# Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 18/Number 3

THE QUARTERLY
of the
Oregon Historical Society
Copyright, 1917, by the Oregon Historical Society
The Quarterly disavows responsibility for the positions taken by contributors to its pages.
THE PIONEER STIMULUS OF GOLD
By Leslie M. Scott
First of the active forces of pioneer progress on the Pacific Coast was the quest for gold.^ This energy was general in area, from California to the Yukon. It drew world-wide interest and brought a cosmopolitan immigration by land and sea. It started activities not before known. It explored every nook and cranny of this vast region. The oxteam pioneers were a slow moving race before the gold era drove them from Middle-West habits to new industries of various farm production, transportation and trade. The resistant habits were strong in the Willamette Valley of Oregon — a district proverbial for retarded growth.^
The primitive life of the Oregon pioneers prior to the gold movement, the isolation, the remoteness from currents of the world and the Nation ; the hardships of family existence; the absence of nearly all the necessary comforts of the later day; the lack of markets and the narrow range of industry—all this is but faintly realized by the present generation.^
1 ThtgfAd dinrings of the pioneer time were placers, chiefly in the beds of streams. The surface gold was gathered up in a short time in each locality. The workings of cjuartz gold, bv costly machinery, came later and was carried on in special localities; likewise "hydraulic" methods.
2 Settlement of Willamette Valley began some thirty years prior to the gold period.
3 Description of pioneer life, by Harvey W. Scott, appears in the Jewish Tribune, of Portland, December 19, 1909; The Oregonian, June i6, 1881; June 19. 1902.
​The gold movement began the evolution of varied industry that was necessary for the growth of the country.
The value of the gold treasure extracted from the rocks and earth of the interior region of the Pacific Northwest and Montana was very large in the then undeveloped condition of this region. In the best years, 1861-67, the treasure amounted to $20,000,000 in gold a year, or $140,000,000 for the period. British Columbia yielded $3,000,000 more a year. This com- bined gold yield was nearly three-fourths that of California in the same space of time.
Before the gold period which began in 1858-60, the region, of which we are reading, was the most remote, and had the scantiest white population of any part of the Nation. News from the Eastern centers was four to six weeks old when it reached Portland, Oregon, by way of the California overland stage route, and thence by ocean steamship northward. The mails came to Portland by sea twice a month. The admission of Oregon as a state, February 14, 1859, became known in Oregon a month afterwards.'^ Lincoln had been ncnninated four weeks before knowledge of the event reached Oregon and Washington.® The interior region east of Cascade Mountains was an aboriginal wilderness, except at the Hudson's Bay Company's posts, and along the beds of a few streams where "prospectors" had moved the rocks and gravel,* near the Old Oregon Trail and the Barlow Road^^ towards the Willamette, and up and down the travel route of the Columbia River between The
7 News of the admission of Oregon was published in The Oregouian, at Portland; March 19, 1859*
8 News of the nomination of Lincoln was published in The Oregouiam, June 23, i860. The nomination took place May 18, i860.
? Reports of gold by Indians of Kamloops are said to have been made as early <2. The real hunt for gold did not begin until i8S4-55* Frequent reports of gold in 1855 a(>pear in the files of The Oregonian of that year.
10 The Barlow Road, across Cascade Mountains, was opened in 1845-46. ​
The Pioneer Stimulus of Gold 149
Dalles*^ and Wallula. Settlers were enjoined from the interior country in 1856, by order of General Wool, commander of the department of the Pacific, U. S. A., who sought thereby to placate the savages."
Frontier settlements existed in the valleys of Willamette, Umpqua, Rogue and Cowlitz rivers and at Puget Sound. Their population was sparse and the people had simple wants, few goods, arduous toil and the realization that they dwelt on the edge of the world. Forests, on every side, baflfled the seekers of the soil, except the strongest and most courageous, who could cut the trees and grub the stumps. Mails were distributed weekly or fortnightly, and the routes were few. Newspapers were few and their contents meager. The Willam- ette River, and the Colvmibia and Cowlitz rivers, served, with steamboats, as almost the only avenues of transportation. Roads were bad and practically impassable in Winter. Occa- sional stage lines were operated in favorable season between the main towns — Portland, Oregon City, Salem, Lafayette, Albany, Winchester (near Roseburg) and Jacksonville, Cres- cent City, Yreka, arid the Klamath and Trinity River mines, and between the head of Cowlitz navigation, near the modern town of Kelso, and 01)rmpia.
The first gold discovery, prior even to that in California, appears to have been in the Malheur country in 1845, on the route of the "Meek cut-oflf party."^' The gold was not then recognized, and subsequent efforts to locate the spot were
11 The Columbia River afforded the earliest route for pioneers between Willamette Valley and the interior country. Wagons were floated down stream on rafts or were hauled ^long a route which followed the Washington side below Cascades.
12 This order, dated August 2, 1856, at Benicia. California, headquarters of the department of the Pacific, directed to Colonel George Wright at The Dalles, and signed W. W. Mackall, assistant adjutant general, is contained in 34th Cong. 3d sess., vol. I, ot. 2, p. 160. The order read: "No emigrants or other whites, except the Hudson's Bay Company, or persons having ceded rights from the Indians, will be permitted to settle or remain in the Indian country, or on land not ceded by treaty, confirmed by the Senate, and approved by the President of the United States. These orders are not, however, to apply to miners engaged in collecting gold at the Colville mines. The miners will, however, be notified that, rtiould they interfere with the Indians or their squaws, they will be punished and sent out of the country." General Woo! thou^t the Cascade Mountains "a most valuable wall of separation between the two races." {Life of Isaac /. Stevens, by Hazard Stevens, vol. ii, p. 226).
13 See The Oregonian. November 1, 1903, p. 28; Februarv 14, 1896, p. 7. The 'Host diggings of 1845*' are supposed to have been on Malheur River. For details of these mines in 1861, see The Oregonian, August 26, 1861. See also note 88, p. 164, following. ​
150 Lesue M. Scott
futile. Nearly three years later, the Sacramento Valley, in California, was the scene of the discovery that began the golden career of that commonwealth.^* Next year, in 1849, a party of Oregonians found gold in Rogue River near Table Rock,^^ but mining did not begin in that valley imtil two years afterwards.** Klamath and Trinity rivers, in Northern Cali- fornia, began yielding in 184S5^In the Umpqua coimtry, the fortune-hunting expedition of Freman Winchester, Dr. Henry Payne and others, to the mouth of that river in August, 1850, in the vessel, Samuel Roberts, though not successful in finding gold, was a very important move of the gold period. This party joined hands with the Oregon pioneers, Levi Scott, Jesse Applegate, and Joseph Sloan, and founded the towns of Umpqua City, Winchester, Elkton, Scottsburg and Gardiner. This exploiting company opened a trail from Scottsburg, near the sea, to Winchester, in the interior valley, in 1851, from which resulted a large trade centering at Scottsburg, and a rapid growth there which promised to produce the metropolis of Oregon. Scottsburg controlled the trade of the Rogue and Umpqua regions for a decade.*^ A similar expedition, in 1851, founded Port Orford, under Captain William Tichenor, for trade with the interior gold fields. Exploration of the Coos Bay Company by miners, from Jacksonville, followed in 1853, resulting in large gold discoveries at the mouth of Coquille
14 Gold was discovered near Coloma, on the north fork of American River, by James W. Marshall. Oregon immigrant of 1844, and Charles Dennett, also an Oregon immigrant ot 1844 (The Oregonian, Tune i3i 1900). News of the discovery reached Portland in August, 1848, by the scnooner Honolulu, Captain Newell, after he had shrewdly bought all the tools and provisions that the limited pioneer market afforded. Thousands of people left Oregon for the California gold fields. William G. Buffum and wife went overland from Amity, Yamhill County, in July, 1848.
15 This party was en route to the California gold fields. A narrative of the party and of the Rogue River discovery, by Lee Laughlin, a member of the partv. appears in Tht Oregonian, January 21. 1900. Gold was discovered at Jacksonville in December, 1851. The town and the gold activities are described in 1855 by Thomas J. Dryer, in The Oregonian, June aj, 1855.
16 For details of pioneer gold mining in Southern Oregon, see The Oregonian. December 21, 1902, p. 25, by D. H. Stovall; August 24, 1902, p. 21, by Luther Hasbrouck; May 21, 1882. p. 2; Mav 21, i88s. P- 8; July 31, 1852; December 18. 1852; December 6, 1885, by Cyrus Olncy (Gold Beach and Crescent City); Febru- ary 19, 1853; March 19* April 16, May 7> i4i August 27, September 3, 1853; April 5, II, 1886; October 28, 1854 (Cow Creek); May 12, 21, 1855; February 4* 1863; December 20, 1856.
17 Scottsburg was founded in i8<;o by Levi Scott, immierant of 1844* The town of Crescent City, founded in 1853, and the opening of a wagon route be- tween Rogue River and that town in the same year, diverted trade from Scotts- burg. Scottsburg in 1855 is described by Thomas J. Dryer, in The Oregenian, June 23, 1855. For narrative of the Samuel Roberts expedition, see the Quarterly. vol. xvii, pp. 341-57- Yreka was founded in 1851. ​
The Pioneer Stimulus of Gold 151
River and the establishment of the towns of Empire City and Marshfield.
Scattering appearances of gold, in 1853-54, were aimounced from Burnt River in Eastern Oregon, and from Yakima, Pend Oreille and Coeur d'Alene rivers, but their significance was not then realized.^® "Not enough [gold]- has yet been found to repay the labor of procuring it," wrote Major Benjamin Alvord in 1853.^ Authorities do not agree upon the first discoveries in the interior country, but it is known that the real awakening came from discoveries near Fort Colville, in the Spring of 1855,*^ and on Kootenai River, about the same time. Later in the year the John Day Valley in Oregon was favorably prospected.^
Indian hostilities then delayed pursuit of gold in the interior country, but in 1858 many prospectors were again busy along the waters of Columbia River and on both sides of the Cana- dian boundary. Reports of gold in Thompson and Fraser rivers in 1856-57 produced the gfreat "rush" of 1858 to those streams. Gold-seeking thence spread over British Columbia, and a great development of mining took place in that province in 1860-70. The Idaho mines began activities in 1860,*^ those of John Day^ and Powder River, in Eastern Oregon, in 1861 f^
iSFor gold discoveries of Burnt River, see Th€ Oregonian. July 15, 1854: }\x\y 31, 1855; July 18, September 23, 1861; near Fort Colville and on Pend Oreille River, June 23, 185s, and many issues following; September i, 1855; No- vember 3, 1855, May 16, July 11, 18, September 26, October 3, 1857; January 30, 1858; Yakima River, April 22, 1854.
19 Letter of Major Alvord appears in The Oregonian, April 16. 1853*
20 See Howay's British Columbia, pp. 9-11.
21 For details of the John Dav mmes in 1855, see The Oregonian^ Julv 21, 1855; narrative of discoverv bjr earry fur hunters, and again in 1862, ibtd.. Febru- ary 14, 1806, p. 7. These diggings became widely known in 1861-62. Canyon City was a large town. See The Oregonian, March 18, June 27, August 7, 21, 27, September 8, November 16, 1862; February 11, 14, 1865.
22 The Clearwater mines were discovered in i860; Salmon River mines, in 1 861: those of Boise Basin, in 1862, and of Owyhee, in 1863. Reminiscences of the Idaho mines, by Joaquin Miller, appear in The Oregonian, November 24* 1890, p. 7; history of the mines, by Preston W. Gillette, Jtme 14, 1899, p. 9; July 17. 1899, P* 6; Ke also, ibid., September 21, 1887, January 3, 1890.
23 See note 21.
24 Powder River placers were at their best in 1861-62. The town of Auu^m became the largest in the interior countrv, and was in decline in 1864 (The Orego- nian, April 20, 1864). The celebrateo Auburn ditch, sixteen miles long, was built in 1862-63 bv Portland capital, at a cost of $40,000. For details, see The Oregonian, November 15, 1861; May i, June 5, 11, 17, 19. August 6. 8, 14. Sep- tember 17, 29, October i, 4, 10, November 21, 27. December i<, 1862; January 28, February 23, April 9, May s, 14. June 8, October 7, 1863; April 4, 20, July 16, October 29, 1864; see history of Auburn dig^ngs. Portland Bulletin, February 5, 1873, p. I. Gold was discovered near Baker in 1861 (The Oregonian^ January 27, 1883K Granite Creek was busy in 1863 (The Oregonian, Tune 10, July 23, 1863). Eaffle Credc had placers and quartz ledges (v>id., February 15. 1865). Quartz gola began to be mmed near Auburn in 1864 (tbid., October 29, i864). ​
152 Leslie M. Scott
those of Montana, in 1862.^ Prospectors steadily pushed northward to Skeena River, and, in later years, to the head- waters of the Yukon.
It may thus be seen that the search for the precious metal on the Pacific Coast was a general and wide movement, con- tinuing many years. It had the same aspects on both sides of the Canadian line, but difficulties and privations increased with the northern latitude. Oregon's part in this movement was not a separate one, either in time or method. When Willamette Valley farmers went "stampeding" to the mines of Clearwater,^ Salmon River,^ Boise,^ Owyhee and John Day, thousands of others were going thither also, from many parts of the world, and to Eastern Washington, Montana and British Columbia. The pioneers of Willamette Valley and Cowlitz and Puget Sound hardly stopped to think of the immensity of the gold movement. And it may be added that it included, also, Nevada and Colorado. In gec^^^i^y, indus- try, transportation, politics, the results were far-reaching.
Prospectors explored every river, mountain, lake and plain. They toiled along all the streams and over the intervening ridges. They learned the contours, the possible routes of trade, the lands available for tillage. They were the advance agents of the succeeding farmers, merchants and transporta- tion men, the geodetic surveyors of their time. The remote sources of the Rogue, Umpqua, Willamette, Columbia and Fraser rivers were their objectives. Their needs and those of the miners located trade centers, and routes of traffic, and caused the growth of cities.
25 Grasshopper Credc dinpngg w<re discovered in 1862; Deer Lodge, in i86a: Alder Gulch, in i86j; Last Cnance Gulch, in 1864.
26 For details of th« Qearwater mines, see The Oregonian of i86i; Maj 6. 11. 14, 20, 27, 29, 30; June I, 4. 5. 7t M. iS. \7' iQ, ao, 22, 24, 26, 27; July i, 7. II, 17, 18, 23, 24, 30; August 20, 26; September 3, 4, 7, 9, 11; 1862: February 6, April 28, June 17. July ». ". August 6; June 23, 1863; January 22, 1863; April 30, 1863: April 12, 1893.
27 ror details of the Salmon River diggings, see Tht Oregonian, October 18. 21, 25 ; November <. 14. 18: December 10, 13, 17, i9t ao, 31. 1861; February 6, 20; March 31J April 2, 18, 25; May 8: June 14, 17. 27; J^y 8. 24^ a^, 26; Au- gust 4, 18; September 3, 10, 1862; January 3i, 1863. For description of the routes to Salmon River mines, see The Oregonian, December 20, 1861; May 8,
28 Discoveries of gold in Boise Basin in 1862 caused a "rush** there in 1863- 64 For details, see The Oregonian, November 4, 8, 11, 13, 17, 18, 25, a6, 1862; May 14, X863; September 19* 1863; August 10, 1864. ​
The Pioneer 'Stimulus of Gold 153
Jacksonville, Scottsburg, Crescent City, Yreka became the leading supply points in Southern Oregon and Northern Cali- fornia. Portland soon leaped into pre-eminence, as the metrop- olis of the region, and held the chief rank forty years, until commerce routes of Alaska and the Orient transferred the primacy to Puget Sound. The population of Portland more than doubled, from 1280, in 1857, to 2917, in 1860. It grew to 6000 in 1865, to 9565 in 1870, and to 17,578 in 1880.» Vic- toria grew, beginning in 1858, from a sleepy trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company, to be a thriving town, with a large inland trade. Its population in 1857 was a few hundred and, in 1863, 6000,^ New Westminster, founded in 1859, became a leading city on the mainland, and once the capital of the province. The towns of Hope, Yale and Lytton were active in the trade of the Fraser River region.
The trade of the gold fields founded the cities of Jackson- ville, Scottsburg, Roseburg, Lewiston,^^ Boise^ and Helena,^ and many hamlets whose names are suggestive of the mining era. The Dalles" and Walla Walla^ became live centers for supplies and outfits. From those towns parties went to Fraser River in 1858,'* one led by Joel Palmer, who took the first wagons there, from The Dalles, by way of Okanogan River and Kamloops;^ the other, led by Archibald McKinlay and David McLoughlin, from Walla Walla. The latter town con- trolled a large share of the trade of the Qearwater and Salmon
a9 See Htnrey W. Scott's History of Portland, pp. 143. 151, is8. 30 See Howay's British Columbia, p. iS3-
fi Lewiston was founded in 1861. For details of the growth of the town, hs Oregonian, June 4. 1861; June 23, 27, i86a; May 12, 1889: January i, 1900; Quarterly, vol. xvi, pp 1S8-89. 3 J Boise was founded in 1861.
33 Helena was founded in 1864.
34 The Dalles grew from a Methodist mission, established in 1838. The Gov- ernment established a military post there in 1850. For descriptitm ojf the town in i86a. see The Ortgonian, June 11, September 11. 1862; description in 1848, ibid.. April 14, 1868. The town was a boat landing for Oregon Trail pioneers, en route to Willamette Valley. It was incorporated January a6, 1857 (Quarterly, vol. xvi, p. a6).
35 For description of early Walla Walla, see The Oregonian, August 10, November 18, 1861; March 21, June 18. 1862.
36 The mines of Fraser and Thompson rivers and the routes to them are described in The Oregonian. April 10, 24* May i, 15, June 12, 26, July 3. 17,
37' Joel Palmer describes the route to Simillcameen and Rock Creek in the Salem Statesman, February 14. i860; also in The Oregonian, February 4. i860. From Old Fort Okanogan the route was that of the fur trading days of the North-West Company (Quarterly* vol. xv, pp, 1-36, by William C Brown). ​
154 Lesue M. Scott
River mines, beginning in 1860. Umatilla Landing, where the "freighting" road to and from the Boise and Owyhee mines joined the 0)lumbia River, became a large town.*® Helena, which was founded in 1864, had trade connections with both the Missouri and the Columbia rivers.
The earlier gold activities that began in California in 1848, likewise had stimulated affairs of the North Pacific Coast. The Willamette V^ley and Puget Sound then found the markets opening for farm products and lumber. Money be- came abundant and prices soared. The coins were stamped by private firms in California, or by the Oregon Exchange Company, of Oregon City, which coined "Beaver money" in 1849. A local commerce sprang up. Prosperity then visited the Old Oregon Country for the first time. There was then a market for the products that never before had had an outlet. But the second prosperity, coming with the local gold move- ment in 1860, far exceeded that of ten years before.
Fertile areas in the interior grew in usefulness and pro- ductivity, with mining development. The valley of the Walla Walla was one of the earliest localities in this work, beginning in 1858-59. Grand Ronde River valley in Oregon, a very productive district, was first settled probably in 1861.'* Powder River also became a farming district. Payette and Boise River valleys in Idaho, the Bitter Root and Gallatin valleys, in Montana, contributed farm products and livestock to the growth of the country. Such products could not be supplied locally to meet the demand, and commanded high prices, so that, for many persons, farming was more profitable than mining. Woolen manufacture started at Salem in 1857,*^ at Oregon City in 1864,*^ and at Brownville in 1866.^. Agriculture be-
38 The town of Umatilla was laid out in i86^ (Th^ Oregonian, May i6, i86j) as a landing; place for steamboats to connect with the road to Boise and Owyhee. For descriotion of the town, see Thg Oregonian, June 23, 24, 1863; I'ebruary 9, June 24, 1864; March 23, i86<.
