CHAPTER XVI.
History of Oregon—First discoverers—Changes of government—Recognition as a Territory—Entrance as a State—Individual histories—"Jottings"— "Sitting around"—A pioneer in Benton County—How to serve Indian thieves —The white squaw and the chief—Immigration in company—Rafting on the Columbia—The first winter—Early settlement—Indian friends—Indian houses and customs—The Presbyterian colony—The start—Across the plains—Arrival in Oregon—The "whaler" settler—A rough journey—"Ho for the Umpqua!"—A backwoodsman—Compliments—School-teacher provided for—Uncle Lazarus—Rogue River Cañon—Valley of Death—Pleasant homes —Changed circumstances.
Taking note of the civilized and settled condition of so large a part of this State, it is hard to credit that it was only in 1831 that the first attempts at farming in Oregon were made by some of the men in the Hudson Bay Company's service, and that in 1838 the first printing-press arrived. This valued relic is now preserved in a place of honor in the State Capitol building at Salem—more accordant with the spirit of the times than rusty armor or moth-eaten banners.
The early history is somewhat misty, but the following slight sketch is, I believe, accurate:
The coast of Oregon was visited both by British and Spanish navigators in the sixteenth century. In 1778 Captain Cook sailed along the coast. In 1775 Heceta, and in 1792 Vancouver, both suspected the existence of the Columbia River from the appearance of its estuary. But in 1792 Captain Gray, of Boston, and afterward, in the same year, Captain Baker, an Englishman, entered the estuary itself. It was on Captain Gray's discovery that the United States Government afterward rested its claim to the whole country watered by the great river, the mouth of which he had discovered. But Lieutenant Broughton, of the British Navy, in 1792 or 1793, a very few months after Captain Gray's visit, actually ascended the Columbia for one hundred miles, and laid claim to the country in the name of King George III. In 1804 the American Government expedition of Lewis and Clark crossed the Rocky Mountains, descended the Columbia, and passed the winter of 1805-'6 at its mouth; and the records of their discoveries first drew public attention to the country. In 1810 Captain Winship, also from New England, built the first house in Oregon. Astoria was founded in 1811 by John Jacob Astor, of New York, as a trading-port. The British, while the war was raging in 1813, took possession of the post and named it Fort George. Then followed the Hudson Bay Company, who claimed the sovereignty of the country under the terms of their wide charter. They established their headquarters for the North Pacific coast at Vancouver, on the north bank of the Columbia, about one hundred miles from its mouth. There the fort was built, the settlement formed, farming began, and the Governor of the Hudson Bay Territory had his Western home.
In 1832 the first school was opened. Between 1834 and 1837 missionaries of various denominations arrived, bringing cattle with them; and in 1841 Commodore Wilkes visited Oregon on an exploring expedition by order of the United States Government. From 1816 to 1846 the "joint occupancy" of Oregon by the American and British Governments lasted under treaty.
In 1843 the people were for the first time recognized, and united in forming a provisional government, formally accepted at a general election in 1845. By the year 1846 the white population numbered about ten thousand souls, and in that year the Oregon Territory, including both the present State of Oregon and also Washington Territory, was ceded, under the Ashburton Treaty, by the British Government to the United States.
Congress formally recognized the Territory of Oregon in 1848, and in 1849 General Joe Lane entered office as the first Territorial Governor. His portrait now adorns the Capitol building. And the old general, still erect and in full preservation, in spite of his years and services, has been until this spring of 1881 yet seen and respectfully greeted at many a public gathering.
ENTRANCE AS A STATE.In 1859 Oregon was admitted into the Union as a sovereign State; the population was 52,465. In 1880 the census gave a total of 174,767 souls, showing an increase of 122,302 in twenty-one years, and an increase of 74,767 over the State census in 1875. But, after all, the history of a State is the history of its people.
Nowadays we enter Oregon within twenty days from Liverpool, having been speeded on our journey by steamships and railroads in continuous connections. Within two years the State expects to have two direct lines of Eastern communication—one by the Northern Pacific, the other by a line through the southeastern corner of the State to Reno, on the Central Pacific—shortening the twenty to sixteen days. Within two years more it is hoped that the Oregon Pacific will make communication at Boisé City, Idaho, with independent Eastern lines, and open a still more direct course out to the centers of population and enterprise. But in the early days, from 1846 to 1851, when the tide of settlement ran first this way, their experiences were widely different.
Listen to the tales some of these men tell—not old men yet by any means; the vigor and power of life still burn in most of them, for the dates are but thirty years back. But what a different life these pioneers led then!
Let me sketch the scene and its surroundings where these "jottings round the stove" are made. It is rather a dusty old room, and a rusty old stove in the middle, and rather a dusty and rusty company are gathered round it. Winter-time is upon us; the rain falls in a ceaseless drizzle, and the drops from the eaves patter on the fallen leaves of the plane-trees round the house. The time is after the noon dinner-hour; no work presses, for the fall wheat is all in, and there is a sense of warmth and comfort within, which contrasts with the dim scene without, where the rain-mists obscure the hills and fill the valley with their slowly driving masses.
Five or six of us "sit around"—mostly on two legs of the chairs, and our boots are propped up on the ridge round the stove. We don't go much on broadcloth and "biled" shirts, but we prefer stout flannel shirts and brown overalls, with our trousers tucked inside our knee-high boots. Tobacco in one form or the other occupies each one. Carpets we have no use for, and it is good that the arm-chairs are of fir, as the arms are so handy for whittling, there being no loose pieces of soft wood by. But we are all good friends, and I, for one, do not wish for better company for an hour or two "around the stove."
A PIONEER IN BENTON COUNTY."So the old man came into Benton County in 1845, did he?"
