# Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 14/Number 1

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
REPORT OF LIEUTENANT NEIL M. HOWISON ON OREGON, 1846
A REPRINT
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Lieutenant Howison was early in 1846 detailed by Commodore Sloat of the Pacific squadron of the United States Navy, then on this Coast, to make an examination of the situation in Oregon. This order was given at the instance of George Bancroft, Secretary of the Navy, and the expedition had probably been resolved upon by the administration at Washington. During the months of April, May and most of June his vessel, the schooner Shark, was undergoing repairs in the Sandwich Islands in preparation for the trip. Howison entered the Columbia on July 1, conducted his investigations and prepared, in compliance with his orders, to return about September 1. He suffered shipwreck in crossing the Columbia bar on September 10. Chartering the Cadboro from the Hudson's Bay Company officials he was ready to sail November 1, but was compelled by unfavorable weather to remain anchored in Baker's Bay until January 18.
His disastrous experience in the total loss of his vessel, and the difficulties he contended with throughout his course in navigating the Columbia naturally made him emphasize the conditions affecting the channels and passableness of that river. He revised Captain Wilkes' sailing directions for entering the Columbia. Changes in the channels in the intervening five years had made this revision necessary.
​It will be noticed that as he was preparing to embark on the Cadboro in early November in 1846, homeward bound, the American barque Toulon arrived from the Sandwich Islands with the "news of the Oregon treaty, Mexican war, and occupation of California." He had taken his observations of conditions in Oregon near the close of that long period of suspense over the unsettled ownership of the country. He had seen "all settled spots on the Columbia below the Cascades, the Wilhammette valley for sixty miles above Oregon City, and the Twality and Clatsop plains." He confines his report to subjects his "own observations or verbal inquiries from authentic sources could reach."
He begins with a characterization of the attractive personality of Dr. McLoughlin, and gives an appreciative estimate of his able and sagacious administration of the affairs of the Hudson's Bay Company down to 1845, and of his large service to the community as a whole. The attitudes taken toward him by the different elements in the Oregon community are not withheld. The classes in the composition of the population of Oregon in the middle of the forties are described, particularly the situation in which the American immigrants found themselves after completing their long treks across the continent.
The Hudson's Bay Company dominated the affairs m the settlement. The benevolence, the steadiness and the farsighted character of the policy of the managers of that concern elicited his commendation.
Lieutenant Howison's report supplies very definite information on the trade, shipping, productions, towns, Indian population and general development of Oregon at this stage. He forecasts with wonderful clearness the factors that have been controlling influences in its growth ever since. The document is a fit companion of the reports of Slacum and of Wilkes. These are found in Volume XIII, pp. 175-224, and in volume XII, pp. 269-299, respectively, of the Quarterly. ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 3
30th CONGRESS, [HOUSE OF REPS.] MISCELLANEOUS 1st Session. No. 29.
OREGON.
REPORT
OF
LIEUT. NEIL M. HOWISON, UNITED STATES NAVY,
TO THE COMMANDER OF THE PACIFIC SQUADRON J BEING
The result of cm examination in the year 1846 of the coast, har- bors, rivers, soil, productions, climate and pop- ulation of the Territory of Oregon.
FEBRUARY 29, 1848.
U. S. FRIGATE SAVANNAH, San Francisco, California, February 1, 1847.
SIR : Want of opportunity has prevented me from commu- nicating with the commander-in-chief of the squadron since the month of June last.
I shall therefore do myself the honor on this occasion to report in detail my proceedings since that date, premising that the much regretted shipwreck of the vessel I commanded, with the loss of her log-book and all my papers, obliges me to draw upon memory for what is now respectfully submitted.
In obedience to orders from Commodore Sloat, then com- manding the Pacific squadron, I took the United States schooner "Shark" last April to the Sandwich islands, where she was thoroughly repaired and newly coppered. With my best exertions, this was not completed until the 23d of June, on the afternoon of which day I sailed for the Columbia river. Noth- ing more than usual occurred on this voyage. Made the land of Oregon on the 15th of July, about thirty miles north of the ​river, and in expectation of northwesterly winds; but we had calms and light westerly winds for the succeeding three days, which obliged me frequently to anchor on the coast, and await a change of tide, the direction of the flood being directly on shore, and the soundings shoal; in some places only ten fathoms seven or eight miles from the land.
About 10 o'clock a. m., of July 18, I anchored in ten fathoms, Cape Disappointment bearing NE. by N., distant five miles. Several guns were fired and signals made for a pilot; but seeing no one moving about the shore, on either side of the river, I took the master with me in the whale-boat, and pulled in the channel, between the breakers, sounding in no less than four fathoms, and passing sufficiently far in to recognise the landmarks on the north shore, described in Wilkes's sailing directions.
Here it is proper to mention, that while at the Sandwich islands I met with Captain Mott, master of the Hudson's Bay Company's barque Vancouver, and Captain Crosby, master of the American barque Toulon, both of whom had lately been in the Columbia river. I was informed by those persons that the sands about the mouth of the Columbia had undergone great changes within a short time past, and that a spit had formed out to the eastward from the spot upon which the Peacock was wrecked in 1841, which made it impossible to enter the river by the old marks, or those laid down on Wilkes's chart. The receipt of this information was most opportune and fortunate for me, as I had no other guide than a copy of a copy, upon tracing paper, of Wilkes's chart, which was even now, before its publication, out of date.
This new formation of Peacock spit, extending into the old channel, greatly obstructed this already embarrassing navigation, and those most experienced undertook to cross the bar with apprehension and dread. When, therefore, a seaman of my crew, who had been wrecked in the "Peacock," reminded me that this was the anniversary of her loss, I cannot deny that I felt sensibly the weight of my responsibilities.
​Having, however, traced the channel in my whale-boat through the tumult of various tide rips, and the way seeming clear, I returned on board the schooner, and at 2 p. m. got under way and stood in ENE. With the wind at west, weather clear, and tide young flood, we glided rapidly and safely into Baker's bay; and to those who were unacquainted with the dangers which closely and imperceptibly beset our passage in, nothing appeared more simple and free from danger. Upon rounding Cape Disappointment, a boat came alongside with three American gentlemen in her, who introduced themselves as Mr. Lovejoy, the mayor of Oregon city, Mr. Spalding, a missionary, and Mr. Gray, a resident of Clatsop Plains. From these I learned that no regular pilots were to be had for the river, but that there was a black man on shore who had been living many years at the cape, was a sailor, and said, if sent for he would come off and pilot us up to Astoria. He was accordingly brought on board, and spoke confidently of his knowledge of the channel; said he had followed the sea twenty years, and had been living here for the last six; that "I need have no fear of him," &c. He ordered the helm put up, head sheets aft, and yards braced, with an air that deceived me into the belief that he was fully competent to conduct the vessel, and he was put in charge Of her. In twenty minutes he ran us hard ashore on Chinook shoal, where we remained several hours thumping severely. We got off about 10 p. m., without having suffered any material damage, and anchored in the channel, where I was determined to hold on until I could make myself acquainted with the cha'nnel, or procure the services of a person to be relied on. At daylight I was pleased to find Mr. Lattee, formerly mate of a ship belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, and now in charge of the port at Astoria, on board.
Upon the vessel's grounding, the gentlemen visitors, feeling themselves somewhat responsible for the employment of this pretended pilot, immediately put off to Astoria, a distance of ten miles, to procure the services Of Lattee, who promptly complied with the request, and they all came back to the schooner about daylight, having been all night exposed in an open boat.
6 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
At 2 p. m. of the 19th, I anchored off Astoria, where I re- mained until the 22d, in order to visit Gatsop Plains and the neighboring country.
We were abundantly furnished by the American settlers here with fresh beef and vegetables.
As I have said before, my only guide up the river was Wilkes's chart, which extended about twenty-five miles, and included part of Puget's island. In this a fine straight channel is delineated from the neighborhood of Tongue point up to Termination island. But upon consulting Lattee and an In- dian named George, who acts as pilot in the upper part of the river, they both denied the existence of this channel, and as- sured me that no other than the shallow and tortuous passage which Captain Wilkes had himself always used, and which was invariably used by all others, had been found out, although George said he had often in his canoe, and at favorable times, attempted to trace it as described by Captain Wilkes and his officers. I nevertheless adhered to the opinion that such a channel existed, but thought it best at present to follow the beaten track, and accordingly buoyed out the common channel, (which is necessarily done by every vessel attempting to pass through it), and used that in proceeding up the river. I em- ployed Indian George to accompany me, and derived great ad- vantage from his knowledge of the water above Tongue Point channel. He knows nothing about handling a vessel,, but, with a fair wind, will conduct her very safely, pointing out ahead where the channel runs.
At this season of the year westerly winds blow every day, and there is no difficulty in ascending the river.
I reached Fort Vancouver, 100 miles from its mouth, on the night of July 24th, where I found H. B. M. sloop-of-war "Mo- deste," Captain Baillie, who immediately sent on board his com- pliments and the offer of his services. There were also moored to the river bank two barques and a ship in the employment of the Hudson's Bay Company. The next morning Mr. Douglass, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, called on me with polite offers of supplies, &G. ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
On the 26th, I dropped down to the mouth of the Wilham- mette, six miles below Vancouver, and made an effort to get the schooner over the bar at the mouth of the river, with the view of ascending it as far as navigable for sea-going vessels ; but having grounded on the bar, and the water having still five or six feet to fall, I was obliged to desist from the attempt ; and se'nding off in a boat the first lieutenant and some other officers to visit Oregon city, and the neighboring American settlers, I returned with the schooner to Vancouver.
At this time we had not heard of the settlement of the boun- dary question, and intense excitement prevailed among all classes of residents on this important subject. I enjoined it by letter on the officers under my command to refrain from engag- ing in arguments touching the ownership of the soil, as it was our duty rather to allay than increase excitement on a question which no power hereabouts could settle.
The officers were also directed to seek all the information respecting the country which their respective opportunities might afford. Besides the sloop of war Modeste, anchored in the river, the British government kept the frigate Fisguard in Puget's sound, and the strongly armed steamer Cormorant in the sound and about Vancouver's island. These unusual demonstrations produced anything but a tranquilizing effect upon the American portion of the population, and the presence of the British flag was a constant source of irritation.
The English officers used every gentlemanly caution to re- concile our countrymen to their presence, but no really good feelings existed. Indeed, there could never be congeniality be- twee'n persons so entirely dissimilar as an American frontier man and a British naval officer. But the officers never, to my knowledge, had to complain of rude treatment. The English residents calculated with great certainty upon the river being adopted as the future dividing line, and looked with jealousy upon the American advance into the northern portion of the territory, which had some influence in restraining emigration. ​
8 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
Finding it impossible to get the schooner into the Willhamette river, I left her at Vancouver, and made a visit to Oregon city, where I was received by the provisional governor, George Abernethy, esq., and honored with a salute fired from a hole drilled in the village blacksmith's anvil. From the city the gov- ernor accompanied me for a week's ride through the Willham- mette valley, and a more lovely country nature has never pro- vided for her virtuous sons and daughters than I here travelled over. This excursion ended, the governor took a seat in my boat, and accompanied me to Vancouver. He was received on board the schooner with a salute and remained with me for two days. I had previously dispatched the first lieutenant, Mr. W. S. Schenck, up the Columbia river as high as the Dalles, to find out what settlements had been made along its banks, and more particularly to endeavor to gain some information of the large emigration which was expected in from our western frontier this autumn, and from which we should get dates from home as late as June. In person I visited the Twality plains, and returned again by the city and river.
The high price of mechanics' labor here, and facility with which any one can earn a living, had tempted ten of the Shark's crew to desert ; and although a liberal reward was offered for their apprehension, only two had been brought back. The few American merchant vessels which had visited the Columbia suffered the greatest inconvenience from the loss of their men in this way, and it is now customary for them to procure a reinforcement of Kanakas in passing the Sandwich islands, to meet this exigency.
When Captain Wilkes left the river in 1841, he placed the Peacock's launch, at that time a new and splendid boat, in charge of Dr. McLaughlin, agent of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany, to be used in assisting vessels about the bar, should they need it. After this boat had remained a year in the water with- out being of any use, she was hauled up on shore, and was now completely out of order from the effect of decay and shrinkage. Many applications had been made for her by Amer- ican emigrants, but Dr. McLaughlin did not feel authorized to ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 9
deliver her to any other than a United States officer. She was fast going- to pieces, and I thought it good policy to sell her for the benefit of the government, particularly as the man who purchased did so with the intention of repairing her, to be used as a pilot boat ; she brought $150. It would have required as much more to repair her, and I was only anxious she should sell for enough to make the purchaser take care of her and keep her employed.
Being under orders to come out of the river by the 1st day of September, my explorations were necessarily very limited, mak- ing the best use of our time. Many interesting portions of the country were still unvisited, which I greatly regret; for al- though Captain Wilkes in 1841, and other travellers since, have given very comprehensive descriptions of the country, so rapid are the developments made of its productions and re- sources by the large annual emigration of inhabitants, that a statistical account two years old may be considered out of date. Preparations were, of course, made to comply fully with orders.
The American barque Toulon, bound to the Sandwich is- lands, and now attempting to go down the river, had required the services of the old Indian, who acted as pilot, which left me entirely dependent on the lead, and a boat ahead, to feel my way through a devious channel of nearly 100 miles hi extent. I had not, nor could I procure, a map giving even an outline of the general direction of the stream. Thus unpro- vided, I left Fort Vancouver at daylight of August 23d. Three or four miles below the fort, I found the barque Toulon badly aground on a sand bar. I anchored abreast of her and sent men and boats to her assistance, but the current was strong, and it became 'necessary to unlade part of her cargo; so, nearly three days were consumed in relieving her. This, and the sub- sequent tediousness of the voyage down against constant head winds, made it the 8th of September when I anchored in Baker's bay. The 9th was devoted to observations on the bar and preparations for crossing it. On the 10th, in the after​
10 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
noon, the attempt was made and resulted in the shipwreck of the schooner, as is circumstantially related in my communi cation dated September 21st.
Cast on shore as we were, with nothing besides the clothes we stood in, and those thoroughly saturated, no time was to be lost in seeking new supplies. I left the crew, indifferently shel- tered, at Astoria, and, with the purser in company, pushed up the river to Vancouver, whither news of our disaster had preceded us, and elicited the sympathy and prompt attentions of the factors of the Hudson's Bay Company and of Captain Baillie and the officers of her Britannic Majesty's ship "Mo- deste." These gentlemen had unitedly loaded a launch with such articles of clothing and necessary provisions as we were most likely to need, and added a gratuitous offering of a bag of coffee and 80 pounds of tobacco. I met this boat 25 miles below the fort, and could not but feel extremely grateful for this very friendly and considerate relief. Copies of the let- ters accompanying these supplies are appended to this report, (marked A and B,) as well as an extract from one from Governor Abernethy, and another of the same friendly tenor from Captain Couch, an American trader at Oregon city, agent of Mr. Cushing, of Newburyport, Massachusetts, (the last marked C and D ;) to all of which I made appropriate replies.
At Vancouver my wants of every kind were immediately supplied by the Hudson's Bay Company; and although cash was at Oregon city and with the American merchants worth twelve per cent, more than bills, yet the company furnished all my requisitions, whether for cash or clothing, taking bills on Messrs. Baring & Brothers at par. Upon returning to Astoria, I set about putting up log houses for our accommodation, as there was no vessel in the river, and it was extremely uncer- tain when an opportunity would occur for us to leave. We got two comfortable buildings, of 30 by 24 feet, a story and a half high, well floored and boarded, with kitchen and bake oven, soon ready for occupation and use, and had half completed a frame house for the officers' special accommodation, when the ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 11
schooner "Cadboro" arrived, which opened a prospect of leav- ing the river, and induced us to desist from finishing the offi- cers' house. The cost of plank for these buildings was some- thing over two hundred dollars.
OfBcers and men had been constantly kept exploring the beach from Point Adams to the southward, to pick up any articles worth saving which should drift ashore from the wreck, but they seldom found a spar or plank from her which the Indians had not already visited and robbed of its copper and iron fastenings.
