June 12th.—The ship dropped further down the River, and it was now determined to abandon all attempts to force a settlement. We have taken off the goats and hogs which were left on shore for the use of the settlement, and thus we have to abandon the business, after having, with great difficulty and labour, got about forty-five miles above Cape Disappointment; and with great trouble began to clear the land and build a house a second time, after cutting timber enough to finish nearly one-half, and having two of our hands disabled in the work. It is, indeed, cutting to be obliged to knuckle to those whom you have not the least fear of, but whom, from motives of prudence, you are obliged to treat with forbearance. What can be more disagreeable than to sit at the table with a number of these rascally chiefs, who while they supply their greedy mouths with your food with one hand, their bloods boil within them to cut your throat with the other, without the least provocation.
June 12th.—The ship dropped further down the River, and it was now determined to abandon all attempts to force a settlement. We have taken off the goats and hogs which were left on shore for the use of the settlement, and thus we have to abandon the business, after having, with great difficulty and labour, got about forty-five miles above Cape Disappointment; and with great trouble began to clear the land and build a house a second time, after cutting timber enough to finish nearly one-half, and having two of our hands disabled in the work. It is, indeed, cutting to be obliged to knuckle to those whom you have not the least fear of, but whom, from motives of prudence, you are obliged to treat with forbearance. What can be more disagreeable than to sit at the table with a number of these rascally chiefs, who while they supply their greedy mouths with your food with one hand, their bloods boil within them to cut your throat with the other, without the least provocation.
On the way out of the River Captain Winship learned that the Chinooks designed capturing his vessel, and would doubtless have done so, had not his vigilance prevented.
While the crew of theAlbatrosswere engaged in these adventures the largest American Fur Company yet formed was getting ready to effect a lodgment on the shores of the Columbia. This was the Pacific Fur Company. John Jacob Astor was the founder of this enterprise. Though unfortunate in almost every feature of its history and its final outcome, this company had a magnificent conception, a royal grandeur of opportunity, and it possessed also the felicity, shared by no one of its predecessors, of the genius of a great literary star to illuminate its records. To Washington Irving it owes much of its fame. Yet the commercial genius of Astor could not prevent errors of judgment by the management any more than the literary genius of Irving was able to conceal theirerrors, or the genius of American liberty able to order events so as to prevent victory for a time by the “Britishers.” As we view the history in the large it may be that we shall conclude that the British triumph at first was the best introduction to American triumph in the end.
John Jacob Astor may, perhaps, be justly regarded as the first of the great promoters or financial magnates who have made the United States the world’s El Dorado. Coming from Germany to this land of opportunity after the close of the Revolutionary War, he soon manifested that keen intuition in money matters, as well as intense devotion to accumulation, which has led to the colossal fortunes of his own descendants and of the other multimillionaires of this age. Having made quite a fortune by transporting furs to London, Mr. Astor turned to larger fields. With his broad and keen geographical and commercial insight, he could readily grasp the same fact which the North-westers of Montreal were also considering, that the Columbia River might well become the key to an international fur-trade, as well as a strategic point for American expansion westward. He made overtures to the North-westers for a partnership, but they declined. Then he determined to be the chief manager, and to associate individual Americans and Canadians with himself. With the promptitude of the skilful general, he proceeded to form his company and make his plan of campaign in time to anticipate the apparent designs of the active Canadians. They saw, as well as Astor did, the magnitude of the stake and at once made ready to play their part. For, as already noted, David Thompson crossed the Rockies by the AthabascaPass in 1810, spent the winter at Lake Windermere on the Columbia River, and in the summer of 1811 reached Astoria, only to find the Astor Company already established there. It should be especially noted that the Thompson party was the first to descend the River from near its source to the ocean, although of course Lewis and Clark had anticipated them on the portion below the junction of the Snake with the main River.
Mr. Astor’s plans provided for an expedition by sea and one by land. The first was to convey stores and equipment for founding and defending the proposed capital of the empire of the fur-traders. Of the expedition by land under Hunt we have already given a full account in the preceding chapter, since its events rather allied it to the era of exploration than that of the traders. The organisation of Mr. Astor’s company provided that there should be a capital stock of a hundred shares, of which he should hold half and his associates half. Mr. Astor was to furnish the money, though not to exceed four hundred thousand dollars, and was to bear all losses for five years. The term of the association was fixed at twenty years, though with the privilege of dissolving it in five years if it proved unprofitable. The general plan and the details of the expedition had been decided upon by the master mind of the founder with statesmanlike ability. It comes, therefore, as a surprise to the reader that Mr. Astor should have made a capital mistake at the very beginning of his undertaking. This mistake was in the selection of his associates and the captains of some of his ships. Of the partners, five were Americans and five were Canadians. Twoonly of the Americans remained with the company long enough to have any determining influence on its policies. Take the fact that the majority of the active partners and almost all the clerks, trappers, and other employees of the company were Canadians, and put it beside the other fact that war was imminent with Great Britain and did actually break out within two years, and the dangerous nature of the situation can be seen. Of the ship-captains, the first one, Captain Jonathan Thorn of theTonquin, was a man of such overbearing and obstinate nature that disaster seemed to be fairly invited by placing him in such vitally responsible a position. The captain of the second ship, theBeaver, was Cornelius Sowles, and he seems to have been as timid and irresolute as Captain Thorn was bold and implacable. Both lacked judgment. It was probably natural that Mr. Astor, having had his main prior experience as a fur-dealer in connection with the Canadians centring at Montreal, should have looked in that direction for associates. But inasmuch as war between England and the United States seemed a practical certainty, it was a great error, in founding a vast enterprise in remote regions whose ownership was not yet definitely recognised, to share with citizens of Great Britain the determination of the important issues of the enterprise. It would have saved Mr. Astor great loss and chagrin if he had observed the maxim: “Put none but Americans on guard.” As to the captains of the two vessels, that was an error that any one might have made. Yet for a man of Astor’s exceptional ability and shrewdness to err so conspicuously in judging the character of the men appointed to such important places seems indeed strange.
Astoria in 1845.From an Old Print.
Astoria. Looking up and across the Columbia River.Photo. by Woodfield.
To these facts in regard to the personnel of the partners, the captains, and the force, must be added two others;i. e., war and shipwreck. The combination of all these conditions made the history of the Astoria enterprise what it was. Yet, with all of its adversity, this was one of the best conceived, and, in most of its details, the best equipped and executed of all the great enterprises which have appeared in the commercial history of our country. As an element in the development of the land of the Oregon, it must be accorded the first place after the period of discovery.
TheTonquinleft New York on September 6, 1810. She carried a fine equipment of all things needed for founding the proposed emporium. She was manned by a crew of twenty-one and conveyed members of the fur-trading force to the number of thirty-three. Stopping at the Sandwich Islands, an added force of twenty-four natives was taken aboard. At various times on the journey the rigid ideas of naval discipline and the imperious temper of Captain Thorn came near producing mutiny among the partners and clerks. When theTonquinhove to off the mouth of the Columbia on March 22, 1811, the eager voyagers saw little to attract. The wind was blowing in heavy squalls, and the sea ran high. Nevertheless the hard-hearted Captain issued orders to the first mate, Fox, with a boat’s crew of four men, to go into the foaming waves and sound the channel. The boat was insufficiently provided, and it seemed scarcely short of murder to despatch a crew under such circumstances. But the tyrannical captain would listen to no remonstrances, and the poor little boat went tossing over the billows on her forlorn hope. Such indeed it proved tobe, for neither boat nor any one of the crew was ever heard of again. This was a wholly unnecessary sacrifice of life, for theTonquinwas in no danger, and time could just as well have been taken for more propitious weather.
