# Portland, Oregon: Its History and Builders/Volume 1/Chapter 1

CHAPTER I.
1506—1792.
The settlement of Old Oregon, consisting of all the United States territory west of the Rocky mountains, north of California, being the result of a long series of explorations by sea and land covering three hundred years from 1506 to 1806, is an interesting and necessary chapter to any history of the city of Portland. The settlement of this last and then most distant portion of the United States was the result of a world-wide racial impulse to move westward on isothermal lines, supported by the American spirit to go west, take possession of new lands and colonize the North American continent. That impulse and that spirit lias never halted or slept since the united colonies repudiated George the III at Bunker's Hill; and even now is so actively pouring American settlers into the British province of Alberta that the Fourth of July is duly celebrated at the principal town in the province. And while it seems necessary to the completeness of the story to include all such movements of men or population as sustains the proposition of an evolutionary movement, yet it is not intended to burden the record with accounts of the many tentative and abortive efforts at exploration, or of those that were merely for trade. But the meritorious work of such men as Heceta and Viscaino of Spain, La Salle and Marquette of France, Cook and Barclay of England, Mackenzie of Canada, and Gray, Carver, Lewis and Clark of the United States is material and important, and cannot be left out.
Two hundred years before Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, the Venetian traveler and explorer, Marco Polo had penetrated the Chinese empire from the west and returned to his home by a sea voyage from the east coast of Asia. Polo's published account of his travels was the great sensation and wonder of that age, and was discussed by learned men all over Europe and formed the basis of many new conjectures about the geography of the earth. Columbus himself had some education in geometry, astronomy, and navigation, and at an early age took to the sea. He had read Polo's narrative and was ​familiar with all the various theories of the earth which it had inspired. And revolving these over in his mind for years, he came to the conclusion and put forward the proposition that by sailing directly westward from Europe he could reach the east coast of Asia in the latitude of Cipango (Japan) as it was then known. And in this view he was supported by the learned Italian, Toscanelli, of Florence, who on learning of the proposition of Columbus wrote him a letter heartily encouraging the project. And to demonstrate to Columbus that he could reach the east coast of Asia by sailing west, Toscanelli sent him a map of the world proposed by the learned Greek geographer, Ptolemy, who taught at Alexandria about 125 years after Christ, which map was altered and amended to correspond to the descriptions of Marco Polo. On this map the eastern coast of Asia was outlined in front of the western coasts of Africa and Europe, with a little ocean between them, in which was placed the imaginary islands of Cipango and Antilla.
In taking up this proposition, Columbus was met with a storm of opposition and persecution, which would have crushed any other man. The church denounced the scheme as heresy, and for nearly twenty years the great man traveled, begged and toiled for recognition and favor from those who could give aid, and at last found a good priest who sympathized with his grand idea, and through whose influence, Queen Isabella of Spain was induced to recall a former refusal of aid.
How Columbus finally induced Queen Isabella to support his enterprise with money and two small ships while a third ship was added by himself and friends, and how on August 3, 1492, he sailed out of Palos harbor with one hundred and twenty men in the three little ships—Santa ]Iaria, Pinta and Nina—is an oft-told story and familiar tale. This exploratory voyage, all things considered, is the greatest enterprise ever planned and carried out by the genius and energy of a single man. The voyage itself was not a great affair, the little vessels of still less account, the use of the compass was then but little understood; the seamen were all ignorant and superstitious to the limit; but when we consider the weakness of such an outfit to venture out upon a vast and unknown ocean and brave all the terrors pictured by the imagination in addition to the real dangers of the sea, and then place over and against them all the glory and grandeur of the achievement in practically adding to the use and enjoyment of the race of man, a new world as large, useful and beautiful as the one already enjoyed, our minds are unable to grasp and no words can fully express the greatness of the achievement, or the honor, praise and obligation which mankind owes to the name of Christopher Columbus.
After seventy days sailing westward, Columbus struck Cat island in the West Indies. It was inhabited by red men. The people of Hindostan (India) were red. Columbus believed he had reached India—the east coast of Asia; and he called the natives Indians. The name stuck, and thus all the natives of America came to be called Indians. Columbus made three subsequent voyages from Spain to the West India islands, but never reached the mainland, and died in ignorance of his great discovery of a continent equal to the old world and separated from it by two great oceans.
It may seem irrevelant to go back over four hundred years to begin this narrative about the city of Portland, but it must be remembered that it was Christopher Columbus who started and steered the tide of the Caucasian race across the Atlantic which finally overran the American continent and halted here on the Willamette to build the greatest city of the Pacific coast. And believing that the readers of this book will take a genuine interest in the man who discovered America, and will be glad to have a lifelike, truthful portrait of his face, we have, at much trouble and expense, procured from the Marine Museum at Madrid, Spain, and here print the best likeness ever made of the great man.
Behind him lay the gray Azores, Behind the Gates of Hercules;
Behind him not the ghost of shores.
Behind him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: "Now, we must pray.
For lo, the very stars are gone.
Brave Adm'r'l speak: What shall I say?"
"Why say, 'Sail on! sail on! sail on!'"
"My men grow mutinous day by day;
My men grow ghastly wan and weak."
The stout mate thought of home: as spray
Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
"What shall I say, brave Adm'r'l, say.
