# Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 14/Number 4

THE QUARTERLY
OF THE
Oregon Historical Society
Copyright, 1913, by Oregon Historical Society The Quarterly disavows responsibility for the positions taken by contributors to its pages
REMINISCENCES OF CAPTAIN WILLIAM P. GRAY
By Fred Lockley
"My father, W. H. Gray, came to Oregon in 1836," said Captain William P. Gray, of Pasco. "I was born in Oregon City in 1845. My father named me William Polk Gray. I remember when I was about four or five years old some one asked my father what my middle initial stood for. Father said, 'I named him after President Polk. When I named him the president had taken a strong stand on 54-40 or fight. Polk reversed his attitude on that question and I have been sorry I called my boy after him ever since. Sometimes I have a notion to wring the youngster's neck, I am so disgusted with President Polk/ I was about five years old, and when I heard my father say that he sometimes had a notion to wring my neck, it scared me pretty badly. My father was a man who usually meant what he said and always, did what he said he was going to do, so every time I saw him look stern I ran like a rabbit and hid, for fear he might be about to wring my neck.
"My father was one of the early day expansionists. He was really the prime mover and originator of the agitation for making Oregon American territory. He got one or two others together and first discussed the advisability of holding the Wolf meeting that led to the movement to organize the provisional government at Champoeg on May 2, 1843.
​"He was greatly in favor of our owning not only Alaska, but all of Canada. He thought the United States should take in all the continent of North America. When Secretary Seward went up to Alaska he took my father with him, on account of father's familiarity with the Indian customs and languages.
"Father came back from Alaska greatly impressed with Seward's statesmanship. He said Seward was a high type of American. At that time Thomas Nast and others were cartooning Seward and showing Alaska as an iceberg with a solitary polar bear guarding it. I remember hearing father say when some one criticized Seward's purchase of Alaska: 'The only criticism I have to make of Seward's purchase of Alaska is that he didn't also buy British Columbia at the same time. "I guess few families are more typically western than our family. My oldest brother, John Henry Dix Gray, was born in 1839 at Lapwai, while father was building the mission buildings there for Dr. Spalding.
"The next child, my sister, Mrs. Caroline A. Kamm, now of Portland, was born at Whitman mission when father was building the flour mill for Dr. Whitman. Father was one of the most resourceful men I ever saw. If he wanted to make something and had no tools, he would make the tools and then go ahead and make what he wanted. After he had built the mill for Dr. Whitman, though he had never in his life attempted making mill stones, he quarried them out successfully, shaped them up and installed them.
"My father's father died when my father was only eight years old. His older brother was a Presbyterian minister. He bound out my father to a cabinet maker.
"The next child to be born was Mary Sophia, who later became Mrs. Frank Tarbell. She also was born at Whitman station, and died in Portland in 1895. Her husband at one time was the treasurer of Washington Territory.
"The next child to be born was Sarah Fidelia, who married Governor Abernethy's son. She was born at Salem when ​father was organizing the Oregon Institute. Mr. and Mrs. Abernethy are now living at Forest Grove.
"My father took up a donation land claim where the town of Salem now stands, but traded it to J. L. Parrish for a location on Clatsop Plains not far from Astoria.
"I was the next child to be born, being born in Oregon City in 1845.
"The next child, Albert Williams Gray, was born on their Clatsop Plains farm. He is now captain of a steamboat on the lower Columbia.
"The next boy was Edwin Hall, who died when he was eight years old, and the next child, Truman Powers, died when he was two years old.
"The next child, James T. Gray, now has charge of the Tanana division in Alaska for the Northern Navigation Company. He married General O. O. Howard's daughter, Grace. Their home is near Milwaukie.
"When I was four years old we were living at Clatsop Plains, so my father decided I had better go to school. I had to walk two miles each morning and night to school. My first teacher was Miss Rebecca Ketchum. I went to this school for two or three terms.
"When we were at Clatsop Plains the first Presbyterian church in that whole district was organized at our house. After the church was organized one of the people there donated the ground and my father built the first church in Clatsop county.
"When I was eight years old my parents moved to Astoria. I went to school there to a Scotchman named Sutherland. The only part of the Bible that he knew well was the part where it says, 'If you spare the rod, you will spoil the child.' There was no danger of any of us getting spoiled, for he put in the major part of his time using the rod.
"Our next teacher was Miss Lincoln, who later married Judge A. A. Skinner.
"When I was ten years old, I took my first contract. Father had a theory that it was a pretty good scheme for his boys to ​get to work as early as possible and as a matter of fact, we never had much time to get into mischief. General John Adair, the collector of customs, had enough pull to move the custom house and the postoffice to upper Astoria. Lower Astoria had the sawmill, the stores and the bulk of the population.
"Dr. C. J. Trenchard fixed up a subscription paper and I went around to all of the stores and residences of lower Astoria and got the people to agree to pay me to deliver their mail before I said anything to my father about it. I was to go twice a week for the river mail and make two extra trips a month for the steamer mail that came from California and brought the mail from the East. The stores paid from 75 cents to $1.50 a month, while the private individuals paid 25 to 50 cents a month. I guess that was about the first city mail delivery in Oregon, as that was back in 1855. I started for the mail in the morning, summer and winter, at 5:30 o'clock. It kept me busy until school time distributing it. I often had from twenty-five to forty pounds of mail, and! for a ten-year-old boy, climbing around the cliffs, that was a pretty good load. How I used to hate the people who took papers. Some of them took bulky papers, and to bring four or five bulky papers to some one, and only get 25 cents a month for it, I thought was pretty tough. I made from $30 to $35 a month. My mother wanted me to save my money. Father said, 'It is Willy's money. Let him spend it as he pleases. He will have to learn for himself.Peaches in those days were ten cents and oranges 25 cents apiece, and I was the most popular boy in school with all of the big girls. I never was much of a hand at saving, and when a pretty girl or two or three of them wanted oranges, and I had the money, they generally got the oranges.
"When I was 13 years old we moved to British Columbia. This was in 1858. I began working with canoes and bateaux on the Fraser river. A good many people got drowned on the Fraser river, as it is a dangerous stream, but father used to say that danger was all in a day's work, and one must take what comes. We ran from Hope to Yale. Father was an expert woodworker, having learned the cabinet maker's trade, and I worked with him in the building of sloops and river boats.
​"In the summer of 1860 we crossed the mountains to the Similkameen river to prospect for gold. We found gold on the south fork. Father built two rockers, and for the next two months we kept busy. At the end of that time our supplies were running very short. I was 13 years old, and father decided I was old enough to assume responsibility, so he sent me to Fort Hope to secure supplies. There was only an Indian trail, but I knew the general direction. I had to ford streams and cross rivers, but I had learned to swim when I was 8 years old, so that didn't bother me. As we were short of provisions, I only took two sandwiches, thinking I could make the 140 miles within two days. I had a good riding horse, and I was going to ride from daylight to dark. I had not gone over 20 miles when a rather hard character in that country called 'Big Jim' met me in the trail. He stopped me and said, 'Have you got anything to eat?' I told him I only had two sandwiches. He said, 'I haven't had anything to eat for two days. Hand me those sandwiches.' I looked at him and concluded that it was safest to give him the sandwiches. He bolted them down, and grumbled because I had no more. He was on his way out to Fort Hope, but his horse was almost worn out. I wanted to go by, but he wouldn't let me. He said, 'Oh, no you don't—we will stay together for company. Your horse is a good deal fresher than mine, and I may need him. "As we made our way across a high cliff, his horse lost its balance and fell, striking the rocks more than 200 feet below. He made me get off my horse and mounted mine. We rode and tied from there on in to Fort Hope. It took us four and a half days, and all we had to eat during that time was a fool-hen that he knocked down. My clothes were almost torn to shreds."
"When I got home, I went in the back door. My mother saw me. She raised her hands above her head and said, 'Oh, Willie, what has happened to your father?' I told her my father was all right, but I was nearly starved. I secured two horses and loaded them with bacon and beans, rice and other ​
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supplies, and started back for our camp. When some pros- pectors in town learned that we were making $10 a day to the man, they followed me to our camp.
"When I returned father thought that he could strike richer diggings, so he left a man and myself to work with the rockers while he went down to Rock Creek, now the site of Roslyn, B. C. I averaged $8 a day while father was gone. The bedrock was a white clay. We threw the clay out on the tailings. A few years later some Chinamen came to our old abandoned diggings and made $15 to $20 a day apiece from our old clay tailings. The clay had rolled back and forth in our rockers and the gold had stuck to it. When it had weathered and disintegrated the gold was released and the clay washed away in the Chinamen's sluice boxes.
"While father was on his trip he looked over the country, and decided to locate on Asoyoos Lake, at the head of the Okanogan River, across the British Columbia border in Amer- ican territory. He went back to Fort Hope, and, securing riding horses and pack horses, my father and mother, my two sisters and two brothers and myself started for our new home. This was in October, and winter had begun. We traveled day after day through the rain or snow, camping at night, usually in the snow. Timber was scarce where father had selected his ranch, so we hkuled logs down the mountains, split them and built our cabin by standing the split logs on end. We chinked the cracks with moss and mud.
"After looking over the ranch more carefully, father found that it was not as good as he had thought, so he decided to build a boat, go down the Okanogan and Columbia river to Deschutes Falls, now called: Celilo, and bring supplies up the river for the miners. We had practically no tools, and of course no nails. We went into the mountains, whipsawed out the lumber, hauled it down to the water, and father, with the help of us boys, built a boat, fastening it together with trun- nels or wooden pegs. We could have secured nails possibly, but the freight from Fort Hope was $1 a pound, and father decided that the wooden pegs would do equally well. We built ​
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a boat 91 feet long with 12-foot beam, drawing empty 12 inches of water. The next thing was caulking her, but I never saw my father stumped yet. He hunted around and found a big patch of wild flax. He had the children pick this and break it to use as oakum to caulk the cracks in the boat. We also hunted all through the timber and found gum in the trees, which we melted up for pitch to be used in the caulking. He had no canvas for sails, so he made some large sweeps. Father chris- tened her the Sarah F. Gray, for my youngest sister. He launched her on May 2, 1861, and started on his trip down the river on May 10.
"To give you an idea of the determination; of my father, he sent that boat, without machinery, sails or other equipment ex- cept the sweeps, through the Rock Island rapids and through the Priest rapids, both of which he negotiated successfully. He arrived on the Deschutes on May 23. He left me to bring the family down, and I certainly had a very exciting time doing so.
"Father left Asoyoos Lake, at the head of the Okanogan river, with the boat we had built there, for his dangerous trip through the Rock Island rapids and the Priest rapids, on May 10, 1861.
"A. J. Kane had joined our family to go with us from our ranch to The Dalles. My mother, sisters and brothers, with Mr. Kane and myself, started July 4, 1861. The first day out Mr. Kane's horse became restive and threw him against the saddle horn, rupturing him badly. We bound him up, but for the rest of the trip he could hardly ride and was practically helpless. This threw the responsibility of bringing the family through safely on me, but I was 16 years old and felt quite equal to it.
"We swam the Columbia at the mouth of the Okanogan, came through the Grand Coulee and arrived at what is now White Bluffs. We planned to go to The Dalles by way of the Yakima and Simcoe valleys. We crossed the Columbia and camped on the Yakima side. That night a cattleman came to our camp. He said that a man and his wife had just been killed at Moxee Springs the night before and that it would be ​
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almost certain death for us to go by way of the Yakima and Simcoe valleys. We at once recrossed! the Columbia and started down the east bank. We camped opposite the mouth of the Yakima.
"During the day we had met a couple of prospectors who warned us to look out for the Indians at the mouth of the Snake river. The Indians had charged them $20 to take them across in a canoe, while the three horses swam the river.
"That night I staked my riding horse as usual, near camp, and turned the others loose to graze, knowing that they would not wander away. During the night the Snake River Indians drove our horses off. We were stranded with my one saddle horse and no way of continuing our journey unless I could recover the horses. Mr. Kane, the only man in the party, was helpless with his injury. My mother was greatly alarmed, but she realized as I did that the only thing to do was to follow the trail of the stolen horses and try to get them back.
"I followed their trail for 12 miles, when the trail was cov- ered by the tracks of several hundred Indian horses. I fol- lowed the new trail to near where Pasco now stands. There was a big Indian camp with many tepees near the river. I rode up to the big tent where I heard the tom-tom and the sound of Indians dancing.
"Some years before General Wright had inflicted severe punishment upon the Indians by killing a large band of their horses. On the spur of the moment I decided to put on a bold front and demand the return of my horses. I rode up to the tent, dismounted, threw the tepee flap back and stepped into the entrance. The Indians stopped dancing and looked intently at me. I talked the Chinook jargon as well as I did English, so I said, 'Some of you Indians have stolen my horses last night. If they are not back in my camp an hour after I get there I'll see that every horse in your band is shot/ There was utter silence.
"I dropped the flap of the tent, mounted my horse and started back for camp. I had not gone far when I heard the thud of running horses. Four Indians were plying the quirt, riding ​
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after me. They were whooping and howling and just before they got to me they divided, two going on each side. I never looked around. One of the Indians rode his horse square across the trail in front of me. I spurred my horse and raised my quirt. The Indian gave way, and I rode on. I knew the Indian character well enough to know that the only way I could carry my bluff out was by appearing perfectly fearless.
"When I got back to camp my mother was crying and said she had been praying for me all the time I was gone. I had started out for the horses without breakfast and had ridden over 30 miles, so I was pretty hungry. As I sat down to my delayed breakfast we heard the thud of running horses and our horses charged into camp covered with lather. I hurried out, caught the horses and staked them, came back, finished my meal and then saddled up, packed the pack horses and went down to the mouth of the Snake river. I again rode up to the large tent, opened the flap and said in Chinook, 'I want one canoe for my women and children to go to Wallula and three canoes to swim my horses across. You have delayed us by driving my horses off, so I want you to hurry.' The Indians looked as impassive as wooden statues. One of the chiefs gave some command to the others. Several of the younger men got up, went down to the water and got out the canoes. My mother and the children got in and the Indians put in our packs to take to Wallula, 11 miles distant. My brother Albert went in one canoe and I went in the other, while one of the Indians went into the third canoe, and! we swam our horses across the river. When I got to the other side I said to the Indian in charge, 'How much?' He answered, 'What you think?' I handed him $5, which he took without a word, got into the canoe and started back. Albert and I rode on toward Wallula, where we arrived at 10 o'clock that night and rejoined the rest of the family.
"Having brought my mother and the children to Wallula, on horseback from Asoyoos Lake, I put them aboard the steamer Tenino in charge of Captain Leonard White, and they pro- ceeded to Portland. ​
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"I stayed at Fort Wallula, living in the adobe fort. I herded stock for J. M. Vansyckle until father returned from the Snake river. Father had gone to Deschutes in the Sarah F. Gray, the boat he had built on the Okanogan, with the idea of securing some machinery for her. He found, however, that he was unable to raise the money to purchase the machinery, so he rigged her with a mast and sail and secured a load for the nearest landing to the newly discovered mines at Oro Fino.
