Carrying a dairy to the new mining town.Carrying a dairy to the new mining town.
Hardlyhad we got fairly over the Indian War when another wave of excitement broke up our pioneer plans again. On March 21, 1858, the schoonerWild Pigeonarrived at Steilacoom with the news that the Indians had discovered gold on Fraser River, that they had traded several pounds of the precious metal with the Hudson's Bay Company, and that three hundred people had left Victoria and its vicinity for the new land of El Dorado. Furthermore, the report ran, the mines were exceedingly rich.
The wave of excitement that went through the little settlement upon the receipt of this news was repeated in every town and hamlet of the whole Pacific Coast. It continued even around the world, summoning adventurous spirits from all civilized countries of the earth.
Everybody, women folk and all, wanted to go, and would have started pell mell had there not been that restraining influence of the second thought, especially powerful with people who had just gone through the mill of adversity.My family was still in the blockhouse that we had built in the town of Steilacoom during the Indian War. Our cattle were peacefully grazing on the plains a few miles away.
One of the local merchants, Samuel McCaw, bundled up a few goods, made a flying trip up Fraser River, and came back with fifty ounces of gold dust and the news that the mines were all that had been reported and more, too. This of course, added fuel to the flame. We all believed a new era had dawned upon us, similar to that of ten years before in California, which changed the world's history. High hopes were built, most of them to end in disappointment.
Not but that there were extensive mines, and that they were rich, and that they were easily worked; how to get to them was the puzzling question. The early voyagers had slipped up the Fraser before the freshets came down from the melting snows to swell the torrents of that river. Those going later either failed altogether and gave up the unequal contest, or lost an average of one canoe or boat out of three in the persistent attempt. How many lives were lost never will be known.
Contingents began to arrive in Steilacoom from Oregon, from California, and finally from "the States." Steamers great and small began to appear, with little cargo but with passenger lists that were said to be nothing compared to those of ships coming in less than a hundred miles to the north of us. These people landing in Whatcom in such great numbers must be fed, we agreed. If the multitude would not come to us to drink the milk of our cows and eat their butter, what better could we do than to take our cows to the place where we were told the multitude did not hesitate to pay a dollar a gallon for milk and any price one might ask for fresh butter!
But how to get even to Whatcom was the rub. All space on the steamers was taken from week to week for freightand passengers, and no room was left for cattle. In fact, the run on provisions for the gold rush was so great that at one time we were almost threatened with famine. Finally our cattle, mostly cows, were loaded in an open scow and taken in tow alongside the steamer, theSea Bird, I think it was.
A "shaker" used to wash out gold.A "shaker" used to wash out gold.
All went well enough until we arrived off the head of Whidby Island. Here a choppy sea from a light wind began slopping over the scow and evidently would sink us despite our utmost efforts at bailing. When the captain would slow down the speed of his steamer, all was well; but the moment greater power was applied, over the gunwales would come the water.
The dialogue that ensued between the captain and me was more emphatic than elegant. He dared not risk letting go of us, however, or of running us under, for fear of incurring the risk of heavy damages. I would not consent to be landed. So about the twentieth of June we were set adrift in Bellingham Bay and, tired and sleepy, landed on the beach.
Our cows must have feed, they must be milked, the milk must be marketed. There was no rest for us during another thirty-six hours. In fact, there was but little sleep for anybody on that beach at the time. Several ocean steamers had just dumped three thousand people on the beach, and there was still a scramble to find a place to build ahouse or stretch a tent, or even to spread a blanket, for there were great numbers already there, landed by previous steamers. The staking of lots on the tide flats at night, when the tide was out, seemed to be a staple industry.
A few days after my arrival four steamers came with an aggregate of more than two thousand passengers. Many of these, however, did not leave the steamer; they took passage either to their port of departure—San Francisco or Victoria—or to points on the Sound. The ebb tide had set in, and although many steamers came later and landed passengers, their return lists soon became large and the population began to diminish.
Taking my little dory that we had with us on the scow, I rowed to the largest steamer lying at anchor. So many small boats surrounded the steamer that I could not get within a hundred feet of it. All sorts of craft filled the intervening space, from the smallest Indian canoe to large barges, the owner of each craft striving to secure customers.
The great difficulty was to find a trail to the gold fields. This pass and that pass was tried without success. I saw sixty men with heavy packs on their backs start out in one company. Every one of these had to come back after floundering in the mountains for weeks. The Indians, among whom the spirit of war still smouldered, headed off some of the parties. The snows kept back others; and finally the British, watching their own interests, blocked the way through their land. As a result the boom burst, and people resought their old homes.