39 The town of La Grande began to grow in i86a and had rapid progress in 1863 (Tht Oregonian, November 27, 1862; December 25, 1863).
40 The Willamette Woolen Manufacturing Company was promoted by Joseph Watt. See Transactions of Oregon Pioneer Association for 1875, p. 38; Thi Ore- gonian. May 6, 1876, p. 3.
41 The Oregon Citv Woolen Manufacturing Company. See T^e Oregonian, August o, 1873. p. 3; November 25, 1872. p. 3; November 11, 1865, p. 2.
42 See Himes and Lang's History of the WUlamettg Valley, pp. 579-80; The Oregokian, May 19, 1875* p. 2; June 28, i87Sf P* >• ​
The Pioneer Stimulus of Gold 155
came a growing utility in British Columbia.*® The livestock industry grew ahead of farming in the interior country. Large shipments by sea went from Columbia River to Victoria and Fraser River. Cattle and horses were taken up the Columbia River to Idaho and British Columbia, or driven across the Cascade Mountains.^ Ocean ships, bearing cargoes for the needs of the fast-growing population, took return cargoes of lumber, wool, hides, potatoes and grain. Beginnings of iron smelting were made at Oswego, near Portland, in 1866.*^
The need of supplies for prospectors and miners far inland from centers of production and transit, produced large means of transportation. The great highway, the most practicable one, was the Columbia River. A heavy traffic gravitated to this highway, and was monopolized by one transportation com- pany.*® Long lines of transport, by river steamboats, freight wagons and pack animals, led to the interior country from Columbia River, Fraser River, Missouri River, via Fort Bent<m, Sacramento River, and the Old Oregon Trail. Fast and beau- tiful steamboats plied the waters of Columbia and Fraser rivers. More business offered in the rush seasons of 1861-63 than the boats of Columbia River could carry.* This traffic formed the basis of the original stockholders of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, which continues to the present time, and has greatly multiplied in recent years. Some of the most sub- stanial fortunes were then founded, including those of Robert R. Thompson, John C. Ains worth (Sr.), William S. Ladd, Jacob Kamm and Simeon G. Reed. The rush to Idaho, as chronicled in 1861-64, exceeded in eagerness and volume any mining rush
^3 For srrowth of agriculture in British Columbia, see Howay's British Co- lumbia, op. 590-60^.
44 See Trimble's Mining Advance, pp. 107-8.
45 The Oregon Iron Company. The plant continued work spasmodically until 1885. The town, Oswego, was platted in 1867. See Tfu Oreganian, February a8, 1865; August 22, 1866; August 27j 1867.
a6 The Oregon Steam Navigation Company. For history of this company, see the Quarterly, vol. v, pp. 120-32, by P. W. Gillette; vol. ix, pp. 274*94> by Irene Lincoln Poppleton •
47 For descnption of Columbia River transportation in 1861, see The Orego- MioMv May 27. 20, 30, June s, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 1861. The press of business is narrated by P. W. uillette in the Quarterly, vol. v, pp. 125-28. "At Portland the rush of freight to the docks was so great that drays and trucks had to form and stand in line to get their turn in delivering their goods" {ibid., p. 128). See also, ibid., vol. ix, pp. 274-79, by Irene Lincoln Poppleton. ​
156 Leslie M. Scott
in the Pacific Northwest, until the rush to the Klondike, in 1897, burst upon an astonished world and exceeded any other similar movement in history since that to California. Farmers of Willamette Valley and Cowlitz and Puget Sound, carpenters and blacksmiths of the towns and villages — there were no cities then — and workingmen in all vocations, dropped their implements (1861), secured pack horses for the journey beyond The Dalles, boarded the river steamers of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company and hied them to the Idaho placer fields.
In the years 1861-64 the Oregon Steam Navigation Company transported to the upper country 60,320 tons, of which nearly 22,000 tons belonged to the year 1864. In this period the num- ber of passengers up and down river was nearly 100,000; 36,000 in 1864.*® Careful estimate places the number of persons in the mining camps of Oregon, Washington and Idaho, in 1862, at 30,000.^ This number greatly increased in the next three years, and especially in Montana. The boats for Portland, up river, in 1862, often carried more than 200 pas- sengers each. In April and May, 1862, the total revenue at The Dalles from passenger trips on three steamboats, then ply- ing the Upper River, was more than $50,000. One steamer took in more than $18,000 for freight and passengers, in one trip.«»
The first steamboat on the Willamette and Lower Columbia rivers, the Columbia, had appeared in 1850;*^* on the Middle River (Cascades-Celilo), the James P. Flint, in 1851 f^ on the Upper River (above Celilo), the Colonel Wright, in 1858, which next year opened navigation to Priest Rapids and above Lewiston.^ On Eraser River, steamboats began running in
48 See the Quarterly^ vol. ix, p. 290; vol. xvi, p. 167.
49 Ihid., p. 156.
50 Ihid.
51 The first steamboat was the Columbia, built at Asltoria, in the Summer of 1850. The second was the Lot IVhiUomb, launched at Milwaukee December as, 1850.
52 The Flint was built by the Bradfords and J. O. Van Bergen (Wriijht'a Marxnt History of the Northwest, p. 34). This boat was taken to the Lower River in 18^2. The next steamboat on the Middle River was the Allan, in i853-«6. owned by Allan, McKinlay and Companv, old Hudson's Bay men (.ibid., p. 38). The third was the Mary, built in 1854 by the Bradfords and Lawrence W. Coe. The fourth was the Hassalo. built bv the Bradfords (tWrf., p. 6s).
53 The Colonel Wright was built by Robert R. Thompson and Lawrence W. Coe at the mouth of Deschutes River. ​
The PioNEpi Stimulus of Gold 157
1858, and the Governor Douglas was built at Victoria that year for business on that river. Many new steamboats were built on Coliunbia and Fraser Rivers after 1860. To facilitate^ traffic, portage railroads were opened at Cascades and Celilo in 1863." The Oregon Steam Navigation Company built steamboats on the upper reaches of Snake and Columbia rivers. At Old Fort Boise, in 1866, it built the Shoshone to operate on Snake River dt)wn to Olds Ferry. In the same year it launched, on Lake Pend Oreille, the Mary Moody. The year before it launched the Forty-Nine to navigate the Columbia River across the Canadian boundary up to Death Rapids. Steamboats on Missouri River offered competition to the Co- lumbia River route in Montana, by steaming up to Fort Benton in 1859 and afterwards, and there connecting with the Mullan Road, built in 1859-62.*"^ But the Missouri route was not dependable, because the steamboats could not every year ascend to Fort Benton. The main freight routes on land were the following: From Umatilla and Wallula, on Coliunbia River, across Blue Mountains, along Old Oregon Trail to Boise Basin, Owyhee and Salt Lake City.**
From The Dalles, on Columbia River, to John Day, Powder River, Burnt River and Malheur River and Owyhee."
54 F. A. Chenow«th built a portage tram road at Cascades (north side) in
_ (P. W. Gillette in Qtuirteriy, vol. v, p. 121). The Bradford brothers (D. F.
and P. F.) rebuilt the road in 1856. In the latter year W. R. Kilbom built a
rival portage on the south bank, which was rebuilt and improved by J. S. Ruckle
i8sc and
and H. Olmsted in May, 1861. The Oregon Steam Navigation Company absorbed the rival portages in 1862 and built a new portage on the north side in 1862-63 (opened April 20, 1863), six miles long. The Celilo portage was a wagon road until the (5regon Steam Navigation Company finished a portage railroad, thirteen miles long, April 23, 1863. For description of the Celilo portage wagon road in 1861, sec The Oregonxan, May 30, June 5. 1861.
55 The distance between Fort Benton and Walla Walla was 624 miles via Mullan Pass, Little Blackfoot River, Hellgate River, Bitter Root River, Sohon Pass and Coeur d'Alene River. The road was intended to provide a shorter route from Fort Laramie into Idaho and Oregon. It was not successful. For description and history, see The Oreffonian, September 18. 1862; August 28, 1862; April 20. 1880. p. 5. The practicability of the route is discussed by Mullan, Robert Newell and Joseph L. Meek, ibid.* April 30, May i, 7* 8, 21. July 22, 1861.
56 A new road was finished between La Grande and Walla Walla in 1863 (TTU Oregonian, July 3X, 1863). Details of the route from Umatilla, ibid,. May 9, 16, 22. 1866; Aug[an II, 1896, p. 3; from Walla Walla, ibid., June 24, 1864. A narrative of the pioneer express between Walla Walla, Lewiston and Boise ap- pears, ibid., August 12, 1906, p. 38; November 22, 30. 1865; August 20, 1883, P«  5. Details of tnese routes are narrated in Hailey's History of Idaho, pp. 95-99t 123-26. The Coitral Pacific railroad diverted traffic from Columbia Kiver, be- ginning in 1869, to Kelton and Winnemucca.
57 This route is described in The Oregonian^ February 6, 1863; March 26. 1864; October 17, 1866, p. 2; March 22^ 1869, p. 3; February 9, 1865. ​
158 Leslie M. Scott
From Priest Rapids or White Bluffs, Wallula or Walla Walla, to Okanogan, Fort Colville and Kootenai; also from Lewiston."
From Fort Benton, on Missouri River, to Helena and Vir- ginia City and Salt Lake.^
From Red Bluff and Chico, in California, to Owyhee f^ also from Sacramento via American River and Humboldt Riyer.
From Yale, on Fraser River, to Barkerville in the Cariboo; from Hope to Similkameen; from Douglas to Lilloet and Cariboo.^
Jacksonville, in Rogue River valley, had routes to Crescent City, Yreka, Sacramento, Winchester (near Roseburg) and Scottsburg. Joel Palmer was a persistent promoter of the route from Priest Rapids to the diggings of Okanogan, Similkameen, Rock Creek and Upper Columbia rivers. Similk- ameen and Rock Creek became famous in 1859 and a big rush took place thither in I860.** Joel Palmer built a road from Priest Rapids, in 1860, and raised a public fund therefor, much of it at Portland. A stage line began the route in 1860. The steamer Colonel Wright ascended to Priest Rapids in 1859, and a town of promise was laid out there,^ but the promise was not fulfilled. Joel Palmer, A. P. Ankeny and others opened a trail for pack trains and cattle through the gorge of the Columbia River on the Oregon side in 1863, as a route to the mines.** This was hardly equal to the present Coltunbia River Highway.*^ The route included ferries at
kB See note 37 preceding for Joel Palmer's description of Ihe Okanogan- Similkameen route. The routes to Kootenai from White Bluffs and Lewiston arc described in Tht Oregonian, March 11, 1865.
59 Steamboat transportation on Missouri River to Fort Benton continued until the opening of the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1882-83. See Bancroft's Montomi. pp. 4*3. 752-53. See also note 55, preceding.
60 The stage route from Red Bluff is described in The Orggonian, February
?i, 1865; the Chico route, September 14, 1865, p. 2. John Mullan started a stage ine from Red Bluff to Silver City in 1865. See Hailey*8 History of Idaho, p. 123; The Oregonian, February 9, 1865.
61 These routes are well described in Howay's British Coiuwibia.
.6a Details of these dinings, by Rufus W. Henry, appear in The Oregonian, May 17, 1861. See also tbid., June 29, 1861; February 4^ i860; November »6, 1859, et ^r^., January 14, February 18, 25, June 23, 30, i860.
63 See The Oregontan. July 10, 1863.
64 John F. Miller made the surveys in 1862 (The Oregonian, November 10, 1862). The road was opened to cattle and pack trains early in 1863 iibid., March 21, 1863). The cost was $15,000 (ibid., December 9, 1864).
65 opened in the Summer of 191 5. ​
The Pioneer Stimulus of Gold 159
Sandy and Hood rivers. The Mullan Road, between Fort Benton and Walla Walla, led prospectors and miners into Bitter Root Valley from both directions.
The growing business of the mining districts opened the way for a daily stage line, between Sacramento and Portland, in September, 1860.^ This utility was of high value to the whole North Pacific Coast. Teleg^i^ connections, between Portland, Sacramento and the Eastern states, followed in March, 1864.*^ This line was extended to Puget Sound, Victoria and New Westminster,®® and up Columbia River.* It was building toward Alaska and Siberia, for Asiatic and European service, when stopped in 1866 by the invention of the Atlantic cable.^ Lines were extended from Salt Lak6 into Idaho and Montana. The growth of the transportation business up and down the coast prepared for the Oregon- California railroad project of Ben HoUaday, who began con- struction in Willamette Valley in 1868. This was the tirst railroad of the North Pacific Coast, except for the portage railroads at Cascades and Celilo. And it may be added that the railroad progress in the West followed closely the gold activi- ties.
The horse stage was used on many local routes that con- nected with the main roads. Ben Holladay was a leading figure in the business between Salt Lake, Walla Walla, Vir- ginia City and Helena. An overland stage, with United States mail, controlled by Ben Holladay, beg^n running from Salt Lake to Fort Hall, Boise and Walla Walla in the Summer of 1864. The first mail reached Walla Walla by this route
66 The California Stage Company's schedule between Sacramento and Portland was seven days in Summer and twelve days in Winter. For history of the route, see Thi Oregonian. November i, 1865, p. i; details of the route, ibid., January 22, 1868. p^ 3; April 8, 1863, p. 3; July 30, 1869, p. 3; December 25, 1887, p. ^.
67 The first tranfldontinental through message reached San Francisco Septem- ber 24, 1862. Yreka was the terminus of a local line from Sacramento in 18^8. The aaily stage to Portland afterwards carried messages from Yrdca. The line between Portluid and Yreka was built in 186^-64.
68 Communication between Portland and Olympia besan September 4> 1864, and between Portland and Seattle, October 26, 1864. It was opened to New Westminster April 18, 1865.
69 This line was finished to Cascades May 13, 1868, to The Dalles early in June, 1868, and to Boise, in 1869.
70 The line reached the confluence of Skeena and Kispyox Rivers. See Howay*s British Columbia, pp. 195-201. ​
160 Leslie M. Scott
August 8, 1864.'" Three years later, in 1867, the general progress, due to mining, caused the Government to extend the mail service to Portland directly from Salt Lake and Walla Walla, instead of by way of Sacramento, thereby shortening the service some six days. In the same year the Government began mail service between Wallula and Helena, using pack horses between the Columbia River (frequently at White Bluffs) and Lake Pend Oreille, and steamboats on Lake Pend^ Oreille and Carle's Fork. This route began to be used by Portland merchants in 1865, to reach the Montana mines ahead of the uncertain steamboat transportation up Missouri River to Fort Benton from Saint Louis. The trip from Port- land to Helena then consumed seven days.*^
California competed keenly for the trade of Owyhee and Boise. A tri-weekly mail service was established between Chico, California and Ruby City, in Owyhee, in 1866. John Mullan and others established a stage line in 1865 between Red Bluff, California and Silver City, Idaho. These several connections with Boise and Owyhee were supplanted in 1868- 69 by the Central Pacific Railroad. Sharp rivalry existed between the California and the Columbia River stage lines in 1865-66. The Columbia River route used steamboats to Umatilla Landing, stages and freight wagons thence across Blue Mountains to Olds Ferry (near Huntington) on Snake River; thence a steamboat of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, which was finished in May, 1866, the Shoshone, up Snake River. This steamboat lost money heavily; wood for fuel was scarce and it could not steam past Bruneau River. Besides, the stage route between Olds* Ferry and Boise was easier and quicker than the round-about steam- boat travel.^
These large activities necessarily had effects on the political life of the great region. Each mining community resorted to
71 Sec Thg Oregonian, June 24. 1864.
J2 For details of the route see The Oregonian, November 17, 1865, p. j; May 7, 1867, p. -3; June 8, 1867, p. a; May 11. 1867, p. 3.
73 "It cost more to unload and reload and haul over this thirty-three miles (Snake River to Boise) than it did to haul straight through the ninety miles from Olds Ferry to Boise" (Hailey's History of Idaho, p. 124). ​
The Pioneer Stimulus of Gold 161
civil organization, sometimes with the aid of the vigilance ccMnmittee. The Territory of Idaho was created in 1863 ; that of McMitana, in 1864. New counties were organized frequently in Or^on, Idaho, Washington and Montana. Roads and bridges were built; public schools established. The whites forever supplanted the Indians. The San Juan boundary dispute with Great Britain was precipitated in 1859 as a re- sult of the rush of American population to the gold diggings and to Puget Sound, and was decided in 1872, in favor of the United States, by the Emperor of Germany.
In British Columbia the mining era was very important for the British. The resultant growth finally established British power on the Pacific. Formerly it was but a fur-bearing domain of the feudalistic Hudson's Bay Company. In the midst of the "gold rush," in 1858, the reign of that Company was supplanted by a provincial government, and the seat of government was established at Fort Langley, the formality of which todk place November 19, 1858.
In the seven years, 1861-67, the areas of Oregon, Wash- ington, Idaho and Montana produced probably a total of $140,000,000. Those of British Columbia yielded probably $21,000,000 more. The gold yield of California in that period, by the same comparison, was $210,000,000.* So that it is evident that the great gold crop of California, though larger than that of the northern mines, was not so much larger as common opinion may judge. The best figures on this sub- ject are but estimates, yet by competent authority the figures here given are considered reliable. The totals are segregated as follows, for the whole producing period ending with 1867 :
Washington $ 10,000,000
Or^on 20,000,000
* Idaho 45,000,000
Montana 65,000,000
Total $140,000,000
74 These ttatittics are taken from Trimble's Mming Advance, pD. 102, 118. See The Oregonitm, Jtmt 6. 1866. p. 3: .January. 15, .ifM. P. 3- E. M. Bamum. in Tk^ Oregonian. March ai, 1867, estimates the yield of Oregon, Washington mmA Idaho, in 1858-66, at $57,000,000, which is probably too conservative. ​
162 Leslie M. Scott
Thes€ statistics were compiled by J. Ross Browne, who, as United States O^mmissioner for the mining region west of Rocky Mountains, made a comprehensive report in 1867.^
The first mines were always placers. The miners were preceded by prospectors, some of whom made fortunes by becoming miners, but the gr^t majority gathered little or nothing, frequently not even a oare living. Their implements were the pan, the rocker and the sluice, each for eliminating matter from the gold particles by washing.®'
The reduction of gold quartz required costly machinery. Such gold deposits baffled the early prospectors and miners. Gold quartz was found in Oregon at Rogue River, Canyon City, Elk Creek, Vincent's, Olive Creek, Granite Creek, -Eagle Creek and Auburn; in Idaho, on Salmon, Boise and Owyhee rivers; and in Canada, along the headwaters of Columbia River and at Cariboo. Silver lodes were frequent along with those of gold. Reduction mills were carried into the districts of Owyhee, Boise and Powder River, beginning in 1864, at great cost, from both San Francisco and Portland.^
Many localities gave "prospects" of gold, in the decade 1850, but did not become productive. There was little gold in Western Oregon, save in the Rogue River and Umpqua country. "Colors" or small quantities were found in the valleys of the Molalla, Santiam and McKenzie rivers,*^ and in Bohemia, the latter at the sources of the Willamette River. Coffee Creek, tributary to the South Umpqua, attracted gold
75 See Trimble's Mining Advance, p. 102. Report of J. Ross Browne.
76 These implements are described in Bancroft's California, vol. vi, pp. 409-18.
77 Four quartz mills were shipped to Owyhee from Portland in 1864, one by T. C. Ainsworth and another by Minear, Fountain, Leffel and Carrico. See The Orezonian, February 21. March 23, June 2, 6, 27, July 9, July 16, August 6, 19, 20, September 10, 12, November 10, 11, 18, December 6, I4f 1864: January 6, n, 25; February xo, 1865. Many Oregon men engaged or were interested in Owyhee ventures. See also The Oregonian, June 6, 1865, p. 2: July 28, 1865, p. 2. A mill of thirty stamps, for the Boise district, went through Portland from New York, in December, 1864 {ibid., December 2^, 1864). Another mill from San Francisco for Boise was shipped through Portland in the Summer of 1864 {ibid., July 12, 13, 1864). Details of the quartz mines of South Boise, ibid., July 13, 23, September 11. 21, October 3, 1864; January 1, 28, March 9, 12, 30, June 10, 19, 23, July 8, 9, 18, 1863; January 18, April 20, May s, 18, 26, August 19, 20, December 28. 1864). A quartz mill was built near Auburn in 1864 (»Wrf., October 29. 1864).