Receiving information through the Indians that part of the hull, with guns upon it, had come ashore below Killimuk's Head, about 20 or 30 miles south of Point Adams, I sent Midshipman Simes, an enterprising youth, to visit the spot. He did so, and reported that the deck between the mainmast and fore hatch, with an equal length of the starboard broadside planking above the wales, had been stranded, and that three of the carronades adhered to this portion of the wreck. He succeeded in, getting one above high-water mark ; but the other two were inaccessible, on account of the surf ; and as it would have been utterly impracticable to transport any weighty ob- ject over the mountain road which it was necessary to traverse, I of course made no exertions to recover them, but informed the governor of their position, that during the smooth seas of next summer he might send a boat round and embark them.
Within a month all the upper works, decks, sides and spars came ashore from the wreck, but separated a distance of 75 miles from each other, and were of no value, from the long wash and chafing which they had undergone. To the heel of the bowsprit we found two kedge anchors attached, one with an arm broken off; and it is a little singular that the only articles recovered which could be at all useful hereafter were of metal and weight.
On the llth of October we were cheered with the sight of a sail in the offing, and next day the Hudson's Bay Company's ​
12 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
schooner Cadboro, from Vancouver's island, anchored at As- toria. The first lieutenant, master, and assistant surgeon were ordered to examine her, and report in writing her capacity or fitness to transport us to California; and although she was but 57 feet in length, they were of opinion we could pack in her closely and make the voyage. I lost no time, therefore, in going up the river and chartering her from the company; and although the price demanded (500 sterling) was, in my judgment, an extravagant one, my anxiety to rejoin the squad- ron, having heard overland of hostilities with Mexico, was such as to overrule all other considerations, and I engaged the schooner.
On the 28th of October the winter set in, with a strong gale at southeast, and heavy rain. The Cadboro was pre- pared to receive us on board by the 1st of November; but unremitting gales from the southward, with rain, prevented us from embarking until the 16th. In the meantime the American barque Toulon arrived from the Sandwich islands, and brought us news of the Oregon treaty, Mexican war, and occupation of California. This intelligence rendered us doubly anxious to escape from our idle imprisonment in the river, and we seized upon the first day of sunshine to embark. This was on the 16th of November.
The ground upon which the houses described above had been built (the extremity of Point George) was within the pre- emption claim of Colonel John McClure, who lived at Astoria ; and, upob vacating them, they were put under his care, and subject to his use, as will be seen by letter annexed (marked E.) The right ownership of the soil being decided by the treaty, I no longer felt any reserve in hoisting our flag on shore ; and it had been some time waving over our quarters on the very spot which was first settled by the white man on the banks of the Columbia. When we broke up ahd embarked, I transmitted this emblem of nationality to Governor Aber- nethy. The letter accompanying it, and the governor's reply, are annexed, (marked F and G.) ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 13
The Cadboro anchored in Baker's bay November 17th, where we remained, pent up by adverse winds and a turbulent sea on the bar, until the 18th of January. Her master, an old sea- man, had been navigating this river and coast for the last 18 years, and his vessel drew but eight feet water; yet, in this long interval of sixty-two days he could find no opportunity of getting to sea safely. This is in itself a commentary upon the dangerous character of the navigation of the mouth of the Columbia.
We suffered very much from our crowded stowage in this small craft. The weather was wet and cold ; and the vessel not affording the comfort of stove or fireplace, and without space for exercise, I was very apprehensive that we should have some- thing more serious than chilblains and frost-bitten fingers to complain of ; but it was not so. Both officers and men enjoyed the most robust health and ravenous appetites. Many of the smaller items of the ration being deficient, the value was made up by beef, salmon, and potatoes, and of these each man con- sumed and digested his four pounds and a half a day. The Hudson's Bay Company allow its servants while making a voyage eight pounds of meat a day, and I am told the allow- ance is none too much. Our long detention in the river obliged me upon two occasions to send on new requisitions upon the company's store at Vancouver for supplies, which were prompt- ly answered.
The Toulon, having gone up the Willhammette, discharged her cargo and taken in another, came down the river and anchored near us on the 8th of January. Ten days afterwards we both succeeded m getting to sea, and arrived in company at San Francisco on the 27th of January. The barque was laden with provisions, principally flour, which latter cost her $6 per barrel. Before she came to an anchor a United States officer had boarded her and purchased nearly all she had at $15 per barrel.
We found at San Francisco the U. S. frigate Savannah, and sloop-of-war Warren, to which vessels my officers and crew ​
14 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
were immediately transferred and assumed their appropriate duties.
It will be seen by the foregoing sketch that although my visit to Oregon was most unexpectedly prolonged to six months, it had notwithstanding offered very limited opportunities of ex- tending personal researches throughout the country. The offi- cers, in compliance with my orders, have individually furnished me with a written report of all the information that each had acquired deemed worth communicating, and I take this occasion to express my obligations to them for the aid thus rendered me a service alike useful to me and performed in a manner highly creditable to themselves. From these and the result of my own inquiries and observations, I .am enabled to put you in possession of the following information, which, though it may be deemed in many points trite and unimportant, I will not apologize for, as my instructions required a full and minute report, which "for its very fullness would be the more accept- able. (Extract from Mr. Bancroft's letter of August 5, 1845.)
During the summer months, from April until October, the winds on the coast prevail almost uninterruptedly from the west, inclining northerly in the afternoon, and the other part of the year they are generally from SE., S., and SW. ; the nav- igator will therefore know what course to adopt in approaching the mouth of the river. He cannot fix the cape, even when many hundred miles distant, better than on an ENE. bearing. He will be almost sure of a fair wind, as it seldom Mows from northeast any distance off shore. Cape Disappointment is in latitude 46 19' N., longitude 124 W. It is between six and seven hundred feet high, and can be seen in clear weather 30 miles. It juts prominently out into the sea, is a bold headland, and, if the weather be such as to allow an approach within 15 miles of it, cannot possibly be mistaken by persons at all experienced in adjusting a line of coast with the chart south of the Columbia. Soundings are very deep close in shore, while to .the north of the river you will have from 15 to 20 fathoms ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 15
in some places ten miles from shore, and in high westerly gales the sea often breaks five miles from the beach. A ship should never go nearer the coast than ten miles or twelve, unless with a view of going right in, or of reconnoitring the bar, particularly in winter, when the southeasterly gales spring suddenly up, and as suddenly shift to SW, and WSW., which with a flood tide requires a good sailing vessel and a press of canvas to keep a safe offing. I lay at anchor in Baker's bay, some three hun- dred yards inside the cape, from November 17, 1846, until January 18, 1847; and although we were unfortunately desti- tute of barometer and thermometers, we had a good oppor- tunity of observing during these two winter months the wind and weather. The heavens were almost always overcast; the wind would spring up moderately at E., haul within four hours to SE., increasing in force and attended with rain. It would continue at this point some 20 hours, and shift suddenly in a hail storm to SW., whence, hauling westwardly and blowing heavy, accompanied with hail and sleet, it would give us a continuance of bad weather for three or four days, and force the enormous Pacific swell to break upon shore with terrific violence, tossing its spray over the tops of the rocks more than two hundred feet high. A day of moderate weather, with the wind at NE., might succeed this ; but before the sea on the bar would have sufficiently gone down to render it passable, a renewal of the southeaster would begin and go on around the compass as before.
Throughout Oregon the NE. wind, or between N. and E., is clear and dry, and in winter very cold ; it is the only wind at that season which will serve to take a ship safely out to sea; and as it generally succeeds the westerly gales, which leave a heavy sea on, the impatient navigator is oftentimes obliged to remain at his anchor until this fair wind has blown itself out. The northeaster may, as I have said before, be considered a land breeze, not reaching over ten or twelve miles to sea. In the upper part of the Territory, and above the mouth of the Cowlitz, on the Columbia, clear easterly winds ​
16 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
are prevalent, and it is during their continuance the greatest degree of cold is felt; the river is often frozen over in. the neighborhood of Fort Vancouver. Even in Baker's bay, the schooner we were on board of was in January belted around with ice at the water's edge, fully eighteen inches thick; this was, however, considered by the old residents an unusual and extraordinary spell of cold weather.
Captain Wilkes's survey, in 1841, of the mouth of the Co- lumbia, however accurately it may have been done, is, I am sorry to say, at present only calculated to mislead the navigator ; this I affirm without any intention to reproach himself or his assistants with incapacity or neglect ; five years' time has doubt- less put an entirely new face upon the portrait of the sands hereabouts; nor has the change beeri altogether sudden, for I ascertained from those who had passed and sounded among the sands at short intervals since the date of the survey, that these changes have been gradually and steadily progressing. This chart delineates two fine open channels, broad and with reg- ular outlines ; but at this mome'nt the mouth .of the southern channel is nearly closed up, not having at low water more than two fathoms in it, while the old or northern one is ob- structed by a spit from the wreck of the Peacock to the east- ward ; so that on the line of six fathoms laid down on the chart, only six feet can now be found. Many other chariges equally important have taken place within the bar, which is needless to allude to here. The constant alterations which this bar, in common with most others, is undergoing, go to prove the necessity of frequent surveys and the establishment of resi- dent pilots, who can be constantly exploring the channel, and keep pace with the shifting of sands, and the consequent change in the direction of the tides.
The following sailing directions will at this time carry a vessel safely into Baker's bay ; but how far they may be suit- able a year hence is altogether doubtful. There has been no heavy freshet in the Columbia for the last two summers, and the elongated and narrow spits which now jut out from the sands ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 17
bordering on the channel are considered the result of the pre- dominant sea wash, which will be removed by the first sweep- ing freshet that rushes out of the river. The past winter, 1846- '47, having been unusually severe, and a heavy deposit of snow and ice resting on the mountains and in the interior valleys, persons anticipate a great inundation in June, or as soon as the sun's rays attain power to convert this winter covering into fluid. This will unquestionably produce a new movement in the sands at the mouth of the river, and may perhaps render nugatory these directions for entering the river.
The wind should not be to the northward of west, nor to the eastward of south. The beginning of the summer sea breeze is generally at WSW., which is the most favorable quarter. Bring Cape Disappointment to bear NE. by N., catch an object in range on the high land behind it, (in order to correct the influence of the tide,) and stand for it on that bearing until the middle of Cockscomb hill is fully on with Point Adams you will then be in 10 fathoms, a fathom more or less depending on the stage of the tide. Now steer ENE., or for Point Ellice, taking care to fix that also in range, and keep it on with some object in the distant high land in the rear this course will gradually open Cockscomb hill with Point Adams, and will take you over the bar in four and a half fathoms water, deep- eni'ng to five and six if you are exactly in the channel. If the tide be flood, and you shoal the water, you are probably too near the north breaker, and will find it necessary to observe strictly the Point Ellice range, which will inform you how you are affected by the tide. As you advance in, look along the northern shore for the first yellow bank or bluff which opens from behind the cape ; and if it be ebb tide, haul up immediately NNE. ; but if it be flood or slack water, NE. will do, and stand on that course until the next point opens, which is called Snag point; then steer direct for the cape and Snag point in range, which is N. by W. ^ W. by compass. Passing a little to the eastward of this range, will open another seeming point, marked in summer by a growth of alder trees of unusually dark ​
18 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
green hue, (in winter they are more brown thah the adjacent forest,) which has attained the name of Green point; beyond this range a vessel should not pass to the eastward, or the middle sands will abruptly bring her up. If it be flood tide you may pass within fifty yards of the cape; and even if it be full calm, the current will take you to an anchorage ; but if it be ebb, keep a short quarter of a mile from the cape, as you are almost sure to be becalmed, and the tide runs out to the west- ward here at least five knots ; if you lose the wind at this point, you must instantly let go an anchor, and, veering a good scope of cable, await a change of tide. The best anchorage is the cape bearing SSE., or on with Killimuk's Head, distant about five hundred yards, in five fathoms water. If a strahger reach this point in safety, he had better remain here until either of the Indians, George or Ramsay, be sent for, or he can procure advice from some one familiar with the navigatioh. hence to Astoria. From appearances on the chart, he would suppose this navigation very simple, but the strong and diverse cur- rents make it extremely embarrassing and dangerous; and should a vessel ground anywhere within fifteen miles of the outer bar, and a strong wind arise, the swell is sufficiently great and the bottom hard enough to bilge her; none but a buoyant and fast pulling boat should be sent to sound about the bar, as the tide occasionally runs with an irresistible force ; and, in spite of all efforts, would sweep an indifferent boat i'nto the breakers.
Five fathoms can be carried at low water up to Astoria, which is the first anchorage combining comfort and security; three-quarters of a mile above that, is a narrow pass of only thirteen feet; but from Baker's bay, (pursuing the Chinook channel, which passes close to Point Ellice, and is more direct and convenient for vessels bound straight up,) four fathoms can be carried up to Tongue point, which is three miles above Astoria; and just within, or to the westward of, Tongue point is a spacious and safe anchorage. From Tongue point the navigation for ten miles is extremely intricate, and some parts ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 19
of the tortuous channel not over ten feet deep at low water. The straight channel which Captain Wilkes discovered has be- come obstructed about its eastern entrance, and nothing can be made of it. A channel nearly parallel with it, but to the south- ward, was traced in my boats, and I devoted a day to its ex- amination, and carried through three fathoms at low water; but my buoys bei'ng submerged by the tide, prevented me from testing its availability in the schooner. From Pillow rock the channel is at least three fathoms deep at the dryest season all the way to Fort Vancouver, except a bar of fifteen feet at the lower mouth of the Wilhammette, and another about a mile and a half below the fort. The Wilhammette enters the Co- lumbia from the southward by two mouths, fourteen miles apart; the upper is the only one used, and six miles below Vancouver. Throughout the months of August and Septem- ber, it is impracticable for vessels drawing over ten feet. Both it and the Columbia, during the other months, will easily ac- commodate a vessel to back and fill drawing thirteen feet.
The Columbia is navigable to the Cascades, forty miles above Vancouver; the Wilhammette up to the mouth of the Clackamas river, twenty-one miles above its junction with the Columbia, and three below the falls, where the city of Oregon is located. These rivers reciprocally contribute their waters to one another at different seasons of the year. When the winter sets in, generally with the month of October, and rains are almost incessant, the Wilhammette river receives all the waters which drain from the valley of its name, which imme- diately raise it above the level of the Columbia, into which it flows with a strong current, causing a rise in the latter, and sometimes a ge'ntle reflux of the waters up stream; this con- tinues until March, when the rains cease and the Wilhammette settles to its level. 'Tis then, however, the warm rays of the sun begin to penetrate the more northern and frozen resources of the Columbia ; the mountain snow and ice are soon converted into streams, which simultaneously contribute, along a course of seven or eight hundred miles, to swell this majestic river until, ​
20 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
by the month of June, it attains its greatest force and volume; it is then actually a tributary to the Wilhammette, forcing its wa- ters back to the falls and causing a perceptible current in that di- rection. This rise in the Columbia is, however, like freshets in the Mississippi, not perceptible on the bar at the mouth, except to extend the time and increase the force of the ebb tide; at Vancouver the average summer rise is 16 to 18 feet.
The most suitable sailing vessels for this navigation are brig or barque rig, and of light draught of water not to exceed, when loaded, 13 feet. They should be well found in ground tackling, and furnished with at least two good sized hawsers and kedges of suitable weight. During the summer months the prevailing westerly winds make the voyage up the river both safe and quick, a'nd a vessel may descend at that season with the assistance of the downward current without much deten- tion ; but in winter both wind and tide are generally from the eastward, and forty-five days is the usual time to get to Van- couver ; and this can only be done by warping, a very laborious operation for merchant vessels. I have been thus prolix in speaking of these two rivers, as they are the arteries of life to this country ; indeed, I have no information touching points distant from their banks which has not already been published to the world by means vastly more competent than ?.ny in my possession. Besides, the information desired of me was more particularly in relation to the civilized inhabitants of Oregon; and very few of these are found settled, as yet, any great dis- tance from the rivers.
Of Puget's sound and its many harbors nothing more is known or can be at present added to Wilkes's observations in 1841.
English jealousy a'nd unoccupied country in the south have interposed to prevent American emigration to the north side of the Columbia until the last autumn.
