,.;:« V\ \ SJORy SKAGIT AND W\SH1NG^I ^mm. .:t;#j .^ v^^-rv'... ^V^> v!*'KC/.!V/,*." .*- . jt «:;<: v-^'' "; %»>*, --k' "x-r, ^f-^- v\v. x'.t- ^A:i' ■V/;rH"-.-r- S}^'^;^^^J^ "4i^^f/^.^.:^ 'fe.'v:^vv An Illustrated History OF Skagit and Snohomish Counties their people, their commerce and their resources WITH AN OUTLINE OF THE EARLY HISTORY State of Washington ENDORSED AS AUTHENTIC BY LOCAL COMMITTEES OF PIONEERS INTERSTATE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1906 UiRARY of CONGRESS Two Conies (I«ceive(91— More Early Business Men— "Bucket of Blood" Saloon— Rise of the Bayside— Henry Hewitt's Account of Everett's Founding — Pioneer Bank— Statistics of Early Transactions — Inauguration of New Industries and Business Enterprises— Committee of Twenty-One— Fire Companies Organized— Business Men's Association— City Incorporation at Last— First Officials— Activity of 1891-2- Starting of Nail Works- Enumeration of Factories in 1892 — Smelter and Three S Road Built— First Overland Train— Tide Lands Contest- Launching of Pacific's First Whaleback— Exports of 1896— Everett Harbor Improvement- Everett Improvement Company Takes Over Rockefeller Holdings — New Impetus to Growth — Tremendous Growth That Followed — Resources — Public School System— Churches and Their History- Banks— Clubs — Library— Water Front Societies and Fraternities — Shipping and Railroad Advantages and Connections— Newspapers— Prophecy of the F-uture— Conclusion. Beginnings of Snohomish City — First Stores — Pioneer School— Town Platted— Snohomish in 1873— Snohomish Atheueuni- Northern Star Appears— Effects of Logging Industry on Town— Eye Estab- lished-Pioneer Saw-mill of Blackman Brothers— View of Town in 1883— Progress to 1887— Railroad Matters of Interest— Stimulating Effects— First Train — Verses in Commemoration of Event — Incorporation — Summary of Business Houses in 1889— Era of Rapid Development— Re-incorporation— Mills of Town in 1890 — Disastrous Fires of 1891- Serious Trouble with City Marshal— Water System Established— Depression of 1893— Fire of January, 1893-Fire of September 16th— Year 1894- Fire of 1894— Creamery Secured— Two Mills Destroyed — Revival in 1901— Library Site Donated— Fire of 1901 — Terrible Explosion of November, 190'2— Progress of the City— Business Enterprises of the Present— Public Schools— Churches— Fraternities— Beauty of the City's Environments — Summary of Resources and Prospects 314 CHAPTER VII Cities and Towns (Continued) jT/<7rriT'i'//^— Location— Father of the Town— Comeford's Early Experiences — He EstabHshes Store— Postoffice Secured— Other Business Houses Instituted— Railroads Arrive— Town in 1890— Early Mills — The Eye's Description of Marysville — Incorporation— Founding of Churches— Business Firms of To-day— School System — Fraternal Orders. Stanwood—Ym^ Situation and Resources— Centerville Postoffice Established— Changed to Stauwood — Eatly Merchants- Oliver Arrives — Pearson Opens Store— Other Enterprises — Survey of Town Site— Railway Building— Fire of 1892— Events of 1898— Cannery— Incorporated as a City— Public Conveniences of Present— Co-operative Creamery Association — Lumber Industries of City— Business Houses — Steamboat Lines— Schools— Churches Founded— City Officials. £'(/»;£'«(/j— Surroundings— Transportation Facilities- Early Settlements at Edmonds— Brackett Locates There— He Secures Postoffice— Town Site Dedicated in 18.84— Great Development of 1889-90— The Boom. North Edmonds— \Va.ieT System Installed— Incorporation- Present Officers— Commerce for Past Decade— Edmonds' Shingle Industries — Business Directory— Churches- History of Schools— Conclusion. Lowell— ln\Mna.cy with Everett— Founding— Business Established — Post- office Established— Smith's Operations— Progress— Development of Early Nineties— Paper Mill Erected — Industries— The Present. Arlington— S'\i\iaX\on — Inception of Settlement— First Stores— Development Follow- ing Railway Building. HalU-r CzVy- Early Business Houses— Rapid Growth of Early Nineties— Hard Times- Consolidation of Haller City and Arhngton— Present Prosperity — Fire of 1899— Population in 1900— Steady Growth Since Then— Present Industries and Stores— Churches — Fraternities — Becomes Railroad Center^ CONTENTS PAGE Future of the Town. Monroe — Sightly Location — Park Place— Business Established — Monroe Postoffice. Tye City — New Town Built— Depression of 1893— Disastrous Fire— Incorporation— Industrial Backing — Annual District Fair— Business Directory, 1905. Granite /"a//i— Commanding Location— The " Portage"— First Set- tlers—Mail Service Established — Platting of Town— Industries and Stores Built— Town in 1900— Pioneer Schools— Churches— F"rateruities— Incorporation— A Milling Center— Rapid Growth. Sultan — Resources — Settlement by John Nailor — Railroad Arrives— Town Springs up in Earnest — Enterprise of Citizens in 1895^ Becomes a City— Schools — Churches — Fish Hatcheries— Milling and Logging Statistics — Business Directory of Present. /7i?r^«(-altic to the .\leutian archipelago, and had looked southward across the frozen seas of Siberia to the open Pacific as ofifering another opportunity of expansion. Many years passed, however, before Peter's designs could be executed. It was 1728 when \'itus Behring entered upon his marvelous life of exploration. Not until 1741, however, did he thread the thousand islands of Alaska and gaze upon the glaciated sunuuit of Mount Elias. And it was not until thirty years later that it was known that the Bay of Avatscha in Siberia was connected by open sea with China. In 1771 the first cargo of furs was taken directly from .\vatscha, the chief port of eastern Siberia, to Canton. Then first Europe realized the vastness of the Pacific ocean. Then it understood that the same waters which frowned against the frozen bulwarks of Kamchatka washed the tropic isdands of the South seas and foamed against the storm-swept rocks of Cape Horn, Meanwhile, while Russia was thus becoming established upon the shores of Alaska, Spain was getting entire possession of California. These two great nations began to overlap each other, Russians becoming established near San Francisco. To offset this movement of Russia, a group of Spanish explorers, Perez, Martinez, Heceta, Bodega and Maurelle, swarmed up the coast beyond the S'ite of the present Sitka. England, in alarm at the progress made by Spain and Russia, sent out the Columbus of the eighteenth century, in the person of Captain James Cook, and he sailed up and down the coast of Alaska and of Washington, but failed to discover either the Columbia river or the Straits of Fuca. His labors, however, did more to establish true geographical notions than had the combined efforts of all the Spanish navigators who had preceded him. His voyages materially strengthened Eng- land's claim to Oregon, and added greatly to the luster of her name. The great ca])tain, while tem- porarily on shore, was killed by Indians in 1778, and the command devolved upon Captain Clark, who sailed northward, passing through Behring strait to the Arctic ocean. The new cominander died before the expedition had proceeded far on its return journey ; Lieutenant Gore, a \''irginian, assumed control and sailed to Canton, China, arriv- ing late in the year. The main purposes of this expedition had been the di.'covery of a northern waterway between the two oceans and the extending of British territory, but, as is so often the case in human affairs, one of the most important results of the voyage was entirely unsuspected by the navigators and prac- tically the outcome of an accident. It so happened that the two vessels of the expedition, the Revolu- tion and the Discovery, took with them to China a small collection of furs from the northwest coast of America. These were purchased hv the Chinese with great avidity ; the people exhibiting a willing- ness to barter commodities of much value for them and endeavoring to secure them at ahnost any sacri- fice. The sailors were not backward in communicat- ing their discoveries of a new and promising mar- ket for peltries, and the impetus imparted to the fur trade was almost iinmeasurable in its ultimate effects. .\n entirely new regime was inaugurated in Chinese and East Indian commerce. The north- west coast of America assumed a new importance in the eyes of Europeans, and especially of the British. The "struggle for possession" soon began to be foreshadowed. One of the principal harbors resorted to by fur- trading vessels was Nootka, used as a rendezvous and principal port of departure. This port became the scene of a clash between Spanish authorities and certain British vessels, which greatly strained the friendly relations existing between the two gov- ernments represented. In 1779, the viceroy of Mexico sent two ships, the Princess and the San Carlos, to convey Martinez and De Haro to the vicinity for the purpose of anticipating and pre- venting the occupancy of Nootka sound by fur traders of other nations, and that the Spanish title to the territory might be maintained and confirmed. Martinez was to base his claiin upon the discovery by Perez in 1774. Courtesy was to be extended to foreign vessels, but the establishment of any claim prejudicial to the right of the Spanish crown was to be resisted vigorously. LTpon the arrival of Martinez, it was discovered that the American vessel, Columbia, and the Iphi- EXPLORATIONS BY WATER genia, a British vessel, under a Portuguese flag, were lying in the harbor. Martinez at once de- manded the papers of both vessels and an explana- tion of their presence, vigorously asserting the claim of Spain that the port and contiguous territory were hers. The captain of the Iphigenia pleaded stress of weather. On finding that the vessel's papers commanded the capture, under certain conditions, of Russian, Spanish or English vessels, Martinez seized the ship, but on being advised that tiie orders relating to captures were intended only to apply to the defense of the vessel, the Spaniard released the Iphigenia and her cargo. The Northwest America, another vessel of the same expedition, was, however, seized by Martinez a little later. It should be remembered that these British vessels had, in the inception of the enterprise, divested themselves of their true national character and donned the insignia of Portugal, their reasons being: First, to defraud the Chinese government, which made special harbor rates to the Portuguese, and, .=econd, to defraud the East India Company, to whom had been granted the right of trading in furs in northwest America to the exclusion of all other British subjects, except such as should obtain the permission of the company. To maintain their Portuguese nationality they had placed the expe- dition nominally under the control of Juan Cavalho, a Portuguese trader. Prior to the time of the trouble in Nootka, however, Cavalho had become a bankrupt and new arrangements had become necessary. The English traders were compelled to unite their interests with those of King George's Sound Company, a mercantile association operating under license from the South Sea and East India companies, the Portuguese colors had been laid aside, and the true national character of the expe- dition assumed. Captain Colnutt was placed in command of the enterprise as constituted under the new regime, with instructions, among other things, "to establish a factory to be called Fort Pitt, for the purpose of permanent settlement and as a center of trade around which other stations mav be established." One vessel of the expedition, the Princess Royal, entered Nootka harbor without molestation, but when the Argonaut, under command of Captain Colnutt. arrived, it was thought best by the master not to attempt an entrance to the bav, lest his vessel should meet the same fate which had befallen the Iphigenia and the Northwest America. Later Colnutt called on Martinez and informed the Spanish governor of his intention to take possession of the country in the name of Great Britain and to erect a fort. The governor replied that possession had already been taken in the name of His Catholic Majesty and that such acts as he (Colnutt) con- templated could not be allowed. An altercation followed and the next day the Argonaut was seized and her captain and crew placed under arrest. The Princess Royal was also seized, though the Amer- ican vessels in tlie harbor were in no way molested. After an extended and at times heated con- troversy between Spain and Great Britain touching these seizures, the former government consented to make reparation and offered a suitable apology for the indignity to the honor of the flag. The feature of this correspondence of greatest import in the future history of the territory affected is, that throughout the entire controversy and in all the royal messages and debates in parliament no word was spoken asserting a claim of Great Britain to any territorial rights or denying the claim of sovereignty so positively and persistently avowed by Spain, neither was Spanish sovereignty denied nor in any way alienated by the treaty which followed. Certain real property was restored to British subjects, but a transfer of realty under the circumstances could not be considered a transfer of sovereignty. We pass over the voyage of the illustrious French navigator. La Perouse, as of more importance from a scientific than from a political view-point; neither can we dwell upon the explo- rations of Captain Berkeley, to whom belongs the honor of having ascertained the existence of the strait afterwards denominated Juan de Fuca. Of somewhat greater moment in the later history of the Northwest are the voyages of Meares, who entered and described the above-mentioned strait, and who, in 1788, explored the coast at the point where the great Columbia mingles its crystal current with the waters of the sea. In the diplomatic battle of later days it was even claimed that he was the discoverer of that great "River of the West." Howbeit, nothing can be surer than that the existence of such a river was utterly unknown to him at the time. Indeed, his conviction of its non-existence was thus stated in his own account of the voyage: "We can now with safety assert that there is no such river as the St. Roc (of the Spaniard, Heceta) exists as laid down on the Spanish charts," and he gave a further unequivocal expression of his opinion by naming the bay in that vicinity Deception bay and the promontory north of it Cape Disappointment. "Disappointed and deceived," remarks Evans face- tiously, "he continued his cruise southward to lati- tude forty-five degrees north." It is not without sentiments of patriotic pride that we now turn our attention to a period of dis- covery in which the vessels of our own nation played a prominent part. The northern mystery, which had been partially resolved by the Spanish, Enghsh, French and Portuguese explorations, was now to be robbed completely of its mystic charm ; speculation and myth must now give place to exact knowledge: the game of discovery must hereafter be played principally between the two branches of the Anglo-Saxon race, and Anglo-Saxon energy, thoroughness and zeal are henceforth to characterize operations on the shores of the Pacific Northwest. INTRODUCTORY The United States had but recently won their inde- pendence from the British crown and their energies were finding a fit field of activity in the titanic task of national organization. Before the consti- tution had become the supreme law of the land, however, the alert mind of the American had begun projecting voyages of discovery and trade to the Northwest, and in September, 1788, two vessels with the stars and stripes at their mastheads arrived at Nootka sound. Their presence in the harbor while the events culminating in the Nootka treaty were transpiring has already been alluded to. The vessels were the ship Columbia, Captain John Kendrick, and the sloop Washington, Captain Robert Gray, and the honor of having sent them to our shores belongs to one Joseph Barrel, a prom- inent merchant of Boston, and a man of high social standing and great influence. While one of the impelling motives of this enterprise had been the desire of commercial profit, the element of patriot- ism was not wholly lacking, and the vessels were instructed to make whatever explorations and dis- coveries they might. After remaining a time on the coast, Captain Kendrick transferred the ship's property to the Washington, with the intention of taking a cruise in that vessel. He placed Captain Gray in com- mand of the Columbia with instructions to return to Boston by way of the Sandwich islands and China. This commission was successfully carried out. The vessel arrived in Boston in September, 1790, was received with great eclat, refitt.ed by her owners and again despatched to the shores of the Pacific with Captain Gray in command. In July, 1791, the Columbia, from Boston, and the Washing- ton, from China, met not far from the spot where they had separated nearly two years before. They were not to remain long in company, for Captain Gray soon started on a cruise southward. On April 29, 1792, Gray met Vancouver just below Cape Flattery and an interesting colloquy took place. Vancouver communicated to the American skipper the fact that he had not yet made any important dis- coveries, and Gray, with equal frankness, gave the eminent British explorer an account of his past dis- coveries, "including," says Bancroft, "the fact that he had not sailed through Fuca strait in the Lady Washington, as had been supposed from Meares' narrative and map." He also informed Captain Vancouver that he had been "oflf the mouth of a river in latitude forty-six degrees, ten minutes, where the outset, or reflux, was so strong as to prevent his entrance for nine days." The important information conveyed by Gray seems to have greatly disturbed Vancouver's mind. The entries in his log show that he did not entirely credit the statement of the American, but that he was considerably perturbed is evinced by the fact that he tried to convince himself by argument