It is doubtful if another stampede of such dimensions as that to the Fraser in 1858 ever occurred where the suffering was so great, the prizes so few, and the loss of life proportionately so great. Probably not one in ten that made the effort reached the mines, and of those who did the usual percentage drew the blanks inevitable in such stampedes. Andyet the mines were immensely rich; many millions of dollars of gold came from the find in the lapse of years, and gold is still coming, though now more than sixty years have passed.
While the losses of the people of the Puget Sound country were great, nevertheless good came out of the great stampede in the large accession of population that remained after the return tide was over. Many people had become stranded and could not leave the country, but went to work with a will to make a living there. Of these not a few are still honored citizens of the state that has been carved out of the territory of that day.
Climbing
Carrie sees "a big cat" sharpening its claws.Carrie sees "a big cat" sharpening its claws.
Thedays that followed our venture in the gold field were more peaceful and prosperous. Soon after the Indian War we had moved to a new claim. We began now to realize to the full our dream of earlier days, to settle on a farm and build a home.
Three neighbors were all we had, and the nearest lived nearly two miles away. Two of them kept bachelor's hall. The thick, high timber made it impossible for us to see any of our neighbors' houses. We could reach only one by a road; to the others we might go by a trail. Under such conditions we could not have a public school. This, however, did not keep us from having a school of our own.
One day one of our farther-off neighbors, who lived more than four miles away, came to visit us. Naturally the children flocked around him to hear his stories in broad Scotch and to ply him with questions. In his turn, he began to ask them questions. One of these was, "When do you expect to go to school?"
"Oh, we have school now," responded the children. "We have school every day."
"And pray, who is your teacher, and where is your schoolhouse?"
"Father teaches us at home every morning before breakfast. He hears the lessons then, and mother helps us too."
"Your father told me a while ago that you had your breakfast at six o'clock. What time do you get up?"
"Why, father sets the clock for half-past four, and that gives us an hour while mother gets breakfast, you know."
Boys and girls of today may pity those poor pioneer children who had to get up so early. They may as well dismiss such feelings from their hearts. The children were cheerful and healthy; they did some work during the day in addition to studying their lessons; and besides they went to bed earlier than some boys and girls do these days.
In January 1861 the wreck of the steamerNorthernerbrought great sorrow to us, for my brother Oliver was among those lost. The ship struck on an uncharted rock.
During the stay at Steilacoom in the time of the Indian troubles, we had begun a trading venture, in a small way. The venture having proved successful, we invested all our savings in a new stock of merchandise, and this stock, not all paid for, went down with the ship. Again we must start in life, and we moved to a new location, a homestead in the Puyallup valley. Here we lived and farmed for forty-one years, seeing the town of Puyallup grow up on and around the homestead.
In the Puyallup valley there were more neighbors—two families to the square mile. Yet no neighbors were in sight, because the timber and underbrush were so thick we could scarcely see two rods from the edge of our clearing. But the neighbors were near enough for us to provide a public school and build a schoolhouse.
Some of the neighbors took their axes to cut the logs, some their oxen to drag them, others their saws and cleaving tools to make clapboards for the roof. Others again, more handy with tools, made the benches out of split logs, or, as we called them, puncheons. With willing hands to help, the schoolhouse soon received the finishing touches.
The side walls were scarcely high enough for the doorway, so one was cut in the end. The door hung on wooden hinges, which squeaked a good deal when the door was opened or shut; but the children did not mind that. The roof answered well enough for the ceiling overhead, and a cut in one of the logs on each side made two long, narrow windows for light. The children sat with their faces to the walls, with long shelves in front of them, while the smaller tots sat on low benches near the middle of the room. When the weather would permit, the teacher left the door open to admit more light. There was no need to let in more fresh air, as the roof was quite open and the cracks between the logs let in plenty of it.
Sometimes we had a woman for teacher, and then the salary was smaller, as she boarded around. That meant some discomfort for her during part of the time, where the surroundings were not pleasant.
One day little Carrie, my daughter, started to go to school, but soon came running back out of breath.
"Mamma! Mamma! I saw a great big cat sharpening his claws on a great big tree, just the way pussy does!" she said as soon as she could catch her breath.
