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HISTORY
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PACIFIC NORTHWEST:
OREGON AND WASHINGTON
EMBRACING AN ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGINAL DISCOVERIES ON THE PACIFIC COAST OF
NORTH AMERICA, AND A DESCRIPTION OF THE CONQUEST, SETTLEMENT AND
SUBJUGATION OF THE VAST COUNTRY
VAST COUNTRY INCLUDED IN THE
ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF OREGON
ALSO INTERESTING
BIOGRAPHIES OF THE EARLIEST SETTLERS AND
EARLIEST_SETFLERS
MORE PROMINENT MEN AND WOMEN OF THE
PACIFIC NORTHWEST
INCLUDING A STATISTICAL AND GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF THE CLIMATE, SOIL, PRODUCTIONS,
INDUSTRIES, IMPROVEMENTS AND OCCUPATIONS, AS WELL AS THE NATURAL ADVANTAGES
AND RESOURCES AND ARTIFICIAL ACQUIREMENTS OF THE GREAT STATES OF
OREGON AND WASHINGTON
VOLUME 11-1889
COMPILED AND PUBLISHED BY THE
North Pacific History Company
OF PORTLAND, OREGON
4
F
852
vo I
•H b7
PRESS OF
H. S. CROCKER & CO.
SAN FRANCISCO.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889, by the
NORTH PACIFIC HISTORY COMPANY,
OF PORTLAND, OREGON
(being a private corporation under the laws of the State of Oregon),
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

MA
Lith CROCKER & CO.S.F.
INDIAN
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VETERANS
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11
GENERAL DIVISIONS
OF THE
HISTORY OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST:
OREGON AND
AND WASHINGTON.
VOLUME I.
PART I.
Voyages of Discovery to the Pacific Coast-Voyages to Northwest America-Trading Enterprises
and Settlements upon which Acts, Claim to the Coasts and Territory Originated, or was Asserted by
Spain, Russia, Great Britain and the United States The Limits of the Territory Called Oregon
Ascertained. By Hon. Elwood Evans: Chapters 1 to 16.
PART II.
The Oregon Controversy, or the International Conflict as to the Sovereignty of the Territory
Westward of the Rocky or Stony Mountains. By Hon. Elwood Evans: Chapters 17 to 20.
PART III.
The Settlement and Americanization of Oregon down to its Organization as a Territory of the
United States. By Hon. Elwood Evans: Chapters 21 to 35.
PART IV.
Oregon History, together with the Current Contemporaneous History of Washington, down to the
Admission of Oregon as a State, including the Local History of Southern Oregon by Colonel L. F.
Mosher. By Hon. Elwood Evans: Chapters 36, 37, 38, 39, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55 and 56.
By Colonel L. F. Mosher: Chapters 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48 and 57.
VOLUME II.
PART V.
Historic Summary of the Several States and Territories West of the Rocky Mountains and North
of Forty-two Degrees North Latitude, from the Admission of Oregon as a State to the year 1889, the
date of the Admission of the States of Washington and Montana. By Hon. Elwood Evans: Chapters
58 and 59.
PART VI.
A Graphic Account of the Religions or Mythology of the Indians of the Pacific Northwest, including
a History of their Superstitions, Marriage Customs, Moral Ideas and Domestic Relations, and their
Conception of a Future State, and the Re-habiliment of the Dead. By Dr. G. P. Kuykendall: Chapter
60.
PART VII.
The Pacific Northwest as it is To-day-Its Physical Aspects, Industries, Vast Natural Resources
and Paramount Advantages. By Prof. W. D. Lyman: Chapters 61 and 62.
PART VIII.
Interesting Biographies and Personal Reminiscences of Pioneer Settlers and More Prominent Men
and Women of the Pacific Northwest. By Learned and Entertaining Writers.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
CHAPTER LVIII.
(1859-1889.)
Oregon as a State in the Federal Union - Formal Admission of the State Senators Lane and Smith, and
Representative Grover Sworn In Federal Appointments for State — Lansing Stout Elected to Congress-
Delegates to the Charleston Democratic National Convention Instructed to Vote for General Lane for
President — Election of George K. Shiel― Exciting Elections of 1860- Edward D. Baker and James W.
Nesmith Elected United States Senators-Presidential Election-Special Election Ordered for Congressmen
Andrew J. Thayer Receives Majority - Republican Appointees for State · Colonel Edward D. Baker Killed
at Ball's Bluff - Governor Whiteaker Appoints Benjamin Stark United States Senator General Harney
Appointed Commander of the Department of Oregon - The Wallen Wagon Road Expedition - Protection to
Immigrants Expeditions of Major Steen and Captain A. J. Smith in the Snake Country - Superintendent
Geary Seeks the Bannack Chiefs to Hold a Council, but Returns Without Success from the Hostile Country-
Attack on Captain Smith, and His Retreat Colonel Wright Succeeds General Haruey — Relief and
Reinforcements Sent to Major Steen He Follows the Indians Up Steen's Mountain and Down the Other
Side-Troops Leave the Country and Go Into Winter Quarters — Massacre of Immigrants at Salmon Falls-
Captain Dent Sent to the Rescue of the Survivors - Oregon Steam Navigation Company - Military Operations
in the Snake Country - Fort Boise Established and Garrisoned-Shoshone War-Political, Legislative and
Current Résumé .
I
CHAPTER LIX.
q
(1859-1889.)
-
Washington Territory from the Admission of the State of Oregon Till Its Own Admission as a State - Enlarged
Area of Washington Consequent Upon Oregon State Boundaries - Opening of the Walla Valley to Settlement
and Occupancy of the Upper Country - Discovery of Gold in Southeastern Washington - Setting Off of the
Territory of Idaho - Followed by the Settlement of Montana Territory — Settlement and Development of
the Puget Sound Region an Incident of the Fraser River Excitement The San Juan Island Imbroglio Settled
Finally by the Award of William I., Emperor of Germany Piracies and Depredations of Northern Indians—
The Northern Pacific Railroad-Origin, Progress and Completion-Indian Disturbances in Eastern Washington
-Treaty and Non-Treaty Nez Perces Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War - Chief Moses, Himself and
Band Assigned to Columbia Reservation Convention to Frame State Constitution, and Efforts to Secure
Admission as a State - Efforts to Exclude Chinamen Condensed Political History- Admission of the State
of Washington .
•
32
CHAPTER LX.
The Indians of the Pacific Northwest - Their Mythical Creation, Gods of the Wat-tee-tash Age, Legends, Myths,
Religion, Customs Relating to Marriage, Naming of Children, and Murder Their Dances and their Doctors
The Rehabiliment of the Dead, and Their Idea of a Future State
60
→
CHAPTER LXI.
The Pacific Northwest as It Is To-day — Geographical Outline - Rivers and Harbors - Agricultural Resources
Timber Resources - Live-stock Interests Fisheries - Mineral Resources
CHAPTER LXII.
The Pacific Northwest as It Is To-day Education and Social State Its Towns, Scenic Attractions and General
Appearance.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
DESCRIPTION OF SOME HISTORIC TOWNS, INDUSTRIES, ETC. .
THE NEZ PERCE WAR
96
146
. 184
646
659
CHIEF MOSES' DEMONSTRATION ..
GENERAL INDEX .
INDEX TO PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF VOLUME I.
INDEX TO PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF VOLUME II.
661
663
WHEREAS, by act of the Legislature of the Territory of Oregon, approved 10th December 1847, the
Governor of said Territory, was (with other powers) authorized to raise a regiment of volunteer riflemen: which said
act also authorized JESSE APPLEGATE, A. L. LOVEJOY and G. L. CURRY, as Commissioners, to negotiate a loan not
to exceed One Hundred Thousand Dollars, for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of that act, and to pledge the
faith of the Territory for the payment of such sum as might be so negotiable, within three years from the date of said
Ipan unless sooner discharged by the Government of the United States. And
WHEREAS the said commissioners resigned their said office without performing all the duties thereof: And
WHEREAS by act of the Legislature of said Territory, approved 22d Dec. A. D. 1847, A. L. LOVEJOY, HUGH
BURNS, and W. H. WILSON, were appointed a Board of Commissioners to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation
of said former Board of Commissioners, clothed with the same powers, and subject to the same restrictions as defined
in the said act, approved December 10th, A. D. 1847.
$25-
No.. 72
KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS,
THAT WE, A. L. LOVEJOY, HUGH BURNS, AND W. H. WILSON, Commissioners of the Terri-
tory of Oregon, acknowledge that the Territory of Oregon is held and stands firmly bound unto Autorice.
Rivet

Zein
dollars, with interest at the rate of
his
in the full and just sum of the resty
twenty five
per cent per annum to be paid unto the said
Antoine Rivet
heirs, executors, administrators or assigns, for the payment of which, well.
and truly to be made, we, as Gommissioners aforesaid, bind the Territory of Oregon firmly by these presents.
Signed with our hands and sealed with our scals, this
Both
THE CONDITIONS of the above obligation are such, that if the
charge the said sum of
Twenty five
day of Bannery
A. D. 184
Government of the United States shall dis-
dollars, with the interest, within three years
from the date hereof; or if the Territory of Oregon shal pay and satisfy the same within the time last aforesaid, then.
the above obligation shall be void, otherwise remain in full force and virtue,
L. S.
Addroym"}
Hugh Burns
Mr. The Million

Page
Att. Fred Per
ес
L. S.
} {
L. S.
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Commissioners.
Geo. Abernethy
Gov.
Agav. Greyon Fashions


CHAPTER LVIII.
(1859-1889.)
Oregon as a State in the Federal Union - Formal Admission of the State Senators
Lane and Smith, and Representative Grover Sworn In-Federal Appointments
for State - Lansing Stout Elected to Congress-Delegates to the Charleston
Democratic National Convention Instructed to Vote for General Lane for
President-Election of George K. Shiel-Exciting Elections of 1860 Edward
D. Baker and James W. Nesmith Elected United States Senators- Presidential
Election-Special Election Ordered for Congressman Andrew J. Thayer
Receives Majority-Republican Appointees for State-Colonel Edward D.
Baker Killed at Ball's Bluff-Governor Whiteaker Appoints Benjamin Stark
United States Senator General Harney Appointed Commander
Commander of the
Department of Oregon - The Wallen Wagon Road Expedition-Protection to
Immigrants- Expeditions of Major Steen and Captain A. J. Smith in the Snake
Country - Superintendent Geary Seeks the Bannack Chiefs to Hold a Council,
but Returns Without Success from the Hostile Country - Attack on Captain
Smith, and His Retreat - Colonel. Wright Succeeds General Harney - Relief
and Reinforcements Sent to Major Steen— He Follows the Indians Up Steen's
Mountain and Down the Other Side — Troops Leave the Country and Go Into
Winter Quarters-Massacre of Immigrants at Salmon Falls-Captain Dent
Sent to the Rescue of the Survivors - Oregon Steam Navigation Company
Military Operations in the Snake Country- Fort Boise Established and
Garrisoned Shoshone War-Political Legislative and Current Résumé.
IN
N THE previous volume has been detailed the gradual growth and transition of
Oregon from a territorial condition to a state within, and a component part of, the
American Union. The admission had been consummated by President James Buchanan,
on the 14th day of February, 1859, approving the act of Congress admitting Oregon as
a state, which had passed February 12, 1859. Upon the 14th of February, Oregon's
first United States senators, Joseph Lane and Delazon Smith, presented their certificates
of election by the Oregon state legislature (which had taken place on the 5th of July,
1858), and were sworn in. Senator Lane drew the term ending March 3, 1861. Senator
Smith's term expired March 3, 1859. Lafayette Grover, member-elect of the United
States House of Representatives, took his seat as member of the Thirty-fifth Congress
on the fifteenth day of February.
The officers constituting the state government who had been elected in June, 1858,
had been duly inaugurated July 8, 1858, as required by the state constitution. That
instrument also rendered necessary a meeting of the state legislature (the members of
which had been elected at the same time as the state officers), to perform all necessary
acts and pass all necessary laws to perfect the state organization. But little legislation
was attempted; and the understanding was that the session was held simply to comply
2
2
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
with a requirement of the constitution, and that all laws passed, and all acts and
proceedings, should not take effect until the formal and complete admission of the state
into the Union.
The constitution had designated the commencement of the first regular session of
the state legislature to be in September; and sessions were to be held biennially
thereafter. That time had been allowed to pass without the meeting, as it had become
definitely known that the first session of the Thirty-fifth Congress had adjourned without
passing the Admission Bill. It will also be remembered that, at the annual election in
June, 1858, members of the territorial legislative assembly had also been elected. At the
time fixed by the territorial law, the territorial assembly convened as usual. Governor
George L. Curry, territorial governor, sent in his message, as though no change had
been attempted. In 1858, George H. Williams had been reappointed chief justice of
the supreme court of Oregon Territory, and Reuben P. Boise, associate justice. Walter
Forward had been appointed marshal of Oregon Territory, to succeed Colonel John
McCraken. Later and subsequent to admission, Matthew P. Deady, who had been
elected one of the judges of the state supreme court under the state constitution, was
appointed judge of the United States district court of the State of Oregon. The
vacancy on the state supreme bench, made by Justice Deady becoming United States
district judge, was filled by the appointment of P. P. Prim. The state having been
admitted, Andrew J. Thayer was appointed United States district attorney; and Dolphus
B. Hannah received the appointment of first United States marshal for the State of
Oregon.
At the ensuing election, held June 27, 1859, Lansing Stout, the Democratic candidate,
beat David Logan, his Republican competitor, by sixteen votes. The Republican state
convention which nominated Logan also elected three delegates to the Republican national
convention to be held in 1860, to nominate a candidate for President of the United States,
and instructed such delegates to vote for the nomination of William H. Seward. At that
election Lafayette Grover and Governor George L. Curry, both Democrats, canvassed the
state for the United States senatorship, made vacant by the expiration of the term of
Delazon Smith.
The Democratic party had become divided on the question of slavery in the territories,
upon the Douglas issue; added to which, General Joseph Lane was an aspirant for nomi-
nation to the Presidency. Matters of partisan usage also occasioned increased difference
of feeling. The precedent in the apportionment of delegate representation to former
Democratic territorial or state conventions had been the congressional vote. Adopting
such precedent, the state central committee had called a state convention to nominate
delegates to the Democratic national convention of 1860, basing the number of delegates
upon the vote of Lansing Stout in the Logan-Stout election. This allowed Marion county
four votes. An earnest protest was made to such apportionment. Several counties.
disregarded the call, and sent larger delegations. Marion county sent ten.
The call was
adhered to by the state convention; and four only of the returned Marion delegates were
admitted. Thereupon the delegations of Marion, Clatsop, Coos, Curry, Umpqua, Wasco
and Washington counties withdrew from the Eugene convention. After the withdrawal,
Joseph Lane, Lansing Stout and Matthew P. Deady were elected delegates to the
Democratic national convention to assemble at Charleston in 1860, with instructions to
use their influence to secure the nomination of General Joseph Lane as Democratic
candidate for the Presidency.
EXCITING ELECTIONS OF 1860.
3
The Oregon state constitution had fixed 1858 as the year in which the first election
was to be held, and had provided for elections to be held biennially thereafter. The first
election (1858) had been held; and Grover's term of office expired March 3, 1859. The
state legislature passed a law providing for a special election, at which Lansing Stout, ast
before stated, had been elected, and had been duly admitted as a member of the Thirty-sixth
Congress for the term expiring March 3, 1861. The Democratic state committee called a
state convention to meet at Eugene in April, 1860, to nominate a candidate for Congress
to be voted for at the biennial election to be held in 1860. The Democrats of the counties
of Clatsop, Curry, Marion, Polk, Tillamook and Washington refused to elect delegates.
George K. Shiel was nominated. Again the Republicans nominated David Logan as
their candidate. Shiel was elected by a majority of one hundred and four votes. That
summer canvass preliminary to the Presidential election was intensely earnest. Edward
D. Baker came from California and made speeches advocating the election of the
Republican candidate. James W. Nesmith (1) opposed the election of George K. Shiel.
The chief Democratic canvassers were James K. Kelly, Delazon Smith and George K.
Shiel.
Abraham Lincoln had been nominated at Chicago. John C. Breckenridge and Joseph
Lane were the candidates presented by the Charleston convention. Stephen A. Douglas
and Herschell V. Johnson were nominated by a Democratic convention which assembled
at Baltimore. The American party had also candidates in the distinguished personages.
of John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts. Such were the nominees
of the respective political organizations in the great presidential struggle of 1860. The
state Democratic central committee indorsed Breckenridge and Lane.
The Douglas
Democrats held a state convention in September, and nominated a full ticket of presidential
electors. They cordially indorsed the platform of the Baltimore convention, and its
candidates, Douglas and Johnson, denounced secession, and in unmistakable language
put the Douglas Democracy of Oregon on record as loyal to the Union.
On the 10th of September, the state legislature convened. It consisted of ten
Republicans, twenty-four Douglas Democrats and sixteen Breckenridge Democrats. The
great question of the hour was the election of United States senators. Sufficient of
the Douglas Democrats had allied themselves with the Republicans to assure an
anti-Breckenridge majority of six in the House. In the Senate the vote was a tie, the
anti-Breckenridge Democrats supporting William Tichenor, of Coos, for president of the
senate, and the Breckenridge senators voting for Luther Elkins of Linn. It was at first
the programme of the Breckenridge party to elect Delazon Smith and another Breckenridge
Democrat senators, or to defeat any election, even should it become necessary to leave the
When
(1) James W. Nesmith was born July 23, 1820, in Washington county, Maine. He removed to New Hampshire while quite young, aud
remained there until his eighteenth year, when he went to Ohio. From there he found his way to Missouri, and from thence, in the great
migration of 1843, he came to Oregon. Forty years later, at the annual reunion of the Oregon pioneers (1883), he performed the part of historian
of that memorable train, and placed his comrades high on the roll of fame as avant couriers in the Americanization of the region west of the
Rocky Mountains. He distinguished himself for his frontier characteristics in the great overland journey, and became well known to the large
element now infused into Oregon settlement. By his popular manners, his ever ready and spontaneous humor, and his strongly marked character,
he at once became prominent as a leading man in affairs. He took an active part in the formation of the Provisional government, and though of
youthful age, was appointed its judge in 1845. In 1847 and 1848 he represented Polk county in the legislative assembly of that government.
the news came of the perfidious massacre of the Whitmans at Waiilatpu, no one rallied the men more than he, nor so encouraged the authorities
to prompt measures against the perfidious Cayuses. In the war which followed, he performed efficient services. His early educational advantages
had been extremely limited; but he had made the best use of his meager opportunities. To the brightest natural gifts he had added application
and ambition; and his great individuality and keen knowledge of human nature made him a natural leader. A successful orator, frank, fearless
and independent, he was a mau among men. Self-made, self-taught, self-reliant, he took his place at the bar in 1849. With all the elements to
make a successful advocate, yet he preferred the freedom of the farm and the independence of farm life. In 1853, on the Indian outbreak in
Southern Oregon, he raised a company of volunteers, and served as captain in the Rogue river war, and acquired a great reputation as an Indian
campaigner. On his return, he was appointed marshal for the territory, which office he resigned in October, 1855, to accept the colonelcy of the
Oregon mounted volunteers in the great Oregon-Washington Indian war of 1855. He conducted one campaign in the Yakima country, the details
of which are fully narrated in the previous volume. In 1857, he received the appointment of superintendent of Indian affairs for Oregon and
Washington Territories, which he held for two years.
He canvassed the state of Oregon as a candidate for Presidential elector on the Douglas ticket in 1860. He was elected United States senator
to succeed Delazon Smith, by a fusion of Republicans and Douglas Democrats. As a senator, through the great struggle for national endurance,
his votes were always in favor of the Union, and for an unlimited supply of men and money to support the army and navy who were in the front
to preserve it. In 1873, he was elected a member of the United States House of Representatives to serve out the remainder of the term of Joseph
G. Wilson, deceased. He was stricken with paralysis in 1884, from which he never recovered. He lingered till June 17, 1885, when his brilliant,
useful and patriotic life was ended.
4
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
legislature without a quorum. This became manifest the second day of the session.
During the night six senators had left the seat of government. Without a quorum being
present, the senate elected Mr. Elkins President, and then issued process for the arrest of
the absentees. The fugitive senators avoided arrest for nine days. During that time,
the two houses had met in joint convention; and an unsuccessful ballot had been taken.
The Republicans had voted for Edward D. Baker and Amory Holbrook. The Douglas
Democrats supported James W. Nesmith and George H. Williams. The Breckenridge
Democrats had voted for Joseph Lane and Delazon Smith.
The Legislature on the tenth day adjourned sine die. Governor Whiteaker called
them together again on the twenty-fourth. On that day they assembled; but no voting
for senator took place until October 1st. The candidates in the meantime had become
more numerous. Jesse Applegate and David Logan, Republicans, Judge Deady, Governor
Curry and Lafayette Grover were now among those prominently spoken of in connection
with the office. There was a long and bitter strife between the two Democratic houses.
Many offers and combinations were proposed and rejected. The Breckenridge men
remained inexorable in their demand that Delazon Smith should be one of the senators.
The Douglas Democrats as earnestly protested and refused to entertain the proposition.
The Breckenridge men agreed to support a Douglas man if enough votes were given to
elect Smith; but the Douglas men would not accept him on any terms. After seventeen
unsuccessful ballots had been taken, the Douglas Democrats abandoned the hope of
electing two Democrats, without one of them should be Delazon Smith. A coalition with
the Republicans followed which resulted in the election of James W. Nesmith for the
long term, and Edward D. Baker for the short term (1).
With the change of National administration came also a change in the federal officers
of the State of Oregon. B. J. Pengra had been appointed surveyor-general. William H.
Rector became superintendent of Indian affairs for Oregon (the territory of Washington
had again been erected into a separate superintendency). Thomas J. Dryar, the veteran
journalist, and founder of the Oregonian, received the appointment of commissioner to
the Sandwich Islands. William L. Adams was appointed collector of customs at Astoria.
Upon the death of Senator Edward D. Baker, in October, 1861, Governor Whiteaker
appointed Benjamin Stark (2) to fill the vacancy until the regular session of the state
legislature. Charges of disloyal sentiments were preferred against Mr. Stark; and for
several months the United States Senate denied him a seat in that body. Finally, in
February, 1862, by a vote of twenty-six to nineteen, he was admitted, his colleague,
Senator James W. Nesmith, voting for his admission.
On the 13th of September, 1858, the Military Department of the Pacific had been
divided into the two Departments of California and Oregon. To the latter had been
assigned Major-General William S. Harney, U. S. Army, with headquarters at Fort
Vancouver. He arrived at his headquarters October 29th, and immediately issued an order
revoking the Wool interdict against white settlement in Walla Walla valley. The Oregon
(1) Edward D. Baker, the brilliant orator and soldier, was born in England in 1811. He came to Philadelphia when but five years old, where
he was soon left an orphan. He learned a trade, and, although struggling with great difficulties, obtained that thorough classic education which
distinguished all his speeches. In his nineteenth year he migrated to Carrollton, Illinois, where he studied law, was admitted to practice and
early became famous as an advocate. He served in the Black Hawk War as captain. He was a member of the Illinois legislature for ten years
and was elected to Congress in 1845. He resigned in 1846 to take part in the Mexican War as colonel of an Illinois volunteer regiment. He
distinguished himself at Cerro Gordo. After the war he was re-elected to Congress, and served till 1851, when he went to Panama and engaged
in building the railroad. He settled in San Francisco in 1852, where he successfully practiced law till he came to Oregon in 1860 and secured an
election to the United States senate from March 4, 1861. At the outbreak of the Rebellion he raised, in Philadelphia, a regiment named the
California, of which he became the colonel. He was killed at Ball's Bluff, Virginia, October 21, 1861.
(2) Benjamin Stark, one of the pioneer proprietors of the city of Portland, was born in New Orleans, June 26, 1820. He received a good
academic education in New London, Connecticut, and a thorough mercantile education in the city of New York. He settled at Portland, Oregon,
and established commercial relations with the Sandwich Islands, and with California while yet a province of Mexico. In 1850, he abandoned
commercial pursuits, read law, and was admitted in 1851. He served as a member of the territorial and state legislatures of Oregon, and was
appointed a senator by the governor of Oregon, serving a part of the Thirty-seventh Congress. He has not permanently resided in Oregon since
that date.

雞
​CAPTAIN JACK.
SMOHALLAH.
MOSES.
YOUNG CHIEF JOSEPH.
SEATTLE.
NOTED INDIAN CHIEFS.
THE WALLEN WAGON ROAD EXPEDITION.
5
state legislature, then in session, passed a joint resolution requesting, of the major-general
commanding the Department of Oregon, the presence of sufficient troops on the line of
the immigrant routes in the Snake country to protect immigration, and urging the
establishment of a military post at Fort Boise. On April 27, 1859, special orders were
issued at Fort Vancouver, as follows (1): "To increase the facilities of communication
between the Columbia river and the valley of Great Salt Lake, in connection with the
overland route to the frontiers of the Western states, the following command will be
organized at Fort Dalles, to move from that point by the 1st of June next, for the purpose
of opening a good wagon road to the Snake river, in the vicinity of the mouth of Malheur
river, and from thence to a point called 'City Rocks,' at the junction of the road from
Forts Laramie and Bridger with the road from Fort Hall to Salt Lake City, viz.:
Companies E and H of the First Dragoons; Company H, Fourth Infantry; a detachment
of engineers, Company A; Captain Henry D. Wallen, Fourth Infantry, commanding."
In the letter of instructions accompanying the orders will be found: "The portion of
the road from the Dalles to the Snake river remains to be explored. You are therefore
directed to ascertain if a wagon road cannot be made up the John Day river, and thence
over to the headwaters of the Malheur, following down that route to the Snake river."
That expedition started from Fort Dalles June 4th, and reached Camp Floyd, Utah,
August 16th, reported to General A. Sidney Johnston, and remained there till August
20th. Returning to Fort Boise, the command moved slowly to allow the immigrants to
keep up, and to afford protection while their trains journeyed through the Snake river
region. Of the Bannack Snakes infesting this region, Captain Wallen said: "These
Bannack Snakes are numerous and formidable, roving about in bands of sixty or seventy,
and, not having been impressed with the powers of the white man, are constantly annoying
small parties of emigrants passing through their country. They extend from Fort Boise,
on Snake river, for several hundred miles along the river, both on the north and south
side of it, committing their depredations as far south as the road leading from Salt Lake
to California. The emigrants destined for that part of the country were much harassed
by these marauding bands during the past summer.'
In concluding his report, he said: "I would respectfully state to the general
commanding that the expedition intrusted to my command has served a double purpose.
The resources of a country heretofore unknown have been developed. All the country on
both sides of the Blue, Owyhee and Goose creek Mountains has been traveled over,
carefully measured and mapped; and the troops have been among the various tribes of
Indians along the several routes over which the weary and defenseless emigrants were to
pass, and have furnished them the required protection to reach their new homes in peace
and safety. Much suffering has also been alleviated by our movements, in the timely
assistance of transportation and provisions to destitute families."
On the 28th of July, Captain Wallen met Major Reynolds, Third Artillery, with his
battery en route from Camp Floyd to Fort Vancouver. The two commands camped
together on that night. The advance of the immigration came up at that time; and from
that time forward Captain Wallen was passing small parties traveling towards Oregon.
Thus Major Reynolds, with his force of one hundred artillerymen and eight pieces,
escorted the advance of the immigration. Captain Wallen later did philanthropic service
in bringing up their rear. His presence on the road served as an efficient protection to the
(1) See report Captain H. D. Wallen, wagon road expedition from Columbia river to Great Salt Lake. House Executive Documents, first
session Thirty-sixth Congress, Vol. IX, page 209.
6
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
immigrants of that year. He reported: "My return trip was slow, halting several
times to allow the emigrants to keep up with the command. On the Owyhee river, I
waited nine days, sending back Lieutenant Sweitzer with a mounted command and several
animals to assist several families who were behind us, in distress. These families,
consisting of seven men, three women and fifteen children, were found in a very destitute
condition, without food or the means of transportation. They were supplied with both;
and but for this timely assistance they must all have inevitably perished.
Much suffering
has been spared those crossing the plains by the presence of my command on Snake river,
by protecting them from the hostile Indians, and in supplying provisions and transportation
to those families who were destitute."
Captain Wallen's expedition reached Fort Dalles, on their return, on the 17th day of
October.
In the spring of 1860, General Harney sent two expeditions into the Snake country,
both under the command of Major E. Steen. With the troops under his immediate
command, Major Steen was to march west from Crooked river, whilst Captain Andrew J.
Smith, with his force, was to march south and east to "City Rocks." Rev. Edward R.
Geary, Superintendent of Indian Affairs of Oregon, George H. Abbott, Indian Agent at
Warm Springs, with an escort of four white men and five Warm Spring Indians (who
were endeavoring to find some Bannack chiefs or prominent men to confer with as to
holding a council with those Indians, and if possible effect a treaty), came into
Major Steen's camp. While they were there, on the 15th of July, two white men,
belonging to a party who had been prospecting, appeared and reported the wounding
of one of their number and the breaking up of their party, who had scattered
and fled to Harney Lake after a second attack by the hostiles. This discouraged
Superintendent Geary from his further peace efforts; and he and his escort returned to
The Dalles. An express communicating these facts was sent by Major Steen to Captain
Smith, who had been two days on his march towards "City Rocks." Major Steen then
moved his camp to Harney Lake so as to be in communicating distance with Captain
Smith.
He occupied several days in unsuccessfully hunting Indians in the vicinity. When
Captain Smith had marched within twenty miles of Owyhee, the Indians attacked him in
large numbers; and, as he was only able to protect the government property in his charge,
he deemed it wisest to fall back on Harney Lake. He notified Major Steen, who returned
and joined him at the headwaters of the Crooked river.
In the meantime, Colonel Wright had succeeded General Harney in the command of
the Military Department of Oregon. On being advised of these acts of the hostile
Bannacks, Major George P. Andrews, with three companies of artillery, was sent to relieve
Major Steen's expedition. Major Grier with one hundred dragoons was ordered to Fort
Boise, and to march along and guard the immigrant road from there, and to be within
communicating distance of Major Steen's command. The artillery under Major Andrews
having joined Major Steen, on the 4th of August Major Steen, with a force of one
hundred dragoons and sixty-five artillery, marched southeastward from Harney Lake
towards a range of snowcapped mountains. Major Andrews with the remainder of the
force moved to the Owyhee, went into camp and awaited orders. On the 8th of August,
Major Steen's Warm Spring scouts discovered a small band of Snakes on the north side
of the butte which since has borne the name of Steen Mountain. Major Steen's troops
pursued the Indians to the summit, and followed them through a narrow gorge down the
EXPEDITIONS OF UNITED STATES TROOPS IN THE SNAKE COUNTRY.
7
other side, an abrupt descent of six thousand feet, losing one mule, but not killing a single
Indian. For three days following, the command remained there and thoroughly searched
the base of the mountains and the adjacent country; but no Indians were to be found.
While there the scouts brought in three Indians, and several squaws and children. On
the sixteenth, Major Steen returned to camp with his command. Captain Smith, with his
dragoons, scouted the country, following a supposed Indian trail a hundred miles without
finding a trace of the Indians. Major Steen then determined to discontinue any effort to
make road surveys that season, and to return to The Dalles.
In three parties, their respective lines of march being twenty miles apart, Major
Steen, Captain Smith and Major Andrews, with their commands, marched back to Fort
Dalles, neither column meeting an Indian on that return march. Major Grier had
marched from Fort Walla Walla July 18th for Fort Boise (1), with a squadron of dragoons
consisting of one hundred men and two company officers, with sixty days rations. His
orders were to march along the Fort Boise or immigrant road, to co-operate in the hostile
movement of Major Steen, if necessary, with the additional and special purpose of guarding
the road. At Burnt river, July 28th, he had met and passed a party of immigrants
pursuing their journey towards Grand Ronde. His command reached the Owyhee river
at a point opposite Fort Boise on the thirty-first. He there established camp and remained
until August 4th. While there two immigrant trains came up. They reported no
casualties, nor any signs of Indians west of the Rocky Mountains; neither had they seen
nor heard of Major Steen's command. They also claimed or asserted their belief that
most probably they were the last train of that year's immigration bound for Oregon.
They referred to one train which had been three or four days travel behind; but it was
their belief that it had taken the road for California.
On August 3d, Major Grier's scouts brought in the intelligence of the presence of
Indians, fifteen or twenty miles distant, in the mountains on both sides of Snake river.
Judging that those Indians were watching his movements, and that their purpose was
either to attack him or the immigrants who had a few days before gone ahead, after having
waited several days since the information received from the immigrants for the coming
up of the train reported as back, he accepted as true the statement that the last train had
passed. Major Grier marched on the 4th of August. Having advanced twelve miles, he
divided his command. He sent one party ahead to overtake and warn the immigrants of
the proximity of Indians, and to give escort if necessary. The other he sent back to the
camping ground just left, thinking possibly that, with his departure, the Indians might
have visited it. The party sent ahead returned, reporting no signs of Indians. Again
Major Grier returned to the Owyhee river and there waited for several days without
seeing or hearing of either immigrants or Indians. He then (fearing that the Indians
might have passed him and were hovering near the immigrant trains) by rapid marches
overtook those immigrants, and followed them within protecting distance until close to
Fort Walla Walla. With his rations about exhausted, with no guide beyond or off the
traveled route to Fort Boise, with every reason to believe that the immigration was
through, and that no Indians were in war parties in the country so lately traversed, he,
with his command, marched to Fort Walla Walla.
No sooner, however, had the troops retired from the Snake river country or hostile
region, than the Bannacks, Snakes or Shoshones (for the hostile tribe or nation is called
(1) The Fort Boise referred to is the site of the old Hudson's Bay Company's trading post, and must not be confounded with the military post
established later, called by that name
8
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
by each of these names) attacked the Warm Spring Indian reservation, and entirely
depleted it of its stock. That successful raid prompted the detail to that reservation
of Lieutenant Gregg with a detachment of twenty dragoons for its future protection.
Immediately following that successful raid upon the Warm Spring reservation came
the tidings of that soul-sickening horror, known in history as the "Salmon Falls
Massacre." Much censure at that time was heaped upon the military for having
abandoned the hostile country so early in the season. But justice to those concerned
warrants that statement that that calamity is in nowise attributable to culpable negligence
of duty, or to unwise action. Proper precautions sufficient for every conceivable exigency
seem to have been taken to afford protection to the incoming immigration of 1860. The
information given to Major Grier, his careful and patient waiting more than the time
required for that last train to have come, had they not reasonably been supposed to have
gone to California, his thorough scouting of the country, his right to believe that the
advance trains might need his presence, abundantly justify his course and approve his
judgment. Sad as was that occurrence, it must be regarded as a concomitant of
frontier life,-- an occurrence most likely to happen when least anticipated. When
appearances justify confidence, then just such a massacre is most likely to occur. The
Indian thus has always acted. That massacre is only one more of the true illustrations
of the natural characteristics of the North American Indian,-his cruelty and perfidy,
his crafty cunning to avoid danger and strike down the unarmed and helpless.
That shocking barbarity is best narrated by one of the survivors: "There were
forty-four persons in the company. Colonel Howe sent an escort of twenty-two dragoons
with our company from Portneuf river, seven miles this side of Fort Hall. The escort
were furnished with only twelve days' rations, and were to escort us six days and return,
which they did. We desired Colonel Howe to give us an escort farther; but he said there
would be no trouble; that the immigrants were in no danger if they would keep the Indians
away from their camp and not allow them to come too near. He said there were troops on
the roads beyond Salmon Falls. Colonel Howe had furnished an escort for the California
train, but for what distance I do not know.
"After the escort left the company, two weeks transpired before the attack. The
attack was made between nine and ten o'clock on the morning of the 8th of September.
There were about one hundred Indians, most of them on foot. They first came around
the train whooping and yelling, probably to stampede the cattle. We then corralled and
defended ourselves. The Indians then desisted and made signs of friendship, signifying
that they wished something to eat. As many as came were fed. They made signs to
us that we might pass on to the river. In doing this, when we reached an eminence
which exposed us and furnished the Indians the covert of sagebrush, they commenced a
general firing upon us with arrows and rifles. We again corralled as soon as we could.
Before we had fully done this and got our oxen secure, three of our men were shot down,
viz., Lewis Lawson, William Ottley and Mr. Kishnell, a German. We defended ourselves
as well as we could, the fighting continuing through the day. During the day we saw
several of the Indians fall. It was believed that twenty or more of them were killed the
first day. The Indians kept shooting at the train through the night, mostly with arrows,
but occasionally with rifles. Their random shots did not do much harm, except to wound
and irritate the cattle and horses, which were without grass and water all the day and
night. The fight was renewed in the morning, and continued nearly through the entire
day, one of our men, Judson Cressey, being killed.

3
4
WI SNODGRASS
PA
E
5
BLUE
MOUNTAIN
HOTEL
QAD
6
1
2
BANK
000
100
BANK
1. FIRST WARD - 2ND WARD IN DISTANCE. 2.WATER POWER AND FACTORY AT ORODELL, ONE MILE ABOVE LA GRANDE. 3. SECOND WARD. 4. DEPOT AND WAREHOUSE. 5.BLUE MOUNTAIN HOTEL. 6.LA GRANDE NATIONAL BANK.
LA GRANDE UNION CO.,OREGON.
S.R.REEVES PROPRIETOR.
MASSACRE OF EMIGRANTS AT SALMON FALLS.
9
"About an hour before sundown, the train agreed to leave four wagons and their
contents as booty for the Indians, and to start on, hoping this would satisfy them, and
that, while they were ravaging these, the company might escape with the remainder.
This plan was attempted without success. The Indians paid no attention to the deserted
prey, but swarmed about the train like bees, attacking it with renewed activity. The
company drove on as fast as they could; but the cattle were so ravenous after sagebrush
that they could not be got along; and, in the meantime, the firing of arrows and rifle
balls by the Indians was actively continued. Before we started the last time from the
corral, four young men were detailed, mounted and armed, to go in the van of the train
and open the way for the wagons. They were discharged soldiers from the post at
Portneuf. They were well armed with rifles and revolvers, which, with the horses,
belonged to the train. Instead of assisting the immigrants, they immediately fled.
Their names were Snider, Murdock, Shaumberg and Chaffee. Snider, it is said, reported
two as killed by the Indians. He and Chaffee are living. With these horsemen two
left on foot, viz., Jacob and Joseph Reith. These were the two men who brought word
into the settlements of the condition of the immigrants; and Jacob Reith returned with
Captain Dent's command for their relief. At about dusk we left our cattle and wagons,
as we found that we could do nothing with the Indians. After driving out of the corral,
my brother was shot down by my side. The Indian who shot him was not more than
ten rods off, in the sagebrush. I saw him as he was drawing upon us and shot him, but
not until he had fatally wounded my brother. I saw the Indian roll over dead. When
we were finally leaving the wagons, I helped Miss Otter out of the wagon and was setting
her down, when a rifle ball passed through my coat and two shirts, grazed my body and
killed her. She spoke some after being shot;-said that she had got her death blow; that
she was killed.
"Mr. Otter made signs of surrendering to the Indians, proposing a treaty, and while
doing so was killed. Mrs. Otter refused to leave her husband; and three of her children
remained with her. One of them, a boy of five years, was immediately seen to fall, shot,
upon the dead body of his father; and then Mrs. Otter and the two girls were seen to fall.
Mr. Vanorman and his family, Mr. Chase and his family, and myself and mine, left the
wagons and cattle and hastened on on foot. After we had left our wagons, the Indians
fell back; and we traveled on all night until about daylight. All the provisions saved
from the wagons was a loaf of bread, secured by Mr. Chase. At morning, we camped
under the bank of the river, and stayed there all day. Some of us had fish-hooks in our
pockets; and the ladies made lines with spool-thread they had. We caught some fish.
The Indians had dogged our path, and were howling about our camp. We supposed they
saw us. We traveled at nights and lay by by day, until we had traveled some sixty or
seventy miles, when we became too weak to carry the children farther, and were obliged
to build wigwams, which we did as well as we could, with willows. Here we lay by
entirely. This was on the Owyhee river, about three miles from Fort Boise, then deserted.
"Before reaching our final camp, we killed and ate two dogs which followed us; and,
when within about six miles of that camp, a very poor emigrant cow met us, which we
killed and ate. By mixing the beef with rosebuds and parsley, we made it last us two
weeks. We made two wigwams. Mr. Vanorman and family, and a young man, two of
Mrs. Otter's children, Miss Trimble and her brother, and two sons of Mr. Otter and an
infant child of Mrs. Otter, were in one wigwam. Mrs. Chase's family and mine were in
the other. A few days after we camped, we saw Indians camped on Snake river some
10
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
*
three miles from us. They were fishing. They brought us salmon, for which we
exchanged some of our clothing and ammunition. This was the only way we could obtain
it. At first they would come thus and exchange us salmon every three or four days.
They called themselves Shoshones. We found herbs, frogs and mussels along the river,
which we gathered or caught and ate. About two or three weeks after we camped, Mr.
Chase died, probably from over-eating salmon. Ten days after this, Elizabeth Trimble died
from starvation. Four or five days afterwards, Susan Trimble, her sister, died. The next
day, Daniel Chase died; and two days after him, his brother Albert, all from the same
The living were compelled to eat the dead to preserve their own lives. It was a
subject of much and anxious consultation, and even of prayer, before the eating of the
dead was finally determined upon. This determination was unanimous.
cause.
came.
(6
"The flesh of the dead was carefully husbanded and sparingly eaten to make it go
as far as possible. Thus the bodies of four children were disposed of. The body of Mr.
Chase was exhumed, and the first meal from it cooked and about to be eaten, when relief
The Indians had come and carried away our guns,-two from Mr. Vanorman, one
from Mr. Chase and one from me. They also took Mr. Vanorman's blanket from him;
and they did it somewhat roughly. At this time, we had already traded off some of our
clothing for salmon. After the Indians left, Mr. Vanorman said he was going to take his
family and leave; for,' said he, 'if we do not, the Indians will come to-morrow and strip
and kill us.' He and his family left our camp that day about noon. They traveled on to
Burnt river, as it afterwards appeared. When the command reached there, they found six
of the bodies killed by the Indians. Four of the children were not found It is supposed
they are now captives among the Indians. The six bodies found were those of Alexis
Vanorman and wife (the latter was scalped), their son Mark, Samuel Gleason, and Charles
and Henry Otter. The last was about twelve years old; the others were adults. Besides
Mr. Myers' family, consisting of himself, wife and five children (the oldest ten years and
the youngest one year old), Mrs. Chase and daughter and Miss Trimble were rescued,
also, between the camps, in a very emaciated condition, Chaffee and Munson,-twelve in all.
When within six miles of our final camp, Mr. Munson and Christopher Trimble
(the latter a boy of eleven years) were sent forward as an express to the settlements.
They went on to Burnt river, where they saw Jacob and Joseph Reith, who had taken a
wrong road, and were now getting back to the right one. The Reith boys and Chaffee
and Munson went on, and sent back Christopher Trimble to inform us of their having
gone forward for relief. Chaffee and Munson gave out, and were afterwards rescued.
After getting back, Trimble volunteered and went with the Indians to their camp on Snake
river, to stay. After being with them some days, he came with them to our camp, when
we traded with them for salmon. While he was with us, I inquired of him how far it was
to their camp.
He said about three miles. I asked him how far it was after crossing the
river before their trail was struck. He said but a short distance, and that the trail was
plain. He inquired why I asked him. I told him that if the soldiers came to our relief,
we would want to go to him. The word 'soldier,' which the Indians seemed to understand,
excited their curiosity; and they soon left our camp, and never returned. After waiting
in vain nearly two weeks, without seeing them, Miss Trimble went to the river and called
loudly for her brother, without getting any response or seeing him. The next day, Mrs.
Chase and Mr. Myers went to the river to find the Indians and trade for more salmon.
They could not find them. The next day, Mr. Myers went again, alone, and fired several
shots across the river towards their camp, and halloped loudly, but could not obtain any
CAPTAIN DENT SENT TO THE RESCUE OF THE SURVIVORS.
11
answer. He concluded they had gone. On returning to camp, he discovered a track
where the wolves had dragged a body. Supposing it might be that of a deer, and that he
could thus get food, he followed the track a short distance, and found two locks of human
hair, which resembled Christopher Trimble's. He took them to camp; and Miss Trimble
recognized them as her brother's. When the soldiers came, they were shown this track ;
and, pursuing it, they found the body of Trimble. From the first attack until relief
came was forty-four or forty-five days. The saved were not, as has been represented,
entirely without clothes; but they were but scantily dressed. Mr. Myers' loss is over
two thousand dollars. He is, of course, entirely destitute. Mrs. Chase and child and
Miss Trimble are at Walla Walla."
Captain Frederick T. Dent, a brother-in-law of Ulysses S. Grant, commanded the
expedition that carried relief to and rescued the survivors. His official report bears date
November 8, 1860. He received orders at Fort Dalles, October 4, 1860, to take command
of the expedition, to recover or rescue any survivors there might be of the massacre of
emigrants which took place on the 9th and 10th of September, 1860, in the vicinity of
Salmon Falls, on Snake river. The command, consisting of sixty dragoons and forty
infantry, with four company officers, marched on the fifth. The report, which is of great
interest, proceeds:
(6
The infantry were mounted on mules; and our stores, ammunition and camp
equipage were transported on pack-mules. Our march was slow, the command moving
together until we reached Powder river, on the 17th of October. Not being satisfied with
the speed we were making, I determined to scout the country forward with strong parties
unincumbered, and accordingly ordered Lieutenant Reno, with forty men, First Dragoons,
and two guides, with ten mules lightly packed, to scout thoroughly the Burnt river and its
vicinity, the main command following him as fast as it could. On the evening of the
nineteenth, Lieutenant Reno discovered, on a small branch of Burnt river, two emigrants
almost naked, without fire, and starving. The names of these two, as given me by
themselves, are Civilian G. Munson and Charles M. Chaffee.
"Lieutenant Reno clothed them and supplied them with food; and, leaving a corporal
and ten men with them, he proceeded rapidly to the front. On arriving at the place on
Burnt river where the road leaves it, and having found no trace of the remainder of the
emigrants, Lieutenant Reno put in camp twenty-five of his party, and, with five men and
Mr. Craigie, the guide, proceeded riding day and night to the Malheur. Having made no
discoveries on the Malheur, Lieutenant Reno returned towards Burnt river. At some
points on the road he found tracks of women and children, their trail passing over rocky
ground; but rain having fallen on it since, it was hard to follow until he came to where
the emigrant road between Malheur and Burnt river touches on Snake river. There the
trail was fresh; and his hopes were aroused of speedily finding them. The daylight was
nearly gone, but the search continued; and, when he had proceeded to within two miles of
the camp he had left on Burnt river, he came upon, at a short distance from the road, and
in the sagebrush, a scene of murder and mutilation only to be found where the warwhoop
has signaled the scalping-knife's deadly work. Gleaming in the moonlight, dead, stripped
and mutilated, lay the bodies of six persons. They were identified by Mr. Reith as Mr.
Alexis Vanorman, his wife Abigail Vanorman, and son Marcus Vanorman, Charles Otter,
Henry Otter and Samuel Gleason. Mrs. Vanorman had been whipped, scalped and
otherwise abused by her murderers. The boys, Charles and Henry Otter, were killed with
Mr. Vanorman, Marcus Vanorman and Samuel Gleason had their throats cut,
arrows.
12
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
and besides were pierced by numerous arrows. They appeared to have been dead from
four to six days. The wolves had not yet molested them. Decomposition was going on,
however; and Lieutenant Reno buried them.
"I arrived immediately afterwards at Lieutenant Reno's camp, and found him absent
on a scout with a guide and ten men, he having found, in the vicinity of the place
where the Vanormans were killed, a trail of Indians with whom he supposed might be
some of the Vanorman family; this he supposed from finding a small barefoot track
among the moccasin tracks. He followed the trail to where it went into the Salmon river
Mountains, first crossing the Snake river at their bases. Having no means of crossing
the Snake river, which is here very rapid and deep, he returned to camp and reported to
me. I deemed it best not to pursue the trail at that time, as I had learned from Mr.
Munson during that day that on Snake river, some fifteen miles beyond Owyhee, he had
parted with the Vanormans, Chase, Myers, and some of the Trimble and Otter familes. A
long time had elapsed since he left them; yet I had hopes of finding some of them alive,
as the Vanormans, who had evidently parted from the others, had been so recently killed.
I therefore determined to push forward with all haste.
“Lieutenant Anderson, Ninth Infantry, with thirty-five men and light packs, moved
forward with orders to make a thorough search of the Malheur and Owyhee, the main
command moving on the same route. On the morning of the 25th of October, while en
route to the Owyhee from the Malheur, I received an express from Lieutenant Anderson
informing me that, the evening before, he had found on the Owyhee twelve emigrants alive
and five dead; that those still alive were keeping life in them by eating those who had
died. I will not attempt to describe the scene of horror this camp presented, even when
I reached it at twelve o'clock that day. Those who were still alive were skeletons with
life in them. Their frantic cries for food rang in our ears incessantly. Food was given
them every hour in small quantities; but for days the cry was still kept up by the children.
"Those found and relieved by Lieutenant Anderson were: Mr. Joseph Meyers,
Mary E. Myers, his wife, and their five children, Isabella, Margaret, Eugene, Harriet
and Carrie; Mrs. Elizabeth Chase and her daughter, Mary Chase; and Miss Emeline
Trimble.
"The dead in the camp (consumed) were: Mr. Daniel Chase and his two sons,
Daniel and Albert; Elizabeth Trimble; and an infant of Mrs. Otter, half sister of Miss
Trimble.
"An hour or two before my arrival at Lieutenant Anderson's camp, he found the
remains of Christopher Trimble, who had been murdered by the Indians. His body
had been much disturbed by the wolves; but sufficient remained to identify it. These
remains were found a short distance beyond the Owyhee. This boy, eleven years of age,
deserves especial mention. He had killed several Indians in the fight. He left the
fugitives and went forward to the Malheur, where he obtained of Chaffee some horse
flesh, which he took back to the women and children. He then became a prisoner
voluntarily with the Indians, in order that he might obtain salmon to take to the
camp, and did succeed in so doing and in going with the Indians there. Two weeks
had elapsed since his last visit. It must have been at that time that he was killed.
Lieutenant Anderson's party buried the remains found in this camp, and also the remains
of young Trimble.
"The 26th of October we remained in camp on the Owyhee, constructing litters and
panniers for transporting the women and children. In conversation with Mr. Myers, I
OFFICIAL REPORT OF CAPTAIN DENT.
13
learned that, when Vanorman left the Owyhee, his party consisted of ten persons.
Besides those mentioned above as killed, there were four children,-Eliza, Minerva,
Reuben and Lucinda Vanorman, the eldest being fourteen years of age. We now felt
assured that our conjecture was correct, that they were captives with the Indians
whose trail Lieutenant Reno followed to where they crossed Snake river. I determined
to follow that trail on my return to the vicinity of Burnt river, and recover them or learn
their fate. We also learned that all who had left the wagons were with us on, or had
passed, the Owyhee, and that all who remained at the train were dead before the fugitives
left. To save the lives of those we had recovered now became our paramount duty.
Officers and men gave them the larger portion of the clothing and blankets they had
brought for their own use; yet I feared we should lose some of them from cold. The
snow was all around us on the hills. I therefore determined to return to Burnt river;
and, on Saturday the twenty-seventh, in a heavy storm of rain and sleet, we commenced
our march. Four of the children were in narrow hampers, on pack mules, and two with
their mothers in a mule litter. One of the women was carried in a hand litter; this I
abandoned, and had her placed on a mule with a man on each side to hold her. It
was a weary and painful march to them. On the twenty-seventh, we arrived on Burnt
river; and, to my regret, I was forced to abandon all idea of a pursuit of the murderers
of the Vanorman family, as the snow had fallen heavily in the mountains and obliterated
their trail. This being the case, and the snow still falling on us and around us, I
determined to push homeward and cross the Blue Mountains before the snow became too
deep for marching over those mountains. At Grand Ronde river we met the ambulances
sent out from Walla Walla by Major Steen, with an abundance of clothing, blankets,
provisions, etc., sent to the emigrants by the officers, ladies, laundresses and men of the
post. Captain Kirkham greatly facilitated our arrival by sending forage to feed our
wornout animals, and wagons to relieve them of their burdens. We arrived at Fort
Walla Walla at eleven A. M. on the 7th of November, 1860.
"To the officers and men of my command, the employés of the quartermaster's
department, and our guides, my thanks are due for the zeal, skill, energy and humanity
which they displayed. To their zeal, skill and energy I attribute our success; and to
their humanity the fact that we have brought into this post, alive and safe, the wrecks of
fellow-beings we found on the banks of the Owyhee and Burnt rivers.
"List of emigrants who were with the train: Killed in the fight at the corral: Lewis
Lawson, William Ottley, Charles Kishnell, Judson Cressey, John W. Myers, Mr. Otter,
Mrs. Otter, Mary Otter, Emma Otter, Abbey Otter, Wesley Otter. Killed near Burnt
river by the Indians: Alexis Vanorman, Abigail Vanorman, Marcus Vanorman, Charles
Otter, Henry Otter, Samuel Gleason. Killed by the Indians on the Owyhee: Christopher
Trimble. Killed or captured near Burnt river: Eliza Vanorman, Minerva Vanorman,
Reuben Vanorman, Lucinda Vanorman. Died on the Owyhee of starvation: Daniel
Chase, senior, Daniel Chase, junior, Albert Chase, Elizabeth Trimble, an infant (Otter's).
Reported, by Snider, as killed by Indians on Wallen's road: Shaumberg, Murdock. Came
in, and was relieved by the Indian department: Henry Snider. Came into the Umatilla
agency: Joseph Reith, Jacob Reith. Found by the command and brought to Walla Walla:
Civilian G. Munson, Charles M. Chaffee, Joseph Myers, Mary E. Myers, Isabella Myers,
Margaret Myers, Eugene Myers, Harriet Myers, Carrie Myers, Emeline Trimble, Elizabeth
Chase, Mary Chase.
F. T. DENT,
Captain Ninth Infantry, commanding expedition."
14
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
It will have been observed in the previous volume that the settlers, both of Oregon and
Washington, grounded their hopes for future accession to the population, for the ultimate
growth and development of the respective territories, upon the discovery of paying gold
or silver mines within them, or either of them, or in such close proximity thereto that
they would feel the benefit of an influx of miners or prospectors, and the incident activity.
Since the California gold discovery of 1848, there had been almost a continuous series of
gold-mining excitements, each accompanied by a greater or less stampede to the newly
advertised gold fields or diggings alleged to have been discovered. The greatest of those
stampedes was the Fraser river excitement, which had not at this period subsided, and
which was still giving an impetus to gold prospecting in Eastern Oregon and Washington.
Extensive gold prospecting of intelligent, practical gold seekers and miners who had
examined the whole country had abundantly demonstrated that, from Southern Oregon
to the line of Alaska, gold existed in large areas, in numerous localities, and frequently
in remunerative quantities.
About that time (the history of which is about to occupy attention), the travel into
the interior, and by way of The Dalles and the Upper Columbia into the British Columbia
gold fields, as also to numerous points in Eastern and Southern Oregon, had greatly
increased the population and trade of Portland and The Dalles, and had attached
commercial importance to certain inland points as centers of trade. The problem of
transportation to, and trade-connection with, such growing points, those developing mining
camps, had already invited attention. Indeed it had suggested the inauguration of that
enterprise which revolutionized the character of the whole region, and vastly extended
settlements. The origin, growth and mission of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company
for years were practically the growth and development of Eastern Oregon and Eastern
Washington. Its presence enabled miners and immigrants to establish themselves in the
upper country, which soon became the great inland empire. It afforded the means of
communication which so speedily led to the establishment of the territories of Idaho and
Montana. It made known the capacity and wealth of the country. It carried thither the
miner and farmer to prospect and develop it; and in turn, as its legitimate reward, returned
to its headquarters in Portland the wealth it had absorbed; and it made upon the
northwest coast, in the State of Oregon, a metropolis second only to San Francisco.
Through its agency Portland became the great center of travel and the point of
distribution for the North Pacific. It caused to be aggregated there its wealth, and at the
same time, from that favored spot as its base, hastened to open new fields to population
and to increase its trade. For a score of years it continued to be the great missionary to
dedicate new regions to settlement, and to transform the wilderness into growing
communities. It reached out year after year, making new paths into the wilderness and
bringing new and remote sections within the sphere of civilization. It was, from its
earliest history until it went out of existence, an active contributor to the population of
new territories. It necessitated the building of towns. It caused the aggregation of
communities. While legitimately pursuing its business of making money, claiming no
credit whatever for philanthropy, it widely contributed to the comforts of self-denying
pioneers; and to them it early assured those advantages which are only attained by
comfortable means of communication with the rest of the world. The Oregon Steam
Navigation Company was made up exclusively of old settlers,-pioneers of Oregon and
Washington.
THE OREGON STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY.
15
"In April, 1859, the owners of the steamboats Carrie Ladd, Senorita and Belle, which
had been plying between Portland and the Cascades, represented by Captain J. C.
Ainsworth, agent, the Mountain Buck, by Colonel J. S. Ruckel, its agent, the Bradford
horse railroad between the Middle and Upper Cascades, by its owners, Bradford & Co.,
who also had a small steamboat plying between the Cascades and The Dalles, entered into
a mutual arrangement to form a transportation line between The Dalles and Portland,
under the name and style of the Union Transportation Company. There were some other
boats running on that route, the Independence and Wasco, in the control of Alexander
Ankeny and George W. Vaughn; also the Flint and Fashion, owned by Captain J. O. Van
Bergen. As soon as practicable, these interests were harmonized or purchased. At this
time freights were not large between Portland and the Upper Columbia; and the charges
were high. There was no uniform rule; the practice was to charge according to the
exigency of the case. Freights had been carried in sail boats from Portland to the
Cascades at $20 per ton.
"On the 19th day of December, 1860, there being no law under which a corporation
could be established in Oregon, the proprietors of the Union Transportation Line procured
from the Washington Territory legislature an act incorporating J. C. Ainsworth, D. F.
Bradford, J. S. Ruckel, R. R. Thompson, and their associates, under the name and style
of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company. R. R. Thompson and Lawrence Coe, who
then first became interested with the other parties, had built a small steamboat called the
Colonel Wright, above The Dalles, which went into the line and made up their shares of
the capital stock. This was the second boat they had built at that point. The first, when
partially completed, was carried over the falls and down the river at high water. There
the hull was sold, fitted up and taken to Fraser river on the breaking out of the
gold-mining excitement in British Columbia, and, much to the credit of its builders, made
the highest point ever reached by a steamboat on that river.
"Of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, or O. S. N. Co., as it has been more
generally called and known since organized under the act, J. C. Ainsworth was the
first president, and with the exception of a single year, when J. S. Ruckel held the
position, has been its president ever since. Its principal office was located at Vancouver;
and its property formed no inconsiderable addition to the taxable property of Washington
Territory. By unfriendly legislation, the company was driven from that territory; and
in October, 1862, it incorporated under the general act of Oregon, where it has ever
since existed an Oregon corporation in fact, as it has always been in ownership and
name. Its railroads, steamboats, warehouses, wharf-boats and wharves have all been
built and established by the company without public aid, except the patronage by the
public after they were completed.
"All its founders started poor. They have accomplished nothing that has not been
equally within the power of others, by the exercise of equal foresight, labor and
perseverance. They had no exclusive rights" (1).
During 1861, the United States troops on duty in Oregon and Washington had been
gradually withdrawn to serve in the Civil War. That necessarily suspended operations
against the hostile Indians of the interior, prevented the assignment of troops for the
protection of immigrant routes, deterred, for the time, the chastisement of the murderous
Snakes or Shoshones, and delayed the establishment of a military post in the hostile
(1) Address of the late Judge William Strong, deceased, before the Oregon Pioneers' reunion, 1878. Judge Strong was for many years the
counsel of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company.
16
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
country. Lieutenant-Colonel Albemarle Cady of the Fourth Infantry had succeeded to
the command of the Oregon military district, with headquarters at Fort Vancouver.
Colonel Wright, who had for some time been commander of the Department of California,
was transferred to the Department of Oregon (1). But, on September 28th, Colonel
Wright was appointed brigadier-general, U. S. Army, and assigned to the command of
the Department of the Pacific. Garrisons for the posts in Oregon and Washington,
which had been depleted by the departure to the East of the regulars, were to be
supplied with California volunteers. In October, three hundred and fifty California
volunteers arrived at Fort Vancouver; and they were respectively stationed at Forts
Steilacoom and Yamhill. In November came five additional companies, Major Curtis
commanding. Of those, two companies were sent to Fort Colvile, two to Fort Walla
Walla, and one to Fort Dalles.
As the State of Oregon had failed to raise any volunteer companies, in response to
the proclamation of the governor of Oregon, the Secretary of War had appointed Thomas
R. Cornelius colonel of the First Regiment of Oregon Cavalry, with authority to raise ten
companies of cavalry for three years' service. R. F. Maury was appointed lieutenant-colonel,
Benjamin F. Harding, quartermaster, Charles S. Drew and J. S. Rinearson, majors. Camps
were established in the counties of Clackamas, Jackson and Marion. Company A was
raised in Jackson county; and Thomas S. Harris was made its captain; Company B,
Captain Edward J. Harding, Marion county; Company C, Captain William Kelly,
Vancouver, Clark county, Washington Territory; Company D, Captain Sewall Truax,
Jackson county; Company E, Captain George B. Currey, Wasco county; Company F,
Captain William J. Matthews, from the Southern Oregon counties, but principally
Josephine. Those six companies, having been fully organized, assembled at Fort
Vancouver in the latter part of May, 1862, and were furnished with clothing and arms,
and proceeded to Fort Dalles. Under that call, at a later date, companies were raised by
Captains David P. Thompson and Remick Cowles, the former in Clackamas county, the
latter in Umpqua.
On the 3d of June, Colonel Cornelius assumed command at Fort Walla Walla, with
Companies B and E. Shortly subsequent, his command was increased by the arrival
of Companies A, D and F. The Oregon Cavalry for several months remained in
garrison, inactive. Colonel Cornelius resigned, July 28th, and was succeeded in command
at Fort Walla Walla by Colonel Justus Steinberger of the Washington Territory infantry.
That officer, a native of Pennsylvania, but who had long been a resident of Portland
(where he had been in charge of the express business of Adams & Co., and afterwards
of Wells, Fargo & Co.), had been appointed by Simon Cameron, Secretary of War,
colonel of the Washington Territory regiment of infantry, with authority to raise such
regiment. In California, he had raised four full companies, with whom he arrived May
4th at Fort Vancouver. He relieved Lieutenant-Colonel Cady of the command of the
district. Early in July, Major Benjamin Alvord, Fourth Infantry, Brigadier-General
U. S. volunteers, arrived at Fort Vancouver and assumed command of the Department
of Oregon. Colonel Steinberger then proceeded to Fort Walla Walla, and succeeded
Colonel Cornelius as above stated.
The overland immigration of 1862 numbered at least twenty-six thousand, of whom
eight thousand stopped in Utah, eight thousand turned off for California, and ten
(1) For some time the Department of Oregon and California had been merged into the Division or Department of the Pacific. As such
the Pacific Division had been commanded by General E. V. Summer, U. S. Army, Colonel Wright, in the meantime, continuing in command of
the Department of California.

PRESLEY GEORGE.
MRS. MAHALA GEORGE.
HUGH N. GEORGE.
J.W.GEORGE
M.C.GEORGE.
FORT BOISE ESTABLISHED AND GARRISONED.
17
thousand continued on towards Oregon (1). A large proportion stopped in the Idaho
mining sections, others at Grand Ronde, Powder river and John Day river, whilst Walla
Walla valley also received a large accession. Those immigrants were protected in their
travel by a volunteer company under the command of Captain Medorem Crawford, which
had been raised in the Eastern states, the expenses of which were met by congressional
appropriation. In the fall, General Alvord fitted out an expedition consisting of Companies
A, B and D, First Oregon Cavalry, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Maury, to march
on the line of the immigrant road for the purpose of protecting the immigration of 1862.
Colonel Maury was also instructed to chastise any of the participants in the Salmon Falls
Massacre of 1860 that he should find or meet with. That regiment, or part of it,
subsequently was continuously engaged during the whole term of its enlistment in
scouting, fighting and hunting hostile bands, affording protection to small settlements,
beating off predatory Indians, guarding roads, and escorting trains of traveling miners or
immigrants.
In the early part of May, 1863, a requisition was made upon the governor of Oregon
for six companies of volunteers to recruit the First Regiment. Governor Gibbs issued a
proclamation; but one company alone was raised in response to the call. The War
Department at last had authorized the erection of military posts,—one on Boise river, the
other near the southern emigrant road, between Klamath and Goose Lakes. An expedition
had been projected against the Bannacks or Shoshones. Company C, First Cavalry,
Captain William Kelly, was sent to build and garrison Fort Klamath. The other five
companies were all required to keep order in the Walla Walla and Nez Perce country.
On the 10th of June, 1863, Major Lugenbeel, U. S. Army, left Fort Walla Walla to
locate and establish the post on the Boise. On the fifteenth, Lieutenant-Colonel Maury,
with Companies A, D and E, and with a pack-train of one hundred and fifty mules, set
out from Lapwai, via the trail to the Salmon river mines, for Boise, to join Major
Lugenbeel. That officer had, on the 1st of July, located the new Fort Boise on the river
of that name forty miles above the old Hudson's Bay Company's trading establishment.
Lieutenant-Colonel Maury's command joined him on the 2d of July. The main command
had, on its way out, at Salmon Falls creek, detached expeditions of twenty men each,
under Captain Currey and Lieutenant Waymire, to reconnoiter the country, and marched
on to Bruneau river, where they were rejoined by Captain Currey and Lieutenant Waymire.
Lieutenant Waymire had gone up the Bruneau river; and Captain Currey had traveled
across an unexplored region four hundred miles from Snake river to the Goose creek
Mountains. He thus speaks of his company: "With two exceptions, near the summit of
the Goose creek Mountains, we were in fissures in the earth so deep that neither the
pole-star nor the seven pointers could be seen."
In the spring of 1864, Lieutenant-Colonel Maury had been promoted to the colonelcy.
C. S. Drew succeeded him as lieutenant-colonel. Captain Truax had become major.
Captain Harris of Company A had resigned, and Rhinehart was his successor. Major
Rinearson was left at Fort Boise to complete the buildings and take command. Richard
(1) At the commencement of hostile acts by the Shoshones or Bannacks or Snakes, the field embraced the eastern part of the State of
Oregon, and that portion of the former Oregon Territory which had been added to Washington Territory by the act admitting Oregon into the
Union. It extended eastward to the Rocky Mountains. and was south of the forty-sixth parallel. The opening of the Walla Walla valley to
settlement, the rapid development which immediately followed the discovery of the Oro Fino gold mines, and the great influx of population to
the Oro Fino, Boise, Salmon river, Powder river and Owyhee mines, had induced Congress, March 2, 1863, to set off the territory of Idaho, which
absorbed that region. It would be alike impossible as unnecessary to attempt to segregate the histories of the military campaigus which followed,
both in Eastern Oregon and Idaho,-to assign a part as Idaho, a part as Oregon. Oregon volunteers were present in Idaho Territory to chastise
Indian murderers. The campaigns are quite as much the history of Oregon as that of Idaho. Perhaps the writer, in justice to himself, should
add that he has omitted the campaigns of the gallant General Crook in the Klamath country. That was outside of the geographic limits of the
writer in this work; and he fears that, were he to have entered that field, he might unintentionally have repeated the record being compiled by
Colonel Mosher,
3
18
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
[
Caldwell, Drake and Small had become captains. Lieutenant Waymire (promoted from
the ranks), with twenty-six men, started on an expedition for the immigrant road. On
the seventeenth, he established a camp on the south fork of the John Day river, and called
it Camp Lincoln. From this camp he pursued a band of Indian horse-thieves to Harney
Lake, where he overtook Charles H. (alias Joaquin) Miller, leading a party of miners.
The parties joined, and continued the pursuit for three days, overtaking a band of two
hundred Indians, with whom they had a fight. They killed several, but gained no
material advantage.
In June, District Commander Alvord made a requisition upon Governor Gibbs for
forty mounted volunteers to serve for four months, or until the return of the Oregon
Cavalry to the posts, and to act as a detachment of the First Oregon Cavalry while in
service. The designed service was to patrol and guard the Cañon City road. Nathan
Olney, with the rank of second lieutenant, recruited and commanded the detachment.
They left Fort Dalles July 19th, with orders to guard the road between The Dalles and
the settlements on the south fork of the John Day river, from which point it was guarded
by Captain Caldwell's company.
An expedition consisting of Companies D and G and a detachment of Company B,
Captain Drake commanding, left Fort Dalles April 20th for Crooked river. On their
arrival at the Warm Spring Indian reservation, they were reinforced by Captain Small's
company (Vancouver) and twenty-five Warm Spring Indian scouts, Donald McKay
commanding. Captain Drake's command arrived, May 17th, at the old camp of Major
Steen, U. S. Army, near Crooked river, and there established a depot, which they named
Camp Maury. On the same day, fourteen miles east, the Indian scouts discovered a camp
of hostiles with a large band of horses. Accompanied by fifteen of the scouts, Lieutenants
McCall and Watson, with thirty-five men, set out at ten o'clock that night to surround
and surprise the Snakes. At daylight, the Indians were found to be strongly intrenched
behind rocks. Lieutenant McCall directed Lieutenant Watson to advance upon the front,
while he and Lieutenant McKay were to assail on both flanks. Lieutenant Watson moved
promptly. Lieutenant McCall was diverted from the attack by the capture of a band of
horses. Hearing the firing in Lieutenant Watson's assault, he hastened forward; but
being in range of the Indians' fire, the necessary detour added to the delay. The Indians
had concentrated their whole fire upon Lieutenant Watson's advance. While cheering
on his men, that officer was shot. Two men beside him were also killed, and five others
wounded. The Indians then fled. On the 7th of June, the companies which had
concentrated at Camp Maury marched for Harney Lake valley, where it was designed to
establish a depot. But the lake water being brackish, and the grass poor, the scheme was
abandoned. It was in this vicinity that Captain Drake anticipated a junction with Captain
Currey's expedition, which had left Fort Walla Walla April 28th for the Owyhee, by way
of the Fort Boise road.
That expedition, consisting of Companies A and E, ten Cayuse scouts under
Um-howlitz, in command of Captain George B. Currey, Colonel Maury accompanying, on
reaching old Fort Boise had been reinforced by twenty-five men of Captain Barry's
company of the Washington Territory infantry. A temporary depot had been established
on the Owyhee, eight miles above the old trading post, and placed in charge of Captain
Barry. Captain Currey, with his cavalry, moved up the river about one hundred
miles to Martin creek, thence west eight miles, where he established camp, on what he
named Gibbs creek. He built a stone bridge and fortifications, to which he gave the name
MILITARY OPERATIONS IN THE SNAKE COUNTRY.
19
of Camp Henderson, in honor of Oregon's representative in Congress at that date.
Captain Rhinehart then brought up the supplies from Captain Barry's temporary depot.
Captain Currey in the meantime thoroughly explored the country to the southwest. At
the base of the Steen Mountains a valley was discovered, which he nominated Alvord
valley. Captain Curry became satisfied that he was in the heart of the Snake or hostile
region; and he resolved that this was the proper place to which to remove the main
command, and selected the site for a permanent camp. He then fortified a little post,
which he called Camp Alvord, stationed there Captain Barry's company of infantry, the
disabled cavalry horses and their dismounted riders, and upon the 22d of June, with his
main body, set out to join Captain Drake. This he accomplished July 1st, on Rattlesnake
creek in Harney Lake valley. Captains Currey and Drake acted in conjunction. Having
been reinforced by forty Warm Spring Indian scouts commanded by Lieutenant Noble,
the entire region was thoroughly scouted in search of hostile Indians. While a force
under Lieutenant-Colonel Drew was patrolling and guarding the southern immigrant route,
the joint expeditions of Captains Currey and Drake kept small parties constantly moving
along the base of the Blue Mountains, on the headwaters of the John Day and across to
Crooked river to within communicating distance with Colonel Drew. Despite that
vigilance, Indian depredations on mining camps, immigrant parties and remote weak
settlements continued. From Antelope valley, a settlement but sixty-five miles east of
The Dalles, all the stock had been driven off. The troops were ever on the alert, and yet
the hostiles eluded them; and but few of their number were captured and killed.
On the 1st of August the commands separated; and Captain Currey set out for Camp
Alvord. An express from Fort Boise, which met him upon his march, communicated the
information of the murder of a farmer at Jordan creek, a tributary of the Owyhee, and
the driving off of the stock of the murdered victim; that twenty-one Owyhee miners had
organized and pursued the murderers in a southwesterly direction for eighty miles to a
deep cañon where they had overtaken a large camp, attacked it, and had been repulsed
with a loss of one killed and two wounded; that a second company of one hundred and
sixty was being organized; and that Colonel Maury, with twenty-five troops from Fort
Boise, had taken the field. Captain Currey, however, continued his march to Camp
Alvord, where he arrived on the twelfth, his horses, which had had no rest since June 22d,
being worn out. One hundred and six of his men out of one hundred and thirty-four
were sick and disabled with dysentery. From his own observations, confirmed by the
reports brought in by the scouts, Captain Currey had reached the conclusion that the
hostiles had crossed into Nevada. On the 2d of September, he moved southward, following
their trail. Having passed through, and some forty miles beyond, the Puebla mining
district, he captured five Indians, and was about to hang them for their participancy in the
murder upon Jordan creek. The Puebla miners, who claimed that the captives were Pah-utes,
interceded for them; and Captain Currey let them off. That ill-timed interference with
Captain Currey's administration of justice to those murderers was shortly afterwards
repaid in the Indian fashion. Those who had saved the murderers from the gibbet were
shortly afterwards barbarously murdered by those whom they had rescued (1).
Captain Currey, having advanced as far as Mud Lake, returned to Camp Alvord,
which he reached on the 16th of September. Ten days later he struck camp; and, having
sent the baggage wagons and infantry to Fort Boise, he with his cavalry marched towards
Fort Walla Walla. Captain Currey had marched down the Malheur river to the immigrant
(1) See Captain Currey's official narrative in report, 1866, of adjutant-general of Oregon, page 46,
20
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
road; continuing along that road, on the 14th of October he was met by an express from
General Alvord, Department Commander, directing him, with his Company E, to report
at Fort Dalles before the day of the Presidential election, to defeat any possibility of
outbreak, as to which fears had been expressed. Captain Currey's command had reached
Fort Walla Walla upon the 26th of October. Company A went into garrison at that post.
The detachment of F Company went to Fort Lapwai; and E Company (the Wasco
Company), Captain George B. Currey, proceeded to The Dalles, where they were present
on the day of the Presidential election, A. D. 1864, and good order reigned. Captain
Drake's command, who had made Camp Dahlgreen, near the head of Crooked river, their
base of operations, continued in the field till late in the fall. Detached parties under
Lieutenants Noble, Waymire and other officers scouted and reconnoitered the country
between the Cascade and Blue Mountain ranges.
The terms of enlistment of the first six companies of the First Oregon Cavalry had
expired with the close of the campaigns of 1864. Those volunteers had patriotically and
patiently performed perilous public service, widely variant from that for which they had
enlisted. Many had expected that they would have the opportunity "to go to the front"
to do battle in the grand struggle for national life and endurance. That hope had not
been realized; yet they have the assurance that their presence in Oregon upheld the
stability of the Union, guaranteed the peace of that portion of the national domain, and
repressed any possibility of successful effort, by those who sympathized with the Confederate
cause, to alienate the state from its loyalty. Besides, those troops, improvised to relieve
the government while it performed its superhuman duty at the front, obviated the necessity
of
any diversion to prosecute operations against hostile Indians, and enabled it to perform
its duties of protecting the routes of immigration and the remote and defenseless
settlements. The volunteers of Oregon and Washington (1861-64) contributed vastly to
both those territories and humanity. The "Inland Empire" was filled up and developed
greatly through their presence in the hostile country, and in their efforts to punish and
subdue the hostiles of the Snake, Bannack or Shoshone nation.
In 1864, the Oregon state legislature passed two laws to encourage the enlistment of
volunteers. One was an act to secure to volunteers who should hereafter enlist for three
years or during the war, as part of the state's quota under the acts of Congress, $150 in
addition to other bounties and pay, payable in three installments at the beginning and
end of the first year, at the end of the term of service, and, if he died, then to his heirs.
A tax of one mill was levied to raise the bounty fund. The other made an appropriation
of $100,000 to raise a fund to pay five dollars per month additional compensation
to those already in the service (1). General Alvord, commanding the district
of Oregon, made a requisition on Governor Gibbs for a regiment of infantry, in
addition to the volunteers then in the service of the United States, "to aid in the
enforcement of the laws, to suppress insurrection and invasion, and to chastise hostile
Indians within the military district of Oregon." Governor Gibbs issued a proclamation
calling for ten companies, to be known as the First Infantry, Oregon Volunteers.
Recruiting officers were appointed in the several counties, and commissioned as first
lieutenants, with the express understanding that the officer who raised a company within
the prescribed time was to be appointed captain. Six companies were made up and
reported to the governor within the time designated in the proclamation, the Polk county
company being the first. Two more companies were ready April 1, 1865.
(1) Oregon Laws, 1866, pages 90 and 110.

HON. HIRAM D. MORGAN,
SNOHOMISH, W. T.
GENERAL MCDOWELL IN COMMAND OF DEPARTMENT OF THE PACIFIC.
21
In the summer of 1864, Major-General Irwin McDowell, U. S. Army, had been
assigned to the command of the Department of the Pacific. This had relieved General
George Wright of that command; yet it had left him in command of the District of
California. General McDowell made a visit of inspection to the District of Oregon. He
first visited Puget Sound, and from thence returned to the Columbia river in the then
United States revenue cutter Shubrick, Captain Scammon, specially inspecting the defenses
at the mouth of the Columbia river. Early in 1865, Major-General McDowell, in command
of the Pacific Department, had made a requisition for another regiment of cavalry, the
existing organization to be retained as the First Oregon Cavalry, but to be filled up to
twelve companies. The military District of Oregon had been amplified so as to include
the southern and southeastern portions of the state, which had theretofore been within the
District of California. The Boise and Owyhee region were now constituted a sub-district
in the District of Oregon; and said sub-district was placed under the command of
Lieutenant-Colonel Drake. Lieutenant-Colonel Maury had been appointed colonel.
Captain George B. Currey had become Lieutenant-Colonel Currey.
In the spring of 1865, renewed activity was manifested to protect the roads traveled
by miners and immigrants from Indian marauders. In April, one hundred men were
detailed to guard the road between Fort Boise and The Dalles. In May, Company B,
Oregon Cavalry, Captain Palmer, escorted a supply train from The Dalles to Fort
Boise. A detachment proceeded to Salmon Falls creek, Camp Reed, to watch the
immigrant road. They summered there and continued camped in tents through the
next winter, suffering severe hardships from the severity of the climate and the depth
of snow. Captain Palmer made a summer camp on Big Camas Prairie, from whence
a detachment under Lieutenant C. H. Walker was sent one hundred and ten miles east
to the Three Buttes. Lieutenant Walker had been ordered to winter at Fort Hall. He
went to Gibson's Ferry above Fort Hall, where a great many wagons crossed, but saw
no unfriendly Indians. With his company, he remained at the ferry until September 19th,
when he prepared to go into winter quarters at old Fort Hall, which was a mass of ruins.
Of the débris of the old fort, and the abandoned sheds and buildings of the Overland
Stage Company, he erected a shelter which he named Camp Lander. At such a post as.
that, through the winter of 1865-66, those self-sacrificing soldiery remained.
In May, detachments of Oregon cavalry, respectively commanded by Lieutenants
Hobart and James L. Currey, cleared the road to Cañon City and thence to Fort Boise.
From that post Lieutenant-Colonel Drake sent Lieutenant Currey to Rock creek, on Snake
river, to escort the mails, the hostiles having driven off the Overland Stage Company's
stock from several stations. Lieutenant Hobart marched to Jordan creek and established
Camp Lyon. While following up the Indians who had driven off the stock on Reynolds'
creek, they attacked his camp on the Malheur river, having first stampeded his horses.
The fight continued for several hours, during which two of his men were wounded. He
recovered his animals, captured several from the Indians, and killed and wounded several
of the enemy (1).
All the summer Captain L. L. Williams, Company H, Oregon Infantry, had been
guarding the Cañon City road. In September, he was ordered to Camp Watson to take
command of an expedition to Selvies river. Lieutenant Bowen, with twenty-five Oregon
cavalry, was to reinforce him. Before the cavalry had joined him, his command was
surrounded by a band of Indians, mounted and on foot. Captain Williams, as the march
(1) Lieutenant Hobart subsequently received the commission of captain in the United States army.
22
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
progressed, was obliged to maintain the fight for a long distance. His loss was one killed
and three wounded. The troops killed fifteen of the savages. Captain Williams remained
in the Harney Lake valley through the winter. The camp which he established he named
Camp Wright, in honor of the gallant veteran general who had so often and ably
commanded the district or department. On the 14th of July, Colonel Maury resigned,
and was succeeded by Colonel George B. Currey in command of the District of Oregon.
Upon the death of General Wright, July 30th, whilst en route to Fort Vancouver to take
charge of the Department of the Columbia, which had just been created, and to the
command of which he had been assigned, Colonel George B. Currey, First Oregon Cavalry,
succeeded to the command of the department. Colonel Currey, Department Commander,
had determined upon a vigorous and systematic winter campaign. To check the hostiles
who would be compelled to resort to the valleys, troops were to be stationed at the several
established camps, which were within communicating distance, and constituted a network
of centers of operations in the hostile country. Late in October, and before his plan of
campaign had been fully inaugurated, he, with many of the volunteers, had been mustered
out of service.
Lieutenant-Colonel Drake succeeded Colonel Currey in command of the department.
Much to the chagrin of the citizens, the troops had been ordered from Fort Walla Walla
to Fort Dalles, the post remaining in charge of Captain Noble and a small detachment.
Fort Lapwai was also abandoned. The several camps were abandoned, except Camps
Watson and Alvord. Camp Lyon and Fort Boise were permitted to remain. Gradually
the organization of the Oregon volunteers melted away. By June, 1866, the companies
had all been disbanded except Company B, First Oregon Cavalry, and Company I,
First Oregon Infantry. Thus ended Oregon volunteer organizations and movements.
Everything was deferred till the arrival of United States troops, and for a department
commander connected with the regular army.
At the end of October, 1865, two companies of the Fourteenth Infantry, U. S. Army,
Captain Walker commanding, had been stationed at Fort Boise. The Oregon volunteers,
having been relieved, marched to Fort Vancouver and were mustered out. During that
winter, the Shoshones continued their marauding. In February, 1866, after a large
amount of property had been stolen by the Indians, Captain Walker, with thirty-nine
men, marched to the mouth of the Owyhee and crossed into Oregon. A party of
twenty-one were overtaken in a cañon between the Owyhee and Malheur rivers. Captain
Walker fired upon them. They resisted and fought him till dark; and all the Indians
but three, who escaped in the darkness, were killed. Captain Walker recovered the
property, but lost one man killed and one wounded.
On the 24th of February, Major-General Steele assumed the command of the
Department of the Columbia. On the 2d of March, Fort Boise, with its communicating
camps, viz., Alvord, Lyon, Reed and Lander, was constituted a sub-military district, with
Major L. H. Marshall, U. S. Army, in command. On arriving at Fort Boise, that officer
made requisition for three additional companies. In April, Lieutenant-Colonel Sinclair,
Fourteenth Infantry, took command at Camp Currey, but abandoned it and went to Fort
Boise. Two companies of United States infantry (one from Cape Hancock and the other
from Fort Dalles) arrived at Fort Boise. There were two companies of United States
cavalry at Camp Watson; one company of United States cavalry, Captain David Perry,
at Camp C. F. Smith; one company of United States cavalry, Captain James C. Hunt, at
Camp Lyon, at which camp were also a company of United States infantry and a company
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GENERAL CROOK ON THE TRAIL OF THE SHOSHONES.
27
In the latter part of July, General Crook scouted between Camps Harney and C. F.
Smith, with three companies of cavalry and the two companies of Indian auxiliaries under
command of Lieutenants McKay and Darragh. The command traveled at night, and
during the day lay by concealed. In the Puebla Mountains, they overtook a large body
of Shoshones. The Indian allies made the attack, the cavalry being held in reserve.
Lieutenants McKay and Darragh surrounded the Shoshone camp; and soon the scouts
had thirty of the enemy's scalps. Eight miles farther on, another hostile camp was
discovered. The same tactics were pursued; and these Indians fared no better at the
hands of General Crook's Indian allies.
General Crook had observed that the Shoshones were abundantly supplied with
ammunition and arms; that no capture or destruction of their property or stores seemed
to cripple their energies or fighting powers; but that immediately their stock was
replenished. He logically reasoned that such must be effected from the proceeds of the
property stolen in the northern settlements; that such plunder was converted into the
means whereby the war was maintained; that either friendly Indians or Whites must be
utilized in such conversion. Having become satisfied that the reservation Indians of
California received the stolen property, and found purchasers in unscrupulous Whites
living near, he resolved that this traffic should end; that these war supplies to the fighting
Shoshones should be intercepted; and that the parties engaged in the traffic should be
punished. To this end, he fitted out an expedition of mounted infantry at Camp C. F.
Smith. On the march to Camp Warner, two camps of traveling Indians (parties engaged
in supplying the hostile camps) were met. All were killed or captured. Old Camp
Warner was located at an altitude of five thousand feet; and its climate was excessively
severe in winter, and the snows heavy. It was abandoned for such reasons, and a new site
selected. Several scouting parties of the Indian auxiliaries had killed or captured a
number of the hostiles.
On the 16th of August, the District of Boise was restricted to Fort Boise. The
camps detached were constituted a sub-district named Owyhee District, which was put
under command of General Washington L. Elliot, First Cavalry. Shortly subsequent,
Fort Boise was included in and became part of the Owyhee District. Fort Klamath,
Camps Watson, Warner, Logan and Harney were made the District of the Lakes, to the
command of which General Crook was assigned.
With three companies of cavalry, one of mounted infantry, and Lieutenants McKay's
and Darragh's two companies of Indian allies, General Crook set out for the locality
from which he suspected the hostiles received their supplies. On the 9th, Lieutenant
Darragh reported Indians in the tules of Lake Abert. An Indian trail was discovered;
but General Crook, believing that the Shoshones were traveling south, divided his
command. He sent the companies of Captains Harris and Perry, with the Indian
companies, north, to scout between the Sprague and Des Chutes rivers, and to examine
Crooked river. With one company of cavalry, the mounted infantry, and the Boise scouts
under McIntosh, he went to Surprise valley.
For some days he had marched during the night, concealing himself by day. He
was at length nearly up with the Indians; and, as he was satisfied that they knew his
movements, he changed his tactics, boldly marching by daylight. When within twenty
miles of Fort Crook, he took advantage of the mountains on the south side of the river,
which concealed his force from the Indians, crossed over and camped in a heavily
timbered cañon. On the twenty-fifth, he marched southeast along foothills covered with
28
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
timber. A small band of Indians in a ravine fled before him. He had now reached
the Pitt river region; and the horses were wearied from their marching over the lava
beds. The indications were that the Indians were numerous and upon the alert. On
the next day, his command came upon their stronghold in the rocks, near the bend of
the south branch of the river. The troops dismounted, and formed lines on both sides
of the occupied rocks, the two meeting on the east, fronting the Indian position. A
perpendicular lava wall, three hundred feet high and a third of a mile long, bound the
west side of the valley. Its north end was a ridge of lava blocks which in front sloped
gradually towards the valley. Two ridges, one hundred and fifty feet in length, and thirty
feet in height, with perpendicular, parallel walls, ran into the southeast boundary. Within
the eastern ridge, at the north end, was a fort some twenty feet in diameter, made of
crudely piled stones breast high, with loopholes; and upon the western ridge were two
larger fortifications of similar construction.
·
There was but one apparently practicable approach, which was on the eastern slope
near the small fort. In the first charge by Parnell up the cañon on the south, the
advancing party lost four killed and wounded. It had been learned that the Indians could
not be dislodged except by siege. The command had surrounded the Indians; but they
were so thoroughly covered that sharp-shooting was the only method to do them injury.
The firing had continued until dark; and pickets were stationed to guard against the
Indians leaving. Under cover of the darkness the troops had approached as near as practicable
to the Indian fort, and had taken shelter among the rocks, which the savages anticipated
and had kept up a shower of stones, arrows and missiles to prevent it. Through the night a
desultory firing was maintained. Noises were kept up inside the Indian lines as though
they were piling stones, and strengthening or constructing fortifications. In the darkness
one of the mounted infantry had been killed by the cavalry in the cross-fire. At daybreak
the pickets were brought in; and the line was formed under the crest of the ridge facing
the east fort. The scouts had crawled upon the opposite side of the ridge as near as they
could; and the charge was ordered (1). Forty men rushed forward; a volley from the
besieged struck down Lieutenant Madigan, three non-commissioned officers, three privates
and a civilian. The rest pushed on, and the wall was gained, which presented two
accessible points. Sergeant Russler of Company D, Twenty-third Infantry, led the way
up one approach. Sergeant Meara of the First Cavalry led the other charge. Sergeant
Meara was first to gain the natural parapet which surrounded the east fort. As he was
crossing, encouraging his comrades, he was shot dead. Sergeant Russler came up at the
same moment. He fired through one of the loopholes and was also shot.
The fort being captured, General Crook's men waited in suspense to shoot the Indians
as they attempted to escape, or to have a hand-to-hand struggle with them in that pen.
But no Indian passed out. Among the rocks they had made their retreat to the western
forts, from which they fired another fatal volley, which killed one and wounded several.
Gradually the firing of the Indians died away. The west forts were inaccessible; and the
troops waited all through the twenty-seventh to learn what would be the next move of the
savages. On the twenty-eighth, an Indian squaw attempted to pass out through the lines.
From her General Crook received the information that the men, hours before, had
abandoned the fort. Through caverns and fissures forming subterranean paths, a thorough
communication existed with the surrounding country. By those paths the beseiged
Shoshones had made good their escape; nor was it safe to attempt to follow.
(1) Correspondence of J. Wassen, in the Oregonian of November 12, 1867.
In

JAMES H.KOONTZ,
ECHO,OR.
CLOSE OF THE SHOSHONE WAR.
29
descending into and examining one of those caverns, a soldier was killed. Most likely
his slayer was a wounded Indian in concealment, who had been unable to crawl farther.
On the thirtieth, General Crook returned to the new post, the new Camp Warner, which
he reached on the 4th of October. The detachments of Captains Perry and Harris, which
had gone northward, had met no hostiles.
Lieutenant Small from Fort Klamath, with fifty troops and ten Klamath scouts, during
September, had killed twenty-three Indians and captured fourteen, two of whom were
chiefs and another a prominent medicine man. On the Idaho side, the Indian depredations.
had been most frequent and annoying. The farmers and citizens organized a force in the
lower Boise section. Arms and a squad of soldiers were furnished by the fort. They
scouted the country, killed two Indians, and recovered stock which had been stolen.
Repressed in one locality, the Indians reappeared in others. The stage station at the
mouth of the Payette river was robbed of all its animals. A tithe of the horrible crimes
committed by those Shoshones cannot here be recounted. The people were alarmed, and were
clamorous for relief. At that time those Indian allies, who had done such efficient service
in ridding the territory of so many incarnate fiends, were mustered out of service. On
the 23d of November, General Steele was succeeded by Major-General Lovell H. Rousseau,
U. S. Army, in command of the Department of the Columbia. There were no material
changes of campaign. Several conflicts with small parties of Indians occurred, who
generally sustained reverses. A number had been killed, many had been captured, and
their large camps were melting away.
At length the hostiles were desirous of peace. General Halleck, with his customary
egotism and disposition to handicap subordinates in their legitimate fields of duty, had
issued an order that no Indian treaty could be made in his division without consulting
him. This necessitated that General Crook, the peacemaker, must hear from San
Francisco before he could terminate hostilities or secure peace. The hostiles sued for
peace; but General Crook dictated the terms. Wisely eschewing the pernicious policy
of collecting mischievous Indians on reservations, to be fed and clothed until they were
ready to renew the conspiracy, he simply recognized We-wa-we-wa, the head chieftain of
the Malheur Shoshones, as their chief, and made him responsible for their good conduct.
With that he dismissed them, to go where they pleased. He compelled them to restore
to the owners the property they had stolen. The first arrangement included the
Malheur and Warner Lake Shoshones. The Idaho Snakes were brought in later, but
peace had been secured.
The Indian Department tried to reverse the sensible policy of General Crook, and to
force the Indians upon the reservations; but the War Department declined to give active
aid.
Superintendent Meacham endeavored to get We-wa-we-wa (who had surrendered
to General Crook) with his people on the Klamath reservation, but was unsuccessful.
In November, a council was held at Camp Warner with Otsehoe, who had been an
influential spirit and a big chief in the hostile bands; and he was persuaded to go
upon the reserve. Fed through the winter, during the next spring his bands left in
small parties, he going last. When he was required to bring them back, Otsehoe replied
that Major Otis wished him to remain at Camp Warner. He finally consented to
winter on the reservation, and to spend his summers about Camp Warner and Goose
Lake. In March, 1871, the Malheur reservation was declared, with an area of 2,775
square miles on the north fork of the Malheur river. In 1873, a portion of those
tribes voluntarily went upon that reservation to reside. Gradually all have been
concentrated there; and thus was ended the Shoshone War and its sequel.
30
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
The purposes of the present volume were rather to exhibit the elements of growth
and the progress of the state than to narrate history, so called. To accomplish such
design it was deemed essential to chronicle the growth and progress of counties, towns
and communities, to note the origin, progress and extent of industrial and commercial
enterprises, and to illuminate that work by the personal history or biography of the
actors who made that progress or controlled and molded that history. Such having
been the objects, it must necessarily preclude, as also render unnecessary, at this time,
an extended reference to those events and acts upon which the political, commercial
and industrial growth of the State of Oregon has depended. That branch of the work
has been committed to competent hands; and its able and industrious performance will
be presented in subsequent pages. Those exhibits are as well the sources as they are
the illustration of that advancement which has been so remarkable. Their presentation
renders it unwarrantable and alike unnecessary to trench upon the space allotted for the
purposes of this volume. Nor could the compendium be presented with any satisfaction, all
that is permitted being to cite in the briefest language mere acts or facts, without reference
to those circumstances or surroundings, the statement of which oftentimes is so necessary
to justify historic deductions. In what follows in concluding this chapter, nothing will
be attempted but the meager naming of the actors, briefly referring to such contemporary
acts as will of themselves indicate personal changes of official administration and political
periods.
In previous pages, reference has been made to the administrations of Governors
Addison C. Gibbs and George L. Woods. The former had been elected in 1862, upon the
Republican ticket, over General John F. Miller, the Democratic nominee. He had been
inaugurated in September of that year, and had continued in office until the installation
of his successor, Governor George L. Woods, in September, 1866, who had been elected
that summer, defeating Colonel James K. Kelly, his Democratic competitor. Those
gentlemen were succeeded in the following order:
In 1870, Lafayette Grover was elected over Joel Palmer, and in 1874 was re-elected
over J. C. Tolman, Republican, and T. F. Campbell, Independent. In September, 1876,
Governor Grover was elected United States senator for the term commencing March 4,
1877. Upon that occurrence, he resigned the office of governor; and, for the continuance
of that gubernatorial term, Stephen F. Chadwick, Secretary of State, succeeded to and
performed the functions of the executive office. Governor Stephen F. Chadwick was
succeeded in September, 1878, by William W. Thayer, Democrat. In 1882, Zenas F.
Moody, Republican, was inaugurated Governor; and, in 1886, Sylvester Pennoyer, the
present incumbent, was elected and installed as governor.
The state legislature, at its biennial session of 1862, elected Benjamin F. Harding to
fill the unexpired senatorial term made vacant by the death of Colonel Edward D. Baker,
which expired March 3, 1865. Upon Senator Baker's death, Governor Whiteaker
appointed Benjamin Stark to fill the vacancy until the legislature should elect. He
served until relieved, in the fall of 1862, by Senator Harding. The following summary
will exhibit the names and services of Oregon's United States senators since the admission
of the state:
Delazon Smith, from February 14, 1859, to March 3, 1859; Joseph Lane, from
February 14, 1859, to March 3, 1861; Edward D. Baker, from March 4, 1861, to October
21, 1861; Benjamin Stark, from October until the election of Senator Harding, 1862;
Benjamin F. Harding, from September, 1862, to March 3, 1865; James W. Nesmith, from

N
MER
GERMEANZ
RESIDENCE OF HON. H.L.YESLER.
SEATTLE W.T.
OREGON'S UNITED STATES SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES.
31
March 4, 1861, to March 3, 1867; George H. Williams, from March 4, 1865, to March 3,
1871; Henry W. Corbett, from March 4, 1867, to March 3, 1873; James K. Kelly, from
March 4, 1871, to March 3, 1877; John H. Mitchell, from March 4, 1873, to March 3,
1879; Lafayette Grover, from March 4, 1879, to March 3, 1883; James H. Slater, from
March 4, 1879, to March 3, 1885; Joseph N. Dolph, from March 4, 1883, to March 3,
1889; John H. Mitchell, from March 4, 1885, to March 3, 1891; Joseph N. Dolph, from
March 4, 1889, to March 3, 1895.
Since the admission of Oregon, the state has been represented in the United States.
House of Representatives as follows: Thirty-fifth Congress, ending March 3, 1859, by
Lafayette Grover, Democrat; Thirty-sixth Congress, ending March 3, 1861, by Lansing
Stout, Democrat; Thirty-seventh Congress, ending March 3, 1863, by George K. Shiel,
Democrat; Thirty-eighth Congress, ending March 3, 1865, by John R. McBride,
Republican; Thirty-ninth Congress, ending March 3, 1867, by J. H. D. Henderson,
Republican; Fortieth Congress, ending March 3, 1869, by Rufus Mallory, Republican;
Forty-first Congress, ending March 3, 1871, by Joseph S. Smith, Democrat; Forty-second
Congress, ending March 3, 1873, by James H. Slater, Democrat; Forty-third Congress,
ending March 3, 1875: Joseph G. Wilson, Republican, was elected. He died before taking
his seat; and, at a special election to fill the vacancy, James W. Nesmith was elected, and
served until March 3, 1875; Forty-fourth Congress, ending March 3, 1877: George A.
LaDow, Democrat, was elected to this Congress. He died before taking his seat; and
Lafayette Lane was elected, at a special election, October 25, 1875, to fill the vacancy, and
served until March 3, 1877; Forty-fifth Congress, ending March 3, 1879, by Richard
Williams, Republican; Forty-sixth Congress, ending March 3, 1881, by John Whiteaker,
Democrat; Forty-seventh Congress, ending March 3, 1883, by M. C. George, Republican;
Forty-eighth Congress, ending March 3, 1885, by M. C. George, Republican; Forty-ninth
Congress, ending March 3, 1887, by Binger Herman, Republican; Fiftieth Congress,
ending March 3, 1889, by Binger Herman, Republican; Fifty-first Congress, ending
March 3, 1891, by Binger Herman, Republican.
3
CHAPTER LIX.
(1859-1889.)
Washington Territory from the Admission of the State of Oregon Till Its Own
Admission as a State - Enlarged Area of Washington Consequent Upon Oregon
State Boundaries- Opening of the Walla Walla Valley to Settlement and
Occupancy of the Upper Country-Discovery of Gold in
in Southeastern
Washington - Setting Off of the Territory of Idaho - Followed by the
Settlement of Montana Territory- Settlements and Development of the Puget
Sound Region an Incident of the Frazer River Excitement-The San Juan
Island Imbroglio Settled Finally by the Award of William I., Emperor of
Germany — Piracies and Depredations of Northern Indians - The Northern
Pacific Railroad — Origin, Progress and Completion Convention to Frame
State Constitution, and Efforts to Secure Admission as a State - Efforts to
Exclude Chinamen — Condensed Political History
- Condensed Political History-Admission of the State of
Washington.
N THE fall of 1858, by the express instructions of General N. S. Clarke, U. S. Army
(who had succeeded Major-General Wool in the command of the Department of the
Pacific), the Wool interdict against white occupancy of Eastern Washington had been
rescinded; and the country was thrown open to settlers. During that fall, the short
but vigorous campaign of Colonel George Wright had effectually subjugated the hostile
Indians in Eastern Washington, and had secured peace. The country at once commenced
to develop. The rich tracts along the banks of streams were taken by farmers; and
cattlemen occupied the rich and extensive grazing lands. The legislature of 1859,
recognizing the former creation of the county of Walla Walla, provided for its organization
by the appointment of the necessary county officers. The growth of the "Inland
Empire" was assured. Upon the admission of the State of Oregon with its present
boundaries, the area of the territory of Washington had been vastly increased by the
annexation, upon its southern border, of all of the territory lying between the eastern
boundary of Oregon and the Rocky Mountains. During the year 1859, numbers of
settlers, mostly farmers and stock-raisers, settled in the Walla Walla valley.
But the discovery of gold, in 1860, proved to be the great magnet which gave impetus
to settlement. The rapid succession of gold excitements, consequent upon new discoveries
in a contiguous region, made that region almost as attractive; the stampede to it was as
notable as had marked the two great predecessors, viz.: California in 1848-49, and
Frazer river a decade later. A Nez Perce Indian had visited California. He met with
Captain E. D. Pierce, an old prospector who had devoted much of his life to gold hunting.
To him the Indian told an Indian story colored with the mixture of superstition and
imagination peculiar to the race. The Nez Perce, with two of his people, had been
traveling. At night they came to a cañon, deep, dark and dismal and walled in by
( 32 )
DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN SOUTHEASTERN WASHINGTON.
33
((
perpendicular rocks, from which jutted irregularly out-spreading smaller rocks. Here
they camped for the night. In the dread darkness they observed a brilliant light like that
of a star break forth among those projecting rocks. They steadily watched that steady
light, not daring to remove their eyes from it. They regarded it as the eye of the Spirit
of the place. Morning came at last; and they repaired to the spot where the light had
appeared. It seemed like a ball of crystal so solidly embedded in the surrounding rock
that they could not detach it from its place of deposit. In their superstitious belief that it
was medicine," they feared to use any violence to remove it, and so came away allowing
it to remain. Enough had been told to excite the curiosity of Captain Pierce. He at
once determined to find the "ball of light," the brilliant star seen by the Nez Perces in
that cañon. He settled at Walla Walla. In the spring of 1860, with a party of five
others, he started for the Nez Perce country. Those Indians wanted no gold discoveries
to be made in their territory to attract white settlers; and they ordered Captain Pierce
and his little party to leave their vicinage. Captain Pierce, however, secured a Nez
Perce woman for a guide, and passed over the Lo Lo trail to the north fork of the Clear
water river. Here his party went into camp to recruit and rest the animals. Bassett, one
of the number, went to a meadow-stream close to the camp, and prospected the earth. His
first pan returned three cents. This was in July. When satisfied of the existence of
gold in paying quantities, the party returned to Walla Walla.
J. C. Smith, an old pioneer of that region, known and universally esteemed as Sergeant
Smith, had the greatest faith in the prospect. With his accustomed energy, he tried to
enlist the co-operation of the Walla Walla merchants; but failing in that, on his own
personal credit he fitted out a party of fifteen, who arrived at the Oro Fino mines in
November. The winter was occupied in building five log cabins, and in working the
mines under the snow. About the first of January, two of the miners returned to Walla
Walla, coming out on snowshoes. Sergeant Smith himself returned to Walla Walla in
the early part of March with eight hundred dollars. The dust was sent to Portland. In
1861, the rush began. Other discoveries followed,-Rhodes creek, Elk City, Powder
river, and the Salmon river mines, usually called the Florence.
Probably the "Salmon river excitement," as it was called, exceeded in importance and
widespread influence either of the associate excitements or preceding discoveries. We
cannot follow farther this romantic narrative of mining excitements and the spontaneous
growth of little communities and territorial development far and near engendered by
them. Lewiston and Wallula (the site of the old Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Walla
Walla) had already grown into important towns, or centers of trade. The territorial
legislature, at its session in 1858-59, had cut off from Walla Walla county the
territory north and west of Snake river, and established the county of Spokane. That
county, too, was feeling the effect of the growing importance and recognition of the inland
empire. Settlers were distributing themselves in that county, and establishing communities
and points of trade. In the latter part of 1862, the Boise mines had been discovered.
The immediate and direct result of the growing condition of affairs was the establishment
of the new territory of Idaho by the act of Congress of March 2, 1863, which subtracted
from the area of Washington all of the territory south of the forty-sixth parallel of north
latitude, and all east of the one hundred and seventeenth degree of west longitude. A
year later, a continuous and spreading growth of the territory west of the Rocky Mountains
led to the setting off, by the act of Congress of March 2, 1864, of the territory of Montana.
For detailed information as to the continued remarkable progress and development of that
34
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
interesting region, the reader must consult the respective local histories of the several
counties into which the country has been divided as popular necessities have demanded.
We now recur to events upon Puget Sound. The Fraser river excitement had continued
(1859). Its influence as an impetus to settlement had been an agency in attracting
population to the northern points of Western Washington. Many of those who were en
route to British Columbia would stop at some port on Puget Sound, and remain there.
Many, as they returned, became permanent settlers of the territory. There had been,
there was yet continuing, a great influx of population to Puget Sound, directly consequent
upon that wondrous episode in our territorial history. One of its speedy results was the
increased number of American settlers upon the Island of San Juan, one of that famous
archipelago so long in dispute between Great Britain and the United States. In the
summer of 1859, the attempted exercise of criminal jurisdiction over a citizen of the
United States, an American settler on the island, by a British magistrate appointed by
Sir James Douglas, Governor of British Columbia, for a time seriously threatened the
peace of the two nations. In the previous volume has been fully detailed all the features
of the Oregon boundary question, the adjustment of the northern boundary of Oregon
territory between the United States and Great Britain, which was temporized by the
abortive treaty of limits of June 15, 1846.
"That boundary line was defined, 'Westward along the forty-ninth parallel of north
latitude to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver
Island, and thence southerly through the middle of the said channel and of Fuca's
Strait to the Pacific Ocean.' That treaty yielded to Great Britain, as a measure of
peace and conciliation, the southern extremity of Vancouver Island, the portion south
of the said forty-ninth parallel. Such and such alone was its true intent, and the
intention of every officer of the United States government who had any connection with
the negotiation, adoption or ratification of the treaty. Lord Aberdeen, the British author
of the original draft of that treaty, and of the phraseology as it was adopted, in submitting
that draft to Louis McLane, the United States Plenipotentiary at London, in express
language proposed to run the line on the forty-ninth parallel to the Gulf of Georgia,
and thence by the Canal de Haro and Strait of Fuca to the Pacific Ocean' (1). The
negotiations and discussions at the time fully corroborate the statement, that the part of
Vancouver Island south of the forty-ninth parallel, and nothing else south of that line,
was contemplated to be surrendered by the United States by the treaty of June 15, 1846.
That line gave to the United States the Haro Archipelago, of which San Juan Island forms
a part.
"The treaty having been concluded, and the exciting controversy of forty years.
having been settled, the government of the United States remained, for a time, without
any further interest in the boundary, awaiting the settlement of the country before
exhibiting any anxiety to have the line definitely marked.
"In November, 1846, Mr. Bancroft, then minister of the United States at London,
communicated to the Secretary of State his apprehensions of a design on the part of
Great Britain to claim the boundary line to be through the Rosario Strait instead of the
Canal de Haro, so as to throw the Island of San Juan and the other islands of the Haro
Archipelago within the limits of British jurisdiction. Mr. Bancroft met this pretension
promptly; and for a time it was apparently abandoned. He was then under the impression
(1) Official report by Louis McLane, United States Minister to London of the interview, May 18, 1846, between Lord Aberdeen, British Secretary
of State, and Minister McLane, in which was submitted by Lord Aberdeen the draft of the treaty accepted by the United States. It is cited in
"Memorial of United States Government to William I., Emperor of Germany, Arbitrator," by George Bancroft.


GEO. H. EMERSON,
HOQUIAM, W. T.
THE SAN JUAN ISLAND IMBROGLIO.
35
that the Hudson's Bay Company were the parties who sought to possess that valuable
group of islands, and that the British ministry did not favor their proceedings.
"In January, 1848, Mr. Crampton, the British diplomatic representative accredited to
the United States, under instructions from his government, made a proposition to the
United States to appoint joint commissioners for the purpose of determining the water
boundary. With this proposition was presented a draught of joint instructions to the
commissioners, framed so as to leave but little for them to do except to run the line
through the channel, which would give to Great Britain all the islands of the Haro
Archipelago.
((
'In 1852, the territory of Oregon, by an act of their legislature, included the Haro
Archipelago in one of its counties; and, after the passage of this act, the Hudson's Bay
Company established a post on San Juan Island. When the territory of Washington was
created, these islands were declared by the legislature of that territory to form a part of
Whatcom county. In 1855, the property of the Hudson's Bay Company on San Juan
Island was assessed in the same manner as other property within the territory; and, upon
their refusal to pay the taxes, their property was advertised and sold, in the usual way, to
satisfy the demand. This led to a correspondence between the governors of Vancouver
Island and Washington Territory, in which the former declared that he had the orders of
Her Majesty's government to regard the islands of the Haro Archipelago as a part of the
British dominions. This correspondence, with a heavy claim for damages, was laid before
this department by John F. Crampton, Esq., the British Minister here at the time, with a
renewal of his proposition for the appointment of a joint commission to determine the
boundary line; and, in the event that the proposal could not be met by the government of
the United States without difficulty or delay, he suggested 'the expediency of the adoption,
by both governments, of the channel marked as the only known navigable channel by
Vancouver, as that designated by the treaty.' In other words, the United States were
requested to run the line through Rosario Strait, and give up to Great Britain the Haro
Archipelago.
"The Executive complied with Mr. Crampton's proposal so far as to recommend to
Congress the creation of a commission to determine the boundary line; and, on the 11th
of August, 1856, an act was passed authorizing a commission, on the part of the United
States, to unite with similar officers to be appointed on the part of the British government.
Instead of adopting the proposed joint instructions to the commissioners, each government
instructed its own commissioner as to the duties he was to perform.
"In 1857, the commissioners met at Esquimalt Harbor, Vancouver Island, and
exchanged credentials, with the understanding that they were mutually invested with full
powers; and the discussion of the boundary question took place with this understanding
on the part of the United States commissioner.
"The discussion thus entered into, in connection with the subsequent diplomatic
correspondence on the subject, merits careful attention as an exposition of the views of the
two governments in relation to the channel contemplated by the treaty. The United
States commissioner based his claim to the Canal de Haro on the ground that it was the
main channel south of the forty-ninth parallel leading into the Strait of Fuca, and that it
accomplished the sole object for which the line was deflected south from the forty-ninth
parallel, instead of being extended on that parallel to the ocean, namely, to give the whole
of Vancouver Island to Great Britain. His first position was based upon the charts and
maps extant at the date of the treaty and those of latest dates, which show the Canal de
36
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Haro to be by far the widest and deepest channel. The second view seems quite as
strongly supported by the contemporaneous evidence of those who took part in negotiating
the treaty.
"The British commissioner lay claim to Rosario Strait on the ground that it answered
to what he designated as the 'very peculiar wording' of the treaty; that is, he assumes
that the Rosario Strait specially meets the requirement of the language, 'separates the
continent from Vancouver Island;' whereas, the Canal de Haro merely separates
Vancouver Island from the continent. And he intimated that the name of the Canal de
Haro was omitted in the wording of the treaty, and the usual mode of expression
(separating the lesser object from the greater) was designedly reversed in order to carry
the boundary line through the Rosario Strait. He presented no contemporaneous evidence,
however, to support either his peculiar argument in relation to the language used, or his
statement concerning the omission of the Canal de Haro.
"The two commissioners disagreed in regard to the boundary channel. The British
commissioner, having failed to produce any evidence to substantiate his claim that the
Rosario Strait was the channel intended by the treaty, or to produce rebutting
contemporaneous evidence to that presented by the United States commissioner in favor
of the Canal de Haro, offered as a compromise an intermediate narrow channel, which
would throw the island of San Juan, the most valuable of the whole group, on the British
side of the line. This compromise the United States commissioner refused to accept.
"A perusal of the instructions of the two governments to their commissioners,
respectively, will throw much light upon the discussion and its result.
"The commissioner of the United States was left untrammeled by those addressed to
him, and sought to carry out the intentions of the negotiators of the treaty by consulting
all the evidence that could be found for his guidance, determined to carry the treaty into
effect by running the line through the channel intended by them, wherever that channel
was to be found.
"The instructions to the British commissioner, however, were in substance the same
as those proposed by Mr. Crampton for the two governments to the joint commission,-
to run the line through the Rosario Strait,—allowing him the discretionary power to
adopt an intermediate channel, provided that the United States commissioner could not
be induced to accept the channel claimed by the British government.
Under no
circumstances, however, does he appear to have had the power to accept any channel
that would not give his government the Island of San Juan. This is clearly ascertained
from his instructions; and the British commissioner leaves no doubt on the subject when
he writes, in his letter offering a compromise channel, 'Beyond what I now offer I can no
further go.'
"From the correspondence which took place betweeen Mr. Cass, Secretary of State,
and Lord John Russell, the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, after the
discussion between the joint commissioners had closed, it appears that the British
government renewed the proposition for compromise made by their commissioner, but
that it was declined. Mr. Cass, as will be seen by the note of the 25th of June, 1860, to
Lord Lyons, then called upon the British government to make a proposition for the
adjustment of the difference between the two governments (1).
Such was the status of the claim between the two governments as to territorial
jurisdiction. Several instances had occurred where conflicts of authority had arisen
(1) Report of William H. Seward, Secretary of State, February 20, 1868, communicating to the United States Senate information relative to
the occupation of San Juan Island.
THE SAN JUAN ISLAND IMBROGLIO.
37
between officials of Whatcom county and the representatives of the Hudson's Bay
Company in occupancy of the Island of San Juan under their license of trade from
the British Crown, growing out of the attempted levy and collection of taxes; and
custom-house officials had been resisted in the collection of duties. The earliest
complaint by a citizen of the United States, the earliest assertion of British jurisdiction,
was in July, 1853. It is briefly stated in the report of Captain James Alden, U. S. Navy,
commanding the United States surveying steamer Active, and is as follows:
"From all I could learn, the English government has decided that the boundary
between us and them should pass down Rosario Strait, and claim, therefore, all the
islands west of that line, overlooking the fact that there is a channel much nearer home,
better in almost every respect, and, to them, far more convenient. I mean the Canal
de Haro.
"Their action seems already to have interfered with the peace and comfort of one
individual who claims to be an American citizen. He came to me with a long complaint;
and the facts, as near as I could get at them, are as follows: His name is R. W. Cussans.
He located a tract of land on Lopez Island, and made improvements to the cost of about
$1,500, but, owing to the action of the governor of Vancouver Island, was obliged to
abandon everything. He was compelled to take a license to cut timber (a copy of which
I herewith inclose), and, after he had cut and squared some 30,000 feet, was informed that
it would be necessary for the vessel, when she took it away, to go to Victoria and clear
at the custom-house. He asked me what he should do under the circumstances,—go to
Victoria or not. I told him that, if the governor brought force enough to divert his
vessel from the course he thought proper to steer, he must submit. I was exceedingly
anxious, at a subsequent interview with Governor Douglas, to lay this matter before him
and obtain his views on the subject; but I was deterred from doing so by the nature
of
my instructions, and from the fact that I considered the license granted to Cussans
as showing conclusively the position assumed by the English government in regard to
those islands."
((
Copy of License : 'The bearer, Richard W. Cussans, having given security for
the payment of the duty of ten pence sterling for each load of fifty cubic feet of timber,
I hereby license you to cut and remove timber on and from any public lands within the
district of Lopez Island for six months from this date.
"JAMES DOUGLAS, Governor.
"Government House, VICTORIA, July 25, 1853.
"This license must be produced whenever demanded by me or any other person
acting under the authority of the government.'
"ROSARIO STRAITS, September 11, 1853.
"I hereby certify that the above is a true copy of the original now in my possession,
and also that I am an American citizen; have located a tract of land on the island above
referred to, believing it to be the property of the United States; and that I have never
given any security for the payment of any dues whatever to the British government.
""Witness:
R. W. CuSSANS.
666
ISRAEL C. WAIT,
"Lieutenant United States Navy'” (1).
(1) Executive Document No. 29, Fortieth Congress, second session (Senate), page 87.
38
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
On the 14th of July, 1855, William L. Marcy, Secretary of State, addressed a letter to
Governor Isaac I. Stevens, in which he said :
"The President has instructed me to say to you that the officers of the territory
should abstain from all acts on the disputed grounds which are calculated to provoke any
conflicts, so far as it can be done without implying the concession to the authority of
Great Britain of an exclusive right over the premises. The title ought to be settled
before either party should exclude the other by force, or exercise complete and sovereign
rights within the fairly disputed limits. Application will be made to the British
government to interpose with the local authorities on the northern borders of our territory
to abstain from like acts of exclusive ownership, with the explicit understanding that any
forbearance on either side to assert their rights, respectively, shall not be construed into
any concession to the adverse party."
This conservative and conciliatory dispatch was occasioned by the attempt on the
part of the county authorities of Whatcom county (which included San Juan Island) to
collect taxes by distraining a lot of sheep belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company.
In 1859, General William S. Harney, U. S. Army, was in command of the Department
of the Columbia. On the 11th of July of that year, twenty-two citizens, representing their
fear of incursions from Northern Indians, and recounting certain depredations and
murders which had been committed by Clallam Indians, petitioned General Harney to
station on the island a company of United States troops for the protection of the citizens.
A circumstance of trivial character in itself also materially influenced the action of
General Harney, and well nigh precipitated war. On the 15th of June, Lyman A. Cutler,
an American settler who had resided on the island and taken a pre-emption of one hundred
and sixty acres, shot a hog belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company. The hog had
provoked him by destroying a part of his garden. Cutler immediately reported his act,
and offered to replace the animal or pay a fair valuation. Charles Henry Griffin, Agent
of the company, demanded one hundred dollars, to the payment of which Cutler demurred.
In the afternoon, several of the prominent company officials called, among whom was
Chief Factor Dallas, and demanded the payment, in default of which they threatened to
convey him to Victoria, Vancouver Island, for trial. These proceedings were communicated
to General Harney on the 9th of July. That officer visited San Juan Island. In a letter
to the commanding general of the United States army, dated July 19, 1859, General
Harney said:
"The Hudson's Bay Company have an establishment on this island for the purpose
of raising sheep, which they export at eight dollars a head. Twenty-five Americans, with
their families, are also living upon the island; and I was petitioned by them through the
United States Inspector of Customs, Mr. Hubbs, to place a force upon the island to protect
them from the Indians, as well as the oppressive interference of the authorities of the
Hudson's Bay Company at Victoria with their rights as American citizens. Mr. Hubbs
informed me that, a short time before my arrival, the chief factor of the company at
Victoria, Mr. Dallas, son-in-law of Governor Douglas, came to the island in the British
sloop-of-war Satellite, and threatened to take one of the Americans (Mr. Cutler) by force
to Victoria, for shooting a pig of the company. The American seized his rifle and told
Mr. Dallas if any such attempt was made he would kill him on the spot. The affair then
ended. The American offered to pay to the company twice the value of the pig, which was
refused. To prevent a repetition of this outrage, I have ordered the company at Fort
Bellingham to be established on San Juan Island for the protection of our citizens; and

CUSTOM HOUSE,
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BUILT AT PORT TOWNSEND IN 1851.
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5. IRONDALE IRON MINES & REDUCTION WORKS. ·
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,
THE SAN JUAN ISLAND IMBROGLIO.
39
the steamer Massachusetts is directed to rendezvous at that place with a second company
to protect our interests in all parts of the Sound."
The orders to Captain George E. Pickett, Company D, Ninth Infantry, commanding
Fort Bellingham, were given the day previous (July 18th): "You are directed to
establish your company on Bellevue or San Juan Island, in some suitable position near
the harbor at the southeastern extremity. The General commanding instructs me to say
the object to be attained in placing you thus is two-fold, viz. :
"First. To protect the inhabitants of the island from the incursions of the Northern
Indians of British Columbia and the Russian possessions. You will not permit any force
of those Indians to visit San Juan Island or the waters of Puget Sound in that vicinity
over which the United States have any jurisdiction. Should these Indians appear
peaceable, you will warn them in a quiet but firm manner to return to their own country,
and not visit in the future the territory of the United States; and, in the event of any
opposition being offered to your demands, you will use the most decisive measures to
enforce them; to which end the commander of the troops stationed on the steamer
Massachusetts will be instructed to render every assistance and co-operation that will be
necessary to enable your command to fulfill the tenor of these instructions.
"Second. Another serious and important duty will devolve upon you in the
occupation of San Juan Island, arising from the conflicting interests of the American
citizens and the Hudson's Bay Company establishment at that point. This duty is to
afford adequate protection to the American citizens in their rights as such, and to resist all
attempts at interference by the British authorities residing in Vancouver Island, by
intimidation or force, in the controversies of the above-mentioned parties.
"This protection has been called for in consequence of the chief factor of the
Hudson's Bay Company, Mr. Dallas, having recently visited San Juan Island with a
British sloop-of-war, and threatened to take an American citizen by force to Victoria for
trial by British laws. It is hoped a second attempt of this kind will not be made;
but, to insure the safety of our citizens, the General commanding directs you to meet
the authorities from Victoria at once, on a second arrival, and inform them they cannot
be permitted to interfere with our citizens in any way. Any grievances they may allege
as requiring redress can only be examined under our own laws, to which they must
submit their claims in proper form.
"The steamer Massachusetts will be directed to transport your command, stores,
etc., to San Juan Island, where you are authorized to construct such temporary shelter
as the necessities of the service demand."
On the 31st of July, Lieutenant-Colonel Silas Casey, commanding the District of
Puget Sound, dispatched the Massachusetts, with Major Haller's Company I, Fourth
Infantry, for San Juan Island, and, by steamer, Lieutenant Arthur Shaaff and twenty
men, to report at Semiahmoo to the United States boundary commission. In
communicating such fact to department headquarters, he inclosed the correspondence
between Captain Pickett and the British officials. That officer demanded the immediate
presence of the Massachusetts at San Juan, as "the Tribune, a thirty-gun frigate, is
lying broadside to our camp; and, from present indications, everything leads me to
suppose that they will attempt to prevent my carrying out my instructions."
On the 30th of July, Charles John Griffin, Agent of the Hudson's Bay Company
notified Captain Pickett that the island on which his camp was pitched was the property
and in the occupation of the Hudson's Bay Company, and requested that he and the
>
40
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
whole of his party who had landed from American vessels would immediately cease to
occupy the same; and that, should Captain Pickett be unwilling to comply with the
request, he (Griffin) "would feel bound to apply to the civil authorities." Captain
Pickett promptly replied of the same date, that he did not acknowledge the right of the
Hudson's Bay Company to dictate his course of action; that he was there by order of his
government, and would remain till recalled by the same authority. On the 3d of August,
Captain Pickett reported the situation to General Harney:
"The British ships Tribune, Plumper and Satellite are lying here in a menacing
attitude. I have been warned off by the Hudson's Bay agent. Then a summons was
sent to me to appear before a Mr. DeCourcey, an official of Her Britannic Majesty.
To-day I received the inclosed communications, and I also inclose my answer to same.
"I had to deal with three captains; and I thought it better to take the brunt of it.
They have a force so much superior to mine that it will be merely a mouthful for them;
still I have informed them that I am here by order of my commanding general, and
will maintain my position if possible.
((
They wish to have a conjoint occupation of the island. I declined anything of that
kind. They can, if they choose, land at almost any point on the island; and I cannot
prevent them. I have used the utmost courtesy and delicacy in my intercourse; and,
if it is possible, please inform me at such an early hour as to prevent a collision.
The utmost I could expect to-day was to suspend any proceeding till they have time to
digest a pill which I gave them. They wish to throw the onus on me, because I refused
to allow them to land an equal force, and each of us to have military occupation, thereby
wiping out both civil authorities. I said I could not do so until I heard from the General.
I have endeavored to impress them with the idea that my authority comes directly
through you from Washington.
"The Pleiades left this morning for San Francisco with Colonel Hawkins.
"The excitement in Victoria and here is tremendous. I suppose some five hundred
people have visited us. I have had to use a great deal of my peace-making disposition in
order to restrain some of the sovereigns.
"They seem to doubt the authority of the General commanding, and do not wish to
acknowledge his right to occupy this island, which they say is in dispute, unless the
United States government have decided the question with Great Britain. I have so far
staved them off by saying that the two governments have without doubt settled this
affair. But this state of affairs cannot last; therefore I most respectfully ask that an
express be sent me immediately on my future guidance. I do not think there are any
moments to waste. In order to maintain our dignity, we must occupy in force, or allow
them to land an equal force, which they can do now, and possibly will do in spite of
my diplomacy."
At the instance of Captain G. Phipps Hornby, commanding Her Britannic Majesty's
ship Tribune, on the 3d of August an interview was held at Captain Pickett's camp,
between Captain Pickett and the commanding officers of the three British ships, the
Tribune, Plumper and Satellite. After the verbal interview had ended, at Captain
Pickett's request, Captain Hornby reduced to writing the substance of the declarations
and propositions. Captain Hornby demanded the terms on which Captain Pickett
occupied the island; to which the latter replied, "By order of the General commanding,
to protect it as a part of the United States territory." Captain Hornby presented the
protest of Governor Douglas, made August 2, 1859, reciting that: "The sovereignty of
THE SAN JUAN ISLAND IMBROGLIO.
41
the Island of San Juan, and of the whole of the Haro Archipelago, has always been
undeviatingly claimed to be in the Crown of Great Britain; and I solemnly protest
against the occupation of said island, or any part of said archipelago, by any person
whatsoever, for or on behalf of any other power." He urged that occupancy of a disputed
island by an United States military force necessitated a similar action by the British
authorities, and that such course involved the risk of collision between the forces, there
being a magistrate of each nation now acting on the island, either of whom might call
upon those of their country for aid. To prevent such collision, Captain Hornby
suggested joint military occupation, until replies could be received from the two
governments. Captain Pickett replied that he had no authority to conclude such terms,
and suggested a reference of the proposition to General Harney and Governor Douglas.
Captain Hornby then urged that the officers of the United States government had
committed an aggressive act by landing an armed force on San Juan Island pending the
settlement of the title, and that that government must be held responsible for any
consequences, either immediate or future. On the receipt of this version by Captain
Hornby of the conversation between Captain Pickett and Captains Hornby, Prevost and
Richards, Captain Pickett replied instanter, acknowledging the correctness of the statements
as far as they went; but Captain Pickett called attention to one point urged by him, but
overlooked by Captain Hornby. Captain Pickett replied: "There is one point, however,
which I dwelt upon particularly, and which I must endeavor, as the officer representing my
government, to impress upon you, viz.: That, as a matter of course, I, being here under
orders from my government, cannot allow any joint occupation until so ordered by my
commanding general, and that any attempt to make any such occupation as you have
proposed, before I can communicate with General Harney, will be bringing on a collision
which can be avoided by waiting this issue. I do not for one moment imagine that there
will any difficulty occur on this island which will render a military interference necessary;
and I therefore deem it proper to state that I think no discredit can reflect upon us, or our
respective flags, by remaining in our present positions until we have an opportunity of
hearing from those higher in authority. I hope, most sincerely, sir, you will reflect on
this, and that you may coincide with me in my conclusion. Should you see fit to act
otherwise, you will then be the person who will bring on a most disastrous difficulty, and
not the United States officials."
On the 6th of August, General Harney addressed General James Douglas. Having
referred to his receipt of Governor Douglas' protest, together with Captain Hornby's
communication threatening a joint occupation of San Juan Island by the forces of Her
Majesty's ships Tribune, Plumper and Satellite, now in the harbor of San Juan by
Governor Douglas' command, he proceeds: "As the military commander of the
Department of Oregon, assigned to that command by the orders of the President of the
United States, I have the honor to state, for your information, that, by such authority
invested in me, I placed a military command upon the Island of San Juan to protect the
American citizens residing on that island from the insults and indignities which the British
authorities of Vancouver Island and the establishment of the Hudson's Bay Company
recently offered them, by sending a British ship-of-war from Vancouver Island to convey
the chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company to San Juan, for the purpose of seizing an
American citizen and forcibly transporting him to Vancouver Island, to be tried by
British laws. I have reported this attempted outrage to my government; and they will
doubtless seek the proper redress from the British government. In the meantime, I have
42
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
the honor to inform Your Excellency I shall not permit a repetition of that insult, and
shall retain a command on San Juan Island to protect its citizens, in the name of the
United States, until I receive further orders from my government.'
""
General Harney, through General N. S. Clarke, commanding the Department of
California, addressed the senior officer of the United States navy commanding the
squadron on the Pacific Coast: "As we have no national vessel belonging to our navy
in the waters of Puget Sound to observe the three vessels of war that have been placed in
a threatening attitude over the harbor of San Juan Island, I have the honor to request
you to order to Puget Sound such force as you can render available to assist in the
protection of American interests in that quarter, and to enable us to meet successfully any
issue that may be attempted to be made out of the present impending difficulties."
General Harney, under date of the 8th of August, in a letter to the general-in-chief
of the United States army, supplemented his former letters by the further information:
"The Island of San Juan has for months past been under the civil jurisdiction of
Whatcom county, Washington Territory. A justice of the peace had been established on
the island. The people had been taxed by the county; and the taxes were paid by the
foreigners as well as Americans. An inspector of customs, an United States officer of the
Treasury Department, had been placed upon the island in the discharge of his proper
duties. The British authorities at Vancouver Island were aware of all of these facts, and
never attempted to exercise any authority on the island, except clandestinely, as reported
yesterday in the case of the pig which was killed. When Governor Douglas heard of the
arrival of Captain Pickett's command at San Juan, he appointed a justice of the peace
and other civil authorities at Victoria, and sent them over in the British ship-of-war
Plumper to execute British laws on the island. Captain Pickett refused to permit them to
act as such; and I have sustained him in his position. I believe I have now fully and
fairly explained all the facts which have any bearing upon the occupation of San Juan
Island, which was made an imperious necessity by the wanton and insulting conduct of the
British authorities of Vancouver Island towards our citizens."
The number of troops forming Lieutenant-Colonel Casey's command was four
hundred and sixty-one: Companies A and C, Fourth Infantry; Company H, Ninth
Infantry; Companies A, B, D and M of the Third Artillery; Company D, Ninth
Infantry; Company I, Fourth Infantry; and a detachment of Company A, Engineers.
He had eight thirty-two pounders landed from the steamer Massachusetts, one six-pounder
and five mountain howitzers. His position was near the Hudson's Bay Company's
establishment, his heavy guns being so placed as to bear upon the harbor, as also upon
vessels approaching the opposite side of the island. The camp of Colonel Casey was not,
however, secure from the shells of the ships of war, though General Harney confidently
reported to the headquarters of the army: "The annoyance from shells would be trifling.
The English have no force that they could land which would be able to dislodge Colonel
Casey's command as now posted."
The fleet and forces of Her Britannic Majesty on service in Puget Sound consisted of
five vessels of war, with combined armaments amounting to one hundred and sixty-seven
guns, and two thousand one hundred and forty men, of which six hundred were marines
and engineer troops.
On the 14th of August, Archibald Campbell, the United States commissioner to run
the boundary line under the treaty of 1846, wrote to General Harney: "However certain
be your conviction that the boundary line, according to the treaty, should run down
may


H. B. OATMAN,
PORTLAND, OR.
MRS. H.B.OATMAN,
PORTLAND, OR.
HON.T. P. POWERS,
ASTORIA, OR.
HON. JOSEPH JEFFERS,
ASTORIA, OR.
MRS. SARAH JEFFERS,
ASTORIA, OR.
THE SAN JUAN ISLAND IMBROGLIO.
43
the Canal de Haro (and I have never hesitated, when asked, to say that such is the ground
I have taken as commissioner, and that in this I believe I will be supported by the
government), still the question has not been authoritatively decided; and, unless you
have some intimation from the War Department which has governed your actions, I fear
that the decided action you have taken in declaring the island American territory may
somewhat embarrass the question."
On the 16th of September, the acting Secretary of War addressed Lieutenant-General
Winfield Scott, Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army, who had with alacrity
responded to the President's wish that he should assume the immediate command of the
United States forces on the Pacific coast.
Among other things, the Secretary wrote: "It is impossible, at this distance from the
scene, and in ignorance of what may have already transpired on the spot, to give you
positive instructions as to your course of action. Much, very much, must be left to your
own discretion; and the President is happy to believe that discretion could not be intrusted
to more competent hands. His main object is to preserve the peace and prevent collision
between the British and American authorities on the island until the question of title can
be adjusted by the two governments. Following out the spirit of Mr. Marcy's instructions.
to Governor Stevens, it would be desirable to provide, during the intervening period, for a
joint occupation of the island, under such guards as will secure its tranquillity without
interfering with our rights. The President perceives no objection to the plan proposed by
Captain Hornby, of Her Majesty's ship Tribune, to Captain Pickett, it being understood
that Captain Pickett's company shall remain on the island to resist, if need be, the
incursions of Northern Indians on our frontier settlements, and to afford protection to
American citizens resident thereon. In any arrangement which may be made for joint
occupation, American citizens must be placed on a footing equally favorable with that of
British subjects.
((
But what shall be your course should the forces of the two governments have come
into collision before your arrival? This would vastly complicate the case, especially if
blood shall have been shed. In that event, it would still be your duty, if this can,
in your
opinion, be honorably done, under the surrounding circumstances, to establish a temporary
joint occupation of the island, giving to neither party any advantage over the other. It
would be a shocking event if the two nations should be precipitated into a war respecting
the possession of a small island, and that only for the brief period during which the two
governments may be peacefully employed in settling the question as to which of them the
island belongs. It is a possible, but not a probable, case that the British authorities,
having a greatly superior force at their immediate command, may have attempted to seize
the island and to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over it, and that our countrymen in those
regions may have taken up arms to assert and maintain their rights. In that event, the
President feels a just confidence, from the whole tenor of your past life, that you will not
suffer the national honor to be tarnished. If we must be forced into war by the violence
of the British authorities, which is not anticipated, we shall abide the issue as best we
may, without apprehension as to the result."
On the 25th of October, Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott addressed a communication
to Governor Douglas containing the following proposition, to serve as a basis for the
temporary adjustment of the difficulty, until the two governments should have time to
settle the question of title diplomatically: "Without prejudice to the claim of either
nation to the sovereignty of the entire Island of San Juan, now in dispute, it is proposed
་
44
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
..
that each shall occupy a separate portion of the same by a detachment of infantry, riflemen
or marines, not exceeding one hundred men, with their appropriate arms, only for the
equal protection of their respective countrymen in their persons and property, and to repel
any descent on the part of hostile Indians."
Several letters were interchanged between General Scott and Governor Douglas. On
the 3d of November, Governor Douglas wrote to General Scott: "If you will proceed to
divest the large military force now on San Juan of its menacing attitude by removing it
from the island, we will instantly withdraw the British naval force now maintained there;
and, as soon as I receive the instructions of my government, I shall be glad to co-operate
with you in arranging a plan for the temporary maintenance of order and protection of
life and property on the island."
Governor Douglas declined to assent to, or carry into effect, the project of a joint
military occupation, without the sanction and express instructions of his government. On
the fifth, General Scott reduced the forces on the island to the single company of Captain
Pickett. General Harney, whose presence was offensive to the British authorities, was
directed to report in person to the Secretary of War. Captain Hunt had been substituted
for Captain Pickett as the commanding officer of the detachment of joint occupation. On
the 20th of March, 1860, Admiral Baynes, Commander-in-Chief of Her British Majesty's
naval forces in the Pacific, gave official notice to Captain Hunt, commanding the United
States troops on San Juan Island, "that a detachment of royal marines, with their
appropriate arms, equivalent in number to the troops of the United States under his
command, will be disembarked on the north point of the Island of San Juan, for the
purpose of establishing a joint military occupation agreeably to the proposition of
Lieutenant-General Scott."
Negotiations without any material result were renewed between the two governments,
both at London and at Washington City. The question continued for years a matter of
discussion between the two nations. Finally, on the 8th of May, 1871, the Treaty of
Washington was concluded, providing for a settlement of all matters of difference between
Great Britain and the United States. By the thirty-fourth article of that treaty, the
respective claims of the two were submitted “to the arbitration and award of His Majesty
the Emperor of Germany, who, having regard to Article I of the treaty of June 15, 1846,
defining the boundary of the possessions of both on the northwest coast of America, shall
decide thereupon, finally and without appeal." The claim of the United States was ably
represented by George Bancroft. The British government was represented by Messrs.
Petre and Odo Russell. The award was made by William I., Emperor, October 21, 1872,
and simply recites: "Most in accordance with the true interpretations of the treaty
concluded on the 15th of June, 1846, between the governments of Her Britannic Majesty
and of 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 United
States should be drawn through the Haro channel."
"That award,” said President Grant in his message of December 2, 1872, "confirms
the United States in their claim to the important archipelago of islands lying between the
continent and Vancouver Island, which for more than twenty-six years (ever since the
ratification of the treaty) Great Britain had contested, and leaves us, for the first time in
the history of the United States as a nation, without a question of disputed boundary
between our territory and the possessions of Great Britain on this continent.”
>
PIRACIES AND DEPREDATIONS OF NORTHERN INDIANS.
45
About the 25th of January, 1859, Ernest Schroter, a merchant of Steilacoom, left that
city for Port Townsend in his schooner the Blue Wing. In his company, or not far
distant, was the schooner Ellen Maria, Captain McHenrie. Of those two schooners and
all on board, since they started upon that little cruise, nothing definitely has ever been
heard. Indian rumor early afterward was to the effect that the Blue Wing was attacked
near the north end of Vashon Island by a party of Northern Indians; that all on board
were murdered; and that the schooner was robbed, and then scuttled and sunk. This
rumor found to a great extent corroboration some eighteen months later. A notorious
Hydah Indian sojourning at Victoria, called Jim, openly boasted of his complicity in that
affair, telling his fellow savages the circumstances; and but little doubt existed as to the
truth of his claim. From him and his associates was also obtained a circumstantial
account of the fate of the Ellen Maria. The canoe that attacked the schooners contained ten
men and five squaws. When the Ellen Maria was boarded by the Hydahs, Captain
McHenrie ordered them off; they persisting in remaining, he fired and instantly killed
the brother of Jim, the leader of the pirates. Captain McHenrie again fired and severely
wounded an aged chief, sitting in the canoe. On that the Indians retired until night, when
they returned, murdered all hands, robbed the schooner and then burned her.
There were at about that time, and shortly subsequent, several murders of lone white
men, and other depredations committed, between that vicinity and Point Maristone. When
the Northern savages had become satiated with their predatory work, they recrossed the
strait, and were out of reach of chastisement. The boasts of Hydah Jim, and the
statements of Indian associates, led to his arrest in the latter part of July, 1860, and his
examination before Augustus F. Pemberton, stipendiary magistrate. The court discharged
him, "because it had no jurisdiction." Butler P. Anderson, United States District
Attorney for Washington Territory, made a sworn complaint charging Jim and his
associates with piracy and murder, and asked that he might be detained for a reasonable
time to enable formal extradition papers to be procured; but Justice Pemberton held that
it was necessary for Mr. Anderson to produce a warrant under the hand and seal of His
Excellency Governor Douglas, signifying that requisition had been made by the authority
of the United States, and requiring him (Justice Pemberton) to aid in the apprehension of
the persons accused. Acting Governor Henry M. McGill then endeavored to secure the
extradition of the Indians on his requisition upon Governor Douglas, which, of course,
not complying with the express provisions of the extradition treaty of 1842, was entirely
ignored; and Victoria became the sanctuary for the murderous pirates who, in that foray
of 1859, murdered Ernest Schroter and at least ten other citizens of Puget Sound.
At the very birth of the territory as a separate political division, its future
development and greatness were thought to depend upon the building of the Northern
Pacific Railroad, and the location of its terminal port upon the great inland sea of Puget
Sound. It was the route and road earliest proposed for transit of the continent. Its
friends and propagandists crystallized that public sentiment, before even California had
become United States territory, which rendered probable the building of a transcontinental
railway. Over half a century ago, the agitation of a Northern Pacific railroad was
inaugurated.
Rev. Samuel Parker, missionary explorer of Oregon in 1835, upon his return to New
York, expressed the opinion that no real obstacle prevented the construction of a railroad
across the continent upon the overland route he had traveled. He prophesied the building
of such a road in the near future, and that over it tourists would journey as they at that
46
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
time did to Niagara. In 1837, Dr. Samuel Barlow, a prominent physician of Massachusetts,
advocated the construction of such a road by the national government. Said he: "My
feeble pen would fail me to expatiate on the substantial, enduring glory which would
redound to our nation should it engage in this stupendous undertaking." In 1838, Willis
Gaylord Clark, the distinguished poet and editor, ventured the prediction, "The reader is
now living who will make a railroad trip across this vast continent.”
But Asa Whitney was its St. John, the voice crying in the wilderness, "Make straight
the way" for the North American route to the wealth of the Pacific and India. During
"all the forties,” he systematically agitated the building of the northern road, addressed
public meetings throughout the Northern states, and urged upon Congress and the
country its entire practicability and importance. His road was to connect Lake Michigan
with the navigable water of the Columbia, the estimated length of line being 2,400 miles.
He agreed to construct the road in twenty years for a government land grant along the
line of road, sixty miles in width. His scheme included a vast system of immigration
from the Atlantic cities and Europe. Laborers were to be compensated partly in land.
Farms were to be prepared for a succeeding immigration by a detail of workmen. The
laborers the second year would go forward to the work upon the road, leaving behind them
those of the first year as farmers and guards. Eloquently he urged: "Millions of poor
and oppressed would be lifted to the dignity of freeholding American citizens; and the
great route for the commerce of the world would be established amid the development of the
resources of the region it traversed and made.” As late as 1847, Asa Whitney, having
addressed an immense assemblage at the Tabernacle in New York, over which the mayor
presided, at the close, a mob took possession of the hall, and denounced the enterprise as
a swindle, an attempt of a band of conspirators to defraud the people by securing an
immense grant of land for an impracticable and visionary project.
In 1848, Mr. Whitney's labors were rewarded by the presentation of a favorable report
by a select committee of Congress, recommending that steps be taken to secure adequate
exploration and surveys from the Mississippi river to the Pacific Ocean.
In 1853, Congress appropriated $150,000 for surveys to ascertain the most practicable
railroad route from the Mississippi river to the Pacific Ocean. The Secretary of War
determined upon the lines to be examined, and selected those who were to conduct the
explorations. On the 8th of April, 1853, Isaac I. Stevens, who had just received his
commission as governor of the territory of Washington, was assigned to the charge of the
Northern route, with instructions to explore and survey a route from the sources of the
Mississippi river to Puget Sound. George B. McClellan, then brevet captain of engineers,
United States army, proceeded direct to Puget Sound, and, with a party, explored the
Cascade Range of mountains, thence eastward until he met the main party under Governor
Stevens, who were marching westward from St. Paul, Minnesota. The decisive points
determined were the practicability and availability of the passes of the Rocky Mountains
and the Cascade Range, and the eligibility of the approaches. Governor Stevens asserted
the entire practicability of a railroad across the Cascade Range. He recommended that,
from the vicinity of the mouth of Snake river, there should be two branches, one to
Puget Sound across the Cascade Mountains, and the other down the Columbia river on
the northern side. Governor Stevens in his messages, addresses and personal efforts; the
legislature by memorials and legislation; the press and the prominent citizens of the
Territory,-kept alive the agitation of the "Northern Route" from the time that the
successful results of the Stevens' survey had been published.


B.C.KINDRED,
FORT STEVENS, DR.
A PIONEER OF 1844.
MRS. B.C.KINDRED,
FORT STEVENS, OR.
A PIONEER OF 1844.

THE NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD.
47
the
On the 28th of January, 1857, the legislature of the territory passed “An act to
incorporate the Northern Pacific Railroad Company." That earliest charter names as
corporators Governor Stevens and numerous citizens of Washington, Oregon, Minnesota,
Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, California, Maine and New York. Thoroughly appreciating the
railroad problem, that act prescribed lines of road almost identical with the present
Northern Pacific Railroad system. On July 2, 1864, Congress granted the charter of the
Northern Pacific Railroad Company. Josiah Perham, of Boston, instrumental in securing
passage of the act, was its first president. The title defines the franchise as intended
by Congress: "An act granting lands to aid in the construction of a railroad and
telegraph line from Lake Superior to Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast, by the northern
route." The company were to accept in writing the conditions imposed, and notify the
President of the United States. On the 15th of December, 1864, the acceptance was
made. As the charter prohibited the issue of bonds, the company were handicapped in
raising funds. Perham and his associates, disheartened, transferred the charter to Governor
J. Gregory Smith and associates.
In 1866, Congress was petitioned to extend aid. The company asked no money, but
simply a guarantee of interest on a portion of its stock for a term of years, but were
denied. In 1867, two parties were engaged in examining the passes of the Cascade Range
north of the Columbia river for a direct line to Puget Sound, and in locating a line
eastward from Portland, Oregon, up the valley of the Columbia. The surveys during
that year by General James Tilton, chief engineer of the Cascade division (this is the first
reference to the Cascade division) developed three practicable passes. In 1868, President
Smith, in his annual report to the Secretary of the Interior, says:
this (the Washington) division have thus far been confined to an examination of the
Cascade Range of highlands, with a view to a knowledge of the
their actual elevation as derived from spirit-level measurements.
been examined from the Columbia river to the valley of the Skagit.
are six passes.
"}
"The surveys upon
practicable passes, and
The entire range has
Within this distance
The company continued its application for congressional aid. At the same time, the
surveys were continued. Despairing of further subsidies, the company were content to
secure (May 31, 1870) the passage of a resolution authorizing the issuance of bonds for
the construction of its road, and to secure the same by mortgage on its property of all
kinds and descriptions, real, personal and mixed, including its franchise."
With these amendments to the charter, the raising of funds was undertaken by Jay
Cooke. The company executed its mortgage to secure bonds on the 1st of July, 1870, to
Jay Cooke and J. Edgar Thompson, trustees. Those amendments to the charter could
not have been secured but by the influence of the Oregon United States senators.
Naturally from thenceforth the policy of the Northern Pacific was to forward the interest,
growth and development of Portland. The line across the Cascade Mountains, transposed
from the “main line to branch," was to be indefinitely postponed not to say entirely ignored.
With five millions of dollars advanced by Jay Cooke & Co., the building of the road
commenced in February, 1870, at Duluth; and within that year the work progressed
westward one hundred and fourteen miles to Brainard. On the Pacific slope, work also
was initiated in 1870. The amendatory act required the construction of twenty-five miles
between Portland and Puget Sound prior to July 2, 1871; and so the company built, from
the town they named Kalama on the Columbia river, northward that distance. During
1872, forty miles had been built northward and were in running operation. On the
5*
48
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
1st of January, 1873, General John W. Sprague and Governor John N. Goodwin, Agents
for the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, formally announced the selection of the
city of Olympia as the terminus on Puget Sound of that road. A few months later (July,
1873) the company at New York declared its western terminus at Tacoma. The failure
of Jay Cooke & Co., in September, 1873, greatly embarrassed operations; but the road
reached its terminus on Puget Sound the day preceding the date prescribed in the
charter and its amendments. As herein indicated, the failure of Jay Cooke & Co., in
1873, alone occasioned the temporary suspension of work upon the Northern Pacific. A
reorganization of the company, on a different financial basis, followed, with Charles B.
Wright as president.
General George Stark,
Rich coal fields had been discovered east of Tacoma.
Vice-President, made an examination of the coal fields with reference to building a
sufficient portion of the "branch" to connect them with Tacoma. Says he: "The building
of this (Cascade) branch for the development of our coal resources seems now to be
the one wheel which, if started, will put the whole train in motion; and I trust that
ways and means to accomplish it will be devised at an early day." During 1877, the
first portion of the Cascade branch road was built connecting Tacoma with Wilkeson.
In the spring of 1878, the Oregon senators secured the passage by the Senate of an
act ostensibly for an extension of time to the company to complete its road; but conditions
were imposed, to have complied with which would forever have defeated the building of
the road across the Cascade Mountains. The House of Representatives refused to pass
the bill. So Congress refused to extend the time; but the company continued its
enterprise under doubts and discouragements which seemed to forebode ultimate defeat,
and to destroy all hopes that a road would be constructed across the Cascade Mountains.
In 1878 and 1879, William Milner Roberts, Chief Engineer, with two parties in
charge respectively of Charles A. White and D. D. Clarke, continued the examination
of the passes of the Cascade Range.
Frederick Billings had succeeded Charles B. Wright as president of the company, on
the resignation of the latter in consequence of ill health. Mr. Billings favoring the (1880)
completion of the entire work, the surveys of the Cascade Mountain passes were resumed
with increased vigor. Colonel Isaac W. Smith was appointed chief engineer in charge
of the mountain surveys. Charles A. White, C. G. Bogue, D. D. Clarke and J. Tilton
Sheets, in charge of parties, examined the Cowlitz and Nahchess Passes. After a
careful instrumental survey, a line was located by Engineer Sheets by way of the
Nahchess Pass.
In the fall of 1880, with the avowed purpose of completing the whole road, a loan of
forty millions was successfully negotiated; but the method of taking the bonds and
furnishing funds contingent upon securities upon accepted sections of road and the
land grant rendered it impossible to grade the uncompleted line, or to advance track
laying and build the Rocky Mountain tunnels.
Such was the condition of the Northern Pacific when Henry Villard assumed the
presidency. The Oregon Railway and Navigation Company had succeeded the Oregon
Steam Navigation Company; and he was also its president. A railroad along the south
side of the Columbia to throw out branches to secure the great wheat-growing wealth of
Eastern Washington and Oregon was at once projected. It was a magnificent scheme. It
surely should have commended itself to the support of the wealth and political influence
of Oregon.
ORIGIN, PROGRESS AND COMPLETION.
49
2
As the Northern Pacific advanced westward under the management of President
Billings, in 1880 and the spring of 1881, the hope had been engendered that the building
of the Cascade division was near at hand. Indeed the Northern Pacific was about providing
to push its main line down the north side of the Columbia, or to build the Cascade branch,
or both. The road could not stop in the interior of the continent. It had to advance when
it reached the mouth of Snake river.
((
President Villard visited Puget Sound in the fall of 1881. In his able speeches, he
did not disguise his motive that Portland should continue "the focus, the center, the very
heart, so to speak, of a local system of transportation lines aggregating fully two thousand
miles of standard-guage road." Of the policy of the Northern Pacific inaugurated by his
predecessor, he said: 'There was a determined effort resolved upon by the former
management of the Northern Pacific to disregard the Columbia river, to disregard the
commerce of this great city, and to make direct for Puget Sound, in pursuit of the old
unsuccessful policy of building up a city there. I do not believe that any effort to build
up a rival city on Puget Sound can ever succeed. I mean that Portland will always remain
the commercial emporium of the Northwest." President Villard, however, during his
brilliant and dashing administration, which ended in 1883, continued the surveys of the
Cascade Mountains, and the Stampede Pass was selected.
Overland railroad communication was fully consummated via Portland and the road
connecting it with Tacoma. The last spike was driven where the Eastern and Western
construction parties met, on September 7, 1883, sixty miles west of Helena. A few days
later all Oregon and Washington celebrated the great consummation so long, so devoutly
wished for. On the 5th of July, 1887, the people of Washington Territory commemorated
the arrival the day before of a train across the Cascade Mountains direct from Duluth to
Tacoma. A little over a year later again they commemorated the completion of the tunnel
through the Cascade Mountains. The great work of the century had been finished.
The kindred enterprises, the connecting links of territorial development, the other
railroads, all of which were essential to have accounted for the unexampled growth of the
territory in the past five years, are referred to in another part of this volume. It is with
the greatest reluctance that space is not afforded here for proper historic notice.
At the session of the legislature in 1869, an act was passed providing for the submission
to the voters of Washington Territory, at the next general election, of the question of
calling a convention for the purpose of framing a state constitution, and applying for
admission into the Union as the State of Washington. The governor approved the bill
November 29, 1869. The manner of submission was defined: If a majority voted in
favor, the duty was imposed on the next legislature to provide for the election of the
delegates to such convention. At the election in 1870, the project met with little favor.
In 1871, a precisely similar act passed and met with like result. In 1875 (1) (approved
November 9, 1875), the Legislative Assembly passed an act to provide for the formation of
a constitution and state government for the territory of Washington. It was more
mandatory than previous laws. It directed the submission of the proposition and the
manner of voting, the canvass and return. It was made the duty of the legislature elected
at the same time the submission was made, if a majority were in favor, "to provide for the
calling of a convention to frame a state constitution, and to do all other acts proper and
necessary to give effect to the popular will."
(1) See general laws, Washington Territory, session 1875, page 102.
50
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
At the biennial election in 1876, a large majority favored the proposition. At the
following session, 1877, the Legislative Assembly passed an act, approved November 9,
1877, "to provide for calling a convention to frame a constitution for the State of
Washington, and submitting such constitution to the people for ratification or rejection."
(1). The act provided for a convention of fifteen delegates, three of whom were to be
elected by the territory at large. The remainder were apportioned as follows: One
delegate from each of the three judicial districts; one from Walla Walla county; one from
King county; one from Thurston and Lewis counties; one from Clark, Skamania, Klikitat
and Yakima; one from Cowlitz, Pacific and Waukiakum; one from Pierce, Chehalis and
Mason; one from Jefferson, Clallam, Island and San Juan; one from Kitsap, Snohomish
and Whatcom; one from Columbia, Stevens and Whitman. The election was held April
9, 1878; and the delegates elected assembled in convention at Walla Walla on the second
Tuesday of June, 1878, at noon. A majority of the whole number was necessary to
constitute a quorum. An appropriation was made to pay the expenses of the convention.
The counties of Idaho, Shoshone and Nez Perce, in the territory of Idaho, were allowed
to elect a delegate to said convention who had all the privileges of membership except the
right to vote. The sum of $200 was appropriated as the compensation of the delegate
from the "
pan handle," as it is called, of Idaho Territory (the strip or neck of land lying
between the eastern boundary of the territory of Washington and the western boundary of
Montana). If annexed to Washington, it would have the effect of continuing the south
boundary of that territory eastward to the crest of the Bitter Root Mountains, or the
western boundary of Montana.
That constitutional convention met in accordance with the act providing for its
creation. Alexander S. Abernethy, of Cowlitz county, was its president. The counties
of North Idaho participated in its deliberations; and a large majority of the citizens of
that portion of the territory favored annexation to Washington, and to come into the union
as part of the State of Washington. A proposed state constitution was duly framed. A
large majority of the people ratified it (2). Year after year, from that time,—in the
territorial legislature as also in Congress,-the admission of the State of Washington
received growing consideration. Although state admission under that instrument did not
follow nor result from the convention of 1878, yet it doubtless contributed to promote the
designed purpose. It was no longer denied that the territory possessed the requisite
population. It was no longer doubted that it possessed all the elements to entitle it to
admission by Congress. It could not be gainsaid that the time had fully arrived for such
an act of justice to the territory. It had become equally apparent that Congress could not
much longer keep Washington out of the union. And so it proved. That long denial so
full of injustice turned the eye of the whole nation upon Washington Territory. Its
claim became a matter of study. The vast resources became appreciated; and in the last
few years of territorial tutelage the territory was acknowledged to possess more elements
of national importance than many of those older states who through partisan reasons
refused to remove its political disabilities.
Early in the "eighties" the anti-Chinese agitation became noticeable in the territory,
especially upon Puget Sound. It had for its origin race-prejudice, which had in certain
localities developed into hate of the Mongolian, his ways, his methods, his means of
subsistence, his mode of life. The Chinaman had introduced himself at every point
(1) See general laws, Washington Territory, session 1877, page 237 et seq.
(2) The vote was "For Constitution," 6,462; "Against Constitution," 3,231,-just two to one.

૦૦૦ ૬૬!!
HALL
段
​ODD-FELLOWS HALL, OLYMPIA, W.T.
EFFORTS TO EXCLUDE THE CHINESE.
51
where labor was needed or wages to be earned. Upon the whole Pacific slope the people
had grown to be almost unanimous in the opinion that Chinese laborers should be
excluded from the country. Congress had attempted to pass a restriction act, and by
amendatory legislation to make that restriction more effectual. Still the government
made no real attempt to enforce its provisions in this territory. Along the northern
border, the water boundary, the entrance of Chinamen was hardly checked. A regular
and systematic trade was conducted to smuggle in Chinese. With the meager
appropriations by Congress, and the grossly insufficient force of custom-house officials,
the law was a dead letter, its attempted enforcement a mere farce. During the
construction of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, large numbers of Chinese laborers had
been at work in British Columbia on that road. On the completion of that work they
were discharged, and crossed into Washington Territory. They congregated at Tacoma,
Seattle, Olympia and other places, swelling the number of China laborers, and furnished
to anti-Chinese orators additional arguments to excite the laboring element of the
population.
In 1885, the territorial census exhibited the presence of 3,276 Chinese, the large
majority of whom resided in the principal towns on the Sound. They had found
employment as servants, laborers in mines, in the construction of railroads, and upon
public works. The clanishness of the race, the refusal to abandon the peculiarities of
nationality, the utter inability to assimilate with the American, or contribute anything to
support the institutions of their temporarily adopted home, were all at direct variance with
the American idea of respect for the institutions of the country, and the establishment
of homes and the raising of families. Those obnoxious features of Chinese immigration
largely contributed to the extenuating causes which clamored that the country should
be settled by free American laborers, which protested against the laboring class being
brought into competition with Chinese cheap labor. In the fall of 1885, public meetings
were held in the communities bordering on Puget Sound, which were led by members of
the Knights of Labor, and the organizations claiming to be for the benefit of the
workingman. Violent and incendiary speeches were made; denunciatory resolutions
were passed expressing the determination to rid the country of the presence of Chinamen,
by forcible means if necessary. Those meetings were public; the actors engaged were in
many instances prominent citizens, holding offices and public trusts. They made no
disguise of their sentiments nor their purposes. Congress had passed an act prohibiting
the coming of Chinamen to the country; these creators of Congressmen went further.
They said, "the Chinamen must go." Congress "preached" exclusion; the anti-Chinese
agitators practiced it.
The first attack on Chinese laborers was at Squak valley, King county, on the night
of September 5, 1885. Thirty-seven Chinese hop-pickers, who had been employed by
Wold Brothers, came to their ranch that day. At ten o'clock that night a number of
white men and Indians, some armed, went there and threatened the Chinamen if they
attempted to labor. They were persuaded by a white laborer of Wold Brothers to
interview the employers before proceeding to extremities. They saw Wold Brothers and
demanded that the Chinese be sent away. Wold Brothers protested against the
interference. The parties went away saying that they would return in a day or two,
when they would put off the Chinese, if they were found remaining there. Two days
later a party of thirty other Chinese on their way to Wold Brothers were intercepted by
a party of white men and Indians, hop-pickers for another ranch, and so intimidated
52
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
that they turned back and left the valley. On that night, about nine o'clock, five white
men started towards Wold Brothers. On the way they persuaded two Indians "to go.
and help drive the Chinese out of the valley." When they arrived at the fence inclosing
the Chinese tents, all was quiet; most of the Chinese were asleep; one Chinaman was
moving around as a watchman. While climbing the fence a shot was fired (alleged to
have been from the Chinese camp at the attacking party), though no one was hurt. The
seven men then commenced firing into the tents of the Chinese, which stood close
together. After twenty or thirty shots had been fired, the Whites and Indians left.
Next morning the Chinese left the valley, carrying with them three wounded companions,
and leaving two to watch the dead bodies of the three who had been murdered. Those
who participated in that riot and murder were subsequently indicted, tried and acquitted.
On the night of the 11th of September, at about midnight, ten or fifteen masked men
at the Coal Creek mines seized a Chinaman, and took him to a house, which was soon after
destroyed. Thirteen Chinese were at work at that time; the remaining thirty-seven were
in the Chinese quarters. Shortly after midnight the Chinese building was set on fire. It
belonged to the Oregon Improvement Company. The Chinese lost all their clothing, and
left the country next day.
During the months of August, September and October, 1885, a continuous series of
largely attended public meetings had been held at the Opera House in Tacoma, participated
in by the people of Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, Puyallup and Sumner. Torchlight
processions, with banners inscribed with anti-Chinese sentiments, ministered to the
excitement. Denunciation of coolie labor was the staple theme. On the 25th day of
September, the anti-Chinese congress had been held at Seattle. It had resolved on the
expulsion of the Chinese. On the 3d of October, a mass meeting at Tacoma indorsed the
action of the Seattle anti-Chinese congress. At that meeting a
At that meeting a "Committee of Fifteen"
were appointed to effect the expulsion of the Chinese from Tacoma.
on the Chinese, warning them to leave Tacoma within thirty days.
October, the sheriff of Pierce county swore in some two hundred and fifty deputies; and
he advised the governor: "I can safely say that I can procure all the assistance necessary
in the next twenty-four hours. I can also assure you at this time that peace will and can
be preserved by the civil authorities of our country." The very best of Tacoma's solid
business men on the 23d of October addressed the governor: "The sheriff will be able
to preserve the peace and enforce the laws. He will be supported in this by the citizens
generally. We hold ourselves responsible for these assurances.”
Notices were served
Towards the close of
It must be admitted that the large majority of the people of Tacoma were indifferent
to, if not in active sympathy with, the movement against the Chinese. The mayor of the
city, acting also as its chief of police, had been foremost in propagating sentiment against
the continued presence of the Chinese. Yet few believed, who were not enlisted in the
movement, that any such act was about to be consummated as occurred on November 3d.
That morning the steam whistles at the carshops and the foundry were the signal for
several hundred men to assemble, form into line and march through the city. Old town
and new detailed from their ranks men to assist in the packing of goods, and in the
removal of the Chinese. The Chinamen made no resistance; neither did the sheriff or
his deputies. It was a bloodless riot. The Chinamen "stood not upon the order of their
going, but went at once." Their goods and provisions were packed in wagons, and they
escorted out to Lake View, a railroad station of the Northern Pacific, eight miles distant,
where they remained over night, and the next morning were put on the freight and
EFFORTS TO EXCLUDE THE CHINESE.
53
passenger trains for Portland. The Exclusion Act in Tacoma had been complete. No
Chinamen have lived in Tacoma since that day (1). On the fourth, the Chinese quarters
in the old town (the shanties occupied by the laborers at the Tacoma Mill) were entirely
destroyed by fire. On the sixth, a number of Chinese stores and residences built on piles
on ground leased by the Northern Pacific Railroad Company were totally consumed.
On the night of November 7th, an anti-Chinese meeting was called to be held at Seattle.
The sheriff (John H. McGraw), fearing trouble, caused his deputies to assemble under
arms at the courthouse; and the companies of Captains Green and Haines were subject
to his call. In the meantime President Cleveland had issued a proclamation, that " an
emergency has arisen and a case is now presented which justifies and requires, under the
constitution and laws of the United States, the employment of military force to suppress
domestic violence and enforce the faithful execution of the laws of the United States."
Ten companies of United States troops under Lieutenant-Colonel DeRussy, U. S. Army,
were dispatched from Vancouver barracks to Seattle. They arrived at Seattle on the
morning of the eighth. General John Gibbon, commander of the department, arrived in
the evening. By his direction several of the companies were ordered to Tacoma. They
escorted to Vancouver a number of citizens of Tacoma who had been arrested by the
United States marshal for participancy in the proceedings of November 3d, at Tacoma,
and who were held to appear before the United States grand jury, then in session at
Vancouver (2).
At that date there were about five hundred Chinese in the city of Seattle. At the
suggestion of General Gibbon, sheriff McGraw organized the volunteer deputies into three
military companies. During November fifteen persons were indicted at Seattle for
conspiracy to deprive the Chinese of the equal protection of the laws, under the so-called
Kuklux Act. The trial lasted till January 16th, 1886, when they were all acquitted. All
testified in their own defense, and averred that no act of violence, breach of the peace or
unlawful act would be committed or countenanced. That acquittal, based on those
protestations, went far to allay excitement. On the 6th of February, however, a mass
meeting was held. On Sunday morning, the seventh, the Chinese of Seattle were ordered
out of their houses by a large crowd of men. Their goods and effects were being packed;
and they were marched down in little squads to the wharf of the steamship Queen of the
Pacific, to be transported to San Francisco. A number had been furnished with tickets by
the anti-Chinese leaders; and eighty or ninety Chinese had gone aboard. Two hundred
more were on the dock; and parties were going through town to collect money to pay their
fares. During the afternoon a writ of habeas corpus was issued requiring Captain
Alexander of the Queen of the Pacific to produce the Chinamen before the judge. He
answered that he was unable in consequence of the mob in the streets. The hearing was
postponed until the next morning. The Chinese houses were guarded, and a strong guard
placed in charge of the dock during the night.
The next morning, on the hearing, most of the Chinamen who were on the steamship
preferred to leave on her for San Francisco. The vessel carried away one hundred and
ninety-three Chinamen. About one hundred Chinamen were left upon the wharf with
their baggage and effects. As the ship could not take them away, it had been agreed that
they might peaceably return to their late houses. They started to do so; but the crowd
(1) In the early part of February, 1886, the Chinamen remaining in Puyallup, Sumner and Carbonado were removed, leaving since that date
no Chinamen in Pierce county.
(2) Quite a number of citizens were indicted for conspiracy to intimidate, etc., under what is known as the Kuklux Act. They were
re-indicted, and the matter paraded in the courts for several terms. It is needless to add that the cases were never tried.
54
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
headed them off, and attempted to drive them towards the railroad. Captain George
Kinnear's company of deputies or guards, to defeat that scheme, advanced to the head of
the Chinese. An assault was made upon his company, the crowd trying to wrench the
guns from his command. In the struggle which ensued, several shots were exchanged
between the guards and the mob, resulting in the killing of one and the wounding of
two of the assailants, and the wounding of one of the city police there on duty. The
other military companies promptly came to the assistance of Captain Kinnear. The
crowd ceased to resist, but refused to disperse. The Chinese now retired to their homes.
The sheriff marched his forces to the courthouse, and placed guards at points through the
city where needed. On the 8th day of February, Governor Squire proclaimed martial
law. On the ninth, President Cleveland issued a proclamation, that the city was in a
state of insurrection. On the eleventh, Lieutenant-Colonel DeRussy arrived with eight
companies of the Fourteenth U. S. Infantry. General Gibbon caused to be arrested a
number of the leaders of the crowd who participated in the acts of February eighth.
They were turned over to the civil authorities on the seventeenth. The governor's
proclamation of martial law was revoked on the twenty-second.
On the morning of the 8th of February, some thirty persons assembled in Olympia,
for the purpose of driving the Chinese out of that city. One hundred and fifty deputies
were sworn in, organized as a military company, and performed guard duty for several
weeks. No Chinese were driven out, but for several weeks they were greatly alarmed.
Five arrests were made at Olympia. The parties were indicted at the June term, 1886, and
on the seventeenth all were convicted, and each sentenced to six months' imprisonment
and to pay a fine of $500, and the costs of proceedings. The Congress of the United
States was called upon to make a large appropriation payable to the Chinese minister, to
be applied to indemnifying the Chinese who lost property during the anti-Chinese agitation
of 1885-86.
During the continuance of Washington as a territorial government, from the passage
of the Organic Act, March 2, 1853, when the territory had been set off from Oregon, the
governors appointed by the several Presidents of the United States and the times of service
are as follows: Isaac I. Stevens, appointed 1853, Democrat; J. Patton Anderson, appointed
1857, Democrat (did not qualify); Fayette McMullin, appointed 1857, Democrat; Richard
D. Gholson, appointed 1859, Democrat; William H. Wallace, appointed 1861, Republican
(elected delegate); William Pickering, appointed 1861, Republican; George E. Cole,
appointed 1866 to March 4, 1867, Republican (appointed by Andrew Johnson); Marshal
F. Moore, appointed 1867, Republican (appointed by Andrew Johnson); Alvan Flanders,
appointed 1869, Republican; Edward S. Salomon, appointed 1870, Republican; James F.
Legate, appointed 1872, Republican (did not qualify); Elisha P. Ferry, appointed 1872,
Republican; William A. Newell, appointed 1880, Republican; Watson C. Squire, appointed
1884, Republican; Eugene Semple, appointed 1887, Democrat; Miles C. Moore, appointed
1889, Republican.
Governor Miles C. Moore was the last of the territorial governors. On the 1st day of
October, 1889, Elisha P. Ferry, Republican, was elected first governor of the State of
Washington, receiving 33,711 votes, his Democratic competitor Eugene Semple receiving
24,731 votes.
The territory was represented in Congress by the following delegates:
Thirty-third Congress, Columbia Lancaster, Democrat, March 4, 1853 to March 3,
1855; Thirty-fourth Congress, J. Patton Anderson, Democrat, March 4, 1855 to March

Oregon City,
1848.
$1500
OREGON TERRITORY,
Promises to pay to the order of
eflim
*
M Crawford
Dollars and
with interest at the rate of six per cent. per annum, from date.
No. 800
Cents,
Treasurer.
No. 524
OREGON CITY,
Good to
1.84 8
Seat: 143.
Ranson blank
ог BEARER, at A. MCKINLAY'S STORE to the amount of
o dollars, payable in goods.
Elever & stfice
88 1150
You C. McKay
1



CONDENSED POLITICAL HISTORY.
55
3, 1857; Thirty-fifth Congress, Isaac I. Stevens, Democrat, March 4, 1857 to March
3, 1859; Thirty-sixth Congress, Isaac I. Stevens, Democrat, March 4, 1859 to March
3, 1861; Thirty-seventh Congress, William H. Wallace, Republican, March 4, 1861 to
March 3, 1863; Thirty-eighth Congress, George E. Cole, Union Democrat, March 4, 1863
to March 3, 1865; Thirty-ninth Congress, Arthur A. Denny, Republican, March 4,
1865 to March 3, 1867; Fortieth Congress, Alvan Flanders, Republican, March 4, 1867
to March 3, 1869; Forty-first Congress, Selucius Garfielde, Republican, March 4, 1869 to
March 3, 1871; Forty-second Congress, Selucius Garfielde, Republican, March 4,
1871 to March 3, 1873; Forty-third Congress, O. B. McFadden, Union Democrat,
March 4, 1873, to March 3, 1875; Forty-fourth Congress, Orange Jacobs, Republican,
March 4, 1875 to March 3, 1877; Forty-fifth Congress, Orange Jacobs, Republican, March
4, 1877 to March 3, 1879; Forty-sixth Congress, Thomas H. Brents, Republican, March 4,
1879 to March 3, 1881; Forty-seventh Congress, Thomas H. Brents, Republican,
March 4, 1881 to March 3, 1883; Forty-eighth Congress, Thomas H. Brents, Republican,
March 4, 1883 to March 3, 1885; Forty-ninth Congress, Charles S. Voorhees, Democrat,
March 4, 1885 to March 3, 1887; Fiftieth Congress, Charles S. Voorhees, Democrat, March
4, 1887 to March 3, 1889.
John B. Allen was elected, at the biennial election of 1888, as delegate to Congress;
but the passage of the Admission Bill abruptly terminated his office before attending
either session of the Congress to which he was elected. John L. Wilson, Republican, was
elected at the first state election, October 1, 1889. He received 34,039 votes. Thomas
C. Griffitts, Democrat, received 24,492 votes.
The proposition to admit Washington as a state had been discussed in the United
States House of Representatives, even before the meeting of the constitutional convention
of 1878,-a creation of the territorial Legislative Assembly,-to which was denied the
vitalizing power possessed by an enabling act passed by Congress. The first bill
introduced by Thomas H. Brents, as Washington's delegate in the Forty-fifth Congress,
was an act to provide for the admission of the "State of Washington" under the constitution
of the convention of 1878. Objections were made to certain features of that constitution ;
and in the Forty-seventh Congress (1881-83) Delegate Brents introduced a second bill for
the admission of Washington as a state, drawn in accordance with the legislative
memorial. It was an enabling act. It authorized the people of Washington Territory
and the northern part of Idaho Territory to hold a convention to frame a state
constitution and to form a state government. In advocating its passage, Mr. Brents cited
from the United States census of 1880 to prove that the territory of Washington, exclusive
of the northern counties of Idaho, had the requisite population to entitle it to admission.
By the census of 1880, that population was 75,116; and, taking the ratio of increase,
at that time (June, 1882) it was not less than 125,000. On account of this small population,
objection was urged against Washington's admission; but none will deny that the delay
was really occasioned by the doubt or fear as to how the new state would cast its vote
at the next presidential election,-what would be the politics of its two United States.
senators.
Session after session, Washington, by its Legislative Assembly, continued to
memorialize Congress for recognition of its claims for the citizenship of its people, for
statehood. Space is denied to trace the congressional history of its birth as a state. In
the spring of 1886, the subject was again fully before Congress. The bill was for the
formation of a state constitution and the admission of Washington as a state into the
56
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
union. It had been introduced by that staunch friend of the territory, Senator Dolph
of Oregon. Its boundaries included the pan handle or northern counties of Idaho.
Another bill traveled hand in hand, an adjunct measure provided for the annexation of
those three Northern Idaho counties to Washington. Memorials had passed both of the
legislatures of Idaho and Washington favoring such annexation. The question of
annexation had been submitted to the people of North Idaho at a general election; and
1,216 votes were polled for annexation and seven against it. Suffice it to add that the
Annexation Bill passed both Houses, but was vetoed by President Cleveland. Later on
separate bills had passed the Senate for the division of Dakota, and to enable the people
of North and South Dakota, Washington and Montana to form constitutions and state
governments. The presidential election of 1888 had passed. The next Congress and
administration would be Republican. There was no just reason to keep out those
territories teeming with population and wealth, vastly superior to many of the states.
Mr. Springer's substitute, an omnibus bill, was obnoxious to the friends of the
applying territories; and hope of admission by the Fiftieth Congress seemed vanished.
Already was there talk of an extra session to do this act of simple justice. Samuel S. Cox
of New York rose superior to party on that occasion;—he who so recently has joined the
great silent majority. On the 15th of January, 1889, he addressed the House, it then
having under consideration the bill for the admission of Dakota. Mr. Cox said: "I favor
the substitute proposed by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Springer) and his committee.
I favor it, provided there are adopted certain amendments. In the last resort, if these
territories cannot be brought in within a reasonable time, I propose to help any conference
between the two bodies looking to the statehood of Dakota and the other territories.
Congress has been derelict with respect to the admission of these territories. For
reasons which cannot be given within the hour, but reasons which appeal to the
discretion of gentlemen, I ask that these territories be admitted.
What
concerns us immediately, Mr. Speaker, is the admission as states, with proper boundaries
and suitable numbers, of five territories; these are combined in the substitute,—the two
Dakotas, Montana, Washington and New Mexico. I omit purposely any consideration
of Utah."
*
܀
# *
Having discussed the formalities of admission at some length, he continued: "Our
custom, sir, as to population, has not been uniform. If population is to be the test of
admission, the territories in the substitute have each a sufficient number for one
member of Congress. This is the moral, though not the legal, touchstone by which the
admission of states should be determined. Many of our states have been admitted with
less than a representative ratio: Illinois was 380 less; Florida 6,000 less; Oregon 43,000
less; Kansas about 20,000 less; and Nevada 87,381 less than the ratio. The ratio in
1864, when Nevada was admitted, was 127,381. Nebraska was less than the ratio by
27,000, and Colorado by 31,425. Above all things, this question of admission is not a
party question; in the nature of things it cannot be. If these territories be not admitted,
they will surely be admitted under Republican auspices in the next Congress; and their
politics will take the reflection of the friends who gave them their early nurture. Refuse
to admit this state and its territorial sisters? Why, sir, you may enact that frost shall
cease in the North, and bloom in the South, or try to fix the figure of Proteus by
statute. But you cannot prevent the people of this territory from their demand, and
you must accede to it; and, if this Congress does not, we know that the next Congress
will. The spirit of this people of the Northwest is that of unbounded push and energy.
SPEECH OF S. S. COX UPON THE ADMISSION OF WASHINGTON.
57
These are the men who have tunneled our mountains, who have delved our mines, who
have bridged our rivers, who have brought every part of our empire within the reach of
foreign and home markets, who have made possible our grand growth and splendid
development. They are the men who have made our national life. There is no
parallel in history to their achievements. You cannot hold them as captive to the federal
system. You must give them self-reliant statehood."
That parliamentary struggle which followed is most intelligently told by Mr. Cox in
his grand oration at Huron, Dakota, July 4, 1889, entitled, "The four new Stars." How
Washington and the three other Stars won position on our national emblem is thus told:
"After many weary delays, on the 16th of January last the Senate bill for the
admission of South Dakota was called up. It was very unlike the measure which was
reported by the majority of the House Committee on Territories. That committee
disfavored the division of Dakota. Finally it reported a substitute which was known as
the 'Omnibus Bill.' This included New Mexico. It was the result of much caucusing,
and was greatly changed from the original propositions made by both Senate and House
representing the dominant party in each House. Neither of these propositions proposed
the absolute division of Dakota or its prompt admission. It was, however, debated on
that day.
In that debate I had the honor, along with the delegates interested from
the territories, to take a somewhat prominent part. When the bill came up on the 17th
of January, it was debated at length; but it went over until the eighteenth. Again,
on the 18th of January, an amendment offered by Mr. McDonald of Minnesota was voted
down. Then an amendment by Mr. Springer of Illinois was proposed, re-submitting the
Sioux constitution of 1885 to the people, with some incidental provisions as to boundary,
etc. Then an amendment was offered by your delegate for the admission of South Dakota
under the Sioux Falls constitution, and also for the continuance of North Dakota as a
territory, but providing for an election as to naming South Dakota, the boundary, etc.
It also provided an enabling act for North Dakota. Other amendments were offered.
The amendment of the majority of the committee of the House was debated on that day.
Thereupon Mr. Baker of New York proposed to re-commit the bill, with instructions to
admit South Dakota into the union, and to provide enabling acts for North Dakota,
Montana and Washington Territories. This was voted down; and the "Omnibus Bill"
passed the House.
“The bill went to the Senate. It was disagreed to by that body. Then there was a
long hiatus; and the friends of the territories were becoming restive. However, it was
called up on the 14th of February, with the report of the failure to agree between the two
Houses. Amendments were tendered to the motion, among them one by Mr. Baker of
New York, which was an instruction for the House conferees to recede so as to allow, first,
the exclusion of New Mexico from the bill, and, second, the admission of South Dakota
under the Sioux Falls constitution, and, third, the re-submission of that constitution to the
people, with provisions for the election of state officers only, and without a new vote on
the question of 'division.' It also provided for the admission of North Dakota, Montana
and Washington either by the proclamation of the President, or by further action by
Congress in the way of formal acts of admission. This was an advance; but it left
for the conference to say whether the old question should come up again in a new Congress,
either at an extra session or at the regular session of the Fifty-first Congress.
"Thereupon, I had the honor to propose a sweeping substitute, which I had outlined
and urged in the New York World, in the caucus and in the House. Inasmuch as time
58
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
was precious and was fast gliding away, and as I knew the intention of many friends who
honestly thought that Congress ought to do nothing, and as the Senate would not admit
New Mexico, I proposed, first, its absolute exclusion from the bill; second, an unqualified
instruction to the Committee of Conference to provide for the division of Dakota and the
admission of South Dakota under the Sioux Falls constitution by proclamation, and a new
election for federal officers as well as state; and third, the admission of North Dakota,
Montana and Washington on the same basis, and all of them under proclamation by the
President. The last instructions referred all other matters of detail to the Committee of
Conference for their discretion. This proposition was intended to be a finality. It was
instruction, not advice nor request,— absolute instruction. There was in it no “if” nor
and," no ambiguity nor alternative. It was attacked bitterly; but at last the House was
brought to a vote upon it directly. A Kentucky statesman insisted on a separate vote on
every separate proposition. This, under the rules, he had the right to do. The vote on the
exclusion of New Mexico was 135 against 105. Mr. Breckenridge voted in the affirmative
in order to move a reconsideration; and the fight was kept up. He failed on a vote of 136
to 109.
(6
"The second proposition, for the admission of South Dakota by proclamation, under
the Sioux Falls constitution, and for a new election of state and federal officers, and
without a new vote on the question of division, then came up. It was carried by 137 to
103. The territories were gaining, and the opposition was losing. Then fillibustering
began by a motion to adjourn. That failed by 82 yeas against 143 nays, the territories
still gaining and the opposition still losing. Another motion to adjourn failed. The
subject then went over until the next day, on the condition that no more dilatory motions
should be made. Upon the next day the second proposition was again voted on a motion
to reconsider. The House stood by the territories and the instructions.
"I confess that I did not spend a very quiet or sleepful night; but I was gratified
when, in the morning, the vote showed that the territories had 146 yeas and the nays only
109, the instructions still gaining. The resolution as to North Dakota, Montana and
Washington to be admitted on the same basis, and all of them by proclamation, went
through without an aye and no vote, together with the last proposition as to indifferent
matters. Thereupon, the indefatigable gentleman from Kentucky insisted upon a vote
upon the initial clause of instruction. He desired to submit a preliminary inquiry to the
Speaker. The Chair heard it. He desired to know whether, if the enacting clause of
instructions was voted down, the conferees would not be free and uninstructed? The
Speaker replied, 'except in so far as they may accept these votes as expressing the sense
of the House.' The gentlemen undertook to argue it after the previous question. To
this I objected. The vote was taken. The yeas were 148, and the nays 102.
So that,
from the beginning to the end of the struggle, the sentiment of the House was expressed
in favor of the instructions. This was on the 15th of February. Congress was drawing
to a close. Day after day passed.
((
'The friends of the territories again became restive and anxious. Should there be
an extra session? Should the whole matter be taken up in the Fifty-first Congress, or
should the matter be ended promptly? After much conference outside, of which gentlemen
who are here are well advised, there were a few accommodations made, and the instructions
were complied with; and very slowly the conference reported, and the bill became a law.
It was signed by the President with a quill taken from an American eagle, which it was
said was given to some champion to entwine around his scalp-lock.

質料
​RESIDENCE OF W. G. WILLIS ESQ.,
SPOKANE FALLS, W.T.
12
ADMISSION OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON.
59
"Thus it appears from this record, the pages of which are accessible to everybody,
that the straight line to settle the question of admission and division, not only of the two
Dakotas, but of the other territories of Montana and Washington, was carried in such an
emphatic manner that the people have universally accepted the four states and placed their
starry emblems upon our flag, in advance of the formalities which are to-day proceeding in
the territories."
The bill was entitled, "An act to provide for the division of Dakota, and to enable
the people of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington to form constitutions
and state governments, and to be admitted into the union on an equal footing with the
original states, and to make donations of public lands to such states." It was approved by
President Grover Cleveland, on the anniversary of Washington's birthday, February 22,
1889. It provided among other things for an election of delegates, seventy-five in number,
who were to meet at Olympia on the 4th day of July, 1889. That convention met; it
remained in session until August 22, 1889. It submitted the constitution it framed to the
people, who at an election held October 1, 1889, ratified it by the vote of 40,152 votes for the
constitution, and 11,789 votes against. Under its provisions, the first state legislature
of the State of Washington assembled at Olympia, the seat of government, for the
purpose of electing two United States Senators and to perform other necessary acts
incident to perfecting a state government. But an omission had occurred in the
certification of the adoption of the state constitution, required by the enabling act to be
sent to the President of the United States,-which omission delayed the President's
proclamation of admission until November 11, 1889. As provided by the constitution,
the state officers were inaugurated on Monday, November 18, 1889; and, as directed by
the enabling act, the state legislature, on Tuesday, November 19th, elected John B. Allen
and Watson C. Squire the first United States Senators of the State of Washington.
CHAPTER LX.
The Indians of the Pacific Northwest-Their Mythical Creation, Gods of the
Wat-tee-tash Age, Legends, Myths, Religion, Customs Relating to Marriage,
Naming of Children, and Murder-Their Dances and their Doctors-The
Rehabiliment of the Dead, and Their Idea of a Future State.
A
HISTORY of the settlement of the Pacific Northwest must necessarily embrace a history of our wars
with the Indians. A knowledge of a people gained in time of war must convey an imperfect idea of
the same people in time of peace. Our pioneers had comparatively little to do with the Indians in time of
peace and quiet. They were too busy in home-building, agriculture, and in founding those industries upon
which the welfare and prosperity of a community depend to spend much time in studying the customs
and traditions of a savage people. In time of peace, they were scarcely more than cognizant of the fact
that such people existed about them. But when the red hand of war was raised, and the smoke from
desolated homes was going up, and homeless, fleeing settlers announced the reign of savage warfare, then
our pioneers were brought painfully to realize the presence of the Indian.
Because our pioneers knew so little of the Indians in peace, and were so vividly impressed by their
cruelties in time of war, their verdict on the Indian character has been, "Bad, very bad, none good but
those who are dead.” So bitter was the feeling, that few cared to know anything of the Indian except
to know that he was out of the way of doing harm. Many went so far as to advocate a policy of
total extermination. Fate almost seems to have ordained circumstances against friendly relations between
the races.
When the two have been brought into contact, it has been under circumstances that brought
before the Whites the worst characteristics of the Indian; and to the Indian the white man has appeared
as a trespasser and tyrant. The Indian has founded his idea of the white man's character and principles
on the conduct of those who have taken his lands and driven him from his home.
The Whites have believed all Indians to be bloodthirsty murderers; and the Indians have thought all
Whites were robbers and interlopers. The result has been that they have spent their time each trying to
exterminate the other. The contest between civilization and savagism was unequal; and the Indian was
pushed to the wall. Now that he is subjugated and can no longer successfully raise his arm against his
oppressors, and lasting peace reigns, there has been something of a reaction in sentiment; and the victors
look more kindly on their oldtime foes.
The study of ethnology has within a few years past assumed much importance. Antiquarian
travelers, explorers, students of anthropology, are all trying to solve the great mystery of the earliest stages
of human development. It has been discovered that the myths, superstitions and folk-lore legends of all
nations and races are the natural if not inevitable incidents to certain stages in intellectual and moral
development. In the light of recent ethnological discoveries and deductions, the myths and traditions of
the Indians have assumed great importance; and many men of profound learning and linguistic lore are
now pushing investigations in this line with all their ability. The Indian in his primitive condition is a
thing of the past. Contact with the Whites is changing all his habits and modes of life. His myths and
legends are being obliterated. Having no literature, they have been handed down from time immemorial
only by oral tradition. Before the scream of the locomotive engine, the clack of the mill and factory, the
red man with his romances fades away like the mists and is gone. The onward tread of the invincible
Anglo-Saxon civilization sweeps relentlessly away the Indian and all that pertains to him; so that
whatever we know and record of these interesting people we must soon learn. To the student of ethnology
there is an attraction that is almost a fascination connected with the study of the character, habits, laws,
customs, myths, traditions and legends of these rapidly fading tribes. To everyone must have occurred
the questions: What was the Indian origin ?” "How did he come to be in this country?" 'What is
his past history?" "Was he, when this country was discovered, coming up, or was he far down the decline
of degeneracy from an ancient civilization?" We turn to history; its pages are silent as to these inquiries.
We are thrown back upon the Indian himself. We question him, and he tells us the traditions he received
from his fathers. He relates the myths of the wonderful "long time ago;" he tells us his legends and
laws; we learn his customs, his idea of the origin of things, what his gods were, what were his
aspirations in this life, and his hopes for the future. These, with the relics from his burial mounds, a few
examples of his picture-writing found on rocks here and there, about complete the sum of attainable facts
in relation to the Indian. From a study of these and his language, and their comparison with like data
from other nations, the ethnologist will have to work out all that will ever be known of the North
American Indian. In view of this fact, it would be desirable to make the record as complete as possible.
((
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LEGENDS, MYTHS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
61
His
There are many difficulties in the way of obtaining from the Indian his old folk-lore stories.
language is difficult to comprehend; its idioms are peculiar; and his manner of thought is widely
different from ours. In his heart the Indian sincerely believes the traditions and myths of his fathers;
but it is difficult to get him to open his mind and communicate them to the Whites. In their zeal to
correct the erroneous beliefs of the Indians, the white people usually laugh at his stories; and then he
becomes silent. These things are sacred to him; and he cannot complacently bear to have them ridiculed.
They are his bible, his code of laws, his system of philosophy, and his religion. From his infancy he
has heard these things related by his father as facts,-sacred facts; and to him they are sacred.
Of
The tribes that inhabited the country of Oregon and Washington at the time of its discovery were
very numerous, and the dialects spoken by them many. The principal tribes in Southern Oregon were
the Klamaths, Modocs, Rogue river Indians, Umpquas and Calapooias. The Calapooias extended over
the Calapooia Mountains north into the Upper Willamette. These latter, with the Yamhills, Molallas,
Multnomahs and Chinooks were the principal tribes of Western Oregon. East of the Cascade Mountains,
the Klikitats, Walla Wallas, Cayuses, Spokanes and Nez Perces were the main tribes, embracing many smaller
clans. In the country about Puget Sound, the Nisquallies, Clallams and Skagits were the main tribes. On
the Columbia river, the Chinooks below the Cascades, and the Klikitats above, were the strongest.
all the Indians in the Northwest, the Klikitats were perhaps the most powerful, extending their excursions
the farthest into the surrounding country. It is said that the word Klikitat signifies robber or marauder.
It was characteristic of the people of that tribe to go almost everywhere and make themselves at home
anywhere. Their language impressed itself upon a greater number of people than any other native
language of the Northwest. They were the traveling traders, the "Yankee peddlers," of the tribes in
the Northwest. The Chinooks also were great traders in the Indian way; but, finding nearly everything
they needed to supply their wants in their own country, they seldom made extensive excursions among
the surrounding tribes. Their habits of life, their climate and methods of travel created a greater affinity
between themselves and the coast and Puget Sound clans.
The Klikitats were quite nomadic in their habits; and the summer time found numerous bands of
them making long journeys among distant tribes. Every year some of them would go east, beyond the
head of the Missouri river, over into Dakota. They frequently met the Shoshones in Grand Ronde valley,
and traveled as far south as Northern California. In fact, occasional trips were made as far south as the
lower Sacramento valley. On the north they ranged far into British Columbia. The objects of these
excursions were traffic, gambling, horse-racing, and sometimes theft and pillage. These Indians were well
supplied with buffalo robes, most of which they obtained from the tribes in Montana and Dakota,
exchanging for them horses, shells, beads, knives, guns and articles of clothing which they had bought of
the Whites or traded for with other Indians. In many places in Eastern Oregon and Washington, there
are yet to be seen the old trails on the lines of commerce and communication between the tribes. These
trails are sometimes as many as ten or fifteen in number running parallel and close together; in many
instances they are worn down deep into the soil. In the prairie country of Eastern Oregon and
Washington, the tribes had great herds of ponies. These constituted their wealth, and were used as a
means of travel and commerce. The Chinooks and Lower Columbia and Puget Sound Indians traveled mostly
in canoes. The northern tribes seem to have had most mechanical ingenuity and constructiveness. They
were skillful in cutting and carving out pipes and various utensils, and in making other articles of utility
or ornament. Some of them wove very handsome shawls from the wool of the mountain sheep, and
made beadwork of really tasteful and ornamental design. Their wooden images and dodem or totem posts
or boards have been a matter of curious remark by all travelers among them.
The climate, physical nature of the country, food and surroundings of a people seem largely to
determine their pursuits, and to measure their inventive geniuses. Nations and tribes as well as individuals
have failed in the struggle of life for lack of opportunity. There is something pathetic in the fate of the
Indian. For unknown ages his race has struggled alone on a continent isolated from the older civilizations
of the East. He has wrestled with the problem of destiny with no guiding star, and at last yields his
native land to be a home for strangers, and goes out of existence as a race without even leaving a history
behind him. We have very little to tell of the centuries of a nation's ambitions, struggles, sufferings,
migrations and final ruin. Almost all that is known of the past hopes, fears, loves, battles, intellectual,
physical and moral life of uncounted millions of human beings could be written on a single page. All
the rest is silent and forever lost in oblivion. That the Indian race was capable of a great degree of
civilization is evident from the ruins of magnificent cities found in the southern part of the continent.
That this country is very ancient and has known a high degree of civilization is certain. Whether the
North American Indians worked out their own destiny without any extraneous influence will probably
never be known. Our Northwest Pacific country has a wonderful past as well as a grand future. As
having some bearing on the past history of our tribes, it may be mentioned that while boring an artesian
well in Nampa, Idaho, Mr. M. A. Kurtz found, July 24, 1889, a pottery image of the human form, almost
perfect in every detail, at a depth of nearly three hundred feet. The well went first through the natural-
soil, gravel, etc., about sixty-five feet, then through a lava flow of about fifteen feet; and the rest of the
distance was through layers of sand, quicksand, clay and pebbles. The image was found in sand
underneath all these. It was of burnt clay, and about one inch long. Who made it, where it came from,
how it came, where it was found, and how long it had lain there, are mysteries that never will be unveiled.
62
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
This curious find would go to indicate that, at some remote age back of all written history, there were in
this country, somewhere, people who were well advanced in civilization and art.
ORIGIN OF THE TRIBES.
Nearly all of the Indians of the Pacific Northwest claim to have been created by Coyote, the great
Indian god. In most of the legends, it is represented that he formed them out of different portions of a
great beaver. One traveler has remarked that beavers are said by some of the tribes to be fallen Indians.
I have never met with this belief. It is commonly taught, however, that the beaver of the present age is
fallen from his former condition, inasmuch as he used to reason and use language, but was à beaver still.
As we approach the Alaskan tribes, we find the creation myths or legends about the origin of men and
things differing considerably from those farther south. About the British Columbia line, and north of
that on the coast, we find that the Indians claim to have been made by Yell, the raven. The Nisquallies
and Clallams are familiar with myths in which Yehl figures. In relating Coyote's doings, the Indians go
into great detail in telling what he did and said, and even his thoughts. As good a version as any, of
the origin of the tribes, is given by the Eastern Washington Indians, as follows: A great while ago, in
the wonderful age of the ancients, when all kinds of animals spoke and reasoned, and before the present
race of Indians existed, there was a mighty beaver, Wishpoosh, that lived in Lake Cleellum.
This beaver was god of the lake, owning it, and claiming property in all the fish, wood, and everything
in and about its waters. He lived in the bottom of the lake; his eyes were like living fire; his eyebrows
bright red; and his immense nails or claws shone and glistened like burnished silver.
Like so many
other of the Indians' animal gods, he was a bad character, and very destructive to life. He had made the
lake and its surroundings a place of terror; for he destroyed and devoured every living thing that came in
his way. To those he could not kill, he denied the privilege of taking fish, of which there were plenty
in the water. All about in the country the people were hungry for fish; and, with plenty near by, it
seemed hard that they must starve. Coyote, in his journeyings, found the people in this sad plight; and
their condition moved him to do something for their relief. As many unsuccessful attempts had been
made to destroy the monster, Coyote knew he had a big job on hand, and so made elaborate preparations
for the encounter. He armed himself with a powerful spear with a long and strong handle. This spear
he bound to his wrist with strong cords of twisted ta-hoosh (Indian flax). Thus equipped, he went up to
the lake, and, finding old Wishpoosh, drove his spear into him. The wounded and enraged water god
plunged out into the lake and down to the bottom. The cord of the spear-handle being fast to Coyote's
wrist, he was dragged along by the infuriated beast; so that now the two went plunging and tearing along
through the lake. A fearful struggle ensued, in which they tore a gap through the mountain, and came
wallowing and swimming into the lake that then covered Kittitass valley. On across that they came,
thrashed through the ridge forming the Nahchess gap, and entered the lake that then stood over the
Yakima valley. Still the mighty beaver god struggled; and Coyote hung on, and they struck the ridge
below the Ahtanum, and tore through, forming Union gap; and then they went floundering on down,
tearing the channel of the Yakima river. Poor Coyote was getting badly worsted, and was almost
strangled, and was clutching at trees along the bank, trying to stop his wild career down the stream. He
caught hold of the large cottonwoods; but they broke off or pulled up. He tried the firs; but they tore
out by the roots. He clawed at the rocks; but they crumbled off. Nothing could stand before the
irresistible power of the mighty Wishpoosh. Exhausted and almost drowned, he found himself wallowing
in the mouth of the Columbia among the breakers. The muskrat was standing on the shore and laughing
at him.
and
By this time the beaver god was dead; and the now half-drowned Coyote came out, dragging his
game with him.
When he came out, he wiped the water from his face and eyes, and proceeded to cut
up the beaver's carcass. As he cut the different parts, he made of them the Indian tribes. Of the belly
he made the Lower Columbia and Coast Indians, saying, "You shall always be short and fat, and have
great bellies." Of the legs he made the Cayuses, saying, "You shall be fleet of foot and strong of
limb." Of the head he made the Northern tribes, saying, "You will be men of brains, and strong in
war."
Of the ribs he made the Yakimas or Pshwan-wa-pams. The various tribes had characteristics
derived from the parts from which they were taken. Last of all there was a lot of blood, pieces of entrails
and filth, which Coyote gathered up and flung off towards the country of the Sioux and Snakes, saying,
"You shall always be people of blood and violence." Having peopled the country with tribes of Indians,
he started up the Columbia, and, reaching the point where the Columbia and Snake unite their waters, the
mighty maker of the red man paused. Standing there, at the meeting-place of the waters, with hands
outstretched like the arms of a balance, first towards the east and west, and then to the north and south,
he said: "Earth is full of inhabitants; there is no longer place here for me." He then ascended to the sky.
Some of the tribes below The Dalles on the Columbia have always been noted among the other
Indians as having ugly mouths. Nature seems to have been too lavish in her works on this part of their
anatomy; and many of their mouths are accredited with being rather too extensive for beauty, and
sometimes considerably crooked besides. Their feet, also, are not models of beauty. A legend says that
the "
great somebody" who first made the Indians made rather an imperfect job;-they did not seem to
be entirely finished. Their eyes were not open; and nine days did not seem to bring any relief, as it does

HON.J.J. BROWNE,
SPOKANE FALLS, W. T.
UA
LEGENDS, MYTHS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
63
with cats. They had no mouths, only a little mark where the mouth ought to be; and their feet were
clubby, and their joints stiff. Coyote came along one time in the ancient time, and found these poor
people hobbling about hungry, but having no mouths to eat with; and their eyes had grown shut. Pitying
their condition, he took his stone knife and began to relieve them by cutting mouths and opening their
eyes. Being considerably hurried, and not having a very fine operating instrument withal, he made
pretty extensive openings of some of their mouths, and got others considerably awry; but, thanks to their
benefactor, they have since been able to eat a sufficiency of salmon, and get around with ordinary Indian
agility.
We find among the Klamaths an account of creation in which the world was said to have been
made by an old man above, or from above. This old god or god man, while making the earth, sat on a
stool. When the earth was finished, he made the fish and then animals, and finally made a man. This
man was authorized and empowered to grade the animals, appointing each its station and duties in life.
These animals were all intelligent, having speech and reason. The newly-made man proposed to start
out each of them with a bow and arrows as an equipment for the duties of life. The length of the bow was
to correspond with the rank and ability of the recipient. Having got bows enough for all the animals
ready, they were notified to appear at the distribution, which was to occur the next morning. Now
Coyote thought his distinguished qualities entitled him to first rank and consideration; and he was
determined to be the first at the distribution and get the longest bow. To make sure of it, he decided to
sit up all night so as to be awake early in the morning. For a time he succeeded in keeping awake; but
his drowsiness proved at last superior to his ambitious aspirations; and towards morning he fell into a
deep sleep, and did not awake until the sun was up in the sky; and, instead of being first at the
distribution of bows, he came in when there was only one left, the shortest and poorest of all. The master
of ceremonies felt sorry for poor Coyote, and asked advice of the old man from above as to what should be
done. As a sort of compensation for the inefficiency of the short bow, he "made it a law" that Coyote
should be the most cunning of all other animals, which has been the case ever since.
The Chinook Indians claim to have been made by Coyote. At first they were not perfect, being blind
and with closed mouths, and having stiffened joints in the feet. Afterwards this defect was remedied, as
is related in another place. This myth of the Chinooks reminds one of the account of creation of man
as given by a Mexican tribe, which says that the first people were made of the pith of wood. They
walked about well enough, and had most of the attributes of men. They multiplied and filled the world,
but, having no sense or mind or intelligence, the maker was disgusted with his essay at creation, and
destroyed the whole batch. He made another attempt; and the ordinary Mexican Indian was the result
of his efforts. The old Chinooks of the Lower Willamette valley and Columbia believed that the present
race of Indians were preceded by a different race, which they called the Ulhaipas. These were probably
nothing more than the "ancients," the "animal people," which the Klikitats called the Wat-tee-tláma.
In the Klikitat and Yakima languages, the word "ulhai" signifies moon, and "ulhaipa" means pertaining
to the moon. If the word had the same meaning among the Chinooks, it would indicate that these ancient
people were regarded as being in some way connected with the moon.
>>
There appears among the creation myths of different tribes scattered up and down the Pacific coast,
from Alaska to Lower California, what is called the "old man," "wonderful man or "giant man," who
figured as the creator or maker of the Indians. A closer investigation shows that in many if not most of
the cases this wonderful man was Coyote. The Aleuts' old man made men of stones. Stones thrown in
the air became birds, those that fell in the water became fishes, and those on land became land animals.
It is said that some little tribe on the extreme northern coast claim to have originated from the dog. The
Indian dogs being nothing but domesticated coyotes, it is probable those tribes believe in the coyote god
the same as nearly all the other western tribes.
Across the channel from the Skagit country, the Indians have a very singular tradition or myth.
They believe that all animals contain something like the soul of man, a spirit essence or soul in an
undeveloped state. This points quite strongly towards evolution and Darwinism. They say that a long
time ago only animals were living in that country; and that there were no human beings in all the land.
One day two strange beings in human form came down the coast paddling a canoe. No such beings ever
having been seen in those parts, the animals were so frightened that they stampeded and ran away
pell-mell, in such haste that they in some way dropped or lost out of their bodies the soul essence or spirit
embryos of humanity; and these subsequently developed into Indians such as now exist in that country.
ANCIENT ANIMAL GODS.
Though there are differences in physique, great variety of language, and a vast number of myths
varying much as to the origin of things, there is among all the Indians of the Northwest, all over the
North American continent in fact, a remarkable unanimity in belief, that before the present race of
Indians there existed a race of “animal people,"-gods in animal form. These all spoke one language,
-all had intelligence and reason. Even inanimate objects are clothed with the attributes of active
intelligent beings, and are represented in their myths and legends as doing and saying many wonderful
things. The smallness, feebleness or insignificance of an animal or thing was no obstacle to its power
5
64
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
ones
of working wonders. Indeed, it seems to have been a favorite idea of the Indian myth-makers that some
small or weak thing should outdo or defeat the efforts of more pretentious gods. Sometimes what
Coyote himself could not do the muskrat or some little bird could accomplish. As we shall see later on,
the eagle, beaver, owl, rattlesnake, bear and many other animals were gods of vast power and influence.
These animals were designated in nearly all cases by a term signifying the "ancients," or the “
that came before.” If you ask an Indian when these things were, he will tell you, "long, long time
ago." If he uses the Chinook jargon, he will say, "an-kutty," drawling out the first syllable to
express more emphatically the great length of time. Anything more definite no one can ever learn.
None of the present race existed at that time. These ancient animal people were giants in size. The
mosquito, tick, spider and other insects were larger than an ox. The present race of animals are small
and degenerate representatives of what they formerly were. They have been cursed or
(C
put down" and
are fallen, have lost speech, and are shabby semblances of their former greatness. The times of these
"ancients" were days of magic and wonder-working, surpassing the Arabian Nights' stories. These gods
could transform themselves to anything they chose, and could skim over vast distances in the twinkling
of an eye. They were diviners of thought, endowed with prophecy, wielded the spirits and controlled
the forces of nature. The winds and waters, clouds and darkness, were subject to their bidding. They
even had the power to change the face of nature. Many of the peculiarities of nature are attributed to
their powers; and some of them represent the sun and moon to have come into existence by the same
agency.
There has been a great deal said and written concerning the monotheism of the Indians; and we
hear much about his worship of the "Great Spirit." The idea has generally prevailed that the Indians
always and everywhere believed only in one God or Great Spirit. Nothing could be more erroneous.
According to the Indian cosmogony, there are gods almost innumerable. The Indian legends consist
largely of stories representing the performances of these ancient gods. There seems to be an idea that,
though these gods still live in the form of the present race of animals, the god-like part, the magic power,
the great intelligence, exists somewhere else as a spirit; and this spirit is reverenced as a god and
appealed to for help.
(C
In the age of the animal people, the earth was full of violence; the greater preyed on the less; the
strong trampled upon or devoured the weak. It was a reign of violence, in which each animal god was
wholly selfish, almost without exception. There was fear and terror on every hand until Coyote
wrought order out of confusion, conquered the monster destroyers and established laws and precedents.
The earth itself was spoken of by the Indians as being eternal. Some said it was in the form of a man,
with his head to the east and feet to the west. The earth was in one sense considered the father of all
living things. The earth is my father," was not an uncommon Indian expression. Many mountains
and rocks were once living beings. These were transformed, many of them to stone, for.some sin or
transgression. Nothing now lives but had a giant ancestry. The present race of animals, insects and
even trees and fruits are poor diminutive representatives of a gigantic, wonderful, mysterious race that
preceded. Coyote, of all the animal gods, was greatest; he of all the others was pre-eminently the
Indians' friend. What Coyote did, and his wonderful exploits in conquering giants, form the basis of a
complicated mythology.
SPEELYAI (COYOTE), THE GREAT INDIAN GOD.
We may learn the character of a people from the character of the gods they worship, or from the
attributes they give them. An examination into the myths of the Indians shows Coyote as being almost
all-powerful,-transforming the face of nature, changing living beings to stone, transforming himself into
a feather, a little mewling baby, or into anything that might forward his purposes. He traveled over the earth,
met and subjugated the monsters, demons and tyrant gods that were destroying the people. He always
was the friend of the Indian and an enemy to their foes. While he is represented in their myths as
performing such wonderful and supernatural things, he often found himself outwitted and circumvented
even by some small and insignificant animal, and is spoken of as doing the most ridiculous and absurd
things, and getting into predicaments of the most painful or ludicrous character. While he was sending
salmon to the Indians, and providing roots and berries for food, he suffered with hunger, and found himself
forced to live on the most filthy and disgusting fare. He is represented as being very acute and cunning,
and as resorting to all sorts of stratagems, fair or unfair, to accomplish his objects. He was sick, hungry
and poor at times. Some of the legends represent him as going about in his journeys clad in an old,
worn, dirty robe made of jack-rabbit skins. It is said that he at one time died through eating a lot of
fleas, but was brought back to life by a magpie picking him in the eye. He is represented as being
interested in games and amusements, and as favoring and ordaining dances, promulgating laws,
introducing industrial pursuits, teaching the Indians how to cook food and do various other things for
their welfare and happiness. He was angry or amused, and enjoyed a joke or trick, and frequently
suffered because of his ignorance or folly. In short, Coyote was a being with the qualities of a real coyote
and a live Indian. The Indian's god was, in short, like himself,-full of treachery and deceit, ignorant
yet cunning; wise in some respects, yet full of folly and childishness. Upon the whole, Coyote was a
LEGENDS, MYTHS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
65
pretty good character, viewed from the Indian standpoint, and, in fact, must have represented at one time
the Indian's idea of a being worthy to be called god.
In the incongruities of the Indian god we see the incongruities of the Indian mind; for his god was
the product of his own imagination; and he clothed him with such attributes as were in harmony with his
own intelligence, feelings and moral nature. Since these myths and traditions have been handed down
for centuries, they convey to us a picture of the Indian character for ages back, more correct, perhaps,
than any written history could give us. The myth-makers had no design to flatter or traduce; but
unconsciously, while telling of the doings of the gods, they told their own natures, feelings and impulses,
and without knowing it gave us their own standard of morality.
A most singular myth connected with Coyote was that he had three sisters that lived in his abdomen.
These sisters were in the form of berries that grow in the mountains. These sisters were very wise, and
were oracles to Coyote; whenever he found himself unable to accomplish his designs, or was in doubt as
to how to proceed, he called out these sisters and asked them what he had better do, or how he should
manage. They are represented as always being unwilling to give the desired information; and then
Coyote would threaten to send rain upon them, when they would yield and tell what he wanted to know.
When he would urge them to give him information, they would say, If we tell you, you will say you
knew that yourself before;" and, when they finally gave the desired information, he always said: "Yes,
my sisters, that is what I thought; that was my plan at first." By this we infer that they thought Coyote
was unwilling to have anyone know more than himself, though he was willing to avail himself of help
from any source.
SPEELYAI AND HIS WONDERFUL DOG.
The god Coyote was nearly always equal to any emergency, and generally came off victor in any
undertaking. He sometimes needed assistance, but usually had cunning enough to devise expedients that
would carry him through. As an illustration of what he could do in the way of magic when he had
nothing at hand to operate on except a little soft mud and his native genius, the following is related:
((
In the "ancient" times, Coyote was traveling down in Oregon, and there ran across a man who had
a very wonderful one-horned dog. This dog was very cross and fierce; and its owner had some difficulty
in keeping it away from Coyote. This did not please the Indian god; and he taxed his ingenuity to
devise a plan of getting rid of this troublesome beast. That evening he took a little lump of soft clay,
and by some kind of magic or conjuring made a dog that beat the one-horned dog of the stranger. With
his newly made dog trotting along by his side, he went to the other man and said, “Let us have our dogs
fight, and see which will whip the other. The man was afraid, since Coyote's dog had two horns and was
very fierce.
Well, then," said Coyote, "let us send our dogs out, and see which will be able to tear
down that cliff yonder." Agreeing to this, the man set on his dog; but he did not accomplish much,
tearing down a few rocks only, and then he quit. Coyote then sent out the two-horned dog, when he
tore the cliff down to a level with the ground. Coyote then offered to trade dogs even; but the man
seemed unwilling. Coyote said, "Well, then, let us make them fight." The man was afraid, having
seen the other dog's power. Not being able to get up a fight, Coyote said, "Your dog can't dig up the
ground like mine." The man sent out his dog; but he only tore out a small hole, and then returned;
when Coyote sent his dog, which tore up the ground fearfully, making great rents in it. He then offered
to trade again; and this time the man agreed to the exchange. Having exchanged dogs, Speelyai took
the one-horned dog and left that part of the country.
The Oregon man thought he had made a great bargain, getting a two-horned dog for a one-horned
one, and the one he received being so much more powerful, too. He felt much elated over his trade, and
amused himself by sending it out to tear down great mountains. He sent him out four different times
this way; and every time he displayed supernatural power. But the fifth time, he sent him out against a
stone wall, when it did not tumble down as he expected. When the dog ran up to knock the cliff down,
he all at once very mysteriously disappeared. When the man went up to see what had become of him,
he found only a little wad of soft clay sticking against the rocks. The man thus lost a wonderful dog,
and the people a snarling enemy. What came of the other dog the legend does not say; but a dog so
distinguished must have come to some notable end. There is a moral here, however, that whoever has a
fighting dog is sure to find someone with a stronger one.
COYOTE DESTROYS THE POWER OF A WATER GOD.
It is a noticeable fact that, in the myths of the Indians, a majority of the monsters of the ancient
times were females. The Indians having no term to represent gender say woman beaver, woman wolf,
man bear, etc. When relating their legends they say an old man or an old woman did thus and so. If
inquiry be made, it generally is discovered that the old man or woman was a male or female animal of the
animal people" who lived in the magic Wat-tee-tash age.
The deep, dark holes and whirlpools in the Columbia, Willamette and other rivers of the Northwest
were anciently the abodes of water gods or demons. A great many places where these beings lived are
66
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
pointed out yet; and there is even now among the Indians a dread and fear of these places at times. At
the fishing above The Dalles, one of these monster water nymphs used to live. She was described by the
Indians as having reddish-brown hair flowing down to her waist. She never appeared entirely above
water. She was in those ancient times a fearful monster, who swallowed up the poor Indian fishermen.
When a boat came near, she set the water into a whirl, and sucked it and its occupants under, never more
to appear again. She had been swallowing up people this way for a long time, and had become a terror
to the fishermen; so that they scarcely dared to fish at all; and their life was a continual round of alarm
and dread.
Coyote pitied the poor people, and meditated how he might rid the river of this great destroyer. He
thought a long time, but could not devise any plan that promised success. He went early one morning to
the edge of the cliff on the shore, and looked over to take observations. He soon saw her come up, but
had no courage to do anything and so returned. Consulting his sisters, they advised him to transform
himself into a feather and cause the water to float him over the monster's abode. This he did. She eyed
the feather curiously, and was suspicious, but swallowed it down but soon vomited it up again. He
floated back, and was spewed out like Jonah again. This was repeated until the fifth time, when the
monster retained him. He now transformed himself into a strong Indian warrior, with knives and fire
rods. It being extremely cold and dark, he began to feel about for something with which to make a fire.
Finding some fine soft substance, which he thought would ignite, he twirled his fire rods and struck a
blaze. On trying to light the material he found that it shriveled up and would not burn; it was the hair of
a human being. Feeling around farther he found a canoe, and split off some pieces and built a warm fire,
which illuminated the monster's stomach so that he could see. On looking around he was astonished to
find people of various races, boats, fishing-tackle, and a great variety of stuff that had been swallowed.
The people were all benumbed with cold, and were stupefied. Whaiama, the eagle, was there cold and
wet, with bedraggled feathers, a sorry specimen of the god of the air. Coyote told all the people to come
up and get warm. He said to the eagle, "I want you, when I tell you, to take this canoe in your beak
and fly away with it to a high mountain and rescue these people.”
Coyote looked up and saw the great heart of the monster beating and throbbing against her ribs. He
had along five stone knives. He took one and sawed and cut away at the heart-strings of the god,
but the knife broke. He then tried another, and it broke. With each knife he made some progress;
and the monster was growing weaker. Just as the last knife broke the monster died. Whaiama seized
the boat in his beak, and flew away to a high mountain. Coyote rushed out after the eagle and the boat,
and, reaching the shore, stood there and pronounced a curse upon the now despoiled river giantess:
"Your career as a destroyer is ended. You can never swallow up and kill so many people again. You
may remain and frighten fishermen, and occasionally may swallow a person from a strange tribe. A
better race of people is coming; and you shall not destroy it." Coyote was almost too late in making his
escape from the ventral cavity of the monster; and the tip of his tail was caught in the grip of the
sphincter and begrimed. Ever since then, the end of the coyote's tail has been black.
AMASH, THE OWL, SLAIN BY COYOTE.
The owl figures very prominently in the myths of the Northwest Indians. Amash, the owl god
in the age of the animal people, was a great object of terror. Coyote, who subjugated so many other
pests, slew Amash also.
One time, way back in the days of "the ancients," Coyote was traveling in Washington somewhere
below where Lewiston now is, and met Amash, the owl god, coming on the same trail he was in. He
had heard of this great destroyer; and, in order to conceal his identity, he immediately transformed
himself into a magnificent young Indian warrior, rigged out in the most splendid manner. When they
came up very near together, Coyote said, "Where do you come from?" Amash, the owl god, stood
still, looking wise and sedate, but made no reply. Coyote said again, "Where do you come from? '
Still no reply. He repeated the third time, when Amash replied by saying, "Where do you come
from?" Coyote said: "I am from no other country than this where you are living. This is my
country; and I am looking for somebody to eat." Amash then thought: "I never saw this man
before. Who can he be?" He then spoke up to Coyote and said: "I have traveled all over this
country everywhere; and I never met you before." Coyote said: "I have been myself from one end of
the world to the other. I have been where the sun rises, and where it goes down, and from north to
south. You claim to have been eating people. Suppose we both vomit, and see who will throw up the
most bones; and then we shall see which of us is the greatest. Amash said, Yes, that is good."
Now," said Coyote, "let us both shut our eyes before we begin. We will then vomit and not open our
eyes until I give the word. Be sure to keep your eyes shut until I say open.”
Amash shut his eyes tightly; but Coyote managed to keep his partly open. So they both began to
retch and strain and belch forth the contents of their stomachs, when Coyote discovered that the owl man
had thrown up a vast quantity of skulls and other bones of human beings, and that his own pile only
showed up a lot of bones of mice. Here was a dilemma that would tax even the ingenuity of a god;
but Coyote was equal to the emergency, and adroitly slipped his own pile of bones over to the owl, and

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LEGENDS, MYTHS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
67
took the owl's to himself. He then said to Amash, Now let us open our eyes and see what we have
vomited." When both had looked, the owl was very much astonished; and Coyote said: "You see
you eat nothing but mice, while I am the one who eats human beings; for the bones down there show
for themselves." The owl proposed to make another trial, which was done. Every time Coyote took
the owl's bones. When this had been done five times, Coyote said: "You have made great pretensions
of eating people; but you vomit nothing but mice bones. I shall therefore take your head." So saying,
Coyote walked up to the owl and drew out his stone knife and cut off his head. He then said, "You
have been killing and destroying long enough." Taking the owl's body, he flung it off to the mountains,
and continued: "You may stay there and hoot and scream and scare the traveler in the night, or
make people feel lonely and sad at night; but you will never take human life. A new people are coming;
and you are not to destroy them." Since that time the owl has been diminutive in size. He lives in
unfrequented places, and makes people feel lonely by his hoo-hoo-ah, but has never killed anybody.
SPEELYAI FIGHTS EENUMTLA.
He lived in the
Eenumtla, or Thunder, was a very mighty god in the days of the Wat-tee-tash.
high mountains and clouds. His terrible roar filled every living thing with deadly fear; and his
searching gaze penetrated from his home in the clouds to every spot on the earth. The wink of his eye
was the flashing of fire; and no living thing could hope to escape his notice. This thunder god abused
his power, and made himself a tyrant. Seated high in the clouds, and always watching, whenever he
saw anyone, he immediately spread dark clouds over him and thundered so violently as to make the
world tremble; and with a flash of lightning his victim was striken out of existence. The people were
living in a state of continued terror, and scarcely dared come out of their houses for fear of being shot
by the lightning.
The Indian god Speelyai (Coyote) came along one day and found the people in great consternation.
He said to them: " What is the matter? Of what are you all so fearful?" They then related how
they lived in constant dread of the mighty Eenumtla, and scarcely dared to go out to fish, hunt or do
anything. He told the terrified people he would break the power of the dreaded storm god. After much
thought, he failed to come to any conclusion as to the best mode of getting at the monster. As was his
custom when in need of counsel or help, he called forth his sisters, who lived in his stomach; and, when
they had told him what to do, he said: "That is just what I thought, my sisters; that is my plan."
(6
Following their directions, he transformed himself to a downy feather, and floated on the wind up
to the thunder god, and over him, so as to get a good sight of him. He then came down in a whirlwind
and alighted on a dry sunflower stock, and sat there watching Eenumtla. During these movements the
thunder god had been watching, and kept thinking: "That looks like a feather, and yet it looks like a
man." He then raised up and took a better look. Being suspicious and in doubt, he said: “It
probably is a feather that I knocked from someone the other day; and the wind has blown it here. I
will try a little rain on it, and see what it will do." So saying, he raised up and thundered and sent
a shower of rain down. The magic feather did not move. When the rain ceased all of a sudden, Coyote,
in the form of a feather, rose up in the air and began to peal out thunder and flash lightnings and pour
rain down at a terrible rate. Eenumtla was amazed and sorely perplexed that so small an object as a
downy feather should do such a wonderful thing. 'I thought I was the only Thunder in the world."
Feeling jealous at this usurping of his power and dignity, he flashed lightning at the little down and
thundered at it, and sent down a deluge of water at his insignificant enemy. The disguised god Coyote
became very angry, and began to flash lightning in the very eyes of the thunder god himself, so that he
began to dodge and blink. Determined not to be outdone by so puny an antagonist, Eenumtla the
thunderer shot back hot lightning, sending the fire at his eyes; yet Coyote did not dodge nor wink, but
answered with lightnings more fierce, and thunders more loud. The contest waged hotter and fiercer.
The thunderer shot thunderbolts at Coyote, and tore up the earth about him; and he in turn answered
lightnings with flashes more terrific, and hurled the thunder god from his seat in the clouds. The
enraged combatants then raised high up over the world, and fought amid rollings and crushings of
thunder, and the demoniac play of lightnings and thunderbolts; while the storm clouds darkened the
sky, and rain deluged the earth with fearful violence.
They finally came together in a fearful last death grip, in the midst of thick clouds and tempestuous
elements; they fell to the ground with such force that they shook the whole world. Coyote fell on top
of Eenumtla the thunderer, and began to beat him unmercifully with his war clubs. The fallen giant
pleaded for mercy; but Coyote continued to pummel his antagonist until all the clubs were broken; and
then he pronounced sentence upon the once haughty thunderer: "You shall no more make it your
business to kill and terrify people. You may live, but can only thunder on hot, sultry days. You may
flash lightning, but not to destroy." From that day the power of Eenumtla has been broken; and,
though he sometimes terrifies, he seldom kills.
68
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
COYOTE OUTWITS THE BEAVER WOMEN AND SUPPLIES THE PEOPLE
WITH
SALMON.
Throughout all the Northwest there is a myth current which represents that in the long, long ago
there were salmon; but that in some way they were not permitted to come up the rivers. In nearly
all the myths the rivers were said to have a sort of dam or obstruction thrown across that prevented the
fish coming up. This dam was locked up or made secure some way with something like a key. This
dam belonged to and was kept by women.
The Columbia river Indians say that in the animal age the people up the river could get no salmon.
They were very hungry; and Coyote, seeing their suffering, decided to go down and "bring the salmon.”
There was a big dam down at Astoria presided over by five young women ("beaver women ") who kept
watch and allowed no fish to go up the river. Coyote made a boat and in it started down to the mouth
of the river. Before reaching the place, he transformed himself into a little Indian pappoose lashed
on a baby board; and thus metamorphosed he went floating down towards the dam or obstruction. When
he was near where the young women lived, one of them happened to come down to the water's edge
like Pharaoh's daughter of old. When Coyote in the form of a baby perceived the young woman near, he
began to cry very pitifully to attract her attention. She saw him, and her tender woman's heart was
touched. She ran and called her sisters and said: "O sisters! I have found a baby. Somebody must
have been in a canoe and got upset; and this little fellow has not drowned.” After making much ado
over the little waif, one of them said, "Let us take him and feed him, and raise him up to be a man for
us to live with us. This proposition was readily approved; for they were five young women living
alone. They took him to their camp. When they had all gone away, leaving the little fellow alone,
Coyote resumed his wolf form and began to smell about for something to eat. He ate up their salmon
and other food; and, when he heard them returning, he immediately changed himself back to the little
mewling baby again. The women were off most of the day watching the fish; and they soon began to
miss things and wonder what the trouble was. After five days spent this way, Coyote determined to
accomplish his mission. He prepared himself for his work, and went down to the water to unlock the
dam. The earth began to tremble; and then the women, who were some ways off, were alarmed, and
said: That is strange! It is wonderful; that baby has something wonderful about it. It must be the
cause of this." They then saw Coyote in his own proper form, and fell upon him and struck him.
He plunged into the water, the dam opened, and the salmon shot up stream in myriads; and the wants
of the people were supplied. This is the Klikitat version. The Klamaths and Modocs have an almost
identical story to account for the salmon in the Klamath river.
ROCK MYTHS.
On the Tiatan river in Washington, there is a little valley in which there are a number of large rocks
standing up, the most prominent of them all being called by the Indians Me-áh-wa, that is, chieftain. A
legend says that Speelyai (Coyote), in the days of the ancients, had a son named Me-áh-wa. This young
man was a handsome young warrior and chief, who had a young wife who was about to become a mother;
and the young man was anxious to add another wife to his domestic circle, as he had grown tired of his
first woman. He and his wife were camping in this little valley on the Tiatan. One day he went into
his sweathouse near the water to sweat and bathe. On coming out to plunge into the water, he noticed a
great many young women from all parts of the country standing around the edges of the valley watching
him. They had come, each hoping and wishing to be chosen as his second wife. The legend says there
were girls there from Spokane, Klikitat, Yakima, Walla Walla and from all sections of Eastern Washington.
When Me-áh- -wa crawled out of the sweathouse, he discovered these young women standing off and looking
at him, and, feeling abashed at being caught in such a position, turned his back towards them but looked
back over his shoulders. He understood their wishes, but gave them no sign of approval. About that
time Speelyai, his father, who was standing off in the direction of the Yakima, began to jump and dance
about and clap his hands saying, "Oh, my son is going to get him another wife!" In the twinkling of
an eye, by some kind of enchantment or magic power, Me-áh-wa and all the young women were
transformed to stone, where they have stood ever since.
The different groups of stones are pointed out as the young women of different tribes. The five
nearest Me-áh-wa are called the Wisham women, or women from the " Tumwater above the Dalles.
Each group is named after some tribe. Me-áh-wa's wife here gave birth to a child; both mother and
child are pointed out, as is the sweathouse also. They say that the young women had with them such
food as abounded around their homes, and that the moment they were turning to stone they dropped these
edibles, consisting of berries, seeds, camas and various roots, and that they took root and grew and have
come every year since. The great variety of Indian food that grows about there is thus accounted for.
The Indians had names for a great many of the large rocks on the Columbia river; and connected with
each was a myth or legend. Between the White Salmon and Little White Salmon rivers there is a large
ridge or body of rock lying endwise towards the river and reaching out into the water. This the Indians
LEGENDS, MYTHS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
69
have given a name signifying, "Baby-on-the-board;" and from its fancied resemblance to a pappoose
lashed to the Indian cradle there undoubtedly arose the following myth. In the days when Speelyai was
going around over the world doing so many wonderful things for the people, slaying monsters and
instituting laws and usages, this rock was a huge living baby, which was suspended by cords or ropes
high in the air across the river. There this giant infant had been hanging for ages (rather old for an
infant); and Coyote, coming up the Columbia one day, observed the prodigy, and seemed to be displeased.
He took his big stone knife and cut the cord that held the Titanian infant, when it came down with a
plunge into the water. Its feet being still held, it swung towards the Washington side, the head falling
into the Columbia. It seems a hard fall, a hard method of baptism, and a still harder fate to be turned
into a hard, cold stone.
"The gods move in a mysterious way,
Their wonders to perform."
But who shall question their ways that cannot control their power ?
What the Whites call Eagle Rock was anciently a goddess, the daughter of the Indian god Speelyai.
This daughter was slim and bony, and neither handsome nor attractive. As a result, her hand was never
sought by suitor; and she in consequence became an old maid. On account of a crime costing her her
good name and reputation for chastity, she was transformed to stone,-a humiliating example for all the
Indian old maids in succeeding generations.
Not far from Mosier's landing, on the Columbia, persons can see from the river steamers a ledge of
rock on the shore which the Indians called Coyote's (Speelyai's) Wall. At this point Coyote, while
traveling along the river once, became very hungry. Here he committed a degrading crime, hoping to
thereby satisfy his hunger. Immediately he was overwhelmed with a feeling of shame and remorse, and
a dread lest the news of his sin should be scattered around among the people. He set to work to build a
high wall that should stop the news from going out. Alas! he builded in vain. He would get his wall
up and seemingly all right, when the news would break over and the wall tumble down. As fast as he
mended one place another breach was made somewhere else. He became so weary and disheartened that
he abandoned his project, and, filled with shame and remorse, started on up towards the Klikitat. On
nearing a house, the first sound that greeted his ears was that of the inmates talking about his evil deeds.
Without going in, though tired, he passed by and went on towards the Wisham camps above the Dalles.
Here he had the same experience; thus everywhere the news of his conduct had preceded him. The moral
of the story is, "You can't build a wall strong enough to prevent a knowledge of your evil doings being
spread." Which is about the same as the old adage, "Be sure your sin will find you out."
A few miles above the Cascades on the Columbia, there is a round-bottomed "pot hole" in the rocks
which the Cascade Indians called Coyote's Kettle.' Here they say he used to cook his salmon. For a
long time, people had been eating their fish and other food raw, and only knew of one way of baking bread,
and that was by the heat of the sun. In this way they dried their salmon and berries; but Coyote taught
them at this place to cook. Having caught a quantity of salmon, he put them in this pot hole and poured
water over them. He then heated boulders and threw them in, when they heated up the water and caused
it to boil. When the fish were done, he called up all the people and made a great feast. He thus showed
them how to cook, and at the same time ordained the salmon feast, which he commanded them to celebrate
every spring on the coming of the salmon. He also instructed them how to broil salmon on sticks, and
gave them a start in the art of cooking generally.
LEGEND OF THE TICK.
In Washington, up the Nahchess river on the north side, there is a high, bold mountain that has
been famous among the tribes of that country as a hunting ground, the deer especially abounding. In
the ancient animal age, so the myth goes, Upsha, the tick god and progenitor of the present race of ticks,
lived. The place was called Ta-hát-hat. A little serpentine lake there was called by the Kittitass Indians
Sklée. At this place the Indian god Coyote used to have a sweathouse, which they point out to this day,
a sunken place where there are a good many stones. On this mountain old Upsha, who, it must be
understood, was a terror for size, lived and was the possessor of an immense herd of deer, mountain sheep,
elk, and all kinds of animals whose flesh is good for food. He had these animals all tamed so that he
could go about among them without their being afraid of him. Here he lived in great ease, killing a deer
or elk whenever he liked, and was boss of the situation. Coyote, on the contrary, was eking out rather
a precarious living, taking what he could pick up,-a mouse, squirrel, grasshopper, or whatever he
could find.
Seeing Upsha having so easy a time, and himself having to "rustle" so hard for subsistence, the
wily god determined to make way with Upsha and take possession of the flocks and herds. Intent on this
purpose, he journeyed up the mountain to the Upsha mansion. Arriving there, he found the tick god
sweating and bathing. Being weary and dusty, he begged that Upsha would permit him to refresh
himself with a bath and a sweat. Permission being granted, he entered the sweathouse. When inside,
he found the structure was made in a very novel manner, as it was formed of the body of an immense deer,
the ribs coming down on each side like the bent poles generally used by the Indians in the construction of
70
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
their sudatories. Old Upsha heated rocks and passed them in to Coyote. The heat radiating from the hot
stones caused the fat to fry out and drip down from the ribs; and the smell was exceedingly delicious to
the hungry god; so he held up his mouth and caught the dripping fat. He felt as though he were in a
veritable heaven, and determined to murder old Tick at the first opportunity. While he was forming his
plan, Upsha could discern his thoughts, and was also planning to defeat him. In the night, Coyote got
up and went to Upsha and attempted to choke him to death. He held him down a long time until he
thought the tick god was dead, and then left him. No sooner had he left than Upsha jumped up and
ran outside, and called to all his herds and flocks to fly for life. The deer which formed his house sprang
to life and fled; but Upsha clung to his hair, and was being carried off at great speed, when he raised up,
and, looking back, began to taunt the outwitted coyote god, who was left standing alone, saying: "You
ought to have had more sense than to try to squeeze a tick to death. Why didn't you put me on a rock
and crack me with a stone?" And then he laughed in derision, which made Coyote very angry; and he
cursed Upsha, saying: "You will never kill any more game. You shall be little and feeble, and crawl
around on animals' hair, and only have power to suck a little blood." So the tick has been a blood-sucker
ever since, and is thin and flat, and cannot be killed by squeezing, but must be crushed by sudden violence.
RABBIT MYTHS.
It is a somewhat remarkable fact that almost if not quite all the Indians throughout the continent
have myths connecting the rabbit and sun. Most of these myths represent the rabbit as being angry at
the sun for scorching his back. Our Oregon and Washington Indians say that anciently the sun was not.
regular in his visits to the world. He lived in a dark cave somewhere off in the West; and sometimes he
went away and remained so long that everybody was freezing, and there was much distress; then again
he would return so close as to burn everybody and everything, so that his capricious way of doing was the
source of endless trouble. In all the tribes there are myths that show an antipathy of the rabbit to the
sun, and a conflict or trial of strength or cunning in which rabbit comes off victorious.
The Omahas in Nebraska and Iowa had a myth in which the rabbit snared the sun with a bow string.
Finding the sun caught, he was afraid to go up and take his game, as the sun was so fiery and hot. He
finally mustered up courage, turned his head low down between his fore feet, and rushed up and cut the
bow-string snare. When he raised up he found he had not been quick enough; the sun had scorched him
between the shoulders and gone up into the sky again. Rabbits all have a brown spot on their backs in
commemoration of this event.
The Indians from the Cascade Mountains eastward relate a legend something as follows. There are
a good many variations, however; and some make the story very long. In the days of the ancients, the
sun one time stayed away a long time; and the people were anxiously awaiting his return. They were
very cold, and were shivering about in the darkness. The jack rabbit god was sitting around the campfire
with his little children, watching for the sun to come back; and becoming very weary, he went to sleep.
While he was sleeping, the sun came so near that it began to scorch his back. The little children awoke
the parent rabbit, saying, “O father! your back is all on fire.” When he was thoroughly awakened and
saw what the sun had done, he was very angry, and told his children that he was going to fight the sun;
that he would shoot him with his bow and arrows. He armed himself and started towards the East, and
traveled many days. He finally reached the edge of the world where the sun came up, and sat down to
watch for the coming of his enemy. He had a bow and five arrows. After watching a long time, the
dilatory sun came in sight, when the rabbit sent an arrow at his face; but the sun consumed it. He then
shot the second arrow; and it too was burned, and never reached the sun. He thus shot four of his arrows,
and had not even touched his enemy. Only one was now left; it was, however, the mystic fifth, the
charmed arrow. To prevent its burning the hero wet it with a tear (rabbits eyes were always full of water);
and then he put it to his bow and shot. This time the arrow went straight to the sun, and shattered it
into ten thousand fragments, which fell like firebrands all over the world, setting fire to everything. The
rabbit god now had to fly before the conflagration. Some of the tribes say he flew to a little scrubby,
worthless kind of shrub, and besought its help, crawling under its low branches for protection. He was
compelled to fly from every hiding-place, and so went jumping over the world, which now got so hot that
it burned off first his toes, then his feet, and then his legs and body; and nothing was left but his head.
But on it kept going over mountains and valleys until it struck a stone and burst, or some say it swelled
and burst, when the water from his eyes (tears) poured forth a flood that quenched the grand conflagration.
The animal gods then had a big council and decided that thereafter the sun should not be so irregular and
capricious, but should travel around the world every day and make the seasons, and should no more come
so near as to burn people or wander away and leave them to freeze.
FROG AND THE MOON.
Among the tribes of the Northwest there are a good many mystic tales in which the frog and the
moon are connected. One story says that a long time ago the frog jumped to the moon and has ruled that
body ever since. According to some of the tribes up Snake river, the whippoorwill or night hawk made

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LEGENDS, MYTHS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
71
the orb of night. According to the resident philosophers in that region, the whippoorwill, wanting a light
suitable for its pursuits, determined to make a moon, and used the frog as material. By witchcraft or
magic, the cool batrachian was transformed to a luminous full moon, and hung in the heavens, frog side
out, for the benefit of succeeding generations. The Indian says, "frog in the moon "' instead of " man in
the moon." Some of the Indians in the extreme northwest of Washington appear to have at one time
worshiped the moon, or to have appealed to it in times of storms. It is certain that some of the tribes in
British Columbia did.
MOUNTAIN LAKE MYTHS.
The Oregon and Washington Indians were very superstitious in regard to lakes, caves or any place
in nature where silence or gloomy darkness prevailed. Crater Lake in Southern Oregon has many
myths and legends connected with it. Sunk deep down in the mountain, being surrounded by high,
rocky walls, its dark waters are smooth and silent as the tomb. This wonderful abode of silence filled
the Indian with awe and superstitious dread. He believed that lake was the abode of spirits long since
departed; and it was with great unwillingness he would go about or near it. In many places in the
mountains where the Indians resorted late in the summer for huckleberries and to hunt game, there are
small lakes. In Washington, about the base of Mounts Adams and Ranier, there are several. Between
these peaks there is a lower plateau or range called by the Indians Sheep Mountain, because of the
abundance of mountain sheep always found there. Some of these little lakes are very picturesque and
beautiful. Others are small, dark, deep and surrounded with tall timber that makes them very quiet
and lonely. Connected with these little pools are various superstitions. Some of them are believed to be
presided over by gods or genii connected with the formation of rain. These gods or demons do not
like to have the waters disturbed, having a desire to be forever quiet and still. Of some of these lakes
the Indians believe that if the water be disturbed in any way the spirits will be angry or some way
offended, and send rain down upon the offenders. They are careful, therefore, not to trouble the waters
in any way, such as by throwing in stones, getting water for cooking, or watering their ponies. The
Indians firmly believe these things and act accordingly.
An intelligent half breed assured the writer that he certainly believed that there was something in
the lakes that caused rain when the waters were disturbed. He related his experience, which he
regarded as settling the matter in his mind at least. Being camped up in the mountains one time with
a party of Indians after huckleberries, he one fine sunny day became very warm running about hunting
berries; and, coming across one of these little lakes, he undressed and went in for a swim. Soon after
coming out, the clouds began to gather; and the rain poured down in torrents. In the evening, when
the company had gathered in the camp, the inquiry went around whether any of the party had been
troubling the waters of the lake. The young man had to acknowledge what he had done, and was
cautioned not to do so again. The following morning the sun came up bright; and a beautiful, clear,
blue sky indicated fine weather. Our hero, not altogether believing in the Indian superstition, concluded
to tempt the spirit or genii in the lakes again, and to test for himself the truth or falsity of the rumored
mystery connected with the waters. With this purpose intent, he went to the pool once more; and,
going up on a hillside above, he found a large stone, which he dislodged and sent rolling and crashing
down the hillside among the brush to the lake's edge, where it plunged into a dark, deep hole. The
water bubbled and acted very strangely, he thought, and kept boiling and swirling for some time.
short time the sky was overcast with black clouds; and the rain was pouring down worse than before.
The company gathered in camp; and the mysterious occurrence was talked over with feelings of
superstitious awe. It was determined they should break camp and leave, they feeling sure that if they
stayed longer some dire calamity might overtake them.
In a
Some of these lakes are reported to have strange animals living in them,--the spirits or ghosts of
deceased beings who existed ages ago. They have wonderful stories about these mysterious beings.
At night, when all is dark and silent, these ghostly beings come out and gather food on the shores.
Some of the lakes are believed to be the abode of the souls of little children who lived in the time of the
"ancients." At night, when stillness reigns, the lonely silence is broken by the cries of the little
babies. The prints of their little naked feet have been found in the soft mud and wet sand around the
margin of the water. They even tell of a strange kind of elk that have been seen to come out of the
lakes and feed on the shores, and then disappear as mysteriously as they came. In the mountains,
where the Indians gather for their hunting or berry-gathering, is a favorite place for relating their old
myths and folk-lore legends. Deep in the solitudes of the mountain forests, gathered about their
campfires, beneath the lofty pines and firs, while the cool night winds of the mountain sighed soft and
mournful music in the swaying branches, the untutored savages, spell bound, listened to the stories
about the strange events that took place amid these scenes in the wonderful "long ago."
At the foot of the hill at the southern edge of the Klikitat valley, near the stage road leading to The
Dalles, there is a small pond or lake where a few years ago the Indians found an abundance of tules for
mat-making. An Indian tradition relates that many years ago there was here an extensive lake abounding
in fine fish. They tell of salmon and sturgeon anciently being caught there. This lake in the "long
ago" was presided over and owned by an immense swan, Ha-wi-la-kok. The water of the lake had
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
2.
When
very magical powers and properties. Whoever drank of the water or bathed in it was sure of good
fortune, and long life and great happiness. As was the case with most of the Indian demi-gods,
Ha-wi-la-kok was selfish, and objected to anyone taking any liberties with her property.
anyone came near she caused the water to pursue and overtake them. Ages ago a beautiful young
maiden of the Wishams or Tumwater tribe went over to the lake to bathe in its magic waters, hoping
thereby to secure good fortune and length of days. She undressed and plunged into the sacred tide,
laving her tawny skin and cooling her body. An elk had come down from the mountains to drink,
and to cool itself had lain down in the water. Not observing the elk below, she climbed into the
branches of his spreading antlers that stood above the water, when he got up and ran away, bearing
her towards Mount Adams. While being borne away, she succeeded in cutting off one of his horns,
and fell to the ground. Returning towards the lake, she happened to urinate at the same spot where the
elk had done the same thing previously. In consequence of this, she, after her return to her home on
the Columbia, bore a child that was neither elk nor Indian, but half elk and half human. She was both
angry and very much ashamed, and killed the strange child, hoping to conceal the affair from the tribe.
This offended the elk so that they retired farther away into the mountains, and refused after that to come
to the lake to drink. Since then the Indians have found it hard work to hunt and kill the elk. This
legend will recall to everyone the myth of the Centaur of the ancient Grecians.
There is much reason to believe that, sometime in the remote ages of the past, the Columbia river valley
was a great lake, barred from the ocean by the Cascade Mountains, and that the bed of the river was gradually
worn through by the water. There must have been a long period when the country about The Dalles
and far above was deeply submerged in water. Klikitat valley may have been wholly or partly covered
with water also. There is hardly a probability that the ancestors of the present race of Indians were
living at that time.
The Puget Sound Indians have legends connected with their lakes, springs and lonely places in nature
very similar and in many cases identical with those east of the mountains. Besides the rain lakes they
have a "snow plant" and "rain plant," in which the spirit of snow or rain resides; and, whenever one
of these plants is plucked off or pulled up, rain or snow are certain to follow. The Indians regard these
plants as sacred and mysterious, and will not disturb them.
The Dalles, Klikitat and other Indians just east of the Cascade Mountains have a tradition that there
was a time where the Yakima and Kittitass valleys, and all the country up the Columbia above The
Dalles was covered with water. This was before the present race of Indians existed, they say. The
"animal people" or Wat-tee-tlá-ma then dwelt on the higher grounds and mountains around. They
have marvelous stories about the great animals that used to be seen swimming around on and in the
waters. Coyote the Indian god used to walk around on the mountains about the valleys and watch one
particular monster beast. The Indians go so far as to describe the color of its hair and how it acted in
the water. In process of time the water dried up and the beast died. A few years ago there were bones
of some huge extinct animal found near a marshy place on the Yakima. These were the remains, so the
Indians say, of this monster animal.
The American continent has been prolific in specimens of the bones of extinct mammalia of large
proportions. The Indians have undoubtedly been acquainted with these for ages. The fact that they had no
knowledge of when these animals existed no doubt gave rise to various surmisings and stories. The
observation of these remains which in ancient times were doubtless more numerous and in better state of
preservation probably give rise to the general belief among the Indians of an ancient race of giant
"animal people." The finding of the bones of a pterodactyl would very readily suggest the myth of
"Wa-wa," the ancient mosquito god. The bones of ancient silurians and other reptiles would very
naturally suggest myths like those we find related of the snake gods of the "animal people." Seeing
there are no animals of like proportions existing at the present time, there must be some method of
explaining how this "fall" or degeneracy came about. There is a natural tendency with all people to
think that former times were better than the present. Old men deplore the degeneracy and corruption of
the present age; the young men of to-day are not what they formerly were; politicians are more corrupt;
there is less pure patriotism than formerly; times and things are down at the heel." This characteristic
of civilized people is still more prominent among the Indians. We therefore find them inventing
a mythology representing a race of giant gods existing in former times, who have fallen or been
put down; and they point to the bones of extinct animals, reptiles and birds to prove the truth of their
deductions.
((
The following legend of the Palouse Indians is directly connected with the remains of some extinct
animal. On the Palouse at a certain point there is a cave or hole in a rocky cliff that stands near the
shore. Here in the magic age of the animal people there lived five giant women. These women devoured
human beings; and, in order to catch the poor Indians, they made a great feast and dance and decoyed
them to it. While they were feasting and having a good time, the giant women suddenly pounced upon
the unsuspecting people and rapidly devoured them. Their way of taking the victims was to catch them
about the knees, and lift them up as a child might handle a little doll. They were then thrust into the
giants' mouths head foremost, and bit in two about the middle. That part was then swallowed and the
lower part of the body and legs were shoved in and gulped down. The Indians describe this as all taking
place in the twinkling of an eye; and, one being swallowed, another was grabbed up and shared the same
LEGENDS, MYTHS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
73
fate, until the whole assemblage was swallowed.
If anyone expressed doubts as to the truth of the story,
they were told of a huge jawbone and teeth that had been often seen lying near the bank. The story must
be true; there was the visible proof,--the very teeth and jaws that did the mischief.
THE ORIGIN OF FIRE.
Perhaps there is nothing that has given rise among the Indians to so many mythic tales as that of
fire. To their untutored mind it was an enigma, and partook of something in the nature of a spirit. It
did not grow; it must be kindled; if left alone it went out. Someone made it; and how it first came
among men exercised his ingenuity to explain. With it there was warmth, light, comfort and life;
without it there was cold, darkness and death. To see it spring forth from the cold, solid flint or from
the chafed wood was a profound mystery. Several legends are handed down relative to its origin upon earth,
the more prevalent one being that, in the "long, long ago," the earth was inhabited by the "animal
people" who for want of fire were suffering with the cold, and were obliged to eat their meat and other
food raw. Speelyai was chieftain over all the tribes of animal people; so he one day called them all
around him and said: “We must have fire; we are all freezing, and eating our food raw.
Who among
you will get us fire. There is fire in the sky; and the people living there have good times, and are warm
and have plenty of cooked food." Various propositions as to the best plan to procure the needed fire were
discussed, when it was finally decided that someone should shoot an arrow up to the sky. Speelyai said
he would shoot first. He then took a bow and sent an arrow up. On and up it went for a long time;
but after a while it came back. It had not struck the sky,-had not reached the fire. Various bird and
animal people tried their hand at shooting; but their arrows always fell short of the mark and came
back. The beaver finally took the bow and shot; and the arrow stuck in the sky, which in the Indians'
belief is a kind of material canopy. He then shot again; and the second arrow fastened itself in the
bow-spring notch of the first, and so on in like manner with all the arrows he shot, until five quiverfuls
were exhausted. When the last quiver was empty, there was a long rod reaching from the earth up
to the sky. Speelyai said, "Who will go up to heaven (or the sky) and bring the fire down?" After
waiting some time for a reply, the dog expressed a willingness to make the attempt, saying: "I will
bring the fire. I will carry it in my mouth. I will go up and smell around and find how things are; and
at night, when they are all gone to bed, I will slip in and get the fire quick, and come down as fast as I
can with it.'
So the dog went climbing up for a long time. On reaching the sky, he cut a hole through it and
crawled up into the sky country. Here he found that the people lived as those on the earth, with the
exceptions that their surroundings were of a vastly superior quality; and everything was more beautiful.
Being hungered after his long climb, he began a hunt for food. The only thing in the way of eatables to
be found was some filth, which he devoured, Contrary to what might have been expected, he found
it not only palatable but much suited to his tastes; and this, together with the cheerfulness of his
surroundings, induced him to forego the object for which he came and determine to remain permanently
in the sky country. The people down on the earth after a while began to wonder why Koosi, the dog,
was gone so long. The beaver said: "I will go up, and when I get the fire I will put it under my long
finger nails. You must all then follow up after me. When I get up there, all the people in heaven will
wonder what kind of a strange animal I am, and will see how sleek and fat I am, and will kill me and
cut me up and get ready to eat me. About that time they will all be in the house. You people must all-
rush up and fall upon them; and they will be frightened and run away. I will then get the fire, and we
will all come back." So the beaver went up the arrow rod to the sky; and sure enough, when he got
there, the people were much surprised; and, as he had foretold, they caught and killed him and had him
all cut up and were about to make a feast when all at once the animals from down on the earth came
rushing up the arrow rod and through the hole in the sky and attacked the sky people, when they were
panic stricken and scampered away. Immediately the beaver resumed his original form, came to life,
snatched the fire and hid it under his long finger nails; and all the animals came down in precipitate
haste. Some succeeded in getting down all right; but their weight was so great that they broke the
arrow, and some of them fell. Speelyai himself fell and mashed out, and was changed to a common
coyote. Some of the animals fell into the water and remained there as fishes, some flew out into the
air as birds. A number of peculiarities of animals were acquired in this wonderful ascent to the sky,
and the fall occasioned by the breaking of the arrow rod. The people ever afterwards had fire to warm
by and to cook their food.
Another legend known to all the tribes from Klamath Lake to Northern Washington was something as
follows: All the fire in existence was anciently in the possession of two old wrinkled hags, who would neither
sell, loan, nor give it away. They were deaf to all blandishments or threats. Do what he might, no Indian
could get any fire. Coyote was besought by the people to do something to help them procure fire; for
they were cold and needed cooked food. After much thought, Coyote worked out a plan. He expected a
hard struggle and a big race; and so he stationed the various animals out in a line reaching from the old
grannies' place of abode to the animal people's country. The strongest and best runners he put on the
stations nearest the old hags, and tapered off with the weaker. Coyote appointed a man to secrete himself
near the old women's lodge, and instructed him that at a given signal he should attack them. Everything
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
warm.
being arranged, Coyote went up to the hut complaining of the cold, and begged permission to go in and
The old hags, not thinking of anything wrong, permitted him to enter the wigwam. All at once
the concealed man jumped up and rushed at the women. During the fighting and scratching, Coyote
snatched a brand of fire and rushed off towards the Indian camps. The old hags, seeing their fire going,
struck out after Coyote, pressing him hard. With lolling tongue and panting breath he came up to the
panther, who took the brand and went on with it; and, just as he was about to give out, the bear took it
and carried it on to another animal; and so the brand passed from one to another, the old hags all the
while pressing on, trying to regain their stolen fire. Luckily the firebrand passed safely along the line
until it fell to the poor little squatty frog. By this time there was not much left of the brand; and froggy
was never noted as a runner. With his slow and labored hopping, the old women overtook him. It was no
use to try to run farther, as he was going to be caught. Just then he swallowed the fire and jumped into
the river, and went to the bottom with the coveted fire in his belly. Between the hard racing and the fire,
it had gone hard with the frog; for he had lost the tail of his youth, and was a stumpy representative of
his former self. He came up, however, and spit the fire out upon pieces of wood. The Indians always
had fire since; for it has remained in wood and can be extracted by rubbing or twirling.
Another version of the origin of fire represents that the fire was anciently kept by five old blind
women who lived together. They had five firebrands each, and were always counting them over to see
if they had lost any. They were very suspicious of each other, each always expecting the others at any
time to steal a brand. While they were counting their brands, Coyote slipped stealthily up and stole one.
The old woman immediately discovered her loss and accused the others of taking it. They got to
quarreling, and then fell to fighting; and, while they were fighting and scratching, Coyote gathered the
firebrands and ran off with them to the people.
WATER NYMPHS.
All the Indians of the Northwest believe that in springs and fountains there live a kind of nymphs
or spirits having visible form and color. These beings are called "beaver women," and are described
as having the face of the ordinary Indian woman, only she is usually painted bright red; the hair is
long and comes down to the waist. These women never come up more than half way out of the water;
all below the breasts is covered with hair or fur. These beings are the spirits of dead ancients. One
woman only lives in each spring or fountain. If the nymph was out or was to appear, a passerby would
hear a sound of a baby crying, and would wonder, Where can that baby be out here?" He would
then hear a sound as of a mother soothing the baby in Indian fashion, saying "h'loo-100-100-100-100,
h'loo-100-100-100.” On coming up nearer the nymph would be seen in the water half way out, holding
in her arms a little infant, also painted red with Indian paint. Her long hair came down to the water.
If any noise were made, she immediately went down and disappeared. On approaching the water, it
was found to be still and clear; and everything was silent, giving no appearance of anyone or anything
having been about. Sometimes the prints of the baby's bare feet might be found in the soft mud
around. If the woman happened to stop soothing the baby, and raised her head, and saw anyone who
might be passing, that look was the look of the sorcerer, it brought death to the person. It might
not occur immediately; .but it followed soon. Not all of these beaver women were represented as
having infants with them; some of them were represented as maidens.
In the Yakima country there is a spring where formerly an Indian man used to live, that is, a being
in the form of a naked Indian man. He would mysteriously pop up out of the water, stand there as
naked as Adam for a few moments, then suddenly vanish out of sight. The Indians say that some forty
years ago a number of old chiefs, among whom was Kamiakin, got up a party of twenty men and went
to dig out this wonderful Indian spirit. They spent a whole day in the operation, and ran long poles in
where the water emerged; but, strangely enough to them, they found no man nor spirit.
WAWA, THE MOSQUITO GOD.
According to the philosophy of the Eastern Washington tribes, the mosquito, or Wawa, was in the
time of the ancients a wonderful being. His place of abode is variously located; but generally it is at
or near some locality now noted for mosquitoes. The Peshkoes located the ancient home of Wawa near
the mouth of the Satas, not far from the present crossing of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Here this
giant Wawa had his house in a narrow place hemmed in by the bluff. Wawa was much larger than
any man now living; and his bill or proboscis was three or four feet long, and very sharp and powerful.
When anyone attempted to pass, the old god came out and thrust him through and sucked up his
blood. He had been slaughtering the poor people at a terrible rate, and was thinning them out
dreadfully, when Speelyai or Coyote determined to destroy him and relieve them of this incubus.
was at a loss how to succeed. He had two sisters that he always consulted when in perplexity and
doubt as to what to do. These two sisters lived in his stomach, and were two kinds of berries, such as
the hail often damages. These sisters therefore dreaded the hail. Sometimes these sisters refused to
He


DR.WM WEATHERFORD.
PORTLAND OR.
MRS. M.WEATHERFORD.
PORTLAND OR.
EDWARD LONG.
E.PORTLAND OR.
THOMAS GUINEAN.
PORTLAND OR.
N.K.SITTON.
CARLTON OR.
U
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LEGENDS, MYTHS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
75
give Coyote the desired information, or were otherwise wayward or willful, when he would look up to
the sky and call upon the hail to come. This threat to bring the hail always terrified the sisters, and
they cried out: "Hold, hold, don't bring the hail! We will tell you anything you wish!" When
Coyote had received their views he always said, "Yes, that is just what I thought, that is my idea,”
whether he had ever thought of it before or not. He was anxious to take the glory all to himself. On
the present occasion, Coyote had to resort to these sister oracles. They said to him: "You must get
five kinds of wood, to make rods to twirl to make fire. Hide these in your bosom and go to where Wawa
lives, and obey our directions. So he set out on his journey to the giant mosquito's home. In the
myths, Coyote almost always had to go a long way to perform his wonderful exploits.
When he neared Wawa's place, the giant or god called out: "Where are you going? You can't go
by here. This is my road; and I don't allow anyone to pass here." Coyote became very polite, and spoke
in the blandest manner possible, saying: "My friend, I see you are very cold, and have no fire in your
house. Let me make you a fire, so that you can warm yourself." Wawa, not suspecting any treachery,
permitted him to go on; for really the weather was cold and damp, and made the mosquito god feel very
stiff and sluggish. So Coyote took out his five fire-rods. With the first he twirled and worked; but no
fire came.
He then took another, but no fire; and so he went through all until the fifth, when lo! the
wood ignited and blazed up. When Coyote had got a big fire going, he smothered it down and filled the
lodge with strong smoke. Old Wawa could not get his breath, and so laid down on the ground to
breathe. Taking advantage of the old fellow's situation, Coyote said: "You are not going to kill people
any more. You have been a terror to everybody; but your power shall be put down. I will split open
your head; and from it shall come a diminutive race. But they shall not have power to kill; they may fly
about people's faces, and may annoy them, and draw a little blood, but shall not take life any more.
Whereupon Coyote raised his huge stone knife, and with a tremendous blow split the giant's head open at
one stroke; and immediately there swarmed forth myriads of little mosquitoes such as have existed ever
since. Since that time the mosquito cannot stand smoke; and by this lesson from Coyote the people
learned to protect themselves by making a smudge or big smoke. The scene of this performance has been
the worst plagued by mosquitoes of any part of the earth ever since, so they say.
A pretty little legend is told that accounts for the stripes on the chipmunk's back. A long time ago
there was an old woman who destroyed young infants whenever and wherever she could find them. She
had long, sharp claws, and sharp, savage teeth, and eyes like fire. She had a mode of charming the little
babies, crooning to them and enticing them to her; and when they were in her power she rent their soft
flesh like a wolf devouring a lamb. She had been exercising her diabolical powers for a long time; and
many a poor mother in the land was mourning the loss of her little ones. This wretch had become the
terror of every mother who had an infant. One time the monster caught a little Indian baby, and was
about to devour it in sight of its frantic mother. The poor woman, wild with fear and grief, besought the
Great Spirit to save the child. In answer to her prayer, the little baby was transformed into a beautiful
little chipmunk, which sprang away from the old wretch and ran off. As it jumped, she grabbed at it
with her hand; and her sharp claws scraped along the little fellow's back and made black stripes, which
all chipmunks have since retained.
ORIGIN OF THE LOON.
The lonely cry of the loon, as it slowly flew over the lakes and marshes, impressed the Indian mind
with a sense of awe. A legend says that many, very many years ago, there was a family of Indian
children who used to play a great deal about the water, tracking and paddling around in the soft mud.
Their mother forbid their going into the water; but they would go. She finally punished them; and they
went off crying among the tules, and, wandering farther and farther away, were transformed into loons.
The parents and friends hunted everywhere for them; and, when they went about the water among the
rushes, the children in the form of loons would rise up and cry and go flying away. Indian women are
thus constantly reminded that they should not be too harsh and severe in punishing their little ones.
CASTILTAH, THE CRAYFISH OR LOBSTER GOD.
According to the Yakima cosmogony, there was in the age of the "ancients a large lake on the
Topnish river or creek, at a place now known as Big Willows. The Indian name of this place is
Shwee-ash. In this lake there lived Castiltah, the crayfish god, a sort of Neptune of the little sea. He
was of immense proportions. His spreading arms reached out like a mighty octopus. His great pincers
would crush an Indian as easily as a sledgehammer would break an eggshell. This god claimed ownership
of the lake, all the fish, all the ta-hoósh (Indian flax) that grew on its banks, and all the camas, which
was very plentiful. Castiltah watched over all these things with a jealous eye, and drove away intruders.
He permitted Indians to go and gather flax, and to take fish or dig camas, but was liable at any time to
become offended. If they took too much flax, or fished too long, or in any other way displeased him, he
forthwith drove the intruders away. By the power of his will or by magic he could cause the water to seethe
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
and boil and flow out in any direction. When he wished to drive anyone away from his possessions, he
caused the water to rise up in a wave and run out after him. If the person had been stealing fish or camas,
he must at once drop them and fly for his life; for, if he persisted in holding onto the articles, he was
swallowed up and destroyed. If he dropped them, the waves carried them back to Castiltah; and his
wrath was appeased, and the waves subsided.
Near by there was a fishing-place not as good as the lake. At this place, to this day, the Indians
say that if they go and fish they will for a time get good fish, and everything will be all right; but soon
they begin to see strange fish coming about their hooks, appearing as if they had coals of fire in their
mouths. These strange fish are sent by the spirit of Castiltah to warn them to get away; and if they do
not, but continue fishing, they feel the bank begin to crumble under them, and experience other
premonitions of the impending wrath of the crayfish spirit. No Indian dares to further tempt the water
god, but will get up and leave at once. The Indians say that, when aroused by Castiltal, the waters
seethed and boiled very mysteriously, then rose up in ridges which ran out and around as if trying to head
off the fleeing fishermen or camas-diggers.
WAK-A-POOSH, THE RATTLESNAKE.
In the Wat-tee-tash times, Wak-a-poosh, the rattlesnake, was, according to all the Northwestern
tribes, a mighty god. Among the other animal gods he was a great conjuror, and had the "big medicine.”
He lived in a fine stone mansion, led a very indolent life, and spent much of his time out sunning himself
about his premises. He was an incessant talker, boasting of his power, and had three heads instead of
one as he has now. The sound of his rattles cast a sort of fatal spell over the other people, and they
became "crazy." He gazed at them and charmed or in some way paralyzed them, so that they permitted
him to swallow them. As was his custom, Coyote consulted his sisters as oracles of wisdom; and they
advised him not to strike first at Wak-a-poosh's head, but to smite off his rattles, and then he would be
able to conquer him. After much strategy and cunning, he succeeded in debasing the monster, and
cursed him, permitting him to live, but with only one head and one set of rattles.
The tribes up Snake river say that witches live in the old cast-off snake skins, and that the echo is
caused by these witches repeating the sounds that are made in their hearing. How this all came about
was that a certain witch was once hotly pursued by the eagle, and ran to the rattlesnake for protection.
He was lying out basking in the sun, and could do nothing against the enemy, and so opened his mouth
and the witch ran in. His snakeship, not being accustomed to that sort of diet, was made deathly sick;
and he tried so hard to vomit the witch up that he wriggled out of his skin, leaving the witch in that.
Feeling relieved, and not knowing what had become of the load in his stomach, he looked back at his
old skin and said, “Old witch, where are you?" She tauntingly replied, in the same tone of voice, “Old
witch, where are you?" Witches live in snake skins ever since, and mock the voices of passersby.
THE TUMWATER LUMINOUS STONE GOD.
The "Tumwater "Indians above The Dalles, who call themselves Wishams, have a tradition saying
that ages ago there was at Tumwater a large, white, luminous stone, —a sort of fortune god for the tribe.
It shone at night, lighting up the water so that they could see to fish or carry on other avocations. It
was a guardian over the welfare and destiny of the people. By its protection, light and favoring influence
the Wishams prospered and led a very happy and contented life, having an abundance of fish and all the
comforts of Indian living. Seeing their good fortune and happy condition, the clans around were very
envious; and, knowing that these blessings were attributable to the white stone god, they determined to
humiliate the Wishams and rob them of their prosperity by destroying the stone. They formed an
alliance, and made war upon the fishermen people, overpowered them, and then rolled their big white
stone protector into the Columbia. When night came on, the poor Wishams missed their accustomed
light and stumbled about in darkness. They were in trouble; things did not seem to go as well with
them as formerly. They finally found the stone in the water and managed some way to get it out, and
set it up, when its benign light and influence were felt again; and the people once more prospered. After
a time the jealousy of the surrounding tribes became so great that they made common cause against the
Wishams; and their wonderful stone genius was completely demolished. Since then these Indians have
had to get along as best they could without their ancient petrous guardian.
THE WOODEN FIREMAN OF THE CASCADES.
The following legend is a direct proof that the Indians believed that inanimate objects even have a
spirit essence, and that in the time of the "ancients" objects without life formerly exhibited intelligence.
In the Watteetash age there used to be an old wooden man who lived down below the Cascades. He was
in the shape of the Indians' fire-making machine. This apparatus consisted of rods for twirling, and a
LEGENDS, MYTHS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
77
block of wood. The Indian god Coyote, when going down the river, heard the old wooden man in the
form of a machine going around and around with a creaking noise. He stopped, pricked up his ears and
listened, when he thought he heard the word "pitli, pitli, pitli" repeated, which in the Klikitat language
means nephew. The sound was so doleful he thought it was some one mourning for a dead nephew. His
sympathies were moved; and he also began to mourn by howling most lamentingly. The old wooden
man heard the noise and was startled, and ceased his turnings to listen, when his creakings stopped. Coyote,
finding the lamentations had ceased, his own grief likewise was assuaged; and he silenced his howling.
The old fire-maker once more resumed his work of turning and twisting around, and the squeaking began
again, "pitli! pitli! pitli!" Whereupon Coyote's feelings were again wrought upon; and he broke out
in fresh howlings. Four times the old fire-maker stopped and started again. Each time Coyote was
deceived, thinking the creaking of the old man was someone mourning for a dead nephew. The fifth time
Coyote perceived the deception; and, going up to the fire-maker, who had now struck a blaze, he took his
fire and pronounced a curse upon him, changing him to stone, saying, You will never make fire any
more, nor cry 'pitli! pitli!' to deceive people and harrow up their feelings." So Coyote took the fire and
gave it to the Cascade Indians, who have had it ever since. The poor old fire-maker stands on the shores
of the Columbia a silent cold stone, bearing the name of the Indian fire machine, but never more disturbs
the passersby with the noise of his turnings.
We read in the histories of Eastern nations of cities of refuge, to which those who had committed
murders might flee; and while within the cities' walls they were for the time being free from the hands of
the avenger. A myth of the Klikitats and Wishams indicates that there was a similar idea or custom
among the Indians. Between the fishery above The Dalles and the Klikitat valley near the old trails used
by the Indians from time immemorial, there are five stones three or four feet high. These, tradition says,
were anciently people, and that Coyote, the Indian god, transformed them to stones, saying: "You shall
stand here forever; and whoever commits a murder or spills human blood may run to you. If he shall
jump over your heads and back again five times without touching his moccasin to you, he shall live; but
whoever shall strike his feet against your heads shall die.”
SPECIAL CARE OF THE GODS OVER EACH TRIBE.
Each tribe or clan of the Indians regards itself as the favored of heaven. The wonderful doings of
the ancient gods, so far as they had any reference to the interests of humanity, had especial reference to
us, our tribe." For "
us" Coyote brought the salmon; for " us" he made the falls and rapids, so
that we could fish successfully; for "our people
our people" the berries came. We, our tribe, are the center around
which everything else has moved. For other tribes, the gods and powers are either indifferent, or they
even conspire against them. Our people were put at the head of creation and have been the special object
of supernatural protection ever since. This is the belief of each tribe. The fat, squabby coast Indian
believes his people are the beloved of the gods, the good and wise, while the Snakes and Piutes are no
good. These on their part are proud of their noble descent, and have a sort of feeling of contempt for
the "fat, lazy fellows" of the river and coast.
CONTEST BETWEEN THE CHINOOK AND COLD WIND BROTHERS.
Among all savage tribes, the operations of nature are ascribed directly to beings. The tides, the
movements of the sun and moon, the coming of the salmon, the winds, rain, hail, snow, thunder,
earthquakes, etc., are all direct performances of somebody. The Indian seems to have no conception of
natural law as we understand it. And yet, in his talks and harangues about Coyote and his doings, he
often says Coyote made the law thus and so. It is a part of the Indian's philosophy that phenomena
are caused by "somebody" instead of something, or through the operations of fixed laws. If the wind
blows, somebody is blowing it; if the earth quakes, somebody is shaking it; if the snow falls and stays
on a long time, somebody is doing it. Each and every separate operation of nature is a direct interven-
tion of a somebody. Earth, air, mountain, vale, river and cañon are peopled with spirits and powers.
In the long, long ago, the warm Chinook wind was caused by five brothers; these lived down the
Columbia. The Walla Walla wind, or cold east wind, was caused by five brothers, who lived somewhere
east of the mountains. The five Chinook wind brothers and the five Walla Walla wind brothers had
grandparents,—old people who lived on the Washington side of the Columbia about twenty-five miles
below the mouth of the Yakima river. These wind brothers had always been blowing over the country
very hard. Sometimes the warm Chinook would come along and dash over the camps, blow down trees,
tear up the earth, and fill the air with dust and stones. Then the cold Walla Walla wind would come
along and freeze everything solid with its breath; so that, between the blowing of the two sets of
brothers, the people were in a sad strait, and led a miserable life. One time the Walla Walla wind
brothers sent a challenge to the Chinook wind brothers to come up to a wrestling match, the stakes on
either side to be the life of the unsuccessful one. The Chinooks accepted the challenge, and came up to
the designated place. Speelyai was there to witness the wrestling, and to be umpire and execute the
penalty by cutting off the head of the unsuccessful wrestler.
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Speelyai cunningly said to the grandfather and grandmother of the Chinook brothers, "If you see
your sons are about to get thrown, you must pour oil on the ground where they are wrestling; and your
son will not fall." He then slyly said to the cold wind brothers grandparents, "You must, if you see
your sons about to get thrown, throw ice on the ground." So they cleared off the ground smoothly and
made everything ready; and the eldest of the five brothers on each side took hold to wrestle. When the
Chinook wind brother was about to go down, Speelyai would say to the old grandfather, “Throw on
your oil!" And he did so; and then the other old grandfather threw on ice; and so between the oil and
the ice the ground was so slippery that even a god could not keep his feet. The Chinook wind brother
went sprawling down; and, while he was down, Speelyai cut his head off with a huge stone knife. The
second Chinook wind brother then took hold. He shared the fate of his elder brother, fell and was
beheaded. During the wrestling, the old grandparents always threw on oil and ice; but the cold wind
grandfather always got his ice on last, and so the Chinook brothers were all killed.
It happened, however, that the eldest brother, who was killed first, had a wife down at home who
was about to become a mother. She shortly after gave birth to a boy. In process of time he became a
fine strong lad; and his mother said: "Your father was killed by the cold wind brothers; and you must
exercise yourself to make you strong, and practice wrestling so that you can avenge the blood of your
father." So he grew up, gaining in stature and increasing in strength by practicing at pulling up trees.
He became so strong that he could snatch up a large pine or fir with one hand and toss it away like a
weed. He finally concluded that he was strong enough to undertake the avenging of his father's death,
and besought his mother's consent that he might do so. Gaining her permission, he started in the night
and went up the Columbia, tearing up trees, twisting them off, and piling them in every shape. He
went on and turned up the Yakima, reaching the mouth of the Satas about daylight, and laid down on
his back against the south hillside. The Indians yet point out the prints of where he lay. He staid
there and slept all day, and then in the evening started on again towards the home of his grandparents.
Ever since the first Chinook brothers had been killed, these old people had suffered great indignities at
the hands of the cold wind brothers. These five overgrown churls were beastly and low, and would go
up near the old folks' hut and discharge their excrement; and then they would pull open the mat door,
and thrust their nether extremities in, and require the old folks to use their hair to wipe the filth from
them. They were in a sad plight, for the cold wind brothers would not permit them to get out of the
hut. The young giant Chinook wind determined to relieve the old grandparents the first thing, and so
went tearing on towards their old home. Along in the night the old folks heard the frame of their
hut squeak and strain; and the old man, recognizing the cause, exclaimed, "O my grandson! you have
come at last." Then the old shanty squeaked again at the force of the wind. Another roar of the wind
and in burst the young giant.
The old folks were wonderfully rejoiced to see their grandson come to their relief. He said to them,
you must put me under your pillows, and keep me out of sight until night comes again." The cold wind
brothers always traveled by day to torment the old people. The grandson said, "Grandfather, you take
your canoe and go and fish for sturgeon." The old man got into his canoe and started as directed. The
cold wind brothers were on the other side of the river, watching; and, when the old man would get a load
of fish and would start, they would get into boats and go after him, robbing him of his sturgeon. This
was repeated five times, when the grandson accompanied the old man, lying down flat in the canoe out of
sight. When the boat was again full of fish, the marauders came after him as before. The old man
pulled for life to get to shore. The race was hard. The old fellow got down to his oars, and put forth
his utmost exertions. Just behind him, and coming in hot haste and gaining, were the five cold wind
brothers. Just as they were within reach of the old fisherman, and were about to take hold of his craft,
the grandson lying in the stern of the boat would make a slight move; and the boat would shoot off and
leave the pursuers far behind. They then gained on him again; and his boat again shot forward and left
them. This was done five times; and the old man landed safely. The strange action of the old fellow's
boat very much surprised the five brothers; and they were suspicious of something wrong. When they
landed, the young grandson picked up the sturgeons, carrying them all easily on his little finger. The old
people, having been so badly treated, were very filthy; and the young grandson took them to a spring near
by and washed them. The filth turned to trout; and the spring has been full of fish ever since. Despite
their filthy origin, the fish are as fine as any in the world, so they say.
The news of the young man's arrival was soon spread around; and Speelyai announced that there
would be another wrestling match. That things might not turn out so badly, Speelyai said to the Chinook
wind grandfather: "You must not throw on your oil first. Even if you see your grandson is almost down,
you wait until the other old man throws on his ice; then throw on your oil, and your great-grandson will
down the whole lot." So the young man took hold with the oldest Walla Walla wind brother first.
Speelyai said to the young man's grandfather, "Now, on with your oil!” But the old man sat still and
looked on; and the cold wind brother went almost down. His old, white-bearded grandfather then threw
on some ice, and the other old man splashed on oil, when down came the cold wind brother; and Speelyai,
with a tremendous yell, whacked off his head. The wrestling was resumed, and with the same results
until the cold wind brothers were all beheaded save one. The younger, seeing the fate of his brothers,
said he would not wrestle. He did not approve of the idea of all the cold wind brothers being killed, and
the Chinook allowed to live. Speelyai then said: You may live; but you shall not go about freezing
people to death every time you breathe on them. You may breathe lightly, but not blow so very cold as
66

W
U
MRS. MARGARET THORP,
ELLENSBURGH,W.T.
A PIONEER OF 1844.
FIELDEN M.THORP,
ELLENSBURGH, W. T.
A PIONEER OF 1844.
LEGENDS, MYTHS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
79
It might then
heretofore." It was thus decreed that the Chinook should blow at night-time the hardest.
go roaring along the mountain ridges and take off the snow there first, but must not blow so hard on
people as to kill them.
SPEELYAI'S ASCENT TO HEAVEN.
The Indian god Speelyai (Coyote) had five daughters (some say sisters), who all died before he left
the world. Because of their death, his grief was inconsolable. He wandered about mourning and crying
for them for a great length of time. While thus engaged, he was one day met by a woman, who said to
him: "If you will go far away towards the rising sun, you will find a rope or cord reaching down from
heaven. Go to that rope and take hold of it, and you will be told what to do." Obeying these directions,
he started out towards the east, journeying onward for a great while. He it last found the rope hanging
down, as had been told him. Looking all about, he could see no one nor near any sound. Casting his
eyes upward, he saw the rope going on and up until it was lost out of sight, so that it seemed to be
suspended from the sky. Growing bolder, he went up, and with his paws grasped the suspended cord,
and began to pull and jerk at it. Immediately his hands were involuntarily clutched to the rope, so that,
although he tried hard to let go, he could not. He then heard a voice far above, saying to him, "Climb
up." He then began climbing, pulling himself up by his paws and feet. In this way he kept going up,
up, higher and higher, for one whole summer and winter, when he all of a sudden heard music.
pricked up his ears to listen. The sounds came from a great way above him still. He looked, and beheld
a very beautiful country there,-green grass, trees and beautiful streams. The people were all very happy;
but all was far, far above his reach. He now discovered that, while he had been looking and listening,
he had become fixed and attached to the rope; so that he could neither go up to the beautiful country above
nor recede to the earth below, -a sad plight, indeed, for a god. While thus suspended between earth and
heaven, he heard a voice saying to him: "You cannot come up; your heart has been very bad; you have
been forked-tongued and deceitful, and have practiced evil. You are unfit for the heavenly country. You
never can come up until you have first confessed your wrongs and put away your evil spirit.
He
Now Speelyai had been a very great god, and had done many wonderful things; and it was very
humiliating to him to have to make confession. He therefore hung up there a long time before he would
do so. Finding that there was no other help for him, he made a clean breast of it and confessed his
iniquities, and was then drawn up to the sky and went in through the trap door. He almost immediately
met four of his daughters, who embraced him with tears of joy and rejoicing. A little while afterwards
the younger daughter came along, but expressed no pleasure at meeting him. On the contrary, she
wanted to know what he was doing there, and told him he had been sinful and full of deceit, and was
not fit for the heavenly country. As they were standing near the trap door in the sky, she gave the
discomfited god a shove, when he tumbled down through the opening and fell like Lucifer. The rope by
which he had ascended had been drawn up, so that there was nothing to catch hold of; and there was
nothing left for him but to fall, and fall he did, sweeping down through upper space for a whole year.
When he struck the ground, he was mashed out flat as a tule mat. A voice then said to him, "You shall
be a vagabond and wanderer, and shall be a common, contemptible coyote, and shall forever cry and howl
for your sins." So from that day to this the coyote has whined and cried of nights, and wandered about
hungry and friendless over the world.
COYOTE'S RIDE ON THE STAR (Another Version of Coyote's Fall).
Among the tribes farther south, the Klamaths and Warm Spring Indians, they have a legend
or myth about Coyote's ride on a star. Coyote had been doing very many wonderful things; for had he
not killed the thunder god, and put down the various monsters that had been plaguing and destroying the
people? He had made the people a sun and moon to light them, built rapids in their river, and brought
them fish. He was priding himself upon his wonderful achievements. It was hardly fit that a being so
wonderful should be limited to walking or running about on the earth. He wanted to dance with the
stars. The evening star shone brightly upon the world; and, as it rose above the hill, Coyote went out
and barked and howled at it, begging to be permitted to get on and ride and dance around the world. The
star told him it was not a good place for him; that he had better stay where he was. He was not to be
satisfied; but came out and howled and whined and entreated the star night after night, until the sky god
was weary of Coyote's continued noise and importunity; and at last it came up close to the hill. Coyote
gave a leap to get on, but only succeeded in getting hold with his paws. Thus hanging, the star took
him dancing through space. It may have been very fine at first; but the muscles of even a god grow
weary and cold.
The air so high was very frosty. Coyote's paws were getting very numb; and at last he
lost his grip and came plunging down from the upper ether. They say he fell for ten snows, and struck
the earth so violently that he was mashed out as thin as pasteboard and was doomed ever afterwards
to be a common coyote.
7
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
COYOTE AND EAGLE ATTEMPT TO BRING THE DEAD BACK FROM
SPIRIT LAND.
The Indian did not fail to notice the phenomena of nature. He saw the leaves brown and dead come
rattling down in autumn, and the trees stripped of verdure stand bleak, desolate and dead. He beheld the
earth wrapped in slumber in winter, covered with a mantle of snow; and then in the springtime he saw
the growing grass, the opening buds and expanding flowers. There was a renewal of life, a return of
warmth and gladness. Early he beheld in the annual reclothing of the earth in verdure and the springing
forth of life in the vegetable world a sort of prophecy or promise of a resurrection and renewed
life to mortal man. The observance of these phenomena, together with that longing for immortality
somewhere, somehow, common to humanity, naturally gave rise to myths recounting the attempts
of the gods to bring the dead to life again. In the dim distant past, when the wonderful ancients
lived, Coyote saw that the people were dying and going away to the spirit country. The land was
filled with mourning for departed friends. The people's sorrows filled him with grief; and he meditated
long how he could bring the dead back to the land of the living. He had seen some of his own friends
die, among them a sister. The eagle had also lost his wife, and was mourning on account of his loss.
Eagle was a god of great power, second only to Coyote. Speelyai said to him, to comfort him: "The
dead shall not forever remain in the land of the dead. They are like the leaves that fall brown and dead in
the autumn. They shall come back again. When the buds open and flowers bloom, when the grass grows,
the dead shall come back again." Eagle was impatient and unwilling to await the return of spring, and
insisted that the dead should be brought back at once without delay.
Coyote consented to this arrangement; and the two, Eagle and Coyote, set out together towards the
land of the dead, Eagle flying along over Coyote's head as they traveled. After they had been journeying
a long time, they came to a lake or ocean; and, looking across, they could see a great many houses on
the other side. Coyote called long and loud for someone to bring a boat and take them across.
All was
still as death, there being no sound nor sight indicating life. Eagle said to Coyote: "We have come all
the way for nothing; there is no one there." "No," said Coyote, "they are asleep. The dead sleep in
the daytime, and at night they come out. Let us wait here until dark.' In the evening, when the sun
went down and it began to grow dusk, Coyote began to sing. He had sung but a short time when four
spirit men came out of the houses, got into a canoe and started towards the shore. Coyote kept singing,
and the spirits began to sing, keeping time with their oars. They did not row the boat, however, for it
skimmed over the water of its own accord. Having landed, they took the weary travelers, Eagle and
Coyote, aboard, and began their return to the island of the dead. When they drew near they heard
the sound of music, drumming and dancing. After landing they were cautioned by the spirits not to
go into the houses, nor to look at the things about them. It was a sacred place; they must keep their
eyes shut. The newly arrived visitors begged permission to go in, for, said they, "We are both hungry
and cold." Finally they were permitted to go into a large mat-house near by, where there was dancing
and music going on. When inside they found everything very grand and beautiful; and all were very
happy. To satisfy the hunger of the visitors, an old woman brought some seal oil in an Indian basket
bottle, and dipping a feather into it gave each of them what the feather brought up one time. This
completely satisfied their hunger; and they now busied themselves looking around.
They found a great many spirit people there; and all were dressed with the most beautiful Indian
costume, with red paint, feathers, shells, beads, fringed buckskins and every kind of Indian ornaments.
The great lodge was lighted up with the moon, which was suspended inside; and the frog was there to
watch and attend it; for the frog jumped into the moon a long time ago, and has ruled over it ever since.
The moon shone brilliantly on the dazzling scene of joy and beauty. Coyote and Eagle saw many of
their former friends in the throng; but these friends did not seem to notice nor recognize them. The
Eagle had brought along a receptacle something like a white man's box, in which to carry the spirits
back to the land of the living. The dead people were very happy, much more than the living, and kept
up their dancing all night long; but early in the morning their songs began to grow fainter, and the
singers to depart to sleep. During the day, while the spirit people were sleeping, Coyote killed the frog,
and took his clothing and put them on himself. With the gathering of the evening shadows, the spirits
resumed their pleasures. Coyote, rigged out in the frog's clothing, took the place it had previously occupied
by the moon. While the festivities and pleasures were going on in the happiest manner imaginable,
Coyote all of a sudden swallowed the moon, leaving the spirit people in the dark. They were soon all
in commotion, flying about in the darkness against the walls and each other. Eagle then proceeded
to catch them all, and put them into his box and closed it up tightly. He and Coyote then started
on their return to the land of the living, Coyote bearing the box with its contents. After traveling a
great distance, he heard a noise in the box and stopped, pricking up his ears to listen again. Again he
heard a noise inside, and said to Eagle, "The people are beginning to come to life!"
Soon they heard the sound of voices talking. The people were complaining of being bumped and
banged about. One said he was cramped, and another that his leg was being hurt; and all were clamoring
to be let out. The box was growing heavy, as the contents were changing from imponderable spirit to
substantial flesh and blood. Coyote began to grow weary of his burden, and proposed to let the people
out. Eagle objected, saying "No" to all of Coyote's importunities. Poor Coyote was growing weary,
LEGENDS, MYTHS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
81
(C
god that he was, and set down his basket of precious freight, determined to lighten his burden. Said
he: "
We may as well let them out; they will not return to the spirit land now, they are too far away.”
Whereupon he opened the box or basket, and the people resumed their spirit forms and vanished like
the wind, going to the land of the dead. Eagle chided him for his folly, but comforted himself by
saying: It is autumn. The leaves now falling, like the people, die. Let us wait until the buds expand
and the flowers open, when the leaves begin to come; then we shall succeed.' "No," said Coyote,
"I am tired. Let the dead stay in the land of the dead and never return.” Thus Coyote made the
law that man once dead should never come to life again. Had it not been for the folly of Coyote in
opening the box and letting out the spirits, the dead would have come to life every spring when the buds
opened and the leaves came. This legend, though rude and unpolished, contains in it a beautiful sentiment,
and gives expression to that instinctive longing of the human soul in all lands and every age to penetrate
the mysteries of the future state.
ISLE OF THE DEAD (Wisham Indian Legend).
The Columbia river Indians near the fishery at The Dalles used to relate a legend as follows: A
great while ago there was a young chief that was enamored of a beautiful young Indian girl. They loved
each other very sincerely and truly, and were very happy, wandering about fishing, boat-riding and
traveling over the green, grassy hills and broad plains. In the midst of their felicity the young chief, who
was noble and rich, sickened and died, and went to the land of spirits. The Indian girl mourned for him
on earth; and he mourned for her in the spirit land. Though surrounded by everything that the Indian
heaven could offer, he still was not happy. He mourned the absence of his betrothed. A few nights after
his death, a spirit from the land of the dead came to her in the night in a dream or vision, telling her that
her lover was in heaven, where there was everything his heart could wish, but that his grief and longing
for her was inconsolable, and that he could not be happy unless she came to him. This apparition or vision
weighed upon her mind; and she told it to her parents. They were puzzled and in doubt as to what to
do. The next night the spirit spoke to her again. The vision was repeated three times, when the parents
thought they ought to send the young girl to her lover, fearing some dreadful visitation from the death
land if they failed to comply.
Accordingly they prepared a canoe and put the girl into it and started with her across the water to the
island where all the Indian dead are gathered in the happy spirit land. On and over the waters they
glided; and as the curtain of night began to fall, and everything had a shadowy, misty appearance, while
their weary oars plied the deep, silent waters, a light came gleaming over from the island. They then
heard the sound of music of the Indian drum, with singing and dancing. They pulled on up to the shore
and landed, where they were met by four spirit people, who took the Indian girl and bade her friends return
to the living and not gratify their curiosity by prying into the scenes around them. The earth people
returned; and the bride was conducted to a great “dance house," a large lodge built of mats made of tules.
When inside this great place she met the young man. If he was noble and beautiful among the living, how
much more beautiful was he here,-young, fair, grand and immortal, and bedecked with all the splendor
that heaven could bestow. Their bliss was complete. All night long they spent in mazy, delirious bliss;
and, when it began to grow light and the birds of heaven began to sing, the spirit folk began to diminish
their festivities, their song began to die away, and the singers and dancers began to retire to sleep. The
young couple like the others repaired to their bed and fell asleep. As the peaceful, dreamless sleep of the
spirit world came upon them, and she closed her eyes, it was upon a scene of joy and heavenly splendor.
She being of the living did not sleep soundly like the spirits. When the sun was far up in the
heavens, she awoke and looked about her. When she fell asleep she was in the midst of indescribable bliss,
locked in the arms of one clad in immortal beauty. She now saw her lover a hideous skeleton. His skull,
with its hollow sunken eyes and horrid, grinning teeth, were turned towards her. Around her waist were
the bony arms and long, skeleton fingers. Looking about she saw withering mouldering corpses; and the
air was filled with stench. With a wild scream of terror, she sprang from her couch, which she saw was
in the burial place of the dead. She ran, filled with the most horrid feelings, outside and began to look
about for means to convey her back to the land of the living. After some search she found an old woman
with a canoe. Procuring this boat she found her way back to her home and friends among the living.
She related her wonderful experience to them; and they were much surprised and fearful that the spirits
would be offended, and that some great calamity would befall them on account of the girl's return. The
spirit lover had paid for her according to Indian custom, and had a legal claim upon her. The friends
reproved the girl, telling her that she had treated the spirit people wrongfully, and explained that she
should have slept all day until evening and she would not have found herself among mouldering corpses
when she awoke, but would have been happy. Fearing to keep the girl from her lover, they sent her back
in a boat. When she landed on the happy isle, she was escorted to the great house of festivities and found
her lover there, bright, beautiful and happy as ever. She enjoyed with him the pleasures of the night;
and they retired to slumber for the day. This time and always afterwards she slept through all the day;
and when darkness came on she came forth with all the other spirits to be happy during the night.
In the process of time a wonderful child was born in spirit land, half spirit and half of the earthly
or living. It was of remarkable beauty. The young man was anxious that his mother on earth should
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST— OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
see the little stranger, and told his spouse they would send for baby's grandmother to come, and that the
baby and its mother should then return to the land of the living, and that the father would afterwards
follow and bring with him all the dead people to live on earth again. A spirit messenger was sent, who
told the grandparents how the young people were happy in the spirit land, and that they had a wonderful
baby, and desired the grandmother to come to the happy isle and accompany the mother and child back
to the land of the living again, and that the father was going to bring back all the dead people to live
among them again. This was good news to the old people, who had heard nothing from their daughter
for a long time. Agreeably to this arrangement, the grandmother went to the land of the dead, and was
received by her children. She was cautioned, however, that she must not look upon the baby yet. There
was to be a penance of ten days. The old grandmother was very anxious to see the baby; and the longer
she waited the greater grew her anxiety. She finally concluded she would lift up the cloth that covered
the baby board, and just peep in once. One little look could do no harm; and no one would be the worse
for it. Her curiosity and anxiety thus overcame her prudence, and she peeped in and saw the sleeping
beauty. In consequence of this stolen look, the baby sickened and died. This very much displeased the
spirit people; and they decreed that, because of this sin, the dead should never return to the living again.
The grandmother was sent back, and they never heard of the young couple any more.
We find in this legend, and in the one where Coyote and Eagle try to bring back the dead, that the
project was spoiled through curiosity or over-anxiety. We are thus reminded of the old charge of curiosity
brought against Eve in eating the forbidden fruit. A legend or myth often told among some of the tribes
represents Coyote as going after the dead people, and having them in a basket on his back.
He was
cautioned to not look back on any account whatever, no matter what noises he heard or what happened.
He heard the spirits talking and rustling about, and was very curious to see what they were doing.
His curiosity became so great that he could stand it no longer; and he looked back over his shoulder into
the basket, whereupon the spirit people flew off in every direction and vanished, leaving Coyote foolishly
standing with an empty receptacle.
The Wisham legend about the isle of the dead is a fine illustration of the fact that though the people
of all nations have believed there was a place where the dead were far happier and better than the living,
yet they had no desire to go there. Though the young warrior was happy and dwelling in splendor
greater than he could expect among the living, yet he would have the dead all return to the living.
There is a certain mistiness, unsubstantiality and uncertainty about the future spirit land; so that an
Indian of ordinary flesh and blood would prefer to take his chances among the material, sensual people of
this world. Though the Indian heaven is a very grand place according to his view, he is not in any
special hurry to shuffle off this mortal coil and claim his possessions in the shadowy world.
Among the river Indians about the Cascades, Dalles, Celilo and other points there is a belief, that
during the daytime the spirits of the dead remain in the "dead-houses" or graves among the bones and
corpses; that during the hours of sunlight they are in a state of entire unconsciousness,-a dreamless,
dead sleep, as if for the time being they were annihilated; but that, when it grows dusk, and darkness
creeps on, the spirits arouse and come forth and go abroad over the world. They hold spirit dances at the
cemeteries; and the Indians claim to have seen strange lights at the burial-places at night, and to have
even heard the sound of the Indian drum and weirdly singing. Nearer the coast, where they in years
gone by sometimes placed the dead in shallow water where there were decaying leaves and vegetation, it
is quite probable that they may have seen the phosphorescent ignis-fatuus, the Jack o'lantern of the Whites;
and their heated and excited imaginations could easily create almost any sound or sight to complete the
apparition.
DANCES.
Dancing with the Indians was an exercise of a religious or medicinal or conjuring character, and
sometimes was apparently only a social pastime. Some tribes had dances that were not practiced by
others. Those west of the cascades probably had a greater number of dances than those living east of
the mountains. They traveled about less; and the long, rainy, winter days and nights gave them more
time in which they were compelled to stay indoors. Much of this time was spent in gambling, dancing
and other Indian amusements. Many if not all the dances were more or less mixed up with tamanowash
or witchcraft; and the doctors or shamans had generally leading roles in the performances. They had
regular autumnal religious dances, in which all-men, women and even little children—took part. This
was particularly true among the Klikitats, Yakimas, Cayuses and other Eastern Washington tribes.
These dances were generally held in long lodges made of tule mats.
Sometimes mat houses were made expressly for dancing purposes. When preparing for a dance,
the lodge was swept clean. The men were arranged in a row on one side, and the women on the other.
Sometimes the parties in the rows were arranged according to height, the highest being at the back end
and gradually tapering to the shortest at the front and nearest the entrance. In the back end and
between the rows were from one to three men with drums made by stretching raw hide over a rim of
wood three or four inches wide. In addition there was sometimes another person with a small bell. The
master of ceremonies in this dance was an old, gray-haired man often partially or wholly blind, a sort of
prophet or orator. When all was ready, the drums sounded. A monotonous chant or song was taken