78 The Blue River deposits were discovered in 1863. Ldrse stamp mills were installed, but the ore was low grade. See The Oregonian, December 8, 1863; November 2, Deecember 17. 1889; July 3, 1897. ​
The Pioneer Stimulus of Gold 163
seekers in 1858.* Steamboat Creek, of the North Umpqua, was a flitting Eldorado of this period. Coquille River, at its mouth, offered rich diggings — 1853. Sailors' Diggpings, at the present town of Waldo, at the headwaters of Illinois River, tributary of Rogue River, was the scen6 of profitable placers, beginning in 1852. Settlement of Southern Oregon began in 1847-48, contemporaneously with the gold movement of Cali- fornia. Molalla^ and Santiam drew goldseekers in 1860.®^ Bohemia was discovered in 1863.^ These localities afforded poor pay, because the gold was chiefly of tow grade quartz, and they did not continue long in favor, although successive attempts were made to revive them.^
Western Washington was even poorer in gold than Western Oregon. Queen Charlotte Islands afforded discoveries in 1850, and several expeditions of gold hunters went there in the following two years.^l In Eastern Washington, the Yakima®* Valley was favorably prospected in 1854. That district and Wenatchee®** were encouraged by Puget Sound merchants.
79 Cow Creek was prospected in 18^4 with poor returns (The Oregonian, October 28, 1854. letter si^ed "F. D."). Coffee Creek, of South Umpqua, yielded returns in 1858 (t6u/., December x8, 1858).
80 Silver and gold ouartz of Molalla River was discovered in i860, forty- five miles from Oregon City. See Thw Oregonian, September 15, i860; August 16, 1865, p. 2.
81 The Santiam deposits, sixty miles east of Salem, contained gold and silver quartz. Assays ran as nigh as $2500 a ton. Many claims were taken there in i860. Loose gold was discovered in 1864. The town of Quartzville was laid off in 1864. A stamp mill was erected m that year. The route to these mines is described in The Oregonian, July 9, 1864. For details of this district, ibid.. Tune 9i 16, 30; September i, 8, i860; October 14, 23, 1863; June 30* Novenwer 12, 1864; October 29, 1869, p. 3; May 10, 1887; July 3, 1897; October 2, 1889.
8a The Bohemia quartz was discovered in 1863 by "Bohemia" Johnson (The Oregonian, January ao, 1900, p. 5). A road was opened to the mines in 1871. See History of Douglas County, oy A. G. Walling, p. 39a. A quartz mill was operated in 1871-77 oy A. T. Knott. See also The Oregonian, March a6, 1872, p. 3; July 2, 1899, p. 16; March 17, 1900, p. 5: April 26, 1900, p. 5; July 30, 1900; January i, 1901; June 28, 1896, p. 18; July 3, 1897*
83 For narrative of the mines of Clackamas, Marion and Linn counties, see The Oregonian, June 22, 1889. The quartz, of gold and silver, was too low grade for successful operation.
84 The British sent the ship Una to Queen Charlotte Islands from Fort Simpson in 185 1, and the brig Recovery to Gold Harbor, in 1852. The American vessels Georfianna explored for gold in 1851. Eight American Damariscove vessels sailed to Mitchell Harbor in 1852. These expeditions had little or no success.
85 Yakima Vallev attracted prospectors in 1854 {The Oregonian, April 22^ 18C4), and gained large publicitv in 1858 {ibid., July 23, 1858; August Sf 1861). For description in 1873, ibid., December 3, i873t Pw 3-
86 The Wenatchee diggings were active in 1858 {The Oregonian, July 23. 1858). They attracted many fortune hunters in 1861. ​
164 Leslie M. Scx)tt
In Eastern Oregon, Burnt River* and Malheur River^ yielded surface gold.^ The rich diggpings were in none of these places, however. The most famous localities may be listed as follows, with the years of their discovery:
Rogue River (Oregon): Table Rock, 1849; Jacksonville, 1851 ; Gold Beach, 1853.«>
Colville (Washington), 1855; Pend Oreille River »^
Thompson River (British Columbia), 1856-57.***
Fraser River (British Columbia), 1856-57.**
Similkameen River (British Columbia), 1859.**
Rock Creek (British Columbia), 1859.«*
Cariboo (British Columbia), 1860.^
Clearwater River (Idaho), 1860; Oro Fino Creek, Rhodes Creek, Elk City district, French Creek, Canal Gulch.*^
John Day River (Oregon), 1861 .*»
Gold Creek (Montana), 1861.«>
Powder River (Oregon), 1861}^
Salmon River (Idaho), 1861; Warren's Diggings, Flor- ence.^~
Boise Basin (Idaho), 1862.i«2
Grasshopper Creek (Montana), 1862; Bannack.****
Owyhee River (Idaho), 1863; Jordan Creek.i<>*
87 See note i8, preceding.
88 Malheur River was the supposed place of the "lost diggings of 1845." and the diggings were discovered again in 1861. See The OregoniaHf August a6, 1861; September 17, 1861. For details of silver discoveries, ibid., June 24, 1864. See also note 13. P.. 149. „ ^ . ^. ^ .
89 A history of gold nunmg in Eastern Oregon appears in The Oregontan. September 14* 1865, p. 2.
90 Sec note 10, preceding.
91 See note 18, preceding.
92 See note 36. preceding.
93 See note ^6, preceding.
94 See note 62, preceding.
95 See note 62, preceding. „ , ^. ^ . ,
96 See Howay's British Columbia, pp. 73-84; «l«o. The Oregontan. January 13, February 18, 1863; Trimble's Mining Advance, pp. 46-56; Bancroft's British Coiumbia, pp. 472-51 9- ^ ^. -
97 Sec notes 22, 26, preceding.
98 See note 21, preceding. ^ . ,.» , .^ •
99 See Bancroft's Montana, p. 616. Trimble's Mining Advance, p. 79-
100 See note 24. preceding.
101 Sec note 27, preceding.
102 See note 28, preceding.
103 See Trimble's Mininjg Advance, p. 80.
104 See note 77* preceding. ​
The Pioneer Stimulus of Gold 165
Kootenai River (British Columbia), 1863; Finley's Creek; Wild Horse Creek.i<» Deer Lodge River (Montana), 1862}^ Alder Gulch (Montana), 1863}^
Last Chance Gulch (Montana), 1864; Oro Fino; Grizzly .^^ Upper Columbia River (British Columbia), 186S.i^ Heavy shipments of gold dust were made to and from Port- land. This gold came mostly from the Clearwater and the Salmon River mines. The ocean steamer Pacific, sailing for San Francisco, October 11, 1861, took $172,904 in gold. This steamer sailed again December 12, 1861, with $141,820 of gold. The Oregonian, on January 18, 1862, estimated the influx of gold dust into Portland in 1861 at $3,000,000. The river steamer Julia arrived at Portland April 28, 1862, with $100,000 in gold dust. The Carrie Ladd, on May 20,
1862, arrived with $175,000; again on June 25, 1862, this steamer brought $200,000 to Portland. The ocean steamer Tenino sailed August 5, 1862, with $200,000. The ocean steamer Sierra Nez'ada carried from Portland to San Fran- cisco $500,000, sailing October 27, 1862. The Pacific sailed with $250,000 on November 26, 1862. Later treasure ships may be noted as follows: Sierra Nevada, August 24, 1863,^ $195,000; Brother Jonathan, September 25, 1863, $315,000; Sierra Nevada, October 5, 1863, $236,751 ; Brother Jonathan, October 12, 1863, $203,835; Sierra N^evada, November 13,
1863, $500,000; Oregon, December 4, 1863, $750,000; Oregon, June 2, 1864, $330,000; John L. Stephens, June 27, 1864, $515,649; Pacific, July 5, 1864, $213,899; Oregon, August 3,
1864, $321,000; Pacific, August 21, 1864, $366,465; Sierra Nevada, December 2, 1864, $517,250; Brotlier Jonathan, Octo- ber 28, 1864, $500,000; November 15, 1864, $339,000.
The total assays of gold at Portland in September, October
105 For details of the Kootenai mines, see The Oreeonian, December 15, 1863; May 14. 1864; February 7, 1865; June 17, 1864: May 27, 1864; October,
13, 1864: Trimble's Mining Advance, pp. 56-59.
106 For details of the Deer Lodge dirangs, see The Oregontan, AuRUSt
14, 1862; Trimble's Mining Advance, pp. 79-80.
107 See Bancroft's Montana, pp. 629-30.
108 Ibid., p. 721; Trimble* s Mining Advance, p. 82.
109 Sec Trim Die's Mining Advance^ pp 56-60. ​
166 Leslie M. Scott
and November, 1864, aggregated $1,376,678.82, according to Thomas Frazar, United States collector of internal revenue for Oregon. In the year 1863, the total was $4,505731.*^^ The gold production of the entire Pacific Northwest was estimated in 1861 at $1750,000; $9,000,000 in 1862."^
Shipments of bullion, from Portland, by Wells Fargo, arc summarized as follows:
1864, 6,200,000
1865, 5,800,000
1866, 5,400,000
1867, 4,001 ,000*"
This survey of the pioneer gold mining period and of the effects on the early development of the North Pacific regpion, could be extended to much greater length, but the space of the present writing does not permit. Moreover, it is the purpose of the writer to meet the desires of the easy reader. The "loose gold" was gathered up in a few years, just as in every placer country. But the opening of the wilderness and the impulse given to the growth of this region by the new energies of a large new population — ^these are the matters highly im- portant in studying the history of pioneer progress.
no S«e The Oregonian, March lo, 1864.
111 Ibid., December 15, i86a.
HALL JACKSON KELLEY—Prophet of Oregon
CHAPTER NINE
Four Years of Futile Effort
Kelley was a changed man when he arrived at Boston in 1836 after his long voyage from the Sandwich Islands. Only three years before "his physical nature was iron-like, possessing great power of endurance," but exposure and hardships had enfeebled his body and shattered his nervous system. Yet this gaunt shadow of a man had no thought of giving up his long cherished idea of awakening his countrymen to the great advantages, national and individual, which must inevitably follow the settlement of the Northwest Coast under the patronage and protection of the American government. He had already done much to spread broadcast information which he had obtained at second hand; now he could speak with authority, having seen the promised land and found it good
But there were personal matters which required his immediate attention. His family "every soul of them turned against me," had to be reconciled to him. He went to Gilmanton and spent some time with his father and his wife and children, but his efforts to reestablish his household resulted in failure.
His expenses had been heavy, and most of his property had been lost or taken from him, so that now he was a poor man, worried by his debts. It was not so much the amount of his indebtedness that concerned him; it was the fact that it was a debt of honor, and that he was unable to pay the small sum of three hundred dollars on account of outstanding obligations of the American Society which he had issued as general agent. These were two shares of stock, each of one hundred dollars, and five twenty-dollar certificates. Concerning them he explained, "Immediately after the Oregon expedition was broken up, the amount received for stock and certificates was re​
168 Fred Wilbur Powell
funded, all but the above, which circumstances rendered incon- venient and improper then to restore.**^
In an attempt to raise money, therefore, he ag^in worked as a surveyor. "In the year 1837, I surveyed three railroad routes in the State of Maine, each, however, of short extent, having the assistance, only, of two or three men unacquainted with engineering, and employed on the outdoor work. I planned, figured, drafted, and performed the office-work; be- sides, the entire labor with the field instruments."^ The report of one of these surveys was published;^ but whether the project was carried out is not stated.
In September, 1837, William A. Slacum, purser in the United States navy, went to Boston and conferred with Charles Bul- finch, who had long been interested in trading ventures on the Northwest Coast. He asked for a meeting with Kelley, and Kelley visited him at the Tremont House, where the matter of Oregon and its settlement was discussed.
Slacum had recently returned from Oregon, having been commissioned by the secretary of state, under date of Novem- ber 11, 1835, "to stop at the different settlements of whites on the coast of the United States, and on the banks of the [Columbia] river, and also at the various Indian villages on the banks, or in the immediate neighborhood of that river; ascertain, as nearly as possible, the population of each; the relative number of whites (distinguishing the nation to which they belong) and aborigines; the jurisdiction the whites ac- knowledge; the sentiments entertained by all in respect to the United States, and to the two European powers having possessions in that region; and, generally, to obtain all such information, political, physical, statistical, and geographical, as may prove useful or interesting to this Government."
This mission had been undertaken at the suggestion of Presi- dent Jackson, who may have been prompted by Kelley*s activ- ities during several winters at Washington, and by the knowl-
2 Kelky, Narrative of Events and Difficulties, 711.
3 IbiA, 72-3.
4 Kelley, Hist, of the Settlement of Oregon,' 8. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 169
edge that Kelley bad proceeded to Oregon with the purpose of establishing a settlement on the Columbia, The immediate suggestion, however, was due to no word or act of Kelley, who w^as then on the high seas en route for Boston, but to the fact that Slacum was "about to visit the Pacific ocean," thus pre- senting to the president an opportunity to obtain specific and authentic information upon a matter concerning which the government must soon take a definite stand.**
In the course of an investigation which extended from De- cember 22, 1836, to February 10, 1837, Slacum conferred with Dr. McLoughlin, Jason Lee, Ewing Young, and others, and collected much information which he submitted upon his re- turn. Some of this information appears in a memorial praying compensation for his services, which he presented to congress on December 18, 1837.«
In this memorial there is no mention of Kelley, though the names of several of the members of his party are given. The reason for this omission is unknown. Kelley believed that it was due to the desire of Robert Greenhow, librarian of the de- partment of state, to deprive him of the credit for having induced the first American settlers to locate in Oregon. Ac- cording to his statement Slacum declared' that he had seen a copy of Kelle/s General Circular in the hands of one of the settlers, and he "seemed satisfied" that Kelley was the founder of the first American settlement, and said that he would so report. He had brought from that settlement the copy of the General Circular and also a statement of Ewing Young declar-
5 "The investigations of Dr. J. R. Wilson led him to look upon this effort of President Jackson to get light on the situation in Oregon as bound up with his larger scheme of 'acquisition of territory in the southwest^ stretching from Texas to and including the harbor of San Francisco. Doctor Wilson came to this conclusion because Jackson's interest in this direction had in the first instance been aroused bv letters from Slacum. The scope and character of the report suggest that the author had a pretty clear and full appreciation of all the vital American interests in the Oregon situation in the thirties." — Young, Introductory note to reprint of Slacum^ report, Oregon Historical Society, Quarterly, XIII. 175-
6 Slacum, Memorial Prating Compensation for His Services in Obtaining Information tn Relation to the Settlements on the Oregon River. 25 cong. 2 ■ess. S. doc. 24. The material accompanying this memorial was reprinted as appendix **N" in Committee on Foreign AflFairs, supplemental report. Territory of Oregon, 29-47. ^5 cong. 3 sess. H, rep. loi. ​
170 Fred Wilbur Powell
ing that it was due to Kelley that he had settled in that ter- ritory.
While in WashingtcHi in 1838 Kelley examined the manu- script of Slacum's report, which was on file in the department of state. There he found Young's statement, which had been omitted from the printed copy. "The paper marked E in the report is that identical statement ; and it was evidently, at first, intended to be printed, with the matters included in the report : but it was not printed, nor to be seen by members of Congress ; nor was any allusion made to the petitioner [Kelley], or to any of his meritorious acts in Oregon." The facts in the case can- not be determined, and the report in question cannot now be found in the archives. It does not appear, however, how Greenhow could have had anything to do with the papers which Slacum chose to append to his memorial.
Kelley took advantage of his opportunity to copy Young's statement, in which he acknowledged his indebtedness to Kelley, but referred to him in terms which indicated that he had "mistaken views" about Kelley and "unfriendly feelings" toward him. "There never was, I affirm it, the least personal misunderstanding between me and Capt. Yoiuig," Kelley de- clared. "His inimical feelings were wholly owing to the lying spirit going out from Fort Vancouver, and going about to deceive those who were most likely to be friends and to stand by me."^
As has been said in the preceding chapter Kelley left the Northwest Coast with the idea of returning to establish a settlement at New Dungeness on the strait of Juan de Fuca, west of Port Discovery, but he was unable to arouse interest in the project. Of this movement he said:
"Soon after my return to New England, I announced to the public through the medium of the newspapers, my purpose and programme; and many enterprising and intelligent men of New England, some with families, a sufficient number for a settlement, enlisted for the expedition. But the war of perse-
7 StttUmtnt of Oregon, 55-8, 80; Narrative of Events and DifficuUies, 6»-B. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 171
cution continuing to rage, and the troops about me making daily attacks, and the hireling press again being turned against me, I was forced to abandon that enterprise. It was my in- tention to take my family to the place of settlement, and to be myself a settler, believing that should my abode be on that side of the continent, far away from persecuting enemies on this side, I could better, I supposed, promote the extension of the Redeemer's Kingdom. But I am now [1868] satisfied that it was ordered in Divine Providence, and for my good that that settlement should not be made by me ; that, although the ideal Tuget's Sound Agricultural Association' could do noth- ing, yet the Hudson Bay Company could do much to break up the establishment, and drive me and my friends from the coast ....
"To bring me into the lowest possible disrepute, and under universal contempt, and to break up that expedition, also, the following abusive notice was taken of me and my enterprise by the publishers of the Old American Comic Almanac of 1837. On one of its queer cuts was a geographical caricature of a portion of Oregon. On the banks of the Columbia was written 'Rowed up Salt Rive/ ; and in the country north, between the Cowlitz and the ocean, 'Kelley's Folly.' Twenty thousand copies were said to have been sold. To apprise my cruel enemies that I was yet alive, and had yet some power left to defend my bleeding character, I published the following in the Boston Post: . . ."»