The next day, the wind and sea having abated, theTonquindrew near the dreaded bar, but, no entrance that satisfied the captain appearing, the ship again stood off to spend the night in deep water. On the next day, the 24th, the wind fell and a serene sky seemed to invite another attempt. The pinnace in command of Mr. Aikin, with two white men and two Kanakas, was sent out to find the channel. Following the pinnace the ship moved in so rapidly under a freshening breeze that she passed the pinnace, the unfortunate men on board finding it impossible to effect an entrance and being borne by the refluent current into the mad surge where ocean tide and outflowing river met in foamy strife. So the pinnace disappeared. But meanwhile the crew had all their energies engaged to save theTonquin. For the wind failed at the critical moment and the ship struck the sands with violence. Night came on. Had the men been classically trained (as in fact Franchère was) they might have remembered Virgil,Ponto nox incubat atra. But they had no time for classical or other quotations. Hastily dropping the anchors they lay to in the midst of the tumult of waters, in that worst of situations, on an unknown coast in the dark and in storm. But as Franchère expresses it, Providence came to their succour, and the tide flooding and the wind rising, they weighed the anchors, and in spite of the obscurity of the night, they gained a safeharbour in a little cove inside of Cape Disappointment, apparently just about abreast of the present town of Ilwaco.
Thus theTonquinwas saved, and with the light of morning it could be seen that she was fairly within the bar. Natives soon made their appearance, desirous of trading beaver-skins. But the crew were in no mood for commerce while any hope existed for finding the lost sailors. Taking a course toward the shore by what must have been nearly the present route from Ilwaco to Long Beach, the captain and a party with him, began a search and soon found Weeks, one of the crew of the pinnace. He was stark naked and suffering intensely from the cold. As soon as sufficiently revived he narrated the loss of the pinnace in the breakers, the death of three of the crew, and the casting of himself and one of the Kanakas upon the beach. The point where they were cast would seem to have been near the present location of the life-saving station.
The two survivors of the ill-fated pinnace having been revived, the party returned to theTonquin, which was now riding safely at anchor in the bay on the north side of the river, named Baker’s Bay by Broughton nineteen years before. Joy for their own escape from such imminent perils was mingled with melancholy at the loss of their eight companions of the two boats, and with the melancholy there was a sense of bitterness toward the captain, who was to blame, at least for the loss of the small boat.
But now the new land was all before them where to choose, and since Captain Thorn was in great haste to depart and begin his trading cruise along thecoast, the partners on theTonquin, Messrs. McKay, McDougal, David Stuart, and Robert Stuart, decided somewhat hurriedly to locate at the point which had received from Lieutenant Broughton the name of Point George. Franchère gives a pleasant picture of the beauty of the trees and sky, and the surprise of the party to find that, though it was only the 12th of April when they set to work upon the great trees which covered the site of their chosen capital, yet spring was already far advanced. They did not then understand the effect of the Japan current upon the Pacific Coast climate.
An incident of special interest soon after landing was the appearance on June 15th of two strange Indians, a man and a woman, bearing a letter addressed toMr. John Stuart, Fort Estekatadene, New Caledonia. These two Indians wore long robes of dressed deerskins with leggings and moccasins more like the Indians of the Rocky Mountains. They could not understand the speech of the Astoria Indians nor of any of the mixture of dialects which the white men tried on them, until one of the Canadian clerks addressed them in the Knisteneaux language with which they seemed to be partially familiar. After several days of stay at the fort the two wandering Indians succeeded in making it clear to the traders that they had been sent out by a clerk named Finnan McDonald of the North-west Fur Company from a fort which that company had just established on the Spokane River. They said that they had lost their way and in consequence had descended theTacousah-Tessah(and this Franchère understood to be the Indian name for the Columbia, though the general impressionamong the Indians is that Tacousah-Tessah, or Tacoutche-Tesse, signified Frazer River). From the revelation gradually drawn from these two Indians (and the surprising discovery was made that they were both women) the very important conclusion was drawn that the North-west Fur Company was already prepared to contest with the Astor Company the possession of the River. The peculiar feature of the situation was that the most of the Astorians, though American by the existing business tie, were Canadian and British by blood and sympathy, and hence were very likely to fraternise with the Montreal traders.
One of the Lagoons of the Upper Columbia River, near Golden, B. C.Photo. by C. F. Yates, Golden.
Saddle Mt., or Swallalochost, near Astoria, Famous in Indian Myth.Photo. by Woodfield.
However the Astorians decided to send an expedition into the interior to verify the story given by the two Indian women, but, just as they were ready to go, a large canoe with the British flag floating from her stern appeared, from which, when it had reached the landing, there leaped ashore an active, well-dressed man who introduced himself as David Thompson, of the North-west Company. This was the same man, the reader will remember, who had crossed the Rocky Mountains the year before, had wintered near the head of the River, and had then descended it, seeking a location for the Columbia River emporium of the Canadian company. But he was too late. It was quite strange by what narrow margins on several occasions the British failed to forestall the Yankees.
On July 23d the delayed expedition of the Astorians set forth far to the interior, and as a result of their investigations, David Stuart, in charge of the party, began the erection of a trading house at the mouth of the Okanogan, five hundred and forty miles above Astoria. It was on September 2, 1811, thatthis post was begun, and hence Fort Okanogan may be regarded as the first American establishment in the present State of Washington. It was antedated a few months by the post of the North-west Company at the entrance of the Little Spokane into the Spokane, near the present site of the City of Spokane.
During the fall of 1811 the Indians around Astoria became very threatening. Direful rumours, too, in regard to the destruction of theTonquinbegan to disquiet the Astorians. In the emergency the wary McDougall, then acting as the head of the Company, bethought himself of a very effective expedient. He had learned that dreadful loss of life among the Indians had resulted a few years before from smallpox and that the Indians were mortally afraid of it. Calling into his room several of the principal chiefs, he asked if they remembered the smallpox. Their serious faces were sufficient proof that they did. McDougall then held up a small vial and continued with awful solemnity: “Listen to me. I am the great smallpox chief. In this little bottle I keep the smallpox. If I uncork the bottle and let it out I will kill every man, woman, and child of the Indians. Now go in peace, but if you make war upon us I will open the bottle, and you will die.” The chiefs filed out in terror, and peace was preserved.
McDougall still further cemented the bond of union with the natives by becoming united in wedlock with the daughter of Comcomly, the one-eyed chieftain of the Chinooks. After numerous and thorough ablutions had somewhat mitigated the oiliness and general fishiness of the Chinook princess, she was clad in the most brilliant style of the native beauty, a grand holidaywas declared at Astoria, and white men and Indians joined in the wedding feast and made the welkin ring with their demonstrations. Thus did the daughter of Comcomly become the first lady of the land, and thus did peace brood over the broad waters of the lower River.
During the winter of 1811-12 the two instalments of the Hunt party made their appearance, after their distressful journey from St. Louis as already narrated in Chapter IV. In May, 1812, the company’s shipBeaverarrived from New York, loaded with stores and trading equipment, and bringing a considerable addition to the force of men. In the following month sixty men were despatched up-river, and by them a trading post was located at Spokane and another on the Snake River somewhere near the present site of Lewiston, while one section of the party went across the mountains and down the Missouri to convey dispatches to Mr. Astor.