I fell in with many persons exploring the country between the Cowlitz river (which is navigable by boats thirty miles from the Columbia in the line of route to Puget's sound) and ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 21
the seacoast, and that hitherto unknown region is represented as offering many attractions to the new settler. A few scatter- ing families are to be found horth of the Columbia and else- where. I saw personally but little of Oregon, but that com- prised its most interesting parts, viz: all settled spots on the Columbia below the Cascades, the Wilhammette valley for sixty miles above Oregon city, and the Twality and Clatsop plains. These, with the exception of superannuated missionary establishments at the Dalles and Wallawalla, and the Hudson's Bay Company's farm on the Cowlitz, and their distant trading posts in different parts of the Territory, are the only portions of the country yet occupied. All these united, however, make but an item when compared with the vast whole of Oregon, of whose topography, mineralogy, soil, or natural productions, it would be affectatioh in me to offer any account. My report, as far as it goes, shall be confined to subjects which my own observations or verbal inquiries from authentic sources could reach. And first in order and importance is of the people who form the body politic here, their laws, &c.
The persons of any consideration who have been longest settled in Oregon are the factors, clerks and servants of the Hudson's Bay Company. Their first point of residence was at Astoria; but the country hereabouts was forest land, and dif- ficult to clear, and it became necessary to increase their re- sources of provisions and other domestic productions as their establishments enlarged. About twenty-two years ago, leaving a single trader to conduct the fur trade at Astoria, they made a new settlement 96 miles up the river, and called it Vancouver. This eligible site is the first prairie land found upon the banks of the river sufficiently elevated to be secure from the summer inundations. The control of all the company's affairs west of the Rocky mountains was at that time, and continued until 1845, to be in the hands of Mr. John McLaughlin. As this gentleman figures largely in the first settlement of the country, and continues to occupy a most respectable and influential stand there, it may be proper to describe him. He is a native of ​
22 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
Canada, but born of Irish parents; his name is seldom spelt aright by any one but himself ; he is well educated, and, hav- ing studied medicine, acquired the title of doctor, which is now universally applied to him. Of fine form, great strength, and bold and fearless character, he was of all men best suited to lead and control those Canadian adventurers, who, influenced partly by hopes of profit, but still more by a spirit of romance enlisted themselves in the service of the fur trading companies, to traverse the unexplored country west and north of Hudson's bay. He came, I think, as early as 1820 to assume the direc- tion of the Hudson's Bay Company's interest west of the Rocky mountains, and immediately organized the necessary trading posts among the Indians of Oregon and those on the more northerly coasts. 1 He continued to maintain the super- intendence of this increasing and most profitable trade, and by judicious selections of assistants, the exercise of a profound and huma'ne policy towards the Indians, and unremitting stead- iness and energy in the execution of his duties, placed the power and prosperity of his employers upon a safe and lasting foundation. So much of his early life was passed away in the canoe and the camp, that he seems to have been prevented from cultivating those social relations at home which have their finale in matrimonial felicity, and (as was customary among his brethren of that day similarly employed) he rather uncere- moniously graced the solitude of his camp with the society of a gentle half-breed from the borders of lake Superior. This lady occasionally presented him a pledge of her affection and fidel- ity, of whom two sons and a daughter survive, and I believe before her death was regularly married to the doctor, whose example in this particular was followed by all the other offi- cers of the Hudson's Bay Company who had acquired the responsibility of parents. The doctor's oldest son, Joseph, is a respectable land owner and farmer in the Wilhammette ; his daughter, the widow of a deceased Scotchman ; and the other son, David, who received his education at Woolwich, in Eng-
i. He came in 1824. ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 23
land, is engaged in commercial business with an American named Pettygrove, of whom something will be said hereafter. The doctor's present wife is a half-breed, the widow of one McKay, a celebrated old trapper, who came out with Astor's people in 1810, and was killed oil board the ship Tonquin the same year.
The doctor is now about seventy years of age; is still strong and active, of robust figure and rosy complexion, with clear gray eyes, surmounted by huge brows and a full head of hair, white as snow. He is a strict professor of the Catholic religion. He resides now altogether at Oregon city ; is said to be on fur- lough from duty in the company's service, and devotes him- self to the operation of a fine flour ahd saw-mill which he has built at the falls. He is active and indefatigable, and has by his advice and assistance done more than any other man to- wards the rapid development of the resources of this country ; and although his influence among his own countrymen, some few of the most respectable America'n settlers, and throughout the half-breed and Indian population, is unbounded, he is not very popular with the bulk of the American population. Some complaints against him of an overbearing temper, and a dis- position to aggrandizement increasing with his age, seem not to be entirely groundless. He is, nevertheless, to be considered a valuable man ; has settled himself on the south side of the river, with full expectation of becoming a citizen of the United States, and I hope the government at home will duly appre- ciate him. 2 With Dr. McLaughlin came many others engaged in the Hudson's Bay Company's service; and these, as before remarked, are now the longest settled residents of the land. Few of those who filled everi so high a post as that of clerk have separated themselves from the company's service and still continue to reside in the Territory; but of the boatmen, trappers, farmers, and stewards, almost every one, upon the expiration of his five years' service, fixed himself upon a piece of land and became a cultivator.
2. This wish of Lieutenant Howison was not gratified. Section eleven of the Oregon Donation Land Law of 1850 dispossessed Dr. McLoughlin of his claim known as the "Oregon City Claim." ​
24 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
By far the greater part of these are Canadian voyagers, or those who worked out their term of service in pulling bat- teaux and canoes along the water-courses, which are almost continuous from York factory, on Hudson's bay, to the shores of the Pacific ocean. Eight or ten of these persons being annu- ally discharged for twenty years, have become a large item in the population of Oregon. They settled contiguous to each other on the fine lands of the Wilhammette, about 30 miles above the falls, and form now a large majority in Champoeg county; their residence is called the French Settleme'nt, and Canadian French is their language. Besides, there are a few prosperous cultivators adjacent to the Hudson's Bay Com- pany's farm on the Cowlitz. They are all connected with Indian women, and would have united themselves with the tribes to which their women belong but for the advice of Dr. Mc- Laughli'n, whose influence induced them to assume the more civilized and respectable life of the farmer. They are a simple, uneducated people, but very industrious and orderly, and are justly esteemed among the best citizens of the Territory. They come under the general designation of half-breeds, and this class of population, including all ages and sexes, may be com- puted, numerically, at seven or eight hundred. They are well worthy the fostering care of the government, and have been assured that they will not be excepted by any general law of the United States in relation to Oregon land claims or pre- emption rights. If, unfortunately, their rights of property should not be protected by laws of the United States, they will soon be intruded on a'nd forced from the lands. Falling back upon the Indian tribes with a sense of injury rankling in their bosoms, the consequence might in all time to come be most deplorable for the peace and safety of this country ; where, from the sparseness of the population, a band of forty or fifty blood-thirsty savages might surprise and destroy to rotation hundreds of inhabitants.
Simultaneously with the Canadians were discharged from the company's service other subjects of Great Britain, as farm​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 25
ers, mechanics, gardeners, dairymen, &c., chiefly from Scot- land and the Orkney isles ; besides some of the wild offspring from the Earl of Selkirk's emigrants to the Red River settle- ment, north of the lake of the Woods. A few American hu'nters, not numbering over 12 or 15, straggled into the coun- try about the same time, and occasionally runaway seamen from our northwest traders. This heterogeneous population was, in some way or other, to a man, dependent on the Hudson's Bay Company. No important accessions to it occurred until the American missionaries, with their families, came into the country ; nor do I believe, prior to 1836, a single white woman lived here. It was not until the year 1839 that any regular emigrating companies came out from the United States ; and these were small until 1842, when an annual tide of thousands began to flow towards this western window of our republic.
From the best information I could procure, the whole pop- ulation of Oregon, exclusive of thoroughbred Indians, whom I would be always understood to omit, may be set down now at nine thousand souls, of whom two thousand are not natives of the United States, or descendants of native Americans. Nearly all the inhabitants, except those connected with the Hudson's Bay Company, are settled in the Wilhammette valley ; the extreme southern cottage being on Mary's river, about one hundred miles from the Columbia. Twenty or thirty fam- ilies are at Astoria and the Clatsop plains ; and by this time, there may be as many on the north side of the river, in the neighborhood of Nisqually abd other ports on Puget's sound.
Between Astoria and Fort Vancouver, but o'ne white man resides on the bank of the river for purposes of cultivation; and he is a retired officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, named Birnie, who has fixed himself 25 miles above Astoria. His house is the seat of hospitality, and his large family of quarter- breeds are highly respectable and well behaved. From Fort Vancouver to the Cascades, forty miles, but a single family has yet settled on either side of the river. Lieut. Schenck, who went up to the Dalles, had nothing to add to Captian Wilkes's ​
26 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
account of this point of the country. He was hourly impressed with the strict accuracy of that officer's observations.
The people of Oregon had lived without law or politics, until the early part of 1845 3 ; and it is a strong evidence of their good sense and good disposition that it had not previously been found necessary to establish some restraints of law m a community of several thousand people. Among the emigrants of this year, however, were many intelligent reflecting minds, who plainly saw that this order of things could not continue in a rapidly increasing and bustling population ; and that it had become in- dispensable to establish legal landmarks to secure property to those already in its possession, and poi'nt to new comers a mode of acquiring it. A convention was accordingly held, and a majority of votes taken in favor of establishing a provisional government, "until such time as the United States of America extend their jurisdiction over us." The organic law or con- stitution was of course first framed, and made abundantly dem- ocratic in its character for the taste of the most ultra disciple of that political school.
It makes the male descendants of a white man 21 years of age, no matter of what colored womaft begotten, eligible for any office in the Territory; and grants every such person the privilege of selecting six hundred and forty acres of land, "in a square or oblong form, according to the natural situation of the premises." It provides for the election of a governor and other officers, civil and military, and makes it the duty of such elected to take the following oath :
"I do solemnly swear to support the organic laws of Oregon, as far as they are consistent with my duties as a citizen of the United States, or as a subject of Great Britain, and faithfully demean myself in office ; so help me God."
One of the first enactments of the legislature elected under the organic law, was, "that in addition to gold and silver, treas- ury drafts, and good merchantable wheat at the market price, shall be a lawful tender."
3. Lieutenant Howison is hardly correct in this statement, as a fairly com- plete political organization was effected in 1843. In 1845 the governmental author- ity was made more adequate. ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 27
The subject of forming this provisional government had been several months, indeed years, under discussion, and may be considered the first political question canvassed within the Ter- ritory. It was opposed by the influence of the Hudson's Bay Company and British subjects generally, although the chief factors of that company were ready to enter into a compact or domestic treaty for the regulation and adjustment of all points of dispute or difference which might spring up among the residents : indeed, they admitted that it was time to estab- lish some rules, based upon public opinion, decidedly expressed, for the maintenance of good order and individual rights ; but they felt apprehensive for themselves and their interests in placing extensive law-making power in the hands of a legis- lative body, composed of men on whose judgment they could not implicitly rely, and whose prejudices they had reason to believe were daily increasing against them. Their opposition was, however, unavailing.
The election for governor excited the same sort of party array ; but, as there were several candidates for this office, some new considerations may be supposed to have mingled in the con- test. George Abernethy, esq., a whole-souled American gentle- man, was elected by a majority of the whole ; nor did he re- ceive any support from those under the company's influence. This gentleman came to Oregon as secular agent to the Meth- odist mission in 1838 or '39, and, at the dissolution of that body, engaged in mercantile and milling business. He is very ex- tensively acquainted with the country and people of Oregon, and greatly respected for his amiable, consistent and patriotic character. He is a native of New York, and married a lady of Nova Scotia, and will make a valuable correspondent to the United States government, should it be desirable to communi- cate with Oregon.
Among the components of the population are some few blacks, (perhaps thirty,) and about double that number of Kanakas or Sandwich islanders. These last act as cooks and house servants to those who can afford to employ them. Al​
28 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
though the population has quadrupled itself within seven years past, and will doubtless continue to increase, it cannot be ex- pected to do so at the past ratio.
California invites many off who are seeking new lands ; and the emigrants of 1846 who reached Oregon were not computed at over seven hundred, while the two previous years had each increased the population two thousand or more.
The privations and sufferings of the first overland emigrants to this country are almost incredible, composed, as they were, of persons who, with families of women and children, had gathered together their all, and appropriated it to the purchase of meahs to accomplish this protracted journey.
They would arrive upon the waters of the Columbia after six months' hard labor and exposure to innumerable dangers, which none but the most determined spirits could have sur- mounted, in a state of absolute want. Their provisions ex- pended and clothes worn out, the rigors of winter beginning to descend upon their naked heads, while no house had yet been built to afford them shelter ; bartering away their wagons and horses for a few salmon, dried by the Indians, or bushels of grain in the hands of rapacious speculators, who placed themselves on the road to profit by their necessities, famine was staved off while they labored in the woods to make rafts, and thus float down stream to the Hudson's Bay Company's establishment at Vancouver. Here shelter ahd food were in- variably afforded them, without which their sufferings must soon have terminated in death.
Such was the wretched plight in which I may say thousands found themselves upon reaching this new country ; but, in the midst of present want and distress, the hardy pioneer saw around him all those elements of comfort ahd wealth which high hope had placed at the terminus of this most trying jour- ney. At Vancouver he found repose and refreshment, the offerings of a disinterested benevolence. Aided by advice and still more substantial assistance, he prosecuted his journey up the Wilhammette, and on the banks of this river could make ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 29
choice of his future home, from the midst of situations the most advantageous and lovely. Here stood the ash, the pine and the poplar the ready materials which an Illinois man, axe in hand, wants but a few hours to convert into a family domicil; the river teemed with fine salmon, and the soil was rich, promising fruitful returns for labor bestowed on it.
But throughout the winter these enterprising people were, with few exceptions, dependent on the Hudson's Bay Company for the bread and meat which they ate, and the clothes which they wore ; stern necessities, and the clamors of suffering chil- dren, forced them to supplicate credit and assistance, which, to the honor of the company be it said, was never refused. Fear- ful, however, of demanding too much, many families told me that they lived during the winter on nothing more than boiled wheat and salted salmon ; and that the head of the family had prepared the land for his first crop without shoes on his feet, or a hat on his head. These excessive hardships have been of course hourly ameliorating; the emigrant of 1843 has pre- pared a house and surplus food for his countrymen of the next year ; ahd two roads being opened directly into the Wil- hammette valley, rendering a resort to the Columbia unneces- sary, has enabled the emigrants to bring in their wagons, horses and cattle, and find homes among their own countrymen.
The apprehensions of want are no longer entertained; the new arrivals improve in character and condition; a cash cur- rency is likely soon to bd the law of the land, and the houses are more and more fashioned to convenience, with an occasional attempt at nicety. The Hudson's Bay Company is no longer begged for charity, or besought for credit; but is slowly re- ceiving back its generous loans and advances.
But I am sorry, in connexion with this subject, to report that the conduct of some of our countrymen towards the company has been highly reprehensible. The helping hand held out by the company to the early American emigrants not only relieved them from actual distress at a critical moment, but furnished them with means to make a beginning at cultivation, and un​
30 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
questionably accelerated the growth and settlement of the coun- try in a manner which could not have succeeded but for such timely assistance. The missionaries are not, however, to be for- gotten ; they did much for the early emigrants, but their means were more limited. I was told at Vancouver that the amount of debt due the company by Americans exceeded eighty thou- sand dollars; and that so little disposition was shown to pay off this debt, that it had been determined to refuse any further credits.
Some few persons, arriving here with titles and pretensions, had obtained credit for more than a thousand dollars; and these very men, since further credit had been refused, were foremost and most violent in denouncing the company as a monstrous monopoly, &c.
The bulk of this debt, however, is due in sums of from twenty to two hundred dollars, and seems to be the cause of no un- easiness to the officers of the company, who told me they were often surprised by the appearance (after an absence of years) of some debtor who came forward to liquidate the claim against him. Much of this large amount will probably be lost to the company ; but there is some reason to presume that the larger credits were granted to individuals whose political influence was thus sought to be procured ; and that the company, in this respect, should have made false calculations, and lost their money, is not so much to be regretted.
