The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1911-02-02
PIONEER LIFE SKETCHES.
The Old Emigrant Road.
BY Rev. G. w. Kennedy.

By Rev. G. W. Kennedy.
That is the name by which it was
known among the Pioneers. And that
old emigrant road-that oX-team high
way, crossing the great divide separat-
ing the waters of the Atlantic Ocean
from the Pacific-no pen can ever
describe it
In 1850, the face of the American
people was toward the west. They
went to sleep at night, and dreamed Of
the distant Eldorado. They awoke in
the morning with their faces toward
the Pacific Ocean. Then began the
mightiest emigration that the world
ever saw. They came from Illinois,
! and from Missouri, and from Iowa,
and Indiana. And they went away to
the sunny plains of California, and the
canyons and caverns of the Sacramento
and the Sierra Nevada or they came
northward to the evergreen valley of
the willamette ''where flows the
Oregon" These, blazed tho highway
of civilization awcross the continent.
They blazed it with their axes mad
with their rifles and shotguns and OK
whips.
What movement! Lyman in his
great book, 1.-The Columbia River, "
says, 'The great immigration to Ore
gon, marks an era in American history,
absolutely unique, its like is not in all
history. To have had the honor of a
participation in it was to hold dis
tinction more ennobling than the coro-
net of Duke or Lord.
|
than to tell you something about the
old Road especially the western end of
it. When the great train of wagons
crossed the Missouri River in the
spring of 1843, one hundred wagons
and one thousand and twenty people,
DR.. Whitman at the lead, before them
was a trackless wilderness of two
thousand miles. True, DR.. Whitman
had taken wagon, or two wheels of
it, to Oregon in 1886, but no track was
to be seen then. Vast prairies all
gulched by ravines, wide and rapid
rivers to be crossed, torrents to get
into and out of, vast mountains with
great rocky cliffs and almost impene-
| trable forests. These were the imped-
iments. But those stalwart frontiers
men made the best use of everything
| and they made the Indian their guide.
They followed his trail. The Indian
first beat the trail, marked the smooth
est ways, and lowest passes. That
Indian trail was remarkable. Eight or
dozen of them would ride side by
side and four or SIX feet apart and so
ran these pony trail parallel all the
way across the Rockies, and away to
the Oregon country. The wagons were
made to roll in these paths where the
ground was level enough, and thus
difficulties were lessened.
| must hasten to speak more particu-
| larly of the western end of the old
Road. In the public park at The
DaIles there is a stone bearing this
inscription: 1.-The End of the Old
Oregon Trail, lS43-l857.
This is misleading. Very few of the
Immigrants made that the end of the
trail" 1t was in no sense the end of
the Old Road. Oregon City was called
the real end of the road and it was
the western terminus in the Oregon
country held in view by all. True,
some left their wagons at The Dales
and foated down the Columbia River
in fiat boats, but the Barlow wagon
road over the Cascades was Travelled by
vastly larger numbers. There is
where the monument" ought to be
set and marked as at The Dalles.
1t is fact, also, that DR.. Whitman
made the first lend of the Old Ore
gon Trail, at his mission on the Walla
Walla River. The trail pursued by all
the missionaries following the Hudson
Bay men, was down the Grand Ronde
Valley to its northern end, thence
across the Blue Mountains and down
the Walla Walla to Wallula, thence
down the Columbia River. That Road
was travelled by the trains until after
the Whitman massacre in 1847 Then
the road was made westward from
the head of Grand Ronde Valley across
the mountains, down the Umatlla and
tn down the Columbia. But there was
finally another lend" of the old trail
made. In 1858 there was great interest
awakened for settlement on Puget
Sound. An effort was made to open
road over the Cascade Range from the
Columbia Valley direct to the Sound
country. The Naches Pass was chosen
and with superhuman difficulties the
first wagon train passed over it late
in the fall of 1853. Fort Steilacom
was the end of that branch Of the Old
Emigrant Road.
All these places ought to be marked
by monuments, that they may hold
these distinctions in trust for the gen
erations that come on. These monu-
ments will not stand in rivalry but
state the history correctly for all who
come and read.
Read in February Sunset Magazine:
"San Diego-The City of Dreams Come
True, " beautifully illustrated in four
colors. "Tetrazzini Singing in the
Streets Of San Francisco Christmas
Eve. Now on sale, all news stands,