At this stage of the history of the Astoria enterprise, every aspect was encouraging. The trade in furs on the Spokane, the Okanogan, the Snake, the Cœur d’Alene was excellent, a successful cruise along the coast by theBeaverseemed sure, and the Indians about the mouth of the River were friendly and well disposed. Mr. Astor’s great undertaking seemed sure to be crowned with success. In the midst of all the signs of hope came tidings of dismay. It became known with certainty that theTonquinhad been destroyed. This appalling disaster was related directly to the Astoria Company by the only survivor. This was an Indian of the Chehalis tribe whose name is given by Irving as Lamazee, by Ross as Lamazu, andby Bancroft as Lamanse. He had escaped from the Indians who had held him after the destruction of theTonquinand had finally found his way to Astoria, there to tell his tale, one of the most sanguinary in the long roll of struggles with the Indians. The next great disaster was the wrecking of theLark, the third of the Company’s ships from New York. During the same period Mr. Hunt, the partner next in rank to Mr. Astor and the one above all who could have acted wisely and patriotically in the forthcoming crisis, had gone in theBeaveron a trading cruise among the Russians of Sitka, and by a most remarkable series of detentions he had been kept away from Astoria for over a year.
To cap the climax of misfortunes, the War of 1812 burst upon the knowledge of the fur-traders and seemed to force upon such of the partners as were of British nationality the question of their paramount duty. As a result of the crisis, McDougal and McKenzie, although against the wishes of the other partners present, sold out to the agent of the North-westers, who had repaired at once to Astoria upon knowledge of the declaration of war. Thus the great Astoria enterprise was abandoned, and the Stars and Stripes went down and the Union Jack went up. Soon after the transfer, the British man-of-warRaccoon, Captain Black, arrived at Astoria, expecting to have seized the place as a rich prize of war. Imagine the disgust of the expectant British mariners to discover that the post had already been sold to British subjects, that their long journey was useless, and that their hopes of prize money had vanished.
With the close of the War of 1812 a series ofnegotiations between the ministers of the two countries took place in regard to the possession of the River, by which it was finally decided that Astoria should be restored to the United States. Accordingly, on the 6th of October, 1818, the British Commissioners, Captain F. Hickey, of His Majesty’s ShipBlossom, and J. Keith, representing the North-west Fur Company, signed an act of delivery restoring Fort George (Astoria) to the United States. Mr. J. B. Prevost, Commissioner for the United States, signed the act of acceptance. Astoria was once again American property.
SteamerBeaver, the First Steamer on the Pacific, 1836.
Portland, Oregon, in 1851.From an Old Print.
While the River was now nominally in possession of the United States, it was practically under the control of the British fur companies. The Pacific Fur Company ceased to operate, and the North-westers entered upon active work both by sea and land in exploring the vast and profitable domain which the misfortunes of their American rivals, supplemented in a most timely manner by the treachery of McDougall and McKenzie, had put within their power. The canny Scotchmen, McDougall, McTavish, McKenzie, McDonald, and the various other Macs who now guided the plans of the North-westers, signalled their entrance into power by despatching companies to the various pivotal points of the great Columbia Basin, the Walla Walla, Yakima, Okanogan, Spokane, and Snake rivers. Two incidents may be related to illustrate the character of people and the conditions of that wilderness period.
A party of ninety men in ten canoes left Astoria for up-river points on April 4, 1814. While passing the mouth of the Yakima, about three hundred andfifty miles up the River, the men were surprised to see three canoes putting out from shore and to hear a child’s voice calling out, “Arretez donc! arretez donc!” Stopping to investigate, the party found in one of the boats the Indian wife of Pierre Dorion, with her children. Dorion, with five other Canadians, had gone the previous summer with a party under command of John Reed of the Astor Company. While trapping and hunting, deep in the mountains of Snake River, the party had been massacred by Indians. The woman and her two boys had alone escaped the massacre. It was the dead of winter and the snows lay deep on the Blue Mountains. But the wife of Dorion found shelter in a remote fastness of the mountains, putting up a bark hut for a shelter and subsisting on the carcasses of some of her horses. In the spring, the pitiful little company of mother and children descended to Walla Walla and found there more kindly disposed natives, who cared for them and turned them over to the protection of the whites. A more thrilling story of suffering and heroism than this of Madame Dorion and her children has never come up from the chronicles of the wild West.
Equally illustrative of the life of the fur-traders is the account given by Alexander Ross of one of his many adventures in the Columbia country. In 1814 Ross went from Okanogan to Yakima to secure horses. With him were four other whites and three Indian women. The Yakima Valley was then as now a paradise of the Indians. There the tribes gathered by the thousands in the spring to dig camas, to race horses, and to gamble, as well as to form alliances andmake plans for war. When the little company of traders reached the encampment, they discovered to their astonishment that it was a veritable city. Six thousand men, women, and children, with ten thousand horses, and uncounted dogs and many shackled bears and wolves, were strewn across the plain. It was a dangerous situation for the traders, for it became plain to them that the Indians were unfriendly. But assuming an air of careless bravado, Ross proceeded to display his store of trinkets for the purpose of starting a traffic in horses. Assuming a very hilarious manner the Indians would seize and drive away the animals as fast as the white men got them. Then the Indians began to deprive them of clothes and food. Finally they made ready to seize their three women as slaves. Ross managed to have the women escape temporarily, but then the savages were worse than ever. Matters reached a crisis when an obstreperous chief named Yaktana snatched a knife from the hands of one of the Canadians. A desperate struggle was just at the point of breaking out, which would inevitably have resulted in the death of all the white men, when a sudden intuition flashed through the quick mind of Ross, and rushing between the combatants he handed his own knife, a much more elegant one, to Yaktana, saying in a friendly tone, “This is a chief’s knife. Take it and give back the other.” There was an instant revulsion. Yaktana was so much flattered that he turned at once into a stanch supporter of the shrewd trader. Food was brought. The horses were restored. Equipment was provided. The three women were regained, and the company made their way without further trouble to Okanogan.
We have already mentioned the important fact that in 1821 the two great Canadian Companies, the North-western and the Hudson’s Bay, decided to unite. With the union, the great era of fur-trade in the Columbia Basin fairly began, to continue about twenty-five years, yielding then to the American immigrant. That twenty-five years of the dominance of the great Fur Company contained nearly all the poetry and romance as well as the profit and statesmanship of the business. The entire region of the River, as well as that of the Puget Sound country, was mapped out in a most systematic manner with one chief central fort, Vancouver on the Columbia. A more magnificent location for the purpose cannot be conceived. It is now the site of a flourishing city and of the United States Fort Headquarters for the North-west, generally conceded to be the finest fort location in the United States. Fort Vancouver was established in 1825 upon a superb bench of land gently sloping back from the River for two miles. Great trees fringed the site, Mt. Hood lifted its pinnacled majesty sixty miles to the eastward, the sinuous mazes of the Willamette Valley stretched out far southward, while the lordly River was in full view a dozen miles up and down. Every natural advantage and delight which wild nature could offer was here in fullness. Ships could readily ascend the hundred miles from the ocean to unload their merchandise and take on their cargoes of precious furs, the furs collected at the outlay of so much toil and suffering over the area of hundreds of miles. Every species of game and fish abounded in the waters and along the banks of the River. Deer and elk tossed their antlersbetween the stately firs of the upland, and pheasant and grouse whirred among the branches. Geese, cranes, ducks, and swans, in countless numbers, darkened the lagoons amid the many islands enclosed by the mouths of the Willamette and the adjacent waters of the larger stream. Fish of many varieties, the royal Chinook salmon, king of food fish, being at the head in beauty and edibility, though surpassed in size by the gigantic sturgeon, which sometimes weighed a thousand pounds, abounded in the River. No epicure of the world’s capitals could command such viands as nature brought to the doors of the denizens of Fort Vancouver.