The reader will be spared this communication, which was entitled "Unprovoked Cruelty." By his ill-advised outburst Kelley naturally brought a harmless bit of foolery to the at- tention of many who would have never known of it, and so added to his reputation as a man whose mind was singularly out of tune with his fellows. Nor did he ever fail to mention the insult when setting forth the long list of his tribulations.®
In 1837 he again took to writing on Oregon, but instead of
8 Settlemtnt of Oregon, 125-8.
o Kellev, Hist, of ui§ Colonigation of Oregon, appx. G; Narrative of Events
Difficufttes, appx. L ​
172 Fred Wilbur Powell
presenting the results of his observations he chose to waste his efforts on the question of the American title, concerning which he had little if any information that was not already available to the authorities at Washington. Thus, in the year mentioned, he published a series of articles in the Bunker Hill Aurora, giving an account of the discoveries and examinations made on the Northwest Coast by the early Spanish, American, and British navigators. These articles, together with docu- ments relating to the claims of Bulfinch and other Americans to the land on Vancouver Island purchased by Captain Kendrick, he presented in 1838 to Lewis F. Linn, senator from Missouri. Linn was chairman of a "select committee to which was re- ferred a bill to authorize the President of the United States to occupy the Oregon Territory." In his report he quoted at length from Slacum's memorial, and used some of Kelley's data on the discovery and occupation of the Columbia, but he does not appear to have set a high value upon this material, for he failed to mention Kelley's name.^®
During 1838 and 1839 Kelley contributed another series of articles to the American Traveller of Boston, dealing with the question of title. In 1839 came an opportunity for service of a more practical nature. Caleb Cushing, chairman of the house committee on foreign affairs, asked him to contribute a memoir on Oregon and California, based on personal observations. To this request he gladly responded. The result appears in the appendix to Cushing's supplemental report on the "Territory of Oregon."ii
In 1839 also, Kelley presented through John Davis, senator from Massachusetts, a memorial to congress "praying a grant of land in the Oregon Territory for the purpose of establishing a colony thereon," which was referred to a select committee. In this document, he made a clear statement of his eflforts to promote the . settlement of Oregon, and declared that since "many of the individuals whose attention had been directed by his exertions towards Oregon, and who originally enlisted
10 25 cong. a sess. S. doc. 470; Settlement of Oregon, 77.
11 as cong. 3 sess. H. rq>. loi: 47-61. See appendix. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 173
in his scheme of emigration, have subsequently settled in that Territory . . . your petitioner has thus been the author of the first permanent American settlements west of the Rocky Mountains." He also called attention to his services after his return in communicating the results of his journey to the public. Upon these grounds he based his claim,^ which he summarized in the following terms :
"Having thus sacrificed' his time, property, and health, being now reduced to poverty, and yet remaining desirous of carry- ing the institutions of his country to the Oregon,^ he most earnestly and respectfully prays of this honorable body, the grant of so much land in that Territory as maiy enable him at once to establish a prosperous colony, and regain some portion of the property which he expended as before described."^*
That this memorial was based on tittle more than a forlorn hope is probable; for Kelley had already turned his attention to the opening of a direct means of communication with the Pacific Coast. For information as to his activities in this direction we are compelled to rely upon the unsupported state- ments in his own writings, which are themselves contradictory and in some particulars clearly erroneous. In after years he declared that after the failure of his second attempt to found a settlement, and after a physical breakdown following his surveying work in Maine,
"I, therefore, determined to ccmtinue in some field of useful enterprise; and turned to a project then on foot, from another quarter; that of a canal or railroad across the Isthmus of Panama. That choice was made, partly to prepare for memori-
12 While in the prosecation of the enterprise, it did not so much as enter mv mind ever to apply to Congress for relief, or a reward for any services or sacrifices which I might render the country; but, after its achievement, and mv return home, in 1836, — finding my health greatly impaired, my prooerty, and the very means of acquiring property, gone; and considering the nature of the circumstances which prevented the selecticm and occupancy of a lot of Jand in the Valley of the Wallamet, and also the circumstances which deprived me of a participation in the abundant harvest of the fields I had sown, I thought it my duty to apply for help; and accordingly in 1839, did apply." — Narrative of Events ami Difficulties, vostacripi.
13 26 cong. 1 sess. S. doc. ao: S. jour. 45, 76. According to Kelley a petition in support of his memoriu was presented to congress by a number of citizens of Boston, among whom was the historian, George Bancroft, but no reference to such a document has been found in the official records. — Kelley, Memorial, 1848: 11; Colonigation of Oregon, appx. F; Narrative of Events and Difficulties, appx. F.; Settlemept of Oregon, 118. ​
174 Fred Wilbur Powell
alizing Congress on the subjects of the railroad, and the civil- ization of the Indians in the United States' territories. It was thought, that working in the conspicuous position of a chief engineer, two or three years, in a southern climate, would lim- ber the limbs for operations in a northern ; and the work itself would render honorable testimony to my capabilities; and be ccMnmendatory letters to men in the council of our nation.
"Accordingly I went to Washington, in the close of 1838, hoping, under the government auspices, to make myself useful, in opening to the world a railroad thoroughfare between the two great oceans. I conferred with Mr. [Charles F.] Mercer [of Virginia], Chairman of the Committee of the Senate [house of representatives] on Roads and Canals, who said, a report would be made favorable to the enterprise. Such a report was submitted and accepted; but no appropriation was made, and nothing further done by Congress upon the subject."^*
The matter of a transcontinental railroad also engaged his attention.
"Reference to that project is made in my Geographical Sketch of Oregon, printed [written] in 1829;^** and in the Memoir to Congress, in 1839, relative to the statistics and topography of that territory .*• It has often been mentioned to
I A Narrative of Events and Difficulties, 741 Settlement of Oregon. 8. No record of such a report has been found. As to Keller's qualifications as an engineer, we have the f^ollowing testimonial of George B. Emerson of Boston, whose judgment was endorsed by Edward Everett: "From natural taste and adaptation; from the most extraordinary experience of the work, in every form and variety: from practical skill and acquaintance of all kinds of ground and all modes of operation, Mr. Kelley is singularly well qualified to under- stand, superintend, and execute the work of a survey for any railroad or other improvement, public or private." — Ibid., 75. See also Kelley, "Beloved Brehren, Jan. 14, 1870. Ms.
15 "The settlement of the Oregon country, would conduce to a freer inter- course, and a more extensive and remunerative trade with the East Indies. . . . Such an extension and enjoyment of the East India trade, would provoke the spirit of American enterprise, to open communications from the Mississippi valley, and from the gulf of Mexico to the Pacific ocean, and thus open new channels, through which the products of America and the Eastern world, will pass in mutual exchange, saving in every voyage, a distance of ten thousand miles: new channels, which opening across toe bosom of a wide spread ocean; and intersecting islands, where health fills the breeze and comforts spread the shores would conduct the full tide of a golden traffic, into the reservoir of our national finance." — Pp. 79-80. In "Beloved Brethren," Dec. 4, 1860, Kelley said that he projected such a railroad in 1831, and that in 1836 he and P. t*. F. Degrand were associated in the movement.
16 'These were the objects to whose accomplishment I looked forward, and from which I confidently anticipated many benefits: ... a certain and speedy line of communication overland from the Mississippi to the Oregon, by means of which the Eastern and Western worlds shoula be united, and meir wealth interchanged and increased." — P. 48. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 175
scientific and enterprising men, and described in my journals and papers ....
"The route begins on the bank of the Missouri near the mouth of the Kansas, crosses the back-bone of the continent through a depression near the 43d parallel, lays along the valley of the Snake P^iver, and crosses the Columbia at Walla- walla ; and, again, it makes a mountainous transit on the west- erly side of the valley of Clark's River, where, intelligent hunters suppose no formidable difficulties exist to be encoun- tered ; and terminates in a delightful and fertile tract of coun- try near the southern extermity of Puget's Sound, there to connect with the interminable tracks of the ships of the g^eat deep. The eligibility of that place, for a terminus, and for an entreport and depot, can be fully conceived of, only by those who understand the natural advantages of that portion of Oregon for commerce and agriculture; and know the chart and all about De Fuca's Straits ....
"My plans differ in some respects, from those by Mr. Whit- ney, now before the public. His, I think, are well devised and matured. His ideas, as, in 1848 I understood them from the projector himself, in regard to the routes, to the execution of the work, and to the benefits to accrue to the world, especially, to our nation, seem consistent and sound ; in my apprehension, there can be none better.
"He would have one-half of a strip of territory sixty miles in breadth. The United States to retain the other half, — every alternate section. Mine propose just half of that breadth ; and looking to a portion of the lands for a possession, and ap- propriate a portion for their Christianization, and for improve- ments in their aflfairs and fortune.""
The evidence presented by Kelley is not su£Bcient to give him a distinguished rank among the many men whose activities brought about the construction of a transcontinental railroad. In neither of the passages to which he referred is there any specific mention of a railroad, and we know that in the ten
17 NarraHvt of Events and DifFicuttUs, 70-1; Settlement of Oregon, 123. ​
176 Fred Wilbur Powell
years from 1829 to 1839 the railroad was a subject of great popular interest and general discussion. Moreover, it was Kelley's habit to be specific in his prophecies ; it was only in the matter of practical detail that he made use of general phrases. Asa Whitney's agitation began in 1844, and his first petition was presented to congress in 1845. At the earliest, Kelley's claim was not advanced until 1852, the year in which Whitney's plan was definitely abandoned by congress. By that time the movement for a railroad to the Pacific had become national, and Kelley's suggestion as to possible route and method of financing was only one of many, and contributed little if any- thing to the final result.*®
1 8 Oeveland and Powell, Railroad Promotion, 259-78. ​
CHAPTER TEN. The Hermit of Three Rivers.
In 1839 Kelley reestablished himself at Three Rivers. He had acted for many years as agent for Octavius Pickering of Boston, who owned land in the village and also the unoccupied mill privilege which had once been the property of the Three Rivers Manufacturing company.^ He was not yet fifty years old, but his active life was already done; and broken in body and in spirit, he passed the remaining thirty-five years of his life in poverty and isolation.
His house was at the edge of a grove on the side of a hill overlooking the village which he had come to regard with singular aflfection. The site was well chosen, but the house was hardly a fit abode for a man whose ideas were all in the superlative. It was a composite structure of a story and a half, built of odds and ends of lumber with regard rather to the limitations of the material than to any architectural design. The rooms were of unequal height, and the stairs approached the vertical. In the upper story there were three floor levels, two in a single room. There were half a dozen sizes of win- dows. By the door stood a clump of lilacs, and a large wild cherry tree shaded the yard. Below the house was a small orchard of apple trees, many of which defy identification. Pro- truding glacial boulders and tangled poison ivy gave evidence that the occupant of the place was concerned with other matters than appearances.
Here his wife and children visited him occasionally down to 1843, but he was never able to effect a complete reconcilia- tion. Of his domestic troubles he said "My bosom friend with whom I never had a moment of misunderstanding was enticed from me; and my beloved sons were carried away captive by
I Kelley, Hist, of th4 Settlement of Oregon, 21-2. Pickering was reporter of the Massftchusetts supreme judicial court, 1822-40. He was a son oiF the famous OAontl Timothy Pickering of Salem, who was quartermaster-general in the Revolution, postmaster-general, secretary of war, and secretary ot sute under Washington, and senator from Massachusetts. ​
178 Fred Wilbur Powell
the enemy." The enemy, it appears, was Mrs. Bradlee, Mrs. Kelley's aunt and foster mother. "That woman," said Kdley, "exerted, terribly against me, the influence which a kindred relation to an adopted daughter, and an annual income of $12,000, gave her." He attempted, however, to win his wife back to him through correspondence which he published in 1851 under the title Letters From An Afflicted Husband To An Astranged Wife.^
One of the matters which engaged his attention was his claim against the Mexican government for indemnity for the seizure of his property at Vera Cruz in 1833. "My claim for indemnity was preferred against Mexico in 1840; and a more just claim could not be. I think it probable, the minds of the American and Mexican commissioners were so darkened by my enemies, about them, as to see no merits in the claimant, and not to care to open his case."* This statement he made in obvious disregard of the strained relations then existing between the two nations over the matter of Texas.
His interest in the Kendrick lands continued; and he pre- pared for Charles Bulfinch and other claimants, a "memorial praying that their title to certain lands in the Territory of Oregon may be confirmed." This memorial which was pre- sented in 1840 by Abbott Lawrence, congressman from Massa- chusetts, was referred to the committee on foreign affairs.* It was followed in 1843 by a similar memorial which was presented by Robert C. Winthrop, congressman from Massachusetts, in the name of Kelley as agent of Charles Bulfinch and others, "praying that their purchases of Indian lands in Oregon Terri- tory be recognized." This also was referred to the committee on foreign affairs.'
He also made a serious effort to put into shape for publica- tion his narrative on Oregon and the Sandwich Islands and
2 Kelley, NarraHve of EvenU and Difficulties, 2, 14; Temple, Hist, of the Town of Palmer, 266, 269. An appendix appeared the same year under the title
Palmer. Narrative of Events and DifFiculties. 76.
3 Narrative of Events and DifFiculties, 73.
4 26 cong. I seas. H. doc. 43; H. jour., 202; Settlement of Oregon, 79.
5 27 cong. 3 sess. H. jour., 350. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 179
on the Indians. In 1840 he issued a prospectus of a book, then "in n6ar readiness for the press" to be called "Travels And Voyages Through Many Of The Indian And Unexplored Countries of North America; And Over The Atlantic And Pacific Oceans Made In The Years 1832, '33, '34 and '35." The book was never published, however ; for "a nervous affec- tion in the head deranged the thoughts and enfeebling the pen, disenabled him for the task." What became of this unfinished manuscript is unknown. But his literary efforts were not at an end. "He planned, however, for a less difficult work; a bode wbich would be a printed record of his manner of life; of the part he had acted in making Oregon and one of the Califomias the possession of the United States; of the facts relative to. his claim on Mexico for indemnification on account of the plunder of his property while passing through that coun- try ; and relative to a claim of certain of his countrymen to lands on Quadra's [Vancouver] Island, in which he was so largely interested, and which has been so very obnoxious to the power- ful men of the Hudson's Bay Company ; and of the interesting things concerning the ancients, and the geography and sta- tistics of the countries examined by him."* This, too, he abandoned.
In 1843 he made another attempt to obtain action of congress in favor of his colonization project. Having failed to receive a grant of land as requested in 1839, he now- presented through Rufus Choate, senator from Massachusetts, a "petition praying permission to purchase from the Indians in the Oregon Terri- tory a tract of land for the purpose of forming a permanent settlement thereon." This petition was referred to the com- mittee on private land claims.'^ It was followed in 1844 by a petition "praying for a grant of land in the Territory of Ore- gon," which was presented through Robert C. Winthrop and referred to the committee on foreign affairs.®
The grant sought in 1844 was desired not as an aid to settle-
6 Settlement of Oregon, iv n; Narrative of Events and Difficulties, preface
7 27 cong. 3 sess. S. jour., 192; Cong. Globe, XI, 311.
8 a8 cong. i seas. H. jour., 237-8. This memorial appeared in the Palmer Sentinel of December 10, 1846. ​
180 Fred Wilbur Powell
ment, but as compensation for services. The year in which Kelley finally abandoned his colonization scheme, therefore, can be stated definitely as 1844. With but unimportant exceptions, his published writings thereafter were confined to memorials and petitions to congress and pamphlets designed to support his claim for compensation or reward for his services in bring- ing about the settlement of Oregon by American citizens, thus preparing the way for the assertion of jurisdiction over that territory by the national government.®
After an interval of four years he presented through John A. EHx, senator from New York, a memorial "praying a grant of land in the Territory of Oregon, in consideration of import- ant services rendered by him in exploring and developing the resources of that country," which was referred to the com- mittee on public lands.^^ This memorial was privately printed as an eighteen-page pamphlet entitled Memorial Of Hall J. Kelley ; Praying For A Donation Of Land, And Testimonials Concerning The Colonization Of The Oregon Territory. The memorial itself occupied but four pages, and six pages were given over to notes from Kelley's journal covering that part of his journey from Monterey to the Columbia. Some of the testimonials were written in 1843 to accompany the memorial of 1844 ; the others were obtained in 1847. Among those who contributed testimonials were: John P. Bigelow, secretary of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, who was soon to become mayor of Boston ; William Wheildon, friend of Edward Everett and editor of the Bunker Hill Aurora, whose name had ap- peared on the list of agents of the American Society For En- couraging The Settlement Of The Oregon Territory; Wash- ington P. Gregg, secretary of the common council of Boston and former treasurer of the American Society; William G. Brown, former editor of Zion's Herald ; John McNeil, surveyor of the port of Boston and former president of the American Society; Isaac O. Barnes, United States marshal at Boston;
o In 1846 and 184/ he published two series of articles in the Palmer Sentinel, one on "Oregon;" the other on "Colonization Of The Oregon Territory.** 10 30 cong. I sess. S. jour., 245; Cong. Globe, XVIII, 567. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 181
P. P. F. Degrand, well known for his public activities, partic- ularly in connection with the movement for a transcontinental railroad ; and David F. Green, secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.*^
A similar memorial was presented the following year, 1849, through Senator John Davis of Massachusetts, "praying to be allowed a grant of land in the Territory of Oregon, in con- sideration of his services and sacrifices in aiding in the explora- tion and settlement of that country." This also was referred to the committee on public lands.^ The report of this ccwn- mittee, as submitted on February S, 1850 by Alpheus Felch of Michigan, was as follows:
"The petitioner asks a grant of land from the government, in consideration of his services and sacrifices in the exploration of the Oregon Territory. That Mr. Kelley is one among the many enterprising citizens who, within the last thirty years, have directed their attention to the exploration and efforts to settle our possessions on the Pacific, and has, in common with others, suffered loss from the failure of his efforts, the com- mittee have no doubt. They are, however, of opinion, from an examination of the whole case, that the prayer of the peti- tioner cannot, under just and safe principles, be granted. The case does not, in their opinion, present those distinctive features which ought to single it out from others, and make it the subject of special legislative action.
"They therefore recommend the adoption of the following resolution :
"Resolved, That the prayer of the petitioner be not granted."^^
With the adoption of this report by the senate on February 21, Kelley's claim was formally disallowed." It would seem
II This memorial in abridged form appears in the Hist, of the Settlement of Oregon, 91 -a. The testimonials were also reprinted in that pamphlet.
13 31 cong. I sess. S. jour., 38, 51; Cong. Globe, XXI. 92. 99; This memorialj most of it from th« forms used in printing that of 1848, was reprinted in the Hut. of the Colonisation of Oregon, 1-8 [9-16], 17-18.
13 31 cong. 1 sess. S. rep. 42; S. jour., i3i; Cong. Globe^ XXI. 292-3. It is perhaps significant that only one of the members of this committee was from New England.
14 31 cong. I sess. S. rep. 42; S. jour., 172-3; Cong. Globe, XXI, pt. I, 4". ​
182 Fred Wilbur Powell
that Senator Davis had been negligent, for under date of July 25, 1850, he wrote to Kelley :
"I now enclose the report which you ask for. It had some- how escaped my attention that such a report had been made. It can however do you little harm. I had conferred with Judge Underwood, who formerly had charge of the business, and he promised me to give every attention to it ; but it seems without my knowledge. Gov. Felch took charge of it."
The failure to obtain either recognition or reward was a crushing blow to Kelley, who said : "That report went to con- firm the false perceptions of me of not a few public men, and to strengthen the prejudices of friends and to give general currency to the vile reports of adversaries ; that he is 'stupid and crazy,' and to the sayings every where rife, 'that he came to this country without mind or means to do anything and went away' .... It was a strange report ; though it did me monstrous injustice and tends to deepen and perpetuate my sorrows, and though all the gold ever taken from the mines of California could not sufficiently make amends for the injustice dcMie me and my near kindred ; yet I impute no wrong motive to them that made it. It denies me the merit of having taken any part as a pioneer in the colonization of Oregon, or in bringing about the events which led to the government acquisi- tion of Alta California. It was a great mistake — I cannot account for it."*'
To Kelley defeat was only an incentive to further effort. In 1854, therefore, he presented another petition, this time through Charles Sumner, senator from Massachusetts, "praying a dona- tion of land, or gratuity in money, for his services. and sacri- fices in attempts to colonize and explore the Oregon territory, and for the public benefits that resulted from his efforts." After this petition had been referred to the committee on territories, the senate upon Sumner's motion ordered that Kelley have leave to withdraw it.*^
IS Settlement of Oregon, 89-90.