"The nearest point by boat to the new mines was the mouth of the Clearwater, now the site of the city of Lewiston, Idaho. On father's return on board the Sarah F. Gray, I joined him at Wallula and we went to Deschutes, a point which at that time seemed to have the making of a city but which is now merely a memory. I stayed in charge of the boat while father went to Portland to secure a cargo for Lewiston. It was now late in the summer and the rumor had gone about among the merchants that it was impossible to navigate the Snake river, even by small boats. Father was unable to secure a cargo. As you know, my father was a very determined man and if he once set out to do a thing he would not stop short of its ac- complishment. He had decided to take a cargo of goods to the mines and 1 if the merchants would not give him the freight, he determined to take a cargo of his own. He mortgaged his horses, his Astoria property and his boat and with the assist- ance of personal friends who advanced him money, he bought a stock of goods for the mines.
"The goods were shipped to the Cascades, hauled around the Cascades by the portage tramway on the Oregon side, reshipped to The Dalles and from The Dalles hauled to Des- chutes by wagon. We were loaded and ready to leave Des- chutes in the latter part of August. We arrived at Wallula on September 15. When we got to Wallula our entire crew deserted. They declared it was too dangerous to attempt to navigate the Snake river.
"Father finally secured a new crew of seven men and on September 20, 1861, we left Wallula. It took us three days to reach the mouth of the Snake river, a distance of only 11 ​
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miles. The prevailing winds were directly across the current, so that it was necessary for us to cordell the boat almost the entire way.
"Another boy and myself took ropes in a skiff up the stream, found a place where the rope could be made fast. We would then come down stream bringing the rope to our boat where the rope was made fast to the capstan and the rope would be slowly wound up. We had a difficult trip to Lewiston and before we got there my comrade and myself in the skiff had demonstrated that there was not a single rapid in the Snake river that could not be swum. We were both strong swimmers and perfectly at home in the water. Our boat was overturned in the rapids scores of times in cordelling up to Lewiston. Our skiff was small and we had to carry a full coil of rope an inch and a half in diameter as well as a coil of smaller rope and oftentimes when the line was wet we had a bare two inches of free board to go through the rapids in. Not content with being wet all day long and being tipped out of our skiff, Jim Parker, my comrade, and I would dare each other to swim dangerous places in the river.
"Jim Parker was from Parker's Landing where Washougal, Wash., now is, and like myself, was raised on the water. I remember one place in the five mile rapids that was not only very dangerous but it seemed impossible for us to find a place to make a fastening. My father thought we could find some rock in mid-current to which we could attach the rope. I said, 'It can't be done.' Father turned to me and said, 'My son, can't isn't in my dictionary. Anything can be done if you want to do it badly enough/ I told him the rapids were full of whirlpools and that we would certainly be overturned in making the attempt to make a fastening. He said, 'If you are over- turned, you and the skiff will both come downstream. You may not come down together, but you will both come down. You will then go back and make another attempt and continue to do so until you have succeeded.
"After that experience there never has been any combination of wood, iron or water that has ever scared me, though I will acknowledge I was scared upon that particular occasion. ​
FRED LOCKLEY
"We took the rope up and succeeded in getting a loop over a rock. No sooner had we done so than the skiff was caught, dashed against a rock nearby, overturned and Jim and I were in the water. We went through that rapid at a terrific rate, sometimes under water, sometimes on top. We finally got through, swam to the overturned skiff and succeeded in get- ting back to the boat. We had fastened a piece of wood to the end of the line so that it floated down the river. We clam- bered aboard the boat, chilled through and pretty badly scared. Father said, 'Where are you going?' I told him I was going to get some dry clothes on. He said, 'There will be time enough for that when you have gone and secured the end of the line.' So Jim and I got into the skiff again, recovered the end of the line and brought it to the boat.
"It was October 30 when we finally arrived at Lewiston. Many a time on the trip up I had been so worried I didn't know what to do, for fear that we would wreck the Sarah F. Gray, for we took some desperate chances and I knew that if it was wrecked my father would not only lose his boat but he would lose all of his property and be in debt to his friends.
"Provisions were getting short in the mines and father sold his flour for $25 a sack or 50 cents a pound. Beans also brought 50 cents a pound. Blankets were eagerly bought at $25 a pair and we sold all of our bacon at 60 cents a pound. Father had made a very profitable voyage and had not only carried out his plan but came out with a handsome profit.
"We left Lewiston on November 2 with several passengers, and came down the river to Deschutes in seven days.
"I spent the winter of 1861-2 in Portland. I attended public school in Portland that winter. The school was located where the Portland Hotel now stands. Professor George F. Boynton was the principal.
"The winter of 1861-62 was one of the most severe the west has ever seen. The Willamette was frozen over at Portland so that teams could cross on the ice between Portland and East Portland, and of course the mule ferry was out of commis- sion. Possibly an adventure I had that winter on the Willam​
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ette helped to impress the severity of the winter upon my mem- ory. My brother, J. H. D. Gray, and my cousin, P. C. Schuyler, and myself were skating on the river at what was called Clinton Point in those days. It is just about where the new O.-W. R. & N. steel bridge crosses the river now. We were playing tag and I took a short-cut across the thin ice near an airhole. My skates cut through, tripped me and down I went into the water. The thermometer was standing at about zero. My brother and my cousin could not come near me on account of also breaking through the thin ice. I finally broke the thin ice with my fist until I got to where the ice was so thick I could not break it. My brother and cousin lay down, one holding the other and tying the sleeves of their coats together, threw me one end. I caught the end of the coat sleeve and they pulled; me out. The instant the air struck me my clothing froze and by the time I had got to the river bank near Ankeny's dock my trousers were frozen stiff, and when I bent my knees my trousers broke off at the knee. I walked to the corner of Third and B streets (now Burnside), where we lived, and got thawed out.
"Portland in those days was a pretty small town, all of the business being on the streets near the river. Mr. Robert Pittock had a store on First street, between A and B streets (Ankeny and Burnside), where we traded.
"I had to quit school in April of 1862, as father needed my help on the river. We began boating, carrying freight between Deschutes and Wallula, operating our boat by sail. There were several other competing sailboats, steamboats at that time not being very numerous. After making a few trips father decided he would build a steamboat. He picked out Columbus, on the Washington side, a few miles above Celilo, as the best point at which to build his boat. The reason he picked out Columbus was that it was the landing for the entire Klickitat valley, and it was the point through which all of the pine timber growing on the Simcoe mountains came to the river.
"I was sixteen years old at this time and father wanted some- one who knew the river and some one whom he could trust ​
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to take charge of the Sarah F. Gray, our sailboat. He put me in charge. In the latter part of June he sold the boat, but the purchasers, Whittingham & Co., of Wallula, stipulated that I must remain in charge of the boat or they would not buy it. Father told them he needed my help to build a boat, but they insisted and told him they would pay me $150 a month for my services.
"They told me that what they wanted was to make as many trips as possible while the prevailing winds were good. They gave me a mate, two deckhands and a cook. They paid big wages, paying my father $150 for my services, paying the mate $90, the cook $75 and the deckhands $60 a month each.
"This was the first boat that I ever had command of and you can imagine how anxious I was to make a record. During the month of July I didn't get very much sleep, as I was on deck to take every advantage of the coast breeze which swept up the Columbia. During the month of July I made five round trips between Deschutes and Wallula, which was not only a record up to that time, but has never been broken by sailboats on the river since. I took up from 25 to 28 tons each trip. We had the boat in operation for the full 24 hours each day. Father had sold the boat for $1200. Not only did I take advantage of the wind by night or day, but I rigged up a water sail to help us drift down the river with the current against the up- river wind. In that one month that boat not only paid the wages of myself and all the crew, but cleared in addition more than the price of the boat.
"To give you an idea of what we did to make five round trips within a month, I not only personally took charge of the boat at every bad rapid we came to, either by day or night, but I crowded on all sail, even when more cautious captains were reefing their sails. Three times during the month I had my main boom carried away. The crew soon were inspired by my enthusiasm and worked just as hard as I did to make a record.
"In the early part of August the coast breeze failed us entire- ly and we came pretty near making a record for the slowness of a trip. It took us 39 days to make one trip. Father was ​
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anxious for me to join him and hurry forward the work of building the Cascadilla, and after running the sloop for five months the owners laid it up for the rest of the season and I joined father and helped finish the Cascadilla. She was 110 feet long, 18 foot beam and drew 20 inches.
"Our family moved from Portland to The Dalles in the fall of 1862. We lived in The Dalles that winter. Father launched his steamboat, the Cascadilla, in December, 1862. Next spring we took the Cascadilla up to Lewiston, plying on the Clear- water and the Snake rivers. We carried wood from Lapwai and lumber from Asotin to Lewiston.
"That spring father had trouble with A. Kimmell, his purser. He found the purser was not turning in all the money. Father put him off the boat and told him what he thought of men who were crooked. What he told him was plenty. Shortly after the purser had been put ashore, we were laid up cleaning the boilers. The Cascadilla was a half deck boat. Father was lying on his back on a pile of cordwood repairing the steering wheel ropes. I was in the cabin aft. Looking out I saw Kim- mell take an axe from the wood block and start towards father, whose head was toward him. Father had both hands in the air splicing a rope. Kimmell drew back the axe and as he brought it down to split father's head open, I jumped for him. I had no time to do anything but to launch myself at him. I struck him like a battering ram in the back and shoulders. The axe's blow was deflected and the axe missed father's head. It also overbalanced Kimmell and he fell overboard. Kim- mell, wild with anger, clambered ashore, pulled a pistol from his pocket and began shooting at us. The first shot he fired struck me in the hand, cutting the flesh on my third and fourth fingers. The second shot struck me in the foot. I did the only thing possible under the circumstances. I ran down the gang- plank and stooping, I picked up several rocks and threw them at him as I closed in on him. By good fortune I hit him with one of the rocks, in the stomach, and knocked him breathless. He grabbed his stomach with both hands. I closed in on him and hit him in the chin. The blow knocked him down and I ​
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took the pistol away. Some of the crew came ashore, tied him up and turned him over to the authorities at The Dalles.
"Father was always a peaceful man when it came to the law. He said he was able to settle his own troubles. When the trial came, father refused to appear against him, so he was turned loose.
"Kimmell bought a sailboat. It got loose from the bank at Celilo and went over the falls. Kimmell could have gotten ashore, but he had money in the cabin and while trying to re- cover the money the boat went over the falls and Kimmell was drowned.
"Father sold the Cascadilla in the summer of 1864.
"I went on the river as a cub pilot with Captain Charles Felton on the steamer Yakima. At that time, the steamer Yakima was the most palatial boat on the river. It plied be- tween Celilo and Lewiston. Umatilla Landing, which had been started by Z. F. Moody, was growing rapidly. There was an active demand for lumber which sold for $55 a thousand. Alonzo Leland, with a man named Atwood, owned a sawmill 10 miles from Asotin. He could find no market for his lum- ber. It was worth only $15 per thousand at Lewiston, while if he could deliver his lumber at Umatilla he could readily sell all he could deliver at $55 a thousand. This market was worth trying for. They tried repeatedly rafting the lumber down the Snake river, but each time the raft was broken up in the rapids, and the lumber was a total loss. As we were going up the river Atwood hailed me from what is now called Atwood's Island. He had landed there with a raft in the at- tempt to go down the river. We took Mr. Atwood and the crew aboard. We asked him how he had happened to come to grief. Atwood said, 'It is impossible to raft lumber down the Snake. We will have to give it up. We have never succeeded in taking a raft down yet.' He turned to me for confirmation of his statement. I said, 'You can take a raft through all right if you will get the right man.' He said, 'Can you take one down?' I told him that I could. He made no comment of any kind but turned on his heel and went below. ​
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About half an hour later he came up to the pilot house and said, 'I am willing- to risk the loss of another raft if you will agree to take it down. If we can once get a raft down the Snake river and get it to Umatilla Landing it will pay for the loss of all the others. 1 I told him I was willing to take charge of the raft but I doubted whether Captain Felton would let me go. He said he thought he could arrange it with Captain Felton, as he knew him well.
"He said, 'I realize it is dangerous work. Tell me what you are going to charge me.' I told him I would charge $10 a day while running the raft and $5 a day for any time we had to lay at the bank. He saw Captain Felton, who came to me and said he was anxious to accommodate Atwood, and he would spare me for a trip.
"Atwood and I went to his mill at Asotin, where he built a raft containing 50,000 feet of lumber. ***** When we came to the big eddy above Lewiston (where Atwood had always had trouble, and had missed landing at that place with several rafts and as a consequence lost the lumber as there was no market farther down the river), I threw the raft into the center of the eddy. Atwood protested, believing that we cer- tainly would miss the Lewiston landing, but the raft returned up the eddy and shot out towards the Lewiston shore, his face was wreathed with smiles.
"We took on 10,000 additional feet of lumber here. Next morning at 2 o'clock I cast loose and started down the river. Whenever we came to a rapid I sent the raft into the center of the rapid. The rapid would give the raft such impetus that it would carry us through the slack water. Atwood said, 'The very thing we have been trying to avoid getting the raft in the rapids, seems to be the reason for your success/ We were averaging nine miles an hour. I told him we would get along all right until we came to the Palouse rapids and we were going to have a serious time of it there. The water pours through a narrow chute and empties into the eddy, which boils back toward the current from the south shore. ​
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"When we got to the Palouse rapids I sent the raft into the center of the rapids. The current was so swift it shot us into the eddy. The forward part of the raft went under water and the current from the chute caught the back end of the raft and sent the raft under water. We stayed on the raft until the water was up to our knees. The skiff which he had on the raft started to float off, but I caught the painter and we got aboard the skiff. We brought the skiff over where the raft had been and felt down with the oars but we could not touch the raft.
"We floated down with the current. All I attempted to do was to keep the skiff in its course. Atwood said, 'I knew you couldn't do it. With such rapids as the Palouse it was fool- ish to expect we could.' I felt pretty serious for I was afraid the eddy had broken the fastenings on the raft and we would soon run into the wreckage of floating boards. About half a mile below the rapids our skiff was suddenly lifted out of the water by the reappearance of the raft. Our skiff and the raft had both gone with the current and, oddly enough, it had appeared directly under us, lifting the skiff out of the water. This may sound 'fishy', but it is a fact.
"You never saw a man more surprised or delighted than Atwood, for the raft was uninjured. As a matter of fact, be- fore leaving, I had taken special pains to see that it was strongly fastened, for I knew what kind of treatment it would get in the rapids.
"We went through the Pine Tree rapids without accident, but a little ways below there we struck a wind strongly up- stream, so we had to tie up. Next morning at 3 o'clock, just before daybreak, we started again, arriving at Wallula at 10 o'clock in .the forenoon.
