," pointed out the place where she had been taken prisoner by the Blackfeet about six years before. Now, with the Americans, and with her tiny baby on her back, she was returning to her girlhood home. The explorers were going directly toward the Three Forks of the Missouri—a point where three streams, meeting, formed the upper waters of the Missouri. They were on dangerous ground. Because this was a country famous for its hunting, it was also a famous battle ground. From the north came the terrible Blackfeet; from the south the Shoshones, or Snakes, the tribe of Sacajawea; from the east the Crows, famous for their expert thievery and their long hair; from the west the Flatheads, always friendly to the white men, and the Nez Perces. The Nez Perces came over the mountains of the Bitter Root, and through the valleys of the Rocky Mountains, on hunting expeditions. Lewis and Clark now wanted to meet friendly Indians. They needed to know how to cross the | Stony Mountains " which loomed up before them. They needed also to buy horses. They did everything to show friendliness, in case Indians should be watching them, unknown. The fact that they had a woman and her baby with them showed that they were not a war party; so the Bird Woman was near the leaders of the party. At last Captain Lewis, trudging along with two men, saw on a hilltop an Indian warrior, some women, and a dog. Taking his blanket from his back, he threw it over [36] THE ADVENTURES OF LEWIS AND CLARK his head and brought it unfolded to the ground. The action meant spreading a seat for a guest on the ground. It was a sign of friendship. The Indian advanced, and so did Lewis, until they were within three hundred feet of each other; then the redskin became frightened, turned his horse, and fled. Still Captain Lewis followed the trail that day and the next. Captain Clark had taken another trail and Sacajawea was with him. Lewis met another Indian, and in about the same way. He also fled. As Lewis and his two men plodded on they suddenly encountered three Indian women, who had been left behind by the fleeing warrior. One of these, a young girl, ran away; the other two bent their heads, expecting to be killed. Lewis rolled up his sleeves to show his white skin; he kept repeating also the Shoshone word for "white man." He gave some beads to the women, and made them call back the young woman who had run away. He painted the faces of all three with red paint—and then down on them, with hot haste, came an Indian war party of sixty warriors! The warriors were ready to fight. But when the women laughed and showed their presents and their newly- painted faces, they at once became friendly. Captain Lewis made some presents to the chiefs and leading men, and went on with them to their camp. A few days later, Lewis and his men, joined by these Indians, returned to meet Captain Clark and the rest of the American party. The leading chief wished to talk with Lewis and Clark, but they had to have an interpreter. I [37] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON |j They sent for Sacajawea. When she came, she suddenly recognized that chief as her own brother. After this the Indians were very friendly indeed. They sold horses, gave the explorers food which they really needed themselves, and showed them how to cross the mountains and which was the best trail. Soon, therefore, after meeting with these friendly Shoshones the explorers started over the trail to the westward. We call these mountains now the Rocky Mountains; but Lewis and Clark called them, as did the traders and trappers and hunters for years afterwards, the Stony Mountains, the Rock Mountains, the Snowy Mountains, and also the Shining Mountains, because when the sun shone on the snowy ridges they gleamed brightly. All along the route the Indians had been friendly. This was because this party had been friendly to them, had given them presents, been kind to them, and had taken advantage of them in no way. So also the Flathead Indians, who lived in the Flathead Valley and on the slopes of the Bitter Root Mountains and in the Bitter Root Valley, were friendly. The Flatheads sold the Americans food, showed them the best trail over the Bitter Root Mountains, and were kind to them. The Bitter Root Mountains are so called because of the bitter little root with pink flowers which grew all over those mountains. The explorers called them "savage" mountains, because they had such a fearful time crossing them, on the trail or off it. The mountain sides were very steep; [38] un ■ THE ADVENTURES OF LEWIS AND CLARK they were densely forested, and even the trail was constantly blocked by fallen trees, lying one upon another. The streams ran in deep gorges, thundering and foaming far beneath them; and there were no bridges. The mountain torrents, racing down the mountain sides in spring and summer, were lower now, and some of them dried up. They could not always find fresh water. In climbing up and down the steep mountain sides, horses fell down with their loads—sometimes lost their footing and toppled over, down the mountain side or into a gorge. Winding among the rocky knobs, on the higher levels, they lost their trail. It was now September, and the snow in the mountains was a foot and a half deep. There was no game, and the dried buffalo meat brought with them was almost gone. Weary and worn and nearly starved, with some horses left behind them, dying with starvation and too weak to travel farther, the explorers at last reached the other side of the mountains and the lower levels. Here they saw three Indian boys at play, for it was summer in that country, though winter on the heights above. They offered ribbons to the boys if they would go to the village and tell their tribe that white men were starving and needed their help. In this way the Americans met the friendly Nez Perces. In this way they secured help and food and fresh horses to carry their baggage. In payment for the horses they gave the Indians scarlet leggins, handkerchiefs, tobacco, knives, and other things. They gave a chief a laced red coat. [39] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON In the evenings, among these friendly red people, they took out their fiddles and played and danced, while the Indians laughed, just as all the Indians on the plains and on the Missouri River had laughed when the white men fiddled to them. Then they journeyed on. They traveled down the Clearwater to the Snake River, and then on to the Columbia. When they understood that they at last had reached that River of the West which flowed into the Bitter Waters, they began to build canoes. Travel by water is much quicker and easier than by land in a new country. When ready to go down by boat, they gave their horses to the care of a friendly chief and paddled away. The Columbia itself was smooth enough, yet the voyage had its hardships. At Celilo Falls, again at The Dalles, and again at the Cascade Rapids, they had to carry their boats and all their baggage; and the tribes here were not so friendly as the Shoshones and Flatheads and Nez Perces had been. They were more degraded, living idle lives, depending on fish, and on the trading which passed through their hands. The Indians above traded buffalo meat, dried or jerked, and pemmican with the Indians of the lower river, for dried fish. Thus the horse Indians traded with the canoe Indians, and the two classes were very different. There is much more about them in other chapters. But these Indians at the portages were robber Indians, stealing from every boatload, and demanding toll from every person who passed up or down the Columbia. [40] ■Bfl r- —— The Lewis and Clark Une of exploration, west of the Rocky mountains. This was the most northerly point of exploration made by Americans. All the country shown, further north, had been discovered and explored by the British. [41] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON From the time they set their canoes afloat upon the Columbia the explorers visited every Indian village they saw, crossing the river constantly, making presents at each place, and telling the Indians they were friends. So they traveled on through October. From the Cascades down to the Willamette there was only the broad, smooth river, dotted here and there on its banks with villages, and the river was glorious in the sunlight, the sun shining on the high hills, forest-covered, on each side. Snowy peaks gleamed here and there. But on the lower river the winter rains had begun, for it was November. On they went, rain or shine, until one day they saw the breakers dashing furiously over the bar at the mouth of the Columbia, and heard the thunder of the crashing white waters. They had reached the end of their journey. Beyond lay the Pacific Ocean. But it was November! It rained and rained and rained. All day and all night the cold rain came down, while high winds blew high waves upon the mighty river, and penned the men up for three or four days at a time upon some narrow point of land. On Point Ellice they had to encamp on a narrow shelf. Above them rose sheer rocks which they could not climb. But the rain-loosened rocks could and did fall down upon them. They could not escape by following the bank of the river, for rocks rose sheer out of the water on either side of them. The waves were too high to venture into the river with their small canoes. [42] THE ADVENTURES OF LEWIS AND CLARK Their Indian goods and baggage they had placed above the tide, but the rains soaked them through and ruined part of them. Their canoes were fastened almost at their feet, but the high waves and the tides carried great driftwood logs among the boats, so that the men had constantly to push away the logs that the canoes might not be crushed. Such an accident would have been fatal. And there Lewis and Clark and their men stayed for days, without a tent or even an umbrella, in that cold, cheerless rain. Dressed only in leather, the chilling winds and rain almost froze' them. At last, one day, there came a break in the storm, and in quieter waters they packed their baggage into their canoes and paddled away. Crossing to the south side of the river, they at last decided to build their winter fort on what is now Lewis and Clark River, a stream flowing into the Columbia. There they built seven log cabins, afterwards protected by a high, spiked log wall —a palisade — to keep out Indian thieves or Indian enemies. Though many elk were in the forests around them, the explorers were half starved that winter. The hunters killed game, but before they could get it through the tangled forest to the fort it would spoil. The winters there are not cold; only the chill of the rain and winds is hard for people living in the open air as these men did. They could not explore in the constant rain and fog, so they had to wait for the spring to come. Exploring, of course, was their only reason for being in the Oregon country at I [43] m M\ EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON all. They were ordered to find out everything they could about it. By this time their supply of salt had given out. Down on the ocean, near what is now the village of Seaside, they made salt by boiling down salt sea water. In the spring they had to return to the United States. Their trading goods were almost gone, and they were not certain whether they had enough to buy the friendship of the tribes as they returned. But there was no time for exploring the Oregon country, or going up and down the coast even on land. It was a long homeward trail, up the Columbia River in their canoes, back to the friendly chief who had taken good care of their horses, paying everywhere for fish and game and roots with their beads and paint and knives and ribbons and blankets, and here and there a scarlet laced coat. On they went, over those savage Bitter Root Mountains again, then over the Rockies, down the Missouri River, through the great plains. The homeward trail was very long indeed. But all the way back the Indians were friendly and kindly and helpful, because the explorers had been so to them on their way out. Indians have a keen sense of justice, and the white men are to blame for many of our Indian troubles. Because of that long journey, the United States was able to claim, by reason of exploration, the country through which the explorers had traveled. Gray had discovered the mouth of the Columbia River thirteen years before. Now Lewis and Clark had discovered and jour- [44] — — THE ADVENTURES OF LEWIS AND CLARK neyed down part of the upper river, but not all of it; and therefore part of the Columbia is in British Columbia, because the British discovered and explored the sources of it. Of all the people on that long voyage, which one do you think was the most interesting? To the Indians, York the Negro was. He was very strong, and he was so very black. They used to rub their hands over his face and his arms to see if he was painted black. His flat nose and his woolly, kinky hair were a great puzzle to them. In after years these Indians told their children about this very black man who had come with white men into the land of the red men. To many people, Sacajawea, the Bird Woman, is most interesting. She was a brave, patient little woman, starting off on that long journey with her precious baby on her back, but her keen eyes ever alert to help the kindly white men. She was a better guide than her husband, who was really the guide of the party. She could interpret where others could not. Indians who feared the white men, with their strange beards and clothing, and their guns shooting lightning and making thunder, lost their fear when they saw this slender little woman among them. She made dozens of pairs of moccasins for the explorers. When they were hungry and starving, she starved too. She walked just as far, and over as many prickly pears and as many rocks, as they did. At one time, on the Missouri River, when her clumsy husband upset the canoe in which the papers and reports were, together with the instru- [45] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON ments for measuring the mountains, she came to the rescue. She held her baby firmly in one hand and reached out with the other and steadied the canoe, and picked the papers off the water as they floated by. Without these papers, and the steadying of the canoe which saved the measuring instruments, the explorers could not have gone farther — they would have had to return. So the brave little Bird Woman saved the expedition. Fur traders followed the explorers the very year after. Missionaries and settlers followed the fur traders and trappers. And so, within forty years, there were many Americans living in the Oregon country, along the Columbia River, and down the Willamette River. That meant the settlement of the whole country and the great cities which are now planted where the Indians pitched their tepees. [46] CHAPTER VII HOW THEY BUILT ASTORIA OUTSIDE the terrible bar of the Columbia tossed a little sailing ship, one gray March day in 1811. This was just five years after Lewis and Clark had left the mouth of the Columbia and had gone back across the plains and the mountains to St. Louis. This ship was the Tonquin. On board were the partners and clerks of the fur company. She was waiting for a fair wind to carry her through the channel amidst the breakers on the bar. The men on that ship looked in dismay at the scene around them. Directly in front of them, for miles, dashed and thundered and pounded the white waves on the bar, because the wind was strong. Once in among those breakers, the little sailing vessel would be carried this way and that, perhaps pounding upon a bar with great white combers crashing over her—and go down, as many a ship has done since. And this was the very place, of course, where Captain Robert Gray, nearly twenty years before, had sailed over that famous bar. Beyond the bar was a great open "bay," where the water was less rough. At last the ship lowered a small boat with four men [47] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON in it, and sent it to find the channel. Both crew and passengers on the Tonquin watched it anxiously. The small boat went in toward the channel, was caught in the waves, struggled awhile, and then went down. No one ever again saw that boat or any man that was in it. The next day another boat was lowered, with four men, because that channel had to be found. That, too, was caught by the breakers, and went down. Only one of the men was saved. He was washed ashore and found later, nearly dead. What were they to do ? The passengers on the Tonquin were fur traders, and they had come to build a fur-trading j post at the mouth of the Columbia. They had to get into that river. At last, at a favorable turn of the tide, when the wind had died down a little and the breeze came from the right direction, Captain Jonathan Thorn tried to sail in, through what seemed to be the channel. And though it was night, yet somehow—they never knew just how — the ship slipped through that narrow, winding channel among the sand bars, and drifted into Baker's Bay. The next morning, the very first thing they did was to go ashore and build a pigpen! The Tonquin was crowded, not only with people, including Kanakas whom they had engaged at the Sandwich Islands, but also with pigs and cows which they had bought there. There was little room for anybody. The animals had to be landed, and they were, in a very short time, so that the crowded ship was more comfortable. [48] 11 ' • HOW THEY BUILT ASTORIA The next step was to find a site for the fort.f| All about them, on both sides of the river, the dense black forests came down to the water's edge. The banks of the river were quite steep. For a fort they needed to have, close at hand, logs of the right size for cabins. They needed the river for their ships, spring water or else river water near by for drinking as well as for washing and cooking. They needed space for a garden, and for their live stock, and they needed also a fairly level space on which to erect their cabins, which they would have to fence in. None of the places near the ship seemed to be suitable. The partners went up the river and down, and over to the south side, while Captain Thorn scolded about "smoking and picnic parties." The stern captain insisted they must find a place quickly or else he would land the trading goods and everything else, and sail away to trade for furs along the coast north of them. So they hurried to find a good spot near by. Two of the partners went up the river from Baker's Bay, where the ship was anchored, promising to be back on a certain day. They met an old, one-eyed chief named Comcomly, a funny old fellow, who was very friendly to them. After talking to him, by signs, and spending several days searching along the shore for a good site, they started back to the ship. The wind had risen and the water was rough. Comcomly warned them not to go. But the partners had promised, and they were rather afraid of Captain Thorn, so back they started. The waves were high; the river was covered with whitecaps. They had [49] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON gone only a mile when up dashed a big wave — and down went the boat! But Comcomly's Indian tribesmen had been trailing them down the river and were not far away. Out stretched the long red arms of the Chinooks, in spite of the tossing, high waves, and caught the white men struggling in the water. Then they pulled them into their canoe. The Indians of the Columbia were expert oarsmen. But the partners had to go back to the old chiefs camp and stay there until the storm was over, and that was two or three days. Shortly after their return to the ship it was decided to build their little fort on the south side of the river, upon a point they named Point George, just where the city of Astoria is today. The new post itself, however, they called Fort Astoria. Mr. John Jacob Astor, of New York City, was the head of the fur company, which was called the Pacific Fur Company. But usually his men were called "Astorians." But the point selected was not a particularly good one, after all their trouble. The building of the fort was hard and dangerous work. Point George was on a steep hillside, covered with enormous trees. Many were two hundred feet high and more. Some were six and eight feet in diameter. Every man had to begin tree-chopping, whether he knew anything about it or not—and few did know how. The traders, the clerks, the canoemen, the Kanakas from the Sandwich Islands — all went to work to clear the spot of these tremendous trees. Alexander Ross—and you will find him in other chap- [So] m HOW THEY BUILT ASTORIA ters of this book—tells the story of the building of Fort Astoria. First they picked out a tree they could get at, for the trees were all close together and the underbrush was high. Then they built a scaffold around it, so that they could stand above the rocks among the roots. Four men would begin to chop such a tree, none knowing how. Some had short-handled axes, and others long-handled ones. This made the chopping harder. Their guns they rested against a near-by tree while they chopped. But the woods around them were full of Indians, and every time they heard a rustling in the jungle of underbrush they dropped their axes and picked up their guns. That made slow work. At last, after much toil, when the big tree was cut through so that it should fall, it would begin to topple over. But behold! it would catch in the top of another immense tree and hang there, a danger to everyone. There was not room enough for it to fall. Another would be cut, and begin to fall in just the same way, catching in another tree. And so three or four of these great giant trees would hang together, in most dangerous fashion. At last they would cut another, and then at last, when their weight carried them down, two or three or four trees would fall, all together, with a crash which echoed across the river and back again, and through the dense forests around them. Even then the logs were so big nothing could be done with them. They had to be blown to pieces with gunpowder, and the chunks rolled into the river. Several men were hurt by gunpowder accidents. I ' [Si] 1 ' If EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON Yet all this time these men, in turn, had to stand guard at night for fear of Indians. With all their toil and work and sleeplessness and the wet weather, they had no tents in which to sleep, and very poor food. They had only boiled fish and the roots which the Indians brought to sell to them. Worse than all, it was early in the spring and the weather was wet and cold. "Every other day was a day of rain," Ross said. Even when it did not rain, the lowering gray skies, the dreariness, made the men unhappy, and the damp fogs chilled them through. It was indeed a lonely spot, with the wide river in front, bordered on both sides with dark forests, full of Indians. To the westward lay that terrible bar, and day and night they heard the fearful crashing of the breakers. To the eastward, somewhere, even though two thousand miles away across mountains and deserts, lay the United States. So some of the men deserted, trying to get home overland. But the Indians farther up the river captured them as they trudged toward the Cascades, and made them slaves. Then the officer in charge, Mr. Duncan McDougall, had to buy them back with many gifts ta the Indians. At last, with all their work, with the lack of sleep and of good food, in spite of the sullenness of McDougall and the scoldings of Captain Thorn, who lived on his ship and traded with the Indians—at last enough ground was cleared for their fort. A building was put up for a trading shop and as a warehouse for the supplies of all kinds. Then, on June i, Captain Thorn cleared his decks and made ready for sailing on that coasting voyage for which H 1521 HOW THEY BUILT ASTORIA he was so eager—and from which he never came back. The Indians attacked the ship at Clayoquot harbor and massacred the crew and the captain as well. On June 5, the traders at Fort Astoria watched the Tonquin as she passed over the bar, all sails swelling, majestic and beautiful. But with her went their last chance of reaching the world outside. But there was no time to be lonely. There was not a stockade yet—that is, a high, spiked fence of logs. This was put all around the buildings and a small bit of ground to protect them from Indian attack. This stockade was about fifteen feet high. It was made so high and spiked so that Indians could not climb over it. At diagonal corners were two blockhouses of good-sized logs, which were two stories high. These blockhouses were built into the corners of the stockade so that they looked into the fort and from them could be seen both sides of the stockade near by. Men looking out from loopholes in the blockhouses could see and shoot at any Indian, on either of the sides guarded by them, who might be trying to climb in the fort, or set fire to it, or break through it. The logs which formed the 1 picket fence,," as one writer called it, were also the back logs of some of the cabins which were erected inside the fort yard. These smaller houses were dwelling houses for the men and partners, and blacksmith shop, and later on a hospital was built. For the inner walls of these buildings they needed smaller logs than the trunks of the great trees about the fort, so the men had to go back into the forest for these [S3] I I EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON i smaller trees. But there were no horses or mules or oxen. So the workmen had to harness themselves as animals, and six or eight of them, pulling together, would drag a log out of the forest into the stockade. It was exceedingly hard work. Indeed, they worked so hard and so carefully that the next year when the second ship, the Beaver, came in, with more supplies and more men, they had a fairly good fort. Inside the stockade, when the Beaver arrived, there were more dwellings for the men and a carpenter's shop, besides other storehouses. By this time the stockade was well guarded, as cannon had been put into the blockhouses, and muskets were kept in the second story to be used, if necessary, through the loopholes. Outside the stockade was a little garden, though it did not succeed well. Potatoes flourished and a few turnips, but the mice ate all the radishes, and the turnips went to seed too quickly. The soil was too cold and the weather too chilly for gardening at that point. But long before the Beaver came in, in that second year, the traders began to be worried because the Tonquin did not return. Late in the summer of 1811 rumors floated about among the Indians that she had been destroyed. Later, McDougall and other traders began to hear this. Things began to look serious. Behind these few cabins in this stockade rose a towering forest of spruce, firs, hemlock, and pine. The underbrush was so thick and dense that one could pass through it only on the Indian trails. And this forest, as well as the dense [54] I - ■j HOW THEY BUILT ASTORIA black woods all along the river, on both sides — all about them everywhere — swarmed with Indians. They would be only too glad to kill the white men and capture the fort for the sake of the guns and bullets and powder, for the blankets and paint and copper kettles, that were in it. At this time the friendly Indians began to be shy, which was a bad sign. Then great numbers of strange Indians came into Baker's Bay from the north. They were the sullen, savage, grim-looking Indians whom Captain Meares had seen around Tatoosh Island and the Straits of San Juan de Fuca. These Indians pretended they came for the sturgeon fishing; but they held long councils. Things looked serious indeed. Duncan McDougall saw the danger, and he was an old Indian trader. He at once called a council of all the chiefs of the near-by tribes. When they were all squatting on their heels, in a semicircle, in Indian fashion, and had smoked their council pipe, he pulled a small bottle out of his pocket. McDougall handled the bottle with great care, and the Indians watched him keenly. "In this bottle," said trader McDougall, "I hold a great sickness. If I draw the cork, all of you will have it. But if you will be friends to the white men, I will let no harm come among you." The Indians quickly promised to be friendly. Perhaps the white traders saved themselves in this way. We do not know exactly. But this ruse was not nearly so pleasant or so funny as the one which Dr. John McLoughlin used at Fort Vancouver fifteen years later. [55] - EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON Later on, the traders knew the whole truth. How Captain Thorn was so rough with the Indians that he had angered them, and they had come on deck one day, pretending to sell furs, and when many were on shipboard they had killed the crew and the traders. Not a man remained to tell the story. The Indian interpreter who had gone with them told it, later on, to the Indians near Fort Astoria. After the Beaver came, it seemed as though all would go well. Fort Okanogan was built that first summer, 1811, and now, after the Beaver came in, Fort Spokane was built, 1812; and both these forts in the upper country were successful in trading. You will read about adventures there in later chapters. But the very year after that, 1813, because war had been declared between Great Britain and the United States, the Astorians were forced to sell their three forts to the Canadian fur traders, the North West Company of Montreal. They were shut off from all the world, since they had no ship and could not go home overland. The Indians were threatening again; their trading goods were running low; and they could hardly buy food, and did not dare to use the goods in trading for furs. The sale of the fort has been called treachery, but it was not. If you visit Astoria today, in the park on the hilltop you will find a fort built there, with a stockade of spiked logs around it. It is thought to be a close copy of that tiny fort built at Astoria a hundred years ago. The first one, however, was built at the water's edge, with dense forests [56] h- From an old print Fort Okanogan From an old print An Indian Buffalo Hunt — — HOW THEY BUILT ASTORIA all around it. It looked out over the broad Columbia and! the foaming breakers of the bar. If you look at it carefully, you will see what a very small fort it was to stand all alone in the Indian country, on a wild, lonely coast. 157] CHAPTER VIII THAT "INDIAN" THIEF A SMALL log cabin, a lonely man, a dog—and something else. What was the " something else " ? That was what Alexander Ross did not know, and that was why he was frightened. It was in the winter of 1811-12, the very winter after Astoria was founded, and it happened in this way: After the Americans had finished building, or nearly finished, Fort Astoria, in the summer of 1811, they decided to build a new post on the upper Columbia somewhere. Just where, nobody knew; none of them had ever been there. But a rival company, the North West Company of Montreal, had come across the mountains and built a fort somewhere on the upper Columbia. In July of that year, therefore, the canoes were made ready for the men going up the river to found the new post. The clerks and partners did not know what sort of a voyage to expect, and some of them came to the river bank as though going on a picnic. One had a cloak, and another his umbrella. Others had books and papers, intending to read pleasantly as the canoemen paddled them up the beautiful river. The sun was bright and the weather serene. [58] THAT "INDIAN" THIEF Off they started in two Chinook canoes, each holding from fifteen to twenty packs of trading goods, besides flour, rice, and other food, and tobacco. Each pack weighed ninety pounds. In the American party there were only nine, besides Indian canoemen. A third canoe was filled with men of the North West Company, who had come down to the mouth of the river when they heard white men were there. Alexander Ross was one of the clerks, and he tells the story. Going up that river did not prove to be a picnic. Troubles began at once. The wind rose suddenly, and so did the waves. When they reached Tongue Point they had to unload the canoes and drag them across the portage there. When the wind died down a little they started off again. But a second time the wind arose, and on rounding a point a few miles above, the waves drove them into a sand bank. There they stuck, while water half filled the canoes, soaking everything. "Down came sail, mast, and rigging about our ears," wrote Ross. Books and newspapers went to the bottom; umbrellas and cloaks were thrown aside. Every man had to help empty the half-swamped canoes and drag them into deep water again. As soon as they could get ashore, they built camp fires, dried their goods and their clothing, spent the night there, and started afresh the next morning. But it was hard work all the way up the river, and they went up hundreds of miles. Above the Willamette, where the current was swift, they had to keep close in shore and [59] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON drag the canoes from point to point by the bushes and overhanging trees. At the Cascades they had to make a portage — or a "carry" — as well as at The Dalles, and again at Celilo Falls, because at these places the river was so swift and so rough they could not go upstream. And they had to unload their canoes, carry the goods overland, and the canoes as well, at these portages, in a land of thievish Indians, who tried constantly to steal small parcels of goods which they would rip out of the bales. After the Astorians had passed through the gorge of the Columbia, where the mountains seem to have been split apart to let the river roll through, they found that they had left the forests behind them. This new country, east of the Cascade Mountains, was one of wide-rolling, treeless brown hills. Except as they bartered with the Indians, it was hard to get wood enough to cook their food. And the August sun was hot in this land of sand and sagebrush. After six weeks of paddling up the river, they reached the Okanogan, a pleasant river flowing into the Columbia from the north, and here the partner, Mr. Stuart, built his fort. His men cut down the Cottonwood trees which bordered the Okanogan for this log cabin fort. There were no trees along the Columbia. Other logs were pulled from driftwood in a bend of the Columbia near by. The moment they landed and began their log cabin, Indians came about them. All talking was done by signs. Mr. Stuart and Mr. Ross opened a bale of tobacco, and [60] THAT "INDIAN" THIEF Indians and white men together had a grand smoke. The traders opened also their bale of goods, and said by signs that these paints and cottons and blankets and kettles would be given in exchange for furs. The Okanogan Indians sent runners to other tribes and soon throngs of Indians came and set up their tepees there, staying for several weeks and holding endless councils. By the time the visiting Indians went home, some furs had been traded and a start made on business. The cabin was almost finished. So Mr. Stuart sent four men back to Astoria to say that all was well. He took three more with him and went north with trading goods. Alexander Ross was left alone, with his little Spanish terrier, Weasel, in the unfinished log cabin. For Fort Okanogan was not really a fort at all. For several years it was nothing more than a log cabin, sixteen feet wide and twenty feet long. Ross tells all about that winter. Although the Indians were friendly, he was a little afraid of them; and he was lonely. But it was a land of bright sunshine, of clear blue skies, even if it was also a land of snow and cold. Ross liked that, and he liked to look out on the two great rivers rushing by, until winter came and they froze over. First, he "patched up the house a bit," so he says. In the daytime he traded with the slow, never-hurrying Indians, and that took much time. They were shrewd traders, too, and knew exactly what they wanted. They asked for guns, with which to shoot their enemies, as well as to hunt; kettles in which to boil water; looking glasses; yellow and red paint for their faces; and for knives and [61] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON blankets. The squaws wanted beads and thimbles, calicoes, and many other things. But the Indians were kindly enough to leave the "fort" at sundown and go to their own tepees. Ross then locked the door and tried to write down the Indian words he had learned during the day. And in the loneliness of that winter, he says the Bible was a great comfort to him. But the nights were truly awful. All Indians are constantly in fear of some enemy creeping up on them in the night. The Okanogans were always possessed with this fear, so that if one of them heard the slightest sound in the night, he would give the war whoop. Others would quickly awaken and begin to yell and whoop. Yet there never was an enemy there. Ross never knew whether these near-by Indians were being attacked or not; he only heard the racket. But the uproar frightened him awake and he expected every moment to see his door battered in. His hair grew gray, he says, because of his fears. Then came that " something else." One night when everything was quiet, Ross was awakened by Weasel's furious barking. The excited dog was dancing about on the cabin floor, and racing up and down. Ross was certain that an Indian thief was in his cabin; but he lay perfectly still for a few moments trying to think what to do. If he remained quiet, every Indian knew where his bunk was, and that would not save him. He thought of several plans. He could take the ramrod of his gun, which he had in his bunk, and poke up the fire which was not [62] THAT "INDIAN" THIEF far away. Yet if he stirred the hot ashes into a glow, the Indian would see him. Or, he could fire into the dark; but he did not want to do that. At last he reached out and stirred the fire. It blazed up a little and he saw no one was there. But Weasel was racing back and forth over a small trap-door, barking furiously. Ross understood at once. Some Indian had found out about a little secret cellar he had made under the cabin, and was hiding there! Ross at once lit a candle and set it where the light would shine into the cellar. Then he took a pistol in one hand, and with the other cautiously lifted the trap-door. Something was there! Something dark was sitting on a bale of tobacco. Ross fired. In another moment he knew it was no Indian. It was a skunk! But that was only the beginning. The Indians had been awakened by Weasel's barking. Then they saw the light and heard the shot. Something was happening to their friend, the white man! They rushed to his cabin, broke down the door, and poured into the little room. There, in the flickering candle-light, stood Ross with his smoking pistol, and at his feet the yelping, excited dog. They knew at once, of course, that he had shot a skunk, but being Indians they didn't mind that. The serious thing was that they saw the secret cellar, with the bales of coveted tobacco and trading goods. Ross understood the mischief of that. But things quieted down after a while and the Indians went back to their tepees. [63] — EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON After that night the Indians began to be a little unfriendly. They would not hunt for furs. Strange Indians came about the fort and set up their tepees there. Long councils were held, day after day, while the old, friendly Indians became very shy. That was a bad sign. Ross understood the whole thing perfectly. They were plotting to get rid of him. Ross did at once the only safe thing to do. He called a council of the chiefs. They came in their paint and feathers, and squatted solemnly on their heels in a half- circle. First they smoked the ceremonial pipe. Then Ross talked to them, partly in their own tongue. Mr. Stuart, when he left in October, had expected to return in one moon; four and five moons had gone by, yet he had not returned. Ross explained that this was because there were so many furs in the north country that Mr. Stuart had gone back to the White Man's Country, by the Bitter Waters (Fort Astoria, near the ocean), for more trading goods. Yet Ross did not really know. He was himself afraid that Mr. Stuart had been killed in the north. The Indians waited. Sure enough, when spring came, down from the north came Mr. Stuart, loaded with furs. He had been snowed in all winter, two hundred miles north of Fort Okanogan. Mr. Stuart had many furs. Ross brought out his. He had bought that lonely winter fifteen hundred beaver skins, besides other pelts. They locked up their log cabin fort, and told the Indians to take good care of it until they returned in the summer. So in the bright May sun- I [64] THAT "INDIAN" THIEF shine of 1812, with the light breeze blowing, they stepped into their canoes, loaded with furs, and paddled down the Columbia to Astoria. Several years after, when another fort had to be built, the fur traders changed the location. They built also a stockaded wall of spiked logs, inside of which were several houses. When the gates were locked the Indians could not enter, but they were always friendly. They never did attack the fort. [65] CHAPTER IX AN EXCITING HORSE RACE ti COX," called Mr. Clarke, the American partner in charge of Fort Spokane, "Cox, come here." Ross Cox dropped his work and went to where Mr. Clarke was standing. The partner held an open letter in his hand, but he was looking out of the door with worry in his face. Cox, a clerk — a little, red-headed, good-natured Irishman —knew at once it was something about furs. Now this was little more than a year after Alexander Ross had been frightened by the skunk in the cellar. During that year the Astorians had built another trading post close to the Spokane House of the North West Company of Montreal, and not far from where the city of Spokane now is. It was keen work between the Americans and the Canadians to see which could secure the greatest number of furs from the Indians. | Cox," said Mr. Clark, " I have a letter from Farnham, who has been trading in the Flathead country. He says he is now at the Coeur d'Alene River. He has only a few furs now, but the Flathead Indians following him are loaded down with beaver skins. They will not sell except for tobacco — and Farnham has no tobacco. "And I suppose," answered Cox, "that the Spokane House trader is right there, too." [66] AN EXCITING HORSE RACE "Surely he is—but he is also out of tobacco. Farnham says whoever gets there first with tobacco will get the furs. You'll have to go at once." It was eleven o'clock in the morning then. Cox and Mr. Clarke at once discussed the question of horses. "You can't reach there today," said Mr. Clarke. 