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up by all, and the dancers began. The dancing was merely bending the knees slightly, and then
straightening the limbs and raising up on the ball of the foot and toes, and then dropping the heel back
again, repeating the same movements over and over, all keeping time together in both the singing and
dancing. While dancing the arms were bent at right angles, the hands being out in front and slightly
moving to the time of the music. When this performance had gone on for some time, there was a pause;
and all stood perfectly silent and still while the old prophet gave a short talk in a rather loud,
monotonous tone between preaching and chanting. All listened with the greatest deference, and at its
close gave audible assent in what seemed to be a sort of amen. At this dance the greatest decorum,
solemnity and order prevailed. No one ever smiled or gave any sign of levity or mirth.
The old prophet's exhortations were reminders of what the god Coyote had taught the Indians as to
their duties in life. They were called upon to remember how they had food and raiment, and were
enjoined to live good lives and have glad hearts over what good things they had. Sometimes really good
and almost eloquent things were said; and then there would be references to their most miserable
superstitions. A few years ago a noted prophet (Smoholla) and doctor among a branch of the Spokanes
created quite a stir among the Indians of the Northwest. He held religious dances and harangued the
Indians, telling them that he had a revelation from the spirits, a vision in which he had been told that
very soon all the Indians who had died or been killed for years were going to rise suddenly from their
graves and take on physical bodies, and that the Whites were going to be overpowered and utterly rooted
out of all the Northwest. All the Indians that formerly lived in the Atlantic and Western states were
going also to rise up and exterminate the Whites there; and this country would all belong to the Indians
again, and they would have undisturbed possession. The result of this drumming, dancing and
haranguing of the wily old prophet Smoholla set the Indians on fire with excitement. The news of his
preaching spread everywhere; and, but for the better judgment and authority of Chief Moses, all the
Northern tribes would have joined in the Nez Perce Joseph war.
The Chinook wind dance was held when the snow stayed on long, and the Indian ponies began to
grow poor and die, and there was a prospect of a general destruction of their herds. The tamanowash
men were appealed to, and a dance arranged. This dance was usually largely attended. The general
arrangement was much the same as in the ordinary religious dance. The doctors or shamans took a more
important part, in fact were the centers of attraction. While the drumming and dancing went on, the
shamans grew excited, and gyrated about frantically. Finally the more bold bared their arms, and with
a butcher knife cut deep gashes across the fleshy part of the arm. Sometimes several were cut about
half an inch or more apart. Blood flowed profusely; and the demoniac conjuror sucked it out and drank
it, or even ripped out the strips of flesh with his teeth and devoured them like a ravenous beast. These
extravagant performances were thought by the common people to indicate great bravery and manhood;
and the performer showed the scars afterwards with evident pride. During this orgy, the old prophets or
tamanowash men called upon the spirit of the wind to come and drive away the snow and save their
perishing stock. If the warm wind did not come sooner, the dancing and drumming was kept up at
intervals for days. When finally it did come it was always considered that the doctors or shamans had
brought it. No argument would have any influence in changing the Indian mind. If one attempted to
reason on the subject, he would be asked: "Don't you see the snow going off? Isn't the wind blowing?
Can't you see and understand?" The snow was on the ground; the doctors drummed and danced; the
snow melted; the doctors did it. This was the method of reasoning.
In the scalp dance, the women did the dancing inside of a ring formed by the other members of the
clan sitting around. The dancers were half naked, hideously bedaubed with paint, and with loose,
flowing hair. They danced about while those sitting around sang a wild, monotonous song, and beat on
boards or poles with short clubs. The Indians of the extreme Northwest of Washington had a seal
dance, in which men only took part. The dance house or lodge was near or over water; and the naked
performers plunged into the water, and then came up out upon the floor of the lodge upon their bellies,
floundering and crawling about, imitating the movements of a seal swimming. The idea appeared to be
to imitate the actions of a school of sportive seals. The dance, probably, was at first a sort of
thanksgiving for the seal, similar to the salmon dance among the Columbia river Indians. There was a
death dance, a very solemn and impressive performance, and numerous other dances. Enough has been
given, however, to show the general character of them all. It was difficult for an observer to tell whether
some of their dances were of a religious or sportive character, as solemnity and levity were so blended.
MARRIAGE.
The young Indian spends no long time in wooing and winning his bride. Marriage among the
aborigines was largely a commercial transaction. Fathers frequently bought wives for their sons while
they were almost infants,-long before puberty. It was thought they would most likely live more amicably
and happily together if brought up together. In many instances girls were bought who were a number
of years older than the bridegrooms; and, before the boy had grown up to maturity, the girl took a notion
to some other young brave, and then there was liability of a family row. If under such circumstances the
girl decided to leave her legal boy husband, and could not be prevailed to wait for him to come to years of
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maturity, it was considered a very disgraceful affair; and the girl's father must return to the boy's father
the purchase price of the damsel. If the price paid was considerable, then the girl's parents were
interested in having her remain loyal to the boy husband.
The more common mode of procedure was this: A young man or boy saw some girl whom he fancied
he would like for his wife; and the subject was mentioned to his mother or father. They conferred with
the girl's parents, and agreed upon a price. The price of a wife was almost always paid in horses among
the Eastern tribes, the price being from five to fifty horses. From ten to twenty was a fair average among
the Eastern Washington Indians. It was always understood that a good, round price would insure a
better article, as in other merchandise. It was a prevalent idea that a woman who had cost a good many
ponies would prove more faithful and be a more desirable bride; besides, it was considered a mark of
dignity and honor to pay a good price for a wife. Such young men were looked up to, and were on the
way to tribal distinction. When an agreement was reached, word was immediately sent to the young
man, informing him of the success of the negotiations. He was soon on the way to the lodge of his
bride's parents, some of his relatives driving the stipulated horses. Buffalo, elk or deer skins and beadwork
or articles of apparel were taken also as "exchange gifts." Arrived at the lodge, a crier announced that
such and such parties were to be married. The friends gathered in, and the ceremonies began. The
Indian wedding ceremony was something considerably longer than the ordinary operation by the justice of
the peace.
Two robes were spread down side by side in the lodge; and the bride was carried to the spot
on the back of female relatives and seated on one of the robes. The young man was then escorted to the
other robe and seated by his affianced. The young man's relatives then combed the bride's hair; and,
while combing, some of the friends poured over her head out of a basket a lot of small beads or shells,
which were sportively called lice. The hair was combed and braided, and the beads gathered up; and
then began an "exchanging" of gifts over the heads of the bride and groom.
The bride's relatives placed on her head dresses of buckskin, beadwork and other trinkets; and the
groom's friends took these and placed on her head other articles instead, which her friends took away.
This same ceremony was performed over the young man's head. It was customary to exchange articles.
of female use or wear over the bride's head, and articles used by males over the head of the groom.
During all this time, great interest was taken and much merriment indulged in by all the party. The
girl's father and mother usually got a good deal the best of the bargain in the exchanges; this was
expected. If the groom was pretty liberal in his offer, and paid a good many horses, the old man usually
took a few from his own band and presented the couple. This exchanging went on until it seemed that
the young man was marrying the whole clan, and that all the property down to pots and kettles was being
married. Before the marriage ceremony ended, the bride's friends took her on one of her own horses to
the groom's lodge; and all her things were taken along. At the groom's lodge further exchanges were
made; and the young man was fortunate if he was not stripped of nearly everything. It was considered
beggarly in a man to not almost rob himself when getting married; and remarks were made indicating
that he was little and mean. His mother-in-law was likely to mar the harmony between the couple. The
Indian mother-in-law is mother-in-law to the full extent, with the Indian part extra.
With the Indian girl, getting married was often not much different from going into penal servitude
for life, as the young woman was expected to be almost a slave for her husband's family. If there were
a mother-in-law on both sides, it was a felicitous thing sometimes, as the young folks could live in peace
while the old mothers-in-law quarreled it out. More often than not, however, all parties got along very
amicably. The relationships growing out of marriage are much stronger among Indians than the Whites.
Once married into a clan, a man is a relative to each and every member. When a man married into a
clan, he had a tribal right to another woman of the same clan if his wife died.
If he took another woman,
she must be of the same clan or family as his first wife. If a man's married brother died, the surviving
brother took the wife, or he had the right of giving her in marriage, receiving the pay for her. If she
would not marry into his family or clan, then by tribal law all her property could be taken from her. It
seemed to be a principle among them that the family and property all belonged to the tribe. If the woman
went out of the clan, her property remained.
MANNER OF NAMING CHILDREN.
The Indians frequently gave their young children the name of some animal. One little fellow in a
family might be called coyote, another badger, and another bear or some other beast or bird.
This name
was borne during youth, possibly during life, but was frequently changed. A young man had the right
and privilege of changing his name, and choosing one that suited him better. When a young man had
done some act of valor in war or in hunting, and felt himself to be entitled to distinction, he chose a new
name. This new name was such generally that if rendered into English would be a whole sentence or a
phrase. It might be some kind of animal or bird, but generally was represented in some act, or in having
some qualifying adjective, as "White Horse," "Fighting Eagle," "The man who killed the lightning,'
etc. A child frequently took the name of its father, but not while the father was living, and usually not
until some time after his death. Distinguished chiefs' names were not conferred upon sons until the sons
were of mature years usually. Some tribes permitted a son to take his father's name when the widow
LEGENDS, MYTHS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
85
The Chinooks
went out of mourning; while others disliked conferring a father's name on a young child.
would not permit a son to assume the name of the father until it was supposed his body had crumbled to
dust.
There was a singular superstition among all the Northwest tribes in regard to pronouncing the names
of persons recently dead. No Indian could be induced to speak the name of such a deceased person. In
conversation, if the dead person had to be mentioned, he would be spoken of as the "son or relative" of
so and so, or they would say "the man who died" at such a time and place. They believed that if the
name of a deceased person were spoken he might hear it and come to the one using it, or might be
offended. The deferring for a long time to give the father's name to the son may have been connected
with this superstition. When the son was about to assume the name of his father, some of the tribes, if
not all, had a little ceremony connected with the occasion. A time was set; and, when it had come, a feast
or dinner was given. It was expected that the very old people would have presents given them at such
times. Some old man was designated to confer the name. When the time had come he stood up
and said, “O, our brother has come back to us again," calling the name that was about to be given. He
then looked at the boy and addressed him just as if he really were his father come back again,
congratulating him and expressing joy at meeting him. The old man wound up his speech by saying,
What is going to be given me on this happy occasion?" Some gift was then given; and some other old
man or woman would get up and, after congratulating the one receiving the name, would ask for a present.
Sometimes a number of old people received presents at these ceremonies. After this feast and ceremony
everyone was expected to call the individual by the newly adopted name. Some Indians changed names
several times during life; and this was considered entirely right and proper.
The Indians of most tribes were very much averse to telling their names to the Whites, and generally
avoided doing so. They had a superstition that the name was in some way mysteriously connected with
the soul or spirit of the person, and that if the Whites learned the name harm would come of it. Some
seemed to have an idea that the name itself had a sort of soul or counter existence. With the Indian,
earth, air, water and every place in the universe was full of spirits, and everything had a spirit. Indians
often, if not generally, gave fictitious names when enumerations were being made of their tribes; and such
lists were wholly unreliable in many instances on this account.
LAWS RELATING TO MURDER.
In case of murder among the Indians, the family or clan of the murdered person went in a body to
the family or clan of the murderer; and, standing outside some distance away, they demanded redress.
They generally sent some old or prominent member of the tribe to act as spokesman. This ambassador
conferred with the murderers friends, and returned reporting the results of his negotiations. If the terms
suggested for a settlement were agreeable to all, the blood price was paid over to the aggrieved. Murder
was generally compounded by the payment of horses, buffalo or elk skins. Whatever price was agreed
upon, tribal law required the murderer or his friends to pay. Besides the payment of the stipulated price,
there were other ceremonies and formalities. The murderer was not permitted to come into a lodge nor to
sit down with others. He was to stay outside and to sit with his back to the fire when the cooking of food
was going on. If any person or persons were eating food when a murderer came around, the food was
always hid away under a blanket or clothing, or put out of sight of the guilty one. They feared that food
looked upon by a murderer would cause disease or death. He was to paint his face black or brown, and
dress in old, shabby clothes. He was to wear the badge of his "tah" or patron spirit. Everyone was
supposed to have a patron or guardian spirit. If his "tah" was the coyote, he was to wear a piece of
coyote skin on his head. His badge might be an eagle's feather, rattlesnake skin or rattles or a part of
some inanimate object.
Thus equipped, he must take his bow and arrows, and the instrument or weapon with which he did
the murder, and go away into the mountains or some lonely place and there stay all night and not sleep,
but wave the weapon in the air and thrust it into the ground, and then shoot an arrow off from him, then
go and get it and shoot again in some other direction. The murderous weapon was to be waved in the
air five times and then thrust into the ground as often. He was to yell loudly also, and at the same time
to put his hand rapidly to and away from his mouth, making a noise something like the warwhoop. This
was to be kept up all night without rest or intermission, and repeated for five nights without food or sleep.
During the five nights, he was to climb a pine or fir tree and trim it down, leaving a tuft of limbs at the
top for a sign of murder. If afterwards the tree withered and died, it was an ill omen, for so should the
murderer pine away and die. During these five nights it was the criminal's duty to drink water and then
produce vomiting by thrusting a twig or stick of some kind down his throat. This operation was to be
repeated again and again, as a kind of washing from the blood of the murdered man. After the five days'
or nights' performance, he was permitted to eat food, but to take it sparingly and with closed eyes. During
the continuation of this ceremony, he was to go to the sweathouse and sweat himself and bathe during
the hours of daylight.
If the murderer saw the food he was eating, the Indians said it would not pass on naturally, but would
remain in the stomach, and the man would waste away and die. Generally a kind of doctor or witch
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
woman called by the Klikitats pamiss-pamissitla whispered some kind of incantation jargon over the
murderer's food, and fed it to him. This performance of the old hag would prevent any evil effects
arising from taking the food improperly. The murderer's hair was tied together back of his neck and kept
so that he might not touch it with his hands. Whatever his hands touched was contaminated; for they
were polluted with blood. For this reason he was not to touch his face or any part of his body with
the hand; and, if he wanted to scratch, he must use a stick or something else. He was not to comb or
dress his hair under any consideration. While out during the five nights shooting arrows, whooping,
thrusting his knife into the ground, though he was to drink, he was not to drink the cup or vessel empty,
but was to throw part of the water out on the ground. At the end of the five nights, this cup or vessel
was to be fastened to the top of the tree trimmed on the occasion.
The Indians thus explain the meaning of these ceremonies. The thrusting of the knife or other
instrument of murder into the ground was the wiping away of the blood of the victim, and washing out
the offense. The arrows shot off in the darkness carried away the sin and responsibility for crime. The
water that was thrown out would go into the earth and thence into the rivers and flow on forever; and,
as it thus lived, so the murderer would live and be purified. The criminal was expected to sleep on his
face for some time. If he did not, the blood of the murdered man would run down his mouth and
throat, and he would die. If the stipulated blood price were paid, and all the ceremonies of the Indian
law were gone through with, it was considered that the crime was wholly wiped out; and it was the
duty of the victim's friends to consider everything settled, and receive the murderer as a friend the same
as if nothing had happened.
J
TAMANOWASH OR SPIRIT POWER.
Among the Indians of the Northwest, religion, sorcery and medicine were all mixed up together.
The term doctor is a misnomer to the Indian medicine man. Shaman, conjuror or witch would come
nearer expressing the truth. The Indian idea of disease was not that it is caused by anything wrong in
the workings of the physical organism, but by some unseen power or spirit which they call "tamanowash."
They acknowledge the existence of disease as we understand it, when the disease is visible and causes
changes of structure, such as boils, skin diseases, cuts, bruises, etc. If such cases even prove rebellious
or fatal, it is attributed to tamanowash. Usually such cases are considered amenable to material
remedies, that may be taken internally or applied externally. When asked what "tamanowash
tamanowash" is, an
Indian never can tell except by way of giving illustrative cases of the supposed tamanowash power.
the great something invisible and mysterious that bewitches or casts its blighting influence over men's
lives and fortunes.
It is
The doctor" or medicine man is one who is in collusion with this dreadful power or spirit, and can
in some way control it so as to avert its baleful influence. By virtue of his relation to the tamanowash
spirits, the doctor is almost invincible. His withering gaze is more deadly than the fabled upas; the
pointing of his finger, an exertion of his will, sends the speedy arrow of death. It is not even necessary
that he should be present. He may cause absent ones to sicken and die. Each "doctor" has his patron
spirit or spirits. This spirit may be that of a dead person, or of an animal, or even of a mountain cave,
stone, a bird or reptile. The old Indian idea is that everything in existence, animate or inanimate, has,
besides its corporeal substance, an invisible spirit essence, a kind of ghost-like existence independent of
the material thing itself. This invisible essence may be communicated to a person, and be in him, and
act in collusion with him, or even dominate his actions. Either sex may have the tamanowash power.
Those who become doctors or get the big-medicine power always get it in a mysterious, supernatural way.
Tamanowash is a general term for the invisible witch power; while "tah" is a special manifestation of it
in a particular form in the person of an individual. The Indians say that those who become medicine
men have the fact revealed to them while young. Boys who have never known women," or "girls who
have not known men, are the terms they use in describing the age. The great medicine power never
comes to those who have been contaminated by the opposite sex.
((
The tamanowash-doctor power is nearly always communicated in the night-time. A boy of the right
age going out at night in some lonely place sees or hears a coyote, owl or some other ani̇mal or object,
and hears a voice speaking. The coyote will howl, or the owl may screech or hoot; but in some strange,
mysterious manner it conveys to the excited youth the message he is expecting, which may be in the form
of a command to do something. Whatever the words spoken may be, they are to be remembered. If this
communication be remembered until the candidate reaches maturity, he will be a medicine man. Sometimes
the tamanowash power is communicated in a more terrible and impressive manner. The person is met in
some dark, lonely place by a fiery, shining animal, or a walking human skeleton of huge proportions
illuminated within by a mysterious light. The eye sockets of this strange being gleam and flash like
burning fire. Within the chest between the ribs is seen a great heart swinging and beating from side to
side; while thunders roll and lightnings flash in the face of the terrified beholder, who falls to the earth
unconscious. While he remains in a trance-like condition, the wonderful apparition speaks to him in a
dream, telling him what to do. He is commissioned to heal, destroy or prophesy. When he comes out
of his trance, the strange being is gone; and he is alone in silence and darkness. He now has the "big
medicine" or tamanowash power, and never during life can he get rid of it. In many of the tribes, the

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LEGENDS, MYTHS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
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candidate, before entering upon his business, went off into some lonely mountain cave or unfrequented
place and then fasted until lank and haggard, and filled with superstitious frenzy. He then came from
his place of retirement emaciated and with glittering, diabolic eyes, wild with excitement, hideously
painted and almost naked. Raving and yelling like a maniac, he rushed among his friends. Seizing the
flesh of their arms in his teeth, he bit out a mouthful and devoured it like a ravening beast. Strange to
say, among some tribes it was considered a matter of honor to be able to show the scars made by these
frantic human devils.
Among some tribes north of Puget Sound in British Columbia, these shamans or conjurors actually
ate human dead bodies, or attacked and devoured dogs. The Clallams and Nisquallies came nearer
following the practices of the Indians farther north in these respects. A young person was not expected
to exercise tamanowash powers until the age of maturity. It was seldom that anyone under forty entered
the ranks of the medicine men. The Columbia river Indians, Klikitats, Okanagan and others used to
send their children out at night to the "houses of the dead" to listen to what the dead might say.
If a
man had a son whom he wished to grow up a doctor, he would send him out to some lonely place, with
instructions to look out for "tah." Filled with horrid fears, and with an excited imagination, the
young fellow would hear or imagine he heard a voice from some object or being; and he thus would get
his "big-medicine" diploma in short order and with little cost except the shock to his nervous system.
Those who went often and never received a call were considered to be for some cause unfitted for the
mysteries and dignities of the "big medicine." The Indian idea is that the spirit of the animal, bird or
thing becomes the shaman's or conjuror's patron spirit. The kind of animal or object from which the
tamanowash is received indicates to some extent the scope or power of the doctor. A man inspired by the
rattlesnake is a "snake doctor,
snake doctor," can handle rattlesnakes without danger, and can cure snake bites.
Should a snake bite him, he would not die. A doctor receiving his tamanowash from the tlchachie
(ghosts) can handle corpses or go into the dead-houses" or graves, and can communicate with the dead;
and the spirits of the dead will hold converse with him; all of which things are impossible to ordinary
persons. Some "medicine men can bring the Chinook wind; others cause the salmon to come up the
river; and others still can influence the huckleberry crops. A very "strong doctor" may have a variety
of powers, and be capable of doing many wonderful things. Some have claimed to be able to eat fire,
drink boiling water, or wash in scalding water, because they had the "fire spirit.”
could cause a person to sicken and die. The death might be lingering or sudden.
((
Any real tawatie
Indian doctors often admitted they had killed certain persons and threatened to kill others. Threats
of this kind were made to extort favors or frighten others into doing what the "medicine man” desired
done. Not very unfrequently marriages were broken up and business transactions interfered with in this
way. In some few cases it was said the medicine man could not help killing or causing others to sicken.
The big medicine overpowered him and dominated his actions against his will. The tamanowash was
offended; and the life of the victim was the penalty, the doctor being the unfortunate medium of this
direful calamity. Usually the "tawatie" was held to be fully accountable and even charged with the
most extravagant absurdities. Sickness caused by the doctors was called "tamanowash sick;" and no
material medicine could ever have any influence in curing ailments of this class. The evil spirit must be
exorcised or killed or "pulled out." The disease is considered to be a living entity that has entered
the person; and often the old tamanowash man makes a diagnosis of a "bug in the stomach or heart;" or
worm or worms in the heart" or limbs. These astute doctors or conjurors even go on to give the
size of the insect or animal, tell its color and describe its malevolent antics in the system. The superstitious
bystanders, with protuberant eyes and mouths agap, swallow the whole thing as fact indisputable.
Frequently the person sick claims to have no pain anywhere; there is no fever, no observable disorder of any
of the functions. He is sick though; he feels that the tamanowash has entered him, and that he is going
to die. He has the "Indian sickness," tamanowash sickness,—in short, is bewitched. In such a case, it
is the spirit or soul that is sick. We would say it was a case of imagination. There must be a big
pow-wow to exorcise the demoniac influence.
a
The medicine man cannot exercise his tamanowash powers over a white person, though they can
bewitch a half breed if the half breed has the Indian heart. If he has the "Boston tum-tum," then
the tamanowash will not operate; which is equal to saying that the Indian doctor can influence anyone
who is superstitious and credulous enough to imagine he has this wonderful tamanowash power. The
big medicine is called, by the most of the tribes of the Northwest, "tow-ten-ook.” This towtenook has
no special properties of healing. It is a sort of power working according to the will of the person from
whom it may emanate; and the same towtenook may kill or cure as the shaman wills it to do. The
Indians had really very little knowledge of the effects of diseases on the internal organism. They
believed recovery would surely follow if only the offending tamanowash could be expelled. The wasted
form of the consumptive, or the poisoned blood and exhausted vitality of the typhoid-fever patient,
formed no bar to recovery, provided the bad medicine was eliminated some way. In case of the death
of a patient, the doctor aways attempted to screen himself by charging the death upon some other doctor.
This was the only occasion when the medicine man was willing to acknowledge any other doctor was
stronger; and it was then a matter of self-protection. If some other doctor had been conjuring about
the patient, and had made a failure to cure, the next doctor called would likely as not say the first one
was causing the sickness; and a good deal of friction would ensue.
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
It was firmly believed that just before death the dying person would have it revealed to him who the
offending tamanowash man was that was causing the sickness and death. Such a statement was implicitly
believed, and was regarded something as "dying statements" have been by civilized courts, that is,
received without oath or questioning. In prolonged cases, frequently several conjurors were called; and
they usually managed to agree upon throwing the blame on some distant doctor; which poor medico,
being out of seeing or hearing distance, the load of the great crime was not very afflicting; and this very
convenient arrangement enabled the medical conclave to get off with the honors and emoluments of the
occasion, and escape the responsibility for a failure. If the patient died, however, no matter what the
disease or condition, the verdict of the friends was "wake skookum tocta;" which classical Chinook
almost any old pioneer would understand to be equivalent to saying that the doctors for the occasion were
rather small fry. As in the days of witchcraft, so among the Indians, persons who disavowed all claim
of being "doctor" were accused of giving tamanowash, or bewitching people. Unfortunately the accused
had no power to prove their innocence, as protestations on their part were of no avail. Such persons were
in a bad predicament. The Indians believed that, as they had caused the sickness, they could cure it;
and they were urged to do so, and even threatened. If to save themselves they yielded and engaged in
pow-wowing, then of course the name of being doctor was fixed irrevocably. The glory of the "medicine
man" was far from being unalloyed; and he always stood a chance of getting a speedy passport to the
country where there was no field for the exercise of his powers. The medicine man was much more
dreaded than loved; and the respect he commanded arose much more from fear than genuine regard;
and often the tamanowash man was spoken of (in his absence) as a rattlesnake or wolf.
There were many kinds of doctors. Some operated in one specialty, and some in another; while
some of the big-medicine men claimed to be equal to almost any emergency, and often were reported to
have resuscitated dead persons. Among these conjurors were those who were not considered to have the
"big medicine." The Klikitats and Yakimas called one class of these the “ pamiss-pamiss" doctors,
that is, those who have the power to charm or control the minds or feelings of others. They were
supposed to have the power to cast a spell over others so as to soften anger, change purposes or will, or
even compel a certain course of action. These were often old women or old men. Their power was
invoked to charm away the spirits that linger about and poison the food of those in mourning, or who
have committed murder. They of this class pretend to tell the fortunes of the chase or of war. Lying
down upon the earth listening and whispering unintelligible gibberish, they claimed to divine what was
going on in the distant chase or battle. They also mumbled over those fallen into a faint or fit to divine
whether the sickness would be fatal, and to otherwise exercise a benign influence upon the sufferer.
and,
A very singular superstition among all the Northwestern Indians was that their dogs and little
infants could converse together before the child learned the Indian language; after this time it lost or
forgot the dog language. The Indian babies understand the dogs, and the dogs understand the babies.
This may partly explain the great love the Indian has for his dogs; for it is a fact that often the Indian
would consider the striking or kicking of his dog to be a worse insult than to be struck himself. There
are certain "small doctors" who claim to be "baby understanders" and "dog understanders;
strange to say, the services of these functionaries are or were not infrequently brought into requisition.
How these dog and baby linguistics acquire the faculty of interpreting canine and infant whinings is
variously explained; but there is always mystery about it. Sometimes it is through inspiration by the
dog spirit; or, once in a while, a talented baby fails to forget the dog language at the time he acquires
the Indian tongue; and of course he would be a suitable person for interpreter to unfold dog and baby
lore. Though white people do not know it, the whinings of dogs, and the infant da, da, babbling, all
mean something,–
-are attempts to make known their wants. These dog or baby understanders can
interpret all this for the enlightenment and edification of Indian humanity..
"Has
A common notion among these tribes is that a baby sickens or dies of its own accord, or because
something has been done or said that is displeasing to it. Under these circumstances the wonderful dog
or baby understander" has an opportunity to show his skill. If a child cries or frets and is cross, and
jabbers and mumbles a great deal and seems to be about half sick, as babies often do, the Indian people
imagine the baby is trying to say something; and that, unless its language is interpreted, it will die. When
these pretentious interpreters undertake a case, the baby is taken into their arms; and some kind of medicine
song is sung, the body being swayed backward and forward; and the little one is asked such questions as,
"What troubles you?" Have you not been fed enough?” Have you not warm clothes?"
any one spoken ill of you?" "Does someone want the property you would inherit?" "Are the spirits
trying to get you away from us?" etc. After various performances, the "doctor" rendered the
interpretation. Whatever was troubling the baby must be removed and its wishes obeyed; and it would
recover, otherwise it would die. It was commonly believed that a dog belonging to one of these linguistic
conjurors would, if left at the camp of its owner, report on his or her return what had transpired during the
owner's absence. If anyone entered the hut, took anything away, or meddled about the premises, the
faithful canine would in his own language relate all to the owner on his return. Remarkable stories have
been told by the Indians proving most positively the existence of this dog language, provided the "yarns"
could be believed.
LEGENDS, MYTHS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
89
TREATMENT OF THE SICK.
,,
or
The treatment of the sick among the Indians was and is only a sort of conjuring. The "tawaties
"big medicines" use no material remedies whatever. Among some of the tribes in Southern Oregon
the shaman used to cut a small bit of buckskin, and slit the skin of the body and work the bit gradually
under. This was done under cover of blankets or skins, so that the operator's hands were out of sight of
patient and surrounding spectators. This bit of buckskin was charmed or had some mysterious magic
power of sinking down into the body and destroying the disease. When in case of sickness the medicine
man is sent for, the price is agreed upon beforehand; and in nearly all cases a cure is promised before the
patient is seen. Often the doctor announces the diagnosis before going to the patient. Of course he could
cure anything; otherwise why should he be a big-medicine man at all; and, besides, an expression of
distrust as to his ability would brand him with the name of being no good. The Indian wants a sure
thing or nothing; and, though the theory is no cure no pay, the doctor generally was smart enough to get
his pay, kill or cure. The expectation is that recovery is to be speedy. The doctor has been known to
promise perfect recovery in one day of a patient far gone in consumption, and who had not a ghost of a
chance of ever being any better. Sometimes, however, their pow-wows are kept up for days or at intervals.
for a long time.
The medicine man, when called, is supposed to wear his official badge, generally his medicine hat.
If his patron spirit is from the bear, he will have a bearskin cap,-perhaps the skin of the bear's head,
with ears, nose and eyes all attached; and he may have a bear's foot hung somewhere about his dress.
His official badge may be from the owl, beaver, or any animal or thing by virtue of whose spirit he
performs his exorcisms. The terms for the cure being settled, the conjuror sets out to see his patient, and
enters the lodge invested with all the dignity and solemnity, and mystery as well, that he can bring to the
occasion. His movements are all very deliberate, as should be the case on momentous occasions. Going
in, he seats himself by the side of the patient. He is not expected to ask the location of pain or
discomfort; for, as a matter of course, he knows all about that better than the patient himself. He places
his hands on the body, presses down and retains his hands in position some time. Often he heats them
by the fire and replaces them, and goes through various strokings or cabalistic maneuvers. After a time
he probably announces his diagnosis to the gaping bystanders. With a solemn visage, he may state that
the man has a spider in his heart. The spider spirit is big medicine. Some of the tribes say that the
grand sachem tamanowash is in the shape of a giant spider. The doctor not only tells what the animal
is, but gives the size, color, shape, and everything in such a circumstantial manner that the common
Indians believe it. How could he describe it so minutely if he did not see it? He is careful to explain
that he can extract the insect secundem artem tamanowashem. In many instances a fly or maggot is said
to be the cause of the sickness, particularly if there be some kind of ulcer. Whatever the medicine man
may diagnosticate, the patient has tamanowash sickness; and generally it is caused by some evil-disposed
doctor; and nothing will work a cure but to "make medicine" or go through their pow-wows and
conjuring.
When there is to be a doctoring ceremony gone through with, a lot of the near neighbors are generally
on hand to assist. The assistants are either seated around the tent or camp inside, or in two rows, one on
either side. Often they operate on the outside. Before the persons so seated there are poles or boards
upon which to drum; and each individual is armed with two small clubs from one to two feet long to drum
with. The patient is generally between the two rows of drummers; and the shaman sits near him. The
medicine man begins his incantations, and all join in. He generally sits cross-legged, "tailor fashion,"
and sways his body backward and forward; and, with his arms bent at right angles, he swings them
backward and forward or in and out. With their clattering, drumming and lugubrious singing, they
make about as ear-splitting and hideous a medley of sounds as could be imagined. The medicine man
often takes a mouthful of water and blows it in fine spray over the patient's body, and often in his
excitement becomes violent, kneading or thumping the victim's body. He often grasps the flesh of the
chest or abdomen in his ample mouth, and begins sucking to draw out the offending disease, or probably
to impress the mind of the sick man and his friends. A common occurrence towards the close, when the
excitement has got wrought up to a high pitch, is for the conjuror to go through motions of extracting
something from the patient's body, twisting, grunting and sweating, as if the effort were tremendous. He
then pretends he has the thing or animal in his hands, and perhaps takes a butcher knife and goes through
the motions of hacking it into bits, and then, holding it up, blows it away. A sigh of relief escapes from the
friends; the doctor has the demon devil or whatever it is by the heels or by some other secure grasp, and
the patient is saved. The Indians look on this with profound awe, if not admiration; the doctor is a
genius, a conjuror of spirits, a worker of wonders!
If, however, the patient should die next day or soon, they would want to knock him on the head with
a hatchet. Thus fickle is fame;-the man who is a hero and demigod to-day may be a slaughtered devil
to-morrow. The ceremony is not always the same. It varies a great deal in different tribes; but the
drumming and hideous "singing" have been everywhere practiced. No matter what the state of the
patient's nervous system, or how low in disease, the head-splitting Plutonian racket must go on. Many a
poor soul has been thumped and drummed out of time into eternity who perhaps if let alone would have
recovered. The shaman often worked himself into almost a frenzy of excitement, so that he fell into a
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
+
sort of cataleptic state, or had convulsions. The doctors say that in some instances the tamanowash, when
exorcised and coming out of the patient, enters into the doctor like the devils of old went into the swine;
and he becomes crazy and raves around like a demon, and falls as if dead or insensible. In other cases
he will groan as if about to die, so as to be heard a great way off. Of course when he ceases groaning
and gets up, he has triumphed over the tamanowash spirit and conquered the disease.
There are a few doctors who profess to have a mysterious patron spirit which they call Skaiap. This
patron spirit or influence always comes to the medicine man as a voice, and is never seen. It is the prince of
all the spirits of evil. The commands of Skaiap must be obeyed. This Skaiap tamanowash causes
insanity, and all forms of madness and epileptic fits. To disobey the voice of Skaiap will bring death.
It may be sudden, or lingering and painful. The person they say usually becomes frenzied and wild.
Indians have no doubt become crazed through the belief that they were affected by this demoniac power.
Skaiap sometimes commands the most painful and distressing things to be done. One was to swallow alive
a great quantity of black water beetles, and another to sing tamanowash songs day and night for five years.
If a medicine man has the Skaiap tamanowash, and it forsakes and leaves him, he dies a raving maniac
and persists in jumping into the fire until roasted to death. This is a true picture, and shows how dark
and dreadful was the cloud of superstition that darkened the lives of the aborigines of this country.
,
Besides the tamanowash doctors or conjurors, there were a class of medicos who administered remedies
internally. Decoctions of herbs, roots and barks were given for fevers, colds, coughs and other ailments.
These doctors were mostly women. The big-medicine power was mostly exercised by men. The two had
a different name. Those who gave material remedies or "pluh" were "pluhitla;" while the "big-medicine”
power was exercised by the "tawaty." These "pluhitla" often attempted to magnify their calling and
increase their importance by creating as much mystery as possible about their business. It was a common
notion among the Indians that bad blood or too much blood was the cause of much sickness. One of the
offices of these "small doctors" was to bleed by opening a vein or by sucking the blood out through the
skin. Frequently the scalp was cut to allow blood to flow to relieve headache. In many diseases they
believed there was.blood collected at a part which caused pain or distress. The actual cauterizing or burning
with a hot iron was a favorite remedy for rheumatism and stiffened joints. I have seen the scars from
these procedures covering the joints and all along the spine. When an Indian takes medicine, he wants
visible results, and the more sudden and violent the better. Medicines to produce vomiting were much
sought; and powerful purgatives were much thought of. Some of the doctors acquired considerable
popularity on account of their skill in sucking blood from the bodies of patients. As this performance
was a source of revenue, they of course managed to make business whenever they could; and they generally
succeeded in discovering that there was too much blood or bad blood in every case, and that recovery could
not possibly occur unless it was drawn out.
Some of these doctors practiced a good deal of chicanery in their manipulations. To equip themselves
more fully for their sanguinary operations, and enable them to bring copious supplies of blood on short
notice, these medical lights gathered dried blood where animals had been slaughtered. With a good
supply of this desiccated gore on hand, the doctor could make a bloody showing in short order, and could
perform the reputed impossibility of drawing "blood from a turnip." Before beginning to suck blood from
the patient's body, a small bit of this dried blood was put into the mouth. A profuse flow of saliva soon
dissolved it; when the doctor could spit out mouthful after mouthful of blood to the admiration and
astonishment of the beholders. We thus see how brains and genius triumph over ignorance even among
savages!
((
Worms, beetles, bugs, etc., were frequently drawn from the patient's body. Before beginning his
operations, the doctor managed to adroitly slip wood-worms, maggots, beetles or even a small frog into his
or her mouth; and after a brief effort and some mysterious strokings the animals were spit out, living,
wriggling proofs of the doctor's skill; whereupon the patient could breath easily, confident that the cause
of his sufferings was removed. To vermin-eating savages, this nasty operation was doubtless less offensive
than it would be to civilized people. The vision of pay had no doubt much effect in rendering the
operation less odious and disgusting. One thing may be said to the credit of the Indians in their
management of the sick. They made frequent changes in their position; and, instead of starving the sick,
insisted upon feeding them. When an Indian's appetite failed, and he could not take "muck-a-muck,
he was considered to be in a bad way; and the opinion was generally well founded, for an Indian's appetite
usually holds out as long as Lo himself; and, if die he must, it is a great consolation to go with a full
stomach.
SPIRITUALISM.
There seems to have been something among the Indians similar to spiritualism or mesmerism known
and practiced for ages. Instead of table tippings and rappings, the mediums, who were always
big-medicine men, practiced what was known as dancing the stick." I never witnessed the performance,
but have heard it described frequently by eye-witnesses who were present and observed the practice years
ago on the Columbia river among the Cascade Indians, and also among the Puget Sound tribes. There
were said to be very few who had the skill or power to practice this kind of "tamanowash" doings. In
some of the dances, these sticks were rapidly passed from one dancer to another while the singing and


HENRY HEPPNER,
ARLINGTON, OR.
LEGENDS, MYTHS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
91
dancing was going on. From long usage, and being passed from hand to hand, the part that was grasped
was worn smooth, and in some instances half worn in two. They were used in a perpendicular
position, being grasped near the upper end and thus passed about.
An old doctor at or near the Cascades many years ago was quite famous for his exploits in "dancing
the stick," five of which he kept for his seances. They were called tamanowash sticks, and were from
two to three feet long. All being gathered into the lodge and ready for the performance, the master of
ceremonies began to sing his tamanowash song. After singing four times, any person present was invited
to take hold of the sticks. As the old man sang and kept time by swinging his arms, the person holding
the stick was jumped around by the stick, which began hopping about. As the tamanowash man warmed
up and sung and gyrated more vehemently, the violence of the dancing increased. The dancer was
instructed to hold the stick still; but the more he tried the more violently he was jumped up and down
and around the lodge. Finally the stick raised up violently, uplifting the man's arms. At last, being
overcome, he fell over in a state of cataleptic rigidity, still clinging with a deathgrip to the stick. The
old tamanowash man then stopped his singing, and went to the dancer and stroked him or made passes
over him, when the rigidity relaxed and the man awoke as from a sleep. Indians familiar with the
performance describe the sensations experienced while holding the sticks as being like that produced by the
interrupted electric current. Their muscles were thrown into a state of tonic spasm, so that they found
it impossible to let go.
Sometimes
Very amusing accounts are given of some of the incidents occurring at these seances.
these tamanowash sticks were used in the medicine pow-wows. During the drumming and singing, the
stick was laid across the bed in the hands of the patient. If a cure was to be effected, the stick, while the
pow-wow was going on, would raise the sick person up in bed or even pull him up on his feet. In those
cases where the imagination plays the greater part in the sickness, and the will power is paralyzed, the
power of faith and an excited imagination may do great things towards recovery. A great number of
eye-witnesses have testified that, after being danced about for a time at the will of the sorcerer, these sticks
would stand or dance about alone, and even remain suspended in the air, nothing touching them.
all sounds very much like the operations of the so-called spiritualists of modern times.
This
MOURNING CUSTOMS.
In case of the death of an Indian woman's husband, it was the custom for the deceased man's mother
to bring the widow a present of a buffalo or elk skin, and seat the bereft daughter-in-law upon it, and then
cut her hair off a little below the ears. A small bunch of hair was tied together on each side with a
buckskin string just above each ear. This was known as the "widow string," and was a badge signifying
that the woman was in mourning. The mother-in-law kept the woman's hair during the period of
mourning, and when it was over returned it to her. If the husband's mother or some of his clan did not
make this present and cut the hair, it was equivalent to telling the daughter-in-law that her marriage into
the family again was not desirable. The widow was required to wear the widow strings a whole year
without combing her hair. At the end of that time it might be combed out and the strings replaced.
Two years was the ordinary period of mourning, during which the strings must be worn; some tribes
required three years. She was expected during this time to wear constantly a tight-fitting basket cap
woven from grasses, and to paint her face black. At the expiration of the mourning period, the strings
were removed, and the woman was a candidate for marriage. While the
While the "widow strings" were worn,
no man could show the woman any gallantry; or, if he did, the woman was expected to resent it; and the
man was subject to the censure of the chiefs.
Another curious custom that prevailed among the Northwestern Indians was that when a man died
his horses were driven up, and their manes and tails were cropped. They said the dead man's hands had
stroked the mane and touched the tail. This hair was unclean, and was removed to avert evil conse-
quences from the spirit. This cropping of manes and tails was a kind of badge, also showing to every
one that the owner was dead. Horses belonging to women or children were treated the same way.
When a man's wife died, his wife's relatives cut his hair and gave him a present of a horse or buffalo
robe. This signified their willingness for him to marry into the clan again. As it was an established
rule, that when a man married into a clan all subsequent wives were to be taken from that clan, it was a
disgraceful affair if the friends failed to cut the hair and make presents as just related. When one of a
clan died all other members, particularly near relatives, were to go through a period of five days'
purification by sweating and bathing. During these five days, a widow or widower would not see food
prepared. A kind of broth was made and brought; and the mourner was to eat with closed eyes. They
were to eat sparingly; and some fasted the whole five days. At the end of this period they ate as usual.
The husband's term of mourning was one year; but the mourning of husbands was not so rigidly enforced
as that of wives. The Indians explained the five days' sweating and washing to be a purification. The
person who had died had looked upon them; they had touched his hands or person; his gaze and touch
had contaminated them; and they must get rid of this contamination. In the spring or summer months,
they gathered fresh rose leaves and bushes, and bruised them with stones and rubbed them on their bodies,
and put the rosebushes upon hot stones in their sweathouses, pouring water on so as to make a strong
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
odor of the rosebush, which was considered cleansing, and had the property of keeping away the spirits.
of the dead. They had a superstition that newly deceased persons had a desire to return and frequent
the old familiar places or touch the living friends.
There was a deathly dread of the spirits of the dead. Immediately after a death, the lodge was swept
clean. The Chinooks used to flame burning torches all about the lodge as if driving out flies. These
operations would drive out the spirits. To keep away the spirits of the dead, they cast ashes or dust in
the air. They say the tlchachie (spirits of the dead) do not like dust or ashes. For this reason they
strewed ashes along the way the corpse was carried from the lodge; the tlchachie would not walk through
the ashes.
Immediately after the breath had left the body, a loud wail went up from the friends, the women in
particular. In fact, the mourning was mostly done by the women, There was no set formula for the
wailing. The expressions were such as, Alas! Alas! "O my dear sister!" "O my father! I shall
never see you again," etc. The mourning was most commonly done early in the morning, just as the
sun was coming up. Sometimes almost the whole clan would go out towards the place of sepulture,
wailing in the most doleful manner. Generally the old women were the chief mourners. These often
volunteered their services at mourning, and usually expected a gift for their performances; and sometimes,
in order to make the gift as large as possible, they claimed to have lamented very vehemently and
piteously. It often happened that sometime after a death, and when there had been no mourning for a
long time, a near friend would break out suddenly in piteous wailing at the sight of a garment or other
article of deceased. The Umpquas formerly put pitch and ashes or pitch and powdered charcoal on their
hair while mourning; and, in all the tribes, a woman mourning for a husband deceased was not expected
to wash or comb. The more ragged, dirty and slovenly she went, the greater regard she was showing
the departed. To wear good clothes, laugh or be cheerful was an insult to the dead, and a certain
indication that the person was lacking in respect for the deceased. Widows who did not howl vehemently
or constantly enough were considered voluptuous and anxious to marry, and were regarded with
contempt. Superstitious fears prevented the tribes east of the mountains from mourning at night.
The Manner of Sepulture of the Indians varied. Those east of the Cascades buried the dead. Those
on Puget Sound in many places deposited corpses in canoes, putting the body in one canoe and turning
another over it, the upper canoe being the smaller. The canoes were propped up two or three feet from
the ground. On the Columbia river the Indians deposited their dead in houses built of bark or cedar
boards of their own making. The corpse was lashed to a post or board and placed in an inclined position
until the fluids had drained away; and finally it was placed horizontally. The "dead-houses
covered over and shut in with care. Islands in the Columbia were favorite burial places, being more out
of the reach of coyotes and other wild animals. Some of the Chinooks used to put dead infants in quiet,
still pools of water.
were
Among all the Indians, whatever mode of sepulture was chosen, much of the deceased person's
personal property was placed with or about the body. Pots, kettles, cups, guns, knives, bows and
arrows, pipes, articles of clothing and ornament, and money, were buried with the dead man or placed
about the grave.
All utensils had holes punched in them; guns were broken or rendered useless to the
living. Clothing was wrapped about the corpse with blankets and robes, and not damaged. The object
of breaking or marring property was to prevent theft. The Columbia river Indians were more
punctilious in their burial customs than any other of the Oregon or Washington Indians. On the death
of chiefs, slaves were formerly killed that they might go into the spirit world to wait upon the master.
They were strangled with a cord drawn tightly about the neck, or sometimes tightly bound and lashed to
the corpse face to face, touching and left thus to die. Horses and dogs were killed also on these
occasions. The notion was that the spirit of the dead man mounted the spirit of the horse; and that thus
equipped the soul of the deceased rode to the spirit land.
A few years ago among the Yakimas, a certain Indian died; and one of his horses was killed,
according to the usual custom. A little while afterwards there was a religious dance held; and a certain
old tamanowash prophet claimed to have been permitted to look into the other world. He said the dead
man had never reached the happy country. His people had committed a grave error because they killed
a stallion for the dead man. Instead of bearing his spirit to the Indian heaven, he was roaming around
over the earth with poor Shullaway, and would forever wander in quest of animals of the opposite sex!
This was taken as divine revelation.
A custom that prevailed more or less among all the tribes east of the mountains was that, if a person
of a traveling party died, they placed his body upon a scaffold in the air and afterwards removed it to a
place of burial. It was the usage of all the tribes to take up the bones of the dead, and clean them and
wrap them in new blankets or robes, and rebury them. Sometimes this rehabilimenting was done several
times. The river tribes had regular ossuaries where they stowed away the bones of the dead. At the
Cascades there formerly was one extensive ossuary. It had been there doubtless for many hundreds of
years. Lewis and Clark noticed it when they were on their expedition nearly ninety years ago; and it
was then in much better condition than it was sixty years later. It was mostly destroyed when the
Oregon Steam Navigation Company built their portage railway at the Cascades. Some of the Indians in
the extreme southern part of Oregon about Klamath Lake formerly burned their dead, and burned slaves
on the death of a chief.
LEGENDS, MYTHS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
93 ·
There is a prevaling idea among the Indians of the Northwest that there is some mystic power or
influence connected with the wild rosebush, and that the perfume, though so pleasant to the living, is
offensive to the dead. When a person was very sick they generally stuck up rosebushes all around the
head of the bed to keep away the spirits. Some of the Indians say the spirits do not like the thorns.
The ghosts gather about a sick and dying man, and are beckoning him and trying to steal him away from
the living. Ghosts and spirits of the dead hang about graveyards; and Indians have a superstitious dread
of such places. It is a prevalent notion that the spirits are particularly active at night. Women will not
carry a baby near a graveyard; or, if they do, they put rosebushes all around the pappoose board to keep
away the ghosts. Spirits of the dead are supposed to have a peculiar love or affinity for little infants, and
are always watching an opportunity to snatch the little souls away.
To eat salmon or berries after touching a corpse, without being purified by the five days' sweating,
would be the height of imprudence. The offended salmon would cease to run, the berries would not grow.
Food so handled would never digest, would be poison and cause the body to wither away. If a sick
person dies, anything he might have happened to spit upon must be burned. The dead are handled by
persons who have been inspired by the ghosts, or persons who have the tlchachie (ghost) tamanowash.
If the eyes of a corpse remain open, the spirit is looking back on some member of the family, who will
soon follow it in death. After death in a lodge, that lodge is always torn down and removed; because the
spirit of the dead person will naturally linger about where the body last lay. If a campfire by accident
or otherwise be built over a grave, or where a human corpse has lain or blood was spilled in murder, the
ghost of the deceased will appear in the flame, and his shadow be seen on the ground near the fire.
At a funeral, all are careful not to drop anything they may have about the person, even a hair; the
person dropping it will sicken and die. Leaving a graveyard they never look back, and never point a
finger at a grave. These are insults to the dead that will surely be resented. If anyone should by
accident sleep where someone was buried, or where someone died, the ghosts of the dead will draw that
person's eye or mouth to one side. The distorted mouth and dropped eye caused by facial paralysis the
Indians believe was always the work of spirits of the dead. The name of this disease in the Klikitat
language was about the same as saying "ghost disease." Those who walk over graves or where human
blood was spilled and death resulted will have crooked anchylosed knee-joints; the spirit of the deceased
will inflict this punishment as a mark of his displeasure. Those who smell the stench of putrid corpses,
the Indians believed were very liable to shrivel up, waste away and die.
Superstition lingers long and dies hard, and is the last relic of barbarism to fall before the march of
mental progress.
No nation and perhaps even no individual exists to-day who is wholly free from this
clog to reason. The mythic ideas of the ancient Grecians, Romans and many other nations of antiquity
are emblazoned all over our literature. The days of our weeks and months are but the names of mythic
heroes that lived only in the imagination of races long since dead. Astronomy, the sublimest science
known to man, has crowned the stars with names once borne by hero gods and mythic personages conjured
into existence by the imagination of barbarians. The people of our own blood and race are not far enough
out of the fogs of superstition to divide the credulity or ridicule the myths of the savages about them.
We have only to look back a few centuries to find our own ancestors living in wigwams, clad in the
undressed skins of beasts, and as unlettered and superstitious as the North American Indians.
REHABILIMENT OF THE DEAD.
Reclothing the dead was an almost universal custom of the tribes of Oregon and Washington, more
especially of those along the Columbia and east of the Cascade Mountains. The Indians about the
Cascades, and down towards Vancouver, formerly went in the fall, when the fishing season was over, to
the islands up the Columbia, where their cemeteries and "dead-houses" were, and rehabilimented their
dead. They went in boats, taking along blankets, buffalo and elk skins, moccasins, beadwork, and
whatever fancy or affection might dictate, to put with the bones of their deceased friends. If they arrived
at the place in the evening, bringing a corpse to put away in their places of sepulture, or bringing garments
to reclothe the dead, they never stopped on the island, but camped on the shore of the river a little distance
away. It was their rule to do all handling of corpses in burial, or redressing, in the forenoon, as they
believed that at that time the spirits were more quiet, and not moving so freely around in the world. Along
towards evening, they believed the ghosts were out around and were more active in exerting their malevolent
influences. If they had along a corpse, it was taken some distance from camp, and put up out of the reach
of wild beasts during the night. When thus camping near the islands containing their cemeteries, they
were very superstitious, and dreaded some kind of injury from the spirits of the dead. They had stories
of seeing lights in the night-time about the dead-houses, and of hearing the spirits of the dead Indians
beating drums and dancing. This was taken as an omen of evil. The spirits were dancing in prospect
of meeting someone of the campers, who was soon to die.
On arriving, in the morning, at the place of sepulture, the Indians sat off at a little distance, and
gave directions as to the reclothing of their dead friends. The work of handling the corpses or bones was
done by one man, who had received the tamanowash spirit or power from the ghosts. He was called,
"thchách-au koot-koot-tla," worker with the dead, or klaky-klé-kle," turner of the bones of the dead.
This old man, for he usually was past middle life, was well paid for these services. While working about
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
the graves or corpses, he pretended to hold communications with the dead, and was heard talking,
apparently asking or answering questions. Sometimes he would report that the spirits were offended at
the presence of some person or persons of the company, in which case these persons always went away without
a second warning, losing no time in their going. The old klaky-klé-kle's communications were various;
and, whatever they were, they were received by the Indians as almost divine revelation. The custom was
to scrape off all the decayed animal matter from the bones of the dead, and then to wrap them in blankets,
or robes made of the skins of wild animals, putting in such articles as moccasins, knives, beads, pipes, and
red pigments for painting the face, etc. The bones, with these articles, were well wrapped up, and
carefully placed on platforms elevated about two feet in their houses of sepulture. The remains of
families were placed side by side, with heads to the west.
The tribes east of the Cascade Mountains, in the bunch-grass country, generally buried their dead.
These tribes also rehabilimented their dead, digging the earth out of the graves, and cleaning everything
away, and wrapping the bones up in blankets or skins of animals, the same as the river tribes.
In some
cases the reclothing of the deceased was kept up for years; some kept it up every year, others at intervals
of from two to four years. Frequently the death of someone in the tribe would be made the occasion of
reclothing a relative of the deceased, who had died years previously. Often, in such a case, the old
grave was dug out; and the bones of the first were buried with the corpse in the old grave.
It was
generally believed that putting clothes upon the bones of deceased friends, and articles of use and
ornament in the graves, long after their burial, was greatly appreciated by the spirits of the departed,
and that these blankets, clothing and trinkets in some way added to the comfort, happiness and
respectability of the spirits in the other world. Somehow the spirit of the material blanket, moccasin,
pipe, etc., would go and attach itself to the spirit of the dead. I do not know of any of these tribes that
put food in the graves, though this may have been practiced. It was a very common idea that the spirits
or ghosts were always hungry; and, while the Indians did not leave food at the graves, as the Chinese
do, they, when passing graves carrying any article of food, always threw a little towards the place of
burial. An omission to reclothe the dead was considered a mark of a brutish, unfeeling heart; and the
neglect was liable to some dire visitation from the spirits.
The old klaky-klé-kles, or persons who work among the bones of the dead, say they can hear very
distinctly the voices of those recently buried. After some time, the sounds are less distinct; and the
voices sound as if the spirits were talking "through their noses. Later on, when the body has nearly
crumbled to dust, the tones get down to faint whispers; and, when the last vestige of the bones and body
are gone, the voices cease entirely. Many years ago there was a famous ossuary at the Cascades, where
bones had been accumulating for ages perhaps. The ruthless hand of civilization has almost obliterated
these old landmarks of ancient superstition. However much we may boast of our freedom from
superstition, and ridicule the ideas of the Indians, there are yet many Whites who, like the
boy," feel constrained to whistle to keep up courage while passing a graveyard at night.
THE INDIANS' IDEA OF THE SOUL AND A FUTURE STATE.
Yankee
As has been mentioned, the Indians believe that all objects are of a dual nature, having a soul or
spirit-like existence independent of the material form. It is said that some of the Oregon tribes formerly
held that the various organs of the body were each endowed with separate souls. Among all the tribes
the idea seemed to be that there were really two persons, the spirit or soul and the body with its animal
life, and that the body could exist for some time while the soul was absent. This ghostlike self had the
same form and visage as the body. While they believed in a spirit or soul, they do not appear to have
thought it was as much a reality as the body. There was a vague, misty unsubstantiality about it that
must have been very unsatisfying to their minds. The soul could leave the body and go away in dreams
and trances, and could appear as an apparition in places far from the body, with form and features
recognizable. In their languages, life and breath or spirit and breath meant the same thing.
A good many if not all of the Indians believed that there were certain shamans or conjurors that
could rob them of their souls, and that the body would continue to live on for a longer or shorter time,
but that it must soon die. In their so-called doctoring pow-wows, the doctors professed to restore the
absent soul to its owner, and thus make his recovery to health possible. Another idea quite prevalent
among the tribes in Northern Oregon and Washington was that the soul could come back and inhabit
some other body. The most northerly tribes bordering upon and reaching into British Columbia thought
the soul came back and entered certain birds, fish, or the deer or elk. Others held that the soul came
back in the body of infants born to near relatives. It entered the body of a female and appeared in her
child. If the child strongly resembled the deceased, then there was no doubt but that he had appeared
again; and his name was sooner or later conferred upon it. Some of the tribes in the Northwest held that
the deceased could choose in what family he would be born again; and, among the poor and sick or
suffering, life was laid down with little regret, believing they might after a while be born into wealthy or
honorable families. It was generally believed that the spirits of the dead are out around the world very
active and busy during the night, but that in the daytime they stay about graveyards and lonely, dark
places. Some held that the dead go into a state of insensibility as soon as the light of day comes on;
and that, when darkness broods over the world, their spirits come forth rehabilimented and happy,
dancing, feasting and engaging in all kinds of pleasures during the hours of darkness.

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RESIDENCE OF J.N. GILBRANSON
SPOKANE FALLS, W. T.
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LEGENDS, MYTHS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIANS.
95
Whatever happiness or bliss was attributed to those in the spirit land, there seems to have beer a
sort of vague dread and much misgiving in regard to it; and their legends show clearly enough that it
was the general belief that it would be desirable to have the souls of the deceased return to earth; and
that the existence here is really more substantial and desirable than that in the spirit land. Everything
goes to show that for some cause there had been a great deal of change going on in the belief of the tribes
for some time before the advent of the Whites. Their traditions indicate that the Indians had beer
traveling and mixing more together than formerly. There is every indication that, at some period back
only a few hundred years, the tribes had no horses; and their excursions were limited, and there were
greater provincialisms in customs and beliefs than in later times. Formerly each little tribe had its own
grounds, lived and died near their birthplaces, and seldom traveled to any extent. Under these
circumstances, each had its own legends and myths, and its own particular belief as to the future. Now
and for some years back there are found traces of several beliefs mixed in with all the tribes.. There was
much more independence in thought and difference in religious belief than we have been prone to imagine.
There was much more skepticism and tendency to unbelief than we have been taught to look for. Many
individuals, when asked about the future state, will say, "I don't know." Some express a doubt as to
the immortality of the soul; and some utterly deny it.
Among most of the tribes, there seems to have been a pretty distinct idea of rewards and punishments
based on the Indian's idea of right and wrong. In nearly all cases, there was hope held out for relief
and final entrance into the happy land. Generally, after an uncertain length of time spent in banishment,
the sins of the offender were expiated, and he was permitted to pass in among the good, or was even
assisted in. Among no tribes do we find anything like the orthodox fire and brimstone hell; but there
are very close representations to the condition of the ancient Tantalus forever tortured with images of
everything pleasing to the senses, but which he was utterly unable to grasp. The Chinooks and Klikitats
believed in a bright, happy land not very definitely located, where the good were permitted to enjoy
themselves in hunting, fishing and every pleasure conceivable to the Indian mind; while the wicked were
condemned to wander away in a land of cold and darkness to starve and freeze unceasingly. Some of the
Northern tribes say that in the other world there is a dark, mysterious lake or ocean; and that out of this
lake there flow two rivers. Up one on the shores there is a beautiful country filled with all manner of berries
and game, while the stream abounds in fish. Here the good Indian lives in happiness and comfort forever.
Up the other river there is a land of frost, darkness, a stony, barren waste, a land of briers and brambles,
where the sunlight never comes and where the wicked wander forever in cold, hunger and despair.
The Okanagans have an Indian heaven, and a peculiar kind of a hell. Instead of the orthodox
cloven-footed, barbed-tailed devil, there is a being in human form with ears and tail of a horse. This
fantastic being lives in the pine trees, and jumps about from tree to tree, and with a stick beats and prods
the poor souls consigned to his dominions. If among the tribes of the Northwest there is any idea of a
heaven in the sky or in some elevated spot in space, it probably was derived from priests or missionaries.
In the extreme southern part of Oregon, the Indians represent the happy hunting-grounds as beyond a
deep, dark gulf or chasm across which all must pass,-some say on a slippery pole. The good manage
to get over, but the evil fall in and reappear upon earth in the form of beasts, insects or birds. One of
the most common ideas among the interior tribes was that the spirit land is situated far away towards the
south or west. On its journey the soul meets far out on the way a spirit being who understands his
life, and weighs all his conduct and actions. If he has been bad, he is sent on to a crooked, wandering
road that leads to a land of misty darkness where the soul, forlorn, cold and hungry, forever wanders in
despair; while the good are directed along a straight road leading to a country that is bright and beautiful,
and abounding in everything the Indian can desire.
These various shades of belief all give expression to that unutterable longing, characteristic of
humanity in all ages, to look into the future to unravel the mystery of death, and to solve the problem
of man's destiny after he quits this mortal body. In his vain attempts to satisfy the yearnings of his
soul after immortality and happiness beyond the grave, men in all lands have invented mythic stories.
Death, silence and darkness fill the savage mind with superstitious dread. The most profound and
philosophical stand silent in the presence of death. Each tribe or nation of people has its own ideas of
heaven; and each pictures what from its standpoint would seem the most happy and desirable condition.
No people can picture a heaven superior to the powers of their conception to originate. The Indian's
heavenly mansion was a mat-house;-because he had never seen nor thought of anything superior or
better. Drumming, dancing, gaming and feasting were the highest conceptions of felicity possible to the
Indian mind. Hence he pictured for himself a heaven in which these are the chief pleasures. The river
and coast tribes, being accustomed to water and boats, located their heaven on a faraway island; and the
spirits were conveyed to the Indian paradise in boats. The prairie tribes, being accustomed to horses as
the speediest and best mode of conveyance, sent their dead to heaven on horseback.
We thus see that the habits of life and the surroundings of a people had much to do in their heaven
building. The Indian prophet harangues the children of the prairie and forest about a heaven where
drumming, dancing and various plays and sports are conducted in a great mat-house. The Mohammedan
priest tells the followers of Islam of a land of palaces, fountains and delicate perfumes, where beautiful
houris and genii are found; and where the soul revels in sensual pleasure. The early Christian fathers
preached about a heaven with golden streets, jasper walls, seas of glass and fountains and rivers of life
A higher authority says, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man
to conceive," what heaven is like; and this is in consonance with reason and philosophy.
t
8
CHAPTER LXI.
The Pacific Northwest as It Is To-day-Geographical Outline-Rivers and Harbors—
Agricultural Resources-Timber Resources-Live-stock Interests-Fisheries-
Mineral Resources.
GEOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE.
ALAND grand, beautiful and interesting in its scenic features, vast and varied in its resources;
romantic, thrilling and politically momentous in its history; with a people self-reliant, intelligent and
generous; a land great in its past, greater yet in the promise of its future, such is Oregon, thirty-third in
order of admission of the states, fifth in area, westernmost in position, most isolated and remote from the
great centers of population, last to be reached by the great railway lines, the wilderness child of the
American family of commonwealths. And with Oregon is to be joined in history and natural character
and present development her sisters, Washington and Idaho, the former of which, while these pages are
in preparation, has been invited to join her light to the galaxy of states, and the latter of which may rest
assured that the time is near at hand when she, too, will be born into statehood.
In the first volume of this work the history of the human actors in the development of the Pacific
Northwest has been narrated. We have briefly depicted the fortunes of the twilight race of aborigines
whom the full rising of the sun of civilization seems inexorably to waste away. We have with explorers
threaded the untrodden cañons, and been tossed on the foamy rivers. We have with fur hunters braved
hungry reefs and bars and yet more savage men, and with them, too, gloated over shiploads of glossy
furs, worth their weight in gold. With the advance guard of immigration, we have made the weary march
over interminable plains, camped in wild defiles, whence savage eyes of men and beasts have watched us
in the darkness, hollowed the hasty grave for some worn emigrant, taking the first rest of a lifetime, and
at last have gazed with them from some Cascade height upon their promised land. We have been with
them again as cabin smoked and blood streamed from the sudden foray of a savage assailant. We have
watched, too, their entrance into peace and progress and commercial and political importance. But there
is a history of our Pacific Northwest, not yet written, which so far antedates all its human modifications
that they seem in comparison but a bubble on the sea of time.
This is a history of the elemental forces, volcanic, aqueous, glacial and climatic, which built our
mountains, scooped out our valleys, ground the rocks into soil, cracked the backbone of mountain chains,
and confronted the ocean with unending forests. We shall not undertake such a task as the presentation
of this great theme in these pages, but will simply set before you in order some of the most marked and
important results of this infinite series of sequences, to the end that the present physical condition of the
great region which our work describes may be plain, and that the subsequent chapters detailing the
industries and the unfoldings of enterprise may thus have their proper introduction and comprehension.
The present State of Oregon is but a small part of the imperial domain which first received that
name, once the ultima thule of the adventurous spirits of the border, and the land of promise to the hardy
pioneer, won by blood from the native inhabitants, and by the settler's axe and the emigrant wagon from
the greedy nations of Europe. The old Oregon Territory embraced the present limits of Oregon,
Washington, Idaho and the western third of Montana. It contained nearly three thousand square
miles of land. It may be practically spoken of as the valley of the Columbia. It lies between latitude
forty-two and forty-nine, is bounded on the east by the Rocky Mountains, and on the west by the Pacific
Ocean. Its mountain chains give it a peculiar configuration and a remarkable variety of climate. The
eastern border is marked by the multiplied spurs of the Rocky Range, and its western by the "continuous
woods" with which the comparatively low and rounded Coast Range fronts the Great Ocean. Extending
throughout this Columbia valley, from north to south, is the narrow, towering range of the Cascades.
This range is the northern prolongation of the Sierras of California, and constitutes the most remarkable,
as well as most influential, physical feature of the entire coast. It divides the Pacific Northwest into two
natural sections, totally different in climate, appearance and natural productions.
The Cascade Mountains are extraordinary for their narrowness, being at most points not more than
fifty miles wide, as well as for their general uniformity in height, averaging about five thousand feet, and
their almost exclusively volcanic character. They are remarkable, too, for the lofty volcanic cones which
( 96 )
GEOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE.
97
rise from them at almost regular intervals. These are in order, beginning on the north, with their heights
given in round numbers: Baker, ten thousand feet; Ranier (1), fourteen thousand, four hundred and
forty; St. Helens, nine thousand, seven hundred and fifty; Adams, thirteen thousand, three hundred; and
then, crossing into Oregon, Hood, eleven thousand, two hundred and twenty-five; Jefferson, ten thousand;
Three Sisters, highest about nine thousand, five hundred, and lowest about eight thousand, five hundred;
Diamond Peak, Thielson, Scott, the heights of which are not so accurately known, but probably do not
vary much from nine thousand feet; and last of all, towering above the Klamath Lakes and looking over
into Calfornia, Mount Pitt, which is nearly eleven thousand feet high. From this enumeration it appears
that there are thirteen great peaks, four in Washington and nine in Oregon, of which the average height
is about ten thousand feet. Besides these there are dozens of lesser heights, many of which are not even
named, which attain a height of seven thousand feet. The entire Cascade Range is one tremendous
mass of volcanic rock. The primeval granite is found in patches here and there underneath the flood of
lava. The great peaks are in only a dormant state of volcanic energy, and show by their uneasy heaving
from time to time the presence of the earth-giant chained beneath. Hood, St. Helens and Ranier, in
particular, have had outbursts frequently since the settlement of the country. In 1835 and 1842, St.
Helens had tremendous explosions. A river of stiffened lava, fifteen miles long and half a mile wide,
is now found on the south side of the mountain; and in it are yet to be seen the twisted and half-consumed
tree trunks at some time overwhelmed. Everywhere throughout the entire extent of these mountains are
to be found stupendous crags of basalt, amygdaloid and trachyte, and wide areas of pumice-stone and
heaps of ashy desolation, the emptied slag of earth's primeval furnaces, evidences of a volcanic energy
which must have some time made the earth tremble.
Geologists believe that after the era of fire came one of flood. Vast seas were imprisoned by the
upheaval of the Rocky and Cascade Ranges. The first of these great seas covered the Arizona
basin, and was drained by the Colorado river, which, to do its work, cleft the great plateau to the depth
of five thousand feet. The second covered Utah and part of Nevada, and has been removed by evaporation;
all except Great Salt Lake, which remains as a sample. The Columbia Sea, much larger than either of
the others, tended south into Nevada and north far into British Columbia. It burst the Cascade barrier
at the point where the Columbia now flows. Its enormous bed thus became an open plain, and from
the mountain heights rivers began to make their way across it downward towards the sea. Inasmuch as
the great plain was at an average elevation above the sea of two thousand feet, the new-born rivers soon
trenched out deep channels, while their tributaries repeated the process laterally on a smaller scale. Thus
the valley became grid-ironed with cañons; and thus was gradually developed the hilly character which
it now has. The great basin of the upper Columbia, thus formed, is practically a plain, though hilly in
places, except for the Blue Mountains, which rise like a huge lump in the very middle of it. It looks as
though they had more matter than they knew what to do with, and so dumped it in the middle. This
curious, triangular, many-valleyed mass of mountains is, however, of almost computeless value to Eastern
Oregon and Southeastern Washington; for without them the now fertile prairies of Umatilla and Walla
Walla, and the adjoining regions, would be rainless and desolate. The Salmon River Mountains of Idaho
are a practical continuation of the Blue Mountains, though sundered from them by the profound chasm
of the Snake river. The two ranges separate the vast plains of the middle and upper Snake from Eastern
Oregon and Washington in much the same way that they themselves are separated from their western
sections. It does not make so marked a difference, however, in climate and productions; for the regions
east of the Blue Mountains, though drier and colder than those west, have still essentially the same
characteristics.
That portion of Oregon, lying south of the parallel of the Blue Mountains and east of the Cascades,
is frequently called the lake country; and indeed one of the counties of that section is named Lake county.
It is a rolling, treeless land, with scanty rainfall, almost uninhabited except by cattlemen and their
enormous herds. Its apparent desolations are relieved by a number of large and beautiful lakes, such
as the Klamath Lakes, which reach the sea through the river of the same name, and Summer, Abert,
Christmas, Harney and Malheur Lakes, which have no outlets. The northern boundary of the great
"Inland Empire" (as the upper Columbia valley is frequently called) is marked by a tangled wilderness
of mountains, almost unexplored and unnamed, throughout which the Okanagan, Kootenai and Clark's
rivers cut their way. To the northeast are the spurs of the Rockies, the Cœur d'Alene, Pen d'Oreille,
and Bitter Root Ranges. These ranges make Northern Idaho almost entirely a mountainous country,
though along its extreme western border are some of the richest farming lands in the whole Columbia
valley. These fertile tracts lie along the headwaters of Hangman creek, of the Palouse, and the course
of the Clearwater. The rugged chain of the Salmon River Mountains, already alluded to, makes so
complete a separation between Northern and Southern Idaho that it is reported that members of the
legislature from the former region have sometimes had to go to the capital, Boise, by way of San Francisco;
and even at the best they have to go by way of Umatilla and Baker City in Oregon. The stupendous
Teton spurs of the Rockies, bounding Idaho on the east and separating it from Wyoming, mark the
extremest eastern limit of the Columbia valley. Such is a bird's-eye view of the portion of the Pacific
Northwest lying east of the Cascades. Some of its special features, as the magnificent lakes of Northern
Idaho, the Cœur d'Alene and Pen d'Oreille, deserve especial mention. Their grandeur and beauty beggar
description; while their practical utility cannot be estimated. Being a "land of old upheaven from
(1) Tacoma.
98
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
the abyss," this whole "Inland Empire" has a volcanic soil; and the trituration of the ages has
gradually reduced it to a condition of the utmost fertility. Chemical analysis shows that this blanket of
decomposed lava contains in greater perfection than in any known region the necessary ingredients for
wheat production.
And now a few words must be added as to the contour and general physical presentment of that
smaller section of the Pacific Northwest lying west of the Cascades. This region is about one-fifth in
size that of the eastern; but, by reason of its earlier settlement and proximity to the ocean, it was sooner
developed and now contains two-thirds of the population of the Pacific Northwest. West of the Cascades
we find a marvelous change in climate and the general appearance of the country, though there is
something after all which suggests to the traveler that the two sections are allied and necessary halves
of one great whole. Instead of the rolling, treeless prairies of the eastern section, we find low, level
lands, belted at frequent intervals by forests of spruce, fir, cedar and pine, all of gigantic size, and
interlaced by an infinity of lesser growth. This region, as a whole, may be divided into two general
divisions, one composed of the part north of the Columbia, and the other of that south. The
former, which is, of course, Western Washington, is a broken and almost entirely wooded country,
cut half way across by the many-branched Sound, and punctuated on its northwestern corner by the
lofty and snow-crowned Olympic Mountains. The southern part, or Western Oregon, is much larger,
having a coast line of nearly three hundred miles, and is naturally divided into the coast section and
the valley section. These are sundered by the Coast Mountains, and are of about equal size, the former
being about fifty miles wide by three hundred long, and the latter about sixty by two hundred and fifty.
The former is composed of rugged and heavily timbered mountains, with numerous small and exceedingly
fertile valleys opening to the sea. The latter consists of three large and mainly level valleys, open for the
most part, though with belts of timber at frequent and convenient intervals. These three valleys are, in
order, beginning on the north, the Willamette, sixty miles by a hundred and fifty; the Umpqua, separated
from the former by the Calapooia Mountains, and about a third its size; and lastly, separated from the
Umpqua by the Umpqua and Cow Creek Mountains, is the Rogue river valley, of about the same size as
the Umpqua. These three rich and beautiful valleys were the first part of the Northwest to be settled;
and until within five or six years they produced more grain than all the rest of the Pacific Northwest
combined. The valley of the Upper Columbia, however, now far surpasses them in annual production.
Western Washington is almost exclusively a lumber country, the amount of agricultural land being
relatively small. There are, however, some rich valleys, as those of the Cowlitz and Lewis rivers, both
tributaries of the Columbia, the Chehalis, which empties into Gray's Harbor, and the Skagit, which is
near the northern boundary and flows into the Sound.
And now what of the climatic conditions as manifested in these two different divisions of the Pacific
Northwest? It may be summed up in a sentence: The Cascade Mountains, reaching their volcanic fingers
up into the clouds which drift inland from the ocean, wring the moisture out of them, so that the lands
west are frequented by rains, while those east are wrapped in sunshine. Western Oregon and Washington
have practically two seasons, the wet and the dry. The former usually begins about the first of November
and ends about the first of April. Statistics show the annual rainfall to average about fifty-five inches at
Portland, about forty-five in the upper parts of the Willamette valley, about forty in the Umpqua, and
thirty in the Rogue river. The rainfall gradually decreases, as seen, to the south; and it increases in about
the same ratio towards the north, with the exception that about Port Townsend and the islands of the
Strait of Fuca it is much less again. About the mouth of the Columbia and in general along the coast
the rainfall is much greater than in the valley belt. At Neah Bay it sometimes reaches one hundred and
twenty inches. At Astoria it is usually about seventy inches. The temperature is very equable, seldom
falling below zero or even to ten degrees above, and seldom exceeding eighty-five degrees. Occasional
days have been known, however, when the mercury has reached one hundred degrees or more. The
climate is in the main healthful and pleasant, though as the year darkens to its cloudy decline, and as day
succeeds day of cloudy or rainy weather, the effect is wearing on one's spirits, as well as likely to produce
rheumatic and catarrhal troubles. The summer season, calm, cool, equable, with sleep-wooing nights, is as
delightful as can well be conceived.
Of all sections of the western portion of the Pacific Northwest, the Rogue river country takes the
lead in climatic attractions. It has neither the excessive rainfall of the Willamette nor the drought of
California. The climate of the eastern part of our country is very dry. The average rainfall at Walla
Walla is about nineteen inches. It gradually diminishes to the southward, and increases to the northward.
On the great plains of Idaho it is only about ten inches; while about the lakes of Northern Idaho it reaches
thirty. In spite of this deficient rainfall, the region of the Columbia usually matures crops of the finest
quality and quantity. The soil is so deep and so mellow and absorptive of the dews and moisture of the
clouds and the heavy sea-winds that, in many well-authenticated instances, the finest products have been
matured without any rain at all. High, dry, windy and treeless as it is, the Upper Columbia plains look
so unfruitful that for many years they were thought unsusceptible of culture. Never did the appearance
of a country more completely belie its true character. Like the western portion of our country, the
eastern has a climate much warmer than the states in the same latitudes in the East.
The winters are usually but six weeks or two months in length, beginning about the middle of
December and ending about the first of February. Spring is commonly well advanced by the middle of
March, the flowers and fruit-trees are in bloom and the grain in vigorous growth. During the winter,


JOHN W.WAUGHOP, M.D.
SUPT. HOSPITAL INSANE OF W.T.
RIVERS AND HARBORS.
99
short as it is, however, it is sometimes intensely cold. In January, 1888, the thermometer recorded
twenty degrees below zero at Walla Walla, thirty-two degrees below at Spokane, and forty-five degrees
below at Ellensburg. But, by the first of March, it was up to sixty degrees. It is also very hot at times
in the Inland Empire. The mercury has climbed up to one hundred and twelve degrees at Walla Walla,
The Dalles and other interior points. The springs and autumns are, however, most charming.
But thus much must suffice for a brief glance at the most general features of this great country. In
the subsequent chapters we propose to take up and carefully, though briefly, consider its special features
of natural resources and human cultivation. The day has now gone by in which wholesale and
extravagant laudation and speculative booming will aid a country. The aim of this work is historical, not
speculative; and hence we shall present a plain, reasonable account of the different elements which enter
into it. We believe that the reality is enough to attract both visitors and settlers; and, in the faith that
the coming chapters will speak for themselves, we submit them to our readers.
RIVERS AND HARBORS.
The river and harbor system of the Pacific Northwest are of surpassing beauty and of peculiar interest
to the student of geography and geology. To the business mind, however, there are two facts to notice
which militate somewhat against the practical usefulness of our water systems. These are,-first, the
rivers, descending, as they do, from the elevated inland part of the country, are exceedingly swift and
present many obstacles to navigation; second, the coast, being generally high and unindented, possesses
few good harbors. Generally speaking, the coast extends in one vast and uniform wall of rock, along
which the mighty swell of the Pacific thunders in impotent recognition of the fact that "hitherto it shall
come and no further." To the generally turbulent and obstructed character of our rivers, the only
exceptions are the lower Columbia and the Willamette. The last one hundred and eighty miles of the
Columbia is one of the most magnificent watercourses in the world; while the Willamette, though
broken by one considerable fall (at Oregon City), is otherwise a calm and placid stream, of remarkable
volume for its length, and furnishing unusual facilities for navigation. To the generally inaccessible
character of our coast, there is but one marked exception, Puget Sound; but, so extraordinary an exception
is that, that the world hardly furnishes a parallel. Of its wonderful facilities for ingress and egress and
of its multifarious resources, new ones rising almost daily from its encircling forests and from its bold and
picturesque margin of mineral-veined hills, we shall speak at length in due time. Meanwhile, spread out
the map and glance at the general countenance of the country. Repeat the view which you have already
taken of the contour of the mountains. You will see that they govern the general character of the
river systems.
With a few trifling exceptions in the southern part of Oregon and in the northwestern part of
Washington, all the rivers of the Pacific Northwest discharge their contents into the sea through the
Columbia. The Pacific Northwest is, practically, the valley of the Columbia. The Columbia is the great
central artery of the country. Rising in the very heart of the Rockies in a deep-sunk lake called the
"Punch-bowl," which, strange to say, connects it with the Athabasca, almost under the shadow of the
stupendous Mounts Brown and Hooker, it flows northward one hundred and fifty miles along the foot
of the mountains. Receiving at its highest northern point, in latitude fifty-four degrees, the foaming
contributions of Canoe river, it makes the grand wheel southward and descends in cataract impetuosity
until, in latitude fifty degrees, it becomes stilled in the placid deeps of the Arrow Lakes. The upper of
these two interesting lakes is thirty miles long by about five miles wide; and its entrancing beauty of
surface, with its infinite variations of coloring, makes a striking contrast with the rugged, almost appalling
grandeur of its rocky shores. This rock formation, unlike that of the great middle plains of the Columbia,
is granite. Issuing with renewed impetuosity from this lake, the headlong current is stayed again in the
lower of the Arrow Lakes. This, though wider than the other, is not so long. It has the same
characteristics of stern and savage grandeur. The river issues from it in a profound chasm in the solid
rock. Here, those best informed claim, is the natural place to apply the reservoir system to regulate the
flow of the lower Columbia. A dam could be made here very easily which might throw the summer flood
of the river back into the Arrow Lakes, thus constituting an immense reservoir of them, and preventing
the disastrous floods on the lower river, as well as storing up a great quantity of water for use in
sustaining the attenuated river of autumn. Below the Arrow Lakes the river resumes, and for many
miles maintains, its normal character of abrupt and striking variation. Calm and glassy lagoons
alternate with whirling rapids. Green and smiling meadows succeed such craggy desolations that the
fleeting glimpse of greenery seems an optical delusion.
The Kootenai is the first large stream in the course of the Columbia's tributaries. It gathers up
the waters of a large and mountainous region lying in the main north of our national domain, and
containing the great Kootenai Lake as its central feature. This almost unknown land is rich in
mineral and timber resources and stock, and is not destitute of farming possibilities. Experienced stock
men say that the best stock range in the country is along the Kootenai. Owing, however, to the
narrowness of the valleys and their general elevation, and their consequently rigorous climate, it will
never cut any great figure in the agricultural world. The Kootenai river is remarkable for its
100
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
sluggishness and frequent lake-like expansions. Almost at the national boundary the already vast
volume of the Columbia is augmented by the influx of the largest tributary yet received, and, with
the exception of the Snake, the largest of the entire course. This is Clark's Fork. This wild and
impetuous stream locks its multiplied fingers with those of the Missouri; and, with its never-ending
washings, it carries away the floods born of the snows in the shaggy defiles of the Bitter Root
Mountains. The upper section of Clark's Fork, commonly known as the Bitter Root river, expands
into the magnificent body of water known as Pen d'Oreille Lake. For scenic grandeur this lake is
not easily paralleled on the continent. Bold mountains, densely clothed with majestic forests, encircle
it; and from their depths an increasing wealth of mineral and timber is derived. The lower part of
Clark's Fork (from Pen d'Oreille Lake downward) is frequently called by its Indian name, Simeaquoteen.
Though conveying an immense quantity of water (about two-thirds as much as the Snake and perhaps
a fourth as much as the Columbia at their junction), this stream is so much broken by rapids as to
present little chance for navigation. The lake and that part of the river above to Cabinet Rapids has been
well traversed with steamboats; but, apart from that section, there are few to brave the threatening
current and the savage rocks. Much of its lower course could be navigated, and no doubt will be
ere long.
Again resuming our journey down the main river, we find ourselves at the Kettle Falls, which are
about fifty miles below the mouth of Clark's Fork. Here the river precipitates itself over a volcanic dyke
a dozen feet high, forming a peculiarly torn and ragged cataract. Even at this distance above its mouth,
the river is nearly half a mile wide, swift, deep and clear. The peculiar clearness of its waters is due to
the settling of the sediment in the Arrow Lakes. For a like reason the Kootenai, Clark's Fork and
Spokane are exceedingly clear. Thus the river might reach the sea; but, when it receives the Snake, its
pure flood is polluted by that turbid flow. Above Kettle Falls, the Columbia is navigable nearly three
hundred miles, or to Farwell, at the second crossing of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, above the Arrow
Lakes. Below those falls, a steamer can go down to Astoria, a distance of about seven hundred miles.
An ascent is, however, impracticable at several points yet to be described. Just above Kettle Falls, the
Colvile river enters the Columbia. This is too scanty and turbulent to afford navigation; but it waters
one of the most promising valleys in the upper country, and one well worthy the attention of intending
settlers. Another fifty-mile section below the falls, and we find ourselves at the mouth of the Spokane.
Several interesting things distinguish this limpid though impetuous and wholly unnavigable river. It is
historically interesting, because on its bank was established Fort Spokane, in the year 1810, the second
establishment of white men west of the Rocky Mountains, Henry's fort on Snake river being the first.
Then on the banks of this same stream, though higher up, is found the largest town in the interior of the
Pacific Northwest. Still again, there is here a mountain of marble. This is said by some to be of fine ·
quality, and almost limitless in quantity. It is said to be of all shades,-pure white, black, veined, and
delicately tinted. We cannot speak of it from personal observation. Doubtless the future development
of this marble quarry will be valuable.
From the vicinity of the mouth of the Spokane, the vast, tawny, treeless plains of the middle
Columbia region extend in characteristic illimitable swells and rolling hills for three hundred miles south.
The general course of the river through this great interior basin is south. It is, however, subject to many
and remarkable wanderings, in some places running due north, and even northeast. It looks to every
point of the compass. Its general descent is great, and its course broken by frequent and dangerous
rapids. The most notable of these is Priest's rapids, so named, as Alexander Ross tells us, because of the
demonstrations made there by an Indian priest on the occasion of a party of Northwesters landing at the
point in early times. None of these rapids, however, bad as they look, are insuperable obstacles to
navigation. All of them have been successfully ascended as well as descended. Experienced pilots
believe that at comparatively small outlay this section of the river can be made navigable for all kind of
craft. Such men express the opinion that the Cascades, the Dalles, the Kettle Falls and Grand Rapids
are the only places which can never be surmounted without locks and canals, between the ocean and
Farwell, a distance of nearly a thousand miles. There are no rivers of much size or importance between
the Spokane and Priest's Rapids. On the western side is the Okanagan, a mountain torrent, navigable a
few miles from its mouth, and ascended on the route to the Conconully mines. It drains a wild and
elevated region, almost unknown until the recent search for its mineral treasures led hundreds of active
men into its depths. Not far below it is the grand and almost unexplored Lake Chelan, the largest lake
in Washington, fifty miles by four or five in extent. Farther down, the boundless solitudes of grass
prairies are cleft to make way for the shining waters of the Wenatchie, with its peach orchards and
vineyards, said to bear the earliest of all in the Pacific Northwest.
The rivers on the east side of the Columbia in this section of its course are all lost in the sandy
coulees. These coulees are a peculiar feature of the great plain of the Columbia. They consist of deep
channels in the plain cut by ancient streams when the lake that formerly covered the Columbia basin was
being drained off. The Grand Coulee is apparently an old channel of the Columbia itself. Its precipitous
walls afford rare opportunity for the geologist. Not very far below Priest's Rapids comes the largest
stream entering the Columbia on its right bank, all its large tributaries, for topographical reasons which
a glance at the map reveals, entering from the east or south. This one is the Yakima. A typical
Northwestern river, cold, swift, clear, drawing its supplies from the unfailing springs which communicate
with the glacial reservoirs around Mount Ranier, it drains one of the most fertile and promising sections
RIVERS AND HARBORS.
101
of the Inland Empire. It is one of the most important streams for lumbering in our interior country.
There are immense forests about its sources; and its swift waters have been brought into frequent
requisition to drive logs to the treeless lands below. And now, but a few miles below the mouth of the
Yakima (or Tapteal, as the Indians first named it), the Columbia widens its majestic flow, and across the
sandy plain comes to meet it its greatest tributary, the Snake. Thus it is appropriately named, though
the Indian names, Kimooenin and Sahaptin, are more mellifluous. The river is about one-fourth as large
as the Columbia at the point of meeting. Turbid, turbulent and gloomy, it comes to the meeting with a
rush and roar well befitting its angry march of nine hundred miles across lava wastes and through impassable
mountains. The old Canadian voyageurs of Hunt's trapping party called it, “La rivière maudite enragée"
(the accursed mad river); and well does it sustain its character. We cannot here, though it would be
worthy of a chapter by itself, describe the course of this stream from its source at the foot of the Three
Tetons, across the arid prairies of Southern Idaho, down the frightful plunge of the Shoshone, through
the parted heights of the Blue Mountains, till it stains the blue waters of its greater ally with its
discolored flood.
The Snake is navigable to Lewiston, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles from its mouth. The
Clearwater, which joins it there, is navigable a few miles in high water. The Snake itself, though broken
into impassable torrents in its passage of the Blue Mountains, has many long stretches of smooth water
above. Far up in Eastern Idaho, though having a tremendous current which tears away the soft alluvium
of its banks, and yearly transports vast quantities to the sea, it admits the operation of small steamers.
In this upper section the river runs on the top of the ground like a gigantic ditch. It is broken by two
prodigious falls, the American and the Shoshone. The former is about sixty feet high and the latter three
hundred. In savage grandeur it has no equal on this continent; and indeed Niagara is the only one which
surpasses it in volume. At its mouth the Snake is spanned by a massive bridge of stone and iron.
spite of the frequent rapids of its navigable section, the Snake has furnished and will continue to furnish
much traffic for steamboats. Of the immense quantities of grain harvested on the plateaus of Whitman,
Assotin, Garfield, Columbia and Walla Walla counties, which border its banks, a certain proportion goes
and will go down the hills to the steamboat landings. In time, too, the fertile strip of fruit and garden
land which lies next to the river will be cultivated largely, and will furnish much material for river
traffic.
·
In
Of the numerous small streams which enter the Columbia between the Snake and the Cascade
Mountains, it is not possible to speak fully. None of them are navigable, though some of them furnish
large volumes of water. In their order, on the south, they are the Walla Walla (meaning the valley of
waters), the Umatilla (which means the gathering of the sand), the John Day (named for the famous old
hunter), the Des Chutes, or Fall river (known to the Indians as Towahnahiooks). On the north side of
the river there are no tributaries between the Yakima and the Klikitat, a hundred and seventy miles below.
On both sides of the river are numerous small creeks which become almost dry in the long drought of
summer. Most of the streams in this part of the Columbia run through deep cañons in the elevated plain.
The Walla Walla and Umatilla are exceptions, since they enter the Columbia from vast prairies, barren in
appearance, but having a fertile soil, and waiting only the advent of water in irrigating ditches to blossom
into beauty and productiveness. All of the streams mentioned on the south side of the river flow from
the Blue Mountains, except the Des Chutes. It rises on the east side of the Cascades, almost opposite the
sources of the Willamette. Its chief tributary, the Metolius, a furious glacial stream, drains the eastern
flank of Mount Jefferson. The Des Chutes itself, though surpassed only by the Willamette in volume of
all the affluents of the Columbia below the Snake, is but a succession of cataracts, and wholly unfitted
for navigation. In the vicinity of the Des Chutes we see plainly that we are now approaching another
kind of country.
The stupendous snow peaks of the Cascade Range are now marshaled along the west; and shadowy
forms of blue fringe the horizon. The country along the banks, too, though still dry and treeless, becomes
more rugged and wild, as if in anticipation. And well may it look so, for the great Dalles, the greatest
and most singular obstruction on the river, is now at hand. For a distance of about ten miles, the river
is wholly unnavigable; nor can it ever be made navigable without canal and locks. The obstructions
consist of the Tumwater Falls at the head of the stretch and the "chute" at the end.
at the end. The former is, at
low water, a perpendicular fall of about fifteen feet; but at high water the fall is entirely obliterated by
the mass of water, so that steamers can plunge over it. Several miles of smooth water succeed, and then
comes the "chute," one of the most extraordinary places in the world. The whole mighty volume of the
Columbia is forced through a channel only one hundred and sixty-five feet wide. Of its depth no man
knows. The fearful current prevents sounding. In one place, however, a line was thrown out to a length
of three hundred feet, without reaching bottom. The river is, no doubt, "turned on edge." One curious
thing about this place is that an old channel runs along parallel to the existing one for a mile or more,
which might be used as a canal. The rock here being of the hardest kind, and the difficulty of excavating
being very great, it has been estimated that the use of this channel would save a million dollars. At
the best, however, the building and operating of a canal at this place will be attended with much labor
and expense. In the chute," where the river is gorged, the rise in the June flood is from one hundred
to one hundred and forty feet. This monstrous increase in volume will make it a difficult matter to execute
the much-needed and much-desired improvements. But nothing is impossible to modern engineering; and
we may expect that a quarter of a century more will see vessels passing the great Dalles. Immediately
" <<
102
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
below The Dalles, the river expands into a glassy and beautiful bay in which it seems to rest itself from
the fierce struggle with the volcanic forces which it has just passed through. Formerly many steamers
ran on the section of river between Celilo and Lewiston. Now traffic is carried on almost entirely by rail.
The expense of transferring freight at The Dalles causes the ordinary rule to be reversed, and makes rail
carriage cheaper than river. There has been much talk lately of making a ship railway here, one which
might be a sort of an experimental antecedent of the proposed Eads Tehuantepec road. It is also in serious
contemplation to appropriate state funds to make a portage railroad. From the variety of schemes in
process of incubation, it may be reasonably expected that someone will reach maturity ere long; and when
it does the upper country will receive a commercial "boost" quite beyond present ability to estimate.
Below The Dalles the river gradually becomes deeper, wider and more sluggish. In width it varies
from half a mile to a mile and a half; and there are few places where there is a depth of less than a hundred
feet in the channel. The changed character of the river and the sunken forests along the banks between
Hood River and the Cascades make it quite sure that the obstructions at the latter place were caused by a
great landslide at some recent day. The Cascades consist of a cataract a quarter of a mile long, known
as the Upper Cascades, in which there is a descent of about twenty-five feet. Below this there is swift
water for about five miles, in the course of which the river falls about twenty feet more.
The upper
cataract, of course, cannot be ascended by steamers; but strong boats can mount the other rapids, except
in the highest stage of water, and reach the foot of the cataract. A canal is now in process of construction
around this rapid. Even in its incomplete state it is a colossal piece of work, and when finished (as it is
hoped to be within two or three years more) will be one of the greatest works of the kind in the world.
Just above the Upper Cascades the river rises about sixty feet in the summer flood; and, as the huge mass
of yellow water a mile wide is suddenly compressed into the narrow space of three hundred yards, it
thunders down the chasm as though it would crack the earth asunder. Various facts of interest in regard
to the river have been ascertained by the government engineers at the Cascades which we will give here.
At the narrowest place in the river, at the foot of the canal, the width is six hundred feet at low water and
nine hundred and fifty at high water. A cross-section of the river at extreme low water measures 19,900
square feet, and at high water 62,250 square feet. The velocity at the point of measurement is five and
five-tenths miles an hour at low water, and eighteen at high water. The discharge at low water is 10,-
156,690 cubic feet per minute; and at high water it is 70,098,500 cubic feet per minute. The amount of
water discharged at the Cascades is about the same as that of the Mississippi at New Orleans. Thus the
Columbia, though but half as long as the "Father of Waters" has, by reason of the prodigious height
of the mountains of its source, and their consequent snowfall, and probably by its superior swiftness (which
does not allow so rapid evaporation), as much water as that.
way.
Another strange fact about the Columbia at the Cascades is worthy of passing notice, and that is the
sliding banks. As it appears sure that the Cascades were caused by an immense slide into the river, so
the same condition of the banks still continues. On both sides there is a constant movement of the banks
towards the river, insomuch that it is necessary to reset the railroad track every year. The movement
averages about ten inches a year, though in 1883 there was a slip of four or five feet on the south side.
The engineers say that for some time during that summer they could hear on still nights a grinding sound
like a loose upper crust sliding slowly over a solid basis of bed-rock. On sounding the river just off
this point, to see how much water they might have in case they slid off, they found three hundred feet.
Although the Cascades cannot be ascended, there is nothing to hinder a descent at high water; and a number
of boats have been run down. The first boat to make this thrilling shoot was the Umatilla; and the run
was made purely by accident, the boat having been cast off from the wharf before steam was up, on her
way to The Dalles, and having been drawn into the suck of the cataract before she could be got under
This was in 1857. She was in charge of Lawrence Coe, and was making her trial trip. R. R.
Thompson, who, in company with Coe, had built the boat, was also on board; and between them, though
naturally somewhat "rattled" by so unexpected a change in their programme, they kept their senses
sufficiently to guide the boat safely over the worst part of the rapids. One man, however, thinking the
fate of the boat sealed, leaped overboard and was drowned. Having got nearly through, the steamer
struck heavily on a rock projecting from Bradford's Island and stove a hole in her bottom. She sunk in
consequence, but was afterwards raised and repaired and taken to Frazer river. The rock on which she
struck (afterwards known as Umatilla Rock) has since been blown up by the government engineers. A
few years later Captain J. C. Ainsworth ran the Oneonta, the finest steamer then on the river, over the rapids,
making a complete success of it. Captain I. J. Stump then attempted to shoot the shaggy cataract in the
Okanagan; but the stage of water was not favorable, and she was wrecked at the foot of the falls.
lives were lost, however; and the boat was subsequently raised and repaired and ran for many years on the
lower river. Next to make the perilous attempt was the Nez Perce Chief, which was successfully taken
over by Captain Ainsworth. The same skilled pilot afterwards met with equal success in the case of
the Shoshone.
No
A few years passed without any runs of the Cascades; and then the small boat Teaser was safely
guided over the foam and through the rocks by Captain J. W. Brazee. Since that time six large boats
have made the run, and two small ones. Three of these, the Idaho, the Mountain Queen and the Hassalo,
were piloted by Captain J. W. Troup, a gallant and skillful captain, on whom the mantle of Captain
Ainsworth seems to have fallen. To the well-known Captain McNulty must be ascribed the glory of
having taken over the largest boat that ever made the "riffle," to wit, the Thompson, at that time the

7
1884
SMALL'S
OPERA HOUSE-
Livery Stable
SMALLS OPERA HOUSE & LIVERY STABLE
WALLA WALLA, W. T.
RIVERS AND HARBORS.
103
largest boat on the river, and still surpassed only by the Alaskan (1). The Thompson did not make a
scratch, and accomplished the six miles of rapids in seven minutes. The same pilot afterwards took The
Dalles wharf-boat over, but did not meet with so good success. She was badly shaken up. Captain Fred
Wilson is the only man that ever sailed down. This he did with the barge Atlas. The two small boats,
the Gold Dust and the General Humphreys, were safely propelled down the rapids by Captain Mitchell.
Though they were tossed like corks on the frightful swirls, and seemed several times at the point of
swamping, they got safely through. It may be safely asserted that, though the general result of these
attempts has been satisfactory, yet no steamboat man really enjoys the job. It is one of those things
which are pleasanter to look back to than forward to. At the foot of the Cascades, the Columbia feels the
influence of tide-water. The remainder of its course is a stately flow between green banks and timbered
hills; and twenty miles of this distance is between the majestic foam-streaked crags which fire and flood
have united to form. Below Washougal, where the calm waters attain a width of two miles, the banks
become low and fertile, and numerous islands divide the flood. One hundred miles from the sea, the river
receives its third largest tributary, the Willamette. This drains the great valley of Western Oregon, one
hundred and fifty miles long and sixty miles wide.
By reason of the abundant rainfall and the great watershed exposed to snow in the Coast and Cascade
Mountains, the Willamette and its affluents have an extraordinary volume for their length, and, contrary
to the general rule of rivers in the Pacific Northwest, afford remarkable facilities for navigation.
Willamette itself has one fall of about thirty feet at Oregon City; but aside from that it is navigable to
Corvallis, about ninety miles from Portland, and at high water to Eugene, forty miles farther. The falls
at Oregon City are overcome by canal and locks which have been in use many years. Among the
tributaries of the Willamette, the Yamhill and the Tualatin have been used more or less for some distance,
the former quite regularly. The Santiam and Mackenzie afford short stretches of navigable water.
Congressional as well as state aid has been asked, and in some measure received, to clean out drift and
snags from these streams; and, when this is done, the watercourses of the Willamette valley will be a
most important adjunct to its transportation resources. Below the mouth of the Willamette, several
streams of some size and importance enter the Columbia. The first of these is Lewis river, a turbid and
impetuous stream, fed in part by the glacial springs of Mounts Adams and St. Helens. It is boatable for
but a short distance. It enters the Columbia nearly opposite the lower mouth of the Willamette, and is
mainly responsible for the St. Helens bar, which it has formed by the sand thrown out diagonally athwart
the bed of the river. Lake river, a small but deep and sluggish stream, affording navigation for some
miles into a very fine dairy region, enters Lewis river just at its mouth. The next stream worthy of note
is the Cowlitz. This drains the largest and richest valley in Western Washington. The stream is
navigable to Toledo, about thirty-five miles from the mouth. The Cowlitz is the main channel for the
exit of the waters of Mount St. Helens. Like all the streams heading in the snow peaks, it is exceedingly
swift and cold. The region of the Cowlitz is historically famous; for here the Hudson's Bay Company
carried on some of their heavy farming enterprises, and here settled some of the oldest and best known of
the American pioneers.
Of the numerous little rivers which put into the Columbia between the mouth of the Cowlitz and the
sea, it is hardly worth while to speak here. They afford no navigation, with the exception of short strips
on Young's river and the Lewis and Clark; nor do they perceptibly increase the volume of the river. The
mighty stream now broadens to the sea, and flows in majestic tranquillity, a fit symbol of irresistible
power. It attains its greatest width in what is known as Cathlamet Bay. It is there very shallow, and about
eleven miles wide. Just off Tongue Point, which is thrust out most obtrusively, as if to taste of every passing
steamer, the waters concentrate into one vast channel thirty fathoms deep. At Astoria, the most ancient
city of our coast, the width has diminished to about six miles. From this point down, the shores become
very irregular, by the deep indentations of Young's Bay on the south and Baker's Bay on the north. The
last headlands, beyond which the stately waters shoot far out into the ocean (it is said a hundred miles in
the June flood), are the low and sandy spit of Point Adams on the south and the bold and picturesque
promontory of Cape Hancock on the north. The two capes, seven miles apart, are both crowned with
lighthouses and forts.
The mouth of the river has two channels, the north, which winds along almost at
the foot of Cape Hancock, and the south, which might better be called the middle, since it is almost in the
center of the stream.
Sand Island, a large and shifting body of sand, closely borders the north channel. It, together with
the sand-bars making out from it, seems to have been subject to constant fluctuations, having had no
existence in the beginning of this century, and now being two miles farther north than it was twenty years
ago. Those who were here fifty years ago say that at that time there was a long cape crowned with trees
which ran out from Point Adams a distance of a mile or more. This was afterwards washed out entirely.
Latterly Sand Island has developed a strong migratory tendency to the north; and, in consequence, Baker's
Bay is filling up. We are informed by the pilots of the Ilwaco steamers that, if the filling process
continue another year, it will not be possible to reach Ilwaco at all next summer. This shoaling on the
north side of the river has been hastened by the great jetty now being constructed by "Uncle Sam" from
Point Adams northward. This has now been carried out about a mile; and it is thought that the present
appropriation will suffice to extend the work this summer to an equal distance farther. Already the
beneficial results of the jetty are being felt; for there has been a marked deepening of the channel. The
(1) Since wrecked.
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
ultimate effect of the jetty will be to fill up the north channel entirely and deepen the middle channel
sufficiently to make it navigable for the largest vessels in all stages of weather. The present depth on the
bar at mean tide, though variable, is about twenty-five feet; and this will be bettered by from five to ten
feet more when the jetty is completed. Even at the worst, however, the dangers of the bar have been
monstrously exaggerated. Statistics show that the loss has been, relatively to the amount of shipping,
less than at almost any other harbor on this or the Atlantic coast. Still it will not be denied that there
is, at certain stages of wind and tide, a fearful looking bar, and that there have been at times very serious
detentions. The improvements now in progress will be of inestimable importance. The reader will now
be interested in having some account of the other harbors of our coast.
There are no rivers of any size or commercial importance outside of the Columbia and its tributaries,
though a large number of streams enter the ocean from the Coast Mountains, as well as the Sound from
the Cascades and their spurs. Below the mouth of the Columbia, the first stream worthy of notice is the
Nehalem. This drains a rich and extensive though densely wooded and almost inaccessible valley.
About its mouth are growing settlements; and there is a combination of interests which will sometime
render it an important point. The river is too shallow, however, for commerce on any large scale. Small
boats enter in favorable weather. A few miles below the mouth of the Nehalem are Tillamook and
Netarts Bays, both beautiful little sheets of water, but too shallow for any general commerce. The coast
below this is very rugged and inaccessible for many miles. But, at a distance of about one hundred and
ten miles from the mouth of the Columbia, we enter a beautiful bay, large enough for abundant shipping,
and admirably located for commerce. This is Yaquina Bay. Though commodious inside, its entrance is
so blocked by a reef as to make it inaccessible to any large vessel in heavy weather. The reef is, however,
very narrow; and the improvements proposed and partially begun will make an excellent harbor of it.
As will appear more fully in another chapter, this bay is the terminus of the Oregon Pacific Railroad,
which will no doubt sometime work important results to this country. Yaquina is by far the most
beautiful of the various seaside resorts of Oregon, and is soon to be so embellished with seaside cottages
as to vie with the older representatives of its class on the Atlantic coast.
Passing the mouths of the Alsea and Siuslaw, two vigorous streams with large and mainly unsettled
regions contiguous to them well worthy the attention of immigrants, but not having sufficient water on
their bars to admit of shipping, we reach the mouth of the Umpqua. This river drains a large and
beautiful valley, next to that of the Willamette in size, and has a good-sized bay at its mouth. Like most
of the inlets on the coast of Oregon, this is not large enough for general commerce. There are a great
many salmon here, and fisheries of large size are being established. These, together with railroad talk,
are beginning to make a somewhat important place of Gardiner, at the mouth of the river. Soon after
passing the mouth of the Umpqua, the mariner reaches a point where "a haven for the weary smiles,'
the largest and best between San Francisco and Astoria. This is Coos Bay, a safe and easy harbor for
vessels of the largest class, and having room inside for the navies of the world. This is in reality an
excellent harbor, and far surpasses all other points on our coast, outside of Puget Sound and the Columbia
River, in the value of its exports. It is surrounded by magnificent forests, and has vast coal fields
contiguous to it, from which it has extensive commerce with San Francisco. A large number of fine ships
have been built here. There is much good land on the flanks of the mountains bordering Coos Bay, as
well as on the farther side towards the Umpqua valley. Such are the resources in sight that there is ample
reason for the abundant railroad talk which is going the rounds; and it is only a question of time when
Coos Bay will become a leading point on the coast. Below this part of our coast line, the mountains rise
again to lofty heights; and the coast becomes more and more forbidding and inaccessible. The Coquille
and Rogue rivers are two streams of some size, the latter especially, but having no facilities at all for
shipping. There is a small harbor at the mouth of Rogue river, and a small place named Ellensburg
there; but the river itself is a mountain torrent. The valley drained by the Rogue river is in some
respects the finest on the Pacific slope, and will receive a merited share of attention in another place. Port
Orford is a small harbor just above the mouth of Rogue river.
With this rapid glance at the harbors of the Oregon coast, let us now sail northward from Astoria,
and see what the coast of Washington has to offer. At first it presents the same characteristics of forbidding
unindentedness (if we may be allowed the word), though the mountains are for some distance north of the
Columbia much lower and farther removed from the coast than on the south side. There are two large
bays immediately north of the Columbia,-Shoalwater and Gray's Harbor. The former is exceedingly
shallow, but intersected by deep channels, the greater part of it being a mud-flat at low tide. It is the
emporium of the oyster and clam crops; and the amount of the succulent bivalves which congregate
there beggars belief. The head of Shoalwater Bay is within five miles of the Columbia; and there are
some indications that the river formerly discharged part of its contents through the bay. Between the
head of the bay and its mouth is a strip of beach a mile or two wide and twenty miles long which,
commonly called Long Beach, is one of the most superb places of the kind in the country. There is an
unbroken carriage drive on the hard beach of twenty miles. Being so easy of access by steamer from
Portland and by rail from Ilwaco, this beach has become the chief seaside resort of Oregon.
Gray's Harbor is much more of a port than Shoalwater Bay, but it is not deep enough to admit the
largest class of ships. There are immense resources of lumber and fish, and something of agricultural,
about this bay. It has regular steamboat communication with Astoria; and its chief places, Hoquiam
and Aberdeen, are now partaking of the "boom" which now "boometh" on the coast in general.~ The
RIVERS AND HARBORS.
105
Chehalis is a large stream entering this bay, coming from the spurs of the Cascades, and being crossed by
the Northern Pacific Railroad; from which it appears that the Chehalis valley is the only one between the
Umpqua and Puget Sound which fairly cuts the Coast Range in two, and crosses the general region
between the Coast and Cascade Ranges.
And now, Gray's Harbor past, we approach the greatest series of inland waters on the entire coast of
America. Washington, we may here remark, has more coast line than any other state in the union. It
amounts to one thousand, nine hundred and ninety-two miles. Nine-tenths of this follows the intricate
lines of Puget Sound and the waters adjoining. As the sailor approaches the entrance of the Strait of
Fuca, he sees that the mountains are becoming loftier and more rugged. They attain at last the towering
altitude of Mount Olympus, crowned with snow, and encircled with forests into whose sunless depths,
thick with the lairs of wild beasts, few have penetrated. The Olympic Range terminates in the stormy
promontory, usually wrapped in clouds and fringed with dangerous reefs, of Cape Flattery. Here the
Pacific Northwest corner of our national domain seems to be split in two; and approaching, like a
gigantic wedge, is the rugged southeast extremity of Vancouver Island.
The legend of old Juan de Fuca and his discovery of this inland sea, and of his "divers islands
passed in that sailing," comes to the mind of everyone who looks at the map or the majestic reality of the
strait which has preserved his name. A volume might be written on the subject of this most important
of the waters of the Pacific Northwest. But our space permits us only to give its general features. As
you glance at the map, you see that there are four large natural divisions of these waters: The first is the
Strait of Fuca, which has an average width of about fifteen miles and a length of about one hundred.
The second is the Archipelago de Haro, immediately joining the strait on the east and north. The
third is Admiralty Inlet and the inlets of Hood's Canal and Puget Sound, extending southward therefrom.
The fourth is the Gulf of Georgia, extending far beyond our national domain to the north. Of the Strait
of Fuca little need be said aside from the fact that its great depth, its directness, and the steadiness of the
winds, make it accessible at all times to all kinds of vessels. The same grandeur and beauty are not
lost on the heart of the modern traveler, which so captivated the usually phlegmatic and taciturn
Vancouver as to lead him to break forth into the most enthusiastic description. He says that they could
not conceive that anything more beautiful could exist.
If the most experienced sailor and the most practiced pilot and the shrewdest merchant had put their
heads together and contrived an ideal sea, with every conceivable advantage and every danger and
unpleasantness lacking, they could not have outdone what the elemental forces have made out of Puget
Sound and its approaches and adjuncts. The archipelago, which, with the lower part of the Gulf of
Georgia, is sometimes called Washington Sound, constitutes a body of waters and islands and channels
about fifty miles each way. Good harbors abound in this region, but of pre-eminent excellence and
importance among them is Bellingham Bay and its adjuncts. The inlets on the mainland are here so
under the lee of Fidalgo and (farther on) of Whidby Island that they have almost perfect protection from
the weather. Harbors here are so numerous, such as Ship Harbor, Port Gardiner, Utsalady, etc., that it
is needful only to sum them up in one general statement, and say that the entire archipelago is a
succession of natural ports. No blasting, no dyking, no jettying is required in these deep and spacious
bays. Passing the southern extremity of Whidby Island, we find ourselves at the boid promontory of
Foulweather Bluff, which parts the entrance of Hood's Canal on the west from that of Admiralty Inlet
on the east. A dozen or fifteen miles below the mouth of the former is the magnificent harbor of Port
Townsend. Aside from its being on the wrong side of the Sound, and being in a position to get
occasional very heavy winds, this is perhaps the finest port (if one might say finest where all are fine)
on the Sound.
Just at the entrance of Hood's Canal are the ports of Ludlow and Gamble. Here are immense
sawmills. Hood's Canal has an average width of about a mile, and is exceedingly deep and clear, with
bold and rugged shores, densely covered with the finest kind of timber. It extends in a southwesterly
direction about fifty miles, and then is bowed around in fish-hook shape to the northeast for a distance of
about fifteen miles. It is a case of manifest destiny that this wonderful sheet of water be used for
lumbering and commerce; for anything more perfectly suited to such purposes cannot be conceived.
Returning to the mouth of Admiralty Inlet, we find ourselves approaching the great city of the Sound,
Seattle. Its maritime advantages are almost ideal. A large and beautiful bay in front, and the two
superb fresh-water lakes in the rear (Lakes Washington and Union), coal, lumber, copper and gypsum in
the near vicinity, abundant railway communication with every part of the country,-such are the
opportunities of every kind gathered here, that it is not surprising that the city has septupled itself in the
last decade.
Beyond Seattle, the Sound continues in almost an exact southerly direction, at an average width in
the main part of about four miles, besides a large channel on the west side of the fertile and beautiful
Vashon Island, till it reaches Commencement Bay. Here it turns sharply to the west, and for some
distance is much narrowed. At this angle in the Sound is Tacoma. Suffice it to say of this harbor that
it has no superior even on the Sound. It is especially remarkable for its depth; for in many places it is
too deep for ships to anchor. The depth is so great, in fact, as to become an impediment to navigation
rather than a help. The distance from Tacoma to the point of Whidby Island is about fifty miles. From
Tacoma the Sound extends in a southwesterly direction some thirty miles farther. It becomes broken up
into numerous branches, all deep, abounding in fine points for landings, and still bordered with the
106
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
[
majestic forests which it seems to be its mission to offer to the world. There are seven of these arms
spread out in the rugged forest land like the fingers of a hand. The most southerly of all is known as
Budd's Inlet; and beyond the tide flats which border its southern extremity is Olympia, the capital of
Washington. There are many little rivers entering the Sound and the gulf north of it from the snowy
heights of the Cascade Mountains. Of these, the Skagit, Nortsack, Stillaguamish and Snohomish are
navigable short distances. The others are small, and afford little or no opportunity for navigation. Of
the Sound itself and its adjacent waters, it is scarcely necessary to say that they furnish the finest possible
opportunities for steamboating and the movements of all kinds of craft. So deep and spacious are these
waters, and so regular are the winds, that sailing vessels can, and generally do, enter the straits and go
to their usual destination at Seattle or Tacoma without tugs. The only drawback to the Sound as a
shipping region is the terrible teredo, which so honeycombs piles and other timbers that six years is
usually the limit of time for their safe use. Various expedients have been proposed and tried for
neutralizing their ravages. The most successful of these is to inject the piles with creosote. For the
manufacture of this there is an immense factory at Salmon Bay, near Seattle. The plan of the Seattle
people to create canal communication with Lake Washington, and thereby run ships into the fresh water
(which is a sure destruction to the teredo), is the most certain device yet found.
These brief pages must suffice for a glance at the natural water-ways of the Pacific Northwest. To
all our readers we would say that the interest of the subject is well worth a personal inspection.
AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES.
Thus far in the history of the Pacific Northwest, agriculture has been the chief occupation.
Although lumbering has added a steadily increasing sum to our income, though mining and
manufacturing are becoming yearly more important, and the fisheries and stock interests have played
conspicuous parts in the development of the country, parts which new adaptations to new conditions
may yet enlarge, still the fact remains that over half the population of the Pacific Northwest is concerned
in the productions of the farm, or in the preparing of them for market. The majority of immigrants coine
The picture which they frame in their minds as they bid farewell to the Eastern home-with
its blizzards and cyclones and fierce extremes of temperature, its grasshoppers and potato-bugs (and yet.
with so many loved associations)— is of a farm in sight of Mount Hood, from whose perpetual congelation
comes a cool breeze to temper the hot air, while some clear, cold stream, with a sonorous Indian name
and thick with trout, ripples gently in the foreground of the scene.
to farm.
To show how and where the ideal conditions of farm-life in the Pacific Northwest may best be met
is the aim of this chapter of our work. There are three fundamental conditions of successful farming.
These are soil, climate and market. The highest average of these three is the thing which the intelligent
farmer seeks. We have already indicated in a general way the climatic peculiarities of the country. A
subsequent article will be devoted to transportation lines. We shall therefore in this chapter speak
mainly of the special features of special localities, making such observations as seem proper on soil and
other necessary concomitants of the theme. One general observation should be made here, and that is
that the common system of exclusive wheat farming has been giving way during the last few years to the
inevitable change which comes from added population and larger markets, that is, to a mixed system of
farming, with greatly added attention to fruit, dairying, gardening and poultry-raising. We should need
an entire volume instead of a chapter to detail all the facts in all localities in regard to these several
departments of the subject. We shall endeavor, however, within our limits, to give the reader, and
especially the intending settler, a general idea of each.
Oregon contains ninety-five thousand, two hundred and seventy-four square miles; Washington
sixty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-four; and Idaho, eighty-six thousand, two hundred and
ninety-four. The total area of the three is, therefore, two hundred and fifty-one thousand, five hundred
and sixty-two square miles. Probably half of this area consists of lofty and rugged mountains and barren
plateaus. The greater part of the other half is suited to agriculture. About one-fifth of the entire area
lies west of the Cascade Mountains and has a mild, equable climate, with abundant rainfall, ranging from
about thirty inches in the Rogue river valley of Southern Oregon to one hundred and forty inches at Neah
Bay at the northwest extremity of Washington. The four-fifths east of the Cascades is divided pretty
nearly into two equal parts by the Blue, Coeur d'Alene and Salmon River Ranges, and has a dry climate,
hot in summer, cold in winter, with a rainfall which averages about twenty inches in the western division,
and about ten in the eastern. We might properly denominate these three great divisions the western
(west of the Cascades), middle (between the Cascades and the Blue Mountains), and eastern (between the
Blue Mountains and the Rockies). Of the three divisions, the western contains far the largest population
and has the best developed farms and communities in general. The middle contains the largest
amount of rich land, and has more accessible land to be obtained cheap than the, others. The eastern
division is almost unsettled, and by reason of the scanty rainfall will have to depend on some great system
of irrigation before its lands can be made generally available. One other fact common to all sections of
the Pacific Northwest may be noted or rather recalled from the first chapter of this volume, -that almost
its entire area is of volcanic character. Outflows of molten rock have formed its mountains and covered

WASHINGTON HOTEL
RESIDENCE OF M.MC MAMARA
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MT. VERNON, WASHINGTON TERRITORY.
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AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES.
107
its valleys. Its soil consists largely of disintegrated basalt, covered with a vegetable loam which varies
in depth according to the amount of rainfall and the consequent rankness of growth of vegetation, and the
amount which is furnished for decay.
With thus much of an introductory nature, let us proceed to take up in their proper order the
subdivisions of the large sections of our empire. First, the western division: This consists of a strip four
hundred and eighty-six miles long by about one hundred wide from the seashore to the snows of the
Cascade Range. The various parts of this area have the common characteristics of the mild, humid
climate, and consequently rank growth of all kinds of natural vegetable productions. There is, generally
speaking, a heavy clay subsoil, with rich, loamy surface. All the elevated regions, and many of the level
parts, abound in timber. Streams of water are numerous and pure. The climate is rather relaxing and
debilitating in the parts removed from the immediate effects of the sea. By reason of the proximity to
the ocean and its arms, this section is more favored in respect to market than the middle and eastern
sections. But this western grand division is, like the others, capable of subdivision. The most marked
of these subdivisions is the coast section and the valley section. The former is the narrow strip
extending from the ocean beach to the top of the Coast Mountains, while the latter embraces that part
east of the top of that range. The coast section has the characteristics of equability and humidity of
climate already noted of the region in general, but in a more marked degree. The rainfall is excessive
along the beach, being a few points less than sixty inches annually, while at most places it is as much as
eighty; and at Neah Bay, as already noted, it reaches the enormous average of one hundred and forty
inches. The temperature is very equable, being rarely above seventy degrees or below forty degrees. Frost
and snow are almost unknown. The climate, in spite of the extreme humidity, is exceedingly healthful.
The agricultural resources of the coast region are comparatively limited, though their proper unfolding
by means of railroad lines and regular steamboat traffic will show an amount of available land much
greater than has been generally understood, and the development of which will become an important
factor in the products of the coast. These lands are found mainly along the short and narrow valleys
of little rivers which descend from the timbered heights of the Coast Range. The valleys themselves
are usually from ten to twenty miles long, and from a few hundred feet to a mile or so wide. They are
always composed of the most fertile, loamy soil, washed down from the rank, decomposing vegetation of
the hill region. They are clothed with forests of giant size, around whose gnarled and thick-barked
trunks clamber vines, briars, ferns, flowers and all manner of small growths, ad infinitum. These lands
are of extreme fertility, and after having been cleared (a process which costs from twenty dollars to one
hundred dollars per acre) produce amazing crops of everything which can be raised in a cool and humid
climate. Wheat does not do well. It is too cool and wet. Oats produce an incredible amount. The
writer has seen oat stalks eight and a half feet high and as large at the base as a large pencil. He
has seen small fields at Tillamook which yielded at the rate of one hundred and twenty-five bushels per
acre. All manner of root crops, as turnips, parsnips, carrots, as well as potatoes, are here in their native
element. One hardly dares to tell how large they grow. For example: On the farm of Josiah West, on
Clatsop Plains, a turnip grew which weighed forty-six pounds. Grasses grow to extraordinary size, and
are of the most succulent and nourishing quality on the coast. For this reason, as well as for the
excellence of the root crops, the coast belt is one of the best for dairying purposes. Cows can obtain
green feed the year round. Already butter from the coast is an established factor in the markets of
Portland and Astoria.
The coast belt, with the exception of the parts immediately about the mouth of the Columbia, has
hitherto been isolated from market. Latterly, however, by means of regular boats, the more prominent
coast points have been reached. Proposed railroads will, when completed, bring many sections now
unknown within the reach of the settler. Beginning at the mouth of the Columbia and moving
southward, the first section of the coast fit for agriculture is Clatsop Plains and the lands about
Young's Bay and along Young's and Lewis and Clark's rivers. Here are still some desirable locations
to be entered as government land. Settlers do not seek these lands much at present, because they do
not know of them. One might easily do worse than to locate on a farm in this region. These lands are
rich, easily accessible; and the climate, though very moist, is healthful and invigorating. At the extreme
southern end of the Clatsop Plains region is the valley of the Nekanikan, one of the typical valleys
described, and one that possesses much government land. It would be a good point for a colony to
settle. There are indeed giant forests and much rain; and these things deter many who would otherwise
like the section. Below this point we find the rich and extensive valley of the Nehalem, the largest of
all the coast valleys, being in all not less than seventy miles long by from half a mile to two miles
wide. It ramifies through the Coast Mountains and possesses sufficient resources to maintain quite a
community of itself. The region about the mouth of the Nehalem has rare advantages for stock and
dairy ranches. There is still an abundance of vacant land waiting for settlers in this section.
Below the Nehalem is Tillamook Bay, with several small rivers entering it, around whose confluence
with the bay are quite extensive farming lands. These have been settled many years, and have reached a
greater degree of development than any part of the coast region except Yaquina. The Nestucca, Salmon
river and the Siletz have small valleys of a character similar to those already described, in all of which,
aside from the portions of the last-named occupied by the Indian reservation, there are still openings for
government entry.
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
success.
The region around Yaquina Bay again is more extensive, and by reason of its communication with
the market, which none of the places between Tillamook and Yaquina have, it has been much more
developed than any other part of the coast regions of Oregon. It is said that there is a marked decrease
of rainfall at Vaquina, and some increase of temperature, from which it results that fruit culture is a great
It is claimed that the prunes of Yaquina are possessed of extraordinary flavor and general
excellence. Below Yaquina is the Alsea, and below that the Siuslaw, both of which have fertile valleys
of considerable length, much of which is still open for settlement. Around the Siuslaw are extensive
bench and hill lands which have been measurably cleared already by great forest fires. These are said to
be especially adapted to fruit culture and dairying. The proximity of the ocean makes this region very
warm in winter and spring; and, by its elevation and greater distance south, it does not have the excessive
rainfall which visits those parts of the coast farther north. This extensive tract of land still largely waits
for settlers. Immigrants would do well to examine its merits. On the coast south of the Siuslaw, there
are several more little valleys of a type similar to those already described. Best among these, perhaps, is
the Coquille. There are also good lands yet to be taken up around Coos Bay.
The Umpqua and Rogue rivers have some small strips of rich land along their lower courses; but
above they have large and beautiful valleys, which are so far inland as not to be computed in the coast
section at all.
Returning to the mouth of the Columbia again, and proceeding north, we find that the coast of
Washington has several small fertile valleys, narrow, timbered, moist and verdant. The North river, the
Nasel, the Willopa, which are tributaries of Shoalwater Bay, and the Humptumps, Hoquiam, and
especially the Chehalis, which enter Gray's Harbor, have desirable lands yet to be entered as government
land. The Chehalis valley, like that of the Rogue river or that of the Umpqua, extends inland, and may
be said to belong to both the coast and interior sections. Thus far the coast region has been very slow of
development. The difficulty of clearing it of the dense timber, and its general disconnection with market,
have kept it back. But now steamboats maintain regular service between Astoria and Tillamook and
Gray's Harbor; and the projected railroads will place many valuable regions within reach of the world.
This much for the coast part of the western section.
The inland portion of the western belt of the Pacific Northwest contains most of the population,
large towns, manufactories, etc., of the country. As a purely grain country, however, it is far surpassed
now, and will be relatively still more, by the middle belt. The inland part of the western belt may very
naturally be divided by the state line into the Washington and the Oregon divisions.
The Washington division has but small agricultural interests. There are some exceedingly fertile
valleys along the little rivers entering Puget Sound, such as the Skagit, the Samish, the Swinomish Flats,
the Snoqualmie, the Puyallup, etc. In their general character, these valleys are much like those of the
coast,―narrow, moist and densely timbered. When cleared, they are unsurpassed for oats, hops and
vegetables. On the Puyallup, near Tacoma, are found the largest hop ranches on the coast. The soil is
of amazing fertility; and the valley is far enough inland to be out of the range of the very cool winds
which prevail over most of the Sound region. Fortunes have been made in the Puyallup hop trade; and
others are yet waiting their turn. The hop business is one of those subject to sudden fluctuations. The
demand is not yet large and steady enough to make a uniform price. When the hop farmer gets
twenty-five or thirty cents per pound, he makes his fortune. The next year the price may be down to
six, eight or ten cents; and he doesn't get enough return to pay for picking. The Puyallup hop fields.
yield from one thousand to two thousand pounds per acre. Prices during 1888 ranged from eleven to
twenty cents per pound.
The Indian reservation takes out a large part of this rich valley, though to the credit of these Indians
it must be said that they too have brought much land into cultivation; and many of them are now
industrious and intelligent farmers. But though there are a number of these rich valleys about the Sound,
their aggregate area is not after all very great relatively. The major part of the land about the Sound is
gravelly, or otherwise worthless for agriculture. Some of the beautiful islands throughout the Sound, as
the San Juan group, or Vashon Islands between Seattle and Tacoma, have fertile sections of considerable
size. The Archipelago of San Juan, and the Port Townsend and Whidby's Island sections, have a most
remarkable climate. The proximity of the ocean gives them the same warmth common to all the coast
region; but in addition to this there is something about the topography of the country which causes the
rain to skip this region and hold its torrent in the air until it reaches the mainland on the east side of the
Sound. Hence the section spoken of combines mildness with moderateness of rainfall to a degree not
equaled by any part of Western Washington or Oregon, excepting the Rogue river valley. Some of these
warmer islands offer unrivaled inducements to fruit culture. Land is as yet cheap, too, except in the
immediate vicinity of Seattle or Tacoma. In spite of these occasional rich spots on the Sound and its
adjacent waters, the general fact remains that it is not a farming country, and never will be. Immigrants
should understand that they cannot there find any considerable amount of land to take up.
Moving from the Sound southward we pass wide areas of gravelly land, worthless for farming, and
only barely fit even for grazing. This belt continues to the valley of the Chehalis. Here there is an
entire change. The country now becomes densely timbered; and a rich soil is attested by the rank growth
of every conceivable kind of bush and vine. The valley of the Chehalis is growing very rapidly in
population, and with one exception is the best and largest farming region in Western Washington. That
one exception is the Cowlitz valley. This valley borders the Chehalis on the south. Having entered it
AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES.
109
we find ourselves on the waters of the Columbia. The available part of the Cowlitz valley is some forty
miles in length by from two or three to ten miles wide. It is of exceeding fertility, rich, black soil, and
is peculiarly adapted to dairying purposes,
About its mouth and elsewhere along the course of the Lower Columbia, which we will now ascend to
Portland, are broad strips of the richest kind of bottom lands, flooded in the "June rise," and as soon as
the waters subside becoming covered with the most luxuriant growth of grass, which sustains many dairy
ranches. No class of farmers have grown rich as rapidly as the dairy ranchers on the Columbia bottoms,
between the Cowlitz and Portland. Five or ten years of hard work usually suffices to "fix" one for life.
The aguish climate common to such lands is a drawback; but, with proper care, it can be largely guarded
against; and in all other respects these lands have every possible advantage. The central feature in them
is Sauvie's Island. This extends between the main and lower mouths of the Willamette, being bordered
by the Columbia throughout on its eastern side. There is in all quite a large area of these dairy lands
around the mouth of the Willamette, as well as on the Sandy Lewis river, Lake river, Kalama and others,
while the whole course of the Columbia between the Cascades and the sea, one hundred and eighty miles,
usually furnishes a strip of bottom land from a quarter of a mile to two or three miles in width.
Productiveness, climate and availability of market combine to render these lands most desirable; and
immigrants make a mistake in not investigating their claims. Prices are yet very moderate. Besides
these bottom lands along the Columbia, a great part of the hill land adjoining is of fine quality, easy of
access, and to be obtained at very low prices or even at government entry. The hill lands along the
Columbia are of the finest for fruit culture. Peaches and grapes, not usually considered a successful crop
west of the Cascades and north of the Calapooias, have been grown of the greatest size and finest flavor
about Vancouver and Washougal and elsewhere on the benches adjoining the Columbia. Prunes are on
their "native heath" here, to all appearances.
here, to all appearances. A man who shall have got a twenty-acre prune orchard
into bearing condition will need to do nothing more for a living. Land perfectly adapted to prunes can
be bought on the benches of the Columbia for from fifteen dollars to fifty dollars per acre.
One good crop
at the fifth or sixth year of such an orchard will pay the total cost of the land, clearing and all.
speaking of the lands in this vicinity, we should not neglect to speak of the Lewis river valley. This is
also fertile, accessible, and lands are very cheap. On the upper parts of it are large tracts of land yet
subject to government entry, the valley of Spily ei creek, on the north side, being an example. A whole
colony might settle there. There is also a large region extending from Vancouver and Washougal back
to Lewis river, nearly all of which is the richest kind of land, and furnishes great quantities of hay and
dairy products for the Vancouver and Portland markets.
In
The discouraging thing to an intending settler, especially if he be from the Mississippi valley, is the
dense timber. Though this is indeed a temporary drawback, yet the time will come, and that soon, when
the owner of a quarter section of land may count himself fortunate to have a fourth of it timber land.
Taken altogether, these rich and available lands, needing clearing indeed, but unsurpassed in nearness of
market and variety of products, constitute a very large aggregate. They are found in Clark and Cowlitz
counties on the Washington side of the river, and in Multnomah and Columbia counties on the
south side.
We have described these lands at length, for the reason that the rush of immigration has as yet
neglected them. Most people do not duly estimate the advantages of nearness to market. To be
within reach of Vancouver, with five thousand people, or Portland with seventy thousand, to be able
to reach either by rail, steamboat, scow, rowboat or sloop, is an advantage which outweighs the transient
disadvantage of having to clear timber off your land, especially when that same timber, if you choose
to keep it a few years, will abundantly pay for itself.
Leaving now the Columbia lands, we come to the Willamette valley proper. This great valley is
the pride and strength of Oregon, the largest, richest and most available. It is almost the beau-ideal of
a farming region. Its extreme length is about one hundred and fifty miles, and its average width
about sixty. The lower portion and the adjacent foothills are generally timbered. The middle and
upper parts are a wide and open prairie. It is in the main very level, the parts from Albany and
Corvallis southward to Eugene being almost a "dead" level, too level in fact for sufficient drainage.
There are several chains of hills in the lower part of the valley, such as the Waldo and Spring valley hills
near Salem, the Amity and Chehalem hills in Yamhill and Washington counties, and the Portland hills
west of that city and extending some distance south. The soil of the valley is in general a rich loam
upon a strong clay subsoil. The upland soil is a coarser and heavier soil than that of the lowlands.
The numerous clear, cold streams which rush down from the mountains on either side into the Willamette
have strips of bottom land adjoining them. These bottom lands are of extraordinary richness and fertility.
Lands on the Tualatin bottoms which have been cropped every year for thirty years have never been
manured, and still yield thirty, forty or fifty-five bushels of wheat to the acre. The soil in some of these
bottoms where the bank has been cut vertically by the stream is in places twenty feet deep of the richest
loam. It seems inexhaustible. The various streams, such as the Tualatin, Yamhill, La Creole,
Luckiamute and Mary's river, on the west side, and the Clackamas, Pudding, Santiam, Calapooia and
Mackenzie on the east, do not have distinct valleys in their lower courses, but run across the general
surface of the prairie, with little or no perceptible watershed between them. At their upper courses,
ridges from the mountains make down between them.
110
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Some of the most beautiful and productive lands in the valley are on these inter-tributary ridges.
The stranger needs to be informed that, as the Willamette valley is a comparatively old country, having
been settled largely forty years and more ago, it affords no opportunities in its level portions for
entering government land. There are, however, in the foothills and plateaus of both the Cascade
and Coast Mountains, thousands of acres of fertile land yet open for settlement. Personal inspection
is necessary, of course, before one can satisfy himself as to a location on such land. Suffice it to say that
the opportunity exists. The land is as good as there is outdoors, not difficult of access, and, though
timbered and brushy, not difficult or expensive to clear.
The foothills surpass the valley lands in healthfulness of climate, in variety of crops, in adaptability
to fruit and grass culture, in purity and abundance of water, and in sundry other respects which make
life better worth living. Aside from this constantly diminishing area of government land in the hill and
plateau region, there are great quantities of land in the Willamette valley which are for sale cheap.
Booms seem foreign to the nature of this region; and people have as yet put no fictitious values on
real estate. Uncultivated land ranges from four dollars an acre in remote localities to forty dollars or
fifty dollars or more in the nearer vicinity of towns and markets. The finest kinds of farms, with buildings,
fencing, orchards, and all the paraphernalia of running, can often be purchased for twenty-five dollars or
thirty dollars per acre, and this, too, in the comparatively near vicinity of towns and railroads. Thus, in
the neighborhood of Hillsboro or Forest Grove in Washington county, or McMinnville in Yamhill, or
Dallas in Polk, or Gervais in Marion, farms can be secured at from twenty-five dollars to fifty dollars per
When wheat brings a good price, farms at such prices pay a very heavy per cent on the investment.
Farming in the Willamette valley was formerly almost entirely wheat-raising. The wheat was of the
finest quality and yielded immensely. The average for the valley has usually been as high as twenty
bushels per acre, while many fields which were more carefully farmed yielded forty or even fifty bushels
to the acre. On some of the rich Tualatin bottoms, as that of Gales creek near Forest Grove in Washington
county, from forty to fifty bushels is commonly expected.
acre.
In 1869, an average of fifty-nine and a half bushels was realized on the A. T. Smith place, then
under the charge of E. Goodell. On the farm of John L. Hallett near Dilly, eighty-six bushels per acre
were harvested. Other specific instances, duly authenticated at the time, could be adduced if necessary.
Willamette valley wheat is extraordinarily plump and white, and makes the finest quality of flour. It
is claimed that it commands the highest price in the Liverpool market. Formerly this valley far surpassed
all other sections of the country combined in the aggregate of its wheat production.
Now, however, the production of the Inland Empire is greatly in excess of that of the valley. For
various reasons, such as more timber, more rain, more weeds and other things, it is found that it costs
much more to produce a bushel of wheat in the valley than it does east of the mountains. The estimate
in the valley of the cost of raising a bushel of wheat varies from thirty-five to forty-five cents. The
average seems to be about forty-one cents. The general statement in the Columbia basin is that
twenty-six cents will prepare a bushel of wheat for market. The difference is surprising and not easily
accounted for in the light of the comparatively small differences in the conditions of the two sections.
But though the valley bushel costs fifteen cents more than the "bunch-grass" bushel, yet the difference
is counterbalanced in favor of the valley by two facts. One is that valley wheat commands a higher
price. Thus, during the year 1888, the price of valley wheat at Portland ranged from one dollar and a
quarter per cental in January to one dollar and forty-five cents in November, while the Eastern Oregon and
Washington wheat ranged at the same time between one dollar and fifteen cents and one dollar and
forty cents per cental. The other fact is that the valley has a great advantage in nearness of market.
The railroad tariff is twenty-three and a half cents per bushel from Walla Walla, and in proportion
from other points. In consequence, the general price throughout the Inland Empire during the year
named was from sixty to sixty-five cents per bushel, or from about a dollar to a dollar ten per cental,
while the valley farmer could command an average of from one dollar and fifteen cents to one dollar and
thirty cents per cental. These advantages of the valley are again neutralized by the fact that the eastern
section surpasses it in average yield. This phase of the subject will, however, be discussed further on.
The Willamette valley is now undergoing the same change which every new country must sometime
undergo, as the pressure of population becomes greater and the struggle for existence fiercer, i. e., the
substitution of mixed farming for wheat farming. Already the most intelligent of our farmers are
beginning to realize the change, and to adapt themselves to it. This change is shown by increased
attention to fruit culture, to fine stock, and to the cultivation of grasses. The highlands have special
adaptability to the raising of fruit. The Portland Heights, Mount Tabor, and the lands bordering the
Willamette from Portland to Newburg in Yamhill county, have been the scene of most of the thorough
and scientific attempts to raise fruit and prepare it for market. Prunes do especially well in such localities;
and there is a great interest felt in this by all intelligent tillers of the soil. These same hill lands and
the lands in general in the northern part of the valley are peculiarly adapted to grasses and clover.
They are, therefore, the finest of dairy land. The effect of enterprise in this direction is being felt in the
introduction of the choicest kind of stock. Jersey, Holstein, Guernsey, Alderney and other choice breeds
of cattle are becoming common. The best breeds of horses, especially those for draft purposes and
"all-around" use, are becoming the usual thing on Oregon farms. This topic is, however, treated of at
greater length in another chapter, and hence need only be alluded to here in passing, as connected with
the general subject of farming. To the same degree of improvement, poultry-raising, gardening and the
other et ceteras of mixed farming are being carried.

SILAS B. SMITH,
MRS. S.B.SMITH,
SKIPANON, OR.
SKIPANON, OR.
SOL.H.SMITH.
MRS. HELEN SMITH.
UA
AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES.
111*
As it stands, therefore, now, in the valley, wheat-raising still greatly leads all other productions,
but is not so great relatively as formerly. The oat crop is very large. Some barley and a little rye are
raised. Indian corn does not make a good crop on account of the cool nights. All kinds of roots and
tubers do well. Onions produce enormously. Of fruits, prunes, plums, cherries, apples, pears and all
kinds of berries are unsurpassed anywhere. Peaches and grapes of good quality are raised in some
places especially favored as to warmth, but in general are not successful. In short, for all-around
farming, maintaining a high average throughout, it may be questioned whether the Willamette valley
does not lead in the Pacific Northwest. The coast belt surpasses it in dairying alone; Southern Oregon
surpasses it in fruit alone; Eastern Oregon is ahead of it in amount of wheat (not quality); yet, for a
good average of all of them, the Willamette valley, this first love of the pioneers, need not shrink from
comparisons.
The climate of the valley has been partly indicated already in the general account of the climate of
the western division of the Pacific Northwest. It is warm and wet in winter, cool and dry in summer.
The thermometer has fallen as low as five degrees below zero at Portland, and from thirteen degrees to
eighteen degrees below in other parts of the valley; but this is very rare. It is unusual for it to go below
zero, while the average of the winter is above the freezing point. During the long, drizzling rains of
winter, the temperature ranges between forty and sixty degrees. The rainy season begins about
November 1st usually, though this is subject to considerable variations. Sometimes it fairly "sets in "
as early as the middle of September, while in other years it is mainly dry till the middle of December.
In 1888-89, the rainy season failed entirely. After the rainy season gets fairly under way, it continues
with short, cold spells interjected, and sometimes little "dabs" of snow, until about the middle of
March. Sometimes February is one of the finest months of the year. April, May and June are the
cream of the year, scented with the perfume of flowers, mainly sunny, but with occasional warm and
reviving showers, calm, invigorating, beautiful. July, August and September constitute the dry season.
There is usually no rain to speak of during these three months. The ground becomes exceedingly dry;
yet, by virtue of properties in the soil or the air, such drought as would be expected in the East from such
dryness is unknown.
The usual temperature of the summer is low. There are a few days nearly every summer when the
mercury rises to one hundred degrees or more; but ordinarily seventy-five or eighty degrees is the common
figure on a summer afternoon. The diurnal change in temperature is very great. The mercury frequently
indicates as low as forty-five or fifty degrees in the morning, but will rise to eighty or ninety degrees, or
even one hundred degrees, by three o'clock, falling again with great rapidity at the approach of night. This
peculiarity of climate is very refreshing, though strangers have to guard against colds from so great a
change; and many kinds of crops and fruits grow less vigorously. In the main it is healthful, though
there is a certain languidness about it which is not felt on the sea-coast or on the other side of the
mountains. It is singularly well adapted to the farmers' needs. The mild, long-continued fall gives him
abundant time for seeding, while the long, slow spring renews the opportunity on the other side of winter.
Then the long dryness of summer gives him remarkable advantages in the harvesting of his grain. Very
seldom does any premature rain catch any farmer who has been at all " forehanded in his harvesting.
The rush of the immigration during the last decade has been to the government lands east of the Cascades,
or to the Sound, or to Southern Oregon. The Willamette valley has generally been passed by. Land
hunters will do well to consider the advantages presented there. This much must suffice for a picture of
this largest body of land west of the Cascades.
Let us now cross the Calapooia Mountains on the southern boundary and become acquainted with the
Umpqua valley, the second largest of our western valleys. The soil of this valley is not generally esteemed
quite so rich as that of the Willamette; but it is of a quality to adapt itself better to some kinds of fruits.
In surface it differs widely from the latter. It consists of a congeries of narrow valleys separated by low,
oak-crowned hills of the most picturesque appearance. There are no great areas of level land. Winding
vales, rounded slopes, sheltered nooks, occasional bold, rocky bluffs, combine to make up a scene of
picturesque beauty unsurpassed on the coast of the Pacific Northwest. This diversified region, though
somewhat irregular, is nearly circular in form, and from Roseburg as its geographical and commercial center
has a radius of about thirty miles in every direction, being, however, considerably less than that between
the exact east and west points. There are probably not less than two thousand square miles of land within
the valley. This fair land produces very nearly the same crops as the Willamette valley; though, by
reason of its increased warmth, it is better for corn culture, as well as for the finer and more delicate
varieties of fruit, as peaches and grapes.
On the oak-crowned knolls, and in the warm pockets facing the south, fruits and berries and
vegetables can be produced almost as early as in California. The fact that the Umpqua river empties into
the ocean, and that the valley is, therefore, open to ocean breezes, and the added fact that it is but little
elevated above the sea-level, gives it an exceedingly mild and equable climate.
It has the same
characteristics of wet, dry and intermediate seasons as the Willamette valley, but has less rain and
decidedly more sunshine. The season is from two to four weeks in advance of the Willamette. The
proximity of the ocean, and the rolling surface of the country (which insures good drainage), gives the
Umpqua an exceedingly healthful climate. It is mild without being enervating. The low types of fevers
which are more or less common in other parts of the interior valleys are almost unknown in this favored region.
Here the valley lands proper were secured by the settlers of the forties and fifties; but, in the circlet of hills
9
112
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
*
which with park-like beauty inclose the valley,—a setting of gold around the emerald treasure within,-
there are lands still unoccupied. The valley lands, too, are held for sale at very reasonable figures.
Fifteen or twenty dollars per acre may secure good farms. No part of the Pacific Northwest is more
likely to charm the traveler than this. The wide-veranded farmhouses, the vivid green of the oaks, the
occasional bold bluffs in the distance, the general air of tranquillity, all combine to soothe and cheer the
mind.
Beyond the Umpqua valley, and separated from it by a wide chain of very rugged hills, commonly
known as the Umpqua and Cow creek hills, lies the third great valley of Western Oregon. This is the
Rogue river valley. It is slightly less in size than the Umpqua, but is mainly one level plain, so that its
available area of cultivable land is probably equal. Bounded by the Cascades on the east, the Siskiyous
on the south, and the highest part of the Coast Range on the west, this valley is like a huge saucer.
Its
vast rim, averaging six thousand feet high on the south and east, and half as much on the west, seems
to wholly isolate it from the rest of the world. And so, indeed, it was for many years after its original
settlement. All produce had to be hauled at least one hundred miles in wagons over the most tedious
roads to market. The markets were Redding, California, and Roseburg, Oregon, each one hundred miles
from Jacksonville, and Crescent City, one hundred and thirty miles away. With the advent of railroads,
all the smothered business conditions were removed; and the wonderful natural attractions of the valley
asserted themselves. It has been attracting more notice from immigrants than any other part of Oregon.
It has been called the "Italy of Oregon." What now are the reasons for this interest and these encomiums
on the Rogue river valley which have become so common? Let us see what we have there.
In the first place, there is a nearly circular valley, almost perfectly level, of about thirty miles in
diameter. Around this is a foothill belt, but sparsely timbered, of excellent soil, easily accessible, of
almost equal area. From the snowy mountains to the east, and the almost equally elevated region to the
south, issue countless brooks and springs. These meander across the open prairie, their courses marked
by luxuriant glades, in whose shady recesses are found groves of wild plums, interlaced with the rich,
dark foliage of the wild grape. On the foothills may be seen the glossy trunks of the madrona and the
disk-like leaves of the manzanita. The scraggly clumps of chaparral remind the traveler that he has
been journeying southward. Above and beyond the foothill belt is a lofty and largely open belt of
mountains, the first chain, rich with grass, the ancient home of deer and antelope, but, since the
exterminating war which "hide-hunters have waged on them, the grazing ground of sheep and cattle.
This valley has a soil in general like that of the Willamette and Umpqua, though, since it is less of
basaltic and more of granitic origin, it is not quite so fertile, generally speaking, as the former. There
are some large areas of black adobe in the lower parts of the valley, of extreme fertility, but very hard to
work on account of their sticky character. One large region is known, in fact, as "Big Sticky." The
foothill lands are inclined to be gravelly, and are of a red color, resembling somewhat the red lands of
California.
The climate of this valley shows a great increase in summer temperature, and a great decrease in
rainfall over other parts of Western Oregon. The common rainfall is from twenty-five to thirty-five
inches, as against from forty-five to sixty for the Willamette valley. Though, owing to the greater
elevation (about one thousand feet above sea-level) and the loftiness of the snowy heights around, it is
no warmer in winter, yet it is much warmer in summer, than the other valleys west of the Cascades. The
mercury frequently rises to one hundred degrees, or even as high as one hundred and ten degrees, and will
reach that for a number of days together, a thing unknown farther north. The climate is not so healthful
as that of the Umpqua. The natural consequences of the added heat, together with the character of the
soil, is that the Rogue river is the natural home of all sorts of choice and delicate fruits. Not as good a
wheat country as Northern and Eastern Oregon or Washington, it confessedly has no equal in the Pacific
Northwest as a fruit country. This is its distinguishing feature. Peaches, apricots, grapes, berries and
melons from the Rogue river are ahead in time and excellence of any in the country. Rogue river
strawberries reach the Portland market before the first of May. Let the shivering denizen of Minnesota
think of that, who has scarcely taken off his ear-flaps and his nose-protector by that time. Figs even
have been grown in some of the sunny nooks there. Apples, cherries, plums, pears, quinces and prunes
do excellently well there, too, though the last are not quite equal in flavor to those raised on the Portland
hills in the Willamette. The granitic soil of California and the Rogue river valley seems to have a greater
natural adaptability to grapes, figs, melons, peaches, apricots, etc., while the volcanic soil of the northern
and eastern parts of the Pacific Northwest seems to afford the natural conditions suitable for pears, prunes,
cherries, apples and grain.
Land in the Rogue river valley is already held much higher than that of other sections. This is due
to its greater adaptability to fruit culture. There are, however, excellent lands, a little more remote from
the towns, as in Sam's valley, on the Upper Rogue river, and at the lower extremity around Grant's Pass,
which may be bought at a low figure,—from five dollars to fifty dollars per acre, according to improvements.
In the belt between Medford and Ashland, the home of the fruit business, and one of the loveliest spots
on earth, having, too, good railroad facilities, land commands from fifty dollars to two hundred dollars per
acre. There is a very considerable body of unclaimed government land, too, in the foothill and mountain
belt of the Rogue river valley, especially in the great region out toward what is known as the Dead Indian
country, which would well repay the personal inspection of land-seekers. It is best, however, that all
such understand that all these opportunities for free entry of land are being rapidly seized. This is true
AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES.
113
in every part of our domain. Even while these pages are in press it may be presumed that there will be
a considerable change in the location of available land. Our advice to immigrants is, therefore, be speedy
in your search. In going to any given locality, visit first the land-office, and get a diagram showing the
vacant quarter sections in some given area. Then proceed to hunt.
But too long already have we lingered in the lovely regions of Western Oregon. We must pack up
and move.
Then ho! for the sunny and treeless "East of the Mountains!" There are certain general
features of the agricultural parts of the great middle section of the Pacific Northwest which have already
been described. You have learned of its dryness, of its treeless and rolling prairies, and of its abundant
opportunities for the free entry of land. A few added points may be given as to its topography. First,
the vast Upper Columbia basin is not, like the western section of the country, to be divided into different
divisions and valleys. It is practically one immense, open, rolling prairie, about two hundred miles each
way. Its natural mountain boundaries have already been sufficiently given. Owing to the elevation of
most of it, the rivers have cut their way deep into the surface.
Different regions are usually spoken of according to the name of the river which drains them; but this
does not imply that there is any natural separation of note between them. The Palouse and Spokane
countries are not distinguishable; and the Walla Walla and Umatilla, though the watershed is much more
marked, are essentially the same. The same general character of soil prevails throughout the whole
basin, being more loamy and heavy towards the mountains and towards the northeast. It is, however,
essentially the same soil,-rich, deep and wonderfully fine, as fine as flour, all the way from Spokane to
The Dalles, and from Pataha to Ellensburg. This soil has been formed from the disintegration of the
basaltic blanket which originally covered the whole basin. In the northern parts, and towards the
mountains, the greater rainfall and cold, and more continuous growth of grass, have caused a greater
accumulation of loam; and hence the soil is black and heavy, while on the lower land and near the
Columbia it is light in both color and weight. Throughout, however, it has the ingredients necessary to
produce wheat in greater ratio than any other known soil of the world. As in topography and soil, so in
climate, the Columbia basin has a general sameness. It is dry, electric, stimulating, cold in winter, hot
in summer, more or less windy (in some parts a good deal more than less). There is a regular and
gradual increase in rainfall from the west and south to the east and north, and a corresponding decrease
of temperature, though both these features depend more on the altitude than the latitude. More
particular figures on temperature and rainfall have been given in the first part of this article.
Portions of the Columbia basin require irrigation to start cultivation, and in some regions it is
maintained regularly. The prevalent opinion seems to be that, after the thorough establishment of
cultivation, the necessity of any addition to the natural moisture will disappear. The only parts of the
Inland Empire, however, which are adapted to the laying off of irrigating ditches, are the different valleys
which make up the great valley of the Yakima. This was apparently made on purpose to be irrigated;
and systems for the purpose have been established on a grand scale. In the arid regions south of
The Dalles, and about the headwaters of the Des Chutes, there are some narrow and exceedingly
fertile valleys which lie so as to be susceptible of irrigation. In general, however, all that region is
high and rolling; and water cannot be conveyed across it.
There is one remarkable fact in regard to the entire Upper Columbia region, and that is that it needs
less rain than any known part of the world. The soil is mellow and very deep. From the vast circlet of
mountains around it there seems to come a system of subterranean natural irrigation, the best possible
kind. Further, the winds of spring and summer seem to come loaded with moisture; and the porous
soil drinks it up like a sponge. Sometimes, after a heavy west wind, vegetation throughout the upper
basin revives as if from a heavy rain; and, though there may have been no rain for three months, the
ground will be found to be fairly damp at a depth of a few inches. This natural substitute for rain
makes it possible for crops to mature perfectly without any rain. The author has seen the finest
vegetables—corn, potatoes, turnips, beets, onions, etc.—raised in the dry lands of the John Day without
a drop of rain on them from planting in April to harvesting in September. Their quality, too, was of
the finest. The fiber was extraordinarily fine and compact, and the flavor wonderfully delicate. From
this sponge-like character of the soil in the Columbia basin, and from the unfailing supply of the aerial
and subterranean reservoirs, it results that a rainfall of even a dozen inches, well distributed, will be enough
to mature crops.
It becomes, however, always a matter of intense interest to the farmers of the Inland Empire to watch
the rainfall; and if April, May and June pass without rain, as has happened, many are the dubious
headshakes, and many the gloomy prognostications, "Well, the climate has gone back on us this year!"
. But never yet, in spite of the scarcity of rain, has there been any serious shortage of the crops. In case of
a failure of the rainfall, the grain stalks are commonly very short, and look as though they carried nothing
in their heads. But come to harvest the unpromising straw, and it comes up with its twenty or thirty
bushels to the acre pretty much as usual. The season usually advances much faster in the Inland Empire
than in the Willamette valley, though starting later. This more rapid advance is due partly to the
greater amount of sunlight, and partly to the warmer and mellower soil. Then, too, the cool sea winds
which prevail in the Willamette in the opening summer check vegetation. From these facts, it results
that though, on the first of March, vegetation in the Willamette is two or three weeks in advance of that
in Walla Walla, yet, by the first of July, the latter is a month ahead of the former. The earliest places
114
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
of all are along the Columbia and Snake rivers, in the frequent fertile patches of bottom land at the
water's edge. Such places are Almota, Alpowa, Penewawa, Columbus and the mouth of the Wenachie.
Such points can almost compete with California in the marketing of berries and garden stuff. Apples,
plums, pears, new potatoes, green corn, tomatoes and cucumbers (of the choicest quality, too), are in
the market before the first of July. There is in the aggregate a large quantity of such land, though it
is usually found in small patches. In the Inland Empire, as elsewhere, the three vital questions are,
What of soil, what of climate, and what of cost of production and transportation? We have briefly
answered the first two queries. Let us address ourselves to the third. What does it cost to raise a
bushel of wheat? How much can I get to the acre? How much do I have to pay to ship it to
market? We would say in answer to the first, that extensive inquiry among the heavy farmers of
Walla Walla and Whitman counties justifies us in saying that twenty-six cents may be taken as the
average cost of getting a bushel of wheat into the warehouse. This includes interest on land and
machinery. We find considerable difference of opinion among farmers. George Bradbury of Eureka
Flat estimates the cost on his thousand acres to be not over twenty-two cents, while Milton Aldrich of
Dry Creek thinks that thirty cents would not be too much. Messrs. Drumhaller and Thomas, two other
heavy Walla Walla farmers, would put the cost as high as thirty-four or thirty-five cents. They do not
give this, however, as their own expense, but think that it would represent the average cost. Messrs.
Stine and Reeser put it at twenty-one and twenty-two cents respectively. Without doubt, however, the
most complete and accurate estimate that has ever been made was by Dr. N. G. Blalock. This active
and versatile citizen of Walla Walla has raised the largest wheat crop of any man in the Pacific Northwest
and has made a scientific study of the conditions of the country and the market. His figures are the more
complete because, not being a professional farmer, and so hiring everthing done, he brought it more
entirely within a money measure. His experience is that, counting interest on land and machinery,
and reducing every item to an exact cash basis, a bushel of wheat, delivered at the station at Walla
Walla, costs twenty-four and one-quarter cents.
Many other representative farmers have expressed their opinion as being about the same as these
named. As will be seen, the cost is only about two-thirds that in the Willamette valley. This difference
is so great that, taken in connection with the greater average yield, the wheat farmer of Walla Walla or
Whitman county has a heavy advantage over the one of the Willamette. Now for the figures on the
average yield of wheat in the Inland Empire. We are almost afraid to give the facts in the case to
Eastern people; but we can assure them that they are well substantiated by the most reliable of men, and,
if anything about this country is to be believed, this is.
In the first place, Washington leads all states or territories in the union in average yield. This has
commonly been about twenty-five bushels to the acre. It is always to be remembered, too, that in these
general averages we are obliged to reckon a vast deal of the most slovenly farming which is done in new
countries by those who merely skim the land. Were the land here cultivated as it is in Pennsylvania or
Illinois, it would double its average yield. To come down to a more specific statement, we note that the
average in the Palouse country last year was forty bushels to the acre. But it is in Walla Walla and the
parts of Umatilla adjoining that we find more accurately kept statistics of all these matters.
We give
some of the most famous and best authenticated. Dr. Blalock had a "patch" of wheat of twenty-three
hundred acres in 1881, which in round numbers yielded forty bushels to the acre. A thousand acres of
this was accurately measured off, and found to produce fifty-one thousand bushels. Separate acres in
several instances were thought to yield eighty bushels. This prodigious yield has been surpassed,
however, by Milton Aldrich of Dry Creek, Walla Walla. His field of four hundred acres averaged
sixty-six bushels, besides two or three bushels to the acre wasted, owing to its being a little over-ripe
when cut. Samuel Edwards harvested an average of seventy-four and one-half bushels to the acre on
thirty acres. C. M. Patterson harvested an average of forty-seven bushels to the acre from eighty acres
of “sod" land. But, of all the yields that we have ever heard of, the two following are the most
remarkable: Thomas Gilkerson raised one hundred and ten bushels of barley to the acre on ten selected
acres. Adam Rothrock, of Centerville, Umatilla county, raised one hundred and six bushels of wheat to
the acre on a patch of four or five acres. This last was on selected land, and was especially cultivated.
Were it needful, figures similar to these could be brought from nearly every grain county in Eastern
Washington. It is safe to say that there is no country yet open to man which equals the Upper Columbia
basin as a natural wheat country. In 1887, the Walla Walla valley produced seven million bushels on
less than a quarter million acres. This is not over a third of the available area; and what the product
may be when it is all subdued, only the future can tell. Aside from the enormous yield, the Columbia
wheat is very excellent in quality and of remarkable weight, always exceeding the standard sixty pounds
to the bushel, and sometimes even reaching sixty-eight or sixty-nine. It is surpassingly rich and sweet,
but is of a darker or more yellow hue than the Willamette wheat, and hence, owing to the fashionable
notion that flour must be white, does not sell quite so high as the latter wheat.
But with all these advantages which the Columbia farmer has, he has one serious drawback when it
comes to the important question of transportation. Although the transportation facilities are great, and
rapidly increasing, the monopolistic character of their managements has made freight charges very heavy.
The inland farmer can get his grain to the railroads easily enough; but, when he gets it there, he has to
divide profits with the railroad on something the same terms as the Indian did with the man who was
going to divide the game on the basis, "I will take the turkey and you the crow, or you can take the

DR M. M. PIETRZYCKI,
DAYTON, W. T.
UN
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AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES.
115
crow and I the turkey." The freight tariff from Walla Walla to Portland, two hundred and forty-five
miles, is twenty-three and a half cents a hundred. In most parts of the Inland Empire, it may be said to
average about thirty cents. The railroad competition now inaugurated by the Hunt system and others
will, it is to be hoped, reduce these charges to a reasonable basis. This must suffice for a view of the
general subject of grain-raising in the interior. There are, however, many other departments of farming
open to the farmer here. The change in the style of farming, which inevitably comes with the present
era of development, is going to make the raising of fine stock, of dairy products, of fruit, garden truck
and poultry more and more common.
Every year some new product is successfully tested in some part of the Inland Empire. Tobacco has
proved a great strike in Yakima in the last year or two. In those same alluvial and irrigated valleys, as
the Atahnam and Nahchess, are raised great quantities of hops. In the eastern part of the empire, around
Moscow, Idaho, immense crops of flax-seed are produced. The stranger needs to be constantly warned
not to be deceived by appearances. The Columbia basin, during a great part of the year, has, in
consequence of the scanty rainfall, a parched and dusty surface. The bunch-grass, its natural covering,
though so luxuriant, has a dull hue; and a stranger thinks the whole country a desert. He walks (as did
the immigrants of thirty years ago) right over land that would produce thirty bushels of wheat to the
acre, without once comprehending its value. This is especially the case with people from the Mississippi
and Lake states, where, owing to the heavy showers of summer, the grass is kept constantly fresh.
The next important question with intending settlers is : Where is the government land, and at what
prices and under what conditions can land be secured elsewhere? In answer to the first question we would
say that the largest body of unoccupied farming land is in the "Big Bend" country. This has been
entered very rapidly during the last two years, and will soon be gone; but there are still places for many
more. This region is in Douglas and Lincoln counties. There is also much land of similar character in
Adams county on the south. This country is in the main level, without timber, though on Badger
Mountain is a fine body of good timber. The climate is rather drier than in the Walla Walla and Palouse
countries; though, so far as tested, the soil seems to have the same marvelous power of withstanding
drought. The soil is of the same general character as the rest of the interior; but, as we approach the
river, there is more tendency to “scabby" land, by which is meant land with streaks of rock. But, in spite
of these occasional defects, the " Big Bend" is the coming country of Central Washington. There are,
however, some fine regions, which, though not so large in general area as this, have been less culled, and
probably afford a better chance for immigrants. The best of these is the region of the Rattlesnake
Mountains in Kittitass county. Here is a land of wonderful fertility, mainly very smooth and almost
entirely free from "scabs," and having a warmer climate than any part of the highland of the Columbia
basin. It has two drawbacks;-timber is very distant, and water is a good way down. Still it will soon
be brought under cultivation, and will show the same great capacities that other parts of our empire do.
Immigrants are advised to examine the merits of this region. If you go there in the summer or fall, you
will think the country a desert and will leave in disgust unless warned beforehand. But go slow. Don't
be reckless. There are untold possibilities on those apparently desolate plains. Men who have had most
experience in this country have the least fear of dryness. All that the settler needs to do is to keep his
land well cultivated; and the "viewless winds" will penetrate it with moisture, and the glacial reservoirs
of the mountains will let their contents trickle drop by drop into the strata underneath.
The Rattlesnake Mountains are especially exposed to the visits of the Chinook winds in the winter,
and in consequence are said to have a warmer climate than the greater part of the country south of it.
Here more than anywhere else can the stockman perform his feat of letting stock run all winter with no
'feed except the bunch-grass, nature-cured, on the ground. Sometimes in the battle of the elements, in the
eternal flux and reflux of the seas of air, the biting blizzard from the frozen northeast strikes the
vanquished squadrons of the south in midheaven and turns their treasures of mist into fleecy flakes of snow.
Then six, ten, or, in rare cases, fifteen or twenty inches of snow cover the boundless bunch-grass plains.
Then the stock must paw for a living. Their weakening legs carry them less and less farther; and they
begin to stretch out for a final surrender. Then, while the stockman looks anxiously around the sky for
some sign of relief, suddenly he sees far away southward a blue-black line forming along the horizon. He
goes to sleep happy, for the deliverance is at hand. In the night a roaring is heard. The prairies are
taking breath. Bed-clothes begin to be uncomfortable. Dripping from the eaves begins to be heard. By
morning the mercury has risen to sixty degrees; and great gaps are discernible in the snow. And still
it blows, and by night the ground is bare. Sometimes to complete its victory it blows another night, till
the humbled northeaster sullenly retires even from the lower mountains and takes refuge in the fastnesses of
the Rockies. What has happened to all the snow? The ocean breathed upon it and it has gone. The
stockman stands on a height of scab-land and surveys the scene with a countenance irradiated with joy
and says,
"Chinook, old fellow, you did a pretty good job that time. None too soon either." Such is
the great Chinook wind, the osculation of the Pacific Ocean upon our western shore. The most remote
parts of the Inland Empire are subject to its benign visits; and in consequence immigrants find it much
easier to make their homes with scanty shelter than they do in the blizzard-ruled realms of Dakota.
Besides the Big Bend and Rattlesnake Mountain regions, there are two other large sections in Eastern
Washington as yet largely free to settlers, both of which have the same natural character and essentially
the same advantages as those parts already taken. One is the Wenachie in the southern part of Okanagan
county on the west side of the Columbia. Although the region is not large, it is rich and desirable.
The
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
other is the Colville valley in the eastern part of Stevens county. This valley has been settled in part for
many years; but there is still much land not yet taken which will make very desirable homes. The
Colville valley is quite different from other parts of the Columbia basin. Owing to the greater rainfall
there, timber is found in considerable quantity. The valley is narrow and level, with high hills, clothed
with timber on the sides. The whole appearance is more like one of the valleys of Western Washington
than anything else in the upper country. There are those who regard the Colville valley as the most
promising point for immigrants. Spokane is the natural point from which to go to it; and the Spokane
& Northern Railroad, now in process of construction, will descend almost its whole length.
We have not yet spoken of the unoccupied areas of land in Middle Oregon. Look at your map and
you will see a vast region without railroads, without towns, almost without inhabitants, extending from
latitude forty-five degrees to the California line in latitude forty-two degrees, and about a hundred and
fifty miles wide. This embraces southern Wasco and Gilliam counties, all of Crook, Lake and Klamath,
and the most of Grant, an area equal to Ohio, and waiting for settlers. This is a more broken country
than Central Washington; and there is much more waste land, both sandy and rocky. The climate,
too, is hotter and drier. It is not, in short, so attractive a region; and immigration has not naturally
sought it so much. There are in it, however, many valleys of great beauty; and whosoever gets in first
and gets the pick will account himself a lucky fellow. Largest and best of these valleys is the Harney
valley in Grant county. Two beautiful lakes, Harney and Malheur, lie in the midst of the valley; and
large areas of excellent land are yet waiting claimants. The proposed railroad operations of the Oregon
Pacific Railroad and the Southern Pacific Company will bring this valley and the other arable lands of
Central Oregon into market. But anyone who wishes to get his pick of the land would do well to get in
before railroads arrive and bring their inevitable rush. Klamath and Lake counties are in general so
elevated as to be uncertain for farming. Frosts are liable to occur in August. As stock countries they
are unsurpassed. Such is a balloon trip over the lands in the central belt of the Pacific Northwest yet
open to settlement. A detailed description of the settled parts of the country is beyond the limits
of this chapter. We must, however, devote some space to the natural query which may arise in the
minds of strangers as to the cost of lands in different regions, and the best places to buy. The price
of land is generally low all over the Columbia basin. One might probably say in a general way that
unimproved land can be obtained at from five dollars to fifteen dollars an acre, according to location. In
like manner the cost of improved land might be put at from ten dollars to sixty dollars.
A
The highest priced lands and the most desirable places are in Umatilla and Walla Walla. While
the land is no richer, and there is no more of it than in the Palouse country, yet the climate is so much
warmer, and the advantages for fruit-raising so much greater, that it has a decided advantage. The best
part of the Inland Empire, in all respects, is that part of Umatilla county lying between Pendleton and
Walla Walla, and that part of the latter extending from Mill creek to the foothills of the Blue Mountains.
It may be questioned whether there is in the United States a finer body of land for general farming
purposes than these. When, however, we say that these lands are better for fruit culture than the
Palouse country, we should make two important qualifications. One is that, on the lowlands along the
southern border of Whitman county on the Snake river bottoms, are some of the best fruit lands in
existence. The other is that, on the uplands of the Palouse, the hardy fruits do just as well, though a
little later, as those of Umatilla and Walla Walla. The advantages of the latter are more in the delicate
kinds of fruit.
Vast quantities of strawberries, cherries, peaches, grapes and melons, besides the more common fruits,
are raised in the Walla Walla valley. They find a profitable market in Portland, Spokane and the
northern country in general. In consequence of this special adaptability of the Walla Walla lands to
fruit-raising, the prices are above those of most other parts of the upper country. Good fruit and garden
land within two or three miles of the city command from one to two hundred dollars per acre. On the
creek bottoms, within ten or fifteen miles from town, the price is from forty to seventy-five dollars. The
uplands are somewhat less. Perhaps forty dollars per acre would represent about the average price of
choice land in the foothill belt within fifteen miles of Walla Walla. On the great plains north, and in the
Eureka Flat country, prices are as low as twenty dollars or thirty dollars per acre. The prices in Umatilla
county do not differ widely from those in Walla Walla. More remote from towns and railroads, land can
be obtained in both countries for from five dollars per acre for unimproved to twenty-five dollars or so for
well improved. Good quarter sections are frequently offered without improvements for one thousand
dollars. There are thousands of acres of excellent land in Morrow and Gilliam counties which can be
obtained very cheap, say from six hundred to one thousand dollars per quarter section.
Heppner is the center of that trans-Umatilla country. Although the region around Heppner is drier
and more rolling than that around Pendleton and Walla Walla, yet it contains essentially the same
resources; and we cannot doubt that the time is near at hand when its vast sheep ranches will be broken
up into farms.
There is indeed still considerable government land in that region which, however, is being
rapidly “corraled." In the Heppner country, as elsewhere in the Columbia basin, the stranger must learn
to dispossess himself of the idea that the soil must be black to be fertile, and that there must be a thunder
shower once or twice a week to make anything grow. People from the Mississippi valley, accustomed to
the flat, black lands and summer showers, suppose themselves in a desert when they reach the rolling,
gray praries of Morrow and Gilliam counties and see two months pass without rain. But be not deceived.
That gray desert, with its dusty surface, will turn you off twice as much wheat to the acre and of twice
AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES.
117
as good quality, with hardly a drop of rain from the planting, than you can get on the apparently richer
land of Illinois or Kansas, with their weekly soak. The fact seems to be that the wonderful fertility of
the Columbia "Desert" is due more to the mineral elements of the soil than to the vegetable mould.
These mineral elements are found in about the same proportion throughout.
Besides this great Blue Mountain belt which extends from the John Day river in a vast quadrant two
hundred miles in length to the Snake river boundary of Assotin and Garfield counties, in which the
conditions of price and settlement and business are essentially the same, we should speak especially of
the two other settled sections of the basin, the Yakima and the Palouse countries. As already noted, the
Yakima country is not a uniform, rolling prairie, like the other parts of the upper country. It consists
of a number of narrow valleys, separated by hills, treeless and somewhat barren and rocky. The valleys
are of amazing fertility, and are usually perfectly level, varying in width from the twenty miles of the
Simcoe (which is, however, mainly occupied by the Indian Reservation), to a mile or so, as is the case
with the Atahnam, Cowechee and most of the others. Through all of these course swift and beautiful
streams from the snowy heights of the Cascades. The climate is decidedly drier than in the other parts
of the basin; and hence these streams have been employed for irrigating. These peculiarities of the
Yakima country (with which we include the large and beautiful valley of the Kittitass, since the conditions
there are the same) give it a peculiar adaptability to fruit and garden culture, and to dairying. The
Yakima valley will be the "truck" farm of the Columbia basin. In anticipation of this natural destiny,
the rich spots along the creeks near the larger towns, as Ellensburg and North Yakima, have risen
greatly in price, so that farming land near market is probably higher in those places than in the Blue
Mountain belt. Aside, however, from the places close to market, prices are still very reasonable, and
the inducements to settlers great. Good farms within ten miles of Ellensburg or Yakima (not possessing
some very marked advantage for "trucking") can be purchased for from twenty-five to forty dollars per
acre. Unimproved lands bring from four or five dollars up according to location. Much the same may
be said of the Klikitat country as of the Yakima. Irrigation is not practicable there, nor is it usually
needed; for there is ordinarily a good rainfall. In the mountain and foothill belt between the Klikitat
and Yakima, there are many choice spots yet open to free entry.
In the Palouse and Spokane country (for they are practically one), prices are still low, lower, probably,
considering their advantages, than anywhere else in the Pacific Northwest. Every advantage possible to
the farmer exists on these myriad hills. They are fertile, have plenty of wood and water, abundant
transportation resources, and, in the city of Spokane, a great and growing market near at home. Still
the country is so new that improvements are yet very crude; and the great area of government land in
the Big Bend adjoining has drawn the crowds, so that prices have not yet gone up to their normal height.
Good farms throughout this region, near the growing towns, such as Colfax, Farmington, Oaksdale,
Spangle, Moscow, etc., can be purchased at from eight to twenty-five dollars per acre. Unimproved
land generally brings about one thousand dollars per quarter section. Though possessing a more rigorous.
climate than the Walla Walla and Yakima countries, the Palouse and Spokane prairies are of more
unvarying fertility, and have a considerably larger rainfall.
Such are some of the salient features in the present condition of the agricultural phase of the
industries of the great middle belt of the Pacific Northwest. Let us now address ourselves to the third
grand division, the eastern.
This is the Upper Snake basin. As already noted, it bears the same relation to the Columbia basin
that the latter does to the Willamette valley and the accompanying regions. Before fairly entering upon
the great plains of the Snake, we find in the very midst of the Blue Mountains a very important addition
to the farming resources of Oregon in the three valleys of the Grand Ronde, the Wallowa and the Powder
river. These valleys have most of their characteristics in common, and together constitute the most
attractive and well-developed portion of the eastern belt. All three have lofty and precipitous mountain
boundaries, are very elevated (over three thousand feet on an average), have a rigorous winter climate, an
exceedingly fertile soil adapted to irrigating, which is a desirable though not absolutely a necessary thing.
Of these three valleys the Wallowa is the largest, being about thirty by twenty-five miles in extent.
It is almost entirely new, few farms having yet been proved upon; and hence there has not yet been
established a regular standard of land values. Though so elevated as to be liable to late frosts, and having
very heavy snows, the Wallowa is remarkably well adapted to dairying. The grass on the foothills remains
green all summer; and cows give cream instead of milk. Enormous yields of wheat are produced, though,
on account of lack of transportation, the acreage is small as yet.
The Grande Ronde valley has been long settled, and is one of the most beautiful regions of the Pacific
Northwest. It is a little less in size than the Wallowa, being about twenty-five by eighteen miles in
extent. Being less elevated than the other, it is not affected by late frosts, and has excellent fruit facilities.
Land in the Grande Ronde valley is about the same in price as in the Walla Walla valley.
The Powder river valley, just south of the Grande Ronde, and mostly embraced within the limits of
Baker county, is still a trifle smaller than the latter, being about twenty by sixteen miles. It is still drier
than the others, insomuch that irrigation is nearly a necessity. The soil is very rich and productive; and
the climate, though cold in winter and hot in summer, is healthful. From one standpoint the farmer of
the Powder river country has a great advantage over him of the more extensive Columbia basin, i. e., the
vast mineral wealth of Baker and Union counties is going to create an unrivaled home market for the
comparatively small number of farmers. It may be readily believed that the farmer of this region may
t
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make more money than his larger neighbor of the greater and otherwise better region below. Prices of
land in the Powder river valley are still very reasonable, being about the same as that of the Grande
Ronde. One other point is worth adding, and that is, that in the beautiful, grassy and fertile foothills of
the Blue mountains about these valleys, and indeed on all sides, there are many places where choice
government land may be located. Happy thousands will yet be located on these fair lands. Though
somewhat high and cold as compared with the warmth of Umatilla or Yakima, these Blue Mountain
foothills are warmer in winter and cooler in summer, and pleasanter at all times, than New England or
New York, having indeed much such a temperature as Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
The imagination is staggered in trying to conceive what this country will be when it is, as it surely
will be, settled throughout these now unoccupied and almost unknown valleys and plateaus. One thing
is sure, the man who gets in there now and takes his pick will be glad ten years from now.
He may have
to deny himself and be somewhat isolated for a few years; but the time of his deliverance will not be far
off. The Blue Mountain plateau will soon be interlaced with railroads. Its resources of minerals, precious
metals, timber, stock and agriculture will not much longer be concealed from the world.
And now what can be said from the farmer's standpoint of the vast upper valley of the Snake? Not
much as to its present; very much as to its future. Aside from the one small and exceedingly fertile
valley of the Boise, there is almost no agriculture in Southern Idaho. Here is a prairie one hundred
miles wide by two hundred and fifty long, most of it nearly as level as Illinois, and much of it having the
same kind of soil as the forty-bushel land of Walla Walla. Why is it unsettled and unplowed? The
answer is brief: No rain. But can it not be irrigated? The answer to this is longer, but is a decided
affirmative: It can and soon will be; and, when it is, there will be a flocking to the plains of Southern
Idaho at a rate which will make the shaggy and sullen old Snake river hold its breath. We find nothing
so well suited to our purpose for a clear presentation of this vitally important subject as the report of
United States Surveyor-General Straughan, of Idaho. We give it here.
Surveyor-General Joseph C. Straughan of Idaho has completed his investigation of the matter of
bringing into cultivation several million acres of arid land in our territory by irrigation, and has forwarded
his report to the Secretary of the Interior. The document is elaborate, comprehensively written and will
prove of much interest to our citizens, as well as those intending to become settlers. The following is
a condensed report of Mr. Straughan's investigations:
"Idaho as yet needs no reservoir storage of water. Her immense uplands are stored with snow, from
which source of supply water is let on by the warm sunshine just when the farmer needs it. The volume
of Snake river at the initial points for the canals, near Eagle Rock, Bingham county, has never been
gauged at flood time; but it is much greater than that of the great Ganges canal of India, and more than
can ever be needed for irrigation alone. Boise river has been gauged with tolerable accuracy by A. D.
Foote, an engineer of education and experience, through a period of four years, who reports an average
of nearly sixteen thousand cubic feet per second during the months of April, May and June; and the
catchment basin of this river Mr. Foote estimates at 1,600,000 acres. The catchment basin of Snake river
above Eagle Rock, which extends from the Salmon-river divide on the west to the Teton range in
Wyoming, --Grand Teton peak being twelve miles and eight chains east from the Idaho line,-I estimate
to be about 3,000,000 acres, or double that of the Boise river.
(C
The duty of water for irrigation varies from eighty to two hundred acres to one cubic foot of water
per second, as estimated in this country. From this data it would seem possible to supply 3,000,000
of acres of farming land from the waters of Snake river taken out near Eagle Rock; and from such point,
say from Market Lake, which has a natural inlet from the river, I have projected a line of canal along the
foothills on the north side of the valley at its intersection with Boise river, two hundred and eighty miles
in length and covering 2,750,000 acres, as is shown on the map submitted in connection with this
report. I think it unquestionable that we have on said side of Snake river 2,750,000 acres of good,
irrigable valley land; that we have abundant water to irrigate it; that a canal for this purpose is quite
feasible, and at a cost immensely below the enhancement to the value of the lands lying under it, or below
its horizon. For the canal on the southeast side I have projected a line as run by Mr. Riblett, mining
and civil engineer, at the instance of settlers of Cassia and Owyhee counties. This line taps the south
branch of Snake river as it issues from the mountain gorge, about eighteen miles east from Eagle
Rock, where the water may easily be diverted; thence along the foothills on that side of the valley to
its intersection with the Owyhee river valley and the state line of Oregon. This line, with its detours
at the tributary valleys of Blackfoot, Port Neuf, Raft and other rivers, I estimate at three hundred miles,
and is reported by Mr. Riblett to be without expensive obstacles or serious engineering problems of
any kind.
"I respectfully recommend that a large apportionment be assigned to this district from the
appropriation for the next fiscal year 'for the purpose of investigating the extent to which the arid
region of the United States can be redeemed by irrigation.'
"JOSEPH C. STRAUGHAN,
"U. S. Surveyor-General for Idaho."
The possibilities of agriculture in Southern Idaho unfolded by this report are such that the time
is not far hence when Idaho will be a good third to Oregon and Washington in the products of the
farm, and may even equal them. There is a larger area of level and unbroken land to be reached

The
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The
here and brought under one general system of culture than anywhere else on the Pacific Coast.
fact, too, of the vast and undeveloped mineral resources of Idaho, as in the Wood river and Cœur
d'Alene mines, gives a hint of the value which farming lands will have, in view of the great home
market.
Such must serve for our bird's-eye glance at this greatest of the industries of the Pacific Northwest.
For details we must refer readers to the local newspapers of the various regions. These are active and in
general reliable. One thing needs to be kept constantly before the mind of the student of this country,
and that is its great size and the great variety of soils, climates, locations, etc., to choose from.
To settlers we say, be not hasty in establishing yourselves. Take time to consider circumstances.
Get what you want, even if you have to spend more time and money in doing it. Empires are now built
in a day. Your isolation of the present will be relieved to-morrow by a town breaking through the sod,
while next week a fully equipped railroad will sprout from the prairies or issue full-grown from the woods.
The farmer of this great section of the union does not generally wish to change with any other.
-}
TIMBER RESOURCES.
Timber is a source of natural wealth of such value and so hard to secure by cultivation in any
reasonable length of time that the country blessed with it naturally is thereby placed far in the front in the
race for prosperity. Oregon, Washington and Idaho have wealth in this respect equal to that of nearly
all the rest of the United States combined. As a perennial crop, we may justly assert that our timber
constitutes a resource for industry and a means of creating wealth superior to either our mines or fields.
This may at first sight seem an extravagant statement; but, when we come to look at the figures in the
case, we shall find it not an unreasonable assertion. Glance at your map a moment and contemplate the
timber area. There are eighty thousand square miles of forest land in the Pacific Northwest. But suppose
we consider only half of this to be available. Suppose we consider each acre of this forty thousand square
miles to be able to produce twenty thousand feet. This would be equivalent to twelve million, eight
hundred thousand to the square mile, or, for the total area, five hundred and twelve billion feet. If we
suppose its average value to be five dollars per thousand feet, it would be worth a total of two billion, five
hundred and sixty million dollars. This would seem a safe estimate, when we consider that many single
acres in fine timber would reach ten or even fifteen times what we have estimated as the average.
some instances, single trees have yielded fifty thousand feet. See how this compares with the gold product
of California. That has during the past forty years averaged nearly thirty million dollars annually. But,
as compared with the potential income of our Northwestern forests, it would require eighty-five years to
reach it. And then in the availability of the land afterwards for other purposes, there would be no
comparison. Indeed our forests might thus be estimated to yield twenty-five million, six hundred thousand
dollars a year for a hundred years; and, at the end of that time, the slender saplings of to-day, which
spring up with such amazing rapidity on the site of old clearings, would be forest giants ready for the
lumberman of the last years of the twentieth century. Our forests have then a reproducing power and
a perennial value not possessed by the mines. Moreover, as population increases and the struggle for
existence become fiercer with oncoming years, the relative value of our Northwestern timber resources will
be greatly multiplied. The timber resources of the Atlantic and Lake states will be practically exhausted
within another decade; and here will be the only great supply.
In
It is greatly to be hoped that our mountain timber belts may be held up by legislative action as a
permanent reserve. They should be guarded from fires, and given a chance to recuperate after having
been cut over. Nor should the people of our country ever forget what many of them do, to wit, the effect
of forests in equalizing climates and rainfall, and in controlling the descent of water on the mountain side,
and the consequent freshets or exhaustion of the streams. Judgment must be substituted for the reckless
greed which would tear the protecting blanket of the woods from the surface of our mountains. Let the
far-seeing legislator-if he can be found-provide for the renewal and preservation of our priceless
treasure of forests; and let us not repeat on a gigantic scale the policy of the woman who killed her goose
that laid the golden egg. Agriculture, grazing, fruit-raising, mining, the water-power of our streams,
the navigation of our rivers, and even the productiveness of our fisheries, to say nothing of the beauty
and benignity of our climate, are all more or less dependent on the preservation of our forests. With
these general reflections, let us now consider the location, kinds, character and availability of our trees.
FOREST AREAS.
In a general way the entire region lying between the ocean and the eastern flanks of the Cascade
Mountains is a forest, with some large exceptions to be noted. In like manner the entire region between the
eastern side of the Cascade Mountains and the Rocky Mountains is destitute of timber, with certain exceptions
to be noted. Let us consider the subdivisions of these general areas separately: First, the Coast Range
of Mountains, extending from the Strait of Fuca to the California line, four hundred and eighty-five
miles long and forty miles wide, is absolutely one solid forest. There are no natural prairies in this whole
great expanse, embracing nineteen thousand, four hundred square miles. But that part of it lying in the
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
middle portion of Oregon and extending southward has been terribly scourged by fire. Probably
two-thirds of the region of the Coast Mountains from Yaquina Bay southward has simply a covering of
ghastly stubs. Upon these vast deadenings, ruined for the present, new forests are, however, rapidly
springing up. The destruction between Yaquina Bay and the Columbia river, though not so great, is
very large.
It is still less north of the Columbia. The parts of the Coast Range not thus devastated by
fire contain timber of the finest kind,—the "scrub" kind, and the knotty, stubby trees, of which there
are many in the lower regions, not appearing here.
Next to the Coast Mountain section lies a belt of the same length, and probably sixty miles in
average width. This may be called the region of the cross ranges and valleys. There are, at somewhat
regular intervals, ranges which cross the country from east to west, interlocking the Cascade and the
Coast Ranges. Between these ranges lie our great valleys. The Siskiyou is the southernmost. Then
come the various broken ridges, which may be comprehended under the general name of the Umpqua
Mountains, with the Rogue river valley lying between. Then come the Calapooia Mountains, which
separate the Willamette valley from the Umpqua. In the region of the Columbia the cross ranges are
not so well defined; but there are several ridges bounding the Cowlitz, Lewis river, Chehalis and other
valleys. Now all these cross ranges, and to some extent, especially in the north, the valleys themselves,
are densely clothed with the finest of forests. The valleys, especially those of the Rogue river and the
Upper Willamette, are entirely prairie and withdraw large areas of the timber of this section. It should
be remembered, too, that much of the timber of the valleys is scrubby and fit for wood only. But making
all reasonable deductions for this, together with the destruction by fire,-which has not been so great as
in the Coast Mountains,—we have left an immense area of timber land of fine quality.
Western Washington may be, indeed, said to be almost one solid mass of timber, valleys and all, the
few gravelly prairies to the southeast of the Sound probably not constituting a twentieth of the total
Here in Western Washington are probably twenty-five thousand square miles of forest, of which
a large fraction is available; and the trees are of giant growth. The world contains no other such timber
area as this.
area.
And now we come to the third great timber belt, that of the Cascade Mountains. Like the others,
it extends from the California line to British Columbia, nearly five hundred miles, and probably averages
sixty miles in width, including the foothills on either side. This range is substantially one forest,
except in those frequent points where its sky-piercing heights reach the zone of perpetual congelation,
and the forests cease. There are occasional natural parks of great beauty, which are treeless, and
some areas of volcanic desolation where nothing grows. Fire, too, has played its destructive havoc in
these shady solitudes, though not to the same degree as in the Coast Range. The result of our inquiries,
then, into the region between the eastern flanks of the Cascade Mountains and the ocean is that forest
land very largely predominates in the area, four hundred and eighty-five by one hundred and sixty miles
in extent, and that, though immense deductions are to be made, there is still an empire of trees waiting
for the enterprise of lumbermen.
Eastern Oregon is entirely destitute of forests, except upon the higher parts of the Blue Mountains.
This bold and irregular range, whose picturesque spurs face all points of the compass, supports probably
four thousand square miles of moderately large and available timber.
Eastern Washington has a very fine timber belt extending from the flanks of the Peshastin Mountains
to Lake Chelan, and thence to the Okanagan. This region is almost entirely undeveloped; but it is said
that the trees are of fine quality, and, as is usually the case in the dry eastern section of our empire, free
from undergrowth. This section is at least two thousand square miles in extent. In Northeastern
Washington and Northern Idaho is the great Cœur d'Alene timber belt, the largest anywhere east of the
Cascade Mountains. It embraces probably not less than fifteen thousand square miles. The timber,
while not so large as that of the coast, is of excellent quality and has not been so much scourged
by fire.
One thing is to be remembered in regard to these great fire-stricken areas; i. e., they contain all the
natural conditions of soil and climate necessary to sustain the forests. They have been thickly planted
by nature with the flying seeds of vegetation; and already dense growths of young trees are beginning
to veil the unsightly desolation of the deadenings. Nature is therefore making ready for the future.
Within fifty years these nascent growths will be ready for ties. Within one hundred years they will be
ready for lumber and shipmasts. Thus the land contains within itself the potency of self-renewal.
VARIETIES OF TIMBER.
Having presented in order the forest areas, we next consider the various species of timber in the
order of their abundance, adding such accounts of their botanical peculiarities, habitats, qualities as
lumber, etc., as we deem most worthy of preservation in this work. First in order of importance are
the firs. The nomenclature of these forest monarchs, together with that of their brothers, the
spruces, has been subject to so much change that we deem it best to give here an outline of the varieties
of our trees, as given in Howell's latest catalogue. This will be of permanent value to the readers of
this volume.
Firs.—Red and Yellow (Peseudo Tsuga Douglassiï); White Fir (Abies Grandis); California White
Fir (Abies Concolor); Larch (Abies Nobilis); Lovely Fir (Abies Armabilis); Sub-Alpine Fir (Sub-Alpina).
TIMBER RESOURCES.
121
SPRUCES.-Four species: Picea Breweriana, Picea Litchensii, Picea Pungens, Picea Engelmanni.
HEMLOCKS. Two species: Tsuga Mertensiana, Tsuga Pattoniana. (The former of these is the coast, the
latter the mountain species.) TAMARACK.-Larix Lyelli (Occidentalis). CEDARS.-Port Orford Cedar
(Librocedrus Decurrens); Common Red Cedar (Thuja Gigantea); Mountain Cedar (Chamaecyparis
Lawsoniana). CYPRESS.-Sypressos Macrobiana. JUNIPER.-Juniperus Communis, Juniperus Occidentalis,
Juniperus Virginiana, Juniperus Sabina. PINES.-White Pine (Pinus Monticola); Ridge Pine (Pinus
Albicaulis); Black Pine (Pinus Contorta); Yellow Pine (Pinus Ponderosa); several less common species:
Pinus Lambertiana, Pinus Colteri, Pinus Jeffreyi, Pinus Sabina, Pinus Tuberculata, Pinus Balfouriana.
REDWOOD.-Sequoia Sempervirens. BIRCH.-Betula Ocidentalis, Betula Glandulata. ALDER.-Four
species. ASH.-Fraxinea Oregona (very valuable). CHITTIM-WOOD.-Four species. ASPEN.-Populus
Tremuloides. COTTONWOOD.-Four species. OAKS.-Quercus. Of this grandest of deciduous trees there
are six distinct species, the most common being known as the Black, White and Red. WILLOWS.—Salix.
This pliant denizen of the damp lowlands surpasses all others in number of species, having no less than
eighteen. MAPLE. This exceedingly valuable tree is comprehended under two species: Large-leaved
Maple (Acer Macrophyllum) and Vine Maple (Acer Circinatum).
Besides those more common and important species, there are the following of which we do not deem
it necessary to give the botanical names, namely: Madrona, Serviceberry, Manzanita, Dogwood, Black
Haw, Chincapin, Crab-Apple, Mountain Ash, Wild Cherry, Choke Cherry.
Let us now give a more particular description of some of the different kinds, beginning with the Red
and Yellow Firs. These constitute the staple of our forests. Their giant stature, often attaining a height
of two hundred and fifty feet, and sometimes exceeding three hundred, their pliability and durability
render them our most valued trees. Though spoken of as one tree, and having no fixed botanical
differences sufficient to mark them, they are yet quite distinct to the eye of the woodman, and have
differences of habitat and fiber which anyone may recognize. The Red Fir inclines to grow on lowlands
or the borders of the plains, and has a very white rind, making a strong contrast with the red heart. The
bark is usually thin and dark. The grain consists of broad, hard, brittle layers, alternating with a soft
pith. By reason of this peculiarity, the wood is easily split into long splinters, or even sheets.
The Yellow Fir is found on the higher knolls of the valleys and the skirts of the mountains, on all the
foothills and lower plateaus. It grows in "continuous woods," having a social nature, and developing after
a patriarchal fashion, i. e., a huge forest monarch, centuries old, with ranks of offspring thick about it.
These mighty patriarchs are shaggy-barked and wide-spreading, in many cases having a short stock, six
to eight or even twelve feet in diameter, which, at an elevation of forty or fifty feet, shoots out monstrous
branches, drooping low and heavy with swaying moss, the very beau-ideal of vegetable grandeur. The
trunk, still rising above this circlet of huge branches, is thickly studded with limbs, and at the top spreads
out again into a leafy corona. The enormous roots, spreading in all directions, and frequently extending
a hundred feet from the tree, sustain even that colossal mass against any violence short of a hurricane.
Around these lone relics of four centuries ago, their grandchildren, of almost equal height, but exceedingly
slender, sometimes being three hundred feet high and only three feet thick, and limbless to within fifty
feet of their tops,-sway back and forth in the light gale till one thinks they will inevitably topple over.
The "sounding aisles" of one of our great Yellow Fir forests are unmatched on earth for beauty and
grandeur.
pry"
One of these great forests stands like a phalanx, each one supporting its fellows. Their enemy is the
wind. The few big, stubby patriarchs break its initial onset, while the slender ones let it slip over them,
bowing their feathery tops like reeds before the blast, so that it slides past with no hold. But once let
the old wind-fighters on the outer edge of the phalanx be vanquished, and let the tempest get a
underneath, and then those slender shafts, graceful as the fluted columns of a Corinthian temple, topple
over like a field of ripe grain. These typical slender firs, which are the true lumber trees, grow best on
the lee side of the hills, rooted in the deep, rich soil of centuries of decaying vegetation, or else they gather
confidingly around their patriarchal ancestors. Straight as arrows, without a limb for two hundred feet,
the tufts of branches above interlocking from tree to tree, so that they form a roof of foliage of which each
trunk is a pilaster, the sun so shut out as never to penetrate the shady recesses, the trees so dense as in
the distance to look like a solid wall of stems, floored with moss knee deep, the gloom brightened here
and there by gorgeous red and yellow flowering shrubs, such as the wild currant, which loves the shade,
or perhaps sweet with the amber or scarlet or jetty berries which in autumn provide feasts for birds and
bears, these are specimens of "God's first temples" which must be seen to be fully appreciated.
For general purposes, Oregon Yellow Fir has no superior. It combines lightness and elasticity
with strength and durability in better measure than any known wood. It is hence peculiarly suited to
ship-spars, ties, bridge timbers, etc. Its weight is but half that of oak, while its tensile strength is equal
to it. Its chief defects are its shrinking and swelling when exposed to the weather, its rapid decay-
about seven years-when set into the ground, and its habit of exuding pitch after it has been dried.
The finest Yellow Fir is found along the Sound, especially on the rugged lands adjoining Hood's
Canal, and on the Coast Mountains bordering Tillamook Bay. On the northern flanks of Mount Hood,
however, and on the plateaus bordering the Lewis river valley in Clark county, Washington, are forests
which might well challenge comparison with any. The pitch of the Yellow Fir (which injures its
finishing qualities as well as by inviting fire) has made itself subject to enormous devastation, but is in
itself a source of immense future wealth, enough to recompense the injury of which it is the occasion.
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
It affords the best of resins, tar and turpentine; and by proper kilns, wood alcohol, useful in the arts,
may be secured.
The Grandis, or White Fir, grows along the river bottoms and other damp lands. It is very stately
and beautiful, with smooth white stem and glistening spicules. The pose of this tree is so solemn, its
symmetry so perfect, and its shadows so deep, its whole ensemble indeed so majestic,—that Grandis seems
the natural name. Its lumber value is, however, small. It decays quickly. It is exceedingly light,
and the wood is apt to warp and splinter. Its habitat is the damper and lower land throughout our
entire forest area, though it does not appear in any quantity east of the Cascades.
The Nobilis, or Noble Fir, is commonly but incorrectly called Larch. Its habitats are the highlands,
especially the westward flanks of the Coast Mountains, though it is found quite extensively in the
Cascades and other regions. Vast forests of this wood are found about the headwaters of the Nehalem,
Trask, Wilson, Nestucca and other rivers flowing from the crest of the Coast Mountains to the sea.
They have suffered less from fire than any others. The Noble Fir or Larch is a worthy rival of the
Yellow Fir in beauty and utility. The stems are as straight and elegant as rods of steel, symmetrical,
smooth, and tapering with perfect geometrical regularity to the very tip. The wood is of the finest
quality, soft, white, of uniform texture, receiving a polish almost equal to Black Walnut. The grain
is so true that a splinter was once found sixty feet long taken from a tree split by lightning, and which
was so narrow and thin as to be easily coiled up like a piece of tape. This timber is regarded with
great interest by millmen as the coming timber; but as yet, owing to its comparative inaccessibility, it
has been almost untouched by the saw.
The Abies Amabalis, or Lovely Fir, is found high up on the sides of the Cascade Mountains. It is
comparatively small, and possessed of great beauty.
The Abies Sub-Alpina, or Sub-Alpine Fir, grows at greater altitudes than any other tree except the
Ridge Pine. In its native haunt, at an altitude of about six thousand feet, about the bases of the mighty
snow-peaks of the Cascade Mountains, it reaches a height of about seventy-five feet. It is a perfect
spire, the beau-ideal of a mountain tree. It can nowhere be seen in greater perfection than in the
enchanted meadows which encircle Mount Adams. There, at the border of the eternal frost, it stands in
its unmatched shapeliness, as the last good-bye of the realms of the vegetable world. On the uppermost
ridges, where the tempests sweep with wintry fury century after century, these trees cling with undying
pertinacity; but they are trees in miniature. Frequently those a hundred years old of perfect form and
maturity are found only six or eight feet high.
But we must beware lest we devote a disproportionate amount of attention to the firs, important
though they are. We must pass on to the spruces.
The White Spruce is even more burly than the firs, but not usually so tall. It grows from an
enormous butt, formed of monstrous contorted roots rising sometimes ten feet above the ground. The
trunk, when fairly clear of the roots, is round and smooth, with thin, scaly bark, rising two-thirds
of its height, without branches, then throwing out huge lateral limbs. The powerful rooting of these
trees seldom permits the wind to overthrow them; and, for this reason, they may be found in the most
exposed places on the seashore. The spicules are so stiff and sharp as to pierce the skin like
thorns, and hence to forbid any free handling. The wood is not so resinous as that of the fir,
though there is much pitch in the spicules and in the knots. The branches are so hard and heavy
as to sink almost like iron. The wood is soft and uniform in texture, and has a corky character not
found in any of our other trees. It is riven with special ease, often making split boards a foot wide
and ten or twelve feet long. It is therefore sought for "shakes" and puncheons. It is prized for
box lumber and laths. The wood often has a pinkish tint and a satin-like smoothness of surface which
are very pretty. It has still another use for which it will ultimately be greatly sought. It is peculiarly
adapted for the manufacture of wood pulp for paper. There is a pulp-mill at Young's Falls, near Astoria,
which utilizes the spruce thereabouts. The habitat of this tree is more restricted than that of the fir,
being mainly the coast region on either side of the mouth of the Columbia. In the rich valleys opening
to the sea, it sometimes reaches enormous proportions. The writer has seen one fifteen feet in diameter
and there are authentic accounts of one on Young's river seventeen feet in diameter.
The Hemlock, as we have seen, is of two varieties, commonly distinguished as White and Black.
Compared with the gigantic stature of the firs and spruces, the hemlock is small, seldom exceeding four
feet in diameter or two hundred feet in height. It grows in very dense forests, so thick and straight as to
resemble standing grain. The foliage is soft and pliant; and the branches have a habit of forming clumps
near the ends from which sprout a multiplicity of small twigs. There is no shade darker than that of a
hemlock forest on some one of the humid slopes seaward of the lands about the mouth of the Columbia.
They are frequently draped with "Druidical moss," which sometimes, in the damp valleys of the coast,
acquires astonishing length. The wood of the hemlock is white, and when dried has a peculiarly hard,
glazed surface. It is remarkably well adapted to box stuff, flooring and fencing. It yields much paper
pulp.
The bark is also rich in tannin. Its habitat is about the same as that of the spruce, though it is
also found in small quantities in the Cascade and Blue Mountains.
But we must not crowd the pines from this brief panoramic vision of our forest wonders and treasures.
The Pacific Northwest has an abundance of these, the Yellow or Pitch Pine (Pinus Ponderosa) forming
the great bulk. It is a stocky tree from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet high, having a scaly
bark of a yellow hue. The wood is solid, though not very hard, is substantial, and very resinous.
The

JOSEPH M. SHELTON,
ELLENSBURGH,W.T.
MRS. MISSOURI SHELTON,
ELLENSBURGH, W.T.
TIMBER RESOURCES.
123
pitch is not very noticeable, however, unless in case of cuts or wind-twists, in which it exudes in
enormous quantities. The pine grows on dry and barren ridges. There is a singular belt running a due
north and south line through almost the entire length of the Willamette valley, and only a few miles in
width. Its chief habitats, however, are the rocky ridges of Southern Oregon, and the eastern flanks of
the Cascades. The tree is commonly called "Bull Pine" in Eastern Oregon. There is much of it about
Hood river and the White Salmon below The Dalles. It is the common tree about Spokane, Moscow
and on the western flanks of the Blue Mountains. In extent of range, indeed, it ranks second only to the
Yellow Fir. Though often knotty and scrubby, it furnishes much fine lumber. Selected boards can be
found which make furniture of great beauty. It takes a fine polish.
The Black Pine is small and comparatively unimportant. Its habitats are the bases of the great
snow-peaks of the Cascade and Blue Mountains.
The Ridge Pine is not important as lumber, but is peculiarly interesting from its habit of growing at
the greatest elevation of any tree in all our land. Its habitats are the storm-torn and glacier-ground
desolations about the snow-line of Adams, Hood, Ranier and other Titan peaks of the Cascades. The cone
contains a fine nut much prized by Indians and birds. Clinging to its narrow and desolate foothold, looking
far down on the glaciers and shaded snow-banks, this tree becomes so dwarfed that centuries of age are
represented by but a dozen or twenty feet of growth. Sometimes it maintains, its life in situations so
swept by the hurricane fury of its inhospitable home that it cannot stand upright, but creeps along the
ground in the line of the wind. Though so interesting and picturesque a tree, it has no commercial value.
The Mountain Pine, frequently called White Pine," is very similar to the true White Pine of the
East. It is a graceful tree, with feathery top, and soft, pliant wood. It is for the most part not easily
accessible. Great forests are known in the Pen d'Oreille and Coeur d'Alene Mountains. The north flank
of Mount Hood bears great quantities. Reports are made of similar groves on the sides of Mounts St.
Helens, Adams and Ranier. There is also a fine growth of it on the crest of the Coast Mountains, twenty
miles west of Forest Grove, around "Devil's Lake and the headwaters of Wilson river. There is still
a little question whether this is indeed just the same as the White Pine of Maine; but lumbermen who
have examined it do not hesitate to describe it as of equal excellence. It is undoubtedly one of the finest
of the undeveloped timber resources of the Pacific Northwest. A vast fortune awaits the men who shall
have the enterprise to reach its remote retreats and send it forth to the markets of the world. The writer
has been informed by lumbermen that a thousand feet of it delivered in Portland would be worth fifty
dollars. Besides the pines described, there are a few specimens of the "Jack Pine" on the dunes of the
coast; and in Southern Oregon are scattered specimens of the "Big Cone Pine," the cones of which are
sometimes sixteen inches in length.
Cedar is found throughout the forest areas west of the Cascade Mountains, and occasionally in the
moister lands on the other side. The Port Orford Cedar is one of the most valuable of all our forest trees.
Exceedingly light, yet firm, it is eagerly sought for making boats, furniture, etc. It has the peculiarity
of shrinking only lengthwise of the fibers. Its habitat, as denoted by the name, is the coast of Southern
Oregon, though it is by no means unknown in the Cascade Mountains and on the coast of Washington.
Coos Bay, may, however, be considered its chief emporium. The common Red Cedar is plentiful in every
damp valley or cañon throughout the entire extent of the forest land of the Pacific Northwest. It is also
found on many of the mountain ridges. It does not usually occur in distinct forests, but is rather scattered
through other kinds of trees. It seems to be found in greater quantities in Clark county, Washington
and other regions bordering on the Columbia, than elsewhere. Vast quantities are found, however, on
the high ridges of the Coast Mountains, west of McMinnville. It sometimes attains a gigantic girth
near the ground, no less than eighteen feet in diameter having been reported, but tapers rapidly, and
in actual amount of wood by no means equals the fir and spruce. Its value for posts, doors, sash, etc., is
so universally known as to hardly require mention. Suffice it to say that it is one of our indispensable
trees. So widely distributed is it, though sparse, and so valuable do its lightness, firmness and beauty
make it, that we can scarcely conceive its value to the country at large.
The cypress, the yew, the juniper, the tamarack, the redwood and the birch we need not speak of at
so much length, since their quantity is so comparatively small. Tamarack is found in considerable
quantities in the Blue Mountains, and is a valuable source of timber supply for the Inland Empire.
Redwood is, of course, a very excellent timber tree, but is found only in the extreme southwestern corner
of Oregon.
The Hard Woods.—The hard woods and nut-bearing trees are not largely enough found in the Pacific
Northwest to be of any great commercial importance. Oak, ash and maple are, however, found in
sufficient quantities to be of much value in their respective departments.
The oak, first by reason of its arboreal majesty as well as by the extent of its distribution, is not
generally considered equal to its eastern cousin for lumbering purposes. It is brash, and frequently
dozy," i. e., infected with dry-rot at the heart. The trunk is usually very short, and spreads in huge
gnarled branches, which add more to beauty than to value. The White and Black Oaks, with some Red,
are the common trees of the Willamette, Umpqua and Rogue river valleys; and so graceful have their
centuries of growth placed them, and in such baronial state do they stand in their park-like domains, that
one might almost think himself in an old English manor. There are great quantities of oak at Hood
river and White Salmon on the Columbia, but beyond that, in the Inland Empire, it is practically
unknown. The most easterly is said to be at the Simcoe Reservation in the Yakima; and that is one of
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
the most beautiful of groves. Occasional large oaks can be found which furnish excellent boards for
furniture, wagon-making, etc.; but the chief value of our oak timber (except as wood) is contained in the
thick groves of " grub" oak which have sprung up since the country was settled, and since the autumnal
prairie fires set by Indians have ceased to destroy all young tree growths. These oak grubs are
extraordinarily tough, strong, elastic and hard, and are even superior to hickory for axehelves,
wagon-wheel spokes, etc. Large industries in various lines of manufacture will yet be built up on these
great forests of young oak.
Ash is found throughout the regions west of the Cascades, and, though somewhat more brittle and
coarse-grained than the Eastern, makes beautiful furniture, and for this use is beginning to have great
commercial value.
The maple is one of the most beautiful and rapidly growing trees of the Pacific Northwest; and the
large-leaved species, found in moist lands throughout the entire forest area, is exceedingly valuable for
furniture. The large furniture manufacturers of Portland depend chiefly on the ash and maple for their
supplies, and claim that the latter is fully equal to its Eastern relative. Some species of Oregon
"Bird's-eye" and "Curly" Maple reach the very acme of ligneous beauty.
The alder is also a very beautiful and interesting tree, an inhabitant of humid places, and sometimes
attaining, especially in the valleys of the coast, a great stature. It sometimes occurs in thick groves of
great beauty. It is soft and light, and as yet has not attained much commercial value.
Cottonwood is found along the river bottoms throughout the entire Pacific Northwest. It is perhaps
the most widely distributed deciduous tree in the whole country, being often found along the creeks East
of the Mountains where no other timber exists. It sometimes attains gigantic dimensions,—one hundred
and fifty feet high, and five or six feet in diameter. It has no value as lumber, except for boxing or sugar
barrels, and is even very poor for wood. Its sphere seems to be found, however, in furnishing a pulp for
the manufacture of paper, and for excelsior. The paper mill at Lacamas on the Columbia depends largely
upon it.
Of the almost innumerable lesser trees, as cherry, dogwood, etc., we cannot here speak. There is a
curious tree in the Blue Mountains of Eastern Oregon, however, of which we cannot forbear to say a word.
This is Mountain Mahogany. It takes a polish equal to the true mahogany, and is the finest-grained wood
in our country. So rich and beautiful, so hard and heavy is it, that were the tree not so small in size, and
its area so limited, it might reach a very high commercial value. Indeed, as it is, it will no doubt
sometime be much sought for inlaid work, etc. The same is true of many of the other woods of small
size and limited quantity.
From this brief enumeration of our timber resources, we see that we have every wood for building,
furnishing and ornamenting our homes, and for constructing and equipping railroads and steamboats. We
ought, indeed, to name under the latter head the example of the steamer T. J. Potter of Portland, which
is one of the finest specimens of boat architecture afloat, and was built exclusively of Oregon woods.
Our timber, as it stands, and with its facilities for growth, ought to be depended on for a future income of
fifty millions annually to the Pacific Northwest, for an indefinite number of years. With an intelligent
and rigid supervision of our forests by a proper legislative commission, they ought to be renewed and
maintained as long as the world stands. Our people must learn one thing, however, and that is not to
wantonly or carelessly set fire to these incomparably valuable possessions. Something like a billion
dollars worth has been burned already. Nevertheless such stupid indifference to matters of real public
interest prevails, especially in Oregon, that no doubt hunters, campers, slashers, and reckless and
thoughtless people generally, will continue to play havoc for many years to come.
But this lengthy article must draw near an end with a brief account of the existing facilities for
handling and working up these well-nigh exhaustless timber resources. The lumber mills of the Pacific
Northwest have been, in the nature of the case, mainly massed at the points where commerce most easily
meets production. Therefore nearly all the great mills are on Puget Sound, the Columbia river and Coos
Bay. Within these last few years of railroad development, great establishments have sprung up in the
Coeur d'Alene and Pen d'Oreille belt. Besides these great mills, whose aim is to supply the foreign
demand, almost every creek in the country has some little mill to satisfy the local trade.
One very important fact in the lumber trade has developed within the last two years, and that is the
demand from the East. Hitherto the foreign market of our mills was either California or Australia, China
and the Islands. Hence the ocean was the only route. But since the construction of the Northern Pacific
Railroad and the Oregon Short Line, there has come a steadily increasing demand from Montana, Dakota,
Colorado, Nebraska, and even as far east as Chicago. During the year 1889, shipments to the east from
the vicinity of Portland averaged nearly four million feet per month. One mill in Portland saws
exclusively for the Eastern trade, another about half. The income from this source to Oregon amounted
to nearly half a million dollars last year. Puget Sound has probably not sent so much lumber East in
proportion to her total output as has the Columbia; but in the aggregate it has been very great. It is
reliably estimated that the shipments by rail from Washington Territory during the year 1888 were
twenty-four million, two hundred and fifty thousand feet, while over a million lath and twenty-four million
shingles were also shipped.
It would be impossible in the space at our disposal to name all the mills of the Columbia or Puget
Sound sections. We can only say in general terms that they are immense in capacity, and provided with
all manner of the best machinery and appliances. The Port Gamble mills can cut two hundred and fifty
TIMBER RESOURCES.
125
thousand feet of lumber per day, and others nearly as much. The steadily increasing demand for lumber,
and the increasing profits which the enlarging market brings, has led to the establishment of many new
mills during the last year, and to the purchase of immense quantities of timber land from the government.
It is believed that the available timber land is now pretty well "corraled.” We need hardly add, however,
that vast tracts yet remain in the mountain regions which will be sometime made accessible.
There are in the vicinity of Portland three large mills, of which the largest, "Weidler's," ranks with
the mills of the Sound in capacity, having cut more than one hundred and eighty thousand feet in a day.
There are on the Lower Columbia, at Mount St. Helens, Mount Ranier, and other points, Astoria being
the chief, seven large mills. At the mouth of the Umpqua river there are two, while Coos Bay boasts of
six. The total cut of these various Oregon mills has been roughly estimated at over one hundred and
fifty million feet during the year 1888. The mills of Puget Sound, however, vastly exceed those of Oregon
in the amount of their output. C. L. White, of the Pacific Mill Company, made the following estimate of
the cut of the districts named for the year ending September 30, 1888: Snohomish, one hundred million
feet; Skagit, seventy-six million, five hundred thousand feet; Satsop R. R., forty-six million; Gray's Harbor
R. R., forty million; Stillaguamish, forty million; King Co., thirty-five million; Hood's Canal, twenty-five
million; Blanchard R. R., sixteen million; North Bay, fifteen million; Olympia, eight million; Whidby
Island, ten million; north of Point Wilson, eight million; Whatcom, fifteen million. This foots up the
enormous total of four hundred and thirty-four million, five hundred thousand feet. It does not include,
however, the output of numerous small mills. Governor Semple estimates the total output of the
Washington Territory mills for the year 1888 at one billion, forty-three million, five hundred and ninety-six
thousand feet. It is thus safe to say that the lumber output of the ocean side of the Pacific Northwest
exceeds a billion feet annually, or a million thousand, giving an income, if we average its value at
five dollars per thousand (a low estimate), of over five millions of dollars.
The amount of the cut in the great Coeur d'Alene timber belt of Northern Idaho is not easily
estimated. It may be said, however, that it has not yet produced much for export. Like the mills of the
Blue Mountains, the interior of Southern Oregon, and other comparatively new and isolated regions, it has
kept up only with the local demand. This, however, in consequence of the great needs of railroad
construction, is very large. The demands of the mining towns of the Cœur d'Alene, too, together with
the immense demands of the city of Spokane, have taxed the local mills to the utmost, and, indeed,
required large importations from the Sound and the Columbia.
Such is a résumé of the timber resources of the Pacific Northwest. We have endeavored to give a
plain, unexaggerated statement within the bounds of the acknowledged truth. We do not desire to hide
the facts that immense areas of our forest land have been wasted by fire, and that other great tracts are
possessed by scrubby, knotty and useless timber. For these reasons we estimated the forest area of value
at forty thousand square miles, though there is twice that amount of land bearing forests. We also
estimated the average capability of each acre at but twenty thousand feet, though single trees are on
record from which fifty thousand feet have been cut, while a good authority tells us of seeing five hundred
thousand feet of Yellow Fir cut on a single acre on the Toutle river in Washington; and it has been
estimated that there are, within a radius of eight miles around the Columbia river mills of Skomokawa,
Washington, not less than six hundred million feet of the finest Yellow Fir. But take the coolest, the
most unfavorable view of our forests, make the largest possible allowances for burns and for scrubby
timber, yet the assertion remains unchallenged that the Pacific Northwest has no equal in the world in the
extent and general quality of its timber resources. We may profitably close this chapter with a statement
recently made by one who is recognized as an authority on this subject,--Governor Russel Alger of
Michigan. He says:
Very few people appreciate the extent and superiority of the Washington Territory fir; and the
only reason it is not now brought East is the necessarily high freight rates by rail. Some of it now finds its
way to New York by vessel, but the voyage is a long one. For several years, appreciating the fact that
the Michigan and Wisconsin pine lands were being exhausted, I have had my eyes open for new fields;
and three years ago I visited this Washington region, making a personal examination of the field. I
think I am a fair judge of timber; and I don't hesitate in pronouncing the product of those regions in every
way superior to our northern pine, and other countries recognize the fact. While I was in Tacoma I saw
nine vessels bound for England, Germany and China, loading at the wharves. At the present time it
cannot be profitably carried east by rail. I have figured the matter with the roads touching that district,
and it has been found impossible to carry the stuff two thousand miles at anything like a reasonable rate.
If the Panama canal is ever built, an enormous lumber traffic by water will be sure to spring up; and it
will come possibly just at the time we need it.”
"In one way
Governor Alger was asked when he thought the present fields East would be exhausted.
that is hard to say. In Michigan, many owners have not good facilities for cutting timber, while others
are rapidly clearing the fields and moving to new ones; but, judged by the output of last year, it cannot
last more than eight years. In Wisconsin I presume it is much the same."
126
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
LIVE STOCK INTERESTS.
CATTLE.
It is nothing very new or fresh to say that our cattle interests are extensive. It is estimated that the
Pacific Northwest produces one hundred thousand beef hides each year. Considering that many of our
cattle are exported alive and that the hides of those slaughtered are not all sold, this may be regarded
as not more than half the number annually sent to market. At the low value of twenty-five dollars
each, this represents a source of income about equal to each of the industries of grain-raising, wool-raising
and the fisheries, and one-half that of our sawmills and coal mines. When dairy products are taken
into consideration, our beef cattle and cows rise into very high importance. If the horns, bones, hoofs,
hair and hides were kept in the state, and tanning, manufacture of fertilizers, of leather, gelatine and
neat's-foot oil carried on, the total value of our herds would be almost doubled.
This, however, represents our cattle industry only in its crudest beginnings. If we allow a hundred
thousand square miles as the grazing area of the Columbia valley and North Pacific coast belt,—and this
would leave about an equal area for agriculture, horticulture and fruit,—and supposing that besides
sheep and horses this would support fifty cattle per square mile, we should be able to produce two
million, five hundred thousand beef animals per year, worth-hides, horns and all-one hundred million
dollars as an annual income. The dairy products should be as great.
The dairy products should be as great. As a matter of fact, however,
the land designated as agricultural, as distinguished from grazing, is best utilized even for grain by
alternation with cattle; and the straw, offal of wheat, etc., would promote the production of and furnish
nutriment for five million more such animals. And this number could be doubled by providing roots,
clover, vetches, and corn or sorghum from the deep valley or table-land soils. On quite a considerable
portion of our surface one acre is, by the most improved methods,―root crops, etc.,-sufficient to support
These calculations, however, have no great value except to show the immense wealth that lies
two cows.
in our pastures.
The first cattle introduced into Oregon Territory were three animals sent by ship from England to
Fort Vancouver, intended simply for the use of the chief factor and the gentlemen at the post, to supply
milk, butter and cheese and veal betimes for the table. Doctor McLoughlin, however, cherished them
as the apple of his eye,-killing only one calf a year,—and soon had a handsome herd. These were
English Durhams, and furnished some of the best milch cows ever in the country. In 1841, Ewing
Young brought up from California a band of Spanish cattle, the tall, bony, fleet, long-limbed and
dagger-horned stock, imported from the fierce herds of the land of "bull fights." Joseph Gale soon
after brought another herd; and there were importations from time to time thereafter. These fierce-eyed
animals of beastly savagery, which made the fields unsafe for women and children, and even made men
on foot keep on the inside track for a tree, soon gave character to the herds of our young state, and until
1861 were the conspicuous type. In that year one-half or two-thirds of all the cattle perished from the
severity of the season; and, of course, these wild creatures were allowed to suffer the most. As the
immigrants came in from the East, they brought continually cows and stock animals, as well as oxen
of the mixed American breeds; and for milking they were constantly given the preference, the Spanish
stock, or animals showing Spanish traits, being gradually turned off for beef. This ugly and inferior
breed has, therefore, almost wholly disappeared.
Within the last twenty years, there have been constant importations of fine, pure bloods; and, from
the quite general use of breeding animals of these fine breeds, our herds are rapidly improving. The
Jerseys here, as elsewhere, are much sought by the wealthy as milch cows in their city stables or at their
villas. The beauty and docility of these channel cattle, and the excellence of their milk for butter, make
them a favorite in all cases where elegance is required. Ben Holladay was among the first to bring them to
the state; and the herd is still increasing on Clatsop Plains. Captain Thompson of Wasco county has also
made extensive importations, and has distributed his stock widely. W. S. Ladd has a fine herd on his
farm near East Portland. S. G. Reed, the capitalist of Portland, has made a specialty of English Short
Horns; and from his farms in Yamhill and Washington counties has disseminated this noble strain.
Another handsome herd of Durhams belongs to Wm. MacEldowny of Washington county. The
Holsteins, sometimes described as the Dutch Short Horn, notable not only for their massive barrels and
immense muscles, but exceedingly handsome for their silky hair and sharp black and white distribution
of color, are a much-sought breed and command a very high price. David Stewart, formerly of Yamhill,
now of Washington county, has been a large importer of this variety, and himself has one of the finest
herds in the state. They flourish on this coast; and their milk and cheese and beef producing qualities
point to them as a very valuable addition, and perhaps ultimately the prevailing type. Mr. Elliott, now
of Oregon City, has imported Devons; and a number of gentlemen of the Grand Ronde valley also own
an excellent herd of Holsteins. The Ayrshires are, however, somewhat cultivated, and as a domestic
family cow have few superiors. The Herefords are also turned out largely on our ranges, together with
the Short Horns. The Polled Angus are universally esteemed and desired. The chief objection to this
handsome and entirely hornless breed as an animal on the ranges is its inability to defend itself from the
attacks of vicious creatures of the horned varieties.

RESIDENCE OF J.J. BROWNE, ESQ.,
SPOKANE FALLS, W. T.
LIVE STOCK INTERESTS.
127
We have attempted here no exhaustive list, and have by no means given the full enumeration of
importers, but merely a slight view of our cattle as they are and the improvements now going on. From
this it will be seen that we now have as good a basis of valuable neat stock as any part of the union.
Directing our attention now to the distribution of the bands of stock, we will notice that the
Willamette valley has been the radiating point. This was originally one immense field of grass, with
luxuriant pasturage both summer and winter. The stock had but to pass through the verdure which grew
as high as their bodies and bite off the seed ends of the long stalks, leaving the rest to be trampled upon.
This lordly exuberance, however, soon gave way; and, with the failure of wild pasture, the forage
became very poor and meager. In the course of a number of years a miserable "cheat" or chess came
to be almost the only grass that grew. The cattle were driven to the ranges East of the Mountains; and
the lands of the Willamette looked bare and mean enough. Some of the more enterprising farmers,
however, began to sow domestic grasses and red and white clover in their pastures. These took kindly to
the soil, and gradually began to take root in the lanes and on the hills. Cattle and birds gradually caused
it to sprea 1; and the white clover in particular is the chief forage. It is now well established, and grows
with amazing strength. The farmers of this valley are moreover trying the plan of alternating their wheat
crops with red clover. They are able to cut a crop of hay in June; and thereafter, through the dry
months of July, August and September, the clover continually sends up clusters of fresh leaves and stalks,
drawing nutriment through its long tap-root from the region of perpetual moisture. This makes the best
of pasture. Some of the most progressive farmers are also producing large crops of roots, such as turnips
and carrots, which furnish abundant feed in the winter and early spring. Any animal will do well on
straw and carrots; and, as a thousand bushels of the latter will grow on an acre, this method of feeding
should become more widely adopted.
It is no great venture to assert that the valley and hill lands of Western Oregon and Washington will
in the future, by methods similar to those employed in England and Holland, produce cattle to an equal
extent with those countries per square mile. Without prejudice to any section, we may observe that the
sea-slopes of the Coast Mountains, which are for the most part an easy incline with many flat or nearly
flat benches and table lands, and innumerable little valleys and meadows, have the humid, mild climate and
the deep soil so loved by the roots and grasses and clovers, which will make them ultimately the great
cattle belt. These mountains are now for the most part heavily timbered; but the axe and the wild fire
are rapidly denuding the surface.
The Inland Empire is at present and for many years will be the great home of cattle. The stimulating
climate, the seas of grass of the most rich and delicious character, and the chance to run half wild, have
developed animals of enormous size; and the quality of beef is unsurpassed. This is the native land of
the bunch-grass. This famous herbage grows in clusters or bunches varying in distance from a yard or
more apart to such close proximity as to form a continuous turf. It reaches a height of from eighteen to
thirty inches, with narrow leaves that fall in dense masses, and with a slender caulis or stem which bears
a feathery and drooping seed-head. There are three or four varieties, one of which has a blue leaf. It is
a grass rich and dry, remaining alive late in the spring and early summer, and fattens animals with the
same rapidity as grain. When it cures without rain, it becomes a very good hay; yet its qualities in this
condition have been very much over-estimated. That growing on the low hills and rolling uplands, and
in the dryer regions, is reckoned the best. It is here the sweetest and most concentrated feed. On the
high hills or mountain ranges, and in the region of greater rainfall, it is more luxuriant, and even more
quickly fattening; but the flesh thus laid on is observed to be less solid, and more quickly lost upon
returning to the dry winter feed.
In about 1860, and up to 1870, cattle-grazing began to be followed in a semi-barbarous, nomadic style.
The animals were marked and turned loose on the range. They were expected to take care of themselves,
and sometimes were scarcely seen except at the summer round-up, when the calves were marked and the
beef animals segregated and sold off. There was such a plenitude of grass which cured on the hills and
was seldom buried beyond sight in the snow, and which would at least prevent starvation, that little or no
provision was made for winter feed. During severe winters a quarter or half of the cattle would perish;
but such occurred but once in five years; and from the milder seasons the bands came out sound and
strong, and the hills became populated soon with immense herds. Cattle Kings" sprang up all the way
from Malheur to Colville. While the sum total of the ranges were not occupied, the central localities, as
at The Dalles or Walla Walla, became over-stocked. In truth the bunch-grass will on the average cut
only from one hundred pounds to a quarter or half a ton per acre, except in very well-favored places; and
it is only a few weeks in growing. Close feed, moreover, destroys its vitality. Consequently, about 1870
and thereafter, stock began to look winter in the face with short or bare fields; and a few sharp winters
dotted the hills with the bones of dead animals.
Stockmen thereupon bestirred themselves to sow grain for hay, and to have feed for a few weeks of
the worst weather. These experiments in providing hay, together with those made expressly with a view
to test the capacity of the soil for grain, soon proved its immense value for producing the cereals; and,
with that fever of change which overtakes even ranchers, many began to sell off their cattle wholesale,
and to go largely into wheat-raising. Fencing and plowing of land began to seriously restrict the
range; and at the present time the huge bands of cattle are going out of date. Many stockmen are
finding it also the most advantageous system to provide ample feed for winter and for the early spring
months, and from February to April to turn off their beef animals.
10
128
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
As to the location of the great ranges, we may note that upon what is sometimes called the desert"
in Middle and Southeastern Oregon, in Crook, Malheur and parts of Baker and Grant counties, where the
rainfall is most scant and some of the streams have a way of sinking, and there are basins left without an
outlet for lakes now exhausted or dried up, the grass is most scant. It forms a growth almost as soon as
the snow melts; and the water from this snow is about all that may be depended upon, although spring
and summer showers are by no means unknown. Upon the lowland south of Umatilla and Arlington,
there is also a sage-brush tract where the growth of grass is light. The deep valley of the John Day, and
the wider valley of the Lower Yakima, are of very much the same character. The long, stony depression
northeast of Ainsworth, a smaller region, is even less productive. The pasture in these lower areas is,
however, sweet and nutritious. The rainfall is cut off by the mountains and high plateaus; and the sun
beats upon the bluffs and rimrocks with which many of the basins are encircled, giving each valley
a climate of almost Egyptian warmth. This excessive heat and glow burn nearly all natural vegetation
after the first of May.
The plateaus receive more free wind, are not confined between glowing rock walls, and get a greater
fall of snow and rain. The table-land between the Des Chutes and John Day, the Blue Mountain
foothills, which cover a vast area of Eastern and Middle Oregon, the Wallowa and Grand Ronde valleys
and the Umatilla country in Oregon; the Klikitat table-lands, the Kittitass valley, the Upper Yakima, the
Rattlesnake highlands and Horse Heaven country, the Big Bend, Okanagan, and the Palouse and
Spokane regions of Washington; and the Pan Handle of Idaho,—all receive this greater abundance of
moisture, and have grass of the finest quality. An adverse feature of many of these uplands is absence of
streams or springs of water. Cattle will not flourish if compelled to go farther than two or three miles to
pasture; and many of these plateaus, cut on all sides by profound gorges or cañons of streams, have no
springs for many miles. Artesian wells, or reservoirs to save the snow water, may relieve the difficulty of
the situation.
In
On the mountain ranges proper the greater precipitation stimulates a forest growth, and thereby
renders the pasturage less abundant and of an inferior quality. Yet the woods are, to a large extent,
open glades, with much fine grass, wild pea vines, and vetches, and succulent roots and herbs.
many of these mountain regions, as on the headwaters of the Klikitat, or in the Ochoco, the vegetation
of the mountains reaches enormous growth, although not of the same nutritious value as at less altitudes.
The ranges west of the Cascades, and especially on the west slopes of the Coast Mountains, have the
advantage of making a growth of clover almost the year round; and, while nothing is quite equal to
bunch-grass, clover is but little behind, and the production per acre is much greater.
We may summarize the future of the cattle industry under the following statements, which present.
the conditions under which it must flourish: 1. The North Pacific coast has precisely the latitude and
climate best adapted to the growth of cattle. 2. The production of grain offers the conditions for and
requires the presence of neat cattle. 3. Clover and roots on the coast; clover, roots and straw in the
western valleys; and corn and sorghum with roots and grain in the Inland Empire,—will be the fodder
for cows and beef stock. Alfalfa will succeed well in places, notably in Southern Oregon. Large
orchards of sweet apples and of pears will produce in almost any locality, especially the western valleys
and hills, an unlimited quantity of food for stock of all kinds. 4. There are a hundred thousand square
miles of plateaus, mountains, ravines, deserts and forests, that will always be used for little but pasture.
Over these the cows, as well as the horses, sheep and goats, will for a long time run at their will, year in
and year out.
HORSES.
The Pacific Northwest may very properly be styled the country for horses. The dry, stimulating air,
the rich pasturage, and the hills and plateaus of the Columbia valley, afford precisely the conditions most
favorable for the production of fine animals in this line. Indeed, according to the geological record,
these conditions have prevailed from the most remote ages; and North America, and particularly that
part of North America known as Oregon, has now for some twenty years been able to claim that it was
upon her soil that this noblest of all dumb animals was developed. If Oregon did indeed give to the
world this magnificent creature, she may with the more courage endeavor to lead the world still in the
production of equine strength and speed. Let us here add, en passant, that it is to Professor Thomas Condon
of the Oregon State University that the world owes the discovery of the extinct horse species. A single
piece of a bone of the leg, found in the old sandstone near The Dalles, enabled him to publish that the
ancient home of the horse in paleontological time was in the valley of the Columbia; and from this and
further discoveries made by him, and the consequent researches of Professor Marsh of Yale College,
Professor Huxley has made the series of horse species of the distant past of Oregon thoroughly known
to Europe as well as to America. No one, however, will infer that what are spoken of as "native" horses
in our state, are the lineal descendants of our paleontological horse. That animal became extinct in North
America long before man appeared on earth; and it is from the European or Asiatic branch that our present
stock has been reintroduced.
Oregon was found by the earliest white discoverers to be populated with horses; but the breed was of
the Spanish line, the descendants of the steeds introduced into Mexico by Cortez and other governors.
These Spanish animals were of the desert or Savannah's breed,—the variety ever accustomed to race over
LIVE STOCK INTERESTS.
129
dry hills and plains, and endowed with a taste for the waste plateaus and sandy tracts, and even not
disdaining the rocky wilderness. Their ancestors were of Arabian herds brought into Spain by the
Moors, and by the adventurers of Castile distributed into the two Americas, and filling within less than
three centuries the plains of the Amazon and La Platte, and of the Mississippi and the Columbia. Our
representatives of this grand breed are the "Cayuse" ponies, so familiarly known throughout the Pacific
Northwest. By winters a little cool for the tropical Arab horse, and by in-breeding, and by much abuse
and early riding and packing by the Indians, these ponies have become undersized, but are remarkably
tough and active. Two of them are about equal in weight to a large horse of the Western European
stock; and even three might be included in a Clydesdale or Norman Percheron, Yet these hardy animals
will travel fifty or even seventy-five miles in a day without great fatigue, or bear two big Indians at a
gallop. The colors are usually piebald, red and white. White or cream is much preferred by the
Indians, although it is not known that they understood the art of breeding for this. In crosses with
the English-or, as locally known, "American"-stock, red roans or bays are produced; and much of
the stock is thus admixtured. The grades possess in many cases the excellencies of both breeds; and
the Pacific Northwest horse of the future is likely to be a superior animal on this account, having hardihood
and endurance from the Indian stock, and size and muscle from the American.
Since the coming of Americans to the country, their stock has been constantly introduced. At the
present time, about every known variety of horse is found in this section of the Union. Perhaps the
Kentucky blue-grass horses have the largest progeny; and, as many persons here are great fanciers of
trotters and runners, this will probably be the case for many years. Nevertheless, the Morgan roadsters,
and the Percherons and Clydesdale draft horses, are much sought and admired, and may be seen on the
large farms and in the cities. As in all places, the active, medium-sized, hardy and gentle common horse,
of no particular variety, or of the grade of such a breed as the Morgans, which can be used for the road,
the plow or the saddle, and may be obtained at a comparatively small price, is the best for the small farmer
or villager.
The farmers of the Pacific Northwest are well informed as to horses, and supplied with records which
make any particular notice of breeds or names of importers superfluous here. Probably there is no one
thing in which our farmers feel greater pride or more interest; and almost every community is well
supplied with superior stock animals. It is safe to claim that, on account of climatic conditions, and the
superiority of our pastures and high ranges, the Pacific Northwest will supply horses not only sufficient
for use in her own cities and upon her own farms, but even for extensive export to the cities of the East.
Indeed, this has already been accomplished to some extent; and there are various exporters who yearly
send carloads of Oregon and Washington raised horses to California, Nevada and the Rocky Mountain
country, and even to New York state. Probably cattle and sheep are fully as remunerative; yet horses
here, as everywhere, are most admired. The dry, electric climate of the Inland Empire is expected to
produce very superior animals; yet Western Oregon has secured and still maintains a very high record.
SHEEP.
The same climatic and topographical conditions which make the raising of other stock profitable
apply equally to sheep. The mountain pastures and the dry plateaus are especially serviceable to these
animals; and the low valleys, as the "deserts" of Middle Oregon and the Lower Yakima, are excellent
places for wintering, being furnished with natural shelter, defended from heavy snows and chilling winds,
and affording in the early months of February and March a nutritious pasture.
The sheep husbandry, which began in Western Oregon, has been chiefly transferred to the Inland
Empire. The great center of this industry is now in Middle Oregon, southward from Arlington and
Heppner, on the highlands of the John Day river, and across the ridges towards the Malheur and
Klamath country, and in the Grande Ronde. It flourishes also on the Snake river, and towards the
Palouse. We are not aware that there is any natural objection to the cultivation of this stock on the hills
of the Spokane, or in the Big Bend country, or in the Yakima valley; yet, in the heavy grain-producing
regions, the occupation of the land by sheep is not deemed profitable; and it is, therefore, upon the drier
lands, which are uncertain of grain, that the sheep rancher lays out his industry. As the summer dries
and burns the fields, the flocks are slowly driven to the higher mountains,-to the peaks of the Blue
Mountains, to Tygh valley and the Ochoco, to the meadows and lake regions that lie on the top of the
Cascade Mountains, or to the immense pastures of magnificent summer grass at the base of Mount Adams
and around Lake Sequash at the head of Wind river, and northwards towards Mount Ranier.
While the close biting of the grass and the fouling of the ground in the regions occupied by bands of
cattle is offensive to the cattle kings, and the driving of great flocks of sheep on the highways to and fro
between the lowlands and the mountains is injurious to the small farmer whose cow feeds in the lane, this
method of sheep culture has been very profitable. It needs regulation; but it will probably exist as long
as the present character of the country remains. There are many regions that can be best utilized by
sheep; and the high pastures will always be a refuge from the summer drought. While the native grasses
are undoubtedly killed out by sheep, the interest of the proprietor will lead to sowing of such grasses or
clovers as will flourish on the public domains of the hills and mountains; and the trampling of the ground
and presence of the sheep will tend towards the constant fertilization of the soil and the formation of a
tough and enduring sod.
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
A better, and, we think, a more permanent method, is the rearing of sheep in small bands, after the
English model. Each small farmer will have his dozen or hundred sheep, useful not exclusively for wool,
but also for mutton, and even more for the enrichment of the soil. Every spot of land or field that shows
signs of exhaustion, under grain culture, will be surrounded with a fence and left to the sheep for a season.
Roots, straw and hay will be fed, and the next year this will be the most productive spot on the whole
farm. Grain-raising will be carried on most successfully only in connection with cattle and sheep. While
wool may not always bring a high price, it will be sufficient to pay for the care of the flocks; and the
mutton and the improvement of the farm will be clear gain. The flocks on the deserts, plateaus and
mountains will always be numbered by the hundreds of thousands; but the aggregate of the little folds in
the valleys, on the farms, and around the orchards of the low hills, will ultimately double the other.
The history of the introduction of sheep is very interesting. Doctor Whitman early saw the
advantages of the upper country for their culture, and was very anxious to interest the Indians in keeping
flocks. He desired to induce the government to give them sheep for their horses. He wrote a letter to
the Secretary of War upon this subject, in which he expressed the opinion that sheep would be of more
service than soldiers in keeping the red men quiet. He believed that the care of flocks, the hunting and
destruction of wild animals in their defense, the necessity of constant watchfulness; the possession of
something of money value, the flesh to take the place of buffalo, beef and venison; the wool for the
industry of the women,―were all circumstances of their culture which settle the Indians on fixed seats,
lead their thoughts from war and the chase, provide for their sustenance, and material for their clothing,
and make a beginning in the way of commerce. Moreover, if their wealth was in something so easily
taken away or destroyed, they would be easily made subject to the direction or punishment of the
government. These large views, however, which have since been adopted by General Crook, General
Miles and others interested in the Indians of the present time, were wholly neglected and left unnoticed.
By a misunderstanding of Doctor Whitman's directions, the immigrants of 1843 did not bring sheep,
supposing that the journey was too severe. In 1844, however, Captain Shaw, the father of Colonel B. F.
Shaw of Vancouver, drove a small flock with his wagon train with the intention of using them by the
way for mutton, and not expecting to bring them through. But they endured the journey as well as any
other stock; and something like a dozen or a score were brought into the Willamette valley. The year
following a small flock was also brought through; and in 1846 Mr. Matthew Patton, late of Albina, Oregon,
succeeded in bringing three hundred. In 1847, Mr. Joseph Watt, of Amity, Oregon, returned East with
the intention of bringing large flocks of the very best breed, having first crossed the plains in 1844, and
observed that Mr. Shaw's sheep came through in good condition. He succeeded in his endeavor, and from
this time engaged systematically in their culture and encouraged others in the same business, and was one
of the projectors of the woolen mills which were afterwards located at Salem. In 1853, Colonel James
Taylor formed a partnership with W. H. Gray, Robert S. McEwan and Major Rhinearson to introduce
sheep; and two large flocks were brought across the mountains, although one of these, intended for the
Clatsop Plains, was wrecked in a storm near the mouth of the Columbia. Mr. McEwan's were distributed
throughout the Willamette valley; while Rhinearson brought out a band of horses instead and took them
to California.
The very earliest sheep are said to have been introduced by H. H. Spaulding of the Indian mission
at Lapwai, having been obtained at the Sandwich Islands and imported along with the first newspaper
press. The Hudson's Bay Company at Vancouver had a few rough-wooled Spanish sheep at an early
day; and Doctor Tolmie made urgent request that this company stock the Nisqually Plains with this
animal, thinking thereby to hold the country north of the Columbia river for Great Britain; but his policy
was not regarded.
Since the introduction of the Merinos, they have become the prevailing species, and given character
to all our flocks. Their thick, tight, oily fleece protects them well from the rains of Western Washington
and Oregon, and from the alkali dust of the Inland Empire. There is, however, a considerable
sprinkling of Cotswolds and Southdowns, and other varieties, together with what is called the common
sheep. The English varieties, useful chiefly for mutton, will be cultivated more and more.
As to quality, the wools of the Pacific Northwest are of very high character, those of Western
Washington and Oregon rather taking the lead of other sections. The wools of the Umpqua valley
are said by good judges to be the finest, longest, whitest and most glossy in the whole Western World.
For fine work they will always command a steady market and a good price.
We find that as early as 1842 the naturalist Peale, who accompanied Commodore Wilkes' expedition,
declared that "the cool, even temperature of the climate, which enables fur-bearing animals like the
beaver to carry good, fine fur throughout the year, will also favor sheep carrying an even-grown fleece in
the same way," and that "for the production of such fleeces the natural grasses of Oregon are eminently
well fitted." By reference to market reports, we find that "Oregon valley wool," which means wool
grown west of the Cascade Range of Mountains, stands at the head of wool values of Pacific Coast
production by from three to five cents a pound in the unwashed fleece. The wools of Oregon, both of
fine Merino and the long, even-combing fleeces of the Cotswold and Leicester and their crosses, were
awarded medals for superiority at the Centennial Exposition of 1876.
From Mr. John Minto's exhaustive treatise on sheep in Oregon, we find the following uses enumerated
as those to which sheep may be profitably applied: First, for wool, which amounts to from seventy-two
cents to one dollar per common sheep for the season; Second, for mutton, the demand for wethers both

HON. ALLEN WEIR,
PORT TOWNSEND, W. T.
FISHERIES.
131
for markets in Oregon and even as far eastward as Chicago having steadily increased up to the present
time, and our flocks increasing at very nearly the rate of one hundred per cent per season under good
management; Third, for cleaning fields of weeds and for biting brush sprouts, and thereby clearing wild
lands; for which service the Merinos or Merino grades are declared to be best, as they have a natural
wild taste for all kinds of herbs and brush, and are good "rustlers;" Fourth, for improving worn-out
land,—instances being on record of old fields, that were supposed to have been made almost sterile by long
cultivation, having been brought to a yield of forty bushels of wheat per acre by their use.
As to breeds, the Merinos are the favorite; and it is reliably stated that there is scarcely a sheep
in the Pacific Northwest without some admixture of this blood. Mr. Minto, however, believes that,
with improved British methods of management, the British breeds will do well. He says: "A friend
of the writer in 1887 sheared one hundred and seventy pounds of wool and saved thirty-two lambs
from a little flock of eighteen ewes, -cross breeds of British stock. The writer has frequently saved
an increase of a hundred and fifty per cent of lambs from grade Southdowns when the native grasses were
good and abundant; and now, when the use of sheep is improving the pastures of Western Oregon by the
spread of white, alsike and other clovers and grasses, I see no reason why the strong and prolific British
breed should not give as good yield of lambs as under their native climate, which ours so much
resembles."
As to the production of wool, we find that in 1887 and 1888 there were produced by the territory
west of the Cascades two million pounds; by all of Eastern Oregon, twelve million, two hundred and
fifty thousand pounds; by all of Eastern Washington and Idaho, four million pounds,-making a total
of eighteen million, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds for the whole Columbia region.
As to the consumption of this vast product, but a small portion of this is used in Oregon, although
our woolen mills, of which mention is made elsewhere, do a very respectable manufacturing business.
Neither do we have as yet scouring works by which may be removed the dirt and refuse, which amounts,
on the average, to sixty-five per cent of all, and upon which the sheep rancher is obliged to pay
freight to market. But with increasing capital our great natural facilities for woolen works will induce
capitalists to manufacture our wool product upon the Northwest coast, and thereby make our states a great
center of woolen fabrication for the world.
GOATS.
Goats, particularly of the Angora stock, have been introduced; and the hair, which sometimes has
sold for seventy-five cents per pound, brings a good return. The demand however is very variable. The
animal is profitable for eating brush and keeping down sprouts on "slashings;" but, from its ability to
walk over any ordinary rail fence, is not a favorite.
HOGS.
Hogs of all varieties and breeds have been prolific in the country from the earliest times. While
wheat is rather dear feed, and corn does not generally meet with success, and the fern and native roots
upon which the swine formerly fed are becoming less abundant, it has been found that, in all the moister
regions, peas and clover, together with apples and cultivated roots, will produce, at low cost, the finest of
pork. The animals are not subject to cholera or other fatal diseases.
FISHERIES.
Both the fresh and salt waters of Oregon and Washington, and the contiguous ocean, teem with fish
of many kinds. We will not weary the reader with conjectural statistics as to how many thousand tons
of deep-sea fish might be taken yearly from the North Pacific Ocean, since, in this one regard, our
resources are practically infinite. The Hump-back Whale, which spouts from every few square miles of
ocean surface, is said by some to be susceptible of cutting up into acceptable bits of whale steak; and one
fish will furnish as many as six different sorts of flesh,-different portions having a different taste.
Supposing now that there was one whale to every ten square miles of ocean; we should have some
twenty-five billion pounds of the flesh of this vertebrate, sufficient to feed twenty million human beings
a year!
But without any such monstrous cetacean humor, or radical suppositions, let us proceed to enumerate
the recognized food fishes of the waters of the Pacific Northwest and notice something of their prevalence,
habitat and availability. Following somewhat in the order of their present importance we shall have
salmon, halibut, cod, sturgeon, smelt and herring; trout and red fish; with many inferior sorts, as
flounders, porgies, tom cod, suckers, etc.
The salmon is, of course, the royal fish of this country. It has become an article of commerce as
fully recognized and relied upon in the markets of the world as codfish, mackerel or oysters. The
statistics of the salmon business show its growth as one of the great industries of the Pacific coast.
Beginning on the Columbia in 1866, with a pack of four thousand cases worth sixteen dollars each, it rose
to its maximum in 1883, reaching a pack of six hundred and twenty-nine thousand cases at five dollars
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
each. Since then there was a steady decline of the Columbia river pack until 1887. In that year it fell
to three hundred and fifty-four thousand cases, commanding a price of four dollars and seventy-five cents.
per case.
In 1888 it increased slightly, aggregating three hundred and seventy-one thousand cases.
The Columbia summer pack was regarded as some twenty-five thousand cases more in 1888 than the
year before.
The total Oregon pack of 1887, however, was three hundred and seventy-three thousand cases; but
that included the pack of fall salmon. This general decline of the business on our great river has been
due to but one cause, and that is excessive fishing. Good judges believe that there are now less than
one-fourth or perhaps one-fifth as many fish in the river as in 1866. They were then so abundant that
fifteen cents apiece brought the fishermen a good income. At one dollar and twenty-five cents for each
fish the fishermen now make less money. That this disparity in prices, indicative of the present small
catch per boat, is not due simply to greater competitors and the consequent division of results, is amply
shown by the fact that in 1876, when four hundred and sixty thousand cases were packed, but twenty-five
cents was paid per fish. In 1883 the price ran up to ninety cents; and there were seventeen hundred
boats on the river, the pack being six hundred and twenty-nine thousand cases.
The diminution of pack in late years is clearly due to the scarcity of salmon caused by over-fishing in
the past. The destruction of fish to the number of about one million, or thirty million pounds, indicated
by the pack of six hundred and thirty thousand cases in 1883 or 1884, represents but a part of the total
number killed. In catching with gill-nets, almost numberless seals are accustomed to follow along and
bite into many of the entangled salmon; and these are thrown away. In the flush years every boat did
its best, taking sometimes from fifty to one hundred salmon per night. The canneries were so over-crowded
as to refuse many boat-loads; and magnificent dead specimens were turned back into the river by the
thousands. The recklessness and waste that characterize every new and successful industry is the real
cause of our present lack. It must not be inferred, however, that the salmon business of the Columbia is
in a declining position, or that it will ultimately cease to pay. The river is probably able to yield two
hundred and fifty thousand cases per year without serious diminution; and we shall have laws favoring
the fish so that they will not be too mercilessly slaughtered. The close season will be longer. A whole
week in each month on the entire river will be left for the fish to run undisturbed. The laws have already
been well enforced, and will be still more strict. Salmon hatcheries such as that already in existence on
the Clackamas will be multiplied. By these means a business worth two million dollars or more per
annum will be preserved.
As to the genera and species of our salmon, they are not salmon at all, but Oncorhynchus. Many are
sea trout. Nevertheless, our people will always call them salmon; and for practical purposes they may
be described as such. The distinct species are quite numerous, numbering, we believe, some thirty. But,
without getting too much into zoology, it will be enough to mention the kinds after the practical
nomenclature of the fishers and market dealers. The royal fish of all is the Chinook, or Quinat, which
attains an average weight of from twenty to thirty pounds, although fifty and sixty pound fish are common
enough, and seventy-four pounds has been turned by a single specimen. Reports of ninety-pounders are
afloat. The flesh of the Chinook is rich red, the fat equally distributed, and the oil retained in the flesh
upon cooking or canning. The run begins in February, and attains its maximum in July. By some, the
fish of the first run is described as somewhat different,—the quality of flesh more delicate and deeper red,
and the shoulders less plump; and this earlier variety is claimed as the true Chinook, while the later is
called the Hump-back. It is the later or July run which is the most numerous. Both these varieties—if
there be a distinction — have a broad, spreading tail, which enables one to lift the fish by this member;
while the Steel Head is so tapering at this point that the hand slips. This latter fish, the Steel Head,
nearly as long, but much more slender, is a trout. The flesh is pale, and the oil separates upon cooking,
making the canned goods look unappetizing upon opening. Yet, for immediate use, it is sometimes
considered as fine as the Chinook. The name "Steel Head" was given from the hardness of the skull,
requiring at least two blows of the club, which is used to quiet the salmon in drawing them into the boat,
to destroy life. The Blue Back, which is much smaller, weighing only about seven pounds, is also a
trout, and considerably resembles the Steel Head. The Fall Salmon, Hook Nose or Dog Salmon swarm
in great numbers into the small rivers and bays, and into the Lower Columbia, and to some extent above
the Cascades. It is small, and the flesh inferior; nevertheless, only in comparison with the Chinook is it
really a valueless fish. The poverty of oil made it formerly acceptable for export, when salted, to the
Sandwich Islands, where the warm climate rendered the richer Chinook unfit for use. The White Salmon,
which ascends the river several hundred miles, and has special streams for its spawning-ground, resembles
the Chinook in size and the Fall Salmon in quality of flesh. This salmon runs to a greater extent in the
upper parts of the river than any of the other species.
There is ample evidence that the salmon return only to the rivers in which they were spawned. The
species or varieties in each river differ distinctly from all others; and no fisherman or fish-eater would ever
mistake a Columbia salmon for a Sacramento or Frazer river or Yukon specimen. In nothing is this more
noticeable than in the size of the fish, and in the quantity and distribution of fat. The larger the river,
the larger and fatter the fish. Thus, the Columbia salmon is largest of all, the Frazer river salmon next,
the Sacramento next, the Puget Sound and small coast streams least. The Yukon salmon is said to be larger
even than the Columbia river fish. At first glance this may seem to be a mere fancy, or at least a curious
coincidence; and the reason why a big river should have a big salmon is not apparent. But, when we
MINERAL RESOURCES.
133
consider the habits of the fish, the cause seems plain. The salmon eats nothing in fresh water. It enters
the river only to reach the spawning grounds and there to die, both male and female pushing to the heads
of the smallest streams and choking the lakes, even to that remote cold pond in the heart of the Rocky
Mountains of British Columbia where the Columbia rises. Emaciated, cut on the rocks, with broken fins,
they become the food of men, wild animals and birds. For a desperate ascent of from one thousand to
twelve hundred miles up such a stream as the Columbia, the fish must begin the journey in a condition
very fat and powerful. For a less journey, as in the Frazer, less force and fat is required; for the
Sacramento, still less, and so on down the scale. As they mingle and spawn only in fresh water, there is
no opportunity for the species of different rivers to cross while in the seas. The only real point of wonder
is by what means a fish born in and adapted to the Columbia remembers, after a five or six years' absence,
which is his port. Yet it is upon this amazing instinct, in which the whole intelligence of the salmon
seems concentrated, and upon its consequent habits, that we must rely for securing and preserving a supply.
of these noblest of the creatures of our waters.
While the product of the Columbia, including fish sent fresh to market, and that canned and salted,
will probably never exceed a value of three million dollars a year, it must be remembered that the British
Columbia and Alaskan waters furnish a vast supply, the latter aggregating four hundred thousand cases,
and the total pack of the coast for 1888 being the largest by one hundred and filty thousand cases ever
made, reaching one million, one hundred and twenty-one thousand cases. Oregon and Washington capital
will be invested up North; and the salmon business will reach the dimensions of from ten millions to
fifteen millions of dollars annually,―equal to our wheat or lumber.
The halibut, a fish of forty pounds weight, form large shoals off the Strait of Fuca and to a vast extent
in the more remote waters, and is a delicious fish of white flesh and delicate flavor. A fleet of schooners has
for more than a year been upon these fishing grounds; and some have met with very great success, taking
as much as forty thousand pounds in a trip of three days. Refrigerator cars are run to carry this product
fresh to New York; and we may confidently expect that the business of shipping halibut to the interior and
even to the Atlantic seaboard will reach a volume approximately equal to that in salmon.
Cod exist from Vancouver Island to the Aleutian Archipelago, and to the Sea of Okhotsk in Asia.
It is disputed that they are equal to those of the Atlantic. Nevertheless there is actual proof that they
are an excellent and appetizing fish, and are bound to command a good price in the markets of this coast
and of the world. The beautiful rock cod is found in immense numbers off the bar of the Columbia, and
up and down the coast.
Herring and smelt swarm into all the small rivers, and into the Columbia. No point would be more
eligible than one near the mouth of this river for taking and preserving herrings. The shad imported
from the East to the Sacramento have passed up to our coast, and are now taken in large numbers in the
Columbia. The red fish, which we believe has been found exclusively, in Wallowa Lake, is sometimes
described as an inland salmon, from its red flesh and other resemblances to the Chinook. Though much
smaller, it is considered the most delicate and appetizing of any fish upon our coast. We know of no
reason why it might not be introduced into any or all of our thousand clear inland lakes. Trout are
innumerable in all our streams and lakes, and to those fond of the barbarous "sport
sport" of destroying
animal life offer as ample an opportunity as ever did the birds to the arrows of the wild men of the plains.
MINERAL RESOURCES.
We may preface this chapter by saying that the mineral resources of the Pacific Northwest are
known only superficially and fragmentarily. There has been no thorough geological survey; and the
region is of such immense extent and embraces such a labyrinth of mountains and basins, with such a
series of upheavals, depressions and enormous volcanic outflows in the past, that there is no equal area on
earth presenting more difficult problems, or more extensive records for the geologist.
The precious metals have been diligently sought; and some general notion of the mineral beds in
which they lie have been found. Coal has been looked for sufficiently to be seen where the veins escarp
upon the bluffs, or where the drift has been seen in the streams. Iron is known where it lies exposed to
the surface. But the other minerals are imperfectly recognized; and the few places marked or examined
may be multiplied many fold so soon as the practical need for some common mineral makes the search
financially encouraging. In the meantime our citizens, with a few exceptions, and the law-makers without
exception, have felt so little concern in the wonders of our geology, or the increased value of our domain
by the discovery of the wealth underground, that no mineralogical survey has been ordered; and the very
office of state geologist has been so shorn of its remuneration as to be of not the slightest inducement to
any man of sagacity or information. So far as it has been filled,—and filled it was for a time very ably
by Professor Thomas Condon of the State University,-it was as a matter of encouragement and charity,
with the hope of an appropriation adequate for the proper prosecution of a survey some time in the future.
Our public knowledge of the wealth which lies under the soil is superior only to that of the aborigines
who preceded us. But, in spite of this humiliating backwardness, we have, thanks to the enterprise of
newspapers and interested private parties, a general knowledge of the great mineral belts. Professor
Condon, above mentioned, and Mr. H. O. Lang, have been the leaders of this research; and the discoveries
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
of the former are of a nature to give him world-wide recognition. Through the Oregonian, Mr. Lang has
familiarized the public with the approximate values of our mines.
To proceed with our view of this subject, one may notice that the entire Pacific Northwest, from
California to British America, and from the Rockies of the Pacific, is indeed not only closely associated in
a political and social and commercial manner, but it is a geological unit, one area which has been by itself
and has had an integral geological history. It will assist to understand the location of mineral belts to
bear in mind the succession of events in the ages millions of years past. Briefly outlined, this is as
follows: The primitive rocks, such as limestone and granite, show that the ancient Oregon, before the
upheaval of the present mountains, lay open to the sun and to the agency of the Pacific, even in the most
remote times, portions of our state being as old as the Californian Alps or Sierras, or perhaps as the
Laurentian hills. Precisely how much of the surface was above water is not accurately known, but the
area was extensive. In the old times of quartz and limestone, and porphyritic and feldspathic rocks,
the precious metals, washed down from the hills, or silting into the fissures of the strata, or entering
the yielding quartz, made the lodes and ledges that we now find.
The Siskiyou Mountains on the south, the Blue, Coeur d'Alene and Rocky Mountains on the east
and the Okanagan, Selkirk and gold ranges on the north, were the boundary ranges of this old basin.
The intervening region, now the vales and hills, and even high mountains of Oregon and Washington,
either lay beneath the sea or else but a little above the tide. Doubtless the wash from the old hills
gradually filled up the deep gulf; and in the succeeding ages the basin rose to the level of the water,
and, being cut off from the sea by the spits and bars that form along the shore, gave birth to that immense
vegetation which form the coal measures of the state.
The area now occupied by the Cascade Mountains, from the British line to a point below Middle
Oregon, and east and west an unknown distance, was then a great swampy country, raised but little above
the sea, and rank with vegetable growth, and again by depression a little below the sea and heaped over
with sand. During the first elevation the coal was formed. Upon the first elevation of the Cascade
Mountains, the country westward to the present limit of the land became likewise a region of swamps,
alternating with depressions beneath the sea. There was also a great expanse in which iron collected
in the bogs, forming the bog-iron ore. Subsequently, with the further elevation of the Cascade Mountains,
and the birth of the Coast Range, came those vast volcanic convulsions for which the valley of the Columbia
is pre-eminent, disrupting the old strata, and dislocating them in all directions. Much of the coal and
iron and the minerals were buried thousands of feet under solid basalt rock, or even under such stupendous
piles as Mounts Adams, Ranier (1) or Hood. A vast proportion of this coal was shattered or consumed
by the fire. Many of the strata were elevated high on the mountains. Iron bogs were changed into hills
of the ore.
With this history in view, we may now remember more easily that the precious metals are found in
the axes of old mountains forming the ruins of the old Northwestern area, i. e., in Southern Oregon, in
the Blue and Cœur d'Alene Mountains, the spurs of the Rockies, and on the north in the Okanagan and
Colville districts. There are also mines in the middle belt of the Cascade Range, or on the Santiam and
in Douglas county. From these we may infer that there was old rock above the sea in primitive times.
The coal and iron are found chiefly in the middle district, i. e., from the Yakima river and the John Day
westward to the Pacific. With this general view in mind, we may now proceed to mention the particular
minerals and their locations.
COAL.
We mention this first as of co-ordinate importance with iron. The two are to the industrial world
what the carbonaceous and nitrogenous foods are to the body. The one furnishes power, while the
other furnishes tissue. Coal is the producer of power,—the stored sunshine of the ancient world. The
coal used in England yields a force equivalent to the labor of one hundred millions of men per year.
The Pacific Northwest is supplied with this stored force in great abundance, making it a region perfectly
adapted to great manufacturing and other industrial operations. It is entirely useless to make even an
approximate guess of the quantity of this mineral. There are some three or four great fields in which
croppings have been discovered. The first of these is from the line of Josephine county north to the
Columbia river; the second from the Chehalis river, extending on the east side of Puget Sound, and on
the west flank of the Cascade Mountains north to the Skagit river; the third on the summit of the Cascade
Range in Washington, between Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams, northeast to the Yakima or Kittitass;
and a fourth on the east flank of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon, towards the John Day river. In
mentioning these as separate fields, it must not be supposed that we mean that each field is a continuous
deposit. On the contrary, nearly all these areas are mountainous country; and the coal strata, like those
of all the other rocks, are dislocated, folded, faulted, and in the river valleys removed by denudation.
Much of the original coal--if it ever extended uniformly over the whole of each area—has been covered
mountain deep by rock, or entirely burned by the volcanic fires. The early English geologists believed
that there was no coal-bed at all,—that it all had been burned by volcanic action. Many of the North
Pacific strata have been so completely faulted that, even when exposing croppings, they could not be
worked. Much of the coal found is of inferior quality, as well as hard to work. But, on the contrary,
many of the veins yield the best quality of lignite, nearly if not quite equal to bituminous coal for raising
(1) Tacoma.

UN
HO
FIELD
TOBACCO CULTURE
RESIDENCE OF WM. KER, PRESIDENT MOXEE CU.
؟
HEADQUARTERS OF MOXIE CO., YAKIMA, W. T
MINERAL RESOURCES.
135
steam; and many of the veins are at such an elevation and inclination on the hillside as to admit of
working without hoisting. A large part of the beds are immediately upon or within easy reach of tide
water.
Western Oregon Field.—Croppings of the supposititious field from the Columbia river to the borders
of Josephine county in the Oregon Coast Mountains have been found in the following places: On
Beaver creek near St. Helens; on the Columbia near Columbia City; on the upper Nehalem in Columbia
county, where beds of great extent, with series of strata five, seven, eleven and twelve feet are reported;
near the mouth of the Nehalem, where twenty-two and thirty-six inch veins are reported; in Coos county
in large and paying quantity near tide water, the known field being said to cover five hundred square
miles; and across the range from Coos Bay, on Looking Glass creek, in Douglas county. By this it will
be seen that the field is extensive, and also that in the space between the Clatsop and Coos county fields
there are no croppings yet found. This may be an entirely barren portion of the area.
The Cascade Fields.-Coal has been found at Wilhoit Springs, in Clackamas county, on the west slope
of the Cascade Mountains, with a seven-foot vein of good quality; and on the John Day, east of the
Cascades, a mine of very superior article has been found. We may suppose that the old field extended
across the present range; but the volcanic activity has been so terrific here as to destroy all but the
outlying borders. Nevertheless from these two discoveries it is probable that there are extensive fields
left on the skirts of the mountains on both sides of the range.
Southern Oregon Coal.-There are beds at Ashland, showing an area extending even to the Siskiyou
Mountains. The coal formation of these older mountains should be thicker and better than of the
younger Coast Range.
Puget Sound Coal.-From a point somewhat north of the Chehalis river to Bellingham Bay, north of
the Sound, there are successive croppings, marking the whole area as probably coal-bearing; although,
like the Oregon district, the veins are much broken, and much of the original coal has been carried away
or destroyed. Nevertheless it is a poor city on the Sound which does not possess a coal mine as well as
a timber belt to back it. The well-known mines of this region-Carbonado, Black Diamond, Wilkenson,
Franklin, Renton, Bellingham Bay, Newcastle, etc. are points where the mineral comes to the surface.
Washington Cascade Fields.-The belt in the great range of the Cascades seems very promising. A
vein in the summit of the range between Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens is reported, and enough
believed in to be called the present objective of the Vancouver & Klikitat Railroad. Northeastward from
this are the well-defined mines of the Kittitass, at Roslyn, which are of large extent. As illustrating the
existence of much coal in this field not yet discovered, the artesian well sunk in the Kittitass valley, and
penetrating a seven-foot vein of coal, may be mentioned. It is reasonable to believe that all this region
was originally one great coal-bed. But how much of it is left, or in veins of what thickness, is but
little known. From all these indications we may infer that the Pacific Northwest is abundantly supplied
with coal. There are croppings enough to suggest a quantity sufficient for a thousand years at the
present production of about three million tons per annum.
IRON.
As coal furnishes the power for civilization, iron furnishes most of the material. Our iron is sufficient
for all purposes. This is pre-eminently an iron region, the soil from basalt and lava being red with the
hematite in many localities. The ore exists principally as bog iron; and there are two great belts.
Oregon Belt.—This begins at a point opposite Kalama, near Columbia City, and extends throughout
the chain of eminences known as Scappoose and Portland hills, crossing the Willamette river at Oswego or
Milwaukee, and extending thence southeasterly to the foothills of the Cascades. One branch reaches into
Marion county; and the bed of Lake Labish contains bog iron. Throughout this region there are many
rich seams and veins, and whole hills of heavy ore. One such deposit belonging to Raffety Brothers, of
East Portland, is within ten miles of Portland, and next the Willamette slough. The mines at Oswego
have been worked more or less, and make excellent pig iron. There are indications that this iron belt
extends northward, beyond the Columbia in the hills back of Oak Point.
Washington Belt. This exists in immense deposits in the Cascade Mountains east of the Sound,
along the line of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and, being thus contiguous to tidewater, will be worked
to great advantage. Magnetic iron is found at the McKenzie bridge in the Cascade foothills, and in beds
in Jackson county, and also in the black sand along the coast. The only possible rival of iron as a
material for mechanical uses and structures is aluminum; and this exists, as everywhere, in our clays.
But the day when it may be cheaply manufactured is probably far distant.
OTHER MINERALS.
Coming to the building materials, we find that the Pacific Northwest has them in great abundance.
Andesite, the gray, rather soft rock so abundant in our hills, which is of volcanic origin, lies exposed
everywhere. In Clackamas county it is quarried, and makes a fair building stone. Gneiss is found in
great quantities on the "divide" between the Rogue river and Applegate creek. Granite, gray and red,
is found in many places in the Cascades, in the Blue Mountains, and in the hills on the northern border
of Washington.
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Limestone, shading into marble, belongs to the older formation, skirting the geological basin, i. e.,
in Josephine county, in immense extent, massive, and penetrated by caverns; in Jackson county, where it
occurs at Rocky Point, in lenticular masses, and is quarried for lime and for building stone. This is gray
and white, with dark stria, and is very handsome. Much of it is an imperfect marble. At Huntington,
in Baker county, there are large veins exposed. In Wallowa county, marble occurs in great quantity
near Joseph. On the Spokane river, in Washington, there are large hills of marble; and the San Juan
Islands, at the extremity of the Sound, are largely limestone. Basalt, useful for paving, and sandstone
for building, are found almost everywhere. Barite, a substitute for white lead, occurs in Baker and
Josephine counties, the latter bed being twenty-six feet across.
Bechelite, a valuable source of boracic acid, is found in Curry county. Buhr-stone is reported in some
places. Infusorial earth, useful for polishing-powder and in the manufacture of dynamite, is found in beds
near Ashland. Cement deposits are reported near Oakland, in Douglas county. Cinnibar, the rock from
which quicksilver is obtained, is found fourteen miles northeast of Oakland; and the mines are now
successfully worked by Mr. James Chenoweth. Rock salt is reported from the Nestucca. Plumbago is
found in the Siskiyou Mountains. Manganese can be mined in Columbia county. The deposits of the
oxides are very extensive. Iron pyrites are abundant everywhere. Beds of this material carrying silver
and copper are found in Benton county. In Nestucca it has a slight percentage of gold. At Fairdale, in
Yamhill county, there are immense deposits. Saltpetre or nitre is found in Malheur county, jet in Clatsop
county. Gypsum is very extensive, particularly on Eagle creek, Union county, Oregon. Nickel is found
in Douglas county, Oregon. Tellurim, or hessite, a very valuable metal, is associated with gold in Union
county. Platinum almost invariably occurs with gold, being from a trace to about one-eighth, sometimes
one-half. Copper, native, is found in Baker county, and, as ore, is extensive, being found on the Illinois
river in Josephine county, in the Cow creek cañon in Douglas county, and on the divide between the
headwaters of the Molalla and Clackamas, near the base of Mount Hood. Galena is also found on the
headwaters of the Clackamas; while lead occurs almost universally with silver ore, forming a value of
above sixty cents per ton of the concentrates of the Cœur d'Alene ores. Kaolin, or potter's clay, is found
at Buena Vista, also on the Willamina, in Polk county, and at Smith's landing, in Clatsop county. Brick
clay of fair quality is found in the heavy sub-soils of the Willamette valley. Fire clay is found in the
Portland hills and elsewhere. Obsidian, jasper, chalcedony, garnet, pumice-stone, amygdaloids, chrysalite,
amethysts, agates, quartz crystals, petrified wood, and fossils in innumerable quantities, offer ample
reward to the seeker for handsome curiosities or beautiful stones, or for the sake of geological records.
The handsomest and the only very valuable geological cabinet on the North coast is that of Professor
Condon of the Oregon State University, at Eugene. Some immense elephant bones were dug up from a
spring near Latah, Washington, and were for a time in the possession of their discoverer, Mr. G. W.
Coplen, of that place, but are now on exhibition at Chicago.
Having made this brief catalogue of the minerals, ores and metals, we may now take a comprehensive,
if not a very particular, view of our resources in the precious metals. Gold is associated with the rocks of the
old formation, such as quartz, granite, porphyry and the spars, quartz being the favorite resort of this metal.
It has been called the most "polite" of all the rocks, giving place very readily to others seeking room.
On account of this generous quality it has become, in many cases, filled with granules of gold, making it
thereby one of the most valuable of stones. The quartz in granite and porphyry is also often auriferous.
In case of the wearing down of ledges thus filled with the precious metal by rain and streams, the other
matter is carried off to the greatest distance, even to the ocean, leaving the heavier gold and platinum to
lie in the upper gravel of the stream, or to be carried down as flour" to the lower banks. When the gold
has thus been naturally separated from the rocks and left in the river beds, it is readily worked out; and
this forms the "placer" mines.
While there is scarcely a river in the Pacific Northwest which has not more or less gold in the sands,
and while the seashore beaches are also enriched by gold, there is no such quantity as to have made placer
mining very profitable. True some forty million dollars in gold dust have been taken from Jackson county;
and there are placers which still pay for working, and others will be discovered; and with the improvements
of methods, and new inventions for saving fine gold, the seacoast and Columbia river and Snake river
sands may be worked for many years. But, for all present purposes and practical mining, the gold must
be extracted from the ledges; and we must go to the old hills. These old mountains, so far at least as
indications upon the surface show, are the natural home of gold and silver; and mention has been made
of them heretofore. They begin with the Siskiyou system and follow, presumptively, a sort of bow, to
appear again in the Blue Mountains and in the spurs of the Rockies, tending north to the Coeur d'Alene
and the Pen d'Oreilles at the outskirts of the Selkirk and Gold Mountains of British Columbia, and
apparently winding westward again, including the Okanagan region, and perhaps going so far towards the
Pacific as to include the limestone of the San Juan Islands. The mountain systems thus mentioned are
doubtless disconnected and broken fragments of many older formations. But as they now lie they form an
orbit of ancient mountains, unscarred by the fire which burnt the lands between, and buried their treasures
under from one hundred to three thousand feet of basalt and lava. The distinctively gold belt is in
Southern and Eastern Oregon. The granites and quartz of this region are mainly auriferous. But the
question is not whether gold is there, but how much metal may be obtained, and whether in paying
quantities. The bulk of these deposits are low grade. We may look upon them as a sort of perpetual
heritage; for just as rapidly as the country settles up, and labor becomes cheap and mining machinery
TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES.
137
inexpensive, the quartz beds will be worked. Perhaps two or three dollars a ton may sometime be
regarded as paying;" just as the river and seashore sands which yield a dollar, or a dollar and a half a
day, may afford labor to workers for a long time.
Many of the mines opened in Southern Oregon have shown a bad tendency to grow "base" as the
shafts are sunk. An exception to these, which gives confidence that the great deposits are not all
unproductive, is the "Swinden " mine in Jackson county. This, which we mention as an example, is
described as a body of loose, pliable quartz, mixed with clay, which assays from two dollars and a half to
twenty dollars, and is probably fifty feet wide. It increases in richness at greater depths. The whole
probably assays four dollars or five dollars per ton. At Gold Hill the quartz is abundant and shows no
signs of "pinching." Josephine county is said to consist very largely of auriferous rocks of low-grade,
free-milling ore. Search has been principally confined to "pockets;" and these do not seem to exist in
great number. On Gallice creek in Jackson county there are great bodies of quartz.
Following the line of the old Cascade Range underlying the present system, or the present range
without its cap of basalt, we find gold, with silver and copper, in Douglas county on a tributary of Cow
creek; even as far north as the headwaters of the Santiam river, in the Oregon Alps, there are vast
quantities of low-grade ore and perhaps some of a high value. There are also constant reports of gold in
the old granite and andesite hills, near the base of Mount Hood, and in the neighborhood of the great
snow-peaks of Washington. It is not impossible to imagine that the most ancient strata which underlie
the basalt, and the older rocks of the coal and iron of the Cascade area, may be auriferous, and may have
been upheaved by the basalt and lifted so high as to expose the mineral vein. This only waits to be
discovered, although the enormous depth of the latter covering, and the fierce volcanic activity, make the
search most difficult.
The "Canal Fork" mine on the Santiam reports a vein of gold-bearing quartz forty feet wide. If
this be taken as a specimen, there may be great developments in the future. Eastern Oregon gold is
chiefly on the east slope of the Blue Mountains, where an old quartz and granite region was left uncovered
by the lava of aftertime. Mines of those regions have been worked successfully for many years.
The
Eureka Excelsior" has a lode forty feet across, with a streak four feet wide in the middle
assaying three hundred dollars per ton; the second-class ore assays from fifty dollars to one hundred
dollars, while the outside layer produces fifteen dollars. On Pine creek the "Whitman" mine assays
seventy dollars. Nineteen mines of the Baker county region, with lodes from two to six feet in width,
assay from twenty dollars to sixty-five dollars. These are paying mines. There is no telling how much
of these comparatively high-grade ores there may be. Assays, stock reports and actual amount of ore in
mines are most uncertain matters. A mine is frequently paying its heaviest dividends upon the eve of
petering out," even if it has to be heavily "salted." This is a part of the business.
The Nevada mines had enough ore to "last for centuries" within a few days before they gave out.
But, in spite of the uncertainty of these high-grade mines, it is well established that the amount of five
and ten dollar ores is very great. A great gold belt of low-grade ore, ten dollars a ton, is found west of
Hailey in Idaho. Idaho silver, the great product of the Wood river mines and the Coeur d'Alene mines,
are so well known as to need no details here. Both are well established, and have a great reputation.
The Bunker Hill and Sullivan mine in the latter region is regarded as one of the greatest silver mines in
the world. The concentrates, —a part of which require about three parts of ore,—are worth about ninety
dollars a ton.
Millions of dollars are invested in these mines; and the expectation is to secure a return commensurate
with the outlay. Six hundred thousand dollars were paid for the Bunker Hill mine; and it is expected to
clear this sum in three years. While the Idaho belt is very extensive, the northern area, extending from
the Flathead Agency to the summit of the Cascade Mountains, and embracing the Colville, Okanagan,
Similkameen, Kootenai and Cariboo districts, partly in Washington and partly in British Columbia, is
regarded by many as the superior of all others. On the Conconully, a branch of the Okanagan, is the
Arlington mine, assaying one hundred ounces silver to the ton, with antimony, lead and sulphur.
This great region has hitherto been remote and never much prospected but for quartz and placers.
Those who have seen it believe that it will be the great mining section of the future, its area being one
hundred by three hundred miles. These are indications pointing to great results; and the sanguine and
ambitious will, until further notice, look to this as the true El Dorado of the West.
This short survey is enough to show that we have here in the Pacific Northwest, in the region of the
Columbia river, all the minerals and metals necessary for the industries and arts of civilization. These
exist by the bounty of God in profusion, and in localities easily accessible. There is no part of the world
in which the treasures of the rocks are brought into relation with the fruitfulness of the soil and the
exuberance of the climate, and the opportunities of rivers and seas, more bountifully, than in the great
Pacific Northwest.
TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES.
We have considered at some length the natural features and advantages of the Pacific Northwest.
It remains to see the use which its inhabitants have made of these, and the means in their reach for
conveying their products to the markets of the world. We may properly remark at the outset that the
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
nature of this work, and the added fact that there are constant improvements and changes in our means
of travel and traffic, make it impossible that we present any exhaustive list of railway and steamboat
lines. We can undertake to give only the essential features of the carrying agencies of the country.
For many years this section needed railway lines more than any other of the union. Isolated from
the rest of the world by a vast mountain system, its ocean communications being slow and difficult,
it seemed in danger of remaining a permanent example of possibilities instead of realities. But the
hour came at last when the headlight of the locomotive, glaring at the flintiest ridges, burned tunnels
through them, and the glowing wheels of the god of steam changed into wings at the banks of rivers
and bore him across. With the actual completion of transcontinental railways, the sleeping giant of
the Pacific Northwest woke up; and though, like the fabled Atlas, he had so long been in one position
that trees of centuries' growth stood between his toes, yet once awake he stretched his arms so far that
Cascades and Rockies and Siskiyous tumbled about him like so many ninepins. Shod with seven-league
boots, he strides from Gold Range to ocean, and from Snake river deserts to Puget Sound jungles,
your pulse twice beat." Like Moses in the wilderness, he smites the rock with the rod of enterprise;
and streams gush out in the desert.
ere
Thus has come the new era in our history. Old Oregon has passed away amid the rumbling of
hammers upon railway spikes; and across her ancient solitudes whirls the omnipresent engine, sign and
symbol of modern times. While we cannot attempt to give here a history of the transportation lines of
the Pacific Northwest, yet it will be of interest to briefly sketch our earliest attempts to communicate with
the rest of the world. Although our water-ways are not in general easy of access or navigation, yet the
enterprise of our early settlers inaugurated steamboat enterprises of much boldness, and, for the times, of
great magnitude. These served to maintain the local pulsings of the vital current throughout our isolated
body politic, and to keep the way open for the coming of the present age. The first steamship that ever
splashed the waters of the Pacific Northwest was the Beaver. She came here from England in 1836 for
the Hudson's Bay Company. After a brief stay on the Columbia, she went to the Sound; and in spite of
her great age she still floats, one of the most interesting nautical relics of our country. The first American
mail steamer to visit Oregon was the Carolina, Captain R. L. Whiting, in 1850. She ran but a short time.
The first American ocean steamship to make regular trips for any length of time was the Columbia,
belonging to Howland and Aspinwall. She came in 1851, and ran regularly once a month. Her captain
was William Dall. The first river steamer was a little double-ender called the Columbia, owned by James
Frost. That was in 1850. The first boat of any size was the Lot Whitcomb, built at Milwaukee
and owned by Lot Whitcomb, and was run between Portland, Oregon City and Milwaukee and on the
Columbia by the owner. She was launched on Christmas, 1850.
The first steamer above the mouth of the Willamette was the James P. Flint, built in 1851 at the
Cascades by Van Bergin and Dan Bradford. Having been subsequently taken to Portland, she was
rechristened the Fashion. In 1853, Allen McKinley brought the Eagle from Portland, where she was
built, to the Cascades, and having taken her to pieces carried her above the Cascades and put her together
again, the first steamer to cut the sublime waters of the Mid-Columbia. Captain Gladwell was captain of
this boat. In 1854, Bradford and Bishop built the Mary above the Cascades, the first one built there. In
1855, McFarland built the Wasco; and in 1856 Bradford built the Hassalo. These were both built between
the Cascades and The Dalles. In 1857, the first steamboat was built above The Dalles. This was the
Colonel Wright, built at Celilo by R. R. Thompson and Lawrence Coe. Such were the pioneer men and
pioneer boats at different points on the river.
In 1859 came the primary organization of the O. S. N. Co., our first great transportation line. It was
fairly inaugurated in 1861. It was guided by shrewd, far-seeing and energetic men, such as Captain J. C.
Ainsworth, R. R. Thompson, S. G. Reed and others, and though having some rivals, as the P. T. Co. and
others, was conducted with such ability as generally to control the carrying trade of the Columbia. The
first steam railway lines in the Northwest were the portage lines of the O. S. N. Co., the first of six miles
on the north side of the river at the Cascades, and the second of fifteen miles on the south side between
The Dalles and Celilo. This company got into business just in time to reap the rich harvest of the mining
trade of 1859-60-61; and its enterprising owners made a "pile of money." Monopoly though it was,
the O. S. N. Co. was a great affair; and every old Oregonian feels certain tender recollections pulling
about his heart-strings when he recalls the bluff and hearty Knaggs, the dark and powerful Coe. the
never-disconcerted Ingalls, the patriarchal beard of Stump, "Commodore" Wolf, the genial Dan O'Neil,
the massive figure of Strang, "Little Billy," the suave and graceful Snow, and the many other
characteristic personages of the old régime in our country. There was a genial, off-hand style about the
officers and men of those old-time companies which is most pleasant to contrast with the pert, consequential
manner of many of the Eastern employés who now man our roads and boats.
One thing soon became evident to the people of the Pacific Northwest; that was that their water-ways
must be supplemented by railroads, or they could never come into extensive communication with the rest
of the world. Hardly anyone in those times dared expect the coming of the Pacific railroad. But it
speaks well for the enterprise of our pioneers that, as early as 1858, an act was passed incorporating a
railway. This was the Astoria & Willamette Valley Railroad;—that dream which has haunted the sleep of
nearly every person not interested at Portland. This scheme, though it included among its incorporators
such men as T. R. Cornelius, W. W. Parker, John Adair, W. T. Newby, L. F. Grover, I. R. Moores and
other prominent citizens, vanished in smoke. The times were not yet ripe for it.