The fort itself was laid out on a scale of amplitude suitable to the spaciousness of the site. It was enclosed with a picket wall twenty feet high, with massive buttresses of timber inside. This enclosure was a parallelogram seven hundred and fifty by five hundred feet. Inside were about forty buildings, the governor’s residence of generous dimensions being in the centre. Two chapels provided for the spiritual needs of the company, while schoolhouse, stores, “bachelors’ halls,” and shops of various kinds attested the variety of the needs. Along the bank of the River, outside the enclosure, lay quite a village of cottages for the married employees, together with hospital, boathouses, granaries, warehouses, threshing mills, and dairy buildings.
Taken altogether Fort Vancouver was the model fort of the western slope. Moreover, the fertile soil and genial, humid climate soon encouraged the factors of the Company to experiment with gardens and orchards, and, within a few years after founding,fifteen hundred acres of land were in the finest state of productivity, while three thousand head of cattle, twenty-five hundred sheep, three hundred brood mares, and over a hundred milch cows, added their bounteous contributions to the already plentiful resources of the fort.
With this rich larder, with the spacious buildings, with the annual arrivals and departures of ships by sea and fleets of bateaux by river, with hunting trips and Indian policies, with the intercoast traffic with the Russians on the north and the Spaniards on the south,—there was as much to engage and delight the minds of these people as if they had lived in the heart of civilisation.
Any account of Fort Vancouver would be incomplete without some reference to Dr. John McLoughlin, chief factor of the Company in the Columbia district from 1824 to the time of his retirement from the Company in 1846 and settlement at Oregon City, Oregon, as an American citizen. Rarely has any one in the stormy history of the Columbia Basin received such unvarying and unqualified praise as has this truly great man. Physically, mentally, and morally, Dr. McLoughlin was altogether exceptional among the mixed population that gathered about the emporium of the traders. Six feet four inches in height, his noble and expressive face crowned with a great cascade of snowy hair, firm yet kindly, prompt and businesslike yet sympathetic and helpful, “Old Whitehead” or “White Eagle,” as the Indians called him, was a true-born king of men.
We have said that Fort Vancouver was the great central fort. The others commanding the pivotalpoints upon the River and its tributaries were Fort Hall and Fort Boisé on the Snake, Spokane House on the Spokane near the present metropolis of the Inland Empire, Fort Colville on the river of the same name near its junction with the Columbia, Fort Okanogan at the junction of the stream of that name with the great River, Fort Owen in the Cœur d’Alene region, Fort Simcoe in the Yakima country, Fort Walla Walla, first known as Fort Nez Percé, on the Columbia at the mouth of the Walla Walla, and Fort George on the former site of Astoria. These forts were all laid out in the same general fashion as Fort Vancouver, though no one was so large, elaborate, or comfortable. Besides the forts there were a number of small trading posts. The chief furs procured in the interior were beaver, and those on the coast were sea-otter. Many others, as the mink, sharp-toothed otter, fox, lynx, raccoon, were found in abundance.
The profits of the business were immense. Alexander Ross relates that he secured one morning before breakfast one hundred and ten beaver skins for a single yard of white cloth. Ross spent one hundred and eighty-eight days alone in the Yakima country. During that time he collected one thousand five hundred and fifty beavers, besides other peltries, worth in the Canton market two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds, which cost him in his objects of trade only thirty-five pounds. That was while Ross was connected with the Astor Company.
In completing this necessarily hurried chapter on the fascinating era of the fur-traders, we cannot omit a brief reference to the movements of the regular brigades of boats up and down the River, for thesecomprised a great part of both the business and the romance of the age. The course of these brigades was from the southern shores of Hudson Bay, through Manitoba, to the crest of the Rockies at the head of the Columbia. Water was utilised to the greatest possible extent, while at the portages and across the mountains horse-power and man-power were employed. Once afloat upon the Columbia, the brigades braved most of the rapids, paying occasional toll of men and goods to the envious deities of the waters, yet with marvellous skill and general fortune making their way down the thousand or more miles from Boat Encampment to Fort Vancouver. The descent was easy compared with the ascent. The first journey of the east-bound brigade of the North-westers from Astoria to Montreal was in 1814, and it required the time from April 4th to May 11th to reach the mouth of Canoe River, the point at which they entered upon the mountain climb to the head of the Athabasca.
The boatmen were French-Canadians, a hardy, mercurial, light-hearted race, half French, with the natural grace and politeness of their race, and having the pleasant patois which has made them the theme of much popular present-day literature. They were half Indian, either in tastes and manners or in blood, with the atmosphere of forests and streams clinging to every word and gesture. They were perhaps the best boatmen in the world. Upon those matchless lakes into which the Columbia and its tributaries expand at intervals the fur-laden boats would glide at ease, while the wild songs of thecoureurs des boiswould echo from shore to shore in lazy sibilations, apparently betokening no thought of serious or earnest business.But once the rapids were reached, the gay and rollicking knight of the paddle became all attention. With keen eyes fixed on every swirl or rock, he guided the light craft with a ready skill which would be inconceivable to one less daring and experienced. The brigades would run almost all the rapids from Death Rapids to the sea, making portages at Kettle Falls, Tumwater or Celilo Falls, and the Cascades, though at some stages of the water they could run down even them. They always had to carry around those points in ascending the River. In spite of all the skill of thevoyageursthe Columbia and the Snake, the Pend Oreille and the Kootenai have exacted a heavy toll of life from those who have laid their compelling hands upon the white manes of chute and cataract. Many, even of thevoyageurs, are the human skeletons that have whitened the volcanic beds of the great streams.
The boats used by the fur brigades were either log canoes obtained of the Indians or bateaux. The former were hollowed from the magnificent cedars which grew on the banks of the River, sometimes fifty or sixty feet long, with prow carved in fantastic, even beautiful fashion. They would hold from six to twenty persons with from half a ton to two or three tons of load, yet were so light that two men could carry one of the medium size while four could handle one of any size around a portage. But thevoyageursnever took quite so much to the canoes as did the Indians, whose skill in handling them in high waves is described by Ross and Franchère as something astonishing. And even the Indians of the present show much the same ability, though the splendid cedarcanoes are no longer made, and only here and there can one of the picturesque survivors be seen.
The bateaux were boats of peculiar shape, being built very high and broad so that in an unloaded condition they seemed to rest on the water almost like a paper shell. Both ends were high and pointed as prows. They were propelled with oars and steered with paddles. One of the usual size was about thirty feet long and five feet wide. Being of light-draft, double-enders, capable of holding large loads and yet easily conveyed around portages, more steady and roomy than canoes, these bateaux were the typical Columbia River medium of commerce during the era of the fur-traders. They, too, have mainly vanished from the scenes of their former glory. Canoes, bateaux, cries and yells of Indians, songs ofvoyageurs, have gone into the engulfing limbo of the bygone, along with the keen-eyed Scotch factor and the sharp-featured Yankee skipper. Yet the swans and geese and ducks still darken the more placid expanses of the River and the salmon still start the widening circles in almost undiminished numbers, while the glaciated heights of Hood and Adams and St. Helens (we would rather say Wiyeast, Klickitat, and Loowit) still stand guard over the unchanging waters.