'There isn't a horse that can travel those seventy-two miles before night." Cox thought for a few moments. "There isn't a Company horse, Mr. Clarke," he said at last. "But your horse, Le Bleu, could do it." Now Le Bleu, for his name was French, was a beautiful horse, white with bluish spots. He was seven years old and a good racer. In summer, when the fur trade was dull, the Indians and fur traders used to race horses on the plains near the forts, and "The Blue" had won every race. But Le Bleu was Mr. Clarke's own horse, and a great favorite with him. He hesitated, but then said: "Well, take Le Bleu. We must get those furs." One whole hour was wastedfUn efforts to catch 'The Blue' and two other horses for the men who were to go with Cox. At last they were caught and saddled. Just at twelve o'clock, off started Cox with his men for the portage across the Pointed Heart River, for Pointed Heart is the meaning of the Coeur d'Alenes, as the old fur traders themselves explained. Literally it means " a heart of awls," because the Indians were such shrewd traders. [67] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON The light-hearted French-Canadians gave many a clever name in the Pacific Northwest to rivers to mountains and to Indians. Coils of rope tobacco hung from the pommel of Cox's saddle, as he cantered off with his men, just a few minutes ahead of a similar party which he saw starting from the near-by Spokane House. It was going to be nip and tuck between the rival forts for those furs. It was indeed an exciting race. Cox, on his beautiful horse, sped swiftly along the hard Indian trail which wound for sixty miles across the rolling plains. At a distance lay the mountains, dark with the evergreen forests; but in the sunlight of that glorious May day they were only a soft mass of dark blue. On all sides stretched the sunlit country, green with fresh, tender grass, and bright with shining patches of wild flowers — red and blue and yellow and white. A light, soft breeze was blowing, and the sky was very blue. On and on cantered Le Bleu through the glory of the springtime. On and on came Cox's two men, though gradually dropping behind. And behind them, racing over those same sunlit plains and along the same hard Indian trail, with tobacco coiled around the pommel of their saddles, came the two Canadians from Spokane House. They also were determined to secure those furs. Gradually the sun sank in the west, and Cox, glancing back, could not see the others. But now the easy part of the race was over. Ahead of him lay ten miles through a thick forest, dark because the sun had set, and Cox did not [68] — AN EXCITING HORSE RACE know the trail. Yet Le Bleu, splendid horse, seemed still quite fresh. So into the woods they went. Now even in bright sunlight the forests of the Pacific Northwest are dim, because the great trees tower two hundred feet or more, almost branchless, and topped with a soft green crown which keeps out the light. After sunset, the forests are very dark indeed. Cox at first tried to guide the horse. But again and again man and horse found themselves tangled in a dense undergrowth, or in brushwood, or trying to crowd between trees so close together the horse could not pass through. Again and again, right in front of them, lay the great trunk of some fallen tree, a gloomy mass in the forest blackness. They got off the trail so often that Cox began to be afraid the Canadians might win. They knew the trail well. Suppose they caught up with him, and even passed him! While he wondered, he was almost scraped off his horse by passing too close to a tree trunk. A moment later, a low-hanging branch of a stray poplar tree caught his head and shoulders and almost lifted him off his horse. By that time, Cox decided that Le Bleu knew that trail as well as he, for he did not know it at all. They were quite lost. So he held a loose rein and let Le Bleu go his own way. The horse quickly found the trail and kept it. On and on they went, slowly, plunging ahead into that dense darkness, while Cox wondered about the other men and the furs. Then, suddenly, out of that pitch blackness, they came [69] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON to the river. All along the bank were the graceful, tapering tepees of the Indians. In front of a long line of camp- fires the river swirled and rippled, white with foam, after having dashed down the rapids above. It sparkled with the lights from the campfires. It was a pretty sight: the tiny campfires lighting up the darkness, gleaming in the river beyond, and making great, flickering shadows to move among the tall trees. As the flames rose and fell, gigantic figures seemed to come and go among the tree- trunks. Cox shouted when he saw those lights. Le Bleu lifted his drooping head and galloped up to Farnham's tent in fine style. Cox jumped off his horse, shouted to Farnham, pulled off the pommel the thick twists of rope tobacco — and instantly found himself the center of a throng of Indians, wild for tobacco. At the first sight of horseman and tobacco they had rushed for him. Cox threw the tobacco to Farnham, and then took the saddle off the tired horse and turned the splendid fellow loose in some grass near by. Farnham directed the Indians to bring their furs to his tent. When they were safely stacked up, he gave tobacco to the red men. In an instant every head was lost in a cloud of blue smoke. The next morning the furs were sorted over and traded for in the usual way. Two hours after Le Bleu came in, the Canadians from Spokane House galloped up the trail to that line of flickering lights along the river bank. Both they and their [7o] AN EXCITING HORSE RACE horses knew the way through the forest and had kept the trail much better than Cox had. Yet their horses were not so good. At midnight in came Cox's two men, and glad indeed were they to see the sparkling campfires. The next day the Canadians scolded the Indians for selling their furs to the Americans, because the Indians had traded with the North West Company and had known them much longer. But the Indians said they were "a very long time hungry for a smoke," and that they had a right to sell the furs to the first trader who brought them tobacco. So Le Bleu won the race, and the Americans won the furs. And the best of it was that the splendid horse was not injured by his hard run. After a week's rest he was as fresh as ever. When he went back over that trail with the fur traders and all those furs, he had no rider on his back and took things quite at his leisure, one might say. [71] CHAPTER X Adventures in the yakima valley TWO years after Cox's horse race, the fur traders had another adventure which had to do with horses. On account of the War of 1812, the Americans had sold out their fur posts to the Canadian fur traders, and went back to "the States" either by land or water. Alexander Ross, however, signed a contract with the North West Company of Montreal (the Canadian company), and stayed in the Oregon country. It was three years now since he had had his adventure with the skunk, and he had learned a good deal about Oregon Indians and how to deal with them. This spring of 1815, the Brigade of Boats, having brought the furs down from the upper country to Astoria, or Fort George, were going up again. The name of the fort had been changed by the North West Company. They had their trading goods for the next year—pots and pans, knives and paint, guns and powder, blankets and calico and dress goods. The North West Company had bought Fort Okanogan and Fort Spokane of the Americans, but they had trading posts of their own in what is now British Columbia. The packs of trading goods had to be taken north from Fort Okanogan by horses. [72] ADVENTURES IN THE YAKIMA VALLEY When the traders that spring reached Okanogan, they found there were not enough horses to carry their goods north again. It was a serious matter. Without horses, no trading goods could go to the Indians. Without goods, the Indians would sell no furs. Without furs, they would lose money in their business. Their whole business in that country was to secure furs. The leader said, "We must buy more horses. Someone will have to go to the Yakima Valley." So he sent Alex- *<<^ ander Ross. Ross was sent because he had been there %^ once before to buy horses. Every year in the Yakima Valley the Indians east of the Cascade Mountains held a great fair. Thousands and thousands of them trailed over the hills and over the brown treeless plains of the Columbia to the grassy valley. It was not at all safe for a few white men to go among them at this time. This spring, 1815, it was really dangerous because the fur traders, in coming and going up and down the river, had quarreled with the Indians. White men and red had been killed on the upper Columbia. But danger or not, horses had to be bought. Ross started off with Tom McKay, a clerk; and with two French-Canadians gand their Indian wives. The women were to help in 'driving the horses. On the fourth night, as they rode southward from Okanogan toward the Yakima Valley, a friendly chief learned where they were going. He knew their danger, so he sent warriors to warn them. Too worried to sleep, Ross lay wide awake in his camp [73] .. ifi **-% £kl/, H» An ii EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON in the darkness. They all slept on the ground in the open air, with their feet to the fire. Ross knew they were all likely to lose their lives if they went on. Suddenly, he heard faint, rustling sounds near him, like some one creeping along the ground. Up he sprang in great alarm, shouting to his men. But at once, in low tones, Indian voices called out warningly: "White man! White man! Turn back! Turn back! You are all dead men!" [They were the friendly warriors. That was startling. Ross knew then that the danger was greater than he had expected—that perhaps the Indians in the Yakima Valley were plotting directly against him. But he told the friendly Indians that the traders needed horses. He had to go on. They went back to their chief. The next morning, with a heavy heart, Ross started off again. Two days later the traders entered the Yakima Valley. The Indian fair at a distance was a very beautiful sight. Thousands of slender, graceful tepees were pitched in clusters in the broad sweep of the wide grassy valley and along the river's bank. In all, the camp was about six miles square. Three thousand Indian warriors were there, besides the women and children. On the wide-spreading slopes, nibbling at the green grass and the bright wild flowers, were ten thousand horses. These tribes were all rich in horses. The Indians were having a glorious time in the bright May sunshine. In one place they were racing horses, yelling wildly; others were racing on foot. In the tepees, or . [74] J Indians Stalking Buffalo Copyright by W. S. Bowman Reclaiming Eastern Oregon ADVENTURES IN THE YAKIMA VALLEY sitting on the warm ground in the bright sunshine, wrapped in their blankets, braves were gambling with dicejind the gambling sticks. In some of the tepees, solemn councils were being held by the older warriors and chiefs. Feasts were being noisily eaten in others. Back from the mountains to the westward came hunters with fresh game, which the squaws cut up and cooked at once for feasts. In other places Indians were trading camas root and dried salmon^ or swapping horses. Here and there squaws were scraping hides, or cooking on the little fires which glimmered on the ground. And all through the camp Indians were singing, dancing, drumming on the tom-toms, yelling and whooping. This was the picture which Ross saw as he entered the valley. He wondered whether he would leave it alive. The traders spurred On their horses and rode toward the center of the camp, where they knew the greater chiefs would pitch their tepees. They seemed to see no one. But the Indians saw them, and followed them, with angry looks and words, as well as with hasty feet. The moment they reached the chiefs' tepees the traders dismounted; at once, with yells and war whoops, the warriors seized their horses and drove them away. But even the chiefs were hostile. Referring to the quarrels on the upper Columbia, they said: " These are the men who kill our relations. These are the people who make us raise the death-wail." Then Ross knew, as he tells us, that he "stood on very slippery ground." Ross paid no attention to the words of the chief. He I [75] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON opened his trading goods, explaining that he wished to trade for horses. The jeering Indians at once drove up a horse. They traded it at a high price, took the trading goods, and then took the horse, too. Ross showed neither anger nor fear. His men stood quietly by. pThey all knew their lives were at stake. The Indians brought up another horse. Ross traded for it quietly. The moment the price was paid, the Indians took the goods and the horse. So it went on. Every trade was made in the midst of wild uproar, in a circle of angry Indians who jeered and yelled, knowing, as they did, that the traders were entirely in their power. Horse after horse, bought and paid for, was driven away with whoops and laughter. For two days Ross stood in that one spot and traded for horses. The Indians were about as much during the night as during the day. The traders could see the sun set, the darkness gradually fall, and the glow of the many campfires. Even the smell of cooking food came to them; yet they had neither light, nor food, nor rest. The Indians refused them any food. They dared not sleep. The danger grew greater. On the third day Ross heard the Indians planning to kill or make slaves of the two Indian women who were the wives of the French-Canadians. There seemed no chance of escape, for throngs of Indians surrounded them in that great camp. Miles to the right of them, to the left of them, in front and behind, jalmost as far as the eye could see even in that clear bright air, were the tapering, slender Indian tepees. [76] ADVENTURES IN THE YAKIMA VALLEY The only chance of saving the women was to send them by an unknown trail in the mountains to the westward, and then to the north. Yet even if they escaped they might starve on the way. Ross gave them orders how to go, and told them to wait four days at the mouth of a certain river. If he did not come then, they were to return to Fort Okanogan and tell the traders there what had happened. There was little chance that the women would ever reach it. That night, as soon as it was dark, the two women, in their Indian dress, with blankets over their heads, slipped through the camp, up the wide Yakima Valley into the mountains. But the next day the Indians found they had escaped! They turned over all the parcels, searched every nook and corner, yet could not find them. The danger of the traders was greater than ever. The Indians tried to anger Ross's men. Their guns were snatched, fired off at their feet, and then with wild1 laughter the Indians threw the guns down. They snatched the hats off the men, put them on their own heads, and strutted about mockingly. Then, jeering, flung them back at their owners. Ross was the chief; so they dared not yet touch him. The fourth day, half starved, Ross ordered his men to cook something for him and for themselves. All they had had to eat for these days had been a few raw roots. These they had pulled up out of the ground around them when, for a moment, the attention of the Indians was distracted. [The French-Canadians took out a kettle. The moment [77] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON the kettle was on the fire, five or six Indian spears were thrust under the handle, the kettle pulled off, the water thrown out, and the kettle flung to one side. To give further warning, thirty or forty Indians standing about fired into the glowing coals. A great cloud of ashes, smoke, sparks, and dust arose. It was a strong hint not to put the kettle on again. If Ross or his men had at any time shown fear or anger they would not have lived more than a few hours. The Indians were deliberately trying to make them angry, because anger puts one at such a disadvantage. But so long as the men were perfectly cool, the Indians were almost afraid to touch them. One reason was that they feared the anger of the traders at the posts. They could not buy shot, or powder, or guns. Neither could they trade for anything else. And yet a moment's anger would have ended everything. At this moment, the Canadian who had put the kettle on the fire took his knife out to cut off a piece of dried venison. A Yakima chief snatched it out of his hand. Ross's man lost his temper. He said in an angry voice, I'll have my knife from that villain, life or death!" "NO!" said Ross.j ^ ||| The chief, noting how angry the man was, took a step forward. He threw back his blanket and raised his arm with the knife in his fist. The point was downward. He made a motion as if to stab the unlucky Canadian. That would settle things, one way or another. The yells of the Indians ceased. They crowded around the [78] ADVENTURES IN THE YAKIMA VALLEY four men. There was dead silence. The suspense was terrible as the chief stood there, with hand upraised to strike. The only thing to do, Ross thought, was to sell their lives as dearly as possible. He put his hand to his belt to pull out his pistol and moved a step forward. But even as he put down his foot, another thought flashed across him. Instead of his pistol, he drew out his own knife. "Here, my friend," he said quietly to the chief, "is a white chief's knife. I give it to you. That is not a chief's knife. Give it back to the man." The chief took Ross's knife and stood there sullenly. Ross said afterwards their lives hung by a thread. Every Indian watched Ross and the chief, silent, waiting for what would happen. Suddenly the chief handed to the Canadian his knife, and held up Ross's knife to his people, much as a pleased child would. "Look, my friends," he said with delight. "Look at the chief's knife." The Indians crowded around him to see the knife. In his sudden joy the chief began to say that the white men were his friends. At once, other chiefs began to say to their warriors that the white men were their friends. For the moment the danger was over. The chiefs at once called a council. They squatted on their heels in a half-circle on the ground and began to smoke the pipe of peace. As the pipe passed from one chief to another, each taking a whiff, Ross gave to each of the six leading chiefs a small looking-glass, with paper II- " ■ • [79] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON backing and cover, and a little red paint. The chiefs, as a return gift, gave to Ross two horses and twelve beaver skins. But best of all, Indian women brought in food for the half-starved men. After the pipe had gone around once, Ross made a speech to the Indians. He asked them what he should tell the great white chief when he asked where the horses were. Ross said, " He will ask, * Where are all the horses you bought from the Indians ?'" {The Indians were ashamed. "Tell him," a Yakima chief said at last, "that we have but one mouth and one word. All the horses you bought are yours. They shall be given to you." By this time it was sunset. Ross wTanted to get his horses together and escape before the Indians became unfriendly again. And besides, every day of delay for the fur traders who were waiting for the horses meant a loss in trade. This last reason he gave to the chief. The Yakima at once mounted his horse, told Ross to mount one of those given as a present, and directed his son to take charge of Ross's men until he returned. They rode off. Such a night as that was! All through the hours of darkness Ross and the chief rode from one group of tepees to another, the Yakima calling out, "Deliver up the horses." They visited every section of that great c'amp, spread for miles over the wide sweep of the green valley. Such a din and roar and crash of sound! Scalp- dances here and there, with hideous yells as the dancers [80] ADVENTURES IN THE YAKIMA VALLEY circled about the camp fire; the beating of tom-toms; the howling of wild Indian dogs; the grunting of chained bears; chained wolves sent out their weird howls; children were screaming; women were scolding; horses were neighing and trampling about, thousands of them. And amidst all this din, up and down, in and out among the tepees, among the crowds who were whooping, yelling, dancing, drumming, rode Ross and the Yakima chief, calling out in the uproar, "Deliver up the horses." If the braves were slow in bringing the horses, the chief would make a "talk." At the end of each talk he would say to Ross, "I have spoken well in your favor." Ross would at once make him a present. At daylight, after all night in the noise and confusion, Ross and the chief returned with the horses. The men and the little trading property they had left were safe. By six o'clock the eighty-five horses they had bought were ready to be driven away. Ross ordered his men to make ready for leaving. But again the mood of the Indians changed: [They made all the trouble they could. They jeered at the men; they frightened the horses; they seized the traders' guns and fired them off; they asked for everything they saw. While the men were trying to get off with the unruly horses, some of them wild and unbroken, the Indians took their knives, their belts, their hats, their pipes, and even demanded the buttons off their clothes. Finally Tom McKay and the two French-Canadians got away, with the horses. Ross had to stay behind to parley [81] i-i EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON with the chiefs. When he did at last get away, on an ugly, restive horse which kept trying to throw him, hia men were far ahead. As he rode on, he saw three Indians coming at full speed on their horses toward him. Ross quickly dashed down a ravine, swam his horse across the stream at the bottom, and hid behind a rock while he primed his gun. He thought they were enemies. The moment the Indians got to the opposite bank of the stream, Ross motioned them to stay there, or he would fire. But the Indians called out, "Your friends! Your friends!" Sure enough! They were warriors sent out by that friendly chief who had warned him. He knew the hostility of that great camp and he had sent his warriors to help the white men if they could. It took several days to reach Fort Okanogan. On their way they found the two Indian wives who had escaped through the mountains, and, between them all, they drove that unruly band of horses to the fort. m l 41 ' V [82] it CHAPTER XI J# DANGER AT FORT WALLA WALLA I SHALL build a trading fort near the Forks of the Columbia," said Donald McKenzie to the officers of the North West Company at Fort George (Astoria). "The Forks are the most dangerous point on the Columbia River. I shall make the Indians see that we are friends, not enemies." By the Forks of the Columbia, McKenzie meant the point where the Snake River flows into the Columbia. This was in 1818, only three years after Alexander Ross had had his horse-buying adventure in the Yakima Valley. The Indians had said to Ross then, "These are the men who kill our relations," and there had been sharp little fights since then. The Forks were not so very far below the Yakima Valley. So Donald McKenzie began to plan for his fort. He was a big, powerful man, and the Indians admired him much because of his size. But they did not want a fort at the Columbia, and that was why Fort Walla Walla — Fort Nez Perces it was sometimes called—was a dangerous point. McKenzie had only ninety-five men with him, and many of them could not be trusted. Some were Iroquois Indians [83] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON from the eastern part of Canada, along the St. Lawrence; some were Kanakas from the Sandwich Islands; a few were French-Canadian boatmen; only a half-dozen or fewer were British. Alexander Ross was McKenzie's first officer, and he tells the story. Half a mile north of the pretty little Walla Walla 'River, and about nine miles south of the Snake River, the Brigade of Boats from Fort George, with ninety-five men, drew up to land. Many Indians were encamped there. Now, usually, when the white men landed anywhere, the Indians went to meet them—but not this time. Not an Indian put out his hand to the white man; not the least joy was shown; not even a request for tobacco. In their tepees of buffalo hides the red men stayed, or lounged about on the sandy ground. That meant trouble. McKenzie paid no attention to this coldness. He ordered his own tent set up and the boats unloaded. The food and trading goods and guns had to be guarded and a fort had to be built. Not a piece of wood was there at that point with which to build a fort. It was a dry, sandy, treeless spot. There was not a tree for miles. Far to the southeast lay the soft, shimmering blue mass of the Blue Mountains, and there were trees there. But that was a long way off. There were no bricks; there were not enough stones to build a fort, and even if there had been, they were not regular enough in size. There was no mortar or plaster to hold the stones together. Yet a fort was to be built [84] m j DANGER AT FORT WALLA WALLA on this dry, sandy point, where they could not even have a garden. McKenzie sent one band of men toward the Blue Mountains to cut down trees and float them down the smaller streams to the Columbia. He sent another band to catch driftwood from a bend in the Columbia just above them, a bend where the swirl of the current left driftwood on the bank, or carried it close inshore. Another group of men guarded the property. The Indians still held aloof. The principal chief, instead of talking to the whites, paid no attention to them. He wrapped himself "in his blanket and his dignity" and strode from camp to camp, among his people, urging them not to trade with the white men. Other Indians came also, for the news was sent out by runners. Before long there were thousands of Indians who pitched their tepees along the Columbia near these few white men. It was a beautiful scene, in spite of the danger. Fishes leaped in the sunny waters of the broad Columbia as it swept beside the camp; horses grazed on the brown, treeless, rolling prairies around them; Indians raced horses on the plains, or swam in the river, or smoked among their tepees. Little columns of smoke curled upward in the still air, and tiny lights glimmered here and there in the twilight, as the Indian women cooked for their families. At night, in groups, they gathered to hear some story-teller retell the myths and legends of the tribe. In daytime, the children played about, almost naked, in the heat. Sometimes they came to stare at the traders, and [85] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON said to each other, "What do these people want here? Are they going to kill more of our relatives?" Still more Indians paddled down the river in dugouts, or came over the brown, rolling hills on their horses. Then these thousands of Indians began to demand presents. They said the white men should not use their land for a fort; they should not take their driftwood out of the river; should not catch the Indians' fish; should not cut the trees of the Indians on the mountains. The Indians claimed ownership of everything. Too many trading goods would not have been safe until he had a fort built, so Ross had brought few with him. If he gave even a very small gift to each warrior, there would not be enough to go around. That would make even more trouble. When the Indians demanded gifts, therefore, McKenzie said, | No." He said it was a good thing for the Indians to have a fort where they could trade at any time. Other Indians liked it, he told them. He would give them no presents. A few Indians had been selling them a little food; now this stopped. Great councils were held. McKenzie saw the danger and sent out for his scattered men. The Iroquois and the Kanakas and the French-Canadians came down from the mountains and from the river banks where they had been securing wood. The baggage was piled up to form a hollow square. As the Indians one day suddenly became very threatening, McKenzie ordered his men to stand on all sides of that square, with [86] DANGER AT FORT WALLA WALLA their backs to the baggage and each other. Their guns had been cleaned and were ready for use. Their knives were sharpened. If there was to be a fight, none of them could escape. But they thought that by being ready for battle, and showing no fear, perhaps they could avoid an actual fight. The Indians around demanded gifts. McKenzie refused. For five days and nights the men stood guard, alert every moment. No food could be bought, and the last night there was nothing to eat at all. They dared not leave the camp long enough to catch the fish leaping in the river. Without shade or shelter, in the blazing August sun, in that hot, sandy country, they kept watch. Despite the danger and the weariness of the hungry men, McKenzie told the Indians he would give them no presents. They seemed so bold and so fearless, at last the Indians yielded. They told McKenzie he might build his fort. They even brought food to the starving men and sold it to them. That ended the first danger. Still, the Indians might change again, might again demand gifts and might attack them. Yet McKenzie divided his men as before, sending some to the Blue Mountains, some to the bend for driftwood, and kept a guard to protect the trading goods. When wood enough had been floated down the Columbia and the Walla Walla to build a fort, the men came in and began the actual work of erecting it. Because the Forks was such a dangerous place, Fort ■ I87] . i EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON Walla Walla was the strongest of all the Old Oregon trading posts. The fort was square, and the walls of very heavy slabs. These slabs, cut from the driftwood caught, and the logs sent down the rivers, were set in two rows. They were so set that each slab of one row protected the crack between any two slabs of the other row, in this way: The walls were twenty feet high. On the inside of this stockade, five feet below the top, was built a narrow platform, running all around the walls, so that a guard, in case of danger, might patrol the walls, and perhaps look over. On each corner was built a blockhouse, two stories high, and thus higher than the walls. In the blockhouses, with their loopholes for guns, and their supply of guns standing in the corners, were great tanks of water. The country was such a dry one, with gales of wind that swirled the dust and sand into great clouds, that the traders feared fire more than anything else. There were small cannon on the walls, over the gate, and in the blockhouses. Inside the stockade, a heavy wall of spiked logs divided the space into two. In the inner section were the log cabins where the men lived, the blacksmith's shop, and a few other small buildings. The Indian shop, where payment was made for the furs, was just on the inside of this [88] I DANGER AT FORT WALLA WALLA spiked wall, with the narrow trading window, eighteen inches square, cut through the wall. In this spiked wall were loopholes for guns. The main gate on the outer wall was a large one, but cut in that was a very small one, through which only one person could enter at a time. All this care was against treachery. If the large gate were opened, on ordinary occasions, perhaps many Indians might rush in and keep it open; so the small gate was used. But if, through treachery, they did break into the outer half of Fort Walla Walla, they found themselves in a "pen" — themselves shut in by walls through which muskets could be aimed at them — and with the blue sky overhead. When built, the arrangement of the fort was something like the outline shown below. This, however, does not show the log cabins inside the walls. But even after the fort was completed, the Indians, for many years, were not very friendly. They liked to annoy the traders, even if they did not often threaten them. An Indian would come to the small gate, and knock. When Ross, or the man in charge, looked out of the little [89] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON window which could be opened for that purpose, the Indian would say, " Give me a gun." But he had nothing to pay for it. "Give me some powder," another would say. Still another would demand, "Give me a knife." If the clerk in charge gave to one, he would have to give to all. The traders were there to buy and sell, not to make an endless number of presents. But if Ross refused, as he usually did, they became resentful. "Why are the white men so stingy?" they would say. "Get off our lands." Sometimes an Indian would come and rap at the gate. When Ross answered, he would say, "I want to trade," and then jeer at Ross. He did not want to trade at all; he had no goods and only wanted to bother. These Indians were the Walla Wallas, the Cayuses, the Yakimas, the Nez Perces, and others of eastern Washington and Oregon. They were the bold, daring "horse Indians," and very different from the "canoe Indians" of the lower Columbia and of Puget Sound. They did nothing but hunt, gamble, race horses, or go to war, and afterwards have their scalp-dances. Except when fighting or hunting, they were always idle. Ross could see them, on every little knoll, all day long, painting their faces with red and yellow and green and black. They seemed always to have a paint brush in one hand and a looking glass in the other. After a few years, however, the Indians of this section found that it really was a good thing to have a fur-trading post on their lands. They found that these white men [90] From the Painting by Charles M. Russell A War Party Photograph by Lee Moorhouse from an old print An Indian Dance DANGER AT FORT WALLA WALLA really were their friends. So they came to like the fort, although the traders always felt it was a fort with possibilities of grave danger. Many years later, in 1842, this wood fort burned down. The fire was accidental, and the Indians protected the trading goods, and helped the traders to save everything they could. They felt very differently toward the fort and toward the white men than they had twenty years before. Still, they were Indians, and one never knew just what an Indian would do, as this gunpowder story shows. It occurred when they were building a new fort. You will remember there was no wood around Fort Walla Walla, except driftwood in the Columbia. In order to get wood for saddles, the traders had to go to the Blue Mountains, forty miles away, cut the trees, trim them, float the logs down the streams to the little Walla Walla River, and then haul them overland the few remaining miles to the fort. Many saddles were made at the fort, for the pack horses of the fur company went north from Fort Walla Walla, as well as eastward to the Snake River country and northeast to the Flatheads. Saddle wood, therefore, when dried and ready for use, was very valuable. One day the son of Peo-peo-mox-mox, the famous Walla Walla chief, walked into the saddler's shop and took some of the wood. The saddle-maker forbade his doing so again. The next day the young Indian came back and took more. Archibald McKinlay, who had charge of Fort Walla Walla, knew that this was going on. That [9i] , EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON day, when he saw the young Indian taking more saddle- wood, he sent a clerk named Todd to stop him. Todd went toward the saddler's shop and entered. Before you could say "Jack Robinson" — so McKinlay said in telling the story afterwards—he saw Todd and the Indian plunge through the doorway fighting. McKinlay ran to separate them, but before he could reach them, Todd had thrown the Indian to the ground. McKinlay demanded the Indian's name, for chief's son though he was he was not known at the fort. He was the son of Peo-peo-mox-mox, he said. At once McKinlay knew there would be trouble. To knock down a chief's son! The new fort, of adobe mud-bricks, was nearly finished, but there were yet no gates. All the men of the fort were in the fields, ten miles away. McKinlay, Todd, and the saddler were the only white men there. An hour later, Peo-peo-mox-mox and his son, with fifty or sixty angry Indians, swarmed into the gateless walls of the fort, and trooped into the dwelling, through the kitchen, into McKinlay's room. McKinlay, with great politeness, offered the chief a chair. Ignoring the chair, the chief sprang past him and caught Todd. He lifted his tomahawk high. McKinlay caught his arm just in time to prevent his bringing it down on Todd's head. Peo-peo-mox-mox turned on McKinlay, and the two chiefs, red and white, began to struggle. The other Indians let go of Todd and stood back, watching the leaders. McKinlay, in the fight, managed to drag the chief toward his desk where there were three pistols; yet he was not sure [92] DANGER AT FORT WALLA WALLA that they were loaded. He caught them, tossed one to Todd, but ordered him not to fire without a command. Suddenly Peo-peo-mox-mox freed himself from Mc- Kinlay's grasp and drew back. He opened his blanket, baring his chest. "Shoot me!" he said scornfully. "You shoot a man/" 11 don't want to shoot you," said McKinlay. " But if you raise that tomahawk again, I certainly will fire." Then they talked a while about the matter. The chief insisted that Todd must be thrashed. To do that, of course, would be a great disgrace in the eyes of the Indians, who looked upon the white men as superior beings. And of course the Hudson's Bay Company would have to send out of the country a man who was looked down upon by the Indians. While they talked, a young warrior struck McKinlay. That was such an insult that McKinlay caught him by the hair, intending to strike him. But that, he remembered, would be sure death for himself and Todd, would cause a war between the whites and the Indians, and make trouble that would last for years. There would be no chance of escape, for the room was crowded with Indians and only the two white men there. Suddenly a thought came to him. He sprang into the next room, seized a keg of gunpowder, and pulled it to the door. Wrenching off the top, he held over it a flint and steel, ready to strike. Flints and steels were used in olden times to make a spark, before matches came into use. If he had struck — if a single spark had fallen into [93] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON that keg of powder—well, anybody knows what would have happened. The Indians knew it certainly. In a twinkling there was not a redskin in the fort except old Peo-peo-mox-mox and his son. The rest fled—out through the kitchen, through the yard of the fort and the gateless walls into the free space beyond. The chief stood still for a moment. Then he said, scornfully: "Don't you think you are smart to frighten my young men so! I have heard that you white people fight duels. Now let's you and I fight." McKinlay answered—and he himself tells the story— "There are only six white men at this fort and six hundred of your people. Now if you kill me, there is no other white chief to take my place. But if I kill you, there are plenty of warriors in your tribe who would make as good a chief as you are." The *old chief went off at once in great anger. A day or two later another chief, Five Crows, came into, the fort. He had not heard of the trouble, so McKinlay told him. He said, " It is a great disgrace for a chief's son to be thrashed. It will make trouble." Yet Five Crows was friendly to the fur traders. After a few days of really hard trying, he made peace between Chief Peo-peo-mox-mox and McKinlay. The trader gave a suit of clothes to the chief; the chief gave the trader a fine horse. So they smoked the pipe of peace. When the missionaries came across the plains, begin- [94] DANGER AT FORT WALLA WALLA ning in 1834, and the emigrants years later, they found Fort Walla Walla friendly to them, and very helpful, after those long hard months on the plains and in the mountains. They could buy there coffee and sugar and flour, as well as fresh fish and vegetables — things which they had gone without for weeks and months. Turkeys and chickens fluttered about the fort, pigs grunted in their pens, and cows, in the pasture not more than a mile or two away, gave fresh milk and made butter possible. There were rough bunks for beds, but that was better than the ground. Chairs made out of tree trunks were more comfortable than sitting on the ground. Food eaten from the table there was not full of the dust and sand of the desert, as it had been when they were in what is now Idaho, when the breeze blew dust into their food, while the hot sun poured down upon them. Later the settlers came. Unless the immigrants were too many, there were often old bateaux — large open boats—which could be paddled down the river from Fort Walla Walla. Then the bedding and clothing and furniture were piled in great heaps in the open boats, people sat down on their baggage, and little children were tied fast to prevent their falling overboard. If too many people came at once, after settlement began, the immigrants had to follow the river trail to The Dalles. From there they could get boats, while the cattle and horses and wagons went overland. [95] CHAPTER XII FORT VANCOUVER AND DR. JOHN m'lOUGHLIN ABOUT three years after Donald McKenzie, in the employ of the North West Company of Montreal, had built Fort Walla Walla, that company united with the Hudson's Bay Company. This English company was very famous. Its charter had been granted for a hundred and fifty years, but all its trading had been in the country whose waters flowed into Hudson's Bay. Now by merging with the North West Company, they had a license to trade in the Oregon country. Many changes were made in the trading forts within the first few years. In 1824 the Hudson's Bay Company decided to abandon Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia, and build a central fort farther up the river. There were many reasons for this. One was that Astoria was too damp for the furs. In the damp coolness of the lower river, also, farming was poor; therefore all the food supplies had to be sent from England. This was expensive. Another reason was that furs would keep better in the drier, sunnier climate at the new point. This new place, now the city of Vancouver, on the Columbia, was nearer the upper country. The brigades would not have so far to come, and they would be nearer many Indian tribes who had many furs. [96] 1 \ii FORT VANCOUVER AND JOHN McLOUGHLIN Dr. John McLoughlin, six feet tall and more, blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked, white-haired, was sent to take charge of the fur trade of the Oregon country. He it was who decided to build the new fort, and he called it Fort Vancouver. Nearly a mile back from the river, on a broad, high prairie, they built the first Fort Vancouver. This was begun about December, 1824. All the men were up there and all the furs had been carried there by May, 1825, although the fort was not completed. Fort Vancouver had no blockhouses, for the canoe Indians of the Columbia River were rather friendly to them. They were not so warlike as the "horse Indians" east of the Cascades. Still there was danger in the earlier years of the fort. Not long after coming to the new fort, Dr. McLoughlin heard that many Indian councils were being held in the forests near by. Many strange Indians appeared. If the Indians could get all those trading goods without bothering to trap beavers, so much the better! Beaver skins were used to pay for the goods. The white men were few; the Indians were countless. At once Dr. McLoughlin saw the danger. He sent out Indian runners, calling a council of the tribes with whom they traded. The chiefs came. Wild and savage, wrapped in their blankets, they entered the gates of the new fort and squatted on their heels, Indian fashion, in a large semicircle. After a while, in their slow way, they were ready for a council. But Dr. McLoughlin was not. He [97] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON knew how to manage Indians. He wanted these great chiefs to understand that he was a very great chief—so he kept them waiting for him an hour. But as they waited, squatting in that circle in the fort yard, he sent out a Scotch trader, who was also a bagpiper. Up and down the fort yard the Scot strode, with those wailing, squeaking bagpipes clapped under his arm, playing for those Indians. They watched that canny Scot with great admiration. The music of the pipes played by that bare- kneed piper charmed them. The great white chief had won. When Dr. McLoughlin came among them, they were only too ready to promise peace and friendship and furs. The Indians came as enemies. They went away as friends. This victory was not all due to the bagpipes. Dr. McLoughlin was a man of whom the Indians stood in awe. He was the "White-Eagle Chief," because of his long white Tiair. He was very commanding in manner, and since he knew how to deal with Indians, he kept peace with them and kept them quiet. This made many furs for the fur trade. But also when American settlers first came into Oregon, it made it possible for them to take up farms without being murdered. Only at night at Fort Vancouver were the gates of the stockade shut. The Indians never did attack the fort. Four years after the building of the first fort, it was abandoned. The new fort was at the same point, but nearer the river. All the furs coming from the Brigade of Boats, or from the Indians who came to bring them, [98] FORT VANCOUVER AND JOHN McLOUGHLIN had to be carried from the river to the fort. All the water used, for washing or drinking or cooking, had to be carried from the river to the fort. It was too far back, so the new fort was built, just high enough to escape the floods. This second fort is the one which the Americans knew when they came in as settlers. The location was a beautiful one. Before them rolled the mighty Columbia, miles wide in the spring-time, carrying down great trees, uprooted in the floods, as though they were chips. All around were the dark forests on the rolling hills which bordered the Columbia. And above the blackness of the evergreens gleamed the shining white of the snow-capped mountains, Mount Hood being in full view. One of the near-by chiefs, named Casinove — though his name is spelled in many ways—liked to receive much attention from the white men. He was a great chief. He had many slaves and many wives, which showed that he was a rich man. When Casinove came to the fort to trade furs, he was paddled in his great war canoe by his slaves. He was received at the river bank with ceremony by the traders. As he walked the short distance to the fort, his slaves went ahead putting down otter skins and beaver furs on the road, so that the feet of the mighty chief might not touch the earth. After the furs were traded and he was about to return to his canoe, the fur traders sent their servants ahead of this great one. They, in turn, covered the earth over which he walked with the blankets, woolen goods, calicoes, and clothing which he had bought. Per- [99] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON haps it was a little hard on the furs and the blankets, if the weather was not fine. The life of the traders at the fort was a busy one. The gardener was busy in his garden, among the vegetables or among the fruit trees, setting out new trees, pruning the old, and guarding them. Fruit was precious in those days. Eight thousand miles of ocean and two thousand miles of land lay between Fort Vancouver and the fruit trees of England, or of "the States." "America" was a long, long way from Oregon. The farmers ploughed the plains near the fort. Rye and wheat and oats and pease and potatoes were sowed wherever the soil was good. . Swineherds looked after the large droves of pigs. Herders tried to manage and tame the cattle which had been driven up from Mexican California, over the mountains and across the rivers, hundreds of miles, to Fort Vancouver. Some of the best were sent by ship from London. Loggers were cutting down the trees, so that more land might be cleared for the wheat and rye. The sawmills were busy sawing timber, which they sold in the Hawaiian Islands. In the fort itself men were always busy. There were furs to be beaten and brushed to keep them from becoming mouldy, or eaten by insects. In the Indian shop, the trader stood at his little window and bought the furs the Indians brought in, paying in blankets and kettles and guns. Indians were coming and going, and the bright gleam of paddles from canoes crossing the river, or paddling up and down, flashed in the sunshine. There was [ioo] FORT VANCOUVER AND JOHN McLOUGHLIN even a baker there, with a great out-of-doors oven, who was busy baking bread as well as meats for the hungry men. Often there were two hundred men busy at the fort and around it. There were two great events every year at Fort Vancouver. The first one was when the Brigade of Boats came down the river; the second, when the "home ship" came in from England. The Brigade of Boats came down the river each summer, in June, to Fort Vancouver. It was the fleet of canoes which brought the furs down from the upper country. From far away in the north, on horseback, at a certain date, would start the men in charge of the fort farthest away. They came to the next fort, where more men and furs joined them. So down they came through what is now British Columbia, to the fort farthest north on the Columbia River. Here they left the horses and stacked the furs in the canoes. On they paddled, singing cheerily, to the next fort, and so on down, picking up furs and men all the way to Fort Vancouver. Fort Walla Walla was the last fort on the southern part of the journey, and from there down they stopped only at night. The Brigade came down when the river was high, in the bright June sunshine. After a year of loneliness, of cold, of danger, sometimes of hunger, in their northern posts among the Indians, the light-hearted French-Canadians were very happy. At each post they came in singing, dressed gayly in their best. Fort Vancouver knew just when to expect the Brigade [IOI] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON of Boats. The watchman was on the alert. "The Brigade! The Brigade!" he would shout as his eye caught the first glimpse of the canoes on the river—just a line of tiny dark specks. And from white-haired Dr. McLoughlini to the little half-Indian children playing about in the fields,) everyone rushed to the river bank. Down the broad blue river swept the canoes, sometimes! twenty abreast, and in perfect line, led by the singlej canoe of the officer in charge. The Union Jack of Great< Britain floated from the officer's masthead. It was on a.