LAKE WHATCCM
BIRDSEYE VIEW OF THE CITY OF
WHATCOM.WASHINGTON TERRITORY.
品
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TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES.
139
In November, 1863, a large and enthusiastic railroad meeting was held at Eugene, and was addressed
by W. W. Chapman, Judge Thayer, Jesse Applegate and other leading men of those times. This popular
convention gave expression to the desire of the people of Oregon that there be railway communication
with California. In the following month, S. G. Elliot published the results of a survey made between
Portland and Marysville. These tentative enterprises kept the people of the state on the qui vive for
something that would materialize; and on April 16, 1868, they were rewarded by seeing ground broken
at East Portland for the building of the Oregon Central Railroad. This company had been organized
some time before; and its officers were: President, I. R. Moores; Vice-President, A. M. Loryea; Treasurer,
E. N. Cooke; Secretary, S. A. Clarke. Ultimately the animating figure in the whole enterprise was the
famous Ben Holladay. Far-seeing, bold, overbearing, and very able withal, he became the first great figure
in the business enterprises of the state. A few days after the breaking of ground for the East Side
Railroad, similar ceremonies and similar hopes and speeches were indulged in on the west side. Jos. Gaston
was the central figure in the early stages of this enterprise. In 1870, the Oregon Central Railroad was
merged into the Oregon & California, with a capital stock of twenty million dollars, and with Ben
Holladay as president. Under the impetus gained at this time, construction was completed to Roseburg
in 1872. There it lingered many years. The West Side Railroad was in like manner built to St. Joseph
on the Yamhill; and there it, too, waited a long time for developments. Holladay ultimately failed in his
business; and the road fell into the hands of the German bond-holders, who sent here as their
representative Mr. Richard Koehler. He has remained with the company in its various vicissitudes since.
Such, very briefly stated, is a sketch of the history of our old-time transportation enterprises. It now
remains for us to describe existing lines. The transcontinental lines are evidently of primary importance.
These are three in number, the Southern Pacific, the Northern Pacific, and the Union Pacific systems.
The Union Pacific system, which as a whole constitutes a through line to the East, has, as its most
important elements in the Pacific Northwest, the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company's lines and
the Oregon Short Line. Each of these is a separate line, and will receive a separate description. Besides
these three great American transcontinental lines, the Canadian Pacific furnishes an added route to the East
and North. These are the completed lines to the East. There are two others in process of construction;
and it is probable that within two years they will have independent connections with the East. These
are the Oregon Pacific, and the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern. When these are completed, the Pacific
Northwest will have six distinct routes of railroad to all parts of the continent. Think of it, shades
of Congressman McDuffie, who figured it out on the floor of Congress that Oregon was so distant that a
representative would only have time to go thence to Washington, stay there two weeks, and then turn
his face again to the Pacific in order to reach home within the year. Think of it, too, you long-suffering
and heroic immigrants, who endured perils of Indians, of mountain passes, of disease, of starvation, while
you broke the first trails for the tracks of this mighty empire.
Besides these six great transcontinental railroads existing and in process of construction, there are
several others in course of establishment which have most important outlooks in the various sections
where they belong. Among these. are the Hunt system in Walla Walla, the Spokane & Northern, the
Oregonian and the Willamette Valley Railroads (narrow gauge), the Astoria & Coast Railway, and a
number of small ones hereafter to receive separate notice. Besides these lines, built or being built, there
are railroads and rumors of railroads, of the Manitoba, of Jim Hill, of Nelson Bennett, of the Northwestern,
of the Rock Island, etc., ad infinitum. We cannot, however, enlarge this chapter with a collection of
the flying rumors of the street, and shall, therefore, confine our accounts to those roads already in
operation, or in process of construction. Those that we have named deserve detailed accounts; and we
will give these in the order in which we have already named them.
First, the Southern Pacific system. We have already given the genesis of this, the chief system of
roads in Western Oregon. The line was completed through and over the Siskiyou Mountains between
Oregon and California in December, 1887. Its total mileage in Oregon is 474.8 miles. Of this, ninety-six
and a half miles is on the west side of the Willamette between Portland and Corvallis. There is a branch
of ten and a half miles between Albany and Lebanon. The remainder is the main line between Portland
and the Siskiyous. It goes on the east side of the Willamette as far as Harrisburg. There it crosses the
Willamette, thence proceeding on the west side to the Calapooia Mountains, which divide the Willamette
from the Umpqua valley; thence onward, traversing the latter-named valley, and plunging into the broken
masses of the Umpqua and Cow Creek Mountains, it emerges upon the fair plains of the Rogue river
valley. Beyond this, it climbs the long slope of the Siskiyous, crawls, serpent-like, along the stupendous
bluffs with which that range looks northward; and then, plunging through its topmost ridge, by means
of a tunnel a mile long, finds itself looking out on the supereminent dome of Shasta, and the plateaus of
Northern California. The Southern Pacific, with its two branches, traverses the best farm lands of
Western Oregon, and has probably a more productive country and less waste land to run over than any
other of the important lines of the country. Of its four hundred and seventy-five miles of road, about
two hundred and fifty are on the dead level of the Willamette valley, where cost of construction is at a
minimum, and expenses of operating are the slightest. At least a hundred more lies on the almost
equally easy grades and productive lands of the Umpqua and Rogue river valleys. Of the remaining
one hundred and twenty-five or so, the greatest part is not of the heaviest kind of railroading; and
there are few sections where there are not either lumbering establishments, or mines, or stock-raising, to
contribute to the support of the road. There are some miles in the Cow Creek Mountains, and “other
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
}}
some in the Siskiyous, which were of the most difficult and costly construction, and in which land-slides
and other expensive mishaps have been a frequently recurring source of loss. But as compared with the
Northern or Union Pacific, or the O. R. & N., the Southern Pacific has had an easy matter of reaching
the metropolis of Oregon; and the present indications are that its owners will be amply rewarded for
their outlay.
The Southern Pacific is one of the most attractive routes from a scenic point of view of any on the
continent. Leaving Portland, the fair and level plains of the Willamette valley, with its groves of oak,
its peaceful farms, its eastern border of towering snow-peaks, its western of the blue and wooded Coast
Range, the filmy haze of its humid atmosphere glimmering in the tempered sunlight, is of itself charming.
Passing through the sinuosities of intermingled hill and dale in the Umpqua, and the mountain-walled
and level stretches of Rogue river, you will be charmed by the stern grandeur of the Siskiyous. But
attaining the beetling crests, and looking southward on old Shasta! Well, you must come and see for
yourself. The tourist travel on this route is becoming very heavy. A favorite round is to visit Portland
via California and Mount Shasta, and return by the Northern Pacific and the Short Line. We learn from
the annual report of the Southern Pacific for 1888 that the number of miles run by their trains in Oregon
was: Passenger, four hundred and eighteen thousand, six hundred and eighty-five; freight, one hundred
and seventy-two thousand, one hundred and thirty. Reduced to the mile standard, the total freight carriage
was estimated at over twelve million and a quarter tons. The freight earnings amounted to more than
four hundred thousand dollars. The total number of passengers carried was over three hundred and
sixty thousand; and the total income from this source exceeded six hundred and eighteen thousand
dollars. The total income from both sources was more than one million, one hundred and twenty
thousand dollars. In spite, however, of the fine income, the operating expenses, the heavy cost of
right-of-way, and the many initial improvements needed, outran the income. Like most of the railroads
chartered in the seventies, the Oregon & California had various land grants. The total of these is three
million, two hundred and fifty thousand acres. It is largely advertised for sale; and its rapid settlement
not only increases the company's revenue, but also the population of the country.
Next in order of our railroad lines is the Northern Pacific. This was chartered by an act of
Congress in 1864. Work was begun on the eastern end in 1870. In the same year ground was broken on
this coast on the division between Portland aud Puget Sound. Kalama was the point selected on the
river for the temporary terminus. Much effort was made, or feigned, to give this place a permanent
character. It was even talked of for a rival of Portland. The outcome of its little boom, however, was
such as to lead some of its unfortunate citizens to rechristen it "Kalamity." The panic of 1873 nearly
crushed the Northern Pacific. It was, however, reorganized two years later; and in 1879 construction was
resumed. In August, 1883, the main line was completed from the eastern terminus at Duluth, Minnesota,
to the western at Wallula, Washington Territory. In October of the same year came the great celebrations
at Portland and other places in honor of the completion of this great line. The road was at that time in
the hands of the Villard party, whose interests were identical with those of the Oregon Railway &
Navigation Company. Their influence was to make their road tributary to Portland rather than to
Tacoma. The gorgeous pageantry of the Villard excursion, the "boom" which followed in Portland,
and the collapse which came "hard upon" are doubtless still fresh in the minds of most of our readers.
With the financial downfall of Villard, the Northern Pacific Railroad fell under the control of the Tacoma
party, whose interests were to be fostered by the completion of the main line to that city.
The gigantic task of crossing the Cascade Mountains via the Yakima valley and the Stampede Pass
was not fully accomplished till the summer of 1888. A year prior to that time, however, trains ascended
and descended the range by the dizzy zigzags of the Switchback. A thrilling experience it was to
traverse this road in a train drawn by the mighty "Decapods,"-gladiators of steel and steam, which ground
their way resistlessly up the three-hundred-foot grades. The lines of the Northern Pacific are practically
confined to Washington and Idaho in the region of the Pacific Northwest. The only line in Oregon is
the section, thirty-eight miles long, between Kalama and Portland. Its amount in Washington in 1888
was eight hundred and eighty-one miles, and in Idaho one hundred. The company had an enormous
land grant; and, to draw it mildly, it has not been at all bashful about availing itself of any advantages
which its position has afforded it in the way of seizing desirable points. It now has for sale over
thirteen million acres in Washington and Oregon, which are held at prices ranging from two dollars
and sixty cents to seven dollars per acre for agricultural land, and from one dollar to two and a half
for grazing land. The main road passes through a country differing widely from that contiguous to
the Southern Pacific, but not less grand and beautiful. The Yellowstone Park, the lakes of Northern
Idaho, the cañons of the Bitter Root, the Switchback and the great tunnel of the Cascades, and last,
soaring in unapproachable majesty into the sky, the triple ice crown of Mount Ranier, these are
a combination of attractions, scenic and scientific, which few roads can equal.
The Northern Pacific has a number of important branches. These are, beginning on the east, the
Spokane Falls & Idaho Railroad, which leaves the main line at Hauser Junction and extends thence
to Cœur d'Alene City. From that point there is connection by steamer with Wardner, the chief town
of the Coeur d'Alene mining region. The second branch is the Spokane & Palouse. This leaves the
main line at Marshall, nine miles south of Spokane Falls, and extends thence to Genesee in Idaho,
one hundred and thirteen miles from Spokane. The third branch, known as the Central Washington
Railroad, extends from Cheney to Davenport, forty-one miles distant, in the heart of the Big Bend
TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES.
141
country. The fourth branch is the short one from Cle-Elum to the coal mines at Roslyn, which are
a few miles east of the summit of the Cascade Range. The next branch is also to a coal region, this
being the South Prairie & Carbonado branch (properly called the Northern Pacific & Cascade Railroad)
on the west side of the Cascade Mountains. The last and in some respects the most important branch is
called the Northern Pacific & Puget Sound Shore Railroad, and extends from Puyallup Junction to Stuck
Junction, where by a combination with the Columbia & Puget Sound Railroad it reaches Seattle. Thus
it joins the hands of the two great cities of the Sound. Such is a brief glance at the gigantic embryo of
the Northern Pacific Railroad.
The third of our large railroads to take shape was the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company's
line from Portland, eastward up the Columbia river. This company was the successor upon the river of
the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, having purchased the property of that company in 1879.
was chartered June 12, 1879, and in the following year began the great work of making another
transcontinental line. Henry Villard was its animating genius. He came to this country first in the
interest of the German bond-holders of the Oregon & California Railroad. With the quick grasp of the
situation which showed the statesman, he saw that here in the undeveloped but limitless resources of the
Pacific Northwest was the opportunity of a lifetime. Then with the prompt action which showed the
nerve of the statesman added to the vision of the statesman, he seized the flying opportunity. The Oregon
Railway & Navigation Company was the result. A second result was the famous "blind pool" and the
organization of the Oregon & Transcontinental Company. The third step in financial dominion was the
acquisition of a controlling interest in the Northern Pacific. Mr. Villard found himself in a position of
proud pre-eminence. In 1883, the long-existing gaps were closed; and the Pacific Northwest had a through
line. But in the moment of victory, combinations too powerful for even the resources of the money, will
and penetration which he wielded beset him, and he was overthrown. The Northern Pacific passed into
hostile hands; and the great transcontinental pool was prostrate. We cannot here enter into any study
of the conditions which wrought this swift and momentous change. Suffice it to say that, in spite of
personal failure, Villard's scheme was that of a master mind. The event proves the clearness of his sight.
The Oregon Railway & Navigation Company is fulfilling the destiny which he marked out for it. The
plan succeeded, though for the time the planner failed. He will ever be remembered as the most important
thus far of the great architects of the commercial structure of the Pacific Northwest. His present return
to power is but an added proof of his surpassing pluck and ability.
>
As now constituted, the Oregon Railway & Navigation system is a vast and comprehensive
combination of steamboat and railroad lines. It has four divisions. These, arranged in order of age, are
Ocean, River, Railway and Sound. Portland is the headquarters of the company, and is in a peculiar
degree bound up in its destinies. Each of the divisions named deserves separate mention. The Ocean
Division is the successor on the route between Portland and San Francisco of the Oregon Steamship
Company, established and conducted by Ben Holladay. The ocean traffic is divided with the Pacific
Coast Steamship Company; and by the combination the public is provided with some of the most
magnificent vessels afloat, of which the Queen of the Pacific (though this is not just now on this route), the
Columbia, and the State of California, may be named as examples. The Oregon Railway & Navigation
Company also runs three steamers to Puget Sound and British Columbia ports. Second in historical order
is the River Division. This division runs eighteen steamers and nine barges on the Columbia, Snake,
Willamette and tributary rivers. As already explained, this department of the line is the successor on
these rivers of the famous old Oregon Steam Navigation Company. The routes cover an estimated
distance of six hundred and sixty-seven miles. Among the steamers, which we might call "floating
palaces" as they in truth are-had not the expression been ridden till its vertebral column is in danger
of dislocation, are the T. J. Potter, the R. R. Thompson and the Olympian. The latter is at present on the
Sound. While these pages are in preparation, we notice with great regret the wreck of the Alaskan, the
company's best boat, and the costliest and most elegant ever seen on the waters of the North Pacific.
The Railway Division is next in order of time. Its historical genesis has been already briefly described.
With Portland as its starting point, it radiates in a fan shape into all parts of the vast interior. The main
line extends from Portland to Huntington on the eastern border of Oregon, a distance of four hundred and
four miles. At the latter point it connects with the Oregon Short Line, which proceeds five hundred and
forty-one miles farther to Granger, Wyoming Territory, on the main line of the Union Pacific. Besides
the main line, there are a number of very important branches. First in order of these, going eastward,
is the Heppner and Willows branch. This leaves The Willows, one hundred and fifty-one miles from
Portland, and passes through the heart of Morrow county to Heppner, forty-five miles distant. This opens
to business a most valuable country. At Umatilla, a hundred and eighty-seven miles east of Portland,
the most important fork in the road occurs. The right branch, which is the main line, proceeds to
Pendleton, and thence to the fertile regions of the Umatilla and Grande Ronde countries, and on to its
eastern connections at Huntington. The left branch continues to follow the river to Wallula, where it
meets the western river terminus of the Northern Pacific. It then turns eastward and enters the Walla
Walla valley, which it traverses throughout its greater part. At Walla Walla, two hundred and forty-five
miles from Portland, the line meets another from Pendleton, and proceeds thence to the crossing of Snake
river at Riparia, three hundred miles from Portland. There are two branches in the line between Walla
Walla and Riparia. One, thirteen iniles long, extends from Bolles Junction to Dayton on the Touchet in
the heart of Columbia county, while the other is from Starbuck to Pomeroy in Garfield county. Passing
142
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
the Snake river the road ramifies into the rich farming lands of Eastern Washington about Colfax,
Garfield, Farmington and Rockford, from which latter point construction is in progress to Spokane Falls
and the Cœur d'Alene mines. A branch from Colfax extends to Moscow in Idaho, and another from
Pampa, west of Colfax, to Palouse Junction on the Northern Pacific.
It will be seen that this arrangement of the lines of this company brings it into competition with the
Northern Pacific. In smuch as neither is inclined to put its tariff any lower than it has to (to put a fine
point on it), their rivalry will be of inestimable value to the almost incredibly fertile country through
which they pass. In view of the fact that there is here a belt of land of almost unbroken farming
capability fifty miles wide by a hundred and twenty long, in which the average yield of wheat is from
thirty to forty bushels to the acre, it will be seen that both companies have enough to do. The total
mileage of the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company is, according to the report of January, 1889, eight
hundred and fifty-five and four-tenths miles. The total amount of freight carried, reduced to the mile
standard, was over a hundred and fifty-four million tons. The total number of passengers carried was
over a hundred and ninety-six thousand. The income from all sources was over four and a half million
dollars; and the total expenses (not including taxes outside of Oregon) were about two and a third
million dollars. Each one of our great lines seems to have some one pre-eminent feature of interest
which is its strong card in securing the tourist travel. That of this line is the scenery of the Columbia
river, matchless in the world for its mingled beauty and sublimity. When the Northern Pacific points to the
Yellowstone and Mount Ranier, and the Southern Pacific to the Siskiyous and Mount Shasta, the Oregon
Railway & Navigation Company can very calmly remark, "All right, gentlemen. Fetch on your
curiosities! We have the Columbia river!"
The last division of this great company is the Sound Division of steamboats. This has grown to an
importance commensurate with the growth of the magnificent region in which it operates. This line of
steamers plies between Tacoma, Seattle, Whatcom, Victoria and other Sound points. Captain L. M.
Starr deserves the credit of being the originator of the first regular line of steamboats on the Sound.
His interest was purchased by the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company; and their present Sound
Division is the result.
It is natural to speak next in order of the Oregon Short Line. It is the next link in the chain of
communication eastward. The company which operates this road was organized in 1881; and in 1884
the road was built to a connection at Huntington. The total length of line from Granger, Wyoming
Territory, to Huntington is five hundred and forty-one and eighty-one-hundredths miles. There are two
branch lines, one from Shoshone to Ketchum and Hailey in the Wood river country, which is seventy
miles long, and another from Nampa to Boise City, nineteen miles long. Aside from its transcontinental
importance, the Short Line has done much and will do more to develop the vast latent resources of
Southern Idaho. We have said that each of our great lines has some feature of commanding interest.
The Short Line does not fail us. It has the Shoshone Falls, twenty-five miles by stage from Shoshone.
As to this sublimest of American cataracts, we can only say, Go and see for yourselves!
The next largest line of railway is the Oregon Pacific. The history of no railway in the country
presents a more remarkable record of discouraging circumstances, or obstacles more perseveringly overcome,
than that of this. The theory of this road was to take advantage of Yaquina Bay as a harbor of entrance,
and thereby throw the business of Middle Oregon in another direction than Portland. Yaquina Bay has
a rocky bar at its entrance which prevents the passage of vessels of the first class. This bar is, however,
very narrow, and it is estimated that the expenditure of about one million dollars will remove it sufficiently
to admit large vessels. When this is done, there is no question of its excellence as a harbor. Perceiving
the certainty that this would sometime be done, several far-seeing citizens of Benton county, at whose
head was Colonel T. Egerton Hogg, organized in 1875 with a view of grasping the opportunity. To
detail the almost innumerable obstacles which beset the originators of this enterprise would carry us
beyond our bounds. Suffice it to say that one difficulty after another was vanquished by the never-failing
faith and energy of the projectors, and in the summer of 1886 the section, seventy-five miles in length,
between Corvallis and Yaquina, was opened to traffic, and a line of steamers was put on the route between
Yaquina and San Francisco.
The present design of the company is to push their line to Boise City, Idaho Territory, in six great
sections. The first of these, already completed, is from Yaquina to Corvallis. The second, fifty miles
long, directly across the Willamette valley to the foot of the Cascade Mountains, is also completed. The
third section, across the Cascade Mountains, following, on the west side, the general course of the north
fork of the Santiam river, is partially completed; and work is now being vigorously pushed upon it. The
fourth division will cross the great plateau of Central Oregon, an almost uninhabited region, but one rich
in potential resources. The fifth is the Malheur division, through a region almost enough for a state in
itself, and entirely undeveloped. The sixth will extend from the crossing of the Snake river and state
line to Boise City. There, it is generally supposed by the knowing ones, it will meet a western extension
of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, thus making a new and independent transcontinental line,
through an almost entirely new region. The importance of this line to those regions of Oregon not as yet
reached by railway lines can hardly be estimated. Central Oregon is nearly an ultima tule; but the testimony
of the few who have investigated it is that, while there are some large barren areas, yet as a whole it needs
but settlement and development to make it worthy of an honorable place in our great empire. As to
rivalries with the existing lines, it seems unlikely that a line traversing mainly so new a region will come

D. A. NEELY.
WHITE RIV., W.T.
THOMAS M.ALVORD.
PIALSCHIE, W.T.
DR L.W. BALLARD.
SLAUGHTER, W.T.
CAPT. J. J. GROW,
KENT, W. T.
JOHN M.THOMAS,
PIALSCHIE, W. T.
TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES.
143
into collision with interests already established.
It will probably fill a field of its own; and as an
independent and creative line it deserves the best well wishes of all our people.
In accordance with our purpose to describe first those lines which have Eastern outlooks, we will next
devote our attention to the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern, though it is antedated in age by the Oregonian
Railway. The Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railroad is a home enterprise, managed mainly by Seattle
capitalists. It is expected that it will meet some line from the East in the course of two years. This
attaches to it the momentous interest of a transcontinental line, though in itself, merely for its local
importance, it is one of the most valuable railway enterprises of the present time. It is developing from
three points of oscillation. One is what is known as the West Coast branch, which is already built from
Seattle to a point beyond Snohomish. It is supposed by those posted that this will continue northward to
a junction with the Canadian Pacific. A second is the mountain section from Seattle to the Snoqualmie
Pass in the Cascade Mountains, where are some of the greatest coal fields in Washington. The company
has announced their expectation to push a main line from near Snohomish up the Skykomish river, across
the mountains by Cady's Pass, thence down the Wenatchie river to the Columbia. There it will meet the
third of the existing sections of the road, which is a fifty-mile stretch from Spokane Falls towards
Davenport in the Big Bend country. Various branches are planned, one of the most important of which
will be to the great Conconully mines. Like most of the regions penetrated by our new roads, that
within the scope of this road is one the contemplation of whose tremendous resources, as fully developed,
makes the mind dizzy. When we consider the restricted area over which the railroads of the old states
operate profitably, and observe that here is a line in almost undisputed possession of a region larger than
any of the New England states except Maine, and immeasurably richer in every natural resource, we can
only wonder in a vague, dim way what its income may be fifty years hence. Not but that it will have
rivals before a half century passes; but still, whichever man or railroad first claims the hand of fortune in
a new land usually receives the greatest share of her favors.
Such are the railroad lines actually or prospectively transcontinental in their character. It now remains
to describe local lines, existing or definitely projected. The oldest of these is the Oregonian Railway, the
lines of which are narrow gauge. The headquarters of this company are at Dundee, Scotland.
It was
incorporated in 1879. The lines extend from Dundee on the Willamette river, thirty miles from Portland,
to Sheridan in Yamhill county and to Airlie in Polk county. On the east side of the Willamette a line
extends to Coburg in Linn county. On account of the unjoined link in the chain of communication
between Dundee and Portland, this line was not for a time well patronized; but in 1885, William Reed,
President of the company, organized the Portland & Willamette Valley Railroad, the object of which was
to create the missing link. This was successfully accomplished in July, 1888; and this fine system of
feeders on both sides of the river now turns the traffic of rich regions not otherwise reached into Portland.
A majority of the stock of the Willamette Valley Railroad was acquired by the Southern Pacific in 1887;
and in 1889 the stock of the Oregonian Railway Company was secured in the same way. Thus the entire
system of narrow-gauge lines in the Willamette valley is in the same hands as the broad-gauge system.
One important result of the completion of the Portland & Willamette Valley Railroad is the bringing into
market of suburban property between that city and Oswego. This gives Portland a metropolitan character
which it never before had.
In connection with this account of the oldest and largest of the narrow-gauge lines, it is proper to add
a few words as to the large and increasing number of narrow-gauge lines in various parts of the country.
These are performing in the aggregate a vast, though frequently unnoticed, part in the development of the
regions through which they pass. They vary in length from three to fifty miles. Though most of these
were primarily designed for the transportation of coal, logs, ore, etc., these roads do considerable
miscellaneous freight business, and even more or less of passenger traffic. The more important of them
are the Walla Walla & Blue Mountain, Olympia & Chehalis Valley, Ilwaco & Soalwater Bay, Puget
Sound Shore, and Columbia & Puget Sound. There are others equally deserving of mention, did our
limits permit. These numerous roads are the signs of a business awakening now taking place on this
coast, -an awakening which will not be checked till the unresting flux and reflux of population and
business between the East and West shall have been satisfied, and the two ends of the country shall have
come to an equilibrium.
This is a fitting place to say a few words of the numerous and important steamboat lines binding
together the various parts of the country, and affording communication with distant ports. We have
already described the steamboat divisions of the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company. Co-ordinate
with it is the Pacific Coast Steamship Company. This company runs magnificent steamers from San
Francisco to Portland in connection with those of the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company, and
besides this conducts in a most efficient manner a freight and passenger line from Sound ports via
British Columbia ports to Portland and San Francisco; and also a freight and passenger line of steamers
from Portland, Tacoma, Seattle and other Sound ports and Victoria to Alaskan ports. During the
summer season, it provides fine steamships for this latter route, unfolding to tourists the wonders and
sublimities of the "Inland Passage" and the "Glacier Land." There is also a very heavy freight trade
between all parts of the Sound region and Portland and San Francisco.
The most of the colliers belong to the Oregon Improvement Company. There are some also of
importance on the route between Vancouver, British Columbia, and Portland, of which the Danube is an
example. This is one of the Canadian Pacific fleet. That great company, besides being an important
11
144
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
factor in the railway complications of the North Pacific, has also steamship communications with all parts
of the world. Besides these great metropolitan lines of steamships, there is springing up all along our
coast a fine coastwise trade. Examples of this are found in the lines between San Francisco and Coos
Bay and other Southern Oregon ports. There is also regular steamboat communication between Astoria
and Gray's Harbor, Shoalwater Bay and Tillamook.
Space is also justly due to the almost innumerable small steamers and independent lines on the waters
of Puget Sound and the Columbia river. The largest lines on the Sound, next to the Oregon Railway &
Navigation Company's lines, are those of the Washington Transportation Company, the headquarters of
which are at Seattle, and the Pacific Navigation Company, the headquarters of which are at Tacoma.
Both these companies have beautiful steamers; and between them they cover the greater part of the inland
waters of the Sound. Besides these there are a number of companies which carry on a local trade with
one, two or three boats, between the islands and the inlets and the chief ports. Seattle is the headquarters
of the most of these companies. Taken all together, these independent and local lines perform an immense
and most needed kind of work. In the unfolding of new regions and the accommodating of small points,
they are one of the greatest agencies of progress.
Of similar nature to these lines on the Sound are those on the Columbia river and its branches. The
headquarters of the most of these is Portland, though there are a number of steamers hailing from Astoria,
The Dalles and other points. The chief companies at Portland, outside of the Oregon Railway &
Navigation Company, are the Vancouver Transportation Company, the Columbia Transportion Company
and the Joseph Kellogg Transportation Company. The beautiful steamers Lurline and Undine are the
property of the first-named of these companies, while the second rejoices in the flying Telephone, the
swiftest boat on the river. Captain Kellogg takes just pride in the steamer christened after himself, which
has for many years traversed the Willamette slough and the intricate waters of the Cowlitz. Space would
not permit us to name all or even any great part of the small craft which ply in all directions from
Portland. What with towing, piloting and picking up the hay, cattle, grain, wool, etc., at the almost ·
innumerable landings along the bold and wooded shores of the river, a perfect cloud of small steamers find
occupation The number of these boats both on Puget Sound and the Columbia river is so rapidly
increasing that it would be useless to collate them here. They are one of the most significant indices to
our present growth as a section of the union. It is scarcely necessary to remind the intelligent reader of
the enormous foreign trade of Puget Sound in lumber, coal and grain, and of that of the Columbia river in
grain and lumber, which is carried on by sailing vessels to all parts of the world. Together these two
lines of outlet are beginning to modify the commercial currents of the world.
So much for existing lines of transportation by land and water. Now for those in process of
construction. Among the foremost of these is the Hunt system of roads in the Walla Walla and
Umatilla countries. The legal name of this system of roads is the Oregon & Washington Territory
Railroad. The raison d'être of its existence was the extortionate freight charges which prevailed
throughout the regions named under the exclusive management of the Oregon Railway & Navigation
Company. The theory of the Hunt railroads is, therefore, that of competition with the latter, and the
turning of the vast products of the Walla Walla, Umatilla and Grande Ronde countries towards the
Northern Pacific and the Sound, and away from Portland. During the winter of 1888-89 the line was
carried from the junction with the Northern Pacific at Hunt's Junction to Walla Walla by way of the
great farming region of Eureka Flat. At the present writing, the Walla Walla section is open to general
traffic, thus giving a large part of the richest farming region of the interior direct communication with the
Sound. Construction is in active progress on the various extensions which proceed from Walla Walla as
their natural center. This system of roads is one of great magnitude, and likely to work important
results to the fertile land which it reaches.
There is no railroad enterprise now on foot so likely to affect the centers of trade as the Hunt system.
Its influence will be against Portland and in favor of the Sound ports. The present outlook for this
system is that Walla Walla will be the center of its operations, and that from it branches will proceed
to Dayton via Waitsburg, and to the Grande Ronde valley by way of Milton and Weston and other
heavy grain-producing regions, while another branch will go from Wallula to Pendleton. In short, the
Hunt system of railways will completely thread the rich lands on the south side of the Columbia and
Snake rivers, and become more nearly a perfect arterial system than yet exists on our coast. It is the
type of many more yet to come.
Next in importance to the Hunt railroads is the Spokane & Northern; and indeed the people of
Spokane Falls would no doubt consider this last not inferior to any other in its prospective magnitude.
The construction of this line of road will be an event in the history of not Spokane Falls only, but even
of the entire Pacific Northwest. It will extend from Spokane Falls to the gold mines of the Calispell,
the lumber regions which flank the Colville valley, and to the fertile lands of that valley itself. Its
proposed present terminus is the Little Dalles on the Columbia. There are those who hint at an ultimate
connection with the Canadian Pacific Railroad far up the Columbia. Whether that becomes a fact or
not, it has without doubt a field where it may bourgeon out resources, the ultimate development of which
can be but faintly conceived. The building of this road, together with the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern,
and the added fact of the convergence of the various important branches of the Northern Pacific, will
confirm Spokane Falls in her place as the coming railway center and the great city of the interior,
Between the sea-board and the Rockies, she is beyond the possibilities of rivalry.
TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES.
145
Another railway line of prospective importance, already constructed several miles, is the Vancouver,
Klikitat & Yakima. The general course of this is clearly indicated by its name. It has before it a
great region with varied resources awaiting development. There are large coal mines in the wild and
picturesque region between Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens which are one of the objective points
of this road. The Klikitat valley has as yet no road; and between it and the Yakima valley along the
flanks of the Simcoe Range are lands, agricultural, grazing and timber, which wait but for communication
to begin to unfold their treasures. The Goldendale & Columbia River Railroad is another road said to
be already on a tangible financial basis, which will run from Goldendale to Pasco to a junction with the
Northern Pacific.
Still another, and this one of the most needed and most interesting lines of railroad, is the Astoria &
Coast Railroad. This will run from Astoria through Clatsop Plains, over the sea-worn promontories of
Tillamook Head, under the shadow of the haunted Ncarni Mountain, around the shallow bay of the
Nehalem, to secure the resources of cattle, lumber, farming, etc., which are so plentiful there, thence to
Tillamook, and down the coast, reaching numerous rich valleys and unfolding uncomputed resources. Its
projectors seem to design to ultimately cross the Coast Range into the center of the Willamette valley,
probably making Albany their terminus. Three other important systems of roads are talked of in such a
way and by such men that we may be fairly sure that they will become accomplished facts within no very
long time.
One of these is a system of extensions from the Southern Pacific at some point in Northern
California into the Klamath basin, and thence through Middle Oregon to the Columbia river at The Dalles
or Umatilla. Another is a branch by the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company from Umatilla, across
the Columbia into the Horse Heaven country and the Lower Yakima. This, it may be inferred, is a
strategic movement to adjust the commercial equilibrium disturbed by the Hunt system.
Another important projected line, nearer the constructive stage than either of those just named, is the
Port Townsend & Southern. This will no doubt be built in the near future. From the important cluster
of harbors around Bellingham Bay, several lines are projected; and one of them is already begun. This
is from New Westminster southward, commonly called the "Canfield Road." Another is expected to go.
from Bellingham Bay to Blaine on the Canadian Pacific. This is the Bellingham Bay and British
Columbia, commonly known as the "Cornwall Road." Nelson Bennett has also a line in contemplation, the
termini of which are unknown, but which will quite certainly make Bellingham Bay one of its chief points.
It seems sure that Whatcom and the other points on Bellingham Bay will be abundantly supplied with
roads. In a more indefinite, but still hopeful stage of embryonic life, are lines from Roseburg to Coos
Bay on the Oregon coast, and from Ellensburg to the Conconully mines in Okanagan county.
In short, this is the railroad era in the Pacific Northwest. The "iron horse" snorts as never before.
Progress is in the air. It is safe to say that in no part of the United States (and that means in no part of
the world) is there activity and progress greater than that in the Pacific Northwest. Hitherto growth has
been slow compared to Kansas, Dakota or California. We were not easily reached. A whole county
could not move upon us at once from the overcrowded East as it could upon Kansas. For many years
after settlement of this coast, there was little addition to its population. Its isolation produced upon it the
effect of age. The people retained largely the ideas and business methods which they had brought with
them from the States in the forties and fifties. Oregon became the oldest new country in the world.
But with the advent of railways, all is changed. Capital and immigration are vieing with each other to
obtain a foothold here. The collapse of the colossal boom" of Southern California has, temporarily at
least, deadened enterprise throughout the Golden State; and the Pacific Northwest is reaping the benefit
of California's loss.
This volume appears in the midst of a forward movement in the country which it describes never
equaled before; and we may be confident that the future historian will fix upon 1889 as the great year in
the history of the Pacific Northwest.
CHAPTER LXII.
The Pacific Northwest as It Is To-day- Education and Social State Its Towns,
Scenic Attractions and General Appearance.
WE
EDUCATION AND SOCIAL STATE.
E HAVE thus far presented mainly the facts in the physical development of the Pacific Northwest.
It is inevitable in the case of a new country that its physical life demand the first attention.
Forests must be felled, streams opened to navigation, roads laid out, the sod broken, crops sowed and
reaped, and the body clothed and fed. Hence it is unreasonable to expect, as some Eastern visitors seem
to, that the new regions of our country should be as fully provided with the elegancies of social life, and
with the buildings, scientific apparatus, and all the other paraphernalia of education which previous
generations have bequeathed to the older communities. The most important thing to ask in regard to
a new community is: Has it the appreciation and desire of the higher things of life, such as education,
public improvements, morality and the other necessary features of a highly civilized social condition?
We can answer this question, not so much by the visible results as by the disposition of the people, the
use that they make of their opportunities, and the speed with which they advance from the unavoidable
meagerness of their first estate to the rich unfoldings of the future. Judged by this, the only just
standard, the Pacific Northwest has kept its social and educational line even with its commercial and
industrial. We have not, indeed, any Harvard or Cornell or Michigan University in our midst, with
their millions of endowment, their palatial buildings, their libraries and their priceless cabinets of art
and science. But-please make a note of this New York and Massachusetts both fall below Oregon as
to illiteracy and the relative amount spent for education.
The original settlers of the Pacific Northwest were mainly of the hardy frontier stock of the West.
Illinois, Ohio, Iowa and Indiana furnished a great proportion of the pioneers of this country, though many
came from Missouri, Tennesee and Kentucky. They were usually men of more energy than polish,—of
more hard "horse sense" than school training. Practical results were what they commonly looked for
in life; and, like the typical American in general, they acquired originality, boldness, mental independence,
and the ability to go across lots to conclusions and to frame new rules for their new circumstances.
Such men's children almost always grow up, however, with a strong desire for education and social
advancement. The rugged ancestral virtues become transformed by inheritance into a mental acumen
and inquisitiveness which form the best material in the world for a solid, common-sense, practical kind
of society. Such a society, with the ideas of education, of business, of general advancemeut which
naturally grow out of it, is now in possession of the Pacific Northwest. The present time amply proves
that the brawny hand of the forties can hold the pen and wield the brush and fashion the graceful
building all the better for its early toil. The "hand of iron in the glove of silk" promises to have a fine
exemplification in the development of this, the garden spot of the union. With increasing wealth and
time has come the desire to acquire and practice the refined arts which go so far to enhance the worth
of living.
During the past decade there has been, accordingly, a very great increase in the school facilities and
the accompanying means of improving public taste and enjoyment. This has been illustrated by the
erection of numerous public school buildings, city halls, beautiful churches, opera houses, and other
tokens of the higher life of our people. Portland now contains the most beautiful and costly high school
building in the United States west of the Missouri river. Salem abounds in fine public buildings. Seattle,
Tacoma and Spokane have costly and elaborate churches, schools and public buildings. In all of these
places and many smaller ones, such as Astoria, The Dalles, Walla Walla and others, the last few years
have witnessed the erection of many beautiful private residences. Some of these, of Portland in particular,
are a matter of astonishment to visitors from the East who have thought of this as a wild, cowboy
land, partly inhabited by savage Indians. It is indeed frequently said that the larger towns have more
articles of luxury in their homes, such as pianos, organs, fine pictures, well-assorted books, etc., than
most cities of the same size in older states. The churches are strong and rapidly growing. While
there is, as might be expected in a new country, less of formal and conventional religion, and greater
( 146 )



HON.J.A.KUHN,
PORT TOWNSEND, W. T.
EDUCATION AND SOCIAL STATE.
147
freedom of speech and opinion, it may be questioned whether in the general tone of public morality, and
the general observance of the vital principles of law and order, and unaffected piety, the Pacific Northwest
is not equal to the Northeast.
Oregon, Washington and Idaho each has a well-arranged school system, and a good number of
well-started colleges. These have not, in the nature of things, any great amount of endowment or very
costly buildings, or very extensive scientific apparatus; but in thorough work in their fields, in wide-awake
preparation for the greater number of pupils which are sure to come to them in the future, and in a
general moulding influence on society, they may rank with the Harvard, the Yale and the Oberlin of
early times in the East. This country is going to develop faster, too, than the old states did; and in view
of that we may justly expect the colleges to reach a degree of power and perfectness correspondingly sooner
than did their prototypes in the East.
The public schools of Oregon have been for seven years under the efficient superintendence of
Professor E. B. McElroy, and during the period of his incumbency have made great advance in attaining
a systematic plan of working. The goal of Professor McElroy's efforts has been a regular graded system,
by which any child of the state may proceed from the primary schools to the State University. The
difficulties in the way of this have been those common to all new countries. The degree to which they
have been overcome may well be a source of pride to the superintendent and of satisfaction to the state.
As now administered, the public schools of Oregon are in a fair way to reach the highest standard; and
they furnish an added inducement to seekers of homes to establish themselves here. The crowning
feature of the school system of Oregon is the State University. We present herewith a summary of the
facts with regard to this institution taken from the excellent account in the last New Year's number of
the Oregonian:
"The University of Oregon, as this school is called, is an institution of learning where the state.
offers the advantages of a higher education than is afforded by the common schools under state control.
This school was founded and located at Eugene by an act of the Oregon legislature at the session of 1872;
and it was opened for the reception of students four years later. The school is endowed with the sum of
eighty thousand dollars, realized from the sale of certain lands set apart by the general government for
the founding of such a school in Oregon, and also with an endowment of fifty thousand dollars received
from the hands of Henry Villard during his palmiest days. The other source of revenue of the school is
the sum of five thousand dollars annually set apart by the state legislature for the support of this charge
of the people, and the tuition received from those scholars in attendance at the institution who have not
had the opportunity of availing themselves of the county scholarship entitling them to free entry to the
institution.
"A diploma of graduation from the High School of Portland entitles the holder to admission to the
State University without the formality of any further examination. Others applying for admission are
subjected to a most rigid examination; and, if it is found that these applicants are in any way deficient in
the requirements which entitle them to entry, they are relegated to the preparatory department of the
school, where they submit to a thorough training before entering the college proper. The course of the
school is most thorough; and the usual degrees conferred by any of the colleges East are obtained by
the students here after completing the course. The charge of the affairs of the school is in the hands of
a board of regents, consisting of twelve members, appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state
senate; and it is this board which has the power of granting diplomas and of conferring such degrees as
other universities are disposed to grant.
"The faculty of the school includes nine teachers, with Professor John W. Johnson, A. M., an
instructor of great learning, as president of the institution. The board of regents of the school includes
the names of Honorable L. L. McArthur, of The Dalles; Honorable Henry Failing and the Honorable
Matthew P. Deady, LL. D., of Portland; S. Hamilton, of Roseburg; Honorable C. C. Beekman, of
Jacksonville; Honorable R. Scott and Honorable R. S. Bean, of Eugene; and Honorable A. Bush, of
Salem. The board is officered by Honorable Matthew P. Deady, President; Honorable J. J. Walton,
Secretary; and Honorable A. G. Hovey, Treasurer.
((
The university now has a good library, which contains at the present time about two hundred
volumes. Henry Villard bought a part of these books at a cost of one thousand dollars. Four hundred
dollars is the annual fund now received from the Villard fund for the purchase of books, which sum is
now being expended for the purchase of books of reference for the institution. The library, through the
efforts of the Honorable J. N. Dolph, has been made the depository of all the documents published by the
general government at Washington. In the library rooms may also be found a large lot of magazines,
reviews and other periodicals published in England and the United States. The university now has
about two thousand dollars' worth of mathematical instruments. Students in surveying and engineering,
by means of the solar compass and the engineer's transit, can become acquainted with the practical field
work in their department; and by means of the sextant and other instruments they can easily learn the
methods of finding the latitude and longitude of any place. Students in astronomy will have access, for
observatory practice, to the sidereal clock, the forty-two-inch astronomical transit and the sextant; and
with these instruments they will be able to find the latitude and longitude, as well as the exact solar time,
of the university building by the methods used by astronomers and navigators.
"The apparatus belonging to the department of physics and chemistry has cost the university
more than three thousand dollars; and, though such a collection of instruments can never be complete,
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
it affords greater facilities for the class illustrations than can be found elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
The departments of geology, mineralogy and natural history are provided with large and valuable
collections to illustrate their teachings. Professor Condon's cabinet is already widely known on the coast,
and is justly noted for the wonderful record of Oregon's former history. To these collections large
additions of the Eastern and foreign minerals are yearly made; and the whole is freely used in illustrating
truth to the classes taught in these departments. Tuition at this school is charged at the rate of forty
dollars per year.
There are no dormitories connected with the university. The degree of Bachelor
of Arts is conferred on all who have completed the classical, the scientific or the English course.
"Each county in the state is entitled to one free scholarship in the collegiate department of the
university, and an additional free scholarship for each member of the legislature and joint member of the
legislative assembly to which such county shall at the time be entitled. Each student in the university
pays merely the sum of ten dollars per year for incidentals. Some of the prominent members of the
state are in the alumni of this university; and, from the time of the first graduation of a class in the year
1878, the college has continued to make constant and rapid advancement; and the school is to-day one of
the leading educational institutions of the Pacific Northwest."
In addition to the State University, Oregon has also an Agricultural College. This is located
at Corvallis, and is under the presidency of Professor B. L. Arnold. This important institution has, after
various vicissitudes, come entirely under the control of the state; and, with the important addition to its
resources of the fund from the government to carry on its work as the experimental agricultural station
for Oregon, it may look forward to a most important and extended career of usefulness. New and
beautiful buildings and an enlarged faculty, together with a superb farm of over a hundred acres, and
with a suitable supply of the necessary apparatus for its work, all combine to make the outlook for
the Agricultural College under the new régime highly satisfactory. Its regents desire to have it
understood that this is to be a real training school for farmers. To secure this end, President Arnold
spent a large amount of time in visiting the Eastern agricultural colleges, and has incorporated their best
features in that of Corvallis. The labor feature is compulsory, and the fact made constantly prominent
that practical farmers are to be the fruit of the institution.
Besides these institutions the state maintains schools for the blind and for the deaf and dumb at Salem.
Orphan homes are also sustained at state expense at Portland and Salem. In addition to these, the state
patronizes, as normal schools, the academies at Weston, Monmouth, Drain and Ashland.
In
The private colleges, academies and seminaries of Oregon are numerous and well conducted.
upholding the banner of higher education, they have performed a work whose momentous consequences
cannot be estimated. We give here a list of these, large and smali, new and old:
Academy of the Sacred Heart; Willamette University: Salem. Academy of Perpetual Help; Albany
Collegiate Institute: Albany. Academy of Mary Immaculate; St. Mary's Academy; Wasco Independent
Academy: The Dalles. Academy of Holy Names, Jesus and Mary: East Portland. Ascension Seminary;
Leighton Academy: Cove. Bethel Academy: Bethel. Bishop Scott Military Academy; Columbia
Commercial College; Independent German School; Medical College of Willamette University; Medical
College of State University; Portland Business College; St. Mary's Academy; St. Helen's Hall; St.
Michael's College; Sacred Heart School: Portland. Drain Academy; State Normal School: Drain.
Friends' Pacific Academy: Newberg. Grace Church Parish School: Astoria. Jefferson Institute:
Jefferson. La Creole Academic Institute: Dallas. Linnean Academy: Harrisburg. McMinnville College:
McMinnville. Mount Angel College: Mount Angel. Notre Dame Academy: Baker City. Pacific
University and Tualatin Academy: Forest Grove. St. Mary's Academy: Jacksonville. Santiam Academy:
Lebanon. St. Paul's Academy: St. Paul. St. Scholastica's Convent School: Gervais. St. Joseph's
Academy: Pendleton. St. John's School: Oregon City. State Agricultural College: Corvallis. State
Normal School: Monmouth. State Normal School: Ashland. State Normal School: Weston. University
of Oregon: Eugene City. Umpqua Academy: Wilbur. Verboort's Visitation School: Cornelius.
Of the private institutions, the Willamette University at Salem is the oldest, largest and best provided
with buildings. Its beginning was the Oregon Mission Manual Labor School, established in 1834 by Jason
and Daniel Lee. It was not formally incorporated as a university till 1853. Its present executive is Reverend
Thomas Van Scoy. In all its various departments and correlated academies, it employs thirty professors, and
has over four hundred students. Its graduates number over four hundred, a number largely in excess of that
of any other in the Pacific Northwest. Pacific University at Forest Grove, founded as an academy in 1843
and advanced to a university in 1854, enjoys the distinction of having the largest library and the most
endowment of any of the private institutions. McMinnville College has the largest and most costly single
building, and is well attended by a large number of students. The Bishop Scott Grammar School of
Portland is distinguished for providing an excellent military training in addition to thorough work in other
departments.
Our decreasing space warns us, however, that we must not add more, interesting though it might be
and due as it is, to describing the special features of these institutions. The general public school
system of Washington is similar to that of Oregon, modeled after those of the most progressive states, such
as Illinois, Massachusetts, California and Kansas. It is most ably superintended by Superintendent
Morgan. Washington, too, has its quota of private schools. The people of the various places where
these are located take great pride in their advancement, and both by sympathy and encouragement, as
well as material support, assist them. The names and locations of these instructions are given below.
i
TOWNS, SCENIC ATTRACTIONS AND GENERAL APPEARANCE.
149
The State University, located in Seattle, is mainly supported by the state, the legislature
appropriating something over ten thousand dollars every two years for its maintenance. It was erected
in 1855.
There are now in attendance ninety-two female and one hundred and nine male students, a total
of two hundred and one. There are three thousand books and one thousand pamphlets in the library,
besides several valuable cabinets. Whitman College, in Walla Walla, has one hundred and ninety
students of both sexes, and a library of two thousand, nine hundred books, and two thousand pamphlets
and a choice cabinet.
There are also the following institutions: Waitsburg Academy; Spokane Business College; Olympia
Collegiate Institute; Washington College; The Annie Wright Seminary (female): Tacoma. Empire
Business College; St. Paul's School: Walla Walla. Colfax College; Academy of the Holy Name:
Seattle. Washington Seminary: Huntsville. Chehalis Valley Academy; Catholic School: Vancouver.
School of Languages: Walla Walla; and excellent institutions in Ellensburg, Cheney, Coupeville, Lynden
and other places.
The Methodist University, to be erected under the auspices of the Methodist church, will be,
probably, the leading educational institution of its kind in the Pacific Northwest. It will be erected in
Tacoma, the citizens of which town have subscribed a bonus of seventy-five thousand dollars in cash
and land.
The schools of Idaho are, in view of the youth of the territory, in a most flourishing condition.
Like their older brethren of Oregon and Washington, the Idahoans are true to the general American
instinct to bring the fundamentals of learning within the reach of every child in the commonwealth.
Their schools are administered in the same general way as those of Washington. The larger cities of
Idaho, as Hailey, Boise, Wardner and Ketchum, are, considering their age, remarkably well provided
with institutions of learning. A very important step in educational matters has just been taken by the
Idaho legislature, and that is the establishment of a territorial university. This will be located at
Moscow, in the most fertile part of the farming country of Northwestern Idaho.
In conclusion, we may truthfully say that the educational, social and ethical forces of the Pacific
Northwest have been established on a broad basis, and wait but the fullness of time to equal those of the
most favored parts of the country. The homeseeker who desires for his children those fundamentals of
life,--intelligence and morality,--may plant himself in the Pacific Northwest in the full assurance that
here, as far as exterior conditions can secure them, they may be found.
TOWNS, SCENIC ATTRACTIONS AND GENERAL APPEARANCE.
And now, gentle reader, as well as ungentle, if such there be; scientific as well as speculative;
hard-headed railroad man as well as beauty-loving artist; hard-handed emigrant as well as plethoric-pursed
tourist; keen-eyed and sharp-nosed trader looking to see if "there is anything in it," as well as esthetic
dreamer, seeking the novel in scenery and life, we have given you the "frozen facts" in regard to the
life,—we
Pacific Northwest; and, if you will now kindly accept us as escort, we will journey through the regions
already made familiar to you in a general way by our various chapters of history, biography and
descriptive matter. Before starting on this trip, spread out your map again and recall what you have
already learned of the general contour of the country and its lines of transportation.
There are six chief centers of oscillation in the Pacific Northwest. From them radiate railroads,
wagon roads, steamboat lines and Cayuse trails ad infinitum; and from them and their outlying dependencies
we can frame a picture of the country which the limits of our space precludes extending to all points.
These six centers of oscillation are Portland in the West, Ashland in the South, Walla Walla in the East,
Baker City in the Southeast, Spokane in the Northeast, and in the Northwest-but here we hesitate-far
be it from us to decide whether Tacoma or Seattle is to be considered the center of the empire of the
Sound. Even a humble journalist may well tread cautiously on such volcanic ground as a comparison
of the respective merits of these two cities of destiny. Let us avoid peril by waiving the question for
the time being, and contemplating the two places as revolving around a common center midway between.
To the quill-driver of the twentieth century we relegate the ultimate decision.
We may divide our tour into three natural sections, over three separate lines of railroad,—first, over
the Northern Pacific from the eastern boundary through the Sound to Portland. The second is by the
Southern Pacific from Portland to Ashland and return. The third is from Portland again by the
Oregon Railway & Navigation Company and the Oregon Short Line to Eastern Oregon and Washington
and Southern Idaho. Let us make this round of say two thousand miles (let not the distance startle the
reader from the effete and limited East), in the flower months of April or May. This is early for the
tourist travel, but not too soon to see the great valley of the Columbia in its rich splendor of spring
garniture, and in the glad budding and sprouting of its forthcoming harvests, ere the arid summer has
stained the fair landscape with smoke, and the light soil, driven by the fresh gales of the west, has dulled
the vernal bloom.
Suppose we have left the multitudinous interests of the East, have traversed the fantastic freaks with
which Nature has signalized her presence in the "Bad Lands," have journeyed up the flat and fertile
though wintry valley of the Yellowstone, have thence pierced the crest of the Rockies, have threaded the
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
uncounted cañons and ridges with which the great range lets itself down to the level of the Columbia
Plains, and winding along the timbered heights which encircle Cœur d'Alene Lake we find ourselves upon
the border of the treeless and undulating, though infinitely diversified, prairie which extends thence
westward to the summit of the Cascades! We observe that the greater part of Northern Idaho is very
rugged, and that but small patches are suitable for agriculture. But it contains within its wild and savage
scenery what has, for the time at least, a greater value than the richest farms; for as we pass Heron,
Rathdrum, and the other little places between the eastern boundary of Idaho and Spokane Falls, we
perceive that we are near a great mining region. This is none other than the world-famous Cœur
d'Alene mines.
The mines lie some distance south of the railroad; yet their proximity is sufficiently obvious from
the mining implements which we notice around the stations, from the numerous mining "sharps" who
board the train bound for Spokane Falls or the Sound, and from the excited, extravagant style of talk
about "big strikes," etc., which seem to be inseparable from mining countries. In the wild and almost
inaccessible defiles of the Cœur d'Alene Mountain, Nature has treasured up some of her richest deposits
of gold and silver; and there have sprung into sudden being a number of booming towns, of which
Wardner is the chief, the whole aim of whose existence is to uncover the precious deposits. Access to the
mines is now rendered easy by railroad lines, as well as by the beautiful steamboat route across Cœur
d'Alene Lake and up the St. Joseph river. Both the Northern and Union Pacific Railroads recognize the
future immensity of the trade from the mines, and both are completing lines to them.
As with other mining regions, the Cœur d'Alene has its tales of sudden fortune to rival those of
Monte-Christo. The half-starved prospector who went in yesterday on foot with a pack on his back, a
rifle in one hand and a frying-pan in the other, will come out to-morrow with a train-load of bullion, and
the next day, arrayed in plug hat, diamond pin and gold-headed cane, will walk among the millionaires
of Spokane Falls, Portland or San Francisco.
The experiences of Mr. N. S. Kellogg, the discoverer of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mines, the
opening of which may be said to have fairly begun mining on the Coeur d'Alene, is a good illustration.
He was an old California miner, but, through many years of adventure and hard work, failed of realizing
the fascinating yet illusive dream of wealth. Becoming convinced of the hidden wealth of the Cœur
d'Alenes he spent the summer of 1885 in prospecting; but the whole summer passed without a strike.
The early and snowy autumn of that high altitude soon made it plain that what he might accomplish he
must do quickly. Determining to make one more effort before he gave it up, he found himself one biting
October day on a bleak and snowy jag of mountain with no companion but a donkey, confronting the fact
that he had no provisions for self or beast, and that the gray and lowering sky portended a furious storm.
Sitting down on a rock to meditate on the mutations of fortune, his donkey went off a little way and
began to paw the snow in the hope of finding some grass underneath. In doing this he pawed up some
fragments of rock.
Glancing at these carelessly, the keen eye of the old miner was suddenly riveted
to them, for they looked like ore. Quickly seizing a piece, with his blood on fire with excitement, he
found that his sight had not deceived him. It was ore of the richest kind. That night a happy though
very hungry miner, with a small and exceedingly hungry donkey, picked his way through the snowstorm
to Wardner. Subsequently disposing of half of his "find" to Portland capitalists, and now enjoying an
income of five or six thousand dollars a month from the remainder, Mr. Kellogg can afford to clothe
his faithful donkey in purple and fine linen (metaphorically speaking) and to keep him on the fat of
the land.
This brief glimpse at the Cœur d'Alene would be incomplete without at least a word about the
wonderous scenic attractions of the Lake. Walled round with rocky ramparts, whose hues of sapphire
and purple and lapis lazuli mingle with the saffron and carmine of the sky, it bears upon its own changing
surface such marvels of coloring and rippling light that we think of Poe's castle, how "Banners yellow,
golden, glorious, on its ramparts float and flow." The day is now near when the attractions of this lake
for tourist, artist, hunter and fisherman will be fully recognized. Its waters abound with the finest kinds
of fish; and on its shores are all manner of birds, deer, bear and elk innumerable. Compared to its
wild and inexhaustible charms, the resorts of the crowded East are tame indeed.
The water
And now the outlying network of mining gulches and grazing land being passed, we find ourselves
within reach of the centrifugal power of the great city of the Upper Columbia basin. This is Spokane
Falls. Our Eastern friends have been hearing of this all the way from Chicago. Its first appearance is
very prepossessing. It lies on both sides of the rushing Spokane, which here falls about one hundred and
thirty feet in a mile of distance, the greatest fall in any one place being about forty feet.
power represents in its lowest stage the power of ninety thousand horses, being somewhat in excess of
that of the Mississippi at Minneapolis. On the south of the river the land rises steeply, and is much
broken with volcanic rocks of the most picturesque form to the height of about two hundred feet. On the
north side of the river a beautiful and level, though gravelly, plain extends four miles to a bench which
corresponds in height and general structure to that on the south side. Distant mountains of the most
majestic height and form, and of the most beautiful coloring, are the fitting background of a scene which
has witnessed the most extraordinary transformation in its human accompaniments of any within the
limits of Washington.
Ten years ago there were living beside the falls of the Spokane a hundred people. There are now
fifteen thousand. Ten years ago there were standing there a blacksmith shop, a store, a postoffice, a

HON. DAVID MURRAY.
RESIDENCE OF HON. DAVID MURRAY,
ELLENSBURGH, W. T.
UNI
TOWNS, SCENIC ATTRACTIONS AND GENERAL APPEARANCE.
151
saloon and a dozen or two ramshackle houses. The last year (1888) beheld the erection of thirteen
hundred buildings, one of which cost two hundred thousand dollars. As one goes down its spacious
streets, a hundred feet wide, and contemplates its massive blocks of brick and stone, and sees its tasteful
and costly residences, its horse-cars and motor lines, its numerous bridges, its metropolitan stores and its
gigantic mills, he has to rub his eyes and ask himself if he has not in some way become transmogrified,
and is not in the city of Chicago or St. Paul. Much use is made of granite in the newer buildings; and
this gives to the city a greater appearance of stability and massiveness than is seen in any other place in
the entire Northwest. Great effort has been made during the last year to put the streets in first-class
condition, the sum of two hundred and fourteen thousand, three hundred and forty-four dollars having
been employed for this purpose alone. Just as this volume was going to press, about forty of its most
elegant blocks were destroyed by fire, entailing a loss of nearly ten million dollars; but with great pluck
and energy the citizens are rebuilding their ruined city.
Spokane possesess the almost incalculable advantage in these days of monopolies of having two rival
railroads. These are the Northern Pacific and the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern. The former has, in
addition to its main line, branch lines to the Cœur d'Alene mines and to the great agricultural country
southward. The latter is to go, when completed, from Seattle through the coal fields of the Cascade
Mountains, and over the vast and as yet undeveloped farming lands of the Big Bend to Spokane, and
thence onward to some Eastern connection. The prospective rivalries of these two great systems have
partly caused the wonderful development of the latter city. This development seems indeed unaccountable
at first sight, especially as the resources of the city are not at once visible. But a few days devoted to a
thorough examination of the resources which exist in the region near at hand, and a careful view of the
topography of the country in general, will make it plain to anyone that Spokane Falls is the natural center
of the Upper Columbia basin, and as such is already beyond the reach of competition. It is, moreover,
the natural point of junction of five great lines of enterprise, in each of which there is an unlimited
possibility of expansion. These are manufacturing, agriculture, mining, stock-raising and milling.
Spokane Falls is the natural point of exchange for these future colossal interests. While it is
undeniably true that the growth of the city thus far has been mainly prospective, yet so morally sure of
realization are those prospects that there is nothing fictitious about the growth of the place. One of the
most picturesque features of this city is the frequent abrupt piles of volcanic rock which adorn the southern
side. They vary from the size of a hay-cock to a bold precipice a hundred feet high; and so
advantageously are they disposed that, without materially impeding the use of the streets, they can be so
employed in laying off buildings and grounds that they are a unique and ever-varied element in the
physiognomy of the town. But you must not neglect to see the farming country contiguous to the city.
You must go twenty miles to see it. Nor can you see anything of it from the main line of the railroad.
This lies, unfortunately, in a wretched strip of swamp and straggling timber; and unless the stranger be
informed, he is likely to get a very unfavorable impression of the whole region. To the end that we may
dissipate this impression, we will take a round on the Spokane & Palouse branch. This leaves the main
line of the Northern at Marshall, twelve miles south of Spokane Falls.
It carries us over the great
prairie of Hangman creek and the Palouse, vast in extent, of unsurpassed fertility, genial in climate,
abounding in springs of pure water, fringed here and there with timber from the picturesque mountains
on the east, attractive, even fascinating in its whole appearance. Do not be disconcerted by the hilly
character of these great plains. It is not sufficiently so as to interfere with cultivation, while the
advantages in drainage and diversity of crops and times of plowing are so great as to quite overbalance
any possible disadvantages. There is also less liability to spring frosts, which on the flats are frequently
destructive. It is said, too, that the hillier the land the richer it is. You will see sundry little towns
along the line of raiload, as nerve centers, such as Spangle, Rosalia, Belmont, Oaksdale, Garfield,
Farmington and Palouse City. The chief place, however, between Spokane Falls and Walla Walla, is
Colfax. This we find a bustling and pleasant little city of two thousand people, the county-seat of
Whitman county, strung along the cañon at the confluence of the two branches of the Palouse.
In spite
of the depressed location, the people have so taken advantage of it as to show many attractive homes,
while in the business part many substantial bricks have taken the place of the flimsy structures which, in
the manner of our new towns in general, at first occupied it.
This vast plain, lying between the Snake river on the south and the Spokane on the north, is the
largest and, with the exception of the Walla Walla and Umatilla valleys, the richest wheat region west of
the Rocky Mountains. It is now well provided with railroads. The Northern Pacific and the O. R. & N.
have locked horns here, their lines crossing each other at Garfield and at Oaksdale. Neither need fear a
lack of business; for both together, even now, are not able to carry away the immense harvests until far
into the winter. We discover that the Northern has not yet penetrated south of Colfax; and that town
has but one line. This is the O. R. & N.; and by means of it Colfax has outlets in two different
directions, one through Walla Walla to Portland, and the other by the Palouse branch to a junction with
the Northern Pacific, and thence to the Sound or to Portland.
And now, with this glance at the foothills of the Palouse, which need but to be tickled to laugh out
their tons of golden grain, we must retrace our course to Marshall, and thence resume our journey
Soundward over the main line. There is but little opportunity for sightseeing between Spokane Falls and
the Columbia. From Marshall, the road continues in a dismal belt of rock and swamp to Cheney. This
was a place of great expectations, even a rival of Spokane Falls; but, though situated in a sightly place,
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
and more accessible to the great wheat fields to the south and west, it has evidently missed its destiny,
and does not now contain a tenth the population of its lusty rival. Sixteen miles north of Cheney is the
wonderful Medical Lake, whose healing and cleansing waters have drawn many thither, and round whose
picturesque shores quite a village has sprung up. It is evident that, though shelved for the present,
Cheney will sometime realize, to some extent at least, the sanguine hopes of its founders.
Passing Cheney, we emerge from the stunted pines upon the plains; lost on all sides except the rear
in the flickering horizon. The monotony of the landscape is relieved by occasional picturesque bluffs, and
by the abundant bunch-grass and the gaudy flowers of spring. If it were autumn, you would think the
plain a desert; for, after the long drought of summer, vegetation shrinks to nothingness. Sprague, the
capital and metropolis of Lincoln county, is the only place of importance on this part of the plains, though
others are springing up which will be important sometime. Sprague is an attractive, well-built town of
two thousand inhabitants, finely located, and doing an immense business with the vast and just now
fairly opening region of the Big Bend. It is the division headquarters of the Northern Pacific, and also
of their land department. It contains the car shops and the other paraphernalia of a railroad town.
There is a beautiful lake a few miles beyond Sprague, right on the line of the railroad, which adds an
element to the attractions of the place unpossessed by any other of our inland towns. Of the few little
places beyond Sprague, time forbids us to speak; and, while the purple mists of evening are closing over
the boundless landscape, we find ourselves entering the coulee, whose rocky walls would henceforward
shut off the greater part of our view, even if the darkness did not. These coulees are a curious feature of
the Columbia plains. They are ancient channels of rivers. At some far-distant age, these now dry
prairies abounded in water. Diminished by the failing springs, resulting from some great change of
climate, and gradually drunk up by the increasing sunshine of a drier age, the now vanishing floods have
left as their only memorial these winding clefts in the plains. Down one of these ancient channels the
Northern Pacific Railroad goes for many miles. The sightseer and the intending immigrant should be
informed of this; for a daylight trip down this barren coulee, shut off from sight of the fertile lands above,
will have a most depressing effect on the average traveler.
And now (in the early part of the night, if we be on the Eastern express) we draw near the mighty
Columbia, river of romance, adventure and sublimity. An immense bridge now spans the deep and
impetuous current, the only one to which the river has yet submitted in Washington, though it is crossed
twice by the Canadian Pacific in its upper section. Beyond the great river, we enter the valley of the
Yakima. Here we would see, if it were day, that the "lay of the land" is different from any that we have
yet passed. It consists of flat, narrow valleys, separated by barren, rocky hills. One of these valleys
attains a great width, being twenty miles across. This is the valley of the Simcoe.
the Yakima valley, but is almost wholly within the limits of the Indian Reservation.
look upon, and apt to inspire envious feelings in the heart of the settler, especially if he be informed of
the fact that there is some ten times as much land as the Indians can use. In the case of this reservation,
as in that of the even more beautiful Umatilla Reservation, it appears that the pick of the land was
bestowed upon the Indians; but the latter has been divided up, and the former no doubt soon will be; and
thereby a vast area of the finest land will join that already opened to swell the output of the Columbia
basin.
It is the best part of
It is a fair land to
Taking the privilege of a historian and guide to see into the darkness as we journey through this
great valley, we discover that the successive valleys beyond the reservation are usually but a mile or two
in width, but are of extreme fertility and have a very rapid descent. This fact, coupled with the correlative
one that from the snowy heights of Mount Ranier and Mount Adams and their lesser brothers, which now
tower above us, there are abundant streams, tells the story of how irrigation is here made to supplement
the scanty rainfall, and thus produce the marvelous crops for which this region is famed. This is the
driest part of the great Columbia basin, and without the wonderfully easy natural facilities for irrigation
would be a very uncertain farming country. We find but two towns in this valley, though it has an area
of nearly five thousand square miles and a rapidly increasing population. The first of these places is
North Yakima, with the remains of what was formerly called Yakima City. The railroad managers
located the new site; and, in order to establish it, they eviscerated the old town insomuch that nothing now
remains of it except a few straggling buildings and a few residents whose obstinacy and sense of justice
outrun their business judgment. We find North Yakima to contain about two thousand inhabitants, to
be very substantially built, and to have a very commanding situation in the very center of the valley. It
lies near the Yakima river, whose rushing torrent affords fine opportunity for water-power, and down
which a large part of the logs used for ties, piles, wood, etc., throughout the Inland Empire, are floated.
A few miles beyond Yakima the valley disappears entirely, the bare, grassy hills coming almost to the
water's edge. This continues for nearly fifty miles; and then from the battlemented cañon we suddenly
emerge upon a broad and level prairie of perhaps twenty miles in either direction, besides a foothill belt,
sloping gently up to towering mountains, making in all an area of probably a hundred miles in circuit.
This is the Kittitass valley. A few miles after entering the valley our train halts at the booming town of
Ellensburg. Here we feel a rush and thrill of activity which reminds us of Spokane Falls. Ellensburg
contains about three thousand people. It has improved more rapidly in the last year than any town in the
Inland Empire except Spokane Falls. Until a year ago the buildings were mainly hasty and flimsy affairs,
ill-adapted to the rigorous winters for which the place is noted. But during the year past a surprising
number of solid and handsome buildings have been erected.
TOWNS, SCENIC ATTRACTIONS AND GENERAL APPEARANCE.
153
Ellensburg hopes, and indeed expects, to become the capital of the new State of Washington, basing
her hopes on her being the geographical center, as well as possessing a kind and variety of resources
which cannot fail to make her permanently prosperous. The people of this lively little city deserve the
prosperity which has come to them, although the principal part of the place was recently destroyed by
fire; for they have displayed great energy in opening communication with the places and interests outside,
and in rebuilding the ruined district. They have placed a steamer on the Upper Columbia as a link in the
chain of travel to the Conconully mines on the Okanagan. They have also made great efforts to gain
and hold the trade of the coal regions of Roslyn and Cle-Elum. The observer can hardly fail to ask
himself whether or not the trade of these extensive regions will not ultimately fall into the hands of more
distant and larger centers, such as Spokane Falls or the Sound cities. However this may prove to be, it is
evident that there are other and more immediate resources sufficient to amply repay her active and
patriotic citizens for the money and effort which they have expended to elevate her so suddenly from the
station of an unkept cowboy" town to the fifth place in the state. Its prosperity will be but
temporarily checked by the terrible fire of July 4th.
And now, leaving Ellensburg, we approach the Cascades. We are soon winding along the tumultuous
course of the Yakima, which cleaves its way amid the rugged lesser slopes. The main chain is now
before us.
The giant forms, clad in forests, present a most grateful change to the eye wearied with the
treelessness of the great plains. Leaving the brawling torrents of the Yakima, we find ourselves slowly
making our way, with much puffing, up the dizzy zigzags of the Switchback," over which the tourist
travel of the summer goes, though the great tunnel, two miles long, is now completed and in use for all
ordinary trains. That Switchback" ride over the crest of the Cascades is a most thrilling one; and
the view over the wilderness of mountains west and north and south, and on the timbered ridges and
distant bare slopes to the east, is one of unsurpassed grandeur and beauty. From the summit we get our
first near view of Mount Ranier, already seen at intervals in the valley of the Yakima. Massive, many-peaked,
a smooth and glittering dome in the center, and on either side splintered crags, its fifteen glaciers
extending their fingers far down into the border land between verdure and perpetual congelation, it stands
in isolated majesty, the finest mountain in the land; and indeed some old travelers say it has no superior
in the world. Its name is a matter of much and bitter controversy. It is about all a man's life is worth
to call it Ranier in Tacoma or Tacoma in Seattle.
An explanation is necessary, here, in regard to the name of this mountain: Captain Vancouver
designated it "Regnier" in honor of a British naval officer, a name which was afterwards corrupted with
Ranier.' By the latter appellation it was known to all the early settlers up to the time of the
completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad to Tacoma. The railroad company then renamed the
mountain after the city, claiming that to be the original Indian word designating its title. The truth
of the matter is, however, that the Puyallup Indians, inhabitating the region, called all snowy peaks.
by the same name, -Tak-ho-ina, -the meaning of which, according to their translation, is "the breast
that feeds," meaning to convey the idea that from the eternal snows come the perennial waters of the
rivers flowing into the Sound. In this work the intention has been to follow the history of the white
man, not that of the Indian; hence the mountain is designated throughout as Mount Ranier in order to
carry out this idea, and to more accurately give a conception of the name the mountain peak was known
by to all the pioneers previous to the advent of the Northern Pacific Railroad.
As soon as we reach the west side of the mountains, you will be struck with the marvelous change in
climate and the general appearance of all things. Instead of the crisp, dry, invigorating air and the
dazzling sun, you find the atmosphere heavy with the vapors of the ocean, while a canopy of clouds
hides the sun from sight. Instead of the bare, rolling hills, with their green coats of bunch-grass, you
see a wilderness of giant trees, cedar, fir, spruce, hemlock and innumerable lesser growths, around whose
feet clamber such a profusion of shrubbery, vines, creepers and ferns, that the rich soil from which they
draw their nourishment is visible only in occasional patches.
The first town of importance on the west side of the mountains is Puyallup. It is within sight of
Tacoma, and is just on the border of the Indian reservation of the same name as its own.
Its great
distinction is that it is the emporium of the hop trade. It is also the home of two men worthy of special
mention in our annals, Ezra Meeker and Cushing Eells. The former is the pioneer hop-raiser of the
North Pacific, as well as one of the foremost business men of his section in other respects. The latter is
one of the pioneer missionaries of the country. Having been on the coast now more than half a century,
he has perhaps a wider general acquaintance with the men and things which have entered into its
historical development than any living person. At this active and attractive little city we are within
sight and smell of salt water; and a few miles farther takes us to the tide-flats which border the side of the
terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad.
Any lengthy account of the extraordinary city of Tacoma is beyond the limits of this chapter; and we
must content ourselves with such quick glances at it as will serve to disclose its salient features. The
stranger is struck at first with its commanding site. The Sound here makes a sharp angle to the west;
and the tide-flats of the Puyallup extend far around to the east, so that the city, though on the east side
of the Sound, faces to the east and north. The greater part of the city is on a bench which on the east
rises gradually and on the north almost perpendicularly to the height of two hundred feet. From this
elevation the prospects over the Sound to the north, and over the Puyallup valley, with Mount Ranier in
the distance, to the east, is magnificent. The chief streets of Tacoma are one hundred feet wide, the
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
same as those of Spokane Falls; and the buildings on some of them would do credit to Chicago or
San Francisco. The great stone hotel, the Tacoma, is without a rival on the whole Northwest coast.
Worthy of special note, too, are the Episcopal Church, and the Annie Wright Seminary buildings. Aside
from these, however, the buildings of Tacoma do not, as a whole, impress a stranger as equal to those
of Spokane Falls. Tacoma, like nearly all of the towns of the Pacific Northwest, is well provided with
institutions of learning. It has the Annie Wright Seminary for girls; the Washington College; a
well-equipped Business College; and the prospective Methodist College, which will be heavily endowed
and well sustained from the start. Besides these institutions for higher learning, there are excellent
public schools.
The increase in values of real estate in Tacoma during the last two or three years has been
unprecedented and almost incredible. In some instances property has advanced ten-fold within a year.
The last year has outdone any of its predecessors. Over a thousand buildings have been erected. Real
estate transactions in the county (Pierce), have amounted to more than eight million, eight hundred and
eighty-five thousand dollars. Street improvements have amounted to two hundred and sixty-three
thousand dollars. The products of the city have yielded two million, seven hundred and fifty thousand
dollars. Population has nearly doubled in the last year, being now over sixteen thousand.
But this booming city, sprung thus Minerva-like, full-grown, from the Jupiter-brain of railroad
development, has a rival. Sixty miles down the Sound is another city of destiny. This is Seattle.
Thither we must go forthwith, over the misty waters of the Sound, in one of the fine boats of the O. R.
& N. Co., which operates here as well as on the Columbia. There is no lack, however, of means of
communication between the two cities. Nevertheless craft of every kind and ownership ply there; while
there is also a branch line of railroad leaving the main line of the Northern Pacific near Puyallup. If
the sky be clear on this trip,-which is rather rare in spring,—you may see, beyond the blue waters of the
Sound and its bluffy shores, the superb chain of the Olympic Plains in the west, while Ranier the mighty
towers in silent majesty to the eastward, a constant picture. And now we pass the picturesque Vashon
Island, soon to enter the expansion of the Sound known as Elliott Bay. Here lies Seattle, the Queen
City of the Sound." At first view the sight of the city looks very rough, So bold, indeed, is the shore
that in places the thresholds of one street are almost even with the ridge-poles of the one below.
many places steps are used for walks. In spite of this ruggedness, however, the site has many advantages.
The city we find to lie mainly on a strip of land about two miles wide, which separates the Sound from
Lake Washington.
In
Lake Washington is a fresh-water lake of grand proportions by twenty-five miles, and, with its smaller
adjunct, Lake Union, makes an addition of inestimable importance to the shipping facilities of Seattle. You
will hear much on the Sound of the "teredo." This is a barnacle which bores into piling and ships,
and is destructive to a degree not easily conceived. About six years is the limit of the durability of
timbers subjected to its ravages. They then become perfectly honey-combed. Now this deadly teredo
cannot live in fresh water. The lakes of Seattle therefore furnish the means of warfare with the molluscous
destroyers. Canals will be cut to Lake Washington, and there the ships of Seattle may take refuge.
The evidences of the prosperity of Seattle abound to such a degree that it is not possible to classify
them with any degree of fullness. Her three specialties are coal, lumber and shipping. Numerous
manufacturing establishments have sprung into being by reason of the cheap lumber and the easy
facilities for transportation. Fifteen hundred men find employment in these various factories. Besides
being a shipping center, Seattle is also rapidly becoming a railroad center. By the Seattle, Lake Shore
& Eastern Railroad it is expected that there will soon be independent communication with the East.
The growth of Seattle has been scarcely less remarkable than that of Spokane Falls and Tacoma.
Ten years ago there were five thousand people there. Now there are twenty-five thousand. Values of
real estate have continued to climb with a rapidity which is likely to make a cautious man's head swim.
But the building boom keeps pace with that of real estate, and that is generally evidence of a solid
condition of things. During the year just past (1888) there were one thousand, four hundred and forty
buildings of all kinds erected. Half a million was spent in street improvements. Real estate transactions
for the county (King) amounted to fifteen million, eight hundred and twelve thousand dollars. As every
man has his own peculiar physiognomy and individuality, so cities and towns seem to have their individual
tones and expression. In Seattle the special feature of the city countenance, so to speak, which most
engages the attention of the stranger, at least after he has been there long enough to become at all
acquainted, is the intelligent and self-sacrificing patriotism of the citizens. They "pull together" better
than the people of any other place on the coast. This is one great secret of the leading position of Seattle
at the present time. For, notwithstanding its fine location, it has had its critical periods; and had it not
been for this peculiar devotion of its people it might have succumbed to some of the combinations against
it, especially by the persistent efforts of the gigantic monoply of the Northern Pacific Railroad to break it
down and erect Tacoma on its ruins.
If you have time to remain in Seattle long, you will find its people possessed of rare intelligence and
hospitality. Its educational institutions are well advanced. It is the seat of the State University.
In brief, the bustling energies of this place, its commanding situation, and above all its adjacent lakes,
with the facilities which they offer for shipping and manufacturing, plainly set the seal of future prosperity
on this not misnamed Queen City" of the Sound. On June 6, 1889, a conflagration the greatest ever


HON.JOHN MC GLINN,
LA CONNER, W. T.
UNIL
TOWNS, SCENIC ATTRACTIONS AND GENERAL APPEARANCE.
155
known on the North Pacific coast swept away the entire business part of Seattle, causing a loss of twenty
millions. But even this fearful loss causes but temporary dismay. The people are "sand" to the
back-bone.
((
Time fails us to note all the beauties of nature and the tokens of industry and advancing progress on
our journey down the Sound. We pass through beautiful clusters of islands, and note the growing cities
on the mainland, as Snohomish, Mount Vernon, Skagit City and others, yet in their infancy, but with the
promise of a powerful maturity not far away. You must give more than a passing glimpse at the immense
sawmills of Port Madison. And not in silence pass Fidalgo's isle," nor the countless islets whose rocky
sides are mirrored in the perfect flood beneath. And at the last we come to the most northerly place in
our empire. This is Whatcom, on Bellingham Bay. Many believe that here is a city which will ere long
contest with Seattle and Tacoma for the leading place among the cities of the Sound. There is indeed a
magnificent harbor, and around it are resources of timber and coal inferior to none; while, in the
agricultural resources contiguous to it, it undeniably has no equal on Puget Sound. Relatively to its age
and size Whatcom has grown faster during the year past than either of its burly sisters up the Sound; and
within another year or two it will be at least within "hollering distance" of them. But this active and
enterprising place receives special space elsewhere in our pages; and hence we need not add more here.
We should find it very interesting to thread the maze of islands which lie between the Rosaria
Channel, on which Whatcom is situated, and the Haro Strait on the farther shore, and thereby recall their
historical connection with the question, portentous at the time, of the Northwestern boundary. So, too,
we should feel well repaid for a little trip over the boundary, and a few days' stay in the quaint old city
of Victoria, and the bustling new one of Vancouver, the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. But
time puts a period to these much-to-be-desired explorations, and we make the grand wheel southward.
Crossing the Strait of Fuca where they look out on the boundless entrance from the sea, we catch the
ocean swell, but soon find ourselves under the lee of the mainland on the western side of Admiralty
Inlet; and Port Townsend rises before us from the blue waters. This is one of the places of the old
régime on the Sound, belonging to the same geological stratum as Olympia; but during the last two
or three years it has woke up to a newness of life, and is now growing with the same energy as the
larger places already mentioned. With the completion of the projected railroad lines of the Port
Townsend Southern and subsequent connection with main transcontinental lines, it seems likely that this
ancient shipping point will have its due measure of the prosperity which is being passed around on the
Sound this year. It has a grand location, notably adapted for shipping, and by reason of its nearness to
the sea affording much cheaper rates of entrance for vessels than any other port on the coast.
Leaving Port Townsend, and passing as we go the mouth of Hood's Canal, which ramifies among
the timbered slopes of the Olympic Range as if it had been constructed purposely to make an entrance
and exit for lumbering enterprises, we find ourselves again in the neighborhood of Tacoma. But we will
pass it by this time and remain on the steamer as she goes on to the ancient capital of the territory,
Olympia. This is the oldest place on the Sound, but it was not built on the track of empire; and, though
having many attractions of location and society, it has never been a business center. The onward rush
of business in the country during the last year has, however, shaken the dry bones of umbrageous
Olympia; and it is beginning to put on the habiliments of modern life. Its daughter city, Tumwater,
possesses one of the finest water-powers in Washington, and is the seat of sundry manufacturing
enterprises which make it the most active place in the region. Olympia is off the main line of railroad,
but has a branch fifteen miles in length by which we may reach the main line at Tenino. By taking
this route we have passed by the old town of Steilacoom, which is, like Olympia and Port Townsend,
assuming the new life of the present time. At Steilacoom is the State Insane Asylum, in charge of Dr.
John Waughop, which has been well administered under his care.
And now for the ride between the Sound and the Columbia. After passing the barren and gravelly
Mound Prairie on which Tenino is situated, we enter a zone of forests, trees gigantic, interlaced with
creepers and vines of every description, while every foot of the strong clay soil is taken possession of by
some kind of vegetable growth. The sun cannot penetrate these jungles; and, even with the long rainless
summers of this climate, they are never dry. Centralia and Chehalis are the chief towns of this region, both
bright, enterprising places of the modern age. And now we pass over the "low divide" which separates
the valley of the Chehalis from that of the Cowlitz, and find ourselves in the narrow though fertile valley
of that stream, and rapidly approaching the great Columbia. Suddenly emerging from the fringe of
cotton-woods which screens the mouth of the Cowlitz, we find ourselves on the banks of the river. But
how changed is the stream from that crossed at Kennewick, three hundred miles above. There swift
and turbid, with barren, bluffy shores, here flowing in majestic tranquillity, two miles wide, broadening
towards the sea from which the freshening breezes now come. The train is carried over bodily on the
great ferry-boat; for no bridge yet spans the wide expanse. After a half hour's sluggish ride, we find
ourselves in Oregon. The shores of this part of the Columbia are densely wooded and somewhat
mountainous; but, with their fertile soil and unequaled accessibility to market, these lands are certainly
destined to be cleared and cultivated; and without doubt their now forbidding solitudes will soon witness
the establishment of many homes and much planting of fruit trees and sowing of grass, for which last
they are peculiarly fitted.
We pass no towns of importance between Kalama and Portland, though St. Helens, a mile from
the track, is the seat of one of the largest lumbering establishments on the river; and it has been famous
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
at times for its expectations of becoming the chief city of the state. It would have been a superb place
for the establishment of the metropolis of Oregon; but the more ready access of Portland to the wheat
fields of the Willamette valley finally decided it to be the city of destiny.
Portland, the metropolis of the Pacific Northwest, and, next to San Francisco, the largest and wealthiest
place west of the Rocky Mountains, is so often mentioned incidentally in these pages that any long account
here is not necessary even were there space. Its location is central, its site magnificent, its growth assured.
Lying twelve miles up the Willamette, it is at the most convenient point for the midway meeting betwixt
the sea and the farms of the interior. It is the natural point of exchange for at least the whole Lower
Columbia region. Whether it will become secondary to some city on the Sound as the distributing center
of the Pacific Northwest as a whole is one of those uncertain questions which we shall most safely relegate
to the twentieth century. That bugbear, the Columbia bar, has been much harped on; but the fact
remains that, with the improvements now in progress and certain to be completed, the Columbia river
will be one of the best harbors on the coast. And while it is true that a thousand feet of water is more
than forty, yet, inasmuch as the latter is all that is needed for admitting vessels, the practical use of having
more is not immediately apparent.
Portland contains, with its environs, about sixty thousand people. Its suburbs, East Portland, Albina,
Selwood and South Portland, have grown wonderfully in the last two years; while upon the magnificent
elevations on either side of the river, Portland Heights on the west and Mount Tabor on the east, eight
hundred feet above the river, and out of fog and dust, many costly and beautiful residences are arising.
Portlanders pride themselves on not having a boom. The town is one of solid growth. It takes no
reckless steps, and hence no backward steps. Portland strikes the traveler very favorably in all respects
but one; that is the narrowness of the streets, being but sixty feet wide. After the amplitude of Spokane
Falls and Tacoma, these scanty streets seem rather niggardly in a place the size of this. Portland has
two possessions which justly entitle her to a national reputation. The first of these is her High School
building. This is truly a grand structure, and is generally said to have no equal west of the Missouri
river. The other art treasure is the Skidmore Fountain. This is conceded by competent critics to be the
finest work of the kind anywhere in the western half of the United States. Portland people and Oregonians
in general do not seem to fully appreciate this fact.
Another distinguished building of Portland will be the great hotel now approaching completion.
This immense structure covers an entire block, two hundred feet square, aud is six stories in height
above the basement. With it fully completed, as it will be before these words reach our readers' eyes,
Portland will score a few points over Tacoma. As already described, Portland is the railway center of the
Pacific Northwest, and from it we may proceed in any direction. Many steamboats ply on the magnificent
watercourses of the Willamette and Columbia rivers. A trip to Portland would be incomplete without a
glance at the historic cities of Vancouver and Astoria. A half hour's ride on the steam-motor line takes
us to the former, and when you have seen the superb site which it occupies, -its ample and uniform
slopes, its matchless panorama of sky and water and distant mountains,—you will be ready to say that, if
it never becomes a great city, it certainly ought to. But 1889 is a year of fires; and the old Hudson's
Bay Company's capital, too, has had its turn. A longer ride is granted us to Astoria, a hundred miles on
the wide river, a distance which the steamboat racers, the Telephone, R. R. Thompson, T.J. Potter, Undine
and other fine steamers, cover in about five or six hours. Astoria, with its rugged yet commanding site,
its immense lumbering and fishing industries, and its access to the sea and the charming summer resorts
on each side of the mouth of the river, is evidently destined to be a place of wealth and importance. As
the oldest American town west of the Rocky Mountains, and as the present residence of many prominent
pioneers, it possesses a peculiar interest.
Once more at Portland from our seaside trip, and we find ourselves ready to enter upon the circuit of
the Willamette valley and Western Oregon. Reaching by a very heavy grade the summit of the
picturesque "Heights," on the West Side division of the O. & C. Road, we descend into the thick
woods which cover the rich soil of Washington county, passing sundry towns, such as Reedville and
Beaverton, and at last emerging upon the flat and fertile plain upon whose edge is located the
county-seat, Hillsboro, and from whose grain fields and dairy ranches come a great part of the wealth
of the county. Hillsboro, like Cornelius and Forest Grove just beyond it, has a thriving local trade, and,
like them again, is especially distinguished as the home of several of the oldest and most conspicuous of
the pioneers of the state. The plains around Hillsboro were among the first of the state to be taken up;
and there Reverend J. S. Griffin, Colonel Jo Meek, Dr. Robert T. Newell and G. W. Ebberts made their
residence in the "thirties." The first and last named of these are still living at a great age. At
Cornelius, the curious traveler can meet Colonel T. R. Cornelius, and at Forest Grove Dr. Geiger, A. H.
Inman and Mrs. Walker, as representatives of the earliest age of our history. At Forest Grove, also, he
can see Pacific University, the oldest college but one (Willamette University) in the state.
Leaving the low and humid lands, belted with many forests, and dotted with frequent pools and
swamps, of Washington county, we enter the more open and breezy expanses of "Old Yamhill," the land
of Oregon statesmen, and, for its area and population, the richest and most productive county in the state.
With its rolling prairies, park-like groves of stately oaks, rushing streams, and distant, dark-hued,
forest-clad mountains, this region is justly considered "just a notch ahead of any in Oregon," though
where all is beautiful it is hard to say that one surpasses another. Aside from its extraordinary beauty
and productiveness, this county is remarkable for the great number of pioneer families which reside or
TOWNS, SCENIC ATTRACTIONS AND GENERAL APPEARANCE.
157
have resided in it. A complete history of Oregon might be made from material that could be gathered
within its borders. Reaching McMinnville, in the central part of the county, we find ourselves at the
metropolis of the West Side. This is a bright, enterprising place, recently made the county-seat, vice
La Fayette outvoted, containing about two thousand people, well provided with churches and schools,
and especially favored as the seat of McMinnville College.
Beyond this flourishing region, we enter the fair vales and scenic hills of Polk county, watered by the
La Creole and Luckiamute, and overlooked throughout by the timbered Coast Range. At Derry on the
La Creole we pass the beautiful estate where one of Oregon's most remarkable men passed many of his
honored years; for this was the home of Colonel T. W. Nesmith. Many other of the noblemen of the
olden time might be found in Polk county, either in person or memory, had we time to search for them.
Independence is the only town of much size on our road between McMinnville and Corvallis. At the
latter place we find much of the active, enterprising spirit of modern improvement invading the calm
which broods over the greater part of Western Oregon. Corvallis, being the junction of the O. & C.
Road and the Oregon Pacific from Vaquina, has a growing activity and importance which curiously contrast
with the ancient style and appearance of many of the buildings; for Corvallis was quite a city thirty
years ago, from which time it scarcely changed at all until three or four years ago. Here we find
the West Side division of the O. & C. Railroad to terminate. We can, however, go by the Oregon Pacific,
or by stage or by boat, to Albany ten miles down the river, and on the other side, which is reached by
the East Side division. Thither we will go, after having visited the fine buildings and grounds of the
State Agricultural College at Corvallis.
Albany we find to be a lively place of three thousand inhabitants, generally considered the most active
point in the Willamette valley. Here, as at Corvallis, there is the juxtaposition of the old and the new in
a way which surprises the stranger. A large race from the Calapooia river supplies Albany with a fine
water-power; and several large mills furnish employment for a considerable number of men. The Albany
flour is famous the world over. If the day be clear, you will be entranced with the view across the prairies
between Albany and Eugene, and the mountain chain on either side. On the east, six, and, if it be very
clear, nine, snow peaks can be seen towering in unsullied majesty above the flat and fertile plain. The
Albany prairie, which occupies a considerable part of Linn and Lane counties, is the largest body of prairie
west of the Cascade Mountains. It is in the main a very productive region, though parts of it are so low
and flat as to have imperfect drainage; and in some sections the soil is hard, cold, whitish and not suitable
for cultivation. Nevertheless more grain is raised in Linn than in any other county on the west side of
the mountains. The foothill section of this county, like that of the other parts of the valley, is latterly
attracting much attention. It is peculiarly adapted to fruit and dairying. Throughout the valley,
lands are offered for sale very cheap; and, when one considers the advantages of the locality, it occasions
surprise to see the comparative lack of immigration to these cheap, productive and attractive lands.
And now over the prairies again to Eugene, fifty miles beyond, the capital of Lane county, and the
metropolis of the upper section of the valley. The situation of Eugene is one of the fairest in all this fair
land. The pleasant river flows in front; the level plains stretch away in wavering vistas; the bare buttes,
dotted with occasional clumps of majestic oaks, tranquilly overlook the scene. Eugene contains about
twenty-five hundred inhabitants. It has a remarkably large proportion of tasteful homes, and is especially
distinguished by the presence of the elegant and convenient buildings of the Oregon State University.
This institution is now the best equipped, in buildings, money and teaching force, of any in the state. It
is deservedly popular, and a source of pride to the people of the state. Beyond Eugene, the route lies
along the narrow upper valley of the south fork of the Willamette, from which it passes by a low divide
into the valley of the Umpqua.
We are now beyond the waters of the Columbia; for the Umpqua flows directly into the sea. This
valley is a succession of narrow valleys, separated from each other by low, oak-crowned hills. Here and
there, as around Roseburg particularly, there are abrupt and picturesque bluffs. As a whole, this is the
most diversified region of the state. The town just named, Roseburg, is the metropolis of the valley. It
is a place of two thousand inhabitants, and has the same double character of former arrested development
and modern improvement which we see so much in all of Western Oregon. Roseburg was for many years
the home of an Oregonian of national reputation, to wit, General Joseph Lane. Beyond Roseburg, too,
in the beautiful valley of the Yoncalla, still lives one of the foremost of the ancient Oregonians, Jesse
Applegate; and in various localities near by are numerous members of that historic family of "the Sage
of Yoncalla." Beyond Roseburg, our way lies through one of the most beautiful alternations of hill and
dale that the state affords, with its numerous wide-veranded ranch houses nestling amid the sheltering
oaks.
Passing now through a succession of very abrupt and broken hills, we come out into another valley,
the Rogue river. Here the general appearance of vegetation and the general "feeling" of the region is
greatly changed. It is like California.
It is like California. There are clumps of manzanita and chaparral and lamel groves;
the evergreen trees of Western Oregon disappear; and there is a general appearance of dryness and
clearness which seems to mark a climatic transition. There are five towns of note in the Rogue river
valley, Jacksonville, Ashland, Grant's Pass, Medford and Central Point. The first named is the county
seat of Jackson county, and one of the oldest towns in the state. It is six miles from the railroad,
Medford and Central Point being its nearest available stations. Medford is one of the new growths of the
valley, having sprung up on the heels of railway construction, and having a very favorable location in
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
the very heart of the valley. Grant's Pass, the seat of justice of Josephine county, is also essentially a
new town, and is the center of the lumber trade in the southern part of the state.
Ashland we have already designated as the center of oscillation for the south of our empire; and as
such it merits a more extended stay from the traveler. It is located near the rushing waters of Bear
creek; and through its streets there pour the various branches of a clear mountain stream, which furnishes
an abundant and unfailing water supply for manufacturing purposes. This southernmost of our cities,
wholly isolated, until within two years, from the centers of trade, has maintained a fine woolen mill, the
fame of whose products has justly gone to regions remote from our own state. Besides being one of the
few points of woolen manufacture in our country, Ashland is also celebrated as the emporium of the fruit
business in the southern part of the state. Under the hot sun, and in the quickening soil of the Rogue
river valley, fruits of all kinds attain unsurpassed flavor and size. This is especially true of the peach,
grape, apricot and other fruits not commonly thought a successful crop in the Pacific Northwest. Ashland
now contains nearly three thousand people. In climate and beauty of scenery, it has no superior, perhaps
no equal, among the cities of either Oregon or Washington. Its many tasteful homes attract the stranger's
eye; and it will be very surprising if the combination of excellencies which it presents does not in the
near future draw to it something like its due proportion of immigration. Certain it is that the stranger
who does not visit Ashland and its vicinity loses one of the pleasantest sections of his journey.
Another thing which future visitors will associate with Ashland is that from here roads lead to the
wonders, scenic, piscatorial and venatorial, of the Siskiyou, the "Dead Indian" country, the Klamath
Lakes, and, most wonderful thing in our whole domain, Crater Lake. Not Yosemite itself, not the
Yellowstone Park, presents a finer combination of attractions than this region. This southernmost portion
of our empire is sui generis. It is neither Oregon nor California. It is simply itself. As such it is
peculiarly worthy the notice of the immigrant or the tourist. But we must not prolong our stay in the
south; for there is yet much to see in the east. So looking back longingly on the double peaks of Mount
Pitt, and the supernal shine of the Siskiyous, we turn our faces northward and retrace our steps. When
we reach Albany, we remain on the East Side train; and so from here to Portland we traverse new
territory.
We must stop at Salem long enough to see the wide, shady streets, the handsome houses, the stately
capitol, the fine buildings of the Willamette University, the Penitentiary and Insane Asylum, the Indian
School at Chemawa, near by, the Fair grounds, the superb farming country surrounding, and sundry
other attractions which the seven thousand enterprising citizens of Oregon's capital city have drawn around
them. In Salem some of the earliest pioneers of the Pacific Northwest, especially those connected with
the Methodist Mission, lived for many years. They have all passed away now except Reverend J. L.
Parrish. Though now very old, he retains much interesting knowledge of early times. Rich farming
lands, interspersed with belts of timber, lie between Salem and Portland. The only town of importance
on this section of the journey is Oregon City. This place was an ancient rival of Portland for
metropolitan power. Now it looks forward to being a suburb.
Oregon City has been esteemed a sluggish town; but it is now waking up to the spirit of
advancement, and to its own possibilities, which are immense. Having just come from Spokane Falls,
the population of which quadruples that of Oregon City, and the growth of which has been mainly built
on the expectations of future developments of its water-power, we are struck with surprise to witness the
comparative backwardness of Oregon City in utilizing its equally great power. The falls of the
Willamette here have a descent of forty feet, and represent the power of a million and a quarter horses.
And just contemplate the advantages which this point has, as compared with Spokane Falls or any other
inland point. Here is an immense and perfectly accessible water-power, surrounded with iron ore, forests,
and all the products of farm and river, all within reach of tide water. It is a wonder that Spokane Falls
with even its great prospective resources should have gained fifteen thousand people in ten years; but it
is a still greater marvel that Oregon City with its already realized resources should have gained only four
thousand in forty years. The stranger is forced to believe that there is some lack of enterprise. The
ocean with its shipping lies at the gates of this town; and the largest city in the Northwest is in sight of
it. The time is surely not far distant when the whole river front between it and Portland will be lined
with manufactories.
And now we are once more in Portland. After a little rest in its pleasant eastern suburbs, we are
ready to turn our faces to the eastward and take up the last section of our journey. This will be
accomplished via the O. R. & N. This road is a monument to the genius and daring enterprise of
one man, Henry Villard. The first eighty-three miles of this journey take us through the world-famed
scenery of the gorge of the Columbia. The better way for the tourist is to use a day more for this,
and go by boat to The Dalles. By this more leisurely manner of viewing the succession of craggy
heights and threads of foam which streak their sides, you will more fully feel their sublimity, and
preserve a more distinct mental photograph of their special scenes. Thus you will see ever after in
your mind's eye the Palisades of Cape Horn and the towers and ramparts of Castle Rock; while the
white wreaths of Multnomah Falls, tossed by the winds, as it flings itself over the frowning wall of rock
eight hundred feet in perpendicular height, will be a permanent picture in your gallery of remembrance.
The scenery of the great river reaches its culmination of grandeur and interest at Hood River, which,
with its neighbor on the opposite shore, White Salmon, afford the finest summer resorts in the country.
As we journey, pigmy-like, amid these stupendous scenes, we notice the retarded water of the usually

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TOWNS, SCENIC ATTRACTIONS AND GENERAL APPEARANCE.
159
impetuous stream, and the sunken forests along the bank.
The irresistible conclusion from these
appearances is that the river has been dammed at the Cascades. To confirm this view, you may get
the genial captain or purser of the boat to tell the story of Mount Hood engaging in mortal combat with
Mount St. Helens, and hurling at the white brow of the latter a monstrous rock, which, falling short of
the mark, broke down a great natural bridge which till then had spanned the Columbia at the Cascades.
This, as you may infer, is an Indian legend. You can imagine nothing more charming than lolling on
the after-deck of the steamer, looking through the glimmering haze on this succession of views, so
mighty, so weird and so unexpected, that you almost think yourself dreaming, and hear some old
steamboat man tell you about the Indian gods, old Speelyai for instance, or about the Lion's Head" or
the "Thunder Eagles" of Mount Adams, or the "Lumei and the Skookum," and numberless others
which prove some kinship between the Klikitat Indians and the ancient Greeks. All that the Columbia
needs now is some Irving to gather and shape his legends, and he will take his due place among the
streams of romance. From almost all points of the Upper Columbia we can see the towering cone of
Mount Hood and the amorphous majesty of Adams. The tourist to Oregon should by all means try
to add two weeks to the period of his visit, and go to worship at the shrine of these mighty monuments
of volcanic energy. Both are very easily reached, and at both, but especially at Mount Adams, more
points of interest of every conceivable kind are focalized than at any point with which a long acquaintance
on the coast has made the writer familiar.
At the Dalles we pause a few hours, which we might very profitably make a day, to transfer ourselves
to the train. The Dalles we find to be a lively, well-built place of four thousand. The trees are now left
behind; and the rolling prairies, with which we became so familiar on the journey across Eastern
Washington, again occupy the field of vision. The name of The Dalles we find to be derived from one of
the most wonderful features of all that wonderful river, the Columbia. If you can stop long enough, go
up the river six miles above the town, and you will find a place where the whole volume of the Columbia
is compressed into a channel but a hundred and sixty feet wide. No one knows its depth. The tremendous
current has made soundings impossible. It is generally said, however, that the river "is turned on edge."
As one views this lava wilderness, this twisted, contorted desolation cleft by the black, writhing torrent,
so deep that it does not roar, but simply groans, and as he marks the fantastic forms, almost human, into
which the fire-sculptors have fashioned the once liquid mass, he feels that here the spirits of nature and
the subterranean forces, the elemental energies, must have in some far distant eon come forth to look
on the visible world and been turned to stone at the Gorgon gaze of the stars. We find The Dalles to be
the natural center of an immense region southward, as well as across the river in Washington. Time
permitting, we would find it very interesting to go to Goldendale and view the fertile Klikitat valley, of
which it is the metropolis. Although long thought a practical waste, except for grazing, we see many
homes which promise excellent results springing up on this sea of hills around The Dalles.
As we pass on from there we note briefly, in the pauses of the train, the growing towns of Grant,
Arlington and The Willows, whose business is mainly handling the vast quantities of wool which come
from the ranges southward. From The Willows a branch road goes to the "Queen of the wool trade,
Heppner. It is a place of great promise. The traveler, curious to see where two-thirds of Oregon's three
million sheep live, cannot do better than go to Heppner. He will see grassy hills and sheep on them
ad infinitum. On these immense treeless prairies of Eastern Oregon, the towns are few, and in general
the growth of the last five or ten years. We find an exception, however, when we reach Umatilla.
It is one of the old, old towns, a sort of reminiscence of the mining times of thirty years ago.
Here we
turn from the river to the plains, following a short distance the beautiful sinuosities of the lucid
Umatilla, whose mellifluous name means "the gathering of sand in a heap.”
We are now in the far-famed Umatilla country, one of the fairest and most fertile sections in our
whole domain. Pendleton is the queen of the Umatilla plains; and here the traveler can find much to
interest him. It is the home of many old settlers, men who followed ox-teams across the plains and
through the defiles of the Rocky Mountains, men whose hairs, prematurely grizzled, attest many a
desperate adventure with Indian and wild beast. Among these sturdy old pioneers can be found Captain
William Martin, Eugene Reith and others, now actively engaged in business, and so engrossed in the
present that only incidentally do they ever allude to the stirring scenes of that curious past. Another
noteworthy citizen of Pendleton is Doctor McKay, born on this coast sixty-four years ago. He can tell the
curious traveler more about the Indians and early times than any living man. We find Pendleton to be
a substantially built place of about thirty-five hundred. The Indian reservation adjoining it takes much
of the most valuable land away from use; but that is soon to be sold at auction, and then, with its
immense production added to that already in reach, the prosperity of Pendleton seems assured.
From Pendleton to Walla Walla is about fifty miles; and through the entire distance we traverse a
country of almost incredible natural fertility. It is one vast wheat field. It is generally conceded that
this Blue Mountain belt has no superior, perhaps no equal, in the known world as a grain country. As
we look at the immense harvests of June, and as we hear the accounts of wheat yields of forty, fifty, sixty,
seventy and occasionally even eighty bushels to the acre, we are ready to subscribe to the general opinion.
And now we reach Walla Walla, the "Valley of Waters;" for so its musical name is to be translated.
We are here on historic ground. Walla Walla is, next to Astoria, the most historic place on the coast.
Here lived the "Knights of the Columbia Plains," the brave and chivalrous Walla Walla Indians, who
were usually the steadfast friends of the Whites, who succored the starving party of Hunt when the
12
160
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
desperate winter of the Blue Mountains had but just let them emerge with their lives upon the sun-lit plains.
Here the "Romans of the Blue Mountains," the fierce and turbulent Cayuses, ranged, to the terror of
both white man and savage. Here the far-sighted Whitman set his stakes for the future, and yielded his
life to the ferocious savages for whom he had already sacrificed home and all the opportunities which
await one of his calling and ability. To this point the dusty caravans of immigration, the vanguard of
American occupation, looked forward as their goal; and, but a little way from here, they exchanged the
dusty prairies for the shining levels of the river. Here the fiercest Indian wars reached their culmination;
and from here and to here went and came the little armies of Indian War veterans, in those bitter days
when the salvation of white settlements hung in the balance. As we look now on the peaceful town, with
its numberless shade-trees and its attractive homes, it seems hard to realize that the tides of business
rivalry and Indian warfare surged thus across this fair valley.
It
Walla Walla is, both by nature and cultivation, the pleasantest town in the Inland Empire. It now
contains about six thousand inhabitants. Although it has been far outstripped by Spokane Falls in the
race for business and growth, it is now beginning to wake from the lethargy which seemed to have
befallen it, and to feel the impulse of the life which will soon be so strongly coursing through all the veins
of the new State of Washington. It is more nearly a city of homes than any other town in the state.
is well provided with schools. Its public schools are excellent; and Whitman College and St. Paul's
Seminary afford the opportunity for higher education, while the Empire Business College supplies the
ever-increasing demand for instruction in business methods. The region around Walla Walla is one of
wonderful beauty. Indeed, the entire northern and western slopes of the Blue Mountains possess nearly
every attraction conceivable.
From Walla Walla we may go northeast to Riparia, Almota and Lewiston on the Snake river, and to
Colfax and Moscow on the railroad. The latter is in the midst of a superb farming country, and is the
seat of the proposed Idaho University. It is there that the two great rival railroad systems, the Northern
Pacific and the O. R. & N., lock horns. Their interlacements, in this age of monopolies, will be of
untold advantage to the regions thus reached. But we had it in contemplation to visit the country south
of the Blue Mountains and in the great plains of the Snake river. To do this, we must retrace our steps
and go to Pendleton again, and thence proceed to La Grande. This fair city lies enfolded in the embrace of
the picturesque Blue Mountains, in the midst of a very fertile valley about fifteen miles wide by thirty long.
It is like a dream of summer in the midst of the snowy heights.
Another section of our journey and we are at Baker City, already noted as the center of oscillation
for the eastern section of our empire. Baker City has perhaps a larger variety of resources tributary to it
than any of the inland towns, unless it be Spokane Falls. Mining, agriculture, stock, lumbering, milling,
all are being rapidly developed in the region round about. We find it uncommonly well built for so
new a place, and are informed by business men that over a hundred thousand dollars have been expended
on building during the year. The town now contains about twenty-five hundred people. Although
mining is at the front now in the region about Baker City, it is evident at a glance that the agricultural
development will soon be very great. As we go on from Baker City to Huntington, at the extreme
eastern edge of Oregon, we see many places where farming is beginning. It waits only for means of
transportation.
And now across the turbid Snake at Huntington, and we find ourselves in Idaho. We are on the
vast plains of the Snake, a treeless, rainless, monotonous expanse, mainly level, almost uninhabited,
about three hundred miles long and a hundred and fifty wide, the largest extent of unbroken plains west
of the Rocky Mountains. The soil seems to be mainly good, though crossed in places by belts of volcanic
desolation. Up the beautiful valley of the Boise we go, to the city of the same name, the capital and
metropolis of Idaho Territory. It is a very well-built town of about four thousand inhabitants, and,
though greatly hampered by being off the main line of railroad, holds its own vigorously against
numerous rivals. Boise is reached by a branch line called the "Idaho Central." Of the numerous
towns springing up in the vast interior region of Idaho it is impossible to speak at such length as to do
justice to the theme. The most important and most commonly visited is the city of Hailey, the county-seat
of Alturas county, and the metropolis of South-Central Idaho. This flourishing place is on Wood river
and contains a population of four thousand. It, too, has recently been destroyed by fire, but is being
rapidly rebuilt. It has an enormous mineral region around it. There is also an immense tract of fertile
land which waits only for water to transform it into gardens. When irrigation has been fairly introduced
into the rainless regions of Idaho, there will result a development which will make the next generation
hold their breath. This apparent desert is really the most fertile of land, but has no rainfall to speak of,
and hence look sterile.
As we go on from the branch railroad which took us to Hailey, and continue our course eastward
over the Short Line, we ought to pause for two days at Shoshone and visit that grandest of all of Idaho's
many wonders, the great Shoshone Falls of Snake river. It is twenty-five miles over an unbroken prairie
from the town of Shoshone. It is grander and more terrible than Niagara. The solitary and awful voice
of the lava desolation where it lies, falling over the precipice of basalt three hundred feet, while its width
is just a thousand and fifty, the pillars of columnar basalt rising perpendicularly a thousand feet on either
side, grim, terrible and sublime, has no counterpart in our whole country. Could you descend with me
the zigzag path that leads from the upper level to the foot of the fall, and look upward to the dwarfed
junipers which cling with claw-like roots to the shaggy cracks in the grim battlements of rock, could you
TOWNS, SCENIC ATTRACTIONS AND GENERAL APPEARANCE.
161
1.
listen to that thrilling roar deepening as we near its level, or could you look at the island of rock just on
the upper verge of the fall and see the white heads of the eaglets as they look out in stern tranquillity
over the savage grandeur of their birthplace,—you would bow in adoration at the portals of the lava, and
tranced in thought and action, worship the invisible along."
On a visit there at one time, the thunderous pounding of the rocks by the stupendous weight of the
cataract so shook the house during the night that we awoke thinking ourselves on a steamship. Rising,
we went out on the portico. It was the wild and ravishing moment just preceding dawn, when
half-awakened nature shakes the night dews from her brow and turns her opening eyes with expectancy
towards the east. In the dim, amethystine sky the stars glowed with unnatural brightness. Streaks of
saffron and lapis lazuli began to bar the gates of dawn; and from the awful gorge below there
seemed to come shouts and sobs and wild laughter and the tramp of mighty armies. In the uncertain
light the foam torrents seemed to impart their own breathless speed to cliffs and sky; and we seemed
to be sweeping on and on in ever-accelerating haste into fathomless, rainbow-girdled deeps, until in
nervous apprehension we clutched the pillars of the porch for a support. And now the wind, suddenly
rising with the dawn, whirled the spray in tropic showers over rocks and house and trees; so that, when
the first beams of the sun shot athwart the cañon, every spicule of the twisted junipers and every jut
of crag glittered with its tiara of pearl. The time cannot be much longer delayed when the surpassing
merits of the Sho-sho-nee (as the Indians accert it, though the native name is Pahchulakah, will be
so recognized as to lead many tourists to visit it.
Beyond Shoshone we pass the historic site of Fort Hall, famous in the days of the fur-traders, near
which is the growing town of Pocatello. Here is the junction of the Short Line and the Utah &
Northern, by which one may go to the great mining cities of Butte and Anaconda, and thence onward
to a junction with the Northern Pacific at Garrison. But we maintain our places in the east-bound train;
and suddenly, before we realize it, the brakeman shouts, "Ogden! Change cars for Salt Lake and points
south!" And then we realize that the long round is completed. The journey is ended. Good-by to
the Pacific Northwest ! We are out of the valley of the Columbia. And with the good-by we can
look forward in our mind's eye to the time when the brakeman will shout, as we roll into the marble
station at Portland or Seattle or Tacoma, "Change cars for Alaska, Siberia, China and all points in
Asia, by the North Pole routes! Change for Mexico and South America, by the trains of the Southern
Cross! Passengers for Australia and the Islands of the Sea, take the Electric Steamships at the docks
of the Setting Sun!"
*
CONCLUSION.
In closing this review of the resources and industries of the Pacific Northwest, we desire to briefly
name some of the important and increasing lines of enterprise which the limits of our space have prevented
our considering separately. An entire article might interestingly and justly have been devoted to
manufacturing interests. These interests have been indirectly dealt with to considerable extent already.
Such of them as deal with lumber have received mention in the chapter on lumber. Such of them as
belong to wool have had a few lines in the article on stock. Under the head of mineral resources the fact
is brought out that we have foundries and other iron works. We have thus anticipated the need of
separate attention to manufactures. Yet the historian of the present epoch in the Pacific Northwest
cannot but acknowledge the fact, that the growth of manufactures is one of the most important things of
the time, and one from which the prosperity of our country is largely to come.
As in most new countries, the difficulties and expenses of inaugurating these enterprises have been
great and the profits small. Yet the country has as great natural facilities for them as any in the world.
Water-power, coal, iron ore, wood of great variety and limitless quantity, infinite wool,-all the necessary
raw material,—exist without end and in the most convenient places. Of these fundamental requisites to
manufacturing, the water-power of the Pacific Northwest is most extraordinary. The Willamette and
Spokane Falls, both of which have already been described, will first occur to the reader's mind; but these
are but two, though the greatest, in a long list of great and accessible powers. But in spite of these
advantages, manufacturing has hitherto been on a small scale, when attempted at all, from the lack of
labor. That has been the impediment. That great obstacle is now happily being constantly overcome;
and we may expect to see manufacturing, the balance-wheel of industry, on a par with our farming and
stock-raising and lumbering. The manufactures already in operation, -as the woolen mills of Ashland,
Brownsville and Oregon City, the furniture and stove factories of Portland, the paper-mill at La Camas,
the printing and book-binding establishments at Portland, the mills of various kinds at Spokane Falls,
Seattle and Tacoma,—all do most laudable work and are plainly forerunners of the better time coming,
when the Pacific Northwest will be released from the bondage of commercial dependence on California and
the East. If the manufactories of the section deserve a separate place, not less do the newspapers and
other publications.
This coast is true to its American traditions in having an abundance of papers of all kinds. This is
the newspaper age of literature; and the soil of the Pacific Northwest seems especially adapted to their
growth. Our newspaper men are as a class public spirited, wide-awake and reliable. Their influence in
heralding the advantages of this country, and presenting them in such manner as to draw immigration, is
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
quite incalculable; but it is safe to say that in this, as all things else in this age, the newspapers outrank
all other agencies. The three or four representative papers of our four largest cities are so supplied with
news and so edited that they might be a source of pride to the oldest and best parts of the land.
Allusion has been made in another article to the general influence and importance of our churches.
While in the nature of the case they are in some localities not yet so well equipped with buildings, organs
and other features common in those older communities which inherit their churches and schools, it may
be truthfully claimed that they have a high type of character and endeavor. In devoted zeal and moral
influence they equal any in the land.
men,
And now in concluding, although we shall not undertake to "rise on a wind of prophecy," yet we
cannot but glance forward in anticipation to the future of this land. On this sunset bound of the union,
the tides of immigration meet. The East and West here pass each other, and here the ends of the earth
are linked. This country represents the last conquest of man over nature. There is no farther West for
him to subdue. We shall not be unreasonable, then, if we anticipate that the velocity of the vital
currents that converge here, now stayed from any further territorial expansion, will fill with a glowing and
healthy life the body of our land, and that the ripening of the intelligence of our coming generations will
create an unparalleled advance in all mental, moral and social lines. For it is true, after all, that
high-minded men, constitute the state, a great truth which in our national scramble for wealth we
sometimes forget. But, when the next generation comes on the stage in this Pacific Northwest, the first
struggle with nature will have ended, her forces will have been trained to obedience. Our descendants will
then receive by inheritance the houses and industries which we have built. Then may come a time for
intellectual progress such as the world has not yet known. The elements of the sky and earth, the dew
and sunshine, the cloud and the blue, are mingled here in just the right proportions to make keen thinkers,
strong and patient students, large-hearted and patriotic citizens, "men who know their rights, and
knowing, dare maintain." The world is waiting for them. Whether or not they come depends on us of
the present.
OUTLINE OF COUNTY HISTORY.
It is manifestly desirable in a work of this kind that there be a brief outline of the special features of
the various counties composing the states and territory here described. While the boundaries of the
counties are largely artificial, and in many instances a number can be grouped and given a common
description, yet it is also true that each has some stamp of individuality which justly asks recognition.
Inasmuch as the rapid progress of our region makes statistics grow old quickly, we deem it best not to
burden our pages with any number of them, but rather present only the permanent features of each county.
First in order of the counties of the Pacific Northwest are those of Oregon. As has already
sufficiently appeared in this work, Oregon has passed through three phases of government,-provisional,
territorial and state. During the first of these, there were organized certain counties or districts; these at
the first were three in number,—Tualatin, Champoeg and Clackamas. The first-named embraced the
present counties of Washington, Multnomah, Columbia, Clatsop, Tillamook, Yamhill and Polk. Champoeg
extended to the California line, and included the present counties of Linn, Marion, Lane, Josephine, Coos,
Curry, Benton, Douglas and Jackson. In Clackamas district was the region now known as Clackamas
county, besides which was a vast and indefinite territory eastward, the whole "East of the Mountains,'
in fact, to the summit of the Rockies. Only one election was held (May 14, 1844) with these districts as
the sole subdivisions of the territory; for the Legislative Committee of 1844 created two additional
districts. These were Yamhill (which received its initial organization in 1843) and Clatsop. They were
recognized in the election of June 3, 1845. Like their predecessors, they had boundaries vast and vague.
During the session of 1845, Vancouver county-they then began to say county rather than district
was organized on the north side of the Columbia. In the year following, Lewis county, also on the
north side of the river, followed in the procession, with an extent which justly entitled it to a place
among those colossal counties; for it reached latitude fifty-four degrees, forty minutes.
At the same
session, Polk county was set off on the south of Yamhill. The year 1848 witnessed the erection of two
more new counties. These were Linn, which was cut off from the south end of Champoeg, and Benton,
which in like manner put limits to Polk. Such were the counties in existence at the time of the
establishment of the territorial government in 1848.
Joseph Lane, the first territorial governor of Oregon, assumed the purple and scepter (speaking
figuratively, very figuratively) on the 3d of March, 1849; and, on the 16th of July following, the first
legislature of the infant territory assembled. They renamed several of the counties, and divided them
into three judicial districts. These, with the counties in each, were as follows: First, Clackamas, Marion
and Linn; second, Benton, Polk, Yamhill and Washington; third, Clarke, Clatsop and Lewis. As will
be seen, the sonorous and appropriate names of Champoeg, Tualatin and Vancouver had disappeared.
The ten counties named may be said to have constituted the charter membership of Oregon Territory.
When Washington became a territory, in 1854, two of these ancient members, Clarke and Lewis, with
subdivisions created from them, went to form a core for it. The remaining eight have been gradually
despoiled of their great and ill-defined areas, and others formed of them, until there are now thirty-one.
For the purpose of description, we deem it best to arrange these in their natural geographical groups; and

JAMES O'LOUGHLIN,
LA CONNER, W. T.
OUTLINE OF COUNTY HISTORY.
163
in treating those of any special group we shall follow them from the north towards the south or east, as
nearly as may be; for in so doing we shall be going up the principal rivers, as well as the Sound, and shall
better group and more harmoniously describe our subjects than by following the purely accidental order
of the alphabet.
Arranged in their natural order, the counties of Oregon are as follows: First, the seacoast group,
Clatsop, Tillamook, Benton, Lane, Douglas, Coos and Curry. Three of these, Benton, Lane and Douglas,
extend into the interior, and belong equally to the next group. This next group may be called the valley
counties; and they include the following: Columbia, Washington, Multnomah, Yamhill, Clackamas, Polk,
Marion, Linn, Lane, Benton, Douglas (these last three already named among the coast counties), Jackson
and Josephine. The next group may be called the middle group, and consists of Wasco, Sherman,
Gilliam, Morrow, Umatilla, Crook, Lake, Klamath and Harney. The last group is on our eastern border,
and may be called the Blue Mountain group. In it are the counties of Grant, Wallowa, Union, Baker
and Malheur. Returning now to the northwestern corner of the state, and beginning the description,
county by county, we will first describe the coast counties in their order, beginning with
CLATSOP COUNTY.
Within its borders was made the first settlement in the state, or indeed upon the Pacific coast. This
county takes its name from the aboriginal tribe which, now almost extinct, once ruled autocratically over
the sandy plains on the south side of the mouth of the Columbia. Though, as already noted, Clatsop
was one of the Provisional counties, its present boundaries were not fixed till January 15, 1855.
The area is eight hundred and sixty-two square miles, the population about ten thousand, and the
assessed valuation of property about two and a half million dollars. Almost the entire area is clothed
with magnificent forests. The proportionate amount of land naturally prairie is small, consisting of the
small strip along the ocean shore known as Clatsop Plains. This paucity of natural farming land is
partly recompensed by the fact that the timber land is very rich and productive when cleared; and
though that involves large expense, yet so accessible to market is most of the land in the county that
the income from the cleared land will rapidly repay the initial expense.
The salmon trade is the greatest in the county, and that of this county the greatest in the world.
Next to it comes the lumber business. The time is not far distant when the coal industry will assume
commanding importance. Already coal fields of much promise have been found near Onion Peak, and
at various points in the Nehalem valley. Astoria, the county-seat and metropolis of the county, is the
oldest place founded by Americans on the Pacific coast, and at present contains a great proportion of the
old settlers of the county. It is a very interesting place, and has a trade of which the magnitude can
be conceived by saying that its shipments, salmon being the chief, exceed three million dollars annually.
The hitherto latent resources of this seaside county are soon to receive a new leaven of development from
the construction of the Astoria & South Coast Railroad. This will traverse the regions bordering the
coast, as well as reach the unsettled valleys which open upon the beach.
TILLAMOOK COUNTY.
This county comes next in order of location. Its name, too, is of Indian origin, though in early
times it was commonly pronounced Killamook. Organized in December, 1853, from parts of Yamhill,
Polk and Clatsop counties, and having an area of fifteen hundred square miles, it has been almost
inaccessible until the present year, and has in consequence developed very slowly. Its industries are
mainly salmon fishing and lumbering. There are special advantages for dairying, however; and Tillamook
butter is an established factor in the Portland market. Traffic is mainly carried on by light-draft schooners,
with an occasional steamer, plying between Portland and the beautiful Tillamook Bay. This bay is famous
historically; for in it Captain Robert Gray, the discoverer of the Columbia river, had a fierce encounter
with the Indians some time prior to his entrance into the Columbia. It is famous now as a summer resort
for the people of Yamhill and Washington who have teams for traveling thither. When the potential
resources of this county have been fairly developed by proper railway lines, it will become one of the best
sections of the state. At present it contains about three thousand, five hundred people, and has an assessed
valuation of two hundred and twenty-seven thousand, eight hundred and fourteen dollars. The county
seat is Tillamook, situated at the head of the bay.
BENTON COUNTY.
Benton county was one of the Provisional group, organized in December, 1847, the namesake of
Thomas H. Benton, the great Missouri statesman, that steadfast friend of Oregon. When first created it
embraced all the territory on the west side of the Willamette as far south as the California line. Its
imperial area was reduced to its present limits by the organization of Lane county in 1851. Though now
comparatively small in extent (one thousand, eight hundred and seventy square miles), it has three wholly
distinct regions,-coast, mountain and valley. Each of these is rapidly developing in the resources
peculiar to it. The most remarkable feature of the coast region is Yaquina Bay. Of this, with its scenic
attractions and commercial importance, we have spoken fully elsewhere. Besides this most important
body of water is Alsea Bay farther south, into which flows a river of the same name. The mountain section
164
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
of the county contains much rich land especially adapted to dairying, besides which there are extensive
forests of the finest timber. It may be observed, however, in passing, that the forests of Benton have
suffered more relatively by fire than those of any other county.
The valley part of this beautiful diversified region has the richest kind of loam soil, and for many
years has produced large crops of wheat, oats, hay, fruit and the other products common to the
Willamette valley. Benton, like many of the counties of Western Oregon, remained for many years
in a dormant_condition; but the business "renaissance" of the present year finds her well up in the
procession. The great development of commercial interests in connection with the building of the Oregon
Pacific Railroad has been sufficiently described in the article on transportation. The county-seat and
chief town is Corvallis, on the Willamette, the point of junction of the Oregon Pacific and the West Side
division of the Oregon & California Railroads. This is one of the oldest towns in the state.
It was
known at first as Marysville, and for a short time in 1855 was the capital of the state.
It is one of the best towns in the state socially and educationally, being the seat of the State
Agricultural College. Its present population is about two thousand, five hundred. The other towns of
the county are, in the valley section, Monroe and Philomath (the latter being the site of Philomath
College), and, on the coast, Yaquina City and Newport, the latter of which is the most beautiful seaside
resort in the state. The present population of this county is about sixteen thousand, and its assessed
valuation nearly three and a half millions. Although we have named Lane and Douglas counties in their
order on the coast as next, yet, inasmuch as all their leading features belong to their valley section, we
defer their description to that point.
COOS COUNTY.
This rather peculiar name is of Indian origin, and is no doubt a form of the name of a tribe mentioned
by Lewis and Clarke, the Koo-koo-oose. It was organized in December, 1853, contains about fourteen
hundred square miles of territory, a population of about ten thousand, and a taxable value of one million,
eight hundred and eighty-seven thousand, four hundred and five dollars. It is especially distinguished as
possessing the best harbor on our coast, next to Puget Sound and the Columbia river. This is Coos Bay.
It is a beautiful body of water; and by it access is given to great forests of the finest timber, the famous
Port Orford cedar being especially sought, and to limitless supplies of excellent coal.
Coos Bay ranks second only to the Sound and the Columbia river as a shipping point. Besides the
lumber and coal resources, there are lead and iron ores in the mountains; and gold has been mined in the
black sand of the beaches. While the agricultural interests of this country are as yet small, it is true that
in the valley of the Coquille and at other points there are fertile lands which will sometime repay clearing
and cultivation. Empire City is the county-seat of Coos; but Marshfield has far surpassed it in population
and business. Though so much out of the range of travel as to have not yet received its due share of
attention, this is undoubtedly one of the best regions in Oregon, and in the near future must engage the
attention of capitalists.
CURRY COUNTY.
This lonesome corner of the state was named in honor of the last of the territorial governors, George
L. Curry, and was organized in December, 1855, with Ellensburg as its county-seat. It contains
approximately fourteen hundred and forty square miles, though much of its picturesque and mountainous
surface has not been surveyed. It has the least population and the least general development of any of
the counties of Western Oregon, though by no means devoid of resources. Among others, it contains
great forests of the unrivaled Port Orford cedar. Port Orford was noted in our early annals, and with
proper improvements might yet be a very fair harbor for small vessels. The population of the county is
about sixteen hundred, and its property valuation nearly half a million.
THE VALLEY COUNTIES.
COLUMBIA COUNTY.
While the greater part of this does not belong to the Willamette valley proper, yet it has all the
commercial connections of Multnomah, and may not improperly be described as the threshold of the
Willamette system. The lower mouth of the Willamette debouches into the Columbia in the southeastern
part of the county. The greater part of its area, however, is on the ridges and plateaus of the Scappoose
Mountains, and in the valleys of the Clatskanie and Nehalem. Though it has been slow of development,
this county is one of the most favorably located in the state in regard to commerce, and has vast resources
of lumber, coal, iron and dairying, which will sometime make it one of the wealthiest sections of the
country. St. Helens, the county-seat, has been the residence of various prominent pioneers of the state,
and at one time was a rival of Portland for the leading place among the cities of Oregon. But, though
its water facilities were superior, it was farther from the centers of production; and the rival on the
Willamette secured a start which it never lost. The county was erected in January, 1854, has an area of
six hundred square miles, a population of about four thousand, and an assessed valuation of six hundred
and ninety-nine thousand, five hundred and fifty-five dollars. Beside St. Helens, it has on the Columbia
OUTLINE OF COUNTY HISTORY.
165
the towns of Columbia City, Ranier, Marshland and Bradbury; in the Nehalem Valley, Vernonia; while
on the Clatskanie is a small town of the same name. There are great milling and packing establishments
at the river places.
MULTNOMAH COUNTY.
This is, of course, the metropolitan county of Oregon, since it contains Portland. It was admitted
in December, 1854, has nearly the same area as Columbia, six hundred square miles, but is very different
in shape, being a narrow strip along the Columbia of over fifty miles long and extending back a dozen
miles so as to include the mouths of the Willamette and Sandy. Outside of Portland there is little in the
county; though all along its northern border the Columbia bottoms, with Sauvie's Island, furnish some
of the finest dairy lands in the country. The eighty thousand people of the county are all, except a
thousand or twelve hundred, contained in Portland, East Portland and Albina. The city made of these
places (which together constitutes the foremost city of the North Pacific coast) has been so fully described
elsewhere, and has of necessity appeared so often in both volumes of this work, that there seems no need
of further description here. Suffice it to say here that it is emphatically the "solid" city of the coast.
Socially, educationally and commercially, it ranks with the foremost cities of its size in the union. The
present taxable wealth of the county is something more than twenty-two millions. With the system of
undervaluing now in vogue, however, this represents hardly a third of the real value.
WASHINGTON COUNTY.
This county forms the northwestern corners of the Willamette valley. It was first organized as one
of the original districts of Oregon under the name of Tualatin. It was subjected to many changes by the
withdrawal of other counties, and took its present name in September, 1849. Its area is six hundred and
eighty-two square miles. Washington county is a purely farming community, and is, in all respects, one
of the typical Willamette valley counties. Early settled, it has been the home of many among the
noted pioneer families of the state; and even now several still remain in "the white winter of their age"
to bless the land of their adoption. This county has all the characteristics of an old county. The
people are justly distinguished for their general intelligence and substantial character, though sometimes
criticised for backwardness in the adoption of new ideas and methods.
There is a general air of quiet content and solid comfort about the region; while in its rustic beauty
and outdoor attractions it has hardly any equals among the sisterhood of counties. Its county-seat is
Hillsboro, a growing town of nine hundred. Besides this is Forest Grove, nearly as large, Beaverton,
Dilley, Glencoe, Greenville and Gaston. The picturesque hill slopes which make a vast natural
amphitheater of the fertile Tualatin plains afford the finest of fruit and dairy land; while on the level
alluvial bottoms grows the finest of grain. Thirty years of continuous cropping has not materially
diminished the productiveness of these lands. The present population of this county is about sixteen
thousand, and its assessed wealth two million, six hundred and fifty-five thousand, six hundred and sixty
dollars,—over two and a half millions.
CLACKAMAS COUNTY.
This ancient county was one of the immortal three organized in July, 1843, at the first formation
of the Provisional government. It has, however, been heavily shorn of its possessions; for whereas
it then contained something like a quarter of a million square miles, it is now restricted to some fourteen
hundred and forty. It is famous for several things. One of these is that its chief town and county-seat,
Oregon City, was for some time the capital and metropolis of the territory. Another is that at this same
place is the greatest water-power (except the inaccessible Shoshone Falls of Snake river) on the entire
Pacific coast. Still another is that in the mountains on the west side of the Willamette, though mainly
within the limits of Clackamas county, are found the greatest stores of iron ore in the Pacific Northwest.
Most of the area of the county is rugged, rocky and unfit for agriculture. In places, however, there are
fertile bottoms where are produced the best of grain. At various places, too, along the Willamette river,
as Milwaukee and near Oswego, there are some of the finest fruit farms in the state.
The
In addition to the county-seat, the chief towns are Canby, Canemah, Milwaukee and New Era.
present population of the county is not far from twenty thousand, and its taxable property nearly two and
a half millions. It would take a whole volume to even hint at all the interesting things in the pioneer
history of Oregon City. Here the noble old "Father of Oregon," Doctor McLoughlin, lived his last years,
years embittered, it is sad to relate, by the narrow selfishness of the great corporation which he had served
so faithfully, though too humanely, so many years. Here too was built the first railroad ever made west
of the Rocky Mountains. It was a horse-car line, built mainly for the purpose of transporting lumber
over a bridge across the Willamette. It was built by Captain J. H. McMillen in the year 1847, and
continued in active operation till the great flood of 1862, by which the bridge was swept away.
There are
now extensive manufacturing interests at Oregon City, chief of which is the Oregon Woolen Mills, the
products of which are favorably known the world over. Oregon City flour is equally well known.
YAMHILL COUNTY.
The four valley counties thus far considered are largely timbered. Southward is seen a marked
decrease of timber land, and a correspondingly larger area of cultivated land. Beginning with Yamhill
166
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
on the west side of the Willamette, and Marion on the east, the country is mainly prairie to the summits
of the Calapooias. Yamhill, in the native language, means a ford. The county thus named is the
kernel of Western Oregon. From its "classic shades all great men came in early days. Nature seems
to have outdone herself in providing it with attractions. Old Yamhill" has more pretty girls, more
fine horses, more lovely vales and oak-crowned hills, more well-tilled farms and "far-seeing statesmen
to the square mile than any other equal area west of the Rockies. At least so say its happy inhabitants;
and no one has been found bold enough to dispute them. First organized as one of the original districts
of Provisional Oregon, and embracing all of Oregon south of the Yamhill river and west of a line from
the mouth of that river to the forty-second parallel, it has been gradually curtailed till it now embraces
but seven hundred and fifty square miles. This area, however, is almost all the finest of land.
Slightly rolling to insure good drainage, and yet not rough enough to offer any obstacles to the free
use of farm machinery, it is almost the beau-ideal of a farming region. Though mainly prairie, there
is a superb body of choice timber, in which is an extensive area of cedar, in the Coast Range west,
while the north sides of many of the hills are crowned with the most magnificent of oak groves. This
county is credited with being the garden spot of Oregon. McMinnville, founded by W. T. Newby, the
chief town of the county, and chosen the county-seat in 1887, is the location of McMinnville College,
contains some two thousand people, and has a remarkably large proportion of pioneer residents. The
country around it is so beautiful that one despairs of any description, and hence usually gives it up
unattempted. La Fayette, the former county-seat, has a location hardly less beautiful, and has had at
various times more noted pioneers among its residents than any other town in the state.
The other towns of Yamhill are Dayton, founded by General Joel Palmer, a few miles above the mouth
of the Yamhill, a great shipping point, and surrounded by a rich and productive country; Sheridan,
named for General P. H. Sheridan, who was stationed in the vicinity for some time, located in the western
part of the county; Newberg, a recently established place in the northwestern part of the county, the
metropolis of a Quaker colony, and especially noted as a fruit region; North Yamhill, the commercial
center of a matchless region; Carlton, Bellevue and Amity. The present population of Yamhill county
is about sixteen thousand, and its wealth something over four millions, being a larger amount per capita
than that of any other of the agricultural counties of the state.
POLK COUNTY.
This county, named for President Polk, lies next to Yamhill on the south, and was one of the charter
members of the Provisional government organized in December, 1845. It extended at the time of its
creation to the California line, but has been abridged by the organization of Benton and Tillamook, until
it now has but six hundred and fifty square miles. The population is about twelve thousand, and the
valuation two million, eight hundred thousand dollars,-over two and three-quarter millions. In its
general scenic effect, Polk is very much like Yamhill, though not so well cultivated nor possessed of quite
so large a proportion of arable land. The lowlands of Polk are of the richest black loam; and the hills
have a peculiar reddish soil, excellent for fruit. Nearly half the area of the county is timbered. The
wild and picturesque valleys of the La Creole and Luckiamute, which make up the most of the county,
were settled among the first in the state; and many famous pioneers have lived within their borders. The
county-seat is Dallas, on the La Creole, a pretty place of about eight hundred inhabitants.
Independence, on the Willamette, is the largest town; while Monmouth, ten miles west, is known
as the seat of the State Normal School. Fola, Airlie, Bethel and Willamina are other points of local trade.
Like its neighbor on the north, Polk is well provided with means of transportation, having the river on
its eastern border, besides the West Side branch of the Oregon & California Railroad and the Oregonian
Railway (narrow gauge) through its central portions. Like the other towns of the Willamette valley,
Polk's chief products are wheat and other grains. It has abundant water-power; and mills of various
kinds are being constantly increased.
MARION COUNTY.
The successor of Champoeg District, one of the original three, and the first settled and cultivated of
any part of the present state, Marion is the type of what is best in moral and mental advancement in the
state. It received its present name in December, 1849. Its former vast area has been gradually restricted,
till it now contains about twelve hundred square miles. Its present name was applied in honor of the
Revolutionary hero, General Francis Marion, in the year 1849. Its present population is about thirty
thousand, and its assessed wealth four and a half millions in round numbers. This is, however, a gross
undervaluation. Marion county is surpassed in diversified beauty by Yamhill only among the counties of
the Willamette valley. Like every other one of the valley group, it has a belt of prairie land and another
of high land. The former is well cultivated and furnishes vast quantities of grain, the wheat crop of the
county being usually not less than two million bushels. There is one feature of the topography of the
county somewhat unique and very picturesque, and that is the fertile highland known as the Waldo Hills.
The county-seat of Marion county and capital of the state is Salem. This town is the second in the
state in variety and extent of its various interests, though surpassed by Astoria in wealth, and by that city
and East Portland in population. It is beautifully located on the east side of the Willamette, the site
having been long ago recognized by the Indians for its beauty; for there was their great meeting ground,

OF
LEONARD L.THORP,
MRS. L.L.THORP,
NORTH YAKIMA,W.T.
NORTH YAKIMA,W.T.
UNI
OUTLINE OF COUNTY HISTORY.
167
""
Chemeketa." What a pity that the founders of Portland and Salem were so lamentably lacking in taste
as to use the borrowed stupidity of those names in preference to the high-sounding, native names,
Multnomah and Chemeketa.' The nomenclature of Oregon is in general a poverty-stricken collection
of borrowed titles. Salem has more institutions of general public importance than any town in the state,
not even excepting Portland. Here are the Willamette University, the state schools for the blind and
deaf and dumb, the State Penitentiary and Insane Asylum, while the larger Indian Training School is
located at Chemawa, only three miles from the city. Take it all in all, Salem is perhaps the most
attractive and cultured city in the state. The other towns of the county are Silverton, Gervais, Hubbard,
Woodburn, Fairfield, Turner, Stayton and Sublimity. These are all agricultural points, and the country
around them is thickly settled. Many old settlers are to be found in the various charming retreats of
Marion; and many of the interesting problems in our early history were worked out there.
LINN COUNTY.
This county was one of the charter members of the Provisional era of Oregon (organized in Dece-nber,
1847), and was fittingly named from Senator Linn of Missouri, one of the most steadfast friends of Oregon
in early times. In topography, Linn is the most exclusively prairie of any of the counties west of the
Cascade Mountains. Its area is seventeen hundred and fifty square miles, its population about twenty-five
thousand, and its taxable property nearly five and a half millions. It is the banner wheat county of
Western Oregon, though surpassed by Umatilla in the eastern part of the State. The western two-thirds
of its area is almost a dead level, and produces immense quantities of wheat, oats, fruit and all manner of
other vital necessities.
The foothill belt of Linn county is one of the best in the state for fruits and dairying. Though there
is little or no good land for government entry in this or any of the Willamette counties, except in the
higher hills, there is much good land near to market which can be purchased cheap. Linn county is
most bountifully provided with means of transportation, having the river on its western border and three
railroads traversing its entire extent. There is a fine gold belt in this county also. This is in the Santiam
region, and will undoubtedly sometime be a great source of wealth. The chief town and county-seat is
Albany, on the Willamette, twenty-five miles south of Salem. It is an active place of over three thousand
inhabitants, possessing a magnificent water-power, and in a business point of view being the coming town
of the valley. Other points of local importance are Lebanon, Scio, Harrisburg, Brownsville, Halsey
and Shedd.
LANE COUNTY.
This county comes next to Linn on the south, and occupies the upper part of the Willamette valley.
But that is not all there is of it; for its vast area of four thousand, five hundred square miles stretches on
the westward to the ocean. The name was derived from that of General Joseph Lane, the "Mariner of
the West." The present population is estimated at twenty thousand; and the assessment rolls for 1888
show a wealth of over four millions. Organization was effected in January, 1851. This county has a
greater diversity of topography and production than any other in the state. Extending from the perpetual
snow of the Cascades on the east to the bluffy and spray-washed shores of the Pacific on the west, bisected
by the Willamette, "lovely river, softly calling to the sea," with its fair vales and strips of greenery, it
bears on its broad acres all the products common to a temperate land. An immensity of wheat, oats, stock,
fruit and dairy articles, together with the largest output of hops of any county in the state, swell the
yearly income of the farming class to a handsome figure. Tobacco has been raised in considerable quantity
and of very fine quality.
One thing worthy of notice in regard to Lane county is that there is quite a body of good land yet
open for entry in the valley of the Siuslaw and the plateaus adjoining in the western part of the county.
The county-seat and chief town of this county is Eugene City. This is a place of three thousand
inhabitants, is pleasantly located on the west bank of the Willamette, contains the Oregon State
University, with its fine buildings and cultured associations, and bids fair to be, if it is not already, the
most prominent of the various college towns of the Pacific Northwest. The chief remaining towns are
Cresswell, Cottage Grove, Springfield, Junction City and Goshen.
DOUGLAS COUNTY.
It is
This county was so named in honor of Stephen A. Douglas, the "Little Giant" of Illinois.
practically the valley of the Umpqua; and in this connection it is not inappropriate to say, as a matter of
interesting historical reminiscence, that an older and now obsolete county at one time occupied this
picturesque region. This was Umpqua county, which was established in 1851. Though no county-seat
was definitely set apart for the "gathering of the clans," Elkton was gradually adopted for the position,
in which it was finally confirmed by the legislature of 1855. The county was finally, however, absorbed
by Douglas. This latter was erected in January, 1852, and after its augmentation by Umpqua contained
about four thousand, five hundred square miles. Its present population is estimated at seventeen thousand,
and its assessed valuation upwards of two million, seven hundred thousand dollars. As elsewhere described,
its scenic beauty and productiveness are extraordinary. In wool production, Douglas far surpasses any
168
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
other county west of the Cascades. In 1880, the shipments of sheep amounted to nearly forty thousand
head, while the wool clip exceeded a million pounds. Roseburg is the capital and chief town, a place of
about twelve hundred inhabitants, pleasantly located on the Umpqua river in the midst of the most
picturesque surroundings. It was founded by Aaron Rose, a portrait of whom appears in this work. The
place is somewhat distinguished for the excellence of its public schools. There are several other active
places in the county, of which we may name Canyonville, Looking Glass, Myrtle Creek, Oakland, Drain,
Gardiner, and the academic town of Wilbur, named thus in honor of the pioneer missionary of the
Methodists, Reverend J. H. Wilbur.
JOSEPHINE COUNTY.
This pleasant feminine appellation came from a creek of the same name; and it in turn took its name
from a girl named Josephine Rollins, who was at one time the only white woman in the country.
The county was admitted in January, 1856. It embraces some twelve hundred square miles, has a
population of about six thousand, and a valuation of about eight hundred and fourteen thousand dollars.
The surface of the county is largely mountainous, and one of the most wildly beautiful of any in the
country. Some of the valleys are very fertile, though narrow. So isolated has the whole region of
the Rogue river been, that until the completion of the Oregon & California Railroad, in 1887, it made
little advance. Since that time the intrinsic advantages of the country have become known; and
development has been more rapid in the vicinity of the railroad than in any other part of the country west
of the mountains. This growth has been especially marked in the northern part of the county under
consideration. Grant's Pass seems to have been the center of the movement. Mining and lumbering are
the chief industries. The mines are mainly placer, though there are ledges where there is abundant
encouragement to the quartz miner. Gold Hill is the best known of the mining districts; and though
that place is itself in Jackson county, the allied region extends into Josephine. Grant's Pass is at the
present time the county-seat, having been so designated in 1884. Its predecessor was Kirbyville, though
Waldo, more commonly called "Sailor Diggins," was the first choice for the location of the seat of justice.
JACKSON COUNTY,
This county was named after President Jackson. Within its confines lies the principal part of the
Rogue river valley. Of the beauty and pleasant climate and general attractiveness of this valley, many
have assayed to write, but none have done justice to the theme. It is so unique, so isolated, so enkindling
to every faculty of body and mind, that we can only say to our readers, Come and see! When first
organized in January, 1852, this county contained a vast scope of country to the east and west, of which
it has since been deprived by the creation of Klamath and Josephine counties. Its present area is nearly
three thousand square miles. The population is about sixteen thousand; and the taxable property
foots up to something over three millions. Jackson county is very different from the other counties of
the west side of the mountains. Its mining interests, its drier and hotter climate, a greater activity
of manner on the part of its people, seems to ally it more with California than with Oregon. The
mineral wealth is very great, though not as yet developed. There are also large lumber interests in
various parts of the county. But it is for its remarkable adaptability to fruit culture that Jackson is
coming especially to the front. The world hardly contains its equal for quantity and quality and variety
of fruits. It is particularly good for peaches, apricots, grapes and other delicate fruits not commonly
produced in Western Oregon.
Jacksonville is the capital of the county, an ancient town, named in honor of a man named Jackson,
who was the discoverer of gold on the creek where the town is now laid out. Jacksonville is, however,
a little off the line of modern trade and travel; and in consequence it has rivals, one of which has already
outstripped it in population and wealth. This is Ashland, with twenty-five hundred people, one of the
most attractive places on the Pacific coast. It lies at the base of the Siskiyous, and is encircled with
vineyards, orchards and gardens as beautiful as can be found on the coast. Medford, Central Point and
Applegate are the leading remaining towns of the county. Great things may be confidently looked for
in this “rare and radiant" land in the future. The middle group of counties should properly be described
next; and this begins with the northernmost, which is
WASCO COUNTY.
When first established, in January, 1854, it was the Colossus among the counties of Oregon; for it
embraced all of the eastern portion of the state. It has, however, been lopped off from time to time till
it now contains but three thousand square miles. It is typical of the "East of the Mountain" country,-
dry, windy, treeless and rolling. Its name came originally from an Indian word meaning a "horn basin."
The word was primarily applied to basins scooped out of the broad-based horns of the mountain sheep
which formerly abounded in that region. It was subsequently extended to the peculiar pot-holes and
other depressions in the rocks common in the vicinity of The Dalles. Afterwards applied to the tribes
of Indians living there, it became the fitting cognomen of the county. The population of Wasco,
including Sherman, is about eighteen thousand; and its taxable property is worth about three and a
quarter millions. Its leading business thus far has been sheep and cattle raising. The Dalles is said to
be the greatest wool emporium in the United States. The amount shipped in 1889 exceeded five million
pounds.
OUTLINE OF COUNTY HISTORY.
169
Though Wasco's name and fame thus far have been mainly made in the stock business, it is true that
it has immense agricultural resources. Though the climate is very dry (the rainfall being but about
twenty inches), the soil is so fertile and porous that it will do with less rain than any region known.
It abounds in natural scenery so grand and weird and terrible that one is bewildered in trying to decide
what to mention and what not to. It may suffice to say that Mount Hood, The Dalles of the Columbia,
Hood river and Shell Mountain are within its precincts. The Dalles, the county-seat and chief place of
this wonderful region, is an interesting city of four thousand inhabitants. This peculiar name means
a trough or gutter, and was first applied to the deep cracks through which the river passes there. The
town was founded by the Methodist missionaries Lee and Perkins in 1838. The place took its start
during the mining excitement of 1858-59 and the early sixties. The other towns of the county are
Hood River, Tygh Valley, Cascade Locks (more familiarly known as Whiskey Flat) and Antelope.
SHERMAN COUNTY.
This county, which bears the name of our great General W. T. Sherman, was set off from Wasco by
an act of the legislature in February, 1889. It embraces the region between the John Day and the Des
Chutes rivers north of the south line of section two south. Like the rest of the region to which it
belongs, it consists of dry, rolling prairies, of fertile soil, but not largely cultivated as yet, owing to
supposed lack of rain. It has hitherto been chiefly a stock country. It is one of the small counties of
the state, having only about six hundred square miles. It has not yet acquired statistics; but the population
may be estimated at about two thousand. The county-seat is Grant's.
GILLIAM COUNTY.
Joining Sherman and Wasco on the east, and formerly part of the latter, is Gilliam county. It
is very fittingly named for General Cornelius Gilliam, the first commander of the Oregon Volunteers in
the Cayuse war. This county is so similar to the middle and eastern parts of Wasco that the same
description would apply to both. It is dry, rolling, apparently barren, but in reality very fertile. Its
immense prairies, long used exclusively for a stock range, have been largely taken up for homesteads
during the past two or three years; and already fine ranches appear. The county contains many natural
curiosities which commend it to the student and the tourist. One of the most remarkable of these is the
"potato patch" near Fossil. In this are found the most extraordinary remains of the mastodon, elephant,
rhinoceros and other animals now extinct in this country.
Just across the John Day river in Wasco county is even a more singular place. This is on Bridge
creek. Among other fossil remains found there is the Hipparion or "little horse," an equine animal not
larger than a Newfoundland dog. The region there seems to be in fact an exception to the general
rule of the basaltic formation of the Columbia basin. It consists of a narrow valley of the old carboniferous
age not covered, as was the rest of the basin, by the later volcanic outflows. In the vicinity of Fossil are
found great deposits of coal, which will soon become a source of business and wealth. The capital and
metropolis of the county is Arlington, on the Columbia, one of the most active places in the Inland
Empire. The county was organized in February, 1885, has a population estimated at seven thousand,
and an area of about nine hundred square miles. The assessed valuation of property is about a million
and a quarter. There can be no doubt that Gilliam county is one of the coming regions of Oregon.
MORROW COUNTY.
This county was organized in February, 1885. Like its co-partner, Gilliam, it consists of what was
originally part of the domain of Wasco, though afterward included within the limits of Umatilla. It
is not distinguishable from Sherman, Gilliam and Western Umatilla in topography and general character.
Though so dry as to discourage a settler from the East, it possesses such supplies of moisture from its
serial and subterranean reservoirs, that it is now confessedly a safe and very productive farming region.
Its chief industry, hitherto, however, has been stock-raising. On its breezy, bunch-grass hills innumerable
cattle, sheep and horses have roamed; and from its mammoth sheep corrals have come millions of pounds
of wool. The area is seventeen hundred and fifty square miles, the population nearly seven thousand, and
the amount of taxable property nearly a million and a quarter.
The seat of justice and the chief town is Heppner, one of the "livest" places in the whole upper
country. Heppner very fittingly perpetuates the name of Colonel Henry Heppner, its founder, while in
the name of the county itself we may be continually reminded of Hon. J. L. Morrow, one of the leading
pioneers of the county. Although the lower portion of this county is entirely destitute of timber, there
is an abundance of fine timber on the flanks of the Blue Mountains to the south. Another notable thing
which relieves the dryness is the abundant supply of water attainable at a comparatively slight depth. At
from twenty to fifty feet, plenty of fine well-water can be secured. These facts go far to forecast a bright
future for this region, when the hard and difficult features of its first estate shall have been overcome.
Land is still very cheap; and there is a greater quantity of government land available than in any part of
the Inland Empire accessible to railroads. We know of no region to which we can more confidently direct
the attention of immigrants than this.
170
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
UMATILLA COUNTY.
This is the great farming county of the "East of the Mountains.' This mellifluous name is a
modification of the Indian "Umatilla," and means "gathering of sand.” Anyone who has been at the
town of Umatilla in a heavy wind will bear witness that the word is eminently appropriate. The county
which bears the name sustains the same relation to the counties of Eastern Oregon that Yamhill does to
those of the west. Others may be beautiful; it is unapproachable. Its magnificent open prairies, with
their graceful swells, their almost incredible fertility, the numerous sparkling streams, the snow-crowned
heights near at hand, "which whiten with eternal sleet while summer, in a vale of flowers, is sleeping
rosy at their feet,”.
these all combine to make here one of the fairest of lands. Umatilla county was
organized in September, 1862, has an area of two thousand, five hundred square miles, a population of
about twenty-three thousand, and a property valuation of nearly five millions, being the fourth county in
the state in population and the third in wealth. It exceeds every other county in the Pacific Northwest,
if not in the union, in the aggregate of its wheat production. That portion of the county between
Pendleton and the line dividing Oregon and Washington is generally conceded to have no equal in the
world as a natural wheat country.
We have discussed this phase of the capacity of this region so fully already that it seems hardly
necessary to do so here. We may refer our readers to our chapter on agriculture. It is a curious fact that
not more than a dozen or fifteen years ago these rolling prairies, which now come up with their forty, fifty
or sixty bushels of wheat to the acre, were deemed worthless for any purpose but grazing. The metropolis
and county-seat of this county is Pendleton, so named in honor of the Ohio statesman. It is a wide-awake,
advancing town of three thousand inhabitants. Bordering it on the south and east is the Indian
reservation, usually considered even a finer body of land than that part of the valley already in cultivation.
When utilized, as it surely will be soon, Pendleton will have the largest constituency of rich lands at her
door of any town in the state. Her future will then be one of assured prosperity. The other towns of
the county are Umatilla, on the Columbia, Echo, Adams, Athena (formerly Centerville), Weston and
Milton.
CROOK COUNTY.
We have now reached the Blue Mountains on the east, which is the limit eastward of the middle
group of Oregon counties. We turn back again, therefore, to Wasco, in order to follow southward the
divisions into which the vast and undeveloped region of Middle Oregon is divided. The counties of
Crook, Harney, Lake and Klamath have many features in common. Almost every variety of soil, and
even climate, is found in those untilled solitudes; and yet in a general way it may be said that it is a dry,
treeless and mainly forbidding-looking region. In its wide expanse, however, there are found many
fertile valleys and plateaus; and unquestionably, when the Oregon Pacific Railroad shall have pushed its
way through, there will be an enlargement of production and an unfolding of now hidden capabilities
such as will astonish the country. Crook county, the most northerly and westerly of these counties, lies
immediately south of Wasco and Gilliam. It contains ten thousand square miles of surface, and about
five thousand inhabitants,-only one to each two square miles. It was organized in October, 1882. Its
wealth is nearly a million and a half. The name was bestowed in honor of General George Crook, the
great Indian fighter. The county-seat is Prineville, a vigorous town, whose great drawback is lack of
transportation facilities. It is about one hundred and fifty miles from either railroad or navigable water.
With proper means of communication, this "great unknown" of our counties may be expected to have a
fine development.
>>
KLAMATH COUNTY.
This county was created in October, 1882. Its name is derived from that of the great lake in its
western part. Its area is five thousand, four hundred square miles, its population about three thousand,
and its wealth assessed at a little less than a million dollars. It has great latent resources; and, like the
other counties of its group, is "waiting.' It has large stock interests already; and in its rich valleys
along the shores of the lakes there is much land suitable to agriculture. Some parts of the country are
so high that frosts occur in midsummer, and indeed all of it is elevated. The soil is of remarkable fertility;
and in most parts crops mature without irrigation. Klamath contains within its borders the largest lake
(Klamath) in the state. This has a steamboat navigation of over a hundred miles. There is also here
the deepest and in many respects the most extraordinary body of water in the world. This is Crater
Lake. Its main features are its depression below the banks of from seventeen hundred to twenty-six
hundred feet, and a depth of about twenty-five hundred feet. It will become as famous in future years as
the Yosemite or Yellowstone. Linkville, on the southern extremity of Klamath Lake, is the capital and
chief city of this immense and infant county.
LAKE COUNTY.
This county is the twin of Klamath county in nearly all its characteristics, with the exception that
the latter has a mountain border on the west which the former lacks. It was organized in October, 1874.
It contains seven thousand square miles, and a population of three thousand, five hundred,—one inhabitant
to two square miles. From this circumstance it may be inferred that there is room for a few more. As its

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OUTLINE OF COUNTY HISTORY.
171
name indicates, Lake county abounds in lakes. Some of these are of considerable size. Among them are
Abert, Silver, Summer and the upper half of Goose Lake. The county-seat is located at the northern
extremity of the last-named. This is Lakeview, a new place, but one that has had a remarkable
development. Its site is a grand one, and the view of the lake one of the finest scenes in all the fine
scenery of Oregon. Though so sparsely settled, this county has an assessed valuation of a million and a
half, and is advancing with rapid strides to a place of prominence in the state. There are large areas of
fine land within its borders; and the facilities for handling cattle are extraordinary. With the advent of
the all-developing railroad, these latent resources will spring into being.
THE BLUE MOUNTAIN OR EASTERN COUNTIES.
We have named these last counties of Oregon from the range of mountains which is their leading
feature, in pursuance of our general design to group them in accordance with their physical constitution.
With the exception of the southern part of Malheur, these counties are composed of the valleys, plateaus
and snow peaks of that triangular mass of the earth's surface known as the Blue Mountains. We have
already described in the chapter on agriculture the beauties and opportunities afforded to the settler and
traveler in this great and unique region. Suffice it to say here that few parts of the Union equal it in
health, beauty or prospective wealth. The westernmost of these is
GRANT COUNTY.
It was organized in October, 1864, and so christened in honor of General U. S. Grant. Its area is
over eight thousand square miles. Its population is about ten thousand, and its taxable property most
two millions. It embraces all sorts of climate, soil, industries and people within its broad expanse.
Its northern part is exceedingly mountainous and magnificent in scenery. Streams abound, and timber is
plentiful. The forests are stocked with deer, elk, bear and all manner of game, while the rushing and
pellucid mountain brooks are thick with trout. The soil in the valleys is usually very fertile; and, though
the lack of transportation has discouraged agriculture, many attractive farms have been established.
Land can be purchased cheap; and thousands of acres of excellent government land is yet open to
settlement. Enormous herds of cattle, sheep and horses are maintained on the luxuriant grasses.
mining interests of this county have been very great, but for some years past have declined.
capital of this county is Canyon City, situated in a wild mountain valley, and at one time a place of
three thousand inhabitants; but, with the diminution of mining, the town lost its importance, and now
has but a sixth of its former number. Prairie City and John Day are the other places of chief rank.
Development and a way to reach the world is all that this county wants.
The
The
HARNEY COUNTY.
This county follows Grant in natural order, having been formed from the southern part of the latter
in February, 1889. It was christened in honor of General W. S. Harney, who was during pioneer days
commander of the national military forces in the Pacific Northwest. The county embraces about seven
thousand square miles of territory, but has as yet an insignificant population. The only place of note
is Burns, the seat of justice. The chief feature of the county is the great Harney valley, the vast though
undeveloped resources of which are just beginning to be recognized. Its fertile expanse will, when
stimulated by the cultivation sure to follow projected railroad construction, make Harney one of the
foremost counties of Eastern Oregon.
WALLOWA COUNTY.
This county was organized in February, 1887, from part of Union. It is exceedingly mountainous,
but has within it the fertile and beautiful Wallowa valley, which consists of a chain of three valleys, the
aggregate extent of which is probably not less than four hundred square miles. The romantic and
sanguinary history of this valley, its lake with the famous red fish, and its valiant but unfortunate
chieftain, Joseph, have been amply described in the earlier pages of this work. Suffice it to say here that
this county furnishes extraordinary inducements to the settler and investor. Its resources are vast and
varied. Its mountains abound in gold and silver, and the best of marble, granite and other choice
building stone.
On the mountain sides is the finest of stock range, while the valleys are of the richest kind of farming
land. The great elevation of these valleys (four thousand feet above the sea-level) renders the climate
cold; but this does not interfere with the raising of grain and the hardy varieties of fruit. The area of
this county is two thousand, five hundred square miles, its population about six thousand, and the worth
of its property over half a million. The county-seat is Joseph, named in honor of the young Nez Perce
war chief who was so famous in the great war of 1877, and was killed in the battle of Bear Paw Mountain.
His true name was Alokite; but he was frequently called Joseph, the name of his father, and the one now
applied to his elder brother, who is still the recognized chief of the tribe. Lostine is a town of some
importance.
172
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
UNION COUNTY.
For grandeur of scenery and historic interest, this county has hardly a peer in the state. The Grande
Ronde valley, its chief feature, lies like a precious stone in its setting of magnificent mountains. This
valley contains three hundred thousand acres of as fine land as ever lay outdoors. It is well cultivated,
and is as desirable a land to look upon as our state affords. Besides the great agricultural and grazing
capabilities of this county, it has vast mineral wealth. The Eagle and Pine creek gold mines are in the
county; and of their future no one dares hazard a prophecy; but every one conversant with the country
believes that it will be immense. La Grande, the beautiful capital of this fair land, is so completely
described elsewhere in this work that mention here is unnecessary. The chief remaining towns are
Union, Oro Dell and Island City. The area of this county is about twenty-five hundred square miles,
its population nearly sixteen thousand, and its valuation something more than two and a half millions.
It was organized in October, 1864.
BAKER COUNTY.
The name of the gallant and eloquent Colonel E. D. Baker, one of Oregon's pioneer United States
senators, is preserved in this county's appellation. It was organized in September, 1862, just at the time
that his lamented death was fresh in the minds of his admiring countrymen. The main physical feature
of this county is the Powder river valley and the serrated heights of the eastern prolongation of the Blue
Mountains. The valley is very elevated, its lowest point being three thousand feet. The eastern strip
of the county along the cañon of Snake river is of course lower. The Powder river valley is a rich and
productive region, sixteen by twenty miles in area. As is the case throughout the Blue Mountain section,
the soil is exceedingly fertile, though the cold incident to the elevation is something of an obstacle to
agriculture.
Baker county has been more prominent as a stock country than as a farming region. Its greatest
claim to distinction is its immense mining interests. Though the location of these mines is equally in
Wallowa and Union with Baker, yet their outlet is through the last-named; and its chief town will be in
the future the center of the mining industry. It is generally believed that this gold belt is the largest in
the world. Statistics of production are not easily reached; but it is said by those in a position to know
that it does not fall short of two million dollars per year. No town in the Pacific Northwest shows
greater or more solid growth than Baker City, the county-seat. It contains now about three thousand,
five hundred inhabitants, and is constantly increasing. The area of the county is about two thousand
square miles, and its population about ten thousand.
MALHEUR COUNTY.
This county was organized in February, 1887, and may be described as appropriately named; for it
is, as a whole, a dreary looking region. Its name means, in French, misfortune. The entire region is
high, dry and treeless, with the exception of a southern spur of the "Blues" in its northern part. It
has a vast area of nearly ten thousand square miles, with a population of about twenty-five hundred.
Vale is the county-seat. The resources of this great region are almost entirely in embryo, but the time
may soon come when with suitable means of communication it may be a flourishing and populous part of
our state. Most of it must be irrigated before it becomes productive.
COUNTIES OF WASHINGTON.
The
This magnificent region, while these pages were in preparation, passed from its territorial condition
to one of statehood. Equally with its older sister, she secures the interest of all students of history and
progress. The counties of Washington, like those of Oregon, may be divided into natural groups.
thirty-four counties may be comprehended under five heads,-coast, Sound, river, middle and eastern.
Under the first we have, beginning on the north, Clallam, Jefferson, Chehalis and Pacific. The Sound
group, in the same order, are Whatcom, San Juan, Skagit, Island, Snohomish, Kitsap, King, Mason,
Pierce and Thurston. With them, too, may be included Lewis, though it does not touch the Sound,
the only one of the counties of Western Washington which reaches neither ocean, Sound nor river.
The
river counties are Wahkiakum, Cowlitz, Clarke and Skamania. Of the middle group (in which we
include those between the Cascade Mountains and the Upper Columbia), we have Stevens (its main part
being west of the Columbia), Okanagan, Kittitass, Yakima and Klikitat.
The eastern belt is three deep, on its southern side four deep, and embraces Douglas, Lincoln,
Adams, Franklin, Walla Walla, Columbia, Spokane, Whitman, Garfield and Asotin. The coast and
Sound counties are almost exclusively lumbering and commercial in their character; the river group is
mainly agricultural and lumbering; the middle counties are pastoral, mining, agricultural and lumbering;
while the eastern are, with the exception of Spokane (which has "all sorts"), purely agricultural.
Washington was organized into a territory by an act of Congress which was approved on March 2, 1853.
The following year the territorial government was inaugurated, with the heroic and well-remembered
Isaac I. Stevens as governor.
The counties organized, at the inception of the government in 1854,
OUTLINE OF COUNTY HISTORY.
173
were Clallam, Jefferson, Chehalis, Pacific, Island, Kitsap, Whatcom, King, Mason, Pierce, Thurston, Lewis,
Wahkiakum, Cowlitz, Clarke, Skamania and Walla Walla. The last embraced at that time the whole
of Eastern Washington, all of Idaho and the western part of Montana. Of those named, Clarke,
Lewis, Pierce, Thurston, King, Jefferson, Pacific and Island belonged to Oregon, prior to the organization
of Washington.
CLALLAM COUNTY.
This northwestern corner of the union is almost uninhabited, except along its northern edge. Its
peculiar name is of Indian origin, and means "clam people," from the words "clolub," clam, and “ aht,"
man. The greater part of this county is occupied by the densely wooded heights of the Olympic
Mountains, which reach their greatest elevation on the line between Clallam and Jefferson. There are
two Indian reservations in this county, that at Neah Bay for the Makalı tribe, and at Quillihute in the
southeastern part. It was organized in April, 1854, and has an area of eighteen hundred square miles.
Its population is about one thousand, and its assessed value in 1888 a little less than half a million. New
Dungeness is the county-seat, and Port Angeles and Pysht the chief other places.
JEFFERSON COUNTY.
Jefferson county, next in position to Clallam, is, like it, composed in the main of densely timbered
and uninhabited mountains. Its northeastern corner is, however, one of the best regions of the Sound
waters; for there is situated Port Townsend, the county-seat, and the numerous interests which cluster
around it. Of this most attractive and promising place we speak at length elsewhere, and shall not
therefore take space here for repetition. The chief places besides Port Townsend are Ports Discovery,
Ludlow and Hadlock, where there are immense sawmills, and Irondale, which is the seat of the extensive
iron interests. This county (whose name was derived from that of our third president) was one of the
counties of Oregon, having been organized in December, 1852. On the organization of Washington
Territory, in 1854, it became one of its charter counties. Its area is about thirteen hundred square miles,
and its population about fifty-four hundred, nine-tenths of which is in the immediate vicinity of Port
Townsend. The taxable wealth of the county is about a million and a quarter. Many most interesting
things and characters might be mentioned in connection with this county, and its chief place, did time
permit. Among others the famous old Indian known as the "Duke of York" made his home mainly at
Port Townsend. As one of the better types of his fast-vanishing race, he was a most quaint and
interesting character.
CHEHALIS COUNTY.
The Indians pronounce this Tsehalis. The word means “sand” in the native language.
The
county was organized at the beginning, contains two thousand, four hundred square miles, has a
population of seven thousand, five hundred, and an assessed value of over one million, eight hundred
thousand dollars. It is a region of great variety of natural resources, and has as its chief physical features
the valley of the Chehalis, and Gray's Harbor. The valley named extends well into the interior, and
comprises, in the three counties of Chehalis, Thurston and Lewis, some of the best farming land in
Washington. There is, however, no natural prairie land in this valley; and its rich lands must be grubbed
before they become usable.
Gray's Harbor is interesting from its history; for it was discovered and has since been named from
that wide-awake Yankee captain, Robert Gray, whose eyes lighted upon so much of value to the United
States on this western coast. The harbor is not adapted to the largest class of ships; but for craft of ordinary
size it affords an all-sufficient depth of water. The resources of timber along its banks are enormous.
There are those who look to see it become even a rival of the Sound in shipments of lumber. The
county-seat of this rapidly advancing county is Montesano. The other places of note are Aberdeen,
Hoquiam and Wynooche. These towns have all been developing at a wonderful rate during the last year
or two. There are a number of very fertile valleys entering Gray's Harbor which have fine locations for
farmers on government land. To no part of the new State of Washington can the settler be more safely
advised to go than to Chehalis county. This county was organized in April, 1854.
PACIFIC COUNTY.
This, too, is one of the charter counties. It formerly belonged to Oregon, and was established in
February, 1851. Until the last four or five years, it was slow of growth. Its leading natural feature is
Shoalwater Bay. This is a very large body of water, though the greater part of it is so shallow as to not
admit of navigation. The channel, however, has sufficient depth for vessels of large size. The great
business on the bay is "oystering." There are some fine lands on the little rivers entering the bay, the
chief of which is Willapa. This county also contains the most-frequented summer resorts on our
western coast. People flock there by the thousands during the "heated term" from Portland and other
points in the interior. Oysterville is the county-seat and chief place of this county. Ilwaco, Knappton
and Bay Center are the chief places besides Oysterville. The area of the county is about eight hundred
and seventy-five square miles, and its population thirty-two hundred. Its valuation is about three-quarters
of a million dollars.
174
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
THE SOUND COUNTIES.
WHATCOM COUNTY.
This northernmost of the group, organized in March, 1854, is composed or about one-fourth lowland,
most of which is very valuable, and about three-fourths mountain, most of which is extremely rugged
and, except for prospective mineral wealth, of little value. The county contains about eighteen hundred
square miles, and extends from the waters of the Gulf of Georgia to the crest of the Cascade Mountains.
Its interesting and important features, if fully described, would fill a volume. The hub of the county is
Bellingham Bay. Of its resources of coal, lumber, dairying, fruit and commerce in general we have
spoken at length already. There can be no question that among the various places, Whatcom, Sehome,
Fair Haven and others which are now rising as if from an enchanter's wand along this beautiful bay, there
will be one of the chief places of the Sound, one that may even shake the supremacy of the older cities
higher up on the Sound. Whatcom, one of the "booming" towns of this booming epoch and country,
is the county-seat; and the other towns are Nootsack, Lummi, Sehome and Fair Haven. The population
numbers sixty-two hundred; and the county has a valuation of one million, five hundred thousand
dollars. This county is destined to be one of the giants of Washington.
SAN JUAN COUNTY.
This name is a reminder of the period of Spanish discovery on our coast. Though those bold and
enterprising people failed to hold this country, they left the imprint of their presence by many of their
sonorous names. The county thus named is the smallest in Washington, containing only two hundred
square miles of land.
It is made up of a group of islands commonly known as the Archipelago de Haro,
the chief ones of the group being San Juan, Lopez, Orcas and Blakely. It was formed in October, 1873.
These islands are of entrancing beauty of scenery, and of almost perfect climate. They will sometime be
covered with villas and summer resorts. The chief industry is the lime manufactories of San Juan Island.
These constitute the main supply of the coast. There is land on the island suitable for fruit culture.
The present population of the county is about eighteen hundred, and the assessed wealth something over
a quarter of a million. Friday Harbor on San Juan Island is the county-seat. Orcas and San Juan are
other points of growing importance.
SKAGIT COUNTY.
This county, organized in November, 1883, like all the others of the Sound abounds in natural
resources. It is especially fortunate in the wide-awake and enterprising character of its people. The
area is fourteen hundred square miles, the county extending, like Whatcom and all the rest of the counties
on the east side of the Sound, to the crest of the Cascades. The resources of Skagit are so much like
those of the others of the group that they may be briefly summed up thus: Infinite timber, limitless
coal, some small and very fertile though densely timbered valleys, and opportunities for commerce
uncomputed and uncomputable. The county may date its growth from the beginning of the present
decade. The population is about six thousand; and the wealth is assessed at nearly a million and a
half. Mount Vernon is the county-seat; and it, with La Conner, Fidalgo and Skagit, the chief places,
are among the most active and promising towns on the Sound. This county offers many inducements to
immigrants. Land is still cheap; and all the conditions of life are such as to favor those who have
small means.
ISLAND COUNTY.
This county contains the large and beautiful islands of Whidby and Camano, the first named from
one of Vancouver's lieutenants, and the other from one of the most gallant of the old Spanish navigators.
This county was one of those taken in from Oregon in 1854, where it had been organized in January,
1853. The larger of its two islands contains about one hundred and fifteen thousand acres, and the
smaller about thirty thousand. Both include within their limits some very fine farming land, together with
wide belts of the finest timber land. Coupeville is the county-seat, a pleasant village and the seat of an
academy. Other places of importance are Coveland and Utsalady, at the latter of which is an immense.
sawmill belonging to the Puget Sound Mill Company, a view of which the reader will find in this volume.
There is great scope for future development in this county; and intending settlers will do well to visit it.
The population of the county is fifteen hundred, and its wealth assessed at nearly half a million.
SNOHOMISH COUNTY.
This name above is, like a majority of the Sound names, of Indian origin. The termination “mish,'
which occurs so frequently on the Sound, means "people." This county is one of the large ones,
embracing eighteen hundred square miles, and was organized in January, 1861. Its eastern three-fourths is
rugged and uninhabited, though abounding in great resources of mineral and timber. The western part
is greatly indented by the arm of the Sound, which receives the Snohomish river. On this river there
are greater possibilities of agriculture than are usual on the Sound. A quite extensive area of rich land
awaits settlement and clearing.

RESIDENCE OF CHARLES T. KINETH. ELLENSBURGH W.T.
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OUTLINE OF COUNTY HISTORY.
175
The special fame of Snohomish, however, is due to its timber capacity, which is enormous. It exceeds.
any other county in the country; and we should probably be safe in saying that it surpasses any equal
area in the world in the production of lumber. It is estimated that not less than a hundred million feet
were produced in 1888; while probably not less than a billion feet of logs have gone down the Snohomish
river during the last twenty years. The county has a present population of six thousand, two hundred,
and an assessed valuation of about thirteen hundred thousand. Snohomish City, one of the brightest
places in Washington, is the seat of justice, while Tulalip, Lowell and Stanwood are points of growing
importance.
KITSAP COUNTY.
This county was organized in January, 1857. It is more completely cut across, indented and interlaced
by the Sound and its various arms than any one of the group. Hood's canal borders it on the west, while
its eastern side is fairly gridironed with little gulfs and bays. Its area is only four hundred square
miles; and it is devoted exclusively to lumbering. There are within its borders three colossal mills, those
of Ports Gamble, Blakely and Madison, the aggregate daily cut of which amounts to about a half million
feet. These three places, together with Seabeck, constitute the points of trade in the county, Port Madison
being the county-seat. The peculiar name of this county is derived from that of an Indian chief, famous
in the great war of 1855. The population is three thousand, seven hundred and fifty, and the assessment
over a million dollars.
KING COUNTY.
The point of chief importance in regard to this county, next in order on the other side of the Sound
from Kitsap, is that it contains Seattle. But the fact that King county contains the "Queen City" as
its capital is not its only claim to distinction. It is throughout one of the great counties of the Pacific
Northwest. The vast resources of coal, lumber, iron and shipping have been so fully discussed in various
chapters of this volume that we feel the less necessity for presenting them here anew. It may simply be
said that the growth of such a city as Seattle is sufficient proof that there is a region to back it up. King
county was organized as a county of Oregon in 1852, and was received into Washington in 1854. It was
named for Vice-President King. Its area is about eighteen hundred square miles; and its population is
estimated at thirty thousand, nine hundred. Of this number probably three-fourths are in Seattle. The
wealth of the county foots up to something over fifteen million dollars.
There are two facts especially worthy of note in connection with this whole county. The first and
most important of these is the wonderful pluck and cohesiveness of its people. The second is the
remarkable facilities for communication which exist here. The means of traffic by railroad and steamboat
are not surpassed, if they are equaled, by those of any place in our whole country. And it is by the
energy and self-sacrifice of the people of Seattle themselves that these most desirable results have been
secured. No powerful outside corporation has taken them under its wing. Aside from Seattle, the chief
towns of this county are Squak, Houghton, Newcastle and Snoqualmie.
MASON COUNTY.
Crossing the Sound once more we find ourselves in Mason county, so named from the first territorial
secretary. The county was organized in March, 1854, and was called Sawamish until January, 1864,
when it was christened its present name. It contains about nine hundred square miles of land, a
population estimated at two thousand, eight hundred, and a wealth of seven hundred and fifteen thousand,
two hundred and thirty-three dollars. Topographically considered, it may be said to be fairly eviscerated
by the waters of the Sound and of Hood's Canal. The business of the county is exclusively lumbering.
The rugged shores and the lofty mountains which compose most of the dry land of this county are almost
jungles of the most magnificent timber. Shelton is the county-seat, and Skokomish and Oakland the
other towns. The name Skokomish signifies, in the Indian language "river people.”
PIERCE COUNTY.
This county received its name in honor of the President of that name. It, too, extends from the
waters of the Sound to the rugged and uninhabitable heights of the Cascade Mountains. The area is
eighteen hundred square miles, the population about twenty-one thousand, and the assessed valuation a
little over fourteen million dollars. It was one of the original counties of Oregon, being organized in
December, 1852, and was transferred to Washington Territory in 1854. In its general features this county
does not differ greatly from the others of its group. It is, generally speaking, hilly, densely timbered,
abundantly provided with all means of water travel, veined with coal and iron ore, but lacking in
agriculture. To this last statement we must except the three fertile valleys of the Puyallup, Stuck and
White rivers. As rich land as lies in this western kingdom can be found there. As is well known, the
first-named of these is the leading hop region of the North Pacific. These valleys, however, though so
fertile, are not great in area, comparatively speaking; and the dense brush and timber which clothe them
demand a large outlay of time and work to remove. There are some prairies of considerable size in the
southern part of the county; but the soil on them is gravelly and worthless.
13
176
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
The most remarkable feature of the county is its capital, the city of destiny, Tacoma. This remarkable
place, which has sprung, Minerva-like, full-panoplied, from the Jupiter brain of modern railway
development, is too well known and has been too often alluded to in these pages to make description here
necessary. The world looks on with great interest to see the outcome of the growth and business rivalry
of the two great cities of the Sound, Seattle and Tacoma. The terrible fire of June 6, 1889, at Seattle,
gave Tacoma an opportunity, nobly embraced, of showing that the emulation could be vigorous and yet
manly and generous. The chief towns of the county outside of Tacoma are Carbonado and Wilkeson,
coal towns, and Steilacoom, at which is located the State Insane Asylum. Puyallup, near Tacoma, and
the emporium of the hop trade, is next in size to the metropolis.
THURSTON COUNTY.
This was named in honor of Samuel R. Thurston, first delegate to Congress from Oregon, and was
established in January, 1852, and became a charter county of Washington Territory in 1854. It is a good
deal less in area than most of its sister counties; for it incloses but six hundred square miles within its
limits. Like the other counties of the group to which it belongs, it is densely timbered, though having
some praries of gravelly and barren soil. Its agricultural interests are slight, being confined to the swales
and swamps which may have been drained. Its lumbering interests are extensive, though not at all
comparing with those of the counties farther north. It has remarkable manufacturing resources at
Tumwater, just north of Olympia. The chief place in this ancient region (for it was settled sooner than
any other of the Sound counties) is Olympia. This is the capital of the state as well as the county, is
situated on a beautiful site, and though it has been of slow growth, is a place of many social attractions.
It is feeling the impulse of the present business stir. Outside of the capital the leading places of Thurston
county are Tumwater, Tenino and Velm. The population is about seven thousand, and the assessed
valuation over two million, one hundred thousand.
LEWIS COUNTY.
Moving again southward, we reach the only inland county of Western Washington, which for
convenience sake we have joined with the Sound group, though in reality it belongs alone. Lewis is also
one of the original members of the commonwealth, and belonged to Oregon prior to the inauguration of
the territorial government of Washington, having been established under the provisional régime in
December, 1845. It received its name, very fittingly, from that of the commander of the Lewis and
Clarke expedition. It, too, is a timber county, though its lack of communication, previous to the
building of the Northern Pacific Railroad, discouraged any effort at their development.
Lying south
of the great gravel belt of the Sound counties, it has the heavy, strong soil of the Columbia and
Willamette river regions. Although the jungles of trees and undergrowth make it a tedious task to
utilize these rich lands, yet farmers are finding that it pays to do it; and during the past five years
population has pressed rapidly into the valley of the Chehalis, which forms the northern part, and the
upper valley of the Cowlitz, which forms the southern part, of the county.
Much of the county is in the wild regions of the Cascades, in the foothills of which are found the
same stores of coal and iron which have contributed to the growth of the counties farther north, though
these are as yet undeveloped. The area of this county is about two thousand, one hundred square miles,
its population seven thousand, eight hundred; and its property roll shows a sum of over a million and a
half of dollars. Its capital is Chehalis, a brisk and attractive place of nearly eighteen hundred inhabitants.
The other places of importance are Newaukum, Napavine and Centralia on the Chehalis side of the county,
and Winlock and Toledo on the Cowlitz side. The last-named place is the head of navigation on the
Cowlitz; and from it there is steamer communication with Portland during a considerable part of the year.
THE RIVER COUNTIES.
To take these up in their proper order, we may descend the Cowlitz in a steamer, and from its junction
with the Columbia proceed to Brookfield or Skamokaway on the broad expanse of the lower river. In
either of these places we are in
WAHKIAKUM COUNTY.
This is small (only two hundred and thirty square miles) and so rugged and sparsely inhabited that,
from the standpoint of a disinterested outsider, it might seem that the best thing to do would be to effect
a matrimonial alliance with Pacific or Cowlitz. However, there are great resources of lumber, and the
land when cleared is rich and fruitful; and it may not be long till this county can maintain a separate
establishment in due style. Some of the greatest lumbering establishments on the coast are found here.
This county was admitted in April, 1854, has one thousand, six hundred inhabitants, and nearly half a
million dollars worth of property. Its county-seat is Cathlamet, the sonorous name of which comes no
doubt from the Indian word calamet," a stone. Skamokaway, or Skomokawa, is another place of
importance, the name of which is from a famous old Indian chief. Brookfield is the third place, and is
important for its salmon interests.
OUTLINE OF COUNTY HISTORY.
177
COWLITZ COUNTY.
Cowlitz
This again is one of the original membership of the territory, having been admitted in April, 1854.
It contains an area of nine hundred and fifty square miles of land, a population of four thousand, seven
hundred, and has property to the value of over a million dollars. In it is the justly famous Cowlitz valley,
the best body of agricultural land in Western Washington. These lands are especially adapted to dairying;
and the proximity of the Portland market both by rail and boat renders such farms very profitable.
county has many interesting historical associations. In it was established the old Puget Sound Land
Company under the superintendence of Doctor Tolmie; and there too, some of the earliest of the Catholic
fathers labored. Some of the early American settlers, too, here encountered and finally vanquished the
British lion. Cowlitz county, though backward in growth, is one of the best counties in Washington.
Its resources are large and varied. It has no end of fine timber, plenty of coal, indications of gold and
silver in its mountains, and above all is excellently equipped with means of transportation. The land is
of the richest quality and when cleared pays "big.' Kalama on the Columbia is the center of legal
operations. Monticello, Freeport, Kelso and Olequa are other places of importance.
CLARKE COUNTY.
This is the twin of Lewis, having received the name of the junior member of the great exploring
party of Lewis and Clarke. It first appeared as one of the districts of Oregon under the name of Vancouver
in June, 1844, though not fully organized till the following year. The name was changed to Clarke in
1850. It came in with the territory, in April, 1854, and has about six hundred and twenty-five square
miles of land (three-fourths arable), a population of eight thousand, six hundred, and a property list of
about two and a quarter millions. It is almost entirely timbered by nature, but when cleared is very rich.
It is extremely well located for traffic; for the Columbia river runs along its entire southern and western
sides, a distance of fifty or more miles.
Its site is
Historically this county is, by reason of containing as its county-seat Vancouver, the ancient capital
of the Hudson's Bay empire, one of the most interesting places on the coast. Vancouver, after many
years of lethargy, is now becoming one of the most active places in Western Washington.
one of such superlative magnificence that any other natural city site in the whole Pacific Northwest
stands no show at all in comparison with it. No wonder Doctor McLoughlin chose it as the headquarters
of his kingdom. If there is not a great city there sometime, it will seem a wanton waste of the favors
of Providence. There is one thing though, - the people who build a city there will have to build a
magnificent one. Anything short of that would be an insult to Nature. Land is still quite cheap in
the vicinity of Vancouver; and in many respects it is a very desirable region to which to refer immigrants.
Besides Vancouver, the places worthy of note are La Camas and Washougal. At the former place there
is a superb water-power well utilized.
SKAMANIA COUNTY.
This county, though formed in April, 1854, is the least in population of any in Washington, having
but six hundred inhabitants to its twelve hundred square miles of land. Its property valuation is only
one hundred and seventy thousand dollars. It is almost entirely composed of mountains on the north
side of the gorge of the Columbia, and is one of the most rugged, savage and sublime regions in the
world. But men cannot live on scenery; and, though there is great timber wealth in this county, it has
not been much utilized as yet. There is doubtless great mineral wealth at places in the mountains; but
nothing is yet known with certainty in regard to it. The Cascades is the chief place and the seat of
justice. There is also quite a little settlement near Cape Horn, in the western part of the county.
MIDDLE COUNTIES.
The first and greatest (territorially considered) of these is
STEVENS.
Named after the first territorial governor, formed in January, 1863, and embracing at the beginning
almost all of Eastern and Middle Washington, this county has been cut down by successive slices until it
now contains only six thousand, five hundred square miles. It is almost uninhabited, containing in all
its great extent only two thousand, nine hundred people, and having an assessed valuation of three
hundred and eighty-eight thousand, seven hundred and seventy dollars. And yet it contains great
native resources, mineral, timber, pasture and farming capabilities being combined in about equal ratio.
The recent construction of the Spokane & Northern Railroad will no doubt greatly hasten the development
of this empire of the north. Immigration will flock to it, and its broad range of productions will be
unfolded to the world. Colville is the county-seat and the only place of note in the county. The
Colville valley is without doubt one of the future heaviest farming regions in the state.
There are
abundant opportunities there for the settler.
178
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
OKANAGAN COUNTY.
This last created (formed in February, 1888) of Washington's counties consists of the western part of
Stevens as that existed before said year. The county has an area of over five thousand square miles; but
other statistics of it have not yet been acquired. It is a vast and tangled system of mountains, having,
however, a large agricultural region adjoining the Wenatchie river. It has two great features. These
are Lake Chelan, the largest lake in the state, and the great Conconully mines, the greatest in Washington.
Wild and rugged and apparently uninhabitable as this county is, it will without doubt sometime pour out
wealth by the carload. Its cities are as yet in embryo. Ruby City, in the center of the mining region, is
the seat of justice. There is a fine agricultural settlement at the mouth of the Wenatchie.
KITTITASS COUNTY.
This great county is for various reasons one of the most important in Washington. It contains the
magnificent valley of the same name, and the second greatest coal mines in the State. In this last respect
it is surpassed by King county only in estimated area of coal lands. But its other resources are legion.
All kinds of minerals abound; its mountain region has an abundance of fine timber; its foothills sustain
uncounted cattle; and its flat valleys, when irrigated, produce bounteously of all kinds of field, orchard
and garden products. In the midst of this fair region lies as the capital the bright city of Ellensburg,
just now the victim of a most disastrous fire, yet undismayed, going right on to the brilliant career which
evidently awaits her.
It
Kittitass county was created in November, 1883, and embraces three thousand, six hundred square
miles, extending from the crest of the Cascades to the Columbia, which fronts it for sixty miles.
contains every variety of scenery, from the most verdant meadows to the savage grandeur of Mount Stuart
and the other Alpine peaks of the Peshastin. Its population is estimated at eight thousand, one hundred,
and its property at two million, three hundred thousand dollars. The chief town is of course Ellensburg,
having a population of four thousand. The other places are Roslyn, Cle-Elum and Kittitass.
YAKIMA COUNTY.
The vast tract of five thousand, two hundred square miles has much the same natural characteristics
as the preceding county. Together they constitute the Yakima valley, the peculiarities of which have
been fully described in our chapter on agricultural resources. It is even yet almost in embryo; but it is
the embryo of a giant. The country was organized in January, 1865, has a population of about four
thousand, five hundred, and an assessment roll of two millions. The multifarious resources of this county
and their vast extent, as shown in the timber and minerals of the mountains, the cattle and horses of the
foothills, and the farm produce of the many fertile and beautiful valleys, are a slight forecast of the time,
near at hand, when Yakima county will be the home of happy thousands, provided with all the appliances
and comforts of the most civilized condition.
Of North Yakima, the chief town and county-seat of this great region, we have had occasion to speak
at length in sundry places in these pages. It may merely be said here that it is the natural outgrowth of
the prospectively rich and progressive land in which it is located. Its future will be commensurate with
the region in which it is built; and that this is becoming more adequately appreciated is sufficiently proved
by the hosts of immigration flocking thither. The only places of size besides Yakima are Prosser and
Atahnam.
KLIKITAT COUNTY.
This fertile and beautiful county was organized in December, 1859. It is a mutton-chop in shape,
extending from the eastern flank of the Cascade Mountains to a point on the Columbia nearly opposite the
state line, being one hundred and twenty-five miles long and from four or five to twenty-five miles wide.
It has an area of two thousand, two hundred square miles, five thousand, five hundred inhabitants, and
about a million and three-quarters of property. Its natural resources are great and diversified. It is one
of the great stock counties of the state, has large though undeveloped resources of minerals in its mountain
section, and its valleys are already known as rich and fertile grain lands. Its present lack of railroads
will be supplied within a year or two; and then we may expect an added growth. It is not, however, by
any means naturally devoid of means of natural communication. It has more miles of frontage on the
Columbia river than any other county except Douglas, and has of course the advantage over that of being
below some of the worst rapids on the river. And, although all the talk now is of railroads, it is well to
remember that this is an era of improvements in steamboat navigation too, and that the time is approach-
ing when the vast eastern section of our empire is going to have an open river. Goldendale is the
metropolis and county-seat of this county. The other points are Bickleton, Columbus, Luna, Fulda, Lyle
and White Salmon.
THE EASTERN COUNTIES.
The first four of these counties, Douglas, Lincoln, Adams and Franklin, are essentially alike in
appearance and productions. They may very fittingly be joined in a general description. Their immense
area of over ten thousand square miles is almost entirely a rolling bunch-grass plain. It is more nearly

HON. L.F. THOMPSON,
SUMNER W. T.
JOSEPH BRANNAN,
SLAUGHTER, W. T.
HON.JAMES P. STEWART,
PUYALLUP, W. T.
JOHN F. KINCAID,
SUMNER, W T.
A.C.CAMPBELL,
PUYALLUP,W.T.
OUTLINE OF COUNTY HISTORY.
179
level than the counties east of it, but has some streaks of "scab" land, by which is meant land with
occasional patches of rock. To the prairie character of this section there is only one exception, and
that is the Badger Mountain region of Douglas county. This entire region is very new; and there is yet.
much government land in various parts of the "Big Bend" and the allied regions. The climate is
somewhat drier and hotter than in either Whitman or Walla Walla counties; but so porous and friable is
the soil that in ordinary years there seems little chance of drought, while with a good rainfall the crops
are immense. No portion of our great new land offers finer inducements to settlers than this. With this
general introduction to the land of "coulees and badgers," we will speak more especially of each county
separately.
DOUGLAS COUNTY.
This county was formed in November, 1883, contains five thousand square miles, twenty-three hundred
people, and property to the value of something more than half a million. The county-seat is Waterville;
and its other places are Badger, Okanagan, Orondo and Lincoln. This is the "coulee" county par
excellence. These curious features of the great Columbia plain are variously explained.
One very
reasonable hypothesis is that they were formed when the great lake which filled the entire upper basin
was drained. This draining was performed by the cleaving of the Cascade Range at the present gorge of
the Columbia; and, when the waters of the lake were nearing the bottom, the monstrous attrition of the
flood literally scooped out these immense channels, hundreds of feet deep and in some places a mile or
more in width. Others believe that the coulees were old beds of the Columbia, and that the name, from
the French couler, meaning a "cut off," was evidently applied with that thought. A famous resident of
one of these coulees is Chief Moses, more admired and feared perhaps than any Indian on this coast. Of
magnificent physique, and afraid of neither God nor man, well educated, and implicitly obeyed by his
followers, he is a man that all travelers through those vast solitudes do well to propitiate.
LINCOLN COUNTY.
In the order of description which we have pursued, Lincoln comes after his great rival, reversing the
verdict of history. It was, however, organized four days sooner in November, 1883. As sufficiently
indicated already, this county is of a similar character to its mate. It too has much available government
land; and many immigrants have flocked in during the last year or two. This county, though having less
than half the area of Douglas, has more inhabitants,-three thousand. This difference is mainly due to
the presence in it of the fine little city of Sprague, the county-seat, which contains nearly half the people
of the county. Sprague is the leading town between Spokane and Yakima, and is evidently destined to
reach a considerable degree of importance. The other towns are Davenport, Harrington, Crab Creek and
Sedalia. The county is, like the rest of the "Big Bend" counties, well provided with railroads, and
offers abundant opportunities, to settlers. The property valuation of this county is two million, three
hundred and thirty-eight thousand and forty-three dollars.
ADAMS COUNTY.
This namesake of the "Old Man Eloquent" is more exclusively a prairie country than any other part
of the state. It is all a dry, level plain, with not a natural tree on its entire surface. It has a
wonderfully rich soil, and matures the finest crops without the aid of irrigation. It is, however, true
that the question of rain is a very important one to the farmers of Adams. The county was admitted in
November, 1883, has about two thousand square miles of territory, eighteen hundred inhabitants, and
a valuation of eight hundred and seventy-three thousand, two hundred and fifty-one dollars. Ritzville,
named from the pioneer nurseryman of Walla Walla, is the county-seat and the only place of importance.
There is much good deeded land in this county to be obtained very cheap, besides some government land.
FRANKLIN COUNTY.
Next in order comes Franklin, the namesake of him who, in the language of Mirabeau, "caught the
lightning from heaven and the scepter from the hands of tryants." The county of Franklin is a wedge-like
piece of earth, lying betwixt the two great rivers of the North Pacific. It has the same characteristics as
the others of the group already described. It has scarcely been fairly tested yet as to its agricultural
resources; but it seems likely that it will prove all that its enthusiastic friends claim for it. It is true that
much of it looks like a desert; but, as pointed out hitherto, there are many regions in the Columbia basin
which are "mighty deceiving." Lands which the Mississippi valley farmer would think a perfect Sahara
may astonish him by the production of crops such as he never dreamed of cutting on his black-soiled
meadow.
Large areas of Franklin are in such a situation as to admit of irrigation on a great scale; and, if ever
such a system is fairly inaugurated, there will without doubt be a great development at the junction of
the Columbia and Snake rivers. The territorial extent of Franklin is twelve hundred square miles, its
human extent seven hundred souls, and its financial extent something more than half a million dollars.
Pasco is the center of operations, judicial, financial and commercial. It is, in short, the only town in the
county. The county was organized in November, 1883.
180
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
WALLA WALLA COUNTY.
,,
We are now on historic ground. The three names of Astoria, Vancouver and Walla Walla occur the
most frequently of any in our annals. The mellifluous name of this county is usually translated "Valley
of Waters." This is a truly appropriate appellation; but more exactly the word means "running water,
from the Nez Perce " walatsa," running, and in this connection being understood to refer to water.
Wallula means the same thing, but is in the Walla Walla and not the Nez Perce language. This meaning
is one index to the character of the country. There is a wonderful change in going across the lower
Snake river to the south in the number of streams and springs, and the general accessibility of water.
The country north is naturally dry. This will no doubt be sometime overcome, but that is the present
state. But once fairly across the Snake river, and especially once over the Touchet river, and the amount
of water of the purest, coldest and most refreshing kind is a wonder. This fact has had its bearing in the
development of the country.
The Walla Walla valley was recognized as a garden even long before some other regions where the
soil is equally good were deemed anything but deserts. This is the broad general difference between the
first belt of the eastern counties just described and those beginning with Walla Walla. This second belt
skirts the Blue and Cœur d'Alene Mountains, and has much more water, is more rolling and broken, has
a cooler and more humid climate, and a somewhat heavier though not richer soil. We have so fully
described the whole Walla Walla country in preceding chapters that there is little need of more here.
The county was admitted in April, 1854, the only one of the Western Washington counties that was
formed with the establishment of the territory. It then embraced all the valley of the Columbia east of
the Cascades, an area of nearly two hundred thousand square miles. This imperial domain has been.
curtailed by successive withdrawals, till now it has only eleven hundred square miles. What is left is the
oldest, best cultivated, and in various respects the most advanced, part of Washington.
Though far outstripped by Spokane in population and business enterprise, it may yet be safely asserted
that, up to date, Walla Walla county produces more money's worth of products than any of its sister
counties. We mean that she digs more out of her own ground. The metropolis and capital of this
county contains about six thousand, five hundred people, which is just about half the number in the
county. The entire assessment of the county is about six and three-quarter millions. The chief places
besides the city are Wallula, Prescott, Touchet and Waitsburg.
COLUMBIA COUNTY.
This is the team horse with Walla Walla. It was organized from the latter in November, 1875, and
contains one thousand square miles of land, has six thousand, seven hundred people, and a property roll
of two million, eight hundred and twenty-five thousand, one hundred dollars. It has much the same
character as the one preceding, but is more rolling. The soil is the extreme of fertility, and there is more
rain than in most other parts of the Inland Empire. The Touchet is the chief stream, and, with its
tributaries, provides an abundance of water for all needs. The county is remarkably well supplied with
railroads, and has many beautiful and well-equipped ranches. The attractions of this county are many
for immigrants. Dayton on the Touchet is the county-seat and metropolis. It is a bright, lively place of
two thousand inhabitants. Other places worthy of note are Tukanon, Huntsville and Riparia.
SPOKANE COUNTY.
Anyone who should try to describe Spokane county in these limits should be executed for presumption.
We must refer our readers to the numerons places in which we have already described Spokane the
Wonderful. It is the most "phenomenal" place in the whole of our Pacific Northwest.
We shall not,
however, add more here to our previous lengthy account. The county was organized in 1880, has an area
of seventeen hundred and fifty square miles, inhabitants to the number of about twenty-three thousand,
and an assessment of nearly eight millions. The magnificent farming lands in the southern part of the
county are deservedly attracting much attention from immigrants. One of the wonders of the country in
the form of Medical Lake is in this county. Aside from the capital and metropolis, the chief places
are Cheney, Medical Lake, Rockford, Waverly, Spangle and Marshall. The name Spokane is from the
native word for "sun;" for the Indians of this tribe were originally sun worshipers.
WHITMAN COUNTY.
This county was named in honor of the martyr missionary of Walla Walla. It is one of the heavy
counties of Washington, being fourth in population and wealth, and first in farm production. It contains
eighteen hundred square miles of land, was organized in November, 1871, has eighteen thousand, eight
hundred people, and over seven millions of assessment. It is a county of great diversity of topography and
resources, having a belt of superb mountains full of timber, and, probably, mineral wealth, along the eastern
borders; while the western three-fourths of the area is farming land, mainly heavily rolling, but of the
richest kind of soil. The whole country abounds in water, pure and sparkling; the climate is healthful
and delightful; in short, there is scarcely any part of the country which seems better adapted to the rearing
of a fine, strong race of people than this. Among the various interesting historical associations of this
OUTLINE OF COUNTY HISTORY.
181
county is Steptoe Butte, fifteen miles north of Colfax, near where the disastrous defeat of the United States
troops occurred in 1858. Colfax, the "shire town" of this charming and promising county, is a bright,
thriving place of twenty-five hundred inhabitants. The other places are Palouse City, Pullman, Colton,
Farmington, Oakdale, Belmont, Almota, Rosalia and Penewawa. It is notable that this county has more
small yet growing towns than any other in Washington. This is one of the surest indications of a healthy
condition.
GARFIELD COUNTY.
This county first saw the light in 1881. It was named for the lamented President; but its bright
career is not to be cut short in so untimely a way as his. It possesses the same character of beauty and
fertility and rolling plains that we have seen throughout this tier of counties. Its towns have, in a remarkable
measure, the vital qualities of push and enterprise and solid growth. The area of the county is six hundred
square miles, the population five thousand, and the property worth one million, six hundred and sixty-nine
thousand, one hundred and eighty dollars. It is exclusively a farming country, and as such has almost
every natural advantage. The county-seat is Pomeroy; and the other towns are Pataha, Alpowa and
Ilia.
ASOTIN COUNTY.
This last of the counties of Washington is a short horse and may be soon curried. It was added to
the sisterhood of counties in October, 1883, and contains five hundred square miles of land, being the
smallest of the counties east of the Cascades. Its peculiar name comes from the Nez Perce word
"hashotin," meaning an eel, because that sort of fish abounds in the creek. It is a rich and attractive
region, much like the other Blue Mountain counties, though somewhat more broken. It is purely a
farming region, and, though new and undeveloped, is attracting many newcomers. Those who have read
Irving's fascinating book," Bonneville's Adventures," will remember the valiant hero's journey along
the Snake river to Walla Walla. At one point he remarked the wonderful beauty and fertility of the
country, and predicted that sometime there would be farms there. The region of which this prophecy was
truthfully made and which is so vividly described must have been in Asotin county, the corner county.
The county-seat and only town of note has the same name as the county. The population is sixteen
hundred, and the valuation of real estate nearly six hundred thousand. Land is cheap and excellent in
this county; and settlers will do well to visit it.
COUNTIES OF IDAHO.
And so ends the account of the counties of Washington. We next address ourselves to a brief
outline of the counties of Idaho. We shall not undertake to describe these with the particularity given
to those of Oregon and Washington. Idaho, though geographically, and at the present time commercially,
a part of the Pacific Northwest, was not a participant in its early history. It is the outgrowth of a later
age; and its present grand development is being wrought out by another set of men. Hence, interesting
though it truly is in itself, it does not belong so much to the story of this book and to the men whose deeds
are depicted in it as do the regions which took shape way back in the forties and fifties. For these natural
reasons, Idaho can appear but incidentally and briefly in a work which like this deals mainly with the past,
or with the things and men immediately connected with it. In a history of the future ages, Idaho will
take its proper place in the great triad of the Columbia basin.
The musical name of Idaho means "Gem of the Mountains," eminently appropriate in this instance.
The territory began its separate existence in 1863. Its boundaries were greatly modified in 1864, a part
of its area being granted to Montana. It was in that year, therefore, that it assumed its present form.
A natural manner of grouping suggests itself with regard to the counties of Idaho as well as those of
Oregon and Washington. Proceeding from the north again, and taking the Salmon River Mountains as
the basis of separation, we have the three divisions of Northern, Middle and Southern Idaho.
NORTHERN IDAHO.
This consists of Kootenai, Shoshone, Latah and Nez Perce counties. In this division are found
the chief farming lands and the greatest mines of the territory. It is separated from the rest of the
territory by mountains of so rugged and inaccessible a character that it has been said that sometimes
legislators from the northern regions have gone to the capital, Boise, by way of San Francisco. At the
best, they have been obliged to go by way of Walla Walla and Baker City. For this and the correlative
reason that these northern counties are naturally part of Washington, there have been great efforts, thus
far unsuccessful, to join them to Washington. However this attempt may result, it is no doubt certain
that many years will elapse before there is rail communication between the northern and the other parts
of Idaho. Equally impracticable is any route by way of Snake river. Those who have read our first
volume will remember the desperate straits to which Hunt and his party were reduced among the
mountains and along the banks of the "Accursed Mad River.” In all its natural features it remains
unchanged.
182
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
KOOTENAI COUNTY.
This is first in position of the counties named as constituting Northern Idaho.
It is the county
of the lakes and the mines. It contains five thousand, five hundred and thirty square miles. In it
are the magnificent Lakes Pen d'Oreille and Cœur d'Alene, and also a part of the great Coeur d'Alene
mining region. For scenery and silver it has few equals. Rathdrum is its county-seat.
SHOSHONE COUNTY.
This county is a fair mate for Kootenai. It is bordered on the east by the sublime Bitter Root
Mountains, and is throughout of the most rugged character. The rest of the mining region of the
Coeur d'Alenes belongs to it. Its capital is Murray. Its area is five thousand, nine hundred and
fifty square miles.
LATAH COUNTY.
This comes next in the list, and is a beautiful farming region, the natural continuation of the Palouse
country of Washington. Moscow is its chief place and county-seat. This is one of the finest towns in
Idaho, and is evidently bound to become an important point. By an act passed at the last session of the
territorial legislature, there is to be a university established at this place. It, with its tributary region, has
first-class railway communications, and a bright future awaits it. Genesee is another flourishing place,
the present terminus of the Palouse branch of the Northern Pacific Railroad.
NEZ PERCE COUNTY.
This reminder of the gallant people who inhabited this fair land previous to the coming of the Whites
is still occupied by the remnants of the tribe. Their reservation embraces nearly half of the county. To
their honor be it said that they have made more progress in civilization than any other people of their race
in the Pacific Northwest. It may be added as an interesting matter, too, that during the last decade they
have reversed the usual fact among their people by increasing in numbers. Lewiston, the central point of
the county, is one of the oldest places in the territory, and has so advantageous a location that nothing
but sluggishness and ill judgment on the part of its people can prevent its rapid growth.
MIDDLE IDAHO.
Middle Idaho embraces a vast and exceedingly rugged mountain region, mainly drained by the Salmon
river and its tributaries. Though roughness is the rule here, there are some extensive and fertile valleys,
such as the great Camas Prairie. The counties in this division are Idaho, Lemhi, Washington, Boise and
Custer.
IDAHO COUNTY.
This is a wild and largely uninhabited region, ten thousand, one hundred square miles in extent, and
having all kinds of land and all kinds of resources;-mining, lumbering, stock and farming,-within its
limits. The big Camas Prairie is a beautiful region, and, though somewhat elevated and cold, may be
depended on for all manner of temperate productions. Mount Idaho is the county-seat.
LEMHI COUNTY.
This county, in like manner, is a vast wilderness of mountains, having within its borders great
mineral resources as yet undeveloped. Salmon City is the county-seat.
WASHINGTON COUNTY.
Nearly every state in the union has a Washington county. In this instance it is a beautiful and
picturesque region, containing the fine Weiser valley, and also the rugged chain of mountains known as
the Seven Devils." Though it looks on the map to be one of the small counties of Idaho, it really
contains three thousand square miles, enough for a fair-sized Eastern state. Weiser is the county-seat.
BOISE COUNTY.
Boise county may be described like the others, that is, by saying that it is covered with majestic and
almost inaccessible mountains. There are some small valleys suitable for agriculture. The mineral
resources of the county are great, and in their development the inhabitants are chiefly engaged. Idaho
city is the chief place.
CUSTER COUNTY.
This is another mountainous, mineral-veined and almost uninhabited county. It must be said, however,
of the counties described thus that their natural resources, especially the mineral, are rapidly drawing
attention and population to them; and they may not much longer be thus characterized. Challis is the
county-seat of Custer county, the chief occupation of whose inhabitants is mining.

R. F. STURDEVANT,
DAYTON, W. T.
UN
OUTLINE OF COUNTY HISTORY.
183
THE SOUTHERN COUNTIES.
Beginning on the west, they are Ada, Owyhee, Alturas, Cassia, Bingham, Oneida and Bear Lake.
ADA COUNTY.
Ada County, the most thickly settled in the territory, contains the beautiful and fertile valley of the
Boise, and also the city of the same name, the capital of the territory. This valley is well-tilled and well
settled; and the city, with its fine farms and orchards and gardens around it, would do credit to any
country. Boise City is the chief place and the county-seat, though there are several other active places,
such as Nampa, Washoe and Payette.
OWYHEE COUNTY.
This is another vast and almost tenantless region, possessing great latent resources, which wait but
time and water to give them due enlargement. Silver City is the county-seat.
We next come to the Titan of the Idaho counties,
ALTURAS COUNTY.
This immense region, one hundred and ninety-one thousand and eighty square miles in area, is
traversed its entire length by the Oregon Short Line Railroad, and is rapidly developing its almost infinite
resources. In it is a large part of the great Snake river lava bed. It also contains the rich Wood river
mines. Within it also is Hailey, the largest place in the territory. In it, too, is that wonder of wonders,
the great Shoshone Falls. Nor does its catalogue of attractions cease here; it has also the Saw-tooth
Mountains, filled with wonders and of almost unearthly sublimity. Hailey is the county-seat. The
mining output of Alturas county runs way up into the millions, comparing with all but the two or three
greatest in the world. This county will sometime be an empire in itself.
Across the turbid flow of the upper Snake from Alturas is
CASSIA COUNTY.
This is a mountainous, barren region, almost uninhabited. Albion is its seat of justice.
Next we come to the great
BINGHAM COUNTY.
It is ten thousand square miles in extent and has resources of every sort, but, like those of many of
the others described, much in embryo. In it many of the multiplied tributaries of the Snake take their
rise.
There are the mighty Tetons, which, though twelve hundred miles from the Pacific, used to be
looked to by travelers over the plains as the threshold to the promised land. Black foot is the county-seat of
this county, though Pocatello is the chief place. This place, near the historic site of old Fort Hall, has
been having an extraordinary growth within the last year, and without doubt will become a prominent
point. With irrigation the agricultural capacity of this county must become immense.
The next in order is
ONEIDA COUNTY.
This was formerly the most populous in the territory, but has been outgrown in late years by the
northern agricultural counties. It has much rich land and is well irrigated. Many Mormon settlements
exist in this county. Malad City is its capital.
Last and least of the divisions of the
Gem of the Mountains" is
BEAR LAKE COUNTY.
This ursine county does not, as does the rest of the territory, drain into the Columbia. Its waters
reach Great Salt Lake. For this reason, perhaps, it too has some infusion of Mormonism. There is in it
some very rich land, well located for the necessary process of irrigation. Paris is the county-seat.
This must suffice for a glance at the subdivisions of Idaho. The present population of the territory
is probably nearly a hundred and fifty thousand, and that is rapidly increasing. The people, moved by the
present added dignity of Washington, Montana and the Dakotas, are moving for statehood; and may they
soon attain their desire!
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
GOVERNOR GEORGE ABERNETHY.-
Oregon's first governor will of necessity occupy an
important place in her annals. This is due both to
the intrinsic character of the man and to his official
position. So frequently, however, does he appear
in the narration of the body of events described in
this work that it is not necessary to do more here
than give the mere outlines of his career. He was
born in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1807. The family
moved to the United States soon after; and the
future governor spent the first thirty-two years of
his life in New York. In 1840 he came to Oregon
as a lay member of the Methodist Mission. Settling
at Oregon City, and taking charge of the Mission
store and its business in general, he soon developed
a shrewdness that provided the Mission as well as
himself personally with an abundance of the mam-
mon of unrighteousness. At the inauguration of
the Provisional government in 1845, he was chosen
governor; and thereafter by successive elections he
remained in the executive office till the establish-
ment of the territory in 1849. Afterwards he
became largely instrumental in starting various
mercantile operations at Oregon City and Linn.
City. In some of his speculations he was unfor-
tunate, and lost a great part of the savings of his
active life. He suffered also in the great flood of
1861 at Oregon City. In that year he removed to
Portland, where he died in May, 1877.
GEORGE ACKLES.- Mr. Ackles was born on
a farm in Clearmont county, Ohio, in 1832, and
received a common-school education. At the age
of twenty-two he removed to Iowa, where he mar-
ried Miss Louisa Walker of Jefferson county, and
lived on a farm. He was engaged in like agricul-
tural pursuits in Illinois and Missouri until 1865,
when he made the great journey across the plains
to Grande Ronde valley, and located on a beautiful
tract of land where he now resides and owns 476
acres with a neat residence and comfortable out-
buildings, fine stock, and a nice orchard. He had
no means except twelve dollars and a half and a
team when he first arrived. He is living in content-
ment with his wife, Edith S., née Hanna, formerly
of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. Mr. Ackles
buried his first wife in 1885. He has a son and
daughter, both of whom are now married.
county. Mr. Adams was born in Franklin county,
Maine, in 1835. When twenty-two years of age, he
came to Douglas county, Oregon, and for five years
engaged in school-teaching. Exchanging the mas-
ter's rod for the shepherd's crook, he went exten-
sively into the sheep business in the Umpqua valley,
and in 1865 transferred his flocks to Umatilla county.
Here he has lived twenty-three years. Besides the
culture of sheep, he has devoted much time to cattle,
and is now giving chief attention to fine horses.
His stock of all kinds is of highly improved breeds.
He is doing the county much service by thus im-
proving its stock, and thus largely enhancing its
wealth. He is in truth, in every particular, a public
spirited gentlemen, greatly interested in all that
prompts the mental and moral as well as material
welfare of his town and county. He is one of the
oldest settlers in the region, antedating nearly all
those here; and it is much due to him that the place.
has attained its present prosperity and eminence.
He was married in 1878 to Miss Susan F. Fry.
They have four children, three boys and a girl.
Mr. Adams and his wife are now in their full vigor,
and will see a development of this region which
must eclipse any thing which has yet been brought
to pass within its environs.
W. L. ADAMS, A. M., M. D.- The subject
of this biography, a pioneer who drove his own ox.
team across the plains in 1848, is one of the most
unique of western characters; and history entitles him
to be placed in the catalogue of the illustrious men
who bore prominent parts in settling Oregon, and
in moulding public sentiment. To give a full history
of his life would require a large book; but our limi-
ted space forbids anything but a rapid glance at a
few waymarks along the road traveled for nearly
sixty-nine years by one of the most original and
energetic of men. The writer has known him well
more than forty years, and has learned from his
family and acquaintances enough of incidents and
peculiarities to make a very readable biography.
He was born in Painesville, Granger county, Ohio,
February 5, 1821. His father was born in Vermont,
as was his mother; and both emigrated to the
Western Reserve" when it was a wilderness.
His father was a strong Whig, as were his relatives,
the noted Adams family of Massachusetts, and a
devoted friend of General Harrison, with whom he
served in all of his Indian campaigns. His mother
was an Allen,—a descendant of Ethan Allen, the
"Hero of Ticonderoga." Her mother and William
( 184 )
JOHN F. ADAMS.-We have here the founder
of the promising city of Adams, Oregon, which is
located on the line of the railroad in Umatilla
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
185
Slade's mother were sisters. Slade for many years
was a leading free-soil member of the United States
Senate, and afterwards Governor of Vermont. The
whole family on both sides have ever been the
unswerving foes of slavery and despotism. In 1823,
his father removed to Huron county, and settled on
a farm near the Lake Erie shore. Here W. L.
worked on the farm summers and attended school
winters till he was fourteen years of age. In school
he was always a favorite with his teachers, and at
the close of each term received the highest reward
as the best scholar and best-behaved boy in school.
In 1835, his father removed to Jonesville, Hillsdale
county, Michigan, but soon after sent his son back
to Milan, Ohio, to attend the Milan Academy. His
father often wrote to him and sent him money, none
of which ever reached him, the mails having been
robbed for the money. The postmaster, Jones, after
whom Jonesville was named, was finally detected
in robbing the mails, and sent to the penetentiary.
Young Adams' father was engaged in the lumbering
business, in general merchandise and in land specu-
lations.
The cars
The reverses that swept the country in 1836–37
broke up the banks; and Wild-cat money," the
only currency of the country, was not worth anything.
Millions of acres of land which had been bought by
speculators at $1.25 per acre were sold under the ham-
mer for ten cents an acre. Young Adams' father went
down with the general crash, and had only three
hundred dollars worth of property left. He then
determined to emigrate to Illinois. At the end of
a year, young Adams concluded to visit his parents
and make arrangements to prosecute his studies. He
took deck passage on a steamboat at Huron, and
reached Toledo, eighty miles up the lake, just at
daylight next morning. Here there was a railroad
to Adrian, thirty-three miles on his route.
would not be ready to start for two hours; and
Adams concluded he could beat the cars to Adrian
on foot, and started out on the railroad track. The
cars (the first he had ever seen in motion) overtook
him three miles out of Adrian at two o'clock P. M.
Passing through Adrian, he stopped for the night at
a farmhouse, weary and sick. He took of bowl of
bread and milk for his supper, and before sunrise
next morning was on his journey, reaching Jones-
ville, eighty miles from Toledo, at two o'clock P. M.
He bore letters to his father from friends in Milan
saying he was a boy of much promise, and that they
were willing to send him to Yale College to complete
his education; but his mother insisted that he should
go with them to Illinois, and try to find some col-
lege there. Hearing there was a new college about
to open in Canton, Fulton county Illinois, he con-
cluded to start out immediately so as to be there at
commencement. His parents insisted that he had
better wait and go with them, as they would move
in about six weeks. "No," he said, "I will go
now and start with my class.” He tied his effects
in a cotton handkerchief, and, taking a five-dollar
bill handed him by his father, stowed it away in
his pocket alongside of twenty-five cents he already
had of his own money, and, after many a kiss and
God bless you" from his mother, started on foot
and alone to make his journey of three hundred and
(C
fifty miles to Canton. He was so small for his age
that most people on the road took him for a boy of
not more than eight or nine years of age.
The walk so fatigued and fevered him that he
ate but little on the entire journey. He always
offered to pay; but, whether stopping at taverns or
farmhouses, only two people on the way accepted
money. When he reached Canton he had $4.75
left. At a camp-meeting he saw a poor orphan boy
who admired his cotton handkerchief, and wished
for one like it. Adams gave him twenty-five cents
and told him he could buy a new one for that.
When the Canton College opened, there was but
one student,—Adams. The professor, a young
graduate of Dartmouth College, soon acknowledged
that he was not able to instruct his pupil, who
really knew more of mathematics than he did.
Adams started for Galesburg to enter Knox College.
He carried the same cotton handkerchief he brought
with him, wrapped around a cotton shirt, pair of
socks and a Greek and Latin grammar, with Day's
Algebra and one or two other books. He met a
hearty welcome by the faculty, and entered the first
freshman class with Martin Gay, Ed. Holyoke
and Henry Hitchcock. He supported himself by
teaching school and working in the harvest field.
He finally went to Bethany College, Virginia, was
warmly received by Alexander Campbell, President,
taken into his house, and trusted for his books and
board. Out of seventeen dollars he earned in the
harvest field, he reached Bethany College with
twenty-five cents in money and a cheap suit of
clothes. He took the highest honors as a scholar,
and was called the best writer in the college. "The
American Literary Institute," a chartered society
connected with the college, knowing his poverty,
and anxious to have him become a member, sus-
pended the rules requiring a $2.50 initiation fee,
and sent a committee to Adams requesting him to
become a member. They were informed that, while
he much desired to become a member, it was
impossible, owing to reasons he did not care to
mention. He was informed that the society, knowing
his embarrassment, had suspended the rules, and
that no initiation fee would be required. This
society had the privilege of electing one of its
members to represent the American Literary Insti-
tute in an oration on commencement day to the vast
crowds who came there from all parts of the union
to witness the exercises and hear Alexander Camp-
bell, who, Henry Clay said, was the " greatest man
on the American continent. There were several
candidates for the honor of representing the society,—
all young men of talent, whose parents were
wealthy, and who wore the finest broadcloth.
Adams was too modest to aspire to that position,
not having decent clothes in which to appear in
public, and never dreaming that he would be elected
if he had. Much to his astonishment, he was
chosen on the first ballot by more than a two-thirds
vote.
During the college term, he studied on an average
seventeen hours a day. After his lessons were all
mastered, he made it a rule to snatch up his pen at
twelve o'clock at night and write some facetious
article for a paper published at Bethany, for which
186
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
On
he generally received a dollar. The money he
The money he
secured in this way served to bridge his way over
many a financial chasm. His fame as a satirist
rose high when it leaked out that he was the author
of the articles which depicted well-known charac-
ters. When any important committee was to be
appointed by the president to draft constitutions or
by-laws for new societies, Campbell always put
Adams at the head. He has often told us that he
was petted and praised more than he deserved. His
incessant hard study broke down his health and
impaired his eyesight, so as to compel him to leave
college a month before he was to graduate. He
studied three weeks with a bandage over one eye,
when the faculty advised him to quit to avoid total
blindness. On leaving Bethany, Campbell appointed
him his book agent for Illinois and Indiana.
reaching Illinois, he was taken down with the
measles, took cold and was sick all summer. He
managed, however, to sell enough books to realize
seventeen dollars, his per cent. In the fall (1844)
he married Frances Olivia Goodell, to whom he
had been engaged for two years. She had laid up
fifteen dollars,-savings from her pay as school-
teacher. This enabled the two to start with a
joint-stock capital of thirty-two dollars. Adams.
stood up to be married in a suit of Kentucky jeans
worn thread-bare. His friends ridiculed him for
not waiting till he procured fine clothes; he said,
I will marry now, and buy my wedding suit when
I am able to get it without going in debt.” With
his thirty-two dollars, he went to St. Louis, three
hundred miles down the Mississippi river, taking
deck passage and helping to wood at every wood-
yard where the steamer stopped. Here he bought
his outfit for housekeeping,-a bolt of domestic,
three tablespoons, six teaspoons, set knives and
forks, a coffee-mill, a few dishes and tinware,
groceries, etc., to make up the amount he had in
his purse.
He
The fall of 1845 he took a school in Henderson
county, where he taught fifteen months by the
scholar, making thirty dollars a month when the
common price of teaching in the country was ten
dollars a month. The school-house was a log cabin
with a huge fireplace; and the benches were slabs
set up on logs. The neighbors rolled up a log cabin
for Adams to live in, and let him have it free of
rent. His fame as a scholar soon spread through
the country; and all sorts of puzzles and difficult
problems were sent him to solve by teachers and
scholars far and near, all of which he readily mas-
tered, and returned the statements and answers.
bought two cows, and in the fall bought all the
calves he could get, which he wintered on corn he
raised himself and hay he cut on the prairie during
the July vacation, and hauled and stacked with the
help of some of his scholars. In the spring he
sold his stock, doubling his money on them. In
the winter of 1846-47, he was offered five years'
employment at a good salary to take charge of the
university in the city of Jacksonville, Illinois; but,
having made up his mind to emigrate to Oregon,
he declined the offer. He bought his steers and
broke them himself, making his own ox-yokes. In
March, 1847, he was ready to cross the plains,
having paid up all his college debts, and possessing
eight yoke of cattle, two wagons, three guns, and
all necessary outfit. His father died a few days
before he was ready to start; and he concluded to
wait another year, in hopes of inducing his father's
family to come with him. In March, 1848, he sold
one of his teams to William Bristow, who was also
coming to Oregon. Adams started in March, his
friends declining to brave the dangers of the jour-
ney for a country about which they knew so little.
On his wagon cover was painted a large American
eagle, and under it in large letters, "HIC TRANSIT!"
Westward the Star of Empire takes its way." His
friends thought he was a reckless visionary; and
Alexander Campbell wrote to discourage him. He
said, "Is there not land enough, and are there not
people enough in Illinois for your talent and enter-
prise without burying yourself and family in a
wilderness among savages?" The reply that Adams
made was: "Illinois is not big enough or good
enough for me. My soul hungers for something
Illinois cannot give. In Oregon I expect to find
what I desire." And so he did. The last Sun-
day he visited the Christian church, to which he
belonged, the congregation tried to sing the parting
song:
My christian friends in bonds of love,
Whose hearts the sweetest union prove;
But pilgrims in a foreign land,
We oft must take the parting hand."
The whole audience gathered around him, shook
his hand and embraced him and sobbed aloud.
He left Galesburg in March with four yoke of
oxen and two yoke of cows hitched to his wagon,
and camped every night on the road till he reached
St. Joseph, Missouri.
St. Joseph, Missouri. He had two children, Inez
Eugenia and Helen Elizabeth, the former two years
and the latter four months of age. He camped near
St. Joseph two weeks to dry his books and clothing,
which had become water-soaked in fording rivers in
Missouri, where the water ran over the top of the
wagon-bed. May 2d he crossed the Missouri river,
and, with a company of forty other wagons, started
on the trail for Oregon. They forded all the rivers
(except Green river, where there was a ferry), many
of which were deep and dangerous. Their way led
through bands of hostile Indians; and the company
guarded their train day and night. Their route led
over mountains so rocky and precipitous that, in
places, the wagons had to be let down with ropes.
Adams was considered the most daring and daunt-
less spirit in the crowd. He never seemed so cool
and happy as when facing danger. Some in the
company called him "a regular dare-devil.” In
crossing Snake river, he came near losing his team
and family. Des Chutes was the most dangerous
stream they forded on the route. It was forded
a few hundred yards above its junction with the
Columbia. The bottom was full of huge boulders.
The water was deep enough to swim the small
cattle in the team. The Indians rode in and
showed the immigrants how deep it was. The
company was afraid to venture. Adams hired the
Indians to pilot them over, giving them a shirt for
each team in the company. The wagon-beds were
propped up nearly to the tops of the standards.
Adams volunteered to take the lead. The waters

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
187
roared over the rocks so as to drown an ordinary
voice. In crossing, the water ran near to the tops
of the wagon-beds; and the frightened women cov-
ered their heads with bed-clothing and screamed.
Here the company met a man from the Willamette
valley, who gave them the news of the discovery
of the gold mines in California.
Before reaching Barlow's gate,- a toll gate at the
entrance of the road cut over the Cascade Mount-
ains by S. K. Barlow, the company had split up
into many squads. Their teams were weak and
jaded, and reduced almost to skeletons. The faces
of the immigrants were peeled and scaled by the
alkali of the sage plains. Here lay before them the
hardest part of the trip. The rain had rendered the
road almost impassable. The whole route was lined
with dead horses and cattle lost by immigrants who
had gone before. Adams concluded to make the
trip across the mountains by himself. He was ten
days in making it to Foster's, the first house he
had seen in six months. The mud up many mount-
ains was knee deep; and the cattle were barely
able to get on with the empty wagon. He and his
wife carried the babes and the entire load up several
mountains, wading through mud nearly knee deep,
and then went back and drove up the team. On
reaching Foster's they camped to rest. Foster, on
learning that he had no money, generously gave
him a peck of potatoes, and offered him every
accommodation for the winter if he would stop
there and teach school. Adams did not like the
country, and concluded to push farther on. In
Oregon City he was met by friends, who invited his
family to dinner, and at night put his cattle in a
yard and ordered a load of oats and fed them gratui-
tously. Being out of money, he borrowed two
dollars to pay his ferriage over the Willamette river.
He swam all the cattle except those which were too
weak to swim. When he settled his ferriage, he
had ten cents left, and lost that through a hole in
his pocket during the winter. On reaching Yamhill
he traded his wagon for ten wild Spanish cows
which ran with a band of four hundred on Burton
Prairie. This band of cows with their increase kept
him in beef for several years.
In the winter of 1848-49, the women in the
neighborhood and the few men left who had not
gone to the gold mines were anxious to have Adams
teach school. He first built an addition to James
Fulton's log cabin, with the roof sloping one way
and a mud chimney in the corner. The hut smoked
terribly, but its occupants were happy. They boiled
peas for breakfast, dinner and supper, and browned
them for coffee, which they drank without sugar or
milk. They ate in tin dishes, as the entire stock of
crockery for sale in Oregon was one set of cups and
saucers at Oregon City,— price $2.50. He and the
neighbors soon rolled up a log hut for a school-
house, with a fireplace that took in a common fence
rail. The winter of 1848-49 was an uncommonly
cold one for Oregon. The thermometer went at one
time to six degrees below zero. Snow lay on the
ground over a week at a time three different times
during the winter. His boy scholars generally
dressed in buckskin, and wore moccasins. His girl
pupils dressed in shirting colored with tea-grounds;
and most of them went to school barefoot. Of his
boy scholars, one afterwards became the editor of a
medical journal, one became the superintendent of
public instruction for Oregon, one went to Congress,
and was appointed by Lincoln as chief justice of
Idaho, while another was elected governor of Oregon,
and was subsequently appointed governor of Utah.
He ranked among the best stump speakers of the
nation.
In 1852, Adams gained his first great notoriety.
He was a strong Whig, while the territory was
overwhelmingly Democratic. After the legislature
passed the Location act removing the seat of govern-
ment from Oregon City to Salem, a majority of the
supreme court, Nelson and Strong, Whigs, refused
to recognize the validity of the law, and held court
in Oregon City, declaring the Location act null and
void. A minority of the legislature convened at
Oregon City; while a majority followed Judge Pratt
to Salem. Pratt's party had two party organs,
the Oregon Statesman and the Vox Populi. Through
these papers they rained the most unstinted abuse
upon Governor Gaines and all the other Whig offi-
cials who had been commissioned by President
Fillmore. The Whigs were terribly excited; and,
not being satisfied with Dryer's defense of them in
the Oregonian, felt as though they wanted revenge.
A series of articles written for the Oregonian,
signed "Junius," defending the officials and exco-
riating the Democrats, came from Adams' log cabin
in Yamhill, and attracted much attention on account
of their ability and pungent sarcasm. These arti-
cles were followed by the Melodrama entitled,
"Treason, Strategem and Spoils, in five acts, by
Breakspear." It was written in rhyme and blank
verse, and contained cuts of the leading Democrats
who followed Pratt's leadership. This work caused.
great excitement throughout the territory. Crowds.
flocked to every postoffice to get a copy and read it,
till half the people of Oregon had committed most
of it to memory.
When Governor Gaines and the
Whig officials learned that Adams was the author
of "Junius" and "Breakspear" they conditionally
bought the Spectator press and offered it to him as a
present if he would start a Whig paper, offering to
give him all the patronage at their disposal. The
offer was declined for fear of injuring the Whig
paper at Portland.
While on his farm in Yamhill, Adams was noted
for his reckless daring. Out of hundreds, two inci-
dents must suffice. He with several neighbors, on
going to La Fayette six miles distant, found the
next morning the whole country flooded with water,
the snow twenty inches deep having all melted the
night before with heavy, constant, warm rain. On
rising in the morning, Yamhill river was a sea of
water half a mile wide. Adams started out, his
friends asking him where he was going.
He re-
plied, Going home." They said: "You must be
crazy. We would like to know how you are going
to get over the river." The reply was: "Bonaparte
crossed the Alps; and I don't propose to stop for
that little puddle of water.' Half a mile up the
bank he came to Chick Smith's house, where he
saw a trough about five feet long which Smith used
for scalding pigs. It was square at both ends, and
188
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
had a crack the whole length of the bottom through
which a man could run his fingers. He asked
Smith if he would yoke up his steers and haul it
down to the river. Smith said, "What are you
going to do with it?” Adams replied, "Going to
cross the river." Smith said,
Smith said, "Why, you must be
crazy."
He was answered: "I propose to take the
chances myself. I don't propose to sell you a ticket
as a steerage or cabin passenger. Rags were pro-
cured from Mrs. Smith to cork up the trough; and,
after making a paddle of a "shake," the trough was
hauled down and launched and then tied to a bush.
Adams pulled off his coat, boots and hat, and put
them in the trough ready for a swim if neces-
sary. The water was as cold as ice, and ran like a
mill-tail. He got into the trough resting on his
feet and knees. The bank of the stream was lined
with thick brush a rod or more out into the water,
which made it doubtful if one could gain the bank
through the brush if the trough foundered. Smith
stood on the bank white with fear; and, as Adams
knelt in the hog trough, he shouted,
Can you
swim?" The answer was, Yes." Smith replied,
"Go it then;" and, not having nerve enough to
see a man drown, he started back as fast as he could
go.
When the trough was untied it darted down
stream with great rapidity. It was barely able to
hold the passenger and float, the water coming to
within half an inch of the top. A rod or two below,
the trough struck an alder broadside half filled with
water, and clearing itself shot ahead into the middle
of the stream. Adams thought that then was the
time for swimming; but seeing the trough still
floating, he said to himself, While you can float I
will ride." A hundred yards below there was an
opening through the brush out to the bottom lands,
over which the water was seven feet deep. To pass
through this opening was the only chance for his
life. Being well up to handling a canoe, which he
had learned while hunting with the Indians in
Michigan, he thought he could handle the trough.
But the hog trough, square at both ends, would not
steer. It was rapidly passing the opening through
the brush. By shifting his paddle from one side to
the other he succeeded in passing through the gap,
and, staking the trough at the foothills, went home,
much to the astonishment of the neighbors.
In 1849, the nearest mill and postoffice were at
Oregon City, thirty-five miles distant. The roads to
Oregon City were almost impassable. The only
feasible route was by the Yamhill and Willamette
rivers in a canoe. Being out of flour, Adams yoked
up his cattle, with which he had been hauling his
family three miles to meeting every Sunday on a
sled in the summer and winter, and hauled his wheat
to Dayton, ten miles distant. Here he hired a canoe
and started down the river for Oregon City. He
slept at night on the bank of the river, the rain fall-
ing in torrents. He ran the rapids at Rock Island,
a passage now considered dangerous for a large
bateau. At Oregon City he let his canoe down past
the falls into the mill by means of a rope, getting
his wheat ground and exchanging two bushels with
Doctor McLoughlin for a little sugar, which his
family had not tasted for months. He returned
home, walking from Dayton and bringing back a
yoke of oxen to haul home his precious load. In the
spring of 1849, he concluded to go to the gold mines
of California. He had already bought the land
claim of Miles Carey for eight hundred dollars, pay-
ing down a colt for three hundred dollars and a
smoothbore rifle at fifty dollars, and giving his note
for the balance. At Oregon City, finding no way to
reach Astoria, from which the ship Jeanette was
advertised to sail soon with lumber, he and two
others built a small skiff and started down the river
for Astoria. At Cathlamet Bay, ten miles above
Astoria, they all came near being drowned, as the
water was too rough for their frail bark. Visiting the
mines, he returned in August with enough gold dust
to pay off all his indebtedness. In 1852, he went
overland to Yreka, California, to dig more gold,
passing through the Rogue river valley, which was
infested with hostile savages. He, with eight others,
fought their way through and back, returning with
a large quantity of gold dust.
His son, Judge W. H. Adams, city attorney for
Portland, was born one week before his father
started for Yreka. In 1850, the Whigs nominated
Adams for probate judge in Yamhill. The Demo-
crats had a majority of two hundred and fifty in the
county; yet, after a thorough canvass, Adams beat.
his competitor, a lawyer of ability, eighty-two votes.
In 1856, the Republicans of Clackamas county nom-
inated him, much against his will, for state senator.
The Democrats had a majority of four hundred in
the county, and ran against him a man of talent,
an old settler, and well and favorably known; yet,
after a thorough canvass of the county, Adams beat
him thirteen votes, though he was considered the
roughest stump speaker they had ever heard.
,,
In 1855, a dark pro-slavery cloud hung over
Oregon. The South, ambitious to secure more
slave states to keep a balance of power in the
Senate, had employed a leading Democrat as their
tool to make Oregon a slave state. Adams, who
was a strong free-soiler, having learned that this
gentleman had turned many other of the leading
Democrats to vote and work for slavery, and fearing
that such party would generally follow their lead,
concluded to enter the field against them, as the
few free-soilers in the territory seemed to be silent,
while the emissaries of the " Slaveocracy' were
very busy. He unyoked his cattle, left his plow
standing in the furrow and went to Oregon City,
where he bought the Spectator press of D. J.
Schnebly for twelve hundred dollars, and started
the Oregon Argus. For about nine years he edited.
this paper, which took the lead as a Republican
journal. As a writer, his equal was not to be found
on the coast for ability, pungency and audacity.
He stumped the state, writing his editorials on his
knee, armed with two revolvers and a bowie knife,
as the "Slaveocrats' were everywhere threatening
his life. He said: "I never knew what it was to
fear a face of clay. All I ask of them is to meet
me like a man, and not shoot me in the back." In
drafting addresses to the people, and in suggesting
measures of public policy, Adams was always
looked up to as the leader. He called the first
Republican convention ever held in Oregon, when
other prominent Whigs were afraid. Republicanism
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
189
was "too impracticable to win." Hence he is
known to-day as The Father of the Republican
Party in Oregon. Through the Argus, with D. W.
Craig as his foreman and right-hand man, he over-
threw all opposition, dismantled their guns, licked.
the Republican party into shape, and laid the
foundation for free Oregon, one of the brightest
stars in the galaxy of sovereign states. For this he
deserves immortal honors; and we are proud to be
able to hand his name down to posterity through
this biography.
As a conversationalist, he is enchanting.
eccentricities and blunt way of speaking interests
everybody and excites their risibles. We have
heard many men and women say, "I would rather
hear Adams talk than visit a theater." He seems
to love to bore scrubs for the "hollow horn," and
has the most sovereign contempt for wealthy, pre-
tentious, theological fraud and quackery in medicine,
which fattens upon ignorance. He never betrayed
He never betrayed
a friend, or failed to forgive an enemy who confessed
his wrong and promised to do better. His house
has been a free resort for the poor, sick, lazy and
infirm for the last forty years. His credit is good
for all he asks; and his word, as Judge Pratt said,
He
is as good as any other man's oath." Yet he is
too apt to think everyone is honest and truthful
because he is. This blind faith has cost him thou-
sands of dollars. His memory is astounding.
seems to remember everything that has occurred in
Oregon for over forty years. He knows every man,
woman and child he met forty years ago, and can
relate many interesting incidents connected with
their history. He can repeat word for word whole
sentences from noted speeches and sermons he heard
over fifty years ago. He can tell of nearly every
incident that transpired in Painesville (then a place
of five or six houses) before he was two years old.
A great lover of truth, he scorns a liar and a dis-
honest man. If there is one thing he abhors above
all others, it is the wretch who will betray a friend.
He never betrayed confidence reposed in him by
a professed friend, though that person afterwards
turned out his enemy. He is a good friend, and
not a bad enemy. As bitter as gall in denunciation,
his breast is always full of the milk of human kind-
ness. Those who knew him best love him most.
All good people love, respect and honor him; it is
only the low class who ever speak against him.
Lincoln, who read the Argus, was his admirer as
a writer. Some of the editors of leading Eastern
journals wrote him testifying their admiration of his
ability as a writer. In six weeks after Lincoln was
inaugurated, he appointed Adams as collector of
customs for the district of Oregon. This was the
first appointment made by Lincoln in Oregon.
Lincoln proposed to prepare for conquering the
Rebellion by removing their treasonable sympa-
thizers and putting in men who would never haul
down the stars and stripes at the behest of Jeff
Davis. Adams soon satisfied himself that the
officers of the California Steamship Company were
engaged in smuggling merchandise from Victoria,
and making vast sums of money. He appointed
detectives to watch them, and soon seized several of
their steamships, putting the captains and crews on
shore. He shortly had as forfeitures in the Bank
of California $345,000. This excited the animosity
of the steamship company, while the Oregon legis-
lature passed a set of resolutions complimenting him
for his efficiency as an officer. Secretary McCulloch
told a member of Congress that "Adams was the
best Treasury officer on the Pacific coast." In 1866,
he was ordered by the Treasury Department to
carry in person the money on hand, amounting to
some sixty or eighty thousand dollars. He took
passage on one of the company's steamers; and on
the way down his trunk was broken open and
$20,500 of the money was stolen while he was at
breakfast. He spent three thousand dollars in
catching the thieves, and recovered eleven thousand
dollars of the money. Twenty years afterwards the
administration under Cleveland sued him for the
money stolen, with interest amounting to over thirty
thousand dollars. Adams beat the government in
every suit, and is now free from the indebtedness.
He has two commissions from Lincoln and two from
Johnson.
In 1867, he resigned his office owing to failing
health, and moved back to his farm in Yamhill.
In May, 1868, he went to Washington City to settle
his accounts as collector and attend to business for
the Oregon Steam Navigation Company. While in
Washington he became acquainted with President
Johnson, Charles and Jessie Fremont, and all the
prominent members of Congress and of the Senate.
He was treated with the highest consideration; and
many senators expressed their regret that he had
not come from Oregon as a senator-elect in place of
one of the two who were then serving. President
Johnson, on learning that he was on the way to
South America for his health, said: "You ought
to have an office down there. You go to Seward;
and, if there is any vacancy as Minister resident in
any South American Republic, I will be glad to
appoint you to the position. He was answered:
"You have no office at your disposal that I would
take. I would not accept the office you hold your-
self. I have had enough of office, enough of glory
and enough of fame." Johnson said, "I am glad
to see one man in Washington who is not an office-
seeker." Adams concluded to go to New Orleans
and take the steamer for Havana, where he could
catch the steamer from New York to Aspinwall.
Finding that, owing to the Cuban rebellion, he
would not be permitted to land in Cuba, he con-
cluded to pass through the Gulf of Mexico and
coast along Central America. He was three months
in making the trip from New Orleans to Aspinwall,
meeting with many adventures and facing many
dangers too numerous to mention in this chapter.
Visiting Peru, Bolivia and Chili, where he remained
for several months, he returned to Boston, where
he began a series of lectures which he delivered
throughout New England on "Oregon and the
Pacific Coast." In Boston as elsewhere he was
highly indorsed as a lecturer by the public press.
In the winter of 1869, he returned to Oregon after
nearly two years of travel, and had two dollars and
a half left out of four thousand, six hundred dollars
he started with.
In 1873, he went to Philadelphia to add to his
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HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
previous knowledge of the healing art. Here he
acquired a knowledge of the most recent discoveries
of all the schools of medicine. He received the de-
gree of A. M. from Christian College, Oregon, that
of M.D. from the Eclectic Medical College of Penn-
sylvania, as also the degree of LL.D. from the
American University of Pennsylvania. In addition
to these honors, he was awarded a handsome gold
medal for "eminent attainments in medical science.”
He practiced medicine in Philadelphia and Boston
with marked success, having generally the most
prominent people as his patients. In 1874, he
opened a medical office in Portland, which was soon
thronged with patients from San Francisco, Oregon
and Washington Territory. In 1877, Doctor Adams
removed to Hood river, where he had bought a
beautiful place on the banks of the Columbia river
as a home in which to rest from his many years of
toil. Here he now resides, and is "as happy as
a clam thirty feet under water.”
October 29, 1881, he married M. Sue Mosier at
Walla Walla, Washington Territory. By her he
has a son now five years old. He has seven grown
children by his first wife,-all living,-all educated,
honorable, and an ornament to society.
In 1888 he published the most remarkable book
of the age,—“A History of Medicine and Surgery"
from Moses down to the present time. It exposes
all frauds, medical, theological and political, by
which kingcraft and priestcraft have fattened on
ignorance in the world's history. To read it is to
produce an admiration for its author. If any man
deserves mention in this history it is Doctor W. L.
Adams. He is without doubt one of the most able,
eccentric and honorable of all the pioneers whose
names are by their deeds rendered immortal. A
prominent man in the Treasury Department said to
the Governor of Idaho, "I have seen all the Presi-
dents, Ministers resident, Senators and great men in
Washington City for ten years; and people generally
agreed with me that Adams was fully equal in abil-
ity to any man who had ever visited the Capitol.”
ALBERT L. ALDERMAN.-The pioneer
experiences of Mr. Alderman are not exceeded in
interest by those of any of the early settlers. Born
at Old Bedford, Connecticut, and taken as a child
to Wyoming county, New York, where he lived
until twenty-one years of age, he set out at the age
of twenty-four upon the career that did not end
except upon the Pacific coast. He was at Bradford,
Pennsylvania, for a time with an uncle, and in 1845
came out to Quincy, Illinois, and that same winter
made up an outfit for coming to the mythical Ore-
gon. At St. Louis, in March, he met a Mr. Goode
and Judge Quinn Thornton, who were also on the
way to our state. At the rendezvous he found a
large company assembling, aggregating five hundred
wagons. An organization, the most complete that
had ever been attempted, was here made. The
wagons and outfits were inspected; and none unfit
for the journey were allowed to proceed. A legal
tribunal was established, having a judge and a
jury, which was composed of six men. The mili-
tary organization was also fully equal to the require-
ments.
On the way to Fort Hall no more serious trouble
was experienced than crossing swollen streams; and
this was effected by using two large canoes lashed
side by side into which the loaded wagons were
run, with the two wheels of either side in each
craft, and thus ferried over. At Bear river, west of
Fort Hall, occurred an affecting scene; for here the
train, or that portion in which Mr. Alderman was
traveling, which numbered about three hundred
wagons, was divided, a part taking the southern
route to California, and a part the northern to Ore-
gon. The two sections were drawn up side by side;
and the farewell and parting messages were spoken
with tears, and with the same deep feelings as had
been manifested in saying good-bye at home. It
was the Donner party that thus turned out to Cali-
fornia; and their fate was such as to make even a
nation weep when it was disclosed.
The troubles of the northern route were little less
terrible. Meeting with Applegate, Goff and Scott,
the train turned off from the old main roads across
the Blue Mountains and down the Snake river,
which the other two divisions took, into the South-
eastern Oregon route, passing across the lower
portion of the state by way of Robert Springs and
Blue Rock Springs, and enduring great suffering in
crossing the desert. Reaching Klamath Lake, they
came upon the wild Indians, who were as inhospit-
able as Bedouins. One of the white men was found
one evening shot with thirty-one arrows. The same
day about sundown camp was made for the night
on the lake shore. The wagons were corraled, the
tents set securely inside, and the cattle turned loose
to graze upon the hill. Just before morning, how-
ever, a band of Indians appeared hallooing and
shaking blankets, and thereby stampeding the whole
band of cattle, which came rushing pell mell upon
the camp with the force of an avalanche, and going
through and over the wagons like an armed troop,
overturning the vehicles and tearing down tents,
nor stopping until they had plunged into the lake
beyond. By this startling event the women and
children and some of the men were frightened
nearly to death. The guard found but one Indian,
whom they shot; and while the oxen were being
collected and their head division moved forward,
messengers were sent back to apprise the rear divi-
sion of the meeting with the hostiles, with the
word to hasten on. By a night march the latter
division came up, and the two were joined the next
morning. Eight oxen
morning. Eight oxen were lost in crossing the
Tule meadows on the margin of the lake; and the
Indians gave every indication of a purpose to con-
test their advance.
Arriving at a point where the meadows narrowed
between two bluffs, the immigrants sent a scouting
party ahead, who ascertained that the hostiles had
dug a ditch across the lowland from hill to hill, and
in this had secreted a host of warriors to prevent the
train coming forward. Here followed a bloody
fight. The valley being narrow, and cut with gul-
leys and thick with tules, it was deemed best to halt
the train and send a party to dislodge the enemy.
Sixty mounted men were detailed for this work; and
they made the advance and charge with great spirit.
As they neared the ditch, two Indians, one on each

1.E.SALING,
WESTON, OR.
MOF
UNI
L
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
191
bluff, sprang up and flaunted blankets; and at the
same moment the warriors, nearly three hundred in
number, rose from their concealment and let fly
with their arrows. The missiles came quick and
thick as a swarm of hornets, making the air sing,
and whenever striking either man or horse leaving
a sting of poison, from which some of the wounded
died. The white men, however, were upon the
Indians in a moment, shooting them down, and
chasing them to the hills. In this attack an Indian
buck was captured and sent back to the camp, while
the storming party was beating up the tules. He
became a great curiosity in the train, and as he was
tied to a bush was surrounded by a throng of boys,
and, desiring to eat, was given a cup of red-pepper
tea, with which the wounded was being treated as
an antidote to the poison. Tasting the fiery liquid,
the wild man gave a whoop that terrified the camp,
and was heard even by the warriors on the hills,
who came pouring down as if to attack the wagons,
and were prevented only by the horsemen coming
back on the run and intercepting them. With a
guard placed on the flanks of the train, the white
men returned and continued the fight in the gulleys
and tall grass, and at length drove all the Klam-
aths to the hills, where they took refuge in a rude
fort, and through the interstices between the logs
began shooting arrows. The white men returned
the fire, stationing themselves at a distance out of
range of the arrows but within reach of the fort
with the rifles, and began a general bombardment,
continuing their fire until dark. During the night
During the night
all was quiet; and early next morning a reconnais-
sance to the fort was made, when it was found
deserted, but so marked with blood, even in clotted
pools, that it was estimated that as many as sixty or
seventy of the Indians must have been slain, the
bodies having been all removed. The train then
moved on, but met with continual harassments from
the savages throughout the whole length of the
cañon. None could leave the train to hunt, as all
were required for guard duty; and, therefore, no
game being secured, the provisions began to fail.
It was late in the autumn when the crest of the
Umpqua Mountains was gained, from which they
looked over into the Umpqua valley. The first
necessity was to secure something to eat; and
Alderman and a few companions who were in
advance descried from the summit of the hill a lazy
smoke in the valley below, and determined to go
towards it. After traveling about twice the distance
that they anticipated, they came upon the Indian
camp, but found the spot deserted except by a few
old men and women. Making known their hunger,
the old parties called to the others, who came back
from their concealment in the brush, and began with
amazing generosity to bring out dried camas to the
amount of nearly a ton. Of this dirty material,
which had an admixture of hair and various kinds
of filth, the hungry boys gingerly took half a bushel
in a sack, and upon returning to the train met with
the declaration of the others that starvation was
better than eating such stuff. Alderman, however,
floated off the dirt with water, and cooking the
residue declared that it was the best meal he ever
ate. A few days afterwards he and his comrades
found a Hudson's Bay camp, whose tent was heavy
with dried venison. Entering without invitation or
ceremony, they helped themselves, and after having
satisfied their craving were astonished that the squaw
in charge would not accept a cent of pay. She also
sold them a large amount of meat to take to the train.
The wagons stuck in the throat of the Umpqua
cañon. The men were obliged to pack their goods
on the backs of horses or oxen, and carry their
wives and children on their own backs, wading often
up to the armpits in the cold water of the powerful
river. One Missourian, who determined to get his
wagon through, only succeeded in having it turned
over and its load floated away. Coming in broken
parties out of the Calapooia Mountains, they at
length all got into the Willamette valley alive, but
looking more like a band of fugitives than of civ-
ilized travelers.
Alderman and his friends came on rapidly, finding
but two families south of Eugene Skinner's place.
He found food, but the scarcity of the past still
gnawed upon his vitals; and when, at the Luckia-
mute river, he and his companions met a party
hastening towards the train with flour and they
obtained fifty pounds, they determined to have a
banquet. Camping under a large white fir tree,
they made a fire, and in the absence of a bread-pan
made the dough in the sack; and in the absence of
a baking-pan stuck the dough on a stick and cooked
it before the flame. Thus cooking and eating they
continued their banquet until about midnight, and
consumed the most of the fifty pounds of flour,-
five of them. On the Rickreal they met General
Gilliam, who told them that he would kill a hog
and hang it up for them on the road; but this they
declined, preferring to have him to keep it for those
behind. At Amity they performed gastronomic
prodigies, and on the Tualatin contrived to miss
their way and pass the chilly December night with-
out food, fire or blankets. At Oregon City, Alder-
man found a brother who had left home some time
before, and whom he did not at first recognize, but
discovering his relationship was only too glad to
make with him a home for the winter. Neverthe-
less the hard life of the plains, or the sudden change
to something like comfort, induced sickness; and it
was a somewhat dismal time in the short days of
the early part of 1847. That winter the brother,
M. R. Alderman, also met with a great misfortune,
-having his feet so frozen while on an express tour
for the Hudson's Bay Company as to necessitate the
amputation of one of them.
As the pleasant weather of spring opened, and the
brothers recovered their strength, they went up to
the Willamette in search of land and found no place
more to their liking than at Dayton, and here bought
a claim for a hundred head of cattle from one La
Bonte. This was a French half-breed who replied
to Alderman's question as to how much land he
owned: "Begin in the morning on a Cayuse horse;
go west until the sun is very high; then go south
until it is around towards the west, and then back
to the river." That was his farm. He refused money,
but would take a hundred cows for this baronial es-
tate; and Alderman was able to suit his fancy.
After moving to this place, all was serene until the
14
192
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Indians of the neighborhood came in and made near
his cabin a sweathouse, and here doctored them-
selves and held barbarous services at various times,
shouting, singing, pounding on rude drums, and
making day and night hideous. To find some way
of being rid of this intolerable nuisance, he went to
the Frenchman, the elder La Bonte, and asked what
to do. The old man told him to wait until the
Indians were gone, as they soon would be, and then
carefully take down and tie up in bundles all the
shakes, or cedar boards, of which the sweathouse
was made, and be ready to pay for anything that
was split or injured. Following this advice, the
lonely settler did as suggested, and then waited the
return of the band. He was careful to be inside of
his cabin; and as they came in sight one day he
watched developments through the cracks of his
domicile. The astonishment and wonder of the sim-
ple natives was complete; and they were all stricken
with silence as they looked again and again upon
the dismantled sweathouse and bundles of boards.
Then one spoke, and all spoke,-a wa-wa-ing and
jabbering never exceeded outside of bedlam. After
some time of this clamor they made a rush for his
cabin, and began to pound on the door. Alderman
from a deep recess let them pound, preferring not to
be "at home," and shook inwardly, lest those out-
side should try to develop his whereabouts by setting
fire to the premises. While thus waiting in jeopardy,
he was relieved by the coming of the old La Bonte,
who explained matters to the Indians. They began
packing up the bundles; and amid the bucking,
jumping and charging of horses, and excitement of
savages never before equaled, they managed to move
away, and Mr. Alderman was never afterward
troubled by them.
During the early months upon his farm, Mr.
Alderman had stopping with him his brother, and
got a Mr. William Logan to make him eighteen thou-
sand rails. He also set out some little apple trees,
and the first year broke and seeded sixty acres to
wheat. The fruit of these trees brought sixteen
dollars per bushel, the wheat four dollars and ninety
cents, and the potatoes seven dollars. He went
barefooted; and it frequently happened that two or
three weeks would pass without his seeing a white
person. In 1848, when Sheriff Hembree came
around for the county taxes, he paid his assessment
in cattle hides, which were legal tender. In the
same year he bade adieu to his brother, who left for
California, and who also insisted that the place be
put in his brother's name, as he felt that he could
never return. He never did,-meeting death at
Sutter's Fort. In 1849, A. L. Alderman also went
to the mines, experiencing very heavy weather on
the ocean; but once in California he found a claim
that proved almost incredibly rich, yielding thirty-
six hundred dollars in thirty days. With this money
he came back to his farm and erected a sawmill, sell-
ing lumber at forty dollars per thousand. He also
leased a piece of ground to Daniel Chaplin, upon
which was set the largest orchard in the territory.
In March, 1850, he was married to Miss Mary J.
Burns, who died in 1864, leaving. four children,
three of whom are settled in our state, while the
fourth, a son, is steward on one of the great China
steamers. In 1866, he was married to Miss Charlotte
Odell, and by her he has reared a family of five
children, who are all at home. Mr. Alderman is
still engaged in farming and raising fruit and stock.
In forty-one successive crops he has experienced not
failure; and land that he broke in 1847 and from ·
which he has taken forty crops now yields thirty-
five and forty bushels of wheat per acre, and that
without fertilizing.
Mr. Alderman is one of our esteemed citizens,
benevolent, intelligent, active, a friend of schools
and churches, and a man of broad public spirit. We
present an excellent portrait.
HON. JOHN B. ALLEN.-"I think Walla
Walla is destined to be the central and commercial
city of that large area of country in Eastern Wash-
ington lying south of the Snake river, and of much
of Eastern Oregon. Probably no city of its popu-
lation in the Northwest equals it in wealth. It
is just now emerging from years of transportation
extortions, which few other regions could have
borne. Competitive systems will infuse new life in
every industry, and stimulate the developments of
resources heretofore lying dormant.
This is the horoscope of the young city as cast by
Mr. Allen; and his opinions are certainly of great.
weight. He has been a resident of the territory
since 1870; and, as United States attorney for Wash-
ington under Grant, Hayes and Garfield, he has
visited nearly every locality within the field of his
labors; and his opportunities for forming correct
judgment have been very extensive. While a citizen
of Dayton or Pendleton could not be expected to
agree with him fully, and Spokane Falls and North
Yakima would naturally demur from his opinion
that the Blue Mountain slopes are the finest in the
territory, the unbiased mind will, at least, regard
his view with interest. Mr. Allen is one of the
territory's most prominent citizens. As delegate to
the United States Congress, he has achieved a
lasting fame, and will leave the stamp of his mind
upon history.
He is a native of Indiana, having been born at
Crawfordsville in that state in 1843. He was edu-
cated at Wabash College, but at the age of nine-
teen joined the "hundred-days' men and served
his time in the civil war. After the restoration of
peace, he went with his father to Rochester, Minne-
sota, where he was admitted to the bar.
In 1870,
he came to Puget Sound, and made his home at
Olympia. He was married at Portland in 1871.
Upon his appointment as federal attorney in 1875,
he made extensive tours of the country, going by
stage-coach in the old ante-railroad days of the terri-
tory. In 1881, he removed with his family to
Walla Walla, where he enjoys his fine residence in
that city, which he regards on the whole the most
eligible in the Pacific Northwest. Mr. Allen is
essentially a public man, virile, full of vitality,
popular, and finding his chief interest in great
measures embracing large areas and many people.
It is generally conceded that, as a lawyer, he is the
foremost in Washington.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
193
SAMUEL ALLEN.-This noble, whole-souled
gentleman among the pioneers, who must now be
reckoned with the dead, was born in East Tennessee
July 21, 1805. He was a son of William Allen, a
soldier of the war of 1812. Soon after that conflict,
Samuel was left fatherless by the death of this
parent, and, with his mother and eight brothers and
one sister, endured all the hardships and developed
all the sturdy force of character, and still more
learned the uprightness and integrity of the mount-
aineers of Tennessee, being nurtured-as were all
the children of this family-by his mother in the
love of God. When but a lad he moved with his
mother and her family to Cooper county, Missouri.
At the age of twenty-one he was married to Sarah,
a daughter of Daniel Benson, a native of Tennessee
and pioneer of Illinois. A few years after this
event, so important in the life of the young man,
he moved to Jackson county, Missouri, making
there not only a home for himself and family, but
for his mother. In 1836, he removed to Platte
county, Missouri, but in 1847, having, from some
occult reason, which might have been hard for him
to deliver, determined to cross the plains to Oregon,
he made provision for his beloved mother with a
younger brother, and bade her a last farewell, and
with his young wife and little children accomplished
the great journey. He joined his team and wagon
to the large train of Captain William Vaughn, a
ranger of the plains. The usual division being
necessary, and the various companies and even
single teams disengaging themselves from the main
caravan, he also learned to travel according to the
strength of his animals and the location of wood,
water, etc., and brought the long toil to a successful
issue. He was constantly ready to help others in
their troubles, and in the sickness and accidents of
the way performed the part of the good Samaritan.
He thereby acquainted himself with and greatly
endeared himself to the other immigrants of that
year.
During his subsequent life in our state he brought
to bear the same generous and manly qualities.
He made his first home on the Abiqua, together
with his wife and children, developing one of the
fine old places. He was in the Indian fight that
took place near his home. He was perhaps as
extensively known as any man in the State of
Oregon. His home was a stopping place for all the
travelers from the upper valley to Portland, and a
resting place for most of the immigrants that came
to Oregon. He was accustomed to hardships and
privation, and knew the art of extracting all the
sweets from the sour and bitter, and loved, more-
over, the freedom, beauty and purity of a virgin
state. He was also a most industrious worker, a
good business man and a friend of progress; and it
was a satisfaction to him when the difficulties of
distance and isolation were overcome and modern
improvements were made as available here as else-
where. A man of vigorous intellect, he might have
stood high in almost any branch of professional life
could he have had the advantages of an early
education.
He was a friend of churches and of schools, being
a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian denom-
ination. His religious character was positive;
and no man who knew him doubted his sincerity.
It was one of the great pleasures of his life to
accommodate and entertain in the hearty style of the
old days his friends, and even strangers, who came
from all points to the camp-meeting held near hist
home. In 1870 he removed to Salem to spend the
evening of his life, and died there May 12, 1876, at
a ripe old age. In a public capacity he was also
active and efficient, serving in many positions of
trust, and being a member of the committee to
construct a state-house. His counsel on any subject
was always safe. Although a Democrat in early
life, he went with the Republicans in 1861, and
remained with them until his death. The children,
Elizabeth, Thomas B., Evaline, Julia A., Ange-
line, William H., Mary L. and Linnie A. are among
our most respected citizens. Two are deceased,
Julia A. and William H.
Mrs. Sarah Allen, of much the same character
and principles as her late husband, is one of those
capable, brave and loving mothers of Oregon whom
we all respect. She has made her home in Salem
ever since his death, and in 1877 was united in
marriage, secondly, to Mr. S. A. Trimble of Marion
county.
THOS. M. ALVORD.— Mr. Alvord was born
in Homer, Courtland county, New York, February
26, 1832, and is the son of Sylvester and Lucy Hull
Alvord. His grandfather was a soldier in the Rev-
olutionary war, serving under General Washington,
and took up a Donation claim on the present site of
Homer, New York. His father was born on the
place, and died in 1864. He resided at his birth-
place until 1853, when with his brother, Henry S.,
he left New York on board the Prometheus, via Nic-
aragua, and on the Pacific side took the Cortez,
arriving in San Francisco December 1, 1853. He
then went to Calaveras county and followed mining
for three and a half years, with fair success, and
during the summers followed farming. In Decem-
ber, 1854, his brother returned to the East and
visited the coast again in the summer of 1889.
On the breaking out of the Frazer river excite-
ment, he came north, but only remained a short
time, returning to Olympia in December, 1858, and
prospecting the county for a location. In February,
1859, he purchased the Donation claim of Moses
Kirkland and wife. This consisted of 320 acres, to
which he has since added, until now he owns 1, 100
acres half a mile from the town of Kent.
In 1884,
he built his present beautiful home, and is now
engaged in general farming and largely in the dairy
business, shipping a large quantity of milk to
Seattle. He has, unlike his neighbors, never
entered into hop-raising. Mr. Alvord is Republican
in politics, though not a politician, and never hav-
ing held an office. His wife, to whom he was mar-
ried in New York in 1859, was Miss Maria J. Smith,
a native of New York. They have been blessed with
three sons and one daughter.
ELI K. ANDERSON. There is no pioneer of
whom volumes might be written with more propri-
ety than he whose name appears above. Miner,
194
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST— OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Indian fighter, relentless pursuer of horse thieves,
pioneer of the great fruit industry of Southern Ore-
gon, and sterling temperance man, and singular,
almost passing belief, in this age of defilers of them-
selves of tobacco, a total abstainer his whole life
long from the use of the weed,-such is our sub-
ject.
He was born in Indiana in 1826; and, after vari-
ous transferences of residence in that state, during
which he learned the carpenter's trade, he came to
California with the Owen's train in 1849,-being one
of the Argonauts who steered their vehicles across
the seas of grass and alkali deserts. They were
afflicted with cholera and lost cattle on the way, but
were not otherwise annoyed. Mr. Anderson stopped
near the present site of Shasta City, and made the
descent of the Sacramento river the next year in a
skiff constructed of lumber, whip-sawed by himself
with the help of three other young men. At Sacra-
mento they sold their boat for five hundred dollars,
and went to San Francisco, where they bought a sail
boat, and returned with a cargo of flour, which they
disposed of at Marysville to good advantage. An-
derson thereupon began working at his trade for
sixteen dollars a day.
In 1850, he came to the mines in Northern Cali-
fornia, and was so fortunate as to be one of the
original discoverers of the famous Scott bar, on Scott
river, where for ten days they were unmolested by
the Indians, and allowed to dig as much gold as they
pleased, making as high as five hundred dollars a
day. There were some twenty in this company,
that of Captain Scott. But a quarrel soon arose with
the Indians; and, after killing a few Klamaths, the
company broke up. Anderson went to Shasta City
and formed a company of twenty to return to the
same place and secure more of the gold. But the
location had been betrayed by one of the original
party; and the new company was followed by two
squads, consisting of nine and forty men respectively,
and the dust was too limited for so many.
Returning to Sacramento, Anderson was prevented
from returning East only by meeting a brother there.
They returned to Shasta. He succeeded here in his
mining claim, and met General Lane mining on
Shasta river. After this he went to Scott river, and
from there to North Salmon river and mined during
the summer of 1851. The following fall he made a
great chase after horse thieves, following three noted
roughs north of Big Klamath Lake to the head of the
Des Chutes river, where he found them murdered and
their bodies thrown into the river and robbed by
the Indians, who were piloting them through the
country. Pursuing and capturing these new thieves,
he made the entire circuit of the mountains, coming
as far north as The Dalles, and returning to Cali-
fornia via the Willamette valley and Southern Ore-
gon. After a number of escapades, he delivered the
thieves to the alcalde at Yreka, the point from which
he started.
This introduced him to Oregon; and in 1852 he
came to the Rogue river valley and immediately took
up his present place near Ashland. For the sake of
procuring seed in a region hitherto entirely new, he
was obliged to make a trip to Yamhill county, and
received eight dollars a bushel for his first crop of
wheat (amounting to eight hundred bushels). He
participated in the Indian war of 1853, and has held
the office of county commissioner. He now owns
some seven hundred acres of land in Jackson county,
and has property and mill interests at Ashland. On
his place two miles north of Phoenix, he has an
orchard of sixty acres. He is a Republican of pro-
nounced views, and strong for temperance. He has
a family of six daughters and one son. His wife,
Elizabeth, daughter of Nathaniel Myers, is a pio-
neer of 1853, a lady of resolution and energy, and of
superior culture and refinement.
WM. R. ANDERSON.— This well-known pio-
neer of Clarke county was born in West Virginia
in 1822, and there received his education and was
apprenticed to learn the working of leather and the
manufacture of boots and shoes. Being possessed
of a roving disposition, he went out to Missouri in
1848, and the year following took the final step to
reach the Pacific. His trip across the mountains
was brought about by his hiring to drive a govern-
ment wagon to Fort Hall. Reaching this point too
late to return that season, the commander proposed
to the squad of thirty-six men to go on down to
Vancouver for the winter. On the Blue Mountains
they floundered through snow up to their armpits,
and from The Dalles came down on the ice of the
Columbia to White Salmon, and, just above the Cas-
cades, camped one night on the rocks in the river
to avoid submergence on the shore from the heavy
rain.
Work was furnished at Vancouver at sixty dollars
per month; and, subsequently, Mr. Anderson went
to Hunt's sawmill, near the present Westport, to build
the Columbia, the first steamer constructed in Oregon.
Coming to Portland, he was married in 1851, and
lived on a farm below the town, but in 1854 came to
Clarke county, taking the Donation claim four miles
north, upon which he has since resided. This region
was originally densely timbered, and has been noted
for the piling furnished for the Portland wharves.
Our settler bore his part in the Indian war, and was
in the service while the seven hundred Indians were
brought for safe-keeping to Fort Vancouver, and
made their escape during a heavy storm at night,
and out to Strong's battle ground, whither they
repaired, and killed their chief Umatuts for opposing
their desire to begin hostilities. Mr. Anderson also
well remembers the government mule that was given
him to ride, an animal of such a character that he
paid another man four bits to mount it first. He
has resided on his place to the present time, clearing
and improving the farm, and has thereby provided
a competence for his thirteen children.
C. L. ANDREWS.- The present county clerk
of Morrow county was born in Ashtabula county,
Ohio, October, 1862. He came with his parents to
Oregon in 1864, via the Isthmus, and lost his father
by death soon after reaching the Pacific Ocean, and
saw him buried from the ship in a watery grave.
He located with the family near Brownsville, and
here received his education, completing the same
at Philomath College. He made his home near
Brownsville until 1882. In that year he went over

W. H. TAYLOR'S
RESIDENCE,
SPOKANE FALLS, W. T
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
195
to Seattle, where he accepted a position as mailing
clerk, filling it eight months. In 1883, he came to
Heppner, and has made this enterprising place his
permanent home. In 1886, he was elected clerk
of the county, and was re-elected to this position
in 1888, at the instance and by the support of
the Republican party. Mr. Andrews is one of
the men of growing influence in the Inland Empire;
and it is to him and such as he that his community
will look for its development and further progress.
JESSE APPLEGATE.- The following brief
obituary sketch of the late "Uncle" Jesse Apple-
gate was written by General E. L. Applegate, than
whom none is better fitted to perform the task,-
unwelcome in the occasion of its necessity, yet
grateful in the opportunity it offers to pay the well-
earned tribute of respect and veneration to the wis-
dom, the worth and the influence of the "Sage of
Yoncalla.'
The subject of this sketch was born near Lexing-
ton, Kentucky, in 1810, and died in Yoncalla valley,
Oregon, on the 23d of April, 1888, being in his
seventy-eighth year. He was the youngest son of
Daniel Applegate, a revolutionary soldier who served
in that memorable struggle for human liberty for
seven years, and then volunteered to help Jackson
beat the British at New Orleans, in which campaign
he lost his eldest son, Elisha. His ancestors be-
longed among the charter proprietors who founded
the province of Maryland and the city of Baltimore.
Upon the close of the revolutionary war Daniel,
along with the Boone's and others of their relations
and acquaintances, pioneered his way into the wil-
derness of Kentucky. In 1819, he moved on with
his large family, consisting of Milton, Lisbon, Lucy,
Charles, Lindsay and Jesse, to the then territory of
Missouri, and settled near St. Louis.
Jesse, while yet a boy, attracted the attention of
leading men of St. Louis; and it was believed that
he gave indications of uncommon abilities. He
graduated in his eighteenth year at Rock Spring
Seminary, an institution of learning founded by the
celebrated Doctor Peck of St. Louis. By the kind
offices of his friend Milburn, who was chief clerk in
the surveyor-general's office, he was introduced to
Edward Bates, who was then surveyor-general of
the western territory, and who appointed Jesse to be
the draughtsman in his office. Being now situated
in a good position the young man, before he was
twenty, was married to Miss Cynthia Parker, and
settled down to house-keeping and the prosecution
of his work in the office, in which he displayed great
thoroughness and proficiency, and at the time was
regarded by men of learning as a prodigy in the
mathematical sciences. But the monotony of office
routine was too confining for his restless disposition;
and, therefore, he soon took the field as a United
States deputy surveyor, and prosecuted the work
with such energy and success that in a few years he
was regarded as a wealthy man.
In 1843 we find him located upon his magnificent
home farm on the Osage river, within three miles of
the town of Osceola, the county-seat of St. Clair
county, Missouri, surrounded by all the comforts
and the then elegancies of life. His house was the
open resort of the great people of the state and of
the western territory. Such guests were frequently
found at his hospitable board as Bates, Doctor Peck,
Benton, Doctor Linn, Doctor Redman and Colonel
Beal, the Bells, the Dodges, the Marmadukes, the
Jacksons, the Hutchings, the Breckenridges, the
Waldos, the Sappingtons, the Austins, the Ash-
worths, the Mayos and the McKinzies.
national affairs were discussed, and among other
matters the exceedindly captivating subject of the
Oregon country.
Here
During the severe winter of 1842-43 letters were
received from Oregon from Robert Shortess, descrip-
tive of the comparatively mild climate and, above
all, the perpetually green hills of this wonderfully
favored land. Carried away by the enthusiasm of
romance and adventure, he, together with his
brothers Charles and Lindsay, with Waldo, Looney
and many others, resolved to rent out their farms,
trade off their personal property for oxen, wagons
and stock cattle, and roll out for the perpetually
green and grassy hills and plains of the far-off Ore-
gon. Accordingly, by the middle of May, 1843,
their trains were winding their way westward upon
the broad plains beyond the western settlements.
At the first encampment west of the Big Blue, Jesse
Applegate was chosen captain of the emigration,
and held that office and discharged its arduous duties
to the disbanding of the emigration on the Umatilla
river at the western foot of the Blue Mountains,
after the severe struggle of cutting the road through
the forests of that mountain. It was understood
that Lieutenant Frémont, a son-in-law of Senator
Benton, being selected by him for that purpose,
should go before, with a cannon, to look out the
way, and awe off the Indians with his big gun.
But, going too far up the South Platte, he fell be-
hind, and never caught up with the emigration until
he reached Soda Springs in Bear river valley. Then
he found he could not " proceed in the advance,'
because his carriages were too light to break the
sage; so he quietly followed along behind to the
encampment on Grande Ronde river, about two miles
north of where the city of La Grande now stands.
Here Frémont crossed the river and struck through
the mountain in a northwest course for the head-
waters of the Walla Walla river, while the emigrant
train pulled up the mountain where the city just
mentioned now stands, on to the head of Rock creek;
and from thence they cut their way through the
forest.
From Umatilla, Jesse Applegate, his brothers and
their immediate friends, proceeded northward by way
of the Whitman Mission to Fort Walla Walla with
the view of leaving their cattle for the winter under
the protection of Captain Armintinger of the Hud-
son's Bay Company. Thus leaving their wagons.
and cattle, they proceeded down the river by water;
but at Celilo Falls they met with a great calamity
which cast a shadow over the whole company and
over Jesse Applegate's whole life. Bringing with
them a complete supply of a variety of tools, when
these people arrived at Fort Walla Walla, located
at a point on the river where the town of Wallula
now stands, they were prepared to readily work both
wood and iron. Therefore, immediately erecting
196
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
shops and saw-pits, in an incredible short time
they had built and launched a sufficient number of
well-constructed boats, some of them quite large, in
which to navigate the waters of the Columbia. They
had built, also, for light and contingent purposes, a
couple of small skiffs. It was one of these that
went over Celilo Falls. Among those of the families
lost was his son Edward, named after his benefactor,
Edward Bates. His first son he had named Milburn,
to honor his friend Milburn of St. Louis. This son
was burnt to death by his clothes catching fire when
he was a mere child. He used to mournfully say:
"Thus by the elements of fire and water have I lost
the pledges of my gratitude for my early benefactors;
and this I regard as a bad omen upon my life."
This Columbia river calamity led to that most ex-
pensive and severe expedition to explore and open
the south road in 1846, that a safer way for emi-
grants might be found to Oregon than by way of the
Columbia cañon.
In the early days of Oregon, Jesse Applegate took
an active part in the foundation of the Provisional
government and the direction of public affairs. His
house was resorted to by leading men and chiefs of
tribes for council. He entertained, during the
summer of 1845, the Envoy of the British Minister
and his suit, when out to this country upon a trip of
exploration and observation. In pursuance of his
report, the claims of the British government were
so modified that they were adopted by Polk's admin-
istration; and in a convention of the two powers
held on the 15th of June, 1846, those long-pending
and dangerous questions pertaining to Oregon were
definitely settled by treaty.
The summer of 1846 was spent in the explorations
for the southern route to Oregon. At that time the
country from Pilot Rock eastward to the sink of the
Humboldt was noted on the standard map of the
United States as an unexplored region. Upon the
desert the company came near perishing for want of
water; and the captain of the expedition received
such injuries from thirst and the heat of the sun that
periodically it effected his mind ever after. The
route was found and the way opened through the
Siskiyou Mountains, the Grave creek hills, the
Umpqua cañon, and the Calapooia Mountains, alto-
gether about eighty miles of forests being cut
through. It cost very largely the responsible par-
ties in the great undertaking; but for it all, includ-
ing the escort sent out in 1847 to meet, pilot and
defend the immigrants, including also beef cattle
and other supplies sent to the immigrants, no Apple-
gate ever received a quarter of a dollar by way of
pay or assistance for all that effort and expense.
In the winter of 1847, when the Whitman massa-
cre occurred, Jesse Applegate was one of the fore-
most men in establishing a territorial credit by the
formation of personal bonds by which supplies could
be procured for the Oregon army, that the country
might be defended from an uprising of the savages,
the prisoners rescued from among the Indians, and
the Cayuses chastised for their blood-thirsty out-
rage. During the same winter he made an attempt,
at the head of a small company of brave men, to
beat through the snow-drifts of the Siskiyou to
California, to call upon the United States officers
there for help for Oregon in her emergency.
The early summer of 1849 was spent in explora-
tions and road-building, with the Klamath common-
wealth. This was a company organized among the
leading spirits of the Yamhill country, mainly to
locate somewhere in Southern Oregon or Northern
California, where gold-mining, agriculture and manu-
facturing could all be carried on as a mutual opera-
tion, in a word, to plant all the elements of
civilization in the wilderness, and at the same time
be strong enough to defend it against the hordes of
savages then inhabiting that country. Upon the
plain near where Jacksonville now stands, the
company, consisting of about one hundred and
twenty men, with fifty wagons, formed their corral
and proceeded to vote upon the question of loca-
tion. One side maintained that within the circle of
a few miles were to be found all the elements of
success,― gold, soil and water-power. The other
side admitted the elements, but urged that the cli-
mate would not do. A showing of snow had appeared
on the 20th of May on the tops of the surrounding
hills. It indicated too cold weather for the growth
of domestic plants, a country only fit for the
abode of the wild man. In vain did the affirmative
point to the splendid oak timber, the natural plum
orchards and vineyards, and urge that wherever
such growth is found domestic plants must succeed,
and civilization always find a safe and successful
home. Nevertheless the negative prevailed with a
decisive majority; and the great enterprise was
abandoned.
In the fall of 1849, Uncle Jesse, as he was, by
this time, universally called, gathered up his herds,
and with his large family of boys and girls moved
off from the Willamette valley, crossed the Calapooia
Mountains, and settled down as a pioneer of Yon-
calla valley, in the Umpqua country. Here he
obtained his section of land, the reward of the
Oregon pioneer promised to them by Benton and
Linn before he left Missouri.
Linn before he left Missouri. Here he built up a
fine home, embracing the comforts and elegancies
of an advanced civilization. His house was open
and resorted to by distinguished personages all up
and down the coast, and, in fact, from one side of
the continent to the other.
He was a member of the constitutional conven-
tion. He was opposed to the extension of slavery.
He was in favor of internal improvements and the
protection of American industry by the general gov-
ernment; and upon the outbreak of the rebellion he
was loyal to the very core. But in the zenith of his
influence and success in life, he trusts the unworthy,
he is betrayed by the designing and treacherous and
struck deep with the poisoned fang of ingratitude,
-his property swept from him, his affairs and him-
self a ruin.
self a ruin. Thus the mighty hath fallen! As the
tall Pillar, or the grand Colussus, under the awful
pressure of the hand of time, must crumble and
fall, must finally mingle its particles with the com-
mon kindred dust of the plain, so we give him up,
as we must all give up each other, to a fate that
cannot be stayed, to a destiny which we cannot
know. Then, farewell, Uncle Jesse! Thou grand
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
197
man, with thy great heart, with thy bright and
wonderful intellect and universal knowledge, thou
prince of lofty conversationalists, fare thee well!
GREEN ARNOLD.- One of the earliest pio-
neers of the country lying east of the Cascade Moun-
tains is the gentleman whose name heads this sketch.
He was born in Niagara county, New York, in 1818,
and received his education at his native place. In
1833, he moved to Michigan with his parents, where
he remained until 1850, when, hearing of the won-
derful stories of the rich discoveries of gold in Cali-
fornia, he buckled on his armor of faith and started
across the plains, landing in Hangtown (now Placer-
ville) on the 6th day of August of the same year.
He remained in California till June 1, 1851, and
then returned to Michigan, where he remained till
1852. He then recrossed the plains, landing in
Milwaukee, Oregon, in October of the same year,
where he went into the hotel business, and remained
there until May, 1853, when he went to Champoeg.
Here he again went into the hotel business, remain-
ing until July, when he went to The Dalles, and from
thence to Butter Creek, on the old emigrant trail in
Umatilla county, with a pack train of goods, for
the purpose of trading with the Indians and the
emigrants then en route to the Willamette valley
from across the plains. He remained at Butter
Creek until October, when he returned to Cham-
poeg, and in the spring of 1854 returned to Eastern
Oregon and established a trading post in Grande
Ronde valley, at the foot of what is now known as
the Ladd hill, for the purpose of supplying the
incoming emigrants with provisions.
In October, 1853, he returned to the Umatilla
agency, where Echo now stands, leaving his cattle
and horses in charge of Irk Davidson and the late
Henry M. Ellsworth. He made a trip to Portland
for the purpose of purchasing more goods to trade
with the Indians, as they had expressed a desire for
him to do so. He returned in November with a
fresh supply of goods, and with the permission of
General Joel Palmer, then superintendent of Indian
affairs for Oregon and Washington Territories, and
also from R. R. Thompson, then Indian agent for
the Indians east of the Cascade Mountains. Upon
the second day after Mr. Arnold's return to the
agency, a man by the name of Throstle, a resident
of The Dalles, who had come to the agency to find a
horse that had been stolen from him, had a dispute
with one of the Indians, when Throstle shot him,
wounding him seriously, and then mounting his
horse fled. The shooting of the Indian caused great
excitement; and Mr. Arnold had great difficulty in
restraining the Indians from massacring all the
Whites in that vicinity; but upon a promise that
Throstle should be arrested and punished for his
crime, and by dispatching two men to The Dalles
with letters to Agent Thompson informing him of
the affair, the Indians became pacified for a time.
The third day after he had dispatched the messen-
gers to Thompson, a half-breed Indian brought a
letter to him from Captain Nathan Olney at The
Dalles, stating that Agent Thompson was at Port-
land, and advising him to abandon everything, and
with whatever Whites there might be at the agency
to make their escape, as the Indians would surely
kill them all.
Upon the reception of Olney's letter, he invited
Winapsnoot, the head chief of the Umatilla and
Columbia river Indians, who was rich in horses, to
take supper with him, and, placing the white men
and all his goods in his charge, informed him he
was going to The Dalles to consult with Thompson,
and that he should hold him responsible for the lives
of the white men then at the agency, as well as for
his goods. Upon arriving at The Dalles, he found
Agent Thompson there, to whom he stated the par-
ticulars of the shooting, and informed him of the
excitement and dissatisfaction among the Indians
in regard to the affair. Agent Thompson said he
could not leave The Dalles for several days on
account of business of importance, and advised him
to start for the agency, and that he would overtake
him. Arnold's party started to return to the agency,
proceeding quite leisurely, expecting Thompson to
overtake them, well knowing there would be serious
trouble without the agent. Eight days were con-
sumed in making the return trip. Upon their
arrival at the agency without Agent Thompson and
the culprit Throstle, the Indians became very much
excited, and threatened to exterminate all the
Whites in their midst, except Doctor McKay, to
whom they gave notice that if he would leave the
premises they would not harm him, but if he re-
mained they would kill him.
Arnold advised the Doctor to leave at once, and
instructed him to tell the Indians that he would
'hold the fort," as he had arms and ammunition
with which to protect himself, and that if they
came within a certain distance of the house they
would surely be killed. McKay took his advice and
started for his house, some twenty-five miles distant
from the trading post, first giving the Indians the
message. Arnold had informed Winapsnoot that
he or any of the chiefs of the various tribes could
come and talk with the party, but that he would
not allow any of the tribe to visit them without
being escorted
being escorted or accompanied by some of the
chiefs. After waiting five days for Agent Thomp-
son, he told his Indian herder to bring five of the
best horses and tie them near the house. The Indi-
ans, seeing the horses, asked Winapasnoot what
those horses were there for, as they feared the Whites
would escape without the offender Throstle being
punished, and sent him to inquire concerning them.
Arnold told Winapsnoot that he was going to send
the boys to McKay's for potatoes for the New Year's
celebration. This explanation satisfied them, as he
had asked Winapsnoot to take supper with the party.
The Indians then retired to their camps; and, when
Winapsnoot and Arnold were eating supper, David-
son and Ellsworth, in accordance with previous
arrangements, had prepared the horses to leave for
The Dalles. After supper Arnold informed Wei-
mam that we were going to The Dalles on important
business, and should leave all goods, horses and
cattle in his charge, and hold him responsible for
their safe-keeping, and that the great Father at
Washington would uphold him in protecting what
was left in his care. As soon as the party had left
for The Dalles, Weimam went to the Indians and told
198
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
them that the white men had left. The Indians started
to intercept them; but the horses of the former
being the fleetest, they avoided the redskins, arriv-
ing at The Dalles the next morning making the dis-
tance (110 miles) in fourteen hours. Upon arriving
at The Dalles they found Agent Thompson, who
returned to the agency with some seventy-five sol-
diers and settled matters satisfactorily in regard to
the shooting of the Indian, who in the meantime
had recovered.
Upon arriving at the agency, Arnold found all
his property safe, it having been carefully guarded
by Winapsnoot. Upon request of the Indians made
to Agent Thompson and himself that he should
remain and trade with them, he did so, staying until
April, 1855, when he returned to The Dalles and
located a farm on Three-mile creek, leaving his cat-
tle and horses near the agency, expecting to return
and drive them to his ranch. In the meantime the
Indians had become very much dissatisfied on
account of the Palmer-Stevens treaty; and, know-
ing that trouble would ensue, Arnold returned to
the agency for the purpose of removing his stock.
Reaching the place, he proceeded to gather his
horses and cattle to drive them to The Dalles; but
the younger portion of the Indians placed every
impediment in the way to prevent his doing so, while
the older ones assisted him in every possible way.
The younger spirits prevailed; and he lost 120 head
of cattle and horses, besides all the goods he had at
the agency.
Arnold then returned to his farm on
Three-mile creek, and raised one of the first crops of
grain in that section, and planted the first trees. In
the fall of 1858, he moved to Birch creek, Umatilla
county, and opened up the first farm, and raised
the first grain crop ever raised there. In 1862,
Mr. Arnold moved to where La Grande now stands,
laid out the first lots and gave the town its name on
account of its beautiful location and scenery. He
brought the first grain, cattle and hogs ever brought
there, sowed and raised the first grain ever raised in
Grande Ronde valley, and built the first steam saw-
mill and hotel in the valley. He washed out the first
gold ever washed out from Grande river, Granite
creek, Burnt and Powder rivers. This was in 1861,
in company with Captain Pierce, John Rogers of
Oregon City, Geo. Fellows, John Stevens and a few
others. When the immigration commenced to flow
into Grande Ronde valley, he went into farming and
stockraising, and is to-day a hale and hearty man
and unmarried.
JAMES P. ATWOOD, M. D.-One of the
most successful physicians of Baker City, Oregon,
is the gentleman whose name appears as the head-
ing of this sketch. A careful and conscientious
gentleman of temperate habits, and thoroughly
reliable in all public and professional as well as
private matters, he enjoys the confidence of the
public, and has a large practice. He was born in
Wisconsin in 1846, but was educated in Oregon, at
Sublimity and at Corvallis, and took his degree in
medicine from the medical department of the Wil-
lamette University at Salem, and from the medical
department of the Columbia College, New York.
His father, A. F. Atwood, a pioneer of 1853, lived
on his farm four miles from Corvallis until 1868,
when he removed to Walla Walla county, Wash-
ington. Territory, where he died March 24, 1889.
Dr. Atwood's first field was at La Grande; but in
1871 he removed to his present location, where he
has since been actively employed. Baker City was
then but a village of some seven hundred inhab-
itants, although money was then in abundant circu-
lation. Mining interests still dominate, and will
always be pre-eminent. The surrounding region
is remarkably healthy, phthisic being almost
unknown. The Doctor was married in 1882 to
Miss Florence Thompson of San Francisco, Cali-
fornia, and has one child living.
J. C. AVERY.-Mr. Avery, the first owner,
and, in almost every respect, the founder of Cor-
vallis, was born in Punckhannock, Pennsylvania,
in 1817.
He received his education at Wilkesbarre,
and thereafter studied medicine, but, preferring a
less confined life than that necessitated by this
profession, went as a pioneer to Illinois in 1837.
Engaging in the land business, he at length under-
took the life of a farmer, and was married in 1841
to Miss Martha Marsh. Farming upon the prairies.
at that early day did not prove remunerative; and
in 1845 he came alone to Oregon, bringing an
ox-team and about twenty-five stock cattle. Mak-
ing his headquarters at Oregon City, he spent the
first months in exploring the Willamette valley;
and, as all the land on the west side of the river
south of the La Creole was absolutely without
occupants except Indians, he had only to exert his
judgment to select the best site from among the
thousand good ones. He chose the plain lying at
the Great Bend of the Willamette, where this river
approaches nearest the Coast Mountains.
Moving upon this place in 1846, he sent for his
family, who made the perilous trip across the plains
with Sawyer's company. Upon their arrival, he
began the systematic development of his place; for
it was not as a farm, but as the site of a city, that
he had secured this magnificent situation upon the
Willamette. By means of a store—the only one on
the west side of Dallas-he facilitated and hastened
the settlement of the surrounding region, and made
this point the center. He was instrumental in
forming a court for Benton county, of which O. C.
Pratt was judge.
Mr. Avery's public virtues, his integrity and
breadth of views won for him the confidence of the
community; and he was soon sent to the territorial
and later to the state legislature to represent Benton
county, and was re-elected many times. The power
thus secured by him was ever used faithfully in the
interest of the whole state, and for the benefit of
Benton county and of Corvallis. By his care the
county was so delimited as to make this city the
center, and naturally the county-seat. He also
secured this point as the site of the State Univer-
sity, and even gained it as the state capital. The
legislative agreement was not, however, fully kept;
and, upon the popular election in 1858, the capital
was removed to Salem. He was also active in
securing Corvallis as the location of the Agricultural
College, and was a member of the committee to

J. F.SHEEHAN, ESQ.,
SHERIFF JEFFERSON CO.,PORT TOWNSEND, W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
199
locate the college lands, and also of the board to
prescribe rules and regulations for the government
of the college and the course of study. He ever
gave liberally of his means to the institution, and
was very active in the promotion of the Willamette
Valley & Coast Railway to Yaquina.
In early days,—1853 to 1855,―he held a govern-
ment position by appointment of President Pierce
as postal agent for the district embracing Oregon
and Washington. While conducting his mercantile
While conducting his mercantile
business at Corvallis, he was very often called upon,
and it was his practice, to credit needy and destitute
settlers with necessaries. His generous and mag-
nanimous treatment was never abused; and he
believed that he never lost a cent by this course,
having, moreover, the pleasure of doing substantial
good to his fellow-beings. He was cut off by death
in 1876, being then fifty-nine years old, and leaving
a wife and six children to mourn his loss. The
whole community was afflicted by this sad event.
HON. JOHN M. BACON. There are three
places in the Northwest that have almost antique
associations. These are Astoria, Vancouver and
Oregon City. Of none of them is the flavor of old
times more pronounced than amid the rocks and
bluffs and by the falls and the old buildings of the
latter place. Here one of the old pioneers may be
found in the person of a gentleman whose portrait
appears on the opposite page.
It was as to the last place to go to that Mr. Bacon
came to Oregon. A native of Buffalo, New York,
born in 1822, he lost his father two years later, and
lived with his grandfather until fourteen years old.
He kept himself in America three years longer,
working in a store, but at the age of seventeen shipped
before the mast from New Bedford in a whaler.
He was two years in China, and in 1844, going out
to Bombay, took service as second mate on an En-
glish ship. This took him to London. Returning
to the United States by the Atlantic, having seen
the bigness of the world, he came out to Illinois
with his brother Francis, now a resident on the
Sandy. In 1845, he came to Independence, Missouri,
and, joining the Barlow train, came to Oregon, being
one of the number to hunt out the Barlow road
across the Cascades. Of course, he went to Califor-
nia in 1849; but, ill health bringing him back to
Oregon, he located on Elliott's prairie, fourteen
miles from Oregon City. In 1856, looking for a
somewhat more eligible home, where he might have
church and educational privileges for his family,
he removed to the town itself, finding employment
in the store of Charman & Warner and of Charman
& Son. Six years later he tried his luck at running
a store and stock ranch at Lewiston, but soon
returned. Being intrusted with political honors, he
was elected county clerk, and four years later city
recorder and overseer. Being appointed postmaster
in 1868, he has never left the old city of the falls.
He has been postmaster twenty years.
Mr. Bacon has been a prominent mason, joining
Multnomah Lodge, No. 1, the first in the state, in
1850. In 1856, he joined the Odd Fellows, and has
held the office of Grand Scribe since 1873. His
property interests in the city are quite considerable;
and he runs a book and stationery store in connec-
tion with the postoffice. The wife of Mr. Bacon,
Rachael W. Newman, daughter of Reverend Samuel
Newman; is also a pioneer of 1845. They have had
twelve children, seven of whom are living. They
were married in 1857.
HON. M. BAKER.- This well-known attor-
ney, and senior member of the firm of Baker &
Baker, is not only a pioneer of Eastern Oregon, but
comes from a long line of the subduers of the wil-
derness who have lived in the Old West.
He was
born in Illinois in 1831, and in 1836 went to Iowa.
In this new territory the advantages of education
were few; and the frontiersman's boy must work.
Nevertheless the boy, as he grew to youth, deter-
mined to have a hand in affairs, and began reading.
law, being admitted to the bar in 1860. In this
same year he had attained a prominence sufficient to
be sent as a delegate to the Chicago convention
which nominated Lincoln for his first term. A jour-
ney across the continent had, however, been deter-
mined on; and with his family, together with his
parents, brothers and sisters, he set forth in 1862.
He had been married on December 12, 1850, in the
State of Iowa, to a good and noble woman, who has
at all times done her part well, both as a wife and
mother, and who is justly entitled to equal credit
and honor with her husband for whatever success
they have had in life, as well as in rearing and edu-
cating their children to be upright and honorable
men and women. The father, James Baker, who
accompanied his children and their families on that
long journey, is still living at La Grande at the
great age of eighty-five.
Their journey to Oregon was environed with
dangers from the Indians; but they avoided all and
reached La Grande on the 31st of September, 1862.
A home was made on the prairie, but soon left for
one in town. Five families then comprised the city
of La Grande; but Mr. Baker began the practice
of law, though keeping an anchor to windward
in the form of a band of cattle. He has, how-
ever, never abandoned his professional calling.
Some of his early experiences were troublesome,
as when he was obliged to walk to Walla Walla
and purchase shorts on credit for the use of his
family; but his abilities have since gained for him
a competence. His energies, however, have not
been exclusively devoted to his own fortune, but
largely also to the public prosperity. Though not
an office-seeker, Judge Baker has been a very active
worker for the Republican party, having stumped
Eastern Oregon and more frequently his own county
in its interests. He has been active in public im-
provements, having been one of the originators of
the National Bank, of which he is president; and hav-
ing also been one of the founders of the Blue Moun-
tain University, for the establishment of which he
donated ten per cent of the seventeen thousand dol-
lars required. The children of Mr. Baker are J. F.,
who is his law partner, S. K., Jessie G., Carrie S.,
Horace G., Lloyd L., and James V.
NATHAN BAKER. Mr. Baker is a native of
Indiana, having been born in that state in 1837.
200
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
When but a child of three years he accompanied his
parents to Missouri. In 1849, he suffered the loss
of his father, who died that year in California,
whither he had gone to dig gold. In 1858, the
young man went to Kansas, and, entering a tract
of land, made that state his home for fourteen
years. During this time he had been two years in
the army, serving in the Fifth Kansas Cavalry, and
a year in the Tenth Kansas Infantry. His term was
during the latter part of the war.
In 1872 he came to Polk county, Oregon, and a
year later selected a home in the beautiful Indian
valley in Union county, near Elgin. There he has
thrived in his operations, and owns at present a
farm of 560 acres inclosed with a fence, with a nice
house and pleasant surroundings. The fertility of
the soil may be inferred from the fact that fifty-two
bushels of wheat per acre have been raised on this
place. In 1863 Mr. Baker married Miss Aletha
Hoffman of Kansas. Their seven children are all
living except one; and they have also five grand-
children.
THOMAS BAKER.—Mr. Baker was born in
Bullitt county, Kentucky, in 1832, being the son of
George C. and Elizabeth Miller Baker. When he
was eighteen months old his parents moved to Han-
cock county, Illinois. He remained in that country
until the spring of 1852, being employed on his
father's farm. In the spring of this year, he started
with his older brother across the plains to California,
and arrived in the Golden State in August, 1852.
For ten years he was actively engaged in mining,
and was among the number who made the stampede
to the Florence mines of Idaho. For one season he
dug gold there, and for the succeeding two years in
the Boise basin. Changing his business to that of
packing from Umatilla Landing to the mines in
Idaho, and afterwards on the route from Lewiston,
he spent six years to good profit.
Coming to the more civilized portions of our
state, he selected a home at Waitsburg, and for
three years was engaged in the livery business.
Subsequently he took the mail contract from Walla
Walla to Pen d'Oreille Lake, a distance of 175
miles. His means of locomotion were ponies exclu-
sively. The following year he leased the old Brown
ferry on Snake river, and conducted this business
until 1875, when he purchased an interest in the
livery business of C. B. King, of Colfax; and this
is at present his business and means of livelihood.
He also owns a farm of 240 acres adjoining the
town of Colfax, and a fine property in the city. Mr.
Baker is married and has two children.
He is one
of our citizens who adorns any society and business,
and the record of whose life in these pages will
always be referred to with interest.
HON. JESSE B. BALL.— Twenty miles up the
Skagit river, in the heart of one of the richest
timber sections of Washington, is Sterling, a thriv-
ing young city, with high hopes for the future.
The founder of the place is the man whose name
appears at the head of this sketch. Mr. Ball is a
pioneer of 1853, having crossed the plains in that
year and stopped at Downieville, where he worked
a short time for a company of miners,-his only
work for anybody but himself on this coast. His
career has had the restless activity and energy
characteristic of our people. At Nevada City and
other points he was engaged in mining for two
years. At Oroville he was in the stock business for
nine years. Taking advantage of the no-fence law,
he then spent three years at Honey Lake valley, in
the same pursuit.
In 1867 he came to Puget Sound, and in 1868
farmed for a year on the Nisqually bottoms. Log-
ging and lumbering near Steilacoom engaged his
attention until 1878. It was in that year that he
came to Whatcom (now Skagit), and started the
town of Sterling. Here he kept a store and logging
camp. A year ago he sold his store and his timber
lands, and confined himself to farming and real
estate, owning several sixty and seventy acre tracts
of land near the town. In politics Mr. Ball is a
Republican, and has been postmaster of his town
for many years.
In the early days of California, he was something
of an Indian fighter. He was part owner of the
ill-fated steamer Josephine, which plied between
Seattle and Sterling, and which blew up in 1883,
near Port Susan, and killed nine or ten men. Mr.
Ball himself had been expecting to go on that very
trip, but was deterred by some ominous foreboding.
Mr. Ball ranks among the first of the lumbermen of
the Sound. He is a married man and has had seven
children, six of whom are living.
DR. LEVI W. BALLARD.- The subject of
this sketch was born in Petersburg, Hillsborough
county, New Hamsphire, on December 21, 1815,
and is the son of William and T. B. Downing
Ballard. He was educated in the common schools
of his native place, and went to Hancock Academy
in Hancock for two years, after which, in 1837, he
came to New Jersey and taught school for three
years. After engaging with but poor success in
the mercantile business, he removed to Ohio and
engaged in different occupations, until finally, taking
up the study of medicine, he entered the Cleveland
Medical College and graduated as M. D. in 1848.
He then engaged in the practice of his profession
until 1852; when, on account of the loss of his
wife, he, in April of that year, started across the
plains to California, where he arrived in September.
He followed mining for a time; but, meeting with
no success, in January of 1853, he returned via the
Isthmus of Panama to Ohio to settle up important
business. After closing his affairs at that place, he
again started across the plains to California, but
while on the journey was persuaded to come to
Oregon, and arrived at The Dalles July 14, 1853.
He remained at The Dalles until 1854, after which
he went to Umpqua county, practicing his profession
and also raising stock. On the breaking out of the
Rogue river war, the Doctor gave his services as
surgeon, and remained until the close of hostilities,
after which he returned to his home on the Umpqua.
In 1857 he returned to Ohio, and was married a
second time, and with his wife and two children
came again to Oregon. In the spring of 1865 he
concluded to remove to Washington Territory, and,
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
201
after looking over the ground, homesteaded one
hundred and sixty acres, on which the town of
Slaughter is now located, and followed farming and
practiced his profession. In 1886, the Doctor laid
off part of his claim as the town of Slaughter,
naming it after Lieutenant Slaughter, who was killed
by the Indians at this place in 1856. The Doctor
took an active part in the educational and religious
institutions, and was the first elder in the First
Presbyterian Church on White river. He is now in
his seventy-fourth year, is a Republican in politics,
and has five sons, one of whom is deceased,—Irvin,
who was prosecuting attorney of the second district.
at the time of his death.
SAMUEL KIMBROUGH BARLOW.—Sam-
uel Kimbrough Barlow was born in Nicolas
county, Kentucky, January 14, 1795. He was of
Scotch origin, and inherited many of the sterling
qualities of his ancestors. His race was remarkable
for an unswerving fidelity to principles of right; and
on every occasion these principles were disseminated
or defended by courage which sometimes almost
amounted to audacity. Freedom of speech and will
and progression in all things were also marked
characteristics of the ancestors of S. K. Barlow.
Illustrative of these features of disposition in the
Barlow family, a story is told of the fearlessness of
the paternal grandfather of S. K. Barlow, who, just
before the breaking out of the Revolutionary war,
at the time that the hot-bed of dissolution was
brewing, refused to take off his hat to one of the
King's squires; and, when remonstrated with and
further aggravated by the squire cheering and shout-
ing “Hurrah for King George," audaciously knocked
him down. It was the custom, at this time, for each
man to raise his hat to the King's officers; and to
knock one of them down greatly increased the mag-
nitude of the crime.
This was no doubt the prime cause of the hero of
this sketch being born in Kentucky; for the old
gentleman, not wishing to encounter or to submit to
such insolence, preferred to isolate himself from such
scenes until the time came for him to take up arms
in defense of the principles which he then so
emphatically advocated. He therefore moved into
the rural districts of Virginia, not far from the bor-
ders of Kentucky. This early insight into frontier
life imbued into the minds of his descendants pio-
neer dispositions. His oldest son, William, the
father of Samuel K., was the first one to leave the
paternal roof. He followed the trail of Daniel Boone
into the wilds of Kentucky. Here, for several years,
he alternately fought the Indians and cleared his
farm. In course of time he married a Miss Kim-
brough, who had emigrated with her father at an
early day from Virginia. Settling down on his
newly-made farm, he lived there contentedly until
the day of his death, and reared up sons and daugh-
ters. Anfong them was Samuel Kimbrough, his
fourth son. Samuel, at an early day, espoused the
cause of universal freedom, though his father at the
time was an extensive slave-holder. Young Sam
often argued strongly with his father against the in-
stitution, and its baneful effects upon society. He
made several unsuccessful attempts to get his father
to emancipate his slaves and emigrate to a free state.
He said, "Some day the institution will shake the
government from center to circumference;" and he
lived to see his prophecy verified. He often declared
his intention to never live under the influence of
human slavery; and, upon reaching his majority,
when he became master of his own will, he carried
his inclination into effect. Bidding father, mother,
brothers and sisters a long farewell, he started for
the then territory of Indiana without anything but
a giant spirit to carry him through. His father re-
fused to give him anything unless he complied with
his wishes by settling in Kentucky. It was antici-
pated that he would be back in a few months, or as
soon as he wanted a new supply of clothes. But he
did not return until after an absence of sixteen
years, when his eldest son, the writer of this biog-
raphy, was old enough to accompany him on horse-
back.
His father said to him after he had been there
two or three days: "Well, Sam, have you given
up your foolish notions about slavery?" "I never
had any foolish notions on that subject," he replied.
His father resumed: "I have no money on hand;
but I have a very likely boy for whom I can easily
get five hundred dollars. You are welcome to this
sum, if you will accept it." Of course the refusal
was emphatic. At his father's death, some years
later, upon opening the will, it was found that he
had made a one-thousand dollar provision for his
son Samuel, to be paid out of real estate.
The history of S. K. Barlow's movements in Indi-
ana was not marked with any unusual event outside
of a frontiersman's life, such as felling the giant
forest and hewing a farm almost out of solid timber,
and at the same time depending upon his unerring
rifle for the animal portion of his food. This was a
very easy task at that time, as the whole country
abounded in game of nearly every description, and
honey flowed from almost every tree; while bread-
stuff was obtained from corn pounded in a mortar
burnt out in the end of a big stump. A heavy swing
pestle was suspended in the air by a spring pole,
which was just stiff enough to raise the pestle, while
the weight of a man would bring it down with great
force on the dry corn in the mortar, and thus pul-
verize it as finely as powder. This, when sifted
through a sieve made of finely cut, dressed buck-
skin strings, made excellent bread material.
But this state of isolation was of short duration,
as the onward march of civilization soon began to
fill up the country with people. Among the new-
comers in 1817 was a most amiable young lady by
the name of Susannah Lee. Our pioneer meeting
her soon became convinced of her many good
qualities, and, finally winning her affections, made
her his companion for life. She lived to bring up a
family of five boys and two girls, and to accompany
and guide them with cheering heart and christian
hand to the Pacific shore; and there, in the year
1852, in the sixty-second year of her age, she
resigned her body to the earth, from whence it came;
and her spirit, in its most triumphant christian glory,
returned in all its purity to the God who gave it.
No one has ever died more loved and regretted by
all who ever knew her.
202
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
In the year 1836, the subject of our sketch moved
to the State of Illinois with all his family; for as yet
they were all in their minority. Here he resided on
a newly made farm as a humble tiller of the soil until
the year 1845, when he conceived the idea of "going
west."
Samuel K. Barlow was a personal friend and
admirer of Henry Clay and his principles, and sev-
eral times "took the stump" in advocacy of his
friend and party. But when defeat came to Henry
Clay, and the unknown James K. Polk of the oppos-
ing political school was elected President of the
United States, S. K. Barlow declared his intention
of never living under his administration. In pur-
suance of this declaration, he immediately offered
his farm for sale, which sale being accomplished he
was ready to seek a haven, where at least the isola-
tion and obscurity of it would be some palliation for
the offense under which he and his party were suf-
fering. Accordingly, on the 30th day of March,
1845, he with all his household and many followers
left the great State of Illinois, and commenced their
journey to the Pacific shore. At that time it was
thought that the nucleus of an independent govern-
ment was springing up. But this belief with him
was soon dispelled; for, seeing its fallacies, he soon
became as strong an opposer of that idea as any man
in Oregon. Though a man of much determination.
when he believed himself to be right, yet he was
always glad to correct an error in his reasoning
when convinced of the superiority of another's
belief. He derived all the advantages education
offered in his own schooldays, and being a man of
more than ordinary ability improved and profited
by his early but limited lessons. A great charac-
teristic of his life was strict honesty. Above all
things he hated a dishonest politician. He was one
with Henry Clay in the famous motto, "Rather be
defeated all my life in the right, than victorious in
the wrong.
He always held that "The office
should hunt the man, but not the man the office."
Besides these principles he was a bold but consistent
free-thinker. He believed in the paradise of right.
He spoke his mind freely, but was open to conver-
sion whenever honest opinion directed. Some of
these characteristics made him unpopular with a
class whom he utterly abhored,—the dishonest, the
groveling politician, and the swerving, vacillating
man of policy. But with the upright, honest and
true man his words and character were an oracle
upon which they could depend.
It is not necessary to describe the journey towards
the Pacific, east of the Cascade Mountains, as that
would be following in the wake of those "who had
gone before.'
Besides it has been well described
and is too well known to reiterate here with any
added interest. But, upon arriving at The Dalles,
the then supposed terminus of the wagon-road, it was
that the daring independence of the pioneer asserted
itself. After resting a few days and recruiting his
followers, teams and cattle, like a general refreshing
his troops for a new fight, notice was given that
the company's captain, S. K. Barlow, was going
to cross the Cascade Mountains with his family,
wagons and plunder. An invitation was extended
to any and all who felt disposed to join his expedi-
tion; but he wished none to follow him who had
ever learned the adaptability of the word "can't."
The old mountaineers, who had trapped all over the
mountains, the missionaries and Hudson's Bay men
said it was a useless attempt, particularly so at this
season of the year, it being fall. The rainy season
would soon set in; and, with only jaded teams
to undertake it, everyone said it would be hazard-
ous. But not at all discouraged by these revela-
tions, the captain declared his belief in the goodness
and wisdom of an Allwise Being, and said, He
never made a mountain without making a way for
man to go over it, if the latter exercised a proper
amount of energy and perseverance. So on or
about the first of October, with a few brave fol-
lowers, he began the hazardous undertaking.
((
William L. Rector, J. C. Caplinger, Andrew Hood
and a Mr. Gessner were among the few volunteers
in this adventure. Everything in readiness, orders
were given to move forward, which was done with
seeming good-will. Everything moved along har-
moniously and without special incident for the first
forty miles. But when cañons and insurmountable
barriers began to confront them, discussion, discord
and dissension arose. Some wanted to turn back;
others wished to leave their wagons, then pack their
animals with what they could conveniently carry,
and go over the Mount Hood trail. But the old
pioneer told them, if they would trust to him, he
would carry them through to the valley over a new
wagon-road across the mountains, before the new
year began. He thought to enliven their disheart-
ened minds by reminding them of the wonderful
achievement it would be, and of the great benefit
future immigration would derive from it.
Having come to this standstill, he offered, with
anyone who would volunteer to accompany him, to
go ahead and blaze a route to the valley. In case
they found it impracticable, they would return in
time to reach The Dalles for winter quarters, or to
go down the Columbia river to their destinations.
To this they all assented; so the next morning with
Mr. William Rector, the volunteer, they set out to
select and blaze a route to the promised land. In
the meantime, those who were left were to follow
the marked pathway and cut out the road for their
wagons, so that in case the leaders found a pass they
would be that much nearer on their journey, or,
should it prove a failure, they would have a road
on which to make the backward trip. But those
left behind soon became disheartened; every day
seemed like a week. When two weeks had elapsed,
and brought no return of the road hunters, they
began to despair of ever seeing them again. Some
conjectured that they had been devoured by wild
beasts, others that they had starved to death.
those who knew the pluck of the old man best did
not fear either. They knew that he had been too
successful a hunter in the backwoods of Indiana to
allow himself and comrades to be devoured by
wild animals or to starve to death where they were
plentiful.
But
Nothing appeared to relieve the monotony of their
fears until the sixteenth day after their departure,
when the long-looked-for pilgrims saluted them by
the keen crack of a rifle. This was returned with
.