"The steamer Yakima was just pulling in from below. From Wallula to Umatilla was plain sailing, so I left Atwood to go the rest of the way alone and rejoined the Yakima.
"In the past they had tried to manage the raft by side sweeps, while all I had used had been a steering oar at the rear. At- wood paid me $20 for carrying the raft successfully through ​
REMINISCENCES OF CAPT. W. P. GRAY 339
the rapids. He told me that he would have been just as glad to pay me $500 if I had asked that much. This was the first lumber raft ever taken down the Snake river, but it was the forerunner of scores of other rafts.
"For this lumber, which was worth only $900 at Lewiston, he got $3300 at Umatilla, or in other words, he made a profit of $2400 on the $20 investment in my services.
"That, by the way, is a fair sample of my financial ability, but what could you expect of the son of parents who thought so little of money that they made a trip across the desert and gave up all prospect of financial returns, to become missionaries among the Indians with Dr. Whitman? An indifference, too, and a disregard for money is bred in my bone.
"After working for three months as cub pilot with Captain Charles Felton on the steamer Yakima in the upper river, I secured a position as assistant pilot with the O. S. N. Com- pany. I was eighteen years old at the time. That summer the summer of 1864 the Oregon Steam Navigation Company made an effort to take a steamboat up the Snake river canyon to ply on the upper waters of the Snake between Olds Ferry and Boise. Olds Ferry is just above where the present town of Huntington is located.
"Boise in those days was a wonderfully prosperous mining camp. Olds Ferry was also a good point as most of the emi- grants crossed the Snake river by that ferry. The steamer Colonel Wright was selected to make the attempt and Captain Thomas J. Stump was chosen to take her through. I was as- signed to her as assistant pilot. Alphonso Boone was the mate. Peter Anderson was the chief engineer. John Anderson was the assistant engineer and my father, W. H. Gray, and J. M. Vansyckle, of Wallula, went along as passengers. We went up the river to about twenty-five miles above Salmon river. In attempting to make a dangerous eddy at this point, the boat was caught in a bad eddy, thrown into the current and upon a sharp rock reef jutting out from the Idaho shore. It carried away eight feet of her bow, keel and sides to the deck. Things looked desperate for a moment. Captain Stump gave an ​
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order from the pilot house to get out a line on shore. You never saw such a universal willingness to get on shore with that line. Every deckhand, the mate, the chief engineer, the fireman and our two passengers, who were standing forward watching the boat, seized the line by both ends, the middle and wherever they could get a hold of it and jumped ashore. The only people left on the boat were Captain Stump and myself in the pilot house, the second engineer, who was below, and old Titus, the cook. Before they could make the line fast the boat was caught by the current and went down the river half a mile. Here Captain Stump succeeded in beaching her. We were joined here by the ambitious line- carriers who walked down the shore to where we were beached.
"Captain Stump set the mate and crew to work to repair the forward bulkhead which had been strained and showed signs of leaking. While the boat was being worked upon, Captain Stump, Mr. Vansyckle, my father and myself crossed the river in a small boat and started to climb the hill in an effort to see what the back country was like. We expected to be back at the boat within two hours, but it was a steady climb of four hours before we reached the crest of the hill. It was just sun-down when we looked over into the beautiful Wallowa Val- ley. Darkness overtook us before we could go very far down the bluff. The rocky slopes were too dangerous to try in the dark, so we stayed all night long on the side hill without blank- ets or food. Father was an old campaigner, however, and he showed us how to sleep with our heads downhill resting on a rock. This prevented our working downhill while asleep. Natural inclination is to wiggle forward and the rock at our head prevented us going down hill and we could wiggle all we wanted up hill we wouldn't wiggle very far.
"When the bulkhead was finished, we ran back to Lewiston, covering the distance it had taken us four and a half days to come up, in three and a half hours.
"In the summer of 1865, when I was 19 years old, I secured a job as watchman on the steamer John H. Couch, running from Astoria to Portland. I was young and ambitious, and ​
REMINISCENCES OF CAPT. W. P. GRAY 341
did not like to complain. I had to sit up all night as watch- man, and then was made to work as a deckhand during the day. After a week or so of almost continuous night and day serv- ice, I finally rebelled and stretched myself out on the boiler and went to sleep. I was reported for being asleep while on duty. The captain had taken a dislike to me, so when he re- ported the matter Captain Ainsworth suggested that, in place of firing me, the captain had better take a vacation. It hap- pened that Captain Ainsworth was acquainted with the cir- cumstances through having asked some one else about it. Snow, the mate, was promoted to captain, and I was made mate.
After being the mate of the John H. Couch for a short time, Captain Ainsworth sent for me and told me he wanted me to go on the upper river as a pilot. I could not leave the Couch without securing another man to take my place, so I hired a horse and rode to the Red House tannery near Milwaukie and secured Granville Reed to take my place as mate on the Couch. Later, both Snow and Reed became captains of river steamers and later branch pilots on the lower river between Portland and Astoria. I went to the upper river and acted as pilot on the boats plying between Celilo and Lewiston. I served as pilot on the Nez Perce Chief, the Owyhee, the Tenino, the Webfoot, the Spray, the Yakima and the Okanogan.
"I stayed on the upper river as pilot until 1867, when I was engaged by Colonel R. S. Williamson, of the United States engineers, to act as captain of a sailboat employed by the gov- ernment in taking a party under Lieutenant W. H. Heuer to make a hydrostatic survey of the Columbia river rapids be- tween Celilo and the mouth of the Snake river. My duty was to navigate the boat, a 40-ton schooner, but at the very first rapids the men engaged in the hydrostatic survey, who were deep water sailors and who were unused to swift water, made so bungling a job of the work that I volunteered to take charge of the small boats in the swift water. I had been so accustomed to being tipped out of the boats and swimming out and taking all sorts of chances that the deep water men were scared nearly to death when I would make straight runs through the rapids or across dangerous places in the river. ​
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"The government paid me $150 a month in gold. At this time greenbacks were worth 37 cents on the dollar, so I was getting big wages for a boy. We surveyed that year as far as the Umatilla rapids. We did a job that I was proud of, too, for we made an accurate and thorough survey.
"We laid up that winter. Next spring I ran on the U. S. Grant between Astoria and Fort Stevens and Canby, for my brother, J. H. D. Gray, who had shot his ramrod through his hand. An army surgeon named Sternberg, who was stationed at Walla Walla at that time, amputated his hand. There was no necessity whatever for doing so, but it was the easiest way to do it. Sternberg stayed with the army, and under the seniority rule, finally reached the position of chief surgeon.
This accident to my brother incapacitated him for further service on the upper river in the opinion of the authorities of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company. They considered that it required a perfect body as well as mind to guide steam- boats safely through the dangerous and intricate channels and rapids. J. H. D. Gray, however, was not the man to give up because of this physical handicap. He secured a contract in a short time to carry government supplies and mail between Astoria and Forts Stevens and Canby, oysters and mail from Shoalwater Bay, and purchased the steamer U. S. Grant for that purpose. Later he purchased the Varuna on Puget Sound and brought her around to Astoria.
"After running the Varuna for a while, I was asked to take charge of the sail boat again and complete the government survey. We spent that summer and finished the survey to the upper end of Hummely rapids near Wallula. When the survey was completed I again went to work for the Oregon Steam Navigation Company on the upper river. After about a year or so on the upper river I went to Astoria, where I ran the Varuna, whose work was to take the mail and supplies to the forts at the mouth of the river. During the time I was there with my brothers, we made private surveys of the bar and piloted ships across the bar. One incident of this time I re- member very distinctly. We picked up a brig whose captain ​
REMINISCENCES OF CAPT. W. P. GRAY 343
had been in the lighthouse service and who had surveyed the bar.
"The channel was familiar to him but he was unfamiliar with the fact that the channel had changed a week before and that my brother and I had just surveyed the new channel in- side the breakers and just outside Sand island. We knew there were six feet here at low water. We started through this new channel with a long tow line on the brig. It was high tide and there was a strong east wind beginning to blow. Knowing it would be impossible to tow the brig up the main channel against the east wind on a strong ebb tide, I signaled to the pilot that I was going across the sands. I squared away for Cape Disappointment. Captain Sherwood, who was in charge of the brig, went down into the cabin, got his rifle and came on deck. He told the pilot that if that crazy fool on board the tug struck the brig on the sands he would never turn another wheel nor wreck another ship. It didn't give me a very com- fortable feeling to look across to the brig and see the captain with a rifle trained on me. He kept it pointed at me until we had crossed the sands and run up above Cape Disappointment and were safely anchored in Baker's bay. Then he sent me a handsome apology and complimented me on my seamanship.
"I stayed on the lower river as a captain and pilot until 1873, when I engaged in business in Astoria. In July, 1875, Frank T. Dodge, who had been the purser on the upper river and was later agent of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company at The Dalles and who was later superintendent of the Portland water system, but who was at that time the superintendent of the Willamette Transportation & Locks Company, gave me a job with that company. My run was from Portland to Dayton on the Yamhill. I had charge of the old steamer Beaver, whose machinery had been brought from the Enterprise, which had been wrecked on the Umpqua bar. I later had charge of this same steamer, the Beaver, on the Stikeen river in Alaska. While on the Willamette river run I was captain of the Ori- ent, the Fannie Patton and the Governor Grover, the latter boat running from Portland to Corvallis. ​
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"In 1877 I went to Victoria, B. C., as captain of the Beaver. I took the Beaver from Victoria to Fort Wrangel, Alaska. I ran on the Stikeen river between Fort Wrangel and Telegraph creek, a distance of 165 miles.
"In the spring of 1878 I came back to the upper Columbia as captain of the Annie Faxon. I stayed on the upper river, having charge at different times of the John Gates, the Al- mota, the D. S. Baker, the Spokane and the Harvest Queen. The Harvest Queen had been built at Celilo a short while be- fore. She ran for three years on the upper river and then was taken over the Celilo falls by Captain James W. Troup, now general superintendent of the water lines of the Canadian Pa- cific. I know this is a feat requiring some skill, as I myself during the extra high water of 1866 took a sail boat over Celilo falls.
"I was married on October 27, 1868, at Portland, Oregon. My wife's name was Oceana Falkland Bush. She was the adopted daughter of Mrs. Hawthorne, of Portland, a pioneer family after whom Hawthorne avenue and Hawthorne Park are named.
"My wife was born on her father's brig, the 'Rising Sun,' just off of the Falkland Islands while on a voyage around the Horn. I met her for the first time at the celebration over the driving of the first spike in the Oregon and California railroad in East Portland, April 16, 1868.
"I came down one trip and was staying at 'Muck-a-Muck' Smith's hotel, The Western,' on the corner of First and Mor- rison. In those days it was a high class hotel. Captain Ains- worth sent a messenger to find me with word to see him at once. The messenger located me at 10 o'clock in the forenoon. I went to see Captain Ainsworth and he offered me a much better position than I had, with a year's contract on a steamer on the upper river. 'You will have to go at once,' he said, 'as the steamer is waiting to make a trip and every day's delay means loss/ I told him that I would take the job, if I could have a couple of days, as I was planning to get married. 'You can have all of the rest of the day to get married 1 in,' he said. ​
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"I went to the river to take the ferry. I happened to meet my wife's adopted mother, who had just come over. I told her that I was going over to see Ocea and asked her to save me the trip by having Ocea get ready as soon as possible, so that we could be married that evening. She said it was im- possible. I told her I was used to doing the impossible and I would make all arrangements and be there that evening. The ferry quit running at 8 o'clock. I arranged with them to make an extra trip for us and promised them ten dollars an hour for whatever time it took after 8 o'clock. I hurried down town where I bought a wedding ring, hired the necessary cabs, se- cured a license, arranged with a preacher to be there and got Bob Bybee to stand up with me as best man. I went out to see how Ocea was getting along. I asked her if she was all ready to be married that night. I never saw any one more sur- prised. Her mother had thought it was a crazy notion of mine and decided not to tell Ocea anything about it. At first she said she couldn't possibly be married that night, but when I told her that the preacher would be there, the cabs were hired, the ferry would take us over and it would be very awk- ward to stop the proceedings, she decided we had better be married at once. She got Hannah Stone, who is now Mrs. Dr. Josephi, to act as bridesmaid.
"I had worked all summer at $150 a month and I never have had any use for money except to spend it. I always look at it in the same light as the manna that the Israelites had in cross- ing the desert, 'that it will spoil if you keep it.' I gave the preacher twenty dollars for tying the knot. I gave each of the hack men a five dollar tip. I saved enough money to pay our hotel bill and next morning- we started at 5 o'clock on the steamer Wilson G. Hunt, for Celilo. When we got to The Dalles, I discovered I had just $2.50 left. The Umatilla House ran a free bus, but I didn't think it would look well for a newly married couple to go in the free bus, so I called a hackman and when he let us off at the Umatilla house, I gave him the $2.50. There I was with a new wife and absolutely not a cent in my pocket, but the absence of money has never bothered me any ​
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more than the presence of it, so I signed the register and en- gaged a room at the Umatilla House for my wife at $60 a month.
"I at once reported to my steamer and for the next year I plied on the upper river.
'Thirty-three years ago the Northern Pacific R. R. Co. built a transfer boat to carry their cars across the Snake river at Ainsworth. They built a craft 200 feet long with 38 foot beam, having a square bow and stern, with a house 25 feet high and 165 feet long. They called the craft the Frederick Billings. Ten cars could be carried across at one time. Her huge house made her very unwieldy. When she had no load aboard she drew nothing forward and two and a half feet aft. She was a curiosity to all of the pilots and captains on the river. They commented on the ridiculous lines and the unnecessary deck house, 165 feet long. It was the consensus of opinion that it would be impossible to handle her in strong winds. No one was anxious to tackle the job. The very difficulty of handling such a Noah's ark of a boat appealed to me and I applied for the position, and was given the job before I could change my mind.
"The boat took the cars from Ainsworth to South Ainsworth, where the Northern Pacific Snake river bridge is now located, about three miles from Pasco. The Billings had two 20-inch cylinders with a 10-foot stroke, and in spite of her unwieldiness, I have transferred as high as 213 cars in one day. The Snake river bridge was completed in 1884. I took the Billings to Celilo to be overhauled. It was planned to use her between Pasco and Kennewick. They gave me permission to make whatever alterations I though best, so I had her big deck house cut down and a small house put up just large enough to cover her pipes, boiler and engines.
"While the Frederick Billings was being repaired, I made a recognizance of the Columbia river from the mouth of the Snake river to Rock Island rapids. In my report, which I sent to C. H. Prescott, president of the O. R. & N. Co., I said I thought it was possible to run a boat through the Rock Island ​
REMINISCENCES OF CAPT. W. P. GRAY 347
rapids. My report was forwarded to the chief of the board of engineers of the United States army.