that Gray's statement could not have been correct. The latitude assigned by the American is that of Cape Disappointment, and the existence of a river mouth there, though affirmed by Heceta, had been denied by Meares ; Captain Cook had also failed to find it; besides, had he not himself passed that point two days before and had he not observed that "if any inlet or river should be found it must be a very intricate one and inaccessible to vessels of our burden, owing to the reefs and broken water which then appeared in its neighborhood?" With such reasoning, he dismissed the matter from his mind for the time being. He continued his journey north- ward, passed through the Strait of Fuca, and engaged in a thorough and minute exploration of that mighty inland sea, to a portion of which he gave the name of Puget sound. Meanwhile Gray was proceeding southward "in the track of destiny and glory." On May 7th he entered the harbor which now bears his name, and four days later he passed through the breakers and over the bar, and his vessel's prow plowed the waters of that famous "River of the West," whose existence had been so long suspected. The storied "Oregon" for the first time heard other sound than "its own dashing." Shortly afterward Vancouver came to Cape Disappointment to explore the Columbia, of which he had heard indirectly from Captain Gray. Lieu- tenant Broughton, of Vancouver's expedition, sailed over the bar, ascended the river a distance of more than one hundred miles to the site of the present Vancouver, and with a modesty truly remarkable, took "possession of the river and the country in its vicinity in His Britannic Majesty's name, having every reason to believe that the subjects of no other civilized nation or state had ever entered it before." This, too, though he had received a salute of one gun from an American vessel, the Jennie, on his entrance to the bay. The lieutenant's claim was not to remain forever imchallenged, as will appear presently. , CHAPTER II EXPLORATIONS BY LAND With the exploration of Pugct sound and the discovery of the Cokimbia, history-making mari- time adventure practically ceased. lUit as the fabled strait of Anian had drawn explorers to the Pacific shores in quest of the mythical passage to the treasures of Ind, so likewise did the fairy tales of La Hontan and others stimulate inland exploration. Furthermore, the mystic charm always possessed by a terra incognita was becoming irresistible to adventurous spirits, and the possibilities of discov- ering untold wealth in the vaults of its "Shining mountains" and in the sands of its crystal rivers were exceedingly fascinating to the lover of gain. The honor of pioneership in overland explora- tion belongs to one Verendrye, who, under authority of the governor-general of New France, in 1773 set out on an expedition to the Rocky mountains from Canada. This explorer and his brother and sons made many important explorations, but as they failed to find a pass through the Rocky mountains, by which they could come to the Pacific side, their adventures do not fall within the purview of our volume. They are said to have reached the vicinity of the present city of Helena. If, as seems highly probable, the events chronicled by Le Page in his charming "Histoire de la Louisiane." published in 17.58, should be taken as authentic, the first man to scale the Rocky moun- tains from the east and to make his way overland to the shores of the Pacific was a Yazoo Indian, Moncacht-ape, or Moncachabe, by name. But "the first traveler to lead a party of civilized men through the territory of the Stony mountains to the South sea" was Alexander Mackenzie, who, in 1793, reached the coast at fifty-two degrees, twenty-four minutes, forty-eight seconds north, leaving as a memorial of his visit, inscribed on a rock with vermilion and grease, the words, "Alexander Mac- kenzie, from Canada by land, July 2-i, 1793." His field of discovery was also without the scope of our purpose, being too far north to figure prominently in the international complications of later vears. Western exploration by land had, however, elicited the interest of one whose energy and force were sufficient to bring to a successful issue almost any undertaking worth the effort. While the other statesmen and legislators of his time were fully engaged with the problems of the moment, the great mind of Thomas Jefferson, endowed as it was with a wider range of vision and more comprehensive grasp of the true situation, was projecting exploring expeditions into the Northwest. In 1786, while serving as minister to Paris, he had fallen in with the ardent Ledyard, who was on fire with the idea of opening a large and profitable fur trade in the north Pacific region. To this young man he had suggested the idea of journeying to Kamchatka, then in a Russian vessel to Nootka sound, from which, as a starting point, he should make an ex- ploring expedition eastward to the United States. Ledyard acted on the suggestion, but was arrested as a spy in the spring of 1787 by Russian officials and so severely treated as to cause a failure of his health and a consequent failure of his enterprise. The next effort of Jefferson was made in 1792, when he proposed to the American Philosophical Society that it should engage a competent scientist "to explore northwest America from the eastward by ascending the Missouri, crossing the Rocky mountains and descending the nearest river to the Pacific ocean." The idea was favorably received. Captain Meriwether Lewis, who afterward distin- guished himself as one of the leaders of the Lewis and Clark expedition, offered his services, but for some reason Andre Michaux, a French botanist, was given the preference. Michaux proceeded as far as Kentucky, but there received an order from the French minister, to whom, it seems, he also owed obedience, that he should relinquish his ap- pointment and engage upon the duties of another commission. It was not until after the opening of a new century that another opportunity for furthering his favorite project presented itself to Jefferson. An act of congress, under which trading houses had been established for facilitating commerce with the Indians, was about to expire by lirnitation, and President Jefferson, in recommending its continu- ance, seized the opportunity to urge upon congress the advisability of fitting out an expedition, the object of which should be "to explore the Missouri river and such principal stream of it as, by its course of communication with the waters of the Pacific ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado or any other river, may offer the most direct and INTRODUCTORY practical water communication across the continent, for the purpose of commerce." Congress voted an appropriation for the purpose, and the expedition was placed in charge of Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. President Jefferson gave the explorers minute and particular instructions as to investigations to be made by them. They were to inform themselves, should they reach the Pacific ocean, "of the circumstances which may decide whether the furs of those parts may be collected as advantageously at the head of the Missouri (convenient as is supposed to the Colorado and Oregon or Columbia) as at Nootka sound or any other i)art of that coast ; and the trade be constantly conducted through the Missouri and the United States more beneficially than by the cir- cumnavigation now piaclicid." In addition to the instructions already (luntcd, these explorers were directed to ascertain if possible on arriving at the seaboard if there were any ports within their reach frequented by the sea vessels of any nation, and to send, if practicable, two of their most trusted people back by sea with copies of their notes. They were also, if they deemed a return by the way they had come imminently hazardous, to ship the entire party and return via Good Hope or Cape Horn, as they might be able. A few days before the initial steps were taken in discharge of the instruction of President Jefferson, news reached the seat of government of a trans- action which added materially to the significance of the enterprise. Negotiations had been successfully consummated for the purchase of Louisiana on April 30, 1803, but the authorities at Washington did not hear of the important transfer until the first of July. Of such transcendent import to the future of our country was this transaction and of such vital moment to the section with which our volume is primarily concerned, that we must here interrupt the trend of our narrative to give the reader an idea of the extent of territory involved, and, if possible, to enable him to appreciate the influence of the purchase. France, by her land explorations and the establishment of trading posts and forts, first acquired title to the territory west of the Missis- sippi and east of the Rocky mountains, though Great Britain claimed the territory in accordance with her doctrine of continuity and contiguity, most of her colonial grants extending in express terms to the Pacific ocean. Spain also claimed the country by grant of Pope Alexander VL A constant war- fare had been waged between France and Great Britain for supremacy in America. The latter was the winner in the contest, and, in ]7()?, France, apparently discouraged, ceded to Spain the province of Louisiana. By the treaty of February 10, 1763, which gave Great flritain the Canadas, it was agreed that the western boundary between English and Spanish possessions in .\merica should be the Mississippi river. Great Britain renouncing all claims to the territory west of that boundary. In 1800 Spain retroceded Louisiana to France "with the same extent it has now in the hands of Spain and which it had when France possessed it, and such as it should be according to the treaties subse- quently made between Spain and other states." The order for the formal delivery of the prov- ince to France was issued by the Spanish king on October 1.5, 1803, and, as above stated, the United States succeeded to the title bv treaty of April 30, 1803. Exact boundaries had not been established at the time of the Louisiana purchase, but some idea of the vastness of the territory thereby acquired by the L'nited States may be had when we consider that it extended from the present British line to the Gulf of Mexico and included what are now the states of Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana, the territory of Oklahoma. Indian territory, more than three-fourths of Montana ant! Wyoming, and parts of Colorado and New Mexico. And so the Lewis and Clark expedition, which had in its inception for its chief object to promote the commercial interests of the LInited States, acquired a new purpose, namel}', the extending of geographical and scientific knowledge of our oxvn domain. Upon its members a further duty devolved, that of informing the natives that obedience was now due to a new great father. The expedition of Lewis and Clark excited a peculiar interest at the time of its occurrence, and has since occupied a unique place in our history. The description of this expedition which follows is condensed from the writings upon liie subject of Professor W. D. L^•man, <■{ Whitman College, Walla Walla. To our colonial ancestors, caged between the sea and the domains of hostile natives and rival colonies, afterward absorbed in a death struggle with the mother country, all the vast interior was a sealed book. And when the successful issue of the Revolutionary war permitted them to turn around and see where they were, still more when the great purchase of Louisiana from France enabled them to look toward the tops of the "Shin- ing mountains" with a sense of proprietorship, all the romance and enthusiasm and excitement of ex- ploration, hitherto sternly denied them by their narrow lot, seized and fascinated all classes. On the 14th day of May, 1804, the Lewis and Clark party left St. Louis by boat upon the muddy current of the Missouri, to search for the unknown mountains and rivers between that point and the Pacific. Their plan was to ascend the Missouri to its source, cross the divide, strike the headwaters of the Columbia, and, descending it, reach the sea. And what manner of men were undertaking this voyage, fraught with both interest and peril ? Meri- wether Lewis, the loader of the part\', was a captain EXPLORATIONS BY LAND in the United States army, and in Jefferson's judg- ment was, by reason of endurance, boldness and energy, the fittest man within his knowledge for the responsible duties of commander. His whole life had been one of reckless adventure. It appears that at the tender age of eight he was already illustrious for successful midnight forays upon the festive coon and the meditative possum. He was lacking in scientific knowledge, but when appointed captain of the expedition had, with characteristic pluck, spent a few spare weeks in study of some of the branches most essential to his new work. William Clark, second in command, was also a United States officer, and seems to have been equally fitted with Lewis for his work. The party consisted of fourteen LInited States regulars, nine Kentucky volunteers, two French voyageurs, a hunter, an in- terpreter and a negro. To each of the common soldiers the government offered the munificent reward of retirement upon full pay with a recom- mendation for a soldier's grant of land. Special pains were taken to encourage the party to keep complete records of all they saw and heard and did. This was done with a vengeance, insomuch that seven journals besides those of the leaders were carefully kept, and in them was recorded nearly every event from the most important discoveries down to the ingredients of their meals and doses of nicdicnic. I'hey were abundantly provided with beads, mirnirs. knives, etc., wherewith to woo the savage hearts of the natives. After an interesting and easy journey of five months, they reached the country of the Mandans, and here they determined to winter. The winter having been profitably spent in making the acquaint- ance of the Indians and in collecting specimens of the natural history of the plains — which they now sent back to the president with great care — they again embarked in a squad of six canoes and two jjirogues. June l:')th they reached the great falls of the ■Missouri. A month was spent within sound of the thunder and in sight of the perpetual mist cloud rising from the abyss, ijefore the}- could accomplish the difficult portage of eighteen miles, make new canoes, mend their clothes and lay in a new stock of provisions. The long bright days, the tingling air of the mountains, the pleasant swish of the water as their canoes breasted the swift current, the vast campfires and the nightly Ijuffalo roasts — all these must have made this the pleasantest section of their long journey. The party seems to have pretty nearly e.xhausted its supply of names, and after having made heavv drafts on their own with various permutatory com- binations, they were reduced to the extremity of loading innocent creeks with the ponderous names of Wisdom, Philosophy and Philanthropy. Suc- ceeding generations have relieved the unjust pressure in two of these cases with the high sound- ing appellations of Big Hole and Stinking Water. On the l"3th day of August the explorers crossed the great divide, the birthplace of mighty rivers, and descending the sunset slope, found themselves in the land of the Shoshones. They had brought with them a Shoshone woman, rejoicing in the pleasant name of Sacajawea, for the express purpose of becoming acquainted with this tribe, through whom they hoped to get horses and val- uable information as to their proper route to the ocean. But four days were consumed in enticing the suspicious savages near enough to hear the words of their own tongue proceeding from the camp of the strangers. When, however, the fair interpreter had been granted a hearing, she speedily won for the party the faithful allegiance of her kins- men. They innocently accepted the rather general intimation of the explorers that this journey had for its pritnary object the happiness and prosperity of the Shoshone nation, and to these evidences of benevolence on the part of their newly adopted great father at Washington, they quickly responded by bringing plenty of horses and all the information in their poor power. It appears that the expedition was at that time on the headwaters of the Salmon river near where Fort Lemhi afterward stood. With twenty-nine horses to carry their abundant burdens, they bade farewell to the friendly Shoshones on the last day of August, and cotnmitted themselves to the dreary and desolate solitudes to the westward. They soon became entangled in the ridges and defiles, already spotted with snow, of the Bitter Root mountains. Having crossed several branches of the great river, named in honor of Captain Clark, and becom- ing distressed at the increasing dangers and delay, they turned to the left, and, having punished a brawling creek for its inhospitality by inflicting on it the name Colt Killed, commemorative of their extremity for food, they came upon a wild and beautiful stream. Inquiring the name of this from the Indians, they received the answer "Kooskoos- kie." This in reality meant simply that this was not the stream for which they were searching, but not understanding, they named the river Kooskoos- kie. This was afterward called the Clearwater, and is the most beautiful tributary of the Snake. The countr)' still frowned on them with the same forbidding rocky heights and snow-storms as before. It began to seem as though famine would ere long stare them in the face, and the shaggy precipices were marked with almost daily accidents to men and beasts. Their only meat was the flesh of their precious horses. lender these circumstances Clark decided to take six of the most active men and push ahead in search of game and a more hospitable country. A hard march of twenty miles rewarded him with a view of a vast open plain in front