\ scarlet background and at the bottom of it, in white, was? a half-monogram, H$ C. The boatmen were dressed in their finest, hats almost covered with feathers or withi bunches of bright ribbon, and their beaded Indian pouches dangling from their gay sashes. Brightly colored hand-i kerchiefs were knotted about their throats. It was a beautiful sight as well as a striking one — the broad green plains around the fort, the charming green* islands in the river, the dark, blackish forests coming down to the water's edge. Over them rose the snowy peaks of Mount Hood. The river sparkled and gleamed in the June sunlight as the gay fleet of canoes came down with fluttering flags and plumes and ribbons. The dark-* skinned, black-eyed boatmen sang together some gay boating song, and sang in time to the dip of the paddles. Nearer and nearer they came, louder and louder was the chorus of song, while the men on shore shouted their welcome. Then the canoes, still in perfect order, still outs in the middle of the blue river, wheeled in perfect line, [102] 11 FORT VANCOUVER AND JOHN McLOUGHLIN and came, side by side, in towards the river bank. Once there, with a shout the men sprang to the shore. The danger and loneliness of the year was past. For two or three weeks there would be no hunger, no danger, no loneliness, no work. Those voyageurs had a good time lounging about the fort during those few weeks. Busy officers sorted over the furs, counted them, and had them made into bales. Workmen dusted and beat out the new furs, just brought in. From the storehouse they took the beads and knives, the blankets and guns, the powder and bullets and kettles, as well as the rice and flour and pork which were to go back to the upper country. But the dark, handsome, wild- looking men, dressed still in all their gay finery, played while these others worked. When the Brigade of Boats went out, everyone was on the river bank again. The cannon at the fort fired a salute. The men's rifles fired an answering one. All was ready. Gay still, in their holiday clothes, the voyageurs stepped into the canoes and took their places; their pas- | sengers took theirs. The officers and the men going home I to Canada or Scotland or England were all passengers, for they went up the river, over the Canadian Rockies, and sailed from Hudson's Bay. At a pistol shot every paddle touched the water at the same instant—and they were off again. Out they swept into the river, singing in time to the dip of the paddles, wheeling in mid-stream in perfect order—off again for another year of danger and hard work. Up the broad, blue river, in full chorus, ribbons [103] H EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON I fluttering and plumes waving, until one could see only small specks on the blue water, and hear only the faint sound of song—such was their going. The second exciting time was 'later in the summer, when the home ship from England came in. On this ship came the letters and newspapers from England. Everyone waited eagerly for it. From the time it left England until the ship reached the long line of foaming breakers at the mouth of the bar, was eight or nine months. Once over the bar, the ship came to anchor in Baker's Bay, and sent a longboat across the river to the log cabins still at Astoria. The Company's men held this place, but now only for the convenience of the ocean-going ships. A boat was ready there, with Indian paddlers, and the mail came up the river in that way. If the wind was contrary, it would take a ship one or two or even three weeks to come from Astoria to Fort Vancouver. The children were on the alert for the postman who came in this canoe. The moment they saw the canoe they shouted, "The Packet! The Packet!" From the boat sprang the officer with the mail, and up to the fort he went. Everyone waited there for the mail. Dr. McLoughlin shook hands with him, and with a wave of the hand sent him—where? To the kitchen! He had been on that ship for months with salt meat and ship's hard bread, and the kitchen with all the good things the cook had ready for him there was the best place. [104] FORT VANCOUVER AND JOHN McLOUGHLIN But the letters! Every man dropped his work and crowded to the office where the white-haired, blue-eyed Dr. McLoughlin sorted them over. The doors were full of eager men, crowding each other. The windows were full of heads, twisted this way and that to make out an address. When sorted, the mail was handed out. All was silent as each man read his letters. But at dinner that night—such a hubbub! Each man was busy telling his neighbor all the news in his letter, for many of these men came from the same neighborhood in Scotland; their families knew each other. The dinner table at Fort Vancouver was hardly what one would expect in a fur-trading fort in the wilderness. It was entirely different from any fort that the Americans ever had. At the head of the long table sat Dr. McLoughlin; on either side of him were his leading officers. The others sat in order of rank and importance down the table on each side. The meals were good, with venison or beef, vegetables of all kinds, and with fruits. The servants were all men. The dinner was served in courses, and usually the higher officers wore evening dress. These officers were nearly all university graduates. The fur- trade of the Hudson's Bay Company was a regular business, carefully managed under educated men. It was not managed like the American fur trade. After dinner the officers and clerks gathered in the Bachelors' Hall, as they called their great smoking-room. The walls were decorated with elks' heads and antlers. [105] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON The chairs were made by the carpenter at the fort. There was a library of good books there, and new books were sent over from England every year. Indeed, nearly every fort, even in the far north, had its little traveling library, which was changed every year. In this great smoking-room, after dinner, the men talked of Europe, and what was happening there. They were always a year behind time. They wondered if war might have broken out. They talked of books and authors, of gardening, and of the fur trade. They talked of all kinds of interesting things, while the great fire roared in the open fireplace and the room became blue with tobacco smoke. Candles were the only lights in those days, and when "good-nights" were said each man took his candle and the fire was covered. There were no white women at the fort. No man knew when he might be sent inland to some post, among the Indians, and the life of a fur trader was too hard for a white woman. The wives of the officers were part Indian, but they were quiet, ladylike women, often very beautiful, and dressing like white women. [They often warned their husbands of some Indian plot. This is the way Fort Vancouver looked when Captain Wilkes, of an American exploring expedition, visited it in 1841: Inside the stockaded walls were four acres of ground, and within these wooden walls were nearly forty buildings, including a great bake-oven. Outside the walls were the kitchen gardens. Beyond were broad fields of wheat, bar- [106] ! FORT VANCOUVER AND JOHN McLOUGHLIN ley, oats, and pease, with large, two-story buildings where the wheat was stored. Once nearly all of that had been covered with trees. The Hudson's Bay Company had worked hard. Under patches of trees grazed large herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. Pigs grunted around their pens, and turkeys gobbled from the trees or from under them. Wild geese were on the river, and elk and deer in the forest. There were sawmills for cutting lumber to be sold at the Sandwich Islands. There were dairies where butter and cheese were made, and shipped to the Russians in Alaska. There were large orchards of apples and plums and pears, besides other fruit. Dr. McLoughlin was always very kind to the Americans, and in later years became a naturalized citizen. When the immigrants began to come into the Oregon country he did all in his power to aid them. He lent them cattle to draw their plows in breaking up the tough crust of the new earth. The crust was formed of matted roots and grass, and was very difficult to plow. He even lent them the plows, besides seed-wheat and other grains, clothing to wear, and lumber to build their cabins. He prevented the Indians from attacking them. One day Dr. McLoughlin stood on the river bank anxiously awaiting some of the immigrants who were coming down in boats from The Dalles. It was late in the autumn. Cold had set in, in the upper country. He knew the poor wanderers were nearly starved and almost naked. He was so anxious he had come down to the ■ I [io7] H -I EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON | river bank to watch for them. The Indians were watchinj too. As Dr. McLoughlin stood on the river bank, he heard an Indian near by say, "It would be good for us to kill these white dogs." Quick as a flash, the Doctor rushed toward the Indian. He knew the remark had been made to test him. He upraised his cane as though to strike him. "What is that you say?" he thundered. The Indian began to shake at the anger of this White- Eagle chief. "That is what The Dalles Indians said," he answered. " The Dalles Indians are dogs!" said Dr. McLoughlin. Then he made the Indian understand that white men stand by each other, whether they were " King George men" (Englishmen) or were "Boston men" (Americans). But for the generous kindness of Dr. McLoughlin, "King of the Columbia," as some white men called him, and the shelter and aid he gave to the Americans, whether missionaries like Whitman or immigrants who came to settle, there would have been much suffering from starvation, from exposure, and from Indians. Many of his letters which have never been published show how kindly he felt toward the Americans, and how truly he tried to help them. But it is not true, as his own letters show, that the Hudson's Bay Company were angry with him for the help he gave the Americans, or that he gave up his work because of that. The greatest help he gave the Americans was in his [108] FORT VANCOUVER AND JOHN McLOUGHLIN control of the Indians, so that the country was settled before the Indians began to attack the Americans. Attacks came only after the boundary was settled and the Indians knew the country belonged to the " Boston men." [109] CHAPTER XIII THE FIRST APPLE IN THE OREGON COUNTRY NO captain knew when he started from London to Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River whether he would be wrecked in rounding the Horn, or be caught in some fearful storm in the South Seas; or even whether, at the entrance of the Columbia, his ship might not be drawn, by the swirl of the current or some adverse wind, on the bar. It was a long, dangerous voyage. So, before the yearly ship left London, a dinner was often given to the captain. "Captain," said a lady at a dinner given to Captain Simpson, in London, "when you reach that wilderness on the Northwest Coast of America, plant these apple seeds." And then, half in fun, she gave him the seeds she had just taken out of an apple. This was probably about 1825 or 1826. The captain said he would surely plant them. Then he put them in his pocket and forgot all about them. The next day he started off on that long voyage of seven or eight months. He sailed around the Horn, up the western side of South America and of North America, crossed the terrible bar of the Columbia with its thundering white-capped waves, and sailed up to Fort Vancouver. [no] FIRST APPLE IN THE OREGON COUNTRY Then he sat, in his dress suit, at the right hand of Dr. McLoughlin, at another dinner; but this time it was in "that wilderness on the Northwest Coast of America." Putting his hand into his pocket for something, the captain felt the apple seeds. He took them out and told Dr. McLoughlin how they came to be there. At that time there were no apples trees at all at Fort Vancouver, and those seeds suddenly became very important. They were given to Bruce, the gardener, without delay. It took four grown men to plant those precious seeds: Dr. McLoughlin, Captain Simpson, Mr. Pambrun, and Bruce. First they were put in small boxes, in good earth, with glass over them. The boxes were put in the storeroom where no one would find them or touch them. The green sprouts, later, were planted in the fort garden by Bruce and carefully protected. The white-haired Dr. McLoughlin also watched over them. This powerful man, who controlled thousands of Indians, and governed a j country eight hundred miles long, north and south, and nearly a thousand miles east and west—this "King of the Columbia" bent down with great interest over these tiny green apple shoots. He hoped they would bear fruit, and they did. "Now come and see. We are going to have some apples," he said to Mr. Harvey one day. Harvey himself tells this story, and he was afterwards the doctor's son- in-law. They went to the tree. One little green apple was hanging there. When it was ripe, it was picked and cut into many slices, for everyone had to have a bit of it. cm] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON That first apple was a green one, but the next year there were more apples and they were red. And the seeds of every apple were saved, planted, and tended, so that they became valuable apple trees. When the missionaries came, several years after that first seed was planted, they found a charming apple orchard at Fort Vancouver, with many a tree covered in the spring with beautiful, fragrant, pink blossoms, and in the fall with red apples. [112] CHAPTER XIV THE ADVENTURES OF THE WHITMANS ZEVEl Level (Arise! Arise!)." That was the I French-Canadian call early one summer morning out on the great plains, and it awakened an entire camp. It was only four o'clock and the sun was just rising out of the prairie grass, but the camp arose. They had to arise. For one thing, they had to be on the march. For another, no one could sleep through such a racket, mules braying and trampling about and men shouting to each other. And this happened every morning, to every camp crossing the plains. In this camp there were two different parties, traveling together for safety. One was a missionary party, with Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife, Mr. Spalding and his wife, and Mr. Gray, a carpenter, who was with them. The other was a fur-trading party of the American Fur Company, who were going to the Rocky Mountains to trade beads and paints and kettles, guns and powder and bullets, and many other things, with the Indians for furs. The fur traders were used to this wild way of living, but the missionaries were not. They had lived always in small villages or in the larger towns. It was a new thing, especially for the two ladies, to spend week after week [ii3] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON on the long, rolling, grassy prairies. It was not an easy life, even on the prairies. Farther on it was harder because they had to cross the bare, brown, treeless plains, and then the mountains. After the guide called, and while the mules and horses made such an uproar, and camp-keepers and muleteers shouted at each other, everyone dressed quickly. Then came breakfast. In the missionary party, Mrs. Whitman cooked it, while the men collected their own horses and milked their own cows. There was little to cook—coffee and buffalo meat. Bread was baked along the road beside an open campfire whenever they could get a chance. For tablecloth, they used a rubber cloth. Plates and cups were of tin. Forks were of iron. They sat on the ground. Among the fur traders, things were rougher yet. Tben the day's journey began. Many a day on the prairies, there was nothing but the long rumble of the wagon and the thud of the horses' feet. The hot sun poured down upon them, but nothing at all happened from sunrise to sunset. Sometimes they had adventures. One day the caravan of traders and missionaries was jogging slowly onward. There were seven wagons, heavily loaded; there were four hundred animals, including horses, mules, and cows; there were about seventy-five people. Suddenly, as they passed a fold in the hills, near Independence Rock, they startled a herd of buffalo feeding there. Out came the leaders, mad with fear, followed by ["4] THE ADVENTURES OF THE WHITMANS the whole herd. The caravan was strung out nearly two miles long, and it was directly in the path of the buffalo when they stampeded. Everyone saw the danger. Every guard and every man not driving a team turned his horse toward the buffalo and dashed straight toward the foremost of the great frightened herd pouring out of the hills. Yet on the buffaloes came, headed straight for the caravan. If the herd kept right on, they would crash straight through the caravan. Mules and wagons would be overturned, drivers and riders and missionaries would be crushed under that mad rush. The only way to turn them aside was to shoot at them. Every gun was aimed at the oncoming buffaloes. Bullets flew among them like hail, but still they plunged forward. Horses and mules snorted with fright, tried to break their harness, and to escape from the control of their drivers. Still onward came that herd of black buffaloes! Plunging and bellowing, with their big shaggy heads down, with eyes red, they rushed directly at the caravan. A continual shower of bullets flew among them. Just as they reached that long, strung-out caravan, the leaders, frightened by the hail of bullets, turned to one side. But they were so close that the guards who were firing found themselves forced back, right among the wagons. Yielding to that shower of bullets, which stung even their thick, shaggy hides, the black herd turned just in time to save the caravan from destruction, and the travelers from death. The terrible stream of maddened animals swept alongside the caravan into the open plains. [ii5] nrr EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON They grunted and groaned as they thundered along, making the earth tremble with the tramp of their countless hoofs. The caravan was saved! American fur traders at that time seldom went beyond the Rocky Mountains. These missionaries were going a thousand miles beyond, into the Oregon country. As it was not safe for them to travel alone, soon after they left the American fur traders they joined the British, a small party from the Hudson's Bay Company. This company, you will remember, had its forts all through the Oregon country, and at Fort Vancouver ruled Dr. John McLoughlin. The officers of this Company were always very kind to American missionaries. Soon after leaving the Rocky Mountains they had to cross a land with no trees, and few streams. The heat of the summer sun was terrible. When they stopped for luncheon, the missionaries fastened a blanket to the tops of four sticks stuck in the ground, or across sagebrush, so that they might have a little shelter from the sun. Their first stopping point, after joining the party of the Hudson's Bay Company, was at Fort Hall, about forty miles from where Fort Hall City is today. The Whitmans and Spaldings reached Fort Hall after days of fearful heat. The fort was a small one, but the welcome given them was cordial. Trees grew along the banks of the little stream, which rippled and chattered over its rocky bed. There were bunks to sleep in and [116] THE ADVENTURES OF THE WHITMANS chairs in which to sit. The trader in charge gave them fresh bread and fish, with vegetables and cheese and butter. They had been without such food for many weeks. The very worst of the journey lay ahead of them, the officer told them. That seemed rather hard after the long weeks and months, first on the wave-like prairies, and then on the flat, treeless plains. But ahead of them lay a rocky, sandy country. The rocks were both large and small, with sharp edges which cut shoes or moccasins like a knife. It was so dreary that no game lived in it. An American said afterwards that it was a land where "men had songs for supper" — the food had usually given out when they reached there, and they could not buy or catch or shoot any. Through this country the trail was a mere track through sagebrush and wormwood as high as the backs of the horses. Dr. Whitman wondered about the two wagons he had with him. The officer told him, with entire honesty, that it would be impossible to take the wagons with him. Every officer of the Hudson's Bay Company would have said the same thing. In their private letters to each other they said it was impossible to get a wagon through from Fort Hall to Oregon. But Dr. Whitman thought he would see what he could do. Mrs. Spalding was ill, and he felt he had to have a wagon for her. He took off the wagon beds and made a two-wheeled cart. On this he packed such goods as he could, yet then there was no room for either of the ladies. There was nothing else to do, so they went on horseback. ["7] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON So off went the Whitman party to the next fort, Fort Boise, Dr. Whitman himself taking care of that cart. He had a terrible time with it, in the struggle to gel it through, on that rocky, rough road, so overgrown with tall sagebrush and wormwood. His wife, again and again! urged him to let it go. The doctor would come into camp hours after the others had reached it, and tell them howij many times it had been overturned. When they reached Fort Boise, the doctor did leave it behind him. From! this fort, a few years later, the old cart was driven through to Fort Walla Walla by an old "mountain man' with his Indian wife and children, but he had such a time with it that he wished many a time he had never undertaken to do it. Yet the driving of that cart through to Fort Walla Walla, hard as it was, proved that it could be done. It proved that it was possible to get wagons through from "the States" to the Columbia River. And this opened the way for the later immigrants who brought with them their wives and children, and could not have come without wagons. It was six years, however, after the Whitmans went to Oregon before American wives and children began to go to the Oregon country with the men. But while the missionaries were struggling with their cart on the road to Fort Boise, and resting there, some Indians to the west were making some very interesting plans. The Nez Perces Indians, always a friendly tribe, heard that two white women were crossing the plains and the mountains. Now these Nez Perces, many years before, [118] THE ADVENTURES OF THE WHITMANS had heard from other Indians, and especially from Iroquois Indians of eastern Canada, of a Great Power who lived up in the sky. He was simply a Mysterious One. They knew nothing of a God who is endless love. The Indians thought if they could find out about this Great Power, so they could talk to him, that things would go better. They thought there would be no more sickness in their tepees, that hunting would be more successful, that the winters would not be so cold, and they would have more blankets. They heard that the white people could talk directly to this Great Power. Therefore the Nez Perces wanted to have white teachers come among them. They had even sent to St. Louis, across the plains, asking for teachers. Now this tribe of Indians heard that missionaries were coming and two ladies with them. Part of the tribe remained near their own grounds, but part went forward to welcome the white people. Can you imagine an Indian welcome? This is what it was: When within a day's march of the Spalding camp, the Indians — and some fur traders who were with them — halted. The women smoothed out their long black hair and braided it, tying it with bright ribbons bought from traders. Their buckskin dresses were beautifully beaded, fringed with tiny hawk's bells and tinkling shells. Their moccasins and leggins were bright with beads. The warriors also combed out their long black locks and braided them, leaving a scalp lock free as a sign of bravery. They I "9] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 1 stuck eagle feathers in it, and sometimes a bright bit of ribbon. They put on their beaded buckskin shirts and leggins. The ponies were gay with blankets of red and blue. Some of them were painted, yellow and blue. Their beautifully beaded saddle blankets were edged with long fringe which swept the ground. Guns were all newly cleaned. The drummers took their tom-toms — the Indian rawhide drums. All was ready. When the scouts, looking over a low hill, saw the missionary caravan in sight, with the fur traders, the signal was given. The gay Indians rushed to their horses. Then away they went! Spurring their ponies, riding with mad speed, yelling, whooping, shouting, they dashed forward with wild motions. War drums crashed; guns banged; every warrior whooped like a demon. On they dashed, faster and faster, yelling louder and louder. Bang! Bang! Bang! went the guns. When they had almost reached the missionaries, they suddenly pulled up their ponies and stood perfectly still. It was a trick for which the ponies had been trained. This was the welcome of the Indian reception committee. But the missionaries! Fluttering bits of white at the ends of the guns told the traders the story at once. They only took care the horses were not stampeded. There was no time to tell the missionaries, who thought it was a band of hostile Indians coming down upon them. They started to drive their cows and horses to a safe place among the wagons, caught up their guns, and made ready [120] THE ADVENTURES OF THE WHITMANS for defense. But when Dr. Whitman understood it, he thought it was great fun and was as delighted as a boy. The Indians wanted to see the white women. One of the squaws touched their skin softly, to see if the white was paint. Then she kissed her new white friends. Mrs. Whitman was blue-eyed and golden-haired. Mrs. Spalding was slighter, dark-haired, and very gentle. The cows and calves came in for many questions; the Indians thought they were tame buffalo. And what a welcome did the traders give these ladies! Well, one of them had not seen a white woman in nine years. These white traders lived in the wilderness just like Indians. Then the whole throng—missionaries, Indians, American trappers, and British traders — rode on over the rough, stony country and through the mountains. The British traders and the missionaries went to Fort Walla Walla, which was in the Nez Perces country. But at Fort Walla Walla the horses of the missionaries would not even ride up to the gate! Turkeys gobbled around the fort yard, geese quacked, and hens cackled. That was too much for horses which had been for months on the plains. Every kindness was shown the missionaries at the fort. Wooden bunks fastened on the walls, the rough wood bottom covered with Indian blankets; chairs, rough axe-hewn slabs, cut from trees in the Blue Mountains; tables made from hewn slabs again—such were the furnishings at the fort. But they were offered with a kindness which was [121] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON genuine, and it was much better than camping out of doors. Fresh salmon, bread, butter, tea, potatoes, melons, and vegetables of all kinds were offered to the guests. Indian runners had told the fort they were coming, so, when they wanted to go farther, boats were ready, with the boatmen, to take them down the river to Fort Vancouver. It took two or three days to go down the river, riding! smoothly over the broad blue water in daytime and camping at night on the shore or on some island in mid) stream. On the river bank, when they reached Fort Vancouver, stood Dr. McLoughlin to welcome them, the same kindly, genial "White-Eagle Chief" whom many white men loved. The good doctor turned some of the younger clerks out of their own rooms so that the missionaries might have them. They sat at that long table in the great dining hall at the fort, waited upon with men servants, with the dinners served in courses. Good dinners they were, with game — no roast beef, yet, because cows were too few — and fish, with cabbages, peas, onions, beans, radishes, beets, potatoes ; with puddings, and with fruits from Bruce's carefully tended garden—apples and peaches and prunes. Dr. McLoughlin took them out to see that orchard— the only one west of the Mississippi River. He was proud of it. He took them all over the farm, with hundreds of acres of peas, barley, oats, and wheat. In the small ponds cattle waded, or leisurely ate the grass in the fields, while in the great dairies, both at Fort Vancouver and on the island in the river—Multnomah Island—busy women [122] THE ADVENTURES OF THE WHITMANS made cheese and butter. When Dr. and Mrs. Whitman wandered about the beautiful big farm, swans preened their feathers or sailed about in stately way, while ducks quacked in the ponds. Bands of horses roamed about, feeding on the grass. It was just like coming home to the missionaries, with all these chickens and geese and ducks, with the horses and cows and apple trees. Yet this was still the unknown "Northwest Coast of America," and Americans knew very, very little about it. Dr. McLoughlin did not wish the Americans to go far from the fort. A single murder by the Indians would stir up the entire country in Indian warfare. It was far too dangerous. He invited them to stay at the fort as long as they would. At last it was decided that the two ladies should stay there for a time, while their husbands and Gray the carpenter should build log cabins for their mission work among the Nez Perces Indians, near Fort Walla Walla. They called it Waiilatpu, meaning the place of rye grass. The ladies were busy while they waited at the fort. Dr. McLoughlin had started a school for the boys around the fort, to teach them how to read, how to write, and how to. farm. Mrs. Whitman helped in the school, and she taught these children how to sing. The Whitmans were not the very first missionaries in the Oregon country. Jason Lee and his nephew Daniel Lee had come two years before and had settled in the Willamette Valley. But there were no women at that mis- [123] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON sion until later, and they came out from New York around the Horn by ship. Eleven years after the Whitmans came, in 1847, tne Indians began to be very angry because many settlers were coming into their country. Thousands of immigrants were crossing the plains every year now, and they had marked out that "Great Medicine Road of the Whites," as the Indians called the Oregon trail. The year before, the treaty had been signed dividing Oregon between Great Britain and America. The Indians knew this. They liked the British fur traders, who did not build log cabins, did not farm, did not cut down trees and fence in the springs, did not drive away the wild game so that the red man starved. It was the "Boston men," the Americans, who did these things. Therefore the Indians hated the Americans. Now things became worse. With the immigration of 1847 came much sickness. The trains of tired people stopped at the Whitman mission, and some of the sick were left there. Sickness spread into the camps of the Indians, and because they did not know what to do, many died. In the darkness and silence of the night, from lonely tepees along little streams, could one hear the death cry and the long wail of Indian women mourning for their dead. Still the sickness spread. The Indians said the "Boston men" were to blame for the sickness. They had brought it among the tepees so that the white man might have the lands of the red man. So angry they became that, after long plotting, they killed [124] THE ADVENTURES OF THE WHITMANS Mrs. Whitman and her husband, and several other people who were living with them. All the others were captured and made prisoners. No one knew what to do. The Americans at the Willamette were helpless. If they sent an army of men, the Indians would kill all the prisoners, or carry them into the upper country. If they sent only a few, since the Indians were on the war-path, they would not be strong enough to rescue the prisoners at Waiilatpu. No one could help except the Hudson's Bay Company. Without even waiting to see what the Americans would do, Peter Skeen Ogden, a trader well known among the Indians up the river, and trusted by them, started from Fort Vancouver for the mission. He took with him many blankets and kettles and paint; took things which the Indians liked. He traveled in such a way as to make the Indians think he knew nothing about the massacre. In one canoe, with his voyageurs, he started up the river, stopping at the usual camping places, making presents, acting as though nothing had happened. They knew, of course. They did not know that he did. If Ogden had hurried, and the Indians thought he was afraid, he could have done nothing. When Ogden reached Fort Walla Walla, he called a council of the chiefs, and demanded the freedom of the prisoners. The chiefs refused. It took days of time and many blankets before Ogden could persuade the Indians to give up their prisoners. The moment they did, he paid over the blankets and other presents, bundled the unhappy [125] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON people into canoes, and started down the river as fast as they could go. So the poor prisoners were saved. But the Indians said, and the Americans also admitted, that no one could have saved these American prisoners except the Hudson's Bay Company, because of their power with the Indians. And that power was based upon their rule of justice and firmness. After the prisoners were safe, the Americans sent a small army up the river. That is, they sent armed men, for they had no trained soldiers. Thus began the Yakima war. It lasted only a year, but many colonists were killed and the whole country upset by it. In the end the Indians had to ask for peace. The five men who had murdered the Whitmans were hanged. And so ended the mission which had begun eleven years before, when Mrs. Whitman and her husband, with the Spaldings, had crossed the plains and the mountains to the Oregon country. [126] w w W H fa O CO hJ < fa CHAPTER XV ?