# History of Oregon (Bancroft)/Volume 1/Chapter 15

CHAPTER XV.
THE IMMIGRATION OF 1843.
The discussions in congress, and the popularity of Linn's bill with the missionary efforts herein narrated, resulted in a pronounced emigration movement. It began in 1842, when a hundred persons followed Elijah White westward. The conclusion of the Ashburton treaty in August, although it disappointed the people by not settling the Oregon boundary, was an indication that further amicable arrangements might be made in the near future, besides removing the obstruction in congress to the passage of Linn's bill.
There was at this time a large body of men in the western border states who were dissatisfied with their condition as a producing community without a market. The era of railroads had not yet dawned. New Orleans was the only outlet for the country bordering on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and this market was glutted. The United States had no ​commerce which could relieve this plethora of production; and to make matters worse, these lands were about to come into market, and their occupants could not pay for them. This state of affairs among a body of men whose fathers had emigrated step by step from the Atlantic seaboard to the Missouri frontier; who had fought the savages and the British, and feared neither man nor devil; who were democrats or whigs upon principle, loved politics, and were intensely patriotic; who would march across a continent to assert American rights, and rather sought than avoided a contest—to men so strong, restless, aggresive, the condition of affairs on the Mississippi and Missouri borders from 1841 to 1845 was intolerable. And to these, statesmen addressed themselves through Linn's bill, by talking of lands which should be ample and free in Oregon.
The land in itself might be little temptation after their experience in mid-continent, but the idea of seaboard was attractive, including as it did the dream of commercial relations with the islands of the Pacific and with China. To found a new state on these shores, in direct communication with the most populous nations of the globe, was the ambition awakened in them by the frequent reports received from travellers and missionaries of the natural resources and favorable situation of the Oregon Territory.
​Early in the spring of 1843, or as soon as the grass began to grow, promptly, without preconcert, but as if by appointment, emigrants from every part of Missouri and the neighboring states were on the roads to the usual rendezvous in the vicinity of Independence. Their wagons were drawn by two or three or five yokes of oxen; on the covers were the words "For Oregon," and their immense herds of cattle filled the highways. Many of them had been neighbors at home, and often families of brothers, with their wives and little ones, constituted a colony. At all events they had now one common interest in the necessity for mutual aid and protection in the long journey before them. By the middle of May it was thought time to take action as a body, and on the 20th a meeting was held at Fitzhugh's mill, twelve miles west of Independence, to complete an organization. Here met for the first time men from Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. There was a large company from what was known as the Platte Purchase in the latter state, under the leadership of Peter H. Burnett of Weston. Another company was from St Clair County, and was led by Jesse Applegate, his brothers Lindsey and Charles, and Daniel Waldo. A California party, under Joseph B. Chiles, was from the south-east portion of the state. Other parties, under T. D. Kaiser, Jesse ​Looney, and Daniel Matheney, swelled the army to nearly a thousand persons, although the 'fighting ​men' over sixteen years of age were less than three hundred.
The reader is by this time familiar with the crossing of the plains. This body adopted the usual rules, May 20th, and on reaching the Kansas River organized by electing Peter H. Burnett captain, and J. W. Nesmith orderly sergeant. Nine councilmen were chosen to assist in settling questions, and Captain John Gantt, a former army officer, now a 'mountain man,' engaged to conduct the company to Fort Hall.
The 1st of June was at hand, and late for a start
​for Oregon with ox-wagons, but the spring had been backward. Now, however the weather was fine, and the road good. All went well except regulation affairs, which became so complicated and trying that Burnett resigned the command after eight days of service, William Martin being elected in his place. The resignation of a captain on account of insubordination or inattention to rules probably effected a partial reform, for Martin seems to have remained in office. It was, however, found so difficult to direct or control so large a body of people united by no further interest than a common destination, that a division into two columns was effected, on the Big Blue River; one wing consisting of that division which was unencumbered with herds, being called the 'light column,' and the other, of which Jesse Applegate took command, being denominated the 'cow column.' These two divisions travelled within supporting distance only, in order not to interfere with each other's comfort or convenience, as far as Independence Rock.
Dragging themselves along in the hot summer sunshine, few incidents enlivened the way, until toward the last of June the buffalo country was reached, where it was expected to obtain abundance of game; but a hunting expedition from New Orleans having preceded them, the buffaloes were driven from the line of travel. During the first five days of July the south branch of the Blatte was crossed, in ferry-boats made of wagon-boxes over which the green hides of buffaloes had been stretched and dried. At Fort Laramie, where the light column arrived on the 14th, a few days were taken to repair wagons, and purchase, at extortionate prices, some additional supplies. Ten days later the ​north branch was forded. Four days more of travel brought them to the Sweetwater, and on the 3d of August the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains came in sight.
Up to this time everything had gone well; the company retaining its original number, save five, who turned back at the first crossing of the Platte. But on the 4th of August, Clayborne Payne died of fever, and was buried beside the road, the funeral services being conducted by a Methodist preacher named Garrison. At the Big Sandy, a tributary of Green River, died Mr Stevenson, August 9th. Considering the number of persons on the march, and the privations incident to camp life, the health of the emigrants was remarkably good, sickness and the death rate* being scarcely greater than in a community of the same size in towns. There were births as well as deaths. Many an emigrant to Oregon first saw the light beneath a canvas tent on the roadside.
No difficulty occurred with the natives; the numbers present, and recollections of chastisement a few years previous, by Captain Bennett Riley, with his artillery, deterring them from predatory or hostile acts. After passing Independence Rock caution was considered necessary, and the two principal divisions were broken into smaller companies for greater convenience. Likewise this was a pleasant arrangement, as leading men now found themselves at the head of the smaller divisions, and associated with those of congenial habits. Friendships were formed and cemented which lasted through life, surviving all the struggles and changes of the founding of a new empire.
​Among those who kept the lead was Thomas D. Kaiser, who was among the first to arrive at Green River, and the first also to leave it for Fort Hall. Another impatient to reach his destination was J. B. McClane.
A party was formed of these and others, with Dr Whitman, who had joined the emigration on the Platte River, also anxious to reach his home, and "to get news of his family and affairs at the fort, where he was likely to meet Cayuses and Nez Perces. At Green River they learned that the Jesuits, De Vos and Hoecken, had, by means of their Flathead pilot, discovered a pass through the mountains to Soda Springs, by way of Fort Bridger, on the Black branch of Green River, a cut-off which saved considerable distance, information of which Whitman communi- cated to the companies by a letter left at Green River. That the road in the rear was, for a natural one, ex- cellent, is evidenced by the fact that the ox-teams made an average of thirteen miles a day for the whole distance from the Sweetwater to Fort Hall, where the rear arrived the last of August, the advance hav- ing waited for them to come up. At this place died Daniel Richardson; and here also was found Lovejoy, who had come across from Bent Fort during the sum​mer to be ready to join Whitman on his return to Oregon.
At Fort Hall there was the usual discussion upon changing from wagons to pack-animals, it being finally decided to retain the wagons, as there ^ were men enough to make a road where none existed. The chief objection was the lateness of the season. In their councils, both Grant of Port Hall and Whitman were consulted. While admitting that the wagons might be taken to the Columbia River, Grant acknowledged that he did not know how it could be done, as he had travelled only by the pack-trail; but Whitman, from Newell's experience, believed that a wagon road was feasible, and encouraged the emigrants to decide in favor of the undertaking.
It had been the intention of the emigrants to take their wagons to the Columbia. They would open the way, and show congress that the enterprise which the government was so slow to undertake was not beyond the ability of private individuals. But they miscalculated distance and obstacles, and found, when the Rocky Mountains were passed, that with foot-sore cattle and worn-out horses, they had still the most trying part of the journey before them; and thereupon doubts began to assail them of the wisdom of attempting to carry out their original plan of making a road to the Pacific, with the risk of being caught in the storms of autumn among the mountains, and having to abandon their property there.
Yet upon mature deliberation, with the spirit that impelled them to set out as founders of empire, they persevered in their determination to reach the Columbia River with all their wagons and herds. In coming to this conclusion they were influenced by the advice of Whitman, and the encouragement of William Fowler, one of the emigrants who had been in Oregon before. Fowler was a western man, and understood much better than Whitman what ox-teams could do.
​A pilot was necessary, and Remeau, a guide of the Hudson's Bay Company, offered his services, which were however declined in favor of Whitman, who deemed himself competent, with the help of his Cayuses, to act as guide. A route was marked out with the assistance of Remeau, on which distances, camping-places, and other useful information were carefully noted; and having repaired their wagons, and purchased such supplies as were necessary, after a week or ten days of rest they resumed their march. There was no regular organization after leaving Fort Hall. A few of the least encumbered took the lead, on horseback. The California company, haying abandoned their wagons, were now mounted, with a train of pack-animals, and were among the foremost, their pilot, William J. Martin, conducting the Oregon emigration also, as far as the turn of the road toward California, in the vicinity of the American Falls of Snake River. From this point Whitman assumed the duties of guide, conducting the immigrants down Snake River to the Salmon Falls, where the river was crossed in safety by all except Miles Eyres, a Scotchman who was riding a mule, and who missed the shallow water of the ford and was drowned. M. M. McCarver who was in the lead with a small company, as they approached the falls was startled by what he mistook for a red flag. Thinking there might be hostile Indians in the vicinity, he formed his men for battle, and marching up to the red signal, discovered it to be a large salmon split open and hoisted on a pole to notify travellers that there were fish for sale. Thus the danger and difficulties of this portion of the journey disappeared on approach.