of the broken mountain INTRODUCTORY chain across which they had been struggling. It was three days, however, before they fairly cleared the edge of the mountain and emerged on the great prairie north and east of where Lewiston now is. They found no game except a stray horse, which they speedily despatched. Here the advance guard waited for "the main body to come up, and then altogether they went down to the Clearwater, where a large number of the Nez Perce Indians gathered to see and trade with them. Receiving from these Indians, who, like all that they had met, seemed very amicably disposed, the cheering news that the great river was not very distant, and seeing the Clearwater to be a fine, navigable stream, they determined to abandon the weary land march and make canoes. Five of these having been con- structed, they laid in a stock of dog meat and then committed themselves to the sweeping current with which all the tributaries of the Columbia hastened to their destined place. They left their horses with the Nez Perces, and it is worthy of special notice that these were remarkably faithful to their trust. Indeed, it may be safely asserted that the first explorers of this country almost uniformly met with the kindest reception. On the 10th of October, having traveled sixty miles on the Clearwater, its pellucid current de- livered them to the turbid, angry, sullen, lava- banked Snake. This great stream they called Kimooenim, its Indian name. It was in its low season, and it seems from their account that it, as well as all the other streams, must have been uncommonly low that year. Thus they say that on October 13th they descended a very bad rapid four miles in length, at the lower part of which the whole river was com- pressed into a channel only twenty-five yards wide. Immediately below they passed a large stream on the right, which they called Drewyer's river, from one of their men. This must have been the Palouse river, and certainly it is very rare that the mighty Snake becomes attenuated at that point to a width of twenty-five yards. Next day as they were de- scending the worst rapid they had yet seen (probably the Monumental rapid), it repelled their efifrontery by upsetting one of the boats. No lives were lost, but the cargo of the boat was badly water-soaked. For the purpose of drying it, they stopped a day, and finding no other timber, they were compelled to use a very appropriate pile which some Indians had stored away and covered with stones. This trifling circumstance is noticed because of the ex- plorers' speaking in connection with it of their cus- tomary scrupulousness in never taking any property of the Indians, and of their determination to repay the owner, if they could find him, on their return. If all explorers had been as particular, much is the distress and loss that would have been avoided. They found almost continuous rapids from this point to the mouth of the Snake, which they reached on October 16th. Here they were met by a regular procession of nearly two hundred Indians. They had a grand pow-wow, and both parties displayed great affection, the whites bestowing medals, shirts, trinkets, etc., in accordance with the rank of the recipient, and the Indians repaying the kindness with abundant and prolonged visits and accompany- ing gifts of wood and fish. On the next day they measured the rivers, finding the Columbia to be nine hundred and sixty yards wide and the Snake five hundred and seventy-five. They indulge in no poetic reveries as they stand by the river which has been one principal object of their search, but they seem to see pretty much everything of practical value. In the glimmering haze of the pleasant October morning they notice the vast bare prairie stretching southward until broken by the rounded sunmiits of the Blue mountains. They find the Sohulks, who live at the junction of the rivers, a mild and happy people, the men being content with one wife each, whom they actually assist in family work. Captain Clark ascended the Columbia to the mouth of a large river coming from the west, which the Indians called the Tapteal. This was, of course, the Yakima. The people living at its mouth rejoiced in the liquid name of Chimnapum. Here Captain Clark shot what he called a prairie cock, the first he had seen. It was no doubt a sage hen. After two days of rest, being well supplied with fish, dog, roots, etc., and at peace with their own consciences and all the world, with satisfaction at the prospect of soon completing their journey, they re-embarked. Sixteen miles JdcIow the mouth of the Kimooenim, which they now began to call the Lewis river, they descried, cut clear against the dim horizon line of the southwest, a pyramidal mountain, covered with snow — their first view of Mount Hood. The next day, being in the vicinity of Umatilla, they saw another snowy peak at a conjectured distance of one hundred and fifty miles. Near here Captain Clark, having landed, shot a crane and a duck. Some Indians near were almost paralyzed with terror, but at last they recovered enough to make the best possible use of their legs. Following them. Captain Clark found a little cluster of huts. Pushing aside the mat door of one of them, he entered, and in the bright light of the un- roofed hut discovered thirty-two persons, all of whom were in the greatest terror, some wailing and wringing their hands. Having by kind looks and gestures soothed their grief, he held up his burning-glass to catch a stray sunbeam \vith which to light his pipe. Thereat the consternation of the Indians revived, and they refused to be comforted. But when the rest of the party arrived with the two Indian guides who had come with them from the Clearwater, terror gave way to curiosity and pleasure. These Pishquitpaws — such was their name — explained to the guides EXPLORATIONS BY LAND their fear of Captain Clark by saying that he came from the sky accompanied by a terrible noise, and they knew there was a bad medicine in it. Being convinced now that he was a mortal after all, they became very affectionate, and having heard the music of two violins, they became so enamored of the strangers that they stayed up all night with them and collected to the number of two hundred to bid them good-bye in the morning. The principal business of these Indians seemed to be catching and curing salmon, which, in the clear water of the Columbia, the explorers could see swimming about in large numbers. Continuing with no extraor- dinary occurrence, they passed the river now called the John Day, to which they applied the name Lapage. Mount Hood was now almost constantly in view, and since the Indians told them it was near the great falls of the Columbia, they called it the Timm (this seems to be the Indian word for falls) mountain. On the next day they reached a large river on the left, which came thundering through a narrow channel into the equally turbulent Columbia. This river, which Captain Lewis judged to contain one- fourth as much water as the Columbia (an enormous over-estimate), answered to the Indian name of Towahnahiooks. It afterward received from the French the name now used, Des Chutes. They now perceived that they were near the place hinted at by nearly every Indian that they had talked with since crossing the divide — the great falls. And a weird, savage place it proved to be. Here the clenched hands of trachyte and basalt, thrust through the soil from the buried realm of the volcanoes, almost clutch the rushing river. Only here and there between the parted fingers can he make his escape. After making several portages they reached that extraordinary place (now called The Dalles) where all the waters gathered from half a million square miles of earth are squeezed into a crack forty-five yards wide. The desolation on either side of this frightful chasm is a fitting margin. As one crawls to the edge and peeps over, he sees the waters to be of inky blackness. Streaks of foam gridiron the blackness. There is little noise com- pared with that made by the shallow rapids above, but rather a dismal sough, as though the rocks below were rubbing their black sides together in a vain effort to close over the escaping river. The river here is "turned on edge." In fact, its depth has not been found to this day. Some suppose that there was once a natural tunnel here through which the river flowed, and that in consequence of a vol- canic convulsion the top of the tunnel fell in. If there be any truth in this, the width of the channel is no doubt much greater at the bottom than at the top. Lewis and Clark, finding that the routjhness of the shore made it almost im])ossil)lc tn c;u-ry their boats over, and seeing no evidence of rucks in the channel, boldly steered through this "witches' cauldron." Though no doubt hurled along with frightful rapidity and flung like foam flakes on the crest of the boiling surges, they reached the end of the "chute" without accident, to the amazement of the Indians who had collected on the bluff to witness the daring experiment. After two more portages the party safely entered the broad, still flood be- ginning where the town of The Dalles now stands. Here they paused for two days to hunt and caulk their boats. They here began to see evidences of the white traders below, in blankets, axes, brass kettles, and other articles of civilized manufacture. The Indians, too, were more inclined to be saucy and suspicious. The Dalles seemed to be a dividing line between the Indian tribes. Those living at the falls, where Celilo now is, called the Eneeshurs, understood and "fellowshipped" with the up-river tribes, but at the narrows and thence to The Dalles was a tribe called the Escheloots. These were alien to the Indians above, but on intimate terms with those below the Cascades. Among the Escheloots the explorers first noticed the peculiar "cluck" in speech common to all down-river tribes. The flattening of the head, which above belonged to females only, was now the common thing. The place where. Lewis and Clark camped while at The Dalles was just below Mill creek (called by the natives Ouenett), on a point of rock near the location of the present car shops. The next Indian tribe, extending apparently from the vicinity of Crate's point to the Cascades,, capped the climax of tongue-twisting names by calling themselves Chilluckittequaws. Nothing of extraordinary character seems to have been encountered between The Dalles and the Cascades. But the explorers had their eyes wide open, and the calm majesty of the river and savage grandeur of its shores received due notice. They observed and named most of the streams on the route, the first of importance being the Cataract river (now the Klickitat), then Labieshe's river (Hood river). Canoe creek (White Salmon) and Crusatte's river. This last must have been Little White Salmon, though they were greatly deceived as to its size, stating it to be sixty yards wide. In this vicinity they were nnich struck with the sunken frirest, which, at that low stage of the water, was ver\- cons])icuous. They correctly inferred that this indicated a damming up of the river at a very recent time. Indeed, the}- judged that it must have occurred within twenty years. It is well known, however, that submerged trees or piles, as indicated bv remains of old Roman wharves in Britain, may remain intact for hundreds of years ; but it is never- theless evident that the closing of the river at the Cascades is a very recent event. It is also evident from the sliding, sinking and grinding constantly IXTRODUCTORY seen there now that a similar event is liable to happen at any time. The Cascades having been reached, more port- ages were required. Slow and tedious though they were, the explorers seem to have endured them with unfailing patience. They were cheered by the prospect of soon putting all the rapids behind and launching their canoes on the unobstructed vastness of the lower river. This was prosperously accom- plished on the 3d of November. They were greatly delighted with the verdure which now robed the gaunt nakedness of the rocks. The island formed at the lower cascade by Columbia slough also pleased them by its fertility and its dense growth of grass and strawberry vines. From this last cir- cumstance they named it Strawberry island. At the lower part of that cluster of islands, that spired and turreted rock of the old feudal age of the river, when the volcano kings stormed each other's castles with earthquakes and spouts of lava, riveted their attention. They named it Beacon rock, but it is now called Castle rock. They estimated its height at eight hundred feet and its circumference at four himdred yards, the latter being only a fourth of the reality. The tides were now noticeable. This fact must have struck a new chord of reflection in the minds of these hardy adventurers, this first-felt pulse- beat of the dim vast of waters which grasps half the circumference of the earth. And so, as this mighty heart throb of the ocean, rising and falling in harmony with all nature, celestial and terrestrial, pulsated through a hundred and eighty miles of river, it might have seemed one of the ocean's multi- plied I'mmrs outstretched to welcome them, the fiisi ..ii^.mized expedition of the new republic to thi> "wc^tmost west." It might have betokened to them the harmony and unity of future nations as exemplified in the vast extent, the liberty, the human sympathies, the diversified interests, industries, and purposes of that republic whose motto yet remains "One from many." The rest of their journey was a calm floating between meadows and islands from whose shallow ponds they obtained ducks and geese in great numbers. They thought the "Quick Sand river" — Sandy — to be a large and important stream. They noticed the Washougal creek, which from the great number of seals around its mouth they called Seal river. But strange to say, they missed the Willa- mette entirely on their down trip. The Indians in this part of the river called themselves Skilloots. Dropping rapidly down the calm but misty stream, past a large river called by the Indians the Cow- aliske— Cowlitz — to the country of the Wahkiacums, at last, on the 7 th of November, the dense fog with which morning had enshrouded all objects suddenly broke away and they saw the bold, mountainous shores on either side vanish away in front, and through the parted headlands they looked into the infinite expanse of the ocean. Overjoyed at the successful termination of their journey, they sought the first pleasant camping ground and made haste to land. The rain, which is sometimes even now observed to fall copiously in that part of Oregon, greatly marred the joy of their first night's rest within sound of the Pacific's billows. Six days passed in moldy and dripping inactivity at a point a little above the present Chinook. They then spent nine much pleasanter days at Chinook point. This, however, not proving what they wanted for a permanent camp, they devoted them- selves to explorations with a view to discovering a more suitable location. The party wintered in a log building at a point named by them Fort Clatsop. On the 2;)d of March, 1806, they turned their faces homeward, first, how- ever, having given to the chiefs of the Clatsops and Chinooks certificates of hospitable treatment and posted on the fort the following notice: "The object of this last is that, through the medium of some civilized person, who may see the same, it naay be made known to the world that the party consisting of the persons whose names are here- unto annexed and who were sent out by the gov- ernment of the United States to explore the interior of the continent of North .