"I went up with the Billings and continued to run between Pasco and Kennewick, transferring freight and passenger cars until the Columbia river bridge was completed.
"When I went to Pasco to begin my work there I decided to have a home. D. W. Owen had homesteaded a tract of land where now the city of Pasco is located. He offered to relin- quish a fraction containing 19 acres on the bank of the Colum- bia for $100. I thought $100 for 19 acres of sagebrush land was highway robbery, but as I needed some ground for a home, I accepted his offer and built a home. Though I was born in Oregon City and brought up in the West, and though my father was one of the earliest pioneers of Oregon, I had never before owned land. I became quite enthused with the idea of owning land. I secured a relinquishment from Henry Gantenbein of 80 acres, which extended from the river to the railroad section where Pasco is located. I filed a pre-emption upon it. I paid $2.50 an acre for it and as soon as I had secured the receiver's receipt I platted 50 acres of it as an addition to Pasco.
"I remember they thought it very peculiar to file an addition to Pasco before the plat of Pasco itself was filed. I never was much busier than I was then. I was the local land agent for the Northern Pacific. I had charge of the selling of their lots and acreage. I was county commissioner, I had a dairy with 10 cows, I had 100 hogs, and had over 200 horses, and was feeding over 400 of the Northern Pacific employes. In addi- tion to this I was attending every Republican state convention. My purpose of attending the conventions was to be appointed on the resolutions committee. That was all the office I wanted. Each time I secured the adoption of a resolution demanding of Congress the immediate opening of the Columbia river to un- obstructed navigation.
"The railroad wanted to cross my land. I told the graders they could not cross without my permission. They sent their attorney, who told me if I didn't let them cross I would lose my contract for feeding the Northern Pacific employes and ​
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would also lose my position on the transfer boat. I told him where he could go, but it wasn't a health resort that I recom- mended. In fact, it was a place where the climate was pretty tropical. I demanded $500 for permission to cross my place. The graders were instructed to go ahead, any way. I took my shotgun and went out and had a little talk with the foreman and he decided not to do anything. He telegraphed to the officials and by return wire they telegraphed they were send- ing me a draft for $500. I would have been glad to let them go across, but didn't like the way they went about it.
"By the summer of 1886 I had 45 different kinds of trees growing on my place at Pasco, without irrigation. In addition to a large number of vegetables usually grown in the North- west, I successfully matured peanuts, cotton and sugar cane. That will give you some idea of the possibility of fruit grow- ing and the growing of vegetables in this district.
"You remember I told you about reporting that I believed the Rock Island rapids could be successfully negotiated? On the strength of my report the O. R. & N. Co. fitted out an ex- pedition consisting of two boats to go as far as the Priest rapids. The Almota and the John Gates were the two boats. The Almota was to accompany the John Gates to Priest rapids and the John Gates was to endeavor to go to the head of navi- gation on the Columbia, the Almota's part of the contract be- ing to act as tender and carry fuel and extra equipment as far as Priest rapids. C. H. Prescott and some of the other offi- cials of the O. R. & N., as well as General Gibbon, commander of the Department of the Columbia, with his staff and 120 soldiers from Fort Vancouver, were taken along on the trip. The soldiers were to assist the boat in overcoming the rapids by lining the steamer through the rapids. The ascent of Priest Rapids was made without much difficulty. This gave to the steamer John Gates the honor of being the first steamboat to pass over the rapids. The Almota remained below Priest Rapids. The formation of the Rock Island Rapids consists of a number of dangerous reefs through which the current makes short and difficult turns, making navigation of the Rock Island ​
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Rapids a matter requiring care, skill and making the rapids dan- gerous unless the navigator thoroughly understands his work. After working nearly all day to lay lines to get the boat safely around Hawksbill Point, night overtook them. The line was put ashore and the boat was tied where it was so that it would not lose what way it had already made. The turbulent currents and eddies dashed and pounded the boat all night. It bobbed around as if it were a cork in rough water. The officials of the railroad as well as the military officials didn't get much sleep. Next morning one of the head officials came to the captain of the boat and said: 'Let go your lines and get out of this hell-hole as quickly as you can.' The trip was aban- doned and Rock Island Rapids was reported unnavigable.
The steamer John Gates was named after John Gates, the chief engineer of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company. He succeeded Jacob Kamm in that position. He was born in Maine and came to California in 1849. In 1853 he came to Oregon. He is the inventor of the Gates hydraulic steering gear as well as many other valuable inventions. He supervised the build- ing of both the Almota and the John Gates as well as the Harvest Queen, the Henry Villard, the Occident, the Orient, the Hassalo, and many other boats. He started his career in Portland as engineer of a sawmill at the foot of Jefferson street. He died 35 years later while mayor of Portland.
"The Almota was launched at Celilo, September 27, 1876! Captain E. W. Baughman was her first master. Captain Sam- son was her next commander and he was followed by myself, George Gore and John F. Stump and a number of other well known river captains. The Almota was one of the greatest money makers that ever plied the Columbia. She cleared over $14,000 on one trip upon one occasion, the bulk of the freight being government supplies to be used by the soldiers under General O. O. Howard, who were engaged in the pursuit of Chief Joseph and his horde of Nez Perces.
"A number of friends of mine from Ellensburg were inter- ested in the development of a mine in the Okanogan district some years ago. They conceived the idea of establishing a ​
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line of communication between Ellensburg and their mine. This required a trip across the mountains from Ellensburg to Wenatchee. They thought if they could haul their supplies to Wenatchee they could put a boat on the river and take their supplies from Wenatchee to the Okanogan much more cheaply by boat than to haul by team. They looked the matter up and found I had reported it feasible to take boats over Priest Rapids, and also Rock Island Rapids. Acting on my report, made some years before to the O. R. & N. Co., they built a boat at Pasco to navigate the Columbia from Point Eaton at the mouth of Johnson's canyon, to the site of their mines in the Okanogan. They secured the services of Captain Jones, a Mississippi steamboat man, to plan and build a boat suitable for use on the upper river.
"Shortly before the boat was completed, I had a talk with him and urged him to make a personal examination of the Rock Island Rapids. He told me he was able to navigate water, no matter how swift it was. However, in a rather lofty way, he consented to go up and look at the rapids before mak- ing the trip. He visited the Rock Island Rapids and by a roundabout way he got back to the railroad and went back to the Mississippi. Neither the stockholders of the boat com- pany nor any one else in this part of the country ever saw him again.
"This left the Ellensburg miners in a rather bad way. They were out the expense of the boat and had no one who would tackle the job of operating it. They came to me, but I told them I could not afford to neglect my own interests for the sake of running their boat.
"They put it up to me, however, that it was on the strength of my report the boat had been built, so, to the neglect of my own interests, I agreed to take charge of their steamer, 'The City of Ellensburg,' and demonstrate for them the rapids could be overcome.
"In July, 1888, we left Pasco with 45 tons of freight and several passengers on board for the Okanogan. The steamer was a stern wheeler, 120 feet long, 22 foot beam and drew four feet when loaded. ​
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"After sizing up the boat and its equipment, I didn't blame Captain Jones for disappearing. However, I had promised them to make the attempt, and I did n't intend to back out. You know they say, 'A poor workman always quarrels with his tools/ so I decided to do the best I could under the circum- stances.
"At Priest Rapids we attempted to lay a line along the shore and fasten it above the lower riffle and attach it to the boat below. I found we couldn't carry the line clear of submerged reefs. The only thing I could do was to sink a dead man to fasten to, so as to pull the steamer over the lower riffle. To do this it was necessary to lay the line down through a rough channel between the reefs. It was a dangerous proposition, and if the small boat was encumbered with the extra line the probability was that the men who were not experienced would be drowned. I decided to make a test trip. I put men enough in the boat to weigh about the same as a line. I had the mate put out extra boats to pick us up below the rapids if we cap- sized. Naturally, I didn't tell the crew of the boat I expected to capsize. After completing the placing of the dead man I ordered the crew I had selected into the small boat, telling them I wished to make a trip across the channel to see if there wasn't a better place to ascend on that side. After ordering the men to take their places, I took the bow of the skiff, shoved it into the current, stood on the shore myself, and held to the stern until it swung across the current, and then jumped in and caught up the steering oar. I ordered the men to row hard, and I headed her for the rapids.
"A Dane named C. E. Hanson, who was one of my deck- hands, but who has since been made captain of a steamer on the upper Columbia, and who is now in charge of the gov- ernment work of improving the Okanogan river, gave me a steady and resolute look, braced himself and began to pull at his oar. I had picked out a Frenchman who was used to raft- ing driftwood, and who I thought had unlimited nerve. He dropped his oar and began praying and crying: Trenchy will surely die. He is going over Priest Rapids.' It seems that his ​
352 FRED LOCKLEY
custom had been to let the raft go through by itself and take his skiff around by portage. I was steering. Frenchy had the midship oars, big John Hanson had the after oars, the other two men, who were deckhands, were in the bow of the boat. Hanson pulled out into the current, giving Frenchy, who was kneeling in the bottom of the boat praying, a contemptuous look. We passed over the break and I swung the skiff quar- tering into the swell. In a moment we were in the midst of the turmoil of waters. Big John kept at the oars, and I watched like a hawk with my steering oar. For a moment the waves were higher than the boat but we went through safely.
"My experiment proved the boat would carry a line through, so we came down with the line and negotiated the Priest Rapids successfully. As we lined the steamer into the raipds the water poured over the buffalo chocks. Next day we ar- rived at Rock Island Rapids.
"The only point at which Rock Island Rapids is really difficult or dangerous is at Hawksbill Point. It juts into the river at an acute angle from the island, on the left hand side of the island as you go up the river. It required delicate calcu- lation to overcome this difficulty. I put out three lines at the same time. One to line her up and the others to keep her from swinging either way. It took us two hours to pass Hawksbill Point. We had another cluster of reefs near the head of the island to pass. Here the current turns in strongly toward the bluff, 40 feet high, which projects from the mainland on the right hand side at an acute angle. We had no line long enough to fasten to the right point to take us around this bluff. The boat's power was insufficient to hold it in place, let alone mak- ing headway across the current. The current drew the boat in at the head. We bucked the current for over an hour with- out success. I finally decided a desperate remedy must be taken. I threw her head across the current toward the island and swung almost against the island. It was necessary that I should let the stern wheel of the steamer go within four feet of the rocks and directly above them, to get out of the main strength of the current. If the current here was too strong the ​
REMINISCENCES OF CAPT. W. P. GRAY 353
boat would go on the rocks, break her wheel, and leave us dis- abled in the current. For a moment the boat hung where she was. It was a mighty anxious moment for me, for, with all steam on, she seemed only able to hold her own. She was neither going forward nor back, but slowly, inch by inch, she pulled away from the rapids and out into the open river. That was the first time a steamboat had ever been through Rock Island Rapids.
"The president of the company owning the boat was on board. His enthusiasm had ranged from fever heat to zero on most of the rapids. When I swung the boat over in the last effort, he wrung his hands and sobbed, 'You'll wreck her, you'll wreck her sure!' But when we began to gain headway and he was sure we were over Rock Island Rapids, he threw his arms around my neck and yelled, 'You've saved us I knew you would !' Then I thought, what a narrow line divides failure and success. Failure is 'I told you so' ; and success is, 'I knew it!'
"We continued on up the river, gathering driftwood for fuel, using lines to help us over Entiat, Chelan, Methow and other rapids, and ran six miles up the Okanogan river to Lumsden's ford and stuck on the bottom of the river. Then we unloaded freight and passengers and went back through Rock Island and the other rapids to Port Eaton at the mouth of Johnson's canyon, where the people of Ellensburgh had constructed a wagon road to the river in order to avoid the Wenatchee mountain. The road descended to the Columbia river over a cliff where the teamsters were obliged to cut large trees and hitch them by the tops behind the wagons to keep them from sliding on to the teams. The trees were left at the bottom of the cliff, and when the accumulation became so great as to obstruct the way they were burned. The use of the timber for brakes in the manner indicated had denuded the summit of the mountain for quite a distance.
"I made four more trips up and down through Rock Island and the other rapids between Port Eaton and the Okanogan
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BURR OSBORN
LETTERS BY BURR OSBORN, SURVIVOR OF THE HOWISON EXPEDITION TO OREGON, 1846
REMINISCENCES OF EXPERIENCES GROWING OUT OF WRECKING OF THE UNITED STATES SCHOONER SHARK AT MOUTH OF COLUMBIA ON EASTWARD VOYAGE OF EXPEDITION
Edited by George H. Himes
Union City, Michigan, Feb. 17, 1913.
Postmaster, Astoria, Ore.
Dear Sir: Would you please hand this letter to some old pioneer that you think might answer it. I would like to know how many inhabitants Astoria has, and I would like a map of the river coast from Astoria down to Clatsop Beach.
In 1846 I belonged to the U. S. S. Shark, and we kedged, sounded and buoyed the channel from Cape Disappointment to Vancouver, and on our return, coming out of the mouth of the river, we were driven with adverse winds upon the breakers, and the quicksands soon put us out of commission. Subsequently, with a great deal of suffering, we landed upon Clatsop Beach without the loss of a single man. Neil M. Howison was commander. After landing at Clatsop Beach we made for Astoria, which had three log houses and one small frame house. There were seventy-six of us sailors besides the officers. Two of the log houses were not occupied; the third one was occupied by the Hudson Fur Company officers. Us sailors occupied ​the two empty houses. The frame house was occupied by a Baptist Missionary. We sailors were soon detailed down the river about one mile to a place called George's Point, where we cut and hauled the logs by hand about a half mile and built a double log house.
I would like to know if any of the remains of that house are extant today. We built a small frame house near the log house. Us sailors named the place "Sharksville." Wonder if any one in Astoria of today ever heard it called "Sharksville?"
Thanking you for any favors you may show in the above matter, I beg to remain, Yours very truly,
BURR OSBORN,
The postmaster of Astoria sent the foregoing letter to Judge J. Q. A. Bowlby, a pioneer of 1852, long a resident of Astoria, who responded to Mr. Osborn's request by sending a number of publications relating to Astoria and vicinity, to which the following reply was received:
Union City, Michigan, March 24th, 1913.
J. Q. A. Bowlby, Esq., Astoria, Oregon,
Dear Sir: On thoroughly examining the chart you recently sent me, I am convinced that we struck the breakers south of the channel, the wind at the time being westerly and on the flood tide. We landed on Clatsop beach several miles down the river from Astoria, between nine and ten o'clock in the evening, the tenth of September, 1846, and our first landing of half of the crew was about daylight. The first fire that was built was made out of the wreck of the sloop of war Peacock, U. S. N. The boats returned for the balance of the crew and landed about four o'clock A. M. Our boats consisted of the Captain's gig, a whale boat, first cutter and launch. The gig was the first boat loaded with the ship papers and the sick with the surgeon. The roll of the vessel brought the flukes of the anchor in contact with the boat and stove her all to pieces, but through the precaution of the captain in ordering all the ends of the running rigging to be thrown overboard, the boat's crew ​
BURR OSBORN, SURVIVOR HOWISON EXHIBITION, 1846 357
and the sick managed to get hold of a rope and were all saved. During this time, every breaker broke clear over the vessel and continued doing so until ebb tide, when we lowered our other boats without damage.