​From Salmon Falls the route lay across an expanse of sage plains to Fort Boise. A party, consisting of Whitman and his nephew, Lovejoy, Ricord, and Nimrod Ford, pushed forward, leaving written notices by the way of the course to be taken by the wagons, which came after the rate of thirteen .miles a day, notwithstanding the toughness of the artemisia and the depth of the sand. At Fort Boise they were kindly received by Payette, but could not tarry, as it was already the 20th of September. Fording the Snake River, where it has since been found necessary to have a ferry, by raising the wagon-beds a few inches on blocks, they reached the west side in safety. Following down the river, encountering no serious obstructions for three days, they reached on the 24th Burnt River Cañon, twenty-five miles in length, through which ran a small stream whose bed was used for a road for the greater part of the way, there being no time to clear away from the banks the masses of fallen and burnt trees from which the river was named.
The first grading required on any part of the route from the main Platte to the Columbia was at the crossing of the ridge at the head of Burnt Biver; and this, too, was the first occasion on which it had been necessary to double teams. From this point the toils of travel increased, the country being rough and hilly. Nevertheless by the 1st of October the main body of the immigration had arrived at Grand Rond Valley, which appeared so beautiful, set in its environing pine-clad hills, with its rich pasturage and abundant watercourses, that not a few of the immigrants were deterred from settling there only by the impossibility of obtaining supplies for the colony during the coming winter. On the morning of the 2d two inches of snow whitened the mountain sides, and warned the travellers not to waste precious time. On ​the evening of the 3d the first ridge had been crossed; and beyond this was still the main chain of the Blue Mountains covered with heavy timber which it was imperative to remove. As the sappers and miners of a military legion precede the army, a force of the most active and energetic of the emigrant legion fell upon these barriers to progress, and although their axes were dulled by a summer's use, and their hands were sadly blistered, forty men in five days cleared a wagon-road over the dreaded Blue Mountains, the wagons and herds following as the road was opened, boy's and women driving the teams whose owners were clearing the way. On the 5th, and while the immigration was in the mountains, a severe snow-storm was experienced, which made the beautiful valley of the Umatilla River thrice beautiful by contrast, when the travellers arrived on the evening of the 6th at the western base. Here they found a Cayuse village, and obtained fresh vegetables. On the 10th the immigration was encamped within three miles of Whitman's station.
At Grand Rond, Whitman was met by a courier from Lapwai with intelligence of the alarming illness of Mr and Mrs Spalding, and relinquishing his office of guide to Sticcas, a Cayuse chief in whom he reposed confidence, left the party and struck across the country to the station. Sticcas faithfully performed his duty, bringing the white men, to whom, as we ​know, his people were anything but friendly, safely to the vicinity of the mission. For this service many were ungrateful, for two reasons: it took them forty-five miles out of their course; and exposed them to the annoying peculations of the natives, who not only intruded into their camps by day, but stole their horses at night in order to obtain a reward for returning them—a practice which was repeated every twenty-four hours.
The great ambition of the natives along the Columbia, as elsewhere, was to secure the clothing worn by white men. Lewis and Clarke mention seeing odd garments, evidently obtained from trading-vessels on the coast, in the possession of these natives as early as in 1805, and which must have been purchased from the Indians of the Lower Columbia. After the Oregon immigration began they were to be seen arrayed in cast-off wearing apparel of every description, presenting a motley and fantastic appearance. They gladly sold whatever they had for shirts, dresses, or hats; but as stealing and selling back a horse to its owner was a more productive plan, it was greatly affected by the Cayuses.
Kaiser in his narrative complains of these practices, and says that at the mission he called a council of chiefs, and told them that he had paid his last shirt for having his horses returned by the thieves, and that hereafter when he found one of them about his camp after dark he should shoot him. This warning was not without its effect. Burnett also speaks of paying a shirt for several successive mornings to get back the same animal; and Waldo, in his cynical style, remarks that the immigrants had no trouble with the natives until they encountered the mission Indians.
​When Whitman arrived at Lapwai he found Mr and Mrs Spalding convalescing, and hastened to his own station to meet the immigrants and furnish them with supplies, which had to be brought from Lapwai and Colville, his grain and mill having been destroyed the previous winter. For this service he was censured by some and applauded by others. That it was a wise and philanthropic action to give the immigrants an opportunity to purchase fresh provisions, the sequel proved; besides, it was personally known to Whitman that some of them had exhausted their supplies before reaching the Columbia.
But whether they were or were not in need, they found the prices at Waiilatpu exorbitant when compared with those of Missouri, and accused Whitman of selfish motives in conducting the immigration past his station, making them ninety additional miles of travel, which, with their worn-out teams and the lateness of the season, became a matter of serious importance.
​Kaiser was among those who felt themselves injured by being piloted out of their way, and by having to pay a dollar a bushel for wheat. So obstinate were some, says Burnett, that they refused to purchase until the wheat was all gone, in consequence of which he had to divide his supply with them before the end of the journey.
There were other causes of dissatisfaction, and subsequent reproach. Neither Whitman, nor McKinlay at Fort Walla Walla, knew anything of the country back from the Columbia River, or whether there could be found crossings for the wagons at the John Day and Des Chutes rivers; and both advised the immigrants to leave their wagons and cattle in the Walla Walla Valley to be brought down in the spring, and to make themselves boats in which to descend the Columbia. One of the arguments used in favor of this plan was that no grass would be likely to be found on the route, as the natives were accustomed at this season of the year to burn it off—a statement which sufficiently proved the doctor's ignorance of the country, and which was construed to his disadvantage by those who travelled through it.
​From a journal of Burnett's, published in a Missouri paper a year or two after the emigration, there seems to have been some ground for suspicions of interested motives in advising the immigrants to leave their cattle. "The residents of the mission agreed," says the journal, "in advising us to leave our cattle and wagons at the station. McKinlay of Walla Walla also advised us to leave the animals, either to exchange for California cattle, or to pay one dollar per head for their keeping. . .What surprised us most, after the representations that had been made, was the fine pasturage we met all along the way, and especially at the Dalles, where we had been led to believe the cattle could not subsist at all during the winter." Applegate gives some further information, where he tells us that at the mission they received one fat bullock of Spanish stock for two poor emigrant oxen. Those who did not distinguish the difference between Spanish and American cattle consented willingly to pay this price for fat beef. Without any expense to the Missionaries they had in the spring two fat American work-oxen for their one bullock. The natives did better, who gave a fat bullock for a lean heifer, for breeding purposes.
After a few days' rest at the mission, the emigration moved toward the Columbia River with their wagons and stock. Propositions were made to some members of the company to remain at Waiilatpu, which were rejected on account of the thieving habits of the natives, and the difficulty of taking care of their cattle on so wide a range as the Walla Walla Valley, besides the general desire to reach their destination that year. But at Fort Walla Walla, a portion of ​them being still in doubt from the representations made to them of the difficulties in the way, finally agreed with McKinlay to leave their cattle with him and take orders on the Hudson's Bay Company for the same number and description of California cattle in the Willamette Valley. Among those making this arrangement was Jesse Applegate, who with Waldo owned more stock than any other two men in the emigration. Waldo proceeded with the main body to the Dalles by land, while Burnett, Beagle, McClane, the Applegates, and others, seventy-one in all, decided to take the advice of Whitman and descend the Columbia in boats. Whitman accompanied them to bring home his wife, who was still at the Dalles, where she had taken refuge from the violence of the Cayuses. Burnett had a Hudson's Bay boat and an Indian pilot. Beagle, who was with him, was steersman. He was a good boatman, and familiar with the rapids of the Ohio at Louisville; but those compared to the rapids of the Columbia were insignificant, and Burnett relates that Beagle's cheeks often paled, though he obeyed the intrepid Indian pilot implicitly. This party arrived in safety at the Dalles.
​The Applegate company being in less manageable canoes constructed by themselves, and less skilfully handled, were not so fortunate, one of their boats overturning in the rapids, by which accident a son of Jesse Applegate was drowned, a son of Charles Applegate crippled for life, while Elisha, a son of Lindsey Applegate, and William Doke narrowly escaped. C. M. Stringer and McClelland were also drowned.
The main part of the immigration, which took the land route to the Dalles, met with no other obstacles than some difficulty in crossing the two principal rivers in their course, the John Day and Des Chutes, and had no accidents. To be the first to reach the Dalles, the terminus of the emigrant road to Oregon for 1843, was an honor that was contended for by the foremost drivers, and I find is claimed by both Nineveh Ford and Kaiser.
At the Dalles the immigrants had still the most difficult and dangerous portion of their journey before them, there being neither a road over the rugged mountains that separated them from the Willamette Valley, nor boats in which to embark on the river. It was too late to attempt opening a wagon-road into the Willamette Valley, a distance of sixty miles of extremely rough country, and there were few facilities for constructing a sufficient number of boats to convey the families and goods to their destination.