\merica, did penetrate the same by way of the Missmiri and Columbia rivers, to the discharge of the latter into the Pacific ocean, at which they arrived on the 1-lth day of November, 1805, and departed on their return to the United States by the same route by which they had come." Of this notice several copies were left among the Indians, one of which fell into the hands of Captain Hall, of the brig Lydia, and was conveyed to the United States. The expedition made its way with no little diffi- cult>' up the Columbia river. They discovered on their return a large tributary of that river (the Willamette) which had escaped their notice on their outward journey, and made careful inquiry of the Indians concerning it, the results of which were embodied in their map of the expedition. At the mouth of the John Day river their canoes were abandoned, their baggage was packed on the backs of a few horses they had purchased from the Indians, and traveling in this manner, they continued their homeward march, arriving at the mouth of the Walla Walla river April 27th. The great chief Yellept was then the leader of the Walla Walla nation, and by him the explorers were received with such generous hospitality that they yielded to the temptation to linger a couple of days before undertaking further jonmeyings among the moimtain fastnesses. Such was the treatment given them by these Indians that the journal of the expedition makes this appreciative EXPLORATIONS BY LAND notation concerning them: "We may indeed justly affirm that of all the Indians that we have ^cen' since leaving the United States, the Walla Wallas are the most hospitable, honest and sincere." Of the return journey for the next hundred and fifty miles, that venerable pioneer missionary, the late Dr. H. K. Hines, writes as follows : "Leav- ing these hospitable people on the 29th of April, the party passed eastward on the great 'Nez Perce trail.' This trail was the great highway of the Walla Wallas, Cayuses and Nez Perces to the buffalo ranges, to which they annually resorted for game and supplies. It passed up the valley of the Touchet, called by Lewis and Clark the 'White Stallion,' thence over the high prairie ridges and down the Alpowa to the crossing of the Snake river, then up the north bank of Clearwater to the village of Twisted Hair, where the exploring party had left their horses on the way down the previous autumn. It was worn deep and broad by the con- stant rush of the Indian generations from time immemorial, and on many stretches on the open jtlains and over the smooth hills, twenty horsemen could ride abreast in parallel columns. The writer has often passed over it when it lay exactly as it (lid when the tribes of Yellept and Twisted Hair traced its sinuous courses, or when Lewis and Clark and their companions first marked it with the heel of civilization. But the plow has long since obliterated it, and where the monotonous song of the Indian march was droningly chanted for so many barbaric ages, the song of the reaper thrills the clear air as he comes to his garner bringing in the sheaves. A more delightful ride of a hundred and fifty miles than this that the company of Lewis and Clark made over the swelling prairie upland and along the crystal streams between Walla Walla and the village of Twisted Hair, in the soft May days of 180G, can scarcely be found an\'where on earth." To trace the journeyings of these explorers further is not within the province of this work, but in order to convey a general idea of the labors and extent of the voyage, we quote the brief sum- mary made by Captain Lewis himself: "The road by which we went out by the way of the Missouri to its head is 3,096 miles; thence by land by way of Lewis river over to Clark's river and down that to the entrance of Travelers' Rest creek, where all the roads from different routes meet; thence across the rugged part of the Rocky mountains to the navigable waters of the Columbia, 398 miles; thence down the river 640 miles to the Pacific ocean — making a total distance of 4,134 miles. On our return in 1806 we came from Travelers' Rest directly to the falls of the Missouri river, which shortens the distance about 579 miles, and is a much better route, reducing the distance from the Mississippi to the Pacific ocean to 3,555 miles. Of this distance 2,575 miles is up the Missouri to the falls of that river ; thence pass- ing through the plains and across the Rocky moun- tains to the navigable waters of the Kooskooskie river, a branch of the Columbia, 340 miles, 2i)i) of which is good road, 140 miles over a tremendous mountain, steep and broken, 60 miles of which is covered several feet deep with snow, and which we passed on the last of June; from the navigable part of the Kooskooskie we descended that rapid river 73 miles to its entrance into Lewis river, and down that river 154 miles to the Columbia, and thence 413 miles to its entrance into the Pacific ocean. About 180 miles of this distance is tide land. W^e passed several bad rapids and narrows, and one considerable fall, 286 miles above the entrance of this river, 37 feet 8 inches ; the total dis- tance descending the Columbia waters 640 miles — making a total of 3,555 miles, on the most direct route "from the Mississippi at the mouth of the Missouri to the Pacific ocean." The safe return of the explorers to their homes in the United States naturally created a sensation throughout that country and the world. Leaders and men were suitably rewarded, and the fame of the former will live while the rivers to which their names have been given continue to pour their waters into the sea. President Jefferson, the great patron of the expedition, paying a tribute to Captain Lewis in 1813, said: "Never did a similar event excite more joy throughout the United States. The hum- blest of its citizens have taken a lively interest in the issue of this journey, and looked with impa- tience for the information it would furnish. Nothing short of the official journals of this extraordinary and interesting journey will exhibit the importance of the service, the courage, devotion, zeal and per- severance under circumstances calculated to dis- courage, which animated this little band of heroes, throughout the long-, dangerous and tedious travel." CHAPTER III THE ASTOR EXPEDITION While the limits of this volume render a full treatment of the early Northwest history impossi- ble, it is necessary to write briefly of those mam- moth forces of the first ages of the country, the great fur companies, those gigantic commercial organizations, whose plans were so bold, farreach- ing and comprehensive, and whose theater of action included such vast areas of the earth's surface. The profits of the fur trade were such as might well entice daring and avarice to run the gauntlet of icebergs, of starvation, of ferocious savages and of stormy seas. The net returns from a single voyage might liquidate even the enormous cost of the outfit. For instance, Ross, one of the clerks of Astor's company, and located at Okanogan, relates that one morning before breakfast he bought of Indians one hundred and ten beaver skins at the rate of five leaves of tobacco per skin. Afterward a yard of cotton cloth, worth, say, ten cents, pur- chased twenty-five beaver skins, the vakie of which in the New York market was five dollars apiece. For four fathoms of blue beads, worth, perhaps, a dollar, Lewis and Clark obtained a sea otter's skin, the market price of which varied from forty- five to sixty dollars. Ross notes in another place that for one hundred and sixty-five dollars in trinkets, cloth, etc., he purchased peltries valued in the Canton market at eleven thousand two hun- dred and fifty dollars. Indeed, even the ill-fated voyage of Air. Astor's partners proved that a cargo worth twenty-five thousand dollars in New York might be replaced in two years by one worth a quarter of a million, a profit of a thousand per cent. We can not wonder then at the eager enterprise and fierce, sometimes bloody, competition of the fur traders. The fur-producing animals of especial value in the old Oregon country were three in number. The first, the beaver, was found in great abundance in all the interior valleys, the Willamette country, as was discovered, being preeminent in this respect. The two others, the sea otter and the seal, were found on the coast. The sea otter fur waS' the most valuable, its velvety smoothness and glossy black- ness rendering it first in the markets of the world of all furs from the temperate zone of North Amer- ica, and inferior only to the ermine and sable, and possibly to the fiery fox of the far north. Such, then, was the prospect which prompted the formation of the Pacific Fur Company, which shall have the first place in our narrative as being the first to enter the Columbia river basin, though it was long antedated in organization by several other large fur-trading corporations. The sole and prime mover of this enterprise was that famed commercial genius, John Jacob Astor, a native of Heidelberg, who had come to America poor, and had amassed a large fortune in commercial trans- actions. In 1810 there was conceived in the brain of this man a scheme which for magnitude of design and careful arrangement of detail was trul\- masterful, and in every sense worthy of the great entrepreneur. Even the one grand mistake which wrecked the enterprise was the result of a trait of character which "leaned to virtue's side." Broad-minded and liberal himself, he did not appre- ciate the danger of entrusting his undertaking to the hands of men whose national prejudices were bitterly anti-American and whose previous connec- tion with a rival company might affect their loyalty to this one. He regarded the enterprise as a purely commercial one, and selected its personnel accord- ingly, hence the failure of the venture. Mr. Astor's plan contemplated the prosecution of the fur trade in every unsettled territon' of America claimed by the United States, the trade with China and the supply of the Russian settle- ments with trading stock and provisions, the goods to be paid for in peltries. A vessel was to be despatched at regular intervals from New York, bearing supplies of goods to be traded to the Indians. .She was to discharge her cargo at a depot of trade to be established at the mouth of the Columbia river, then trade along the coast with Indians and at the Russian settlements until another cargo had been in part secured, return to the mouth of the river, complete her lading there, sail thence to China, receive a return cargo of Canton silks, nankeen and tea, and back to New York. Two years would pass in completing this vast commercial "rounding up." An important part of the plan was the supply of the Russian posts at New Archangel, the object being two-fold — first, to secure the profits accruing therefrom, and, second, to shut off compe- tition in Mr. Astor's own territory, through the semi-partnership with the Russians in furnishing them supplies. Careful arrangements had been made with the Russian government to prevent any possible clash between the vessels of the two com- panies engaged in the coast trade. "It was," says Brewerton, "a colossal scheme and deserved to succeed ; had it done so it would have advanced 12 THE ASTOR EXPEDITION American settlement and actual occupancy on the northwest coast by at least a quarter of a century, giving employment to thousands, and transferred the enormous profits of the Hudson's Bay and North West British Fur Companies from English to American coffers." Like a prudent business man, Mr. Astor antici- pated that, though the Northwest Company had no trading posts in the region west of the Rocky mountains and south of fifty-two degrees north, its enmity and jealousy would be speedily aroused when a new competitor entered the field. He resolved to soften enmity by frankness, so wrote to the directors of the British company the details of his plan and generously offered them a third interest in the enterprise. This ingenuousness on his part found no response in the characters of the shrewd and unscrupulous men in whom he had so unwisely confided. Nobleness, in this instance, failed to enkindle nobleness. They met candor with duplicity, generosity with perfidy. Playing for time, they pretended, Csesar-like, to take the matter under advisement, and at once despatched David Thompson, the astronomer and surveyor of their company, with instructions "to occupy the mouth of the Columbia, to explore the river to its headwaters, and, above all, to watch the progress of Mr. Astor's enterprise." Tliey then declined the proposal. But Mr. Astor proceeded widi his project ener- getically and skillfully. He associated with himself as partner? in the enterprise (and here was his great mistake) Donald jNIackenzie, Alexander Alackay, .who had accompanied Alexander Mack- enzie on his voyage of discovery, hence possessed invaluable experience, and Duncan Macdougal, all late of the Northwest Company, and. though men of great skill and experience, schooled in the preju- dices of the association with which they had so long maintained a connection and able to see only through British eyes. To the partners already enumerated were subsequently added Wilson P. Hunt and Robert Maclellan, Americans : David and Robert Stuart and Ramsey Crooks, Scotchmen ; a Canadian named John Clarke, and others. Wilson P. Hunt was given the post of chief agent on the Columbia, his tenn of office being five years, and when he was obliged to be absent tempo- rarily, a substitute was to be elected by the partners who happened to be 'present, to act in his place. Each partner obligated himself in the most solemn manner to go where sent and to execute faithfully the objects of the company, but before subscribing to this bond two of the British perfidiously com- municated to the British minister, Mr. Jackson, temporarily in New York, the details of Mr. Astor's plan and inquired of him concerning their status as British subjects trading under the American flag in the event of war. They were given assurance that in case of war they would be protected as English subjects and merchants. Their scruples thus put at rest, they entered into the compact. The larger part of the expedition was to go via Cape Horn and the Sandwich islands to the mouth of the Columbia, there to await the arrival of the Hunt party, which was sent out by land. To convey them thence the ship Tonquin, a vessel of two hun- dred and ninety tons burden, was fitted up for sea. She was commanded by Captain Thorne, a lieu- tenant of the United States navy on leave, and had on board Indian trading goods, the frame timbers for a coasting schooner, supplies of all kinds, and in fact, everything essential to comfort. Before the vessel had left the harbor, Mr. Astor was apprised that a British war vessel was cruising oft" the coast for the purpose of intercepting the Tonquin, and impressing the Canadians and British who were on board. This was a ruse of the North- west Company to delay the expedition so that their emissary, Thompson, should arrive at the mouth of the Columbia first. But Mr. Astor secured as con- voy the now famous United States frigate, Consti- tution, commanded by the equally famous Captain Isaac Hull, and the Tonquin, thus protected, pro- ceeded safely on her way. She arrived at her destination March 22. ISll. after a voyage the details of which may be found in Irving's- Astoria, Franchere's narrative, or in some of the publications based upon the latter work. On the 12th of the following month a part of the crew crossed the river in a launch and established at Fort George a settlement to which the name Astoria waS' given in honor of the projector of the enterprise. They at once addressed themselves to the task of con- structing the schooner, the framed materials for which had been brought with them in the Tonquin. An expedition also was made by Mr. Mackay to determine the truth or falsity of the rumor that a party of whites were establishing a post at the upper cascades of the river, but when the first rapids were reached the expedition had to be abandoned, the Indian crew positively refusing to proceed further. On the 1st of June, the ill-fated Tonquin started north, Mr. Mackay accompanying. We must now pursue her fortunes to their terrible conclusion. Mr. Franchere, a Frenchman, one of Mr. Astor's clerks, is the chief authority for the story. With his account. Irving seems to have taken some poetic license. According to that graceful writer, with a total force of twenty-three and an Indian of the Chehalis tribe called Lamazee, for inter- preter, the Tonquin entered the harbor of Neweetee. Franchere calls the Indian Lamanse, and the har- bor, he says, the Indians called Newity. We shall probably be safe in following Bancroft, who sur- mises that the place was Nootka sound, where, in 180:1, the ship Boston and all her crew but two had been destroyed. Captain Thorne had been reoeatedlv and urgently warned by Mr. Astor against allowing INTRODUCTORY more than four or five Indians on board at once, but the choleric skipper was not of the kind to hsten to the voice of caution. When Indians ap- peared with a fine stock of sea otter skins, and the indications were for a profitable trade, he forgot evervthinsj in his ea,c:emess to secure the peltry. But Ions t*x]irriciKc with ilic whites and the instruc- tions of their \\il\ cliiif. Alaquinna, had rendered these triJjes less pliable and innocent than the cap- tain expected. Being unable to strike a bargain with any of them and losing patience, Thorne ordered all to leave the deck. They paid no atten- tion, and the captain, becoming violently enraged, seized their leader by the hair and hurried him toward the ship's ladder, emphasizing his exit by a stroke with a bundle of furs. The other Indians left forthwith. When Mr. Mackay, who was on shore at the time, returned to the ship, he became indignant at Thorne. and urged that he set sail at once. Lamanse, the Chehalis Indian, seconded him, asserting that all prospects of profitable trade were destroyed and that a longer stay in the harbor was attended with very great danger, but advice and importunity were vain. Early next morning a number of Indians, demure and peaceable, paddled over to the vessel, holding aloft bundles of fur as an evidence of their wish to trade. Thorne called Mackay's attention to the success of his method of dealing with the red men. "Just show thein that you are not afraid," said he, "and they will behave themselves." The Indians exchanged their furs for whatever was oft'ered, making no remonstrances or demands for higher prices. Other canoe loads of savages came aboard and still others, the self-satisfied Thorne welcoming all in his blandest manner. The more watchful sailors became suspicious and alarmed, but they well knew that remonstrance against the course of Captain Thorne was vain. Soon, however, even he noticed tliat the Indians had become massed at all the assailable points of the vessel. He was visibly startled by this discovery, but pretending not to be aware that anything was wrong, he ordered his men to get ready for sailing, and the Indians to leave the vessel. The latter started toward the ladder, but as they did so, they drew from the unsold bundles of furs the weapons therein concealed. "In an instant the wild war-yell broke the awful silence, and then the peaceful deck of the Tonquin saw a slaughter grim and pitiless. Lewis, the clerk, and Mackay were almost instantly despatched. Then a crowd, with fiendish triumph, set upon the captain, bent on evening up at once the old score. The brawny frame and iron will of the brave, though foolhardy, old salt made him a dangerous object to attack, and not until half a dozen of his assailants had measured their bleeding lengths on the slippery deck did he succumb. Then he was hacked to pieces with savage glee. Meanwhile four sailors, the only survivors besides the interpreter, Lamanse, by whom the story was told, having gained access to the hold, began firing on the tri- umphant Indians ; and with such effect did they work, that the whole throng left the ship in haste and sought the shore. Lamanse, meanwhile, was spared, but held in captivity for two years. The next day, the four surviving sailors attempted to put to sea in a small boat, but were pursued and probably murdered by the Indians. And then, like a band of buzzards circling around a carcass, the Indian canoes began to cluster around the deserted ship." But an awful retribution was about to overtake the Indians. Cautiously at first, but with more boldness as they observed the apparent lifelessness of everything on the ship, they began next day to climb aboard, and soon several hundred of them were rifling the storehouses, gloating over the dis- figured bodies of their victims, and strutting across the deck, clad in gaudy blankets, and lavishly adorned with beads and tinsels. Then came a terrible boom, and the luckless Tonquin, with all on board, both quick and dead, was scattered in fragments over the face of the deep. Her powder magazine had exploded, de- stroying the ship and her enemies in one awful ruin. According to Lamanse, as quoted by Fran- chere, two hundred Indians were destroyed by this explosion. Franchere was unable to state what caused the ship to be blown up, but surmises that the four sailors attached a slow train to the magazine before their departure. .