N
OF
UN
GAY HAYDEN,
VANCOUVER, W. T.
MRS. M. J. HAYDEN,
VANCOUVER, W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
203
cheer after cheer from the whole crowd, with such
vehemence that it seemed to shake the very tops of
the tall pines and majestic firs that surrounded them.
But alas! our leaders were completely worn out and
exhausted. Having failed in several routes, they
were compelled to retrace and then hunt new ones.
Their clothes and boots were almost worn off.
Being so determined to find the goal of their expe-
dition, and having in mind the safety and welfare of
those they had left behind, they did not go out of their
way to even supply themselves with the necessary
food, only killing that which chanced to come in
their daily march. Consequently, they had suffered
some from hunger, even living several days upon
very scanty allowances.
The result of their trip and the outlook before the
party was anything but flattering. Though they
had been through the mountains, retraced and re-
vised the route, and had declared it practicable, yet
they were completely exhausted and in great need
of rest. It had already begun to rain; and the days
were almost at their shortest. Cattle were starving
and dying from eating mountain laurel. Many of
the immigrants who had arrived at The Dalles this
year, 1845, were nearly destitute of provisions or
means to procure them. This class the Hudson's Bay
Company sent down to Oregon City in their bateaux
free of charge. But Mr. Barlow's company were
well equipped with provisions and money both for
themselves and the few volunteers who joined them,
and started out over the mountains well prepared for
a journey of a few weeks. But this prospective trip
had taken much longer time than was anticipated;
and numerous delays and obstacles had lengthened
the weeks into months. In consequence, their sup-
ply of provisions was almost exhausted. Women
were disheartened; and children were crying from
want of proper nourishment and care. It was get-
ting very cold; and black clouds were lowering only
a few feet above their heads, threatening every mo-
ment to cover them up with snow. Altogether it
was a scene that would make the heart of the
bravest of the brave" grow weak in contemplating
the prospects of the journey under such circum-
stances.
At this time William L. Rector and family retraced
their steps and returned to The Dalles. But the
warhorse said "No!" that he and his family were
"going through or leave their bones in the mount-
ains.' But he was willing, if the remainder of the
company would remain with him, to go on to some
suitable place and make a cache of the goods, build
a house and leave two or three trusty young men
with the wagons and plunder until spring, then pack
out the women and children on the few animals they
had left. As soon as work could be done in the
spring, he said, he would return with a gang of men,
cut a road through the mountains and carry every-
thing out. Wagons were then worth from one hun-
dred and fifty to two hundred dollars in the valley,
and in fact were indispensable articles at any price.
Our company owned twenty, which were well worth
caring for. This proposition was readily agreed
upon. William Berry, John M. Bacon and William
Barlow volunteered to remain with the wagons.
Very soon indications of the weather pointed out a
decided change for the better; so all went to work
with the cheerful hope of yet beholding the promised
land of the Willamette valley.
A few days travel brought them within five miles
of the summit of the Cascade Mountains. Here
they found a suitable place to leave their heavy
goods and wagons. A house was soon constructed
to hold the goods that would be likely to spoil from
dampness or from a heavy weight of snow. Every-
thing being nicely put away, preparations for mov-
ing began. Packing had to be studied with an eye
to economy of space. Each woman attended to her
own domestic affairs, cramming her wardrobe and
indispensables into as small parcels as possible.
The number of horses was very limited; and it was
not known, as yet, how the oxen would stand the
pack-saddle. The stock cattle had been sent to the
valley long ere this. The next thing for consider-
ation was, how could the limited supply of provis-
ions be divided with the men who were going to stay
in the mountains all winter. The company was now
reduced to a very small allowance,—only enough to
keep them alive till they reached the "land of milk
and honey." This dilemma was soon satisfactorily
arranged by one of the volunteers, William Berry,
consenting to stay alone, and that the other two
should go through with the families, thus adding
two more willing hands to alleviate their hardships.
They would return soon to the lone mountaineer and
bring back provisions to last during his hermitage.
All being ready, the start was made; but they moved
very slowly, having to cut a trail most of the way
and to keep a vigilant lookout for the safety of the
women and children packed on the horses. At this
rate it was very hard work to make more than three
miles a day. A snowstorm coming up covered the
ground with a foot of snow, thus leaving the ani-
mals nothing to eat but the poisonous mountain
laurel. This was discouraging. They counted and
turned the cattle and horses out at night, but could
make no calculations upon the number they would
get up in the morning. Before reaching what is
now known as Laurel Hill, some of the women and
children, and all of our men, were compelled to walk.
They were out of provisions of any kind save the
steak they had cut from the hams of the horses that
had died from the effects of eating laurel. They
soon found that its poisonous qualities were not
transmissable, and for awhile partook of it vorac-
iously. The greatest discontent about it was that it
would give out before they reached the settlements.
((
A little incident that occurred one evening will
serve to illustrate the courage of some of the ladies
of the party. One of the ladies was weeping in
contemplation of the final result, in case all the
horses and cattle should die, and starvation be their
fate.
'Cheer up," said Mrs. Gaines, Mr. Barlow's
oldest child, "There is no danger of perishing as
long as we have such a fine fat dog as good old
Bruno." "O, dear!" cried the lady, "would you eat
a dog?' 'Yes, if he were the last dog in the
world," said Mrs. Gaines. The courage of all the
ladies ascended a few degrees when they realized
that there was in camp such a wonderful relief
fund.
It was evident that something must be done to
204
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
obtain relief before long; so it was agreed that
John M. Bacon and William Barlow, the son of the
leader of the party, should start immediately for the
valley on foot, and return as soon as possible with
fresh horses and provisions for the families. In the
meantime the company was to make an effort to
reach the foot of Laurel Hill, which was about
three miles away. The two volunteers were sup-
plied with a camp kettle, an axe, a very little ground
coffee, and their allowance of laurel-fed horse.
They had no idea of the many trials they were to
encounter. But, had they anticipated them, their
overflowing ambition and buoyant hearts would
have nerved them to baffle anything for the success
of the enterprise. In this self-satisfactory mood,
they continued till they reached the last crossing of
the Big Sandy river, which was up to its winter
stage. Its waters were as cold as ice, and ran over
sleek boulders with the rapidity of lightning.
Something must be done; the stream had to be
crossed. It was getting late in the evening; and
eight or ten miles had to be made before they could
reach the first house, should they be fortunate
enough to get across the river. Being very tired
and weak they thought they would not attempt to
ford it that evening; so they hunted for some dry
conveyance, a fallen log or drift lodged in a gorge;
but none was to be found. Just above the point
where the bridge now stands was an island of solid
rock, on one side of which was a deep, narrow
cañon, through which all the water passed. On the
bank, just opposite, there was a tall tree, which
they thought, if felled, would reach the island.
After working with the utmost energy for some
time, with the only axe they had, it finally fell. To
their dismay, it broke in twain and went down the
torrent, pitching and jumping like a mountain
buck. After this they were compelled to suspend
further operations until morning. It seemed almost
suicidal to plunge into this boisterous stream; but
recollections of the suffering condition of the help-
less women and children, and the many hardships
and perils of life the old pioneer had endured for
them, called forth their keenest sense of duty, and
doubly renewed their feeble energies. William told
his companion that he proposed to cross that stream
at the risk of his life, but that he did not wish
him to attempt it nor to sacrifice his life for his
people. William, who had a father's, mother's and
two sisters' lives at stake, felt it his duty to rescue
them or perish in the attempt; and so they struck
camp. Their bodies and spirits soon enlivened by a
cheerful fire, they were ready for their coffee and a
piece of old Gray's laurel-stricken ham. At this
point, Bacon, who had been intrusted with this
burdenless part of the luggage, said that he had
lost the meat out of his pocket in the river. They
had crossed the Big Sandy at least twenty times.
William accused him of eating it, knowing from his
own appetite what a temptation it was. But he
said he had really lost it, but, fearing that the
knowledge of it would discourage Barlow, had
refrained from telling him before. So, after par-
taking heartily of coffee, they lay down under the
wide-spreading boughs of their improvised mountain
house, and were soon fast asleep.
Morning came. With firm nerve and determined
will, which were to carry him to the opposite shore
of the river, or to that unknown shore from whence
no traveler returns, William slowly advanced to its
turbulent, icy waters. Taking a hearty leave of his
friend Bacon, not a word was afterward spoken till
he reached the middle of the stream. Here, stand-
ing breast-deep in the water, his limbs numb with
the cramp, his heart failed him. He sang out to
Bacon a farewell message to his mother.
desperation ! A few more steps and then-the
waters grew more shallow, new hope sprang up! A
minute more and he was safe on land. A hurrah of
joy reached his ears from the opposite shore, which
was returned by, "All is well.
All was
Quick time was made over the remaining ten
miles to Philip Foster's. Here James and John L.
Barlow were recruiting themselves and cattle, hav-
ing arrived here some time before by the Mount
Hood trail. William was detained here two days,
waiting for horses to be brought from Oregon City.
In the meantime, Bacon was faring sumptuously
on coffee, while William, being foundered after the
first meal, was denied even that luxury. The
detention was very opportune to him, as he should
not have been able to start before. With good
stout horses well packed with provisions, the deep
crossing, the bane of his pedestrian trip, passed
in safety, he joined his trusty friend Bacon; and
they were very soon well on their journey towards
the anxious waiters in the mountains. To their
great surprise they found the company encamped
only a few miles from the last crossing of the Big
Sandy. The health of the leader of the party, who
was taken sick on the summit of the Cascades, and
which impeded the daily march, was much improved.
They could now see their way clearly. The remain-
der of the journey was passed in the best of spirits.
On December 25, 1845, they arrived in Oregon
City, having accomplished the journey from Illinois
to Oregon in a little over nine months. Their wag-
ons still remained in the mountains under the super-
vision of William Berry, who was waiting with that
trusty confidence that brave men and stout hearts
confide in. No time must be lost to relieve him.
As per agreement, and by order of S. K. Barlow, the
writer of this article was sent back during the first
week of January with the necessary supplies. Bacon,
one of the partners in thus undertaking, disposed of
his interest; and the service of J. W. Eaton was
secured to assist on the journey. In four days they
reached his mountain camp, and found him “enjoy-
ing himself hugely," as he expressed it, living on
rabbits and pine squirrels. However, he was not
long in showing his appreciation of flour, bacon,
sugar and coffee.
Having arranged with Berry to continue on alone
in the care of the property, Eaton and Barlow com-
menced their homeward journey. The weather was
very cold, and the snow deep. The monotony of the
homeward trip was varied only by now and then
digging a horse out of the snow, or shoveling the
snow from the trees to find the road-marks. They
arrived again in Oregon City in just eight days
from the time they had left there.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
205
Further action was now suspended on the mount-
ain road till spring. Then our pioneer, true to his
promise, buckled on his armor, rallied forces at his
own expense, and started forth to hew out the first
road over the Cascade Mountains. After many
weeks of hard labor, interspersed with an unusual
number of troubles, the road was finally completed
and established under what is now known as the
Barlow Road.
The original Barlow Road was eighty miles long.
It began at the extreme western side of what is
known as Tygh valley, and followed the Indian
trail to within ten miles of the north side of Mount
Hood. At this point, one year before, William L.
Rector and Mr. Barlow had taken observations and
discovered a natural gap in the range of mount-
ains, and here determined to blaze the path and
afterwards construct a road through to the valley.
Here all traces of human footsteps or wild animal
trails disappeared; and from here on to Philip Fos-
ter's, the first settlement, the road was made through
thick forest, failen logs crossed and recrossed upon
each other, rocks, creeks, cañons or barriers of some
kind. It required a large force of men and an
expenditure of twenty-five hundred dollars to con-
struct it. It was the old gentleman's object to
build a good road which would make a continuous
route by land clear across the plains, and also lessen
the expense from The Dalles to Oregon City, which
was very considerable to immigrants. Transporta-
tion by water from The Dalles down to the valley
was very high; and, even if the rates of travel had
been lower, many of the immigrants had no money
at all to pay for such service. Their sole capital
sometimes consisted of teams, wagons, cattle, a few
implements, willing hands, hopeful hearts, and a
brave determination to gain an honest living with
them.
The road was made a toll-road by a charter from
the Provisional (territorial) government, and the
rates of toll fixed at five dollars for a wagon and
team, and fifty cents for a single animal. The old
gentleman himself kept the toll-gate two months of
each year, during the immigrant seasons of 1846
and 1847; but, for at least four months in the year,
men were constantly constructing and repairing new
and better roads. Many, many immigrants were
unable to pay the toll; and in every case they were
allowed to pass free and use all the privileges of the
road. The brave spirit of many of the pioneers of
those days would not permit them to accept the
privilege as a gift; and this class insisted on leav-
ing their names and a promise to pay in the future.
It was always the intention of the builder of the
road to turn it over to the territory without charge
or any restriction as soon as he had collected
enough to reimburse himself. Making an estimate
of cash collected and a total of all the notes on
hand, he found at the end of two years that the
time had come for him to make this donation, which
he accordingly did.
After several years, by reference to the cash
accounts of the Barlow Road Company, it was
found that many of those who had desired to pay
had been unable to do so; and their notes, running
out by limitation, quite a margin was left to be
charged to the individual loss account of S. K.
Barlow. It was never intended as a money-making
scheme; neither did he intend it as a losing one;
and, had he anticipated the non-payment of so
many notes, he would have patiently run the road
himself till he had all the cash in hand for his out-
lay. But few of those who had made their way
over the mountain path with Mr. Barlow followed
him in this laborious undertaking of road-making.
Though all had an interest in the wagons and plun-
der, they preferred to wait till the road was finished
before venturing again into the wilderness. One
return the old gentleman asked of the wagon owners
was that his oldest son might drive the first team
over the first road across the Cascades.
After the acceptance of the road by the govern-
ment, it was leased to other parties and for several
years was a paying institution. Later, on account
of smaller immigration and therefore limited finances
of the toll-men, it was not kept in as good repair
as formerly. But for over twenty years it was the
principal passport over which thousands came to
cast their fortunes in the far Northwest, and become
proud Oregonians. The road is now, 1889, owned
by a corporation, Mr. F. O. McCown, of Oregon
City, being one of the important members. It is
yet run as a toll-road, and is now kept in an excel-
lent state of repair. It is not only used by people
going to and from Eastern Oregon, but by many
tourists and pleasure-seekers. It leads into a delight-
ful mountain country; and, as it is on a natural
pass, it is on the line of the proposed railroad to
the timber line of Mount Hood. It is still known
as the Barlow Road, which for nearly forty-five
years has been a noteworthy testimonial of the
forethought of its founder and builder, S. K. Bar-
low. It has been said that the construction of this
road contributed more towards the prosperity of the
Willamette valley and the future State of Oregon.
than any other achievement prior to the building of
the railways in 1870.
Nothing outside of the daily routine of life.
occurred in the history of our pioneer till 1847, the
breaking out of the Cayuse Indian war.
He was
one of the first to shoulder his gun and rush to the
defense of women and children on the frontier. As
an independent high private, he would be under the
control of none, and asked no pay for his services.
He said he would go out and keep back the Indians
until the young men were equipped and in the field;
then he would resign and go home. This he did as
soon as the volunteers arrived in the field. It was
generally conceived that he and a few of his com-
rades who went at the first alarm kept back the
inroads of the Indians upon The Dalles, and pre-
vented their coming into the valley. After this he
lived a very retired life. His love of mountain
scenery and exploits never left him. Every year
that he was able to go, up to the time of his death,
he took a mountain pleasure trip, which he enjoyed
as keenly as he did similar trips in his pioneer days.
A marked characteristic of the old gentleman was
his most inveterate enmity to intoxicating drinks.
It is believed that he would have sacrificed his life
for the annihilation of alcohol.
He had no sympa-
thy for a man who drank. "The first drunk," he
206
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST— OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
said, "I would take a man out of the mire and care
for him until he became sober; the second, I would
let him lie there; for the sooner he was gone the
better." The last few years of this pioneer's life
were spent in and around Oregon City, where he
died July 14, 1867, at the age of seventy-two years
and six months. He died as he had lived,-calmly
and composedly.
He never made any profession of religion; yet he
believed firmly in a great God; that a pure spirit
would be everlastingly happy; and in the progres-
sion of happiness both here and hereafter. He also
believed in the punishment of the wicked, but that
it would not be eternal, but according to merits,
progressive until the standard of right was reached.
He was buried at Barlow's Prairie, named in com-
memoration of its founder. His final resting-place
His final resting-place
is marked by a monument on which is inscribed an
expressive epitaph composed by himself, and em-
bodying in concise terms the precepts of his life on
earth and his belief in the future.
WILLIAM BARLOW. The proprietor of the
beautiful Barlow ranch in Clackamas county, which
is on the line of the Oregon & California Railroad,
and supplied with a way station and warehouse of
its own, is the son of Samuel Kimbrough Barlow, a
pioneer of 1845, who did so much to open Oregon
to settlement. William Barlow, the subject of this
sketch, was born September 26, 1822, in Marion
county, Indiana, and in 1836 settled with his father
in Illinois, and in 1845 came out to Oregon, per-
forming a journey, the details of which are found
in the sketch of his father.
A winter journey back into the Cascade Moun-
tains soon after his arrival in Oregon was as severe
as anything on the plains. It was undertaken in
order to furnish provisions to a party of men left to
guard a cache made by his father. Upon reaching
the mountains with his pack horses, the young man
and his companions found snow five or six feet deep,
which had been crusted by rain and subsequent
freezing; nor would it always bear the weight of a
horse.
Nevertheless he pushed on, occasionally
breaking through, and burying his horses up to
their backs in snow, when it would be necessary to
unpack, tramp down the snow and thereby get the
animals out and on their legs once more upon the
crust, and then drive on again. Reaching the cache
he found the guardsmen comfortable,-having made
a snug camp, and killed a wild cat and some
spangled weasels," to serve as provisions. Honor-
able Daniel Stewart, Mr. Barnes and Mr. Bonner
composed the company; and the latter was so much
disgusted with his first introduction to our state
that he returned East the next year. Mr. Stewart
remained, and is now a well-known resident of
Walla Walla.
star-
In 1849, Mr. Barlow went to the California mines;
but owing to ague, and lack of success in conse-
quence, he offered to sell his claim and all his dust
to anyone who would wash a shirt for him. The
companion who took up the offer was filled with
chagrin to find less than a dollar's worth of dust in
his pouch.
surprised to discover that his property at the Falls
had trebled in value, and immediately entered suc-
cessfully into real-estate speculations. In 1852, he
was married to Miss Martha H. Allen, and engaged
with H. F. Hedges in the mercantile, milling and
steam-boating business, which he continued for
many years. The engine for the old Canema, and
another for the sawmill, were the first shipped to
Oregon, and were obtained at Connellsville, Ohio.
He purchased the old Donation claim of his father,
and, after living on this farm for several years, went
down to Canema and there laid off the town, crea-
ting the present attractive village. In 1870, he
moved back to the farm and by purchase added to
tho original domain, increasing it to fourteen hun-
dred acres of as handsome land, diversified by woods
and prairie, as is to be found in the state. He has
built upon this a beautiful residence, which is one
of our best advertisements, and a most cheering
greeting to the intending settlers as they pass by.
Mr. Barlow is a man of public spirit, and fond of
enterprises which bear fruit in the development of
the country, and is also quick to see the business
bearings of a speculation. He has been of essential
service in founding and building our state.
MRS. MARTHA H. BARLOW, wife of the
foregoing, was born September 2, 1822, at the his-
toric site of Spottsylvania, Virginia. In 1836, she
accompanied her father, Elija Portlaw, to Tennesee,
and in 1840 was married to Doctor William E. Allen,
of Palmyra, Missouri. In 1850 she crossed the
plains with her husband, bringing a family of two
children, and endured great toils and dangers on
account of the prevalence of cholera, and the neces-
sary pre-occupation of her husband in administering
to the sick. Except for this she would have much
enjoyed the trip. With her husband she made the
first home at Oregon City, where the Doctor died in
March, 1851. The two children born of their union
were Marion W. and Martha W.
In 1852 she was married to Mr. William Barlow,
and during more than thirty years has made for him
a beautiful home, and furnished the conditions for
his success in life. They have two children, Mary
S. and Cassius M.
EUGENE L. BARNETT. This is one of the
native sons of Oregon; and his career sheds luster
upon his state. He was born in Linn county in
1855, and is therefore still a young man, whose
greatest achievements undoubtedly lie before him.
The death of his father and mother, during his early
manhood, left him without home ties, and in 1881
he sought a place in the promising city of Center-
ville. Two years he was in the mercantile business,
and upon abandoning this took up the occupation
of keeping and running a livery stable. In this he
has been successful, owning the livery property
where he does business and a lot and handsome resi-
dence in a pleasant part of town. His first wife,
Miss D. A. Alford, dying in 1884, he was married
in 1885 to Miss Nora W. Kemp of Illinois. His
children are Mable Clair, Arthur Rex and Archie
Linn. Mr. Barnett's own active life is leading the
way to the greater opportunities and to the eminence
Returning to Oregon, Mr. Barlow was happily of his children.

→
J. F.SEEBER'S RESIDENCE & FARM, WALLA WALLA, W. T.
مال والقال
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
207
CHARLES A. BARRETT.-There is no good
reason why the people of Oregon should not be as
enterprising and intelligent as those of any Eastern
state. They are a selection from the residents of
communities from all parts of America, and even
from Europe, possessing the culture and intelligence
of their native regions with the super-added expe-
rience of Western life. And we think that the work
of settlement and development done by our people
would be no discredit to any in the world.
Mr. Barrett is from Maine, where he was born in
1852. After a few years in Massachusetts and also
on the Pacific coast in California, he arrived in Uma-
tilla county, Oregon, in 1872,-a young man full of
courage and vigor. His life for six years was on
Wild Horse creek in the employment of Mr. J. F.
Adams. While there he helped drive overland to
Cheyenne one of those bands of cattle which were
so numerous in Oregon at that time. In 1880 he
came to Centerville, and undertook the raising of
sheep and the rearing of horses, retaining his sheep
interest until quite recently. In 1883 he added to
his other occupations the hardware and implement
store of Kasson Smith, and is still operating in this
line. His real estate is quite considerable,-a farm
of 160 acres near Weston; two hundred acres on
Pine creek, ten miles north of Centerville; and four
residence and two business lots on Main street in
Centerville. On one of these residence lots he has a
dwelling-house costing five thousand dollars. This
is one of the best in the county. The fire-proof brick
building twenty-five by seventy feet in which he
does business also belongs to him. This makes a
thrifty showing for eight years' residence in the town.
Mrs. Barrett was formerly Miss Jennie E. Mays of
Weston. Her marriage to Mr. Barrett occurred in
1877. They have two children, Arcta, the elder,
and a boy, Henry.
One of the solid men financially, the man whose
portrait looks from the opposite page is no less a
substantial pillar of society in every interest calcu-
lated to benefit the community.
He
MATTHEW BARTHOLET.-This active mer-
chant, a member of the firm of Bartholet Brothers,
was born in Minnesota, of German parentage.
secured the advantages of a common-school educa-
tion, and moved with his parents to Oregon in 1875,
assisting them in the hotel business for four years.
Coming then to Yakima City, he found employment
in the store of P. T. Gervais, which store in 1883,
with his uncle, Nicholas Hoscheid, he bought and
conducted a remunerative business for two years;
but consequent upon the building of the railroad,
and the removal of the city to North Yakima, he
came to the new place and associated himself with
J. C. MacCrimmon, and with him secured a very
flourishing custom. In the fall of 1887, Mr. Mac-
Crimmon sold his interest to Joseph Bartholet, Jr.,
brother of Matthew Bartholet; and the firm of
Bartholet Brothers still continues to thrive.
Mr. Bartholet was elected auditor of Yakima
county at the fall election of 1888. He was married
to Miss Emma J. Schanno in the year 1882. At the
present time he is serving a third term as a member
of the city council.
J. R. BAYLEY, M. D.- Doctor Bayley, to
whom has fallen an unusual portion of public labor
and honor, was born in Springfield, Ohio, in 1820.
His mother dying, he was cared for by his grand-
mother, through whose liberality he received an
ample education. In 1839 he moved to Clay county,
Missouri, but two years later returned to Ohio, and
in 1847 began the study of medicine in South
Charleston with Doctors Skinner and Steele. He
also attended the medical school at Cleveland in
1849, and the next year studied at the Ohio Medical
College of Cincinnati. Upon graduating from this
institution in 1851, he returned to South Charleston,
practicing medicine, and a year later continued his
profession at Louisburg. He was married in Xenia
in 1852 to Miss Elizabeth Harpole, and remained in
Louisburg until the autumn of 1854.
In this year he prepared to cross the continent to
Oregon, and reached our state in May, 1855, settling
at Lafayette and practicing his profession. Besides
his regular work, he was here engaged in political
labors, being elected councilman for the counties of
Yamhill and Clatsop to serve in the territorial
legislature in 1856. He resigned his seat, however,
in 1857, and moved to Corvallis, where he practiced
medicine for many years. Here also political pre-
ferment was bestowed; and he was elected judge of
Benton county. In 1864 he was re-elected, serving
until his resignation a year later.
During this year he enjoyed that delightful
experience of a trip to the old home in Ohio, and a
visit to the National capital. While at the seat of
government he succeeded in getting a bill through
Congress throwing open a part of the Siletz Indian
reservation for white settlement. He also secured a
land grant for a military road from Corvallis to Elk
City, the head of navigation on Yaquina Bay. In
June, 1866, he was elected a member of the state
senate, representing Benton county. In 1869 he
was appointed supervisor of internal revenue for the
district of Oregon, comprising the State of Oregon
and the territories of Washington, Idaho and Mon-
tana, and served until 1873, when he resigned and
returned to the practice of medicine in Corvallis.
In 1884 he left this delightful old town and removed
to Newport, where he now resides.
The Masonic history of Doctor Bayley indicates
the esteem in which he is held by that time-honored
order. He was made a Mason in London, Madison
county, Ohio, in 1847; he received the degrees of
the Royal Arch Chapter in Springfield in 1850, the
Council degrees in the spring of 1852, and the
Knight Templar degrees in Reed Commandery at
Dayton, Ohio, in 1853.
Dayton, Ohio, in 1853. He received the degrees of
the Scottish Rite Masonry at Washington in 1870,
which were conferred by Albert Pike. In 1888 he
was made a noble of the Mystic Shrine at Portland.
Before leaving Ohio, he served as worshipful master
of Fielding Lodge for two years, and as worshipful
master of Libanus Lodge for two years. After his
arrival in Oregon he served as worshipful master of
Lafayette Lodge, for another term of two years, and
also in the same office of Rockey Lodge at Corval-
lis, and is now on his third term as master of New-
port Lodge. He served as junior grand warden of
the grand lodge of Oregon, and in turn as senior
15
208
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
grand warden, deputy grand master, grand master,
and grand lecturer of the same for a number of
years. He served also as high priest of Ferguson
Chapter of Royal Arch Masons at Corvallis for
eleven years, and as most excellent grand high
priest of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter for twelve
years.
Elizabeth Bayley, wife of the doctor, whose
maiden name was Elizabeth Harpole, was born in
Green county, Ohio, in 1834. She was brought up
on a farm, and received her early education in the
district school contiguous to her home, but finished
her education at the seminary of Xenia, Ohio.
Their family is as follows: Lester S., a native of
Ohio, but educated at Corvallis and at the Catholic
school for boys at Vancouver, and at the business
college at Portland, and now living in the Big Bend
country, Washington; Cora, born in Ohio, now the
wife of Sherman Richie, and living at Hillsboro,
Oregon; Emery P.; Marcus T., educated at the
State Agricultural College; Lizzie G.; William H.,
deceased; Eva; Mary E.
Dr. Bayley, though having passed his three-score
years and ten, still retains all his faculties to a re-
markable degree, and is very active and energetic
with a keen, vigorous mind, recalling the varied
incidents in a long and busy life with great exact-
ness, and relating the same with much pleasant
humor.
ROSS BEARDSLEY.-This gentleman, the
present mayor of Arlington, Oregon, was born in
Cass county, Michigan, July 7, 1856, where he re-
ceived a good common-school education, and fol-
lowed the occupation of farming, working with his
father until 1876, when he crossed the plains to
Woodland, California, remaining until 1877 with
an uncle, H. P. Merritt. After a year's residence
in this land of gold, he returned to Michigan,
where he lived until 1879, making a trip in the
meantime to Montana. Soon after his return to
Michigan, he was married to Miss Jennie Speese of
White Pigeon, in February, 1880. In 1881 they
determined to pass their future lives on the Pacific
coast. They came to California, and, after a year's
sojourn, moved to Walla Walla, Washington, where
Mr. Beardsley opened a barber shop, continuing in
this occupation until their removal in 1884 to
Arlington. Here he also successfully established
and conducted a shop for a period of five years. In
1889 he concluded to take charge of the Grand
Hotel, and at the present time is ably conducting
this house. Mr. Beardsley has been intrusted with
the conduct of public affairs, having been elected to
the office of city councilman in 1886. The follow-
ing year he was elected mayor, acceptably filling the
office two years. In 1889 he was re-elected, and is
at present thus serving his city with honor to him-
self and to the advantage of the community at large.
JOSEPH BEEZLEY.- This pioneer is of dis-
tinguished ancestry, tracing his lineage to the Pil-
grims. In his own character he exemplifies the
qualities of those old heroes. His grandfather was
a general in the British army; and his father added
new honors to the name by his marriage to Phobie
Reeves of Virginia. Fourteen children were born
to this pair, Joseph, of whom we write, being the
twelfth, and his birth occurring at Springfield,
Clark county, Ohio, in 1819. In 1824 the elder
Beezley moved his family to Indiana, where he
resided for two years, and from thence, in 1826,
to Danville, Illinois. This place was the home of
Joseph until 1842, when he was married to Miss
Mary Jane Barr, his present wife. He then left his
father's place and, with his wife, moved to Fairfield,
Iowa. In this state he was elected sheriff, serving
two years.
He resided there until 1851, when, on
account of the death of his mother, his father desired
him to come to the old home in Danville.
After the death of his father in the same year,
Joseph settled up all his business, and the following
March, with his wife and children, set out upon the
toilsome and adventurous trip to Oregon, in company
with Colonel I. R. Moores, Sr. Their trip was atten-
ded with all the trials, hardships and losses incident
to all immigrants at that time. They arrived at
The Dalles October 18, 1852, after seven months
of continuous travel. They lost one son by death.
on the road. Leaving his stock above The Dalles,
Mr. Beezley performed the trip to Portland in an
open boat, as there were no steamers above the Cas-
cades at that time. The winter of 1852-53 proved
very severe; and in consequence all the cattle
perished. But in September, 1853, the undismayed
pioneer went down to Clatsop Plains and shipped a
hundred head of cattle in a sail boat sixty miles up
the Columbia, and drove them to the Umpqua val-
ley and made this beautiful region his home for
eight years. During this time three sons were born;
and he buried two sons and one daughter.
He suffered the entire loss of his property to the
value of five thousand dollars by indorsing a note,
and after this disaster removed to Benton county in
July, 1862. After a three years' residence there,
he concluded that the country was ill suited to his
business, and again sold out. As there was no lon-
ger any opportunity to go west, he went east,—con-
ducting his family in wagons across the Cascade
Range of mountains to Wasco county, where he
bought a homestead from a squatter and commenced
the business of horse-raising and sheep-raising,
which he followed until 1879, when he was enabled
to sell out at a handsome figure, moving his family
to the city of The Dalles. He makes this his present
place of residence, having a commodious house
tastefully furnished, and provided with every com-
fort. His sons and daughters are now married and
in business or conducting homes of their own, and
enjoy an honored reputation in their several com-
munities.
Mr. Beezley has ever been one of the most public
spirited of our citizens during his thirty-seven years'
residence in the state. He was a true Union man
during the war; he has paid thousands of dollars to
build up schools; he has contributed thousands
more to the aid of struggling churches, and all
this in addition to providing for his family of four
children, and providing for their education. This
shows him to have been no ordinary man, but one
of whom Oregonians may well be proud,-one of
those unwritten heroes who have held no rank other
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
209
than the warrant and commission of manhood con-
ferred upon them by their Creator. Mr. Beezley,
whose noble physical proportions and kindly coun-
tenance indicate his mental worth, has been a trus-
tee of the McMinnville College for seven years, and
has been honored as a deacon of the Baptist Church,
has held honorable positions in the Grange, and is
known as one always ready to aid all worthy insti-
tutions, and promote the ends of education, morality
and religion.
COL. JOHN COLGATE BELL. Colonel
Bell, enjoying a wide reputation from Southern Ore-
gon to Idaho, and back again to the Pacific seashore
throughout the state in which he has successively
lived and made a multitude of personal acquaint
ances, merits a special recognition on account of his
public services in official relations and in the early
Indian wars of Southern Oregon.
He was born at Sterling, Kentucky, February 24,
1814. His parents were from Virginia; and among
his ancestors were those distinguished in the early
history of the nation, his father having served with
The young
General Harrison in the war of 1812.
man received his education at the Mount Sterling
Academy, and began business at his native town in
the dry-goods store of David Herren. In 1834, he
began his western career by removing with his father
to Missouri, engaging with him in mercantile busi-
ness at Clarksville, Pike county. Eight years later
he entered into business on his own account at Wes-
ton, and in 1845 was married to Miss Sarah E.
daughter of General Thompson Ward, of honorable
fame in the Mexican war.
In 1847 he was engaged with the General in
organizing the regimer ts of Donovan and Price and
the battalion of Major Powell sent to new Fort
Kearney on the plains for the protection of emi-
grants. It was in these operations that he received.
his military rank.
In 1849 he gratified his desire for a life wider than
that of the east by setting forth with Doctor Belt, a
brother-in-law, for the El Dorado of the Pacific. The
journey was accomplished amid the usual difficulties
of the way,—such as hail-storms on the Platte that
stampeded the cattle, or the necessity of bearing to
one side of the main traveled way to avoid cholera,
or the delay of ten days at Crooked river and again
at the Malheur by reason of sickness. Having met
with Major Davis' train of twenty-seven wagons on
the Platte, and meeting him once more on Bear
river, Colonel Bell abandoned the route through
Sublett cut-off to California, and with Major Davis
came via Raft river to Boise and to Oregon.
Arriving at Oregon City, he went back in Novem-
ber to The Dalles, then occupied by Major Tucker's
battalion, who were living wholly in tents, and had
removed the old mission buildings preparatory to
erecting the barracks. Being active in obtaining
materials, he was the first to erect a building upon
the present site of the city. Here he opened a store,
bringing goods from Oregon City and other points
on the Willamette. The spring following he closed
out his stock, and buying thirty mules took a pack
train from the Willamette to Yreka in prospect of
the gold discoveries in the latter section. By this
he was brought into the midst of Indian troubles,
being requested at the Illinois river by Major Phil
Kearney, then engaged near the Siskiyous in survey-
ing out a military road, to raise a company and come
to his assistance, as the Indians were threatening.
Gathering fourteen men, he hastened to Major
Kearney's relief, incurring on the way a running
fight with the Indians. An irregular battle was
brought on some days later, in which there was some
skirmishing in the chaparral; and Colonel Bell's
little company made a charge, capturing fourteen of
the enemy.
The Indians were dispersed, and a
number of fugitives were picked up, although by
disregard of the Colonel's advice the main band es-
caped. Much irregular warfare was carried on dur-
ing 1851; and Colonel Bell sustained a notable part
in the Siskiyou Mountains, and moving on to Yreka
assisted Kearney to a loan of five thousand dol-
lars.
The same spring he returned East with Mackay
of Spring Valley, performing the journey at a time
of the year when all the streams to the Rocky
Mountains were so swollen as to be crossed only by
Swimming. In 1854, having disposed of his effects
at his old home in Missouri, he determined to make
Oregon his future home, and brought his family
across the plains, having in his train fifteen horses
and three hundred cattle, many of which were lost
from eating poisonous herbs. Their journey was ex-
peditious; and on the Platte they overtook various
well-known pioneers, as Mrs. Peters and the Strat-
tons. While not enduring great hardships, nor ex-
periencing great dangers, they passed near the scene
of the massacre of the Ward family,-Colonel Bell
being among the number to search for the women
of that ill-fated party, whom he found at some dis-
tance from the point where the first massacre oc-
curred: One with her throat cut, another drawn by
knives, and the third impaled upon a wagon iron
which had been heated red-hot for the purpose.
This atrocious work, when known throughout the
settlements, sent a thrill of horror and hate through
the white population, and was one of the things
that nerved the arms of the volunteers the next
year.
Reaching Oregon once more, Colonel Bell pre-
pared for a permanent home and business by buying
a stock of goods and a store at Corvallis. He oper-
ated here in a mercantile line until 1857, removing
then to Salem where, for more than twenty-five
years, he successfully conducted a store, carrying on
an extensive trade. In 1884 he was appointed by
President Cleveland as postmaster at Astoria, and
has faithfully and ably conducted this office to the
present time.
The Colonel has raised a family which have occu-
pied a prominent position in the business and society
of the communities in which they have lived: Laura
W., the wife of Captain J. H. V. Gray, resides at
Astoria; Anna, who married Mr. Jackson, is de-
ceased; William T. is successfully engaged in busi-
ness at Salem; John C. is deceased; Sarah, the wife
of Walter E. Davis, of the well-known drug firm of
Hodge, Davis & Co., resides at Portland; Alice P.,
Jennie V., and Robert E. are still at home.
210
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
SAMUEL BENN.-There is a certain keenness
amounting almost to prescience which enables a
man to locate a successful town. The laws of a
city's development are so peculiar that few are able
to make much of the riddle. Nevertheless some
seem to know where to locate a townsite, and where
to invest in real estate. It is a business instinct.
Mr. Benn is one of these persons. He is the founder
of Aberdeen.
He was born in New York City, and, as a youth,
learned the carpenter's trade. In 1856 he came to
San Francisco, and mined and built dams and
flumes in Tuolumne county three years. His pur-
pose to return home was changed by reports of the
wealth and beauty of Washington Territory, whither
he came in 1859, and settled at Milburn on the
Chehalis. Here he lived nine years, clearing up a
farm, an arduous but eminently useful job. In
1867 he purchased one hundred and sixty acres of
land from the government and some four hundred
more from Reuben Redman on the present site of
Aberdeen, and in 1884 laid out the city, selling
lots and improving the property. For three years
subsequently he was occupied with farming, and in
conducting the Washingtonian Cannery. He has
now, however, retired from business, excepting
such as is required by his property interests, which
are extensive. His capital of one hundred dollars
which he brought into the territory has become a
handsome fortune. Mr. Benn was the first sheriff
of Chehalis county, and has since held the office of
assessor, county commissioner, and member of the
school board. He was married in Aberdeen to Miss
Martha Redman. They have seven children.
HON. JAMES ABNER BENNETT.— Our
subject was born in Bracken county, Kentucky, on
March 17, 1808. His birthplace was a farm; and
here he remained with his parents until 1830, when
he moved to Boone county. He resided here for
three years, and then removed to Jackson county,
Missouri, near the town of Independence, and in
1839 again removed to Platt county. The following
year, 1840, he was married to Miss Louisa E. R.
Bane, of Weston, Missouri. Here Mr. Bennett
remained, following blacksmithing and conducting
a livery stable. He also acted as justice of the peace
until the year 1842. There also was a son born to
them, John R. Bennett. Mr. and Mrs. Bennett
moved from here to Jackson county, Missouri, where
they lived until 1850, in the meanwhile suffering the
loss of their son, who died April 18, 1848.
In 1849 Mr. Bennett came on a prospecting tour
to California. On his return, Mrs. Bennett made
preparations and started with him for Oregon,
traveling with ox-teams in company with some
thirty other families, Judge Bennett being elected
captain of the train. They started on May 9th, and
after a wearisome journey of five months' duration
reached Oregon on October 2, 1850. They at once
located on their beautiful farm near Corvallis; and,
the settlers soon recognizing true worth, he was
elected a senator in the territorial legislature from
Benton county, and in 1857 was re-elected over all
competitors. He also was once assessor of the
county, and served as sheriff for one term. He
occupied himself in farming and stock-raising, and
drove cattle to California to the mines. In 1864
Mr. Bennett went to Idaho, and for two years drove
stock to supply the miners. In 1866 Mrs. Bennett
joined her husband in Idaho; and together they
established a dairy in Ada county. Two years later
he went to Salt Lake City, bought a herd of cattle
and drove them to the farm in Ada county.
In 1869 he was elected to the legislature, and
served one term as representative. But in the follow-
ing year his health began to wane; and for the next
fifteen years he was incapable of performing any
labor, his wife taking his place as chief and superin-
tendent of the farm. On April 24, 1885, Honorable
James A. Bennett closed his earthly career; and his
remains were brought to Corvallis by Mrs. Bennett,
and now repose in Crystal Lake Cemetery, where
the faithful and loving wife has caused to be erected
a handsome monument, suitably inscribed, to his
memory. He was a mason of high standing, an
honorable man in all his dealings, and left a name
second to none in the state for integrity and noble-
ness of character. His widow still lives on the old
home place, one mile southwest of Corvallis, in a
modern cottage, surrounded by all the comforts and
conveniences of life. She is a most generous and
charitable lady, as is acknowledged by all with
whom she is brought in contact, and respected and
beloved by all fortunate enough to claim acquaint-
ance with her.
NELSON BENNETT. Though Toronto,
Canada, must be accredited as the birthplace of
the distinguished personage whose name heads this
brief sketch of a most active, useful and busy life,
yet were his parentage and ancestry thoroughly
American. On the paternal side the Bennetts were
natives of Virginia, three generations back; and his
mother was of the ancient and time-honored family
of the Spragues of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
He was born October 14, 1843; and his father died
when he was seven years of age, leaving a widow
and six children. The family resided upon a farm;
and Nelson was afforded the opportunity of acquir-
ing a good rudimentary education in the grammar
schools near Toronto. The custom was to work on
the farm six months, and go to school the remainder
of the year. This was continued until his fourteenth
year.
In his seventeenth year he left Toronto, and came
to Orleans county, New York, the old home of the
family, where he attended school for one year.
During much of his first year in New York, he
was sick from the effects of a singular but severe
accident. He was riding horseback through the
timber, his horse being on a lope, when he came
to a limb extending across the road, which he
thought he could avoid by ducking his head. The
limb, however, so caught his body, and drew it for-
ward in such manner that the pressure caused
extreme internal injuries, from the effects of which
he suffered for about a year. His health being
recovered in 1863, he was employed by the United
States government in a corps of artisans, whose
chief occupation was building barracks for troops.
In this service he remained until 1864, when he

I
-es J. & G. G A CHES
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​10AHO
.
W.E.S
E.SCHRICKE
1886
SKAGIT COUNTY BANK.

UNIL
:
LA CONNER, WASHINGTON TERRITORY
CF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
211
went to the oil regions of Pennsylvania. Then and
there he first displayed the proclivities which have
rendered his after-life so prominent, and his name
so well-known. He commenced contracting. While
there he sank twenty-seven oil wells, with varied
success, and made considerable money.
In the fall of 1865, he migrated to Pettis county,
Missouri, where the town of Sedalia now stands,
and invested the money made in oil in large tracts
of land. In the spring of 1866 he went to Iowa,
and secured employment by the North Western
Railroad Company, and worked on their roads in
Iowa during that year. In 1867 he went out on the
Union Pacific, and followed on the line of construc-
tion till the track reached Fort Bridge. He aban-
doned railroad construction when the mining excite-
ment broke out in the Sweetwater country in Dakota,
and remained there while the excitement continued.
Among the occupations necessitated by his Sweet-
water experiences was fighting the Indians for about
two years of that period.
Mr. Bennett had now become a miner. He left
the Sweetwater country for the Little Cottonwood
mines in Utah. For the next two years he engaged
in mining pursuits in Utah, at which time he
entered into a contract with Walker Brothers to
transport a quartz mill from Ophir cañon, a district
in Utah, to Butte City, Montana. This was the
commencement of a freighting and transportation
business out of which a train was built up of 150
animals, mostly Kentucky mules. The business
was pursued under the old style of freighting,
twelve animals constituting a team, each team draw-
ing three wagons. During the time Mr. Bennett
pursued the freighting business in the Rocky
Mountains, he opened a wagon road from Eagle
Gorge on Snake river, by way of Big Lost river,
through to Challis and Bonanza mining districts in
Idaho Territory. He it was who also sent the first
team into the Wood river district with supplies and
materials for miners. In one of his expeditions
during the year of Howard's campaign against the
Nez Perces, his train had just passed Dry creek,
in Idaho. The hostile Nez Perces came up and
intervened between his train and the head of the
train following, that of James Brown. Bennett's
train was not delayed; but Brown had to return to
Pleasant valley.
His singular good fortune, luck, or call it what
you will, seemed never to desert him. A year later
his train was making a second trip into the Challis
and Bonanza districts of Idaho. A large train had
gone ahead; and they were intercepted by hostile Ban-
nacks, who fought them and held them at bay for two
days and two nights, killing one man and stampeding
the animals and running off a number. Colonel
Green, U. S. Army, came up; and the Indians fled.
Bennett's train came up after the arrival of the soldiers
and the flight of the Bannacks. The soldiers were
entirely out of provisions, and really in need Ben-
nett sold out his whole outfit, consisting of grocery
bacon, canned fruits, canned salmon, and a well-
assorted stock intended for the miners. Scrip was
issued to him, as that was one of the years in which
the appropriation had fallen short; and Bennett did
not receive his pay for eighteen months.
Whilst Mr. Bennett has been carrying on this
freighting enterprise west of the Rocky Mountains,
Jay Gould had undertaken the extension of the Utah
Northern Railroad from Ogden to Butte City. That
great financier had sent out, as superintendent of
construction, Washington Dunn, with whom, in
1881, Nelson Bennett became intimately acquainted.
Through that intimacy Mr. Bennett entered upon
the railroad contracting business. It is out of
place to follow in detail the contracts he undertook.
Since that date, a part of which time doing business
under the firm name of Washington Dunn & Com-
pany, and in his individual capacity, he has built
five hundred and fifty miles of railroad, including
the Stampede or Cascade Tunnel of the Northern
Pacific Railroad through the Cascade Range of
mountains. The latter stupendous and colossal
work was completed in May, 1888. Mr. Bennett
took the contract for its construction January 21,
1886, requiring its completion within twenty-eight
months from date of contract. He gave bonds of
$100,000 cash, and ten per cent of the contract price
for the fulfillment of the contract. He finished the
great work, and had seven days to spare.
During all the time that Mr. Bennett was engaged
in freighting and railroad constructing, he was
steadily occupied in other pursuits, merchandising,
the lumber business, dealing in agricultural imple-
ments, stock-raising, mining, and dealing in mining
properties.
properties. He became largely interested in devel-
oping mines; and, although almost universally suc-
cessful in any enterprise in which he enlisted, he
has in his hope to develop mines expended some
fifty thousand dollars, only realizing out of those
ventures a thousand dollars. But indomitable he is
still mining, and not discouraged as to the future
result of those investments. It would not be Nelson
Bennett to give up, nor would it be him not to be
crowned with a successful result.
Since completing the Cascade Tunnel, Tacoma
has been his headquarters; and he has contributed
largely to the marvelous growth of that city. Early
in 1889 he became interested in Fairhaven, What-
com county, in the extreme northern part of Wash-
ington, on Bellingham Bay. The Fairhaven enter-
prise comprehends the development of the Lower
Puget Sound region, the possibilities resulting from
which it is premature to predict. They must be
estimated in the future, though it is quite proper to
add that the success of the short period already
passed through promises grand results. Already
twenty-five miles of railroad have been constructed,
while another section of twenty-five miles is ready for
tracklaying. A large force of men are now at work
extending the line south of Skagit river, and grad-
ually approaching connection with the Northern
Pacific. There is also work being done on the line
connecting Skagit river with the Eastern branch,
which is heading eastward to pass through one of
the Skagit passes of the Cascade Range to enter and
open the rich mining region of the Okanagan, and
connect it with Puget Sound.
Another railroad is being constructed which ex-
tends northward from Bellingham Bay to New West-
minster, and possibly to Vancouver and other more
remote points in British Columbia. Mr. Bennett is
212
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
the president of the Fairhaven & Southern Rail-
road Company. He has purchased the entire
control of the Westminster & Southern Railroad
Company properties. He is the president of the
Fairhaven Land Company, a company which is
engaged in the development of the city of that name
on Bellingham Bay. He is the president of the Skagit
Coal Company, which is at present and for the past
year has been engaged in developing the vast coal
fields of the Skagit river basin. He is largely inter-
ested in and principal promoter of the Fairhaven
Iron and Steel Company, who are about erecting the
necessary furnaces and works for the development
and utilization of the rich iron deposits in the valley
of the Skagit.
He was the pioneer builder of the street railroad
system of Tacoma, and is now the principal owner
of the street railroad system of Butte City, Montana,
which has three miles of cable road and six miles of
motor lines. He is president of the Tacoma Cham-
ber of Commerce, as also the Tacoma Hotel Company.
With all these manifold engagements, he still finds
time to contribute by his presence and council to
every enterprise suggested for the benefit of the
public. He is ever ready to advise and to assist the
needy. In vigorous and hearty manhood, full of
intellectual vigor and physical strength, his life of
usefulness and benefit to his race promises to be pro-
longed. No one in a more eminent degree illustrates
the pluck and push of the men who have made our
western civilization than Nelson Bennett.
SIDNEY S. BENTON.- This pioneer of Illi-
nois, California and Washington is one of those
facile, multiplex characters that give to our Western
life its buoyancy. He was born in the first-named
State in 1838, while Chicago was yet in her swamps,
and his father was at that city in 1831, when it was
a mere Indian trading post, and also at Galena, the
home of the Grants, in 1832. His father came out
to California with ox-teams amid Indians, and over
the usual sage-brush plains and the iron-stone rocks
in 1849. He mined on Feather river in Yuba
county, and in 1852 went to Siskiyou county, where
he followed mining and merchandising. Sidney
arrived in 1856 via Panama at Yreka, and mined
near that city and in Scott's valley until 1861. In
that year he went to Nevada, working on the Com-
stock; for six years he was underground foreman.
of the Savage mine, making money and losing it.
In Siskiyou county and Surprise valley, and at
Dixon in Solano county, California, he engaged
again in business. At the latter place, in 1863, he
met an old acquaintance from Wisconsin, Miss Mat-
tie E. Bowmer. She and her brother had come the
year before from the East in the company which had
been attacked on the Upper Snake river by Indians,
who killed twenty-eight of the party. Some fifteen
years after his marriage to this lady, Mr. Benton
came to Walla Walla with his wife, where he began
stock-raising. He has prospered greatly, picking
up interests at various points throughout the terri-
tory. At Farmington he, with a partner, owns
twenty-two acres of land, which have been plotted
and added to the town. It forms an addition which
has been named Grover, after ex-President Cleve-
land, and lies on the Idaho side of the territorial
boundary, which runs next the city. Farmington,
being the first agricultural region reached from the
mines, is sure to prosper. At Medical Lake Mr.
Benton owns a portion of the townsite, and also has
city property in Tacoma. His first venture in the
Coeur d'Alene mines ended in a disastrous snow
blockade at the place where Wardner now stands;
but he now has valuable claims at Carbonate Cen-
ter. He is anchored to real estate at Colfax also.
Mr. Benton's life on this coast has been peaceful,
with the exception of a campaign and skirmish dur-
ing the Modoc war while he was deputy assessor.
He is living now at Colfax with his wife and son,
advancing the interests of the city and state to the
best of his somewhat rare ability.
WM. BILLINGS. The name Billings at once
suggests the picturesque hills and valleys of Ver-
mont; and we find that the subject of this sketch is
indeed a Green Mountain boy, having been born in
Ripton in 1827. He lived upon his father's place
until 1846, and in that year went down to New
Bedford and shipped before the mast.
This step
brought him to Washington Territory; for, in 1849,
he was left at Honolulu, from whence, in the bark
Mary, he came to California, the gold of the Yuba
mines detaining him but a few months. Indeed, the
best place to obtain California gold was not always
in California. He came to Portland in the autumn,
and found employment in hewing timber for the
first steam sawmill in that embryo city. Remaining
here until 1852, he joined a company of seventy
gold hunters, who bought the brig Eagle for the
purpose of going to Queen Charlotte's Island pros-
pecting. The expedition proved a failure; and the
company returned to the mainland, disbanding and
selling their vessel at Olympia.
Being thus landed in his future home, Mr. Billings
located a claim three miles from town and followed
lumbering three years. But the war of 1855 called
him from this peaceful and remunerative occupation,
making a soldier of him for a year. He served in
the Yakima country, and after his discharge in 1856
busied himself a number of years at Olympia in
whatever enterprise or business came to hand. In
1860 he entered the field of politics, being the nomi-
nee of the Republican party for sheriff of Thurston
county. In this campaign he was successful, and
was the first Republican elected to office there.
Upon retiring in 1862, he was appointed corporal in
charge of the Puyallup Indian reservation, and in
1867 was transferred to the Black river reservation
in the same capacity. Returning to Olympia the
following season, he was appointed to fill an un-
expired term as sheriff, and was nominated and
elected to the same place when the office was again
within the gift of the people, and has served con-
tinuously in this position up to the present time,
always as a Republican. Farmer, sailor, miner,
logger, soldier, politician, Indian disciplinarian,
Mr. Billings "is built four square to every wind that
blows," and could make and fill a position in any
part of the world. He is a substantial citizen of
unquestioned probity, and has a fine family of five
children.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
213
HON. JOHN BIRD. This venerable pioneer
of our state comes from that stock of state-makers
and town-builders who have ever been at the front.
He was born in 1810 in Boone county, Kentucky,
and lived there with his father until the year 1827,
thereafter making Illinois his home until 1847. In
the latter year he joined the train of Captain Saw-
yer, and set forth for Oregon, starting from Missouri
about the 1st of May. Upon the trip nothing was
more notable than the appearance of about one hun-
dred Pawnee Indians, who laid a blanket on the
ground for the emigrants as they passed to drop in
a contribution of flour, and the shooting with arrows
of two valuable horses by the same Indians. The
toils, adventures and exertions, of vast interest and
importance, were of the same character as of the
early thousands who made the long journey.
(
Crossing the Cascade Mountains by the Barlow
Road the 1st of October, Mr. Bird passed his first
winter in our state at Linn City, opposite Oregon
City, and indeed made this point his home until
1849. In that memorable year of gold he went to
the California mines, but did not strike it rich,
and after deliberation decided that the better place
to make a fortune was in the rich valleys of Oregon.
Returning therefore to our state he selected a loca-
tion adjoining Lafayette, buying a place located be-
fore by Judge Skinner and Mr. Rice. He made this
opulent farm his home up to the year 1864, since
which time he has resided in Lafayette.
Having been a veteran of the Black Hawk war,
Mr. Bird became a volunteer and valuable soldier in
the service against our Indians in the war of 1855-
56, being with Captain Ankeny in the campaign on
the Yakima, and participating in a number of sharp
engagements. He was present when Captain A. J
Hembree was killed, and was also at The Dalles
when the Indians stampeded the horses, leaving the
command afoot. He carried his musket to the close
of the war.
•
Besides conducting his farm, Mr. Bird has kept
in the town a tin and stove store, and has been active
in the public affairs of the city and county, having
served four years as county treasurer. He has had
a family of four children: James M. (deceased);
Mary E. (deceased wife of J. C. Nelson); Amelia
(deceased wife of J. L. Ferguson); and R. P. Bird,
a merchant, who lives with his family at Lafayette.
His first wife having died in 1882, our subject was
married secondly in 1884 to Mrs. H. B. Alderman,
and with her makes his home in Lafayette. A
friend of schools, and a supporter of churches, still
hale and active, Mr. Bird is one of our "grand old
gentlemen."
JAMES BIRNIE.-Mr. Birnie was a Scotch-
man by birth. He was born at Paisley, county
Renfrew, Scotland, in the year 1800. In 1816 the
ambitious lad left his native heath and emigrated to
Montreal, Canada. Here, under the tutelage of a
Catholic priest, he studied the French language for
about two years, at the end of which time he
entered the employ of the Northwest Fur Company
as one of its clerks, and was sent across the Rocky
Mountains to Fort Spokane, where he arrived
towards the close of 1818. The fort at this time
was in charge of a Mr. Haldin, with whom Mr.
Birnie remained for several years. He then went
to the Kootenai country, where he was married to
the daughter of a Frenchman, a Mr. Bianlien, from
Manitoba. Here he spent several years trading
with the Indians, buying furs, etc., and then
returned to Fort Spokane.
In 1821 the Northwest and Hudson's Bay Com-
pany amalgamated as one concern. In 1824 Dr.
McLoughlin removed a part of the forces at Astoria
up the Columbia river and established Fort Van-
couver. During this year, or the beginning of 1825,
Mr. Birnie was appointed Indian trader and book-
keeper for the consolidated companies, then known
as the Hudson's Bay Company, and was stationed at
Vancouver, where he remained until 1831. He was
then sent to the Northwest coast to succeed Captain
Simpson, deceased, and to complete the building of
Fort Simpson, which work he speedily accomplished.
After several years service at Fort Simpson, he
returned to Astoria, and for a second time took
charge of that trading post. It was while serving
this second term that the brigantine Peacock, Cap-
tain Hudson, and the schooner Shark, Captain
Harrison, both United States war vessels, were
wrecked on the Columbia river bar. The services
Mr. Birnie rendered to the officers and crew of these
unfortunate crafts endeared him to one and all; and
in testimony of their affection, before leaving the
river, the grateful gentlemen presented their friend
with a quantity of valuable silver plate. From
Astoria he was sent to The Dalles to protect the
interests of his company against an encroaching
stranger, where he remained for several years.
In 1845 he left the employ of the Hudson's Bay
Company, and settled upon a tract of land at Cath-
lamet, and at once began its improvement. At that
time, in the language of Robinson Crusoe, he was
monarch of all he surveyed. There were no tres-
passers upon his holdings, save an occasional trader
and now and then a roving Indian. Here he soon
transformed the wilderness into a land of surprising
productiveness, and made for himself and family a
comfortable and happy home. At the time of his
death, in 1864, he was the father of thirteen children,
-eight boys and five girls.
During his early struggles in Oregon, he made a
friend of nearly every acquaintance. Open-handed
and generous to a fault, the stranger never came
within his gates to be sent empty-handed away.
He always had a word of cheer for all with whom
he came in contact; and when neighbors began to
settle about him he was the first to welcome them,
and to extend to all whatever aid he could. Of him
it may truly be said that his hand was against no
man, and that no man's hand was against him.
He possessed a loyal helpmeet in his most estima-
ble wife. She was known only to be loved; and
the day of her demise witnessed the taking off of
one possessed of those many attributes of character
that make the noblest of her sex so much revered.
Oregon owes much of her greatness to her early
pioneers; and to few does she owe more than to Mr.
James Birnie, his most excellent wife and the sons
and daughters they left behind them.
214
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
ALANSON A., ELHANAN AND HYR-
CANUS BLACKMAN. The father of these
gentlemen, Adam Blackman, is a native of Maine;
and their mother was Mary (Howard) Blackman,
both of whom are still living in the town of Bradley
in the above state. The history of communities
and of nations is made up mainly of the acts of men
who contribute towards directing to a result the
efforts of the people by whom they are surrounded.
This is equally true whether the actor be a Grant
marshaling the legions of a grand army, a Vander-
bilt dictating a nation's commerce, or the obscure
farmer whose harvest is gathered to feed those
dependent upon him. The acts of each that have
an influence upon any portion of the human family
are historic events, and are important in proportion
to the result. Every community has its leading
men, whose operations exert an influence upon
others. Their plans include the capital and the labor
of many to execute; and if that labor is benefited or
that capital augmented, the ones who planned are
public benefactors, great in proportion to the results
achieved. Even though it be claimed that the object
of such operations was to benefit the designers only,
still, if in its detail or results benefits accrue to the
public, those who designed and executed neverthe-
less are public benefactors.
There are persons of this class living between the
Cascade and Coast Mountains who have done much
for the country where they live; but among them
all there is none superior in this respect than the
gentlemen whose names head this short memoir, and
whose portraits appear in this history. Fertile in
invention, comprehensive in judgment, with a
tenacity of purpose inherited from their Puritan
ancestors, they could not have fallen short of becom-
ing leaders in whatever sphere circumstances may
have placed them.
The firm, so well and favorably known through-
out Washington Territory as the Blackman Brothers
of Snohomish, is composed of those gentlemen
whose names appear above. They came to Snoho-
mish county sixteen years ago poor men; but
through industry and enterprise, guided by financial
ability, they have succeeded in building up a very
extensive sawmill, lumbering and logging business
on the Snohomish river, together with a general
merchandise store in Snohomish. Some idea of
their extensive business may be gleaned from the
knowledge that they employ in their different enter-
prises no less than one hundred and twenty-five
men, and keep four large logging camps in success-
ful operation. (A full account and description of
the business interests of this firm will be found in
its proper place among the industries of Washington
Territory.)
The lives of these gentlemen are conclusive evi-
dence of the truthfulness of the adage of "where
those who will may win." As business men, they
have the confidence of all who know them; as citi-
zens, the respect to which their character and actions
in life have entitled them; and their wealth is the
result of judicious labor prompted by their early sur-
roundings, and not the reward of chance or birth.
They have gathered the foundation for a competency
in the near future, and in doing so have developed a
capability and judgment in management that both
warrants and deserves success. It is only just to
state that the brothers have been ably assisted by
the ladies of their families, who aided them in their
council, and even for a time undertook the hardship
of looking after the household duties in their differ-
ent logging camps. Whatever enterprise is started
that tends towards the benefit of the territory,
county or city in which they reside is always met
by the brothers by a hasty indorsement and financial
aid. In 1878 they each built a handsome residence
in the city of Snohomish, where they enjoy the
comforts of a happy home.
The senior of the brothers, Alanson A., was born
in Bradley, Penobscot county, Maine, May 26, 1841,
and resided in his native town until his coming with
his brothers to Washington Territory, where they
arrived in November 1872. He was united in mar-
riage in Bradley, Maine, November 28, 1867, to Miss
Eliza J. Howard, a native of Maine. Elhanan was also
born in Bradley, May 10, 1844, and was married in
the same town December 25, 1867, to Frances M.
Osgood, a native of Maine. By this union they
have one child, Edith M. Hyrcanus Blackman was
born January 4, 1847, in Bradley, and was united in
marriage at that place May 17, 1870, to Miss Ella
E. Knapp, a native of the same town. Their chil-
dren are Clifford A. and Eunice L.
The lives of those three brothers have been in-
delibly connected since their childhood. They
resided on their father's farm until twenty-one years
of age. They were engaged in the lumber business
until November, 1872, when they came to Puget
Sound, and, after looking over the territory for a
location, selected Snohomish for their future home,
where they now own a large amount of real estate, to-
gether with thirty-four hundred acres of timber and
agricultural land in the county of Snohomish. The
above land contains about one hundred and fifty
million feet of standing timber. They are conser-
vative in politics, but vote the Democratic ticket.
That party, in the fall of 1878, honored itself by
selecting the junior member of the firm to represent
Snohomish county in the territorial legislature, a
position he filled with ability, and to the best
interests of the county, for the sessions of 1878 and
and 1880.
In conclusion we would say that the men who
develop and shape the prospects and property of a
country are such men as the subjects of this sketch,
-men who by activity, force of character and
honorable purposes, guided by superior intelligence,
mould for success that which they control, and
shape for improvement that which falls within range
of their influence.
ARTHUR M. BLACKMAN.— This young
gentleman, a flourishing grocer of Snohomish, is a
native of Penobscot county, Maine, and was born in
1865. While he was but a boy his parents went to
Michigan, living at Bay City, and four years later
brought him with them to California, making their
residence at Oakland, and giving their son the
benefit of the excellent educational advantages of
that city. In 1885 he began to seek business of
his own, and found employment with Blackman

ALLEN C. MASON.
TACOMA, W.T.
HON.AMOS F. TULLIS.
TACOMA, W.T.
HON EZRA MEEKER.
PUYALLUP, W.T.
EDWARD S. SMITH.
TACOMA, WT,
WM H. FIFE.
TACOMA, W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
215
Brothers, at Snohomish. He made such good use
of his earnings thus acquired as to be able, at the
end of eighteen months, to buy the grocery store
which he now successfully conducts. His future is
still before him, and seems well assured by the
qualities which he is able to bring to bear upon his
business.
HON. HENRY BLACKMAN.- Mr. Black-
man, as mayor of Heppner, Oregon, occupies a re-
sponsible and eminent position, His first election to
the office was in 1887, during his absence at Salem,
where he was still perfecting the articles of incor-
poration for the town. He was re-elected in 1888
by a heavy majority (100 to 41), and was re-elected
for the third time in 1889 unanimously, there being
no opposition. At all times the tickets were non-
political, although the mayor is a Democrat. The
issue was upon general improvements, and a general
policy of progress. The town is laid out upon a
liberal basis. The courthouse was built at a cost of
twenty-five hundred dollars, raised by subscription.
The fine building one hundred and twenty-six by
thirty and one-half feet used as the store of Hepp-
ner & Blackman, the first brick in the place, is a
public ornament. Since the removal of his partner
to Arlington, Mr. Blackman has had chief control
of the business of Heppner, and conducts it with
personal sagacity, and to the convenience and bene-
fit of the public.
His two
He was born in New York City in 1848. In 1850
he was carried by his parents to California. In this
state he was educated, and in 1880 came to Heppner,
engaging in business with Henry Heppner, whose
sister he had married in San Francisco in 1878.
His domestic life is singularly pleasant.
children, both boys, Heppner and Leo, are now
passing from the interesting stage of babyhood to
the more interesting period of childhood. Mr. Black-
man is an owner of much real estate in the city and
county. He has much faith in the region as one to
be productive of stock, and for farming for local
consumption.
Heppner will be the terminus of the railroad for
some time (five years) and a supply point for the
Upper John Day river, Long creek, and the whole
region south of the timber belt of the Blue Moun-
tains. In the influence and leading position of men
like Mr. Blackman, we have an assurance of the
good order, educational progress and improvement
of the state, as well as of its material advancement.
WILLIAM M. BLAKELY.-The subject of
this sketch, a prominent citizen of the rapidly
developing upper country, was born in Missouri
in 1840. In 1846 he crossed the plains with his
father, who located near the present site of
Brownsville, Linn county, Oregon, where he still
resides. Mr. Blakely was here favored with the
educational advantages afforded by the public
school, and assisted his father on the farm until
1860, when he moved to a point near the present
site of Prescott, on the lovely Touchet river, in
Washington Territory. In the spring of 1861 he
tried his fortune in the Oro Fino mines in Idaho,
and returned to the home of his father at Browns-
ville in the autumn. In 1862 he made an expedi-
tion to the Powder river mines, returning home for
the winter. He was engaged in the cattle business
from 1863 to 1864. In the latter year he disposed of
his herds, and entered upon substantial life, marry-
ing Miss Margaret Baird. In 1868 he moved to
his present location near Adams, in Umatilla county,
Oregon, where he is largely interested in agricul-
ture.
DR. N. G. BLALOCK.— Americans in general
and those of the West in particular have no equals
in the world in versatility. No other people can do
so many different things and do them so well as we.
No other people so disregard the conventional and
regular ways of doing things, and go across lots to
conclusions and results so promptly. On our West-
ern border is this especially manifest. Face to face
with Nature in some of her most remarkable and
powerful manifestations, with all things new and
untried, we burgeon out our powers untrammeled
by custom or artificial restraints. Thus has come
the fact that many men here, educated as lawyers,
teachers, physicians and preachers, so readily turn
their attention to other occupations, and carry on a
wide range of effort. No better example of this ver-
satility and broad-gauge type of enterprise can be
found in the Northwest than in the subject of this
sketch.
Doctor Blalock was born in North Carolina on the
17th of February, 1836.
17th of February, 1836. After a boyhood of activ-
ity and industry, he devoted himself for some time to
teaching; but, deciding that the practice of medicine
should be his goal, he entered Jefferson Medical
College in 1859, and graduated two years later. He
had already been married to Miss Panthea A. Dur-
ham in 1858.
Soon after graduating from the medical college,
Doctor Blalock, with his wife and two children,
moved to Mount Zion, Macon county, Illinois. The
tempest of the Civil war just now was breaking on
the country, and Doctor Blalock, with a broader
patriotism than most of his misguided brethren of
the South, joined the armies of the Nation as sur-
geon. He was attached to the One Hundred and
Fifteenth Illinois Infantry. With them he exer-
cised the same skill and devotion which have been
such prominent traits in his character since; but
failing health compelled him to leave the army
before the end of the war. In 1862 he lost his elder
child, and on May 18, 1864, he suffered the irrepar-
able loss of his faithful wife. He now resumed the
interrupted practice of his profession at Mount Zion,
Illinois, and there, in December, 1865, was married
to Miss Marie E. Greenfield.
During the busy years which followed, the Doctor,
like many others, became interested in the reports
of the wonderful results of farming and other enter-
prises in the valley of the Upper Columbia. In 1872,
he set forth to cross the plains in company with
thirty other men of Macon county and their families.
Though "dead broke" on his arrival at Walla
Walla, his industry and fertility of resources soon
set him on his feet in both his profession and his
outside business. Though considering medical
practice his chief calling, he could not help noticing
216
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
the vast undeveloped resources lying loose around
Walla Walla; and he soon, with his peculiar energy,
got control of a large body of land in the foothill
belt south of the city. His farming enterprises
mark an era in the development of the Inland Empire.
At that time, though only about sixteen years ago,
nobody had tested the plains of the upper country.
It was generally supposed that, aside from the nar-
row valleys in the near vicinity of the streams, the
upper country was a desert.
The Doctor bargained for twenty-two hundred
acres of upland at a price of ten bushels of wheat
per acre. Entering into the work with great enthu-
siasm, and expending all that he had in its cultiva-
tion, he was abundantly rewarded for his daring
and enterprise by securing a harvest of thirty-one
bushels to the acre. Thus a third of his first crop
was enough to pay for the land; and at one bold
appeal to Fortune, aided, however, by good judg-
ment and industry, he found himself independ-
ent. We give in the body of our history some
specific statements as to the Doctor's subsequent
experience in farming. Satisfied as to the profits of
wheat-raising, he formed the association known as
the "Blalock Wheat Growing Company," which
secured twenty thousand acres of land in what is
now Gilliam county, Oregon. Ten thousand acres
of this tract have been in wheat at once, and corn
(not usually thought a success in this country) has
been raised on a scale and with an excellence which
would do credit to Illinois or Kansas.
But the incessant activity of the Doctor in his
constantly growing medical practice, and in his
wheat business, did not restrain him from still
greater efforts; and in 1874 he began the construc-
tion of a flume twenty-eight miles long from Walla
Walla to the Blue Mountains. This great enter-
prise was completed in 1880, costing $56,000. The
great cost of this flume and the expense of main-
taining it, however, so devoured the profits that the
Doctor found himself greatly embarrassed and for a
time was compelled to restrict his many and valu-
able enterprises. Unremitting attention to his prac-
tice (now far larger than that of any other practitioner
in the upper country), together with an enormous
yield of wheat (90,000 bushels) on his Walla Walla
ranch in 1881, soon repaired his temporary embar-
rassment; and he retained the position, so justly
due him, of being one of Walla Walla's "heavy"
men.
On Christmas eve, 1885, he was again deprived
by death of his wife, a loss inestimable both to him
and the place. Mrs. Blalock was a woman whose
beauty and attractiveness were surpassed only by
her intelligence and benevolence. She left two
daughters, Rose and May. The remaining child of
the Doctor's first marriage was Yancey C.; and he
has followed his father into the discipleship of Escu-
lapius, and is now rapidly making a name as one of
the leading young physicians of Walla Walla.
Though his mind has thus been occupied with so
many matters outside of his profession, Dr. Blalock
considers that his chief claim to recognition among
the leading men of the country. He seems to have
by nature almost every requisite of the successful
physician,— calm judgment, keen perception, quick
intuition and untiring patience. Besides his emi-
nence in his profession, he keeps abreast of the
times in all other matters pertaining to the develop-
ment of the city and country. He is one of the
trustees of Whitman College, and in all matters re-
lating to the intellectual and social development of
Walla Walla is one of the leaders. Well may the
beautiful country of his adoption be proud of such
a man. We may properly end this sketch by saying
that, at the very day of writing it, Doctor Blalock
has been further honored by being elected one of
the delegates from the Walla Walla district to the
convention which is charged with the momentous
duty of framing a constitution for the coming great
State of Washington.
HON. DEAN BLANCHARD.
Among those
who have manifested great interest in the welfare oi
the Pacific Northwest as a whole, and Columbia
county, Oregon, in particular, the gentleman above-
named figures conspicuously. He was born in Madi-
son county, Maine, on December 20, 1832, where he
resided on his father's farm until 1853, when he left
for California, reaching that state in December of
that year. In April, 1854, he came to Oregon, and
located at St. Helens, having secured a situation as
salesman and book-keeper in a store there. In 1855,
he went with the command of Major Haller, which
was ordered to the Boise country to punish the
Indians who had murdered some immigrants in 1854
on the Snake and Boise rivers. In this campaign
several savages were killed; and some eight or nine
of those captured, who were found guilty of murder,
were hanged. From these scenes he followed the for-
tunes of the command to California, where it win-
tered in 1855-56.
In the spring of 1856, he was again in the Pacific.
Northwest, being employed in the quartermaster's
department at Vancouver. After a stay there of
about a year he again went back to St. Helens. He
was soon elected auditor of Columbia county, which
position he held for two years, after which he as-
sumed the duties of county clerk, to which office he
had been chosen. After the expiration of his term
as county clerk, he accepted a position in the quarter-
master's department at Vancouver, and retained such
position until his removal to Portland in 1861. His
first employment in this latter place was at carpen-
tering, which he followed until 1862, when he entered
the store of G. W. Vaughn as clerk and manager.
In 1868, he started for Umatilla Landing to engage
with Captain Kinghton in merchandising; but while
on the way to The Dalles that gentleman died. In
consequence, the plans of our subject were changed,
and he retraced his steps and once more found him-
self in St. Helens, where he busied himself in set-
tling up the estate of his deceased friend Captain
Kinghton. When this duty was completed, he re-
moved to Ranier and engaged in the lumber business.
At that place he has since remained.
In 1874, he was elected county judge, and was re-
elected in 1878. In 1882, he was tendered the nomi-
nation for a third term, but declined the honor. Mr.
Blanchard's interests in his adopted home are exten-
sive. Besides his lumber mill, which is one of the
largest on the Columbia river, and furnishes the
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
217
fruits of the same to not only home but foreign
markets, he conducts a general merchandise business
equal to the demands of the neighborhood. He also
carries on the business of wharf construction; and
his efforts in this line are to be seen at nearly all
landings and places along the river, which in itself
attests his skill as a master mechanic.
Through life Mr. Blanchard has ever been a sober,
industrious and exemplary man and citizen; and
when a public trust was in his hands for administra-
tion, the requirements incident to the office were
performed faithfully and honestly. He well merits
his popularity in the community.
ARCHBISHOP BLANCHET.- The Most Rev-
erend F. N. Blanchet ranked among the apostolic
men who laid the deep foundations of the Catholic
faith in this country. He was born at St. Pierre,
Riviere-du-Sud, Quebec, Canada, September 5, 1795,
was educated in the Petit Seminaire, Quebec, and
was ordained July 18, 1819, by Archbishop Plessis.
At that time Oregon was simply the name given to
a territory extending along the Pacific coast from
latitude forty-two degrees to fifty-four degrees, forty
minutes north, until finally, in 1846,-the year of
the accession of Pius IX. to the see of Peter,—all
the territory south of the forty-ninth parallel was
ceded to the United States.
In 1811, the Pacific Fur Company, of which John
Jacob Astor, a furrier, and the founder of the New
York house of Astor, was a leading member,
established a trading-post called Astoria at the
mouth of the Columbia river. Afterwards came the
Hudson's Bay Company, employing many Cana-
dians, most of whom were Catholics. Many of
them settled and intermarried with the Indians of
the territory; and with these there was a demand
for Catholic priests and Catholic worship.
Application was first made to the Right Reverend.
J. N. Provencher, bishop of Juliopolie (Red River).
The demand for Catholic priests was earnestly
indorsed by Sir George Simpson, governor of the
Hudson's Bay Company, writing from the British
capital (1838). He applied to the Most Reverend
Joseph Signay, then archbishop of Quebec. At
once, in the April of 1838, Archbishop Signay
instructed two of his missionaries, the Very Reverend
F. N. Blanchet and the Reverend Modeste Demers,
to take charge of the mission “ situated between the
Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains,”
mighty charge for two men; but the men were
apostles, and therefore as full of practical zeal as of
practical faith. Father Blanchet was vicar-general,
with Father Demers as assistant.
a
The journey of the devoted missionaries to their
new mission was a long and most laborious one,
familiar enough in early American history, though
almost incomprehensible to us in these days of rapid
and easy transit. They labored on their route, bap-
tizing and confirming in the faith many Indians,
who at various forts gathered to meet the long
looked-for "black gowns as they were called.
Their destination was Fort Vancouver, which they
reached November 24, 1838.
Vancouver was at this time the principal fort of
the Hudson's Bay Company; and this the mission-
aries, Blanchet and Demers, made their head-
quarters, while for four years they toiled unaided
up and down the wide domain of their mission.
The letters of these fathers describing their work
and surroundings were full of interest, and afforded
valuable material for history. They learned the
Indian tongue, and taught the natives prayers and
doctrines of the church in their own language,
Father Demers attending more to the Indians, and
Father Blanchet to the Canadians. Some important
conversions were made among the officers of the
company, the chief of these being Dr. John Mc-
Loughlin, the governor of that company's estab-
lishments (1842), whom, for his services to the
church, Pope Gregory XVI. afterward made a
knight of the order of St. Gregory the Great.
In September, 1842, two canadian priests, the
Reverends A. Langlois and J. B. Z. Bolduc, reached
Oregon to assist their worn-out brethren. As an
instance of their labor and its fruits, the following
item, of many such sent to Quebec, will suffice:
"From March, 1840, to March, 1841, were per-
formed: Baptisms, 510; marriages, 12; burials, II,
communions, 60; one abjuration at St. Paul. Of
the 510 baptisms, about 410 Indians, 100 whites, 40
adults." On October 17, 1843, was founded St.
Joseph's College at St. Paul, with the Reverend A.
Langlois as director. There entered at once thirty
boarders, all sons of farmers, save one Indian boy,
the son of a chief.
With the rapid growth of the missions the holy
see, at the request of the bishops of Quebec and
Baltimore, erected Oregon into a vicariate-apostolic
(December 1, 1843), appointing Father Blanchet its
vicar-apostolic, he receiving his briefs on November
4, 1844. In August, 1844, Father de Smet arrived
from Belgium with six sisters of Notre Dame de
Namur, four Jesuit fathers and some lay brothers to
assist in the work of the mission. The papal briefs
arrived on November 4th; and Father Blanchet,
setting out for Canada, received his consecration in
Montreal at the hands of the archbishop of Quebec.
Thence he went to Rome, which he reached in
January, 1846, and set before the pope the great
wants of his vicariate.
At his intercession, in July, 1846, after the acces-
sion of Pius IX, the vicariate of Oregon was erected
into an ecclesiastical province, with the three sees
of Oregon City, Walla Walla (now Wallula), and
Vancouver Island. The Right Reverend F. N.
Blanchet was appointed to Oregon City; the Right
Reverend A. M. A. Blanchet, his brother, to Walla
Walla, and the Right Reverend M. Demers to
Vancouver Island. The necessity of this division
may be judged from the result of the missionaries'
labors at the end of 1844. Most of the Indian
tribes of the Sound, Caledonia and several of the
Rocky Mountains and of Lower Oregon had been
won over to the faith. Nine missions had been
founded,-five in Lower Oregon and four at the
Rocky Mountains. Eleven churches and chapels
had been erected,-five in Lower Oregon, two in
Caledonia and four at the Rocky Mountains. There
were two educational establishments,—one for boys
and the other for girls. There were fifteen priests,
secular and regular, besides the sisters. These
218
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
figures may not look large to-day; but they were
large at the time, and of great significance in a
rapidly populating and growing region.
Meanwhile the archbishop of Oregon City had
been very active abroad in aid of his new province
and its dioceses. He sought help on all sides, and
returned in August, 1847, accompanied by a colony
of twenty persons, comprising seven sisters of Notre
Dame de Namur, three Jesuit fathers, three lay
brothers, five secular priests, two deacons and one
cleric. The bishop of Walla Walla was consecrated
September 27, 1846, and entered on his charge the
following year, taking with him six priests, four of
them fathers O. M. I., and one deacon. The bishop
of Vancouver Island was consecrated in 1847, and
entered on his charge the same year. With the
arrivals from France and Canada, the ecclesiastical
province in the fall of 1847 had three bishops, four-
teen Jesuit fathers, four oblate fathers of Mary
Immaculate, thirteen secular priests, thirteen sisters.
and two educational establishments.
The first provincial council of Oregon City was
held at the end of February, 1848, the three bishops
assisting. Each then departed to his diocese, the
archbishop beginning with ten secular priests, two
Jesuit fathers, thirteen sisters of Notre Dame de
Namur; the bishop of Walla Walla with three secular
priests, four fathers O. M. I., and twelve Jesuit
fathers at the Rocky Mountains; while the bishop
of Vancouver Island, not having a single priest, de-
parted for Europe, and after visiting Rome returned
in 1852 with a number of missionaries.
In consequence of local disturbances, the diocese
of Walla Walla was suppressed, and that of Nis-
qually erected in its stead, with the same bishop and
clergy, May 31, 1850. In 1852, Archbishop Blan-
chet assisted at the first plenary council of Baltimore.
In the summer of the same year the sisters of Notre
Dame de Namur left St. Paul for Oregon City, and
in the following year went to California.
In 1855,
the archbishop started for South America to collect
for his needy diocese. He traversed Chile, Bolivia
and Peru, returning in 1857 after a successful expe-
dition. Two years later he departed for Canada,
returning the same year with twelve sisters of the
Holy Names of Jesus and Mary for Portland, two
sisters of St. Ann for Victoria, some others for Van-
couver and three priests.
In 1866, the archbishop attended the second plen-
ary council of Baltimore, and, ever watchful for the
cares of his diocese, returned with one priest and eight
sisters. On July 18, 1869, he celebrated the fiftieth
anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood, and
four months later left for Rome to assist at the Vatican
council, where he met his early brother missionaries.
He returned to Portland in 1870, and on July 28th
of the following year his old associate, Bishop Dem-
ers, died at Victoria, British Columbia. To Bishop
Demers succeeded the Right Reverend Charles John
Seghers, consecrated June 28, 1873. In 1878,
Bishop Seghers was appointed coadjutor to Arch-
bishop Blanchet, whose long life of arduous labor
in the cause of Christ and his church called for
some assistance in his declining years.
At this time, forty years since the creation of the
mission, the archbishopric of Oregon City contained
twenty-three priests, twenty-two churches, sixty-
eight sisters, nine academies for girls, one college.
for boys, two parochial schools for girls, one female
hospital, one orphanage, together with a number of
societies and two Indian reservations with schools
and stations. The first Catholic church in Portland
was erected in 1852. In 1862, the archbishop
moved from Oregon City to Portland; and this
church, now considerably enlarged and improved,
was made the pro-cathedral. And out of this grew
the present cathedral, which is not yet completely
finished.
There has been a slight increase in the number of
churches, priests and institutions since 1878. On
July 1, 1879, Archbishop Seghers, the coadjutor,
arrived in Portland and was received by the vener-
able founder of the diocese, surrounded by his
clergy and faithful flock. In a few words of touch-
ing simplicity and sweetness, the aged prelate re-
ceived and welcomed his youthful co-laborer to the
field where he had planted and sowed and reaped so
well. After initiating Archbishop Seghers into the
work of the diocese, the venerable man chose wholly
to retire from the scene of his active labors, and
published his farewell pastoral on the 27th day of
February, 1881, announcing the acceptance by the
holy father of his resignation, from which we make
an extract:
After sixty-two years of priesthood; after forty-
three years of toilsome labor on this coast; after an
episcopate of thirty-six years; after thirty-five years
spent at the head of this ecclesiastical province,-
we may say with the Apostle St. Paul: The time
of my dissolution is at hand. I have finished my
course. Let, therefore, the Lord dismiss his servant
in peace; for truly my eyes have seen the wonderful
works of his salvation.' We came to this country,
accompanied by the late Modeste Demers, the first.
bishop of Vancouver Island, in 1838, to preach the
true gospel for the first time; and where then we
saw nothing but 'darkness and the shadow of death,"
we have now flourishing dioceses and vicariates,
prosperous missions, a zealous clergy, fervent com-
munities, and a Catholic people of whom we expect
great works and noble deeds."
Since that time he resided at St. Vincent's hos-
pital, passing his last days in reading, writing and
making occasional visits, until in the ripeness of
his old age he was plucked from the tree of life by
the angel of death. He died June 18, 1883, aged
almost eighty-eight years.
JOSEPH BLANCHET. The farm of twelve
hundred and eighty acres of fenced and improved
land, belonging to Mr. Blanchet, is a sight rare even
for this region of big farms. Its proprietor has been.
so successful in multiplying his flocks and droves,
that he has been obliged to remove a part of them
to Idaho. He came to Vinson in 1880; and his
acquisitions have thus been the work of but a few
years. He was born in Canada in 1846, and was
occupied, until his removal to this coast, in draying
in the cities. He has three fine boys, Nicholas,
John and Eugene. His wife, Hermine du Puis,
whom he married at Vancouver, Washington, died
in 1886. Joseph Blanchet is known throughout

HIRAM DONCASTER,
SHIP BUILDER, TACOMA,W.T.
UNI
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
219
A
Eastern Oregon as a man of great practical intelli-
gence, of rigid honesty, whose word is as good as
his bond, and he is respected accordingly.
SAMUEL M. BLOOM. The farm of the
above-named gentleman is described as "Three hun-
dred and twenty acres of the beautiful, gently slop-
ing, well watered, and sightly fruit and grain
producing land in that lovely nook in the loveliest
valley in the Northwest." It was in 1862 that Mr.
Bloom came to this region; and since that time he
has acquired and improved this farm, and now
devotes himself to raising fine cattle and horses.
He is also interested in a sawmill near by, and is a
partner in the Cove Dairy Company, which con-
ducts the most extensive and best-equipped cheese
and butter factory in Oregon.
He has raised five children, and has four grand-
children now living in Union county. His house
was one of the first erected in the valley; and he has
ever been a substantial and faithful citizen. He is
a native of Ohio, where he was born in 1835, and
passed his early life in that state and in Illinois and
Iowa. In 1860, he was married to Miss Martha M.
Murphy, of Tennessee, and in 1862 came across the
plains direct to Grande Ronde.
REV. LUKE J. BOOTHE.— This well-known
minister of the gospel was born in Virginia in 1820.
At the age of ten years he emigrated to Missouri
with his parents, and received in that state a com-
mon-school education. Arriving at his majority, he
married Miss Mary Ann Shaw, of Boone county,
and engaged in farming and stock-raising.
About 1858, he entered the ministry, in the mis-
sionary Baptist denomination, in which he has
served with but little interruption to the present
time,—continuing frequently in his pastoral pursuits
in connection with other necessary occupations.
In 1863 he served in Captain Leadrod's company of
Missouri state militia, and was in actual service for
six months. In 1865 he crossed the plains with
his family, locating in Cove, Union county, Oregon,
where he re-engaged in farming and stock-raising.
Continuing in the ministry, he organized three
churches in Union county, two in Baker county, and
in 1873 was instrumental in the organization of
the Grande Ronde Baptist Association. In 1884, he
disposed of his farm and removed to Union and
engaged in the hotel business, being now the pro-
prietor of the Union City hotel. He is still engaged
in stock-raising, and owns some superior horses, and
is engaged to some extent in the livery business.
Of the sons born to him there are now living Wm.
R. Boothe, a prominent farmer and stockman of
Cove; Samuel S. Booth, a stock-raiser and farmer
of Inland City; and Luke J., Jr., a mail contractor
of the Imnaha. He has one daughter, Mrs. Mary
Ann Mitchell, of Joseph, Oregon. His twenty-two
grandchildren and three great-grandchildren are
among the younger folk of Eastern Oregon.
WILLIAM R. BOOTHE. This gentleman, a
conspicuous figure in Eastern Oregon, was born in
Missouri in 1846. He was raised on a farm, and
received a fair education. At the age of eighteen,
he crossed the plains to Grande Ronde valley with
his father, the Reverend L. J. Boothe. For three
years after his arrival, he was engaged in freighting.
In 1868, he purchased a homestead right in The
Cove and engaged in stock raising and farming,
where he still resides and now owns nine hundred
and twenty acres of land, of which three hundred
and sixty are in one body and, as usual with The
Cove farmers, are beautifully situated and very pro-
ductive. He is still raising stock, and among the
rest has twenty-eight hundred fine sheep.
In 1876, he was elected captain of the hurriedly
organized company of volunteers who had assem-
bled in Wallowa valley to protect the few families
there when Chief Joseph made his first demon-
stration. Captain Boothe prevailed upon his com-
panions to desist from a contemplated attack upon
the Indians,much contrary to the general wish.
An attack then would undoubtedly have resulted
disastrously to the Whites there gathered, as well as
to the whole section, since Joseph was ready for war
and had his line of battle formed. Captain Boothe
believes that he was not wholly to blame. A few
cool heads treated with the Indian chief, and pre-
vented serious disturbances in Northern Idaho. In
1877, when hostilities had actually commenced,
Captain Boothe, in response to a request from the
governor, led out a company and scouted the south
side of Snake river until the Nez Perces retreated to
the mountains. In June, 1872, Mr. Boothe was
married to Miss Nancy E. Sturgill, daughter of J.
P. Sturgill. They have a family of seven children.
JEREMIAH W. BORST.- The subject of this
sketch was born in Tyoga county, New York, in
1829. At the age of four years, he removed with
his father's family to Indiana, and was reared on a
farm. The days of his youth were spent in Mis-
souri, with a return to the Hoosier State. In 1850,
he crossed the plains with ox-teams for the gold
fields of California, and dug for the precious metal
five years.
In 1858, he came north to Washing-
ton Territory, finding a home on Snoqualmie Prai-
rie, since famous as the location of the great ranch
of the Hop-growers' Association. He laid his
claim upon the one hundred and sixty acres now
owned by this company. Upon the survey of the
land,- for his first claim was prior to the survey,
he availed himself of the homestead law to acquire
another quarter section, and by purchase from the Ter-
ritorial University secured three hundred and ninety
more on this very fertile plain. He lived upon his
land, cultivating and improving it, until in 1887_he
felt a desire to expand his place into a town. The
requirements of the country justified his plan; and
he laid off Falls City on a site comprising half a
section which he had bought about ten years before.
This place gives promise of thrift. Besides this
town property, Mr. Borst owns some twelve hundred
acres adjoining, and operates a sawmill. He has
served the county as commissioner for one term, and
is a man of sagacity and undoubted probity. Mr.
Borst was one of the discoverers of the Denny Iron
Mine on Puget Sound, of which he is a fifth owner.
He is a man of family, having an estimable wife and
five very bright and interesting children.
220
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
DR. WILSON BOWLBY.-The office of the
physician is one of such primary importance in
society, that one who worthily sustains that char-
acter for a long time in one place becomes one of
the fundamental pillars of the community. If the
character of a wise and influential public officer
and politician and public-spirited citizen be added
to the requirements of the skilled physician, we have
a life of the highest usefulness.
Such in a general way has been the career of this
pioneer physician of Washington county. Though
now well advanced in a very busy and wearing life,
Doctor Bowlby, as may be seen from his portrait,
still retains much of the vigor which in past years
enabled him to carry on successfully so many and
such varied enterprises. He was born at New
Hampton, New Jersey, on the 4th of July, 1818.
There he lived till eighteen years of age, when he
went to New York City, and was there engaged in
a store for two or three years. He was married
there in 1841 to Lydia D. Jones of Newark, New
Jersey. Soon after he went to Cincinnati to attend
medical lectures in the Eclectic Institution.
")
In 1845 he went to Fairfield, Indiana, to practice
medicine. In 1852, he came "the plains across
to Oregon. Having spent one year in Portland,
he took up a place south of Hillsboro, where he
lived until 1860. In that year he removed to Forest
Grove, where he has resided continuously, engaged
in the practice of medicine, except a period of four
years, from 1869 to 1873, in which he was collector
of internal revenue, with his residence at Portland.
Doctor Bowlby was conspicuous in the early legis-
lative history of Oregon. He was a member of the
last territorial as well as the first state legislature.
He served in the lower House four terms in all, and
was in the Senate one term. During that term he
was chosen presiding officer. He was one of the
Republican electors at the first election of Grant.
In politics, Doctor Bowlby was first a Whig, then
a Republican. During the period of the war he
served by appointment of President Lincoln as
examining surgeon, under Captain Keler, provost
marshal. For the last ten or fifteen years, the
Doctor has taken no active part in politics, though
in his town he is pretty sure to be called on to pre-
side at political meetings, and frequently reminds
his hearers of his former political activity by the
vigor and aptness of his brief impromptu addresses.
Doctor Bowlby's living children are: J. Q. A.,
a prominent lawyer of Astoria; Theodore, living on
the old ranch near Hillsboro; and Sarah E. Coplen,
now residing at Latah, Washington. In 1883, Mrs.
Bowlby died; and in the following year the Doctor
was married to Mrs. Burlingame. He has one of
the most beautiful houses in the village of Forest
Grove; and in it he enjoys the rest well earned by
his years of untiring activity.
trail to our state. In the train of thirty-six wagons
there were some two hundred persons, eighty-eight
of whom were men; and their numbers secured
them from attacks by Indians. The train was
under command of Mr. E. de Lashmutt, uncle of
the present mayor of Portland. Arriving at the
Umatilla country, Mr. Bowman met men from the
Willamette valley seeking stock ranges, and wisely
concluded that there was no use in going farther
west; and he at once selected a place on Birch
creek, ten miles south of the present sight of Pen-
dleton, and began stock-raising.
Mr. Bowman's ranch is one of the finest in Ore-
gon, containing thirteen hundred and thirty acres
of nearly level and altogether tillable land. There
is at least fifteen miles of fencing on the farm. A
large orchard of thrifty apple, pear and plum trees
is just beyond the house. This is the wintering
place for his stock, which consists of fine horses and
sheep. The summer range is forty miles distant in
the mountains, which is all fenced and comprises
about seven hundred acres. Although situated high
in the mountains, this grazing tract is excellent
grass land, and produces abundantly of every variety
of tame grasses sown. In the care of his stock, a
considerable force of hired help is required and em-
ployed throughout the year.
Mr.
His place is distinctively a stock ranch; and the
horses, all of trotting stock, such as Black Hawk
Morgans, Pathfinders and Coburgs, compose one of
the handsomest bands of animals in our state.
Bowman breeds from thoroughbreds in horses, cattle
and sheep. He has half a dozen shorthorn cows,
and is exporting full blood Merino sheep. His stock
of Merinos came originally from Hammond's in Ver-
mont, and from Wood's Michigan flocks, and is
therefore of the best American blood. The average
clip for his entire band this year was eleven and one-
half pounds per head. It was some years after his
arrival before he discovered that the uplands were
of any other value than as a stock range; but a little
experimenting soon showed that he was in the heart
of one of the richest agricultural regions in the
world. It is to the progressive spirit and experi-
ments of the few settlers such as he that the present
value of the Inland Empire is referable.
After a few years of residence on his ranch, he
removed to Pendleton, and located permanently at
this growing metropolis of Eastern Oregon. Here
he conducts a livery stable, of which it has been said
that no establishment of the kind can turn out bet-
ter horses or finer carriages. It occupies nearly half
a block, and is well built of wood and brick.
beth Owens.
He has one of
HENRY BOWMAN.-Mr. Bowman, univer-
sally known as a public-spirited and prominent citi-
zen of Pendleton, was one of the earliest settlers
of Umatilla county. He was born in 1833, in Tyler
county, Virginia. He spent his early years in the
old dominion, and his youth in Pennsylvania and
Iowa, and in 1860 came by the well-worn Oregon
Mr. Bowman was married in 1852 to Miss Eliza-
beth Owens. The fruit of their union was four
children, the eldest, Mary Ellen, being the wife of
Henry Stover, one of Umatilla county's most worthy
and progressive citizens. His sons William A.,
Walter, and daughter Ida May, have also reached
adult life.
JOHN H. BOYCE. The vicissitudes and char-
acteristic frontier life of this redoubtable miner and
freighter are not easily expressed in a few sentences.
He was born in Vermont in 1832, and in 1850 came
around Cape Horn to California. The succession of
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
221
his labors thereafter is thus stated: In 1851, he
mined on the Stanislaus; in 1852 was freighting with
a sixteen-mule team from Stockton to various points;
in 1860 was hauling quartz in Nevada; in 1862 came
to Elk Creek mines, Eastern Oregon; in 1863 was
at Bannack, mining and packing; from 1864 to 1869
was engaged as teamster of a twelve-mule prairie-
schooner, which he afterwards bought and continued
driving until 1880. By this time he had acquired a
competency; and finding his health somewhat im-
paired by exposure went to the Umatilla meadows,
and purchased two hundred acres for a farm. His
operations have been directed here to stock and grain
raising; and he is one of the most active men in this
section. In 1878, he had a brush of the Bannack
war. Taking a band of cattle to the Wallowa in
the winter, he found the valley deserted, the settlers
gone, or at the fort. The severe season killed off
two hundred and fifty of his animals. The next
summer he was one of the four to come through
Grande Ronde to Pendleton, while the savages were
plundering and murdering on all sides.
WILLIAM P. BOYD. – The subject of this
sketch is the senior member of the well-known dry-
goods house of W. P. Boyd & Co., of Seattle. Mr.
Boyd was born in Belfast, Ireland, April 2, 1849,
and is of the hardy Scotch-Irish race that believe in
themselves, and through their own exertions have
done much towards the building up of the Pacific
Northwest. Our subject, when but fifteen years of
age, was apprenticed with a large dry-goods, mer-
cantile firm in his native city, and served four years,
afterwards being a salesman with the same firm. In
the fall of 1869, Mr. Boyd concluded to seek his
fortune in the new world, and in September of that
year arrived in San Francisco, and a short time after
entered as salesman the well-known establishment,
The White House," with whom he remained for
fifteen months, and then entered the employ of J. J.
O'Brien & Co. After eighteen months with this
firm, he came under engagement with Schwabacher
Bros. & Co. to Seattle, with whom he remained for
seven years.
He then embarked in business for himself as the
senior member of Boyd, Poncin & Young, in a small
dry-goods store then located where the Star block
now stands. In 1879, on account of the death of
Mr. Young, the firm was changed to Boyd & Poncin;
and in 1882 they built the present business house of
W. P. Boyd & Co., "The Arcade," a view of which
appears in this work. In 1883, the firm name was
again changed to its present title; and it is safe to
say there is not a better known or more popular firm
on Puget Sound than W. P. Boyd & Co. Mr. Boyd's
success has been mainly achieved in the city where
he now resides. Beginning with small means, he
has gradually, through energy, perseverance and
business qualifications, and not by chance or the
favorable turn of fortune's wheel, amassed a com-
petency. The "Queen City" may well be proud of
the house of W. P. Boyd & Co. Mr. Boyd is mar-
ried and has one daughter.
GEORGE BRACKETT.— Mr. Brackett, whose
portrait appears in this work, was born in Canada
East, May 22, 1842. There he resided until eight-
een years of age. He then with his parents moved
to Maine, his father being a native of that state.
There they lived for six years, and then moved to
Eu Clare, Wisconsin, and embarked in the lumber
business, which he followed until December, 1869.
Then George came west to Washington Territory,
and first found employment in Pierce county. In
1870 he came to Seattle, and in 1872 began logging
on Salmon Bay, which business he followed until
1877, when he purchased the present site of Edmunds,
where he now resides in a beautiful residence over-
looking the Sound.
In 1884, Mr. Brackett laid off the townsite of
Edmunds, named in honor of the great statesman of
that name. Edmunds is beautifully located in a
level plateau fourteen miles north of Seattle, and is
at present a thriving village, and in the near future
will be an important trading point on the Sound.
Besides the townsite, Mr. Brackett owns five hun-
dred and twenty acres of valuable land adjoining
the town. In 1885, on the establishment of the
postoffice at Edmunds, Mr. Brackett was appointed
postmaster, which position he held for several years.
He is a good, responsible, reliable business man,
and highly respected by all who know him. He is
married and has a family of four children.
CLEMENT ADAMS BRADBURY.— Of all
the romantic and adventurous ways in which the
early settlers found their way to Oregon, this now
venerable pioneer may perhaps claim a manner as
exciting as any,—that of a world-wide career on the
ocean, and, finally, shipwreck. He was born in
York county, Maine, March 18, 1819. As a boy
he learned to labor, belonging to one of those hardy
New England families whose lot was cast in a forest
country, and in hard times. But by this very dis-
cipline young Clement acquired strength of body
and of mind, independence, self-reliance and energy.
At the age of thirteen he went to a new home in
Aroostook county, in the midst of the deep pine
woods.
At the age of twenty-five, -now a brawny, fear-
less and ambitious young man, he went to sea,
following the example of the many wonderfully
hardy young New Englanders, who learned how to
chase the sea monsters at either of the Polar circles.
Off on a whaler he went to the South seas, fishing
on the St. Paul ground. Crossing the equator and
dipping in the northern waters, he was at Petropau-
lovski, and down to the station at the Sandwich
Islands. The ship also went down to Syndey in
Australia; and here, in company with another young
man, Bradbury left the whaler, passing some time
on the great Southern island and encountering a
host of serious and comic adventures. Shipping
however on another whaler, he took a second cruise
north, arriving in Behring Sea some time in June,
when all those Arctic waters were shrouded in fog
and white chilly mist.
and white chilly mist. It was the old ship Baltic
on which he sailed, a decayed vessel; and her
course was apparently directly towards Behring
Island. At last, one afternoon, when the fog was
just thinning away so as to make a gleam of
sunshine flash ou the water, the rocky front but
222
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
sandy beach of the shore appeared out of the vapor,
showing also a white top of snow; and the ship was
run directly on the beach. It was a good wreck,
no lives being lost; and plenty of barrels of biscuits.
and other provisions were on deck for the sailors to
carry through the breakers to the little covers they
made by turning the ship's boats boitom up on the
upper portion of the beach. Here, after munching
Here, after munching
biscuit, and living on sea-bird's eggs and shell fish,
and even trying to eat eagles, the crew was picked
up on the Fourth of July and carried off to the
Sandwich Islands. Here Mr. Bradbury found the
bark Toulon, Captain Crosby, ready to start for the
Columbia river; and, seeing no easier way of get-
ting back to the world, boarded her at Honolulu
and was on the way to the land that he never after-
wards abandoned. He was treated with the utmost
consideration, but was overtaken by a very severe
attack of fever on the voyage, which for a time
deprived him of all remembrance of his past life.
On reaching the Columbia in December, 1846, he
found employment at Hunt's old mill on the Oregon.
side of the Columbia opposite Cathlamet.
In 1848
he went to the mines of California, with such old
pioneers as Marcellus, John and Richard Hobson,
Robb and Jeffers. He was successful in this under-
taking, making a pile of dust, and being the fortu-
nate discoverer of a nugget of gold worth six hundred
dollars.
Returning to Oregon he settled in 1851 on the
old Oak Point on the alluvial land opposite the
present Oak Point Mills, at the site of the settle-
ment made in 1809 by Major Winship of Boston.
This is on the Oregon side of the river. He speaks
of finding here the stumps of oak trees cut forty
years before by the Major's axemen. This place is
now called Bradbury, a steamboat landing, and is a
handsome river site. He bought it in the first
instance from one Charles Adams, a Hudson's Bay
man.
In 1884, after more than forty years of hard
and successful work, he sold the farm to advantage,
and spent a year visiting at the East, and in 1885
took up his residence with his son at a beautiful
spot on the banks of the Nekanikum river near the
seaside in Clatsop county.
Mr. Bradbury was the first permanent settler on the
middle portion of the Lower Columbia below Sauvie's
Island and above Astoria; and he has ever been a
most industrious, enterprising and honorable man.
Now in the gloaming of life he is genial, hearty and
mentally vigorous. He was married in 1850 to
Miss Annie the daughter of William Hobson, of the
immigration of 1843. There were born to them four
children, two of whom are living: The daughter
Bethemia A., wife of John Quigley, resides with her
husband near Bradbury's Landing, Columbia county,
and the son Clement on a farm in Clatsop county.
HON. CHARLES MINER BRADSHAW.-
The present efficient collector of customs of the
Puget Sound district, a portrait of whom appears
in this work, is a gentleman who has worked his
way from the lowest rung of the ladder until he
now stands at the front rank in his chosen profes-
sion, as well as having acquired a recognized posi-
tion among the men who lead public opinion and
form institutions and states. Mr. Bradshaw was
born in Bridgewater, Susquehanna county, Pennsyl-
vania, August 9, 1831,-the son of Salmon and
Sarah F. Schurz Bradshaw, and is a lineal descend-
ant of John Bradshaw, who presided at court at
the time of the trial of Charles I. when that usurp-
ing king was executed by Oliver Cromwell; and
now, as relics of great interest, he has in his home
some of the effects of the old regicide.
Mr. Bradshaw resided in his birthplace until 1839,
when his parents removed to Dryden, Tompkins.
county, New York, where he was educated at the
Dryden High School. On the completion of his
school life in 1852, the ambitious young man started
west, coming to St. Joseph, Missouri. He then
fitted out, with another of his own age, an ox-team,
and crossed the plains to Oregon, making the jour-
ney hither in the year 1852, when the pestilence of
cholera, often joined with famine, was abroad. The
thousands of graves that dotted the plains testified
to the hardships and the dangers endured.
however, arrived safely in Portland August 26th, and
a few days later came to Washington Territory,
stopping at the present site of Port Townsend. He
was obliged to accept the first work that offered,
which proved to be employment in a logging camp.
A short time afterwards he became proprietor of one
of these camps, and remained in the logging busi-
ness until 1854. He located in that year a Donation
claim as a farm near the present site of the town of
Dungeness, and followed farming until 1867.
He,
Even before leaving school Mr. Bradshaw had be-
gun the study of law; and now, in his Washington
Territory home, as he found opportunity in the in-
terims of work, continued the same, and in 1864
was admitted to the bar. In the fall of 1867 he
came to Port Townsend and opened a law office, and
at that early date laid the foundation of his future
success. In 1857 and 1858 he was elected to the
territorial legislature to represent Clallam county,
and filled the same position again in 1863. He was
elected to the council in 1867, and was re-elected in
1869, serving four years, acting a portion of this
time as its president. Again in 1875 he was re-
elected to represent Jefferson, Clallam, Island and
San Juan counties in the council. He was twice
elected prosecuting attorney of the third judicial
district from 1869 to 1873, and was again elected to
the same office for the years 1883 and 1884. The
latter year he was also elected mayor of Port Town-
send, and was re-elected in 1885. In 1878 he was
elected to the state constitutional convention at
Walla Walla.
In 1886 he received the Republican nomination
as delegate to Congress from Washington Territory,
but was defeated, as is well remembered, by a com-
plication of circumstances, not the least among
which was the then recent extension of the franchise
to women. The positions he has filled, as stated
above, are evidence of his ability and of the confi-
dence reposed in him by the people of Puget Sound,
a confidence that has never been misplaced, as Mr.
Bradshaw's voice and influence have been used to
further every legislative enterprise, and to support
every public measure that would in any wise benefit
his constituents or the territory at large.

ON/
:
แ
SS
HOTEL
PENOBSCOT
HOTEL PENOBSCOT,
SNOHOMISH, W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
223
In 1889 Mr. Bradshaw was appointed, by Presi-
dent Harrison, collector of customs of Puget Sound
district; and in this appointment the people of the
territory have been exceedingly well pleased, all
concurring that it would have been difficult to have
advanced to this position anyone more worthy or
capable.
Mr. Bradshaw was united in marriage in 1870 to
Miss Florence Holmes, a daughter of Samuel
Holmes, a well-known resident of Olympia. They
have an interesting family of three children.
JOSEPH BRANNAN.- Mr. Brannan was born
in Union county, Ohio, near Marysville, September
13, 1825, is the ninth child of a family of twelve
children, and the son of Joseph and Jane Huls Bran-
nan. On his nineteenth birthday he left his father's
farm and came west to Winnebago county, Illinois,
where he resided for six years and followed farming,
when he went to Iowa, but soon returned to Illi-
nois.
On April 1, 1854, he started for Washington Ter-
ritory, with Seattle as the objective point, to join his
brother William H., who was killed by Indians in
the fall of 1855 on White river, his family and prop-
erty being burned on the place now owned by our
subject. At Council Bluffs he met a man named
William Justice, now a resident of Oregon, and with
a train known as the Starky train came across the
plains to Washington Territory, making a very suc-
cessful trip. They arrived at Osceola on Boise creek
October 1, 1854; and he immediately joined his
brother on his present property. Here they resided
on the Donation claim on White river until the break-
ing out of the Indian war. At the time his brother
and family were killed he was absent to see the gov-
ernor on behalf of the settlers to secure troops to
come to the valley. On his return he found that
his brother and family had been murdered and his
property destroyed. He joined Company B, First
Regiment, under Captain Hays, with whom he
served three months.
In the spring of 1856 a company was formed to
go east of the mountains under Captain Hanness;
and the old company was reorganized. He then
went to the Yakima country and remained until the
expiration of his enlistment, when he was dis-
charged and returned to the Sound. But not being
safe in his old home, he remained in Thurston
county until 1858, when he returned to White river
and purchased what is now known as the Meeker
farm, near Kent, where he remained for eight years,
after which he sold his farm and removed to the old
Donation claim on White river. He began general
farming and hop-raising on this four hundred and
eighty acres, and made many improvements. He
has sold from and added to the original Donation
claim, until he now owns about four hundred acres
one and a half miles from Slaughter, where he is
now enjoying the comforts of a hard-working and
well-spent life, and having the confidence of the
entire community.
Mr. Brannan was married in Thurston county,
Washington Territory, in 1857, to Miss Sarah V.
Hanness, daughter of Captain Hanness, an old
Indian war veteran, a native of Iowa and pioneer of
1852. They had eleven children, four of whom are
deceased.
HON. ALBERT BRIGGS.- Ever green in the
memory of the pioneer of the Pacific coast remain
the trials and hardships they endured while establish-
ing civilization in the far west. These pioneers con-
stituted no ordinary class; they were hardy, brave
and energetic men; and thousands to-day are reap-
ing the benefits which have accrued from the trials
and hardships endured by the early pioneer. None
among them deserve more tribute than the subject
of this sketch, an excellent portrait of whom is
placed in this history, from a photograph taken
when he was in his seventy-fifth year.
Mr. Briggs was born in Sholam, Addison county,
Vermont, August 26, 1813, and is the son of Ben-
jamin I. and Electric Trippman Briggs. When he
was seven years of age his parents moved to Northem
county, Pennsylvania, and one year later to Guern-
sey county, Ohio, where our subject resided, learn-
ing the carpenter's trade, until the winter of 1835,
when he, with his wife and one child, moved to
Seneca county and lived until 1844. He then
removed to Indiana, and after spending some months
there and in Chicago, finally located in Andrew,
Jackson county, Iowa, of which his brother Ansil
afterwards became governor.
In the spring of 1847 he started with ox-teams,
and with his wife and four children made the weary
march across the almost trackless plains to Oregon.
In the same train were Honorable L. B. Hustings,
now deceased, and David Shelton, a respected citizen
of the little city that now bears his name. Arriving
at The Dalles in October, 1847, our subject with his
family came down the Columbia to Portland in
small boats. January 1, 1848, he located in Oregon
City, and found employment at his trade. He
remained there but a short time, however, soon
locating a farm on the Santiam river. In 1849 he
went to the gold fields of California, but remained
only three months, when he returned to his Oregon
home, where he worked at his trade until 1852.
He then came to the present site of Port Townsend,
Washington Territory, at that time there being but
one house where now stands the beautiful city of the
port of entry. He then located a Donation claim of
six hundred and forty acres adjoining the present
city of Port Townsend. Here he has lived for
thirty-seven years. He followed farming and other
pursuits until his property, through the development
of Puget Sound, became very valuable, when he
began to sell off his estate, all of which he has dis-
posed of with the exception of fifteen acres, which
are now very valuable.
Mr. Briggs, through his genial ways and generous
disposition, has won the confidence and esteem of
the entire population of Puget Sound; and now in
the sunset of his life it is gratifying to his hosts of
friends to know that he has an abundance of this
world's goods, which will enable this old argonaut
to enjoy the comforts that he so richly deserves.
Mr. Briggs' official life has been quite active. He
first held the office of county superintendent of
schools, and then county commissioner, and for
fourteen years held the office of probate judge.
16
224
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
From 1861 to 1864 he represented Jefferson and
Clallam counties in the territorial legislature. All
the positions he filled with credit to himself and
satisfaction to the people.
Mr. Briggs was united in marriage in Guernsey
county, Ohio, August 13, 1833, to Miss Isabel Cook,
a native of Ohio and grand-daughter of Captain
Cook of Revolutionary fame. They had seven
children, all of whom are deceased. Mr. Briggs
suffered the irreparable loss of her who had been
the companion of his life for over fifty-four years.
Mrs. Briggs died November 22, 1888, and was
interred in the cemetery at Port Townsend in sight
of the pioneer home.
HENRY BROOK.— The record of this gentle-
man is not only a satisfactory commentary upon his
own business capacity, but also upon the dimensions
of the business of the city and a scale of its enter-
prises, since his coming here in 1883.
Mr. Brook was born in England in 1842, and
came to America in 1870, locating at Minneapolis.
He reached Spokane Falls in 1883, doing since that
time a very successful business. In 1885 he was
elected a member of the city council, and while in
that office favored the measure to buy the water-
works and furnish the people water at cheap rates.
He is no less enthusiastic than his neighbors in his
confidence in that city. He is married and has a
family of six children.
GEORGE S. BROOKE.-This gentleman is
the cashier of the First National Bank of Sprague,
and is also a director and one of the largest share-
holders.
Mr. Brooke comes of cavalier stock. On his father's
side, he is a descendant of the Brookes of Mary-
land. In the year 1650, Robert Brooke, of Eng-
land, having brought out a colony consisting of his
wife, ten children and servants, forty persons in all,
settled on the east shore of the Patuxent river. The
settlement was called De La Brooke. The founder
The founder
had a patent direct from Lord Baltimore. He was
a member of the privy council and subsequently
governor of Maryland. One of his representatives,
through a female line, was Roger Brooke Taney,
Chief Justice of the United States.
On his mother's side, Mr. Brooke is a descendant
of a well-known Virginia family, the Williams of
Culpepper. This family is descended from Pierre
Williams, a sergeant-at-law of London. Mr. Brooke's
father, who is still living, is an Episcopal clergy-
man. In 1850, he with his wife moved from Virginia
to Dubuque, Iowa, where the subject of this sketch
was born on the 12th of February, 1855. He grad-
uated with honors from Griswold College at Daven-
port, Iowa, in 1872, being awarded the Latin
salutatory, although the youngest member of the
class. Shortly afterwards he entered the office of
the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Minnesota Railroad
at Cedar Rapids. Here he remained for two years,
when, getting the western fever, he started with all
his worldly possessions, consisting of about one
hundred dollars, for Oregon, where he arrived, via
San Francisco, in 1874, landing at Portland, then a
place of about ten thousand inhabitants. Entering
the counting-room of the well-known wholesale
grocery and commission house of Allen & Lewis in
the following September, he remained for four years,
filling the responsible position of book-keeper and
cashier. In November, 1878, he accepted a position
with the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, and
was the general passenger agent of this company at
the time of its sale to Villard in 1880.
In May, 1882, he went to Sprague and associated
himself with Mr. H. W. Fairweather in the banking
business under the firm name of Fairweather &
Brooke. In the fall of that year he was nominated
by the Democratic party as joint representative for
Spokane and Stevens counties to the territorial
legislature; but, being at that time a comparative
stranger and not making any canvass, he was de-
feated by two hundred votes out of the two thousand
polled. He has always regarded this as a rather
fortunate result. Mr. Brooke was the first mayor of
Sprague upon its incorporation in the fall of 1883.
He has been chairman of the board of directors of
the public schools during the past three years, and
has recently been elected president of the newly
organized board of trade of Sprague. He was
married in 1882 to Miss Julia Hill, of Connecticut,
and is the father of two children, a boy and a girl.
A. M. BROOKES.— A portrait of Mr. Brookes
is placed in this work. The present efficient post-
master of the "Queen City" (Seattle) was born in
Galena, Illinois, September 2, 1843, and is the son
of Samuel M. and Julia B. (Jones) Brookes. His
father was one of the early pioneers of Milwaukee.
When our subject was but an infant his parents
moved to Chicago, and two years later moved to
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where A. M. was educated
at the Milwaukee Academy, and where he resided
until August, 1862.
When, on the call by President Lincoln for three
hundred thousand men, our subject was among the
first in his city to respond; and in the above month
and year he enlisted in Company K, Twenty-fourth
Wisconsin Infantry, under command of Colonel
Larrabee, with whom he served for three years.
His brigade was first under the command of General
Nelson, and afterwards under General Phil Sheri-
dan until the latter's removal to the Army of the
Potomac. Mr. Brookes never missed a day from his
regiment from the time of his enlistment, and during
that time took part in many of the most desperate
engagements that took place during the war.
the expiration of his term of service, Mr. Brookes
came to California to join his parents, who had
emigrated to the coast in 1863.
On
On his arrival in San Francisco, Mr. Brookes
received an appointment in the postoffice of San
Francisco, a position he heid for the following twelve
years, during which time he gained the knowledge
of postal affairs that now enables him to make the
most efficient and popular postmaster Seattle has
ever had.. In 1877 he resigned his position in the
San Francisco postoffice and came to Seattle,
embarking in business with his brother-in-law, S.
Baxter, and forming the well-known firm of S.
Baxter & Co. In 1885 Mr. Brookes engaged in
the mercantile business in Black Diamond, but in
*
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
225
1887 returned with his family to Seattle, and was
elected president of the Northwestern Cracker Fac-
tory, a position he still holds, this however, being
only one of the many enterprises that Mr. Brookes
is engaged in in Seattle, as he has always taken a
deep interest in anything that would tend to the
upbuilding of his future home, and is looked upon
as one of the most enterprising, progressive and
liberal men in the Queen City.
Mr. Brookes was in 1887 elected department com-
mander of the Grand Army of the Republic. In
April, 1889, he received from President Harrison
his commission as postmaster of Seattle, a position
in which he gives universal satisfaction. He is
married and has a beautiful home, which is blessed
by the presence of one child.
JOHN E. BROOKS.— John E. Brooks was born
October 29, 1822, at Canton, St. Lawrence county,
State of New York. His father Cooper Brooks, and
his mother, Sophia Brooks (formerly Tuttle), moved
from Cheshire, New Haven, Connecticut, and settled
at an early day in St. Lawrence county, making
the trip with an ox-sled drawn by a yoke of cattle
from state to state. To them were born six chil-
dren, four boys and two girls. The entire family
is now dead, except J. E. Brooks, the fifth, and
Aniasa Brooks, the youngest, of the family, who
now live at McMinnville, Oregon. His father
being a farmer, his boyhood days were spent in
farming and in the dairy (his father being one of
the first to engage in that business in the county),
attending the district school a portion of the time
during the winter months. In the fall of 1842, he
attended the St. Lawrence Academy at Canton as
a student. At the expiration of six months, he
engaged in house carpentering and joiner work, to
obtain means to further prosecute his studies.
In the fall of 1843, he passed a very satisfactory
examination before the board of shool superintend-
ents, receiving a first-class certificate, and for four
months following was engaged as a teacher in one
of the best district schools in the county. From
this time till the spring of 1846, his time was spent
in teaching and attending the institution. At that
time, being qualified to enter college, and not pos-
sessing sufficient means, he engaged himself as
traveling agent to the United States Book Publish-
ing Co. for one year, at a salary of two thousand
dollars, expenses paid. On June 6th of that year
he took his agency papers at Buffalo, New York,
and started into business, canvassing the most of the
state of Ohio successfully for the company until on
August 20th he was prostrated with fever for weeks.
Upon partially regaining his health, he resigned his
agency, but continued to work for the company
upon commission, when health would permit, trav-
eling through Michigan and Illinois, and reaching
Muscatine, Iowa, by easy stages, the last of Novem-
ber, 1846, completely exhausted. After a short rest
at his brother's, he engaged in teaching in the
winter and working at house building during the
summer months till the spring of 1852.
On the 13th day of April, 1852, he was married,
at Muscatine, Iowa, to Miss Julia A. Ray, who was
born February 10, 1830, at Cincinnati, Ohio. She
was the daughter of John and Keziah Ray, and the
sixth of a family of seven, five girls and two boys.
All the family are deceased, excepting herself. On
the 21st day of April, eight days after his marriage,
he with his newly wedded wife started for their
honeymoon in an ox-wagon across the plains for
Oregon. From the poor health of both, it was feared
by their friends that they would never live to make
the journey; but it was just what they most needed;
for with the journey came perfect health, the trip
being made without a single day of sickness to
either.
On the 21st day of October, 1852, they reached
Portland, Oregon, six months from the time of start-
ing. Like many another, they could carry their
worldly possessions all in their hands, being virtu-
ally without money or means. Aside from a few
disagreeable incidents, it was a pleasurable journey.
No delays by storm or flood, no trouble with the
Indians, barred their progress. Their losses were
common to hundreds of others; and the hope to
reach the desired goal buoyed them up in every diffi-
culty. Sad scenes were witnessed during the ravages
of the cholera. Through fear, or the want of human
sympathy, the sick were left by the wayside to die,
the dead unburied or but partially so. The body
of one who had been foully murdered was found but
a short distance from the roadside, where it had been
left to the vultures and the wolves. Such scenes
could but shock the sensitive, and prompt to acts of
common humanity. The eighth day of June will
ever be remembered; for on that day he assisted in the
burial of eight persons who had perished by that
dread scourge, the last taking place near midnight
and by torchlight, when the wife and children, sad
and disconsolate, bereft of the fond husband and
father, moved on to overtake the train gone before.
With no fear for himself, he attended the sick, helped
to bury the dead, and strove to comfort and cheer
the afflicted.
In Portland he was met by his brother, who had
crossed the plains in 1850, and after remaining in
Portland a few days moved to Yamhill county,
where he purchased a sawmill, and teams for logging.
He located a Donation claim of 320 acres, and after
buying an outfit for housekeeping, and provisions
for the winter, found himself in debt several thou-
sand dollars, with interest at three per cent a month.
On the 2d week in February, 1853, he took posses-
sion of the mill and began to pay off his large in-
debtedness. The mill was six miles west of the
present town of McMinnville. In passing from his
place of business to the town of Lafayette, at that
time the only town in the county near him, he saw
that a good water-power could be obtained by tak-
ing the water from Baker creek and discharging it
into the South Yamhill river, and pursuaded W. T.
Newby to undertake the same, build a flouring-mill
and lay off a town, which was done. The town was
called McMinnville after a town in Tennessee, Mr.
Newby's native state. He continued in the lumber
business for years, paying off his indebtedness in
full, besides adding six hundred and forty acres of
land to his Donation claim, and stocking it with
cattle, horses and sheep. The mill falling into de-
cay, he turned his attention more to stock and the
226
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
farm, and quit the milling business entirely, work-
ing occasionally at contracting and building.
In 1878 he sold out his possessions in Happy val-
ley, as the place was called where he was located,
and in July of that year purchased the place known
as the Commercial Mills Farm (the mills were de-
stroyed by fire May 9, 1878) at McMinnville, to
which place he removed September 20th of the same
year, and devoted most of his time to the improvement
of the same. In 1884 he erected one of the finest
residences in Yamhill county, in which he and his
wife with two grand-daughters now reside, sur-
rounded by all that makes life pleasant. All his
property was procured by honest industry and
frugality, the result of push and energy, which has
made all his undertakings successful.
He was an old time Whig, and took an active part
in the log-cabin and hard-cider campaign of Harrison
and Tyler, being banner bearer in the glee club of
which he was a member, and casting his first presi-
dential vote for Henry Clay in 1844. He continued
to act with that party until its demise, and then
joined the American party, which was short lived in
Oregon, it being too proscriptive to suit those of a
liberal turn of mind. Many of the records and
papers of that party are still in his possession. He
was one of the first to advocate the formation of the
Republican party in the state, and to-day is a
straight-out Republican-Prohibitionist. Having no
desire for official preferment, he has refused all offers
for the same; yet he is an active worker for his party,
but strictly from the idea of principle. A strong
believer in liberty and justice, he has ever been op-
posed to slavery and oppression in all its forms. În
early youth he became a freethinker, believing that,
in relieving the wants of suffering humanity and
thereby promoting human happiness, we best accom-
plish the greatest good of human existence.
He is an active member of the I. O. O. F., belong-
ing to Occidental Lodge, No. 30, of McMinnville.
He has been a representative to and an officer in the
grand lodge of Oregon, and was foremost in erect-
ing the Odd Fellows Hall, a building of which the
citizens of the place feel proud. His wife, ever with
him in all good works, is an efficient worker in and
member of Friendship Rebekah Degree Lodge, No.
12, I. O. O. F., of the same place.
Three children were born to them, two girls and
a boy. Both the girls were married. The elder
daughter and her husband are deceased. They left
two children, who reside with their grandparents.
Being interested in schools, he was instrumental in
forming district number forty-one where he formerly
resided, and in building a commodious schoolhouse
on land given by him for that purpose. He also
gave five hundred dollars towards the erection of
McMinnville College when it was first built, besides
aiding most of the public enterprises of the times.
He can point with pride to the many buildings.
erected by him in the town and surrounding coun-
try. He served as councilman for a term of one
year, 1882, retiring satisfied with official life. He
was appointed deputy marshal, and took the census
of Yamhill county in 1870, completing the work
and being the first to report to the census bureau of
that year.
In the fall of 1881 he, with his wife,
returned to the East and spent the winter among
their early friends, returning in the spring fully
satisfied with Oregon and its surroundings. He
still oversees his farm and town property, taking
life easily in his declining years.
Many incidents in his life might be given to show
that perseverance was a marked trait in his charac-
ter, and that strict honesty was a governing princi-
ple. The greatest losses of his means have been
through those to whom he has with his usual
liberality granted favors, as he could never say
no when help was solicited. When wronged or
defrauded, he never sought a legal remedy, but
would remark, "I would rather it would be them
than me," and then dismiss it from his mind.
He was ever in favor of internal improvements.
He subscribed to the fund for a preliminary railroad
survey from California to Oregon, and canvassed
his county in aid of the West Side Road with good
success. He conceived the idea of bringing the
water of the South Yamhill river into town for mill-
ing and manufacturing purposes, filed the water
claim and took the right-of-way from above the
town of Sheridan to McMinnville. A company was
organized, and the work of construction commenced;
but its consummation was defeated through political
chicanery, each party using its construction as the
means of holding fraudulent votes to aid in carry-
ing the elections in the county, a course which in
nowise met with his approval.
His elder daughter, Elnora, married Elias B.
Miller. The younger daughter, Inezilla, married
Charles A. Berry, both of whom are living three
miles west of town. They have no children living,
having lost their only daughter at the age of two
years. E. Cooper Brooks, his son, the third one of
the family, is unmarried.
BENJAMIN BROWN.- Mr. Brown was born
in Yorkshire, England, in 1831, and remained at
his native place until 1857, receiving a common-
school education. In this year he emigrated to
America and settled in Michigan, remaining until
March, 1858, when he came to California by way of
New York and the Isthmus. From San Francisco
he found his way to the Siskiyou mines, and oper-
ated until July of 1868, and thence came to the
Frazer river mines. In the autumn of that year,
he brought his journeyings to a close at Steila-
coom, where he remained a year. Being favorably
impressed with the Pacific coast country, he now
returned East for his family, bringing them to the
agency on the Umatilla reservation, where he was
employed until the next spring. After a time spent
in freighting to Walla Walla, he removed in the
fall of 1861 to the Grande Ronde valley, and helped
in the building of a stockade some six miles north
of the present site of La Grande.
He has remained in the valley ever since, and has
been closely identified with the history of the
country. In 1852 he was married to Miss Francis
Kirk; and a family of five girls are growing up
around him. The only trouble they had with the
Indians was in 1862, the time that they placed a
pole, as a line north of which the Whites should
take no land, claiming that it belonged to them-

JOHN A.SPLAWN, ESQ,
NORTH YAKIMA, W. T.
N/
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
227
selves. Captain George B. Curry of a volunteer
company went to meet them, and found it necessary
to kill two of the Indians.
Mr. Brown wishes to record here the names of
those who wintered in the Grande Ronde valley,
and who were the first Whites to make a residence
there. They were as follows: S. M. Black, Richard
Marks, William Marks, William Chaffin, William
McConley, E. C. Crain, Robert Alexander, Joab
Fisher, Benjamin Brown, Henry Learey. Major
Knight and Mr. Abbot brought some stock into the
valley the same fall that this party came over the
mountains, and wintered them here, and on account
of the deep snow were compelled to remain until
late in the spring. Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Leary
wintered here in 1861, and in the same winter
George Coffin and George Shriver came in to attend
to the erection of the sawmill that Mr. Stephen
Coffin of Portland was preparing to build in the
spring, together with Mr. Charles Fox, who actually
built the mill and operated it for several years, and
then returned to Portland. Mr. Thomas Cottle
built in 1863 the first livery stable, and did an
extensive business, often selling oats at twenty cents
per pound, and charging a dollar a night for hay
per animal. S. M. Black started the first store;
while Mr. Cottle opened the first butcher shop in
1862.
HUGH L. BROWN.-There is usually some-
thing distinctive and characteristic about one who
leaves the impress of his name upon any region or
locality. This we find to be the case with reference
to the pioneer whose name appears above, and for
whom was named the well-known city of Browns-
ville.
He
Hugh Leeper Brown was born in Knox county,
Tennessee, January 24, 1810. He lived in Knox
county until 1838, when with his little family, then
consisting of his wife and three children, he emi-
grated to Missouri, settling in Platte county.
remained there until the spring of 1846, when, fall-
ing in with that stream of pioneers who had turned
their faces towards the setting sun, he again pulled
up stakes, and taking the loved ones started forth
with an ox-team and crossed the plains, reaching
the then territory of Oregon in the autumn, having
occupied six months in the journey.
It was by the Barlow Road that he entered the
Willamette valley. From Oregon City he set out
with Alexander Kirk, now deceased, and James.
Blakely, who still lives at Brownsville, in search of
a location for a home. The best of the land was
before them; and they examined it carefully, but
were not fully satisfied, until passing the Calapooia,
upon the majestic plain of the Upper Willamette,
they found all that the heart could wish, and imme-
diately took claims, that of Mr. Brown being about
a mile east of the town named for him. Here he
lived till the day of his death, raising his family,
building up the community, supporting schools and
churches, and serving the county in many public
capacities. He was for several years in the mercan-
tile business at Brownsville, being at one time a
partner with the late Dr. E. R. Geary, of Eugene,
and was
one of the founders of the woolen mills,
whose operations have been of such value to our
state.
As a business man he stood at the head of the list
in point of honor and integrity, his name being good
in Portland for any amount he saw fit to indorse.
He filled many places of honor and trust, and was
three times a member of the Oregon legislature,
once before statehood, and was also a member of the
board of commissioners of Linn county. He was a
soldier in the Cayuse war, and a miner in Califor-
nia. He was an exceptionally kind husband and
father; and it was the aim of his life to make his
children happy. In 1878 he celebrated his golden
wedding. For sixty years he lived a life of remark-
able felicity with his wife Clarissa, daughter of
James Browning, of Knox county, Tennessee. She
still survives him, a noble and beautiful woman of
seventy-nine years. During the later years of his
life, he was totally blind, but bore this affliction
with patience. He died in 1888 at the old home.
There are eight children living: John, Evaline,
Elizabeth D., Felix, Missouri, Amanda, Louisa and
Hugh L.
HON. J. J. BROWNE.— The broad-minded cit-
izenship which looks to personal advantage only
through the general prosperity, and makes the pub-
lic weal and growth occupy the first place, is the
best guarantee of a great future. This Spokane
Falls enjoys. None of her citizens is more fully im-
pressed with this theory of metropolitan attainments
than he whose name appears above.
Mr. Browne was born at Greenville, Ohio, in 1843,
and was educated for the law at the Michigan Uni-
versity. Coming to this coast, he remained four
years at Portland, practicing law. He also served
as superintendent of public schools. In 1878 he
came to Spokane Falls, buying a half interest in the
townsite, and practicing his profession six years.
His chief interest has been in working up large
schemes for the benefit and growth of his city. In
this capacity he has made many trips East, once
successfully pushing a bill for the annexation of the
Idaho Panhandle to Washington Territory through
Congress, to have it killed in the hands of the Pres-
ident. Still more recently he was at New York buy-
ing iron and rolling stock for the street railway
which has been in operation more than a year.
He is president of the Spokane Mills Company,
a corporation whose object is the establishment of
all kinds of mills and manufactories. This com-
pany has saw and grist mills, and sash and door fac-
tories. The last trip of its president was in the
interest of the Linseed Oil Mill, an enterprise which
has been in successful operation for about a year.
The flax of this country is a prolific crop, producing
a berry of such large size as to require extra mesh
sieves. This is a most promising point for such a
manufactory; and it would also invite linen twine
works. The company is organized with a capital
of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Another
important industry of which Mr. Browne is at the
head is the Cracker Factory, occupying a two-story
brick. The Browne Block, on Riverside avenue, a
number of buildings throughout the place, and a
residence second to none in Eastern Washington,
228
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
swell the aggregate of Mr. Browne's numerous hold-
ings. Mr. Browne was one of the members of the
constitutional convention of Washington.
MAJOR JAMES BRUCE.- Major Bruce is
one of our citizens who needs no introduction to the
people of the Northwest; since he is known person-
ally, not only to all the old pioneers, but to the
most of the second generation of the toilers of Ore-
gon. He was born November 3, 1827, in Harrison
county, Indiana, and at the age of ten moved with
his parents to Quincy, Illinois. At twenty he began
a border career, going to Texas, making many ex-
cursions in that then unsettled region, and at Cross
Timbers joined Major Johnson's rangers.
He ac-
companied these troopers upon their expeditions to
punish marauders, or to recover the stock which
were perpetually stampeded and run off by the
Indians. In one of these ventures he was engaged
with his company in a fight with three hundred of
the savages, whose rapid movements, impetuous
charges, and ability to suddenly concentrate, or to
miraculously disappear and reappear, seemed to
multiply their number to about one thousand.
Here the Major first saw their maneuvers and
astonishing feats, such as riding concealed on one
side of their horses.
In 1849 he returned to his home in Illinois, and
in the spring of 1850 was ready to go to the mines
of California,—a trip even more eventful than that
to Texas. He performed the long journey in the
summer, using ox-teams as the means of travel, and
having as his companion George Collins. Making
but a short stoppage in the old mines of California,
he urged his way to the northern part of that state
to the Shasta or Redding diggings, where he mined
with the best of them for a year, numbering among
his companions Honorable John Kelly, Thomas
Brown and John Milligan. With these as company
he went to the famous Scott's bar, furnishing his
ox-team for the enterprise, but being much distressed
with ague was obliged to accept many favors and
kindly offices from the "boys." Arriving at the
bar, he found that provisions were less plentiful
than gold, and sought to supply the demand by
going back and driving in a band of cattle, which
he sold for beef at fifty-five cents a pound. With
Doctor Robertson he established there the Lone
Star ranch. In 1852 he disposed of his interests in
this ephemeral field, and going with a party of some
fifteen sought a location on the coast for a seaport,
establishing the present Crescent City. He also in
those times conducted a party across the mountains
to Port Orford, meeting with various hindrances
from the Indians, who were now becoming fractious
and restive, among other things delaying them in
crossing the Rogue river.
As the war of 1853 was coming on, he offered his
services to Captain Goodall, and bore his part in
the marching, skirmishing, hungering and hard-
ships of that desultory campaign. At the close of
hostilities, he discovered the peril of entering with
but one companion into an armed and excited
Indian camp.
He performed this intrepid feat at
the request of General Lane, who had given the
Indians a three days' armistice to come in and con-
clude a peace, but was annoyed and even perplexed
by their failure to do so, and indeed by their entire
disappearance. Bruce and R. B. Metcalf were di-
rected to scout the mountains for the camp of Chief
Joseph. After three days' investigation they found
him with all his tribe encamped as if for war in a
natural fortress. To enter this stronghold and
deliver their errand to bring in the Indians was a
matter of great delicacy. But descrying the tent of
Chief Joseph, which was distinguished by a blue
cloth, the spies determined to go to his lodge,
relying for safety upon his well-known desire for
peace. Before attracting his attention, however,
they were seen by the young braves, who assembled
in great numbers, running and hooting, and mani-
festly bent upon spilling the blood of the intruders.
Bruce and Metcalf saw in a moment that their death
was imminent; and the Major believes that they
must have been slaughtered had not an Indian boy
named Sambo suddenly appeared, shouting and
averring at the top of his voice that this white man
was not to be killed, that he had saved his life
and must now be saved. Major Bruce was only too
glad to recognize in this youth his Sambo, the
Indian formerly the rider of the bell-horse on his
pack train, whom he had actually saved sometime
before at Jacksonville from the hands of the infuri-
ated miners, who were indiscriminately hanging the
Indian bell-boys then in town. By the shouts and
exertions of this faithful Sambo, a diversion was
created; and Joseph appeared, by whom the scouts
were severely censured for their temerity. Never-
theless they gained time and explained their mission,
and at length accomplished their purpose, bringing
the chief to General Lane. The Major, however,
always thinks with tenderness of the boy Sambo,
whose fidelity saved him from a dreadful death.
After the war he located his Donation claim near
Table Rock, and in 1854 purchased of the Indians
the privilege of cutting hay on the reservation in
Sam's valley, having a contract to supply the gov-
ernment post, Fort Lane. Desiring to please his
old friend Joseph, he gave this chief a horse, but
soon learned that he had thereby excited the jealousy
of the war chief Zach, who assembled the tribe and
in council after the war dance advocated the killing
of the offensive horse, the burning of the hay, and
the expulsion of the white men. Bruce was imme-
diately sought by the friendly Indians, and against
his first inclination was prevailed upon to visit and
to placate Zach, who was still sitting in the council.
Reaching the scene of deliberations, which was in
the midst of a thicket, Bruce seated himself in the
circle of the council and listened to the speeches of
Joseph and Sam, who urged the tribe to desist from
all thought of war, as there was no occasion, and
as there would be none to help them. After these
harangues he was expected to make a reply; and
almost spontaneously, without premeditation, and
indeed thinking of no arguments to advance,
spoke out what are at bottom very much the natural
sentiments of the cultivated white man. He said,
I have come to talk to you because I love you."
This statement fell upon the Indians, producing
a sort of astonishment; and a dozen voices cried
out, What! why do you love us?" The Major,
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
229
still following the promptings of his white man's
nature, and remembering the civilized theory of life,
replied that it was because they all had one father,
and explained the theory of human brotherhood as
taught in Genesis. In a short time he had them
listening with all eagerness, and heard them here
and there in the assembly uttering grunts of ap-
proval. To their curious questionings why, if all
men had one father, some were red, others black,
and still others white, he entertained them with
many equally curious replies, telling how one of the
sons of this man went off into the woods and lived
in the open air, dispensing with all superfluous
clothing, thereby acquiring a dark complexion ;
while another built houses and acquired cattle and
horses, and constructed great edifices and ships, and
retained his fair skin; but, nevertheless, he held
their minds to the thought of the natural love
between human beings which he himself exercised.
Their minds were so much softened thereby, that
they were ready at the close of the speech to accept
an invitation to return with him to his camp and
have a feast; and Zach and all his tribe with the
greatest amity sat down to a barbecue of roast beef
thus provided. By this kindly and reasonable
method of dealing, he saved all difficulty to himself.
was left to harvest his hay, and postponed the war
for at least one year.
When, however, in 1855, the outbreak actually
occurred, and Fields and Cunningham were killed
on the Siskiyou Mountains, Major Bruce went with
the rest to punish the murderers, and with Captain
Williams, Chiles Wells, Patrick Dunn, Major Lup-
ton, John F. Miller and others closed upon the hos-
tiles. He was present but declined to enter the
willows where Lupton was riddled with arrows a
few moments afterwards, knowing the danger of
the place. After this first brush he raised a com-
pany of his own and was elected captain of Com-
pany B, and afterwards major of the Southern
Battalion.
Since these early disturbances, in which the land
was conquered from the savages, the major has
been engaged in developing the state, in showing
what Oregon land can be made to produce, and in
improving the herds of the valley by importation of
fine cattle. His place near Corvallis is one of the
most productive and valuable in the Northwest,
and as handsome as an English baronial estate.
In public life he has taken an active part, having
served both Washington and Benton counties in the
state legislature. He was elector on the Douglas
ticket in 1860. He was one of the judges of agri-
cultural implements at the Centennial in Phila-
delphia, and has been an active and prominent
member of the Oregon grange.
He was married in 1857 to Miss Margaret, the
daughter of Colonel Kinney of Benton county.
She died in 1884; and he was married secondly in
1886 to Miss Elizabeth Mark, with whom he shares
his elegant home.
ROBERT BRUCE. — Mr. Bruce was born in
Edinburgh, Scotland, August 10, 1828, where he
remained until 1844, receiving a common-school
education, and learning the trade of gold-beating.
In 1844 he went to England, remaining about a
year, and moved thence to Canada, locating near
Montreal. After remaining there four years, he
crossed the plains to California in 1849 on the hunt
for gold. The first year was spent in traveling
from one mining camp to another until, in 1850, he
located at Hangtown, where he engaged in placer
mining for seven years. From this point he went
to Yreka Flat and mined until 1859. Crossing the
mountains to Williamsburg, Oregon, he mined a
few months, and thence repaired to Elliott Creek,
which was so named in honor of Monterey Jack, an
old Mexican soldier and successful miner.
Mr. Bruce remained there until the war of 1861,
when his Scotch patriotism caused him to cross the
mountains, which were covered with over three feet
of snow, to the place of rendezvous at Jacksonville,
where he enlisted in Company A, First Oregon
Cavalry. In this company he served as first duty
sergeant until 1864, when he re-enlisted in Company
D, First Oregon Infantry, and remained in service
until his discharge in 1866. After his discontinu-
ance in the army, he was employed as guard at the
penitentiary at Salem for a number of years. In
1870 he removed to Pendleton, and has made this
city his residence, with the exception of the eight
years from 1881 to 1889. Upon his return from the
Sound, whither he had gone, he was surprised and
pleased to find a thriving city where he left only a
small village.
Although now old, and feeling himself somewhat
broken down after his long and eventful frontier
life, in which he prepared the way for the coming
generation, which is sometimes prone to look upon
the old pioneers as slow going, and to wonder why
more of them did not keep the fortunes that were
so easily made in old times, forgetful that the really
hardy frontiersman could save their money only by
shutting up their big honest hearts to their fellow-
men, Mr. Bruce still finds it in his heart to thank
God that he is living yet in this magnificent coun-
try, and that he can still trust that God whom he
was taught to worship in "auld Scotland."
JOSEPH BUCHTEL.- The peculiar composi-
tion and make-up of this man is that of only one in
a million. He is noted for his daring deeds of
adventure, if they may be so called; and his whole
life is made up of daily events in rescuing others
from their perilous positions; indeed, so much so,
that he is known far and wide as the Oregon Life
Saver." Hundreds, if we may not say thousands,
who are living to-day directly owe their lives to him.
The natural daily routine of circumstances seems to
have brought him upon the scene just in time to
act; and, being possessed of that warrantable cool-
headedness, that while others were so ungovernably
excited and frantic with fright, he, of all men, and
at all times, maintained that perfect equilibrium to
act instantly, effectively and in each instance and
under all circumstances and upon all occasions with
the merited success of saving the life of someone,
and sometimes a dozen or more.
In times of imminent danger or immediate peril,
Mr. Buchtel seems not to have given the first
thought to his own personal safety; but instead,
230
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
taking his life in his own hands, he went forth to
the rescue. With perfect confidence in his own
ability, and assured correctness of his own judg-
ment, on the very brink of some perilous occasion,
where the lives of two or more are lightly weighing
in the balance, we see Mr. Buchtel, not only taking
the position of some great general or eminent com-
mander, but likewise filling the more humble positions
of the private in the rear ranks of the great momen-
tary battle of life; for while he issues his orders to
those around and about him in such commanding
tones as to yield prompt obedience, he himself is
also hard at work, and doing the most daring work
of all. Thousands have stood and excitedly wit-
nessed his daring achievements on many occasions,
and have applauded him, one and all, when the
danger was over; while hundreds of thousands on
the other hand have read in cold type, o'er and o'er,
as fervently as meager imagination could portray,
of the many venturesome feats performed by Mr.
Buchtel; for the press of Oregon have not been
sparing in recounting his hair-breadth ventures and
noble deeds of valor.
Up to the time he was twenty-one years of age,
his life did not differ materially from those of many
others. It was about his twenty-first year that he
came to Portland to cast his destinies with the
future of the Pacific coast. Mr. Buchtel was born
in Union Town, Stark county, Ohio, November 22,
1830. At the tender age of four, he trudged to
school and whiled his time away in the old log
schoolhouse; and, while he was very young then,
still the picture of that old log schoolhouse lingers
in his memory. The scenes to-day appear like a
dream, as the visions of bygone days revive them
by some incident or picture in after life; for the early
impressions time never effaces.
Seven years later his parents moved to Urbana,
Champaign county, Illinois. Illinois at that time
was a new state; and its greatest possession was
thousands and thousands of tenantless acres of
prairie, carpeted with nature's green. From twenty
to one hundred miles separated neighbors; and
division-fence quarrels were few and far between.
Urbana people then did their trading at Chicago, a
hundred and fifty miles north, or on the Wabash,
fifty miles east. One was as handy as the other;
for the rough and almost impassable road to Wabash
fully made up for the additional one hundred miles
to Chicago. In the spring of the year, for conven-
ience, Chicago was really the nearest.
Mr. Buchtel's father followed shingle manufac-
turing at Urbana, making lap shingles and running
the sawmill, until his death, which occurred two
years after removing to Illinois. The bereaved
family then consisted of himself, brother, sister and
mother. His mother resides with him at the ripe
old age of eighty-two, with a life well spent in use-
fulness. His brother Samuel also resides in Port-
land, being a printer and painter. In Illinois,
young Buchtel also went to school, and graced
another log house with his daily presence.
demise of his father ended his school days; for he
had to go to work, which he did, for five years, at
the tailor's trade. The trade was not to his liking;
and he would have rather taken a thrashing every
The
day than to have gone to work, the calling was so
distasteful to him. But circumstances altered his
case; and it was the best opportunity that the then
present afforded. To assist and aid his widowed
mother was uppermost in his mind; and, while the
calling was repulsive, yet he would endure it for the
pittance it yielded to the family.
His next occupation was farming. To this he
took kindly; but the changes of time placed him as
clerk in a store, and afterwards removed him to a
brickyard, where he toiled early and late. Later on
he purchased a daguerreotype outfit, making the
old style pictures, which, by the way, Mr. Buchtel
contends are the best ever produced by any process,
not excepting any. Afterwards he was appointed
deputy sheriff of Champaign county by Sheriff E.
Ater. While acting in that capacity, he first met
that great and noble man, Abraham Lincoln.
Urbana was on his circuit, as it was that of Hon.
O. L. Davis, Mr. Gridley, Ward S. Lemon, S. A.
Douglas and John Wentworth.
(C
He started for Oregon on April 23, 1852, in
company with the late I. R. Moores, of Salem.
Their train was large and late getting in; and when
they arrived at Fort Boise the food was getting very
low. Colonel Moores called for volunteers to go
ahead to save grub;" and seven of them, includ-
ing Mr. Buchtel, took a small amount of food and
started on. Two days before they reached The
Dalles they were entirely without food, with no
possible chance to get a mouthful. Worn out and
almost starved, three out of the seven reached the
Dalles on the 3rd of September, the four others being
left on the road with other camps not able to travel.
At Warm Springs Mr. Buchtel gave his every cent
and about all his crackers and bacon to his comrade,
Nate Therman, who had given out and was sick,
and left him, expecting never to see him again.
However, after resting a week, he succeeded in
finishing the journey. Now Mr. Buchtel went on
his journey literally empty handed, as he says,
trusting to luck.
•
They arrived in Portland September 5, 1852,
utterly without money. One Hall of the party had
two dollars which he had saved; and of course they
purchased some bread, on which they lived a day or
two; and Mr. Buchtel rustled for a job. Colonel
Backenstos took pity upon him, and employed him
to cut five acres of oats, for which he paid him
twenty-five dollars, though the job was worth only
about five dollars. He then helped to load the
Charles Devens with lumber, and went to Oregon
City and took a job to cut wood for John Campbell.
While there, he recognized one Robert White, be-
cause of the family resemblance to his brother,
whom Mr. Buchtel had known in Illinois. Mr.
White went with him to Canemah and introduced
him to Captain L. White, who gave him a position
on the steamer Shoalwater. He continued running
on the river for five years during the winters, and
in summers took daguerreotypes, as he had pur-
chased the outfit of L. H. Wakefield in 1853.
then started in business in the old Canton House,
now the American Exchange; and there for thirty-
five years he followed the business in Portland as the
pioneer artist in every style of picture except the
He

!
MOTEKLISSKRBLET
RESIDENCE OF EUGENE REITH ESQ.,
PENDLETON, OR.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
231
daguerreotype, and was one of the three pioneers in
that, the others being D. H. Hendee and L. H.
Wakefield.
In 1865 Mr. Buchtel was elected chief engineer of
the fire department, and again re-elected in 1866.
In 1874 he was grand representative of the I. O. O.
F., and met with them in Atlanta, Georgia. In
1880 he was elected sheriff of Multnomah county,
Oregon, and served for two years. He was the first
builder of street railroads in East Portland. After
disposing of his gallery, he entered the real estate
business, and established himself at the corner of
L and Water streets, East Portland. He is the
inventor of the telegraph fire hose, which was pa-
tented in 1872, and also invented a coupling for the
same in 1883. He also lets his inventive genius
crop out in the hand fire extinguishers, and the
patent wire-fence post, on which he is now applying
for a patent.
He was the champion baseball player for fifteen
years, being pitcher and captain of the Pioneer
Baseball Club for twenty years. He was also a
champion foot racer, and was barred for years
against competing for prizes, as no one would enter
against him after he won the silver trumpet so
easily over all competitors. We will add a few
instances of his bravery and life risks in saving
others from peril, though in so condensed a space it
is impossible to do justice to one-half his heroic acts.
While on the plains, the Indians often manifested
a warlike disposition. At one time an attack was
expected, such being looked for during the night.
On the arrival of darkness, instead of camping,
Mr. Buchtel persuaded the train to continue on, and
said that he would remain behind and engage the
attention of the savages. This was done; and our
hero prepared a smoke fire, which the Indians
thought to be a camp. They halted, expecting to
make an attack in the morning. After a few hours
had passed, and believing the wagons far ahead, he
left his perilous position and set out to join the
teams ahead, which he did late the following morn-
ing.
A son of Honorable W. Cary Johnson was cross-
ing First street in Portland, Oregon, with his mother,
just in front of a street car. Mr. Buchtel was in the
act of dropping his nickel in the fare-box, and saw
that the child had left his mother, ran back, and was
fairly under the horse. The driver was looking back
into the car, and did not see the boy. This was an
occasion when there was no time for words or cere-
mony; and our subject at once grasped the lines
from the driver with his left hand, and the brake of
the car with his right, and jerked the horse back
against the car. The driver, whom he had pushed
from the platform in his effort to get at the lines and
brake, grasped the child; and he was not as much
hurt as frightened. This boy, a few weeks ago, on
reaching his eighteenth birthday, presented Mr.
Buchtel with a gold-headed cane as a token of his
parents' and his own esteem for saving his life.
He also had a thrilling experience on board the
Canema in a whirlwind above Rock Island, in
which his cool-headed bravery no doubt saved all
on board. Again, Mr. Wilmer's team came tearing
along on Washington street between First and Front;
and of course Mr. Buchtel was on hand just in time
to catch them and prevent them from plunging with
the three men in the vehicle into the river. In speak-
ing of this episode, Mr. Buchtel said: "I always
put implicit confidence in my feet; and they never
went back on me." Engine number two was going
up Front street at full speed; and, as he was fore-
man, he was running along the side of the engine,
which is built too close to the ground to pass over a
man without crushing him to a jelly. All at once
Mr. Fishel was thrown directly in front of the engine
about sixty feet ahead. Mr. Buchtel's unrivaled
speed enabled him to reach the man in time to drag
him out of the way, only one foot being touched;
and that was so protected by the boot that he was
lame only a short time.
As the steamer Willamette was drawing near the
landing at Independence, she only partially slacked
up, as there was only one passenger to land, and
they wished to save time. The landing at this place
is entirely a clay bank, and, as the passenger sprang
out on the slippery bank, he kept slipping back and
down, and would undoubtedly have been caught by
the guard of the large steamer and crushed to death,
had not Mr. Buchtel, quick as thought, caught the man
by the shoulders and thrown him under the guard into.
the river. Captain George Jerome threw him a rope;
and he was pulled out alive and well instead of a
corpse, as he would have been but for Mr. Buchtel's
timely aid. At a theater on Stark street, when he
was chief engineer, the scenery caught fire; and a
general stampede started. With his usual quickness
of thought, our "Joe" yelled out: "Sit down, that
is a part of the play. All is well!" And the play
went on.
On one occasion, he was on board a steamer which
had been chartered to take out a picnic party. The
crowd was immense for so small a craft; and they
were only comfortably started when Captain Pease
called him to the pilot-house, and with a face as
white as chalk said: "Joe, this top load must go
into the river. She is overloaded, and everybody
will drown." Mr. Buchtel at once went into the
main cabin and said: "Gentlemen, this boat has
been tendered by the company to this picnic party
free of charge; and I want every man to come down
and sign a paper in which we accept and thank them
for the generous act. Come, every man." They did
go and the upper deck was safe. Two stout deck-
hands were placed at the stairways; and they al-
lowed no one to go up to the cabin. Captain Pease
appreciated his quick wit, and thanked him sincerely;
but the crowd never knew how near they were to an
awful calamity. The steamer was taken to the saw-
mill and thoroughly braced before the return of the
party.
The steamer Shoalwater was on the Upper Willa-
mette, and was backing away from John Cruse's
landing, when her boiler exploded. She was
twenty feet from shore; and the explosion threw
fifteen of the passengers into the river. Mr. Buchtel
was on board; and, with a run across the deck, he
made the jump of twenty feet, landing on the
shore. He then procured a pole, and by almost a
miracle succeeded in saving all the lives. He states
that the hero of the accident was General M. M.
232
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
McCarver, who was one of those thrown into the
water. Mr. Buchtel extended the pole to him first;
but the old gentleman cried out: "Never mind me,
Joe. Save the others first.”
Afterwards a similar accident happened on the
Gazelle; and Mr. Buchtel recovered the body of
Mr. White, whom he had saved in the accident on
the Shoalwater. But this time he was too late, as
Mr. White was dead, and his body mutilated. In
a building on Washington street formerly used as a
city hall, a mass meeting of Republicans was being
held. Atwood's saloon was situated underneath;
and, as Mr. Buchtel entered, he noticed the ceiling
swaying down and giving way under the immense.
weight above. He quickly went up the stairs; and,
as he went, he wondered how he could get the
crowd out by degrees, as he knew that, if they all
rose up to come out at once, the floor would go
down. He crowded to the center of the room,
where Governor Gibbs was speaking, and said:
Pardon me a moment, Governor, but we have just
secured an orator to speak from the balcony, and
desire one-half the audience to come out and listen,
as this room is uncomfortably packed." So part of
the large audience filed out; and Mr. Buchtel him-
self delivered an address from the balcony.
He was married in Oregon City, in 1855, to Miss
Josephine L. Latourette. There have been born to
them seven children,-Albert, Joe, Lilly, Addie,
Frank, Archie and Fred. Albert died at the age of
twenty-three, and Joe at the age of seven. Lilly is
the wife of N. L. Curry, son of the late Governor
George L. Curry. Addie is the wife of W. G.
Kerns, of The Dalles. The three boys are still at
home, Fred, the youngest, being aged twelve.
Mr. Buchtel is now fifty-nine years of age, and
enjoys splendid health, being still engaged in all his
outdoor sports, such as racing, jumping, baseball,
fishing, hunting, and everything that requires
strength and endurance. He is a man of powerful
He is a man of powerful
physique, and is as tough as a white-oak knot. He
was never sick but once in his life, and that was
when he was a boy, when he had chills. Mr. Buch-
tel never has used tobacco in any form, and is
otherwise, both socially and morally, one of the
best citizens in the state.
WALTER A. BULL.-In the gentleman whose
name heads this brief memoir, we find one of the
most substantial farmers of the Kittitass valley, and
the owner of the beautiful ranch, a view of whịch
finds a place in this work. He is a native of Albany,
New York, and was born June 20, 1838, being the
son of John and Sarah (Fish) Bull. When our sub-
ject was ten years of age, he with his parents moved
to Racine, Wisconsin, where his father engaged in
the shipping business on the lakes, and where Wal-
ter attended school and resided until twenty years
of age. He then went to New York City, residing
there until the breaking out of the war, when he
was employed by the government in different capac-
ities until the close of hostilities. He then came
west and became a contractor on the Union Pacific
Railroad, until its completion at Ogden in 1869.
In that year he came on a tour of inspection to
Washington Territory, and on passing through the
Kittitass valley was so favorably impressed with its
possibilities that he concluded to remain.
He took up one hundred and sixty acres of land
five miles southeast of Ellensburgh, to which he has
since added by purchase, until now he has a grand
farm of over seventeen hundred acres, all in one
body in the heart of the beautiful Kittitass valley,
and in a high state of cultivation. Besides general
farming, Mr. Bull a few years ago engaged in fine
stock-raising, introducing some of the best strains
of stock to be had, an enterprise in which he is emi-
nently successful, and which has proved a great
benefit to the entire community in which he resides.
Mr. Bull, during all the Indian war troubles, never
deserted his home, but with the assistance of his
employés stood the Indians off. He is a gentleman
of high standing, and at one time held the office of
probate judge of Kittitass county.
In 1872 he married Miss M. J. Olmstead. The
fruits of this union were five children, John, Lewis,
Cora, Charles and Grant. In 1885 death invaded
the household, the grim warrior's victim being the
faithful wife and loving mother. In 1889 Mr. Bull
was again united in marriage, the bride being Mrs.
Rebecca N. Frisbee.
It
HON. B. F. BURCH.-B. F. Burch was born
on the second day of May, 1825, in Chariton
county, Missouri, where he lived during the first
twenty years of his life, and received what was then
considered a good, common-school education.
was complete enough to secure him the position of
teacher for the families of Honorable Jesse Apple-
gate and neighbors the first winter after his arrival
here, 1845-46. He also taught the first school in
what is now known as Polk county.
In 1846, in company with Jesse Applegate, Lind-
sey Applegate, David Goff, William G. Parker,
William Spotsman, John Jones, John Owens, Will-
iam Wilson, Robert Smith, "Black" Harris, John
Bogus, F. H. Goodhue, Levi Scott, John M. Scott
and Bennett Osborne, he viewed out and located
what is known as the Southern Oregon wagon road,
and conducted a large number of immigrants over
the new route to Oregon City, cutting the road
and piloting the newcomers through the famous
Umpqua cañon. In 1847 he started to return to
Missouri, but met his father and family on Bear
river and came back with them over the new road.
When the Oregon Volunteers were organized un-
der Colonels Gilliam and Watters, he was adjutant
of the first regiment, and served through the Cay-
use war of 1847-48, participating in all the battles,
and was with Colonel Gilliam when the latter was
killed, taking charge of his body and sending it to
his family. After his colonel's death, Mr. Burch
took charge of the command until it returned to the
main body at Walla Walla.
He was in the Yakima war of 1855-56, and took
command of a company. At the close of that war
he returned to his farm in Polk county, and was
elected a member of the constitutional convention
that framed the constitution, and in the committees
of that body was a member of the military commit-
tee and chairman of the finance committee. He
was afterwards elected a member of the first legisla-
"
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
233
ture under the new constitution, and took an active
part in framing some of the most important laws of
the first session. He was elected state senator in
1868; and that body honored him with the position
of president of the senate, a place which he filled
with becoming dignity and to the satisfaction of all.
The legislature of 1870 appointed him one of the
committee to examine the books and papers of the
various state officers; and he was made chairman of
the committee. He was appointed superintendent
of the penitentiary by Governor S. F. Chadwick,
and served during that official's administration.
The committee that was appointed by the legisla-
ture to examine his accounts and the management
of the prison was so well pleased that it unan-
imously recommended his continuance in the office;
and both branches unanimously adopted the report
and recommendation. In 1887 President Cleveland
appointed him receiver of the United States land-
office at Oregon City, in which capacity he is now
serving.
Mr. Burch was married in September, 1848, to
Mrs. Eliza A. Davidson, who was born in Kentucky,
but with her parents settled in Illinois, emigrating
from there to Oregon in 1847. Seven children
have been born to them, only one of which, B. F.,
Jr., now survives. Mr. Burch's occupation is that
of a farmer; and his residence is in Polk county,
near Independence, where he has made his home
during the whole of his married life.
HON. JAMES D. BURNETT.— Mr. Burnett,
one of the best farmers of Douglas county, and a
gentleman of eminent abilities in public affairs, was
born in Blunt county, Tennessee, March 12, 1822.
In 1850 he came to Oregon, settling first at Salem.
Two years later he removed to Douglas county,
taking a claim upon which he has lived to the pres-
ent time, and which he has increased by purchase to
the baronial dimensions of twelve hundred acres.
He has ever been active publicly in establishing
those institutions which reflect credit upon the
community and advance society. He is a gentle-
man highly respected by the entire circle of his
friends and acquaintances, and has fittingly borne
public honors. He was married in Tennessee to Miss
Margaret Love; and they have reared a family of
seven children, Martha, Francis, Mary, Lydia,
Thomas B. and Virginia C. (deceased).
HON. A. R. BURBANK.—Mr. Burbank, a
founder of society and business upon the Pacific
coast, was born April 15, 1817, near Cincinnati,
Ohio. He is the son of Major Daniel Burbank, an
American officer in the war of 1812, who came with
his family in an open boat down the Alleghany and
Ohio rivers as early as 1814, and made a home on
its northern shore near the present metropolis.
The Major was from Williamstown, Massachusetts.
His wife, Margeret Pinchen, was from Atica, New
York. In 1818 a further move was made in the
family boat down the Ohio to Shanetown, Illinois,
thence to McLanesburgh, and in 1825 to Exeter,
Morgan county, in the same state. Here, at the
age of nine, A. R. Burbank, the subject of this
sketch, who was the youngest of a family of six
sons and five daughters, met with the loss of his
mother by death, and six years later was called
upon to bid his father the last farewell, and follow
his body to its resting-place in the grave.
Having received very careful religious and moral
training from his parents, and having acquired
habits of thrift and industry, he began while still a
boy to make a career and carve out for himself a
fortune. As a clerk in a store he acquired an in-
sight into and a grasp upon business affairs. At
the age of twenty-six he rose to the position of part-
ner in the firm of Hollandbush & Burbank, which
did a heavy business in the town of Naples, Illinois.
At the age of twenty-eight, on May 1, 1845, he was
united in marriage to Miss Mary E. Eckles, in the
town of Jacksonville, and made his home at Naples.
In 1849 he was led by reports from the Pacific
coast to make an excursion hither, and, in the com-
pany of Reverend Isaac Owens of Indiana, per-
formed the long and eventful journey. He acted
as quartermaster on the first stages of the journey,
and later as captain. Johnson's ranch in the Sac-
ramento valley was reached September 21, 1849,
after a journey of four months and fourteen days.
After a visit to the gold mines he spent the winter
at Sacramento City, and subsequently engaged in
merchandising and mining at Nevada City. In
1851 he made the return trip via Panama to Illinois,
and once more took up business in that state at the
town of Bloomington.
The Pacific coast, however, still had a fascination
for his mind; and in 1853 he set out with his family
for Oregon, making the journey via New Orleans
and Nicaragua, and arriving at Portland May 30th
of the same year. He soon went to Lafayette, and
engaged in merchandising with W. S. Hussey.
While at this point he was elected to the House of
Representatives, and served during the session of
1855-56. While a member of the legislature, he
moved the adoption of a bill for cutting a ditch
from the Santiam to Mill creek, thereby giving
Salem a permanent water-power. The plan was
put into execution; and this was the beginning of
the manufacture of woolen fabrics and of flour for
which Salem has become so well known. Mr. Bur-
bank was for a time a member of the woolen mills
company. In October of 1857 he moved to Port-
land, and in July of the next year went north to Vic-
toria and engaged in the mercantile business, but
returned in the autumn to Portland by Puget Sound.
The next autumn he opened a hotel at Monticello,
in Cowlitz county, Washington Territory. In June,
1859, he was elected a member of the territorial
council from that county, and served three years,
acting as president of that body during the last
session. In August, 1867, he returned to the place
of his first choice at Lafayette, Oregon, and resumed
his occupation as merchant. His popularity in-
creasing, he was again elected, in 1872, as member
of the House in the Oregon legislature.
In 1885, Mr. Burbank, having been relieved of
the necessity of active business, and having prop-
erty interests requiring his attention, retired from
his store and has since made his residence upon a
small farm adjoining Lafayette. He has ever
been fully identified with religious interests, having
234
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
formerly been a member of the Methodist and
latterly of the Episcopal denomination. In politics
he began as a Democrat, but, in anticipation of the
danger of the dissolution of the Union, became a
Republican, and was an organizer and the chairman.
of the first meeting held on the Pacific coast to
organize this party, at Monticello, Washington Ter-
ritory. Besides the offices mentioned here as held
by Mr. Burbank, he has held many minor govern-
ment and state positions.
With his great natural force and high moral
training, Mr. Burbank has been a prominent and
necessary figure in the development of the Pacific
coast in the three great states, California, Oregon
and Washington. He is extensively known through-
out the Pacific Northwest as a public man, and a
staunch, good citizen and firm partisan. He is still
a healthy, active man, although now approaching
advanced age, and enjoys life at his beautiful home.
Of his children but one grew to adult life, Miss Eva
L. Burbank, who was drowned while bathing on
the north beach at Seaview, Washington Territory.
Her death was noted with great sorrow by the
whole state, and was deeply mourned by her parents.
MRS. MARY E. BURBANK.— The wife of
Honorable A. R. Burbank was born near Milford,
Delaware, January 14, 1827, and is the daughter of
Jesse E. and Ellen Eckles. While but a child of
sixteen months, she was bereft of her mother by
death, and was intrusted to the care of her sable
nurse until three years old. At this date she moved
with her father and his family of three daughters
and two sons to the far West, crossing the Alleghany
Mountains in wagons, and settling at Clarkesburgh,
Ohio, in the fall of 1830, residing there five years.
As the Eden of their expectations had not been
reached, this place was left for a more distant seat
in Illinois; and a settlement was made upon a farm
near Naples. Here she was afflicted by the death
of her father, which occurred June 17, 1837; and
she was left to the care of her sisters. At the age
of seventeen she was united in marriage to Augustus
R. Burbank, the ceremony being celebrated May 1,
1845, at the town of Jacksonville, by the Reverend
Chancey Hoberts, at the house of Hicholas and Ann
Milburn,-parents of Reverend W. M. Milburn,
the blind man eloquent," and so often chaplain
in Congress. She resided six years of her married
life in Naples, and spent two years at Bloomington,
Illinois. With her husband she came via the
Isthmus of Nicaragua to Oregon, arriving in Port-
land May 30, 1853. The first home was made at
Lafayette, but in 1857 a removal was made to
Portland. Mrs. Burbank is still remembered as the
first church organist in the Methodist-Episcopal
church of that city. In October, 1858, a removal
was made to Monticello, Washington Territory,
where she was landlady of the Monticello House
for nine years; and this pretty place near the mouth
of the Cowlitz became the birthplace of her daughter
Eva. In 1867 a return to Lafayette, Oregon, was
effected. In 1870 the mother and her daughter
enjoyed a visit by stage to California, and thence
by the newly opened Central and Union Pacific
Railroads across the continent, visiting the old
On
The
scenes and friends in Illinois and Delaware.
returning to San Francisco, they enjoyed a tour
through Southern California, making the return
trip to Portland, Oregon, by water. The loss of
this daughter on the North Beach despoiled her
home of much of its light and joy; nevertheless
this great sorrow of her life has been brightened by
the christian hope of a heavenly reunion.
intelligent mind of this daughter and her acquire-
ments in music and literary culture fitted her for
extensive usefulness in life, and were the basis of
many hopes as to her future. Mrs. Burbank has
been for many years superintendent of and a teacher
in the Sunday school, and has presided at the organ
and conducted the musical services, in the old
church of Lafayette. She joined the Methodist-
Episcopal church at the age of seventeen, but of
late years has been confirmed in the Episcopal
church,—her mother's church. She enjoys fair
health, and carries her age well. She has a lovely
and beautiful home, adorned with flowers, shrub-
bery and grounds, and a small farm adjoining on
the east of Lafayette, Oregon.
MISS EVA L. BURBANK.-Miss Burbank, the
only child of Honorable A. R. and Mary E. Burbank,
whose memory is still cherished with regretful inter-
est by the people of our state, was born in Monticello,
Washington Territory, January 22, 1861, where
her parents were at that time keeping the Monti-
cello House. At the age of five and a half months
she was christened (as an offering) in the Taylor
Street Methodist Church, of Portland, by the Rev-
erend T. H. Pearn. At the age of five years she
began attendance upon school, and developed
unusual quickness and ability of mind. In August,
1867, her home was transferred to Lafayette by the
removal thither of her parents; and she received
at this place still further educational advantages.
In her tenth year she visited the Eastern states in
company with her mother, and upon her return in
the following year entered the St. Helen's Hall of
Portland, Oregon, for the still further improvement
of her natural ability, where she remained some
three years. She was furnished all advantages for
a thorough musical education; and her talent
proved to be of such high character as to merit
the encomium of her last musical instructor, Pro-
fessor Hugh Gunn of California, that hers was the
finest in Oregon.
Her bright and hopeful career was, however, cut
short by the accident in August, 1880, which threw
a gloom over the whole state. On the second day
of that month she left her home for Portland,
Oregon, to join an excursion party from East Port-
land to spend a few weeks' recreation at Long
Beach. She became the life of the company, and,
upon their delightful trip down to Ilwaco and over
on the weather shore, was constantly enlarging the
circle of her friends. On August 15th, in the after-
noon, a large company from this camp, together
with others from Astoria, were enjoying bathing in
the surf. She, in company with Mr. F. A. Graves
of Astoria, was noticed to be one of the most enthu-
siastic of all the bathers. They were both, however,
carried far out by a strong undertow; and the gen-

WALTER J.REED,
GLE-ELLUM, W. T.
MRS. BARBARA REED,
GLE-ELLUM, W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
235
tleman made the greatest exertions to keep her up
and gain the beach, as she was unable to swim.
Their loud calls for help were drowned by the roar
of the breakers; but soon Mr. Joseph T. Chambreau,
of Vancouver, Washington Territory, saw their
perilous situation, and went to their rescue. He
reached them as they were upon the point of drown-
ing, and, taking Miss Eva by the arm, was prepar-
ing to swim to the beach, but was almost imme-
diately overpowered by an immense breaker that
passed over and bore them under upon its return.
All were overcome and separated; and it was only
by the greatest efforts that the gentlemen reached
shore. Miss Burbank was never seen again; and
her body was never recovered, although the beach
was searched for months throughout its whole
length. She was nineteen years, six months and
twenty-three days of age.
More than twenty pieces of beautiful poetry have
been written and published with reference to her
sad death. The following, from the pen of her
music teacher, Miss M. P. Sedlak, merits a place
here.
Gone in her youthful beauty,
Gone from our earth away,
Called from earth's scenes of duty
On a beautiful Sabbath day.
Fair was the flower that blossomed
Amid our pilgrim band,
And prized the beauteous lily
Culled by the Savior's hand.
Sad is the home that once was
Lit by her sweet smile's glow;
And hushed are the gentle accents
That soothed her loved one's woe.
Yet, oh, beloved parents
And friends most fond and dear!
Remember, in your sorrow,
Thy darling is still near.
And though she's gone to heaven
To smooth your rugged way,
She, from her starry mansion,
Will watch o'er you for aye.
HON. JOHN BURNETT.— Among the promi-
nent self-made men of Oregon is the subject of this
sketch. He was born in Pike county, Missouri, on
the 4th of July, 1831. He lost his father at the age
of fifteen, and was turned out in the world to fight
his way as best he might. He first engaged as an
errand boy in a store, but, becoming tired of the
confinement, at the end of a year hired out to work
on a flat-boat on the Mississippi, boating wood to
St. Louis. His early education was obtained in the
common schools of the country; and, though his
opportunities were limited, he laid the foundation
upon which he, in after life, built a sound practical
education.
In the spring of 1849, there being great excite-
ment about the gold discoveries in California and a
general rush to the mines, he accepted an outfit from
a relative, and though under eighteen years old
started "the plains across "to seek his fortune in the
new El Dorado. He arrived in Sacramento on the
10th of September with just one five-franc piece in
his pocket. During the greater part of the time
from that date on he was engaged in mining and
dealing in cattle, until the spring of 1858, when he
came to Oregon and settled in Benton county, where
he has resided since.
The year after his arrival in Oregon he was mar-
ried to Miss Martha Hinton, daughter of Honorable
R. B. Hinton of Monroe. This happy union has
been blessed with a family of seven children, of
which three girls and two boys are now living.
Soon after his marriage he commenced reading law
with Colonel Kelsey of Corvallis, and in 1861 ob-
tained a license from Judge Stratton to practice in the
second judicial district. From that time his life has
been a very active one, and much of the time en-
gaged in public affairs.
In 1862 he ran for state senator, but was defeated,
though by only twenty-five votes. In 1864 he took
an active part in raising the first company in the
regiment called for in Oregon during the Rebellion.
In 1868 he was elected presidential elector on the
Democratic ticket with James H. Slater and S. F.
Chadwick, having canvassed Western Oregon against
Doctor W. Bowlby of Washington county. In 1870
he was elected county judge of Benton county,
and administered the affairs of the county to the
satisfaction of the people for four years.
In 1872
he ran for Congress against the late Joseph G.
Wilson, and was defeated by a small majority.
In 1874 he was chosen associate justice of the
supreme court of the state as an Independent Demo-
crat, contesting with his former tutor, Colonel
Kelsey, on the Republican ticket, and Honorable
L. F. Mosher of Roseburg as the regular Democratic
nominee. His term as judge expired in September,
1876. Two years later he was elected state senator
from Benton county, and was appointed chairman of
the judiciary committee of the senate, the arduous
duties of which office he filled to the entire satisfac-
tion of his colleagues. In 1882 he was appointed
by Governor Thayer judge of the second judicial
district, to serve a portion of the unexpired term of
Judge Watson. Since the expiration of this term of
office, he has devoted his time mainly to the prac-
tice of law, and by industry and economy has accu-
mulated a handsome property, and is now in easy
circumstances.
When Judge Burnett first arrived in Corvallis
he was without money and without friends, a stran-
ger in a strange land; but he went to work as a day-
laborer, doing whatever kind of work he could get
to do, and instead of waiting for "something to turn
up," turned things up generally. He has in con-
sequence made money and made friends; and his
life has been a complete success. His services on
the bench and in the legislature, and his efforts at
the Bar and on the hustings, have made his name
familiar throughout the state. He has been engaged
in a great number of murder trials for the defense;
and his success as a criminal lawyer has been equal
to that of any man in the state.
It is as an advocate that he has made some of his
most effective speeches. His friends claim that his
efforts in behalf of L. D. Miller, James McCabe,
Charles Williams, Frank Reid, Mr. Wheeler, A. J.
Burneson, William Skelton, Harry Abrams and
Captain Saunders, in their several trials for murder,
as well as his pleas for others in other notable cases,
have never been surpassed. His style of eloquence
is bold, manly, and full of deep feeling; and there
are hundreds of men who can testify to the power
of his impassioned appeals to a jury.
He is regarded by his fellow townsmen as a liberal,
>
236
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
enterprising, public-spirited citizen, aiding and con-
tributing liberally to every laudable public enter-
prise. He has contributed largely of his means to
the building of the State Agricultural College
and is the senior counsel of the state in its liti-
gation with the Methodist Episcopal Church South
for the control of the college board.
He is an up-
right, honorable man, plain and unassuming in his
manners, earnest, patient, faithful and painstaking
in all his enterprises. Real merit alone is his test.
He has ever been the friend of the poor and de-
serving. No appeal to him for help has ever been
denied. His sympathies with the unfortunate are
easily touched; and none are turned away empty-
handed.
There is perhaps no better example of what can
be accomplished by honest endeavor under our free
institutions, where all have an equal chance in the
race of life, than is shown in the career of this not-
able man.
What a lesson his well-rounded charac-
ter is to the young men of Oregon. Integrity and
honesty are indeed the only sure foundations of a
lasting reputation. There are no short and dishonest
cuts to enduring fame. Those men only live in the
annals of a free people who are superior to temp-
tation and circumstances.
MRS. MARTHA BURNETT.-The subject
of this biography was born September 28, 1838, in
Franklin county, Missouri, and is the fourth child
and oldest daughter of Roland and Elizabeth Hin-
ton. Her parents emigrated to Oregon in 1846, and
located their Donation claim in the southern part of
Benton county, near Monroe. In her twenty-first
year, 1859, she was married, on June 12th, to Hon-
orable John Burnett. They took up their residence
in Corvallis, where Judge Burnett entered into the
practice of law, and has prospered in the practice of
his profession.
There is a vast difference in the Oregon of 1846
and the Oregon of 1889; and Mrs. Burnett has
experienced all the rigors of pioneer life from the
time she was a child of tender age until the march
of civilization westward took its way. She is now
in her fifty-first year, and is surrounded by her
family of fine children, and all the comforts which
a beautiful home with peace and prosperity can give.
She has reached the palm trees and wells of sweet
water after a brave and uncomplaining journey
through the arid sands of the desert. She has been
blessed with seven children, five of whom are living.
They are Alice, Ida, Mattie, Brady and Bruce.
His
ASAHEL BUSH.-The subject of this memoir,
Asahel Bush, of Salem, is no ordinary man.
strong personality, quick and clear perception,
energy and persistence of purpose, together with
his strong common sense, would have made him
distinguished in almost any walk of life.
Mr. Bush was born at Westfield, Massachusetts,
on June 4, 1824. His father, whose name he bears,
was a person of prominence in the community,
being frequently chosen to fill its public offices.
His mother's name was Sally Noble; and both his
father's and mother's families were among the oldest
of the town, having settled there in the early part
of the seventeenth century. The homestead on
which he was born has been in his father's family,
in a direct line, for a century and a half, and is now
owned and occupied by one of his descendants.
Asahel attended the common school of the neigh-
borhood, and then the academy of the village, until
his father's death, which occurred when he was but
fifteen. Soon after this he quit school and went to
Saratoga Springs, New York, where he spent
upwards of three years learning and working at the
art of printing. Then he worked a few months at
Albany, on the state printing, where he doubtless
got some idea of the art of politics as well as print-
ing. From there he went to Cleveland, Ohio, where
he remained about a year.
As a striking contrast to the present means of
locomotion, it may be mentioned that he made the
trip from Schenectady to Buffalo in a "line boat"
of the Erie Canal, occupying about a week on the
voyage." Cleveland was then but a small place;
and farther up the lakes were Racine and Sheboy-
gan, hopeful rivals of Chicago, then an aspiring
young town, more noted for its adhesive mud than
anything else. From Cleveland he returned to his
native village, where he read law and edited the
country Democratic paper. He also held the ancient
office of town clerk, which he resigned on leaving
for Oregon in July, 1850. In May of the same year
he was admitted to the bar of the superior court,
sitting at Springfield.
Mr. Bush arrived in Oregon via the Isthmus of
Panama in September, 1850. On the meeting of
the legislature at Oregon City, in the December fol-
lowing, he was chosen chief clerk of the House of
Representatives. There the writer first met him;
and a handsomer, quicker witted man, with a
keener or truer scent for a fellow mortal's foibles,
he thinks he never knew. They roomed together
that busy but happy winter, where was laid, “when
life was young," the foundation of a friendship that
has survived the mutations of nearly forty years.
It was understood at the time that he had the ma-
terial on the way from "the States," for the publi-
cation of a Democratic newspaper. He soon won
recognition as a leader among the Democratic mem-
bers of the legislature. During the session, an act
was passed creating the office of territorial printer,
to which he was easily elected by the legislature.
This office he continued to hold, by successive an-
nual elections, until the state was admitted to the
union. At the general election in June, 1858, he
was elected state printer on the Democratic ticket,
and held the office until the general election in 1864,
when he was succeeded by Henry L. Pittock.
In March, 1851, he commenced the publication of
the first distinctively Democratic paper in Oregon,
and conducted the same with marked professional
and pecuniary success for the next ten years,—dur-
ing which time the government of Oregon was car-
ried on by the Statesman and its friends,—sometimes
called the “Salem Clique." This autocracy was not
always as kind to and considerate of the dissatisfied
and refractory among its subjects as it might have
been, and sometimes administered justice to them
untempered with mercy. But it had one supreme
virtue. It generally kept shams and knaves out of
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
237
office, and never permitted or winked at any pecu-
lation of public funds.
During his editorial career, Mr. Bush performed a
great deal of labor. He started with empty pockets,
but with willing hands and an active brain. Often
he might be seen at the case setting up his saucy,
trenchant, sinewy editorials, and spicy, pungent
paragraphs, without copy. Industrious, temperate
and economical beyond the average of men, he gained
on the world from the first issue of the Statesman.
But, though provident and thrifty in a marked de-
gree, no taint of dishonesty or meanness in business
has ever touched his name. He also maintained a
constant correspondence with the captains over tens
and fifties and more, all over the territory, and by
this means, in conjunction with the columns of the
Statesman, maintained an almost autocratic control
over public affairs.
In the division of the Democratic party in the
presidential election of 1860, he adhered to the
Douglas wing, and actively supported Stephen A.
Douglas for President. At the outbreak of the war
he supported the Union cause, and in 1862 was a
member of the convention of that year which put a
Union state ticket in the field. In that body he
successfully opposed the appointment of a state cen-
tral committee, as looking to a permanent organiza-
tion, which he did not favor. At the succeeding
presidential election in 1864 he supported McClellan.
Though a party man, and ready to give a reason for
the faith that is in him, he is in the habit of reading
his ticket, and not disposed to vote for a fool or a
rogue merely because his name is on the ticket.
In 1861 Mr. Bush was a member of the board of
visitors at the military academy at West Point.
With him was David Davis, afterwards a justice of
the supreme court and a United States senator, and
also James G. Blaine, then editor of the Kennebec
Tournal, but not otherwise known to fame. In the
early sixties he was a silent partner for four years in
the mercantile firm of Lucien Heath & Co., at Salem;
and in 1868 he engaged in banking at the same
place in company with William S. Ladd. After
some time, he took the business into his own hands;
and now it is practically carried on under the old
firm name of Ladd & Bush, by his son and name-
sake, Asahel N. Bush, Jr. He has also been inter-
ested in milling at Salem, Oregon City and Albina.
It is said that when he first commenced banking,
if a person applied to have a note discounted, he did
not consider the security of the indorser, but applied
the test which had worked so well in politics, and
said "yes" or "no," as he happened to like or dis-
like the cut of the applicant's "jib," the cast of
his countenance. However, he soon caught on,”
and "Bush's Bank" is one of the well-known and
reliable moneyed institutions of the country.
In 1878 he accepted the appointment of superin-
tendent of the penitentiary, under the belief that
the institution was costing the state much more than
it should. He held the place for four years, without
taking any salary for the first two. He managed it
as he would his own business, without reference
"to the good of the party," and the result was that
the expenses were reduced from one-fourth to one-
half what they had been in former years. At the
Democratic convention in 1888, he was chosen chair-
man of the state central committee. In this posi-
tion he disgusted some of the "crumb-picking"
newspaper people by not subsidizing them for the
campaign. One of these came to him and said,
seriously, as if the issue of the campaign depended
on it, "Mr. Bush, unless my paper is supplied with
money I am afraid it will die;" to which he replied,
"I think then it had better die;" and sure enough
it did.
In 1854 Mr. Bush married Miss Eugenia Zieber,
the daughter of John S. Zieber. Mr. Zieber was
born in Maryland. He removed to Pennsylvania,
and from thence to Oregon in 1851, where he was
subsequently appointed surveyor-general of the terri-
tory. Mrs. Bush was a very attractive, winning
woman, a faithful wife and a devoted mother. She
died early in life, in the year 1863, leaving a family
of four young children, three girls and a boy, to
whose training and comfort their father has devoted
himself ever since. The eldest, Estelle, was married
some years since to Claude Thayer, and resides on
the Tillamook.
Mr. Bush has a picturesque, suburban place and
farm just south of Salem, where he resides and occu-
pies himself with the charities of the neighborhood,
his books, meadows, poultry and kine. The resi-
dence, built under his direction, is large and roomy,
on a commanding site, amid a widely scattered group
of grand old Oregon oaks. There he is spending
the evening of his busy life peacefully and pleasantly.
When his race is run, few persons, if any, in Oregon,
will be more missed or longer remembered. Miss
Sally and Eugenia, his two single daughters, bright,
pleasant women, live with him, and help to lighten
the shadows of increasing age. They materially aid
him in entertaining his friends, and in dispensing a
hospitality that suggests the home, habits and tastes
of an old-fashioned country gentleman.
HON. HILORY BUTLER.— Mr. Butler is the
son of Roland and Lucy Emery Butler.
He was
born in Culpepper county, Virginia, on March 31,
1819. He resided on his father's farm, where he
was born, until he was twenty-one years of age,
when he came to Lexington, Missouri, with a neigh-
bor's family, and followed farming until 1852. In
April of that year he started across the plains in
company with his wife, with the train known as the
Hays and Cowan train, and arrived in Portland in
September of the same year. After spending the
first winter in Portland, in the spring of 1853 he
went to Olympia, and a month later to Alki Point,
where he remained three months. He then took up
his residence in Seattle, and at that time purchased.
two lots on the corner of Second and James streets
for one hundred and twenty-five dollars, which he
has since been offered one hundred thousand for.
He took part in the war of 1855-56. In 1854 he
was elected sheriff of King county, which position
he held for three years. In 1861 he was appointed
Indian agent of the Duwamish and Muckleshute
Indians, being relieved in 1862. A short time after-
wards he was appointed deputy provost marshal for
Washington Territory, which position he held until
his time expired, or on the completion of the work.
•
238
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST— OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
He also held the post of sergeant-at-arms of the leg-
islature.
Mr. Butler has given all his time to working at
different enterprises in Seattle, having built on his
present property the first frame house in that city,
and is now building the fine Butler Block. He is
now living in Seattle, and is without a family, his
wife, to whom he was married in Lexington, Mis-
souri, in 1848, having died in Olympia, January 3,
1870. She was Miss Catherine Hickman, a native
of Hickman county, Kentucky.
IRA F. M. BUTLER.-The honesty and whole-
heartedness of a certain, and indeed, predominating,
class of our early settlers is nowhere better exempli-
fied than in Mr. Butler. Seventy-seven years of
age, but still vigorous and kindly, adhering firmly
to the temperance principles which have ever been
his standby, and which have prevented the dissipa-
tion of his native course, and while well-to-do,
indeed wealthy, spending much of his means in
benevolent works, he is a striking example of the
noble old gentleman.
He was born in Barren county, Kentucky, in 1812,
and was the son of Major Peter Butler, distin-
guished in the war of 1812. In 1829 the family moved
to Illinois. Young Butler grew up on a farm in the
region since designated as Warren county, remain-
ing with his father until the outbreak of the Black
Hawk war. He heard the call raised at that time to
save the early settlements, and enlisting served until
the Indians were quieted. The experience thus
obtained served to open for him the position of dep-
uty sheriff. In 1835 he was married to Miss Mary
A. Davidson, who for more than fifty years was his
devoted wife, and bore him eight children. Soon
afterwards he was elected sheriff, and four years
later was appointed by Stephen A. Douglas as clerk
of the circuit court, filling that office seven years.
In 1853 he sold his farm and closed out all his
business, with the intention of crossing the plains,
and became captain of a train bound for Oregon.
By August 9th his company had passed all the
mountains, and had gained the limits of Polk county.
On the lovely plain about Monmouth, Mr. Butler
chose his square mile, and has made this his home
to the present day, owning also a few acres and a
handsome residence in Monmouth,- one of those
beautiful towns of the Willamette valley where
nearly every house has its large lot and garden and
orchard, where the streets are shady, and where
there are church spires and school buildings.
Mr. Butler was early sought to occupy public
offices, being elected in 1854 and again in 1858 to
serve in the legislature. He acted as speaker of
the latter session, and was returned again in 1860.
In 1878 he was elected judge of Polk county, and
in 1882 was honored with the position of recorder
of the town of Monmouth, which office he holds
to the present time. He has performed the duties
of justice of the peace almost continuously, except
as otherwise officially occupied. As a public officer,
and particularly as legislator, he has been the friend
of the people, and solicitous to expend their public
moneys wisely. Lobbyists, ringsters and corrup-
tionists have found him a hard man to manage.
His wife is now deceased; and, of his children,
two died in infancy, a grown daughter passed away
in Oregon, and a son in California. Of the four
living, N. H. Butler is a druggist of Monmouth;
Professor Asa Douglas Butler resides at Napa, Cali-
fornia; and the two daughters, Maggie and Alice,
live with their father, making his home happy,
although it is not without its pathetic memories of
times past.
It was but as a boy that Mr. Butler resolved, as he
says, that “ardent spirits should never destroy what
sense he had;" and bravely has he stuck to his
principles. He has also been rigidly scrupulous to
pay his just debts. As president of the board of
trustees of Monmouth College, and in other ways,
he has done much for education, and, besides his
own children, has helped four other young people
to an education, seeing one young lady through
the entire course.
HENRY BUXTON.—As we trace out, one by
one, the variety of sources from which our pioneers
are derived, and see the commingling of all lines of
nationality and all kinds of business in our cosmo-
politan population, we are more than ever impressed
with the great problem which we, as a people, are
working out, and the great destiny which we have.
The subject of this sketch, of whom an excellent
portrait appears herewith, is a representative of the
Hudson's Bay Company régime in Oregon, and is
one of the now few living members of the company
by which the great fur monopoly sought, though in
vain, to meet the incoming tide of American immi-
gration with its own weapons. On this account, as
well as his well-known high qualities of mind and
character, Mr. Buxton occupies a unique and interest-
ing place among the pioneers of Washington county.
Mr. Buxton's father was born in Derbyshire, Eng-
land, in 1792. In 1821 he went to Manitoba, and
became an employé of the Hudson's Bay Fur Com-
pany. He was there married to Frances Thomas,
the daughter of one of the factors of the Hudson's
Bay Company. From this union, the subject of our
sketch was born of the 8th of October, 1829.
In the year 1841, the astute officials of the fur
company, foreseeing the inevitable collapse of their
power from the encroachments of American settlers,
determined to head off the danger by founding a
settlement of their own. The Red River Colony
of 1841 was the result. Mr. Buxton was a member
of that colony. The first design was to go to Puget
Sound. In 1842, however, Mr. Buxton, Sr., moved
to Tualatin Plains, bringing his son Henry, then
thirteen years of age, with him. The first place taken
up was on the East Plain near the present town of
West Union. At that time there were living on the
plains, Colonel Jo Meek, Doctor Robert T. Newell,
Doctor William Geiger, Reverend J. S. Griffin, Rev-
erend Harvey Clark, A. T. Smith, Joseph Gale, C.
Walker, W. M. Doty, G. W. Ebbert and Caleb
Wilkens.
In 1850 the Buxton family moved to the beautiful
farm near Forest Grove, now known as Spring
Brook Farm, one of the ideal farming places of the
county. The father died in 1870. The son has
resided on his farm, with the exception of a period.

HON.J.A. BENNETT,
CORVALLIS, OR.
MRS.L.E.R. BENNETT,
CORVALLIS, OR.
MRS. MARTHA BURNETT,
CORVALLIS, OR.
JOSEPH BUCHTEL,
PORTLAND, OR.
HON WM STRONG,
PORTLAND, OR.
UNI
=
OF
CH
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
239
of about fourteen years, between 1873 and 1887, in
which the family residence was at Forest Grove.
Mr. Buxton was married in 1846 to Rosanna
Wooley, who was a member of a pioneer family of
1845. The children of the family are Rebecca
Kimzey (deceased), Edward, Thurston, James T.,
Mary E., Stevenson (deceased), William T., Charles
E., Jacob S., Carrie Harrison, Nellie Griffin
(deceased), Austin T. and Rosa M. (deceased).
During his long residence here, Mr. Buxton has
become identified with almost every interest of this
county, having been county commissioner two
terms, 1876-78 and 1880-82, a town trustee of
Forest Grove three years, and a member of either
the school board of Forest Grove or his present
home district during almost the entire thirty-eight
years of his residence. In politics he has been a
Republican. After a long and active life, Mr.
Buxton is now spending his later years in the well-
earned enjoyment of his large property, and in the
pleasure of experimenting in stock, fruit and other
features of an intelligent farmer's life. His place
is one of almost unsurpassed natural beauty; and
he designs to add to it the embellishments of art.
Besides his home place, Mr. Buxton owns a large
ranch north of Forest Grove, known as the East
View Farm. Mr. Buxton's sons have followed in
his footsteps, and have become known as men of
rare energy and usefulness.
Many interesting reminiscences could be gathered
from Mr. Buxton. Among other things, he was
one who worked on the first wagon road from
Tualatin Plains to Portland, in June, 1846, and in
November of that year. On that road he hauled
the first load of produce ever brought to Portland
on wheels, the wagon being drawn by three yoke of
oxen, and containing nine slaughtered hogs and
twenty-three bushels of beans.
HON. CHARLES N. BYLES.—This is one of
the town builders of the west. Out of his farm on
Mound Prairie he has made Montesano a place of
twelve hundred people. His father was a Presby-
terian minister of Madisonville, Kentucky. Charles
was born in 1844. In 1853 the family crossed the
plains, and upon reaching Wallula struck out north-
westward to the Sound, crossing the mountains
via the Nahchess Pass. Moving down on Mound
Prairie, they located a place fourteen miles south
of Olympia. Here on these healthful fields the boy
grew up to manhood, and, becoming of age, took a
course in the Portland Commercial College.
This opened the way to an extensive contract of
government surveying, lasting four years, which
was performed with the assistance of a brother.
With the avails of this work he bought the present
site of Montesano, originally owned by a Mr. King.
In 1883 he laid out the present city, and used all
means to build up the town, making it remarkably
prosperous and flourishing for a place in a region
already well settled. In six years it has gained
over one thousand inhabitants. In June, 1887, the
bank was established, I. W. Case of Astoria being
one of the incorporators, and Mr. Byles the manager.
In the political field he has been a conspicuous
Republican, serving as county auditor from 1872 to
1876 and from 1876 to 1884 as county treasurer.
He was married in 1870 to Miss Elizabeth J. Med-
calf at Montesano. His domestic life has been as
happy as his public career has been successful; and
his home has been blessed by six children, four of
whom are living.
EDWARD P. CADWELL. This substantial
capitalist of Washington, and leading member of
the legal profession of Tacoma, was born in Inde-
pendence, Iowa, December 23, 1855, and was the
son of Carlos C. and Emily E. (Ross) Cadwell, his
mother having been a sister of Chief Justice Ross
of Vermont. He resided in his native town, where
he attended a public school, and in his seventeenth
year entered the Iowa State Agricultural College,
graduating as civil engineer in 1875. Returning
home, he became principal for one year of the
grammar department of the high school at Inde-
pendence. Upon the completion of this task, he
entered Simpson's Law College of Des Moines,
Iowa, from which he graduated in 1877. On receiv-
ing his degree, he located in Logan, Iowa, and
began the practice of his profession. Two years
later he removed to Council Bluffs, where he built
up a large business. Learning of the possibilities
of the greater West, he came in 1885 to Washing-
ton, locating at Tacoma, where he opened an office
and invested largely in real estate, from which he
has reaped a golden harvest.
In 1887 Mr. Cadwell for a time made Ellensburgh
his home, and while there purchased a large amount
of valuable real estate, among which was the well-
known Johnson Hotel, a large three-story frame
building.
building. In 1888 he built as an addition a beau-
tiful three-story brick, eighty-six by ninety feet,
costing $30,000, and changed the name to the Ash-
ler Hotel, a view of which is placed in this work.
In the same year, in partnership with John A.
Shoudy, he built the magnificent Shoudy and Cad-
well block, sixty by one hundred and twenty feet
and two stories in height, a view of which also
appears in this work. He also erected the present
Ellensburgh National Bank building, but upon its
completion sold it, and, in connection with David
Murray of Ellensburgh, purchased three hundred
and twenty acres adjoining that city.
Although a young man, Mr. Cadwell has secured
for himself a competency, but, being of an energetic
and active disposition, still follows the practice of
his chosen profession with Judge Galusha Parsons,
formerly of Des Moines. The partnership thus
constituted, and known by the designation, "Par-
sons & Cadwell," is one of the leading law firms
in the City of Destiny.
GEORGE V. CALHOUN, M. D.—There are
but few men better known or more highly respected
in the medical profession on Puget Sound than
Doctor Calhoun, an excellent portrait of whom
appears in this history. He is a native of New
Brunswick, and was born October 19, 1837, his
parents being John and Mary (Brewster) Calhoun.
When he was but a small boy, he moved with his
parents to the sunny South, locating in Maryland.
His father, being a shipowner and seafaring man,
17
240
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
was stricken, while on a voyage to the Bermudas,
with yellow fever, from which he died. Our sub-
ject, with his widowed mother, then moved to East
Boston, and a few years later was placed in the ex-
cellent Horton Academy, Nova Scotia, where he
remained until 1857. He was then sent to the
university at Glasgow, Scotland, and after five
years' constant application was awarded his degree,
standing near the head of his class.
In 1862 he returned to America. After traveling
two years for pleasure, he entered the United States
army as assistant surgeon, remaining in that capac-
ity until June, 1865. In August of the latter year,
he came via the Nicaragua route to the Pacific
coast, and in June, 1866, took charge of the marine
hospital at Port Angles. But, Congress designating
But, Congress designating
Port Townsend as the port of entry, Doctor Calhoun
took up his residence in the latter place, and estab-
lished the present marine hospital of that city, act-
ing as physician until 1876, when he began the
practice of his profession in Seattle. In 1870 he
In 1870 he
was elected on the Republican ticket to represent
Jefferson and Clallam counties in the territorial
council. While residing in Seattle, he was ap-
pointed by Governor Ferry as one of the regents of
the Territorial University, and for four years was
the president of the board.
In 1880 he moved to La Conner, where he in-
vested largely in real estate, and built himself a
beautiful home, where he now resides, enjoying to
the fullest extent all the domestic comforts and all
the satisfaction to be derived from the practice of
his chosen profession. It is no flattery to state that
Doctor Calhoun is one of the best educated men in
Washington; and, possessing manners suave, and
with a disposition to please, he is a gentleman
whom it is a pleasure to meet.
He was married in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Miss
Ellen Mein, a young lady whose acquaintance he
formed while attending college in Glasgow. By
By
this union they have a family of nine children.
A. C. CAMPBELL. The respect Mr. Camp-
bell commands in his community as a man of honesty
and integrity, and as one who has acquired a very
enviable competency by hard knocks and straight-
forward dealings, reminds one of Longfellow's
famous blacksmith; but, although Mr. Campbell has
for years upon years listened to the "measured beat
and slow" of his hammer on the anvil, he no longer
appears with leathern apron and bare, brown arms,
because he is now settled down in a comfortable
home, and in the midst of his loving family living
happily by other and less arduous pursuits than
blacksmithing. He can contemplate with pleasure
the means which he has accomplished by industry
and determination. He is one of the pioneers of the
country, and as such should not be passed over with
a mere casual mention. If there is any one class
of men more than another entitled to the admiration
of everyone, it is that known as the "early pio-
They were men possessed of more character,
hardihood and genuine bravery than any other class
of men living, and possessed a versatility which
seemed to fit them particularly for the life of a pio-
neers."
neer, to subdue and have dominion. It by no
means follows that all men who came to the coast
in "early days" were pioneers of this stamp.
'Those were the times that tried men's souls;" and
only the ones possessed of an adamantine spirit were
successful and prosperous. Every man's nerve was
put to the test,—his honor tried, his spirit of deter-
mination proved; and only the ones who came
through the ordeal with character unscathed are
now successful and happy. It is the pioneers of the
country, the men with hearts of oak, who hewed out
the way for the advancement of a later civilization
and made possible the settlement of the now pros-
perous country, to whom we owe our deepest debt
of gratitude. They were a set of grand adventurers
who led the dangerous way for us to follow. If the
trials they endured, the hardships they encountered,
and the triumphs they attained, were connected with
a country's cause or in a war against an enemy, it
would have served to hand their names down to suc-
ceeding generations as heroes. No man on the coast
better illustrates this type of the early pioneers than
the subject of this sketch.
Mr. Alexander Colin Campbell, of Puyallup,
Washington, has been for a number of years a suc-
cessful hop-grower in Puyallup valley; and in fol-
lowing him through his peregrinations we cannot but
be struck by such a remarkable career of intermingled
success and failure, and the happy denouement
which is sure to follow the efforts of a man possessed
of such a caliber to either "find a way or make
one" as is Mr. Campbell.
one" as is Mr. Campbell. He was born in Perth,
Ontario, May 26, 1833, and was the son of Donald and
Mary McCoy Campbell, both of Scotland.
He spent
most of his early life in Ottawa, where he learned the
blacksmith trade, which in following years was des-
tined to be his best friend, and in many cases his
only standby. He went to California at the age of
twenty-one years, being possessed of a spirit of
adventure which to an extent marked his whole
career through life. After living for a short time in
California, he returned to his home in Canada, and
after marrying an estimable lady who has ever
since been the partner of his joys and sorrows,
bought a farm of 600 acres at a place called Loch-
aber.
The arduous labor and slow remuneration attend-
ant upon farm life did not exactly suit the tastes of
young Campbell; and he embarked in the square-
timber business, in which he remained for about
three years, when he opened a wholesale and retail
merchandising establishment in Ottawa, and in con-
nection with it a grist-mill on Ottawa river, which
he carried on quite successfully for four years. Again
the roving and adventurous spirit of young Camp-
bell predominated; and in 1862 he wound up his
business and started for British Columbia.
was at the time of the great Cariboo gold excite-
ment. Arriving at that place, he started to work at
his trade, and in the first year, by hard work and
sobriety, saved $10,000. Eastern readers will perhaps
marvel at this; but they must recollect that in those
days tradesmen were scarce in such locations, and
that gold was plenty; hence almost any price asked
for a job of work could be obtained. With this
money he bought a claim the following year for
This
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
241
$16,000, called the "Welch" claim, having bor-
rowed $6,000 to make good the amount. For two
years he toiled in this mine, and had for his trouble
the pleasure (?) of seeing his expected fortune pass.
away as though in a mist before his eyes. In addi-
tion to the purchasing price of the claim, it cost him
$3,000 to work it; and he sold out the whole thing,
improvements and all, for the miserable sum of $500.
Such was the life of a miner in those times.
With characteristic pluck, Mr. Campbell again
took to his trade to acquire a fresh start, which he
did, and once more located a claim on Grouse creek,
-this time with more success; for in less than a
year and a half he took $18,000 in gold coin out of
his venture; after which he returned to Canada and
brought out his family to Victoria, buying a fine
residence. He once more made for the Cariboo
country with $15,000 worth of hardware. Here
another stroke of ill-fortune overtook him. The
town in which he had commenced a thriving busi-
ness burned down, and with it all of Campbell's
worldly stock; and he was once more thrown upon
the world a poor man. Again he took to his old
standby, the blacksmith trade; and after a year and
a half of hard work and little pay he became dis-
gusted with the country, and, as the phrase is,
"pulled out," coming to Puget Sound with $250
in his pocket and a wife and four children to sup-
port. He worked four years at his trade with a
partner named Peter Rinquest, at Steilacoom, after
which he removed to Old Tacoma. This was about
the year 1873. He bought out a shop and started
a blacksmithing business, together with a wagon
shop and livery stable. The failure of A. Cook &
Co., bad debts and other things, combined to make
this enterprise also unsuccessful; and he was obliged
to close up and borrow $25 to go to Seattle, where
he once more started up a business with a partner
named Hunt, he having a good friend in Seattle
who indorsed for him to the amount of $250, in
order that he might buy an interest in this business.
Neither was he successful in this venture; and he
left Seattle and went east of the mountains to Day-
ton, and after a year there came to Puyallup, where
he commenced his first continuous streak of fortune.
He took the blacksmith shop connected with the
stave factory, and successfully worked it on shares,
finally buying it out entirely. This business he
carried on uninterrupted by the vagaries of fickle
Fortune for three years, when he, with $2,000 cash,
bought 242 acres of a farm. Mr. Campbell has since
sold part of it, and at the present time owns 183
acres of as fine hop or any other kind of land as lies
out-of-doors. The first year he put out 43 acres of
hops (57,000 poles), which he has since increased;
and his hop crop alone brought him last year
$19,909.
Of Mr. Campbell's later life it may be said that
he has been very successful, and has also been
highly honored. He is an incorporator, stockholder
and director of the National Bank of Commerce, of
Tacoma, of which his son Colin is now the book-
keeper. He is president of the Farmers' Bank of
Puyallup, which has a capital stock of $50,000.
He is also the present mayor of Puyallup, proprietor
of the Hop Exchange, and a large buyer of hops.
The cities of Steilacoom, Tacoma and Puyallup
successively honored him with a seat in their first
municipal councils. One of the enterprises of this
pioneer is the large mercantile establishment of
Campbell & Sons, dealers in general merchandise
and farming implements. The "sons"
sons" are Albert
D. and Henry James, two young men of sterling.
integrity.
Mr. Campbell has raised eight children, four boys
and four girls, two daughters of whom are married.
He was careful to give them a good education; and
they are all a credit to their proud parent, but for-
tunately or unfortunately, as the case may be, are
not (like their father was) disposed to rove, but
are contented and happy in their home in one of the
loveliest valleys on which the sun shines. Mr.
Campbell is now only fifty-three years of age,
although he looks younger. Mr. Campbell's house
is a substantially built frame structure on Church
street. It is surrounded by trees and lawn, and
looks in all respects exactly what it is,-the home
of a happy, well-to-do and God-fearing family.
MRS. F. A. CAMPBELL.- Fannie A., the
daughter of L. and E. Dodson, was born in Illinois
in 1838, and received her education in the seminary
at Oskaloosa, Iowa. She was married in that state
to James M. Campbell, of Ohio. In 1864 her hus-
band closed out his real estate business, and with
his wife came across the plains. A number of fine
horses constituted a part of their effects. Happy
cañon, in Umatilla county, a place beautiful for a
home, and desirable as a stock ranch, was chosen,
and western life begun. Their efforts were attended
with prosperity, until the irreparable loss of the hus-
band and father in 1873, who fell a victim to con-
sumption. Notwithstanding this affliction, by which
not only her life companion but a sterling and hon-
est man was taken away, Mrs. Campbell continued
the management of her farm, and has showed in
this relation a marked capacity. Her household has
been invaded by disease, three of her sons having
died; while Elmer E., the eldest, was murdered by
the Bannacks in the summer of 1878 at Camas Prai-
rie, whither he had gone to render assistance to a
younger brother on a sheep range. But, notwith-
standing these sorrows, Mrs. Campbell is still living
faithfully and indeed happily as well as prosper-
ously, at her home with her two daughters and three
sons.
DR. F. C. CAMPBELL.-Literary ability is
not so common on this coast as to be a drug in the
market. It is agreeable to find it in professional
men. Doctor Campbell is one of these persons. He
was born in Ashtabula county, Ohio, in the year
1854. He received a good common-school educa-
tion in the Rock Creek graded school, and com-
menced the study of dentistry in the office of Doctor
N. S. Burns, of Ashtabula, in 1872, completing his
dental education in Monroe, Michigan, in 1875, since
which time he has practiced in nearly every state
and territory in the union.
The Doctor has traveled extensively, and has
stored a fund of information which, for so young a
242
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
man, is remarkable. Ambitious for a literary repu-
tation, he has preserved copious notes of whatever
of interest has come under his observation; and,
quick to grasp the salient points, the productions
of his pen have made him no small factor in the lit-
erary world in which he moves.
Many good things
from his pen have been either destroyed or filed
away, owing to his diffidence in submitting his man-
uscripts. We predict a brilliant future for him, and
hope soon to see all nom de plumes replaced by his
own name. The Doctor is now practicing dentistry
at Pendleton, where he has made many friends.
HON. A. M. CANNON.-Mr. Cannon, like so
many of our prominent men and large capitalists,
began life on a farm, where his energies were de-
voted until he was twenty-one years old. His father
was a farmer and a man of fine qualities, but had
very limited means to devote to the education of
his son.
In 1858 he left Illinois, and started with
two yoke of oxen for Pike's Peak. At St. Joseph
he was elected captain of a company of emigrants
consisting of fifty-two souls, and succeeded in lead-
ing them safely across the plains through a danger-
ous Indian country, a large portion of which was
desolate and waterless. When they reached the
present site of Denver, half the townsite was offered
to him for the sum of one thousand dollars, and
that upon credit in the bargain.
The Pike's Peak excitement soon subsided; and
Mr. Cannon returned to Chicago and ventured in
the grain commission business. There he remained
for thirteen years, making and losing several for-
tunes, as he was a daring operator. He was one
of the first members of the board of trade of Chicago,
which is now one of the grandest palaces of com-
merce in the world, though at that time an almost
insignificant beginning, but was constituted of men
of pluck, the kind who made Spokane Falls.
While still a resident of Chicago, Mr. Cannon in
1867 built a flouring mill in Kansas City, which
operated extensively in wheat and flour, being the
largest mill west of the Mississippi river. But this
proved too tame a life for his restless and advent-
urous spirit; and he sold the mill and again crossed
the plains and Rocky Mountains, this time to San
Francisco. About this time the White Pine mining
excitement took place in Nevada; and young Can-
non was soon induced to go to the mining camp,
where he experienced all the vicissitudes of mining
life, which were particularly marked at that place.
After another trip to Chicago in 1870, and a re-
turn to San Francisco a year later, he went to Port-
land, Oregon, and carried on a successful business
until 1878. His health becoming greatly impaired,
he resolved to go on a prospecting tour east of the
Cascades, and started on the journey in a buggy.
His explorations continued into Washington Terri-
ritory; and, upon viewing the present site of the
city of Spokane Falls, he determined, on account of
its beautiful landscape and vast water-power, to
make it his future home. With his indomitable
energy, he accomplished a task which had before been
deemed impossible,— that of bringing into service the
swift waters of Spokane river as a means of trans-
porting logs to the falls from Lake Cœur d'Alene,
and building up a lumbering business and conse-
quently enabling the starting of a town. The busi-
ness has now assumed very large proportions, and
has been incorporated under the title of the Spokane
Mill Company, being one of the largest lumbering
and manufacturing plants on the Pacific coast, and
representing a capital of nearly $1,000,000. Mr.
Cannon and his partner, E. J. Birdsell, practically
own and control the great business.
The Bank of Spokane Falls, of which he is presi-
dent and sole owner, is perhaps the largest of the
eight banks now in that city. Among other large
enterprises, the new Grand Opera House block de-
serves mention. It is a magnificent pressed brick
and granite building 150 by 270 feet, fronting on
Post street, and is five stories high. Its interior
arrangement is patterned after the Broadway Theater
in New York, the same architect having prepared
the plans. Mr. Cannon has also in course of con-
struction a massive and handsome bank building,
112 by 142 feet, situated on the corner of Riverside
avenue and Mill street, the most valuable corner in
the city. This building is to be exclusively of
granite and iron, and will be six stories high, with
a hydraulic elevator and all modern conveniences.
The new and splendid Hotel Spokane just com-
menced, one of the most complete modern hotels in
the United States, is largely a creation of Mr. Can-
non's enterprise and magnificence, being built by
himself and associates. The Seattle, Lake Shore &
Eastern Railway, now running its trains out of
Spokane, is also largely indebted to Mr. Cannon's
supervision.
He is in a word the moving spirit of enterprise in
Spokane, as the above numerous and grand im-
provements suggest; but while these are the largest
they are by no means the only ventures of the rest-
less genius of our subject. He is president of the
Bank of Palouse City, vice-president of the Wash-
ington National Bank, vice-president of the Spokane
Savings, Loan and Trust Company, and is con-
nected with many other enterprises. He recently
declined the United States senatorship on account
of ill health. The entire state spoke as a unit in
the demand that he should accept this important
post; and it was the grateful and graceful acknowl-
edgment of the many benefits the territory had
reaped from his generous, open-handed spirit of
enterprise, coupled with the conviction that no man
could bring more knowledge of the needs of the
new state, more intelligence as to the appreciation
thereof, and that, in rounding out a useful life filled
with many deeds of generosity to his people, this.
would be a proper and fitting tribute. By honorable
industry, Mr. Cannon has made a colossal fortune
running into the millions. In the position of senator
he would be one of the few men who could devote
his entire time to the interest of the people without
regard to his own; who could dispense the courtesy
and preserve the dignity of his high office on a par
with his colleagues without counting the cost.
closing this biography, there is expressed regret
that the desire of the people cannot be fulfilled.
Mr. Cannon was born near Monmouth, Warren
county, Illinois, in 1837, and is now fifty-two years
of age.
In

RESIDENCE OF MRS. N. E. DE SPAIN,
PENDLETON, OR.
J. DE SPAIN.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
243
ill
CHARLES H. CAREY.— Among the younger
generation of men of enterprise and push who have
come to Oregon to develop with the rapid progress
of the state, Charles H. Carey, of Portland, is a
notable figure. He was born at Cincinnati, Ohio,
October 27, 1857, and lived there with his parents
until he came to Oregon in 1883. He had the
advantages of thorough schooling in the public
schools of his native city, and entered the sopho-
more year at Denison University, Granville, Ohio,
September, 1878. He graduated in June, 1881,
with the degree of Ph. B. Having in the meantime
determined upon the practice of law as his avoca-
tion in life, he at once began a course of study to fit
himself for its exacting requirements. He matricu-
lated at the law school of the Cincinnati College in
the fall of 1881, and was appointed librarian. Hav-
ing under his charge the large and well-selected law
library of that college, he had peculiar facilities for
indulging his taste for study and original investiga-
tion, a privilege which he by no means neglected.
He contributed a number of articles to law maga-
zines, and wrote extensively on various subjects for
current newspapers and periodicals. He completed
his course at the law school in 1883, receiving the
degree of LL. B., and was also admitted to the bar
of the supreme court of the state of Ohio.
Having determined to locate in the West, Mr.
Carey spent several months visiting different West-
ern cities; and on arriving at Portland in September,
1883, he at once determined to remain there, being
impressed with the advantages and prospects as one
of the great cities of the future. He connected
himself with the then firm of Thayer & Williams,
and subsequently entered a partnership with Hon-
orable A. H. Tanner, under the firm name of
Tanner & Carey.
At this period Mr. Carey began the compilation of
his "Digest of Oregon and Washington Reports,"
which was published in 1888 by The Bancroft-
Whitney Co., Law Publishers, San Francisco, Cali-
fornia. It is a large volume of 656 pages, and was
well and favorably received by the legal profession,
and fills a place in every law office in the Northwest.
Dissolving partnership in the spring of 1887, he
returned East for a period, but, after a brief absence,
again returned and resumed his practice at Portland,
where he is highly esteemed by his many friends,
and is recognized as one of the most able of the
younger men at the bar.
In 1884 Mr. Carey married Miss May N. Bidwell
of Springfield, Ohio. They have one daughter.
necessity or opportunity. Much of his time was
spent in the schoolroom.
The year 1864 found him in British Columbia,
spending the winter in Victoria. In the spring of
1865 he joined his brother George, who was oversee-
ing the construction of a railroad to the Cariboo
mines. Here he engaged in driving and teaming,
making as much as fourteen hundred dollars per
month. Upon the completion of the road he went
into the mines, and occupied himself for a few
months. He then decided to make a change in his
work, and proceeded to embark in the stock busi-
ness. He accordingly went to Eastern Washington
in 1868, and located on his present rauch of one
hundred and sixty acres, four miles west of North
Yakima. This continues to be his home, though he
has another quarter section in the county. He has
of late years engaged in hop-culture, in which he
has been very successful.
CHARLES CARPENTER.-Mr. Carpenter was
born in Chattendon county, Vermont, February 1,
1838. He was the third son in a family of eight.
Orrin and Jane (Basut) Carpenter were his parents.
When thirteen years old he went with his parents to
Franklin county, New York, and there received his
education. In 1859 he came, in company with his
brothers J. W. and Henry, to California. They
came via the Isthmus of Panama, and on the Pacific
side took passage in the old steamer John L. Stevens
for San Francisco. While in California Mr. Carpen-
ter was engaged in various occupations, according to
Mr. Carpenter is a substantial farmer, and a good
representative of the fertile and progressive country
in which his influence has been felt. He was mar-
ried in Portland to Miss Lena Webber, and has five
children, George W., Chester, Emma J., Lillie M.
and Edward J.
JOHN CARSON.— Few, indeed, combine so
many of those characteristics of frontier life, have
undergone those experiences, successfully passed
through those vicissitudes, which, aggregated and
embodied in the life of one man, constitute him in
the true sense a "pioneer, as he whose name
heads this sketch. It but feebly represents his real
worth and genuine manhood. The picture is in-
complete which fails to show those struggles and
hardships and sacrifices to which he and his little
family were subjected in their journey to this coun-
try, in their labor to make a dwelling-place in the
wilderness, and to open the way by which American
men, women and children might appropriate these
regions and dedicate them as homes.
The busy, thoughtless throng which later fol-
lowed, and converted solitude into society, have
pushed into the background the early settlers,-
those who had transformed the wilderness into gar-
den spots, thereby inducing the masses to come to
the Pacific slope and cast their lot in Oregon and
Washington. They who dedicated the wilderness.
as appropriate residences for the myriads who have
followed will yet live in history; those who pushed
back the savage to give place to our race, who
made Washington Territory a practicable and peace-
able abiding place for women and children, will be
recognized as the true commonwealth-builders, the
avant-couriers and establishers of our Pacific civili-
zation. Such, in every sense of the word, was John
Carson, who lives, at a green old age and full of
activity, at Puyallup, Pierce county, Washington.
He was born January 25, 1828, in Butler county,
Pennsylvania. His father was a farmer; and the
son lived at home, engaged as farm-boys usually
are, and with but limited means to acquire an edu-
cation. At the age of fifteen, the parents migrated
to Perry county, Indiana. John resided there until
the spring of 1853, when he left for Puget Sound,
in the then new territory of Washington, it having
244
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
been created by the act of Congress of March 2,
1853-
The usual incidents of a journey across
the plains were safely encountered. On arriving
at old Fort Walla Walla (the site of the present
town of Wallula), Mr. Carson and his family
remained with the party that branched off at that
point, crossed the Columbia river and traveled
northwesterly through the Yakima valley and
through the Nahchess Pass of the Cascade Mount-
ains, over the road built in 1853 by the citizens of
Pierce and Thurston counties for the immigrants
of that year to enter the Puget Sound basin.
The road was free from difficulty till the mount-
ain pass was reached. From that on to the end of
the journey it was incessant labor and hardship.
It was a mere trail through the mountains, nothing
more. It was simply blazed, not cut out. And
thus these weary immigrants, day by day, hewed
out the road by which they reached their future
homes. Huge logs of trees, the growth of centuries,
obstructed their progress, which could not be re-
moved within the time allotted for them to get
through. Pole bridges had been constructed, over
which horses could pass, but which were obstacles
for wagons; and so they unloaded them from time
to time and lifted them over. The western descent
was abrupt, rough and dangerous. River crossings
were necessarily frequent; and their beds and steep
sides were as the floods for ages had washed them
out and left them. Some days their march was not
to exceed three miles; but that heroic little band
pushed through without the loss of a single animal.
One place even those patient pioneers characterized
as difficult. "Just before getting down to the
Green-river crossing we had to lower our wagons by
ropes some three hundred yards.”
John Carson and his family reached Fort Steila-
coom (the site of the present State Insane Asylum),
on the 15th of October, 1853. His little family
then consisted of himself, his wife and one son.
Two daughters and one son were subsequently
born. His wife has but recently departed this life.
In December, 1853, Mr. Carson with his family
settled at the crossing of the Puyallup river, about
a half mile from the town of Puyallup, on the
county road from Steilacoom to Puyallup valley.
At that date, or rather after the immigrants of 1853
had distributed themselves and taken their Donation
claims, there was only one wagon in all the Puyallup
valley, and that belonged to Benjamin F. Wright,
who lived on a claim adjoining Mr. Carson.
Carson established a private ferry across the Puyal-
lup river for the crossing of passengers traveling
the county road between the valley and Steilacoom,
at that time the county seat of Pierce county, and
the only town or American settlement or commu-
nity within the county, if we except the garrison
of Fort Steilacoom, about a mile and a quarter back
from the Sound.
Mr.
Mr. Carson was a Democrat in politics, and was
elected a member of the House of Representatives
of the Legislative Assembly of the session 1855–56.
He was a modest, unassuming man, made no pre-
tentions as a speaker, but was a very useful, indus-
trious member. The Indian war had broken out on
Puget Sound in the month of October, 1855. Mr.
His
Carson's family were at that time obliged to leave
their home and take refuge in Steilacoom. During
the session of the legislature (December, 1855, and
January, 1856), they had resided at Olympia.
dwelling house was at the crossing of the Puyallup
river, on the line of communication between Fort
Steilacoom and the Muckleshute Prairie, in the heart
of the hostile region, at which point Lieutenant-
Colonel Casey, U. S. Army, in command of the
military district of Puget Sound, established a
blockhouse, to which were dispatched six companies
of the Fourth and Ninth United States Infantry.
On the opposite side of the river from Mr.
Carson's log-cabin home, a blockhouse was erected
February 14, 1856, to guard the ferry and keep
open the communication between Fort Steilacoom
and Muckleshute. Between the sides of the river a
government boat was used for the crossing of troops
and supplies. To Mr. Carson was committed the
charge of that ferry boat. To protect his side of
the river, he raised an independent company, con-
sisting of twenty-three volunteers, of which he was
captain. They refused to be mustered into the
United States service, but acted as a garrison for the
defense of that settlement. They were provisioned
by the United States regulars at Fort Steilacoom,
and provided with arms from the United States
steamer Massachusetts. For two years and four
months Mr. Carson was an employé of the United
States quartermaster of Fort Steilacoom, engaged
as a carpenter on the buildings erected at Fort
Steilacoom.
In the year 1858, it became safe for him to return
to his Donation claim at the Puyallup ferry, by the
cessation of Indian hostilities. He then, under a
charter of the Legislative Assembly of the terri-
tory, established a toll-bridge across the Puyallup
river, which was carried away by the high water of
the winter of 1862-63. He then established a ferry
under a license of the board of county commissioners
of Pierce county. When hop-raising began to be a
specialty in Puyallup valley, like the rest of his
neighbors he participated in the cultivation, and
was very successful. He had realized a sufficiency
in 1882 to justify his building a sawmill in the
suburbs of the new city of Tacoma. This was
burned to the ground in the early summer of 1886;
but Mr. Carson rebuilt in July, 1886, a mill of
increased running capacity, capable of sawing
thirty thousand feet per day. He was among the
earliest to build a brick store on Pacific avenue in
the city of Tacoma, at the time quite distant from
the occupied portion of that street, and when the
approach was over stumps and without sidewalks.
The road, while not so bad as the immigrant road of
1853, was bad enough, and required quite as much
moral courage to put faith in such an investment.
John Carson for fifteen years successively was one
of the board of county commissioners of Pierce
county, and was elected regardless of which party
was dominant; and most of that time he was its
chairman. He still lives, a hale, hearty, active
business man, esteemed and beloved by all who
know him, proverbial for his integrity, and respected
for his industry, attention to business and sterling.
qualities as a citizen.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
245
JOSEPH L. CARTER.-This prominent edu-
cator of Eastern Oregon was born at the old Metho-
dist-Episcopal Mission, near Salem, January 22,
1845. He is the son of David Carter, who fifty
years ago was a merchant in the various cities and
states of South America, and in 1840 came via the
Sandwich Islands to the then unclaimed Oregon,
marrying Miss Orpha Lankton, of the mission party
of the bark Lausanne, and settling on Mill creek
near Salem, and also living at The Dalles, passing
much time in the mines of California and becoming
prominent upon our coast in the early days.
After the death of his father, in 1854, Joseph re-
moved with his mother to Brownsville, and from that
place to Lebanon. He laid to rest this beloved
parent in 1873, cherishing her memory not only as
a devoted mother, but as a friend of the lost and
ignorant Indians, and of our rising young state, and
as a servant of God,--one whom all Oregon should
now honor in her grave.
Much of the early life of the young man was
passed in study; and he graduated from the Willa-
mette University in 1868. The information which
he received, and the ideas with which his own mind
was fertilized, he strove to disseminate, and entered
immediately into the educational field as teacher.
Twelve years he was thus laboring in Oregon and
Washington, being engaged for three of these as
preceptor of the Blue Mountain Academy, putting
forth his utmost endeavors, together with those of
Mrs. H. K. Hines, to build up a first-class institu-
tion. In this effort much success was attained and
much good accomplished.
In 1878 he engaged in the drug business at Island
City, successfully continuing the same for seven
years. In 1888 he was honored by the county with
the trust of its educational work, being elected as
school superintendent, and is to the present time.
fulfilling the responsible duties of this office to the
entire satisfaction of the public.
Mr. Carter was married in 1869 to Miss Maggie
E. Rector, of Salem, and has a home plainly indi-
cative of comfort and refinement.
MRS. C. B. CARY. — This refined woman and
intelligent lady, one of our earliest pioneers, comes
of one of the old Virginia families of English or
Cavalier origin; whose members, in the early days
of the Old Dominion, took and held an advanced
social position. She was born at Richmond in 1815,
and at the age of four moved to Kentucky with her
father, William Taylor. In 1831 she was married
to Miles S. Cary, one of the pioneer sons of Ken-
tucky, with his full share of southern chivalrousness
and western energy. In 1835 they moved to Mis-
souri, and were prospered in their efforts to make a
home and carry on business. In the winter of 1842,
however, their attention was called to the advantages
of Oregon by a neighbor of theirs, a certain Squire
Vivian, a merchant, who, on a visit to St. Louis on
business, had found a pamphlet on Oregon written
by Doctor Whitman, and was so much impressed by
the value and possibilities of that country as there
described that he determined to go thither the com-
ing summer.
The Carys, reading the document, also formed the
same purpose. The Squire was unable to accomplish
the design owing to the sickness of his wife; but
the Carys collected their all into wagons and, early
in the spring of 1843, set out for the rendezvous on
the Missouri. They also drove a considerable band
of cattle, expecting to kill them for beef if neces-
sary, or otherwise to drive them through, and thus
to have the nucleus of a herd in the new home. For
a time with A. J. Hembree, and afterwards with
Jesse Applegate, they performed the long journey,
experiencing nothing worse than fatigue, some ex-
citement, some privation and some sickness, losing a
little daughter, whom they buried at Fort Bridger.
But there were no disasters. Their journey, though
the first performed with wagons, was in truth one of
the best conducted and most successful in the whole
history of crossing the plains. Leaving their cattle
to winter on the range at Walla Walla, they per-
formed the remainder of the journey to the Willa-
mette in boats, accompanying Jesse Applegate down
the Columbia river, and witnessing the capsizing at
the Cascades of the boat in which were his sons, one
of whom escaped and one was drowned. An old
man who was in the boat with them was also
drowned.
Reaching Vancouver the 11th of November, they
spent the rest of the year at Linnton; but, Mr. Cary
finding employment with Doctor McLoughlin on the
grist mill at Oregon City, they resided at this old
capital of the state until in 1844 they took up a
Donation claim on the north Yamhill river. By the
great gold excitement of 1848, Mr. Cary was drawn
to the fields of California, and intended to make that
state his home, but, owing to constant sickness
in his family while they lived at Benicia, decided to
return to Oregon. Once more reaching our fair
state, he bought out a squatter at the present site of
St. Joseph. Here was made the permanent Oregon
home; and the family circle grew and extended as
the years went by, but was sadly broken by the
death of the father in 1858.
Mrs. Cary, however, remained at the old place,
managing it with ability and cultivating it for many
years. Sometime since however she disposed of it,
and now makes her home at Lafayette. She is one
of our most intelligent and delightful old ladies, full
of reminiscences and kind feeling. She has had a
family of twelve children, nine of whom are deceased.
The two sons, J. J. and Wesley B, live near Lafay-
ette; and a daughter, M. Ettie, resides at home.
HON. SAMUEL CASE.- Prominent among
the men who have made Oregon famous as a ren-
dezvous for enterprise, talent and industry, may be
mentioned the gentleman whose name is the title of
this brief biography. Mr. Case was born in Lubec,
Washington county, Maine, May 31, 1831. He
acquired his education at East Maine Conference
College, of Bucksport.
In 1853 he took the fever to come West, and
started for California, coming by way of the Nica-
ragua route. After his arrival he followed teaching
and mining for four years, when he returned to his
Eastern home on a visit, from whence he returned
to the Golden State in 1858.
In 1861, the regular troops having been called
246
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
East on account of the Rebellion, the Pacific states
had to organize volunteer forces for their protection
against Indian depredations; and, thinking of the
welfare of his fellow men, he abandoned his own
interests and enlisted in Company D, Fourth Infan-
try, California Volunteers, and was ready to proceed
at once to the call of duty. The company to which
he belonged, and of which he was orderly sergeant,
was ordered to Oregon, where he followed its wan-
derings until November, 1864, when he received an
honorable discharge. For four years thereafter he
was employed as superintendent of farming on the
Alsea Indian Reservation.
In 1866 he removed to Yaquina Bay, and located
the claim upon which the town of Newport now
stands. In this place he owns, besides the elegant
Tourists' Hotel, other large interests. Mr. Case
was one of three peace commissioners appointed by
the general government to treat with the hostile
Modoc Indians in 1873; but, fearing to trust the
Indians as proposed by the authorities, he resigned.
His judgment in the premises was sound; for the
treacherous Modocs afterwards attacked, under flag
of truce, the commissioners as re-organized, killing
one and wounding another, and also murdering
General Canby.
Mr. Case is happily married; and his home is
surrounded with all the modern comforts of life.
PHILIP F. CASTLEMAN. Those who now
make the trip in the palatial car across the continent
from the populous cities and thickly settled districts
of the union, and view the Pacific Northwest in its
present development, can but faintly realize the
dangers and privations the sturdy pioneers experi-
enced in reaching here, nor yet understand the
troubles they had with the red man who then roamed
its confines at will, and knew no law save what
pleased the savage heart the best. They often meet
among its residents not a few upon whom the snows
of many winters have fallen,—and fallen while
braving the inconveniences of pioneer life. They
They
see in them the man or woman whose years are
well-nigh ended, with no evidences that the passing
one has a history and a record which ofttimes is not
only that of a pioneer, but one who undertook
many a dangerous task in order to reclaim and
build up this the fairest section of America.
Among those who might pass unnoticed, except
that he is a man of years, with kindly look and
gentlemanly bearing, is the gentleman whose name
heads this article, and who well might occupy a
place with heroes. He was born on May 17, 1827,
near Hodginsville, Kentucky, his ancestors being
of Revolutionary fame. He received what educa-
tion could be secured at the common schools of that
time, which were not of the best, the term being
usually three months in the year, and the distance
to the old log schoolhouse being sometimes as much
as four miles. The instructors were not always
well educated; but, with application and a deter-
mination to know something, he was enabled to
surmount the difficulties and instill into his mind a
good understanding of his text books. He then
attended a nine-months' term in the village of
Hodginsville, where he forged ahead with great
·
rapidity. On the closing of the term, he received
a fine recommendation from his tutor, W. H. Fen-
ton, now a leading lawyer of New York City, which,
together with his general bearing, enabled him
to secure a school at a hamlet called Bacon Creek,
located some ten miles from his home. Here
as a pedagogue he gave such general satisfaction
that his refusal to teach a second term, although
having been offered increased inducements, was
greatly regretted by all. He had caught the Cali-
fornia gold fever, and to the new El Dorado must go.
He left home on May 3, 1849, and went to Ætna
Furnace, Hart county, and there joined a company
of eighteen others under the leadership of C. W.
Churchill. Their trip across the continent was
attended not only with sickness but death, the
whole party being afflicted more or less with
cholera. Seven of the nineteen succumbed to its
ravages before reaching the Rocky Mountains.
Theirs was not the only company which suffered
in a like manner; for in many camps could be seen
the dead, dying and almost helpless suffering emi-
grants; and all along the route there was a grave-
yard at nearly every camping place. Our subject
was not an exception; for he had several attacks
of the disease. At times, when able, he took his
turn with the rest as doctor, nurse, cook, teamster
and herdsman. After a long, weary and distressful
journey, the welcome Rockies were at last reached,
when in the change of climate better health was
experienced until nearing the Sierra Nevadas, when
several of the party, including our subject, the
latter very severely, were taken down with mountain
fever. Proceeding onward under these many dis-
advantages, they at last reached Sacramento in
November of the year of starting, having been
nearly six months on the road.
His first experience as a miner was at Bidwell's
Bar, on Feather river. His experience here con-
vinced him that the miner's life was not at all times
what the gold-fever-stricken Easterner pictures be-
fore leaving home for the diggings, and, thinking
he could do better in Sacramento City, left for that
place. About two or three weeks after his arrival
there, he entered the employ of a baker at a
monthly salary of $250. This position he retained
through the winter and until spring, when he again
concluded to try mining, and left for Redding Dig-
gings, in the Upper Sacramento valley. After his
arrival he was induced to retrace his steps as far as
Stony Creek (now Monroeville), where he erected a
house for other parties, which was the first built at
that point, and which he conducted as a hotel for
some time. He again went to the mines, only to
leave them in a short time on account of a severe
illness, returning to the valley and buying an inter-
est in what was then called Mundy's ranch. In
1851 he disposed of those interests and left for Ore-
gon, settling at a point near where Eugene now
stands. There he erected a sawmill, and later on
built a mill on Bear creek, the fruits of whose saws
were the first lumber sawed in Southern Oregon,
thus making him the pioneer in that enterprise in
that section of the state.
In 1853 he sold out and went to Rogue river, and
in partnership with Milton Lindley built and ran a

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H
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
247
sawmill at Phoenix. In the fall of that year, while
still retaining his interest in the milling enterprise,
he left for the East via the Nicaragua route, hop-
ing to avoid the many hours of sickness he had
known on the plains in reaching here. But in this
he reckoned wrongly; for through seasickness he
hardly knew a well day while on the ocean blue.
After visiting his old home and friends, he went to
New York and studied daguerreotyping until he
had become conversant with the mysteries of the
art, when he purchased a photographic outfit and
materials and took passage once more by sea for
"Webfoot" via Panama. After his arrival here he
began taking pictures; and such were the first ones
taken in Southern Oregon and Northern California,
making him the pioneer photographer in that sec-
tion.
During the early part of October, 1855, while he
was in Eugene, the news came of the outbreak of
the Indians on Rogue river. Believing the protec-
tion of the settlers' homes and families paramount
to all other duties, he at once began the organiza-
tion of a company of volunteers. Before the brave
men enlisted could perfect arrangements to depart
for the scenes of hostilities, General McCarver, who
was on his way to the field of action, arrived at
Eugene and wanted a messenger who would go to
Scottsburgh to procure ammunition, as his stock
was rather low. In pioneer days that place was of
considerable importance, having five or six well-
stocked trading houses. Castleman was recom-
mended to him as one who could make the perilous
trip if anyone could. Upon his being approached
in the matter, he volunteered to undertake the mis-
sion, and on receipt of his instructions departed for
his destination, reaching there in twenty-one hours.
The distance being ninety-one miles and over
mountains, and the roads being nothing but trails,
this was wonderfully quick time. On arriving at
Scottsburgh, he delivered his dispatches to the mer-
chants of that place, who agreed to comply with the
request therein, such being for a mule load of
ammunition. Taking upon his horse a portion of
the same, and packing the balance upon the mule
and placing it in charge of another, he left by the
river trail for Roseburg, where he was to meet
McCarver, covering the distance of over a hundred
miles in twenty-four hours, the ammunition coming
in two days after.
The next step in the conduct of the war was to
get the ammunition into the hostile country, and
into the hands of its sturdy pioneer defenders; and
again Castleman was selected to accomplish another
dangerous task. The route which he had to take
led through the Umpqua cañon, which by the way
is one of the most magnificent stretches of scenery
the world affords, and which the lover of nature
never tires of gazing upon; but it was at this time
hardly calculated to touch the poetic chord in one
when its recesses and mountain crests contained the
camp-fires of the howling savage, who thirsted for
the white man's blood and was eager for his scalp.
He, however, after an all-night's ride in darkness,
succeeded in reaching Hardy Eleff's without accident
or molestation, at sunrise the next morning, where he
found some of the heroes of the Battle of Hungry Hill,
Here he
which had been fought the day previous.
turned over to the volunteers the ammunition con-
signed to his care. On his return to Roseburg he
was appointed assistant quartermaster-general for
meritorious conduct, with his station at that place.
Late in October the Indians congregated at the
Meadows, on Rogue river, and prepared their camp
for defense. To this point the troops made their
way and laid siege to the rudely constructed forti-
fications. Tiring of this, and wishing to break the
siege, the red devils selected a force of forty picked
warriors and sent them out to terrorize the country.
Making their way through the wilderness to the
South Umpqua, they inaugurated their fiendish
work by the burning of the settlers' houses, and
laying waste all they could. On the first day of
November, the news reached Roseburg; and the
most exaggerated reports were pouring in, causing
the wildest excitement. Pat Day, then sheriff of
Douglas county, and Castleman agreed to go on a
scout by themselves and learn what they could.
They first went to Honorable John Kelly's, who lived
one mile south of Roseburg, who took them across
the South Umpqua in a canoe, their horses swim-
ming after them. They then started for Rice's farm,
where the Indians were reported to be hard at work.
They came to Looking Glass creek, which was a
long way out of its banks, and was difficult to ford
in the daytime, much more so in the dark, it being
night by the time they reached there. They finally
got across and were soon at Gage's stockade, where
they refreshed themselves. Gage told them that he
had heard firing at Rice's all day, and that it had
finally stopped about sundown. At Gage's two
men joined Castleman and Pat Day; and from there
they went to a Mr. Kent's, where they next stopped,
and where about a dozen more men gladly joined
the party.
Castleman, holding the rank of assistant quarter-
master in the volunteer service, was made leader of
the company. Following the trail of the savages
up Ten Mile creek, which was marked by devas-
tation on every hand, they crossed a divide to the
waters of Olilla creek, and, coming up with the
savages, actually saw them firing the house of a
settler. They hid and waited for developments.
They sent two scouts after the Indians, who tracked
them to a bend in the Olilla. They waited until
the Indians turned in and were asleep, and then
crept into their camp. Getting all the information
they desired, they returned to their own camp and
reported. The savages being more than two to one
it was deemed best not to attack them until they
got some help. They went to McCully's stockade
and got a reinforcement of twenty-five men, they
being a portion of Captain Baily's company, and
under Orderly-Sergeant Tom Holland. Castleman,
being a higher officer, was tacitly acknowledged
captain.
It was very dark when they set out for the Indian
encampment, following a local guide, who knew
the country, creeping continuously along until they
were only half a mile distant from the Indian
stronghold; and there they halted and held a
council of war. The Indians, who had tantalized
the volunteers during the previous day at the
248
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
2
:
stockade, had no fear of an attack, and were conse-
quently very careless. The plan of action decided
on was this: Castleman, with fifteen men, was to
approach the Indian camp from the left along the
creek. Pat Day, with ten men, was to attack them
then in front.. Tom Holland, with fifteen men, was
to make a détour on the right, crossing the Olilla
below their camp, and pick them off as they tried
to swim the creek. Each party was to be in readi-
ness at their appointed stations, to make a simulta-
neous attack at daybreak. As it was then but four
o'clock, and daylight did not come until near seven,
each party had ample time to gain their respective
stations. Castleman with his squad started at once
for his post and reached it. Holland's men got
into a slight depression, and he concluded to wait
there. Pat Day, when part way to his post, con-
cluded to wait and see what would happen.
The Indian camp was in a bend of Olilla creek,
between the creek and an immense fir log which lay
just behind them. Castleman and his band were
making for this fallen monarch of the forest; and
he stood almost at the end of it before he realized
the extreme danger of his position. He raised to
look around him; and there were the painted devils,
who were already up sitting around their blazing
fires, cooking their breakfast and keeping warm.
It was while he stood there within a stone's throw
of the savages that Pat Day fired his gun. Instantly
they raised the warwhoop; and every redskin seized
his gun.
But fortunately they had thrown them
down carelessly, where rain and snow had fallen
later; and a number of them were unfit for use.
Castleman looked behind, expecting to see all his
men close to him; but only six were in sight. The
other eight soon turned up. Hardly had the sound
of that gun been lost, when Castleman shouted:
"Take the log, boys; take the log!" and, crouch-
ing, he led the rush for it. But, while rushing for
the log, Castleman received a shot which entered
his side, ranged the ribs and went out over the
right hip. His lower limbs were paralyzed; but his
arms were all right. He shouted to his men to
make all the noise they could, and make the Indians
think there were a thousand of them. They loaded
and fired and shouted in turn. Their leader lay on
the ground, loading and firing over the log. Firmly
believing that his end had come, he determined to
render as much assistance to his comrades as pos-
sible, regardless of himself. Before many minutes.
had elapsed, the whole force was at hand; and the
battle assumed much larger proportions.
It
As soon as the firing began, both of the other
squads joined Castleman. The eight of Castleman's
squad who lagged behind when he made the charge
became a flanking party and did valiant work.
was dark where the assailants were, while the
savages stood in the full glare of their campfires.
An Indian stood behind some saplings so close to
Castleman that he could have clubbed him with
the butt of his gun, had he dared to have exposed
himself so much. He was vainly endeavoring to
make his gun go off, which fortunately for Castle-
man had got wet; and the charge would not leave
the gun.
He would occasionally put on a fresh
cap, until finally a bullet from Jim Burnett's gun
((
went crushing through his abdomen, sending him
howling to the rear. While Castleman was making
the most of the life that was left in him, loading
and firing and shouting to his men what to do, a
pet Indian," known as Cow Creek Tom," who
could speak English fairly well, yelled back: "Yes,
G― d― you, and while you are doing that we will
kill you and cut you up in a thousand pieces, and
lay you out on that log." That was no idle threat
to keep in mind. He knew that if the Indians
captured him they would do some such horrible
thing. The battle was an awfully fierce one while it
lasted. But the combined attack was too much for
the Siwash element, and giving a parting warwhoop,
they fell back in great disorder completely routed,
and unable to carry away their dead. After the
battle was over the Whites proceeded to take an
inventory of what they had captured. They recov-
ered much of the property which had been stolen
by the Indians, and recaptured many horses that
had been taken the day before.
Castleman's wound was not only dangerous, but
was considered necessarily fatal. He was carried
away on a rude litter to McCully's stockade, where
he suffered the most excruciating pain for some
weeks, when he was taken to a hospital near Rose-
burg, where he remained several months. When
able to leave it, he was but a mere shadow of his
former self; and from that day to this he has carried
painful reminders of that terrible night on the
South Umpqua, receiving no compensation nor even
recognition that his services had been worth any-
thing to his country. After leaving the hospital, he
was commissioned assistant commissary of subsist-
ence, with the rank of captain. This took him to
Eugene, where he remained until peace was restored.
After the close of the Indian war he bought a drove
of hogs and several ox-teams, loading the teams with
produce, and drove them through to Southern Oregon,
where he disposed of them, also selling his inter-
est in the mill business. In the following winter
he, in company with Lewis Ward, bought a pack-
train of B. F. Dowell, and packed produce from the
Willamette valley to the Southern Oregon mines.
In the winter of 1857 Castleman sold his pack-
train and bought a livery stable at Eugene, which
he and Ward owned until the summer of 1858. At
that time T. Chase bought Ward's interest in the
business, after which Castleman and Chase carried
on the business until 1862, when they both went to
Walla Walla and carried on the same business until
1865. They then sold out their business; and
Chase returned to Eugene. In 1862 Castleman,
leaving the business in charge of his partner,
went to the Salmon river mines, but returned in the
fall and moved his family to Walla Walla and
engaged in photography.
engaged in photography. After the mines were
discovered at Boise, he and Mr. John Doval took a
stock of goods from Walla Walla to Placerville in the
winter of 1863. Often during the trip they traveled
through seven feet of snow, and came near losing
their lives. In 1865 he sold out in Boise and re-
turned to Walla Walla, where he again carried on
photography until 1867, when he moved with his
family to Eugene. Soon after this he returned East
on a visit to his mother and family, his father
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
249
having died in the meantime. While in the East he
bought a large tract of land, and built a sawmill on
it. But, circumstances not being as favorable as he
had anticipated, he disposed of it and returned to
Oregon, satisfied to remain, living one year at
Eugene, one year at Tillamook, and about eight
years on a farm in Yamhill county, which he sold,
removing to Portland in 1878, where he has since
resided.
Mr. Castleman has been quite an extensive spec-
ulator, and has always been willing to engage in any
honorable enterprise. He is a public-spirited and
generous man, and has done much to develop the
country. He has been an extensive stock-dealer,
and is now interested in a fine hop ranch near
Eugene. He has lived a busy and eventful life, and
enjoys the confidence, honor and respect of all
who know him.
Mr. Castleman has long been identified with the
Indian War Veteran Association of the Pacific North-
west, and at present is the vice-grand commander of
of the grand encampment. During its sessions, or
in the councils of the subordinate camp to which
he belongs, he has been an ardent advocate of the
publication of such a work as is now in the hands
of the reader; and the interest manifested by him
resulted in the formation of the company which has
carried forward these volumes to completion, and in
which he has been a member and one very active in
the collection of data and historic matter.
He was married in 1856 to Mrs. I. J. Evans.
Their union was blessed with five children, Euretta
F., now the wife of J. A. Campbell, of Berkeley, Cal-
ifornia; Stephen F., deceased; Mary E., who died
in infancy; Anna B., now Mrs. W. H. Gaines, of
Portland, Oregon; and William R., who is at present
at home with his parents.
Mrs. I. J. Castleman was born December 28, 1834,
in Stark county, Ohio. Her parents, B. F. and C.
S. Davis, moved to Marshall county, Indiana, where
they lived several years. In 1847 they emigrated to
Oregon and settled near Eugene. In 1850 Miss
Davis was married to G. W. Evans, who died in
1853. They were blessed with two children, Fran-
ces E., now the wife of T. Patterson, and George W.,
who is now a resident of Yamhill county. Mrs.
Evans was married to Philip F. Castleman March
18, 1856.
He is
ISAAC CATHCART.— In the gentleman whose
name heads this brief memoir, we have a leading
and worthy citizen of Snohomish county.
one of the men whose success in life has been mainly
achieved in the county in which he now lives, by the
exercise of economy, industry and business integ-
rity, guided by intelligent financial ability. He is
now in affluent circumstances, though twenty years
ago he was a poor man. What he has came grad-
ually through those years as the result of correct
business calculations, and not by chance or the
favorable turn of Fortune's wheel.
Mr. Cathcart was born in Fermanagh county, Ire-
land, in 1845, and is therefore in the prime of life,
being now forty-three years of age. He is the son
of Isaac F. and Charlott (Bushfield) Cathcart.
resided in his birthplace until nineteen years of age.
He
He then concluded to emigrate from that ill-fated
Green Isle, and came via New York to Patrolia,
Canada West, where he spent the following two
years. He then came to Michigan, and for eighteen
months found employment in the forests of that state.
At the end of that period he concluded to seek
his fortune in the Golden West. Coming to Mis-
souri, he ascended. the river of that name to Fort
Benton, Montana, from whence he walked to Helena,
and from the latter place via the same conveyance
to Wallula Junction, Washington Territory, making
the distance he had walked six hundred and forty
miles. He immediately proceeded down the Colum-
bia to Portland, Oregon, where he took passage on
board the steamer Active for Port Townsend, where
he arrived in September, 1868, his earthly posses-
sions amounting on his arrival in the above place to
the munificent sum of eleven dollars. After a short
stay in Port Townsend, Mr. Cathcart came to Sno-
homish, and for four years found employment in the
logging camps along the Snohomish river.
In 1873 he engaged in business in the latter city,
and in that year built the well-known and popular
Exchange Hotel. A few years later he erected the
large two-story frame building known as Cathcart
Opera House, the lower part of which he occupies
as the leading general merchandise store in the city
of Snohomish. The capital Mr. Cathcart possessed
on arriving at Port Townsend has by his unusual
ability and sagacity been augmented until now he
owns no less than 3,500 acres of valuable land in
Snohomish county, together with a large amount of
property in the city of Snohomish, besides his mer-
cantile business. Mr. Cathcart is one of the best
known loggers on the Snohomish river, and is
also largely engaged in farming. In politics our sub-
ject is a strong and consistent Republican, and in the
fall of 1882 was elected on that ticket county treas-
urer of Snohomish county, a position he held for
four years.
In personal appearance Mr. Cathcart is a large,
fine looking man, as his portrait which appears in
this work would indicate. For such men as Mr.
Cathcart is Washington indebted for her present
prosperity and future success.
He was united in marriage in Seattle to Miss Julia
J. Johns, a native of Ohio, August 9, 1876. They
have a family of three children: Isaac C., Lizzie M.,
William and Amy (deceased).
HON. JOHN CATLIN.- Mr. Catlin is of New
England and Scotch stock. His father, Seth Cat-
lin, was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and from
there emigrated with his father and an only sister
to the State of Illinois about the year 1812. His
mother came with her parents from Scotland to
America when but twelve years of age; and her
father, James Ridpath, settled with his family in
Randolph county, Illinois, in 1818.
His parents
were married in the year 1831, and located on a farm
at Turkey Hill, St. Clair county, Illinois, where
their first child, John Catlin, the subject of this
biography, was born on February 6, 1832. His
father was a successful farmer of more than ordinary
energy, good judgment and intelligence, and repre-
sented the county of St. Clair more than once in the
:
250
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
senate of Illinois. In the spring of 1848 he started
with his wife and seven sons across the plains for
Oregon, making the trip with ox-teams.
After a
long and tedious journey, they arrived at Philip
Foster's, on the west side of the Cascade Mountains,
on September 15th of the same year they left Illi-
nois; and the same fall he located upon the claim
afterwards taken by Edward Long, south of East
Portland, where he remained one year, and then
removed to what is now Cowlitz, Washington. Here
John Catlin suffered the loss of his father in June,
1865, though his mother survived her husband many
years.
Before coming to Oregon, John had received a
common-school education in Illinois; and after his
father located in Cowlitz county he entered the Wil-
lamette University at Salem, Oregon. In the year
1858, he was elected to the territorial legislature of
Washington Territory, where he filled the position
with the highest honor, and won respect from all his
colleagues. In the fall of 1859, he returned to his
native state after an absence of eleven years, where
he at once began the study of law with Governor
French. After one year's hard study there, he
entered the law school at Cincinnati, Ohio, where he
applied himself assidiously, and in due course of
time graduated in his chosen profession.
As a
Upon his return to the Pacific coast, he located at
Portland, Oregon, and entered into the practice of
law, in which city he has since resided, engaging in
his chosen profession of law. As an attorney he
has always stood at the head of the bar, and has
enjoyed the reputation of being an honest inan, and
a close and abiding confidant of his clients.
counselor-at-law, his interpretations and guidance
have often proved valuable to young attorneys in
piloting them through tangled and complicated
cases. As an evidence of his personal popularity
and the esteem in which he is held by the people, one
and all, he was elected county judge on the Demo-
cratic ticket of Multnomah county, Oregon, by a
large plurality, while the balance of the ticket was
decidedly defeated. This position he at present fills
with marked ability, both to the courts and the
people.
The Judge is now in the afternoon of life; yet he
is hearty, hale and well preserved both in mental
and physical respects, for he has always been regu-
lar in his habits, and has strictly obeyed those.
immutable laws of nature which are conducive to
health and great longevity. The judge married a
daughter of Robert Henderson, of Yamhill county,
Oregon, in the year 1866.
JOHN L. CAVINESS. The name presented
above is borne by one of the most exemplary citi-
zens of Eastern Oregon, and a man who has sounded
all the depths and shoals of pioneer life.
The family came from Indiana, settled for a time
in Iowa, and came on to Oregon in 1852, spending
a short time at Forest Grove, but soon locating in
Linn county on a section Donation claim. In
1856-57 John L., now a young man of eighteen,
began his career by driving cattle to California,
and in the spring of the latter year to Eastern
Oregon. While in the Walla Walla valley, he
found employment as purchaser of horses from the
Indians, receiving a hundred dollars per month,-
better than splitting rails for his board on the
Touchet, as he had done a few weeks after his
arrival. In 1859 he made a successful trip with
a drove of cattle to British Columbia, and followed
this by freighting to Colville. Closing out his
outfit to advantage, he tried his fortune in the Sal-
mon river mines. In 1862 he hazarded six thou-
sand dollars in a team (a prairie schooner) and
goods, and made a very profitable expedition to the
mines again, selling oats for as much as a dollar a
pound. He cleared ten thousand dollars on the
trip, and repeated it twice. Selling out once more
he took up the business of ferrying across Salmon
river at Warner Diggings, paying fifteen dollars for
a skiff and taking in three thousand dollars in
ferriage in a short time. These figures seem fabu-
lous, but, to a miner just on the eve of making his
fortune, five or ten dollars seemed nothing for him
to give for getting across the dangerous river that
lay between him and his strike.
Returning to the cattle herds, Mr. Caviness bought
up a drove of beef animals, and sold beef in the
mines at thirty and fifty cents a pound. After
prospecting at Bannack, and trading at Walla Walla,
the autumn of 1863 found him in the Blue Mountains
at Auburn, where there was a large mining camp.
Shortly after, finding his old partner, John Bryant,
at Walla Walla, he laid in a stock of provisions,
and took up the claim at Grande Ronde, on which
he had been having an eye for some time. It was
the location of Island City; and the squatter then
there had to be bought off. Getting some lum-
ber for sixty dollars a thousand, Mr. Caviness put
up the house which still stands and serves as his
homestead. To the original purchase of two hun-
dred and forty acres he soon added one hundred
and twenty, and has more recently increased it by
seven hundred and twenty, all in the valley. In
1872, in partnership with Mr. Darling, he built the
Island City Flouring Mills, which he sold out in
1884. He is still living, however, at the old place
prosperous and contented.
He is married and has five children, and is a
straight Republican in politics.
HON. STEPHEN FOWLER CHADWICK.–
No man in the history of the state of Oregon has
held more prominent positions, or done more for the
welfare of the country, than the subject of this
sketch. He was born in Connecticut on the 25th of
December, 1825, and received his education in his
native state. After becoming proficient in other
branches, he read law in the offices of Stoples &
Goddard and Edward E. and H. B. Cowles, Wall
street, New York City. He was admitted to the
bar in New York on the 30th of May, 1850. On
March 13th of the following year he sailed for Ore-
gon, where he arrived April 21st of the same year.
He settled at Umpqua, now Douglas county,
where he practiced law; and while Oregon was yet
a territory he was assistant United States district
attorney for the Southern district, and served for a
time as prosecuting attorney by order of the court.
He was a member of the constitutional convention

MRS. MARYE BURBANK,
LA FAYETTE, OR.
MISS EVA L.BURBANK,
LA FAYETTE, OR.
E.S. FOWLER,
PT. TOWNSEND, W. T.
DR. MARTIN PAYNE,
PORTLAND, OR.
ALFRED A.PLUMMER JR.,
PORT TOWNSEND, W. T.
NIV
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
251
from Douglas county, and was elected judge of that
county, the first under the state constitution. When
General McClellan was candidate for President in
1864, he was an elector on the presidential ticket,
and again in 1868 carried to the electoral college at
Washington, District of Columbia, the electoral vote
of Oregon for Horatio Seymour. He was elected
secretary of state of Oregon in 1870, was re-elected
to the office in 1874; and, on Governor Grover being
chosen United States senator in 1877, Stephen Fow-
ler Chadwick was elected governor of Oregon.
He took official interest in the Indian war of 1877
in Idaho and on the borders of Oregon, and, taking
the field in the war of 1878, in Eastern Oregon,
aided in punishing the Indians and restoring peace,
and is now a member of the Society of Indian War
Veterans of Roseburg. He delivered a fine address
at the laying of the corner-stone of the state capitol
building in Salem, and also delivered the first
regular pioneer address after the permanent organi-
zation of pioneers. Indeed, in all public enterprises
we find him foremost in lending his aid with en-
couraging words and helping hands. He also sug-
gested the time of the annual meeting of pioneers to
be on June 15th, the date of the ending of the
treaty of joint occupation of the territory of Oregon
between the United States and Great Britain in 1878.
At the council of war in 1878, after peace was
restored, he, as governor of Oregon, demanded the
surrender of all Indians who had engaged in mur-
dering citizens and making war upon settlers, in
order that they should be tried and punished by
the authorities of the state, instead of by military
law, which had heretofore been the practice. This
was the first time this demand had been acceded
to, and was done to prevent a disturbance between
the United States military and state authorities.
All chiefs were taken prisoners and held as hostages
until the guilty Indians were captured.
Mr. Chadwick was grand master of Masons in
Oregon, and has been for over twenty consecutive
years chairman of the committee on foreign corres-
pondence of the grand lodge of Masons of Oregon.
MARTIN L. CHAMBERLIN.— This repre-
sentative of the generation of young men born, or
for the most part educated and developed, in our
state, who are taking such a controlling part in her
present rapid development, is the son of the well-
known Joseph Chamberlin, who came to this coast
in 1855 as missionary to the Indians, and in this
capacity was of essential service to General Joel
Palmer in getting the late hostile and still sullen
and broken-spirited Indians upon the Grande Ronde
Reservation.
Martin, our subject, was born at Dryden, La Peer
county, Michigan, May 17, 1846, and, being the only
son in a large family, was almost the chief mainstay
of his excellent and greatly beloved mother while
the father was laboring in Oregon. The responsi-
bilities thus thrown upon him in his youth he dis-
charged with conscientious fidelity and an ability
beyond his years.
By the arrangement of the father, the family came
out to Oregon in 1857, making this state their first
home at the reservation, and enjoying in many ways
the half wild and half military life at old Fort Yam-
hill, in one of the most beautiful of the little valleys
of Western Oregon. They here formed the acquain-
tance of General Phil Sheridan, then stationed at
the fort as commander, making of him an esteemed
friend.
Young Chamberlin was deprived of the early edu-
cational advantages which his parents were able to
afford their younger children, but from this very
fact attained that independence of thought and
action, and acquired that habit of developing from
meager resources all that may be derived in the way
of information or ideas, and that peculiar steadfast-
ness of purpose and steadiness of aim which dis-
tinguish the truly self-made man.
In 1862 he removed with his father's family to
Marion county, and five years later took up with
them his residence at Salem, and has resided con-
tinuously at the capital as one of its leading men.
Having filled acceptably a number of minor offices,
he was elected in 1880 as clerk of Marion county,
and in this responsible position for two terms proved
his ability to assume also even higher trusts. In
1886 he was elected state senator for Marion county,
and discharged the duties thus laid upon him with
dignity and ability, and to the great satisfaction of
his constituents. He has been a Republican since.
his first formation of political opinions, and takes
deep interest in public causes.
His business aggregates a large volume, which he
transacts with his usual integrity and fidelity, and
conducts at Salem large transfers in real estate. He
was married in 1885 to Miss Rose Weller, and has a
happy home with bright prospects for the future.
A. H. CHAMBERS. This wealthy and in-
fluential resident of Olympia is a native of Wash-
ington Territory, and a son of one of the earliest
pioneers, his parents having crossed the plains to
Oregon in 1844. Andsworth was born near Olympia,
at Chambers Prairie, June 25, 1851. He began his
career at the early age of twelve as a herder of stock,
and continued in this business until nineteen years
of age, acquiring thereby a knowledge of life and of
practical affairs which has been of great value. At
the above age, in partnership with his father, he
successfully established a butcher business at Olym-
pia, and in 1881 enlarged it by the purchase of his
father's interest, conducting it by himself for the
following eight years. In the spring of 1889, he
disposed of his retail business, and now confines
himself to stock-raising and the wholesale butcher
business. In 1888 he erected the beautiful building
which bears his name, a view of which, together
with his own portrait, appears in this work.
Although beginning with small means, Mr. Cham-
bers early mastered the art of attending to his busi-
ness with close attention, and has thereby gained a
competency, never, however, resorting to miserly,
avaricious methods, nor relying upon fortune, nor
taking advantage of his fellow-man. There is no
more enterprising citizen in the capital city, nor
indeed in the state, than A. H. Chambers; and every
enterprise which tends to public improvement or
benefit finds in him a warm supporter. As an illus-
tration of his extensive business relations, we may
}
252
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
mention that he has a controlling interest in the Gas
and Electric Light Works, and is also a director of
the First National Bank, and is one of the incor-
porators and the business manager of the hotel com-
pany now erecting the magnificent Hotel Olympia.
As an illustration of his public spirit, we may cite
his gift of a thousand dollars for the establishment
of a hospital of the Sisters of Charity in that city.
He has ever felt a deep interest in the welfare of the
capital, and since reaching his majority has been a
member of the city council, and has held the office
of mayor of the city for three successive terms, de-
clining further nomination. He was united in mar-
riage in Olympia May 20, 1878, to Miss Mary
Connolly. They have three daughters.
WM. M. CHANDLER. It is a lamentable
fact that quite a large percentage of the young men
born in Oregon within the last thirty years have not
taken advantage of the opportunities by which their
early life has been surrounded. The defects of edu-
cation or character have made them idlers, or have
caused them to waste in dissipation or distraction
the time which might have been employed in fitting
themselves for our great future. Mr. Chandler, of
whom we present a portrait in this history, is not
one of these. He belongs to that other class which
is not small, of Oregonians born, who have not de-
spised their birthright. Polk county was the place
of his nativity, and the time 1858. Here he spent
his life until he was nineteen, working hard and
gaining what education he could from the public
schools. At that age he went forth into the world
for himself. He sought a place in the Walla Walla
country, and found work there on a farm, and also
in teaching school. He was naturally a studious
and thoughtful man; and what he thus imbibed
afforded him more mental pabulum and stimulus
than it might have done for others. Working with
his hands four years longer, he found his way to
Sprague in 1882, entering into the land and insur-
ance business with W. M. Baxtell. In the fall of
the same year his partner retired, leaving him with
the whole management. He has been successful.
In April, 1888, he purchased the Sprague Sentinel;
and in the June following he became the owner of
the Sprague Journal, consolidating the two papers
as the Sprague Mail, which has since been under his
management and editorial charge.
In public affairs also he has taken a hand, having
by his individual efforts secured the organization of
a school district in Sprague in 1884, acting as clerk
of the district until April, 1885. He was first
treasurer of the city, and served also a second term.
He acted as agent for Wells, Fargo & Co's Express
from August, 1883, to July, 1886, when it withdrew
from the Northern Pacific line. He was elected
probate judge of Lincoln county in 1886, and served
until March 4, 1889. He is a member of the board
of trade.
His wife, to whom he was married in 1883, is a
daughter of a pioneer merchant of Sprague, Edwin
Dane. She is a lady well calculated to be his com-
panion in the earnest business of outside life, and in
the substantial treasures of home. They have two
children, a daughter and a son.
DANIEL CHAPLIN. The subject of this
sketch was born in Niagara county, New York, in
1823. He was educated in his native place, and
became a surveyor, removing to Michigan. Honest,
upright and much respected, he was one of those
men of broad ideas and indefatigable energy who
create prosperity for any community in which they
settle. Having heard much of Oregon, its bound-
less resources and delightful climate, he crossed the
plains in 1854, settling near Champoeg in Marion
county. From there he moved to where Sheridan,
in Yamhill county, now stands, and thence to Day-
ton, Yamhill county. In the spring of 1862, he
located in La Grande, Union county, and built the
first house in that place.
Through his efforts, he succeeded in having the
land-office for Eastern Oregon located there, and for
fifteen consecutive years held the position of receiver
of the land-office, when he resigned on account of
the accumulation of other business on his hands.
The arduous duties of this office were conducted by
him with admirable promptness and. honesty; and
the settlers who came to transact business with his
office were always treated with great consideration.
In 1864 he was elected to the legislature of Oregon,
and gave entire satisfaction to his constituents. In
1865 he, in conjunction with Green Arnold, estab-
lished the present water system of La Grande, and
laid the first water pipes. He was the father of
La Grande, was a very generous man, and always
responded with a liberal hand to every call of
charity, especially to the churches. He gave five
acres upon which to build the Blue Mountain
University, and also five hundred dollars towards.
the construction of the building, and also land to
build a number of churches upon.
After leaving the land-office, he became deeply
interested in railroad matters; and his efforts alone
were the means of locating at this point the Oregon
Railway & Navigation Company's machine shop,
round house and other buildings, and of making
this station the end of a division, for which he
gave to the railroad company one hundred acres of
land, which were estimated in value, by the adjuster
of the company, at sixty-five thousand dollars, as
will show by their books. He was the only person
who gave anything towards securing to this place
the benefits arising from railroad communication;
and, had it not been for him, this town would never
have attained the prominence it now possesses. He
was always a great worker for the interests of La
Grande, and labored with unabated zeal for its wel-
fare and advancement; and, in his death, La Grande
lost one of its most useful, generous and respected
citizens. His death occurred on the 9th day of
December, 1887.
WILLIAM CHAPMAN.- The immigration
of 1847 was large, and without accident, with the
exception of those unfortunate members of it who
remained at Doctor Whitman's until the massacre.
Mr. Chapman belonged to the arrivals of that year,
and was closely connected with the sufferers of sav-
age fury.
He was born in Schuyler county, New York, in
1824, moving to the West in 1843. In 1847 he left
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
253
Havana, New York, in company with John and
Ronald Crawford, traveling with them to Independ-
ence, where they separated. There he joined John
Wright, traveling with him to the Kaw river, where
they joined the company of John Bewley. The train
was delayed by high water on the Kansas; and it
was the third of June before the company was well
under way, the latest of the season. However, they
overtook the Oskaloosa train, with seventy-five
wagons, under Captain Smith, and with their own
twenty-five made a respectable cavalcade.
Some distance out they met with a singular advent-
ure, which will sound like a mythical tale to the
future generations. Camp had been made just at
sunset, when one of those innumerable herds of
buffalo, which once thundered over the plains, began
to cross on their front. Fearful that the host of mov-
ing animals would overwhelm the camp, they set a
strong guard, which also surrounded the cattle, lest
they should be drawn off in the press. The buffalo
herds were all night in passing; and the guards
were compelled at times to give back. In the morn-
ing it was found that forty yoke of oxen had been
swept away. This disabled a part of the train.
Some, undaunted, put cows in the place of the miss-
ing oxen. One who had lost all followed the buf-
falo herd many miles, hoping that his animals had
tired and dropped behind; but he did not find a sol-
itary hoof. In this dilemma, those who had animals
divided with those who had not; so that none were
compelled to return.
One of the pleasantest men whom they met on the
plains was Vasca, near Laramie, a mountain man of
forty years standing, and partner of Bridger. He
used to shoot game, and say casually, When you
get to so and so, look about so far from the road and
you will find an antelope." Though virtually sup-
plying the train with meat, he took no pay whatever.
Arriving at the Umatilla, a détour was made for
provisions to Doctor Whitman's; and Miss Esther
Bewley and her brother Crockett remained there,
the former being sick, and the Doctor desiring her
to teach in the Mission school as soon as she should
recover. Mr. Chapman came on to the Willamette,
effecting the journey from The Dalles by a canoe to
Switzer's landing, whence he walked to Oregon
City, meeting with favors on the way from J. M.
Stevens. For his first work at the city, he was paid
in an order upon Abernethy & Co., but upon pre-
senting this at the store found that they had noth-
ing in stock except salt, flints and whetstones.
Being unable to make use of these commodities, he
gave his order to a friend Wallace, and proceeded
up the valley. At Salem he met John Courtney,
one of those good-hearted men so abundant in Ore-
gon long ago, who told him that he had plenty of
flour in his cabin by the Calapooia, and that deer
were abundant, and that he had better bring his
rifle and stop with him over winter. Chapman,
being in somewhat straightened circumstances,
accepted the invitation, but was not long suffered to
remain there. Another use was needed for his rifle.
The Whitman massacre had taken place; and he
was called away to fight the Indians.
From East Portland, in Captain Maxon's com-
pany, under Colonel Gilliam, he went to The Dalles
and participated in the campaign on the Des Chutes.
Before going to Umatilla, the Colonel found it nec-
essary to clear the infected region between. Pro-
ceeding up the east bank of the Des Chutes river,
the troops met and drove the Indians before them,
but found them in force once more at the next cross-
ing. To pass the river, it was necessary to move on
a narrow ledge exposed the entire distance to the
fire of the savages.
A flank movement was there-
fore made, a storming party taking the Indians from
behind and dislodging them. Craig, the guide,
who with every seventh man had stayed behind
with the horses, had a fat cayuse pony killed and
roasted for the boys on their return; and the chase
was resumed the next day, the Indians finally being
scattered in the mountains. Coming back to The
Dalles, from whence they had been away for four
days, they found supplies, and went on up the
Columbia, making camp at the Wells Springs.
A
Striking out at this point for Whitman Station,
they had passed no more than a dozen miles on the
plateau before they found themselves surrounded by
a large number of savages in their war paint.
line of battle was formed, and the Indians driven
from their stand. This was a sharp but desultory
fight, lasting from morning until night. Eleven of
the Whites were wounded, and a number of the
Cayuse Indians slain, the head chief, War Eagle,
the great medicine man, being among the number.
His body lay all day on the field. The Indians fell
back and left their horses, and were skulking in the
sage-brush. The Whites followed the same tactics;
and there was a random, irregular fire, every man
shooting wherever he saw an enemy, and often pop-
ping away into empty bunches of sage. No order
of battle was preserved; and frequently one from
either side found himself alone in the midst of ene-
mies. As night came on, the warriors on both sides
crept back to their camps; and Craig, who had been
living with the Nez Perces, crept through the lines
to their camp.
These Indians, who were on the
ground, were neutral, or, if anything, favorable to
the Whites. Craig found his brother-in-law, an
Indian chief, and, arranging a truce, made an agree-
ment with the Nez Perces to proceed to Whitman
Station. The march was thenceforth in company
with these Indians, who went side by side as escort.
On the Umatilla the two parties camped near each
other; but before the Whites arose in the morning
the Nez Perces had disappeared.
Turning off now to Fort Walla Walla for sup-
plies, the Americans found McBean, who was in
charge, unwilling to furnish ammunition. Colonel
Gilliam assured him that he had but little powder
and shot left, but what little he had might be used
in order to get more. McBean then answered:
"Here am I, and there is the door to the magazine.
You can help yourselves; that is all that I can do
for you.'
Helping themselves accordingly, the
volunteers set out for Whitman Station. They
halted there for three weeks, while the peace com-
missioners were arranging for the surrender of the
murderers, and while some of the Indians were
busy running off their horses. The final pursuit of
the Cayuses to Idaho belongs rather to the main
history, to which we refer the reader.
254
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Returning to the Willamette valley, Mr. Chap-
man found employment on Howell's Prairie with
old Mr. Simmons; and, with the wheat he thus
secured as pay for his labor, he purchased an outfit.
to go to California to the gold gulches. Returning
by water in 1849, he was married to Miss Esther
Bewley, and in 1852 went to Yamhill county, tak-
ing up his Donation claim near Sheridan, where he
has since remained, and has made of it one of those
remarkably good farms of old Yamhill with crops.
that never fail. During the last three years his sons
have had the management of the place.
WILLIAM H. CHAPMAN. - Upon entering
this city and examining the business houses, one
will not only note the handsome buildings devoted
to the drug business of Allen & Chapman, but be
deeply impressed with, and almost astonished at, the
indications of the immense business of this firm,
which speaks eloquently of the large and grow-
ing community with whom they do business, and
proves the frequent assertions which one hears
that they conduct the largest trade in their line
in Yakima county. We give a view of the
interior of their store; and, to those who may
think that North Yakima is a sort of an Indian
trading post on the frontier, this will be a revelation,
and speak more than many pages.
The junior member of this firm, who is the sub-
ject of this sketch, was born in New York City in
1855. His father, William Chapman, who now re-
sides at Columbus, Washington, is of English birth,
and is a clergyman of the Second Adventist denom-
ination. He gave his children good advantages,
and by reason of his pastoral labors in many locali-
ties greatly diversified their early lives, not only by
changes of scene, but with the culture which comes
from much observation. The years from 1865 to
1877 were spent in Iowa. In the latter year the
family crossed the mountains by rail to Washington;
and William H. went to Klikitat county in search of
a location. Being pleased with Goldendale, he here
made his home for five years, most of the time being
druggist for B. F. Saylor. In 1884 he changed his
location to Yakima, forming a partnership with H.
H. Allen, who had now become his father-in-law.
A year later, they moved to the new town, and in
1887 erected their present fine and commodious
building.
It was in 1882 that Mr. Chapman was married to
Miss Clara, the daughter of his present partner.
Her death in 1888 was an irreparable loss to her
husband, his one consolation being the daughter
Hazel G. whom she left.
In a public capacity, Mr. Chapman has ever been
able and faithful, having served three years as city
councilman, and being master of the Yakima
Masonic Lodge. He is a Republican.
COL. W. W. CHAPMAN.-It has frequently
been remarked, that while many men of great fame,
and a deservedly wide reputation, cannot lay their
finger upon a single public act that they originated,
others whose names are less known can count by
the score the progeny of their brains, now alive
and active in the affairs of the world. Of the
latter class is Colonel Chapman of Oregon. There
are few men in America, even among those esteemed
great, who have originated and carried to comple-
tion a greater number of particular acts of large
scope and general beneficence. Many whose names
appear constanly in current literature can point to
no policy or institutions established by themselves,
while he has been the projector or formulator of
measures which have become established from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, having launched them in
complete form upon the sea of political or judicial
activities. This is a broad statement, but is fully
borne out by an investigation of the facts.
The Colonel is a man who works unostentatiously,
relies little upon public enthusiasm, and never resorts
to the noisy methods of the demagogue. He prefers
to bring together forces already in operation, and to
change their current not so much by agitation, or
even by persuasion of public men, as by the inev-
itable movement of human tendencies. On account
of this manner of working, what he performs may
be accomplished before the public know anything
of it; and his name may scarcely appear. While
thus deep, it scarcely need be said of him that he
has never reached his ends by the improper use of
money, or by any method approaching chicanery.
He has ever been perfectly honorable, and although
able to keep his own counsel like the Sphinx, relies
at the last upon the simple justice and rights of
the case. His ability lies in arranging matters so
that they will come to a head just at the right
time and under the proper circumstances. His
capacity for reading men's motives, and measuring
their power, gives him ample time to prepare work
for them to do, and shape matters so that they will
naturally fall in with his plans.
The story of his life is chiefly the enumeration
and record of his public endeavors, since he has
lived almost wholly in the activities of the com-
munity or state where he has resided, and has
followed principally public movements, not only
not giving attention to the accumulation of a pri-
vate fortune, but even giving away, for the sake
of public increase, property that now in its indi-
vidual segments is worth a number of fortunes.
As some guide to the reader's thoughts, let us
here enumerate the famous acts in which Colonel
Chapman has taken a prominent or controlling
part.
Beginning with his life in Iowa, we find
the following: The settling of the boundary between
that then territory and Missouri; changing the gift
of state land from internal improvement to the use
of public schools,—a policy which has been copied
into every state constitution since; framing the pro-
vision in the Iowa constitution for the election
rather than the appointment of judges,—a policy
which has become almost universal in the United
States; and the first suggestion of a standing pre-
emption law for the relief of settlers. In Oregon
we find that it was due to him as at least one
among three, and as the originative mind of the
three, that Portland became the metropolis of the
Pacific Northwest; that the Oregon & California.
Railroad was determined by him to become a road
for Oregon as well as for California, and to be above
the possibility of extortion or discrimination; and


HON.A.R. BURBANK,
LA FAYETTE, OR.
OF
UNIV
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
255
that he made it possible for Portland to have trans-
continental railroad communication. With these
as guiding points, let us now proceed with the
plain story of his life, and make good these broad
statements, not with any purpose of lauding a man
who cares but little for, and is in little need of,
praise, but with the simple aim of tracing these
public acts of great weight and moment to their
source.
William Williams Chapman was born at Clarkes-
burg, Virginia, August 11, 1808. At the age of
fourteen he suffered the death of his father, and was
thenceforward thrown chiefly upon his own re-
sources, although assisted to some extent by a kind.
brother and faithful mother. After obtaining what
information and mental discipline was to be gotten at
the public school, he secured a position in the office
of the clerk of the court of which the eminent jurist
Henry St. George Tucker was chancellor. In these
endeavors at self-improvement, he was much en-
couraged and indeed assisted by a kind lady, Mrs.
Sehon, mother of the eminent Methodist minister of
that name, who, noticing his studious habits, di-
rected the servants to keep well warmed and lighted
the room that he occupied. He also was given free
access to the libraries of the noted members of the
bar in that city.
Receiving in due time, from Judge Lewis Sum-
mers, Daniel Smith and Chancellor Tucker his
license to practice, he at once took up his residence
at Middleburn, Tyler county, Virginia. The spring
following, 1832, he was married to Margaret F.,
daughter of Colonel Arthur Inghram, a farmer of
means, and also a leading gentleman and public
man, who served twenty years in the legislature of
the Old Dominion, and afterwards removed to
Illinois, but made his last home in Iowa, where he
died.
(เ
In the autumn of 1833, Mr. Chapman went to
McComb, McDonough county, Illinois, and in the
spring of 1835 moved out to Burlington, in the
Black Hawk Purchase," now a part of Iowa.
now a part of Iowa.
Those were early times for even the Mississippi
states; and this region was then reckoned as a part
of Wisconsin, and was attached to the territory of
Michigan. It may be inferred that Mr. Chapman
was a man of mark, with a penchant for forming
new society, or he would never have been in that
new country with his large legal acquirements.
This presumption is confirmed by the fact that we
find him the next year appointed prosecuting attor-
ney by John S. Horner, acting Governor of Michi-
gan. In 1836 he was appointed by President
Jackson United States Attorney for the territory of
Wisconsin, established upon the admission of
Michigan as a state. The most exciting litigation
of the time was with reference to "jumping" land
claims. The settlers had a court of their own before
which jumpers were tried, and by it summarily
ejected from their hold, if found guilty. Mr. Chap-
man proved to be on the side of the settlers, defend-
ing a body of them before the court. Military
officers and men, including General, afterwards
President Taylor, and Jefferson Davis, his son-in-
law, used in those days to come around sometimes
to remove "squatters," as the settlers were con-
temptuously called. That was before the present
land laws; and the public domain was opened to
legal settlement only as thrown open by proclama-
tion of the President, who sometimes proceeded
upon the idea that new land should not be settled
up until all the "offered" land was occupied; while
the settlers preferred to live and take land where
they pleased. On account of his friendship, the
Iowa settlers were willing soon after to and did send
Mr. Chapman as delegate to the United States
Congress.
In 1836 he removed to Dubuque, and in 1837 re-
moved back to the neighborhood of Burlington. In
1838 Iowa was set apart as an independent territory,
through the efforts of G. W. Jones, Delegate from
Wisconsin; and, upon the election held September
10th, Mr. Chapman was found to be successful over
three other candidates. In Congress he became very
active, the first bill prepared by him being for the
opening of a military road from Dubuque through
Iowa City to the southern boundary of the state,
for another to run from Burlington west, and for
still another to run east and terminate at De Hague,
a place in Illinois. It was essential to get this road
to the latter place in order to cross the extensive
low bottom lands on the east or Illinois side of the
Mississippi river, which were flooded with water
during the summer freshet. On account of the
opposition of Van Buren to internal improvement in
the states, Chapman omitted to mention in his bill
that De Hague was in Illinois; and the President,
not being aware of this fact, signed the bill, con-
trary to his own policy of non-interstate improve-
ment.
In 1836, at an election in Dubuque county, Wis-
consin Territory, now a part of Iowa, W. W. Chap-
man, then twenty-six years of age, was elected
colonel of the militia by a most flattering majority,
which was particularly gratifying to the young man
from the fact that his acquaintances had made him
believe that they were all voting against him, some
telling him that he was too young and inexperienced
and he overhearing others saying, "It won't do, he
is too young," etc.; but when the votes were counted,
and he found that he had received the almost unani-
mous support of the electors of his township, he too
felt able to enjoy the joke. His commission as
colonel, issued December 2, 1836, is signed by "H.
Dodge, Governor of Wisconsin Territory,
attested by J. P. Horner, secretary of that territory.
Colonel Chapman qualified December 30th of the same
year, by taking the oath of office before Warner Lewis,
and
a justice of the peace in and for Dubuque county.”
The Colonel still preserves this commission and,
among others, his commission as United States
attorney for the same territory, signed by the great
Andrew Jackson.
In the matter of the boundary, the act creating
Iowa as a territory fixed the northern boundary of
Missouri as the southern boundary of Iowa. One
point determining this line was the Des Moines
rapids. Missouri, anxious to acquire a large tract
to the north, claimed that these rapids were in the Des
Moines river, while Iowa claimed that the rapids
meant were those in the Mississippi river, above the
mouth of the Des Moines, bringing the line some
18
256
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Governor
twenty or thirty miles farther south. Governor
Lucas of Iowa, advising with Colonel Chapman,
promptly occupied the disputed territory with mili-
tia, in order that Missouri might not be first on the
ground, as it would be difficult to oust a state from her
actual holding, while a territory might be easily cut
up. Missouri hastened to send up her troops, but found
the field already in possession of Iowa; and Chap-
man rode out and advised a stay of all proceedings,
and that the contestants should await the action of
Congress and of the Supreme Court, whom he would
soon visit. Missouri felt reasonably confident, as
she had Benton and Linn in the Senate and three
able men in the House at Washington, while Iowa
had but one unknown delegate. But when the tug
of war before Congress came, Chapman was able to
present a mass of testimony to the House, from the
writings of French missionaries and others, showing
that the Des Moines rapids were in the Mississippi
river. Seeing the case going against them, the
Missourians hastened to get a bill into the Senate in
their favor; and Doctor Linn was pushing this meas-
ure with all the vim of his great abilities. It was
then, as it is still, unparliamentary for a member of
one House to interpose in the proceedings of the
other; but Chapman, although then a young man
of about thirty, felt no hesitancy in honoring this
custom in the breach, and sent a written communi-
cation to the Senate, protesting against the action
of Senator Linn in bringing forward the question of
boundary in a body where Iowa had no representa-
tive, and referred them to the fact that this question
was then pending in the House. As a result of this
communication, action in the Senate was stayed.
While the decision was still in suspense, private
overtures were made from the Missouri members to
persuade the Iowa delegate to unloose his grip; and
Benton proposed to Chapman, if he would yield, to
grant great favors and an early admission of Iowa
into the union. But in reply to all of this Mr.
Chapman could only say that he was intrusted by
the people of Iowa to hold their line as claimed by
them; and this eventually prevailed.
As to his suggestions with reference to a perma-
nent pre-emption law, it is to be remembered that in
the former times there was no regular or legal way
for the settler to acquire public land wherever he
might choose in the United States territory; and it
was customary for Congress to pass a bill from time
to time granting existing settlers the right to pre-
empt the lands which they might have occupied.
This was a cumbrous and in many cases a dilatory
way of granting title to settlers; and it was while a
bill to grant a special pre-emption was before Con-
gress that Colonel Chapman proposed a standing
law providing for pre-emptions, to be a permanent
arrangement for prospective as well as actual set-
tlers. The idea was novel, and met with some ridi-
cule, but has now become so much a part of the
land policy of the government that it seems as if it
must be almost as old as the statute-book itself.
In 1844 Colonel Chapman was chosen a member
of the state convention to prepare a constitution for
Iowa, and originated the measure to transfer, in the
face of the act of Congress, the grant of five hun-
dred thousand acres of land to the state for internal
improvements for the use of schools. Such a prop-
osition was then unheard of, but has become the
policy since followed by all the new states. He also
proposed the measure providing for the election of
judges, which was then wholly an innovation; and,
although there has been much question of its wis-
dom, it is a policy that has extended wholly over
the West, and to the East in many instances. Col-
onel Chapman is himself a firm believer in the use-
fulness of the plan; for, while the judges are thus
more subject to the entanglements of politics, they
are also more immediately responsible to the people,
and are removed from executive or legislative pat-
ronage.
Although having accomplished so much for the
young State of Iowa, and having become so well.
known among her citizens, with a large future
opened to his enterprise and ambition, he was led
by a spirit of adventure, and perhaps even more by
the underfeeling that his greatest strength was in
establishing and formulating principles for future
states, to seek a new field where political and busi-
ness forces were yet in embryo, and determined
upon Oregon as the most promising field for his
endeavor. The choice has been most fully justified
by the result.
On or about the 4th of May, 1847, from Oska-
loosa, Mahaska county, Iowa, Colonel Chapman
and family set out for their journey across the plains.
to Oregon. The family consisted of himself, his
wife and seven children, five boys and two girls,-
Sarah Eveline, thirteen years old; Thomas, eleven
years old; Arthur I., nine years old; James Grimes,
seven years old; William Warner, five years old;
Mary Catherine, three years old; and Houston I.,
seven days old. Their mode of conveyance was by
two good ox-teams and wagons, one being a family
wagon and one for provisions, which also served as
a sleeping-place for two or three of the boys. The
family wagon was conveniently arranged, having a
long body with a jut-over on each side, to which the
bows for the cover were attached, and upon which
springy boards were placed to serve as a support for
the bed in which Mrs. Chapman and the babe were
accommodated. A neighbor emigrant lady, looking
upon the baby, exclaimed, "Why, Mrs. Chapman,
do you expect that little one will ever get to Ore-
gon?" To this Mrs. Chapman, pressing the boy to
her bosom, replied: "Yes. If I get there, it will."
In arranging for emigrating across the plains,-
an unbroken Indian country from the Missouri river
to the Pacific Ocean,―the thought of danger from
Indians was most prominent before entering their
country, hence the large trains and consequently
increased bands of stock. Before starting from the
Des Moines river in Iowa, the number of wagons
and teams of the emigrant train, including the
Chapman family, had reached nearly one hundred,
and had become such an obstacle to travel that the
emigration was about a month in crossing a corner
of Missouri to St. Joseph. It was customary, when
about to launch onto the plains, to conduct an
investigation so as to ascertain who were, and who
were not, reasonably prepared for the journey, so
that there should be no imposition of unnecessary
burthen upon the company. Upon this occasion
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
257
there was a man in the train who, with little more
than himself and wife, had a splendid ox-team,
indeed, the finest in the company or anywhere upon
the route. This man objected to many as unpre-
pared for the journey, saying that every man must
help himself and nobody else, as he would do.
Notwithstanding this man's assertions, all were per-
mitted to enter upon the journey. There was also
another rule observed in traveling,- that he who
traveled in front to-day must go behind to-morrow.
The man with the good oxen kept half of this law;
-he went in front all the time, always joining the
train in time for camp.
From St. Joe the large train moved slowly on for
a short time, when it was found that the number of
wagons and stock so delayed their movements that
it was absolutely necessary to effect a division, and
to separate the great train into small companies.
This being accomplished, the several parties moved
on rather more rapidly, with the well-prepared inde-
pendent man still in the lead. As the number of
emigrants diminished, the fear of Indians seemed
also to grow less; and the company moved out earlier
in the morning and proceeded with greater rapidity,
with the independent man always ahead; to the an-
noyance of the whole party. After some days, the
fear of Indians seemed to have vanished, although
prudence required proper guards against thieving
Indians, as was evidenced by the great care which
an esteemed and prudent lady took of her mare and
colt. Having tied a rope to the mare's neck, she
carried the end of the rope into the covered wagon
and made it fast to her garments. Having put down
the wagon cover and lighted a candle, she sat late
knitting and complacently watching the rope end,
when, some disturbance arising outside, she drew
upon her cord; and what does the reader suppose
she drew into the wagon? About two feet of rope.
The Indians had cut the rope, and with the mare
and colt silently stolen away.
While yet early in the period of the journey,
another division took place, still further reducing
the numbers of the respective parties. This time
Mr. Frederick moved out; and Colonel Chapman,
the Starrs and Belknaps and others followed after,
but always with the man of independence in the
lead. Everything moved on smoothly for days,
until one beautiful afternoon on the Platte, the sun
shining brightly and the train moving steadily for-
ward, all at once one wagon came to a halt; and
soon the whole train halted, fearing that an accident
had happened. The truth was soon ascertained to
be that the lady who had made the anxious inquiry
of Mrs. Chapman had just presented her husband
with a bright, young baby, and that mother and
baby were doing well, the mother in the full belief
that if she got to Oregon the babe would get there
too; and so they all did.
At the crossing of Green river one small family
had a narrow escape from drowning. The gentle-
man with the good team was of course in advance,
caring nothing for those behind. The train reached
across the river, which was high; and there was a
deep pool immediately below the crossing. An old
man and his wife occupied a wagon having two yoke
of oxen.
About midway of the river, something
frightened the lead oxen; and they turned short
around upon the upper side of the tongue cattle,
and were likely to turn oxen, wagon and occupants
over into the boiling flood. Colonel Chapman had
a yoke of leaders which he often rode through the
rivers, and, seeing the danger, jumped onto the
near one, threw the chain across their necks, reached
the unruly team, hitched onto them, and brought
oxen, wagon and occupants safely to shore. The
gentleman often repeated an account of the cir-
cumstances which led to his perilous condition,
describing the situation, and always closing with the
words, “And there was Polly; and she couldn't
swim a lick!"
The emigration pressed forward until they reached
a trapper living upon the present site of Pocatello.
Here they met the noted Jack Harris, who repre-
sented that the southern route was preferable on
account of grass and water, and that there was less
danger from the Indians. He instructed the com-
pany always to keep the Indians at a distance, and
allow of no close friendship, as they would take ad-
vantage of it. The company consented to take the
southern route. On the head of Mary's or Hum-
boldt river they suffered an attack upon the cattle
by the Indians; but nothing serious resulted.
Between what is now Winnemucca and Goose
Lake is a piece of very rocky road.
Here the man
with the good team was as usual considerably
ahead, and going pretty fast, when suddenly down
came his wagon in the road. The rapid driving
over the rocks had broken off the spindle. He sat
upon the corner of his wagon presenting the most
despondent appearance, while the train came up
within a few minutes, and, instead of stopping,
passed around without a word being uttered. Imme-
diately the road led the train over into a deep hollow
out of sight of the man. He thought he was left
in the boundless wilderness, a prey to wild beasts
or more savage Indians,-a fate his selfishness
richly deserved. But, under the directions of the
good leader, all stopped. Mr. Frederick, being a
mechanic, now took two or three other good men
and went back and brought the independent man
and his wagon into camp. What does the reader
suppose were this man's thoughts when the train
passed on out of sight? Some idea may be formed
from what occurred afterwards. It was a practice
with emigrants, when a wagon or any attachments
were abandoned, for each to select a part that might
become useful in an emergency; and in pursuance
of this economy the leader, Mr. Frederick, had
hung under his wagon a piece of an axletree that
just suited in this case, and with which he mended
and repaired the broken piece. This being done
the train moved on, with the man of independence
in the rear for the rest of the day. For the
remainder of the journey no man was more obedient
to the rules of travel, or more ready to lend a help-
ing hand, than this man who cut such an unfavor-
able figure at the outset. Those whom the afflicted
man at first took to be as priests and Levites,
passing by on the other side, nevertheless returned
as good Samaritans and made him whole, and sent
him on his way rejoicing.
About the first of November the company camped
258
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
just below the narrows of Rogue river, at the head
of a small prairie. A great many Indians came in
and were quite friendly. In the morning the com-
pany had about them crowds of Indians, men,
women and children. The emigrants were yoking
up their teams near to their fires and cooking
utensils. An Indian came along by the spot where
a man was yoking up; and near him was a skillet
containing some bread. His request for bread being
refused, the Indian kicked the skillet over; and
the man struck the Indian with his ox-bow, and
straightway there was mischief afoot. The Indian
The Indian
warriors gathered in a crowd of fifty or sixty, with
bows and arrows, threatening to shoot. The Indian
women and children disappeared; while it was all
the old chief could do to prevent an attack at once.
Emigrants were yoking up with guns on their
shoulders; but the leader, Mr. Frederick, got onto
his horse and rode over into the crowd of Indians;
when the Indians took his horse by the bridle,
compelling him to dismount. By signs, Mr. Fred-
erick explained that the Whites wanted to be
friendly, and were going to a far country. This
pacified the Indians, and peace offerings were
exchanged. Who can tell of a braver act than
Frederick's? After this thrilling incident, the
company moved on; and the chief took Mr. Fred-
erick down to his fish trap, and as a token of
friendship gave him a salmon. He also appointed
four Indians to accompany the train to the boundary
between the Rogue river and Umpqua Indians. In
addition, the first night after the trouble, he went
into the mountains and killed deer and gave them
to the emigrants. The four Indians accompanied
the train, and often picked grapes and gave them
to the travelers.
Arriving at the summit between Rogue river and
Umpqua river, which was the boundary between the
two nations, the four guards bade the emigrants a
friendly good-by and started back; and the company
moved on without any occurrence of note until they
reached the crossing of the Umpqua. Here they
found the river too high to ford with wagons; and
Indians with two canoes were secured to ferry them
over.
This
This was done by unloading and standing
each wagon lengthwise in the two canoes. The
landing was opposite a high bank; and the vehicles
had to be hauled up with teams. When but two
wagons remained to be crossed, a wagon just reach-
ing the top of the bank broke loose and ran back on
the canoes, splitting one from stem to stern.
caused a disturbance among the Indians; and they
went away, but came back in two or three days and
resumed work, putting the remaining two wagons
over. This same civilized Indian stole that night a
horse, saddle, overcoat and sundry other things of
Mr. Chapman. This horse the Colonel found six
years later at Fort Umpqua in possession of old
John Garnier, the keeper of the Hudson's Bay farm,
who promptly returned the horse to Mr. Chapman on
learning that it had been stolen.
The company crossed the mountain into the head
of the Willamette valley amid rain and snow, and
made an early camp for the night. The next morn-
ing they found a small creek to cross near by. Its
banks were about two feet high and filled with
water.
Wagons had cut a narrow way into the
creek; and the off-wheel oxen of Colonel Chapman's
team were passing down into the creek, when the lead
oxen rushed ahead, drawing the tongue around,
causing the off fore wheel to go down, while the
near wheel was on the bank, and thereby overset
the wagon into the creek, filling the fore end of the
wagon and the bows with water. The neighbors
quickly turned the wagon back; and the water ran
upon everything within. The remarkable fact was that
Colonel Chapman had driven entirely across the
plains without ever stalling or upsetting, and here
at the head of the Willamette, upon a dead level,
had upset his wagon and family into the creek. But
all got out safely, and in due time, on the evening
of the 13th day of November, 1847, reached Mary's
river, near what was then called Marysville, now
Corvallis, Benton county.
The small company
as it was then, consisting of the Chapmans, Gilberts,
Starrs and Belknaps, here came to a stop, it being
substantially their journey's end.
Illustrative of the great difficulties of a journey
with a family across the plains may be mentioned
the illness of Mrs. Chapman and her children. In
the Klamath country Mrs. Chapman, in order to
give assistance to a sick woman, entered her wagon.
After a little while she made inquiry as to the cause
of her sickness, and was informed that she had the
measles. This was a surprise and a source of
anxiety to Mrs. Chapman, since she had not had
this disease herself, and that she should have it now
was inevitable. Neither was there hope of escape
for the little baby or any of the children; for not
one of them had ever been affected. Mr. Chapman
alone of the whole family escaped the affliction.
This exposure was moreover needless, had the pros-
trated woman known her ailment, as it was in the
power of Mrs. Chapman to have assisted this woman
without going into the wagon; and, besides this,
there were undoubtedly others not liable to contract
the disease who would have readily, as they did
afterwards, afford all necessary aid and comfort to
this woman. Mrs. Chapman first indicated that she
had contracted the disease, then her infant child;
and, passing on, the whole family of children be-
came subjects of the pestilence. When it is remem-
bered that there was but one wagon (the provision
wagon having been left near Snake river) for all the
family to crowd into, or under, for sleep or rest;
that Mrs. Chapman's eyes were so affected as to be
without sight for sixteen days, almost to the end of
the journey; and that they must have undergone
great exposure and suffering,-it may well be con-
sidered almost a miracle that they all came through
alive. But there was not only an unbroken friend-
ship among the members of the company of which
Mr. James Frederick was the leader, but there was
a sealed friendship among the ladies which none
but they could appreciate, making them all ever
ready to aid and encourage the sick and unfortunate;
and Mrs. Chapman and her children received every
attention that these kind ladies could bestow.
After a few days' search, the Chapman family
found shelter for the winter in an unfinished cabin,
with two young men, Nye and Getteys, whom he
soon learned to address familiarly as John and Sam,