The immigration of 1843 was differently situated from any company that had preceded, or any that fol-
​lowed it into Oregon. When a company came by sea to Fort Vancouver, or a small party overland to Walla Walla, every facility for continuing their journey or prosecuting their designs was tendered to them by the Hudson's Bay Company. White's party, which was only a pack-train, arrived early, and proceeded direct to the settlements without any serious hinderance. But here were nearly nine hundred people with their household goods and a large number of cattle and horses. It was impossible to meet this whole colony as guests, and help them to their destinations with all manner of courtesies as had so often been done in regard to smaller parties. They must help themselves, and help themselves they did.
Going into the pine forest which beautifies the foothills near the Dalles, they felled trees and made rafts of logs from a foot to eighteen inches in diameter and twenty feet long, which being securely lashed together, the wagons were taken apart and with their loads placed upon them. Sometimes one covered wagon-bed was reserved as a cabin for the use of women and children. A child was born in one of these cabins on a raft, 35 between the Dalles and the Cascades. Others who had come from Walla Walla by boats kept on to the Cascades in the same manner. Some left their wagons and stock at the Dalles, while the greater number drove their cattle down the river, swimming them to the north side, and ferrying them back again to the south side opposite Vancouver.
On arriving at the Cascades a formidable bar to further progress was discovered. The rafts and boats could not be taken over the rapids. Two weeks were occupied in cutting a wagon-road round the Cascades by which the wagons brought down on rafts could reach the lower end of the portage. In the mean time the autumn rains had set in, and the weather in the heart of the great range was cold and wintry.
The few immigrants who had friends or relatives in
35 ​Oregon had received some assistance at the Dalles. Robert Shortess met the Applegates at that place with a canoe-load of provisions; but before passing the Cascades portage these were consumed by the party of seventy who had made the voyage from Walla Walla in boats, and they were in danger of starvation. There were no means of transportation at the Cascades, and starving or not, many women and children were compelled to wait for a passage in some boat from below.
James Waters, who had been among the earlier arrivals at the settlements, became alarmed at the failure of the rear to come up, and feeling sure that they were suffering from want of food, went to McLoughlin, to whom he represented the situation of those still at the Cascades, and asked for credit to obtain provisions for their relief. Though contrary to rule, this favor was accorded, the only condition required being that the provisions should be sold to the immigrants at Fort Vancouver prices, and that Waters should navigate the bateau carrying the supplies. This timely relief rescued many people from perishing of want and cold.
​A small party of the belated immigrants being wind-bound behind Cape Horn for a number of days—a circumstance that frequently happened at this part of the river—were in danger of death by starvation, being reduced to eating boiled rawhide, which they had upon their boat. Ford relates that a Mr Delaney had a box of hemp-seed which he consumed. Among them was an immigrant who had been to Vancouver and returned to the Cascades to the assistance of his friends. Remembering that he had breakfasted at a certain spot on his way up the river, he searched upon his knees, in the snow, for crumbs that might have fallen, weeping bitterly, and expecting to perish. But McLoughlin, with his wonderful care and watchfulness over everybody, being satisfied, from the length of time the party had been out, that they were in distress, sent another boat with provisions to look for and relieve them, which arrived in time to prevent a tragic termination to their six months' journey. A letter in the Oregon Spectator of January 21, 1847, written by one of the immigrants of 1843, declares that they experienced more hardships and sufferings in descending from the Dalles to the Willamette than in all the former portion of their journey, and that almost in sight of the promised land many were saved from perishing by the benevolence of the Hudson's Bay Company and the timely assistance of a fellow-immigrant—presumably Captain Waters.
It might be asked why help was not rendered by the American settlers in the Willamette Valley, and the Methodist Mission. In justice to the missionaries, I must say that some help was rendered, but it appears
​to have been merely the sending of some provisions to personal friends and acquaintances, and was entirely inadequate to the needs of the new-comers. As far as the settlers were concerned, they were too scattered, and had not the means to render much assistance, which required boats as well as provisions in large quantities. It is plain that the greatest sufferers were those who were prevailed upon by Whitman and McKinlay to leave cattle and wagons at Walla Walla. No lives were lost among those who took the land route, and those who had cattle had always something to eat.
Though the main immigration came down from the Dalles in boats, parties of horsemen accompanied the cattle-drivers on shore. One party, consisting of M. M. McCarver, James Chase, the two Doughertys, and a dozen others, took Daniel Lee's cattle trail over the Cascade Mountains into the Willamette Valley. The immigrants all along this portion of the route, whether in boats or ashore, were much annoyed by the natives, who stole the cattle, or who came in large numbers, and when the assistance of one or two was required, would refuse to give it unless all were employed and paid, which was only another form of robbery. Burnett mentions one chief who spoke English very well, and was dressed in a suit of broadcloth, with a pair of fine shoes. With absolute authority he commanded his thirty-five subordinates to do no work unless all were engaged. This was the practical working of the head-chief system of Elijah White turned against the Americans.
The lateness of the season when the travellers arrived, the last of November, with the difficulty of sheltering so many in a new country, rendered it impracticable for the majority to select land for a settlement before spring. Those who had means bought the necessaries of life of the Hudson's Bay Company; ​those who had nothing left, and who could find employment, went to work. Many remained at Oregon City, where a proof of their unconquerable vigor of brain as well as muscle was afforded by the founding of a circulating library from the books which had been brought across the plains, an account of which has been given in a previous chapter.
Waldo drove his cattle up into the hills south-east of Salem which bear his name, and made a settlement without delay. Kaiser wintered on the west bank of the Willamette opposite the old mission; but in the spring selected a claim a mile and a half below Salem. The Fords and Nesmith, after remaining a short time at Oregon City, settled at that portion of the Yamhill district which constitutes the present county at Polk. McClane settled in Salem and bought the mission mills at that place; Howell on a plain near Salem, which is now known as Howell's Prairie. The Applegates wintered at the old mission, Jesse Applegate being employed in surveying both at Salem and Oregon City. In the spring the three brothers opened farms in Yamhill district, near the present site of Dallas. Athey ​was employed on the flouring mill of the milling company at Oregon City, and finally built a house and engaged in the manufacture of furniture, being by trade a cabinet-maker.
Like Hastings of the year before, Ricord was offered employment by McLoughlin as his legal adviser; but he held to the missionaries, as I have elsewhere related, and in the spring went to the Hawaiian Islands, where he became chancellor to the king, whom he left for the gold-fields of California in 1849.
​The Garrisons found farms in the Tualatin plains, now Washington County. Burnett and McCarver took a piece of land on the west bank of the Willamette River, not far above the head of Sauvé Island, and laid out a town which they named Linnton, after Senator Linn; but as no one came to purchase lots, after having cut out a road from the river to the Tualatin plains, they removed in the spring to the vicinity of the present town of Hillsboro, and opened farms near the Garrisons. Shively settled on a claim above the old fort of Astoria, which together with the claim of Colonel John McClure, before mentioned, became afterward the site of the present town of Astoria. Lovejoy remained at Oregon City, employed by McLoughlin as an agent to do business between the Americans and himself, until he became a part owner in the land where Portland now stands, and where he with F. W. Pettygrove laid off that town.
With regard to the general condition of the new colonists, it was one of destitution. In subduing a wilderness without reserved supplies there is often a ​near approach to starvation for a year or two. Here were many persons expecting to live by agriculture who had neither seed nor farming implements with which to begin. Many had large families, and how to feed them was a question which interested not only the immigrants but the Hudson's Bay Company. McLoughlin was not slow to comprehend the situation. With feelings inimical to the great corporation, these men would never see their children starve while there was plenty within the walls of the company's storehouses. Both his heart and his reason pointed the course to be pursued. Immediate necessities must be relieved, and they must be encouraged to begin at once their only road to self-support, the opening of farms. Accordingly, without waiting to be asked, he proposed both these remedies for the threatening disaster. He offered credit to the destitute, furnishing them what was absolutely required for the present, and seed and farm-tools with which to begin their plantations. Thus he not only disarmed, to a great extent, the antagonism of the western men, but made himself defender against the arrogance of the missionaries by excelling them in kindness toward their own countrymen, establishing at the same time a balance of power between British and American, and between old and new colonists.
Notwithstanding this timely help the privations of the immigrants were great. Burnett has stated that during the first two years his family were often without meat for weeks at a time, and sometimes without bread, while occasionally both were wanting at the same time. Milk and potatoes, with butter, made a ​satisfying diet, though it happened more than once that even these were absent.
Game was scarce and poor. In the winter wild fowl were numerous, but the lakes and bayous to which they resorted were distant and difficult of approach, and the settlers soon learned not to depend on either wild game or wild fruit. Had they given their time to procuring these supplies, they could have done nothing else. The sudden accession of population had raised the price of flour to four cents a pound, pork to ten cents, and other articles in proportion. Indeed, so hard was it to get enough to eat, without going hopelessly into debt, that an Indian who had come to Applegate's house to beg was moved with pity to divide his own slender store of dried venison with the hungry children.
In the matter of clothing there was the same destitution. Fortunate was the man who possessed a suit of dressed buckskin, for when the homespun suits which left Missouri were worn out, there were no others to take their place. The women made dresses out of wagon-covers, and some wore skin clothing like the men. Moccasins took the place of boots and shoes. Happy was he who had an order on either of the three merchants at Oregon City, Ermatinger, Abernethy, or Pettygrove, although when it was presented the dearth of goods at the American stores often obliged him to take something he did not want for the thing that he needed, the usual demand having exhausted the stock in these places.