X6 33 cong. I sess. S. jour., 196, 346, 301: Cong. Globe, XXVIIl, 447. 989* 1x86. lliis 'i»etition asking for a srant of land or pecuniary relief appears aa an appendix to the Narrative o( Events and Difficulties, having been bound in that pamphlet two years after its original publication. It differs but little from the memoriala of 1848 and 1849. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 183
Again in 1866 the appeal was renewed. In that year Henry L. Dawes, representative from Massachusetts, presented a peti- tion "relative to a land g^nt," which was referred to the com- mittee on private land claims. This also sought pecuniary re- lief as an alternative, as is evident from the title of the reprint, which reads Petition Of Hall J. Kelley, Praying For A Grant Of Land, Or A Donation Of Money." The result was another failure.
With the double purpose of creating a favorable public senti- ment and of supplementing his applications for congressional bounty, Kelley published several pamphlets. The first was History Of The Colonization Of The Oregon Territory, which was published in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1849. The edition must have been small, for but a single copy is known to be in existence. On the title page, appears Kelley's name as "the pioneer and chief projector." The "prefatory remarks" thus set forth the purpose of the pamphlet :
'The writer claims to have been the chief pioneer to plan and execute the work of colonizing the Oregon Territory ; and has prepared the following pages to show the identity of his name with the history of that magnificent and meritorious achieve- ment; and also to explain the causes and events which gave direction and impetus to public enterprise, and led to the ac- quisition and settlement of California."
Another pamphlet with the same title was published in Wor- cester in 1850. In 1852 appeared A Narrative Of Events And Difficulties In The Colonization Of Oregon And The Settle- ment of California ; and also a history of the claim of American citizens to lands on Quadra's Island ; together with an account of the troubles and tribulations endured between the years 1824 and 1852 by the writer. This was published in Boston, and we are told in the appendix that "but few copies of this book have been printed." A half dozen copies only have been lo- cated. While the preface declares that "The present book aims
17 ^8 cong. 2 sesa. H. jour.. 93; Cong. Globe, XLVII. 181. The reprint appearea as a seven-page pamphlet, whkh was also incorporated in the Mist, of th€ Settlem^fii of Oregon. It was a revised and enlarged version of the earlier memorials and petitions. ​
184 Fred Wilbur Powell
to correct the falsities in the various histories of Oregon hither- to in vogue ;" liberal space is given to the "troubles and tribu- lations" of the writer.
Kelley's final*® word was published in 1868 in Springfield, Massachusetts, under the title, A History Of The Settlement Of Oregon And Thfe Interior Of Upper California; and of persecutions and afflictions of forty years' continuance endured by the author. This is a pamphlet of 128 pages. In the preface Kelley thus set forth its purpose :
"This Book is an appeal to the justice and humanity of the Christian public for help to put an end to persecutions endured for more than forty years, as terrible as were ever known ; and to bring back to my bleeding bosom by beloved household, which more than fifteen years ago, were torn from it and carried away from me, by the merciless hands of bloody men ; and to bring back kindred and friends long ago turned from and against me.
"It has in view other objects : — to verify and illustrate the statements of the Petition now before Congress ; to correct the belied histories of the American and British domains beyond the Rocky Mountains — countries, which, until after the public announcement of my Oregon enterprise, were marked on maps, unknown; and to remove unreasonable prejudices, and the false perception which friends everywhere have of me, and the obstacles which enemies in all places have thrown in the path- way of my usefulness."
Over two years were spent in the preparation of this pam- phlet. The delay is easily accounted for when we consider that it was not written but dictated by a half-crazed man of nearly eighty, who was almost blind and suffering from malaria and the infirmities incident to age as well as hardship and priva- tion, and suffering too from his obsession that all his troubles and all the pranks of mischievous boys in the neighborhood were
1 8 In 1869 and 1870 Kelley prepared a series of eight letters addressed *'Be- loved Brethren." and designed as the appendix to his History of th€ Sfttlemtnt of Orsgon. These letters were not printed, however, because the printer declared that the manuscript was "incomprehensiole.*' Hence Kelley's statement: "The printing press everywhere in my state is turned against me.*' Letter to J. Q. Thomtoti, Oct 31. 1870. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 185
due to the desire of the Hudson's Bay company to persecute him. He concluded the preface with the following paragraph, with its naive prediction of the millennial dawn certain to follow from an awakened public confidence in him :
"When the nefarious plans and plottings and murderous pur- pose of the conspiracy at Three Rivers — one as diabolical as was ever known in Christendom — conspiracy, I say ; diabolical, with emphasis I repeat, have been described, and the public understand about them, then will persecutions cease, and the deep-rooted prejudices on the minds of men will be removed, public confidence in my statements and character be restored, my household and my kindred so long gone from me, will return, and all, I trust, will treat me with respect and visit me in my 'afflictions'."
The nature of these aflFlictions is set forth in detail in all of these pamphlets. The selections that follow will serve as illus- trations. They do not make pleasant reading, but they are es- sential to an understanding of the man and his environment.
"Causes and effects alternately changing are traceable from the widely separated places, London, Vancouver and Boston, to the little village of Three Rivers ; even to my humble and lonely cottage ....
"The Appendix shows how cruelly certain persons in the neighborhood of my desolated residence — hirelings under the powerful men above described, have used me. It particularizes many ways by which I have been made to suffer, but not all. Within the last twelve years, they have dragged me into fifteen lawsuits; and brought great pecuniary embarrassments upon me. In a single transaction* I have been defrauded of $1,500, of property and caused a further loss of more than $1,000, — partly expenses incurred in a suit of nine years' pending."^®
forest wood and timber sufficient to pay a debt of $1,500, which they bad assumed. B7 the last of i843f they had cut enough to pay the debt, and $1,500 more. As they refused to settle or to account for any considerable part of the property; an action in Chancery, in i845> wis brouf^ht against them, a hearing was had in 1853; and an award rendered for the plaintiff. Exceptions were taken by the defendants. This is the state of the case, March, 1854.
19 Narrwog of Events and DifficulfUs, Preface, 2-3. See also pp. 78-9. ​
186 Fred Wilbur Powell
"The last two years, adversaries, at and about the place of my abode, have very much troubled me. The troops at this place have come daily to vex and to torture, hoping speedily to make an end of me ; guerillas, headed by one of my bitterest enemies — at times, another with him — ^both were, as it regarded their ccm- duct toward me, much like despots and demons. Within the last thirty years, until the two last, since beginning to write histories of countries explored by me, and to prepare accoimts of my scientific researches in the far west, and of my efforts to propagate Christianity about the shores of the Pacific, and of the war of persecutions so long ago waged against me, they have often ccMne to plunder my property — have plundered, and carried off, the value of several thousand dollars; and to de- vastate my estate; and have so done; and have desolated the village of Three Rivers, so that it now is, and has been for several years, a desolation, *a heap'. They at times break into my house, and take away documents and manuscripts and papers of great value to me, such as furnish the best material for the book ; perhaps, within this period, what of the last would make a 4to. volume of a thousand pages.^
"In telling about the conspiracy, it is not my intention to designate persons, unless hard provoked to it, nor specify as to conduct, cruel as it has been, further than it shall be duty in the vindication of myself. . . ."
"To confuse my head and delay my writings, I am everywhere represented as stupid, an idler, and prodigal of my means of living. But I am certain that neither my greai calamity, nor the persecutions and afflictions I am made to endure, have in the slightest degree impaired my understanding ; it was never better than at the present day. And diligent search of the Scriptures, the last thirty years . . . has much enlarged my comprehension of things himian and divine. I consider also
20 SettlemsHt of Oregon, iii-iv. "The author has recently lost from hi» house all the copies of a pamphlet called 'History of the Colonization of Ore- gon;* which was to comprise portions of the supplemenUl appendix of this book; and also, manuscripts and papers of (|[reat value to him. He has Kood reason to believe, it was the felonious service of some hireling or sub-affent of the friends of the H. B. Co., to vex and trouble him."— Norrolwe of EvenU and Diniculttss, appx. insert. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 187
that industry, frugality, temperance, benevolence, intense pur- pose, brotherly kindness and charity have all along marked my career. I do not thus speak of myself to glorify self; but to glorify Him whose servant I am."^
"The shattered and morbid-smitten nervous system is never so bad as in the hot season of the year, and has never been so terrible as in the present season. Am all the while faint, and suffering a slow fever. As I have heretofore said, am forced to live alone. I am fond of society, and delight in communion with the virtuous and intelligent. Am forced to do my indoor and outdoor work. There are none disposed to help me. Help, both male and female, are turned from me. My beloved house- hold, and all in the circle of kindred, every soul of them de- ceived, have gone from me and are turned against me, and all in the circle of friends and acquaintances, deceived, have turned to treat me with contempt, some with shameful abuse. . . ."^
There ar€ middle-aged men to-day in Three Rivers who would be surprised to learn that their boyish practical jokes upon the strange old man were charged against the account of the Hud- son's Bay company, and that when they robbed his orchard they were interfering with the preparation of works for which future historians would search in libraries and collectors would pay extravagant sums in the auction rooms. When in the thought- less cruelty of youth they called out "Old Kelley" as he passed along the street, they did not know that they were acting as "guerillas." The boy who put pepper on the stove after offer- ing to help Kelley about his housework could hardly have known of the Hudson's Bay company, yet he was classed as one of its "troops."
There are also men in Three Rivers who can testify that Kelley's interests were cared for by his neighbors, and that food was regularly reserved from their tables for the old man, who came daily to their door, pail in hand. Yet of these acts of kindness the pamphlets tell nothing. Nor do they tell of the efforts of his brother to induce him to leave his hermitage
21 Settltment of Oregon, v.
22 IWd., 16-7. ​
188 Fred Wilbur Powell
on the hill and to share his home in East Gilmanton. "Te- naciously he would cling to his little home," wrote a contem- porary, "believing that if he stayed there his fortune would ulti- mately turn, and the little tract of land which his friends allowed him to remain upon and which he finally believed was his own, would become of untold value, and again he would be a wealthy man. Feeble and almost blind for a year or two, he has tottered about the village, leaning upcMi his cane, an object of pity, believing that in the development and building up of the village the golden time was approaching."^
The question naturally arises as to what he would have done had his prayers to congress been granted. This question Kelley himself answered :
"He asks for a donation of land, that he may be able to repay, in lands or money, those who have contributed to the means of prosecuting his enterprise ; and to make some suitable provision for support now in the decline of life. Could he be placed in a state of freedom from nervous irritation, and have things convenient and comfortable; and could his mind rest from anxiety and excitement caused by his persecuting enemies, and his hands be untied and his feet unfettered, he could again, he thinks be measurably useful to his country ; and with a good degree of vigor, and effect, engage in laborious and philan-
23 Springfield Daily Union^ January 23, 1874.
"I will now speak as to my usefulness to the people of Three Rivers; what I have done to promote the growth and good appearance of the village. . . .
village and promote the mterest of the company, I freely gave to the company land . . and also took several shares ot the stock at par, and also did my
friend Pickering of Boston take fifteen or twenty shares, and in other ways en- couraged the building of the road.
"Built three houses and parts of two others and that by my own bands. . . .
"Mr. Pickering, for whom I acted as agent, sold at a reduced price the site of the school house called Pickering Hall, and gave a bill for that spadous and beautiful building, this he freely did, though at my suggestion. . . .
"To make myself further useful to the people, I prepared a circular giving a description of the place, which was sent to the manufacturers abroad, and to such capitalists and enterprising men, as would be likely to come and contribute to its growth and prosperity. . . .
"For several years after coming into the place, I practiced hauling and tilting fsic] wood at the door of poor families and in other wa^s did I consiaer the poor. On the occasion of a Thanksgiving day I made a feast, it would well compare with any of the feasts the rich prepare for the rich and invited widows and orphans to it. My house was filled, ana their hearts were made idad. The next day the fragments were distributed to the poor not present** — Kelley, "Beloved Bretlvcn,** Jan. 14, 1870. Ms. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 189
thropic undertaking, as when he was strong 'as a lion and swift as an eagle'."^
"The petitioner has objects in view. He would appropriate a part of what Congress would allow him, for educational pur- poses in the land of the freedmen, and a part for the founding of a benevolent institution in the manufacturing village of Three Rivers, to be called The Widows' and Orphans' Horne'."^
Thus to the last his spirit of altruism persisted, and he died as he had lived, a philanthropist at heart. One day his accus- tomed rotmd of visits was not made ; and he was found lying on the floor of his little house, stricken with paralysis. He soon became tmconscious, and on the following evening, Janu- ary 20, 1874, his troubled life came to an end.**
24 Colonisation of Oregon, 4.
25 SettUmtnt of Oregon, i.
26 Springfield Daily Vmon and Springfield Daily Republican. January 23, i}J74. ​ ​
CHAPTER ELEVEN. The Writings of Kelley.$^1$
Kelley's literary efforts began early and continued until a few years before his death. His output was therefore volumin- ous, though his longest single work was of but 128 pages. Of his school books enough has already been said. Had he written nothing else his name would now be known only to the anti- quarian. We are here concerned with what he wrote about Oregon and about himself.
Both the Geographical Sketch and the General Circular have been denounced as grossly inaccurate and poorly written, and both have been praised as remarkably accurate and well written statements of fact. As was shown in an earlier chapter, "W. J. S." outdid himself in an attempt to convince the readers of the New England Magazine that Kelley had nothing but sec- ond-hand information about Oregon to present, and that his statements were unworthy of acceptance. Nor did he stop at that. "Some one ought to send Mr. Kelley a copy . . . of Guthrie's Grammar," he declared in one article,-^ and in another place he singled out for ridicule a sentence in which Kelley said that the proposed settlement would be ef- fected as soon "it has consummated their title to the Indian lands."* But no one was better aware of those defects than Kelley himself. In his History Of The Settlement Of Oregon, after giving a brief paraphrase of the General Circular, he con- tinued, "Here I leave the manual. This document is not given in the exact language in which it was couched. It would be mortifying to do it. It does not furnish a fair specimen of my composition. The productions of my pen in 1829 and several after years, were abundantly marked with faults. At times of mental excitement and nervous irritation, I almost lost the
1 See Powell, Bibliography of Hall J. Kelley, Oregon Historical Society, Quarterly, VIII, 375-86 1907).
2 W. J. S., Oregon territory. New England Magazine, II, 131.
3 W. J. S., Geographical sketch of Oregon territory. New England Mag- azine, II, 334. ​
192 Fred Wilbur Powell
physical ability of speech, and was scarcely able to converse or write upon any subject, however familiar. At every eflFort my language was broken and full of errors. One of the hireling writers of my adversaries, in a Boston periodical in 1832, says
Equally severe were the criticisms in that joint product of youth and age, Wyeth's Oregon, where Kelley is described as a man "who had read all the bodes he could get on the voyages and travels in Asia, Africa, Europe, and America, until he had heated his mind to a degree little short of the valorous Knight of La Mancha, that is to say, he believed all he read."* Although yoimg Wyeth himself had turned back at a point several hundred miles east of the mouth of the Columbia, he boldly declared:
"I have since been well-informed that in the valley of Ore- gon, so much extolled for its fertility and pleasantness, wood to cook with is one among their scarcest and very dear articles of necessity. From all accounts, except those g^ven to the public by Mr. Kelly, there is not a district at the mouth of any large river more unproductive than that of the Columbia, and it seems that this is pretty much the case from tide water of that river to where it empties into the ocean. . . . Mr. Hall J. Kelly published about two years since a most inflated and extravagant account of that western tract which extends from The Rocky Mountains to the shore of the Pacific Ocean. He says of it that no portion of the globe presents a more fruit- ful soil, or a milder climate, or equal facilities for carrying into effect the great purposes of a free and enlightened na- tion .... Lewis and Clarke's history of their expedition had been published and very generally read; yet this extrava- gant and fallacious account of the Oregon was read by some people not destitute of a general information, nor unused to reading .... But all the world exaggerates ; not even were we of the Or^on expedition entirely free from it,
4 Kelley, Hist, of the Settlement of Oregon, 107.
5 J. B. Wyeth, Oregon. 3. The book was written by Dr. Benjamin Water- house from notes and Information" of W^eth to discourage what was thought to be the wild scheme of Westward migration.
Hall Jackson Kelley 193
although not to be compared with Hall Jackson Kelly, who never stops short of superlatives, if we may judge by his pub- lications/**
Commenting upon this attack, Reuben Gold Thwaites said "Subsequent information^ has justified most of Kelley's state- ments, here derided by Wyeth"; and Mrs. Victor declared "So completely was he sustained in his general views that we feel surprised at this day to notice how closely they agree with what is now known of this region,"* and again "Regarding settlement his writings contain some practical suggestions; indeed, without clear discrimination between design and neces- sity, and read by the light of subsequent events, some of them might be pronotmced prophetic."* Equally favorable was the opinion of S. A. Qarke, who said "Whatever were the sources of Kelley's facts they were wonderfully correct. His critics concede that he was a terse and vigorous writer who did much to make Oregon known ; that his ideas were broad and for the nation's best interests."*^ The judgment of Major Hiram H. Chittenden, however, is not without an element of truth: "He read everything that he could find relating to Oregon, believed it all, however extravagant, and retailed it to the public with whatever addition his own over-wrought imagination might suggest .... What he wrote was for the most part grossly inaccurate; but with a public quite as ignorant as. he, this was no drawback, but rather a positive advantage. Everything came from his pen clothed with the beauty of a western sun- set.""
It will be observed that no one has questioned Kelley's sin- cerity in the presentation of information. It should be borne in mind, also, that he belonged to a generation which was ac- customed to rely upon hearsay and secondary authorities to a
6 Ibid.» 5a-3,_S7-8, 60. "~ • Ea ' "'
_ -UW ^- —
Soriety. 0«kiftrr/y, n. z^,
9 Bancroft, Hist, of _ _. ^ .. .- __
Charict F. Lummis has aptly characterized as '*that gigantic historical haystack, the Bancroft histories^'* see Morris. The origin and authorship of the Bancroft Pacific states publications, Or^on Historical Society^ Quarterly, IV, 287-364.
J Thwaites, £ar(v Western Travels, AAl, 79n. Victor, Hall J. Kelley, one of the fathers of Oregon, Oregon Historical ^, Quarterly. Il, 398. 9 Bancroft, Hist, of Oregon, I, 68. As to the authorship of what Mr.
10 Clarke,' ^•^w'" Days of Oregon History. I, lio.
1 1 Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West, I. 435​degree that is intolerable to the historian trained in modern scientific methods of research. If his two early pamphlets be compared with contemporary writings on the great West, they will be found quite as reliable and quite as readable. If Kelley's early style be found defective, what is to be said of the flamboyant sentences of Benton, that other sponsor of the West? It must be confessed, however, that in his effort to be convincing, Kelley sometimes defeated his own end by references to obscure sources of information. His pamphlet, Discoveries, Purchases of Lands, &c. On the Northwest Coast, published in 1839, was criticised by a friendly Boston editor, who said, "We do not altogether rely upon Mr. Kelley's account of the old Spanish voyages. … He tells us of 'Mss in the Marine Archives at Madrid.' We believe no such archives are in existence." To this Kelley answered "that he had the authority of Mr. Slacum … for the quotation," and that he had "also other reasons for believing it correct," but neither statement is particularly convincing, and it is significant that when the substance of the pamphlet was presented to congress in Bulfinch's memorial of 1840, the reference was omitted.