This part of our topic has mainly centred upon the British possession of the River. A full history of the fur era on the River would demand a chapter on the later attempts of three remarkable men to reestablish American interests in the disputed territory. These men were Jedediah Smith, Capt. E. L. Bonneville, and Nathaniel J. Wyeth. But though these men belong properly to this era, their efforts in thefur-trade were relatively unimportant in comparison with the influence of their lives in the direction of permanent American occupation. It seemed the appointment of destiny that the American should play second fiddle to his British rival in the fur-trade. But as tenfold, a thousandfold compensation, the American farmers, home-builders, and tradesmen were to acquire final possession of one of the goodliest lands on which the Stars and Stripes has ever floated. The bateaux and canoes must needs give way to the steamboat and the launch, thecoureur des boisto the lumberman and the miner and farmer, and the picturesque emporium of the British fur-trader on the River to the modern American city. We shall, therefore, more fittingly chronicle the later American fur-traders as a part of the march of their countrymen to permanent ownership of Oregon.
The Coming of the Missionaries to the Tribes of the River
Journey of the Nez Percé Chiefs to Find the White Man’s Book of Life—Interest Excited among Christian People by this Event—Methodist Church Leads in Preparing for a Missionary Party—Jason Lee and his Mission near Chemeketa—The Reinforcement by theLausanne—Importance of Jason Lee as a Force in Oregon History—The Missions of the American Board at Walla Walla, Lapwai, and Tshimakain—Preliminary Journey of Whitman and Parker in 1835—The Wedding Journey from Missouri to the Columbia in 1836—Dr. Whitman and his Associates and their Traits of Character—On the Summit of South Pass—Whitman’s Waggon—Arrival at Vancouver and Conference with McLoughlin—Locations of the Missionaries—Reinforcement in 1838—Friendship of the Nez Percés—First Printing Press—Whitman’s Ride in 1842-43—The Catholic Missions—Fathers Blanchet, Demers, and De Smet—Influence of the Missions.
Journey of the Nez Percé Chiefs to Find the White Man’s Book of Life—Interest Excited among Christian People by this Event—Methodist Church Leads in Preparing for a Missionary Party—Jason Lee and his Mission near Chemeketa—The Reinforcement by theLausanne—Importance of Jason Lee as a Force in Oregon History—The Missions of the American Board at Walla Walla, Lapwai, and Tshimakain—Preliminary Journey of Whitman and Parker in 1835—The Wedding Journey from Missouri to the Columbia in 1836—Dr. Whitman and his Associates and their Traits of Character—On the Summit of South Pass—Whitman’s Waggon—Arrival at Vancouver and Conference with McLoughlin—Locations of the Missionaries—Reinforcement in 1838—Friendship of the Nez Percés—First Printing Press—Whitman’s Ride in 1842-43—The Catholic Missions—Fathers Blanchet, Demers, and De Smet—Influence of the Missions.
In1832 a strange thing happened. Four Indians appeared in St. Louis seeking the “White Man’s Book of Life.” At that time General William Clark was superintendent of Indian affairs, located at St. Louis. He was familiar with the Western Indians and had greatly sympathised with them.
Learning of these strange Indians and their stranger quest, General Clark sought them, and entered into communication with them. It is usually stated that these Indians were Flatheads from the Pend Oreille region, but Miss Kate Macbeth, a missionary for many years to the Nez Percés, becameconvinced that three were Nez Percés and the fourth a Flathead. How they had learned that the white man had a “Book of Life” is not known. Captain Bonneville’s journal states that Pierre Pambrun had given many of the Oregon Indians instruction in the rudiments of the Catholic worship. Some have conjectured that Jedediah Smith, a noted American trapper, and, most remarkable of all, a devout Christian, may have imparted religious thoughts to them. Miss Macbeth believed that the motive of the mission was to find Lewis and Clark, the explorers, whose visit in 1804-05 had produced a profound impression on the Nez Percés. The first published account of these four Indians appeared in theNew York Christian Advocatefor March 1, 1833. This was in the form of a letter from G. P. Disoway, in which he enclosed a letter to himself from his agent, William Walker, an interpreter for the Wyandotte Indians. Walker was at St. Louis at the time, and met these four Indians in General Clark’s office. He was much impressed with their appearance, and learned that General Clark had given them as full an account as possible of the nature and history of man, of the advent of the Saviour, and of His work for men. Walker states that two of the four men died in St. Louis, and as to whether the others reached their native land he did not know.
In theIllinois Patriotof October, 1833, the same topic was taken up, together with the statement that Walker’s report had excited so much interest that a committee of the Illinois Synod had been appointed to investigate and report on what seemed the duty of the churches in the premises. The committeeaccordingly went to St. Louis and confirmed the account by conference with General Clark. They also made it an object to learn all available facts in regard to the general conditions among the Indians west of the Rocky Mountains.
One of the most valuable records in respect to these Indians is from George Catlin, the noted painter and student of Indian life. Catlin was on the steamer going up the Missouri toward Fort Benton with these two remaining Indians on their homeward journey. His account of them in theSmithsonian Reportfor 1885 is thus:
These two men, when I painted them, were in beautiful Sioux dresses which had been presented to them in a talk with the Sioux, who treated them very kindly, while passing through the Sioux country. These two men were part of a delegation that came across the mountains to St. Louis, a few years since, to inquire for the truth of representation which they said some white man had made among them, that our religion was better than theirs, and that they would all be lost if they did not embrace it. Two old and venerable men of this party died in St. Louis, and I travelled two thousand miles, companion with these two fellows, toward their own country, and became much pleased with their manners and dispositions. When I first heard the objects of their extraordinary mission across the mountains, I could scarcely believe it; but, on conversing with General Clark on a future occasion, I was fully convinced of the fact.
These two men, when I painted them, were in beautiful Sioux dresses which had been presented to them in a talk with the Sioux, who treated them very kindly, while passing through the Sioux country. These two men were part of a delegation that came across the mountains to St. Louis, a few years since, to inquire for the truth of representation which they said some white man had made among them, that our religion was better than theirs, and that they would all be lost if they did not embrace it. Two old and venerable men of this party died in St. Louis, and I travelled two thousand miles, companion with these two fellows, toward their own country, and became much pleased with their manners and dispositions. When I first heard the objects of their extraordinary mission across the mountains, I could scarcely believe it; but, on conversing with General Clark on a future occasion, I was fully convinced of the fact.
It appears from still another account of the matter that the two surviving Indians were disappointed in that they did not actually get possession of the “Book.” A speech of one of the chiefs as he left General Clark has been published in a number of books, and is well worthy of preservation. It should bestated, however, that this speech has no authentic source, nor does it appear anywhere how it was obtained. It is commonly stated that it was “taken down” at the time by one of the clerks in General Clark’s office. The historian Mowry is authority for the statement that one of the Indians gave the substance of the speech to the missionary, Spalding, at a later time. It has, also, a somewhat conventionalised sound. Yet with whatever discredit may be cast upon it, it possesses so many elements of interest that it may well be given here. This is the reported speech.
I come to you over the trail of many moons from the setting sun. You were the friend of my fathers, who have all gone the long way. I came with an eye partly open for my people, who sit in darkness. I go back with both eyes closed. How can I go back blind, to my blind people? I made my way to you with strong arms through many enemies and strange lands that I might carry back much to them. I go back with both arms broken and empty. Two fathers came with us. They were the braves of many winters and wars. We leave them asleep here by your great water and wigwams. They were tired in many moons and their moccasins wore out.My people sent me to get the White Man’s Book of Heaven. You took me to where you allow your women to dance, as we do not ours, and the book was not there. You took me to where they worship the great Spirit with candles, and the book was not there. You showed me images of the good spirits and the pictures of the good land beyond, but the book was not among them to tell us the way. I am going back the long and sad trail to my people in the dark land. You make my feet heavy with gifts and my moccasins will grow old in carrying them, yet the book is not among them. When I tell my poor blind people after one more snow, in the big council, that I did not bring the book, no word will bespoken by our old men or by our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in silence. My people will die in darkness, and they will go on a long path to other hunting grounds. No white man will go with them, and no White Man’s Book to make the way plain. I have no more words.