Sure enough, upon examination, there were the marks of a cougar as high up on the tree as I could reach. It must have been a big one to reach so far up the tree. But the incident soon dropped out of mind and the children went to school on the trail as if nothing had happened.
Afterwards I met a cougar on a lonely trail in the woodsnear where Auburn now stands. I had been attempting to drive some wild cattle home, but they were so unruly that they scattered through the timber and I was obliged to go on without them late in the day. The forest was so dense that it was hard to see the road even when the sun was shining; on a cloudy day it seemed almost like night, though I could see well enough to keep on the crooked trail.
Just before I got to Stuck River crossing I came to a turn in the trail where it crossed the top of a big fir that had been turned up by the roots and had fallen nearly parallel with the trail. The big roots held the butt of the tree up from the ground. I think the tree was four feet in diameter a hundred feet from the butt, and the whole body, from root to top, was eighty-four steps long, or about two hundred and fifty feet.
I didn't stop to step it then. But you may be sure I took some pretty long strides about that time; for just as I stepped over the fallen tree near the top, I saw something move on the big body near the roots. The thing was coming right towards me. In an instant I realized that it was a great cougar. He was pretty, but he did not look especially pleasing to me.
I didn't know what to do. I had no gun with me, and I knew perfectly well there was no use to run. Was I scared, did you say? Did you ever have creepers run up your back and right to the roots of your hair, and nearly to the top of your head?
Did the cougar hurt me? If I had been hurt I shouldn't have been here to tell you this story. The fun of it was that the cougar hadn't seen me yet, but as soon as he did he scampered off as if the Old Harry himself were after him, while I sped off down the trail as if old Beelzebub were after me.
But no wild animals ever harmed us, and we did not diefor want of food, clothing, or shelter, although we did have some experiences that were trying. Before the clearings were large we sometimes were pinched for both food and clothing. I will not say we suffered much for either, though I know that some families at times lived on potatoes, straight. Usually fish could be had in abundance, and there was considerable game—some bear and plenty of deer.
The Christmas tree with its homemade gifts.The Christmas tree with its homemade gifts.
The clothing gave us more trouble, as but little moneycame to us for the small quantity of produce we had to spare. I remember one winter when we were at our wits' ends for shoes. We just could not get money to buy shoes enough to go around, but we managed to get leather to make each member of the family one pair. We killed a pig to get bristles for the wax-ends, cut the pegs from alder log and seasoned them in the oven, and made the lasts out of the same timber. Those shoes were clumsy, to be sure; but they kept our feet dry and warm, and we felt thankful for them and sorry for some neighbors' children, who had to go barefooted even in quite cold weather. Carrie once had a pair of nice white shoes "for best," I remember, that one of her brothers made for her, with buckskin uppers and light tan-colored soles.
You must not think that we had no recreation and that we were a sorrowful set. There was never a happier lot of people than these same hard-working pioneers and their families. We had joy in our home life, and amusements as well as labor.
Music was our greatest pleasure. We never tired of it. "Uncle John," as every one called him, the old teacher, was constantly teaching the children music; so it soon came about they could read their music as readily as they could their school books.
No Christmas ever went by without a Christmas tree, at which the whole neighborhood joined. The Fourth of July was never passed without a celebration. We made the presents for the tree if we could not buy them, and supplied the musicians, reader, and orator for the celebration. Everybody had something to do and a voice in saying what should be done, and that very fact made all happy.
A dairy farm in Washington, where once the forest stood.Brown Bros.A dairy farm in Washington, where once the forest stood.
Brown Bros.
It was sixteen miles to our market town, Steilacoom, over the roughest kind of road. Nobody had horse teams at the start; we had to go with ox teams. We could notmake the trip out and back in one day, and we did not have money to pay hotel bills. We managed in this way: we would drive out part of the way and camp; the next morning we would drive into town very early, do our trading, and if possible, drive back home the same day. If not able to do this, we camped on the road again. But if the night was not too dark we would reach home that night. And oh, what an appetite we would have, and how bright the fire would be, and how joyous the welcome in the cabin home!
The trees and stumps are all gone now and brick buildings and other good houses occupy much of the land. As many people now live in that school district as lived both east and west of the mountains when the Territory was created in March of 1853. Instead of going in ox teams, or even sleds, the people have carriages or automobiles; they can travel on any of the eighteen passenger trains that pass daily through Puyallup, or on street cars to Tacoma, and also on some of the twenty to twenty-four freight trains, some of which are a third of a mile long. Such are some of the changes wrought in fifty years since pioneer life began in the Puyallup valley.