Hall Jackson Kelley 195
The only one of his writings in which Kelley took pride was the Memoir on Oregon prepared for Caleb Gushing in 1839. Unlike his early accounts this was based upon observation, and it is marred by comparatively few of the unfortunate manner- isms that characterized so much of what he wrote. The writers of the Bancroft histories were most favorably impressed with it, "He certainly gives in his memoir to congress in 1839, a very correct account of the topography, soil, and climate of both California and Oregon .... H€ ... . furnished information to the government that should have been of value ; and which should have been more properly appreciated, had it been presented disconnected from the recital of his personal suf- ferings and wrongs, with which all his writings after his visit to Oregon were rendered turgid .... It seems the most sober and intelligent of all his writings .... This present paper is a temperate description of the country and what the writer saw and did there. Though not without its author's constitutional wail and his usual fling at the Hudson's Bay Company, it is a well written document."^^
In this judgment Kelley would have concurred; for in de- fending himself against the criticisms of his writings on Ore- gon, he referred to the Memoir with no little satisfaction: "Nothing very extravagant is found in it; nothing but plain truths can be found in that document ; nothing but such, in all the mass of publications from my pen, which between the years 1825 and 1832, were so freely spread over the States, to enlighten about Oregon, and to induce emigration thither ; and to open that remote region to missionary enterprise."^®
Of the half dozen memorials and petitions through which Kelley sought to obtain the aid of congress during the years 1839-66, something has already been said. There was in ef- fect but a single document of this sort, which took different form as it was revised and amplified from time to time to
15 Bancroft. Northwest Coast, 11^ 556, 5^80. There is no reason to question its accuracy." — Bancroft, Hist, of California, III, 41 in. "Not very inaccurate, con- sidering Kelle/s limited opportunities of observation." — Ibid., IV, 147.
16 Settlement of Oregon, 61. ​
196 Fred Wilbur Powbll
strengthen its appeal. Some of the materials thus presented do not appear in Kelley's other writings.
It is no easy task to characterize Kelle/s three f cmnal pam- phlets, tfie History Of The Colonization Of Oregon, the Nar- rative Of Events And Difficulties, and the History Of The Settlement Of Oregon. All were written after he had passed middle age, and after f^ysical and mental suffering had un-. manned him. They were addressed to that understanding and sympathetic public which Kelley's faith in humanity assured him would grant him the recognition and the material reward he craved. It was a generation which knew little of those early years in which he had attempted so much and accom- lushed so little; a generation that was witness of that great movement that so rapidly peopled the valleys of the West.
When the History Of The Colonization Of Or^;on ai^>eared, Oregon was a regfularly constituted territory and the "gold rush" was turning the minds of the whole country toward the Pacific Coast, which was better known because of Kelley and the men whom he had influenced. When the Narrative Of Events And Difficulties appeared, the tide of emigration to the Northwest was at its height, Or^on was looking forward to statehood, and Washington was at the beginning of its territorial stage. Both pamj^ets were exceedingly well timed. To Kelley all that was needed was to get the facts before the public. With the idea of presenting the truth as he saw it, he bared his very soul to the reader, telling of his great plans, his high hopes, and the obstacles that had been too much for his powers. In the History Of The Settlement Of Oregon, "he poured himself out on paper," as Bancroft has it,^^ in a final attempt to convince a generation to which the settled West had become an accepted fact "Quite half a century has elapsed since the ccmception of my Oregon enterprise" ; he said in the preface, "although thirty years have rolled away since its achievement, and yet my countrymen seem to know nothing abouit — ^andwhy? This question I shall shortly answer ....
17 Bancroft, Northwest Coast, II, ss6n. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 197
"I desire my countrymen should know how much I have expended in time and property; and what I have suffered to settle Oregon, and to make it an integral part of my country's domain. I have truly paid from my substance, and from the comforts and endearments of life, a great price for that land, though a goodly one it is, and have freely possessed the nation of it Were my country duely apprised of the facts in the case, they would no bnger turn a deaf ear to the wrongs I have suffered, and the rights of which I have been defrauded, as they have done for the last thirty years; but, would at once return to me all, and even more than I claim ; both as a recompense for my services, and as a testimonial of their gratitude for the countless blessings those services have ren- dered and are rendering to the coimtry ....
"With the explanations I will be able to make, the reader can more understandingly form opinions of my capabilities and usefulness, and of the contempt so imivcrsally cast upon me ; and can better judge of the suffering condition to which persecutions and afflictions, endured for nearly half a century have reduced me — such as are, probably, without parallel in the present age of the world."^
Naturally self-centered, his style was egotistical to the ex- treme. "I am Hall J. Kelley; that is my name; am what edu- catiixi, habits, and the grace of God have made me.*'*^ Did Walt Whitman ever sound his "barbaric )rawp" louder than this? "I am not 'distressed' — h(K/e never been * distressed ;' "^ he protested after telling of "persecutions and afflictions" of nearly half a century, thereby unconsciously giving testimony to die fact. He wrote much of himself because he was the only human being he ever really knew. "I have said much concerning self, and now find it indispensable to say more With as little self-esteem as self-respect, I shall be able, to describe the powers and qualities of my mind ; and to satisfy, that it is not strictly true that I am 'without mind to do any-
i8 Ppw I-3-
19 lud, 7.
ao Ibid., 3. ​
198 Fred Wilbur Powell
thing.' For natural endowment, I have nothing to boast of, yet, the operations of my mind, I think indicate sanity, and such gifts as ekvate character, as high above the characters of my groveling enemies, as the clouds are above the ground."*^
"Being an educated man and an enthusiast, writing was easy," said Bancroft ; and again, "Indeed, all of Kelley's works are well written. His command of language was far above the average.**^ But on these points Kelley's word is quite to the contrary and much nearer the truth. "I never had skill at composition; my thoughts being always occupied in other business. My aspiration has been, more to the attainment of preeminence as an architect than as a painter. For the busi- ness of the former, I think I have been measurably qualified with science and skill ; while in that of the latter, have been an ordinary performer."^ He introduced his Geographical Sketch with a statement that he was fully conscious of his literary limitations, and declared that he attempted only "to impress the public mind with simple and unadorned facts,*' since he was not "possessed of that free and imperial com- mand of words, which is the peculiar felicity of a few."** Upon several occasions he expressed regret that he was unable to adorn his composition "with the ordinary embellishments of rhetoric." Thus in his old age, he said, "My head is confused, and that continually ; and I cannot help it. Thoughts, at times, enter the mind disorderly. That which should come first comes last, and the last first; and they are a long while in coming. Utterance is stammering. Language is broken and diffuse, without imagery or beauty, or any rhetorical embellish- ment It is impossible for me to condense it and render it concise and perspicuous. My compositions abotmd with errors. I copy and copy, again and again, and sometimes the last copy is worse than the first."
He therefore took to dictation; and his last work. The History Of The Settlement Of Oregon, was prepared in this
ai n>id., s-6.
aa Bancroft* Northwest Coast, II, 556n. 55811.
2$ Narrative of Evenis and DifficulHes, postscript.
a4 Pp. 3-4. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 199
manner. The result was hardly more satisfactory, for we are told of the inattention and carelessness of youthful amanuenses." On account of his extreme debility and nervous irritation he was able to dictate "only in the fore part of the day, not every day, and not more than two or three hours in any day."** In the preface he attempted "to explain con- cerning inadvertent expressions, digressions, curtailed state- ments, sayings, and the abrigment of the book, and errors of composition with which it abounds. It is seldom that I can find a person able and ready to write ; at times the amanuensis is turned from me. For weeks, or months, no one can be found to serve me; and I am left without help. Portions of the manuscript prepared for the press, and supposed to have been sent to it, are wanting in the book. This mistake is owing in part, I think, to the inattention of the young and in- experienced amanuenses. These things have caused delay, "^ a delay of two years. In the body of the text is this interpella- tion:
"I am in haste to finish the dictation of this book, and to have it in print and before Congress the present session. . . . It was commenced more than a year and a half ago, and yet not 80 pages of it are in print. Constant vexations, 'troubles on every side' cause the delay; they enfeeble the pen and unfit my mouth for speech, of course for the dictating of the composition of the book. Persecutions and afflictions of forty years' continuance have nearly worn me out, and I may not last to see, in print, the Appendix, the most instructive as it regards my biography, and perhaps the most interesting por- tion of the book."*^
Yet he continued his labors through fifty more pages, con- cluding with the following paragraph:
"Here is the end of the book for the present. When it is in the hands of the Congressional Committee, to whom was referred the petition, should my life be spared, and should I
as SHtUment of Ortgon, x6. al P. iv. J7 Pp. 76-7. ​
200 Fred Wilbur Powell
remain qualified for the task of further dictation, I shall pro- ceed to prepare the appendix, which, I think, is calculated to be as instructive and interesting to readers as the other por- tions of the book."^
The appendix was never printed. It does not matter, particularly, for Kelley had already written himself out. The foregoing quotations show how difficult a task it was for him to prepare his manuscript, and how confused was his mind. Further evidence on this point a{q)ears in the Narrative Of Events And Difficulties. This pamphlet bears the date 1852 on the title page, yet the preface was written in March, 1854, and the memorial of 1854 appears in the appendix. In this appendix also appears all the matter originally ap- pended to the History Of The Colonizatk>n Of Or^;on, with the original pagination, and a "supplemental index" or rather table of contents containing several references to materials which do not appear in the supplemental appendix. The sup- plemental appendix is concluded with an unpaged postscript, and pasted on the inside of the cover is a "Notice" which reads:
"Intense anxieties about affairs at Washington, about claims on the country, and about enemies oiqx>sing these claims ; and severe exercise with the pen for the last two or three months, have so amazed the brain of the author as to require im- mediate rest of his eyes and mind, and a suspension of the enlarging of the Supplemental Appendix of this book, until some better state of his health."
This, he went on to explain, cut off matter on the history of the Sandwich Islands, remarks on the North American Indians, and a "dissertation on Christianity," all of which, perhaps, we may well spare.
Considering the circumstances under which they were writ- ten, these pamphlets of Kelle/s, while without semblance of order and of a most uneven style, are surprisingly informing and accurate. Typographically they are wretched. Thus
a% P. laS. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 201
Slactun's name usually appears as Slocum/' and McLoughlin's as "McLaughlin,"— this is the text of a man who resented reference to himself as "Kelly." Again, the date of Kelley's transcontinental railroad project appears "as early as 1849," when it is obvious that 1829 was meant. As to their au- thenticity, it may be said that they compare favorably with much that has been written of Oregon and the Northwest. Of one thing we may be sure, Kelley based his writings upon materials which he believed authentic, and when he relied upon his memory he said so, as he also did when his memory failed him.
Everj^ing that he wrote, however, was encumbered with denunciations of the Hudson's Bay company and with religious phraseology ad nauseam. Eliminate these, and his writings have real value. But to Kelley, the infamy of the company was as real as the basis of his religious faith, and his denuncia- tion of the one was as fervent as his worship of the other. He did not consider it necessary to apologize for either. In- deed, upon the latter point, he naively said :
"Some of my skeptical friends, who never examined my works, nor the 'fruit of the Spirit,' say to me, — ^'you talk too much in your book about religion. You will expose yourself to public ridicule.' My reply to them is, You think too little about religion. 'I am not ashamed to own my Lord.' 'I glory in this, that I know God,' and 'know Christ Jesus and him crucified,' and am a 'servant of Christ according to the will of God.'"»
This was not the sort of statement with which to impress the authorities at Washington, but Kelle/s religion was a very real thing to him, a part of his very self. His whole life was based on faith, — faith in God, faith in Oregon, and faith in his fellow men.
99 Settl^meni of Oregon, 124.
CHAPTER TWELVE The Man Kelley and His Place in History
"How inexpressibly comfortable to know our fellow-crea- ture;" wrote Carlyle, "to see into him, understand his goings forth, decipher the whole heart of his mystery: nay, not only to see into him, but even to see out of him, to view the world altogether as he views it . . . !" If we cannot understand what manner of man Kelley was, it is through no fault of his, for in his voluminous writings his personality is reflected with all the clear outlines of reality. We see him first as a serious- minded boy of studious and pious habits of thought; then as a school teacher while still in his 'teens. The sports of boy- hood were not for him; instead, he read and studied, — even ​by moonlight! There was so much to learn; so much good to do ! To him, life was indeed earnest. We are told nothing of his father's influence; his character seems to have been built upon his mother's teachings. Oh, Polly Kelley, why did you not implant in your son a sense of humor, — a sense of relative values? One wonders if he ever laughed, or even smiled. To him the world was a formal place, peopled with good men, with a scattering few "through whom evil must come." The former were either "distinguished," "enterpris- ing," "understanding," or "learned," while the latter were characterized in terms that were of another order. Rarely did he mention a person without employing an adjective, complimentary or otherwise. He was a master in the use of epithets.
It is not surprising that this self-centered and serious- minded man was involved in personal difficulties with his im- mediate associates; for he was as obstinate as George III, as ponderous and immovable as his own New Hampshire hills. In his mind there was no room for doubt as to the side upon which the right lay, or as to his position on that side. But if he was elephantine in his intellectual processes, he was ​
204 Fred Wilbur Powell
far from pachydermatous in his feelings; and his hurts were faithfully recorded, whether it was an injured little finger or a plan that was unjustly assailed. The only exception seems to be his dismissal from the Boston schools. His domestic relations were clearly reflected in the title chosen for his letters to Mrs. Kelley: "Letters From An Afflicted Husband To An Astranged Wife." He was the afflicted one, he would have us believe! But there are those who will have little difficulty in aligning themselves upon the side of that un- fortunate woman. Who can read of that farewell scene at Bradford without sympathizing with her? She "looked sober, it appears, "and probably felt sad," and well she might; for her home had been broken up because of a vision.
Late in life Kelley undertook to analyze his character and his conduct, and we find in his writings many such statements as these :
"I have testified against the powerful worldlings belonging to the British and American Fur Companies, and the East India Merchants doing business on the N. W. Coast; and so testifying, have incurred the implacable hatred of those men. Their policy, then, as now, was to represent me as stupid, ignorant and crazy. The friends of my late bosom companion, prior to my visit to Oregon — to turn from, and against me, the loved ones of my household, called me an idler arid a spendthrift; as one spending his time foolishly, and his money for that which is naught, and as having neither mind nor means to do an3rthing.
"I do not believe these evil sayings of my enemies. I am not, nor have I ever been, an ignorant or crazy man, an idler or an idle schemer. My worics, and the fruit of the spirit, tes- tify to what I am. I do believe that I have as much as an ordinary understanding. I have at the present, now in old age, when 'waxen in decay,* as much as when fifty years ago, I conceived and planned the settlement of Oregon, as when, thirty-five or forty years ago, I planned so largely for internal improvements and the founding of benevolent institutions, and, ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 205
as when the wise and prudent about me were wont to say of me, *He is living thirty years in advance of the times' ....
"Persecuting enemies take every advantage of my physical infirmities to bring me into low repute with friends and coun- trymen ; which circumstance renders it highly needful I should explain concerning them. My infirmities are what render my external appearance unfavorable to right perceptions of me. I will now proceed to explain as to the cause and nature of the great calamity I have so long suffered ....
"Besides the calamity and other evils contributing to ugly external appearances, I am, as has been already explained, slow of apprehension, much slower, probably, than was Moses, who found a like difficulty with me, in expressing his thoughts, much slower than Goldsmith .... At times of hig^ ner- vous irritation I lose the physical ability of expressing my thoughts .... As a legitimate result of this evil, I am also diffident. This adds very much to imfavorable outward ap- pearances. Sad, very sad, were these appearances between the years 1829 and about 1852 .... I became terribly per- plexed, and was driven, at times, to high mental excitement, doubtless to a near approximation to insanity. Was then more than in previous years, liable to foibles, inadvertences, and im- proprieties of conduct. In those years, at every attempt to perform before the public, to lead in devotional exercises at public gatherings, was a failure; diffidence at such times was more humbling and mortifying than ever. Often was I put tD shame. After the last mentioned year, the outward appear- ances began to wear a more favorable aspect. I recovered from perplexity .... I think my head and heart are full of thoughts, original, great and good ....
"A word further as to the condition and evils to which I am now reduced. Having nearly lost my eyesight, I am unable at the present time to distinguish by the features one person from another at six feet distant from me ; and am unable to read manuscript or even print, unless it be in large type, and not that without distress in the optic nerves, and a degree of ​
206 Fred Wilbur Powell
pain in the head. In every instance, if the reading is ever so short, even a dozen pages, the eyes tire, and the head becomes confused, and I am slower of speech and tongue, and utterance is more stammering."^
"The ways of a righteous Providence are inscrutable to mortals. In all my past career they have seemed particularly and wonderfully merciful, yet mysterious. I talk of great achievements, yet am I one of the least of the instrumentalities employed in the spreading of knowledge, and the advancing of the work of the Redeemer's kingdom. When feeling the strongest, I am made sensible of weakness; when proud, am made humble. Once, I increased in riches, 'grew fat and kicked against the Lord,' and my adversaries came, and took away my possessions. Confident in my abilities to declaim and, other- wise, to hold forth before the public on the side of philan- thropy ; and, great diffidence came upon me. After some mor- tifying failures, I learned to be silent, was more wise, cared less to make an outside show, and more to make faith and ivorks my worth, I began to boost of what my communica- tions with intelligent and public-spirited men, and my books and tracts, spread about the land, were effecting in the field of benevolent enterprise, withholding from the mighty and Beneficent God too much of the praise due him; and I was smitten by the hand of the Lord; and came, comparatively, dumb before the people . . . ."^
"I live on, like some aged oak, lonely, on some bleak summit, withstanding storms and tempests, and smitten by thunder- bolts, a branchless trunk. By the help of God I live ; suffering poverty, the loss of health, and the bereavement of companion and children, and a persecution, terrible, and, in respect to dura- tion and the number of powerful and cruel perpetrators, doubt- less unparalleled in this age and country."'
Enough, perhaps more than enough, has been presented to show Kelley's attitude toward himself, with all its variations.
1 Kelley, Hist, of tht Settlement of Oregon, 4. U. iSc^-
2 Kelley, Narratwe of Events and uHficulHes, posttcnpt.
3 Ibid., 66. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 207
What of the attitude of historians? Naturally the estimates differ widely. The least sympathetic is that of Bancroft :
"The Boston school-master is a character the historian is not particularly proud of. He is neither a great hero nor a great rascal. He is great at nothing, and is remarkable rather for his lack of strength, and in staggering for fifty years under an idea too big for his brain. He was a bom enthusiast and partisan, one of a class of projectors more capable of forming grand schemes than of carrying them to a successful issue. . .