The circulating medium of the country as established by the fur company, being either furs or wheat, was a serious inconvenience. The custom of the settlers was to deposit with the merchants a quantity of wheat, which represented so many dollars to their credit. Orders on the merchants then became the ​medium of payment for labor or property. Should the merchant's stock be low, the holder of the order either took what he could get, or else waited. None but the Hudson's Bay Company kept an assortment of general merchandise. The vessels from Boston and New York were freighted with goods of one or two classes, while from the Islands only a few articles could be obtained. There were silly fanatics—self-sacrificing patriots, they imagined themselves—who, to encourage American and discourage British trade, would have nothing to do with the company, and these were put to severe tests. Sometimes it was sugar, tea, coffee, or salt they had to do without; and again not a yard of cotton goods or a half-dozen cups and saucers could be obtained. This being the condition of the market in Oregon City, if a man required a certain article he must take furs or wheat to Vancouver, or he must ask credit at that place till a crop could be raised. But if a stock of the current year was already exhausted, the rules of the company did not allow of opening the next year's stock before the arrival of the annual supplies, lest by the loss of a vessel there should be a dearth in the country or a long period. The wants of the immigration of 1843 produced the effect of a vessel's loss on the company's stores, by exhausting the goods on hand.
Why it was that none of the immigrants foresaw the circumstances in which they were to be placed, is a question that has never been answered. I think, however, that it is possible to solve it. None of them realized the distance of the Willamette Valley beyond the Rocky Mountains. As Edwards wrote to Bacon, many imagined that all they had to do after reaching Snake River was to embark upon its waters and float down to the mouth of the Columbia. In​stead of this, they found a stream impracticable for navigation, and bordered with sand, rocks, and artemisia for hundreds of miles. It was owing to the excellence and abundance of their appointments that they accomplished the journey to the Columbia in such good time and with so little loss.
From the repeated statements made in congress of the facilities for commerce of the mouth of the Columbia, and of the actual trade carried on by the Hudson's Bay Company, they had formed exaggerated ideas of the amount of productions, and the general capacity of the country. For the rest, they were idealists, 'men of destiny' they had been called, who had the same faith that all would be right with them in Oregon which the religionist feels that he will wake in heaven when he sleeps in death. Or, if all was not right, it would be the fault of the British fur company; in which case they would pull down Vancouver about the ears of its venerable factor and help themselves.
The state of disappointment and discontent which followed the first introduction to the new life was after all not long. When spring came with sunny skies and balmy air, they forgot the sorrows of the winter, and yielded contendedly to the witchery of fresh scenes and the pleasure of new beginnings. By autumn they were settled, and had already become well incorporated with the old colony.
Some mention should be made in this place of the second expedition of Frémont, which though it had ​nothing to do with the emigration movement of 1843, was an incident of it. The expedition left the Missouri River, near the junction of the Kansas, on the 29th of May, travelling just behind the emigrants as far as Soda Springs at the Great Bend of Bear River, where they turned off to Salt Lake. Having made a hasty visit to that inland sea, they returned to the emigrant road, which they followed to the Dalles, arriving there on the 4th of November. There Frémont left his men and animals, and took a canoe to Fort Vancouver to purchase supplies for his expedition to California, which were furnished him on the credit of the United States, the company sending the goods to the Dalles in their own boats. The emigrants ridicule Fréemont's sobriquet of 'Pathfinder.'
The naturalist Audubon was skirting the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains in the summer of 1843, in pursuit of his favorite study of ornithology; and mention is made of a German botanist named Luders, whom Frémont met on the Columbia, at a little bay below the Cascades, which was called after him Luders' Bay. The toils and dangers of this class of men occupy but little space in history, yet are none the less worthy of mention that they are not performed for gain or political preferment. If it is a brave deed to dare ​the perils of the wilderness for these, in companies of hundreds, how much nobler is it for the solitary student of science to risk life for the benefit of mankind!
​The immigration by sea for the year 1843 amounted to fourteen persons. The bark Fama, Captain Nye, from the Hawaiian Islands, brought Francis W. Pettygrove, wife and child, Philip Foster, wife and four children, Peter H. Hatch, wife and child, and Nathan P. Mack. These all settled at or near Oregon City.
F. W. Pettygrove was a native of Calais, Maine. He came to Oregon as agent for A. G. and A. W. Benson, with about $15,000 worth of merchandise, supposed to be suited to the trade of the country, and established himself first in competition with the Cushings, and the Methodist Mission which opened a store at Oregon City this year, and later competed with the traders of the Hudson's Bay Company very successfully, buying beaver-skins, and erecting a wheat
​warehouse at Champoeg, to purchase the crops of the French Canadians. This course led to the establishment of a store at Oregon City by the Hudson's Bay Company, which was placed in charge of Frank Ermatinger; so it may be said that Pettygrove added two stores to that infant metropolis.
Mr Foster, from Maine, who also came from New York by the same ship which brought Pettygrove to the Islands, remained for a year or two at Oregon City, but finally settled sixteen miles up the Clackamas River, on the trail leading to the Dalles, his farm becoming a halting-place for the immigrants who took the Mount Hood road into the Willamette Valley. Mack, who was a Massachusetts man, had been in Pacific waters for several years, trading and whaling. Being by vocation a carpenter, he found ample employment at Oregon City for three or four years, after which he settled on a farm ten miles east of that place, but finally removed to Salem.
About the first of September there arrived in the
​Columbia the brig Pallas, Captain Sylvester, from Newburyport, with a cargo of Indian goods consigned to Cushing and Company. In the brig came Edmund Sylvester, also of Maine, brother of the captain, who remained in Oregon, and assisted in building the first two houses in Portland. In 1846 he removed to Puget Sound, and settled at Olympia, of which town he was one of the founders.
It will be observed that those who came by sea were New Englanders. As the missionaries were all from New England and New York, they received these traders and sea-going people with a welcome warmer than that they extended to the western settlers. Their impression on the country was distinct. One class bought and sold, built mills, and speculated in any kind of property. The other, and now the larger class, cultivated the ground, opened roads, exercised an unbounded hospitality, and carried the world of politics on their shoulders.
* ↑ Waldo says that Jesse Applegate, his neighbor in St Clair County, Missouri, sold a steamboat load of bacon and lard for $100; that bacon was used for fuel on the Mississippi boats, and that when he came to Oregon he did not attempt to sell his land, but simply abandoned it. Critiques, MS., 9–10. Burnett's account of why he left Missouri confirms this statement. He was hopelessly in debt. Recollections of a Pioneer, 98.
* ↑ In evidence of this is a letter from P. L. Edwards at Richmond, Missouri, to J. M. Bacon of Liberty, dated September 1842. Edwards begins by apologizing for not having sooner replied to Bacon's inquiries concerning Oregon, and deprecates taking upon himself the responsibility of giving advice in a matter of so much importance as that of the emigration of a colony across the plains to the shore of the Pacific. He then proceeds: 'You ask for information in regard to the route and outfit of emigrants. In reply, I can recommend no other than that usually taken by traders and trappers, with occasional deviations which it would be useless to endeavor to point out on paper. I mean the route up the south Platte, a short distance above the junction of the north and south forks; thence up the north fork until you have travelled some 6 or 8 days within the first range of mountains, called the Black Hills; thence to the Colorado of the West; and thence to Fort Hall on Lewis River by the way of Bear River.' In answer to the question if the journey could be made in wagons, he said that wagons could be taken two thirds of the way, but not farther; and that he should always prefer horses; and gave some advice about provisions, and the size of the company, which ought not to exceed 150 persons. In reply to the question, of what would be needed when the emigrants arrived in Oregon, he said 'everything that you will need here in the same pursuits,' but these things could not be taken across the mountains; and he recommended freighting a vessel as the ship would be of use after arrival, enabling them to open commerce at once with the Islands. He gave a lengthy and particular description of the country, and expressed the opinion that it was not a better one than Missouri, but was more thought of by eastern than by western men. Edwards' Sketch of Oregon, MS. As the name of Dr Bacon does not occur among the emigrants to Oregon of 1843, it would seem that the encouragement given by Mr Edwards was not considered sufficient.