The honor of enrolling the names of doctors, colonels, gen- erals and judges upon the debtor side of the ledger, they may also consider a partial indemnification for what they may event- ually lose.
However unlimited, therefore, may be our gratitude for their kindness to the needy emigrants in earlier years, we can- not suppose it was necessary of late to have been so profuse in such grants ; and I have no doubt their determination to with- hold further credits will prove advantageous to both parties. The country is now so generally settled, and furnishes so much surplus, as to enable the people to supply the indispensable ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 31
necessities of each other; among whom obligations of small debts will be mutual, and not onerous. Of the politics of the people of Oregon, it may be said they are thoroughly demo- cratic ; but, although I doubt not every American was a warm party man at home, a separation from the scene of contest has had the effect to cool down his feelings on the subject; and, as he no longer has the privilege of a vote in national elections, the subject engrosses but little attention. Some individuals were named to me who had, while discussing the propriety of forming a provisional government, been disposed to advocate an entire independence of the United States; but as matters have resulted, they have almost to a man changed their opin- ions, and are 'now displaying more than ordinary patriotism and devotion to the stars and stripes.
Of the British subjects, who form but a fraction of the whole population, I can say but little, as in my intercourse with them national affairs were but little spoken of. Nearly every one of them is or has been in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, and entertains a becoming reverence for his coun- try ; but I heard many of the most respectable express the opin- ion that the resources of Oregon would be much more rapidly made available under the auspices of the United States gov- ernment than under that of Great Britain.
The next most prominent British subject to Dr. McLaughlin is Mr. James Douglass, a Scotchman of fine talents and char- acter. He has been on this side the mountains since 1825 or '26, and has gone through the probationary grades in the company's service, and now has the control, associated with Mr. Peter Skeen Ogden, of the whole business in Oregon and on the Northwest coast. He has a large family of quarter- breeds: a daughter of fifteen, with whose education and man- ners he has taken much pains, would compare, for beauty and accomplishments, with those of her age in any country. Mr. Ogden is senior to Mr. Douglass in the company's service ; he has been, until recently, the active agent in exploring the coun- try and establishing trading posts ; and although he is not with​
32 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
out those tender ties which it is the weakness of humanity to yearn after, they have not yet been legitimated by marriage. A handsome, lady-like daughter of his is married to a Scotch- man, and these in turn have a family of childre'n. Mr. Ogden is a jocose and pleasing companion ; has at least one brother liv- ing in New York, but says he was born on the lines between New York and Canada. I mention the domestic relations of these gentlemen with reluctance; but it is necessary, to illus- trate how completely their interests and affections are fixed upon things inseparable from Oregon. This remark will apply to every Englishman who has been five years in the country; and although when news of the boundary treaty arrived they undoubtedly were much mortified, they soon recovered their composure, and, I believe, were very well satisfied with their future prospects. Mr. Douglass, loyal to his king and country from principle, observed that "J onn Bull could well afford to be liberal to so promising a son as Jonathan, for the latter had given proofs of abilities to turn a good gift to the best ac- count." I cannot but suppose that, before the expiration of the company's trading privileges here, the very respectable and intelligent body of. men engaged in conducting its business will become blended with us in citizenship, and good members of our great democratic society. The number of British sub- jects throughout this Territory does not exceed six hundred, exclusive of French Canadians, and this number is not increas- ing. With three days' notice, double that number of Ameri- cans, well mounted and armed with rifles, could be assembled at a given point on the Wilhammette river. In the excited state of public feeling which existed among the Americans upon my arrival, the settled conviction on the mind of every one that all Oregon belonged to us, and that the English had long enough been glea'ning its products, I soon discovered that, so far from arousing new zeal and patriotism, it was my duty to use any influence which my official character put me in possession of to allay its exuberance, and advise our country- men to await patiently the progress of negotiations at home. ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 33
The Hudson's Bay Company had information of consultations held on the south side of the river, in which the agrarian prin- ciple of division of property found some advocates, and per- haps they had some grounds to apprehend that their extensive storehouses of dry goods, hardware and groceries might be invaded ; in addition, therefore, to their own means of defence, they procured from the British government the constant at- tendance at Vancouver of a sloop-of-war. This vessel an- chored there in October, 1845, and I left her there in January, 1847. She, however, I understood, was under orders to leave the river, and her commander, who had once struck on the bar, and narrowly escaped with the loss of false keel and rud- der, only awaited the good weather of spring to attempt to get out.
The company's agents expressed to me their fervent hopes that the United States would keep a vessel of war in the river, or promptly send out commissioners to define the bounds of right and property under the treaty. They have been exces- sively annoyed by some of our countrymen, who, with but little judgment and less delicacy, are in the habit of infringing upon their lands, and construing the law to bear them out in doing so. An individual, and a professor of religion, too, had been ejected by our course of law from a "claim" of the com- pany's, and costs put upon him ; but having nothing, the costs had to be paid by the plaintiffs ; which was scarcely done when the same person resumed his intrusive position ; and as he called himself now a "fresh man," the same formula of law must be gone through with to get clear of him, and so on ad infini- tum. In a case where an American was confined one night in the fort for this sort of pertinacity, and refusing to give secur- ity that he would forbear in future such forcible entry upon the land, he instituted an action for damages for false imprison- ment; but as no notice of suit had been served on the commit- ting magistrate, and as I expostulated with the man on the sub- ject, I believe he gave over the idea. These and many other similar acts arose from a belief that the Hudson's Bay Com​
34 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
pany would be soon turned out of the country by the terms of the anticipated treaty, and many were led to this offensive course by a desire to succeed to those advantages which could not be conveyed away by the retiring company. Since the de- tails of the treaty have come to hand, it is to be presumed a better understanding of respective permanent rights will be entertained; but I feel bound to express the opinion, for the information of government, that however acceptable that treaty may be to the people generally, some of its items give great discontent and heart-burnings in Oregon. Howsoever little creditable this may be to the good sense and moderation of the complainants, it may be accounted for by reference to the fact that in every community some of its members are unrea- sonable enough to act upon a one-sided view of the subject. In this particular case several causes unite to excite dissatis- faction: first, disappointment at not having a grasp at the en- closed fields and ready-made habitations which they had all along expected the treaty would oblige the Hudson's Bay Com- pany to vacate; next, the hoped-for dissolution of this com- pany would have relieved many persons from the presence of their creditors; and others saw that only in that event would Americans be able to engage successfully in commercial pur- suits. But although too many were influenced by motives so unworthy, yet it must not be supposed I would include among them the substantial cultivator, or any one of the great bulk of hobest emigrants who came here to live by his labor, and not by his artifice or speculating genius, which would render the labors of others subservient to his use.
These discontents might not be worth alluding to, did we not remember from what small beginnings political parties sometimes take their rise; and this may be the nucleus of a growth of independents, who may compromise our government i'n its stipulations for the security of English property in Ore- gon, to say nothing of the effect produced upon public opinion by the habit of seeing always on the increase a party opposing the policy and measures of the United States. It should be ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 35
nevertheless observed that in Oregon the general tendency of persons and things is towards improvement; the ragged and penniless emigrant is, upon his arrival here, much less under the influence of human or moral laws than the same man is found to be a couple of years afterwards, when he has acquired a house over his head and fenced in an enclosure for his cattle. Becoming a property-holder instantly inspires him with a rever- ence for the law, and he sees by supporting its inviolability he can alone make sure of retaining the means of independence and comfort which it has cost him two years' labor to obtain. The Hudson's Bay Company, from its having been so long established in the country; from the judicious selection it has made of sites for trading, agricultural and manufacturing pur- poses ; from the number of persons and large moneyed capital employed, and most of all from the far-sighted sagacity with which its business is conducted, in some way or other involves itself in every matter of consequence relating to this country ; nor is it possible to avoid introducing it as bearing upon all points worth bringing to the notice of government. The terms of the treaty exemplify how ably its interests have been repre- sented in London, and the immunities it enjoys by that instru- ment will, I apprehend, make it more the object of jealousy and dislike to our citizens here than it has hitherto been.
However long and tedious this report has already become, my inclination to terminate it must give way to a sense of duty, while I describe as briefly as possible all that I could see or learn about this company. Its original charter, granting ex- clusive trade for furs around Hudson's bay, was extended to other trade west of the Rocky mountains ; and the privilege of raising from the soil whatever was necessary for their comfortable maintenance, in the prosecution of this trade, was likewise granted; but in reading its charter and the laws sub- sequently enacted in relation to its interests, it is very mani- fest that it was only considered an associatioh of capitalists for purposes of trade. ​
36 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
The Puget's Sound Agricultural Company is merely a nom- inal affair, being only a new name with new privileges, under which the capital of persons belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company is turned into profit. It would be difficult to get exactly at the true relationship between it and the other, as the parties who manage them are the same, and they have endeav- ored to make them appear as separate interests. When, there- fore, a new farm is taken possession of, stocked and put under cultivation, or a fine mill erected and put into profitable opera- tion, these are acts and privileges of the agricultural society; but when the products of these establishments are ready for a market, the company, with trading privileges, takes them in hand. As before stated, persons wishing to hold land under the provisional government, having selected the same, were re- quired to mark out its limits, and have it recorded by a person selected to keep a book of all such entries. Lands thus marked out were called "claims" ; and in compliance with this require- ment, the Hudson's Bay Company had entered all their landed property in the names of their officers and clerks; they have omitted no means or forms necessary to secure them in their possessions. Fort Vancouver is surrounded by 18 English "claims," viz : nine miles on the river and two back ; and besides the dwelling houses, storehouses and shops in the fort, they have a flour mill a few miles up the river, and above that again a saw mill. The Vancouver grounds are principally appropri- ated to grazing cattle, horses, sheep and hogs. On the Cowlitz the company has a large wheat-growing farm, and I believe these are the only land claims they have below the mountains. They have, besides, a post on the Umpqua. Around their posts at Fort Hall, Boise, and on the northern branches of the river, they have hitherto enclosed no more ground than was neces- sary for garden purposes; but finding themselves confirmed by treaty in their hold upon property "legally acquired," God knows what may be the extent of their claims when a definite line comes to be drawn. The company have three barques, employed freighting hence to England and back, via the Sand- wich islands, besides a schooner and small steamer in the trade ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 37
of the northwest coast. They supply the Russian establishment at Sitka annually with 15,000 bushels of wheat, and sell them besides, I am told, some furs. The trade in this latter article has become of late years much less profitable than formerly; and it is said to have so far dwindled in amount as to be scarce- ly worth pursuing; but as no statistical reports of profits, or extent of trade, are ever published by the company, it is not possible to say with accuracy what they are doing. In April, 1846, a report reached Oahu that the company's barque Cowlitz had ? after leaving the Sandwich islands for England, been run away with by the crew, and Mr. Pelly, the company's agent, immediately issued advertisements, making it known, and call- ing o'n commanders of ships of war to intercept her. He told me on that occasion that the barque's cargo of furs and specie (which was the usual annual remittance by the company) amounted to nearly two hundred thousand pounds sterling. The rumor about her turned out to have originated in a mistaken apprehension. Although it is well known that furs are not so abundant as formerly, they nevertheless still form an important article of trade, and this is entirely monopolized by the com- pany. Nearly every dollar of specie which comes into the coun- try and there is more of it than might be supposed finds its way sooner or later into the company's chests ; keeping, as they do, a very large stock o'n hand of all those articles most neces- sary to the new settler. Indeed, so extensive and well selected are their supplies, that few country towns in the United States could furnish their 'neighbors so satisfactorily. An annual ship- load arrives from London, which, with the old stock, makes an inventory of one hundred thousand pounds. Goods are invari- ably sold at an advance of one hundred per cent on London prices ; which, taking their good quality into consideration, is cheaper than they are offered by the two or three Americans who are engaged in mercantile business in the country.
The managers of this company, as I have before remarked, are sagacious, far-sighted men; they hold the keys of trade, and establish the value of property and of labor, both of which ​
38 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
they are too wise to depreciate unduly. They are complained of as powerful monopolists; but so long as their power is made subservient to general interests, as well as their own, and stands in the way of rapacious speculators, it avails a good purpose, and is cheerfully recognized by the good citizen. They certainly may be said to establish a standard of prices; and many persons think if they were withdrawn, more competition would arise among merchants, and higher prices would be given for produce; but it should be remembered that their prices, those which they give and those which they take, are uniform, and not subject to those fluctuations which militate eventually against the producer.
They would sell the last bushel of salt or pouhd of nails in their storehouses as the first had been sold ; not increasing the price as the article became less abundant in the market. They give sixty cents for an imperial bushel, or sixty-eight pounds of wheat ; one dollar apiece for flour barrels ; three dollars a thou- sand for shingles, and a corresponding price for other articles of country production. They see very plainly that in the pros- perity of others consists their own; and, acting upon this judi- cious principle, they are content with sure and moderate gains. I have heard general charges of extortion alleged against them, but without proof to sustain them. They have providentially been the instrument of much good to Oregon, as the early emi- grants can testify; and however objectionable it is on some grounds to have a large and powerful moneyed institution, con- trolled by foreigners, in the heart of this young America, its sudden withdrawal would be forcibly and disadvantageously felt throughout the land. In a few years, with a knowledge that the company is to withdraw, there will no doubt be a more enlarged system of trade entered upon by our own merchants, which will eventually supply the place of the company. At present they ca'nnot well be spared, as will be more plainly seen by what I have to say of the commerce of Oregon. These re- marks about the Hudson's Bay Company are made under the impression, prevalent in Oregon where the treaty itself had ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 39
not arrived when I left, but only a synopsis of it that the charter of the company would expire in 1863, and of course its privileges with it. If the facts be otherwise, and its existence as a corporate body, under British charter, is perpetual, my speculations about its officers becoming- American citizens are fallacious. Exclusive of the Hudson's Bay Company's imports, the external commerce of Oregon is of very limited extent ; it is a petty trade, not sufficiently systematized to be reducible to a statistical table, and I can give no better idea of its extent than to state that during the whole year of 1846 a barque of three hundred tons came twice from the Sandwich islands, bringing each time about half a cargo of dry goods, groceries, - hardware, etc., bought at Oahu. An American ship was also in the river this year, but came in ballast for a freight of lum- ber, &c., to the islands. Three mercantile houses divide the business of the Territory, small as it is, and I believe each has a favorable balance on its side. The prices imposed in selling to the consumer are enormously high, and these he must pay from the produce of his labor, or dispense with the most neces- sary articles of clothing, cooking utensils, groceries and farm- ing implements. An American axe costs $5 ; a cross-cut saw, $15 ; all articles manufactured of iron 25 cents per pound, &c., &c. The impediments to commerce here are, first, the want of a fixed currency ; second, the remoteness of the foreign market and its uncertainty, and more particularly the hazardous nature of the navigation in and out of the river, and the tediousness of ascending and descending it. These last make the freight and premium on insurance very high, which adds to the cost of the imported article, and detracts proportionally from that which is offered in payment for it, and which, to realize any- thing, must be carried abroad. The misfortune is, that these impediments create and depend upon each other, and are likely to continue, and painfully retard the growth of this promising country. If the commerce were more extensive, it would afford payment to pilots, and construct light-houses, beacons, and buoys, which would greatly diminish the risk and expense of ​
40 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
getting vessels into the river; and again, if more means of transportation presented themselves, the surplus produce of the country would find a sale, and be conveyed to a foreign mar- ket thus enabling the farmer, the miller, the sawyer, the shingle-maker, the gatherer of wool, and the packer of salted beef and pork, to share i'n the advantages of a more extended demand ; in short, some thousands of people in this country are suffering at this moment in consequence of the inadequate means of commercial exchange between it and its neighbors of California and the Sandwich islands.