You inquired where the original Fort Astoria stood. I never heard of but one fort while there, and that was Fort George. Fort George was situated on a point down the river called one mile from the Hudson Bay Company's store house. The location of the store was called 3 Astoria. This sto-re was a log house, and with the two log huts was situated at the junction of the bluff and the incline land! running down the river (as I remember, not to exceed five rods from the bluff and the in- cline). The location of the store and huts remains quite vivid on my mind for the reason that, within a week of our landing at Astoria, three-fourths of the crew were taken down with a fever and the rest of the crew were not much better. In con- nection with the store that I speak of, the stock consisted of goods thought necessary for the use of the trappers and the In- dians, and in the stock was quantities of salts and quinine, so the doctor dosed us with the same for about three weeks, when we began to recuperate. These fevers were probably brought on by the exposure and excitement and sleeping on the ground, also being scantily clad. We subsequently secured clothing from Vancouver. At that time blankets cost $10 each and other clothing in proportion. The store had what sailors call a medicine chest, and as soon as we got this chest emptied about the middle of October we were detailed down the river to Fort George and set to hauling logs from the neighboring forests to build a log house. When the house was completed, we moved in and sent a boat to Vancouver for provisions, that being the nearest place to purchase goods of any kind. The completion of the house brought us well into November, but we had not occupied it long when Captain Howison chartered the 4 Catborough, a schooner of about seventy-five tons burden, belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, commanded by Cap-
3 Later known as Upper Astoria. At this place Gen. John Adair, the first customs collector of the Port of Astoria, had his residence in 1849-50.
4 Cadboro. ​
358 GEORGE H. HIMES
tain Scarborough. About the latter part of November, we boarded this vessel and sailed for San Francisco. We ran down to Baker's Bay and lay there about six weeks windbound, but eventually arrived in San Francisco, the sixth day of Jan- uary, 1847.
I have two reasons for giving you so detailed an account of my peregrinations around the mouth of the Columbia River: One is, I have nothing much else to do, only sit by the fire and nurse the "rheumatics" and to muse on past events of my life ; and the other is to show you that our time was limited in procuring many land-marks of that country, for our liberty was curtailed to a great extent on account of running a-foul of the Indians.
I never saw or heard of McTavish tombstone nor the Con- comly grave. There was a head-board near the large tree, but do not recollect the name. I also forget the officer's name that attended to the store. He was one of the Hudson Bay Com- pany's officials. Never heard of any Fort Astoria ; there was, as I have described it, a double log house with the two log huts near by. These three houses, with the missionary's house situated some twenty-five or thirty rods back near the forest, were the only sign of any house that was in this vicinity until we built the log house at Fort George's point, unless it was an Indian tepee east of the store about forty rods.
I am sending you a sketch of Astoria under separate cover, as it looked to me when I was there, and the surroundings. I did not know John Shively or Jim Welch. Your postoffice picture has no resemblance to the Baptist missionary house. His house was about 18x24, one and one-half stories high, without any sort of a veranda or addition.
Point George or Shark's Point was what they called Fort George. The main camp of Indians was back through the for- est near the hills, but I never visited their village. The land- ing place, as I stated before, was at the junction of the bluff and the beginning of the incline, as you will note on the sketch. I do not know of any other survivor of the Shark. I never heard of General Warren. There was a sloop-of-war Warren in San Francisco. ​
BURR OSBORN, SURVIVOR HOWISON EXHIBITION, 1846 359
The big pine tree was located' about as indicated on the sketch.
Again thanking you for your recent favors, I beg to remain,
Respectfully,
BURR OSBORN.
Union City, Michigan, March 5th, 1913.
J. Q. A. Bowlby, Esq., Astoria, Oregon,
Dear Sir : Your kind favors of the 25th inst. at hand, and find them very interesting, although it will perhaps be difficult for me to repay you for your kindness. The two letters, chart, postcards and pamphlets, etc., all arrived in good condition.
If you can locate the place where the wreck of the sloop-of- war Peacock drifted ashore on Clatsop Beach, on the south side of the river, you will find where the schooner Shark's crew landed after being wrecked on the breakers, on the south side of the channel. Nearby this landing there was an old shanty, about 12x25 feet, without any floor, where the Shark's crew stopped for two nights. Half of the ship's crew were in their hammocks when she went on the breakers, on the flood tide, which proved that they were thinly clad. All I had on was an undershirt and a pair of drawers. The weather was rainy, so we were soaked with water from nine o'clock on the tenth night of September until the morning of the twelfth, when two Indians put in an appearance and informed the Gap- tain that there was a white man's 5 ranch located inland twenty miles, and that they had cattle. So the captain dis- patched the Indians to the ranch with orders to bring in a couple of oxen, for we were in a starving condition. In the evening of September 12th, the oxen arrived, and they were soon slaughtered and laid on some driftwood, and everybody helped himself, and soon about eighty half-starved men, each with a chunk of beef, were roasting it over about as many fires (for there was plenty of wood) ; some of the men merely warmed their meat, for it had been about fifty-two hours since we had broken our fast.
5 Probably Solomon Howard Smith, he being the first white settler in Clatsop County in 1840. ​
360 GEORGE H. HIMES
The next morning-, the 13th, we started for Astoria, then about twenty miles from the mouth of the river.
This shanty that we stopped in on Clatsop Beach, we learned subsequently had been built by some of Lewis and Clark's men, some forty years previous. 6
On arriving at Astoria, we found the village situated on a bluff, as near as I can remember about twenty or thirty feet high, and consisted of three log houses and one frame house. The log houses belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company, with their headquarters located at Vancouver, ninety-six miles above the mouth of the river, where they had a large store house and a few dwelling places. There were not many whites there, only what were in the employ of the company. One of the log houses in Astoria was a double one, used by the com- pany as a branch store house and was kept by one man (I forget his name) ; he received the furs from the trappers and paid for them in dicker, such as guns, traps, ammunition, beads for the Indians, whisky, etc. The other two smaller log houses were for the use of the trappers, when they came in with their furs.
These three log houses were situated within a few rods of the bluff and within a few rods of the landing, the landing being close to the beginning of the bluff, west of the log houses, which were built in a cluster, there soon commenced an incline toward what they called Ft. George, where us boys built the log house and named it Sharks ville, after our lost ship. As I remember, after going down this incline from the houses, there was no bluff to speak of, to Ft. George, it being a gravelly beach some of the way. They called it one mile from the stores to Fort George.
The store house was situated east of the other two huts, about three rods, as I remember. The man that kept the store and the missionary were the only white men that I saw there, besides our own crew do not remember the names of either of these men. As I remember, the missionary lived about
6 Near sJte where Lewis and Clark's men distilled salt from sea water in January, 1805. ​
BURR OSBORN, SURVIVOR HOWISON EXHIBITION, 1846 361
thirty rods back of the store near the forest. There was a strip of cleared 1 land, or had been cleared, but grown up to black- berry bushes and brush more or less, about thirty rods wide, beginning about forty rods east of the store and running down to Ft. George.
There was no sign of there ever being any fort anywhere on this strip of land, not even a stockade. 7
The Shark was 'fore an' aft schooner of about three hundred tons burden. She carried ten carronades and two "Long Toms" all thirty-two pounders. When she struck the breakers, we threw overboard some of the guns and shot and cut away the masts, to lighten her.
It was told to us that we were sent up there to offset a British mano'-war. The two governments were trying to set- tle the boundary line between Washington and the British possessions. At that time it was the cry, "54-40 or fight." But they fought it out in Washington, D. C.
No, I never heard of Concomly's grave, back of the mis- sionary house. There was a monstrous fir pine that had been blown up by the roots, and it looked as if it had been down for many years. Some of the boys measured it and reported that it was twelve feet in diameter at the butt and three hundred and thirty feet in length to where it had been sawed off to make a roadway. It was eighteen inches in diameter where it had been sawed off ; so the boys concluded that it must have been about four hundred feet high.
About all the names of places we heard about was Cape Disappointment, Baker's Bay, Clatsop Beach, Astoria, Fort George and the Columbia River. We might have heard of some Indian names, but have forgotten them. The Indians claimed about three hundred "bucks," but us boys were never allowed to mingle with them. Their main settlement was back from the coast; as you know they were the Flathead tribe. Their way of making a flat head was to place the papoose in a box and lash a board over the forehead in a slanting position and keep the papoose there for twelve months. The forehead
7 The original Fort Astor was destroyed by fire in 1818. ​
362 GEORGE H. HIMES
would become flat and the head run up to a peak. The box was fastened to a pole about six feet long, and when they wanted to sit the kid down, they would stand it up against a tree. I am wondering if there is any of this tribe left, and if they still continue this method.
When a lad of seventeen years, I went to sea and sailed around the world twice, and visited the five grand divisions of the world and hundreds of islands. I was in the merchant service, the whaling service, and in the navy, and now in Michigan. I was born near Bridgeport, Conn., the 25th of April, 1826.
Again thanking you for your kind favors and interest you have shown in answering my inquiry, I beg to remain,
Sincerely,
BURR OSBORN.
Upon calling on Judge Bowlby in Astoria September 24th last, he gave me the foregoing correspondence. I then wrote to Mr. Osborn for his portrait, asking a number of questions as to the names of his fellow seamen, to which the following is a response :
Union City, Mich., October 6, 1913. George H. Himes, Portland Oregon.
Dear Sir : Yours of the 26th inst. at hand, and wish to thank you for enrolling my name as a member of the Pioneer So- ciety, and for your interest in writing.
I remember of several of the Shark's crew cutting their names on some stones above high water mark, but do not re- member any of their names in fact I do not remember many of the names of the Shark's crew; my memory is very poor when it comes to remembering names, and then I was only with the Shark's crew about four months. Captain Neil M. Howison was Lieutenant Commander, First Lieutenant Schank (he was a brother to Ambassador Shank, 8 to Great Britain, a number of years ago), Second Lieutenant Bullock, Dr. Hud- son, surgeon. I remember one James McEver, on account of
8 Doubtless Robert C. Schenck, who was a minister to Brazil in 1851-53, and a general officer in the Union army in 1861-63. ​
BURR OSBORN, SURVIVOR HOWISON EXHIBITION, 1846 363
his heading a gang with a crow-bar to break open the "Spirit Room" for whisky, when Captain Howison leveled a six- shooter at his head and told him if he made a single stab he would blow his head off. McEver and his followers claimed they wanted to die happy. Joe Cotton, I remember as being cox- swain on the boat that I belonged to, and when the schooner struck the breakers, we were sounding for the channel in a whale boat. I met Cotton some thirty years ago, at a reunion at Grand Rapids ; he then lived in Saranac, Michigan, but he is dead now. George Getchel, who was my particular chum, hailed from Belfast, Maine.
The schooner Shark was a U. S. surveying vessel. Like the Peacock, we started out of Baker's Bay with a good favorable breeze, when all of a sudden the wind died out and. we drifted on to the breakers. We had sounded and buoyed the channel from Cape Disappointment to Fort Vancouver, kedging the vessel all the way. The Shark drew thirteen feet of water, so that we could not get over the bar at the mouth of the Wil- lamette River until we placed her guns on a lighter. The Shark's crew landed on Clatsop Beach. The first fire we built after landing was out of some of the wreck of the U. S. Sloop- of-War Peacock, that had drifted on the beach.
There were seventy-six men in our crew besides the offi- cers. I have told Mr. Bowlby all I could think of about As- toria, and the river to Vancouver. Vancouver was a Hudson's Bay trading post for furs taken in from the Indians so was Astoria.
I first met the Shark in Honolulu. I had made the passage from New Zealand to the Sandwich Islands in a whale ship, got stranded in Honolulu and shipped on the Shark, us "Jack- ies" being informed that we were being sent up to the Oregon territory to settle a dispute about the boundary line between B. C. and Oregon. Great Britain wanted the Columbia River for the boundary, but Uncle Sam said "54-40 or fight," but we did not see any fight with the British for the matter was settled in Washington, D. C., and us "Jackies" were set to work finding the channel of the river to Vancouver to keep us out of mischief, I suppose. ​
364 GEORGE H. HIMES
I enjoyed the cards and your interesting letter very much, and thanking you for the same, I remain,
Respectfully,
BURR OSBORN.
In a subsequent letter to me, dated Oct. 13th, Mr. Osborn says: "I remember two more names of the Shark's crew John Powers and Past Midshipman Gillespie. I did not give you the name under which I enlisted on the Shark. It was John Burr Osborn. The reason for the additional name was that the clerk thought that 'Burr' was a nick-name, and hence added 'John.' "
After securing the foregoing from Mr. Osborn, an attempt was made to obtain a portrait of Lieutenant Howison and an account of his life. To that end a letter was addressed to the Superintendent of the Naval Academy at Annapolis; but as that institution was not established until 1845 the record there was very meagre. Then a letter was sent to Hon. Harry Lane, United States Senator from Oregon, Washington, D. C, and he took the question up with the Bureau of Navigation of the Naval Department and the following was supplied :
RECORD OF SERVICE OF THE LATE LIEUTENANT NEIL M. HOWISON, U. S. NAVY
Born in Virginia.
1823 Feb. 1. Appointed a midshipman.
Dec. 6. Ordered to Norfolk to Peacock.
Dec. 20. Accepted appointed.
1827 Oct. 24. To Court Martial, Philadelphia.
Oct. 27. Leave unlimited.
1828 Sept. 5. To the receiving ship, New York.
Oct. 13. Permission to attend Naval School.
Oct. 24. Attend examination.
Dec. 4. Be ready for orders to the expedition.
1829 Dec. 23. Be ready for orders to the Brandy wine.
Dec. 26. To the Brandywine as Sailing Master.
1830 July 12. Leave unlimited.
Aug. 20. To the Brandywine. ​
BURR OSBORN, SURVIVOR HOWISON EXHIBITION, 1846 365
1831 July 19. Warranted to rank from the 23d of March,
1829.
1832 July 18. Commissioned as Lieutenant to take rank
from the 13th of July, 1832.
1834 Feb. 5. Leave three months.
1835 Feb. 19. To the Peacock.
Mar. 9. Previous order revoked.
1836 Mar. 10. To the Grampus.
1838 July 11. Leave 3 months.
1839 Feb. 26. To Navy Yard at Pensacola.
1840 Sept. 24. To the Consort.
1841 Aug. 13. Leave 3 months.
Dec. 3. Leave 3 months.
1842 Apr. 13. To Ordnance Duty.
1843 May 1. To Norfolk to apply for a passage to Pacific
for duty on that Station.