A hop field with the hops ready for picking.A hop field with the hops ready for picking.
Ouryouthful dream of becoming farmers was now realized in fullest measure. The clearing was gradually enlarged, and abundant crops came to reward our efforts. The comfort and plenty we had hoped and struggled for was attained. Next came a development in the family fortunes that we had not dreamed of. Never had we thought to see the Meeker family conducting a business that would require a London office.
This unexpected prosperity came to us through the hop-growing industry, upon which we entered with all our force. The business was well started by the time of my father's death in 1869, and in the fifteen years following the acreage planted to hops was increased until the crop-yield of 1882, a yield of more than seventy-one tons, gave the Puyallup valley the banner crop, as to quantity, of theUnited States—and, some persons asserted, of the world.
The public, generally, gave me the credit of introducing hop culture into the Northwest. Therefore it seems fitting to tell here the story of the beginnings of an industry that came to have great importance.
In March of 1865, Charles Wood of Olympia sent about three pecks of hop roots to Steilacoom for my father, Jacob R. Meeker, who then lived on his claim in the Puyallup valley. John V. Meeker, my brother, passed by my cabin when he carried the sack of roots on his back from Steilacoom to my father's home, a distance of about twenty miles, and from the sack I took roots enough to plant six hills of hops. As far as I know those were the first hops planted in the Puyallup valley. My father planted the remainder, and in the following September harvested the equivalent of one bale of hops, 180 pounds. This was sold for eighty-five cents a pound, or a little more than a hundred and fifty dollars for the bale.
This sum was more money than had been received by any of the settlers in the Puyallup valley, except perhaps two, from the products of their farms for that year. My father's near neighbors obtained a barrel of hop roots from California the next year, and planted them the following spring—four acres. I obtained what roots I could get that year, but not enough to plant an acre. The following year (1867) I planted four acres, and for twenty-six successive years thereafter we added to the area planted, until our holdings reached past the five-hundred-acre mark and our production was more than four hundred tons a year.
None of us knew anything about the hop business, and it was entirely by accident that we engaged in it. But seeing that there were possibilities of great gain, I took pains to study hop culture, and found that by allowing our hopsto mature thoroughly, curing them at a low temperature, and baling them while hot, we could produce hops that would compete with any product in the world. Others of my neighbors planted them, and so did many people in Oregon, until soon there came to be a field for purchasing and shipping hops. But the fluctuations in price were so great that in a few years many growers became discouraged and lost their holdings.
The site of the cabin home in Puyallup is now Pioneer Park, Ezra Meeker's gift to the city that he founded. In it still stands the ivy vine that for fifty years grew over the cabin.The site of the cabin home in Puyallup is now Pioneer Park, Ezra Meeker's gift to the city that he founded. In it still stands the ivy vine that for fifty years grew over the cabin.
Finally, during the failure of the world's hop crop in the year 1882, there came to be unheard-of prices for hops, and fully one third of the crop of the Puyallup valley was sold for a dollar a pound. I had that year nearly one hundred thousand pounds, which brought an average of seventy cents a pound.
My first hop house was built in 1868—a log house. It still stands in Pioneer Park in Puyallup. We frequently employed more than a thousand people during harvest time. Many of these were Indians, some of whom would come for a thousand miles down the coast from BritishColumbia and even the confines of Alaska; they came in the great cedar-log canoes manned with twenty paddlers or more. For the most part I managed my Indian workers very easily. Once I had to tie up two of them to a tree for getting drunk; their friends came and stole away the prisoners—which was what I intended they should do.
It was in 1870, eighteen years after my arrival from across the Plains, that I made my first return journey to the States. I had to go through the mud to the Columbia River, then out over the bar to the Pacific Ocean, and down to San Francisco. Then there was the seven days' journey over the Central and Union Pacific and connecting lines; this meant sitting bolt upright all the way, for there were no sleeping cars then, and no diners either.
About 1882 I had come to realize that the important market for hops was in England, and E. Meeker & Co. began sending trial shipments, first seven bales, then the following year five hundred bales, then fifteen hundred. Finally our annual shipments reached eleven thousand bales a year, or the equivalent in value of half a million dollars—said at that time to be the largest export hop business of any one concern in the United States. At one time I had two full trainloads between the Pacific and the Atlantic, on their way to London. I spent four winters in London dealing in the hop market.