* THE OREGON TRAIL IF a lively mule kicked off the coffee pot while you were crossing the Oregon trail, where would you get another? From the Missouri River to Fort Hall, built in 1834, there was no place at which you could buy anything. Only Indians roamed the rolling prairies, the level plains, or the rugged mountains, and little could be traded from them except furs. It was quite the other way, indeed, for Indians wanted kettles and pots. So great was this need that later Fort Laramie was built in the Rocky Mountains, but although built as a trading post for immigrants, its supplies were limited and its prices sky-high. Before Fort Hall was built there was no stopping place between the Missouri River and Fort Walla Walla. Look at the map on the next page and see how long a trail that was, and how many opportunities for loss in crossing the rivers and creeks and climbing the rugged mountains. At first no one went to Oregon, and so there really was no "Oregon trail." There was only the trail for the fur traders and trappers who went to the Rocky Mountains with their trading goods and came back with the packs of furs. Immigrants of later years, going to the Columbia River, followed that same old fur-trading route, and so it came to be called the "Oregon trail." [127] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON At first, only men and boys went on the fur-trade trail, with their traps and their trading goods. They used pack horses or mules only—no wagons. Meat was supplied siraw svw The Oregon Country, showing the undeterminate northern border, the Hudson Bay Trail, and the Oregon Trail. The black dotted lines represent the trails. by the buffalo and deer on the plains, but each camp carried its own coffee, sugar, bacon, flour, and perhaps a few books. Each camp carried also its own tin plates and cups, its own iron forks and spoons, its own frying pans and coffee pots. So if that lively mule kicked off his pack in [128] THE OREGON TRAIL what is now eastern Colorado, perhaps, and lost the bread pan or the coffee pot, there was trouble indeed for the traders. Sometimes these trappers and traders had exciting adventures. Captain William Sublette, with a party of sixty trappers, was surprised one morning on the Kansas prairies by a band of Comanche Indians. He says there were a thousand of them. Mounted on their racing Indian ponies, painted for war, fully armed with guns, which they were waving in the air, they came sweeping down on the little band of white men. Sixty whites against hundreds of Indians! As these whooping Indians came nearer, Captain Sublette told his men to make ready to fire, but not to shoot until he did. The men raised their guns and stood waiting. On swept the ponies, bringing the Indians nearer and nearer, still whooping and yelling and waving their guns, until they were within three hundred feet of the white men. Sublette gave a quick glance at his own men. They were ready. He raised his gun, aimed it at a leading chief, and prepared to fire. Instantly that chief sprang off his pony and laid his gun on the ground. Sublette understood. He at once laid down his own gun, but his men kept theirs aimed, ready to shoot. The chief began to walk toward Sublette. Sublette at once advanced toward him. That meant a " peace talk," but both Indians and whites watched closely to see that there was no treachery. To Sublette's surprise, this chief said that he and his warriors would go away if the white men would give them a [129] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON present. That was the easiest way out of a bad scrape, Sublette thought, and he at once agreed. The presents were given and the Indians rode away. Sublette never knew whether they admired his men for their coolness, or whether they were a little afraid to attack those sixty grim-looking, determined white trappers. At any rate, it was cheaper for the Indians not to fight, and much safer for the white men. The very first women to cross the plains, you will remember, were Mrs. Spalding and Mrs. Whitman in 1836. After that went a few other women, also missionaries. Later a few Indian women, with their American trapper-husbands, such as the well-known Jo Meek, and their children, went from the Rocky Mountains into the Oregon country. The mountain fur trade was "done for," they said; nearly all the fur-bearing animals were killed off, especially the beaver. It was 1841 and 1842 before white women settlers began to cross the Oregon trail to the Oregon country. When it was found that women could go to Oregon, whole families began to go, including little children and even the babies. They traveled in big, canvas-covered wagons called prairie schooners. The lines of white canvas wagon-tops crossing the rolling green prairies made a pretty picture, much like- the white sails of ships on the rolling green waves of the ocean. Inside each wagon was packed all the furniture: chairs, feather beds, bureaus, trunks, bundles of bedding and clothing, and perhaps even a stove. The mother, with the [130] 'b LTHE OREGON TRAIL very little children, rode inside or up on the seat. The larger children raced with each other, picked wild flowers, and played with their dogs, for the family dogs went too. The fathers walked along the dusty trail, swinging the black ox-hide goad, driving the slow, clumsy oxen as they dragged the heavy wagons over that long, long trail. Creak! Creak! Creak! Over the grassy waves of the prairies, and over the flatness of the bare, treeless plains, sometimes far from water, sometimes by the side of the muddy waters of the Platte, with its shallow banks — on and on rolled the wagons. From Westport, now a part of Kansas City, the immigrants passed up the Platte River into that land where no trees were — a country where a man could "hide behind nothing but his own shadow." Indians sometimes attacked the immigrants, but only to drive off the horses and steal what thev could. These were usually called "friendly" Indians! In a real fight, hostile Indians circled round and round the caravan on their trained ponies. They shot from under the horse's neck, each man lying so low on his pony's back that he seemed to be a part of the little animal. Their yelling and whooping frightened not only the travelers but the horses and mules. Snorting with fear, the animals would break loose. Then the Indians could easily drive them off. Sometimes in such fights men and women were killed, and the train of wagons had to stop long enough to bury the dead. At noon the travelers stopped only long enough for a quick luncheon. The oxen and horses were not unyoked. . I[i3i] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON At night, the wagons at sunset formed a great circle. To defeat Indian attacks the whiffletree of each wagon was fastened with a strong chain to the back wheel of the j wagon in front. Inside the circle were the horses, mules, and oxen. It would be hard for the Indians to break j through that circle of chains and wagons. Supper was cooked by the mothers at the little fires which glimmered all around the circle, on the grotfnd. j The great heavy iron frying pans, with their long iron handles — so heavy that one could lift them only with an I effort—were taken out of the wagons. Bacon was fried; and perhaps the coarse flour and water, with salt, was mixed and fried in the bacon grease also, for bread, j There was not a separate pot and pan for everything. In the museum of the Oregon Historical Association, at Portland, is a wooden trough which was used, on one long j journey across the plains, as a bathtub for the baby; as a wash basin; as a chopping bowl; it was used for mixing i bread-dough; and sometimes food was packed away in it. \ After supper everyone was ready for play or for bed. There was nearly always a fiddler in the larger trains, and i sometimes the older boys and girls, and young men and j women, would dance on the grass. But the smaller children were glad enough to go to sleep. The older boys slept, as did the men, on the ground under the wagon. The mothers and the girls, with the wee little boys, slept I in the wagon bed. The night air was cool and sweet. Jj If boys or girls were awake in the night, they could look up at the stars shining in the quiet sky above them; and in [132] J THE OREGON TRAIL the darkness and silence they could hear the howling of wolves or the jerky bark of coyotes. Storms came sometimes — it was not always pleasant weather. The rains poured down upon the canvas, leaking through wherever a child's hand touched it as the wagons jolted along, even as a canvas roof leaks now in the rain if one touches it. Sometimes high winds blew over tents, or even wagons, ripping the covering loose, and the immigrants would be drenched to the skin—their bedding and their blankets wet, their sugar all melted, and the flour spoiled. There were plenty of hardships. The howling of wolves at night frightened the horses, and often they broke loose. Wagons overturned in fording the rivers, or even in crossing the creeks if the banks were steep. Another danger came from prairie fires. When travelers saw at dawn the red glow of fire, at first mistaken for the sunrise, or when they saw the dark clouds of smoke far off toward the horizon on a clear day, they knew their danger. A prairie fire was sweeping toward them. At once they started a "back-fire." That is, they set fire to the grass close to them, stamping it out on one side so that it would not burn into their wagon train, and fanning it so that it would sweep toward the oncoming flames. Then, on this burned stretch, they drove their wagons and loose cattle. On came the prairie fire, from in front of them or from behind them, leaping and roaring. Flames sprang nigh and black smoke rolled above those red tongues in the grass. But when it reached the back-fire, it leaped high, [i33] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON fell, and died out. On the black earth left by the backfire there was nothing more to burn, so the fire would sweep by on either side of the travelers, yet leave them safe. If the fire burned the stretch ahead of them, the animals almost starved. There was no grass left to eat, no food at all for oxen and horses. And there might be no food for the travelers either, for the fires drove away the buffalo, the deer, and even rabbits and smaller animals. An artist named Catlin was traveling over the prairies in early days, with two or three friends and an Indian guide. They wanted to follow a trail to a certain hill, lying blue in the distance. Since the day was fine, they set off in high spirits. The prairie grass, however, was very dry and very high. It was so high that the men had to stand in their stirrups to see well over it, and it was filled with the wild-pea vine, in which the horses were likely to entangle their feet. After they had started, Red Thunder, the guide, got off his horse and laid himself flat on the ground, with his face in the dirt. The white men laughed at him a little, saying that he was "making medicine." But when he arose Red Thunder said, "Over this plain dwells always the Spirit of Fire. He rides in the cloud. The Fire-bow is in his hand." Red Thunder said that from the "smell of the wind" he was afraid that the Fire Spirit was awake. But the white men could not smell smoke; there was no sign of [J34] THE OREGON TRAIL either fire or smoke anywhere on that wide-sweeping plain, lying so green and beautiful in the glorious sunshine. So Red Thunder led the way, as they went on, and they traveled until noonday. While the others were eating their luncheon, Red Thunder lay down again on the ground. He seemed to be listening. Then he arose and his black eyes looked closely all around the horizon. Suddenly he cried, u White man! See that small cloud! The Fire Spirit is awake!" In a second all had jumped upon their ponies. Then away over the trail they raced toward the blue hill which still seemed so very far away. Soon the horses could smell the smoke of the distant fire, and faster and fasteK they sped. The wind was blowing hard now, and the fire could be seen. Then they could hear it—the terrible roaring, like a great waterfall. Past them fled the wild animals of the prairies, fleeing like themselves from the terrible Fire Spirit. The white men dared not look behind them. The heavens were, black and the smoke suffocating. At last Red Thunder reached the bluff toward which they had been racing. He gave a yell as his pony struggled up—up on the bare earth, where there was no grass to burn. The other horses, too, with a last exhausted effort, sprang up the hill. As Catlin looked down he saw, only a few feet below him, a sea of living fire. There was a fearful roar and the red flames swept past; then clouds of dark, acrid smoke rose from the plain. That, too, passed on. Instead of the rolling green of the beautiful [135] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON prairie, there lay below them only a smoking, black, desolate plain. And the glorious sunshine, the blue sky, and the soft white fleecy clouds above made it only the more dreary. A great many immigrants did not see a prairie fire. But through the many months of travel, as the slow oxen plodded on, the sun was hot, the trail dusty, horses and oxen wore out and had to be left behind to the chance of starvation or wolves. Men, women, and children died from sickness and exhaustion. All along the Oregon trail, were graves. You could have followed that broad, winding road over the prairies and plains by the whitened bones of the animals which had died by the side of it, and by the many wooden crosses which marked the grave of some human being. The Indians called that road, worn bare of grass by the thousands of wagons which went over it through the years, the "Great Medicine Road of the Whites." They were used only to the narrow trails of their own people, and that wide road, worn so white and so bare, was a great wonder to them. As the immigrants neared the mountains, they threw away everything they could to lighten the load as the weary oxen pulled it up the steep, rough mountain road. They even shortened the wagon beds, to reduce the weight. Necessary articles were thrown out: bureaus, with clothing in them; trunks, filled with clothing; wagons were abandoned. At the campfires the weary people forgot their frying pans and coffee pots and many other things. The smaller articles were picked up by the Indians, for [136] THE OREGON TRAIL anything which had belonged to the white men was "big medicine." They sometimes took these things to the priests who were living here and there among them, to ask the use of them. One Indian bored a hole in a broken teacup and put it around his neck. It was his " medicine" — a Mysterious Something which would give him power. Bump! Bump! Bump! So, after they had left the plains, the heavy wagons bumped through the mountains in what is now Wyoming and Idaho. When Fort Hall was reached some of the wagons had to be left behind. Ahead of them lay that "hungry land," where no game lived and nothing grew,—that land where "men had songs for supper," and through this land it was wise to take as few things as possible. For four hundred miles after leaving Fort Hall the trail was rough and rocky, high with sagebrush and wormwood. Wheels would come off and axles break. So, as far as possible, everything was packed on the backs of mules and horses. Old, worn-out horses and oxen were left there, after being traded for fresh animals. The fort people fed the tired beasts, rested them, and later on sold them again, to other immigrants. There were lively times at Fort Hall in those days when an immigrant train was about to start off with the new pack animals. Many of them were not used to carrying packs. Oxen would bellow and mules bray and kick, while the air was full of flying pots and pans and kettles. [137] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON Even as Fort Hall had helped the Whitmans when they passed through it in 1836, so the officers helped the immigrants of later years. But it was not an easy task. The fort belonged to a British company—the Hudson's Bay Company. So when the officers told the immigrants of the hardships ahead, and advised them to go to California, which was really an easier route, the Americans thought it was because the British were trying to keep the country. This was not true. The officers wrote back to London just exactly the same reports that they made to the Americans. They actually thought it wild in the Americans to try to get through with their wagons and children. Besides, so many Americans came in later years that there were not supplies enough at the fort to provide for all of them. The Americans grumbled about that. But if the British had not been kindly they would not have helped them at all. After the travelers left the fort, there was no game, little water, rough roads, hot sun, dust, cut-rocks, sagebrush, broken wagons, worn-out people—on and on over the Blue Mountains, with their steep sides, and through the Grande Ronde, to Fort Walla Walla. But there were also Indians, and the fort warned the travelers against them. Aftef one party had passed Fort Hall and was traveling along the Snake River, a band of Indians, black heads bobbing about in the water, swam across to their side. They ran on foot toward them, shouting, "StopI StopP These immigrants had been warned by the British at the fort. Knowing they were thieves, they drove on, and [1383 THE OREGON TRAIL drove rapidly. Then the Indians dodged in and out of the tall sagebrush, as high as the horses' backs, and began to shoot. The frightened women and children huddled down in the boxes of the wagons, while the men whipped up the horses and mules. Seeing that, the Indians ran along the river bank, under a bluff, to stop the wagons at the foot of a hill. The drivers dashed on. Such a ride as that was! Down the long hill they plunged, without brakes, the wagons bouncing from this side to that, striking against small stones and almost throwing the children out. Down that hill they tore and up the next one, expecting every moment that the Indians would appear, shoot again, or in some way stop them. That night, as they drove rapidly on, they caught up with another party which had been just ahead of them, so the two groups camped together. Tbey built fires for cooking and the mothers began to get supper. The men unharnessed the horses and mules and fed them as best they could. Then they smoked around the campfires, keeping the children in full view. They expected every moment, as they sat there in the light of the fire, to be shot at from the darkness around them. The next morning they did find Indian footprints in the sand near their camp. They had been followed, sure enough. But probably the Indians were afraid to attack the two parties together. When they came over the Blue Mountains and into the Grande Ronde — the Great Circle, as the French-Canadians had called it, because it was a large and round valley —travelers had a hard time with their wagons. The [i39] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON mountain sides were so steep they had to tie a rope to the hind wheels of each wagon in going down. This rope they twisted around a tree, so that as it was paid out the heavy wagon moved slowly and could not so easily upset Ropes used in this way cut a screw-like curve in the trees, and these may be seen even to this day. Even the pack horses had a hard time on the steep trails, setting their feet close together sometimes and sliding down. Every now and then someone had to stop to mend a broken axle or a broken harness. So the immigrants crawled up the steep mountain sides and almost crashed down them, fording rivers even where the current was quite swift and the water deep, until they were safely past the Grande Ronde. From there it was sand and sagebrush again until they reached Fort Walla Walla. Or, perhaps, if they felt hostile to the British traders there, they would go to the Whitman mission and buy vegetables and melons and flour, for Dr. Whitman's mission farmed much land and there were supplies which he sold to the travelers. Indians brought fish to them also — large salmon, taken fresh from the water. One woman took off the big kitchen apron she wore and gave it in payment to an Indian for a large salmon. That was much better than money, in Indian eyes. From Fort Walla Walla there were two ways of going down the river to Fort Vancouver. One was by water, if there were boats; the other was over a rough mountain trail, through bands of robber Indians, along the banks [140] THE OREGON TRAIL of the Columbia. Horses and cattle were always driven by the trail. In later years a road called Barlow's Road was cut through the forests south of Mount Hood. Then instead of going to Fort Vancouver first, the cattle could be driven directly to the Willamette Valley, where, in early years, all the settlers were. For many years, however, the women and children went down the river in the boats of the Hudson's Bay Company, which were sent up to The Dalles to meet them. Other boats were used, or perhaps the trail, to The Dalles. These boats were old, and called bateaux. They were built for the fur trade and not for passengers. They had no decks at all. They were enormous rowboats, sometimes forty feet long. Yet they were all that could be sent, and all that could be spared. There were no other boats in the country except the Indian canoes. Little children were tied to the masts so they would not fall overboard. Tired men and women sat down upon coils of rope, rolls of bedding, and bundles and packages of all kinds and shapes. They even slept upon them, curled up as best they could. So the travelers came down the Columbia River. Sometimes it was under a blue sky by day, with the river dancing and sparkling in the sunshine. Sometimes it was on a gray day, with a broad stretch of gray river all around them and a chill wind blowing. Sometimes, indeed, it was late in the fall, and snow was falling, and the days and nights were cold, and there was no food. Very few immigrants had much clothing left after that six months of [Hi] -1 EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON rough life across the plains, and they were sometimes chilled and half-frozen. They came down the river to Fort Vancouver where Dr. McLoughlin gave them a welcome. " I could not have done more for them if they had been my own brothers and sisters," he wrote in later years. He gave them food and clothing, waiting years for payment; he let them have cattle for plowing and seed grain; axes to cut down trees that they might build their log cabins. He trusted men to repay him when they could raise their crops, after their cabins were built and their families taken care of. He gave work to many men, buying the shingles which they split, buying the grain which they raised. He did all in his power to help them. Some of the Americans—many of them—did repay him. Others hated him because he was British, and let their debts go unpaid. So this is how the early settlers came into the Old Oregon country. They settled first in the Willamette Valley. Later they came into what is now Washington, and built their log cabins around Puget Sound. T***] —J CHAPTER XVI WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? WHEN white people go into a country occupied only by Indians or savages, they often claim possession of it. But if many white people go into the same country, which of them has the best right to it? There are five points on which a nation can claim such ownership: (i) discovery, (3) settlement, (2) exploration, (4) treaty, (5 ) contiguity. "Contiguity" here means that the lands of a savage people lie next to, or adjoin, the lands of a civilized people. Who owned the Oregon country? No one really owned it; but at first five nations claimed it. Spain claimed Oregon because she had first discovered the coast of the Pacific, from Mexico to Alaska. Yet she did nothing else; she failed even to publish reports of her discoveries. Great Britain claimed it on the first three points. Only a year or two after Spain had sent a ship up the coast, Captain Cook in 1778 had sailed along that coast, watching it carefully, and trading. In some places he heard reports of the Spanish. Great Britain, even where she [143] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON did not first discover, did explore. All journals and reports of Cook's voyages were immediately published in London. British fur traders, in 1785, began regular trading at Nootka Sound and northward. Great Britain explored Puget Sound in 1792. The only settlements made on the coast were temporary fur posts, like Captain Meares's, but they also were British. Great Britain, by land, had even better claims. In 1793, Alexander McKenzie, a Canadian fur trader, crossed the Rocky Mountains, paddled up the Peace River to its source, then down the head waters of the Frazer River. Before he reached the mouth of that river, which he thought was the Columbia, his supplies gave out and his men were almost starving. He left the river and went straight overland to the Pacific Ocean, near the mouth of the Bella Coola River. Here the Indians told him of white men, like himself, who came in floating houses to buy their furs. The mouth of the Frazer River was discovered by the British in 1824. The British and Canadian fur traders planted little trading posts all over the Canadian Rockies, along the head waters of the Columbia, and even where the city of Spokane now is. In all this, they were ahead of the Americans. So, by land, through discovery, exploration, and settlement, Great Britain had a good right to the northern section of the Oregon country. America claimed Oregon because the daring Captain Gray, in 1792, first crossed the bar of the Columbia and proved that the "bay" was the mouth of a river. Thirty] WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? teen years later, Lewis and,Clark discovered the lower Columbia from the other direction, from the land side, after they had crossed the mountains from the head waters of the Missouri River. The first fur trading post on the lower Columbia was American. This was Fort Astoria, founded in 1811. Thus, in the southern end of the great Oregon country, America had claims also by discovery, by exploration, and by settlement. France claimed it on the ground of contiguity; that is, because Oregon lay next to the old-time Louisiana. Russia claimed it because she had discovered Alaska and the northern coasts of the Pacific. But Russia had not the slightest right to it. She admitted this in 1824. Finally many of these claims faded out. France sold Louisiana to the United States; so that the United States claimed Oregon by contiguity. Spain sold the Floridas to America in 1819, and at that time sold all her rights to Oregon to America. So Russia, Spain, and France were out of the race. Only Great Britain and America remained—but both claimed Oregon. Oregon at that time included all the country which today we call British Columbia, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and northwestern Montana. North and south it was about eight hundred miles. East and west it was nearly a thousand miles along the southern border. Along the northern border it was narrower, because the Rocky Mountains trend toward the sea. Nobody knew much about Oregon in those days. The [145] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON geographies did not describe it, because no one could put it in the geographies. Great Britain said Oregon belonged to her. She thought of Cook, Vancouver, Meares, McKenzie, and others, all of whom had explored in the upper two-thirds of the country. The United States said Oregon belonged to her, and she thought of Captain Gray, of Lewis and Clark, and of the fur post at Astoria, all in the south. But England didn't know anything about Gray's discovery of the Columbia. He was a private fur trader, and his log book belonged to himself. He reported the river to his owners, but the United States Government only heard of it by informal report, or by chance. Great Britain had published the exploration of her men; the United States had not published the exploration of hers, except that of Lewis and Clark, because they were traders. So it is easy to understand the confusion. In the story of Fort Astoria, it is told that the Americans sold the fort because they feared a British warship would come and capture it. One was on the way, and did enter the Columbia after the fort was sold. But the fort was not captured. After the war, America claimed the return of Fort Astoria, saying it was captured. Great Britain objected, and rightly. But still, little was known about the country; it was unsettled, and finally, to save hard feeling, Great Britain returned the fur post. But only the fur post; she said she did not return Oregon, or any part of it, because Oregon belonged to Great Britain. "~~ [i46] WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? But that same year, because there was this misunderstanding, when Great Britain and America made a commercial treaty (1818), they put in a paragraph saying that they did not know to which country Oregon really belonged; but since both countries claimed it, until ownership was settled the people of both countries might go there. This was called a "joint-occupancy" treaty. It meant that the country would be occupied jointly, or together, by both British and Americans who might want to go there for fur trade, for farming, for fishing, or any other purpose. A few Americans, later on, did go there. They went for the fur trade. But the British companies, first the North West Company, of Montreal, and then the Hudson's Bay Company, had been there for years. The Hudson's Bay Company, which had united with the old Montreal Company, had forts along the Columbia, and through what is now British Columbia, and along the coast. They had several ships which sailed up and down the coast, trading furs. This English company had plenty of money, it had hundreds of trained men in its employ, and it understood the fur trade business perfectly. It also understood how to manage the Indians and keep them friendly. Their tact in managing the Indians was wonderful. The English used tact where the Americans used guns, and the tact won in the end. The Americans, again and again, working as independent trappers and traders, were murdered by the Indians, where the English came and went in reasonable safety. The Indians did attack the [147] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON English too, at first, but the English won by their firmness j and justice and their wonderful organization. The Eng- j lish pulled together, because there was only one company. The Americans fought each other. For this reason, and for no other, the American fur traders who went into Oregon could not succeed against the British. One such was Nathaniel Wyeth. He planned to send a ship to the Columbia with trading goods, and return it to Boston filled with salted salmon. He himself, with his comrades, went overland. They were all "tenderfeet," and they knew nothing about fur trading or salmon fishing or Indians. They had very little capital, and that was borrowed. So when Wyeth's companions deserted him and went back from the great plains, or the mountains; or deserted him in Oregon and went to farming; when his first ship sank in the ocean, and the Indians would not hunt furs for him; when everything went wrong—why, one can only blame Wyeth's badly laid plans and not the British. The second time he tried was in 1834. His ship reached the Columbia safely, and the Hudson's Bay Company did not interfere with him. But the Indians knew and trusted the British at the fort, and at the fort they could sell their furs for just the very things they were used to buying in that way. At the fort were their friends, and men who could talk their language, instead of making motions. So the Indians did not trade with Wyeth, the American. And even the fish conspired against him. The run was poor that year—only about half the usual run—and the Indians who were not KB. [148] . I WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? too lazy to fish sold their fish to Fort Vancouver; others were busy fishing for themselves. Wyeth could secure only half a shipload of fish, and since he did not know how to cure them properly, some of those were spoiled. It has always been thought that the British killed the American's trade; but even private correspondence among the officers shows this was not so. They saw he knew nothing of the business and let him "hang himself," as the saying goes. Everything was against him, but chiefly the fact that he was undertaking a business of which he knew nothing. With Wyeth, on his last journey, were Jason Lee and his nephew, Daniel Lee, with other missionaries, who went into the Willamette Valley to teach the Indians there. But a great sickness a few years before had killed off the Indians so that few were living, and those did not want to learn anything. But Lee and his friends wrote to Americans in 'the States" of the beautiful country of the Willamette. The Willamette Valley was very fertile, with charming little prairies here and there, separated by short stretches of woodland. The river, full of fish, was at their doors; there was game in the forest; the climate was mild; cattle could live out of doors all winter. Yet, except the missionaries, there were no settlers but a few old servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had wanted to stay in that milder climate after their years of hard work for the company, instead of going back to Canada. The laws of Great Britain compelled the Hudson's Bay Company to [i49] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON return all servants whose contracts had expired to their homes in Canada or England. But these men were old, and they loved the Oregon country. They wanted to stay there and farm. If they went back as strangers, into the severe climate of Canada, it would perhaps kill them. So Dr. McLoughlin allowed them to farm there, with their promise that they would obey the usual company rules. If they made trouble, he would be obliged to send them to Canada. The first settler in the Willamette Valley was a French-Canadian, named Etienne Lucier, in 1829. The Americans thought these French-Canadians were settling the Willamette Valley in order to make it British, and hold it for Great Britain. But how could they hold a country which the British Government did not claim? In 1822, if not before, the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company were notified by the British Government that they would make no claim to the country south of the Columbia, and to put their forts on the north side of the river. This was done at Fort Vancouver, and also at other points where the land would allow of a little farming. If the soil on the south side of the river was better, as at Fort Col- ville, they put the fort there, so as to have a garden; not so as to claim the country. The Americans did not know this at all, and did not understand the real condition of things. Other Americans began to come in, from 1830 or 1831. Some came by ship, by way of the Sandwich Islands; some were deserters from whaling ships; some were fur traders from the Rocky Mountains,—Americans, called £150] I WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY1'? "mountain men." Fur trading was poor, and in Oregon the climate was mild and they could get a farm for the taking. Besides, Fort Vancouver was there, to sell seeds and ploughs and clothing. They were safe from the Indians, because Dr. McLoughlin and the other officers of the Hudson's Bay Company held the Indians in check. The Americans were anxious and resentful because Great Britain claimed "Oregon." They said "Oregon" belonged to America. In 1841, when the United States Government sent Captain Wilkes there to explore, the captain went down into the Willamette Valley where the Americans were. They at once asked his advice about forming an American government. He reminded them that they lived under a "joint-occupancy" treaty, and that the British had as much right there as they had. The question must be settled by the two governments. He told them also that so large a number of missionaries ought to be able to keep order in so small a settlement. Still, they wanted American government, and used every argument they could think of. These missionaries wrote to their friends that although Oregon belonged to the United States, yet they were under British law. Now the French-Canadians were under British law; they were British subjects, and they were allowed to go into the Willamette Valley instead of being sent back to Canada under the condition that they would be peaceable and obey British laws. But nobody ever tried to make the Americans obey British laws; and there was not much difference in the laws of the two countries anyway. [151] m EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON More people came in — more deserters from whalers, more "mountain men." There came also law-breakers, escaping from justice in "the States;" men who were in debt and wanted to get a new start and pay up; men who lived in slave states and were afraid of a negro rebellion; adventurers from the Sandwich Islands; and also the best kind of people, who crossed the plains because they were looking for new homes. But these Americans "jumped" each other's claims. They quarreled with the Indians. They sometimes stole each other's horses. People cannot live in a country without laws: something had to be done. There would have been serious trouble, except that the better class of Americans and the Hudson's Bay Company, working together as well as they could, had a very strong and a very good influence for law and order. Yet everyone saw that laws were needed. In all pioneer countries, where wolves are many, sheep and calves are killed by them in large numbers. The loss of these sheep and calves was very serious to a people so far from civilization, and with all the expenses and difficulties of a new country. The colonists held meetings to discuss the payment of a reward, or bounty, to everyone who killed a wolf. While they talked about their cattle, they said also, "We are taking good care of our sheep and cattle, but are we taking as good care of our families when we live in a land without laws?" These meetings were called "Wolf meetings," but they talked about laws for themselves more than they did about wolves. [152] WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? Just at this time, a settler named Ewing Young died, leaving a farm well stocked, and other property. He had no relative in the colony. Yet that property ought to go to his nearest relative. But there was no one to take charge of it, to see that the cattle were fed and taken care of; to look after the farm until his relatives in the east could be notified. No one had the right to do this because there was no law and no government. Shortly after this a meeting was held in the Willamette Valley, in the open air, to discuss the necessity of organizing a government for the colonists. It was taken for granted that it would be an American government. After speeches had been made, a settler called out for everyone who favored the organization of American government to step across a certain line. There were a hundred and two men there, including many of the French-Canadians. Of these men, fifty-two stepped across the line, thus voting for the organization of American government; fifty, most of them being French-Canadians, who were satisfied with the rule of their old company, did not. This step to form a provisional government did not 'save Oregon to the United States," as has been so often said—because all the government formed was in the Willamette Valley and Great Britain had not for over twenty years laid any claim to that country. It was a very wise thing to do, however, and it made things easier for all the new settlers, for the Hudson's Bay Company, and for the establishing of a regular government several years later. [153] -1 EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON One of the men who lived at that time — a man who died only a few years ago — was the last man to step over the line. You can see if he had not, that there would have been fifty-one on each side. That would have been a "tie," or a "draw," as it is called. This man was Francois Matthieu. When he died, the newspapers said that Matthieu had "saved Oregon to the United States." Now you cannot save a man from drowning if he is on dry land and doesn't need saving. A man cannot be saved from being run over by an automobile if there isn't one within a thousand miles of him. Neither could a man "save Oregon" when the section in which he lived, and where the government was formed, was acknowledged by Great Britain to be American. It is also said of Dr. Whitman, the missionary, that he "saved Oregon" when he crossed the continent in winter, in a wild, daring ride, to the Atlantic coast. No one ever took the trouble to go to Great Britain and find out just the truth of this; or, if someone did, they did not tell of the state papers found there. This is the real truth of the " Whitman-saved-Oregon" story. Dr. Whitman was a real American, earnest, enthusiastic, and he wanted the beautiful Oregon country to be American, and he said the Americans had the best claim to it. They did have the better claim to the south; Great Britain had the better claim to the north. Yet all the country was called Oregon. The Indians had been unruly in eastern Washington, where the Whitman mission was; and the missionaries had [154] WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? themselves been quarreling a little. The Board in the east ordered the mission closed. Now Dr. Whitman thought if he could only keep his mission, he could make Christians of those Indians. Besides, the mission was a great help to the immigrants. Dr. Whitman thought Oregon belonged to America, and did not know that Great Britain claimed only part of it. So he rode east one winter, through terrible storms — rode clear across the mountains and plains to St. Louis to save his mission. It was a daring thing to do. Then he went on to Washington. But Whitman talked Oregon to everyone he met. He was intensely interested in having the country American. He talked to the Secretary of State at Washington, Daniel Webster, so it is said. Because he is said to have done this, many people think he " saved Oregon," because they say Webster was going to trade off Oregon for fishing rights around Nova Scotia, on the Atlantic coast. Now in London there are letters from the British minister which show this was not so. This is what Secretary Webster did have in mind: The United States needed a good harbor on the Pacific coast, so that when it was possible to carry on a larger trade with Asia, ships could come and go easily. Ships could not enter and pass out readily from the Columbia River, because in that day they were all sailing ships, at the mercy of wind and tide, and because of that terrible bar at the mouth of the Columbia. If Great Britain took the country north of the Columbia — and she had a good right to much of it—the Puget Sound harbors would be- I [155] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON long to her. California at that time belonged to Mexico, and San Francisco was a Mexican harbor. So where would America find a good harbor? Secretary Webster did tell the English that he might give up all claim to the country north of the Columbia if he could make some arrangement with Mexico so that it would sell the harbor of San Francisco to America. He said this in 1842. Now he also said it again in 1843, after Whitman had been to Washington. And this shows that Whitman had very little influence. Webster did not try to push the arrangement then, because he expected to go to Great Britain as minister, or perhaps on a special embassy. But the war with Mexico broke out, and California became American. Then in the treaty of 1846 with America, Great Britain put the boundary at the forty-ninth parallel, just as it was for a long distance east of the Rockies, and so America has many good harbors on the western coast: San Francisco, Seattle, Tacoma, Bellingham, and others, besides the Columbia River harbors, especially Portland. All the country that was ever really in dispute between Great Britain and America was that section which is the western half of the state of Washington — that section north and west of the Columbia River. No other part of the Oregon country was ever really disputed. It is true that in 1845 the country shouted " Fifty-four- forty or fight!" which meant that Americans claimed all the country almost to Sitka, then Russian America. But years before, America had said over and over again [156] Map showing Old Oregon and the disputed section. That section was south of the present boundary and north and west of the Columbia River—the western half of Washington. [157] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON that she would be contented with the line of the forty-ninth parallel, and that cry was merely political. Now to go back to the "provisional government' in the Willamette Valley, in 1843. Dr. McLoughlin wrote to the Hudson's Bay Company at London that it was a very wise step and he was glad the Americans had taken it, because it would keep order. There were many rough men in the Oregon country, and the doctor had trouble with them. Three of them came on the company's land one day, with surveyors' chains, and told him that the fort was on American soil; that they had as good right there as he. They measured off some land, put a few logs together as a rough hut, and posted a notice saying that it was their claim. This was so lawless that the Americans themselves took the side of the British company and ordered the men to keep away from the lands and fort of the Hudson's Bay Company. Yet it made hard feeling among the rougher class. Forty of these rougher men planned to drive all the white men out of the valley who had Indian wives. Most of these men were French-Canadian, but some were American. The French-Canadians had been there many years; their lands were well cultivated, and their cabins good. It would be an easy way for lawless men to get a good cabin and farm. The French-Canadians, who were part Indian, got their guns ready, and so did many of the Americans who had Indian wives. But the better element refused to join these law-breakers; there were not enough of them to [158] I ~j WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? force the "squaw-men" out, and so the plot fell through. Others, again, planned to burn Fort Vancouver, so as to drive the British off "American soil." But the ownership of the land north of the Columbia had not been settled by the governments. If the American Government had said, under that joint-occupancy treaty, that the British had as much right to settle there as Americans, why should American citizens object? There were two hundred men working at the fort— French-Canadian half-breeds, farm hands and canoemen, with Indian helpers, and eight or ten officers, who were Scotch or English. It would be hard