The granaries are surcharged with wheat ; the saw-mills are surrounded with piles of lumber as high as themselves; the grazier sells his beef at three cents per pound to the merchant, who packs it in salt and deposites it in a warehouse, awaiting the tardy arrival of some vessel to take a portion of his stock at what price she pleases, and furnish in return a scanty supply of tea and sugar and indifferent clothing, also at her own rate. I feel it particularly my duty to call the attention of govern- ment to this subject. This feeble and distant portion, of itself, is vainly struggling to escape from burdens which, from the nature of things, must long continue to oppress it, unless par- ental assistance comes to its relief. The first measure necessary is to render the entrance and egress of vessels into the mouth of the Columbia as free from danger as possible ; and the first step towards this is to employ two competent pilots, who should reside at Cape Disappointment, be furnished with two Balti- more-built pilot boats, (for mutual assistance in case of accident to either,) and be paid a regular salary, besides the fees, which should be very moderate, imposed upon each entering vessel. A light-house, and some beacons with and without lights, would aid very much in giving confidence and security to vessels ap- proaching the river ; but more important than all these would of course be the presence, under good management, of a strong and well-built steam tug. The effects of these facilities would be to render certain, at least during the summer months, the coming in ahd going out of vessels, subtract from the premium ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 41
on insurance, and give confidence to the seamen, who now enter for a voyage to Oregon with dread, reluctance and high wages. It is not for me to anticipate the boundless spring which the vivifying influe'nce of an extended organized commerce would give to the growth and importance of this country ; its portrait has been drawn by abler hands, in books and in the Senate, but I must take leave to suggest that good policy requires the par- ent government to retain the affections of this hopeful offspring by attentions arid fostering care : it needs help at this moment ; and if it be rendered, a lasting sense of dependence and grati- tude will be the consequence ; but if neglected in this its tender age, and allowed to fight its own way to ibdependent maturity, the ties of consanguinity may be forgotten in the energy of its own unaided exertions.
Nisqually, the innermost harbor of Puget's sound, may at some future day become an important port for the exportation of produce from the north side of the river; but the inland transportation is at present impracticable for articles of more than a hundred pounds weight, on account of the mountains and water-courses. No wagon road has yet been opened from an interior point to* Nisqually. Its importance will increase with the settlement of the country around it, possessing, as it does, natural advantages exceeding those of any other port in the Territory.
Besides Fort Vancouver, six sites have been selected for towns ; of these Astoria takes precedence in age only. It is situated on the left bank of the Columbia, thirteen miles from the sea: it contains ten houses, including a warehouse, Indian lodges, a cooper's and a blacksmith's shop; it has no open ground except gardens within less than a mile of it. It may be considered in a state of transition, exhibiting the wretched re- mains of a bygone settlement, and the uncouth germ of a new one. About 30 white people live here, and two lodges of Chin- ook Indians. The Hudson's Bay Company have still an agent here, but were about transferring him over to a warehouse they are putting up at Cape Disappointment. A pre-emption ​
42 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
right to the principal part of this site is claimed by an American named Welch; the other portion, including Point George, is claimed in like manner by Colonel John Maclure. Leaving Astoria, we ascend the Columbia eighty miles, and there enter- ing the Wilhammette, find, three miles within its mouth, the city of Linton, on its left or western shore. This site was se- lected by a copartnership of gentlemen as the most natural de- pot for the produce of the well settled Twality plains, and a road was opened over the ridge of hills intervening between the plains a'nd the river. It contains only a few log-houses, which are overshadowed by huge fir trees that it has not yet been convenient to remove. Its few inhabitants are very poor, and severely persecuted by musquitos day and night. Not one of its proprietors resides on the spot, and its future increase is, to say the least, doubtful. Eight or nine miles above Linton, on the same side of the Wilhammette, we come to a more prom- ising appearance of a town. It has been named Portland by the individual under whose auspices it has come into existence, and mainly to whose efforts its growth and increase are to be ascribed. This is Mr. F. W. Pettygrove, from Maine, who came out here some years back as agent for the mercantile house of the Messrs. Benson, of New York. Having done a good business for his employers, he next set about doing some- thing for himself, and is now the principal commercial man in the country. He selected Portland as the site of a town ac- cessible to shipping, built houses, and established himself there ; invited others to settle around him, and appropriated his little capital to opening wagon roads (aided by neighboring farmers) into the Twality plains, and up the east side of the river to the falls where the city of Oregon stands. Twelve or fifteen new houses are already occupied, and others building; and, with a population of more than sixty souls, the heads of families gen- erally industrious mechanics, its prospects of increase are fa- vorable. A good wharf, at which vessels may lie and discharge or take in cargo most months in the year, is also among the improvements of Portland. Twelve miles above we come to ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 43
the falls of the Wilhammette, and abreast of and just below these, on the east side of the river, stands Oregon city. This is considered the capital of the Territory, contains seventy-odd houses, and has a population of nearly five hundred souls. The situation of this place is very peculiar : the river here is about eighty yards wide, and at its lowest stage is twelve feet deep ; in freshets it sometimes rises thirty feet above low-water mark. The rocky rampart, over which it falls almost perpendicularly, is perhaps forty feet high; and from about its upper level, a narrow strip of level ground three hundred yards wide, (be- tween the bed of the river and a precipitous hilly ridge,) is the site of the town. This hilly range runs along down stream for nearly a mile, when it slopes off to the level of the river side plateau. The opposite side presents nearly the same features, so that the view in frorit and rear abruptly terminates in a rocky mountain side of five or six hundred feet elevation. In a summer day the sun's rays reflected from these cliffs make the temperature high, and create an unpleasant sensation of confinement, which would be insupportable but for the refresh- ing influence of the waterfall; this, divided by rocky islets, breaks into flash and foam, imparting a delicious brightness to this otherwise sombre scenery. A Methodist and a Catholic church, two flour and saw mills, a tavern, a brick storehouse and several wooden ones, an iron foundry just beginning, and many snug dwelling houses, are at this moment the chief con- stituents of the capital of Oregori. The site on the opposite side of the river, upon which some good buildings are beginning to appear, is called Multnomah. Communication is kept up be- tween these two places by two ferry boats. Dr. McLaughlin claims the square mile which includes Oregon city on one side, and an American named Moore claims an equal extent on the other side. The doctor has fixed a high price on his town lots, more than can be conveniently paid by those desirous of living in town, and persons were occasionally constructing upon his la^nd in defiance of his remonstrances and threats of the law. Our government is already, I understand, in possession of the ​
44 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
evidence upon which his claim rests, and I need therefore say nothing more on the subject.
A sixth spot dignified with the name of town is Salem, high up the Wilhammette, of which too little exists to be worthy of an attempt at description. It would seem from this sorry cata- logue that Oregon cannot yet boast of her cities. Even in these, however, her improvement has been great and rapid, and pop- ulation comes into the capital faster than the gigantic fir trees, which have lately been its sole occupants, can be made to dis- appear.
The American missionaries were the first persons to attempt any establishment in Oregon, independent of the Hudson's Bay Company. They have doubtless done much good in past years, but are now disunited ; and with the exception of Mr. Spalding, a worthy old Presbyterian gentleman who resides on the Koos- kooskie river, I could hear of no attempts going on to educate or convert the aborigines of the country by Americans. Why their efforts came to be discontinued, (for there were at one time many missions in the field, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Babtist, and an independent self-supporting ohe,) would be a question which it would be difficult to have answered truly. The various recriminations which were uttered, as each mem- ber thought proper to secede from his benevolent associates in Christian duty, were not calculated to increase the public respect for their individual disinterestedness or purity. They seem early to have despaired of much success in impressing the minds of the Indians with a just sense of the importance of their lessons, and very sagaciously turned their attention to more fruitful pursuits. Some became farmers and graziers, others undertook the education of the rising generation of whites and half-breeds, and a few set up for traders ; but these last imprudently encroached upon a very dear prerogative of the Hudson's Bay Company by bartering for beaver, and only by hastily quitting it escaped the overwhelming opposition of that all-powerful body. The French missionaries, to-wit: a bishop, a number of priests, and seven nuns, are succeeding in ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 45
their operations. They are amply furnished with money and other means for accomplishing their purposes. They educate a number of young Indians, principally girls, and all the off- spring of the Canadians. In addition to a large wooden nun- nery already some years in use, they are now building a brick church of corresponding dimensions, on beautiful prairie grounds a few miles from the Wilhammette river, and thirty- two above Oregon city. They are strict Catholics, and exercise unbounded influence over the people of the French settlements, who are improving in every way under their precepts. The mission derives its support from Europe, and I was told that the Queen of France, and her daughter, of Belgium, are lib- eral patronesses of the institution. It is at present in high estimation with all classes ; it gives employment and high wages to a great number of mechanics and laborers, pays off punctu- ally in cash, and is without doubt contributing largely to the prosperity of the neighborhood and country around it. A few Jesuits are located within six miles of the mission, and are os- tensibly employed in the same praiseworthy occupation.
The Methodist institute, designed as an educational estab- lishment for the future generations of Oregon, is still in the hands of gentlemen who were connected with the Methodist mission. It is finely situated on the Wilhammette, fifty miles above Oregon city. As a building its exterior was quite impos- ing from a distance, but I was pained, upon coming up with it, to find its interior apartments in an entirely unfinished state. Mr. Wilson, who is in charge of it, was so hospitable and polite to me that I refrained from asking questions which I was sure, from appearances, would only produce answers confirmatory of its languishing condition. Five little boys were now getting their rudiments of education here ; when, from the number of dormitories, it was manifest that it had been the original design to receive more than ten times that number. I learned from Governor Abernethy, however, about jthe beginning of 1847, that the number of its pupils was fast increasing. ​
46 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
Of the Indian population of Oregon nothing new can be said. The "Nez Perces" are described as receiving advantageously the suggestions of Mr. Spalding with regard to the cultivation of their fields and rearing their cattle and horses. No diffi- culties or wars among the tribes of any consequence have re- cently occurred. A fracas between the Cowlitzes and Chinooks took place while I was in the river, in which a young Chinook was killed, but the parties are mutually too feeble to make their quarrels a matter of any general interest. It was only among these two remnants of tribes, besides the Clatsops and the Cal- lapooiales, that we had an opportunity of making any observa- tions, and what I say on this subject will be understood as relating exclusively to them. The old and melancholy record of their decline must be continued. Destitution and disease are making rapid havoc among them ; and as if the proximity of the white man were not sufficiently baneful in its insidious destruction of these unhappy people, our countrymen killed two by sudden violence and wounded another in an uncalled for and wanton manner during the few months of my sojourn in the country. The only penalty to which the perpetrators of these different acts were subjected was the payment of a blanket or a beef to their surviving kindred. Public opinion, however, sets very strongly against such intrusions upon the degraded red man, and perhaps a year hence it may be strong enough to hang an offender of this kind. It is clearly the duty of our government to look promptly into the necessitous conditions of these poor Indians. Their number is now very small : of the four tribes I have named, there are probably altogether not over five hundred, old and young, and these are scattered in lodges along the river, subject to the intrusion of the squatter. If their situation could but be known to the humane citizens of the United States, it would bring before the government endless petitions in their behalf. As a matter of policy, like- wise, it is indispensable that measures should be taken to get a better acquaintance with these as well as the mountain tribes ; they are perfectly familiar with the difference between Amer​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 47
icans and English, calling us "Boston mans," and the English "King George's mans"; and it would be highly judicious to make them sensible of their new and exclusive relations with the United States. A gratuitous annual distribution of a few thousand flannel frocks and good blankets (for an Indiah would rather go naked than wear a bad one) to those living near our settlements would be not only an act which humanity demands, but one from which many good consequences would ensue. In speaking of the Indians, I would respectfully suggest that this moment is, of all others, the most favorable for extinguishing their titles to the land. Miserable as they are, they display some spirit and jealousy on this subject. Although a patch of potatoes may be the extent of their cultivation, they will point out a circuit of many miles as the boundary of their pos- sessions. The tribes of which I have spoken have no chiefs, and o'n that account it would be difficult to treat formally with them; but a well selected agent, with but small means at his disposal, would easily reconcile them to live peaceably and quietly in limits which he should specify.
The salmon fishery naturally succeeds the preceding sub- ject. Strange to say, up to this day none but Indians have ever taken a salmon from the waters of the Columbia ; it seems to have been conceded to them as an inherent right, which no white man has yet encroached upon. They are wonderfully superstitious respecting this fish ; of such vital importance is his annual visitation to this river and its tributaries that it is prayed for, and votive offerings made in gratitude when he makes his first appearance. In Frazier's river, arid still further north, the Indians carry their ceremonies and superstitious observ- ances at this event far beyond the practices in the Columbia: here the shoals of salmon, coming from the north, enter the river in May, but they are permitted to pass on several days before nets are laid out for their capture. No reward of money, or clothes, will induce an Indian to sell salmon the first three weeks after his arrival ; and throughout the whole season, upon catching a fish they immediately take out his heart and conceal ​
48 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
it until they have an opportunity to burn it, their great fear being that this sacred portion of the fish may be eaten by dogs, which they shudder to think would prevent them from coming again to the river. When it is remembered that the many thousand Indians living upon this river, throughout its course of more than twelve hundred miles, are almost entirely de- pendent upon salmon for their subsistence, it would lessen our surprise that these simple-minded people should devise some propitiatory mean of retaining this inappreciable blessing. The annual inroad of these multitudinous shoals into the Columbia may, in its effects upon the happiness and lives of the inhabi- tants, be compared to the effect produced upon the Egyptians by the rising of the Nile; a subject upon which they are de- scribed as reflecting not with lively solicitude and interest, but with feelings of religious solemnity and awe.
The salmon are much finer, taken when they first enter the river ; and from the last of May the business of catching and drying is industriously pursued by the Indians. These sell to the whites, who salt and pack for winter use, or exportation. As the season advances the fish become meagre and sickly, and only those not strong enough to force a passage against the torrent at the Cascades, and other falls, remain in the lower waters of the river. In September they are found at the very sources of the Columbia, still pressing up stream, with tails and bellies bruised and bloody by the long struggle they have had against the current and a rocky bottom. They die then in great numbers, and, floating down stream, the Indians inter- cept them in their canoes, and relish them none the less for hav- ing died a week or fortnight previous. The young fry pass out to sea in October; they are then nearly as large as herrings. Different families of salmon are in the habit of resorting to different rivers. The largest and best come into the Columbia, weighing on an average twenty pounds each; .some exceed forty pounds. Seven or eight hundred barrels are annually exported ; they retail at Oahu for ten dollars a barrel, but I do not believe they are so highly appreciated anywhere as in Ore- gon, where they may be considered their staple article of food. Sturgeon arid trout are also abundant in the Columbia. ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 49
I was surprised to find so great a scarcity of game in this country. I lugged a heavy gun more than a hundred and fifty miles through the Wilhammette valley, and in all that ride saw but three deer. Wolves are numerous, and prey upon other animals, so that the plains are entirely in their possession. The little venison I saw in Oregon was poor and insipid ; a fat buck is a great rarity. Elk are still numerous, but very wild, living in the depths of the forests, or near those openings which the white man has not yet approached. An Indian hunter often brought elk meat to us at Astoria, which he had killed in the unexplored forests between Clatsop plains and Young's river. Black bears are very common, and destructive to the farmers' pigs ; the grizzly bear is more rarely seen, but one of the Shark's officers procured a very promising young grizzly, and sent him a present to a lady friend at Oahu, whence it is probable he will be conveyed to the United States.
Nearly all the birds and fowls of the United States are found here, with several varieties of the grouse and partridge which we have not. The turkey is not indigenous to Oregon, but has been introduced and successfully reared there. Wild fowl, from the swan to the blue-wing, are very abundant during the winter. The wild geese move over the country in clouds, and do great injury to the wheat fields upon which they determine to alight. The field lark, the robin, the wren and the sparrow alternately flit before the traveller and identify the country with scenes at home.