I come to you over the trail of many moons from the setting sun. You were the friend of my fathers, who have all gone the long way. I came with an eye partly open for my people, who sit in darkness. I go back with both eyes closed. How can I go back blind, to my blind people? I made my way to you with strong arms through many enemies and strange lands that I might carry back much to them. I go back with both arms broken and empty. Two fathers came with us. They were the braves of many winters and wars. We leave them asleep here by your great water and wigwams. They were tired in many moons and their moccasins wore out.
My people sent me to get the White Man’s Book of Heaven. You took me to where you allow your women to dance, as we do not ours, and the book was not there. You took me to where they worship the great Spirit with candles, and the book was not there. You showed me images of the good spirits and the pictures of the good land beyond, but the book was not among them to tell us the way. I am going back the long and sad trail to my people in the dark land. You make my feet heavy with gifts and my moccasins will grow old in carrying them, yet the book is not among them. When I tell my poor blind people after one more snow, in the big council, that I did not bring the book, no word will bespoken by our old men or by our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in silence. My people will die in darkness, and they will go on a long path to other hunting grounds. No white man will go with them, and no White Man’s Book to make the way plain. I have no more words.
Taken altogether, it may be said that this event, as preserved in these various ways, constitutes one of the most pleasing and significant, though pathetic, incidents in Indian history. It was, moreover, pregnant with results. It might almost be said that it was the key to American possession of Oregon. For upon the acquisition of the story by the Christian people of the United States, there rose an immediate demand that something be done to carry the Gospel to the Indians of the Oregon country. This story was interpreted as a Macedonian cry. The period was one of strong religious feeling, as well as missionary zeal. The warm-hearted followers of the Cross felt at once that here was a providential opening to honour that Cross and to advance its kingdom upon the western border of civilisation.
The Methodist Church was first to take up the work of sending forth missionaries to the Oregon Indians. To Wilbur Fiske of Wesleyan University seems due the credit of the first move. He enlisted the interest of Jason Lee, a former student at Wesleyan University, but then engaged in missionary work in the province of Quebec. Lee was a tall, athletic young man, full of zeal and consecration, not polished or graceful in manner, but powerful in spirit. He grasped at once the great possibilities in the proposition of Dr. Fiske, and, going to Boston, became appointed by the New England Conference assuperintendent of a mission to Oregon. Daniel Lee, Cyrus Shepard, and P. L. Edwards were named his associates.
In 1834, this mission band learned that Nathaniel Wyeth, famous as a fur-trader, was expecting to cross the continent, sending his goods by the brigMay Dacreto the Columbia River. Such an opportunity was too favourable to be lost, and the Methodist Board at once opened negotiations with Captain Wyeth, with the result that this first missionary company to Oregon went with him and arrived safely at Vancouver on the Columbia, the headquarters of the Hudson’s Bay Company. TheMay Dacrereached her destination soon after, and thus Mr. Lee and his comrades found themselves at the threshold of their labours. The first intention had been to locate among the Nez Percés and Flatheads, the ones from whom the Macedonian cry had gone up. But Dr. McLoughlin, the chief factor at Vancouver, who had received them with the utmost interest and cordiality, persuaded them that the Willamette Valley would be a more promising field. Its advantages were obvious. It was directly on water navigation to the sea, and within easy distance of it. It was so near the chief entrepôt of the Hudson’s Bay Company as to be comparatively safe and accessible to all mails. The valley was of extraordinary scenic charm and salubrious climate. The natives, moreover, seemed more tractable and peaceful than those of the upper valley. Accordingly the Methodist brethren ascended the Willamette to a point near a group of farms which had been located by French employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company on what is known now as FrenchPrairie. One of these Frenchmen was Joseph Gervais, and from him the subsequent town of Gervais was named. The mission was located on the Willamette near Chemawa, the present site of the United States Indian School. It was ten miles north of Chemeketa, which was the great Indian Council Ground, or Peace Ground, from which fact the missionary applied to it the name of Salem,—a change of name more commendable for piety than for taste.
Jason Lee set to work at once with zeal, patience, and intelligence, to inaugurate the work to which he had consecrated his life. At times his efforts seemed to be well rewarded. Then pestilence would attack the Indians, followed by suspicion and excitement, as a result of which all the gains would be lost. The work among the whites and their half-breed families was more encouraging than that with the Indians. At the best, Indians have been inconstant and unreliable in respect to religious instruction.
In 1837 a strong reinforcement arrived, among whom were Dr. Elijah White, destined to become a man of note as Superintendent of Indian Affairs.
In 1838, Rev. Daniel Lee and Rev. H. K. W. Perkins established a new station at Wascopum, now the location of The Dalles. In the same year Jason Lee returned East to secure an addition to the mission. His efforts were crowned with success. Five missionaries, one physician, six mechanics, four farmers, one steward, and four female teachers, with a number unclassified,—in all thirty-six adults and seventeen children,—reached the Columbia River on the good shipLausanne, under charge of Captain Spalding, on May 21, 1840. This was the most notable company that had yetreached our Great River. Among them were men and women who contributed in a great degree to the subsequent growth of Oregon. Of the number were Revs. Gustavus Hines, Alvin Waller, J. P. Richmond, and J. H. Frost; Dr. Ira L. Babcock, George Abernethy, afterwards governor of the territory, J. L. Parrish, and L. H. Judson. All the men were accompanied by their wives, and most of them had children. They were, in short, the advance guard of the American home-builders in Oregon, and as such they deserve a special place on the roll of honour.
With this added force, it was possible to enlarge the work, in both secular and religious lines, both among the whites and the Indians. A mission was started at Clatsop on the south side of the mouth of the Columbia under Mr. Parrish, one at the falls of the Willamette, and another on Tualatin Plains, under Mr. Hines, while still another was located by Mr. Richmond at Nisqually on Puget Sound.
As time passed on, it became more and more evident that this work was to become less for Indians and more for the incoming whites. The whole aspect of it changed. The Methodist Board in New England decided that they were not justified in maintaining the missions, and these were discontinued during the decade of the forties.
Out of the mission at Chemeketa grew Willamette University, one of the most prominent educational institutions of Oregon.
Jason Lee returned to the East and died in Canada in 1845. His life, though short, was heroic and influential. He looms large on the background of the history of the Columbia. In brief retrospect,it may be said of him that he combined religious zeal with shrewd common sense and capacity to see and adapt himself to the business and political conditions of his time and place. This capacity is illustrated by his shrewd management of a bold and enterprising character named Ewing Young. This man was about starting a distillery in the Willamette Valley. Knowing the ruinous effects of intoxicants on Indians, the missionaries strongly opposed the enterprise. But knowing also that Young was a man of force and capacity and much more valuable as a friend than as an enemy, Mr. Lee accomplished the abandonment of the distillery by indirection, and at the same time gained one of the most important steps in the development of the country. For he induced Young to undertake the great work of driving into the Willamette Valley a large herd of cattle from California. To the settlers beginning to locate on the fat pasture land along the Willamette and its tributaries, this was a stage in history of priceless moment. Up to that time the only cattle in the country belonged to the Hudson’s Bay Company and it was not their policy to encourage American settlers.