If we sight naught but seas at dawn?"
'Sail on! sail on! sail on! sail on!'"
They sailed and sailed as the winds might blow.
Until at last the blanched mate said:
"Why, not even God would know
Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way.
For God from these dread seas is gone;
Now speak, brave Adm'r'l, speak, and say — "
He said: "Sail on! sail on! sail on!"
They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate:
"This mad sea shows its teeth tonight.
He curls his lips, he lies in wait.
With lifted teeth as if to bite!
Brave Adm'r'l say but one good word:
"What shall we do when hope is gone?"
The words leapt as a leaping sword:
"Sail on! sail on! sail on! sail on!"
Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck.
And peered through darkness. Ah. that night
Of all dark nights! And then a speck.
A light! A light! A light! A light!
It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.
He gained a world; he gave that world
Its grandest lesson: "On. sail on."
The proposition of Columbus to find a short cut to Asia by sailing west from Spain was not to perish with his death. It was the good fortune of the Italian navigator, Americus Vespucius, who after Columbus' death, made four voyages to America and finally discovered the mainland of the continent near the equator. And like Columbus he too returned to Spain and died poor at Seville in 1512, without knowing he had discovered a separate continent. In his letter to the King of Portugal, in whose services he had sailed to the new world, he writes July 18, 1500: "We discovered a very large country of Asia."
But the half discovered secret of all the ages was not to remain hidden from the eyes of man. Other courageous spirits followed in the wake of Columbus and Vespucius. Sebastian Cabot, an Englishman, discovered the coast of Labrador in 1497, and on a third voyage, entered Hudson's bay in 1517 before Hudson died. In 1498, Vasco de Gama under the patronage of the king of Portugal, doubled the Cape of Good Hope and opened a new route to the Indies. This same king in 1501 sent Gasper Cortereal with two vessels to explore the northwestern ocean. In 1512 the Spanish navigator Juan Ponce de Leon discovered the Gulf of Mexico. In 1513, Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama where President Taft is now digging a canal, and discovered the mighty Pacific ocean. It was a revelation second only to the discovery of Columbus. What must have been the wonder of those wandering Spaniards as they looked down from the mountain tops to the vast ocean glittering in the morning sun.
The discovery of the Pacific ocean was a great event, and had been accomplished by the first land journey to the interior. It then began to dawn upon the sea-rovers that there was another ocean to be crossed to reach the riches of India. And from this discovery all the country south of the Isthmus of Panama was given up to the Spanish. And while the title to South America was thus accorded to Spain, the Spaniards did not abate one jot or title of their claim to North America also. And in the year 1539, Ferdinand de Soto, one of Spain's most distinguished soldiers, gathered an army of six hundred men in the Island of Cuba, and with two hundred horses and a herd of swine, sailed for the western coast of Florida, where he arrived on the 30th of May, and on landing his men, was attacked by the natives, being the first opposition made by the Indians to the occupation of the new world by the white man. From this landing point, De Soto forced his way westward against repeated attacks from the Indians until he reached and discovered the Mississippi river at the point where the north boundary line of the state of Mississippi intersects the river. Under this title of discovery, Spain held the territory down to the year 1820.
It may be supposed that on account of this activity of the Spanish in the south, the commercial and colonizing projects of the English were confined to the North Atlantic sea coast. And consequently we find Martin Frobisher, an English navigator, in 1576-8 making three voyages to America, giving his name to Frobisher's strait, but not finding a northwest passage to Asia. Frobisher was followed by another Englishman—John Davis, in 1587-9 in three voyages, who gave his name to Davis strait. In 1570, Francis Drake, afterwards the great Sir Francis, boldly following the route of Magellan around the south end of South America, and pouncing upon the Spanish merchant vessels ladened with gold and silver from the mines of Peru, attempted to get back to England by following up the Pacific coast past California and Oregon and going through a mythical northeast passage to the Atlantic ocean. All these navigators, and many more that we have not time to notice, were trying to find the "Strait of Anian," which was reputed to be the short cut through North ​ica, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans on a straight route from Europe to Asia.