"Yes, he and his wife and two young children, and took up a claim there three or four miles from town."
"Was there a town then?"
"Not much—just three log-cabins and a hut or so; they called it Marysville; it did not get the name of Corvallis till years after."
"How about the Indians?"
"Well, there were plenty in the valley, Klick-i-tats and Calapooyas—these last were a mean set at that. The valley was all over bunch-grass waist-high, and the hills were full of elk and deer."
"Had the old man any stock?"
"He had just brought a few with him from Missouri over the Plains, and fine store he set by them. You see the Indians used to come and beg for flour and sugar, and a beef now and then. Some of the neighbors would give them a beef at times, but the old man used to say he hadn't brought no cattle to give to them varmints."
"How did they manage to live at first?"
"Well, the old man used to go off for a week at a time to Oregon City to work on the boats there at his trade of a ship-carpenter. He had to foot it there and back, and pack flour and bacon on his back for his folks, and a tramp of sixty miles at that."
"Did the Indians bother any while he was gone?"
"One time a pack of them came round the cabin and got saucy, finding only the old lady at home. They crowded into the house and began to help themselves, but the old lady she took the axe and soon made them clear out. When the old man came back she told him about it. 'Well,' says he, 'I reckon I shall have to stop at home a day or two and fix these varmints.' So three or four days afterward back they came.
"The old man he kept out of sight, and the buck they called the chief came in and began to lay hold of anything he fancied.
"Then the old man showed himself in the doorway with his old rifle on his arm. He looked the chief up and down, and then he says to his wife: 'Do you see that bunch of twigs over the fireplace? You take them down, and go through that fellow while the twigs hold together!' And he says to the Indian, 'You raise a finger against that woman, and I'll blow the top of your head off!' So the old lady takes down the willow-twigs, and goes for the Indian for all there was in it, and beats him round and round the house till there wasn't a whole twig in the bunch. Lord! You should have seen the whole crowd of twenty or thirty Indians splitting with laughter to see the white squaw go for the chief. I tell you, sir, that Indian made the quickest time on record back to the camp as soon as she let him go, and that crowd never bothered that cabin any more. Now, wasn't that much better than shooting and fighting, and kicking up the worst kind of a muss?"
"Well, I guess so. Did he have any more bother with the Indians?"
"Not a great deal. You see they were a mean lot, and would lay hands on anything they could steal; but there wasn't a great deal of fight in them. One time they had been robbing one of the neighbors of some cattle, and they went and told the old man. He went up all alone to the Indian camp with his rifle, and picked out the man he wanted out of a crowd of fifty of them; and he took him and tied him to a white-oak tree, and laid on to him with a sapling till he thought he'd had enough, and not one of the whole crowd dared raise a hand against him. Now the old gentleman's got three thousand acres of land and all he wants. How's that for an early settler?"
"Why, pretty good. But you came over the Plains yourself, didn't you?"
"Yes; I was but a little shaver then, in 1845. We came by way of the Dalles."
"What sort of a crowd had you?"
RAFTING ON THE COLUMBIA."Well, there was my father, Nahum his name was, and my four brothers, all older than I was, and there was the Watsons and the Chambers and their families in the company. We crossed the Plains all right and got to the Dalles. There were thirteen wagons in the party, and we rafted them and the cattle and all the rest of it down the Columbia."
"How on earth did you make a raft big enough?"
"Well, we just cut the logs in the woods on the edge of the river, and rolled them in and pegged them together with lighter trees laid across. It took us about all the morning to get out into the current, and all the afternoon to get back again. But, after all, we got to the Cascades."
"How did you get past them?"
"We had to just put the wagons together, and cut a road for ourselves, six miles round the portage, till we could take to the river again. Then we got boats and came all right down the Columbia and up the Willamette past where Portland now stands."
"Where was Portland then?"
"There was no Portland, I tell you—just a few houses and cabins. I forget what they called the place. Anyhow, we got pretty soon to the Tualitin Plains, where Forest-grove Station is now, and there we passed that first winter in Oregon."
"Was it rough on you?"
"Well, no—not particularly. All the lot of us crowded into one little cabin; but we lived pretty well."
"What did you live on?"
"Well, there was a little grist-mill near by, and the folks had raised a little wheat and some potatoes and peas. We got no meat at all that winter. The next spring we came on into King's Valley and took up the old place—you know where I showed it you—under the hill."
"Weren't there plenty of Indians there?"
"Indians! I should think so; about two or three hundred Klick-i-tats were camped in that valley then. Good Indians they were, tall, and straight as a dart."
"Who was the chief?"
"A man they called Quarterly. When we came in and camped, that Indian came up to my father and said, 'What do you want here?' My father said, 'We have come here to settle down and farm and make homes for ourselves.' 'Well,' says the Indian, 'you can; if you don't meddle with us, we won't hurt you.' No more they did; we never had a cross word from them."
"Was the country theirs?"
"Well, no; it belonged properly to the Calapooyas, and these Klick-i-tats had rented it off them for some horses and cloths and things for a hunting-ground."
"Plenty of game?"
"Just lots of it; elk and deer plenty, and the bunch-grass waist-high. The Indian ponies were rolling fat; good ponies they were, too."
"What sort of houses had these Indians?"
INDIAN HOUSES AND CUSTOMS."The Klick-i-tats had regular lodges: sticks set in the ground in a circle and tied together at the top, and covered all over with the rush mats they used to make. Good workers they were, too. They and the Calapooyas fell out once. I mind very well one day the Klick-i-tats came running in to our camp to say there was ever such a lot of Calapooyas coming in to attack them. They sent off their women and children to the hills, and then drove all their horses down to our camp. Strange, wasn't it, they should think their stock safer with five or six white men? There must have been several hundred of those Calapooyas."