to defend the fort, because it would be hard to keep sentinels on duty. Men could not do farm work all day and be sentinels at night. It would be easy to burn the fort, with its wooden walls and its wooden buildings, and its few men — as compared with the number of settlers — and Dr. McLoughlin knew it. Year after year, as the immigrants had come in, from that fort had come kindness and help. From Fort Vancouver had come seeds and cattle and plows, flour and clothing and axes, and sometimes even medicines. Yet some men would burn it because it was British. Dr. McLoughlin thought the wisest thing to do was to send for British help, but not to show fear. Therefore no sentinels were set, no change made in the life at the fort, although every officer was constantly on the alert. The British vice-consul at the Sandwich Islands was asked to send a ship to protect the fort. In 1845 die ship came, a small, fourth-class ship-of-war. [159] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON She had a crew of one hundred and fifteen; she had also on board seventeen marines and thirteen boys who were under sixteen. No one today would think that very much of a warship. There were thousands of men and boys in the Willamette Valley. But the presence of the ship reminded the rougher class of Americans that Great Britain did have some right, until the boundary was settled, to trading posts north of the river. The presence of the ship added some fun to life in the valley. Dances were given on shipboard and the Americans invited. Sometimes the Americans gave dances in the biggest barn they could find, and invited the ship's officers. The thirteen boys wandered about on shore when on shore-leave, and made friends with the American boys of their own age. It was the habit, in old times, for British gentlemen to send their boys aboard on a warship, partly to see the world, partly for the training, and often because many of them were to be naval officers in the future. It was a very practical school and there was an actual school on shipboard. The boys were all of good families. So for a year and half, even after the boundary was finally settled, the Modeste stayed in the river, anchored near Fort Vancouver. When the king or the queen had a birthday, the ship's cannon boomed out its salute. The crash of the guns echoed among the dense forests and across the blue river. It was a British salute to a British government. When the Fourth of July came, American* boys and men planted powder in the stumps of the great [160] WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? trees left on land they were clearing, and fired them off together. The crash echoed, as the guns had done, across the blue river and through the forests. It was an American salute in memory of the American Declaration of Independence. While the Modeste was in the river, an American ship- of-war came into the Columbia, and anchored not far from the Modeste in the river. It was the Shark — Captain Howey. She remained there all winter. She had been sent by the American Government to see that all was well. When the Shark tried to leave the river, she was caught in the currents and struck on the bar. Immense waves crashed over her, and the officers and men escaped as best they could from the wild, foaming breakers. They saved their ship's papers and an American flag, besides the ship's signalling flags. There was no way of getting out of the Columbia River, or even to the Sandwich Islands, until some ship of the Hudson's Bay Company should be sailing in that direction. So the officers remained at Astoria for months. While they were there, word came that the Oregon boundary had been settled. At once Captain Howey of the Shark sent the ship's flag to Oregon City. So the first American flag to float over Oregon was one from a ship wrecked on the very bar which Captain Gray had so daringly crossed fifty-four years before. The settlement of the boundary was a great blow to the British traders. There was no way to get into the interior except by the river, so far as they knew, and they had [161] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON ■ tried to find a trail over the mountains. They did find one later. Why did Great Britain agree to the boundary of the forty-ninth parallel, when she had really a good right to a more southern one? These are the reasons: Great Britain and America had had two wars. The first, the Americans won; that was the Revolution. In the second, the War of 1812, nothing was really settled; but after four years the two countries agreed to stop fighting. The Americans were bitter against the mother country. But Great Britain said, in a roundabout way: "America and Great Britain are really one people. We have had two wars with America, and we want her friendship. This bit of country, covered with forests, is not worth fighting about. Let America have the boundary line she wants." If you stop to think of it, Great Britain and America have the same language; almost the same laws; the same literature; and one cannot understand American history without studying English history. This is because America was an English colony for a hundred and fifty years, and because so many Americans —that is, their ancestors— came from England. Why did Great Britain say, "This bit of country is not worth fighting for" ? There is an interesting story, which some people believe, about a Captain Gordon, of the British ship America, who was sent by the British Government to report on Oregon. The story says that captain came into the [i62] WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? Straits of San Juan de Fuca early in June, 1845. tie was very fond of shooting and fishing; but the salmon would not rise to his fly, and the deer ran into thickets where he could not get at them. Therefore he was disgusted, so the story goes, and said to an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, "I would not give the bleakest moor in Scotland for all this country I see about me." Therefore, it is said, he reported to the British government that the Oregon country was not worth fighting for. g Now, in truth, Captain Gordon came into the Straits in September, 1845, and there is every reason to believe he sent a confidential report to Great Britain saying that the country was not worth fighting for; but not because the fishing and hunting were poor. He had that opinion long before he came into the Oregon country. And many Americans thought the same thing. Many people, you will remember, hearing of the fertile valley of the Columbia — it really was the Willamette — with its beautiful, mild climate and its friendly farming lands, went across the plains to the Oregon country. Imagine their surprise when they found the valley of the Columbia covered with dense forests of enormous trees; the friendly farming lands in the Willamette, in the Tualatin, the Clackamus, and other adjoining valleys, all taken up, except sections at a great distance or of a poor soil. And the beautiful, mild climate! Why, it rained all winter— a light, soft rain, with low gray skies and endless mists, and dampness which penetrated the tiny log cabins and everything in them. These people loved the sunshine. 1 EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON They had expected to find fertile prairies where they could easily farm in a warm, bright, pleasant country. So they went on. Disappointed, they went to the Sandwich Islands and down to California. Sometimes they passed directly through, without stopping in Oregon at all; sometimes they stayed there a winter, and said the climate was "awful!" Now the Sandwich Islands in those days were a regular center of gossip. All the ships passing from Boston and New York to China stopped at the Sandwich Islands for masts for wood and water for fresh vegetables for sandalwood and fruits; sometimes they were there for two or three weeks. These ships seldom came to Oregon or California. California belonged to Mexico, and the laws were so troublesome they did not trade there. Other whaling ships from the north went to the Islands for supplies. The British men-of-war had their headquarters there. A British consul lived there, and received regular dispatches from England; the American consul there received dispatches from America. Hudson's Bay Company- ships from Oregon took lumber there. All ships centered there, and all classes of men met there. Sometimes there were nve or six hundred ships stopping at the islands ^ within a few months. Therefore all the news going was to be heard in the Sandwich Islands. We call them the Hawaiian Islands now. Now in these sunny Islands the British, officers of the war ships, discussing Oregon—everyone discussed Oregon, in those days, all along the coast—heard of the dampness [164] WHO OWNED THE "OREGON COUNTRY"? and dreariness of it. In the sunny Islands, with their blue skies and green palms, they heard of the dense, dark forests of Oregon; the terrible bar of the Columbia; the mists and the endless grayness of that north country. In the sunny lands of southern California, British vice- consuls at Monterey heard the same thing. And they heard it from Americans who said Oregon was overrated. All these immigrants who left Oregon and went to California had to go by way of the Sandwich Islands. So everywhere one heard of the gloom of that gray north country, with the terrible forests. There were few farming lands, they said, and those were taken up. And this was true. It is only as the forests have been cut down that there are farming lands in the logged-off country of Washington and of Oregon. And even the richness of the sandy-looking soil east of the Cascade Mountains was not known then. Few people, after traveling over the plains, wanted to settle in a " desert." And these reports about Oregon being overrated are really the reason that Great Britain did not think it worth while to go to war, even when Americans cried " Fifty- four-forty, or fight!" Captain Gordon, long before he ever saw Oregon, had decided it was not worth a war. And Great Britain wanted to be friends with America. Now these statements are not yet in any other history. But they are not guesswork. The author has seen the very letters from British vice-consuls in southern California land the Sandwich Islands, repeating what Americans and British both said of Oregon: that it was "overrated" and [165] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON not worth a war. And the small section actually in dispute really was not worth a war — not under any circumstances. The treaty was signed in June, 1846. One can be glad that it was settled pleasantly. The friendship between America and Great Britain today is very close, as it should be; and we may all be glad that Great Britain gave up half a state, to which she had as good a right as we, rather than arouse the hatred that always follows a war. [166] CHAPTER XVII THROUGH THE NACHESS PASS IN early days all emigrants, after crossing the plains and the mountains to Fort Walla Walla, went down the Columbia River to the Willamette Valley, by trail or by boat. At first no settlements at all were made anywhere else than in the Willamette Valley and the adjoining valleys, such as the Clackamus and the Tualatin. The first settlers in the Puget Sound country went there in 1845. Michael Simmons, a rough though honest man, was one of them; and George Bush, a mulatto, was another. There were only a half-dozen altogether. Emigrants had not gone north before that because the British expected to be given the country north of the Columbia, and they did not encourage emigration there. Two other important reasons were, that there was no farming country open to settlement north of the river, and the Indians were wilder, so there was more danger. North of the Columbia, except the lands used by the Hudson's Bay Company for their farming, there were only dense forests. Lumbering and fishing were the only possible ways open to emigrants of earning money. When the boundary line was settled, however, in 1846, the Columbia River was not the dividing line. Most of [167] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON the Puget Sound country was given to America. The discovery of gold in California made timber and piles and shingles necessary, and settlers began to log-off the lands around Puget Sound. They wrote east to their friends of the pleasant climate and the beautiful country and the great tracts of land to be had for the taking. Many emigrants for the Puget Sound country, therefore, came across the plains to Fort Vancouver, then up the Cowlitz River and over the old Cowlitz trail to Olympia. There had long been a rumor of a good Indian trail from Fort Walla Walla across the Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound. If this was true it would save much time and travel, for emigrants could cross the mountains from the Yakima Valley and save perhaps two hundred miles or more. In 1853, word was sent to immigrants, even before they reached the Blue Mountains of Oregon, that a road had been cut through the forests of the Cascade Mountains, and that it would be easier for them to reach the Sound by the old Indian trail and the new road than by way of Fort Vancouver. So many travelers of that year tried to reach the Sound country direct by the route through the Nachess Pass. One summer night a party was camping in the Grande Ronde, that " Great Circle," in the Blue Mountains. The broad, grassy valley was twenty miles across, walled by high mountains. Through the green valley ran streams of ice-cold water, delicious after the dust of the waterless lava plains. Many tall trees grew there, though the forest was not dense. Wild-flowers glowed [168] THROUGH THE NACHESS PASS among the green grass. It was a charming place in which to encamp. In the Grande Ronde that night a ten-year-old boy named George was playing with his baby sister, a blue- eyed, golden-haired little girl of about a year old. Thirty- six of the white-winged prairie schooners of the immigrants were near by. George's father was looking after his tired horses, and other fathers after their oxen. The mothers were cooking supper. Suddenly a number of "horse Indians" rode up. They had dressed in their best to visit the white men. Buckskin shirts they wore, and leggins beaded in many colors, with brightly colored porcupine quills. Hawk's bells fastened on their shirts tinkled as they moved. Feathers were in their hair. The beaded buckskin saddle-blankets of their ponies were edged with deep buckskin fringe which swept the ground. They had come to see how the white people cooked and dressed and ate and lived. Those things always interested the Indians. A fine-looking chief—really a famous chief—named Peo-Peo-mox-mox, came over to watch George play with the baby. Carefully he watched the two for an hour, then he went away. And soon after supper both the golden- haired baby and George were sound asleep. Early the next morning, before the sun rose, some of the men went to look after the oxen and horses. To their surprise they found hundreds of beautiful Indian ponies grazing near their camp. Soon they met Indians driving in more ponies. At once they knew the Indians wanted to [i69] 1 EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON buy something. And what do you suppose they wanted? That blue-eyed, yellow-haired baby! The famous chief had watched George play with her so that he might know how to do it after he had bought her. Baby's mother said ((No!)} Not for hundreds of ponies would she sell her baby girl. And the great chief who had come to get her rode sorrowfully away, striking his chest and saying, " My heart is very sick." As soon as breakfast was over that morning, the procession of wagons started on again. There were thirty-six of them, and one hundred and forty-five persons, including the little children. They left the Grande Ronde, passed on by Fort Walla Walla, and started for Puget Sound by this new road over the mountains. The year was 1853. First they had to cross the Columbia River. There was no boat there to use as a ferry. It took four days to saw planks out of driftwood, just to make a clumsy raft to get across the river. Once across that river, the procession of prairie schooners went north to the Yakima Valley, following the Yakima River up through that valley where Alexander Ross had traded for horses with the Indians thirty-five years before. The river banks were higher, sometimes on one side and sometimes on another, so they had to cross the river eight times to keep as much as possible on fairly level ground. Then the travelers came to the Nachess River, as it wound and twisted through the mountains — and how many times do you think they crossed that? Sixty-eight [170] THROUGH THE NACHESS PASS times. One driver cut a notch in his whip-handle every time they crossed. Others counted up to fifty and then lost count. Sometimes, instead even of crossing straight over, they had to drive up the river bed, with the oxen stumbling about in the loose stones and plunging now and then into deeper water—travel up the river for a mile before they could find a bank low enough to allow them to land. Where the water was high, it came into the wagon box and things got wet. Besides crossing that river so many times, they had to travel through sagebrush as high as the wagon. The oxen had to crush it down before they could pass through it. The worst of it was that the poor beasts had almost nothing to eat. For fifty miles on the east side of the mountains there was no grass — nothing but the tips of alder and maple trees along the river bank. Both the oxen and the people were worn out by the time they reached the forest. If these immigrants had been fur traders with pack horses, and with no women or children, the problem would have been much easier than it was. The trail really was well known and much used by the Indians. But it is one thing to go through such a country with pack ponies, however heavily laden, and quite another to drive oxen pulling their heavy, cumbersome wagons, with four great clumsy wheels. An Indian pony could travel forty miles or more while such a wagon was going four. When these immigrants reached the dense forests of the Cascade Mountains, words cannot tell their hardships. [171] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON They learned afterwards that settlers on Puget Sound had sent out men to cut the trees and clear a road through the forest. Indians, however, told these men, before they had done much work, that the white people had gone down the Columbia, on the usual route. So the road- makers shouldered their axes and went home. Many immigrants had indeed that summer gone down the Columbia; but these thirty-six wagons had not. These poor people could not go back. They could not travel again down the Nachess Valley and the Yakima with their starved oxen. The oxen would have died on the way, and probably many of the people also. At best, it would be full winter before any of them could reach Fort Vancouver. There was nothing to do but cut their way through that forest. Every man, woman, and child had to help in that awful road-making. The stronger men went ahead with axes and cut down the trees; others pulled the smaller trunks, when cut down, to one side, or chopped a passage through the larger ones. Trees which had fallen years before, and which blocked the forest in every direction, had to be cut through or cleared away. Then the women and children came after, hacking away at the undergrowth and the saplings, and pulling the lighter rubbish out of the way. Hungry and ragged, barefooted and almost naked, the little children, with their hatchets, hacked away at the underbrush. It was fearful work. The trees were large, and even the stumps left by the choppers were almost too high to [172] THROUGH THE NACHESS PASS drive over. They caught under the wagon beds of the heavy schooners, and the thin, weak oxen pulled almost in vain to get the wagon over. And not a single foot of that road was level. They were either going down a steep slope of some kind, or up a more gradual ascent. Do their best, they could not gain more than three miles a day, and their food was giving out. But on they pushed until they reached a point twenty- five miles south of Mount Rainier. Then the foremost wagon stopped; the ones behind had also to stop. Something was the matter! Groups of men and women hurried forward, and stood near the leading team. They talked and they wept. The men were arguing. George and his mother hurried forward to see what the trouble was. George's mother saw it first. She said, "Well, I guess we have come to the jumping-off place." Directly in front of them the ground dropped away in a sheer bluff. For thirty feet or more it was straight up and down. Below that was a long, steep slope. No ox could stand on that slope, even alone; much less with a heavy wagon pushing on his heels. Nothing but a fly could stand upright on that sheer bluff. Men and women said to each other, "We can never go down there." So the men began to search for another road, or another trail over the mountains. There was none. All about them were hills. It was either go down that hill or go back. To go back was impossible. It was go ahead or starve. One man in that train had a piece of rope one hundred [173] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON and eighty feet long. He had coiled it under the wagon box when he left the Missouri River, not knowing when or where it might be needed. Now when it was so badly needed, he drew out the staples that fastened it. Yet when a man took one end of it and slid down the hill to see if it was long enough, they saw it was too short. One of the immigrants, James Byles, said: "Kill one of the poorest of my oxen. Make a rope of his hide, and fasten it to the end of this rope." They did so. Yet the rope was still too short. They killed another ox, and another, and still another. Four oxen they killed in all, cutting the green hide into strips, knotting the ends together, and fastening all to the end of the rope. At last there was enough.1 In getting down the wagons, great care had to be taken. All the oxen but one pair were taken off the foremost wagon. One end of the rope was tied to the hind wheel, the rope twisted around a near by tree and "paid out" slowly, to prevent the wagon from plunging down the hill. The oxen put their feet together and slid down the bluff on their haunches — it was too steep to go down any other way. The wagon was held from crashing down upon them by the rope. After they got to the end of the rope, the wheels of the wagon were "rough-locked"; then small trees, with the branches still on, were cut down and fas- *This ox-hide rope story is disputed by a few of the old pioneers. Those with the best memories, however, remember the incident clearly; and it is vouched for by Mr. George H. Himes, assistant secretary of the Oregon Historical Association, who, incidentally, is the boy George mentioned in this chapter. [174] THROUGH THE NACHESS PASS tened to the rear wheels. These acted as a drag and the branches increased the resistance. So the oxen dragged the wagon down a quarter of a mile farther to the foot of the hill, where camp was made for the night. Each wagon had to go down in that way, and it was slow, slow work. Two wagons were wrecked, and some provisions lost. The wreck of the wagons was not so serious, but the loss of the food was. After reaching the bottom of this hill, the immigrants were almost at the foot of the Cascade Mountains. Yet they were still a long distance, with such teams as theirs were then, from Puget Sound. The oxen were unfastened and driven forward to a prairie, afterwards known as Connell's prairie, to feed. They were too weak to pull anything. The men stayed with the oxen. The women and children stayed with the wagons in the forest. A few days later the oxen were brought back and hitched to the wagons, but they were still very weak. So everyone walked. By this time, things were desperate. The food had given out and the travelers were almost starved. Men were sent ahead on horseback to ask the settlers around Puget Sound to send them food. But no one knew whether the messengers would reach the settlers, or whether help could come. The messengers might even be lost in the forest. The horses and oxen belonging to George's father were so worn out he decided to stay with them on the prairies for a few days. Even had he gone back with them, the [175] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON family would have had to walk, just as everyone did. So ten-year-old George was left to take care of his mother,! the baby sister, a little sister of seven, and a small brother of three. Eating a few berries on the way, as they couldj find them, the travelers started on foot for Connell's prairie. George sometimes carried the baby, sometimesi loaded his little brother on his back, while the mother carried the baby, and the seven-year-old sister kept closer by. I *& j \ One afternoon they came to the White River. It was too deep to ford, so the teams had to go down stream a mile to find a ford. One of the men cut down a tree to serve as a bridge. It was so large a tree that it crossed! the river, but at the farther end the tip was partly underi water and the current made it sway. When they came to that tree-bridge, everyone was] ahead of George and his mother and the children. The mother said she must rest; so George took the little sister; across on the log, set her down in the bushes^ and earner back for his brother. With those two safely across, he took the baby over and left her with the other children. Then he went back again for his mother. George took his mother's hand and helped her over, but she was very tired. When she reached the farther end of the log, where it swayed in the current, she lost her balance and fell into the river. George quickly caught at some bushes with one hand and his mother's dress with the other. He held her until she could climb up on the log again. She wrung out her wet skirts and they went on 1176] -J THROUGH THE NACHESS PASS two miles farther, where she gave out, and they all had to stop. They were over the worst of things by this time, but they were quite alone because the others had all reached Connell's prairie, which was not very far ahead. But the mother could go no farther. Leaving the children with her, George started off to find his father. Then they two, father and son, carried the worn-out mother to the camp fire, and went back again after the three little children whom they had had to leave alone in the forest at twilight. Yet even then, at the prairie, all the food there was to eat was a few baked potatoes. All day long, they had eaten nothing except a few berries; and for days before that they had been almost starved. But at last these brave people were over the mountains and out of the forest. The settlers who were living in their log cabins on Puget Sound, near what is now Olym- pia, sent men to them with bacon and potatoes and flour. The Hudson's Bay Company, from Fort Nisqually, sent beef to them and vegetables, so there was no longer any danger of starvation. And at last they were safe. They said afterwards that even the little piece of road which the axe-men had cut had been so badly done that it was no road at all—nothing but a good pony trail. But the next summer workmen were again sent out, and this time they cut a road clear through the forests and over the mountains. It was a rough road, but no immigrants after that ever had such a fearful struggle to get through the forest, or were in such danger of starvation. [i77] CHAPTER XVIII THE BEGINNINGS OF CITIES WHILE San Francisco was hardly more than a village, in 1848, a man came riding down the street one day, swinging a bottle of yellow dust in his hand, and; shouting: "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!' He had found gold in the sand of that river. Soon the? news spread, not only throughout California, but all over the states bordering on the Atlantic. Throngs of men crossed to the gold fields. Tens of thousands came in 1849, called the "Forty-niners." There were many cattle ranches in California, so beef was plentiful. But there were few farmers, and practically no stores. The nearest stores for general supplies were in the Sandwich Islands and in the Old Oregon country. Lumber, needed for mining, could be found only along the north Pacific coast. One day, in 1848, a ship entered the Willamette River. The captain was rather silent as to his business, but the settlers noticed that he bought many shovels and picks. He also bought great quantities of flour and wheat, of salmon and other fish. He asked for potatoes. The settlers began to quiz him. Then he told them that gold had . [178] I 1 American Pioneer Cabin From an old print Oregon City in Early Days THE BEGINNINGS OF CITIES been discovered in California. He was taking supplies down the coast. Other ships came to Oregon City, and still others. Many of them wanted lumber. The great forests along thick Wooisand UrySteep Oregon City in 1845. From a sketch by Henry J. Warre and M. Vavasour. the Columbia and on Puget Sound supplied just the timber needed for piles, for wharves, and for shoring up the gold mines. San Francisco at first was a canvas city—a great city of tents. But the tents caught fire one day and the whole canvas settlement burned up in a very short time. It was necessary to build better houses, and boards and shingles and beams were needed. So the ships came north for lumber. [179] -1 EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON Some of the settlers in Oregon dropped their farming! and rushed to the gold fields. Others plowed broader fields and sowed larger crops, for prices paid were high.] New immigrants easily found work helping to load the? ships, and in farming. Others went to logging in the forests, or in the shingle business. Payment was made in gold dust. Little by little, although many went to the gold fields, the settlements in Old Oregon grew. Some years before gold was found, Portland was just a convenient camping place between Oregon City and Fort Vancouver. Later, for the convenience of passers-by, a log cabin was built there. After a while there were several log cabins, and then a small store with a few things for sale. Yet the place had no name; it was simply a convenient camping place. Two men who had claims there decided one day to name this camping place. One man came from Portland, Maine; the other from Boston, Massachusetts. Each wanted to name it for his home city. At last they agreed to toss up a coin — "Heads, Portland; tails, Boston." Heads won, so the little hamlet was called Portland. Many people have thought that Multnomah, the Indian name, would have been better. Portland, beginning with its few log cabins and a small store, grew rapidly. It was nearer the Columbia than Oregon City was, the water was deeper, and lumber from the hills along the river just as good. So it was easier [180] I THE BEGINNINGS OF CITIES :( 8 for ships to land there. Soon a sawmill was built there. lOther cabins rose among the firs and spruces and hem- i locks; then other stores. San Francisco needed a great ■many supplies and a great deal of lumber. Many more [ships came. In 1848, before gold was discovered, only ■three or four vessels entered the river during the whole lyear. In 1850, there were fifty ships. So the hamlet became a village, and the village a town; [then the town became a small city, and that grew to a large [city. Steamboats, soon after the discovery of gold, began [to run regularly from Portland down the coast to Cali- ifornia. Other boats went from Portland up the river to ■the fertile lands east of the mountains where white men fwere beginning to settle along the rivers and to plant [their orchards and farms. They carried to these settlers [plows and seeds and other supplies, such as groceries and [dress goods. Then railroads came across the continent. [Street cars came, and electric lights, large factories, great [office buildings, and all the busy life which makes up a large city. The Columbia River still sends out its logs to countries [where there are few trees. Even today the great log I booms are floated down the river, and then down the 1 coast to California. They are carefully put together, strongly chained, and drawn by a tugboat. Lying on the I water, they look at a distance like a long, broad cigar. In spite of care, however, an ocean storm will sometimes break one to pieces and scatter the logs wildly up and [down the coast, causing great loss to the owners. [181] 1 EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON But good timber was also to be found on Puget Sound, \ and many ships came to the east coast where Seattle and Tacoma and Olympia are. They came for timber and piles and shingles. Farm lands in western Washington were very scarce. The only possible business for most of the settlers was logging. That was the leading industry for many years—almost the only industry. Men with their ox teams went into the forests and felled the enormous trees. They cut off the branches and divided the long trunk into shorter pieces. Oxen hauled the logs to some point where they could be pushed into the water. Splash! Into the water they went, to be towed down as a boom to the nearest mill, where they were sawn into boards; or perhaps a small boom of the lighter logs was towed directly to the ship, to be sold as piles. These small booms were not rafted together and chained as were the ocean-going booms. They were merely enclosed in a circle of many logs, chained together at the ends, and floated down. The first sawmill at Seattle, built by Henry Yesler, began its work in 1853. Other mills soon came, more hands for the mills, more loggers for the forests, more houses for the people who were working, more stores to supply their needs. So Seattle grew, just as Portland had done, until it became a large city. In 1854, a pioneer cruised around Puget Sound looking for good farm land. Everywhere the land was densely forested, and farm lands hard to find. When he entered [182] The Fallen Monarch of the Woods Ocean-Going Log Raft THE BEGINNINGS OF CITIES ff the Puyallup River he found it full of logs which were being floated down to the Sound. A little farther north, on Commencement Bay, was a sawmill. This mill was not a very perfect one. Through some defect in the machinery, the boards were always thicker at one end than the other; or sometimes they were thicker in the middle. But that sawmill was the first building on the spot now occupied by the city of Tacoma, although the real beginning of the city was not made until more than ten years later. On Bellingham Bay, in that same year, 1854, two men were logging. One night a hard storm blew down a great fir tree and the roots were upturned on the earth. Right underneath that tree was a vein of coal which could be plainly seen when the tree was uprooted. That was the beginning of Bellingham, for coal was needed on the Sound and the Columbia River, and immediately miners went there to mine it. Ships went there to load it; houses had to be built for the miners, and wharves for the ships. Stores were built there, because the needs of the miners and their families must be supplied. Later on fish were caught in vast numbers, salted, and shipped; then canneries were built. So Bellingham grew into a city. At first there were two towns, close to each other, one named Fairhaven, the other Whatcom. These grew together and were made one city, now called Bellingham. East of the Cascade mountains, the country was not attractive to the immigrants. They reached it after [183] I m EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON months of hardship. It was dry and dusty, covered with j sand and sagebrush; the sun was scorching hot, there was no water, and they, tired and worn as they were, called it a desert. They were seeking the fertile valleys and the] green forests of the coast. Dr. Whitman had discovered very early that, with water, delicious fruits and vegetables would grow in that dreary-looking sand. We know now that it is not real sand, but a lava-soil. Along the Walla Walla River, the Touchet, and other streams, later settlers built their log cabins, chiefly at first to enter into trade with the passing immigrants. Later gold was discovered at Fort Colville, and at once miners rushed into the Colville Valley from! the Willamette and some even from California. Other mines were discovered. The number of travelers increased, and so houses had to be built—pioneer hotels they were, although only log cabins — for these miners. Vegetables were raised, and fruits. Cattle throve on the] juicy grass of the Plains of the Columbia. It was a coun- j try where horses lived in vast numbers, for the wealth of the horse Indians was in their ponies. Gradually the country became more and more settled, and though the great Yakima war of 1856-1857 Put an end *° lts settlement for a while, after the Indians became quiet again white farmers flocked into it. Now the apples of the Yakima Valley and the Wenatchee Valley are known all over the world, as also the fruit of the Hood River Valley. It is a wealthy farming country. The irrigation canals of the Government have made [184] THE BEGINNINGS OF CITIES it possible for farmers to settle even away from the rivers and streams in a country where there is little rain. Spokane was settled in quite another way. In 1872, when a white man spent two days fishing at the Spokane Falls, there were no cabins there at all, no settlers. A few white men had taken up claims on the upper and lower reaches of the river, but none at the falls. Then it was reported that the Northern Pacific Railroad would be completed to the Pacific coast very soon. Such a railroad would need timber for ties and for station houses and for other purposes. Within a few months after that, three men built a sawmill at the falls where they could utilize the water power. Others joined them; a shop-keeper went there and opened a little store. Soon others came, for one reason or another, until there was a little hamlet there. When the railroad did come through, it made this little village one of its stations and at once it began to grow rapidly. There was great power in the falls for electricity, and for factories. Churches, schools, paved streets, and street cars came, and it became a city. The city of Spokane is only forty miles from the old trading post of Fort Spokane, from which Ross Cox rode on Le Bleu many years before, in his effort to get the Flathead furs. The city was named from the Spokane Indians, who claimed that country. Olympia was the first village in what we now call Washington. A few Americans came to the Tumwater [185] -\ EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON Falls in 1846 and built a mill at the falls, several miles from Puget Sound. But it was a bother to haul their supplies either from the Sound or overland from the Columbia to Tumwater, so it was not long before several cabins were built at the mouth of the little stream on Puget Sound, where they could get their supplies of cloth- i ing and sugar and flour direct from the passing ships.) Soon there was a store there, and the place was called Newmarket. Afterwards, because it was on the trail from the Columbia River to Seattle and the villages farther north, a log-cabin hotel was built at Newmarket. That made it possible for people to stay there for a few days, while waiting for a ship, or waiting for friends who were] coming to join them from the Columbia River, for many j farmers moved from the Columbia and the Willamette J into the Puget Sound country. Gradually the village grew. The shipping was never extensive, for the mud flats were too broad, and ships could not go close to shore, as they could at Seattle and Tacoma. So Olympia, though the state capital, is not yet a very large city. When Washington became a separate territory, however, in 1853, Olympia was the largest town in it, and j very central; so it became the capital. Before the steam railroads came, pioneers used very primitive railroads, when it saved expense in hauling. At first the railroads were simply wooden beams, fastened together, and set as firmly as possible, over which large, heavy cars, with great heavy wooden wheels, could be [186] THE BEGINNINGS OF CITIES drawn by oxen. The wood of the rails splintered badly, having no protection, and where tin plate or any other metal was convenient the tops of the rails were covered with the metal. Another plan, where tin could not be had, was to cover the rails with cowhide. Walla Walla once had such a railroad. Walla Walla, near the old fort and the old Whitman mission, was on the Oregon trail. A few farmers settled near by, raising fruits and vegetables, and owning droves of cattle, with large herds of horses, which they traded with passing immigrants. Gradually other farmers came, stores with supplies for the settlers and the immigrants, until a little town was built up at that point. But all the supplies for Walla Walla had to come up the river from Portland, and the little town was six miles back. Therefore the settlers built a six-mile railroad, so that their plows, their barrels of sugar and flour and sacks of coffee, with nails and shingles, and all the many other things needed, might reach them more easily than by hauling them by teams. The Walla Walla Railroad was covered with rawhide. One winter, when it was bitterly cold, the* wolves came down from the higher mountains and prowled around the farms and villages, eating young calves and anything they could find. So hungry were these wolves that they even ate the cowhide off the railroad tracks, and the settlers told, in after years, how the wolves "ate up the railroad." [187] CHAPTER XIX EARLY ADVENTURES IN SEATTLE TWO young men, one morning in October, 1851, were cutting logs on a long point of land now called Alki Point. It is just across Elliot Bay from Seattle, and a part of West Seattle. It had not even a name then, and these twov youths, Lee Terry and David Denny, were entirely alone. That part of Puget Sound was not settled at all, except for one or two farmers who had built cabins on fertile lands on the Duwanish River. The families of the two boys had just come across the plains to the Columbia River. Most of the fertile lands on the Willamette and in the Tualatin Valley had been taken up, and the two boys, with Denny's brother, had come up from Vancouver over the Cowlitz Trail, to search for lands. Fertile farming land on Puget Sound was hardly to be found, and knowing of the California trade in lumber, the older Denny had decided to settle on Alki Point and go to logging. He had gone back to the Columbia to get his family and the Terrys, who were relatives. The two boys were alone, trying to build a log cabin. One was nineteen, the other twenty-one. Suddenly, out from the gray mist which hung over the water that morning, came the black end of an Indian canoe. [188] EARLY ADVENTURES IN SEATTLE A moment later the prow grated on the beach, and Indians sprang ashore. They were dark, swarthy men, and there was little that was friendly in their manner. At once they tried to get inside the little brush tent which stood on the shore. It was nothing but small branches and brush, leaning, on two sides, against a pole some eight feet from the ground, one end of which was fastened in a crotched stick, the other nailed to a big tree. Inside were the boys' blankets and food—everything they possessed. A little rough handlingof the brush tent by a few of these brawny redskins would have pulled it all to pieces. Frightened though they were, the boys knew enough of Indians not to show fear. Lee Terry braced himself against the big tree