"
OF THE
SPRAGUE LUMBER YARD
J.H.SHIELDS
US
SCALES
LUMBER YARD
J.H.SHIELDS' LUMBER YARD,
SPRAGUE, W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
259
in accordance with our easy Western custom, and
whom the family ever remembered for their integrity
and generosity. Being anxious to see the rest of
Oregon, and especially to make the acquaintance of
the leading men of the young settlement, Colonel
Chapman made, between Christmas and the New
Year following, a trip by horseback with his two
new friends to Oregon City, or the Falls, as then
known. At this quaint little capital, and then
indeed the metropolis of the region west of the
Rocky Mountains, where congregated Oregon's
Oregon's
early heroes, "men of renown, Mr. Chapman
formed a pleasant acquaintance with Judge S. S.
White and Colonel B. Jennings, formerly of Iowa.
He met also the most of our early celebrities, and
with Governor Abernethy had a long and most
valuable conversation, in which he learned pretty
much all of the history and prospects of the young
commonwealth, and, with his aptitude for for-
mulating a distinct policy, descried almost from
that moment his own future work and governing
ideas in our state. He decided to make his home
at the Falls, but, returning to his residence near
Corvallis, was stopped on the way by Doctor Wil-
son of Salem, who treated him with such kindness
and cordiality, and moreover made it so advan-
tageous for him, that he altered his purpose and
accepted Salem as his residence.
In February, 1848, he with his family reached
Salem, where they were furnished quarters in the
lower story of the Methodist, or old missionary,
academy building, and were treated with all the
consideration of members of the Doctor's family.
In this place he remained for some time, although
school was kept in the upper story of the building.
With the facility of the pioneer, he turned his
hand to manual work, and as spring came engaged
in making a garden, and also righted the fences that
inclosed the big field upon a portion of which the
State House now stands. He also picked up as rap-
idly as possible the threads of legal activity in the
state, attending during the spring and summer sev-
eral terms of court held under the auspices of the
Provisional government by Judge Eugene Skinner.
The last of these was on Knox's Butte in Linn
county, and which became memorable for its abrupt
adjournment from the report of gold in California.
Mr. Chapman was no less interested than the rest,
and, although not excitable, made speedy arrange-
ments for the comfort of his family during fall and
winter, and in a party containing also Mr. Alanson
Hinman of Forest Grove, J. B. McLane of Salem,
and Mr. Parrish of Linn county, packed across the
mountains to the mines on the Sacramento. The
whole of Oregon was moved; and this little party
had swelled to a considerable army by the constant
aggregation of other little parties on the way; but
before Sutter's Fort was reached the company broke
up into little bands, scattering out in all directions.
to the gulches and bars of Northern California.
Some of these early settlers were lost to our state
forever, going nobody knows where in the world;
while others, having made their fortune, came back
to Oregon to spend their days in peace and plenty,
and to assist in making our state the glory of the
Northwest.
After mining with good success until autumn,
Mr. Chapman made a somewhat indefinite tour to
San Francisco, with an eye to establishing some
kind of a center of trade or society, thinking a little of
forming a combination with Sutter to build a city at
Sacramento; but he discovered that the quick mind
of Judge Burnett had already grasped the idea and
seized the position. At San Francisco he remained
some time, and was about to visit the other mines
of California, but, meeting with Governor Lane,
who was on the way from Washington, was per-
suaded by him to come to Oregon He arrived in
February or early in March, 1849. Proceeding at
once to his home in Salem, he was soon elected rep-
resentative to the first territorial legislature chosen
and convened upon the order of the new governor.
During this session he was appointed to draft a code
of laws; but, under a technical construction of the
Organic law, this act was declared void.
At the end of the session in 1849, he decided upon
removing to Oregon City, and remained there for a
short time, but upon a close examination concluded
that this could not be the place for the seaport
emporium, and consequently made a thorough
exploration of the Lower Willamette to the Colum-
bia, with the result that he concluded Portland to
be the place where transportation by land and by
ship could most readily meet. He found Portland
built on a section of land owned by General Stephen
Coffin and Mr. D. H. Lownsdale; and in this claim
he bought a third interest. Although Portland had
a natural advantage, her success as the chief city
depended upon her making use of that advantage;
and only by showing an enterprise equal to that of a
dozen other rival places could the favor of nature be
turned to account. Mr. Chapman, with his family
and household effects, was "bateaued," from Ore-
gon City to Portland on the 1st day of January,
1850. In the spring and summer following, he
cleared and erected, upon the block upon which the
county courthouse now stands, a frame building for
a residence, and with his family resided therein
until the fall of 1853. In this building Mrs. Chap-
man gave birth to two sons. The first, Winfield
Scott Chapman, was born on the 3d day of July,
1850; and the second, Harra Davis Chapman, was
born on the 17th day of March, 1853.
The town proprietors of Portland, as Messrs. Cof-
fin, Lownsdale and Chapman were called, at once
engaged in any and all enterprises which they
deemed calculated to advance the interests and pros-
perity of Portland as the commercial metropolis of
Oregon. Every town or prospective town on the
Lower Willamette and Columbia rivers contested
with it this pre-eminence. Among these was Mil-
waukee, five or six miles above Portland; and, had
it been a suitable location, the energy and enter-
prise of its proprietor, Lot Whitcomb, would have
made it outrival Portland. Whitcomb put a snug
river steamer on the line between Milwaukee and
Astoria, ignoring and for a time refusing to stop at
Portland; and he also established a newspaper at
Milwaukee.
In the fall or winter of 1850, the owners of the
steamer Gold Hunter brought her up to Portland,
and negotiated her sale for $60,000 to the town pro-
260
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
prietors. Of this sum a few outside individuals sub-
scribed small amounts; but the bulk was taken by
the three proprietors jointly. Twenty-one thousand
dollars was paid down; and for the balance Coffin,
Lownsdale and Chapman gave their joint notes. It
was not known, however, that there existed a con-
troversy between a minority interest at San Fran-
cisco and the majority that brought the steamer up
and sold their interest at Portland. On making the
purchase, as the Oregon purchasers held but a few
shares above a majority, it was agreed in writing
that no Oregon shareholder should sell his interest
except to the Oregon owners. Captain Hall and N.
P. Dennison each owned small interests; and the
first was put in as captain and the latter as clerk.
The steamer made regular trips for a number of
times to San Francisco loaded with Oregon products,
such as cattle, hogs, grain and vegetables, and gave
Portland such an advantage over all rivals as to
fairly annihilate their hopes for further success, and
until even the snakes proclaimed the victory. It
was in this wise: Uncle Robert Kinney, of Yamhill
county, meeting his old friend Colonel Chapman,
said to him, "Well, I see Portland is taking the
travel and trade of the country." The Colonel
asked, "Ah, how did you learn that ?" Mr. Kin-
ney replied, "Why, I have been on several roads;
and I see the snake tracks are all on the road to
Portland. You know they always resort to the
most traveled and dusty roads.'
The
But although Portland was thus successful, and
the Gold Hunter was doing for her such wonders,
a sudden setback was given the proprietors.
captain and clerk mentioned, though their interest
was small, had nevertheless enough stock to give
the majority control of the steamer; and they were
found to be subject to temptation. The California
minority, learning their weakness, on one of the
trips to San Francisco gave them a large bonus for
their interest; and they delivered the steamer over
to the California stockholders. Of this the Portland
proprietors learned nothing for some time, as mails
were infrequent; and they waited in vain for the
return of their Gold Hunter. In the meantime the
steamer was run down the coast to Tehuantepec,
where she was bottomried and sold; and thus Port-
land was left in the lurch, and her proprietors lost
the steamer and their money. This dishonest and
pusillanimous conduct of Hall and Dennison very
seriously injured the proprietors and weakened their
credit; but the town prospered nevertheless to such
an extent that Lot Whitcomb ceased to ignore her,
and finally ran his boat no farther up the river than
Portland. The Pacific Steamship Company also let
go their attempt to make St. Helens the point, and
anchored at the port of Portland; and that city
thenceforth became the recognized seaport.
To facilitate the coming of the people of the Tual-
atin Plains and Yamhill and Polk counties, the old
cañon road from the head of what is now Jefferson
street was constantly improved; and in a short time.
Portland had the satisfaction of seeing that road
dusty, while the Oregon City road showed but few
tracks. Only sixteen blocks of the city had origi-
nally been laid off, and but two streets parallel with
the river opened; and these were but sixty feet wide.
Soon after the entrance of Mr. Chapman into the
company, the town plat was enlarged so as to
include the whole section; and the new streets run-
ning north and south were made eighty feet in
width.
But one of the most important enterprises of the
time was the establishment of a paper at Portland.
In point of journalistic enterprise, both Oregon City
and Milwaukee were ahead of her; and this was not
to be endured. Coffin and Chapman went to San
Francisco in a bark, and, taking with them as a
present to the people of that place a pole a hundred
and thirty feet long cut near the present residence
of W. S. Ladd, to serve as a flagstaff or "liberty-
pole,” secured Mr. Dryer to come up and bring his
newspaper plant and run a paper. They promised
him a salary out of their own means, and, in fact,
paid his traveling and freight expenses. Upon the
arrival of the editor, the office was set up; and by
working all night the first issue was gotten out.
Mr. Chapman, who was one of these night-workers,
rendering what assistance a non-typo could, hired a
man with a horse to start early the next morning
with a pack of papers and distribute them over the
country on the west side of the Willamette as far
up as Corvallis, and to return by the east side;
while in the town and surrounding country his sons,
Thomas and Arthur, on horseback, delivered the
first edition of the new paper, and thereby became
the first newsboys of Portland. Thus was begun
with flying colors the first paper in Portland, which
has grown to be the chief journal of the Pacific
Northwest. At the suggestion of Mr. Chapman,
while still in San Francisco, it was given the name
Oregonian.
It is proper to state that in commencing work it
was necessary for the editor to initiate an apprentice,
or devil.
This duty devolved upon Mr. Chapman,
who called to his assistance a gentleman present.
Proceeding to the discharge of the duty, he blind-
folded the "devil," and placed a box between the
press and the wall, and fastened upon his back the
picture of a mule with the written declaration
thereunder, "I'll split no more rails."
prentice thus prepared was conducted three times
around the room; and each time, as he passed over
the box by the press, he was made to bow and
repeat the words, "I'll split no more rails."
The ap-
Many other measures were also undertaken, such
as the careful examination of Swan Island bar, in
order to insure the growth and prosperity of the
city. While thus there were for some time rival
points on the Columbia and Willamette aiming at
metropolitan dignity, the hard blows which they
aimed at Portland were all met and parried by the
energy and foresight of the proprietors.
In making the purchase of an interest in the
Portland claim by Colonel Chapman, the three, Cof-
fin, Lownsdale and Chapman, became joint owners
of what was known as the Portland land claim. The
titles and the form of conveyances at once became
important questions. Pettygrove, and Pettygrove
and Lovejoy, and Lownsdale and Coffin, succes-
sive owners of the claim, and town proprietors of
Portland, had sold lots in the town; and each succes-
sive purchaser contracted to recognize and confirm
'
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
261
previous sales if he should obtain title from the
United States. But the form and effect of previous
conveyances were very indefinite until Chapman
became interested; then upon him the responsibility
was thrown of formulating all contracts and con-
veyances. Thenceforward all sales and contracts for
sales of lots or blocks were made with a clause of
warranty against all persons, the United States
excepted; and if the proprietors obtained the title
of the United States they were to make it good to
the purchasers. Prior to the passage of the Dona-
tion law, the town proprietors had laid off the
whole section into lots and blocks, streets and pub-
lic grounds, and had caused maps to be made desig-
nating the same. The Donation law contained a
provision that all future sales before the patent
issued should be void under the Donation law, and
that claims could not be taken by a company or
firm; moreover, the wife was entitled to half of the
settler's claim. So the object of obtaining title
according to the respective rights of the company
seemed impossible. The company had sold a great
many lots and blocks to each other, and to other
persons, as well as having dedicated streets and
blocks for public use. The matter was referred to
Colonel Chapman for his advice as to the best plan
to obtain title in view of the prohibitory clause in
the Donation law, and at the same time hold the
town proprietors bound for title.
Colonel Chapman advised that a joint contract
be made dividing the claim into three parts as
nearly equal as convenient, each claimant being
bound to make good their former joint or several
contracts for any property within his Donation
claim, Chapman holding that this was not a con-
tract for the sale of the property, but only a con-
tract for confirming sales already made. This plan
was adopted. Colonel Chapman drew the writings;
and the claim was divided, each party taking his
separate claim under the Donation law and receiv-
ing a patent. Some years afterwards Lownsdale
died; and then his heirs took it into their heads to
disregard the contracts for title made by Lownsdale,
and brought suits to recover a large amount of the
most valuable property in the city of Portland.
Many of those against whom suits were brought
were induced to compromise, for which thousands
of dollars were paid. Doctor Davenport was one
of the parties sued for a valuable property. He was
frequently met and sought to be influenced to com-
promise. He would then go to Colonel Chapman,
his attorney, to know what he thought about it.
On one of these occasions his attorney said: "Doc-
tor, I have given you my opinion; and I have not
changed it. If I do I will notify you at once; but
if you want to compromise don't let me prevent
you." He went away satisfied, and never said com-
promise again.
The case was prepared for trial before United
States Circuit Judge Sawyer, sitting with United
States District Judge Deady; and they heard the
case.
After long consideration, Judges Sawyer and
Deady decided the case for Davenport; and the heirs
appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
After hearing the case, the Supreme Court decided
in favor of Davenport, upon the very grounds upon.
which Mr. Chapman, after the passage of the Dona-
tion law, drew the confirmatory contract. That
settled forever upon a solid foundation the title to
property in Portland proper derived through con-
veyances from Pettygrove, Lownsdale, Coffin or
Chapman, as is plainly shown by the following
extract from the opinion of the Supreme Court, as
delivered by Justice Miller: "But counsel, resting
solely on the latest written agreement between
Lownsdale, Coffin and Chapman, insist that it was
void because made after the Donation act was
passed. That agreement was only designed to give
effect to the previous contracts on the same subject,
and is in accord with the spirit of the proviso.'
This decision not only made valid the titles by deed,
but also the titles by dedication, such as the park
blocks, the market blocks, the church blocks, the
seminary blocks, the plaza blocks and the blocks
for a public landing upon the Willamette river, as
well as the streets represented by the surveys and
maps.
In the fall of 1853, becoming impressed with the
profit to be made in the cattle business, Colonel
Chapman acquired the Hudson's Bay Company's
improvements at Fort Umpqua, in what is now
Douglas county, and although retaining his interest
at Portland, and continuing in the practice of law,
removed to the fort with his family, himself return-
ing to Portland about once a month to see to his inter-
ests in that city. At his new residence, Mr. Chap-
man continued to improve and cultivate his farm and
herd his cattle.
On the 28th of April, 1855, Mrs. Chapman at
Fort Umpqua gave birth to a daughter, who was
named Clara. In the fall of 1855, while Mr. Chap-
man was attending court at the head of the cañon
on the road from Roseburg to Scottsburg, the news
was brought that there was a great Indian uprising,
particularly fierce and violent on Rogue river, with
depredations committed between Jacksonville and
Cow Creek. This was the beginning of the war
of 1855-56. Under the proclamation of the gov-
ernor, Colonel Chapman began at once to gather
a company, of which he was elected captain. No
sooner was this responsibility laid upon him than
he went to Portland, riding day and night, to pro-
cure arms for his men, and returning took from his
own farm, wagons, mules and horses for the equip-
ment of the company. Proceeding thus by forced
marches towards the seat of war at the Little
Meadows, stopping at Roseburg only long enough
to be mustered in in proper form as Company I of
Major Martin's Battalion, he proceeded expedi-
tiously to join the main command. At Grave
Creek he was compelled to leave the wagons and
pack his munitions and supplies on mules and
horses, having prepared for this emergency. On
the trail he overtook Captain Smith of the United
States army with his company, on the way to join
the forces at the Meadows. The captain was wait-
ing, however, to learn whether the major command-
ing was going to fight, or give up the campaign.
Mr. Chapman learned, upon further procedure,
that that night there was to be a council upon
this very point as to continuing the campaign for
the winter.
262
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Dur-
At the assembling of the officers, Colonel Chapman
felt, as a new member and but one day upon the
field, somewhat diffident about giving an opinion,
but was nevertheless forcibly impressed with the
belief that if the forces were withdrawn the Indians
would at once scatter out and fall upon the settle-
ments; while if they were followed and pursued and
thereby held together, they would be prevented from
perpetrating outrages. He therefore favored building
a fort and leaving a strong garrison; but, on account
of lack of military experience, he did no more than
make the suggestion. His foresight, however, was
but too terribly verified by the depredations com-
mitted soon after the troops were withdrawn.
ing the winter that followed, the movements of
troops were of little concern, and the army was re-
organized. Lamerick was chosen brigadier-general
by the legislature, and appointed commander of the
Second Regiment of Oregon Volunteers. At an elec-
tion, John Kelsey was chosen colonel, and Mr. Chap-
man lieutenant-colonel. James Bruce, than whom
there was never an abler or better officer, or one
more intelligent or more ready to carry out a com-
mand to the letter, was chosen major of the Second
or Southern Battalion, and Latshaw, an able and
energetic officer, of the First or Northern. At a
council of war held soon after the forces were
gathered together, to decide upon a plan of cam-
paign, Colonel Chapman, basing his opinion upon.
the experiences of the last year, advised to press the
Indians, and unite them as closely as possible, com-
pelling them to concentrate at some point, probably
at the Meadows. This place, the fastness of the
Indians, was a rocky cliff or bluff on the south side
of the Rogue river, opposite a wide strip of clear
meadow lands. To cross the meadows, and ford the
swift and dangerous river in the face of an enemy
concealed among the rocks and trees, was an im-
possibility.
Colonel Chapman therefore advised that a force,
the Southern Battalion, be sent down the south side
of the river by way of the Port Orford trail, to attack
the Indians from the rear of their stronghold, and
another force, the Northern Battalion, be sent to co-
operate on the north side, and if the Indians fled
across the stream to be there to meet them. By this
strategy the enemy must be crushed between the
two battalions. This suggestion was adopted; and,
at the request of General Lamerick, Chapman re-
luctantly consented to take command of the Southern
Battalion, with headquarters at Vannoy's Ferry. As
soon as he began concentrating his forces, which
were scattered at various places in Southern Oregon,
he was met with expressions of fear from the set-
tlers that they would now be left without defense,
and exposed to the attacks of the Indians. Colonel
Chapman, however, assured them that he would
stand between them and the Indians; and, having
made all preparations, he set out at the head of the
forces, numbering some three hundred or four hun-
dred men, all hardy, sturdy soldiers, good fighters,
and mostly miners. Moving to Hays,' on Slate
creek, where the Indians had left tracks by recent
depredations, scouts were sent out to find the enemy;
and it was soon ascertained, as was anticipated,
that the savages had concentrated in the presence of
the large force coming after them, and had retreated
to their great stronghold opposite the Big or Lower
Meadows. This was a point a little below their place
of defense of the previous year, which was called
the Upper or Little Meadows, and was a stronger
position, being better defended on the north.
Returning to Vannoy's, preparations for a simul-
taneous movement were made. The men were dis-
mounted, only animals sufficient for the commissary
being allowed; and the expedition on both banks
moved forward. There was a point on the Port
Orford trail known as Peavine Camp, high on the
ridge, not far from the meadows on the south side,
to which Chapman was to repair with his force, and
from this point watch the trail below on the north
side, at a place where it came down to Rogue river,
that he might ascertain the movement of Lamerick
and the Northern Battalion, whose force would be
visible there as he went by. Reaching Peavine,
Chapman waited some time in the snow, which still
hung on the high ridge, but failed to discover his
superior, and at length was told that his flag had
been seen on the Upper Meadows. Scouts were sent
ahead, who found the Indians in force under the
bluff opposite the Lower Meadows; and all prepara-
tions were made for an attack, the men being eager
for the work. But just at this juncture, however, a
message was received by Colonel Chapman from
General Lamerick, stating that he had learned that
it would be impossible for Colonel Chapman to reach
the Indians on the south side, and ordering Chap-
man and his battalion to cross the river to the north
side and join him. Chapman and his men were
annoyed at this intelligence and command, and for
a time thought seriously of disregarding the order;
but, upon consultation, it was decided not to make
the attack, but to rejoin General Lamerick, which
they did.
At the Meadows, considerable fighting was done.
across the river. Major Bruce was ordered by Gen-
eral Lamerick, with a small command, in the face
of the Indians, to cross the river; and, as has been
said, for some reason he failed to cross.
The reason
was certain and sufficient. It was the same reason
(the impassibility of the river) why the whole army
commanded by Major Judea of the United States
army, and Major Martin of the State Volunteers,
with the mountain howitzer to aid them, in the fall
preceding, were unable to cross the river in the face
of the Indians. This impassibility led Colonel
Chapman, in the spring of 1856, to plan a campaign
by which the Southern Battalion was to go down on
the south side of Rogue river, and the Northern
Battalion to go down on the north side, and which
he partially carried out; but it was broken by the
order of General Lamerick before mentioned to
join him on the north side. At length the Indians
chose to leave their camp. Then an advance across
the river was made, when General Lamerick found
that they had gone; and he occupied their deserted
camp one day and one night. General Lamerick
then made an order for the army to retire from the
further pursuit of the Indians, part to Illinois river,
part to Jacksonville, and part to other places.
On the same day, before these orders were put
into execution, Colonel Chapman, seeing that if


JOHN R. LADD,
LA GRANDE, OR.
UNIL
OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
263
At
these orders should be carried out the whole plan of
this campaign would be broken, the Indians left free.
to destroy the lives and property of the settlers, and
the volunteers left with the same unsatisfactory re-
sults as after the unfruitful campaign of the year
before, urged General Lamerick to build a fort near
by, and to man the same, to hold and keep the
Indians in check. At this suggestion the General
took offense, and swore around like mad, but said
he would refer the matter to a council of war.
this council Chapman was called upon to explain
his views, which were at once indorsed by every
member of the council; and it was decided to erect
a fort, which was immediately done; and it was
named Fort Lamerick. Major Latshaw was placed
in command there; and the remaining troops were
sent to various points (as before mentioned). Lam-
erick went to Jacksonville, and Chapman to Rose-
burg. Latshaw, a brave and vigilant officer, soon
reported to Colonel Chapman that he had found the
Indians on John Mule creek, and was only waiting
orders to attack them, and asked also for a supply of
provisions. Chapman at once issued the order for
an attack, and sent off the provisions. Major
Latshaw, in pursuance of Colonel Chapman's order,
promptly attacked and whipped the Indians; and by
this blow, and the timely aid he gave the regular
army then coming up Rogue river, the war was
ended. The Indians surrendered to the United
States troops, they having some natural distrust of
the settlers and soldiers amongst whom they had
been pillaging and murdering.
Resuming civil life, the Colonel removed in the
latter part of 1856 to Corvallis with his family.
In 1857, on the first day of July, at Corvallis, Mrs.
Chapman gave birth to another daughter, which
was named Margaret. The admission of Oregon
as a state was now taking definite form; and it was
supposed as a matter of course that the Colonel
would be a member of the constitutional convention
from the Corvallis district. There was, however,
at that time much division of opinion on the sub-
ject of slavery, and what provision in respect to
this institution should be inserted in the instrument
constituting Oregon a state. A meeting of the
Democratic party was held at Salem; and, while
returning with a number of his party friends to
Corvallis, the subject was broached; and Colonel
Chapman frankly said he would be opposed to
slavery, as it was a thing that could not be estab-
lished in such a community, and that a movement
to attempt this was uncalled for. He expressed no
hostility to the South, but believed that the attempt
of such a social change as this policy contemplated
would be only evil. From that moment he was
dropped; and Judge Kelsey, of pronounced pro-
slavery views, was selected for the place. Among
those who thus discarded the Colonel were a num-
ber who afterwards became prominent Republicans.
During this or the following year he visited
Eugene, and purchasing extensive farming prop-
erty removed hither with his family. While there
the election of territorial and state representatives
occurred; and he received the nomination to a seat
as territorial member. The number of candidates
being large, a very lively canvass was conducted,
for a part of the time at least the whole legislative
ticket stumping together. The Colonel bore a large
part of the burden of this work.
As the contest for senator drew near, a strong
movement was set on foot to elect Chapman. He
would have been a very strong candidate but for a
number of reasons, chief among which was his
opposition to slavery in Oregon; and his party could
not allow him the honor. He was also spoken of as
a worthy man for the position of United States dis-
trict judge. While the party managers were trying
to adjust these claims of his friends, and at the same
time not injure the party by offending other aspir-
ants for these positions, the Oregon legislature
being still in session, news was received from Wash-
ington that the Colonel was appointed surveyor-
general of Oregon; and he himself received at the
same time a letter from General Lane strongly
urging him to accept. Feeling for the General the
strongest friendship and personal attachment, he
consented to do so; and all the party claims were
speedily adjusted. In 1861, believing it unbecoming
to hold office under a President whose election he
had opposed, he tendered the resignation of his
office, and was superseded after some time by P. J.
Pengra.
While not believing in the coercion of states,
Colonel Chapman did a service second to none in
Oregon for the preservation of the peace and happi-
ness of the Pacific states. In the early days of the
war, there was a strong attempt on the part of the
South to agitate the idea of still further embarrass-
ing the government by the establishment of a Pacific
republic. Dr. Gwynn, of Virginia, sent letters to
prominent Democrats; and news of these came to
Colonel Chapman, to know what to do with reference
to this matter. Not only did he not favor the sug-
gestion, but advised to let it utterly alone, and so
far disapproved as to sit down at once and write as
strong an article as he knew how to compose, depre-
cating any such an attempt, urging the most
weighty reasons, such as that this movement meant
the uprooting of society in Oregon, and would bring
in changes that would be destructive of her fabric.
The article was published in a paper at Eugene,
and was copied into a number of other journals, and
being widely read produced a deep impression.
Coming from so prominent a Democrat as Colonel
Chapman, it had the effect to kill the rash enterprise.
in the bud.
During the fall of 1861, Colonel Chapman, with
his family and household effects, returned to his old
homestead in Portland, and in the early part of the
year 1862 erected the residence at Twelfth and
Jefferson streets in that city, which has ever since
been the family home. During the years of his
later residence in Portland, the Colonel has prac-
ticed law extensively, especially in land matters,
and spent a life of energy and a magnificent fortune
in his noble determination to secure for Oregon its
one great desideratum,-Eastern railroad connec-
tions.
The following explanation of Colonel Chapman,
with reference to a matter which he deems of no
great importance in itself, but which from its very
erroneous treatment in works hitherto published is
264
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
deserving of a place in authentic history, will not
only serve to detach from his life and public acts
all imputation of blame, but will also be of interest
in showing the true character of the people and of
the justices of the Supreme Court, which would
otherwise rest under suspicion. The Colonel writes,
September, 1889:
"In 1851, in the circuit court at Hillsboro,
Washington county, Judge Pratt took exception to
the language of an affidavit for change of venue
drawn by myself for my client, and ordered me
imprisoned, and that my name be stricken from the
roll of attorneys. The supreme court reversed and
annulled these orders; and so the matter rested until
of late years, when some writers for history have
seen proper to revive it. The first of these I think
was Lang's history. The manner of its mention
there I did not think worthy of notice. I had long
let bygones be bygones. But Bancroft's history so
foully misrepresents the facts as to place me in the
wrong, and represents the people as rescuing me
from the hands of the law; and justice requires that
a correct history of the matter be given to posterity.
In order to give correct and indisputable knowledge
of the cause of affront to Judge Pratt, I have
caused the clerks of the supreme court and of the
circuit court at Hillsboro to make diligent search
for the original affidavit and record entry, none of
which they have been able to find. I must, there-
fore, state the facts from my best recollection; and
they are as follows:
"Robert Thompson had a suit in the state circuit
court at Hillsboro before Judge Pratt. He wanted
a change of venue because, as he said, the Judge
was prejudiced against him. He told me that the
ground of the prejudice was that they had had a
quarrel over a game of cards, or at a gambling table,
in Galena, Illinois. Out of respect for the court, I
did not fully set forth in the affidavit and motion the
grounds of circumstances giving rise to the prejudice,
thinking that the Judge would not be tenacious
upon the subject. But he overruled the motion and
affidavit because they were not sufficiently specific.
I then, at the instance of my client, drew an affida-
vit and motion alleging more specifically the circum-
stances out of which the prejudice arose. Upon
this the Judge ordered me to show cause why I
should not be imprisoned, and my name stricken
from the rolls for contempt. Having heard Mr. Til-
ford in my behalf, the Judge reached to his hat and
took out the order against me, which he had
drawn up before he came into court or heard my
defence. The second affidavit-the one objected to-
was made thus specific only because the Judge had
ruled out the first because it was not specific. The
Judge having directed the order against me to be
entered, the court adjourned.
The statement in Bancroft's history that the peo-
ple aided me to escape is an unmitigated falsehood.
While the Judge was deciding against me, I observed
that the people were excited; and I so conducted
myself as to avoid, as much as possible, further
irritation. As we went to dinner I told the sheriff
I was going home, that my family would be
uneasy, but that I would be at his service in the
morning. After dinner my horse was brought out;
and the sheriff took him by the tip of the tail and
told me not to go. I, however, jumped upon my
horse; and the sheriff's tail-hold slipped, and con-
sequently I rode off. Two gentlemen only were
present, who were going to Portland, but they never
uttered a word. Next morning the sheriff came into
the city past my house; and I went down town with
him in order to go back. There some friends made
some demonstration unfavorable to my return; but
I put a stop to it and rode off with the sheriff.
When we reached his house, three or four miles from
Hillsboro, he left me to remain there and himself
went on to the town. In a day or two a writ of
error came, and I was at ease; and in due time the
supreme court reversed Judge Pratt.
But this is not all. The writer for Bancroft's
history goes back for nearly forty years in order to
seek material for false and slanderous articles about
Judge Strong and myself. He represents that Judge
Strong and myself connived and co-operated to exon-
erate the Judge from some blame in what is now
Washington, and that in turn the Judge aided me in
being released from the order of Judge Pratt. And
to this end the article in Bancroft goes on to say that
I wrote a letter exonerating Judge Strong, and inti-
mates that I forged my brother's name to it,—he
living then at Steilacoom. This whole statement is
false and unfounded, a lie made out of whole cloth.
I never knew of Judge Strong having any difficulty
of the kind. If any letter over my brother's signa-
ture upon that subject were published, it was neither
instigated, written nor seen by me; and I never spoke
to Judge Strong or to Judge Nelson on the subject
of my case. The statement in Bancroft to the effect
that politics was at the bottom of my trouble with
Judge Pratt, or influenced the action of the supreme
court, is false and unfounded. Such political con-
siderations may have had influence with low and
unprincipled newspapers; but if so I took no notice
of them.'
Pioneering the way in laying broad the founda-
tions of our state, and contributing by his wise fore-
sight to the material prosperity of Iowa and Oregon
in their organic laws, Colonel Chapman is also to be
credited, more than any other man or dozen men,
in proposing safeguards in matters of railway con-
struction in Oregon, which, looking back at it from
this distance, seems to have been an inspiration from
on high to save us from the clutches of unscrupu-
lous corporations, whose only law was greed, and
who, but for the wise advice of Colonel Chapman,
would have ridden roughshod over us, and made
our railroad system an appanage of foreign control.
In 1863 the first rumble of railroad agitation was
felt in Oregon. As the outcome of the progress
of the Pacific system then extending across the
plains, a bill was introduced in Congress with a
land-grant subsidy for a proposed road from a junc-
tion with the Central Pacific Railroad in California
northward to Portland or the Columbia river; and
so great was the desire for railroad connection that
the people of the state were favorable to the scheme
on any project likely to accomplish the object sought
for. A meeting was held in Eugene City on the
day the surveyors reached that point. Great enthu-
siasm prevailed; and a meeting was called for the
་
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
265
purpose of indorsing the scheme which was then
pending in Congress; and the approving voice of the
people was of course to be presented to Congress as
an aid to the passage of the bill. Colonel Chapman
happened to be present, and, learning the object of
the meeting, and seeing that under the terms of the
bill as introduced the builders would begin at or
near Sacramento and continue towards Portland as
fast or slow as they pleased, that as they built
towards Portland the trade would necessarily run to
California, even till they would be in sight of Port-
land, and that it would inevitably work greatly to
the disadvantage of Oregon and her commercial
metropolis, wherever that might be, he determined.
upon a remedy, and when the meeting was organized
submitted and procured the passage of the follow-
ing preamble and resolutions:
"WHEREAS, we learn that the surveying party on
the contemplated route for the Oregon & California
Railroad has arrived in the Willamette valley, and
that the chief engineer, Mr. Elliott, is now on a
tour in the lower counties for the purpose of learn-
ing facts respecting the route, and the means to be
obtained in aid of the survey and improvement;
therefore,
Resolved, that all grants of land and other said
by the government of the United States, and means
to be appropriated, should be expended in equal
proportions in Oregon and California, and commenc-
ing the work in Portland, Oregon, and progressing
southwardly, and at Sacramento, California, pro-
gressing northwardly, so that each state and section
may derive equal advantages therefrom, while the
road shall be in process of completion.
((
Resolved, that we do hereby recommend that
several organizations be effected in Oregon for the
purpose of receiving the aid of the government and
executing the work within the state."
The preamble and resolutions were unanimously
adopted. On Colonel Chapman's return to Port-
land, the subject was brought before the people of
that city; and two public meetings were held, at
which the proceedings of the Eugene meeting were
indorsed, memorials and petitions to the same effect
being forwarded to Congress. The result was that
the measure was modified as was requested. Sena-
tor Nesmith in his later days told him that he well
remembered the circumstances, and that upon the
receipt of the proceedings in Oregon he did just as
was suggested. On the 25th day of July, 1866,
the act of Congress passed.
Independent of the advantages that have accrued to
Portland, to Oregon and indeed to the whole Pacific
Northwest, through the modified provisions of the
bill as it became a law, causing the immediate and
early construction of the road from Portland south-
ward through the Willamette, Umpqua and Rogue
river valleys, infusing new life and increased energy
into our people, it inaugurated new and important
enterprises, developments and prosperity in Oregon,
surpassing the most sanguine expectations of our
people. So that instead of the last spike in the con-
struction of the entire road being driven at Portland,
it was driven and celebrated at Ashland, near the
southern boundary of our state. Thus, in the very
embryo stage of railroad construction in Oregon,
Colonel Chapman gave the guiding hand and struck
the keynote for provisions in the interest of his
adopted state which will redound to her benefit
through all the future. How he fought and what
he accomplished in another direction, whereby we
secured the splendid system of railroads extending
eastward from Portland, against the opposition of a
powerful railroad monopoly, will appear in succeed-
ing pages.
It
After all has been said relative to these moment-
ous matters, and when all the wheat is separated
from the chaff of personal vaunt as to each one's
share in the upbuilding of the superstructure of our
statehood and commercial relations, the name of Col-
onel Chapman will tower above them all conspicuous
for foresight and that undaunted perseverance,
quailing not before numbers and power,—until the
object of his wisdom was attained in our behalf.
illustrates a character which never says fail, and as
such is a glorious example to our rising youth,
teaching them the value and the rewards of perse-
verance. The fruitage of his persistent endeavors.
is that the railroads in Oregon were built as he
designed, with safeguards that make them wholly
under the control of Oregon; and so far as the Ore-
gon & California Road is concerned, the act of Con-
gress which gave them its franchise, in section seven,
provided so categorically for that equity in carriage.
for Oregon that the Southern Pacific Railroad, now
operating that system, and whose whole terminal
interests are centered in San Francisco, is precluded
from doing what interest and desire would prompt,—
diverting the grain carriage in the Oregon valleys
from Portland to San Francisco. An attempt to do
this was indeed made; but, on Colonel Chapman's
calling attention to the matter in the Daily Orego-
nian of October 22, 1881, in a powerful and convinc-
ing letter upon the subject, that corporation wisely
concluded to refrain from their purpose so long as
the vigilant eye of Colonel Chapman was upon
them.
While the Colonel thus kept his eye vigilantly
upon the process of railroad construction in our
state, and determined that corporate abuses should
so far as possible be forestalled by adequate legis-
lation, he was no less watchful of our commercial
interests with reference to the navigation of our
rivers, and the improvement of legislation for the
sake of securing connection by ship with foreign
ports. Being in the legislature in 1868, his atten-
tion was directed to the fact that our commerce with
European and Atlantic ports was suffering greatly
from lack of towage at the mouth of the Columbia
river. As member of a committee to examine the
causes and propose a remedy for this unhappy con-
dition, he found that, from the experience of Cap-
tain Corno some years previous, it was deemed
unremunerative to operate a steam tug upon the
bar. He therefore prepared a report setting forth
that fact, showing also that it was not lack of water
so much as lack of wind that had led to disasters at
that place, and calling attention to the fact that, so
long as the mouth of the Columbia was considered
dangerous by shippers, it would be avoided, or at
all events excessive rates would be charged, which
fell with double severity upon the people of Oregon,
266
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
not only compelling them to pay high tariffs on all
their imports, but particularly compelling the pro-
ducers to pay the added charges upon all exports.
He pointed out that the wheat of Oregon was then
taken in steamers to San Francisco; and that while
the price in Portland was but seventy cents per
bushel, in San Francisco it was a dollar and eight
cents per bushel.
He urged that this condition was working disas-
trously to the agricultural interests of the state, and
proposed as a remedy that a tugboat be secured for
the bar by means of a state subsidy. He reported a
bill providing for a powerful steam tugboat sufficient
for towing vessels across the bar in all weather, so
that it could be crossed by the best class of steamers
or sailing vessels, with proper approval and license.
of United States inspectors. To secure such a tug-
boat the bill provided a subsidy of thirty thousand
dollars, to be given in five successive years; it di-
rected that the license of all pilots, except those of
the master of the tugboat and of the pilots employed
upon her, should be revoked; and that the fees for
towing and piloting sail vessels should be reduced
to the rate of eight dollars per foot for the first
twelve feet of draft, and ten dollars for any excess,
the same as for piloting steam vessels. This was
a reduction of twenty-five per cent. To prevent ex-
orbitant rates of pilotage, and of towage on the
river from Astoria to Portland, the tugboat was
allowed, in case of absence of employment on the
bar, to tow to Portland, at rates to be fixed by the
pilot commission, keeping, however, a sufficient
pilot boat always near the bar in case of need.
The operation of this bill, which was passed
almost unanimously, was most beneficial. By Cap-
tain Flavel, of Astoria, the tugboat was furnished;
and it was but a few years before our large com-
merce sprung up between the Atlantic and European
ports and Portland. But important as was Colonel
Chapman's part in the foregoing events, his tilt
with the Northern Pacific Railroad Company sur-
passes them all in depth of design and in brilliancy
of execution. It shows the capacity of one sharp,
strong mind to rout a powerful combination of
financiers and legislators, and reflects a credit upon
the unofficial strategy and statesmanship of Oregon,
which ought to be known fully in all our borders.
It shows also that, of our round table of knights, the
Colonel is our Lancelot. But, strange to say, this
action, by which the prestige of Oregon was secured,
is almost unknown. It is known that the Northern
Pacific somehow once got a staggering blow, by
which her contemplated monopoly of the Pacific
Northwest was completely broken. But so quietly
was the blow given, and so little did our knight
care to blow his trumpet, that none knew where
the thrust came from. The following is a succinct.
account of the matter.
Colonel Chapman was, in the years alluded to,
one of the most earnest to get a railroad for Oregon
to the East, and knew fully the whole political and
financial situation with reference to it, as well as
having a complete grasp topographically of the re-
gion to be traversed. The following lines will
remind and inform many of the hard work Colonel
Chapman did in behalf of Portland and the whole
State of Oregon, and will give a concise history of
important legislation. The first charter was granted
to the Northern Pacific Railroad about the year
1864, together with a land grant, but without au-
thority to issue bonds or mortgages. As an argu-
ment with Congress, it was to be built on the
subscription to stock. When their bill was before
Congress, it was proposed that the people of Oregon
have a land grant for a railroad from Salt Lake to
Portland; but to negative this the Northern Pacific
agreed to and did add a branch to Portland. The
main line was to run near the northern boundary of
the United States, across the Cascade Mountains;
and a branch was to pass down the Columbia to
Portland. After several failures, in 1870, the com-
pany having conceived the idea of antagonizing
Portland and her trade, got a bill before Congress
for an extension; or, rather, it was a joint resolu-
tion. It was an unparalleled ambiguity and decep-
tion. It provided that the main line be transferred
to run via the Columbia valley to Puget Sound, and
the branch pass across the Cascade Mountains to
Puget Sound. In a joint resolution of the year pre-
vious, Congress granted an extension of the branch
and the right-of-way for it from Portland to Puget
Sound, but positively and expressly refused the
right to issue bonds or mortgages. Now, by this
joint resolution of 1870, the main line being author-
ized to run via the valley of the Columbia, it was
to be noted that this valley was on both sides of the
river, and the road could therefore be legally located
on either side. Instead, therefore, of its taking the
place of the branch on the south side to Portland,
as Congress and our Congressmen supposed it was
to be located, after surveying everywhere, and on
both sides of the river, it was located on the north
side of the river, ignoring Portland and the branch
line it was intended to embrace.
As soon as the joint resolution was published,
before any survey was made, Colonel Chapman in-
formed the citizens of Portland that "they were
sold;" that it was the intention to locate the road
north of the river, and leave Portland out, so that
Portland would lose not only the original branch
granted expressly to and for Portland, but also the
main line intended by Congress to take its place.
The people were incredulous. In 1871 Colonel
Chapman, being in attendance upon the Supreme
Court of the United States, procured from the com-
missioner of the general land-office a copy of the
map of the location of the road on the north side of
the river, attested by the commissioner's own sig-
nature.
This great wrong to the people of Portland and
Oregon is the foundation of Colonel Chapman's war
upon the Northern Pacific Company from that day
to the present. It was not only a fraudulent depriva-
tion of Portland and Oregon of both the branch and
main lines, but was a source of great wrong and
inconvenience to the public, and has given rise to
unending controversy.
But the wrong to Portland and Oregon was not
the only one committed by authority of that ambig-
uous resolution. The United States was cheated
out of millions of acres of public lands in this wise:
First, the transfer of the main line by way of the

UN
LABREE*
H
RESIDENCE OF ULMER STINSON,
SNOHOMISH, W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
267
Columbia to Puget Sound increased its length one
hundred and forty miles on a line where Congress
said, in the joint resolution of 1869, there should be
no land grant, bonds or mortgages. The increased
length of one hundred and forty miles, with a width
of forty miles, equaled five thousand, six hundred
sections, or three million, five hundred and eighty-
four thousand acres. At four dollars an acre, this
would reach the value of fourteen million, three
hundred and thirty-six thousand dollars. And the
company have used this land. But this is not all.
The line from Portland to Wallula, two hundred
and fourteen miles, upon this transfer from state to
territory, was increased by twenty sections per mile,
or four thousand, two hundred and eighty sections,-
two million, seven hundred and thirty-nine thousand,
two hundred acres,—at four dollars an acre worth
ten million, nine hundred and fifty-six thousand,
eight hundred dollars, making a total increase sub-
sidy in land of a value of twenty-five million, two
hundred and ninety-two thousand, eight hundred
dollars. Furthermore, the whole land grant of two
hundred and fourteen miles between Portland and
Wallula has for many years been withheld from
settlement.
To return to the subject of the road on the south
side of the Columbia between Portland and Wallula:
After the land grant for this road was taken away
from Portland by the fraudulent joint resolution of
1870, the public being in great need of the road
from Portland up the Columbia river, some of the
citizens of Portland, including Colonel Chapman,
inagurated measures for the construction of a road
from Portland to Salt Lake. Considerable of the
line was surveyed; and at times the prospects were
very favorable. On one occasion, when their bill
in the House was progressing under favorable cir-
cumstances, the Credit Mobiler broke out, and
crushed all railroad bills. There were several con-
tests with the Northern Pacific Company after they
had taken from Portland the branch grant under
pretense of giving them the main line, and then
taking the main line also.
The most noted and telling of these contests was
one late in the seventies, when Colonel Chapman,
in one of his unceasing efforts for the promotion of
the interests of Oregon and Portland, prepared and
had introduced in the United States Senate a bill in
aid of the Portland, Dalles & Salt Lake Railroad.
At that date, such had become the opposition to
further land grants to railroads, that an original
grant was impossible. This bill, therefore, provided
for the construction of the Portland and Salt Lake
roads upon the Columbia as a common road for the
Northern Pacific and Salt Lake line, to be built as
a common road with the land grant then tied up
idle on the north side of the river. It further
provided that the Northern Pacific should build this
common road; but if they failed to commence the
road at Portland within ninety days, and to prose-
cute the work diligently, that the Salt Lake com-
pany, or any other company building that line,
might build it, but, that it should, nevertheless, be
a common road for both. There were provisions
for the construction of the Salt Lake road after
leaving the Columbia river. The bill was referred
Colonel
to the railroad committee of the Senate.
Chapman, having drawn the bill, appeared alone in
its behalf, while the great attorneys and others
appeared for the Northern Pacific in opposition to
the bill. On behalf of the Northern Pacific, the
point was made that their road was only constructed
to Bismarck, and that they could not construct a
road on the Columbia river until they should reach
Ainsworth, or Snake river. Still they could assign
no reason why another company should not build
the road on the Columbia, if when built it was to
be a common road for both the Northern Pacific
and Salt Lake lines. The propositions of the bill
were so fair that the committee reported it to the
Senate and recommended its passage.
Shortly after an article appeared in a morning
paper of Washington City, that all differences be-
tween the Oregon people and the Northern Pacific
were settled, and that the bill was to be re-committed
to the Senate Committee, and be amended to suit
the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. This was
wholly new to Colonel Chapman, who was thus
referred to as the "Oregon People; " and he sought
to appear before the committee in opposition to the
new arrangement, but was refused. The bill in the
interest of the Northern Pacific was reported back
to the Senate; and Chapman sent to the Senate a
written protest against the bill as amended. This pro-
test was sent to the printer without being read; and
the bill was taken up and passed in its absence.
This was one of the most extraordinary and un-
justifiable transactions, taken all in all, known
among men having claim to honesty and fair deal-
ing. It sold Oregon and Portland a second time.
But the fraud was not complete until the bill should
pass the House of Representatives, to which it was
then sent and placed on the Speaker's table.
Far-
It would be supposed that under the circumstances
Colonel Chapman would have submitted to the re-
sult and abandoned the contest. But not so.
seeing, full of energy and foresight, and feeling
that the best interests of Portland and Oregon were
at stake, he never lost sight of the enemy. He
never was out of the House of Representatives one
minute while that bill was pending.
The Speaker took up the bill to refer it to a com-
mittee, knowing that Chapman could meet it in
open House.
A certain man objected; and it went
back on the table. Chapman concluded that it was
the intention of this man, when it would be his
turn and in order, to move to suspend the rules,
and pass the bill without debate. He ascertained
from the Speaker's list of members to be recognized
to move to suspend the rules where this man stood,
and when he would be reached, and then wrote a
scathing review of the bill, and had a sufficient
number for all the members printed and sealed up,
and purchased a sufficient number of envelopes, not
failing to be in his seat every moment the House
was in session. In the evening, previous to the
day, when by Chapman's calculation this man of
the Northern Pacific would move to pass the bill
under a suspension of the rules, Chapman invited
the vice-president of the Northern Pacific to his
room in the hotel where both lodged to effect com-
promises; but the vice-president was so confident of
268
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
success that he would consent to nothing. After he
left, Chapman put the printed articles into the
envelopes already for the next day. Next morning,
with his documents on hand, he visited the House;
and just as the House was about to meet, when too
late for consultation, he placed prominently in view
upon each member's desk a sealed envelope con-
taining one of these printed reviews, on the theory
that the member would want to see what was inside
first. The letter was scarcely read, the House was
in business order, and, as calculated, the Northern
Pacific man was on his feet talking loudly in a firm
voice, "Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules
and pass the Northern Pacific Railroad Bill."
It required a two-thirds vote to suspend the rules
and pass the bill. The vote was taken; and, instead
of a two-thirds vote for it, there were two-thirds
against it, and the bill was lost. Chapman, soli-
tary and alone against the officers, attorneys and
lobbyists, came out victorious, and Portland still
held the fort. After the battle a courteous recogni-
tion took place between Colonel Chapman and Cap-
tain Wright, President of the Northern Pacific
Railroad. After the vote was announced, Colonel
Chapman went out at the front door of the hall
and started away, but, advancing a few steps, for
some reason turned back, when Captain Wright
came out of the hall door facing him, and, advanc-
ing with an outstretched arm, said, "O, Colonel,
how could you have hit us such a slap over the
face!" To which the Colonel replied, "Captain, all
Captain, all
is fair in war."
The result of this victory was that the Northern
Pacific was deprived of obtaining and holding the
right-of-way and control on the south or Portland
side of the Columbia until their road, then com-
pleted to Bismarck, should reach Snake river; when,
without building on the south side, they would, by
the branch which they transferred from Portland,
build across the Cascade Mountains to Tacoma,
still holding the right-of-way and the land grant
unbuilt upon, exactly as they have done with the
main line on the north side of the river.
It was
foreseeing and anticipating such intention and action
by the Northern Pacific Company that induced Col-
onel Chapman to insert, in his Senate bill that was
recommitted, the provision that the Northern Pacific
Company might build the common road on the south
side of the Columbia if they "would begin within
ninety days, and prosecute the work diligently;
otherwise, the Salt Lake Company might build it."
Another important result of this signal victory was
that the way was left open and straightway seized
upon; and the road was built by the Oregon Rail-
way & Navigation Company.
During his long career of public life and private
enterprise, Colonel Chapman enjoyed the comfort,
pleasure, encouragement and assistance of a wife
who was "a very help indeed." Her life was one
of the utmost fidelity to every feeling, sentiment
and duty which make the word mother a loved and
sacred title. Through all the trials and privations
of frontier life, and of pioneering in a new world,
she was a faithful companion, a hospitable neigh-
bor and a loving wife and mother. In 1861 her
eldest daughter, Eveline, died in St. Louis, Mis-
souri, leaving two small children; and these chil-
dren were soon brought to Oregon by Mrs. Chapman,
who made the transcontinental journey especially
to bring them, and then made them a part of her
household and treated them like her own children.
Mrs. Chapman lived for upwards of twenty-seven
years at her home in Portland, where she died,
after a protracted sickness, resulting from a severe
cold, in the seventy-fourth yearth of her age.
two following excerpts from the Portland Daily Ore-
gonian, respectively of the 22d and 24th of June,
1889, which referred to the deceased as "an estima-
ble woman ending a long life of love and useful-
ness, gives but a moderate idea of the noble
character of one who died in the fullness of years
and of all duties performed faithfully and well:
The
"At her home in this city, at 8:23 o'clock last
night, occurred the death of Mrs. Margaret Fee
Chapman, wife of Colonel W. W. Chapman.
Although she had been ill for eight weeks, her
sufferings were light; and her last days were quiet
and peaceful. In her last hours she was attended
by her husband, her daughter Mrs. Brainard, and
her sons Thomas, Arthur I. and Winfield S. Her
other living sons, W. W. and H. D., were absent,
and not expecting her death.
"Mrs. Chapman was a pioneer in three new coun-
tries, which are now the states of Illinois, Iowa and
Oregon. She was the daughter of Colonel Arthur
and Sarah Inghram, and was born in Tyler county,
Virginia, January 8, 1816. She was married to
Colonel W. W. Chapman when both were very
young, on the 1st day of March, 1832; and their
first child, Eveline, was born two years later in
Illinois. In 1835 they moved to Iowa, where their
children Thomas, Arthur, James, William, Mary
and Huston were born, and where they lived till
the spring of 1847, when they started across the
plains for Oregon, reaching their destination, after
many hardships, late the same year. January 1,
1850, they moved to Portland, and became the
owners of part of the townsite, and as much as
any other two persons helped to build the city,
which is now so prosperous.
'For the last twenty-seven years the family res-
idence has been at Twelfth and Jefferson streets,
where the estimable lady breathed away her latest
spark of life so peacefully last night. In Oregon
four children were born to them,-Winfield, Harra,
Clara and Margaret,-the two girls having died in
1862, when they were seven and five years of age.
Mrs. Chapman was a most estimable woman,
and a mother who loved her children better than her
life. Always they were her joy, her care and her
sorrow. Her sacrifices for them were pleasures for
her. If they were contented, she was happy; if
they were disappointed, she sorrowed; and if they
sickened, she suffered; but, in sorrow or sickness,
her thoughts and care were always for them.
((
For many years her children have been kind
and devoted to her; and for many summers and
winters she and the Colonel have enjoyed the hap-
piness of united lives unmarred by sorrows or care,
surrounded by plenty, and blessed with the lasting
consciousness of every duty faithfully done, and the
love of a family of grown children, and of grand-
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
269
children and great-grandchildren. Surely, if per-
fect lives here have their reward in the hereafter,
hers will be a glorious crown."
The other article appeared on Monday morning:
"The funeral of Mrs. M. F. Chapman, wife of Col-
onel W. W. Chapman, so well and favorably known
throughout the state, took place from her late res-
idence yesterday afternoon, and was attended by a
large concourse of well-known citizens, many of
whom followed the remains to their last resting-
place in Lone Fir cemetery. The Reverend John
W. Sellwood, of East Portland, conducted the ser-
vices, and preached a touching sermon. The pall-
bearers were Mayor Van B. De Lashmutt, Judge E.
D. Shattuck, Honorable B. Killen, Mr. Lloyd
Brooke, ex-United States Marshal E. S. Kearney
and Honorable Joseph Gaston; and the singing was
conducted by a quartette from the choir of the Tay-
lor Street Methodist-Episcopal Church. A profusion
of most tasteful floral offerings, and tears in the eyes
of old and young, indicated the high esteem in which
the deceased was held by her many acquaintances.
Of the eleven children of Colonel and Mrs. Chap-
man, six-Thomas, Arthur Inghram, William W.,
Mary C. (Mrs. Brainard), Winfield S. and Harra
Davis-are living. Eveline, Clara and Margaret
died as stated above. Huston was assassinated in
New Mexico in 1874, because as an attorney he
dared to defend the rights of a woman who had
been dispossessed of her property, which has since
been restored to her by a decision of the Supreme
Court of the United States; and James died in Port-
land on January 13, 1889.
Colonel Chapman still resides at his old home-
stead, which is a part of the original "Portland
Townsite," and of the portion of his and Mrs.
Chapman's Donation land claim which was set off
to her by the United States government. His mental
vigor has never deserted him; and although an
attack of paralysis, resulting from over-exertion in
preparing for and conducting an important land
case in November, 1888, rendered his right limbs
almost useless, he otherwise enjoys good health,
and is gradually recovering the use of his limbs,
notwithstanding he is now in the eighty-second
year of his age.
While Colonel Chapman has never devoted his
time to the accumulation of wealth, and has, as
above-mentioned, applied the most of his fortune to
the furtherance of public interests, he has neverthe-
less ever supplied his family with the means of a
genteel livelihood, and has himself practiced the
habits of the cultivated Southern and Western gen-
tleman. Now in his old age, having but little more
than the means of comfortable independence, he,
however, deems it a greater satisfaction to have
preserved in view only the rights and public benefits
of the momentous issues with which he has been
for nearly half a century so intimately connected,
rather than to have sold his principles and trusts for
the great monetary advantages which were repeat-
edly offered him. Every young man in our state
should hear him say that he would rather have the
simple consciousness of the performance of his pub-
lic duties than hundreds of thousands of dollars at
the bank.
The following, taken from the Iowa Historical
Record, is so just and deserved a tribute to his
work, both in Iowa and Oregon, that we will insert
it here:
Few men of those early days have done more,
or exerted a wider or deeper influence upon the
times and people of the states of Iowa and Oregon,
than has the Honorable W. W. Chapman, Iowa's
first delegate to Congress, and one of Oregon's ear-
liest pioneers."
And lo! the fullness of the time has come;
And over all the Western home
From sea to sea the flower of Freedom blooms."
A broad contrast between the present and the past;
between the lands he helped to open to settlement
and his old Virgina home.
The early settlers are fast passing away; and
while we, one of them, delight to recall their mem-
ories and to dwell upon their virtues, we also seek
to place upon the historic record some few facts,
that,
"When over the roofs of the pioneers
Has gathered the moss of a hundred years,”
the future historians of Iowa may have some data
whereby to write our annals. Many of
"The fathers to their graves have gone.
Their strife is past, their triumph won."
And while a few, very few, much of their early his-
tory is a "sealed book" to most of even our public
men of these later days. To unseal a few of the
pages of that book has been our aim and object in
this sketch of one whose services are deserving of a
better recognition.
"Such was our friend, formed on the good old plan,
A true and brave and downright honest man.
He blew no trumpet in the market place;
Nor in the church, with hypocritic face,
Supplied with cant the look of Christian grace.
Loathing pretense, he did with cheerful will
*What others talked of while their hands were still.
And while Lord! Lord!' the pious tyrants cried,
Who, in the poor, their Master crucified,
His daily prayer, far better understood
In acts than words, was simply-doing good."
HENRY MARTYN CHASE. This gentle-
man was born March 28, 1831, in Philadelphia, from
whence he moved to Newburyport, Massachusetts, in
1844. He is a descendant of Aquila Chase, one of
the early settlers of Newburyport, Massachusetts,
and also directly descended from the famous Hannah
Dustin, who killed her Indian captors in the Indian
war of 1689. Mr. Chase sailed from Boston for
California January 11, 1849, in the brig Forest, and
arrived in San Francisco July 6th of the same year.
He earned his first money there by painting a ship.
In August, 1849, he sailed for Oregon in the ship
Aurora. Arriving at Astoria in the beginning of
September, he proceeded to Oregon City and entered
the store of Captain Kilbourn as a clerk. The
freshet of that year carrying away the store, he went
to Portland, then a small village, and, hiring a
bateau and crew of Indians, engaged in the trans-
portation of freight and passengers from that point
to Oregon City, a distance of thirteen miles. The
rates of freight were at that time twenty-five dollars
per ton, and for each passenger five dollars. Com-
pelled by sickness to give up this profitable business,
270
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
}}
he engaged in a mercantile venture at Oregon City
and Champoeg, at the latter place acting as agent
for the Hudson's Bay Company. This proving un-
profitable, he associated himself with a party of
traders and went "east of the Mountains in 1851
to engage in traffic with emigrants and Indians.
Being impressed with the pleasant climate, fertile
soil and fine grasses of the interior (now known as
Eastern Washington) he located in 1855 on the
Touchet river, where the town of Dayton now stands;
and there he engaged in stock-raising and farming.
He laid out his plans on an ample scale, and set to
work with great energy, erecting a large and com-
modious dwelling and outbuildings, and making in-
closures for stock, hauling timber from the mount-
ains and breaking the sod.
He
In the fall of 1855 the Indian war broke out; and
all the settlers in the lower part of the valley left
the country. Being reluctant to leave, Mr. Chase
barricaded his premises and prepared to remain, but
was warned by a friendly Indian that his place would
be attacked by a large force then on the road.
hastily collected part of his stock and retreated to-
wards Lapwai, now in Idaho. The next day the
war party totally destroyed the buildings and other
property which had cost him the labor of several
years to accumulate. After reaching the agency at
Lapwai, he recruited a company of volunteers from
among the miners who had come to the agency for
protection, enlisting also a number of friendly Nez
Perce Indians. Mr. Chase was commissioned as
captain of Company M, Washington Territory Volun-
teers, and was kept on detached service for the pro-
tection of the agency at Lapwai, and did much use-
ful service in scouting and harassing the enemy and
capturing cattle and horses. He and his company
subsisted upon the captured cattle, with an occa-
sional diet of horse flesh and roots.
Leaving the service, he crossed the Bitter Root
Mountains, and located at Fort Owen (now in Mon-
tana) in the fall of 1856. In the spring of 1858, he
started to return to the Walla Walla country, and
reached the valley a few days after the Steptoe defeat
by the Cœur d'Alene Indians. He was there forced
to seek the protection of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany, where he remained with his party until the
latter part of July in constant danger of attack from
the hostile tribes. They were, however, restrained
by the influence of Mr. Angus McDonald, at that
time in charge of Fort Colville, the Hudson's Bay
post. In the fall Mr. Chase managed with his party
to get safely back to Fort Owen after a very hazard-
ous journey, subsisting part of the time on berries
and fish. He remained at Fort Owen until the
spring of 1861, in the service of the Indian depart-
ment, under Major John Owen, and during this time
superintended the rebuilding of the fort.
In April, 1861, he, with a considerable party, left
for Walla Walla via Salt Lake City, and at the latter
place was specially commissioned by the superintend-
ent of Indian affairs, Davies, to ascertain the fate
of several children taken from the emigrants by the
Snake Indians in the previous season. With this in
view, Mr. Chase started on his journey, which at
that time was quite perilous, and while on the way
captured several Indians, from whom the informa-
tion was obtained which led to the restoration of
the captured children.
He reached Walla Walla in the summer of 1861,
finding the country, that he left in 1855 with a popu-
lation of thirty souls, now numbering several thou-
sand. He again engaged in stock-raising and
farming, and in 1862 was elected to the legislature,
serving in the session of 1862-63. In the year 1868,
he was elected probate judge for Walla Walla
county, and in 1869 was elected county auditor, and
re-elected in 1871. He afterwards served two terms
in the city council, also one term as clerk of the
council, and one term as city treasurer. In 1869 he
took part in organizing the Walla Walla & Columbia
River Railroad Company, which company, between
that year and 1875, built the narrow-guage road be-
tween the Columbia river and the city, thirty miles
in length. He has been connected with this line
nearly continuously since its organization in various
capacities, part of the time as a trustee and as secre-
tary and treasurer. He has also been connected
with the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company
since its absorption of the Oregon Steam Navigation
Company.
In the year 1876 he was appointed one of the
alternate commissioners to the centennial exposition ·
at Philadelphia, and attended the exposition during
the whole season in the interests of the territory.
From 1880 to 1885 he was in active service with the
Oregon Railway & Navigation Company, and since
that time has given most of his attention to his pri-
vate affairs, and the general promotion of the best
interests of the country of his adoption.
CYRUS F. CLAPP.- This leader in the busi-
ness circles of the Lower Sound was born in Pis-
cataquis county, Maine, July 29, 1851, and was the
son of Stephen and Alvina Hunt Clapp. He
lived in Maine until 1865, receiving the foundation
of an education at the public school and continuing
his studies at Hanover Academy of Massachusetts.
Still ambitious for further acquirements, he crossed
the Atlantic and spent two years at the Royal Insti-
tute of Belfast, Ireland, and completed his course at
Saint Andrews College in Scotland. Returning to
his home in America, he soon found a business
situation in Boston, Massachusetts, in the house of
Jordan, March & Company, of extensive fame.
By 1870 he had reached the conclusion that the
best place for young men of ability and ambition
was in the great West, and in the spring of 1870
came to California, remaining during the summer,
and finishing the journey to Port Townsend in the
autumn. Although having no capital in money
other than a five-dollar gold piece, he easily made
financial headway, first accepting a position as clerk
in the Cosmopolitan Hotel, and later as clerk in the
lace house of D. Samuels, in San Francisco, and
again as hotel clerk. He accumulated means
sufficient to purchase of J. J. Hunt the Cosmopolitan,
and in 1876 assumed the proprietorship of the hotel.
In this semi-public capacity he made himself of
great service to the city, maintaining a management
ever sagacious and popular, and preserving a re-
fined sanitary and dietary régime.
Disposing of this property in 1879, he entered
*

S. P. MARSH,
VANCOUVER, W. T.
MRS. M. E. MARSH,
VANCOUVER, W. T.
UNIV
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
271
into merchandising in New Dungeness; and in this
business, in which he dealt more exclusively in
financial affairs, he met with astonishing success.
Concentrating his attention once again, and narrow-
ing his operations, he assumed in 1887 a special
guardianship of the liquid stream of gold and
treasure whose circulation in business channels is
the condition of business life. He established in
that year a private bank with J. H. Feuerbach,
whose interest he purchased in 1889, and made of
the institution a state bank known as the Merchants'
Bank of Port Townsend, himself being president.
In this position he has maintained the highest in-
tegrity, and gained the confidence of the whole
state.
He is a man much esteemed in social and religious
circles, and six years as postmaster at New Dun-
geness served the public acceptably. He also
served Clallam county as treasurer for the term be-
ginning with 1880. He was married in Port Town-
send January 21, 1875, to Miss Wilhelmina M. T.
Lacy. Their attractive home is blessed by the
presence of five children.
JOHN S. CLARK.- Much interest attaches
to this gentleman as the son of one of the earliest
pioneers, and as being himself a native of Oregon.
The father, Daniel Clark, was well known in the
early days as an immigrant of 1844, who married
Miss Bertha Herren, whose acquaintance he had
formed upon the plains, and who lived near Hills-
boro. After his return from the California gold
mines, he located in 1851 the Clark Donation claim
near Salem, upon which both he and his wife died.
The son John S., whose name forms the caption of
this article, was born near Hillsboro, in Washington
county, Oregon, February 4, 1848. His early life
was spent near Salem, where he attended the public
school and enjoyed two years of study at the insti-
tute. In 1869 he became a pioneer of the Inland
Empire, coming to the Grande Ronde and pre-
empting a claim at The Cove, where he made his
home for thirteen years. In 1870 he was married
to Miss Anna, a daughter of Honorable Willard H.
Rees, the venerable pioneer of Butteville. In 1872
he devoted his attention exclusively to blacksmithing.
In 1879 he opened a prosperous business, and
greatly facilitated the harvesting in his section by
purchasing a steam threshing machine, with which
he operated successfully until the occurrence of an
accident, whereby his arm was caught in the belting
and torn from the shoulder. This necessitated a
change of business; and at the present time he is
engaged in the sale of machinery and farm imple-
ments in the employ of Frank Brothers of Portland,
and has entire charge of their business in Grande
Ronde, with headquarters at La Grande.
Mr. and Mrs. Clark have a pleasant home; and
their union has been blessed by three children.
T. J. V. CLARK.-Mr. Clark, a portrait of
whom will be found within these pages, is a man
substantial and popular, greatly given to build-
ing up the city of his residence, and always invent-
ing ways and means of increasing the quantity and
variety of products in the surrounding country.
Yakima county owes much to him for the introduc-
tion of the new grains and new machinery; and not
only has he brought there improved products and
methods to the notice of the farmers, but has paid
them for their crops, thus giving them substantial
encouragement. He is the true merchant, whose
place in society is to find a use and exchange for
everything that is produced or made.
His life has been spent in the West, although he
was born in Maryland, August 27, 1847, and served
in the Union army, enlisting in May, 1862, in the
Twenty-third Battery, Indiana Artillery, U. S. Vol-
unteers, while but a boy of fourteen. He was dis-
charged on account of wounds on November 26,
1863, at Indianapolis, Indiana. He also attended
Rock Hill College, Maryland, after the war, with
the intention of studying law, but went west to
Kansas and Colorado, serving as scout and guide in
the regular army during the Indian wars of 1865
and 1870.
During the latter year he married Miss Maggie
Mann, one of the pioneer girls of that country, and
went into the cattle business; but, suffering much
from losses by Indians, he went to the Indian coun-
try itself—Indian Territory-to avoid trouble. Re-
turning, however, to Kansas, he made a home at
Wichita, then but a rude village, and established
a hunting camp on the Medicine Lodge Bow river
to supply the settlements with buffalo beef. Further
trouble with the Indians drove him to Fort Dodge,
Kansas, where he went to ranching, and also trapped
on the Sappa and tributaries of the Republican river.
In 1874 he set out for Idaho, stopping a winter at
Boise, after which he began ranching on the Skagit
river, Washington Territory, meeting with ill suc-
cess for four years.
cess for four years. Seeking more remunerative
employment, he found work on the Cascade Locks,
and soon was tendered a position as bridge con-
structor on the Walla Walla division of the Oregon
Railway & Navigation Company. He then became
connected with the Northern Pacific Railroad as
contractor, continuing in that capacity for over
two years. In both of these positions he was able
to lay by a handsome surplus, giving him the foun-
dation of a fortune which makes his taxes the larg-
est on the roll of Yakima county. He was one of
the first to locate at North Yakima, and has done
all that his prominent position in the community
would lay upon him for the upbuilding of the city.
He does a general forwarding and commission
business, carrying also, in his implement depart-
ment, the largest stock in the place. His acquaint-
ance during a twelve years' residence in the territory
has popularized him to such an extent that he has
been elected successively to the office of councilman
and mayor of North Yakima, and joint representa-
tive in the territorial legislature for Kittitass and
Yakima counties for 1887 and 1888.
In politics, Mr. Clark is a Republican. He is very
sanguine of the future prosperity of Yakima county,
taking great pleasure in welcoming strangers and
showing them its locations and resources. With
kindly interest in the newcomers and in the pros-
perity of the older settlers, he seems far beyond the
simple requirements of business, even of his own
enlightened pattern. He has a family of seven
19
272
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
children, two sons and five daughters. He is a
member of Geo. G. Meade Post, Grand Army of
the Republic, of North Yakima.
FRED D. CLEAVES.-Although among the
young men, Mr. Cleaves has for a number of years
held responsible public positions. He was born in
Stockbridge, Wisconsin, in 1852, residing in that
village and at Fond du Lac until ten years of age,
and coming in 1864 to this coast with his father's
family. Here is one of the few cases in which we
find one of the early settlers returning to the East.
After a year's residence at Whidby Island, and
two years at Albany, Oregon, the elder Cleaves
recrossed the plains to his old home in Wisconsin.
The change gave young Fred a better opportunity
for education; but upon reaching man's estate he
still remembered the Pacific coast, and gradually
drifted hither. Two years he stopped in Colorado.
Finally coming up to Puget Sound, he began pro-
fessional work as teacher of penmanship at White
River, and in 1880 made his home at La Conner,
teaching there a few years. He found more agreea-
ble employment, however, as clerk in the store of
B. L. Martin, and afterwards for L. L. Andrews.
While in the latter position, he was elected on the
Democratic ticket as county treasurer of Skagit
county one year, and re-elected in 1884. He was
also appointed clerk of the district court by Judge
Greene, and was continued in this position by
Judges Jones, Boyle, Burke and Hanford. He has
also operated a real estate office, handling much prop-
erty. He has the reputation of being an upright
man in both public and private life, and enjoys the
confidence of the community.
HON. HARRISON CLOTHIER.-The subject
of this short sketch was born in Corinth, Saratoga
county, New York, on the 9th of July, 1840, and is
the son of Ebenezer K. and Lucy Clothier. He
remained in the place of his birth until 1868, with
the exception of three years spent in New Jersey
and in Troy, New York. Then he put into execu-
tion the advice of Horace Greeley, and emigrated
to Wisconsin. After a short time there he jour-
neyed on to Minnesota, where he devoted his time
to farming in the summer and teaching in the win-
ter. In 1872 he began merchandising in Farm Hill,
Minnesota, under the firm name of Clothier & Divine.
There he continued for two and a half years.
In May, 1875, he started for Oregon, stopping for
a short time in San Francisco on the way, and going
first to the Sound, where he worked at harvesting
during the summer at La Conner. Then pursuing
his original design, he came on to the Webfoot state,
and established himself first as "the village master
of a little school" on Howell Prairie. In Novem-
ber, 1876, Mr. Clothier went to Mt. Vernon, and
there united with Edward G. English in a mer-
chandising business, having a capital of less than
fifteen hundred dollars, and founded the town of
Mt. Vernon in March, 1877. The firm has continued
in business to the present time, and is now one of
the largest in all the land of the Skagit. Besides his
mercantile interests, Mr. Clothier with his partner
owns a large tract of timber land in Skagit county.
In politics Mr. Clothier is a Democrat, and in
1880 was elected auditor of Whatcom county, which
at that time included all of Skagit. His personal
popularity is evinced by the fact that at that elec-
tion he secured all but sixteen of the one hundred
and fifty-two votes of his precinct. On the estab-
lishment of Skagit county, he was chosen one of
the first county commissioners, receiving one hun-
dred and seventy-six out of one hundred and eighty-
six votes cast in his precinct. In 1886 he was chosen
probate judge of the county, a position which he
still holds.
D. SOLIS COHEN.- Prominent among the
younger of the business men who have materially
advanced the mercantile interests of Oregon is he
whose name appears above, who was born in Phila-
delphia, where he resided consecutively until leav-
ing for Oregon about twelve years ago, and where
his family still remain as among the oldest resi-
dents, having resided in that city from early times.
Previous to leaving his native city, Mr. Cohen had
given up mercantile business for the pen, and was
connected with various local papers, writing under
a nom de plume which is still popularly remembered
in the Quaker City. Being taken with the Western
fever, however, he came to Portland, where, after
being engaged a time as book-keeper with a general
merchandise firm, he established with the Davis
Bros. of San Francisco the firm of Cohen, Davis &
Co., which from a comparatively small beginning
now virtually controls its line of business in the
Northwest. The firm imports largely from Europe
direct to Portland, and has business connections
throughout the entire surrounding country into Idaho
and Montana.
Mr. Cohen has always taken an active interest in
public affairs, especially those of a philanthropic
character. He is one the managers of the Boys'
and Girls' Aid Society, also of the Free Kindergar-
ten Association. He is serving a second term on the
State Board of Immigration, and has since their
organization been vice-president of the Franklin
Building Association, and president of the Installment
Homestead Association,-institutions which have
been important factors in the development of the
city. Mr. Cohen is popular in Masonic and A. O.
U. W. circles, and being a ready and eloquent
speaker is frequently called upon for addresses of a
public and social character.
J. P. COMEFORD. The original owner and
builder of the pretty village of Marysville is a na-
tive of Ireland, and was born in 1833. While he
was a child, his parents emigrated to Canada, and
in 1849 came to the United States, going directly to
Wisconsin. They resided first at Milwaukee, and
then at Fond du Lac, and seven years later removed
still farther west to Minnesota.
Here he grew up
on a farm, driving cattle and learning all the ins
and outs of agriculture. In 1861, when the war
broke out, he went to St. Louis and joined an inde-
pendent company of sappers and miners, who were
offering their services to the government. For two
years he saw hard service at the front, but upon the
outbreak of the Sioux war was detailed by General
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
273
Grant at Memphis, Tenn., at his own request, to
return to Minnesota, where his parents resided, to
assist in quelling the ferocious savages who had
terrorized the whole state. He went to Fort Snel-
ling; and, on receiving a recruiting commission, he,
assisted by George Rubles, raised a company of one
hundred and ten men for the First Minnesota
Mounted Rangers.
While in Minnesota, he was present at the hang-
ing of the forty Sioux at Mankato, who participated
in the massacre of the Whites. After the company
he assisted in recruiting was sworn in, he returned
to his old company at Columbus, Kentucky, and
remained with it to the end of the war. Returning
home, he followed his old business, and in 1866
married Miss Maria Quin of Faribault, Minnesota.
Removing to Dakota, near Elk Point, he invested
in cattle, and cultivated a farm for six years. In
1872 he crossed what was left to him of the Ameri-
can continent, and, taking a place at Whatcom, lived
there a year, removing thereafter to Tulalip, soon
finding a three years' engagement at the govern-
ment agency.
He was soon enabled to buy the
trading post, which he conducted successfully three
years more. Believing a change of location desir-
able, he removed to the mouth of Snohomish river,
and there bought up several hundred acres of land
on some sightly ground. Here he opened a store,
which he conducted six years, and in 1885 began
laying off the village of Marysville. This is still
one of the incipient towns of the Sound, but is
hopeful of the future.
Three stores, two hotels, a saloon, postoffice, shoe
shop, sawmill, shingle-mill, and last, but not least,
a good schoolhouse, and other buildings, form a
nucleus for dwellings. In and adjoining the place,
Mr. Comeford owns twelve hundred and eighty
acres of land, besides tide and timber land in Ska-
git and King counties. He has a family of three
children.
J. B. CONGLE.-Mr. Congle was one of the
men of wealth who contributed largely to the early
growth and prosperity of our state, and especially
of Portland. He was born December 9, 1817, in
Chester county, Pennsylvania. In the year 1832 he
went to Philadelphia to learn the harness and sad-
dlery trade, and in the spring of 1838 removed to
Virginia, thence to Missouri, and in the year 1841
was at Lafayette, Indiana, where he resided ten years
thereafter. On May 21, 1844, he was married to
Miss Ellen H. Gray, of the place last named. He
came as an argonaut to California in 1849, and
returned two years later to his home in Indiana.
In 1853 he came to Oregon and located at Corvallis,
then known as Marysville, and esteemed the head
of permanent navigation. Here he lived eight
years, and was the first mayor of the city. In 1857
he was elected sheriff of Benton county, but re-
signed the position after three months. In 1861 he
removed to Portland, and made that city his res-
idence until his death. Positions of trust and honor
he was frequently called upon to fill, and served the
public faithfully. He was elected councilman of
the second ward in 1870, and in 1872 was chosen
representative to the state legislature from Multno-
mah county. He became a member of the Masonic
order in Indiana, and in 1874-75 was grand master
of this order in Oregon, and in 1879-80 was grand
high priest.
Mr. Congle's two daughters, one of whom is the
wife of Honorable Richard Williams, ex-represent-
ative to Congress from Oregon, and the other, Mrs.
J. B. Wyatt, are leaders in the best and most refined
society in the state. For nearly twenty-five years
Mr. Congle was a leading business man of Portland;
and his death in 1887 was universally deplored. His
funeral was very largely attended; and his multitude
of friends brought to his grave their last tokens of
respect, expressing their sympathy for Mrs. Congle,
who still survives as one of the leading residents of
that city.
FRANCIS H. COOK.- Mr. Cook was born in
Marietta, Ohio, in 1851. He went with his parents
to Iowa at the age of twelve. His father was a
farmer, and gave his attention to agriculture and to
sawmilling; but it was decided to make a printer
of the boy. He was accordingly apprenticed to
work at the cases in the office of the Harrison County
Union, a paper owned and edited by Judge Henry
Ford, who was also sitting on the bench of the
northwest district of Iowa. The journal changed
proprietors quite frequently, young Cook remaining
through the two administrations succeeding Judge
Ford's; but, at the next call for a change, he and
another ambitious young man embraced the oppor-
nity to buy the Union themselves, conducting it a
year and a half. But feeling the need of a more
complete intellectual equipment, the young journal-
ist sold out his share and attended the Iowa State
University. His studies there were cut short at the
end of the second year by the failure of the man to
whom he had sold, making his notes worthless.
He had, however, fifteen dollars, earned at Iowa
City; and with this for a capital he set forth at the
age of nineteen to see the world. His printer's
trade gave him employment. There is never so
care-free a traveler as the compositor; and young
cook saw the inside workings of newspaper offices
all the way from the Burlington Hawkeye to the New
York Tribune, stopping a few weeks or a few
months at any city where he could learn most and
where the wages were good. Having seen some-
thing of the Atlantic sea-board, he bent his steps
westward, and in 1871 was at San Francisco, end-
ing his travels at Olympia. Here he began as com-
positor on the Olympia Courier, at its first issue. In
three weeks he was its foreman. During the year
1874 he bought the Olpmpia Echo and was its editor
and proprietor. He ran it as an independent jour-
nal, although he was himself a conservative Repub-
lican.
He soon found a field for aggressive warfare
in the contract system of the insane asylum. The
Echo attacked this system very vigorously, denounc-
ing it as calculated to give the party in power an
infamous opportunity for public plunder, and to
create a field altogether too inviting to the political
birds of prey. The contract system encouraged a
large instead of a small number of patients. All the
other papers at the capital remained silent on this
274
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
subject, not caring to antagonize the powerful polit-
ical influences concerned. Without this young.
journalist's persistent efforts, the legislature of 1875
would not have changed the contract for the present
humane system. Mr. Cook was connected with the
Echo for three years, running it two years as a daily.
In 1877 he started the Tacoma Herald. New Ta-
coma at that time boasted a population of only forty-
five, thirteen of whom were school children. This
breezy publication he ran three years, two years
of which as a daily. While editing the Herald he
performed a feat of journalism well worth recording.
The legislative session of 1877 was being held at
Olympia; and much interest was felt in the proceed-
ings. Mr. Cook went down, reported each day's
work, and sent the copy to Tacoma-part of the way
on horseback—the same evening, bidding the mes-
senger wait until the papers were struck off, and
bring back a supply. This was done; and the
report thus distributed at Olympia reached the peo-
ple each day seven hours before that of the Orego-
nian, all of whose work was done by telegraph.
Mr. Cook's valiant public efforts brought him into
prominence; and he was nominated both as can-
didate for the legislative council and as sheriff for
Mason county. He was narrowly defeated for both
offices. His popular strength was shown, moreover,
although he was no favorite with the politicians;
and he was nominated for the council from the same
district, Pierce, Mason and Chehalis,-the next
election but one, and after a very spirited contest
was successful by a majority of eighty-one. He
had a powerful opponent in the railway interests,
which he had antagonized by writing a plank in
the Republican platform favoring a requirement
that the Northern Pacific Railroad build twenty-five
miles of road each year from Puget Sound east.
He received every vote cast in Chehalis county for
councilman. Upon taking his seat in 1879, he was
chosen president of the council, although he was
the youngest man in either house. During this
session, the present revenue bill was passed; and
the meeting with General Grant was formalized.
Seeking a new journalistic field, Mr. Cook started
the Spokane Times, April 24, 1879, and the next
year removed to Spokane Falls, and married Miss
Laura C. McCarly of Seattle. Mr. Cook was the
first man to call the attention of the outside world
to what he enthusiastically termed the "great
Spokane country." He made a popular and busi-
ness success of this paper, as he also did of the
others. At the end of the third year of publica-
tion, the last nine months having been as a daily
with telegraphic dispatches, he sold to a Mr.
Herring. Desiring to devote more time to domestic
life, and having a love of home-life and agriculture,
Mr. Cook bought a farm adjoining Spokane Falls
on the south, upon which he also has a small saw-
mill. He generally employs a large force of men.
This beautiful tract of land, comprising six hundred
acres, is favored by springs of pure water, and out-
looks the busy city. It is already united by a
motor line, elegantly equipped, with the heart of
the metropolis. Mr. Cook is at the head of this
enterprise, which in itself is a monument of Wes-
tern pluck and keen foresight. As a journalistic
pioneer, Mr. Cook's career has been most energetic,
honorable and successful. His record in politics
has been clean, and of practical value to the people.
As a private citizen, he is useful and very progres-
sive.
W. T. COOK.-There may not be a million
dollars at the end of the pathway of every indus-
trious young man; but in this country there is a
competency, and, what is more, an honorable busi-
ness and a happy home. Mr. Cook's career proves
this. He was born in Polk county, Missouri, in
1848. Being thirteen years of age at the outbreak
of the Civil war, his education was neglected for
the next five years; but, repairing this loss by his
own exertions, he fitted himself as school teacher,
and thus supported himself for three years.
Coming to Oregon in 1874, he spent some four
months at Harrisburg in Linn county, and con-
tinued his explorations by crossing over the Cascade
Mountains to Crook county, locating at a point some
twenty miles north of Prineville. Teaching and
ranching there a year, with nine months more of
the same employment in Linn county, brought
him up to the year 1876, at which time he received
an appointment as enrolling clerk of the Oregon
senate at the capitol. In 1877 he was enabled to
open a drug store at the town of Peoria in Linn
county. In the following year he chose Centerville,
in Umatilla county, as his permanent home and
business location. Here he went into the drug
business with Doctor J. H. Irvine as partner. In
1887 the Doctor retired, leaving the whole business
to Mr. Cook. Besides his drug property and home,
he owns considerable land in Morrow county, thus
being well provided for financially.
Mr. Cook has never been a candidate for office,
yet has been active in politics, serving frequently in
county conventions. He was also at the state
convention which nominated Thayer as governor in
1878, and served as delegate in the national conven-
tion of 1884 which nominated Grover Cleveland for
the presidency. He was married in February, 1886,
to Miss Ella J. Davidson; and they have a boy, who
will continue the fortunes of the family.
HON. CHARLES P. COOKE. The subject
of this sketch, whose portrait appears in this work,
was born in Erie county Ohio, in 1824. His early
life was spent in his native place. In 1846 he went
as a volunteer to the Mexican war, and served as
second lieutenant in the first regiment of Ohio Vol-
unteers. He was in the army a full year, and par-
ticipated in the engagements at Monterey, Buena
Vista and other bloody battles of that war.
then returned home, but in the spring of 1849 left
for the Pacific coast, crossing the plains with ox-
teams to California, where he remained until the
spring of 1850, when he came to Oregon, arriving
at Astoria in May. He resided in Polk county until
1867, when he emigrated to the Yakima country,
taking his first claim in the Moxee valley.
He
In 1870 he removed to the Kittitass valley, and
has remained there until the present time. Mr.
Cooke represented the Yakima and Klikitat counties



H.H. ALLEN ESQ.,
NORTH YAKIMA,W.T.

UNI
OF
3
CH
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
275
in the legislature of 1873, and again was a repre-
sentative of Yakima county in 1876. He represen-
ted Yakima and Kittitas counties jointly in 1886,
and is now joint councilman for Yakima, Kittitass,
Franklin, Adams, Lincoln and Douglas counties.
He was the first auditor elected in Yakima county,
and one of the county commissioners, and has been
several times school superintendent. He also filled
important offices of trust in Oregon as well as in
this territory. He assisted in organizing the coun-
ties of Yakima and Kittitass.
Mr. Cooke has developed a beautiful ranch, upon
which he now lives. This is about twelve miles
from Ellensburgh, and comprises two hundred and
forty acres of the most fertile land in the valley.
He deals largely in live-stock, and sells herds of
beef cattle. Mr. Cooke was married in 1851 at
Salem, Oregon, to Miss Brewster. They have ten
children, six boys and four girls, all living.
HON. EDWIN N. COOKE.-The subject of
this sketch is a lineal descendant of the Puritans,
who came to America in the ship Mayflower, and
landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts, December 21,
1620. Among the passengers of that historical
band were Francisco Cooke and his son, John Cooke,
who settled and the families of whom for many
generations lived in that and other colonies, up to
the time of the Revolutionary war.
At the commencement of the Revolutionary war,
Mr. Cooke's great-grandfather, Asaph Cooke, lived
near Boston, Massachusetts, and had four sons who
espoused the American cause and enlisted in the
patriotic army, and remained there until the termi-
nation of the war, seven years afterward, serving
with distinction, and afterwards marrying and rear-
ing large families. The subject of our sketch has
seen three of them when very old men, and heard
them recount the story of the struggle over and
over again.
The grandfather of Mr. Cooke, after the Revolu-
tion, married Thankful Parker, and settled in Gran-
ville, Washington county, New York. He reared-a
family of four sons and one daughter. The eldest
son, Asaph, was the father of E. N. Cooke, who
married Mary Stewart in 1805, and had one son and
one daughter born to them, when he moved in
1808 to Jefferson county of the same state, where
Edwin N. Cooke was born, February 26, 1810, near
where the town of Adams now stands. That por-
tion of New York state was, at that time, almost a
wilderness. In 1814 the family removed to their
old home, where two more sons were born. In
1816 the family removed to Warsaw, Genesee
county, where they remained one year, and in 1817
emigrated to the State of Ohio, the then far West,
settling, with many relatives of the family name, in
what is yet known as "Cooke Corners," in Huron
"Cooke_Corners,"
county, of that state. Here the family endured many
of the trials incident to the pioneer life of those days,
suffering greatly for the want of provisions and
clothing, so much so for the latter that his mother
used up the sheets from the beds for shirts, spun
flax, and a neighbor woman wove it to make cloth-
ing. The men mostly wore buckskin pants.
The incidents of his life for several years were not
varied from that of young men brought up to pio-
neer life.
In 1826 Mr. Cooke's mother died, he
thus meeting with a great bereavement in early
life.
He married on September 5, 1835, at Oxford,
Ohio, Miss Eliza Vandercock, with whom he lived a
happy domestic life, up to the time of his death, of
over forty-three years. Mr. Cooke was engaged in
the merchandise business with one of his uncles in
Sandusky City, and continued the same for several
years, until his business house was burned in the
winter of 1849, when he removed to Clyde and
thence to Fremont.
In 1848, while living in Sandusky City, the
Asiatic cholera made its appearance, and carried off
more of its inhabitants according to the number of
its population than any city in the state.
The peo-
ple became panic-stricken and fled. Stores were
closed, and all business suspended, Mr. Cooke alone
remaining at his post. So rapidly did the people
die that it was impossible to bury them singly in
graves; and a long trench was dug in which the
dead were hurriedly placed, and so lightly covered
with earth that a brick and cement vault was after-
wards built over the trench to secure the inhabitants
from the effluvium of the corpses. Mr. Cooke's
uncle and partner died during the epidemic.
In 1851 he started across the plains to Oregon, and
stopped a short time at Salt Lake and traded for
stock. He was an invalid when he started; but the
journey proved very beneficial to him, in fact gave
him a new lease of life for many years of useful-
ness. On his arrival in Salem, he built the old
Headquarters Building, that stood on the corner of
Commercial and State streets, where the bank now
stands, and began the business of merchandising
with George H. Jones, of Salem, under the firm
name of Jones, Cooke & Co.
Mr. Cooke also purchased a house of the late
John L. Starkey, on the corner of Liberty and
Division streets, and for several months kept a
hotel, which for years afterwards was known as
Cooke's Hotel, but is now known as the Mansion
House. He traded that property to the late John
Hunt for a farm, which he owned for about three
years, a portion of the time residing on the same.
In 1854 his only daughter, Miss Fannie, was mar-
ried to Honorable T. McF. Patton. They moved
to Southern Oregon. In 1856 the company dis-
solved, selling the store to John L. Starkey; and
Mr. Cooke returned to the Eastern States, accom-
panied by his wife, where he remained nearly a
year, settling up the business of the late firm. On
his return he added to the town by laying out into
town lots the land north of Division street, which
is known as Cooke's addition, on a portion of which
he built a fine residence, and beautified the same
by cultivating rare flowers, shrubbery and fruits,
residing there some years. In 1862 he was nomi-
nated by the Republican state convention for state
treasurer, an office to which he was elected, and
which he held for the ensuing eight years, being
re-elected in 1866, and passing through the two
terms with honor to himself and the party that
elected him. Although a close and searching
examination was made by a special committee
276
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
appointed by the legislature to examine the books
of the different state departments, Mr. Cooke came
out without a spot or blemish on his record as an
officer, or character as a man.
In 1862, in connection with A. A. and D. McCully,
S. T. Church and others, he organized and success-
fully conducted for several years the corporation
known as the People's Transportation Company of
steamboats to navigate the Willamette river from
Portland to the head of navigation. Although a
monopoly, it was not oppressive, and transacted an
immense amount of business. This company con-
structed the canal and basin at Oregon City, at a
cost of $133,000, including the land for right-of-way.
This work reflects great credit on the projectors.
They also offered to construct the locks and canal
for the state at a much more reasonable price, so
that boats could pass the falls as they did in that
constructed on the west side and that the state would
own them. The company ran an opposition line
upon the Columbia river in 1863, but was not suc-
cessful. In 1871 the company sold out to Ben Hol-
laday. Mr. Cooke was one of the directors of the
company from its organization to its dissolution.
In 1866 he formed a copartnership with Messrs.
McCully and Church, and established a large store
in Salem, and continued the business for some time.
In 1868, in company with his wife and Hon. J. S.
Smith and family, he visited Europe, where he
remained several months. For several years he
had been an active and useful member of the board
of trustees of the Willamette University.
On December 6, 1852, in company with E. M.
Barnum, Judge B. F. Harding, General Joel Palmer
and C. S. Woodworth, he organized Chemeketa
Lodge, No. 1, the first lodge of Odd Fellows
organized on the Northwest Pacific coast.
retained his membership in the lodge to the day of
his death, a period of over twenty-six years.
He
For a number of years he had been a consistent
member of the Methodist-Episcopal Church, and
assisted in various ways by his counsels, and by the
most liberal contributions from his purse, to aid in
the work of this church.
In about 1866 Mr. Cooke became interested in an
iron foundry at or near Oswege, which was kept
in operation some time. It will thus be seen that
Mr. Cooke was a progressive and energetic man,
and one well calculated to benefit any country in
which his lot might be cast.
On his return from Europe he constructed a
beautiful residence near the state capitol building,
in which he resided up to the time of his death.
In 1875 and 1876, he was elected vice-president
of the Oregon Pioneer Association, and acquitted
himself with credit and benefit to the association.
There was scarcely a branch of society that did
not keenly feel his loss. We sum up the sentiment
of all who knew him when we say that a truly good
man had fallen; one who helped to lay the founda-
tion of our social and political fabric; one who for
years was foremost in every good work; one who in
storm or sunshine was always the same kind, cheer-
ful, firm, upright and unflinching soul, swerving
neither to the right nor to the left, and obeying only
the behests of duty; one whose every act, whose
whole life, was such as to give the world assurance
of a man. His career will stand as an enduring
lesson, a lasting commentary upon the exceeding
beauty of a well-ordered life.
"With malice towards none, with charity for all,"
with firmness in the right, as God gave it to
him to see the right, a deep sympathizer with the
widow and orphan, he was not one to coin silver
from man's misfortunes, gold from the widow's
tears, or gather diamonds from the orphan's moans.
His hand was ever open to just charity; his counsel
was true and tender; his character was a model for
the youth, a guide for the adult. We had none who
excelled, and few to equal, our departed friend,
Edwin N. Cooke, who died in Salem May 6, 1879,
aged sixty-nine years and ten days.
He has gone
to enjoy the inheritance that is the reward of a
blameless life and a devoted Christian after this
life of toil.
MRS. ELIZA COOKE.— All who are ac-
quainted with the estimable lady whose name heads
this brief résumé of her life well know that the best
eulogy that can be written only illustrates how im-
possible it is to bear fitting portrayal of the genuine
worth of so good and noble a woman. Grandma
Cooke has ever been known in her intercourse with
others to be generous and unselfish in the highest
degree, one of the gentlest of mothers, the most
patient of wives, an affectionate friend, and the
kindest of neighbors.
Whether meeting with trials incident to a long,
tedious and dangerous journey across the plains,
enduring the privations of pioneer life, or sur-
rounded thereafter, as she has been, with a com-
petence of life's comforts, the tenor of her life has
run in the same channel, ever manifesting to all
about her those qualities which make the good, true
woman akin to the angels. She was born in Rens-
selaer county, New York, April 29, 1816. In early
life her parents removed to Ohio and located in
Erie county. On September 5, 1835, she was mar-
ried to Edwin N. Cooke, at Oxford, in that state.
For a number of years they resided at Sandusky
City, when they removed to Fremont, where they
remained until their departure for Oregon in the fall
of 1850. The health of Mr. Cooke being poor,
they journeyed leisurely along, awaiting the ap-
proach of spring to commence the tedious journey
necessary to be made before reaching the far-off
Western home. She was accompanied by her niece,
Miss Susan E. Brewster, now Mrs. Charles P.
Cooke, of Ellensburgh, Washington, and by her
only daughter, Fannie, who subsequently became
the wife of Honorable Thomas McF. Patton, a na-
tive of Ohio, who was also a member of the expe-
dition, having joined them at Council Bluffs, Iowa.
On the arrival of the family in Oregon, they
located at Salem, where they have since resided.
In the pioneer days of Oregon, her influence was
largely felt in moulding the society in which she
moved, and in turning the course of events in favor
of civilization, education and morality. Although
for many years a member of the church, to her
creed has been nothing, religion as exemplified in a
daily life of good deeds was everything. She lives
1
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
277
A
not for herself, but for others. Familiar to all who
have visited the capital city is her beautiful res-
idence. Here, surrounded by her grandchildren,
great-grandchildren and a host of warm personal
friends, she patiently awaits the summons of the
Master to enter upon the well-deserved reward of a
life without reproach.
RICHARD CORBALEY. — In a city so flour-
ishing as Spokane Falls, Washington, the business
of finding and placing loans and the transfer of real
property in the town, in the adjoining farming
regions, and in the mines, has attained proportions
of considerable magnitude. The firm of R. Cor-
baley & Co., located at the northeast corner of
Howard and Riverside avenues, is one of the most
important of the houses thus engaged. Their inter-
ests are largely in agricultural lands in the Big Bend
country near Badger Mountain, where choice loca-
tions and exceptionally productive soils, even for
this favored territory, may be found. The rapid
development and the consequent advance in values.
of farms in this section are fully assured. Parties
seeking city or country locations, farm or wheat lands
for proprietary rentals or stock ranges, find much
assistance in the blocks and plots and descriptions.
of Corbaley & Co.
The senior member of the firm, Richard Corbaley,
was born in Marion county, Indiana, in 1820, the
first white child born within its borders. Receiving
here his training and education, he removed in 1848
to Plymouth, Marshall county, of the same state,
and was there appointed sheriff of the circuit court and
court of common pleas. In 1871 he came to Califor-
nia, but, on account of asthmatic affection, left that
state in 1886. In the pure air of this state, to which
he came, he has fully recovered and is located per-
manently. His son, Frank Corbaley, is the partner.
HON. HENRY W. CORBETT.— The remi-
niscences of the early pioneers of the Pacific North-
west must ever possess a peculiar interest for all who
can look back to the days when the wigwam of the
Indian was seen on every hand, and when the old
log cabins of the founders of this great section of
the union were few and far between. Pioneers of
civilization constitute no ordinary class of advent-
urers. Resolute, ambitious and enduring, looking
into a great and possible future of the undeveloped
country, and possessing the sagacious mind to grasp
true conclusions, and the indomitable will to execute
just means to attain desired ends, the pioneers to the
Pacific Northwest, by their subsequent career, have
proved that they were equal to the great mission
assigned them,—that of carrying the real essence of
American civilization from their Eastern homes, and
planting it upon the shores of another ocean. Among
the many who have shown their fitness for the fur-
therance of such object, none are more deserving of
praise than the gentleman whose name is inscribed
above. Whether in the material welfare of his
adopted home, the Pacific Northwest or the nation
at large, he has been one of the most progressive of
citizens, always to the fore in everything which con-
tributes to advancement, socially, politically, finan-
cially and educationally, and is also universally
recognized as a very liberal philanthropist.
Mr. Corbett was born in Westborough, Massa-
chusetts, February 18, 1827.
chusetts, February 18, 1827. At the age of three
years he removed with his parents to White Creek,
New York, remaining there until about 1838, when
another removal was made, this time locating near
Cambridge, in the same state. At the age of thir-
teen he entered a store as assistant, and thus began
his career in the mercantile business, in which he
has since been so very successful. He held this
position for two years. In the meantime he attended
position for two years.
school at the Cambridge Academy, after which he
entered a store in Salem. After a stay there for a
year, he went to New York City, and engaged in
the dry-goods business for seven years.
In the fall of 1850 he shipped a stock of goods
from New York by the bark Frances and Louisa to
Portland, Oregon, he following such shipment in
January, 1851. From New York to Chagres, now
Empire City. From Aspinwal to Panama the journey
called Aspinwal, the trip was made in the steamship
was made partly by small boat and partly on the
hurricane deck" of a mule.
of a mule. After reaching the
latter place, he remained ten days, and embarked on
the steamship Columbia for San Francisco. This
vessel was the first steamship built to run between
San Francisco and the Columbia river. After a few
days stoppage at the Bay City, he came on in the
Columbia on her first trip north, arriving at the
mouth of the Columbia river on the 4th of March,
when he was transferred to a river steamer called
the Little Columbia, a vessel of some fifty feet in
length, and proceeded to Portland, arriving there on
the following morning. This craft not being supplied
with sleeping accommodations, the passengers were
obliged to make the most of the deck for a bed; and
their meals were served upon tin plates, some using
their lap for a table, while others utilized the floor.
At this time Portland contained about four hun-
dred inhabitants; and its business was confined to
five or six small stores. Its present site was then
covered with a heavy growth of timber, with the
exception of a small portion of the frontage, where
the stumps still remained and where sidewalks were
unknown. He clambered up the banks of the river,
made his way to the Warren House, situated on the
corner of Oak and Front streets, the principal hotel,
which would accommodate, by judicious crowding,
about a dozen people.
about a dozen people. Soon after, he discovered
a storehouse being erected by Halleck & Webber,
which he engaged to occupy when finished, at one
hundred and twenty-five dollars per month. His
shipment of goods arriving in May, before the com-
pletion of the store, he hoisted them by tackle to
the second story, using a ladder for a stairway. At
night he hauled up the ladder, and slept with his
goods on the soft side of the floor.
Having previously taken a trip to the head of the
valley, visiting the various places on the way,
Oregon City, Salem, Santiam, Albany and Corvallis,
--and returning by the way of Lafayette to Portland,
he had familiarized himself with the then chief
towns in Oregon, with the exception of St. Helens.
and Astoria. The population at that time, embrac-
ing what is now Washington, Idaho and part of
278
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
I
Montana, was about fourteen thousand people. The
Willamette valley was then considered the chief
agricultural portion of the Pacific coast, California
drawing mainly her supplies in the way of vege-
tables and lumber from Oregon; while the former was
chiefly valued for her mineral products. Mr. Corbett
therefore regarded the latter as ultimately to become
the great agricultural section of the Pacific coast, and
the more permanently prosperous. With this view he
made that state his permanent location. After four-
teen months' residence, having been reasonably pros-
perous, and being in poor health, he determined to
return to New York, to consider a proposition of
entering into business with the firm that he was
formerly connected with, and who at that time were
partners with him in his venture to Oregon.
After dividing with them twenty thousand dollars,
which were the proceeds of his undertaking, and
remaining there one year, at the same time having
under consideration their proposition to enter into
copartnership with them, and after mature consider-
ation, he determined to return to Oregon and make
it his home.
He had left a stock of goods in Portland with R.
N. and F. McLearn, with whom he had formed a co-
partnership before leaving. He commenced his ship-
ments of goods around the Horn again, and arrived
in Portland in June, 1853. A few months there-
A few months there-
after he dissolved copartnership with Messrs.
McLearn, and continued from that time in business
for himself, until about the year 1866, when the co-
partnership of the present firm was formed under the
name of Corbett, Failing & Co. While there are
others now in business who came a few months later
of the same year to Oregon, it is believed that Mr.
Corbett is the oldest merchant in the state. He
entered into other enterprises besides those of mer-
cantile pursuits, notably being engaged in river
transportation. He also took the contract for carry-
ing the mails in 1865 between Portland and Lincoln,
California, a distance of six hundred and forty miles,
and stocked the same with four-horse coaches, he
having succeeded the California Stage Company,
greatly to the satisfaction of the people of Oregon.
Shortly afterwards, in 1866, he was elected to the
Senate of the United States, to succeed Honorable
James W. Nesmith.
He was early identified with the Republican party
of Oregon, and was chairman of the Republican
state central committee, and conducted the campaign
in which David Logan came within thirteen votes of
being elected to Congress in place of Lansing Stout,
the Democratic candidate. The usual Democratic
majority previously had been about two thousand.
After the election of Lincoln, he attended the in-
auguration, and was there when the council of the
Cabinet was held in March, 1861, in which the ques-
tion was considered, whether Fort Sumter could be
relieved, General Scott having given it as his opinion
that it would take twenty-five thousand men to rein-
force and hold such fortification. The result was that
the Cabinet decided that no steps would be taken
looking to that end. After learning these facts from
Thurlow Weed, at the Astor House, New York, on
the 11th of March, just before sailing for Oregon,
he asked the great journalist if he didn't believe it
would be a wise course to load a ship with provis-
ions, and give the Southern Confederacy notice that
they were going to provision Fort Sumter,, and that
if they fired upon the ship the responsibility would
be upon them. Thurlow Weed's response was that
he thought it a good idea.
On Mr. Corbett's arrival in Oregon, about a month
later, he was surprised to learn that this course had
been pursued by our government. He has no knowl-
edge as to whether or not the action of the govern-
ment was taken at the suggestion of Mr. Weed, who
was a most bosom friend, and was supposed to be
the
the "
power behind the throne," of Mr. Seward.
Certain it is that the result of the action caused
the uprising of the North as one man, after the
firing upon the ship destined to the relief of Fort
Sumter.
Mr. Corbett and Leander Holmes were delegates
to the first convention that nominated Lincoln; but,
not being able to reach there in time, they forwarded
their promise to Horace Greeley, who represented
Oregon in that convention. Mr. Greeley's strenuous
opposition to Mr. Seward resulted in the nomina-
tion of Lincoln. Oregon, therefore, through its
delegate, played a conspicuous part in the nomina-
tion of this great man. Mr. Greeley entertained a
warm feeling towards Mr. Corbett, who visited him
during the time the Tribune advocated letting "our
Southern brothers depart in peace." He remon-
strated with Mr. Greeley against such a policy, say-
ing to him: “If we concede that, there is no reason
why the New England states should not secede
from the Middle states, and the Middle from the
Western states. In such contingency, we should
be broken up in small confederacies, with no power
at home or respect abroad. The only way to main-
tain this nation in its strength and power is to let
these Southern people know that they cannot with-
draw from this union without going through fire
and blood." To his surprise, the next day he read
an article in the Tribune with the prominent head
line, "On to Richmond. From that time for-
ward the Tribune advocated the vigorous prosecu-
tion of the war to put down the Rebellion.
Mr. Corbett, during his term in the Senate of the
United States from 1867 to 1873,—during the recon-
struction period,-when the nation was heavily bur-
dened with debt and required the most judicious
and careful management of its finances, that its
honor might be maintained and the debt paid
according to its pledges, was ever faithful to its
true interests by advocating the payment of its
debts according to its obligations, whether real or
implied. By so doing he maintained that the gov-
ernment could fund its debt at a lower rate of inter-
est, sustain its honor and save more than by any
form of repudiation, as was advocated by those
inimical to the best interests of the government.
His earnest efforts in this direction had great weight
with the best thinkers of that day; and to this firm
stand of his and those acting with him is the high
credit of our nation due. Mr. Corbett was vigilant
and watchful of the best interests of the state in
securing appropriations for our rivers and harbors,
and of other beneficial measures pertaining to its
welfare.

AH CHAMBER
BLOCK
1887
A.H.CHAMBERS' BLOCK,
OLYMPIA, W.T.
BER
LOCY
1887
בנימיני בייביני ב בביניים
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
279
Since his retirement from the Senate, he has been
active in promoting such organizations and measures
as would tend to the advancement of the best
interests of the state and city with which he has
been so long identified. He was for some years
president of the Board of Trade, president of the
Seamen's Friend Society, commissioner of immigra-
tion, president of the Boys' and Girls' Aid Society,
one of the prominent trustees of the Children's
Home, which he endowed quite largely, and presi-
dent of the board of trustees of the First Presbyterian
church, to which he gave very substantial aid in
erecting their beautiful stone structure.
He was largely instrumental in establishing one
of the finest cemeteries on the Pacific coast, called
"River View," being president of the association.
He is a director of the Oregon Railway & Navigation
Company, largely interested in street railways, the
Portland Cordage Co., Portland Linseed Oil Co.,
is vice-president of the First National Bank, the
leading financial institution of the Pacific North-
west, vice-president of the Oregon Fire and Marine
Insurance Company, and interested in almost all
other institutions and enterprises tending to the
advancement of the great Northwest Pacific slope.
He has also ever taken a deep interest in educational
matters, and has been for a long time one of the
board of trustees of Tualatin Academy and Pacific
University. He is at this time giving largely of his
means to the erection of the finest hotel north of
San Francisco, and is president of the Portland
Hotel Co.
Mr. Corbett was married in 1853 to Miss Caroline
E. Jagger, of Albany, New York, the fruits of this
union being two sons. The eldest, Henry J., is
occupied in the First National Bank, and is known
as one of the most able of the younger financiers and
capitalists of the metropolis. Hamilton F., a young
man of rare promise, died some four years since, at
the age of twenty-four years. Mrs. Corbett, a lady
known and greatly beloved throughout the breadth
of Oregon, died in 1864, deeply mourned by her
many friends.
Mr. Corbett was again married in 1866 to Miss
Emma L. Ruggles of Worcester, Massachusetts, a
lady whose genius for the conduct of refined and
cultivated society has long been recognized both at
Washington and in her own home in Portland,
and reminds one of what is told of the salons of
Neckar, De Stael and other mesdames of the yes-
terday of France.
COL. T. R. CORNELIUS.- In view of the
prominent part sustained by Colonel Cornelius in
the Indian wars of our early history, as well as in
our political history since, it seems best to give at
length the interesting picture of his connection with
those wars. This is done mainly in his own lan-
guage, and hence preserves the vividness of his own
recollections.
in
T. R. Cornelius was born November 16, 1827,
Howard county, Missouri. At an early age he
moved with his parents to Arkansas, and in 1845,
then a youth of nineteen, came with them to Ore-
gon. The company of thirty wagons, to which his
father, Benjamin Cornelius, with his family, be-
longed, was organized on the frontier under Captain
Hall. At the Malheur river some forty wagons of
the train followed Stephen Meek, who, for a consid-
eration of three hundred dollars, agreed to pilot
them by a shorter and better route to The Dalles.
Meek, however, proved wholly ignorant of the
country; and the journey hence was most disas-
trous. He led them into sage-brush plains and
alkali deserts, to spend twenty-four hours at a time
without grass or water, and once nearly two days.
Many died from exposure to heat, and from other
hardships. Cattle sank down, and were left to per-
ish. Game, except jack-rabbits and sage-hens, alto-
gether failed. At length, at a place called Last
Hollow, a council was held, and amid various opin-
ions to go south, north, to continue west, to go back
the way they came, or to stay where they were,
fearing to leave the water, it was decided by the
Cornelius party to go north to the Columbia. Fol-
lowed by a few other wagons, they set out one
evening, taking their course towards the North
star, and at ten o'clock the next day found water
and grass in abundance, and, sending word back to
those still at Last Hollow, were soon joined by the
train. Following down the stream for several days,
it became necessary to send out nine men to go in
search of provisions at The Dalles. The nine were
saved from starvation on the way by meeting with
Indians, who furnished them dried salmon.
accomplished their errand, and, by aid of Black
Harris, relieved the emigrant party and brought
them safely through. Enduring still further hard-
ships down the river from The Dalles to Vancouver,
and arriving at the fort in a condition of clothing
and general appearance which would well serve to
illustrate a comic almanac, Mr. Cornelius was
treated by Doctor McLoughlin with a fatherly kind-
ness and consideration which, he says, gave him at
once a place nearest his heart, and will cause him to
love and reverence him as long as life lasts.
They
The family settled in Washington county on what
is frequently called the Cornelius plain, one of the
most beautiful and productive regions in the state.
T. R. "got his hand in" in the matter of Indian
fighting in the Cayuse war of 1847. Returning to
his ranch, he pursued the peaceful work of farming
for about seven years without interruption. Then
came the great Indian war of 1855-56. At this
point the narrative of the Colonel proper begins.
In the fall of 1855, while surrounded by his little
family of wife and three children, and busily en-
gaged in conducting his farm work and his sawmill
on Dairy creek, he heard the call for volunteers.
Having had some experience before in fighting hos-
tiles in their own country, many looked to him as
one who should now go. Finally concluding that,
if he did not go, he might stand in the way of
someone else, he bade good-by to those that he
loved and entered the service on the 14th of October
at Hillsboro, and was elected captain of the com-
pany. They proceeded to Portland for equipments.
While they were there, Philip Foster, who resided
at the foot of the Cascade Mountains, became
alarmed at the various rumors of desperate Indian
bands, feared that they would cross over the mount-
ains and massacre his family, and so came down to
280
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Portland and importuned the governor to send a
company of soldiers to protect his home. The gov-
ernor therefore ordered the company of Captain
Cornelius to guard the place.
After a time spent at Foster's, in which they were
busy in making their preparations, the company
moved on to The Dalles to meet the other troops.
Soon after reaching The Dalles, they were ordered
to cross the river, where they camped preparatory to
a campaign in the Yakima country. This campaign
began on the 8th of November. Major Raines was
in command of the regulars, four hundred in num-
ber, while Colonel Nesmith commanded the volun-
teers. Nothing of moment occurring, they reached
the Yakima valley in three or four days; and then
Nesmith became satisfied that the Indians would
not engage so strong a force, consisting of eight or
nine hundred men in all. He accordingly directed
Cornelius to pick out sixty men, mount them on
the best horses in the command, and go in a wes-
terly direction up the Atahnum near the base of the
Cascade Mountains to what was known as Haller's
battleground. This was where the Indians had
attacked Haller and driven him back to The Dalles
with the loss of one-fourth of his command.
In the morning, before Cornelius started on his
march, Colonel Nesmith pointed across the Yakima
valley in a northerly direction to what was then
called the Two Buttes (this was the gap just below
the present site of Yakima City), saying that he
would travel in that direction, and that, in case
Cornelius found the Indians in force, he might take
a strong position and attack them, and then under
cover of the following night send a courier to the
main body, which would then at once come up and
reinforce. This, the commander believed, was the
only way to bring on a general engagement. Cor-
nelius selected ten men and one lieutenant from
each of the six companies then present, and went
without interruption to a point about three miles
north of where the Indians had attacked Haller.
They then discovered the warriors converging on
them from all sides, but especially from the direction
of the Two Buttes. The Captain formed his little
army into a hollow square, each lieutenant com-
manding his ten men, and every seventh man
being detailed to hold the horses of the others.
The men being thus dismounted, and being some-
what sheltered by the sage-brush on the level
plain, had an advantage over the three hundred
mounted warriors who came swooping down on
them. After a few rounds, the charging savages
gave back, and the Whites moved on in the di-
rection of the Buttes. Whenever they would move
ahead, the Indians would renew the attack and
give way again before their well-aimed volleys as
before. Then they would mount and press on
again, to be again attacked. This running sort of
fight continued till nightfall, when the Indians
disappeared in the direction of the Buttes.
Two men,
The men had been so well protected by the brush
and the form in which the were arranged that the
day's casualties were almost nothing.
however, Holmes and Weighmire, were badly
wounded. Discovering lights, correctly supposed
to be those of the main command, the detachment
pushed on and joined them. They then learned
that Nesmith and Raines too had been fighting
during the day with the Indians, and that some of
Raines' men had been drowned while attempting to
cross the Yakima. It was decided in the morning
to send Captain Cornelius with about eighty men, in
company with Lieutenant Phil Sheridan and nine-
teen dragoons, towards the Buttes, where the natives
had built stone walls across the road and had other-
wise fortified themselves. The object of this move
was to bring on a general engagement.
Having reached a point a quarter of a mile from
the walls, Sheridan sent back for a mountain how-
itzer, by means of which a few shells were sent
among the Indians, with the effect of speedily scat-
tering them. The main command soon arriving,
they proceeded to a camp at the Catholic Mission.
There they had expected to meet a company of
soldiers in command of Captain Malone. Nothing
being heard of them, and there being apprehensions
that they might have got into trouble, Colonel Nes-
mith ordered Cornelius, with a portion of his com-
pany and parts of other companies, and Lieutenant
Sheridan again with his nineteen dragoons, to go in
search. The detachment started in the direction of
the Nahchess Pass; but, after having been out two
days and one night, there came a very heavy snow-
storm, insomuch that it was thought useless to go on.
The whole command now returned to The Dalles.
On arriving at that point Nesmith directed Corne-
lius to discharge as many of his men as were unpre-
pared or unwilling to remain any longer, and to
then proceed with the rest to Walla Walla. There
were then only about sixty men left. Captain Hem-
bree's company, which went with them, numbered
about one hundred. They were put in command of
Colonel Kelley, who was already at Walla Walla
in command of the left wing of the army. Captain
Cornelius and his men were almost afoot, as their
horses had crossed the Cascade Mountains and
made the campaign into the Yakima country without
forage, except grazing on the dried and blackened
bunch-grass. The weather, too, was stormy, and
the men were without tents, and were short of
blankets and poorly clad. Nesmith had by this
time become satisfied that the winter was not the
time to fight Indians successfully, and so he resigned
his office and returned to Salem.
In pursuance of his orders, Cornelius proceeded to
Walla Walla, and on reaching Umatilla found that
Major Chinn, who had preceded Colonel Kelley, had
built a stockade fort called Fort Henrietta, at which
Colonel Kelley had left a detachment of men, and
had himself started a week before in the direction of
Walla Walla. He had left directions for Cornelius
to await further instructions from him there. The
next evening after his arrival, with forty men,
mounted on the best horses, Cornelius went up Mc-
Kay creek a distance of about twenty miles to recon-
noiter, where he hoped to find some beef cattle and
Indian horses, on which latter he might mount his
men. After traveling till about two or three o'clock
in the morning, they reached the place where Doctor
William C. McKay had formerly settled; but they
found the buildings burned. Remaining there till
daylight, they went up the creek towards the base
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
281
of the Blue Mountains. They were divided into
squads, and made a "rounding up" of stock as they
went, all the squads converging towards a point
near the mountains previously agreed on. When
the point designated was reached, they found that
they had gathered together some two or three hun-
dred head of stock, mostly Indian ponies.
They returned with them to Fort Henrietta, where
they found Doctor McKay, who had just arrived
with a communication from Colonel Kelley detailing
the facts of his engagement with the Indians near
Whitman station, and directing Cornelius to join
him with all the men, ammunition, provisions, etc.,
at his command. Accordingly, with all the accessible
provisions, including the beef cattle just captured,
they set out, one hundred strong, with Doctor Mc-
Kay as guide, at about sundown. They had with
them quite a number of wagons, cattle, pack horses
and loose horses. It was raining as they started,
and soon became quite dark. The captain accord-
ingly arranged his men in four lines, one in front,
one on each side of the road, and one in the rear, so
as to be ready for an attack from the Indians, and
also to prevent the loose stock from wandering.
The road was familiar for the first twenty miles, as
they had passed over it that day; and, as the guide
had not slept any for two or three nights, he was
permitted to get into a baggage wagon and sleep,
with the understanding that he was to be awakened
as soon as necessary.
The command proceeded in perfect silence across
the high rolling prairie which lies between Fort
Henrietta and the Umatilla at the McKay place.
On arriving at the Umatilla, just below where the
road leaves it, the Captain sent back to the wagon
for the guide, Doctor McKay. Being awakened
suddenly, and not realizing just where he was, the
Doctor leaped on his horse and came dashing up
with such speed that, coming to a very abrupt bend
in the river, he went right over the bank, horse and
all. Captain Cornelius concluded not to follow the
guide just at that time. However, the Doctor soon re-
covered himself and landed on the proper side of the
river, leading them thence to Wild Horse creek.
During this little detention, the Captain's pack horse,
on which were all his blankets and extra clothing,
was lost; and thus the Captain and his messmates
were left destitute the rest of the winter.
Reaching the hills above Wild Horse creek at two
or three o'clock in the morning, the command waited
until daylight; and then, looking down into the
valley of the Walla Walla, they could see Colonel
Kelley's camp and the battle then in progress. The
Indians below could see the company of Cornelius
coming; and, as it had become somewhat scattered
during the march of the night, they thought it a
large army. By the time they had crossed the river
and come upon the battlefield, the Indians had
begun to withdraw. At about three in the after-
noon, Captain Cornelius reported to Colonel Kelley;
and at sundown, as the Indians had disappeared,
the company went into camp for the night. After
some fruitless attempts to follow the Indians up the
Touchet river, the army moved up the Walla Walla
river above Whitman, and established Camp Curry,
where they remained some weeks.
Colonel Nesmith and Major Armstrong having
now resigned, an election was ordered, with the
result of electing Cornelius Colonel, Cornoyer Major,
and Narcisse Captain. The commission of Corne-
lius not having yet arrived, Major Chinn disputed
his authority to act; and the Colonel therefore sim-
ply remained in command of his company until his
commission came, which was on the 27th of Janu-
The command had in the meantime moved
up Mill creek a short distance above the present site
of Walla Walla. From the middle of December
they had been having snow and cold weather; and
their jaded animals had had no food except what
they got by digging the snow off from the grass.
Many of them perished in consequence.
ary.
Here Colonel Cornelius found himself in com-
mand of about three hundred men, called mounted
men, but in reality having no horses or provisions,
and but little ammunition. They were, however,
ordered to prepare for a campaign on Snake river.
The Colonel therefore made requisition on the quar-
termaster at The Dalles for supplies; and, while
waiting for them and the reinforcements which had
been promised, he decided to send to the Nez Perce
nation, who were friendly, and buy horses. He sent
Lieutenant W. H. H. Myers of Company D, and
Lieutenant William Wright of Company E, on this
perilous and trying trip. In spite of the snow and
cold, they succeeded in their trip. The Colonel feels
that too high praise cannot be bestowed on them
for the faithful and heroic manner in which they dis-
charged that duty.
Major Cornoyer had been ordered in the meantime
to form a camp near where the French settlers and
friendly Indians were gathered. Hostile Indian
spies from time to time managed to get into the
camp; and finally two of these were executed, and
others sent to the governor of Oregon, to be detained
till the close of the war. On the 7th of March,
after the arrival of five companies of recruits per-
viously ordered out by Governor Curry, there was
an election held for a major of the Second Battalion.
James Carl was elected. About the same time,
Lieutenants Myers and Wright having arrived from
the Nez Perce nation with the horses, as already
mentioned, the army began to prepare for a cam-
paign in the Snake river and Palouse country.
anticipation of Snake river being high from the
melting snows, the Colonel had directed Assistant
Quartermaster D. H. Lonsdale to construct six boats
in such a way that one would fit into another, and
two would go into a wagon instead of the wagon
box. The lumber for these boats had to be sawed
by hand with an old whipsaw.
In
On March 9th the command broke camp and
started in the direction of the Touchet, sending men
on towards the Snake river to reconnoiter. During
the night of the eleventh, the scouts discovered a
large body of Indians on the north side of Snake
river at Fish-hook Bend. The command pushed
on to this point; and when the Indians saw them
they supposed that, as they had taken the canoes
with them, they were entirely safe. But while they
were making many threats and demonstrations, the
Colonel dismounted his men, turned the horses out
to graze and made every apparent preparation to
A
282
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
camp for the night. In the meantime the wagons
with the boats were moved to a convenient place;
and sixty picked men, with an officer from each
company, were made ready with their guns and
saddles. The horses were massed in a bunch near
the edge of the water; and all at once the men slid
their boats into the water and began rowing pow-
erfully for the other shore. The men remaining on
the bank pushed the horses into the water, and they
followed the boats. As soon as the Indians com-
prehended the design, they began firing; but so
excited were they that they did no execution. The
men in the boats returned the fire. When, how-
ever, the boats were half across the river, the
Indians seemed to become panic-stricken, and left
with all possible speed.
When the detachment landed, the Indians had
hurriedly gathered up most of their effects, and
were already speeding across the plain. Catching
the horses with all possible speed, the soldiers sad-
dled up; and, leaving directions with the rowers of
the boats to transfer the rest with all possible haste,
they set out in hot pursuit. They followed the
savages about ten miles in the direction of Priest's
Rapids on the Columbia. At intervals they passed
a bunch of pack animals driven by women and chil-
dren. When they overtook the main band of them,
they had driven their animals, families, etc., into a
low place surrounded by sand hills, and covered
with sage-brush. There it seemed they expected to
make a stand; and they did indeed fight until the
second load of men from across the river came up.
Then they abandoned everything and disappeared.
The soldiers thereupon took the animals and
returned to the river. There the entire army was
now gathered and encamped for the night. There
Colonel Cornelius issued the following order:
"HEADQUARTERS FIRST REGIMENT,
"OREGON MOUNTED VOLUNTEERS,
"CAMP SNAKE RIVER, March 12, 1856.
"Commanding officers of companies will detail
one-fourth of the whole number of men in their
respective commands, and order them to report at
headquarters to-morrow morning at six o'clock,
prepared for an expedition to the mouth of Yakima
and Snake rivers. Camp will not be moved to-mor-
T. R. CORNELIUS,
row.
Commanding Regiment.'
On the thirteenth they left camp at six o'clock
with about one hundred men, and one or more com-
missioned officers in each company, and traveled
down Snake river to a point near the mouth. Over-
taking a party of Indians running up the river,
the troops pursued, and, after a running fight that
lasted till night, drove them across the Columbia
and otherwise scattered them, killing a number.
The next day the Colonel ordered the horses cap-
tured the day before to be driven to the encamp-
ment on the Walla Walla river near Wallula, in
charge of Lieutenant Pillow.
Then, lightened of all unnecessary baggage (which
was also sent to that post), the command went along
the north side of Snake river to the mouth of the
Palouse, and thence up the Palouse six or eight
miles to the Falls, where they camped, waiting for
a pack train from The Dalles via Walla Walla.
Nothing being heard of them, however, a courier
was sent to The Dalles via Lieutenant Pillow's
camp on the Walla Walla. Colonel Cornelius him-
self, with Captain Wilbur, went with the express-
men to help them across Snake river. The turbu-
lent stream swollen with the melting snows was
difficult to cross with their driftwood raft; but
pluck and perseverance accomplished it. In addi-
tion to this they captured forty head of fat Indian
ponies, which in the depleted state of their larder
were speedily disposed of for food.
ance.
The pack train soon appeared, too, with flour and
coffee; and the troops once more reveled in abund-
But, before the arrival of the train, some of
the officers and men in the battalion of recruits had
found the service harder and the fare poorer than
they had bargained for, and had begun to talk of
mutiny. A report reached Colonel Cornelius that
Major Carl proposed to take such of the company
as would follow him and return to The Dalles or the
valley. Finding that this charge was well founded,
the Colonel immediately ordered the regiment to
parade and form in a hollow square in close order.
He then took his position in the center and addressed
them, explaining as fully as he could the situation
and the duty of the company. He called on all
good men to stand by him, and warned them that
any who should leave would be considered as deserters
and treated accordingly.
After he was through, the men called for Major
Carl, who thereupon spoke in justification of his
proposed course. He ridiculed the thought of the
Colonel of a regiment driving in Cayuse ponies for
his men to eat, and then expecting them to fight
Indians. He ended by saying that he proposed to
march back with his command to The Dalles. After
he was through his speech, Colonel Kelley was
called for and made a very strong speech in support
of Cornelius, and pledged his honor and his life in
defence of the position taken. He also reminded
Major Carl that he had no command, and was subject
to orders. Then Major Cornoyer was called on, and
took the same ground. Some then called for Geo.
K. Shields, who belonged to the same battalion as
Carl, and from whom the disaffected expected
He was a man of very consider-
encouragement.
able ability, and not much accustomed to camp life.
But they made a great mistake in the man. He
took very strong ground in favor of the position of
Colonel Cornelius. He appealed to them to know
if they thought when they enlisted that they were
going on a fishing party. After the speaking, the
men were dismissed, retiring to their respective
quarters; and those who had prepared their horses
to leave turned them out.
The pack train arriving the next day, harmony
was once more restored; and on the day after that
the army broke camp and started in a northwesterly
direction towards the Big Bend country. After
traveling a day or two, they found that the Indians
had gone in the direction of Priest's Rapids on the
Columbia. They accordingly went as far as White
Bluffs, and, there finding no sign of any consider-
able number of Indians, followed the Columbia
down to a point opposite the mouth of the Yakima.
2
111101111
(1)
OLD GATHOLIC CHURCH.
(2) SACRED HEART HOSPITAL.
IN CHARGE OF THE SISTERS OF-PROVIDENCE.
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CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS OF SPOKANE FALLS, W.T
(3) NEW CATHOLIC CHURCH.
(4)
PAROCHIAL SCHOOL.
IN CHARGE OF THE SISTERS OF THE HOLY THAMES.
(5)
GONZAGA COLLEGE.
IN CHARGE OF THE JESUIT FATHERS
·
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
283
Here the Colonel issued the following orders to
Major Carl :
HEADQUARTERS FIRST REGIMENT,
((
OREGON MOUNTED VOLUNTEERS,
"MOUTH OF YAKIMA RIVER, March 31, 1856.
'MAJOR JAMES CARL, Recruiting Battalion :
"You will assume command of the compa-
nies ordered to report to you this morning for duty,
consisting of the following companies: B, H and
K of the First Regiment, and A, D and E of the
Second Battalion. You will proceed to the Walla
Walla river in the vicinity of Fort Walla Walla, and
there form a camp. You will then scour the valley
of that river to the base of the Blue Mountains,
occupying the country till you are satisfied that the
United States troops have come into the valley.
You will then proceed with your command to Ten-
mile Creek near The Dalles, there form a camp and
await further orders. On your march from Walla
Walla, you will drive in all the horses and cattle
found on the road.
"W. H. FARRAR, Adj. of Regt.
"By order T. R. CORNELIUS,
Col. Commanding Regt."
On April 6th, Colonel Kelley was ordered to
relieve Major Carl of his command in the Walla
Walla valley, and to hold an election in his com-
mand on the first Monday in April in pursuance of
an act of the legislature authorizing the volunteers.
to vote, wherever they might be on that day, on
the question of a constitutional convention. Soon
after this the command, remaining in charge of
Colonel Cornelius, moved up the valley of the
Yakima to a small creek called Cannon creek, at a
point where the road passes through a narrow
gap into the Simcoe valley coming from The Dalles.
They reached this place at two o'clock on the 9th of
April. Having learned of the capture of the Cas-
cades by the Indians, they were debating whether
they had better go on towards the Cascades to
intercept parties that might be moving, or return.
directly to The Dalles. That evening a guard
came in and reported having seen at a distance
three or four hundred Indians moving in the direc-
tion of The Dalles.
The Colonel now had in his command Companies
A, E and D, of the First Regiment and B and C
of the Second Battalion. The entire number of
men ready for duty was two hundred and forty-one.
Thinking himself strong enough to fight, he went
out with Captain Hembree to make a reconnaissance.
The captain was very skeptical as to there being
any Indians in reach. That night Colonel Corne-
lius called a council of war to decide the course of
operations for the next day. It was decided to send
a squad of picked scouts to scale the hills the next
morning, and see what the view might reveal.
Accordingly, at an early hour, Captains Wilbur,
Wilson and Hembree, and Lieutenants Stillwell and
Hutt of Company C, with four privates, volun-
teered to undertake that service. Colonel Cornelius
cautioned Captain Hembree against going up the
rugged trail which he and the Captain had explored
the evening before, and in which the Colonel was
sure he had seen some Indians.
The Captain
answered that he would do as directed, but at the
same time he did not believe that there was a hostile
Indian within a hundred miles. The Colonel
insisted that there was great danger, and told him
to use all precautions.
The squad started at six o'clock. When they
had gone a mile and a half from camp, not having
yet reached the top of the hills, they were suddenly
attacked fiercely by a force of seventy or eighty
Indians, led by the victorious chief Kamiakin. At
the first or second fire, Captain Hembree fell
mortally wounded, and died where he fell, still
bravely endeavoring to return the murderous volley
of the enemy. The rest of the party tried to pro-
tect and rescue the body of the gallant captain;
but the overwhelming superiority in numbers of the
enemy rendered the effort fruitless. The escape of
anyone was remarkable, and was accomplished only
by the cool, prompt and effective return of the fire.
At the time of Captain Hembree's death, the
Indians were within ten paces of the little band.
Some of the Indians were killed in this close
encounter. This sudden onslaught was the signal
for the instant appearance of Indians on every
prominence overlooking the camp. The most
accessible entrance to the camp was from the hills
opposite those where Captain Hembree had been
slain. To those hills Kamiakin and the greater
part of his band were hastening for the unmis-
takable purpose of throwing themselves upon the
camp. Fortunately the movements of the troops
were more rapid and decisive than those of the
Indians.
The furious onset upon Hembree's party had been
witnessed in part from the camp. Lieutenant
Hibler, with part of Company E, and Lieutenant
Caldwell, with part of Company D, rushed to the
rescue of the fallen captain. Dashing to the deadly
point, they drove the enemy from their position.
Captain Wilbur here rejoined the detachment, and
led it in its further operations. Captain Ankeny,
with a detachment of Company C, attacked and
drove the Indians from an eminence on the extreme
right. Major Cornoyer rescued the body of Captain
Hembree from the enemy. He then drove and hotly
pursued those on the north side of the creek for
several miles up the cañon, killing and wounding
several. Lieutenant Powell, of Company E, cleared
and held the bottom to the west; while Lieutenant
Hayten, with a part of Company B, held that on
the east. He thus prevented the occupation of the
brush that skirted the stream.
On the south, before the return of Captain Wil-
son, Lieutenant Pillow, with Company A, charged
and carried a steep and elevated position occupied
by the enemy. Captain Wilson then rejoined his
company, and was ordered to retain the butte, as it
afforded a complete protection to the camp. Lieu-
tenant Myers, with the greater part of Company D,
assailed a force which had collected on the rear of
Company A, dispersed and pursued them, until
they had joined a party with which Lieutenant
Hutchinson was warmly engaged. Lieutenants
Hutt and Stillwell swept the hills northwest of the
butte, and drove the enemy up the creek. Captain
Burch ascended the hills on the south, and led
detachments of Companies B and C in eager chase
of the Indians for several miles. Captain Revins
284
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
gallantly participated in the attack and pursuit,
though not being in charge of any company, since
his own was then at Walla Walla.
Colonel Cornelius had taken his station on the
hills to the south, from which he had an unimpeded
view of the forces and positions of the enemy, as
well as of the operations of his own command. The
fighting was hot till noon, when the Indians dis-
persed in every direction. The Colonel then recalled
his various detachments to camp preparatory to a
movement of his whole force in pursuit. The
amount of ground covered by the Indians had com-
pelled him to divide the companies into parts, and
to assign to each officer a particular district, from
which to dislodge the threatening foe and then to
hold at all hazards. This necessity, in connection
with the total lack of knowledge of the force
of the Indians, and the broken nature of the
ground, compelled the commander to employ
this plan of battle. In not a single case did an
officer or private hesitate in the duty assigned; and
each bravely, promptly and thoroughly performed
his part. The Colonel felt justly proud of his men.
He was greatly indebted, too, to his adjutant, Cap-
tain Farrar.
The battle over, the removal of the camp was
hindered by the non-appearance of four men who
had been sent out the previous afternoon to look for
missing horses on their route up the valley. As
removal of the camp even for a short distance would
have been almost equivalent to the abandonment of
those men, the Colonel deemed it necessary to send
a detachment of twenty-five men in command of
Lieutenant Hutchinson down the Yakima river in
search of the missing men. Before their return the
scouts reported that the Indians were fortifying on
an abrupt and rocky eminence six or seven miles
up the creek. Immediately the Colonel ordered
Major Cornoyer with detachments of all the compa-
nies except A to dislodge them. Lieutenant Pillow
was assigned to the command of a force of reserves
ready to go to Cornoyer's support if the need
should arise; while Captains Wilson and Burch were
retained in camp to be in position to repel attacks if
any should be made.
The force of Indians on the eminence was about
three hundred strong. Their position was formid-
able. It was strengthened by stone structures, from
behind which they poured forth a steady fire. Major
Cornoyer dismounted a part of his men, and had
them go up the hill facing their fire. They would
run as fast as possible and fire as they ran, so as to
excite the Indians and make their aim ineffectual.
Then, when their guns were empty, they would fall
to the ground or dodge behind rocks to reload, then
up to their feet again, running and firing, then down
once more to reload and all the time making a steady
advance. These tactics they pursued till they
reached the top of the hill, when they burst in full
force upon the Indians, who then fled routed from
their intrenchments.
In this fight Kamiakin was conspicuous in com-
mand of the savages. When too distant from any
of them to reach them by his voice, he would wave
a black flag to the right or left, or lower or raise it, a
kind of signals which they seemed to understand
perfectly, and which they promptly obeyed. By
sundown no Indians were to be seen; and soon
afterwards the men who had been out in search of the
horses returned in safety with Lieutenant Hutchin-
son and his band. Aside from the lamented Hem-
bree, none of the Whites were killed in this engage-
ment; and, strange to say, but one was wounded,
notwithstanding the hot fire. No Indians were to
be seen the next day; but the main body of them
seemed to have gone in the direction of the mouth
of the great cañon.
The next day, having prepared a litter on which
to carry the body of Captain Hembree, the company
set out for The Dalles. They traveled all that day
without seeing an Indian; but, expecting an attack
from the Indians in the cañon, they proceeded with
great caution. They camped that night about five
miles from the mouth of the cañon. Before sunrise
the next morning, twenty or thirty Indians were
seen on the brow of a hill above camp. This led
the soldiers to hope that Kamiakin would meet
them in the cañon. The command accordingly
started at an early hour, and proceeded over a
rough trail, winding along the bases of projecting
hills and bluffs, until about a mile from the cañon.
The Colonel then ordered Major Cornoyer to take
charge of detachments under Captain Ankeny and
Lieutenant Stillwell, and scale the mountains on the
right with all possible expedition. He himself, in
command of the main column, went to the mouth
of the cañon. They met and killed two Indians;
but not another did they encounter. Ankeny and
Stillwell reported that there were none on the bluffs.
The conclusion was now plain that Kamiakin did
not dare to remain to fight, and had given them the
slip. The company were in no condition to hunt
him down. Their supplies consisted solely of coffee
and flour; and of the latter they had but a single
ration. They had not been able to procure horse-
meat even in the Yakima country. The only course
seemed to be to return to The Dalles. Leaving the
main command in the Klikitat, some five miles
north and east of The Dalles, the Colonel, with a
small detachment of officers and men, went on to
procure provisions for his brave but almost ex-
hausted soldiers. They carried with them the re-
mains of Captain Hembree, which at The Dalles
were taken charge of by the Masons and conveyed
to the home of his family in Yamhill county.
Colonel Cornelius now sent his report to the gov-
ernor, and awaited further instructions. As it was
not yet certain when the regulars would take the
field, the governor hesitated about disbanding the
volunteers. The Colonel accordingly made all need-
ful preparations for beginning another campaign
against the Yakima Indians on the 2d of May; and,
in the meantime, leaving the army in command of
Major Cornoyer, he went to Portland for a personal
interview with the governor. The governor finally
directed him to bring the troops to Portland, prepar-
atory to mustering out of service as soon as in the
commander's judgment it was best.
On the twenty-ninth the Colonel returned to
The Dalles, and on the thirtieth ordered Captain
Wilbur with Company D, and Captain Wilson with
Company A, to go to Portland, where they were
mustered out. The other companies were mustered
out in turn between that time and the middle of
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
285
May, at which time the regulars, under command
of Colonel Steptoe, were ready to take the field. At
this time Colonel Cornelius had a conversation with
Colonel Steptoe, in which he told him of the nature
of the country in which he must fight, and the
character of the Indians, telling him that if they
ever got the advantage of him they would use it.
Colonel Steptoe laughed at the idea, and said that
the natives might cause untrained troops trouble,
but not men trained as his were. The next that
Colonel Cornelius heard of Steptoe was that he had
been surrounded and badly whipped near a place
ever after memorable to all inhabitants of the Pa-
louse country,-Steptoe Butte.
On the 14th day of May, the attention of Colonel
Cornelius was called to a communication of the
governor to Colonel Kelley, bearing date of April
16th, which he thought reflected somewhat upon
his official conduct. He therefore addressed the
following communication to the governor:
"HEADQUARTERS FIRST REGIMENT, O. M. V.,
The con-
'PORTLAND, O. T., May 14, 1856.
"Sir: My attention has been called to your official
communication to Lieutenant-Colonel Kelley, under
date of April 16, 1856, in which you say that you
are assured by the chiefs of commissary and quar-
termasters' departments that there has been at no
time an inadequate supply there for the comfortable
subsistence of the whole force in the field, and that
the derangement beyond that point has been in
consequence of the inefficiency of transportation,
resulting from the want of proper escort.
struction given to this quotation is that the blame
and responsibility properly attaches to myself for
the great lack of subsistence for my command dur-
ing the spring campaign on the northern frontier.
I am therefore constrained to request of you to order
a court of inquiry to which shall be delegated am-
ple power thoroughly to investigate and report as to
the causes of the meagerness of the commissary and
quartermaster's supplies furnished the troops under
my command since the day I entered upon the duties
of my office.
"It is in my power to order a court of inquiry
restricted to my regiment. Such a court would not
have authority nor the right to investigate the
action of the chiefs of commissary and quartermas-
ters' departments, so far as in all matters relating to
their connection with the First Regiment. You
alone can order a court invested with the power of
embracing the acts of the heads of those depart-
ments, as well as of their subordinates in my regi-
ment, and of my own acts. I can assure you that
I desire the opportunity to show that the derange-
ments to which you refer have not been in any
degree in consequence of the inefficiency of trans-
portation resulting from the want of adequate escort,
but that they have been occasioned and resulted
from derangements not connected in any wise with
my branch of the service.
"I have the honor to be, very respectfully,
"Your most obedient servant,
"T. R. CORNELIUS,
"Col. First Reg., O. M. V.
'To His Excellency, Geo. L. Curry, Gov. and
Commander-in-Chief of O. M. V."
To this letter the governor answered as follows:
"TERRITORY OF OGN.,
"PORTLAND, May 14, 1856.
"COL. THOS. R. CORNELIUS,
Colonel: Your letter of the thirteenth instant has
been received; and in reply I have to say that I re-
gret that I am constrained to decline granting the
request you have preferred for a court of inquiry, for
reasons which were fully expressed to you in our
personal interview of yesterday.
quoted by you in my communication to Lieutenant-
'The construction generally given to that passage
Colonel Kelley of sixteenth ultimo, as reported to
you, is entirely erroneous. It was foreign to my
purpose to cast the slightest censure or reproach
faithfully discharged your duty; and the confidence
upon any part of your official conduct. You have
in your ability and fidelity, which is breathed in all
my communications, remains unqualified and unim-
paired.
“I am, very respectfully,
"Your obedient servant,
GEO. L. CURRY, Gov. of Ogn."
The most of the volunteers had been by this time
mustered out of the service, and had found their way
home. They were very kindly received by the peo-
ple, especially in Washington, Yamhill and Polk
counties, where they manifested their appreciation
of their services and of the dangers and hardships
that they had undergone. The citizens of Yamhill
gave a grand banquet to the volunteers of that
county at Lafayette on the 15th of May; while those
of Polk county were similarly entertained at Dallas
at about the same time, and those of Washington at
Hillsboro on the thirty-first.
The war ended, Colonel Cornelius returned to his
farm, determined to make up the seven months' lost
time; but his friends, having found him faithful in
the field, put him into the legislature. On the first
Monday in June of that year he was chosen to the
territorial council, then the highest body of the legis-
lature, to represent the counties of Washington,
Columbia, Clatsop and Tillamook. He was kept in
the legislature constantly till the admission of the
state to the union; and then he was chosen by the
same district to the Senate of the state, which posi-
tion he held till 1861.
The great war then coming on, he offered his
services to the government, and was appointed an
adjutant-general to act as Colonel of a cavalry regi-
ment which he might raise himself. With him were
associated Lieutenant-Colonel R. F. Morrey and
being made at the suggestion of E. D. Baker, then
Quartermaster B. F. Harding, all the appointments
United States senator from Oregon. The term of
service of this regiment was mainly spent on the
frontiers of Idaho and parts of Utah and Nevada
adjoining, though the Colonel himself was stationed
as commandant at Fort Walla Walla until the sum-
mer of 1862, when he resigned and returned home.
He was at once re-elected for service in the legisla-
ture, and continued in it every session till 1876,
being twice president of the Senate. In 1876 he
retired to private life, having made a record for legis-
lative efficiency and honesty of which he may well
be proud.
286
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
In 1872 he became established in the town of
Cornelius (named after him); and there he has made
his home ever since. His active energies are ex-
pended in a variety of lines of business, such as a
store, sawmill, several large farms, and an extensive
dairy and cheese factory. In 1886 he was the candi-
date of the Republican party for Governor of Ore-
gon; but, owing to political complications for which
he was in nowise responsible, and which he did his
best to avert, the opposing candidate, Sylvester
Pennoyer, was elected.
Colonel Cornelius has been twice married, and has
six children. His first marriage was in 1850, to
Miss Florentine Wilkes. She died in 1864; and in
1866 he was married to Miss Missouri Smith.
Though now approaching old age, he is in the most
vigorous health, and enjoys throughout the state in
which he has been so prominent a figure the esteem
and friendship of all.
MAJOR N. A. CORNOYER.— It is sometimes
complained of Oregonians that, coming to this state
some time ago, they have not been able to keep up
with the improved methods invented at the East
since their departure. This is true only in part, if
at all. The early settlers are the ones who have
been most prompt and energetic to discover and
apply the latest inventions and improvements. They
compare very favorably in this particular with the
later arrivals; and their experience of soils and
climate and methods peculiar to this coast gives
them a decided advantage.
Born
Major Cornoyer is an illustration of this.
in Illinois in 1820, he came to California in 1849 in
the company of Colonel Jarrot. The next year he
came up to Oregon and made his home in Marion
county, on French Prairie, marrying Miss Mary S.
Bellique, daughter of a very early pioneer, and, in
fact, the belle of the region. In 1864 the Major
sought new fields to till, and turned his face towards
the Umatilla. He located a claim of one hundred
and sixty acres, four miles from Milton, where he
has had his home ever since. He engaged largely
in the horse and cattle business besides grain-raising,
and cultivates an entire section of railroad land be-
sides his own. He saw active military service dur-
ing the Rogue river war of 1853 and the Yakima
war of 1855-56. It was there he won his spurs and
epaulets. A full account of these gallant services are
noted in the main body of this history and also in
the biographical sketch of Colonel T. R. Cornelius.
In political life he has put his shoulder to the
wheel, having served two terms as sheriff of Marion
county. He also had practical experience as a miner
two years in the vicinity of Auburn and on Granite
creek.
His children are Mrs. E. J. Somerville of Milton;
Mrs. James Forest of Walla Walla; Mrs. Alex.
Kirk of Milton; Mrs. Robert Kirk of Walla Walla;
Mrs. Daniel Kirk of Milton; and a boy, Gustavus,
who is still at home.
Although approaching the evening shadows of
life, Major Cornoyer has lost no interest in its scenes
and, from present appearances, will keep up the bat-
tle many winters longer. We present an excellent
portrait.
OLIVER P. COSHAW.- This leading citizen
of Brownsville, for many years a merchant of that
place, was born July 4, 1831, at Connorsville, Indi-
ana. His parents, who were characteristically
thriving and agreeable people of French extraction,
went to Iowa in 1843. After leaving school, the
young Oliver was employed in a store as salesman,
clerk or book-keeper, and there laid the foundation
of knowledge and experience which has so well
served him in his later years.
In April, 1851, he engaged to drive an ox-team to
Oregon for Honorable R. B. Cochrane, long known
in our state and now, as for many years, a substan-
tial citizen of Eugene. In return for his services,
he received his board and passage and many inci-
dental advantages. The first home was made
and a claim taken near Brownsville, where Mr.
William Cochrane had been living since 1849. Mr.
Coshaw occupied himself with such work as was to
be obtained in that sparse community, and in work
on his claim, and September 23, 1853, was ready to
bring to his new home as his bride Miss Sarah, the
daughter of William Cochrane. This was their
home until the title to their claim was perfected.
During the Indian trouble, he was one of the
volunteers belonging to Captain Keeney's company.
He relates with great good humor the many shift
and resort of the soldiers, who were all armed and
mounted, had but little ammunition, and were often
lacking provender for the horses. A freak which
caused much merriment and some little trouble
occurred in the Rogue River Mountains, amid the
winter rain and mud, when their horses,—their own
animals,—were shivering in the damp, and grow-
ing to resemble greyhounds in figure. The order
was given to take the horses to grass and recruit
them up for the campaign in spring. Captain
Keeney observed that he knew of some good grass
in Linn county, and ordered his company home.
This was not construed as desertion; and the Linn
county boys proved their full fidelity some months
later. As the years sped by, Mr. Coshaw secured
near Harrisburg a farm which he still owns.
is also proprietor of a beautiful farm well improved
with buildings and orchard near Brownsville, and
besides these has a cattle ranch east of the Cascade
Mountains. His active business career has ever
been passed at Brownsville, where he was for twenty
years a leading merchant. He was also a promoter
and organizer of the Brownsville Woolen Mills, for
a time holding one-fourth of the stock. For the
past few years, he has been disposing of his numer-
ous business interests, and is living in the quiet and
pleasure of a well-spent life.
He
His wife, Mrs. Sarah E. Coshaw, who no less
than himself has been the builder of the fortunes of
the family, was born January 23, 1837, in Putnam
county, Missouri, and came with her parents to
Oregon in 1847. At the age of sixteen she was
married to Mr. Coshaw, and has lived a represent-
ative life of the mothers of their state, bringing
up in health and mental vigor ten children,-W. L.,
Sophronia A., Robert H., James N., Mary E.,
Oliver P., Sarah E., Ida A., George H. and Kate
E. Seven of the ten are married, and are conduct-
ing homes of their own.

JOSEPH GASTON,
GASTON, OR.
HON. JOHN P. HOYT.
SEATTLE,W.T.
HON.WM LAIR HILL,
SEATTLE, W.T.
HON.SAM CASE,
NEWPORT, OR.
S.E.JOSEPHI, M.D.,
PORTLAND, OR.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
287
So far as possible, Mr. Coshaw and his wife have
dismissed care, and are enjoying the years on the
sunny western slope of life. None of their remi-
niscences are more agreeable than those of the early
days, when they began to keep home in the little
log cabin twelve by fourteen feet, with its floor of
puncheons and doors of shakes, and furniture of
the same, and for the babies a cradle of split cedar
boards which answered for the ten. They had a big
open fireplace, too, to burn roots and logs; and all
the cooking was done with frying pan and coffee
can over the coals.
He was
CAPT. JOHN H. COUCH.- A native of New-
buryport, Massachusetts, he was one of the hand-
ful of hardy, brave, adventurous settlers who made
the wilderness their home, and devoted the best
portions of their lives in opening the way and pre-
paring the land for the immigration and occupation
of their brothers across the mountains.
born February 21, 1811, and was perhaps influenced
by the surroundings in his native place; for New-
buryport is noted as one of the oldest and most
famous seaports and nurseries of maritime enterprises
in America. Be that as it may, he manifested in
early boyhood a disposition to pursue a seaman's
life, and had an early opportunity to follow the
bent of his inclinations, as he shipped on a voyage
to the East Indies on the brig Mars while yet a lad.
The brig was owned by an uncle of Captain Flan-
ders (afterwards associated with Captain Couch in
business for many years); and this first voyage
opened the way to others with such good fortune
that in 1840 the command of a vessel was given
him by the leading shipowner and great merchant
of his native place, none other than the father of
that eminent lawyer and distinguished statesman,
Honorable Caleb Cushing.
This first voyage of Captain Couch's command
was to the land of the setting sun. His brig, the
Maryland, carried a venture for the Columbia river,
which was to be exchanged for a cargo of salmon
for the return voyage. We can estimate to some
extent the high opinion the great merchant enter-
tertained of the integrity and masterly seamanship
of Captain Couch when he intrusted him with his
vessel and cargo; for in those early days the Colum-
bia river bar was regarded as one of the most dan-
gerous places on the globe, so much so that
insurance companies excepted it especially from
risks allowed in their policies. None but the most
skillful and experienced seamen would think of
braving its dangers, and but few indeed cared to
hazard their lives and reputation by accepting the
command of vessels bound thither; besides, only
men of integrity and shrewd business qualifications
would be trusted to dispose of a ship's cargo, and
purchase another for the home trip. But all these
prized attributes Captain Couch was noted for, and
accordingly was given command of the ship. The
voyage did not, however, prove fortunate because of
obstacles interposed at the mouth of the Columbia
river through the influence of the Hudson's Bay
Company; and the Maryland was sent to the Sand-
wich Islands, and there sold; while Captain Couch
took passage home on another vessel.
Mr. Cushing was well satisfied that the failure
was in no way attributable to Captain Couch, and
placed so much confidence in his ability that he
again gave him command of another vessel intended
for the trade, and named Chenamos, in compliment
to a high chief of the Columbia river Indians, with
whom Captain Couch had established amicable rela-
tions on his first voyage. So the Chenamos started
on her journey with brighter hopes, and in June,
1842, reached Clackamas rapids, just below Oregon
City. Her cargo was taken to this place, which was
then the chief settlement of Oregon, and the princi-
pal post of the Hudson's Bay Company. Captain
Couch opened a merchandise store, and, sending
the brig home, remained in charge of the store until
1847. He then started back to Newburyport, mak-
ing the long journey by way of China, and arrived
in his native city in the summer of 1848. He was
highly complimented by his employers for his fidel-
ity and prudence, and again tendered further employ-
ment, which he declined, but was soon after
prevailed upon to return to the Pacific coast.
Late in the same year (1848), a company was
made up by Messrs. Sherman, shipping merchants
of New York, and others, who bought the bark
Madonna and gave Captain Couch command. Cap-
tain Flanders, who had been for years master of ves-
sels, agreed to sail with Captain Couch as chief
mate, and assume command of the ship while Cap-
tain Couch remained on shore to sell off the cargo.
The Madonna sailed from New York on January 12,
1849, and arrived in Portland the following August,
having on board as passengers ex-United States
Senator Ben Stark, W. H. Bennett, W. S. Ogden
and Chas. M'Kay. According to instructions, Cap-
tain Couch here established a store; and Captain
Flanders took command of the vessel, with which
he made several successful trips between this port
and San Francisco, and finally engaged in the trad-
ing and wharf business with Captain Couch. From
the time they left Newburyport until Captain
Couch's death, there was the strongest and truest
friendship existing between Captain Flanders.
and himself. It was a singular thing for men of
their age to form such a tie; and their pure, unal-
loyed friendship and devotion one for the other was
like that which existed between David and Jona-
than. The business relations formed in 1850 lasted
during his lifetime; and the links of earnest friend-
ship became closer and firmer as the years grew
upon them.
While attending to the store he had established
in Oregon City, Captain Couch found time to make
occasional trips to other settlements and trading
posts in the then infant territory, and in 1845 took
up the land claim now known as "Couch's Addi-
tion." But the dispute over the title to Oregon
between Great Britain and the United States was still
undetermined; and he could not perfect his claim.
He took care to do so after the passage of the Dona-
tion act; and under that law the title was perfected.
From that time until his death he resided in Port-
land, one of her best known and respected citizens.
During his long residence there, Captain Couch occu-
pied several important official trusts, both by the
voice of the voters of the county and by appointment
20
288
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
In
from the territorial, state and federal executives.
He was not a political man, and had none of the
dross of one. He never sought a public office.
his case truly the office sought the man; and never
did a custodian of the public trust more wisely or
with greater fidelity fulfill the duties devolving upon
him.
He was territorial treasurer, under the adminis-
tration of Governor Abernethy, in the Provisional
government; he was commissioner of Multnomah
county; he was the first appointee under the act of
Congress to the office of inspector of hulls, under a
Democratic administration, and was retained in the
position through each succeeding administration
until the day of his death. After the organization
of the state government, he served likewise under
Democratic and Republican administrations as port
warden and pilot commissioner. As in public
employment, so in private life, he was an exem-
plary citizen, and was personally known to almost
every man, woman and child in Portland. The
wharf built by the partners, and known as Couch's
wharf, has been since the early years of Portland
the landing and departing place for ocean steamers
and sailing vessels. It may be called the threshold
of the city; and Captain Couch was the genial host
who always stood ready to welcome the incoming
guest or give God speed to those departing. He
joined the Masonic fraternity at an early day in
Portland, and was an honored and worthy member.
His name has now passed into a household word
among thousands of sorrowed and loving friends.
Like many other men of iron mold and robust
constitution, Captain Couch would not give way to
what seemed only a slight indisposition. He had
exposed himself unusually in inclement weather, and
performed more than his ordinary duties about the
wharf. He was stricken down with typhoid pneu-
monia, and after an illness of nine or ten days
passed away from his loving and sorrowful friends
to reap his reward as a good and faithful servant.
Full of honors, ripe in years, and with a name
endeared to all, Captain John H. Couch passed
from among us. The funeral cortege was never
excelled in Portland. The banks closed, all busi-
ness was stopped, labor suspended in public places
and generally about the city; and all combined to
pay respect and do honor to the memory of the
revered pioneer and loved citizen.
Captain Couch married early in life; and his esti-
mable wife survives him. Their union was blessed
with four daughters. The three oldest were born
in Massachusetts, and are now Mrs. Doctor Wilson,
Mrs. C. H. Lewis and Mrs. Doctor Glisan. These
three came to Oregon with their mother in 1852 via
the Panama route. The youngest is a native of
Oregon.
W. F. COURTNEY.—This veteran among the
Indian fighters and earlier pioneers was born in
Illinois in 1832. At the age of thirteen, he crossed
the plains with his parents in 1845. They reached
The Dalles during the latter part of October of the
same year; but before proceeding down the river
they had to construct a flat boat as a means of navi-
gation. This was attended with considerable diffi-
culty, as there were no lumber mills in the country,
and every plank had to be whipsawed. The
passage from The Dalles to the Upper Cascades
was made without any event of notice. Not so
with the balance of the trip; for, after the women,
children and household goods were removed, an
attempt was made to run the rapids, which resulted
in the wreckage of their boat on the rocks. From
the Lower Cascades they came to Clackamas Rapids
below Oregon City in a sailing craft called "the
Calapooia. After a short stay at Oregon City, a
permanent home was made near Brownsville. Like
all other pioneers of the valley, the Courtney family
were obliged to go to Oregon City for supplies. In
July, 1847, the father started there for flour; but,
when near Clackamas Rapids, he was instantly
killed by a falling tree.
This left young Courtney to rely on his own re-
sources in the matter of gaining a livelihood. He
began adventures at the age of fifteen on his own
account by making a trip to California, and con-
tinued the same by going out on the plains in 1852,
for the purpose of protecting immigrants. In 1853
we find him in Northern Oregon as one of a com-
pany of forty formed to bring the Indians to jus-
tice who murdered Venerable and Burton on the
Coquille river. Marching to the forks of the river,
they were divided into squads; and it fell to the lot
of Mr. Courtney, together with six others, to pro-
ceed to Isthmus Slough in skiffs on a reconnoitering
tour, the fruit of which trip was the capture of one of
the red devils who took part in the murder. Our sub-
ject was left the task of guarding the prisoner while
the rest of the squad looked around for other
Indians. During their absence an attempt was
made by an Indian to liberate the captive. But he
reckoned without his host; for it took short work
on the part of Mr. Courtney to make them both
"good Indians." The captive shot, however, died
hard; for he ran eight miles before he finally fell.
Mr. Courtney went to the California mines in
1854, but returned to Oregon again in 1855 on the
steamer California along with the company brought
here by General Wool to fight the Indians. When
crossing the Columbia river bar in a heavy storm,
the steamer took fire; and for awhile it looked as if
all were about to reach their last port. The fire
was finally extinguished; and the vessel was safely
brought to her destination.
Mr. Courtney is located near Wasco, and is exten-
sively engaged in farming and stock-raising with
success. Surrounded as he is with home comforts,
could one be more content?
COWLES & MCDANIEL.— Samuel D. Cowles,
senior member of the firm above-mentioned, was
born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1829, his father
being a wealthy broker. He received a ten years'
naval training, and finished his education in New
York City, where in after years he was in business
for himself. In 1849 he crossed the plains to Cali-
fornia. In 1862 we find him crossing the plains
once more, coming from Missouri in company with
a nephew and niece. At Soda Springs a band of
Indians, under the leadership of one of his own
employés, attacked his party and after a short
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
289
1
fusilade escaped with seventeen of his fine blooded
horses. At Fort Hall the nephew died. Arriving
at Auburn, Oregon, in September, Mr. Cowles set
to work to recuperate his finances by day's labor.
On the last day in the year, he encamped with his
little company on the present site of the village
of Cove, in Union county, upon the handsome tract
of land now owned by the niece mentioned above,
then Miss Fanny Cowles, a native of Tennessee,
and for whom the majestic mountain peak that
towers into perpetual snows and keeps watch over
her elegant home was named.
E. P. McDaniel, the junior partner, was born in
Missouri in 1839, and was raised on his father's
farm. In 1856 he emigrated to Kansas, where he
engaged in farming and trading. In 1861 he crossed
the plains to Portland, Oregon, and engaged in work
at his trade of carpenter. In 1863 he came to
Grande Ronde valley, and was engaged in packing,
clerking and in the livery business. July 4th,
1865, he was married to Miss Fanny Cowles, and
the next spring joined her uncle in conducting the
farm, upon which they planted extensive orchards
and erected a handsome residence, which is now
embowered with a beautiful growth of ornamental
trees and flowering shrubs, and is surrounded with
rare flowers, which, being artistically arranged, make
it a delightful villa. They soon combined stock-
dealing with farming and milling, and in 1884
opened a general mercantile establishment near their
residence, the New-England-like village of Cove
having meantime sprung up partly on their own
land. They are at present conducting a very large
and prosperous business, and deal in everything
that is salable. They entertain many friends and
guests at their commodious residence. Mr. and
Mrs. McDaniel have six children, the two eldest of
whom are young men with good training and educa-
tion.
ANDERSON COX.-There has never lived a
man in the Northwest more worthy of commemora-
tion than that pioneer of 1845, Anderson Cox. He
was born near Dayton, Ohio, in 1812, of Quaker
parentage, and moved with the family to Indiana in
1830, and claimed a share in the home formed on
the Wabash river at Attica. He was married in
1836 to Miss Julia Walter, and in 1840 removed to
New London, Iowa. In 1845, with his wife and
four children, he made the journey to Oregon, and
was in the company of immigrants who endured
the privations and rugged experiences of the "Meek
cut-off." At the Des Chutes, the crossing of this
turbulent river was effected by drawing the loaded
wagon-beds over as ferries by means of ropes. Two
canoes served to convey the family and their goods
from The Dalles to a point known as Parker's cabin,
on the Lower Columbia. A return to The Dalles
from this point was attempted, with flour for the
immigrants still coming, and with the purpose of
bringing down the wagons left at the mission. The
journey, however, was discontinued at the Cascades,
as there the flour was all given away to hungry par-
ties coming from above, and as news was received
that the wagons had been burned by the Indians.
Returning to the Willamette, he found work and
an abiding place for his family at the Salem mission,
and the next season went south to the other side of
the Santiam river, Mrs. Cox being the second white
woman to cross that stream, and selected a Dona-
tion claim at the present site of Albany, whose
environs at the present time cover a part of the old
farm.
Mr. Cox was notably connected with Linn coun-
ty's early and subsequent history down to and
including the exciting times of 1861.
He was
twice elected to the territorial legislature, the first
time traveling to the capital by a canoe.
He was
instrumental in fixing the boundary line between
Marion and Linn counties, and gave the name of
Linn to the new county, in honor of Senator Linn
of Missouri, the friend of Oregon.
In 1861 he became a pioneer once more, being
among the first to lay the foundations of the now
imposing Inland Empire. He laid out a new town,
Coppei, sixteen miles north of Walla Walla, but in
1865 removed to a claim adjoining the young city of
Waitsburgh, and here developed one of the most
productive places in the region.
In 1872 he became interested in Whitman county,
and located at the growing city of Colfax. He had
very extensive business plans in view, and, although
then approaching age, had no thought of giving up
life's activities. He was concentrating his means
and efforts to erect extensive saw and grist mills.
But, returning to Waitsburgh, he suffered on the
journey great exposure, which his frame did not
withstand as in earlier years; and even at the road-
side he lay upon the earth and paid the great debt
of nature. At the time of his death, Mr. Cox held
the office of receiver of the Walla Walla land-office,
having been appointed to this responsible position
by President Grant in 1871, when the district em-
braced all of Washington east of the Cascade
Mountains. In this capacity he did his work well,
and made warm friends of the settlers.
Mr. Lewis Cox, his son, who owns the old place
adjoining Waitsburgh, worthily upholds the name
and perpetuates the manly virtues of his father.
He has a family of twelve children, and is one of the
most esteemed citizens of Walla Walla.
ADNA C. CRAIG.— At the union depot on the
line of the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company,
at the south end of the Grande Ronde valley, is the
Craigton Hotel, into which water is conducted
through pipes from a spring half a mile away, and
one hundred and sixty feet above. This water
where it springs from the steep sidehill has a temper-
ature of 180 degrees Fahrenheit, while at the hotel
where it enters the bathroom its temperature is
about 90 degrees. It shows by analysis iron, borax,
sulphur and magnesia. For twenty years this hotel
has been a health resort for those afflicted with
rheumatism and kindred diseases. The proprietor,
Adna C. Craig, was born in Ohio in 1821, received
a common-school education, and learned the trade
of a tanner and currier.
Emigrating to Iowa in 1841, he engaged in brick-
making until he removed to California with the
argonauts in 1849. He transferred his business to
290
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
i'
our state in 1855, mining and lumbering in Jose-
phine county. He carried with him a whipsaw, and
found that this brought the "dust" even faster
than the "Long Tom. In 1858 he made brick
and erected the first brick building in Douglas
county, and often joined General Lane or Colonel
Mosher in the hunt.
He
In 1861 he was in the Idaho mines, the most of
the time running the Armstrong whipsaw and mak-
ing lumber, which he sold at one dollar a foot.
passed the winter in a temperature which congealed
mercury, and froze his feet, while the prices of pro-
visions were: Flour two dollars, bacon three dollars,
potatoes two and a half dollars, tea and coffee five
dollars, and tobacco fifteen dollars per pound. After
an adventure the next spring with nine school teach-
ers while in search of a bonanza which did not exist,
and nearly losing his life, Mr. Craig set forth for
Auburn, but passing through the Grande Ronde
was entranced by the beauty of the region, and
determined to set his stakes there and make a home,
choosing a claim near the present site of Union.
He has since that time farmed, packed, raised grain
and stock, acted as sheriff for four years, as assessor
for three years, as county Judge for eight years, and
as swamp-land commissioner for four years. We
find him still a hearty and jovial "boy" of sixty-
eight years, ready with his anecdote or joke, and a
leading man in the community.
COL. WALTER CROCKETT, Sr.-The lineal
representatives of many of the distinguished fami-
lies of the Atlantic states have become the builders
of our own communities. Such was Colonel Crock-
ett, who was in the line of the old Virginia family
that went out West to settle in the early days of
Braddock's war. The father, Colonel Hugh, was
of Norman-Irish descent, and earned his rank in
the Revolutionary war. His mother, Rebecca Lar-
ton, was a Knickerbocker, born at Jersey City, New
Jersey. It was near Shawsville on the upper Roan-
oke, whither the Colonel had gone to settle, that his
son Walter was born, January 29, 1786.
The boy spent his early years in school and on his
father's plantation, and came to manhood in ample
time to participate in the war of 1812. He served
under Captain, afterwards Governor Floyd of Vir-
ginia.
He served with distinction, and thus led the
way to political preferment. He was a member of
the Virginia legislature three terms, and was an
elector in the electoral college which elevated
Jackson to the presidential chair. He was also for
several years colonel of the Montgomery militia.
He was generally influential in public affairs. It
was in Virginia that he was joined in marriage to
Mrs. Mary Black Ross, daughter of John Black, a
man of distinction in the Old Dominion, and the
founder of Blacksburg.
In 1838, however, Colonel Crockett determined
to begin entirely new far in the West, and removed
to Boone county, Missouri, and in 1840 to Putnam
county. This location did not wholly satisfy him;
and in 1851 he took the final step to reach the
Pacific coast. With a few of the families from the
neighborhood, embracing Robert Cochran of Eugene,
Oregon, and the family of the late Colonel Ebey of
Whidby Island, he repaired to the rendezvous, and
in a considerable company performed the dangerous
journey. The Indians were troublesome; and the
travelers were little beyond Omaha before they had
their cattle stamped, some of which were killed by
the savages. There were subsequently many simi-
lar annoyances; and in a brush with the Bannacks,
near the present site of Pocatello, the Colonel's
second son John, a veteran of the Mexican war, and
an old Indian fighter, escaped death only by the rifle
ball striking and glancing from his powder horn.
After reaching Oregon Colonel Crockett directed
his course to Olympia, whence, in December of 1851,
he removed to Widby Island, locating upon the
place still owned by Walter Crockett, Jr., and upon
which was built in 1857 the stockade, a view of
which will be found in this work.
Here the Colonel employed himself with his fam-
ily in farming; and they all became prosperous.
After a residence of eighteen years, during which
his influence was brought to bear and was widely
extended throughout the territory, he passed to the
other shore.
The members of his family are well known on the
Sound. John Crockett, of whom mention has
already been made, is no longer living. Samuel B.
Crockett, the eldest, is a pioneer of a very early
time, having reached Oregon in 1844, and in 1845
was at Olympia with Michael T. Simmons, being
first to build the flouring mill at Tumwater. Susan
H. is now living at Seattle, and is the widow of
Samuel Hancock, the well-known pioneer. Hugh
is at Puyallup; and Charles and Walter, Jr., are
living prosperously at Whidby Island.
HON. CLANRICK CROSBY.-This gentle-
man, of whom an excellent portrait appears in our
work, was born in East Brewster, Massachusetts,
January 6, 1838. He is a son of Captain Clanrick
and Phoebe H. (Fessenden) Crosby. In 1849 he
came with his parents via Cape Horn on board the
brig Grecian, of which his father was captain and
part owner. The father was a sea-faring man until
his arrival in San Francisco in the above year.
After a short stay there, he brought his vessel to
Portland, and there selling her quit the sea.
The family remained in Portland, Oregon, during
the spring and summer of 1850, while Mr. Crosby,
Sr., went to Milton, Oregon, where the family
joined him during the summer, excepting the son
Clanrick, who was attending school at Tualatin
Academy at Forest Grove, then in its incipiency.
In the fall of 1850, the father went to Puget
Sound and purchased the famous water-power and
mill property at Tumwater, Washington Territory
(then Oregon), the family following him in the
spring of 1851. Here the Captain resided until his
death. When Clanrick had attained his majority,
he learned the trade of wagon and carriage maker,
which business he followed for five years. He then
found employment in his father's store for one year.
Then, embarking in the manufacture of buckets, he
introduced the first pail made by machinery in
Washington Territory. After this he became a
member of the firm of Leonard, Crosby & Cooper,
and engaged in the manufacture of sashes and doors

J.P. COMEFORD,
MARYSVILLE, W. T.
UNIV
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
291
in Tumwater; but in six months he sold out and
undertook a sawmilling enterprise near Black river,
which he continued for two years.
Then, seeking a new location, he came to the
now flourishing town of Centralia, Lewis county,
Washington, which had then just been laid out. It
was owned by a colored man who rejoiced in the
great name of the "Father of his Country," and
was situated on the line of the Northern Pacific
Railroad, midway between Kalama on the Columbia
river and Tacoma on Puget Sound. At that time
there was but one house in the town, owned and
occupied by Mr. Isaac Wingard; and it served the
quadruple purpose of dwelling, hotel, store and
postoffice. Mr. Crosby, perceiving the natural
advantages of the place, proceeded to erect a store
on the right-of-way of the railroad. Although not
owner of the townsite, he may be regarded as the
founder of the place. In 1874 he purchased his
present store property, where he is now actively
engaged in business, and owns considerable town,
farm and mill property.
In 1884 Mr. Crosby was elected to the territorial
legislature on the Republican ticket. Prior to this,
while living in Tumwater, he held the office of
county commissioner of Thurston county for one
term. Mr. Crosby is a strong advocate of temperance,
and has been a lifelong Republican.
As his por-
trait indicates, he is a strong and intelligent man,
whose influence would be felt in any community.
He was married in Tumwater December 23, 1863,
to Martha Ward, a native of Illinois. They have
had four children,-Ella M., Carrie E. (deceased),
Fannie and Walter E.
The enterprise and success of Mr. Crosby, a
worthy son of the famous old pioneer, who was sur-
passed by no one in establishing the commerce of
Oregon and Washington Territory, show that the
sons of the founders of the Northwest are able to
take their fathers' places. Such instances are en-
couraging to those interested in the development of
our great section; for they prove that the high
endeavors which actuated the builders of our states
still move those left to complete and adorn them.
JAMES B. CROSSEN.-Mr. Crossen is the pres-
ent postmaster at The Dalles, and was born August
II, 1838, at Donegal, Ireland. This was his resi-
dence until he emigrated to America in 1849 and
made his new home with his parents in New York
city until of age. In 1859 he crossed the Isthmus
to California, and resided at Callaghan's Ranch for
four years, going from thence to Idaho, where he
engaged in business at Placerville until 1863. Seek-
ing a new location, he cast his eyes with hope
towards the State of Oregon, and selected The
Dalles as the most eligible point for business and
residence, and has remained there until the present
time. Mr. Crossen has ever occupied responsible
positions in public life. He was elected sheriff
of Wasco county in 1876, and was re-elected in
1878 and in 1884, thus serving three full terms.
He was also elected twice to the city council of The
Dalles. In the interim he followed merchandising
and auctioneering until, in 1886, he was appointed
postmaster, a position which he now fills.
In 1863 he married Miss Frances H. C. Gray of
Portland, Maine, who bore him three children, two of
whom are now living,-Grace E., born in 1867, and
James A., born in 1864. His wife Frances dying in
1870, he was married secondly in 1872 to Laura Alice
Martin, his present wife, and the mother of his two
youngest children, G. W. and Emily A.
2
Mr. Crossen has been continuously and is now
actively engaged in business pursuits, and is closely
identified with the interests of The Dalles and of
Wasco county.
CAPT. JAMES J. CROW.-Mr. Crow, a por-
trait of whom will be found in this work, is one of
the early pioneers of Oregon, as well as one of the
early and substantial residents on White river. He
was born in Lincoln county, Missouri, April 5, 1842,
and is the son of George and Mary E. (Howdeshell)
Crow, both of whom were pioneers of the above
state. In the summer of 1848 his parents, with
their family of five children, started to cross the
plains to Oregon; but, on reaching the Missouri
river, it then being late in the season, they con-
cluded to return to their former home. However,
they again, early in Febrnary, 1849, started with a
good outfit and with ox-teams to cross the track-
less plains to the far West, arriving near Oregon
City late in the fall of 1849, where they passed the
first winter. In the spring of 1850 they moved to
the Kellogg ranch, south of Portland. In the fol-
lowing fall his father purchased a farm near Mil-
waukee, on the Willamette, where in 1852 the family
suffered the irreparable loss of the husband and
father.
On the death of his father our subject, with the
pluck and energy that has so often been displayed
by the early settlers to the Pacific coast, began to
do for himself, and followed different occupations
until 1860. He then came to the Puyallup valley,
Washington Territory, and in 1862 located a claim,
but a short time thereafter abandoned it and went
to Seattle. In 1864 Mr. Crow took up a claim on
White river, one and a half miles south of the pres-
ent beautiful little city of Kent. Here he has cleared
up and made a magnificent farm, consisting of one
hundred and fifty-four acres.
In 1875 he embarked in the cultivation of hops,
in which he has been very successful, and is recog-
nized as one of the men who have brought that
industry to the front, and who have made that sec-
tion of the country famous for the quantity as well
as quality of hops. In 1883 Captain Crow embarked
in steamboating on the Sound, and for four years
was owner and master of the steamer Lilly, in which
undertaking he was also very successful. He has
held the office of constable for the White river pre-
cinct for eighteen years. The Captain is well and
favorably known all over the Sound country, and is
a gentleman whom it is a real pleasure to meet.
He was united in marriage in Seattle September
18, 1862, to Miss Emma Russell, a daughter of S.
W. Russell, a pioneer of 1852 and among the very
first locators on White river in 1853. By this union
they have a family of thirteen children, all of whom
are living and residing with their parents in their
magnificent home in Kent, where the Captain has
292
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
retired from the active pursuits of farm life, and is
prepared to take the comforts that are to be found in
his happy and beautiful home.
LEVI H. CYPHERS.
Mr. Cyphers, who oc-
cupies a very prominent position in Snohomish
county, having served as sheriff by the choice of the
Republicans as well as Democrats, is a native of the
Keystone state, having been born in Monroe county,
Pennsylvania, in 1849. He engaged in business at
his early home, but at the age of twenty-six acted
upon the belief that there were better opportunities
for young men at the West. He accordingly set out
for the Black Hills in the fall of 1875, with the ex-
pectation of digging gold, but, upon arriving at
Cheyenne, found that miners were excluded by the
Government from the region. Continuing his way
westward to San Francisco, he was ready by Christ-
mas day to embark for the northern coast, and
brought his journeyings to an end at Seattle. From
this point of vantage he took a general survey of
the whole Sound country, and, as the conclusion of
his investigations, selected Snohomish as the site of
his future home and business. Since his residence
there, lumbering or logging has occupied his atten-
tion. From superintendent of camps he advanced
in 1880 to the operation of his own, in which he
employs twenty men, and owns a tract of timber
land on the Skykomish river. He is also engaged
in ranching.
In the fall of 1886, Mr. Cyphers was elected sheriff,
and still holds this office. Although the county is
strongly Republican, he received a majority of over
seven hundred, and was on the Democratic ticket.
He has been very successful in business, and is well
established financially. He is as yet unmarried.
CAPTAIN J. D. DAMMON.- This pioneer
of the Kittitass valley was born in Seabeck, Maine,
June 22, 1825. In 1843 he removed to Wisconsin,
then a territory, living in Dane and Monroe counties.
In the spring of 1859, he went with others to
Colorado. Denver was then a small place of a few
tents and log huts. At Arrapahoe and on Clear
creek he engaged in blacksmithing; then with his
partner, R. S. Kingman, he bought the Bob Tail
Lead in Gregors' gulch, from which millions of
dollars have since been taken; but his partner sold
it for $300 during Mr. Dammon's absence. He
went back to Wisconsin in 1859, and in 1861, at
the outbreak of the war, raised a company of one
hundred and five men and took them to Camp
Barstow at Jamesville, Wisconsin, to be incorporated
in the Third Wisconsin Cavalry, and was commis-
sioned captain of Company A of the same regiment,
Colonel William A. Barstow commanding. In May
of the same year, he was quartered at Leavenworth,
Kansas, with the whole regiment. Here he was
detailed with his company on duty between the
fort and the city. Three weeks later the regiment
was mounted; and Dammon was appointed provost
marshal of Donovan county. On the march thither
he was prostrated by sunstroke, and was granted a
furlough to return to Wisconsin and recover. In
September he came back to Leavenworth, and at
Fort Scott rejoined his regiment.
In March, 1863, he resigned his commission on
account of ill health and went back to Wisconsin,
where he lived until 1870. After a few years in
Iowa in the hotel and mercantile business, he set
out for Washington Territory (1871) with horse
teams, but stopped for the winter in Utah, arriving
in Yakima county in 1872.
in Yakima county in 1872. Mr. Dammon built the
first sawmill in this county, and the second grist-
mill. His first home was up in the mountains,
where his first daughter was born. The house was
roofed with earth and had no floor except the
ground, and was a very rude structure, as there was
as yet no lumber for building purposes. He came
down the next summer and located the place where
he now lives, about two and one-half miles west of
Ellensburgh. This property comprises two hundred
acres of excellent land, on which he has a fine
residence, six hundred fruit trees and some very fine
stock and a dairy.
He still runs the same gristmill he constructed
when he first came, although it has been enlarged
and changed to the roller process. "The mill is
situated on a race taken out of the Yakima river.
Mr. Dammon was married first to Miss Mary Cush-
ing who died in 1865, leaving three boys. He was
then married to his present wife, Miss Sabrina June,
in Wisconsin. They have one boy and one girl
living.
JAMES R. DANIEL.— The subject of this
sketch was born in 1826, and has lived a life that
might well be described in poetry as succinct as that
in which Othello related his own.
The son of a machinist and shipbuilder of Phila-
delphia, Mr. Daniel early learned naval craft on the
schoolship North Carolina in New York harbor, and
on the brig Washington of the Coast Survey, and
was then transferred to the Independence and Poto-
mac. After his honorable discharge from the United
States navy, he made voyages as able seaman to
Havre and Liverpool, and to the West Indies. In
1846 he joined the United States army to subdue
Mexico, and was in the exciting scenes of that war
until its close, being one of the number to witness
the planting of the American colors on the old
Aztec capitol. He was in the quartermaster's de-
partment, and at one time had charge of a mule
train, loaded with silver dollars, from Vera Cruz to
the City of Mexico. He was engaged for a time
after the war in business at that old city, and in 1850
came to the mines of California.
With almost every passing year he encountered
new romances and adventures. He was with the
banished Mobile Guard of France, and served as
scout to quell the Indians of the Stanislaus in Cali-
fornia. In the month of July, 1852, he sailed for
Australia, and on the way prospected the Samoan
Islands of Tutuila. After mining in Australia, he
came to Oregon, and on Althouse and Klamath
rivers mined with success. On Sucker creek he lost
his partner by the bullets of the Indians.
In 1858 he went with a companion to Frazer
river, British Columbia, and was one of the fortu-
nates who discovered Hill's bar, from which him-
self and partner took ten thousand dollars each
within six months. Going now with his money to
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
293
San Francisco, he fell in the way of an appointment
as interpreter for the secretary of the legation to
Chile. But soon after reaching this South Ameri-
can country the revolution broke out, compelling
his return by smuggling himself off on a Danish
ship.
Coming to Portland in 1859, he took a band of
cattle to the Umatilla, and changed the epithet,
"Hamstring," applied to the country, to "Tu tu
willow," after the Samoan Tutuila. Here he has
made his home ever since, although he has made
many mining expeditions to British Columbia, and
did not neglect to celebrate our glorious Fourth by
raising our colors and singing patriotic hymns even
across the line. In the spring of 1861, he took out
six thousand, five hundred dollars at Oro Fino,
Pierce City and Rhodes Creek, but lost his cattle by
the severity of the season. In 1862, with his old
partner Hill, he procured a train of goods at The
Dalles and opened a hotel at Lee's Encampment,
which he afterwards sold to A. B. Meacham. In the
same year he was married. In 1878 his loved com-
panion departed this life, leaving six children.
Mr. Daniel's eight hundred acres of land thor-
oughly engage his attention; and he did not leave
his home even during the time of the Indian scares
in 1878.
CATHERINE S. DAVIS.—One of the beauti-.
ful and happy lives among the pioneer women of
our state is that of the lady named above. It has,
to some extent, been spent amid the utmost dan-
gers, difficulties and privations, but nevertheless
has been constantly adorned by works of devotion
and benevolence. Hers is a life made beautiful not
so much by wealth or technical culture as by pa-
tience, fortitude and good works.
In
She was born of Dutch parentage in the State of
New York, January 23, 1811. Her father, William
K. Sluyter, one of the Knickerbockers, moved to
Pennsylvania when she was nine years old, and
nine years later to Ohio. In that state she was
married at the age of twenty-one to Benjamin Davis.
In 1838 they, with their children, moved to Indi-
ana, settling near where Plymouth now stands.
1847 herself, husband and six children joined the
train of Captain Peak to cross the plains to Oregon.
The journey was without startling incidents during
its earlier stages, with the exception of some annoy-
ance from the Pawnee Indians, and the exaction of
toll by them. At Fort Hall, however, the train
divided, that portion to which Mr. Davis belonged
taking the southern or Applegate route through the
desert and Modoc country and the Rogue river val-
ley. Almost from the point of departure from the
old track, there were threats, shootings and sur-
prises from the Indians, with frequent returns of
bullets from the immigrants. Especially was this
Especially was this
the case in the Modoc country. In the Rogue river
valley, also, having escaped many of the minor
harassments of a troublesome enemy, they were
threatened with complete annihilation. Two hun-
dred warriors surrounded their camp, having sep-
arated themselves from their women and tents.
There were no more than eighteen men capable of
bearing arms in Mr. Davis' train; and in case of an
Mr.
onset the results would have been doubtful.
Davis, however, by a clever ruse, kept them off.
Having a cook-stove with a drum in the back part
of his wagon, which had a fire in it and from which
smoke was issuing, he made signs that this was a
cannon or some sort of explosive machine, and at
his word would destroy them. Noticing its resem-
blance to artillery, of which they may have had
some notion, and not daring to tempt its gaping
mouth, they gradually withdrew and let the train
pass.
Arriving at a point two miles north of the present
site of Eugene, the beauty and manifest fertility of
this land led Mr. Davis and his wife to secure here
a claim for a home. The following years were spent
amid the privations common to all the pioneers of
that early day. With but seventy-five cents left
from the journey, they were compelled to trade off a
portion of their cattle for flour and seed wheat; and,
to get these, Mr. Davis was obliged to go to the
Luckiamute, sixty miles away. A cow for twelve
bushels of wheat and a yoke of oxen for a thousand
pounds of flour was how the trade stood; and this
provisioning seemed sufficient for the winter's sup-
ply. But, long before seeding time in the spring,
the flour was exhausted, by reason of Mrs. Davis'
unstinted hospitality to the many weary and hungry
parties who still came straggling through the moun-
tains. Then the family were compelled to live on
boiled wheat, and this without salt, when that arti-
cle was gone.
In the spring an abundance of milk,
and unlimited quantities of delicious wild strawber-
ries, without sugar, varied their bill of fare. It was
at about this time, however, that Mr. William Dod-
son, of the upper forks of the Willamette, happened
by and discovered their lack of money and the dif-
ficulty that Mr. Davis experienced in providing for
his family, and insisted upon loaning him, without
note or interest, an amount sufficient to purchase
provisions at Vancouver, one hundred and forty
miles away.
Notwithstanding the difficulties of these early
days, Mrs. Davis remembers them with great pleas-
ure. She clad her children in buckskin suits and
supplied them with plenty of butter and cheese.
She was skilled in midwifery and became nurse
to the families scattered here and there in the upper
Willamette valley, being sought from Mary's river
to the Calapooia Mountains to alleviate the suffer-
ings of those in sickness or trouble. She contin-
ued this practice until her failing eyesight compelled
her to desist. No one ever passed her house with-
out food or good cheer.
Seven children grew up in this home, one son
being born after their arrival in Oregon. The death
of Mr. Davis in 1858 left Mrs. Davis with the three
younger children to educate. She lived on the old
place until 1874, when, the last of the children hav-
ing married and moved away, she broke up house-
keeping and has since lived with her children, as
she felt inclined. With the exception of the loss of
her eyesight, her health remains good.
GEORGE A. DAVIS.-This pioneer in the lum-
ber and flouring business of Portland, and indeed of
other points throughout the union, is a native of
294
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
In
Maine, having been born in Hallowell in 1832. In
1851 he was one of the argonauts, sailing to the
Golden state via Nicaragua, and remaining there
until 1865 occupied in mining, lumbering and other
sorts of business. Returning home in that year, he
soon left for Iowa, making his home there for ten
years, engaged in stock-raising and farming. He
was married there to Miss Hannah C. Dudley.
1875 he came again to California, contrasting the
facilities of the railroad train with the slower steam-
ship accommodations of the older time. Stopping
only for a breathing spell at the metropolis of the
Pacific coast, he came on to Portland, operating four
years in the flouring business, and being well
remembered there. In 1879 he went to Spokane
Falls, opened a drug store and conducted it for two
years, and in 1887 returned to his old-time business
of milling, running a sawmill, and afterwards, with
Mr. Havemale, building the Echo Roller Mills, the
first of the kind in the territory. Two years later
he sold out to his partner, but still continued in the
lumber business, and in 1887 built a fully equipped
roller flour-mill at Marshall, eight miles from the
city, the fourth that he has erected, all giving
excellent work.
Mr. Davis was one of the first members of the city
council by appointment, and served another term by
election. He was one of the originators of the Meth-
odist College, and has contributed liberally to its
building funds. His life on this coast has generally
been peaceful; yet in the early days of California he
had at least one shrewd brush with the Indians, the
train which he was driving being attacked and his
partner shot dead at his side, and another man
pierced with two balls, himself escaping unhurt.
This providential preservation has given Spokane
Falls one of her best and oldest citizens.
JAMES S. DAVIS.—Mr. Davis is one of the most
interesting and progressive men of our country.
The tragic events of Steptoe's expedition in 1858 are
described in the body of this work, and need no
repetition here. One of the most conspicuous land-
marks in the region traversed by that ill-fated troop
is the spire-like pinnacle of basalt which has ever
since received the name of Steptoe. It lies in the
midst of one of the richest and most productive
farming regions in the world, the far-famed Palouse
country. Long a solitude, it has lately been occu-
pied by a keen and public-spirited citizen, known
far and near as "Cash-up" Davis. Upon that lofty
eminence, Mr. Davis has erected buildings of so fine
and expensive a character, from which views of such
superlative magnificence can be obtained, that the
visitor has almost as much curiosity to know the
career of the man who did all this as to see the
scenes themselves.
Mr. Davis was born in Hastings, England, on No-
vember 16, 1815. At that historic spot, the site of the
battle which left William the Conqueror in possession
of England, he spent the first fifteen years of his life.
His uncle, a captain in the British army, then ap-
pointed him his valet; and he entered a postilion
school to learn how to take the proper charge of a
pair of Shetland ponies which the Sultan of Turkey
had given as a present to Lady Erskine. Having
*
remained there a year, the boy took to wandering
over all parts of the United Kingdom in company
with an army officer, Captain John Guyun.
The Captain having died within a year and a half,
the young man continued his travels in the south of
England and in France. Next he was busy as fore-
man in charge of sixty men engaged in running the
Dover tunnel under Shakespeare cliff. On the 8th
of August he took ship for the New World. After
four years in Seneca county, Ohio, he was married
to Mary Ann Shoemaker of Columbus, Ohio; and
two years later the young couple went to Wisconsin
to make their fortune. There they lived twenty-
two years; and there their eleven children were born.
Their names in order of age are: William A., Laura
C., Francis L., Ferdinand A., Henry E., James P.,
John, Clarence C., Mary Ann, Amy C. and Charles
J.
Leaving their pleasant home in Wisconsin, they
spent two years in Iowa. In 1871 they joined the
increasing stream of immigration to Oregon. In
the beautiful county of Yamhill they spent a year
and a half, and then made still another home in
Whitman county, Washington. Having purchased
Steptoe Station of the Northern Pacific Railroad
Company in 1877, Mr. Davis made some extensive
improvements there.
In 1887 he purchased Steptoe Butte; and there he
has built an imperishable monument to himself in
the form of his observatory and other buildings.
His lofty eyrie consists of a building sixty-four by
sixty-six feet in size, in which is a hall running the
whole width of the building and forty feet wide.
Upon the summit of the building is a cupola en-
circled by a regular steamship deck. In the observa-
tory is the next to the largest telescope in Washing-
ton. With its aid, a view, scarcely to be paralleled
in the country, is spread out like a map. A fore-
ground of vast rolling plains, checkered with grain
fields; a background of towering mountains, rising,
tier on tier, till they break at last against the barriers
of eternal frost, such is the outlook which daily
greets the vision of this brave old pioneer of the
Palouse. He is thus most happily situated; for his
eleven children are located in comfort and prosperity
in the fertile land at the foot of his castle.
HON. MATTHEW P. DEADY.—The char-
acter of the man whose name heads this article is
one to which justice cannot be done in a short
sketch of the principal events of his life. How-
ever, it will serve to illustrate one pure, wise and
energetic; one of those who, while he gained his
education, toiled for his living; one of those whom
no circumstances, poverty or hardship could deter
or turn aside from his purposes and the pursuit of
knowledge. Judge Deady was born in Easton,
Talbot county, Maryland, on May 12, 1824. His
parents were good and respectable people, his father
being a teacher by profession. When the son was
four years of age, the family moved to Wheeling,
Virginia, where his father was employed as principal
of the Lancasterian Academy for a number of years.
In 1834 his mother died as they were journeying
from Baltimore to Wheeling, having been visiting
her father at the former city. In 1837, Matthew

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
295
removed with his father to Ohio, and there spent
four years on the farm, until in 1841 he went to
Barnesville and wrought at the anvil while he
attended the Barnesville Academy. So, while he
hammered away at the forge, he also shaped in
his mind the knowledge found in good books.
After completing his apprenticeship, young Deady
with laudable ambition determined to read law;
and, realizing that he could only succeed by means
of severe application, he began the study of law in
1845 with Honorable William Kennon, of St. Clairs-
ville, Ohio, afterwards on the supreme bench of the
state, and now deceased. While pursuing his
studies, he supported himself by teaching school.
In October, 1847, he was admitted to the supreme
court of the state, and commenced practice in St.
Clairsville. His indomitable will and hard labor,
both mentally and physically, had now placed him
on a fair road to brave the battle of life; and he
started out to succeed.
He crossed the plains to Oregon in 1849, and
taught school during the winter of that year, until
in the spring of 1850 he commenced the practice
of his profession, soon becoming a man of mark in
the community. Indeed, the very year he began to
practice, he was chosen at the June election to the
lower house of the territorial legislature, in which
he was an active and leading member, and, as a
consequence, was in 1851 elected a member of the
territorial council from the same county,-Yamhill,
-the opposition being Honorable David Logan.
Here he served as chairman of the judiciary com-
mittee in the session of 1851-52, and as presiding
officer during the special session of July, 1852, and
the regular one of 1852-53.
He was already one of the leading men of the
country, both at the bar and in the legislature, and
was strongly urged in the spring of 1853 as a
candidate for delegate to Congress, but preferred to
accept the appointment of associate justice of the
supreme court of the territory, which office he filled
by subsequent reappointment, until the admission
of the state into the union in February, 1859. Soon
after his appointment he removed to the southern
district, comprising at that time the country south
of the Calapooia Mountains, and settled on a farm
in the valley of the Umpqua, where the interested
traveler may still find the fruitful orchards and
vines planted and trained by his hands in the
intervals of judicial labor.
While occupying this position he was elected
from Douglas county as one of the delegates to the
constitutional convention, which met in Salem in
1857, and formed the present constitution of the
state, being president of the body, and active and
influential in its workings. At the first election
At the first election
under this constitution, Judge Deady was elected
one of the justices of the supreme court of the state
from the southern district; but as he had been
appointed judge of the United States district court
for the state, on her admission in 1859, he accepted
the latter position and moved to Portland in 1860,
where he has ever since resided and occupied a
seat in the district and circuit courts with marked
ability.
lature the present code and civil procedure, which
was adopted with two small amendments, and with
slight alterations has constituted the code of civil
procedure for the state since it went into effect in
May, 1863. At the request of the legislature of
1862, he also prepared and reported to the legisla-
ture of 1864 a code of criminal procedure, includ-
ing the definitions of crimes and their punishments,
which was passed at that session without amend-
ment, and which is substantially still in force.
With all of his other labors, Judge Deady has found
time to prepare and publish a large amount of
correspondence and contributions to the periodicals.
of the country, containing much information con-
cerning the history of Oregon and its affairs. He
has also given of his labor and means to the estab-
lishment and support of charitable and educational
institutions, one of which is the Portland Library,
of which he is president, and another the State
University, of which he is president of the board of
regents.
The judge, with his tall stature, with his intelli-
gent and sparkling blue eyes, and auburn hair now
plentifully sprinkled with gray, is when on the
bench urbane and courteous, though requiring that
decorum which he considers indispensable to the
dignity of the court and the orderly transaction
of business; and the "bullies" of the law soon find
their level in his court. He is very kind and en-
couraging to the young and inexperienced lawyers;
and neither reputation nor eloquence compensate,
before him, for carelessness or neglect in the prepara-
tion or conduct of a case. In the social circle he is
lively and entertaining; and those who have met
him in assemblages where it was necessary to meet
wit and eloquence with impromptu repartee, remem-
ber with delight the graceful humor, elegant diction
and forcible expression which characterized his
utterances. His lectures have always abounded with
original thought and interest; and he is indeed one
whom Oregon may be proud to claim.
He was married in June, 1852, to Miss Lucy A.
Henderson, the daughter of Robert Henderson, of
Yamhill, a lady universally respected. They both
occupy a high social position, and are among the best
people of Trinity church, of which Judge Deady
is a vestryman of long standing.
RICHARD W. DEAL.- This old-time freighter
of the mining days was born in Ohio in 1838, and
was the son of a stock dealer. He remained at
home assisting his father until twenty-two years of
age, having secured in the meantime from two
weeks to three months log-cabin-school education
per annum. Soon after attaining his majority, he
began life on his own account, seeking his fortune
upon the Pacific coast, finding himself in San
Francisco about the first of June, 1862. Having
taken a look at the mining district of California,
he sailed for Oregon in July of that year, and in
the autumn was hard at work at the Granite Creek
mines in the John Day district of Eastern Oregon.
Subsequently, having ranged over the country
somewhat, he traded off some horses which he had
secured in various mining speculations for immi-
In 1861-62 he prepared and reported to the legis- grant ox-teams, and then and there entered upon
296
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
his renowned career as leading freighter on the
Umatilla road. In this capacity he was known by
everyone, and still carries with him much of the
same old-time luster that gathered about the head
of the successful conveyer of miners and gold dust
on the old route across the Blue Mountains.
In
In 1867 he owned 380 work oxen, all of which
were employed in drawing freight, such as machinery
for quartz or stamp mills, and supplies for the Idaho
mining district. He is full of reminiscences of these
old, semi-barbarous times, when privations, hard-
ships, incalculable labor and constant perils from
the Bannack Indians were the order of the day.
1868, in making a trip to Camp Harney with a
train, he was attacked by a mixed marauding band
of Indians, and having corraled his "bull schooners'
(by which pleasing appellation the enormous freight
wagons of those days were called), began with his
men a desperate fight, routing at length his assail-
ants without losing anyone of his party.
remarked to the writer that he "knowed the natur'
of the varmints," and was usually prepared for their
funny business.
He
In 1875 he took a drove of three hundred horses
from the Grande Ronde valley across the plains to
Iowa, improved the occasion by a visit to the Cen-
tennial exposition held the following year, and sub-
sequently dealt in fine horses in the Middle West.
In this business he is engaged at the present wri-
ting.
In 1868 he married Miss Lizzie Williamson, who
crossed the plains from Pennsylvania in 1862.
They have four children.
VAN B. DE LASHMUTT. The present
mayor of Portland exemplifies the versatility char-
acteristic of the early pioneers. As journalist, mer-
chant, real-estate dealer, capitalist, banker and miner,
he has been able to bring to bear his large abilities
with equal facility. He is a native of the Hawk-
eye state, having been born at Burlington in 1842,
where he passed his early years on a farm,-the
best of all places to develop muscle and nerve. He
reached Oregon in 1852, and when a youth of fifteen
entered the office of the Salem Statesman, having a
latent ambition for journalism, and was treated with
fatherly consideration by Asahel Bush, the editor.
Upon the outbreak of the Civil war, he left his
prospects at our capital, and, enlisting in the Third
California Infantry, served his term with General
Conner's command in Utah. When mustered out
in 1864, he again directed his attention to journal-
ism, being publisher and editor of the Times at
Washoe, Nevada. Even while in the army at Salt
Lake he had been concerned in publishing the Vi-
dette, the first daily in the Mormon capital.
In 1865 he had reached Oregon once more, and
found employment in the office of the Oregonian.
Although displaying the qualities which constitute
a journalist, he sought a freer and more remuner-
ative field in the business world. With unusual
sagacity he saved his earnings, and with a Mr.
Hibbard, and later with H. B. Oatman, carried on a
successful business. In 1870 he diverted his capital
into a general real-estate and brokerage line. This
was a time in the city's history analogous to the
present; and the careful investments made by Mr.
De Lashmutt multiplied his fortune many fold. He
is now regarded as the owner of more improved
property than any other man in our metropolis.
In connection with Judge Thayer and others, he
incorporated in September, 1882, the Metropolitan
Savings Bank, which, though at first beset with
difficulties, won for itself through his able manage-
ment an enviable repute as one of the most stable
and prosperous institutions in Portland. Encour-
aged by its success, he organized in 1886 the Oregon
National Bank, of which he was elected president,
and conducted its affairs with such ability that it
has ever since been recognized as among the sound-
est and safest in the state, its business increasing to
vast proportions. Thus Mr. De Lashmutt has
gained for himself an established reputation as one
of the most able financiers on the Pacific coast,
being elected president of the Ellensburgh National
Bank, the Arlington National Bank, and the Min-
ers' Exchange Bank at Wardner, and also being
connected with the Northwestern Loan and Trust
Company.
Perhaps Mr. De Lashmutt is best known outside
of the city for his extensive mining enterprises. He
early made large investments in the Coeur d'Alene
region, and now owns a controlling interest in three
of the largest mines in that wonderfully rich quartz.
district, the Sierra Nevada, Stemwinder and Gran-
ite.
At their present valuation, these mines are
worth one million dollars; and two of them have
declared dividends amounting to twenty thousand
dollars. These mines will be a source of wealth for
many years to come. Their productive capacity
will be so largely increased by their further develop-
ment that annual dividends amounting to hundreds
of thousands of dollars may confidently be expected.
It was in connection with these enterprises that
Mr. De Lashmutt rendered the city of Portland and
the people of Oregon and Washington a service too
valuable to be computed. When, by the proposed
joint lease of the Oregon Railway & Navigation
Company to the Union Pacific and Northern Pacific,
the interests of this region were threatened with the
stoppage of competitive transportation and the cessa-
tion of construction of much-needed lines of rail-
way, he stepped to the front and assumed the
expense and responsibility of securing an injunc-
tion. Others indulged in protestation and argu-
ment; but nothing but effective action could satisfy
him. In spite of fair promises from the promoters
of the joint-lease scheme, he adhered to his posi-
tion until it had the effect of defeating the pro-
posed action. The results are already apparent in
the renewed activity of the Oregon Railway & Nav-
igation Company to secure new territory and push
its line to Spokane Falls and the Coeur d'Alene
mines.
In February, 1868, Mr. De Lashmutt married Miss
Kelly, a native of Kentucky, who came with her
parents to Oregon in early infancy. Her father,
Albert Kelly, was a Methodist clergyman. It is
almost unnecessary to say that she is a lady held
in very high esteem in the social circles of Portland,
as well as in its religious society. Of their five chil-
dren, two sons and one daughter survive. The elder
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
297
son, an energetic and studious youth, with decided
literary tastes, is receiving his education at Leipsic,
Germany. The younger is at Portland, and the
only daughter at Wellesley College.
In physique and appearance, Mr. De Lashmutt is
a man somewhat above medium height, with a slen-
der but well-knit frame, upright in carriage, quick
of speed and agile in motion, with black hair and
eyes, and a luxuriant growth of beard. In his
regular and well-chiseled features, his lofty fore-
head, and his clear, prominent eye, there is an
expression of kindliness and benevolence, of strong
intelligence, and a keen sense of humor.
He has not until recently been concerned in poli-
tics. But in 1888 the circumstances demanded his
presence; and he was elected by the city council as
mayor of Portland, and was afterwards re-elected
by the people by a majority of 1,071, the largest
ever recorded in the political annals of our metropo-
lis. Of this victory he is justly proud, as an indi-
cation of the esteem and respect in which he is held
by the community. He is still a man in the prime
of life; and the nerve and foresight which have
given him such substantial results hitherto will
undoubtedly lead to even greater things.
JAMES M. DE MOSS.- This well-known
This well-known
musician of Eastern Oregon was born at Greens-
burg, Indiana, May 15, 1837. As a child he
removed to Iowa with his parents, and in that state
was reared, receiving his higher education at Western
College. At eighteen he became a teacher of music,
and three years later was married to Miss Elizabeth
A., daughter of Reverend Henry Bonebrake.
spent his early manhood as an exhorter in the
United Brethren church. In the great patriotic
meetings held during the days of the Civil war by
Honorable Henry Wilson, and others, he was
appointed to lead in vocal music, thus assisting in
helping on the Union army.
He
In 1862 he crossed the plains to Oregon. Arriv-
ing at Powder river about the middle of September,
he was so much delighted by seeing the swarms of
salmon disporting in the clear waters of the stream,
and was morever so well pleased with the surround-
ings of the place, that he stopped at this point,
locating and building a cottage hotel, where now
stands the town of North Powder. Here he put in
a fish trap and built a toll bridge, the latter of
which remains, having little need of repairs.
In
He soon resumed clerical labors as missionary,
and labored extensively in the eastern section.
the spring of 1863 occurred the rush to the Idaho
mines; and thousands of persons crossed the bridge.
John Hailey established there his line of stages. In
the midst of this activity, Mr. De Moss reaped a
golden harvest, and in the autumn sold out to excel-
lent advantage, removing with his family to The
Cove, and throwing a toll bridge across the Grande
Ronde river at the base of the mountain now known
by his name. He also built a mill, but sold both
properties soon afterwards, and invested in mines,
making and losing a fortune.
It was in 1867 that he began teaching music as
a profession, operating in the Cove, in the Grande
Ronde, in the Walla Walla and in the Uma-
tilla regions. Taking a transfer from the annual
conference of his church, he began giving concerts
with his family, who also developed great musical
ability. In 1872 he took a tour East as far as Iowa,
traveling with his family under the name of the
De Moss Concertists of Oregon, the members being
himself and wife, and the children, Henry S., George
G., Lizzie, Minnie and May. All the children were
under twelve years, and were even thus early known
as musical prodigies. The professor still continued
teaching, becoming principal of the Normal Musical
Institute at Des Moines, and there constructing a
chart, called the Key to Music. On account of
the failure of the health of Mrs. De Moss, who was
also a teacher in the Institute, the family returned
to the Pacific states, giving concerts en route
through Colorado, at the summer resorts and parks,
and continuing the same in the prominent towns by
way of Salt Lake to San Francisco. The following
summer they continued their tour through Utah and
Idaho, and brought their wanderings to a close in
Wasco county, Oregon, where they secured 840
acres of land, from which they set off 80 acres as
the site of a town,- De Moss Springs.
They have continued their concerts, making tours
each year, although in 1886 the family circle was
sadly broken by the death of Mrs. De Moss, and of
the daughter May, while they were in California.
There are therefore now five members in the house-
hold, all of whom write songs and compose music
to accompany. They are appropriately styled
The Pioneers Concertists of Oregon, and Lyric
Bards of the Mountain West. They have been
making a successful concert tour of late to the far
Eastern states, but still retain their residence in
Oregon.
ARTHUR A. DENNY.-With the history of
the early settlement of Puget Sound no name is
more intimately blended than that of Arthur A.
Denny, the pioneer, the founder of one of its chief
metropolitan cities, the volunteer in the suppression
of Indian outbreaks, the legislator, the politician,
the office-holder, the congressman, the successful
banker, the liberal philanthropist, the honest man
and good citizen.
Like many more of those who were his cotempo-
raries in rescuing Washington Territory from the
wilderness, he has seen the newcomers who are
enjoying those comforts of life, not to say luxuries,
to which his early sacrifices so eminently contributed,
-who have undergone the same routine as the elo-
quent Denny. In speaking of his noble wife and
companion in early isolation and labor in the dedi-
cation of future commonwealths, he aptly described
as her portion. Said he: "She bore the hardships
of the trip across the plains and the privations of
pioneer life upon Puget Sound with the greatest
fortitude. She was never known or heard to com-
plain or repine at her lot,—in her mission of laying
the foundation of future American commonwealths,
-but with singular courage met every obstacle that
stood in the way of the early settler of the North-
west coast; and they were truly many, and often
calculated to appall the stoutest heart."
With such a companion, no wonder Mr. Denny
298
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
accomplished so much for the good of his race; and
yet, that good old man, whose early life was so
occupied, so feelingly added (1888): "It is now
thirty-six years since I came to Puget Sound; and
I am more and more impressed with the fact, as
each succeeding year rolls by, that the early settlers
of the country will very shortly all have crossed
over the river and be soon forgotten; for we may
all
concede the fact that we shall be missed but little
when we are gone, and that little but a short time.
But when we have met the last trial, and our last
campfire has died out, some may desire a knowledge
of such facts as we alone can give."
And then the "old man practical" briefly, too
briefly, gave a summary of incidents illustrating his
removal to the Pacific coast, and his recollections of
the early settlements on the Sound. With charac-
teristic modesty, however, he spoke of others, not
himself; and what should have been an autobiogra-
phy of perhaps the most notable of Washington
Territory pioneers and philanthropists falls short in
that respect. The task of giving a pen-picture of his
laborious life, this humanitarian, this servant of the
people, this layer of the foundation of the future
state, falls to an admirer and friend who has known
him through all these years that his life service has
been performed within Washington Territory.
That pure life will afford an example for the best
of men to find something that they can imitate
for self-improvement. To the business man, his
integrity, his industry, his life of work, commend
themselves for adoption as a model. The citizen
may profit by contemplating his liberal donations.
for the University, for schools, for hotels and for
public improvements. The young man may watch
his career in sagaciously marching to the extreme
frontier, far beyond the confines of civilization, and
there and then, surrounded by savages, hewing out
a home in the dense forest of Puget Sound. The
land he first attempted to reclaim from savagery is
now the majestic city of Seattle.
What a lesson there is in the life of this noble
man. In green old age (with all his faculties as
matured and bright as the day when he conceived
the locating of Seattle, and that he would be the
founder of a great city) he is pushed aside, reminded
by the busy scenes around him that "The early
settlers of the country will very shortly have crossed
over the river and be soon forgotten; for we shall
be missed but little when we are gone, and that
little but a short time." And yet, in that city he
founded, in its works and charities, his life will be
recalled; and to him, however heartless the indiffer-
ence of the world may appear, there must be comfort
in the assurance of the Psalmist:
"The sweet remembrance of the just
Shall flourish when he sleeps in dust."
Perhaps the very best estimate of Mr. Denny's own
view of duty, of the claim a man has to the respect
of his fellows or of posterity, is embodied in his own
language urging old settlers "to contribute what
they can to make up a record of those early times."
Said he "The most important thing in my esti-
mation is to make no wrong or incorrect state-
ments. Let it be the pride of the old settlers to
state the truth. It is no time for romancing or
painting fancy sketches, when we are nearing the
end of our voyage. The work is too serious for
fiction. We want solid facts only.”
Arthur A. Denny was born in Salem, Indiana, June
20, 1822. His father was honest John Denny, the first
Republican candidate for the office of Governor of
the State of Oregon, in the year 1858, -a contem-
porary and political associate of Abraham Lincoln
in the early days of Illinois, a soldier in the war of
1812, and in the Black Hawk war, a native of the
State of Kentucky. Old settlers of Oregon and
Washington will remember him as an eloquent
speaker, a thoroughly informed man, and a great
humorist. In many respects the son Arthur resem-
bles him. The latter, however, was more retiring
in his disposition than the elder Denny, and in pub-
blic forensic efforts did not display that wit and
humor which his friends and companions have so
enjoyed in social conversation, but which with his
father pervaded his public speeches.
To Arthur was afforded the opportunity of acquir-
ing a rudimental education, such as in those times
could be conferred in the frontier states. He made
the most of his opportunities, and in early life ac-
quainted himself with a thorough knowledge of
surveying, which he practiced as his profession more
or less during his early manhood. The family re-
moved to Knox county, Illinois, when Arthur was
fourteen years of age. While continuing his resi-
dence in Knox county, he held the office of county
surveyor for eight years. His wife, to whom refer-
ence has already been made, was a native of Ten-
nessee; and there were but a few months difference
in their ages. The family consists of two daughters
and four sons, all of whom reside in the city of
Seattle.
Mr. Denny with his family crossed the plains in
1851, and during that fall came to Puget Sound. It
is to be regretted that room is not permitted for his
graphic description of the trip across the plains, so
full of interest in being contrasted with the journey
over the continent now, on one of the transconti-
nental railways, with all the comforts and luxuries
of city life. The little train of four wagons,―seven
men and their families of women and children,-left
Knox county, Illinois, April 10, 1851. They reached
Fort Hall, July 6th, having traveled 1,104 miles.
from the Missouri river. Two days later the party
journeyed along the south side of Snake river; and
as they passed American Falls they observed that a
large band of Indians were camped on the opposite
side of the river; and a war party of ten crossed at
the foot of the falls. The hostile band approached
the head of the little train and endeavored to stop
it, pretending they desired to trade. They refused
to halt; and, after they had traveled a short distance,
the Indians, who had concealed themselves behind
boulders and rocks, fired upon them without doing
any injury. A number of the Indians now com-
menced to pursue; but the train crossed the ravine,
down which the Indians had approached, secured a
good position for defence, and waited for the attack.
The Indians, appreciating the strength of the posi-
tion, kept out of range and soon retired. But a few
weeks later, at that identical ravine, a family named
Clark were cruelly massacred.

HON.R.O.DUNBAR,
GOLDENDALE, W.T.
UA
C
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
299
人
​The little party reached The Dalles August 11th,
sent their wagons across Barlow's Pass of the Cas-
cade Mountains, and went down the river in boats,
reaching Portland August 22d. It may be curious
to know that the estimated distance over the immi-
grant road to The Dalles was 1,765 miles from Mis-
souri river, eighty days' travel,-that this party,
from their Illinois home, occupied ninety days to
The Dalles and ten days to Portland.
Francis A. Chenoweth, speaker of the first territo-
rial house of representatives of Washington, after-
wards associate justice of the supreme court of the
territory from 1854 to 1858, was, at the time Mr.
Denny passed, building a tram-road for the transfer
of freight and passengers around the Cascades of the
Columbia. At the upper landing were the Brad-
fords and Bishop. There was also being built a
small sidewheel steamer, called the Flint, to run
between the Cascades and The Dalles, the first
steamboat engaged in navigating the Columbia
river. Above the Cascades Chenoweth was running
an old brig called the Henry, between Portland and
the Cascades. The baggage of the Denny train was
the first freight transported on the first railroad west
of the Rocky Mountains. It was taken over on a
car by hand, the families traveling on foot to the
Lower Cascade landing, where they took passage on
the brig to Portland.
Mr. Denny describes Portland in 1851: "It con-
tained a population of two thousand or more, at that
early period giving promise of future greatness.'
Mr. Denny and his family sailed from Portland on
the schooner Exact on the 5th of November, 1851,
and arrived at Alki Point, on Puget Sound, Novem-
ber 13th, and there remained for the winter. They
built log cabins for the several families; and that
winter they cut a cargo of piles for San Francisco.
On the 15th of February, 1852, Mr. Denny, his
brother David T., and William N. Bell, crossed
Elliott Bay from Alki Point, and located there
three claims contiguously, the southern boundary
being fixed at what is now the head of commercial
street, in the city of Seattle. He quaintly remarks:
Piles and timber being the only dependence for
support in the beginning, it was important to look
well to the facilities for the business.” It would be
foreign to the purpose of this sketch to trace the
growth and vicissitudes and the progress of Seattle,
as it expanded to metropolitan proportions, however
interesting and intimately connected therewith was
Mr. Denny. Enough has been told to illustrate the
task he undertook, the limited means with which to
operate, the herculean result which has flowed there-
from, which must greatly be attributed to his sagac-
ity, enterprise, activity and public spirit.
((
About the time of the arrival of the Denny colony
and the formation of a settlement at Seattle, there
were a number of other points upon Puget Sound
that were occupied and settled. The year 1852 was
marked by the arrival of a largely increased popu-
lation in the territory north of the Columbia river.
From the summer of 1851, the question of a division
of the territory of Oregon had been agitated.
During the fall of that year, meetings had been
held and the matter discussed. This led to a
calling of a convention of delegates to be selected
by the towns, communities or counties in Oregon
Territory on the north side of the Columbia, to be
held at Monticello, in Cowlitz county, on the 25th
of November, 1852. Of this convention Arthur A.
Denny was a prominent and influential member;
and from it emanated a memorial to the Congress of
the United States praying that so much of Oregon
Territory as lay north of the Columbia river be set
off as a separate territory, to be called Columbia
Territory. The territorial legislature of Oregon, at
its session of 1852-53, among its very earliest acts
adopted a strong memorial to Congress to the same
effect; and the act setting off the territory north of
the Columbia river from the remainder of Oregon
and establishing the "Territory of Washington
passed Congress and was approved by President
Millard Fillmore, March 2, 1853.
Mr. Denny was elected a member of the house
of representatives of the Washington Legislative
Assembly for the first, second, third and fourth
sessions, being Speaker of the house at the third
session. He was a member of the council for three
years. As a legislator, he distinguished himself as
a working member, though he frequently made.
speeches, which were listened to with marked
attention. There were many measures, memorials
and acts introduced by him; and he did much
towards molding the early territorial policy of the
territory, though being a decided Whig was in the
minority in the legislative council. In the Indian
war of 1855, he was among the earliest to enroll as
a volunteer, and held the commission of first
lieutenant in Company A, Second Regiment, of
which company Chief Justice Lander was captain.
In 1861 he was appointed by Abraham Lincoln
register of the United States district land-office at
Olympia, the duties of which office he discharged
with eminent ability and to the hearty satisfaction
of the people of the territory. In 1865, about the
time his mission would have expired, he was elected
by the Republicans of the territory delegate to the
Thirty-ninth Congress of the United States.
every position to which he was called by the people
he did well, faithfully performing every duty credit-
ably to himself and satisfactorily to those who made
the selection. On his return to the territory, he
entered into business at Seattle, and gave his entire
attention to his private affairs, which had suffered
to some extent by his protracted absence at Olympia,
and at the national Capital.
In
The unexampled growth and progress of the city
of Seattle, which began to assert its supremacy as
a center of trade early in the "seventies," would
have made him a man of wealth; but with his busi-
ness methods, his close application, his conservative
tendencies, that wealth has been largely enhanced.
But he has made proper use of that blessing. He
presented to the territory the necessary land on
which to erect its university buildings. Lately he
has made a princely gift of land on which and funds
with which to erect an hotel worthy of the city of
Seattle. At all times he has contributed to the sup-
port of every enterprise and legitimate charity.
The history of the growth of Seattle, its charities.
and enterprises, would have to be written to complete
his biography. But Seattle cannot claim Arthur A.
300
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Denny exclusively, though he was its founder. His
fame and good works are the property of the terri-
tory of Washington. Among the living pioneers of
the new state he is the peer in service, in worth and
works of all that memorable little band, who in his
own characteristic language "will very shortly all
have crossed over the river," not, however, let us
hope, for the credit of humanity, as he regretfully
said, "soon to be forgotten;" for Denny and others
of them will yet live as the revered founders of a
commonwealth, the establishers of our Western civil-
ization.
DAVID THOMAS DENNY.- Mr. Denny was
the first settler of Seattle, Washington. He was
born in Putnam county, Indiana, on March 17, 1832,
of sturdy pioneer stock, his parents having settled
in Indiana as early as 1819. His father, John
Denny, lived in Indiana till 1835, when he removed
to Illinois, and in 1851 to Oregon. He was a vol-
unteer in the war of 1812, and served under
William Henry (Tippecanoe) Harrison at the Battle
of the Thames.
David T. Denny was a lad of only nineteen years
when he joined a party of emigrants with his older
brother and crossed the plains. That older brother
was Arthur A. Denny, now one of the most hon-
ored citizens of Seattle. Early in 1851 they started
out; and David drove the four-horse team of his
brother Arthur. After the usual excitement attend-
ing those early expeditions, they landed at Portland,
Oregon, on August 17, 1851. They remained there
one month to rest; and there David Denny with
John Lowe and Lee Terry left for Puget Sound to
spy out homes for the colony. They arrived at
Olympia on September 22, 1851; and, taking canoes
from there, they journeyed to Alki Point, so named
by them because Alki means bye and bye, and that
point was to be a Boston bye and bye. Here, on
September 28, 1851, these three men laid the foun-
dation of the first cabin ever built by white men in
King county. John Lowe then returned to Port-
land for the rest of the colony, and brought them
back in the shooner Exact, sailed by a Captain
Woodbury and another man generally known as
"Cap." The passengers of this schooner were
Arthur A. Denny, C. D. Boren and William N.
Bell and their families.
The winter was spent on Alki Point; but early
the next year David Denny went across Elliott Bay
and found what he considered a good place for a
home, and reported to his brother. Soon afterwards
the men made up an exploring expedition. They
took a bunch of horseshoes and a clothes-line for
a sounding lead, and proceeded to make the first
survey of Seattle harbor. David Denny had
remained at the cabin on account of having severely
cut his foot. Hence it was that Arthur Denny, C.
D. Boren, W. N. Bell and the others got their claims
in the best places. They offered to narrow up their
claims and let him in; but he was unmarried, and
so insisted on going north of the Bell claim.
self-sacrifice has since proved great good fortune, as
his land is now immensely valuable.
His
During the Indian war that raged on Puget
Sound in the years of 1855 and 1856, Mr. Denny
was a corporal in Company C, Captain C. C. Hewitt
(afterwards chief justice), of the volunteers. His
company was stationed close at hand when the In-
dians made a raid on Lieutenant Slaughter's camp,
killing the Lieutenant and several others. Com-
pany C rescued the survivors of the camp. Mr.
Arthur Denny's family was accompanied in the trip
across the plains by his wife's sister, Miss Louisa
Bown. Before the long journey was ended, she and
David had fallen in love; and on January 23, 1853,
they were married. Mrs. David Denny is therefore
as much of a pioneer of Puget Sound as her hus-
band. She was born in Illinois on May 1, 1828,
and was therefore but twenty-three years of age
when she crossed the plains. This union was
blessed with four sons and four daughters, of whom
three sons and two daughters are now living.
In the early days of Seattle and King county,
Mr. Denny held many positions of public trust. He
was a member of the first board of trustees of the
town of Seattle. He also held the following offices:
Treasurer of King county for eight years, probate
judge of the county for three years, and treasurer of
the board of regents of the University of Washing-
ton for three years. Mr. Denny had frequently
shown himself to be alive to his city's best interests.
He is now president of the Western Mill Company,
operating one of the largest sawmills in Seattle; the
Washington Improvement Company, which com-
pany is building canals to connect Lakes Union and
Washington with tide water; the Union Water
Company; vice-president of the Seattle Electric
Power and Motor Company, operating the first
electric railway in Washington Territory; director
of the Bank of North Seattle; and senior member
of the real-estate firm of D. T. Denny & Son.
JEREMIAH DE SPAIN.-This veteran among
the pioneers of Union and Umatilla counties illus-
trates in his career what one may accomplish on
this coast. Coming here a poor man, he left at his
death a competence valued at many thousand dol-
lars. He was born in Knox county, Kentucky, in
1833, being the fifth child of Benjamin De Spain,
whose family numbered six sons. In 1836 he
removed with his parents to Warren county, Illi-
nois, and there, on his father's farm, acquired the
habits of industry, and obtained what education
was afforded in the frontier schoolhouses. In 1852,
having attained his physical growth, he grew tired
of the close work and small wages of his home
country, and crossed the plains to Oregon. The
journey was toilsome and perilous; but, despite In-
dians and cholera, and a thousand hardships, the
Willamette valley was reached; and in Lane county
our young pioneer found a home. He took up the
livery business a few years, but, upon the outbreak
of the great Salmon river mines excitement, began
the hazardous work of packing thither. He avoided
or escaped all the difficulties which wrecked the
"prairie schooners" of the navigator of the plains
and mountains, and in 1862 was able to locate to
good advantage in the Grande Ronde valley.
In 1866 he was united in marriage to Miss Nancy
E. Howard, daughter of Reverend William H.
Howard, of Monmouth, Oregon. This lady was in
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
301
every respect his worthy companion, sharing hist
toils and labors, and giving zest and enjoyment to
his successes.
Soon after their marriage the energetic young
couple went onto a sheep ranch on Birch creek near
a stage station since known as Pendleton, and in
1872 moved into the town, which by this time had
attained some importance. Here Mr. De Spain be-
gan to devise means for improving the place. He
still kept his sheep; but the avails of his business
he began to use in erecting buildings. The result
of this policy is the De Spain Block on Court street,
adjoining the Villard House. It was built in 1887
at a cost of thirty thousand dollars, and is one of
the best business structures in the city. It was
erected after his death; but the building was ac-
cording to his plans and arrangements.
During the winter of 1886, owing to long and
close application to business, his health suddenly
gave way; and at the solicitation of his family and
friends, who hoped that the change might benefit
him, he went East. But their hopes were not real-
ized; and a few days after his arrival in Illinois, hist
old home state, his death occurred. He left a wife
and seven children, who reside in Pendleton. His
loss from the community has been deeply felt and
universally deplored; but the results of his life re-
main to the city and to his family. His were the
virtues which our young men may well emulate.
REV. JOHN F. DEVORE, D. D. — Doctor
Devore was a native of Kentucky, being born near
Lexington, December 7, 1817. He was of French
descent, as the name indicates, and owed very much
to the pious example of religious parents, who urged
him with their last words to be "faithful to his
God." The "Life of Bramwell" fell into his hands
at an early date, was read with great relish, and had
much to do in molding the shape of his after life.
Entering the ministry, he joined the Rock river con-
ference in 1842, Bishop Roberts presiding. He was
ordained deacon at Milwaukee in 1844 by Bishop
Morris, and elder at Galena, Illinois, in 1846 by
Bishop Hamline. In May, 1853, he was transferred
to the Oregon conference by Bishop Waugh, and
arrived with his family at Steilacoom, Washington
Territory, the latter part of August in that year,
and entered at once upon his singularly interesting
and successful career of ministerial labor on this coast,
embracing a period of thirty-six eventful years.
While in the Oregon conference, Doctor Devore's
appointments were as follows: Steilacoom two years,
1853-55; Olympia one year, 1855-56; presiding
elder Puget Sound district three years, 1856-59;
Vancouver two years, 1859-61; The Dalles two
years, 1861-63; East Tualitan two years, 1863-65;
Milwaukee one year, 1865–66; presiding elder Port-
land district four years, 1866-70; presiding elder
Puget Sound district four years, 1870–74; Vancou-
ver two years, 1874-76; Albany three years, 1876–
79; Seattle two years, 1879-81; Tacoma three years,
1881-84.
In the Puget Sound conference, organized in 1884,
by Bishop Fowler, Doctor Devore's appointments
were as follows: West Tacoma two years, 1884-86;
presiding elder Olympia district one year, 1886-87;
conference agent of church extension one year,
1887-88; and educational agent for the University
at Tacoma one year, 1888-89, at which post of duty
he fell, July 28, 1889, at four o'clock A. M., in the
seventy-second year of his age.
Doctor Devore was for many years one of the pub-
lishing committee of the Pacific Christian Advocate
and trustee of the Willamette University, and also
of the Olympia Collegiate Institute. In all of these
relations he was prompt and active in the discharge
of duty, laboring incessantly for the prosperity of all
these institutions.
As delegate to the general conference at Brooklyn
in 1872, with Doctor C. C. Stratton as colleague,
Doctor Devore labored with unusual perseverance
and success for the interests of the whole church, but
especially for the benefit of this Northwest coast.
He introduced some important amendments to the
discipline, and had passed by the general conference
a memorial providing for the purchase of lots in the
city of Portland, and the erection thereon of a suit-
able building for the Pacific Christian Advocate, and
a book depository,-measures which, if they had
been carried out as intended, would to-day have
proved a source of vast influence for good.
His last active appointment was to the presiding
eldership of the Olympia district, by Bishop Harris,
in 1886. To this work he went promptly, and
apparently with the vigor of youth renewed. At
every appointment he seemed to infuse fresh activity
and enterprise, manifesting a deep and abiding inter-
est in the welfare of the preachers and their charges.
Before the year closed he was stricken down in
helplessness, and returned reluctantly to his home
in Tacoma, and resigned the work. While thus
afflicted he wrote to the writer expressing the char-
acteristic wish that he "might be spared to build a
few more churches." He was spared, and for two more
years as conference agent of the Church Extension
Society, and educational agent of the University at
Tacoma, he held up the banner of the cross, and
with pen and voice led on in cheer for the great
work. Gradually declining in health and strength,
and expressing from time to time perfect resignation
to the will of God, without pain or struggling, he
passed peacefully home on that Sabbath morning,
to rest from the labors of a long and useful life.
His beloved wife, two married daughters, Mrs.
Josie Devore Johnson, of Oregon City, and Mrs.
Mary Devore Edmonds, of Clarke county, Wash-
ington Territory, and one son, George R. Devore,
mourn his loss; but the great consolation is theirs
that they had such a man of God for husband and
father, and that his faithful record is now in heaven.
Appropriate memorial services were held in the
First Methodist-Episcopal church of Tacoma.
Doctor John F. Devore was a man of marked peculi-
arities. Over six feet in height and well propor-
tioned physically, his venerable and striking mien
commanded observation in whatever assembly he
appeared. When he arose to speak, a pleased and
riveted attention was given to his utterances, which
were accompanied usually with an inimitable quaint-
ness of logic and expression. His sermons
well prepared, but always brief and practical, and
were delivered with a marked intonation of voice
were
302
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
that became not unpleasant, but which no minister
would dare to imitate. In pastoral fidelity and tact
he had no superior. He could more easily and
skillfully apportion the work to be done by his
parishioners, and visit and pray with more families
in one afternoon, than the most active of his breth-
ren in the ministry. His life-long habit of visit-
ing and addressing day schools and Sunday schools,
and of calling promptly upon strangers and impart
ing to them all needful information concerning the
country and the church privileges, was most com-
mendable and exemplary. Next to his efforts to
win his fellow beings to "wisdom's ways
and to
God were his unceasing labors to erect churches,
build parsonages and foster institutions of learning.
In his best days, none could surpass him in ability
or success in such work, as his numerous monu-
ments in this line will testify. He was a follower
of Bramwell in his promptness to meet every en-
gagement. He was happy in his temperament and
at times even jovial among friends; but, if any
controversy arose likely to produce unpleasantness,
his love for peace prompted reticence, acting on the
motto, "The least said the better." He truly and
wisely aimed to lead a "blameless life," - honest in
the sight of men as well as before God. In all re-
ligious meetings he took an active part from princi-
ple, and made it a duty to be among the very first
to speak or pray.
He is gone. His like in all respects as a worker
for Christ and humanity we may never see again.
We shall miss his genial presence at our annual
conferences. He will be missed by his many friends
in all the districts, stations, circuits and boards of
trustees in which he has labored. At home and
every place where he has lived and worked, will be
missed and mourned the genial, quaint, true-hearted
and indefatigable John F. Devore.
"Servant of God, well done!
Thy glorious warfare's past.
The battle's fought, the race is won;
And thou art crowned at last.'
}}
The foregoing is a verbatim extract from the
very eloquent and appropriate obituary notice of
good Father Devore by his friend and able confrère
in the ministry, the Reverend Isaac Dillon, D. D.
The writer has the esteemed privilege of adding
thereto some of his recollections of the life-service
of Father Devore outside of the Methodist church,
for humanity at large, for every community who
were blest for a period with the presence in their
midst of that great humanitarian and philanthro-
pist. That distinguished minister never for a
moment paraded sanctity of claim, never forgot his
calling, his profession, his duty to himself, to his
church, and above all his love for humanity,
interest in their welfare.
his
His great ambition was to labor for the good and
advancement of the locality in which he lived. If
his duty called him to a place where there was
neither church, schoolhouse nor lyceum in which
meetings for worship or for the amelioration of the
race might he held, Father Devore at once initiated
the movement to provide the necessary sanctuary or
temple of learning. He then labored on until the
necessity ceased to exist. He aimed first to have
a church edifice for his own denomination; and,
when he did commence, success usually followed.
If the church edifice was supplied, then he assisted
as zealously in supplying the schoolhouse or the
lyceum. While always loyal to his church, he was
equally zealous in serving humanity. The com-
munities in Washington in which he has ministered
(the writer speaks from knowledge as to such terri-
tory; and he has been informed that the same may
be said of Oregon communities) have occasion to
remember with gratitude the active services of that
untiring worker for the benefit of his race, in add-
ing to their public improvements, frequently the
church, the schoolhouse, the institute, the lyceum
hall, or some road or wharf or bridge or other bene-
ficial work for the public.
In 1857, just after the Indian war had impover-
ished the people of Washington, when Indian war
scrip, as it was called, constituted almost the cir-
culating medium of the country, Father Devore
undertook the erection of a large and commodious
Methodist-Episcopal church in the city of Olympia.
Some three years previously he had secured the
means and caused the erection of a good church
building in Steilacoom. It was a trying time at
Olympia financially; but Father Devore took the
matter in hand in dead earnest. He received dona-
tions in the scrip referred to (scrip was a certificate
of indebtedness issued by the territorial volunteer
authorities for services performed or supplies fur-
nished by the citizens in the Indian war of 1855–56);
he collected a considerable amount of that paper,
sold it at a discount, and applied the proceeds to the
erection of the church. He also received subscrip-
tions in money or material.
He was ready and willing to utilize any and
everything of value which could contribute to
his darling purpose. Full of resource, shirking no
responsibility, and of the very highest order of
courage, he continued his labor. Nothing could
discourage or daunt him; occasionally some ribald
phrase by some worthless specimen of humanity
would be addressed to him. But this deterred him
not; and generally his patient, mild reply would
disarm the most malignant, and cause the offender
to regret his ill manners to that faithful servant of
his Master.
He was ready for any proposition that could be
made. An old friend had been called upon by him for
a donation of lumber; having pleaded his inability to
make a cash contribution, thinking to put off Father
Devore without actually denying him, the party
offered Father Devore, as a donation for the church, all
the lumber that he would personally pack from the
mill wharf at Tumwater and raft alone to Olympia, a
distance of two miles. Without either accepting or
declining the offer, Father Devore waited until the
tides should best subserve his purpose. Within a
few days after the donation he repaired to Tumwater
in the night, to be on hand when the long ebb tide
at the head of the Sound should commence to run
out. At the first of that long ebb, he began to pack
the lumber to the beach; and, as the tide receded,
leaving the ground dry, he commenced to construct
his raft. He labored incessantly during all that
long ebb, and until the next flood, in packing lum-
ber and making a raft. The flood tide floated the

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
303
ļ
raft, and enabled it to reach Olympia. Long before
the raft was afloat, the donor of the lumber was
watching with genial good humor the zealous father
at work in his shirtsleeves, and that huge raft of
lumber of sufficient dimensions to build a church.
This incident among the many which might be re-
lated is illustrative of the energy, directness of pur-
pose, and the methods of that earnest and most
practical man, who contributed so much to the
building up of the outposts of civilization by his
active and personal exertion, who infused hope in
others, and who so generously encouraged every
laudable enterprise.
But those active contributions were not restricted
to his sect. He assisted all; and all those many
towns and communities in which he ministered
abound with the monuments attesting his personal
labor; and many living witnesses will bear affection-
ate testimony as to his great usefulness. How truly
How truly
it was said by his eulogist: "He will be missed by
his many friends in all the districts, stations, circuits
and boards of trustees in which he has labored.
home, and every place where he has lived and
worked, will be missed and mourned the genial,
quaint, true-hearted and indefatigable John F.
Devore."
At
FRANKLIN T. DICK.— The present postmas-
ter of La Grande was born in Westport, Kentucky,
May 7, 1840, where he remained until 1861, receiv-
ing a common-school education. In 1863 he re-
moved to Burlington, Iowa, and in the latter part
of the year went to Nevada. In 1864 we find him
at the Silver City mines, Idaho; and from this point
in 1866 he found his way to La Grande, where he
has remained ever since. In 1870 he began domes-
tic life, marrying Miss Marquise Lewis; and they
now have a family of three boys and one girl.
After coming to La Grande, Mr. Dick was engaged
seven years in agriculture, and then occupied the
position of host of the best hotel in the place for
another seven years. He has been serving as post-
master more than two years.
His political record is of an honorable character,
he having been elected to the Oregon legislature,
where he served his constituents with credit to him-
self and to the satisfaction of the public. He has
recently become heir to fifteen thousand dollars left
him by J. B. Stevens, the founder of East Portland.
The public may well congratulate Mr. Dick upon
this good fortune, feeling certain that it could have
fallen into no more worthy hands.
WILLIAM H. DILLON.— Mr. Dillon, a pio-
neer of four states of our union, and a perfect ex-
ample of the frontiersman, whose life story has
been recounted in other pages also, was born in
Kent county, Delaware, July 4, 1818. His parents
were of English and Irish descent, and in 1823
moved west across the Alleghany Mountains to
Ohio, then upon the very outposts of civilization.
Eight years later they came on to Indiana, locating
in Tippecanoe county on the Wabash. The desire,
however, of owning and farming his own lands took
possession of the elder Dillon, and he pulled up
once more, crossing the Mississippi and taking a
claim within the wholly uncultivated borders of
Iowa. This was in 1837. William Dillon, the
subject of our sketch, thus early learned the ins and
outs of frontier life, and was deeply impressed with
the purpose of being an independent land-owner.
The death of his father in 1840, and his own
marriage to Miss Harriet Hatten, the daughter of
an old Kentuckian, imposed the necessity of hard
labor and much economy; and, his health somewhat
failing, he determined to come to the Pacific coast,
where he understood that the climate was more
favorable, and work less exacting. The journey
was performed in 1847; and the usual vicissitudes
of storms, stampedes, occasional lack of water and
feed for animals, and the wear and tear of the trip
that fell to others, was also their experience. They
suffered more or less from the pilfering of the Cay-
use Indians. It was the Oscalusa train with which
they performed the journey; and some of their com-
panions were the unfortunates who remained at
Waiilatpu and fell victims to the Indian atrocity the
same time as Whitman. The passage down the
Columbia from The Dalles was accomplished by
means of rafts. The exposure and constant hard-
ships of the plains and the river at last induced the
mountain fever, from which both Mr. Dillon and his
wife suffered very severely.
In company with him was his brother and family;
and he himself had a little girl and a pair of twin
babies. He found an old acquaintance living at the
mouth of the Willamette river. There he remained
the first season, raising a crop of vegetables for the
next winter's use, and making ready to look up a
claim as spring opened. Upon the news of gold in
California received at Portland in August, 1848, his
brother went down to ascertain the truth of the
report, and returned the next winter with a quantity
of dust. In May, 1849, both Mr. Dillon and his
brother took passage on the bark John W. Cater, a
vessel very heavily loaded with lumber and produce.
He was fairly successful in the mines, and returning
to Oregon located a claim nearly opposite the
mouth of the Willamette in Washington. He fol-
lowed farming and stock-raising, and for fourteen
years kept a ferry across the river.
In 1871 he suffered the loss of his wife, and went
soon after upon a prolonged visit to his friends in
Iowa. While there, he married Mrs. Eliza Swet-
land of the town of Tipton, Iowa. He returned to
Washington in the autumn and settled once more
on a snug little farm northwest of Vancouver,
where he is at present living in comfort. His
children are married; and he contemplates with
much pleasure the progress of the communities and
states which he has done his part to establish.
Nevertheless the pioneer spirit still remains; and he
sometimes wishes that there was a new land to settle
out West so that he might hitch up and drive on.
HIRAM DONCASTER. No one seems to
operate so much in the capacity of a creator as the
shipbuilder. The products of his brain and hand
have a life of their own, are given a name, and
have their own personality. Shipbuilding on the
Sound is, moreover, an important business; and the
masters in this craft are men of distinction. One of
21
304
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
these is the man whose name appears at the head
of this sketch.
He was born in Nova Scotia in 1838, and first
came to this coast via Panama in the year 1856,
mining in Plumas county two years, and pushing
out with the stampede to the Frazer river mines in
1858, fighting Indians more or less the whole dis-
tance. After eleven years on the coast, he went
back to the East on a visit of three months, and
returning began work
began work at his trade, or art,
becoming a prolific builder of crafts of all kinds.
He worked in San Francisco at the shipyards of
Middlemas & Bool, Nova Scotians. At Port Lud-
low, Washington Territory, he built the bark Forest
Queen. At the mouth of the Umpqua he built the
little steamer Swan, which made the first and only
and probably last trip to Roseburg, on the violent
Umpqua river. In San Francisco again he built
the steamer Enterprise, considered at the time the
finest and fastest boat on the coast. On the Sound
he built the schooner J. B. Leeds, which is still
alive."
He was soon again in San Francisco, working for
his old employers, who recommended him to the
firm headed by Mr. W. L. Adams. He built for
the establishment the following vessels: The bark
Cassandra Adams; the steam tug Holyoke; the bark-
entine Mary Wilkerman, the barkentine Retriever;
and the single-deck ship Olympus, supposed to be
the largest single-decked ship in the world, and the
greatest success in her line afloat, capable of carry-
ing one million, four hundred thousand feet of
lumber. His next construction was the schooner
American Boy, and following this the stern-wheel
boat Louisa. Removing now to Port Ludlow, he
built the steam tug Tyee and the barkentine Skagit.
At Tacoma he has built the steamer Mogul, and the
stern-wheeler Nellie Brown. A fleet has thus passed
from his hands.
Mr. Doncaster is now permanently located at
Tacoma, strictly devoted to his business, but exert-
ing a strong personal influence, and is greatly
respected in his city and throughout the entire
state.
SIR JAMES DOUGLAS, K. C. B.- The first
governor of British Columbia is worthy of more
than a passing notice in this work.
With a pecu-
liar though undesigned poetical fitness, he first came
to the land of his fame on the famous old steamer
Beaver. On her he came to Esquimalt harbor in
the summer of 1849. He had gone from Fort Van-
couver, where he had been head clerk, to be chief factor
of the Hudson's Bay Company in British Columbia.
Having founded the city of Victoria, he made his
home there, conducting with great ability the work
of the company.
In 1849 the first governor, Blanchard, had arrived
from England; but owing to ill health he resigned
in two years and returned home. Douglas was
appointed his successor, and took the oath of office
in November, 1851. His first official act was to
summon all the Indians around Victoria, and pay
them in full for their lands. This was one of the
numerous similar acts which showed the strong
sense of justice possessed by the man. On the other
hand, he conducted a most vigorous administration.
He restrained outbreaks with a strong hand, and
brought offenders to justice with prompt imparti-
ality. The result was that acts of injustice and
violence were rare, though a ruffian horde from Cali-
fornia tried to manage affairs to suit themselves.
But the Governor was firm as a rock with the law-
less crew, and exercised an almost despotic sway,
which, to his great credit be it said, was never
abused.
In 1857 his commission as governor was renewed
for another term of six years. He had at that time
two provinces to govern, British Columbia and Van-
couver Island. The latter became a separate prov-
ince in 1864, in which year Douglas was succeeded
by Governor Seymour. After his retirement from
office, Governor Douglas made his home at Victoria,
and there remained till his death on the third of
August, 1877. His last years were spent in well-
merited rest amid the scenes which had witnessed
so many struggles in early times, and in the enjoy-
ment of the universal esteem of his fellow citizens.
In 1859 he had been created C. B.; and in October,
1863, he was knighted by Queen Victoria in recog-
nition of his eminent services.
Governor Douglas was born in Demerara, Scot-
land, on the 14th of August, 1803. Having been
left an orphan, he accompanied an older brother to
this coast, and at the age of fifteen entered the ser-
vice of the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1827 he
married a daughter of Mr. Connolly, Chief Factor
at Red River. In 1832 he became head clerk at
Vancouver, and there remained for seventeen years.
His career after that was onward and upward; and in
his death the people of the coast mourned the death
of a great and good man. In recognition of his
worth, the citizens of Victoria have erected an
imposing monument to his memory; and as they
fondly point it out to strangers they love to dwell
on the esteem in which he was held by all.
JOHN DOVELL. Mr. Dovell is one of those
men who have belabored fortune, and have knocked
about the world until it is sufficient to turn one's
hair gray simply to listen to their adventures. A
native of the Azores, of Portuguese parentage and
born in 1836, he came to Portland, Maine, at the
age of fourteen, and learned shipbuilding. He left
in four years and plied his trade in New Orleans,
shipping thence to Liverpool, and coming as ship's
carpenter from that foreign port to San Francisco.
He soon came up the coast to Portland, Oregon, and
worked upon the steam ferry Independence, building
near the "South End Sawmill" by Powell, Coffin,
Preacher' Kelly, and Hankins, the captain, to run
opposition to Stevens' ferry.
((
Starting for the Frazer river mines in 1859, he
met a number of friends at Victoria, and, together
with seventeen of them, put across the Georgian
Gulf in rowboats, making a dangerous passage.
They then followed up the river by the Skilloot
route to Horse Beef bar, the company then separa-
ting and going to prospecting. Dovell made no
strike. Some twenty of the company on the way
back went down to the Littoot Lake, and in the
absence of a boat to go down to Langley were
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
305
compelled to take one by force from one Robertson,
for which high-handed act they were arrested upon
their arrival at Victoria three days after, and com-
pelled to pay Robertson eighty-seven dollars. The
judge gave Dovell ten dollars for his part taken in
the matter.
Returning to Portland, he worked in Jacob's
wagon shop, and in the spring of 1860 went to the
Nez Perce mines, whipsawing lumber and taking
bed-rock for pay, bringing him for a fact to bed-rock
financially. On this trip he first saw Walla Walla,
but was little impressed with its meager proportions.
Upon getting out of the mines, however, he stopped
in the valley, taking care of the cattle of George E.
Cole, afterwards member of Congress. Opening a
wagon shop in the city in 1862, he took a stock of
goods to Placerville, Boise, in 1863, doing a flourish-
ing business except for selling too much on credit.
Returning to Walla Walla, he did some genuine
pioneer work for the city, putting up a water-power
planing mill, and in 1870 replacing it with steam.
In the same year he built the first public hall in the
city. He is at present in the furniture business.
Such, much in brief, and much in his own lan-
guage, is the story of Mr. Dovell's life.
He is an
honest, jolly fellow, half salt and half fresh, who
has no quarrel with Fortune, but when she plays
the vixen makes no bones about giving as good as
she sends. Mr. Dovell has an interesting and well-
educated family, consisting of the following: Dorothy
F., born in 1867; W. T., born in 1869; and Rose
E., born in 1871. The two latter graduated from
Whitman College in 1888.
HON. B. F. DOWELL.- Benjamin Franklin
Dowell was born in Albemarle county, Virginia, on
the 31st day of October, 1826. He was named for
an uncle of his grandmother on his father's side.
She was a daughter of John Franklin and a niece of
Benjamin Franklin, the statesman and philosopher.
Mr. Dowell's father and mother were natives of Vir-
ginia, and were born and brought up within one
mile of each other. His mother's maiden name was
Fannie Dalton, a woman of rare culture and refine-
ment.
The Dowells were originally from England; the
Daltons were from the Scottish Highlands. As a
child, Mr. Dowell removed with his parents to
Shelby county, Tennessee, where he attended the
Male Academy and acquired a liberal education.
After having concluded his academic studies, he
returned to Virginia and entered the State University,
where he graduated in law in 1847, before he was
twenty-one years old, with distinguished honors.
He returned to Tennessee and began the practice of
his profession at Raleigh and at Memphis. An ex-
tensive and lucrative practice soon engaged his
whole attention; but the fame of the newly dis-
covered gold fields of the Pacific caused him to
desert the bar for a time to try his fortune in the
mines.
In the spring of 1850, he formed a copartnership
with three other young men and started from St.
Joseph, Missouri, whither he had gone by water,
for California. He arrived in Sacramento on the
20th of the following September. Here he had a
second attack of cholera, the malady of which so
many died on the plains that year. When he had
partially recovered, his physicians advised him to
go North; and on the 5th of October he started from
San Francisco for Portland, taking passage on a
small schooner. At the mouth of the Columbia the
vessel encountered a terrible storm, and was driven
back to sea, dismasted and almost helpless. It was
not until the thirty-fifth day after leaving San Fran-
cisco that a safe landing was made at Astoria. Mr.
Dowell did not remain long in the Willamette valley;
and in 1852 we find him engaged in packing and
trading in Southern Oregon.
trading in Southern Oregon. He pursued the busi-
ness until 1856, and was very successful.
In 1857
he again engaged in law practice, in Jacksonville,
and soon obtained a very extensive business.
When the Oregon Indian wars broke out in 1853,
1854 and 1856, Mr. Dowell was engaged in mer-
chandising with a pack train from the Willamette
valley, Scottsburg and Crescent City to the mines in
Jacksonville, Oregon, and Yreka, California. He
voluntarily hired himself and all his animals to the
quartermaster as long as they were needed. Mr.
Bancroft, in his Oregon history, says "He was the
first in the war and the last to come out." During
these wars he took some desperate chances. He
frequently carried the express in the most dangerous
places.
In 1853 a party of twenty soldiers was detailed to
find the camp of the Indians. The detachment was
under the command of Lieutenant Eli. Mr. Dowell
being in the quartermaster's department, it was no
part of his duty to fight; but he volunteered to
accompany the detachment. They found the In-
dians on Evans's creek near the Meadows, and
returned down the creek about five miles where
there was good grass, wood and water, and com-
menced cooking and eating breakfast. The lieu-
tenant being young and inexperienced in the Indian
sagacity and fighting, put out no guard. So the
Indians completely surprised the detachment; and
at the first fire about one-fourth of the men were
killed, and as many more wounded. The Indians
also captured all the horses of the volunteers but
one, which was staked near the camp. The owner
of this animal mounted him and made for head-
quarters, which was near Steward's creek, a distance
of about thirty-five miles. The balance of the
company fled to the timber close by, and took shel-
ter among the trees and fought Chiefs Sam's, Jim's
and Joe's whole band of five hundred Indians from
early in the morning until late in the evening, when
they were rescued by the volunteers from headquar-
ters. During the fight, General Crosby sang out at
the top of his voice, "Jordan am a hard road to
trabel, I belief." He had a repeating breech-load-
ing rifle which he fired in double-quick time.
others had good rifles; and each had a good Colt's
revolver. So by hugging the trees, and using these
pistols frequently, the Indians were kept at a dis-
tance; and but few of the Whites were killed after
they reached the timber.
The
That was the hardest battle ever fought on the
Pacific coast. Mr. Dowell has often told his friends
that that was the most fearful and the longest day
of his life. Yet in December, 1855, he was in
306
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST— OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Colonel Kelley's four days' fight on the Walla Walla
river. Mr. St. Clair, Chief Factor of the Hudson's
Bay Company, had two four-pound howitzers which
he cached with some ammunition in Walla Walla
near the fort. The volunteers fished them out a few
days before the battle. Major Chinn and Captain
Wilson took charge of one and Mr. Dowell of the
other. The second day Captain Wilson overloaded
one, and it burst.
Mr. Dowell invented a carriage
so as to shoot off of a mule's back, and mounted it
on an arayho or leather pack saddle, and placed
it on the back of one of his finest mules. He,
with the assistance of one of the packers, would
load in a ravine and then charge up close to the
Indians, wheel the mule around and fire the cannon
off of the top of the mule's back. At first it
knocked the mule down on his knees, but he soon
learned to brace himself so as not to fall. This
was the biggest gun these Indians ever saw.
Perhaps the most accurate and full description of
the battle and death of the Chief Peu-peu-mox-mox
and his comrades in the battle of Walla Walla that
ever has been or ever will be written is found in a
letter from Mr. Dowell to his brother. It is true
history, and is a sample of Mr. Dowell's forcible
style of writing. We here insert the following ex-
tract:
On the fifteenth of October I was employed by
the quartermaster as packmaster at six dollars per
day for my services, and three dollars per day for
my pack mules, to transport supplies for the use of
the First Regiment of Oregon Volunteers; and I
have been in active service ever since. I have made
one march through the Yakima country with Colonel
Nesmith, and saw one little battle while with his
command near the Yakima river. After we returned
to The Dalles, I was ordered to accompany Colonel
Kelley and his command to the Walla Walla valley.
On the fifth instant, Peu-peu-mox-mox or Yellow
Serpent, the head chief of the Walla Walla Indians,
met Lieutenant-Colonel Kelley near the Touchet,
near its confluence with the Walla Walla river, like
the Prophet met General Harrison before the battle
of Tippecanoe, with pretended friendship, and
about dusk tried to get the whole command to enter
and camp in a deep cañon, which was lined with
thick underbrush, rocks, logs, and served as an
ambuscade for a large force of hostile Indians, -a
complete natural fortification, and an excellent place
for the enemy to cripple Colonel Kelley and his
whole force of three hundred and thirty-nine men.
The Indians were seen and their plot discovered by
the Indian agent, Nathan Olney, and by Colonel
Kelley. Peu-peu-mox-mox and five of his treacher-
ous comrades were taken prisoners; and Colonel
Kelley and his command camped in the opposite
direction from the cañon.
"The next day the command returned to the
crossing of the Touchet close to its confluence with
the Walla Walla river. The next morning the hills
in front of our camp were literally lined with the
enemy. A general engagement soon followed. Both
the Whites and Indians were well mounted; and
those that had the best horses did the fastest run-
ning. The advance of the enemy soon fled up the
Walla Walla towards their camp and the old
The
Waiilatpu Mission. About two miles below this,
they made a desperate stand; and our advanced
companies, being harassed by a cross fire, were com-
pelled to fall back to the main command.
transportation trains, under my charge, and the
Indian prisoners under a guard of twelve men, were
close up with the command in the midst of the bat-
tle; and, soon after the Indians shouted over the
retreat of our advance, one of the prisoners drew a
knife and stabbed one of the guards. Four more of
them refused to be tied, and seized the gun of the
guard; and in half a minute the whole five were
shot down. The other prisoner, a young Nez Perce,
made no resistance; and he still lives to tell the tale.
Peu-peu-mox-mox said he would rather die than be
tied; and he fought like a tiger to the last.
Thus fell one of the richest, shrewdest, proudest
and most haughty chiefs that ever "danced over a
white man's scalp west of the Rocky Mountains.
Strict integrity and untiring persistence in what
he conceives to be his line of duty are character-
istics for which Mr. Dowell is noted; and, though
past life's meridian, he is still vigorous in mind,
and bids fair to survive many years to serve the
public and retrieve pecuniary losses which he has
sustained by trusting others who have proved
unworthy of his generous confidence.
In the practice of his profession he had no supe-
rior in Southern Oregon. He only lost three suits
in which he advised the commencement in thirty
years. Mr. Dowell was brought up a Whig; and
he has been frequently heard to say: “I never
voted but one mean vote in my life; that was for
Breckenridge and Lane in 1860." This he said
he did conscientiously, with the hope to keep peace
between the North and South. He was an owner
of slaves at the commencement of the war; but
when the conflict began he looked upon the South
as a spoiled child, and declared that they deserved
a good whipping. He believed that the Union
should not be dissolved. He delighted in his pro-
fession; and he never pressed himself forward for
office. He was several times nominated for and
elected to small offices; but he resigned them and
never held any office, except district judge in Ten-
nessee, by appointment of the governor, and prose-
cuting attorney of the first judicial district of
Oregon, and as district attorney of the United States
for a short time, and in a few special cases.
He has strong convictions on all political issues,
and as a writer uses strong language to express
them. He denounced the Rebellion in the strongest
language.
In 1865 he bought the Oregon Sentinel to keep it
from falling into the hands of the Democrats. He
was the owner of it for nearly fourteen years. But
he continued the practice of his profession and
hired editors and printers to run the paper. He
scarcely ever wrote for it when at home.
part of the time he was in Washington City; and
during that time his letters published in the
Sentinel were strong, able and to the point. This
made him warm Republican friends and bitter
Democratic enemies.
But a
He was the first man to hoist the name of General
Grant for president west of the Rocky Mountains,


WM. RICE DUNBAR.
UNIL
OF
3
CH
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
307
and first to advise the nomination and election of
President Harrison. His letter on this subject was
published in the Gold Beech Gazette in 1887.
In 1861 he was married to Miss Anna Campbell.
They now have a family of three children, two
daughters and one. son. The elder daughter,
Fanny, is now the wife of G. M. Love. Annie E.
studied law, and is a better lawyer than many of
the male members of the profession. The son, B.
F., Jr., gives promise of being one of the foremost
men of the State.
Mr. Dowell and his family resided in Jacksonville
from 1852 to 1885, when they moved to Portland
and have since made that city their home.
HON. WILLIAM R. DOWNEY.-There are
few men who are more familiarly and favorably
known to the old pioneers of Puget Sound than
the gentleman whose name heads this sketch. His
father was a Revolutionary hero, having followed
General Washington in the battles waged by the
colonists for freedom from the oppression of Great
Britain.
Mr. Downey was born in Mount Sterling, Ken-
tucky, March 6, 1808. At the age of three years he
accompanied his parents to Hopkins county, and
while living there received his education.
On February 12, 1829, he was united in marriage
to Miss Emily S. Wetzel. Twelve children were
born to them, four of whom now survive.
In 1850
he, with his family, removed to Dade county, Mis-
souri. In the spring of 1853 they started to the
far-off West, and arrived on Puget Sound October
15th of that year, locating a home on the Nisqually
Plains.
On the breaking out of the Indian war of 1855-56,
he was obliged with other settlers to abandon his
home and seek protection for his family in the fort
erected at Steilacoom, where they remained until the
cessation of hostilities. In common with his neigh-
bors, he shouldered his gun and enlisted for the
campaign, serving in all the engagements until
1857, when the Indians were subjugated and peace.
restored.
On the return of the settlers to their
homes, school districts were organized; and Mr.
Downey was chosen as one of the directors of the
district in which he resided. He has also been
county commissioner of Pierce county, and in 1864
was elected by her citizens as their representative to
the legislature. He served as mayor of Steilacoom
in 1887, and was re-elected to that position in 1888.
Quite a notable and pleasant event took place on
February 12, 1887, such being the occasion of the
golden wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Downey. Few
there are that such an occurrence comes to, and
especially with recollections less clouded with the
shadows begotten by adversity. Hardly had these
festivities been forgotten when the affectionate wife
and mother closed her eyes in death; for on August
28, 1882, she entered upon the well-deserved reward
of a life that was without reproach.
Mr. Downey has uniformly acquitted himself with
honor in the discharge of the duties incident to the
positions of trust which he has held, and by his
courteous bearing and strict integrity has earned
the plaudits of many who speak of him in such a
tenor, that in following his example the rising young
man could not build more wisely. He is still hale
and hearty, and bids fair to do yeoman's work for a
number of years to come; nor will his name become
extinct, for some of his immediate family survive;
and he has also thirteen grandchildren, and sixteen
great-grandchildren.
DR. HORACE P. DOWNS. -Doctor Downs
is one of those highly educated gentlemen who have
deliberately chosen a new country in which to exer-
cise abilities that are ever in demand in the older
communities. He was born in Freedom, New
Hampshire, in 1840. The family made a number
of removals. It was at Great Falls that he received
his first comprehensive instructions; and at Exeter
he pursued his academic course, and graduated from
the medical department of Bowdoin College in 1865.
Entering at once upon the practice of his profession,
he chose a location at Tansworth, New Hampshire,
and three years later secured a lucrative practice at
Charlestown, which has since been incorporated
with Boston, Massachusetts. In 1878 he deter-
mined to transfer his interests to the Pacific coast,
and selected a home in that part of Whatcom county
which has now been delimitated and named Skagit.
In 1880 he was elected commissioner of the old
county, and in the autumn of 1883 was appointed
by the legislature as one of the three commissioners
to segregate and organize the new county. At the
special election following, he was chosen auditor,
and by re-election still holds this office. He also
served on the committee to make a settlement of
affairs relating to the two counties. He is a Repub-
lican in politics.
In business relations Doctor Downs has been pros-
perous, and has become a large holder of town prop-
erty, and of some five hundred and twenty acres of
land adjoining. He is one of the representative
citizens of Skagit county, and indeed of the Pacific
Northwest.
HENRY DRUM.-Among the progressive, in-
telligent and enterprising business men who are
lending their energy and strength to the constant
and rapid development of the great resources of
the State of Washington, no name stands higher, or
is more widely known and deservedly popular, than
that of Henry Drum. No more conspicuous exam-
ple of the results of careful attention to business,
probity of character and steadfastness of purpose,
can be cited than the brilliant career of Tacoma's
ex-mayor. It is to this class of young, keen and
active workers that the great Northwest is to-day
indebted for its magnificent prosperity and unparal-
leled growth. Always foremost in every enterprise
for the upbuilding of the city and territory at large,
he has achieved a name and reputation that many
men of the allotted three score years and ten might
well feel proud of. Although but thirty-two years
of age, no name is better known in Western Wash-
ington than that of the young senator from Pierce
county. The same strength of purpose and untiring
pursuit of objects aimed at have characterized him
from boyhood to the mature man; and the earnest-
ness of youth has been combined with the calm
308
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
judgment of riper years to create the pushing but
prudent business man and careful financier and
adviser.
Mr. Drum was born in the town of Girard, Ma-
coupin county, Illinois, on November 21, 1857, and
is therefore but thirty-two years of age. He
attended the public schools of Girard during his
childhood; but, not content with the education to
be received from that source, he set earnestly to
work to fit himself for teaching as a stepping-stone
to higher attainments, and at the age of sixteen
secured a certificate and began to teach in one of the
schools of Macoupin county, holding the school
until the end of that term. The following year he
used the money he had earned in teaching to enter
the Illinois State University at Champaign, and re-
mained there for two years, after which he again
taught another year, and again re-entered the uni-
versity, continuing his studies and working during
the interval to earn sufficient funds to continue his
self-education, until he had finished the course.
In 1880 he removed to Farmer City, Illinois, and
there engaged, in company with R. J. Davis, now
of Tacoma, in the manufacture of brick. This
first business venture not proving as profitable nor
furnishing as large a field as he anticipated, he
gave it up and moved to Hebron, Nebraska, where
he again resumed the profession of teaching, being
very successful in that occupation, for which he dis-
played great natural aptitude and a sincere liking.
After his first term in Hebron, he was offered a posi-
tion in the bank of Honorable Walter J. Thompson
of that city, which he accepted, and from which
time until the present he has remained the warm
friend and business associate of Mr. Thompson.
The year following they bought a large amount of
land in Nebraska and engaged extensively in stock-
raising, in addition to their banking business.
In the fall of 1883, after investigating the re-
sources of Washington Territory, and being con-
vinced that it had in store a splendid future, both
he and Mr. Thompson decided to close out all their
business interests in the State of Nebraska and re-
move to the then small and comparatively unknown
village of New Tacoma, arriving in the City of
Destiny on Christmas eve, 1883. They soon after-
wards bought the bank of New Tacoma, the oldest
financial institution in the young city, and imme-
diately reorganized it as the Merchants' National
Bank, of which Mr. Drum became first assistant
cashier, and soon afterwards cashier, in which posi-
tion he has grown familiar to every resident of
Pierce county, as for several years he was unremit-
ting in the faithful performance of the duties of his
position, being always at the counter of the bank
and attending carefully to every detail. He is now
the vice-president of this bank, although for some
time he has not attended to any of the clerical
duties, his watchful eye and keen judgment being
continually exercised in looking after and carrying
forward its business interests. In the year 1887 he
was elected a member of the school board, his pre-
vious experience as a teacher and his fine business
qualities eminently fitting him for that position,
which he has ever since retained, being now presi-
dent of that body.
In May, 1888, although a staunch Democrat, he
was elected mayor of Tacoma, over a strong and
popular opponent on the Republican ticket, that
party at the same election giving a majority of
about three hundred for all its other candidates.
As chief magistrate of the young city, Mr. Drum
gained universal respect and admiration for his
prudent, conservative and, at the same time, broad
and energetic policy of administering the city gov-
ernment; and it is probably no exaggeration to say
that the trying position occupied by him was never
filled in a more satisfactory and efficient manner.
Cool-headed and non-partisan, he won the en-
comiums of both parties and all factions. At the
end of his first term, it was not strange that men
of all stations and political faiths should desire
his re-election to the same office; but constantly
growing business interests, demanding ever-increas-
ing attention, which could not be ignored, compelled
him to decline the nomination for re-election.
Mr. Drum has always been an ardent worker in
the Masonic order, being a charter member of all
its organizations in this city. Besides occupying
several offices of the local chapter and other lodges,
he is at present grand treasurer of the grand chapter
of Washington.
Besides his interests in the Merchants' National
Bank, Mr. Drum is a large stockholder and director
in the Skagit Railway and Lumber Company,
Washington Loan and Investment Company, Wash-
ington Loan and Improvement Company, Fidelity
Trust Company, Tacoma Wood-working Company,
Tacoma Lumber and Manufacturing Company,
Pacific Navigation Company, and many other of the
prominent enterprises of the city of Tacoma and of
Washington. These various interests, together with
his large real-estate investments, make it necessary
that he should be constantly alert and active. That
his business ability is kept continually in demand
goes without saying; for nothing but commercial
talent of the highest order could care for and assist
in the management of so many diverse and im-
portant enterprises and industries.
In 1884 Mr. Drum married his present wife, a
sister of Honorable Walter J. Thompson; and their
elegant home is among the handsomest and most
beautifully situated of the many costly and modern
residences which now occupy the points of vantage
and commanding sites on the hills overlooking the
beautiful waters of Puget Sound, and the inspiring
scenery of mountain and forest, valley and river of
picturesque Washington.
Mr. Drum's faith in the future importance and
prosperity of the city of Tacoma has never faltered
since his first knowledge of the advantages of its
location and of the illimitable resources surrounding
it; and he is earnest in the belief that his most san-
guine expectations in the past will be largely
exceeded in the future.
In religion, as in business, and in every other rela-
tion of life, Mr. Drum is broad minded and liberal,
and willing to accord to everyone a perfect right to
entire freedom of belief and action. He was one of
the first promoters of the Unitarian church in Ta-
coma, and together with a few others was mainly in-
strumental in organizing the First Unitarian Society
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
309
of that city, and contributed largely to the erec-
tion of its church and in placing the society upon a
firm basis.
He has always been recognized as a man of the
people and a constant friend of the wage-earner, with
whom he has the most sincere sympathy,-born of
his own early struggles,—at the same time fully
appreciating and recognizing the rights and advan-
tages of the more favored classes.
Although generous to a fault, his reputation for
being fair-minded and just is recognized by every
class; and this all-pervading sense of justice is prob-
ably the dominant characteristic of the man, and
that which more than any other one element in his
character has resulted in his universal popularity
and respect. During the stirring times of the anti-
Chinese excitement, he was among the foremost in
his determination to remove from the fair city of his
adoption the baleful curse of coolie labor and Mon-
golian vice. His efforts in this direction were but
the result of his earnest interest in the welfare of the
laboring masses.
At the recent election for the organization of the
new State of Washington, he was the unanimous
choice of his party to represent it in the senate of the
new commonwealth; and although the overwhelm-
ing Republican majority almost completely annihi-
lated the Democratic candidates throughout the
length and breadth of the territory, yet Mr. Drum,
in spite of the overpowering odds, came off victo-
rious, for the second time beating a popular Repub-
lican candidate, backed by a supposed invincible
majority, and earned the well-merited distinction of
being the only Democrat elected to the higher branch
of the legislative body.
PETER DUEBER. The life of Mr. Dueber
exemplifies the rewards which our coast and society
hold out to the old-fashioned qualities of industry
and economy. He was born in Newport, Kentucky,
in 1857. At the age of ten years he removed with
his parents from Minnesota and crossed the plains
with ox-teams to Oregon, arriving in Portland safely
the following autumn. He first attended school,
and at the age of fourteen qualified himself for a sure
livelihood by learning the trade of harness-making.
He followed this actively in Portland and San Fran-
cisco until 1870, when he found a new location at
Spokane Falls, which was then but in its earliest
infancy. He established and conducted a harness
and saddle store, which was the first of its kind in
Spokane. He continued in that business for nine
years, when his avails were so considerable as to
enable him to deal successfully in real estate and in
mining stocks. He has ever been highly respected
by his fellow citizens, and has held the office of
councilman for five years. He is recognized as one
of the leading men of his city, and is foremost in
every enterprise to insure its enlargement. He is a
Democrat in politics, and has filled the office of chair-
man of the Democratic county committee. He was
married in San Bernardino, California, in 1876, to
Miss Mary Brown, a native of that state. They
have two sons.
THE DUKE OF YORK.-Cheetsamahoin, who
was usually styled His Royal Highness, the Duke
of York, appears to have been hereditary chief of
the tribe of the Clallams, who occupy the land at
the mouth of the Strait of Fuca on the south side.
He was an able, faithful ruler, and highly esteemed
by the Whites. As early as 1854, he was officially
appointed head chief of his tribe by Governor
Stevens through the agent, Michael T. Simmons.
He held this office and performed its duties with
vigor and fidelity until, in 1870, he was found to be
growing too old and infirm for its active obligations,
and by Agent Eells was at that time constituted a
sort of honorary chief, whose counsels were to be
respected. He was a good, faithful man, and doubt-
less saved many lives by his honest adherence to our
government. He died a few years ago at a great
age, and was followed to his grave by a great con-
course of people of both the white and Indian
races.
HON. R. O. DUNBAR. — It is not always an
enviable distinction to be made eminent for political
preferments. The exceptions are in the cities where
office is held as the currency of political services,
and as the opportunity for public plunder. In the
smaller communities, however, where personal ac-
quaintance extends to all citizens, and an honest
public spirit precludes fraud, one may well feel pride
in that confidence of his friends in his ability and
probity which selects him as a public servant. Pre-
ferment at the suffrage of the citizens of a place like
Goldendale, noted for its correct sentiment and love
of cleanliness, would therefore be gratifying. Mr.
Dunbar has been an office holder of this kind for
many years. His political sphere is, however, by
no means confined to the town of Goldendale, as he
has represented the county of Klikitat in the terri-
torial council, and during one session served that
body as speaker. He has served upon important
committees, and has introduced important legislative
measures. He has been attorney for that district,
embracing Klikitat, Yakima, Skamania and Clarke
counties, and as a prominent Republican has long
been before the party as a probable candidate for
delegate to Congress.
Mr. Dunbar was born in Schuyler county, Illinois,
in 1845. He crossed the plains when but one year
old, enduring the trip bravely. His parents chris-
tened him Ralph Oregon, in commemoration of his
early introduction into that state, and at their fine
home and productive farm in the Waldo hills
brought him up to a vigorous manhood. At the age
of nineteen he began his studies, entering the Insti-
tute at Salem. Here he remained four years, apply-
ing himself continually to his books, with the
exception of a few months spent in teaching to se-
cure funds for the further prosecution of his course.
In 1867 he went to Olympia and studied law. In
two years he was admitted to practice, and in a short
time was appointed clerk of the district court. In
two years more he came to Salem, and was admitted
to practice before the supreme court. In 1871 he
removed to Yakima City, and entered upon the
practice of his profession, interesting himself also
in stock-raising.
310
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
In 1875 he came to The Dalles, and in 1877
located at Goldendale, which he has made his per-
manent home. Here he soon built up a lucrative
law practice, and an enviable reputation as a con-
scientious, hard-working attorney. There his ad-
vancement in public life has been continuous. · In
the autumn of 1878 he was chosen probate judge,
and at the same election as member of the territorial
council. In 1879 he was chairman of the judiciary
committee of that body, and introduced the local
option bill which was carried in the council, but
failed in the house. It was in 1882 that he was elected
district attorney. About the same time he began to
publish the Klikitat Sentinel, and immediately took
high rank among the editorial writers of the terri-
tory. In 1884 he was elected to the territorial legis-
lature, which, upon assembling, chose him speaker.
The duties of this important and difficult position
he discharged with great energy, intelligence and
credit. At this session he was also the author of
many beneficent measures which are now among the
laws of the territory. He has ever been a fearless
opponent of the aggression of corporate power and
of monopolies. He has been a warm advocate of
legislation restraining or prohibiting the liquor
traffic. He is himself strictly abstemious in his
habits.
As a public speaker he is forcible, logical and
earnest. A man of unflinching integrity and of
positive convictions, he can neither be persuaded
nor driven into a deviation from the line of conduct
which he believes to be correct.
In 1873 he was united in marriage with Miss
Clarissa White; and they now have two fine children,
Fred and Roth. Mr. Dunbar is at present practicing
his profession. He is a man of rare ability as a
writer.
W. R. DUNBAR.- The mold in which a place
is first cast is a great determining force in its future
development. A quarter of a city which begins
with mean buildings invites a class of neglectful or
impecunious residents, and seldom outgrows its tend-
ency towards squalor. The new settlers which come
into a thriftless community sink more easily to the
habits of their neighbors before them than they
succeed in inciting those lax individuals to more
industrious methods. On the other hand, also,
thrift, vigor, a high level of public spirit and mo-
rality, leave a stamp which sets the tone and
fashion of a city or neighborhood for many years.
It is with peculiar satisfaction, therefore, that we
find places like Goldendale which, from their very
incipiency, have admitted nothing but strictly honor-
able pursuits, and have maintained a vigorous sen-
timent in favor of only the best things. These
places become the augury of a high-minded genera-
tion in the future.
William Rice Dunbar, the subject of this sketch,
is one of the men who have thus set the charac-
ter of Goldendale. He is a man popularly known
throughout the Northwest as a sterling worker in
the cause of temperance. As a lecturer on this
subject, as an organizer of lodges of Good Tem-
plars, and as a prominent officer in that order, he
has met thousands of the people personally; and his
form and voice are as familiar as that of any man
on the coast. The service which he has done for
Goldendale as a citizen he has performed for many
other places as a lecturer and organizer.
With his pa-
He was born in Illinois in 1839.
rents he came to Oregon in 1846, and is therefore,
by education, a complete Oregonian. He lived
upon his father's farm in the Waldo hills, but at
the age of nineteen began the work of a temper-
ance organizer. He joined the Sons of Temperance
at Silverton in 1858. Two years later he was elected
grand conductor, and the next year grand scribe.
In 1864 he resigned this office to assist in raising a
military company to help meet the exigencies of
the government, then in its death grapple with seces-
sion. He was first to enlist in Company A, First
Oregon Infantry. He was soon commissioned sec-
ond lieutenant, and held that position until 1866.
When mustered out, he was in command of the
blockhouse on the Grande Ronde Indian Reserva-
tion in Yamhill county. That was General Phil
Sheridan's old headquarters.
When he returned to civil life, Mr. Dunbar en-
gaged in teaching on the reservation, and after-
wards employed himself in the same way in the
Waldo hills. He became a member of the Silverton
Lodge of the Good Templars. He was also active
as solicitor of stock for the Oregon & California
Railroad, which was then in prospect of construc-
tion. Returning to the reservation, he was soon
transferred to the Warm Springs agency at the re-
quest of General Meacham. While at Grande
Ronde agency he was elected to the Oregon legisla-
ture from his home county, Marion, and served
during that session, 1870, in which Colonel Kelley
was elected to the senate. Mr. Dunbar resigned his
position in the Indian service in the autumn on
account of the failing health of his wife.
As he was conspicuous in the Good Templar
order, no one was better fitted than he for the office
of grand worthy chief templar and grand lecturer;
and he was elected as such in 1874. This position.
he held without opposition until 1879, when it
became impossible for him to withhold his time
longer from his own private affairs. In that year
he selected Goldendale as his home, and in the
following was appointed clerk of the district court.
This office he held continuously until May, 1888,
when he resigned the same. In 1882 he was
appointed judge of the probate court; and so
popular was his management of its business that
he was elected to that office in the autumn of the
same year and re-elected in 1884, again in 1886,
and also at the last election in 1888.
He was
Mr. Dunbar is also an Odd Fellow.
grand master of that order in Washington Territory
in 1884, and in 1886 and 1888 was representative to
the sovereign grand lodge. He has been re-elected
also for the next two years. He has also been
mayor of Goldendale; and it is largely due to him
that the record of the town for prohibition has been
so nobly maintained.
In 1861 he was married to Miss Eliza A. Small;
but this lady died a few years later, leaving one
boy, Willie, who followed his mother in 1886,
dying with consumption. Willie was clerk of the

DA
H
廈
​張國
​PORT GAMBLE MILLS,
PUGET MILL COMPANY OWNERS.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
311
probate court of Klikitat county, Washington Ter-
ritory, at the time of his death. In 1879 Mr. Dun-
bar was married to Miss Susy Dudley of Silverton,
a lady of culture and recognized social position,
who now does the honors of their home. Mr. Dun-
bar's life has been crowded with public duties and
honors bestowed upon him because of merit, and
also because of his ability to fulfill them in a digni-
fied and effective manner.
JAMES S. DYSART.—The subject of this
sketch, a portrait of whom is placed in this work,
was born in Delaware county, New York, March 22,
1838. His parents were Duncan and Elizabeth
(Shaw) Dysart, natives of Scotland. James resided
at the place of his birth until he was seventeen
years old, when he went via Nicaragua to California
to join his brother Alexander, who was living in
San Francisco. He reached that city in 1855. His
first location was at Placerville, where he engaged
in lumbering. That point he made his home till
1862. In that year he went to Nevada, and was
engaged in the hotel business on the overland stage
road.
At Stillwater in Churchill county he followed
various lines of business till the winter of 1867.
His next move took him to Mendocino county, Cali-
fornia. He bought a ranch near Ukiah, and fol-
lowed farming one year. Then returning to Nevada,
he soon made a move northward to Portland,
whence he went to the Sound, where he remained
till 1870. Then going to the mines, with the result
of sinking some $700 in a short time, he went back
to the Sound, and in the fall of that year crossed
the Cascades to the region of what is now Kittitass
county.
In October, 1871, he located his present place, a
government claim of one hundred and sixty acres,
to which he has added one hundred and twenty
acres by purchase. It is located four miles east of
It is located four miles east of
Ellensburgh. In 1884 Mr. Dysart beautified his
place with an elegant house. Mr. Dysart united
with Mr. Farnsworth in building and running the
second sawmill in Kittitass valley. The business
of the firm was extensive and remunerative.
In 1884 Mr. Dysart was elected county commis-
sioner on the Republican ticket, being the only suc-
cessful candidate on that ticket. That was for
the long term of four years. Unlike the majority
of our subjects, Mr. Dysart is still in a state of
single blessedness.
HON. ROCKEY P. EARHART. — Among
those whose names add luster to the roll of the
inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest, none stand
higher in the estimation of the public, for ability
and probity, than the subject of this sketch.
Mr. Earhart is a native of Ohio, having been born
in Franklin county, in that state, on June 23, 1837.
He acquired his education at select schools; and his
natural instincts to fit himself for a useful sphere
in after life caused him to make the most of oppor-
tunities offered. In 1855 he came to Oregon via
Panama, and soon after his arrival placed his foot
upon the first round of the ladder of prominence to
which he has since attained. Incidentally meeting
some of the public officials of the day, his clerical
abilities were recognized; and the result was his
appointment as clerk under Captain, now Commis-
sary-General Robert McFeely, U. S. Army, sta-
tioned at Vancouver. The next move was a
transfer to The Dalles, where he entered the
quartermaster's department, which was under the
supervision of Lieutenant Philip H. Sheridan, then
an unknown soldier, but who during the Rebellion
won undying fame, and whose recent death was a
nation's grief.
In that position he remained until 1861, when
he went into the general merchandise business in
Yamhill and Polk counties. In 1863 he accepted.
the United States agency of the Warm Spring Indian
Reservation, where he remained until the appoint-
ment of his successor in 1865, when he removed to
Salem. For some time thereafter he served as chief
clerk and special Indian agent under Superintendent
Huntington, and was secretary of the board of com-
missioners appointed by the general government to
treat with the Klamath and Modoc Indians. During
the troublesome times when the Civil war was raging,
and when an outbreak might have been made in
our very midst by those in sympathy with the
South, Mr. Earhart was ever active in the promo-
tion of peace and the preservation of Oregon's loy-
alty to the union. From 1868 to 1872 he was
engaged in the mercantile trade at the Capital. In
1870 he was elected representative to the legisla-
ture from Marion county; and to his influence is
greatly due the appropriation of funds to erect the
handsome public buildings of the state. At the
close of his term he removed to Portland, and was
for some time engaged in the business department
of the Daily Bulletin.
In 1874 he was appointed chief clerk of the sur-
veyor-general's office, which position he held until
1878, when he resigned to accept the office of sec-
retary of state, to which he had been elected.
Removing again to Salem, he entered upon the
duties of that office in the fall of that year, and at
once commenced a thorough and systematic over-
hauling of the books and records, and in a few
months' time had the office in better shape than it
had ever been prior thereto. So acceptably did he
discharge his official duties during his first term in
that office, that he received the unanimous vote of
the Republican state convention for renomination,
and received a majority of over twenty-five hundred
at the general election in June, 1882. His second
term, like the first, was eminently satisfactory to
the people; and upon his retirement from office,
perhaps the most trying and responsible in the
state government,-his administration was heartily
indorsed by all political parties. In 1887 he returned
to Portland and accepted the management of an
important corporation organized by local capitalists,
in which position he still remains. From 1885 to
1887 he was adjutant-general of Oregon, and in
1888 was elected representative from Multnomah
county for the term of two years.
He identified himself with the Masonic order in
1863, and has held every office within the gift of
the fraternity, being still active in its interests. He
was elected grand secretary of the grand lodge in
312
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
1872, and served until 1878, when, in recognition
of his past services in that body, he was promoted
from the secretary's desk to the high and honorable
position of grand master, and was re-elected in
1879. He has held the office of sovereign grand
inspector, and has attained to the thirty-third
degree of the Scottish Rite. He was instrumental
in organizing the first commandery of Knights
Templar established on the North Pacific coast, and
served for four years as its eminent commander,
being presented on his retirement from that office
with perhaps the handsomest Masonic jewel ever
brought to Oregon. He is now grand commander
of Knights Templar of the State of Oregon.
He was married July 2, 1863, to Miss N. A.
Burden, daughter of Judge Burden, of Polk county,
their family consisting of four daughters, who are
general favorites in society circles. Mr. Earhart is
a gentleman of ordinary height, rather heavy set,
weighing about one hundred and seventy pounds,
with a full face, partially covered with beard, and
with brown hair. His features are pleasant; and
his manners are such that he gains friends rapidly.
He is an unusually engaging conversationalist, his
descriptive powers being vivid and his mimicry
complete. He tells and can keenly appreciate a
good story; and ten minutes' general conversation
with him will make you his friend. No man in
Oregon is to-day more popular, or has more friends,
than has Honorable R. P. Earhart. He is but just
in the prime of life; and we have no hesitancy in
predicting for him higher official honors than he has
yet been called upon to fill.
ABEL E. EATON.— The extensive reputation
and wide influence of Mr. Eaton bespeak for him a
candid notice in any work touching upon the lives
of our responsible men. The seventh son in a fam-
ily of eleven children, he was born May 20, 1834, at
Conway, New Hampshire. The father, Simeon
Eaton, a lawyer from Maine, and the mother from
the same state, whose maiden name was Bessie
Paine, made their home upon a farm. During the
first eight years of his life, the boy Abel found
opportunity for but seven weeks' schooling. This
was his annual stipend of educational advantages
until his eighteenth year, when he secured eleven
weeks in the South Conway Seminary. Never-
theless, having an active New England brain, he
eagerly imbibed ideas and information from all sour-
ces, utilizing the evening hours by the torchlights
and fireplace to peruse books. At the age of
twenty, he obtained the consent of his parents to go
to Ohio, and in this then somewhat remote region
experienced the many adventures, and tried the
numerous shifts and turns of the youth away from
home, realizing his greatest profit in a business
way from a pair of calves purchased with money
that he had hoarded as a boy from the proceeds of
his bean patch.
In 1854 he penetrated the West as far as Hunts-
ville, Indiana, and although having no literary
effects, except a family dictionary purchased some
time before with a bushel of his white beans, he
was able to secure a school and to teach it success-
fully, although heretofore regarded as one of those
practically unmanageable schools of the West. He
afforded the district a fine illustration of Yankee
firmness. The three following years spent at home
failed to satisfy him with the old East; and in 1857
we find him once more in Ohio following his pro-
fession as teacher. In 1861 his labors in this regard
were broken off by General Rosecrans turning his
schoolhouse into a military telegraph office, and
making of his boys' playground a parade upon
which to drill ten thousand of the boys in blue,
calling it Fort Denison.
A touching incident in his life, a few months
later, was his relinquishment of a small army con-
tract which he had taken, that he might go out to
Springfield, Illinois, to see a dearly beloved sister,
a beautiful and self-sacrificing woman who was sick
in her distant home. Arriving at the Prairie city
he found that she had gone even in her sickness
and had been carried on a bed to her home in New
England. This family to which Mr. Eaton belonged
was one of those in which love and respect between
its members rose to the highest significance.
Quincy, Illinois, Mr. Eaton was detained to teach a
school from which the last master had been forcibly
ejected; and, as in former positions of the same
kind, he proved his ability to deal with refractory
pupils.
At
At
During these months he had been revolving the
advisability of a change to the Pacific coast, and in
May was ready to make the journey, having in the
meantime read a farewell address to the people and
patrons of the school, and arranged all his business
affairs with a view to his departure. He began the
arduous trip on the seventh of the month, in com-
pany with his brother-in-law, A. L. Brown, and
one other. The first day out they overtook Doctors
Rudd and Griswold; and the five remained together.
in fraternal bonds until arriving at the present site
of Baker City, having met with hairbreadth escapes,
buried victims of the barbarous Indians, and in
other ways partaken of frontier adventures.
Auburn they witnessed a scene formerly character-
istic of early times, -a hanging, being in this case
that of a Frenchman who had poisoned his partners.
Here they separated, the doctors going to Portland
and the other two to Walla Walla; while Mr. Eaton,
with a net capital of seven dollars and fifty cents,
out of which he bought a scythe and a few pro-
visions, proceeded to create for himself a business
by cutting and selling hay near Baker City. For
this he found a ready sale, and by means of the
quantity on hand was able to keep a yoke of oxen,
and soon to increase this number so as to engage
successfully in freighting to Idaho. From this
laborious and even humble beginning, he increased
to a large business, operating for eight years, and
owning at times as many as a hundred yoke of
oxen and twelve mules.
As the great mining excitement and stampedes of
the early days subsided, he turned his attention to
farming and stock-dealing, making his home at
Union, Oregon. Here he may be found at the pres-
ent, living at his pleasant village home, the owner
of two thousand acres of fine valley land, of six
hundred fine horses and of two or three hundred
cattle, and of money at interest.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
313
He was married November 6, 1867, to Miss Mary
E. Baird, a native of Missouri, who crossed the
plains in 1863. Although having no children of
their own, they have made their comfortable home
the means of extending favors and blessings to
others.
Mr. Eaton has figured prominently in the growth
and development of educational and religious insti-
tutions, and in nearly every enterprise of a public
nature in his locality. He has served in educa-
tional offices, and as mayor of his city, being in
each case sought by the public for the service.
GEORGE WOOD EBBERT.— A life of sixty
years in and west of the Rocky Mountains, fifty of
which have been passed in the Willamette valley,--
this is the pioneer record of Mr. Ebbert. As such
it is full of interest; and in its further character, as
a career of exceptional activity and adventure, it is
of thrilling fascination. Although now eighty
years of age, somewhat bent and infirm, the fires
of manhood still glow, and the mind is still active.
He was born in Bracken county, Kentucky, in
1810. When a youth he was apprenticed at Louis-
ville to learn the blacksmith trade. The last year
of his time he deemed unnecessary, and was next
heard of at St. Louis. At this town of Frenchmen
and trappers, he enlisted for the Rocky Mountains
to serve in the company of Smith, Sublette and
Jackson. He was in the same company with Joe
Meek, also a youth of nineteen. A year of service
in the fir country finished the agreement; and, like
the most of the other young men, Ebbert bought an
equipment and began life as a free trapper. This
continued two years, when Wyeth coming across the
continent secured him as one of his company to
occupy Fort Hall, which he had built.
But one
Life here was not a holiday. On a small stream
sixty miles from the fort occurred one of the most
desperate fights with the Blackfeet Indians ever had
by anybody. Ebbert, Wilkins and three others
had a camp on the head of the creek, trapping. It
was in a sequestered spot supposed to be hidden
from even the prying eyes of the Indians.
morning just about dawn the boys looked out and
saw the lowlands full of the Blackfeet. They were
scurrying across the plains, and would be soon upon
the fort: Ebbert roused his comrades by shouting:
"Get up boys. All the Injuns in the world are
coming!" He himself seized his gun and took a
run outside of camp to get a look at the situation.
But the storm was already upon them; and a sharp
sting in the neighborhood of his heel told the dar-
ing adventurer to seek cover. The five men in camp,
which was well barricaded, now began a fire upon
the assailants; and their fusilade was so effective as
to check the onslaught. Ebbert got a good port-
hole to shoot from, and as he emptied his gun would
pass it back for another already loaded. His Nez
Perce wife was there. He fired seven times, each
shot taking effect. The Blackfeet drew off after a
time, but not without shooting a vast number of
arrows, many of which fell within the fort. These
the Nez Perce woman had the thrift to pick up and
put the heads into her pack of treasures, such as
beads, etc., which she always carried with her.
Each arrow head was valuable, worth a dollar at
any post.
Although the savages had not carried the little
camp, it was useless to stay any longer now that its
whereabouts was known; and the more expedi-
tiously the trappers got back to Fort Hall the better.
Ebbett discovered after the fight that the shot in his
heel had half cut the cord; and in this condition he
must walk sixty miles. The retreat was painful and
severe. Ebbert's heel bothered him; his wife's load
of some sixty pounds' weight was so burdensome as
to cause one of her knees to swell so as to make
traveling almost impossible; and she begged to be
left behind. She could dig roots, she said, and
would come on a few days later. The pony was so
heavily loaded with beaver skins that it could not
make rapid progress
Before the march was over,
they suffered terribly from thirst; and one of the
men dropped by the way. When at last water was
reached it was a mere puddle, fouled by wild ani-
mals and full of tadpoles; but, by digging, some-
thing fit to drink was obtained. While here the
Indian wife came up; and the trappers made a cache
of all their goods. Taking the pony, the woman
went back with water to the man who had given
out, and fetched him along. After this she rode.
At the Snake river they found the water up to the
banks, filled with drift and rushing with a terrific
current. But they made a raft and managed to pole
and paddle across; and ten miles more brought them
to the end of their journey.
In 1833, Ebbert came down to Vancouver as
expressman from Lieutenant Thing with messages.
for Captain Wyeth. He afterwards took service for
a time with the Hudson's Bay Company, and in
1837 and 1838 was at Waiilatpu and at Lapwai as
blacksmith for the missionaries. In 1839 he came
down the Columbia to make a home for himself, and
took up the place upon which he now lives, four
miles northeast of Hillsboro. Here he passed his
time on the grassy plains, herding cattle, hunting
deer and raising wheat. He lived in a little log
cabin, of which his faithful Nez Perce wife was mis-
tress.
In December, 1849, he was called upon once more
to take up his gun in the Indian country. This was
in the Cayuse war. When the struggle was well
along and the way was opened eastward, he joined
the company going to Washington, to bear the
tidings of the massacre of Whitman. There were
some eight who started, in February, 1848; and
three, Meek, Leabo and Ebbert, got to the Capital.
It was a rough trip in the snow through the Rocky
Mountains; and, but for the fortunate meeting with
Peg Leg Smith on Bear river, they must have eaten
more horse beef and mule meat than in point of fact
they did do. Ebbert remembers his securing a con-
siderable piece of a mule that must soon have died
of starvation, and that a slice from this interposed be-
tween two slices of fried pork materially increased the
value of the latter. At Washington, the Oregonians
met many of the great men of the day; but Ebbert
failed to get any part of the appropriation made for
Meek and his escort.
Returning to Oregon, Mr. Ebbert felt fully satis-
fied with his claim on the Tualatin Plains, and has
314
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
1
lived there half a century, still maintaining his
health. The active affairs of the place he has given
over to his son, and to his daughter, Mrs. George
Morrow. Mr. Morrow is one of the best farmers in
the county, and a man of intelligence and public
spirit.
N. A. EBERMAN. This still vigorous and
erect gentleman of sixty-eight years is a perfect
representative of the daring, athletic and pioneer
Western men who crossed the plains nearly half a
century ago.
He was born in Henry county, Ten-
nessee, in 1821, and at the age of ten went with his
parents to settle in Madison county, Illinois. In
Warren county of the same state he saw something
of the Black Hawk war.
In 1840 he left home for Missouri, stopping in
that then unsettled region until, in 1843, the elo-
quence of Burnett and the exertions of others re-
sulted in forming the company to cross the plains to
Oregon. Joining himself to this body, young Eber-
man rode on the plains, shooting deer, antelope, elk
and buffalo for the company, meeting many advent-
ures and being in the midst of wild Indians. Being
strong and daring and a good swimmer, he was of
great service in crossing streams and setting the
guide lines for the fording of the train. He was
quite promiscuous, acting principally as hunter and
scout, and after a time, with Burnett's division,
joined himself to Applegate. Being acquainted
with Hunt, who was bringing out a sawmill, he
went down with that gentleman, after his arrival in
Oregon, to the site chosen on the south side of the
Columbia river opposite Cathlamet, and worked in
the mill. The following spring he went on to the
Clatsop Plains, taking up an elegant ranch on the
grassy lands, and there raised potatoes and got a
start of cattle.
In 1848 he joined the forces under Colonel
Nesmith to punish the murderers of Doctor Whit-
man, and shared in the desultory but severe cam-
paign that followed. In the fall of 1848 he went
with the rest to California, and was very fortunate
or unfortunate—in locating on the rich diggings
of the place afterwards called Murderers' Bar. Here
the company were taking out one hundred dollars a
day to the man. Eberman was sent, after a time,
for provisions to Coloma, and was gone two weeks.
On his return he found not a living soul at the
camp, but everywhere dead bodies, ashes and scat-
tered wreckage. The Indians who had thus visited
the camp with destruction and murdered all his
partners had left plain tracks; and their trail to the
mountains was evident. With the indignation of
the frontiersman, he went back and got up a com-
pany to punish the savage butchers; and most terri-
ble, and fully satisfactory, and indeed almost sick-
ening, was the result of the campaign, in which
Spanish lancers took part and rode down and
speared the Indians without respect to age or sex.
These bloody scenes left him little taste for life in
California; and, abandoning the mines, he returned
to our state and took up once more the quiet occu-
pation of the pioneer and settler on the Clatsop
Plains, giving his services betimes to the govern-
ment in its dealings with the Indians, as he has a
perfect knowledge of their character, and can speak
their language like a native.
He now owns a fine farm on the little stream
Ohanna. He was married to Miss Emma, the
youngest daughter of Mr. Hobson, the pioneer of
1843, and has raised a family of fifteen children,
three of whom are deceased. Hearty, genial and
intelligent, Mr. Eberman is a very interesting man
to meet.
MAJOR THEODORE J. ECKERSON.—
Major Eckerson, so long and favorably known
among the old pioneers of our coast, enjoys also a
like enviable reputation in military circles. He was
born January 22, 1821, in New York City, and on
December 20, 1838, in his eighteenth year, entered
the United States army. He served throughout the
Seminole Indian war, 1840-42, and in the Mexican
war from its commencement to its close. He was a
member of the storming parties in the battles of
Cerro Gordo and Churubusco.
He came to Oregon with the first troops sent after
the settlement with England, arriving at Fort Van-
couver May 15, 1849. He here established and
taught the first school north of the Columbia river
in the then territory of Oregon, for the benefit of
American settlers, under the auspices of Governor
Joseph Lane, and the military commander, Major
John S. Hatheway. He was commissioned an officer
in the storekeeper's branch of the United States
ordnance department in September, 1853, and
held the position until March 21, 1865, when he was
appointed to a commission in the United States
quartermaster's department. He was brevetted a
major March 21, 1865, "for faithful and meritori-
ous services," and promoted to the full rank of
major January 24, 1881. He served actively until
January 22, 1885, when he was retired by law, being
then sixty-four years of age.
Major Eckerson's wife, Elizabeth, to whom he
was married in New York, accompanied him to the
Pacific coast, and remained constantly at his side,
sharing all the vicissitudes of service in this far-off
country. Four sons and two daughters were born
to them. Of this number one son died at Astoria;
two sons received from President Grant commissions
in the army; one son was appointed to a position in
the general postoffice department at Washington
City, under the civil service rules; and both daugh-
ters became wives of officers of the army.
In the Indian war of 1855, Major Eckerson did
invaluable service for Oregon and Washington,
which the Oregonian has described as follows:
"Major Eckerson did excellent service for Oregon
in her early days of trial and danger. He had
charge of the ordnance depot at Vancouver during
the period of our greatest Indian troubles, and took
the responsibility, without orders from Washington,
and against the remonstrance of General Wool,
to supply arms and ammunition upon the requi-
sitions of the governors of Oregon and Wash-
ington Territory, for the use of our people.
this he rendered to us an invaluable service that
never will be forgotten. Without the arms and
fixed ammunition, defense would have been ex-
tremely difficult, and aggressive war upon the
In
*