"Did the fight come off?"
"Not that time; they made it up with some presents of horses and beads and things."
"What's become of those Klick-i-tats?"
"All that's left of them are gone to the reservation away north on the Columbia. They had their big fight with the Calapooyas down there by the Mary River bridge, out by Wrenn's school-house, just before we came into the country. The Calapooyas were too many for them, for they were, I should say, three to one. That was quite a battle, I should say.—But here comes one of the early settlers. Why don't you ask him about it?"
Just then the door had been opened, and in came a slender, gray-haired minister, with black coat and white collar and tie.
"So you were an early settler?"
"Yes, I had some experiences in early days. Did you ever hear of our Presbyterian colony?"
"I think not."
"Well, I was born and raised in Pennsylvania. I had just finished my theological course and got married. I had heard a good deal about Oregon, and took the notion of getting some Presbyterians to go out there. This was in 1851, when the law had been passed giving half a section of land to every settler, and half another section for his wife, if he had one."
"How did you set about getting Presbyterians together?"
"I just put an advertisement in the Pennsylvania papers that a Presbyterian minister intended starting for Oregon in the spring of 1852, and would be glad for any Presbyterians to join him and found a colony there."
"Did you get many answers?"
"About eighty agreed to go, but a good many weakened before the time came, and only about forty of them started; some twenty came in afterward, so that our party was sixty strong. When we left St. Joe, in Missouri, we had twenty wagons. I had a nice carriage with four mules for my wife, and a half-share in a wagon and ox-team. We left St. Joe in May, 1852, and arrived in Oregon four months and a half afterward."
"Did you travel all the time?"
"We laid over for Sundays, and I preached every Sunday on the journey but one, when we were crossing an alkali desert, and had to push on through to water."
"Were there many emigrants on the road, minister?"
"There was the heaviest emigration to Oregon that year that there has ever been. Many times I have climbed a hill just off the great emigrant trail, and counted a hundred wagons and more ahead, and more than a hundred behind us."
"Did you carry any feed for your stock?"
"Not any, and it was terribly hard on stock, as the bunch-grass on and near the trail was eaten down so close. It was harder on the oxen than on the mules. I brought all my mules safe into Oregon, but only one ox out of our team."
"How did you do when the oxen gave out?"
"Oh, a man just cut his wagon in half and hitched what oxen he had left on to the front half, and left the hinder end there in the desert."
"Did you have trouble with the Indians?"
"None at all; all quiet and peaceable. We came into Oregon by way of Boisé City, Idaho, and Umatilla and the Dalles. The last sixty miles my wife and I walked nearly all the way, for the mules gave out crossing the Cascades, and we drove them before us into this valley. The first milk and butter was at Foster's, near Oregon City; but one old lady in the crowd would not eat the butter her son had bought for her: she said it tasted too strong of silver."
THE PRESBYTERIAN COLONY."Where did you settle down?"
"About three miles from Corvallis, or Marysville, as it was called then. Just twelve houses in the place, and two of them stores."
"What did you do for a house?"
"Just set to and built one. I built it round my wife as she camped in the middle. I cut me down a big fir-tree, and split it out into boards and shingles."
"What was this valley like then?"
"All open prairie. A man could drive seventy miles without stopping—from Salem to Eugene. All this oak-brush has grown up since."
"What became of your Presbyterians?"
"Well, we organized the church the next fall, in 1853, with just seven of the sixty persons who had left the East with me the year before. So you see we have grown a good deal in these seven-and-twenty years."
Here the minister got up and left the circle. So we turned to a brown-coated, cheery fellow in the next arm-chair. "You came round the Horn, didn't you, Bush?"
But the cake of tobacco had to be got out of a deep pocket, and a pipeful slowly cut off and the fresh pipe started, before the answer came; and then a great laugh had to expend its force over the merry memories called up by the question.
"We had a pretty rough old time of it, hadn't we, boys?" and a low murmur of assent ran round, and all eyes turned, meditatively, to the stove. Presently the answer to the first question dropped casually out: "Yes, I came round the Horn. I had been whaling in the Pacific, and stopped at 'Frisco; we were all mad for the diggings. One day, as I was strolling round, I saw a great, big placard on the wall, in letters two feet long: 'Ho! for the Umpqua diggings! Lots of gold! Plenty of water! Good grub! Fine country! The well-known schooner Reindeer, Captain Bachelor, will sail for the Umpqua, October the 15th, 1850!' There were four of us in my party, all young and active then, and we made up our minds to go, and weren't long about deciding, either. We were up to roughing it, too; you see, a few years in a whaler will fit you for most anything."
"What was the voyage like?"
"Rough! There were about one hundred and thirty on board the schooner, some for the Umpqua, the rest going on to Portland. After knocking about at sea for a few days, we made the Umpqua and stood in. The old man anchored just under the north beach. As I put my hand on the cable, it was like a bar of iron, and I felt the anchor drag. I told the mate, and he went and called the captain. Up came the old man, and wouldn't believe it at first, but in another minute we should all have been in the breakers, and nothing could have saved us. Just then a little boat came past and they hollered out, 'You'll be on the beach inside of three minutes!' I tell you it was touch and go."
"How did you get off, Bush?"
THE "WHALER" SETTLER."The old man shouted to set all sail, and I ran to the helm. I could see the channel pretty well, and I just steered her by the look of the water. We just shaved a big rock by three feet or so, and ran up the river. Presently we anchored again and landed. Then we got a little Indian canoe and pulled on up the river."
"What was the country like?"
"Pretty rough."