Little as I had thought ever to handle an international business, still less had I thought ever to write a book. My first publication was an eighty-page pamphlet descriptive of Washington Territory, printed in 1870. My first real book,Hop Culture in the United States, was published in 1883. I mention this fact simply as one instance out of the many that could be given of the unexpected lines of development that life in the new land opened out to the pioneers.
The hop business could not be called a venture; it wassimply a growth. The conditions were favorable to us in that we could produce hops for the world's market at the lowest prices. We actually pressed the English growers so closely that more than fifteen thousand acres of hops were destroyed in that country.
Our great prosperity was not to last. One evening in 1892, as I stepped out of my office and cast my eyes toward one group of hop houses, it struck me that the hop foliage of a field near by was off color—did not look natural. One of my clerks from the office said the same thing—the vines did not look natural. I walked down to the yards, a quarter of a mile away, and there first saw the hop louse. The yard was literally alive with lice, and they were destroying at least the quality of the hops. I issued a hop circular, sending it to more than six hundred correspondents all along the coast in California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, and before the week was out I began to receive samples from them, and letters asking what was the matter with the hops.
It appeared that the attack of lice was simultaneous in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, extending over a distance coastwise of more than five hundred miles, and even inland up the Skagit River, where there was an isolated yard. This plague was like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky to us.
I sent my second son, Fred Meeker, to London to learn the English methods of fighting the pest and to import some spraying machinery. We found to our cost, however, in the course of time, that the English methods did not suit our different conditions; for while we could kill the lice, we had to use so much spraying material on the dense foliage that, in killing them, we virtually destroyed the hops. Instead of being able to sell our hops at the top price of the market, we saw our product fall to the foot ofthe list. The last crop I raised cost me eleven cents a pound and sold for three under the hammer at sheriff's sale.
At that time I had advanced to my neighbors and others upon their hop crops more than a hundred thousand dollars, which was lost. These people simply could not pay, and I forgave the debt, taking no judgments against them, and I have never regretted the action. All my accumulations were swept away, and I quit the business—or, rather, the business quit me.
After a long struggle with the hop plague, nearly all the hops were plowed up and the land in the Puyallup valley and elsewhere was used for dairy farming, fruit growing, and general crops. It is actually of a higher value now than when it was bearing hops.
Going up the Chilkoot Pass.United States Forest ServiceGoing up the Chilkoot Pass.
United States Forest Service
Afterthe failure of the hop business, I was left more or less at sea for some years. I tried various other projects—among them the raising of sugar beets. The country, we soon found, was not adapted to this industry. Then I tried banking, likewise with little success. Finally I decided to strike out for the mines of Alaska. This adventure, taken when I was nearly three score and ten years of age, was full of exciting experiences. Indeed, it left me richer only in experience.
I had lived in the old Oregon country forty-four years and had never seen a mine. Mining had had no attraction for me. But when my accumulations had all been swallowed up, I decided to take a chance. In the spring of 1898 I made my first trip over the Chilkoot Pass, wentdown the Yukon river to Dawson in a flatboat, and ran the famous White Horse Rapids with my load of vegetables for the Klondike miners.
One may read most graphic descriptions of Chilkoot Pass; but the difficulties met by those earlier fortune-seekers who tried it were worse than the wildest fancy can picture. I started in with fifteen tons of freight and got through with nine. On one stretch of two thousand feet, I paid forty dollars a ton. Some others paid even more.
The trip part of the way reminded me of the scenes on the Plains in 1852, when the people and teams crowded each other on the several parallel trails. At the pass, most of the travel came upon one track, and that so steep the ascent could be made only by cutting steps in the ice and snow—fifteen hundred steps in all. Frequently every step would be full, while crowds jostled each other at the foot of the ascent to get into the single file, each man carrying a hundred-pound pack on his back.
After all sorts of trying experiences, I finally arrived in Dawson, where I sold my fresh potatoes at thirty-six dollars a bushel and other things at proportionate prices. In two weeks I started up the river, homeward bound, with two hundred ounces of Klondike gold in my belt. But four round trips in two years satisfied me that I did not want any more of such experiences.
Once, fortunately, I was detained for a couple of days, and thereby escaped an avalanche that buried fifty-two other people in the snow. I passed by the morgue the second day after the catastrophe on my way to the summit, doubtless over the bodies of many unknown dead, embedded so deeply in the snow that it was utterly impossible to recover them.