1847 July 22. Returned from Pacific, 1847.
Aug. 10. Leave 3 months.
Nov. 13. To Naval School.
Nov. 23. Previous order revoked.
1848 Feb. 23. Died at Fredericksburgh, Va. ​
JOURNAL OF ALEXANDER ROSS-SNAKE COUNTRY EXPEDITION, 1824
EDITORIAL NOTES BY T. C. ELLIOTT
Alexander Ross, whose day-to-day experiences in 1824 ap- pear in this journal, did service in many parts of the Old Ore- gon country. As a member of the Pacific Fur Company he arrived on the Columbia in March, 1811, and assisted in the building of Fort Astoria, and in the fall of the same year as- sisted in the building of the first Fort Okanogan, at which post he was stationed for several years; from there he made trips south to the Yakima country, west to the summit of the Cas- cades, north to Thompson river and beyond, and east to the Spokane country. Later, while staff clerk of the Northwest Company at Fort George, he ascended the Willamette, and in 1818 assisted Donald McKenzie in the building of Fort Nez Perce at the mouth of the Walla Walla river, of which fort he was in charge until 1823. That summer he started to cross the mountains and quit the service, the Hudson's Bay Com- pany having succeeded the Northwest Company, but was stopped at Boat Encampment by a letter from Deputy Governor George Simpson, asking him to take charge of the Snake Country Expedition that fall. This appointment he ac- cepted and returned to Spokane House and thence proceeded to the Flathead Post in what is now Montana, where this journal begins. Returning from this expedition he spent the winter at the Flathead Post and in April, 1825, joined Gov- ernor Simpson at the mouth of the Spokane river on the way east to the Red River settlements, where he resided until his death in 1856.
Mr. Ross is one of the four writers upon whom we depend for much that is known about the early exploration of and fur trade in this vast Columbia river basin. In 1849, more than twenty years after his active experiences here, he pub- lished a book entitled "Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River," and in 1855 he put out another book entitled, "Fur Hunters of the Far West." It is related that ​
JOURNAL OF ALEXANDER Ross 367
Mr. Ross first left his paternal home in Scotland in 1804, from which it may be estimated that he was more than sixty years of age when completing these books, which, from their context, evidently were based upon some journal or memoranda then at hand. There has been and probably always will be a question as to how closely he followed any such original memoranda and how much he drew from memory. The publication of this journal is therefore valuable to the extent that it assists in answering that question, and it should be read in immediate comparison with the first 160 pages of Vol. II. of "Fur Hunt- ers of the Far West," Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1855. It may be noted also that the preface of Mr. Ross' first book was dated in 1846 and that pages 154-5 of Vol. II. of his "Fur Hunters," contains a footnote suggesting that at least a part of it had been written much earlier.
The original of this journal is to be found in the possession of the Hudson's Bay Company at their head office on Lime street, London, but this text has been carefully copied from an original copy belonging to the Ayers Collection in the New- berry Library at Chicago, 111. ; that original copy was made by Miss Agnes C. Laut in preparation for writing her "Con- quest of the Great Northwest," and was by her transferred to the Newberry Library. To the writer of these notes, it seems possible that this is not the journal that Mr. Ross had when writing his books and that he had other papers than those formally turned over to the Hudson's Bay Company. This suggestion is based upon the fact that other personal journals have been found among the family archives of contemporaneous fur traders, also upon other deductions. The reader will regret that seemingly Miss Laut did not find it necessary to copy the entire text of the original in the H, B. Co. House at London.
Referring to the journal itself it will be found that from Eddy, in Montana, Mr. Ross' party followed very closely the present route of the Northern Pacific Railway as far as Missoula, which is at the mouth of Hell Gate Canyon and River (Porte d'lnfer, as the French half-breeds first ​
368 T. C. ELLIOTT
named it) ; thence he proceeded south up the Bitter Root Val- ley, along the stream which is the original Clark's Fork of the Columbia named by Captain Lewis when at its source in 1805. On a small mountain prairie of the easterly fork of this stream he was snowbound for a month, and that prairie has very properly been known ever since as Ross' Hole. Finally he succeeded in forcing a way across the continental divide by what is now known as the Gibbon Pass (but which Olin D. Wheeler rightly says should be called Clark's Pass), over to Big Hole Prairie, where a monument now stands commemo- rating the battle between General Gibbon and Chief Joseph during that memorable Nez Perce retreat in 1877. Mr. Ross now crossed the various small source streams of the Big Hole or Wisdom river and passed over the low divide to the Beaver- head, which is another of the sources of Jefferson's Fork of the Missouri. Thence he again crossed the continental divide southwest into Idaho, using perhaps the same pass that Lewis and Clark had in 1805 and was upon the waters of the Lemhi river, and then spent the entire summer and early fall upon the mountain streams of central Idaho, including the Snake river from the Weiser southward a considerable distance. He returned by practically the same route and arrived at Flathead fort the last of November.
As the Lewis and Clark party in 1805-6 traveled over a part of this same route it is very interesting in this connection to compare with the careful and voluminous notes of Dr. Elliott Coues and Mr. Olin D. Wheeler, both of whom personally fol- lowed the path of those explorers through these mountains.
But the really beautiful as well as valuable portion of this journal is the brief and vivid picture of the grand assembly of the Indians at their customary council ground, Horse Plains, in December, 1824, and the ceremonial opening of the annual trading period at the Flathead Post, followed by the outfitting of the next Snake Expedition under Mr. Peter Skene Ogden, the brief mention of the holiday season at the fort, and of the closing up and departure of the trader in the spring. Here are facts and figures useful to the writers of poetry and ro- mance, as well as to the historian. ​
JOURNAL OF ALEXANDER Ross ; SNAKE COUNTRY EXPEDITION, 1824
(As COPIED BY Miss AGNES LAUT IN 1905 FROM ORIGINAL IN HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY HOUSE, LONDON, ENGLAND.)
Tuesday, 10th of February.
Our party was as follows:
Thyery Goddin 1 gun 3 [traps 2 horses
Joseph Vail 1 gun, 3 traps 2 horses
Louis Paul 1 gun 3 traps 2 horses
Francois Faniaint 1 gun 3 traps 2 horses 1 lodge
Antoine Sylvaille 1 gun 3 traps 2 horses
Laurent Quintal 1 gun 3 traps 2 horses
Joseph Annance 1 gun 3 traps 2 horses
Jean Bapt Gadaira 1 gun 3 traps 2 horses
Pierre Depot 1 gun 3 traps 2 horses
Francois Rivet, interp. .. 2 guns 6 traps 15 horses 1 lodge
Alexander Ross 1 gun 6 traps 16 horses 1 lodge
11 men 12 33 (?) 50 (?) 3
1824, Feb. 10. Every preparation for the voyage being made I left Flat Head House 1 in the afternoon in order to join the Free Men who were encamped at Prairie de Cheveaux. 2 Joined the Free Men and encamped. Snow 18 inchs deep. Weather cold. General course east, 8 miles. Statement of Free Men Trappers, Snake Country.
1 Flathead House or Fort or Post was then located almost exactly at the present railroad station of Eddy (Northern Pacific Ry.)> on north bank of Clark Fork River, in Sanders County, Montana; this was about ten miles southeast and further up the river from the site of David Thompson's "Salish House," which was established in 1809 and used by the Northwest Company traders while that company continued in business.
2 Horse Plains, now designated by the single word "Plains," a famous council ground of the Salish or Flathead Indians; the freemen were probably camped near the railroad station of Weeksville. ​
370 JOURNAL OF ALEXANDER Ross
On the Men Traps Guns Horses Books
Mr. Montour 3 15 3 10 2
Vieux Pierre 3 15 4 11 3
Martine 4 14 5 20 3
Charles Gros Louis 3 16 4 10 2
13 60 16 57(?) 10
Jacques _1 5 3 7 2
Antoine Valles 17182
Clements 2 8 2 22 2
Prudhomme 2 12 4 10 2
Cadiac 4 11 4 7 2
Creverss 3 8 3 8 2
Geo. Louis Gros 3 12 3 9 2
John Grey 27272
Charles Loyers 26252
Antoin Paget 2 12 2 7 2
Robas Cass 4 16 4 13 2
Francois 2 9 2 11 2
Indian 2 9 2 10 2
43 173 ( ?) 50 181 34
Engages 11 33 12 50
Total 20 lodges 54 206 62 231
Many of these people are too old for a long voyage and very indifferent trappers. Iroquois, though good trappers, are very unfit for a Snake voyage, being always at variance with the whites, too fond of trafficking away their goods with the natives. More harm than good to our expedition. 1824, February, Wednesday llth.
All hands being assembled together and provisions scarce, we lost no time leaving Prairie de Cheveaux. Proceeded till we reached Prairie de Camass 3 and put up for the night. Sev-
3 Camas Prairie, to the eastward from the Horse Plains; the Indian trail went across the hills by way of this prairie, instead of around by the river as the railroad now runs. This trail is clearly shown on map in Stevens' Report, Pac. Ry. Report, Vol. 12, Part i, also an engraving showing this prairie. ​
SNAKE COUNTRY EXPEDITION, 1824 371
eral deer seen. Weather cold. Snow 15 inches, wind east. General course east by south, distance 12 miles.
Thursday 12th. Remained in camp on chance of killing deer people badly off for provisions. Murmuring among the Iroquois, but I could not learn the cause. High wind, heavy snow, wind east.
Friday, 13th. Early this a. m. the Iroquois asked to see their accounts. I showed them article by article and told them their amounts wh. seemed to surprise them not a little. Some time after leaving camp I was told that the worthy Iroquois had remained behind. I therefore went back, and true enough, the whole black squad, Martin excepted, had resolved to leave us, old Pierre at their head ! On being asked the cause Pierre spoke at length. The others grumbled, saying the price allowed for their furs was so small in proportion to the exorbitant advance on goods sold them, they were never able to pay their debts much less make money and would not risk their lives any more in the Snake Country. Old Pierre held out that Mr. Ogden last fall promised there would be no more N. W. cur- rency ; this they construed to be but paying half for their goods. I told them whatever had been promised would be performed. Although I had balanced their accounts, they could be altered if required. It was at headquarters accounts would be settled. They grumbled and talked, and talked and grumbled and at last consented to proceed. Thinks I to myself this is the be- ginning. Having gained the blacks, we followed and camped at the Traverse 4 plain covered with but 10 inches of snow weather fine, course S. E. Distance 10.
Saturday 14th. Early on our, journey except four lodges hunting deer. Proceeded to fork called Riviere aux Marons, 5 where many wild horses are said to be. Our horses are lean. Seeing the Iroquois apart from the whites I suspected plot- ting and sent for Pierre and Martin. Gave them a memo, im-
4 At Perma station of the No. Pac. Ry., where the trail again struck the Flathead River and crossed it; known later as Rivet's Ferry because a son of old Francois Rivet settled there.
5 A small stream entering the Flathead from the south near McDonald station of the No. Pac. Ry. ​
372 JOURNAL OF ALEXANDER Ross
porting that N. W. currency was done away with and their ac- counts would be settled with Quebec currency or sterling. This pleased. All is quiet. S. E.
Sunday 15th. Remained in camp on account of bad weather and for hunters who brought in four wild horses and seven deer. These horses are claimed by the Flathead tribes; those who kill them have to pay four skins Indian currency. Wind high.
Monday 16th. On our journey early. Delayed by a pour, rain, sleet, snow. Passed the Forks, left main branch Flathead River followed up Jacques Fork 6 till we made a small rivulet on the south side which our people named Riviere Maron. Country is pleasant, animals small and lean. Traps produced nothing. Course S. E., distance nine miles.
Tuesday 17th. Left camp early, the people grumbling to remain. Passed three lodges of Tete Pletes. Francois Rivet 7 caught a beaver ; but the wolves devoured it, skin and all. Course S. SE., distance twelve miles.
Wednesday 18th. Remained in camp to hunt and refresh horses before entering the mountains. I appointed Vieux Pierre to head the Iroquois, Mr. Montour 8 the Ft. de Prairie 9 Half Breeds, and myself the remainder so the sentiments of the camp may be known by a council : among so many unruly, ill-tongued villains. Four elk and twenty-five small deer brought to camp. Louis killed nine with ten shots.
Friday 20th. 10 Detained in camp by sleet and rain.
Saturday 21st. Antoine Valle's boy died.
Monday 23rd. Passed the defile 11 of the mountains between Jacques and Courtine forks. End of defile had a view of noted place called Hell's Gate, so named from being frequented by
6 The Jocko, which flows into the Flathead at Dixon, Montana; this stream, so named after Jacques Raphael Finlay, an intelligent half-breed and one of David Thompson's men, in 1809.
7 Afterward a settler on French Prairie in the Willamette Valley.
8 Mr. Ross' clerk; doubtful whether the Nicholas Montour of David Thomp- son's time.
9 A general term meaning the prairie forts of the company on the Saskatchewan River.
10 See page n of "Fur Hunters."
n Coriacan Defile through which the No. Pac. Ry. now passes; the view of Missoula and the Bitter Root Valley is as fine now as it was in 1824. ​
SNAKE COUNTRY EXPEDITION, 1824 373
war parties of young Blackfeet and 1 Piegans. We were met by eight Piegans and a drove of dogs in train with provisions and robes to trade at the Flathead post. At Courtine's Fork, the country opens finely to view clumps of trees and level plains alternately. The freemen in spite of all we could say like a band of wolves seized on the Piegan's load, one a robe, another a piece of fat, a third a cord, a fourth an appichinon, till nothing remained and for a few articles of trash paid in ammunition treble the value. These people put no value on property. It would be better to turn these vagabonds adrift with the Indians and treat them as Indians.
Tuesday 24th. Remained in camp to hunt. Traded seven beaver from the Piegans. As they were going off we saluted them with the brass gun to show them that it at least makes a noise.
Wednesday 25th. Passed Piegan River 12 the war road to this quarter. Here the road divides to the Snake country, one following the Piegan River, the other Courtine's Fork 13 both to the Snakes S. E. We followed the latter, a continuation of S. fork of Flathead River. Elk and small deer in great plenty. Flocks of swans flying about. Was informed that two Iro- quois, Laurent and Lazard, had deserted. Assembling a small party, I went in pursuit of the villains. After sixteen miles we came up with them, partly by persuasion, partly by force, brought them along after dark. Old Pierre behaved! well. Lazard had disposed of his new rifle and ammunition for a horse. Lazard had sold his lodge. Though encamped in a most dangerous place, not a freeman would guard the horses.
Thursday 26th. The general cry was for remaining to hunt. I assented. It may be asked why I did not command. I answer to command when we have power of enforcing the command does very well ; otherwise, to command is one thing ; to obey, another.
Friday 27th. Hunt yesterday, twenty-seven elk, six deer.