"But the diggings, Bush?"
"Bless you, there weren't any! It was all a plant."
"Didn't you get back to the coast?"
"No, sir, we were in for it, and we calculated to see it out. The country there, in Southern Oregon, pleased us mightily, it looked so fresh and green in the valleys, but the mountains were no joke. Then we heard of this Willamette Valley, and traveled on north to find it. Two of my mates staid down there on Rogue River for the winter, but one came on north with me."
"Any adventures, Bush?"
"Not particular. I mind me, though, when we got up to where Monroe City is now, there was one log-house. Old Dr. Richardson lived there. As we came to the house he came out and stood just outside. I tell you he was a picture."
"What like, Bush?"
"Well, he was a great, big, stout fellow, about fifty, with a jolly red face. He had on a buckskin hunting-shirt with long fringes, and long buckskin leggins, and his old rifle lay ready in the hollow of his arm. When we stepped up to him, 'Well, young men, and what do you want?' says he. 'We should like to stop here and get some dinner,' says I. 'What a beautiful place you have got here, sir!' I went on, 'and, if you'll allow me to say so, I just admire you for a perfect specimen of a backwoodsman.' 'What!' says he, 'what on 'arth do you mean, you young thief of a son-of-a-gun?' says he, stepping up to me, to lay hold of me by the collar. I tell you, sir, I thought we were in for it, and he was big enough to whip the two of us. As good luck would have it, the door opened just then, and the old lady stepped out. She just looked and then she spoke up. 'Old man,' says she, 'just let me speak to these young men.' So, she came and asked us our names and where we came from, and I explained to her that I had no notion of insulting the old gentleman. 'Oh, well,' says she, 'don't mind him; and now what can I do for you? You seem nice, quiet young men.' So she gave us some bread and milk, and the end of it all was, they wanted us to stay all winter with them."
"So the lady helped you out, as usual, Bush?"
UNCLE LAZARUS."They didn't help me always. For the next place we came to was Starr's settlement. There were a lot of ladies, quilting. We went into the house to ask if there were any claims to be had. 'Are you married?' says one of the ladies. 'No, ma'am,' says I. 'Oh, well, then, you can just get on; we have got plenty of bachelors already. Say, are you a school-teacher?' says she. I thought for a moment if an old whaleman dared venture on school-teaching, but I thought, maybe, that was a leetle too strong. 'No, ma'am,' says I, at last, 'I am not, but my friend here is well qualified.' 'Oh, well,' says she, 'he can stay and take up a claim; we have got one here of three hundred and twenty acres, we have been saving up for the school-teacher; but as for you, young man, you can jest go on right up the valley.' So I had to go on to where Corvallis now stands. There were just four or five log-cabins, and a little stock. I took up a claim and built me a house, and as I was a pretty good carpenter I got all the work I wanted.—But here comes Uncle Lazarus."
Just then the door opened, and a quaint figure entered. Let us sketch him. A broad-brimmed, low-crowned, brown beaver hat (and when we say broad-brimmed we mean it—not a trifling article of fifteen inches or so across, but a real, sensible sun-and-rain shade, two feet or thereabout from edge to edge); an old worn blue military great-coat covered him; while a mass of snow-white hair and beard framed in a ruddy face as fresh as a winter apple, and a pair of bright blue eyes twinkled keenly, but with a hidden laugh in them, from under the broad brim.
"Sit down, uncle," cried some one, and the old man came to an anchor with the rest of us round the stove.
"Talking of old times, uncle," we said. "You came in pretty early, didn't you?"
"Well, I guess it was in 1846," said he, in a plaintive, slow voice. "We came over the Plains, the old lady and I, from Illinois. We had a pretty good ox-team, and we got through safe."
"Did you have any fighting, uncle?"
"Well, no; there was too many in the company when we started, and they did get to quarreling, so I jest left them with one or two more—any day rather fight than have a fuss; so I thought we'd jest take our chance with the Injuns, though they was pretty bad then. We were nigh to six months on the road."
"Which way did you come into Oregon?"
"By Klamath Lake and Rogue River. The worst piece on the whole journey was that Rogue River cañon; you know where that is?"
"Yes, uncle, came through it at a sharp run on the California stage a month ago."
"Well, there warn't no stage then—no, nor road either. You know it is about eight miles long, and I calc'late you might go a quarter of a mile at a time on the bodies of the horses and oxen that had died there. No man got through without leaving some of his cattle there. Tell you, sir, when you once got into the place, seemed like there was no end to it, and you jest got to face the music; for there warn't no other way."
"How did this country strike you when you got through?"
"Well, the old lady and me jest thought lots of it. We took up our claims in King's Valley—you know the place—jest the nicest kind of a place, with lots of grass and a nice river. You had all the timber you wanted on the mountains close by, and jest lots of deer and elk."
"Pretty lonely, though, wasn't it?"
"Well, it was kinder lonely, but we had lots to do, and the time passed very quick. The country settled up quick, and we had all the neighbors we wanted."
"Any trouble with Indians, uncle?"
"No; the Calapooyas would thieve a bit, but fifty of them cusses would jest scare from five or six of us settlers with our rifles. And the Klick-i-tats were good Injuns, and never troubled us any. Those were good old times, boys." And the old man rose to go, with a sigh.