The good ducking I received in my first passage through the White Horse Rapids made me resolve I would not gothrough there again. But I did it on the very next trip that same year, and came out of it dry. Again, when going down the Thirty-Mile River, it did seem that we could not escape being dashed upon the rocks. But somehow or other we got through safely, though the bank was strewn with wrecks and the waters had swallowed up many victims.
When the Yukon proper was reached, the current was less swift, but the shoals were numerous. More than once we were "hung up" on the bar, each time uncertain how we should get off. No mishap resulted, except once when a hole was jammed into the scow, and we thought we were "goners" for sure; but we effected a landing so quickly that we unloaded our cargo dry.
While I now blame myself for taking such risks, I must admit that I enjoyed it. I was sustained, no doubt, by high hopes of coming out with my "pile." But fate or something else was against me, for mining ventures swept all my gains away "slick as a mitten," as the old phrase goes. I came out over the rotten ice of the Yukon in April of 1901 to stay, and to vow I never wanted to see another mine or visit another mining country.
In two weeks after my arrival home my wife and I celebrated our golden wedding. There was nothing but a golden welcome home, even if I had not returned with my pockets filled with gold.
Since I was then past my allotted three score years and ten, it naturally seemed that my ventures were at an end. But for many of these years I had been cherishing a dream that I felt must come true to round out my days most satisfactorily. I longed to go back over the old Oregon Trail and mark it for all time for the children of the pioneers who blazed it, and for the world. How that dream was made to come true is the story to be told in the succeeding part of this book of pioneer stories.
With the development of railroad construction it was thought that roads would go out of use except for local communication.With the development of railroad construction it was thought that roads would go out of use except for local communication. But since the advent of motor vehicles, transcontinental highways have again become of great importance. For many reasons it is highly desirable that there should be good roads clear across the continent. Two have been proposed, and in sections meet the requirements of a great transcontinental highway; but neither is yet completed. One is the Oregon Highway, which follows the old Oregon Trail. This is the route over which Ezra Meeker traveled by ox-team in 1906 and on which many monuments have been erected to commemorate the pioneers of the 1840's and '50's. The other is the Lincoln Highway, shown by the lighter line on this map.
Out on the trail again.Out on the trail again.
Theox is passing—in fact, has passed. The old-time spinning wheel and the hand loom, the quaint old cobbler's bench with its handmade lasts and shoe pegs, the heavy iron mush pot on the crane in the chimney corner,—all have gone. The men and women of sixty years or more ago are passing, too. All are laid aside for what is new in the drama of life. While these old-time ways and scenes and actors have had their day, yet the experiences and the lessons they taught are not lost to the world.
The difference between a civilized and an untutored people lies in the application of experiences. The civilized man builds upon the foundations of the past, with hope and ambition for the future. The savage has neither past nor aspiration for the future. To keep the flame of patriotism alive, we must keep the memory of the past vividly before us.
It was with these thoughts in mind that the expeditionto mark the old Oregon Trail was undertaken. There was this further thought, that on this trail heroic men and women had fought a veritable battle—a battle that wrested half a continent from the native race and from another mighty nation contending for mastery in unknown regions of the West. To mark the field of that battle for future generations was a duty waiting for some one; I determined to be the one to fulfill it.
The journey back over the old Oregon Trail by ox team was made during my seventy-seventh year. On January 29, 1906, I left my home in Puyallup, Washington, and on November 29, 1907, just twenty-two months later to the day, I reached Washington, our national capital, with my cattle and my old prairie schooner. Not all of this time was spent in travel, of course; a good deal of it was taken up in furthering the purpose of the trip by arranging for the erection and dedication of monuments to mark the Trail.
To accomplish the purpose of marking the trail would have been enough to make the journey worth while to me, besides all the interest of freshening my recollections of old times and reviving old memories. There is not space in this book to dwell on all the contrasts that came to my mind constantly,—of the uncleared forests with the farms and orchards of today, of the unbroken prairie lands with the ranches and farms and cities that now border the old trail from the Rockies to the Mississippi. There is nothing like an ox-team journey, I maintain, to make a person realize this country, realize its size, the number of its people, and the variety of conditions in which they live and of occupations by which they live. I wish I could share with every boy and girl in the country the panorama view that unrolled itself before me in this journey from tidewater to tidewater.