Although most descriptions of timber grow in this country, and grow to a great size, its quality and usefulness are in no- wise comparable to that produced in the United States. The best here is found farthest north from Nisqually, towards the northern boundary. In those parts I visited, there was not a stick of timber suitable for shipbuilding; the spruce makes tough spars, but is very heavy, and after seasoning is apt to rive and open too much. Neither hickory, walnut, nor locust has yet been found here ; they would doubtless, if introduced and proper soil selected for them, thrive prosperously. The ​
50 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
hazel bush makes a substitute for hickory hoop-poles, and an- swers well. Perhaps a critical exploration would find timber of durable fibre in the less genial atmosphere of the mountain ridges; the cause of its bad quality in the low lands is the rapidity of its growth, which in all countries produces the same disqualifying effects. The ash, which is very abundant, com- pares with that grown elsewhere better than any other timber. Much remains unknown respecting this essential portion of this country's wealth ; nor would I have it inferred that because I saw no good specimen of timber, there are bone to be found. Oregon, from its extent and varied topography, must, of course, possess some diversity of climate. As a general re- mark, it is equable and salubrious; and although ten degrees of latitude farther north than Virginia, it assimilates to the climate of that State, particularly in winter, qualified by less liability to sudden violent changes. The same season, however, in Oregori is characterized by more constant rains and cloudy weather. Our log-book records rain, hail, or snow, every day between October 29th, 1846, and January 17th, 1847, except eleven, and a continuation of such weather was anticipated until the month of March. But during this time there were but few days of severe cold. Grass grew verdantly in every spot that was at all sheltered, and yielded sustenance to the cattle, which requires neither shelter nor feeding (except what it procures itself) throughout the year. From March till Oc- tober the weather is delightful ; occasional showers obscure the sun and refresh the earth; but what is very remarkable, the summer clouds in Lower Oregon are seldom attended by thun- der and lightning. During the winter, at the mouth of the river, we experienced this phenomenon, and witnessed its ef- fects occasionally upon conspicuous trees in the forest, but in the interior it is not common at any season a consoling cir- cumstance to our countrywomen, who had been previously subject to its terrifying effects, ofn the banks of the Illinois and Mississippi. ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 51
The products of the soil depend mainly upon the climate, and the excellence of the latter is indicative of the abundance of the former. Hence we find from the seacoast to the Cas- cade range of mountains, an average breadth of 110 miles, a most vigorous natural vegetable growth; the forest trees are of gigantic stature, while the intervals between them are filled with a rank, impenetrable bushy undergrowth. Where the growth is rapid, maturity and then decay quickly succeed, and the soil is enriched from its own fruits. This region, like that of the United States before it was colonized, "has been gath- ering fertility from the repose of centuries, and lavishes its strength in magnificent but useless vegetation." It is not, however, a woody solitude throughout. Within the limits al- luded to lies the whole Wilhammette valley ; continuous ranges of prairie lands, free from the encumbrance of trees or other heavy obstacles to the plough, stretch along, ready for the hand of the cultivator; in their virgin state these are over- grown with fern, the height of which, say from three to ten feet, indicates the strength of the soil. No felling of trees or grubbing is necessary here. A two-horse plough prostrates the rankest fern, and a fine crop of wheat the very next year succeeds it. The fields, however, continue to improve under cultivation, and are much more prolific the fourth and fifth years tha'n before. Wheat is the staple commodity ; the average yield is twenty bushels to the acre ; and this from very slovenly culture. Those who take much pains, reap forty or fifty. Al- though population is dispersed over these clear lands, and a large portion of them is held by "claims," there is, notwith- standing, a mere fraction cultivated. A fair estimate of all the wheat raised in 1846 does not exceed 160,000 bushels, which, by the average, would grow upon 8,000 acres of land - not a hand's breadth compared to the whole body claimed and held in idleness. The quality of the wheat produced here is, I believe, unequalled throughout the world ; it certainly excels in weight, size of grain, and whiteness of its flour, that of our Atlantic States, Chili, or the Black sea, and is far before any I have seen in California. Oats grow with correspondent lux​
52 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
uriance ; but the nights of this salubrious valley are too cool for Indian corn or rye. These last grow to perfection further interior, where the summers are warmer than they are west- ward of the Cascade mountains. The few experiments made with hemp and tobacco have proven the competency of the soil and climate to their production. In short, I can think of noth- ing vegetable in its Mature, common within the temperate zone, that Oregon will not produce. Fruits have been, so far, very sparingly introduced; there are a few orchards of apples, peaches, and pears among the Canadians; but growing upon seedlings, the fruit is inferior. A great variety of berries are indigenous and abundant; among them the strawberry, cranberry, whortleberry, and a big blue berry of delicious flavor. The traveller stopping at the humblest cottage on a summer day will be regaled with a white loaf and fresh butter, a dish of luscious berries, and plenty of rich milk; to procure all of which the cottager has not been outside his own enclosure. The fields for cultivation comprise, as before remarked, but a small portion of the country; outside the fences is a common range for the cattle. These have increased very rapidly, and in nothing does the new emigrant feel so sensibly relieved from labor as in having to make no winter provision for his stock. Large droves of American cows and oxen have annually ac- companied the emigrating parties from the United States, and the Hudson's Bay Company have imported many from Califor- nia ; but of this indispensable appendage to an agricultural dis- trict, the far greater number in the Wilhammette valley have sprung from a supply driven in from California, through the instrumentality of Purser Slacum, United States navy, who visited Oregon eight or nine years ago as an agent of the government. Chartering a small vessel in the Columbia, he carried down to St. Francisco a ^number of passengers, gratis, whom he aided in procuring cattle, and purchased a number for himself besides, which were driven into the rich pastures of Oregon; their descendants are to the inhabitants a fertile source of present comfort and future wealth. It is but justice ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 53
to the memory of Mr. Slacum to add, that from this circum- stance, and others like it, evincing an interest in the welfare of the people, and a desire to aid their efforts in settling the country, no other official agent of the United States who has visited Oregon is held in equally high estimation or grateful remembrance by the early settlers here.
The Hudson's Bay Company own large flocks of sheep, the breed of which they have taken every pai'ns to improve, besides affording them a constant table supply of good mutton. This stock yields a profitable fleece of wool, which goes to England. Many farmers are also rearing this animal, which succeeds admirably. I saw a flock of twenty on the Recreall river, which had been brought the year before from Missouri. Its owner informed me that they had travelled better, and proved on the journey more thrifty, than either horses or oxen, climb- ibg mountains and swimming rivers with unabated sprightli- ness during a journey of two thousand miles. Of this small stock every one had come safely in.
It is scarcely worth while to add that all garden vegetables grow abundantly in Oregon at least all which have been tried ; fresh seed and increased varieties are much wanting, and it is to be lamented that the emigrants seldom bring out ariy- thing of this kind. If each would provide himself with a few varieties, how soon would they be repaid for their trouble. The man who will put some walnuts and hickory nuts in his pocket, and bring them to Oregon, may in that way propagate the growth of timber, for which posterity will be grateful. But few exotic plants or flowers have yet arrived; but the natural flora of this country is said, by those acquainted with the sub- ject, to be very rich and extensive. Speaking of flowers re- minds me that the honey-bee has not yet been naturalized a desideratum which every one seems to notice with surprise where the sweet briar and honeysuckle, the clover and wild- grape blossom, "waste their sweets upon the desert air." An emigrant of 1846 left Missouri with two hives, and conveyed them safely over the mountains ; but was overtaken by winter ​
54 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
before reaching- the settlements, and, to the regret of all, this praiseworthy and troublesome experiment did not succeed.
There has been nothing valuable in mineralogy yet discov- ered. Coal had been found in the northeastern portion of Vancouver's island, and the British war-steamer Cormorant visited the mine and procured some of it, which was found to be of fair quality. A systematic exploration of our own terri- tory would doubtless bring to light much valuable information on this subject.
With respect to defences, the subject is too comprehensive to be more than hinted at here. Cape Disappointment may be rendered impregnable, and will command the river so long as the channel passes where it does; but I cannot suppose the government will commence works of defence anywhere, with- out a special reconnoissance by military engineers had first been made of the premises. It may be proper, however, to report that Cape Disappointment is now "claimed" by Mr. Peter Skeen Ogden, a chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company. He purchased the "claim" from an American named Wheeler, giving him a thousand dollars for it, and is now putting up a warehouse there. Point Adams, the southern point of the river's mouth, and nearly five miles from the cape, is low and sandy, and of course not so susceptible of defence as the other side ; nor is there safe anchorage in its neighborhood during the winter season. The cape, Tongue point, both sides of the Wil- hammette falls, a site at the Cascades, and one at the Dalles, are points on the rivers prominently presenting themselves for reservation by the government, should it design to reserve anything.
Nisqually, and perhaps other places on the sound and coast, are not less distinctly marked by nature as eligible sites for forts or future towns. I have omitted Astoria from this list, as the isthmus of Tongue point, within three miles of it, is every way better situated for a business settlement, being acces- sible to ships from sea of equal draughts of water, having more spacious anchorage ground, and subject to less tide. A snug ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 55
cove on the eastern side affords secure landing for loaded boats, flats, and rafts coming down the river, without the exposed navigation around the promontory. Mr. Shortiss, an Ameri- can, "claims" two miles along the river and half a mile back, including all this point, by virtue of the organic law of Oregon, and an hereditary title acquired through his Indiari wife, who was born somewhere hereabouts. The policy of confirming all these land claims it is not my province to discuss ; but it may be necessary to observe that few of those who are now in pos- session of the land could by any means be made to pay even a dollar and a quarter an acre for it. In the first place, they have 'not the necessary funds; and in the second, they feel that they have fairly earned a title to it, by assuming posses- sion while it was uncertain to whom it belonged, and that this very act of taking possession at the expense of so much toil and risk gives an increased value to what remains unoccupied, which will indemnify the government for the whole. The President's suggestions to Congress on this subject will, it is hoped, be acted on, and a law framed to meet the exigency.
Many allowances should be made in favor of these people. They come generally from among the poorer classes of the western States, with the praiseworthy design of improving their fortunes. They brave dangers and accomplish Herculean labors dn the journey across the mountains. For six months consecutively they have "the sky for a pea-jacket," and the wild buffalo for company; and during this time, are reminded of no law but expediency. That they should, so soon after their union into societies at their new homes, voluntarily place them- selves under any restraints of law or penalties whatever, is an evidence of a good dispositiori, which time will be sure to im- prove and refine. If some facts I have related would lead to unfavorable opinions of them, it will be understood that the number is very limited by no means affecting the people as a mass, who deserve to be characterized as honest, brave, and hardy, rapidly improving in those properties and qualities which ​
56 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
mark them for future distinction among the civilized portion of the world.
With great respect, I am, sir, &c., &c.,
NEIL M. HOWISON, Lieut. Commanding, U. S. Navy.
To the COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
Of the U. S. Naval forces in the Pacific Ocean.
APPENDIX. A.
HER MAJESTY'S SLOOP MODESTE, Fort Vancouver, Columbia River, Sept. 13, 1846.
SIR : It was with the greatest regret that I this morning received information of your vessel being on the sands at the mouth of the Columbia. From the hurried information I have received, I much fear my boat will be too late to render any as- sistance in saving the vessel ; but in the possibility of your not having bee'n able to save provisions, &c., I beg to offer for your acceptance a few of such articles as are not likely to be obtained at Clatsop.
I have the honor to be, sir, your most obedient servant,
THOS. BAILLIE, Commander. Lieut. HOWISON,
Commanding U. S. Schooner Shark.
B.
FORT VANCOUVER, Sept. 11, 1846.
DEAR SIR: We have just heard of the unfortunate accident which has befallen the Shark on the bar of this river, and we beg to offer our sincere condolence oh the distressing event. ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 57
We also beg to offer every assistance we can render in your present destitute state, and hope you will accept of the few things sent by this conveyance. Captain Baillie having de- spatched bread and tea by the Modeste's pinnace anticipated our intention of sending such things. Have the goodness to apply to Mr. Peers for any articles of food or clothing you may want,. and they will be at your service if he has them in store. As the people of Clatsop can furnish abundance of beef and po- tatoes, we are not anxious about your suffering any privation of food. If otherwise, Mr. Peers will do his utmost to supply your wants.
With kind remembrance to the officers, we remain, dear sir, yours truly,
PETER SKEEN OGDEN, JAMES DOUGLASS. NEIL HOWISON, &c., &c.
B.
BAKER'S BAY, Friday, September 9, [1846.] SIR: I much regret the melancholy disaster which befel your vessel on Wednesday evening, and also my inability to render you any assistance at that time. The Indians tell me there are several lives lost, but I hope such is not true.
I am informed you wish to occupy part of the house at Astoria ; it is at your service, as also anything else there in the shape of food or clothing ; and I must, at the same time, apol- ogise for offering you such poor accommodations. I sent off a despatch to Vancouver yesterday morning, to acquaint them of your distress, and expect an answer Sunday morning. I remain, sir, yours, most respectfully,
HENRY PEERS,
Port Agent of Hudson's Bay Company. To CAPTAIN HOWISON, &c., &c., &c. ​
58 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
OREGON CITY, September 15, 1846.
DEAR SIR : Last night we heard the melancholy tidings that the schooner Shark was lost on the South spit. It was very pairiful intelligence, particularly as we are yet in doubt as to the safety of yourself, officers, and crew. The letter we re- ceived at this place states that the probability is, all were saved ; which I sincerely hope may be the case ; but until we hear of the safety of all, we will be in an unhappy state of suspense. My first feeling' was to leave all here, and reach Clatsop as soon as possible; but I am situated in such a way, just at this time, that I cannot leave. Should you not make arrangements to get away in the Mariposa, we have your room in readiness for you, and will be very happy to have you make one of our family, as long as you may remain in the country, and any one of your officers that you may choose for the other room. I perceive the Modeste's launch was to leave with a supply of provisions for you for the present. If you wish anything that I have, let me know, and I will send it down immediately. I have plenty of flour, and have no doubt but plenty of beef and pork can be obtained here for the crew. It will give me great pleasure to be of any service to you. Hoping to hear from you soon, and that yourself, officers, and crew are all safe on shore, and in good health,
I remain, dear sir, yours, very truly,
GEORGE ABERNETHY. Captain NEIL HOWISON,
&c., &c., &c.
D.
[Extract.]
September 19, 1846.
to the firm, I think you will have no difficulty in chartering her ​
LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 59
to go to California. I shall be happy to render you all the assistance that lies in my power. Should you wish any assist- ance as it regards money, or anything that I can obtain for you in Oregon, please inform me, and I will at the earliest date endeavor to procure it for you. Please accept my kindest re- gards to yourself and officers.
Yours truly,
JOHN H. COUCH. Capt. NEIL HOWISON.
E.
BAKER'S BAY, COLUMBIA RIVER,
December 1, 1846.
DEAR GOVERNOR: One of the few articles preserved from the shipwreck of the late United States schooner Shark was her stand of colors. To display this national emblem, and cheer our citizens in this distant territory by its presence, was a principal object of the Shark's visit to the Columbia; and it appears to me, therefore, highly proper that it should hence- forth remain with you, as a memento of parental regard from the general government.
With the fullest confidence that it will be received and duly appreciated as such by our countrymen here, I do myself the hdnor of transmitting the flags (an ensign and union-jack) to your address; nor can I omit the occasion to express my gratification and pride that this relic of my late command should be emphatically the first United States flag to wave over the undisputed and purely American territory of Oregon.
With considerations of high respect, I remain your obedient servant,
NEIL M. HOWISON,
Lieutenant Commanding United States Navy. ​
60 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
F.
OREGON CITY, December 21, 1846.
DEAR SIR: I received your esteemed favor of the 1st De- cember, accompanied with the flags of the late U. S. schooner "Shark," (an ensign and union-jack) as a "memento of parental regard from the general government" to the citizens of this Territory.
Please accept my thanks and the thanks of this community for the (to us) very valuable present. We will fling it to the breeze on every suitable occasion, and rejoice under the em- blem of our country's glory. Sincerely hoping that the "star- spangled banner" may ever wave over this portion of the United States, I remain, dear sir, yours truly,
GEO. ABERNETHY. NEIL HOWISON,
Lieutenant commanding, &c., &c.
G.