CHANGED CIRCUMSTANCES.Think of the change the old gentleman has seen—for he lives there yet! Now, his white farmhouse, with good barn and out-buildings, fronts on a well-traveled road, leading past many a neighbor's house, and to the church and village. The woods on the hill-sides have disappeared, and the ruled furrows of the wheat-fields have replaced the native grass; the elk and deer which found him food as well as sport have retired shyly away into the far-off fastnesses round Mary's Peak and in the "green timber," and the fleecy flocks have usurped their place. The thievish Calapooyas and good Klick-i-tats have lost their tribal connections, and their shrunken remnants have been shifted away north to the Indian reserve. As you stand on the hill above his house, and the vision ranges over the gentle outlines of King's Valley, dotted with farms and lined with fences, it is but the noble forms of the distant mountains that could identify the scene with that which he scanned with wayworn eye as he halted his weary oxen after his six months' journey from distant Illinois.
CHAPTER XVII.
State and county elections—The Chinese question—Chinese house-servants—Washermen—Laborers—A large camp-Supper— Chinese trading—The scissors—Cost of Chinese labor—Its results—Chinese treaties—Household servants—Chee and his mistress—"Heap debble-y in there"—The photo album—Temptation —A sin and its reward—Good advice on whipping—Chung and the crockery—Chinese New Year—Gifts—"Hoodlums"—Town police—Opium.
In the summer of 1880 there occurred an election of Senators and Representatives to the State Legislature, and also to the county offices of clerk, sheriff, assessor, coroner, surveyor, and commissioners.
The whole apparatus of caucuses and canvasses was put in operation, and the candidates nominated on both Republican and Democratic "tickets" perambulated the county, and addressed audiences in every precinct from the "stump."
The Greenbackers had the courage of their opinions and put candidates in the field. Indeed, one of the precincts in the burned-woods country, of which I have already discoursed, enjoyed the proud distinction of casting more votes for the "Greenback" candidate than for either of the two great parties.
I attended some of these meetings and listened to the stump-speeches with much interest. That which caused the current of eloquence on all hands to run fastest was the Chinese question. How vehemently have I heard denounced the yellow-faced, pig-eyed, and tailed Mongolians who were spreading like locusts over the face of the country, and ousting the poor but honest and industrious white laborer from those employments to which he is specially adapted—how they sucked the life-blood of the people in order to carry their ill-gotten gains across the seas; how their barbarous language and filthy social habits "riz the dander" of these orators, while the audience loudly applauded every strong stroke of the brush! At the torch-light processions which closed some of the evening meetings, transparencies were carried about by citizens staggering under their weight, which depicted Chinamen in various conditions of terror flying from the boot-tips of energetic Americans; or, on the opposite back, the poor but honest white man prostrate on the ground, while a fat Chinaman sat heavily on his breast.
Such an obvious current of popular opinion set an on-looker to rub his eyes, and feel if he were dreaming.
For, go into nearly every house inhabited by a family, in or near any town in the State, and you will find one or more Chinamen doing the house-service. Walk through the streets, and you will meet a blue-coated Asiatic with a big clothes-basket of clean linen on his shoulders. Here and there in the streets hangs a sign: "Hop Kee," "Sam Lin," "Lee Chung," "Ah Sin," "Washing," or "Chinese Laundry," and "Labor provided," or "Intelligence-Office," and through the steamy windows you catch a glimpse of white-shirted Chinamen, bending over their ironing, and a mixed gabble of strange "Ahs" and "Yahs" strikes the ear as you pass by.
CHINESE TRADING.I went up the Columbia River to the Dalles the other day. At the Dalles was a camp for the night of about five hundred Chinamen, being transferred by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company from work higher up the river to some of the heavy rock-cutting and tunneling between the Dalles and the Lower Cascades. I stood and watched them at their suppers. Divided into messes of twelve or fifteen each, they had supplied themselves with beef in the town. Holes were dug in the ground, sticks lighted in them, and large pans set on to boil, and, with plenty of salt and pepper, a savory smell soon arose. Large pans of rice were boiling by the side, and before long each man's portion was ladled out into a real China basin, which he held in one hand close to his mouth, while the chop-sticks moved at a terrible rate in the fingers of the other hand. Such uncouth figures!—bronzed in tint, short and heavy in form, clad in thick blanket-coats, with knee-boots; turbans round most heads made of heavy scarlet woolen comforters, and a few old hats among the crowd; and a constant gabble of voices, nearly deafening in the aggregate. Their little tents were pitched on the river-bank close at hand, and a huge pile of their unmistakable baggage lay heaped, with their shovels and axes, on the deck of the great scow hard by. The town was full of them, buying or bargaining in every store. I marked a group of four who wanted a pair of strong scissors. They were asked fifty cents in a store. They examined the scissors and tried to cheapen them in vain, and then left. They tried four stores in turn, but found no better article, and the same price; then returned to their first love, and strove hard for a reduction in vain. Again they went the round; again they came back: on the fourth visit the patience of the Jewish gentleman behind the counter gave way, and he told them to take it or leave it, they should not see the scissors again. Most unwillingly, and after a vast amount of breathing on the blades to see how quickly the vapor disappeared, the half-dollar came forth and the scissors changed owners. They are the closest buyers in the world. The next morning by seven o'clock the tents were struck, the Chinamen on board the steamer, and in the afternoon we passed them hard at work, spread in a long line on the face of a terrible rock, which looked as if five thousand Chinamen might work at it in vain for a year to make a fit passage for the train.
But without them how would these great works get done? Later on I intend describing some of the undertakings in progress in the State. Delay in them—still worse, the stoppage of them—would be a calamity indeed. After all, the Chinamen work for about eighty or ninety cents a day, and out of this sum the contractor has to find them food. The food, save the rice, is purchased in the State; the material of the clothes they wear is manufactured and sold in the United States; the tools they work with also. So that it is only the profit on their labor's price which goes to China; and some of that goes to pay their passage in the ships which transport them to and fro. And their labor remains—its results felt by every passenger and freighter on the railroads, and every Oregonian directly or indirectly interested in increasing the population of the State.