12 The Hell Gate or Missoula River.
13 The Bitter Root River of today. Our Clark Fork River was then called the Flathead River clear to Lake Pend d'Oreille, and below that even. ​
374 JOURNAL OF ALEXANDER Ross
Sunday 28th. All this day in camp to wait those laggard freemen who arrived in the evening and camped on the opposite side of the river to show contrary.
Tuesday March 14 . There fell seven inches of snow; south wind soon dispelled the gloom. This being a good place for horses, we resolved to pass the day to prepare for passing the mountains between head waters of the Flathead and Missouri Rivers. Killed eleven elk, four sheep, seven deer. They're very fat here.
Thursday llth. Proceeding over slippery stony road, at every bend a romantic scene opens. The river alone prevents the hills embracing. Our road following the river crossing and recrossing. Here a curiosity called the Rani's Horn 15 out of a large pine five feet from root projects a ram's head, the horns of which are transfixed to the middle. The natives cannot tell when this took place but tradition says when the first hunter passed this way, he shot an arrow at a mountain ram and wounded him ; the animal turned on his assailant who jumped behind a tree. The animal missing its aim pierced the tree with his horns and killed himself. The horns are crooked and very large. The tree appears to have grown round the horns. Proceeded over zigzag road.
Monday 15th 16 . Early this morning thirty men, ten boys, fifty horses set off to beat the road through five feet of snow for twelve miles. Late in the evening all hands arrived well pleased with day's work having made three miles. The horses had to be swum through it, in their plunges frequently dis- appearing altogether. Geese and swan seen in passage north today.
Thursday 18th. This morning sent off forty men with shovels and fifty horses to beat the road. Weather bad with
14 Now seem to be near 'the forks of the Bitter Root, above the town of Darby, Ravalli County, Montana.
15 See pages 18 and 19 of "Fur Hunters"; they follow the trail through the gorge of Ross Fork of the Bitter Root. This Rams Horn tree was a common sight to Montana pioneers who traveled that trail in the fifties and sixties. It is yet known as the Medicine Tree, because so revered by the Indians. The trunk still stands in Sec. 22, Tp. 30 N., R. 20 E., B. M.
1 6 He is now in Ross' Hole, his "The Valley of Troubles," as described on page 20 of "Fur Hunters." Lewis and Clark were here September 4, 1805; also consult Pac. Ry. Report, Vol. 12, Part i, page 169, for description and engraving. ​
SNAKE COUNTRY EXPEDITION, 1824 375
snow and drift, they returned to camp. The crust is eight (?) inches thick lying under two feet of snow. Owing to crust the horses made no headway. There are now eight miles of the road made, oft the prospect is gloomy, people undecided whether to continue or turn back.
Friday 19th. We did not resume our labors today owing to the drift. This country abounds with mountain sheep weighing about seventy pounds. Late today John Grey, a turbulent leader among the Iroquois, came to my lodge as spokesman to inform me he and ten others had resolved to abandon the party and turn back. I asked him why? He said they would lose the spring hunt by remaining here, were tired of so large a band, and did not engage to dig snow and make roads. It told him I was surprised to hear a good quiet honest fellow utter such language, God forgive me for saying so. I said by going back they would lose the whole year's hunt, and here a sudden change in weather would allow us to begin hunting. Danger required us to keep together for safety. John answered he was neither a soldier nor a slave; he was under the control of no man. I told him he was a freeman of good character and to be careful not to stain it. In my heart I thought otherwise. I saw John in his true colors, a turbulent blackguard, a damned rascal. He said fair words were very good but back he would go. "You are no stronger than other men" said I, "stopped you will be ! I will stop you," and he said he would like to see the man who could stop him. I said I would stop him. If his party walked off the expedition would fail. Vieux Pierre interrupted by coming in. John went off cursing the large band, the Snake country and the day he came to it ! So another day ends.
Saturday 20th. Stormy, John as he swore, did not turn back nor any of his gang. I suspect he is plotting to raise a rebellion. If he succeeds, it will injure our prospects if not stop us altogether.
In the evening the cry of "enemies, enemies, Blackfeet! Piegans" was vociferated in the camp. All hands rushed out when the enemies proved to be six friendly Nez Perces sepa​
376 JOURNAL OF ALEXANDER Ross
rated from their camp on the buffalo ground and in snow shoes made way to us across the mountains. They have been five days on this journey. They told us the Blackfeet and Piegans had stolen horses out of the Flathead and Nez Perces' camp nine different times and they were preaching up (!) peace and good fellowship. The Blackfeet had made a war excursion against the Snakes, killed eight, taken some slaves and many horses. That the buffalo were in great plenty but the snow very deep. The Piegans were seen in seven bands. Cannot these outlandish devils disturbing the peace be annihilated or reduced?
Sunday 21st. Finding John at the head of a party, I sent for the intriguing scamp and agreed with him to hunt me animals, whenever I should want any, from which source his debt of 4,000 livres is to be reduced 400 livres or about twenty beaver. To this he agreed. All quiet once more. It is im- possible to proceed without these hunters.
Tuesday 23rd. Early this a. m. thirty persons went on snow shoes across the mountains to the buffalo. I feel anxious, very anxious, at our long delay here. The people grumble much. The sly deep dog Laurent who once already deserted left camp today and turned back. He was off before I had any knowledge of it and told his comrades he was going to the Nez Perces' camp to trade meat, but would come again. Our camp abounds with meat. The dog has no thought of re- turning unless the Indians cast him out as he deserves. A more discordant, headstrong, ill-designing set of rascals than form this camp God never permitted together in the fur trade.
Wednesday 24th. All quiet in camp today.
Thursday 25th. All the women went off to collect berries.
Sunday 28th. The buffalo hunters came back today, buf- falo in plenty; thirty killed, six of the men brought over 140 pounds of dried meat but becoming snow blind could not secure ( ?) the meat left behind. Grass began to appear through the snow.
Tuesday 30th. A meeting today to decide whether to make the rest of the road or not. It was agreed to wait seven or eight days, another party to go buffalo hunting. ​
SNAKE COUNTRY EXPEDITION, 1824 377
Friday 2nd (April) Today I was surprised by the return of Laurent. He says he went as far as Hell's Gate but finding no beaver came back. The truth is, he saw the Piegans, got a fright and came back.
Monday 5th. Were visited by fifty Nez Perces just arrived from buffalo country loaded with provisions. Our people com- menced a trade with them so brisk that hardly a ball was left among the freemen nor a mouthful of provisions amongst the Indians. When these people meet Indians, a frenzy siezes them. What madness in them, and what folly in the company to be furnishing such people with means. It was now we learned the truth of Laurent's trip back. He was sent by the Iroquois to get these Indians to trade with us. This visit has left our people almost naked and cost 100 balls to send our visitors off pleased.
Wednesday 7th. Nez Perces went off.
Friday 9th. After a pause of twenty-six days we shifted quarters two miles ahead.
Saturday 10th. This morning none of the freemen would work on the road except old Pierre, who alone went and alone worked. A novel trick brought about a change. Old Cadiac dit, Grandreau having made a drum and John Grey a fiddle, the people were entertained with a concert of music 17 . Taking advantage of the good humor, I got all to consent to go to the road tomorrow.
Wednesday 14th. This morning on going to my lodge in camp, I could muster only seven persons with twenty horses to finish the last mile of the road. In the evening we raised camp and moved to the foot of the mountain at the source of Flathead River, 345 miles from its joining the Columbia. The river is navigable for 250. miles.
Thursday 15th. This day we passed the defile 18 of the mountains after a most laborious journey both for man and beast. Long before daylight, we were on the road, in order to profit by the hardness of the crust. From the bottom to
1 7 The first vaudeville performance in Ravalli County, Montana, of which we have record.
1 8 Gibbon's Pass across the continental divide. ​
378 JOURNAL OF ALEXANDER Ross
the top of the mountain is about one and a half miles. Here is a small creek, the source of the Missouri, in this direction between which and the source of the Flathead River is scarce a mile distant. The creek runs a course nearly S. SE. fol- lowing- the road through the mountain till it joins a principal branch of the Missouri beyond the Grand Prairie 19 . For twelve miles, the road had been made through five feet deep snow but the wind had filled it up again. The last eight miles we had to force our way through snow gullies. At 4 p. m. we encamped on the other side of the defile without loss or acci- dent. Distance today, eighteen miles. This high land is a horn of the Rocky Mountains, called the Blue Mountains. It is the dividing ridge 20 between the Nez Perces and Snake Na- tions and terminates near the Columbia. The delay has cost loss of one month and to the freemen 1 ,000 beaver. Two men should winter here and keep the road open at all seasons.
Friday 16th. Encamped here to make lodge poles for the voyage.
Saturday 17th. Proceeded to the main fork 21 of Missouri hobbled our horses and set watch. It was on this flat prairie 400 Piegans came up with Mr. McDonald 22 last fall and a freeman named Thomas Anderson from the east side of the mountains was killed.
Monday 19th. As we are on dangerous ground, I have drawn up the following rules :
(1) All hands to raise camp together and by call.
(2) The camp to march as close as possible.
(3) No person to run ahead.
(4) No persons to set traps till all hands camp.
(5) No person to sleep out of camp.
These rules which all agreed to were broken before night.
Wednesday 21st. Thirty beaver today. The freemen will
keep no watch on their horses but to tie them and sleep fast.
19 Big Hole Prairie, Beaverhead County, Montana, well described and illus- trated in Stevens' Pac. Ry. Report already cited.
20 Very nearly correct. The Blue Mountain Range of Eastern Oregon and Washington really is a continuation of the mountain range that crosses Idaho and joins the continental divide at the head of the Bitter Root Valley of Montana.
21 Meaning the Big Hole or Wisdom River.
22 Finan McDonald, who led the Snake Expedition in 1823. ​
SNAKE COUNTRY EXPEDITION, 1824 379
Thursday 22nd. Thirty-five beaver taken, six feet left in the trap. Twenty- five traps missing. Boisterous weather today. The freemen left their horses to chance, nor did they collect them during the storm at night.
Discordant people fill up the cup Indifference and folly will soon drink it up But loss and misfortune must be the lot When care and attention are wholly forgot.
Friday 23rd. Bad weather keeps us in camp. That scamp the Salteux and worthless fellow his nephew threaten to leave because I found fault with them for breaking the rules. If they attempt it, I am determined to strip them naked.
Saturday 24th. Crossed beyond the boiling fountain 23 , snow knee deep. We encamp in the spot where the Flathead and Nez Perces fought a battle four years ago. Herds of buf- falo grazing here : sixteen killed. The camp is now under guard. Half the people snow blind from the sun glare.
Monday 26th. Crossed to Middle Forks 24 of the Missouri, smaller than the first fork with which it unites ten miles from here. A large herd of buffalo here ; upwards of twenty killed, two young calves brought to camp alive. This is a Piegan trail where three years ago, the freemen had battle with the Piegans and a Nez Perces' lad was shot last year.
Tuesday 27th. After camping, we mounted the brass gun and shot it three times for practice.
Wednesday 28th. Forty-four beaver to camp today.
Thursday 29th. Leaving the Missouri, crossed over to the Nez Perces River called the Salmon River 25 . It is a branch of the river on which Lewis and Clarke fell in leaving the Mis- souri for the Pacific. Followed up the middle fork of Missouri to its source, then ascending a hill fell on the waters of the Salmon. Passed a deserted Piegan camp of thirty-six lodges. This place is rendered immemorial as being the place where
23 The warm springs near Jackson P. O., Beaverhead County, Montana.
24 That is, he crossed the low divide to Grasshopper Creek near Bannock; the Beaverhead River would be his Middle Fork of the Missouri.
25 He has now crossed over to the Lemhi River, a branch of the Salmon River, which flows into the Snake, and is in Idaho. See page 53 of "The Fur Hunters." ​
380 JOURNAL OF ALEXANDER Ross
about ten Piegans, murderers of our people, were burnt to death. The road in the defile we passed from the Missouri to this river is a Piegan and Blackfoot pass of most dangerous sort for a lurking enemy; and yet all the freemen dispersed by twos and twos. The rules are totally neglected. Here birds are singing and spring smiles. All traps out for the first time since we left the fort.
Friday 30th. Only forty-two beaver. Remain in camp today. Three people slept out in spite of rules and I had to threaten not to give single ball to them if they did not abide by the rules. All promised fair and all is quiet.
May, Saturday 1st. Fifty-five beaver today.
Thursday 6th. On a rough calculation all the beaver in camp amount to 600 skins, one-tenth of our expected returns.
Monday 10th 26 . This morning I proposed that a small party should go on a trip of discovery for beaver across the range of mountains which bounds this river on the west in the hope of finding the headwaters of Reid's River which enters the main Snake River below the fall, on which a post was begun by Mr. McKenzie in 1819. I might say begun by Mr. Reid in 1813. For this trip, I could get only three men.
Tuesday llth. Took fifty beaver and shifted camp.
Wednesday 12th. Caught fifty beaver. Went up to head- waters of the river. This is the defile where in 1819 died John Day 27 ; a little farther on the three knobs so conspicuous for being seen.
Monday 17th 28 . Resolved to make a cache here. Hiding furs in places frequented by Indians is a risky business.
Wednesday 19th. Got a drum made for the use of the camp. It is beat every evening regularly at the watch over the horses and to rouse all hands in the morning.
Wednesday 26th 29 . Again at Canoe Point on Salmon River.
26 The party is now probably at the junction of the Salmon and the Pah- simari Rivers, in Custer County, Idaho; see page 59 of "The Fur Hunters."
27 Evidently the John Day of the Astor party, who became a Northwest Com- pany trapper under Donald McKenzie. See page 62 of "Fur Hunters."
28 Now about to start on a profitless trip across the ridge of Salmon River Range directly west. See page 64 of "Fur Hunters."
29 The party has returned from the trip to the westward; see page 67 of "Fur Hunters." ​
SNAKE COUNTRY EXPEDITION, 1824 381
Saturday 29th. Crossed over height of land which divides the waters of the Salmon and the Snake descended to Goddin's River 30 named in 1820 by the discoverer Thyery Goddin. The main south branch of the Columbia, the Nez Perces, the main Snake River and Lewis River, are one and the same differently named. I have determined to change my course and steer for the source of the Great Snake River near the Three Pilot Knobs (Three Tetons) a place which abounds both in beaver and Blackfeet. I told the people danger or no danger, beaver was our object and a hunt we must make.
Monday 31st. Left eight to trap Goddin's River and raised camp for head of the Salmon.
Sunday 6th (June). The two men ( ) and
Beauchamp who went off yesterday were robbed by the Pie- gans, had a narrow escape with their lives and got back to camp a little after dark having traveled on foot forty miles. On their way to the place to meet our people they discovered a smoke and taking it to be our people advanced within pistol shot when behold it proved to be a camp of Piegans. Wheel- ing, they had hardly time to take shelter among a few willows when they were surrounded by fifteen armed men on horse- back. Placing their horses between themselves and the enemy, our people squatted down to conceal themselves. The Piegans advanced within five paces, when our people raising their guns made them fall back. The Indians kept capering and yelling around them cock sure of their prey. The women had also collected on a small eminence to act a willing part, having on their arrow finders and armed with lances. During this time, the two men had crept among the bushes, mud and water a little out of the way and night approaching made their escape leaving behind horses, saddles, traps. They saw the tracks of our people near the Piegan camp and that is all we know of them. We fear they have been discovered but little hope of their escaping as they had little ammunition.