1
SNOQUALMIE HOP RANCH,
420 ACRES HOPS. LARGEST HOP RANCH IN THE WORLD.
SNOQUALMIE, WASHINGTON TER.
SNOQUALMIE FALLS. 268 FEET.
UNI
OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
315
Indians impossible. The temper of General Wool
was such as to make the matter one of serious diffi-
culty to Captain Eckerson; but the captain took the
high position that there was no need of a depot of
arms here unless some use were to be made of it for
protection and defense of the country.
This view of his was eventually concurred in by
the War Department, despite the prediction of Gen-
eral Wool that the captain would be severely dealt
with by the government.
Major Eckerson was highly esteemed by General
Grant, by whose side he had fought in all the bat-
tles of the Mexican war except Buena Vista; and it
is proper here to embody the letter written by that
general to President Lincoln, in February, 1865,
recommending him for the appointment in the
quartermaster's department, which was promptly
bestowed.
HEADQUARTERS, ARMIES OF THE
UNITED STATES,
"CITY POINT, VIRGINIA, February 23, 1865.
To the President of the United States :
"I most heartily approve the application of The-
odore J. Eckerson for the appointment of assistant
quartermaster in the regular army. He has served
for more than twenty-five years in the army, and
has maintained a high character. He is very ef-
ficient, and well acquainted with the duties of
almost every department of the service. I know
him personally, and can vouch for what I say of
him. He will prove a most excellent quartermaster,
if appointed, to have on the Pacific coast, where he
has been long and favorably known.
"U. S. GRANT,
"Lieut.-General."
In January, 1889, at a stated meeting of Multno-
mah Camp, No. 2, Indian War Veterans of the
North Pacific Coast, Major Eckerson was elected an
honorary member of said camp by a unanimous
vote.
It is gratifying to know that one whose services
have been of such essential value to our state, and
so highly appreciated by men of the first position
in the nation, is still living in hale age in our midst,
and enjoying the prosperity and development of the
country with which he has had such full sympathy
from its earliest history.
REV. CUSHING EELLS, D. D.- Dr. Eells
was born at Blandford, Massachusetts, February 16,
1810, and was the son of Joseph and Elizabeth
(Warner) Eells. He was descended from Samuel
Eells, who was a major in Cromwell's army, and
who came to America in 1661.
Cushing Eells was brought up at Blandford, be-
came a Christian when fifteen years old, prepared
for college at Monson Academy, Massachusetts,
entered Williams College in 1830, and graduated
four years later. The distance from his home to
college was forty-five miles. Twice he rode the
entire distance,— when he entered and after he
graduated, twice from one-half to two-thirds of the
way; and the rest of the trips he walked, too poor
to pay his way. Three years later he graduated
from East Windsor Theological Seminary, of Con-
necticut (now at Hartford), and was ordained at
Blandford, Massachusetts, October 25, 1837, as a
Congregational minister.
While teaching school at Holden, Massachusetts,
he became acquainted with Miss Myra Fairbank, to
whom he was afterwards married. She was the
daughter of Dea. Joshua and Mrs. Sally Fairbank,
and was born at Holden, Massachusetts, May 26,
1805. It is said that both on her father's and
mother's sides she was a pure Yankee. She made
a profession of religion when thirteen years old, and
at the celebration of her seventieth birthday said
that she had never been sorry that she had begun
to serve the Saviour when so young.
When Doctor Eells first offered himself as a mis-
sionary to the American board of commissioners for
foreign missions, he was appointed to the Zulu mis-
sion of Africa. Afterwards, when Doctor Whitman
and others had come to Oregon, the call for mission-
aries to the Indians on this coast became so urgent
that the board decided to send him to this region.
Doctor Eells and Miss Fairbank were married at
Holden, March 5, 1838. On the next day they
started on their bridal tour across the continent,
and about a year later began housekeeping near the
Spokane river, ready to receive callers.
Only two women, Mrs. M. Whitman and Mrs. H.
H. Spalding, had ever made the trip before,--in
1836. Reverend E. Walker, Reverend A. B. Smith,
Mr. W. H. Gray and their wives, and Mr. C. Rog-
ers, were the missionary companions of Doctor and
Mrs. Eells; and most of the trip from Missouri was
made on horseback. They were under the protection
of the American Fur Company to the Rocky Mount-
ains, and of the Hudson's Bay Company from that
place to Walla Walla, where they arrived August 29,
1838. That winter was spent at Doctor Whitman's
station at Walla; but the next spring, with Doctor
Walker and his wife, who were their associates
until 1848, they went to their mission station among
the Spokane Indians, Tshimakin, at Walker's
Prairie, in what is now Spokane county, Washing-
ton.
Here they remained until 1848, after the massacre
of Doctor Whitman. Doctor Eells taught a small
school a part of the time, besides preaching and
doing general missionary work.
The results as
they appeared at that time were not satisfactory;
but thirty-five years later it was plain that the seed
then sowed had grown, until two churches of one
hundred and twenty-seven members were the result;
while during the Cayuse and Yakima wars the
tribe remained friendly to the Whites, although
strongly urged by the hostiles to join them.
Owing however to the fact that the government of
Oregon could not protect them in that region after
the Cayuse war, they moved to the Willamette
valley in the summer of 1848, under an escort of
sixty Oregon volunteers commanded by Major J.
Magone.
They spent four weeks on the Abiqua, when they
both engaged to teach in the Oregon Institute at
Salem, now the Willamette University. The next
year they accepted a request to teach in what was
beginning to be Tualatin Academy at Forest Grove.
Here they remained until August, 1851, when they
316
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
removed to near Hillsboro, where Doctor Eells
taught the Washington Select School about four
years, and other schools in the region until 1857,
preaching also a considerable part of the time, when
he returned to Forest Grove, as principal of Tualatin
Academy. Three years were thus spent; when, the
country east of the Cascade Mountains being open
for settlement, he went to Walla Walla, moving his
family there in 1862, and laid plans for beginning
Whitman Seminary, in memory of his colaborer,
Doctor M. Whitman, which has since grown into
Whitman College. It was not, however, until 1866
that the first building was completed and the school
fairly begun. Since that time he has labored for it
as he has been able. He has been president of its
board of trustees since the charter was granted in
1859; he taught in it as principal for about two and
a half years; he has given to it nearly ten thousand
dollars; he spent about a year in the East in 1883-
84 in its behalf, his first and only trip East since
he came to this coast,-when he was the means of
securing about twelve thousand dollars for it; and
he lived till, in 1888, it celebrated the fiftieth anni-
versary of his arrival in the territory.
In 1872 his house at Walla Walla was burned;
and he moved to the home of his eldest son, Indian
agent at Skokomish, on Puget Sound. He remained
there for nearly two years; when he again visited
the Indians and Whites of Eastern Washington,
devoting his time mainly to ministerial work.
Mrs. Eells died at Skokomish August 9, 1878,
aged seventy-three years, and was buried at Seattle.
After her death Doctor Eells spent most of his time
in Eastern Washington, living at different times at
Colfax, Cheney and Medical Lake until 1888, when
he felt too old to longer endure the hardships of the
work, and has since resided with his oldest son,
Indian agent on the Puyallup Reservation near
Tacoma.
He assisted in the organization of the Congrega-
tional church at Skokomish in 1874, of which he
was pastor for nearly two years; organized the one
at Colfax in 1877, of which he was pastor for
four years; also that at Chawelah in 1879, of
which he was pastor for about nine years; that
at Medical Lake in 1883, of which he was pas-
tor for five years; that at Sprague in 1882, of
which he was pastor for about two years; aided in
organizing that at Cheney in 1881, and acted as
its pastor for three years; and also preached at
many other stations in Eastern Washington. To
the churches of Walla Walla, Colfax, Dayton, Che-
ney, Sprague, Lone Pine, Spokane Falls, Olympia,
Washington Territory, and Forest Grove, Oregon,
it is known that he had given previous to July,
1887, $6,877.55. In addition to what he has given
to Whitman College, Mrs. Eells laid the foundation
of a professorship in Pacific University, which with
accumulated interest now amounts to about three
thousand dollars. Doctor Eells and wife have also
given various missionary societies nearly four thous
and dollars. He received the degree of D. D. from
Pacific University, and was chosen assistant moder-
ator of the National Congregational Council at
Concord, New Hampshire, in 1883.
He has two children, Honorable Edwin Eells,
who has been United States Indian agent on Puget
Sound since 1871, and Reverend Myron Eells, mis-
sionary at Skokomish, Washington, since 1874.
HON. CHARLES EISENBEIS.-This wealthy
resident of the Port of Washington gained his
eminence by sturdy industry and sagacious invest-
ment during the pioneer days. He is a native of
Prussia, was born in 1832, and the fifth in a family
of ten children. Of his father he learned the trade
of a baker, and was prepared upon his arrival in
America in 1856 to earn thereby, in company with
his brother, an independent livelihood at Rochester,
New York.
In 1858 he came via Panama to San Francisco,
and in the fall of the same year arrived at Port
Townsend. He here opened a shop and prepared
for the market the first bakers' goods in the town, and
probably the first in the territory, except at Van-
couver. He was under engagement with the firm.
of Priest & Peterson, becoming a partner within a
few months. The site was the same as that now
occupied by his present fine building. Two years
later he removed to Steilacoom, and after a sojourn of
five years at this point, during which he engaged
successfully in his former business and in brewing,
returned to the city of his first choice, continuing a
remunerative management of his shop, and invest-
ing his savings in real estate.
ing his savings in real estate. By this means he
has acquired some of the finest property in the city,
and at Seattle has been very successful in that line.
Mr. Eisenbeis has served the city as mayor three
terms, being the first to hold that office.
also the first city treasurer. Three terms he has
been a member of the Washington board of health.
He was
He was married in San Francisco in 1865 to Miss
Elizabeth Berghauser, a native of Prussia. She
died in 1881, leaving him a family of two sons and
two daughters,-Sophia, Charles, Frederick W. and
Louise H. He was married recently to Miss Kate
E. Marsh, a native of England, with whom he
enjoys a most attractive home.
HON. EDWARD ELDRIDGE.—One of the
most useful of Washington's public men has been
Mr. Eldridge, whose portrait we present. He is a
Scotchman, having been born at St. Andrews in
1828. The Scotch either stay at home and become
doctors, essayists, psychologists or preachers, or else
go abroad and found institutions and cities. The
mind of these islanders is said to be the most
severely logical of any in the world, and their grip
upon affairs the most tenacious. As a city builder
and legislator, our representative of this great peo-
ple has brought into effective action these charac-
teristic qualities.
When but a boy of thirteen he shipped as a sailor,
and followed the sea until 1849. This was the golden
year of our coast; and the sharp-eyed young argo-
naut turned up in San Francisco about that time,
hailing from the ship Tonquin. He found that he
could handle a spade and "Long Tom" as well as
a halyard or helm, and for a year dug gold on the
Yuba. He then took a run of eighteen months on
the Pacific mail steamer Tennessee; but, concluding
that the only satisfactory way of living was as a
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
317
man of family, he married and went to Yreka.
Neither this place nor San Francisco, which he
tried again, quite suited him; and in 1853 he came
up to the Sound with Captain Roder, who was
taking up machinery to build a sawmill at What-
com. Here were the sea-breezes, the convenient
boat, the "finest sheet of water in the world,” and
the place for cows and chickens and other livestock
in the woods along shore. He located at Whatcom
while the sawmill was building. The inhabitants
at that time consisted of twelve men working on
the mill. Here for a short time he found employment
with the mill owner, his wife cooking for the men.
He located half a section of land adjoining Cap-
tain Roder, where he has resided ever since and
now has the finest home on Bellingham Bay.
He was also on the Sound in time to take a hand
in the Indian war, serving in Company H, Cap-
tain Peabody, and in the battalion of Major Van
Bokellen. He was also left for a time in command
of a company to guard Whatcom and the newly
opened coal mines there.
In a public way he began early serving the county
in nearly all the offices, and going to the legislature
quite continuously. In 1866-67 he was speaker of
the house, and in 1878 was member of the terri-
torial constitutional convention. In every public
capacity he has filled his place with dignity, and
has displayed sagacity. Everything which he has
undertaken has prospered; and although his early
adventures and operations have been, by the quickly
shifting times, acquiring a certain antiquarian inter-
est, he is still a man in his prime, and dispatches
as much work as ever. He was a Democrat in
politics until the flag was fired upon at Sumter.
Since that momentous event he has been a Repub-
lican.
His wife, Theresa Lappim, a native of Ireland,
whom he met and married in San Francisco, has
been in every way his efficient helpmeet, and shares
with him the comforts of their pleasant home. Two
of their four children are living,-Mrs. Isabella
Eveds, and Hugh, auditor of Whatcom county.
JOHN S. ELLIOTT.- Mr. Elliott, a represent-
ative citizen of Eastern Oregon, was born in Virginia
in 1836. He received a common-school education,
and remained upon his father's farm until twenty
years of age. Developing a desire for life in the far
West, he went to Texas in 1858, and at a town upon
the Red river served as salesman in the store of an
uncle who was doing business there. In 1860 he
enlarged his operations by taking a stock of goods
to Denver, Colorado.
In 1862 he crossed the plains to Baker county,
Oregon, locating in Powder valley. The next spring
he engaged in freighting on the Umatilla and Idaho
road with two yokes of cattle. In that avocation he
continued until 1878, when he sold his team and
went as a drover to Kansas, spending in this vent-
ure four years. In 1882 we find him returning
again to our state and making his home at Union,
in the Grande Ronde valley, and establishing a
prosperous livery business. At the present time he
has the reputation of having the finest livery stable
in the Pacific Northwest, owning a complete stable
well stocked with excellent horses. His public
interests are large, and his influence in the commu-
nity extensive.
WILLIAM ELLIOTT. This now venerable
citizen of our state, whose form and character are
familiar to many in Western Oregon, was born in
Knox county, Indiana, September 14, 1815. Losing
his mother by death when but a child of five years,
he was received by an uncle, and remained in his
family, removing with him to Missouri in 1820, and
not leaving his kind relatives until he had attained
his majority.
In 1836 he became a volunteer soldier under A.
J. Morgan, of Fort Leavenworth, to prosecute the
war in Florida, and in this service experienced many
sharp encounters. After his return in 1838 to Mis-
souri, he was married to Miss Nancy, the daughter
of John Sconce, a pioneer of Missouri from Ken-
tucky. She was born in Grason county, Kentucky,
June 11, 1816.
Mr. Elliott then engaged in farming until 1846,
when he was seized with the impulse that affected the
most daring and impetuous of the Western people
to make new homes and a grander state beyond the
shining Rocky Mountains, and in 1846 joined the
train of eighty wagons bound for the wonderland of
Oregon. He had as companions in this company
Messrs. J. Brown, William Parker, Benjamin
Schrum, Z. Grippel, and many others well known
in our state. Continuing with a detachment of some
thirty of the wagons, Mr. Elliott and his family
made a successful and speedy trip, not, however,
without danger and hardship, arriving at Oregon
City early in October, being of the second company
of that year to pass the Barlow gate. The same
season he went out to the Molalla, and with the
oxen he had brought across the plains broke and
seeded to wheat twelve acres of land. In the Feb-
ruary following he entered the Donation claim still
designated by his name in Clackamas county. This
place he developed with the untiring patience of the
early Oregon farmer, and lived upon it for a full
quarter of a century. During all this time he was
active and earnest in the development of public
enterprises, building up christian institutions, and
taking especial interest in common schools, being
one of the first to subscribe money for building a
proper house for school purposes and for paying the
teacher. During the Cayuse war he was one of the
party that engaged in the Abiqua war, and feels
perfectly satisfied that, if the citizens had not acted
promptly in that affair, the Indians would have risen
throughout the Willamette valley and massacred
many innocent families, as the fighting men were
mainly absent in the Cayuse country. He was also
a volunteer under Colonel Kelley in the Yakima
war.
In his farming operations, Mr. Elliott has ever
been very successful and progressive, being one of
the first to encourage the importation of Devon cattle
and of improved breeds of sheep. He took an active.
part in forming the State Agricultural Society, and,
when it was necessary to liquidate the indebtedness
of the concern, stood as one of the thirty to furnish
the means.
318
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
In 1872 they sold the old place and removed to
Canemah. In 1888 Mrs. Elliott died, and Mr. Elliott
at present makes his home with his eldest daughter,
Mrs. Captain Apperson, of Oregon City. At this
pleasant old town he spends the declining years of
his life in looking back upon the great changes
wrought by the labors of himself and his old com-
rades, and in looking forward to the still greater
improvements yet to come.
The large family that he has raised and educated
for the state are in every way an honor to himself,
and are citizens of recognized public merit. The
following are their names: M. A., wife of Captain
Apperson; John W.; Eliza, wife of Doctor White;
Robert, deceased; and Ella, wife of Captain San-
born.
HON. STUKELY ELLSWORTH.-This em-
inent lawyer of our state was born at Stockton,
Chautauqua county, New York, December 18, 1826.
Among his distinguished ancestors were Oliver
Ellsworth, the third chief justice of the supreme
court of the United States; Mary Lyon, founder of
Mount Holyoke Seminary, and Mary Franklin, a
sister of Benjamin Franklin. Colonel E. E. Ells-
worth is also supposed to have belonged to the same
family.
Mr. Ellsworth received his academical education
in Chautauqua county, and graduated at Yale Col-
lege in 1847. He studied law at Buffalo, New
York, nearly three years, and was admitted to prac-
tice before the supreme court of the United States
at Washington in 1855. He settled the same year
at Eugene City, Oregon, feeling a greater attraction
for building up a new state than in seeking high
position in the older communities. He was married
in 1856, at Salem, to Miss Mary Stevens, of Cold-
water, Michigan, a daughter of General J. H. Ste-
vens, now of North Powder, Oregon, who was also
one of the first pioneers of the state. Mr. Ellsworth
engaged steadily in the practice of his profession,
giving but little attention to politics, although fre-
quently urged by his friends to do so. His only
candidacy for office at the hands of any political
party during his residence in Oregon was for the
office of judge of the supreme court of the state in
1866; but, while he received more than five hundred
votes from the party of his opponent, he was de-
feated by the incumbent, Honorable Geo. H. Will-
iams, ex-attorney-general of the United States, who
was also in nomination. In 1872 he moved from
Eugene City to La Grande, hoping by a change of
climate to benefit the health of his wife, who had
become a confirmed invalid, and received from him
the most careful attention and consideration at all
times.
He was a prominent member of the Independent
Order of Odd Fellows of Oregon, and was chosen by
them as grand representative to the grand lodge of the
United States in 1875. At this time he revisited his
native state after an absence of twenty years. The
allurements of place and position had but little
attraction for him, and could not induce him to enter
the active arena of politics. Notwithstanding this,
he took a quiet and unostentatious, but nevertheless
effective, part in advancing many matters of public
interest, and assisted the progress of his beloved
state in many important affairs. About the year
1870 the state and coast were greatly interested in
railroad matters; and, in common with his fellow-
citizens generally, Mr. Ellsworth gave time, money
and influence to these projects. In that year he was
one of the board of directors of the Oregon & Cali-
fornia Railroad.
fornia Railroad. Some years later, in helping to
locate the State University at Eugene, he took a
very active part. As a lawyer, he stood in the
front rank of the legal fraternity on this coast, and
possessed the enviable reputation of being "a peace-
maker rather than a promoter of litigation."
His death occurred at La Grande January 28,
1876, after a very brief illness. Ten years later he
was followed by his wife. There are four children
surviving, of whom three reside in this state; while
one, a daughter, makes her home in Montana.
These are all persons of character and of value to
their respective communities.
PHILOLOGUS ELY.— This venerable pioneer
was born in East Tennessee in 1825, and remained
in his native state until 1834. In that year his
father moved to Dewitt county, Illinois, and contin-
ued his occupation as a farmer through life. In the
electric atmosphere of this young giant state of the
West, Mr. Ely attained his majority, and in the
meantime secured a practical education in the com-
mon schools. As a resource for his livelihood, he
learned the trade of a plasterer, which, combined
with his occupation of farmer, he followed in Dewitt
and Knox counties. In the year 1851, he was mar-
ried to Miss Amanda Mansfield, making their home
in Knox county till March, 1853, when they started
across the plains, and after a severe journey reached
Oregon in the September following, locating near
Junction, in Lane county.
In December, 1861, the floods of the Willamette
river destroyed most of the property which they had
accumulated in the past. In this beautiful valley
they made their home until the autumn of 1874,
when they removed to Umatilla county. At that
time Mr. Ely became afflicted with the rheumatism,
and remained an invalid for the next ten years, one
year of which he was unable to walk, and will re-
main a cripple during life. Here he still resides on
a good farm with his aged wife, the mother of six
children.
SOLOMON EMERICK. — Some time before
Horace Greeley gave his advice, "Go West, young
man, go West," there were hardy young Americans
making tracks across the Rocky Mountains, and
pushing into the fastnesses towards the Pacific
Ocean. Ribs of brass and hearts of steel" had
these young fellows; and they were without fear or
even caution.
One of these was Solomon Emerick, who was born
in Ohio in 1820. He moved to Buchanan county,
Missouri, in 1830, and in 1843 was on the way to
the rendezvous on the border. Falling in with the
pioneer Gilmore, he accepted of him an outfit and
took the job of driving oxen to Oregon, writing to
his father that he was going to the Pacific coast with
Burnett's expedition, as the emigration of 1843 was

HON.VAN B.DE LASHMUTT,
PORTLAND, OR.
HON.JOSHUA J. WALTON,
EUGENE, OR.
JOHN B. FURGUESON.
MONROE, OR.
PROF. W.A.WETZELL..
PORTLAND, OR.
H.R. KINCAID,
EUGENE,OR.
UN
OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
319
frequently called. When the one hundred and
twenty-five wagons and loose stock were well under
way, a division was made to accommodate all the
bands; and Emerick was in the company that was
under Captain Martin, with Gilmore, James Hayes,
T. Reeves and others.
Upon their arrival, after the arduous trip fully de-
scribed elsewhere, at Walla Walla, they disposed of
their oxen to McKinley at the fort, taking an order
for an equal number in the Willamette valley from
the Hudson's Bay Company, and, embarking in
canoes, completed their journey by the swift waters
of the Columbia. Unlike the most of navigators,
they took no guide or pilot here, but went at their
own sweet will past rocks and over rapids. Arriving
at Celilo, they deemed the water bad enough to send
the women and children and baggage around by the
portage; but, jumping into the canoe themselves,
Hayes and Emerick pushed off and shot the falls
and ran the chute, a feat of the most amazing te-
merity, and only justified by its entire success.
We read of the Goths sliding down the Italian
snow slopes of the Alps on their shields with wild
shouts of laughter, to the petrifaction of the Romans
who were holding the passes against them. With
much the same spirit and no eye to danger, the
American immigrants crossed the mountains and
slid down the rivers. Upon telling their adventure
to Doctor McLoughlin at Vancouver, he regarded
them with astonishment, and assured them that the
thing could not be done safely once in a thousand
times. The good Doctor moreover astonished them
by refusing to furnish the cattle in exchange for
their oxen left at Fort Walla Walla.
"Select your
homes," said he, "and go up in the spring and get
your yoke cattle and pay a dollar a head for their
keep. You need to plow and haul rails; and my
cattle here are Spanish steers, unbroken, wild and
unmanageable." This was an instance of his
thoughtfulness by which they profited.
Reaching the Willamette valley, Mr. Emerick
showed the taste to select the beautiful and historic
site of Forest Grove as his farm; but, discovering
that the land was somewhat better a few miles to
the East, he sold his claim the next year and located
his present farm at Cornelius. There he still lives.
Perhaps the pleasantest event of his life occurred
in 1845. This was his marriage to Miss Lucetta
Zachary, in whose company he had crossed the
plains. This was quite an event in the social world;
for there were two other couples joined at the same
time. The triple wedding was celebrated at the
house of Reverend Mr. Snelling, who performed the
ceremony. The Fourth of July following was cele-
brated at the Five Oaks Farm of Alexander Zachary.
A barbecue and party and general jollification was
given by Mr. Zachary in honor of the marriage of
Miss Lucetta, no less than in commemoration of
the national birthday. This was one of the first
Fourth of July" celebrations in Oregon Territory.
Mr. and Mrs. Emerick have reared a family of ten
children, five of whom are living, the daughter in
the Big Bend country, the sons in Washington
county.
Mr. Emerick, although approaching oid age, is
still hearty, and has a world of pleasant anecdotes
to tell of old times. He loves to recall the first
grand jury of which he was a member. T’Vault
was judge; the courthouse was a cabin; the jury-
room was a large log some little distance from the
courthouse, upon which the jury sat and whittled,
and made their findings.
GEORGE HARVEY EMERSON.— It is ever
with peculiar interest that we observe the career of
one who has been a soldier of the union.
It was
noticed that in the England of 1670, if any man
was an exceptionally industrious and sober mechanic
or man of business, it usually proved that he was
an old soldier of Oliver Cromwell. In much the
same way the severe discipline and the exercise of
self-devotion in our great war educated the soldier
and prepared him for large and difficult enterprises.
The subject of this sketch was born in Chester,
New Hampshire, in 1846, but while a boy went with
his parents to Chelsea, Massachusetts. He had the
best of educational advantages, graduating from the
High School in 1864. Though still so young, the
necessities of his country led him to enlist in the
army, in which he served eleven months with credit.
On being mustered out, he returned home and
entered Harvard College, where he remained one
year. The opportunities of the great West began
to prove attractive to him, however; and pushing
out to Leavenworth, Kansas, he joined a train of
ox-teams bound for New Mexico. From that most
ancient part of our domain he found his way through
Arizona to California. There he secured a position
with Simpson Bros., and by them was sent to North
Bend, Coos county, Oregon, and later was given
charge of the sawmill at Gardner, Douglas county,
where he remained till 1881, excepting three years.
spent at San José, California.
A trip to Gray's Harbor, Washington Territory,
in 1875 had led Mr. Emerson to consider the region
around there a wide field for enterprise; and in 1881,
in partnership with his former employer, Captain
A. M. Simpson, he built the Hoquiam Mills. These
mills, together with the Knappton Mills and their
lands and various branches of business, have since
been incorporated as the Northwestern Lumber
Company. Of this Mr. Emerson is manager and a
large owner. The establishment of this great en-
terprise on Gray's Harbor first opened that port to
commerce, and first called the attention of the
world to the great and varied resources of that sec-
tion of the country. Since that time the growth of
the region has been one of the marvels of the Pacific
Northwest.
Foremost as he is in every enterprise, both public
and private, Mr. Emerson well deserves the high
esteem in which he is held by all who have dealings
with him.
THE REV. ST. MICHAEL FACKLER. The
Reverend Mr. Fackler was the first clergyman of the
Protestant Episcopal church in Oregon. He was a
native of Stanton, Virginia, first moved to Missouri,
and then crossed the plains for his health in the
year 1847. This was greatly improved by the trip;
and he soon undertook such work as he could do,
teaching and preaching as opportunity offered. For
22
320
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
a short time he taught in the Methodist school at
Salem, the progenitor of the present Willamette
University.
At an early day he secured a farm not far from
Butteville, where he resided for a number of years.
While thus occupied in secular affairs he was not
idle as a clergyman; for he spent his Sundays in
holding services at Champoeg, Butteville, String-
town, Oregon City, Portland and on the Tualatin
Plains. In the course of time he fitted up a school-
house at Champoeg for services, and built a neat
little church at Butteville, doing most of the work
with his own hands. It was the day of small
things then, and those who knew anything of the
Episcopal church were very few indeed.
In the year 1851 his heart was made glad by the
arrival of Mr. Jas. L. Daly, now the Reverend
Jas. L. Daly, who was a teacher and a devoted and
intelligent member of the church. Together they
traveled, together they worshiped, and together
they labored in the Master's vineyard. As long as
they both lived near by they were like David and
Jonathan, almost inseparable from each other on the
Lord's day. Through Mr. Fackler's influence, Mr.
Daly was persuaded to take orders in the church,
as he thought that one so useful as a layman could
be much more so as a clergyman.
In 1853 the Reverend Mr. Fackler was one of a
small number of Episcopalians who met at Oregon
City to consult in regard to the interests of the
church in the then territories of Oregon and Wash-
ington. He was appointed chairman of a committee
to draft a report to be sent to the board of missions
in New York, asking for the appointment of a
missionary bishop for these territories. The report
concluded with the recommendation that the Rev-
erend John McCarty, D. D., of Vancouver, be
appointed said bishop. For a year the Reverend
Mr. Fackler was principal of Trinity School, Oswego,
a boarding school for boys, under the supervision
of the church. At the same time he was in charge
of St. Paul's church, Oregon City, and for more
than a year afterwards.
In 1849 Mr. Fackler was united in marriage to
the young and lovely daughter of the Reverend
J. H. Wilbur, a pioneer Methodist minister of
Oregon. She lived but a brief time after her mar-
riage, and left a little daughter, who lived to be
eleven years of age. About the year 1860 he
married a second wife, Miss Rachel Wand, of New
Scotland, New York, who survived him but a few
months. By her he had two children, a son and a
daughter. The son sleeps beside the first wife and
child in the Butteville cemetery; and the daughter,
now a young lady, resides with friends near Albany,
New York.
In the year 1864, at the request of the bishop,
Mr. Fackler took a trip to the mining country east
of the Cascade Mountains, visiting The Dalles,
Umatilla, La Grande and Auburn on the way.
"He likewise visited," says the bishop, "the sev-
eral towns in Boise basin, but has spent most of the
time at Boise City, where I am glad to learn his
labors have been well received and were useful. The
prospect seems favorable for erecting a church and
establishing a permanent congregation, should Mr.
Fackler remain, or some other be found to occupy
the place."
Mr. Fackler remained there until the fall of 1866,
endeared himself to all the people of the place, and
especially to the suffering immigrants who came in
during the winter of 1865 and 1866, by his untir-
ing efforts for their relief and comfort, organized
a congregation, built a church, and in the fall of
1868 left for a journey to the East, followed by the
love and the prayers of a grateful people. In his
honor the church has been called St. Michaels, now
one of the most prosperous parishes in the Pacific
Northwest.
He went East by the way of San Francisco and
the Isthmus. After leaving Graytown, the cholera
broke out. In the midst of the sickness and dis-
tress, Mr. Fackler gave his assistance unreservedly,
ministering to the sick, praying with the dying and
burying the dead. He took no thought of his own
safety, and, being weakened by his exertions, when
the disease fastened upon him was unable to rally;
and he died at his heroic task, distinguished as few
men are by the providence which completed his
self-denying life by the sacrifice of perfect devotion.
He was followed to his grave with prayers and
many tears, and was buried by the church at Key
West. Thus closed the life of a good man,
whom all those who knew him well knew but to
esteem very highly in love for his work's sake.
one
HON. JOSIAH FAILING.-The name brought
to our state by this venerable pioneer, now no lon-
ger living, will always be revered by reason of the
virtues of the man himself, and of the extensive
reputation of the family which he founded upon our
coast. His great-grandfather came to America
from the Palatinate on the Rhine, and settled in
the Mohawk valley west of Albany, New York, in
1703. Mr. Failing was born on his father's farm
July 9, 1806, at Canajohane, Montgomery county,
New York. When quite a young man he removed
to New York City, where he married Miss Hen-
rietta Ellison, with whom he lived as one flesh
and bone for over forty-nine years. In 1851 he
came to Portland, Oregon, and successfully en-
gaged in the mercantile business until 1864, when
he retired in favor of his son and partner, Mr.
Henry Failing, now president of the First National
Bank. In 1853 he was mayor of Portland, and was
a delegate from Oregon to the national Republican
conventions of 1864 and 1868.
At a very early day Mr. Failing gave his attention
to the subject of public schools in Portland, and
during his life was a constant and firm friend of
the same. Indeed, he may well be called the
father of the public schools of Portland. Appro-
priately to his services in this regard his name.
will be popularly spoken for all the future as the
designation of the public schools of Portland.
Through his days Mr. Failing was distinguished
for honesty, industry and for having consideration
for the rights and interests of others.
His life,
prolonged even beyond the three score and ten of
the psalmist, has been an example of well doing,
which is a rich legacy to the city of Portland and
the whole state. He was the first member of the
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
321
Baptist church in this place, and was always one of
its most liberal and firm supporters. His philan-
thropic and public-spirited labors may well be
studied with a view to imitation by a people
desirous of progress; for they are of that useful
character which makes a city great and worth liv-
ing in.
His sons Henry, Edward and James F. at
present occupy leading and honorable positions in
the business and society of the Northwest, the for-
mer being one of the men of the city whose fortune
is reckoned by the million; and, worthily to be
added, his mind and character are deemed by the
public to be a possession to them of even greater
value.
HON. H. W. FAIRWEATHER. —Mr. Fair-
weather was born in St. Johns, New Brunswick,
May 20, 1852. Here he received a common-school
education. His father was from Essex county, New
York, pure English. His mother's parents were
from Ireland, pure Irish.
In
Our subject went to Boston in 1868, and found
work as brakeman on the Old Colony Railroad.
He spent 1869, '70 and '71 in Illinois, Wiscon-
sin, Nebraska and Minnesota in the same line of
work. He came to Washington Territory in 1871,
and was employed by the Northern Pacific Rail-
road Company as locomotive engineer, and subse-
quently as chief clerk. In 1873 he received the
appointment of general passenger agent of the
Pacific Division, with residence at Kalama.
1874 he was promoted to cashier, and retained this
position until 1877. He resigned this position in
that year to accept the general freight and passen-
ger agency of the Oregon Steam Navigation Com-
pany, with residence at Portland. He resigned
this position in 1879 to accept the vice-presidency
of the Walla Walla & Columbia Railroad Company,
and also acted as general superintendent of this line.
He resigned this position in 1881 to accept the
superintendency of construction of the Pend d'Oreille
Division of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company,
and after the completion of this work resigned in
March, 1883, to look after his own affairs.
He was
married in 1875 to Miss Mattie Curtis of Kalama,
Washington Territory, and has three sons and two
daughters. Mr. Fairweather has been prominent
in territorial politics, having been secretary of the
territorial Republican central committee, and a
member of this body for many years.
He engaged in the banking business with George
S. Brook at Sprague in 1882, and promoted the
organization of the First National Bank at Sprague
in 1876, being now its president. He is also a large
stockholder and director in the First National Bank
of Spokane Falls. His popularity was attested by
His popularity was attested by
his election as mayor of Sprague in 1885, and his
election as state senator in 1880. He is a member
of the mercantile firm of Fairweather & Curtis of
Sprague. His business operations extend over a
wide field, and include mining, milling and various
other enterprises. Financially he has been very
successful, and although still a young man, not
yet having reached the age of forty, has an envi-
able competency, covering property in ten or more
counties of the territory.
He is one of those men whose robust health and
business success fill him with faith in the territory
in which he lives, and which he believes to be the
best country on earth. A large business enterprise
emanating from his brain was inaugurated while
he was in Portland. This was the packet line of
sailing vessels to Hong Kong; and he was the man
who chartered the first two vessels to carry Chinese
passengers home. The possession by Washington
of men of Mr. Fairweather's business courage,
good fortune and breadth of view is the best
guarantee of her success among the states of the
Pacific.
JUDGE JAMES H. FEE.- The present judge
of the circuit court of the sixth judicial district,
although having attained an eminent position, is
still a young man, having been born in Wiscon-
sin in 1858. His early opportunities were of the
best character. At the upper Iowa University of
Fayetteville, and at Waterloo, Iowa, he laid the
foundations of his education. Coming to Califor-
nia in 1873, he completed his course at San José,
and began the study of law, enjoying in his prepara-
tory work the instructions of a priest of that city;
and in 1880, at Walla Walla, he concluded his pro-
fessional studies under T. J. Anders, of the law firm
of Anders & Brents. In 1884 he came to Pendleton,
and soon took a leading position in his profession.
He so gained the confidence of the people, and gath-
ered so much personal influence, that upon his nomi-
nation as judge of the sixth district, embracing six
counties, Union, Umatilla, Baker, Grant, Wal-
lowa and Malheur, although put forward as a
Republican in a Democratic region, and running
against a gentleman of deserved popularity, he
received a majority of two hundred and ninety-
eight. His associate is the able Judge L. B. Ison,
of Baker City.
In political circles, Judge Fee holds an essen-
tial place, having been a delegate to the Republi-
can state convention of 1888. He also was a
delegate to the convention of the officers of the
Oregon National Guard, and was elected as an offi-
cer in the militia. In his own city he shares the
public responsibilities, having been chief of the fire
department for the term ending in July, 1888. For
· a time he also was associated with J. D. Eddy on the
Tribune, a paper of wide influence.
His wife, the daughter of Mr. Maney, a well-
known pioneer of the Walla Walla valley, is a lady
of culture, and is well known in social circles.
HON. THERON E. FELL. Mr. Fell has
become especially known in Oregon as a represent-
ative to the state legislature from Morrow county.
The manner of his election shows his popularity
among his neighbors and the people of his own
region.
He was the grandson of an abolishionist Quaker,
and the son of an original Republican, and himself
has been true to the family record. Having received
the regular nomination by the Republican party, his
rival "bolted" and accepted an independent nomi-
nation. The Democrats seeing this rupture did not
fail to improve the opportunity, and presented an
322
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
excellent ticket. The result, however, showed a
plurality of fifty-seven for the man whose portrait
adorns our pages.
Mr. Fell has been prominently identified with the
sheep-growing interests of Eastern Oregon since
1882. In 1886 he became a member of the firm of
Ayers & Fell. They are engaged in the commission
business, dealing chiefly in wool at Arlington and
elsewhere along the line of the Oregon Railway &
Navigation Company. His home, however, being
at Heppner, forty miles from the railroad, he em-
ployed the method of Mahomet. He did not go to
the railroad, but brought the railroad to himself. It
was largely due to his activity that the branch line
was extended from the Willows to Heppner.
The subject of our sketch was born at Blooming-
ton, Illinois, in 1858. Charles and Lemanda Fell
were his parents. His grandfather, Joshua Fell,
was a pioneer of the West. Theron was educated
at the Illinois Wesleyan University, and as a chem-
ist in the Technical schools of Philadelphia. Soon
afterwards he became established in a successful
drug business in his native place. But in the year
1882, desiring to visit the Pacific coast, he organ-
ized a company of one hundred tourists to come
hither. Upon reaching Portland, he was struck.
forcibly with the immense opportunities of this
state. Disposing of his tourists, some of whom had
invested in Portland real estate, he proceeded to
make Oregon his home, locating on a ranch in
Morrow county. And thus it came to pass that
this state now has him as one of her most wide-
awake citizens.
Mr. Fell is now manager of the Morrow County
Land & Trust Company, and director of the Hepp-
ner National Bank.
CLARK FERGUSON. — This gentleman was
born in Putnam county, New York, October 13,
1835, and lived at his birthplace until the age of
twenty. In April, 1855, he came with his brother
Yates via the Nicaragua route to the land of gold,
arriving in San Francisco in May. After two years
of life in California, he returned to his Eastern home,
but one year later again came west via the overland
route. On reaching Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and
receiving the intelligence of the Mormon troubles,
he located in that place, remaining two years. He
then came to the mines of Pike's Peak, but, not
being very successful in his operations, entered the
government employment as wagon-master on trains
billed to New Mexico, continuing in that service
three years.
After a time spent in the mines of
Idaho, he came to Washington Territory and joined
his brother, Honorable E. C. Ferguson, at Snohomish,
and makes that flourishing city his home, owning a
large amount of valuable real estate adjoining.
HON. EMORY C. FERGUSON.- Mr. Fergu-
son, whose portrait is placed in this history, was born
on a farm in Westchester county, New York, March
5, 1833, and is the son of Samuel S. and Maria
(Haight) Ferguson. He resided in his native
county and learned the trade of a carpenter until
reaching his majority. April 5, 1854, he with his
brother Yates (who came to California in 1849 and
had returned East) started via the Isthmus of Pan-
ama for the Golden State, arriving in San Fran-
cisco in May. Our subject immediately proceeded
to the mines on the middle fork of the American
river, where he followed merchandising and mining
until 1856. He then embarked in the sawmill
business in Greenwood valley, El Dorado county,
which he conducted until the Frazer river excite-
ment in 1858. He then came north, but a short
time in the mines convinced him of their worth-
lessness; and he began to retrace his steps. Coming
down the Sound, he located in Steilacoom, where he
followed his trade until 1860.
He then conceived the idea of cutting a trail
across the Cascade Mountains to reach the Rock
creek and Smilikamun mines, he locating on the
present site of Snohomish city, where he built a log
cabin which he used as his headquarters, and also
kept a small general merchandise store. The cut-
ting of the trail proved disastrous to Mr. Ferguson,
as he put all his money into the enterprise, and a
short time after its completion the mines proved a
failure, all that he had left being his homestead on
the Snohomish. With his own hands he slashed
and cleared what now comprise the principal streets
of the city; and the best years of his life were spent
there with the chopper's axe, an army musket, and
with no company outside of the savages, who were
quite numerous in those parts at that time. As the
county became settled, Mr. Ferguson would dis-
pose of small pieces of his property; and at a date
when he saw that a city at that locality was assured
he had his homestead platted, and became, as now,
the principal townsite proprietor.
From his first location in Snohomish until 1879,
Mr. Ferguson was engaged in merchandising, the
latter years on a large scale, and did the principal
business of the town. Since retiring from the store,
Mr. Ferguson has given attention to real estate, and
is now owner of many of the finest buildings in the
city, together with landed property in Snohomish
county sufficient to place him at the head of the list
as the largest taxpayer in his county.
Mr. Ferguson in politics has been a Republican
all his life, and has ever worked for the best interest
of his town, county and the territory of Washington.
He has filled every county office in Snohomish
county, and served seven terms in the territorial leg-
islature, five terms in the council and two terms in
the house, serving his last term as speaker of the
house.
In 1884 he was appointed Commissioner to repre-
sent Washington Territory at the world's exposition
held in New Orleans. He also was a member of
the convention held at Ellensburgh that formulated
the proceedings that secured the admission of Wash-
ington Territory as a state. Few men have been
more active; and a still less number have con-
ducted industries so varied.
Mr. Ferguson possesses that admirable faculty of
adapting himself to the occasion and the work,
whatever it might be. He is a staunch Republican,
a good debater, and is thoroughly versed in parlia-
mentary rules; and the community that numbers.
among its inhabitants such a man as E. C. Fergu-
son is to be congratulated.

LYMAN WOOD, ESQ.,
SEATTLE, W. T.
UN
OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
323
JOHN B. FERGUSON.-This now venerable
pioneer, one of the large landholders of Lane county,
was born in Richland county, Ohio, June 29, 1825.
As an infant he accompanied his parents in 1842 to
Hudson county, Illinois, and in 1842 went with
them still further westward to Missouri, where they
died in 1844 and 1845 respectively. In 1846 he
was married to Miss Mary Waldrip, whose father,
Wyatt Waldrip, had come from Kentucky to Illi-
nois, and had died there in 1844, after which his
family came to Missouri. Not many months after
his marriage, Mr. Ferguson prepared to cross the
plains to Oregon, and in 1847 performed the hazard-
ous and toilsome journey. He was in the company
of Captain Bonnsem, which left the Missouri river
May 12th, and reached The Dalles about October
Ist. Getting his family and stock down the Colum-
bia river amid the usual hardships and perils, he
went out to the Tualatin Plains in search of a home,
and there spent the winter. Continuing the next
season on a tour of inspection up the Willamette
valley, he was attracted by the manifest fertility of
the Long Tom country to make there his choice of
land, becoming one of the best-known and most
influential citizens of that portion of the Willamette
valley.
In 1849 he went to the gold mines of California,
operating on the Feather river, and in 1851 mined
near Yreka. In 1862 he pursued the same business
on the John Day river, continuing two years, but
thereafter turned his attention to livestock, and in
the interest of that business crossed the Cascade
Mountains as many as fourteen times. During all
those ventures, however, he retained his farm and
made his home near Monroe, and increased his
original square mile, plus twenty acres, by the pur-
chase of three hundred and twenty acres adjoining
on the east. In 1878 Mr. Ferguson served as county
commissioner, and has in many public ways rendered
valuable assistance to the upbuilding and develop-
ment of his community.
By his first wife, who died in 1876, he reared a
family of seven children,-John S., James M.
(deceased), Sarah J., Joseph H., Mary Ann, Martha
È. and Theresa J. By his second marriage in 1877,
to Miss Elizabeth Hinton, daughter of T. B. Hinton,
he has one child, Josephine.
HON. ALVIN T. FERRISS.—This represent-
ative citizen of Eastern Washington was born in
Mount Pleasant, Iowa, in 1852, being the son of
James R. and Mary Worth Ferriss. He resided at his
birthplace until fifteen years old, at that date re-
moving with his parents to Northwest Missouri. In
the spring of 1872 he came west to Denver. After
a short stay among the Rocky Mountains, engaged
in mining and other operations, and at one time as
railroad contractor on the Oregon Short Line, he
crossed the continent in 1883 to Washington Terri-
tory, and, after looking over the country, selected
Pullman as his future home. Soon after his arrival,
he started the present large hardware business with
Charles Kingman. In two years he was joined by
his brother, James Ferriss, and conducted the busi-
ness under the firm name of Ferriss Bros. In June,
1887, they suffered a loss of twelve thousand dol-
lars above insurance by fire, but in the same year
rebuilt, erecting their present commodious build-
ing, where they carry a stock worth forty thousand
dollars, and are the largest firm in their line in the
Palouse country. Besides his mercantile business,
Mr. Ferris is also active in financial circles, being
president of the Pullman Bank. In the fall of
1888, his popularity was evinced by his election as
representative of Whitman county on nomination
of the Republican party, receiving the largest vote
on his ticket.
He was married in Pullman in 1885 to Miss Lizzie
Harris, a native of Missouri. By this union they
have two children, Robert and Jessie.
CLINTON P. FERRY.—Clinton P. Ferry was
born at Fort Wayne, Indiana, May 24, 1836. Hav-
ing lost his father, an uncle became his guardian to
a great extent. At the age of seven years he
removed to Indianapolis, where he attended a pre-
paratory school and business college. For a short
time, he engaged in learning the art of printing,
and devoted his seventeenth and eighteenth years
as a telegraph operator. He was a nephew of W.
G. & G. W. Ewing, a firm then largely interested in
trading posts on the then Western frontier of the
United States. They had branches at Chicago, St.
Louis, Green Bay and Council Bluffs which gave
employment to a large number of trappers and voy-
ageurs. Gabriel Franchere, who had been a clerk in
the employ of John Jacob Astor in his Pacific Fur
Company enterprise, and who accompanied the
expedition to the mouth of the Columbia river and
remained on duty until Astor was betrayed by his
North West Company partners, who sold out to that
company, made his name famous by the fascinating
narrative of that ill-fated expedition. He was an
agent of Ferry's uncle, G. W. Ewing.
He
Young Ferry was bent on "going West."
desired to travel and seek adventure; and Franchere
suggested Puget Sound as a future field, in which
advice the uncle concurred. That uncle upon his
leaving told young Ferry that as soon as he made a
hundred dollars to put it into real estate wherever
he located, and whenever he got as much as one
hundred dollars to invest it in that way. Ferry
arrived in Portland, Oregon, in 1858; he remem-
bered his uncle's advice, and invested at once seventy-
five dollars in a block in Caruther's Addition.
Portland, for seventeen years, continued to be his
home, though during that period he was absent at
times for months. His first employment was as
book-keeper for Henry W. Corbett, later the distin-
guished merchant and United States senator.
He continued in that service for about a year,
when failing health occasioned his going to sea, his
absence continuing for some six months or more,
when he returned to Portland and entered the liquor
house of Hamilton, Wilson & Co., of which he was
for some time manager, and afterwards a partner.
Giving up that business, he formed the partnership
of Humiston & Ferry as brokers, and so continued
until the death of Humiston dissolved the partner-
ship. He was then treasurer of the city of Port-
land for four years, after which he started the real
estate and insurance business.
324
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
In 1868 he visited Tacoma City, afterwards and
long known as Old Tacoma, the town laid out by
General McCarver, Lewis M. Starr and James
Steele. Mr. Ferry was a son-in-law of General
McCarver, and with his wife visited their relatives.
He claims to have been the first passenger by sea
ever landed at Tacoma. He had come to Victoria
from Portland on the Fideliter, and thence took
passage by way of the Strait and Puget Sound in
the steamer Eliza Anderson from Victoria. At that
time the regular route of the Sound steamers was
by the more direct west passage, on the west side of
Vashon Island, leaving Commencement Bay to the
east some miles. Mr. Ferry was obliged to pay
eighteen dollars extra for going off of the regular
route traveled, and for landing himself and wife at
Old Town.
At the so-called city was one cabin belonging to
the late Job Carr. The family of General McCarver
occupied a little cabin in Old Woman's Gulch,
abreast of the present end of the coal bunkers of
the Northern Pacific Railroad. He spent some time
on his visit, and looked out several locations for
future investments, which he made in the early
future. In the fall of 1873, upon the failure of Jay
Cooke, Mr. Ferry removed to Tacoma, which had
been selected as the terminus of the Northern Pacific
Railroad on Puget Sound, and made it his residence.
He was soon after employed as chief clerk and cash-
ier of the land department of that company.
In
1874 he had exclusive charge of the Tacoma offices,
performing the duties also of cashier and clerk of
the Tacoma Land Company.
Early in 1875 he went to San Francisco, engaging
in the insurance business until 1879, when he again
returned to Portland and engaged in the real estate
and insurance business until 1882. His failing
health at that time necessitated his return to San
Francisco. He continued to spend his time between
Portland and San Francisco until 1887, when he
came to Tacoma to look after his investments made
in Tacoma in early days, which had now made him
a man of wealth, and required personal attention.
Here he built himself a beautiful residence in a
sightly part of the town, and devoted himself to
the management of his real estate.
In 1886 he again sought in travel the gratification
of his early disposition. He started for a voyage
around the globe, first visiting Paris. Governor
Eugene Semple of Washington Territory having
been advised of Ferry's intention to be present at
the Paris Exposition, appointed him commissioner
to represent Washington Territory at that great
international exhibition of the progress of the world.
Mr. Ferry is now in the prime of life, with a com-
petent fortune. He is liberal, and is disposed to
enjoy the best phases of life; with cultivated taste
he is collecting about him paintings and works of
art, of which he is a liberal patron. He had early
faith in the great and early future of his adopted
home, which he realizes as now assured.
claims also to have suggested the name of the
city. Be that as it may, it cannot be denied that
he has contributed largely to hastening its present
claim to importance as a great and growing metrop-
olis of the Northwest.
He
2
HON. ELISHA P. FERRY.— Mr. Ferry was
born at Monroe, Michigan, August 9, 1825. He
studied law there and at Fort Wayne, Indiana, and
was admitted to the bar in 1845 at the age of twenty
years. In 1846 he removed to Waukegan, Illinois,
where he engaged in the practice of his profession.
He resided at Waukegan until July, 1869, when he
removed to the territory of Washington. He was
the first mayor of the city of Waukegan. In 1852
and in 1856 he was presidential elector for the dis-
trict in which he resided. He was a member of the
constitutional convention in Illinois in 1861. From
1861 to 1863 he was bank commissioner in that
state. During these years he was a member of
Governor Vates' staff as assistant adjutant-general
with the rank of colonel, and assisted in organizing,
equipping and sending into the field a large number
of Illinois regiments.
In 1869 he was appointed surveyor-general of
Washington Territory. In 1872 he was appointed
governor of the territory, and was reappointed in
1876. All of these appointments were conferred
upon him by President Grant. He served as gov-
ernor until November, 1880, when he moved to
Seattle and became a member of the law firm of
McNaught, Ferry, McNaught & Mitchell.
In Sep-
tember, 1887, he retired from the practice of the
law and entered the Puget Sound National Bank as
vice-president, which position he now occupies. On
the 4th of September, 1889, he was nominated by
the Republican party for governor of the state, and
on the 1st day of October was elected by more
than eight thousand majority.
From the day of Mr. Ferry's arrival in the terri-
tory he has been one of the foremost men in all
Washington, always contributing in some form to
the development of the country, and in assisting
those who needed aid in the securing of their homes
and farms. He is the kind of man who is part of
and one of the people, and one of the most approach-
able men of the times.
When governor of the territory he did not sur-
round himself with any of the pomp of office, nor
was he as governor any less approachable than as a
private citizen. He is one of the men who uncon-
sciously make warm friends of those with whom
they come in contact; and it is done without any
effort or attempt. Such men inspire confidence and
an unmistakable liking that spring spontaneously,
and form a lasting impression.
With a host of friends in all walks of life,— the
day laborer, the farmer, the merchant, the banker,
the professional man,
the professional man, there is every probability
that he will have greater honors thrust upon him
before his useful life comes to a close.
WILLIAM H. FIFE.- This gentleman is a
native of Otonabee, Petersburg county, Ontario, and
is the third child of William and Mary Beckett Fife.
He was born on the first of October, 1833. His
father was a native of Kincardine, and came to
Canada in 1820, following farming in that country.
His mother was born January 20, 1811, in Ayrshire,
Scotland, and came with her parents to Canada
about 1820, and is still living with her youngest son
on the old homestead in Petersburg county.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
325
Our subject resided on his father's farm until he
became sixteen years of age, and then went to Keen,
Ontario, where he entered a general merchandise
store as an apprentice, serving three years. He then
clerked for John Ross & Co. in Port Hope for a
year, and then entered into business for himself in
Norwood, Ontario. He afterwards sold out and
moved West, and, on hearing of the great gold
excitement of the Caribou mines in 1862, came West
to British Columbia via New York and the Isthmus
of Panama. He arrived at the Caribou mines in
June, 1862, and there followed mining for three
years, after which he returned to Canada.
After a short time he removed to Michigan,
locating at the town of Vassar, where he engaged
in the mercantile, hotel and lumber business for
five years, after which he moved to Cherokee,
Iowa, and again gave his attention to a merchan-
dise store on an extensive scale. In 1873 he came
to Washington Territory on a prospecting tour; and
with keen foresight as to what the future city of
Tacoma would be, although at that time there was
not a house on the present site, he invested largely
in real estate. Returning to Iowa in the fall, the
following April (1874) he brought his family by
way of San Francisco to Washington Territory, and
located on the present site of his magnificent struc-
ture, the Fife Hotel.
He
Houses were very few at that time; and Mr. Fife
found it necessary to erect one for the accomodation
of his family, and did so in two days' time.
immediately set to work to build a store one hundred
feet long, it being the first general merchandise store
in Tacoma. In July, 1874, he was commissioned
the first postmaster of Tacoma; and the first mail
consisted of six letters which his son W. J. delivered
free.
He conducted his store until 1882, and in the
meantime bought a fourth interest in the Tacoma
Coal Company's mine at Wilkinson, in which he is
still interested. He also conducted a store at Ains-
worth for two years, and afterwards one at Spokane.
In 1887 he built his present beautiful hotel at a cost
of one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars,
which he now conducts, besides owning extensive
property on Pacific avenue. He has been for several
years the largest taxpayer in the county. Mr. Fife
is a liberal Republican; and everyone knows him as
a straight and honorable man.
He was married to Miss Harriett A. Johnson, a
native of Colburn, Canada, in Buffalo, New York.
They have two sons and two daughters living, death
having claimed one child.
Mr. Fife is assisted in his business by his two sons,
William J. and George W., the former being now
Captain Fife of Company C, National Guard.
FRANCIS FLETCHER.- Mr. Fletcher was
among the very earliest of the settlers of Oregon,
being here two years before the establishment of the
Provisional government, and has consequently seen
the great development of this state and coast from
its earliest inception; and he has himself been one
of the most active to induce the progress of the last
fifty years.
He was born in Yorkshire, England,
March 1, 1814, and, at the age of fourteen years,
crossed the water to Ontario, Canada, and after-
wards to Peoria, Illinois. In 1839, in company
with Amos Cook and others, he started for Oregon.
An interesting bit of his life's history is the
chapter dating from the spring in which he left
Peoria. It was then and there he heard Reverend
Jason Lee, who had been to Oregon, lecture upon
the then almost unknown Pacific Northwest; and
he was fired with a resolve to come to the land of
the setting sun. A company of sixteen men was
formed, of whom our subject was the most con-
spicuous. They started early in May and went to
Independence, Missouri, where they exchanged
their wagons for pack animals, and after one week's
delay went forward upon their trip across the
mountains, deserts and plains to Oregon. After
traveling about one hundred and fifty miles, they
saw their first Indians, a sight which so weakened
two of the party that they turned back. The party
traveled on the Santa Fé route and met Sublette's
company returning from the Rocky Mountains to
St. Louis with furs. Two men who joined them at
Independence had been over the route before, and
led the party through a vast plain of three days'
travel, which was the feeding ground of numerous
herds of buffalo that did not seem to be more wild
than a band of domestic cattle that had been raised
on the range. In fact the party had to send one man
ahead to drive the buffalo out of the way so that
the pack animals could be driven along the trail.
At the junction of the Santa Fé and Fort Bent
roads the party separated, thirteen men going to
Santa Fé, and the rest, eight in number, among
whom was our subject, going to the Fort on the South
Platte. There they tried to get a guide for the rest
of the journey but were unable to do so, and so
remained there two months. During their stay at
the fort they hunted buffalo; and one day while
away from camp some Indians came and stole the
most of their best horses.
In September four of the party, Amos Cook,
James Holman, R. Kilborne and Mr. Fletcher,
started with a trading party for Brown's Hole on
Green river, where they wintered, not having been
able to get a guide or to proceed. There they met
Doctor Newell, chief trader, and wife, William
Doty, Jack Lanison and Joe Meek, besides several
others. In the latter part of February the entire
party started for Fort Hall, taking up two months'
time on the trip, which could have been made in
twelve days of summer weather. Some days only
four or five miles could be traveled. Streams were
crossed on the ice; and wherever they could find
the snow blown off from the steep hillsides they
would stop to let their animals graze. Long before
they got through their stock of dried buffalo meat
gave out. They had nothing to eat; and, as there
was no game to kill, they bought a fat dog of
Doctor Newell's wife which they killed and ate.
Finally they met some friendly Indians, from whom
they purchased some buffalo meat, and arrived at
Fort Hall not much the worse for their rough expe-
rience. There they remained awhile, recruiting
themselves and horses until a party of traders
arrived from Fort Boise, who after a short stay
returned, our party accompanying them.
326
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
From Fort Boise they proceeded to The Dalles
under the guidance of an Indian. From there they
proceeded down the Columbia to Vancouver, where
Doctor McLoughlin gave them a hearty welcome.
From there they went down the river six miles,
swam the stream with their stock to Sauvie's, went
from there to the Tualatin Plains, and thence to the
Yamhill river where Lafayette now stands. Here
they crossed the river and went to where Wheatland
was afterwards built, going into camp on January
7, 1840, having been thirteen months on the way
from Peoria. The party remained on the Willamette
river until the fall of the year, when Fletcher and
Cook went back to the Yamhill. When the town
of Lafayette was laid off, they settled and remained
there, rearing families and becoming leading men of
their section.
In 1843 Mr. Fletcher married Elizabeth, eldest
daughter of Andrew D. and Polly Smith. He
passed from earth October 7, 1871, at the age of
fifty-eight years, greatly mourned by his family and
deplored by the community. He left a widow, six
sons and two daughters, all of whom are now liv-
ing. A man of great natural force of character, of
frontier kindliness and generosity, he was known.
everywhere during the early days.
JOHN FLETT.— Among the schemes of the
Hudson's Bay Company, in 1839 and 1840, to
acquire occupancy and secure British title to the ter-
ritory on the north side of the Columbia river, was
an immigration to the Cowlitz and Nisqually Plains
from the Selkirk settlement in the valley of the Red
river of the North. It will be remembered that the
Hudson's Bay Company was present in the territory
west of the Rocky Mountains by virtue of a license
of trade from the British Crown, which precluded it
from acquiring landed possessions. Its right was a
mere tenancy for years. To evade this provision, the
attempt was made to form the Puget Sound Agri-
cultural Company, which, though not consummated,
yet fostered this scheme of colonization and occu-
pancy. Under its auspices was formed the Red
river colony of 1841, of which John Flett, now an
aged farmer residing on Steilacoom Plains in Pierce
county, is the last survivor of the then married men
or heads of families who, with their families, flocks,
herds and worldly possessions, constituted the Red
river immigration to the Oregon territory of 1841.
Mr. Flett gives the following graphic description
of the journey to Oregon of that colony:
"An agreement was entered into by Duncan
Fenelon, acting governor of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany, on the one side, and a party of immigrants on
the other, to the following effect:
((
That the company should furnish as captain
James Sinclair, Esq., should also furnish each head
of a family ten pounds sterling in advance (which
all accepted but A. Buxton and John Flett) also,
goods for the journey, and horses and provisions at
the forts on the route as needed; and on the arrival
at Puget Sound the company should furnish houses,
barns and fenced fields, with fifteen cows, one bull,
fifty ewes, one ram, and oxen or horses, with farm-
ing implements and seed. On the other part, it
was agreed that the farmers should deliver to the
company one-half the crops yearly for five years,
and at the end of five years one-half the increase of
the flocks.
"To this agreement twenty-three heads of families
appended their names. White Horse plain, about
fifteen miles west of Fort Garry, at the junction of
the Red and Assinaboine rivers, was appointed as
the rendezvous, and on the fourth of June, 1841, our
twenty-three families, containing eighty persons all
told, were assembled, with about fifty carts, seven
oxen, two cows and sixty horses. On the morning
of the 5th of June we broke camp, and, turning our
backs to the rising sun, plunged into the wilderness.
Our route lay along the north bank of the Assina-
boine. We crossed the Mouse and Qu'Appelle
rivers, and then turning north past Fort Pelly started
for the Saskatchewan. On this vast plain we met
our first buffalo, immense herds being seen feeding
on the rich grasses of the valley. Here Mr. James
Bird overtook us and became our guide. In this
region we also met Doctor Tolmie and his party from
the Columbia, and were passed by Sir George Simp-
son, on his tour around the world.
We reached the south branch a few miles above
where it joins the Saskatchewan. The crossing was
a difficult and dangerous work. The river was
about a mile in width. A portion of the party
passed safely to a small island in a small boat. The
other portion, putting their carts and effects on a
huge raft of dry logs, attempted to pole their raft
across. The current was very swift; and they soon
lost bottom and drifted down at a fearful rate towards
the rapids, a short distance below. As they went
by the island on which the first party had landed,
they passed so near that a rope was thrown to them;
and, after a long struggle, the raft was secured to
the bank. When a crossing was at last effected, we
passed on through open country until we arrived, on
the 28th of June, at Fort Charlton, on the banks of
the great Saskatchewan. We secured some horses,
replenished our stock of provisions, and on the
thirtieth resumed our journey. Dangers were now
thickening around us. On the ground over which
we were passing a great battle had been fought be-
tween the Crees and Blackfeet, the Crees being
worsted. We kept men on guard night and day.
War parties were on every side. We now began to
believe what others had told us, that we should never
get through. Still we forced our way on, and on
the 10th of July crossed the Saskatchewan river to
Fort Pitt. Here we found many wounded Crees,
who had fled to the fort for protection. Here we
rested two days, and on the 12th again broke camp,
traveling on the north side of the river until we
reached Fort Edmonton, on the twentieth, where we
recrossed the river. We had traveled far out of our
direct route for safety, but now must face the un-
known dangers. The region through which we had
to pass was a fine hunting ground, buffalo being
very plentiful; and the different tribes-Blackfeet,
Assinaboines, Piegans, Crees
Assinaboines, Piegans, Crees were continually
striving for it, many bloody battles being fought.
Moving southward through this region, keeping
careful watch for hostiles, we again reached the
waters of the South branch on the 30th of July.
Here the writer and a younger brother had a narrow

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ALMOTA, W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
327
We
escape. While out hunting we were surrounded
by hostile Indians. We concealed ourselves until
dark, and in the twilight swam the cold, swift
river. Having stripped off our outer clothing,
we fastened it on our horses and plunged in. The
water was cold, icy cold, the river was very swift
and about two hundred yards wide.
Twice we
swam the river, and after wandering about for two
days at last reached camp in safety. Of all the
dangers I have seen in a pioneer life of fifty years,
the dangers of those two days were the worst.
overtook our party encamped at old Fort McLeod,
an abandoned post of the Hudson's Bay company,
now known as British Pass, or Rocky Mountain.
Here we were compelled to abandon our carts and
pack our goods on the backs of the oxen and horses.
After long debate about what should be taken and
what should be left behind, we at last had our train
in readiness, and again started on our way. The
oxen, however, were unused to this mode of travel-
ing, and, becoming frightened, a stampede ensued.
Then what a sight,-oxen bellowing, kicking, run-
ning; horses neighing, rearing, plunging; children
squalling; women crying; men swearing, shouting
and laughing; while the air seemed full of blankets,
kettles, sacks of pots, pans and jerked buffalo. At
last the cattle were again secured. All our goods
that could be found were gathered up, the remnants
repacked, and we again started.
"Crossing the South branch, we entered the tim-
ber, sometimes following an Indian trail and some-
times traveling where there was no trail. On the
second day after we entered the mountains, James
Bird, our guide, bidding adieu to his friends and
relatives, started on his return. On the 5th of
August we reached the summit, and found ourselves
on a small plateau. Here we saw a huge snow-drift
whose melted waters formed three little rills, one
running east through a deep cañon, and finding its
way through the Saskawatchan into Hudson's Bay,
another running southeast into the Missouri, and at
last into the gulf, while the third sent its waters
through those 'continuous woods where rolls the
Oregon.' On the ninth day after we entered the
Rocky Mountains we emerged on the western side,
at the Kootenai plain, then through a belt of timber,
and then over the Tobacco prairie. To avoid some
marshy land which lay in our course, we climbed
the projecting point of a high mountain, said to be
one of the Bitter Root range. Then our route lay
through a flat, marshy country until we came to a
deep, sluggish river, called by the Indians, Paddling
river. Then our course lay to the southwest,
through a rich country with plenty of grass, until
we came to Lake Pend d'Oreille. While traveling
along a rocky cliff jutting towards the lake a horse,
ridden by one of our women, slipped; and horse and
rider rolled into the lake, being rescued with some
difficulty. We crossed the lake where it is about
one mile in width; and while we were engaged in
crossing, our first horse was stolen. Here we left
two families, who on account of sickness were
unable to proceed farther.
We arrived at Fort Walla Walla on the 4th of
October. On the next day the fort was burned.
Our party assisted the men of the fort to save their
goods. The Indians were so numerous that it was
not deemed safe to camp there; and so we traveled
down the Columbia until midnight. In about four
days we arrived at The Dalles, at the Methodist
mission, then in charge of Daniel Lee and Mr.
Perkins. On the twelfth we crossed the river;
there one horse was drowned. When we reached
the Cascades we found some boats on which the
families, with some of the oldest men, sailed down
the river; while the horses and cattle at Colville
were driven to Vancouver, at which all arrived on
the thirteenth.
If you
"There we met Sir George Simpson, Peter Skeen
Ogden, John McLoughlin and James Douglas; and
there Sir George informed us that the company
could not keep its agreement. As I remember, this
was the substance of his speech: 'Our agreement
we cannot fulfill; we have neither horses nor barns
nor fields for you; and you are at liberty to go
where you please. You may go with the California
trappers; and we will give you an outfit as we give
others. If you go over the river to the American
side we will help you none very sickly.
go to the Cowlitz we will help you some. To those
who will go to the Nisqually we will fulfill our
agreement. Of course we were all surprised and
hurt at this speech. After some discussion the
party divided, some going to California, several
families to the Cowlitz Prairie, some to the Wil-
lamette valley, and the rest to Nisqually, where we
arrived November 8, 1841, having traveled nearly
two thousand miles without the loss of a single per-
son, while three children were born on the way.
Upon reaching Nisqually, Captain James Sin-
clair made a trip on the steamer Beaver to Whidby
Island, with the view to our settlement on that
island. Bras Croche, the Cree guide, who accom-
panied him on his trip, was asked what he thought
of the Beaver steamer. 'Don't ask me,' was his
reply; 'I cannot speak; my friends will say that I
tell lies when I let them know what I have seen.
Indians are fools and know nothing. I can see that
the iron machinery makes the ship go; but I cannot
see what makes the iron machinery itself go.' He
was a very intelligent Indian, but so full of doubt
and wonder that he would not leave the vessel till
he had received a certificate that he had been on
board of a ship which required neither sails nor
paddles. With this paper he said he could go back
to his people, and, although they would not believe
him, yet they would give full credence to all that
was written. Captain Sinclair, on his return from
Whidby Island, went to Colville and remained that
winter. He crossed over to Red river the next
season. Returning to the territory, he was subse-
quently clerk in charge of Fort Walla Walla until
the fall of 1855, when it was attacked and robbed
by the hostile Indians and never afterwards occupied
by the company. At the Cascades on Wednesday,
March 26, 1856, when the Yakimas attacked that
place, being in Bradford's store, he walked to the
railroad door to look out and was shot from the
bank above, and instantly killed.
As the company furnished no houses, each man
had to build his own cabin. As no plows could be
obtained, John Flett and Charles McKay went to
328
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
1
Vancouver after iron to make some plows. They
spent Christmas day at the fort, and on their return
turned the first furrows which were plowed this side
of the Cowlitz. Some seed wheat and some potatoes
were furnished the farmers, but no teams nor cattle,
although they were greatly needed. The writer
tried hard to get a cow, either as per agreement or
for money, but failed. Some who removed got
some wild cows, but no sheep. There was much
discontent; and loud murmurings were heard. Sev-
eral at once left the Sound in disgust. The Flett
brothers left in June, 1842, for the Willamette, more
followed in the fall; and at the end of three years
all had left, getting nothing for their labor or their
improvements.'
>>
John Flett was born August 5, 1815, in Rupert's
Land, about six hundred miles northeast of Mani-
toba, in the valley of the Red river of the North, his
father then being in charge of the Hudson's Bay
Company's store for the Cumberland district. When
John was about seven years of age the family
removed to the Selkirk settlement, where he con-
tinued to reside until 1836, at which time he went
to the site of the present city of St. Paul, Minnesota,
there being at that date three houses where that
great city is now erected. Having remained there
Having remained there
during a short season, he went to Chicago, Illinois,
and stayed there about a year, during which time
he assisted as a bricklayer in the building of the
third brick house erected in that city of phenomenal
progress.
In 1837 he returned to Manitoba, worked for a
time as a blacksmith, and at intervals in hunting
and trapping in the wilds of Minnesota and Dakota.
In June, 1841, he joined the Red river colony, and
made the journey hereinabove described in his own
language. In June, 1842, he settled in Washington
county, Oregon, and was engaged in farming until
1854, when he accepted the position of Indian inter-
preter under General Joel Palmer, Superintendent of
Indian Affairs of Oregon. His services in that capac-
ity were very valuable; and much is due to Mr. Flett
for the successful negotiation of the treaties then
made. As a recognition of those services, he was
continued as interpreter and appointed also sub-
agent, in which capacity he went to Southern Ore-
gon.
Alone he visited the war camp of the Rogue
river Indians, and induced them to go upon the res-
ervation. He visited the Indians at Crescent City
and Port Orford. He accompanied General Palmer
and Indian Agent Chris Taylor to Klamath Lake
and the Modoc country, that being the first party
who visited that region.
In all the meetings and councils of Superintend-
ent Palmer with the Southern Oregon Indians, Mr.
Flett accompanied him as interpreter; and on Gen-
eral Palmer going to the Walla Walla council, in
June, 1855, Mr. Flett attended. He continued in
the service of the Oregon superintendency for
three years, and during that time executed
many delicate and difficult missions, requiring
courage and discretion. In 1859 he settled at South
Prairie, in Pierce county, and engaged in farming.
He remained there until 1868, when he purchased
his present location near Lakeview, about six miles
distant from Tacoma. From 1862 to 1878 he was
employed upon the Puyallup Indian Reservation as
farmer or interpreter. He is a thorough Indian
linguist, an adept in understanding the Indian char-
acter, and was long recognized as among the most
efficient and valuable of the attachés of that depart-
ment. He is a hale, vigorous man, with a family
consisting of a wife and six children; and with a
competency this fine old christian gentleman is
rounding off in comfort a long and busy life.
PETER DEWAR FORBES.- In the gentle-
man whose name heads this brief memoir, and
whose portrait appears in this history, we have one
of the very earliest settlers of Tacoma, as well as
one of her prominent business men and capitalists.
Mr. Forbes was born in St. Johns, New Brunswick,
February 18, 1845, and is the son of William and
Jessie Dewar Forbes. After his school days were
passed, Peter learned the trade of a carpenter and
shipbuilder, becoming a master mechanic.
In 1868 he came to the United States, locating in
Minneapolis, where he became a well-known archi-
tect and builder, until 1873. In that year he desired
to seek a milder climate, and chose Washington
Territory as the most desirable location, making his
first residence in Seattle and engaging in his former
business. His matured ability soon attracted the
notice of the officers in the Northern Pacific Rail-
road, then entering the territory. In April, 1873,
he accepted employment as superintendent of depot
and bridge construction, and in this capacity built
all the depots, roundhouses and machine shops from
Lake Pend d'Oreille to Tacoma, and from Kalama
to the latter place. On his arrival at the present
site of the beautiful city of Tacoma, there was but
one building in the place; and in 1874 Mr. Forbes
built the headquarters building for the company,
then standing where the magnificent new theater is
now being erected.
Together with these important works of an al-
most public character, Mr. Forbes also superin-
tended private enterprises in his line; and in 1875
we find him master and owner of the steamer Isabel,
running from Victoria to Alaska for one season,
after which he again returned to the employ of the
railroad. On the completion of the Puyallup
branch of the Northern Pacific, our subject pur-
chased an interest in the New Tacoma Sawmill,
and became a member of the firm of Smith, Hatch
& Co., with whom he remained for three years. In
1884 he became a member of the wholesale grocery
firm of John S. Baker & Co., and one year later dis-
posed of his interest and again resumed railroad
building, this time as superintendent of depot and
bridge construction from Hauser Junction to Cœur
d'Alene City. On the completion of this he en-
gaged in real estate in Tacoma, and has been very
successful.
man.
It may be seen by this short synopsis that Mr.
Forbes has been an active, energetic and prominent
He is to-day in the full prime and vigor of
manhood. By steady application to business, and
by good judgment in investments, he is one of the
wealthy men of the City of Destiny. He was united
in marriage at St. Johns, New Brunswick, to Miss
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
329
Bessie Osborn. They have two daughters and one.
son, the latter of whom is senior member of the
well-known and popular firm of Forbes & Vose,
wholesale and retail grocers of Tacoma.
DAVID FORD.— This highly esteemed citizen,
a portrait of whom is placed in this history, was
born in Indiana July 27, 1837. After his marriage
to Miss Mary Medler, October 11, 1857, he was
occupied at his home until the war of the Rebellion,
in which he served as a soldier in the Union army,
bearing an honorable part, and making a brave.
record up to the battle of Kenesaw Mountain, where
he received a wound which made him unfit for ser-
vice. He belonged to Company A, Eighty-fourth
Indiana Volunteers.
In 1872 he came to Missouri, and five years later
to California. A year's residence in the land of
gold and semi-tropical fruits convinced him of the
desirability of removing to Washington; and two
years at Yakima led the way to his residence at
Ellensburgh. There he was very active in all of the
best enterprises, being a trustee of Ellensburgh
Academy, and treasurer of the church with which
it is associated, and a prominent member of the
Grand Army of the Republic, James Parsons Post,
No. 11, holding the office of quartermaster. The
home which he left is a mile and a half from town,
on a farm consisting of one hundred and sixty
acres of the best of land. The house is superior,
and all the accommodations are such as to make
comfortable his family of wife and six children. His
death, which took place in 1887, was universally de-
plored; and he left a place in society which cannot
be filled.
HON. JOSEPH FOSTER.-Mr. Foster was the
fourth child in a family of eleven children, and the
son of Thomas and Rosetta J. Larsky Foster. He
was born near Hamilton, Ontario, April 10, 1828,
where he lived until six years of age, when his
parents moved to Geogy county, Ohio.
When old enough, he learned the tailor's trade,
and when twenty-one years of age went to Wiscon-
sin, locating in Cheboygan, where he followed his
trade for three years. He then, in 1851, started
overland to the Pacific coast, and reached Portland
in July, 1852. He went to the Shasta and Rogue
river mines, where he followed mining a short time,
after which he went to San Francisco. He then came
on a sailing vessel to Seattle, and located a Dona-
tion claim on the Duwamish, and has since followed
logging and farming. He now owns three hundred
and forty acres nine miles east of Seattle.
Mr. Foster is a strong Democrat, and in 1859 was
elected to the territorial legislature on the Demo-
cratic ticket. Since that time he has been elected
three terms to the lower house, and three terms to
the council, being the only man in Washington
Territory who has held the same position so many
times.
He was married on the Duwamish to Miss Martha
J. Steel, a native of Indiana. By this union they
have had a family of five children, of which only
two sons survive.
CAPT. ENOCH S. FOWLER.- Mr. Fowler,
a portrait of whom appears in this work, was one
of those argonauts who came to this country at an
early day, and has since made himself a name known
as a household word all over Puget Sound. Captain
Fowler was born in Lubec, Maine, November 19,
1813, and died in Port Townsend November 27,
1876, being sixty-three years of age. He came to the
Pacific coast in 1849 as master and part owner of
the brig Quoddy Bell, which he sold in San Fran-
cisco, joining the brig George Emery as mate, and
made his first voyage in her to Puget Sound in
1850, Alfred A. Plummer, Sr., the founder of Port
Townsend, coming on her as passenger.
On the next voyage of the George Emery, Captain
Fowler commanded her. He next, with the Wilson
Brothers of San Francisco, purchased the topsail
schooner Cynosure and came to the Sound as captain
of her, on a trading voyage for oil, salmon, furs and
cranberries in 1852. In the fall of 1853 he landed
a large stock of goods there with Mr. Gilbert Wil-
son in charge of the store. He then went East, and
returned in the spring of 1854 with the schooner
R. B. Potter, a pilot boat, which he purchased in
San Francisco. She was very fast, and was char-
tered by the late General, then Governor I. I.
Stevens, who employed her to carry dispatches,
mails and supplies to the various Indian tribes on
the Sound, with whom the Governor as superintend-
ent of Indian affairs was making treaties, and to
supply the various posts and to protect the inhabi-
tants from the Indians during the Indian war of
that year.
General Stevens was a warm friend of
Captain Fowler. He had the utmost confidence in
him, and paid him a liberal compensation for his
services.
In 1857, concluding to retire from a seafaring life,
he located at Port Townsend, where he devoted him-
self to mercantile pursuits; nor did he go to sea again,
except to make occasional short cruises on the Potter.
Besides the Potter, he owned several small schooners
for trading on the Sound, and built the scow schooner
Experiment, which, however, did not prove a suc-
In 1859, he built the first wharf which was
capable of having a ship made fast to it. This work
was in the rear of the old custom-house.
substantial structure built on piles, but from the
destructive action of the teredo, was entirely de-
stroyed in 1863. In 1864 he built another large
wharf, which was also destroyed in 1869 by the same
agency,
cess.
It was a
In 1874 he built the five-story building on Adams
street, now used as the courthouse of the district
court, which bears deeply cut in a stone over the
front entrance the legend, "E. S. Fowler." In 1874
he also built a great many wooden buildings for
stores and dwellings in various parts of the city. He
was a very energetic, active man when in health,
ever with an eye to business. Shrewd and fortunate,
he held various territorial and county offices. In
1863 the legislature elected him brigadier-general of
the territory. He was treasurer of Jefferson county
for a long time, during which he built the old jail.
He was chairman of the board of pilot commission-
ers from the time the pilot law was passed in 1868
untill 1875, when he resigned.
330
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Captain Fowler was twice married. His first wife
belonged to Lubec, Maine, by whom he had several
children, who all died young,- one a boy of eight
years, who with his mother came out to California,
where she died. After his mother's death, the little
boy was sent home in charge of a nurse, when they
both mysteriously disappeared and were never again
heard from. The impression is that both were
drowned by the upsetting of a canoe in the Chagres
river. His second wife was Mary Caines, widow of
the late Captain Caines, who survives him. She is
a most estimable lady, and is now in her seventy-
fifth year. Captain Fowler was a member of high
rank in the Masonic order, and was buried from
Masonic Hall, the entire population of Port Town-
send, together with many from other points on the
Sound, turning out to pay the last sad tribute of re-
spect to one of the most popular men that ever lived
on Puget Sound.
JACOB FRAZER.This pioneer of the wool
business in Eastern Oregon, and owner of some of
the best buildings in Pendleton, is a native of the
Buckeye state (1820), and while but a boy of ten
went with his father to Indiana, and as a youth of
sixteen to Iowa. In this state, then known locally as
the Black Hawk purchase, his father died at the ad-
vanced age of eighty-three.
In 1850 Mr. Frazer crossed the plains to California
with horses, being one of a party of five. This
company was made to pay a toll of sugar, flour, etc.,
by the Sioux, and near Salt Lake had eight of their
eleven horses stolen. Frazer himself was sick at
the time; but two of the company gave chase and
recaptured the animals. Arriving at Hangtown
(more euphoniously Placerville), our pioneer began
gold digging. One of the first men he met in the
country was his brother Montgomery, who had been
out a year, and who had been very successful, inso-
much that he returned East soon after and bought
the farm in Iowa which Jacob had first purchased
with the avails of a big job of wood-chopping that
he had undertaken for the brother of Jefferson
Davis.
In-
massacring everyone that they caught out. In 1866,
after settling up his affairs in California, he came to
the Willamette valley and bought large bands of
sheep, which he drove up East of the Mountains to
the immense ranges on Birch creek. Here he has
made his big ranch, acquiring 1,401 acres of deeded
land, and some 1,600 acres adapted to grazing on
the headwaters of the creek. His flocks increased
so that in one year alone he sheared 104, 160 pounds
of wool from twelve thousand head of sheep, which
he sold for $22,860.
While out here in 1878, he had a skirmish with
the Bannacks and renegade Umatillas. Captain
Sperry's company of volunteers, numbering forty-
eight men, met the hostiles at Willow Springs and
fought them for five hours. At the first attack of
the Indians, the horses of the volunteers were nearly
all shot down; and sixteen of the valiant volunteers
ran away. But the rest kept up the battle until dark,
losing two killed and nine wounded. Frazer re-
ceived a shot through the leg which grazed the bone,
and from which he nearly bled to death before he
could receive attention at Pilot Rock.
Selling his sixteen thousand sheep in 1880, Mr.
Frazer has devoted his time and means to the erect-
ion of fine buildings in Pendleton. In 1881 he put
up a two-story brick building on Main street,
twenty-five by eighty-eight feet; in 1882, the First
National Bank building, two stories, fifty by eighty
feet. Of this bank he is vice-president. In 1886 he
built the Frazer Opera House, two stories, fifty by
one hundred feet. The business enterprises in which
he is engaged are the Customs Flouring Mills, and
the Pendleton Foundry and Machine Shops. He is
also one of the promoters of the Washington &
Oregon Railway.
His wife, Mary Kizer, whom he married in Linn
county, is one of the pioneers of Oregon, having
come in 1854. She was from Iowa also. They have
one son, Nickolas K., who is in the firm of Alexander
& Frazer. He received his education at the Oregon
State University and at Heald's Business College,
and was married to Miss Ida Cogswell, daughter
of the well-known pioneer of that name of Lane
county.
FRED FURTH.-One looks for saddles and
harnesses in Spokane Falls under the sign bearing
the name of the above. The gentleman thus desig-
Four years of mining life proved hazardous. In-
deed, the list of casualties to which Mr. Frazer was
subject suggest some sort of protecting agency that
does not guard everyone. Once he had been setting
a blast in a deep mine. Hastening up the shaft to
be out of the way, the windlass crank broke, drop-nated is from Germany, where he was born in 1839.
ping him back and leaving him to take the explos-
ion, which he was trying to prevent. He was not
hurt. Another time he was buried fifty-four feet
deep under a land-slide at Mokelumne Hill, but was
dug out uninjured. At Georgetown, while he was
in the twenty-five foot shaft, the reservoir gave way,
filling the pit with water; and he was hauled out
like a drowned rat, yet was by no means drowned.
Quitting the mines in 1854, he began ranching on
the Cosumnes river, which he followed eleven years.
Collecting, however, a band of cattle, he drove them
to Boise to sell in the mines, and with his usual good
luck passed unhurt with this tempting prize of a
hundred and seventy-one animals, and with but
seven men to guard them, between bands of Indians
before and after, who were on the warpath and were
He came to America in 1855. Stopping but a short
time in St. Louis, he came to San Francisco in 1856
via Panama, and went thence to Washoe and Vir-
ginia City, Nevada, merchandising. He located in
Colusa county, California, in 1869, and came thence
to Spokane Falls, engaging in his present occupa-
tion. Mr. Furth is of the opinion that Spokane
Falls is, and will be the most important place in
Washington next to Seattle. He thinks it is in one
of the finest countries in the world, and has all the
advantages of soil, climate and resources which can
be reasonably expected anywhere.
Mr. Furth has the qualities of popularity, and
has been repeatedly honored with the trust of public
office. While in Douglas county, Nevada, he held
the office of county clerk for two years, and the



DANIEL O. PEARSON,
STANWOOD, W.T.
UNI
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
331
following year was elected to the office of recorder
and auditor, being obliged to relinquish this position
only by reason of his removal from the state to
California, whence he came to Spokane Falls in
1883. At this most flourishing city of intelligent
people, Mr. Furth was placed at the head in 1889
by his election on the citizens' ticket as mayor,
having as his opponent the regular Republican
nominee, Mr. Burns, and receiving over that excel-
lent and justly esteemed gentleman the largest
majority ever given a candidate in that city.
JULIUS T. FYFER.—“Blest be the tie that
binds." We mean the railroad tie. Civilization
goes on steel.
Only a few of the most hardy and
adventurous would come to Oregon "the plains
across" or "the Horn around." By rail we have
the world; and the daily, semi-daily and hourly
trains that speed to and fro are the pulse-beat of
national life.
At
The gentleman whose name appears above fol-
lowed the railroad as it was built, and is now a
leading citizen at the important place of Hunt-
ington. He was born in Quebec, Canada, in 1843,
but removed to New York at an early age. During
the war he served as assistant to his brother, who
was a sutler of the Seventy-second New York
Volunteers. Returning to civil life in 1865, he
busied himself in the oil fields of Pennsylvania
until the gigantic enterprise of connecting the
Atlantic with the Pacific. by rail attracted him to
the extensive opportunities of the West.
Cheyenne, then the terminus of the Union Pacific,
he found employment in railway construction, and
followed the road steadily to its junction with the
Central Pacific,-seeing the golden spike driven
home, the last blow upon which was felt in every
telegraph office in the union. Mining in Idaho and
Montana engaged his attention until the Short Line
was undertaken; and he then found work at his old
business, taking an extensive contract to haul iron
to the American Falls. Coming to Huntington, he
engaged in the mercantile business, building a first-
class store in 1887. He keeps there a large stock
of goods, and is recognized as an enterprising man,
working zealously for the progress of his section.
He was postmaster there for a time; and it was he
that opened out a road to Mineral City and the
Seven Devils' country. He has also large interests
He has also large interests
in the Pine creek mines.
He is a Democrat in politics, and has an interest-
ing family.
JOSEPH GASTON.-Joseph Gaston, the pio-
neer railroad man of Oregon, was born in Lloyds-
ville, Belmont county, Ohio, in 1833. His ancestors
on his father's side were Huguenots, who were ex-
pelled from France by the Roman Catholic King in
the sixteenth century, on account of their adhesion
to the protestant reformation. They settled first in
Ireland, and from thence in 1562 removed to North
Carolina, from whence numerous branches of the
family scattered out over the United States. Wil-
liam Gaston, the granduncle of Joseph, was chief
justice of North Carolina, and for many years mem-
ber of Congress from that state, and was spoken of
,,
He was also
as one of the great orators of his day.
old North
founder of the city of Gaston in the
State. Mr. Gaston's cousin, William Gaston of
Boston, was elected governor of Massachusetts in
1874, being the first Democratic governor of that
state in fifty years. His grandfather on his mother's
side was a distinguished soldier in the war of 1812,
fighting with Perry in his victory on Lake Erie.
His father dying, Joseph was left to the care of
relatives, and at the age of fifteen set up in life for
himself, working for wages on the farm and in the
sawmill. By his own earnings and efforts he pro-
cured a common-school education and the means to
study law, and was admitted to practice in the
supreme court of Ohio in 1856. When the South-
ern Rebellion broke out in 1860 he raised a company
of volunteers, and offered his services to President
Lincoln, but was rejected by the examining surgeon
for a disease of the throat which has afflicted him
all his life.
He emigrated to Oregon in 1862, and settled first
in the mines in Jackson county, and subsequently
engaged in practicing law in Jacksonville; but, be-
coming interested in the project of a railroad con-
necting Oregon and California, he removed to Salem
in 1865, and to Portland in 1868. He organized
the party which made the first preliminary survey
for a railroad line from Rogue river valley to the
Columbia river; and, to arouse the interest of the
people in the enterprise, he distributed at his own
expense thousands of circulars and petitions, and
sent the petitions to Congress to support the appli-
cation for the land grant for the Oregon & California
Railroad. After the grant was made, he incorpo-
rated the Oregon Central Railroad Company to
receive the grant, and secured from the Oregon
legislature an offer of a state subsidy of one million
dollars in bonds to the road. He was elected the
first president of the company, and proceeding to
do active work "broke ground" for the first rail-
road in Oregon on the fourteenth day of April,
1868, in South Portland. Mr. Gaston remained in
the service of the company until its road had been
completed from Portland to the Yamhill river, when
he removed to his farm in Washington county in
1875.
In 1877, at the request of the farmers of the
South Yamhill valley, Mr. Gaston took up the pro-
ject of building a narrow-gauge railroad from Day-
ton, in Yamhill county, to Sheridan, with a branch
to Dallas, in Polk county; and by dint of great
energy, but with very slender means, he built in
1878 forty miles of this, the pioneer narrow-gauge
line in Oregon, and which became the basis of the
system of narrow-gauge lines in the Willamette
valley built by the Dundee Company. In construct-
ing these roads, Mr. Gaston handled large sums of
money and millions of acres of property, but did
not profit thereby beyond his stipulated salary,
although the opportunity to become suddenly rich
was not lacking. (See second volume of Bancroft's
History of Oregon, pages 700 to 704.)
Mr. Gaston has been a large contributor to the
political and agricultural literature of Oregon. He
was editor of the Jacksonville Sentinel, when that was
the only Republican paper in Southern Oregon. He
332
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
:
subsequently conducted, as editor, the Oregon States-
man at Salem, when that was the leading Republican
paper in Oregon. He was editor of the Oregon
Agriculturist, the first farm journal published at
Salem, and during the year 1872 edited the Wil-
lamette Farmer. In 1873-74 he was editor of the
daily and weekly Bulletin of Portland, Oregon; and
during the year 1888 he edited the Pacific Farmer.
Besides this he has been a frequent contributor to
other journals and to the press in other cities.
Gaston is at present devoting his time to the
improvement of his farm and stock ranch at Wap-
potoo Lake in Washington county.
Mr.
HON. JOHN GATES. This gentleman was
the chief engineer of the old Oregon Steam Navi-
gation Company during its palmy days of naviga-
tion, and will always be remembered as one of the
brightest minds of our state, as his inventive genius
has earned for him the not inapt title of the Edison
of the Pacific coast. He was born at Mercer, Maine,
and as a youth learned the machinist's trade, rising
to the position of foreman of the shop in which he
had been apprenticed. Coming to California in
1849, he was engaged in mining at Auburn and at
Michigan Bluffs, and in 1852 was engaged as engi-
neer for the old sawmill at Portland located near
Jefferson street. His industry and thrift soon
enabled him to buy a one-third interest in the mill;
and his steady rise in wealth seemed assured. But
a fire burned the mill, destroying at the same time
his property and prospects.
A start once lost meant many more years of hard
work; for in those times the first accumulation was
the point of difficulty. Nevertheless this misfortune
proved as but the door to his later usefulness. He
secured a place as engineer of construction with the
Oregon Steam Navigation Company, having already
the reputation of great carefulness and fidelity.
But in this position he began to develop his native
inventive genius, and during his services of twenty-
seven years took out more than thirty patents for
the safety, speed and economy of steamboats.
Twenty-seven of these were obtained during the
first ten years of his service.
His first invention was an automatic oiler for both
low and high pressure engines. This was followed
by a spark arrester; and then came his sectional
boiler, by which the saving in fuel was forty-five
per cent, the experiment being first tried on the
Oneonta. His most celebrated patent was that of
the hydraulic steering gear, by the aid of which a
pilot may steer with the certainty of a hair's breadth
in the heaviest weather. Upon presenting the model
of this to Messrs. Ladd, Reed and Ainsworth, direc-
tors of the company, the two former advised the use
of steam; but Ainsworth insisted on clinging to the
policy of following Gates' ideas until he produced
a failure, -a consummation which he never reached.
These gentlemen had the greatest confidence in
their chief engineer, and were ever ready to furnish
the means for experiment. His other patents may
be briefly summarized as follows: Spark arrester,
ash pan, cut-off valve, thumbscrews for holding
wheel ropes, and several patents for steam pumps.
It is not too much to say that the wonderful suc-
cess of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company was
due as much to Gates as to any one man. Upon a
river confessedly so difficult as the Columbia, his
care and skill prevented all disasters,-a blown
boiler, or any accident due to a lack of skill in con-
struction never occurring. He made navigation
upon it speedy and remunerative, and delightful to
the traveler. Many original ideas in construction
are due to him, such as the graceful covering of the
stern wheel, making the afterdeck possible on stern
as well as side wheel steamers. The idea of dredg-
ing the river channels with a deep sunken screw
was also his.
He built a large fleet of steamers, of which the
following is a list of the principal ones: Orient, Oc-
cident, Almota, Wide West, R. R. Thompson, S. G.
Reed, Daisy Ainsworth, Autocrat, Hassalo, D. S.
Baker, Anna Faxon, Wyatchee, Oneonta, Washing-
ton, Harvest Queen, Mountain Queen, Emma Hay-
ward, Henry Villard, John Gates, Spokane, Bonita,
Welcome and Dixie Thompson. He also designed a
magnificent side-wheeler to be named the City of
Portland, with two hundred and fifty-eight feet
length of deck, thirty-six feet beam and ten feet
hold, to cost two hundred and fifty thousand dol-
lars, and to ply to the ocean during the summers
and carry wheat in the winters. But the railroads
soon coming postponed the plan.
With the eclipse of steamboating on the Colum-
bia due to railroading, his activity largely lost its
scope, and to a certain extent produced his prema-
ture death at the age of sixty-one. His rugged
frame and active brain could not move without its
customary load.
He held the office of United States inspector of
boilers many years, and at the time of his death, in
1888, was mayor of Portland. He was a man
whom the people loved and honored, and although
closely confined to his proper work, was greatly in-
terested in all public progress and in moral enter-
prises. His funeral obsequies were attended by the
whole city, business being closed during the hours.
His inventions have a public value never dreamed
of by himself; and the record of his life is one more
commentary upon the reward that waits for those
who, by fidelity to their own duties, and by consci-
entious discharge of their own business, seek to
benefit the world. His demeanor was ever quiet
and modest; and he was exceedingly kind to his
employés, showing them an attention and respect
not always bestowed. Like men of firm character
everywhere, he had great tenderness of heart.
His first wife, Miss Mary Blodgett, whom he
married in 1848, died in 1860, leaving three chil-
dren, Fred, Mrs. Harriet L. Mair and Miss Mary.
Mrs. Rachel Gates, née Scales, survives him, and is
living with her four children, Nellie T., William H.,
Edna R. and John, on the competence which he
left.
GEORGE K. GAY.— Mr. Gay was among the
earliest of the pioneers of Oregon, having come to
our state in 1835, in a party of eight, consisting,
with himself, of Turner, Dr. Bailey, John Wood-
worth, Daniel Miller, Mr. Saunders, "Big Tom,"
an Irishman, and an Indian woman, the wife of
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
333
Turner. This was the company that was attacked
one morning about breakfast time by Indians on
the Rogue river, and who escaped only by the
most desperate fighting and with the loss of two
of their number, and of their forty-seven horses,
the whole of their outfit, and all but two of their
guns; while all were more or less seriously wounded.
They were thereafter compelled to hide by day and
to continue their journey by night, at length mak-
ing their way into the Willamette valley in the most
pitiable and destitute condition. At the head of the
valley Gay parted from his fellows, and traveled
hungry, wounded, and lacking clothing except a
shirt, to Wyeth's trading post on Sauvie's Island.
In 1836 he went with Captain Slocum to California
for cattle, and on the way back fell into trouble once
more with the Indians, receiving an Indian arrow,
the stone head of which he carried in his body for a
number of years. He succeeded however in bring
ing his animals into the Willamette valley, and
selected a claim and made a farm, or stock ranch, in
what is now Yamhill county. He soon became one
of the wealthiest men in Oregon outside of the Hud-
son's Bay Company. In 1843-44 he built the first
brick house in the territory. He here dispensed a
prodigal hospitality, entertaining all passers-by,
and sometimes having under his roof-tree such dis-
tinguished visitors as Commodore Wilkes and party.
It is mentioned as illustrative of his bounty and of
the numbers of his guests that he often slaughtered
an entire ox to be consumed in the repasts of a
single day. Mr. Gay was in favor of good govern-
ment, and was long known as a pillar in our young
society. After the advent of the later immigrants
and modern business methods, he lost his wealth,
and died in poverty October 7, 1882, at the age of
seventy-two years.
He was an Englishman by birth, a native of
Berkeley, in Gloucestershire. He went to sea as a
lad, and arrived at Monterey, California, where he
left his ship, in 1833, and joined Ewing Young, a
trader from Santa Fé, and came north with him,
making at length his entrance into our state as
above narrated.
S. R. GEDDIS.—Mr. Geddis, a portrait of whom,
together with a view of his beautiful home farm,
appears in this history, is a leading and wealthy
citizen of Kittitass county. He is one of the men
whose success in life has been mainly achieved in
the county in which he now lives by the exercise of
economy, industry and business integrity, guided
by intelligent financial ability. He is now a rich
man, while but a few years ago he came to the Kit-
titass valley with nothing but an unblemished
reputation as his entire capital.
Mr. Geddis was born in Warren county, Pennsyl-
vania, February 12, 1838, and was the eldest son of
Robert and Margaret Nash Geddis.
Six years
later, he with his parents moved west to Louisa
.county, Iowa, where in 1845 our subject suffered the
irreparable loss of his father by death. In 1846 his
mother married William Clum, and in the spring of
that year started across the plains to Oregon,
arriving in the following September. They first
located on a farm in Linn county, where Mr. Geddis
remained until 1865. During the Rogue river war
in 1855, Mr. Geddis joined Captain, afterwards
General Williams' company, with whom he served
for a time, and then joined Captain Hugh O'Neil's
company, with whom he remained until the close of
hostilities in 1865. He moved to Umatilla, Uma-
tilla county, and followed farming and freighting
until 1869.
He then came to Eastern Washington, and,
being so favorably impressed with Kittitass county,
concluded to make it his future home, and located
one hundred and twenty acres near the present site
of Ellensburgh. At that time the whole domain
lay in its virginity; and the feet of white men had
hardly passed over it. Mr. Geddis was one of the
first to begin to build on and to till the soil, with
what success may be judged from the fact that he
is to-day one of the wealthiest men in his section of
the country, owning two large farms of over eight
hundred acres each, close to one of Washington's
most prosperous cities, Ellensburgh. Both of these
farms are finely watered, and are stocked with some
of the best blood to be had. He also owns a large
amount of valuable real estate in and adjoining
Ellensburgh. Mr. Geddis is not only rich in
worldly goods, but in that which every honest man
desires, the esteem and confidence of his fellow
man. This Mr. Geddis possesses to a very large
degree, as there are none in the territory whose
words stand higher than his.
He was united in marriage in Linn county, Ore-
gon, May 29, 1859, to Miss Emily C. Tourman, a
native of Illinois. By this union they have a fam-
ily of ten children, one of whom is deceased.
HEMAN J. GEER.-The name of Geer is so
well known in our state that the following account
of the father of T. T. Geer of the Waldo hills will
be of interest to all. This now venerable pioneer
was born in Ohio in 1828, removing with his
parents to Illinois in 1840. In 1847 he crossed the
plains to Oregon with General Palmer's train. The
large company forestalled trouble with the Indians.
Peter Hall, who stopped with Whitman at Walla
Walla, was the only one who experienced any
disaster. The crossing of the Cascade Mountains
by the Barlow Road proved the worst of their trials.
After reaching Oregon, Heman stopped at Oregon
City, and engaged in the boot and shoe business;
while the father located at Butteville, Marion county.
In 1848 the young man abandoned "city" life and
located a claim in the Waldo hills, marrying Miss
Cynthia Eoff. In 1849 he was prevented from com-
pleting the journey to California, by men returning
with the report that the mines were worked out."
From 1854 to 1861 he was in the nursery business
at Silverton, and the next year in business at Salem,
going thence to the Caribou mines in 1862, thence
to Auburn, Oregon, and from this point with his
goods to Bannack City. In 1864 he mined on the
John Day river. Having separated from his first
wife he made Union county his home, serving as
deputy sheriff under his brother Isaiah Geer, of the
newly organized Union county. In 1867 he located
a fruit farm at the Cove, and formed the acquaint-
ance of and married Miss Annie E. Duncan. He
334
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
has two hundred acres of very fertile land, with an
orchard of sixteen acres, and eight acres in hops,
the only hop ranch in the country at present.
As a member of Captain English's company of
Oregon Rangers in 1848, Mr. Geer was of much ser-
vice in recovering property stolen by Indians from
the settlers of the Willamette valley. He has ever
been able and efficient in public matters. According
to the longevity of the Geer family, Heman J. bids
fair to live to see his four-score years, and perhaps
more, as he seems as buoyant and vigorous as a
man of forty. That the above prediction may prove
true is the sincere wish of his numerous friends.
PRESLEY GEORGE.- This pioneer of distinc-
tion, who founded in our state one of its most
honorable families, was born in London county,
Virginia, March 23, 1798, and was the son of Jesse
and Mary Craig George, of an old family in that
state. While still a boy he came west to Ohio,
crossing the Ohio river at the ford where Wheeling
now stands. For forty years he lived among the
"Buckeyes," putting his shoulder to the wheel,
and doing all in his power to establish the high and
generous civilization of that great state. In 1826 he
was united in marriage to Miss Mahala Nickerson.
In 1851, seeking new scenes and a new state, in
whose construction he might have a part, he crossed
the plains to Oregon, making for himself and family
a home on the old Donation claim near Lebanon,
which is still known by his name. Here he devel-
oped a farm of great productiveness, and a home of
cheerful and happy interior, with surroundings of
great beauty. Here also he brought up his three
sons, and served his state and neighborhood in all
the ways known to a good citizen.
He died December 23, 1879, at his home in East
Portland, at the advanced age of eighty-one years;
yet even then his demise was not due to disease or
wasted vital forces, but to an injury received by a
fall. He is buried at East Portland in Lone Fir
Cemetery. On the shaft of marble over his grave are
inscribed these words: "One whose life aim was to
be true to himself, his family, his country and his
Creator."
MAHALA GEORGE.-Mahala George was the
wife of Presley George, and was born in Barnstable,
Massachusetts, August 22, 1808. She is the
daughter of Hugh and Rebecca Blanchard Nicker-
son, an old Puritan family of distinction and mem-
orable service in the Bay state. They removed to
Ohio in 1817; and in that state of great ideas and
great people, on the whole the finest produced in
America, Miss Mahala received her education, and
gained the large ideas which naturally suited her
New England mind. She is one of the mothers of
our state whom Oregon could by no means have
spared, and still adorns in her beautiful old age the
best society of our Pacific Northwest. She has
already passed one birthday beyond four-score years,
but still retains her physical and mental strength.
She makes her home in East Portland.
HUGH N. GEORGE.— Hugh, the eldest of the
three sons of Presley and Mahala George, and not
the least distinguished among the three eminent
brothers, was born in Morgan county, Ohio, Novem-
ber 9, 1828. He was educated at Granville College,
and followed the profession of teacher for nearly
thirteen years. He was one of the prominent edu-
cators of Oregon in early times, and was twice
elected school superintendent of Linn county. He
was admitted to practice as an attorney in 1863, and
for a time was editor of the Albany Journal.
In 1864, after an exciting canvass, he was elected
one of the presidential electors of Oregon, and car-
ried to Washington City the vote of the state in
favor of the re-election of Abraham Lincoln.
Under the severe strain of the loss of all his prop-
erty in the destruction by fire of the Buena Vista
Mills, and subsequent exposure in traveling and lec-
turing, his health gave way; and on May 9, 1871,
he died at The Dalles at the age of forty-four years.
This gentleman is the
J. W. GEORGE.
second son of Presley and Mahala George, and was
born in Ohio November 11, 1835, but removed to
our state at so early an age as to receive his educa-
tion at the Santiam Academy in Linn county. He
became well known as one of the most promising
young men of our state, and early developed unusual
business capacity.
In 1873 he made a permanent home at Seattle,
Washington Territory, and entered actively into the
business and social development of this metropolis
of the Sound, acquiring also extensive real estate
and property interests. July 2, 1884, he was ap-
pointed, by President Arthur, United States marshal
for the territory, and served until after the change
of administration. Although meeting with a heavy
loss by the great fire of June, 1889, he was no less
able than the most of Seattle's energetic business
men to recover himself and carry on his enterprises
as before. A man of integrity, ability and vigor,
he has a strong hold upon business and political
affairs in Washington, and is a recognized power in
a community noted for men of high character.
M. C. GEORGE.-M. C. George is the third
son of Presley and Mahala George. He is a gentleman
of brisk mental qualities and great force, with refined
popular attainments, and an honorable reputation
that extends to every corner of Oregon. He was
born in Noble county, Ohio, May 13, 1849. He
received his education in our own state, at the San-
tiam Academy and at the Willamette University.
He began independent life as principal of the public
schools of Albany, and subsequently of the Academy
at Jefferson. He was also engaged for a time in
journalistic employment; but choosing the legal
profession as a vocation best suited to his tastes, and
as leading into the fields in which he desired to
operate, he studied law, and was admitted to the bar
as an attorney in 1875. He was early brought into
political prominence, and was elected state senator
from Multnomah county in 1876, serving four years.
In 1886 he was elected representative in Congress
from Oregon, and was re-elected in 1882.
In 1885 he was chosen professor of medical juris-
prudence in the medical college of Willamette Uni-
versity, and still retains this position. He was

ܪ܂
WALLA WALLA, W. T.
RESIDENCE OF A.H. REYNOLDS,
J J J J J J J J J J J J J
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
335
elected March 11, 1889, for the term of five years,
a member of the board of directors of the public
schools of Portland, and is now engaged in the
practice of law in Portland, Oregon.
SAMUEL GEORGE.- Mr. George was born
in England in 1835, and in 1858 went to Australia,
and in 1861 to New Zealand. From this antipodal
region he came to British Columbia and mined for
four years at Caribou. In 1867 he brought his
wanderings to a close by selecting a home in Uma-
tilla county, Oregon, where he engaged in cattle-
raising on Butter creek in company with James
Webb. They were partners for two years.
Since
their separation, he has conducted the business
alone to the present time, keeping an average of
about five hundred cattle on the range. Grass hav-
ing become scant has necessitated his securing a
considerable body of land. He now has seven hun-
dred cattle and a hundred and thirty-five horses.
This number he has maintained, notwithstanding
material losses by hard winters, thieves and estray-
ing. Mr. George is recognized as one of the sub-
stantial and hospitable citizens of this independent
section, and is held in high esteem by the many who
know him.
J. N. GILBRANSON.— There is no European
country to which the United States is more in debt
than to the Scandinavian peninsula. From there
we had Ericsson, whose invention of the Monitor is
deemed by many to have turned the tide of war in
1862. From the country of Ericsson we have also
many of our best citizens. One of these is Mr. Gil-
branson, who was born at Christiana, Norway, in
1834, and came to Chicago in 1854. He resided in
Missouri until the war broke out, being actively
engaged in his business of contracting and building.
Returning to Chicago, he continued to work in his
line until 1880, going in that year to Minneapolis,
and opening a sash and door factory under the firm
name of Jansen, Gilbranson & Co.
In 1886 he sold out to his partner and came to
Spokane Falls. He has since made that city his
home, buying property and erecting for himself a
very fine residence, a view of which appears in this
work. He is a man who, to his natural industry,
has added experience and linked intelligence, thus
forming enterprise. He is one of the men of whom
the city is proud, and to whom it looks for its great
undertakings. He was married in Iowa to Miss
Anna Johnson, and has one daughter.
COL. CORNELIUS GILLIAM.—Colonel Gil-
liam was a native of North Carolina, and was born
in 1798. But his recollection of that state in after
years was like a dream; for when but a youth he
accompanied his parents to Missouri, where he lived
for many years. August 31, 1820, he married Miss
Mary Crawford of that state. Ten years later he
was elected sheriff of Clay county for a term of two
years; and at the expiration of that time he joined
the Black Hawk war. In 1837 he served as captain
of the company which fought all through the Semi-
About this time trouble arose with the
The authorities decided to expel them
nole war.
Mormons.
from the state; and for that purpose volunteers were
called for. Captain Gilliam came to the front,
raised a company and was chosen its captain. He
was soon after promoted to a colonelcy for meri-
torious conduct.
In 1843 he represented Andrew county in the
legislature. Religiously he was a free-will Baptist.
In 1845 he was ordained to the ministry; and the
next year he left for Oregon, arriving in the fall.
He first settled in Polk county, but soon removed
to Benton county, there remaining until his depart-
ure in 1847 to join the then marshaling forces for
the Cayuse war; for the Indians threatened death
and destruction on every hand. The people were
in mortal dread and terror, both for their lives and
their property; for many depredations had been
committed by the Indians; and in several instances
coldblooded, outright murder and atrocious massa-
cres of whole families had occurred. The life and
character of Colonel Gilliam is so closely inter-
woven with the details of this war, and he figures
so prominently in it, that the mere mention of
his name is sufficient to recall the long, weary
marches, the sufferings and privations, and the
many hard-fought battles, all encompassed in what
is known as the Cayuse war. This biography,
without the details of that war, would be incom-
plete; and a history of the war with Colonel Gil-
liam omitted would be a story without a hero.
They are inseparable.
When the news reached Oregon City about dusk
of the 8th of December, 1847, by a messenger from
The Dalles, reporting that Doctor Marcus Whitman,
his wife, and all connected with him, had been mur-
dered at Waiilatpu, November 26th, by the Cayuse
Indians, and calling for protection from The Dalles,
the legislature under the Provisional government
was in session at that place. The governor took
immediate action, and dispatched a messenger to
the body. Honorable J. W. Nesmith introduced
a resolution which passed, authorizing the organi-
zation of a company of volunteers to immediately
take possession of The Dalles. That evening a
company was recruited, with H. A. J. Lee as cap-
tain; and in forty-eight hours afterwards they were
well on the way. The ladies of Oregon City took a
deep and active interest in the raising of the com-
pany. They were headed by Mother Hovel, well
known at that place as the moving spirit of every-
thing tending towards peace. They made a neat
flag, and provided many delicacies for lunch on the
way, and selected Honorable J. W. Nesmith, mem-
ber from Polk county, to present them to the com-
pany. In his presentation speech he did honor to
both head and heart, and cheered the boys for the
march which was before them. Captain Lee, on
behalf of the company, in a neat speech accepted
the gift presented by the ladies. It is Oregon City
that holds the honor of making the first flag to be
borne in the defense of the country on this coast.
The situation at this time was appalling, to say
the least. The people were scattered sparsely over
the country, with but meager means of defense.
They had but few guns and less ammunition, and
no means of obtaining either except through the
Hudson's Bay Company; and that company was
23
336
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
anxious that the English government should obtain
control of the country. It was clear that no help
from them would come. With the Indians on the
one hand, and the Hudson's Bay Company on the
other, the people were hemmed in and almost pow-
erless. But necessity is the mother of invention;
and this was another case where the way supplied
the means.
The legislature then in session took due notice of
the alarming situation. It was rumored that all of
the Indians east of the Cascade Mountains had
united in one band to totally exterminate or forcibly
drive the Americans out of the country; and they
were ably generaled by the Hudson's Bay Company.
Isolated and shut out from the rest of the world,
one year at least must intervene before assistance
could be obtained from the seat of the home govern-
ment. The situation was truly appalling. Some-
thing had to be done. The legislature wisely
determined to wage an aggressive war in the coun-
try of the hostile Indians, and that promptly. They
authorized the governor to raise a regiment of five
hundred men, and elected Cornelius Gilliam, the
subject of this sketch, Colonel; James Waters, Lieu-
tenant-Colonel; H. A. J. Lee, Major. The governor
issued his proclamation, and sent runners in every
direction calling upon the settlers to respond, which
they did nobly, contributing largely of their means
for the successful prosecution of the war at hand.
This was the only means within reach of the Pro-
visional government by which they could carry on
the planned campaign.
The young men of the country volunteered to
brave all the dangers of the future. Many furnished
their own outfits as far as they were able; and,
where they were not able, they were furnished by
the settlers. The men with families remained at
home to protect their wives and little ones. There
were perhaps not to exceed fifty men, from first to
last, who were heads of families, or who exceeded
twenty-five years of age. The material consisted
of boys and young men from sixteen to twenty-four
years of age,—just the age to follow wherever a
brave commander would lead, and ask no questions.
They had unbounded confidence in their com-
mander; and their motto was, "If our colonel can
stand it we can;" and his was,
" and his was, "To live just as
the boys did." If he had an extra blanket, some
one of the boys got it. If the boys were without
coffee or tea, notwithstanding some of his mess had
with their own means provided these delicacies, not
one drop could they get him to touch. If they
If they
were without bread, no bread would he eat; or if
the beefsteak was broiled before the fire on a stick,
and cut off with their knives and eaten as it was
cooked, you would find him faring just the same.
If the meat was pure horsesteak, straight (which
was frequent in his excursions) you would find
him eating and apparently enjoying it. This is the
way he obtained their confidence. Backed by his
grit and energy in preventing a combination of
those Indians, is it any wonder that he succeeded in
conquering them and in bringing about peace
within six months?
The greatest eulogy that can be pronounced of
either the dead or the living can be said of Colonel
Cornelius Gilliam, when it is declared that he gave
his life for the lives of the early settlers of Oregon
and Washington, and was one of the few men who
saved this grand country from falling into the hands
of the English government; and to-day he and his
successors in office, and the men under them, who
suffered almost every hardship that the mind can
conceive in a war of that character, and who fought
to a successful issue the greatest Indian war of this
coast, are almost forgotten. There is not a decent
gravestone to mark the last resting place of the
gallant commander. The little flurries of General
Howard after Joseph, and the other Indian wars,
were but mere child's play compared to it; yet they
are all the talk. The few survivors of the early
Indian wars have grown gray, old and poor, many
being unable to work; yet the state and general
government fails or refuses to recognize them or
give them a word of cheer. The newspapers report
that the general government, through its Honorable
Secretary of War, has failed to find any records in
reference to it, or that such a war ever occurred.
The fact is that the general government did recog-
nize it, and tardily paid the poor soldiers the pit-
tance of soldier's wages,-nothing for their outfit,
and about one-half the true value of the supplies
furnished by the poor settlers to prosecute the war.
There must have been at that time something in the
office to show that the service had been rendered
and the debt contracted.
On the 8th day of January, 1848, about six weeks
after the reception of the news of the massacre of
Doctor Whitman and all connected with him, men,
women and children, about thirty in number (except
one man, his wife and small child, who secreted
themselves under the floor of Whitman's residence
and there remained until after midnight, when they
succeeded in making their escape by hiding in the
brush during the day and traveling by night and
at last succeeded in reaching the Hudson's Bay
Company's fort at Wallula, and several girls who
were carried away as captives by the Indians), the
command took up the line of march from Portland,
the place of rendezvous, to the scene of action,
crossing the Columbia river below the mouth of
the Sandy to Vancouver, and recrossing again just
above the Cascade fall, reaching The Dalles the
fifth day after leaving Portland. The supplies fol-
lowed them up the river in boats, and supplied them
at their encampment each evening.
On reaching The Dalles the command went into
camp to await their supplies, which had not reached
that place. The large number of Indians who
usually wintered there had left. The few remain-
ing expressed no desire to be friendly. On the
morning of the third day, two of the guards who
had been placed around the horses of the command
were killed by the Indians, who had decoyed them
away from camp by tying a horse to some brush
a few hundred yards from where the men were
located. Supposing the horse belonged to the
command, and that the ropes attached to him had
been caught in the brush, they went to release the
animal, and were shot and killed in the act. Colo-
nel Gilliam determined at once to chastise them and
bring them to terms if possible before leaving for
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
337
Walla Walla.
He sorely feared the consequences
of having an enemy behind as well as one in front
of him. These Indians were composed of the Warm
Spring and Dalles tribes, numbering several hun-
dred warriors, who were daredevils. He learned
that their village was located in a deep cut on the east
side of the Des Chutes, opposite what is now known
as Warm Spring Reservation. He accordingly, the
next morning after the tragedy, with all his avail-
able command, proceeded thither. Crossing the
Des Chutes near its mouth, after making a forced
march, he went into camp late in the evening.
He
On the next morning he sent Major Lee with a
small detachment to ascertain if possible the exact
location of the Indians. The Major returned late
in the evening, and reported that after traveling
several miles he discovered a small number of
Indians in front of him, and that he in a friendly
manner tried to approach them; but as he advanced
they retreated. Thereupon he ordered a charge,
but had not gone far before he discovered a large
body of Indians in his front. He then ordered a
retreat, the Indians pursuing him, and reached the
command about eight o'clock P. M., reporting the loss
of one man, William D. Stillwell, a private in Cap-
tain Thompson's company. This, however, proved
a mistake. It appears that in the charge Private
Stillwell was in advance, out of hearing distance
of the order to retreat; and he did not discover the
Indians until his opportunity to retreat was entirely
cut off. He saw that his only chance of escape was
to press on down the gulch to its mouth, and then
leave his horse and take to the rocks along the Des
Chutes river, and by that means save his life, which
he did, and reached the command about daylight,
having been wounded in the hip by an arrow.
was the same William D. Stillwell who ran the
gauntlet when Captain Hembree was killed in the
Yakima Indian war of 1855-56, when the Indians
were in front, behind and on each side, showering
the arrows at him as he ran; but he escaped unhurt.
On the next morning, as soon as it was light
enough to travel, Colonel Gilliam with his command
climbed the steep bluff which runs along the whole
course of that river, following the Indian trail, and
proceeded directly to the point where the Indians
were located the day previous. When the command
reached that point, they encamped at some mud
springs; and the next morning, after moving for-
ward a few miles, they discovered a body of Indians
formed in line on the bluff in front and on the oppo-
site side of the deep cut where they were located.
When the command reached the ravine that ran
through the cut, the Colonel ordered a halt, and
ordered his men to fall into line. After viewing the
situation (the Indians taunting the command and
calling to them to come up, not thinking for a min-
ute that they would attempt to ascend the steep
bluff in front to reach them), he saw that the trail
turned both up and down the cut, but not across,
and that the bluff was too steep and abrupt to
ascend with horses.
The troops were in line awaiting orders. Pointing
to the Indians, he said: Boys, we've got to reach
those fellows; and we can't reach them with our
horses. The only way I see that we can reach
them is on foot and in front of them. Dismount!
The captains will detail two men from each mess
to take charge of the horses; and the balance will
form in line in front." When the line was formed,
he said: "Don't get too close together; but keep
a space of three or four feet between each of you,
and protect yourselves as well as you can by the
overhanging rocks. Keep in line, and don't ex-
haust yourselves. It must be a quarter of a mile
from where we stand to where the Indians are.
Don't shoot until you reach the top of the bluff,
and then give it to them. Forward!" The com-
mand proceeded up the bluff amidst a storm of
bullets, which as they whistled by, and with the crack-
ing of the Indians' guns, drowned all other noise.
The Indians in their excitement overshot, and not
a man was wounded until they reached the top of
the bluff, when the Indians were quickly put to
flight and retreated out of reach of the guns. As
they were mounted the command could accomplish
nothing more on foot; and the Colonel ordered a
halt and directed one of the officers with a small
posse of men to find a place by which the horses
could be brought up. They soon discovered that
the trail at the mouth of the gulch ascended the
hill; and the horses were ordered up. During this
time the Indians remained in front out of gunshot,
silent and sullen, watching their movements. As
soon as the horses came up, the command mounted
and charged the Indians, who soon scattered and
fled.
The Colonel discovered from their movements
that their village lay to the east; and he at once
started in that direction. Ater traveling about two
miles, they discovered the Indian village on a small
creek, and found it had been deserted except by a
few old and helpless Indians who could not be taken
away. Everything showed that it had been deserted
in great haste. Not a tent nor skin home had been
removed; and a large amount of their furniture and
supplies remained in them. Here that principle
which was always prominent in Colonel Gilliam's
character, his great sympathy for the fallen, weak
and helpless, was tested. A proposition was made
to burn the village; but his reply was: "No. I can
fight the bucks; but I cannot fight the helpless
women and children. It is now winter; and if you
burn their village they will likely perish. Let us
leave it just as we found it; and it may have a good
effect." The troops proceeded a short distance be-
low the village, and camped, tired and hungry.
Being out of provisions, the Colonel sent to The
Dalles for supplies, meanwhile sending out detach-
ments to find Indians. During this time the troops
lived on horsemeat, the first they had eaten. The
supplies arrived on the third day; and the command
set out for The Dalles, reaching there in two days.
As soon as arrangements could be made for the
transportation of supplies for the command, the
Colonel resumed his march for Walla Walla.
ing of interest transpired until the morning after
leaving the encampment at the Well Springs. They
had now reached the country claimed by the hostile
Indians, and expected at any time to be engaged in
battle with them. The Colonel, before leaving
camp, had sent his scouts in front along the road
Noth-
338
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
with instructions to go as far as Butter creek, and to
report to him about ten o'clock a. M. A man was
seen approaching at a rapid pace along the road,
and was recognized as a scout, who came up and
reported a large body of Indians in front near where
the road turned off. Now with the hostile Indians
in battle array, expecting an easy victory, they
looked at their own little band, not to exceed
three hundred and fifty men, and thought of the
consequences if they failed in the struggle before
them. It was enough to make the stoutest heart
quail. Colonel Gilliam said: "Boys, the murderers
of Doctor Whitman are before us with their allies;
and behind them on the hill are as many more ready
to join them in case the battle goes against us. You
know the consequences if we fail; not one of us will
be left to tell the tale. And that is not the worst.
Every tribe of Indians in the whole country will
unite to desolate our homes, and to exterminate and
drive all the Americans from this country. But we
are not going to fail. We are going to whip them
and teach them a lesson to-day that they will never
forget. Don't shoot until you are ordered. Obey
your officers, and quietly wait until you are ordered
to begin the battle.
The Indians silently and slowly moved up until they
were almost within gunshot; and in a moment, as
if by electricity, every horse sprang to almost full
speed; and every throat produced such unearthly
yells and sounds that it seemed as though the infer-
nal regions had been turned loose. They moved in
a circle around the command in regular order, keep-
ing a space of about four feet between their horses,
and gradually drawing nearer as they moved nearer
around the little army of Whites, until they had
entirely encircled it. So regular was the order, and
So regular was the order, and
so well had they gauged their speed, that as their
line came up they began to form a circle within the
outer circle. They had now approached within
gunshot; and their leader kept several paces in front
of them. Lieutenant Charles McKay said : Col-
onel, I know that Indian. He is their great medi-
He is their great medi-
cine man, and their leader here. He has made those
Indians believe we cannot kill him, that our balls
cannot harm or penetrate him. Let me shoot him.
I believe I can kill him." "Kill him," replied
Colonel Gilliam; and at the crack of the gun he fell
from his horse; and several Indians sprang forward
and carried him away. The fight now became gen-
eral; and the din of discharging guns, warwhoops
of the savages, and crys of defiance from the soldiers,
drowned everything else.
Their principal chief, Five Crows, fell mortally
wounded early in the action. The loss of their
leader threw them into confusion; and the hot and
terrible reception they met from the soldiers caused
them to fall back out of gunshot. They remained
in that position about twenty minutes, when they
again attacked the soldiers, this time charging
directly upon them; but they were again repulsed,
and fell back in utter confusion. The remainder of
the day was spent in skirmishing, the Indians chang-
ing their tactics. Their object now seemed to be to
draw a detachment away from the main body of
soldiers, and to cut them off before they could regain
a place of safety. They would send out detach-
ments as a decoy to draw out detachments of soldiers
against them, when they would retreat, drawing the
troops after them, being so posted that a large body
of Indians could quickly place themselves between
the detachment and the body of the command.
Colonel Gilliam at once understood the trick, and
determined to gratify them as far as he could with
safety. His forces were so small that he was com-
pelled to keep them in striking distance of each
other to protect them against the array of Indians.
Therefore, in sending out detachments, his instruc-
tions were to only go so far; and the officers in
command were to watch closely the enemy posted
on each side; and, if any attempt was made to cut
them off, to at once fall back. He always kept a
sufficient force to assist the scouting parties. Some-
times the boys would grow too eager, and forget their
instructions and get too far away. Then you would
see a race between the Indians and the soldiers, the
savages trying to cut them off and the boys trying
to reach the command. And so the day passed, the
Indians failing in every effort.
About four o'clock in the afternoon, the Indians
left; and the command stayed on the ground until
morning, providing for the comfort and transporta-
tion of the wounded. Those supposed to be mortally
or dangerously wounded could not be carried in the
wagons; and a blanket was lashed to two tent poles,
on which a bed was made; and on the shoulders of
the uninjured they were gently carried to Walla
Walla. The camp was without both wood and water,
except a little in the canteens, which had to be kept
for the wounded, among whom was Colonel Waters.
Early in the morning the command started, but had
traveled only a short distance when they were met
by a deputation of Indians bearing a white flag,
asking for a suspension of hostilities, and proposing
to meet the officers and arrange terms of peace. The
commissioners appointed by the governor to treat
with the Indians favored the proposition. Colonel
Gilliam opposed it, as he believed it a ruse and done
solely to secure time to convey their families and
property to a place of safety. The commissioners
thought the Indians were acting in good faith, and
insisted that the proposition be accepted. Colonel
Gilliam submitted, the governor having intended
him to operate with the commissioners. An agree-
ment was made to meet the next day at the crossing
of the Umatilla river. The command pushed on to
the crossing and camped. The soldiers were tired
and very hungry, not having had anything to eat
since leaving their camp at Well Springs about
thirty hours before. They remained in camp all
next day as agreed; but no Indians came.
only a stratagem on their part to remove their effects
to places of safety.
It was
Colonel Gilliam was very much irritated over it.
He saw his whole plans defeated, and the war con-
tinued by the governor through his commissioners,
one of them being a subordinate officer. He had
planned to move to the Umatilla river, go into camp
to rest and refresh the soldiers, and at night make a
forced march to the Indian village, situated about
twenty miles above on the river, surround it and on
the dawn of morning demand an unconditional sur-
render. In all probability he would have succeeded,



GEO. A.DAVIS,
MARSHALL,W.T.
•HO
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
339
and would then and there have ended the war. The
mistaken policy of the governor was carried out;
and the murderers of Doctor Whitman, who were
almost within the grasp of the soldiers, were per-
mitted to escape. On the morning after the delay,
he proceeded on his march to Walla Walla. Before
traveling far, the road ascended to the high table-
lands of that county, from which the foot of the
Blue Mountains could be plainly seen; but all along
before them was was a dense cloud of dust extend-
ing for miles along the foot of the mountains. The
Colonel knew at once that it was the redskins escap-
ing with their stock; and it was useless to proceed
any farther in that direction. He turned across the
country to the Walla Walla river a couple of miles
below old Fort Wallula and camped.
The command was short of ammunition; and
Colonel Gilliam wrote a polite note to McBean,
who was in charge of the fort at that time, asking
him to furnish, for the use of the soldiers, a stated
amount of powder and lead, he having previously
learned that there was a large amount in store
at that place. The officer returned and reported
that the request had been refused. The Colonel
declared, "I will go myself," which he did and
procured the necessary supplies. Here Sticcus,
a noted Cayuse Indian and friend of Doctor Whit-
man, came to the camp. He came to represent his
tribe and ascertain upon what conditions peace could
be effected. A council was held, consisting of Col-
onel Gilliam, the three commissioners appointed by
the governor, to wit, General Joel Palmer, Doctor
Newell and Major Lee. Sticcus represented to
them that his people were very sorry that Doctor
Whitman had been killed; that a large number of
his people had been sick with the measles, and that
many had died; that Joe Lewis, a half-breed among
them, had induced the belief that Doctor Whitman
had poisoned them, and would poison them all if he
was not killed or driven out of the country; that his
object was to kill all the Indians and take posses-
sion of the country. As proof of his statements he
would point to the sick and dead Indians, and also
said that McBean, who then had charge of the Hud-
son's Bay Company's fort at Wallula, had offered
Doctor Whitman a large price for his property, but
that the Doctor refused to sell at any price, and that
the only way they could get rid of him was to kill
him. He gave a history of the trouble from begin-
ning to end, and the causes that brought it about,
implicating McBean and others largely in the matter.
He said his people were very sorry, but that they
had been deceived and lied to until they had killed
the best friend they had among the Whites; that
they wanted peace, and that he had come to see at
what terms they would grant it.
The commissioners told him that they could have
peace by surrendering the murderers of Doctor Whit-
man. Sticcus told them that the Indians would
surrender all of the murderers except Tom Ineea
and three others. Colonel Gilliam proposed that if
they would bring Joe Lewis, the half-breed, to them,
they would release three of the assassins; but the
commissioners objected to this, and told Sticcus that
his people must surrender all the murderers before
they would be permitted to live in peace in their
country; but that, if they would surrender them,
they might all return and be friends.
This message Sticcus promised to carry to his peo-
ple, and also to use his influence to induce them to
comply with the terms. To Colonel Gilliam's ques-
tion as to where his people were at that time, he
replied that they were at the mouth of the Tukanon
on Snake river, stopping with the Palouse Indians.
Thus ended the first and only conference which the
commissioners held with the Cayuse Indians. They
were now whipped, and were fugitives fleeing for
their lives. Owing to their wealth and influence
with other Indian tribes of that country, they had
yet a hope of uniting the other tribes in their behalf,
and thus secure their assistance against the Amer-
icans (the Bostons as they called them).
The Cayuses were less in numbers than any of
the other tribes; but they were much more intelli-
gent and much wealthier. A number of them owned
from one to three or four thousand horses each.
They had been under the care and personal instruc-
tion of Doctor Whitman, who had taught them the
value of property and many of the arts of civiliza-
tion. A number of them had small farms and
houses to live in, and raised a large proportion of
their support. They had intermarried largely with
the Nez Perces and Walla Wallas, hence their hope
of inducing these tribes to co-operate with and
assist them. They were loath to surrender the
murderers of Doctor Whitman, as some of them
were their leading and most influential men.
The next morning after Sticcus left the soldiers'
camp to go to his people, Colonel Gilliam ordered
camp to be raised, and proceed to Whitman's Sta-
tion. Here they beheld nothing but desolation and
ruin, which was heartrending. The comfortable
home and quarters provided by Doctor Whitman for
himself, and the worn and weary immigrants and
the helpless orphans whose parents had sickened and
died by the way, had all been destroyed by the hand of
ruthless and brutal savages, who had wreaked their
vengeance first upon himself and his estimable wife,
and then on the innocent victims whom he was
feeding and sheltering. The Doctor and all who
perished with him were buried in one grave, i. e., a
trench about seven feet square, and sufficiently deep
to hold all the bodies. Into this the bodies of men,
women and children were thrown until it was filled
to within a foot of the surface, when a little earth
was thrown over them. When the command
reached the spot, they found large holes which had
been dug by wolves and other animals, and a por-
tion of the remains of the dead dragged out and
devoured. The bones were found and replaced in
the grave, the holes filled, and the whole inclosed
and covered so it could not be again disturbed.
Most of the hair from the head of Mrs. Whitman
was found some three or four hundred yards from
the grave, where it had been taken by wolves or
Indian dogs. The hair was carefully gathered up
by the soldiers and taken with them to their respect-
ive homes as mementoes of a noble and beautiful
woman. The hair was well known, as it was of a
beautiful golden color and very fine, and had been
seen by many of them adorning the head of that
beautiful and accomplished woman as she was
340
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
assisting her husband in relieving the sick and
distressed immigrants, gathering up the orphans
and taking them to her own home.
Doctor Whitman was killed while butchering a
beef. The Indians came to his place as they often
did, seemingly friendly; and, without any warning
to him or his assistants, shot them down. Mrs.
Whitman heard the firing, and ran out of the house.
She threw up her hands and cried: "Oh, I knew it!
I told him they would kill him. Joe Lewis came
here on purpose to incite and influence them to kill
him. I tried to get him to leave; but he always
told me to hope for the better, that he would rather
die than desert what he believed to be his post of
duty." After accomplishing their object at the cor-
ral, they went to the house, where all those who
had not been killed had collected, and fired into the
windows, wounding Mrs. Whitman. Several of the
immigrants who were stopping there, some of whom
were employed by the Doctor, had succeeded in
reaching the house. The cowardly Indians were
afraid to attack the inmates of the house by enter-
ing. They called to Mrs. Whitman and told her
that, if she and those with her would come out of
the house, they should not be hurt, but that all
should be sent to Fort Wallula and be unmolested.
The inmates of the house saw no means of escape,
and determined to trust the Indians. They all
came out; and as soon as the Indians could get be-
tween them and the house they were all shot down,
except nine girls whom they took captive to become
the slaves and wives of these savage murderers of
their parents and friends.
Colonel Gilliam resolved to make the station his
headquarters. He arranged and prepared the adobe
house, formerly used by Doctor Whitman, to serve
as a hospital for the sick and wounded, and arranged
his camp so as to ward off any attack that might be
made by the enemy. After being in camp several
days, a delegation of Nez Perces visited the camp,
headed by the father of Ellis, their principal chief.
Craig, an American trapper, who had married a Nez
Perce woman, came with them. He was a shrewd
and sensible man; and he with Ellis prevented the
tribe from joining the Cayuses in a war against the
Whites, whom they claimed to always have been
friends to; and they pledged their word not to join
the Cayuses, and said that they would not harbor
the murderers of Doctor Whitman nor permit them
to pass through their country. After remaining at
the camp for several days, they returned to their
own country. The commissioners, after meeting
with the Nez Perce delegation, saw that their work
was done, and left under an escort furnished by
Colonel Gilliam for The Dalles. Major Lee resigned
and accompanied them; and Magone was elected to
fill his place.
There was a general feeling of satisfaction with
the entire command when they left. Not that the
officers or soldiers had anything personal against
them; but they realized that their mission had been
worse than a failure. The authority for peace or
war should have been left entirely in the hands of
the commanding officer. If he was competent to
command in war, and had studied thoroughly the
situation, as every successful commander must, he
is certainly better qualified to arrange terms of peace
than others who knew but little about the condition
of affairs. The governor, no doubt, thought he was
doing for the best in appointing the commissioners;
but it was a great mistake, and a source of annoyance
and confusion from the time they reached the com-
mand until their departure. It was also at times a
source of keen humiliation to the commanding
officer, as one of his subordinate officers was also a
commissioner, and in a certain sense his superior.
General Palmer, a man of much more ability than
either or both of his colleagues, felt that the appoint-
ment of commissioners was a grave mistake; and as
soon as he could, with credit to himself, he broke
up the commission and returned home. He learned
while in the field the needs of the little army; and,
as chief quartermaster and commissary, he worked.
with untiring zeal and energy to furnish the troops
with the needed supplies, and by his personal efforts
succeeded. The country owed more to him than to
any other man or men for the successful prosecution
and termination of that war; and he should be held
in grateful remembrance for his services in the early
settlement of this country.
Colonel Gilliam learned that the murderers of
Doctor Whitman were still camped with the Palouse
Indians at the mouth of the Takanon; and he
resolved, if possible, to surprise and capture them
at that place. He accordingly selected about two
hundred of his best mounted men, and proceeded
without delay to that point. After crossing the
Touchet, and reaching the divide that separates the
waters of that stream from the Tukanon, he ordered
a halt at about two o'clock in the afternoon. He
remained there until after dark, when he raised
camp and proceeded with all possible dispatch to the
Tukanon, and down it to the Indian camp, deter-
mined to reach there before daylight. He sent
Morge, his guide and interpreter, with Jacob Rhi-
nearson ahead of the command with instructions to
examine the defiles and narrow passes along the
trail, and that if anything occurred to report to him
without delay.
When the command were nearing the Indian
camp, one of the soldiers of Company A, contrary
to orders and without the knowledge of the officers,
stole on in advance of the command and scouts, and
fired into a bunch of willows, supposing it to be an
Indian wigwam. When the Colonel heard the
report of the gun, he ordered a halt and sent out
a reconnoitering party, who soon returned and
reported as above stated. The Colonel was informed
by the guide that they were but a short distance
from the Indian camp; and, believing they had
heard the report, he feared they would lay in
ambush for the soldiers, as the trail ran along near
the stream, the banks of which were steep and
thickly set with brush, and the valley narrow.
therefore ordered the men to dismount and remain
until daylight. At dawn they were ordered forward,
and had proceeded but a short distance when they
saw the Indian camp only about half a mile away down
the river. The Indians had discovered the approach-
ing troops; and the murderers again escaped, fleeing
to the hills and across Snake river. The soldiers
went quickly forward to the Indian camp, and found
He
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
341
the men all gone except a few who claimed to be
Palouses and friends, and protested that the Cayuses
were not there, having left some weeks before, going
to the Bitter Root country.
The Colonel ordered a portion of the troops to go
down the stream to its mouth, and then up the
Snake river to where the main Indian trail crossed
that stream; while he and the rest of the command
proceeded directly on the trail to the same point.
On reaching the top of the hill that overlooked the
river, he saw a large number of the Indians on the
opposite side; for they had succeeded in crossing,
and were beyond reach of the troops. The disobe-
dience of one man had defeated the accomplishment
of his plans; and a large river lay between him
and the enemy, with no means of crossing it.
He accordingly ordered the command to retrace
their steps to headquarters, then known as Fort
Waters, directing that about five hundred head of
horses that were grazing near by be driven with
them. The fort was named by the Colonel in honor
of the Lieutenant-Colonel.
The command had not proceeded far when the
Indians recrossed the river, collected all their avail-
able forces, numbering about five hundred men, and
attacked the soldiers. The attack was made about
twelve o'clock; and a running fire was kept up dur-
ing the day until dark, when the troops reached a deep
ravine thickly set with brush, where they were so
arranged as to protect themselves and horses. The
horses belonging to the Indians were ordered turned
loose, the Colonel preferring to lose the horses rather
than some of the soldiers, which he saw was inevi-
table if he attempted to guard the horses. There the
troops remained until morning, every man on guard.
The fight was kept up at intervals through the
night and until noon the next day. Just before
reaching the Touchet the Indians all at once stopped
firing and disappeared. They were noticed however
to proceed rapidly in front of the command. Mingo,
the pilot, informed Colonel Gilliam that where the
trail crossed the Touchet the stream was shaped like
a horseshoe with the hills pointing clear down to
the stream on each side; that the stream was thickly
set with brush, the trail crossing in the center of
the horseshoe; that the Indians no doubt were
making for the points at the crossing to cut off the
troops when they attempted to cross.
As soon as the Colonel learned the situation, he
ordered the companies on the right and left to pro-
ceed with all possible dispatch and take possession
of the points on each side of the ford. The troops.
on the left flank reached the point first, and drove
the Indians back on the right. The Indians suc-
ceeded in reaching the brush, and had to be driven
from their cover before the command could cross the
stream. The Colonel ordered Major Magone to take
the troops on the right, and to charge the brush and
dislodge the Indians, which he did after killing sev-
eral of them. Here the Indians ceased fighting,
and left the command after twenty-four hours con-
stant engagement. The troops had now been forty-
eight hours without food or sleep. None had been
killed; but a number had been wounded. Some had
been mortally wounded, and a number so badly that
they could not ride on horseback but had to be
carried on litters on the shoulders of their comrades.
The soldiers rested a short time and then proceeded
on their march to Fort Waters. After traveling a
few miles, on account of the fatigue and the suffer-
ing of the wounded, Colonel Gillman thought it
advisable to camp and rest until the next morning.
Here the boys rested and refreshed themselves as
best they could on horsemeat, the most of them
being without anything else. The next day about
noon they reached Fort Waters after an absence of
about eighty hours, having during that time eaten
only three meals, two of which were composed of
horsemeat, and had had only one night's sleep.
Twenty-four continuous hours of the time had been
spent in a forced march to reach the enemy; and the
twenty-four immediately following were spent in
fighting amid the din of musketry and the demoniac
yells of the savages. When the soldiers reached the
fort they had not to exceed a dozen rounds of ammu-
nition left, many of the guns being empty, as they had
nothing to load them with; and the men were weak
and exhausted. Colonel Gilliam now saw that to
reach the enemy he must cross Snake river, and that
to attempt it and maintain his base of supplies
would be hazardous in the extreme.
The Indians in the late fight had in many respects
a great advantage. The command was compelled
to act on the defensive throughout the entire
battle, except in one instance, at the crossing
of the Touchet. The Colonel was somewhat
apprehensive as to the effect on the surrounding
tribes. He determined, in view of all the facts, to
call for two hundred more men, and to secure and
have them in the field as soon as possible. He also
determined to see the governor in person, and accord-
ingly started with the detachment of troops that had
been ordered to The Dalles for the supplies which
were at that place awaiting an escort to protect them
in their transportation to Fort Waters.
On the way down, when the troops were going
into camp at Well Springs, the Colonel was acci-
dentally killed by one of the teamsters. He usually
attended to his horse himself; and the rope used in
staking out the animal was always removed when
on the march and put in the rear end of one of the
wagons. That evening as usual he went to get the
rope, and found it mixed up with other things and
somewhat difficult to extricate. The teamster saw
his dilemma, and in attempting to assist him a
loaded gun, with the cleaning rod in the barrel,
put there contrary to orders, was discharged; and
the rod struck the Colonel in the forehead, pene-
trated his head to the skull on the opposite side,
breaking off about six inches from his head.
shock threw him full length on his back, with his
arms thrown out, his eyes closed, looking as natural
as life but for the rod protruding from his head.
Death had been instantaneous, and without the
appearance of the contraction of a muscle. Death
came in the noon of his manhood, with a bright
future before him. Generous to a fault, quick to
arrive at conclusions, and as quick to execute them,
he was a born leader. His impulsive nature sa-
vored largely of humanity; and he could not bear to
see man nor beast cruelly treated if it were in his
power to prevent it. He was not schooled in the
The
342
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
arts and science obtained from colleges; but he was
learned in the school of practical knowledge.
Captain Maxon, being the senior officer, at once
took command and ordered camp to be raised, and
to proceed without delay to The Dalles, in order to
send the body of Colonel Gilliam to his family, and
to report to the governor. This report embraced in
full the views of Colonel Gilliam. Here the famous
Indian chief, Kamiakin, met the command, and
stated in council that he had learned that Colonel
Gilliam was on his way to this place, and that he
determined to meet him, as he wanted a talk with
him. He expressed much sorrow at the Colonel's
death, and stated to Captain Maxon that he and his
people were friends of the Americans; that he would
not harbor nor aid the murderers of Doctor Whit-
man in any way, and that they should not pass
through nor remain in his country. He made a
sensible speech, which was reported to the gov-
ernor and published in the Spectator, a paper pub-
lished in Oregon City. He concluded his remarks
by asking for a few plows, stating that his people
had no means of cultivating the ground. There
was at The Dalles a lot of plows sent out by the
board of missions for the Warm Spring and Dalles
Indians which had not been distributed; and these
Captain Maxon gave to Kamiakin, which greatly
pleased him.
He was a remarkable Indian both
physically and intellectually, a veritable giant,
being over six feet in height and likewise propor-
tioned. His appearance indicated that he had the
strength of four or five ordinary men, and was very
intelligent for an Indian. He was the Tecumseh of
the coast; and had he attempted then, as he did
afterwards, to unite the Indians against the Whites,
the result would have been the massacre and depop-
ulation of the entire country.
By return messenger Captain Maxon received
instructions from the governor that he had issued a
call for four companies of troops, and that they would
be equipped and sent out with all possible haste,
and directing him to proceed with the supplies to
the main command and report to Lieutenant-Colonel
Waters, commanding, together with letters of instruc-
tions sent through him to the colonel commanding.
The Captain had everything in readiness, and, as
soon as he received the instructions, proceeded with-
out delay to Fort Waters, reaching that place in
good time, without any casualties. He reported the
death of Colonel Gilliam, which they had not heard,
and presented the lieutenant-colonel the letters of
instructions from the governor. Colonel Waters was
directed to remain at the fort until the recruits came
up, when other instructions would be given. They
were under the command of Major Lee, who had
been commissioned colonel. The old regiment, as
soon as they learned the fact, were indignant over
the appointment of Lee, and were loud in their
denunciation because of the injustice done Colonel
Waters, who was a faithful and efficient officer. Lee
had been on the ground but a few hours before
he saw that it would not do for him to assume com-
mand; and that his only way out was to throw the
blame of his appointment on the governor, and resign
his commission as colonel of the regiment, which he
did. Colonel Waters immediately called the regi-
ment together to know whom they desired should
command them, when they elected him without a
dissenting voice. Lee was elected lieutenant-colo-
nel; and preparations were immediately made for an
advance movement.
Colonel Lee was directed to take three companies
and proceed to Spaulding's mission on Clearwater,
and to ascertain if possible the location of the mur-
derers, and, if any information could be obtained by
him, to report to Waters by messenger; if not, to
cross Snake river at that point and proceed down it
to Red Wolf crossing, where the main command
would meet him. Colonel Waters proceeded directly
to the mouth of the Palouse river, and crossing Snake
river traveled up the Palouse a few miles and
camped. He remained in camp for a few days, send-
ing scouting parties in various directions; but they
returned and reported that there were no Indians in
that part of the country. He then proceeded up
Snake river to Red Wolf crossing, and remained
there awaiting the arrival of Lee. When he arrived
he reported that the murderers had all gone to the
Bitter Root country. While at this point a messen-
ger came from Walker and Eells, asking that an
escort be sent to accompany them out of the country
from Fort Colville. Major Magone was directed to
take sixty men and go to the mission known as the
Spokane House, located among the Spokane Indians,
from there send a messenger to them at Colville, and
return to the escort at that point. This he did; and
they were safely conveyed by the Major to The Dalles.
When Colonel Waters learned that the murderers of
Doctor Whitman had escaped and left the country,
he saw that his work was done, and that the only
course to pursue was to return to Fort Waters, leave
a company of soldiers there, order the remainder to
The Dalles, report to the governor and await
his action.
The governor ordered the regiment home, and
disbanded it. This ended a war fraught with diffi-
culties and dangers on every hand. The little
colony of two or three thousand souls were isolated
from the home government, with no probability of
assistance from that source before it would be too
late. Headed by Colonel Gilliam in the field, and
General Palmer at home as commissary and quar-
termaster, was fought to a successful issue the
great Indian war of this coast,- a war, in view of
all the circumstances and difficulties which attended
it, with no parallel in all the Indian wars of the
country. There are many incidents connected with
the war which are not here given; and no dates were
preserved of the events. There were none killed on
the battlefield; but some of the wounded, which
numbered thirty or forty, died of their wounds
afterwards.
After Colonel Gilliam was killed, the copies of
his reports, letters and various correspondence and
instructions from the governor and adjutant-general,
being somewhat bulky and troublesome to carry,
were carefully sealed and left with the quarter-
master at The Dalles, he promising to keep them
safely, and to deliver them to no person without an
order. When they were called for the package was
found broken open, and everything of interest taken
out by some unknown person or persons; and the


J.T. FYFER.
J.T.FYFER
DEALERIN
Dry Goods
CLOTHING HATS.
Boots AND SHOES
GROCERIES
HARDWARE
GLASS &c.
CROCKERYWARE
HAY
GRAIN FLOUR
Farming Implements
EMIGRANT SUPPLIES
1887
J.T.FYFER
0.00
PROPERTY OF J.T.FYFER, HUNTINGTON, OR.
UNI
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
343
in-
quartermaster could not or would not give any
formation on the subject. It was then as it is now.
Two parties were aspiring to the management and
control of the affairs of the colony. The party in
power were jealous and afraid of the growing popu-
larity of Colonel Gilliam, and sought if possible to
check it. The opposite party thought to get control
through the Colonel's influence; and many of the
letters to him above-mentioned referred to these
facts; and some of them were rich and racy. After
his death they determined to get possession of these
letters; and, learning by inquiry that they had been
left at The Dalles, the representatives of one of the
parties either purloined them or induced the quar-
termaster to give them up.
CAPT. JAMES M. GILMAN.-The Oregon
Steam Navigation Company, now known as the
Oregon Railway & Navigation Company, which
is the great company of river and ocean steamers,
and of the Northwestern railway system centering
at Portland, has been one of the most distinctively
Oregon organizations ever established. It has
made Portland; and through it the great fortunes
of the state have been built up. The steps in the
life of this company are full of interest; and it is
instructive to discover the qualities of its individual
members, and what led them to the enterprise.
They were worthy young men, some of them
mechanics; and their only capital was in their
active brains and ready hands.
Captain Gilman, the present large capitalist and
real-estate owner in the city of Portland, was one
of these young men. He was born in New Hamp-
shire in 1826, and, losing his mother at the age of
seven, lived until he was thirteen in the family of
an uncle. His penchant for mechanics early showed
itself; and it was the height of his boyish ambition
to be able to understand and run a steam-engine.
This early bias dominated his entire career.
ing off with his small bundle while but a mere lad,
he walked to Charlestown, and finally to Man-
chester, finding employment as apprentice in the
great shops of that place. His pay was fourteen
dollars a month and board. Towards the close of
his five years, he received twenty dollars.
Start-
After fulfilling his time at the shops, he turned
his face homeward, more anxious perhaps to see
one of his old-time schoolmates than anyone else;
but at Boston he found a company of one hundred
young men making up a fund in lots of three hun-
dred dollars each to buy a ship, and with her to
come around the Horn to California. Casting in his
lot with the daring company, young Gilman set his
face for the Pacific. The ship was the Lenora.
Provisioned for a year, the vessel sailed forth.
Embarking February 5, 1849, the young adven-
turers reached the land of gold July 4th following.
In the ship were the parts for a small steamer, the
New England, which was put together immediately
after their arrival. An offer for her of sixty thou-
sand dollars was promptly refused; and she was
run on the upper bay and the Sacramento. The
company sold out and dissolved, Gilman, like the
most of the others, going to the mines.
He was
obliged to return, however, to San Francisco on
account of sickness, taking passage thither on the
old steamer Senator on its first trip. After his
recovery, the luck of the young engineer went cross-
grained for a time. He was once at least in that
condition described in the West as dead broke."
From this slough he was kindly lifted by the loan
of fifty dollars from his old captain, Green. He
found employment (working at first without pay)
as assistant, and finally as engineer on the San
Joaquin. Upon the relegation of this craft to the
bone yard, he bought, with a company, a small
steamer for one thousand dollars, which he used
for towing barges, and afterwards put her on the
Oakland route.
About this time an Oregon man, James McCord,
of the firm of Abernethy & Clark, bought the
steamer Redding for towing vessels from Astoria to
Oregon City. He prevailed upon Gilman to bring
her up and run her that summer. He accepted the
situation, but with no intention of remaining in
Oregon. The Redding was the first steamer on the
Columbia and Willamette, although the Hudson's
Bay Company had had a steam coaster which ran
up to Vancouver. On preparing to return, Gilman
found the steamer General Warren ready to leave
Astoria, but refused to accept the captain's request
to take passage.
Indeed the General Warren had
scarcely crossed the bar before she sprang a leak,
and had to be run upon the Clatsop Spit. She went
to pieces; and the most of the passengers were lost.
To put in the time, Gilman accepted a position as
engineer on the Multnomah on the route to Oregon
City (1852). Three years later, having by this time
acquired that love for its majestic waters which the
Columbia inspires, he was employed on the Bell,
which ran to The Dalles.
A number of men now saw the immense profits of
navigation on the Upper Columbia; and Ainsworth,
Kamm and Gilman began the construction of the
Carrie Ladd. This was built in the most substan-
tial manner, indeed with the expectation that she
could run the rapids at the Cascades. This was the
beginning of the O. R. & N. (O. S. N.) Co. W. S.
Ladd, J. C. Ainsworth, R. R. Thompson and Sim-
eon G. Reed were the first directors. As the com-
pany added new steamers, and built the railroad
around the Cascades and The Dalles, the profits be-
came very great, as much as one hundred thousand
dollars per month.
Captain Gilman remained with the company for
many years, investing his profits in real estate at
Portland, and turning it over every few months to
good advantage. He built the Gilman House, an
elegant hotel of the city. Portland consisted of
Pettygrove's cabin when the Captain first came
here. After five years on the coast, he returned to
his native place on a visit, marrying an old school-
mate, Laura F. Graves, with whom he returned to
his home on the Willamette. But one of their chil-
dren survives, Ida, the wife of Albert McKinnie.
Having seen Portland grow from one house to a
thriving city of seventy thousand people, the Captain
naturally has faith that it will ultimately become a
large place. His career should be a lesson to young
There is usually a fortune for the one who
prefers to work for his board rather than be idle.
men.
344
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
PARSONS GLEASON.- Mr. Parsons Gleason
is one of the oldest and most venerable of our pio-
neers now living, having been born in Rutland
county, Vermont, in 1799. At the age of six years
he moved with his father to Western New York,
and at the age of twenty-one went out to Indiana,
and three years later had drifted as far as the Indian
Territory, and was with the missionaries for three
years among the Osage Indians. Three years later
he went on to Indiana, making his home at South
Bend. In that state he married and made his res-
idence, forming a great attachment to the old mil-
itary hero and political chieftain, W. H. Harrison,
with whom he became intimately acquainted.
In 1851 he made the great journey across the
plains to Oregon, thereby becoming one of the ear-
liest settlers in our state. He made his home at the
place first humorously called "Hard Scrabble," but
later translated as "Needy," in Clackamas county.
Here he has passed a long, active and honorable
life, and still lives at the age of ninety.
A. B. GLEASON. This gentleman is the son
of Parsons Gleason, and is now one of the active
business men of the state. He was born May 22,
1829, in Ripley county, Indiana. In 1849 he en-
tered upon life as boatman on the Ohio and Missis-
sippi rivers, and in 1851 came with his father to the
Pacific coast. The trip through Illinois and Mis-
souri he made by himself with ox-teams, while the
rest of the family performed this portion of the
journey by water. With a train of twelve wagons,
and numbering among their companions Mr. Clin-
ton and Reverend Mr. Chandler, they made the
memorable journey, having excellent fortune the
entire distance,-a splendid trip.
Arriving in our state, young Gleason made an
excursion to the Rogue river mines, and returning
toɔk, in 1853, a tour of the Puget Sound country,
finding at length employment with Governor Stevens
as superintendent of his farm. In 1855, however,
he relinquished this position to volunteer in the
service against the Indians, becoming a member of
Captain Hays' company. After a three months'
service, he returned for a short visit to his father's
home, and soon made what was then the advent-
urous trip to the Atlantic states via Nicaragua.
Visiting in Iowa he was there married to Miss
Clarissa Towne, and soon after returned via Panama
to his Oregon home. Two years he lived on his
claim, but found business more congenial, and has
up to the present time been engaged in milling,
merchandising and dealing in grain at various points
in the state.
In 1870 he became the pioneer and in a measure
the founder of the town of Hubbard, building there
the first house, and conducting the entire business.
of the railroad company at that point. He is there
at present engaged in merchandising, handling
grain, and shipping produce, having an interesting
family, and owning a handsome residence. Of his
four daughters, two are married, one being the wife
of the well-known G. W. Dimick. The others and
the son are still at home.
STEPHEN S. GLIDDEN.- Spokane Falls,
Washington, has been fortunate in possessing from
the first business men accustomed to large enter-
prises. Such a man is Mr. Glidden. He was born
in Northfield, New Hampshire, in 1829, and at the
early age of two years removed with his parents to
Scotia county, Ohio. Upon reaching a few more
years, he was taken back by his mother to his
native state to enjoy educational advantages. Return-
ing as a youth of eighteen to Ohio, he entered the
store of the iron company with which his father
and uncle were connected. Upon their purchase of
the Clinton furnace, he was made book-keeper and
cashier, and within two years became general man-
ager, employing several hundred men. Here he
received a practical education in large affairs, which
solidified his business character. Two years more
and he became partner in the firm of Glidden,
Crawford & Co.
In 1855 he found a partner for his domestic life
in Miss Sue M. Garrett, grand-daughter of John
Culbertson. They have had seven children, of
whom two are deceased. Miss Jangio became the
wife of Geo. W. James of St. Paul, Minnesota.
Miss Jessie Duncan married Mr. Frank R. Culbert-
son of the Tiger mine, Idaho. Harry M., Steven
C. and Sue Garrett are still with their parents.
Mr. Glidden's independent mining operations be-
came very extensive. With Cawbridge, Culbertson
and J. C. Garrett he bought the La Grange Iron
Works in Tennessee, which embraced eighty thou-
sand acres of mineral and timber land. Here he
built the Clark and Eclipse furnaces. As president
and manager of this company, he rebuilt the Clark
and La Grange furnaces, and operated them until
1872. In this year he transferred his interests to
Evansville, Indiana, and the next year organized
the Alabama Iron Company, of which he became
president, and built and operated the Alabama
furnace, where was made the celebrated Clifton car-
wheel iron.
Tiring somewhat of Southern life, and desiring to
begin a new business in the West, he went to St.
Paul, Minnesota, and organized the wholesale
grocery of Glidden, Briggs & Co. In the spring of
1884 he went out to Thompson Falls, Montana, to
establish a branch house for the firm. This was the
year of the Coeur d'Alene excitement; and, fore-
seeing the great future awaiting the development of
this mineral belt, Mr. Glidden at once appeared upon
the scene and purchased the Tiger mine. He re-
turned to St. Paul only to close out his interest in
the mercantile establishment, and removed with his
family to Spokane Falls, and has here been actively
engaged in developing his mine. He belongs to that
class of careful and substantial managers who are
changing the mining methods of the old haphazard,
happy-go-lucky style of days gone by so as to make
it one of the exact industries.
DR. RODNEY GLISAN. — Doctor Glisan is
one of the few men of our state who have been
original and productive in the literary field. His
main works have been of a very substantial char-
acter, and upon recondite professional subjects, and
have not, therefore, been brought to the notice of
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
345
the general reader. But to those versed in the
periodicals and literature of medicine he bears a
name and reputation second to few in our national
union. Essays, lectures and other emanations of
his pen are to be met with in the leading medical
journals. An extensive original treatise prepared
by him upon a profound and difficult subject is a
recognized manual in America, and is known even
in the medical libraries of Europe. Without the
avarice of fame possessed by many, and enjoying
the confidence and opportunities of one high in the
esteem of the members of his profession, Doctor
Glisan passes the almost ideally happy life of the
student and philanthropist, and has every honorable
incentive to conduct the investigations in which his
interest lies. His work gives permanent luster to
our state.
We now give briefly the data of his life. He was
born at Linganore, Maryland, in 1827, being the
son of Samuel and Eliza Glisan. His ancestry were
among the first English settlers of Maryland. He
graduated from the medical department of the Uni-
versity of Maryland in 1849, and after passing a
severe competitive examination before a medical
board was appointed a medical officer of the United
States army in May, 1850. Having served in this
capacity for about eleven years on the plains and in
Oregon during her Indian wars, he resigned his
commission and settled in Portland, Oregon, where
he has ever since been in the successful practice of
his profession. Although he has traveled exten-
sively in Central and British America, in the United
States and in Europe, he has seen no country that
he prefers as a home to Oregon.
In recognition of the Doctor's services during the
hostilities of the Indians from 1855 to 1860, he was
in 1886 elected surgeon of the grand encampment of
the Indian War Veterans of the North Pacific coast,
and still holds this position. Unlike a certain class
of army officers, the Doctor has never entertained
any prejudices against volunteer soldiery. He is
independent in politics, a member of the Protestant
Episcopal church, and has been a warden of Trinity
church, Portland, for over twenty years.
Owing chiefly to his temperate habits, he has
always enjoyed good health, and has not, for more
than half a century, refrained from duty, civil or
military, for a single day on account of illness,
although exposed by day and by night in all cli-
mates to the inclemency of the weather. The Doc-
tor was a professor in the first medical institution.
ever formed in Oregon,-the Oregon Medical Col-
lege, which subsequently assumed the name of the
Medical Department of the Willamette University,
in which he was for a long time a professor, and is
still an emeritus professor. While an active mem-
ber of this college, Doctor Glisan felt the need of
American text books in his department of obstetrics,
none having been written for many years, and re-
gretted the general use by American schools of the
books of Great Britain and continental Europe.
Hence his effort to supply the deficiency by publishing
in 1881, and again in 1887, his text book on midwifery.
This was well received, both in the United States
and in Great Britain. The Doctor had the pleasure
of seeing a copy of it in the library of one of the
most distinguished professors in Paris. He also saw
his book in the libraries of several German profes-
sors at Vienna.
Doctor Glisan is the author of a journal of army
life, and "Two Years in Europe." He has also
written many articles on professional subjects for the
leading medical journals of the United States.
He was president of the Medical Society of the
State of Oregon in 1875 and 1876, and has for
many years been a
many years been a member of the American
Medical Association. He took an active part in
the seventh International Medical Congress held
in London, England, in 1881, and was a member
of the council of the ninth International Medical
Congress, which convened in Washington, District of
Columbia, in 1887. His paper, read by invitation
before the latter Congress, elicited favorable com-
ments in all the principal medical journals of
America and Europe.
He has performed many important surgical oper-
ations. Among his notable cases were the first
amputations of the shoulder and thigh, and the
second operation for strangulated inguinal hernia,
ever performed on the North Pacific coast. Although
relinquishing this branch of his profession, he is
still a busy general practitioner.
He takes an active part in the advancement of
his city and state, and is at present engaged in
aiding the erection of the magnificent Portland
Hotel.
The Doctor was married December 3, 1863. His
wife, Elizabeth, is a native of Massachusetts, and
is the youngest daughter of Captain John H. Couch,
one of the founders of Portland, Oregon.
JAMES P. GOODALL.-There are some hun-
dreds of men upon our coast whose life experiences
embrace as much of romance and adventure as was
ever told in the pages of Marryat, Irving, or of
Smollett. For a full recital of this, we must refer
the inquirer to such men as the genial gentleman
whose name appears above, that he may in his own
home, in the beautiful city of Jacksonville, Oregon,
recount as to us the stories of his life upon this
coast.
He was born at Milledgeville, Georgia, in 1818,
and at that city and at Columbus in the same state,
and at Montgomery, Alabama, received his educa-
tion. In 1835-36, while but a youth of seventeen,
he began his active career by joining the column
under Scott to quiet the Creeks and the Seminole
Indians, and, after service there was ended, entered
Texas as a revolutionist under Lamar and Houston,
serving an active army life from the Sabine to the
Rio Grande, and north to the Red River, and the
northwest of Texas in the Comanche region.
In 1846 the war with Mexico took him with the
advance of Wool's column to the Mexican borders,
to Presidio, Rio Grande, to Monclova, Monterey,
and other interior towns. At the close of hostilities,
having served a whole term, and having experienced
several skirmishes and actions, he performed an
overland trip in 1849, via Durango, to the Pacific at
Mazatlan, and thence by sea to the gold fields of
California.
California. Ten years were spent in the exciting
pursuits of the miner, and in hard brushes with the
346
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Indians of Northern California and Southern Ore-
gon. In 1853, while mining at Yreka, he raised a
company of ninety men to quell the Indian dis-
turbances of that season in the Rogue river valley.
This was a notable fighting company, serving under
General Lane and losing a quarter of its number.
More than twenty years after this Mr. Goodall
passed over some of the same ground, inspecting
the lava beds of the Modoc country, where he had
acted with Ben Wright's expedition in 1852, per-
forming effective and hard service.
Temporarily quitting life on the Pacific coast, he
returned in 1859 to New York, making a trip to
Washington, District of Columbia, and throughout
the South as far as Texas. He thence arranged a
trip to Europe and the Mediterranean, leaving New
York City in the summer of 1860 on a tour extend-
ing to Cairo, Egypt, thence along the north coast of
Africa to Tunis, across the Mediterranean to Mar-
seilles, and thence overland to Bayonne, taking ship
home from that French port to New York.
Being in full sympathy with the South from 1861
to 1865, he did service in the main from Corpus
Christi to Brazos Santiago, and after the unpleasant-
ness was over made once more the journey to the
Pacific by Durango and Mazatlan to San Francisco.
The gold fields of the Upper Columbia lured him to
their mineral deposits; and he made a protracted
tour of all the leading mines in Idaho and Nevada,
-at the Comstock and elsewhere. From 1871 to
1873, he made explorations for mines in Arizona
and Southern California in the vicinity of San Diego.
In 1877 he came up again to Oregon; and at length,
as the most desirable spot for a home, he brought
to Jacksonville his lares and penates, and is now
living in serene age under his own vine and fig-tree,
and in the midst of his peach and apricot groves,-
a sunny spot to spend the sunset years of a life not
without its tempests, and a part of which had been
spent as a seeker after gold with the pick, shovel
and sluice-box.
OLIVER P. GOODALL. Mr. Goodall, one
of our best men in developing Oregon, was born in
Jefferson City, Missouri, August, 1828, and grew up
on a farm, securing a common-school education.
At the age of eighteen he left school and joined
Colonel William Bent, and spent the winter of
1846-47 at Bent's fort on the Arkansas river, in the
capacity of clerk. He there met with continuous
adventures, associating with such old mountaineers
as Kit and Bob Carson, Bridger, the Calloways, Bill
Williams, Dick Dallam, Black Dick Curtis and
others; and his recitals of their brave and daring
deeds and endurance would fill a volume.
In 1847 he went to Mexico in the quartermaster's
employ as courier, wagon-master, clerk and inter-
preter of Spanish, under Major Sprague, General
Howard and others, and remained in Mexico, New
Mexico and Texas until the fall of 1849. He met
with numerous adventures with Apaches, Mexican
guerillas and Comanches, and buried many brave
comrades, and was even obliged to leave some un-
buried. He carries scars in remembrance of Indian
arrows, and has vivid recollections of many perils,
having been by the side of Major Stein when he
was shot in the Sierra Blanco Mountains, where his
two bosom companions, Joe Allison and Jim McAl-
lister of Missouri, were left unburied. He also rec-
ollects affairs of interest in connection with the
Seminole chief, Wildcat, and his sub-chief, Gopher
John, a coal-black Negro, campaigning on the Mex-
ican border.
In October, 1849, Mr. Goodall was engaged in
prospecting for gold in Southern California. In
1850 he had reached El Paso del Norte, and entered
the quartermaster's service. In 1851 he went to
Texas with a government expedition, and thence
eastward home to Jefferson City, Missouri. In 1852,
longing once again for the unbounded West, he
crossed the plains to Oregon, locating near Oregon
City a Donation claim, which he improved and sub-
sequently sold. He mined in Southern Oregon,
and was acquainted there with many of the prom-
inent old-timers. In 1861 he came to The Dalles
and engaged in mercantile pursuits, becoming inter-
ested in real estate in that city and at Umatilla
Landing, in which he was very successful. In 1863
he was on the advance wave of mining excitement
at Boise, trading and speculating until March, 1865,
when he located at Ladd's cañon in the Grande
Ronde valley, where he owns at the present time
four hundred acres of good farming land.
Since coming to Oregon he has paid two visits to
Missouri, one to Frazer river, and one to California,
but has found no place so attractive as Grande
Ronde valley. From 1881 to 1884 he was assessor
of Union county, and in 1886 was elected county
judge; and this position he still retains, residing in
the very handsome little city of Union.
In 1853 he was married at Oregon City to Miss
Louisa Bell, a native of Illinois, by whom he has
three children. In 1864 he was married, secondly,
to Miss Grace Gray of Portland, by whom he has
nine children. He has seven grandchildren, and
in his sixty-first year is hale and hearty, and as
ready as ever to work for the development of his
adopted state.
He is thoroughly familiar with the topography
and resources of Union county, and is very earnest
in his belief that it offers inducements to bona-fide
homeseekers superior to those of any other portion
of the United States. He predicts wonderful devel-
opments of the wonderful resources of this county,
which as yet are only beginning to attract attention.
HON. MELANCTHON Z. GOODELL.— The
family of which this pioneer is a member has ever
been prominent and influential in the Pacific North-
west since its arrival hither.
Jothan W. Goodell, the father, was a pioneer of
Ohio; and it was at Vermilion that Melancthon
was born in 1837. In 1850 the family crossed the
plains, the eight children being deemed no serious
hindrance. A stop-over was made at Salt Lake one
winter; and it has been thought that they missed
but little a great calamity from Mormon treachery.
Reaching Portland in 1851, they made their first
home in Polk county, Oregon, but in 1853 removed
to Grand Mound, Washington Territory. When
the Indian war broke out, young Melancthon enlisted
in Captain Hays' Company, serving ten months.

W.J. MCCONNELL,
MOSCOW, IDAHO.
UNI
M
OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
347
At the dawn of peace following this troublesome
period, he leased a farm in Lewis county, and was
engaged in agriculture until 1860. His next home
was near Elma, where he lived on a farm more
than twenty years. In 1883 he occupied his present
residence at Montesano, Washington, engaging in
business as dealer in lumber and in real estate, being
thus employed at present.
His public services have been important and
various, - two terms as sheriff and two terms as
assessor of Chehalis county. In 1882 he held a seat
in the legislature, to which he was re-elected in
1884. He is at present mayor of Montesano.
He was married in 1858 to Miss Rebecca Byles, a
native of Kentucky, but an early resident of Thurs-
ton county. They have eight children.
GEORGE W. GOODWIN.— Mr. Goodwin en-
joys the no slight distinction of having been the
first settler of the now populous Yakima valley,
and also has the great credit of still leading in its
business and political affairs, and is one of those
who gives tone and trend to popular ideas in the
community.
He was born in Illinois in 1846, and is the second
son of Lewis H. and Priscilla Thompson Goodwin.
His early years in that state were spent in an abun-
dance of work on the farm in the summers, and in
winter by obtaining his education at the public
school. In 1865 the family crossed the plains with
ox-teams, and, having the courage belonging only
to self-made and self-directing people, located a
claim in the then virgin fields of the Upper Yakima.
This was between the sites of the two cities as they
stand to-day; and therefore every step in the growth
of these places, one of which is almost certain to
become the capital of the new state of Washington,
has been taken under Mr. Goodwin's eyes, and a
large part done under his direction or with his co-
operation. The cabin in which the family first lived.
was the first in the old town. It was not long be-
fore the shadow came to cloud the brightness of its
hearthstone. The mother, who had accompanied
the little unbroken household on the wearisome
journey of the plains, died, after a short illness, on
the 17th of December, not long after their arrival.
One dreary day, when the wind swept the damp
snow over the plains, and the fogs denied every
cheering ray of the hidden sun, a little band of ten
or twelve persons followed this pioneer mother to
her last home. They buried her on the highlands not
far from the river bank; and around that lonely
grave of the first white woman has since grown
Yakima's city of the dead.
Mr. Goodwin and his father were among the first
to keep stock; and their store was the first in that
region. In both lines of business our subject was
very successful. In 1873 he engaged extensively in
opening and operating the Beshapal mines, seventy
miles northwest of North Yakima; but, the, rock
proving of inferior grade, the enterprise failed.
Leaving capital and partners in the mines on the
Swauk river, from which he has received a good re-
turn and in which he has unbounded confidence, he
returned to the valley and engaged in real estate en-
terprises, and has been active in promoting business
operations of various sorts. His own property in-
terests in the two cities of Yakima and in Prosser
have become very extensive. If disposed to fall
back upon his means already acquired, without fur-
ther effort or anxiety, he is abundantly able.
this easy course of life is forbidden by his active dis-
position, and his desire to promote the business and
moral prosperity of the place.
But
Being a man of very strong temperance views, he
accepted a nomination as member of the lower
house of the legislature of the territory in 1886 upon.
this issue; and, notwithstanding the combined
opposition of the railroad and the liquor interests,
which stuffed the ballot boxes with as many as six
hundred illegal votes, he was defeated by but thir-
teen majority. Of such a defeat, Mr. Goodwin
feels proud. He consented, also, to head the ticket
on the same issue in the city election, with a similar
result. He has a force of character and a standing
in the community which will not suffer by defeat
in a good cause.
In many ways he has contributed to the growth
of the city; and his elegant and commodious offices
in the bank building impress the stranger favorably
with the business of the place. His magnificent
stone residence is a great ornament to the city.
Mr. Goodwin was married in Michigan April 16,
1889, to Mrs. A. V. Bailey, a resident of New
Jersey.
CAPT. WARREN GOVE.- The gentleman
whose name heads this brief biography has been a
resident of the Pacific Northwest for over thirty-
five years, having settled on Puget Sound in 1853,
during which time he has been closely connected
with all enterprises that would lend stability and
success to its growth and welfare. He was born in
Edgecomb, Massachusetts, July 27, 1816. The
early years of his life were passed with his parents
on a farm. In 1839, while yet a youth of thirteen
years, he went to sea. His close application to
duty, and his gentlemanly bearing, attracted the
attention of his employers, who, recognizing true
merit, advanced him step by step until he was
placed in command of a vessel. This life he fol-
lowed until he was shipwrecked in 1844, when he
abandoned it.
The Captain was united in marriage to Miss
Hespsibah Crooker in 1842. There were born of
this union five children, three of whom now sur-
vive. He came to the Pacific coast in 1851,
arriving in San Francisco in September of that
year. After a residence in that city of two years,
he sailed for Puget Sound and settled at Steila-
coom, Washington Territory. Soon after his
arrival he took up a Donation claim on one of the
beautiful islands near that city, to which he re-
moved and established himself and family in com-
fort. On May 20, 1888, the affectionate wife and
mother, who had been so long the sunshine of
his hearthstone, was claimed by death.
In the affairs of the body politic, it is seldom that
the office seeks the man; but, in the case of Captain
Gove, there is an exception to this rule, he having
been called upon from year to year to represent the
county in which he lived in the more important
348
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
offices within its gift. By reference to the portrait
of the Captain found within these pages, the reader
will see that his face is fairly beaming with kindness
and good nature. None know him but to respect
him; and, having once made a man his friend, he
has no difficulty in retaining his friendship.
To the sterling integrity and substantial progress-
iveness of such men as Captain Gove, the Pacific
Northwest owes much; and the daring spirit and
pluck of its founders is beyond the power of pen
to justly describe.
BENJAMIN W. GRANDY.-Mr. Grandy has
had the satisfaction of seeing the place which he
homesteaded twenty years ago become a part of the
city of La Grande, Oregon. This illustrates the
rapid growth of the country. He has great faith
in the future of this town, basing it upon the mar-
velously productive valley eighteen by thirty miles
surrounding and upon the milling and mining inter-
ests and the large water-power.
He is a native of New York, was born in 1837,
but as a child removed with his parents to Ohio,
and before he was twenty had penetrated as far
west as Iowa. In 1859 he set off for Pike's Peak,
but was borne on by the rush of Western life to
California. In Siskiyou county he dug gold with
varying success until 1862, when he with others
formed a company of fifty-two and left Yreka for
the.Salmon river mines. Leaving trails and roads,
they struck straight across the country for Walla
Walla. On Granite creek the party found paying
placer mines; and Mr. Grandy remained until 1863,
when he visited his old home in Ohio.
The month of March, 1864, found him on the
Missouri river with mule-teams headed once more
for Oregon. Arriving in the Grande Ronde valley
on the Fourth of July, he visited his mines and
worked them until fall, when he sold out and
returned to the Grande Ronde valley. He here
occupied a claim at Oro Dell, a mile west of La
Grande, and in the intervals of his homesteading
mined to good advantage on the John Day river,
and engaged in freighting and teaming across the
Blue Mountains from Umatilla to Idaho and all the
north country. Later he took a claim three-quarters
of a mile north of Old La Grande, upon which the
new town stands. This was incorporated in 1884,
embracing also the old place; and the two together
have now some sixteen hundred people. Of this
city Mr. Grandy was mayor without opposition in
1886, and again in 1888. He is one of the wealthy
men of the place. His first home occupation was
keeping a dairy; and this he has continued to the
present time. He was married in 1865 to Miss Lydia
Palmer, daughter of Robert H. Palmer, a pioneer of
1864. They have eight children,-William D., Katie,
Mabel, Josie, Benjamin, Robert, Nellie and Charles.
In one respect Mr. Grandy's career has been
remarkable, and, as all will regard it, highly com-
mendable. In all his teaming to Idaho, and in tra-
versing the Northwest, he had no difficulty whatever
with Indians.
GEORGE C. GRAY.-Mr. Gray was born in
East Tennessee in 1840. His father was a farmer,
and also an active worker as preacher in the Bap-
tist church, and upon arriving in Oregon in 1853
laid a Donation claim near Corvallis, conducting his
farm six days in the week and carrying on religious
work on Sundays.
It was in these surroundings that young George
grew to man's estate; and his first independent exer-
tions were as a laborer in Corvallis from 1854 to
1860. In 1861 he went to the Oro Fino mines, and
in 1862 brought cattle to Walla Walla, selling the
beef at the butcher's block until 1863. Early in the
spring of that year he went to the Granite creek
mines on the John Day river, shoveling his way
through snow across the mountains. Purchasing a
pony train he was enabled to do a large business in
packing, but sold out some time after to Ish &
Hailey. For a number of years he was engaged in
mining speculations, and enlarged his operations as
packer by extending his range to Idaho, Montana
and British Columbia, meeting by the way advent-
ures, the recital of which would fill a volume. In
1868 he engaged in mammoth operations in cattle,
supplying as many as fifty to eighty beeves per week
to the markets in the mines. In all these extensive
operations, as was usually the case, the losses and
hazards of the business left but little profit.
In 1872 he began real life by locating a beautiful,
level and fertile tract of land on the Lower Cove,
and making a permanent home. Here he has eight
hundred acres of improved land, a hundred cattle
married in 1864 to Miss Levina, a daughter of Mer-
and horses, and pleasant surroundings. He was
rill Jasper, of Benton county. Their home has been
blessed with five children.
WILLIAM H. GRAY.-This pioneer of pio-
neers, and historian of events in which he took so
conspicuous a part, was born in 1810 at Fairfield,
While but a lad or
New York, of Scotch descent.
fourteen, he lost his father and was apprenticed to
learn the cabinetmaker's trade, and even before
finishing his time became foreman of the shop.
Upon attaining his majority he studied medicine,
and being a member of the Presbyterian church, and
known as a promising young man, he was sought
and intrusted by the American board with the work
of going as missionary in company with Whitman
and Spaulding to the Columbia river.
His life on the Pacific coast is so intimately con-
nected with the early history of our state that it is
unnecessary to give the details here, as they will be
found in the first volume of this work. We will
mention, however, the circumstances of the three
climacteric events of his life, the first trip back
East, his services in establishing the Provisional
government, and his trip back East once more for
sheep in 1852.
Having come with Whitman in 1836 across the
plains in company with Sublette to the Green river;
having assisted the other missionaries in the jour-
ney to Vancouver, and in establishing themselves at
Waiilatpu; and having himself gone to Alpona
among the Flatheads,-he determined to return the
next year for reinforcements. To defray the ex-
penses of his journey, he drove a band of twenty
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
349
horses, and also had as companions in his company
three young Flathead Indians, one of whom was
the son of a chief. All went well with the party
until Ash Hollow on the Nebraska was reached.
There they were attacked by a war party of three
hundred Sioux. The Flatheads being desperate
fighters, although vastly outnumbered, kept the
enemy at bay for three hours, laying fifteen of
them dead on the sand. Gray himself took a hand
in the fight, having two horses shot under him, and
receiving two bullets through his hat. The Sioux
having lost a war chief among the slain, and seeing
no likelihood of overcoming the doughty little band,
proposed a truce.
But, while the chiefs were parleying with Gray,
others of the Sioux treacherously attacked his young
men, shooting down one Iroquois, one Snake and
three Flatheads, one of whom was the chief's son.
The French interpreter then declared that the others
were prisoners and must give up their guns. This
Gray refused to do, and told the rest of his squad to
sell their lives as dearly as possible. At this show
of determination the Sioux gave back again and
proposed a talk, and over the slain of both sides
smoked the pipe of peace. It has been said vari-
ously that the death of this young chief alienated
the Flatheads from Gray, and that it was one of the
causes of the Whitman massacre. Neither of these
statements is correct nor even reasonable. After his
return to his mission, the Flatheads allowed Gray
to live and teach among them until 1842; and his
final withdrawal seems to have been due not to the
disaffection of the Indians but to lack of agreement
with his missionary companions. To suppose that
the death of a Flathead in company with Gray in
1837 would cause another tribe, the Cayuses, two
hundred miles off, to kill Whitman in 1847, is very
peculiar.
Gray's services in establishing the Provisional
government were as that of originator of the
scheme. His Americanism found no vent nor scope
in the Oregon of the old Hudson's Bay rule; and,
shut off from the national life which had been a part
of his own, and learning to hate the plans and
expectations of the British, he was no sooner in the
Willamette valley than he conceived the idea of the
American settlers establishing a government of their
Own1.
He took the responsibility of agitating the
matter; of interesting Le Breton and Matthieu and
others; of getting up the Wolf meetings, and of
pushing the scheme which seemed constantly on so
slender a basis as to be ready to fall to the ground
either on this side or that. With admirable tact,
address, shrewdness and force, Gray led the column,
and carried the matter through to a most pronounced
victory. The cunning of Le Breton would have.
had no effect without the moral earnestness and
direct force of Gray, who did the talking, made the
appeals, wrote the resolutions and closed the debates.
This detracts nothing from the merits of Griffin,
Meek, Smith and others, who were not simply fol-
lowers, but co-laborers. It is to be regretted that no
record remains of the secret sessions of these Ameri-
can agitators. But the reason is obvious: The
settlers were performing a part for the inmediate
time, not for future publication; they were more-
over too discreet to have their plans in such form as
to be easily discovered by the opposite party.
After the full establishment of the Provisional
government, Gray went to Clatsop Plains, and in
1852 went East once more for the purpose of get-
ting sheep for the young settlement. The scheme
had been original with him for some time; and it
even was a favorite theory with Whitman and
himself that sheep were of more value than
soldiers to the early settlers and also to the
Indians. Colonel James Taylor was interested in
the same line, and formed a partnership with Gray
for the purpose. Gray made the arduous journey
in safety, bringing his flock by boat down the
Columbia; but at Tanzy Point a heavy south wind
coming down Young's Bay prevented a landing.
The scow was caught in a storm and blown out
upon the sands, and was wrecked on Chinook Spit;
and the whole almost invaluable flock was drowned.
He assumed the entire responsibility of the loss,
and gave up his farm and home to meet the obliga-
tion, yet was not disheartened by this reverse.
He was early engaged in many business opera-
tions, being in California in 1849 to dig gold. We find
him also in the Frazer river mines at Fort Hope and
Okanagan in the sixties. In the winter of 1860–61
he built a boat at Assooya's Lake on the British
border. This was a craft ninety-one feet keel and
twelve feet beam. It was constructed with no tools
but a saw, hatchet and chisel, and was caulked with
wild flax mingled with pitch gathered from the pine
trees. She was brought down the Okanagan and
Columbia rivers to Celilo. Mr. Gray was also one
of the earliest navigators of the violent Snake river.
For many years he lived at Astoria, and during
part of that time was government inspector of the
port. He has also greatly enjoyed life in his later
years on the farm of his son-in-law, Jacob Kamm,
on the Klaskanine.
It is a matter of justice, which he has never been
forward to claim for himself, to say here that his
reason for not going to the Cayuse war was on
account of the prevalence of a dangerous epidemic,
the measles, then prevalent on Clatsop Plains, to
prevent the ravages of which he was particularly
desired to remain by those who were going to the
scenes of war, and who wanted someone upon whom
they could rely to care for their families in this sick-
ness. He was the only physician in that region.
For a number of years he was thus practicing
medicine on the plains, and was ever successful.
He has ever been a friend of churches and schools;
ever has borne his hand in politics and public affairs;
has been representative and county judge and jus-
tice; and has found his chief interest in public
improvements. He has been exceedingly active in
the promotion of temperance, and holds the most
advanced views upon this subject. He has reared
a large family; and his sons are known up and
down the Columbia. Captain J. H. D. Gray is one
of the most progressive business men at Astoria,
and has been an active legislator at Salem. Cap-
tain William P. Gray, long one of the boldest
pilots and captains of the Upper Columbia, is at
present interested in the advancement of the city of
Pasco, having large proprietary interests at this
350
HISTORY OF PACIFIC, NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
place. The daughters, Mrs. Kamm, Mrs. Aber-
nethy and Mrs. Tarbell have long been known in
the social circles of our state.
Mary Augusta Dix, who became his wife, was one
of the most intelligent, amiable and devoted chris-
tian women who ever lived in Oregon. She was a
lady of culture, and was abundantly able to make
her own way in the world as teacher of schools, but,
being deeply imbued with the missionary spirit,
was attracted to Mr. Gray no less on account of his
work than of his personal character, and cheerfully
assumed all the hardships and humble labors that
went with life in Oregon fifty years ago. She
became her husband's mentor, improving his defec-
tive early education, and was his inspirer and guide
in the production of his history, always sustaining
his interest in and revising his work. Her death
occurred in 1887 at the Klaskanine farm. On her
monument are the simple words, "We loved her;"
and these express not only the feelings of her own
family but of all her friends, and even of the now
old Indians whom she once taught under the pine
trees of the Nez Perce country.
Mr. Gray's history of Oregon is so well known
and so important in its sphere that it is fitting to
devote some space here to its special consideration.
This history was published in 1868. Though more
or less obnoxious to superfine criticism, it yet exhib-
its flashes of dramatic power throughout. Although
not easy to read, and not strictly a popular work,
many of its pages remind one of the common-sense,
honest and withal intensely interesting descriptions
of Livingstone, the African missionary and traveler.
It is a work written in the vein of a polemic, an
exoneration of the party to which he belonged, and
"a great part of which he was," and as a burning
attack upon the opposite party. To those who have
no interest in the contests of old times, and to whom
it is somewhat offensive to read of plots, charges
and counter charges, the book ceases to please.
There is indeed no doubt but that the intensity of
Gray's opposition, and the severity of his criticism,
sometimes even awaken sympathy for the British;
and his invariable practice to refer all the evils of
early times to the English monopoly, and the inclu-
sion in his charges of nearly all Americans as at one
time or another the tools or dupes of their rivals,
suggests that the author does not always preserve
discrimination.
But while these elements awaken the opposition
of the reader, and prevent the circulation of the vol-
ume, they give to the history its lasting worth. To
the scientific or philosophical inquirer into the early
conditions of our state, it is invaluable as presenting
the feelings of all parties,—not only of Gray himself,
but of the Presbyterians, Methodists, the non-mission
people, and even of the English. This makes Gray's
history the most useful work that has yet appeared
upon this subject, and far in advance of the hazy and
bombastic pages of Bancroft. Gray discards noth-
ing as unimportant, and makes little use of the cloak
of charity, but tells everything with reckless truth-
fulness. He caters to no one, writes nothing for the
sake of popularity, and never changes a word for
the sake of rhetoric. While some of his statements
have been called in question, and the book is not
without more or less error of fact, it is on the whole
the most exact of any complete work of the kind
hitherto published.
In his political career, as well as in all his enter-
prises, W. H. Gray has ever been inflexible, blunt
and direct, hard to manage, a good hater, but keen
and faithful to his cause. When he had some great
object to accomplish, he showed address and appre-
ciation of the circumstances, and in the early days
was without doubt the Achilles of the American
party. He was an honest friend, moreover; and his
personal relations with Doctor McLoughlin were
most kindly, although for many years they were
firm political opponents. Taken all in all, W. H.
Gray is one of the most remarkable characters of
North Pacific history.
* * * Just as these volumes are being put on
the press, word comes that Mr. Gray died on the
14th of November, 1889, at the residence of his
daughter, Mrs. Kamm, who resides in Portland.
His remains were taken to Astoria, and were laid to
rest beside those of his loved wife.
BURRELL W. GRIFFIN. Mr. Griffin, who
has been long and favorably known throughout the
Inland Empire, was born in Missouri in 1840, and
since his arrival in Oregon in 1848 has seen as much
of our Northwestern life in Indian wars, in the
mines, and in our distincitive old-time traveling sys-
tem by stage, as any one of us. His first residence
was in the "Forks" of the Santiam with his father,
B. B. Griffin, who moved to the Rogue river valley
in 1852, and was a farmer and fancier of horses; who
in 1852 was with Captain John F. Miller in the diffi-
culty with Chief Sam, in Southern Oregon; who
again in 1853 was one of the most active in sup-
pressing the disorders of Old John, being one of the
scouting party which inadvertently ran upon the
Indian band on Williams creek, and who in the
sharp skirmish received a severe wound; who still
again in the larger and more bloody wars of 1855-
56 took a large share in the comic, often tragic, and
inevitably fatiguing campaigns on the Rogue river.
At
Young Burrell W. was in the meantime growing
into a stout lad, and was receiving his education
under the tuition of Honorable Orange Jacobs.
the age of twenty-two he was ready to pack his
blankets and seek his fortune. He went to the mines
of Eastern Oregon, and was one of the party which
discovered the Granite creek mines on the John
Day river. After two summers he arrived at Silver
City, Idaho Territory, and was initiated in stage-
driving on the Umatilla and Placerville route for
Ish & Hailey. For the greater part of the time un-
til 1870, he satisfactorily occupied the position of
division agent for this company.
Having been married in 1869 to Miss Abbie Parish
of Port Townsend, the year following he engaged
in farming and stock-raising on a large scale. His
election as sheriff of Walla Walla county two years
later forced him to quit this occupation. Upon the
expiration of his term, he engaged unsuccessfully
for three years in mining on Gallice creek, Josephine
county, Oregon.
county, Oregon. Returning to his old business of
staging, he took charge of the Mammoth line from
Boise to Winnemucca, and a year later was agent

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
351
for the Utah, Idaho & Oregon Stage Company
throughout the Inland Empire.
Securing a section and a half of land near Blalock,
he erected a hotel and conducted it in connection
with the business of office agent for the stage com-
pany, and for Wells, Fargo & Co. Several years
there, however, prepared him for a removal to
Wallowa Bridge, Oregon, where he is at present re-
siding, and is owner and manager of the La Grande
and Wallowa stage line.
Mr. Griffin lost by death his first wife in 1875.
Some years later he married Miss Margaret Court-
nay, of Umatilla county. They have five chil-
dren.
HON. L. F. GROVER.—Governor La Fayette
Grover was born in Bethel, Maine, November 29,
1823, of ancestry on both sides distinguished in the
early and late history of Massachusetts. He is a
brother of Major Abernethy Grover, a man of dis-
tinction in the politics of Maine and in the war of
the Rebellion; of Professor Talleyrand Grover, an
eminent classist; and of General Cuvier Grover, a
skillful commander in the war of the Rebellion.
He was educated at the Classical Academy of
Bethel, and at Bowdoin College, Maine. He stud-
ied law in Philadelphia under the instruction of the
late Asa I. Fish, and was admitted to the bar there
in March, 1850. Late in the autumn of that year,
he took passage on a merchant vessel bound round
Cape Horn to San Francisco, where he arrived in
July, 1851, and in the next month reached Portland
by the old steamer Columbia. He at once proceeded
to Salem, where he established himself as a lawyer.
The first regular term of the United States district
court was held at Salem in the following month;
and on the invitation of Chief Justice Nelson, who
presided over the court, Mr. Grover became the
clerk, stipulating that he would accept the position
temporarily, and until a suitable successor could be
appointed. He held the office six months, obtain-
ing an excellent acquaintance with local court pro-
cedure, and with jurors, witnesses and litigants.
The following spring, resigning the clerkship, he
formed a law partnership with Benjamin F. Hard-
ing, afterwards United States district attorney, sec-
retary of the territory of Oregon, and United
States senator. With him Mr. Grover at once en-
tered upon a general and lucrative practice, which
lasted for several years.
In 1852 he was elected by the legislature prose-
cuting attorney of the second judicial district, which
then extended from Oregon City to the California
line. In 1853 he was elected and served as a mem-
ber of the territorial legislature.
In 1853, by appointment of Governor Curry for
the service, he raised a company to quell Indian
disturbances on the Rogue river, and, being elected
lieutenant of the company, served through the cam-
paign. At the close of hostilities in September, Mr.
Grover appeared as deputy United States district at-
torney in the district courts in the southern counties,
then being held for the first time by Judge Matthew
P. Deady. Congress having assumed the compen-
sation of settlers whose property had been destroyed
by hostile Indians during the Rogue river Indian
war of 1853, Mr. Grover was appointed one of the
commissioners to assess the spoliations, and served
as president of the board in 1854. He was again
returned as a member of the legislature from Marion
county in 1855, and served as speaker of the house
during the session of 1855-56.
In the war of 1855-56 he aided in raising troops,
and served in the field throughout the Yakima cam-
paign on the staff of Colonel J. W. Nesmith. He
served the following year as a member of the mil-
itary commission, appointed by the Secretary of
War under authority of an act of Congress, in au-
diting and reporting to the War Department the
expenses of Oregon and Washington incurred in
suppressing Indian hostilities of 1855-56. On this
commission his co-laborers were Captain A. J.
Smith and Rufus Ingalls. The former subsequently
served as major-general in the Civil war. The lat-
ter, in the Civil war, acted as chief quartermaster of
the Army of the Potomac, and became quartermas-
ter-general of the armies of the United States.
In 1857 Mr. Grover was chosen a member of the
state constitutional convention. He served as chair-
man of the committee on the Bill of Rights, and as
a member of several other important committees,
and took an active and prominent part in giving
directions to the work of that body. He was re-
turned as the first representative in Congress from
Oregon.
Retiring from the Thirty-fifth Congress, he de-
voted himself almost exclusively for ten years to
professional and business pursuits. He formed at
Salem, with the late Honorable Joseph S. Smith, a
law partnership, which was afterwards extended to
Portland, including Judge W. W. Page.
From
He took part in the organization of the Willa-
mette Woolen Manufacturing Company, at Salem,
in 1856. This corporation had in view the intro-
duction to the state Capital, by canal and natural
channels, the waters of the Santiam river as power
for general manufactures. He became one of the
directors of the company, and remained in this
connection for fifteen years, during which time
the first broad enterprise for manufactures in Ore-
gon attained large proportions and great success.
In 1860 Mr. Grover became owner of one-third
of all the mills and water-power of Salem.
1867 to 1871 he was manager of the company.
Under his direction the Salem Flouring Mills, which
had been begun, were completed, including the
putting in of all the machinery and works, and the
construction of a steamboat canal from the river to
the mills. These flouring mills were a marked suc-
cess from the start, and were the first direct shippers
of Oregon flour, by the cargo, to foreign countries.
He also greatly enlarged and improved the woolen
mills. The operations of this company were great
stimulants to the growth of wheat and wool in early
Oregon, and facilitated many other business enter-
prises in all directions. The unfortunate destruction
of the Salem Woolen Mills by fire occurred subse-
quently to Mr. Grover's retirement from the com-
pany.
In 1866 he presided over the Democratic state
convention of that year, and by the convention was
elected chairman of the Democratic state central
24
352
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
committee, which position he held for four years.
During this period the Democratic party attained
the ascendancy in the politics of the state, which
it had not had since 1860.
In
In 1870 Mr. Grover was elected by the Democratic
party as governor of the state for four years.
1874 he was re-elected to the same position, which
he held till 1877, when he entered the Senate of the
United States, having been elected to that position
by the Legislative Assembly at its September session
of the previous year. In his canvass for the
governorship, he based the chief issue on the abro-
gation of the Burlingame Treaty with China, though
the subject was not mentioned in the platform of
either political party.
•
During his term as chief executive, many changes
took place; and unusual progress was made in
business enterprises, and in the general condition
of Oregon. His first step as executive was to put
in force a law which had been enacted two years
previously, but not executed, providing for tug
boats at the mouth of the Columbia river, and a
subsidy for their support. This movement gave the
first reliable basis for a coastwise and foreign com-
merce from Oregon's great river, which took root
vigorously, and has increased ever since to its now
strong proportions. He favored the construction
of the locks at the Willamette Falls by a private
company, assisted by aid from the state. The pro-
ject was successful, and opened the Willamette
river to competition with the railroads, and reduced
freights throughout the Willamette valley to such
an extent as to stimulate greatly farm production
and general commerce.
Another attainment of his administration was the
securing to the state the segregation and patenting
of all public lands to which Oregon was entitled
under various grants by Congress, and a recognition
of her rights to the tide lands which she held by
reason of her sovereignty as a state. He also
favored the erection of permanent public buildings
for the state; and, during his term of office, peni-
tentiary buildings and the state house were erected
of permanent and enduring structure, an example
of economy and honesty in public work.
feature may be noted in these buildings. They
were erected at an expense inside of the estimates
of the architects, quite unusual in such cases.
While the state house was not at first carried to
full completion, its mason work was all done, the
entire roof put on, and so much of the interior
finished as to render it suitable for the convenience
of the state offices, the legislature and the supreme
court.
One
The grants by Congress for the establishment and
support of a State University and for an Agricul-
tural College in Oregon having been secured and
utilized, Governor Grover interested himself in pro-
moting the organization of these institutions, which
was also accomplished during his term of office.
There was also, during the same period, founded at
Salem, the institution for deaf mutes, and the school
for the blind. Having labored to secure to the state
the indemnity common-school lands, held in lieu of
those occupied by settlers before the public surveys,
and the proceeds of their sales having been invested
for common-school revenues, the period had arrived
for a more complete organization of the public school
system of the state, and for its support out of the
public funds thus utilized. This important founda-
tion work was also accomplished; and the first dis-
tribution of public funds by the state in support of
common schools in Oregon was made during the
term of Governor Grover as chief executive.
on
In his inaugural address to the Legislative Assem-
bly in 1870, he presented the subject of Chinese
exclusion, and favored the abrogation of the Bur-
lingame Treaty. The legislature of that session,
his recommendation, memorialized Congress to that
effect; and from that time forward until, from his
seat in the Senate of the United States, he voted for
a bill excluding the Chinese, and for a modified
treaty with China, both of which prevailed, he
never abated his zeal in promoting this movement.
An effort was made in the legislature of Oregon,
in 1870, to initiate a system of subsidizing railroad
corporations by bonding cities and counties in their
favor, as inducements to the construction of their
roads. A bill was passed by both houses, by more
than two-thirds majorities, authorizing the city of
Portland to issue its bonds in the sum of three
hundred thousand dollars, in favor of Ben Holladay,
to induce him to build the railroad up the west side
of the Willamette valley, making its principal
terminus at Portland. This bill was considered by
the governor as against public policy, and as against
distinct provisions of the state constitution. The
bill was vetoed in a message which settled the
policy of the state on the subject of public grants
of money to railway corporations, as long as the
present constitution of the state exists. This veto,
having been filed subsequently to the adjournment
of the assembly, went over as an issue in the elec-
tions which returned the following legislature; and
the veto was almost unanimously sustained by the
Senate, where the bill originated, only one vote
being given against it. So that Oregon has been
and now is entirely free from public debt, both
general and local, growing out of the construction
of railways, which has been the source of much
embarrassment to the new Western states.
The memorable contest for the presidency of the
United States in 1876, between Hayes and Tilden,
raised an electoral question in Oregon. In this case
Governor Grover held, on issuing certificates of
election, that, under the injunction of the constitu-
tion forbidding a federal officer to be appointed a
presidential elector, the votes cast for him were void,
and as if never cast; and he gave the certificate to the
candidate having the next highest vote. This de-
cision was far-reaching, as the contested vote in
Oregon held the balance of power in the electoral
college, if all other contested votes in Louisiana and
Florida should be counted for Hayes. And it called
for the organization of the "Electoral Commis-
sion," which overruled the governor's decision.
But he desires it understood that on re-examination
he adheres to his original view.
Having been elected senator from Oregon, he
took his seat in the Senate of the United States
in March, 1877. In that body he served as mem-
ber of the committees on military affairs, public
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
353
lands, railroads, territories, manufactures and pri-
vate land claims. His chief efforts during his term
as senator were to procure a settlement of the
Indian war claims of Oregon; to promote the com-
pletion of the Northern Pacific Railroad; to obtain
liberal appropriations for the surveys and improve-
ment of the rivers and harbors of Oregon, and the
Pacific Northwest coast; and the extension of the
government surveys of the public lands west of the
Rocky Mountains. He also labored constantly for
the modification of our treaties with China, and for
the enactment of laws excluding the Chinese from
emigrating to this country. He made speeches on
the extension of time to the Northern Pacific Rail-
road Company for the completion of this road, on
the several Chinese exclusion bills, and in secret ses-
sion on the ratification of the treaty with China
modifying the Burlingame Treaty of 1868, and on
other subjects.
His health being impaired, Mr. Grover deter-
mined, on his retirement from the Senate in 1883,
to withdraw from public life, and in future to devote
himself exclusively to his personal and private
business affairs, which had long suffered neglect.
Not proposing to return to the practice of his pro-
fession, he entered vigorously upon the improve-
ment and disposal of tracts of real estate immedi-
ately adjacent to the city of Portland, owned in part
by himself and in part by his wife.
Having purchased a quarter interest in lands now
known as Carter's Addition to Portland, several
years prior, he joined with the other owners in lay-
ing out and establishing that extension of the city.
In 1884 Mr. and Mrs. Grover laid out and dedicated
a tract of high land belonging to her, the gift of her
parents, in the northwest elevation of the city, as
"Grover's Addition to Portland," naming it "Port-
land Heights;" which name became so contagious,
that all the high grounds now forming the southwest
part of the city bear that name. As a business move-
ment, these enterprises have proved a great success;
and these broken hills, once so forbidding, are now
occupied with fine residences, and form a most
beautiful and attractive part of Portland.
Mr. Grover has made other real-estate investments
to the west of the city, in the path of its future ex-
tension. He became one of the original incorpor-
ators and stockholders of the Ainsworth National
Bank of Portland in 1885, and later of the Portland
Trust Company of Oregon. He is also interested in
the Portland Building & Loan Association, and in
the Portland Cable Railway Company. He has also
invested in coal lands. He is an honorary member
of the Portland Board of Trade, and takes a lively
interest in the rapidly increasing commerce of Ore-
gon.
Mr. Grover was married in 1865 to Miss Elizabeth
Carter, youngest daughter of the late Thomas.
Carter, Esq., an early resident of Portland, who was
one of the most successful merchants and real-estate
owners of that city, and one of the proprietors of
the town. It is almost unnecessary to say that Mrs.
Grover is one of the well-known women of the state,
a lady of high accomplishments and culture, and of
artistic tastes, possessed also of beauty and a grace-
ful and distinguished manner. Throughout all the
varying fortunes and misfortunes of her husband,-
for he has at times met with adverse currents,-she
has been his steady companion and support. They
are communicants of the Episcopal church.
Their son, John Cuvier Grover, a youth of twenty-
three summers, so named after his grandfather and
uncle, the sole offspring of this union, was educated
at the Peekskill Military Academy, New York, and
is now completing his studies in Europe.
Thus we have traced the leading incidents of the
career of La Fayette Grover,-scholar, soldier, law-
yer, lawgiver, and man of business. In appearance
he is a man of imposing presence, six feet in height,
and with a slender but vigorous and well-propor-
tioned frame. His strongly marked but regular and
expressive features bear the stamp of intelligence.
and power; while in his steel-blue, deep-set, pene-
trating eyes may be read the determination and
force of will, characteristic of one who has raised
himself to a foremost rank among the statesmen of
Oregon, and to a national reputation.
THOMAS GUINEAN.- The proprietor of the
Esmond Hotel, in Portland, Oregon, and one of the
most popular men in his line upon the Pacific slope,
was born in the city of Quebec, Canada, in 1838.
In the year 1849 he was left an orphan and thrown
upon his own responsibilities, and went down to
Boston, but within a year left the old Puritan city'
and journeyed on to New York, where he took pas-
sage in the steamer California to San Francisco,
arriving at the Golden Gate in the early part of
1852. He remained in San Francisco nearly one
year, and from that point engaged in business at
Sacramento. In 1855 he sought a new location at
Coloma in El Dorado county, and leased the American
Hotel at that place, which he ran until 1858. In
the same year he returned to Sacramento and opened
the Bank Exchange Oyster Saloon and Chop House
and the Crescent City Hotel, which he sold out in
1859 and bought property on Second street one hun-
dred to one hundred and sixty feet, and opened the
Arcade Hotel, which he ran until 1865, when he
tore down the original frame building and erected
the present Arcade Hotel, a place which was cele-
brated in the history of California for nearly nine-
teen years as the headquarters of the supreme court
and bar, and of the leading statesmen of Cali-
fornia.
In the year 1881 he arrived in Portland, Oregon,
and bought the St. Charles Hotel, which he con-
ducted for two years and a half, when he leased the
Esmond Hotel, then newly rebuilt; and under his
popular management this has become the only first-
class hotel in Portland.
Mr. Guinean is a gentleman of striking appear-
ance, of easy and affable manners, and is known in
the business and financial circles as a man of sa-
gacity and very considerable wealth. He is one of
the popular figures in the metropolis, and by his com-
fortable entertainment of travelers and strangers
commends his city to the favorable notice of all.
SAMUEL HADLOCK.— The people of the Pa-
cific coast at present belong to that time in the his-
tory of their states and society when they do the
·
354
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
things that the after-time loves to look back upon
and scrutinize. They are full of restless energy,
and experience all that falls to the lot of man. The
old free days, when the country was new and towns
were built, will ever be regarded by the populous and
crowded future as the golden days of our history,-
mixed with severe toil and deprivation alternating
with abundance.
Samuel Hadlock, who founded Port Hadlock,
Washington, of which we give a partial view, is one
of the men who belong to and have made this age.
He was born in Hudson, New Hampshire, in 1829.
Both his parents were New Englanders of old fam-
ily; and life on the farm developed in our subject
the nervous, muscular and mental force which were
his by inheritance.
In 1850, the year of his majority, he went out to
St. Louis, and in 1852 was on the plains for Oregon
with Captain Morgan's train. He reached The
Dalles in September, and leaving behind him the
fields and valleys of the Columbia went gold hunt-
ing to Southern Oregon. He was as far south as
Yreka before the new year, and endured great hard-
ships in the way of sickness and well-nigh starva-
tion. Flour was a dollar a pound. Making his
escape the next spring with his pair of blankets on
his shoulder, he went afoot to the vicinity of Port-
land, finding employment with a farmer. In 1854
he found more congenial work in the building of a
sawmill on Shoalwater Bay, and in the autumn
passed by Astoria to the Southern beach, mining
the seashore sand at Port Orford, and soon was at
San Francisco dealing in mining stocks, milling and
selling lumber, doing a driving business until 1868.
Thereupon Mr. Hadlock, on the part of five asso-
ciates, came to the Sound, looking for a sawmill site.
The spot now occupied by the Port Blakeley Mill
Company was chosen; and, upon Mr. Hadlock's
return to San Francisco, the firm of Hanson, Ack-
erson & Co. was formed, embracing our subject as
an active partner. Upon his arrival again with plans
and machinery for a mill, the title to the site was
found to be imperfect. The company therefore
selected the site of the Tacoma Mill, and in Septem-
ber of 1868 began the erection of that large struc-
ture. Mr. Hadlock built and superintended that
mill until 1870. Disposing of his interest, he now
retired from business, but in the fall of 1870 returned
with Mr. Glidden to the Sound and purchased the
present site of Port Hadlock, consisting of four hun-
dred acres, where, a few years later, was constructed
the large sawmill now owned by the Washington
Mill Company. In 1886 Mr. Hadlock laid off the
town and gave it the name which it now bears. The
spot has become flourishing, and numbers above five
hundred inhabitants.
In appearance Mr. Hadlock is of commanding
person; and his strong will and business sagacity
are a credit to any community in which he may elect
to reside. He was united in marriage in San Mateo
county, California, in 1864, to Miss Susan Lawrence,
a native of Bath, Maine. She died at Port Hadlock,
in 1873, leaving one son, Nathan L.
Social customs and business methods may change;
and the work of the pioneers of the lumber business
no less than that of all the pioneers will be super-
seded; but the energy and impulse of character com-
municated by such men as Mr. Hadlock will never
cease.
COL. J. C. HAINES.— This gentleman was
born February 14, 1850, at Hainesville, Lake county,
Illinois, his father being the late Honorable E. M.
Haines of Illinois, who was twice speaker of the
House of Representatives of that state, and for a
short time acting governor, and also the author of
several treatises and text books on law. He is also
a nephew of Honorable John C. Haines, who was
twice mayor of Chicago and for many years a promi-
nent banker in that city. Our subject acquired his
early education in the public schools, and completed
his studies at Williams College, from which he gradu-
ated in 1870, taking third honors in the class, the
same that Garfield took at the same institute. He
entered the law department of the Chicago Univer-
sity in the same year, and graduated therefrom in
1871, and was admitted to the bar of the State of
Illinois in that year.
In 1872 he was appointed city justice of Chicago by
Governor Palmer. He served in this position for four
years and was then re-appointed by Governor Bever-
idge. In 1876 he was one of the board of canvas-
sers consisting of three, who canvassed the returns
of Cook county when a strong effort was made by
the Democrats to throw out the votes of one of the
Republican electors of the State of Illinois on the
ground that his name was misprinted, the result of
which would have been to elect Tilden as President.
Two members of the board, our subject being one
of them, counted the votes given this elector; and
he was given the certificate of election. At the
expiration of his second term as justice, he resumed
the practice of his profession in Chicago, and con-
tinued therein until 1880, when he came to Wash-
ington Territory, resuming the practice of law. In
that year he became a member of the law firm of
Struve, Haines & Leary, which, by Mr. Leary's
retiring, and Mr. McMicken entering, became the
present firm of Struve, Haines & McMicken.
firm has always been one of the leading law firms
of Washington, and is now and has been for several
years the firm of attorneys retained by nearly all
the prominent corporations in that commonwealth.
This
Colonel Haines has been identified for the last six
years quite prominently with the National Guard of
Washington, serving as captain of Company B dur-
ing the Chinese riots of 1886. In 1887 he was
elected to the colonelcy of the First Regiment, a
position which he now holds, having been re-elected
for a second term. He was in command of the mili-
tary for two weeks immediately following the great
fire of June 6, 1889, which destroyed the business
portion of Seattle, during which time the city was
guarded entirely by the regiment. He has always
been an active Republican, and has been promi-
nently identified with that party since being a resi-
dent of Washington. He was chairman of the
King county delegation in several territorial conven-
tions, and was chairman of the delegation to the
last state convention. During his residence in the
state he has been connected with the trial of nearly
every important case in Washington.

HON.JOSEPH FOSTER,
SEATTLE, W. T.
FRANCIS MC GUIRE,
EAST PORTLAND, OR.
HON. HENRY A. SMITH,
SMITHS COVE, W. T.
HON. WALTER J. THOMPSON,
TACOMA, W. T.
E. N. QUIMETTE,
TACOMA, W. T.
OF
UNI
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
355
COL. GRANVILLE O. HALLER, U. S. A.,
Retired. Granville Owen Haller was born in York,
Pennsylvania, January 31, 1819. His father,
George Haller, died when he was but two years of
age, leaving a pious and most devoted mother in
charge of four young children, who, with limited
means, but with industry and thrift, had the satis-
faction of seeing her eldest son graduate at the
Jefferson Medical College of the University of
Pennsylvania. She was very desirous of sending
Granville to the Theological Seminary at Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, to be fitted for the ministry, but con-
scientious doubts on his part prevented him from
conforming to his mother's wishes.
In 1839 a vacancy belonging to his district occur-
red at West Point Military Academy, when he and
several other young men became applicants to fill
the vacancy. The Honorable Joel R. Poinsett,
Secretary of War, ruled that the recommendation
of the representative of the district, giving his pref-
erence to one of the applicants, should secure his
appointment. Haller received the preferred recom-
mendation, but did not receive the appointment.
Walter S. Franklin, of York, Pennsylvania, clerk
of the House of Representatives, a warm and con-
sistent friend of the Honorable James Buchanan,
senator from Pennsylvania, and also a friend of
Secretary Poinsett, had recently died, when Senator
Buchanan applied for William B. Franklin, son of
the deceased, to be appointed. William was there-
upon appointed to West Point; and Haller was
invited to appear before a board of military officers,
which met in Washington, District of Columbia, for
information as to his fitness for the military profes-
sion. Haller presented himself, was examined, and
on the seventeenth day of November, 1839, was
commissioned a second lieutenant in the Fourth
Regiment, U. S. Infantry, although not quite twenty-
one years of age.
Lieutenant Haller served in the Florida war in
1841-42, and was with Brevet Major Belknap, Third
Infantry, when fired upon by the Indians in the Big
Cypress swamp, and with Colonel Worth, Eighth
Infantry, at the action at Palattikaha swamp, which
resulted in the capture of Halleck Tustenuggee's
band, and which ended the Florida war. Frequent
mention is made of Lieutenant Haller in Brevet
Captain John T. Sprague's history of "The Origin,
Progress and Conclusion of the Florida War,” in
1848, for services deemed worthy of mention.
He was adjutant of the Fourth Infantry from
January 1, 1843, until he resigned, September 10,
1845, and was promoted to be first lieutenant July
12, 1846. He was brigade-major of the Third Bri-
gade, U. S. Regulars, under General Taylor, when
in Texas in 1845, until relieved for duty as adjust-
ant commissary of subsistence to the Third Brigade.
He had to receive and receipt for all the provisions.
issued to General Taylor's command when leaving
Brazos St. Iags for Matamoras. He lost none of
them at Palo Alto, was at Resaca de la Palma dur-
ing the fighting, but received and took upon his re-
turn of stores immense quantities of certain subsist-
ence stores captured from the Mexican army. He
served under General Taylor in Mexico until after
the capture of Monterey, when the Fourth Infantry
was transferred to General Worth's division, and
ordered to Vera Cruz, under General Scott's com-
mand. He was engaged in all the battles until the
capture of the City of Mexico, from the siege of
Vera Cruz, and was one of the storming party at El
Molino del Rey September 8, 1847. He was bre-
vetted captain "for gallant and meritorious conduct
in the battle of Molino del Rey," brevetted major
September 13, 1847, "for gallant and meritorious
conduct in the battle of Chapultepec," and pro-
moted to the captaincy of the Fourth Infantry Jan-
uary 1, 1848.
In 1852 Brevet Majors Larned's and Haller's com-
panies embarked on the U. S. store ship Fredonia in
charge of the regimental baggage, and sailed around
Cape Horn, arriving safely at San Francisco and
Washington Territory in June, 1853, having spent
seven months on the voyage. Major Larned's com-
pany proceeded to Fort Steilacoom; and, after a
brief rest at Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory,
Haller was ordered to Fort Dalles, Oregon.
Towards the fall of 1854, word arrived at Fort
Dalles that a small party of immigrants, consisting
of a Mr. Ward, his family, and a few other families,
had all been murdered by hostile Indians on Boise
river. By this time many of the five-years' enlisted
men's time having expired, they were discharged;
and some of the recruits having received eight
months' pay felt rich enough to live outside the
service of Uncle Sam, and deserted. In this manner
the garrison was reduced to about fifty men.
The commanding officer, Major G. J. Rains,
Fourth Infantry, provided horses for twenty-six en-
listed men, the necessary pack mules, and dis-
patched Haller, Lieutenant MacFeely and Dr.
Suckle with these men out upon the immigrant
road, to give protection to all the trains coming to the
West, and if possible chastise the murderers. While
proceeding on the road, Captain Nathan Olney,
brother of Judge Olney, of Oregon, with a party of
mounted volunteers, overtook the command, and
reported for duty by order of Major Rains. Captain
Olney was provided with rations for thirty men, but
picked up on the road, chiefly immigrants, a few
over his number. In consequence the rations fell
short; and finally volunteers and regulars had to
subsist on captured cured salmon and captured
horses, as the provisions had been exhausted before
the date for which issued, and the train bringing a
new supply was behind time in arriving.
This command arrested four Indians who had
been pointed out as murderers; and they were ex-
amined before a court of inquiry, where they ex-
plained the whole proceedings, and the share each
one had in the massacre. One tried to escape, and
was shot dead by the guard. The other three were
hanged on the massacre-grounds, about thirty miles
east of the Hudson's Bay Company's old Fort
Boise, by the river road. The gallows was con-
structed close to the pyramid of bones of their vic-
tims. The regulars, in addition, captured a family
of the hostile band, and killed two bucks of the
same party while trying to escape, during the
scouting on the Payette river, where the murderers
had located. The command was discovered by the
great column of dust, as they approached the
356
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
lodges of the main body of the murderers, who
effected their escape, but left their booty behind,
consisting of the clothing, dishes, cups, etc., of the
murdered people. On this occasion the volunteers
were complimented by being placed in front, in the
order of battle, and did their duty efficiently. The
enemy, to hide their trail, kept, for a long space, in
the bed of the river, getting out of the way of the
Whites. Captain Olney's men soon discovered this,
and pursued with vigor; but the game had escaped.
In 1855 General Wool directed that Major Haller,
with his company and a detachment of the Third
Artillery under Lieutenant Day, should return, give
protection to immigrants, and search out the mur-
derers. Lieutenant Day with a small party took
the trail of a stolen mule and horse from Salmon
Falls, and followed it until he reached Fort Lemhi,
a Mormon settlement on the headwaters of the
Missouri river. On his return he accidentally dis-
covered the thieves and the property, captured the
party, hanged the guilty, and brought back the
animals and some prisoners.
Major Haller returned to Fort Dalles by forced
rides, but allowed his command to travel leisurely
homeward. He found the old friends of the Whites,
near the Umatilla, greatly excited, the Yakima
Indians under arms, and the agent, Major Bolan,
murdered. A large body of recruits had arrived at
Fort Dalles for the two infantry companies, making
it possible to improvise two companies of fifty men
each, including the old soldiers who had been left
to "hold the fort." Major Rains had been trans-
ferred to Vancouver Barracks, and in command of
the Department of the Columbia; and Haller, pre-
suming that he would be ordered against the Yaki-
mas with all his force at Fort Dalles, organized two
companies of fifty men each, with a sergeant-major
and commissary-sergeant in addition. The officers
were Major Haller, Captain Russell and Lieutenant
Gracie (the last in charge of a mountain howitzer),
also Doctor William Hammond.
The reports sent by Major Haller from The Dalles
made little if any impression at Vancouver Barracks;
but Acting-Governor Mason requested that a com-
mand be sent into the Yakima country to demand
the murderer of Mattice, a miner, killed while pass-
ing through that country. In answer to this request
Major Rains ordered one company to be sent; but
Haller, being on the spot, knew one company
would be insufficient, so ordered his one hundred
and two men and officers across the Columbia, and
began his march. On the fifth day, descending the
heights along Toppinish creek (near the present site
of Fort Simcoe), a considerable number of hostile
Indians disputed the approach to the water. A
fight ensued, but Captain Russell had gotten unper-
ceived on their right flank and rear, and when he
opened on them they fled. It was quite dark before
the wounded could be moved; and, a camp near at
hand being desirable, one was found for the night
without reference to grass and water for the
animals.
Early next morning the camp was completely sur-
rounded; and hourly all day squads of mounted
Indians were seen approaching and joining the war
party. Father Paudoza, a Catholic priest, who was
•
held by the Indians a prisoner in reality, but ostensibly
an interpreter, etc., considered the small force of
soldiers in such imminent danger, as Kamiakin had
by count over two thousand, two hundred warriors,
that he employed a christian Indian (Cheruscan)
to hurry to Haller's camp with a letter and a white
flag to apprise Haller of the danger, and the only
terms upon which the chiefs would make peace.
Cut off from the grass and water, it became neces-
sary to get out of the present camp. The danger
was not so great, as the Indians did not have arms
or aminunition sufficient to arm a formidable force,
but fought in small detachments, at different times
and at different points, making their assaults less
formidable than if delivered simultaneously. When-
ever one warrior got tired, he would fall back and
turn over his arms to another, who would try his
skill in crawling up until within certain aim. One
party had stones thrown up in front, à la rifle pits,
so as to be very dangerous; but they were driven
off by a bayonet charge upon their flank.
In breaking up camp, it was deemed advisable to
return to Fort Dalles, and get a sufficient force to
intimidate the enemy. The Indians, on the second
night, having withdrawn from the front, left the
woods at the border of the creek safe to cross back;
and the command marched out, having forty men
for rear guard, to protect the rear and look after
the pack animals; but the night was unusually
dark, so much so that Cutmouth John, the guide
in front, had to get off his horse and feel for the
trail. It was impossible for the rear guard, in the
wooded banks of the Toppinish, to see pack mules
that stepped out of the trail to nip grass; hence
many were overlooked and fell into the enemy's
hands. But the rear guard itself missed the trail
of the head of the column; and, when such was
discovered, the white guide was sent to conduct
them to the proper trail, while the front marched
to a small grove on the side of a steep hill, where
they built large fires to light the lost detachment to
the camp, meanwhile preparing their suppers.
Daylight came, but no rear guard; hurrying on
the wrong trail to catch up with the column, they
got far towards Fort Dalles that night, beyond the
reach of the Indians, who flattered themselves that
they had killed all in sight. The Indians under-
stood the bright fires, and threw some warriors in
the rear to intercept the march. There were six-
teen wounded, leaving about forty-five men to pro-
tect the wounded, the howitzer while marching, and
the pack animals that remained. Fortunately, the
war party in the rear did not expect the white men
to be in motion at day-dawn; for a large band
of horses were seen on the left grazing leisurely.
Shortly after the troops had gotten past this band,
they were all mounted; and a skirmish commenced,
which lasted for several miles, when the troops found
a tongue of wood surrounded by open prairie, where
the command halted, cleaned their muskets, etc.,
while a small guard held the Indians at bay. The
Indians tried to burn the grass; but counter fires
defeated them. They set the dry needles of the
fir trees lying on the ground on fire, but did no
harm. Towards evening, the guard having been
strongly reinforced, made a rush upon the Indians
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
357
in their front and drove them off, not to return.
In this charge the commissary sergeant (Mulhol-
land) was killed, also a private of Major Haller's
company. This ended Haller's repulse.
Kamiakin's ability as a leader had not been appre-
ciated by the populace generally; and their minds
had been greatly prejudiced by idle stories. He
foresaw that the assassination of the agent, Bolan,
would, on being ascertained by the white race, lead
to immediate war, and prepared for it by gathering
his allies in his own camp. But the death of Bolan
was not brought about by any act of Kamiakin's.
On the contrary, his plan of operations was to await
the cold weather, when the Columbia river would
be covered with ice, and when the steamers would
be locked up in it; when the Cascade Mountains
would be wrapped in deep snow, so as to cut off
communication with the Willamette population;
then would be the time for his warriors to fall upon
the few soldiers and settlers east of the mountains
and wipe them out.
Haller's repulse defeated his well-laid scheme; for
it roused the people to their danger. The governor
of Oregon called out volunteers; and the department
commander took the field with all the regulars at
his command. Major Rains with six companies of
regulars, and Colonel Nesmith with six companies
of mounted Oregon volunteers, took the field against
Kamiakin. This warrior met his foes near the Two
Buttes at the mouth of the Attanum creek, and
held them there all one day. At sundown Haller
charged the warriors on the Attanum Butte, and
brushed them away. Next day the Indians were
more cautious. Cut-mouth John only was able,
through his dress, to get near enough to kill a
hostile Indian. The great number of soldiers dis-
couraged the Indians, who fled across the Columbia
river; and the fall of snow drove the cavalry to The
Dalles for forage, where Major Rains followed.
Colonel George Wright, with a newly organized
regiment, the Ninth Infantry, armed with the Minié
rifle, was sent to the department, and was impressed
by General Wool that this war was occasioned by
the bad faith of the white population, and to govern
himself accordingly. The massacre at the Cascades
took place the day he marched out from Fort Dalles
intending to overawe the natives throughout the
Walla Walla country. Hearing of the massacre,
he returned, took the two steamboats (which had
that day escaped from the hostile Indians, and had
brought the news) and hurried to the scene, rescued
the Whites besieged in the Bradshaw residence and
elsewhere, after driving away the hostiles. Had
the Indians succeeded, they would have broken his
communications. Returning to The Dalles, he
changed his plan, and, crossing the Columbia river
there, invaded Kamiakin's country. He found a
large body of Kamiakin's warriors at the Qui-wi-
ches, three miles in front of the Nahchess river,
prepared to resist any further advance. Colonel
Wright sent for Major Haller's company, which
was garrisoning at Fort Dalles, to join him, and
then offered the hostiles peace, on condition that
they would return to their former homes and not
molest the Whites, but would obey the agents
appointed for their protection. He told them that,
if they declined this offer, he would make " war to
the death" on them.
Kamiakin realized his position, and advised his
people to accept the peace offered. He feared that
his warriors would be harassed if not killed, and the
women and children captured and made slaves of
by the conquerors. The acceptance would end these
dangers; but, says William McKay, the interpreter,
he raised his right hand and struck his left breast,
exclaiming: "As for me, I am Kamiakin still! I
will go to the Blackfoot country, where there are no
white men." Kamiakin's advice lead Owhi, his
brother, to call on Colonel Wright, who renewed
in person the offer; and they fixed upon the day
when the Indians should come into camp and con-
clude peace. But, as Owhi left the Colonel, an after
thought induced him to say to Owhi: "Tell your
people they must bring with them all the horses and
mules stolen from the Whites."
Owhi, and Qualchen his son, called on Major
Haller, with McKay to interpret. During the inter-
view Owhi referred to Colonel Wright's expecting
the Indians to give up the captured horses and
mules, remarking that his people considered a cap-
ture as much their personal property as if they
had purchased it with money, and that he believed
they would not attend under such circumstances.
They did not, but dispersed, leaving the Colonel
without an enemy.
He then selected Simcoe for a
military post, and left a battalion under Major
Robert Garnett to build and garrison it. He located
Major Haller's and Captain Archer's (afterwards
the rebel general whose brigade was captured at
Gettysburg in the first day's fight) companies in the
Kittitass valley, as a permanent threat to the Indian
families in that region, if they began hostilities.
In the fall of 1856, Haller was relieved and ordered
to establish a post near Fort Townsend on Puget
Sound, where the inhabitants might find an asylum
in case of raids by Northern Indians, who were
becoming troublesome.
becoming troublesome. The governor of Wash-
ington Territory had resolved upon the expulsion
of all foreign Indians, and called upon the United
States navy at Seattle to order them out of the
country. The U. S. steamer Massachusetts pro-
ceeded to execute the order; when, at Port Gam-
ble, some Hydah Indians from Russian America,
employed by the Port Gamble Mill Company,
located at Teckalet, were ordered to return to their
native country, but refused point blank, and defied
the navy.
The result was the landing of some
sailors, which obliged the Indians to seek shelter in
the woods, where a lively cannonade from the
steamer, while the sailors were destroying their
camp, caused the death of their chief. They sur-
rendered at length, and were removed, only to return
the next season, 1857, when they retaliated for the
loss of their chief by attacking Colonel Isaac N.
Ebey's house at night, on Whidby Island, killing
the Colonel (the most prominent settler in that
section, having been collector of customs, colonel
of volunteers during the Indian war, etc.), and, cut-
ting off his head, carried it to their country, where
it afterwards was purchased and brought to his
relatives in Washington Territory.
The only running water, or suitable spot for a
358
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
garden, or for grazing for government animals, near
Port Townsend, was some three miles up the bay,
where Haller located and erected buildings for the
garrison. The friendly Indians brought all the clam
shells wanted for making lime; the soldiers cut out
the laths, made the mortar, and applied the same to
the walls; the prisoners cut the wood and burnt the
clam shells; all this, while the most extravagant
tales of the richness of the Caribou gold mines, and
the high wages paid hired miners, were circulating,
naturally excited the enlisted men; and they deserted
in squads across the Strait of Fuca.
Soon the loss of the men by desertion was felt,
when a boatman offered to bring from Victoria,
British Columbia, as many laborers as were required,
and who would only charge one dollar a day and
a ration, and a blacksmith for one dollar and a
half a day and a ration. Haller authorized him to
hire a blacksmith and five or six men, which he did.
The soldiers were astonished, but soon learned of the
difficulties of the road to the new El Dorado and the
danger to miners in many ways; and, seeing that
these men preferred the small wages here to the
high offers there, desertions ceased; and a very com-
fortable post for officers and men was constructed,
which has been kept up to this date.
The garrison at this post had frequently to make
excursions on the Sound in pursuit of Northern
Indians. Once, the Smith Island lighthouse keeper
was attacked and besieged. At another, the deputy
collector on San Juan Island was fired upon in his
own house while in his bed. When these depreda-
tions were reported, a detail was hastened to the re-
lief of those government officers, in chartered ves-
sels. Major Haller, on one occasion, while scouting,
on board the U. S. revenue cutter Jeff Davis, dis-
covered a large body of Northern Indians in Elliott
Bay, paddling for Seattle. A gun on the cutter was
fired, when the canoes pulled for the shore, and
awaited Haller's arrival in the cutter's gig. It was
a fortunate and timely arrival, as Haller took one of
the party in his boat to Seattle, where Curley, a
prominent Indian, was dressed in his war paint, and
had his warriors in arms, to give these Northern
quasi friends a warm reception. These Indians,
finding the settlers unwilling to employ them as
heretofore, were returning home, and wished to take
some squaws, their relatives, with them; but these
declined to leave their male friends, and hid them-
selves, that neither Whites nor Indians could find or
remove them from their adopted country.
The Indian troubles in the Northwest induced the
War Department to order General Harney (Secre-
tary Floyd was a warm friend of this officer, who
had conducted for him some financial speculations),
popularly known as the Great Indian Fighter, to
command the Department of the Columbia. His
arrival was the occasion for the legislatures of Ore-
gon and Washington Territory to pay some flatter-
ing tributes to his renown. These seemed to rouse
in him the presidential bee; and, to show that the
pen was as powerful as the sword, he replied with
American spread-eagle sentiments in his thanks to
the governors.
In 1859 General Harney inspected the posts on
Puget Sound, and called at Semiahmoo on Mr.
Campbell, the boundary commissioner. Embarking
at Fort Steilacoom on the steamer Massachusetts
(then transferred to the quartermaster's department),
he visited Fort Townsend, which had been con-
structed before he came to the Northwest, and seemed
surprised at the showy quarters. He then proceeded
to Bellingham Bay, where night overtook him. He
became the guest of ex-Judge E. C. Fitzhugh, while
his staff officers, who had been classmates of Captain
Pickett, commanding Fort Bellingham, were lodged
at Captain Pickett's quarters. Pickett, for some
time, manifested a desire to be stationed on San Juan
Island, which the Secretary of State, Governor
Marcy, announced that President Pierce directed
should be treated as neutral territory until commis-
sioners of the two countries could agree upon the
water boundary; and now Mr. Campbell, the United
States commissioner, was engaged with British com-
missioners in ascertaining the water boundary.
What line of reasoning was used by Judge Fitz-
hugh upon General Harney, or by Captain Pickett
upon his staff officers, to get to San Juan Island,
has never come to light; but the General, before
reaching Semiahoo, resolved to order Pickett's com-
pany to occupy the disputed island. This deter-
mination was made known to Mr. Warren, the secre-
tary of the boundary commissioner, by the staff
officers; but General Harney did not mention the
subject to Mr. Campbell, nor did Mr. Warren, sup-
posing that General Harney's visit was to consult
Mr. Campbell before giving the order.
When it is remembered that the North and South
in 1858 and subsequently were violently agitated
upon the question of slavery, and that the North
determined to prevent slavery, at the least, north of
the Missouri Compromise, with or without the con-
sent of the constitution and laws of the United
States, it is evident that the South would have taken
no share in a war with England for free soil up to
fifty-four degrees, forty minutes north latitude. A
war in the Northwest against England would have
carried our fighting force farthest from the slaves
growing cotton and sugar. It would have left the
South the more at liberty to secede and make its own
terms with England. Certainly, it was bad policy
to provoke England to war at that time. It was
discourteous to Mr. Campbell and to the English
commissioners thus rudely to interfere. It is patent
that General Harney did interfere. He ordered, on
his return to Vancouver Barracks, Haller's company
to break up Fort Townsend and remove to Fort
Steilacoom, and Pickett to move post and all to San
Juan in the usual manner, that is, by orders for-
warded through the headquarters of the district; but
Pickett was furnished with special instructions,
which did not go through the commander, but direct
to Captain Pickett.
It is somewhat significant that the instructions,
which charged Pickett with the "serious and im-
portant duty of resisting all attempts at interference
by the British authorities residing on Vancouver
Island, by intimidation or force, in the controversies
of the above-mentioned parties," and who, upon
landing, announced the island as subject exclu-
sively to American jurisdiction in his order assuming
command, were not transmitted through Lieutenant-


ISAAC C. ELLIS,
OLYMPIA,W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
359
Colonel Casey, commanding the district, who, in
an emergency, might be and was called upon for
assistance, but had to decline, as he was ignorant of
General Harney's intentions and instructions.
When it is known that Lieutenant-Colonel Casey
was a Rhode Islander or Northern man; that General
Harney's lenient course in Missouri towards the
friends of secession obliged Captain Lyon, Second
Infantry, to disregard the General's concessions at
the risk of his commission, until the General was
removed; that Captain Pickett and Judge Fitzhugh
immediately hastened to and joined the army of the
Confederate states,— it raises a presumption unfa-
vorable to the last three gentlemen's integrity,
although the country escaped a collision.
This escape was due to the failure of the British
mail steamers to arrive on schedule time; and they
therefore did not connect with the mail steamers on
the Pacific. The news of the battle of Solferino was
first heard of by British officers through American
newspapers; and it was conjectured that the contro-
versy about the San Juan boundary had been adjusted
in England, and that General Harney's orders were
simply carrying out instructions from his govern-
ment. Indeed, the responsibility of having San
Francisco, the mouth of the Columbia, the Strait of
Fuca, etc., blockaded by five large British war
vessels at hand was so great and so foolhardy, that
British officers could not believe it emanated from
General Harney's own volition. General Scott
was sent by the President to correct matters. He
proposed to the British authorities that they put a
certain number of British soldiers on San Juan, to
exercise jurisdiction and protection over all British
subjects, as the Americans had to protect and main-
tain peace among the citizens of the United States
on said island. This was accepted, with a request
that Captain Hunt, Fourth Infantry, be located on
the island in place of Captain Pickett, Ninth Infan-
try, and his company; and the imbroglio was at an
end.
The removal of Pickett's company from Belling-
ham Bay had a bad effect upon the Nootsack In-
dians. Soon after Pickett had moved away, some
Young Lummi Indians entered Whatcom with arms
and war paint, and insolently demanded the libera-
tion of their chief, whom they supposed was confined
in the jail. One citizen warned them away, threat-
ening to shoot. Not heeding his warning, he
thereupon shot one, when the warrior shot and killed
him. The citizens by this time had armed them-
selves and shot down three who had participated in
the killing. Major Haller was patroling the archi-
pelago in the Massachusetts, to find and remove
some Northern Indians. He was notified of the
difficulty by boatmen, who were sent out to find the
steamer and invite Major Haller and company to
hasten to their protection. Haller landed at What-
com the same day, and hastened out to the Nootsack
crossing to head off the Indians, who had gone be-
low to receive the slain. The next morning they
came up; but, the current being swift, it was im-
possible to get by if the soldiers chose to prevent
them. They voluntarily came ashore to hold a
council; and when the young warriors who had
entered Whatcom were demanded as hostages, that
there should be no more fighting, and to revenge the
slain, they surrendered them; and the outbreak was
thus averted. As the surveying parties of the
boundary commission were scattered in small groups
over a long line, the hostility of the Lummi tribe
might have cut off many of these before they could
have learned of an outbreak, and have suspended
field operations.
Major Haller was ordered in 1860 to California,
where he was assigned to Fort Mojave, Arizona,
subsequently, in 1861, to San Diego, and finally to
the East, to join the grand army which was being
organized by General McClellan. He found, on
arriving at the East, that he had been promoted to
be Major of the Seventh Infantry, September 25,
1861. His regiment had become prisoners of war
in Texas, and hence were not able to fight the
enemy until exchanged. Therefore, Haller reported
to General McClellan, who attached him to the pro-
vost-marshal-general's staff (General Andrew Por-
He
ter). Soon afterwards he was appointed comman-
dant-general of general headquarters, on General
McClellan's staff; and the Ninety-third New York
Volunteers were placed under his command as the
general headquarters guard, and, when required, as
guard to prisoners of war captured upon the field.
Haller was thus employed throughout the Virginia
and Maryland campaigns under General McClellan,
the subsequent campaigns of General Burnside,
and (for a short time) under General Hooker.
was then designated provost-marshal-general for
Maryland; but, upon the invasion of Pennsylvania
by General Lee's Confederate army, he was attached
to General Couch's staff, whose headquarters were
at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He was detached to
York and Gettysburg to muster in volunteers, get
all the information possible of the Confederate army's
movements, etc., and order the citizens to remove
their horses, wagons and farm stock across the Sus-
quehanna river, as General Couch apprehended a
visit in that direction from the rebel army.
General Couch, in the latter part of July, 1863,
received orders to relieve Haller, who, upon report-
ing to the adjutant-general, United States army, for
orders, was informed that he had been dismissed on
on 25th of July, 1863, "for disloyal conduct, and
the utterance of disloyal sentiments." All appeals
for a hearing were pre-emptorily refused. By joint
resolution of Congress, March 3, 1879, sixteen years.
afterwards, Haller was allowed a court of inquiry,
and was tried in Washington City, where the offi-
cial papers in his case were submitted to the court,
and where Haller first read the original order of his
dismissal, being a small wrapper around Senator
Covode's letter, inclosing one urging Haller's dis-
loyalty. The order was in these words: "Major
G. O. Haller, Seventh Infantry, will be dismissed
the service for disloyalty, and the utterance of
disloyal sentiments. By order of the Secretary
of War. (Signed) James A. Hardie, Asst. Adjt.-
Gen."
Gen." General Townsend, Adjutant-General, in
orders, falsely stated that Haller was dismissed by
order of the President, knowing that the Secretary
of War could not dismiss.
Fortunately General Couch and Major Charles J.
Whiting were still alive, in civil life, when the court
360
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
was ordered. The latter was in Haller's tent at the
time the alleged "disloyal sentiments were uttered
by him, and heard all that was said. The former
could testify as to his conduct. When asked, “Did
Major Haller discharge his duty to your satisfac-
tion, and how did you regard him?" he answered:
"Major Haller's service while on duty with me was
wholly and entirely satisfactory. I do not think
that there were any of the fighting generals of the
Army of the Potomac, if they had been in York, in
the position of Major Hailer, that could have done
any better than he did. I thought so at the time,
and I think so now."
Do you
On cross-examination, he was asked:
consider that your intercourse with Major Haller
was of that familiar nature, during that time, that
you could have discovered sentiments of disloyalty
had they existed with him?" He answered: "I
do not know how I can answer that question except
by saying that I cannot conceive that a man could do
what Major Haller did for the country and at the
same time be disloyal."
The proceedings of this court of inquiry conclude
thus: The court finds that Major Granville O.
Haller, late Seventh U. S. Infantry, was dismissed
for disloyal conduct, and disloyal sentiments, on
insufficient evidence, wrongfully; and therefore,
hereby, by virtue of the authority constituting it,
does annul said dismissal published in 'S. O. No.
331,' dated 'War Dept., A. G. O., Washington, D.
C., July 25, 1863.'"
The most remarkable part of these findings is the
fact that the court consisted of one lieutenant-colonel
and two majors, and that these rehabilitated in the
army a colonel, who must rank them on all occasions.
The President, R. B. Hayes, approved the proceed-
ings and findings; and the Senate confirmed the
nomination as a colonel of infantry in the United
States army, to rank from February 19, 1873. Sub-
sequently a vacancy occurred by the death of Colo-
nel Jeff C. Davis, Twenty-third Infantry, when the
United States Senate confirmed the assignment of
Colonel Haller; and thus he received a second com-
mission, that of colonel of the Twenty-third Infan-
try, from December 11, 1879. On the 6th of Feb-
ruary, 1882, he was retired, being over sixty-three
years old.
During the interval from his dismissal until his
rehabilitation as colonel, Major Haller and family
resided in Washington Territory. They resided for
some time on his farm on Whidby Island. He then
engaged in a mercantile business in connection with
a water-power sawmill-an elephant that he received
for debt, and which he found to be a daily loser in
the cost of manufacturing lumber, until he shut it
down-at the mouth of Chemicum creek, near the
city of Port Townsend. Having established a
branch store on Whidby Island, he disposed of his
interests in Port Townsend, and located his family
at the store in Couperville. He did more, perhaps,
than any citizen in that vicinity to enable settlers,
who had only their robust health and brawny arms
to support themselves and families with while clear-
ing off public land for homes, to remain on their
claims and improve them, by furnishing them sup-
plies and carrying them from year to year until they
had the means to pay. His customers were not
confined to Whidby Island, but came from the Swi-
nomish Flats, the Skagit river, around the Jam and
above, and from the flats about Centerville (now
Stanwood), on the Stoluckwamish river.
Upon being rehabilitated in the army, Colonel
Haller closed his mercantile operations. He then
found that his liberality in supplying settlers, and
in indulging them in long credit, was somewhat
embarrassing, inasmuch as his liabilities to his cred-
itors were considerable, and, while his liens and
book accounts showed a favorable balance in figures,
yet, if he had been compelled by legal process to
pay off his indebtedness, he in all probability could
not have paid fifty cents on the dollar, due chiefly
to the fact that public lands at that time could be
had by simply locating upon them, and that im-
proved lands could not be sold for half the cost of
the improvements. The annual taxes, at times,
were an inconvenient burthen, making him land
poor.
Upon being retired in 1882, Colonel Haller located
with his family in Seattle, King county, Washing-
ton Territory, where his elder son had been located.
His family consisted of his wife, Henrietta Maria;
his elder son, George Morris Haller; his younger
son, Theodore Newell Haller, both of whom were
admitted to the bar to practice law; his younger
daughter, Charlotte Elenor Haller; and two grand-
children of his elder daughter, Alice Mai H. Nich-
ols, deceased, late wife of Lieutenant William A.
Nichols, Twenty-third U. S. Infantry, the son of the
late Adjutant-General William A. Nichols, U. S.
Army. The elder son was married to Miss Anne
Cox, in California, in 1887. They reside with their
parents at No. 606 Twelfth street, Seattle.
younger son is now traveling in Europe.
The
PATRICK HALLORAN.- The map makers
are kept busy by the geographical changes of the
Pacific Northwest; and the general public is often
far behind the times in learning of the new towns
springing up everywhere. The corner postoffice
become a city; and the old farmhouse suddenly
becomes a small town with store and hotel. The
water front of Puget Sound begets a new village
almost every day. One of these places is Edison;
and one of the principal men in the place is Mr. Hal-
loran. He came as a logger in 1876 to the Sound,
but in 1879 took up his present claim, and has made
of it a most productive farm. Hay, at two and one-
half tons per acre, timothy seed, of which he pro-
duces three or four tons per annum, and twenty tons
of oats, constitute the output of his farm.
His hay
crop is about two hundred and thirty-five tons per
year. He finds local market for all his produce,
selling hay at an average of twelve dollars per ton.
His fields net him fifteen dollars per acre. He has
a hopeful outlook for his city, and as a resident
believes it a good place for anyone who is sober,
industrious and tends strictly to his own business.
In 1886 Mr. Halloran was elected county commis-
sioner, and was re-elected in 1888. He has wisely
adopted the course of building roads to open up the
region. He is married and has three children,—
James Ed., Mary A. and George.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
361
ARCHIMEDES HANAN. This venerable
pioneer, whose portrait appears in this work, was
born on the 9th of November, 1810, in Harrison
county, Kentucky. The early years of his life were
truly those of a wanderer. Illinois, Missouri, Iowa
and Minnesota reckoned him as a citizen at sundry
times and places up to the year 1852. In the spring
of that year he started on the long and wearisome
journey across the plains.
Oregon was his objective point; and after the
usual trying though interesting incidents of the
immigrants' career, he stopped at Albany in the
fall of 1852. There he took a government claim
about four miles from the town; and there he resided till
1865, when he sold his seven hundred and forty acres of
land for ten dollars per acre, and went to the town of
Albany, where he formed a business partnership
with Beach & Montieth. The firm erected a large
flouring mill; but, the business not proving a very
successful investment financially, Mr. Hanan sold
out, and in 1871 removed to a farm on Whisky
creek, Washington Territory, whence he again
journeyed on seven years later to Dayton. There
he owned much valuable property, and had a pleas-
ant home. Its happiness was irreparably marred,
however, in 1880, by the death of his faithful wife.
Her maiden name was Ann Maria Van Winkle.
She became the wife of Mr. Hanan in 1837, and
during forty-three long years had followed him
through the varying fortunes and vicissitudes of his
lot with the Spartan devotion which is nowhere
better shown than in the lives of the frontier women
of this coast.
Among the other events of his active and varied
career, Mr. Hanan was a prominent actor in the
great Indian war of 1855. He was first lieuten-
ant of Company H of the First Regiment of Oregon
Mounted Volunteers, and took a most creditable
part in the fierce fight on the Walla Walla.
Mr. Hanan has no children, though he cared for
and educated a girl who is now living near Cheney,
Washington, and who is the mother of nine sons
and one daughter.
In spite of his burden of years, Mr. Hanan is
still hale and hearty, and enjoys in this autumn of
his days the deserved esteem of a large circle of
friends and acquaintances.
HON. CORNELIUS H. HANFORD.— The
subject of this sketch, although a young man, is
one of the pioneers of Washington. He was born
in the town of Winchester, Van Buren county, Iowa,
on the 21st of April, 1849. His father was a well-
to-do farmer at that place. The gold discoveries in
California soon attracted attention to the Pacific
coast; and in 1853 he resolved to dispose of his
Iowa property and seek a new home on Puget
Sound, where his two brothers Seymour and
George then were. Accordingly in the spring of
that year he started with his entire family in
emigrant wagons drawn by oxen for the new El
Dorado. Joining one of the many trains which
were then crawling across the plains, he with the
train moved slowly westward, meeting and over-
coming the numerous dangers and hardships then
commonly incident to a journey of that kind, and
finally reaching a point near Portland, Oregon, in
time to go into winter quarters. Here the elder
Hanford left his family and proceeded to Seattle,
which consisted of a small sawmill and a few rough
cabins surrounded by an impenetrable forest. He
found his brothers there, and, although to a farmer
the surroundings seemed in striking contrast with
the beautiful plains he had left, he was quick to
perceive the grand possibilities of the country, and
decided to cast his fortune with it, and in the fol-
lowing spring moved his family to Seattle and
settled upon a Donation claim immediately adjoining
the town.
In the Indian war of 1855-56, which culminated
in an attack upon Seattle by the Indians, and which
was defeated only by the determined bravery of
the citizens and by the sloop-of-war Decatur, then
lying in the harbor, he served as a volunteer
under Captain C. C. Hewitt and Edward Lander,
both of whom were afterwards chief justices of the
territory. In the battle two white men were killed,
one of whom was Milton Holgate, the brother-in-law
of the elder Hanford. This war was a general up-
rising among the Indians in the vicinity of Seattle
and to the eastward of the Cascade Mountains in
pursuance of a long and well-considered plan.
Young Cornelius, prior to the outbreak, mingled
freely with the Indians, and won the esteem of old
Curley, a chief who rendered valuable services to
the White people as a scout and spy; and probably
owing to that friendship is due the fact that he was
one of four inhabitants of Seattle whom the hostile
savages decided to spare from the general massacre
of the Whites on Puget Sound.
In 1861 Cornelius removed to San Francisco,
where he remained until 1867, during which time
he took a course in a commercial college there;
with this exception he is entirely self-educated.
His father's property was almost entirely destroyed
by the Indians during the war; and in consequence
of the losses thus sustained, and the subsequent
failure of some of his business ventures, he became
impoverished; and Cornelius was early thrown upon
his own resources and required to undergo all the
hardships attendant upon pioneer life. He worked
as a farm laborer; he swung his axe in the forests as
a wood chopper; he split rails and built fences, and
for a long time carried the mail on horseback from
Seattle to Puyallup through what was then a wilder-
ness with scarce a trail to travel upon. Upon
becoming of age he took up a pre-emption claim in
Walla Walla county, and set to work with charac-
teristic energy to improve it; but his physique,
never strong in early life, was unequal to the task;
and his health broke down.
In 1872 he was compelled to abandon his claim
and return to Seattle. He reached there an invalid,
but, in nowise daunted by that fact, immediately
decided to adopt the profession of the law, and
entered upon a regular and systematic course of
legal study in the office of George N. McConaha,
son of the brilliant gentleman who was president of
the council of the first session of the Legislative
Assembly of Washington Territory. Honorable
George N. McConaha then held the office of prose-
cuting attorney of the third judicial district, which
362
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
included all of Western Washington north of
Thurston county. The duties were necessarily
numerous, exacting and important; but so rapidly
did Mr. Hanford progress in his studies, and so
readily did he adapt himself to the requirements of
his newly chosen calling, that he was soon appointed
Mr. McConaha's sole assistant, and remained such
during the four years he held the office. In that
position nearly all the office work devolved upon
Mr. Hanford; and it was performed with the
accuracy and promptness which have always
marked his career.
On the 2d of February, 1875, he was admitted to
the bar at Seattle, and at once entered upon the
performance of the duties of an advocate. So
marked was his ability in this direction that he was
at the first term of his practice intrusted with the
leadership in many important cases, in all of which
he was successful. In the fall of 1876 he was
elected a member of the council, and served in the
territorial legislature in that capacity in 1877-78.
Although the youngest member of that body, he
was chosen president of the temporary organization,
and was appointed and served as chairman of the
two most important committees, judiciary and cor-
porations. As a legislator he took a leading position.
As a debater he ranked among the first; and his
keen and accurate judgment was invaluable in
shaping the important measures of that session.
In 1878 he formed a law partnership with the late
Colonel Charles H. Larrabee at Seattle, which con-
tinued until the latter part of 1880. In 1881 he
was appointed assistant United States attorney for
Washington Territory, a position which he held
under Honorable John B. Allen until 1885, and
for about a year thereafter under Mr. Allen's suc-
cessor, Honorable William H. White, finally resign-
ing to give more attention to his private practice.
During this time he had complete charge and con-
ducted the trial of all United States causes in
Western Washington. These duties he performed
with signal ability and remarkable success.
Some
of the most important and difficult cases which
have ever arisen in the territory of Washington
were disposed of by him, and in every instance
with credit to himself and satisfaction to the gov-
ernment.
This
In 1883 he was elected city attorney of Seattle,
and was re-elected in 1884 and 1885. While in that
office he devoted much time to the remodeling of
the city charter; and many of the most effective and
valuable provisions were drawn by him, and their
adoption secured by his influence. In 1886, and
while he was city attorney, what is known as the
Seattle anti-Chinese riots occurred. These origi-
nated in an attempt made by certain agitators to
forcibly expel the Chinese from the city.
effort was resisted by the city and county authori-
ties; and in the conflict which ensued several of the
rioters and one of the city policemen were shot. Mr.
Hanford, as the law officer of the city and the legal
adviser of Mayor Yesler, took a bold and decided
stand in favor of the enforcement of the law, and
against any concession to law breakers; and, when
a call was made upon the citizens to assist the
officers in maintaining the peace and protecting the
helpless, he shouldered his rifle and served as a
citizen soldier until all danger was past.
In the fall of 1888 he was elected chairman of the
Republican territorial central committee; and the
remarkable political revolution which took place at
that election, by which a territory previously Demo-
cratic by over two thousand, five hundred majority
was made Republican by nearly eight thousand, was
largely owing to his able generalship and untiring.
devotion.
On the 12th of March, 1889, upon the resigna-
tion of Chief Justice Burke, he was, in obedience
to a most urgent and practically unanimous request
of the bar of his district, appointed chief justice of
the territory. His nomination was confirmed and
his commission issued on the following day; and
he assumed the duties of his office on the twenty-
eighth of that month, thus becoming the last chief
justice of the territory of Washington.
His career on the bench has been one of which
anyone might be proud. While prompt and rapid
in the dispatch of business, he is ever painstaking
and courteous, and is carefully considerate of the
rights of all whose interests are affected by his
judicial acts. He is a firm believer in the efficacy
of swift and severe punishment for heinous crimes;
and his practical application of this doctrine on the
bench has done much to rid his district of the most
dangerous part of the criminal element. The clear-
ness and accuracy of statement which distinguished
him as a lawyer render his opinions models of terse
and vigorous English.
His decisions are never swayed nor colored by
popular clamor or private prejudice, but have always
been marked by that same fearlessness in the main-
tenance of the right which has ever been the most
prominent trait of his character. He is a public-
spirited citizen, a kind friend and an honorable foe.
His life, both private and public, is without a spot.
No man as young as he is, in the new State of
Washington, has been called to fill so many high
posts of trust and honor. He is in the prime or
life, well equipped both physically and mentally for
the battle to come, and is in the midst of an hon-
orable and useful career; and his future cannot fail
to be a brilliant one.
HON. DOLPHES BRICE HANNAH.- This
gentleman is the son of Brice and Celia Tade Han-
nah, and was born in Gallatin county, Illinois, Oc-
tober 11, 1822. His father, who was a substantial
business man engaged in trade and forwarding, died
in the spring of 1823, leaving a wife and two chil-
dren, one boy and one girl. He left considerable
estate, consisting of personal property. John Mc-
Laughlin and the widow were appointed to admin-
ister the estate; and, as usual, McLaughlin did the
work, pocketed the entire proceeds of the estate,
and then left for parts unknown.
About two years after the death of young Han-
nah's father, his mother married Silas Farley, a
flatboatman and farmer, by whom she had five
children, three boys and two girls. They moved to
White county and settled on the Big Wabash river.
In the winter of 1833-34 Farley died, leaving a wife
and seven children. While living with his step-

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I. PORT LUDLOW MILL.
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LOOATED ON PUGET SOUND. PUGET MILL COMPANY OWNERS.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
363
father, young Hannah attended school two terms,
one kept by a man by the name of Blackwell, a
severe disciplinarian, the other named Buckalew,
whom he remembers as an elegant and kindly man.
The last expedition of his stepfather on the river
proved disastrous, all of his estate being swept away,
leaving his wife and seven children without means.
In the spring of 1834 the widow with her family
left their former home and rented a small farm, and
with the help of her children planted ten acres of
corn and vegetables. In the fall of 1834 she sold
the crop standing in the field, and moved to Jeffer-
son county, Illinois, and built a cabin in the woods.
During the summers of 1835-36, Dolph worked
on a farm and in a brickyard at four dollars a
month. In September, 1836, his grandfather, David
Tade, came from his home and moved the family to
Lee county, of the then territory of Iowa, where
they again built a cabin in the woods. They lived
poorly through the winter, receiving some timely
assistance from General Brown, U. S. Army, sta-
tioned at Mount Rose, who was an old friend of the
family.
For several years Dolph was variously engaged
running a ferry, a carding machine, as cabin boy,
steward, and keeping a hotel, and attending school
as he had opportunity. In the fall of 1839 Dolph
walked from Fort Madison, Iowa, to Belleville, Illi-
nois, through snow and ice, to attend free school,
Mr. Taylor being the teacher. In the year 1840 he
returned to Iowa, and between that year and 1843
learned the brick-mason's trade, attending school in
the winter. In the winter of 1841-42 his teachers
were ladies named Wilson.
On reaching manhood Hannah rented the ferry
at Smith's Mills on Skunk river, Iowa, and ran it
for two years. While thus engaged he saw a de-
scription of Oregon Territory written by General M.
M. McCarver and Peter H. Burnett, which enlisted
his interest in the country. He attended a meeting
at Fort Madison, Iowa, in the fall of 1844, called
for the purpose of organizing an Oregon emigration,
and there signed an agreement to start for Oregon
the next spring. He left Fort Madison on the 14th
of April, 1845, and reached The Dalles on the Co-
lumbia river in October. Hannah had outfitted for
a hunting expedition across the plains, but soon
learned that the long journey could not be made a
diversion; so he agreed to drive Mrs. General Mc-
Carver's team to Oregon. Their pilot was Joe
Meek, who proposed at Fort Boise on Snake river
to take them by a southern route into the head of
the Willamette valley, Oregon. Mrs. McCarver re-
fused to leave the old trail; so their mess came
safely across the Blue Mountains and above The
Dalles. They were met by General M. M. McCar-
ver, who had boats ready to take the family down
the Columbia river. Hannah was left in charge of
the goods and wagons at The Dalles, where a raft
was built; and as captain he took them to the Cas-
cades, where he was relieved by Mrs. McCarver's
brother-in-law, Samuel S. White, who had taken
the cattle down the trail. He proceeded to McCar-
ver's location on the Tualatin Plains, and made his
home with the family until the death of Mrs. Mc-
Carver.
At
In the summer of 1846 Hannah and Mr. Howland
laid the brick walls of the Catholic church at
French Prairie, which are still standing. The next
winter he made rails, and by the light of fir limbs.
at night improved himself by study. In the spring
of 1847 he made a trip to Puget Sound with a party
consisting of John Cogswell, E. R. Scott, Robert
Pentland, Sam Knox and Messrs. Williams, Flint
and Polly, their object being to engage in the lum-
ber business. At Tumwater they hired Polly Slo-
cum, an Indian chief, with six of his men and a
large canoe, to take them through the Sound.
Point Defiance an Indian chief met and warned
them not to land on Commencement Bay, as trouble
had arisen with the Northern Indians. They then
visited the wild country surrounding Elliott Bay,
also the bay where Port Townsend is located, and
crossed to Whidby Island, where the Tumwater
Indians and the islanders had some difficulty in
regard to a debt owed by Polly Slocum and his In-
dians to the islanders. At one time during the
night, while at this camp, matters assumed rather a
serious turn; but the difficulty was quietly settled
by the party making up the amount necessary to
pay the debt due the islanders; so they were allowed
to go with their hair. Before reaching Fort Nis-
qually on their return, they ran out of provisions.
While they were passing the southern shores of
Commencement Bay, Mr. Flint shot five eagles; and
the party landed at Point Defiance, skinned and
cooked the birds, and regaled themselves on patri-
otic soup. They abandoned their purpose of build-
ing a mill and of shipping lumber to the Sandwich
Islands, and returned home.
On his return Hannah was appointed deputy
sheriff of Clackamas county, Oregon, by William
Holmes, and in the winter attended Judge Thorn-
ton's school at Oregon City. On the 18th of August,
1848, he started with a party for the California
mines, reaching Sutter's fort in the latter part of
September, and went to the American river to mine.
In January, 1849, he left the mines, taking with him
three thousand, five hundred dollars in clean gold
dust, and went to Sacramento and invested in city
property. There McCarver and Hannah built a
storehouse and went into the commission business.
In February, 1849, Hannah was elected sheriff of
Sacramento county, and held the office until Cali-
fornia was admitted into the union. He then
returned to Oregon City.
war.
In 1855 Hannah enlisted in Company C, of Clack-
amas county Oregon Volunteers for the Yakima
On the organization of this company, James
K. Kelley was elected captain and D. B. Hannah
first lieutenant. The volunteer companies rendez-
voused at The Dalles, where the regulars were con-
centrated under command of Major Rains. It is not
necessary to review this campaign further than to
say that Colonel Nesmith's order to Major Armstrong
at the Yakima gorge was carried out to the letter.
Of the two Indians that were killed, as returned in
Colonel Nesmith's report, Lieutenant Hannah killed
the first. In the charge through the gorge, Lieuten-
ant Hannah was in the lead; and, when he reached
the brush at the junction of the Yakima and Atta-
num rivers, he urged his horse forward, reached the
364
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
north bank of the Attanum, and found himself con-
fronted by a number of mounted Indians. He stop-
ped his animal suddenly, and was thrown violently
over his horse's head, gun in hand, facing the
enemy, but made one good Indian before Major
Armstrong came up with the command.
At this point Major Armstrong ordered a halt.
Lieutenant Hannah was on the ground with an
empty gun; and, when the Major inquired what he
had done, Hannah merely answered that he had
made a good Indian, and said, “Major, the Indians
are running away." The Major at once ordered the
command to charge. The only Indians to be seen.
were fleeing up the Attanum river and across the
valley towards the Nahchess. The Major and the
command dashed away after them, leaving Hannah
behind on the ground reloading his gun in a cloud of
dust so dense that nothing could be seen. Lieuten-
ant Hannah did not see Major Armstrong or the
command again that day until two o'clock in the
afternoon. If Colonel Nesmith and Major Rains had
both been present, they could not have prevented
the volunteers from following the Indians wherever
they went, the order to charge having been given.
In the spring of 1856 Hannah went into the steam-
boat business on the Willamette river, following it
for a year. He then bought a law library, and
studied law at Oregon City. In 1858 he was sent
to the legislature, and helped to elect General Joseph
Lane and Delazon Smith United States senators.
He was a member of the first and nearly all the
Democratic territorial conventions. On the admis-
sion of Oregon as a state, he was appointed United
States marshal by President Buchanan, and took the
United States census in 1860 of Oregon. From that
time until 1872, he was engaged in the land busi-
ness, going in that year to Tacoma, Washington
Territory, where he invested in real estate, and has
been in that business till the present time.
He was married in May, 1874, to Mrs. Kate E.
Wilcox, a daughter of Peter G. Stewart, of Portland,
Oregon, by whom he has had four children, three of
whom, one boy and two girls, are now living.
In 1878 he was elected one of the fifteen delegates
to the Walla Walla convention, which formed a con-
stitution for the State of Washington. He was
county commissioner of Pierce county at that time.
He was a member of the city council of Tacoma in
1886-87, and has been several times a delegate to
the Democratic territorial convention, and once a
candidate of his party for the territorial legislature.
Hannah was a member of the committee of fifteen
which was appointed by a mass meeting of citizens
to persuade the Chinese to leave Tacoma on the 3d
of November, 1885. At the beginning of the agita-
tion for the removal, there were about nine hundred
Chinese in the city; and they were all persuaded to
leave without personal injury or the destruction of
property. Since that time there have been no Chi-
namen in the city or county, except those passing
through. For his connection with the removal,
Hannah was indicted, with fifty-two other citizens
of the county; but they were never brought to trial,
for the reason that the federal courts had no juris-
diction. He is now a prosperous and leading citizen
of Tacoma, Washington.
In
CAPT. JOHN HARFORD.—This distinguished
captain, whose portrait is given here, is now a resi-
dent and one of the principal owners of the townsite
of Pataha City, Washington, and was born in West-
chester county, New York, February 14, 1828.
1842 he removed to Kendal county, Illinois, and in
1850 journeyed westward to the city of San Francisco.
In 1852 he located in Placer county, California, on
a ranch where now stands the little city of Lin-
coln. He removed thence to Marysville, where he
engaged in the butcher business until 1855. There
he purchased a band of sheep at ten dollars per
head which had been driven from Ohio. After this
investment, he again became a rancher, and soon
afterwards married Miss Maggie Harris, a woman
who has proved herself a model wife and mother,
and whose kind and winning ways have ever made
for her household a home of happiness and love.
In 1862 the captain removed to San Luis Obispo,
where he erected the first wharf and the first ware-
house building in that now Port Harford. He also
became a member of the firm of Schwartz, Harford
& Co., lumber dealers. With a capital of but five
hundred dollars each, the partners retired in nine
years with a nice little fortune. Captain Harford
then commenced building a railroad from Port Har-
ford to the city of San Luis Obispo, and after com-
pleting one mile associated himself with the noted
steamship firm of Goodall, Perkins & Co. under the
firm name of the San Luis Obispo & Santa Maria
Valley Railroad Company. This firm constructed
a railroad from San Luis Obispo to Port Harford
(named in honor of the captain), a distance of nine
miles. When the steamship company disposed of
their interests in that county, the partner in whom
we are interested retired from the business. In
1882, with his wife and two sons, he removed to his
present location, and engaged in the banking and
milling business. He owns a beautiful home, a
commodious bank building, and a roller-process
flouring mill, with a capacity of one hundred barrels
per day, under the firm name of Houser & Har-
ford. In connection with the mill, he owns all the
water rights and grounds controlled by virtue of
the improvement.
Although never seeking political preferment, he
held the office of county commissioner in San Luis
Obispo county for four years. This was time spent
in laboring for the public welfare rather than for his
own public advancement. He was also, for nine
years, captain of the port of Port Harford, California.
Four children have blessed his married life: Fred-
erick, who is cashier of Harford & Son's bank;
Harry, a hardware merchant; Emma, the wife of
W. H. Bogardus, a business man of Seattle, Wash-
ington; and Maggie, who still resides at his home.
Mr. Harford has many interesting reminiscences
of his trip across the plains, and of the pioneer
days in the West and Northwest. Most Americans
have heard of a young man who started westward
across the plains vowing that he would shoot the
first redskin he met. This proved to be an Indian
woman; and he promptly put his resolve into
execution. For the offense he was captured by
the Indians and skinned alive. Mr. Harford was
one of a company's train to which the young man
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
365
belonged, and vouches for the accuracy of this
almost universally discredited story. The event
occurred on the sink of the Humboldt, August,
1850.
Honest to a penny, and generous to a fault,
Captain Harford has gathered about him a circle
of friends only numbered by his acquaintances.
He has virtually retired from the active pursuits
of life, having amassed a handsome competency,
gained wholly by a strict observance of those
primary business principles which ever carry with
them success. His life exhibits a career worthy
of honorable regard, and of emulation by all those
engaging in business.
GEORGE W. HARRIS. — This successful busi-
ness man of Morrow county was born at Pittsfield,
Pike county, Illinois, February 18, 1858. During
his minor years he followed the fortunes of his
parents, who moved to Iowa in 1860, and four years
later crossed the plains to California with ox-teams,
locating at Red Bluff. In 1865 they came to Ore-
gon and located at Monmouth. From that date
many changes and removals were undergone, includ-
ing a return to California, a residence at Corvallis
and again at Eugene; also a trip across the continent
to Missouri, Texas and Iowa, and a return to Ore-
gon, where a home was made at Bethel, Polk county;
and in 1880 a final settlement at Pendleton.
During these wanderings George received a good,
common-school education, and upon reaching adult
life studied medicine three years with his father with
the expectation of taking a full course at some medi-
cal institute and receiving a degree, although he
never completed the design. Soon after coming to
Umatilla county, he began business for himself, mak-
ing his first effort in agriculture. The winter of 1884
he spent at Portland in attendance upon the business
college. With this further equipment for business,
he returned to Pendleton and engaged as clerk the
following year in a drug store.
In 1885 he discovered, or made for himself, a suit-
able opportunity at Lexington, Oregon, and coming
hither opened a drug business, which he successfully
continues to the present time. He was appointed
postmaster in the fall of 1886, and still retains the
position. He also handles implements for Frank
Bros. of Portland, and deals wholesale in wheat.
He was married in 1887 to Miss Hattie Powers,
and lives with her a most happy domestic life, hav-
ing one child, Georgie.
JUDGE M. V. HARRISON. — This early
builder of Arlington, Oregon, and highly esteemed
gentleman, was born in West Virginia in December,
1857, and in 1865 accompanied his parents to In-
diana. He enjoyed educational advantages in a
graded school at Dayton, gaining a good foundation
for his later studies. In 1877 he began reading law
under J. R. Carnahan at Lafayette, Indiana, but
after a year abandoned this project and formed the
purpose of learning the requirements and forms of
mercantile life, and in pursuance of this plan ac-
cepted a position as clerk in a store.
In 1880 he sought a larger life upon our Pacific
coast and came hither, locating in the Yakima
country. The following year he undertook the hard
and adventurous trip back across the Rocky Mount-
ains as one of the drovers of a band of cattle to
Cheyenne. In the fall of 1882 he returned to our
coast, locating at Arlington, where he opened a store,
having an excellent assortment of goods,-the first
stock of the kind placed in Arlington. In 1883 he
disposed of this business and engaged with Mr. J.
W. Smith, who had in the meantime brought in a
very large stock of goods. In 1883 he established
the hardware business, which he still manages with
satisfactory results.
In his public relations, Mr. Harrison has been
active and efficient. He has served as councilman
in the city of Arlington ever since its incorporation,
being at present a member of the board. In Decem-
ber, 1888, he was appointed county judge to fill the
unexpired term of W. W. Steiwer. He is a member
of the Democratic state central committee. The
Judge has been one of the real fathers of Arlington,
and one of the most active men to develop the vicin-
ity and surrounding country, ever since there was
an attempt in 1880 to build a city here upon the
drifting sands by the bank of the Columbia.
He was married at Lafayette, Indiana, to Miss
Sophia Gregory in 1882, and has two children, Dale
V. and Lelah E.
GEORGE E. HARTSON. — The subject of this
sketch, editor and proprietor of the Skagit News,
was born in Troy, New York, in 1855. While but
an infant his parents made a new home in Wisconsin,
and nine years later in Iowa. In 1869 they came to
California, but almost immediately continued their
travels up the coast, coming to a final halt at Coup-
ville, Washington Territory. Young Hartson accom-
panied them, and at this place made such good use
of the public school as to be able at the age of seven-
teen to engage as teacher; but in 1872 he made a
permanent home near Mount Vernon, Washington
Territory, purchasing land a mile distant and farm-
ing, and in the interim of his new labors plying his
old profession as school teacher. He was promoted
by the popular voice in 1882 to the position of
school superintendent of Skagit county, which he
held till 1886. In 1885 he purchased the Skagit
News, a paper devoted to the interests of Mount
Vernon and Skagit county in particular, and to the
Sound at large. With what success he has con-
ducted it, the public already knows. In connection
with his newspaper office, he accommodates the pub-
lic by keeping a stock of books and stationery.
He was married in 1879 to Miss Matilda Gates, an
accomplished young lady and the daughter of the
substantial business man, Jasper Gates.
There are
three children in their family, Ralph, Clifford and
Gracie.
L. B. HASTINGS.— Under the bluffs on the
sandbank at the old place that the Frenchmen
called La Dalles, in the autumn days of 1847, a
company of wayworn immigrants was lying along
the river side, the women at the tents, the children
playing with the dogs and romping on the shore,
and the ponies and cattle feeding upon the mount-
ain. The men were at work day after day a whole
366
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
month, with their axes and hammers, in making a
flatboat from the pines that they cut from the hills.
This company of sixty wagons had just come out
of the infinitely long distance to the eastward; and
when the craft, made with the woodman's rude
skill, was done, tents, wagons, equipages, women
and children were all packed on board; and the
clumsy, square-headed barge was set afloat, drift-
ing down the wide river between stupendous
mountains. Past Mimmeluse Island and past the
beetling crags of Wind Mountain, it approached
and reached the dangerous Cascades. Here was
the portage. Below that was the drifting and row-
ing to Linnville, and along the thickly wooded
shores of the Willamette to the spot where Port-
land now stands, which consisted then principally
of Pettygrove's cabin; while behind it rose the
forest giants, "black-stoled, black-hooded, like a
dream." These amphibious travelers or voyagers
were L. B. Hastings and company,-Hastings, the
pioneer of Portland and of Port Townsend.
There are men who would not have given a nickel
for all that a crow could fly over in a day of such a
country as Portland and vicinity appeared to be in
1847. Hastings was not one of these. He bought
a lot on the original townsite, and put up a log cabin.
His first work was a contract to furnish supplies to
the troops on the way to the Cayuse war. The fol-
lowing year the California gold excitement lured
the Portlander to set out to dig for his fortune; but
a detention of thirty days at the mouth of the
Columbia decided him to postpone his trip until
the next year.
He then made ten thousand dol-
lars in the mines merchandising, not digging, and
invested this capital in our city, purchasing a new
stock of goods and buying more lots. But the sum-
mer backwater of the Columbia and the dense woods
on the shores were proving unhealthful; and in 1852
Mr. Hastings purchased a schooner and embarked
for the Sound. F. W. Pettygrove, T. A. Ross, T.
Tallantacre and David Shelton with their families,
and Mr. Hastings, sailed down the river and around
to the Strait, finding a location at Port Townsend,
Washington Territory. Mrs. Hastings was the first
white woman to set foot upon the beach; and the
first house in the city was in process of construction.
There the Hastings domiciled themselves.
Beginning now to create a city, Mr. Hastings
entered into a partnership with Pettygrove in the
merchandising business, and also took a contract
for piling for loading vessels. He continued the
mercantile business twenty years, until, in 1872,
he felt the encroachments of age, and laid upon
his sons his public cares. During his long resi-
dence there, he assumed his full share of public
duties, serving a term in the territorial legislature,
and as sheriff, probate judge and treasurer of Jef-
ferson county. Subsequent to 1872 his large prop-
erty interests required his entire attention. In 1881
he received a stroke of paralysis, which caused his
death the following year.
He was born in Vermont in 1814, and spent his
life on the frontier. The trade which he learned
was that of dyer and wool carder; and he also
taught school to assist him in acquiring an educa-
tion. At La Harpe, Illinois, he met and married Miss
Lucinda Bingham. Their children are all people of
ability and distinction: Oregon C. Hastings, a photog-
rapher at Victoria; F. W. Hastings, L. B. Hastings
Jr., and Warren I. Hastings, respectively real-estate
dealer, steamboat owner, and attorney at Port Town-
send. His elder daughter, Mrs. D. M. Littlefield,
also lives at Port Townsend, and the younger, Mrs.
A. G. Allen, at Astoria.
Through his long and eventful life, Mr. Hastings
was in the van of all progressive efforts, and sus-
tained an unblemished reputation.
M. R. HATHAWAY.- Among the brightest
and most popular men on our coast is M. R. Hath-
away, adjutant-general of Washington. His char-
acter, frank and genial, is strengthened also by a
manly reserve and modesty which cause every
honor bestowed upon him to repose with double
dignity.
He was born in Herkimer county, New York, in
1823. Fitting himself as teacher, he found employ-
ment in Wayne county. While still but a youth,
he removed with his father to Michigan, where his
labors alternated between teaching, and opening
out a farm. In 1848 occurred his marriage, Miss
Maria Smith, of La Porte county, Indiana, being his
bride. Three years later he crossed the continent to
Oregon, arriving at Portland in the autumn of 1852;
and it was here that their little daughter Mary
passed from earth. In 1853 he engaged in business
as master of the Stevens' ferry, substituting horse-
power for the oars.
In the autumn of that year he removed to Fale's
landing, fourteen miles below Vancouver, on the
Washington side, and took a claim, and became
master of the postoffice there established.
In 1854
he was chosen superintendent of public schools of
Clarke county, with but eight votes dissenting, and
in 1857 was re-elected without opposition. Declin-
ing the office in 1860, he was again elected in 1864,
serving the county in that capacity nine years, dur-
ing which the schools increased in number from four
to twenty-five. From 1854, and for many years
thereafter, he was teaching at Vancouver, The
Dalles, and at other points, everywhere being recog-
nized as one of our most efficient and popular edu-
cators.
When the Indian war broke out in 1855, he en-
listed as private in Captain Strong's company of
mounted riflemen, and was unanimously elected.
orderly sergeant. This company was mustered into
the United States service, and made an expedition to
Strong's battleground, forming a treaty with the
Indians. Two scouting expeditions were made north
of the Columbia; but, while rendezvousing at The
Dalles, General Wool from Vancouver ordered the
return of their transports and horses; and the volun-
teers were compelled to quit the service after what
they deemed a most inglorious campaign. But this
was not to be the end of Mr. Hathaway's services.
Governor Stevens, who returned from Fort Ben-
ton in January, 1850, was planning a campaign
against the Indians early in the spring, with terri-
torial troops. On February 7th he sent for Mr.
Hathaway, and tendered him the position of quar-
termaster and commissary-general, with station at