Naturally, it is easy to have too much Chinaman. I should grieve to see them multiply so as to dominate the State. Excellent servants, but bad masters.
And by all means let us have treaties with China to enable the influx of these Mongolians to be regulated. Already we have laws forbidding the employment of Chinamen on government or municipal public works. And I do not see that there is any economy in the working or superiority in the labors on such undertakings.
For household service on this coast they are simply indispensable. They receive high wages: for a good Chinese cook you must pay from fifteen to twenty-five dollars a month. A laundryman and house-servant can be had for somewhat less. But our experience and observation lead us to the knowledge that two Chinese servants will do well the work of four English servants. Another thing is that, having learned to cook any special dish, you may be sure of having it always thereafter equally good.
If they are a bother sometimes by not comprehending orders, they make up for it by quaint ways. An English neighbor of ours has one Chee, a boy of sixteen, as house-servant, and a very good cook and general servant she has made of him. Chee and his mistress are on the best of terms usually; sometimes they fall out.
"HEAP DEBBLE-Y IN THERE!"The mistress was staying with us for a few days once, while her husband was out hunting in the hills, and she preferred sleeping in her own house. This Chee strongly disapproved, as it involved his going up to make the bed and clean the house, instead of having high-jinks in the China house down in the town. When his mistress went into the house, Chee pointed into her bedroom, and in a mysterious voice warned her thus: "Heap debble-y in there. Some time I make bed, I see four, fi' debble-y go under bed. Some time come catch you in night!"
Another time, his master and mistress being out, Chee amused himself with their photograph-album. They found many of the pictures shifted, and one charming young lady missing. Chee stoutly denied it all, and swore he never saw the picture. So his "boss," Hop Kee, was appealed to. In the afternoon of the same day Hop Kee appeared with a second Chinaman. This man produced the missing photograph for identification, and then Hop Kee disappeared into Chee's kitchen and administered a hearty beating to the culprit. When Hop Kee reappeared, panting, his companion explained and apologized thus: "Chee heap bad boy; but he no steal um; he heap love um picture; he sew um up his bed."
Another time Chee was pottering about in the garden when his mistress called him. He would not answer, so she called him again, and this was the conversation:
"Chee, come here." "Heap tired in foot; can' walk." "Chee, come here directly." Chee comes and gets his orders. "Wha' for you can' talk me there?" "Chee, you must not answer me like that; you speak as if I were a dog." "Well, you allee same likee one dog!" "Chee, how dare you? I tell Hop Kee what you say." "I no care." But Hop Kee comes that afternoon and hears the sad accusation, and this is his advice: "Mrs. ——, you heap takee some poker; you beat him. I heap much obliged. Chee no good; you whip um."
Chee asks for his wages, and even for some in advance. "What for you want money, Chee?" "I want fi'teen dollar." "What for, Chee?" "I want buy one big watch." "How big, Chee?" "Heap big watch; he weigh ha' pound." And I believe it does weigh half a pound.
One of our Chinamen, Chung, was a sad breaker of crockery. We bore it patiently in spite of the loss, for stone-ware is terribly dear here. But one day there was an awful smash, and we ran out to see Chung wringing his hands over a tray on the ground, with broken cups and plates all about. We said nothing; but the next day he went of his own accord, and at his own cost replaced the greater part.
CHINESE NEW YEAR.All the house-servants expect a holiday for a day or two at the Chinese new year, which occurs about the 20th of January. It is a mark of good breeding and condition with them to give presents at that time to every one in the house. A little cabinet of lacquer-work to the lady of the house, a fan in sandal wood or ivory, one or two flowered silk handkerchiefs, a pot of sweetmeats, and two or three boxes of the inevitable Chinese crackers for the children, make up the list.
Each of the China houses in the town collects all the Chinamen that make it their headquarters, and prepares a magnificent supper. They spare no expense on this occasion; all the chickens in the neighborhood are slaughtered, and the sweet Chinese wine flows freely. Even a drunken Chinaman may be met in the street, staggering from one China house to another, and he will very likely be mobbed by all the "hoodlums" in the town, pelting and hustling him.
"Hoodlums"—a fine word this to describe the vagabond, rough hobble-de-hoys that swarm in these Western towns; lads too big for school, too lazy to work, an incumbrance to their families, a nuisance to all their neighbors. I am told that the word originated in San Francisco twenty years ago. There were there gangs of these rough lads who hung about the wharves, ready for riot or plunder as occasion offered. Against them the police of the city waged a constant war. These Arabs had various haunts among the hovels and sheds, the piles of lumber and rubbish, that deface the water-side of every growing and unfinished city. When the police appeared, "Huddle-um!" was the watchword that sent every skulker to cover. But the Irish element pronounced the watchword with a rounder sound, and so "Hoodlum!" caught the ear of the passer-by, and soon was adopted as the label of the tribe.
The police of our town is represented by the city marshal and his deputy, who act under the authority of the mayor and the city council. The "calaboose" is the lock-up for offenders; and work on the streets in irons is also a punishment which may be awarded by the recorder for offenses against the city laws and regulations. Drunkenness and opium-smoking are in this black list. Passers-by were edified, a few days ago, by the spectacle of one white man, for drunkenness, and two Chinamen, for opium-smoking, shoveling away at the mud, and ornamented with iron ball and shackles. It is strange to find that opium-smoking in these dens is not altogether confined to the Chinese, but some degraded white men are occasionally captured by the marshal in a raid on a China house. Such are not only punished, but scouted, and still they repeat the offense, proving the hold the practice gains when once yielded to.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Life in the town—Sociables—Religious sects—Sabbath-schools— Christmas, festivities—Education, how far compulsory—Colleges— Student-life and education—Common schools—Teachers' institutes —Newspapers—Patent outsides—"The Oregonian"—Other journals— Charities—Paupers—Secret societies.
