Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1908-05-22
PIONEER HISTORY.
BRIEF ACCOUNT OF A TRIP
ACROSS THE PLAINS.
From Pathfinder OF 1854. the Late An
drew j. Chambers.

drew j. Chambers.
As anything relating to early plo-
neer history has an absorbing inter
est for " Old-timers as well as new
comers, and through dissemination
serves to place in available form the
early history of our commonwealth,
, which becomes more valuable as the
years roll by. we reprint from the
EoUegc M3,pendrm of l9045. series
of articles of which the first two
describe the journey across the
plains. to be followed by two others
which detail some incidents connect
ed with the Indian war of lS33-6:
PART H.
. AS | have said, father remained
down the Willamette the winter of
1915 with brother lanes and wife,
looking tor a place. and TIE middle Of
January. 1916 he and james came
back to The Dalles to help bulld a boat
and to move us.
There were plenty of boats then on
the Willamette for Immigrants who
wanted to pass on down to the valley,
but very short time after we arrived
at The Dalles they were all taken off.
James was a boat builder. We Sc
lected place close to the river to
build our boat where there was gooc
timber. We chose two large trees for
the purpose of making gunwales for
each side of the boat. the trees being
about three feet in diameter. Then w
picked out smaller trees for making
the plank. We hewed out the timber
the proper length and squared it. This
we lined on both sides to the thickness
We wanted to make our planks. We
chose a place on side hill to make a
saw-pt. 1t was so arranged that one
man could stand underneath the log
and one man on top OF 1t. Then the
squared logs were put in place and we
ripped out enough plank for bottom
and false bottom and for the sides of
the boat We used the old whip-saw
now on exhibition in the Oregon His
torical Rooms at Portland. This whip
saw told its own story in an Olympia
paper in 1894 as follows:
II started for Puget Sound from Mis-
souri, in 1S45. and after passing
through the trials and incidents Of an
overland journey of six months. we
reached The Dalles. Oregon, where,
with the assistance of four men. |
sawed timber enough to construct
boat sixteen feet wide and fifty long.
On February l, 1916. the boat was
loaded with myself among the passen-
gels, and We moved down the Colum-
bia to the Cascades. At the Cascades
took passage in wagon around a
five-mile portage. Our boat was the
first boat sent over the Cascade Falls.
The craft was secured and proceeded
to the mouth of Sandy River. From
that point my travels varied, some
times by water, up one stream and
down another. Finally, in the spring
of 1S4S, reached Puget Sound, after
a tedious journey behind an OK team
In the three years of my travels, my
master always found me Of service.
and during the past forty-seven years,
resided undisturbed and unthOught-
of In my masters Toulouse, on Cham
bers' Prairie On April 26. 1894. the
flames destroyed my home and | was
ruined and defaced almost beyond re-
cognition."
The story OF the whip-saw being
told, to resume, We had no nails and
the boat was put together entirely
with wooden pins. 1t resembled a
scow of today Its capacity was large
enough to carry fifteen head of cattle
at time in crossing the river, and to
store away all of our wagons, and all
of our wagons. taken apart. and all Of
our plunder that we had brought with
us across the plains. also those mem-
bers of the family who were not on
shore driving the cattle.
When we got the boat ready and
launched, we loaded our effects. wag-
ons. plunder and OK yokes. and pro-
ceeded down the Columbia River.
When we collected the stock to
make the start our stock was In good
condition. The snow rarely stayed on
the ground on the southern slopes Of
the hills and the cattle had OppOrtuni-
ty to do we'll. But not so with the
horses. The Indians had managed to
steal most of them during foggy wea-
ther, when it was pretty hard work
to guard them. We did not have
more than three horses out of the lot
whose names and tails had not been
cut off. The mutilated animals look
ed horrible to us. There was always
some good Indian to help us hunt the
stolen horses. 1t appeared the In
dians did not want the horses except
to have big ride on them and to
get their names and tails. They
made ropes out of the hair
| OuT DUAL udu lOHS OdIS anu WHci-
we started two men usually attended
to these. Brother James usually steer
ed the boat and father and David were
aboard most Of the time. We let the
boat run with the current as great a
distance each day as We could drive
the cattle Then We tied up and re-
sumed our course next morning. We
travelled on the south side down the
river bottom until We came to Shell
Rock, a place where the hills came
right up to the rivers e1ge We could
not drive over this rock. neither could
we swim our cattle around it. Here
. we ferried all of our effects and cattle
to the north side and travelled down