CHARLES CARPENTER ESQ.,
NORTH YAKIMA, W. T.
UNI
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
367
Vancouver. The situation was very difficult; and
many believed that supplies could not be obtained.
The new quartermaster, however, displayed great
activity and persistence, and by diligence succeeded
in furnishing over one-third of the supplies for the
whole territory, gathering them all the way from the
Calapooia Mountains to Clatsop Plains, as well as in
his own county of Clarke. Nothing needed was re-
jected, from three pecks of beans up. A difficulty,
however, arose with respect to the form of blank
used by him in making orders, -a form printed from
that of Oregon and adopted by him in accordance.
with the advice of Governor Curry, Governor Ste-
vens having left the matter with Hathaway. Out
of this grew complications which culminated in his
resignation.
Returning to private life, he engaged in business.
and school-teaching at The Dalles, and in 1857 came
back to his claim. It was not easy, however, for
him to live a strictly private life, as his neighbors
were ever seeking him for some public duty. In
1865 he was elected to the territorial legislature, and
served with fidelity and distinction. Disallowing
the use of his name as candidate for the territorial
council in 1858, in 1864 and in 1870, he was nomi-
nated by the territorial convention of 1876 as joint
councilman. Although not a member of the con-
vention, having come out as an independent, and
having also two opponents in the field, he received
a majority of all the votes cast. Declining the
nomination in 1880, he was persuaded to accept a
position as adjutant-general, and to this office was
elected by a flattering majority.
From 1881 to 1885, he was in business at Portland,
in the employ of the Oregon Railway & Navigation
and Northern Pacific Railroad Companies.
In 1887 he suffered a terrible stroke of paralysis,
from which he believes that he will never recover.
In his home at Vancouver, in the midst of life-long
friends, he looks without dread upon the last
changes, and with much of pleasure upon his life-
work now done. The life-work of such a man as
Mr. Hathaway, however, is never ended. It is still
active and blessed in our society.
S. G. HAVERMALE.- Reverend Mr. Haver-
male, a leader in the business and social circles of
Spokane Falls, was born in Maryland in 1824, and
removed with his parents to Ohio while but a boy
of eight, and at the age of twenty went to Illinois.
There he came under religious influences, and under-
took the work of preaching the gospel. For twenty-
one years he gave his life and strength to his sacred
calling. In 1873 he was transferred to Walla Walla,
where he preached two years, and in 1875 came to
Spokane Falls, Washington Territory. Although
having been engaged in ministerial work there, he
did not confine himself exclusively to its duties.
He took up a claim of one hundred and sixty acres
half a mile from the city on the bank of the river.
It has now become very valuable. He also entered
energetically into the flouring-mill business, erecting
a six-story structure on a ground plan of fifty by one
hundred feet with a capacity of six hundred barrels
per day. His partner in this business is George A.
Davis. Mr. Havermale has a family of three chil-
dren, all of whom are married and in good circum-
stances.
Its water-
Before locating at Spokane Falls he made a thorough
investigation of the country from the Snake river to
British Columbia, and found no other place so
entirely commending itself to him as adapted to
meet the requirements of a great center.
power, timber, agricultural and mining advantages
leave little to be desired. There, therefore, he lives
in a hale age, doing the work of the most active
business man at a time of life when "superannua-
ted" is sometimes written after a minister's name.
MR. AND MRS. GAY HAYDEN.— Promi-
nent among the many pioneers of the Pacific North-
west who deserve an enduring place in its history
are Mr. and Mrs. Hayden of Vancouver, Washing-
ton, whose heroism under the many difficulties that
beset the emigrants who broke the way for advanc-
ing civilization on this far frontier will seem to gen-
erations yet unborn, who are destined to read these
pages, more like the dream of the novelist than a
recital of facts.
Mrs. Mary J. Hayden, who at this writing is a
handsome, well-preserved and charmingly vivacious
woman, as ready-witted, graceful and gentle as
though border life had never been her portion, was
born in the year 1830 in Athens, Maine, and spent
her early childhood with her grandparents in the
town of Cornville in that state. At the age of
fifteen Miss Bean emigrated with her parents to the
wilds of Wisconsin, where she was married in 1847
to Gay Hayden, one of the well-known pioneers of
the Pacific Northwest, with whom her lot was cast;
and, in the year 1850, they emigrated to that part
of Oregon Territory to be known in future as the
State of Washington.
In recounting her experiences in crossing the
plains with teams of oxen, Mrs. Hayden says: "We
traveled leisurely at first, but wearily, as the roads
were bad in early spring, and accommodation for
ourselves and teams could be had at night in the
spare settlements, through which we thought it
safer not to hurry. But, when we launched out in
the open prairie beyond the settlements, we enjoyed
a sense of freedom and exhilaration born of inexpe-
rience and the exuberance of young, untried ambi-
tion. At Council Bluffs we remained in camp for
about ten days, waiting for the tardy grass to grow
sufficiently to sustain our stock. Here we occupied
the time in enlarging tents, mending ox-yokes and
repairing wagons. We also provided supplies for
the long, long journey, and effected an organization
of one hundred people for our mutual protection."
On about the 20th of May the little party took up
their line of march up the north side of Platte
river, where they soon found good roads and abun-
dant forage, and with perpetual sunshine during the
day and terrific thunder-storms at night. During
one of these storms the cattle stampeded, leaving
them stranded for ten days without teams.
were compelled to abandon half of their stock,
which was left behind to be picked up by more for-
tunate travelers. Their wagons were broken by the
teams upsetting them; and there was no timber to
be procured for repairs except by swimming to an
They
25
368
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
island in the Platte, where they obtained green cot-
tonwood poles to replace seasoned hickory tongues
and axles, with which they moved uncertainly on.
After reaching the sandhills of the Platte, they
made slow progress with their depleted teams. At
Fort Laramie they purchased more oxen, paying
enormous prices. Here they entered the Flint or
Black Hills, where their oxen became so tender-
footed that many were unfit for use. The Pawnee
Indians, through whose country they laboriously
traveled, annoyed them greatly, but offered no bod-
ily harm. The uneventful and yet exciting days
sped on until at last they reached Fort Hall. After
leaving this fort, the party met for several days an
almost continuous band of Indian braves, many of
whom were very insolent. They demanded food,
blankets, etc.; and at one time Mrs. Hayden was
seized by two of them and partially drawn from the
wagon in their search for powder, which they were
frantically determined to get hold of. But for the
timely action of Mr. Barker, Mrs. Hayden's uncle,
who was driving the team and who promptly res-
cued the lady, there would doubtless have been a
terrible tragedy.
One pleasant afternoon, as they were nearing
Salmon Falls on the Snake river, a young Indian
came bounding out of the hills, and was suspiciously
cordial in his greetings. Walking up to Mr. Hay-
den, he put his arm around him. Not wishing to
be outdone in cordiality, Mr. Hayden returned the
compliment; and the two (the white man unsus-
pecting and the Indian on the alert) walked and
talked together as best they could by signs and
gestures, when suddenly the Indian turned around
and, pointing to the wagon, asked in Chinook,
"Konsi chick chick, chareo, okoke sun men a loose?
(How many wagons are going this way before the
sun goes down?)
Mrs. Hayden divined the Indian's treacherous
intentions, and interrupted her unsuspicious hus-
band by promptly answering, "Twenty," holding
up her extended thumbs and fingers twice to denote
the number. The Indian being thus deceived as to
their real situation, broke away and disappeared in
the hills as suddenly as he had come; but, upon
arriving at camp, the anxious party was delighted
to find four or five wagons ahead of them, although
the mythical twenty did not appear, nor did the
Indians either.
Arriving at The Dalles, our emigrants sold their
teams and the running gear of their wagon, reserv-
ing the bed, with which they constructed a boat
to bring them on to Portland. At the Cascades they
could not find an Indian or anyone else who would
pilot them over the rapids of the Columbia; so they
made the portage by hiring a government team to
haul their effects, including the novel boat, around
the falls, where they launched and embarked, but
had to "waup" the wagon bed around several
points of rocks before reaching open water.
making one of the portages on this perilous trip,
Mrs. Hayden rode on the top of their clumsy boat,
which had previously been perched upon a huge
government wagon, her lofty, jolting, rocking eyrie
carrying her far above the tops of the tall fir trees
that rose in the gulch below her. In many places
In
the grade was a narrow, sidelong, slippery wagon
track, which the faithful mules trod with human
sagacity, as they stuck their plinth hoofs among the
rocks that guarded the mountain side. After all the
danger was over, and the teamster had time to think,
he grew nervous and made Mrs. Hayden, who was
in poor condition for walking, dismount and make
her way afoot over a long stretch of safe and level
road, saying he "couldn't control the team." At
Cape Horn the dauntless party rounded the cliffs in
their wagon-bed boat, although men experienced in
navigating the Columbia succumbed to a violent
windstorm that was raging and tied up their staunch
whale-boats till the passing gale had spent its
fury.
After many adventures, our emigrants safely
reached St. Johns on the Willamette with their boat
and camping outfit, but soon returned to Vancouver,
where they were entertained for six weeks by Mr.
A. M. Brown, a sturdy pioneer, who with his good
wife gave the jaded travelers a hospitable welcome.
Here Mrs. Hayden became the proud mother of
twins, whose exultant crowings brought added joy
to the family's lodge in the wilderness. It was a
whole year after the Donation land act became a law
of Congress before the welcome news reached these
dauntless people of the border; but they were on
the ground ready to take advantage of the law when
the tidings came. And Hayden's Island near Van-
couver soon became their home. They lived there
for five years, embracing all the trying period of the
Yakima war, during which Mrs. Hayden spent many
weeks alone in the forest with her children, her hus-
band being often away on business, and menacing
Indians always within sight.
During all this trying time, Mrs. Hayden went
well armed. She became an expert shot through
daily practice with her rifle, judiciously exercising
her firearms always within sight and hearing of
the Indian villagers, being herself the only white
woman in the neighborhood who lived outside of
forts or stockades, with the exception of Mrs. James
Bybee, whose home was three miles distant. But
there was one family living on the Lackamas which
deserves notice. This was at a point about sixteen
miles from Fort Vancouver. The family consisted
of a wife and eight or nine children, the husband
and head of all this domestic felicity, who owned a
valuable horse, having prudently placed himself and
horse under the protection of the government guards
at the fort.
After the close of the Indian war, the Haydens
removed from their Donation claim of six hundred and
forty acres to the town of Vancouver, Washington
Territory, where they have ever since resided in the
beautiful home they have wrested from the wilder-
ness.
At the breaking out of the Rebellion, the few
ladies who resided at Vancouver formed a very suc-
cessful sanitary society, in which Mrs. Hayden took
a leading part. The survivors of this society, which
had contributed to the sanitary fund with phenome-
nal liberality, formed themselves into a dinner club
at the close of the Rebellion, which originally con-
sisted of seventeen members. This club has ever
since met anually at the home of some one of their
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
369
number; and all are pledged to meet thus as long
as any of them shall remain upon the earth. At
this writing the club numbers but eight, the other
nine having been called away by the vicissitudes of
life and death. At each annual meeting the ques-
tion as to who shall be left at last to dine alone
becomes more and more a serious matter for consid-
eration, as their depleted ranks gather around some
hospitable board to talk of "Auld Lang Syne.'
Mrs. Hayden has imbibed the true spirit of
American independence in her years of pioneering,
and is an active woman suffragist. During the
period when the women of Washington enjoyed the
elective franchise undisturbed by the treachery of
politicians, Mrs. Hayden served acceptably to her-
self and the public as a grand juror. She regards
the disfranchisement of the women of Washington
as an act of unwarrantable jurisdiction over the
inalienable rights of the dauntless heroines who
risked their lives to defend their homes as pioneers,
of which future generations will be ashamed, and
asserts that she will never be able to sympathize to
any great extent with the disfranchised negro ele-
ment of the South until the white women of the
Pacific Northwest are again placed in the political
category as their equals at least, and thereby raised
above insane persons, criminals, idiots, Chinamen
and Indians not taxed, with whom the carpet-bag
judges of the South have recently rated them.
SIGISMUND A. HEILNER. -This leading
merchant, who is described as one of the most
energetic, broadminded and liberal citizens of East-
ern Oregon, exhibits in his life that romance of
business which has made many of the phases of
Western life so fascinating to the young men of our
state.
He was born and educated in Bavaria, and in
1853 came to New York, repairing soon to Wash-
ington, District of Columbia, and within two years
more to Crescent city, California, and Althouse,
Oregon. At that point he was engaged in business,
and was there during the war of 1856. As com-
mander of an expedition for packing arms and
ammunition to the volunteers, he saw active service,
and was barricaded for some time. Upon this pack-
ing trip he found one man killed and another
wounded by Indians, who had surprised them on
the road; and his report of this outrage was the
news which precipitated the war in that section.
He saw service thereafter under Captain Driscoll.
In 1865 Mr. Heilner left merchandising, and being
unsuccessful in quartz mining came up to Portland
in search of an opening. Taking a stock of goods,
he set out for the wild region at the Little Dalles, and
thence passed to the Big Bend country. Thereafter
he penetrated as far as Bear Gulf, Montana, and
there disposed of the remainder of his goods. He
now showed his facility by taking up a business
which he had learned in the Old Country, that of
landscape and portrait painting. In this pursuit
he was successful; but it did not last long, and he
returned to Portland, where he found employment
with the Alaska Fur Company.
Upon his return some years later from the north,
he was married to a lady of recognized position in
Portland; and he engaged in business at Sparta in
Union county, but subsequently removed to Baker
City, Oregon, where he is at the present time suc-
cessfully engaged in the forwarding and commission
business, and the renting of several fine business
houses. A magnificent design for a structure, in the
hands of architect A. M. Milwain of Portland at
present, will be erected during the season of 1889
by him; and he is always on the alert for improving
Baker City.
His two oldest sons, Jesse and Joe, are cadets in
Bishop Scott's Academy, Portland, Oregon.
JAS. HENDERSHOTT. Mr. Hendershott,
who became known to the state as a member of our
legislature in both branches during the years 1866-
72, is now residing upon a beautiful and well-im-
proved farm upon the gently sloping lands described
as a “territorial paradise,” lying east of Hender-
shott's point, near The Cove, Oregon. He is
engaged in farming and fruit-raising, and in the
culture of fine stock and poultry. His is a farm
somewhat rare on this coast, where a flock of pea
fowls may be seen. His residence is described as
"palatial,” and is known as "Forest Home.' His
mode of life is upon a liberal scale. Many of his
improvement and information, since he holds the
experiments are conducted with a view to public
position of state horticultural commissioner for the
fifth district. He is evidently fulfilling his duties in
this line with fidelity and efficiency. His three chil-
dren and six grandchildren live near.
Mr. Hendershott is, as the name implies, of Ger-
man extraction, and was born in Illinois in 1829.
His parents became early settlers of Iowa; and at
Burlington young James received his education.
While but a youth of nineteen he was married to
Miss Harriet J. Vincent, of Iowa, and in 1852 crossed
the plains to our state in the company of Asa Mc-
Cully, who was in the lead of the other trains, and
thereby escaped the plague and disasters for which
that year was notable. As salesman for J. L. Star-
key, at Salem, in 1852; as pioneer, auditor and
sheriff of Josephine county from 1854 to 1860; as
scout in the Indian war; as miner on the Salmon
river, and as settler of the Grande Ronde valley,
whither he first came in 1862; as state legislator in
1866, state senator 1868–72, and state land registrar
1872-74, and now as horticultural commissioner,
Mr. Hendershott has made an honorable record, and
has served the state with efficiency. He and his
excellent wife are noted for their hospitality, and
are honored by their neighbors.
HENRY HEPPNER.- This is the gentleman
after whom the city, in which he resides, and of
which he was one of the first proprietors, and the
builder of the first brick building, has been worthily
named. He was born in Germany in 1843. He
came to New York in 1858, and in 1863 via Cape
Horn to San Francisco. His first venture was in
Shasta, California, in the mercantile business; but
after two years he transferred his business to Cor-
vallis, Oregon. Meeting with little encouragement
there he opened a stock at The Dalles, doing well
370
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
for six years.
As the mines of Idaho were opening
out, he projected a trade with that territory. It was
no easy matter transporting goods in the troublous
times of 1861-63. The great war raging at that time
took the attention of the government; and the Indians
of the plains and the Upper Columbia became saucy
and troublesome. Heppner operated by the Cañon
City route. His means of transportation was a train
of pack mules. On one of his trips, nearly two years
after his commencement of the business, his train of
twenty-nine mules was attacked, the animals driven
in one direction, and the five men in charge com-
pelled to take shelter in another. Fortunately this
mishap occurred on the return trip, when the train
was empty. He was able to replace the animals,
and continued his business without trouble from the
Indians, "except,' as he says phlegmatically,
"being fired on once or twice." Being shot at was
so common an occurrence up east of the mountains
as scarcely to be noticed.
In
In 1874 he quit his arduous business, going to the
Grande Ronde. Here he met Colonel Morrow, and
together they went down into Umatilla, Oregon,
opening up a business at the town since named
Heppner. Theirs was the first store. After eigh-
teen months' partnership, Heppner sold out to Mor-
row, going into business soon with Maddox.
eighteen months he again sold out his interest, in-
tending to retire; but, his neighbors prevailing upon
him to remain, he continued on by himself.
three years he took in his partner, Henry Blackman,
his brother-in-law, and is now himself engaged
chiefly in the forwarding and commission business,
which he was first to establish at Arlington.
After
As he is not married, and has no children upon
whom to leave his name, it was a happy thought of
his neighbors to place it upon their city. In the
neighborhood, at a meeting held to christen the
place, he voted against the motion to name it thus;
but the rest carried it over his head, and Heppner
it stands.
GEORGE A. HERBERT. The parents of
George A. Herbert crossed the plains in 1850, locat-
ing in Wasco county, where our subject was born
January 22, 1860, on Fifteen-mile creek. The early
years of George's life were spent on the farm of his
father until he reached the age of sixteen years.
Previous to this time his opportunities for securing
an education were very limited; but afterwards he
was able to attend The Dalles Public School during
the winter, while he still rode on the ranges during
the summer.
In 1879 he commenced a regular course of study
at the Oregon State University at Eugene, but owing
to failing health was compelled to abandon his
education and return to Wasco county. After com-
ing home he accepted a position as clerk in the
general merchandise store of Mays & Greer, at Ante-
lope. He remained in their employment until June,
1884, when he went to The Dalles and accepted the
position of deputy sheriff under James B. Crossen,
then sheriff of Wasco county. At the expiration of
Mr. Crossen's term, Mr. Herbert was elected sheriff
to succeed him, and in 1888 was re-elected, running
on the Democratic ticket and receiving a majority
of three hundred and twenty-five in 1886, and a ma-
jority of two hundred and eighteen in 1888.
Mr. Herbert is one of the most enterprising and
popular young men of the county in which he was
born, and undoubtedly has a future of still greater
distinction and usefulness.
GEORGE F. HERBERT. This gentleman
and his wife were a venerable couple whose lives as
pioneers in our state, and as citizens of great merit
in social, religious and business life, have made them
well known and highly respected in the entire circle
of their acquaintances. Mr. Herbert was born in
Frederick County, Virginia, in September, 1815.
Mrs. Herbert (Elizabeth) née McCormick, was born
May 1, 1818, in the same state. They were married
in 1838, and emigrated to the frontier of Illinois,
where they remained until 1842, when they moved
to Iowa, making a second prairie home.
In 1850 they yielded to the impulse, then very
strong throughout the prairie states, to cross the
continent, and, securing an outfit, made the great
journey to Oregon with Captain Williams' train.
Arriving within the limits of our state, they made
their first home at The Dalles, living all the first
winter in a tent. This first winter of their life in
our state they met with the great loss of their eldest
son, James Ambrose, a lad of thirteen. By this sad
event much of their pleasure and enthusiasm in
founding a home in the new West was for a time
overshadowed. The next year they removed to
Eugene, Lane county, engaging in farming and
stock-raising, but in 1856 returned to Wasco county
and located on the beautiful little stream known as
Fifteen-mile creek, which waters that section of
country lying south and east of The Dalles. Here
they made and improved a home and farm until the
death of Mr. Herbert in 1868. Mrs. Herbert there-
upon removed to The Dalles in order to afford her
children the advantages of a school, and has resided
there to the present time, -a noble and venerable
lady, meriting the honor of a life given, with that
of her husband, to the upbuilding of our great
state.
GEORGE HERRALL.-This prominent figure
in the business circles of the metropolis of the
Pacific Northwest, the connections of whose house
are co-extensive with the mercantile interests of the
whole boundless Pacific coast and Western world,
and the designation of whose industrial activity is
imprinted universally in all our Pacific Northwestern
commonwealths, dates the hour of his nativity to
the year 1832, and looks back far across the water
to the populous state of Baden, a potent political
unit in the vast empire of Germany, to the scenes
of his birthplace, childhood, youth and early man-
hood; for it was there that he imbibed the prin-
ciples of industry, thrift, perseverance, economy
and shrewdness for which his countrymen and the
people of his vast nationality have from the most
remote times been distinguished. There, by the
wise counsels of his father, and by the sagacious.
choices of his own as yet immature but nevertheless
penetrating mind, he was thriftily set to learn the
trade of brewing and of coopering, thus laying the

INNUPUDDIANNININININK
AA
BER
MR.J.A.PERKIN'S RESIDENCE,
COLFAX, W. T.
VIBIBILATE
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
371.
foundation for the golden reward that was to await
him in our metropolis of the Northwest. In 1850
he went to France, working at his trade.
In 1853, leaving the narrow bounds and crowded
life of the old world, he crossed the broad ocean to
the majestic shores of America, the land for the
enterprising, shrewd and noble of every nation.
The ship upon which he made the memorable
voyage was designated by the suggestive appella-
tion, Yankee Plate, plying then across the brine
from Havre to New York. Not satisfied with
the Eastern states, but following the admonition
of the sun to move west, he pushed out to Illinois,
the giant state of the prairie; and, being once in
the stream of surging American enterprise, he
could not long be confined within the valley of the
Mississippi, but was borne on to the land of the
setting sun, to California, the country whose rivers.
run with sands of gold. It was in 1854 that he
made this adventurous trip; and, within only one
more year, he was borne by the irresistible tides of
enterprise to the fairer shores of Southern Oregon.
There, on Althouse creek, he swung the pick and
rocked the "long tom," obtaining by labor in snow-
cold streams, and under a burning sun, the yellow
metal for which civilized man will often lay down
his life. In the fearful time resulting from Indian
horrors and atrocities, he fled for safety to Crescent
City, and bore a brave part in supplying pack
trains for troops from Crescent City to Chetco,
Rogue river, Port Orford and Coquille.
In 1862 he came to the busy little city by the
Willamette, with the dark-green hills at her back,
and the diamond-glittering crown of snowy old
Hood in front, who stands as the silent, immovable,
everlasting signet of the imperial destiny which
awaits the city whose skirts and shoreline trail in
the waters of the river that receive the snow-cold
springs of the imperial mountain. A career in
Idaho was only sufficient to prove that here at Port-
land, upon the banks of the Willamette near its
confluence with the Columbia (down the waters of
both of which must flow the wealth of empire, and
down the rails of steel set by man along their shores
must pour the tides of human industry), would rise
the greatest city of the Northwest. Here, therefore,
Mr. Herrall set his business stake, and entered upon
his vast enterprises with such success that he is now
at the head of the universally known United States
Brewing Company, and a man everywhere held in
high esteem.
HENRY HEWITT. Many differences have
been developed in respect to the particulars of the
immigration of 1843 which can be reconciled only
by making allowances for the natural discrepancies
of memory with regard to events long since passed,
and to the fact that the different companies and
sections of the whole immigration had different
experiences, and that the few survivors are not
likely to have seen nor heard precisely the same
things. Each of the various accounts may be
given as each pioneer remembers it to have occurred;
and each will have its own interest and value.
was to this immigration that Mr. Hewitt belonged.
He was born in Huntington county, Pennsylvania,
It
but, going to Missouri at the age of sixteen, made
his home near that of a Mr. Matheny. There be-
coming acquainted with the pioneer's daughter
Elizabeth, one year his junior, he was married to
her three years later. The next year, 1842, he met
a mountaineer who had been in Oregon and who,
by his long stories of adventures and accounts of
the wonders of the West, set fire to his imagination
and so filled him with the idea of coming here, that
he talked with all his friends to induce the formation
of a large Oregon company; and, indeed, he held a
public meeting, at which as many as thirty-six men
signed a paper promising to make the journey the
next season. All but six of this number, however,
receded from the agreement; and Hewitt himself,
not feeling certain that the company would go
through, and remaining on account of his family,
did not go to the rendezvous. Relying on the
promise of his comrades that he would be informed
of the forward movement, he was, nevertheless, left
behind, greatly to his disappointment. Making
arrangements, however, to cross the country the
next year, he raised a small company, and was on
time at the rendezvous, joining the first great emi-
gration with Applegate, Burnett, Martyn, Lennox,
Waldo and others.
Soon after starting, their great care was to march
in such fashion as to be able to resist an attack of
the Indians, of whom they had a wholesome dread.
To this end they drove in four columns, some thirty
wagons in each, at such a distance apart as to easily.
form a hollow square in case of an attack, with a
place for their herds within. But this plan, which
we find mentioned first by Mr. Hewitt, proved cum-
brous; and it was also wearisome to the animals to
break four separate roads. It was not possible to
preserve much order in crossing the streams; and
at every ford each column must wait until all were
over. To handle the large bands of cattle in any
such way was also difficult. The train was there-
fore divided into three companies, each with its own
captain. In the crossing of the South Platte,
usually said to have been effected by means of
chaining all the teams together and passing over in
solid column, Mr. Hewitt speaks of a large part
making the crossing by putting buffalo robes under-
neath the wagon beds, thereby transforming them
into boats, while men waded alongside of these
amphibious crafts to propel and guide them. At
the North Platte he speaks of canoes being ob-
tained and lashed two and two, into which the
wagons were rolled with the wheels on one side in
one of the canoes, and the wheels of the other side
in the other; and by this ferriage the crossing was
accomplished. Doubtless these different methods
were all tried in different places or by different
companies.
Our pioneer speaks of the efficient services of the
Pilot Gant to Green river, and of Whitman's guid-
ance the rest of the way,-how the Doctor hastened
on ahead of the train from Fort Hall, leaving direc-
tions tacked up all along the road, and also sent
back to them an Indian guide, the faithful old
Sticcus, to meet them in the Grande Ronde and
pilot them through the Blue Mountains. Mr.
Hewitt himself kept the lead over this difficult
372
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
range, and was the first to drive a wagon, with the
exception of Whitman's old vehicle in 1838, from
the summit into the vast Columbia basin that lay
before the desolate plain. On the way to The
Dalles, however, Lenox gained the lead, Hewitt
coming in second.
The trip from The Dalles was by water; and the
cattle were driven along the south shore, but were
crossed over to the north side at Wind Mountain,
taken thence to Vancouver, and were swum back to
the south side at Sauvie's Island. Hewitt selected
a home in Washington county, but the next year
went up the valley to the Yamhill, buying the
Joseph McLaughlin place, which had been first
taken in 1832 and was the oldest farm on the west
side of the Willamette. This has been Mr. Hewitt's
home for nearly half a century. Here he has
farmed and borne his share in building up the com-
munity, and has reared his family of ten children,
all of whom are still living; and all but the eldest,
his only daughter, Anna Eliza, are natives of this
state.
Of all his reminiscences of early times, none are
more pleasant than those that relate to Doctor
McLoughlin. Whoever came to this venerable
father of our state in need of any kind, whether for
food or clothing, paid to him what money or wheat
he could bring with him, and got the supplies. If
the pay were enough to square up, it was all right.
If the settler had little or nothing, and the pay were
insufficient, it was all right also. The Doctor divi-
ded with the pioneers, and waited for them to pay
their bills when they were able. Some never be-
came able; and the Doctor thereby lost some twelve
thousand dollars.
Mrs. Hewitt is no less a pioneer than her husband,
having been born in Owen county, Indiana, in 1823,
moving at an early age to Illinois with her parents,
and afterwards to Platte county, Missouri. She has
thus seen all the life of the West.
FLEMMING R. HILL.-Mr. Hill's experiences
have been so varied and extensive, and his services
on this coast so valuable, that we can here give but
enough to serve as specimens.
He was born in Overton county, Tennessee, in
1824. In 1829 he accompanied his parents west to
a new home in Missouri, and in 1844 was ready for
adventures on his own account. With three com-
panions he set forth to the Rocky Mountains, but at
the rendezvous left their enterprise, and joined him-
self as teamster to a train of emigrants bound for
Oregon.
The trip across the plains was varied with many ex-
citing and amusing incidents. Being weather-bound
a day at Ash Hollow, a few hours were spent in ex-
ploring a cave filled with bones, said to be those of
a party of trappers killed by the Indians.
At the north fork of the Platte, Mr. Hill had a
very narrow escape. After the train had crossed the
ford, it only remained to cross the cattle. When
this was commenced, it was found that one of the
company was on foot and unable to get over. Hill
offered to lend him his horse, and to take the
chances of crossing upon one of the cattle. The
cattle entered the river by a buffalo trail, which
made a deep cut in the bank of the stream. As the
last part of the stock was entering the river, Hill
jumped from the bank of the cut upon the back of
an unbroken five-year-old steer. The ox, of course,
was surprised, and stampeded the whole band. Mr.
Hill rode the animal to the other bank in safety,
while his companions were anxiously watching with
the expectation of seeing him drowned or trampled
to death.
While in the Rocky Mountains, he and several
others were left behind hunting; and not daring to
return after the train, which was usually followed
by prowling bands of Indians, they made a détour
through Devil's Gate," and over some of the
most difficult rocks that a horse ever clambered
across. One of the most exciting scenes resulted
from a young man's shooting a buffalo bull which
had taken up with the loose cattle. The infuriated
animal charged the train, tossing the dogs right and
left and into the air, and receiving without imme-
diate effect a shower of bullets.
diate effect a shower of bullets. Backed up against
the wagon, and keeping everything at bay, he was
at length dispatched. At the crossing of the Des
Chutes the oxen having become weakened by long
travel, were unable to resist the strong current.
One team, drifting down to a bar next the Colum-
bia, had the wagon overturned; and only by the
exertions of Mr. Hill was a young lady, the daugh-
ter of his employer, rescued from drowning. Here
he himself lost his invaluable buffalo gun.
Arriving in Oregon, he took up the various pur-
suits or occupations which promised some return,
taking a claim also on the Tualatin river, and busy-
ing himself at Oregon City. In 1847 he enlisted in
Captain Owen's company to punish the Cayuses,
and had some desperate experiences in this war,
participating in the fights at the Des Chutes, on the
Tukanon and on the Touchet.
Just before the fight at the Des Chutes, the men
were drawn up in line and counted off, every sev-
enth man being detailed to guard the train. Hill
drew number seven; but as a young man named
Manly Curry, who had drawn number six, had an
excellent rifle, Hill offered to exchange numbers
with him if he would also exchange guns.
offer was accepted, and Hill became one of the fight-
ing men. While the company were in line of battle,
Hill saw an Indian coming down the opposite
The
mountain on horseback. Without orders Hill broke
ranks, and ran forward to an intervening gulch bor-
dered by willows in order to intercept the Indian.
On arriving at the opposite bank of the gulch, find-
ing that the Indian was too far off to run towards
him, he thought he would get within range before
the Indian could climb the mountain, and ran across
a small plain to intercept him. When he was dis-
covered running across the little prairie, Colonel
Gilliam and the whole command called to him to
come back. Hill, however, continued the chase
until he thought he was within reach, when he fired
and knocked the Indian off his horse. Hill made
his escape to the gulch in safety under a very heavy
fire from the Indians.
At the Tukanon he was one of the charging party
to save the life of the interpreter, Mungo, who was
wounded and downed among the Indians. The
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
373
rest of the party failed to charge; and Hill, finding
himself alone, saved his life only by falling from
his horse upon the sand as if shot, and at an unob-
served moment drawing his gun and shooting the
Indian who was about to finish the killing of
Mungo, and springing on his horse to ride away.
This diversion as of a dead man coming to life con-
fused the Indians and allowed the others to save the
interpreter.
Mr. Hill was one of the party to escort Reverends
Eells and Walker out of the Indian country; and,
after a winter and spring of adventures, he returned
to the Willamette valley and was honorably dis-
charged. As to the affiliations of the Indians dur-
ing the trouble, and the responsibility of the war,
Mr. Hill says: "I made up my mind from what I
saw during the campaign that if I'had been a 'King
George' man I could at any time have gone into
the hostile camp with perfect safety. All may draw
their inference."
((
He was among the first to go to the California
mines in company with Nesmith, Ford, Judge Locke
and others, and was among the number to purify
Placerville of robbers,-making the name Hang-
town" appropriate, and serving notice that that
was the place where felons might expect to hang.
The proceedings by which four desperadoes were
executed were orderly. The trial was conducted by
lawyers on both sides, and the verdict rendered by
the entire community as jury. Returning to Ore-
gon in 1851, he selected a claim at Wilbur, in a
delightful valley, and has made this his home to the
present time.
In a public capacity Mr. Hill has ever been at the
fore, having been the chairman of the convention to
organize Douglas county, and in the following year
was elected sheriff. He has also served as post-
master a number of years, but is at present occupied
in keeping a hotel. He was married in 1853 to
Miss Belinda Reed, daughter of Doctor Reed, the pio-
neer of 1850, who built the first sawmill in Douglas
county. Their two daughters are both married, and
are living in Oregon.
HON. ROBERT C. HILL.- Mr. Hill, one of
the most responsible men of Washington, and a pio-
neer of an early day, was born in Hatboro, Pennsyl-
vania, September 14, 1829, the son of Doctor John
Hill, his mother's maiden name having been Eliza
L. Davis. At the age of seven he moved with his
parents to Philadelphia, and received his education
at the excellent grammar and high schools of that
city. He entered upon a business career as clerk in
a wholesale dry-goods store in the city, and followed
that occupation four years. In 1848 he removed
with his parents to New Jersey.
In 1850, with his father and two brothers, he
came to the new empire on the Pacific shore, making
the trip via Panama, and arriving in San Francisco
on board the steamer New World in July. In part-
nership with his father he opened a lumber yard at
that city, and a year later tried the fortunes and
vicissitudes of life in the mines, but shortly after-
wards accepted a position as manager of the ranch
of his brother in Sonoma valley. Seeking for some-
thing better to the north he arrived at Whidby
Island in February, 1853, and found located there
his brothers Nathaniel D. and Humphrey, who had
located in the fall of 1852. He took an adjoining
place, and with them went to the Indian war. In
1862 he returned to California, and in that state and
in Nevada engaged in the hazardous business of
mining, remaining thus occupied, with the excep-
tion of one year spent at the East, until 1867.
Coming back to Whidby in that year, he lived there
an active and useful life, until in 1882 he broadened
his business connections by a removal to Port
Townsend, and establishing with Colonel Henry
Landes the First National Bank. In that city he
has a large property interest, and is always ready to
assist in undertakings which work to the advantage
of the place, ever preserving a clear and large busi-
ness outlook.
In public positions of trust and responsibility,
Mr. Hill has been much sought, having been
appointed, by Judge Fitzhugh, clerk of the United
States district court of the third judicial district,
and in 1869 was elected auditor and probate judge
of Island county, holding that position until by
reason of his removal to Port Townsend he was
obliged to resign. A Democrat, he has of late years
engaged in politics only with a view to the conser-
vation of the public good, and without personal
ambition for office.
He was married at Olympia, February 21, 1875, to
Miss Elizabeth Philipps, a native of Canada, and
has a family of three children. We insert here with
great pleasure the portrait of Mr. Hill as a man
upon whose sagacity and public spirit the people of
the Lower Sound greatly rely.
HON. WILLIAM LAIR HILL.-The distin-
guished lawyer, author, versatile writer and thor-
ough student whose name introduces this sketch
was asked to furnish such data as might contribute
in its production; and he diffidently and reluctantly
responded. Among other hastily prepared notes, he
answered: "Have lived as honest a life as my en-
vironments seemed to allow, mainly for the reason
that, according to my hereditary creed, one who is
not at least indifferently honest cannot be very
happy. In all my laborious life the one single fact
in which I have the slightest pride is that, like
Jim Bludsoe, I never flunked,' even when I
thought the laboring oar in work or responsibility
was unjustly given me." Again: "Was a radical
Republican from the time of the organization of
that party, but really had no particular views on
politics except bitter hostility to slavery."
As to his literary tastes, he said: "I have always
had a passion for the study of languages; and,
though I never had proper advantages at school to
gratify that desire, I have employed numbers of
private tutors, and have given much time to the
acquisition of that branch of learning. I have a
reading knowledge of Greek, Latin, French, German,
Spanish and Italian, though I will not pretend to any
great proficiency or degree of scholarship in any of
them. I have been an incessant worker all my life.
I have no faith in any genius but that genius which
374
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
owes its existence to persistent, concentrated and me-
thodical labor, nor in any gospel that promises suc-
cess without unremitting toil. I put no trust in the
advice of a lawyer, physician or statesman, nor in
the learning of that scholar or scientist who finds
time in summer to go yachting, or who seeks
the genial climate in winter." He then sums up:
That is all there is of the man; and 'tis not much.
It stands his work and his tastes procterea nihil.”
Such are his own views of his great individual-
ity, a patient, steady worker, not an idler,-nothing
more. Those who have the privilege of acquaint-
ance with the man will accept those phrases as
illustrative of him, and characteristic of his walk
through life. Industrious, fearless, honest, frank,
independent of the world's opinion, at times even
brusquely so, not to say cynical, he has made
himself distinguished for erudition in the legal pro-
fession, for painstaking and exhaustive examination
of every subject engaging his attention or committed
to his care. Despising the concealment of expression,
he avoids all rhetorical art or indirectness of lan-
guage. His legal opinions and theses, his editorial
contributions and articles, his many addresses upon
almost every branch of knowledge, are models of
perspicuity of expression, vigorous thought, and
are exhibitions of conscientious care in investigating
the truth, justice or right, and in reaching the legit-
imate conclusion.
This busy life of work was ushered into existence
August 20, 1838, at a plantation in Southwestern
Tennessee, just across the river from that memorable
historic field which will be known as "Shiloh" in
the ages to come. His father was there and then
(later in Oregon) a prominent physician, as also an
active Baptist clergyman. Our subject, as he him-
self claims, was a pioneer by heredity, his father
coming of that stock of pioneers who carried civili-
zation from the Carolinas across the Blue Ridge into
the wilds of Tennessee. His mother was a descend-
ant of the Huegenot Lairs who abandoned Nor-
mandy, and assisted in the colonization of the
Atlantic seaboard, to escape persecution for opinion's
sake, and again migrated westward with that first
installment of pioneers who crossed the Alleghanies,
to hew away the forests of Kentucky, and there
establish the homes of civilization.
Lair Hill in early life received just that little start
in school-learning which the old-fashioned sub-
scription schools of the Southern and Southwest-
ern States a half-century ago afforded. To him,
however, it was a start; and later in years, after he
had arrived in Oregon, he appreciated his improved
opportunities afforded in the district school at the
Jefferson Institute, at Jefferson, Oregon, and at the
College at McMinnville, of which he was a student
from 1857 to 1859, inclusive. An institution, by
the way, which his father was most active in found-
ing and sustaining, and of which the Reverend
George C. Chandler was the president, and whose
daughter subsequently became the wife of Mr. Lair
Hill. Mr. Hill made the most of all these oppor-
tunities; but to himself and his continuous and
systematic pursuit of study, rather than to any
institution, is due his great scholarly attainments
and wealth of knowledge, not only in his adopted
profession, but in history, belles lettres and almost
every branch of useful learning.
The father of Mr. Hill crossed the plains in 1850
for California, and in 1851 visited the Willamette
valley, remaining there until 1852, when he returned
in 1853 to Tennessee for his family. He was an
old-time Whig, and took an active part in politics,
so far as advocating the moral aspects of political
questions. His son was thus stimulated to an
ardent interest in the political issues of the day,
and as early as his eighteenth year commenced to
make political speeches when opportunity offered.
That time marks the formation of the Republican
party, the nomination of its first national candi-
dates, Frémont and Dayton. Although of Southern
birth, young Hill espoused the Republican cause,
seeking no better excuse than his unrelenting and
bitter opposition to the institution of human slavery.
When the Oregon state constitution, framed by the
convention of 1857, was submitted to the people for
ratification, although but nineteen years of age, he
wrote and spoke against its adoption because of the
presence of the alternative article, which provided
that Oregon should become a slave state should a
majority of the people so vote, by favoring the
separate article, which provided: "Persons law-
fully held as slaves in any state, territory or dis-
trict of the United States, under the laws thereof,
may be brought into this state; and such slaves
and their descendants may be held as slaves within
this state, and shall not be emancipated without the
consent of their owners.'
,,
The vote polled was 10,400, of which 7,700 was
against the separate article, a majority for a free
state of about 5,000. In 1860, the first election
after he had attained majority, he took an active
part in the presidential canvass in his county,
zealously supporting Abraham Lincoln. He had
commenced the study of the law in the office of
George H. Williams (of national reputation as a
jurist, lawyer and statesman, and who has added
luster to the offices of senator, cabinet officer and
foreign ambassador), and was admitted to practice
in 1861. Checkered to some extent has been his
career, at times seeking other fields in which to
devote his energies; yet Mr. Hill early, steadily and
almost immediately gained a prominent rank at the
bar, and has maintained it, until his reputation as
a great constitutional lawyer has become national.
Early in the war of the Rebellion he became a
civil employé in the army, accepting service under
Major Benjamin Alvord, Paymaster U. S. Army,
Department of the Columbia, who subsequently was
made paymaster-general United States army, and
was succeeded by Simeon Francis, who was trans-
ferred from the editorial chair of the Oregonian to
the office of United States paymaster, Department
of the Columbia, with headquarters at Fort Van-
couver, with the rank of major, United States army.
While Mr. Hill was attached to the paymaster's
department, under Majors Alvord and Francis, he
paid the troops at Forts Hoskins, Yamhill, Ump-
qua, Dalles, Walla Walla, Lapwai and Colville.
But he was not content alone with that service.
During the war his active pen was enlisted; and
he contributed constantly to several newspapers

C.K. MERRIAM, M.D.
SURGEON U.S. ARMY,
FORT SPOKANE, W. T.
U
M
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
375
articles in support of the war, and suggestive of the
policy to be pursued. Many of those articles were
of remarkable force and ability, and attracted the
public attention. He also made many speeches at
war meetings, and at conventions called to support
and encourage Union measures. He was among
the earliest and most persistent of the advocates of
emancipation of the slaves of the rebellious states,
urging it as the plain and practical method to save
the Union, as a war measure, and at the same time
to purge the nation of a crime against humanity
and civilization in general, and republican civiliza-
tion in particular.
From 1864 to 1866, inclusive, he held the office
of judge of Grant county, Oregon. In the latter
year he returned to Portland, adopted that city as
his residence, and entered upon the practice of the
law. In 1872 he assumed the editorial charge of
the Oregonian, in which he continued with marked
ability for about five years, when his health, which
had always been feeble, failed him. In search of
health, he went east of the Cascade Mountains,
selecting The Dalles as his place of residence, and
there resuming and actively engaging in the prac-
tice of his profession. He continued to reside in
that city until 1886. In 1870, without solicitation
upon his part, Mr. Hill was tendered by President
Grant's administration the appointment of associate
justice of the supreme court of Washington Terri-
tory, which he declined. Again, a similar appoint-
Again, a similar appoint-
ment for Idaho Territory was offered, which he
declined, recommending for the place Honorable
W. C. Whitson, who received the appointment and
died during his term of office.
While residing at The Dalles, between 1872 and
1886, Mr. Hill delivered numerous addresses and
lectures mainly upon educational and social subjects
before colleges, societies and general audiences.
To his labors and influence perhaps, more than any
other person, may be attributed the building up of
the Wasco Academy at The Dalles, now one of the
most flourishing institutions of learning in the
State of Oregon.
In 1880, during the presidential
canvass, Mr. Hill took a very active part, addressing
political meetings in most of the counties of Oregon
in the interest of the Republican nominee. In 1882
he was equally zealous in support of the election of
Governor Moody and the Republican ticket; and in
1884 he made numerous speeches in support of the
election of James G. Blaine. He was never idle
when work presented itself for him to do.
In 1886 Mr. Hill went to San Francisco to super-
vise the publication and issue in two volumes of the
codes and general laws of the State of Oregon, com-
piled, rearranged and annotated with reference to
the judicial decisions of Oregon, of the other states
and of the federal courts. Upon that work, which
gives evidence of exhaustive labor and wonderful
where he has since resided, and where he is recog-
nized as a leader among the very able bar of that
city.
Upon the passage by Congress of the Enabling
act to admit Washington as a state into the federal
union, Mr. Hill commenced the publication of a
series of very able and instructive articles in a num-
ber of the Washington territorial journals, urging
the adoption of a judicial system for the new state
which would make its courts a means of adminis-
tering justice rather than the mere forum for technical
disputation. He advocated that plan which has
been engrafted in the Washington judiciary system
of vesting all jurisdiction, civil, criminal and pro-
bate, legal and equitable, in the same courts, and
abolishing terms of the court, with all the technical
learning pertaining to the subject. His valuable
disquisitions on constitutional law, his citing those.
instruments of the various states, and his comments
on the difference of fundamental provisions, were
in keeping with all his labors for the past quarter
century to simplify the practice in courts, to secure
needed reforms, to weed out old errors, and to
give common sense and right reason their proper
influence.
He
Mr. Hill is now in the vigor of manhood.
has a large and growing practice, and is recognized
as an authority on every question of constitutional
law; and none more than he enjoys the confidence
of the state in which he lives as the able jurist,
sound lawyer and exemplary citizen.
REV. GUSTAVUS HINES. Gustavus Hines
was born in Herkimer county, New York, in 1809.
On his mother's side he was descended from the
Carvets and Wilkensons of the old Massachusetts
colony, and on his father's from the Hopkinns of
Rhode Island, all names of the highest respectability
and even celebrity in the early history of New Eng-
land. Governor Carvet of Massachusetts colony,
and Stephen Hopkinns, one of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence, were of the same famil-
ies. He grew to his majority in the county of his birth,
and in 1832 removed to Cattaraugus county, in the
western part of the same state, and soon after entered
the itinerant ministry of the Methodist-Episcopal
church in the Genesee conference. He filled im-
portant appointments in that conference until 1839,
when he was appointed by Bishop Hidding and the
missionary board of said church as "Missionary to
Oregon," and sailed from New York on the 9th of
October of that year in the ship Lausanne, Spaulding
master, which had been chartered by the missionary
board to convey Reverend Jason Lee and his mis-
sionary company of thirty-six souls to the Columbia.
river. Passing around Cape Horn, calling at Rio
Janeiro, Valparaiso and Honolulu, the company
landed in Oregon at Vancouver on the 1st day of
June, 1840.
accuracy and study, Mr. Hill may rest his reputation Oregon was then almost exclusively inhabited by
for future fame. Nor is it disparaging to the labor
of other distinguished codifiers and compilers of the
laws of Oregon to say that the "Hill Codifications"
is the authoritative compilation in use in the State
of Oregon. This work completed, and Mr. Hill
being in nowise enamored of California as a place
of residence, he removed to Seattle in January, 1889,
Indians. The only exceptions were the gentlemen
of the Hudson's Bay Company, perhaps fifty Ameri-
cans who had drifted down from the mountains or
drifted up from the seas, and the small company of
missionaries then established in the heart of the
Willamette valley, about twelve miles below the
!
376
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
present city of Salem. With the exception of the
band of missionaries, the Whites of the country
were so allied in modes and purposes of life to the
Indians, and were so connected with them, that it
would hardly be correct to call them a white popu-
lation, especially if in that term we understand to
be included home and church and school, the sym-
bols and fruits of a christian civilization. Of these
there were absolutely none, except in connection with
the Methodist mission station before mentioned.
Entering upon his work in such a field as this,
Mr. Hines was first detailed by the superintendent
of the mission, Jason Lee, to explore the region of
the Umpquas with a view of establishing a mission
among them.
There was not then a house, nor a
single sign of civilization, south of the "old mission."
Rumors of the hostile and treacherous character of
the Umpquas reaching the mission, Mr. Lee decided
to accompany Mr. Hines on his tour of exploration.
With a guide they proceeded up the great but then
wild Willamette valley, crossed the Calapooia
mountains, descended the Umpqua river to the sea,
and in the midst of the greatest personal peril ac-
complished the purpose of their explorations, but
decided that the Indians were too free and too un-
trustworthy to justify the establishment of a mission
among them. Returning, Mr. Hines was appointed
to the superintendency of the Indian Manual Labor
School, afterwards the Oregon Institute and later
the Willamette University. It was largely under
It was largely under
his influence that the present site of the university
was chosen for the erection of the Manual Labor
School. He erected the first house built in Salem,
the present capital of the State of Oregon. It was
known many years as The old Parsonage.”
In 1843 Mr. Hines was put in charge of the Willa-
mette Falls mission, and built the parsonage and
church yet occupied by the Methodists at the present
Oregon City. He planted some fruit trees in that
year, some of which are yet standing in the lot near
the parsonage, green and vigorous and fruitful, long
after the hand that planted them has withered into
dust.
((
In the autumn of 1843 occurred an incident that
illustrated the determined and fearless character of
this pioneer. A fine saddle horse of his had been
stolen during the spring; and he had given it up for
lost. In the autumn a band of two hundred Mollala
and Klamath Indians, painted and insolent, camped
in the Clackamas bottom about two miles from the
Falls; and a friendly Clackamas Indian informed
Mr. Hines that his stolen horse was among theirs.
At mid-day, when the Indians were all in their
camp, he mounted another horse, and taking a lariat
in his hand rode alone into the midst of the grim and
painted warriors, and throwing the lariat over the
neck of the stolen horse led him out of the camp,
not an Indian daring to interfere with him.
While residing at Oregon City, the then only
Indian agent west of the Rocky Mountains, Dr.
Elijah White, solicited Mr. Hines to accompany him
on a tour to the interior to assist in appeasing an
intense excitement then agitating the Cayuses and
Nez Perces on the Walla Walla, Umatilla and Clear-
water rivers. Several were engaged to accompany
them; but, when the time of departure came, all
refused to go; and Doctor White and Mr. Hines,
against the protest and advice of Doctor McLough-
lin, and all the gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay
Company, were left to go alone or leave the mission
stations of Doctor Whitman at Waiilatpu and Mr.
Spaulding at Lapwai without an effort to save them
from threatened extermination, and all the scattered
settlements of the Willamette valley from most
imminent peril. By canoe to The Dalles and then
on horseback, they went among these fierce tribes,
met and treated with their chiefs such as Yellow Ser-
pent, the Peu-peu-mox-mox of the Indian war of
1855-56, Five Crows, Red Wolf, Ellis Lanitan, and
thus averted for some years the tragedy at Waiilatpu
and the long Indian war which followed it.
In 1845 Mr. Hines returned to New York by the
way of the Sandwich Islands, China and South
Africa, and resumed his labors in the Genesee con-
ference, where he remained until the winter of 1852,
when he was again transferred to Oregon, and
crossed the plains in the summer of 1853, reaching
Portland early in October of that year. His work
in Oregon subsequently had a very wide range, and
was of a very diversified character. He was sta-
tioned at Salem, Albany, Lebanon and The Dalles,
and was also presiding elder of districts that embraced
all the country on the Columbia river and south-
ward to California west of the Cascade Mountains.
He pursued his work with indefatigable industry
and the most conscientious faithfulness; and few
indeed are the men of any denomination of Christians
on this coast who had more seals to their ministry,
or have left a sweeter memory behind them than he.
Mr. Hines was more than a minister; he was a
public man in the best and broadest sense. He bore
a very important part in the first attempts to estab-
lish civil government in Oregon; and the history of
its organization cannot be written without honorable
mention of his name. He wrote largely of and for
Oregon, publishing two books, one entitled "Mis-
sionary Expedition to Oregon," and the other "Ore-
gon and its Institutions," which were very widely
circulated, and exerted a great influence in favor of
the land he loved so well. He was a leading trus-
tee, patron and friend of the Willamette University
in all the stages of its development until his death.
He visited the older states, and lectured widely on
Oregon and the Pacific coast.
Mr. Hines was naturally and essentially a pioneer,
with a magnificent physique, great physical strength,
indomitable will, a voice of great compass and force,
and with an intellect of more than ordinary power.
He was splendidly equipped by nature for the part
he was called on to fill in laying the foundations of
civilization and christianity on the shores of the
Pacific. He died in Salem, Oregon, in 1873, leaving
an enduring mark on the history of his state and
church.
ALANSON HINMAN. — The career of this
well-known pioneer, whose portrait appears herein,
has been unique and interesting; and in one respect,
at least, he occupies at the present time a peculiar
place among the early settlers of our country. That
is, he is almost the only man yet living, of the
earliest pioneers, who still remains in the full vigor
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
377
of mind and body. There are, indeed, a few yet
living whose immigration dates further back than
Mr. Hinman's; but they are almost all now in
extreme old age. He, on the other hand, though
he has now been here forty-five years, came so
young and is possessed of so robust health, that
he is still as active in body and as accurate in mem-
ory and judgment as ever. This gives a peculiar
value to his historical reminiscences. And when
we remember that he has been prominent in nearly
every phase of our development, educational, com-
mercial and political, we can readily see what
important contributions it is in his power to give to
history.
Mr. Hinman was born in New York on the first
day of May, 1822. In 1842 his active and enter-
prising mind caught the great westward movement
of the times; and he went to seek his fortune in
Iowa. His first work was one to which he subse-
quently devoted much attention, i. e., teaching.
Two years having passed in this line of life, the
farther and then unknown West, the ultima thule of
the adventurous spirits of the border, far-off Oregon,
excited his interest; and thither in the spring of
1844 he turned his face. This was the second large
immigration, consisting of eight hundred souls, of
whom two hundred and fifty were able-bodied men.
The immigration of the preceding year, under
the guidance of Doctor Whitman, had demonstrated
the possibility of taking wagons through to the
Columbia. The immigration of 1844, therefore,
pushed right through the shaggy defiles and over
the towering heights of the Blue Mountains, and
in the autumn reached Walla Walla. Here Mr.
Hinman spent the winter, engaged in his former
vocation of teaching. In June, 1845, he proceeded,
in company with Doctor Whitman, to the Willamette
valley; and there he again found employment as
wielder of "the birch and rod." This time his
work was in the Salem Institute, which was situated
near the present site of the Willamette University.
In 1846 he was married to Martha E. Jones Ger-
rish, of whom he was deprived by death in 1861.
His children were Deidamia, Arvid, Mary E., Ida,
Oliver, Sarah, Alanson and Charles. Of these,
Deidamia, Sarah and Charles died in infancy.
In the historic and tragic year of 1847, Mr. Hin-
man was connected with the mission station at The
Dalles; and there he was during the terrible days
of the Whitman massacre. A fund of valuable
information is stored up in his mind concerning
those times which tried men's souls." It is to be
hoped that his remembrances of the controverted
events of that time may sometime be published in
full; for they would constitute a resource for his
torians which might well supplant the tissues of
assumption and prejudice put forth latterly so
voluminously under the sacred name of history.
After the events of 1847 had rendered the Inland
Empire uninhabitable for Whites, Mr. Hinman fol-
lowed the wise fashion of the times, and in the
spring of 1848 located a Donation land claim in
the beautiful valley now known as Patton's valley,
at a point three miles west of the present town of
Gaston. There he lived, engaged in stock-raising
and farming for several years; when he moved to
Forest Grove, Oregon, and there has since made his
home.
In 1860, having formed the design of embarking
in the mercantile business, he went to San Fran-
cisco for a stock of goods. Returning on the old
Northerner, he took part in the wreck of that ill-
fated rover of the sea off the shaggy headlands of
Cape Mendocino. He lost on this occasion eight
thousand dollars' worth of merchandise, but deemed
himself fortunate in escaping with his life; for over
a third of the passengers were drowned. After this
disastrous adventure, Mr. Hinman, nothing daunted
by misfortune, went to the Idaho mines. There he
met with such success as to repair his broken for-
tunes, and to lay the foundation of the financial
prosperity which has not since failed him during
his active and laborious career.
In 1865 he was married, secondly, to Miss Mar-
garet Sophia Bowen, of Oberlin, Ohio, whose rare
qualities of mind and heart have long made their
beautiful family residence a center of attraction, and
have added much to the scope of her husband's
influence and power. The children of this marriage
were Charles Lucius and Frank William.
In 1867 Mr. Hinman was appointed collector of
customs for the Oregon district. This position he
held six years, living at Astoria. The duties of
this responsible office he discharged with distin-
guished ability and faithfulness. Mr. Hinman has
been in various offices a number of times, having
been justice of the peace, member of the legislature,
and county commissioner. Since returning from
Astoria to Forest Grove in 1873, he has been engaged
constantly in mercantile life.
Though now relieved by his sons Alanson and
Frank, and his son-in-law, Reas Leabo, of much of
the confining drudgery of business, he is still as
active as ever in managing the details of his various
enterprises. Although the pedagogic period of our
subject's life has long since passed, he has not lost
his interest in educational work. For thirty-six
years he has been a charter member, and for eleven
years a trustee, of Pacific University, and during
the greater part of the time has been president of
the board and chairman of its financial committee.
The institution owes much to his business shrewd-
ness and general good sense.
As one of the most intelligent and effective, as
well as earliest, builders of the growing empire of
the Northwest, the subject of this sketch is deserv-
ing of special remembrance.
HON. EDWARD HIRSCH. Someone has
written, "There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
rough hew them as we may;" and the subject of
this sketch is a living exemplification of it. When,
away back in "the fifties," he landed a poor boy in
the city of New York, among strangers in a strange
land, and looked about him for honest employment
in any capacity, how little he dreamed that as years
passed by he would hold the purse-strings for the
then almost unknown territory of Oregon, when a
few years later she should lay aside her swaddling
clothes and emerge into the maidenhood of a young
and prosperous commonwealth. Such has been his
career, however; and no man in the state stands
378
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
higher in the estimation of the people than does
Honorable Edward Hirsch, ex-State Treasurer.
He was born at Wurtemberg, Germany, May 3,
1836, and came to America in 1855. Landing in
New York City, he at once sought employment.
Proving unsuccessful, however, he went over into
the neighboring State of Pennsylvania, and secured
a clerkship in a store in a little town in Mercer
county, at the princely salary of seventy-five dollars
per annum. He remained there for several months,
and then went down into the State of Georgia,
where he remained nearly two years, the greater
part of the time at Macon. He became thoroughly
acquainted with Southern life in all its varied
phases, and to this day bears pleasant recollections
of his sojourn in the sunny South. Becoming
imbued, however, with the Western fever, he again
went north, and in company with his brother, Hon-
orable Sol. Hirsch, ex-State Senator from Multno-
mah county, embarked on the steamship Star of the
West, booked for the Pacific slope via the Isthmus
of Panama. This was in the year 1858. They
reached Portland about the middle of April of the
same year, and a few months later opened a retail
store at Dallas in Polk county. They remained
there about three years, and then moved to Silver-
ton, Marion county, where they carried on a general
merchandising business three years longer. They
then dissolved partnership; and Edward Hirsch
went to Salem, Oregon, being employed for some
time as salesman in the firm of J. B. & M. Hirsch.
In 1866, having been elected president and business.
manager of the Eagle Woolen Mills at Brownsville,
he went there and remained in charge of the enter-
prise for about two years. In 1868 he returned to
Salem, where he has resided continuously since. In
1869 he was interested in the mercantile firm of
Hermann & Hirsch of Salem; and in 1876 the name
was changed to L. & E. Hirsch.
In 1878, when the Republican state convention
met in Salem, Mr. Hirsch's name was urged by a
host of friends as a candidate for state treasurer.
The contest in the convention was a vigorous one;
but Mr. Hirsch was successful, and a few months
later was elected by a very large majority. The
writer of this sketch has been intimately acquainted
with Mr. Hirsch for many years, and would regard
this biography as altogether incomplete and insuffi-
cient without giving here a brief résumé of the
results of Mr. Hirsch's admirable administration of
the monetary affairs of our state for eight years.
And, first, the writer would call attention to the
fact that, at the time the new treasurer was inducted
into office in 1878, he found the securities of the
state at a discount. Without reflecting or bewailing
the seriously impaired finances of the state, he went
to work vigorously, quickly and continuously to
remedy the same; and, under his able management,
the securities of the state rapidly rose, and were
within a very few months at par. Through the
subsequent years, the state securities were constantly
advanced. It should be stated here that the office
of state treasurer is by no means a sinecure. First,
he is a member of the Public Building Commission;
second, a member of the State Asylum Commission;
third, a member of the Canal and Lock Commis-
sion; fourth, a member of the Board of School Land
Commissioners; fifth, the general duties of the
state treasurer's office.
in
Mention should here be made of the development
and establishment of the State Asylum. This
establishment was designed and built during this
administration; and it is a proud monument to the
foresight, care, economy and discreet management
of the Public Building Commission. The building
of this institution was one of the great tasks under-
taken by the administration; and when we come to
consider the many details connected therewith,
the way of general management, selection and pur-
chase of lands, locating buildings, superintending
their construction, purchasing stores and materials,
employing architects and workmen, we can realize a
little of the work to be done. The many details in
the matter of furnishing a great institution like this
was a great work of itself. The purchasing of
kitchen furniture, and all the various and numerous
appurtenances belonging to the laundry, and fur-
nishing the several wards, the management of the
farm and stock, etc., all constituted a great work.
During this administration the state house was
almost completed, including the Senate chamber,
numerous committee rooms, the legislative hall, the
rotunda, the supreme court room, west portico and
part of the east portico. The furniture furnished
was of a good and substantial quality, and was
secured at reasonable rates. The frescoing was
done by the best artists, and would be a credit to
any state house in the country.
At the beginning of this administration the con-
dition of the state prison was very poor. The im-
provements that followed at the prison during the
eight years that Mr. Hirsch served as treasurer were
many and various, including an entire new wing
with double rows of iron cells; also the new brick
wall or stockade, which is a solid and substantial
affair, was built; and inside this wall large and
commodious brick shops and foundries were de-
signed, built and completed. Many repairs in the
way of floors, etc., were made; and in addition to
these a fine new brick barn for placing the stock of
the entire establishment was completed. It should
be stated here that in the year 1882 Mr. Hirsch was
renominated by his party; and at the state election
held in June of that year he was re-elected by a
largely increased majority over that of 1878. His
careful, prudent, economical and successful adminis-
tration of the monetary affairs of the state was en-
tirely acceptable to the people at large; and espec-
ially was this the case in his own home county of
Marion, where his majority during that year was
nearly eleven hundred. This majority was particu-
larly large at his own home at Salem, larger, as the
writer remembers, than any state officer ever received
before or since.
Without taking up in detail the continuously
sound financial policy of Mr. Hirsch during his sec-
ond four years of service as state treasurer, the
writer will here only undertake a brief recapitula-
tion of the great advance made during his two
terms, as will be seen in the following items: First,
the state tax levy in the beginning of this adminis-
tration in 1878 equaled seven mills; second, the last

W
ON
BATHS
DESPAI
1887
BLOCK
K
•
.79
DE SPAIN BLOCK, PROPERTY OF MRS. N.E.DE SPAIN.
COURT ST.- PENDLETON, OR.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
379
tax levy made by the board for general state pur-
poses in the year 1886 equaled one and nineteen-
twentieths mills only; third, in the year 1878 there
were no public buildings finished or completed; at
the close of this administration the State Asylum,
State House and State Prison were almost completed,
and in fine condition; fourth, this administration
found a high tax when they took charge of state
affairs; and they ended with an exceedingly low
state tax; fifth, when this administration took
charge, they found the public credit of the state
largely impaired; and it was closed with public
credit, advanced far above par, and sustained by
that public confidence that gives tone and solidity
to public credits; sixth, this administration found a
large debt to begin with, and ended with the public
debt almost entirely liquidated, with the exception
of one small balance, which could have been paid
out of the general fund, but was not paid because
it was due from a special fund; seventh, Mr. Hirsch
as state treasurer, in taking charge of the office in
the year 1878, received from his predecessor the
sum of one hundred and twelve thousand dollars;
when Mr. Hirsch as state treasurer turned over the
state money to his successor in office, the sum was
found to equal a total of three hundred and eighty-
eight thousand dollars; and this one item alone
speaks volumes for the sound and thorough finan-
cial policy constantly pursued by the subject of our
sketch.
Without reverting further to his success as a state
financier, we will state that his honesty, integrity,
discreet management of the public funds, his high
social standing and unflinching adherence to the
principles of the political party he espouses, have
endeared him to the people of our state. His hon-
esty is proverbial and his popularity great, having
the respect of all and the enmity of but few. His liber-
ality is acknowledged, although many of his acts of
kindness are known to none but himself and the
grateful recipients. Mr. Hirsch as a private citizen
is greatly respected by all, and has served as a mem-
ber of the common council of the city of Salem for
several terms. Mr. Hirsch has been a prominent and
active member of the Republican party for many
years. He served as chairman of the Republican
county central committee in the year 1876 with
great ability. He has long been a prominent, useful
and active member of the I. O. O. F. and of the
A. O. U. W.
As
Mr. Hirsch was married May 10, 1868, to Miss
Nettie Davis; and their family now consists of seven
interesting children. Mr. and Mrs. Hirsch take an
active interest in all social and public affairs. As
an active, thorough-going and public-spirited citi-
zen, Mr. Hirsch is destined to many long years of
usefulness; and the people of this state will not fail
to take advantage of his great abilities in the future
as they have done in the past.
JOHN HOBSON.—Mr. Hobson, with his father
and brother Richard and three sisters, came to Ore-
gon as early as 1843, being members of the first
large immigration. The story of their trip and
the influences which directed their footsteps hither
is one of the pleasantest and most romantic among
our early annals; and there is no novel nor history
more fascinating than to listen half a day as we did
to the recital of his adventures.
He is a native of England, having been born in
Derbyshire in 1824. His father was a hatter, and,
losing his wife by death, sought a new region to
bring up his children under better conditions than his
means would allow in the Old Country. He deter-
mined therefore to emigrate to America, and chose
Wisconsin as his objective point. In order to cross
the ocean, he found it necessary to join a party of
Mormons, who were under the leadership of a bishop
and were going in a ship chartered by him. Leaving
Liverpool January 11, they reached St. Louis in
March following, but here found progress impeded
by ice in the river. While waiting several weeks
for the breakup, they made the acquaintance of
Miles Ayers, who was one of the movers in the
organization of a company to go to Oregon; and
the father was persuaded by him to join the train.
Doctor Whitman was also there and confirmed their
resolution.
Mr. John Hobson, then a young man of nineteen,
well remembers the Doctor, and the assistance which
he rendered in procuring for them a dog, and later,
at the Kaw mission, a yoke of cattle. The expe-
riences of the trip of 1843 embrace a wide variety
of details, according to the different portions of the
train to which the various individuals belonged, and
according to the scenes or exertions which impress
different persons most forcibly. Mr. Hobson remem-
bers distinctly the efforts of Doctor Whitman at the
crossing of the Platte river; and that the danger of
the cattle stopping and sinking in the quicksand
was avoided by chaining the entire train together,
and passing on en masse. A crossing of the Snake
was effected in the same way; but at this point Miles
Ayers was drowned.
Upon arriving at Waiilatpu, Whitman's home, the
travelers were disappointed by finding the gristmill
burned, but procuring a little wheat made flour with
their coffee mills. They also left their cattle there
on the range, by advice of Whitman, and making a
large canoe out of a cottonwood tree, with an Indian
guide procured by the Doctor, proceeded down the
Walla Walla river, and made the descent of the
Columbia four hundred miles in this frail shell.
the falls of Celilo their experiences were thrilling
and, indeed, terrifying; and a canoe following was
overturned and one man drowned. At Vancouver
they were generously accommodated by McLough-
lin for goods, for which they gave a note.
At
Leaving their families at Vancouver, a company
consisting of G. Summers, Thomas Owens, Holly,
Harogus and Hobson went on down the river in their
canoe looking for claims, spending nine days for the
trip. Stopping at Chinook they met with the loss
of their craft by its being dashed upon the shingly
beach as the tide and sea swell rose. They were,
however, put across to Tanzy Point by the Indians,
and found the following white men there: Solomon
Smith and Mr. Tibbetts, of Wyeth's expedition,
Elbridge Trask of Wyeth's ship, and William T.
Perry. Trask went to the mountains in 1836 to
trap. On his return in 1842 he met and married
Mrs. Perry's sister. Mr. Perry, his wife and her
380
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
sister were immigrants of 1842 with Mr. Crawford.
Mr. Parrish and W. W. Raymond were living at
the mission. After selecting claims they returned.
for their families, and with a bateau made the trip
down the river once more. Five days on the river
returning, it was Christmas night when they camped
on the shore by the little cove at Astoria. One
experience illustrates the shifts of the early times.
After crossing over Young's Bay to Tanzy Point,
their canoes sank; and all their flour became wet.
They saved this dough by baking it, and had hard-
tack for months.
The season of 1844 was nearly as eventful as the
preceding to John Hobson. It was necessary to go
back to Walla Walla for the cattle; and by the time
they were collected from Whitman's range, and
brought over the Cascade Mountains north of Mount
Hood, and crossed over the Willamette to Linnton,
and driven over the Portland hills, and across the
Tualatin river, and through the gap by way of Che-
halem Mountain to the riffles of the Yamhill at the
farm of Amos Cook, and in short over the Coast
Mountains to the ocean beach, and past Tillamook
to the Clatsop home, the summer was well con-
sumed.
The matter of living at all in those early days was
accomplished with much labor. Potatoes for seed
must be got of Birnie at Astoria, and paid back in
time; and it was not until 1846 that this return could
be rendered. Wheat must be taken a hundred and
forty miles by canoe to Oregon City to be ground
into flour; and eventful were the trips of Hobson in
getting his canoe loads there and back again.
In 1845 young Hobson felt the desire to go into a
region still more remote than the now comparatively
well-settled Clatsop, and with John R. Jackson,
Moore and Gardiner passed over to the Cowlitz prai-
rie, but returned before winter to his place on Clat-
sop. The succeeding years, until 1848, were spent
in the improvement of his home, and in various
expeditions up the Columbia and up and down the
beach, in wrecking the schooner Shark, the whaler
Maine and the bark Vancouver, which were driven
ashore on the Clatsop sands or upon the beach below
Tillamook head.
It was early in 1847 that the people of Clatsop
vindicated their love of order by breaking up saloons
at Astoria, which were running unlawfully and cor-
rupting the Indians. A posse comitatus, under
Sheriff Caples, embracing nearly all the men on the
plains, with Captain James H. McMillen, who was
at work on a boat at the mouth of the Skippanon
creek, ran down and nearly drowned one George
Gear, who was selling Blue Ruin," and had taken
to the river to elude pursuit and to escape to Chi-
nook. As the Clatsop party, who were in a large
canoe, came near to seize him, he made an effort to
strike Hobson with a hatchet, and perhaps to over-
turn the canoe in which his pursuers were seated,
being prevented only by McMillen's covering him
with a revolver, and declaring that he would shoot
if he made a motion.
In 1848 Mr. Hobson with his brother and many
other Oregon friends, such as Marcellus, Jeffers,
Latty and Bradbury, went down to the mines; and
all met with excellent success. The stories which
are told of taking out $5,000, $10,000 or even
$25,000 in a single season to the man seem almost
fabulous. Hobson saved his money, and, returning
to the green peninsula at the mouth of the Colum-
bia, bought the quitclaim of Perry for the handsome
place now owned by Mr. Wingate, paying therefor
$3,000. He was induced to sell for $3,500 to Gov-
ernor Gaines, who was delighted with the sea beau-
ties of this region. The Governor, however, losing
his wife by a distressing accident, sold it back again
at a thousand dollars advance. Marrying Thomas
Owens's eldest daughter, Diana, who was wont to be
called the Clatsop belle, and who was indeed a very
beautiful and attractive young woman, Mr. Hobson
made his home on this place for many years.
In 1855 he saw a touch of the Indian trouble.
Going with his wife and child and his wife's sister,
Jane Owens, now Mrs. Hyman Abraham, to the
Umpqua valley on a visit to Mrs. Hobson's people,
he passed through Tillamook and the Grande
Ronde. On the Upper Yamhill they passed by a
cabin that was laid in ashes; and the calcined bones of
human beings were distinguished. These, they
learned afterwards, were the remains of an old lady,
Mrs. Clark, and her son, whom the Indians had
killed, and had then burned the cabin over them.
Coming back a few weeks later, Mr. Hobson discov-
ered that the murderers of these white people had
seen himself and his little family, with some fifteen
cattle, pass by, and that they had been practically
at their mercy for some time.
Of late years Mr. Hobson has occupied a promi-
nent position in business and society at Astoria, and is
at present collector of customs at the port, having
been appointed by President Cleveland. He is a re-
markably upright and sincere man, of strong
character and purposes, and of exceptionally firm
mental and physical fiber.
JOSEPH HOLMAN. — This pioneer of the
North Pacific was born in Devonshire, England, in
1817, and came to the United States when nineteen
years of age. Three years later he was at Peoria,
Illinois, at which place he listened to a lecture on
Oregon by Reverend Jason Lee, and was one of the
party organized to cross the plains which left early
in the spring of 1839, reaching the Willamette after
fourteen months of travel, toil, hardship and priva-
tion. Many of the incidents of his trip are men-
tioned in the biographical sketch of Francis Fletcher
in this book, he being one of the party of four that
remained together during the entire trip to Oregon
Territory. The party that left Peoria consisted of
sixteen, all of whom but four became dissatisfied
upon reaching the junction of the Fort Bent and
Santa Fé roads, and turned off upon the latter.
Holman's party of four was determined to come
on to Oregon, and adopted a motto, "Oregon or the
Grave;" and Oregon it was. The three companions
of Holman were Francis Fletcher, Amos Cook and
R. Kilborne. They reached Brown's Hole on Green
river, where they wintered with Doctor Newell,
chief trader of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the
Indians, leaving early in February for Fort Hall,
where they arrived after two months of desperate
traveling over a route that was ordinarily traveled.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
381
in twelve days. For four days they were without
food, finally killing a dog, which served them until
some friendly Indians whom they met furnished
them some buffalo meat, which served them until
they reached Fort Hall, where they were supplied
with salt salmon and a few other things; but, al-
though they were over a year on the road, they never
ate a particle of bread from the time they left Arkan-
sas until they arrived at Fort Vancouver.
Mr. Holman was engaged at Fort Vancouver as mis-
sion carpenter until 1843, when he took up a claim
near Salem, which he farmed for six years, abandon-
ing it to go into the mercantile business at Salem.
In 1872 he was appointed one of the three commis-
sioners on the new penitentiary buildings. He
was also appointed superintendent of the state capi-
tol, both of which places of trust he filled with credit
to himself and to the general satisfaction of the peo-
ple at large. While serving as mission carpenter at
Vancouver he was married to Miss Almira Phelps.
Mr. Holman was one of the foremost of Oregon's
early pioneers, and filled several responsible minor
positions before he received the appointments above
mentioned. Under all circumstances, in adversity
and prosperity, the life of Joseph Holman exempli-
fied the truism, that "the rank is but the guinea's
stamp." He was pure gold. He died June 25,
1880.
W. H. HOLMES. The subject of this sketch
was born in the year 1850 in Polk county, Oregon.
He came of sturdy pioneer stock, who were among
the earliest settlers of this state, and to whom he is
indebted for those qualities of mind and body which
fit him to encounter the rugged contests of life or
the arduous and difficult duties of his chosen pro-
fession. His early years were spent on the farm,
engaged in the usual occupations of farm life; but
his love of books drifted his mind towards other pur-
suits, and soon determined him to seek a liberal
education, although educational advantages at that
time were limited, consisting chiefly in common
schools and academies. With this purpose, he
availed himself of the best schools the country then
afforded, and applied himself with untiring zeal to the
acquisition of knowledge. Nor did he neglect to im-
prove his opportunities in the great school of human
experience, in which human nature is taught and
exemplified and a practical knowledge of men and
things acquired. In fact, it may be said that, from
lessons thus learned, and the discipline so acquired
by actual experience, often comes that nice tact, that
keen discrimination, or that quick perception of the
situation and its needs, as applied to the practical
affairs of life, which is of such invaluable advantage
to the lawyer, and to which he often owes much of
his success and reputation.
As a result, when at twenty-two years of age he
became a student in the law office of Thayer &
Williams of Portland, his mind had not only been
disciplined by study and liberalized by extensive
reading, but it had been also disciplined in the
severe school of human experience, which greatly
aided him in grasping the leading principles of the
law, and of understanding its training as applied to
the complicated affairs of practical life; and, by
He
habits of sobriety, diligence and close application to
his studies, he passed a creditable examination, and
was admitted to the bar in the class of 1874.
began the practice of the law at Dallas, the county
seat of his native county, and by strict attention to
business soon acquired some local success; but, im-
pressed with the conviction that he could increase
his practice, and that Salem offered a better oppor-
tunity to extend it, and for the exercise of his tal-
ents, he removed there in 1875, and devoted himself
exclusively to his profession. Although at this
time there was a good deal of talent at that bar, he
did not fail to soon obtain recognition and clients;
and, by his close application and mastery of the
principles to be applied to his cases, he secured the
confidence of an increasing number of clients, and
won the respect of the bench and bar.
In 1886 he was married to Miss Josephine Lewis,
who has proven a worthy help-meet in his struggles.
His family consists of his wife and two promising
girls. Like his father, Mr. Holmes in politics is a
sturdy Democrat, and is earnestly devoted to uphold-
ing the principles of his party in the belief that,
under proper auspices and through proper instru-
mentalities, its principles cannot fail to secure good
government and the prosperity of the people. Demo-
crat though he is, he is not so blind nor partisan as
not to condemn error in principle or bad nomina-
tions in his own party, or to recognize merit
and laudable candidacy in his opponents. And
at this time there is probably no Democrat of his
age in better standing in his party in this state,
or who is capable of exerting a wider or more
beneficial influence for its advancement and suc-
cess. The estimation in which he is held has been
frequently exhibited by the confidence reposed in
him, and the repeated offers of his political asso-
ciates to make him the standard-bearer of their
party principles in his county and district.
In 1882 he was nominated by his party for district
attorney of the third judicial district; and, although
the district was largely Republican, such was the
general belief in his fitness for an honest discharge
of the duties of this office, he was successful before
the people. He served during the term for which
he was elected; and such was the ability and fair-
ness with which he conducted prosecutions, and the
vigilance with which he watched the interests of the
county and state, that there was a general desire for
his retention at the close of his term of office; and,
although his party tendered, he declined, a re-nomi-
nation, and returned to his private practice.
In 1887, without solicitation on his part or that
of his friends, and without any dissenting voice by
the court, he was appointed clerk of the supreme
court, which office he now creditably fills.
In personal appearance, Mr. Holmes is a man of
fine presence, tall, and with a military erectness.
He has a vigorous constitution, which, by general
good habits, he has preserved, and by continuance
in so doing will doubtless preserve unimpaired in
old age. As a lawyer he is industrious and attentive,
quick of perception, sound in judgment and careful
with advice. In argument he is clear, earnest and
impressive, discarding all display or mere rhetorical
flash, presenting in an effective way the strong
382
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
points of his case, and by the general justness of his
legal propositions securing the confidence of the
court. Upright and honest in his private character,
necessarily these qualities pervade his professional
life; and to his credit thus far it may be said no
rewards however tempting, whether of professional
advancement or employment, have ever tempted
him to deviate from the path of justice or honor, or
to espouse the cause of vice or immorality.
MAJOR W. F. HOOKER.- This leading citi-
zen of Eastern Washington, whose capacity for
public affairs, and whose independence in politics,
have become proverbial, is a native of the Palmetto
state, having been born at Hookerton, Greene county,
North Carolina, in 1835. Like all true Southerners,
he is proud of his ancestry, his father having been
a captain in the war of 1812 and twice a member of
the legislature of North Carolina, and a member of
the convention which formed the constitution of
that state. Young Hooker was educated at Wake-
forest College in his native state, and at the age of
twenty-two was married to Miss Mary Williams, a
graduate of the Salem High School of the same
county. He moved to Southern Georgia soon after
his marriage, and went into the manufacture of
staves and lumber. His business was broken up
by the Civil war; and, removing to Florida, he em-
ployed himself in farming until 1880.
The Southern country, however, was uncongenial;
and he sought a place of somewhat larger ideas and
opportunities. He sent three of his children ahead
to Washington Territory in the year last-named,
and, remaining in order to realize upon the sale of
his property, came with his wife and the two remain-
ing children to Cheney in 1882.
Since his arrival he has acquired a competency,
and with his wife and three sons and two daughters
fills an important place in the social circles of the
city. He has occupied every office within the gift
of the people of Cheney; and his sterling qualities
of head and heart have gained for him the full con-
fidence of not only his neighbors, but also the citi-
zens throughout Washington.
HON. ENOCH HOULT. The gentleman
above-named was born in Monongahela county,
West Virginia, April 18, 1825. His parents were of
English descent, coming to America in the Colonial
days.
He lived in Virginia until his twelfth year,
when his father moved to Edgar county, Illinois, in
the spring of 1832. There Mr. Hoult grew to man-
hood and remained until he was thirty-three years
of age.
At the
In the fall of 1830 he was married to Miss Jeannette
Somerville, daughter of John Somerville, who came
from Kentucky to Illinois. In the year 1853 he
came with his family overland to Oregon. Leaving
Illinois on the 11th of March, they arrived at their
destination the 19th day of September.
time it was considered a very hazardous undertaking
to cross the plains with ox-teams, and required a
good deal of courage for a man to take such a risk
on such a journey. The plains were infested with
Indians and marauders; and the only wonder is that
more of those pioneers were not killed. Oregon
was then entirely new and very sparsely settled;
and the people were obliged to undergo all the
privations incident to a pioneer life.
Mr. Hoult settled first in Lane county, buying a
tract of land twelve miles north of Eugene City.
On this farm he lived ten years, improving and
building up the place. Here he planted one of the
first nurseries of the Willamette valley, which fur-
nished also many of the trees of the now fruitful
Rogue river valley.
In the fall of 1863 he removed to Harrisburg, Linn
county, where he resided until his demise. Mr.
Hoult was the father of eleven children, six of whom
survive him; Mrs. Mary E. McCulloch of Pendleton,
Mrs. Ella H. Mendenhall of Harrisburg, Mrs. Isa-
bella H. Hendee of Portland, Morgan Hoult of
Canyon City, Mrs. Mamie G. Browne of Grant
county, and Miss A. L. Hoult of Harrisburg, all of
whom are known as honorable and useful members
of society. Mrs. Jeannette Hoult died on the first
day of April, 1873. All that can be said of the truly
good may be said of Mrs. Hoult, a sincere friend,
a faithful Christian, an affectionate wife, a noble and
tender mother, and held in the highest esteem by all
who knew her.
Mr. Hoult was a warm-hearted, genial gentleman
of the old school, full of public spirit, and a zealous
worker in the interest of education. He was a man
of stern integrity, and was never known to neglect
the smallest duty. The duties of every public posi-
tion that he was called to fill were performed with
the most scrupulous exactness; and he had the
unwavering confidence of all who knew him. Mr.
Hoult was a man far above mediocrity. Very
decided in his political opinions, he was prominently
identified with the politics of the state, being one of
the leaders of the Democratic party in Linn county.
In the year 1857 he was elected a member of the
constitutional convention from Lane county, and
assisted in framing the constitution of the now pros-
perous State of Oregon. In 1870 he was elected to
the state Senate from Linn county, and was re-elected
in 1882. During his last term as state Senator he
was the author of the bill to regulate fares and
freight upon railroads, known as the "Hoult Law.”
In every public capacity, to serve the best interest of
the people was his highest end and aim; and as a
consequence he maintained their respect. He was
dignified, obliging, kind and courteous in his con-
versation, and upright in his dealings with his fellow-
men. His death causes a void in the community,
and true, heartfelt grief to his sorrowing children.
Long will his memory live in the hearts of his
friends, and his grave be kept green by the filial
love of a devotion that cannot forget the sacred ties of
consanguinity; and his name will ever be honorably
associated among the pioneers of the state.
He was
a zealous Mason, having filled every station from
his initiation to the Royal Arch degree; and, when
the Great Architect of the universe called him home,
his Masonic brethren laid him to rest, beloved,
trusted and honored in life; and in his death a station
is made vacant that none can fill.
ALFRED HOVENDEN.— Mr. Hovenden,
known everywhere among the early pioneers as one
·


Z.C.MILES,
SEATTLE,W.T.
OF
UNI
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
383
of the most benevolent, upright and sagacious of
men, was born in Kent county, England, August
26, 1824, of that steady, sterling English stock that
fainted not and never failed. He crossed the water
to America when twenty years old, and made his
first home on a farm in Peoria county, Illinois. In
1849, together with his brother Charles, he turned
his property into money, purchased an outfit with
the intention of making the Pacific coast his home,
and started westward, still being uncertain on the
early stages of the journey whether it would be to
Oregon or to California that he would ultimately go.
In his company was also David Logan, the talented
but dissolute son of Judge Logan of Illinois. Hav-
ing betimes decided to take the northern track, Mr.
Hovenden came on into the Willamette valley, and
laid his Donation claim of three hundred and twenty
acres near the present site of Hubbard. He made
this spot his home for more than thirty-five years,
and was still in rugged health, with the prospect of
many more years of life and usefulness, when he
met with the accident by which his useful career
was ended. By sturdy industry, close application,
careful dealing and integrity, he amassed a compe-
tence, owning several good farms and a flourishing
currant business.
He was married in June, 1856, to Miss Sarah, a
daughter of Bartholomew Soden. This lady was
born in Tasmania, of the Australasian Islands, and
came from that antipodal region to America in 1852,
settling soon in Polk county. With her husband
With her husband
she made one of the brightest and happiest homes
in Oregon, and laid the foundation of the fortune
which they both used wisely and usefully. They
reared also one of the best of the old Oregon fam-
ilies. The son, George B. Hovenden, occupies the
farm and holds very much the position in the com-
munity of his father. The daughters, Mrs. John
Dennis of Hubbard, Mrs. M. L. Jones of Brooks,
and Mrs. F. N. Gilbert of Salem, are among the
first in the social circles of the state.
•
HON. A. G. HOVEY.-The reputation of Mr.
Hovey, the present mayor of Eugene, Oregon, is
co-extensive with the limits of the state, in the
affairs of which he has ever taken an active part.
His aggressive pushing disposition indicate the
stern qualities of courage and self-reliance which lie
at the basis of his character, and displace the more
phemeral qualities of a purely sentimental hope-
fulness or ambition. He is an example of the
adage that "God helps those who help themselves;"
and his whole life has bristled with instances of the
truth therein indicated. He is a man of strong
convictions and honest opinions, scorning the hypoc-
risy of policy and dealing with his friends as
friends. In fact, he possesses one virtue above all
others: In dealing with the world, everybody,
whether friend or foe, knows where he may be found
when he is wanted. His nature is positive in its
character; and, when he has once settled in his
mind that he is right, nothing can move him from
his course. Such a character must succeed in
society, where he is a welcome guest.
He was born in Londonderry, New Hampshire,
in 1830, and removed with his parents to Marietta,
Ohio, when he was quite young; and there he grew
to manhood and was educated.
He was one of the argonauts of California, having
crossed the plains to that state in the fall of 1849;
and for nearly a year he was engaged in digging
gold near the Sacramento river. In the fall of 1850
he came to Oregon and settled at Corvallis, where
he taught the first school in the place, and was
elected the first clerk of the county, and acted as
such for the first circuit and state courts held in the
district. Benton county repeatedly honored him by
electing him to fill the county offices; and he was
elected from among his compeers to represent them
in the state Senate from 1862 to 1866.
It was
during the latter year that he removed to Portland,
remaining, however, only one year, and thereupon
settled in Lane county at Springfield, there engaging
in milling and merchandising until 1879, when he
took a residence at Eugene City, and was one of the
incorporators of the Lane County Bank, and con-
tinues as its president. The Republican party in
Oregon sent him as delegate to the National Con-
vention of Chicago in 1884, where he assisted in
placing in nomination for President and Vice-Presi-
dent of the nation James G. Blaine and John A.
Logan. Active in political interests from conviction,
still not a place-seeker, he sometimes, however, has
accepted positions, but more frequently has declined.
His popularity among the people of his own city
was recently evidenced by his election unsolicited
by a large majority to the mayoralty of Eugene;
and he is in that city not only highly esteemed,
but is recognized as zealous in every worthy public
endeavor. His wife, Emily, the daughter of George
Humphrey, the pioneer, is a lady well known and
greatly respected. They have three children.
S. P. HOWELL.-The Adams Hotel at Adams,
Oregon, is a comfortable home for the traveler, offer-
ing commodious apartments and a table supplied
not only with the substantials but with the luxuries
of the season. Its proprietor is Mr. Howell. After
a life of much roving, in a business that begets and
requires much change, he has found his final rest
in this thriving young city. Born in Michigan in
1845, he crossed the plains while but a boy of seven,
and was then introduced to the life of a California
ranch. At Hamilton on the Feather river, at the
Hungarian ranch south of Yuba, at Petaluma, in
the Coast Mountains, and at Visalia, he successively
followed the stock business with his father, until
the death of the latter in 1872.
That sad event threw him upon his own responsi-
bility. Leaving his stock with his sister, he then
entered upon a scheme of cattle-driving to Nevada,
for a Mr. Hildreth. In that state of deserts and
silver lodes he remained four years, at Humboldt
and Elko, and in 1880 was attracted northward to
Walla Walla. He found employment in the city
of poplars for a couple of years, and thence came
to Adams, where he engaged permanently in the
hotel business. He is one of the leading men in
the place. His present settled life and secured for-
tune is largely due to Miss H. J. Hamilt, whom he
married in 1881. Two children have come to bless
their home,-William A. and Minnie Pearl.
26
384
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
HON. JOHN P. HOYT.—“Every man has two
educations,—one which he receives from others, and
one, more important, which he gives himself." Very
early in life the subject of this sketch learned this
important lesson; and the fruits of its strict observ-
ance are being enjoyed by him at present. He owes
his advancement to no accident of birth or fortune,
but has earned success through the toilsome avenue
of study and hard work. His early education was
acquired at a country district school during the
winter months, when the plow used on his father's
farm stood idle in the granary. By close application
to his books, he became proficient enough at the age
of seventeen to teach the youth of his neighborhood
himself, which he did during the winter. The sav-
ings of this labor, together with the funds earned
during harvest, enabled him to attend an academy
located in a village not far from his rural home.
He thus continued his studies until 1862 when,
true to his country's needs, he enlisted for the pro-
tection of her flag and fought nobly in her behalf
until peace was restored. While in the army he
determined upon the adoption of law as a profession,
and applied himself to the study thereof as well as
the life of a soldier would permit. After being mus-
tered out of service, he returned home and entered
the Ohio State and Union Law College, located at
Cleveland in that state, and from that institution
graduated in July, 1867. Soon after receiving his
degree, he removed to Tuscola county, Michigan,
and opened up an office; and but a brief period elapsed
before he attained high rank among the profession
for ability. While located in that state he was
elected prosecuting attorney of the county in which
he resided, for a term of four years, and was also
honored by being elected a member of the lower
branch of the legislature for two terms, the latter of
which he served as speaker of the house.
By close application to his profession, his health
began to fail; and in consequence he accepted, for
the purpose of a change of climate and rest, an
appointment as secretary of Arizona Territory, and
in June of that year removed to his new field of life.
In this position he served until April, 1877, when
he was appointed governor of that commonwealth,
in which office he continued until August, 1878,
when he was appointed governor of Idaho Territory,
to relieve Governor Brayman, who had displeased
the general government through his administration
of affairs during the Nez Perce war. Governor
Hoyt's successor as chief executive of Arizona did
not arrive in that territory until October of that year;
and the intervening time afforded our subject ample
time to inform himself relative to the troubles in
Idaho. After an investigation of them, he concluded
that the suspension of Governor Brayman was
uncalled for, and through a sense of justice wrote
the President, declining to accept the appointment
tendered. The President received the letter in the
spirit it was written, and at once wrote to the gov-
ernor that, if he did not enter upon the duties of the
office, Governor Brayman would probably be allowed
to serve out his time. In such event the President
suggested that the governor accept an appointment
as associate justice of the supreme court of Wash-
ington Territory, which he did, and in February,
1878, removed with his family to that territory, and
entered upon the discharge of the duties of the
position.
His first term upon the bench gave such universal
satisfaction that every practicing attorney in each of
the twelve counties in the district requested President
Arthur that the governor be reappointed, which was
done. He served out his entire second term, not being
disturbed by President Cleveland, whose election to
the presidency of the nation had changed the politi-
cal complexion of its administration. At the expir-
ation of his appointment, he removed to Seattle,
Washington Territory, and took charge of the busi-
ness of Dexter, Horton & Co's banking house, and
has continued in that employ until the present. He
was elected a member of the constitutional conven-
tion from the twentieth district, and was chosen
president of that body, presiding with entire
satisfaction to all concerned. At the Republican
convention held at Walla Walla for the nomination
of state officers, he received the nomination to one
of the five supreme judgeships of the state; and, at
the election held on October 1st following, he was
with the balance of the ticket triumphantly elected.
EDWARD HUGGINS.- Edward Huggins was
born in London, England, on the 10th of June, 1832.
He received his education in Queen Elizabeth's
Grammar School in that city. On the 10th of Oc-
tober, 1849, he sailed in the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany's ship Norman Morrison for Victoria, Van-
couver Island, where he arrived in March, 1850.
He at once entered the employ of the Hudson's Bay
Company, having been engaged as clerk by Chief
Factor James Douglas, afterwards Sir James Douglas,
the governor of Vancouver Island. He was sent to
Fort Nisqually on Puget Sound to serve as trader
and clerk under Doctor W. F. Tolmie, who was at
that time the agent in charge of the business of the
Hudson's Bay and Puget Sound Agricultural Com-
panies at that place.
At that time the business of the Puget Sound
Agricultural Company, and that of the Hudson's
Bay Company, were entirely distinct. The Hud-
son's Bay Company devoted their whole attention
to the trading in furs and the sale of goods, for which
at that time there was a great demand and high
prices obtained, consequent upon the scarcity of
goods of any kind, and the utter impossibility almost
of purchasers having a choice of opportunities for
trading. In fact, up to 1851-52, the Hudson's Bay
Company's store at Nisqually was the only trading
establishment between Forts Victoria and Vancou-
ver on the Columbia river, except perhaps a very
small American establishment at Olympia, then a
small cleared space in the woods, with a very small
general store kept by Colonel Michael T. Simmons.
The company kept a large supply of goods on
hand, worth at times from fifty to one hundred
thousand dollars; and, for two or three years after
1850 they had the monopoly of the whole Indian
trade. In 1850-51 large bands of the Clallam,
Scadgil, Snoqualmie, Snohomish and other tribes
visited Fort Nisqually every week to trade. Among
them as a constant visitor was Patkanim, the chief
of the Snoqualmies, who afterwards, in 1855-56, as
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
385
an ally of the Whites, took such an active part in
the Indian war of those years. The Klikitats, from
the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains, in those
early days, also made periodical visits to the fort,
bringing horses to trade; and among their number
were the chiefs Owhi, Tia-ass and Kamiakin, all of
whom became prominent leaders of the hostiles in
in the Indian war of 1855-56.
The Puget Sound Agricultural Company (whose
business and purposes were entirely distinct from
the Hudson's Bay Company), under the treaty of
1846, between the United States and Great Britain,
claimed nearly all the prairie land in Pierce county,
about one hundred and sixty thousand acres, and
occupied it with large herds of cattle, sheep and
horses. In 1850 that company possessed seven
thousand head of horned cattle, about twelve thou-
sand sheep and three hundred head of horses, all of
which were pastured upon the Nisqually Plains, a few
bands of sheep being occasionally kept on the Yelm
and Tenalquot prairies, in what is now Thurston coun-
ty. Up to 1855 Mr. Huggins remained at the fort in
the capacity of trader and clerk; but in the fall of that
year, when the Indian war broke out, the company's
business upon the plains became disorganized, and
the manager and herders refused to remain at the
stations on account of the hostility of the Indians.
Mr. Huggins then volunteered to take charge of
the business on the plains, and with about fifteen or
twenty men in the fall of 1855 went to Muck. The
party lived for a time in a large loghouse, and man-
aged to safely care for the company's stock through
out the Indian war. He remained at Muck till the
fall of 1859, when he succeeded Doctor William F.
Tolmie as manager of the company's business in
Pierce county, Doctor Tolmię having become one of
the board of management of the Hudson's Bay
Company's affairs at Victoria, British Columbia.
In 1859 Mr. Huggins was ordered to make a trip to
the Similkameen valley to report as to the feasibility
of removing the company's sheep or part of them
to British Columbia; and in company with three
men, with a band of horses and mules, he went
via Nahchess Pass and Okanagan to Similkameen,
returning via the old Snoqualmie Pass.
In those days there were no settlers on the east
side of the Cascade Mountains; and Mr. Huggins
was obliged to ride for fourteen days before reach-
ing the end of his journey, during all of which time
he did not see a settler's house until he had reached
Similkameen. When near Fort Okanagan, he vis-
ited the camp of Chief Moses and his band; and
they seemed hardly to realize that peace had been
proclaimed. For a time the conduct of the Indians
was very suspicious, and quite unfriendly; and the
party were apprehensive that they would be mur-
dered for the sake of the horses they had.
But one
of Mr. Huggins' party, a courageous half-breed,
who understood the Indian language, was instru-
mental in saving their lives. Mr. Huggins reported
unfavorably as to the project; and the sheep were
not removed.
In 1862 the company had but little livestock
remaining; and Mr. Huggins' time was principally
devoted to the trading in furs, he making periodical
trips in 1863, '64 and '65 to Gray's Harbor and up
the coast, where he secured for the company in
those years nearly all the skins of the sea otter that
were killed in that section. He sometimes obtained
as many as fifty or sixty of those handsome skins,
paying for them from forty to fifty dollars each. He
also made trips down the Sound and up the rivers,
and was quite successful in obtaining furs. In
1867 Mr. Huggins was ordered to take charge of
the Hudson's Bay Company's trading establish-
ment at Fort Kamloops, in British Columbia, but
preferred to and was permitted to remain at Nis-
qually.
In 1869 the United States government purchased
from the Hudson's Bay and Puget Sound Agricult-
ural Companies the rights they claimed under the
Treaty of 1846 in Washington Territory; and in May
of 1870 Mr. Huggins made the formal transfer of the
property belonging to the companies in Pierce and
Lewis counties to the United States. The business
being closed in the territory, he was ordered to take
charge of a fort in British Columbia; but he adopted
the other alternative;-he quit the company's ser-
vice and remained in this, the country of his adop-
tion.
In 1857 he had already become an American citi-
zen. On the retirement of the company, he took
the place, part of the old Fort Nisqually, as a pre-
emption claim, and has owned it ever since. He
has gradually added to the extent of the old farm
adjacent to the fort by the purchase of contiguous
lands. As an American citizen, he has identified
himself with every enterprise for the benefit of his
adopted home. He long followed farming and stock-
raising, and, when opportunity offered, continued to
trade in furs. These occupations engaged his atten-
tion till his election in 1887 to the position of
county auditor of the county of Pierce, which office
he still holds to the entire satisfaction of his fellow-
citizens, this being his second term.
Since March, 1887, he has resided in Tacoma,
Washington.
Washington. He has also served three terms as
county commissioner of Pierce county, two terms of
which he was chairman of the board. He is now in
the prime of life, and is universally esteemed as a
man. In county affairs he is thoroughly informed;
and that methodic education he acquired in his long
clerical service in the Hudson's Bay Company ren-
ders him most efficient and useful as auditor, ac-
countant and financial officer of Pierce county.
ORLEY HULL.— The experiences of the early
pioneers were severe almost beyond belief; and,
were it not for the fact that their hardships were
intermitted by times of peace and plenty, it would
have been scarcely possible for them to have gotten
through. Mr. Hull is a pioneer of 1850, and in
crossing the plains, and in the early days of Southern
Oregon and Northern California, saw times and cir-
cumstances as hard as were to be found.
He was born in New York in 1821, and when a
young man went to Missouri, but was deterred from
making a home there by the fact of slavery. Going
to Iowa, he was a resident of the now populous
Iowa county when there were but three men above
the required number for jury duty. At Iowa City
he became acquainted with and married Miss Mary
386
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
!
Clark, the plucky and patient companion of his
trials.
They crossed the plains in 1850, the year in
which the emigrant trains were scourged by cholera;
and the air along the route was infected with the
stench of dead bodies of animals. Mrs. Hull fell a
victim to the disease, but recovered. The meat and
tallow of the three buffaloes which they killed at
the Black Hills gave out long before they had
crossed the rocky, alkaline stretches of the Snake;
and bacon was the sole subsistence until, in the
Grande Ronde, they purchased a few potatoes at
six bits a pound. A terrific wind near the Cascades
brought their boat into great peril; and it was with
difficulty that the portage was made.
After reaching Portland, Oregon, Mr. Hull left
his family on a farm near by, and went to Yreka,
California, where he remained a number of years,
mining, prospecting, trading and picking up what
ever offered, even fiddling for a time in a gambling
house, and finally bringing his family thither and
going into the hotel business. In a short time the
Indian war swept over Southern Oregon; and the
settlers were obliged to protect themselves by stock-
ades, Mrs. Hull on one occasion running bullets
while her husband was cutting portholes. He took
an active part in the campaign that followed, more
than once coming within a few inches of an Indian's
tomahawk or bullet, until the final battle at Big
Meadows.
After leaving Yreka, Mr. Hull made a home on
the Coquille; but the great flood of 1861 swept his
house away, compelling him to put his family
aboard a scow and live upon a knoll in a cluster of
trees for five days, until the storm subsided. This
disaster determined him to return to Iowa; but upon
arriving in the beautiful and productive valley of
the Walla Walla, Washington Territory, he decided
to make it his residence. There he has remained
as one of the most active farmers of the country,
being very prominent in the recent attempt to
break the railway monopoly, and reduce the freight
from six to four dollars per ton to tide water.
Under his lead, freight to the amount of two mil-
lion bushels of wheat has been pledged to any
competing line; and from this largely results
Hunt's railway.
GEORGE HUMPHREY.— Mr. Humphrey was
esteemed by everyone as an honorable gentleman,
a man of large brain, and of an excellent capacity
and understanding. Although in his youth he
suffered from poverty and the lack of educational
facilities, he nevertheless succeeded in obtaining a
large property and an honored and enduring name.
His estimable wife, Cynthia A. Humphrey, was
“one of the best of women, so described by all
who knew her and were allowed to make the
acquaintance of her great mental intelligence and
vigor, and to know of her benevolence and christian
character.
Mr. Humphrey was born April 1, 1807. While
a young man he resided in the State of New York
and Canada. In the latter region he was married
in 1835 to Miss Cynthia A. Bristol. He subse-
quently emigrated to Illinois and to Iowa, in the
latter state engaged in mercantile and agricultural
pursuits, transacting a large financial business. In
1853 he came to Oregon and settled in Lane county,
and in a few years established a permanent home at
Eugene, Oregon. Upon his death in 1883, he
devised his property to his widow, and to his six
sons and two daughters, named respectively Albert,
James, Thomas, William, H. Clay, Norris, Emily
(now Mrs. A. G. Hovey) and Caroline (now Mrs.
H. B. Roach.)
HARRISON H. HUNGATE.— The large horse
ranch of this gentleman is situated eleven miles east
of Walla Walla, Washington, and contains twenty-
five hundred acres of land in the beautiful Spring
valley. Any visitor to Walla Walla will be abun-
dantly repaid by a trip to this farm, not only for
inspecting the stock, but also for the fine scenery
surrounding. Although his ranch is some distance
from Walla Walla, Mr. Hungate lives in town,
having one of the most costly and beautiful of its
many fine residences. .
Mr. Hungate is a native of Illinois, where he was
born in 1836, coming to Nevada in 1864. Not suited
with that state, he moved on to California in the
autumn of the same year, stopping two years at
Willow Springs, and at length taking up some desert
land at the north of Cache creek, where he remained
seven years. Hearing now of the bunch-grass hills
of Eastern Washington, he came hither in 1873,
engaging largely in sheep-raising, finally turning
his farm into a horse ranch. He thinks this country
equal, if not superior, to any other in the world for
the production of all sorts of grains and fruits, and
that it simply needs people to live upon it to be the
finest of regions.
As a public servant, Mr. Hungate has had a full
share in county offices, and was a representative to
the territorial legislature in 1881. In both public
and private life he is prompt and efficient, and is
well known throughout his section.
J. T. HUNSAKER.-This pioneer of 1846, one
of the most substantial and upright men of our
state, who has borne his full share of the burden
and heat of the day in building up Oregon, was
even from the first upon the advanced wave of
American civilization, having been born at Jones-
boro, Illinois, in 1818, and having assisted in lay-
ing the foundations of that giant state of the old
West. He began domestic life in 1837, marrying
Miss Emily Collins of the same state, and devoting
his energies to the development of a farm.
He was moved, however, by the attractions of the
more distant West, and in 1846 joined the train of
Captain Keith bound for the then almost fabulous
Oregon. The company was found to be so large
as to travel best in detachments; and the journey
was safely performed across the mountains and
deserts, and happily ended at Oregon City Septem-
ber 13th.
Mr. Hunsaker located his first claim on
the Molalla, and raised a crop in 1847, but soon
abandoned this site for another at Scappoose, where,
in addition to agriculture, he had the opportunity
to engage in lumbering. In 1849 he sold the mill
erected there, and resided a short time at Oregon


RANCH AND FARM RESIDENCE OF S.A.GEDDIS,
NEAR ELLENSBURGH, W.T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
387
City, but soon established a more permanent busi-
ness in the lumber line at La Camas.
His opera-
tions, there were terminated by a destructive fire,
which consumed his lumber in the yard, and all
but destroyed his mill. By the great loss thus
entailed,—since there was no insurance in those
early days of our state, he was obliged to aban-
don milling. Returning to Oregon City, he pur-
chased near that town the old McGruder place, and
developed there one of those Willamette valley fruit
farms which have become the envy and wonder of
the immigrant and traveler. There he lived until
1881, taking an active part in all public enterprises,
and rearing a large family of sons and daughters,
who stand among those younger Oregonians that
the state feels justly proud of. Their names will
be recognized as of honorable and enterprising peo-
ple, and may here be stated as follows: Horton
(deceased), Josephine (deceased), Mary A., Ara-
minta (deceased), Jacob, Sarah, Lycurgus, Kath-
erine, Martha C., Alice, John and Emily. Of those
still living, all are residents of the Pacific North-
west.
Mr. Hunsaker's wife dying in 1873, he was mar-
ried, secondly, in 1878, to Mrs. M. A. Campbell of
Eugene, and some years since made a new home
at Woodburn, Oregon, buying the Lander farm one
mile south of that pleasant village, whose location
at the junction of the Oregon & California and
Willamette Valley Railroads insures for it a pros-
perous future.
There, upon one of the handsomest and most pro-
ductive farms in the state, the old pioneer is pass-
ing the autumnal years of a busy and fruitful life,
enjoying the results of his early industry, and hav-
ing the full confidence and respect of his com-
munity, and indeed of the whole state.
He is one
of those men whom Oregon will always remember
and be glad to honor.
Mary Collins, who became the wife of J. T. Hun-
saker, was born near Louisville, Kentucky, October
3, 1820, and in 1836 emigrated with her father's
family to Illinois, and on the 7th of December of
the next year was united in marriage to Mr. Hun-
saker, coming with him to Oregon, as narrated above,
and performing with great cheerfulness and devotion
the duties that fell to the lot of the wife and mother
in the early days of our state. It was the women
even more than the men who made Oregon; and
their names like those of the upright of old are to
be kept in everlasting remembrance.
—
CHESTER D. IDE. This prominent citizen
and real-estate dealer of Spokane Falls, Washington,
was born in Vermont in 1830. His first home in
the far West was in Wisconsin, where he lived thirty
years, and came to the Pacific slope in a wagon,
following the line of construction of the Union.
Pacific, and being four and one-half months on the
way. At Dayton, Washington Territory, he found
work at his trade as carpenter and builder, and the
next season took up a claim at Mondovi, then a
wilderness, now a flourishing village. He remained
four years on his farm, but, seeing the future of
Spokane Falls, removed thither, interesting himself
in its business and chiefly in its real estate.
A few years after his arrival, he built an elegant
house on a commanding site, which, however,
tempted the lightning, a stroke of which ignited
and consumed it. Immediately rebuilding, he has
now a still finer residence, one of the best structures
in the city, defended, we presume, by a lightning
rod. He has recently been engaged in the real-
estate business on a large scale, having made two
additions to the city; and latest of all he has, with
Mr. Coffin, bought fifty acres within the city limits,
which have now been on the market seven years.
He has also been building stores for the use of those
who enter into business there. The pressure for
business accommodation has been so great as almost
to leave many without a roof.
He
Not only in a private and business way has this
gentleman been successful, but in the matter of
public beneficence he has been at the front.
helped the Spokane College by the gift of fifteen
acres of land, which soon realized eighteen hundred
dollars, greatly assisting the institution. He has
also devoted large sums to the Baptish church,
which is now comfortably established in its fine
edifice. Mr. Ide's faith in Spokane Falls is justified
by its past remarkable growth, and, with men of
his character for citizens, its future cannot but be
bright.
JESSE IMBLER.— A native of Kentucky,
(1842), Mr. Imbler as a boy came west to Iowa, and
in 1853 continued the journey to Oregon, being all
this while with his father, who made his home near
Eugene. Upon the appeal made for soldiers to
quell the Rogue river Indians in 1855-56, Jesse,
then but sixteen, joined his two older brothers at
the front, where, on account of his youth, he was
assigned to the supply department, and remained
with it to the end of the war.
In
Returning home he accompanied his father and
brother to The Dalles, and engaged with them in
extensive cattle operations. In 1868, however, a
removal was made to the Grande Ronde; and in
that magnificent valley each voter in the family
located a claim and engaged in stock-raising. Mr.
Jesse Imbler still owns his first homestead.
addition to this he has swelled his land-holding to
an aggregate of a thousand acres, all of which he
supervises personally and keeps in cultivation. He
has pleasant surroundings, and has made special
effort with improved stock, owning some one hun-
dred and twenty high-grade Hereford and Durham
short-horn cattle and a considerable number of
high-grade Norman Percheron horses, imported by
himself, and the first of the kind in this section.
In 1867 he was married to Miss Esther Massiker,
of Yamhill county. They have a fine family of
four children. Mr. Imbler has not shirked public
duties, having twice served in the onerous position
of county commissioner.
JAMES J. IMBRIE. — Among those who have
sketches of their lives in these pages, there are but
few spoken of who, like the subject of this memoir,
were "Webfoot" born. He first saw the light of
day at his father's farm on Tualatin Plains, Janu-
ary 29, 1852. During his earlier years he learned
388
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
the rudiments of his education at the log schoolhouse
long since a thing of the past. Later on he attended
and continued his studies at Pacific University at
Forest Grove, and in June, 1877, graduated with
high honors from the Willamette University at
Salem. Removing to Portland he engaged at cler-
ical work for about two years, and then went to East-
ern Washington and devoted his energies to stock-
raising, which he actively and successfully followed
until 1882, when he located in North Yakima and
opened a hardware store, leaving the care of his
stock to others.
During the winter of 1882-83 his losses through
severe weather and horse-thieves left him with noth-
ing except his store. In the fall of 1883 he dis-
posed of his interest in the hardware business, and
removed to Ellensburgh, Washington Territory.
There he engaged in the machine and implement
trade, which he followed until 1887, when he began
operating in real estate. In this business he is now
engaged. Mr. Imbrie was married to Miss May
Swetland, of Vancouver, Washington Territory, in
1882. By this union three children were born, all
of whom are deceased.
HENRY PERRY ISAACS.— Like many other
old settlers, Mr. Isaacs is so fully identified with
Walla Walla, Washington, that the place would
not be itself in his absence. In matters of public
interest, such as schools, churches and general busi-
ness enterprises, he has always had a leading part,
and as the pioneer in the erection and operation of
flour mills "East of the Mountains " deserves
lengthy mention.
He was born in Philadelphia in 1822, of English
and Scotch parentage. There he was educated,
and absorbed with eagerness the great lessons of
that time. He commenced business when only
seventeen years of age as an importing stationer,
and in which he continued four years with success;
when twenty-one he went out West to Indiana. As
a thoughtful and impressible young man, he was
deeply stirred by a great speech delivered by
General Cass, at Fort Wayne, upon the opening
of the Wabash and Erie Canal in 1843. Cass was
one of the great spirits of the West; and he was
among the first to foresee the gigantic strides soon
to be made in our national development.
acquainted personally with the Northwest; and he
and Thos. H. Benton of the Senate were the fore-
most defenders of the American claim to Oregon.
Young Isaacs must have gained from them much of
the Western spirit.
He was
In 1850 he went to Minnesota, but, not liking
the climate, determined to push westward, even to
the Pacific. In 1852, a year when gold hunters
were going West in swarms, he crossed the plains,
accomplishing the journey in ninety days, and
made his first home near Salem. The "Webfoot"
climate not precisely suiting him, and Indians
bringing him glowing reports of gold mines in the
interior, he started off the next year for the Upper
Columbia. His trip was by canoe; and it is hardly
necessary to add that he did not find the mines.
The Indians deceived him or themselves, and knew
nothing of precious metals. Being once in the
country, however, and delighted with its climate,
he determined to remain and await developments,
establishing a trading-post meanwhile at The
Dalles. He was successful, and continued in busi-
ness until 1860.
That was the eventful year of his life; for it was
then that he was married, his bride being Miss
Lucie Fulton, daughter of Colonel James Fulton.
He then went home to Philadelphia with the inten-
tion of settling down and remaining. But the
West had gained too strong a hold upon his mind.
The Eastern climate seemed to him unaccountably
disagreeable. He came back to The Dalles in
1861, and in 1862 went to Walla Walla. There
he put up a flouring mill, the second in the
country, and opened a store. In these enterprises
he has been successful. Like all the prominent.
business men of his section, he has multiplied
his business, establishing himself at various dis-
tant points. In addition to the mill in Walla
Walla, he built two others in Boise valley, and
one in Colville valley, two hundred miles to the
north. He also built the large mill at Prescott,
in Walla Walla county, thus hastening the develop-
ment of the country.
Mr. Isaacs is also a pioneer in the culture of
grapes, and thinks that they can be grown with
great success, even of as fine a quality as in Cali-
fornia. He is enthusiastic in his praise of the cli-
mate in its beneficial effects upon bronchial troubles.
He has seen many severely affected coming from
abroad, who were cured simply by living at Walla
Walla, breathing its healing air, and drinking only
its pure, delicious water.
Of a fine and commanding figure, still erect and
firm in his sixty-sixth year, and as able as ever for
all active pursuits and business, Mr. Isaacs is one of
the pillars of society in the city of his pride, and is
regarded by all with the affection and esteem due
one of such a worthy character and career. He has
been selected for positions of public trust, being
president of the Board of Trade for several years
and a member of the legislative council in 1865,
where he made himself known as strongly in favor
of all public improvements, and as firmly in favor
of woman's suffrage and local option.
His
CAPTAIN JACK.-The famous warrior, more
correctly called Keintpoos, was born about the year
1840. Little is known of his early history.
fame rests upon his desperate fighting in the lava
beds in the winter of 1872-73. In some respects
the most extraordinary warrior in the annals of
Indian fighting, it is yet a very difficult matter to
decide whether Keintpoos is to be regarded as an
accident or a veritable Indian Hannibal. The loca-
tion of that war was so singular, the forces of the
Indians so small in comparison with those of the
Whites, the slaughter of the latter so great and so
unaccountable, the deliberate treachery of the
Indians towards Canby and Thomas so coldly dia-
bolical, the cost of exterminating the little band of
savages so vast, and the final execution of Jack and
his men so coolly and laconically met, that the atten-
tion of every reader of history has been enchained;
and, even with the execration which we must all
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
389
feel for the atrocities of that savage band, we
cannot avoid a lurking admiration for their amazing
energy and daring.
At the time of his execution Jack was apparently
thirty-four or thirty-five years old, small of stature,
with a large head, shaggy hair, and restless, piercing
eyes. There was little in him to show his tiger
blood, though the remark that he made to one of
the commissioners early in the war showed the phi-
losophy which guided his life. Refusing to go to the
reservation to starve, as he said, he added: Not
hurt to be killed with gun. Hurt much to starve
to death!" He seemed to have thought that the
war would not end except in his death.
HON. ORANGE JACOBS.-Hon. Orange Jacobs
is a son of New York, a state which is the first in
wealth, population, trade, manufactures and com-
merce, and first in the numbers of her sons and
daughters who have gone out to make homes in
other regions, and to develop their resources with
New York brain and brawn.
Virginia claims the proud distinction of being the
"Mother of Presidents;" and New York could claim
the prouder title of being "the mother of States and
Territories." In 1880 the Empire state had more
than one million two hundred and fifty thousand
sons and daughters who had made homes in newer
countries. It is beyond human power to calculate
what these armies of New Yorkers have done to
found and build up our empire in that vast country
west of the Alleghany Mountains.
The subject of our sketch is one of the most hon-
ored, distinguished and useful of these Empire state
children. He was born in 1829, a rugged era of
American civilization, which produced and devel-
oped rugged and heroic men and women. From
New York he removed in early life to the frontiers
in Michigan, where he was educated, and where his
character was molded. At twenty-three years of
age he joined the migratory masses that were mov-
ing towards the setting sun; and, following the
Oregon Trail," he crossed the plains and the con-
tinental divide, and reached the tides of the Pacific
Ocean. His home was first made in Salem, Oregon;
but later he removed to Jacksonville, Jackson county,
where he pursued the practice of law for a quarter of
a century.
In 1867 he was appointed associate justice of the
supreme court of Washington Territory, and in a
short time was made chief justice. On the expira-
tion of his term, Judge Jacobs was offered a reap-
pointment by President Grant; but he declined the
position to accept the nomination for delegate to
Congress from the Republican party. He was elected
to this office for two terms, and declined the nomi-
nation for a third term, returning to the practice of
law. In 1880 he was elected mayor of Seattle, and
served one term, declining a renomination for a sec-
ond term. In 1884 he was elected to the senatorial
council, where he did good service for the people of
Washington Territory. Among the many measures
he was instrumental in passing may be mentioned
the change in the exemption laws, and the appro-
priations for the territorial penitentiary, insane
asylum and university. The appropriations for the
university were the largest in the legislation of that
territory; and the results of the outlay will be felt
to the remotest time.
Judge Jacobs is now a member, and the treasurer,
of the board of regents of the University of Wash-
ington. While living in Oregon he came within
one vote of a nomination, which would have been
equivalent to an election to the United States Senate.
While chief justice of the supreme court of Wash-
ington Territory, he made a decision in a case that
became celebrated, as it involved the question of the
national jurisdiction to the Island of San Juan.
Judge Jacobs is decidedly opposed to alien and ser-
vile labor, and as strongly in favor of free American
labor; but he deprecates violence and lawlessness
in the solution of the question. He believes that it
is a question of national importance, and that the non-
employment of Chinese would result in their removal
from this country.
Judge Jacobs is a man of large stature, command-
ing presence, positive views, has the courage of his
convictions, but is liberal and tolerant. He has
filled a prominent place in the public affairs of
Northwest America as a pioneer, lawmaker and
judicial officer.
MRS. SARAH H. JEFFERS.— The following
reminiscences of the journey across the plains, pre-
pared by the above venerable lady, will prove of
very great interest to all our readers, giving details
of the journey not always distinctly remembered or
related.
At the request of Elijah C. Jeffers, of Clatsop
county, his mother, Mrs. Sarah H. Jeffers, writes
the following history and incidents of travel across
the then wild and uninhabited region of country,
from the point of rendezvous near Saint Joseph, and
on the west shore of the Missouri river, to the terri-
tory of Oregon:
On the 6th day of March, 1847, my husband,
Mr. Joseph Jeffers, and I, with our family of three
children, left Burlington, Iowa, for the aforesaid
rendezvous to join the company of emigrants to be
organized and escorted under the direction of a
young man by the name of Albert Davis, who had
before traveled the said road to Oregon and the Pa-
cific coast. For the sake of protection from the
depredation and savage barbarity of the Indians on
the way, the company, consisting of forty-two wag-
ons and attendants, drawn by teams of oxen, was
systematically organized; and, being thus arranged
for travel, we took up the line of march from the
place of rendezvous, and with oxen speed wended
our way westward to the point of destination,
camping in circle at night, the cattle being turned
loose to graze and rest, and guards being stationed
around the camp to protect the cattle and the camp
from the hostilities of the savages. These were re-
lieved by others at midnight. All having rested for
the night, and taken their morning repast, we re-
sumed the tedious journey.
"Traveling and camping thus each succeeding
day for four or six weeks, we came to Fort Laramie,
being a distance of about five hundred miles trav-
eled from the point of egress. There was nothing
remarkable or worthy of note at this point, except
390
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
;
that it was occupied by a white man associated with
an Indian squaw for a companion, and hence raising
a family of half-breeds. After resting for two days,
we resumed the line of march from this point on the
North Platte river, and traveled thence up the
rough and rugged Black Hills or Laramie Range
until attaining the Wind River Range about the last
of June, where was exhibited the remarkable and
beautiful feature in nature of a snow-clad mountain,
and at its base beautiful and fragrant flowers with
green grass, upon which all of us, for the time being
luxuriated, the teams upon the grass, and the
men and women upon the snow and flowers, as we
camped at a creek near by named Sandy.
"On the following morning, the 1st of July, we
resumed the toilsome way, the company dividing, a
portion going by the way of Fort Bridger and the
others taking what was called the Greenwood cut-
off. We, taking the latter, experienced the terri-
bleness of that cut-off, characterized by a continuous
travel day and night without wood, grass or water,
and through a dense cloud of dust, the teams be-
coming well-nigh famished, and the company suf-
fering from great thirst. In the morning, com-
ing in sight of Green river, for some time before
reaching it the teams became so frantic that they
were scarcely manageable; and, such was the inten-
sity of their anguish, that on reaching the river it
was exceedingly difficult to release them ere they
plunged with all into the water, and then had to be
closely followed and guarded to prevent drowning.
Having surmounted the dreary scene and wilderness
desolation, and reached this point on the Green
river the 2d of July, 1847, and being refreshed by
its cooling waters and the usual repast and rest, the
next question to be determined or devised was the
means of transit to employ for the safe ferriage of
the company and their effects to the opposite shore.
A raft of logs was constructed; but, the rapid
stream being too strong for those in custody, it was
swept away, they barely escaping from its dangers.
The next means employed was the calking and
pitching of one of the wagon beds; and by this
means all, in detached and small quantity, were in
due time safely crossed.
"At this point on the 3rd day of July, and while
the men were engaged in providing the means for
crossing the river, the women, inspired by the feel-
ings of nationality engendered by the near approach.
of the day of our national anniversary, as they
might not be able to do so on the Fourth, prepared
a special dinner for all, in honor and celebration of
the day of our national independence. This work.
and celebration occurred on the Sabbath, a seeming
violation of the injunction to 'Remember the Sab-
bath day to keep it holy;' but, being now observed
by the entire line of emigrants, the circumstances
compelling constant labor and travel were pleaded
in extenuation therefor.
"Having succeeded in crossing all with safety,
and in setting up the wagons, repacking, etc., we
resumed the anxious and tedious way, traveling
over unknown mountains, the descent of which, in
one instance, was so great that it became necessary
to take the teams from each wagon and then hitch
one yoke of oxen to the rear end of each to prevent
too rapid a speed in their descent, the men holding.
and guiding the wagons, and thus guarding against
danger and damage, succeeding in a safe descent to
the valley of Ash Hollow, where, finding pleasant
camping quarters, we camped near its cooling stream
of water, and released our teams to graze upon its
abundant grasses for the night and succeeding day
and night.
"A feeling, already engendered, foreign to the
spirit of love and kindness, was here developed;
and it was of such a character that it divided the
company into three separate and distinct branches;
and each branch, independent of the other, subse-
quently traveled and camped under their own care
and supervision. Leaving this point of encamp-
ment, and resuming the tedious way, we finally
came to the beautiful plain adorned by those grand
and natural developments in architecture known
as the Courthouse and Castle, and the Chimney
rock, each extending far into the heavens, and of
such a character as to command the attention and
admiration of all.
"The next objects of interest that came in our
way, commanding the attention of the whole com-
pany, were the natural Soda, Steamboat and Hot
springs. The first was used and enjoyed by ap-
peasing a strong thirst; the second was admired for
its tremendous rush and force of waters, which
created a sound resembling that of the escapement
of a steamboat's high-pressure engine; and the third
provided us with hot water, with which we made
the tea for lunch. The next point of special inter-
est was that of Independence rock on the Sweet-
water river, where we camped and remained for two
days, enjoying its scenery and grazing the teams.
This rock is remarkable, not only for its magnitude
in size and height, but for its isolated relation to all
other peaks or mountains, being entirely surrounded
by the Sweetwater plain, hence the name Independ-
ence. Upon its surface many names are inscribed;
and on its summit is said to be quite a lake of
water.
"On leaving the vale of the Sweetwater, my
husband, desiring to stop a moment with others to
review the scenery, I was intrusted with the lines of
the mule-team, consisting of a span attached to the
family wagon. This trust resulted greatly to my
disadvantage; for while crossing a small stream,
the banks of which were precipitous, I placed my
foot on the tongue of the wagon for support, which
suddenly rose in the ascent and caught my foot be-
tween it and the bed of the wagon, putting me to
great pain and suffering, and rendering me unable to
walk on that foot for some time. I could only move
upon my hands and knees while preparing food for
six in family; but finally I recovered enough to
meet the necessity.
oxen
The next point attained, and of very strik-.
ing remembrance, was Fort Hall. There we were
introduced into a great cloud of most torment-
ing mosquitoes; and hence we hastened from that
encampment with the agility of mule and
speed, and next came to Fort Boise, where we ob-
tained and enjoyed the first salmon. On leaving
camp, our son, who drove the ox-team, being in-
spired by a sportive element to hunt and possess the

E.R. ROGERS,
STEILACOOM,W.T.
M CAW & ROGERS
HON.W.B.D. NEWMAN,
ELMA,W.T.
FIRST BRICK STORE ERECTED IN WASH.TER
(BUILT IN 1859.)
STEILACOOM, W. T.
WILLIAM MEDCALF,
MONTESAND, W. T.
MRS.M.A.MEDCALF,
MONTESAND, W. T.
UNI
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
391
antelope, his father took charge of his team; and I,
having had considerable experience since the inci-
dent related, which occurred on leaving Sweetwater,
again took charge of the mule-team. I did not no-
tice at the time of starting that the lines were
entangled with the tongue of the wagon; and on
coming to a point at the head of a very deep and
precipitous ravine, where the road made a turn, the
mules, by reason of the entanglement, became un-
manageable, left the road, and would have rushed to
the utter and inevitable destruction of all, but for
the kindness of a gentleman, who, seeing our dan-
ger, rushed in ahead of the mules, and, disentang-
ling them, turned them into the road. Thus, by a
kind and merciful providence, teams, family and all
were saved. This put a quietus upon our son's
sportive element.
((
We continued our weary way over valleys,
plains and mountains, the ascent of which in many
instances was of such a character as to require us
to double the teams, and then again to detach them
from the tongue of the wagon and hitch them to the
rear to prevent too rapid a descent, the men guiding,
holding and, by the aid of the oxen in the rear,
preventing the wagon from toppling or overturning;
and thus finally we came to the Cascade Mountains,
the climax of our rough and weary travel.
reached the point of our destination in Oregon on
the 12th of September, 1847, having been traveling
six months and six days since leaving Burlington,
in the State of Iowa, now over forty-two years
ago.'
We
These statistics, being made entirely upon the
memory of this date, are necessarily imperfect.
RICHARD JEFFS.-The subject of this brief
sketch was born in Westchester, Westchester county,
New York, December 27, 1827, where he was brought
up, working on his father's farm until he was nine-
teen years of age. He then went to New York City,
where he remained for eighteen months.
In February, 1851, he started for California by
way of Panama, arriving in San Francisco in March
of that year. He started almost immediately for the
mines, where he remained until 1858.
During the great gold excitement of 1858-59, on
the Frazer river, British Columbia, when thousands
of people were rushing to the new El Dorado, Mr.
Jeffs, with that spirit of adventure that has always
characterized him, made his way to those then
celebrated diggings, and remained there actively
engaged in mining for about one year. In 1859
he removed to Whatcom, Washington Territory,
where he went into the employ of Captain Henry
Roder; and it was he who took to market the first
scow-load of lumber from that place. After work-
ing in different places until 1862, he purchased a
farm of eight hundred acres on the White river, and
followed farming until 1882. In that year the Hop-
growers Association was organized; and Mr. Jeffs
was elected president of that association, and
removed to Snoqualmie, Washington Territory, to
manage their large hop ranch, perhaps the largest
in the world, a view of which the reader will find
in this work.
day, noted for his sound judgment in business mat-
ters, and for his many sterling qualities of heart and
head. The very fact of his having filled the posi-
tion of justice of the peace in the precinct of Slaugh-
ter for over sixteen years, and his having been elected
as a member of the territorial convention of Wash-
ington for the eighteenth district, is sufficient evi-
dence of his popularity, and of the high esteem in
which he is held by the people, marking him as one
of the old pioneers, whose advent with others of
his kind and stamp into this country heralded the
growth and prosperity of the Pacific Northwest.
Mr. Jeffs is a married man and has two sons. He
lives in a beautiful home on the Snoqualmie, sur-
rounded by every luxury and comfort, in the enjoy-
ment of a happy and honorable old age, and of the
respect and goodwill of all who know him.
JOHN T. JEWELL.- Mr. Jewell is a member of
the Cove Dairy Company. He is a native of Indi-
ana, having been born in that state in 1836. After
receiving his education there and in Illinois, he was
drawn west in 1859 by the Pike's Peak gold excite-
ment. From that point he quite naturally came on
to Oregon. His first employment was at West
Portland, supplying steamboats with wood. As
early as 1863 he moved to the Grande Ronde, enter-
ing into business as a freighter. Two years later he
located a beautiful claim at The Cove, Oregon, and
has devoted himself to farming and stockraising.
He now owns three hundred and nineteen acres of
fine level land, and has substantial improvements
and a dairy of fifty cows, and also has about one
hundred head of cattle besides.
In 1870 he was married to Miss Mary J. Richey
of Portland, and is now living amid the comforts
pertaining to the farm of the best class.
MRS. HARRIET JEWETT.- A mournful per-
sonal as well as historic interest lingers about those
who survived the dreadful affair at Waiilatpu in 1847.
Many of these feel that those who died were the
happier; and no sympathetic friend, as every reader
of this book must be, will care to inquire more
minutely than is given in the pages of the general
history of this work. But all will be glad that
these sufferers from Indian atrocity outlived their
great sorrow,—the butchering of a husband or father
or friend,—and have for all these years been useful
and contented citizens.
Mrs. Jewett was born in Lower Canada in 1809,
and at the age of twenty moved with her parents to
the United States, where she was soon married to
Nathan Kimball.
Nathan Kimball. The young couple removed to
Indiana, and in 1847 joined a company bound for
Oregon. Mr. Kimball was ambitious, a good me-
chanic, and had considerable money. Purchasing
an excellent outfit, two ox-teams, milk cows, and
clothing for two years, the journey was undertaken
with high hopes and good cheer. What extra
money was on hand was sewed up in belts, and worn
by the older members of the family.
On the journey misfortune overtook the family
(there were seven children) in the death of a girl of
three and a boy of fourteen. On no place than the
Mr. Jeffs is one of the sterling business men of the plains is death more gloomy. The loved ones must
392
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
be buried and left. The graves must be guarded
against the prowling of wolves on the scent of
blood, and of Indians ready to rifle even the dead of
their clothes. In this case the children were buried
in the road; and the wagons were driven across the
spot to obliterate all traces of the sepulture.
Upon arriving at Doctor Whitman's in the autumn,
the Kimballs were attracted by the pleasant mission
station, by the school which the children might
attend, and by the endless pasture of the hills. As
the teams were worn and the weather was growing
cool, and as Mr. Kimball himself had a chance to
work on some buildings which the Doctor was erect-
ing, he concluded to remain until the following
spring, and then drive through to the Willamette,
with what fatal result is but too well known. We
will not here dwell on the dreadful scenes of the
massacre, nor of the sorrows of the captives.
Upon the release of the survivors in December,
through the efforts of Peter Skeen Ogden, of the
Hudson's Bay Company, Mrs. Kimball came to Ore-
gon City. After a residence there of some time,
she was married to Mr. John Jewett, who then
removed to Clatsop Plains, where they lived for
many years. They improved their place, and reared
and educated their family,-the five children of Mr.
Kimball, and two others born after their arrival.
Mrs. Jewett survives her husband, who died some
ten years ago; and, although in very advanced age,
she enjoys good health. She has never been reim-
bursed for her losses in the Cayuse war, and feels
that she has a just claim on the government. She
certainly has suffered very severely from a massacre
against which the government should have protected
its citizens.
Of her children, Mrs. Susa Wirt, who was born in
1831, is living with her husband, A. C. Wirt, at the
pleasant village of Skippanon, doing a prosperous
farming, gardening and merchandising business.
Mrs. Munson, the wife of J. W. Munson, well known
as a pioneer shipbuilder and light-keeper, resides at
the government station at Point Adams, where Mrs.
Jewett now lives. Mrs. Meglar is the wife of the
well-known proprietor of the Occidental Hotel at
Astoria, and of the salmon cannery at Brookfield.
Nathan Kimball is a farmer in Clatsop county.
Byron Kimball is likewise a prosperous farmer.
DANIEL JOHNSON. Among the pioneers of
Oregon, no one bore a better reputation than the
subject of this sketch, whose doors were always open
to the homeless stranger, and whose memory will be
fondly cherished by the many who have been shel-
tered and fed by him.
Daniel Johnson was born in 1812 in Berkshire
county, Massachusetts, and at ten years of age re-
moved with his parents to Onondaga county, New
York, remaining with them some thirteen years, and
doing any kind of work he could get to do. How-
ever, during the latter part of this time, he labored
at stone-masonry.
Right here we cannot forbear citing the reader to
one piece of labor performed by him. In 1883 H.
Johnson, son of Daniel, while traveling through that
section of New York, paid a visit to an old fashioned
cobble-stone house built by his father in the year
1835, and which is really as firm and solid as when
it was first completed, the couple for whom it was
built still occupying it.
In the year 1837 Mr. Johnson, leaving friends and
home, struck out for the
home, struck out for the "old West." Arriving in
Tippecanoe county, Indiana, he labored at masonry,
plastering, as foreman in a large pork-packing es-
tablishment, and breaking prairie lands, until 1844,
within which time he had accumulated property to
the value of about seven hundred dollars.
During the time he lived in Indiana, he met and
won the love of Miss Elsina Perkins, whom he mar-
ried January 22, 1844. She was born in Cattaraugus
county, New York, in 1828, and was the daughter
of Eli and Sallie Perkins, who removed to Tippe-
canoe, Indiana, when she was four years old, living
there until shortly after the above-stated marriage of
their daughter, when they joined the company, of
which the young couple were members, that was
preparing to cross the plains the following sum-
mer.
All things being ready, they set out with ox-teams
on the fourth day of April to seek new business and
a new home on the Pacific coast. Many of the inci-
dents of that journey have been related elsewhere;
yet one may be added here: Taking a buffalo hunt
with Joseph Smith, Barton Lee and John Perkins,
Mr. Johnson came upon a herd of a thousand ani-
mals, following which they killed a cow and calf,
but upon getting ready to return to the train dis-
agreed as to the direction, and in consequence rode
about aimlessly, moving in a circle. Coming back
to the carcass of the cow and being tortured by
thirst, their tongues already beginning to swell, they
scooped a hole in the body of the animal, and, clari-
fying as best they might with buffalo grass the liquid
which gathered, drank each two swallows. Being
somewhat revived by this seemingly poisonous and
disgusting fluid, they rode on and found the track,
and soon came up with the train, which on account
of the insistence of the wives of these men had
waited a day. They were out two nights and three
days, but found upon reaching the wagons that a
buffalo herd had passed close by, and that the train
was supplied with an abundance of meat.
Reaching the Umatilla, Mr. Daniel Johnson went
over to Walla Walla, and spent some weeks in work-
ing for Doctor Whitman, making the journey to the
Willamette valley in the middle of the winter. At
The Dalles he constructed a canoe for himself, and
hired another with an Indian pilot. His own he lost
in endeavoring to take it over the Cascades, but be-
low the rapids constructed a raft, and at the mouth
of the Sandy was accommodated with the Hudson's
Bay Company's boats. It was the middle of Febru-
ary by the time they reached Oregon City. Early
in March he returned to The Dalles for his teams,
which he had left with Mr. Bush; and, ere he had
reached Oregon City once more, he had passed four-
teen months of outdoor life, never sleeping under a
roof except a few weeks after first arriving at the
falls.
Once fairly in the valley with all his effects, Mr.
Johnson and his wife went out to the picturesque
hills and uplands at the riffles of the Yamhill river,
and near the present site of Lafayette, Oregon, took
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
393
up their Donation claim.
This magnificent tract of
land they still own and have lived upon until re-
cently, making of it one of the best of the "old
places," and rearing there their family of eight child-
ren,-Hull, Melissa (deceased), Anna, Lilian, J. P.,
Effie G., Jennie and Maud. All but one are married
and have homes in Oregon.
Mr. Johnson, although now approaching old age,
is still hale and active, and of unimpaired mind.
FRANK JOHNSON.-The career of this well-
known contractor is a clear case of the promotion
of merit. He has acquired an enviable position in
the business world from simple integrity and excel-
lence of worth.
He was born in Holland in 1844, and came with
his widowed mother to New York in 1852. He
went soon to Buffalo, and there began to learn the
trade of a carpenter and joiner. The war breaking
out, and an appeal being made to the patriotic
young men of the city, he volunteered as a soldier
and served gallantly until the close of the struggle,
meriting and receiving special mention by the
colonel of the regiment. He saw severe work both
in the West and South and at sea, and was wounded
in a skirmish on the line of the Mobile & Charleston
Railway. Being mustered out at Albany in 1866, he
returned home and continued his studies as architect
with Frederick Scott, one of the master mechanics
of the city. In 1874 he began business on his own
responsibility, and made a specialty of first-class
work and of overseeing construction.
Tiring, however, of the city, and desiring to try
the real American life of the West, he came to
Washington Territory in 1880, and took up a farm
in the Palouse country, using his soldier's right to
a claim of one hundred and sixty acres. He began
in earnest, fencing sixty acres, and plowing thirty
the first year.
But his light could not be hid."
A settler, who had made money in the cattle busi-
ness, was wanting a house, and, hearing of Mr.
Johnson, sent for him to do the work. Wishing to
accommodate a neighbor, our architect lent a hand,
and, feeling an interest in his old trade, set himself
to make the best looking house that the circum-
stances would permit. With nothing but rough
lumber to begin with, he matched and planed and
joined, and even molded and made, rolled heads for
the piazza fronts, constructing so elegant a house
as to excite interest in all the region, and to spread
abroad his fame.
The railway authorities, hearing of his skill, per-
suaded him to take charge of work in the construc-
tion of depots along their line. He became foreman
of this work and operated one year. This led to his
receiving the appointment to build the United States
quarters at Fort Spokane, then growing up, where
he worked twenty-two months, overseeing from
twenty-five to ninety-five men all the while, and
building a considerable village of officers' houses
and soldiers' barracks. From this time his place
was assured. Although still trying to live on his
farm, he was called away to build the Catholic
chapel; and he finished the college at the Falls.
He built the first business block in the place
(Keith's), and made the plans and supervised the
construction of the famous Wolverton Block. He
also built Mr. Brown's magnificent residence, and
has erected a very handsome dwelling for himself.
Mr. Johnson is respected and well-nigh beloved
by the people of Spokane Falls, Washington, where
he resides, for his frankness, geniality, good fellow-
ship and neighborliness, as well as for his superior
ability in his special line.
JAMES JOHNSON.— James Johnson, a pio-
neer of 1844, son of James Johnson of Berkshire
county, Massachusetts, was born on his father's
farm in 1814, and as a child moved with his parents
to a new home in Onondaga county, New York,
living there until he attained his manhood. In 1836
he gave rein to the desire for change and adventure
and freedom, which ultimately made of him one of
the early pioneers of Oregon, going in that year
with his brother Daniel to Tippecanoe county, Indi-
ana, and engaging in work as carpenter near Lafay-
ette. In the winters, when there was little building
on hand, he gave attention to pork-packing, becom-
ing an expert and commanding a good salary. In
1839 he began a substantial domestic life, marrying
Miss Juliet, daughter of Eli Perkins of Tippecanoe
county.
"
During these and the following years, however,
he was hearing much about the great new West, the
land of Oregon; and his natural craving to form
and enjoy a career unhampered by the restrictions
of life in the older communities made him anxious
to come to the Pacific coast. In 1844 he was able
to accomplish his purpose. In April, in company
with his brother Daniel, and with John and Eli Per-
kins and Ruel Olds, he procured his outfit and pro-
ceeded to the rendezvous near Independence. There
they found a considerable company assembled,
among whom may be named Joseph Smith, Barton
Lee, Colonel Ford, Captain Levi Scott, Captain
Bennett and Captain Hedges. In all there were
one hundred wagons; and Ford was chosen captain.
It was late in May before the caravan moved.
Owing to prodigious and continuous rains, and the
consequent softness of the ground and fullness of
the streams, their early progress was very slow; in-
deed, they had only reached the Big Blue by the
Fourth of July. As they moved on, the company
fell considerably to pieces, as was usual, for the bet-
ter accommodation of stock. Mr. Johnson traveled
in a detachment of nineteen wagons. Progress
during the later stage of the journey was quite sat-
isfactory; yet on the Snake river provisions were
nearly exhausted; and horsemen were sent ahead to
procure supplies at Whitman's. They performed
their errand, and, on returning, met the train on Burnt
river with a quantity of fresh cornmeal and peas.
With their abundance of milk, the wayfarers managed
to live thenceforth very comfortably on mush.
Mr. Johnson left his team for the winter at The
Dalles, and reaching Oregon City was employed by
Doctor McLoughlin and others in work at his trade
until November of the following year, when, after
much examination for a location, he selected his
Donation claim in Yamhill county, Oregon, near
Lafayette, and made that his home until his compar-
atively recent removal to the town. In 1849 he
394
OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-
made the trip to the California gold mines, but on
account of sickness soon returned. In 1851 he ex-
amined the mines of Southern Oregon, but found
that there was more money in working his farm and
in contracting and building at Lafayette.
In all his plans and labors Mrs. Johnson has been
his faithful and sagacious coadjutor, making ends
meet on the farm, furnishing motive and encourage-
ment for his energy and industry, and also rearing
to his name a family of eleven children, one of
whom died in youth. They are as follows: Burr,
Esquire (died at the age of twenty-seven), Julia A.,
Watterman, Wright, Viola E. and Iola E. (twins),
James K., Gus E., Ellen and Clara. All are mar-
ried and live in Oregon. Mr. Johnson and wife
have twenty-four grandchildren. All but one are
living.
THOMAS JOHNSON. The gentleman whose
name appears above belongs to three towns on the
east slope of the Cascades,-Goldendale, Ellensburgh
and Cle-Elum; and it may almost be said that in
the course of their development these three towns
belong to him. At least, he has been a leading and
constructive spirit in them.
He is a native of Canada, where he was born in
1839, and came to this coast in search of the golden
fleece at Caribou in 1862. The Province, however,
detained him but a year; and he came down to
Rockland opposite The Dalles, employing himself
in running the ferry across the Columbia. Going
to Canada in 1866, he married Miss Connell, and
after his return to his Rockland home made a num-
ber of rapid shifts, all of which advanced him on
the road to fortune. He operated the ferry a year,
was in the cattle business on the Klikitat two years,
and bought sixteen hundred acres of land near
Rockland and farmed three years. Going now to
the site of Goldendale with the autocratic license
of the king or frontiersman, he laid out the city,
built the first store, built a gristmill, and followed
this with a sawmill. In 1880 he established the
bank.
With the construction of the Northern Pacific
Railroad towards the Cascade Mountains, he went
to Ellensburgh, reaching that point before the rail-
road, and took a contract for lumber, prosecuting
also the mercantile business. A fire destroyed
thirty-five thousand dollars' worth of his property;
yet it did not seriously hinder his operations. He
went to building again, this time a hotel, the John-
son House at Ellensburgh, then a sawmill at Sun-
day Creek and another at Cle-Elum, the former a
forty-thousand foot mill, the latter with a capacity
of sixty thousand feet per diem. The present
wealth of the east side of the Cascade Mountains is
very large. Mr. Johnson owns quite a part of the
townsite. Being a man of large views and a strong
hand, he seeks and applies many methods to build
up that part of the state, and is one of its leading
men.
He has not shunned public duties, having been
auditor and probate judge of Klikitat county, and
city councilman and mayor of Goldendale. His
business maxim seems to be to keep things moving,
to employ men, to bring in families, and to keep up
the life and monetary circulation which produces
growth. He has four children, a wife in every way
his companion, and all the home blessings.
His home is at Cle-Elum, Washington.
HENRY JONES:- The subject of this sketch is
a native of Dodgerville, Iowa county, Wisconsin,
where he lived until the breaking out of the war,
when he enlisted in Company C, Twelfth Regiment,
and served until November, 1864. He then moved
to Iowa, remaining there until October, 1873, when
he came to the Pacific coast, landing in Portland,
Oregon, the same month.
Mr. Jones married Miss Rosetta Sexton, grand-
daughter of the late James B. Stephens, of East
Portland, on December 15, 1880, and has one son,
Harry, who was born March 16, 1885. Mr. Jones was
business manager of the late J. B. Stephens for seven
and a half years, and now lives in his residence at
East Portland, Oregon. He is a man of good busi-
ness capacity, and is respected and esteemed by all
who know him.
JOHN E. JONES.- The second to locate in the
beautiful Indian valley was the gentleman of whom
we write.
He was born in South Wales in 1818,
and crossed the Atlantic to America in 1850, remov-
ing to Salt Lake in the next year. Removing to
Cache valley in 1859, he made some valuable im-
provements on his place; but, disagreeing with the
Mormons, he removed to Soda Springs in 1863.
The next year he removed to Deer Lodge valley,
Montana, farming until a destructive invasion of
grasshoppers. Meantime he has been making but-
ter, which commanded a price of two dollars per
pound, and selling hay at Butte at one hundred dol-
lars per ton. After the grasshopper plague, he
made a personal examination of California, Oregon
and Washington Territory, finally, in 1871, selecting
Indian valley, Oregon, as his home, locating near
the present site of the town of Elgin. There he has
since remained, farming and raising stock, and own-
ing half a section of very rich land. He has brought
up and educated a family of eight children, and has
ten grandchildren.
Mr. Jones is a veteran of the Ute war of 1853;
and in 1863 was in the Beaver Lake valley, where a
companion was killed at his side by Indians.
NELSON JONES.- Mr. Jones, one of the larg-
est stock-raisers of Eastern Oregon, having besides
his interest at Heppner, Oregon, large holdings on
the main Malheur, was born in 1840 in Fleming
county, Kentucky. Remaining there until 1849, he
moved with his parents to Iowa, where he lived until
1858. In that year he left the paternal roof, and
made the journey to Pike's Peak, but continued on
to Shasta county, California. In that county he
engaged in mining, but in 1860 sought a more tran-
quil life, coming to Polk county, Oregon, and engag-
ing in farming until 1866. In the meantime he made
several trips to the various mining camps, freighting
and occasionally indulging in mining speculations
of his own.
In 1866 he made a permanent settle-
ment at the forks of Butter creek, and began opera-
tions in sheep-raising, and has been engaged in the

W. H.TAYLOR,
SPOKANE FALLS, W. T.
UN
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
395
stock business from that time until the present, rais-
ing also cattle and horses. Of sheep he has now
fifteen thousand head, and about five hundred
horses.
In a public capacity Mr. Jones has fulfilled his
part, having been elected councilman of Heppner in
the spring of 1889. He now fills that position with
credit to himself and satisfaction to his constituents.
Although holding no landed estate, he has no less
the interest of his country at heart, and is always
relied upon as one of the most faithful and substan-
tial men of that section.
S. E. JOSEPHI, M. D.-Simeon Edward Josephi
was born in the city of New York on December 3,
1849. His father, Edward Josephi, was a native of
St. Petersburg, Russia, but left that country with
his parents for England when a boy. He afterwards
came to New York, where he embarked in the jew-
elry business, becoming a prominent wholesale jew-
eler of that city and San Francisco. Returning
to New York from a trip to the latter city, he was
lost in the burning of the ill-fated steamer Golden
Gate in 1862. The mother of Doctor Josephi is a
native of England. She is one of the Spanish Mandoza
family, her father having emigrated from his native
country prior to her birth.
Doctor Josephi spent his early life in the city of
his birth, and there received his literary education,
chiefly in the public school. In 1863 he graduated
from the grammar school and entered what was then
known as the Free Academy (now the New York
College) on Lexington avenue. After pursuing his
studies there for a year, he accepted a clerkship in
a mercantile house. Possessed with a desire to see
the great West, he embarked for San Francisco on
the steamer Santiago de Cuba, via the Nicaragua
route, arriving in California in September, 1866.
In January, 1867, he came to Portland, Oregon,
to accept the position of book-keeper at the Oregon
Hospital for the Insane, at that time conducted by
Doctors Hawthorne and Loryea. There he com-
menced his medical studies under peculiar advan-
tages. At that time the only hospital in Multnomah
county was that connected with the asylum, and
occupying a separate and detached wing of the
asylum building. This general hospital was also
under the direct supervision of Doctors Hawthorne
and Loryea; so that there was not only the benefit
to be derived from a study of insanity by close and
personal contact with the insane, but also much
experience in general medicine and surgery to be
gained by practical work in the hospital wards.
In 1869, having prepared himself by close study,
the subject of this sketch went to New York for the
purpose of entering the Bellevue Hospital College.
Here a question arose involving a sacrifice of con-
victions and principles on his part in exchange for
financial advantage and the pursuance of his medical
studies. He chose an adherence to his convictions,
and thus lost the opportunities he had so long and
earnestly looked forward to.
Returning to Oregon under many harsh and
adverse circumstances, he temporarily abandoned
the study of medicine and accepted a position in the
banking-house of Stephens & Loryea in 1869.
April, 1871, he married Miss Hannah M. Stone,
daughter of Lewis E. Stone of Wisconsin. By this
marriage he had five children, four of whom are
living.
After his marriage he devoted a short time to
reading law, but soon again resumed his medical
studies, taking such leisure hours as he could obtain
by rising very early and retiring late, and working
at his desk during the intervening hours. Filled
with a determination to obtain his medical degree,
he toiled at study and work, saving little by little
out of his salary, until finally he felt enabled to give
up his clerical position with the Home Mutual Insur-
ance Company (to which place he had been trans-
ferred upon the discontinuance of the banking busi-
ness of Stephens & Loryea) and enter a medical
college for his degree. This he did in 1876, matric-
ulating at the Medical Department of the University
of California; and in November, 1877, he graduated
among the highest in his class. Returning to Ore-
gon, he accepted the position of assistant physician
at the Oregon Hospital for the Insane, under his old
friend and preceptor, Dr. J. C. Hawthorne, in which
and also in the general practice of his profession he
continued until the death of Doctor Hawthorne in
February, 1881, when he succeeded his late chief
as superintendent of the institution. He continued
in charge until the discontinuance of the asylum in
October, 1883, which occurred on account of the
termination of the contract between the State of
Oregon and the Hawthorne heirs, owing to the fact
that the state was then for the first time ready to
receive and care for its insane in its own building.
He then entered into general practice again in
Portland, and so continued until May 1, 1886, when
he was unanimously elected, by the board of trustees
of the Oregon State Insane Asylum, superintendent
of that institution. In this position he continued,
administering the affairs of the asylum with capa-
bility and success, and effecting many improvements
in its general conduct, until July, 1887, when he
resigned owing to the expressed wish of the then
Democratic board of trustees (the old board having
gone out in January, 1887) to run the asylum upon
political lines, and fill the position of superintendent
from a member of their own party. Realizing that,
if the board were determined not to work in har-
mony with the superintendent, the usefulness of the
institution must necessarily become impaired, he
chose to sever his connection with the hospital rather
than remain in charge under circumstances which
would result in discord between the board and him-
self.
Returning to Portland, he again entered into gen-
eral practice, and has so continued to the present
time. During the professional career of Doctor
Josephi, he has occupied various educational posi-
tions. In 1879 he was elected professor of anatomy
and psychology in the Medical Department of Wil-
lamette University. In 1881, at his own request,
he was transferred to the chair of obstetrics in the
same college. At the reorganization of this college
in 1887, he was offered the chairs of anatomy and
obstetrics, but declined both. Later in the year
1887, the Medical Department of the University of
Oregon was chartered; and Doctor Josephi accepted
396
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
the professorship of obstetrics and psychology. At
the final organization in the fall of 1887, he was
elected dean of the medical faculty, to which posi-
tion he has been re-elected each succeeding year,
and which he now occupies.
He is a member of the Oregon State Medical
Society, of which body he was president in 1884;
and he was also president of the Portland Medical
Society in 1885.
In 1885 Doctor Josephi was appointed by Gov-
ernor Z. F. Moody one of the advisory board of
pardons, his coadjutors being Honorable A. Bush
and Reverend W. Hill of Salem. This position he
filled until January, 1887, when he resigned upon
the inauguration of Governor Moody's successor.
Though of Jewish lineage, Doctor Josephi has been
a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal church
since 1869. He is a member of Orient Lodge and
also of Ellison Encampment, I. O. O. F. He has
several times represented his lodge in the state
grand lodge, and was during 1883-84 one of the
grand representatives to the sovereign grand lodge.
THOMAS H. KAYLER.-Mr. Kayler, a gen-
tleman of wide reputation, was born in Lenox
county, Canada, in 1856, and resided on his father's
farm sixteen years, and afterwards learned the drug
business at Napanee. In the spring of 1876 he came
to California, and made his first location in Sacra-
mento, where he found employment in the drug
store of Justice Gates & Co. The following year
he removed to Santa Rosa, coming soon afterwards
to Portland. The next summer, in company with
Peter Graham, he drove with teams to the Palouse
country, and located on three hundred and twenty
acres half a mile south of the present city of Pull-
man, Washington, being among the first settlers
in that vicinity. He followed farming until 1884,
when he returned to his old business, opening a
drug store in Pullman, and conducting it with
various intermissions until the fall of 1888.
the above year he sold his first holding, and pur-
chased two hundred and forty acres three-fourths
of a mile north of the city. He also owns a large
town property in Pullman, and is one of the
responsible men of the place, being a dealer in real
estate. He was married in that city January 1,
1879, to Miss Della Layman. By this union they
have two children.
""
In
is
HON. WM. F. KEADY.
"The pen
mightier than the sword;' and the editor is
greater than the captain. Hẹ is not simply a gos-
sip and talker, but a thinker. The man who has
grown up in a newspaper office can make his way
in the world wherever a way is possible, and becomes
a pillar in society.
This is the case with Mr. Keady, who was born
in Washington county, Pennsylvania, in 1821. He
learned the printer's trade, and entered the print-
ing office of the Iroquois Journal at Middleport,
Illinois, in 1852. Within six months he was half
owner of the paper, and at length purchased the
entire interest. He conducted this publication four
years, until the formation of the Republican party,
of which he became an active supporter. Having
conducted his paper as a Democratic organ, he
found it necessary now to sell it out, but continued
living in Middleport until 1867. Entering the
newspaper business once more, he purchased a half
interest in the Kankakee Gazette, staying with it
two years, and, after a short residence in Iroquois
county, purchased a job office in Kankakee, Illinois,
and published The Times continuously for twelve
years.
In 1881 he felt the drift towards the Pacific coast,
and upon reaching Olympia, and observing its beau-
tiful residences and extensive views, felt no inclina-
tion to go farther, but there set his stakes, and has
since remained. He was elected justice of the peace
soon after his arrival, and has held the office con-
tinuously. As school director he has interested
himself deeply in educational matters. He has a
delightful residence; and his situation is in all
respects enviably comfortable. He is also deputy
clerk of the district court, second judicial district.
His first wife, Martha J. Patton, died in Illinois
in 1853, leaving four children, George B., William
P., now a prominent citizen of Portland; Mrs. Mary
L. Burntrager; and Annie, deceased. In 1856 he
was married to Miss Elizabeth Burntrager. They
have two children living,-Mrs. Ida M. Bolton, of
Vancouver, British Columbia, and Herbert C., of
Olympia.
JOSEPH B. KEENEY.— The railroads have
largely spoiled the big, old stage-line routes; but
still a few of them remain. One of these is that
between Pendleton and Heppner, Arlington, Fossil,
and from The Dalles to Prineville. This route is
conducted on the old style, and by a man fully up
to the old-time requirements. This is Mr. Keeney.
He was born in 1831, in Indiana, and came to Cali-
fornia in 1852, and on a steamer which required
sixty-six days from the Isthmus to San Francisco.
In the spring of 1860 he went to Arizona and, with
others, built Gila City. We now find him moving
around rapidly, now in San José, now at Moroville,
Nevada, and again at Alameda in California, vari-
ously in the hotel business, mining, and as deputy
sheriff at the last place. In Nevada he began the
peculiar but very accommodating business of driving
over the country, taking orders for whatever the
scattered ranchers needed, and filling them at Pla-
cerville; and upon such trips he frequently carried
passengers. He subsequently conducted a stage
line from Helena, Montana, to Fort Benton, follow-
ing this by driving stage from Salt Lake to Provost,
and on the road from Bear River Junction to Boise
City.
In 1868 he took charge of Wells, Fargo & Co's
business as agent, and followed this until the Union
Pacific Railroad was finished. He drove the last
stage between the two roads, the Union Pacific and
the Central Pacific, the regular time for the nine
miles being forty minutes. After this he had charge
of the stage line from Kelton to Boise, and, in 1870,
of that from Boise to Walla Walla and The Dalles.
In 1878 he was elected clerk of Umatilla county,
and served until 1882. He thereupon began stock-
raising, and went into the livery business in connec-
tion therewith, until, in 1887, he put his horses.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
397
upon the stage route mentioned at the beginning.
This bare record presents but little of the hardi-
hood, force and sagacity required for this business,
and but little of the rough escapades and dangers
met with by a stage driver, in a country overrun
with Indians, and, much more, by the old-time
Rocky Mountain "gentlemen of the road," once so
famous.
Mr. Keeney was married in California to Miss
Missouri F. White, in 1854. They have living two
girls and two boys, now men and women. He
makes his home at Pendleton, Oregon.
DEITRICK KELLING. The subject of this
sketch, whose portrait also appears herewith, was
born in Bremen, Germany, in 1831. In 1851 he
came with his thousands of countrymen to New
York. Two years later he "moved on
moved on " to Califor-
nia. He mined ten years in the golden state,
whence he went to Idaho; and from the rocky wil-
derness in which he there was he came to Walla
Walla, Washington Territory. He there invested
in two blocks in the then embryo city. This was at
that time a supply point for Idaho and British Co-
lumbia. In connection with his business there Mr.
Kelling was in the habit of going to the mines in
the summer time.
He was one of the first to go to the Oro Fino
mines, walking on snow shoes and carrying seventy
pounds of provisions on his back, and barely escap-
ing death by drowning. He was the first to erect a
substantial building in those mines; and there he
devoted two summers to merchandising with good
success. In 1871 he settled down in Walla Walla.
In 1885 he leased the Stine House, and proved to
be a very popular proprietor. In that year, how-
ever, he met with an irreparable loss in the death of
his wife; and three years afterwards, November 19,
1888, his own active and useful life was ended.
The general esteem in which Mr. Kelling was
held by his fellow-townsmen was well illustrated by
the marked demonstrations of respect which accom-
panied his obsequies. The entire town may be said
to have mourned at the grave of one so long and
favorably known among them. The memory of
The memory of
both Mr. Kelling and his estimable wife will long
be cherished by the people of Walla Wallɛ.
The business of conducting the Stine House, so
successfully inaugurated by Mr. Kelling, is still
conducted by his sons, the second of whom has
special charge of the hotel, while the oldest, Henry,
is city clerk of Walla Walla, an office he fills with
satisfaction to all. Besides these two sons, the fam-
ily contains three other sons and two daughters.
DR. GEORGE KELLOGG. Dr. Kellogg was
born in Canada, April 6, 1814, and was the son of
Orrin and Margaret Kellogg, and brother of Captain
Joseph Kellogg of Portland. He was one of the
most bold and original men that our state ever
possessed, having that rugged and even combative
disposition which finds its delight in antagonizing
powerful and customary institutions and methods.
Yet his genius was not destructive. It was simply
seeking an opportunity to do constructive work that
made him ready to give and to take blows; and
underneath the shelter of his rugged front grew
the choicest and most delicate plants of human
character.
His disposition to improve upon the past led him
to study the botanic or physiomedical system of
medicine. He had for his instructor Doctor Curtis
of Cincinnati, and gained an extensive practice in
Wood county, Ohio. In 1851 his desire to establish
a new and better order of life led him to cross the
plains to Oregon, where his father and brother were
already doing yeoman's service in opening up the
country. At Milwaukee, and soon in Portland, he
began his system of practice, and gained a very
wide reputation. His medicines, compounded by
himself from the native herbs and trees of our state,
were found to succeed in the performance of their
intended work; and his sympathetic and penetrating
mind, rendered acute by long years of practice,
became preternaturally keen in diagnosis. On the
one side he bore the rough winds of unfriendly
criticism which seldom fail to strike the "irregular
practitioner; but on the other his life was made
happy by the gratitude of many whose health he
had restored, not a few of whom were too poor to
pay for his services except in blessings.
An intreprid thing that he did, well illustrating
his bent, was the opening of Yaquina Bay. This
was originally a part of the Indian agency; but,
from the study of United States laws, Doctor Kel-
logg believed that a harbor could not be withheld
from commerce, and determined to make the test
at Yaquina. He met with opposition from the very
first; the steamboat inspectors tried to detain the
steamer, the Pioneer, in which he was to go. He
was obliged to slip down the Willamette and out of
the Columbia with great caution in order to elude
their espionage; and only by prolonging his journey
on the water did he escape meeting an unfriendly
party which was waiting for him at the bay.
under his clearance from Astoria, allowing him to
navigate the Pacific and Vaquina, and to fish here
and on the weather shore, his little settlement at
Pioneer, twenty-five miles from the bar, was attacked
and demolished during his absence; and he got
small comfort from the officers of the Indian agency
or from the superintendent, and for a time bore the
fame of a pirate or smuggler. Yet upon final
appeal the government stood by him; and Yaquina
is now an open port, and has been of vast service
to the state.
Even
The end of this active life came in April, 1886;
and the high esteem in which Doctor Kellogg was
held was attested by the number of persons who
attended his funeral obsequies, among whom were
not only the many unknown whom he had befriended,
but also the most distinguished citizens of our city.
The following obituary notice of Doctor Kellogg,
which appeared in a leading Portland daily paper,
is so just an estimate of his character, and contains
so accurate a résumé of his life, as to merit insertion
here:
"On May day were interred in Riverview Ceme-
tery the remains of the well-known and popular
citizen of Portland, Doctor George Kellogg.
Deceased was born at Caledonia Springs, Canada,
April 6, 1814, and died April 28, 1886. At about
398
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
the age of twenty-one he moved to Ciuciupti, Ohio,
where he studied his profession under Doctor Curtis.
After graduating he gained an extensive practice in
Wood county of the same state. In 1851 he came
to Oregon, where he has been a practicing physician,
not only in Portland, but throughout the state and
territories adjacent.
"Doctor Kellogg's integrity as a man, and his
skill professionally, made him beloved by his
acquaintances, and earned the respect of the public
to an extent seldom enjoyed by a professional man.
He was exceeded by none in the desire to help the
needy in the hour of distress. He not only gave
freely of his means to the poor; but all the results
of his genius were in every practicable way employed
for the public good. These magnanimous charac-
teristics endeared him to everyone. He was, per-
haps, one of the greatest men young Oregon ever
beheld, when, emerging from the ocean, white men
came to behold her beauty.
"Nor did his enterprising largeness of mental
capacity confine his career to the practice of physics
alone. With the craving intrepidity of the most
skillful navigator, he was the first man who took a
steamboat from Portland across the Columbia river
bar, examined the Oregon coast, and boldly entered
Yaquina Bay, thus showing what commercial
advantages lay in that direction. Last fall, when
he again visited Yaquina, the people were not for-
getful of his labors in their behalf. They turned
out en masse to receive him. The greatest man of
the age could not have been given an ovation more
truly popular than that accorded him on the occa-
sion mentioned.
He leaves a wife and four brothers to mourn his
loss. In his youth he was baptized and became a
member of the Methodist church. During his last
illness he made a profession of faith in his Saviour.
He was attended by a minister of the Christian
church, and exhibited great fervor as a Christian.
He frequently called upon his wife to pray near him;
and as the time of his departure drew near his faith
became brighter and more earnest, until the happi-
ness of sincerity and goodness accompanied him to
death.
"The funeral sermon was preached at the Chris-
tian church by Reverend J. W. Webb of Salem,
assisted by the Reverend T. L. Elliott of this city.
His pall bearers were leading and distinguished
citizens: Mayor Gates, Doctor Plummer, Judge
Marquam, Mr. Hunter, Judge White, and Mr.
Muckle of St. Helens. The funeral was very largely
attended."
MRS. DR. MARY C. E. KELLOGG.— Mrs.
Mary C. Edwards Morand, who became the wife of
Doctor George Kellogg in 1879, and is now contin-
uing the work and manufacturing the remedies of
her husband, was born in Illinois, and received her
education in Pittsfield, and at the Jacksonville Sem-
inary, of which Doctor Jaques was president. In
early life she was much of an invalid, and for her
own improvement read medicine, looking closely
into the systems of allopathy and hydropathy, and
taking also a course under the celebrated phrenolo-
gist, Professor O. S. Fowler, of New York, and
afterwards studying with Doctor P. W. Shastid, of
Pittsfield, Illinois. At the age of seventeen she was
married to W. C. Morand, M. D. Of the two sons
born of this union, one is Doctor W. E. Morand, now
a physician in Portland; and the other is Elmer E.
Morand, a farmer at Silver Creek, Washington.
Coming to Oregon for her health in 1874, she was
married five years later to Doctor George Kellogg,
through whom she had received essential aid for
consumption, from which she was suffering. She
began at once the study of his system, and soon mas-
tered the art of making his remedies. These medi-
cines have gained a wide reputation on this coast,
and are even in considerable demand in the Eastern
states. The well-known home remedies, Balsam of
Life, Family Liniment, Compound Cathartic Bitters,
Golden Liniment for Catarrh, Golden Urinary Spe-
cific, Lung Balsam, and Cough Drops, are all com-
pounded under her supervision, and are made almost
exclusively from our native herbs and plants. Their
great value has been recognized not only in a pri-
vate way; but the management of the Mechanics'
Fair of Portland bestowed upon them the blue rib-
bon, and awarded a diploma in 1886. It was the
last wish of Doctor Kellogg that these specifics be
kept in requisite quantity upon the market; and in
this Mrs. Kellogg has most fully concurred
She lives in a delightful portion of the city of
Portland, Oregon, commanding from the windows
of her residence a bold view of the river and moun-
tains, and has the substantial pleasures that come
from active and beneficent employment. Her home
is of rare attractions, and is adorned with artistic
work of great beauty, deriving its interest not only
from its unique design and construction, but from
the fact that it is wholly her own. She prides her-
self that there is nothing else like it in the world,
and that it is her peculiar invention. Being an
extensive and enthusiastic traveler, with a penchant
for gathering all manner of curiosities and memen-
toes from the places visited, she formed the idea of
fashioning out of these materials designs so as to
depict flowers and landscapes. One work of this
kind is made wholly of shells, with a modicum of
moss and miniatures of wild animals, and is a most
entertaining souvenir of summer on the seashore.
Another work of equal beauty is of crystal, the
nucleus being beads which her children gathered
long ago, and which she preserves in this graceful
form. Another design is worked out in acorns, nuts,
seeds, etc., another wholly in grasses, another in
leaves, and various works in wax. All in all, this
makes a most entertaining weft of the odd minutes
of a very busy life, touching with beauty and art
and with the mystic attraction of the past, the entire
home scene. The recreation thus suggested might
be very well recommended to all lovers of the beau-
tiful as something calculated to weave a thread of
gold in the web of life, and to turn to brightness
many minutes which might otherwise be given over
to "the blues."
JAY A. KELLOGG.-This gentleman is a na-
tive of Illinois, where he was born in Boone county,
February 21, 1851. He is a son of Eli D. Kellogg.
His mother's maiden name was Margaret J. Passage.

JĮ Į Į Į Į Į Į FĮ Į Į ĮŸ / / / / I
L.BET
1882.
11111
J. BETZ'S
BREWERY,
WALLA WALLA, W. T.
16:
STAR BREWERY
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
399
When he was eight years old, the family crossed the
plains to California and settled at Weaverville in
that state. He there received the rudiments of his
education at the public school, and continued his
studies at St. Joseph College in Humboldt county.
After a residence of ten years in Weaverville,
Mr. Kellogg engaged in the lumber business in
Humboldt county. In the general depression of
1879 in that line of business, he disposed of his
interest, and in March of that year came to Wash-
ington Territory, selecting the thriving town of
Dayton as his future home. He was there engaged
in mercantile business for two years. Converting
his business again into cash, he was occupied in
various pursuits until his election as auditor of
Columbia county in November, 1884. The ability
with which he discharged the duties of that position
caused him to be re-elected in 1886. He has also
been a member of the common council.
Having full confidence in the future of his adopted
home, his investments from time to time have been
in real estate. The rapid increase in population of
the Inland Empire at large and Dayton in particular
proves that his judgment was sound. The property
he purchased for moderate prices is now very valu-
able. Mr. Kellogg is not only considered one of the
substantial citizens of Dayton, but also one of its most
active in all enterprises looking towards the advance-
ment of its natural welfare.
In 1882 he was united in marriage at Dayton with
Miss Sina M. Coleson, also a native of the same county
and state as her husband. Surrounded as he is by
a pleasant and happy home, it is no wonder that the
portrait found of him in this work looks so free from
care.
CAPTAIN JOSEPH KELLOGG. — The old
People's Transportation Company of the Willamette
has a record in the annals of early navigation
scarcely less glorious than that of the Oregon Steam
Navigation Company of the Columbia. Of this
company, Captain Kellogg was one of the origi-
nators.
The Kelloggs are of old revolutionary stock, the
father, Orrin Kellogg, having been born at St.
Albans, Vermont, in 1790. He was married to Miss
Margaret Miller, in Canada, in 1811. In 1812 they
went to Canada; and, the war between Great Britain
and the United States breaking out, they as Ameri-
cans were not allowed to return until after hostilities
had ceased. While thus detained, their oldest boy
Joseph was born, the day being June 24, or St. John's
day. By action of Congress this child, in common
with others in like circumstances, was still regarded
as a native citizen of our Nation. After the war
was over, the Kelloggs moved back across the border
and settled near where Lockport, New York, now
stands, but soon moved farther west to Ohio, and
made a home upon the Maumee river. Here young
Joseph grew up, and in 1844 married Miss Estella
Bushnell, a young lady of noble character, who was
born February 22d;-Washington's birthday,-1818,
at Litchfield, New York, and who moved to Ohio in
1820.
In 1847, with his father's family, they set out for
Oregon. They made arrangements to lie over one
winter at St. Joseph, Missouri, completing the
journey the year following. By May, 1848, they
were off.
When but a short distance out on the
plains they met Joe Meek, the Oregon veteran and
mountaineer, hastening East with the news of the
Whitman massacre and of the Cayuse war. Some-
what sobered but not daunted by this intelligence,
the emigrants continued on their journey, preparing,
if necessary, to fight their way through; but they
reached Oregon without the slightest trouble of any
kind. One of the pioneers of this year, and a mem-
ber of this company, was P. B. Cornwall, since known
as a very wealthly man of California, and the princi-
pal owner of the old steamer Great Republic. He
was bringing with him a charter from the Masonic
grand lodge of Missouri to establish a lodge of that
order in Oregon; but, turning off at Fort Hall for
California, he intrusted the document to Messrs.
Orrin and Joseph Kellogg, who brought it through
and established Multnomah Lodge, No. 1, the first
Masonic lodge in Oregon. This fact makes notable
the year 1848, and also the Kellogg company.
Soon after reaching Oregon, Mr. Orrin Kellogg,
Sr., took his Donation claim between Milwaukee
and Oregon City, and, although then reaching ad-
vanced life, set about with great vigor to build a
new home, and at length developed one of the best
farms and handsomest places in the territory. He
was one of the first to begin fruit-culture on a large
scale, and put up one of the first tanneries in that
section. He was a man of great liberality, and kept
open house for all of his friends, nor even stinted his
hospitality to travelers and strangers. It was said
of him that his latch-string was always out; and he
was among the number to give Oregon that reputa-
tion for hospitality which she still enjoys. He also
gave attention to navigation on the lower Willamette
and Columbia, being the first of the remarkable
family of river captains bearing his name. Upon
the opening of Yaquina Bay to commerce and nav-
gation by his son, Doctor George Kellogg, he ac-
companied the expedition, and contributed very
largely to its success. Taken all in all, he was a
man of robust character, of sterling uprightness,
and that mental energy and virility which have been
of the utmost value in the formation of our common-
wealth.
Having reached Oregon and examined its oppor-
tunities, Joseph Kellogg located a claim adjoining
that of Lot Whitcomb at Milwaukee. Here he
began at once that career of activity which has made
him one of the foremost business men of the state.
With Lot Whitcomb and Wm. Torrence he laid
out the town of Milwaukee and built a sawmill.
He also constructed for the firm a schooner which
was loaded with produce from adjacent farms, which
was taken to California. Selling schooner and cargo,
the proceeds were used to purchase the brig Forest.
Putting her on the lumber trade to California, a few
trips sufficed to acquire purchase-money for the bark
Lausanne, together with a pair of engines and
boilers, and a complete outfit for a steamer, which
were already upon the vessel; and, having secured.
this magnificent bargain, they began in the spring of
1850 the construction of the Lot Whitcomb, the first
large steam craft built in Oregon. The launching of
27
400
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
this boat on Christmas day of that year was the
occasion of a general jubilee. But this was cut
short by the explosion of a cannon, with which the
people were celebrating, some of the fragments of
which struck and killed Captain Morse, the master
of a ship lying at Milwaukee,—a sad ending to the
young city's rejoicing.
As the years went by the business of the firm
grew; a flour mill was also built and kept in opera-
tion, and two brigs kept plying with lumber to
Sacramento. Lumber in those days was worth one
hundred dollars a thousand on the Willamette; and
freight to California added a hundred more. With-
drawing from the firm of Whitcomb, Kellogg &
Torrence, he formed a partnership with Bradbury
& Eddy, putting up the Standard Flour Mills,
which were for many years the most extensive in
Oregon. In 1863 he began the building of the
steamer Senator, which was afterwards sold to the
People's Transportation Company.
Besides these private interests, Captain Kellogg
took a deep interest in public measures for the
improvement of the young state. In about 1857 or
1858 he took an interest in the telegraph line which
was then to be constructed from San Francisco to
Portland,—the first in our state;-and at his mill
were sawed out the cedar posts for the section
between Portland and Oregon City. An interest of
twelve hundred dollars was also taken by his com-
pany for the old Macadam road between Portland
and the White House, the first road of the kind
in the Northwest, and still the best drive out of
Portland.
About 1861, the People's Transportation Com-
pany was formed by a number of aggressive and
active men whose object was to navigate both the
Willamette and Columbia rivers; but, coming to an
agreement with the Oregon Steam Navigation Com-
pany, they confined themselves to the former, leav-
ing the latter to the other company. In the fall of
1864 Captain Kellogg united his interests with the
People's Transportation Company. The most impor-
tant work, after the formation of this company, was
the building of the basin above the Falls in 1867 or
1868 to facilitate the portage. Captain Kellogg
superintended this work; and its thorough con-
struction, standing as it does to this day, is a
master-piece of engineering. It was Captain Kel-
logg also, with Captain Pease, who began the
navigation of the Tualatin with the little steamer
Onward, and constructed the canal between that
river and Sucker Lake, thereby making it possible
to bring freight to Oswego and thence to the Willa-
mette.
In connection with this enterprise he bought and
laid out the town of Oswego, and made an agree-
ment with the Iron Works Company by which they
were able to continue in business once more. The
People's Transportation Company sold out to Ben
Holladay in 1870; and the Willamette Transporta-
tion Company, of which he was vice-president and
a director, was organized, building the steamers
Governor Grover and Beaver, whose construction
Captain Kellogg superintended. But, soon selling
out all his interest on the Willamette and Tualatin,
he formed a new navigation company in partnership
with his brother Jason and his two sons, placing his
boats on the Columbia on the line to Washougal
and the Cowlitz. The two beautiful steamers
Joseph Kellogg and Toledo, built by himself and
commanded by his sons, are on the Cowlitz route,
navigating that river far up into the heart of Wash-
ington, forty miles from the Columbia river to
Toledo. This is one of the most popular and best-
paying lines on the Columbia. It is incorporated
as The Joseph Kellogg Transportation Company.
The venerable Captain, although now in the
white winter of his age, is still in perfect health,
turns off an immense amount of work, and is one
of the leading citizens of Portland, Oregon.
One of the pleasant and memorable occasions
of the life in Ohio was his attendance at a great
celebration, at which people from all parts gathered
to the number of above thirty thousand to see
General Harrison, then just returned from his
presidential campaign of 1840. The captain well
remembers the magnificent form and commanding
manners of this hero of the West, and retains in
pleasant memory the pressure of the hand which
he in common with many others was permitted
to take in the familiar citizen's grip of our country
men.
As to the Indian disturbances, Captain Kellogg
recalls the excitement following the report that the
Indians surrounding the Willamette valley were
ready to fall upon all the settlements, and tells how
he stood guard all night to protect his family.
He had great faith in the advantages of Milwau-
kee as the metropolis of the state, and early became
a pilot on the lower Willamette, performing the task
of which no one else seems capable at present,-
taking ships of deep draught past Ross Island to
her dock. He now, however, regards the growth
of Portland as on the whole most fortunate, since
thereby the entire commercial interest of the lower
river is massed at one point, rather than divided
between some place above, as Milwaukee, and some
point on the Columbia river, as St. Helens.
tain Kellogg, who began as a pilot on the river
even before there was a pilot commission, and was
one of the first to receive a license, is now the oldest
river pilot.
Cap-
CAPT. ORRIN KELLOGG, JR.-This gentle-
man is the son of Captain Joseph Kellogg, and was
born October 16, 1845, in Wood county, Ohio.
Coming as a child to Oregon, he received in this
state the training and education which have fitted
him for his career in business, and upon the navi-
gation lines of the Northwest Pacific. His boyhood
was spent upon his father's farm, and in attendance
upon school at Milwaukee, rendering his father
assistance in the meantime upon the farm and in
the sawmill. Upon removing to Portland, he
attended the Central School, and, desiring to fit
himself for exact business, made preparations to
enter the Portland Business College, at which he
completed a
completed a course and became one of the first
graduates of that excellent institution.
From school he began the business of steamboat-
ing, operating on the Tualatin river, first as engineer
and afterwards as captain of the steamer Onward.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
401
·
A few years later he purchased the dry-goods store
of Mr. L. Patterson, of Hillsboro, and, laying in a
large stock of merchandise, soon made it the lead-
ing retail house of the town. In the spring of 1874
he returned to Portland, Oregon, resuming his former
occupation of steamboating, and has followed this
to the present time, operating on the Willamette
and Columbia rivers for the various transportation
companies doing business there. Since 1878 he
has had command of the steamer Toledo, of The
Joseph Kellogg Transportation Company, a cor-
poration of which he is vice-president.
His oper-
ations in this department of river navigation have
been of great value to the Cowlitz country, as well
as contributing to a generally increased volume of
business, and demonstrate in what manner freight
tariffs for transportation may be kept at a minimum
in our Pacific Northwest. His plan has been to
accommodate every farmer or rancher reached on
his route, giving each a landing, taking any and
every sort of produce to market, disposing of it for
the owner, and purchasing for the settlers any sup-
plies or necessaries, from school books or a package
of nails to household goods or farm machinery.
He has moreover assiduously given attention to
the improvement of the Cowlitz river, securing for
it government aid, and even expending the means
of the company in further prosecution of the work.
In 1886 his plan for building wing-dams and clear-
ing the river of snags by means of giant powder was
conceded to be the best by the government engineers.
As a result of this policy on the part of the company
and his own steady prosecution of the same, his
company has now exclusive control of the Cowlitz
trade, and have so stimulated the settlement of the
Cowlitz country that at Toledo, where there was
only a calf pasture when the Captain first made a
landing, there stands a fine young city of more than
six hundred inhabitants. When we consider that
there are over one hundred rivers in the Northwest,
that by more or less improvement may be made to
serve as well as the Cowlitz for navigation under the
same sort of management, we begin to realize the
value of our inland navigation, and see how easily
railroad monopoly may be checked. To the company
of Captain Kellogg must be given the credit of pio-
neering in this direction.
He was married June 5, 1870, at Hillsboro, Ore-
gon, to Miss Margaret Ellen Westfall, who was born
May 30, 1850, in Des Moines county, Iowa, and is
a daughter of Nathan Westfall of West Chehalem,
Oregon. They have three children, Stella May,
Ruby Ethel and Chester Orrin.
CAPT. CHARLES H. KELLOGG.-Charles
was the second son of Captain Joseph Kellogg, and
was born October 1, 1846, in Wood county, Ohio.
Coming as a child to our state, he spent his early
years upon the farm of his father at Milwaukee, and
learned habits of industry there and in the sawmill.
His early education at the Milwaukee district school
was further advanced at the Central School and
Academy of Portland, and was completed at the
Portland Business College, of which he was one of
the first graduates. After a short apprenticeship
under Captain Baughman, he took command of the
steamer Senator, owned by the People's Transporta-
tion Company, plying between Portland and Oregon
City, and kept his position until the company sold
to Ben Holladay & Company.
At the completion of the locks at Oregon City, he
had the honor of piloting the first steamer, the
Maria, through the locks. For a time he was cap-
tain of the Governor Grover for the Willamette Trans-
portation Company on the Willamette river.
He
afterwards commanded various boats for the old
Oregon Steam Navigation Company until the Joseph
Kellogg Transportation Company was formed, of
which he was a stockholder, and at one time vice-
president, and afterwards treasurer, and had com-
mand of the steamer Joseph Kellogg until his death,
which occurred August 7, 1889.
He was on the water from early boyhood, and
even in his youth was marked as exceptionally
capable in handling a steamer, and received the
praises of such old navigators as Captain Couch and
other pilots. He became one of the most able and
successful of the pilots that have ever run on the
Lower Willamette and Columbia. His untimely
death has not only been deeply mourned by his own
family, but also regretted by the entire community.
Men of his skill, breadth of mind and business cali-
ber are only too few in this state.
He was married February 2, 1870, to Miss Emma
E. Goode of Oregon City. He was married secondly
in January, 1882, to Miss Mary Ellen Copeland of
Scappoose, Oregon, and had by her two children,
Pearl and Earl Joseph.
William Harvey Kellogg, the third son of Cap-
tain Joseph Kellogg, was born June 22, 1859, at
Milwaukee, Oregon, but died in infancy.
NOAH S. KELLOGG.—This renowned pros-
pector, whom Fortune has singled out as her favor-
ite from among many thousands, was born in Ohio
in 1829. In 1852 he began the journey across the
plains, reaching Council Bluffs that year, and com-
ing on to Portland, Oregon, in 1853. He terminated
his trip at the Sound the same season.
The next
year he engaged in lumbering at Port Gamble, and
continued in that business until 1870, spending one
year, 1860, in the Boise basin.
Since 1870 Mr. Kellogg has devoted the most of
his attention to mining, traveling in British Colum-
bia, California and Mexico prospecting and gather-
ing mining information. In 1888 he went to the
Coeur d'Alene country and became part owner of
the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mines, which were
sold in 1887 to S. G. Reed for the sum of one
million, five hundred thousand dollars. Professor
Clayton's report on these mines shows that, besides
the twenty-five thousand tons of ore already taken out,
there are now in sight above two hundred and fifty
thousand tons. Mr. Kellogg is interested in several
other mines which he has discovered prospectively
of equal value, and is now actively engaged in
developing them.
There is nothing in recent mining history more
interesting than the exploits and successes of Mr.
Kellogg in the field of prospecting.
402
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
REV. CLINTON KELLY.-Reverend Clinton
Kelly, one of the early pioneers of the Pacific North-
west, was born in Pulaski county, Kentucky, June
15, 1808. In January, 1827, he was converted, and
commenced his life-work as a minister in the Meth-
odist-Episcopal church, and has since devoted his
talents and energies for the benefit of his fellow-
men, always denying himself the comforts and enjoy-
ments of this life that he might the better assist
others.
In 1827 he was united in marriage to Miss Mary
Baston, by whom he had five children, three of
whom are still living,-good citizens of Oregon.
His first wife died in 1837. He was again mar-
ried in 1838 to Miss Jane Burns, to whom was born
one child. She died soon afterwards, when he was
joined in matrimony to Miss Moriah Crane; and to
them were born nine children, Mrs. Sarah M., wife
of Captain J. W. Kern, being the eldest.
At the secession of the Methodist-Episcopal
Church South from the mother church, he took
up his relations in that church; but seeing, though
far off, the terrible strife that would result from
slavery, he longed to get away from its influences,
and, hearing of this far-off land, took up his march
in 1847 across the plains for Oregon, where he
arrived late in the year of 1848, and settled about
two miles east of Portland.
By great industry and frugality he had surrounded
himself and family with an abundance of this world's
goods. Though so well situated in life, he ceased.
not to teach men of Jesus and the higher life they
might live by squaring their lives by his laws. His
especial efforts were devoted to the temperance
cause. He had seen much of the ravages of the
drinking custom during his lifetime, and worked
to abate its dreadful power. He spared neither
time nor money in this work; and earnestly he
fought. He made no enemies; for all felt that love
for his fellow-men urged him to his work.
For forty-eight years he diligently served his God;
and after a long life of usefulness, full of many suf-
ferings and privations, he has gone to reign with
Him. His last sickness was accompanied with
most excruciating pain. For nearly a score of
years he had been afflicted with a severe type of
dyspepsia; and of late all food taken into the
stomach seemed to turn to gas. It was found that
his heart was diseased, the valves having become
thickened from rheumatism, thus producing irreg-
ular action.
The two diseases combined caused a smothering
sensation; and for the last three months he was
almost continually in an upright posture. The
disease completely baffled the best efforts of his
physicians. His strong physical system refused to
yield; and the fight was long and terrible. But
amidst it all his mind was calm and serene; and
with pleasure he looked for the summons of his
Master. He passed to his reward on Saturday,
June 19, 1875. His life was an example of integ-
rity; and his memory will long remain fragrant in
the hearts of scores and hundreds who have known
and loved him.
HON. JAMES KERR KELLY.— Among the
men of distinction in our state, none have held a
position of eminence for a longer time than Senator
Kelly. It requires stamina to stand for thirty years
upon
We
"the hard and wintry peaks of fame."
are the more assured of eminent qualities in the
Colonel when we consider that he came to this coast
and started upon bed-rock. Family ties, name,
favoritism, may elevate men of no ability to high
positions in older communities; but in the Oregon
of an early day artificial conditions did not exist.
A man came near being born again, or returning to
his naked abilities, when he came to the Pacific
coast.
Of the men of power in our state,-Baker, Nes-
mith, Woods, Williams, Logan, Mallory, Lane,
Applegate,—none have shown more mental grip
and wear than Colonel Kelly. But the simple tale
of his life carries with it its own commentary.
Merit and service may go without veneer.
He was born on a farm in Center county, Penn-
sylvania, in 1819. His was an old American fam-
ily, although his great-grandfather came from the
north of Ireland about 1720. His grandfather
served in the Revolutionary war. Young James
began his school-days at Milton, and thence went
to Princeton College, graduating in 1839. He im-
mediately began the study of law with Judge John
Reed of Carlisle, attending also lectures upon law
delivered by the judge at Dickinson College, and
was admitted to the bar in 1842. He commenced
practicing at Lewistown, and was appointed prosecut-
ing attorney by Governor Porter for Juniata county,
and subsequently for Mifflin.
Determining in 1849 to come to the Pacific coast,
he chose the route via the Ohio river and New Or-
leans, proceeding thence to Vera Cruz, passing from
the Gulf coast overland to the antique City of Mex-
ico, and reaching the Pacific at San Blas. He there
found a ship, and arrived at San Francisco in July.
It was to dig gold that he came; and he spent the
rest of the year at Murphy Diggings, in Calaveras
county, washing the dust with a pan and rocker.
Although moderately successful, he wisely con-
cluded that there was more money in practicing his
profession; and at San Francisco he opened his
office, which he kept until, in 1851, he was burned
out in the great fire. Pulling up his stakes once
more, he came to Oregon, arriving on the 10th day
of May of that year. Here he found a flourishing
political field, and was almost immediately given
legislative service and preferment. In 1852 and
1853 he was elected chairman of the board of com-
missioners to prepare a code of laws for Oregon,
Judge R. P. Boise and D. R. Bigelow also serving
on the commission. In 1853 he was elected to fill
an unexpired term of one year in the council, and,
at its close, to the full term of three years.
When, in 1855, the Indian war broke out, Kelly
was among the most active to spring to the defense
of the young settlements. He organized a company
at Oregon City, and led it over the mountains by
the Barlow road to The Dalles. Here were the
Oregon companies, each with its captain. Soon
after the different companies had assembled at The
Dalles, Governor Curry ordered an election to be
*

E.T. YOUNG, ESQ.,
OLYMPIA,W.T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
403
held for general officers, at which election J. W.
Nesmith was chosen colonel and Mr. Kelly lieuten-
ant-colonel of the First Regiment of Oregon Volun-
teers. A few days afterwards Colonel Nesmith
proceeded with five or six companies to the Simcoe
valley to chastise the hostile Indians in that part of
Washington Territory.
Shortly after the departure of Colonel Nesmith,
Lieutenant-Colonel Kelly was ordered by Governor
Curry to proceed with the remaining companies of
the regiment to the Walla Walla valley. With five
companies under his command, he met the hostile
Indians at the mouth of the Touchet river. The
Indians were driven in a running fight from there to
Dry creek, a distance of about ten miles, where they
made a stand. The battle was continued for four
days, a full account of which is given in the first
volume of this work. The victory of the Oregon
volunteers was complete; and the hostile Indians
were driven north of Snake river. This was about
the middle of December; and the volunteers went
into their winter camp near where the city of Walla
Walla now stands.
Colonel Nesmith having resigned his office soon
after his return from Simcoe, Lieutenant-Colonel
Kelly, by order of the governor, directed an election
to be held to fill the vacancy caused by that resigna-
tion, but declined to be a candidate himself for the
office, as it was his desire to go to Salem to attend
the session of the Legislative Assembly, of which
he was a member. Captain T. R. Cornelius was
elected colonel; and Kelly left for the capital for the
purpose of aiding in such legislation as would be
beneficial to the volunteers. After the close of the
legislative session, he returned to the camp of Colo-
nel Cornelius in Walla Walla valley, and from that
time until late in the spring of 1856 was with the
regiment under Colonel Cornelius, when it was
mustered out of the service.
Colonel Kelly again entered into active political
life. In 1857 he was a member of the convention
which formed the constitution of Oregon. Having
removed from Oregon City to The Dalles in 1862,
he was nominated in 1864 by the Democratic con-
vention, against his will, for member of Congress,
but was defeated by J. H. D. Henderson, the Repub-
lican nominee. In 1866 he was again nominated
by the Democratic party as its candidate for gover-
nor of the state, but was defeated-counted out as
he maintains-by Geo. L. Woods. Having removed
to Portland in 1869, he was elected United States
senator in 1870, having carried the Democratic
standard through ten of the most stormy political
years of its history in the state to this final victory.
Returning from Washington City in 1877 at the
end of his senatorial term, he had scarcely well set
his foot upon the soil of Oregon before he received
the appointment of chief justice of the recognized
supreme court of Oregon. This was for the term of
two years.
We may therefore name James K. Kelly
"Colonel," "Senator" or "Judge" as best suits
our mood. To the Indian war veterans he will
always be "Colonel." Besides these high posi-
tions, he has served as mayor of Oregon City and
The Dalles. This shows his popularity in his im-
mediate home. He has ever been a Democrat since
he cast his first vote for James K. Polk for Presi-
dent.
In his student life he was associated with many
who have since been eminent the nation over.
Among his classmates at Princeton College were
Gen. J. T. Boyle of Kentucky, Hon. H. M. Fuller.
Member of Congress from Pennsylvania, Hon. N.
S. Graham, Chancellor of Alabama, Hon. H. K.
McCay, Judge of the Supreme Court of Georgia,
Hon. Robert McKnight, Member of Congress from
Pennsylvania, Hon. Joel Parker, Governor of New
Jersey, besides others distinguished in various pur-
suits in civil life. Among his fellow-students at
Judge Reed's law school in Carlisle may be named
Andrew G. Curtin, Governor of Pennsylvania and
Minister to Russia, Alex Ramsey, Governor, U. S.
Senator from Minnesota, and Secretary of War,
Carroll Spence of Missouri, Minister to Turkey,
James H. Campbell of Pennsylvania, Member of
Congress and Minister to Sweden, John C. Kunkel
and M. Swartzwelder, Members of Congress from
Pennsylvania, and N. B. Smithers, Member of Con-
gress from Delaware.
In 1863 he was married to Mary, second daughter
of Reverend James P. Millar (deceased), who emi-
grated to Oregon from the State of New York in
1851. They have two children, a daughter and a
son.
HON. JOHN KELLY.- Prominent in almost
every department of business and public life, Hon-
orable John Kelly is known throughout the length
and breadth of our state as a man of great abilities
and irreproachable integrity. As a pioneer, none
has a more deserving record, nor has sustained a
more honorable part. Born in Dublin, Ireland, in
1818, he crossed the Atlantic to Canada in 1838, and
in 1840 came to Franklin, Vermont. Three years
later he began a career at the West, coming to Wis-
consin, and, there exercising his natural bent for
business and capacity for organization, by which he
has been distinguished, established a small woolen
factory. But, finding the conditions unfavorable
for a business of the dimensions that he desired to
control, he sold out his interest and removed to St.
Louis, seeking a wider opportunity.
There he was led by his love of adventure to enlist
for service in the Mexican war. In January of 1848
he was quartered with his regiment at Fort Leaven-
worth; and not until June following was the com-
mand ready to move to the seat of war. While en
route, at Santa Fé, news was received that the war
was over; and the regiment was ordered back to
Jefferson Barracks. In 1849 Mr. Kelly received an
appointment as wagon-master in the battalion of
Colonel Loring to proceed to Fort Vancouver on the
Columbia. Experiencing cholera on the plains of
the Nebraska, and, as drover of the companies loose
stock, to which he had been subsequently assigned,
meeting with unreasonable treatment, he discon-
nected himself from the train this side of Fort Hall,
and came with his own ponies to Oregon City.
Being precisely the man to be attracted by the
great enterprises in the California mines, he was
ready in 1850 for a journey thither in company with
Major Thorpe, Mr. Chambers and others; and his
404
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
years of adventure in the mountains and valleys of
Southern Oregon and Northern California, a recital
of which would fill many pages of such a work as
this, were a succession of upward steps towards a
competency. Many of his experiences were very
amusing, and were enjoyed at the time with all the
hearty goodwill and pleasure of robust manhood,
and a temper notably jovial. On Jump-off-joe creek,
he had his clothes stolen by a "jewel" of an Indian
boy, retaining only his elk-skin trousers and hickory
shirt. By this misfortune, however, he was pleas-
antly-albeit humorously-introduced to General
Lane and Captain Phil Thompson, whom he found
on Bear creek, and by whom his wardrobe was
replenished. Captain Thompson moreover had a
band of cattle that he was driving to California, but,
desiring to return to the Willamette valley, was wil-
ling to dispose of them. Receiving the offer, Mr.
Kelly felt unable to close the bargain for lack of
means; but this was construed by the Captain as no
objection, and a personal note, without the indorse-
ment of General Lane, which was freely offered, was
deemed amply sufficient.
Continuing his journey southward, and crossing
the Siskiyou Mountains with his cavalcade (for he
had now some forty Klikitat and Mollala Indians
as herders), a beginning in mining was made on the
Klamath river; but the site was abandoned for a
better said to exist farther south. While on the
move occurred one of those incidents so often met
with in frontier life, and which make us wonder that
so many of the pioneers lived through the early
days: Two of the best horses were stolen by Indian
thieves at the noon lunch; and Kelly and four others
started in pursuit. The way proved difficult; and
just at dusk the trail entered a narrow, rocky cañon.
Here, sending back the horses with one man to the
camp, the four continued the journey on foot, tramp-
ing until midnight, and then from an eminence
scanning the country for the sign of a flame or
smoke; for they believed that the thieves would at
length make camp, and, owing to the cool air, kindle
a fire.
At length, discovering a dull, red glare in the
distance, they made towards it, and finally came.
upon a camp. Believing that they had overtaken
the thieves they crept up close, with guns ready for
use; but, not knowing how many Indians there
might be, and not feeling ready to begin a promis-
cuous fight in the dark, they kept silent watch, wait-
ing for the dawn. The brands of the campfire
smoked; at last the starlight paled; and the gray
twilight began to enter the shadows of the trees,
disclosing the closely muffled forms of the doomed
victims as they still lay by the ashes of their last
night's fire. Kelly and his comrades crept nearer
with guns in hand, and were just about to lay dead
the miscreants who stole their horses. But, just at
that moment, one of the "miscreants" raised his
head and remarked in unmistakable Western
English, "Well, boys, it is about time to get up
and get breakfast.” They were miners; and Kelly
and his men were not sorry, even though they dis-
covered themselves on the wrong trail for their
horses. But if the miners had been happening to
feel lazy that morning, and had waited to take a
second nap, how shocking must have been the result.
Of course a hilarious breakfast was enjoyed; and
Kelly's party, having so far missed the thieves, gave
up the chase and returned to their cavalcade. Some
time after, a similar incident occurred in the night-
time, when Angel and Kelly got up one night to
shoot a prowling Indian; and incidentally the former
signalized his feat by giving the war whoop, and
only saved himself from being shot by his startled
companion by calling out “I've killed a Digger."
It was not until the following spring that Mr.
Kelly found a good opportunity to dispose of his
cattle. During this season there was a great rush
to the mines on the Trinity, Klamath and Scott
rivers. In March, a very heavy snowstorm, such as
sometimes visits Northern California, blocked all
the trails, cutting off the supply of provisions; and
the miners came out in great numbers on snowshoes,
hungry, but well supplied with dust. Near the spot
where Fort Jones was built somewhat later, Kelly
with a partner named Brown had established a ranch,
and there had his cattle corraled, and for a number
of weeks butchered and sold his beef at a dollar a
pound. During the following summer he was
obliged to close out his interest, and returned to the
Willamette valley in order to pay back the generous
loan of Captain Thompson. His effort to re-establish
a stock business proved unsuccessful, owing to the
treachery of a man to whom he had paid five hun-
dred dollars to hold his claim and build a corral, the
man disappearing with the money, and leaving the
site of the claim to another company, who were occu-
pying it on his return.
Coming up to Oregon again, he found no location
that pleased him more than the beautiful Umpqua
valley. And there, a mile and a half south of Rose-
burg, he set his stakes and made one of the fine, old
places of Southern Oregon. In 1853 he was mar-
ried to Miss Elizabeth Parker, a daughter of the
well-known Squire Parker, a pioneer of 1852. In
1861 he received the appointment as registrar of the
United States land-office, and removed to Roseburg.
In 1866 he removed to Lane county with a view of
establishing an extensive business, but could not be
relieved of his government position. President
Johnson insisted upon his removal; but the Repub-
lican Senate refused to confirm a successor; and he
was continued at the head of the Roseburg land dis-
trict until the appointment of his successor by Gen-
eral Grant in 1869.
The milling business which he had established in
1866 at Springfield in Lane county, with Messrs.
Underwood & Pengra, was continued until the dis-
solution of the partnership in 1872, when Mr. Kelly
received as his share of the effects the fine tract of
land, a portion of which is included in the townsite
of Springfield. In 1876 he received the appointment
as collector of customs of Portland, Oregon, and
during his four-year term performed the duties
of his office with fidelity, dignity and ability. In
1882 he was appointed by President Arthur to inspect
the section of the Northern Pacific Railroad between
Clarke's Fork and Jocko.
Mr. Kelly now makes his home at Springfield,
Oregon, looking after the interest of his real estate,
and improving the town by an addition. In this
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
405
delightful village, in the midst of wealth and prosper-
ity created largely by his own exertions, he spends the
calm hours of a life of great activity and many high
endeavors. He has eight children living: Mary L.,
wife of Hon. H. B. Miller; Thesara M., wife of S.
Jackson; John H.; Sarah M., wife of Judge A. H.
Tanner; Abraham S.; Geo. H.; Elizabeth P. and
Katy L. One child is deceased.
PENUMBRA KELLY.-The gentlemen whose
name heads this sketch is the son of that Sterling
old pioneer, Reverend Clinton Kelly, and of Mariah
(Crane) Kelly, and was born in Kentucky in 1845.
The first three years of his life were passed in that
state, when he accompanied his parents across the
plains to Oregon, arriving in Oregon City in the fall
of 1848. In 1849, the family, which was quite large
(Penumbra being one of fifteen children, six of
whom were born to his father by former marriages),
removed to a Donation land claim near East Port-
land; and since then Penumbra has resided there.
Mr. Kelly was married in 1875 to Miss Mary E.
Marquam, daughter of Judge P. A. Marquam, a
pioneer of 1851, and has three interesting children.
In 1874 he was elected a member of the house of
representatives from Multnomah county, and in 1876
was elected county commissioner of that county.
He was again elected to the legislature in 1878, and
since that time has been twice re-elected.
He was
elected sheriff in 1888 for a term of two years. Many
times has Mr. Kelly's counsel and sound advice
extricated the house from troublesome complications;
and, as he was a deep thinker and able legislator, his
services were greatly appreciated, both by the house
and the country at large. He is a keen business
man, and guards with zealous care the interests of
those he represents. His genial disposition makes
him friends everywhere; and it is a safe prediction
when we say that he has just caught a glimpse of
what Dame Fortune has in store for him when in
due time she deals out her favors.
DR. JOHN H. KENNEDY.- Doctor Kennedy
was born in Iowa in 1850. His father, John K.
Kennedy, was born in Tennessee in 1811, and fig-
ured in the Mexican war as well as in local politics.
In 1862 the parents crossed the plains to Union
county, Oregon. They had given their children the
advantages of a good early education. In 1865 his
father's house and personal effects were destroyed
by fire; and the Doctor was obliged to assist his
parents, as well as to care for himself. In 1871,
having studied at Whitman Seminary and taken a
course in the Medical Department of Willamette
University, he received a diploma with first honors
as M. D. Since then he has been practicing medi-
cine in the Inland Empire, and has acquired a flat-
tering reputation for success; although he is one of
those whom notoriety must seek rather than seeking
it himself. He has had his tribulations withal,
having buried his first wife and three children all
within one year,-in 1877. On April 25, 1880, he
married Nancy A.. daughter of William Stein, a
pioneer of Salem; and there are three children as a
result of this union, two girls and one boy: Faith,
born February 10, 1881; Hope, born April 30, 1884;
and Bliss, born August 19, 1888.
While crossing the plains in 1862, near American
Falls, as they were plodding their weary way west-
ward, a horseman came dashing up to his father-
the captain of the train--with the report that the
company just ahead had been attacked by Indians
and were in need of assistance. The captain imme-
diately ordered a corral, and after posting pickets
and guards took the available men and proceeded to
the relief of the distressed. He found the train
almost totally annihilated. Men, women and chil-
abled, crying, pleading, or running back towards his
dred were scattered along the road dead, dying, dis-
train for refuge. The road at that point passed
through a rocky coulée; and as the company hur-
riedly passed up they found other men, women and
children secreted among the rocks, as well as a few
majority of the Indians were engaged in driving off
of the Indians looking for more victims; while the
the stock from the train assailed. Captain Kennedy
brought up his own train and encamped, having a
strong guard out. The next morning, not having
stock enough to haul the wounded and the little
ones, as well as the supplies for the remnant of the
train attacked, he took twenty-five men and went to
reconnoiter and if possible recapture enough of the
stock to pull the extra wagons. They were par-
tially cut off from their camp and did some bloody
fighting on their return, losing seven men killed,
while the captain and five others were wounded.
After graduating he located at La Grande, Oregon,
where he followed the practice of medicine for two
years, and in 1873 moved to Dayton, Washington
Territory, where he remained until 1887; he then
moved to Sprague, and from there again to Spokane
Falls, coming from there to Weston, Oregon, where
he now resides. The Doctor is building up a fine
medical practice; and we predict a successful future
to this man of worth.
JAMES KESLING.-This gentleman is one of
those large-hearted, kindly men who are loved by
all the neighbors and by all the neighbors' children.
His life embraces a wide range of interesting experi-
ences, and covers a period of nearly forty years on
this coast. He was born in Ohio in 1835, but
moved with his folks to Indiana six years later. In
1852 he came with the family of Honorable Luther
Elkins, now of Linn county, across the plains to
Oregon. Reaching Portland, then a town of shan-
ties and but few good houses, in the woods, young
Kesling and a boy companion undertook to turn a
few honest dollars by cutting cordwood. Half a
day of chopping, however, in the tough, resinous
fir wood blistered their hands and determined them
upon some more congenial labor. This hot half-
day's work was near the Odd Fellows Hall of the
present day. Going to Lafayette, then a city about
the size of Portland (of 1852), the young man
began blacksmithing, sharpening plows and shoe-
ing horses until the autumn, and after that chose
a home in Linn county, where he lived continu-
ously, still blacksmithing, for twenty years. His
next move took him to Old Yakima, where
he began at once his favorite work, and was
406
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
very successful. In 1885 he followed "the star of
empire" to North Yakima, Washington Territory,
where he is still carrying on his accustomed busi-
ness, and has acquired real estate. He is also
considerably interested in stock-raising.
Mr. Kesling has also served in the capacity of jus-
tice of the peace. He is an enthusiastic lover of the
Yakima country, believing it to be sure to become
the garden spot of Washington Territory. Its low
elevation and warm climate give it the first great
advantage. Its perfect adaptability for irrigation
and the presence of unlimited water for the same
purpose make the scarcity of rain no disadvantage,
and prevent all failure of crops. The twenty feet
of snow that falls on the Cascades and Shohatlins
will always make green fields and immense root
crops in the vales of Yakima.
Mr. Kesling's domestic life has been happy, and
has been blessed with all that a man can desire.
He was married in 1853 to Miss Anna McMicken,
a pioneer of Linn county, and has four boys and a
girl,- Arnold L., Jay, Addison, Bella and Samuel.
HARRISON RITTENHOUSE KINCAID.
This well-known journalist of Oregon, the emana-
tions of whose pen have appeared either originally
or as selections in almost every newspaper of the
state, is the eldest son of Thomas and Nancy Kin-
caid, pioneers of 1853, and was born in Madison
county, Indiana, January 3, 1836. At the age of
seventeen he came with his parents to our state,
and with them made his home in Lane county.
Among his early labors was work on the mill-race
at the present site of Springfield.
In 1855 he made a trip to Southern Oregon to
operate in the mines, but was soon after driven out
by the Indians. He was led by this venture to a
journey on foot to Crescent City and a voyage the
next season to San Francisco in a little steamer
known as the Goliah. The wandering life of the
miner was hereupon assumed; and manual labor of
all kinds was resorted to as a temporary means of
support. The typography, general resources and
society of California on the American, Sacramento
and Yuba rivers, and at length at San Francisco,
were very thoroughly examined. From the Golden
City he returned to his home in Oregon in 1857,
and, being desirous of improving the home place,
set to work logging with oxen, and thereby obtained
from the mill sufficient lumber to build a house into
which his father's family moved and made their
home in 1860.
In 1859-60 he attended what was known as Colum-
bia College, which held its sessions in a stone build-
ing on a hill a mile south of Eugene. Among his
classmates were Joaquin Miller, W. H. Byers, J. J.
Blevans, J. F. Watson and J. B. Matlock.
His career as printer and journalist began during
the breezy, political days of 1860; and his first work
in type-setting was done on the People's Press, a
Republican paper published at Eugene by Joel
Ware. It was the recognized organ of the party
throughout the county. In 1862-63 he entered the
office of the State Republican as compositor, and
also assisted in editorial writing. During the sum-
mer of the latter year he took a rough journey
across the Cascade Mountains with a pack train,
passing over snow ten feet deep on the north side of
the Three Sisters, and at Cañon City made the
acquaintance of Thomas H. Brents, since dis-
tinguished as delegate from Washington Territory
to the United States Congress. Returning to
Eugene in the autumn, he found work on a little
paper, The Union Crusader, published by a man of
radical opinions, a Universalist preacher, A. C.
Edmunds. While employed at the desk, he also
composed the political editorials of the paper; and
in 1864, out of this as a nucleus, with the pecuniary
help of others, he founded the Republican paper,
the Oregon State Journal, a name known the whole
state over. Of this journal he has been editor and
proprietor for more than twenty-five years. During
the first year he had Joel Ware as partner; from
1866 to 1869 he was assisted by his brother John S.
Kincaid as business manager, and thereafter until
the death of the latter in 1873 as associate editor.
He was also aided in his undertaking by his young-
est brother, Geo. S. Kincaid, as publisher and
associate editor, and received him into the business
as partner in 1882, but was also deprived of his
companionship by death in 1885.
In the political field Mr. Kincaid has been very
prominent,—one of the stalwart Republicans. He
has several times represented the Republicans as
delegate in the county and state conventions, and
in the national conventions, at Chicago in 1868,
and at Philadelphia in 1872. In 1870 he was
nominated for state printer over Henry Denlinger of
the Statesman and H. L. Pittock of the Oregonian,
and, although not successful, was beaten by the
smallest majority of any on the ticket,-493 in a
total vote of 22,809. In 1866 he took a tour with
Congressman Henderson and others to the Capital
by way of San Francisco, Panama and New York,
experiencing off Cuba the peril of fire on shipboard,
from which the vessel narrowly escaped destruction.
He spent the winter following at Washington, and
in the autumn of 1867 visited nearly all the impor-
tant cities at the East, happening also to be on the
steamboat Dean Richmond, which was run into and
sunk by the Vanderbilt on the Hudson. With the
rest of the passengers he escaped with no loss but
that of baggage.
Attending upon the Republican national con-
vention in 1868, he visited his old home in Indiana,
and the next year was appointed, by recommen-
dation of Senators Williams and Corbett, as one of
the clerks of the senate, and retained that position
for ten consecutive years, until the change of officers
on political grounds. During that period he wrote
editorials and letters for his own paper, and part of
the time was regular correspondent of the Oregonian,
and later of the Bulletin, of Portland, and of the
Sentinel of Jacksonville. While thus at the
national Capital, he had rare opportunities, such
as are always enjoyed by men of culture, to visit
points of interest in the United States, and spent
as many as six vacations at his home in Eugene.
He was married in Wichohat county, Michigan,
in 1873, to Miss Augusta A., youngest and thirteenth
child of Stephen and Diana Lockwood. In 1881
they returned to Oregon and have since resided at

ECHO ROLLER MILLS
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XX
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
407
Eugene, where their first child, a son, was born
September 19, 1889, in the house where the family
has lived since 1860.
JOHN FRANCIS KINCAID. This gentle-
man is the oldest son of William and Nancy J.
Woolery Kincaid, and was born in Marion county,
Missouri, December 6, 1838. His parents were both
natives of Madison county, Kentucky, and came to
Missouri in 1830. His mother died in 1850; and in
1853 he left his birthplace, and in company with his
father, three brothers and three sisters started with
ox-teams to cross the plains to Oregon.
They left home on March 25th, and had a large
train, known as the Kincaid train, the first which
came through the Nahchess Pass, and arrived in
Steilveron about October 10, 1853. On January 1,
1854, Mr. Kincaid took up his Donation claim of
one hundred and sixty acres, where the town of
Sumner is now located, and was among the first set-
tlers of the Puyallup valley, his notification on the
claim being number forty-four after the formation of
the territory. He built his residence where his or-
chard now stands, and began to clear the farm
through a dense forest of underbrush and timber,
and succeeded in making a beautiful home. Mr.
Kincaid, senior, died at his home in 1870, full of
faith in the future, and beloved by his family and
friends.
Our subject stayed at home until twenty-one years
of age. On the breaking out of the Indian war, the
family, having suffered the loss of their home and
all their effects, fled to Steilveron for safety, John F.
being left with his brother William to look after the
crops. They would undoubtedly have been killed
but for the warning of a friendly Indian; and they
also escaped to Steilveron. John then went to work
as teamster for the government, and worked all
through the Indian war until 1858, when he re-
turned with his brother to where their comfortable
home had stood, and found nothing remaining of all
the improvements but a small chicken-house. With
indomitable will they set to work improving again;
and the following year the rest of the family returned
to the home, where they have since lived. Mr.
Kincaid afterwards laid out, on his father's old Do-
nation claim, the town of Sumner, which he named
after the statesman, Charles Sumner.
He is a strong temperance man, and has incorpo-
rated in his deeds a clause prohibiting the sale of
whisky in Sumner.
In 1874 he engaged in the hop business, and has
since followed that industry. He is a Republican
in politics, but not an active politician, and is an
influential and honored man in the Puyallup valley,
where he now resides, surrounded by a happy fam-
ily and enjoying the comforts of a beautiful home.
His marriage to Miss Nancy A. Wright, a native
of Missouri, took place in Steilveron July 5, 1868.
They have had seven children, four of whom are
deceased. Those living are Luella, Edna and Will-
iam F.
HON. ORVIN KINCAID. Mr. Kincaid's life
has embodied very much of the rough romance of
an untamed and mining country, and in its entirety
would read like a tale of Arabia. He is a native of
the Granite state, having been born in Grafton, New
Hampshire, in 1821. His father, a man of power-
ful physique, a blacksmith of Scotch-Irish parentage,
gave him a training both at school and at the forge,
and took the boy with him on his removals to Mas-
sachusetts and Vermont.
Upon reaching his majority young Kincaid spent
eighteen months in Ohio and the old West, but re-
turned to Vermont for a few more years in school.
In 1844, together with his father and a brother, he
came to Wisconsin, establishing a blacksmith shop
at Beloit, and three years later at Portage City, and
finished his life in that state as a farmer at Otsega.
In 1852 the great impulse that brought so many
men to the Pacific seized him also; and joining a
train of eighty wagons he journeyed steadily west-
ward, performing an average of twenty-two and
one-half miles per day over the old emigrant road.
At Soda Springs, near Fort Hall, however, he found
it necessary to dispose of his interest in the wagon
to which he was attached. Taking a few crackers
and dried beef as provisions, and one blanket, he
continued the journey on foot, walking nine hun-
dred miles to Placerville. For two years he was
mining variously in California, Nevada and New
Mexico. His further movements were rapid, and
extended over a wide space. In 1856 he was back
in Wisconsin; in 1858 he was in Missouri and the
Southern states; in that year he also came to Ne-
braska with the intention of taking a claim, but
passed on to Pike's Peak. Leaving the mines, he
became a missionary among the Creek Indians, con-
tinuing his labors one summer. Going then to
Texas, he continued westward on the Santa Fé
trail, and came to Los Angeles, California. Follow-
ing his old pursuit of mining, he was in California
and the Rocky Mountains until 1862. In the au-
tumn of that year he reached Puget Sound, and
soon became the pioneer of the Skagit country. He
built and occupied the first house on the Skagit
river. Another long term of years was thereafter
spent in mining at Virginia City; and in 1872 he
came back to Skagit county, taking a claim on
Baker river.
His wanderings were here brought to a close. In
1881 he took an active interest in public affairs,
with the result that he became the choice of his
county as representative to the legislature; and in
that position he was instrumental in procuring the
division of Whatcom county, forming Skagit. This
term was followed by another; and the people were
fully satisfied with his services.
Mr. Kincaid has selected Mount Vernon, Wash-
ington, as his final home. From the above brief
sketch it may be clearly seen that he is a man of
such character as to give substantial worth to any
community in which he may reside.
B. C. KINDRED. The immigration of 1844,
although on the track of that of 1843, had a much
more troublesome time. Mr. Kindred belongs to
that company. He is a native of Indiana, where he
was born in 1818. His parents were early settlers
of Kentucky, of the days of the historic Boone. In
1836 the young man found Indiana growing stale,
408
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
and went out to Iowa and in 1840 came on to Mis-
souri. Here he met Miss Rachel Mylar; and the
meeting resulted in their marriage.
The Oregon fever was then devastating the land;
and by 1844 Captain Gilliam was forming his com-
pany. Kindred was one of the number enrolled.
There were about a hundred wagons, and twelve
hundred or fifteen hundred head of stock. The
start was bad, the weather being very rainy; and the
progress of the first month was very slight. Many
of those on the road could not for the life of them
tell what brought them there, other than a frontiers-
man's impulse to go West; and it would have been
the verdict half the way to the Rockies that they
would all have been more comfortable on their fat
farms in Iowa or Missouri. But the destiny of our
state and nation was more truly interpreted by the
unaccountable Western impulse than by any heart-
sick misgivings that overtook the pioneers on the
way.
That travel on the plains was an education
which has made of the Oregonians an improved stock.
Gilliam's company "fell out by the way," partly
"fell out by the way," partly
from the necessity of driving the cattle in separate
bands, and partly from an edginess developed on the
part of some which made division desirable. Cap-
tain Morrison led the column to which Mr. Kindred
was attached. From the lateness of the season and
the hard marches on this side of the Rockies, the
company was much worn, broken into small parties,
and nearly out of provisions. They were on short
allowance from Boise to Doctor Whitman's. George
Bush, the well-known mulatto and settler near
Olympia, was very generous with his flour, of which
he had a very liberal supply. Without this help
Mr. Kindred's family must have suffered. At Whit-
man's they sold lean cattle for fat ones and obtained
flour. The journey down the Columbia was accom-
plished during the month of December.
It was
Christmas eve that they came to their final camp
at Milwaukee; and that night their second son,
James, was born.
Mr. Kindred discovered that there was iron in the
hills at Oswego; but no one at that time supposed
that the deposit was of any great value.
In 1845 he took his family down the Columbia to
live on the place at Clatsop which he now owns.
On the way he stopped over winter at Cathlamet,
working in Hunt's mill, his wife cooking for the
company. About the 5th of November, 1846, they
began making their home on Point Adams near Fort
Stevens, Oregon. They have there raised a family
of twelve children, all of whom but the two oldest
were born on the place, and all of whom are living
but one boy, who shot himself while hunting. Mr.
Kindred's business has been farming and stock-
raising, and also navigating on the Columbia with
the canoes and bateaux of the early days, the scows
and sloops of a later period, and the steam craft of
modern times. He is there yet, possessing a com-
fortable fortune, and living out a green old age, and
within a day's reach of any of his children. His
youngest daughter, Sarah, is still at home conduct-
ing the affairs of the house with her parents.
MRS. RACHEL KINDRED.—The experience
of mothers in crossing the plains is one of those
historical wonders which will never be forgotten.
It adds much to the value of this volume to incor-
porate within its pages the story of one of these
women, and to present her portrait.
Miss Rachel Mylar was born in Kentucky in
1821, and is a grand-niece of Daniel Boone. While
quite young she removed with her parents to Mis-
souri, and there was married to Mr. B. C. Kindred
in 1842.
It would quite naturally seem that a mother with
a child of a year old should not be obliged to endure
the severe hardships of a journey across the plains;
but in making this trip there was no alternative.
Thus on the lonely heights of the Blue Mountains,
where the cattle were nearly exhausted, and the
road was simply a rocky bed of a cañon, or wound
around the stony ridges, it was necessary for her to
perform the crossing of the divide on foot. Also
at the Cascades, where everything must be trans-
ported, she was obliged to walk from the upper to
the lower landing of the portage. Her clothing
had grown thin and ragged, and her shoes were
worn out. Hose were the only covering for her
feet; and these were soon cut to pieces upon the
rocks and gravel. The simple, ordinary, every-day
wear and tear of the trip, and the care and anxiety
of mind, would seem astonishing enough; and
numberless were her shifts to make scanty food and
apparel perform the offices of necessity. Her boy,
however, born at the end of the trip, the Christmas
gift of 1844, seemed no worse for the time of his
advent,- -nor was his mother.
After reaching a permanent home on Point Adams,
near Fort Stevens, Oregon, her labors were not
diminished. There fell to her a large if not the
larger share of making a home. Her husband's
business made frequent absences necessary; and the
care of a farm as well as that of the house was hers
at such times. Many were her experiences there.
The following was characteristic: Going down to
the beach in front of her house one day, she found
a soldier cast away on the shore and apparently
about to die. She got the poor fellow to her house,
and recognized him as a discharged veteran who
was then living with the Indians. He had been
cast away by them in his sickness, according to
their custom. Mrs. Kindred, however, nursed him
back to life through a severe fever.
He had no
money, and gave her a shotgun as his only way of
discharging the debt.
discharging the debt. Recovering, however, and
going back to the Indians, he began to want his
gun once more, and while his benefactress was gone
from home entered her house and stole it. Incensed
at this outrage and breach of gratitude, Mrs. Kin-
dred upon her return took her little boy, and Mr.
Schwatka's little girl, and with this escort repaired
to the Indian camp, explained matters to the chief,
and upon his requisition recovered the piece. The
Indians highly disapproved of the soldier's way of
doing.
On another occasion, when the Woodpecker was
wrecked on the bar, the flour and provisions with
which the schooner was loaded were drifted by the
tide up stream. Mr. Kindred being away, his wife
put out with a rowboat, securing barrels enough of
the articles to last her three years. Some of her
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
409
*
neighbors, however, happening by with a wagon,
supposed it was a "free haul," and helped them-
selves to a portion while the lady was still out in
the stream getting more. This is not an altogether
pleasant commentary upon the early times; but we
may suppose that the neighbors made the seizure
in full innocence of heart.
It was amid the scenes of such a wild and solitary
life, surrounded by good but not enchanting Indians,
that Mrs. Kindred made her home, reared her family,
and created the conditions for her husband from
which a competency has been drawn. Women such
as she have been the mothers of the state, and
deserve no less credit than its fathers.
CHARLES T. KINETH.-Mr. Kineth is a
native of Washington, having been born near Coupe-
ville, on Whidby Island, November 3, 1855. His
father, John Kineth, was a resident of Springfield,
Illinois, when our martyred President Lincoln was
studying his profession in that city. He moved to
Oregon in 1848, and was a saddler at Lafayette dur-
ing the Rogue river war, moving in the fall of 1852
to Whidby Island. The subject of this sketch was
married to Miss Jessie Drake in 1879, and has two
children, Jennie and Agnes.
Having an ambition to be the architect of his own
fortune, Mr. Kineth has refused all assistance from
his parents, who are wealthy. He came to this val-
ley in July, 1878, without means, but has now
secured a nice home within about three miles of
Ellensburgh. He has a band of stock, and is appar-
ently on the highway to financial success.
In December, 1878, he was one of five from the
Kittitass valley to respond to the call for volunteers
to go into the Big Bend country and assist in arrest-
ing the Indians who had massacred the Perkins
family. This was a singularly reckless enterprise
on the part of those five men. According to the
report of his comrades, Mr. Kineth showed remark-
able nerve during this expedition to the Indian
stronghold.
JOHN KINETH.--This pioneer of Oregon and
of Whidby Island, Washington, is a native of
Bavaria, Germany, and was born in 1828. At
the age of ten years he came with his parents to
America, and passed his early life in Springfield,
Illinois. He there obtained the practical education
of the West, and learned as his resource for a live-
lihood the trade of a harness-maker.
As early as 1849 he felt the impulse to go West.
Joining a company of emigrants at Springfield, he
crossed the plains, arriving at Milwaukee, Oregon,
November 3d. Seeing that there was an abundance
of money in circulation, he worked at his trade at
Oregon City, making from ten to fifteen dollars a
In 1851 he removed to Lafayette and opened
a harness and saddle shop, the first and only one
on the west side of the Willamette river, meeting
with good success fitting out miners; but, his health
failing, he sought a new location, making final
choice of a Donation claim on Whiby Island in 1853,
some two and a half miles from Coupeville. This
became his home for thirty-two years; and he suc-
cessfully carried on farming during all that time,
becoming an influential member of the community.
He took a special interest in schools, seeing the
essential value of education in our new Northwest.
He finds it at present more convenient living in the
town of Coupeville, and has for a number of years
made his residence there.
He was married at Lafayette to Miss Jane M. Car-
ter, a native of Ohio. Her active and intelligent
interest in his labors has not only made for him a
pleasant home, but has also established essentially
his success. Of their family of seven children, one
is deceased. The others are occupying honored
positions in society.
A. N. KING.- King's valley in Benton and
Polk counties, and King's Addition to Portland,
which embraces the beautiful city park, will perpet-
uate the name of the father of our subject and of
Mr. King himself.
After
The latter gentleman was born in Ohio in 1822;
but as early as 1840 he removed to Missouri, oper-
ating a ferry across the Missouri river. A great
flood destroyed his property; and in 1845 he was on
the plains bound for Oregon. His father, mother,
three brothers and five sisters were also in the com-
pany. The immigration numbered a hundred
wagons; and it was early in May that they were
under way.
This company was memorable for the
desperate trip through Meek's cut-off from the
Snake river to The Dalles. Mr. King was much
opposed to leaving the old road, but was out-voted,
and concluded to remain with the company.
this well-nigh fatal experience, and final arrival at
The Dalles, the usual voyage by canoes, bateaux
and rafts particularly described elsewhere was under-
taken. Mr. King's raft, constructed of pine logs.
hauled by the worn-out oxen from the hills to the
river, was large enough to sustain ten wagons with
their loads, and some ten persons. Only three of
the men in this number were fit for duty; and one
of Mr. King's brothers, with his wife, was very low
with mountain fever, both dying at Wind Mountain,
where they were buried on the shore. The cattle
were passed as usual down the Oregon shore to this
mountain, and thence crossed over and taken to
Vancouver by the old trail. They were also used
to effect the passage at the Cascades. The difficul-
ties of the passage by a small schoouer from the
Lower Cascades to Linton were aggravated by the
December storms.
The first winter was spent at Forest Grove; and
the next summer the family went on up the country
to the beautiful valley now known by the name of
King's, where the father and brother took claims.
Mr. A. N. King, however, selected his Donation
claim a few miles below Corvallis on the Willamette;
but, having a foreshadowing of the future great-
ness of Portland, he came hither and bought a
squatter's right to the magnificent hillside claim
west of the city now forming a part of it. Apper-
son and Balance were the men from whom he made
the purchase; and they had obtained it from Mr.
Lownesdale, who had there erected a tannery. This
business Mr. King continued twelve years, clearing
off the timber and laying out his addition.
An act
indicating his public spirit was his sale of the forty
410
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
acres for the public park at eight hundred dollars an
acre,-worth ten times that sum.
In 1846 he was married to Miss Melinda Fuller of
the Tualatin Plains. They have had six children,
four of whom are now living: Mrs. Nautilla A. Jeffery
and Mrs. A. Lumsden, residing at Portland; Edward
A. King, a resident of the same place, and Mr. N.
A. King, a rancher in Lake county, owning some
five thousand acres of land devoted to the rearing of
horses.
Mrs. King is no longer living, having died Janu-
ary 30, 1887. While the evening, shadows begin to
appear on the horizon of his life, Mr. King still
meets its duties bravely, and conducts his business
with vigor.
GEO. W. KING, M. D.—The early life of
Doctor King of Pendleton was made dark by the
terrible days of the Rebellion; and the recital of his
early efforts to work out the distressful circumstan-
ces into which he was thus thrown is full of pathetic
interest.
He was born near Glasgow, Howard county, Mis-
souri, November 14, 1844, and when but a boy of
five went with his parents to reside near St. Louis,
Missouri, where he lived until the spring of 1854,
when his father moved to Kansas Territory, then
but a prairie wilderness.
He settled on Pottawatomie creek, a few miles
above where the town of Ossawatomie now stands,
celebrated for once being the home of John Brown.
Drought the succeeding summer drove the family
back to Missouri; but in 1855 a second attempt was
made to live on the prairie of Kansas. The follow-
ing year was that of the Kansas war, between the
Pro-slavery and Freesoil parties; and the father of
the subject of this sketch, owning a number of blacks,
was compelled to again return to Missouri, to save
his slave property. All his other property was left
in Kansas, and was at once confiscated by the Free-
soilers. Returning in 1859, he settled on land
bought from the Miami tribe of Indians, in what is
now known as Linn county. He was scarcely well
settled before the war of the great Rebellion broke
out. His mother died in March, 1861; and his
father, after taking his children to relations in Mis-
souri, entered the Confederate army, never to return
to his children.
The circumstances of young George became very
distressing. Although working for his uncle, he
was not provided with clothing; and, upon asking
for shoes to protect his feet while feeding stock, he
was informed that he had not earned any, and that
he had better go and work for them if he needed
them. Acting upon this unkind and heartless sug-
gestion of his uncle, the boy, with all his earthly
possessions tied up in a handkerchief, bid a sad
good-bye to two younger brothers, and started out
to find friends among strangers. After walking all
day through the slop and snow, and as he saw the
sun nearing the tops of the western hills and the
shades of night settling down around him, a corres-
ponding gloom settled down upon his young heart,
as he realized that he was alone in the world. Tears
filled his eyes as he thought of his mother sleeping
in a lonely grave in Kansas, and of his father who
was in the midst of the perils of war. He prayed to
God to guide and direct him-to someone who would
give him employment. He remembers with emo-
tion how he soon came upon a tall-roofed tobacco
factory in a village, where he obtained work at
twenty-five cents a day and board, and reckoned this
as an answer to his petitions. It assuredly set him
upon his feet financially, and gave him an impetus
in the direction of self-support which was invaluable
to him in after life.
Entering the United States army two years later,
he served to the close of the war, and was mustered
out at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in May, 1866.
He then returned to Linn county, Missouri, and
engaged in farming, but not finding it profitable
went the next year to Texas, where he was taken
sick, returning to St. Louis in the fall of 1873. He
there resolved to educate himself, and entered the pri-
mary department of Central College, located at
Fayette, Missouri. He attended school here for
eighteen months, and engaged in teaching a school
in St. Charles county until the spring of 1875, when
he came west to California and located a pre-emption
claim in Mendocino county. After proving upon
his land, he sold it for eight hundred dollars, and
finished his collegiate course at the Pacific Metho-
dist College at Santa Rosa. He then came to Ore-
gon in 1878, and followed the profession of school-
teacher until September, 1881, when he returned to
the East and took a course in medicine at the Col-
lege of Physicians and Surgeons at Baltimore, Mary-
land, graduating, however, from the Medical College
of Ohio in 1883.
After receiving the degree of M. D., he returned
to Oregon, locating at Weston, Umatilla county,
where he built up a good practice. Not being sat-
isfied with the location, he sold out his practice for
one thousand dollars, and located in Pendleton, the
county-seat, building up a large practice. In 1885
he was married to Miss Nettie Powell, of East Port-
land, and now has a delightful home. The success
and good fortune of his mature life have made up to
him, in a measure, the losses of his early days, leav-
ing gaps, however, that time can never fill.
SARAH FAIRBANKS KING (Mrs. S. A.
King). The annals of Oregon women, who per-
formed the hard duties incident to pioneer life faith-
fully, patiently and well, contain no name
justly honored, or more tenderly cherished, than
that of Sarah Fairbanks King.
more
Mrs. King was a native of New York, having
been born in Potter, Cayuga county, October 12,
1834. While yet in her infancy, she was taken by
her parents to Michigan, then scarcely more than an
outpost of Western civilization. Here she grew to
womanhood, developing traits of gentleness and de-
votion to duty that were the distinguishing char-
acters of all of her after life.
She was married on the 1st of November, 1851,
to Mr. George Olds, and with him in the following
spring started for Oregon Territory by the usual
mode of conveyance in those days,-wagons drawn
by oxen. She crossed bleak and dreary deserts,
forded dangerous streams, scaled high and precipi-
tous mountains, encountered hostile Indians, endured

H.W.FAIRWEATHER
SPRAGUE,W.T.
UNIL
OF
M
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
411
the burning heat of summer on vast and cheerless
plains, and was constantly surrounded by dangers
seen and unseen. The journey occupied seven
months; and her first daughter was given to her
arms during the tiresome trip.
Arriving in Oregon in the late autumn, her hus-
band located on a Donation land claim near Middle-
ton, Washington county; and there they lived for
nine succeeding years, the pioneer home echoing the
voices of children, and attesting daily the blessings
that a loving and gentle woman can bring to a habi-
tation in a comparative wilderness and amid the
most primitive surroundings. She began life in
Oregon where nearly all old-time immigrants did,—
at the very foot of the ladder of worldly fortune.
But, with a brave heart and cheerful temper, she
faced the future courageously, and moved right on-
ward in the path of womanly, wifely, motherly duty
to the conquest of that future. On the 12th of April,
1862, she was widowed by the sudden death of her
husband, five children being the heritage of the
marriage.
On Christmas day, 1863, she was married to Mr.
Samuel W. King, and removed first to Marion and
afterwards to Yamhill county, where her husband
was engaged in teaching school, she being in this,
as in all things else, his valued assistant. They
subsequently removed to Portland, Oregon, where
she continued to reside until her death, which oc-
curred suddenly on the 19th of January, 1887.
Seven children survive her: Mrs. Helen Jolly, Mr.
J. C. Olds, of the firm of Olds & Summers; Mr. W.
P. Olds, of Olds & King; Mrs. Clara Summers,
Mrs. Mary Southworth, Charles W. King and Ralph
King.
The record left by Mrs. King-whether enduring
the hardships of a wearisome journey across the
continent, encountering the privations incident to
pioneer home-building, or battling with poverty;
whether in the schoolroom in the capacity of teacher,
or in a home of refinement enjoying the fruition of
her labors and the full meed of reward for her early
toils-is one of uniform consecration to duty, of
gentleness in her home and of devotion to its inmates.
She erected a monument to her own memory worthy
of the purest, the noblest and the best.
She died without warning, of heart disease, her
husband and sons returning to their home in the
evening to find that the gentle presence that they
had left there at noontime had forever departed. In
a grave in one of the most beautiful locations in
Riverview Cemetery, three miles above Portland,
was consigned all that was mortal of this loving
wife, tender mother and gentle woman; and there,
after life's fitful fever, she sleeps well."
E. M. KINNEAR. — The mercantile house of
The mercantile house of
Mr. Kinnear is one of the largest and most patron-
ized in this part of the territory. Its owner and
founder is a native of Ohio, where he was born in
1856. He came to Washington Territory in 1871
and located on the Touchet, engaging in merchan-
dising. From 1878 to 1880 he was in business at
Colfax, but removed in the latter year to Sprague
for his permanent home. There he has bought quite
a property, conducts a large business and is one of
its most prominent citizens. He has served as city
councilman one term. His business is that of deal-
ing in general merchandise and farming implements
of all descriptions.
ROBERT COUCH KINNEY.-Oregon will
always treasure with respect and admiration the
memory of the men and women who came in the
days when the Pacific Northwest was the home of
savage tribes, mountain men and a few traders, to
plant homes and lay the foundation of an empire
on the waters of the Columbia. They dared
much when they accepted the role of pioneers to the
Pacific. Some became notable for success, and
developed character that gave standing to the new
state; for the constitution and early legislation of
Oregon showed statesmanship seldom equaled in the
erection of a commonwealth.
Among those who preceded the gold excitement
was Robert Couch Kinney, who illustrates the capac-
ity of a new country to develop character and insure
success. He was the son of a pioneer and nephew
of another who went in early days to Illinois and
inherited qualities necessary to success in a new
country.
Mr. Kinney was born in St. Clair county, Illinois,
July 4, 1813. At the age of twenty-five he married
Eliza Lee Bigelow, who survives him, and moved to
Burlington, Iowa. He went boating and afterwards
ran steamboats on the Mississippi with success, then
conceived the idea of founding a city, and located
and helped build Bloomington, now the prosperous
city of Muscatine, Iowa. He engaged there in mill-
ing, and acquired a knowledge of that business which
he afterwards put to good use in Oregon. Early
circumstances had not been favorable to education
above the grade of the cominon schools; and circum-
stances here favored him. By arrangement with his
partner he was off duty half the time, and employed
the spare time in study and reading that gave him a
general knowledge of law and literature. He made
himself familiar with ancient history and the classics,
and became familiar with writings of ancient days
as well as with the literature of our own time. He
studied the principles of commercial law with Judge
Hastings, so well known later in California.
name.
The banks of the Mississippi being unhealthy, he
became interested in Oregon by correspondence with
Barton Lee, the early pioneer, who so eloquently
told the advantages of Oregon that in 1847 he and
his brother Samuel and their families joined the
company of General Palmer. They had a prosperous
journey, and the same fall located the Donation land
claim in Chehalem valley that will always bear his
He lived there many years, always recog-
nized as a man of character and judgment. When
the constitutional convention was held, he was
elected as a delegate from Yamhill county.
energy overcame difficulties that defeated others. He
procured sheep from Doctor Tolmie of the Hudson's
Bay Company; so he possessed flocks and herds
when only the fur company and mission were sup-
posed to have them.
posed to have them. He cared for his stock so as
to realize all they could yield him. He saw the
value of the country for fruit production, and set
out sixteen hundred trees that in a few years yielded
His
412
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
large returns. He procured a good work on horti-
culture, and mastered its contents, adopting the
methods laid down in his orchard work with entire
success.
He laid great stress on the value of education,
and in 1857 moved to McMinnville to take advantage
of the schools. His wide reading and conscientious
regard for right principles and knowledge enabled
him to be of use in those formative times. In the
constitutional convention he was influential, though
not officious, and made a specialty of three points.
One was against slavery, another was to provide
public schools, and the other to prohibit large state
indebtedness. By the influence of men like him,
these provisions were incorporated in our funda-
mental law. His progressive spirit was seen in rail-
road affairs, as he was one of the first to attempt
corporate organization. What was then the Oregon
Central and is now part of the Southern Pacific sys-
tem was organized by his help. The first meeting
was at his house; and his son Marshall was its sec-
retary in 1868.
As years went by and his sons grew up, Mr. Kin-
ney's enterprise took broader shape. In 1862 he
bought in and run a flouring-mill opposite Portland,
and in 1863 started a business house at Umatilla to
help the flouring-mill. In 1867 he moved to Salem,
having bought an interest in the Willamette Woolen
Mills. That move started there at an early day.
The same company owned a large flouring-mill in
upper town; and, as Mr. Kinney realized that the
future of this mill was more certain than that of the
factory, he traded his bulk of stock to the company
for stock in the mill company, and became its man-
ager.
Mr. Kinney now had a large and prosperous busi-
ness, and found room for all his business sagacity.
Assisted by his sons in the Salem Flouring Mills
Company, he built up an immense trade in flour and
grain. They had branches at Portland, San Fran-
cisco and Liverpool. They shipped many cargoes
of flour to Europe; and the first full cargo of Oregon
flour was sent by them to Liverpool.
In March, 1875, Robert C. Kinney died from the
effect of an accident that occurred while visiting
his ranch in Eastern Oregon. He had a powerful
physique, was rather tall, and very large and
heavy. Great size distinguishes the family. When
working some farm machinery, he. received a fall
that did not seem dangerous; but he never recov-
ered. His kindly face was no longer seen on Salem
thoroughfares; and for weeks and months he kept
to the house. One day the news spread that “Rob
Kinney" was dead, casting a shadow on the hearts
of thousands. As to the writer of this, that so kind
a friend and so good-a man had left us, we felt that
he was "not lost, but gone before.”
We have shown Robert Couch Kinney as a man
of affairs who had risen from common life to afflu-
ance and high standing. There was seldom failure
in his plans; because he planned with judgment.
He was cautious while he seemed bold; for he
understood the situation. Few men are so bal-
anced in mind and capable to plan and execute as
he was. But there is a pleasanter phase to his
character than even the possession of ripe judg-
ment and the realization of success, a phase that all
who love his memory will dwell upon with warm
appreciation. We will now look on the traits that
make his memory precious to many, and leave no
trace of rancor in any human soul.
R. C. Kinney was kindly by nature, and was
always ready to assist the needy. In his charities
and kindly acts, as in his business life, he was
prudent and sagacious. He was a manly man, and
admired true character. He was not apt to waste
means on the unworthy, but was a sincere friend
of religion and education, and did his part to main-
tain public and private charity. He felt no sym-
pathy with immoral lives or vulgar traits; for he
was essentially a man of pure life, a Christian in
word and deed. He assisted many while he lived,
and was unfriendly to none. He was original in
mind, and had a foresight that came from study
and observation. He was in almost every respect
equal to his opportunity, which can be said of few
mortals.
The stone that marks his grave was procured
from Scotland, a massive, polished shaft of Aber-
deen granite. One side bears imperishable testi-
mony of the love and reverence of his children in
the single word, Father." After his death the
business was conducted by his sons. The eldest,
Albert, resided in charge in Salem, where he died
in 1881. It answers the full need of his deservings
to say that he was the worthy son of such a father,
and possessed in an eminent degree the traits that
marked the life of his sire. It is not easy to say
more, and not just to his memory to say less.
Mrs. Kinney survives to a kindly old age to share
the devotion of her children. Of the survivors,
Mary J., the widow of J. H. Smith, resides at
Harrisburg, Oregon. August Couch, a graduate of
Belleville College, New York, is a practicing physi-
cian at Astoria. Marshall Johnson, who has been
distinguished for business sagacity, is engaged in
Salem in the canning and milling business, and is in
other business at Astoria. Alfred Coleman, who is a
surgeon by instinct and a successful physician, prac-
tices his profession at Astoria. Josephine Florence
Walker is the wife of a business man in San Fran-
cisco. William Sylvester carries on extensive lum-
ber manufacture at the mouth of the Columbia.
Eliza Lee is the wife of Doctor John Payton, and
lives at Drain, Oregon. All bear testimony in the
character of their lives that they came from a ster-
ling race that leaves the world the better for their
having lived and labored in it.
SAMUEL KINNEY. Samuel Kinney, a
brother of Robert C. Kinney, was one of the found-
ers of our early society in Oregon, and a man of
unusual force and of marked worth. He was born
in 1810 in the State of Illinois. He was brought
up on a farm, acquiring nerve and muscle and an
intrepid spirit, and gained the education of the times.
in his native district. He was early married to Miss
Ann Maria Porter, who was also a native of Illinois,
where she was born in 1814. Soon after his mar-
riage, about 1832, he removed to Iowa, locating at
Bloomington, now Muscatine, a city founded by his
brother Robert. Here he was engaged for a time in
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
413
teaming, and also with his brother in operating
Vanetta & Deshler's sawmill.
His wife's health being poor, however, and being
himself possessed of an enterprising and adventur-
ous spirit, he determined to find a new home in
Oregon, and in 1847 made the trip across the plains.
Little difficulty was experienced on the journey; and
there was no trouble from the Indians except that
near the Umatilla the Cayuses were found to be impu-
dent, among other things making requests to buy
some of the girls, and even threatening to steal them.
One saucy fellow went so far as to ride up and seize
the eldest daughter in order to drag her from her
horse, and appropriate her. Mr. Kinney, however,
was on the spot instantly, and with his whip-stalk
knocked the Indian from his horse into the dust.
The emigrants-the train was now divided off from
forty to five wagons-were much alarmed on account
of the incident, and made every preparation for a
fight. But the Cayuses in general took no umbrage
at the unfortunate result of the Benedict's endeavor,
and no trouble followed.
Upon reaching Oregon, the first winter was spent
at Oregon City; and next season a Donation claim
was selected at West Chehalem; and there, in a
quiet and beautiful valley, the new home was made,
and the remainder of our pioneer's life was spent.
He gave early attention to cattle-raising, when the
Spanish stock was still the prevailing type; and
some considerable portion of the evening's stories
around the fireplace consisted of accounts of being
chased by ferocious animals, or even whole bands,
of this sort of cattle. Women and children did not
cross the fields alone; and men preferred to be on
horseback.
The house was located on the main Indian trail
from the camps of the Calapooias to the trading-
post; and the savages often used to come back drunk,
making night hideous with their yells, and fright-
ening the children. The manner of an early elec-
tion in the precinct is also memorable as illustrating
the quaint ways of the people. It was at the elec-
tion of delegate, when General Lane and Judge Pratt
were candidates. The voters of the precinct were
assembled; and when all were ready those for Lane
were stood off in one row, and those for Pratt in
another; the men in the two rows were counted, and
the result recorded and the returns sent up.
Kinney used also to go occasionally to the post and
bring back, among other purchases, a coil of trail-
rope tobacco tied about the pommel of his saddle,
that being also something distinctive of early days,
as only in that form was the weed known in the ter-
ritory.
Mr.
While not accumulative nor ambitious of great
wealth, Mr. Kinney always had ample means, and
lived in comfort and gave his children good advan-
tages. Although no politician, he was a firm Demo-
crat, and was active in disseminating his views. He
had a family of eight children: Mary, the wife of Mr.
John Brisbain, of Yamhill county; William (de-
ceased); Rebecca Ann (deceased); Andrew Christie
(deceased); John La Fayette, living on a part of the
old homestead at West Chehalem; Lyman, of Asto-
ria, part owner in the Clatsop Mills Lumber and Box
Manufactory, an establishment of such magnitude
as to disburse about forty-two thousand dollars per
month; Sarah Elizabeth, the wife of Mr. Frank H.
Laighton of the Seaside; and Ora E.,- Mrs. James
Rogers of West Chehalem.
Mr. Kinney died in 1875, a man much esteemed
and thoroughly trusted, of large ability, and great
fidelity to duty. Mrs. Kinney, who is still active
and well preserved, with mind and memory unim-
paired, lives at Astoria, in the elegant home of her
son Lyman.
J. P. and H. A. KINNISON.— These two
brothers, who have united their fortunes through
life, were born on the Mississippi river about one
hundred miles below St. Louis in the years 1838
and 1840, respectively. They received a common-
school education, and, developing a roving dis-
position, crossed the plains in 1853. San Mateo,
California, was their first home, and stock-raising
their business until 1862, when they came to the
Powder river valley, and were the first to break the
ground of that beautiful region. They have been
engaged in agriculture and stock-raising ever since,
and consider themselves fairly successful.
In 1876 they drove a band of a thousand cattle
across the plains to Wyoming, and sold them to
advantage. The brothers now own eighteen hun-
dred acres of choice agricultural land six miles
west of Baker City, upon the site of their first
location. They now have residences in Baker
City, Oregon, and are in the full enjoyment of life,
having accumulated sufficient means, as a reward
for their perseverance, to take life easily.
Mr. J. P. Kinnison was married to Miss Mary
Chandler in 1864. In 1884 this companion died;
and his present wife, formerly Mrs. N. W. Hannah,
conducts his household, caring for her own two
girls and her husband's five boys.
Mr. H. A. Kinnison married Miss Mary A.
George in 1867. They have one boy and a girl
now living.
T. J. KIRK.- It is pleasant to see that the
oldest pioneers, who bore the brunt of the settle-
ment of the country, are now the most prosperous.
Mr. Kirk came to Oregon in 1846, being at that
time but a boy of seven. He lived with his father
in Linn county until 1871, when he made his home
in Umatilla county near the pleasant city of Center-
ville. Here he has been in the horse and cattle
business, and a pioneer in raising wheat on the up-
lands. He now owns a farm of fourteen hundred
acres consisting of the best land in the region, from
which he harvests thirty bushels of wheat per acre.
He also owns a considerable share of town property.
In the political arena of the county, he has taken
quite an important position, having been elected as
representative to the state legislature in 1888. He
met with this success on a Republican ticket. This
indicates his popularity; and the secret of this is
his deep and intelligent interest in all matters per-
taining to the prosperity of his county.
Mr. Kirk was married to Miss Ann Coyle in
October, 1860. Mrs. Kirk is a native of the state of
Illinois, and emigrated with her parents to Oregon
in 1851.
414
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
JOSEPH E. KIRKLAND.- Mr. Kirkland was
born in 1831 in Illinois. He was the son of a far-
mer who removed in 1832 to Arkansas, where he
gave his children the advantages of a common-school
education. In 1851 the family crossed the plains
with oxen to Lane county, Oregon, the journey
occupying four months. They took a Donation
claim, and worked in the Southern Oregon mines.
from 1852 to 1857, perfecting, in the meantime,
their title to their Donation. At the time of the
Indian disturbance, Joseph Kirkland and his father
owned pack trains; and, when the volunteers
bivouacked on Table Rock, they ran the gauntlet
and came through to the Cow creek country in
safety.
He was mining on Althouse creek when the In-
dian hostilities of 1855 commenced on Rogue river,
and came out with John Cox from Kerbyville to
Vannoy's ferry in the night, and there found Robert
Williams with a squad of miners organized but
poorly armed. The next day Thomas Elef came
rushing down, reporting that Flem Hill had just re-
turned from Cow creek, where the Indians were
killing and burning. Kirkland joined a squad of
twenty, who went to the relief of those possibly
besieged men. They found, at Smith's on Cow
creek, several families forted up; and upon the porch
of the house lay the dead body of Hall Bailey, who
had been killed on his wagon a mile or so from the
house while en route to Yreka with a load of chick-
ens and a drove of hogs. The Indians killed his
oxen while they were hitched to the wagon, and
strewed the ground with the butchered hogs.
Proceeding up the valley, they found at Bates'
farm Quartermaster Johnson lying dead on the porch
of the house, while several more families were bar-
ricaded within, one man being severely wounded.
That night Kirkland and William Stannos carried a
message from Lieutenant Stone, who commanded
the pass, back to Captain Williams on Rogue river.
Not being successful in obtaining weapons, Kirk-
land came to the Willamette valley. The next
spring he joined Keith's company of Lane county
boys, and entering stayed with the war to its close.
One day, while the company was drawn up in line
on the bank of Rogue river, Old John, the Indian
chief, and some of his braves, saluted them from
the opposite bank with a shower of bullets, severely
wounding Clay Houston, and strewing a hail of
lead among the party. Some of the boys soon
found an old canoe, and, hurriedly crossing the
river, rushed to the spot from which the fusilade
had come, finding only one Indian, who rose from
his hiding-place in the brush and fired upon the
command at very short range. They charged upon
him with shouts and yells; and when he jumped
into the water they filled his body with bullets, and
then drew him out of the water, awarding him to
Perry Skinner, who claimed the dead shot.
In 1857 Mr. Kirkland was married to Miss Mary
Standefer, a cousin of Jefferson Standefer. In 1865
they moved to the Walla Walla valley, and have
made it their home to the present time. Mr. Kirk-
land now practices law at Milton, Oregon, and owns
a nice fruit ranch on the edge of the town.
HENRY KLIPPEL.- Mr. Klippel has been
intimately connected with the public business and
measures of our state, particularly in Southern Ore-
gon. Like the most of our successful men, his
progress has been by hard labor, and even by hard
knocks; that is, he has, out of the capital of his
own hands and brain, gained point after point, and
succeeded in stamping his mind and character upon
public affairs.
He was born in Hesse Darmstadt in 1833, and
came to America five years later. After an indus-
trious and active life in the old West,-losing his
father by death at the age of fifteen, and making a
new home for his mother in Missouri,―he crossed the
plains to Oregon in 1851, finding a few months' em-
ployment at Oregon City on a ferry boat, and after-
wards driving an ox-team to Yreka. This intro-
duced him to the mining life which he had been
contemplating since 1848, and from which he has
never wholly withdrawn.
His operations at Jacksonville in 1852 were cut
short by the Indian trouble; and, under Colonel
Lamerick, he took a hand in quieting the savages,
and again became an Indian fighter in 1853 and
again in 1855 and 1856. After this he took up
whatever offered the prospect of bread or money,
not drifting, but working for sea room. In 1866 he
was able to undertake the hardware business in
Jacksonville, Oregon, and was introduced to political
life by his election as sheriff of Jackson county in
1870. In 1872 he was appointed by Governor Gro-
ver as one of the commissioners to build the state
capitol. In 1874 he was elected by the Oregon leg-
islature to succeed himself as capitol commissioner,
and resigned before the expiration of his second
term. In 1876 he was intimately connected with
the Tilden campaign, being nominated one of the
electors on the Democratic ticket.
He was
Mr. Klippel was the pioneer of quartz mining,
having built the first stamp mill at Gold Hill, Ore-
gon, in 1860; and in 1880 he engaged in hydraulic
mining on a large scale at Squaw Lake.
also elected county clerk in that year. Upon his
retirement from this office in 1884 he entered exten-
sively into stock-raising in Lake county, which,
together with farming, mining and his real-estate.
business, keeps him actively occupied. He was the
first recorder of Jacksonville. He was married at
that place in 1860 to Miss Elizabeth A. Bigham, a
lady who was born in Missouri. They have one
daughter and four sons.
SEWELL M. KNAPP.- Mr. Knapp is a na-
tive of Penobscot county, Maine, where he was born
July 19, 1853. He was raised on a farm, and re-
mained at home until he was twenty-three years of
age.
In August, 1875, he came to California, where he
remained but a short time, when he left for Puget
Sound, coming direct to Snohomish, finding em-
ployment at first in driving a team. Next he
worked for about six years in the general merchan-
dise stores of Blackman Brothers, after which he
entered into the teaming business on his own ac-
count, starting a livery stable at the same time,
which business he still owns and runs.

INTERIOR OF ALLEN & CHAPMAN'S DRUG STORE.
NORTH YAKIMA, W. T.
000000000
8 8 5 5 0 B C S
I..
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
415
In the fall of 1876 he was nominated and elected
on the Democratic ticket to the office of county
treasurer, and in May, 1888, was appointed city
treasurer, which office he now fills. He owns a
farm of one hundred and sixty acres one and one-
half miles from Snohomish, Washington, and also
city property in that thriving town.
Mr. Knapp was united in marriage in Snohomish
to Miss Florence Scotney, where he still resides in a
happy home, surrounded by many friends, and en-
joying the confidence and respect of all who know
him.
HON. JAMES H. KOONTZ.—It is a mistake
to suppose that all the fortunes are made in the large
places. Many of the most considerable competences
on the coast have been gained from trade in the
small towns. The career of Mr. Koontz is to the
point.
Born in Belmont county, Ohio, in 1830, young
James, upon coming to his physical strength, learned
the trade of a carpenter and joiner, thereby acquir-
ing a foundation for a life of independence. Living
a time at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, he joined the Ellis
train, and in 1862 came across the plains to Oregon,
settling the following year at the little town of
Umatilla on the desolate shore of the Columbia,
a heaving, drifting bank of sand upon the rocks.
The place has improved since the old times. Mr.
Koontz had but seventy-five cents in his pocket on his
arrival; and the stories which he now relates of his
first days of work and semi-starvation seem curious
and amusing.
By diligent application to his trade, finding em-
ployment for a time with George L. Hibbard, he
soon had money and built a store at Umatilla, buy-
ing for a site ten feet of frontage for two hundred and
fifty dollars. Here he remained seventeen years,
doing a large forwarding and commission business.
In 1864 he was appointed postmaster, and held that
office seventeen years also.
In 1880 he established a branch store at Echo,
Oregon, and built a large hotel at the same point in
1883, transferring all his business thither. In 1886
he made a further enlargement by building a grist-
mill of a capacity of eighty barrels of flour per day.
This, however, was burned in 1886 with three hun-
dred barrels of flour and thirty-two thousand
bushels of wheat, at a loss of nearly forty thousand
dollars on an insurance of twenty-three thousand
dollars. Although thus unfortunate he was not
seriously crippled, but still conducts his store and
hotel with accustomed energy, and follows up the
interests of his real estate. He owns a thousand
acres of land near the town. Mr. Koontz hopes to
rebuild his mill, and is already forming a stock
company to that end.
His first wife, Elizabeth Williams, dying at Pleas
ant Plains, Iowa, he is now living with Cynthia N.
Hyatt, whom he married in 1856. They have three
children, Mrs. Elizabeth A. Hendley, Mrs. Floral
B. Malcom, and Miss Echo L. Mrs. Koontz merits
much of the reward reached by her husband, since
it was by her help that his prosperity has been at-
tained.
HON. JOSEPH A. KUHN.- Judge Kuhn has
long filled a position of such prominence in Wash-
ington that the details of his life will be of public
interest. His career illustrates once more the fact
that the brawn and brain of the East needs but to
touch the earth to spring up in double vigor at the
West.
He is the fourth in a family of six sons, resident
in Pennsylvania; and the year of his birth was 1841.
His mother belonged to an old American family of
large reputation; and his father enjoyed the rank
of colonel, and was for two terms judge of his
county. At the age of eighteen our subject left
home for Calvert College, Maryland, but before
finishing his course determined to begin life for him-
self at the West. He reached Omaha, Nebraska,
in June, 1860, and accepted the arduous and advent-
urous business of freighting, or driving "prairie
schooners" to various points in the Rocky Mount-
ains, Denver, Salt Lake, Bannack and Virginia
City. He followed this occupation six years, with
the exception of a time spent in the army during
the Rebellion.
He rose in his frontier avocation, becoming master
of the Red Line train to Salt Lake; but, finally
taking a mule-train, he came through to Stockton,
California, and in the autumn of 1866 sailed up to
the Sound. He stopped off at Port Townsend,
Washington, where he found his brother, Doctor
Louis de Barth Kuhn, formerly a well-known prac-
titioner at Port Townsend, now of Brooklyn, New
York. Here the new resident began running a
milk ranch, but, feeling himself capable of a wider
and more influential field, entered the office of
Judson & McFadden and studied law. He was
admitted to the bar in 1870, and became a member
of Kuhn & Burke.
His activity and ability soon attracted attention;
and it was seen that he embodied the necessary
qualities for political life. In 1872 he was elected
to the legislature of Washington; and his public
services have since been continuous. In 1877 he
became a member of the council, and in 1881 and
again in 1885 was returned to the house. Three
times he was chairman of the very important judi-
ciary committee. In 1877 he was also elected
probate judge of Jefferson county, and was re-elected
in 1879. For four years he was commissioner of
immigration.
As a Democrat he has held a high rank in his
party in the capacity of a leader. He has been a
member of every convention in the territory since.
his entrance upon public affairs, and has been
honored by selection as a delegate to the Demo-
cratic national convention of 1884, and in 1888 by
appointment as member of the national committee.
As a Mason Judge Kuhn has received the thirty-
second degree, and in 1882 was elected grand
master of the lodge of Washington, and was for
seven years master of Lodge No. 6 at Port Town-
send.
GEORGE BENSON KUYKENDALL, M. D.
This gentleman, one of the foremost physicians
of Eastern Washington, was born near Terre Haute,
Indiana, in the year 1843. When three years old
28
416
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
he was taken with his father's family to Wisconsin.
In 1852 the family set out on the long, hard jour-
ney to the Pacific slope. That was the sad year of
That was the sad year of
cholera and pestilence. Being somewhat late in
starting, the Kuykendall family followed in the
wake of sickness and death, the mournful evidences
of which were most vividly impressed on the mind
of the boy who afterwards became the man here
described. Many an abandoned wagon, many a
dying animal, and many a hastily hollowed grave,
did they pass. They themselves plodded wearily
on, keeping double vigil,-on the sick and dying
within, and the prowling savages without.
When the train reached Snake river, they crossed
in the hope of finding better grass. Here the father
was taken sick with typhoid fever; and for many
weeks he was dragged, helpless and seemingly at
the point of death, over the dusty and dismal wastes
of Southern Idaho. Finally, nearly all the family
stock having died, the wagon was abandoned; and
the family was put into the wagon belonging to a
brother, who was sharing with them the difficult
journey.
Reaching at last the welcome Dalles, they gladly
exchanged their broken-down wagon for an open
flatboat, and set sail on the majestic flow of the
Columbia. The father had not yet recovered; and
a young sister yielded up her innocent life near the
wild heights of the Cascades. There, in those most
savage of Nature's scenes, they buried her; and
none of them to this day has ever been able to find
her grave. As may be readily supposed, these stern
experiences thus early in life inured the body and
spirit of our subject to hardship, and taught him,
as they did so many of our pioneer boys, the funda-
mental lessons of life. Reaching Oregon City on
the 19th of October, the family remained there
throughout the winter, and in the following fall
located in the Umpqua valley near Roseburg,
The Doctor had, even in his childhood, a great
taste for reading, a taste which a kind father encour-
aged. Thus aided he read with great delight all
the works on travel, biography and history which
he could get hold of; and as he approached man-
hood he became very fond of metaphysical reading.
Unlike most of the boys of his acquaintance, he
would spend days in poring over the mystical pages
of Kant and the profound philosophy of Hamilton,
Abercrombie and Stewart. Becoming at a later
time interested in medicine, he devoted himself to
it with his usual assiduity, and soon acquired a
theoretical knowledge of materia medica and thera-
peutics. His father being at that time dangerously
sick, and despaired of by the family physician, he
devoted himself to the case with such success that
his father recovered and still lives in a good state of
health.
Going a few years later to the Willamette Univer-
sity, he graduated, at the head of his class, from
the medical department, and entered at once upon
the practice of his profession. He was soon after-
wards appointed to the post of government physi-
cian at Fort Simcoe on the Yakima Indian Reserva-
tion. There he had a large practice outside of his
government work. There, too, he devoted much
time to microscopic and chemical research, particu-
larly to toxology and medical jurisprudence. He
became noted for skill in the use of the microscope,
and now has one of the finest collections of speci-
mens in the Northwest. During this same period
of his life he began a study of the ethnology of the
natives of the North Pacific coast. In connection
with these researches he prepared a number of
articles for publication in the West Shore of Port-
land.
Tiring of the government service, he went to Pom-
eroy, Washington Territory, in 1882, and established
himself there in the drug business and the practice
of his profession. He has become justly noted as
a physician, as well as a friend of education and
every form of progress. He has two brothers
equally distinguished with himself, one as a physi-
cian at Eugene, Oregon, and the other as a Meth-
odist preacher in California.
He was married in 1868 to Miss E. J. Butler, a
daughter of Judge Butler of Pomeroy. He now has
an interesting family of five sons and three daugh-
ters. In his marriage the Doctor was peculiarly
fortunate. His wife is a lady of marked intelli-
gence and practical good judgment.
Dr. Kuykendall has had an extensive acquaintance
with almost all the prominent men of Oregon and
Washington. Father Wilbur was one of his most
intimate friends; while Honorable Binger Herman,
Judges J. F. and E. B. Watson, and Judge Rice
and Honorable P. Z. Willis of Portland, were
schoolmates of his in the old home in Southern
Oregon.
In addition to his professional attainments, the
Doctor has an enviable reputation as a writer both
of prose and poetry. For an example of his ability,
we refer the reader to the chapter in this volume
entitled, "The Indians of the Pacific Northwest."
LOUIS LA BRACHE.—Mr. La Brache was born
in Illinois in 1847. His father was at that time a
partner with Stephen A. Douglas in the lumber and
wood business, taking large contracts. In 1862 he
became a citizen of Washington Territory, locating at
Walla Walla, and engaging in freighting to the mines.
Three years later he was packing from Wallula to
Montana. In 1866 he accompanied his father in a
tramp throughout the mining districts of Eastern
Oregon, and the next year was engaged as govern-
ment packer in a Nez Perce war. He also served
the government in 1878 as packer with Howard's
command in the Bannack war, and remained in that
desperate campaign all the season. He continued
his arduous calling as packer and miner until 1880,
when he married Miss Maggie Depot and made a
permanent home on a farm near Centerville, Oregon,
where he now resides.
JOHN R. LADD.-The stories told to the chil-
dren of the generation hence of the abundance of
gold and the immense profits of the early pioneers
will fire their imaginations and set them on wild,
and perhaps profitable, trips to the Andes or to
Alaska.
Mr. Ladd's career will be thus exciting to his
descendants, and to all who see this sketch. He
was born in the Empire state in 1838. He came to
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
417
California with his father in 1852, but returning
East married Miss Rachel Knapp in Illinois. Here
might be mentioned as a remarkable coincidence,
that Mrs. Ladd was born October 7th and Mr. Ladd
October 25th. They were married October 12th;
and Mr. Ladd died October 14th.
In 1862 he set forth to the Salmon river mines,
but turning aside from the road came on and made
a home at Ladd's cañon in the Grande Ronde.
Here they built a cabin, and being on the direct
route to the mines kept a hotel, feeding sometimes
a hundred men at a meal, and taking the usual
price of a dollar each. The year 1865 was spent in
Walla Walla; but, returning to their old home in the
shadow of the Blue Mountains, Mr. Ladd followed
freighting about five years, after which he engaged
in farming and stock-raising.
In 1867 he bought one hundred and sixty acres of
land for three thousand dollars, which one freighting
trip to Idaho paid for, and took one hundred and sixty
more of government land. In 1877 he put on a
stage line from Wallowa to Grande Ronde, and in
after years owned several other stage lines in other
East-of-the-Mountains regions.
His real estate had increased by 1887 to forty-five
hundred acres, all in the valley. His business more
recently was conducting a livery stable, stock-raising
and handling large flocks of sheep. In addition to
his interests there, he had large town property in La
Grande and Pendleton.
His death occurred in 1887. He has been mourned
not only by his family; but his loss is deplored by
all the citizens of the place. His widow is still liv-
ing at his late home in Island City, Oregon, and
has the care of his estate. His daughter Eva is the
wife of M. D. Andross of Island City; and his son,
C. W. Ladd, is a stock-raiser and farmer of the
Grande Ronde.
WILLIAM SARGENT LADD.—Of the gen-
tlemen who came to Oregon with the purpose of
forming here not only a settled social and political,
but also a determinate business order, there is none
to-day more prominent than W. S. Ladd. Our state
has often invited comparison between her leading
men and those of other parts of the nation, not at all
fearing that she should suffer even if the investigation
and analysis were carried to the extreme. But, in the
case of the gentleman before us, such a comparison
would never be thought of, since he has long been
reckoned among the most wealthy men of the nation
even in this age of colossal fortunes. But although
thus able to take his place in the line of those who
control the financial operations of the United States,
the solid, common sense of Oregonians, the most of
whom have worked from the ground up, pays but
little respect to wealth apart from character. It is
therefore a matter of much congratulation that
the man who might, most justly of all, assume
the name of "Money King," has other claims
upon their respect and recognition which make
his wealth seem but adventitious. He is as
one of the plain, hard-working builders of our state,
who has been earnest for the social and moral as
well as financial progress of the Northwest, that
his name appears here. 'Woe to that land whose
((
prince is a child." Equally ill for it when its social
and business leaders are men of pleasures and immor-
ality. It has been well for Oregon that her prince
on 'change has been one whose social, religious and
domestic relations have stimulated and honored the
highest of her people.
W. S. Ladd was born at Holland, Vermont,
October 10, 1826. As a boy he grew up tall and
slender, active of mind and body, and was impelled
by a quiet but intense ambition. In his father,
Nathaniel Gould Ladd, a physician, and of a family
that came to America in 1623, he had a guide and
an example of every manly virtue; and in his
mother, Abigail Kelly Mead, he found the stimulus
to industry, and the life of mental effort. Both his
parents were Methodists, and gave him the sort of
instruction and training which usually lead to suc-
cess. Like other New England boys, he went to
school and learned to work, and furthermore de-
veloped the romantic idea of life on the sea, which
was never brought to realization. His parents
moved to New Hampshire, and found work for him
on a farm, and afterwards bought a piece of fifteen
acres of very rough, rocky and wooded land which
the youth brought into cultivation by his own per-
sonal exertions.
At the age of nineteen, he found a somewhat
wider scope for his abilities in teaching a public
school at Loudon, New Hampshire; and, although
this was one of those districts where the teachers
and pupils had pitched battles, he was successful in
subduing his impudent pupils at the first encoun-
ter, and moreover kept them awake by the use of
bright methods, and questions for them to think
about.
After the cessation of his duties as pedagogue, the
Boston, Concord & Montreal Railway was running
its line past Sanbornton Bridge, now known as
Tilton, at which place he was residing; and he
sought and obtained a situation in the freight house
which was established there, and continued in this
and other work connected therewith, thereby gain-
ing practical business ideas that became of great
service to him thereafter.
For some years after reaching independent life,
he had felt an interest in the Pacific coast, having
learned of the peculiar products and exports of
California; but, upon the discovery of gold in 1848,
he became impressed with the belief that not the
region out of which the gold was dug, but that
from which supplies and products were obtained
for the mines, would obtain the greatest permanent
wealth. Finding that the Willamette valley in
Oregon bore this relation to the mines of California,
he was attracted towards it as a promising field.
These abstract considerations were much intensi-
fied by conversation with a Mr. Carr, who had
been to the Pacific coast, and who, from business
operations at San Francisco and at Portland, had
laid by something of a fortune, and had returned
to the village in which Ladd was living. Deter-
mining thereupon to make Oregon his home, the
young adventurer, now our banker, made prepara-
tions and set sail from New York February 27, 1851.
Arriving at San Francisco, he there found Mr.
Chas. E. Tilton, an old school friend, engaged in
418
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
selling consignments, which he was receiving from
New York, to jobbers; and he proposed to him to
go into business and thereby sell the goods them-
selves. To this Tilton did not accede; and Ladd
came on up to Oregon. He found our state still
exceedingly crude, although, under the adminis-
tration of Governor Gaines, affairs were taking
form. But at Portland all the beginnings were
slow and difficult. He carried on a small business
in selling out a few articles that he brought with
him; but his affairs reached at one time so low an
ebb, that he was glad to save paying his six dollars
road tax by digging out and burning up a couple of
fir stumps in the street in front of his store, which
was opposite the ground now occupied by the
Esmond Hotel.
Soon afterwards he found an opportunity to close
out the goods brought in a vessel to Portland by
W. D. Gookin, who had known his father in New
Hampshire. By this transaction he cleared a thou-
sand dollars, and immediately reinvesting this sum
in articles of ready sale was enabled to prosecute
his mercantile business with vigor and increasing
profits. Here, indeed, he got the hold and made
the beginning of his present great business, which
from that time to this has never suffered a retro-
grade movement. In 1852 he was conducting
an independent business, operating, however, with
Gookin, who by a successful venture in a vessel
with a cargo of lumber to San Francisco had made
twenty thousand dollars. Later, Mr. Ladd went to
that city to make arrangements for a future mer-
cantile business, and on his return brought up for
his friend sixty thousand dollars in coin.
His business habits of this time are remembered
as most exemplary,-promptly at his place, often
being at hand as early as four o'clock in the sum-
mer mornings to help off his customers with their
wagon-loads in the cool of the day. He economized
his strength, avoided saloons, spent his nights in
sleep, not in carousals,-which have ruined many
of Portland's brightest men,--and made it a point
to observe the Sabbath by attendance upon pub-
lic worship. He was a shrewd trader, meeting loss
and profits with equal equanimity. Not easily ex-
cited, he could view business affairs with coolness,
and make the most advantageous moves in the
hours of opportunity. Thus, once, upon receiving
word from Tilton that turpentine was running low
in the San Francisco market, he made a shipment
by the steamer General Warren, which was an old
vessel. Striking upon the Columbia bar as she
went out, she went to pieces. The morning the
news of the wreck reached him, Ladd purchased
in a few hours all the available turpentine in
Portland, and had it in his store. This brought
ten dollars a gallon at San Francisco, the profits
more than covering his former loss.
In 1852 his business was strengthened by a part-
nership with Tilton, and in 1853 by the arrival of
his brother Wesley. In 1854 he was united in mar-
riage to Miss Caroline A. Elliott, of New Hamp-
shire, a young lady of excellent mental endowments
and acquirements, and of a noble character, with
whom he had been acquainted since school days.
In 1858 steps were taken with Tilton for the forma-
tion of a bank; and in 1859 the institution was ready
for operations. This is the bank, located at the
corner of First and Stark streets, in which so large a
part of the monetary business of Oregon has been
transacted. It was started on a limited scale; but
in 1861 its capital was increased from fifty thousand
dollars to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
The earnings, however, which were returned to the
business, brought the capital up to one million
dollars. Thereafter dividends were ordered; and,
when the partnership was dissolved in 1880, bills
receivable amounted to upwards of two million, five
hundred thousand dollars. It has always done a
sound and select business, and has followed the
policy of keeping below current interest, as rates
have become less and less, taking, for instance,
loans at two and one-half per cent per month, when
from three to five per cent was readily obtainable.
So secure has this bank been that Oregonians have
depended upon it as certainly as upon the sunrise
or the rainfall. When it made its statement in
1888, there was less than thirteen hundred dollars
outstanding, although over one hundred thousand
dollars which had been previously charged to profit
and loss had been collected since 1880. It is still
operating with the same success as formerly.
But while his old store and his bank have occu-
pied his close attention, and have been the principal
means of making his fortune, Mr. Ladd has also
branched out into a large number of other ventures,
chiefly of a public interest. He is one of the great-
est farmers in the state, owning three farms of his
own, and five in partnership with S. G. Reed. He
conducts these partly for amusement and recreation,
but very much also for the sake of discovering and
introducing the most improved methods, testing
machinery and importing fine livestock. He has
been lavish of his means in these particulars, and has
done the state substantial good thereby. He has
rigidly followed what he believes will lead to public
utility, and for that reason has eliminated from his
régime the breeding of fast horses. It is understood
that he controls about three-fourths of the entire
flouring-mill business of the Pacific Northwest. He
is identified with the Oregon Iron and Steel Com-
pany, at Oswego, and has been a controlling stock-
holder of the Oregon Railway & Navigation
Company. He owns lots and buildings all over
Portland, and permits in them only respectable and
legitimate businesses.
His residence on Jefferson street, built as early as
1859 from drawings of a house which he and his
wife saw while on a visit to the South and East at
Bangor, Maine, has long been an ornament to
Portland. His interest in school matters and public
education has been deep and continuous; and he has
given his own time to their furtherance. He has
been a friend of churches and public charities; and
his gifts have been munificent. It is said that an
appeal for sufferers, if worthy, has never been
refused by him, nor by any member of his family.
With his workmen and employés he is easily mas-
ter, but nevertheless a friend and favorite; and his
remembrance of all in his pay every Christmas is a
sort of touch of human kindness that makes kin to
him the laboring masses. He believes in fairness


THOMAS L.GAMBLE
CLE-ELUM W.T.
UNI
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
419
to all who work, and that their rights and liberty
be respected, and denounces the iniquity of combi-
nations of capital which would deprive trade or labor
of its freedom. It is for these qualities that he is
looked upon with favor and pride by the people of
his city and state; and he suffers as little from envy
as any rich man in the nation. There are few,
indeed, who realize more fully the idea of a man of
great wealth and power holding his means as a pub-
lic trust, and sincerely striving to return all his dol-
lars to the use of society, and to the advantage of
his fellow-men.
Perhaps nothing shows more fully his unquailing
spirit, and the predominance of his will, than his
steady and persistent application to business since
the infirmity came upon him, by which he has been
rendered incapable of physical activity. His unin-
terrupted application to business and development
of great plans is an example of how little the opera-
tions of a great mind and spirit depend upon the
completeness of these temples of clay in which the
soul spends its earthly life.
To his wife he ascribes a great portion of his suc-
cess, saying: I owe everything to her. Through
all she has been to me most emphatically a help-
meet, in the best and highest sense a noble wife, a
saintly mother to our children. I can place no
adequate estimate upon her help to me in building
up our fortunes in this state. Always patient,
thoughtful and courageous, she has cheerfully
assumed her part of whatever load I have had to
carry. We both started together at bed-rock; and
from then until now we have taken every step in
harmony."
In his children, Mr. Ladd has special cause for
satisfaction. The eldest son, William M. Ladd,
inherits much the same vigor of body and intellect
and will as have lived in his father. He has been
furnished the best of educational advantages, having
traveled in Europe, and being an alumnus of
Amherst College. He was married in 1885 to Miss
Mary Andrews, of Oakland, California. He is at
present a partner in the bank. The second son,
Charles Elliott, is also a man of fine tastes and
scholarly instincts, an alumnus of Amherst College,
and is now at the head of the large flouring busi-
ness.
He was married in 1881 to Miss Sarah Hall,
of Somerville, Massachusetts. The eldest daughter
was married in 1880 to Henry J. Corbett, son of
Senator Corbett. The second daughter was married
in 1880 to Charles Pratt of Brooklyn, New York,
a gentleman well known in the business world as
being largely interested in the Standard Oil Com-
pany, as well as other large manufacturing interests
located in the Eastern states.
Another says of our subject: No one ever can
read the history of W. S. Ladd without being
impressed thereby. During his mercantile career,
he never misrepresented in order to sell an article.
On the street, his word was as good as another's
bond. His gifts and donations have been munificent.
He endowed the chair of practical theology in the
Presbyterian Theological Seminary in San Fran-
cisco, in 1886, with fifty thousand dollars, and gave
several scholarships to the Willamette University.
Throughout a wide extent of country, few churches
have been built without aid from him. The bank
is a liberal institution, as well as an aid to progress.
The Library Association of Portland has always
felt his fostering care, having for twenty years occu-
pied, rent free, the second floor of his bank building.
It has been his custom from the first to set aside
one-tenth of his net income for charitable purposes.
It is a principle of his business never to go to law,
except as a last resort.”
A life lived upon so high an aim as the above
has been of vast service in our state hitherto, and
will still be of use in stemming the tides of social,
business and political toils that are so fast coming
upon us.
JUDGE COLUMBIA LANCASTER.-Judge
Lancaster, one of our earliest and most eminent
judges, was born at New Milford, Litchfield county,
Connecticut, on the 26th of August, 1803. His
father was of Quaker descent, and settled in Ohio
at an early date. Columbia read law under Whit-
tlesy & Newton in Ohio, and remained in their office
a number of years. The Whittlesy of the firm was
the Honorable Elisha who was a long time in Con-
gress, and afterwards held office in the auditor's
department under both Whig and Democratic ad-
ministrations with no change of his political senti-
ments. He thought almost as much of his student
Lancaster as of his own children. When the young
man determined to go West, Mr. Whittlesy gave
him letters of introduction and commendation to
prominent men, among others to the governor of
Michigan, Lewis Cass.
Having gone to Michigan (which was then out
West) Mr. Lancaster was kindly received by Gene-
ral Cass and entertained by his family. The gov-
ernor urged the young lawyer to remain in Michigan;
but he, desiring to see Chicago before settling down,
remained but two weeks, and then started for that
embryo city. He was, however, suddenly taken
sick near White Pigeon in St. Joseph county, and
during the long sickness which followed there was
treated with such kindness that he determined to
locate himself there permanently. He accordingly
established himself there in his profession at Cen-
treville, which afterwards became the county-seat.
There he became known as an active and successful
lawyer.
His mind was clear, bright and strong. His
constitution was powerful, and his friendship warm
and enduring. His wit and sarcasm were wonder-
fully keen. He was a good neighbor and citizen,
and honest and conscientious in all his dealings.
His temperament was such that he required con-
siderable active exercise. This he was wont to
obtain by hunting and fishing, of which he became
exceedingly fond. He served the people of St.
Joseph county as a legislator, as prosecuting attor-
ney and otherwise, and was
was active in securing
statehood for Michigan.
-
His practice extended into other counties; and
when he attended court in Branch county he boarded
with the father of Anson Burlingame, afterwards of
"Burlingame Treaty" fame. Mr. Lancaster liked
the boy Anson, and frequently took him hunting,
and finally persuaded the father to send him East
420
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
and educate him. Anson accordingly received a
liberal education in Massachusetts, married an
accomplished girl of considerable wealth, and was
elected to Congress with the knowledge that he
knew how to shoot and did not scare, facts which,
as the world knows, came out with startling distinct-
ness in connection with the unspeakable infamy of
the Brooks assault on Sumner.
In 1836 Mr. Lancaster returned to Ohio and mar-
ried Rosannah Jones, a charming girl whom in her
childhood Mr. Whittlesy had often held in his lap
and arms. On the 4th of March, 1841, Mr. Lancas-
ter and wife and one child, Adam Van Dusen and
wife, and A. E. Wait, left Centreville for Oregon.
They crossed the Mississippi on the 4th of April,
the Missouri on the 4th of May, and Green river
on the 4th of July. Nearly every river after leaving
the Missouri was crossed by ferrying the wagon-
beds over, and was accomplished without serious
accident or sickness. The party arrived at Oregon
City about the middle of September. Soon after his
arrival Mr. Lancaster was made judge of the su-
preme court under the Provisional government, and
performed his duties ably until the Provisional gov-
ernment was superseded by the organization of the
territory.
Like many of the Oregonians, the judge went to
California to take out some gold with his own hands.
He was tolerably successful in the mines; and his
good friend Peter H. Burnett desired him to remain
there and practice law; but he preferred to return to
Oregon. In 1850 he settled on a land claim of six
hundred and forty acres on Lewis river, which was
then in Oregon, but is now in Washington. While
securing the title to his land, he divided his time
between law practice and farming and stock-rais-
ing.
Judge Lancaster was the first delegate to Congress
from Washington Territory. At that time he ac-
complished more for the territory than has ever been
accomplished before or since by any other delegate
for any other territory in so short a time. But this
is to be partly attributed to the good help he had.
Generally, if he wanted help in some great under-
taking, it came to him. His needed help came to
him in Congress. His former friends, General Cass and
Mr. Whittlesy, were glad to see him. His old friend
Charles E. Stuart was in the Senate, and Ben Wade
and Joshua R. Giddings were in the House and
anxious to aid him. The President invited him to
a dinner where he met a number of the Senators;
and after the dinner he told them that delegate Lan-
caster would need much legislation for his territory,
and as he had arrived in the middle of a term he
would want all the aid he could to accomplish the
necessary legislation; and so he asked their special
assistance; and they gave it.
When Anson Burlingame heard that Judge Lan-
caster was in Washington as a delegate from Wash-
ington Territory, he hurried on to the Capital and
labored diligently and effectually in securing needful
action for the distant territory. He was anxious to
pay what he deemed a great debt; and he did so to
the entire satisfaction of the judge. Before Judge
Lancaster's bills had been finally acted on in the
House, similar bills had been considered and passed
by the Senate and sent to the House; and the House
speedily concurred in them. Thus it was that
Judge Lancaster was enabled to accomplish so much
for the territory in so short a time. He worked hard
and wisely, and with the efficient aid of his friends
succeeded beyond his most sanguine hopes, and was
happy.
The first patent issued by the government under
the Donation Land Act was issued to Judge Lan-
caster and his wife, and was presented to them by
their friend, Honorable T. H. Hendricks, afterwards
vice-president. The improved and best half of the
claim was, with the approbation of the judge, set
off to his wife. The married life of this now aged
couple has been very happy,-a continued courtship.
A few years ago, owing to impaired health, they sold
their lands and stock on Lewis river and settled at
Vancouver, Washington Territory, where they have
sufficient means to make them permanently com-
fortable and independent. They have three living
children, Sarah, Hannah and Wait, and several
grandchildren, all of whom reside in Oregon and
Washington; and they can and do point with affec-
tion and pride to Judge Lancaster and his excellent
wife.
This
HON. FREDERICK W. LANDER.
gentleman, who was a civil engineer, first chief jus-
tice of the supreme court of Washington Territory,
and brigadier-general of United States volunteers,
1861-62, was born at Salem, Massachusetts, Decem-
ber 17, 1822, and received his education at Dummer
Academy, Byfield, Vermont, and studied civil engin-
eering at the military academy, Norwich, Vermont.
Having practiced for several years his profession in
his native state, in 1853 Governor Stevens appointed
him estimating engineer on the Northern Pacific
Railroad survey. After having crossed the conti-
nent, he formed the opinion that the first practical
and economical solution of the problem of transcon-
tinental railway communication would be found in
a grand trunk line westward from the Mississippi
river to and through the South Pass of the Rocky
Mountains, thence diverging by two lines in the
form of the letter Y, one by the valley of the Co-
lumbia to Puget Sound, and the other to San Fran-
cisco. To determine the feasibility of such routes,
he employed, at his private expense, the necessary
parties and made the surveys.
He afterwards sur-
veyed the route for the great overland wagon road,
and acted as superintendent in its construction. His
party, consisting of seventy men, was attacked in
1858 by a large war party of Pah Ute Indians, who
were repulsed with considerable slaughter.
Upon the breaking out of the Rebellion in 1861,
he visited several Southern states on secret service.
He joined the army in the capacity of volunteer aid
on General McClellan's staff, and was present at the
capture of Phillippi, and at the battle of Rich
Mountain. He was commissioned, May 17, 1861,
brigadier-general of volunteers, and in July was
assigned an important command on the Potomac
river. Apprised of the disaster at Ball's Bluff, he
hastened to Edward's Ferry, and held that point
with a single company of sharpshooters, but in the
action received a severe wound in the leg. Before
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
421
the wound had healed he reported for duty, and on
the 5th of January, 1862, at Hancock, repelled a
greatly superior Confederate force. On February
14, 1862, he made a dash against the enemy at
Blooming Gap, who retreated before the Union cav-
alry. In the pass the Confederates made a stand
and checked their pursuers. Lander then called for
volunteers and dislodged them. By this time his
wound greatly annoyed and debilitated him, and
compelled him to ask for temporary relief from
duty. Before that had been granted, and while pre-
paring for an attack upon the enemy, this gallant
officer died on the 2d of March, 1862, of congestion
of the brain.
General Lander was a poet of considerable merit,
as is attested by a number of poetic effusions during
the war.
He was an able writer, especially in the
line of his profession. Dashing as was his brief but
brilliant war record, distinguished though he was as
a railroad engineer, perhaps he will be best remem-
bered for his characteristic management of the
Pryor-Potter duel, in 1860.
After a bitter personal debate in Congress, in
which John F. Potter of Wisconsin and Roger A.
Pryor of Virginia had participated, General Pryor
challenged Mr. Potter. Colonel Fred Lander acted
as Potter's friend. Potter, being the challenged
party, by Lander's prompting selected bowie knives
as the weapons. Pryor's friends protested against
the use of such a weapon, but Lander was inexor-
able; and the fight, as Lander had predicted, proved
a fiasco.
At the time fixed for the duel to have oc-
curred, it is said that both parties were absent from
the House at roll call. Upon Potter's name being
called, one of his friends answered, Gone to meet
a pryor engagement." Later on, Pryor's name being
called by the clerk, the answer was given from
among Potter's friends, “Gone to be made potter's
clay."
COL. HENRY LANDES.-The subject of
this sketch is prominent and noteworthy, even
among the foremost self-made men of the great and
growing Pacific Northwest,—a section so progress-
ive and promising that it has attracted the most vig-
orous minds and the ablest men throughout the
country. He was born in a small town in Germany
on the 8th of October, 1843. In 1847 his father and
family emigrated to Kentucky, Henry being then
four years old. There the boy grew almost to the
years of manhood, and developed in a marked de-
gree the spirit of adventurous ambition which led
him on the 1st of October, 1861, to break away
from the restraints of school and enlist in a Ken-
tucky Federal regiment of infantry, being then but
eighteen years old. In that regiment he served his
country faithfully and well for over three years,
covering nearly the whole period of the war of the
Rebellion, and participating in all the principal bat-
tles from Shiloh to the capture of Atlanta. He was
honorably mustered out of the service at the close
of his term.
The close of the war left him with his love for
adventure intensified; and, like many another young
man, he started out to seek fame and fortune single-
handed, without prestige or assistance, but with a
courage and industrious determination that amply
equipped him to grapple with fortune. Naturally
enough he turned his face towards the new El Do-
rado of the West. Arriving on the Pacific coast, he
proceeded to the gold fields of British Columbia,
then famous and alluring. There he deived labori-
ously but unsuccessfully as a miner. Returning to
Washington Territory in 1870, he was appointed
Indian trader for the Makah tribe of Indians at the
Neah Bay Reservation, which position he held for
nearly six years.
In 1876 he returned with his family to Port Town-
send, Washington Territory, where he established
himself in business and became, naturally enough.
from the start, one of the leading citizens and most
enterprising business men of the city. Elected presi-
dent of the Port Townsend Board of Trade at its
organization, he has held the position ever since by
unanimous re-elections each year. He served four
years as a member of the city council, during which
period he was many times acting mayor, and was
always industrious and painstaking in the discharge
of his public duties. He was the moving spirit of
the city government while a member thereof, and,
although neither visionary nor moss-backed, was at
once safely conservative yet enterprising and pro-
gressive. He served three years as city treasurer,
and three years as member of the public-school
board. During his incumbency of the last-named
position, a marvelous transformation took place,
largely through his efforts, in the public school,—
the old building giving place to a magnificent new
one, and the school itself becoming graded nearly to
an academic standard.
In June, 1884, Colonel Landes was appointed by
Governor William A. Newell to the important posi-
tion of member of the board of commissioners to
locate the new territorial penitentiary. He performed
the delicate and difficult duties of this position with
his usual practical sagacity, and with entire public
satisfaction. In March, 1885, he was appointed by
the Secretary of the Treasury a member of the board
of commissioners to locate Port Townsend's present
government buildings. In September, 1885, he was
commissioned by Governor Watson C. Squire a
member of the governor's military staff, as assistant
adjutant-general, with the rank of lieutenant-
colonel. In February, 1886, he was appointed by
Governor Squire a commissioner to select a suitable
site for the deaf mute, blind and feeble-minded
youth of Washington Territory, the duties of which
position were performed in the usual satisfactory
manner. He was one of the incorporators, and was
elected treasurer, of the Port Townsend & Southern
Railway Company, which was organized in 1887
with a view to building a road from the Strait of
Fuca to Portland. On April 29, 1889, he was com-
missioned by Governor Miles C. Moore quartermas-
ter-general, with the rank of colonel, of the National
Guard of Washington Territory, and holds this
honorable position at the present time.
Colonel Landes' greatest achievement, however,
was in founding and successfully establishing the
First National Bank of Port Townsend, of which he
is the largest stockholder, and is also president.
The institution was organized in March, 1883.
422
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Located in its three-story stone building, it is the
pride of Port Townsend. Under the conservative
and able management of its president, it has no peer
on Puget Sound.
Personally, Colonel Landes is prepossessing, with
a commanding presence. Genial, broad-minded and
energetic, he is the complete type of the cultivated
gentleman. He has large property interests in Port
Townsend, Seattle and various other places in Wash-
ington, and is a director in several corporations. He
is a natural leader, and is instinctively foremost in
all local public affairs. His pleasant home and
family are surrounded with all the comforts of refine-
ment and ease.
GENERAL JOSEPH LANE.—Joseph Lane
first saw the light of day in North Carolina, Decem-
ber 14, 1801. He was reared in Henderson county,
Kentucky. At the early age of twenty he was mar-
ried to Miss Polly Hart, soon afterwards settling in
Vanderburg county, Indiana, where he followed
the humble life of a farmer for twenty-five years.
While in the pursuit of this occupation, he was
prominent as a leader in all matters of enterprise
in the county. He soon drifted into politics, and
was chosen to represent the county in the state
legislature. He was continued in the same trust
as long as he resided in the county.
When the Mexican war began, the state senator
resigned his seat, and prepared to enter the hostili-
ties, when he was elected colonel of the Second
Regiment of Indiana Volunteers, and was ordered
to report for duty at General Taylor's headquarters
at Brazos, Texas, which was then the seat of war.
It was just prior to the battle of Buena Vista that
General Lane was actively employed; and he took
an active part in the glorious victory achieved by
the American troops, commanding the left wing of
Taylor's army. During this engagement he was
severely wounded by a bullet in the left shoulder;
but, nothing daunted, he remained upon the field at
his post of duty, suffering great pain, until the vic-
tory was assured. This act distinguished him for
his unfaltering bravery. He was lauded by his
commander; and he immediately attained a position
in public estimation second to no other officer in the
service.
At the expiration of the time of enlistment of his
brigade, he accompanied it to New Orleans, where
the men were mustered out. General Lane then
returned to General Taylor's army, but was at once
ordered to join General Scott in his celebrated march
from Vera Cruz, Mexico. In this march General
Lane led a brigade composed of the Fourth Ohio
and the Fourth Indiana Volunteers, with several
independents, altogether numbering about three
thousand men. They set out to reinforce the
American army then valiantly fighting its way, step
by step, from Pueblo to the City of Mexico. His
duties were arduous in the extreme; for the route was
lined with guerrillas and beset by organized bodies
of Mexican troops, who resisted every advance; and
it was only by hard fighting and determined effort
that the road was covered. At Haumantla, on
October 9, 1847, a decided victory was gained over
the enemy.
At Atlixco, on the nineteenth of the
same month and at Tlascala on the twenty-ninth,
grand victories were scored. On the 22d of Novem-
ber, Matamoras, fifty-four miles from Pueblo, was
taken by assault; and on the 14th of December the
headquarters of General Scott were reached. After-
wards General Lane and his soldiers were engaged
in the closing battles of the war, and in wiping out
guerrillas.
This "
Marion of the Mexican war" remained
active in the field until its final close, when he
returned to his peaceful home in Indiana, there to
enjoy the comforts of his fireside; for, having won
military honors enough, he longed for the quiet,
inactive life of the obscure civilian. But no sooner
had his sun set in the military horizon than it
appeared in the first gray streaks of morn in a polit-
ical life. He was surprised on learning that he had
been appointed to the governorship of the then
newly organized territory of Oregon. Equal to the
emergency to which duty called him, he set out for
the Pacific slope by way of New Mexico and Ari-
zona, accompanied by a military escort.
Arriving in San Francisco in February, 1849, he
took passage to the Columbia on a sailing vessel, and
arrived at Oregon City, on the Willamette, March 2,
1849, and issued his proclamation the following
day as governor of the territory of Oregon. General
Lane was her first and by far her most distinguished
executive. He faithfully and assiduously discharged
the duties of his new office until the following
August, when a new political party was formed in
the territory, which appointed his successor. He
then commenced mining in Northern California, and
afterwards participated in Kearney's campaign
against the Rogue river Indians in 1851. In the
latter part of that year he was chosen as a delegate
from the territory to Congress.
In the year 1853 he again distinguished himself
in the military line during the Rogue river war, and
received a severe wound in the battle of Evans'
creek. The treaty which followed with those Indians
was largely due to his exertions. From that time
on until the territory was admitted as a state the
General continued to serve the people in Congress.
In 1857 he was elected by the people of Oregon as
United States senator, which position he held until
1861. In 1860 the Democratic convention then in
session at Baltimore nominated the general and
United States senator for vice-president of the
United States, on the ticket with John C. Brecken-
ridge. The details of that campaign are still fresh
in the popular mind, although over a quarter of a
century has elapsed.
The General's natural inclination, sympathy and
belief, guided by the highest sense of justice and
right, led him to favor the South in the great
impending war between the two sections; and he
quit the field of politics and returned to his home at
Roseburg, never again entering public life. His
remaining years were spent on his farm and in the
solace of home comforts in the family circle.
waived all thought of further public life, and studi-
ously bent his energies in the experiments of agricult-
ure, in which he was as equally successful in after
years as he had previously been in politics and war.
His early education having been somewhat neglected,
He