How this mythical strait idea ever got possession of the minds of the sea rovers of that age, has never been satisfactorily explained, and its real origin will probably never be discovered. But that the idea did get possession of the minds of many navigators, causing vast expenditures of money and the loss of many lives, there is ample proof. Many of the old maps of that period show the strait connecting the two oceans, and one of these maps made by one Conrad Low in 1598, and printed in his Book of Six Heroes, is almost a perfect map of what all the world now knows of Bering Strait, and even showing the Yukon river under the name of Obila. And yet all these maps were purely imaginary; California being platted close up to where our late hero Dr. Cook crossed hundreds of miles of ice to reach the north pole. And to show how the mythical and mysterious had taken possession of men's minds in that age, and finally located Oregon in the very core of all this fanciful geography and imaginary wilderness of myths; we may refer to a few examples of these grand stories of the bold sea rovers. In 1592 one Juan de Fuca, claiming to have been born a Greek in the Island of Cephalonia, reported that while in the employ of the Spanish viceroy of Mexico, he sailed north along the Oregon coast, and discovered an entrance into the land between 47 and 48 degrees latitude; and entering therein with his ship, he sailed through the strait for twenty days and came out on the Atlantic coast. Now when De Euca's report was analyzed by subsequent navigators, a great majority disbelieved the whole story, did not believe that he even found the Strait of Fuca, as we know it; while those who admit that he might have found the strait to which his name is attached, all concur that he simply sailed into the strait, kept his course north and came out into the Pacific ocean again, having simply sailed around Vancouver island. The British government had ofifered a reward of one hundred thousand dollars to any ship that should discover and report a navigable route for ships from the Atlantic through to the Pacific ocean. This stimulated hundreds of sea captains to look for such a passage, and still believing in the mythical Strait of Anian, the search was kept up for two hundred years, and practically all the voyages to America for the first sixty years after its discovery was to find the short route to Asia across North America. All sorts of imaginary countries were reported; Cabot reported that the north of America is all divided into islands. In 1610 the English navigator, Henry Hudson, searched the whole Atlantic coast from the river that bears his name north to the great inland sea of Hudson's bay, looking for the passage through the continent. And about the same time on the Pacific coast we get a first-class sensation from Spanish sources. One Lorenzo Maldonado, gave it out for a fact that he had in 1588, actually sailed through the Strait of Anian from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean in thirty days, during the months of November and December, starting in at latitude 78 north and coming out at 75 north. Such a voyage would have started from the north end of Baffin's bay, passed through Jones sound, and come out on the Pacific side in the middle of the Arctic ocean, which at the date named, would all have been solid immovable ice. On hearing this story, and examining his maps, the Spanish authorities denounced Maldonado as an embustero, which is doubtless where we get the name of our latter day "booster."
Another one of the geographical myths of that age was the belief that California was an island. A Spanish navigator by the name of Nicholas Cordoba, investigated the subject in 1615, and after exploring the Gulf of California and talking the matter over with his fellow sea captains, reported that California was in fact an island, and printed a long document describing the country as "a far extended kingdom of which the end is only known by geographical conjectures which make it an island stretching from the northwest to southeast, forming a Mediterranean sea, adjacent to the incognita contracosta de la Florida. It is one of the richest lands in the world, with silver, gold, pearls, etc."
​In 1748, one Henry Ellis, published in London, a summary of the voyages and explorations to find a northwest passage across America to China and in which he gives the story of a Dutchman sailor who having been driven to the coast of California, had found that country to be either an island or a peninsula, according as the tide was high or low. Before 1750, the Russians had crossed Asia and arrived on the coast of Bering strait, and made such discoveries as proved the existence of our Alaskan possessions, and greatly narrowed the northern mystery—they had discovered the real strait which separated America and Asia. And as embodying the geographical knowledge of this region at that time, have printed Jeffrey's map of 1768, which shows the location of Oregon under the name of New Albion, which was the name Drake gave the Oregon coast in 1579. This is the first map to give any hint of the great river of Columbia, which is here put down on imaginary lines by both French and Russians as "River of West."
But as time passed on and explorers and navigators converged from north to south and compared their observations, it was made plain that there was no Strait of Anian or any other navigable strait or water passage across the continent. The east coast lines had been followed from Hudson's bay south to the straits of Magellan and thence along the west coast north to the Bering sea, and no strait found. The result of this conclusion was, to start explorations overland, first from Canada and afterwards from Missouri territory, which finally developed the emigration to Oregon. And as this fact became fixed in the minds of men, we see the then ruling powers of the world taking steps to establish claims to the country by more open and assertive action.
The first attempt to get on to the coast north of California, was made by Bartolome Ferrulo, sent out in two small vessels by the Spanish government in 1543. It seems to be certain that Ferrulo did get north of 42° north latitude and near enough to the Oregon coast to observe birds, driftwood and the outflow of a river. But he made no landing, and did not see the land on account of the fogs during the month of February. The next navigator on the Oregon coast was Francis Drake in the year 1579. Drake's claims to be the discoverer of Oregon are certainly better than those of De Fuca, and may with good reason be accepted as the fact. Drake had come around into the Pacific by way of Cape Horn, and prepared for any feat or fortune, had captured and robbed a number of Spanish merchant ships, returning from Peru and Mexico. He was to all intents, a pirate on the high seas; and knowing full well that if any Spaniard able to capture him fell in with his ship, he would get a short shrift off the taffrail, he laid his course north close to the coast, where there were neither ships nor men, hoping to find a passage east across the continent to the Atlantic ocean; or failing in that, to cross over to Asia and get back to England by the way of Good Hope, clear of Spanish ships. In the first printed account of this voyage, it is claimed Drake reached 42° north, which would be on the southern boundary of Oregon, where it is claimed the ship got fresh water, and to get which, the ship and crew must have reached the main land. From here Drake again sailed northerly along the coast until he reached 48° north, which is about the entrance to the Straits of Fuca. From this point Drake turned back, keeping close in, and finally reached what we now know as Drake's bay on the coast of California. It is claimed, and it may be truethat Drake thought he could find a passage across the continent by water and get east to the Atlantic and England with his plunder without risking a fight with any Spanish ship. If that was so, Drake with all his admitted great ability, must have believed in the Strait of Anian myth. But Francis Fletcher, Drake's nephew, who accompanied those pirates as chaplain, piously praying for their success, published in 1628 an account of that voyage which shows that they must have been well up towards Alaska before they turned back from the extreme cold.