30 According to Arrowsmith's map this would be Big Lost River, and Day's or McKenzie's River would be either Birch Creek or Little Lost River on present day maps. Ross seems to have ascended Pahsamari River to source and crossed the divide to Birch Creek, where he left his main party and himself made four days' trip to Snake River near St. Anthony's. He is back again on the 6th. See pages 68, 69, 70 of "Fur Hunters." ​
382 JOURNAL OF ALEXANDER Ross
Coison said the Piegans were the rear guard of a large war party, from the great quantity of baggage, the men not ex- ceeding twenty-five.
I called the camp together and proposed to start with twenty men to find our people and pay the Piegans a visit, the camp to remain till my return. The general opinion over- ruled my wishes, thinking it safer to move the camp more distant, than go- for the men.
Monday 7th. At an early hour saddled our horses. The road proved short to Goddin's River S. W. After letting our horses eat a little, I fitted out a party of twenty men well armed to go in quest of our people. They set off at sunset, old Pierre in command, with orders to find our people and observe peace unless attacked.
Tuesday 8th. All hands in camp; a park enclosed from horses. The big gun mounted and loaded.
Wednesday 9th. Five of the twenty men back tired out; no news.
June 10th, Thursday 31 . All arrived safe this afternoon. The Blackfeet taking to flight. Since they separated from us, the eight trappers had taken fifty-two beaver. The party lost my spyglass.
Friday llth June. Twelve men fitted out for Henry's Fork to meet at the fork on 25th Sept., our party go up Goddin's River.
Wednesday 16th June. Took twenty-five beaver, the first of our second thousand, low indeed at this advanced season. The signs for beaver are very fine ; in one place I counted 148 trees large and small cut down by beaver in the space of 100 yards. Last night eight feet and seven toes left in the traps. Fifteen traps missing, making loss of thirty beaver.
Saturday 19th. Had a fright from the Piegans. This morning when almost all hands were at their traps scattered by ones and twos only ten men left in camp, the Blackfeet to the
31 See page 72 of "Fur Hunters," where Mr. Ross misnames the three buttes in the desert southeast of Lost River by calling them the Trois Tetons. He now proceeds up Goddins or Big Lost River to its source and crosses to the source of the Malade or Big Wood River near Ketchum, Idaho, where the next Indian scare occurs. See pages 75-80 of "Fur Hunters." ​
SNAKE COUNTRY EXPEDITION, 1824 383
number of forty all mounted descended at full speed. The trappers were so divided, they could render each other no as- sistance so they took to their heels among the bushes throwing beaver one way, traps another. Others leaving beaver, horses and traps, took to the rocks for refuge. Two, Jacques and John Grey, were pursued in the open plain. Seeing their horses could not save them, like two heroes wheeled about and rode up to the enemy, who immediately surrounded them. The Piegan. chief asked them to exchange guns; but they refused. He then seized Jacques' rifle but Jacques held fast and after a little scuffle jerked it from them saying "If you wish to kill us, kill us at once ; but our guns you shall never get while we are alive." The Piegans smiled, shook hands, asked where the camp was and desired to be conducted to it. With pulses beating as if any moment would be their last, Jacques and John advanced with their unwelcome guests to the camp eight miles distant. A little before arriving, Jacques at full speed came in ahead whooping and yelling "the Blackfeet! the Blackfeet!" but did not tell us they were on speaking terms. In an instant the camp was in an uproar. Of the ten men in camp, eight went to drive in the horses. Myself and the others instantly pointed the big gun lighted the match and sent the women away. By this time the party hove in sight but seeing John with them restrained me from firing and I made signs to them to stop. Our horses were secured I then received them coldly well recollecting the circumstances of the two men on the 6th and not doubting it was the same party. All our people except two came in and the camp was in a state of de- fense. I invited them to a smoke. Their story was : We left our lands in spring as an embassy of peace to the Snakes, but while smoking with them on terms of friendship, they treacher- ously shot our chief; we resented the insult and killed two of them. We are now on the way to meet our friends the Flat- heads." They said the camp was not far off and the party 100 strong. They denied any knowledge of the 6th inst. After dark they entertained us to music and dancing all of which we could have dispensed with. Our people threw away ​
384 JOURNAL OF ALEXANDER Ross
thirty-two beaver; twenty were brought in. A strong guard for the horses. All slept armed.
Sunday 20th. Again invited the Piegans to smoke ; gave them presents ; and told them to set off and play no tricks for we would follow them to their own land to punish them. They saddled horses and sneaked off one by one along the bushes for 400 yards then took to the mountains. The big gun com- manded respect.
Monday 21st. Decamped. Found a fresh scalp; sixty-five beaver today.
Thursday 24th. This is the spot where Mr. McKenzie and party fell on this river in spring of 1820 on the way to Ft. Nez Perces.
Saturday 3rd July 32 . We left River Malade and proceeded to the head of Reid's River 33 . In 1813 during the Pacific Fur Company, Mr. Reid with a party of ten men chiefly trappers, wintered here ; in spring, they were all cut off by the natives.
After Mr. Reid this river was named. At its mouth an establishment was begun by Donald McKenzie in 1819. It was burned and two men killed. In spring 1820, four men more were destroyed by the natives. This river has already cost the whites sixteen men.
August 24th. Number of miles traversed to date, 1,050; number of horses lost, 18.
Saturday, Sept. 18th 34 . While our people were crossing the height of land, I left the front and taking one man with me ascended the top of a lofty peak situated between the sources of River Malade and Salmon River, whence I had a very ex- tensive view of the surrounding country. Both rivers were distinctly seen. The chain of mountains which for 150 miles separates the waters of the Salmon River from those which enter the Great Snake lie nearly E. W.
32 Descending the Malade (Big Wood River) to the mouth of Camas Creek, the party turns west across Camas Prairie and the divide to the head of the Boise
River; see pages 80-89 of "Fur Hunters.'
33 Consult Irving's "Astoria" Pacific Fur Company.
3 Consult Irving's "Astoria" for account of the death of Mr. Reed of the
34 This journal omits entirely all mention of Mr. Ross from the time he reached the Boise until he returns on September to the rough mountain pass dividing Blaine and Custer Counties, Idaho; for this interim see pages 90-118 of "The Fur Hunters." His lofty peak now mentioned may be Boulder Peak of today, but he named it Mt. Simpson. ​
SNAKE COUNTRY EXPEDITION, 1824 385
Wednesday 6th Oct. 35 Our cache of May is safe. Length of Salmon River covered this year, 100 miles.
Oct. 7th. Beaver taken out of cache, counted and packed and carried along with us.
Tuesday, 12th Oct. This morning after an illness of twenty days during which we carried him on a stretcher died Jean Ba't Boucher, aged 65, an honest man.
Thursday, 14th Oct. Today Pierre and band arrived pillaged and destitute. This conduct has been blamable since they left us. They passed the time with the Indians and neglected their hunts, quarrelled with the Indians at last, were then robbed and left naked on the plains. The loss of twelve out of twenty trappers is no small consideration. With these vagabonds ar- rived seven American trappers from the Big Horn River but whom I rather take to be spies than trappers. Regarding our deserters of 1822 accounts do not agree. It is evident part of them have reached the American posts on the Yellowstone and Big Horn with much fur. I suspect these Americans have been on the lookout to decoy more. The scalp furs and horses carried last year to Fort des Prairies by the Blackfeet belonged to this establishment. The quarter is swarming with trappers who next season are to penetrate the Snake country with a Major Henry 36 at their head, the same gentleman who fifteen years ago wintered on Snake River. The report of these men on the price of beaver has a very great influence on our trapprs. The seven trappers have in two different caches 900 beaver. I made them several propositions but they would not accept lower than $3 a pound. I did not consider myself authorized to arrange at such prices. The men accom- panied us to the Flatheads. There is a leading person with them. They intend following us to the fort.
Saturday 16th. Sent our express to Mr. Ogden at Spokane house.
November 1st, Monday. Got across the divide.
35 The party is now back at Canoe Point; see previous note on May loth. The party sent off on June nth joins them a little further along on their way to the headwaters of the Missouri.
36 Major Andrew Henry, the first American trader to cross the continental divide (in fall of 1810), and at this time partner of General Wm. H. Ashley in the fur business. The desertions of the H. B. Co. freemen to the Americans mentioned in this text took place before General Ashley personally ever came to the Rocky Mountains; see page 356 of Vol. 11 of Or. Hist. Quart, for discussion of this. ​
FLATHEAD POST, 1825
Alex Ross
1824. November, Friday 26. 37 From Prairie de Cheveaux myself and party arrived at this place in the afternoon, where terminated our voyage of 10 months to the Snakes. Mr. Ogden 38 and Mr. Dears 39 with people and outfit from Spokane reached this place only a few hours before us. Statement of people both voyages (?)
Engaged party with their families, including gentlemen, and 43 men, 8 women, 16 children. Freemen and trappers with families, 34 men, 8 lads, 22 women and 5 children. Total, 176 souls.
To accommodate people and property we use a row of huts 6 in number, low, linked together under one cover, having the appearance of deserted booths.
Saturday 27. All hands building. Mr. Ogden handed me a letter from the Governor appointing me in charge of this place for the winter. Mr. Ogden takes my place as chief of the Snake expedition.
Monday 29. Kootenais joined Flatheads at Prairie de Cheveaux. Indians are now as follows there :
Men and Lodges Lads Guns Women Children
Flatheads 42 168 180 70 68
Pend' Orielles 34 108 40 68 71
Kouttannais 36 114 62 50 48
Nez Perces 12 28 20 15 23
Spokanes 4 12 6 7 11
128 430 308 210 221 and 1,850 horses.
37 From the heading it would appear that Mr. Ross now begins a new part of the journal, covering his residence at Flathead Post or Fort.
38 Peter Skene Ogden, well known to Oregon pioneers; see Oregon Hist. Quar., Vol. n, pp. 247-8.
39 This was Mr. Thomas Dears, who was a clerk of the H. B. Co. on the Columbia at this time. ​
SNAKE COUNTRY EXPEDITION, 1824 387
We sent word to the camp to come and begin trade as fol- lows : First, Flat. ; 2d P., etc., as in order above.
Tuesday 30. About 10 o'clock the Flatheads in a body mounted, arrived, chanting the song of peace. At a little distance they halted and saluted the fort with discharges from their guns. We returned the compliment with our brass pounder. The reverbating sound had a fine effect. The head chief advanced and made a fine speech welcoming the white man to these lands, apologizing for having but few beaver. The cavalcade then moved up. The chiefs were invited to the house to smoke. All the women arrived on horseback loaded with provisions and a brisk trade began which lasted till dark. The result was, 324 beaver, 154 bales of meat, 159 buffalo tongues, etc.
December, Wednesday 1. The Pend' Orielles arrived in the manner of those of yesterday and traded as follows : 198 beaver, 8 muskrat, etc.
Received 2000 of the Snake Freemen's 40 beaver today and sent off canoe to Spokane House.
Thursday 2d. Employed with Freemen and Indians all day. At night we had received 2000 more of Snake beaver.
Friday 3d. The Kootenais accompanied by 10 Piegans came up, with the same ceremony and traded as follows : 494 beaver, 509 muskrat, 2 red foxes, 3 mink, etc. The Kootenais do not belong here but are driven from fear of the Piegans and Blackfeet.
The trouble of this part is now over till spring as the In- dians have gone home. In all we have traded 1183 beaver, 14 otter, 529 muskrat, 8 fishers, 3 minks, 1 martin, 2 foxes, 11,072 pounds dried meat, etc. (Buffalo meat.)
The trade hardly averages 3 skins per Indian.
Sunday, December 5. Began to equip the Freemen today. Mr. Ogden settling their accounts. Mr. Dears in the Indian shop with Interpreter Rivett, and myself with Mr. McKay 41 in the equipment shop.
40 That is, the skins taken by the free hunters that were a part of the expedi- tion in distinction from the engaged men or employees of the company.
41 Probably Mr. Thos. McKay, son of Alex. McKay, of the Pac. Fur Co., whose widow became the wife of Dr. John McLoughlin. ​
388 JOURNAL OF ALEXANDER Ross
Saturday, December 11. Finished equipping the Snake hunters. Mr. Kittson 42 from the Kootenais arrived..
Monday, 20th. Statement of men under Mr. Ogden to go to the Snake Country: 25 lodges, 2 gentlemen, 2 interpreters, 71 men and lads, 80 guns, 364 beaver traps, 372 horses.
This is the most formidable party that has ever set out for the Snakes. Snake expedition took its departure. Each beaver trap last year in the Snake country averaged 26 beaver. It is expected this hunt will net 14,100 beaver. Mr. Dears goes as far as Prairie de Cheveaux.
Wednesday, 22d. Statement of people at this fort : 2 gen- tlemen, 14 laborers, 4 women, 7 children. Set the people squaring timber to keep them from plotting mischief.
Saturday 25th. Considerable Indians; the peace pipe kept in motion. All the people a dram.
Sunday 26th. No work today. Ordered the men to dress and keep the Sabbath.
January 1, 1825. At daybreak the men saluted with guns. They were treated to rum and cake, each a pint of rum and a half pound of tobacco.
March 1. Tuesday. The winter trade from December 4 has amounted to 71 beaver, 2 otter, 15 muskrat, 3 foxes, etc.
Saturday, 12 March. 43 After breakfast embarked 4 canoes in sight of 1000 natives for Spokane House. 1644 large beaver, 378 small beaver, 29 otter, 775 muskrats, 9 foxes, 12 fishers, 1 martin, 8 mink, also leather and provisions.
(At Spokane House) Friday, 25th March. Of all situa- tions 44 chosen in the Indian country. -Spokane House is the most singular: far from water, far from Indians and out of the way. Spokane (Forks) on the west, Kettle Falls on the north Coeur d' Alene on the south, Pend' Oreille on the east would be better.
42 William Kittson, who was in charge of the trading post among the Kootenais for many years; he died at Fort Vancouver about 1841. His brother, Norman, was one of the early millionaires of St. Paul, Minn.
43 The trading post is now left in charge of some half-breed or entirely abandoned until fall, as the Indians spent their summer hunting buffalo.
44 Mr. Ross indulges in his usual disgust as to the site of Spokane House, which feeling he elaborates at length in his "Fur Hunters." And this post was abandoned the following year for the new one at Kettle Falls, called Fort Colvile.
* ↑ Hudson's Bay Company.
* ↑ Rev. Ezra Fisher, who came to Oregon in 1845.