Another fact in connection with Jason Lee constitutes a landmark in the history of American acquisition of Oregon. This was a memorial prepared by him, with the assistance of P. L. Edwards and David Leslie, and signed by practically all the adult men then accessible in the Willamette Valley, thirty-six in number, addressed to the United States Congress and praying that the Government would consider the importance of the Columbia River country and the question of acquisition. Thismemorial was dated March 16, 1838, and was taken by Mr. Lee to the East and given to Senator Linn of Missouri, in January, 1839. Senator Linn was so aroused over the boundless possibilities offered to westward expansion that he introduced a bill in the Senate calling for the establishment of Oregon Territory and the occupation of it by the military forces of the United States. Though this bill did not become a law, it constituted a rallying cry for the friends of American possession, which had results of utmost importance.
In short, to Jason Lee, more than to any other one, unless we except Dr. Marcus Whitman, of whom we shall speak later, must be attributed the inauguration of that remarkable chain of causes and effects, a long line of sequences, by which Oregon and our Pacific Coast in general became American possessions, and the international destiny of our nation was secured.
From the Methodist missions of Lower Columbia we turn to the Presbyterian and Congregational missions of the upper River and its tributaries. The American Board of Foreign Missions was at that time under the joint control of three religious bodies, Presbyterian, Congregational, and Dutch Reformed. At the instance of the last named body, the Board in 1835 commissioned Rev. Samuel Parker of Ithaca, N. Y., and Marcus Whitman, M.D., of Rushville, N. Y., to make a reconnaissance of the country of the Columbia, with the view of a mission. Under the protection of the American Fur Company, the two spiritual prospectors journeyed as far as Green River. There deciding that what they learned of the land beyond the Rocky Mountains warrantedthe carrying out of the missionary project, they determined to part company, Dr. Whitman returning to the “States” for reinforcements, and Dr. Parker going onward through Oregon to the mouth of the Columbia, and proceeding thence by ship to Honolulu, whence he returned by water to his home. Dr. Parker was an elderly man, somewhat pedantic and notional in his ways, but withal full of energy and zeal in the cause. He was not so popular with trappers and frontiersmen as his companion. For Whitman was a young, athletic man, capable of any degree of fatigue, very ready in proffering his professional or other services to those in need. There was a bonhommie and general disregard of the conventionalities in Whitman that caused the rough spirits of the border to “take to” him at once, while they rather looked askance at the more straight-laced ecclesiastic. But Parker was a man worthy of all respect for his qualities both of mind and purpose. He was a keen observer, and has left us, as his contribution to history, hisTravels beyond the Rocky Mountains, one of the most readable and valuable books of travel in our western literature. His journey was, in fact, the first one across the continent, after that of Lewis and Clark, which produced a book of high standard.
Dr. Whitman made his way at once to his home in New York, accompanied by two Nez Percé Indians. Arriving late on Saturday night he stopped with his brother, and no one else of the village knew of his arrival, until at the hour of service the next morning, he appeared in the aisle followed by his two Indians. His appearance was so like that of an apparition that his usually staid and proper mother losther head entirely, and leaped to her feet, shouting “Why, there is Marcus!” The equilibrium of the meeting was for the time almost destroyed.
Within a few months, Dr. Whitman was married to Narcissa Prentiss. He persuaded Rev. H. H. Spalding and wife, who had hitherto planned to go as missionaries to the Osage Indians, to join them for Oregon. W. H. Gray was secured to go with the party as secular manager.
And now began the famous “Wedding Journey” from New York to the banks of the Columbia. It included within itself the romance, the pathos, the devotion, the heroism, and at the last, the tragedy of missions.
The History of Oregon, by W. H. Gray, is the chief original authority for this journey, though the women of the party kept journals which are of great value. It would seem that all the members of the party were of marked personality. Dr. Whitman was a tall, spare man, with deep blue eyes, wide mouth, iron-grey hair, of inflexible resolution, and very set when his mind was once made up, though flexible and even variable till that point had been reached. He was of enormous physical strength and endurance, with a constitution, as one who knew him later told the writer, “like a saw-mill.”
Mrs. Whitman was a woman of liberal education for those times, large, fair-haired, blue-eyed, dignified, and somewhat reserved (rather “starchy,” the mountain men thought her), very ladylike, refined, and attractive. One of the pathetic and interesting things about her is related by Mrs. Martha J. Lamb in theMagazine of American History, in 1884. Thisrelates the fact that the church of which Miss Prentiss (Mrs. Whitman) was a member in Plattsburg, N. Y., held a farewell service for her, and in the course of it the minister gave out the hymn:
Yes, my native land, I love thee,All thy scenes, I love them well;Friends, connections, happy country,Can I bid you all farewell.
The entire congregation joined heartily in singing, but before the hymn was ended voice after voice was choked with sobs, and in the last words the clear, sweet soprano voice of Miss Prentiss was heard alone, unwavering, like a peal of triumph.
Mr. Spalding was a very different man from Dr. Whitman and has not been so well treated by historians. He is said to have been more nervous and crotchety, though of remarkable industry and intense likes and dislikes, which he never scrupled to express in vigorous fashion. The fact remains, however, that his mission was altogether the most successful of all those founded in Oregon.
Mrs. Spalding was tall, dark, rather coarse featured, and of fragile health. It is truly wonderful that with such a handicap she should have been able to accomplish the arduous journey to Oregon. She was less fastidious and reserved than Mrs. Whitman and adopted the policy of taking the habits and manners of the Indians in greater degree, whereas her more dignified sister believed in the policy of trying to raise the Indians to her own level. The Indians therefore understood Mrs. Spalding better. The Indians always desired the privilege of entering Mrs.Whitman’s private room unannounced, and, if possible, of seeing her at her bath or toilette. Her natural objection to such intrusion was a chronic grievance which resulted in the suspicion by the Indians that she was conspiring against them.
W. H. Gray, the secular agent, was a young, fine-looking, daring, and athletic man, very skilful in making and handling boats, teams, waggons, and anything else of a practical nature. He was so positive and even violent in his views as to alienate many with whom he came in contact. Yet he was one of the manliest men that ever came to Oregon, and was intimately connected with nearly every important event in the history of the Columbia River, navigation included. His four sons, all born in Oregon, became steamboat captains and pilots, and without question, no one family has been so intimately associated with the River as has the Gray family. If any one group of people could be said to have filed a claim on the River, it is the family of W. H. Gray. Gray’s history is of high value, yet so intense was his hatred of the Hudson’s Bay Company and of the British in general, as well as of Roman Catholics, that his book has been subjected to unsparing criticism by later writers.
The little missionary band of five, accompanied by the two Nez Percé Indians who had gone East with Whitman the year before, joined the westbound caravan of the American Fur Company, and journeyed with them the greater part of the way. One of the most thrilling and suggestive moments in their journey was when they stood on the summit of the Rockies at South Pass. There they looked down the westwardmaze of mountains and valleys drained by the Snake River and its tributaries as these swept west to join the Columbia and thence proceed to the Pacific. With that vision before them, they spread the Stars and Stripes to the breeze and kneeling upon the turf, they took possession of the great unknown to the westward in the name of God and the American Union. Nobly was the claim maintained, though with it came the crown of martyrdom.
Whitman desired above all other things to demonstrate the feasibility of a waggon road to the Pacific. He therefore insisted on taking his waggon,—“Chick-chick-shaile-kikash,” the Indians called it, in attempted onomatopœia. His demonstration was successful, though the trouble was infinite. He was compelled to leave the waggon at the Hudson’s Bay Fort on the Boisé, near the present site of Boisé City, with the intention of getting it the next year. The Hudson’s Bay people used every effort to discourage Whitman in his waggon enterprise, though according to Gray, they made much use of the vehicle in their fort.