​It seems necessary to state these particulars of Drake's discovery, as they throw light upon the claim the British government afterwards set up to Oregon. If Drake, on that voyage, did actually reach Oregon, then according to the international law of that period, the English had a right to Oregon from discovery. But the British government never claimed anything for Drake or that voyage. Why? Drake was at that time a pirate, and outlaw, and no rights could be founded on the acts of such. There can be but little doubt that the character of Drake's expedition was well known to the British government. After wintering at Drake's bay, Drake struck out across the Pacific ocean and reached England by the Cape of Good Hope route in September, 1588, after an absence of two years, being the first Englishman to sail around the earth. His return to England created a great sensation. His sailors were reported to be clothed in silks, his sails were damask, and his masts covered with cloth of gold. Queen Elizabeth hesitated long before recognizing the really great exploration of a free-booter. But finally she honored him with knighthood, and approved all his acts.
Drake was the first explorer to give a name to the country—New Albion — which may be found for the first time on the map of Honduis made in 1595.
The next exploring expedition to the Oregon coast was made by Sebastian Viscaino, and Martin Aguilar, who were sent out by the Spanish viceroy in Mexico, with two small vessels to explore the northwest coast of America. Leaving Monterey, California, in January, 1603, they sailed northerly and falling in with bad weather were separated in a gale. The scurvy broke out on both ships, and many of the men died from the disease. But Aguilar's ship finally reached the land near Cape Blanco, Oregon, and found a river thereabouts, either Coos bay or the Coquille. Father Ascension, the chaplain, of the ship, says in his account of it, that they "found a very copious and soundable river on the banks of which were very large ashes, brambles and other trees of Castile; and wishing to enter it the current would not permit it." The same priest obtained a report from the pilot of the other ship that "having reached Cape Mendocino with most of the men sick, and it being mid-winter and the rigging cruelly cold and frozen so they could not steer the ship, the current carried her slowly towards the land, running to the Strait of Anian, which here has its entrance, and in eight days, we had advanced more than one degree of latitude, reaching 43° north in sight of a point named San Sebastian near which enters a river named Santa Anes." It seems to be clear that both these Spanish ship captains reached substantially the same point on the Oregon coast; and Viscaino named the point, Cabo Blanco de San Sebastian, which name has remained as the name until this day as our Cape Blanco, about half way between Coos bay and the mouth of Rogue river.
Thus we see that in 111 years after Columbus discovered land on the east side of the continent, the coast of Oregon on the west side of the continent was clearly made out and designated by names. And these discoveries of Drake, Viscaino and Aguilar, practically closed the era of myths and mysteries so far as the sea coast was considered. For while the belief of a Strait of Anian, or some passage for ships across the continent was for a period after that believed in or hoped for, there was no further fabricated reports of the discovery of such a passage.
And now we find a long lapse in the spirit of exploration and discovery on the northwest coast of America. Not only Spain, but all other nations practically abandoned the coast of old Oregon for nearly one hundred and seventy years. Every motive which had moved Spain to exploration in the fifteenth century was still unsatisfied. The conversion of the souls of the natives was the great proposition of the church—and the church was Spain—was still beckoning the faithful missionaries to the unpenetrated forests of the far north. The taking possession of any possible inter-oceanic ship passage grew more important as the commerce of Spain on the Pacific increased from year ​to year. And yet Spain failed to move again until the year 1774, only two years prior to the Declaration of Independence at Philadelphia. In that long interval of inertness, which can only be explained by Spain's surfeit of gold and plunder from Mexico and Peru, we find no more of other European powers to take advantage of the opportunity. But in 1773 the Spanish government moved by the reports that the Russians were not only making settlements on the east coast of Siberia, but were taking possession of the seal islands on the west coast of America, organized a strong expedition to set sail in 1774, with chaplainsmissionaries to the heathen, surgeons to battle with the scurvy, and eighty men to man the ship and fight the enemies if necessary, with a years supplies, left Monterey, California, to take possession of the whole coast of North America, north of California clear up to the point where the Russians might possibly have made an actual settlement. This expedition was under the command of Juan Perez, who proved himself an able seaman and capable commander. Perez was instructed by his government to go north to the sixtieth degree of north latitude and take possession and explore the whole coast to that extent. It seems certain from his report that he reached 55 degrees north before turning back, and at which point he had friendly intercourse and much trade with the Indians. At one time there were twenty-one canoes with over two hundred Indians around his ship with dried fish and furs to barter for knives, iron, beads and other trinkets. This expedition practically surveyed the whole coast from what is now the southern boundary of Alaska down to the California line; and as far as any rights can attach to the mere finding or discovery of new lands Perez had made good the title of Spain to the whole coast from the California line up to Alaska.
Determined to make good the claim to the northwest coast, Spain followed up the voyage of Perez with another the next year under the command of Bruno Heceta, with four vessels, chaplains, missionaries, one hundred and six men and supplies for a year. They left Monterey on May 21st, 1775, coasted northerly and made their first landing July 14th, 1775 on the coast of what is now Jefferson County in the state of Washington about seventy-five miles south of the entrance to the Straits of Fuca. Here Heceta erected a cross and took possession of the country in the name of the king of Spain. And this was the first time European people had set foot on the coast of old Oregon, and made proclamation and record of intent to hold the land. From this point Heceta coasted southward and on August 17th, discovered a bay with strong currents and eddies, indicating the mouth of a great river or strait. The place was subsequently named by the Spaniards, Ensenada de Heceta, and which has been identified as the mouth of the Columbia river.