* ↑ No complete record of those who composed the immigration of 1843 is in existence. J. W. Nesmith, a young man from Maine, who was elected orderly sergeant, with the duties of adjutant, made a roll of the male members of the company capable of bearing arms, including all above 16 years of age. This roll, after 32 years had elapsed, was read before the Oregon Pioneer Association at its third annual reunion in 1875, by its author, who requested the survivors present to answer to their names 'as present for duty,' when 13 only responded.   The Oregon Pioneer Association has been of much benefit to the author of this history. For a number of years a desire had existed for such an association in the Willamette Valley, and some preliminary movement had been made toward collecting reminiscences of the early history of the country. The first meeting was held on the call of a few persons, at Butteville in Marion County, on the 18th of October, 1873, when a constitution was adopted, and the following board of executive officers elected: F. X. Matthieu president; J. W. Grim, vice-president; W. H. Rees, secretary; and Eli C. Cooley, treasurer. The second meeting was held at Aurora, not far from Butteville—both towns being on the old French Prairie, where the events recorded in the previous chapter had taken place—on the 16th of June, 1874, when 45 names were enrolled. The association has now upon its roll hundreds of names, and its Transactions, published annually, furnish much interesting matter. In using these pioneer reminiscences, however, it is necessary, where the matter is of any historic importance, to verify it by collateral evidence of an earlier date, for experience proves that no memory is infallible, and that most incidents intrusted to memory, of which no record has been preserved by the individual, are unreliable in detail, even when the general facts are correct.   The names on the sergeant's roll constituting the immigration of 1843 were: Jesse Applegate, Charles Applegate, Lindsey Applegate, James Athey, William Athey, John Atkinson, William Arthur, Robert Arthur, David Arthur, Amon Butler, George Brooke, Peter H. Burnett, David Byrd, Thomas A. Brown, Alexander Blevins, John P. Brooks, Martin Brown, Orris Brown, George Black, J. P. Black, Samuel Black, Layton Bane, Andrew J. Baker, John G. Baker, William Beagle, Levi F. Boyd, William Baker, Nicholas Biddle, George P. Beale, James Braidy, George Beadle, Thomas Boyer, Boardman, Louis Bargerin, William Baldridge, Fendal C. Cason, James Cason, William Chapman, John Cox, Jacob Champ, L. C. Cooper, James Cone, Moses Childers, Miles Carey, Thomas Cochran, L. Clymour, John Copenhaver, J. H. Caton, Alfred Chappel, Daniel Cronin, Samuel Cozine, Benedict Costable, Joseph B. Chiles, Ransom Clark, John G. Campbell, Chapman, James Chase, Solomon Dodd, William C. Dement, W. P. Dougherty, William Day, James Duncan, Jacob Dorm, Thomas Davis, Daniel Delaney, Daniel Delaney, Jr, William Delaney, William Doke, J. H. Davis, Burrell Davis, George Dailey, John Doherty, V. W. Dawson, Charles H. Eaton, Nathan Eaton, James Etchell, Solomon Emerick, John W. Eeker, E. G. Edson, Miles Eyres, John W. East, Niniwon Everman, Nineveh Ford, Ephraim Ford, Nimrod Ford, John Ford, Alexander Francis, Abner Frazier, William Frazier, William Fowler, Wm J. Fowler, Henry Fowler, Stephen Fairly, Charles E. Fendall, John Gantt, Chiley B. Gray, Enoch Garrison, J. M. Garrison, W. J. Garrison, William Gardner, Goodell, Samuel Gardner, S. M. Gilmore, Richard Goodman, Major William Gilpin, Gray, B. Haggard, H. H. Hide, William Holmes, Riley A. Holmes, Richard Hobson, John Hobson, William Hobson, J. J. Hembre, James Hembre, W. C. Hembre, Andrew Hembre, A. J. Hembre, Samuel B. Hall, James Houck, W. P. Hughes, Abijah Hendrick, James Hays, Thomas J. Hensley, B. Holley, Henry H. Hunt, S. M. Holderness, I. C. Hutchms, A. Husted, Joseph Hess, Jacob Haun, Jacob Howell, William Howell, Wesley Howell, G. W. Howell, Thomas E. Howell, Henry Hill, William Hill, Almoran Hill, Absalom F. Hedges, Henry Hewett, William Hargrove, A. Hoyt, John Holman, Daniel S. Holman, B. Harrigas, Calvin James, John B. Jackson, John Jones, Overton Johnson, Thomas Kaiser, J. B. Kaiser, Pleasant Kaiser, Kelley, Kelsey, Solomon King, W. H. King, A. L. Lovejoy, Edward Lennox, Aaron Layson, Jesse Looney, John E. Long, H. A. G Lee, F. Lugur, Lewis Linenbarger, John Linenbarger, Isaac Laswell, J. Loughborough, Milton Little, Luther, John Lauderdale, McGee, Wm J. Martin, James Martin, Julius Martin, McClelland, F. McClelland, John B. Mills, Isaac Mills, William A. Mills, Owen Mills, G. W. McGarey, Gilbert Mondon, Daniel Matheney, Adam Matheney, J. N. Matheney, Josiah Matheney, Henry Matheney, A. J. Mastire, John McHaley, Jacob Myres, John Manning, James Manning, M. M. McCarver, George McCorcle, William Mays, Elijah Millican, William McDaniel, D. McKissic, Madison Malone, John B. McClane, William Manzee, John McIntire, Jackson Moore, W. J. Matney, J. W. Nesmith, W. T. Newby, Noah Newman, Thomas G. Naylor, Neil Osborn, Hugh D. O'Brien, Humphrey O'Brien, Thomas A. Owen, Thomas Owen, E. W. Otie, M. B. Otie, Bennett O'Neil, A. Olinger, Jesse Parker, William G. Parker, J. B. Pennington, R. H. Poe, Samuel Paynter, J. R. Patterson, Charles E. Pickett, Frederick Prigg, Clayborne Payne, Martin Payne, P. B. Reading, S. P. Rodgers, G. W. Rodgers, William Russell, James Roberts, G. W. Rice, John Richardson, Daniel Richardson, Philip Ruby, John Ricord, Jacob Reid, John Roe, Solomon Roberts, Emseley Roberts, Joseph Rossin, Thomas Rives, Thomas H. Smith, Thomas Smith, Isaac W. Smith, Anderson Smith, Ahi Smith, Robert Smith, Eli Smith, Samuel Smallman, William Sheldon, P. G. Stewart, Nathaniel K. Sitton, C. Stimmerman, C. Sharp, W. C. Summers, Henry Sewell, Henry Stout, George Sterling, Stout, Stevenson, James Storey, Swift, John M. Shively, Samuel Shirley, Alexander Stoughton, Chauncey Spenser, Hiram Straight, D. Summers, George Summers, Cornelius Stringer, C. W. Stringer, Lindsey Tharp. John Thompson, D. Trainor, Jeremiah Teller, Stephen Tarbox, John Umnicker, Samuel Vance, William Vaughn, George Vernon, James Wilmont, William H. Wilson, J. W. Wair, Archibald Winkle, Edward Williams, H. Wheeler, John Wagoner, Benjamin Williams, David Williams, William Wilson, John Williams, James Williams, Squire Williams, Isaac Williams, T. B. Ward, James White, John Watson, James Waters, William Winter, Daniel Waldo, David Waldo, William Waldo, Alexander Zachery, John Zachery.
* ↑ 'Between 500 and 700 souls in all, and 113 wagons. Ford's Road-makers, MS., 3. 'One thousand persons, with 120 wagons, and 5,000 cattle.' Applegate's Views, MS., 4. 'About 800,' Burnett thought; Greenhow places the number at 1,000. Hist. Or. and Cal., 391. M. C. F., in Niles' Reg., lxv. 70, says there were 900. McLoughlin, who was very accurate in all matters which he was obliged to report, put the immigration of 1843 at '875 men, women, and children.' Private Papers, MS., 2d ser. 51. McClane, however, says there were 999 of whom he once had a list: so that there is a discrepancy, even after deducting the California company which turned off at Fort Hall and the other losses. McClane's First Wagon Train, MS., 11.
* ↑ See 'A Day with the Cow Column,' in Overland Monthly, i. 127.
* ↑ Waldo's Critiques, MS., 18; Kaiser's Nar., MS., 3. The hunting party was headed by Captain Stuart, often mentioned. He was accompanied by the editor of the N. O. Picayune, M. C. Field. The Jesuits, De Vos and Hoecken, on their way to the Flathead country, were also with the hunters as far as the Rocky Mountains.Niles' Reg., lxv. 71, 214. Burnett erroneously states that one of these priests was De Smet; but De Smet was then on his way to Europe. Recollections, 102.
* ↑ Nicholas Biddle, Alexander Francis, F. Lugur, John Loughborough, and Jackson Moore. Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1875, 53.
* ↑ Applegate, in Overland Monthly, i. 131.
* ↑ Burnett's Recollections, 114. This was the first instance of their using cannon against the Indians.
* ↑ Niles' Reg., lxv. 168.
* ↑ Burnett, who left Oregon in 1848, has told me of the meeting between himself and Jesse Applegate, in San Francisco, after more than 20 years of separation, when they 'embraced each other with tears.'
* ↑ From Kaiser's Narrative, a valuable manuscript, penned by himself, I obtain the main biographical facts of himself and his family, with their immigration to Oregon. Mr Kaiser seems to have been a representative western man; vigorous, courageous, frank, and independent. He was born in Bunker County, North Carolina, where he married Miss Mary Girley, by whom he had 10 children, 5 sons and 5 daughters. In 1828 he removed to Giles County, Tennessee, and in 1833 to Van Buren County, Arkansas, where he remained until 1842, when he started with his family for Oregon; but arriving too late to join White's emigration, he renewed the attempt with success the following year. He died in June 1871, aged 78 years. The narrative contains also some account of the Oregon rangers and other colonial matters. Another manuscript, by his son, P. C. Kaiser, entitled The Emigrant Road, deals more with recollections of the journey to Oregon, and supplies several facts omitted by the father.