On September 2, 1836, the mission party reached the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fort at the mouth of the Walla Walla, a little more than four months and two thousand two hundred miles from the banks of the Missouri to those of the Columbia.
But the journey was not complete, for their definite location must yet be selected. They proceeded now in bateaux down the Great River to Vancouver, the headquarters of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s empire. There Dr. McLoughlin, the chief factor, met them with his own peculiar cordiality, and yet with the dignitybefitting the head of so great an establishment. He was a noble man, and though business considerations and the orders of the directors of the company would have led him to “freeze out” the Americans, yet humanity and his own genial nature forbade him to withhold the cordial hand from the mission band. The fort and two ships in the river were arrayed in gala attire in honour of the event. Dr. McLoughlin did the honours of his spacious hall to Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding in a style that would have graced a baronial mansion.
By Dr. McLoughlin’s advice, since the Methodist mission had been located in the Willamette Valley, Whitman decided to establish himself among the Cayuses in the beautiful and fertile valley of the Walla Walla, at Waiilatpu, the “Place of the Rye-grass.” Spalding accepted the urgent appeal of the Nez Percés to go a hundred and twenty-five miles eastward to Lapwai on the Clearwater, near the modern site of Lewiston. Both stations were fair to look upon, with every natural advantage. It proved, however, that the Cayuses were fierce and intractable, while the Nez Percés, though warlike and manly, were also docile, ambitious to learn, and predisposed to friendly relations with the Americans.
In 1838, the American Board of Foreign Missions sent a reinforcement to the field, consisting of Revs. Elkanah Walker, Cushing Eells, A. B. Smith, and their wives. Mr. Gray, who had returned the previous year in order to organise this reinforcement, had found a wife, and with her was now accompanying this second missionary band to Oregon.
Messrs. Walker and Eells located at Tshimakain,on what is now called Walker’s Prairie, near Spokane. Mr. Smith went to Kamiah up the Clearwater, about sixty miles from Mr. Spalding’s station at Lapwai.
Time fails to speak of the many interesting events marking each of the missions. They were all located in singularly attractive spots, and every one of the missionaries made great progress in cultivating the ground, building mills, houses, and fences, and interesting the Indians in the arts of peace. It is true that when the novelty of the white man’s ways had passed, many of the natives lost all interest. Yet upon the Spokanes and the Nez Percés, lasting influences were wrought. The Nez Percés in particular, under the influence of their noble and intelligent chief, Hal-hal-tlos-sot, or Lawyer, almost decided the fate of American institutions in the upper Columbia River region for years.
One of the especially interesting events in connection with the Nez Percé mission was the acquisition by Mr. Spalding of the first printing-press used west of the Rocky Mountains. This was donated by the church of Rev. H. Bingham at Honolulu in 1839. The indefatigable Spalding, with the assistance of his wife, who had unusual powers as a linguist, began at once reducing the Nez Percé language to a written form and printing in it translations of hymns and portions of the Bible. Some of these first books of the Columbia River are still in existence. The venerable printing-press is in the museum of the Oregon Pioneer Society at Portland.
The most dramatic and influential event in connection with the missions of the Columbia, one of the most so in all American history, was Dr. Whitman’smid-winter ride in 1842-43 from Waiilatpu to St. Louis. Dr. Whitman, in common with Jason Lee, soon began to perceive that the Columbia Valley possessed resources and a location which would inevitably make it the seat of a civilised population. The corollary of this was that the mission must conform to the movements of the whites and in time cease to be simply an Indian mission. He perceived another thing. That was the purpose of the Hudson’s Bay Company to hold Oregon under English possession and keep it a wilderness for the sake of the fur-trade. The corollary of that was that, if American families could be induced to locate in Oregon, they would in time topple the scale in favour of American ownership.
The value of Oregon was then but dimly understood among the Americans. Webster, Benton, and others of the great statesmen are on record in theCongressional Globewith many disparaging remarks upon “that worthless Columbia River country.”
Whitman watched all signs with anxious eye. Negotiations between England and the United States indicated a probable surrender to the former. The American Board was considering the abandonment of the mission. Looking over the broad field of the future of the American nation with a statesman’s vision, Dr. Whitman readily saw that the interests of his country and of Christian civilisation demanded the acquisition of Oregon. Those interests were in jeopardy. He made the great resolution to proceed at once to the “States” with the threefold aim: confer with the officers of the American Board on the retention of the mission, confer with President Tyler, Secretary Webster, and such others of the officers ofgovernment as he could see at Washington, and finally help organise and lead back to Oregon an American immigration. His fellow-missionaries strongly opposed his purpose. They felt that it was abandoning the religious aims of the mission to take up political questions. But he declared that he had not expatriated himself by becoming a missionary. Go he would. The undertaking seemed chimerical, even desperate. But Whitman was bold, athletic, persistent, possessing all the qualities of a hero.
With a single white companion, A. L. Lovejoy, and one or more Indian guides, he left Waiilatpu on October 3, 1842. His journey through snow, ice, wind, hunger, peril, and deprivation of every sort, has been ofttimes described. The extent of his influence in securing the adoption by our Government of the policy of retaining Oregon has become the theme of earnest, even acrimonious discussion. The simple fact remains that Oregon was “saved” to the American Union. The missionaries Lee and Whitman bore, each his part, and a great one, in the great final result. It is not too much to say that of the various lines of influence by which the valley of the Columbia became American territory, that of missions was one of the strongest.
The Catholic missions of the Columbia Valley have found several chroniclers, of whom the most valuable are Rev. F. N. Blanchet and Rev. Pierre J. De Smet. The former in his book,The Catholic Church in Oregon, gives a clear and circumstantial account of the founding and carrying on of the work in the Willamette Valley. The latter in hisOregon Missions, andWestern Missions and Missionaries, has given a singularly graphic and interesting report on religiousprogress, and with it many charming descriptions of the scenery and other natural conditions of the country.
Father Blanchet, in company with Rev. Modest Demers, went from Montreal to Vancouver, a journey of over four thousand miles, in 1837. At the Little Dalles of the Columbia, near the present Northport, a lamentable disaster cost the lives of twelve of the company with whom they were travelling. Reaching Vancouver on November 24, 1837, they received from Dr. McLoughlin, who had himself been brought up a Catholic, a most cordial welcome, though apparently not more cordial than the good man had given Lee, the Methodist, and Whitman, the Presbyterian. The fact that there were so many French Canadians in the country made the way of the Catholic Fathers easier than that of the other missionaries. For the French, with their gayety, sociability, and usual habit of intermarriage with the Indians, were much more popular with them than were the more harsh and reserved British and Americans. In fact the Catholic Fathers found a building all ready for their use at the historic town of Champoeg on the Willamette, thirty miles above Portland. There in 1836, the French settlers had built a log church, the first church building in Oregon. It is rather sad to relate that petty dissensions and jealousies marred the relations between the Catholics and the Methodists. But both alike were zealous and indefatigable in promoting the secular and religious interests of both red men and white men.
While Fathers Blanchet and Demers and their associates were busily engaged in the Willamette Valley, Father de Smet had come in 1840 into the Flathead country, in what is now Northern Idaho.His first mission was St. Mary’s, on the Flathead River, founded by the planting of the cross on September 24, 1841. Other missions were soon established on Cœur d’Alene Lake and Pend Oreille Lake. Branching out from them were missions in Colville, and ultimately in the Walla Walla, Yakima, Wenatchee, and Chelan valleys.