We have now given all of the Spanish exploration of the northwest coast as is necessary to show the title by right of discovery. It must be admitted that it was a right founded wholly on the consent of other nations, who were in the same business of claiming everything in the real estate line they could find, that had not already been appropriated by others. When we consider the character of the ships those old mariners went to sea in, and braved all the dangers of the deep, it would seem that they were entitled to something better than wild land that had no appreciable value. One of the ships, not, however, entitled to be dignified as a ship, (with which Heceta made that voyage along the northwest coast in 1775,) was only thirty six-feet long, twelve feet wide and eight feet deep. What would the sailors of today say if asked to go upon a voyage along an uncharted coast for a year, where there was no help except from savage Indians, in case of misfortune. It was just about the time Heceta and his men were beating around among the rocks of Destruction island and fighting the Indians of Mount Olympus on the Washington coast, when General Warren and the continental militia were pouring hot shot into the British at Bunker Hill. There were fighting men and heroes in those days on both sides of America.
​An now we come down to a period one hundred and ninety-nine years after Drake discovered the coast of Oregon and named it New Albion, and find George III of England taking decisive steps to claim this country, or as much of it as was left unclaimed by the Spaniards. In 1776, the famous navigator. Captain James Cook was dispatched to the Pacific coast with instructions to search for a passage eastwardly through North America to Europe, either by Hudson bay, or by the Northern sea then recently discovered by Captain Hearne, or by the sea north of Asia; and in such search he was instructed to explore all the northwestern regions of America. His instructions were to strike the Coast of New Albion at '45 degrees north, which was supposed to be north of any discoveries then made by the Spanish. This was Cook's third and last voyage around the world, and he had left England without knowing what the Spanish navigators had accomplished before that time. And he was specially instructed "to take possession, with the consent of the natives, in the name of the king of Great Britain, of convenient situations, as you may discover, that have not already been discovered, or visited by any other European power, and to distribute among the inhabitants, such things as will remain as traces and testimonials. You are also on your way thither strictly enjoined not to touch upon any part of the Spanish dominions on the western continent of America, unless driven thither by unavoidable accident, in which case you are to stay no longer than shall be absolutely necessary, and to be very careful not to give any umbrage or offense to any of the inhabitants or subjects of his Catholic majesty. And if in your further progress to the northward, as hereafter directed, you find any subjects of any European prince or state upon any part of the coast, you many think proper to visit, you are not to disturb them, or give them any just cause of offense."
Now, it is clear from these instructions, that Cook was bound to respect the claims of Spain set up as prior discoveries of the Oregon coast, and the British government was bound by these instructions—Cook was to take possession of such lands as had not been discovered or visited by any other European power. He reached the Sandwich islands in February, 1778, and sailing from the islands, came in sight of the Oregon coast on March 7, 1778. He speaks of the coast as "New Albion" in his log, using the name given it by Drake nearly two hundred years before. At noon of March 7, the ship's position was 44° 33' north by 236° and 30' east from Greenwich, and Cook's orders were to strike the coast at 45° north, so that he was showing good sailing qualities. The location on the Oregon coast reached first thus by Cook, is practically about the entrance of Yaquina bay. In his log, he describes the land fairly well as of "moderate height, diversified with hill and valley, and almost everywhere covered with trees." Cook laid his course north up the coast and after passing a headland, foul weather set in and he named the point Cape Foulweather, which name has stayed with the headland to this day. Cook held to his course up the coast with continued stormy weather, until March 29, passing both the mouth of the Columbia river and the straits of Fuca, without seeing either opening, and then turned into what he named Hope bay on the west coast of Vancouver island, and finding an extension of the bay into the land, gave it the Indian name of Nootka sound. Here he explored the country and traded with the Indians. Cook gave names to Capes Foulweather, Perpetua and Gregory, all of which have been permanent except the last, which is now known as Arago. He traded with the same Indians as did Perez, and found silver spoons and other trinkets of European origin among them, and rightly concluded that they had been visited by more than one navigator on the coast, and did not pretend to take possession of the country, although he remained at Nootka on the coast of Vancouver island for a month, making repairs to his ship.
Captain James Cook was the greatest of all the navigators and explorers of unknown seas, and in every respect a very great man. His services to mankind were so highly esteemed that when Franklin was in Paris as representative of the United States, he was empowered to issue letters of marque against the English, but in doing so, inserted an instruction that if any of the holders of such letters, should fall in with vessels commanded by Captain Cook, he was to be shown every respect and be permitted to pass unattacked on account of the benefits he had conferred on mankind, through his important discoveries.
Cook is described as over six feet high, thin and spare, small head, forehead broad, dark brown hair, rolled back and tied behind, nose long and straight, high cheek bones, small brown eyes and quick and piercing, face long, chin round and full with mouth firmly set—a striking, austere face, showing his Scotch descent, and indicative of the man most remarkable for patience, resolution, perseverance and unfaltering courage.