The ox team was chosen as a typical reminder of pioneer days. The Oregon Trail, it must be remembered, is essentially an ox-team trail. No more effective instrument, therefore, could have been chosen to attract attention, arouse enthusiasm, and secure aid in forwarding the work, than this living symbol of the old days.
Indeed, too much attention, in one sense, was attracted. I had scarcely driven the outfit away from my own dooryard before the wagon and wagon cover, and even the map of the old trail on the sides of the cover, began to be defaced. First I noticed a name or two written on the wagon bed, then a dozen or more, all stealthily placed there, until the whole was so closely covered that there was no room for more. Finally the vandals began carving initials on the wagon bed and cutting off pieces to carry away. Eventually I put a stop to such vandalism by employing special police, posting notices, and nabbing some offenders in the very act.
Give me Indians on the Plains to contend with; give me fleas or even the detested sage-brush ticks to burrow into the flesh; but deliver me from cheap notoriety seekers!
I had decided to take along one helper, and a man by the name of Herman Goebel went as far as The Dalles with the outfit. There William Marden joined me for the journey across the Plains. Marden stayed with me for three years, and proved to be faithful and helpful.
And now a word as to my oxen. The first team consisted of one seven-year-old ox, Twist, and one unbroken five-year-old range steer, Dave. When we were ready to start, Twist weighed 1,470 pounds and Dave 1,560. This order of weight was soon changed. In three months' time Twist gained 130 pounds and Dave lost 80. All this time I fed them with a lavish hand all the rolled barley I dared give and all the hay they would eat.
Preparing to cross a river; unyoking the oxen.Preparing to cross a river; unyoking the oxen.
Dave would hook and kick and perform every other mean trick. Besides, he would stick his tongue out from the smallest kind of exertion. He had just been shipped in off the Montana cattle range and had never had a rope on him, unless it was when he was branded. Like a great over-grown booby of a boy, he was flabby in flesh, and he could not endure any sort of exertion without discomfort. At one time I became very nearly discouraged with him.
Yet this was the ox that made the round trip. He bore his end of the yoke from the tidewaters of the Pacific to the tidewaters of the Atlantic, at the Battery, New York City, and on to Washington City to meet the President. He finally became subdued, though not conquered. At times he became threatening with his horns, and I never did trust his heels.
Taking off the wagon box.Taking off the wagon box.
The other ox, Twist, died suddenly on August 9, 1906, and was buried within a few rods of the trail. It was two months to a day after his death before I could find a mate for the Dave ox, and then I had to take another five-year-old steer off the cattle range of Nebraska. This steer, Dandy, evidently had never been handled; but he came of good stock and, with the exception of awkwardness, gave me no serious trouble. Dandy was purchased out of the stockyard at Omaha. He then weighed 1,470 pounds, and the day before he went to see the President he tipped the scales at the 1,760-pound notch. Dandy proved to be a faithful, serviceable ox.
On the journey Dave had to be shod fourteen times, I think, and he always struggled to get away. Once, on the summit of the Rocky Mountains, we had to throw Daveand tie him hard and fast before we could shoe him. It takes two shoes to one foot for an ox, instead of one as for a horse, though the fastening is the same; that is, by nailing into the hoof. At one time Dandy's hoofs became so worn that I could not fasten a shoe on him, and so I had what we called leather boots put on, that left a track like an elephant's; but he could not pull well with them on.
Calking the wagon box to turn it into a boat.Calking the wagon box to turn it into a boat.
Besides the oxen we had a dog, Jim. More will be told of him later.
An authentic prairie schooner, a true veteran of the Plains, was out of the question. In building the new one, use was made of parts of three old wagons. The woodwork of the wagon had to be new throughout except for one hub, which had done service across the Plains in 1853.This hub and the bands, boxes, and other iron parts were from two old-time wagons that had crossed the Plains in 1853. They differed somewhat in size and shape; hence the hubs of the fore and hind wheels did not match.
Launching the schooner to cross the river.Launching the schooner to cross the river.
The axles were of wood, with the old-time linchpins and steel skeins, which called for the use of tar and the tar bucket instead of axle grease. Why? Because if grease were used, the spokes would work loose, and soon the whole wheel would collapse. The bed was of the old prairie-schooner style, with the bottom boat-shaped and the ribs on the outside.
My first camp for the return journey over the old trail was made in my own dooryard at Puyallup. This was maintained for several days to give the wagon and team a trial. After the weak points had been strengthened andeverything pronounced to be in order, I left home for the long trip.