A very snug harbor has within a few years been sounded out and taken possession of by the Hudson's Bay Company on the southeastern part of Vancouver's island. They have named it Victoria, and it is destined to become the most important British seaport contiguous to our territory. Eighteen feet water can be carried into its inmost recesses, which is a fine large basin. There is besides pretty good anchorage for fri- gates outside this basin. The company are making this their principal shipping port, depositing, by means of small craft during the summer, all their furs and other articles for the English market at this place, which is safe for their large ships to enter during the winter season. They no longer permit them
OREGON IN 1863
By Thomas W. Prosch
One of my books is Bancroft's (San Francisco) Hand Book Almanac for the Pacific States for 1863—a half century ago. It is not, perhaps, a rare or valuable volume, but to those interested in "old Oregon" it is entertaining and pleasant—a reminder of days when people and things on the North Pacific Coast were young and new. To the readers of the Oregon Historical Quarterly the mere mention of the names therein contained will be good, while comparison of the statistical facts and figures of those days with like statements of these days will be instructive and grateful. It is impossible to tell how many people were in Oregon fifty years ago, but, judging by the numbers found by the census taken in 1860 and 1870, it may be safely assumed that the number was about sixty-five thousand, or about one-fourth the number to be found this year in the city of Portland alone, a city that then contained about four thousand inhabitants. While all parts of the state have increased in population, trade and wealth, no one will pretend, of course, that other parts have kept up in the race with Portland. Gold had been discovered in Washington Territory in 1860-1-2, and so many men had gone to seek it that in 1863 Congress created the Territory of Idaho, including those parts of Washington in which the gold had been found. Following these discoveries, gold was found in Eastern Oregon. As one of many results of these gold finds several thousand people, mostly men, planted themselves in that part of the State east of the Cascade Mountains. They liked the country and were there to stay. They demanded political recognition from the Legislature, and in consequence the counties of Baker and Umatilla were created, these, with Wasco, being the three counties in the eastern half of the State in 1863. Baker and Umatilla were then so new, however, that they do not appear in the Almanac as possessed of settlements arid governments as complete as those of the older counties.
​In 1863 Addison C. Gibbs was Governor of Oregon. He had six predecessors, dating back to 1845, namely: George Abernethy, Joseph Lane, John P. Gaines, John W. Davis, George L. Curry and John Whiteaker. Other State officers were Samuel E. May, Secretary of State; Edwin N. Cooke, Treasurer; Asahel Bush, Printer, and P. S. Knight, Librarian. Elections were held in June, and State officers chosen for four years. In 1862 the people had voted on location of the State capital, Salem getting 3213 votes, Eugene 1921, Corvallis 1798, and all other places 427. The vote was indecisive, as no place had a majority.
James W. Nesmith and Benjamin F. Harding were U. S. Senators, and John R. McBride Representative in Congress.
P. P. Prim, R. E. Stratton, Reuben P. Boise, E. D. Shattuck and J. G. Wilson were the five circuit judges, and they also constituted the Supreme Court. In each district was a prosecuting attorney. The first and fifth districts each included three counties; the second, third a'nd fourth, five counties each. The district attorneys were James F. Gazley, A. J. Thayer, Rufus Mallory, William Carey Johnson and C. R. Meigs.
The State militia was then headed by Major General Joel Palmer, Brigadier General Orlando Humason, Brigadier General Elisha L. Applegate, Judge Advocate Richard Williams, and Surgeon General Ralph Wilcox. Aides to the commanderin-chief were A. G. Hovey, John H. Mitchell, David P. Thompson and L. W. Powell. The writer believes these men constituted the entire militia force of the state.
The United States was represented by Matthew P. Deady, district judge; Shubrick Norris, clerk; Wm. L. Adams, customs collector at Astoria; Edwin P. Drew, collector at Umpqua, and William Tichenor, collector at Port Orford; Byron S. Pengra, surveyor general at Eugene; W. A. Starkweather, register, and W. T. Matlock, receiver, of the land office at Oregon City; John Kelly, register, and George E. Briggs, receiver, of the land office at Roseburg; Wm. H. Rector, superintendent of Indian affairs, and T. McF. Patton, clerk, at Salem; Wm. ​
OREGON IN 1863 63
Logan, Indian agent at Warm Springs reservation; T. W. Davenport, at Umatilla; James B. Condon, at Grand Ronde; Benjamin R. Riddle at Siletz; Lewis Brooks at Alsea, and Amos D. Rogers at Klamath.
General George Wright at San Francisco was in command of the military on the Pacific Coast, but General Benjamin Alvord, at Fort Vancouver, under Wright, was in charge of operations, posts and men in Oregon and Washington.
At Cape Hancock and Toke Point were Oregon's only two lighthouses. In the State were one hundred and fourteen post- offices.
The State Treasurer reported April 22d, 1862, that he had $3,899 in hand September 8th, 1860, but that since he had re- ceived $89,707. He had disbursed $54,472, and there was on hand at date of report $39,134. These figures seemed large then, but now, when they are exceeded frequently in a single week, they are very small.
The State Senate consisted of sixteen members, and the House of Representatives of thirty-four. Those belonging to the two bodies were :
Senate D. W. Ballard, Wilson Bowlby, C. E. Chrisman, Bartlett Curl, J. W. Drew, Solomon Fitzhugh, William Green- wood, John W. Grim, D. S. Holton, A. G. Hovey, James K. Kelly, John R. McBride, John H. Mitchell, James Munroe, William Taylor and Jacob Wagner. Wilson Bowlby was pres- ident, and Samuel A. Clarke, chief clerk.
House Lindsay Applegate, C. P. Blair, H. M. Brown, F. A. Collard, E. W. Conyers, John Cummms, A. J. Dufur, Joseph Engle, James D. Fay, P. W. Gillette, J. D. Haines, A. A. Hemenway, Orlando Humason, J. T. Kerns, Rufus Mallory, V. S. McClure, Wm. M. McCoy, A. A. McCully, John Minto, I. R. Moores, Joel Palmer, Maxwell Ramsby, C. A. Reed, G. W. Richardson, Ben Simpson, John Smith, Archibald Steven- son, S. D. Van Dyke, P. Wasserman, James Watson, Ralph Wilcox, M. Wilkins, W. H. Wilson arid A. M. Witham. Joel Palmer was speaker, and S. T. Church, chief clerk. ​
64
THOMAS W. PROSCH
The Legislature represented by these men was the twenty- third in Oregon's history, or the twenty-third session was held by them, dating back to May 16th, 1843, there being ten ses- sions under the Provisional Government, ten under the Terri- torial Government, and three under the State.
The twenty-one counties of Oregon by name, county seat and statistically, showed up a half century ago as follows :
Population, Voters, Taxable
Counties, County Seat 1860. 1861. 'property.
Baker, Auburn
Benton, Corvallis 3,074 748 $ 1,293,047
Clackamas, Oregon City 3,466 909 1,403,539
Clatsop, Astoria 498 135 214,277
Columbia, St. Helens 532 124 244,273
Coos, Empire City 384 201 164,523
Curry, Ellensburg 393 164 201,641
Douglas, Roseburg 3,264 1,134 1,398,752
Jackson, Jacksonville 3,736 1,564 2,082,385
Josephine, Kerbyville 1,622 833 628,982
Lane, Eugene City 4,780 1,170 2,297,375
Linn, Albany 6,772 1,567 2,447,557
Marion, Salem 7,088 1,766 2,784,068
Multnomah, Portland 4,150 1,381 2,789,804
Polk, Dallas 3,625 810 1,828,470
Tillamook, 95 32 21,358
Umatilla,
Umpqua, Yoncalla 1,250 298 611,798
Wasco, Dalles 1,689 573 750,400
Washington, Hillsboro 2,801 632 1,044,760
Yamhill, Lafayette 3,245 857 1,679,942
AN INDIAN AGENT'S EXPERIENCE IN THE WAR OF 1886
By Henry C. Coe
The last Indian uprising in the Pacific Northwest, known as the Cayuse War of 1886, was not a great affair; a few whites and some Indians were killed, and some property destroyed. It was a pitiful failure the last feeble effort of a dying race to retain their homes, their tribal habits and their independence, bequeathed to them by their ancestors of unknown ages past, a protest against the encroachment and domination of the white man. The trouble was precipitated by the government using force of arms to effect the removal, to the various reservations, the numerous camps and villages of Indians scattered along the banks of the Columbia and Snake Rivers. For years past the reservation agents and special commissioners had utterly exhausted their stock of blandishments, promises and threats in order to effect a peaceable removal of the obdurate savages. But patience finally ceased to be a virtue and the soldiers came. The trouble first originated in the tribe of Chief Moses of the Grand Coulee Reservation in Northeastern Washington. A noted medicine man, Sem O Holla, commonly known as Smoholly, having possessed himself of a tamanowas (spirit), began to dream dreams and see visions. Sem O Holla then was a middle-aged man of more than ordinary intelligence. He had a fine face, always wreathed in smiles, but with a fearfully deformed body, being a hunchback, the second that I ever knew amongst the Indians. He was reputed to have had wonderful mesmeric forces and to have dealt largely in occult mysteries. His seances were always accompanied by the beating of torn toms, dancing and singing of war songs, and continued until the whole camp was in an uproar and resulted in the brutal murder of a family near Snipe's Mountain in Yakima County, Eastern Washington, by three young bucks who were on their way southward from Moses's camp to incite other tribes along the Columbia River to revolt. Old Chief ​
66 HENRY C. COE
Moses was later compelled to give up the murderers, who were afterwards taken to Walla Walla and hanged. The dream habit seemed to be contagious and spread to neighboring tribes. Ah old scallawag named Colwash, a rump chief of a rene- gade band that made its headquarters on the north bank of the Columbia River at the Grand Dalles, the same thieving outfit that caused the early emigrants on their way to the Wil- lamette Valley so much trouble and annoyance, got the fever and dreams and dancing commenced. The character of these performances soon reached the ears of the agent of the Yakima reservation at Fort Simcoe, who had jurisdiction over all the Indians north of the Columbia River and east of the Cascade Mountains. At this time the Rev. J. H. Wilbur was the tem- poral as well as the spiritual head of that institution and a man who would not stand for any performances of that kind at this particular time. A message was sent notifying Colwash to cease his "dreaming" and close up his dahce house instanter. No attention was paid to the order and dreams and dancing continued. Two Indian policemen were sent from the reser- vation to arrest the offender and bring him to the agency. On their arrival at the camp members of the band crowded so thickly fn and around the dance house that the policemen were unable to make the arrest and returned to the agency and reported the facts in the case.
Father Wilbur, who had just finished his dinner, listened quietly to their report; then, turning to an attendant, ordered a team to be hitched to his two-seated covered hack ready for an immediate start to the Dalles. To Mrs. Wilbur he said, "Mother, a little lunch for our suppers." And inside of an hour with his two trusted policemen was on his way to the scene of the disturbances. Father Wilbur was a remarkable man of powerful physique, an indomitable will and as utterly fearless as it was possible for a man to be, of a genial, kind-hearted, generous nature, he was as sternly just and firm as a New Eng- land Puritan. Late that night he reached the block house in the Klickitat Valley, fifty miles from the agency and thirty ​
FATHER WILBUR AS INDIAN AGENT, 1886 67
from his destination, and there rested until morning. With a fresh team, he reached Colwash's camp before noon and found the dance in full blast and torn toms beating time to their sing- ing of war songs, which made a din that would have made a heart less stout than his hesitate at the task ahead. Springing from his hack he walked to the door of the dance hall, where nearly the entire band of savages had collected as soon as they saw him make his appearance. The Indians at once attempted to block his way, as they had the Indian policemen previously. And then trouble began. His long, muscular arms began to revolve like the fans of a great windmill. The "siwash" ob- structors were pitched headlorig this way and that and were soon fairly running over each other in their attempt to escape those terrible flails. The road cleared, he seized the rascally old dreamer by the nape of the neck and literally yanked him out of the house headforemost, handcuffed him, picking him up bodily, and then pitched him into his hack, taking a seat by his side. No jeers or laughter followed him as he turned on his way back to the agency, as it had his discomfited policemen a few days previously. Those who were not rubbing their sore spots were simply wondering what was coming next. There are but few men who would have dared to have undertaken such a task alone. Unarmed he drove fifty miles over a lonely road, by the very spot where a former agent, A. J. Bolan, was bru- tally murdered in cold blood by a band of his own Indians, and to a camp of renegades collected from the various tribes throughout the country and numbering between one a'nd two hundred men, and single-handed forcibly takes his man from their midst, handcuffs him and drives away. The act was char- acteristic of the man. He feared God only. ​
DOCUMENTS
COST OF IMPROVEMENTS MADE BY DR. JOHN McLouGHLiN AT WILLAMETTE FALLS TO JAN. 1, 1851.
Flour Mill- Machinery $6050.00
Frame of the building 2575.00
Studding and rafters 110.00
Weather boarding 65.00
Flooring 580.00
Partitioning 96.00
Flour Bin 78.00
Shingles 84.00
Windows 255.00
Painting and glazing 255.00
Flour press 18.00
Wood for machinery ' 550.00
Stone foundation 2871.00
Men's work 1760.00
$15,347.00
Granary
Framing, building, laying floor, and weather- boarding (labor) $2700.00
Weather boarding 65.00
Shingles 80.00
Flooring 225.00
Studding 105.00
Additional work 10.00
3,185.00
Old Saw Mill- Building $1500.00
Machinery 800.00
2,300.00
New Saw Mill
House and machinery 2,000.00
Canal- Making $ 500.00
Materials 330.00
s 830.00
Basin and breakwater
Making $1700.00
Materials 900.00
2,600.00
Gates
Labor and materials 285.00
Bull wheels 620.00
Boom 270.00
Grist mill canal
Labor $ 775.00
Materials 640.00
1,415.00 ​
DR. McLoucHLiN's IMPROVEMENTS AT OREGON CITY 69
Blasting new canal 1,000.00
Rennick's house 400.00
Wilson's house 250.00
Beef store 100.00
Mission house and lots 5,400.00
New dwelling house 4,368.00
Office 950.00
Kitchen 70.00
Kitchen 50.00
J. Brown's house 60.00
F. Ermatinger's room 80.00
Indian shop 40.00
J. Bechan's house ! 60.00
Paid on road ($600.00), bridge ($400.00) 1,000.00
In 1849
Bake house $1200.00
Office addition 1250.00
Subscription to road 100.00
2,550.00
In 1851
Subscription road 1,500.00
$46,730.00
Oregon Territory ,
Clackamas County.
Personally appeared before me, Allan P. Millar, clerk of the District Court of the United States, for the coutaty of Clack- amas, in the Territory of Oregon, Philip Foster, who, being by me duly sworn, deposes and saith that he has examined the foregoing account of moneys expended by Dr. John Mc- Loughlin, in making improvements at the Falls of the Willam- ette, and that to the best of his knowledge and belief and rec- ollection, the same is correct, a'nd that a large portion of the work was executed by himself and the money by him received.
PHILIP FOSTER.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this 8th day of January, A. D., 1851.
ALLAN P. MILLAR, Clerk U. S. Dist. Court for Clackamas County.
A precisely similar affidavit is made by Walter Pomeroy, Esq., another old citizen. ​
70 DOCUMENTS
In addition to the afore-mentioned amount, Dr. McLoughlin has expended large amounts in building, as follows: A large store, occupied for some years past by De- ment & Co., with offices in second story, house plastered and well finished throughout, built in
1853, cost $16,000.00
A two-story store, built and finished throughout for a drug store, with a hall full size of the sec- ond story, house plastered and well finished
throughout, built in 1853, cost 12,000.00
A large store, with rooms in second story, near the steamboat landing, built for Preston, O'Neil &
Co., in 1854, cost. 10,000.00
A two-story building erected for the office of J. B.
Preston, surveyor-general, in 1854, cost 6,000.00
In all $44,000.00
To which add the previous amount 46,730.00
Making a grand total of $90,730.00
Note. The above document was found among a lot of manuscripts left by the late ex-Senator James W. Nesmith, and given to the Oregon Historical Society by his daughter, Mrs. Harriet K. McArthur, several years ago.
Allan P. Millar, the clerk of the United States District Court for Clackamas County, was the father of Mrs. Elizabeth Millar Wilson, for many years a resident of The Dalles, now deceased.
Philip Foster, referred to in the affidavit, was a native of Maine, and came to Oregon in 1843. He was a brother-in-law of Francis W. Pettygrove, who came to Oregon by sea in 1843. He made the first settlement in the vicinity of the place now called Eagle Creek, Clackamas County, about sixteen miles east of Oregon City, and was widely known as an excellent mechanic.
Walter Pomeroy was a pioneer of 1842, and a mechanic also.