The irony of fate which snuffed out the life of a great and good man, and deprived him of the honor and credit of opening to the world a great region filled with unexampled wealth, yet even in this last fateful voyage, gave to the commercial world a clue to vast wealth which was eagerly snapped up by citizens of four great nations. In Cook's brief stay at Nootka sound, he got in barter, a small bale of very fine furs from the Indians. These furs reached China after the death of Cook, and their extraordinary quality at once so caught the attention of all vessels trading to Canton, that the news of it spread rapidly to England, Spain, Portugal and the United States. In consequence of this information there was a sort of gold mine stampede to the new found El Dorado in the fur bearing haunts of the north Pacific, which set in toward the northwest seven years after Cook had sailed away. This was the beginning of the great fur trade from which the Hudson Bay Company made so many royal millionaires in England.
Following up this discovery of rich furs in the northwest, we find Captain James Hanna, an Englishman, coming over from China in a little brig of sixty tons, with twenty men. He reached Nootka sound in August, 1785, and he had no sooner anchored his little ship than the Indians attacked him. He gave them a hot reception, drove them off, and then they obligingly turned around and offered to trade. The sea rover accommodated them, and in exchange for a lot of cheap knives, shirts, beads and trinkets, the natives handed over five hundred and sixty sea otter skins, which would be worth at this day a quarter of a million dollars, but for which the thrifty trader actually got twenty thousand dollars. This was the beginning of the great fur trade in Old Oregon, Alaska and California.
The next navigator to visit this region after Hanna. was the famous French explorer, La Perouse, who was sent out by the French king to examine such parts of northwestern America as had not been explored by Captain Cook, to seek an inter-oceanic passage, to make observations on the country, its people and products, to obtain reliable information as to the fur trade, the extent of the Spanish settlements, the region in which furs might be taken without giving offense to Spain, and the inducements to French enterprise. But while the ​commander of the expedition, like Cook, lost his life on this voyage, it was in many respects one of the most valuable of all the exploring expeditions to this region. La Perouse was accompanied by a corps of scientific observers able to report in full the value of the country, and their observations and the report of the voyage, make up four volumes with a book of maps, and really gave to the world the first scientific knowledge of this vast region. The expedition had also another very decisive feature as showing at that time what other nations than England thought of the ownership of the country. La Perouse was instructed to ascertain the extent and limits of the rights of Spain, and no reference was made whatever to any rights of England, clearly showing that in the estimation of other nations, England had no rights on the Pacific coast as against Spain or any other power.
Following La Perouse in 1786, three fur trading expeditions were dispatched to the northwest coast. One of these under the command of Captains Meares and Tipping, with the ships, Nootka and Sea Otter was fitted out in Bengal and traded with the Indians in Prince Williams sound and the Alaskan coast. A second expedition was fitted out by English merchants at Bombay, sailing under the flag of the East India Company, reached Nootka sound in June, 1786, and secured six hundred sea otter skins, not as many as they hoped for, because the Indians had promised to save their skins for Captain Hanna who had given them a thrashing, and who returned in August. This expedition from Bombay is remarkable for more than its six hundred sea otter pelts. It left behind, at his own request, the first white man to reside on the northwest coast of America—one John McKey—who being in bad health, chose to take his chances with the Indians, the chief promising him protection. McKey lived for over a year with the Indians, taking a native woman for a wife, was well treated but endured many hardships, kept a journal of his experiences, and gave to the world, through Captain Barclay, who carried him away to China, the geographical fact that Vancouver island was not a part of the mainland.
The third expedition of that year was two ships fitted out in England in 1785, but did not reach the Pacific coast until 1786. It was sent out by what was called King George's Sound Company, an association of British merchants acting under licenses from the South Sea and East India monopolies, and was commanded by Nathanial Portlock and George Dixon, both of whom had been with Cook on his last voyage. They reached the coast of Alaska in July, 1786, then drifted south intending to winter at Nootka, but from bad weather and other causes failed to find harbors and sailed to the Sandwich islands where they wintered. They returned to the coast in 1787 and repeated their cruise of drifting southward from Alaska. Portlock and Dixon named several points on the coast in this cruise, secured two thousand, five hundred and fifty sea otter skins which they sold in China for $54,857, while the whole number of otter pelts secured by the other fur traders,—Hanna, Strange, Meares and Barclay down to the end of 1787 was only 2,481 skins. Captain Barclay reached the coast at Nootka in June, 1787, coming out as the commander of the ship Imperial Eagle, which sailed from the Belgian port of Ostend under the flag of the Austrian East India Company, making another nation engaging in the fur trade. Barclay went no further north than Nootka, got eight hundred otter skins and then sailed southward, discovering Barclay sound; continuing his voyage south, passing the Strait of Fuca without seeing it, he sent off a boat to enter a river, probably the Quillayute—with five men and a boat-swain's mate, where they were attacked by the Indians and all killed. These were probably the same savages that gave Heceta and his men such a battle in 1775. Mrs. Barclay had accompanied the captain on his voyage, and is entitled to the distinction of being the first white woman to land on the soil of old Oregon.
Following up Captain Barclay's careful survey of the coast, the Spanish government sent north in 1788 another exploration to find out what the ​Russians were doing on the coast; it had been reported that the Russians had four settlements, coming down as far south as Nootka, and it was feared that the Russians might come still farther south, as probably they did. This Spanish expedition consisted of two vessels, commanded by Martinez, and de Haro, for •each of which important coast points have been named. This expedition shows clearly enough that Spain was asserting her title to the coast against all the world as far up as 60 degrees north.