Life in these country towns possesses some features strange to a new-comer. Every family, almost without exception, is allied with some church organization. The association of such families in religious matters gives the connecting bond they need. Not contented with worshiping together on Sundays, they often meet in church sociables and in school entertainments and concerts, for which purposes the church-building is very commonly used.
To get up a "sociable" is a pleasant task for the matrons of the church. Having settled on the day, they meet and agree for how many it is likely they must provide. Then each lady undertakes her share, finding so much tea, coffee, and sugar, and so many sandwiches and cakes. It is a delicate compliment for outsiders also to contribute a cake to the common fund. Then, the evening having come, the company begin to meet, generally about seven o'clock, and are received by the ladies of the congregation. Every one is made welcome. The object of the "sociable," so far as money-getting is concerned, is met either by a small charge for refreshments as supplied, or by a charge for admission, making the visitor free of the room.
When the tea or supper is finished, there is a fine flow of talk, as all tongues are loosened. Then follows music, either as solos by such as venture to make so public an appearance, or in duets, glees, or choruses provided by the church choir. Interspersed with the music are recitations, readings, or short lectures. The recitations are as commonly given by young ladies as by the other sex; and the most awful and tragic pieces are decidedly the favorites. A good deal of gesture and action is approved.
Generally, a few words from the minister of the church close the entertainment, and the audience separate about ten o'clock, all the better for the "sociable."
The comparatively trifling differences which serve to keep one sect separate from another, result in a number of small congregations and weak "interests"—and also, I think, react injuriously on the education and condition of the various ministers. And I do not see any progress toward obliterating differences and combining scattered forces against the common foes of indifference, irreligion, and vice; rather, I notice in the meetings or conventions attended by representatives or delegates from the various congregations of a special sect, and held annually in some central place, a disposition to insist on differences, and enforce the teaching of each special set of distinctive doctrines on the young.
Outside of the Episcopal Church, which, of course, possesses and uses its own liturgy, the services of the other Christian sects are almost exactly similar; I except also the Roman Catholics, who are present in the State of Oregon in considerable numbers, and whose organization of archbishop, bishops, priests, and sisters is as perfect as usual. But I have reference to Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, North and South, Baptists, Evangelicals—the order of their services is about the same, and unless by chance you were present on some occasion for enforcing the special doctrines of the sect, you could not determine to which belonged the particular church in which you might be worshiping.
The institution of the Sabbath-school is not similar to that pursued in England, at any rate. The church is opened at a special hour for Sabbath-school, and the children attend in numbers; the minister of the church holds a service for the special benefit of the young, but adults are also present. There is not the division into classes, and the enlisting of the efforts of teachers for those classes, which we have seen elsewhere.
CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES.Christmas is chiefly marked by the Christmas-trees which are so commonly provided; the religious significance of the day is hardly enforced at all. But the great Christmas-trees arranged by a congregation, lighted up in the church or school-room, and hung with presents contributed by each family for its own individual members, and only brought to the common tree that the joy of donor and receiver might be alike shared in by friends, are a pretty and a happy sight.
And this is by no means confined to the towns. The various precincts of the county have each their headquarters at the common school-house, and in many of these Christmas-trees are provided; and, if the gifts are less in money cost than those hung round the city Christmas-trees, they are none the less worth if got by so many hours of country work, and brought over many a weary mile of muddy road, and treasured in the old trunk among the Sunday garments till the happy day came round, and the Christmas frost hung the fir-trees with their sparkling load, and glazed the old black logs and gray snake-fences with their glittering covering of ice.
A common notion prevails that education here is compulsory. It is compulsory in the sense that facilities by way of school-houses and trained teachers, and superintendence by committees and clerks, are provided by the State, and paid for by the counties from the county tax. It is not compulsory in the sense that so many hours of school attendance can be enforced against parents or children by the public authority. Much is done; a strong and general interest is shown; expense is not spared, even where expenditure is severely felt; but still many children both in town and country escape the educational net. There is a State Superintendent of Education; there are county superintendents; there are many schools and teachers; and there are universities and colleges, with good staffs of professors, and a very high and wide course of studies in all. But very much remains to be done.
There is far too much effort at variety rather than thoroughness in study. However hard both professors and students may labor, it can not be possible in a four-years' course to fill a lad, who has previously had but a common-school education, with a satisfactory knowledge of Latin, high mathematics, Euclid, history, English grammar and composition, chemistry, organic and inorganic, geography, geology, mechanics, electricity, polarization of light, and various other studies usually required for the master of arts honors examination in a British university. But this is attempted here.
And, moreover, this extensive course is carried on in the State Agricultural College as well as in the universities of the State. It can hardly be said that the name of "agricultural" is earned, since there is nothing in the studies here engaged in to distinguish this from any other high-class college in the State.
TEACHERS' INSTITUTES.The course followed in the common school is open to much the same criticism—too much of the ornamental, too little of the thorough and solid, being instilled. This is hardly to be wondered at when it is considered that the teachers in the common schools are taken principally from the students of the colleges or universities, whose learning is of the class above described. There is a great need of a normal school, where teachers can be specially trained for that work; as it is now, a young fellow is ready to "teach school" for a year or two for want of, or on his way to, his intended niche in life.
The scale of payments at the schools is moderate enough, but a large item of expense is in the school-books: they are dear, their use is compulsory, they have to be purchased by the scholars, and they are frequently changed by the Board of Education.