\s Franchere is the only known authority, it seems certain that Irving must have fabricated his account, which is to the effect that Lewis, wounded, remained on the ship after the four sailors had gone, and that he enticed the sav- ages aboard, that he might destroy himself and them in one final retribution. A report that the Tonquin was destroyed reached Astoria in due time, the news being borne by Indians. At first the story was entirely dis- credited, but as time passed and no Tonquin appeared, it became more and more evident that there must be some truth in it. No details of the tragedy were known, however, until Lamanse reappeared some two years later. On July 15, 1811. David Thompson, with eight white men, arrived at Astoria. His expedition had been long delayed on the eastern side of the Rocky mountains, in the search for a pass. Desertions among his crew also impeded his progress, and the final result was that he had to return to the nearest post and remain over winter. In the early spring he hurried forward. The party distributed many small flags among the Indians along the Columbia, built huts at the forks of the river and took formal THE ASTOR EXPEDITION possession of the country drained by the Cokimbia and its tributaries in the name of the King of Great Britain, and for the company which sent them out. But the main object of tlie expedition was not realized. They were unable to occupy the mouth of the Columbia, and the perfidy of the Northwest Company failed of its reward. Hostile though the expedition was, it was received at Astoria with open-handed cordiality, Macdougal furnishing Thompson with supplies for the return journey against the urgent remonstrance of David Stuart. Such generosity to one's conmKTcial enemy is. t(.i say the least, a little unusual, but the magnanimity displa}'ed has for some reason failed to call forth the plaudits of historians. .At the time of Mr. Thompson's arrival. David Stuart was about to start for the Spokane country to establish a post, and he delayed his departure for a short time that his and JMr. Thompson's party might travel together. At the confluence of the Columbia and Okanogan rivers, Mr. Stuart erected Fort Okanogan, the first interior post west of the Rocky mountains within the limits of the present state of Washington. January 8, 181 '2, a part of the Hunt expedition reached Astoria in a pitiable condition. The ad- ventures of different members of this party form a sad chapter in the history of the fur trade. Hunt was met bv overwhelming obstacles from the very first. In his efiforts to get men for his expedition he was harassed in ever\' way possible by persons interested in rival fur companies, and when, at last, owing to his own indomitable perseverance and Astor's unstinted purse, he got a party together, the battle was by no means won. In April, ISll, Hunt set his face toward the Pacific. With him were sixty men, four of whom, Crooks, Mackenzie, Miller and Maclellan, were partners, and one. Reed, was a clerk. The rest were free trappers and Canadian voyageurs, except two English natural- ists, Bradbury and Nuttall. The earlier portions of their journey afTfor The pioneers brought garden seeds with them, and much attention was paid to the production of vegetables, which, with milk, game and fish, went a long way toward the support of the family. Reaping machines, threshers, headers, mowing machines, pleasure carriages, silks, satins, laces, kid gloves, plug hats, high-heeled boots, crinoline, bustles, false hair, hair dye, jewelry, patent medicines, railroad tickets, postage stamps, telegrams, pianos and organs, together with a tliousand and one other articles to purchase wliicli tlu- ciiiiiili\ i> now drained of millions of dollars annuall\, wiir llnii unknown and con- sequently not wanteil, .\ liit;lu r ii\ ili/ali. in has introduced us to all these modern imprnvinunts. and apparently made them necessaries, together with the rum mill, the jail, the insane asylum, the poor-house, the penitentiary and the gallows. Of the people who lived in Oregon during this period, Judge Bennett, in his book entitled "Recol- lections of an Old Pioneer," says : "Among the men who came to Oregon the year I did, some were idle, worthless young men, too lazy to work at home and too genteel to steal, while some were gamblers, and others reputed thieves. But when we arrived in Oregon, they were com- pelled to work or starve. It was a bare necessity. There was no able relative or indulgent friend upon whom the idle could quarter themselves, and there was little or nothing for the rogues to steal. There was no ready way by which they could escape into another countr\ . ancl tliey could not conceal themselves in Oregon. I never knew so fine a population, as a whole community, as I saw in Oregon most of the time I was there. They were all honest because there was nothing to steal ; they were all sober because there was no liquor to drink ; there were no misers because there was nothing to hoard ; they were all industrious because it was work or starve." Such was the general character of the early pioneer as depicted by men who knew whereof they spoke. Another characteristic strongly appeals to the mind of the historian — his political capabili- ties. His environment and isolation from the rest of the world compelled him to work out for himself tnany novel and intricate economic problems ; the uncertainty as to the ownership of the Oregon ter- ritory and the diverse national prejudices and sym- pathies of its settlers made the formation of a gov- ernment reasonably satisfactory to the whole population an exceedingly difficult task. There were, however, men in the new comnninit\- deter- mined to make the effort, and the reader will be able to judge from what follows how well they succeeded. As early as IS-iS some of the functions of gov- ernment were exercised by members of the Metho- dist mission. Persons were chosen bv that bodv to officiate as magistrates and judges, and their findings were generally acquiesced in by persons independent of the Hudson's Bay Company because of the imorganized condition of the community, though there was doubtless a strong sentiment among the independent settlers in favor of trusting to the general morality and disposition to do right rather than to any political organization. The most important act of the mission officers was the trial of T. J. Hubbard for the killing of a man who attempted to enter his house at night with criminal intent. Rev. David Leslie presided as judge during this noteworthy judicial proceeding, which resulted in the acquittal of the defendant on the ground that his act was excusable. As early as 1840 cfiforts began to be made to induce the L^nited States government to extend to the people of the Northwest its jurisdiction and laws, although to do this was an impossibility ex- cept by abrogation of the Joint-Occupancy treaty of 1S27 and the satisfactory settlement of the title — all which would require at least a year's time. A petition was, nevertheless, drafted, signed by David Leslie and a number of others and forwarded to congress. It was not entirely free from misstate- ments and inaccuracies, but is considered, never- theless, an able and important state paper. Inas- much as the population of Oregon, including children, did not exceed two hundred at this time, the prayer of the petitioners, it need hardly be said, was not granted. But it must not be supposed that the document was therefore without effect. It did its part toward opening the e\es of the people of the East and of congress to the importance and value of Oregon, and toward directing public atten- tion to the domain west of the Rocky mountains. Notwithstanding the paucity of the white people of Oregon, the various motives that impelled them thither had divided them into four classes — the Hudson's Bay Company, the Catholic clergy and their following, the Methodist missions and the settlers. The Catholics and the company were practically a unit politically. The settlers favored the missions only in so far as they served the pur- pose of helping to settle the country, caring little about their religious influence and opposing their ambitions. The would-be organizers of a government found their opportunit}' in the conditions presented by the death of Ewing Young. This audacious pioneer left considerable property and no legal representatives, and the question was, what should be done with his belongings? Had he been a Hudson's Bay man or a Catholic, the company or the church would have taken care of the property. Had he been a missionary, his coadjutors might have administered, but being a plain American citizen, there was no fimctionarv ])ossessed of even a colorable right to exercise jurisdiction over his estate. In the face of this cnicrgency, the occasion INTRODUCTORY of Young's funeral, which occurred February 1^ 1841, was seized upon for attempting the organiza- tion of some kind of a government. At an im- promptu meeting, it was decided that a committee should perform the legislative functions and that the other officers of the new government should be a governor, a supreme judge with probate jurisdic- tion, three justices of the peace, three constables, three road commissioners, an attorney-general, a clerk of the court and public recorder, a treasurer and two overseers of the poor. Nominations were made for all these offices, and the meeting adjourned until next day. when, it was hoped, a large repre- sentation of the citizens of the valley would assem- ble at the mission house. The time specified saw the various factions in full force at the place of meeting. A legislative committee was appointed as follows : Revs. F. N. Blanchet, Jason Lee, Gustavus Hines and Josiah L. Parish ; also Messrs. D. Donpierre, M. Charlevo, Robert Moore, E. Lucier and William Johnson. No governor was chosen ; the Methodists secured the judgeship, and the Catholics the clerk and re- corder. Had the friends of the organization been more fortunate in their choice of a chairman of the legislative committee, the result of the movement might have been different, but Rev. Blanchet never called a meeting of his committee, and the people who assembled on June 1st to hear and vote upon the proposed laws, found their congregating had been in vain. Blanchet resigned ; Dr. Bailey was chosen to fill the vacancy, and the meeting ad- journed until October. First, however, it ordered the committee to confer with Commodore Wilkes, of the American squadron, and John McLoughlin, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, with regard to forming a constitution and code of laws. Wilkes discouraged the movement, considering it unnecessary and impolitic to organize a govern- ment at the time. He assigned the following reasons : "First — On account of their want of right, as those wishing for laws were, in fact, a small minor- ity of the settlers. "Second — That these were not yet necessary, even by their own account. "Third — That any laws they might establish would be but a poor substitute for the moral code they all now followed, and that evil-doers would not be disposed to settle near a comnnmity entirely opposed to their practices. "Fourth — The great difficulty they would have in enforcing any laws and defining the limits over which they had control, and the discord this might occasion in their small community. "Fifth — They not being the majority and the larger portion of the population Catholics, the latter would elect officers of their party, and they would thus place themselves entirely under the control of others. "Sixth — The vmfavorable impression it would produce at home, from the belief that the mission- aries had admitted that in a community brought to- gether by themselves, they had not enough of moral force to control it and prevent crime, and therefore must have recourse to a criminal code." The friends of the movement could not deny the cogency of this reasoning, and, it appears, con- cluded to let the matter drop. The October meet- ing was never held, and thus the first attempt at forming a government ended. However, the judge elected made a satsfactory disposition of the Young estate. But the question of forming an independent or provisional government continued to agitate the public mind. During the winter of lS4"(l-:i a lyceum was organized at Willamette Falls, now Oregon City, at which the propriety of taking steps in that direction was warmly debated; On one evening the subject for discussion was : "Resolved, TlKit it is (.\|)e(lieiit for the settlers on this coast to istalilisli an independent government." McLough- lin f,i\'ijri.(l the rosnhition and it carried. Mr. Aherncthy, ilofeatcd in this deliatc, skillfully saved the (lay by introducing as the tn|)ic of the next dis- cussion; '■■Resolved. 'That if the United States extends its jurisdiction over this country w-ithin four years, it will not be expedient to form an inde- pendent government." This resolution was also carried after a spirited discussion, destroying the effect of the first resolution. Meanwhile, the settlers in the vicinity of the Oregon Institute were skillfully working out a plan whereby a provisional government might be formed. They knew the sentiment of their con- freres at the Falls, the result of the deliberations at that place having been reported to them by Mr. Le Breton ; they knew also that their designs would meet with opposition from both the Hudson's Bay Company and the mission people. The problem to be solved was how to accomplish their ends without stirring up opposition which would over- whelm them at the very outset. Their solution of this problem is a lasting testimony to their astute- ness and finesse. As a result of the formation of the Willamette Cattle Company and its success in importing stock from California, almost every settler was the owner of at least a few head, and, of course, the Hudson's Bay Company and the missions also had their herds. The fact that wolves, bears and panthers were destructive to the cattle of all alike furnished one bond of common interest uniting the diverse popu- lation of Oregon, and this conference furnished the conspirators their opportunity. Their idea was that having got an object before the people on which all could unite, they might advance from the ostensible object, protection for domestic animals, to the more important, though hidden object, "pres- ervation for both property and person." The PERIOD OF SETTLEMENT "wolf meeting," as it is called, convened on the 2d of February, 184;?, and was fully attended. It was feared that Dr. I. L. Babcock, the chairman, might suspect the main object, but in this instance he was less astute than some others. The utmost harmony prevailed. It was moved that a com- mittee of si.x should be appointed by the chair to devise a plan and report at a future meeting, to convene, it was decided, on the first Monday in March next at ten o'clock a. m. After the meeting pursuant to adjournment had completed its business by organizing a campaign against wolves, bears and panthers, and adopting rules and regulations for the government of all in their united warfare upon pests, one gentleman arose and addressed the assembly, complimenting it upon the justice and propriety of the action taken for the protection of domestic animals, but "How is it. fellow-citizens," said he, "with you and me and our children and wives? Have we any organization upon which we can rely for mutual protection? Is there any power or influence in the country suffi- cient to protect us and all we hold dear on earth from the worse than wild beasts that threaten and occasionally destroy our cattle? Who in our midst is authorized at this moment to protect our own and the lives of our families? True, the alarm may be given as in a recent case, and we may run who feel alarmed, and shoot off our guns, while our enemy may be robbing our property, ravishing our wives and burning the houses over our defenseless fami- lies. Common sense, prudence and justice to our- selves demand that we act in consistency with the principles we commenced. We have mutually and unitedly agreed to defend and protect our cattle and domestic animals ; now. fellow-citizens. I submit and move the adoption of the two following resolu- tions, that we may have protection for our persons and lives, as well as our cattle and herds : " 'Resolved, That a committee be appointed to take into consideration the propriety of taking measures for the civil and military protection of this colony. " 'Resolved, That said committee consist of twelve persons.' " If an oratorical effort is to be judged by the effect produced upon the audience, this one deserves place among the world's masterpieces. The reso- lutions carried unanimously. The committee appointed consisted of I. L. I'.abcock. Elijah White, James A. O'Neil, Robert Shortess. Robert Xewell, Etienne Lucier, Joseph Gervais, Thomas Hubbard, C. McRoy. W. H. Cray, Sidney Smith and Ceorge Cay. Its first meeting was held before a month had elapsed, the place being Willamette Falls. Jason Lee and George .Abernethy appeared and argued vehemently agaitist the movement as premature. When the office of governor was stricken from the list, the committee unanimously decided to call another meeting for the ensuing 9d of May. W. H. Cray, in his history of Oregon, describes this de- cisive occasion thus : "The 2d of May, the day fixed by the committee of twelve to organize a settlers' government, was close at hand. The Indians had all learned that the 'Bostons' were going to have a big meeting, and they also knew that the English and French were going to meet with them to oppose what the 'Bos- tons' were going to do. The Hudson's Bay Com- pany had drilled and trained their voters for the occasion, under the Rev. F. N. Blanchet and his priests, and they were promptly on the ground in an open field near a small house, and, to the amuse- ment of every American present, trained to vote 'No' to every motion put ; no matter if to carry their point they should have voted 'Yes,' it was 'No.' Le Breton had informed the committee, and the Americans generally, that this would be the course pursued, according to instructions, hence our mo- tions were made to test their knowledge of what they were doing, and we found just what we ex- pected was the case. The priest was not prepared for our manner of meeting him, and, as the record shows, 'considerable confusion was existing in consequence.' By this time we had counted votes. Says Le Breton, 'We can risk it ; let us divide and count.' 