* ↑ John Burch McClane left Philadelphia in 1842, and 'went west.' In the following spring he determined to go to the limit of western territory. Like Kaiser, he was ambitious to be in the lead, and disputes with him the honor of ' breaking the first sage-brush west of Fort Hall.' His manuscript, called First Wagon Train, deals chiefly with the immigration, and adventures in California, after the gold discovery, with some remarks upon missionary monopoly.
* ↑ Applegate's Marginal Notes, MS., 289-90.
* ↑ McClane says the Indians met Dr Whitman at Fort Hall, 'with supplies,' probably sent by his associates. First Wagon Train, MS., 3.
* ↑ The names of those who went to California were J. B. Chiles, W. J. Martin, Julius Martin, John Gantt, Milton Little, J. Atkinson, V. W. Dawson F McClelland, John McIntire, John Williams, Squire Williams, Isaac Williams, P. B. Reading, Samuel J. Hensley, McGee, and Boardman. Or. Pioneer Assoc, Trans., 1875, 53; Ford's Road-makers, MS., 5; Fremont's Explor. Ex., 106.
* ↑ McClane's First Wagon Train, MS., 4; Kaiser's Nar., MS., 4, 5; Burnett's Recollections, 124.
* ↑ Ford's Road-makers, MS., 10.
* ↑ Among these were the Fords, the Kaisers, Lennox, Zachery, Matheney, the Applegates, Burnett, and J. W. Nesmith. Kaiser, in his Emigrant Road, MS., says that Nesmith carried an axe on his shoulders all the way through the Blue Mountains, and was distinguished by a quiet reserve, for which in later years he has been less conspicuous, though the friends he made in his youthful days (he was then but 22) still cherish for him the most loyal regard. The same qualities which led him to usefulness then have never deserted him.
* ↑ An emigrant of 1846 refers to the fact that writers on Oregon have overlooked the women. 'They seem to have been ignored; yet they performed their toils with as much fidelity as the men, and have been as useful in their way. I could never have gotten through to this country without my wife.' Thornton's Or. Hist., MS., 33.
* ↑ Boston Miss. Herald, May 1844.
* ↑ Nesmith says Sticcas was the only Indian he ever knew who had any conception of or who practised Christianity. Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1875, 48.
* ↑ Critiques, MS., 2. Daniel Waldo was born in Virginia in 1800. At the age of 19 he emigrated to Missouri, where he resided in St Clair County till 1843, and was a neighbor of the Applegates, and of Joseph B. Chiles. His health being poor, having heard of the salubrity of the Oregon climate, he determined to join the emigration, starting with Chiles for the rendezvous a little behind Applegate. He recovered health during the journey, which was made in an easy carriage. He was a man of peculiar and pronounced character, and a strong frame; for 20 years he suffered with cancer on the cheek, and was somewhat irritable, as well as naturally critical in his remarks, which abound in sensible and pertinent suggestions. This characteristic caused the stenographer who took his dictation to name the manuscript as above. It deals with a variety of subjects relating to the early history of the country. Mr Waldo died at Salem, September 10, 1880. His sons are William and J. B. Waldo.
* ↑ Wherever Whitman's acts are discussed the writer is confronted with the account of his character and services given by Spalding and Gray, his associates. There is no question of his merits as a man, or that he was of much service to immigrants. But I am warned from accepting as fact all that these men have recorded of his disinterested generosity, by the remarks of those who are said to have profited by it. Not to appear partisan, I shall quote freely from both critics and admirers, where such quotations are pertinent.
* ↑ Burnett, in speaking of these accusations, says: 'This foolish, false, and ungrateful charge was based upon the fact that he asked $1 a bushel for wheat and 40 cents for potatoes. As our people had been accustomed to sell their wheat at from 50 to 60 cents a bushel, and their potatoes at from 20 to 25 cents, in the Western States, they thought the prices demanded by the doctor amounted to something like extortion, not reflecting that he had to pay at least twice as much for his supplies of merchandise, and could not afford to sell his produce as low as they did theirs at home.' Recollections, 127. This is a general view of the case, characteristic of the author; but it is not altogether borne out by the facts. Whitman receiving his supplies from the board. The mission had sustained losses during, and possibly through, his absence, of several thousand dollars. The board had not approved of his leaving his station, and had sent him back empty-handed—how empty-handed is more than once hinted at by the emigrants. Waldo bluntly says: 'He had nothing to start with but a boiled ham .... After we crossed the Snake River I had to feed him again. I did not like it much; but he was a very energetic man, and I liked him for his perseverance; he had not much judgment, but a great deal of perseverance. He expected the emigrants to feed him, and they did. He was bound to go, and took the chances.' Critiques, MS., 17. Perhaps Whitman thought to reimburse the mission for its losses. There was no injustice in his having pay for his provisions; but it is clear he knew how to demand a full price. He was, according to Applegate, who admits his usefulness, paid pilotage also; but Applegate, whose share of this expense was $45, says that Walker and Eells obliged him to demand it: which, considering the fact that he had, with his nephew, lived on the immigrants, detracts somewhat from that ideal character for liberality which has been imputed to him.
* ↑ Recollections, MS., 127.
* ↑ This is McKinlay's own statement, given in a letter to Elwood Evans, which Evans has kindly sent me.
* ↑ Says Waldo, who did not take the advice offered: 'Whitman lied like hell. He wanted my cattle, and told me the grass was burnt off between his place and the Dalles. The first night out I found the finest grass I ever saw, and it was good every night.' Critiques, MS., 16.
* ↑ This manuscript of Mr Applegate's is a running commentary on Mrs Victor's River of the West, filling out some chapters where deficient in historic fact and correcting others, while in the main it assents to the record there given of Oregon's early history. In a similar manner he has commented on Gray's History of Oregon by marginal notes. A third source of information furnished by this most classical writer of Oregon's pioneers is a collection of letters on historical subjects. The elegance of diction and accuracy of statement render these contributions of the highest value.
* ↑ Frémont's Explor. Ex., 184. Gray says Applegate sold or mortgaged his cattle to get supplies at Walla Walla. Hist. Or., 422. But Burnett denies this, and says it was an exchange, or one dollar a head for herding them; and that when Applegate arrived at Vancouver, McLoughlin protested against Applegate making such a bargain to his injury, and not only gave him his American cattle back but refused compensation for the care they received during the winter.
* ↑ Burnett's Recollections, MS., i. 274-5, Concerning this matter, Waldo himself says: 'I started from Missouri with 108 head, and got here with 68. They were worth in Missouri $48 a head.' Here, horses were worth from $7 to $10, while American cattle were worth $100, Spanish, $9. Critiques, MS., 10.
* ↑ 'On one occasion, I remember, we were passing down a terrible rapid with a speed almost like a race-horse, when a huge rock arose above the water before us, against which the swift and mighty volume of the river furiously dashed in vain, and then suddenly turned to the right, almost at right angles. The Indian told Beagle to hold the bow of the boat directly towards the rock as if intending to run plumb upon it, while the rest of us pulled upon our oars with all our might, so as to give her such a velocity as not to be much affected by the surging waves. The Indian stood cool and motionless in the bow, paddle in hand, with features set as if to meet immediate death, and when we were within from 20 to 30 feet of that terrible rock, as quick almost as thought he plunged his long paddle-blade into the water on the left side of the bow, and with it gave a sudden wrench, and the boat instantly turned upon its centre to the right, and we passed the rock in safety.' Burnett's Recollections of a Pioneer, 129.
* ↑ A member of Frémont's expedition, which was in the rear of the immigration all the way to the Dalles, returning to St Louis the same season, carried a very unfavorable report of the condition of the immigrants, 8 of whom he said had perished of hardship. Niles' Reg., lxv. 243. The truth was, that 9 deaths occurred on the road, if we count that of William Day, who died at Vancouver; 4 from sickness, and 4 by drowning, one out of every 100—and none of these of what might properly be called hardships.
* ↑ Ford says, 'My wagon was in front of the caravan when it got to the Dalles.' Kaiser says, 'My father's teams broke the sage-brush from Green River to the Dalles.' James Athey is content to claim the second or third place in the van, and says, 'Mine was the second or third team to drive up to the Dalles.' Workshops, MS., 1.
* ↑ Ford's Road-makers, MS., 15.
* ↑ Ford says: 'I had a cousin that brought the long-boat of the Peacock to take us down the river. He had packed across the plains in 1842, and heard that we were coming. There were women and children that had no mode of conveyance, and were waiting for some means of getting away, and I prevailed on my cousin to take them. They were strangers to me but in distress, and I could stand it better than they could.' Ford fortunately procured four Indian canoes, which he lashed side by side, and taking the boards of five wagon-beds, made a platform over them, loading on it the running-gear and other goods, and lashing all down. Then setting up a mast in the centre, with a wagon-sheet for a sail, and with two natives and two white men to assist in managing the craft, not only sailed down to Vancouver, but up to Oregon City, where he arrived on the 10th of November. McLoughlin met Ford as he stepped ashore at the former place with many kindly compliments upon his enterprise. Road-makers, MS., 16-19.