and prevented the Indians from entering. The Indians pushed to get in, but were rather daunted by Terry's fearlessness. Soon they gave it up. They were not hostile; they merely wanted to steal. Seeing the boys were not afraid, they went back to their canoe. A few moments later its black end faded away in the gray mist. With hammer and axe, the only tools they had, the boys worked busily at building the cabin for their families. They could cut down the trees, but the logs were so heavy they had to ask friendly passing Indians to help them lift them and put them into place. They asked by signs. [They paid the Indians with bread—pioneer bread. Food was abundant. The Indians brought them fish of all kinds, crabs, wild geese and deer, and wapetoes—-the [189] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON little, bitter, red Indian potato. But everything had to be cooked in a single tin pail. Their bread, mixed in the usual way, of coarse flour and water, with salt, was cooked on a flat board before the open fire. Meat was roasted on a spit, and so were fish, unless split open and cooked on a plank. Not long after this little Indian adventure, Terry had to go to Olympia. That would take several days, for he either had to go by trail, or the usual way, by Indian canoe, camping at night on the beach. David Denny, nineteen years old, was left entirely alone at Alki Point for three weeks, working as best he could with the heavy timber and getting the cabin ready. He was tired of the loneliness, when one morning he was awakened by hearing the rattle of the chain of a ship's anchor. Pushing aside the boards he had set up in the unfinished cabin to keep Indians and wolves out, the boy ran down to the beacK. There he found a little steamer, the Exact, landing his brother and other relatives and the Terry family. Ships were not usual in Puget Sound at that time, but several gold-seekers had chartered this boat to take them to the Queen Charlotte Islands, and the pioneers had succeeded in getting passage. But it had taken them a week to go down the Columbia River from Fort Vancouver, up the coast, and through the Straits of San Juan de Fuca to Alki Point. The boat was overcrowded and everyone seasick, and it had been a hard voyage. So now they had reached their new home—this lonelyf [190] EARLY ADVENTURES IN SEATTLE tree-covered point. The sky was gray and the rain was falling. The low, gray mist shut out the long line of snowy Olympics which are so glorious when the sun shines. The water lapping the beach at their feet was gray. Life itself seemed gray to some of those lonely, homesick women. It was so forlorn some of them sat down on logs in the rain on the beach and cried. The men were busy at once pulling back the baggage and barrels of salt pork to prevent the rising tide from carrying it away. With all these newcomers, there were twenty-four people— twelve children and twelve grown people. Yet there was only this one tiny log cabin, and that unfinished. The roof was not yet all on, and there was no door. The rainy season had begun, for they landed on November 13, 1851. Day after day rain fell softly and gently, and day after day the gray waters of Puget Sound rolled in front of their cabin and the gray mist hung low. A second cabin was begun.at once, but it was weeks before it was finished. Even so, twelve people in each cabin was far from being comfortable. The Indians were friendly, but curious. They came in throngs, setting up their tepees close around the log cabins. They were so interested in everything the white men did that it was impossible to keep them out of the cabins. The settlers at last solved that problem by cutting the door in halves, an upper half and a lower half. It was the style of door used by the early Dutch settlers also, in New York and other eastern states. It is usually called a [191] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON | Dutch door." The lower half was fastened close to the ground by a wooden pin; the upper half was open for light and air. The Indians, after this was done, could stand at the door and watch the white people, but it was not nearly so easy to get in. Before the Dutch doors were used, the curiosity of the Indians was very trying to the mothers. One day a mother was frying some fresh fish at the open fireplace. An Indian walked in and sat down on a stool by the fire. The fragrance of the fresh fish made him hungry, and after a few moments he put out a long, red finger to steal a piece from the pan. The mother lifted her knife quickly, as though to strike him with the broad side of it, and the Indian pushed back his stool. Another day, a mother was baking some bread on a board in front of the open fire. An Indian, sitting close by the fireplace, started to poke his finger into it. She picked up a wooden fire-shovel, quickly stirred up the hot coals with it, and then like a flash slapped the Indian hard on his bare legs with that hot shovel. Out of the door, with a yell, went that redskin. The frightened mother sat down on a stool and wept. The Indians were not warlike, yet she wondered if he would come back and scalp her. Back they did come, sure enough. She heard the jabbering of a crowd of Indians, talking in their own language, and bravely she stepped to the door. There the red men stood, with this fellow in front, pointing her out. They did not attack her, but she found afterwards that [192] EARLY ADVENTURES IN SEATTLE he pointed her out as dangerous. He warned the other Indians to let her alone. The settlers depended upon the Indians for their food. They brought in fresh fish — salmon, trout, and smelt, clams and crabs, besides halibut and many other kinds. Game was plentiful, for the woods were full of elk and deer. They brought Irish potatoes, which the Hudson's Bay Company had taught them to plant years before; and they brought also the small red Indian potato, the wapeto. Another Indian vegetable was the camas root, looking like a small round onion, but rather sweet. Their prices were not in money. They sold a large salmon for a yard of red flannel; many potatoes would they sell for a bright, shining tin pail. Bacon and salt pork were brought to the settlers by the passing ships, which came for lumber. Flour came from Chile and was as yellow as gold. Sugar and tea came from China. Only one family that first year had a cook stove; that they had brought over the plains. The other family cooked by an open fire. Cook stoves at Olympia, without any store furniture at all, cost eighty-five dollars in pioneer days. Groceries were very expensive. Besides the high price at Olympia, one had to pay also for an Indian canoe, two men to paddle it—two days there and two back—besides all the food those Indians ate in four days. The first winter at Alki Point proved that the location was not a good one. There was no harbor, and the high winds sweeping across the point made it almost impossible [193] If EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON " to load ships there. Early in the spring, two or three settlers, in a canoe paddled by Indians, went over to Elliott Bay to sound the depth of water, as that seemed a better location. With a horseshoe fastened to the end of a cotton clothes line, they sounded the bay and found the water very deep, even close to the shore. The spring and summer of 1852, therefore, nearly all the members of these two families moved over on the shore of Elliott Bay, where Seattle now stands. They left the point, which they had first called New York. After they moved to the new location, they called the old one New York Alki — alki1 being the Indian word for by-and- by. Now it is simply known as Alki Point. The winter after the first cabins at Seattle were built, 1852-1853, one settler bought two barrels of salt pork for forty-five dollars each, and paid twenty dollars for a barrel of flour. Prices were very high, as they always are in pioneer countries. The pork, however, was half of it lost to the settlers. One barrel was left high and dry above the tide mark until it should be needed, while the other was opened for use. A winter storm, driving the waves high one night, swept away the second pork barrel, which was never seen again. A torchlight search for it, and several days of daylight search, failed to find it. Yet there was food enough at hand in the fish and game, and no one suffered. The life of the pioneers was a very busy one. Besides their day's work in the forest, the men made most of their iPronounced so that it almost rhymes with silky. [194] I EARLY ADVENTURES IN SEATTLE own furniture. They made tables, chairs, low stools, and bedsteads with wooden planks instead of with springs. But the wooden planks were covered with big feather beds, so they were not uncomfortable. Feathers were readily bought from the Indians, and a few had brought the feather beds with them over the plains and the mountains. The tables were long, wide planks, split from the trees. They were hinged at the side so that they hung down against the wall when not in use, as the cabins were so small. Small round slabs from logs, with the bark peeled off, served as stools. Higher ones were sometimes used at the first, for chairs. It was just like sitting on a smoothed- off stump that could be moved about. Other chairs were | made from barrels, with feather cushions. Children slept on a very low bed, which during the daytime was pushed j under the big bed. The first lamps were shells, or sometimes cups, filled \ with dog-fish oil, bought from the Indians. A bit of I cotton rag served as a wick. The strongest light came from the open fireplace. Seattle was named after the friendly Indian chief, Seattle. He did not want his name used at first, because the Indians fear to have their name spoken after they are dead. Old Seattle was afraid his spirit would be troubled | in the Ghost-Land, because he would hear it every time the name was spoken aloud. But the Americans made the : kindly old chief so many presents that he was willing to take the risk. They told him, also, that it was a very great honor. I [i95] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON The first post office in Seattle was opened in 1853; it was only a log cabin. The settlers had to pay twenty-five cents for each letter brought to Seattle from Olympia; this was in addition to the postage paid in the beginning by the person who sent the letter. The mail boat from Olympia was an Indian canoe. The trip took two days each way in summer, but when it was stormy and in winter, when the Indians had to camp on the beach at night, the trip took three days. On return letters, the settlers had to pay twenty-five cents to get the letter to Olympia, besides the regular postage from Olympia to its address in | the States." This regular postage was from twenty-five to fifty cents. Rate of postage in those days was governed by the distance. [196] CHAPTER XX THE LIFE OF THE CHILDREN CHILDREN had a happy time in those days, as children always do if their homes are happy. Small boys of eight and ten were taught to shoot and a boy at fourteen, unless he was very small, was almost a man. Many a boy in early days has been routed out of bed in the middle of the night by his father, and they two with their guns rushed quickly out of the cabin because the squealing of a calf told that it was being attacked by a bear or a cougar. Small girls were frightened almost out of their senses sometimes, at night, by the wild scream of a cougar from a tree-branch near their cabin. Yet as the forests were cleared, the wild animals, who usually had plenty to eat from young deer and elk, lived in the deeper woods. The best playground was along the banks of a river, or Puget Sound. The Sound was particularly a good playground. There were brightly colored stones, and gleaming shells. One could find clams by digging in the sand and rocks at low tide. At low tide, also, there were the starfishes, purplish and yellow and straw-colored. There were sea cucumbers, a fish which looked like a big curved cucumber when it lies in the water. It has no fins or tail or mouth or eyes that one can see; and if it gets left on [i97] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON the shore by the retreating tide the hot sun wilts it down until it is just like a wilted old cucumber, and almost as soft as jelly. There were small crabs which scampered about madly if one overturned the middle-sized stones. Tbere were the other larger crabs which mother was glad to get for the table. It was great fun to play on the shores of Puget Sound. Sometimes there was danger, however. One family of children, one bright spring day, were allowed to go to the beach with their dog Watch. They were not to go beyond the "three big stones." Picking flowers from the edge of the woods, watching the roll of the broad stretch of water, and the gleaming snowy peaks across Puget Sound, these children wandered farther than those stones. Two of them climbed the bank, near an old log lying flat on the ground, to pick wild currant blossoms. But no sooner were the red blossoms in their hands than they noticed the strange behavior of Watch. His bristles stood on end, fear and rage were in his actions, his muscles were quivering, as very slowly he backed toward the children. Frightened by the dog's strange actions, the children tumbled down the low bank and ran back to their old playground along the beach, for they had gone beyond those three stones. A few days later, Indians asked them to come to their camp, not far away, and there was a cougar about nine feet long which had been killed near that old log beyond the stones. It is not unlikely that the great beast was hidden in the hollow log, or close beside it, and the frightened dog had known it. [198] THE LIFE OF THE CHILDREN There were wild flowers in the woods — trilliums and rhododendrons and wild syringa, besides the bright red flowers of the currant, and many another. But children went very little into the dark, cool woods, with its towering great trees, because of the wild animals which might be there. Waterways were the only roads, except the narrow Indian trails through the dim forests. So children learned early how to paddle and swim, and the waters were full of fish, just as the shores abounded in crabs and clams. When the children first came to the Oregon Country, they wore clothing of cotton and wool. But if that wore out, and there were no stores near by, how were they to dress? At first, you remember, when there was only an elk skin hung in the open doorway, Indians pushed it aside and walked in. They wanted to see how white people lived. Later, when the lower half door kept them out, they leaned over it, and Indian mothers watched the white mothers wash and iron and sew and darn and patch their children's clothing. But when it was quite worn out, and patching did no good, the white mothers had to watch the Indians. They saw that the Indian women wore buckskin clothing; that they used deer sinew instead of thread. And the white mothers had to learn from their red neighbors. At first they were not successful. The buckskin when wet behaved dreadfully. If the boys were caught in a light rain in the woods, while picking salal berries or Oregon grapes so that mother could make most delicious £$f£9 EARLY, DAYS IN OLD OREGON jam, or the older boys, dressed in buckskin also, were rained upon when cutting brush in the clearing, or logging with their fathers, their trousers would stretch until the heels dragged on the ground. Then, when they stood before a fire and dried the buckskin, it became as hard and stiff as tin. White women learned after a while that buckskin must be properly smoked, as the Indians smoked it, else it was useless for clothing. When a few stores came, even if there was no thread, mothers bought heavy canvas, and the children raveled it out for thread; but deer sinew had to be used for strong thread. Even before schools came the days were busy ones, for the girls helped mother with the housework and with the little children, while the boys helped in burning the twigs and small branches in the clearing around the cabin, in cutting underbrush, in milking the cows and tending the horses, and in all the endless work that there is in a pioneer homestead. At night, if they read at all, it was stretched out on the floor before the open fireplace, just as Abraham Lincoln had done when a boy in his log-cabin home on the Illinois prairie. The lamps of dogfish oil gave very little light. But the children, after a busy day, were too sleepy to stay up late. And even after they went to bed, they heard only for a short time the lonely cry of the loon, or perhaps the song of an Indian mother near by, singing to her papoose. Settlers when they first came had to put up with many hardships. Near the Nisqually River, one fall, came a [200] THE LIFE OF THE CHILDREN settler too late to build a cabin. Yet he had a wife and six children. The stump of an enormous tree stood on his "claim" and he took that for a house. He cleared out the stump, burned out the roots, and roofed it over with shakes. Then his family lived in it while he cleared out a second stump near by. In those two stump-houses did they live all winter. His wife said the "house' was very comfortable, and that the hollow, burned-out roots were delightful | cubby holes " for small bundles. The children thought it was the greatest fun. The next summer, however, the settler built a regular cabin, and used the stump- houses for barns. The stumps were a problem for the settlers, because they were so large and so hard to get rid of. They used to blow them up with gunpowder. This was a good way of celebrating the Fourth of July, because the explosions, so many together, made a very loud noise. Sometimes the settlers tried to burn them, heaping brush around them after they had dried out a little. It was slow work, and if the children played among them or touched them, the black would come off on faces and hands and clothes, until one could hardly believe them white. Governor Stevens's little girls used to play in the clearings, and sometimes their mother let them go out with white dresses. But the dresses did not stay white very long, among the black stumps. Sometimes even the girls had adventures. Mary James, and that was her true name, had one. Mary James herself told the author this story: [ 2011 EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON At first, Mary lived at Mound Prairie, where she used to wander about with other children picking salal berries and Oregon grapes. At first they did not know whether the berries were poisonous or not, so they watched their pet pig who followed them about like a dog. If the pig ate the berries, the children did. Then Mary's father moved out on the northern point of Gray's Harbor. She could look out through a few trees, and beyond see the broad waters of the Pacific Ocean. Her father and mother and brother, with one or two hired men, were all the white people at that point. One morning Mary was helping her mother around the cabin, when, glancing out of the door, her eye caught the flash of paddles. She watched for a moment, and then saw two long canoes full of Indians draw up on the beach just below the cabin. "Mother," called the frightened fourteen-year-old girl, "the Indians are coming." Mother was an Englishwoman and a very brave little lady. By the time she got to the cabin door the Indians had reached it. There were thirty or more of them, big, strong men from the northern coast, bold and daring. They were not at all like the Puget Sound canoe Indians. These northern Indians crowded into the little cabin, offering no harm to Mary and her mother, but picking up everything they saw, handling everything, curious about everything. After a while, one of the Indians, using the Chinook jargon, asked where the men were. Mrs. James answered [ 202 ] THE LIFE OF THE CHILDREN carelessly, "Oh, they are just outside. They will be here in a few minutes." But she knew, even as she spoke, that Mr. James was six miles away, with the men, cutting hay in a meadow. There was no chance at all of their coming. And Mrs. James knew that her danger and Mary's was very serious. These Indians were likely to steal them and take them north in the war canoes that lay outside on the beach. Mary was very much frightened. She was very white and the Indians saw it. They began to talk about her. She knew they were from the way in which they looked at her. Even her lips grew white. "Mary," said her mother quickly, seeing the danger, "play on the melodeon. Play something at once." In the corner stood the little melodeon which the James family had brought from England with them, first to Wisconsin, then across the plains to Mound Prairie, and now out to the coast. Mary's music teacher, while they lived at Mound Prairie, had been a drummer in Napoleon's army in France. The little girl sat down and tried to play; but her fingers were stiff and cold. Still, she could push down a key or two and make some noise. At once the Indians became interested in the melodeon. They forgot Mary, so she became less afraid. Gradually her fingers lost their stiffness and she played more easily. The Indians were amazed. Where did the music come from? They got down on the floor and looked under the melodeon, and [203] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON under her chair—looked everywhere except in the right place. The Indians were so charmed that some of them went out to their canoe and brought in quantities of hiaqua shells, the Indian money; they brought in mats and baskets and other treasures, and probably also fish. Everything they laid down in the center of the cabin floor. Then they told Mrs. James they wanted to buy Mary for a wife for their chief—with the melodeon, of course. Mrs. James was very brave and very quiet. She said, "Oh, no, Mary is too young." She talked to them pleasantly, yet firmly, and made them some presents, and at last the Indians went away. They went in a friendly way, and left without doing any harm at all. [204] Copyright by Romans Photographic Co. Snoqualmie Falls, Washington | The Niagara of the West." The river rising in the Cascade Mountains flows through forest and gorge, of scenery unsurpassed, to its plunge at the Falls of 270 feet. CHAPTER XXI M THE GREAT COUNCIL AT WALLA WALLA THE very year in which the first immigrants hacked their way through the Nachess Pass, in 1853, Washington was set off from the Old Oregon country as a territory. Its limits were not, however, just what the state limits are today. Two years later, in 1855, the governor, Isaac I. Stevens, tried to make treaties with the Indians so that the new white settlers might have their lands. The first treaties were made around Puget Sound. The Indians did not care much about it. In that country, where the light canoes darted easily through the water, and life was easy because of the fish in the waters, the natives cared little about land. Besides, the treaties gave them the right to fish, and to hunt deer in the forests. Even if they sold all their lands, they would have enough to eat. There were trout, smelt, flounders, cod, salmon, and many another fish, even whales, in the waters; and crabs and clams and goey-ducks in the sandy beaches. Wapato roots and camas roots grew abundantly. There were many berries — salal, huckleberry, wild raspberry, and blackberry, as well as the Oregon grape; wild crab apples and wild cherries were also found. Flying over the water, or swimming in it, were ducks and geese and I *>5 ] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON other wild fowls. So these canoe Indians paid less attention to selling their lands than the horse Indians. The horse Indians, in the interior, east of the mountains, lived a very different life. Horses were their wealth. The importance of a chief lay in the number of Indian ponies he possessed, and some had herds of three thousand or more, grazing on the rich grasses which grew out of the sandy soil. Painted ponies, or calico ponies as they were called, were the pride of the Indians; that is, horses having large spots of color, such as a brown pony with large spots of white, or a white pony with bluish spots. These Indians also lived by hunting. They chased the elk and deer, and the Nez Perces even crossed two mountain ranges — the Bitter Root and the Rockies — to chase buffalo on the Great Plains. There were deer and elk among their mountains. But the streams were broken by falls, so that the salmon could not penetrate beyond certain rocky barriers which were too high for fish to jump. Because they were horse and hunting Indians, they had to have wide stretches of country. Selling their lands was quite a different matter. So the first treaties were made, and rather easily, around Puget Sound. The others were to be made with the Indians east of the Cascade Mountains, and Governor Stevens had called a great council of all the chiefs. Forty soldiers, with officers, were sent from Fort Dalles, and they went up the river in boats, while servants drove up a small herd of half-wild cattle. On the backs of ponies and in carts were great heaps of potatoes. In other [206] THE GREAT COUNCIL AT WALLA WALLA bundles were Indian trading goods. A treaty could not be made without feasts and without presents. Governor Stevens, with some of the treaty-makers, rode over to eastern Washington. Hazard Stevens, a boy of fourteen, was with his father, and he tells the story. The council was to be held in the Walla Walla Valley. The tents of the white men were pitched in a wide, grassy valley, beautiful in the May sunshine. Herds of sleek Indian ponies and droves of long-horned Spanish cattle grazed in the wide sweep of the valley where today stands the city of Walla Walla. To the southeast lay the long line of shimmering blue of the Blue Mountains. One afternoon, after runners had come in to announce them, the Nez Perces Indians came in sight, and paused half-seen in a depression of the hills. There were twenty- five hundred of them. A single brave came forward with a large American flag, which he planted near the white officials. Then, two by two, over the crest of a low hill and down into the valley, came the Nez Perces, a thousand warriors on splendid horses forming a long line across the valley. They were gay indeed. Their faces and bodies were painted in stripes and squares and in curious designs, in the four Indian colors — red, yellow, blue, and white. Plumes waved from their carefully braided hair, bright with gay ribbons. And even the ponies were gayly painted in bright colors. A white or yellow pony was striped with red; a black one with red and white. Some had blue stripes. Their saddle blankets were beaded in many colors, and the [207] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON || long fringe of buckskin swept the ground. Plumes were fastened in the horses' manes. After galloping forward a short distance in this long line — and riding two by two it stretched across the valley — all stopped at a signal. The head chief, Lawyer, with two other chiefs, after riding forward, sprang off their ponies and shook hands with the treaty-makers. Twenty- five lesser chiefs then did the same. Then the long line of warriors galloped forward. With their brightly painted faces and bodies, with plumes waving on themselves and their gay ponies, up they dashed! They came yelling and whooping, beating their war drums, firing off their guns, crashing their heavy, smoked-rawhide shields together, in a wild uproar of noise. On and on they came! The white men were almost deafened by the banging of guns, the crashing of shields, the hollow booming of the war drums, and the whooping. They dashed close up to the group of treaty*makers as though they would ride over them — then in an instant turned their cleverly trained ponies and wheeled backward. Again they dashed madly forward, and again, at a signal, the ponies stopped still, instantly. The warriors sprang off their horses, and stood beside their chiefs. This was the Nez Perces welcome to the Americans. It was done to show off their beautiful ponies, and their skill in managing them. It was just the same sort of welcome these Nez Perces had given to the Whitmans, nearly twenty years before. Some of the young warriors formed a ring, then, and [208] —4 THE GREAT COUNCIL AT WALLA WALLA began a wild dance, moving arms and feet and legs while keeping time to the music. The tom-tom — an Indian drum made of rawhide — was beaten by four braves, squatting on their heels on the ground, and the drummers and the dancers kept time in that wild, half-wailing Ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai of Indian music. It was great fun to fourteen-year-old Hazard Stevens. While the men were dancing, the busy squaws, all gayly dressed, were setting up the tepee poles and making camp. Then other tribes came in. But these tribes, the Walla Wallas, the Umatillas, the Cayuses, and the Yakimas, were not so friendly. Some came in with a wild dash, like the Nez Perces, but with less friendliness. Others came sullenly, refusing to shake hands, refusing later to accept gifts, or even to take any food as a gift. These people kept away from the feasts almost altogether. A feast came first. Beeves were killed and dressed. Huge fires were built in some places, and the entire animals roasted on spits before the blaze. Others were cut up, and cooked by Indians at small fires near their tepees. The table for the chiefs was a very long one, made of split boards, smoothed on top, with tin plates and cups. Hunting knives were used with which to cut. Here the chiefs, with the treaty-makers, had their feasts, under an awning to protect them from the sun. Governor Stevens, during the first feast, carved at one end of the table, and another officer at the other. But there were so many [209] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON chiefs, and the big tin plates came back so rapidly, that he ordered another officer, at the later feasts, to take his place. Carving for that throng of Indians, with Indian appetites, was hard work, he said. Then the council was held. The tents of the Americans were pitched among the wild flowers and the green grass by the side of a charming little stream. Here Governor Stevens had a large tent. In front of it was an arbor built of tree branches. And here sat the semicircle of chiefs, squatting on their heels, wild and savage in their paint and feathers. And here, again and again, the Indians said they would not sell their lands. Day after day the council met. Sometimes the sun shone and the wide-sweeping valley, with its thousand or more of tepees, its droves of horses and herds of cattle feeding on the fresh green grass, was glorious in its May beauty. And sometimes the rain fell and the Indians sulked in their damp tepees and talked among themselves. Nothing at all seemed to be done, yet the Indians complained that the white men were in too much of a hurry. It did seem as though time might be given to think it over, for the Americans were asking the Indians to give up their home lands, to give up everything in the world they had; for that was what it meant to give up the lands of their tribes and go on a reservation. Besides, it meant giving up their freedom. Supposing white men were asked to make a treaty by which they were obliged, and all their children after them, to live just in one small county— [210] THE GREAT COUNCIL AT WALLA WALLA never to leave it, never to go away! As the white people came in, the Indians knew, the deer and wild game would go away. So there would be no more hunting. So day after day that council met. But the Indians said they wanted time for horse races. Therefore the council held no meetings while the thousands of Indians idled in the sunshine and watched the racing horses. And day by day the few soldiers loitered among their tents under the cottonwood trees, by the pleasant little stream, and under the willows which bordered the creek. They looked out over the broad, rolling valley which they were asking the Indians to sell. Feast after feast was held. Still the Indians put off any treaty by which they would give up their lands. They said the earth was their mother, and they could not sell her. When they sat upon the ground, the Indians said they were 'reposing on the bosom of their great mother." Governor Stevens explained that the white people were coming into their land. Tbey wanted to build houses; to plow the land and raise grain; they wanted to bring their wives and children with them. Peo-peo-mox-mox, the great Walla Walla chief, said, 'Stop the white men from coming up here until we have had this talk. Let them not bring their axes with them. They may travel through our country if they do not build houses." lH Lawyer, a Nez Perces chief, said, "The white man is our brother. We must follow in the white man's trail." He meant that it would be wiser to follow the customs of [211] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON the white man, because a great change must come into their own ways of living. Lawyer was a wise chief. Then another feast was held. Thirty chiefs again sat at the long table. The officers carved the roast beef and piled up the tin plates with beef and potatoes. The chiefs ate like starved wolves. Yet in spite of all the feasts and the councils, nothing could be done. The Cayuse Indians and others were bitter toward the whites, and secret meetings were being held among the tepees. Suddenly, late one night, Lawyer came to Governor Stevens's tent. He said the Cayuse Indians were plotting to kill all the white men, so that they should not have to sell their lands. They had asked the Nez Perces chiefs to have their tribe join the plot. Lawyer had refused quickly. It was after midnight, yet the faithful Indian ordered his wives to pull down his tepee and set it up in the midst of the American camp. Thus the Indians could not attack the Americans without attacking Lawyer also; that would mean a war among the tribes. Without the warning, the Governor and his soldiers would probably have been massacred. There were fewer than a hundred white men, including all. There were thousands of armed Indians. Again the feasts were held, and councils. The Great Father at Washington, Governor Stevens told the Indians, would give them money every year; would give them lands which could never be taken away from them; would allow them to hunt over the country until it was settled; would build for them mills, and send them teachers of farming; [212] THE GREAT COUNCIL AT WALLA WALLA would build schools for their children; would give them blankets and clothing every year. It was the same promise | that was made to the Puget Sound Indians. At last the Indians agreed to sell their lands. They ; really could not help themselves. They were forced into I saying 'Yes." Therefore some of the chiefs really did not ! mean to give up their lands. They were plotting revenge. Just as everything seemed settled, up rode another Nez Perces chief, Looking-Glass. He came with a war party, shouting and whooping and tossing high on coup-sticks the fresh scalps they had taken. He had never been a friend ! of the Americans. 'My people, what have you done?" he demanded, when | told of the treaty they were just making. "While I was gone, you have sold my country! I have come home and | there is not left to me a place in which to pitch my tepee. Go back to your lodges! I will talk to you." So Looking-Glass talked to his people; and again they were all unwilling to make a treaty. At last, however, j most of the Indian chiefs signed the treaty paper. They I had sold their lands. As yet they had received only a few presents; it was years before they received payment, and I then it was not as promised. Thus the council ended. The last feast was held, and I for the last time the plates were heaped high with roast beef and potatoes. The tents were struck. The tepees were pulled down. So the Indians rode away. All the trails leading out of the valley were filled with this wild, picturesque procession. [213] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON The horses were still brightly painted, with plumes in their tails and manes; the warriors were in scarlet blankets and leggins; the squaws and papooses had bright calico skirts and gaudy handkerchiefs. When the Indians reached their villages, here and there in the wide-spreading country, they began to talk about the treaty. They did not like being forced to give up their lands. They began to buy powder and guns from the American and the British traders. After a few months, the whole country east of the Cascades was ablaze with an Indian war. There was no longer feasting—it was war- whoop and tomahawk. If we look at things fairly and squarely, we cannot well blame those Indian peoples. The war lasted less than two years, and there were a number of battles at The Dalles and east of the mountains. It was not until 1856 that there was any trouble west of the mountains, and then the horse Indians came over and persuaded the canoe Indians to go on the warpath. But there was little fighting, except in the battle of Seattle. Yet Americans were shot and scalped wherever they appeared, while British traders, in their blue coats and brass buttons, could go anywhere. For this reason many people thought the British were helping the Indians and were themselves against the Americans. This is not true. The Indians knew that the British traders did not want their lands—that they were traders only. Besides, those traders had lived among them for forty years without harming them—without driving away the game or making them sell [214] THE GREAT COUNCIL AT WALLA WALLA their lands. But the Americans were driving the game away, so that the Indians were starving, and they were driving the Indians out of their own country. So they were friends with the one nation of white men, and bitter enemies to the other. Nor can we blame them. But when the war ended, the white men had their own way. The Indians were forced onto reservations, while their hunting grounds and their camas grounds were taken by the white people. Towns and cities were built up. Where are the Indians now? [215] CHAPTER XXII w THE BATTLE OF SEATTLE HOO! Whoo! Whoo-oo!" An officer of the warship Decatur, who was on shore duty at Seattle on a very dark night, thought he heard an owl. This was late in January, 1856. Blackness lay over the waters of Puget Sound; blackness lay over the shore and the near-by forests. All the people in the little sawmill town of Seattle were asleep, except a few anxious ones. Were the Indians asleep, or were they planning an attack? No one knew. Therefore the officer pricked up his ears and listened, for the hooting had come out of the forest on his right. "Whoo! Whoo! Whoo-oo!" That hooting came out of the woods on the other side. The officer listened anxiously, for the hooting of an owl was an old Indian signal. "Whoo! Whoo! Whoo-oo!" There it was again, on the right-hand side, but nearer than the first hoot. "Whoo! Whoo! Whoo-oo!" This time it was on the left, and also nearer. "No owl about that," said the officer to himself. "Those owls are Indians. I guess we are in for it." One year before, Governor Stevens had made his treaties with the Puget Sound Indians, and then other treaties at the Great Council at Walla Walla. But the Indians [216] THE BATTLE OF SEATTLE were not satisfied with the treaties for several reasons: the lands given them were not the best; two or three tribes, eternal enemies, had been placed upon the same reservation, and that meant constant trouble; and besides, although the Indians had given up their lands, and the white people were building their cabins, fencing the lands, cutting down trees, and taking possession, the Great Father at Washington had not sent one penny of payment to his Indian children in Washington. The Indians thought themselves tricked. Indians from other parts of the country who happened to come into the west told them that the white men always did so. Another reason was this: the Indians for forty years had been dealing with the Hudson's Bay Company. Dr. McLoughlin, the "White-Eagle Chief," and James Douglas, who followed him in the management of the fur trade, had power. If they made a promise to the Indians, they also kept it. The Indians held them responsible. When Governor Stevens made the treaties with the Indians, he made the promises. But it was Congress who had to keep them. Sometimes Congress was slow in doing this, and sometimes did not do it at all. This was something the Indians could not understand. If they had been left alone, the lazy Puget Sound Indians might have complained and been troublesome, but perhaps they would not have gone to war. They liked better to squat in the bottoms of their canoes and fish; or to camp on the shores of Puget Sound and dig clams out of the beach; or to catch crabs. But the horse Indians [217] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON from east of the mountains were very warlike, and they were angry over the treaties. All these Indians knew well the difference between the " King George men " and the " Boston men." They were not angry with the British, who bought their furs. They were angry with the Americans who had taken their lands and driven the game away. There was danger of Indian attack on Seattle; therefore the hooting made the officer anxious. In October of the year before, Indians had killed several families in the White River Valley, not so very far from Seattle. All the loggers and farmers from the near-by country had come into Seattle for safety. A blockhouse had been built—just a large log cabin. Women and children were to run to it if Indians came. After the massacre of October, the Indians seemed to have quieted down. Some people scoffed, and said, "Oh, there's no danger!" A warship, the Decatur, lay in Elliott Bay, and these people even thought it ought to go on its cruise. Others said, "Yes, there is danger. Don't you see all these strange Indians about?" There were indeed a great many strange Indians around the little milling town. They were tall, well-built, athletic Indians, bold and daring in appearance; they were very different from the short, bow-legged canoe Indians. Most people knew at once that these strange Indians were the horse Indians from east of the Cascade Mountains. And what were they doing visiting tribes whom they despised as "fish-eaters"? [218] THE BATTLE OF SEATTLE So people waited and waited, some scoffing, and some afraid because they believed danger to be near. Marines came on shore and sentinels watched during the nights. That is how the officer from the Decatur happened to hear the hooting of owls in the forest. The officer, when he heard the hooting, at once sent word to Captain Ganzevoort of the Decatur. He also sent word to the settlers. Some of the leading men came quickly together for a council; and they asked Curley, a scout, to go into the forest and see if the Indians were threatening. Curley was thought to be friendly. He was gone two hours. When he came back he said there were no Indians in the woods. He had actually gone straight to an Indian war council. Jim, another scout, who really was friendly, came in cautiously among the white settlers who were discussing the question. Curley watched him closely. When Jim had an opportunity, he warned the Americans that the Indians had been holding a council, and that they would attack Seattle at dawn the next morning. Marines from the warship were landed at once. Even with the near-by farmers, in the town there were not more than one hundred and twenty people there. In Seattle itself there were only twenty houses and a sawmill. All night watch was kept. Dawn came, then early morning, but no Indians. Some scoffed