'I second the motion,' says Gray. 'Who's for a divide ?' sang out old Joe Meek, as he stepped out. 'All for the report of the committee and an organization, follow me.' This was so sudden and unexpected that the priest and his voters did not know what to do, but every American was soon in line. Le Breton and Gray passed the line and counted fifty-two Americans and but fifty French and Hudson's Bay men. They announced the count — 'Fifty-two for and fifty against.' 'Three cheers for our side !' sang out old Joe Meek. Not one of those old veteran mountain voices was lacking in that shout for liberty. They were given with a will and in a few seconds the chairman. Judge I. L. Babcock, called the meeting to order, and the priest and his band slunk away into the corners of the fences and in a short time mounted their horses and left." After the withdrawal of the opponents of this measure, the meeting became harmonious, of course. Its minutes show that A. E. Wilson was chosen supreme judge;G. W. Le Breton, clerk of the court and recorder; J. L. Meek, sheriff; W. H. Willson, treasurer; Messrs. Hill, Shortess, Newell, Beers, Hubbard, Gray, O'Neil, Moore and Dough- erty, legislative committee ; and that constables, a major and captains were also chosen. The salary of the legislative committee was fixed at $1.25 per diem each member, and it was instructed to prepare a code of laws to be submitted to the people at Champoeg on the 5th day of July. On the day preceding this date, the anniversary of America's birth was didy celebrated. Rev. Gus- tavus Hines delivering the oration. Quite a number INTRODUCTORY who had opposed organization at the previous meet- ing were present on the 5th and announced their determination to acquiesce in the action of the majority and to yield obedience to any government which might be formed, but representatives of the Hudson's Bay Company even went so far in their opposition as to address a letter to the leaders of the movement asserting their ability to defend both themselves and their political rights. A review of the "Organic laws" adopted at this meeting would be interesting, but such is beyond the scope of our volume. Suffice it to say that they were so liberal and just, so complete and comprehensive, that it has been a source of surprise to students ever since that untrained mountaineers and settlers, without experience in legislative halls, could con- ceive a system so well adapted to the needs and conditions of the country. The preamble runs: "We, the people of Oregon territory, for the pur- poses of mutual protection, and to secure peace and prosperity among ourselves, agree to adopt the fol- lowing laws and regulations until such time as the United States of America extend their jurisdiction over us." The two weaknesses, which were soonest felt, were the result of the opposition to the creation of the office of governor and to the levying of taxes. The former difficulty was overcome by substituting, in 1844, a gubernatorial executive for the triumvi- rate which had theretofore discharged the executive functions, and the latter by raising the necessary funds by popular subscription. In 1844, also, a legislature was substituted for the legislative com- mittee. Inasmuch as the first election resulted favorably to some who owed allegiance to the British govern- ment as well as to others who were citizens of the United States, the oath of office was indited as follows: "I do solemnly swear that I will support the organic laws of the provisional government of Oregon, so far as the said organic laws are con- sistent with my duties as a citizen of the United States, or a subject of Great Britain, and faithfully demean myself in office. So help me God." Notwithstanding the opposition to the pro- visional government, the diverse peoples over whom it exercised authority, and the weaknesses in it resulting from the spirit of compromise of its authors, it continued to exist and discharge all the necessary functions of sovereignty until, on Au- gust 14, 1848, in answer to the numerous memorials and petitions, and the urgent appeals of Messrs. Thornton and Meek, congress at last decided to give to Oregon a territorial form of government with all the rights and privileges usually accorded to territories of the United States. Joseph Lane, of Indiana, whose subsequent career presents so many brilliant and so many sad chapters, was appointed territorial governor. CHAPTER VI THE OREGON CONTROVERSY The reader is ni)w in possession of such facts as will enable him to approach intelligently the contemplation of the great diplomatic war of the century, the Oregon controversy. It may be safely asserted that never before in the history' of nations did diplomacy triumph over such wide differences of opinion and sentiment and effect a peaceable adju.stment of such divergent international interests. Twice actual conflict of arms seemed imminent, but the spirit of compromise and mutual forbear- ance ultimately won, a fact which shows that the leaven of civilization was working on both sides of the Atlantic, and gives reason to hope that the day when the swords of the nations shall be beaten into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks may not be as far in the future as some suppose. We need not attempt to trace all the conflicting- claims which were at any time set up by diiiferent nations to parts or the whole of the old Oregon territory, nor to go into the controversy in all its multiform complications, but will confine our inquiry mainly to the negotiations after Great Britain and the I'nited States became the sole claimants. France early established some right to what was denom- inated "the western part of Louisiana," which, in 1762, she conveyed to Spain. This was retroceded to France some thirty-eight years later, and in 1803 was by that nation conveyed with the rest of Louisiana to the United States. So France was left out of the contest. In 1819, by the treaty of Florida, Spain ceded to the LTnited States all right and title whatsoever which she might have to the terri- THE OREGON CONTROVERSY tory on the Pacific, north of the forty-second parallel. What then were the claims of the United States to this vast domain? Naturally, they were of a three-fold character. Our government claimed first in its own right. The Columbia river was discovered by a citizen of the United States and named by him. The river had been subsequently explored from its sources to its mouth by a government expedition under Lewis and Clark. This had been followed and its effects strengthened by American settlements upon the banks of the river. While .^.storia, the American settlement, had been captured in the war of 1812-1."), it had been restored in accordance with the treaty of Ghent, one provision of which was that "all territory, places and possessions whatsoever, taken by either party from the other during the war, or which may be taken after the signing of this treaty, shall be restored without delay." It was a well established and universally recog- nized principle of international law that the dis- covery of a river followed within a reasonable time by acts of occupancy, conveyed the right to the territory drained by the river and its tributary streams. This, it was contended, would make the territory between forty-two degrees and fifty-one degrees north latitude the rightful possession of the United States. The Americans claimed secondly as the suc- cessors of France. By the treaty of Utrecht, the date whereof was 1713, the north line of the Louisiana territory was established as a dividing line between the Hudson's bay territory and the French provinces in Canada. For centuries it had been a recognized principle of international law that "continuity" was a strong element of territorial claim. .\11 European powders, when colonizing the Atlantic seaboard, construed their colonial grants to extend, whether expressly so stated or otherwise, entirely across the continent to the Pacific ocean, and most of these grants conveyed in express terms a strip of territory bounded north and south by stated parallels of latitude, and east and west by the oceans. Great Britain herself had stoutly maintained this principle, even going so far as to wage wnth France for its integrity the war which was ended by the treaty of 1763. By that England acquired Can- ada and renounced to France all territory west of the Mississijipi river. It was therefore contended on the part of the United States that England's claim by continuity passed to France and from France by assignment to this nation. This claim, of course, was subject to any rights which might prove to belong to Spain. Thirdly, the United States claimed as the suc- cessor of Spain all the rights which that nation might have acquired by prior discovery or other- wise having accrued to the United States by the treaty of Florida. In the negotiations between Great Britain and the United States which terminated in the Joint- Occupancy treaty of 1818, the latter nation pressed the former for a final quit-claim to all territory west of the Rocky mountains. In so doing it asserted its intention "to be without reference or prejudice to the claims of any other power," but it was contended on the part of the American nego- tiators, Gallatin and Rush, that the discovery of the Columbia by Gray, its exploration by Lewis and Clark, and the American settlement at Astoria, rendered the claim of the LInited States "at least good against Great Britain to the country through which such river flowed, though they did not assert that the United States had a perfect right to the country." When, however, the United States succeeded to Spain, it was thought that all clouds upon its title were completely dispelled, and thereafter it was the contention of this government that its right to sole occupancy was perfect and indisputable. Great Britain, however, did not claim that her title amounted to one of sovereignty or exclusive pos- session, but simply that it was at least as good as any other. Her theory was that she had a right of occupancy in conjunction with other claimants, which by settlement and otherwise might be so strengthened in a part or the whole of the territory as ultimately to secure for her the right to be clothed with sovereignty. In the discussion of the issue, the earliest explo- rations had to be largely left out of the case, as they were attended with too much vagueness and un- certainty to bear any great weight. The second epoch of exploration was. therefore, lifted to a position of prominence it could not otherwise have enjoyed. Perez and Heceta, for the Spaniards, the former in 1774, the latter a year later, had explored the northwest coast to the fifty-fifth parallel and beyond, Heceta discovering the mouth of the Col- umbia river. To offset whatever rights might accrue from these explorations, England had only the more thorough but less extensive survey of Captain James Cook, made in 1778. The advantage in point of prior discovery would, therefore, seem to be with the LTnited States as assignee of Spain. After the Joint-Occupancy treaty in 1818 had been signed, negotiations on the subject were not reopened until 1824. In that year, obedient to the masterly instructions addressed to him on July 22, 1823, by John Quincy Adams, secretary of state, Richard Rush, minister to England, entered into negotiations with the British ministers. Canning and Huskisson, for the adjustment of the boundary. Mr. Rush was instructed to offer the forty-ninth parallel to the sea, "should it be earnestly insisted upon by Great Britain." He endeavored with great persistency to fulfill his mission, but his propositions were rejected. The British negotiators offered the forty-ninth parallel to the Columbia, then the middle of that river to the sea, with perpetual right to both INTRODUCTORY nations of navigating the harbor at the mouth of the river. This proposal Mr. Rush rejected, so nothing was accomphshed. By treaty conchided in February, 1835, an agreement was entered into between Great Britain and Russia, whereby the line of fifty-four degrees, forty minutes, was fixed as the boundary between the territorial claims of the two nations, a fact which explains the cry of "Fifty- four, forty or fight" that in later days became the slogan of the Democratic party. In 1836-7 another attempt was made to settle the question at issue between Great Britain and the United States. Albert Gallatin then represented this country, receiving his instructions from Henry Clay, secretary of state, who said: "It is not thought necessary to add much to the argument advanced on this point in the instructions given to Mr. Rush and that which was employed by him in the course of the negotiations to support our title as derived from prior discovery and settlement at the mouth of the Columbia river, and from the treaty which Spain concluded on the 33d of Feb- ruary, 1819. That argument is believed to have conclusively established our title on both grounds. Nor is it conceived that Great Britain has or can make out even a colorless title to any portion of the northern coast." Referring to the ot¥er of the forty- ninth parallel in a despatch dated February 34, 1S37, Mr. Clay said: "It is conceived in a genuine spirit of concession and conciliation, and it is our ulti- matum and you may so announce it." In order to save the case of his country from being prejudiced in future negotiations by the liberality of offers made and rejected, Mr. Clay instructed Gallatin to declare "that the American government does not hold itself bound hereafter, in consequence of any proposal which it has heretofore made, to agree to a line which has been so proposed and rejected, but will consider itself at liberty to contend for the full measure of our just claims ; which declaration you must have recorded in the protocol of one of your conferences ; and to give it more weight, have it stated that it has been done by the express direction of the president." Mr. Gallatin sustained the claim of the United States in this negotiation so powerfully that the British plenipotentiaries, Huskisson, Grant and Addington, were forced to the position that Great Britain did not assert any title to the country. They contented themselves with the contention that her claim was sufficiently well founded to give her the right to occupy the country in common with other nations, such concessions having been made to her by the Nootka treaty. The British negotiators com- plained of the recommendation of President Monroe in his message of December 7, 1824, to establish a military post at the mouth of the Columbia river, and of the passage of a bill in the house providing for the occupancy of the Oregon river. To this the American replied by calling attention to the act of the British parliament of 1831, entitled "An act for regulating the fur trade and establishing a criminal and civil jurisdiction in certain parts of North America." He contended with great ability and force that the recommendation and bill complained of did not interfere with the treaty of 1818 and that neither a territorial government nor a fort at the mouth of the river could be rightly complained of by a government which had granted such wide privileges and comprehensive powers to the Hud- son's Bay Company. Before the conclusion of these negotiations, Mr. Gallatin had offered not alone the forty-ninth par- allel, but that "the navigation of the Columbia river shall be perpetually free to subjects of Great Britain in common with citizens of the . United States, provided that the said line should strike the north- easternmost or any other branch of that river at a point at which it was navigable for boats." The British, on their part, again offered the Columbia river, together with a large tract of land between Admiralty inlet and the coast, protesting that this concession was made in the spirit of sacrifice for conciliation and not as one of right. The proposition was rejected and the negotiations ended in the treaty of August 6, 1837, which continued the Joint- Occupancy treaty of 1818 indefinitely, with the pro- viso that it might be abrogated by either party on giving the other a year's notice. "There can be no doubt," says Evans, "that, during the continuance of these two treaties, British foothold was strengthened and the difficult}- of the adjustment of boundaries materially enhanced. Nor does this reflect in the slightest degree upon those great publicists who managed the claim of the United States in those negotiations. Matchless