"Had the school-master possessed an evenly balanced, prac- tical mind, or had his early training been more of the counting- room, and less of the school-room, he might have made his mark, high and ineffaceable. To one who had the means, and knew how to employ them, it was then no difficult task to colonize Oregon, lay the foundations of a prosperous com- monwealth, amass wealth, and convert the savages swiftly to heaven all at once. But there must be means and skill to handle them."*
Despite their objectionable tone these statements are worthy of attention, though one may well question whether the coloni- zation of Oregon could have been accomplished so easily. The words of Clarke, Lyman, and Temple, as quoted below, give a much truer picture of the man :
"Let us concede in advance that the man had radical faults of character, that he was conceited as to the value of his labors and to some extent imreasonable in his pretentions, but, when this is all said, he must have been a man of force and definite purpose to expend twenty years of the prime of life in the attempt to preserve the American title to the territory of Ore- gon at that early day, and to entertain schemes for the settle- ment and development of that vast region .... He was both an enthusiast and a zealot, and — ^to his misfortune — was not a clear-sighted business man."**
"Kelley was undoubtedly one of those minds ideal rather than practical, who give suggestions wljich more executive per-
4 Bancroft, Hist, of thg Northwest Coast, II, S44-5t SSSn.
5 Clarke, Pioneer Days of Oregon History, I, 368-9. ​
208 Fred Wilbur Powell .
sons readily pick up and carry out without even thanks to the giver .... All these [educational and benevolent] efforts, requiring the confidence of the public, and of educated persons, show a mind of fine order, highly progressive and probably erratic; but still neither unsound nor impractical. That he gradually withdrew his efforts from these valuable and congenial labors to take up the study of Oregon, and pro- mulgate what proved to be the only practical way to-4naintain the interests of Americans here, is a work for which Oregon at this late day, and all the Union, should feel grateful, although in his actual movements he shows the more or less hesitating grasp of a man bom a thinker rather than an actor."*
"Of the character of Mr. Kelley it is not easy to form a satisfactory estimate. He was a many-sided man. In certain directions, he was a learned, but in whole, was not an edu- cated man. His mind was active, but appears not to have been well balanced. His sympathies were large, but liable to be misdirected for want of cool judgment. He $aw things in their individuality, not in their relations. What appeared to him to be desirable and philanthropic he pursued with en- thusiasm, and without counting the cost. The goodness of his motives were never called in question, but his zeal was often 'without knowledge.' In a word, he was the creature, not the creator of circumstances .... The incidents narrated, show a natural tendency to depend on dreams and impulses, rather than on sober judgment, and calm forethought. Perhaps his main defects were lack of knowledge of men, and lack of financial ability, which two lacks account for his ill-success in life."^
These appraisals of the man agree with his own statement that his head and heart were full of thoughts, great and good ; but they say nothing as to his originality. Frcrni the record of his whole life, it is difficult to single out an instance in which he exhibited originality. As a school teacher he developed not
6 H. S. Lyman, Ha*, of Oregon, III, 72-%.
7 Templ«, Hist, of tht Town of Palmer, 268-9. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 209
his own system but Lancaster's ; in proposing the settlement of Oregon, he acknowledged his indebtedness to Jefferson ; in the movement for industrial educaticm, he was an advocate, not an originator; his plan for the form of government of Or^jon was based not on any ideas of his own, but on the laws estab- lishing the territory of Michigan; as a scientist he dabbled in many fields and made shrewd and more or less accurate ob- servations, but he originated nothing. His attempt to devise an improved system of land surveying was never carried far enough to entitled him to credit as an originator.
All agree that Kelley was a man with a distorted perspective, who was singularly out of touch with his fellows. To such men as Foster and Lovett, he was an easy victim; and to the sailors on the Dryade as well as the boys in Three Rivers he must have appeared as one who invited annoying attacks. Suf- fering arrest, entangled in frequent law suits, and losing prop- erty at every turn, he bltmdered his lonely way through life. He came into contact with many men of prcxninence, — Bul- f inch, Everett, Webster, Linn, Gushing, Lancaster, to mention only a few ; yet he seems to have had no real friends. Every- where he seems to have been regarded as a bore, even by those who sympathized with him. Wyeth's letters show that he lost respect for Kelley upon close contact, and his attitude at Fort Vancouver can be explained only by the fact that he was en- tirely out of patience with the man. Indeed, it is difficult to read Kdley's narrative of his long journey to Oregon without impatience. Why did he encumber himself with so much bag- g^age, — tracts, scarlet velvet sashes, combs, etc.? Why did he allow himself to be left alone in the wilds of Mexico on account of a lame mule and a load of worthless trinkets? His route from New Orleans to San Diego was marked with his be- longings, lost, abandoned, stolen, or given away ; and yet he arrived on the Columbia with enough baggage to worry about. Whenever he lost anything, whether it was the hind wheels of a wagon or a cane, the fact was duly set down and often with a statement of the amount in terms of money. These items he ​
210 Fred Wilbur Powell
finally consolidated in a statement of his account against the public under the head "Expenditures and Losses in Time and Property— The Public To Enterprise, Dr.", the total being $132,250.«
If we attempt to state Kelley's account in terms of public service we must enter some items at merely nominal values for lack of information; but with all necessary qualifications, there would seem to be a considerable balance on the side of Kelley, whose claim to distinction may be set forth as follows :
The American Qaim to Oregon. — From a wide range of sources Kelley collected materials on the question of title to the lands on the Northwest Coast and presented the facts in pamphlets, in newspaper articles, in memorials to congress, in public lectures, and in private conferences. Many of his state- ments of fact have been properly challenged, and his emphasis upon the matter of the Kendrick land purchase may have weakened his argument; yet his constant agitation served to keep the issue alive until the national government found it expedient to take final action. Whether Kelley's efforts di- rectly influenced congress in any way is doubtful.
The Occupation of Oregon Proposed. — For many years Kelley claimed that he had been the first to propose the occu- pation of the Oregon territory by American citizens, and this claim has been generally accepted by historians, with the exception of Bourne, who said:
"Mr. Kelley's claims for himself seem greatly exaggerated,
8 Eleven years, up to 1836, at $2,000 per year $22,000
Fifteen years, up to 1852, at $1,500 per year 22,500
Publishing books and tracts 500
Travelling for the purpose of lecturing 200
Expenses at Washington 500
Two shares of the Oregon stock, and five certificates 300
Loss on the brig "John Q. Adams'* 300
Loss at Three Rivers 300
Loss at New Orleans 300
Loss at Vera Cruz 1.150
Loss by robbers, near Salamanca 200
$48,250 Interest ... to 1852, about 84.000
Amount, $132,250
— Norrativf of Evfnts and Difficulties, 7. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 211
and the dates of his published writings on the Oregon ques- tion indicate, I think, that instead of influencing Floyd to champion Oregon he himself reflected the movement initiated by Floyd .... To one freshly approaching the subject the work of Floyd for Oregon seems immensely more important than Hall J. Kelley's to whom more space is usually allotted in Oregon histories .... It is sufficiently clear, I think, that a man of such antecedents and connections was not de- pendent upon the Massachusetts schoolmaster either for in- formation or stimulus."*
Kelley, however, did not claim that he had influenced Floyd, and he yielded to Benton the distinction of having been the first to propose the occupation of Oregon. In 1849 he said :
"I was not aware that any person in existence entertained thoughts of occupying the banks of the Columbia with an American population, till 1822 [1820?], when the subject was discussed in Congress. Afterwards, I came to the knowledge, that the Hon. T. H. Benton had previously, perhaps earlier than myself, conceived plans for that purpose; that he had written upon the subject, and conversed much upon it, and moved Governor Floyd to bring it into the National Leg^sla- ture."i<>
The Occupation of Oregon Accomplished. — "The Oregon enterprise was one of my own getting up and carrying through. The wise confessed it to be magnificent and benevolent. The best part of my life was exclusively devoted to it; and the whole of my substance and earthly comforts were sacrificed to consummate its accomplishment ; and, it resulted as at its con- ception I supposed it would, in making Oregon and California the abode of Civilization ; and both integral parts of the United States' domain; and in extending more widely the blessings of Christianity."*^ This was Kelley's claim.
The reference to California was probably based upon the
9 Bourn«, Aspects of Oregon history before 1840, Oregon Historical Societx, Quarterly, VI, 260-3. ^ , «
10 Kelley, Hist, of the Colonisation of Oregon, 5. See also Thornton, Ore- gon and California, IL X4-Sn- .^. . .
11 Narrative of Events and D%ft%cnlt%es. 68-9. ​
212 Fred Wilbur Powell
shadowy claim to having indirectly influenced Sutter to locate at Sacramento. As to Oregon, however, the claim is better grounded. That Wyeth went to Oregon because of Kelley's efforts is an established fact ; that the Lees went as a result of his agitation is almost certain; and Kdley himself induced Ewing Young to accompany him to Oregon, where he re- mained as a settler. Calvin Tibbetts was the only man whose enrollment on the books of the American Society was fol- lowed by emigration and settlement ; but some of the men who went out with Wyeth on his second expedition became settlers, as did those who were members of Young's party. It was Young^s death in 1841 that led to the first movement for an organized government among the American settlers. The name of Webley Hauxhurst, one of Young's party, with that of Calvin Tibbetts appears on the list of those who voted in favor of organizing a provisional government in 1843; and Joseph Gale, also of Young's party, served on the first execu- tive committee, 1843-4, which was elected to enforce the laws before the organization of the provisional government.^
The settlement of Oregon was not accomplished by New Englanders," as Kelley had planned, but it was accomplished as Uie result of the movement which he started.
The Origin Of The Word Oregcm And Its Application To The Pacific Northwest. — ^"Who first accounted for the Indian name of the 'Great River of the West,' (Oregon) and applied the same to the country watered by that river? Who ac- counted for the name both of the Indian tribe and the river called KUmookf Who accounted for the name of Mexico? Humboldt did not. Who accounted for the name of many of
I a Himes, Organizatioo of Oregon provisional gorernment, Oregon Blue Bock, 19x5-6: X4-6.
>f Oregon's pioneer population, 6 per cent came . from the Middle West, 33 per cent, from Sooth md II per cent from aa foreign countries, the om the British Isles, Canada and Germany." — r of politcal parties in Oregon, Oregon Historical "W^eth as a New Englander is hardly to be the impending pioneer moTcment It came from Correspondence and Journals of Nathaniel J. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 213
the places, tribes, of rivers, and animals, on the western side of North America? ... I claim to have been him who has accounted for them. I have alc«ie done them."^*
We need not concern ourselves with the whcJe of this claim. _ Our interest is in the word Oregon, "whose origin has baffled modern investigation,"" and upon this point neither of Kel- le/s statements are convincing.
In the matter of the application of the name of the river to the territory, Kelley's claim rests upon somewhat better grounds. "The country, in those days [before 1830], was known as the 'North-West Territory,' 'Columbia River,' and as the 'River Oregon.' His first step was, therefore, to en- lighten the pubUc concerning a country marked on all maps as 'unknown,' without a distinctive a^^llation, till the one it now wears was made familiar to the public mind by his writings and correspondence."^^ Upon this point there is sufficient evidence upon which to deny Kelley's claim to priority, and also to determine beyond question the person to whom the honor belongs. Upon the evidence of Floyd's second Oregon bill, which was introduced on January 18, 1822, we must give to Floyd the distinction of having first pix>posed that "all that portion of the territory of the United States north of the forty-second degree of latitude, and west of the Rocky Moun-
14 SettUtnent of Oregon, 12. "Oregon, the Indian name of this river, was traced by roe to a large river called Orjon in Chinese Tartary, whose latitude corresponds with that of Oregon, in America. The word KUlamucks, the name of a tribe a little south of the mouth of the Oregon, was, also, traced to a people called Killmuchs, who anciently lived near the mouth of the Orjon in Asia. It is evident that the Oregon Killmucks were among the early settlers of North America, ^nd brought with them manv of the proper names used by our Indians. The word Mexico (Mecaco) is identified with the name of the smcient capital of Japan. Identifications of bothproper and common names are numerous.^ — Ibid.. 88n. Another guess was: '*The name of Oregon is derived from or-gano. the Spanish word for wild marjoram, the oreganum vulgar e of Linnaeus, which grows abundantiv in the western part of the disputed territory.*' — Kelley, Oregon. Palmer Sentinel. April 33, 1846. This subject, which lies within the neld of geography rather than history, is discussed m detail in Bancroft, Hist, of Oregon, I, i7-as.
15 Bonnie^ The travels of Jonathan Carver, American Historical Review, XI. 2I8.
16 Kelley, Petition, 1866; 2,
17 17 cong. I sessw H. bill 47, sec. 4​
214 ' Fred Wilbur Powell
tains, shall constitute a territory of Oregon."*^ This was first emphasized by Bourne.^®
But if Kelley was not the first to apply the name, he was the most active in making* it known to the people, which in itself was a real public service, although not of major im- portance.
The Presidents' Range. — In his Memoir of 1839 Kelley said "The eastern portion of the district referred to [southwestern Oregon] is bordered by a mountain range [the Cascades], running nearly parallel to the spine of the Rocky mountains and to the coast, and which, from the number of its elevated peaks, I am inclined to call the Presidents^ range. These iso- lated and remarkable cones, which are now called among the hunters of the Hudson's Bay Company by other names, I have christened after our ex-Presidents, viz.: 1. Washington [St. Helens], latitude 46 deg. 15 min. ; 2. Adams [Hood], latitude 45 deg. 10 min.; 3. Jefferson, latitude 44 deg. 30 min.; 4. Madison [Three Sisters], latitude 43 deg. 50 min.; 5. Monroe [Diamond or Thielsen] , latitude 43 deg. 20 min. ; 6. J. Q. Adams [Pitt or McLxDughlin], latitude 42 deg. 10 min.; and 7. Jack- son [Shasta], latitude 41 deg. 40 min.^*
Some contemporary writers, notably Famham and Green- how, were inclined to favor this suggestion; but Mount Jef- ferson alone has retained its name, and Mount Jefferson was originally named not by Kelley but by Captain William Clark. Thus it is possible to determine the source of Kelle/s idea of a Presidents' range.^ There is a Mount Adams in southern Washington, and its name may be the indirect result of Kel-
i8 Bourne, Th« travels of Jonathan Carver, ut supra, 288n; Aspects of Oregon history before 1840, ut supra, 265-6. On January 13, 1823, Kfallary of Vermont proposed an amendment lo the Floyd bill which provided amonR other things that the "tracts of country, in the section described is hereby declared to be the Territory of Oregon." and on January 24 when Walker of North Carolina moved to amend Mallary's amendment by substituting Columbia for Oregon, Floyd objected and the motion was lost. Floyd then proposed and Mallary accepted a substitute which differs only in a few unimportant particulars from the original wording. — 17 cong. 2 sess. Annals of Congress, XL, 601. 678-0. In the course of the debates on his bill Floyd used the terms *'the Oregon ' and "Oregon** interchangeably to describe the territory. See Ibid., 408^.
19 Pp. 53-4.
20 There is a "Presidents' range in Kelley's native state. New Hampshire. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 215
ley's suggestion, but Kelley 's Mount Adams was south of the Columbia.
Internal Improvements Proposed. — That Kelley had little if any influence in the movement for a transcontinental rail- road, is the conclusion to which one is forced after an exami- nation of all available materials. When we consider the diffi- culties that attended the accomplishment of that great work, the words of Kelley, as quoted below, are interesting only as they tend to show how little he appreciated the magnitude of the task and the sort of men needed to engage in it :
"Had enemies let me alone, the road would have been graded from one end to the other before this [1854] ; and Oregon be- fore the year 1840, would have teemed with a population from our own blest country ; and Alta California would have become the possession of the United States earlier than it did ; and have cost less money and no blood ; and that whole country, dark as it was, ere this day, would have been changed to shining fields and flowery gardens; and society there, would have been dressed in lovely attire, and robed in charms of moral beauty. . .
"My thoughts are still on the execution of these desirable and heaven-suggested improvements, and on the resources which the road would open to the people of this country for wealth and knowledge and national superiority. Should health and strength ever again be equal to so great a labor, and my enemies lessen the cords that bind me hand and foot, the two projects, Indian and railroad, remaining unaccomplished, I shall engage in them with what science and skill I possess, and with my accustomed zeal and perseverance, hoping to add them to the list of my achievements."^
This is Kelley at his worst. Nor was his claim on this ac- count limited to railroads. "I planned for Internal Improve- ments — a canal from Charles River (Boston), to the Connecti- cut River, as surveyed by L. Baldwin, and a ship-canal from Barnstable to Buzzard's Bay."^ The Massachusetts canal was
J I Narrative of Events and Difficulties, 70-72'
22 Settlement of Oregon, j. As to the former Kelley said that he "Made a cursory survey of eight or ten miles of the route, this ... at my own ex- pense, and that he presented a petition to the legislature. As to the latter he declared that "about the year 1825^' he made a cursory survy of the route for the ship canal, also at his own expense. — Kelley, "Beloved Brethren," Nov. 14, 1869, ​
216 Fred Wilbur Powell
projected in 1791 by General Henry Knox, who obtained a charter in 1792. The project was revived by Governor Eustis in 1825, and a special commission was appointed to make an examination of the practicable routes through to the Hudson river at the terminus of the Erie canal. The Cape Cod canal was first proposed in colonial times, and it was everybody's project. It would seem that Kelle/s contribution, such as it was, was negligible.
It remains to consider the various estimates which have been placed upon Kelley's public services by the writers of history. The laudatory accounts which appeared in the news* papers of Boston from time to time after 1839, like the testi- monials which were appended to Kelley's memorials and pe- titions, may be safely ignored, for most of them were probably written at his solicitation. It must be borne in mind in con- nection with the excerpts which follow that many of them were written in the belief that to Kelley belonged the distinction of having been first in the field to suggest the settlement of Ore- gon — an honor which he specifically disclaimed.
"Though Mr. Kelley did not succeed in his object of the direct establishment of a colony on the Columbia, either for want of adequate personal influence and resources, or because his project was in advance of the time, or in consequence of the obstacles thrown in his way by interested individuals, still he is entitled to honorable mention for the exertions he made and long persisted in; and perhaps the American settlement, actually effected on the Wallamet, by Mr. Lee . . . may owe its conception to the publications and suggestions of Mr. Kelley .... These and other advantages of the settlement of Oregon were as clearly seen by Mr. Kelley then [1830], as they are now by the country at large. But he suffered the too common fate of those who conceive a great idea, and dedicate themselves to a great d)ject, in anticipation of the progress of knowledge and opinion around them. Their discoveries or plans OHiflict with existing interests; their just views are met with misconstruction, and often with ridicule; their zeal is ​wrecked on petty obstacles, thrown up by the ignorance or injustice of their misjudging contemporaries; and it is not until later times, or it may be another generation, that full justice can be done to the enthusiasm, and due allowance made for the exaggerated feeling, which the contemplation of an elevated purpose kindles in their breasts."
"And yet the occupation of Oregon was not without its knights of La Mancha, whose brains became somewhat turned, and that by difficulties more imaginary than real . . . A fanatic in religion, he became fanatic in his scheme of settlement. All the powers of piety and avarice were employed by him in the attempted execution of plans which grew more wildly dear to him as the years went by and failure became more apparent . . .
"If we measure his merits by his claims we must make him at once owner and king of Oregon. Nevertheless his writings did exercise influence, not as great as if they had been moderate, yet exceedingly weighty in those momentous questions so shortly to arise . . .
"With regard to the services which Kelley rendered the United States, or Oregon, it would be difficult to estimate the value. That his published articles and public lectures were the first to call attention to the feasibility of settling the Pacific coast by an overland emigration there can be no dispute . . .
"There are more than one in California like Vallejo and Alvarado, prominent in the affairs of the nation, who have seen cities rise from under the chaparal of sand-hills, and palpitating civilization fill the valleys where once they lassoed grizzly bears and chased wild men and women into the mission conversion pens; there are among the fur-traders those who have seen the rise of settlement and the wonders of progress in the Northwest; but there has been none like poor Kelley who laid upon the altar of his enthusiasm more than half a century of ​
218 Fred Wilbur Powell
life, who among the first to start the cry, never ceased halloo- ing until his wilderness was a state ....
