The state rights democrat. [volume] (Albany, Linn County, Oregon) 1865-1900, 1867-09-14

the running-gears were made with my
own hands. Starting from Utica, N.
Y, the 1st of February, 1896, on snow
FIVE feet deep, Ihad arranged our craft
on runners, with. the wheels lashed
till we should strike hard ground,
which we did in Trumbull county,
Ohio, where we left the runners and
shipped our wheels; but finding no
reliable bottom to the roads, we were
compelled to ''tack ship" and take wa
ter at Pittsburgh. DIR. Whitman and
wife and the Pawnee missionaries hav-
ing Joined US at Cincinnati, we contin-
ued by water to Liberty, Missouri,
where we took land again, and the
wagon served us faithfully to this
post. And especially had it accom-
plished one vastly important national
object. 1t had settled the question
that wagons could pass through the
"great and terrible desert" between
Green River and Fort Boise. And
six years later DIR. Whitman, standing
in the White House ut Washington,
with his face, hands and feet frozen by
his winter journey through the noun
tains of New Mexico, could say conf
IDENTIFY to President Tyler that wagons
and families could be taken from the
Missouri river to the Columbia and
that he had crossed the mountains at
the risk of his life TO take back to
Oregon, that season, from the from
tiers, caravan of emigrants with
their families, wagons and herds, God
helping them. This information,
though directly opposed to the state
ments of the English Governor Sim
son, determined President Tyler that
Oregon should not be traded off to
Ashburton, by his Sec'y, Webster, for
"mess of Goldfish" till he could learn
the result of Dr. Whitman's attempt
to take families, wagons and herds
across the continent To the Columbia.
Many old Oregonians-Waldo, Apple
gate, Kyser, Hembree, Nezmith and
others-remembe with profound sat
isfaction the glorious result of the
Doctors expedition, as they helped,
by their personal hazards and tolls,
to crown it with success. Two years
later. when Polk, with Dallas, was a
candidate for the Presidency, with
his motto 'Texas and Oregon-fifty-
four forty or fight !" Webster was on
the opposite ticket with his motto,
"No fight no Oregon! !" But Web
ster lost; for by this time DR. Whit
mans winter journey had produced a
glorious harvest of Western settlers
for Oregon But poor Mr.. Webster
could never forgive the Doctor for up
setting his pan of Goldfish just as he
was about to sit down to tea with the
British Governor.
= DIR. Newell, in a letter to the Oregon
Herald, sometime ago, denies that we
brought our wagon and cattle TO
Boise, by saying that he was the first
man To ''break sage with wagon"
from the Rocky Mountains to Boise
in 1910, and that DIR. Whitman took
him by the hand and congratulated
him on being the first man to bring n
wagon through the Snake deserts
The same paper published a letter
from VIM. II. Gray, in which there
were false statements concerning the
Lapwai Mission and grave charges
against DIR. Newell, Esq. Lassater,
Rev. &, Eells and myself / immedi-
atelv prepared communication cor
recting these mistakes of DIR. Newell
and Mr.. Gray, and sent to the Herald,
but the editor refused to publish
That Lapwai Mission is troublesome
bone, both to the Herald and the Ore
gonian-to one because of religion,
and to the other because of politics.
On an island in Snake river, below
the mouth of Boise, Wilson Hunt cs-
tablished trading post III 1911, leav-
ing it in charge of Reid, with few
men-one being Dorio, whose Indian
wife figures in "Astoria." Soon after
the Fort was cut off, with every soul,
except one man, mortally wounded,
and Madam Dorio, who managed to
escape with her two children, two
horses, and the wounded man. She
travelled slowly, but the man tainted
from loss of blood, and could go no
further. That night he died; and be-
fore dawn this heroine did the best
she could in burying the body in the
frozen ground with nothing but her
knife, and then pushed on, taking one
child before and one behind, and lead
ing one horse. She directed her course,
keeping away from the trails, toward
the Walla Walla country. On reach
ing Grand Ronde she found, as she ex-
pected, the snow too deep to attempt
to cross the mountains with her chill
dren. She killed her two horses, dried
the meat, selected a secure place, and
with rushes and the horse-skins, pre-
pared her winter camp and awaited
the opening of spring. Although her
cup of sorrow would seem to have
been full to the brim, yet again it was
made to more than run over by the
sudden death of one of her children in
mid-winter. Providentially she was
not discovered through the winter by
the Snakes, and at early spring, with
her remaining child on her back, she
made her way on foot through the
SHOWS of the mountains to the Walla
Walla country, and finally to Astoria.
The surviving child was Baptiz Dorio,
well known to old Oregonians.