* ↑ Says Applegate, in Views of Oregon History, MS.: 'The first full meal my party of 70 had for three weeks was out of the bounty of Dr McLoughlin, dispensed by Captain Waters.' Concerning the conditions put upon Waters, Burnett remarks: 'Many of the purchasers never paid, but contented themselves with abusing the doctor and the captain, accusing them of wishing to speculate upon the necessities of poor emigrants. The final result was a considerable loss, which Dr McLoughlin and Captain Waters divided equally between them.' Of Waters, whose title of captain came from his having been at the head of one of the emigrant companies, Burnett says: 'He was a most excellent man, possessed of a kind heart, truthful tongue, and patient dispo- sition;' and of McLoughlin, that 'he was one of the greatest and most noble philanthropists I ever saw; a man of superior ability, just in his dealings, and a faithful Christian.' Yet these were the men whom a certain portion of the immigrants of 1843 maligned and hated, although they were indebted to them for saving their lives.
* ↑ Ford's Road-makers, MS., 24-5; Letter of Lieut Howison, in Evans' Hist. Or., MS., 348. The only death that happened at the Cascades, and the ninth on the road, was of a negro woman, a servant of Mrs Burnett, who was drowned by stepping on the edge of a canoe which sheered from under her, when she fell into the river and disappeared. Ford, MS., 21.
* ↑ 'Dr Tolmie used to say that we could go anywhere with a wagon that they could with a pack-horse.' Sylvester's Olympia, MS., 13
* ↑ The Fords were originally from North Carolina, where Nineveh Ford, author of the Road-makers, MS., was born July 15, 1815. They emigrated to Missouri in 1840, but taking the prevalent Oregon fever, joined Burnett's company.
* ↑ Some of the younger members of the Applegate family long resided in the Willamette Valley; but the three elder ones made their homes in southern Oregon; Jesse and Charles in the Umpqua Valley, where they settled in 1849, and Lindsey in the Rogue River Valley, to which he removed in 1859, and several of their children in the Klamath Valley. The Applegates were from Kentucky, where Jesse was born in 1811. The family removed to Missouri in 1822, where Jesse was a protégé and pupil of Edmund Bates, whose voice in congress was ever against the project of settling Oregon from the western states. There is a flattering and kindly tribute to Jesse Applegate in the Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1875, 61, by J. W. Nesmith, in which he says: 'No man did more upon the route to aid the destitute and encourage the weak.' 'As a frontiersman, in courage, sagacity, and natural intelligence he is the equal of Daniel Boone. In culture and experience, he is the superior of half the living statesmen of our land.' Id., 35-6; S. F. Post, Sept. 13, 1877; Ashland Tidings, June 27, 1879. Mrs Jesse Applegate's maiden name was Cynthia Parker, her father being at the time of her marriage a Mississippi flatboatman. He was four times married, and Cynthia was the daughter of his second wife, by whom he had eight children, all boys but this one. Mrs Parker's maiden name was Yount, of Pennsylvania Dutch descent, and Mrs Applegate was brought up by the Younts. One of this family came to California at a period earlier than the advent of Captain Sutter, and settled at Napa, where he had a large establishment and mill, with hundreds of Indian servants. Another was a wealthy farmer in Missouri at the time of Mrs Applegate's marriage. After a long and useful life, she died at her residence in Umpqua Valley, in the spring of 1881. Applegate's Correspondence, MS., 30. Lindsey Applegate was born in Henry County, Kentucky, in 1808. Afterward his father, David Applegate, a soldier of the revolution, emigrated to Missouri, where he settled near St Louis, then a small French town, and where Lindsey had few educational advantages. In his fifteenth year he left home to join Ashley in his expedition to the Rocky Mountains. One part of Ashley's company ascended the Missouri in boats; the rest proceeded overland. Young Applegate belonged to the river detachment, which was attacked by the Arickarees, defeated, and driven back to Council Bluffs. Falling ill at this place, he was sent back with the wounded to St Louis. He afterward worked in the lead-mines of Illinois, and served in the Black Hawk war. He was married in 1831 to Miss Elizabeth Miller of Cole County, Missouri, and removed soon after to the south-western part of the state, where he built the first grist-mill erected in that portion of Missouri, and where he resided till 1843. Mrs Applegate was a woman of superior character and abilities; she died at her home in Ashland in the spring of 1882. Jacksonville Sentinel, July 30, 1879; Ashland, Or. Tidings, Aug. 8, 1879. Charles Applegate was two years the senior of Lindsey. In 1829 he married Miss Melinda Miller, and with her and several children emigrated to Oregon. He is described as a man of iron constitution, determined will, and charitable disposition. He also possessed considerable natural ability as a writer, having published several tales of frontier life. He died at his home in Douglas County, in August 1879; respected by all who knew him. Salem Statesmen, Aug. 15, 1879; Roseburg West Star, Aug. 15, 1879.
* ↑ Athey gives an interesting account in a brief dictation in a manuscript called Workshops, of the introduction of furniture in Oregon, and other matters. He says: 'At first I made breakfast-tables, bedsteads, chairs, and all articles of common furniture. I had a turning-lathe which I made myself, probably the first one on the Pacific coast. But I could not get enough to do to pay me. They went to shipping old furniture in here from the east. Captain Wm K. Kilborn of the brig Henry brought a cargo of it so nearly in pieces that I charged him more for mending it up than it cost. It was second-hand furniture, stoves, and everything. It was just like coining money to sell that off. Stoves sold for $45 and $60. It was a venture from Newburyport. I afterward did some turning in iron. I bought a wheel from a school-teacher at Vancouver, made a lathe, and used it for turning iron. That was not till 1847, and was nothing more than tinkering and making such things as I wanted for my own use.' Athey was born in Virginia in 1816. He took up a claim on the Tualatin River in 1851, and cleared it, but did not succeed at farming, and sold it after a few years for $1,800. He afterward engaged in building a small steamer.
* ↑ Honolulu Polynesian, Dec. 27, 1845; Camp-fire Orations, MS., 13.
* ↑ Joseph Garrison died at the Dalles Jan. 17, 1884, aged 71 years. S. F. Alta, Jan. 18, 1884. See also Portland Pac. Christian Advocate, April 9, 1874.
* ↑ Buchanan in a speech remarked that the citizens of Oregon would deserve the brand of ingratitude if they did not name their first city the City of Linn. Cong. Globe, 1843-4, 370. There were two attempts to show gratitude in this way which failed; but the county of Linn, one of the finest in the state, perpetuates his name. Deady's Hist. Or., MS., 77.
* ↑ McCarver was born in Kentucky, but removed to Iowa, where he laid off the town of Burlington, from which he emigrated. Burlington is now a city, while Linnton is unknown. Long afterward he laid out the town of Tacoma, in Washington. Burnett was born in Tennessee in 1807, removing to Missouri when ten years of age. His wife was Miss Harriet Rogers, born in Wilson, and married in Hardeman Co., Tenn. For biographies of the Burnett family, see Recollections of a Pioneer, 1-36.
* ↑ Lovejoy was born in Boston in 1811. He went to Missouri in 1840, and resided at Sparta, Buchanan County; but losing his health by the malaria of the Missouri bottom-lands, resolved to join White's emigration in 1842, as we know. In the winter of 1843 he accepted from a man named Overton a half-interest in the present site of Portland, Pettygrove buying the other half. The town was laid off, and a road opened to Tualatin plains in 1845. Lovejoy was prominent in the early affairs of the country, but became of feeble intellect before his death, which occurred in the autumn of 1882.
* ↑ Says Waldo, in his Critiques, MS., 15, 16: 'Jason Lee played the devil up at the Dalles. He said the Mission had always ruled the country, and if there were any persons in the immigration who did not like to be ruled by the Mission, they might find a country elsewhere to go to. It got all over the country, of course, very quickly. That made war with the missionaries at once. We came here pretty independent fellows, and did not ask many favors.' See also White's Ten Years in Or., 253.
* ↑ McLoughlin's Private Papers, MS., 3d ser., 10-12
* ↑ Niles' Reg., lxv. 137, 216.
* ↑ Nesmith, in Camp-fire Orations, MS., 12; McClane's First Wagon Train, MS., 7; Waldo's Critiques, MS., passim.
* ↑ Tolmie's Puget Sound, MS., 14.
* ↑ McLoughlin had it in his power to depart from the company's rule, and really did so. Ebberts, in his Trapper's Life, MS., 33-6, gives a broad sketchof the doctor's manner of dealing with and yielding to the American settlers, for which I have not room here. He was more often overruled than otherwise.
* ↑ Sketch of Oregon, MS., 3.
* ↑ It is without doubt just to Dr Whitman to say that in the matter of insisting upon their keeping in motion and accomplishing some distance each day, they were indebted for their success. He knew the weary miles before them, and warned them constantly to travel. Applegate, in Overland Monthly, i. 127.
* ↑ In writing this chapter, I have been often guided by Burnett's Recollections of a Pioneer, New York, 1880, chiefly because he kept a journal of his travels and his early life in Oregon. The book abounds in incidents told in a natural manner. It contains, besides, numerous pen-pictures of other pioneers, with which these pages will be from time to time illustrated, and valuable remarks on early government affairs
* ↑ The following absurd report appeared in the St Louis Gazette: 'On the 16th of September they surveyed the Great Salt Lake, supposed to empty into the Pacific, and computed its length to be 280 miles, and its breadth 100.' Niles' Reg., lxv. 243.