ability and earnest patriotism, firm defense of the United States' claim, and withal a disposition to compromise to avoid rupture with any other nation, mark these negotiations in every line. The language and intention of these treaties are clear and unmis- takable. Neither government was to attempt any act in derogation of the other's claim ; nor could any advantage inure to either; during their continuance the territory should be free and open to citizens and subjects of both nations. Such is their plain purport.' such the only construction which their language will warrant. Yet it cannot be controverted that the United States had thereby precluded itself from the sole enjoyment of the territory which it claimed in sovereignty ; nor that Great Britain acquired a peaceable, recognized and uninterrupted tenancy-in- common in regions where her title was so imperfect that she herself admitted that she could not success- fully maintain, nor did she even assert it. She could well afford to wait. Hers was indeed the policy later in the controversy styled masterly inactivity : 'Leave the title in abeyance, the settlement of the country will ultimately settle the sovereignty.' In no event could her colorless title lose color ; while THE OREGON CONTROVERSY 37 an immediate adjustment of the boundary would have abridged the area of territory in which, through her subjects, she already exercised exclusive posses- sion, and had secured the entire enjoyment of its wealth and resources. The Hudson's Bay Company, by virtue of its license of trade excluding all other r.ritish subjects from the territory, was Great liritain's trustee in possession — an empire company, omnipotent to supplant enterprises projected by citizens of the United States. Indeed, the territory had been appropriated by a wealth)-, all-powerful monopoly, with whom it was ruinous to attempt to compete. Such is a true exhibit of the then con- dition of Oregon, produced by causes extrinsic to the treaty, which the United States government could neither counteract nor avoid. The United States had saved the right for its citizens to enter the territory, had protested likewise that no act or omission on the part of the government or its citizens, or any act of commission or omission by the British government or her subjects during such Joint-Occupancy treaties, should affect in any way the United States' claim to the territory. "The treaties of 1818 and IS'i] have passed into history as conventions for joint occupancy. Prac- tically they operated as grants of possession to Great Britain, or rather to her representative, the Hudson's Bay Company, who, after the merger with the Northwest Company, had become sole occupant of the territory. The situation may be briefly summed up : The United States claimed title to the territory. Great Britain, through its empire-trading company, occupied it — enjoyed all the wealth and resources derivable from it." But while joint occupation was in reality non- occupation by any but the British, it must not be supposed that the case of the United States was allowed to go entirely by default during the regime of the so-called joint occupancy. In congress the advisability of occupying Oregon was frequently and vehemently discussed. Ignorance and miscon- ception with regard to the real nature of Oregon, its climate, soil, products and health fulness, were being dispelled. The representations of the Hud- son's Bay Company that it was a "miasmatic wilder- ness, uninhabitable except by wild beasts and more savage men," were being found to 'be false. In 1821 Dr. John Floyd, a representative in congress from Virginia, and Senator Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri, had interviews at Washington with Ramsey Crooks and Russell Farnhani, who had belonged to Astor's party. From these gentlemen they learned something of the value of Oregon, its features of interest, and its commercial and strategic importance. This information Dr. Floyd made public in 1822, in a speech in support of a bill "to authorize the occupation of the Columbia river, and to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indians therein." On December 29, 182o, a committee was appointed to inquire as to the wisdom of occupying the mouth of the Columbia, and the committee's report, submitted on April 1.5th of the following year, embodied a communication from General Thomas S. Jesup, which asserted that the military (cc ipancy of the Columbia was a necessity for pro- tecting trade and securing the frontier. It recom- mended the despatch of a force of two hundred men across the continent to establish a fort at the mouth of the Columbia river ; that at the same time two vessels with arms, ordnance and supplies be sent thither by sea. He further proposed the estab- lishment of a line of posts across the continent to afford protection to our traders ; and on the expir- ation of the privilege granted to British subjects to trade on the waters of the Columbia, to enable us to remove them from our territory, and secure the whole to our citizens. Those posts would also assure the preservation of peace among the Indians in the event of a foreign war and command their neutrality or assistance as we might think advisable. The letter exposed Great Britain's reasons for her policy of masterly inactivity, and urged that some action be taken by the United States to balance or offset the accretion of British title and for preserving and protecting its own. "History," says Evans, "will generously award credit to the sagacious Jesup for indicating in 182 :i the unerring way to preserve the American title to Oregon territory. Nor will it fail to comrnend the earnest devotion of that little Oregon party in congress for placing on record why the government should assert exclusive jurisdiction within its own territory." In the next congress the subject was again discussed with energy and ability. In 1831 formal negotiations with Great Britain were resumed. All this discussion had a tendency to dispel the idea, promulgated as we have seen by the Hudson's Bay Company, that the territory was worthless and uninhabitable, also to excite interest in the mystic region beyond the mountains. The United States claimed theoretically that it was the possessor of a vested right to absolute sovereignty over the entire Oregon territory, and in all the negotiations after the signing of the treaty of Florida, its ambassadors claimed that the title of their country was clearly established. The fact, however, that joint occupancy was agreed to at all after 1828 could hardly be construed in any other light than as a confession of weakness in our title, notwithstanding the unequivocal stipulations that neither party should attempt anything in derogation of the other's claims, and that the controversy should be determined upon its merits as they existed prior to 1818. If the United States came into possession of an absolute title in 1819, why should it afterward permit occupation by British subjects and the en- forcement of British law in its domain? The United States' title, as before stated, rested upon three foundation stones — its own discoveries INTRODUCTORY and explorations, tlie discoveries and explorations of the Spaniards, and the purchase of Louisiana. While it was not contended that any of these con- veyed exclusive right, the position of our country was that each supplemented the other ; that, though while vested in different nations they were antag- onistic, when held by the same nation, they, taken together, amounted to a complete title. The title was therefore cumulative in its nature and had in it the weakness which is inherent under such con- ditions. It was impossible to determine with definite- ness how many partial titles, the value of each being a matter of uncertainty, would cumulatively amount to one complete title. And however clear the right of the United Stales might seem to its own states- men, it is evident that conviction must be pro- duced in the minds n|' the I'.ritish ,ils(i if war was to be avoided. These facts early came to be ap|)reciated by a clear-visioned, well-informed and determined little band in congress. The debates in that body, as well as numerous publications sent out among the people, stimulated a few daring spirits to brave the dangers of Rocky mountain travel and to see for themselves the truth with regard to Oregon. Reports from these reacted upon congress, enabling it to reason and judge from premises more nearly in accordance with facts. Gradually interest in Oregon became intensified and the determination to hold it for the United States deepened. While the country never receded from its conviction of the existence of an absolute right of sovereignty in itself, the people resolved to establish a title which even the British could not (juestion, to win Oregon from Great Britain even in accordance with the tenets of her own theory. They determined to settle and Americanize the territory. In IS.'ii, and again in ISlSfi, an clement of civilization was introduced of a vastly higher nature than any which accompanied the inroads of the Hudson's Bay Company em- ployees and of trap])crs and traders. We refer to the American missionaries spoken of in former chapters. The part which these had in stinudating this resolution of the .\mcrican people has been and will be sufficiently treated elsewhere. The results of Whitman's midwinter ride and labors and of the numerous other forces at work among the people were crystallized into action in 181:5, when a great, swelling tide of humanity, pulsating with the restless energy and native daring so character- istic of the American, pushed across the desert plains of the continent, through the fastnesses of the Rocky mountains, and into the heart of the disputed terri- tory. Other immigrations followed, and there was introduced into the Oregon question a new feature, the vital force and import of which could not be denied by the adverse claimant. At the same time the American government was placed under an increased obligation to maintain its right to the vallov of the Columbia. But we must return now to the diplomatic history of the controversy, resuming the same with the negotiations of 1831. Martin Van Buren was then minister at London. He received instructions rela- tive to the controversy from Edward Livingston, secretary of state, the tenor of which indicated that the United States was not averse to the presence of the British in the territory. While they asserted confidence in the American title to the entire Oregon territory, they said: "This subject, then, is open for discussion, and, until the rights of the parties can be settled by negotiations, ours can suffer nothing by delay." Under these rather lukewarm instructions, naturally nothing was accomplished. In 1848 efforts to adjust the boundary west of the Rocky mountains were again resumed, this time on motion of Great Britain. That power requested on October ISth of the year mentioned that the United States minister at London should be furnished with instructions and authority to renew negotiations, giving assurance of its willingness to ])roceed to the consideration of the boundary sul)ject "in a perfect spirit of fairness, and to adjust it on a basis of equitable com|)ron.iise." On November ■^■)th Daniel Webster, then secretary of state, replied "tiiat the president concurred entirely in the e.xpe- dienc}' of making the question res])ecting the Oregon territory a subject of immediate attention and negotiation between the two governments. He had already formed the purpose of expressing this opinion in his message to congress, and, at no distant day, a communication will be made to the minister of the United States in London." Negotiations were not, however, renewed until October, 1813, when Secretary Upshur sent instruc- tions to Edward Everett, American minister to Lon- don, again offering the forty-ninth parallel, together with the right of navigating the Columbia river upon equitable terms. In February of the ensuing year, Hon. Richard Packenham, British plenipotentiary, came to the American capital with instructions to negotiate concerning the Oregon territory. No sooner had the discussion fairly begun than a melan- choly event happened, Secretary Upshur being killed on the L^nited States vessel Princeton by the exjilo- sion of a gun. A few months later his successor, John C. Calhoun, continued the negotiations. The arguments were in a large measure a rei)etition of those already advanced, but a greater aggressiveness on the part of the British and persistency in deny- ing the claims of the United States were noticeable. .As in former negotiations, the privilege accorded by the Nootka convention was greatly relied upon by Great Britain, as proving that no absolute title was retained by Spain after the signing of the treaty, hence none could be assigned. One striking state- ment in Lord Packenham's correspondence was to the effect that "he did not feel authorized to enter into discussion respecting the territory north of the forty-ninth jiaralki of latitude, which was under- THE OREGON CONTRO\'ERSV stood by the British government to form the basis of negotiations on the side of the United States, as the hne of the Columbia formed that of Great Britain." He thus showed all too plainly the animus of his government to take advantage of the spirit of compromise which prompted the offer of that line and to construe such offer as an abandonment of the United States' claim to an absolute title to all the Oregon territory. It is hard to harmonize her action in this matter with the '"perfect spirit of fairness" professed in the note of Lord Aberdeen to JMr. Webster asking for a renewal of negotiations. No agreement was reached. During the sessions, of congress of 1843-4 memorials, resolutions and petitions from all parts of the union came in in a perfect flood. The people were thoroughly aroused. In the presidential elec- tion which occurred at that time the Oregon question was a leading issue. "Fifty-four, forty or fight" became the rallying cry of the Democratic party. The platform framed in the Democratic national convention declared : "Our title to the whole of Oregon is clear and unquestionable. No portion of the same ought to be ceded to England or any other ])ower ; and the reoccupation of Oregon at the earliest practical period is a great American measure." The position of the Whig party was milder and less arrogant, but equally emphatic in its assertion of belief in the validit)- of the United States' title. The fact that the Democrats carried in the election, despite the warlike tone of their platform and campaign, is conclusive evidence that the people were determined to hold their territory on the Pacific coast regardless of cost. "Never was a government more signally advised by the voice of a united people. The popular pulse had been felt, and it beat strongly in favor of prompt and decisive measures to secure the immediate reoccupation of I )regon. It equally i^roclaimed that 'no portion thereof ought to be ceded to -Great Britain.'" In January, 1845, Sir Richard Packenham, the British minister. pro]3osed that the matter in dispute be left to arbitration, which proposal was respectfully declined. So the administration of President Tyler terminated without adjustment of the Oregon difficulty. Notwithstanding the uiie(|nivocal voice of the people in demand of the whole of ( )regon, James Buchanan, secretary of state under President Polk, in a communication to Sir Richard Packenham, dated July 12, 1845. again offered the forty-ninth parallel, e.xplaining at the same time that he could not have consented to do so had he not found him- self embarrassed, if not committed, by the acts of his predecessors. Packenham rejected the offer. I'luchanan informed him that he was "instructed by the president to say that he owes it to his country, and a just appreciation of her title to the Oregon territory, to withdraw the proposition to the British govemment which has been made under his direc- tion ; and it is hereby accordingly withdrawn." This formal withdrawal of the previous offers of compro- mise on the forty-ninth parallel, justified as it was by (ireat Britain's repeated rejections, left the Polk administration free and untrammeled. Appearances indicated that it was now ready to give execution to the poi)ular verdict of 1844. The message of the president recommended that the year's notice, required by the treaty of 1827, be immediately given, that measures be adopted for maintaining the rights of the United States to the whole of Oregon, and tliat such legislation be enacted as would aff'oril security and protection to American settlers. In harmony with these recommendations, a reso- lution was adopted April 27, 1840, authorizing the president "at his discretion to give to the govern- ment of Great Britain the notice required by the second article of the said convention of the 6th of August, 1827, for the abrogation of the same." .Acting in accordance with the resolution, Pres- ident Polk the next day sent notice of the determina- tion of the United States "that, at the end of twelve months from and after the delivery of these presents by the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipoten- tiary of the United States at London, to her Britan- nic Majesty, or to her Majesty's principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, the said convention shall be entirelv annulled and abrogated." On tlie 27th of December, 1845, Sir Richard Packenham had submitted another proposal to arbitrate the matter at issue between the two gov- ernments. The proposal was declined on the ground that to submit the proposition in the form stated would preclude the United States from making a claim to the whole of the territory. On January 17th of the following year, a modified proposal was made to refer "the question of title in either govern- ment to the whole territory to be decided ; and if neither were found to pos.sess a complete title to the whole, it was to be divided