And now we reach the date when citizens of the United States for the first time, show an interest in the country we write this book about. Here for the first time do the "Bostons" and the "King George" men (as the Indians named them) come in contact as explorers, traders and rivals for the great northwest. For the year 1788, the history of this vast region is made up of the movements of the American captains, Kendrick and Gray in command of the ships Lady Washington and Columbia, and the British captains, Meares in command of the Felice and Douglas in command of the Iphegenia. All these old sea captains were exceedingly polite to each other, accepting various favors, the Americans firing a salute on the launching of Meares new schooner, but each man kept a sharp lookout for "the main chance."
Captain Gray, the first American citizen to set eyes on the coast of Oregon, hailed the land near the boundary between California and Oregon, August 2., 1788, and coasted north, keeping in close to the shore. Two days after sighting land, ten natives came off in a canoe and gave the strangers a friendly greeting. On the 14th of August, Gray crossed over the Tillamook bar and anchored in thirteen feet of water near where the town of Bay city is now located. The Indians appeared to be friendly, furnishing large quantities of fish and berries without payment, and trading furs freely for iron implements, taking what was offered in exchange, and also furnishing wood and water as desired. Gray thought he had entered the mouth of the great "River of the West"; which Jonathan Carver had figured out on his map of the northwest, made ten years prior, from conversations he had with Indians on the Mississippi river, near where St. Paul is located. But remaining a few days in the Tillamook bay to recuperate his men from scurvy, he got into a hot fight with the Indians about a cutlass one of them had stolen from his servant Lopeze. Poor Lopez a native of the Cape Verde islands, was killed, three sailors badly beaten, barely escaping with their fives, the captain had to drive the savages away with the swivel gun, killing many of them, and naming the place "Murderer's Harbor." The speculators who are now so noisily "boosting" that beautiful sheet of water for a fashionable summer resort, will hardly adopt its first white man's name as an attractive historical suggestion. Tillamook bay may be considered the first harbor on the coast of Oregon entered by a white man's ship; and all the more appreciated is the fact that the ship was American, and that its captain was the discoverer of our grand river, Columbia.
Leaving Tillamook and proceeding north up the coast, the navigators found nothing new in adventure or discovery. They did not even see the entrance to the Straits of Fuca, although Haswell, the ship's second officer, wrote at the time, "I am of the opinion that the Straits of Fuca do exist, though Captain Cook positively asserts they do not, for at this point the coast takes a bend that may be the entrance." It is surprising that so important a geographical feature of the northwest coast should not have been discovered sooner than it was. And it is a painful disappointment that the name of the discoverer, Captain James Barclay should not have been attached to the strait, instead of that of the Greek imposter, De Fuca. It is some satisfaction, however, to know that the first man to sail through the great strait was an American—Captain Robert Gray, and making a remarkable and most happy coincidence, in that his ship was named Lady Washington in honor of the wife of the man who was at the date of that memorable voyage through the strait, inaugurated the first president of the United States.
​From this time on, the fur trading vessels to the north Pacific rapidly increased. The profits of the fur trade were so enormous that men and money rushed into it from every maritime nation. It was typical of and the forerunner of the California gold craze which came along about sixty years later. The only difference being, so far as the argonauts were concerned, was that in the rush to get furs all had to go in ships and brave the perils of the sea; while in the mad rush to California tens of thousands made their way overland from the Missouri river by ox teams. But on reaching these two era-marking El Doradoes, we see another wholly dissimilar plan to get the gold. The fur trading sea captains did not hunt for any furs or descend to the menial labor of digging gold from mother earth. They took the lordly and aristocratic way of working the heathen savage to catch the furs on land and sea, and then trading him out of his pelts with bad whiskey, shoddy shirts, and glass beads. But the California miner for gold had to get in and dig for himself to get gold. Indians there were in plenty in California, but no lordly son of the forest would ever demean himself with the base work of using a pick and shovel. And here we see the two races face to face, opposed. One will hunt, and shoot, and fish, and kill, and starve before he will work. The other will work and trade, and cheat and rob, before he will starve.
At the same time that Gray and Kendrick were out here from Boston, two English ships, the Felice and Iphegenia, already noticed, were here for furs. The Englishmen had come prepared to build a small vessel on the coast and making their headquarters at Nootka, erected there the first house built north of California. This house built 122 years ago was two stories high, with a defensive breast work all around it and a cannon mounted on top of it. Captain Kendrick of the Columbia, also built a house, but whether before or after the erection of the English house the record does not show. Being inquired of, the Indian chief, Maquinna, and all his sub-chiefs, who were in native possession of the land at Nootka, answered that they sold no land to the British captains, and that the American Captain Kendrick was the only man to whom they had ever sold any land. So that so far as getting the Indian title to lands was concerned, history shows that the Americans were the first and only people to recognize the Indian title to lands on the Pacific coast. The Englishmen who built the house, above described, got in all the furs they could and prepared ^ to leave for China in September, 1788. They tore down the house they had erected, put part of the materials on board the ships, and gave the balance to the Americans. In other respects, they were not so liberal. They strongly urged the Americans not to remain on the coast and brave the winter storms, avoided carrying any letters from the Americans to China, declared they had not got more than fifty otter skins when they had in fact, thousands. But the Americans stayed and wintered at Nootka.