* ↑ Waldo's Critiques, MS., 17; Evans' Hist. Or., MS., 273. According to Nesmith, J. G. Campbell, Ransom Clark, Chapman, and Major William Gilpin travelled with Frémont's company. Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1875, 55-6; Frémont's Rept. Explor. Ex., 107.
* ↑ This feeling is illustrated by the following extract from Nesmith's Address in Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1875, 60: 'In the eastern states I have often been asked how long it was after Frémont discovered Oregon that I emigrated there. It is true that in the year 1843 Frémont, then a lieutenant is the engineer corps, did cross the plains, and brought his party to the Dalles in the rear of our emigration. His outfit contained all the conveniences and luxuries that a government appropriation could procure, while he "roughed it" in a covered carriage, surrounded by servants paid from the public purse. He returned to the States, and was rewarded with a president nomination as the "Pathfinder." The path he found was that made by the hardy frontiersmen who preceded him to the Pacific, and who stood by their rifles and held the country against hostile Indians and British threats, without government aid or recognition until 1849, when the first government troops came to our relief.'
* ↑ Of the immigration of 1843 many have passed away. John Ford died in Salem Oct. 10, 1875, aged 56. John Gill Campbell died at Oregon City Nov. 21, 1872, aged 55. He was a Philadelphian by birth, and married, in 1846, Miss Rothilda E. Buck of Oregon City. John Howell, born in Tennessee Dec. 6, 1787, died Oct. 4, 1869, aged 82. A. Olinger, a native of Ohio, died near Salem Jan. 3, 1874, aged 62. Thomas Owens died Jan. 23, 1873, at Piety Hill in California. He was born in Tazewell County, Virginia, Jan. 12, 1808. He settled first in Oregon near Astoria, where he remained 10 years, when he removed to Roseburg. His age was 65. Stephen Tarbox was born in Maine in 1812, of Irish parentage. He never married. Before emigrating to Oregon he had been a soldier in the U. S. army under Kearny commanding the 1st regt of dragoons stationed at Leavenworth. He died Nov. 6, 1878, in Benton County, Oregon, aged 66. William Holmes died Sept. 18, 1879, at his home in Oregon City, at the age of 75. Jesse Looney died March 25, 1869, aged 88. His home was in Marion County, where his children still reside. Daniel Matheney died near Wheatland, Yamhill County, Feb. 1, 1872, aged 79. He was born in Virginia Dec. 11, 1793, and removed successively to Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. He was married Dec. 19, 1819. He served in the war of 1812, receiving his discharge at the victory of New Orleans. He fought again in the Black Hawk war under General Atkinson, and was elected 1st lieutenant of a company, and in 1839 again enlisted and was elected captain in the Mormon war. In the immigration of 1843 he was one of the most active, exploring and opening the road from Fort Hall to the Dalles. Henry Matheney was married in Indiana in 1828; his wife died in June 1877, the husband preceding her. David T. Lennox was born in New York in 1802, removed to Kentucky in 1819, to Illinois in 1828, to Missouri in 1837. He was among the foremost men of this migration. He settled on the Tualatin plains, where he lived many years, filling several places of public trust. He died at the home of his son-in-law, John S. White, in Umatilla County, Oct. 19, 1874, aged nearly 73. Richard Hobson was born in England in Oct. 1829, and was therefore under the age of 16, which entitled him to be enrolled as able-bodied in 1843. He emigrated from Liverpool with his father's family in January 1843, with the design of going to Oregon, and arrived at Vancouver Nov. 17th of that year. His father, John Hobson, located on Clatsop plains in January 1844, where the family still reside. Richard visited Australia, and returned to Oregon in 1859. He then became a pilot on the Columbia River, in which business he remained until his death in 1878, at the age of 49. John Holman was a native of Woodford County, Kentucky, where he was born Sept. 11, 1787. In Oct. 1810 he married a daughter of Thomas Duvall. About the same time he joined the Baptist church at Hillsboro. In 1817 he emigrated to Middle Tennessee, and resided in the county of Lincoln until 1826, when he removed to Clay County, Missouri. In this insalubrious climate he lost his wife and three children, and in 1843 determined to join the emigration to Oregon, where he spent the decline of his life in tranquil happiness. He died May 15, 1864, at the residence of his son, Daniel Holman of McMinnville. His age was 77 years. Charles H. Eaton, born in Oswego County, N. Y., Dec. 22, 1818, removed with his parents to Paulding County, Ohio, when a boy, whence he emigrated to Oregon in 1843. In 1846 he settled in the Puget Sound region, with whose history his own is identified. He died Dec. 10, 1876, at Yakima City, aged 58 William Fowler, with the other two of that name, went to California in 1844, and settled in the Napa Valley. He was born in Albany N. Y., and died at the residence of his son, Henry, at Calistoga, Calfornia, Feb. 3, 1865, aged 86. T. G. Naylor, a native of Albemarle County, Virginia, and later a resident of Missouri, from which state he emigrated, was born Oct. 12, 1814. On coming to Oregon he settled on Tualatin plains, adjoining the land claim on which Forest Grove is situated, where he lived until his death, Dec. 5, 1872, at the age of 59. He was twice married, and the father of 18 children, 15 of whom survive. His character as a true man gave him influence in the Congregational church, of which he was a deacon, and made him a trustee of the Pacific University, and director in the state agricultural society. He was a generous supporter of all worthy public institutions. Orris Brown was born in Massachusetts, Sept. 4, 1800, his father being the Rev. Clark Brown, and his mother, Tabitha Brown, famous in the history of the Pacific University of Oregon. His parents removed to Maryland, where his father died, and his mother emigrated to Missouri with her children in 1821. In 1843, being then married, he came to Oregon, leaving his family, but returned in 1845 with a small party under White, which was robbed on the road by the Pawnees. He brought back to Oregon in 1846 his own family and his mother's, most of whom settled at Forest Grove. Mr Brown had 12 children. He died May 5, 1874, aged 74. Daniel Delaney was murdered at the age of more than 70, Jan. 9, 1865, upon his own premises, 18 miles from Salem. One of the men convicted of shooting him to obtain his money was George P. Beale, also an immigrant of 1843, and at that time only a lad. Beale was executed, with his confederate, May 17, 1865. Margaret Garrison, wife of Rev. Enoch Garrison, was born in Kentucky January 24, 1814. Her maiden name was Herren. At the age of 18 years she removed to Indiana, where in 1836 she was married to Mr Garrison, and with him went to Oregon in 1843. She was the mother of 8 children, only 3 of whom outlived her. She died in Yamhill County, March 26, 1874.
* ↑ In a manuscript called Oregon in 1843, but giving an intelligent view of the business of the country down to 1850, and the gold excitement; with a history of the founding of Portland, of which he was one of the first owners; and of the opening of American commerce on Puget Sound, Pettygrove relates his introduction to McLoughlin. He came to the Islands in the ship Victoria, from New York, Captain John H. Spring, and from the Islands to the Columbia in the Fama, as above stated, the bark lying in the river opposite Vancouver for two weeks, and Pettygrove, who had come to Oregon prepared to find only oppression and hostility in all the acts of the fur company's officers, was compelled to remain a guest of McLoughlin and Douglas until some means offered of getting his goods conveyed to Oregon City. Having at length secured the service of the company's little schooner used for navigating the Willamette, he embarked cargo and family, and repaired to McLoughlin's office to inquire to what extent he was indebted for the favors extended to him. 'Show me your invoice,' said the doctor. I offered him a memorandum-book containing the number of packages shipped in the Fama from Honolulu. He looked it over, and remarked he could 'learn nothing from that.' I did not intend he should; and again asked for my bill of expenses. He made me a very low bow, and said: 'We are happy to receive such men as you in our midst; we charge you nothing.' I felt so humiliated by my unjust suspicions and his generous conduct, that I would gladly have dropped into the ground out of sight.' When the doctor found Pettygrove bought beaver-skins to ship to New York, he offered him all they were worth in that market, giving him a draft on Canada at 25 per cent discount, which offer was accepted. In 1846 McLoughlin asked Pettygrove to take his son David into partnership with him, to learn the American mode of business transactions, offering to furnish $20,000 capital as his portion of the partnership. This arrangement was finally made and continued for 2 years, when the firm was dissolved.
* ↑ Honolulu, S. I., Friend, Oct. 15, 1849.
* ↑ Mack's Oregon, MS., 1-3. This manuscript deals only with the author's private affairs, the substance of which here appertaining is given in the above paragraph. It confirms in some particulars Pettygrove's Oregon in 1843, MS.
* ↑ These items are found in Sylvester's Olympia, MS., 1-4, which treats principally of the early settlement and business of Puget Sound in a clear and comprehensive manner. This manuscript is one of the most valuable authorities on Washington Territory. Sylvester says that the brig took away 300 or 400 barrels of salmon; also that his brother sold the Pallas at the Sandwich Islands to a purchaser from Mazatlan, to carry the United States mail between that port and the Islands. He does not say what became of the cargo, or whether it was on the route to Newburyport that she was sold, or on the return to the Columbia River with another cargo. All that is known is that the brig was lost, and that in 1845 Captain Sylvester was in command of the Chenamus, which sailed from the Columbia River for Newburyport. The Chenamus never returned to Oregon after her voyage of 1845-6, of which I shall speak hereafter.