between them accord- ing to a just appreciation of the claims of each." The answer of Mr. Buchanan was clear and its language calculated to preclude any more arbitration proposals. He said: "If the government should consent to an arbitration upon such terms, this would be construed into an intimation, if not a direct invi- tation to the arbitrator to divide the territory between the two parties. W'ere it possible for this government, under any circumstances, to refer the question to arbitration, the title and the title alone, detached from every other consideration, ought to be the only question submitted. The title of the L''nited States, which the president regards clear and unquestionable, can never be placed in jeopardy by referring it to the decision of any individual, whether sovereign, citizen or subject. Nor does he believe the territorial rights of this nation arc a proper subject of arbitration." But the P.ritish government seems now to have become determined that the (|nestion shoidd be INTRODUCTORY settled without further delay. The rejected arbi- tration proposal was followed on the 6th day of June, 1846, by a draft of a proposed treaty sub- mitted by Sir Richard Packenham to Secretary of State Buchanan. The provisions of this were to the efifect that the boundary should be continued along the forty-ninth parallel "to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver island ; and thence southerly through the middle of said channel and of Fuca's strait to the Pacific ocean." It stipulated that the navigation of the Columbia river should remain free and open to the Hudson's Bay Company and to all British subjects trading with the same ; that the possessory right of that company and of all British subjects south of the forty-ninth parallel should be respected, and that "the farms, lands and other properties of every description belonging to the Puget Sound Agricul- tural Company shall be confirmed to said company. In case, however, the situation of these farms and lands should be considered by the United States to be of public importance, and the United States gov- ernment should signify a desire to obtain possession of the whole, or any part thereof, the property so required shall be transferred to the said government at a proper valuation, to be agreed upon between the parties." Upon receipt of the important communication embodying this draft, the president asked in advance the advice of the senate, a very unusual, though not an unprecedented procedure. Though the request of the president was dated June 10th, and the con- sideration of the resolution to accept the British proposal was not begun until June 12th, on June 13th it was "resolved (two-thirds of the senators present consenting), that the president of the United States be, and is hereby, advised to accept the pro- posal of the British government, accompanying his message to the senate, dated June 10, 1846, for a convention to settle the boundaries, etc., between the United States and Great Britain, west of the Rocky or Stony mountains." The advise was, however, "given under the conviction that, by the true con- struction of the second article of the project, the rights of the Hudson's Bay Company to navigate the Columbia would expire with the termination of their present license of trade with the Indians, etc., on the northwest coast of America, on the 30th day of May, 18o0." The wonderful alacrity with which this advice w^as given and with wnich five degrees, forty minutes of territory were surrendered to Great Britain, is accounted for by some historians (and no doubt they are correct) by supposing that the "cession" was made in the interests of slavery. The friends of that institution were unwilling to risk a w-ar with Great Britain which would interfere with the war with Mexico and the annexation of Texas. Their plan was to acquire as much territory from which slave states could be formed as possible, and they were not overscrupulous about sacrificing terri- tory which must ultimately develop into free states. But for unfortunate diplomacy, "it is quite probable that British Columbia would be to-day, what many would deem desirable in view of its growing importance, a part of the United States." Notwithstanding the great sacrifice made by the United States for the sake of peace, it was not long until war clouds were again darkening our national skies. The determining of the line after it reached the Pacific ocean soon became a matter of dispute. Hardly had the ratifications been exchanged when Captain Prevost. for the British government, set up the claim that Rosario was the channel intended in the treaty. The claim was, of course, denied by Mr. Campbell, who was representing the United States in making the survey line. It was contended by him that the Canal de Haro was the channel mentioned in the treaty. Lord Russell, conscious no doubt of the weakness of his case, proposed as a compromise President's channel, between Rosario and De Haro straits. The generosity of this proposal is obvious when we remember that the San Juan islands, the principal bone of contention, would be on the British side of this line. Indeed, Lord Lyons, the British diplomatic representative in the United States, was ex]iressly instructed that no line should be accepted which did not give San Juan to the British. The position of the United States was stated by Secretary of State Lewis Cass, with equal clearness and decisiveness. Eflforts to settle the matter geographically proved unavailing and diplomacy again had to undergo a severe test. For a number of years the matter remained in abeyance. Then the pioneer resolved to try the plan he had before resorted to in the settlement of the main question. He pushed into the country with wife and family. The Hudson's Bav Company's representatives were alreadv there, and the danger of a clash of arms between the subjects of the queen and the citizens of the United States, resident in the disputed territory, soon became imminent. Such a collision would undoubtedly involve the two countries in war. In the session of the Oregon territorial legis- lature of 18.')"2-3, the archipelago to which San Juan island belongs was organized into a county. Taxes were in due time imposed on Hudson's Bay Com- pany property, and when payment was refused, the sherifif promptly sold sheep enough to satisfy the levy. Recriminations followed as a matter of course and local excitement ran high. General Harney, commander of the department of the Pacific, inaugu- rated somewhat summary proceedings. He landed over four hundred and fifty troops on the island, and instructed Captain Pickett to protect American citizens there at all cost. English naval forces of considerable power gathered about the island. Their commander protested against military occupancy. Pickett replied that he could not, under his orders. THE CAYUSE WAR permit any joint occupancy. General Harney, how- ever, had acted without instructions from the seat of government, and tlie president (Hd not approve his measures officially, though it was plainly evident that the administration was not averse to having the matter forced to an issue. At this juncture, the noted General Scott was sent to the scene of the difficulty, under instructions to permit joint occupancy until the matter in dispute could be settled. Harney was withdrawn from command entirely. Finally, an agreement was reached between General Scott and the British governor at \'ancouver that each party should police the territory with one hundred armed men. Diplomacy was again tried. Great Britain proposed that the question at issue be submitted to arbitration, and she suggested as arbiter the pres- ident of the Swiss council or the king of Sweden and Norway or the king of the Netherlands. The proposition was declined by the United States. For ten years longer the dispute remained unsettled. Eventually, on May 8, 1871, it was mutually agreed to submit the question, without appeal, to the arbitrament of Emperor William, of Germany. George Bancroft, the well-known historian, was chosen to present the case of the United States, and it is said that "his memorial of one hundred and twenty octavo pages is one of the most finished and unanswerable diplomatic arguments ever produced." The British also presented a memorial. These were interchanged and replies were prepared by each contestant. The emperor gave the matter careful and deliberate attention, calling to his assist- ance three eminent jurists. His award was as fol- lows : "Most in accordance with the true interpreta- tion of the treaty concluded on the 1.5th of June, 1846, between the governments of her Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, is the claim of the government of the United States, that the boundary line between the territories of her Britannic Majesty and the L'nited States should be drawn through the Haro channel. Authenticated by our autograph signature and the impression of the Imperial Great Seal. Given at Berlin, October 31, 1873." This brief and unequivocal decree ended forever the vexatious controversy which for so many years had disturbed friendly feelings and endangered the peace of the two great Anglo-Saxon peoples. No shot was fired ; no blood was shed ; diplomacy had triumphed. CHAPTER VII THE CAYUSE WAR Long before the settlement of the Oregon ques- tion, signs of another struggle for ownership of the country had become distinctly visible. The Indian had begun to perceive what must have been fully apparent to the tutored mind of the more enlight- ened race, that when the sturdy American began following the course of empire to westward, that harsh, inexorable law of life, the survival of the fittest, would be brought home to the red man. He had begun to feel the approach of his own sad fate and was casting about for the means to avert the coming calamity or, if that could not be, to delay the evil hour as long as possible. Although no large immigration had entered the Oregon country prior to 1S4:), that nf the preceding year numbering only one hundred and eleven, the few settlers of ( )regon had already become appre- hensive for the safety of their brethren en route to the west, and .Sub-Indian Agent White had sent a message to meet the immigrants of 1843 at Fort Hall, warning tliem to travel in companies of nut less than fifty and to keep close watch upon their property. The reason for the latter injunction be- came apparent to the travelers in due time, for the Indians, especially those who had become accus- tomed to white people by reason of their residence near the mission, were not slow to help themselves to clothing, household goods, cattle or horses, when an opportunity was ofifered. However, the fact fbat none of the immigrants settled near the mission had a quieting effect upon the Indians of that neigh- borhood. In 1844 an Indian named Cockstock. with a small following, made hostile demonstrations in Oregon City. Failing to provoke a quarrel with the white residents, he retired to an Indian village across the river and endeavored to incite its occu- pants to acts of hostility. In this he failed. It appears that formerly Cockstock had visited the home (if Dr. White, purposing to kill him for a 42 INTRODUCTORY real or fancied wrong, but. his intended victim being absent, he had not been able to do greater damage than to break the windows of the sub-agent's house. An unsuccessful attempt had been made to arrest him for this offense, and he was now bent on calling the Americans to account for their audacity in pursuing him with such intent. With an interpre- ter he returned to the Oregon City side. He was met at the landing by a number of whites, who doubtless meant to arrest him. In the excitement firearms were discharged on both sides and George W. Le Breton, who had served as clerk of the first legislative committee of Oregon, was wounded. The other Indians withdrew to a position on the blufifs above town and began shooting at the whites, who returned their fire with such effectiveness as soon to dislodge them. In the latter part of the fight two more Americans were wounded, one of whom died, as did also Le Breton, from the effects of poison from the arrow points. The Indian loss was Cockstock killed and one warrior wounded. Aside from this, there was no serious trouble with Indians in the Willamette valley during the earlier years, though frequently the Indian agent was called upon to settle disputes caused by the appro- priation by Indians of cattle belonging to white men. Prior to 18-12, a number of indignities had been offered to Dr. Whitman at his mission station at Waiilatpu, near where Walla Walla now is. These he had borne with Christian forbearance. During the winter of 1843 he went east. Some of the Indians supposed that he intended to bring enough of his people to punish them for these offenses. He did bring with him in the summer of 1843 nearly nine hundred people, none of whom, however, were equipped for Indian warfare or of a militant spirit. As no offense was oft'ered the Indians and not an acre of their lands was appropriated by these whites, the quiet of the upper country was not disturbed. But the mission was thereafter practically a failure ' as far as its primary purpose was concerned, as was also that of Rev. H. H. Spalding in the Nez Perce country. After the return of Whitman, an event hap- pened which boded no good to the white people. About forty Indians, mostly of the Cayuse and Walla Walia tribes, having decided to embark ex- tensively in the cattle business, formed a company to visit California for the purpose of securing stock by trading with the Spaniards. Peo-peo-mox-mox, head chief of the Walla Wallas, was the leader of the enterprise. The company reached California in safety, had good success for a while in accom- plishing their ends, but eventually fell into difficulty through their unwillingness to be governed bv the laws of the land. While on a hunting expedition, they met and conquered a band of robbers, recover- ing a number of head of horses stolen from Ameri- cans and Spaniards. Some of them were claimed by their former owners, in accordance with the law that property of this kind belonged to the original possessors until sold and marked with a transfer mark. An incident of the dispute was the killing by an American (in cold blood if the Indian account be true) of Elijah, son of Peo-peo-mox-mox. This unfortunate event had its eft'ect in deepening the hatred of the Indians for the American people. Peo-peo-mox-mox and his band were eventually expelled from California by the Spanish authori- ties, being pursued with such vigor that they had to leave their cattle behind. They returned home in the spring of 1845. Dr. Whitman was deeply disturbed by the incident, fearing that the Indians would take their revenge upon his mission, and sent a hasty message to the sub-Indian agent, so stating. White was visited about the same time by an Indian chief, Ellis, who wished advice as to what to do in the matter. White states that he was apprehen- sive of difficulty in adjusting it, "particularly as they lay much stress uixjn the restless, disaffected scamps late from Willamette to California, loading them with the vile epithets of 'dogs, thieves,' etc., from which they believed or affected to that the slanderous reports of our citizens caused all their loss and disasters, and therefore held us responsible." "According to Ellis," writes ^Irs. \'ictor, "the Walla Wallas, Cayuses, Nez Perces, Spokanes, Pend d'Oreilles and Snakes were on terms of amity and alliance ; and a portion of them were for raising two thousand warriors and marching at once to California to take reprisals by capture and plunder, enriching themselves by the spoils of the enemy. Another part were more cautious, wishing first to take advice and to learn whether the white people in Oregon would remain neutral. A third party were for holding the Oregon colony responsible, because Elijah had been killed by an American. "There was business, indeed, for an Indian agent with no government at his back, and no money to carry on either war or diplomacy. But Dr. White was equal to it. He arranged a cordial reception for the chief among the colonists ; planned to have Dr. McLoughlin divert his mind by refer- ring to the tragic death of his own son by treachery, which enabled him to sympathize with the father and relatives of Elijah ; and on his own part took him to visit the schools and his own library, and in every way treated the chief as though he were the first gentleman in the land. Still further to establish social equality, he put on his fanner's garb and be- gan working in his plantation, in which labor Ellis soon joined him, and the two discussed the benefits already enjoyed by the native population as the result of intelligent labor. "Nothing, however, is so convincing to an Indian as a present, and here it would seem Dr. White nnist have failed, but not so. In the autumn of 1844, thinking to prevent trouble with the immi- THE CAYUSE WAR .q-ration by enabling the chiefs in the upper country to obtain cattle without violating the laws, he had given them some ten-dollar treasury drafts to be exchanged with the emigrants for young stock, which drafts the emigrants refused to accept, not knowing where they should get them cashed. To heal the wound caused by this disappointment, White now sent word by Ellis to these chiefs to come down in the autumn with Dr. Whitman and Mr. Spalding to hold a council over the California affair, and to bring with them their ten-dollar drafts to exchange with him for a cow and a calf each, out of his own herds. He also promised them that if they would postpone their visit to California until the spring of 1847, and each chief assist him to the amount of two beaver skins, he would estab- lish a manual training and literary school for their children, besides using every means in his power to have the trouble with the Californians adjusted, and would give them from his private funds five hundred dollars with which to purchase young c