again. Those who had spent the night in the blockhouse went home, for Indians almost always attack at dawn, not during the day. The settlers went back to their houses and the marines [219] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON returned to the Decatur. It was breakfast time and everyone, after a sleepless, anxious night, was tired. There were no sentinels on duty. About eight o'clock, Jim's sister, Nancy, came down into the village. Nancy was excited, and was shouting something as she waddled along, for she was a very fat Indian. "What's the matter, Nancy?" called some of the .settlers. " Hi-huhiu Klickitats behind Tom Pepper's house," screamed the old Indian. " Many, many Indians," was what the jargon meant. At once word was sent to the Decatur. Captain Ganzevoort had had many false alarms; some of his officers thought this might be another. I Never mind," said the captain, who had not yet had his breakfast. " I'd rather be fooled twenty times than be caught napping once." He ordered a shell to be aimed behind Tom Pepper's house. Boom! thundered the big gun. The shell screamed its way through the air over the log cabins and exploded with a crash behind Tom Pepper's house. Warwhoops and yells from a thousand Indians was the answer. Then the crash and bang of hundreds of Indian guns echoed through the forests, while a shower of whistling bullets fell like hail among the scurrying settlers. For at the first boom of the gun, out from the cabins rushed the settlers. Breakfasts were left on the table, uneaten or half-eaten, or even on the stoves half-cooked. [220] — THE BATTLE OF SEATTLE The settlers were not all even fully dressed. And, curiously enough, no one was hurt during that wild run because the Indians had to stop to reload their guns. So began the battle of Seattle. The men who had guns went right out into the open — into the streets before their houses, hiding behind the stumps of great trees left there. The women and children were hurried off to a lumber vessel lying in the harbor which had come in a few days before to get piles and sawed lumber for California. Seattle, in those days, was nothing but a few log houses scattered in and out among the old stumps between what is now Second Avenue and the waters of Puget Sound. When Mr. Yesler built his sawmill, in 1853, he had built it on a little peninsula near what is now the foot of Yesler Way. The narrow neck of land connecting it with the mainland he had widened and heightened by heaps of sawdust, making a dry little knoll there. That was all there was to the town. Up the hill from Second Avenue, much steeper then than now, was a dense forest of heavy trees, with dense underbrush, and in the forest the Indians were securely hidden and quite safe from bullets. Yet the battle went on—the steady roar of the cannon from the warship, the shrieking of the shells, and the crash of their explosion in the woods. And mingled with this uproar was the bang of the guns, the wild whoops of Indian warriors, and the yelling of the squaws who urged them on. §|| [ 221 ] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON Indian bullets cut up the ground around the Americans, tore their clothes, cut through their hats, and whistled, thick as a swarm of bees, in the air; yet few white men were touched. The Americans aimed more accurately than the Indians. And the shells from the " fire-ship " frightened the warriors rather badly. They could not understand how a gun could | shoot twice "; that is, after the roar of leaving the gun, the shell exploded with a second crash when it reached its mark. An Indian behind a tree had a lock of hair cut off by the fragment of a shell. He said afterwards he could not understand how a gun could "shoot around the corner." The fighting and yelling went on. Hundreds of Indians just at noon dashed down upon fourteen Americans who stood at one point. The white men stood their ground, in spite of the yelling redskins who came within a few feet of them. And that was the critical moment of the day. The Americans refused to be afraid; and that made the Indians a little afraid. Had those fourteen run away, the settlers would probably have lost the day. Meanwhile the settlers fought without having had even their breakfast. The Indians did not. They ate the breakfasts they found in the log cabins, and then set fire to them. The settlers, with guns in their hands, saw the flames and smoke of their burning homes. Still they fought on. In the afternoon, fewer shots came from the forest At once, as the Indian shooting faded out, the settlers feared treachery. They watched the forest more closely [222] ■w THE BATTLE OF SEATTLE than ever. But when evening came, the Indians seemed to be disappearing. By ten o'clock at night, the battle was over. Indians never fight very long at a time. They like to make quick dashes. There were so many of them and so few of the white people that they felt sure of the quick capture of Seattle, so they brought very little food with them. Now they sent word that they were going away. But one old chief said they would be back "in one moon" with twenty thousand warriors and kill off all the white men. The Indians admitted that twenty-eight braves had been killed and eighty wounded. But the settlers and marines had only two killed and none wounded. During the next few weeks, fearing that the Indians might come back again, the sailors pulled up stumps, made roads, and cleared the ground around the settlement. They built also a strong log-fence — a stockade — around part of the settlement. But the warriors did not come back, and the next year the war east of the Cascade Mountains was ended also. The settlers of Oregon and of Washington along the Columbia River, with regular troops from California, fought the Indians east of the Cascades. There were no very great battles, but many settlers and soldiers were killed; many Indians also. At last peace was declared, the Indians quieted down, the treaties were kept by Congress, and things were safe for white settlers again. [223] CHAPTER XXIII HOW THE INDIANS LIVED | " T T GH! They are fish eaters! Their teeth are full V.J of sand! Their teeth are all ground down! They are fish eaters! Ugh!" Such was the opinion which the horse Indians had of the canoe Indians. Of course the canoe Indians ate fish! Why should they live on the water and not do so? They lived on Puget Sound, on the Columbia, Willamette, Puyallup, Black, Duwamish, and many another river. These streams were full of carp, halibut, salmon, white- fish, and many other kinds. And the shores of Puget Sound were full of clams. At low water the crabs and small oysters of the Northwest could be caught. But these fish eaters were a lazy set — so it was said. Do you know how they lived, along the fringes of the great forests that bordered the many rivers and Puget Sound? For one thing, they lived in winter in houses, instead of tepees. All about them were tall trees — tremendous trees. Some of the hollowed trunks were as large ^■This chapter is necessarily brief, because the various tribes differed considerably in their habits, throughout the vast extent of Old Oregon. But in the bibliography citations to various works will be found which will enable a teacher or reader to get details on any tribe or section. [224] HOW THE INDIANS LIVED as an ordinary-sized room. To build houses, the smaller of these trees had to be cut down, yet before the white men came, the natives had no tools — no axes, saws, or hatchets of any kind. These fish-eating Indians cut their trees down by burning them. They set a fire around the base of the trunk, but did not allow it to run up the tree. Then slowly, after days and nights of burning, when the fire had eaten through the tree, it fell. After it was down, they cut it into lengths in that same way. They j usually used cedar trees because the wood was softer and the grain split straight. Then, with great toil and care, they split the logs into rough, thick boards. And with these rough boards they built their houses. If you will look at the picture of the Indian house, you will see that the floor was lower than the earth outside. Usually it was from two to five feet lower. They dug it this way in order to make the cabin drier and warmer in winter, as they could not build foundation walls. On the little raised platforms around the cabin, they laid their beds of mats and skins. The fire was in the centre of the house, in a place slightly hollowed out; and the boards at the end of the house, or sometimes boards in the centre of the roof, were left open so that the smoke could get out. There were no windows, and only the one door. Often in the cabin long strings of fish would hang about, drying in the smoky air. These huts were not at all clean. No white person would really want to sleep in one, though white people did, when visiting the Indians, if the weather was bad. [225] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON Sometimes three or four families lived in one such cabin; sometimes a band of Indians would build a very long house, two hundred or even five hundred feet long, and sixty or seventy feet wide, where many families could live, especially when they were holding a "potlatch', or gift festival. For such great houses large tree trunks would be used as supports, and these would be carved and painted by the Indians into strange, grotesque shapes. Cooking in winter was done at the little fire in the center of the cabin. But in summer, when the Indians roamed about, living in tepees of rushes and bark or tule reeds, put up just where they happened to be for a few days or weeks, they cooked on the ground out of doors. They cooked in—what do you suppose?—in baskets and boxes. The Indians cut very neat square or oblong boxes from the wood about them, carving them often, and in later years the boxes sometimes had a cover. Into such a box would be put a fish or other meat to be boiled, then cold water. After that, instead of setting the box on the fire, as we set a pan or kettle, they put red- hot stones into the box, until the water boiled and the fish was cooked. Many of these tribes could make baskets of spruce roots which were water-tight, and they could cook fish or elk meat in such a basket without burning it. Indian food was just about the same as that which the white people had in early days, except that the settlers usually tried to have flour, sugar, and tea and coffee, with perhaps salt pork, and these things the Indians did not have. But there were deer and elk in the forest, [226] From an old print Indian Houses From an old print An Indian Canoe Tomb HOW THE INDIANS LIVED there were wild pigeons, geese, and ducks of all kinds on the waters and overhead, clams and crabs in the beaches, and many kinds of fish in the waters. In the earth grew roots, also, of which the Indians were fond, such as the wapato—the little, round, red, bitter Indian potato. But the Indians had also our Irish potatoes, because the Hudson's Bay Company had taught them to plant such, and the red men had great fields of them. They ate the root of certain ferns, and the arrowroot, but the most interesting root, and one of which they were very fond, was the camas root. Camas plants liked soft, damp, or wet earth, and in the "camas prairies" all through the Northwest, spring brought glorious sheets of beautiful blue flowers—blue like the flax — shining among the fresh greenness of the spring. These were the camas blossoms. When, in the fall and summer, the roots were large enough to pull, the Indians encamped around these camas prairies. Indian women waded out into the soft, wet, swampy lands, felt for the roots with their toes, caught hold of one, and pulled it up with their toes. At once it floated upon the surface of the water, so they could pick it up with their hands and toss it into the basket on their back, while their busy toes were feeling for another root and pulling it up. The camas root looked like a round onion, but was slightly sweet. They were baked in the earth. Into a hole dug not very deep, twigs, branches, and faggots were piled, and burned until there was only a bed of [227] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON red-hot coals. Over these, damp leaves were placed, and then the camas roots were piled in, covered over with other damp leaves, then with earth, and a fire built on top of it all. In two or three days the camas roots were cooked, and would keep for a long time. Men and women dressed in blankets, made sometimes of elk skins or deer skins or perhaps of a rough woolen cloth which a few tribes wove out of the long hair of woolly dogs roaming about the camps. There were no cats or horses or any animals among these canoe Indians except dogs. Short skirts were made by the women out of the inner bark of the fir tree, beaten into shreds, and then made into heavy string-like cords. These were caught together by a belt and used as a short skirt. Many of these tribes wore hats, which were woven rushes, or roots, conical in shape, and ending in a knob about four inches in diameter, something like a Corean hat. But nearly always these hats were ornamented. Men and women wore all the necklaces and beads they could, and often the necklaces were artistic, in a crude way. Bears' claws made good necklaces, and proclaimed the bravery of the hunter. Elk teeth necklaces were highly valued, as were strings of hiaqua, the Indian money, or beads bought from the traders, or sometimes the small joints of birds strung in broad bands on deer sinew, intermixed with bright beads. They also cut clamshells into round disks about as large as one's fingernail, making a tiny hole through the center, and stringing these also on sinew. These shell necklaces were known as [228] HOW THE INDIANS LIVED wampum, but they were not used as money, as was the wampum of the New England states. Hiaqua was the name of a shell from one to two inches long, curving slightly, hollow, pointed at one end and entirely hollow. It was found chiefly among the Queen Charlotte's Islands, but sometimes further south on the coast. The long hiaqua was of the highest value; the shorter was less. It was strung on sinew into lengths about as long as one's forearm; that is, two feet or less, as it varied slightly. Every thing was priced as being worth so many strings of hiaqua, just as we say a thing is worth so many dollars. Nearly all the canoe Indians believed that a nice, round head on a baby was a great disgrace. No one but slaves had round heads, so they said, and they tried to make their poor little, black-eyed, red-skinned babies beautiful by giving them a pointed head. When a new baby came, they tied it into a baby board, as all Indian mothers do. A baby board was a wooden board, firmly wadded with soft moss from the trees. But then these canoe Indians fastened a flat piece of board down upon the baby's forehead, so as to make a sharp, straight line from the nose to the crown of the head. White people thought this was dreadful, and after many settlers came in the Indians gave it up. When an Indian mother was busy with her weaving or making baskets or doing other work in which she could sit still, she tied the baby board to the branch of a near-by tree, and then fastened a piece of sinew so that one end [229] EARLY, DAYS IN OLD OREGON of it was around her big toe and the other on the baby board. Thus she could rock the baby gently by moving her foot up and down and not using her hands. She carried her baby on her back, of course, as all Indian mothers do. Only white mothers take their babies in their arms. But Indian mothers loved their babies, and in the long twilights of that northern country, where the sun sets so late and darkness comes so slowly, Indian mothers in their huts or tepees would sing to their babies, softly, and many a little white child has been sung to sleep, in early pioneer days, by the crooning song of an Indian mother, not far away, singing to her own baby. When their friends and relatives were killed in battle, or died, Indians did not bury them in the ground as we do. Some tribes wrapped the body in skins, and placed it in a canoe, set among tree branches; perhaps, if the person was rich or important, another canoe was placed upside down over the first one. Other tribes along the Columbia had burial grounds. They built tiny sheds in which the canoe, or perhaps a carved box, was placed. At the head of such graves were the treasures of the person who had died, but all carefully broken so no one would steal them, or else put in the canoe and the wrapping skins. But the most wonderful things about these canoe Indians were their canoes. Every canoe was a dugout, as it was called—that is, a canoe dug out of the trunk of a big tree. Before the traders came with axes and hatchets and other metal tools, making a canoe was hard, slow work, and yet they made perfect canoes. [230] HOW THE INDIANS LIVED A great tree was selected, one with straight grain, and cut down by letting fire eat its way through. Then the top was cut off in the same way. From this log they were to dig out their canoe. Slow fires were built on each side, so as to eat down the big trunk. A full log would be round, and would not pass through the water easily. The log had to be shaped into a V, so the boat would have a keel. As the fires ate slowly into the log, skillful workers, watching carefully, chipped away the charred wood, so as to get exactly the right shape. It took weeks to make such a canoe, and it was hard, tedious work. Each tribe had men who were expert canoe makers. When the canoe was finished, it was shapely, well-balanced, black as ink outside and inside. It was rubbed on the outside with reeds and grasses until it was as smooth as glass, and without a splinter. Such canoes slipped through the water with great speed. Then came the ornamentation. Small shells, painted red, were used to decorate the inside, and perhaps a row would be around the outside also. A headpiece, shaped like the head of a bird, and painted perhaps a bright green, was fastened into the dugout by deer sinews. Then a similar piece, shaped like a bird's tail, was fastened on the other end, and also painted. Sometimes other queer figures were painted on. With such canoes the Indians would face any rough water, fearing nothing; and in calm weather they liked to sing, keeping time to their music with the dip of their paddles. Such were usually the war canoes, which would hold [231] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON thirty or forty men, or be used by a great chief, paddled by his slaves, when he went to visit another red chief, or perhaps some trader. The northern Indians, especially those around the Queen Charlotte's Islands, were head hunters and cannibals. They had beautiful war canoes, holding often seventy men, or more, and moving through the water with the speed of an express train. The Puget Sound Indians were much afraid of these fierce northern Indians, and would flee into the woods whenever they caught sight, across the water, of the war canoes. The canoe Indians were not great warriors. They really did like to paddle about lazily in their canoes, crouched on their short, deformed legs—because they squatted so much in these canoes their legs became crooked. They liked to paddle about in the sunshine, or fish, or camp on the beach and dig for clams. It was better for the white settlers that they were not warriors, else more blood would have been shed in the settlement of the Oregon country. Besides these war canoes, there were two other kinds, one a small light canoe for fishing, holding only two or three persons; the other the family canoe, fairly large and wide, so that boxes and clothing and household goods, besides persons, could be paddled about when the Indians wished to move. A "potlatch" was a feast given by some Indian, at which he gave away everything he possessed in the world to the friends whom he invited. An Indian would send out a notice of a potlatch, inviting all his tribe; and [232] HOW THE INDIANS LIVED when they came they spent days in eating elk and deer and wapato and camas—until they had eaten everything he could supply. Then he gave away his beads, his blankets, his cabin (if he had one), all the cooking boxes, and his dogs — indeed, everything he had. His friends accepted it all. But after that, this man had a right to make his home with any one of them, or with many of them in turn, until he had gained other necklaces and blankets. Because he had given potlatch, no one would refuse him anything he asked for, provided that person had been invited to the feast. People say now that it was a curious Indian form of insurance. The horse Indians were of an entirely different type. They were bold, daring Indians, often very handsome, straight and tall and dignified, living east of the Cascade mountains, possessing great herds of horses of which they were very proud. A man's wealth was reckoned by the number of horses he owned, and these were nearly always the "pinto," or painted ponies — the calico ponies. These horse Indians lived in tepees, made in winter out of elk skin, and in summer, as they moved about, out of skins or, perhaps, of tule reeds. They used many mats. Many of the tribes, such as the Nez Perces, the Walla Wallas, the Cayuses — an Indian pony is called a 'cayuse" because this tribe owned so many—and other tribes of eastern Washington, were of very noble type. They were hunting Indians, hunting all through the Cascade mountains, and through the Snake river valley, even over the Rocky mountains out onto the plains where the [233] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON buffalo roamed in great herds. They were glad enough, too, despite their contempt for canoe Indians, to trade with the coast tribes for dried fish, or to put weirs and nets in the river to catch the salmon as they came up. These Indians had about the same food as the canoe Indians, but more meat and less fish; yet they, too, ate the camas root and the roots of ferns. They were fond of fighting, and were always at war with some other tribe, coming home from an expedition beaten, or perhaps tossing scalps high on their "coup-sticks." When an Indian killed an enemy in battle, the first man to touch him with the long stick which each carried, had the best right to the scalp, because he had first struck the enemy. Coup is the French word for blow. The horse Indians buried their dead, after wrapping them in skins, on high platforms, standing alone on a plain or perhaps set in the crotch of a tree. There were few trees in the lands of the horse Indians, for, in general, they lived in the brown, rolling, treeless country east of the Cascade mountains. Each tribe had different customs and habits, and each lived its own life in its own way, until the white man came. Then all the old ways began to vanish. After several wars against the whites, the Indians went on reservations; they learned to use horses and wagons, to farm, and many of them today are good farmers. But the old days and the old ways are gone. [234] A Brief Summary >f the History of the Old Oregon Country from Original Sources APPENDIX A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY OF THE OLD OREGON COUNTRY FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES. Up to the time that the British colonists in America, in 1778, were engaged in that great war which we know as the Revolution, nothing whatever was known of the Northwest Coast of America and little indeed even of the Californian coast except that Spanish missions had been planted there. The expedition headed by Captain Cook — he himself was killed at the Sandwich Islands, and never returned to England — published a brief one-volume report of the voyage immediately upon its return in 1780. A complete three-volume report was published in 1784, and while this laid no great stress upon the fur trade, it verified the reports of officers and crew, whose interest had been so great that after the sale of their furs in China they almost mutinied in their determination to go again to the Northwest Coast for furs. In 1785 British adventurers entered the trade. First across the broad Pacific, from China, crept the sixty-ton Sea Otter, Captain Hanna, who returned within six months with twenty thousand dollars* worth of smooth, beautiful sea-otter skins. That same year other adventurers sailed for King George's Sound, or Nootka Sound as we know it. Some sailed from London, such as Portlock and Dixon, others from the Orient, as did John Meares, and others from continental ports, as Barkeley, from Ostend. The problem with all of them was the fact that this trade in the Pacific ocean would conflict with the chartered monopoly of the East India Company, since the best market for the furs was at Canton, China. The fur-traders tried to get around this in various ways: some secured licenses from the East India Company, which left them without danger, but also without freedom in selling their furs, and a consequent loss of profits, for all sales to the Chinese were made in the Oriental fashion of dickering; others sailed under foreign flags, as Barkeley under the [237] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON 3ft? f\o£ V-Y Austrian; but Great Britain could not claim the results of the explorations of such, and the Britons themselves did not like it; still others, as Meares, used double sets of flags. Meares had both the Portuguese and the English flags. Where it was safe, he used the English; where he was likely to encounter the East India Company, or any of their officers, he used the Portuguese. Not until 1787 did the Americans appear—first Gray and Kendrick, followed almost immediately by Captain Ingraham, of the brig Xjood Hope, and many another. American ships, immediately after the Revolution, were lying idle, and as Americans were not hampered by the chartered monopoly of the East India Company, and the fur trade was profitable, they soon controlled the business to a very large extent. The American plan was to sail to the Sandwich Islands, cut sandal wood and get fresh vegetables and supplies, go up the coast for sea-otter skins, walrus ivory, and seal skins, then go over to the South Sea Islands, barter with the natives for edible birds' nests for Chinese soups, and other rarities, such as beach-le-mer, and sail for China with their varied assortment of products, receiving payment in teas, silks, embroideries, and strange China ware, now so ordinary to us, but so quaint in those days, with perhaps a few Chinese gods to add flavor to the cargo. By 1812 or 1814 the British were fairly driven off the Northwest coast. Yet it must be noted, that although Americans developed this trade, owing to freedom of action which the British traders did not possess, Great Britain had scored first in both discovery and exploration, not only by sea but by land. That is, had scored first after Spain — and Spanish explorations were very slightly known, and were very superficial. Great Britain, in her trading along the coast, following up her discoveries, was soon followed by Americans. On land she not only scored first, but was not followed by any nation at all. Hearn discovered the Coppermine River in the far north; Mackenzie, afterwards Sir Alexander, discovered and explored the Peace River in 1789; in 1793 he explored the headwaters of the Peace River, and followed down the headwaters of the Frazer, as far as the fifty-second parallel, then crossing overland to the Pacific, near the mouth of the Bella Coola River. He thought this last river was the Columbia, emptying into the ocean about latitude forty-six degrees, and named it the Tatooch Tesse, knowing nothing of Gray's discovery of the year before. The lower Frazer was later explored [238] BRIEF HISTORY FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES by a Briton of that name, but its lower mouth was not discovered until 1824, and then by the British, an exploring party of the Hudson's Bay Company. But Spain, relying upon her first cursory exploration of the coast, claimed it all as hers, and hearing in 1789 that fur-traders were harboring on the coast, she immediately took prisoner British ships and sailors whom she found in Nootka Sound in that year—letting Americans go scot free for some reason — and sent them to Mexico. The seizure almost caused war between Spain and Great Britain, but was ended by the Nootka Sound Convention of 1790. By that convention, England was granted the right to the northern section of the coast where she had been trading, Spain to the southern, or ■ California Coast, where she had been planting missions, while the stretch in between, from about latitude forty-two to forty-nine degrees was declared to be open to traders or settlers of either nation. It must be noticed that at the time this division of the Pacific Coast was made by these two nations, America made no protest of any kind. Indeed, she could not; she had no right, on any grounds, to any part of that extensive coast. Two years later, through Gray's discovery of the Columbia River in 1792, America received, unofficially, a claim to territory drained by the river. The extent of the claim would depend upon who discovered the upper river. America's claim received some emphasis eighteen years later, when John Jacob Astor, a fur-trader of New York, organized the Pacific Fur Company, and sent two expeditions to the mouth of the Columbia. One went overseas in the Tonquin, one overland, with terrible sufferings, under Wilson Price Hunt. The Tonquin arrived at the Columbia in March, 1811, and at once founded Fort Astoria. The badly managed overland party did not arrive until February, 1812. Washington Irving's well-known story of Astoria is fairly correct in its story of such events as the founding of Astoria, in the sufferings of the overland party, and in its purely descriptive work, though in the actual building of the fort it follows the blithe French- ' Canadian Franchere, who wrote for his friends at home, and the actual difficulties of that feat are underrated. The recital of Alexander Ross, a somber, literal Scotchman, is much more correct. Both accounts are to be found in the Early Western Travels series, edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites. [239] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON But Washington Irving is not correct in his Astoria on anything which touches the rivalry between the British and the Americans for the fur trade. He practically worked in collaboration with Astor, brings out none of that miserly genius's mistakes, and blames all difficulties and the final failure upon the 1 treachery" of the American partners. Years of careful study of documents, letters, etc., as well as a thorough knowledge of the Columbia River, have convinced the writer that there was no treachery in the sale. The Nor'Westers, hearing through Montreal of the sailing of the Racoon, sloop of war, with the Isaac Todd, an armed supply ship, came down the Columbia with song and good cheer from Fort Spokane, to tell the Astorians of their fate. The Nor'Westers had no food and no ammunition, yet encamped just outside Fort Astoria, outnumbering the Astorian party. Most of the latter were also British subjects and in no mood to fight against their king and country for a man from whose mistakes and suspicion they had suffered so much, so the American trading party in the fort kept on as good terms with the Nor'Westers as possible. No furs were bought for nine months from the Indians by the Astorians because all trading goods had to be kept to pay the Indians for food. Ammunition was supplied to their British enemies outside, and peace was maintained to the credit of both parties. Meanwhile, Wilson Price Hunt, Astor's personal agent, was always away when most needed, and during these long months of waiting and tension, the Astorians sold Fort Astoria, with Fort Okanogan and Fort Spokane, to their rivals. The bargain was not to be closed until Hunt's return, and although he objected at the start to the sale, yet as soon as he realized the hopelessness of their position, he assented both to the sale and the prices. This is a fact which Irving ignores, if indeed he knew it; but the journal of Alexander Henry, in the volumes known as the Thompson-Henry Journals, brings out the point clearly. J|j| The Tonquin had been blown up by the Indians in Clayoquot harbor; the Beaver, by reason of an over-cautious captain, never returned; the Lark was wrecked in the South Seas; a fourth ship, about to be sent out, had to be withheld. So with no ship, and with no means of getting their furs across two thousand miles of savage- haunted deserts, with trading goods growing scarce, with little ammunition and no food except what could be secured from the Indians l>40] BRIEF HISTORY FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES with payments of trading goods, their position was hopeless. Fran- chere's argument of easy escape is childish. No one can stand at the mouth of the Columbia today and not understand the hopelessness of the American position. The price paid by the North West Company for Astor's beaver was $2.00 a pound, the usual Canadian or British price. Astor claimed he should have received $5.00 per pound, which was the highest price paid in New York, as well as by the Chinese in Canton. Sea otters were sold at a sacrifice also, as well as other furs. The prices were as high as could have been obtained anywhere at auction. Astor always claimed, on all furs, the highest price paid at Canton, China. But the Astorians were three thousand miles from China, across a stormy ocean, with no ship, and with a naval war in progress. Values at Canton and among the helpless partners at Astoria, were necessarily not the same, even omitting the expense it would have been to get the furs across the ocean—the cost of crews and traders, food, time, etc., and danger of capture as a prize — and the claim is absurd. One of the strongest proofs of the helplessness of the Americans was that the Canadian traders had not only their furs, but their fears. The journal of Alexander Henry, the Younger, shows that had an American ship appeared after the sale the Canadians could not have saved their furs. In a letter to the secretary of state in later years Astor claimed that the men had all become naturalized. That was utterly untrue, and the statement only made to secure himself from criticism, as he knew, when he engaged them and contracted with them, that war between the two countries was imminent. Other statements, of similar nature, do not bear investigation. However, to go back two years, in that first summer of 1811, after the Tonquin had gone north, never to return, a small party went up the Columbia to found an interior trading post. This was Fort Okanogan. The following summer, 1812, the Astorians established Fort Spokane, immediately adjoining Spokane House, built in 1810 by the Canadian Company, the North West Company, of Montreal. Other explorations, without permanent results, were made by the Americans along the Snake River, and in the Willamette Valley. On the basis of these two fur posts in the upper country, the Americans claimed the entire Oregon Valley, or Columbia Valley, in the controversy over the border. Yet the British had been ahead of [241] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON the Americans on the upper Columbia. In 1807 David Thompson, geographer, astronomer, and fur-trader for the North West Company, had crossed the Canadian Rockies, after spending years in battling against its difficulties and the cowardice of his voyageurs, who were admirable boatmen but no fighters. He explored the sources of the Columbia and the country of the Pend d'Oreilles, the Coeur d'Alenes, and the Kootenais. He came farther down, and by 1810 had founded Spokane House. At the close of the war, the Canadian fur-traders were in full possession of the trade of Old Oregon, but they had no monopoly as against either British or Americans. It was a field for open competition and rivalry; still no Americans came into the country, although their ships cruised along the coast, trading in the harbors and inlets and rivers, but founding no posts and doing no inland trade. Then, in rather spectacular fashion, and only on a rather extraordinary interpretation of the Treaty of Ghent, Fort Astoria was restored to America in 1818. The diplomatic restoration was verbal, and for the fort only, not the country; later, the Americans claimed the restoration of the country, and there was no legal paper or documentary proof of the fact that only the fort had been restored. As a matter of fact, the treaty provided for the return of forts captured during the war; Astoria was bought and paid for, even though it was through fear of capture. But the North West Company did not find the Oregon country one of much profit. They were in serious difficulties with the Hudson's Bay Company in the Red River country of Canada; food and supplies and men could not be brought readily over that long, long trail from Montreal to the Pacific, including the high passes of the Canadian Rockies, and it was most expensive to send them from either Montreal or from England around the Horn to Oregon. Even without that, the trade was not well managed. The traders were always in difficulties of one kind or another with the Indians, through the lawlessness of the lower classes of servants, which made it difficult for small parties to be sent out, and hard to coax the Indians into hunting for pelts. The climate of Astoria was not good: the dampness mildewed the furs and the clothing; the mud seemed bottomless; the chilly, gray, foggy days depressed the hungry, discontented men. Officers of the company at Fort William were almost disposed to give up the country, when, in 1818, they sent out Donald McKenzie [242] BRIEF HISTORY FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES with special powers, and he at once changed loss into profit. He had been one of Astor's partners and could have given him valuable assistance, as he was an experienced trader and possessed of remarkable control over the Indians; but Astor's jealousy and suspicions gave him no place of authority and was one element in the failure of the Astorians. Meanwhile, owing to the Red River troubles, Parliament ordered the North West Company, of Montreal, and the Hudson's Bay Company of London to merge. This was done completely in 1821, under the name of the older and more famous company, and the fur trade of all British North America and Oregon reorganized. In 1824, having reorganized the service elsewhere, George Simpson, Governor in North America, afterwards Sir George, came down the Columbia River one rainy November day with the new chief trader, later chief factor, Dr. John McLoughlin, an experienced trader, a trained physician, and a man also of remarkable character and abilities. Their immediate decision was to place their central fort in a better location, and the prairies opposite the mouth of the Willamette River were selected for the new post. The climate was drier and sunnier, the soil adapted for the raising of grain and vegetables, the fort accessible to their ocean-going ships and yet ninety miles nearer the tribes of the upper country than Astoria, or Fort George, as they called it after the sale. Here, on the upper prairie, nearly a mile from the river, was built the first Fort Vancouver, beginning in the late winter of 1824, and early spring of 1825. Shortly after, about 1828, finding themselves too far from the water, both for personal use as well as shipping, the fort was removed to the lower prairie, almost on the river bank, now partly occupied by Columbia Barracks, at Vancouver, Washington. This second fort was the one so well known to American settlers, missionaries, and pioneers. Meanwhile, the United States, as shown by diplomatic papers, did not intend to give up this country on the western coast. America did not expect to occupy it herself, and even so late as 1844, after thousands of settlers had gone there, United States senators said on the floor of Congress that a separate nation must needs settle there, because of the vast stretch of plains and mountains between | the States" and the Pacific, but it must be one of American form of government, American ideals, and American sympathies. California [243] - EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON belonged to Mexico until within a year of the settling of the boundary problem. Year after year, one Senator or another brought into Congress a bill for the " occupation of the Oregon " which received more or less discussion, but failed. The Missouri senators were most vigorous in this, because Missouri was interested in the fur trade, and their jealousy was bitter toward Great Britain's success in getting it. Feeling at that time was very bitter towards the British on all points. Senator Benton's false statements made in Congress, his charges that the British were murdering thousands of American trappers and traders, that they were instigating the Indians against the Americans, that they were claiming a country which was indisputably American, came near bringing America into a third war with Great Britain, and almost every statement he made, based on the allegations of jealous traders themselves, are now shown by original documents to have been entirely false. Senator Lynn tried to carry the Oregon bill, because, as his congressional friends frankly admitted, his re-election depended upon his efforts in this direction, and he had no other means of earning his living than that of senator. He was a likable man, breezy and friendly, and his senatorial friends wanted to help him earn his living, so many of them, on one occasion, voted for his bill, though it was in defiance of the treaty with Great Britain. America said " Oregon " in those days and thought of the Columbia River and Astoria and Robert Gray, as well as the fur-traders who had sailed up and down the coast; Great Britain said " Oregon " and thought of Mackenzie and Hearn and Frazer, of Captain Cook and Vancouver who explored Puget Sound in 1792, and of Meares and Portlock and Dixon. One country thought of the lower one-third, the other of the northern two-thirds. Each said | Oregon." The geography of the country was little known. No wonder each country was surprised at the claims of the other. Even before 1822, however, Great Britain gave up all claim to Oregon south of the Columbia River. In 1818, at the time that Fort Astoria was restored, she had entered into a " joint-occupancy 1 treaty with the United States, by which it was decided to allow traders and trappers and settlers and fishing vessels to trade or settle in the country, whether British or American, because they could not decide the possession of the country. This treaty was for ten years. In 1827 it was repeated, this time indefinitely, either country to ena [244] BRIEF HISTORY FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES it by a year's notice. This cleared things up, because the two other countries which had had claims, had surrendered them to the United States. Spain surrendered all those under the Nootka Sound Convention when she sold the Floridas in 1819; and Spain had claimed Oregon to the far north, except as limited or left undetermined by that Convention. France had had rights of contiguity, because Oregon lay immediately west of Louisiana, but those had passed to the United States in 1803, when she sold old-time Louisiana. Now suddenly, in 1821, Russia appeared, claiming Oregon, and the North Pacific as a closed sea. This was settled by treaties between Russia and Great Britain, and Russia and America, in 1824 and 1825, by which the Czar accepted fifty-four degrees and forty minutes as his southern boundary, and left Great Britain and America to settle the division of the coast between them. But it was the Spanish claims (even though limited yet left unsettled by the Nootka Sound Convention) sold to the United States, and also this treaty with Russia, that led the American people—that is, the people as a whole — to believe that American rights extended into the far north. That led, in 1845, to the cry, " Fifty-four forty, or fight!" It would have been a most unrighteous war for America, for she had no more right, either by discovery, exploration, or settlement, to the northern section of the Old Oregon country than she had to the British Isles. Her rightful claims were all south of the forty-ninth parallel, and the best informed men knew this. Even in 1818, again in 1824, and again in 1827, America had offered Great Britain the boundary line of the forty-ninth parallel — just where it is today — because America wanted the great harbors of Puget Sound; otherwise the forty-eighth parallel might have been offered, for we had no real right north of that. The harbors were a commercial necessity and the country was determined to have them. It will be seen, therefore, since Great Britain before 1822 gave up all claim to the country south of the Columbia, and America from 1818 on until 1845 made no claim to anything north of latitude forty-nine degrees, that Oregon never was in danger of being lost, as a whole. The only section of the whole country about which there was any dispute at all was that south and west of the Columbia River, as it winds and turns like a pair of stairs through the state; that is, [245] — EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON the only section at stake was the western half of the present state of Washington. The number of men who " saved Oregon " has been increasing as rapidly as the vast amount of furniture which came over in the Mayflower. No one saved Oregon, because Oregon was never in danger of being lost. Only half a present-day state was in dispute, and from 1815 onwards there was no chance of that being given up for the statesmen, as their letters and papers show, were determined to have those harbors on Puget Sound. The Columbia was a " barred river," and unsafe during much of the year. San Francisco harbor belonged to Mexico. The tradition of "Whitman saved Oregon'' grew out of fear. Webster did, at one time, think that he would give up any claim to the Puget Sound ports if Mexico could be induced to give up the harbor of San Francisco. His opinions on this subject were the same after Whitman visited Washington, D. C.