One great means by which it is sought at once to instruct, amuse, and infuse the school-teachers with common ideas and sympathies is by "teachers' institutes." In each county a time is fixed by the State Superintendent of Education, and for two or three days all, or as many as can be got together of the teachers in the county, are gathered in some central town, and for two or three days have constant meetings. This occurs annually.
The most experienced teachers give illustrations of their favorite methods of instruction in the various subjects, and free discussion on these matters follows.
The days are devoted to this practical work, and in the evenings some more general entertainment is provided in the shape of music, lectures, or readings, and these are thrown open to the public. At one of these the lecturer, who was one of the professors at the Monmouth College, descanted on the high general standard of educational attainments in this Willamette Valley. He pointed out, in proof, that whereas through the United States the population supported one newspaper to each eight hundred, in this valley the proportion was one to three hundred or thereabout.
NEWSPAPERS.I found on inquiry that the figures were about correct. And the fact is, that it is only in the newspapers that the country people find nearly all their literature, and that barely a farmer can be found who does not regularly take three or more papers, and this makes the continued lives of these papers possible. A town of a thousand or twelve hundred inhabitants will support two or even three papers. How is it done? Examine one of these papers and you will find the outside pages better printed than the inside, and filled with a special sort of romantic stories, and short bits of general information; extracts from magazines and from Eastern or English newspapers. The inside pages have the true local color. Here you will see the leader, devoted to the topics of the time and place; descanting on the railroad news of the day; expressing the editor's opinions on the rates of freight or passage, or on the advantages his town offers for establishing new industries; or criticising the recent appointment of postmaster. Then the correspondence from various outlying towns or villages, written very often by the schoolmaster, and abounding in literary allusions and quotations. And then comes the amazing feature of the paper—a column or two are devoted to "locals." This is the style: "Beautiful weather. New York sirup at Thompson's. The spring plowing is nearly done. Use the celebrated XL flour, the best in the market. Mrs. —— has been in ——, attending to the woman-suffrage question, the past week. Our thanks are due to two fair ladies for bouquets of spring flowers, the first of the season. Our young friend Pete M—— called on us yesterday; good boy Pete. Judge Henry was at Salem the past week. Miss Addie Bines is visiting friends in town. Did you see that bonnet at the Presbyterian church on Sunday? The accidental pistol-shot the sheriff got is pretty bad. The rates of board at the Cosmopolitan Hotel are five dollars a week; three meals for a dollar. The Odd-Fellows will give a ball on the 25th. Our vociferous friend Sam N—— is starting for Puget Sound." And so on.
I observe and I hear that these locals are by far the best-read portion of the paper. A variety of items of scraps from the neighborhood, and advertisements, the longest of which relate to patent medicines of all sorts, fill up these two inner pages of the paper. The secret of cheap production lies in obtaining the paper, with the two outside pages ready printed, from an office in Portland, which supplies in this way twenty or thirty of these little newspapers. Thus the cost to the editor is reduced to the getting-up of the two inner pages, and, as will be seen, not a very high level of brain-power is needed.
"The Oregonian" is the only journal in the State giving the latest telegrams. Naturally it is published in Portland, and devoted mainly to the interests of that city. It is connected with the Associated Press, and possesses the practical monopoly of the supply of news, properly so called. Professing to be Republican in politics, it assumes the liberty of advocating doctrines and supporting candidates for office in direct violation of the acknowledged principles of the party and the wishes of the party managers. With a parade of fairness, and willingness to admit to its columns views and communications opposing the ideas it may be advocating at the time, it takes care to color matters in such form as to pervert or weaken all opposing or criticising matter. It is bitterly hostile to every movement in the Willamette Valley tending toward independence of Portland's money power and influence. While professing to desire the development of the State, it reads that to mean solely the aggrandizement of Portland. It enjoys a happy facility of conversion, and will unblushingly advocate to-day the adoption of measures it denounced last week. Unreliable in everything except its telegraphic news, and oftentimes seeking to color them by suggestive head-notes and capital announcements, it is a calamity to the State that its chief journal should be at once the most unpopular at home and the most misleading abroad.
Of course, "The Oregonian" is not the only journal professing to be of and for the State at large. Several are published at Portland claiming the character of general State interest. Such are the "Willamette Farmer," a journal chiefly devoted to the farming interest, and with which "The Oregonian" is very frequently at war; "The New Northwest," edited by Mrs. Duniway, a lady enthusiast in favor of woman's rights and woman's suffrage, but making up with a good deal of ability a paper containing much of general interest; the "Pacific Christian Advocate," a religious paper; and also a number of other papers, Democratic and Republican, of no special note.
Salem, Albany, and Harrisburg possess newspapers above the average of ability and circulation.
I thought there was a good deal of wisdom in the letter of a correspondent of mine in one of the Eastern States, who concluded a letter of general inquiry as to the State of Oregon with a request that I would send him a bundle of local newspapers, "by which," said he, "I can judge better of the present conditions of life in Oregon than by the answers of any one special correspondent."
There are very few poor people in Oregon—so poor, that is, as to need charitable help. Such are taken charge of by the county court, and from the county funds such an allowance is made in the case of families as shall keep them from absolute want. In the case of single persons they are given into the care of such families as are willing to receive them in return for a moderate sum, say three or four dollars a week.
SECRET SOCIETIES.The various societies and orders, namely, the Freemasons, the Foresters, the Odd-Fellows, the Order of United Workmen, the Good Templars, and others, have a large number of adherents in Oregon. I believe the Freemasons number upward of seven thousand brethren; the present Grand Master is the Secretary of State, and a very efficient head he makes. The Freemasons and other orders take charge of the needy brethren with their proverbial charity, and thus relieve to a great extent the public funds.