"All his influence to a very fair extent I am disposed to ac- cord him. Had I been congress I would have given the old schoolmaster^ something to sweeten his second childhood's cup withal, and I would have praised and petted him somewhat in an official way, for he did more than many a well paid officer of the government. But when a human being breaks forth in insensate twaddle like this, 'Let me then be known by the work divinely appointed unto me to do, by the manner of life which the Lord Jesus revealed unto me in visions in my youth, by the eventful, extraordinary, and useful life, which God, ac- cording to his foreknowledge, did predestinate,' I do not much blame the republic for giving the poor fellow the cold shoul- der.^
"The history of human progress shows that great move- ments frequently receive their initial impulse from the most visionary and impractical of men. Perhaps the very quality of being visionary — prone to see visions — makes possible a forecast of results which lack of practical ability in the indi- vidual could never accomplish. John Brown did as much as any man to give direction to public thought in favor of the emancipation movement of the United States ; but a man less qualified than he to bring that movement to a successful issue could scarcely have been found. So with the vital question of the Northwest — the long-disputed Oregon question — it was preached, published, and kept before the public for many years by a man who proved himself wholly unfit to carry out his own schemes. This was a Boston schoolmaster. Hall J. Kelley . . .
"His crusade was a successful one in helping to turn men's minds to a subject of far-reaching importance, and in this respect the American people owe to his memory a debt of grati- tude. Although he never achieved the distinction of martyr- dom in the cause which he so boldly and persistently cham- pioned, he will stand in history as the John Brown of the
24 Bancroft, Northwest Coast, II, 543, 554*5i 559n. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 219
movement which saved to the United States a part of its right- ful domain upon the Pacific."^
"Hall J. Kelley may properly be called the father of the Oregon emigration movement."^^
"Sharing the fate of all idealists, he was a generation in advance of his day. All that he hoped for Oregon was des- tined to come to pass, and largely through his mad propa- ganda. His pamphlets and his newspaper [articles] generated a romantic enthusiasm for the vast realm beyond the Rockies so rapidly slipping from American control. His suggestion that every colonist should receive a grant of two hundred acres of arable land appealed with irresistible force to the homeless and unemployed of the eastern cities, and furnished the foundation for the Donation Act."[?]2^
"It is impossible to show any other American at so early a period not only devoting himself to the intellectual labor of discussing the Oregon question, and to promoting colonization societies, but who undertook and overcame without support, the cost and perils of immigration with the sole object of verifying his teachings to the country .... It is only jus- tice to agree with him that he set on foot by his writings the immigration movement to the shores of the Pacific in all its forms, whether missionary, commercial, or colonizing ....
"If we compare the unprotected services of a Kelley with the paid and protected services of Lewis and Clark, we have to acknowledge that a debt of appreciation and public recog- nition, at least, is due to the Yankee schoolmaster who spent the best years of his life in teaching the United States govern- ment and people the value of the Oregon territory."^
"I consider that the real contest for Oregon was between the
25 Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far W-'tfj*, I, 434-5- a6 Thwaites, Early Western Travels, XXI, 24^. 27 Coman, Economic Beginnings of the Far West, II, 132-3.
2B Victor, Hall J. Kelley, one of the fathers of Oregon, Oregon Historical ^ Society. Quarterly, II, 39. ​
220 Fred Wilbur Powell
date of arrival of Hall J. Kelley, Ewing Young, and the free- men who came with them, or near their date and 1846."**
"Hall Jackson Kelley, a school teacher qf Boston, began a work in behalf of Oregon that Oregon has never yet acknowl- edged or recognized. Kelley was an eccentric man, an en- thusiast, one of those who seize a single idea and devote their lives to it .... He it was, beyond all question, who first urged the settlement of Oregon, insisted upon its practicability and set forth the importance and value of the Oregon coimtry to the United States. Many with whom he came in contact re- garded him merely as a bore or troublesome fellow, and this impression was deepened by a tone in his speech and writings which was regarded as a religious cant ....
"This strange eccentric man can almost be called the prophet of Oregon, the father of migration to Oregon, the man who hastened the fulfillment of Oregon's destiny."**
"The largest results of Wyeth's enterprise are rather to be looked for in the contribution he made in various ways to the furtherance of other enterprises than his own.
"Substantially the same may be said of the enterprise of Hall J. Kelley, the leading promoter of one or more of the emigration societies already mentioned. He contributed ma- terially to the ultimate settlement of the territory by his per- sistent and widespread agitation in the East, and later in some measure by bringing into the Willamette Valley a small band of men, some of whose number became permanent settlers/*"
"We envy none who can look on the story of Hall J. Kelley with contempt. . . . Continually, as I study the features of that early time, I trace the primal influences to Hall J. Kelley as having given them birth. Oregon can afford to kindly remember him for the good he tried to do— and really
29 Minto, The young homesecker, Oregon Historical Society, Procetdimgs, 1900: lao-i.
30 Scott, Annual address, Oregon Pioneer Association, Trwisactiotu, 1890, 9: 33, 35.
31 Wilson, The Oregon question, Oregon Historical Society, Qnarttriy, I, S23-4. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 221
accomplished as results have shown. He alone was stirring the cauldron of Fate, and did and said what had momentous re- sults. It is more kindly to place a stone upon his cairn than to throw any slur on one who suffered and lost so much.
"Hall J. Kelley had wonderful prescience and judgment in discerning facts and drawing conclusions .... This vis- ionary, whose life was a disappointment, because he attempted too much« laid the foundation for all that as finally accom- plished. It was surprising that he accomplished so much and was so reliable.
"Kelley's work was far reaching. His life work was as the finger of fate pointing the way, and his labors reached fruition while he was neglected and his services forgotten ....
"I have been struck with the fact that Kelley was the special providence inspired at the earliest time to appreciate the value of this region^ when Congress ignored it and the nation was ignorant of its value. Eliminate from that period this single feature and it is doubtful when American occupancy could have been eflFectiye. The very man, who discovered gold in California was one who came from Oregon, drawn there by the facts stated. Before the century shall have passed, through which he so ardently labored and so bitterly suffered, it will not be too late to accord to him the merit he deserved and plant this modest laurel on his forgotten grave.'*®
"To him, more than any other one person, in my judgment, may be justly attributed the subsequent occupatkm of the country by emigrants from the United States — ^and Oregon should in some way worthy of the subject and herself yet acknowledge and commemorate that fact.**"
"To him, without doubt, is to be attributed much of the subsequent wave of interest which swept on toward American immigratbn. At first, a New England college man, educator, and social theorizer, and then a leader of the pioneer movement
3a Ckrke, I, 274-6. , .
33 Dcady» Annual adilreat, Oregon Pioneer Association, Transactions, x^yy-^A​
222 Fred Wilbur Powell
to Oregon, Hall J. Kelley is worthy of permanent remem- brance."^
"Some of the Oregon historians have been disposed to be- little Kelley's work for Oregon ; but they only expose their own want of knowledge of the subject .... There is not a church history or a church docimient that has ever been printed that had the justice to give Kelley what was due to him . . . . Unappreciated and misunderstood, by some called a fanatic, by others a crank, and by the Hudson's Bay Company treated as a horse-thief, the ghost of Hall J. Kelley appears and disap- pears through the shifting scenery of Oregon's strenuous his- tory with such kaleidoscopic presentment as almost baffles de- scription .... Hall J. Kelley is justly entitled to have his name enrolled among those who saved Oregon to the people of the United States."*^
"He gained a place in history and his name is gratefully mentioned as the earliest and one of the truest friends of the 'Americanization of Oregon.' No history of Oregon can be written that does not thus record the name of Hall J. Kelley."**
Kelley complained that his name had been suppressed in the books and reports on Oregon written by Lee and Frost, Green- how, Slacum, Howison, and others. Had he lived to read the estimates here reproduced, he might have been satisfied; for it is now acknowledged that his figure bulks large among those who have lived and labored for Oregon. A number of sugges- tions have been made as to a proper memorial to his name. So far as is known Kelley street in Three Rivers is his sole memo- rial, and this is no small distinction in a village which has g^ven to its streets such singularly unimaginative appellations as Main, Front, and High. The map of the Northwest Coast is sprinkled with the names of Lewis, Qark, Jefferson, Astor, Benton, Linn, Polk, Whitman, McLoughlin, and others who figured in the early history of the Oregon country. Oregon
34 W. D. L]nnian, The Columbia River, i6i.
35 Gaston, Hwf. of Oregon. I, 115-6, a68, 272,
36 H. K. Bines, Hist, of Washington, 105. ​
Hall Jackson Kelley 223
has recently dedicated the McLoughlin Home at Oregon City and reinterred the body of Jason Lee at Salem. The body of Kelley lies in his boyhood home in Gilmanton, and there it should remain. Above it might well be placed these words of Stevenson, which read as if they were written with Kelley in mind:
"Here lies one who meant well, tried a little, failed nmch: — surely that may be his epitaph, of which he need not be ashamed. Nor will he complain at the summons which calls a defeated soldier from the field ; defeated, ay, if he were Paul or Marcus Aurelius : — but if there is still one inch of fight in his old spirit, undishonoured. The faith which sustained him in his life-long blindness and life-long disappointment will scarce even be required in this last formality of laying down his arms. Give him a march with his old bones ; there, out of the glorious sun-colored earth, out of the day and the dust and the ecstasy — ^there goes another Faithful Failure !"
NEWS AND COMMENT
Oregon Trail Monuments.
These have been erected in many places in Oregon and Washington by Daughters of the American Revolution and will be objects of sentimental interest for all time. The patriotic women deserve the thanks of all lovers of pioneer history and the gratitude of pioneer descendants.
The fourth and latest monument of this kind in Oregon was dedicated October 13, 1917, at Oregon City, where the old road crossed Abernethy Creek. Willamette Chapter, through its acting regent, Mrs. W. H. T. Green, presented the monument to the state regent, Mrs. Isaac Lee Patterson. The monument bears a bronze tablet, inscribed, "Old Oregon Trail, 1846," to memorialize the journey of the first wagons of the Barlow party across Cascade Mountains, in 1845-46.
At Rhododendron, on Barlow Road, thirteen miles below the summit of Cascade Mountains, stands a monument erected by Multnomah Chapter, in October, 1917, on ground given by Mrs. Emil Franzetti. The tablet inscribed, "The Oregon Trail, 1845," was placed by Mrs. Ormsby M. Ash, Mrs. Mary Barlow Wilkins, regent, Mrs. Walter F. Burrell and Mrs. R. S. Steams. This monument will be dedicated next summer. The site is on Zig Zag River near its junction with Sandy River.
The first of these pioneer monuments of the Daughters of the American Revolution, placed at Multnomah Falls, on the Columbia River, is inscribed "To the Oregon Pioneers, 18361859." The dedication took place August 24, 1916, directed by Multnomah Chapter, Mrs. James N. Davis, regent. The tablet is secured to a large stone, which serves as a drinking fountain. No one pioneer year could be designated on the tablet because the Columbia River was a highway for explorers, traders and missionaries many years before the advent of the ox-team pioneers.
​Near Eugene, three and one-half miles southeast, at Coryell Point, the confluence of the Coast Fork and Middle Fork of Willamette River, the Old Oregon Trail is marked by a monument erected by Lewis and Clark Chapter, of Eugene, Mrs. Edna Prescott Datson, regent, and dedicated March 10, 1917. The tablet reads: "Coryell Pass, Oregon Trail, 1846." In that year the Southern Oregon trail, from Old Fort Boise, in Snake River, to Rogue River and Polk County, was opened by Levi Scott, Jesse and Lindsay Applegate. . The fotmder of the city of Eugene, Eugene Skinner, took his land claim there in 1846. That year is especially significant of the ox-team pioneers, because they then drove their first wagons into Southern Oregon and Willamette Valley.
Twelve monuments have been placed in Western Washington by the Daughters and the Sons of the American Revolution, as follows: Tumwater, near Olympia; Olympia in the public square; Tenino, Bush Prairie, Grand Mound, Centralia, Jackson Prairie, Toledo, Kelso, Kalama, and Woodland, all these designating Cowlitz Trail; and at Vancouver. The latter, at the approach of the Interstate bridge, was erected in January, 1917. Pioneers placed a stone marker on the Naches Trail, September 20, 1917, near the town of Selah, Washington. This trail was opened in 1853, as a direct route across Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound.
The work in Oregon and Washington has been under way for two years, and has received national attention. The Oregon Trail monument at Caldwell, Idaho, was unveiled April 28, 1916. The Oregon committee on old trails, for the current year, appointed by Mrs. Isaac Lee Patterson, state regent, is composed of the following: Mrs. J. M. Knight, Mrs. C. S. Jackson, Mrs. F. M. Wilkins, Mrs. Willard L. Marks, Mrs. Norris H. Looney, Mrs. D. O. Bronson, Miss Anna M. Lang.
The writer is indebted for most of the material of this article to the state historian of the Oregon Daughters of the American Revolution, Mrs. J. Thorbum Ross, but any omissions should ​be ascribed to the writer. He feels justified in bespeaking the appreciations of the Oregon Historical Society and of the sons and daughters of pioneers. These monuments will make memorable the generosity and enterprise of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Examination of the Barlow Road.
The Old Oregon Trail across Cascades Mountains, commonly called the Barlow Road, has been studied and mapped by Leslie M. Scott, who will soon present a description of the route according to present-day topography. The route was opened for wagons, south of Mount Hood, in 1845-46, by Samuel Kimbrough Barlow and his party. Preliminary examination of the route was made in the fall of 1845 by Joel Palmer. An Indian trail, north of Mount Hood, was used by the pioneers in 1845 and previously, for driving cattk and horses from The Dalles to the Willamette.
The Letters of Joseph Lane
Letters of Joseph Lane, collected by the Oregon Historical Society, were calendared by a representative of the State Library of New York last spring and summer. The letters, to the total number of approximately 2,000, cover the active period of Lane's career up to his retirement from the United States Senate. The letters, therefore, have national interest.
History Workers at Spokane.
The Spokane County Historical Society, of Spokane, Wash., is doing active work. A museum has been started and a regular appropriation obtained from the city towards its support; relics are being gathered concerning the history of the Spokane country. A deed has been obtained to a small tract of land on Coulee Creek, at the crossing place of the old Colville Trail, and it is proposed to remove to that place the granite monument marking the location of Camp Washington, where Governor Stevens and Lieutenant (afterwards General) McClellan met in 1853. The monument was erected on Four Mound Prairie, five or six miles from the proper location. The ​society contains many active members, a number of whom are members of the Oregon Historical Society. Mr. William S. Lewis is the corresponding secretary of the society, and the Spokane Public Library is its depositary.
Professor Trimble's New Researches.
Professor Will J. Trimble, of the North Dakota Agricultural College, Fargo, visited the cities of the Pacific Northwest in September, gathering data for an article he is preparing concerning the influence of the topography of this region upon its history. Mr. Trimble is an enthusiastic student of our early history, and in earlier years was engaged in teaching at Pullman and at Spokane. He is the author of a valuable thesis which was published by the University of Wisconsin, entitled "The Mining Advance Into the Inland Empire," which is authoritative upon that subject.
David Thompson, Reviewed by T. C. Elliott.
A series of articles is running in the Washington Historical Quarterly treating of the travels of David Thompson, the North-West Company geographer, in the Spokane country during 1811–12–13. David Thompson was the pathfinder in that part of the Oregon country, and left a journal which is the basis for these articles. Mr. T. C. Elliott is the contributor of the series.
Acquisitions of the Oregon Historical Society: Relics of Captain Robert Gray.
Five pieces of china ware belonging to the table service of Captain Robert Gray, discoverer of the Columbia River, and the door plate from his residence in Boston, are on exhibition at the rooms of the Society. These personal relics of the navigator were presented to the Society by his great granddaughter, Mrs. Gertrude Peabody, of Boston, Massachusetts. The dishes were in use on board the ship Columbia when Captain Gray entered the "Oregon, or the River of the West," on May 11, 1792, which he named "Columbia River" on May 19th of that year. ​
News and Comment 229
Manuscript Collections,
Important additions to the manuscript collections of the Society have been received from Mrs. Eva Emery Dye, of Oregon City, the widely known writer upon historical subjects relating to Oregon. These include her personal notes and numerous letters from pioneers and many others used in the preparation of McLoughlin and Old Oregon, The Conquest, McDonald of Oregon; also the autobiography of Ranald Mc- Donald, and a nimiber of letters from John Work to Edward Ermatinger, between 1829 and 1846, and from Sir George Simpson, Archibald Barclay, Sir J. H. Pelly, and Andrew Col- vile to James Douglas, between March 26, 1850, and Oct. 12, 1854.
Old-Time Weapons.
A brace of old-time derringers, of very beautiful design, suggestive of the pioneer period, has been presented to the Society by Mr. Joseph M. Teal. These pistols were the prop- erty of his father, Joseph Teal, an Oregon pioneer of 1850, and a widely known citizen of the commonwealth. Miss Helen Teal, sister of Mr. Joseph N. Teal, has presented a pair of hunting pistols which also belonged to her father. These four weapons are single-shot breech-loaders.
Annual Reunion of Pioneer Association.
The forty-fifth annual reunion of the Oregon Pioneer Asso- ciation occurred on July 22, 1917, more than one month after the proper date, for the reason that the Armory in which the reunion has been held for many years was not available this year on account of military necessity, and the Public Audi- torium, where the pioneers met was not ready for occupation until the date mentioned. The nimiber present was 935 and the average age of that number was seventy years. No one who came to, or was born in, any part of the original "Oregon country" later than 1859 is eligible to membership in the Association, according to the constitutional provision made by the founders of the organization. The year 1859 was chosen as ​
230 News and Comment
the pioneer limit because in 1873 the territory then became a state, thus making a definite period in its political history. The president of the Association for the year ending July 22d was C)rrus Hamlin Walker, whose parents started from Maine to Oregon early in 1838, bearing commissions of the American Board as missionaries to the Oregon Indians. Mr. Walker was bom at Wai-il-at-pu, the Whitman mission station, six miles west of the present city of Walla Walla, Washington, December 7, 1838, and is the oldest male child bom of Ameri- can parents in the original "Oregon Country" now living. Mr. W. H. H. Dufur, a native of Vermont, but a pioneer of 1859, was elected president, and George H. Himes, a native of Pennsylvania and a pioneer of 1853, was re-elected secretary
* ↑ "As if by magic the tardy wheels of commerce were unfettered, human thought and energy unshackled and turned loose with determined purpose to meet the great emergency and reap the golden harvest" (P. W. Gillette in the Quarterly, vol. v. p. 125).
* ↑ For further discussion of this matter see later in this article, p. 161.
* ↑ In 1856 there were two steamboat mail routes in Oregon — Portland-Astoria and Portland-Oregon City — a total of 144 miles. There were coach mail routes of 95 miles, and horseback or pack-horse routes of 729 miles (Quarterly, vol. viii, p. 193, by Thomas W. Prosch).
* ↑ Temple, Hist, of the Town of Palmer, 266.
* ↑ Mr. Kelley's pamphlet, The Oregonian and Indians' Advocate, I. 180. "Our object the elevation of the Indian race—our means a Christian settlement in Oregon. Published under the direction of the Committee of the Oregon Provisional Emigration Society." Lack of confidence in the statements in this pamphlet is also expressed in Bancroft, Hist. of the Northwest Coast, I, 105n.
* ↑ Ibid., I, 22.
* ↑ 26 cong. I sess. H. doc. 43.
* ↑ Cushing, Discovery beyond the Rocky mountains, North American Reviews, L, 122–3 (1840).