—whether he saw Webster or not is not the question — as they were before Whitman left Oregon. There was a rumor of a " trade," and popular opinion said Webster was planning to trade Oregon for the fishing rights of the Northeast Coast. There was no truth in this. American fur-traders did not appear in the Oregon country until well into the 1820s, when they trapped through the Snake River countries, and finally, by 1827, reached Fort Flathead on the northern Flathead River. Then others came, but only on trading trips. Nathaniel J. Wyeth, a Cambridge man, came in 1832, going directly to the heart of things by making his way to Fort Vancouver. He had high hopes and great enthusiasm, no experience, a small, borrowed capital, and plans which looked well on paper. He had a few followers as inexperienced as himself, some of whom deserted him en route, the rest immediately upon their arrival in Oregon. Their arrival at Fort Vancouver was late in the fall, a most interesting story, but never yet published. His ship, due in the Columbia River, had been wrecked in the South Seas. He was dependent upon the generous hospitality of Dr. McLoughlin, and the fine character of both men is shown in the warm friendship between them, lasting long after Wyejth's return to the East, although Wyeth had gone into the Oregon country to overturn the great English company if he could, or at least to compete for the fur trade. Wyeth, as stated, had a small borrowed capital. The Hudson's Bay Company was an immensely wealthy corporation, managed on £246] BRIEF HISTORY FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES military lines, with a thousand trained men at the posts and on the trails between Hudson's Bay and the Pacific Ocean, a company which allowed seven years to elapse, in their monetary estimates, between the time when trading goods were purchased until the furs bought by those goods were in their hands and sold. No individual, without knowledge of the trade, or influence with and knowledge of the Indians, could hope to succeed; yet Wyeth's failure was charged to the sinister influence of the Hudson's Bay Company with the Indians, although they made no effort to oppose him. Noting his inexperience and seeing him foredoomed to failure, as many more experienced man had failed, they simply made friends with him and showed him every courtesy. In 1834 Wyeth returned to the Oregon, with a few men, a little experience, borrowed capital, and with plans which still looked well on paper. He had with him en route a large assortment of trading goods for American traders in the Rocky Mountains at their annual rendezvous—a feature of the fur trade well described in Irving's Bonneville. His countrymen refused to accept the goods they had ordered, or to pay for them. Wyeth, thus thrown upon his own resources, built Fort Hall, near the present Fort Hall, stocked it as best he could, left a few men in charge to trade with the Indians, and passed on to his English rivals and friends in the Oregon country. With him, on this journey, was Jason Lee and his nephew, Daniel Lee, the Methodist missionaries who settled immediately in the Willamette. Wyeth found his ship safely in the Columbia this time, but luck was against him. He was too late for the salmon run, and he was depending entirely on salmon profits now. Waiting until the next year, the run was only half as large as usual, and the indolent Indians had all they could do to catch enough for their own winter supplies without bothering with a stranger. The Hudson's Bay Company neither raised their prices for fish, nor lowered them on trading goods. All documents and even private letters show that they gave him a square deal. Yet Wyeth's failure was charged by Americans to British efforts to hold Oregon for the British crown; though the British crown was at that time refusing permission to Canadians to colonize in Oregon. Meanwhile, the Lees settled in the Willamette Valley, receiving [247] \— EARLY. DAYS IN OLD OREGON every assistance and kindness from Fort Vancouver, and a few years later numerous additions were made to the mission, even though a fever of preceding years had almost wiped out the Indians in the valley. Jason Lee's unpublished defense of himself states clearly that he looked upon this body of missionaries as an American colony, intended to hold the country for America. Good farms received more attention from them than actual mission work, yet the mission exercized a good religious influence, so to speak, was a religious center for the white settlers when they came in, and later became an academy. Politically, however, this mission made much trouble. Jealous of the British, fearing lest the attractive country with its open, pleasant prairies and its forested tracts — for the Willamette is today a charming country—should fall to the British, Americans sent petition after petition to Congress, urging it to extend the laws of the United States over the country, and making many serious misrepresentations against Fort Vancouver and alleged British ambitions, while refraining from acknowledging the cordial and unlimited assistance in credit and supplies given them by the agents of the British Company. They appealed for aid against the Indians " and others who would do them harm." In 1836 Marcus Whitman, the devoted missionary of Waiilatpu, with his charming, devoted wife, with Dr. and Mrs. Spalding, and W. H. Gray, a carpenter (the author of perhaps the most malicious history ever written), came over the plains, and settled among a noble type of Indians near Fort Walla Walla. They devoted themselves to their work, receiving their reward eleven years later in death at the hands of the Indians, because the angry tribesmen believed themselves about to be wiped out by the disease brought into the country by the throngs of immigrants. The massacre came, be it noted, after the firm hand of control exercised by the Hudson's Bay Company had been lifted by the Treaty of 1846. The Indians knew then that the Americans, whom they hated, were to have their country. It was Peter Skeen Ogden, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, who, taking trading goods from the Company's post at Fort Vancouver, went up the Columbia, at the risk of his life, and almost single-handed forced the Indians to give up nearly three score captives, doomed to death or slavery. The letter of acknowledgment from the provisional government at Oregon City admits this fact. [248] BRIEF HISTORY FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES Meanwhile, the Willamette Valley was being settled. By 1838 and 1839, American "mountain men" — trappers from the Rocky Mountains — with their Indian wives and little half-breed children, drifted into the Willamette Valley, for the fur-bearing animals of the Rocky Mountains had become practically annihilated. The 1840s saw the beginning of a stream of genuine settlers crossing the plains, the prairies, and the mountains, with their white-winged schooners, their ox-teams tugging at the heavy loads while the black ox-goad sang in their ears. Many of the newcomers, reaching Oregon late in the fall, had all they could do to shelter their heads and feed their families during the winter, and but for the generous help given them by the blue- eyed, rosy-cheeked, white-haired man in charge of Fort Vancouver, they could not have survived their first few months of hardship in this chilly, rainy climate, after the strain of long months in crossing the continent. Many did go on to the Sandwich Islands and to California, some having changed their route while crossing the plains, and others drifted down from the north dissatisfied with the more gloomy northern climate. The ill reports of Oregon brought down into California by hundreds of these immigrants, reaching the ears of British consuls and vice-consuls there, as well as in the Sandwich Islands — which was the rendezvous for every ship in the Pacific and a general center of gossip — led to representations to the British Foreign Office by their own subordinates that Oregon was not worth fighting for, that it was better to give up part of the country than to quarrel over it. Many of these immigrants in the Willamette claimed that they came to " save Oregon " — came because of their love for their native land. Knowing before they came that they could get a mile square of good farming land for the asking, perhaps with some of them the word "native" might be left out. Such a man as Peter H. Burnett, for instance, one of the finest characters who came to Oregon, admitted frankly he came for the land. He was heavily in debt in Missouri, his family shaking with chills and fever, there was no trade, and his only chance for getting financially on his feet again was his arrangement with his creditors that he be allowed to come to Oregon and take up all the land allowed for himself, his wife, and each of his several children — a tremendous tract of fertile country to be had simply for the taking. [ 249 ] EARLY. DAYS IN OLD OREGON Days were rough, as in all pioneer countries, but not nearly so rough as they were in many of the western states. Still, by 1843, the needs of laws were apparent and a provisional government was formed by the Americans, and the laws of Iowa used as a basis, until' some settlement should be made as to the border. Two years later, because of the encroachments and difficulties created by a lawless type of settler against the Hudson's Bay Company, the provisional government was re-organized so that the English Company might join in with them without losing nationality, or affecting their rights j as Englishmen. This gave the Company a certain protection, but gave also to the Americans the force of the Company's influence and » power, both in connection with their control over the Indians—as the Americans had antagonized the natives—and their trade with their I system of trading posts, as well as the fact that Fort Vancouver was a necessity to the Americans for supplies and protection. Among these early settlers were deserters from whalers, lawbreakers and fugitives from justice, old fur trappers who hated the British Company, hated the red flag of Britain's commerce which flew over that wooden-walled fort, with the white, half monogram H$ Q on the lower edge of the red folds. Such men as these threatened to drive out every man in the valley who had an Indian wife— some Americans, but chiefly French-Canadians, old servants of the Company who had tilled their farms for years and had comfortable houses—and threatened also to burn down Fort Vancouver. Some were adventurers from the Sandwich Islands. And with them all was a goodly number of the finest class of American pioneers — men determined, honest, hard-working, law-abiding, good husbands and good fathers, seeking better opportunities for themselves and better j futures for their children. Such men as these gave the predominant stamp to the country, and by their industry developed it so that it has grown at a marvelous pace, aided by its attractive scenery and delightful climate—developed it so that a few years later other desirable men, bankers, business men, the professional classes who lacked the liking for the rough edge of a pioneer's life, followed in their footsteps and built up the country. Today this Old Oregon country makes up the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Northwestern Montana, and all of British Columbia. Of all the characters which stand out in the history of early Oregon, for nobility and grandeur, the most striking is that of Dr. John [250] BRIEF HISTORY FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES McLoughlin; | the father of Oregon," as he is now called, and correctly so. Sympathy, food, clothing, seeds, ploughs, and cattle to draw the ploughs, as well as supplies of every sort were sold to the Americans at the regular Company prices over the first cost in London. Credit was long; it took years to collect some of the debts, even of honest men. Most of the Americans repaid him; others did not. McLoughlin supplied all work possible for the Americans, even glutting the shingle market at the Sandwich Islands in his efforts to help them. He was an old man when Americans knew him, imperious as his position demanded, for he kept in order, in a wild, uncivilized country, from five hundred to a thousand subordinates, many of them of the roughest type, besides controlling and holding in check eighty thousand Indians, some of whom were cannibals. Since 1829 he had picked out the falls of the Willamette as a future home, when old age should make retirement advisable—picked it out the year that Etienne Lucier, the first to settle there, was allowed to make his home in that valley. The Company were under bonds to return their men to their homes, or to the civilized world, when their engagements expired; so the Company, in order to allow these men to settle in a comfortable climate, where farming was possible and they could provide for their families, were forced to keep the men on their rolls, though without pay. This point led to much misrepresentation by the Americans. McLoughlin himself dreaded a possible return to the rigors of the climate of eastern Canada. That the hatred and misjudg- ment of Americans should have embittered his later years is a cause for keen regret, for his friendship for Americans was generous and genuine. His loss of his position was not due, as is usually stated, to his refusal to drive the Americans out of the country. It was due to differences of business judgment between him and Sir George Simpson, the Governor in North America, and to McLoughlin's personal bitterness towards Sir George for the attitude of the latter toward the death of young John McLoughlin, who was killed by his men at the fur post at Stikene, now Alaska. It was a disgrace to the Company as Sir George saw it; but it was a terrible blow to the father.* This summary is brief indeed, but the history of Oregon is the * For details of these differences, see "Dr. McLoughlin's last letter," American Historical Review, October, 1915. [251] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON most romantic history of any section of the United States, and the fascination of it lies in the fact that the old history still echoes through the forests and along the broad streams of the country, and gleams in the snowy peaks. The grandchildren of many a man who helped to settle the Old Oregon country are still young people, barely out of school. Some of a younger generation are still mere children in school. It is but right they should know its early history. [252] BIBLIOGRAPHY Bancroft, Hubert Howe. History of the Northwest Coast. 2 vols. San Francisco, 1884. I A very comprehensive history of the Pacific Northwest, from the days of its imaginary geography to the end of joint occupation in 1846. Important for historical work on account of footnotes and citations of authorities, but presupposes a fair knowledge of the history. A bibliography of seventeen pages contains references to many manuscripts as well as to rare books. History of Oregon. 2 vols. San Francisco, 1888. Vol. 1 covers 1834-1848, and vol. 2, 1848-1888. The first volume, beginning with the period just prior to the coming of the missionaries, covers in detail the events of the next fourteen years, both secular and clerical. The founding of all of the early missions in Old Oregon, Catholic and Protestant, is given in detail. The second volume, beginning with the close of the joint occupation, covers more narrowly the history of the present Oregon. Native Races of the Pacific States of North America. 5 vols. San Francisco. Vol. 1, wild tribes; vol. 2, civilized nations; vol. 3, myths and languages; vol. 4, antiquities; vol. 5, primitive history. Volumes 1 and 3 are of value in the study of the tribes on the Columbia and along the Pacific coast. Chapters 2 to 5 of vol. 3 give brief summaries of a number of Northwestern myths and legends. Washington, Idaho, and Montana, 1845-1889. San Francisco, 1890. A brief history of Washington, beginning with the end of joint occupation in 1846, and ending with statehood in 1889. The history of Washington comprises 392 pages, but only 300 are history proper. Footnotes^ citations, and a bibliography of ten pages make it of unusual value to the historian. Bourne, Edward Gaylord. Essays in Historical Criticism. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1901. The first essay, covering pages 3-109, is entitled "The Legend of Marcus Whitman." In it are given parallel accounts of the Spalding and the Gray narratives so far as they touch upon the purpose of Whitman's famous ride. It is a very clear statement of the anti-Whitman side. [253] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON Cox, Ross. Adventures on the Columbia River: A Narrative of Six Years' Residence on the Western Side of the Rocky Mountains. This gives much about the life of the Indian tribes, but is not suitable reading for any but adults. Denny, Arthur A. Pioneer Days on Puget Sound. Alice Harri- man Co., Seattle, 1908. 103 pp. $2.00. Incidents of early pioneer life, especially the founding of Seattle and the settlement on the Sound. Especially useful for early Seattle history. The present edition is a reprint. Denny, Emily Inez. Blazing the Way: True Stories, Songs, and Sketches of Puget Sound and Other Pioneers. Rainier Printing Co., Seattle, 1909. 504 pp. $2.50. Home life in the earliest days on the Sound, as related by the daughter of one of the pioneers who founded Seattle. The author is not a trained writer, but the book contains details which are of real value as a record of the early days. More than half the book is given up to a biographical account of David T. Denny. Eells, Rev. Myron. Marcus Whitman, Pathfinder and Patriot. Alice Harriman Co., Seattle, 1909. 347 pp. $2.50. This is distinctly the best book on the pro-Whitman side. The tone is moderate and Dr. Eells does not hesitate to state that many assertions made by both Spalding and Gray are incorrect. The author is the son of the Rev. Cushing Eells, who, as head of the Spokane mission, knew Whitman personally and worked with him in the mission field. The descriptions given in Mrs. Whitman's letters of the crossing of the continent and the Green River rendezvous are unusually good. The religious side is rather prominent, but the book is entertaining. The type is large. The index is inadequate. Franchere, Gabriel. Voyage to the Northwest Coast, 1811-1814. Reprinted in Thwaites' Early Western Travels. Is a cheery, bright account, written for friends, of the founding of Astoria, its sale, and the author's journey home. He was in Oregon only with the Astorians. Holman, Frederick V. Dr. John McLoughlin, the Father of Oregon. A. H. Clark Co., Cleveland, 1907. 286 pp. $2.50. A description of Fort Vancouver, the habits of life there, but especially a careful study of Dr. McLoughlin and his influence over the Indians and his relation to the development of Old Oregon. The biographical section occupies little more than half the book, the remainder being an appendix of illustrative documents. Good index. The book is carefully written, but the description of life at old Fort Vancouver is rather colorless. It could well be supplemented by Mrs. Victor's River of the West. [254] I BIBLIOGRAPHY Howard, Major O. O. Nez Perce Joseph: An Account of his Ancestors, his Lands, his Confederates, his Enemies, his Murders, his War, his Pursuit, and Capture. Lee & Shepherd, Boston, 1881. 274 pp. $2.50. The sub-title covers the scope of the book, which is written with crisp- ness and force. Much attention, of course, is paid to the Nez Perce war and the military operations. There is no index, but the chapter headings are detailed. Humphrey, Seth K. The Indian Dispossessed. Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1906. Revised edition. 297 pp. $MO. A warm defense of the red man and a criticism of the government's treatment of its wards, not only in putting them upon reservations, with defective management, but in shifting them from one reservation to another to meet the demands of the white settlers. Pays especial attention to the Umatillas, the Nez Perces, and the Flatheads of the Bitter Root Valley. Irving, Washington. The Adventures of Captain Bonneville. Hudson edition. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. 517 pp. $1.50. A picturesque but reliable account of the life of trappers and traders when the fur trade was at its height. The edition above is a very serviceable one. Astoria: Or Anecdotes of an Enterprise Beyond the Rocky Mountains. Hudson edition. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 676 pp. $1.50, A charmingly written account of fur trading days in the Pacific Northwest, but especially of the Astor expeditions by sea and overland. Both Astoria and the Adventures of Captain Bonneville are now regarded as not overdrawn. Recent study of northwestern history discredits the charges formerly made, that Irving's writings on the Northwest are somewhat fanciful. Fur Traders of the Columbia River and the Rocky Mountains. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 90c. This is really an abridgment of Astoria and Captain Bonneville, told in one straight story for children. It gains in directness by the abridgment, but loses in charm of style. Judson, Katharine B., comp. Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest, Especially of Washington and Oregon. 40 illustrations. A. C. McClurg & Co. $1.50. Fifty-two legends, including the creation of the world, the origin of daylight, theft of fire, the Columbia River and the bridge of the gods, Takhoma, the chinook wind, and legends of coyote and the salmon. The legends are authentic, many being direct translations from the Indian by government ethnologists. [255] ■ EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON Subject Index to the History of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, as Found in the United States Government Documents, Congressional Series, in the American State Papers, and in Other Documents, 1789 to 1881. Washington State Library, Olympia, Wash. Besides being an index to documents purely political, the cross references make this index important on economic and social materials. Under "Indians, Manners and Customs," will be found much of value on any part of the Oregon country. Laut, Agnes C. The Story of the Trapper. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1902. 284 pp. $1.25. Miss Laut gives a vivid picture of the life and the perils of the trappers, with numerous incidents. The book is well worth reading and is, in general, accurate, but trappers have bitterly resented the characterization she has given them as lawless and immoral. Part of this difference of opinion is due to the fact that the author and the trappers represent two stages of civilization, and part to the fact that she has stated the case against the trappers rather too strongly. Vikings of the Pacific: The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward. The Macmillan Company, 1905. 368 pp. $2.00. Part 1, the early Russian explorers beginning with Behring, who discovered and explored the northern Pacific coast to 54' 40". Fart 2, The American and English explorers; Drake, Cook, Gray, Led- yard, and Vancouver. Part 3, The fur trade, especially as carried- on by the Russians. Large type, attractive make-up, and entertaining reading. The book as a whole is not reliable, because the imaginative touch which Miss Laut adds destroys its value as authentic history. The index is satisfactory. Lewis, Albert Buell. Tribes of the Columbia Valley and the Coast of Washington and Oregon. Vol. I, part 2, Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association. New Era Printing Co., Lancaster, Pa., 1906. 204 pp. 65c, paper. Takes up the life and customs of the "canoe Indians" almost exclusively. The treatment is brief but authoritative. The bibliography, however, includes works on the Indians of Northern California. Lewis, William, and Clark, Merriwether. Journals. History of an Expedition . ... to the Source of the Missouri River, Thence Across the Rocky Mountains and Down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean During the Years 1804-1806. The best of the cheaper editions is probably the 3-volume edition of A. S. Barnes & Co., New York, 1904, at $1.00 each. This is edited by John Bach McMaster. The most serviceable edition is probably that edited by James K. Hosmer, in z volumes, published by A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 190a, $3.00. The [256] BIBLIOGRAPHY type is large, the paper of good quality, and the detailed headings to each chapter are very useful. The most scholarly edition, with the original spelling, is the 4-volume edition edited by Dr. Elliott Coues, published by Frances P. Harper, New York, 1883, at $12.50. Few small libraries, however, would find this a practicable edition. Lord, William Rogers. A First Book Upon the Birds of Oregon and Washington. Revised edition. J. K. Gill Co., Portland, Ore. 297 pp. 75c. Intended primarily for children and young people, but would do very good service for any one just beginning to study the birds of this section. The photographic illustrations are of little value. The type is good and the book small enough to slip into the pocket. Lyman, William D. The Columbia River; Its History, its Myths, its Scenery, and its Commerce. With 80 illustrations and a map. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1909. 409 pp. $3.50. A description of "the land where the river flows," followed by early explorations, Indian legends, the fur traders, and the occupation of Old Oregon. Part II is a pleasing description of delightful exploring and camping trips. The book is well printed and well illustrated, with good index. The author is professor at Whitman College, and has spent his life along the Columbia River. Marshall, William I. History vs. the Whitman-Saved-Oregon Story. Three essays toward a true history of the acquisition of the Old Oregon territory. Blakeley Printing Co., Chicago, 1902. 236 pp. 50c cloth, 25c paper. Chapter 1, "Strange Treatment of Original Resources" (reprinted from Oregonian of September 3, 1902), is a very critical review of Mowry's Marcus Whitman and the Early Days of Oregon. The review includes also a thorough discussion of original sources. Chapter 2, "Dr. Eells' Search (?) for Truth," being a review of Myron Eells' reply to chapter 1, as published in the Oregonian. Chapter 3 is a discussion of Professor Bourne's paper. Mr. Marshall was the first man to attack the Whitman-saved-Oregon story, by comparing the facts as stated by Spalding and Gray with the voluminous correspondence of Whitman himself, Mrs. Whitman, and others. He had himself believed the story, he states, and delivered many lectures in high praise of Whitman's heroic ride to save Oregon. This book is very necessary to any library for its thorough discussion of the question. The Acquisition of Oregon. This is carefully worked out, not only to give the history of Oregon, but to disprove the Whitman-saved-Oregon myth. It is the best book on the anti-Whitman side as Eells' work is the best pro-Whitman work. Both are fairly good Oregon histories as taken from secondary sources and imperfect [257] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON and biased primary sources. Neither one does justice to the Hudson Baj| Company, and neither pays any attention to the British side of the Oregon controversy. Mason, Otis T. Basket Work of North American Aborigines. National Museum Report, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C, 1894. This is the standard work on basketry. Cradles of the North American Aborigines; Head-flattening in Oregon; Cradles of Oregon and Alaska. National Museum Report, Smithsonian Institution, 1887. Human Beasts of Burden; Yokes and Carrying Baskets of the Oregon Country and Alaska. National Museum Report, Smithsonian Institution, 1887. Meeker, Ezra. Pioneer Reminiscences of Puget Sound. The Tragedy of Leschi. Seattle, 1909. 840 pp. Personal memories of early experiences by one who came over the Trail* in 1853, settling first in the forests on the Columbia River and later on Puget Sound. The chapter, "Cruise on Puget Sound," gives a very good description of the Sound, alive with Indian canoes, while Olympia was hardly more than a name, Tacoma an unnamed camping ground, and Seattle a few log cabins clustered around a sawmill. A good description of a trip through the Nachess Pass is given. The account given of the Indian wars of 1855-56 is biased, the blame for the war being shouldered upon Governor Stevens. The attitude of the writer toward the Indians, and especially toward Leschi, on the other hand, is unusually sympathetic. C. B. Bagley's "In the Beginning" occupies the last 100 pages. Parkman, Francis. The Oregon Trail. Illustrated by Frederic Remington. Little, Brown & Co., 1906. 411 pp. $2.00. As Parkman never crossed the Rocky Mountains, his vivid descriptions end with Fort Bent, yet a knowledge of the Trail as it wound over the plains is essential to a knowledge of the history of the Northwest. For charm of style and beauty of description, the volume can never be equalled, since the old days of the Trail have passed away. The book is popular with boys. There are many editions, from 75c upwards, but the one mentioned above is very attractive and a serviceable library edition. Phelps, Rear-Admiral T. S. Reminiscences of Seattle During the Indian War of 1855-56. Alice Harriman Co., 1908. 48 pp. 60c. An officer on the Decatur during the Indian attack, Admiral Phelps gives a detailed description of the entire affair. Originally published in the United States Magazine, this account of the battle seems to have been the basis for nearly all others. [258] BIBLIOGRAPHY Prosch, Charles. Reminiscences of Washington Territory; Scenes, Incidents, and Reflections of the Pioneer Period on Puget Sound. Seattle, 1904. 123 pp. This book of reminiscences, like others, will be of increasing value as time passes, if the early history of the Northwest is to be preserved. This volume is of especial interest to Seattle and other cities on the Sound. Ross, Alexander. Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813. Reprinted in Thwaite's Early Western Travels. Is a sombre and literal account, probably more accurate than Franchere's, and fully as interesting, although less blythe. Schafer, Joseph. History of the Pacific Northwest. The Mac- millan Company, 1905. 288 pp. $1.25. A very readable book, of attractive make-up, with large type and many illustrations. Brief but reliable, and one of the best books for general use. Spinden, Herbert J. The Nez Perce Indians. Vol. 2, part 3, Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association. Lancaster, Pa. 1908. 274 pp. 65c paper. A monograph on this tribe which treats of their life and customs, weapons, ornaments, basketry, etc. The book is authoritative and of especial value in historical work. Illustrations are chiefly of utensils, basketry designs, and ornaments. Clear type and heavy paper. Stevens, Hazard. Life of Isaac I. Stevens. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1900. 2 vols. $5.00. Not only a well-written story of the life of Governor Stevens, but a very necessary book for any study of the Indian wars in Washington. Is of especial importance on account of the councils, particularly the great Walla Walla council incident to the signing of the treaties of 1855. Entertaining also in its bits of description of the primitiveness of official life in Washington. A very value reference book for Washington libraries. Sudworth, George B. Forest Trees of the Pacific Slope. Washington, 1908. 441 pp. 65c paper. Address, Superintendent of Documents. The usual publisher's price for this beautifully illustrated book would probably have been $$.50 or more. The descriptions are clear, the locations are given exactly. Through the "Index of Common and Scientific Names" any tree may be identified. The book is well sewn, opens flat, but will need more protection than the paper cover. It is a book which every library can afford and will need. I [259] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON Victor, Mrs. Frances F. River of the West; Life and Adventures in the Rocky Mountains and Oregon. 1870. A biography of Joseph Meek, one of the most picturesque of the "mountain men." Meek wandered from the great plains to the coast, and many of the stories of the old trapper's fights with Blackfeet and Shoshonea are told in his own words. The book is now out of print, but worth securing for the graphic pictures of frontier and pioneer life. The Early Indian Wars of Oregon, Compiled from Oregon Archives and Other Original Sources, with Muster Rolls. State printer, Salem, Ore., 1894. 7°° PP* Mrs. Victor was commissioned by the legislature of Oregon with the recording of the early wars in Old Oregon. The book covers the Cayuse war, the Rogue River wars, and the Yakima war. Footnotes and citations are given. Personal experiences are given to the exclusion of purely military tactics, and the book gains thereby in human interest. Chapter headings are analyzed, and the index is very complete. Wheeler, Olin D. The Trail of Lewis and Clark. With 200 illustrations. 2 vols. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904. $6.00. A most entertaining account of a journey over the trail of Lewis and Clark one hundred years later. Quotations from the journals of the famous expedition, location of the trails and camps, with careful photographic work, make these volumes also of great value. The type is large, the paper of good quality, and the illustrations clear. The index is very complete and well analyzed. Winthrop, Theodore. The Canoe and the Saddle. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. 375 pp. $1.50. A whimsical, entertaining account of a trip made in 1853 by canoe and horseback, from Port Townsend, on Puget Sound, along the Columbia and across the mountains. The hardships and perils of the trip are almost concealed by the pervading humor of the author, who occasionally had to trust to his horse's heels and his Colt revolver for his personal safety. Winthrop is credited with having first learned from the natives the Indian name for the Sound, and for the doubly-named mountain—Whulge, and Takhoma. [260] INDEX Alki Point, 188, 193 America, British ship, 162, 163 Apples, the first in the Oregon country, 110-112 Astor, John Jacob, 50, 239 Astoria, building of the post, 47-57; abandoned, 96; sold to North West Company, 239, 240; restored to United States, 242 Astorians, and Okanogan, 56, 60; and Fort Spokane, 66 Barkeley, Captain, 16, 237 Beaver, arrives at Astoria, 54 Bellingham, 183 Bitter Root Mountains, 38, 44 Blue Mountains, 138, 139 Bonneville, Irving's, 247 "Brigade of Boats," 72; annual arrival at Fort Vancouver, 101-104 Catlin, the artist, and prairie fire, 134-136 Children, life of the pioneer, 197-204 Clarke, of the Astoria Company, 66 Coal, discovery of, 183 Columbia, Kendrick's and Gray's ship, 19, 25; first across the Columbia River bar, 25-30 Columbia River, bar, 18, 42, 47; bar crossed by Captain Gray, 25-30; river, 29, 30, 32, 40, 45, 60; and Fort Vancouver, 97-101; and settlers, 141; forests of the, 163; lumbering on, 181 Cook, Captain, adventures along the Oregon coast, 5-12, 27, 237 Dalles, The, 60, 95, 141 Decatur, warship, 218 Denny, David, pioneer, 188, 189 Discovery, Captain Cook's ship, 5 Early settlers, types of, 250 Early Western Travels, 239 "Fifty-four-forty or fight," 156, 245 First white man's ship, 1-4 Franchere, story of the Northwest, 239 Furs, secured by Captain Cook's men, 9, 10; a race for, 66-71; and climate, 96; early prices for, 241 Fur-trading, 11, 13, 17, 97; "Brigade of Boats" and, 101-104; mountain trade ended, 130; beginnings of, 237, 238; and Indians, 242 Ganzevoort, Captain, of the Decatur, 219 George, Fort, 72, 83 Gold, discovery in California, 168, 178; in Oregon, 184 Good Hope, brig, 238 Gordon, Captain, of the America, 162, 163 Gray, Captain Robert, 12; sails over the Columbia River bar, 19, 25-30, 44, 47> *44». 238, 239 Great Britain, opinion of Oregon, 165, 249; gives up claims to Oregon, 244, 245 Hall, Fort, 116, 117, 127, 137 Hiaqua shell, 228, 229 "Home ship" from England, arrival at Fort Vancouver, 104 Hudson's Bay Company, 96, 147, 149; and the Indians, 217 Immigrants, coming of the, 95; experiences on the Nachess Pass route, 167-177, 249 Indians, Walla Walla treaty with, 205-215; how they lived, 224-234 Indian war, 214; battle of Seattle, 216-223 Ingraham, Captain, of the Good Hope, 238 Irving, Washington, Astoria, 239, 240; Bonneville, 247 [261] EARLY DAYS IN OLD OREGON Joint Occupancy Treaty of 1818, 147, 151, 159, 244 Kendrick, Captain John, of the Columbia, and Lady Washington, 19, 25, 238 Lady Washington, Gray's and Kendrick's ship, 19, 25 Laramie, Fort,. 127 Lee, Rev. Daniel, 123, 149 Lee, Rev. Jason, 123, 149, 248 Lewis and Clark Expedition, 30, 31- 46, 145 Lumbering in Oregon, 164, 165, 168, 178, 179, 181, 188 McDougall, Duncan, 52, 54, 55 McKenzie, Alexander, fur trader, 144 McKenzie, Donald, of the North West Company, 83, 96, 243 McLoughlin, Dr. John, takes charge of Oregon Country fur trade, 97- 109, 243; life at Fort Vancouver, 104—109, in; welcomes missionaries, 122, and immigrants, 142; and the provisional government, 158; dealings with the Indians, 217; character and work, 250, 251 Meares, Captain John, 11, at Nootka Sound, 13-21, 22, 27, 32, 237, 238 Meek, Jo, trapper, 130 Metal, value to Indians, 3, 9 Missionaries, coming of the, 94; adventures of the Whitmans, 113-126 Missouri, Great Falls of the, 33; the river, 32, 33, 36 Modeste, English warship, 160, 161 Nachess Pass, immigrant adventures by the, 167-177 Nootka Sound, 7, n, 13, 32; Convention, 239, 245 Northwest America, launching of the, 19-21, 22, 25 Northwest Coast, early discoveries, 238 North West Company, 56, 58, 59, 96, 147; buys Astoria, 240, 241; merges with the Hudson's Bay Company, 243 Ogden, Peter Skeen, rescues whites from Indians, 125, 248 Okanogan, Fort, 56, 60, 241 Olympia, 185, 186 Oregon, of the early days, 32, 145, 154; who owned, 143-166; Joint Occupancy Treaty, 147, 151, 159; American Provisional Government, ^j 158; and Whitman, 154, 155; and Webster, 155, 156; reputation in England, 165, 249; boundary line settlement, 161, 162, 166, 167; lunv bering in, 164, 165, 168; beginning of cities, 178-187; pioneer explorers, 188-196; life of the pioneer children, 197-204; bills for occupation of, 244, 248; indeterminate boundaries of, 244; Spanish and Russian claims, 245 Oregon City, 179 Oregon Trail, the, 124, 127-142 Pacific Fur Company, 50 Pioneer, settlers, 150-152; experiences, 167-177, 188-196, 200, 201; children, 197-204 Portland, 180, 181 "Potlatch," Indian custom, 232, 233 Prairie fire, 133-136 Provisional government in Oregon, 158, 250 Puget Sound country, 167; timber, 182; first treaties, 205; productions, 205, 206; Indians of, 217 Resolution, Captain Cook's ship, 5 Rio San Roque, 6 "River of the West," 7, 28, 40 Rocky Mountains, 38, 116 Ross, Alexander, with the Astorians, 50; adventures at Okanogan, 58-65; with North West Company, 72; story of the Northwest, 239 Russia's claim to Oregon, 245 Sacajawea, the'"Bird Woman," 31, 36, 45 Sandwich Islands, 164, 178, 238 San Juan de Fuca Straits, 7, 16, 163; battle in, 22-24 "Saving Oregon," 246 Sea Otter, fur-trading ship, 237 Seattle, 182; early adventures in, 188- 196; name, 196; battle of, 216-223 Settlers, see Immigrants Shark, American warship, 161 [262] INDEX Vancouver, fur-trading point, 96; Fort, building of, 243, and Dr. McLoughlin, 96-109; and "Brigade of Boats," 101-104; arrival of "home ship," 104, 105; life in the fort, 105-107; productions at, 122; and immigrants, 142, 151, 159 Walla Walla, Fort, danger at, 83-95, 96; protection in, 127, 138, 140; city, 187; treaty council held there, 206-216 War of 1812, 72 Washington Territory, 205, 206 Webster, Daniel, and the Oregon Country, 155, 156, 246 Whitman, adventures of Rev. and Mrs., 113-126, 130, 138; and Oregon, 154, 155, 184, 248 Wilkes, Captain, 106 Willamette River, 42 Willamette Valley, missionaries settle in, 123; character and settlers, 149- 154; provisional government for, 153, 158, 249 I Wyeth, Nathaniel, 148, 149, 246, 247 "Shining Mountains," 38 Spalding, Rev. and Mrs., missionaries, 113, 118, 121,126, 130, 248 Spanish explorations, 239; claims to Oregon, 245 Spokane, city, beginnings of, 185 Spokane, Fort, 66; bought by North West Company, 72, 185 Spokane House, 242 Stevens, Isaac I., Governor, 205; and treaties, 206-216 "Stony Mountains," 36, 38 "Straits of Anian," 6 Stuart, of the Astoria Company, 60, 61, 64 Sublette, Captain William, and Indians, 129 Tacoma, 183 Terry, Lee, pioneer experiences, 188- 190 Thompson, David, 242 Thompson-Henry Journals, 240 Thorn, Captain Jonathan, of the Tonquin, 48, 52 Tonguin, 47, 48, 53, 239 Treaty making with the Indians, 206- 215 Vancouver, Captain George, 26, 27
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Original Format: University of British Columbia. Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. F880 .J93
Oregon Territory--History
Early days in Old Oregon
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