But as the Spaniards were very poor business men, they never got much out of the fur trade. Besides that, otter pelts were not near so attractive as the ingots of gold and silver, they were squeezing out of the Mexicans and Peruvians. And as a matter of fact it is no more than justice to the priests, and ought to be said, that the church used its influence through the priests to protect the Indians as far as possible from the evils of the rum traffic and outrageous robbery by fur traders in getting the fruits of their labor for mere trifles. A single example may be given to show how ignorant the natives were of the value of otter skins, when they gave Captain Cook on his survey of Queen Charlotte island, two hundred sea otter skins, worth at that time eight thousand dollars, for an old iron chisel not worth a dollar.
The Americans had decided to send Gray with the Columbia back to Boston when the quarrel between the English and Spaniards was at its height; and to that end, with the furs taken by Kendrick and Gray, he—Gray, returned to Boston at the close of 1789. The joint expedition of the two ships had not been greatly profitable, but the Boston merchants were not discouraged, and resolved to outfit the ship and send Gray out again.
Accordingly the Columbia sailed out of Boston harbor on the 28th of September, 1790, for its second voyage to the coast of Old Oregon, and arrived at Clayoquot on the west coast of Vancouver island on the 5th of June, 1791. After a rest for a few days, the ship, proceeded to the eastern side of Queen Charlotte island, on which and the opposite main land coast she remained until September, exploring and trading with the Indians, going as far north as the present extreme southern end of Alaska. Gray returned to Clayoquot on the 29th of August, having had only indifferent success in getting furs, and then went into winter quarters near an Indian village, and during the winter, built a small sloop and lived on the ducks and geese so plentiful and fat. The next spring (1792) brought a lot of traders from France, Portugal, England, and the United States. There were twenty-eight vessels on the northwest coast in the spring of 1792 at one time. Five of them came expressly to make geographical explorations. The others brought out government commissioners or supplies for garrison, and national vessels. But it is no part of our purpose to follow the movements of any of these ships.
We return again to Captain Gray in winter quarters at Clayoquot. In February, 1792, the Indians that had all along been so friendly to Gray, formed a plot to seize the ship and kill every man but a Kanaka servant boy. The plot was detected and defeated by the mistake of the Indians in trying to bribe this Kanaka to wet the powder in all the fire arms on a certain night. By moving the ship, preparing for defence and firing the cannon into the woods, the attack was prevented. On the 23d of February the sloop which Gray had built — the first American ship built on the coast—was launched and named the Adventure, and on April 2, both of Gray's ships sailed out for their spring harvest of furs. The two vessels parted company at Clayoquot, Gray and the Columbia going southward. On the 29th of April, Gray met the Englishman, Vancouver, just below Cape Flattery, and gave him some account of his discoveries and among other things told him about having been off the mouth of a river in latitude 46 degrees north where the outgoing flood was so strong as to prevent him from entering the river after nine day's effort. After meeting Vancouver he ran into what is now called Gray's harbor, and remained there trading with the Indians, and got into a fight with them, until the 10th of May, ​when he weighed anchor, sailed out and southward to the point where he had struck the outflow of the great river, and then on May 11, 1792, succeeded in sailing in over the bar and up the river for twenty-five miles—and named the river after his ship—"The Columbia,"—our great Columbia.
From the log book of the Columbia, we take the following extracts: "At four o'clock in the morning of the nth, we beheld our desired port, bearing eastsoutheast, distant six leagues. At eight A. M. being a little to the windward of the entrance of the harbor, bore away, and ran in east-northeast, between the breakers, having from five to seven fathoms of water. When we were over the bar, we found this to be a large river of fresh water, up which we steered. Many canoes came alongside. At one P. M. came to, with the small bower, in ten fathoms, black and white sand. The entrance between the bars bore westsouthwest ten miles; the north side of the river, distant a half mile from the ship, the south side of the same, two and a half miles distant, a village on the north side of the river, west by north, distant three quarters of a mile. Vast numbers of the natives came alongside; people employed pumping the salt water out of our water-casks in order to fill with fresh, while the ship floated in. So ends."
"No, not so ends, Oh, modest Captain Gray of the ship Columbia (says Mrs. Victor), the end is not yet, nor will it be until all the vast territory, rich with every production of the earth, which is drained by the waters of the new found river shall have yielded up its illimitable wealth to distant generations."
And to this Yankee skipper from Boston, the American, Robert Gray, more honors—came in the exploration of the northwest—than to any other man. He was not only the first to sail a ship through the Straits of Fuca,—the discoverer of the Columbia river, but he was the first American to circumnavigate the globe under the national flag, which he did in 1790, by the way of Good Hope, trading his furs to the Chinese at Canton for a cargo of tea.
Here our record of the explorations of the northwest from the seacoast comes to a close. We have given enough to enable the reader to follow the story and see how these explorations gradually concentrated to the point of discovering the river which drains the empire which is building this city. The foundation of our title to the whole northwest clear up to the Alaskan boundary, and the natural selection of this point for the central and chief city of all this vast region will be better understood when reading future chapters after having read this chapter through.