GEORGE H. HIMES. ​
"ECONOMIC BEGINNINGS OF THE FAR WEST" *
A REVIEW
Miss Coman has in this two-volume work "rounded up" the essential elements in the records of the white man's beginnings in all that part of our country lying to the west of the Missis- sippi River. The story is brought down to the Civil War period. Her achievement consists in revealing the main threads in each narrative of exploration, colonization and settlement and in suggesting the basis upon which all may be wrought into a great dramatic whole. An expansive field, a long roll of world-famous characters and a period stretching through three centuries are staged. The first scene opens with almost transco'ntinental marches by Coronado and De Soto bent on conquest and confiscation of the treasures of supposed cities of the far interior. This was in the early part of the sixteenth century, and it was the middle of the nineteenth before the struggle was over and this last unoccupied imperial domain of the temperate zone was relinquished to the youngest con- testant the latest to enter the lists for it. Nor does the action lag from the beginning to the end. Spanish conquistadores and Franciscan monks move to the north into New Mexico and Texas and up the Pacific Coast to San Francisco Bay. Spanish navigators penetrate to 54 40' in search of the straits of Anian. English buccaneers round Cape Horn and prey upon Spanish cities and commerce and set up national standards on our western coast, claiming the whole region as a New Albion. Russian enterprise directed from St. Petersburg, and first led by the dauntless Bering, comes down the coast and occupies for decades a post just north of the Golden Gate. In the meantime France, represented by such empire builders as La Salle and the Verenderyes, with followings of missionaries and fur traders, establish lines of posts and extend explorations from the Great Lakes to the mouth of the Mississippi and to the Rocky
Mississippi. By Katharine Coman. Volumes I and II. Illustrated. New York: Macmillan, 1912. ​
72 F. G. YOUNG
Mountains. These would have held all the country beyond had not the military prowess of the English at Quebec com- pelled a relinquishment to them of all the Canadian approaches. England's great corporate agencies, the Northwest Company and the Hudson's Bay Company, then display highest energy and efficiency in exploitation of the fur resources of the north- ern zone of the region, and especially of the Pacific Northwest, and get a grip upon that portion so strong that it would seem nothing would ever wrest it from them. However, a new con- testant has appeared upon the scene. American seamen show themselves able to hold their own in the maritime fur trade upon the Pacific shores and a Gray is first to enter the Colum- bia River. This exploit of discovery is followed by the great stroke planned by a far-seeing American executive and car- ried out by Lewis and Clark. Adventurous fur traders, irre- sistible home-building pioneers, gold-seekers and religious zeal- ots do the rest. The land beyond the Mississippi is won for an American nation, which is to front squarely on both oceans.
This integration by Miss Coman of the annals of the three- centuries-long series of struggles for possession, participated in by representatives of half a dozen nations, was sorely needed. As an aid towards an orderly and comprehensive grasp of the historical foundations of this western land, it is most wel- come. It is conducive to the development among the dwellers therein of a real depth of home feeling for and home interest in their environment.
The well-read or well-taught youth living to the east of the Mississippi River has a fairly clear mental picture of the pro- cession of events through which that part of our national do- main became the home of the people and the institutions now established there. His study of American history in the com- mon schools has furnished him with a well-ordered vista that stretches back to the first appearance of the white man upon our eastern shores and which includes the westward movement of the American people in fairly clear outline as they com​
COMAN'S ECONOMIC BEGINNINGS OF THE FAR WEST 73
plete the occupation of the eastern half of the Mississippi Valley.
Conditions have been comparatively favorable in the Eastern States for the development of a forceful appeal of the past through the objects in the environment of the dweller there. From the Jamestowns and Plymouth Rocks as natal spots, the radiating lines of growth of populations and of institutions can be readily visualized. There have been orderly expansions and increasing complexity of organization from these simple germinal centers. Dramatic incident and crises of revolutionary struggle when great issues were at stake have marked the prog- ress of events leading up to the present. Historians of high- est skill and genius have spared no effort in bringing that part of our national annals into instructive and charming form. The easterner should naturally come under the spell of such surroundings ; and the sense of having a precious patrimony to conserve should be kindled and strengthened. Communal regard for his land as his home must naturally arise, and what is of moment far and beyond all else, the meaning and spirit of this past so fully realized becomes the vehicle through which the communal and commonwealth hearts and minds may pro- ject their ideals.
No such vitalized traditions speak from the surroundings of the resident of the newer West. We are, of course, joint heirs with our eastern brethren of the glorious national tra- ditions, but our mountains and plains, rivers and valleys do not serve us as bearers of historic associations. We cannot, as is possible with those in the East with their surroundings, people in imagination our landscapes with scenes that enrich the thought and 'nourish the heart. Yet it is this consciousness of a common heritage associated with one's home surroundings and this use of it that affords the best basis for strength of the sentiment and the spirit of communal unity. All those who dwell in that larger portion of the country stretching from Min- nesota to Southern California and from Louisiana to the Puget Sound country are in prime need of halos of associations for ​
74 F. G. YOUNG
their surroundings. These vouchsafed, bonds of sympathy and community of interest would arise affording the only really indispensable capital-fund for life enrichment. It must ever be borne in mind that out of the sublimated elements of a peo- ple's past their bibles are made. It must be their own essen- tial and peculiar achievements that become the well-spring of communal nobility from which issue the refinement of senti- ment, visions and ideals.
For this history of the "Economic Beginnings of the Far West," Miss Coman should have the credit of having made a unique initial contribution toward the end of enabling the west- erner to see each object of his surroundings as a burning bush. There are two characteristics in Miss Coman's handling of the source material for her work that give it its significance. For the first time the trans-Mississippi part of the country is identi- fied as having a degree of historical unity. The annals of the different sections of this region are made to show the under- lying unity in the movements through which the occupation of it was consummated. The progressive ensemble of result of the converging advances upon this territory by the Spaniard and Frenchman, and by the Russian, Englishman and Ameri- ca'n is revealed so clearly that it is seen as a whole from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the middle of the nine- teenth. The essential features of the process through which the darkness of barbarism was dispelled from the whole of this realm are made assimilable. A mental picture of it as a whole is possible from the moment the first white man, a Spaniard, rode into its borders ; and a continuing visiori of it is presented uninterruptedly through three centuries until it is all assem- bled under the Stars and Stripes.
The "Economic Beginnings" of the title refers to the other characteristic that gives peculiar significance to Miss Coman's work. The prowess of virtue through which the white man supersedes the red mah and through which one type or nation- ality of white occupants supplants another has always been, and seems destined ever to be, a prowess in economic virtues. The ​
COMAN'S ECONOMIC BEGINNINGS OF THE FAR WEST 75
highest requisite for survival and that which has given best guaranty of possession here has not been power to conquer other men, but ability to utilize nature most largely and for highest and largest human good. A work that purports to be the story of the "Economic Beginnings" naturally passes in review the long procession of exploiters the seekers for treas- ures already accumulated and heaped in supposed cities and, after a long interval, the forty-niners who were eager to hunt for gold, though hid in beds of placer and veins of quartz ; the trappers of the beavers or traders for it and the hunters for the buffalo, animals that nature had led into this region; others who introduced horses and cattle to roam as wild; and finally those who introduced and husbanded both plants and animals and established more humane systems of relationship among themselves as husbandmen. Since economic efficiency and fair- ness seems to be the test determining destiny, and most certainly so in this region unencumbered by any established ogres of the past, it is well that a beginning should have been made in setting forth and emphasizing the economic principle in its shaping of the past. Such a narrative as Miss Coman's in sug- gesting to the people of the different commonwealths of this "Far West the central motive in the history they are making should aid them in utilizing all their past toward giving unity, strength and effectiveness in their collective aspirations and thus greatly accelerate their pace of social progress.
I will let Miss Comah herself state the means and method she relied upon. I quote from the preface of the work : "A goodly number of men who bore an influential part in this long and complex contest left .diaries, letters or journals re- counting what they saw and did. I have endeavored to tell the story as they understood it without bias or elaboration." This plan of handling i'nvolves much shifting of the scenes as one source is laid down and another is taken up. In fact, the presentation as a whole strongly suggests the effect of an his- torical panorama, with breaks such as would be occasioned by instantaneous flights from one region to another far distant ​
76 F. G. YOUNG
as the eyes of one narrator and actor were dispensed with and those of another were made use of.
Such a method of treatment in which "bias" and "elabora- tion" are barred out, and which tells the story as the actors "understood it," without interpretation by the author, has prime negative virtues, but also decidedly positive defects. It makes a synthesis of annals but hardly history. However, the author fortunately does not fully keep the pledge made in the preface. She does indulge in effective interpretation, particularly in connection with conditions under which the Spanish explora- tions and attempted occupations were made ; in the fine picture given of the influx of people into the first belt of the trans- Mississippi region ; in the summary of the causes of the virtually complete failure of the Spanish occupation of California. With all the advantages of perspective the author had, as compared with the points of view of the individual narrators, and with the birds-eye view of the whole field and of the course of the three-centuries-long struggle, it is difficult to see wherein the author's self-restraint under such circumstances can be called a virtue.
As a rule each actor is brought upon the scene without in- troduction and the reader is also left to his own resources as to the lay of the ground, resources, climate, prior occupation of the region in which an economic beginning is to be at- tempted. If the reader is to be interested and enlighte'ned with regard to the play of economic forces, should not an economic survey have been made of each region as it was brought within the field of view ? Should not the standards of living of the natives and of the incoming white men have been compared, their different valuations of the goods of life and the facilities of transportation and markets used referred to? But this is a matter of judgment and is probably suggesting an impossibility if the admirably clear cut views of the actual course of events in each case were to be realized.
A very serious complaint must, however, be registered against the author of this work. She evidently spared herself the ​
COHAN'S ECONOMIC BEGINNINGS OF THE FAR WEST 77
tedious task of verifying each statement made where she is specific in her summaries. Not a few errors, too, are due to careless proof reading: On pages 44-5 we have Lieutenant Pike commissioned "to explore the sources of the Red River with a view to defining the watershed that divided Louisiana from the United States." It should of course be "Louisiana from the Spanish country." On page 276 Lewis and Clark, on leaving Fort Clatsop, are represented as leaving "a rostrum of the party," instead of a roster. In a note referring to a statement made of the experiences of Hunt's party at Caldron Linn, oh page 320, "Milburn" is given as the name of the Idaho town located at these rapids, when it is Milner.
In the errors pointed out below the reviewer confines him- self to those casually noticed in those portions of the narrative that relate to the old Oregon country : On page 209, "Captains Portland and Dixon" should be Captains Portlock a'nd Dixon. The error is repeated. On page 219, Lieutenant Broughton is represented as naming "Mts. Hood, St. Helen and Rainier," while exploring the Columbia River. Mt. Rainier had been named some time before in the course of Vancouver's explora- tions; Mt. St. Helens was named by Vancouver while he was off the mouth of the Columbia vainly trying to enter. Miss Coman endorses this latter statement as a fact on page 270. Again Broughton did not name "the outer harbor Gray's Bay," but the recess in the north shore of the river to the northeast of Tongue Point was named for Captain Gray by Broughton as indicating the limit of Gray's voyage up the river. On page 270 we are told that "on October 19 they (Lewis and Clark) came in view of a snow-clad peak to the west, which they rightly surmised to be the mountain named St. Helens by Vancouver." It is true that they surmised the mountain in view to be St. Helens, but it is most likely that it was Mt. Adams, a higher peak on the eastern side of the range, while St. Helens is on the western side and not in view except on very elevated points east of range. On page 324 McKenzie of the Astor Company is said to have "built a fort at its (the Snake's) ​
78 F. G. YOUNG
junction with the Boise * *" Mackenzie's location is re- peatedly spoken of as among the Nez Perces and was probably on the Snake, at or near the mouth of the Clearwater, far from the mouth of the Boise. On page 331 the claim that Astoria was not thought of in connection with the making of the terms of the Treaty of Ghent is false, as is proven by the instructions given the plenipotentiaries. The Russian-American Company is quite regularly but mistakenly given the designation "Rus- sian-American Fur Company." On page 142, volume II, Mrs. Whitman's name appears as Priscilla Prentis Whitman, when it should be Narcissa Prentiss Whitman. On page 153 the pas- toral settlement is located "at Multnomah Is, (Governor's Is- land Willamette Falls)." This was not physically possible. On page 148 we are told that the immediate result "of the Whitman massacre was a punitive expedition under the aus- pices of the United States." All the punishment the Cayuses received was administered by military forces under the Pro- visional Government of Oregon. The annual migrations of Oregon pioneers from 1839 to 1849 are, on page 155, repre- sented as having as their goal Waiilatpu instead of the Wil- lamette Valley. On page 156 the "caravan" of emigrants "of one hundred and twenty wagons" is spoken of as Whitman's and is claimed to be the first to cross the Snake River Desert and the Blue Mountains to Walla Walla. It was hardly Whit- man's, nor was it the first to cross the Snake River Desert and the Blue Mountains. Dr. Floyd is, on page 161, mentioned as "senator from Virginia," when he introduced the Oregon res- olution of inquiry. He was a member of the House. On page 162 Hall J. Kelley is given credit for supplying the statistics used for Floyd's report. It is very doubtful that he contributed any. Survivors of the Astor expedition and the maritime fur traders, as well as Prevost's report, are more likely sources. On page 163 Champoeg is spoken of as Ewing Young's ranch. It was at some distance on the other side of the river. On page 164 we learn that "the Donation Act of 1850 finally real- ized the liberal land policy proposed by Hall, Whitman and ​
ft COHAN'S ECONOMIC BEGINNINGS OF THE FAR WEST 79
Lrnn." By "Hall" probably Hall J. Kelley is intended. The credit for suggesting the liberal land policy should have been confined to Senator Linn, who probably received the suggestion from the practices of the older states with their western lands. Notwithstanding these strictures charging inaccuracy in the details and limitations in articulating the different parts of her narrative, Miss Coman's "Economic Beginnings of the Far West" deserves the largest measure of gratitude for the new light of unity it throws on the past of this great realm and for
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FIRST PRESIDENT OF OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY
FOREWORD
THE editorial page of The Oregonian throughout the decades the paper was in charge of Harvey W. Scott, bore constant witness of an unremitting labor of love in the course of Pacific Northwest history, on the part of its editor. All future generations of Oregonians will owe a large measure of indebtedness to him for the light his pen threw on the part of Oregon and for the insight he gave into the significance of the unique beginnings of this western outlying community.
When conditions were ripe for the organization of the Oregon Historical Society, he was among the first to cooperate to effect the founding of it and was made its first president. For nearly half a century historical activity here received from him the kindliest fostering and there is thus peculiar fitness in the use of the Quarterly to convey to the world the memorials of him incorporated in this issue.
   THIS NUMBER IN INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF
   Harvey W. Scott
   Editor, pioneer, scholar, commonwealth-builder, exponent of national authority, leader of thought in the formative period of the Oregon Country, distinguished figure in American Journalism. His breadth and resource of mind, his grasp of abiding principles, his teachings of sturdy moralities, his powers of exposition, made him widely admired. His life labor as helper of men in the Pacific West made him widely beloved
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
John Tucker Scott (1809-80), Harvey W. Scott's father.
Anne Roelofson Scott (1811-52), Harvey W. Scott's mother.
Harvey W. Scott at 19 years of age at Lafayette in 1857.
Harvey W. Scott at 27 years of age; at Portland in 1865 on becoming editor of the Oregonian.
Harvey W. Scott at 37 years of age, at Portland in 1875.
Harvey W. Scott at 50 years of age, at Portland in 1888.
Harvey W. Scott at his Editorial desk in 1898.
Harvey W. Scott at 62 years of age, at Bingham Springs in 1900.
Harvey W. Scott at 66 years of age, near Washington, D. C, in 1804.
Harvey W. Scott at 70 years of age.
Harvey W. Scott at Seaside, Oregon, in 1905.
Harvey W. Scott at 70 years of age, at Portland in 1908.
Facsimile of writing of Harvey W. Scott.
Harvey W. Scott and George H. Williams at Portland in 1904.
Harvey W. Scott's library in his home at Portland.