A BA
HOUSER & HARFORD
GRAIN ELEVATOR
Residence - MRS. Lillie Stiles,
HARFORD & SON+
BANK
N/
1
DATAHA CI
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
423
and possessing naturally an inquiring turn of mind, in
after years the General set about at self-study, and
in the course of a few years had procured a store of
knowledge in all of the branches of literature, art
and the sciences. The remaining years of his life
were gradually brought to a well-rounded close in the
heart of his family, surrounded by his children,
grand-children and the next near of kin, each and
all holding him most dear, and revering him both for
what he actually had been and was, and for his
mature age. After a life well spent, with no regrets
to recall, this good and noble man slowly but surely
felt the ebbing tide of life going out; and in April,
1881, he forever closed his eyes to all things earthly.
Among the very few who so grandly distinguished
themselves during the Mexican war, General Lane
was favored with the longest lease upon life, and
was the last of the surviving heroes to depart.
There is much in the life of General Lane to
the close student. He was a man of unswerving
integrity. The truth to him was always foremost;
and it has been said by those with whom he was
intimate in life that there was no condition, circum-
stance nor occasion which would induce him to
depart therefrom. On the field of battle he knew
no fear. In political life and official capacity he
was clean-handed and clear-skirted, with the most
good to the largest number. At home he was the
idol of his family and the honored neighbor of life.
In business matters he was always prompt, decisive
and reliable. In his demise the country lost a
valuable defender, the state a noble representative,
and the people a beloved and honored and revered
fellow-citizen; and it may well be said that the
world was made better for his having lived in it.
JAMES H. LASATER.-Mr. Lasater was born
on the 19th of October, 1823, in McMinn county,
Tennessee. Having reached manhood in his native
state, he went to California in 1850. After a short
stay there, he returned East, taking up his abode in
Illinois. While there he devoted himself to the
study of the law, and in October, 1853, came to
Oregon. Pursuing his law studies, he was admitted
to the bar in 1855 at Salem. In the following year
he was married to Miss Emily Lendder.
•
In April, 1863, he removed to Walla Walla,
Washington Territory; and there he has made his
home since, being throughout these twenty-six years
one of the most active and useful citizens of that
pleasant city. As a politician Mr. Lasater has been
on the losing side, being a Democrat. None the
less stoutly, however, has he battled for the prin-
ciples of his political faith; nor has his fairness and
integrify failed to win the respect of even his
political foes. He has, in spite of the general
adversity of his party, served in the territorial legis-
lature (1869), and has borne a prominent part in
the councils of the territory and town.
He had been an extensive land-owner, but a few
years ago deeded the greater portion of his lands to
his children. He now lives in a beautiful home on
a spacious plot of land near the business heart of
Walla Walla. Having lost his wife in 1875, he was
married in October of the following year to Mrs.
Jane Jacobs. His children are: Wiley, born in 1858;
Julia, 1862; Harry, 1865; Alice M., 1867; James
H., 1878.
LAWYER.— With the exception of the Joseph
war of 1877, the Nez Perces have almost uniformly
been the friends of the Whites. Even in that con-
flict they were humane enough to abstain from
scalping their captives, and even went so far as to
give them water to drink when they found them
wounded and alone. On many occasions they have
saved hundreds of lives and thousands of dollars
worth of property. When the "great audit is
made up," it may prove that these Indians have
done vastly more for the conquerors of their land than
they have received from them. Prominent among
the friendly chiefs of this great tribe was Lawyer.
He appears on the pages of historians from the time
of Parker (in 1836) down. He was at that time a
young man, famous for his natural eloquence and
lawyer-like keenness, from which fact he received
the name by which he has since been known. He
was a son of the chief who had met Lewis and
Clarke in so friendly a manner, and had cared for
their horses during their stay down the river.
Throughout the entire history of settlement,
Lawyer was a friend of the Whites.
He was espe-
cially prominent in the negotiations with Governor
Stevens after the great war of 1855. He threw the
weight of his great influence in favor of the treaty,
which established the existing reservations and
confirmed the Indians in the property which they
now hold. Though opposed in his peace policy by
Owhi, Kamiakin, Peu-peu-mox-mox and Joseph,
the persistence of Lawyer and the numerical
strength of his people turned the scale in favor of
the treaty. The benefit to the settlers by this event
can scarcely be overstated. As was just, the astute
chief was ever afterwards held in great favor.
In person Lawyer was a typical Indian. Though
not of large stature, he was exceedingly straight
and well-built, with the eye of an eagle and the
nose of a hawk. He has had few equals in general
intelligence among his people.
HON. ALPHONSO FOWLER LEARNED.
- Mr. Learned, whose travels and services abroad
have taken him extensively over the world as an
able representative of the American nation and flag,
was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1838. He
spent a precocious boyhood in the schools of that
city,—"The Athens of America,”—and at the age
of sixteen was an alumnus of Comers College. Pre-
ferring the sea, however, to further bookish confine-
ment, he became cabin boy on a full-rigged ship,
returning as able seaman.
In 1857 he came on the clipper ship Sierra Nevada
to San Francisco, and, as mate on the bark Gold-
hunter, sailed to Port Townsend, Washington Terri-
tory. There he entered the mercantile business with
his uncle, E. S. Fowler, but in 1862 went to Shanghai
as superintendent for the large tea importers, Rus-
sell & Co. He returned in 1871, and continued
in business with E. S. Fowler until the death of the
latter in 1879. Much time was spent after this in
San Francisco in the newspaper business, and six
424
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
years in the internal revenue department. Coming
back once more, he accepted a position as book-
keeper for the Alaska Mill & Mining Company; but
the offensive climate induced his speedy return. He
thereupon opened a real-estate and insurance office,
and conducts a large business in this line.
In the political world, Mr. Learned has been a
prominent figure. He has held a position on the
city council. He pushed Judge Hastings to the nar-
row majority of one vote as candidate for treasurer
of Jefferson county. Six years he held the position
of consul to Nicaragua, and was master of the first
Masonic lodge in China, and has also filled the same
office at Port Townsend.
He was married in that city to Miss Isabelle, a
daughter of Doctor Samuel McCurdy, an old resident
of the port. She is a lady of culture and refinement;
and they have a fine family of children, three girls
and three boys.
HON. JOHN C. LEASURE. Mr. Leasure
needs little introduction to the people of Oregon,
having become universally known as an elector on
the ticket for Blaine in 1884, and more recently as
vice-president and attorney for the Oregon & Wash-
ington Railway. This road, which has commanded
much popular interest, particularly in Eastern
Oregon and Washington Territory, skirts the whole
Umatilla and Blue Mountain foothills country,
traverses the great Inland Empire wheat belt, and
having a western terminus at tide water is able to
compete actively with the Oregon Railway & Navi-
gation Company, thus reducing transportation tariffs
to the minimum.
His
Mr. Leasure has, moreover, ever enjoyed a wide
reputation as a lawyer, being especially versed in
criminal practice; and scarcely a case of any im-
portance of this character has been brought to trial
in Umatilla county without his attendance. His
standing and popularity in his own city is shown by
his election as mayor of Pendleton, Oregon, in 1885,
by a majority of ninety-three on the People's ticket.
During his term he made his presence felt by carrying
through to completion the system of water works, and
by a marked improvement in streets and sidewalks.
Mr. Leasure is a native Oregonian, having been
born in Marion county in 1854, and received his edu-
cation at Philomath College, having received his
diploma from said institution in 1877. He first made
his way in the world as a school teacher, studying
law at the same time, and in 1880 ran the gauntlet
of an examination. Passing the critical point with
great success, he removed immediately to Pendleton,
and there achieved the results then anticipated.
Mr. Leasure is purely a self-made man, and is
noted for determination, energy and great will power.
His wife, Anna L., daughter of William Blakely of
Umatilla, and granddaughter of James Blakely, a
pioneer of 1847, is a lady who is no less influential
in her own circles than is her husband in the busi-
ness and political world.
REV. JASON LEE.-Jason Lee was the pioneer
of pioneers. It is not possible for any other name
to take precedence of his, whether we speak of the
time of his coming to this coast, or of the power
he exerted over the beginnings of civilization and
christianity here.
christianity here. In these conditions he was first
and mightiest.
Jason Lee was born in Stanstead, Canada East, in
1803. Though born in Canada, he was of New
England parentage, and had in him no trace of
foreign blood; so that he was a thorough American.
His early life was spent in the labors of the farm
and the adventures of the forest, where he acquired
that hardihood of body, and independence and vigor
of mind, that so well prepared him for his provi-
dential work. When he was twenty-five years of
age, he entered Niltraham Academy, Massachusetts,
then under the care of Doctor Wilber Fisk, where
he spent some years in acquiring an education.
Returning to Canada he offered himself to the Lon-
don Mileyan Missionary Society for work as a mis-
sionary among the Indians of that province.
Pending this offer, a clearly providential call came.
from beyond the Rocky Mountains for missionaries
among the Indians; and Doctor Fisk turned to Jason
Lee as the one man "-to use his own words-to
answer that call. The missionary board of his church
ratified the selection; and on August 19, 1833, Mr.
Lee left his home in Stanstead to prepare for his jour-
ney westward.
April 20, 1834, he arrived at Liberty, Missouri,
near which place the trading company of Mr.
Nathaniel Wyeth was outfitting for a journey to the
Columbia river. Mr. Lee, attended by his nephew
Daniel Lee, Mr. Cyrus Shephard and Mr. R. L.
Edwards, joined himself to the rough cavalcade of
the adventurous trader, and spent the entire summer
of that year in the weary journey to Oregon.
On their route Mr. Wyeth stopped to build a trad-
ing-post on Snake river, which he called Fort Hall.
There, on Sunday, July 27, 1834, Mr. Lee preached
the first sermon ever preached west of the Rocky
Mountains, to a congregation, as he says in his manu-
script journal, "of Indians, half-breeds, Frenchmen,
etc., very few of whom could understand the exer-
cises." He reached old Fort Walla Walla on the Ist
of September, and Vancouver on the seventeenth.
In the few weeks following that date he traveled some-
what extensively over the Willamette valley, and
finally located his mission station on the banks of
the Willamette river, about twelve miles below the
present site of Salem.
Mr. Lee devoted himself with great energy and
singleness of purpose to the work assigned him
among the Indians until the spring of 1838, when it
seemed necessary to him, and his few fellow-laborers,
that he should return to the States and secure a large
reinforcement for the mission. Accordingly he left
the Willamette mission on the 26th of March, bid-
ding adieu to his wife, to whom he had been married
but a few months, and the lonely mission family,
from whom he hardly expected to hear until his
return to them, and took up his dreary eastern pil-
grimage over the same desert route he had traveled
four years before. He crossed the plains safely; but,
en the very first night after he had reached civiliza-
tion, a letter which had been sent by express after
him was put in his hands, conveying the intelligence.
that his wife and her infant son had been put in the
first grave of a white woman or child in Oregon.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
425
Mr. Lee spent the following winter and summer
in organizing his reinforcement for the mission work
in Oregon, and in addressing large audiences in all
the principal cities of the Eastern states in favor of
his work. He sailed at the head of this band of
missionaries (the largest that had ever been associ-
ated in missionary work) from New York in October,
1839, and reached Oregon in June of 1840. He was
superintendent of the mission, and as such visited
Umpqua, every part of the Willamette valley, Clat-
sop, Nisqually and The Dalles, devoting himself most
conscientiously to his vast and important field. In
1843 he again returned to New York in the interest
of his mission, going by sea to Honolulu, and thence
to the coast of Mexico in a small Mexican schooner,
thence overland via the City of Mexico to Vera Cruz,
thence by sea to New Orleans, and by steamer and
stage to New York.
Such had been the trials and exposures of this
stalwart pioneer, that he was unable to bear up
under their burdens longer; and, in a few months
after his return to the States, he repaired to Stanstead,
the place of his birth and the home of his child-
hood and early manhood, and soon after died in his
early maturity. Physically he was a strong man, six
feet two inches in height and well proportioned.
Intellectually he was clear, discriminating and reli-
able; morally he was without a spot.
In the qualities of a pioneer, Mr. Lee was the peer
of any man in his church-so universally and justly
known as The Pioneer Church "-ever sent to any
field. Oregon, which was so eminently blest in its
pioneers, never had one more capable, broad-minded,
strong-handed and true-hearted than Jason Lee.
Few really know all that Oregon, and the country
at large, owe to this first pioneer in organizing the
influences and furnishing the information that finally
resulted in securing Oregon to the United States,
and, in the Provisional government, establishing law
and order over the coast. In 1839 he was often
consulted by the Department of State and leading
senators and representatives in Congress on the
Oregon question," and also, after his second return
to the States, in 1843-44. His opinion, formed after
so many years of careful observation on the ground,
went very far in influencing legislation and deter-
mining cabinet councils on that question. If Oregon
owes a debt of gratitude and recognition to any one
of her noble pioneers above another, that debt is
due to Jason Lee, the real pathmaker for civilization
and christianity to the shores of the Pacific.
HON. JOSEPH D. LEE. It is natural for
the observing student of mankind to speculate upon
the effect which radical changes and new environ-
ments have upon a coming generation; and conse-
quently the inquiry has arisen in thinking minds
as to what type of manhood and womanhood will
spring from the hardy and bold pioneers who
peopled these shores in the forties and early fifties.
Surely with such heroic and sturdy parentage,
growing up under the influence of our grand and
magnificent scenery, and breathing in youth the
pure air from the balsamic pines, we might ex-
pect a fine mental and physical development. We
have the pleasure of presenting to our readers, in
the subject of this sketch, what we might call a
typical Oregonian.
Joseph D. Lee was born in Polk county, Oregon,
in the proverbial log cabin, about one mile north-
west of where the city of Monmouth now stands,
on the 29th day of July, 1848. His father,
Nicholas Lee, was born in Pike county, Ohio,
February 11, 1818, and was distantly related to
the patriotic Lees of the Revolution. His mother,
whose maiden name was Sarah Hopper, was a native
of Virginia, and was exactly one year younger than
her husband. They were married in Ohio in 1840,
and five years later moved to Iowa. In 1847 they
determined to cast their lot in new pastures, and
came to Oregon via the Southern route, wintering
near the present site of Eugene City, and the follow-
ing year (1848) moving to Polk county. During
the year 1849, he settled on the Donation claim two
and a half miles south of Dallas, where were born
to them six other children, one son and five daugh-
ters, all of whom are living. The son, George W.
Lee, resides in Portland. The daughters reside as
follows: Mrs. Albert Odell in Yamhill county, Mrs.
J. E. Smith in Dallas, and Mrs. Guynn in Benton
county, Oregon; Mrs. Dr. J. W. Bean in Ellensburgh,
and Mrs. Orville Butler in Cheney, Washington.
In
In 1862 Mr. Nicholas Lee moved into Dallas to
obtain better educational advantages for his children,
while he engaged in the mercantile business.
1870 he took his son Joseph in partnership, and to
him sold his interest, in 1876 returning to the old
home, where he died July 11, 1879; and two years
later Mrs. Lee followed him to that "
country from
whose bourn no traveler returns." This worthy
couple were highly respected and esteemed, Mr. Lee
being prominent in religious and educational enter-
prises. He was one of the original incorporators of
La Creole Academy, and remained a trustee until the
day of his death.
It will be observed that Mr. Joseph D. Lee was
born under the old Provisional régime, as the
United States did not extend its jurisdiction over
the vast territory of Oregon until in August of the
year 1848. His boyhood days were spent on the
farm; and after entering school he oversaw and
partly tended to the carrying on of the same until
his twenty-first year. He completed a partial course
in the La Creole Academy of Dallas, and after that
sometimes assisted in the store at the same place,
sometimes on the farm, and sometimes teamed
between Dallas and Portland. In 1870 he was
appointed postmaster at Dallas, but resigned the
position after serving three years.
On May 19,
1872, he was joined in marriage to Miss Eliza Alice
Witten, a true and noble lady of many accomplish-
ments, and possessing with them good sense and
sound judgment.
In the year 1874 he made his first visit to San
Francisco, by way of steamer, to purchase goods.
In the fall of 1878, in company with Mr. G. Hubbard,
of Smithfield, he erected a grain warehouse at that
point. At the June election of that same year he
had been elected representative to the legislature on
the Republican ticket, and in 1880 was elected
state senator of Polk county, which office he held
for four years. During the same year he was
426
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
exerting his energies to secure the extension of the
narrow-gauge railroad to Dallas, and was a leading
spirit in accomplishing that end. In 1882 he
erected his commodious and elegant residence in
Dallas, Oregon; and the following year he and Mrs.
Lee, in company with about six hundred Oregon
pioneers, took a trip to the East over the Northern
Pacific Railroad.
After serving the people of his county for six
years in the legislature, he was elected joint senator
of Benton and Polk counties for a term of four
years, at the close of which that office was discon-
tinued, having been abolished by the new appor-
tionment. Thus it will be seen he served for ten
years continuously in the state legislature; and of
the large number of bills introduced by him many
have become fixed laws. Perhaps no other man in
Oregon has represented his native county for a full
decade in the legislature; and his record is without
a stain or blot. He is a man well fitted to fill all
positions of trust, as he is one strong in the courage
of his convictions, true to his constituency in pub-
lic, a friend of the masses, and broad in his views.
He is progressive without being extravagant, hating
demagogy, and by his perfect and immovable
honesty made his influence felt in the legislature.
In 1886 he was succeeded in his mercantile busi-
ness by Fenton & Truitt, and in the fall of 1888
removed his family to The Dalles, Oregon, hoping
to benefit his daughter Lorene's health, as she was
suffering from asthma. He has since employed
himself in various ways, operating to some extent
in real estate. He has ever taken a lively interest
in public affairs, especially in educational matters,
and is at present a trustee of the La Creole Academy
and also of the Willamette University, and is noted
for his fine mental equipoise and analytical mind.
He is also a practical speaker and writer, putting
his thoughts and convictions in a pointed, forcible
way, which, while they command admiration, also
demand thoughtful consideration.
Since moving to The Dalles he has taken a most
decided interest in horticulture, and is now president
of the Pomological Society of that place. Mr. Lee
is well known throughout the state as an honest poli-
tician, whose services could not be bought for any
sum while serving the people and holding public
trust; and wherever his tall, erect figure is seen he
is sure to be greeted by true friends to whom his
genial, kindly disposition has endeared him. Yet,
with all his high attainments, Mr. Lee is practically
an every-day man, who loves the quiet of his home
and the company of his family, of which he pos-
sesses one most interesting, consisting of four chil-
dren, i. e., Lyman Marshal, Aimée Lorene, Joseph
Roscoe and Althea Eleanor, ranging in age from
sixteen to six years.
Mr. Lee is a member of the Masonic order and
also the Odd Fellows, and is a devout and consist-
ent member of the Methodist church. At present
he is engaged in some business enterprises which so
closely occupy his time that he does not give much
attention to politics, except enough to keep posted
on the affairs of the times. Although a compar-
atively young man, he has had a varied experience,
and has led an active life. He has never been a
slave to ambition, but is sensible to the honors he
has received, and wears them with becoming mod-
esty.
esty. When, in the history of Oregon, all politi-
cians and aspirants to public positions shall reach a
par with his record, our beautiful state will be the
city on a hill which cannot be hid.
"Then like queens shall be the daughters,
And the sons to heroes grow,
Limbs be fair and joints be supple,
Highest thought the faces know,
And the white flame of the spirit
In a holy temple glow."
Mrs. Joseph D. Lee is a graduate of the Willamette
University, and prior to her marriage taught suc-
cessfully in the University of Washington, located
at Seattle, and in other schools in Oregon. Besides
guiding the household, she has found time to en-
gage in charitable and reformatory work, and in
every community where she has lived has left her
impress for good. Their domestic life has been most
pleasant; and together they are treading life's rug-
ged pathway, each striving to lighten the burdens
of the other.
W. J. LEEZER.—Mr. Leezer, one of the most
active of all our citizens, was born March 21, 1846,
at Rushville, Illinois, where he received a common-
school education and learned the tinner's trade. In
1870 he crossed the plains, locating at Umatilla
Landing, and working for his brother, J. M. Lee-
zer, who was then doing a tin and hardware busi-
ness at that point. A year later he bought the
establishment and conducted the business for him-
self, until in 1880 he closed out his interests there
and moved to Heppner, Oregon, where he has estab-
lished and carries on successfully a mercantile busi-
ness to the present time.
He was married in 1873 to Miss L. A. Wilson of
Umatilla, and has three children, Emory J., Mabel
A. and Willetta. He was appointed treasurer of
Morrow county in 1885, and served a full term. In
March, 1889, he was elected city treasurer, and fills
the position at present. He is one of the representa-
tive business men of Heppner, of sterling worth,
and respected by all who know him.
REV. DAVID LESLIE.-David Leslie was a
contribution of the spirit and life of the New Eng-
land of half a century ago to the development and
civilization of the Pacific coast. Though so much
of his life was spent in the newer and ruder condi-
tions attendant on a pioneer work in this distant
West, he never forgot the carefulness and precision
induced by his early training, nor widely departed
from the habits and modes of thought character-
istic of his Yankee origin. He was a native of
New Hampshire, where he was born in 1797, and
was reared among the White Mountains, partaking
so much of the spirit of his native hills that he ever
seemed as indurated and solid as their own granite
bases.
In 1822, when he was twenty-five years of age,
he was admitted as a preacher in the New England
conference, in which he continued until 1836, when
he was appointed a missionary to Oregon. He was
the first missionary to bring a wife and family to
this coast; and to him and his wife belong the

THOMAS OWENS.
MRS. SARAH OWENS.
J. W. F. OWENS.
MRS. OWENS ADAIR M. D.
ASTORIA OR.
UN
OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
427
.
distinction of having set up the first christian home
west of the Rocky Mountains. His wife was of a
family eminent in New England life, being of the
Pierce family, and sister of B. K. Pierce, D. D.,
long one of the most eminent preachers and authors
of Massachusetts. She died many years ago.
Mr. Leslie sailed from Boston for the Columbia
river January 7, 1837, and landed in Oregon Sep-
tember 20th of the same year, and entered at once
upon the work to which he had been assigned.
In 1838, when Jason Lee returned to the States
for his large reinforcement to his mission, he left the
superintending of the mission with Mr. Leslie; so
that for nearly two years he had charge of all the
work of his church in Oregon.
In the organization of the Provisional govern-
ment of Oregon, Mr. Leslie took a leading part.
Coming from New England, a state of society where
every man was a law unto himself was intolerable
to him; and so he threw the whole force of his
character and influence in favor of the organization
of the only form of lawful order that seemed possi-
ble in the then condition of the country.
He was also among the foremost in the work of
founding the Oregon Institute, so long the only
educational light and hope of the country, and now
rejoicing in its fuller powers as the Willamette Uni-
versity. He was president of its board of trus-
tees for twenty-five consecutive years, and as such
wielded a controlling influence on its destiny. For
many years also he presided over the Oregon Bible
Society; and his venerable form, with its crown of
silver hair, was both an ornament and an inspira-
tion to its annual gatherings. Thus in establish-
ing order, and founding educational and christian
institutions in Oregon, David Leslie won an honor-
able standing among the most worthy of our pio-
neers. His work being mostly done in the center
of the Willamette valley, in and about Salem, where
he had his residence for nearly thirty years, there
was less of adventure in it than in the work of sev-
eral of his fellow-laborers; but it was done well, and
has left a record that can never be effaced. He died
in Salem, March 1, 1869, full of years and full of
honors.
ELISHA H. LEWIS. This well-known gen-
tlemen was born in New York in 1824. He was
raised on a farm, and received a common-school
education at his home on the slopes of the Catskill
Mountains. In 1845 he went to Chicago and thence
to Wisconsin, where he worked as millwright until
1849. Coming in that year by the Isthmus to Cali-
fornia, he was mining in several camps with the
usual checkered luck of those days, making a return
to the "States" for a visit. In the spring of 1852
he returned by water to California, and in the fall of
the same year came on to Oregon, locating at Port-
land and engaging as carpenter with Porter & Car-
Son. In 1853 he removed to Ranier, continuing in
his work as carpenter and builder. In January,
1855, he was married to Miss Harriet L. Barlow of
Cowlitz county, Washington Territory, who crossed
the plains from Michigan in 1852.
In 1854 they removed to Vancouver, where he
operated as contractor for six years. In 1862 he
sought a new and more permanent location in East-
ern Oregon, and laid the claim where the town of
North Union now stands. In 1863 he moved his
family and effects to the new location; and together
they have seen the town of Union grow from one
log cabin, constructed by themselves, into a beauti-
ful town embowered with beautiful fruit and orna-
mental trees, and boasting of a population of one.
thousand people. Mr. Lewis has identified himself
with the development of the place in many ways,
having not only erected the first log cabin and the
first house built of lumber, but also inaugurated.
many enterprises for the improvement of the place,
and now owns much property in the city and a farm
near by.
Five children have been born in this pleasant
family, of whom two, a son and daughter, are living.
They also have four grandchildren living.
They relate with much pleasue and interest their
many hard and exciting experiences in the early
days; and Mrs. Lewis recalls how, at the age of
eighteen, she stood in the door of her home at Ranier
and saw her husband cross the billowy Columbia
when the waves were running high, and no one else
would dare to take a Bellingham Bay coal hunter
across to the territory; and to the writer the pleasant
old lady observed that this was a foolhardy advent-
ure, and that she fully expected every moment as
she stood and gazed to become a widow.
HAMAN C. LEWIS.-This dauntless pio-
neer of the earliest times in our state was born in
New York City January 31, 1803, and was the son
of a ship carpenter. He early was apprenticed to
learn the trade of a cooper, but while only a boy of
fourteen went to sea, serving six months as cabin
boy, and later was apprenticed to the ship carpenter.
At eighteen he went as sailor--or perhaps more
strictly speaking as "fillibusterer"-to the Gulf
coast, taking service on a Mexican privateer. For
a number of years he followed a most adventurous
life, engaged in many rencontres with the Spaniards,
and at the ports of Mexico, the West Indies and
Yucatan saw all of life in the hot and riotous por-
tions of North America. He took an excursion
into Alabama, and in that state enjoyed six months
schooling,—all that he received,—and became there
very deeply imbued with Southern views and prin-
ciples. At Mobile, in Texas, and in New Orleans,
and again on the Spanish main, he undertook and
carried on many doubtful adventures, which required
resource, address and courage,--all bravely con-
cluded, but without the monetary results that he
hoped for; for, in all these chances and hazards, he
was seeking for a fortune in order that he might go
to his native place and buy a home and begin life
with the girl he loved best.
In 1830, and for some six years thereafter, he fol-
lowed life on the Mississippi steamboats as carpenter.
In 1836 he became an itinerant merchant, and in
1839 was married to Miss Mary Moore, making a
home on a farm in Northern Missouri. This busi-
ness not proving very profitable, and the conditions.
of life in that state being hard, he was ready, there-
fore, in 1845, to join a company bound for Oregon.
The journey across the plains to The Dalles was not
428
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
in his case unusually severe; but at that point his
family of wife and two little children were attacked
with mountain fever; and thenceforward, even
through the damp and dark winter in the Willa-
mette valley, matters went hard enough, culmina-
ting in the death of the youngest child.
He spent the first winter in our state in Washing-
ton county, finding a smoke-house as the only shel-
ter. In 1846 he moved up into Benton county,
placing his cabin south of all the settlers then on the
west side. Here he met with little opposition or
trouble from the Calapooia Indians. They were
occasionally saucy, and at one time had a "law"
that all settlers must give them toll, or rental, in the
shape of beef, for occupying their land. Lewis.
refused to accede to their demand; and upon their
arrival in force at his farm, with threats to shoot
him through the cracks of his cabin, he stood them
off with his shotgun, and satisfied them with the
gift of a little flour for a sick child in their tribe.
For the offense of besieging his house, he with
other settlers went to the Indian camp and flogged
the chief and interpreter. Lewis also once found an
old French Chippewa half-breed carrying the hide
of one of his heifers, but, restraining his first impulse
to shoot the supposed thief, found upon investigation
that this hide had come into the half-breed's posses-
sion by a white man's killing the heifer, taking a
quarter, and giving the rest to the Indians. In such
ways did he learn that many of the thefts or knavish
deeds of the savages might be traced to white men.
Going to the mines of California in 1849, he was
soon turned back by the rumor that the Cayuse
Indians had broken out, and had crossed the Cas-
cade Mountains to massacre the families in the Wil-
lamette valley. In hot haste he made his way with
a number of other married men to his home, exhaust-
ing provisions, cutting up tents and wagon covers.
for clothes, and marching even bare-headed, from
the loss or destruction of hats. He found the valley
serene; but his provisions and means were exhausted;
and he went down to Oregon City, obtaining employ-
ment in making desks for the primitive state house.
Returning home with five hundred dollars, he built
and loaded with a cargo of flour a flatboat, and took
it down the Willamette river, disposing of her to
good advantage at Oregon City. In 1851 he sold
cattle to the amount of four thousand dollars, single
animals bringing as much as one hundred and ten
dollars apiece. In 1853 he took a pack-load of
wheat to the Rogue river valley, selling it for seed
at twelve dollars per bushel. In 1855, in a similar
expedition to Southern Oregon, he fell into the
Indian war, and escaped only with his life.
In the more tranquil years succeeding, he devoted
himself to farming, stock-raising and dealing in
lands and cattle or horses, and was usually success-
ful in his ventures.
Mr. Lewis was a member of the state constitutional
convention, and served in the legislature from 1857
to 1860. He was a Democrat in politics; and in
1861, when the war broke out, he made no secret of
his sympathy with the South. In 1869 he drove a
band of cattle and horses to California, and spent
about a year there, but after his return to Oregon
remained upon his old place, which he had settled
upon in 1846; and it was there that, at a ripe old
age, he died April 17, 1889. He left his aged wife,
whom he had married as a girl of sixteen in 1839,
and who had borne him six sons and seven daugh-
ters, six of whom, three sons and three daughters,
are living. He left an estate worth about forty-five
thousand dollars.
The spirit of adventure manifested throughout
the entire life of this rugged old pioneer was a pre-
vailing characteristic of the man who broke the trail
and led the van of civilization to the sunset sea.
He was a type of the class of men who, by their un-
conquerable perseverance and unwearied exertions,
achieved for us this goodly heritage in the far West.
He was far more than an ordinary man. Born to
poverty and obscurity, unassisted, unheralded, and
relying solely upon his own ability and personal
effort, he bore himself bravely through the strife,
and up the thorny pathway of earlier life. Although
his early education was limited, he had read much;
and his travels and contact with men gave him a
fund of general information possessed by few; and,
when a convention was called to frame a constitu-
for his adopted state, he was elected to assist in lay-
ing the foundations of the prosperity of the state he
had helped to establish. He was a man of pro-
nounced convictions, and outspoken on all subjects,
brave, generous and hospitable, a good neighbor
and a true friend.
SAMUEL I. LISLE.— Mr. Lisle belongs to the
earlier comers to our state. He was born in Ohio
in 1843, and after a few years in Iowa made the
journey with his parents to Oregon. The father,
John G. Lisle, made his home on Sauvie's Island;
and Samuel was there raised on the farm, and
enjoyed opportunities for education and business at
Portland. In 1865 he turned his attention to min-
ing, making various stoppages at Granite and Olive
creeks and on the north fork of the John Day. In
1868 he closed out those interests and located a
claim near the present site of Echo, Oregon, invest-
ing in cattle. As his means increased, he purchased
large tracts of valley land, and has them under high
cultivation. He retains his cattle, following the
policy of letting them out on shares to rangers.
band of thirty full-blooded Holsteins, however,
imported by himself, he keeps at home.
A
Mr. Lisle's Indian experiences include the barri-
cade or fort up" on Sauvie's Island in 1856, while
his father was absent purchasing supplies for the
volunteers. His father is now living with him in
hale age. The first Mrs. Lisle died in 1884, leaving
three children. His present wife, Nancy E., daugh-
ter of Reuben Stansbery, is a native of Iowa, and a
lady of education and marked social qualities.
DAVID LISTER.- David Lister of Tacoma,
Washington, belongs to that class of men who have
done so much for the material prosperity of our
country by being the first to go into new places and
build up new industries.
He was born in England in 1821, and came to
New York in 1847. He worked for steamboat com-
panies in that city until 1854, when he went to
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
429
Philadelphia and connected himself with the Dela-
ware Canal Company, where he remained ten years.
He then went to Pestico, Wisconsin, a town located
among the pineries on Green Bay. In that place he
established a foundry and machine shop, and con-
ducted it successfully until October 8, 1871, when
his establishment was burned in the great fire that
traversed the whole township, destroying every
house, and causing the death of more than eight
hundred people. This fire left Mr. Lister penniless;
but, with the help of William B. Ogden of Chicago,
he started in business again in the same place, and
continued there until 1874.
The winter of that year was so cold that he deter-
mined to seek a milder climate, and came direct to
Tacoma, locating there in 1875. At that time it
was a place of about thirty inhabitants; but Mr.
Lister was confident, from its superb location and
natural advantages, that it was destined to become a
great city, and in 1876 built a foundry and com-
menced business. In 1881 he began to turn large
jobs for the Northern Pacific Railroad Company;
and from that time his business has increased very
rapidly. In 1882, at Wilkinson, seven miles from
Tacoma, he successfully inaugurated coke-making
in Washington Territory, of which article he uses a
great quantity. He thinks this coke superior to
that made in any other country.
Mr. Lister does all the repairing of steamers run-
ning to and from Tacoma; and his business has
assumed such magnitude that he has been com-
pelled to erect large repair and machine shops on
the docks. Although sixty-five years of age, he
retains the entire control of his business, and at-
tends to all its details.
The conception of coke-making, and the success-
ful carrying out of that idea, with coal essentially
different in character and composition from the coal
of Europe and the Eastern states, is enough to enti-
tle Mr. Lister to distinction. Upon the plentiful
and inexpensive supply of this article the industrial
future of the Pacific coast quite largely depends;
and the discovery of the process of making it from
tertiary coal is a great invention; and the inventor
has become thereby a benefactor of the entire slope.
LOT LIVERMORE.- Mr. Livermore is one of
the best-known residents of Eastern Oregon, and,
as a business man, from the earliest times has been
highly instrumental in developing the country.
He was born in Marietta, Ohio, in 1835, but the
year following came with his parents to Illinois, and
in 1851 crossed the plains to Oregon, finding a
home in Polk county. Some of the experiences on
the plains were exciting, such as a fight of an hour
and a half with the Snake Indians on the Snake
river. It was the Harpole company with which
they came.
In 1866 Mr. Livermore came to Umatilla Landing,
and for three years operated in general merchandise
in the firm of Bushee Livermore & Co. In 1869 he
removed to Pendleton, Oregon, engaging in mer-
chandising under his own name until 1878, when he
accepted the office of postmaster, and also became
Wells, Fargo & Co's agent and stage dispatcher.
In 1886 he entered into the general merchandise
business with Mr. Morehouse, but has now made
arrangements to retire from active operations.
The high esteem in which he is held by the peo-
ple of Umatilla county and of Pendleton is indicated
by his political career. He is a Republican; and, as
the community has usually been Democratic, this
fact was much against him. Nevertheless, he was
elected county treasurer by a majority of one hun-
dred and fifty-nine, turning by so much the ordinary
Democratic majority of two hundred and fifty. . He
was elected the first mayor of Pendleton, and was
re-elected, running both times against very popular
men, and in the latter case turning a usual Demo-
cratic majority of fifty to a majority of nineteen for
himself; and his opponent was a man who had, in a
previous election, received as candidate for council-
man every vote in the city except one.
Mr. Livermore was married at Umatilla.in 1869,
and has two children, Bushee and Della. He was
married secondly at Pendleton to Mrs. Ellen Switz-
ler, a pioneer of this country, and who was born at
Vancouver in 1852. They have one child, Lotta.
Since his first arrival in the Inland Empire, its
advance has been so marked as to impress Mr. Liv-
ermore profoundly with its inevitably great future;
and to this consummation he looks with a personal
interest, as to a certain extent embodying his own
hopes and the product of his own labors.
EDWARD LONG. — Edward Long was born
June 3, 1817, in Columbus, Franklin county, Ohio.
His ancestors were Puritans, and emigrated from
Londonderry (now Derry), New Hampshire, in
1721. The emigrants who settled that town were
Presbyterians of the John Knox school, and are
called Scotch-Irish, being descendants of a colony
which migrated from Argyleshire, Scotland, and set-
tled in the province of Ulster in the north of Ireland
about the year 1612.
Soon after the evacuation of Nova Scotia by the
French, about the year 1763, a large number of
families, among whom were the grandparents of
Edward Long, moved from New Hampshire to
Truro, a small town at the head of the Bay of
Fundy in the province of Nova Scotia. His father,
Matthew Long, and mother, Margaret Taylor Long,
emigrated from Nova Scotia in the year 1800 to
Chillicothe, Ohio, where they remained until 1809,
when they removed to Columbus, Franklin county,
Ohio, where Matthew Long followed the trade of
carpentering until 1822, when he died, leaving a
wife and four young sons to mourn his loss. The
second son, Edward, the subject of this sketch, was
but five years old at his father's death; and, his
mother not being able to support all four of her
sons, he was adopted by his uncle David Taylor,
and lived with him until he was twenty years of
age, being occupied most of the time driving stock
to the Eastern market. He then moved to Iowa,
then a frontier Western territory, where he remained
farming and stock-raising until the spring of 1847.
On the 19th day of January, 1846, he was married
to Martha J. Wills, and on the 4th day of April,
1847, started for Oregon. The company, consisting
of about one hundred persons, was made up at Oska-
loosa, Iowa, and was called the Oskaloosa company.
430
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
After being on the road a couple of months, they
overtook another company bound for Oregon, who
had lost twenty yoke of their cattle, and conse-
quently could not proceed without help. Feeling
that they could not leave them at the mercy of the
Indians, and with a limited supply of provisions,
the Oskaloosa company divided their teams with
them, thus adding to the already many hindrances
of a quick trip. They were delayed several days
on the Platte river by their teams stampeding, break-
ing up several wagons and killing one child. The
only trouble had with the Indians by the Oskaloosa
company were their persistent efforts to steal horses;
but, being well organized and guarded, their loss
thereby was very small. They arrived at The
Dalles the following October, where the company
disbanded, some wintering there, others crossing the
Cascade Mountains by way of the Indian trail; and
a few, among whom were Edward Long and family,
made a raft of logs which carried them down the
Columbia to the Cascades, and from there made
their way in a large rowboat (bateau) belonging to
the Hudson's Bay Company and run by Indians to
Fort Vancouver, arriving there late in October, 1847.
Procuring a small house near the present site of
East Portland, he moved into it and spent his first
winter in Oregon cutting hoop poles for the Hud-
son's Bay Company.
In the spring of 1848 he formed a partnership with
George and Jacob Wills, and built a small sawmill
on the present site of the furniture factory at Wills-
burg. They experienced no difficulty in disposing
of all the lumber they could make for one hundred
dollars per thousand at the mill, most of which was
sent by schooner to the San Francisco market.
In 1849 he bought of Seth Catlin the claim-right
to what is now known as the Edward Long Dona-
tion land claim, lying south of and adjoining the city
of East Portland. In the spring of 1850 he sold his
one-third interest in the mill to his partners, and
then moved to his claim, where he lived until
1883, when he removed to his late home on the
northeast corner of Sixth and F streets, East Port-
land, Oregon.
His home of thirty-three years, on the farm, was
located on the east side of the Oregon City road and
near the present city limits of East Portland. That
being the principal thoroughfare connecting Port-
land and the Willamette valley, many a weary trav-
eler found food and shelter under his hospitable
roof; and never was application made in vain, how-
ever poor the applicant. Most of his time while on
the farm was occupied in raising fruit, he being for
many years one of the most extensive growers in
the state.
On the 21st day of November, 1855, his wife,
Martha J. Long, departed this life, leaving the hus-
band and four young daughters, Sarah J., Mary E.,
Margaret E. and Adelma M., without the care of
a kind and affectionate wife and mother. The fol-
lowing year he was united in marriage to Avis M.
Creswell; and to them were born two sons, Henry
and Edward E., and one daughter, Avis E. On the
24th of April, 1863, the family was again bereaved
of a loving wife and mother. After a time he was
joined in wedlock to Nancy L. Chase.
For over fifty years he had been more or less
afflicted with rheumatism, and several times during
that period was confined to his bed for months with
that painful disease, which in a great measure broke
down his strong constitution. Early in December,
1888, he began failing rapidly; and it soon became
evident that the end was near. The best medical
aid furnished but little relief. His trouble proved
to be valvular disease of the heart; and, after linger-
ing until the 20th of February, 1889, he passed
peacefully across the dark river to join those who
had gone before.
A devoted wife, who had been his constant com-
panion for twenty-five years, four daughters and one
son survive him. They are Mrs. S. J. Rinehart,
of Shedds, Linn county, Oregon; Mrs. M. E. Croft
and Mrs. A. M. Elkins, of Portland; Mrs. M. E. Fra-
zier and E. E. Long, of East Portland.
Edward Long was a man endowed by nature
with a strong and vigorous intellect, combined
with energy and a love of justice and right, and
was as close a practitioner of the Golden Rule as
can be found in this day and age of the world.
Having spent his whole life on the frontier, his
education was necessarily limited; but he was,
nevertheless, well read and posted on all the cur-
rent issues of the day. He always took great inter-
est in public schools, and was director twelve suc-
cessive years in District No. 2, Multnomah county.
He delighted in working for temperance, and was a
thorough prohibitionist.
He lived an exemplary
christian life, for many years having been a mem-
ber of the First Baptist church of East Portland.
Highly respected and honored by all who knew
him, dearly loved by his family, and leaving a
name long to be remembered, he passed peacefully
from a life of success and usefulness to his reward
of "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."
JACOB LONG.- This venerable pioneer, the
first to settle in the north end of Indian valley, and
whose seventy-four years have but little bent his
frame, was born in 1815 in Pennsylvania. At the
age of nine he became a pioneer of the West, moving
with his parents to Ohio. At the age of seventeen
he took his flint-lock rifle and made a tour of the
woods and prairies of the old West, visiting the
French and Indian trading-post of Chicago, and
spending a winter on the Elkhart river in Indiana
with Schomack, the chief of the Pottawottamies.
Returning home he learned the trade of a black-
smith, and in 1840 went West, spending five years.
hunting and trapping in Indiana. Marrying, and
entering a tract of land, he cleared and improved
a farm, until in 1854 he made a removal to Iowa.
In that state he made two farms, also working at
his trade.
Ten years later he took the final jump, coming
to Oregon in 1864.
to Oregon in 1864. He lived successively in Mult-
nomah and Polk counties, but in 1871 sought once
more a home in the wilds, where the indigenous
animals were still living in abundance.
This was
Indian valley; and he was the first settler in its
northern portion. He has indefatigably hunted the
elk, deer, bear, cougar and wolf; and his catch of
wolverines, lynxes, wild cats, catamounts, beavers,

DAVID FORD,
ELLENSBURG,W.T.
OF
UNI
L
431
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
otters, fishers, martins, minks and coyotes has fur-
nished pelts, the sales of which have kept his family
in comfort. He has many stories to tell of sharp
encounters with such fierce animals as the cougars,
and is one of those very interesting characters of
our borders. The valley around him has settled
and is thriving since his first advent; and his own
family of nine children are among the prosperous.
L. A. LOOMIS.- This is the man who, per-
haps more than any other, has opened up Pacific
county to the business and pleasure of the interior.
The southwest corner of Washington is by no means
the least of her Western counties. It does not bor-
der upon the Sound; but three deep bays-Baker's,
Shoalwater and Gray's Harbor-all give it inlets.
from the sea; and the peninsula extending twenty-
one miles from Cape Hancock to the entrance of
Shoalwater Bay, whose sea border is known as
North Beach, will always be a popular seaside
resort. The proximity of Shoalwater Bay on the
eastern side, whose warm, quiet waters invite boat-
ing and bathing, and whose flats are deep with oys-
ters and the delicious exotic clam, will always be
attractive to those making a summer trip to the
coast.
Mr. Loomis was among the first, if not the very
first, to conceive of the best way to make this
delightful region accessible to the people of Port-
land and of the interior. His efforts in this line
have moved with great precision; and the success of
each movement has opened the way to the next.
In 1873 he put a stage line on the route from Ilwaco
to Oysterville. In 1874 he organized the Ilwaco
Steam Navigation Company, which, in 1875, built
the staunch little steamer General Canby to connect
with Ilwaco and Astoria. This company has since
put upon this route the swift and commodious
steamers General Miles and Dolphin. In 1881 Mr.
Loomis organized the Shoalwater Bay Transportation
Company, which built the Montesano, the first
steamer of importance put on Gray's Harbor. They
have built since this the Garfield and the Governor
Newell.
This company, however, dissolved in 1886, and
sold off their steamers. From Astoria to the head
of Gray's Harbor was now a steam route with the
exception of the stage from Ilwaco to Oysterville.
From five to ten thousand visitors were coming to
the beach every summer; and the whole circuit had
quite a respectable permanent traffic. The next
step was to supply this "missing link" with steam.
The Ilwaco Steam Navigation Company therefore
enlarged its powers, becoming the Ilwaco Railway
& Navigation Company. A stretch of sixteen
miles of rails north of Ilwaco was projected; and in
1888 five miles were completed.
The rest is now
also in running order. Mr. Loomis has been the
leading spirit in this enterprise.
As might be expected, he is an old Oregonian.
He first came to this coast in 1852, and mined on
Bear river. Three years later he came to the place
which has been successively called Pacific City,
Unity and now Ilwaco, meeting a brother who had
been living there five years. News of the rich
mines on Lake Pend d'Oreille penetrated to that
city and carried off nearly all the leading citizens,
.e., the two Loomises and a man named Caruthers.
This move led them into a world of adventures.
Putting themselves and their goods into that style
of boat known in that part as a dinghy, they took
the pathway of the waters up the Columbia, camping
by night on the shore. Ten days of hard rowing
brought them to The Dalles; and there buying
ponies they pushed on across the great plains as
far as Spokane Falls. Here word came to them
simultaneously that the mines were a failure, and
that the Indians were beginning a promiscuous
killing of settlers and travelers.
This turned them about; and their trip back to
the Des Chutes was amid sullen savages, whose only
reason for not massacring them seemed to be the
fact that they were unarmed, and had plenty of
Indian trinkets which they offered for sale. The
soldiers guarding the fords of the river informed
them upon their arrival that they had been lucky
to get through safe. At The Dalles they joined
the mounted volunteers, just then organizing, and
served through the war, participating in the battle
at Walla Walla, which lasted four days, and being
present at the capture and death of Peu-peu-mox-mox
or Yellow Bird of the Walla Wallas.
After the war closed, Mr. Loomis was employed
by the quartermaster in work on Fort Dalles and
Fort Simcoe. In 1857 the death of his father in
New York laid upon him the filial obligation of
returning East and caring for his mother. In 1864
he went South, and had charge of a construction car in
building and repairing railroads for army move-
ments. After the war he went to Michigan from
his New York home. He remained in that state
until 1872, engaged in business; but the spell of life
on the Pacific coast had never withdrawn its influ-
ence; and in that year he returned to his home at
Ilwaco, on Shoalwater Bay, Washington Territory,
improving his farm and building a handsome resi-
dence, deemed the finest place in the county,—and
entered upon the enterprises which have made him
influential and wealthy. He is a wide-awake man
of sterling qualities, and who does not long live in
a place without his presence being known.
The wife of Mr. Loomis is a daughter of Philip
Glover of Marion county, Oregon. She is a lady
well calculated to be the companion of her husband
in his arduous undertakings, and to make happy his
domestic life.
HON. WM. P. LORD.-Judge William P. Lord
of the supreme court was born in the city of Dover
in 1838. He was carefully trained for his education
in the private schools of his native place until his
twentieth year, when he matriculated in Fairfield
College, New York. In less than three years he
graduated from that college with the highest honors,
being the valedictorian of his class. He at once
began the study of the law in his native city; but,
before he had time to complete the course of study nec-
essary to his admission to the bar, the Civil war was
upon us. The young student found that his devotion
to the Union was stronger that his desire to early
acquire that knowledge necessary to fit him for the
discharge of those duties which his chosen profession
29
432
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
would devolve upon him; and, acting on the impulse
of his patriotism, he volunteered "to fight his coun-
try's battles."
Soon after his enlistment in a battalion of Dela-
ware cavalry, which was in the spring of 1862, he
was elected captain of the company to which he was
assigned, which rank he held until the great cam-
paigns of the Army of the Potomac, whither he was
sent for duty, with the rank of major. He served
with gallantry and distinction to the close of the
war, actively participating in many of its most
important battles.
Endowed by nature with a strong, vigorous, phys-
ical constitution, he came out of the service without
any visible evidence of injury, save such as the
tragic events of war are liable to leave impressed
on the body of the soldier. During the period of
his first enlistment he reported for duty at Baltimore
as judge-advocate under command of General Lew
Wallace, of literary fame. The ability and impar-
tiality with which he discharged the duties of this
high office made him the recipient of frequent
expressions of favor at the hands of his superior
officers.
At the close of the war he eagerly resumed the
study of law at Albany Law College. In due time
he graduated from that institution with the intention
of beginning the practice of his profession; but,
being offered by his old army comrades a permanent
lieutenancy in the regular army, he accepted, and
was assigned to the Pacific slope. He first reported
for duty at Alcatraz, and subsequently at Steilacoom.
It was from this latter point that he was sent to
Alaska, being in the command that took formal
possession of that immense territory for and in the
name of the United States government, the purchase
thereof from Russia having been consummated but
a short time previous.
When he had performed this duty, he carried into
effect his early intention of resigning from the army
and taking up the practice of law. In looking for
a location, he met at Salem his old classmate and
companion-in-arms, Colonel N. B. Knight. The
latter gentleman being also a lawyer, the two formed
a partnership for practice in the Capital city. The
partnership lasted until Judge Lord's accession to
the bench, and was highly successful. It was in
this field that Major Lord, as he is still familiarly
called by his many friends in and around the place
he is pleased to call home, won the respect and
esteem of the men who discovered and asserted his
qualifications and fitness for places of the highest
honor and responsibility. His career as a practitioner
was the supreme period of his life. His gentlemanly
deportment on all occasions; the natural grace and
dignity with which he appeared before court and
jury; the deference with which he treated his adver-
saries; the patience and able consideration he gave
to the cause and interests of his clients,-brought
him reputation, and opened to him new fields of
honor and usefulness.
In 1878 he was elected to the state senate from
Marion county, as a Republican, to which political
organization he has always adhered with faithful-
ness and consistency. He served one session as
senator, and resigned on receiving the nomination
of the Republican state convention for judge of the
supreme court, to which office he was elected by the
people in 1880. This was the first election of
judges under what is known as "the act providing
for the election of judges of the supreme court in
distinct classes." Under the act the judges then
elected cast lots for the long, intermediate and the
short terms, which were for six, four and two years
respectively. The short term fell to the subject of
our sketch; and he thereby became chief justice.
The same year he went to Baltimore and married
Miss Juliette Montague, and returned with her to
their home in Salem. They have three bright and
promising children.
promising children. In 1882 he was nominated by
his party as his own successor without opposition,
and received a clear majority of the votes cast, and
took his seat as the junior member of the court for
the term of six years. At the expiration of Judge
Waldo's term, he again became chief justice, and
presided as such until his third election, which took
place in June, 1888.
place in June, 1888. At this, his last candidacy,
he received the greatest number of votes ever cast
for a candidate at a single election in Oregon.
Personally, Judge Lord sustains a deserved repu-
tation for probity and candor. He is affable and
polite to his friends and acquaintances, but never
yields the character which nature and his early
training gave him, for the sake of popular favor, or
to gratify the wish or serve the personal interest of
his dearest friend.
A man of such decided characteristics must have
indeed incurred animosities and hostilities of a per-
sonal nature; but, while his personal critics are few,
they do not asperse him with motives derogatory to
his usefulnes in the public or private walks of life.
As a judge, his writings are his best recommenda-
tion, and will serve to portray the character, and
the legal and literary acumen of the man who, by
his untiring efforts, has placed himself high in the
estimation of his fellows, and associated his name
with the permanent history of our young and grow-
ing commonwealth. As a law writer, Judge Lord
is seldom equaled. He is terse and pointed in his
diction, always stating the substance of the facts
before him, to serve as a thesis for his argument.
The reader thus comprehends at a glance the appre-
ciation of each and every sentence used by him
bearing on the subject under discussion. The
grammatical construction of his sentences, and the
orthographical arrangement of his words, prove his
scholarly attainments.
The value of his opinions to the profession of
which he is a pillar and an ornament is shown from
the fact that his accession to the bench of this state
marked a new era in its jurisprudence, and also in
the repute in which the decisions of our courts are
held in the older states of the union. His logical
analysis of the subjects, and clear application of the
principles of the law to the cases he has decided,
make his opinions very frequently selected from
among those of the leading judges of the country,
by competent critics who have made those selections
for publication, as the select and leading cases in
our American jurisprudence.
The incumbency of his present term will expire
July, 1894.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
433
#
4
A. LAWRENCE LOVEJOY. The subject of
this memoir was born in Groton, Massachusetts,
March 14, 1808, and was the third son of Doctor
Samuel and Betsey Lawrence Lovejoy, descendants of
good English families. His mother, Betsey Lawrence
Lovejoy, was a cousin and adopted sister of Amos
and Abbot Lawrence of Boston. When quite young
he moved with his parents to Townson, Massachu-
setts, where he was a pupil of the Reverend David
Palmer until the age of sixteen, when the death of
his mother made it necessary for him to reside with
an elder brother in Boston, where he engaged in
the mercantile business for a short time. Subse-
quently he gave up the business and entered as a
student at Cambridge College; but, finishing his
course at Amherst, he read law with Judge Seth
May, of Maine, and was admitted to the bar in that
state.
Being imbued with the spirit of migration he
started west, came to Missouri and opened a law
office in the town of Sparta. In the spring of
1842 he joined Doctor Elijah White and a party
of one hundred and twenty-five emigrants to cross
the then unexplored region of the vast plains and
Rocky Mountains to Oregon. This journey was
attended with much hardship and danger. While
engaged in carving his name on the face of Inde-
pendence Rock, he and L. W. Hastings were cap-
tured by a large body of Sioux Indians, but were
ransomed by Doctor White and party for a few trink-
ets and tobacco.
While traveling across the plains with Doctor
Elijah White, who had spent three years in Oregon
connected with the Methodist mission, and listening
to his glowing description of the wonderful country
beyond the Rocky Mountains, with its large rivers and
magnificent forests and beautiful and fertile valleys,
Mr. Lovejoy had become very much interested in
the future settlement of the country on the Pacific
coast; and he was anxious to see it settled and held
by Americans. When he arrived at Waiilatpu he
met Doctor Whitman, who was anxious to go East,
as he had received notice that the Board of Missions
at Boston had decided to discontinue the mission at
Waiilatpu. The Doctor was very unhappy at the
prospect of losing his mission, and often talked with
Mr. Lovejoy in regard to the feasibility of a trip
across the mountains in the winter. Mr. Lovejoy
thought with a good guide it could be accomplished;
and in a few days he and the Doctor had arranged
to undertake the journey, with the understanding
that Dr. Whitman, who had letters of credit, would
buy fresh animals if needed, and that they would
travel together until they reached the frontier set-
tlements. Accordingly, on the third of October,
1842, they started from Waiilatpu, and had traveled
but a few miles when they were met by a large band
of Cayuse Indians, who were very hostile and refused
to let Doctor Whitman leave the country before he
had fulfilled the agreement and promise he had
given them to build a gristmill to grind their wheat
and corn. After considerable delay and a great deal
of parley, and after the Doctor had promised to
build the gristmill when he returned, the Indians
consented to let him proceed on his journey. They
started again, and entered boldly upon a trip which
they knew would be attended with many hardships
and much suffering.
Doctor Whitman was anxious, with earnest chris-
tian desire, to reach Boston and try and save his
mission. Mr. Lovejoy, with patriotic zeal and love
of country, desired to visit the Western states and
induce a large emigration of Americans to Oregon
the following spring, to settle and hold the country
west of the Rocky Mountains and defeat the British
scheme to colonize it with emigration from Red
river.
When they arrived at Fort Hall they changed
from a direct route to a more southern one, via Salt
Lake, Taos and Santa Fé. After many narrow
escapes from hostile Indians, sleepless nights and
dinnerless days, living on mule and dog meat or any
animal that came in their way, they arrived at
Bent's fort, on the headwaters of the Arkansas
river, with their animals, all of which were worn
out, with the exception of one mule. Doctor Whit-
man declined to use his letter of credit to buy any
fresh animals, but took the mule that was able to
travel and continued his journey via St. Louis with
a party of mountain men.
Mr. Lovejoy's horse being worn out and com-
pletely exhausted, he, with great reluctance, was
compelled to give up his scheme to visit the Western
states, and remained at Bent's fort until spring. He
then went with a party of trappers to Fort Laramie,
where he learned that a large party of emigrants
were on their way to Oregon. He wished to join
and return with them; and, to procure means to ena-
ble him to do so, he accepted a proposition from
Father De Smet, and engaged to carry a dispatch of
letters and money for the Catholic missionaries situ-
ated among the Flat Head, Cœur d'Alene and Pend
d'Oreille Indians. He was provided with a good
horse, some provisions and a trusty old Indian
named Enos for a guide. He had instructions from
Father De Smet to go to a certain camp in the Yel-
lowstone country known to old Enos his guide. If
none of the Mission people were there to meet him,
he was to remain at the camp three days; and then,
if none of the Mission people came, he was to de-
posit the dispatch under a certain large stone.
Arriving there, he waited three days, and, no one
coming, made the deposit under the stone as di-
rected and replaced the sod, leaving signs so that
the Mission people would know that he had been
there.
there. This trip was a hazardous undertaking, as
he had to pass through a hostile Indian country.
To elude the Indians he traveled by night and kept
quiet during the daytime in some recess or niche in
the forest or hills, where he and his guide rested, one
watching while the other slept.
He had accomplished his mission and started to
return to Fort Laramie when he was intercepted
and taken prisoner by a war party of Snake and
Blackfeet Indians that was traveling south. They
kept him nine days, during which time they had lit-
tle to eat; but on the ninth day the Indians killed a
young buffalo, and that night had a great feast and
war dance. The next morning, when Mr. Lovejoy
awoke, he and old Enos were alone, his captors hav-
ing all left in the night. He was free; but his guide
said that they had traveled so far south that he
434
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
could not return to Fort Laramie, but thought he
could guide him to the Green river. They traveled
as rapidly as possible, and succeeded in reaching
Fort Boise in time to join the emigration for Ore-
gon. He arrived in Oregon City in November,
1843, opened a law office and commenced the prac-
tice of law, and from the first had a lucrative busi-
ness.
In 1844 he was elected a member of the legisla-
ture, and was re-elected in 1846, serving as speaker
of the house. In 1844 he became attorney-general
for Oregon. In 1845 he was elected mayor of Ore-
gon City. In the summer of 1845, with F. W. Pet-
tygrove, he laid out the city of Portland. In 1845
he was nominated by the People's party for gov-
ernor of the territory. In 1848 he was appointed
chief justice of the courts.
When the news of the massacre at Waiilatpu was
received in the Willamette valley, the settlers rose
en masse to chastise the Indians; but they had
neither arms nor ammunition. The legislature ap-
pointed Jesse Applegate, A. L. Lovejoy and G. L.
Curry as a committee to negotiate a loan for the
purpose of securing munitions of war, etc. They
went to Vancouver and sought to procure the funds
from the Hudson's Bay Company. On applying to
Sir James Douglas, the chief factor of that com-
pany, they were refused, as the security offered was
deemed insufficient. Mr. Douglas, however, loaned
Messrs. Lovejoy, Applegate and Governor Aber-
nethy a thousand dollars on their joint note; and
soon a company of men was equipped and on the
way to the scene of the massacre. Mr. Lovejoy
was appointed adjutant-general, and did good ser-
vice in the war.
In August, 1848, at Oregon City, he, with Colonel
Jennings, Peter G. Stewart, Captain Orrin Kellogg
and a few others, met and organized the first Ma-
sonic lodge ever established on the Pacific coast.
In the summer of 1848, Oregon, as was the rest of
the world, was startled with the news that Califor-
nia was one solid gold mine. With a large party
of Oregonians, Lovejoy started for the great El Do-
rado, and was absent from his home about four
months. In 1849, when the United States extended
her laws over Öregon and organized a territorial
government, he was elected to the legislature, and
served from time to time in the house of represent-
atives. In 1852 he was a member and president of
the council. In 1858 he was a member of the con-
stitutional convention. In 1859 he was appointed
special mail agent for Oregon; and in 1860 he was
appointed receiver of the land-office and depository
of public money at Oregon City.
In 1862-63 A. L. Lovejoy, D. P. Thompson and
William and John Dement organized a company
and built a line of steamboats to run on the Willa-
mette river, and a rail tramway around the falls at
Oregon City.
In 1867 he built a house and made his home in
Portland, where he took an active interest in the
public schools, serving as director for years, and
using his influence to establish the High School.
In 1871 he was among the first to enter into the
project of building a railroad from Oregon to Cali-
fornia.
He spent his summers at his farm near Oregon
City, where he took great pleasure in setting out
and cultivating an orchard of choice fruit-trees. He
was a life-long Democrat, but from the firing on
Fort Sumter was a firm friend of the Union. He
was a supporter of religious institutions, and favor-
able to all efforts to promote morality. He was a
firm believer in Oregon, and an enthusiastic ad-
mirer of her beautiful landscape and mountain
grandeur. Few if any of the pioneers have done
more to entitle them to celebrity than General A. L.
Lovejoy. His name and acts deserve to be indelibly
stamped upon the pages of Oregon history.
He was married on the 4th of March, 1845, to
Miss Elizabeth McGary, a young lady possessed of
many personal attractions, refined manners and ac-
complishments. She was the daughter of James
and Martha McGary of Madisonville, Kentucky,
and came to Oregon with her mother and brother
with the emigration of 1843. Her ancestry was
Scotch and English. In subsequent years she was
much admired for her energy and kind hospitality.
For the interest and prosperity of Oregon, she was
a co-worker with her husband.
General A. L. Lovejoy was a true type of a New
England gentleman. With a kind and generous
heart and liberal hand, he dispensed charity and
hospitality, furnished his home and family with all
the comforts and luxury that could be obtained in
Oregon, and gave freely of his means to establish
and maintain religion, the ministers and bishops of
the various denominations being received and kindly
entertained at his home.
He died in Portland on the 11th of September,
1882, leaving his wife, two sons, two daughters and
one grandson. He was buried in the Masonic cem-
etery at East Portland.
DANIEL H. LOWNSDALE. — Mr. Lowns-
dale, the son of one of the earliest settlers of Ken-
tucky, was born in Mason county, of that state,
April 8, 1803. As was the custom in those days,
he was married quite young-at the age of twenty
three-to Miss Ruth, the youngest daughter of Paul
Overfield, the head of one of the most prominent
families of Northeastern Kentucky. In obedience
to the venturesome spirit inherited from his father,
who had abandoned the comforts of civilization in
his youth to become one of the conquerors of Ken-
tucky, young Lownsdale, with his young wife, im-
mediately removed to Gibson county, Indiana, which
was then almost on the frontier. There he had the
misfortune to lose his wife, who died in 1830, leav-
ing him three children, one boy and two girls. Soon
after this, making suitable provision for his children,
he went south, remaining for a time in Georgia, en-
gaged in mercantile pursuits.
His health failing, he accepted the advice of physi
cians, and embarked in 1842 on a voyage to Europe,
remaining abroad, visiting various countries, until
1844. Returning to the United States in that year,
he found the country excited over the Oregon ques-
tion; and, without parleying, he joined one of those
devoted bands that crossed three thousand miles of
hostile Indian country to settle our title by actual
occupation. He arrived on the present site of Port-

W. J. HAMILTON.
W.J. HAMILTON'S DRUG STORE.
COLFAX, W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
435
land late in 1845, and appears to have realized the
importance of the position, since he took a claim
(now the Amos N. King claim) adjoining that of
Lovejoy and Pettygrove, and soon thereafter formed
the desire to acquire the river front.
The opportunity offered in 1848, when Mr. Lowns-
dale purchased the site of Portland from F. W.
Pettygrove, for what must then have been considered
an extravagant price,-five thousand dollars. This
enterprise, now having energy and foresight to steer
it, began that advance which will never cease until
some revolutionary invention shall change or
methods of transportation, or man shall lose his
gregarious disposition. With foresight that has
been proved by events, he staked his fortune on the
issue that Portland was destined to become, what
she now is, the metropolis of a great commonwealth.
Resting in this faith, he looked constantly towards
the main point; and to his energy Portland largely
owes the victory she gained over numerous rivals,
that seemed to have heavier backing and better
chances.
In the spring of 1849, Mr. Lownsdale, feeling the
need of assistance in his enterprise, disposed of a
half interest in the Portland claim to Mr. Stephen
Coffin, then a resident of Oregon City; and, in De-
cember of that year, the two disposed of an interest
to Colonel W. W. Chapman. Being a man of great
energy and nerve, he was not dismayed by obstacles,
but kept his ends steadily in view, and surmounted
them. As a reward for his faith, he lived to see
Portland's supremacy acknowledged by all, and to
see Oregon on the road to that degree of prosperity
that he had predicted for her.
In 1850 he was married to Mrs. Nancy Gillihan,
widow of William Gillihan. By this second mar-
riage he had two children, one boy, M. O. Lowns-
dale, and one girl, now Mrs. Ruth A. Hoyt, a
resident of Columbia county. Of the children of
his first wife only one, J. P. O. Lownsdale, of Port-
land, now survives.
Mr. Lownsdale occupied several public positions,
having been United States postal agent during the
administration of Fillmore, and having represented
his county in the legislature. He was always known
as a public-spirited citizen, ever ready to forward any
enterprise that promised good to the city or state,
and always ready to lend a helping hand to those in
distress, as many early immigrants who arrived in
destitute circumstances can testify. In the Indian
wars of 1847 and of 1855-56 he bore his part, serv-
ing in the latter with the regiment of Colonel Cor-
nelius in the capacity of regimental quartermaster,
and performing his very difficult duties to the satis-
faction of his superior.
He died May 4, 1862, and was buried in Lone Fir
Cemetery, near Portland, a neat monument marking
his last resting-place.
J. P. O. LOWNSDALE. There are few busi-
ness men more favorably known in the metropolis
of the Pacific Northwest than the gentleman of
whom we write. His operations in real estate have
ever been of the most reliable character; and the
services that he has rendered the city in calling
attention to her advantages have been very great.
In his personal character he has maintained not only
an integrity worthy of the highest commendation,
but worthy of the imitation of young men.
He was born at Princeton, Gibson county, Indi-
ana, January 1, 1830, and is the son of D. H.
Lownsdale, the early owner of the central part of
Portland, Oregon. At the age of sixteen he opera-
ted with his uncle in a dry-goods store in his native
place, and at the age of twenty-one (1851) came at
the request of his father via the Isthmus to Port-
land. He was here engaged in merchandising until,
in 1853, he embraced the opportunity to return East
via the plains route, on horseback, with Captain
Hiram Smith. It required four months to make
the journey. On his return, he entered into
partnership with his uncle in Indiana, the business
proving very successful to all parties concerned. He
was married in 1854 to Miss Sarah R. Milburn, and
during his residence at his old home was honored
with various public trusts and offices in the town and
county.
In the spring of 1862, however, learning of the
failure of his father's health, and desiring to see him
again, he undertook once more the journey to our
state by the Isthmus route; but, reaching San Fran-
cisco, the news was received that the father had died
at about the time the journey was begun. The
duties of administrator now devolved upon Mr.
Lownsdale, and made necessary a protracted stay at
Portland. But in due course of administration,
notwithstanding many complications, settlements
were made to the full satisfaction of all interested.
In the meantime Mr. Lownsdale had become a citi-
zen of Portland, and in 1863 was elected to fill a
vacancy in the city council. He was afterwards
elected to a three-year term, and at the close of this
was but narrowly defeated by Thos. J. Holmes for
mayor. The city was then Democratic, while Mr.
Lownsdale ran on the Republican ticket. This elec-
tion will be memorable for the sudden and startling
death of Mr. Holmes the day succeeding the election,
—a demise due to the excitements of the campaign.
Mr. Lownsdale was appointed upon the board of
county commissioners to fill the position left vacant
by the election to the United States Senate of the
incumbent, Hon. H. W. Corbett; and he held the
office a second term by election, declining further
preferment.
He continues his real-estate business with una-
bated interest and success. His family consists of
his wife and four grown children. The eldest, a
daughter, is the wife of Mr. E. M. Hall, who is
operating extensively upon claims in the Cœur
d'Alene mines. The two elder sons are in successful
business of their own.
In Mr. Lownsdale we find exemplified that sturdy
devotion to business and progress which have not
only realized all that the state is at present, but
which contains the promise of a flourishing future.
JAY P. LUCAS.-This enterprising gentleman,
whose early grip on public affairs augurs well for
still greater things in the future, is a "native son,"
having been born in June, 1856, at Monmouth,
Oregon, the son of the well-known and able A. W.
Lucas. He grew up on a farm, developing his fine
436
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
physique, and received his education at the Chris-
tian College in his native town, graduating in 1880.
He remained with his parents, having a partial busi-
ness interest with his father, until in 1882 he under-
took operations for himself, securing and conducting
a farm on his own account. He was also, in the
same year, married to Miss Katie Frazier. The next
year he closed out his interests in Western Oregon
and moved to Lone Rock, then in Wasco county,
now included in Gilliam. He established there a
merchandise business, which he operated for two
years.
In 1885 he received the appointment as clerk of
the new county of Gilliam, serving in that capacity
until 1886, when he was elected to the same position,
and in 1888 was re-elected, receiving thereby a most.
hearty and satisfactory indorsement of the manner
in which he had served the people. This office he
now fills; and he has become closely identified with
the interests of this section, of which he is one of
the most respected citizens. He was chairman of
the Republican county central committee in 1886-87,
and became a member of the state central committee
in 1889. In June, 1889, he was elected captain of
Company B, Third Regiment, O. N. G., which posi-
tion he now fills.
PROF. HORACE LYMAN.-Few among those
who came as missionaries to our state have held a
more honored position, or have accomplished more
genuine good, than Professor Lyman.
He was a New Englander of an old family, whose
first American members crossed the ocean from
England to Connecticut as early as 1639. His
parents were plain farmer folks living at East
Hampton, Massachusetts; and in that town he was
born in 1815. Of his five brothers, two went to
college and prepared for the ministry. As a boy
and young man, he was ever thoughtful and extra-
ordinarily energetic, with a taste for mercantile life;
but upon attaining his majority he turned his atten-
tion to collegiate study, and upon graduation took
up a course in theology. After finishing, he began
preaching in Connecticut; but being sought by
Rev. G. H. Atkinson, then under appointment as
home missionary to Oregon, he consented to become
his associate, and in 1849 made the voyage around
Cape Horn. He had further prepared himself for
this work by a course of medical study at Castleton,
Vermont. He was married at that place to Miss
Mary Denison, whose father, William Denison, was
a man of large influence.
The time of leaving New York was November,
1848; and it was not until the following April that
they made port at San Francisco. The old bark
Whitton, Captain Ghelston, was the trim vessel in
which they came. Notwithstanding the immense
excitement in California over the discovery of gold,
and the report that Oregon would be depopulated
by the rush of its inhabitants to the mines, Mr.
Lyman came on to the Columbia the next autumn
in the bark Toulon under Captain Hoyt, and after a
tedious trip of six weeks reached Portland. This
place was then still in its early infancy; and the
first winter, very wet and dreary in the woods, was
spent in a rude shanty built for a stable. Never-
theless, educational and religious work was at
once undertaken, and the Congregational church
formed, -the first in the place. The next year saw
enlargement; and the fourth year was celebrated by
the completion of a church building. Much of the
manual labor bestowed upon this structure was per-
formed by Mr. Lyman himself, such as the burning
down and up of the immense fir trees on the lot, and
the superintendence of construction. In 1854, how-
ever, it was determined to seek a new place for
pioneer work; and a site in Polk county saw
selected near the town of Dallas; and three years
were spent there upon a farm. Educational and
religious work was not neglected; and a church was
organized and a school taught which has since
developed into La Creole Academy.
The location, however, from the heavy sea-breezes
that came through the hill gaps, was proving
unfavorable to the health of his family; and upon
invitation of Doctor Marsh he accepted, three years
later, a position as Professor of mathematics in
Pacific University at Forest Grove. This was an
institution established by Reverend Harvey Clark
with the essential aid of Doctor Atkinson, and the
active co-operation of Reverend E. Walker, A. T.
Smith, T. G. Naylor and others. S. H. Marsh,
who was now made president of the institution,
soon left it in the hands of Professor Lyman and
went East, and for two years was very successful in
soliciting funds, which made the university finan-
cially independent, and enabled it to support one of
the ablest faculties in the West. During this time
Professor Lyman carried on the school with great
acceptance, making of it one of the most popular
educational institutions in the state. For twenty
years thereafter he held a professorship there, filling
towards the close of his work the chair of rhetoric
and history. His instructions were ever clear and
faithful; and he had the rare faculty of kindling the
enthusiasm of his students, and stimulating their
minds to their best exertions.
During the greater part of his labor in the college,
he also carried on religious work, preaching much.
for the church of Forest Grove and throughout the
surrounding neighborhoods. For a year he was
deputy collector at Astoria, where he also was
earnest in church enterprises.
Professor Lyman was essentially a man of culture,
of fine feeling, of unselfish aims and great energy.
His fidelity to his chosen work was remarkable; and
he deliberately let the best of opportunities for acquir-
ing a fortune slip by because he would not withdraw
from his proper field the time necessary to attend to
them. The memory of his just and generous deeds,
however, counts far more than many fortunes. He
passed to the other world in February, 1887.
wife preceded him by some twelve years. Their four
children, Miss Sarah I., W. D., H. S., and Mrs.
Mary F. McCoy, are now in the active affairs of the
Northwest.
His
J. C. MacCRIMMON.-The rugged character
of the Scotchmen has impressed itself everywhere
upon our country. In the gentleman named above
we find a native of the famous Isle of Skye, where
he was born in 1848. He lived upon his native
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
437
heath, or cliff, only until 1851, and as a child was
educated at Glasgow. There he remained, going to
school until he was a lad of thirteen, and at that
tender age went to seek his fortune on the shores of
California, coming via Rio de Janeiro. The tedious-
ness of the trip to San Francisco was relieved by
a visit to the Island of Juan Fernandez. After
reaching his destination on the Pacific, and remain-
ing three years at the Golden city, he moved on to
Victoria, finding employment as messenger for Wells,
Fargo & Co. between Esquimalt and the city.
As he attained his eighteenth year, he began the
true romance of Western life by going to the mines.
He struck out for Caribou, prospecting on Cunning-
ham creek all one summer, but drifted down again,
reaching as low a latitude as Portland during the
following spring. There he remained for a time,
engaging with H. C. Strong in the grocery business
until 1869; but the attraction of mining again drove
him north, taking him to Cassiar, on the Arctic
slope. In those high latitudes, where a man can
work twenty hours by daylight, he spent his sum-
mers, returning for his winters to Victoria, like a
bird of passage, until 1880, when he came to the
Cascades and joined the railroad force under J. H.
Hallett. After finishing his share of railroad build-
ing on the Oregon Railway & Navigation Com-
pany's division of the Cascades, he took contracts
on the Northern Pacific, being called in 1883 to the
difficult and responsible work of superintending the
grading of the Cascade division on that road.
In 1884, feeling the desire to have a fixed home
and social interests, he stopped at Yakima, Wash-
ington Territory, entering the general merchandise
business, and in 1885 was appointed postmaster.
In that year he also joined in the general removal
to North Yakima, and was married to Miss Tillie
F. Klippel of Portland, a noble woman, of whose
companionship Mr. MacCrimmon was deprived by
her death in 1886. In the same year he engaged in
the crockery, glassware and grocery business, having
for his partner the efficient merchant, Matt Bartholet.
In February, 1888, he sold his interest in that firm,
and turned his attention to the real-estate and fruit
business, in both of which he is eminently success-
ful, having a farm of eighty acres three miles west
of North Yakima, forty-five of which are in fruit.
His present wife was Miss Martha Wadham of Wis-
consin, a lady of education and elevated character.
Mr. MacCrimmon is one of the sterling men of
Yakima; and his business covers a wide territory.
PIERCE A. MAHAFFEY. To all those
traveling in the older times across the rugged Blue
Mountain range, the Blue Mountain House is a
well-remembered spot. Its ample dimensions, its
bountiful fare, its genial good cheer, and its gener-
osity and hospitality, made it a welcome relief
from the toil of the road. The untimely death
of this well-known gentleman has now cast its
shadow over the place.
Mr. Mahaffey was born in Park county, Indiana,
January 25, 1841, and was educated in Iowa,
whither he removed in 1850, where he was engaged
in farming until 1862. In that year he crossed the
plains to Oregon and went to Salem, where he re-
mained for five years thereafter. The business of
freighting drew him past La Grande, Oregon; and
in 1867 he removed thither, locating his family,
which then consisted of his mother and sister, now
Mrs. L. O. Sterns of Baker City, Oregon. After
two years in the drug business, and also a time spent
in the brokerage business, he bought the Blue
Mountain House and conducted it successfully until·
his death, February 14, 1888, nine years later.
He was married in 1875 to Miss Lou McWaters,
daughter of William McWaters, a planter of dis-
tinction in Southern Kentucky. His children are
Maggie D. and Ernest P.
Mr. Mahaffey was a very active man in a public
capacity, ever at the front in all improvements, and
was constantly sought for public positions. He was
a justice of the peace eight or nine years, and was a
councilman of the city, taking an active part in all
matters relating to the welfare of the town. He in-
vested largely in farming land, and at the time of
his death, in the forty-eighth year of his age,
owned forty-seven hundred acres. His death was
universally deplored. It can be said of him, which
can be said of few men of his age, that never a year
passed that he did not visit his mother, for whom
he always retained the most ardent affection, as well
as for every member of his family.
JOSEPH MALLET.- The proprietor of the
Penobscot Hotel, in Snohomish, Washington, indi-
cates the place of his birth in the name of his house.
Penobscot county, Maine, is his native place; and
the year of his birth was 1855. At the age of
twenty he came to the Pacific coast with a brother,
and after a short stay in California continued the
journey to the Sound, locating first in Tacoma, and
after a few months finding employment at Port
Gamble. At Snohomish he began by logging, and
increased his means by clerking for Mr. Cathcart.
Returning to the logging business on an enlarged
scale, he formed a partnership with S. H. Cyphers;
and the practical avails of his operations have been
ninety acres of land a mile from Snohomish, and a
nice residence in town. In 1888 he built the hotel
of which he is manager. He is married and has
two promising children.
C. M. MALLORY.—Mr. Mallory, a leading
merchant of Heppner, Oregon, is recognized as also
a representative man of his section. He was born
October 18, 1851, in Steuben county, New York,
receiving in his native district a substantial, practi-
cal education. In 1868 he acted upon an enterpris-
ing impulse, and sought the newest side of the new
world, coming via the Isthmus to Oregon, and
selecting first a location near Salem.
In 1870 he sought a still newer and fresher field
in the Inland Empire, laying a claim near the pres-
ent site of Heppner. While waiting for a city to
grow up near him, he followed the life of a stock-
ranger, and made himself active in public matters
and in the politics of the neighborhood. Coming to
Heppner, he was appointed postmaster in 1878, and
in connection with attendance upon his office car-
ried a stock of confectionery, and at length developed
438
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
that into a drug business. In 1880 he reconverted
his goods and business location into livestock,
resigned his office, and assumed the life of a sheep-
rancher; but in 1881 he returned to the city and
entered once again upon business as a druggist.
That he followed successfully until 1888. In that
year he was able to sell his drug store to advan-
tage, and to set up a flourishing business in the line
of furniture, which he at present conducts to his
own profit and to the advantage of the public.
In 1882 Mr. Mallory was married to Miss Mary
Davis, of Union, Oregon. They have one daugh-
ter, Maud.
HON. RUFUS MALLORY.— Mr. Rufus Mall-
ory, one of the most prominent members of the legal
fraternity in the State of Oregon, is of New England
stock, his parents having been born and raised in
Connecticut. Our subject himself was born on the
10th of June, 1831, at Coventry, Chenango county,
New York, from where he moved with his parents
in the fall of that year to Alleghany county, and six
years later to Steuben county in the same state. In
the latter place he resided until 1855, when he went
to New London, Iowa, where he remained until
1858. In September of that year he started for
Oregon, reaching Jacksonville on the 1st of January,
1859. From there he proceeded northward as far as
Roseburg, where he remained until the fall of 1862,
when he moved to Salem, having in the meantime
married, June 24, 1860, Miss Lucy A. Rose, daugh-
ter of Aaron Rose, founder and proprietor of the
town of Roseburg. From 1862 until December,
1887, he maintained his residence at Salem, when
he moved to Portland, Oregon, and has since made
that city his home.
Having thus given a brief outline of Mr. Mallory's
career, it will be most interesting to go back to his
earliest days and follow his life through its devious.
windings up to the present time. That portion of
New York to which his parents moved from Con-
necticut was new, rough and heavily timbered, offer-
ing but little opportunity for anything but hard
work.. There was but small chance for schooling;
but such as there was our subject took eager advan-
tage of, and after he was fourteen years of age
attended the Alfred Academy in Alleghany county
three terms in as many years, one of the terms last-
ing an entire year. The winter he was sixteen he
taught a country school for a short time with such
success that he was employed the next winter at the
same place for a longer period. About 1851 he went
to clerking in a small store in the little town of
Andover, and there found an opportunity to gratify,
in a small way, his greatest ambition.
It had always been his desire to study law; but
his parents were not able to educate him for that pro-
fession. Neither were they much inclined to do so if
they had been able; for they were quite impressed
with the idea that a lawyer's chance for honor was
much less favorable than if he followed almost any
other profession or trade. However, at the store
However, at the store
where he was clerking, he found a copy of Black-
stone's commentaries. He also found that one of
the partners in the store was a learned lawyer; and
under his directions, and by the aid of his instruc-
tions, he applied all his leisure moments to reading
law. When he went West he followed teaching
during the season schools
during the season schools were carried on, and
worked at whatever he could find to do when not
teaching, and in the meantime read law whenever
opportunity offered itself.
Upon his arrival at Roseburg, Oregon, he engaged
in teaching, which avocation he followed for fifteen
months. It was at Roseburg that he met Hon. S.
F. Chadwick, afterwards governor of Oregon, who,
learning of his desire to prosecute his law studies,
kindly tendered him the use of his office and books
to read. The offer was gladly accepted; and in the
spring of 1860 he was duly admitted to practice in
the district court. In June of that year he was
trict, embracing Douglas, Jackson and Josephine
elected prosecuting attorney of the first judicial dis-
counties. In 1862 he was elected by the Union party
to the legislature from Douglas county.
The legislature of which he was thus a member
was the one which elected Hon. B. F. Harding
United States senator; and Hon. J. G. Wilson was
made judge of a new judicial district which was
formed of the counties east of the Cascade Mount-
ains. Harding and Wilson were practicing law at
Salem, having the leading law business there at
that time. Wilson was prosecuting attorney for the
third district, composed of Marion, Linn, Polk and
Yamhill counties. The election of Mr. Harding to
the Senate, and the appointment of Mr. Wilson as
district judge, not only broke up the law firm, but
made a vacancy in the office of prosecuting attor-
ney. Messrs. Harding and Wilson thereupon of-
fered Mr. Mallory their legal business; and Governor
Gibbs offered him the office of prosecuting attorney
if he would move to Salem. The two offers were
accepted; and he was soon installed as the leading
lawyer of the Capital city. In 1864 he was elected
to the office which he had so acceptably filled by
appointment, holding the position two years longer.
In 1866 Mr. Mallory was elected, as a Republican,
to represent the State of Oregon in the lower house
of Congress. He served the state faithfully and
well, and returned to Salem in 1869 to resume the
practice of his profession. His political life had
not ended, however; for in 1874 he was appointed
by President Grant to the office of United States
district attorney for Oregon, and was reappointed in
1878 by President Hayes. In 1882, after his second
term as district attorney had expired, he was ap-
pointed special agent of the Treasury Department
to go to Singapore, India, on some business con-
nected with that department. He found when at
Singapore that he was nearly half way around the
earth, and so kept on traveling westward until he
reached the place he started from, having circum-
navigated the globe in just four months' time. His
actual traveling time was seventy-eight days.
On his return he resumed the practice of his pro-
fession in Portland, and brought his family to that
city from Salem in 1887, where he is still engaged,
composing one of the law firm of Doiph, Bellinger,
Mallory & Simon.
Of his political faith, Mr. Mallory says: "As long
ago as I can remember anything of politics, I was a

JUDGE JAMES A.FEE,
PENDLETON, OR.
UN
OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
439
Whig. My first vote was for General Scott for
President in 1852. Since the overthrow of the
Whig party, I have acted with the Republican
party."
HON. P. A. MARQUAM.- Judge Marquam
is one of our most substantial citizens, whose faith
in the Pacific Northwest, and in Portland in partic-
ular, has been rewarded by a fourfold recompense.
A genial gentleman, adding to his native force of
will and business sagacity refined literary tastes and
love of natural beauty, he is now, in his hale, ripe
years, a man most delightful to meet, and whose
acquaintance or friendship is a valuable possession.
His further claims, which are numerous, upon the
recognition of society and history, will appear as
this sketch proceeds.
His father, Philip W. Marquam, a cabinet-maker,
came from England at the age of twenty, and set-
tled in Maryland, marrying Charlotte Mercer Poole,
a daughter of the wealthy planter upon whose.
manor now stands Pooleville. It was near Balti-
more that our subject was born, February 28, 1823.
By sickness and financial misfortune the father was
induced to seek a new home at the West, locating
first in Ohio, but soon afterwards in Tippecanoe
county, Indiana. There he entered an eighty-acre
tract of government land, which was “just as God had
made it,”—nowise despoiled of tree or bush. But
father and mother and the ten children, of whom
Philip was the eighth, went to work with vim and
discretion, and pressed back the woods from about
the cabin, bringing at length as much as half of the
farm into cultivation.
As the children grew up they began to press out
into the world, feeling after a career. The daugh-
ters, of whom there were six, received fine educa-
tions, married and settled near their old home and
in adjoining states, and enjoy the reputations of
being leaders both socially and morally in the
respective communities in which they reside. Of
the sons, William became a farmer in Missouri.
Alfred learned chair-making and house-painting,
and gradually worked westward, halting at Liberty,
Missouri, but in 1845 crossed the plains and made
a home in Oregon, in Clackamas county, at the
place now known as Marquams, where he died in
1887. Henry P., who was robust, was designed for
a scholar, and became a physician of note.
Philip being the youngest son, and very rugged,
was reserved as a sort of home guard to run the
farm and take care of the parents and other mem-
bers of the family. But in him the fires of ambi-
tion and the love of a broader life burned no less
than in the others. Without repudiating his home
duties, he contrived the way while performing them
to gain mental training, and to unlock the stores of
the world's thought. He followed the plan of study-
ing and working at home, by a regular system, being
laborer an hour, and then transforming himself into
a student for an hour, keeping up the two lines of
effort alternately the whole day. In time he found
that he was doing as much farm work as a good
"hand," and as much studying as any pupil in
the schools. And he is a strong advocate of the
system of combining labor with study as the true
method of education. In this manner he acquired
a good English education, and made such progress
as to readily translate Latin phrases, and to gain
a considerable view of general literature, which he
found to be of inestimable value to him in his law
studies.
He was early attracted towards the legal profes-
sion; and his spare money he saved up to purchase
a library of elementary works, and began reading
while still driving the plow. He followed a regular
three-year course at home, under the direction of
the late Honorable G. S. Orth, for many years a
member of the United States Congress, and at one
time minister to Russia. The savings of his labor
now enabled young Marquam to attend the law
school at Bloomington, Indiana, from which he
passed his examination, and was admitted to prac-
tice before the bar of that state. He first located at
Wabashtown, but after some months removed to
the county-seat of Jasper county, and there gath-
ered up a very considerable practice, remaining
until the spring of 1849.
But the attraction to the gold fields of California
had now become sufficient to lure him away from
the quiet life of the old West; and with three com-
rades he set out across the plains with an ox-team.
After a hot and fatiguing trip, the little squad of
dusty and sun-burnt hoosiers found themselves upon
the west slopes of the Sierra, looking back upon the
snow-capped mountains that swam in the summer
haze, appearing wonderfully distant and to them
inexpressibly strange. The clear, inviting waters
of the Sacramento, by which they were soon trav-
eling, the mellow airs, the softness and luxurious-
ness of the climate and scenery, and the strong con-
trast of a tropical valley guarded by snowy mount-
ain peaks, were much at variance with the climate
and scenery of the Mississippi country, making them
feel that they had entered into a new world.
The details of the journey to the mines and the
adventures in connection with gold-digging, par-
ticularly some sharp skirmishes with the Indians,
although of great interest, must here be passed by
with this bare hint of their occurrence.
Repairing early in the spring of 1850 to Frémont,
then the county-seat of Yolo county, Mr. Marquam
resumed the practice of his profession, and the same
spring, at the first election under the new state con-
stitution, was nominated for judge, and was elected.
Much labor fell upon the county officers in organ-
izing the counties; and in this, and in the work of
state organization following, the judge rendered
important service.
In August of 1851 he began to think of return-
ing to his Eastern home, but, desiring to see his
brother then in Oregon, sailed up to Portland. He
was much impressed with the freshness, verdure
and beauty of our state, insomuch that he determined
to make it his permanent residence. Returning in
the autumn of the same year to settle up his busi-
ness in California, he came back to Portland and
engaged in the practice of his profession. He soon
acquired a large and lucrative business. As he was
furthered in this regard, and as opportunity offered,
he invested his means in real estate, relying upon
the future growth of the city. He acquired, among
440
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
other properties, a Donation claim on the east side
of the Willamette some four miles distant, and a
block in Portland bounded by Morrison, Alder,
Sixth and Seventh streets, upon which is now being
erected the Marquam Grand Opera House, covering
almost the entire block, and which for substantial
construction and architectural beauty and design is
unsurpassed by any edifice of like nature on the
Pacific coast, and would be an ornament to any
metropolis of the union. In 1858 he purchased
three hundred and ninety acres on the hill south of
Portland, which now bears his name. Upon a por-
tion of this he resides, and is gradually improving
it as his permanent home, cultivating some twenty-
five acres.
He was early identified with public movements in
the city, being known as an earnest supporter of
schools. Throughout his entire life and period of
activity here he has been known as a man of pro-
gressive ideas, of great energy, and one who pursues
his objects with inflexible tenacity of purpose and
clearness of view. In 1853 he was narrowly de-
feated by Doctor Ralph Wilcox as councilman to the
Oregon territorial legislature from Washington
county, then including Multnomah to the Willa-
mette. In 1862 he was elected judge of Multnomah
county, and, after having served out his term of
four years, was re-elected. At the expiration of his
second term he refused further nomination. Indeed,
he has ever sought rather to avoid than to court
political favor. During his judicial labors, he per-
formed all duties with signal ability and fairness,
dispatching business with celerity and exactitude.
Formerly a Whig, he has been an earnest supporter
of the Republican party since its organization, and
in 1882 was elected on the Republican ticket to the
popular branch of the state legislature. In that
important position he proved himself earnest and
active, advocating measures of importance to the
state.
In his domestic relations he has been singularly
fortunate. He was married in 1853 to Miss Emma,
a daughter of the pioneer, William Kern, from
Peoria, Illinois. She was a young lady of refine-
ment and education, and has proved a true helpmate
to her husband in every particular. He accords a
large part of his prosperity due to her industry and
economy, and her entire devotion to his interests
and that of their family. Their union has been
blest by a family of eleven children, as follows:
Mary E.; Philip Augustus, Jr.; William W.; Char-
lotte C.; Jessie L.; Sarah S.; U. S. Grant; Janie H.;
Katie L.; Willametta, and Thomas Alfred. These
have all been afforded the best of educational
advantages, and have been trained also to labor.
Several of the older ones are already holding
responsible positions in the community.
DAVID MARSH.-This excellent gentleman
and popular public officer, whose untimely death
of recent occurrence was widely noted in the papers
of this coast, exemplified in a large measure the
frank and amiable qualities which make life happy;
and to these he added the rugged force of character
and keen intellect which served to make a commu-
nity prosperous.
He was born in East Tennessee in 1844. When
a child of two or three years, his parents removed
to Iowa, in which state his aged mother now resides.
In 1862 Mr. Marsh, having reached the age of
eighteen years, joined one of the many wagon
expeditions across the plains, and landed in the
Walla Walla country, where he spent some eight or
nine years in teaming and freighting from Umatilla
and Wallula landings on Snake river into the interior
as far as Boise City, Idaho. In 1871 he returned to
Iowa, remaining in that state a little over a year.
It was during this visit home that he met and mar-
ried Miss E. J. Larwood, sister of J. J. Larwood,
the auditor of Whitman county. With her he lived
in happiness and contentment until the time of his
death. In 1872 Mr. and Mrs. Marsh returned to the
Walla Walla valley, residing there until 1874, when
they removed to this county and settled on a home-
stead near Almota, where they resided until the
winter of 1880-81, following the peaceful occupa-
tion of farming.
In 1880 Mr. Marsh became the choice of the
Democracy of Whitman county for sheriff. He was
elected, and for the two ensuing years filled that
office with honor and credit. His ability as an
officer, and the qualities he possessed as a man, won
for him a host of friends among the people of the
county. In recognition of his work, the Democ-
racy again in 1882 placed a renomination in his
hands, which he carried to a triumphant success at
the polls, with an increased majority. Again, in
1884, he was renominated and re-elected, thus filling
that responsible office for three successive terms,-
six years.
Since he removed to Colfax, Washington Terri-
tory, he was a constant resident and one of the most
worthy citizens of the city. For two years he
was in the livery business with Thomas Baker. He
left a wife and three children, who are still living at
Colfax, three brothers on this coast, and two brothers
and his mother, who reside in Agency City, Iowa.
By his death his family lost a true husband and
loving father, and Whitman county an upright citi-
zen.
S. P. MARSH- This leading citizen of Van-
couver, Washington, was born in Ohio in 1826. At
Cleveland he received his education and learned the
trade of a blacksmith. At the age of twenty-four
the stories of fabulous wealth on the Pacific, and an
invitation from a special friend, started him across
the continent for Oregon. He was in the great emi-
gration of 1850, when it is said one hundred and
eighty thousand persons were on the plains. Heavy
luck struck his party on the Platte. Not far out
they were surrounded by a thousand Pawnee Indi-
ans, and were given ten minutes to surrender all
they had. They had a captain who is described as
"not afraid of the devil." He asked the company
if they would fight or give up. They replied they
would fight; and he therewith gave the Indians per-
emptory notice to leave within five minutes; and fifty
leveled rifles enforced his demand. The Indians
began to whimper and beg for "muck a muck,"
a sure sign that they were cowed. A second order
only was needed to send them flying.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
441
On the Upper Platte the scourge of cholera broke
out; and Mr. Marsh fell under the ravages of the
disease. His case was approaching the last stages,
the ice water; and the terrible pains just before the
fatal cramping were beginning. Lying in his tent,
and within reach of his chest of medicines, the suffer-
ing and well-nigh dying man thought only of escaping
his tortures, and, finding a phial of laudanum,
drained the glass, and upon this, minded by some
instinct, drank a half pint of brandy. The two
powerful poisons neutralized each other, their effect
allowing his vital powers to rally; and he recovered.
This scourge was frightful on the plains. Mr. Marsh
counted eighteen hundred graves by the roadside,
and then quit enumeration long before the whole,
number was passed. One pitiful sight was that of
a man crazed with grief starting on the journey
home eight hundred miles with the dead body of
his wife.
Not far out from Fort Hall occurred as sanguinary
an incident as has ever been recorded. The wife of
The wife of
one of the emigrants started ahead with his team,
their two children being also in the wagon. As she
reached the stream, a short distance from the train,
two Indians came from the roadside and asked her
for food. She refused them. One produced his
knife, and drew the back of it across the throat of
one of the children as a threat. The mother seized
an axe, and, without a moment's hesitation, split
open the head of the savage. The husband, com-
ing up at this time, drew his rifle and with a true
aim dropped the other Indian to the earth. Result-
ing from this summary work was an attack upon
the train by the Indians at Powder river, in which
one white man, a Mr. Fisher, was killed.
Arriving at Portland, Mr. Marsh engaged in
blacksmithing, but after a year found employment
as engineer on the steamers of the Pacific Mail
Company on the route between Portland and San
Francisco. Two years more were spent as engineer
on the steamer Willamette, plying between Portland
and Astoria. At the end of this time the Willamette,
a river steamer, was taken to San Francisco, and on
the ocean was overtaken by a heavy northwester,
which drove her eleven miles an hour without a
stroke of the wheel; and the waves were so violent
as to necessitate cutting away the guards. Reach-
ing Benicia, a year was passed on the Sacramento.
In 1853 Mr. Marsh returned to Oregon, and in 1856
went East, there marrying Miss Elizabeth Strong of
Ohio, a young lady of rare attractions. They have
reared a family of six children, two of whom are
deceased. In 1856 Mr. Marsh accepted employment
as blacksmith at Fort Vancouver, and was there
during the exciting times of General Harney's diffi-
culty with the Hudson's Bay Company on San Juan
Island. As a pioneer, the gentleman of whom we
write built the first blacksmith shop in Portland,
Oregon, and in Vancouver, Washington Territory.
Since 1860 he has been living in the civil quarters
of the latter city, and has adopted the plan of erect-
ing buildings to induce business and to enlarge the
place. He has thus put up some sixteen structures,
one of which is the theater, which cost some seven
thousand dollars. By this policy he has done very
much for the city.
Mr. Marsh is not a politician, and has ever refused
all entanglements in official positions; yet he con-
sented to serve some nine years on the city council.
His liberal spirit is worthy of all commendation. His
shipment of twenty-nine tons of iron via Cape Horn
in 1856, for the sake of supplying at low price an
article needed in every blacksmith shop, and from
which he received but small profit, is an example of
his unselfish business methods.
BEDFORD L. MARTIN.— In the features of
Mr. Martin we see another of those who passed
through the fire and hardships of our Civil war..
Born in Arkansas in 1847, he was bereft of both
parents at the age of four years, and was taken to
Indiana and brought up by an uncle.
At the age
of seventeen he enlisted in Company A, Tenth
Indiana Cavalry, and served in the hard campaigns
subsequent to 1863. At Hollow Gap he was in the
charge where two hundred and fifty men were shot
down from his regiment.
down from his regiment. At Nashville he was
taken prisoner, and spent four months and a half in
Andersonville and other prison pens, being finally
paroled at Lake City, Florida, so reduced in flesh
as to weigh but seventy-two pounds. After a month
in the Union hospital at Jacksonville, and another
at Annapolis, he was stationed at Fort Chase, Ohio,
and was honorably discharged in August, 1865.
After the war he led a dering life for some
years, seeking the best state in the union for a
permanent home. He was stock-raising in Kansas,
and was also in California, Georgia and Colorado.
By the year 1871 he had passed through Portland
to Puget Sound, locating a homestead at Steilacoom.
In 1872 he was at Olympia, and afterwards at
Seattle, but found a suitable location with J. C.
Conner of La Conner, Washington Territory.
In 1874 he accepted a position as agent of the
Puget Sound Lumber Company of Utsalady, and
became one of the first prospectors for coal on the
Skagit. In 1877 he took charge of the Puget Sound
Mills Company at Utsalady, and remained until
1880, making a tour of the Kittitass valley in that
year. But the superior attractions of La Conner
again drew him thither; and he is now at that city,
one of the most respected members of society, and
engaged in a very successful mercantile business of
his own. He has there acquired a considerably
property, a pleasant home, and has a family of wife.
and two children.
CAPT. WILLIAM MARTIN.- Captain Mar-
tin, of the first real immigration, that of 1843, is
still living in a hale age at Pendleton, Oregon. He
was born in West Virginia in 1822, and came west
to Missouri in 1841. In 1843 he joined a company
coming to Oregon, being intimately associated with
Daniel Waldo. Reaching Oregon after the vicis-
situdes of that eventful march, he took up a claim
at Howell's Prairie, working for Waldo at ten
dollars per month, although wages were sixty dol-
lars. But the former figure was his pre-agreement
with Waldo; and he would not dishonor it. In
1848 he enlisted in a company of a hundred and
fifty men that went to the Walla Walla to punish
the Cayuses for the murder of Doctor Whitman.
442
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
After the Indians were defeated at Sand Hollow, he
was left in charge at Waiilatpu to protect the immi-
grants coming through, remaining there nine months.
In 1849 he went to California, and, although suc-
cessful in digging gold, found that his rifle, with
which he was an excellent shot, was nearly as
profitable as a gold mine. There was a good mar-
ket for venison at seventy-five cents per pound; and
in three weeks he secured and disposed of eleven
hundred dollars' worth. Provisions in general were
worth three dollars per pound. This was on Trinity
river. In 1850 he began the business of buying
cattle in Oregon, and driving them to Yreka and
other Northern California towns, and mining during
the interims. This he continued until 1862, when
he was lured away to Idaho by the great reports of
gold discoveries at Florence. He was stopped mid-
way, however, by discovering gold on the John Day
river, and there remained thirteen years, still retain-
ing an interest in quartz mining at that point.
After ranching at Camas Prairie, and raising
sheep and cattle on Stewart creek, he moved to
Pendleton in 1880, making that his home since.
He has seen the most of the growth of the place.
Mr. Martin has been justly honored with official
trusts. He was sheriff of old Champoeg county,
now Marion, etc., in 1846. In California he was
sheriff of Siskiyou county for two years. In 1880
he was elected sheriff of Umatilla county by a
majority of a hundred and twenty-two. He ran on
the Republican ticket; and the county was strongly
Democratic on a strictly party vote. He was
re-elected in 1882, and again in 1884, but declined
to run in 1886. He was elected, however, mayor
of Pendleton in that year. In 1888 he was suc-
cessful as candidate for county judge.
He found his wife in Siskiyou county, California,
and has lived with her a happy life. A man of
whom the state is proud, whom we cannot help
liking, and who has borne the burden and heat of
the day in every toil, and in exposure to the ele-
ments, and who has battled with the Indians;—such
is Captain Martin.
ALLEN C. MASON. The well-known fact
that a city presents, as a whole, the characteristics
of the individuals who compose it, finds no better
illustration than in the city of Tacoma, Washing-
ton. It is wide-awake, enterprisng and progressive,
and is such not only because of its unrivaled loca-
tion and its commanding position as the terminus
of the great Northern Pacific Railroad, but because
its business men are themselves possessed of a spirit
of progressive enterprise, are thoroughly imbued
with confidence in the great destiny of their city,
and are united in their efforts to promote its welfare.
Prominent among these public-spirited men, stand-
ing at the very front of progress, is Allen C. Mason,
to whom Tacoma is largely indebted for its wide-
spread reputation, and for the moneyed interest so
many people have taken in it.
Since he settled in Tacoma, Mr. Mason has done
more to advance its interests than any citizen within
its limits. He has had the handling of more real
estate, has caused the investment of more money,
has more extensively advertised its advantages, and
has induced more people to cast their lot in the
Terminal city, than any other of its enterprising
citizens, of whom there are many. He has seen the
city grow, from a few board shanties scattered
among the trees and stumps, to its present grand
array of brick and stone structures; and this mar-
velous growth, the work of but a few years, he
expects to see continued until Tacoma becomes the
largest city in the Northwest, to take rank with the
leading commercial cities of the United States.
this future growth, as in that of the past, Mr. Mason
himself will be no inconsiderable factor. A brief
sketch of his life will be an index of his character
and business methods.
In
He was born in Polo, Ogle county, Illinois, on
December 22, 1855. His earlier education was
received at the State Normal University, located
near Bloomington, Illinois. He took a full collegiate
course at the Wesleyan University, located at Bloom-
ington, graduating therefrom in 1875. During the
last year of his course in college, he was a tutor in
the preparatory department. In 1876 he had charge
of the Litchfield High School, and continued for
three years as the superintendent of the schools at
Perry, and four years thereafter was superintendent
of the English training school at Jacksonville,
Illinois. While engaged in this educational work,
he published a system of arithmetic, geography
and history, and also a manual of pedagogics,
entitled, One Thousand Ways of One Thousand
Teachers," which ran through four editions in a
very short time, and which can now be found on
the desks of practical teachers in every state of
the union.
Mr. Mason's reputation as a teacher was based
on the fact that he enthusiastically believed in prac-
tical education. He believed it was the duty of the
state to give to pupils receiving instruction at the
expense of the general public a thorough and prac-
tical understanding of the fundamental branches of
an English education. He believed that a pupil
who was able to read with readiness, to write a
clear and legible hand, with every word spelled
correctly, to solve any practical example which
might arise in the mathematics of every-day life, to
understand the geography of his country and the
history connected with it, was fitted for the duties
and responsibilities of citizenship. With such prac-
tical instruction in the ordinary branches of an
English education, he believed that pupils would
be fitted for all the ordinary requirements of active
business life; and that if, after having received this
education, they desired a course of instruction in
the higher mathematics, sciences or languages, they
could and would get that education from the pri-
vate schools.
In 1878 Mr. Mason was united in marriage, in
Bloomington, Illinois, to Miss Libbie L. Lawrence,
who is a classical graduate of the Illinois Wesleyan
University. They have been blessed with two
interesting children. His sister, Lettie A. Mason,
now Mrs. Doctor William E. Quine, of Chicago, was
the first medical missionary in Central China.
was sent out by the Woman's Foreign Missionary
Society, and established the first medical dispensary
at Kiukiang.
She

RANCH OF JOHN L.VAUGHN,
NEAR ELLENSBURGH,W.T
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
443
In June, 1881, Mr. Mason was admitted to the
bar of the supreme court of the State of Illinois,
standing second in a class of over fifty who passed
examination at that term of court. Believing that
the West offered greater opportunities for a young
man than the East, Mr. Mason resigned his position
at Jacksonville, Illinois, and early in the year 1883
removed to Tacoma, with the determination of
making it his home and becoming a factor in the
growth and development of the place. He engaged
at once in the real-estate and loan business. Dur-
ing the time he has resided in Tacoma, his busi-
ness has extended generally throughout the whole
territory.
By means of his extensive acquaintance in the
East, and by the care and attention he bestows on
business intrusted to him, he has placed loans on
Washington Territory real estate amounting to over
two million dollars, in upwards of eighteen hundred
loans. During the time he has been in business he
has had but nine foreclosures of mortgages; and in
every case the property brought more than the prin-
cipal, interest and costs of foreclosure. No one who
has made an investment through him has ever lost
a dollar in principal or interest. Mr. Mason's offices
are located in the south half of the second story of
the Mason Block. He has, perhaps, the most hand-
some and complete offices of the kind to be found in
Washington. In looking after the details of his
extensive business, Mr. Mason is assisted in his
office by seven clerks.
The high estimation in which Mr. Mason is held
by the business community is evidenced by the fact
that he is expected to take a prominent part in all
movements for the general welfare. He is a man
of sound judgment, strict integrity, careful attention
to the details of business, with a liberal and broad
education, and endowed with great force of charac-
ter.
HON, CHARLES H. MASON.-Mr. Mason
was born at Fort Washington, on the Potomac
river, Maryland, in 1830. At the age of seven,
with his widowed mother, he removed to Providence,
Rhode Island. He graduated in 1850 with distin-
guished honors at Brown University, and was
admitted to the bar of Rhode Island in 1851. On
the election of President Pierce, he was recommended
by the Rhode Island bar for the office of United
States district attorney for that state. On the
declination of the secretaryship of Washington Ter-
ritory by Major Farquaharson, in September, 1853,
Mr. Mason received the appointment and arrived in
the territory in October, and continued in office until
his death.
It was, however, as acting governor of the terri-
tory through several critical periods that he distin-
guished himself, and endeared himself to our people.
His first gubernatorial services were from March
26, 1854, to December 1st of that year. Again, when
Governor Stevens went to the Blackfoot Council at
Fort Benton, from May 12, 1855, he acted as gov-
ernor until January 19, 1856. It was during this
time that the Indian war was inaugurated; and his
administration during the trying months of October,
November and December was marked with energy,
decision and wisdom. He immediately called for
volunteers. He wisely and promptly separated the
friendly from the hostile, humanely treating all
Indians as friendly who were not arrayed with the
hostiles, or had not broken out into actual hostility.
He proclaimed the country from Olympia to the
Snohomish river on the eastern side of the Sound
as war ground, and established the friendly Indians
upon the islands and the western shore upon reser-
vations in charge of agents. In other parts of the
territory the same segregation was made, the same
policy pursued. An Indian found in the war limits
after due notice had been given was an enemy, and
was treated as such. He also endeavored to con-
ciliate the disaffected; but, against those who took
the field, his course was vigorous war.
Early after Governor Stevens' return (January
19, 1856) Governor Mason repaired to Washington
City to assist in securing congressional aid. Co-op-
erating with Colonel Anderson (Washington's dele-
gate) and General Lane (Oregon's delegate), an
appropriation of three hundred thousand dollars was
secured to restore and maintain peace among the
Indian tribes of the Pacific coast. This enabled the
territorial authorities to feed the Indians; and their
friendship was secured, peace continuing while the
rations lasted. As the fund was sufficient to outlast
the war, that timely appropriation greatly lessened
the number of hostiles in actual operation in the
field.
Upon Governor Stevens' election as delegate
(1857), Secretary Mason again acted as governor
until the arrival of Governor McMullan. On the
return of the latter (August, 1858) to the States, he
was again governor until the arrival of Governor
Gholson (July 5, 1859). He died after a brief ill-
ness at Olympia, July 22, 1859. Brilliant talents,
learning and distinguished administrative abilities
entitled him to popular regard; but those who were
admitted to his personal friendship will treasure him
in memory for genuine and uniform amiability and
evenness of temper, loyalty to friends, his conviviality
and generosity, his child-like frankness, genial social ·
qualities, and his perfect accessibility to all, regard-
less of rank or condition of life.
W. H. MASTIN.-As a lien upon the gratitude
of his fellow-men, one writes a book, another opens
a mine, a third builds a house. Each one may do
the work for himself, but nevertheless, in recognition
of the wants and needs of others, suiting his opera-
tions to their tastes and necessities, and finding his
chief satisfaction, not so much in the profit that he
reaps from his industry, as from the position which
he fills in the world of business and society, making
himself, his skill and his work, a necessary part of
the great whole. It is in this way that business men
become such great worshipers of the city or region
in which they dwell. They have dollars and cents
invested there, it is true; but, much more, they find
there the real spring of public and fellow feeling
which makes civilized life possible. This public
interest and love of the community is what makes the
difference between enterprise and avarice, between
the business man and the miser.
Mr. Mastin has enriched and enlarged Colfax,
444
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Washington, by the building of the Thielson House,
the fine hotel in the city. He is a native of Knox-
ville, Illinois, where he was born in 1840. A worker,
harness-maker by trade, he was already earning his
bread when, at the age of eighteen, he left the old
hearthstone for Pike's Peak, but changed his course
so as to arrive at Walla Walla in 1859. Cutting
poles in the timber for that mushroom town; mak-
ing saddles and harnesses for Captain Ingalls, and
for his own disposal at Vancouver; merchandising
at Walla Walla with Mr. Fisher in 1861; packing
to the Powder river mines, and freighting with prairie
schooners to Lewiston in 1862; spending a winter
in Portland, and in the spring going to the Boise
basin merchandising until 1867; at Steilacoom the
next year, where he was married;-this was his
checkered life up to 1879. In that year he went to
Colfax, engaged in trade, built a store, but was
burnt out in 1881. He built a brick store to replace
the old one, but was burnt out again. He built a
third time; and that is the Thielson House, which
still stands. Mr. Mastin is its proprietor. It is
needless to add that he is a successful man and a good
citizen.
EDWARD K. MATLOCK.— This young gen-
tleman, a leading druggist of Mount Vernon, Wash-
ington, was born in Ohio in 1858. His father was
a Methodist minister. The son traveled with him
extensively; but at the age of eighteen, beginning
to do for himself, he went South and found employ-
ment at a sugar refinery at Bellevue, Louisiana, and
there, and at another sugar town, spent four years.
The Southern climate, however, becoming disagree-
able, he determined to try the famous atmosphere of
Washington Territory. Coming as far as San Fran-
cisco on his way, he stopped at the metropolis of our
coast a few months, employed in the store of Rich-
ardson Brothers. Falling ill there, he purchased a
ticket for the sound, arriving in Skagit county in
1881.
He made a start towards independent busi-
ness by clerking for Clothier & English, of Mount
Vernon, until 1887. Early in that year he opened
a drug store in Mount Vernon, which he has since
been successfully conducting. He has followed the
policy of investing his surplus earnings in lands in
the county of his adoption. He has been the recip-
ient of public honors, twice having been elected to
the position of county treasurer.
E. L. MATLOCK.-This successful merchant
and respected citizen of Heppner, Oregon, was born.
August 25, 1844. He came to Oregon in 1853, and
located in Lane county, near Eugene. There he
engaged in farming, stock-raising and mining. He
was with his father when he died at Bannack City
in 1863, and laid to rest all that was mortal of that
good man and beloved parent. Returning to the
home near Eugene, he conducted his father's affairs
there until 1866. In January of that year he was
married to Miss E. J. Bennet of Lane county. After
that event he engaged in agriculture, conducting a
farm for himself until 1869. In that year he engaged
in sheep husbandry, and followed the business in
Lane county until, in 1872, he decided that he might
find better pasturage in the Inland Empire, and con-
sequently drove his flocks across the Cascade Mount-
ains, choosing a location near Weston, in Umatilla
county. The following winter he lost all his stock
by the severity of the season.
In the fall of 1873 he located a claim on Butter
creek, and made a new attempt in the sheep busi-
ness, meeting with good success, and conducting
his operations until, in 1878, he was able to close
out to good advantage and return to Lane county.
He then entered into partnership with his brother,
J. W. Matlock, in the general merchandise business
at Goshen. Not being wholly satisfied, however, with
the slow Willamette valley country, and still looking
with fondness to the East-of-the-Mountains district,
he returned in 1880 to Eastern Oregon, locating at
Heppner, and establishing a business for himself.
He has been residing there till the present time,
doing an extensive trade, and building up the coun-
try. He was elected councilman of Heppner in
March, 1889, and has filled that office to the satis-
faction of all. He lives in a home of comfort and
refinement, and has five girls and one boy, -Flora,
S. J., M. A., May, Lesley, Minnie and Bertha.
Mr. Matlock is a man well respected, active, pro-
gressive and upright. He is of great service to the
new region in which he lives, and as merchant and
owner of a band of some two hundred fine horses has
a handsome property.
THOMAS G. MATLOCK.- This well-known
citizen of Heppner, Morrow county, Oregon, who
devotes himself to the improvement of our stock of
horses, was born in Dade county, Missouri, March
4, 1849, and came with his parents across the plains
to Oregon in 1853, locating with them near Eugene,
where they engaged in stock-raising, and remaining
until the death of the father at Bannack City, Idaho.
He was buried on Buena Vista Bar, July 1, 1863.
Thomas received a common-school education, and
worked on the farm. His father having been a
fancier and producer of fine horses, our subject went
continuing in the same business, and has remained
in 1871 to Umatilla county with the intention of
there ever since, developing one of the finest bands
of horses and also one of the neatest herds of stock
to be found in the state. There also live his broth-
ers, C. J., E. L., W. F. and J. W. J. D. lives at
Eugene, where he is successfully engaged in the mer-
cantile business.
Thomas was married in 1871 to Miss Mary E.
Larkin, and has three boys and three girls. His
mother is now seventy-four years of age, and makes
her home with her only daughter, Mrs. Greenwood,
of the Wallowa. She is a woman still in good
health and of unclouded mind.
D. A. MCALLISTER.— Mr. McAllister is a
pioneer among the horse-breeders of Eastern Ore-
gon, and has animals in his band of three hundred
easily worth four thousand dollars each. He sells
colts at from five hundred to six hundred dollars
each. It is not always noted, but it is nevertheless
a fact, that the value and service of stock of all
kinds is multiplied rather by improving the quality
of the animals than by increasing the number of
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
445
those of inferior grade. In one particular Mr. Mc-
Allister is peculiar among horsemen. He despises
gambling, and trots or runs only for establishing
the reputation of his stock. He has a mare, Leona,
that trots a mile in 2:23, and a horse, Blond, which
covers the same ground in 2:42, at two years old.
The three-year-old Baymont is surprisingly fast;
and Centershot of his stable has a wide reputation
among horse-fanciers. His animals are Mambrino
Chiefs, Hambletonians, Almonts and Pilot Juniors,
all trotters, and from the best Kentucky strains.
His start in this line was made in 1869 by bringing
eight animals from the Bluegrass state to the Blue
Mountains of Oregon.
His ranch is one of the finest in the Grande
Ronde, is situated three miles east of La Grande,
Oregon, and contains six hundred and eighty acres.
The climate, feed, etc., of this section is well adapted
to producing a wiry, nervy and intelligent horse.
Mr. McAllister came to this country in 1862, and
is of a frontiersman's family of Illinois. In cross-
ing the plains he experienced more or less trouble
with the Indians, but escaped with only a few
brushes. George Geckler, Samuel Williamson and
George Harpool, now residents of this region, were
of his party, of which Joseph Yount was captain.
His uncle, Harvey McAllister, was also in this immi-
gration, and brought some fine stock, of which our
subject was drover. His first work was with this
uncle in the performance of odd jobs; and it was
not until 1867 that he began ranching on his own
account with stock purchased with his earnings.
His wife, Nancy Moe, in every way his compeer,
is the daughter of Peter Moe, a pioneer of 1864
from Michigan. They have nine children,-Frank
Allison, Mollie, Lulu, Charles, Cleveland, Melvina,
William, Reese and Ada.
Mr. McAllister showed his courage in 1878, dur-
ing the Indian scare, by refusing to go to the fort.
He is one of the men to whom the state looks for
its energy and capacity for improvement.
JAMES MCBRIDE, M. D.- The representa-
tive pioneer is born, not made. If we glance over
the history of the state-builders of the Northwest
coast, we will find that not only were they pioneers
in fact, but pioneers by descent, the sons and grand-
sons of those who laid broad and deep the founda-
tions of the earlier communities of this republic.
Doctor James McBride was in this sense a repre-
sentative pioneer. He was descended from patriotic
revolutionary stock. His grandfather, James Mc-
Bride, was one of the patriot soldiers of the Revo-
lution; and his grandmother, Mary Crawford, was a
sister of the mother of Andrew Jackson, and a
woman of more than ordinary ability and force of
character. After the Revolution his grandfather,
the first of a race of pioneers, was the first white
settler in Tennessee; and there the subject of this
sketch was born February 9, 1802, near the city of
Nashville. His father, Thomas Crawford McBride,
was a farmer and clergyman, and in connection with
Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone, and
other men of views rather in advance of their
clerical associates, was active in founding what is
known as the Christian or Disciple church, now one
of the leading and influential denominations of the
country.
Actuated by that spirit of enterprise and discov-
ery that everywhere distinguishes the true pioneer,
the father of the subject of this sketch removed in
1814 from Tennessee to the neighborhood of St.
Charles, Missouri; and there James McBride was
reared and educated. He studied medicine in the
city of St. Louis, and at the age of twenty-two en-
tered upon the practice of his profession in Franklin
county, Missouri. At about the same age he was
ordained an elder in the Christian church, and as
such preached christianity with great earnestness
and eloquence during the whole of his active life.
His services as a minister were always rendered
gratuitously, and from love of the cause of religion
and a desire to benefit his fellow-men. In his de-
clining years no part of his career gave so much
pleasure, in retrospection, as that which he had
thus dedicated to God and humanity. He soon rose
to eminence in his community as a physician, and
during what was known as the Osage Indian war
was commissioned, by Governor Boggs, surgeon of
Missouri volunteers.
He was married June 20, 1830, to Miss Mahala
Miller, whose devotion to her husband and children,
as well as her good words and works in the commu-
nity, made her life revered by her family and friends,
who tenderly cherish her memory. She was a wor-
thy member of that noble group of pioneer wives
whose piety, benevolence and love of home and
humanity were the strength and moral support of
the orderly civilization that distinguished the early
settlements of Oregon. She survived the loss of
her husband but little more than a year, and de-
parted this life February 23, 1876.
He
Of the children of Doctor McBride and his wife,
twelve are now living, and are prominent and influ-
ential members of the communities in which they
reside. The eldest son, John R. McBride, was a
member of the constitutional convention of Oregon
and of the first Senate of the state, and in 1862 was
elected representative to Congress. He served
afterwards with distinguished ability as chief justice
of Idaho Territory, which office he resigned to enter
upon the practice of the law at Salt Lake City,
where he still resides.
where he still resides. The second son, Thomas A.
McBride, is also a lawyer of ability. He has served
in the state legislature, and is now prosecuting at-
torney of the fifth judicial district of Oregon.
has been chosen to this position for three consecu-
tive terms, each time by an increased majority; and
at the last election the opposing party declined to
nominate a candidate against him. Another son,
Doctor James H. McBride, of Wisconsin, was for
several years superintendent of one of the principal
insane asylums of the West, near Milwaukee, Wis-
consin, and is eminent as a specialist in nervous and
mental diseases. The youngest son, George W.
McBride, is well known to the people of Oregon,
having been speaker of the house of representatives
in 1882, and being now the secretary of state of his
native state, the first native Oregonian elected to
that important office.
In 1843, moved by the same enterprising and
446
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST— OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
adventurous spirit that had impelled his father and
grandfather before him to enlist in the advance
guard of civilization, Doctor McBride removed with
his family to Texas, but soon becoming weary of
the unsettled and lawless condition of society, and
disgusted with the prospect that the newly acquired
territory would be used to extend the area of human
slavery, which, like John Wesley, he regarded as
the sum of all villainies," he returned again to
Missouri. In 1846 he came with his family to Ore-
gon, settling in Yamhill county. There he devoted
his time between the duties of his profession and the
cultivation of his farm. He took an active part in
those stirring events which resulted in preserving
Oregon and Washington Territory from the do-
minion of Great Britain.
In June, 1850, Doctor McBride was elected a
member of the territorial council, where he estab-
lished the reputation of a wise, safe and conserva-
tive legislator. He was appointed superintendent
of public instruction, in which capacity he served
the people acceptably for a term of two years.
His antipathy to slavery early led him into the Free-
soil ranks; and he was one of the founders of the
Republican party in Oregon. 'He was a member of
its first state convention; and from that date until
the close of the war of the Rebellion he was an
active participant in politics both as a writer and
public speaker.
As a fitting recognition of his political services,
he was in 1863 appointed, by President Lincoln,
minister resident to the Hawaiian Islands. At the
time of his arrival at his post of duty, the little
kingdom to which he was accredited was greatly
under English influences, and it was then feared
would shortly become a dependency of Great
Britain. By a wise and conciliatory policy, and by
holding out hopes, which were afterwards fulfilled,
of ultimate reciprocity of trade between the United
States and the Sandwich Islands, the hostility and
distrust with which our government had been
regarded was overcome, and this nation attained
the paramount influence in Hawaiian affairs which
it still retains.
During his official sojourn at the Islands occurred
an incident which at the time seemed likely to result
in a serious international complication. Shortly
after the arrival of a British training ship at Hono-
lulu, several of its officers, who were young English-
men of rank, while ashore one night, tore down
the coat-of-arms of the United States from the gate
in front of the official residence of the United States
minister, and carried it aboard their ship. Here
was an insult that the little American colony in
Honolulu were little disposed to brook, and yet
which any attempt to avenge would be likely to
involve our government in a dispute with a foreign
power already seeking an excuse for aiding its
Southern friends. But Doctor McBride was not a
man to hesitate when the flag of his country was
insulted. He had advices that in a day or two a
United States man-of-war would be due at Honolulu
in quest of the Rebel privateer Florida, which was
then destroying the Pacific whaling fleet; and he
also knew that the British man-of-war was in no
condition to go to sea. He therefore called on the
British commission and the captain of the man-of-
war, and notified them that the young officers who
had stolen the coat-of-arms must return and replace
it, or he would arrest them civilly and deal with
them as common thieves.
The captain and the British representative
expressed their willingness to have the property
returned, and to make an ample apology; but they
urged that, as one of the offenders was a British
lord, heir to one of the oldest peerages in England,
to require him to submit to the humiliation of put-
ting the coat-of-arms in its usual place, and doing
the work of a carpenter, was not to be thought of.
But Doctor McBride was firm, and the Englishmen
finally yielded; and beneath a broiling tropical sun,
and in the presence of half the population of Hono-
lulu, the young officers were compelled to labor for
an hour and a half replacing the ornament they had
torn down. As the effigy of America's bird of
freedom was finally fixed in its accustomed place,
cheers from thousands of throats rent the air. One
patriotic American captain was heard to exclaim
above the din, "Boys, there's a bird that can't be
plucked.”
The scene was photographed and reproduced in
Harper's
Harper's Weekly; and the incident awakened
interest throughout the country, Americans every-
where being delighted at the action of their patriotic
representative. One of these young Englishmen,
whose hands then wielded a hammer for the first
and last time, is now a British peer, an authority
in England on naval affairs, and an honor to his
Queen and country. For his prompt and wise
action in this matter, Doctor McBride was warmly
thanked by Secretary Seward, who, among other
things, said: "Your action was eminently wise.
Had you done more, serious complications might
have resulted. Had you done less, the honor of
the government would not have been properly
vindicated.
During Doctor McBride's stay at the Islands, a Rus-
sian fleet under command of Captain, now Admiral
Enquist, was stationed at Honolulu, with the pur-
pose as was then believed-of affording substan-
tial aid to the United States in case England and
France should interfere on behalf of the Southern
Confederacy. He had lately been stationed at
Alaska, stood high in the confidence of his gov-
ernment, and knew that Alaska was an undesira-
ble possession to Russia. Convinced by frequent
conversations with this officer that Russia was
anxious to dispose of its American possessions,
Doctor McBride set himself to the task of convin-
cing the State Department of the desirability of pur-
chasing. He wrote several letters calling Secretary
Seward's attention to the matter. From the Russian
officers he procured specimens of gold and other
valuable minerals then known to exist there in
uncertain quantities. He procured affidavits and
statements of whalers, and other persons who had
frequented the Alaskan coast, as to the extent of its
fisheries, and its value as the principal source from
which was obtained the world's supply of furs.
Nor were his efforts wasted. In Secretary Seward
he found a statesman capable of sympathizing with
his patriotic desire to extend the area of his country;

HON.JOHN C.LEASURE,
PENDELTON, OR.
UNI
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
447
and, as soon as the storm of the Civil war had spent
its force, the purchase was consummated, and the
greatest acquisition since the Louisiana purchase.
added to our national domain. It may be fairly
said that Doctor McBride was the author of the
Alaska purchase; and, though neither he nor the
great statesman who negotiated it lived to see the
result of their labor estimated at its true value,
they both died feeling sure that future generations
would recognize it and properly honor the foresight
and patriotism which by peaceful negotiation added
a great country, imperial in extent and resources,
to our national domain.
In 1867 Doctor McBride resigned his office and
returned to Oregon, making his home at St. Helens,
in Columbia county. There, in prosperity and com-
fort, dividing his time between his books and social
intercourse with his neighbors and friends, he lived,
universally esteemed, until his final summons to a
better world. He died on the 18th of December,
1875, in his own words, "without fear and without
regret," happy in the consciousness of a well-spent
life and in the hope of a happier existence in the
eternal future.
"Life's labor done, as sinks the day,
Light from its load the spirit flies;
While Heaven and earth combine to say,
How blest the righteous when he dies."
JOHN MARSHALL MCCALL.- Among the
substantial and favorably known residents of South-
ern Oregon, none have occupied a more useful place
in the upbuilding of the state since the days of its
infancy than the gentleman whose name is the head-
ing to this brief memoir. His is one of those aggres-
sive, go-ahead dispositions that is an example of that
time-honored adage, that "God helps those who
help themselves;" and his whole life has bristled with
instances of this belief. A man of strong convic-
tions and honest prejudices, scorning hypocrisy in
all things and in his dealings with friend, foe or the
world at large, all his actions are guided by fairness,
honesty and affability. Being of such a nature,
success has come to him, and also a popularity
among those who have had the good fortune to
become acquainted with him. By birth he is a
Pennsylvanian, having been born in Washington
county in that state on January 15, 1825.
via
The
In 1840 he became with his parents a pioneer to
the then territory of Iowa, settling in Louisa county.
From thence he emigrated "the plains across,
the ox-team route, to Oregon. His headquarters
during the first winter after his arrival was at the
old capital, Oregon City. From there he made
excursions to different parts of the valley, and made
inquiries relative to locations not visited.
result of his observations was the choice of a min-
ing claim in Jackson county, where, with Jacob
Wagner, he operated in the creek since known by
the name of his partner. During the Indian war
of 1855-56, he took up arms in defense of his home,
and in the subjugation of the savages. On the
termination of hostilities, he was mustered out and
began merchandising on Gallice creek in Josephine
county, and in 1859 purchased an interest in the
Ashland Flouring Mills.
The year 1861 will ever be memorable by reason
of its being the beginning of the great civil conflict
between the Northern and Southern sections of the
Union. In consequence of such, regiments loyal to
the nation were raised in many portions of the coast.
Among those raised was the First Oregon Cavalry;
and our subject was among the first to enlist. He
was commissioned second lieutenant of Company D.
There being a necessity for the keeping of troops at
home to look after the Indians by reason of the
withdrawal to the South of the regular troops, the
volunteer forces were assigned to duty at the vaca-
ted posts.
Mr. McCall was stationed at Camp
Baker until 1862, when he was transferred to Van-
couver. In 1865 he was promoted to a captaincy,
and in 1866 was honorably discharged.
During his absence from Ashland, Oregon, he
retained his interest in the milling enterprise, and
upon his return began again with increased fervor
the development of his adopted home. In 1867,
together with others, he established the Ashland
Woolen Mills, which at once became and has
remained one of the prominent features of the Pacific
Northwest. In 1873 he began and has successfully
carried on a mercantile business on an extensive
scale. Aside from these interests named, he has
other property holdings which are considered very
valuable. In politics he is a thorough-going Repub-
lican. He was a member of the legislature in 1876,
and in 1883 was brigadier-general of the state mili-
tia.
General McCall has been twice married,—the first
time on April 30, 1868, to Miss Theresa R. Apple-
gate, a daughter of Mr. L. Applegate, an old pio-
neer, and secondly on July 4, 1876, to Mrs. M. E.
Brown, née Anderson. He has a family of three
children, two daughters and one son.
REV. JOHN MCCARTY, D. D.-The Rever-
end John McCarty, D. D., reached the Pacific coast
first in January, 1853, as chaplain of Fort Vancou-
ver. For a time he also had charge of Trinity
church, Portland. It was with great difficulty,
oftentimes, that he met his appointments at Trinity.
There were no easy and frequent communications
between the two places then; and he generally
walked from Vancouver to Portland. This was no
easy matter when the Columbia river was swollen
and had overflown the lowlands. It is related of
him that he did more than once, when he found the
water too high to wade in with simply his shoes and
stockings off, take off all his clothes, put them on
his head, and proceeded to wade through to the
other side. When over he would dry himself, put
on his clothes, and proceed on his journey. This
was certainly performing duties under difficul-
ties; but it was characteristic of the man. In Octo-
ber, 1854, he removed to Fort Steilacoom, on the
Sound, where he remained about a year. While
there he did not confine himself to his duties at the
fort, but held church services in the town of Steila-
coom, at Olympia and other places.
In November, 1855, he went on a visit to the
Atlantic states, but returned in April, 1856, and re-
sumed his chaplaincy of the fort and his charge of
St. Luke's church, Vancouver. From that time
until April, 1868, he remained in charge of the
30
448
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
church, when he resigned it because of the growing
infirmities of old age. It was a sad day to his peo-
ple when he resigned, and a sadder day still when he
finally moved away from Vancouver and took up
his
residence in Washington City. Never were a peo-
ple more devoted to their pastor than were his. He
was so kind and bright and cheerful and fatherly,
that they all looked upon him as a benediction when
he came into their homes, or met them on the
streets or taught them from the sacred desk.
Doctor McCarty was closely identified with the
early work of the Church in Oregon, and at a meet-
ing of clergy and laity at Oregon City, before it was
known that the Church in the East had made any
provisions for a bishop for this field, the convocation
wrote on and suggested that he be elected and ap-
pointed for the same. This shows in what high
honor and esteem he was held by his associates.
He attended all the early convocations of the
Church, and took an active part in the delibera-
tions. He was greatly missed when he ceased to
attend them; and his happy face was seen, and his
cheerful voice heard, no more,
The Doctor died in Washington, District of Co-
lumbia, May 10, 1881, at the advanced age of eighty-
three years.
His funeral was held at St. Mark's
church, Capitol Hill, Thursday, May 12th.
Thus rests one whose life was good, wise and
useful.
J. W. MCCARTY.-Mr. McCarty, whose phe-
nomenal success as a hop-grower in the Puyallup
valley is well known, was born in La Porte county,
Indiana, in 1833, and lived with his parents until 1852.
As a young man of ambition and sterling qualities, he,
in that year crossed the plains to Oregon in com-
pany with George Belshaw, now of Lane county,
Oregon, and his two brothers. With his brothers
he went to Puget Sound in October, 1853, assisting
himself to the beginnings of a fortune by working.
in logging camps and in the sawmills. In 1854 he
secured the claim on the Puyallup which he has
since so highly improved, and which he owns at the
present time.
In 1855 he was married to Miss Ruth J., daughter
of William M. Kincaid, a pioneer whose biograph-
ical sketch appears in this work. The outbreak of
The outbreak of
the Indians in the October following, which resulted
in the massacre of McAllister, Miles and Connell at
Connell swamp, compelled Mr. McCarty to seek
refuge at Fort Steilacoom; and, leaving his young
wife there, he joined Captain John Cassen's com-
pany of rangers, with whom he served three months.
He suffered the loss of his house and barn, of all
his crops, and most of his stock.
After the war was over, he returned with fresh
energy to his farm and began its systematic cultiva-
tion, setting out a large orchard, and of late years.
raising hops and hay. He has three sons and three
daughters, all of whom are living on this coast.
His wife died in 1881, in Seattle, whilst undergoing
a surgical operation. He lives at present at Tacoma,
Washington, on the rental of his farm and the
incomes received from his city property at Tacoma.
For the most part he makes that city his residence,
but is so free from business cares that he can enjoy
life wherever he cares to live.
He was married secondly, in 1883, to Miss S. A.
Westbrook of Tacoma, formerly of New York, and
enjoys a very happy domestic life.
MRS. JULIA A. McCARVER.- Julia A.
McCoy was born November 19, 1825, in St. Charles
county, Missouri. Her parents died before she was
three years old; and she was brought up by her
grandfather and grandmother. At an early age she
was married to Garrett Buckalew, and thereafter
lived in the State of Illinois until the spring of 1847,
when, with her husband and two children, and the
families of eighteen neighbors, she started across.
the plains for Oregon. At St. Joseph, Missouri, they
joined a host of other emigrants, the combined
party including ninety families, who continued their
journey to its destination under the guidance and
command of Captain Joel Palmer, who had already
twice crossed the continent, and was then after his
family. Mrs. Buckalew lost her youngest child on
the plains; and, while crossing the Blue Mountains,
in Eastern Oregon, her husband contracted a cold
from which he died in a few days at Philip Foster's
place on the western slope of the Cascade Moun-
tains.
In 1848 she married General M. M. McCarver,
who had crossed the plains in 1843, and whose let-
ters to other friends in Illinois induced the Bucka-
lews to come to Oregon. They took a Donation
claim near Oregon City, the then chief town of all
the North Pacific region, where they made their
home for eleven years. In the spring of 1849, Mrs.
McCarver followed her husband to California, going
by sailing vessel from the Columbia river, and
returning by sailing vessel in the fall, by way of the
Hudson's Bay Company's posts of Fort Victoria,
Fort Nisqually, and the Cowlitz valley.
In 1859
General McCarver's family settled in Portland.
1864 they moved to Idaho, and then returned to
Portland, where they remained until 1868, when they
came to Puget Sound, locating on the site of the
present city of Tacoma, Washington, where her
husband died five years later.
In
Mrs. McCarver was the mother of nine children,—
all daughters. At the publication of this volume
she continues in good health, and seems likely to
round off, many years hence, a long life of peace
and good works.
GEN. MORTON MATHEW MCCARVER
THE FOUNDER OF BURLINGTON, IOWA, SACRA-
MENTO, CALIFORNIA AND TACOMA, WASHINGTON.
General McCarver was born near Lexington,
Kentucky, January 14, 1807. Of an independent,
roving spirit, determination, courage and enterprise
that knew no bounds, he quit his home at the age
of eighteen years and went to Mississippi, Louisiana
and Texas, and not finding anything congenial to
his tastes returned and settled in 1830 at Galena,
Illinois, where he was married to a Miss Mary Ann
Jennings. He served in the Black Hawk war, and
after the surrender of the great chief of the Sacs and
Foxes, and as soon as the treaty between Black
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
449
Hawk and the United States had been drafted in
1833 (by the terms of which the valuable territory
now the State of Iowa was to be ceded to the
United States), and before the treaty was signed, he
left his home in Illinois in view of locating a city
which would one day become one of the great com-
mercial centers of the West, towards which the tide
of emigration was rapidly setting.
McCarver, then twenty-six years of age, journeyed
down the Mississippi to a point then known as the
Flint Hills; and in the evening, before crossing
from the Illinois shore, he found shelter beneath
the hospitable roof of a pioneer settler named
George Buchanan, whose wife, during the night,
gave birth to a son, who, before McCarver departed,
was christened George Buchanan, after his happy
father. Early the next morning McCarver crossed
the Mississippi, and before noon had located at the
top of the Flint Hills, and, had proceeded to erect a
log cabin and found a home. But the Black Hawk
treaty had not yet been ratified, and the Indians
complained to the government that the Whites were
encroaching upon their lands. Accordingly the
Secretary of War ordered that all trespassers be sum-
marily removed. Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, then
stationed at Fort Snelling, was ordered with his
command to evict the squatters, and at once pro-
ceeded down the river to order the Whites out of
the forbidden territory. His soldiers, without the
orders of the commanding officer, set fire to Mc-
Carver's cabin and burned it to the ground; and
McCarver was forced to leave his new home, but
only for a short time.
Upon the 19th of June, 1834, the Black Hawk
treaty was ratified, and the coveted territory thrown
open to the white settlers. He immediately returned,
founded a settlement and engaged in trading with
the Indians, carrying the mail and speculating in
lands; and, during nine years of residence, he
retained his prominence as the leading citizen of
the place which grew to be the prosperous city of
Burlington. He was a leading member of the con-
vention which formed the Iowa state constitution,
was one of the men who went from St. Louis to attend
the first public sale of lands at Chicago, and the
only one of the parties who had the courage and
foresight to make an investment on the muddy
shores of Chicago creek at that time. It was during
his residence in Iowa that he acquired his title as
general, having served as quartermaster-general in
that state.
Early in the spring of 1843, having listened to
the glowing descriptions of our then only possessions
on the Pacific coast, given by the eloquent Doctor
Lewis F. Linn, Senator from Missouri, and other
adventurous spirits who were then turning their
eyes to the far West, he emigrated to Oregon and
settled on the Tualatin Plains. Later on, in com-
pany with Peter H. Burnett, afterwards governor of
California, he projected the town of Linnton (named
in honor of Senator Linn). They soon became con-
vinced that they were in the wrong direction; and
General McCarver shortly removed to Oregon City,
where he engaged in farming, and was there elected
a member of the Oregon Provisional legislature, of
which body he was elected.speaker. There his wife
died in 1845. He participated in the Cayuse war
in 1847, and in 1848 was married to Mrs. Julia A.
Buckalew, who still survives him.
About that time the news came of the discovery
of gold in California; and in May, 1848, together
with Mr. D. B. Hannah, he started overland for the
new El Dorado, arriving at the Feather river in
August. There General Sutter had laid out a town,
the location of which did not suit McCarver, who
decided on a location upon the present site of Sac-
ramento City. Having formed a partnership with
his former associate, Governor Burnett, he nego-
tiated for the purchase of the site; but Governor
Burnett bought the land on his own account; and
General McCarver turned his attention to other en-
terprises. He formed a partnership with D. B.
Hannah, and embarked in the real-estate and gen-
eral merchandise business, building their house with
their own hands. In 1849 Hannah bought the Gen-
eral out; and the latter was elected a member of the
Monterey state convention, which framed the origi-
nal constitution of California, and under which it
was admitted as a state.
An
In December, 1849, Hannah returned to Oregon,
bringing with him Mrs. McCarver, who had fol-
lowed her husband to California. In order to show
the difficulties of traveling at that day, let us follow
them on their journey. They left San Francisco on
the bark John W. Decatur, bound for the Hudson's
Bay Company's station at what is now Victoria.
Upon arriving off the entrance to the Strait of Juan
de Fuca, the wind failing, the bark was obliged to
stand off to sea until the next day, when getting a
fair wind she stood, in and took a squall at the en-
trance of the strait which carried away her rudder,
made a hole in her stern, and stove in her timber-
heads. After duffing about in a rough sea for
twenty-four hours, some control of the vessel was
regained by cutting away the mizzenmast.
entrance was finally effected; and, having got in-
side, she was forced to let go anchor and wait for
the flood tide, when she drifted up the strait, an-
choring in the night and on ebb tide. The second
night inside, an alarm of "Indians" was given;
and everyone was ordered on deck armed. Upon
their approach within hailing distance, the supposed
savages proved to be Captain Scarbrough, a pilot
from the Hudson's Bay Company's station, who,
sighting the vessel in distress, had engaged a crew
of Indians and come to its relief. He was warmly
welcomed by the storm-tossed people aboard the
bark. They arrived at the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany's station after a passage of thirteen days; and
thence they traveled three days by canoe to the
Nisqually river, thence two days horseback to the
Cowlitz river, and thence by canoe down the Cow-
litz and up the Columbia, four days to Oregon City,
arriving January 1, 1850, having been twenty-seven
days on the passage.
General McCarver, having prospered in Califor-
nia, returned in 1851 by sailing vessel, bringing with
him the hull and machinery for a steamboat, which
he put together upon his arrival, this being the first
steamboat on the Columbia river. He afterwards
built another above the falls of the Willamette, and
ran her from Canemah to Corvallis. All this time
*
450
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
he was running a nursery and orchard in Oregon
City, and took the first premium for his fruits exhib-
ited in California; and so scarce was fruit at that
time that he once received the sum of eighteen dol-
lars per bushel for apples.
After the Indian war of 1855-56, General McCar-
ver went to Washington City to secure the payment
of the claims of himself and a number of his neigh-
bors for services and supplies; but the General was
defeated through the misrepresentations of General
Wool. Some of the claims remain unpaid to this
day. He returned and located in Portland in 1858;
and in 1862, upon the outbreak of the Idaho gold
excitement, he went to The Dalles and established
a general merchandise store. He afterwards went
to Auburn and Idaho City, where he remained until
1864, during which time he had accumulated quite
a fortune. He then went to New York, where he
was the first man to engage in selling quartz mines
on the market. During his absence in New York,
his buildings and other property in Idaho City were
burned and his business destroyed.
He returned to Portland in 1866 with but little of
his fortune remaining, and formed a partnership
with L. M. Starr, President, and Jas. Steele, Cash-
ier, of the First National Bank of Portland, and
engaged in buying up war claims. He succeeded
in making enough out of that to enable him to em-
bark upon an enterprise which had occupied his
attention, the location of a town at a point upon
Puget Sound which would be so favorably situated
as to eventually become the western terminus of the
Northern Pacific Railroad, an enterprise which at
that time was beginning to loom up as a future
trans-continental highway. In 1868, being then
sixty-one years of age, General McCarver, having
formed a partnership on equal shares with Messrs.
Starr and Steele, mounted his horse and left Port-
land with the purpose of locating at Commencement
Bay the town that after a careful study of its geo-
graphical position he had decided upon as having
the best harbor facilities, and being so located as to
make its connections with the interior easily acces-
sible by railroad. This location he thought would
eventually commend itself to the managers of the
great railroad line as the best site for the western
terminus of their road.
General McCarver proceeded to Olympia, where
further examination of the maps in the surveyor-
general's office and the land-office strengthened his
determination to locate at the site of Old Tacoma;
and he proceeded at once to that point, stopping
over the night previous to his arrival at Commence-
ment Bay at the house of a farmer a few miles from
the present location of the city of Tacoma. Thirty-
five years before, upon the night before General
McCarver crossed the Mississippi river to locate the
site of the present city of Burlington, he stopped
for the night at the house of George Buchanan.
During the night, as hereinbefore stated, a son was
born, who was christened George Buchanan. The
night before General McCarver reached the site of
the future city of Tacoma, which he was journeying
to found, he stopped over night with that identical
George Buchanan, who was born thirty-five years
before on the banks of the Mississippi river opposite
the site of Burlington. That night, as General
McCarver tarried on his journey to Tacoma, a boy
was born, who was named after his father, George
Buchanan.
That remarkable incident, recalling recollections
of the bright fortunes which had attended his
memorable journey in 1833, had much to do with
inspiring General McCarver with hopes that it was
prophetic of as grand a success as his former enter-
prise had been, and when before noon he had climbed
to the top of the bluff, and stood gazing upon the
placid waters of the Sound, he might have said that
he saw a forest of spars and miles of docks and rail-
roads without having been guilty of any inexcusable
flight of fancy. At that time there were only two
settlers at Commencement Bay,-a man by the
name of Galliher, who was running the old sawmill
at the mouth of the creek of that name, and Mr.
Job Carr, who some five years previous came from
Iowa with the idea of settling at the point which
would one day become the terminus of the Northern
Pacific Railroad. Carr, upon arriving at Olympia,
had been told that that city was eventually to be
the terminus; but he thought differently. Being
out of funds he went to work at Olympia; but after
a few months, having saved enough to enable him
to explore the surrounding country, he started for
Seattle, the location of which not suiting his ideas.
he returned to Olympia, procured a canoe and com-
menced exploring the sound to find a harbor suited
for the future port of commerce.
Following the coast, he came to Commencement
Bay, and being pleased with its harbor facilities
landed and explored the country and shores of
Tacoma, it being to his mind the best location for a
large city, owing to the easy approaches by land
and water, besides having plenty of fresh water near
enough to be available for city needs. The land at
that time being unsurveyed by the government, he
located a squatter's claim, and two years later suc-
ceeded in getting the land surveyed by the govern-
ment, paying two-thirds of the expense himself in
order to get it done, after which he filed a pre-
emption claim a little more than a year previous to
the time when General McCarver arrived. The
General immediately negotiated with Carr for all
but five acres of his claim. After concluding this
bargain with Carr, the General located a claim in
his own name, and shortly afterwards left for Port-
land, having selected as a name for the proposed
town, Commencement City.
Upon his arrival in Portland he stopped over night
at the residence of his son-in-law, C. P. Ferry.
Speaking of the proposed name for the town, Mr.
Ferry raised the objection that it was too long, and
suggested Tacoma. The following day, at a meet-
ing held at the First National Bank of Portland,
several names were discussed; and eventually, at a
meeting held at the Tacoma mill, Mr. Atkinson.
proposed Sitwill, the name of the chief of the Puyal-
lup Indians at that time; but Tacoma was finally
adopted. A short time afterwards the General
moved his family, consisting of a wife and three
children, to Tacoma; and they took possession of a
log cabin which the General had erected in what
was afterwards known as Old Woman's gulch,

........
1
RESIDENCE DE DEI PATWOOD
RESIDENCE OF S.A.HEILNER ESQUIRE
YCLONE
MIM
TAKI
RESIDENCE OF JUDGE LUTHER B.ISON.
BEAUTIFUL HOMES IN BAKER CITY, OR.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
451
opposite the coal bunkers. A few weeks later, C.
P. Ferry came to Commencement Bay to visit the
General. There being but two routes from Portland
to Tacoma, one by trail and the other by water, Mr.
Ferry came by water via Victoria, as being the more
direct and comfortable. Fare to Victoria, thirty-six
dollars; from Victoria to Vashon Island, nine dollars;
thence to Tacoma, about three miles out of the regu-
lar route to Olympia, nine dollars.
Upon arriving off Tacoma, the shores being
heavily timbered to the water's edge, some difficulty
was experienced in finding the city, which consisted
of two cabins, Carr's and General McCarver's; but
Mr. Carr set fire to a stump, and fired his rifle,
whereupon the steamer stopped and sent a boat
ashore with Mr. Ferry and wife. Communication
between the two cabins-a distance of little less
than a mile-was by water, so dense being the
growth on the shore that it was impossible to travel
that distance by land. Shortly after this, Messrs.
Hanson, Ackerson & Co. were persuaded to come to
Commencement Bay and erect their mill; and, other
persons coming in, the settlement began to assume
an air of prosperity. Starr, Steele and McCarver
laid out the original town plat, comprising about
sixty acres, including Carr's five acres. Steele sold
his interest to Starr and McCarver; and the General
went vigorously to work to accomplish the cherished
object of his endeavors, the establishment of
Tacoma City as the terminus of the Northern Pacific
Railroad. Having by this time succeeded in inter-
esting a number of railroad men in his enterprise,
he bought for the railroad company large tracts of
land, and eventually gave all of his own lands in
what was subsequently known as New Tacoma.
After years of unceasing and almost superhuman
toil and endurance, the General received the follow-
ing telegram, which is still in the possession of the
McCarver family:
KALAMA, July 1, 1873.
"To GEN. M. M. MCCARVER:
'We have located the terminus on Commence-
ment Bay.
"R. D. RICE,
"J. C. AINSWORTH, Commissioners."
This was the first announcement of their decision,
and was sent to the General as a compliment.
A great impetus was given to the growth of the
town, its inhabitants increasing in number during a
single month from two hundred to one thousand.
The failure of Jay Cooke and the Northern Pacific
Company in the fall of 1873 gave the town a blow
from which it did not recover for four or five years,
since which it has enjoyed a remarkable growth,
having but few precedents in the United States, and
none outside of it.
In 1875, while on a trip to the newly discovered
coalfields of the Upper Puyallup, General McCarver
contracted a cold that, after a fortnight's illness, re-
sulted in his death on the 17th of April. His life
for half a century was full of action, events and ex-
citements, was earnest and useful, and left many a
mark behind that will endure for all time to come.
He was one of the men who build great cities and
make states and empires.
JOHN BIRCH McCLANE.-This pioneer,
whose record extends to the memorable year of
1843, was born January 31, 1820, in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. He is the son of John and Mary
Swallow McClane. At the age of twenty-two, he
left Philadelphia for Texas with the purpose of
assisting General Sam Houston to gain the inde-
pendence of Texas. The ship, however, upon which
he took passage, sailing from Delaware Bay in a
storm, was delayed thirty days; and, upon his
arrival in New Orleans, the young man found that
Houston had withdrawn his proclamation of war
against Mexico, and that he was in no need of
recruits. Encountering yellow fever in the South-
ern city, he took passage on a Mississippi steamer,
stopping off at Burlington, Iowa, and happening
along at Fairfield at the time of the Indian treaty
with, and the payment to, the Sacs and Foxes.
Still having in mind a journey to foreign parts,
he had his eye on Chili as a desirable point, and
learning something of the route to Oregon deter-
mined to make his way to the Columbia, and await
a ship which would take him to South America.
Arriving at the rendezvous in the spring of 1843,
he found the emigrants gathering, and with them
set out upon the memorable journey. He recalls
that there were nine hundred and ninety-nine souls
in the company, being precisely the same as the
number of the loose stock. His recollection of the
incidents of the way is vivid and exceedingly inter-
esting.
We take the liberty to insert here a little fuller
report of his connections with Doctor Whitman than
might be allowable with reference to one less known.
It was at Soda Springs that he first made the acquaint-
ance of the Doctor, becoming very intimately asso-
ciated as one of his mess. From that point he
took a cut-off to Fort Hall. Upon their arrival at the
fort, the party was kindly invited by Grant to eat
and sleep in his own quarters; and a goodly store of
provisions was found that had been deposited by
the Cayuse Indians from Waiilatpu for the Doctor.
In about three days the wagons came up; and the
way-worn emigrants were much distressed by the
statements and advice of the Hudson's Bay factor.
Mr. McClane is one of the very few who heard
these statements; and it is of interest to record here
his recollections. He says: "The governor (Grant)
was honest and intelligent; and I believed what he
said, which was: 'A small emigration passed
through here last year. I told them as I tell you
that it is impossible to go through to Oregon with
your wagons. They believed me, left their wagons,
bought pack animals, and got through safely. My
advice to you is the same,-get pack animals and
go through; but I advise you to go to California.
There is the better country.'
)))
These statements were made repeatedly to the
emigrants singly and in groups, and produced great
excitement.
"Doctor Whitman," continues Mr. McClane,
"said to Governor Grant: 'I beg leave to differ
with you.
You believe what you say; but I guar-
antee to the emigrants that I can get them through
safely.' Governor Grant pooh-poohed; but the
assertions and persuasions of Whitman prevailed.”
452
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
The Doctor went all around among the Ameri-
cans assuring them that they could take their
wagons on, and, to make a practical proof, bought
a light "Dearborn
Dearborn" wagon that he found in the
train, and when all were ready himself went ahead.
He also gave to the emigrants the whole of the pro-
visions brought to him from his mission, supplying
his own mess with what bones or scraps he could pick
up, among other things throwing into the wagon a
newly born calf, which, however, reviving, jumped
out some time afterwards without the knowedge of
the driver.
Mr. McClane was the man to whom this light
wagon was intrusted; and he drove along behind.
the Doctor's saddle party, leaving a track for the
teams coming after. In difficult places, notices were
tacked up to indicate the way; and across the dusty
plains guide poles were set up at intervals. No
No
troubles were experienced except at Burnt river,
where there was no chance to drive except in the
bed of the stream for some distance. In the Grande
Ronde they met a party of Cayuse Indians, who
greeted Whitman with great kindness, and furnished
a feast of elk meat and bread and berries.
From his constant intercourse with the Doctor,
Mr. McClane remembers many interesting state-
ments touching upon his purpose in going East,
and declares that the Doctor told him that his whole
object was to preserve the Pacific coast to the United
States; that when he arrived in Washington he found
the senators and representatives and leading men
willing to trade off Oregon for fisheries; that Web-
ster, with whom he had a long interview, was thus
disposed; that the Hudson's Bay Company was try-
ing to get control of the Northwest Pacific, and.
were about to accomplish their purpose; but that
now he was satisfied that from his representations
Oregon would not be traded off. Mr. McClane
Mr. McClane
found later that General Lovejoy had the same
understanding of Whitman's purpose, and that in
going East the Doctor knew that he was acting con-
trary to the wishes of the missionary board, and
expected their censure, which he received.
Mr. McLane came to The Dalles in company with
Whitman, and from that point to Oregon City with.
Jason Lee. Finding Oregon as good as Chili, and
conceiving for it an attachment, he took up a claim.
in 1844 near Salem. On the outbreak of the Cayuse
war, he was one of the first to offer his services, and
at the encampment at East Portland was asked to
accept a nomination as captain of the Marion county
company, but was requested by General Gilliam
to decline nomination for the place, and to act as
private secretary and staff officer for him. In that
capacity he served through the war, occupying the
same tent with Gilliam, and being with the General
constantly up to the hour of his death. McClane
therefore saw the whole of that war. He acted also
as judge-advocate at the time of the formal investi-
gation by the troops of the massacre and its causes.
Having bought a half interest in the grist and
saw mill, with a tract of twelve hundred and forty
acres of land attached, from the Mission, he made
Salem his home and place of business. He spent
the winter of 1848 in California, and upon his
return in 1849 was married to Miss Helen C., a
daughter of Reverend Lewis Judson. Still remain-
ing at Salem, he carried on business and was ap-
pointed the first postmaster south of Oregon City.
He also held the office of treasurer of Marion county
in 1851-52. In 1885 he was appointed agent of the
Grande Ronde Reservation in Polk and Yamhill
counties, and still holds that office, but accounts
Salem, Oregon, his residence, where he still owns
his property.
Mrs. Helen C. Judson McClane was born in Otsego
county, New York, April 14, 1834. She came with
her parents in the bark Lausanne to Oregon, living
with them upon the old mission opposite Wheatland
on the Willamette, and receiving her education at
the Salem Institute. She has been a most efficient
companion of her husband since their marriage in
1849, making the conditions for his prosperity, and
bearing him fourteen children, nine of whom are
living,-George F., Annie Isabel, Eva, Louis B.,
Charles H., James L., Mary Helen, Harold Gilfrey
and John Bacon, Jr.
ALEXANDER C. McCLELLAND. The
present registrar of the United States land-office at
La Grande, Oregon, is a native of Indiana, having
been born there in 1842. He received his education
at the Berlin High School, Wisconsin, and in 1863
came west to Montana as a gold-seeker. He found
the employment of his intellectual acquisition more
profitable, however, and for a number of years en-
gaged in school-teaching and educational work in
the Willamette valley.
In 1867 we find him in the mines at Baker City,
looking after "lodes" and "leads," and also in
1870 engaged in the stock business with his present
partner, B. W. Bartholomew.
In 1874 he was married to Miss Mary, the only
daughter
daughter of the pioneer David J. Chambers, of
Chambers Prairie. Engaging in business at Olympia
with A. H. Chambers, three years were spent until
a change to the dryer climate of Baker county be-
came necessary from considerations of health.
In 1879 he sold his stock ranch, and located the
next year at Island City, following such pursuits as
were suited to the condition of his health. He is at
present residing at La Grande, having been appointed
as head of the land-office of that district by President
Harrison.
CHAS. M. McCLURE.-Mr. McClure has taken
as active a part as anyone in establishing our state,
and was one of the veterans who, as lieutenant, saw
the whole war in Southern Oregon.
Born in Missouri in 1832, he went to Mexico in
1850, and in 1851 crossed the plains to Oregon, set-
tling near Brownsville on the Calapooia. He soon
undertook the toilsome and exciting life of a miner
in Northern California and Southern Oregon, and
in 1853 assisted the settlers of Rogue river valley in
protecting themselves from the Indians, being one
of the relief party from Table Rock to help the
reconnoitering party who were surrounded on Evans
creek. He was also in the hot fight on the same
creek in which General Lane was wounded.
In 1855 he was on the way with a pack-train from
Yreka to Frazer river, when the news of the great
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
453
outbreak reached him at Salem. Turning about at
once, he joined the company of Bailey as second
lieutenant, to avenge the death of the captain's
brother, and to save the rest of the Whites. This
was the band of Linn and Lane volunteers, and the
first to reach the scene, making the trip by forced
marches. The details of that campaign are given
elsewhere. McClure, however, was in the whole of
it. At the place where Captain Bailey was mur-
dered, the oxen and hogs still lay as they had been
killed, and the chickens had escaped from their coops
and were pecking morsels from among the dead
bodies of the animals and men.
He was in the fight at Grave creek and on
Hungry hill, where the boys were twenty-four hours
without food, and were fighting all the time. He
participated in all the movements of the volunteers,
including the Big Bend adventures in the autumn.
The winter was passed by him with his company at
Little Camas; and he assisted in the defense of the
Looking Glass, where Bailey's company alone drove
out the Indians. When this company disbanded,
McClure joined Latshaw's and afterwards Waldron's
company as second lieutenant. This company took
part in the decisive fight at the Big Bend; and
McClure was later in command of a detachment in
the running fight on Cow creek. After his own
relief, he went to the reinforcement of Captain
Smith on the Rogue river. He was also of the
party fired upon after dark while spending a social
hour at their camp, losing four of their number.
After leaving the service in which he so well per-
formed his part, he engaged in the packing and stage
business in Western Oregon, and in 1861 extended
his operations to the mines of Idaho. In 1870 he
made a home in the Grande Ronde, near La Grande,
Oregon, and has invested largely in farm lands and
in stock, now owning five thousand acres, with six
thousand sheep and sixty horses.
He has a family of a wife and six children.
S. B. McCORD.-Syrenous Burnett McCord, one
of the leading hardware merchants of Eastern Ore-
gon, was born in Mercer county, Pennsylvania, in
1842. He went with his parents to Wisconsin when
a youth, and lived there several years. At the age
of eighteen he entered into an apprenticeship in a
blacksmith shop in the city of Black Jack, his boss
being the Honorable George W. Strong; and there
he served out his time and came out a good work-
man.
He crossed the plains in 1864, leaving with Col-
onel Flurney's train. At Baldock's ranch, in the
Powder river valley, Oregon, he at once entered into
the blacksmithing business at Pocahontas, seven miles
northwest of Baker City. He came down the valley
the next spring, and started the little town of Wing-
ville, which he named after a little town near his
old home in Wisconsin. At Wingville, too, he plied
the art of Vulcan, but in 1868 came to Baker City
and engaged in his trade in partnership with his
brother, R. D., who was there before him. The
brothers dissolved partnership in 1871; and S. B.
entered the hardware business on his own responsi-
bility.
He was a member of the first city council of Baker
City, and in 1886 was elected county treasurer on
the Democratic ticket, being re-elected in 1888. He
was was also elected the first mayor of Baker City
in 1887, and was re-elected in 1888. He takes
special pleasure in remembering the fact that he was
the first to advocate bringing in and operating a
water system for Baker City. In that effort he
encountered the heavy opposition of a company of
capitalists, who desired a franchise for a private
enterprise. Clearly seeing the danger of putting so
important a public matter in any other than city
control, Mr. McCord exerted all his efforts in oppo-
sition, and was successful; and the citizens of the
city may well thank him for his great service.
He was married in 1871 to Miss Angie Speelman,
daughter of a pioneer of 1862; and they now have
a family of seven children.
Mr. McCord believes that the resources of Baker
city and county are great enough to insure a flour-
ishing future. The combination of mining, farming,
lumbering and grazing interests points to a diversity
of industries and a consequent large population.
THOMAS K. McCOY.-The gentleman whose
name heads this sketch was born March 9, 1827,
in Sangamon county, Illinois, and there was reared
and educated. On October 12, 1848, he was mar-
ried to Margaret A. Kendall, who was also born
and raised in Sangamon county, the date of her
birth being October 4, 1829. The fruits of their
union were seven children, three daughters and four
sons.
Mr. McCoy came to Oregon in 1851 via the " OX-
team route," and settled in Linn county. The fol-
lowing year his wife joined him in his new home,
she having come in 1852 with her parents. In the
spring of 1858 they removed to the Walla Walla
valley, taking with them a band of cattle. In the
fall of that year a claim was located on the Tumalum,
now in Umatilla county, Oregon, to which the family
removed in the following fall. At that time there
were not to exceed half a dozen families within
miles of them. Indians, though, were very plenti-
ful, a large camp being located in their immediate
vicinity.
Politically speaking, Mr. McCoy was an ardent
Republican. Though not an office-seeker, he, how-
ever, was appointed county commissioner of Uma-
tilla county upon its organization, it being customary
to select the most worthy citizens. While on a visit
to his old home in Illinois he took sick, and on
February 19, 1887, passed away; and beneath the
rods that were the playground of his childhood lie
his remains. In his death his widow lost a kind
and noble husband, his children an affectionate
father, his acquaintances a valuable friend, and
Oregon a sterling citizen.
SAMUEL M. McCURDY, M. D.— This ven-
erable deceased pioneer of the Lower Sound, whose
name will ever be held in honorable regard by the
people of this coast, was born near Londonderry,
Ireland, in 1805. In his youth and early manhood
he was favored with the best of educational advan-
tages, and before crossing the water to America held
the degree of M. D. from Trinity College, Dublin.
454
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
In 1836 he had reached St. Andrews, New Bruns-
wick, and was engaged in the practice of his pro-
fession. In 1849 he sought to begin life anew in
the Golden state, and in the spring of 1850 was es-
tablished at Marysville, California, still practicing
medicine. With the penetration which enabled him
to perceive the great future of a northern country,
he decided to make Washington his home, and
came in 1854 to the deep-wooded and rugged site of
the present port of Washington, and in those soli-
tudes erected the first house constructed of boards
on the present site of the elegant McCurdy Block.
Upon the outbreak of the Indian war, he enlisted
as surgeon in the Northern Battalion, and served
until the end of hostilities. Returning to his home
he was appointed surgeon of the Marine Hospital,
holding the position until 1859. Relieving himself
in this year of that somewhat confining work, he
associated himself with Traverse Daniels in the es-
tablishment and publication of the Port Townsend
Register, the first newspaper published in Port
Townsend, thus becoming one of the pioneers of
journalism in Jefferson county.
He was also one of the organizers of St. Paul's
church, and was ever foremost in urging forward
the public schools. In 1859 he was appointed
United States commissioner of the court, and served
two years as sheriff of Jefferson county. In 1860
he had so far identified himself with the city of Port
Townsend, Washington Territory, as to send for his
family, and to make his permanent home within its
limits. He thereupon undertook the general prac-
tice of medicine, and in this work became univer-
sally known upon the Lower Sound.
His useful life was ended in 1865. His widow,
Catherine, née Boyd, of Ireland, to whom he was
married in 1840, and five of his children, still sur-
vive. Three of the children are deceased.
JAMES MCCURDY. This gentleman, who
worthily bears the name of his honored father,
Doctor Samuel M. McCurdy, was born at St. An-
drews, New Brunswick, in 1840. He was early sent
to school, and spent his time to advantage until as
a lad of fourteen he began the work of his own
maintenance, finding a suitable position in the gen-
eral merchandise store of Vose & Joyce at Robbins-
ton, Maine. Four years later he engaged as clerk
at New York. In 1859, however, he determined to
join his father upon the Pacific coast, and reached
Port Townsend, Washington Territory, in Septem-
ber of that year. He employed himself there in
the study of medicine in the office of his father, and
also acted as clerk in his drug store.
Re-
From 1862 to 1873 he indulged a love of change
and adventure by following a sea-faring life.
turning from this uncertain employment, he began
the systematic development of lime works on San
Juan Island in partnership with the late N. C. Bai-
ley. Upon the death of his partner two years later,
Mr. McCurdy conducted the business very ably and
profitably, and succeeded in building up a large
manufacturing industry, which he continued until
the autumn of 1886, when he sold advantageously
to a California company. In 1888 he established
the lime works on Orcus Island, conducting them
successfully, and still retaining in them a leading
interest.
H. McDONALD.- Mr. McDonald, who arrived.
in San Francisco in August, 1849, in the ship Hope-
well of Warren, Rhode Island, and reached Portland
the first time in August, 1850, on the brig Joaquina
of San Francisco, was one of the earliest residents
of Portland and of our state, and in the capacity of
architect and stair-builder has done some of the
most creditable work on our coast. One of his
more recent successes, and something of a test of
his skill, were the plans and specifications for the
buildings for the Indian school at Chemawa, which
were preferred to those of all other competitors.
Substantial work in Idaho and on the Upper Colum-
bia, at many points in the Willamette valley, on the
sea-coast and on the Sound, testify to his long life
and skillful activity in the Northwest.
He was born in Scituate, Rhode Island, in 1825,
a descendant of McDonald of Revolutionary fame,
and also of Lieutenant Phillips, who took part in
the battle of Bunker Hill.
During his youth he studied architecture, and
upon coming to California, in 1849, devoted his
time to contracting and building, erecting Bugoine's
Bank building, completing government work under
Lieutenant (now General) Sherman, and construct-
ing the first theater and the first Protestant church
in San Francisco. Arriving in Portland in August,
1850, he was at once sought to put up first-class
buildings,-the first Academy building, and many
others of a substantial character still standing in
Portland; the first Congregational church, and the
first water works. He also built the first steamboat
launched at this point, the Hoosier, which was set
afloat in September, 1850, and was completed by
the following February. He constructed the first
brickyard in Portland, and furnished the material
for the brick building now standing on the corner of
Stark and Front streets, and for the Holman build-
ing, and for many minor uses, such as foundations
and chimneys.
Upon a vacancy being made by the resignation of
Mr. Hastings in the first city council of Portland,
Mr. McDonald was chosen by that body to fill the
place, but resigned shortly afterwards in order to
return to the East to bring his wife and son William
H. to his Oregon home. The second trip to this
coast was performed on the new clipper ship Hurri-
cane, of New York, sailing around the Horn.
For
a number of years life was continued at Portland.
Forest Grove and Salem subsequently became his
places of residence; and a few years were spent tem-
porarily near Willamina in Yamhill county, in the
foothills of the Coast Mountains. Forest Grove has
been his home of late years, although he has per-
sonally made numerous temporary sojourns at vari-
ous points according to the requirements of his bus-
iness.
Among the buildings which now stand outside of
Portland, as monuments of his skill, may be men-
tioned the Congregational church at Forest Grove,
the Congregational church at Salem, and the first
railroad stations on the line from Portland to


UN
C
ELHANAN BLACKMAN,
SNOHOMISH, W. T.
ALANSON A. BLACKMAN,
SNOHOMISH, W. T.
HYRCANUS BLACKMAN
SNOHOMISH, W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
455
Albany. He has also recently erected a very neat
church in Hillsboro, the acoustic arrangements of
which are without a parallel for excellence on this
coast. The First National Bank building at La
Grande, Oregon, was also built from his plans and
under his superintendency. Although now for
forty-five years having been in charge of building,
he has never suffered an accident either to his men
or work, and has never failed to accomplish an un-
dertaking.
His wife, Betsey M., the daughter of Abial N.
Sampson, of Providence, Rhode Island, to whom he
was married in 1847, is a lady whose memory will
always be cherished, as she has always surrounded
herself with a circle of friends in whatever place she
has been located. Eight children have blessed their
home: William H., a banker of La Grande, whose
biographical sketch will be found in this work;
Charles H.; Ella F. Hinman, of Ellensburgh; Lulu
A. Imbrie, deceased; Edwin S.; John C.; and Lela
Berta and Lillie Anna, twins.
WM. H. McDONALD.- Mr. McDonald, long
known as purser on the old Oregon Steam Naviga-
tion Company's steamers, and now cashier of the
La Grande National Bank, is one of the Oregon
educated men who are a credit to the state. He is
the son of Mr. H. McDonald, the well-known archi-
tect and pioneer, and was born in Providence, Rhode
Island, in 1848, coming around Cape Horn on the
clipper Hurricane in 1851. His education was
gained at the Portland Academy, at the Pacific Uni-
versity of Forest Grove, and the Willamette Univer-
sity of Salem.
While still young, he entered the service of the
old Oregon Steam Navigation Company, and, soon
gaining a reputation for ability and fidelity, was
rapidly promoted, attaining at length the position of
general shipping agent of the Upper Columbia and
Snake rivers, one of high responsibility. He was
in the employ of that company thirteen years, fol-
lowed by two years' service in the general office of
Wells, Fargo & Company's express in San Fran-
cisco, four years as chief clerk of the construction
department of the railway branch of the Oregon
Railway & Navigation Company, and two years as
cashier of the First National Bank of Island City,
Oregon.
In 1887 he located at La Grande, and, in com-
pany with several of the leading citizens of that
place, organized the La Grande National Bank.
Prominent capitalists of Portland,-Henry Failing,
H. W. Corbett, James Steel and J. Loewenberg,-
were also largely identified with Mr. McDonald in
the enterprise, which, through the efficient manage-
ment of Mr. McDonald, already enjoys a high-credit
rating in banking circles, and is considered one of
the most sound and active banks in the state. Dur-
ing the entire period of five years of Mr. McDon-
ald's experience as a bank cashier, it is a matter of
record, that he never has been obliged to charge off
a cent to profit and loss, nor to place a note in the
hands of an attorney for collection, -a record of
which Mr. McDonald is justly proud.
Mr. McDonald enjoys the implicit confidence of
the community in which he resides, and is esteemed
by his acquaintances there and elsewhere through-
out the state as a high-minded, upright gentleman,
honorable and conscientious in his dealings, and one
who is proud of being a pioneer.
HON. E. B. MCELROY, A. M., Ph. D.—
Among the institutions of our country, none more
deservedly attract the attention of all lovers of law
and order than do our public schools. It is all-
important, therefore, that each commonwealth
should have some men of learning and ambition at
the head to represent, as it were, in a single indi-
vidual, the individual interests of every child in the
state. Especially is this the case in our state, where
we are in reality but just laying aside the swad-
dling clothes of self-government, and endeavoring
to lay broad and deep the foundations of a govern-
ment for higher and more prosperous days to come.
In order, however, to prepare for this good time
coming, it is necessary that we should make wise
laws and most thoroughly systematize the workings
of our public schools, and by this and other means
better prepare for their development and improve-
ment in the future.
ment in the future. Our legislators are sufficiently
wise to make the laws; but no system of a uniform
course of public instruction can be complete without
a head-center; and in this head-center, in a great
measure, depends the success or failure of the
common-school system under his control. The his-
tory of public-school systems in other states is to the
effect that a very few men have advanced and devel-
oped these public-school systems until they have
reached the high state of perfection already secured.
What is true of other states is equally true of Ore-
gon.
Our state has, since the creation of the office of
superintendent of public instruction, been peculiarly
fortunate in the selection of men of capability to fill
the position creditably. Among the most active of
these is Doctor McElroy, who has evinced a rare
aptitude for his work, and has proved a superior
officer from the very beginning. He brought with
him to the office the ripe experience of a successful
teacher, the practical teaching of a like, although
minor, position of county superintendent, the energy
and ambition of a man who is just entering the
prime of life, the love of the work inculcated in him
by his long-continued connection with public instruc-
tion, the necessary qualifications of a successful
business career, and the spirit of that progress to
the overthrow of old-fogyism and moss-backism
which will insure to his educational work the
advancement made by other public interests.
man, he is the very soul of integrity, and is very
highly esteemed by those who know him best. He
is one of that class of men who, while you fancy
him the moment he addresses you, will none the less
bear acquaintanceship, and advance in your admira-
tion and esteem the longer and more intimately you
know him.
As a
Like so many of the leaders and public men in
our state, his early boyhood was spent on a farm,
where he laid the foundation for a healthy body and
a sound mind. He was born in Washington county,
Pennsylvania, in September, 1842, and is conse-
quently now in his forty-seventh year. He entered
456
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
school at an early age, and remained there until
the breaking out of the Civil war in 1861, when he
enlisted as a private in the First Regiment of West
Virginia Volunteers. He served in that regiment
until 1863, participating in the battles of Cheat
Mountain, Romney and Winchester under Generals
Kelley, Shields and others. In 1863 he was mus-
tered out of that regiment, and re-enlisted as veteran
volunteer in the One Hundredth Regiment, Pennsyl-
vania Volunteers ("Round Heads"), and served in
that regiment until it was mustered out of service
in July, 1865. In the latter regiment he was
engaged in the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsyl-
vania, Bethesda Church, Cold Harbor, Poplar Church
Grove, Mine Explosion, Weldon Railroad, Squirrel
Hill Road, Hatches Run, Fort Steadman, and the
final assault on Petersburg.
Being mustered out of the service at the close of
the war, Superintendent McElroy re-entered college,
where he remained for two years. From that time
until 1874 he was engaged in teaching in Pennsyl-
vania and West Virginia. In 1869 he was married
in Washington county, Pennsylvania, to Miss Agnes
C. McFadden, a niece of the celebrated Bishop Alex-
ander Campbell, who was one of the chief founders
of the Christian church in America. In the spring
of 1874 they moved to Corvallis, Benton county,
Oregon. The same year Superintendent McElroy
was elected principal of the Corvallis public schools;
and in 1875 he was elected to a chair in the State
Agricultural College, which position he filled until
1882, when he was nominated by the Republican
party of this state, and was elected state superin-
dent of public instruction by a very large majority.
In 1886 he was renominated by his party by accla-
mation, was re-elected by a handsome majority, and
is now serving his second term as state superintend-
ent.
During the eight years he resided in Corvallis,
Superintendent McElroy served six years as county
superintendent of schools; and such was his effi-
ciency and popularity that he was during that time
twice re-elected without opposition.
Doctor McElroy is now the department com-
mander of the Grand Army of the Republic of
Oregon. He is an active and leading Grand Army
man, and has held several prominent positions in
that order, among them being assistant inspector-
general and aid-de-camp on the staff of the com-
mander-in-chief. He is a prominent member of the
Masonic order, being a thirty-second degree Mason
of the Scottish Rite line, and a Knight Templar.
He is also an honored member of the A. O. U. W.
and I. O. O. F., and has been for many years a lead-
ing member in the Christian church.
The Superintendent now resides in Salem, Oregon,
where he and his estimable wife are well known in
society, and are prominent in charitable works.
They have a family of five children. The superin-
tendent is a man of great activity and practical
energy. His oft-quoted motto among his friends is
"Work." He is pre-eminently a worker, and has a
high reputation for organizing ability and executive
force. He served throughout the entire war.
was a brave soldier, and has a splendid army record;
and the Grand Army of the Republic of this depart-
ment has done itself credit by selecting as its depart-
He
ment commander a man who bore a musket in the
ranks during the long four years of the Civil war.
During the six years of his administration, a very
great advancement has been made in our public-
school work, chief among which we should mention
the admirable system of blanks, registers and reports
prepared and established by him; the splendid com-
pilations of school laws; the establishment of the
department of appeals and decisions; the uniform
and regular issues of circular letters, etc. Indeed,
it is questionable if any state in the union has
advanced her school interests as rapidly as Oregon.
within the past six years. Special mention should
be made of his active interest in and vigorous efforts
to have our state represented at the national associa-
tion held last year at San Francisco. The great
success of this effort will be remembered by all.
For the year 1889 he has already taken active
steps to have our state largely represented at the
national association to be held at Nashville, Ten-
nessee. These efforts in behalf of public education
and enterprise are appreciated by all. The profes-
sion of teaching is being rapidly advanced in our
state; and this advancement is very largely due to
the constant improvement in our school laws, and
the continuous encouragement given to our teachers
by our active state superintendent. The district and
county institute work has been regularly and uni-
formly established by him. This of itself has given
a great impetus to educational work. Superintendent
McElroy has always been a true friend and vigorous
advocate of thorough public education. And
throughout the state he has hosts of friends who
wish that he may long continue to add to the ability
and strength of our public-school system and edu-
cational progress generally.
FRANK MCFARLAND.- This representative
merchant of Eastern Oregon, one of our best and most
enterprising men, was born at The Dalles December
17, 1858, and is the son of Mr. and Mrs. James C.
McFarland, who crossed the plains in the year 1852
from Ohio with four-horse teams, and in Oregon
have reared a family of four daughters and two
sons, all of whom occupy honorable positions in the
Northwest.
He made his native city his home until 1882, and
spent his boyhood days in assiduous attendance.
upon the public school, obtaining thereby a thor-
ough, practical education. He secured a position
also as salesman and clerk in the general merchan-
dise store of McFarland & French of The Dalles,
where he learned the ins and outs and practical
management of the mercantile business. At the
age of twenty-four, having become ambitious to
make for himself a career, he went to the town of
Alkali (now Arlington) and entered, as partner with
Mr. A. W. Coffin, into the general merchandise.
business under the firm name of Coffin, McFarland
& Co., successfully continuing the same until in
1887 the "Co." was dropped; and Coffin & McFar-
land conducted the business a year longer. At the
expiration of this time, Mr. McFarland moved to
Heppner, Oregon, and opened a branch store, which
he conducts at the present time with great success,
having an extensive trade, and being one of the
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
457
best liked, most popular and most trusted of the
business men in the whole Inland Empire.
He was married in December, 1880, to Miss Ida
M. Potter of Hood River, and has a home furnished
with all the comforts and refinements of life on the
Pacific coast, having also two fine boys, Earl and
Carroll. Mr. McFarland has confined himself
strictly to business, and has never aspired to public
office; yet he was glad to serve the public eight
years as a member of the Columbia Hose Company of
The Dalles. He is a native Oregonian of great
promise as well as of high record; and it is to him
and such as he that our state must look for leaders
in business and public affairs.
HOMER MCFARLAND.-Mr. McFarland, one
of our most able young men, was born at The
Dalles June 22, 1865, the youngest son of J. C.
McFarland, and a nephew of E. B. McFarland, who
was one of the oldest settlers of The Dalles, and one
of her most substantial citizens. He received his
early education at the Wasco Academy, attending
until his nineteenth year.
In 1885 he came to Lexington, Oregon, where he
has been engaged in the general merchandise busi-
ness ever since. This enterprise was the first of its
kind in that town; and the firm, in which he holds
a half interest, does an extensive business, having
the largest stock of goods and the finest accommo-
dations in the place. By the destructive incendiary
fire which swept over the town in August, 1887, the
firm lost ten thousand dollars over and above their
insurance, but yet carry on a large business.
McFarland was married March 4, 1887, to Emma J.
Mahaffy, and has a delightful home and one child.
Mr.
NAPOLEON MCGILVERY.—The life of this
pioneer is full of interest, and embraces many of the
most interesting occurrences on the coast, particu-
larly the campaign of Frémont's little band, which
secured California to the union.
Mr. McGilvery was born in the Lake of the
Woods, Upper Canada, at the Hudson's Bay post,
his father being for many years an officer in that
company. In 1839 he came to Vancouver with a
considerable party, and was occupied in the service
of the company until 1844, when he left the British
and became his own American master on Howell's
Prairie. In 1846, upon the outbreak of the war
with Mexico, he went to California, and at Sonoma
joined the American volunteers, who soon crossed
San Francisco Bay and were incorporated in Fré-
mont's forces. He took part in that belligerent
captain's various military excursions, going on
board the Sterling to make an attack at San Diego,
but returning with that ship upon the news being
received at sea that the American forces had suffered
defeat at San Pedro. He was in the campaign all
the way from Monterey to Los Angeles, and was at
the capture of San Luis Obispo.
The next year he was with Commodore Stockton,
crossing the plains to Missouri. After a short stop
at the Missouri river, he came back in 1848 to Van-
couver, but immediately left for California, digging
gold for two years. There he again fell in with
distinguished company, becoming a member of Cap-
tain Warner's exploring party, which made an expe-
dition to Goose Lake, and had a hot fight with the
Indians, in which the Captain was killed and four
others wounded, who all died from the poison of the
arrows. McGilvery escaped unhurt. After his re-
turn to California, he was up and down the Sacra-
mento, paying as much as one hundred dollars for
fare between Sacramento City and San Francisco;
and he paid another hundred to reach Oregon on the
brigantine Pedimont. It cost eighty dollars to get
to Portland from Astoria by an Indian canoe. Those
were rustling times.
He took another trip south, falling in with Gene-
ral Lane in the Calapooia Mountains, and helped
him to drive stock to the mines, and himself stopped
awhile at Yreka. Returning, he was in the Wil-
lamette valley, until his marriage in 1853. The
lady concerned in this affair was Miss Sara, the
daughter of William Flett, a woman of great per-
sonal attractions. The same year he occupied his
farm near Vancouver, Washington Territory, and
has lived upon it nearly forty years. There are
four children in the family,-Simon, Edward, Kate
and Susan.
HON. JOHN MCGLYNN.- This influential
resident and proprietor of the well-known hotel that
bears his name in La Conner, Washington, and
whose portrait appears in this history, is a man
fitted by nature with qualities that insure success,
and which are held in especial esteem among men.
With manners suave, a disposition to accommodate,
and generous promptings towards his fellows, he
greets the stranger, the customer or the friend in a
manner indicating the kindness of his own feelings,
and which seldom fails to leave with the recipient a
desire to do a favor. This is a happy faculty and
gives its possessor a respect and friendship among
men that is bounded only by the extent of his ac-
quaintance.
Mr. McGlynn is a native of the province of Con-
naught, Ireland, and first saw the light of day May
10, 1845, and is the son of Patrick and Catherine
Juckein McGlynn. When he was some seven years
of age he came with his parents from that unhappy
island to the United States, and located at Ham-
ilton, Ohio, and three years later moved to Carroll
county, Indiana, where he was educated and em-
ployed on his father's farm until 1872. In that year
he concluded to come West, and selected Washing-
ton Territory as his future home. Shortly after his
arrival he was appointed in this territory as Indian
agent for the Lumni Reservation, a position which
he held for five years. He was then appointed to
the same position on the Swinomish Reservation, and
held the position until his removal by the Cleveland
administration, being in politics a strong and con-
sistent Republican, and therefore objectionable as an
"offensive partisan."
In 1878 he built his present hotel building, the
McGlynn Hotel, which he has managed on strictly
temperance principles. His success is proof posi-
tive that a temperance hotel when properly managed
can be successful on the Pacific coast. In the fall of
1879 he was elected to the territorial council for two
years. While there Mr. McGlynn distinguished
458
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
himself as a leading debater, and was ever foremost in
the advocacy of all measures having for their object
the honor and welfare of the territory; and particu-
larly was he faithful and vigilant in all legislation
affecting the interest of his constituents. This was
justly recognized by a magnificent banquet and the
presentation of a gold watch by his constituents on
his return from his legislative duties. Mr. McGlynn
introduced the bill to segregate Skagit from What-
com county, and carried it through the council;
but it was not until the next legislature that the
measure, somewhat amended and modified, and in-
troduced by another member, was passed by both
houses.
He now holds the position of Indian agent of
Neah Bay Indian Reserve, having been appointed to
the position by President Harrison in July, 1889.
He has been identified from the first with the public
school system of Washington, and has filled the
position of school director at La Conner for many
years.
In personal appearance he is tall and slender,
and, as the portrait indicates, a fine-looking gentle-
man. He is always in earnest, and is straightfor-
ward in whatever he undertakes. He was united in
marriage December 25, 1875, at Tulalip to Miss
Elizabeth M. Bemm, a native of Canada. They
have a family of five children.
•
FRANCIS MCGUIRE. — Under the wheeling
shadows of Lone Fir, where green vines clamber
over the gently swelling mounds, where beautiful
funeral flowers, at each glorious resurrection of the
year, breathe sweet memorial incense, and gleaming
marble guards the last bivouac of the loved and lost,
lie the remains of Francis McGuire. Standing by
his grave we have no need to invoke the tender
Latin maxim,—De mortuis nil nisi bonum; for when
his weary head drooped at last it was by the chosen
path of duty. He left no stain on the bright
escutcheon of his manhood,—no cloud on his title
to honor and affection as a man and as a citizen, and
in the close and sacred family relations, which build
up and beautify, all over this broad land, those
clustering shrines of home at whose vestal fires the
torches of true religion and advancing civilization
are forever renewed. No, it was his happy fate, as
he bowed meekly to the imperious mandate of the
pale messenger, and followed him in silence down
the lonesome pathway that leads to the Valley of the
Shadow of Death, to leave behind him a green and
fragrant memory and the light and inspiration of a
bright example.
Francis McGuire was one of that illustrious band
of early Oregon pioneers, who, in those stern, heroic
days that tried the fiber of the manhood of men,
and amid almost incredible hardships and dangers,
blazed the first narrow, winding trails of progress
through the green wilds of these sunset slopes and
vales, and laid the sure foundation, “as rude and as
strong as stone hinges,” of the state whose heraldic
ensign now streams in proud splendor among the
clustering ensigns of the queenly sisterhood of
the queenly sisterhood of
states.
When the mythical hero Hercules had finished
the mighty labors imposed upon him by destiny, he
ascended Mount Etna, and then, with his lion skin
about his loins, and his conquering club by his side,
lay down on the lofty funeral pyre which his attend-
ants had prepared, and calmly surrendered his colos-
sal form to the devouring flames. And thus it is
with the early pathfinders and home-builders of
Oregon. One by one, as the swift seasons roll, the
gray-haired veterans, their battles over and their
victories won, stand forth to answer the summons
that cannot be denied, and, in the calm of the golden
sunset that closes a long and stormy day, pass on
serenely from labor to reward.
The pioneers were not perfumed knights, but
strong heroic souls on whom a stern and sacred duty
was imposed. In review of their rugged, romantic
lives, it is not easy to point out special achievements;
because in noble purpose, matchless daring and un-
broken fortitude they were peers. The life-work of
each must be looked upon as a whole. We must
consider the state of the country at the time of their
advent in comparison with what it is to-day. With
all this splendid progress and lofty achievement,
their name and fame, their toils and battles, and
their victories and defeats, are inseparably connected;
and it is the duty of those that follow them, and
bask in the sunshine of the day whose dreary dawn
they ushered in, to revere their memories and en-
deavor to still keep burning in their own bosoms the
fires of patriotism and public spirit that burned in the
bosoms of the pioneers.
Francis McGuire came of good old patriotic stock.
He was born in Brooks county, West Virginia, July
4,1810, his father having served gallantly as a lieu-
tenant in the Revolutionary war. Led by a spirit
of enterprise and adventure, and while yet a very
young man, he engaged in the business of trading
on the Mississippi river, then the great highway of
wild, romantic life and swift, successful commerce,
when fortunes were lost as easily as they were won,
and when the pistol and knife were the unchallenged
arbiters of the sudden and frequent quarrels. He
continued in that business with profit for five or six
years, when the malarial mists of the Mississippi
swamps began to affect his health; and he was com-
pelled to seek a more congenial clime, removing in
1840 to Burlington, Iowa. There he continued to
prosper in business, and in 1842 was happily married
to Miss Arvilla Green of New York.
In 1851 the pallid specter of disease again appeared
in his path; and, after considering the matter judi-
ciously, he bade adieu to Burlington, and, with all
his hopes and household goods, set out on the long
and memorable journey across the great plains to the
sunset slopes of the far Pacific. He arrived in Port-
land in 1852, and in the following year purchased
and settled on a valuable farm in Washington county.
In 1855 he returned to Portland, and immediately
interested himself in many public enterprises, promi-
nent among which was the Mechanics Fair, the
initial enterprise of the kind in the state, which was
held on the site afterwards occupied by the old Oro
Fino hall. Possessed of abundant public spirit and
remarkable business energy, he was soon looked
upon as one of the most valuable citizens of the
future Metropolis.
Noting with the quick eye of a successful business

HON.THEODORE L.STILES,
TACOMA, W. T.
HON HENRY DRUM,
TACOMA,W.T.
C. H. PRESCOTT,
TACOMA, W. T..
HON.C.H. HANFORD,
SEATTLE, W. T.
CHARLES T. UHLMAN,
TACOMA, W. T.
UN
N
OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
459
For
man the opportunity for a profitable investment, Mr.
McGuire, in 1871, removed to East Portland, then
hardly more than a struggling village of few houses
and weary spaces. He purchased a home of twenty
acres in the vicinity of Eighteenth and I streets, and
was soon energetically engaged in private and
public business. It was here that the grisly phantom
of consumption, which had menaced him twice be-
fore, again appeared and would not be denied.
four long, hopeless, torturing years his vital energies
struggled heroically against the fell disease, but
finally succumbed; and he breathed his last January
13, 1879, being in the sixty-ninth year of his age.
Followed by a long cortege of sorrowful friends and
relations, his remains were laid to rest in Lone Fir
Cemetery. A widow and four children-one daugh-
ter and three sons-were left to mourn his loss.
Eliza, his eldest child, became the wife of J. M. Mur-
phy, editor of the Washington Standard, published at
Olympia. The three sons, H. D., H. P. and W. W.,
are now all married, and are prominent business men
of the now flourishing city of East Portland. Mr.
McGuire was a devout and consistent Christian,
being at the time of his death a communicant of the
First Baptist church of Portland.
They were each of the breed of the hero,
The manhood attempered in strife,—
Strong hands that go lightly to labor.
True hearts that take comfort in life."
DR. W. C. McKAY.-One by one the pioneers
who braved the wilderness and its dangers, in order
that their posterity might enjoy the fruits of their
hazardous conquests of the domain of the savage,
are passing away. As the poet sang of the valor-
ous knights of the days of chivalry, "Their souls
are with the saints, we trust," so, at no distant day,
will the same be sung o'er the graves of the last of
the pioneers. So, while yet alive, let us honor them
as they deserve to be honored; and when dead let
their deeds be recorded with loving remembrance
on the pages of history.
Of the old pioneers who still exist, Umatilla
county can claim but a few. Prominent among
them is Doctor William C. McKay, who, together
with his father and his grandfather, figured con-
spicuously in the eventful early history of the
State of Oregon. His father, Thomas McKay,
was born in Canada. When he had grown into a
lusty lad of some fourteen summers, he, together
with his father, Alexander McKay, then a part-
ner of the millionaire, John Jacob Astor, left for
Oregon to establish a trading-post. The expedition
sailed in the ill-fated ship Tonquin, and arrived at
the mouth of the Columbia, the beauty of whose
rolling waters and massive cliffs were then known
to none but the savage.
In 1812, the year of the second war with Great
Britain, a company was formed under the title of
the Pacific Fur Company; and a trading-post was
established on the present site of Astoria. Soon
after its establishment, Alexander McKay went up
the coast on a trading voyage, the result of which
unfortunate expedition is known to every reader of
Oregon's history. His vessel, the Tonquin, was
taken by the Indians, the goods confiscated, and
every soul on board destroyed. Owing to sickness,
the boy Thomas did not accompany his father; and
to this is due the presence of Doctor W. C. McKay
in Pendleton to-day.
Thomas McKay was then left upon his own
resources; but they were sufficient to carry him
through and make his name illustrious in the
annals of Oregon. Soon after his father's death,
the war resulted in the mastery of the British on
the Pacific coast. The vessels of the Pacific Fur
Company were intercepted and confiscated by Brit-
ish cruisers; and, to prevent its capture, the trading-
post of Astoria was transferred to the North West
Company, a Canadian organization. It soon became
a prominent trading station of the Hudson's Bay
Company, the history of whose subsequent exten-
sive operations is known to all readers. With this
powerful organization, young McKay become con-
nected; and his services were found to be very valu-
able. He was placed in charge of all important
expeditions; and his word was law. He was at the
same time feared and respected by the Indians; and
it was probably due to his influences that the trading
operations of the company were carried on so peace-
fully with the red man, who at that time doubtless
little suspected that the pale-faces would in the
future become their absolute masters. He was one
of those remarkable characters of which pioneer
history furnishes the only type, -a crack shot,
brave but cautious, resolute and determined in his
actions; and he was viewed in the light of a terrible
and wonderful being, gifted with almost supernat-
ural powers, by the Indians, over whom he exer-
cised a peculiar controlling influence. His life was
an eventful one; but its incidents can be recorded
in this sketch only as they concern its subject,
his son.
Thomas McKay married first a princess of the
Chinook tribe; and to-day Doctor W. C. McKay,
their first-born child, is chief and ruler of that nation
by hereditary right. As a result of this union,
three sons were born, William, John and Alex-
ander. On his second marriage, Fortune favored
him with a son and a daughter; and the third time
two sons and one daughter were born, making quite
a large family altogether. William C. McKay,
with whom we have to deal, first saw the light of
day at the Astoria trading-post on the 18th of
March, 1824. His eyes opened on a country whose
resources were almost boundless, but were yet
unknown even to the few adventurous souls who
had invaded the Western wilderness. It was the
domain of the savage, whose wants were simply and
easily gratified, and whose untutored mind was
utterly unconscious of the wealth which lay beneath
his feet and all around. Little he knew what he
was losing when his empire was yielded inch by
inch to the encroachments of the pale-face settlers.
To-day what a magical scene meets the view of the
Doctor; and it is due to such men as he that all
this material wealth has been reclaimed. This land
is compelled to yield up its riches unto the white
man; and the fertile plains of the Oregon are cov-
ered with farmhouses, villages and cities instead of
the few rude wigwams of the Indians.
Doctor McKay, during his boyhood days, was
given over to the charge of his grandfather, Doctor
460
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
John McLoughlin, who was governor of the ter-
ritory occupied by the Hudson's Bay Company,
and was stationed at Vancouver. Here it was he
first received instruction, his young mind being
trained by two Yankee teachers, John Bant of Mas-
sachusetts and Solomon H. Smith of New Hamp-
shire, the first school-teachers that ever set foot on
the shores of Oregon. They came across the Rockies
with Captain Nathaniel Wyeth, the founder of the
Pacific Fur and Fishing Company, of Boston, in
1832. Methodist missionaries, who braved every
danger of the West in the interest of christianity,
were his next educators; and altogether the young
pupil had better training than many youths of the
civilized present.
When William was fourteen years of age, his
father concluded to send him to Scotland to be edu-
cated, and particularly to study the art of medicine;
and plans were formed for his safe transportation
across the continent and the Atlantic Ocean. It
was on one of the annual expeditions of the Hud-
son's Bay Company to Canada, placed as usual in
the charge of his father, that he started; but, reach-
ing the martyred Doctor Whitman's missionary
station at Waiilatpu, the entire plan for the youth's
education was changed. Whitman was a man of
singularly impressive faculties, and exercised a
powerful influence over those with whom he came
in contact. He was moreover truly loyal to the
United States government, and at length persuaded
the father to have his son educated at home.
"Tom," said he,
said he, "I suppose you know that this
country will one day become the property of the
United States, although a British organization, the
Hudson's Bay Company, now has temporary con-
trol; but the time is coming when Uncle Sam's
mastery will be undisputed. I therefore wish you
would send Bill to the college in which I was edu-
cated in the Eastern states. Give him an American
education, and let American principles and ideas be
thoroughly inculcated in his youthful mind."
words had a great effect; but the father replied that
his money was all in England, and that he hadn't
the means to give his boy a collegiate education in
America. I trade at your post," answered Whit-
man; “and I draw my money from Boston. I will
pay for the young man's education; and in exchange
you can furnish me with supplies." The worthy
Doctor was so intensely loyal that he did not wish
a single useful subject to be lost to the United
States; and he carried his point. The matter was
forthwith settled; and at Soda Springs, on Bear river,
William McKay, with his two brothers, John and
Alexander, parted company with their father, and
in charge of Missionary Jason Lee and party safely
made the trip across the plains in the summer of
1838.
))
His
On reaching the East, the subject of our sketch
entered Fairfield College, Herkimer county, New
York, the only medical institution west of New
York at that time, his two brothers being placed
in a Methodist training school at Wilberham,
Massachusetts. There he remained, wrestling with
his studies in medicine, for five years, and then,
grown nearly to man's estate, and ready to battle
with life, returned with another expedition of the
Hudson's Bay Company, starting from Montreal
in 1843.
in 1843. His two brothers left for the West a year
before with the first emigrants who ever crossed
the plains. The operation of the Hudson's Bay
Company, notwithstanding the dangers and diffi-
culties encountered in trips through the wilderness,
were conducted on a perfect system; and the return
journey was made without hindrance or delay.
On his return young McKay was established in
the mercantile business at Oregon City by his
grandfather, and continued in that occupation un-
til the California gold fields were discovered, when
he joined a party of eager gold-seekers in the
palmy days of 1849 and started for the El Dorado.
The Trinity mine, in Northern California, was dis-
covered and operated with profit by this expedition;
but its members were attacked by sickness, death
decimating their ranks; and in one year those who
remained were glad to return to the fair climate of
Oregon as best they could, McKay being among the
number who survived. He located again in Oregon
City on his return; and we find him there a short
time after the Whitman massacre, which set the
little frontier world afire.
It was this sad event, and the necessity of a
stronger organization and protection against the
Indians, which warned the settlers that the days of
a Provisional government must. cease; and efforts
were made to bring Oregon Territory under the
United States government. This was finally accom-
plished, Joe Meek being sent to Washington to pre-
sent the claims of the would-be territory, and Joseph
Lane being made governor. One of his first acts
was to call the Indians together at The Dalles, in
council, to enforce the delivery of the actual mur-
derers of Doctor Whitman and party. The Umatillas,
Walla Wallas and Cayuses obeyed the request; and
the guilty Indians were yielded up to the avenging
white man, and were duly tried and executed at
Oregon City. The chiefs of those Indians, who
were present at the trial, invited Doctor McKay to
establish a trading-post in their midst; and his final
settlement in Eastern Oregon is due to that fact.
He soon had a post established, locating on the
creek which bears his name, a short distance from
the present site of Pendleton, and, on the spot
where the residence of Mr. Fanning now stands,
commenced operations. His post was situated on
the very outskirts of the country known to the
white man, and became the general rendezvous of
traders and travelers.
The Doctor wintered on the site of Pendleton
in 1851 and 1852, on the spot where W. H. Jones'
residence now stands, then occupied by a flourish-
ing grove of trees. Then, instead of brick blocks
and fine residences, the valley of the Umatilla was
covered only with cottonwood trees and thickets
of brush and willows. Into the vast and fertile
territory of Eastern Oregon even the earliest pioneers
had not ventured; and the race of the pale-face was
only represented by the trader, driving his traffic
with the Indians, and exchanging beads and blan-
kets for valuable furs. In the spring of 1852 Mc-
Kay returned to Oregon City, but soon came back
with a larger stock of goods, and remained, doing
the while a "rushing business," until the Yakima
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
461
}
war in 1855, in which he with many others lost all
his possessions. The Indians had recognized by
this time that the people who came from the land of
the rising sun had grown all too numerous; there
was menacing danger; the houses and lands of the
red men were being taken and occupied by the
pale-face settler and miner, who by this time had
begun to make their presence felt. The time had
come when this number should be lessened, and
a few scalps hung to the lodge poles of the tribes;
but they began the work of destruction too late,
-and in vain.
The primary cause of the war was the treaty
with the Indians in 1855, in which all their lands
from the east of the Cascades to the Missouri river
were purchased, and their occupation by the settlers
begun. Another cause was the discovery of the
Colville mines in Idaho, and other discoveries of the
rich mineral wealth contained in the country of the
Snakes, Cayuses and Walla Wallas. These discov-
eries led to an excitement and consequent influx of
population much similar to the one in the Golden
state in the " days of gold" of '49. The savage
began to look upon the increasing number of white
men with distrust and suspicion. While few in
number, nothing could be feared; but now the forests,
the plains, the beautiful valley of the Indian, were
becoming monopolized. So the hatchet was dug up
with a vengeance; and war was declared.
The treaty in question took place on the present
site of Walla Walla. General Isaac I. Stevens,
Governor of Washington Territory, and General
Joel Palmer, Superintendent of Indian affairs for
Oregon, with their associates, met the head men of
the Indians there in council. Dr. W. C. McKay took
a prominent part as secretary of council for Oregon;
and this explains the subsequent antipathy for him
by the Indians, and the total destruction of his
property. Almost immediately after the treaty the
war began, lasting two years, the Indians finally
being forced into submission. Its history is well
known; and it is not necessary to particularize it
here. Suffice it to say that McKay took a promi-
nent part, and that his services as a scout were found
to be very valuable by the campaigning generals,
who were as unacquainted with the methods of Indian
warfare as the Indian himself would be of military
tactics. In the fall of 1856, Doctor McKay acted
as guide for the expeditions of Generais Wright and
Steptoe; and it was he who selected the site of Fort
Walla Walla, a garrison being there established at
his suggestion.
After the close of this war, when the power of the
Indian had been almost broken, mines were discov-
ered in Southern Idaho and Eastern Oregon and
Washington, principal among them being those
at Boise in 1864; and to this fact is due the final
rapid settlement of this section, the rancher and
stock-grower following fast upon the heels of the
miner, as he himself had followed the early traders
and missionaries.
In the meantime the doctor had taken unto him-
self a wife, marrying Miss Mary Campbell at The
Dalles, then a small settlement, in 1857.
The Indians again began to make trouble for the now
hated pale-face, at the close of the Civil war. The red
man could not remain quiet and see his possessions
wrested from him. The Snakes began a bushwhack-
ing style of warfare, harassing the entire mining
section, intercepting and confiscating pack-trains
and supply outfits, and taking the scalps of strug-
gling unfortunates. Everything was thrown into a
state of chaos; miners were compelled to cease oper-
ations because of the lack of supplies, which traders.
were unable to send. The United States soldiers
seemed powerless or unwilling to take any action;
and indeed one wily redskin, familiar with every
nook and cranny of his mountain home, was more
than a match for a dozen blue-coats. Finally meas-
ures for defense became absolutely necessary; and
here again we find McKay placed to the fore. A
petition was signed by the settlers and sent to Gov-
ernor Woods, asking, in the name of God, that vol-
unteers be organized as a means of protection against
the devastating Snakes. A bill was thereupon
introduced in the legislature for three companies of
volunteers; but an amendment was proposed by
Judge Humason, representative from The Dalles.
He said volunteers were all well enough in their
way; but his plan was to fight Greeks with Greeks
and Indians with Indians. He moved that a com-
pany of scouts consisting of Warm Spring Indians.
be raised, and that Dr. W. C. McKay be placed at
their head.
The amendment was carried with a rush. Gen-
eral Steele, commander of the department of the
Columbia, proposed that the scouts be equipped
with necessary arms and accoutrements, and be
regularly mustered into the United States service.
As is usual in such cases, a quantity of red tape was
wound around proceedings; and we find the Indians
waiting at The Dalles for three or four months,
impatient for action, but not yet supplied with
everything necessary to well-regulated warfare from
a tactician's standpoint. At last, in the dead of
winter, the company was inspected by General
Steele; and McKay was asked when it was advisable
to begin the campaign. Now," was his emphatic
answer; and he forthwith took the field with his
command, being assisted in the leadership by Cap-
tain John Dauch. It is needless to say that, being
acquainted with the modus operandi of the enemy,
their campaigning was eminently successful; and
they returned with thirty-five scalps, more than the
entire regular army of the United States in that
section had captured in five years.
In the month of June they again took the field,
being then used as the eyes and ears of the com-
mand of General Crook, who was in command of
this district. The Doctor says that the General, a
very affable gentleman, spent much of his time in
schooling himself in Indian warfare, using the
Indian scouts as his tutors. He was an apt scholar,
and gained knowledge which afterwards proved of
much value during his famous campaign against
the Apaches in Arizona. The result was that in
one year after the little band of Indian scouts took
the field under McKay, and afterwards placed them-
selves in the service of General Crock, the Piutes
and Snakes sued for peace in solemn council with
their enemies. One of their chiefs, in a grave and
impressive address, said that once his people were
462
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
as numerous as the leaves on the trees, pointing to
a grove green with verdure; now they were few in
number, and had fallen as the leaves in autumn,
and were compelled to make peace with the white
man. But he told the pale-faced commander that
it was not he whom he feared, nor his blue-coated
soldiers, at whom the Indians laughed. “It is
there," and he pointed to McKay and the Warm
Spring scouts, "the salmon-eaters (as the Warm
Spring Indians were styled by their copper-colored
brethren) who have taken the scalps of my people
and compelled us to bury the hatchet ere it is red
with the blood of our enemies.'
The chief was right. The Warm Spring Indians,
guided by the vigilant McKay and his able assistant,
were a terrible force. They knew the customs and
habits of the foe with whom they had to deal, and
could fight him with his own weapons and in his
own style of warfare, and were provided with all
necessary supplies by the government. The method
employed, says the Doctor, was to march from place
to place by night, camp in some obscure retreat
during the day, sending out scouts to discover signs
and traces of the enemy. When a trail was discov-
ered, it was followed with the keenness of a pack
of hounds by lynx-eyed pursuers. The camp of the
enemy was discovered; and that night the hapless
Indians were swooped down upon and destroyed as
the hawk darts upon its prey. That was the method
of warfare, and it was a successful one.
With the surrender of the Snakes terminated the
eventful portion of the Doctor's history. He was
invited by General Canby to take command of the
same company of scouts during the Modoc war, but
considered the outbreak a trifling matter, owing to
the small number of the Indians, and refused. It
was not, however; for it cost the government nearly
three million dollars to subdue less than one hun-
dred able-bodied Indians. Donald McKay, a brother
of the Doctor, had charge of the Warm Spring
scouts during this famous campaign against Captain
Jack in the lava beds; and these scouts did about
the only successful fighting.
Leaving the Doctor located in Pendleton after the
close of the outbreak, we will close our sketch, a
brief and unsatisfactory one, considering the variety
of events the writer endeavors in a faint way to
portray. Should the principal incidents of the Doc-
tor's life be particularized, a volume would not con-
tain them.
He is now a hale and hearty old gentleman of over
three-score years, and has seen churches, buildings
and schools spring up magically around him where
once was a wilderness. He has seen the pack-train
superseded by the iron horse, and the last vestige of
the early days of the trader and pioneer obliterated.
Here, in the midst of civilization, refinement, and
the busy bustle of a world of mortals, we find the
Doctor at present, and will leave him to the tender
mercies of the future.
DANIEL G. McKENZIE.— This is also a
pioneer who found all the lands surrounding Pull-
man, Washington Territory, a sea of bunch-grass.
He was born in Illinois in 1842. His father, Henry
McKenzie, was one of the early settlers of that
state, and served in the Black Hawk war, and be-
came afterwards a pioneer of Iowa, building the
town of Winterset. As county commissioner he
conceived the idea of building a county-seat, and
with the two other commissioners bought one hun-
dred and sixty acres of land near the center of the
county, sold enough lots off from it to pay the pur-
chase price, and deeded the tract to the county,
naming the place after his old home. The town
flourished; and the sale of lots has been sufficient
to obtain all the money for county buildings without
taxation.
There the subject of this sketch grew up, and in
1855 was married to Miss Sarah A. Bell, and re-
moved to Texas, but the next year returned to
Iowa, and afterwards made his home in Kansas.
He was in the old West until 1877, when he came
to his present locality, taking a claim on the sight
of Pullman. There he began living and improv-
ing; and the country has settled up and the town
grown around him. He is very hopeful of the
future of the city and county, believing this to have
the best climate, soil and natural resources of any
other equal area in the world. He does not think
that the delicate fruits, such as peaches, will suc-
ceed; but apples and berries grow without any hin-
drance. The grasses, cultivated as well as native,
and grain and root crops growing in profusion,
make this the region for stock.
Mr. McKenzie, like many others whose memoirs
we present, has served his time in the United States
army, but on account of a physical infirmity-weak
eyes-did not complete his term of service. In
this beautiful "utmost West” he is living with his
family in all the enjoyments of home and a pros-
perous community.
DR. JOHN MCLOUGHLIN. - Doctor Mc-
Loughlin has been very well called the first real
governor of Oregon. As chief factor of the Hud-
son's Bay Company west of the Rocky Mountains,
he was more than this;-he was autocrat.
He was
a great man,-large physically, of large views and
ideas, and, above all, very large-hearted. He was
nearly forty years on this coast, and during that
time was the chief man in it. The Indians called
him the "white-headed eagle;" and the Whites
went to him in their troubles. In a pathetic little
manuscript found among his papers, and never pub-
lished until after his death, he calls himself the
father of Oregon; and in a certain way, from a
certain point of view, his claim is wholly just.
The circumstances of his life may be briefly told.
He was born in Canada in 1784. His parents were
Scotch, although his mother, by some, is said to
have been French. When but a youth of sixteen
he entered the service of the old North West Fur
Company, and for twenty-four years thereafter was
making his way up, step by step, from the lowest
to the highest positions. It was his duty during
the years of his initiation to roam through the for-
ests, and to navigate the long rivers of British
America, going northward far towards the Arctic
circle or to the skirts of the Shining Mountains in
the West. He was stationed in lonely forts year in
and year out, and made pilgrimages back again to

JAMES H. RALEY
PENDLETON, OR.
UNI
OF
MIC
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
463
the headquarters at Montreal. He probably took a
good brisk part in the "war" between the tough
North Westers and the Hudson's Bay Company in
the Selkirk settlement. But, amid all these lonely
labors and exploits of the Northern wilderness, he
managed to attain a magnificent physical develop-
ment, and to store his mind with the knowledge
necessary to make of him a medical practitioner,
and to acquire a commanding and urbane manner,
making of him a medieval gentleman.
In 1824, the object of the North West Fur Com-
pany having been fully attained, and they having
been admitted to the privileges of the Hudson's Bay
Company, whose name they assumed, he was in-
trusted with the great responsibility of going to
Astoria and assuming absolute control of the whole
Columbia valley and northern coast. He was to be
commander of about a thousand Canadian and half-
breed servants of the company, over whom he ex-
ercised the unquestioned right of discipline, extend-
ing in exigent cases even to life and death; and
over the hundred thousand Indians within these
bounds he was to assume absolute control and make
himself autocrat, with full power to levy war upon
them, or to inflict capital punishment if it became
necessary. He was to move all the machinery of
the company on this coast; to send a shipload of
furs every year to London; to destroy competition
of the French, Spanish, Russians or Americans; and
to hold the country for the Hudson's Bay Company
to the exclusion of all else. He had no means with
which to perform all this except his own native
faculty and address. Considering the failures of
governors before that time, and the difficult circum-
stances, it is worth while to notice how he accom-
plished his object.
In the first place, he gained control by superiority
of intelligence and priority of will. He had his
plans fully laid, and permitted no one to question
them. Before others could think, he was acting;
and they had nothing to do but acquiesce. In a
very short time all subordinates trusted his judg-
ment, and naturally left with him all executive de-
cision. He had, moreover, a commanding physical
presence, and a personal magnetism which it was
hard for anyone to resist. He was capable also of
knocking a man down with his cane or driving him
out of the fort with a shovel, if his authority was
stupidly defied; and, when this was not practicable,
he was full of resources for winding up opposition.
It was but a short time after coming to Astoria
that he had the whole department in working order;
and, in addition to his masterful energy, he showed
a fatherly kindness to the clerks and factors and serv-
ants which endeared him to them. He treated
them with a rigid honesty which inspired their con-
fidence, and so recognized faithful or meritorious
service that all were inspired to do their best. He
became to them one of those men whom it seems
wicked to disregard.
To the Indians he used the same scrupulous ex-
actitude, paying them precisely the same price for
their furs, according to the directions of the com-
pany, and thereby established an idea easily im-
planted among simple people of any race, that the
exact worth of their goods would always be recog-
nized, and that he was absolutely reliable. With a
handy body of good riflemen, a few cannons and
ships, he was ready and able at any time to punish
any refractory tribes. At the time of the wreck of
the William and Ann at the mouth of the Colum-
bia, when the Clatsop Indians refused to give up
the plunder that they had gathered from the wreck,
and which they claimed was their own, as it came
from the water, he bombarded and burned their vil-
lage. For the plunder of Americans in the Umpqua
valley, he also punished the Shastas. Between fear
and reverence, and love and dependence, the native
tribes soon acknowledged his sway, and recognized
him as their chief of chiefs.
The Spanish and French gave him no trouble;
and the Russians kept to their own quarters, accept-
ing with him a trade in wheat and potatoes for their
furs. But the Americans made repeated efforts to
continue the idea of Astor in establishing a great
fur emporium on the Columbia. It took McLough-
lin less than a year, however, to break up any one
of them by destructive competition. Wyeth, Kelly,
Smith, Ashley and Bonneville succumbed. Although
in most cases treated with great personal kindness,
they found it impossible to make the slightest head-
way against the Hudson's Bay Company, or to gain
the Indians. As trader and factor, McLoughlin's
operations were a great success. He took and held
the country.
As the father of Oregon he accomplished a still
more remarkable labor. Soon after coming to
Astoria, he moved the post up to Vancouver and
began at once to nourish agriculture and develop
cattle, and to encourage settlement. All this was
aside from his official duty, and was due to his
humanity, and perhaps political bias. A peck of
peas and a little seed wheat, and a few potatoes, he
accounted precious, and soon multiplied to large.
fields of grain and vegetables. The few cows and
their mate sent out to supply milk and veal for his
own table he cherished as the apple of his eye, on
no account slaughtering an animal of any kind
except one calf a year for rennet to make cheese.
He soon had a fine young herd on Sauvie's Island.
The apple seeds put in the pockets of some Hud-
son's Bay gentleman just off for Oregon after a
dinner party by ladies in London as a playful
memento, he actually had planted; and from them
grew the first trees.
All these things were not contemplated by the
company; and a start in any line was very hard to
obtain. But before 1840 he had quite a system of
agriculture under way. As early as 1829 he began
advising the discharged servants of the company
to settle in the Willamette valley, forming the com-
munity on French Prairie. It was the positive
order of the company to discharge no servants in
the Indian country, but to return them home. The
Doctor, however, got an indulgence for these men
on the ground that they had Indian families that
they ought to take care of, and still kept their names
on his books as servants, although they were really
settlers. He himself encouraged their marriage.
with the daughters of Indian chiefs; and, as they
had families, he became anxious to provide them
with schools. He made these settlers dependent
4
31
464
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
on himself by lending them cattle, the increase of
which was to be returned to himself, and lending
seed and implements for which they were to pay in
wheat at the fort. To get rid of his wheat he
established the trade with New Archangel in
Alaska, and to the Sandwich Islands. There was
no money in the country; and all necessary goods
were only to be obtained from the fort.
He
When it came to American missionaries and set-
tlements, McLoughlin was no less forward to
encourage them. In 1834 he treated with the
greatest kindness the first missionary, Jason Lee.
He offered him every facility, and early made up
for him a purse of one hundred and thirty dollars
to assist in carrying on the mission school.
furnished him provisions at the usual rates. To
Whitman and Spaulding, from 1837 onward, he was
no less helpful. He seems to have fully desired the
establishment of missions, and to have been glad to
assist these little sprouts of civilization. But he
attempted to make all such efforts absolutely
absolutely
dependent upon himself for worldly necessities,
and in a manner to reduce them to simple Hud-
son's Bay posts. He even went so far as to with-
hold supplies from Whitman, if it happened that
the missionary failed to carry out his directions in
certain particulars. The other Americans who came
as settlers, he would treat in the same manner as he
treated the Canadians on French Prairie, encour-
aging them to settle, to raise wheat for him, and to
use his cattle and return the increase. He hoped
in this way to make Fort Vancouver dominant,
and, while not absolutely stopping immigration, to
make the country a dependency of the company.
The English have charged him with playing into
the hand of the Americans. By others it has been
suggested that he had in view an independent state
to be attached to Canada when she had attained her
independence of Great Britain. Still others believe
that he had no object but to retain the territory for
England, and to occupy it exclusively for the Hud-
son's Bay Company, and to control the missionaries
and settlers whose coming he could not prevent.
But by all it is admitted that he nourished the
young settlements, and from 1843 onward loaned,
without security, goods to the value of many thou-
sands of dollars, in many cases without any appar-
ent motive except to supply the needs of those in
want. From the time of the organization of the
Provisional government, and the arrival of an immi-
gration of eight hundred Americans in the autumn,
the controlling influence in the territory gradually
passed out of his hands. Posts and stores, and a
government which he did not dominate, began to
spring up; and Oregon became a part of the Amer-
ican union. McLoughlin himself severed his con-
nection with his company and became an American
citizen. His death occurred at Oregon City in 1857.
It may be well enough imagined that the efforts
and scenes through which he passed from 1840 to
1847 were exceeding harassing. Then began the
decline of his personal control which, during a long
time, he had made exclusive. The Americans first
The Americans first
broke the arch of his authority. His humane and
benevolent treatment of these Americans, who could
brook no government except their own, soon drew
upon him the censure of the English. Belcher,
Simpson, John Dunn, Fitzgerald's Journal, all stig-
matized his policy as imbecile. He was called to
a very sharp account by the Hudson's Bay Company
for his generosity; and every cent's worth of goods
that he had let go he was obliged to account for.
His loss was some twelve thousand dollars.
With the disseverance of his interests from those
of Great Britain, his troubles did not cease. Even
after he became an American citizen, it suited the
purposes of one party of these to make him a scape-
goat, and to curry favor by defaming him.
He was
also drawn through a long and most tedious conten-
tion for his claim at Oregon City, which was with-
held for a number of years. An examination of his
papers convinced so keen an American as Judge
Thornton that his affairs had been conducted with
absolute honesty, and that in the circumstances the
effort to exclude him from his claim was very wrong.
To the credit of the state, the wrong was righted
before his death. Nevertheless the wreck of his
influence, the almost universal condemnation passed
upon him at one time, the loss of his fortune, and
the ingratitude of the thousands that he had
befriended and well nigh rescued from starvation,
was a bitter thing to fall upon his declining years;
and his only consolation in that dark hour was his
religious faith and hope. He was a Catholic, hav-
ing joined the Roman church of Oregon City under
the labor of Bishop Blanchet; and his body sleeps
in a grave in the churchyard by the river bank,
underneath a plain slab whose characters declare
him to have been the friend of Oregon.
McLoughlin was a grand old man, with a depth
of discernment, a force of will and an abounding
humanity which gave him a touch of greatness.
CAPT. J. H. McMILLEN.- Captain McMillen,
a fitting example of the men whose stout courage,
tireless energy and ready friendliness laid the
groundwork of our state, is a pioneer of 1845, hav-
ing crossed the plains with W. H. Rector, Colonel
Taylor, Hiram Smith and others of that large immi-
gration.
Of Scotch ancestry, he traces his American line-
age to a great-grandfather who crossed the Atlantic
and settled in Rhode Island, where a numerous fam-
ily grew up around him. The grandfather, James,
pushed westward as far as New York; and in that
state Joseph, the father, was born. Arriving at
maturity he married Miss Ruth Gannett and settled
in Attica, New York; and in that village James H.,
whose life we here record, was born May 10, 1823.
During the very early life of this child, a further
removal was made to Lodi, now Gowanda; and in
1836, when James was coming to be a stout, active
lad, a further move to the prairies was effected. It
was at Orange, Du Page county, Illinois, that the
new home was made and a new farm opened. Aside
from his agricultural pursuits, the father was a mill-
wright; and the son learned that trade as his reliance
for future support; and it has ever served him most
opportunely and honorably.
It was a foregone conclusion that the migratory
life should not end with the third American genera-
tion; and in 1845 James H., now a stocky, powerful
1
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
465
and skillful man of twenty-two, undertook the cross-
ing of the plains to Oregon. Upon the advice of
William Card, one of the organizers of the company,
he did not sell his eighty-acre farm in order to pro-
vide an outfit, but, deeding it to his brothers, joined
the train upon promise of necessary means to be
furnished along the way in return for services. Mr.
Card, William A. Culberson, Kale Grower and
Edwin Stone were of the immediate party to which
Captain McMillen belonged.
Many of the experiences on the plains were excit-
ing; and one, at least, was singular. Two-thirds of
Two-thirds of
a day out from Ash Hollow, on the North Platte, a
wheel of someone's wagon was broken. Rector,
hunting up McMillen as the handy man in the
crowd, asked him to go back with a horse and buggy
to Ash Hollow and get a good piece of ashwood to
mend the wheel, while the train would make camp
and wait. The distance was great enough to bring
his return far into the evening; and he found the
road occupied for miles by a vast herd of buffalo,
quietly feeding in the meadows. It was necessary
to observe great caution in order to make his way
through without startling the herd and causing a
stampede. The thick, dusky figures in the dark-
ness, the chewing and fretting of grass, the move-
ment of hoofs, and the possibility that the whole
might suddenly move like an avalanche, kept on a
constant qui vive the spirits of the man in the buggy,
and prevented his using his whip or chippering to
his horse; and he was much afraid that some ugly bull
of the band would run up in the starlight and attack
his animal. The buffaloes, however, stepped out of
his way and made room with all the docility of
domestic cattle, and let him pass without difficulty.
Another interesting reminiscence of the train was
the banquet given at Laramie to the chiefs of the
Sioux Indians. The young men of the tribe were
off on the war-path; and the old fathers and mothers
and boys and young women were very friendly.
The Whites served up a quantity of bean soup with
civilized delicacies; and the Indians, as they ate, sat
in a circle alternately with white men. In smoking
the pipe of peace, it was noticed that they were careful
to blow the first whiff upward to the Great Spirit.
They spoke with amity of the emigrants going
through their country and shooting buffalo for meat,
but not for indiscriminate slaughter. It was a gala
day; and the young women were dressed in their best
buckskin gowns, which were whitened by the appli-
cation of a certain clay which made them very lus-
trous. They reached nearly to their feet, and showed
off to excellent advantage their beautiful lithe fig-
ures.
A little below American Falls Captain McMillen
came as near experiencing the hunger of the wilder-
ness as at any point. Starting off in pursuit of a
number of lost steers, himself and companions took
with them but a small piece of bacon, which was
obliged to do duty as food in that keen air for three
days. He still remembers with pleasure the beauti-
ful loaf of light bread with which Mrs. Rector
greeted the little party upon its return.
Reaching Oregon City October 25th, with a fifty-
cent piece which some one had clandestinely slipped
into his pocket in return for some one of his many
timely services, he found employment in Abernethy's
mills on the island at the falls, and in 1847 built the
bridge leading from the main street of the town over
the basin owned by McLoughlin, and used as a boom
for logs.
for logs. This bridge was a substantial structure,
and supported eight hundred and fifty feet of rail-
way constructed of two-by-four scantlings, and bar
iron one-half by two inches. This was the first rail-
road in the state, or west of the Rocky Mountains.
During one of those early summers, he was at
work on a boat at the mouth of the Skipanon creek,
and was one of the party that broke up a liquor
seller's shop at Astoria. This dispenser of "blue
ruin," who was exciting the Indians, was a desperate
character; and it was only McMillen's revolver that
brought him to terms. A hundred-and-forty-mile
pull in a canoe up the river to Oregon City was also
performed that summer in order to cast a vote for
Abernethy, the temperance candidate for governor.
Upon the outbreak of the Cayuse war, consequent
upon the massacre of Whitman, permission was
granted to quit work on the mill and proceed as a
member of the party of forty-six soldiers to occupy
The Dalles. The trip up the river in the midst of
storms and snow, and the exciting scenes at The
Dalles, in which Captain McMillen took an active
part, are fully described elsewhere.
In 1851 he secured a Donation claim on the
Tualatin Plains, and there for a number of years
carried on farming.
At the present time he occupies a delightful resi-
dence in East Portland, Oregon, upon land purchased
from Jacob Wheeler, and is occupied in the metrop-
olis in looking after his large real-estate and busi-
ness interests. At the age of sixty-six years he
still maintains rugged health, and, surrounded by
his family and friends, finds much to console him
for the many privations incident to the early settle-
ment of this Northwest. His first wife, Margaret
Wise, was born in New York State in 1832, and was
left an orphan at the age of three years.
In 1846
she came to Oregon with a married sister, Mrs. Jessie
D. Walling, and was married to Mr. McMillen Jan-
uary 28, 1850. Within less than a year she passed
from earth, leaving a son, Frank, eight days old.
Of his present wife and family a sketch is here
added.
Mr. McMillen gave land for a public school in his
district, where he has acted in the capacity of clerk
and director for twelve years. He has served as
councilman in his ward four years, and has given
liberally to schools, churches and for charitable pur-
poses. In politics he has been a Republican from
the firing on Fort Sumter. In religion always lib-
eral, he has of late years become a firm believer in
Spiritualism, and has always been a friend to the
cause of temperance and other moral reforms.
the past three years he has served as captain of the
Indian War Veteran Association, Camp Number 2,
of Multnomah county, Oregon.
For
It is proper also to add here that this gentleman
is the president of the North Pacific History Com-
pany, and that it is due chiefly to his steadfastness
and liberality that our work has been brought to
completion.
·
466
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
MRS. TIRZAH B. McMILLEN.- Especial
interest surrounds the life of those mothers who
made possible the social conditions of our state.
They will be held in everlasting remembrance.
Tirzah, the daughter of Edward and Hannah H.
Barton, was born in Clermont county, Ohio, in 1832,
and at a very early age accompanied her parents to
Cincinnati, later to Indiana, and in 1851 across the
plains to Oregon. In October of the same year she
was married in Portland to James H. McMillen, and
soon removed to their new home on Tualatin Plains,
ten miles west of Portland. It was there, amid the
agreeable surroundings and comforts of the farmer's
life, that six children were born,-Ernest B., Jus-
tus H., June, Union, Right and Constant.
The next home was at Oswego, whither they
removed in 1861. It was there that Justus and
Union passed to spirit life in 1863, they, with their
elder half brother Frank, departing within a few
days of each other. Constant remained until 1882,
when he joined his brothers in the beyond. One
daughter, Myrtie, was born at Oswego. At the age
of twelve she passed to the better life. Two sons,
Ernest and Right, and the daughter June, now the
wife of Julius Ordway, and Ivy, the wife of Dr. W.
L. Miller, of Portland, are living near the parental
home.
Their present home is at East Portland, Oregon.
MICHAEL MCNAMARA.— This prominent
resident of Skagit county was born in Woodstock,
Canada, in 1848. His early years, however, were
spent in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and at Chicago,
where he completed his growth and education at
Chatham, Canada. In 1865 he came overland to
California, and the next year reached Puget Sound,
finding employment ten years in the logging camps.
In 1876 he was able to set up a business of his own,
keeping a hotel at Stanwood, and three years later
building his present commodious hotel, the Ruby
House, which is first class in every respect. His
own residence at Mount Vernon, Washington, built
in 1887, is one of the finest on the Sound outside of
Seattle. Mr. McNamara is married and has three
children.
He was
ROBERT J. McWILLIAMS.- Robert J. Mc-
Williams has been for many years identified with
the pioneer business interests of Oregon, particu-
larly in the line of lumbering and preparing materi-
als for the construction of steamboats.
born in New York in 1825, and in 1839 emigrated to
Michigan, where he assisted his father in opening
out a farm, and after the age of twenty entered upon
the business of lumbering, with which he remained
until 1850, when he crossed the plains to California,
and remained until his trip overland to Milwaukee,
Oregon, in 1851.
At that young city, then a rival of Portland, he
leased the sawmill of Lot Whitcomb, and subse-
quently that of Collins & Torrence, opposite Milwau-
kee, which was run by steam. His lumber sold
readily at from forty to fifty dollars per thousand,
and laths at sixteen dollars. In 1854 he erected and
furnished at Milwaukee the Veranda Hotel at a cost
of fourteen thousand dollars, the best then in Oregon.
In 1856 he worked for or in the sawmill of Bradford &
Company at the Cascades for four years, and sawed
the lumber for the steamer Hassalo, long known on
the Columbia, and also prepared the planking for the
bottom of the steamer Colonel Wright, built for the
Upper Columbia traffic.
In 1857 he was married to Miss Olive W., daugh-
ter of Lot Whitcomb, who built and launched the
steamer Lot Whitcomb on the 25th of December,
1849, at which event the captain of a vessel was
killed by the bursting of the cannon that was being
fired on the occasion. The boat was a side-wheel,
high-presure, double-engine, walking-beam steamer,
with Captain J. C. Ainsworth as captain and pilot,
and Joseph Myrack, assistant pilot and clerk, and
Jacob Kamm engineer. She was sold to a California
company in 1882.
Many of Mr. McWilliams' early enterprises led
him among the Indians, as when in 1854 he accom-
panied Green Arnold to the Umatilla country, and
was with him barricaded by the Cayuses for more
than a week. The years of 1863-64-65 were spent
in mining expeditions seventy-five miles from Lew-
iston, in a place called Elk City, while his family
remained at Milwaukee.
The Grande Ronde proving attractive to his mind,
he accepted employment in a large livery stable at
La Grande, known as the Cattle Stable. As pro-
prietor of the "Our House" hotel for two years,
and afterwards of the Sixteen-mile House, as keeper
of the Clover Creek Station, and in different enter-
prises at La Grande, he passed the years until his
removal to Summerville in 1874. At that point he
was instrumental in reopening the Thomas and
Ruckle Blue Mountain road. He also carried the
Wallowa mail, and increased the service from two to
seven times per week. The sixteen days of the first
years he carried the same. He also purchased the
Patton sawmill of Summerville, and conducted the
same, together with two livery stables. Afterwards,
in 1887, he removed to the town of Elgin in Indian
valley, Oregon; and this beautiful section is his
present home.
HARVEY C. MEANS.- This flourishing mer-
chant of the town of Umatilla was born in Missouri
in 1858, and while yet a boy, in 1863, crossed the
plains with his parents to Oregon, stopping in
Umatilla county. During those early days he had
the severe experiences of a pioneer life in this
country, acquiring a hardihood and force, both of
frame and character, which has ever stood him in
good stead. He enjoyed the advantages of a good
common-school education, and in 1880 came to the
town to find a business opening, first engaging in
draying, jobbing and clerking. In 1888 he suc-
ceeded J. H. Kunzie in his general merchandise
business, whose store was the oldest in the county.
Mr. Means is very successful in this line, and also
conducts the postoffice, being well and worthily
known throughout the section.
COL. JOSEPH L. MEEK.- As one of the
remarkable mountainmen of our early age, “Jo”
Meek is deserving of special mention. Aside from
the class of men of whom he was one of the best

UN
E.M.KINNEAR.
GENERALMERCHANDISE
E.M.KINNEAR,
DEALER IN GENERAL MERCHANDISE.
DRY GOODS, FANCY GOODS, FURNISHING GOODS,HATS & CAPS,BOOTS&SHOES.
HARDWARE,WAGONS, PLOWS, AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS
Emigrants Supply Depot.
SPRAGUE, WASH. TER.
E.M.KINNEAR
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
467
own.
typęs, he possessed an unusual personality of his
This led him to so conspicuous a place in our
early annals that his frequent appearance in the
body of the work makes an extended notice here
unnecessary. We shall present only the salient
features of his remarkable career.
Born in Washington county, Virginia, in 1810,
he early developed a love of wandering which took
him from home and deprived him of all opportu-
nities of education. While still a boy he ran away
from home and joined the trapping company of
Sublette in the Rocky Mountains. In the wild life
of the border,-its alternate starving and abundance,
its fierce extremes of toil and inactivity, its desperate
adventures and its wild revelings, he spent over
fifteen years.
In the year 1840, the dissolution of the American
Fur Company having left them without occupation,
a number of the trappers resolved to collect their
worldly goods and seek new fortunes in the Willa-
mette valley. Among the number was Jo Meek.
Most of the company settled on the Tualatin Plains.
That was the earliest settlement in that part of the
valley, and, next to the Chemeketa settlement of
the Methodist missionaries, was the first American
community anywhere in the valley. Meek's place
was near the present site of Hillsboro. The various
fortunes of this tamed mountain hero-such as his
winter journey to the East as the envoy of the Pro-
visional government of Oregon, his part in the
settlement of the question growing out of the
Cayuse war, his performance of the duties of United
States marshal, etc.—are a part of our general his-
tory, and need but be alluded to ere.
The monotony of farm life was distasteful to a
man who had undergone such a life; and Meek's
later years were shadowed with poverty and dis-
appointment. He was out of his sphere in such a
community as Oregon soon grew to be; yet almost
to the end of his life he retained the gayety and
reckless abandon, as well as the physical mag-
nificence, which he had possessed to so superlative
a degree in his youth. His wife was a Nez Perce
Indian of great beauty. His children, of whom he
had several, are well known in the state as possess-
ing remarkable personal attractiveness and intelli-
gence. The stormy life of "Old Jo" came to an
end on the 20th of June, 1875.
THOMAS MERCER. This well-known and
highly respected resident of Seattle, Washington,
whose portrait, together with a view of his beauti-
ful home, is appropriately placed in this volume,
was born in Harrison county, Ohio, March 11,
1813, and was the eldest son of Aaron and Jane
Dickerson Mercer, -the latter a native of Pennsyl-
vania and the former from an old Virginia family.
Thomas resided at his birthplace until twenty-one
years of age, and after his school days entered his
father's woolen factory and learned the trade
thoroughly. In 1834 he moved with his parents
to Bureau county, Illinois, and located on a farm
near Princeton.
April 20, 1852, with his wife and four children,
he left the Illinois home, and with horse-teams
crossed the plains to Oregon, being captain of the
Mercer train. On arriving at the Cascades, Oregon,
he buried his wife, who had been stricken with dis-
ease at The Dalles. His first winter in Oregon was
passed at Salem; and in the spring of 1853, with one
of his companions of the plains, Mr. Dextor Horton,
now a well-known banker of Seattle, he came to the
present site of that city. He took up a claim of one
hundred and sixty acres adjoining that of D. T.
Denny, now having all undergone the wonderful
transformation from a tract of wooded, rugged hill-
side to lots graded and covered with buildings.
On coming to the Sound, Mr. Mercer brought
with him the same team of horses with which he
had crossed the plains, the first that ever reached
the neighborhood of Seattle. He built in 1854,
upon his claim, a residence that is still standing,
and in contrast with the beautiful home in which
he now lives is a striking evidence of the pros-
perity of its owner as well as of the city. A few
years ago he laid out his entire farm in city lots,
and realized a fortune from their sale. He deserves
mention also as the one who first christened the
beautiful lakes which are the pride of Seattle, having
in an address delivered at a picnic in 1855 suggested
that they be called Union and Washington.
In June, 1858, he was elected probate judge of
King county, a position that he held for ten years,
declining thereafter a re-nomination. He was also
one of the first county commissioners of that county.
In 1883 he built his present residence, where he
now enjoys the fruits of a well-spent and prosperous
life.
Mr. Mercer was married in 1859 near Salem to
his present wife, Miss Hester Ward, a native of
Kentucky. Two of the four children who came
across the plains are now living near the old home-
stead in Seattle, the third and eldest living near
Olympia.
C. K. MERRIAM, M. D.- Mr. Merriam was
born June 29, 1848, in Houlton, Aroostook county,
Maine, being the eighth child in a family of ten chil-
dren, the third and fourth being girls.
His father, Lewis Merriam, when a young man,
went from New Salem, Massachusetts, to Maine, in
1832, and married and settled in Houlton in 1833.
He is now eighty-two years old, and is coming West
this summer.
The parents were poor, and lived on a farm two
miles from the village. In early childhood he was
taught to pick wool, quill yarn, etc., as the wool of
the farm was manufactured into garments in the
family mill, the motive power of which was supplied
principally by his mother; and with boyish impa-
tience he watched his father make his first pair of
shoes by candle light.
If a book, slate, or pocket money for a Fourth of
July celebration, were needed, the wild strawberry
patch frequently contributed the means. If a hand-
sled, cart or miniature mill were desired, it was found
in the workshop over the woodshed after a few days'
work with the lumber and tools; while the yearly
sugar camp in the maple grove furnished amuse-
ment for the boys as well as syrup for the family.
The farm was sold; and the family moved about
two miles to a sawmill which the father built on
*
468
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST— OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
the north branch of the Meduxnekeag, where they
remained a short time, until the mill was sold to the
oldest son in 1861. The family moved again to a
farm having an old up-and-down sawmill in Haynes-
ville, Maine, about twenty-five miles south of Houl-
ton.
While there he received much valuable advice,
encouragement and promise of aid from an older
brother,—then and now an officer in the United States
army,—which led him to resolve, in 1864, to obtain an
education, though not unmindful of the difficult task
before him, as the promised aid was to be given him
after entering college.
The older children were away,-three to the war,
others to make homes for themselves. The parents
were growing old, and not only were unable to ren-
der much assistance, but required his service in the
mill or on the farm with still a younger brother.
One term of three months each year in Houlton
Academy was all that could be given him; and the
expense was chiefly met by teaching writing schools.
evenings, by money earned driving logs, and by the
sale of furs trapped along the banks of adjacent
streams in the fall.
In the summer of 1867, after the usual spring
work was done, he, assisted by a younger brother,
cut some timber, hauled it to a stream, drove it sev-
eral miles to a point near home, took it from the water
and manufactured fifty thousand shingles for the
purpose of paying for land desired for pasture.
Thus the years ran by, offering little opportunity
for study; and the necessary preparation for college
required the long tedious struggle of seven years.
One day during that period, needing a pair of boots,
and having no money, he went one morning to a
cedar swamp about one mile from the house, cut a
load of shingle rift, and returning yoked the steers,
—he had been taught to drink milk and later to
work,-hauled the timber to a brother's mill near
by, and sawed and bunched before night a thousand
of extra shingles, which paid for the boots.
On the way to enter Colby University in Water-
ville, Maine, September, 1871, being unusually pale
from too close confinement and study during the
summer, his brother, who accompanied him in a
carriage sixty miles to Mattawamkeag Point railroad
station, urged him not to go, and expressed the
opinion that he would not live to get through col-
lege; to which he replied, "I will die then in the
attempt.'
His first term's expenses in the university were
paid in part with money earned river-driving the
previous spring, his last experience with the peavy.
While a student in college, he became a member of
the Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity, and taught
schools during the long winter vacations. Just before
graduating, in the spring of 1875, he applied for a
position as teacher of penmanship in the public
schools of Lawrence, Massachusetts, and by invita-
tion met the school board of that city May 29, 1875,
and was appointed sub-master of the Oliver Gram-
mar School, and teacher of penmanship in the city
schools for the next year at a salary of one thousand
dollars. After getting settled in his new duties he
began the study of medicine under Doctor Cham-
berlin of that city.
At the close of the academic year, in the summer
of 1876, he returned to his native town in Maine,
and continued the study of medicine under Doctor
Bussy. He taught the High School in Rockport,
Maine, in the winter of 1876–77, and resumed the
study of medicine again during the summer, and
entered Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New
York City in September, 1877. He went to Lowell,
Massachusetts, after the close of the session, and
studied medicine under Doctors Burnham and
Benoit. He entered the medical department of the
University of the City of New York in September,
1878, and in February, 1879, received his degree of
M. D. from that institution.
Returning to Lowell, Massachusetts, he began the
practice of medicine in partnership with a former
preceptor, Doctor Benoit, March 1, 1879. The in-
come from the practice of medicine during the year
only paid his expenses; and, becoming impatient
and anxious to achieve something more, and being
debarred from a commission in the United States
service on account of his age, he applied for a med-
ical contract in the army. Being promised such
contract by the medical director, Department of the
Columbia, on his arrival in Vancouver Barracks,
Washington Territory, he started west and was
given a contract March 18, 1880, and assigned to
duty temporarily at that post. In May he was or-
dered to accompany troops up the Columbia river to
a new military camp at Lake Chelan,— which is
destined to become the greatest pleasure resort of
Washington. The lake is nearly sixty miles long,
and is narrow and deep. Its waters are full of im-
mense trout; and its shores abound in large game;
while the scenery near its head amid the snow-clad
peaks of the Cascade Range is of surpassing beauty
and grandeur. En route to this section, the troops
landed at While Bluffs and marched across the
great plains to a point opposite Lake Chelan, and
crossed the Columbia river in Indian canoes and
roughly made bateaux. While enraptured with the
pure mountain air, the fertile plains and beautiful
mountain scenery, he received the sad news of his
mother's death at the old home in Maine in her
sixty-seventh year, which clouded for a time all he
had witnessed.
Camp Chelan was abandoned in October, 1880,
and`a new site for a military post selected near the
mouth of Spokane river, to which point the com-
mand was moved. He was again ordered to Fort
Colville, Washington Territory, in October of the
same year. While there he paid the last of his in-
debtedness, amounting to over twenty-three hundred
dollars, and January 1, 1882, possessed the capital
of twenty-one dollars. During that year he began
assisting, and has since aided, a nephew through
college. November, 1882, Fort Colville was aban-
doned; and he was ordered to Fort Spokane, Wash-
ington Territory, where he is still stationed.
On the frontier the lessons learned from neces-
sity in early life have proved useful to him. Among
other things he improvised a rawhide jacket-splint,
with a detachable jury-mast for supporting the head
in cases of Potts' disease of the vertebral column,
which met indications admirably, and possessed
the desirable qualities of strength, lightness and
durability. As a taxidermist he has preserved
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
469
As
specimens of many a successful hunt or chase.
a mechanic, household furniture, snowshoes and
fishing rods served to utilize an otherwise idle hour.
His latest effort was a seven-ounce fly rod made of
lance wood, and covered with eel skins sent from
Maine. It doubtless has few equals in beauty and
durability.
During his connection with the army, he has
traveled over the greater portion of Eastern Wash-
ington Territory, and has visited Puget Sound.
Being so favorably impressed with the great natural
resources of the territory, its fertile plains, its fine
timber, its mineral wealth, and its healthful climate,
he not only decided to make it his home, but induced
others of the family to do so. By investing when-
ever he was able, he has laid the foundation for a
snug little fortune.
Z. C. MILLS.-Z. C. Mills of Seattle, Wash-
ington, is a native of the Empire state, and was born
in 1834. While yet in his boyhood, his parents
moved to Illinois, where he grew to manhood and
received his education. After he had reached his
majority, he engaged in business with his father.
He was successful; but, when an American has once
felt the excitement of moving, it is almost impossi-
ble for him to be contented, so long as there are
new countries to be found beyond the Western hori-
zon.
Accordingly, in 1859, when the Pike's Peak gold
excitement reached his home, young Mills started
for the new El Dorado, and settled in the new town
of Denver, where he opened a tin store. That
country not proving as productive as was expected,
Mr. Mills, with others, pulled up stakes in 1862,
and started for the Salmon river diggings, which
were then just reaching their fame as the richest
strike yet. The party crossed the Rocky Mountains,
the Bitter Creek Desert, Green river, the Wasatch
Range, went down the Bear river past the famed
soda springs, and had reached a point above Fort
Hall, when news that the Salmon river gold bubble
has burst reached them. They retraced their steps
to Fort Hall, and there joined a train bound for
Oregon. In the eastern part of that state they
stopped, and went to mining in the diggings on the
headwaters of Powder and Burnt rivers.
In three months time the Boise gold excitement
swept them back to Idaho. They located in the
beautiful Payette valley, and built the "Pickett
Corrall," a formidable inclosure of logs, which was
the first structure in that valley except, possibly, the
old fur trading station in the Hudson's Bay
Company times. There Mr. Mills did a general
ranch business the year round, and freighted to the
mines in the summer months with ox-teams. He
continued in that business for three years, after
which he went to Pendleton, Oregon, and built, by
contract, the first hotel of that place. Upon its com-
pletion, he was given its management. Two years
later he removed to Umatilla and engaged in the
hardware business.
In 1870 Mr. Mills removed to Seattle and formed
the hardware firm of Waddell & Mills. They built
up a large and paying business. After sixteen
years, Mr. Mills bought out his partner; and he is
now the sole proprietor. When he started in busi-
ness in Seattle, it was a place of two thousand in-
habitants. Its growth to twenty-five thousand has
more than justified his foresight, and his faith in its
future. Mr. Mills is an illustration of that class of
Americans who have ever been ready to brave any
dangers and endure any hardships in search of the
precious metals. But these men have been more
than gold hunters; they have been the advance
guards of civilization for all the country west of the
Missouri. Wherever the gold and silver prospec-
tors have gone, the grazier or plowman has followed.
Mr. Mills, after his many hardships and exposures,
is still in the vigor of manhood, and will live to see
the city of his choice the entrepôt for commerce, the
trade of the Northern Pacific coast and Asia.
JOHN MINTO. While Oregon was held to
freedom and the American union against the magni-
fied spirit of despotism of England, as exemplified in
the Hudson's Bay Company's rule in the valley of
the Columbia, it is worthy of note that an English-
man made as good an American, and, in the capacity
of settler, would do as much for American inde-
pendence, as one born in Massachusetts or Virginia.
In point of fact, many of the best Americans in
Oregon were born in England, and proved in their
career that American ideas, after all, are not so much
a matter of birth or inheritance as the outgrowth of
a grand principle which suits the real nature of the
most complete minds of all nations. Mr. Minto, a
man of great native force and boldness, with a pene-
trating and inquiring mind, of marked business
ability, and much various culture, is a perfect illus-
tration of this fact; and, indeed, he has been so
much of an American settler that Oregon without
him would not be Oregon.
He was born at the town of Wylam, near New- ·
castle-on-Tyne, England, October 10, 1822, the
family name coming from Scotland, in the person of
his grandfather. He crossed the ocean to the United
States in 1840, as a member of his father's family,
who settled at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and en-
gaged in coal-mining. Very soon after his arrival
in this country, young Minto began to hear or see
newspaper allusions to Oregon; and, before the close
of the year, he declared to intimate friends that
"He would go to Oregon if he ever got the chance."
In February, 1844, from a plethora of coal on the
market, prices were low and ill paid; and a miners'
strike was the result. Hoping either to find oppor-
tunity to get land under the pre-emption laws, or,
that failing, to get employment in the lead mines,
Minto started from Pittsburgh to Dubuque, Iowa.
The boat on which he was ascending the Mississippi
stopped over night at St. Louis; and he there learned
of companies forming on the Upper Missouri for
emigration to Oregon. Immediately making such
an outfit of rifle, ammunition, fishing-tackle, etc.,
as his means would allow, he took boat for the
rendezvous.
On arriving at Gilliam's camp, he was directed to
R. W. Morrison, as a party who needed assistants
for crossing the plains, and was soon engaged to him
in that capacity. On the emigrants forming their
military organization, of which Gilliam was the
470
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
elective head and Morrison one of the captains,
Minto was chosen as corporal; but on the sickness
of Willard H. Rees, also of Morrison's party, who
was orderly sergeant, Minto filled that position until
the companies ceased to observe their military rules.
On the arrival of the train at Fort Hall, Minto, in
company with S. B. Crockett and Daniel Clark, with
the full consent of their captains, Morrison and
Shaw, left the trains and came forward in advance
to the Willamette valley. For this there were two
reasons: First, every consumer of food whose services
could be dispensed with did a good service to their
friends by leaving them and such supplies as yet re-
mained for their families; second, at this point a
communication was received from Hon. P. H. Bur-
nett, of the previous year's emigration, saying, "If
from any cause there is need of assistance, and the
fact is made known in the Willamette settlements,
relief will be sent." There was cause of apprehen-
sion of suffering, as some families were short of
supplies before reaching Fort Hall. In some cases
this was caused by improvidence; but the general
cause was the slow progress made during the first
three months after starting, by reason of rainy
weather, and the fact that Colonel Gilliam did not
seem to appreciate the importance of traveling when-
ever possible. Many were dissatisfied with his
dilatory course.
>>
The three young men made their way to the
Willamette valley settlements without bringing any
special appeal for the relief of their friends. They
worked about a month while waiting for the latter
to reach The Dalles, having meanwhile successfully
applied to Doctor John McLoughlin for the use of
a bateau with which to return and asssist them
down the river. The good doctor kindly broke his
own rules of trade and opened his store at Van-
couver in order to furnish the three lads the means
of subsistence during the trip. It was but a trifle,
and not "a boatload of provisions, as Bancroft
has it; and Minto was in no sense the leader of
the party" thus going to assist their friends. They
were equals in every respect; and when they met
the train it was only Minto's share of the little joint
stock of provisions that he gave to Mrs. Morrison,
whom he met at the Cascades, entirely destitute of
anything to eat in her camp; while her husband,
Captain Morrison, was snow-bound near the base of
Mount Hood in his attempt to get the cattle of his
company and those of Captain Shaw across the
Cascades via the Indian trail on the north side of
the mountain. Morrison extricated himself and
stock by driving them back to the The Dalles,
where they wintered well, and whence Minto drove
them the next spring to the Washougal bottoms,
by swimming them to the north side of the Colum-
bia below the mouth of Hood river, and driving
them down the river trail to the Washougal.
That service filled a verbal contract made with
Mr. Morrison within five minutes of their first
meeting at the Missouri home of the latter, and
which was lived up to in letter and in spirit by both
parties, and took a full year's time. The bargain
was that Mr. Morrison should board Minto, and
Minto would help Morrison to get his family and
stock to Oregon. Mr. Morrison bettered his part of
the bargain by the gift of a yoke of oxen and chain,
which, with his two hands, and an axe purchased at
St. Louis, was Minto's capital in starting his business
life in Oregon. He had all to earn, but was chiefly
anxious to perform well the duties of citizenship.
His labor life gave him no trouble.
He had made his declaration of intention of
citizenship in Washington county, Pennsylvania, in
1843. He crossed the plains with Americans, as an
American, and cast his first vote at Oregon City for
George Abernethy, an American candidate for gov-
ernor under the Provisional government of Oregon.
Strange as it may seem, in these days of tax-dodg-
ing, he actually was for many years proud to pay
his taxes. During early years in Oregon he was a
Democrat in the fuller sense of that word than as
a mere partisan. Without taking an active part in
partisan politics, he noted carefully their drift, and,
as the slavery question grew in importance, was
strongly opposed to that peculiar institution, but
was a supporter of Douglas in his theory that the
citizens of a territory and embryo state had_an
inherent right to shape their own local laws.
he would by no means submit to a partisan rule
which placed himself and others in virtual bondage.
A few weeks before the Charleston convenfion, at
which the division of the Democratic party occurred,
a precinct meeting was held at Salem. The Demo-
crats, then regnant in Oregon, had under considera-
tion what was known as the " Eighth Resolution,
which virtually bound in anticipation all there to
support whoever should be nominated. The prop-
osition seemed about to pass as usual, when Minto
rose to his feet and said: "Mr. Chairman, I desire
to say that I will not vote for that resolution, and
will not be bound by it, even though it be carried
by a majority of this convention." To the question,
But
why," he said: "I will tell the gentleman why.
Before the nominations are made, to effect which
this is the beginning, and before a policy can be
declared by the delegates you will to-day elect, the
Charleston convention will have met; and all indica-
tions point to a division of the Democratic party
into pro-slavery and anti-slavery parties. I wish to
say here and now, that no resolution that this meet-
ing can pass shall force me to vote for slavery when
I have a choice of voting for freedom.”
incident is given as characteristic, and as probably
being the cause of Minto's nomination two years
later-a representative of loyal, adopted citizen-
ship-as member of the state legislature, -a posi-
tion which he has held three times from Marion
county, and virtually refused once in 1874, by
declining the nomination of the Republicans, with
whom he has generally affiliated since the Civil war.
This
As an Oregon yeoman, Minto's life has been that
of a pioneer, student and experimentalist, his inter-
est being to find the grains, grasses, fruits or domes-
tic animals best adapted to the climatic and other
conditions of Oregon, this being to him as satis-
factory compensation as making money by some
special line of certainly profitable application had
been to others. This life of experiment and obser-
vation, joined with some facility in telling what he
has learned, has brought him into prominence.
among his fellow-citizens; and consequently he is

GEO.S.BROOKE,
SPRAGUE, W. T.
UNIL
OF
M
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
471
found among the first exhibitors of fine fruits and
improved breeds of stock. It was probably at his
house that the first Farmers' Club ever formed in
Oregon met in 1853. It was on his farm that three
prominent families of the world-famous Merino sheep
were brought together in 1860 and interbred, nearly
one hundred years after their departure from Spain.
The French and American improved Spanish fami-
lies came to Oregon by importation from Vermont;
and MacArthur's Australian descendants of the
royal gift of the King of Spain to King George
III. of England came via Sydney and San Francisco.
In the particular line of breeding of sheep he deemed
the best adapted to Oregon, Minto has been promi-
nent since he first owned sheep in 1849, and has
given his experience most freely to others. While
making sheep-breeding for improvement of wool-
growing flocks his own chosen specialty, he has
been broad enough to take cognizance of other
lines of improvement; so that, in the manage-
ment of the Oregon State Agricultural Society,
his counsel was always valued, its most suc-
cessful years being the two years of Mr. Minto's
secretaryship. During that period the society paid
all premiums and running expenses, and, besides
putting down a large number of driven wells on the
fair grounds, paid over two thousand dollars in
experimenting with an artesian well. They also
printed a pamphlet of over one hundred pages
descriptive of the resources of Oregon, for the pur-
pose of inducing immigration, at a cost of fifteen
hundred dollars, and gave a bonus of sixteen hun-
dred dollars to the publishers of the Willamette
Farmer, on condition that the board of directors
select the editor for the first year. Mr. Minto was
elected to that position.
In other lines of action he has not flinched a citi-
zen's duty. Though very poor, and but recently
married when the war with the murderers of Doc-
tor Whitman was forced upon the pioneer settlers,
he joined the company of Levi Scott, which was
detailed to attempt to pass to California in the win-
ter of 1847-48 as escort to Honorable Jesse Apple-
gate, who was sent by Governor Abernethy to make
the condition of the settlements of Oregon known
to the United States through the commandant of
the United States troops then operating in Cali-
fornia, and to get ammunition, if possible, with
which to prosecute the war, the Hudson's Bay
Company having refused to sell to the settlers.
The effort failed by reason of deep snows in the
Siskiyou Mountains after a portion of the company
who volunteered to pass on snowshoes, of whom
Minto was one, suffered some sharp experiences.
During the raid of the Snakes and Piutes in East-
ern Oregon in 1878, Minto left Salem with a half
dozen repeating rifles sent by friends of parties at
Heppner, and an order on Judge Savage for twenty
stand of needle guns with ammunition for the set-
tlers on Rock creek, who were right in the line of
march that General Howard's order, published in
the Oregonian of July 4th, said the Indians would
take. Members of his family were there exposed;
and Minto had been in the settlement the previous
summer when Joseph's raid began in the Wallowa
country; and he knew that the people needed more
than anything else arms to defend themselves.
In relation to one other subject, Minto's name
may be mentioned, namely, the discovery or re-dis-
covery of the natural pass over the Cascade Range
now adopted as the line of the Oregon Pacific Rail-
road east from the Willamette. In following the
waters of the North Santiam river to their sources,
at the summit of the range, Minto proved himself,
says Chief Engineer Eccleson of the Oregon Pacific
Railway Company, "a natural engineer," and dis-
covered the best natural railroad pass yet known
across the range. It was done in obedience to the
order of his (Marion) county authorities; and if
the name given to a certain grass-covered mountain
overhanging the railroad line, and immediately
south of Mount Jefferson, should be permanent,
Mr. Minto will have a grand natural monument
transmitting the memory of his mountaineering.
At the age of sixty-seven he still takes interest in
every means of developing the resources of Oregon,
from the summits of her mountains to three leagues
at sea. Mr. Minto's home is at Salem, Oregon.
FRANK MITCHELL. This gentleman is a
brother of Mr. Matthew Mitchell, mentioned else-
where. Born in Missouri in 1839, he was one of the
ten children who crossed the plains with the parents
and made their home in the lovely Looking Glass
valley, Douglas county. Removing with his father
in 1863 to The Cove, he assisted him in keeping the
ferry, and, later, the toll-bridge on the Ruckle road.
The young man brought a few head of cattle of his
own, and by good management soon had a fine
herd. In 1869 he drove three hundred animals to
Nevada, and in 1878, with his brother, drove a band
of five hundred to Cheyenne.
In 1879 he made his residence upon his farm at
The Cove, Oregon, having a neat cottage and other
perquisites. He owns also a hay ranch of three
hundred and twenty acres, with a large number of
cattle and other stock. In 1888 he was married to
Miss Malinda Lynch, of Yamhill county. He has
an honorable record as member of the Home Guards
during the Indian war of 1855-56.
JOHN H. MITCHELL. — Honorable John H.
Mitchell, United States senator from the State of
Oregon, was born in Washington county, Pennsyl-
vania, June 22, 1835. His boyhood days were.
passed upon a farm in Butler county, Pennsylvania,
to which locality his parents had removed when he
was two years old. Bright and apt, and giving
signs of marked intelligence, his parents determined
that he should be given an opportunity to gratify
his thirst for knowledge. So he was sent to the
Witherspoon Institute, an establishment ranking
high among the educational institutions of the State
of Pennsylvania. Diligent in his studies, and am-
bitious to take advantage of the opportunities thus
afforded him, young Mitchell became, as was to be
expected, the leader of his class, and in due time
graduated with high honors.
Choosing law as the profession to which he de-
sired to devote himself, he entered the office of
Honorable Samuel A. Purviance, then the leading
!
472
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
attorney of that portion of Pennsylvania of which
in those days Butler was the center. Mr. Purviance,
who was subsequently attorney-general of the state,
was at the time Mitchell entered his office a member
of Congress, and was a man of national reputation.
Under the instruction of Purviance, who took a
great interest in his pupil, the young student made
rapid progress in overcoming the intricate windings
of the subtle law. To read law is one thing, to
read and understand it another. Young Mitchell
was not satisfied with the mere reading. His na-
ture was such that he could not content himself with
memorizing. He must comprehend his subject,
in other words, make it part of himself. This thor-
oughness which marked him as a student of the law
has remained one of the strongest characteristics of
the man, and has had much to do with his success
in life. Admitted to the bar in 1856, he soon after-
wards removed to the Pacific coast, an inviting
field for self-reliance, genius and ambition.
A remarkable set of men were those who laid the
foundations of constitutional liberty on these far-off
shores; and the commonwealths they created are
the best monuments to their ability, energy and in-
domitable will. They were of a superior race, the
flower of the youth of the older states,—men of cali-
ber, will and expanding thought. And in this con-
nection it may be well right here to call attention to
a fact not generally recognized, that it was from
among this body of men that came the leaders who
successfully waged the battle for the Union. Grant
passed his early manhood on the Pacific coast; and
the lessons he there learned, and the persistency
which was characteristic of the type of manhood of
which we are speaking, he carried into the war.
The same spirit which overcame the perils of the
desert, and laughed at the obstacles of towering
mountains, and reduced the savage to abject fear,
conquered the Rebellion. Sherman was a banker in
San Francisco, Phil Sheridan a lieutenant in Ore-
gon, and Joe Hooker a civil engineer among the
wilds of Rogue river in Oregon. Baker, the orator,
soldier and statesman, was preaching the "doctrine
of the new crusade" in the land of the Argonauts.
Brave, generous men! A grateful country recog-
nizes their worth, and does homage to the memory
of those who have passed over to the majority.
man of small ideas and petty purposes could make
no headway in a current of humanity like this.
That Mitchell succeeded amid such surroundings is
the best evidence as to the quality of his manhood.
A
His first conspicuous public appearance was at the
formation of what was known as the Union party in
Oregon. There was a sentiment on the Pacific coast
at the outbreak of the war of the Rebellion in favor
of the establishment of what was to be known as a
Pacific coast republic. Lovers of the Union were
aware that if this scheme was successful the fate of
the nation was to be despaired of; and that this
peril, though insignificant in comparison with others
which then threatened its existence, would be suffi-
cient to hasten and bring about the success of those
who elsewhere were determined upon the destruc-
tion of the Union. It was at this juncture that
Mitchell first came to the front as a political leader;
and his voice and influence were on the side of the
Union. The welding of the Union sentiment into a
political organization stood as a menace to the
schemes of those who were plotting the establish-
ment of this Pacific republic; and in the face of this
organized protest the plotters were compelled to
abandon their proposed project. Thus was a
great national calamity averted. As the representa-
tive of the Union party, Mitchell was in June, 1862,
elected to the state senate of Oregon, and was chosen
presiding officer of that body. Growing in popular-
ity he soon became the recognized leader of his party,
and in 1866 (although not a candidate in the mean-
ing of that term) came within one vote of the caucus
nomination for United States senator.
In October, 1872, he was elected to the United
States Senate for the full term commencing March
4, 1873. He was assigned to the Committee on
Privileges and Elections, then one of the most im-
portant committees of that body, and was also given
a place on Railroads (of which he afterwards became
chairman), Transportation Routes to the Seaboard,
Claims and Commerce.
Claims and Commerce. During the struggle which
followed the presidential campaign of 1876, Mr.
Mitchell was the acting chairman of the Committee
on Privileges and Elections, then composed of fifteen
of the leading and most influential members of the
Senate. Governor Morton, the chairman, was inca-
pacitated from serving owing to his being a member
of the Electoral Commission. The duties thus
devolved upon him were onerous and grave, as
much depended upon the course of that committee
as to what would be the outcome of a contention
that contained within its environments the horrid
specter of another civil war. A mistake, no matter
how trifling, would have precipitated upon the
country a struggle, the result of which was beyond
human ken, and the contemplation of which even
at this distant day causes one to shudder. That
Mitchell met the responsibilities imposed upon him
with excellent judgment is evidenced by the result.
The preparation of the Republican side of the case
depended largely upon the result of the investiga-
tions that were being pursued by the Committee on
Privileges and Elections; and so thoroughly were
these investigations conducted that it was made
manifest that truth and equity were on the side of
the Republican contestants. Public sentiment
acquiesced in the judgment of the committee; and
the decision of the Electoral Commission, based in a
large measure upon the labors of that committee,
was sustained by the country; and Mr. Hayes was
safely seated in the presidential chair. Mr. Mitchell
prepared the report of the committee in the Oregon
case, and was unanimously chosen by the Senate to
orally argue the case before the Electoral Commission,
which he did to the entire satisfaction of the Republi-
cans of the Senate and the country.
The same indomitable energy that marked Mr.
Mitchell's conduct on this occasion is also typical of
his efforts in behalf of the interests of his state.
The Columbia river, a majestic stream, second only
to the "Father of Waters," and draining a country
richer by far than the famous valley of the Nile, is
obstructed at several places, particularly at The
Dalles, where the immense volume of water rushes
through a narrow gorge at lightning rapidity, and
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
473
at the Cascades, where the waters tumble and dash
over countless boulders of immense size, creating
eddies and swift currents, so that navigation at those
two points is impossible; and as a result portages have
to be made and a trans-shipment rendered necessary.
To overcome these obstacles and make the Columbia
a free river (for it is apparent that those who control
the portages also control, or, perhaps, what is a better
and truer expression, own the river), has been the
prayer of the people of Oregon for years. Various
project to overcome these obstructions were from time
to time presented and discussed, and finally laid aside,
as such projects usually are unless backed by some
earnest man. Among the first steps taken by Mr.
Mitchell soon after his election to the Senate was to
secure the aid of the national government in remov-
ing these obstructions. After countless difficulties
he finally succeeded in obtaining an appropriation
for the construction of a system of locks at the Cas-
cades; and this work, though not progressing with
the activity that its importance demands, but still
with the same sort of activity that marks all enter-
prises under the supervision of the government, will
be finished in a year or two. In the meantime he
did not relax his efforts to get the government com-
mitted to some plan for overcoming the obstructions
at The Dalles; and so persistent and energetic have
his efforts been that, at the first session of the Fif-
tieth Congress, the Senate passed his bill for a boat
railway, for the commencement of which five hun-
dred thousand dollars are appropriated; and when
this work is completed, and the last obstruction to
the free navigation of the Columbia is thus removed,
"a mighty river will go mingling with his name
forever.
At the close of his first term, the Democrats had
succeeded in getting control of the legislature; and
it is claimed that their success was brought about
through the instrumentality of a company that con-
trolled the navigation of the Columbia river, and
was opposed, as a matter of course, to any effort to
rend that stream from the grasp of a soulless and
selfish monopoly. Be this as it may, the Democrats
were successful. In 1882 the Republicans again
being in majority in the legislature, Mr. Mitchell
received the nomination for senator, two-thirds of
the Republicans in the legislature voting for him in
caucus. For forty days the legislature balloted
without result, Mitchell during most of the time
receiving within from two to four votes necessary to
elect. This failure to elect was brought about by a
bolt of a few malcontents, actuated by personal mo-
tives and aims. Seeing that his election was impossi-
ble, Mr. Mitchell threw his influence in favor of his
former law partner, J. N. Dolph, who was elected in
the closing hours of the session. In 1885 the legis-
lature failed to elect. During this struggle Mr.
Mitchell was not a candidate, and was absent from
the state. At a called session Mr. Mitchell, though
not a candidate, was elected by the votes of both
Republicans and Democrats, receiving on the second
ballot in joint convention the votes of three-fourths
of all the Republicans, and one-half of all the Dem-
ocrats, in the legislature, it being the almost uni-
versal wish of the people of the state that he be
returned to the Senate. In the present Congress he
is chairman of the Committee on Railroads, and is a
a member of the Committees on Transportation
Routes to the Seaboard, Claims, Postoffices and
Postroads, and Mines and Mining.
As a lawyer Mr. Mitchell is clear-headed, and
quick to appreciate and apprehend a point. His
legal arguments are perspicacious and marked by
thoroughness and research.
thoroughness and research. In the debate in the
Senate on the Interstate Commerce Bill he took a
position as to the proper construction of that
measure, which has been followed by the courts
when called upon to construe the law; and the decis-
ions of the Commission have been on a line with
his argument, an argument, too, which was at the
time contravened by some who have the reputation
of being able lawyers, but who in this instance ap-
pear to have misconceived the scope and purposes of
the bill.
True to his friendships, Mr. Mitchell has the lar-
gest personal following of any political leader on
the Pacific coast; and this following is by no means
confined to Republicans. His admirers are to be
found on the other side of the party wall, and are no
less enthusiastic in their praises of him than those
of his followers who are of the same political faith
as he. The future has much in store for him; for
it is hardly to be supposed that ability, energy and
sincerity are to be overlooked. The country must
ever rely upon its earnest men, - men of deep con-
victions, courage, sincerity and honesty of purpose;
and such a man is John H. Mitchell.
MATTHEW W. MITCHELL.-This repre-
sentative man of Eastern Oregon was born in Mis-
souri in 1843, and with his parents crossed the plains
to the Pacific Northwest in 1852. The first winter
was passed by the family at Portland; and the year
following a Donation claim was selected and a home
made at Looking Glass, in Douglas county. Our
subject was there raised, and at Roseburg received
his education. In 1866 he was so far equipped as
to begin school-teaching, and for some years followed
that as a profession. In 1870 he was united in mar-
riage with Miss Josephine Stevens, of Looking Glass,
and the same year removed to the Grande Ronde.
He there engaged in stock-raising and farming. He
became prominent in the political circles of that
region, being elected in 1876 as representative from
Union county to the Oregon legislature.
His first wife having died in 1871, he was married
secondly in 1882 to Miss Jessie Ritchie, of Mult-
nomah county, who is also deceased.
Mr. Mitchell is still engaged in farming at The
Cove, Oregon, owning two hundred acres of excel-
lent land, and also devotes much attention to the
rearing of graded stock.
In 1885 the legis- rearing of graded stock. He is a man of recognized
worth, and of wide influence.
PAUL F. MOHR.-Perhaps to no man is Spo-
kane Falls under so deep a debt of gratitude for the
early completion of the diverging lines of railroad,
tapping the richest parts of the surrounding terri-
tory, as she is to Mr. Paul F. Mohr. To this gentle-
man's persistent efforts, coupled with a thorough
knowledge of his undertaking, is directly attribut-
able the completion, in the year 1886, of the Spokane
474
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
& Palouse and the Spokane & Idaho Railways, both
of which roads will exert a powerful influence on the
future of the city.
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, June 28, 1849, Mr. Mohr
is now in all the prime and vigor of manhood. After
receiving a classical and scientific education in this
country, at nineteen years of age he went to Ger-
many to take the course of civil engineering at the
renowned Polytechnic Institute of Stuttgart, and
afterwards went to Hanover, Germany, and to Hei-
delberg, to perfect himself in special branches of
his profession. After three years of study and travel,
Mr. Mohr returned to the United States and entered
the service of the Pennsylvania Company, in the
P., C. & St. L. Railway, as assistant engineer. In
1872 and 1873 he made the survey for the Texas
Pacific Railway Company through New Mexico and
Arizona, returning to Cincinnati when the latter.
road was stopped by reason of the memorable panic
of 1873. He thereupon entered into a partnership
with his father, who founded one of the oldest and
largest manufacturing concerns in Cincinnati. Young
Mr. Mohr soon became prominent in many business
undertakings, was a director of the Cincinnati &
Portsmouth Railway, also a director of the Chamber
of Commerce of that city and of the Board of Trade;
and in 1882 he became a delegate to the National
Board of Trade, and was placed upon some of the
most important committees of that distinguished
body.
In 1887 he became a member of the executive
committee of the National Distillery Association,
with headquarters in Washington, District of Colum-
bia, where he formed many important associations
and friendships with distinguished men of this and
other countries, among them the Hon. A. M. Can-
non, of Spokane Falls, who, recognizing his talents
and ability, induced him to come to Spokane Falls.
There, together with Mr. Cannon and others, he
organized a company to construct a line of railway
into the rich and fertile Palouse country; and, aided
by his professional training, Mr. Mohr selected a
route which controlled so completely the wheat area
of this country of practically unlimited resources
that it was with comparatively little effort that such
well-known capitalists as C. B. Wright, of Phila-
delphia, August Belmont, of New York, and other
large moneyed men were induced to invest in the
bonds of the company, and to receive the indorse-
ment of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company.
Mr. Mohr became a director of this branch road,
which has since been built and is now being operated
by the Spokane & Palouse Railway Company. Mr.
Mohr has also been the engineer in charge of con-
struction; and the remarkable short time it has
taken to organize, locate, construct and place the
road in running order testifies strongly to his skill
and energy. Collaterally with the construction of
the Spokane & Palouse Railway, he has been a
director and was engineer in charge of the con-
struction of the Spokane & Idaho Railway (com-
mencing at Spokane Falls and ending at Cœur
d'Alene City). This latter road was located and
completed in the remarkable short space of less
than thirty days. The location was commenced
in the latter part of September of this year; and
by October 23d trains were running over the
entire road.
On the completion of the Spokane & Palouse
Railway, he was tendered, by the management of
the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway, the
position of chief engineer of that company, which
flattering offer was accepted in March, 1888. This
line of railroad is considered the most important
within Washington. The western terminal is
located at Seattle, running from thence eastward
to Spokane Falls, having branches from a point
near Waterville to the Salmon river mines, and
from a point on the Okanagan river to Medical
Lake and Colfax, and from Seattle up the Sno-
qualmie river to the famous Denny coal fields, and
from Snohomish Junction, situate on this latter-
named branch, to a junction with the Canadian
Pacific Railway at the international boundary,
comprising at present in all a system of about
seven hundred miles of road.
Mr. Mohr in this enterprise solved the problem of
crossing the Cascade Mountains by selecting the
Cady Pass, the only practicable route across the
range, with light grades. This very important fac-
tor in the matter of construction for a time seemed
as if beyond solution, on account of the inability of
the company to locate a feasible and accessible
crossing of these snowclad mountains; and the pro-
ject came very near being abandoned, confidence
only being restored by the presentation of the plans
of Mr. Mohr. At the last meeting of the directors
of the corporation held in New York, he was unani-
mously elected vice-president, and was vested with
the sole management of the affairs of the company
at Seattle.
Having the greatest confidence in the future
development of Washington, and seeing more clearly
where the most advantageous investments were to
be made, he quite extensively interested himself
financially in various portions of the territory.
This was at a time when property was to be had
at mere nominal prices. His foresight and action
thereon has brought him in large returns; for the
influx of population, and the consequent pouring
in of money during the last two years, has en-
hanced his holdings to such an extent that he can
now be considered one of the affluent men of the
commonwealth. Mr. Mohr has all the require-
ments, both by his ability and experience, to make
him a most valuable addition to the population of
the territory. With a splendid education, great
energy, a large range of experience in commercial
and industrial pursuits, an intimate knowledge of
the methods of legislative bodies, close friendship
with the prominent statesmen and business men
of the United States, and possessed of rare execu-
tive ability, he is bound to achieve a most promi-
nent place among the representative men of the
North Pacific coast.
ex-
HON. Z. F. MOODY.- Zenas Ferry Moody,
-Governor of the State of Oregon, was born on
the 27th of May, 1832, in Granby, Massachusetts.
His father was Major Thomas H. Moody. His
mother was Hanna M. Ferry, an aunt of ex-Senator
T. W. Ferry, of Michigan, formerly vice-president of

G
A
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HABERA A
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1. SAW MILL.
2.CATHOLIC CHURCH.
ROSLYN. WASHINGTON TERRITORY
3. SCHOOL HOUSE
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
475
the United States. Governor Moody comes of good
old New England Revolutionary stock, his grand-
father, Gideon Moody, having borne arms as a sol-
dier during the Revolutionary war. He has proved
himself worthy of his lineage; and the principles
which he imbibed on New England soil. have been
the guide of his whole subsequent life. The sturdy
virtues of that stock are too well known to require
comment; they have become historical. The public
men of New England have led the van in every
reform, and have taken a most prominent part in
molding all of that history of which the American
people are most proud. New England ideas have
been infused throughout the whole of our national
life; and we have come to expect from men of New
England ancestry those sturdy qualities which have.
contributed so largely to our happiness and prosper-
ity as a people.
Mr. Moody's childhood was spent in Granby.
January, 1848, he removed to Chicopee, Massachu-
setts, where he remained the ensuing three years.
On the 13th of March, 1851, he sailed from New
York for Oregon by way of the Isthmus with a com-
pany, among whom was Honorable Samuel R. Thurs-
ton, the first delegate to Congress from the territory of
Oregon. He came direct to Oregon City, then the
principal town of Oregon, landing there on the 21st
of April, 1851. From that time until 1853 he was
engaged on the United States surveys as one of the
Freeman party," so called after James E. Freeman,
who stuck the first pin in the United States surveys
in Oregon, establishing the initial point of the Will-
amette meridian, and extending this meridian to the
Canyon Mountains. He was for a number of years
He was for a number of years
subsequently engaged in United States surveys. In
1853 Mr. Moody removed to Brownsville, Oregon,
where he engaged in the mercantile business.
In the fall of 1853 he was married to Miss Mary
Stephenson, his present wife. Four sons and one
daughter constitute the family group. In 1856 he
was appointed inspector of United States surveys in
California. Prior to going to California he turned
over from his own resources a large amount of stock
and supplies for the use of the Indian department.
After completing his duties as inspector in Califor-
nia, he went to Illinois, where he remained four
years, during a portion of which time he was the
surveyor of Morgan county. He happened to be on
his way to Washington, District of Columbia, when
Fort Sumter was fired upon in 1861; and, being in
Washington when the Seventh Massachusetts was
attacked in the streets of Baltimore, he enrolled as
one of the company formed to protect the city until
the arrival of the regular troops. In the year 1862
he removed to The Dalles, engaging there in the
mercantile business.
In 1863, though still continuing his residence at
The Dalles, he removed his business to Umatilla,
the development of the Boise mines having contrib-
uted towards making that an important business
point. There he remained in business until the fall
of 1865. In the spring of 1866 he built the steamer
Mary Moody to operate on the Pend d'Oreille Lake,
and afterwards aided in organizing the Oregon &
Montana Transportation Company. This company
built two other steamboats, constructed portage
roads, established Cabinet Landing, and projected
other enterprises with the object of securing the
trade of the Kootenai and Montana mines, and
diverting, if possible, the trade of Montana towards
Portland. The route selected by Mr. Moody in 1866
is the same as that over which the line of the North-
ern Pacific Railroad Company now runs. That vent-
ure, however, was in advance of the times, and
resulted in heavy financial loss.
In the fall of 1867 he engaged in the mercantile
business in Boise City, where he remained for two
years. In 1869 he disposed of his business interests
there and returned to The Dalles, where he took
charge of the extensive business of Wells, Fargo &
Co. In the fall of 1873 he resigned that position,
and in March, 1874, was awarded the contract for
carrying the United States mail between Portland
and The Dalles. In connection with that contract,
he established a line of steamers to operate between
the points named. In 1875 he withdrew from the
management and control of the transportation line,
and in the following year resumed business at The
Dalles, where he resided until called to the execu-
tive chair. During his incumbency as governor of
the state, his extensive business interests at The
Dalles were under the control and general man-
agement of his sons, who have since shared with
him in the management.
Prior to the late Civil war, Governor Moody was
a Whig. Since that time he has been an active and
pronounced Republican, his first presidential vote
having been cast for Abraham Lincoln in 1860.
While always active in the Republican ranks, he
has not sought office; though he has for many years
been prominent in the Republican councils, and has
been frequently urged for high stations to be filled
by the state conventions of that party. In 1872 he
was nominated by the Republicans in the Democratic
county of Wasco for state senator, and after an active
canvass was elected by an undoubted majority. His
election, however, was contested by his Democratic
competitor, whose party friends, having a majority
in the state senate, awarded him the seat.
In 1880 he was nominated by the Republicans of
Wasco county for representative; and, although the
county was Democratic by an average majority of
nearly two hundred, Mr. Moody was elected by a
majority of one hundred and fifty. At the session
of the legislature immediately following that elec-
tion, he was chosen speaker of the house of repre-
sentatives. So satisfactory was his discharge of the
duties of this position that his name was from that
time forth prominently mentioned in connection with
the nomination for the governorship. The next
Republican state convention was held in Portland in
April, 1882; and on the 21st of that month, just
thirty-one years from the day upon which he first
landed in Oregon City, he was nominated for gov-
ernor of the state. On the 5th of June following
he was elected governor over his Democratic com-
petitor, Honorable Joseph S. Smith, by a majority
of fourteen hundred and fifty-three votes, although
his opponent was one of the strongest and most
popular Democrats in the state. On the 13th of Sep-
tember, 1882, just thirty-one and one-half years from
the day upon which he sailed from New York for
476
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Oregon, he delivered his inaugural message as gov-
ernor of the state.
In the administration of this office, Governor
Moody displayed a business capacity and an exec-
utive ability which had already been tested by many
years' experience in the management of an extensive
wholesale business in Eastern Oregon. He brought
to the executive office a well-trained mind, exact
business methods, and a keenness of perception in
financial matters, which made him at once a success-
ful and popular executive. Since retiring from the
governorship, Governor Moody has held no political
office, although he was sent as a delegate from this -
state to the national Republican convention. He
went as an earnest friend of General Harrison, the
only original Harrison man in the delegation; and,
in an interview published in the Oregon Statesman
just prior to his departure for the convention, he an-
nounced his preference for Harrison and Morton,
and predicted their nomination.
Since leaving the executive chair, Governor
Moody has been absorbed with his duties as the
president of The Dalles National Bank, and as the
head of extensive business enterprises in The Dalles
and at other points in Eastern Oregon.
Governor Moody combines with discrimination
and firmness of purpose a courteous manner, that
prompts him to accord a respectful bearing to all.
Physically he is of a splendid type. He is of com-
pact build, with a handsome, ruddy face that indi-
cates sound health, a keen, sparkling eye through
which is displayed a cheerful and sociable nature,
determined to extract all good things from life con-
sistent with sobriety, and an elastic step and a rapid
movement that bespeak the busy man of affairs.
He is one who lives well, and appears well, and in
the discharge of all his duties, public and private,
redeems his promise of doing well.
His career, both as a public servant and as a
private citizen, has been successful; and this gives
assurance of success in any undertaking in which
he may engage in in the future.
HON. MILES C. MOORE.-The gentleman
whose name gives title to this brief memoir was
born April 17, 1845, in the little village of Rix
Mills, Muskingum county, Ohio, where his well-
known and widely respected parents resided. When
he was twelve years of age, the family removed to
Wisconsin, where for six years he attended school
at Bronson Institute, a seat of learning conducted
under the auspices of the Methodist church.
Inspired with a spirit of adventure, through a
perusal of the explorations of Bonneville, Frémont
and others, and desiring to better his fortune, he
resolved to brave the dangers and hardships incident
to a trip across the plains and come to the Pacific
coast. Accordingly, in 1863, he joined a party
en route to the newly discovered gold fields in Mon-
tana. After a few weeks spent in the mines, he
continued journeying westward until he reached
Walla Walla. There his finances gave out. Being
among strangers, the situation was not the most
pleasant to contemplate. Without giving it much
of a review, he sallied forth with the endeavor to
secure employment without other recommendation
than that which his face and general bearing would
portray. Messrs. Kyger & Reese, to whom he
applied, believing they recognized in him a worthy
young man, gave him a clerkship in their mercantile
house. So well did he fulfill his part, and so
firmly did he gain the confidence of the public, that
he was enabled not long thereafter, at the age of
nineteen years, to embark in business on his own
account. His successful career affords an illustra-
tion of what can be accomplished by any young
man combining the attributes of pluck, perseverance,
honesty and intelligence.
While he affiliates with the Republican party, he
has never been an office-seeker in the general accep-
tation of the term, and, when a candidate for
political preferment, it has been at the instance of
his friends. Prior to 1877 he served two terms as a
member of the city council of Walla Walla, and in
that year was elected mayor. In March, 1889, he
was appointed governor of Washington Territory.
This high honor was not bestowed upon him
through his own solicitation, but by the general
desire of those who knew his worth and popularity.
His administration of the office has proved him to
possess ability of high order; and his every act has
met with the hearty commendation of all, irre-
spective of party. In the selection of the last chief
executive of that commonwealth under territorial
conditions, a more fitting one could not have been
made. The following comment from the Tacoma
Ledger voices the common sentiment concerning his
administration: "Of all the able governors this
territory has had, beginning with Isaac I. Stevens,
who was a distinguished soldier, engineer and poli-
tical leader, no one has brought to this office more
intelligence, grace and dignity, than Governor Miles
C. Moore."
In 1873 he was united in marriage to Mary E.
Baker, daughter of the late Doctor D. S. Baker of
Walla Walla, a pioneer of 1847, and well known and
widely respected as one of Washington's most able
and enterprising citizens. With their three bright
boys they live a tranquil life in their beautiful
suburban home at Walla Walla.
ROBERT MORAN.— Among the many who
have risen to prominence in the Pacific Northwest,
the Empire state furnishes a considerable proportion,
one of the number being the subject of this sketch.
He was born in New York City January 26, 1857,
and in that metropolis secured his education, and
also mastered the trade of a machinist. In 1875 he
concluded to come West, and following up the idea
found himself in San Francisco in the fall of that
year. Not seeing any opening then for a man
possessed with no capital but integrity and push,
he soon left that city for the Sound. He arrived in
Seattle without a cent, and was among strangers;
but this fact did not deter him from making an
effort to build himself up, and upon soliciting was
given employment as engineer on one of the vessels
which ply the waters of the Sound as well as those
of Alaska.
In 1882 his mother and brother Peter came to
Seattle; and he quit steamboating, and together
with his brother started a small machine shop,
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
477
locating it on Yesler's wharf. Their capital at the
beginning was only about a thousand dollars; but,
by efficient management and master workmanship,
their business quickly grew to large proportions,
they now employing a force of eighty men in their
shops. In the great fire of June 6, 1889, their entire
plant was destroyed, losing very heavily in conse-
quence; but hardly had the smoking embers cooled
before they had commenced to rebuild their establish-
ment on a larger scale. Mr. Moran is also vice-
president and general manager of the Seattle Dry
Dock and Ship Building Company, which employs
about a hundred and fifty men. In 1887 the citizens
of the fourth ward induced him to accept the nomi-
nation for the city council, and upon his acceptance
elected him by a very handsome majority. In that
position he made such a commendable record, and
gained so many friends, that he could not well
decline to run for mayor in 1888, which he did, and
was elected, and again re-elected to the same
position in 1889.
In the material welfare of the "Queen City,"
Mr. Moran has taken a deep and very active
interest; and all enterprises tending towards its
advancement have met with encouragement from
him.
At the time her business portion, including
Mr. Moran's interests, were in ashes, he gave no
thought to self, but devoted his entire time to the
affairs of his office, and in devising ways and means
for the protection, assistance and rebuilding of the
stricken city. During this great trial the executive
ability displayed by him was remarked and favor-
ably commented upon by all who knew or read
of what the situation was, and what he had to con-
tend with. In the rebuilding and remodeling of
the streets, his ideas of what should be done were
generally adopted; and through such Seattle enjoys
much better thoroughfares than ever before, and
which would be a credit to any city on the coast.
In politics Mr. Moran is a Republican, but as an
office holder his thought is not for party, but rather
for the best interests of the community at large,
irrespective of party affiliation. He intends to
eschew "public trust" on the expiration of his
present term as mayor; but it is doubtful if his
many friends will admit of his retirement, and may
push him forward to higher honors. His part as a
man of tact, and his ability in the management of
his business affairs, well portend to what extent
they will grow, and point out a coming millionaire.
Mr. Moran was married in his adopted home to
Miss M. Paul in 1882. The fruits of the union are
two children.
REV. JESSE MORELAND.—But few, if any,
stand higher socially, morally or in the estimation
of their neighbors and friends than the grand man
whose name calls forth this brief pen-and-ink sketch.
We do not attempt to give the likeness of the man
drawn from opinion. Our purpose is to sketch
what he is in a few selected facts from his life.
With this intention, what we have essayed to give
to the public will furnish an instance of the influ-
ence of piety and industry, united with sound com-
mon-sense, in giving a noble character a distin-
guished position and eminent usefulness. His name
is a synonym for all that is true and honorable in a
man.
The early settlers of Oregon, as well as others of
more recent date, honor the name of Jesse More-
land for his liberality, hospitality, and absolute and
uncorruptible integrity. His clear and discrimi-
nating mind, impartial judgment, strong, practical
good sense, and a profound and instinctive sense.
of right and wrong, patience in investigation, and
a sincere, earnest desire to reach just and correct
conclusions, lead to the inevitable conviction that,
had he sought position in public life, he would have
been pre-eminently a christian statesman; and a
christian statesman is the glory of his country.
We find him like many of America's noblemen,
rising from a humble origin, without artificial aid,
and with many hindrances to success, by the force
of his own worth, from the retired position of a
farmer's son to be named among men as one whom
God delights to own and bless; and one who shall
stand before kings shall not stand among mean men.
Jesse Moreland is a native of North Carolina, and
was born January 1, 1802. In his childhood his
parents removed from North Carolina, stopping in
Kentucky several years, but ultimately settling in
Tennessee. There he lived during his youth and
early manhood, following the severe habits and duties
incident to the farm-life of a pioneer in a new and
rough country. Inured by his labors, and nerved by
the bracing air of that new and unsettled state, he
grew up to more than usual height, the embodi-
ment of health, with a perfect physique and an iron
constitution, apparently able to endure any amount
of toil, and the most protracted fatigue.
He is a fitting representative of a self-made man,
-a pioneer of the pioneers in Kentucky, Tennessee
and our own Oregon. In 1825 he married Miss
Susan Robertson; and to them were born nine
children. Five of the number were taken away by
death. The four children remaining, Mrs. M. M.
Owens, Mrs. F. W. Robinson, William Moreland
and J. C. Moreland, are all residents of Portland.
In 1848, in view of the baleful influence of
slavery, Mr. Moreland moved to Illinois with his
family. There, in a free atmosphere, he spent four
years, at the end of which he started westward for
Oregon. After six months of weary journeying
amid the perils and dangers incident to crossing
the plains with ox-teams, they reached the land
they sought. Toil worn, and well nigh destitute,
he with a brave heart began a home in the wilds of
Oregon. Taking a Donation claim in the southern
part of Clackamas county, he resided there until
the death of his wife in 1859. After her death the
farm was given up; and for a time he engaged in
the mercantile business at Needy.
He married Mrs. Avarilla Waldo in 1863; and for
many years his home was in Salem. In 1883,
desiring to be near his children, he removed to
Portland; where in contentment and peace he now
lives with his aged companion.
He united with the Methodist-Episcopal church
in early life, and ever since has been a most devoted
Christian. In 1820 he was licensed to preach; and,
while he never entered the itinerant work, as oppor-
tunity offered, or duty called, he was in his place to
478
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
do the Master's will. In all circumstances his
exalted views of what a true christian life means has
led him onward and upward towards the perfect
life. What a testimony to the truth of man's spir-
itual destiny is his life! It is the Kingdom of
Heaven within the soul, giving peace and rest
under all trials and seeming ills. His command-
ing appearance, fine presence, courtly dignity, and
at the same time his gentle, unassuming, winning
manner attract all hearts to him; and, as you look
into his kindly face, you realize that you can trust
him with unfaltering faith.
I count it among the felicities of my life, that I
am permitted to know him and enjoy his friendship.
Wherever he is placed he is an unswerving friend;
and his friendship is as true, his reputation as spot-
less, as a child. The crowning glory of his charac-
ter is, after all, best exhibited at home. All know
the sweetness of his face. One is reminded of the
remark of Sidney Smith, speaking of a college
friend: "He seems to have the ten commandments
written there. He is a devoted husband and
father, a kind and generous neighbor.
No suffering household, no orphan child, no
broken-hearted wife or mother, ever calls upon him
in vain. Their wants are his wants, their suffering
his suffering. In sunshine and in rain, in sickness
and in health, by tender and sympathizing counsel,
and by active and efficient effort, he ministers to
their relief; and we can truthfully say of him:
"When the eye saw me, then it blessed me; where
the ear heard me, it gave witness to me; for I deliv-
ered the poor that cried, the fatherless, and him
that had none to help him. The blessing of him that
was ready to perish came upon me; and I caused
the widow's heart to sing for joy." Like the Mas-
ter in whose footsteps he loves to tread, his chief
joy is to do good. Among his circle of intimate
friends, his name is spoken in terms of the most
affectionate homage, and with a spontaneous over-
flow of love and honor. It is the example of such
men, the impress of such lives, that brings the
future life so near to poor humanity that the actual
life fades before the light of immortality, as tapers
pale before the sun.
This brief and imperfect sketch of Jesse More-
land, my life-long friend, is the outspoken senti-
ment of one who has been aided and encouraged by
his unselfish christian life, by his unassuming dig-
nity, greatness of heart and graciousness, which
prove in what a rare degree a perfect life is possible
in the actual life of one whose life is hid with Christ
in God.
EDWARD B. MORELOCK.— Mr. Morelock
was born in Missouri in 1845. While but a child of
two years he suffered the loss of his father, who, as
sheriff of Sullivan county, was killed by the owner
of property that he was selling under execution.
Upon the outbreak of the Rebellion, Edward, a
youth of sixteen, joined the Missouri state militia,
and in 1863 and enlisted in the Forty-second Mis-
souri Volunteer Infantry, wherein he served until
the end of the war.
In 1865 he crossed the plains to Oregon, locating
near Summerville in Union county, where he took a
claim and farmed and raised stock until 1881. In
that year he sold his realty and located in the town
of Summerville, engaging in the agricultural imple-
ment business, in which he still continues. He has
been city marshal ever since the incorporation of the
place in 1885. He has also acted as deputy sheriff,
and has served in similar capacities in connection.
with his regular business. During the Nez Perce
trouble of 1877 he was a member of Captain Wil-
liam Booth's company of Grande Ronde volunteers.
He was also a lieutenant in Captain Morant's com-
pany of volunteers during the Bannack war of
1878.
He was married in Missouri in 1864 to Miss Re-
becca, daughter of Joseph and Mary Ann Harris, of
a noted family in that state.
J. H. MOORES.- Among the immigrants who
came to the State of Oregon in 1852 was Honorable
John H. Moores, the subject of this sketch, who
deserves more than passing mention for the service
rendered by him to the commonwealth during an
active business career in the state extending over a
period of twenty-eight years.
Among the older residents who played a promi-
nent part in the earlier development of the state was
his father, the late Colonel I. B. Moores, Sr., whose
love of novelty and adventure brought him as one
of the first pioneers to Oregon, where he located in
Lane county. He was a man of great energy and
activity, and had seen considerable military service,
having served in the Seminole Indian war in two
campaigns with Jackson in Florida.
He also com-
manded a regiment in the Black Hawk war in 1831,
and afterwards in 1846 enlisted for the Mexican war.
He came to the State of Oregon in 1852, locating
near Eugene. He represented Lane county in the
legislative assembly, and afterwards in 1857 in the
state constitutional convention. He was afterwards
a Republican candidate for state senator from that
county. He died in 1861, and is buried in the Odd
Fellows Rural Cemetery near Salem.
John H. Moores was born on the 21st of June,
1821, near Huntsville, in Lawrence county, Alabama,
where he remained until 1825, when his father,
owing to
owing to his intense aversion to the system or
slavery, and prompted by the pioneer spirit which
characterized his whole life, removed from the State of
Alabama to Danville, Illinois, where was spent the
boyhood and early manhood of his son John H. Dur-
ing that time the subject of this sketch had prepared
himself with a view of taking a thorough course in
Wabash College, then, as now, a flourishing institu-
tion located at Crawfordsville, Indiana. Subsequent
events, however, modified his course; and soon after
attaining his majority he determined to leave the home
roof and his native town and seek his fortune else-
where. With this end in view he finally located in
Benton, Missouri, where he remained for the ensuing
seven or eight years engaged in the mercantile busi-
ness, returning but once in the meantime to Danville,
where, in May, 1847, he was united in marriage to
Miss Virginia L. Lamon, who survives him.
In 1851 he disposed of all his interests in Missouri
and returned to Illinois. There he found his father
-who had been an officer under Jackson, and who



HENRY BLACKMAN,
HEPPNER, OR.
FIRST MAYOR OF HEPPNER.

N/
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
479
had seen service in the war of 1812, and in war with
Indians upon the frontier-again restless with the
desire of change and adventure. In early life he
had been a friend and companion of "old Sam
Houston;" and that celebrated character, when he
became governor of Texas, had urged him to remove
to that state, making him very advantageous offers.
This had led him to dream of Texas; and for many
years his eyes were longingly turned in that direc-
tion. But his dislike of the system of slavery,
which years before had driven him from the State of
Alabama, finally overcame his desire to remove to
the Lone Star state; and the subject of our sketch,
upon his final return from Missouri, found him
burning with the Oregon fever, and at his earnest
request joined him in the formation of a party to
come to Oregon.
Their plans were soon put into execution; and in
March, 1852, the large party organized by them
began its tedious eight months' journey across the
plains. Among the number who comprised this
train were the late Captain Charles Holman and
Joseph Butchel, ex-Sheriff of Multnomah, both of
whom valiantly wielded an ox-goad upon that eight
months' trip, without doubt the most memorable
one of their lives. After enduring the hardships
always incident to the overland trips of that day,
this train reached The Dalles late in the fall. Their
hardships did not end there; for they were three
weeks making their way down the Columbia from
that point to Portland, at which place they arrived
late in November, 1852. There the party spent the
winter of 1852-53.
In February, 1853, Mr. Moores removed to Salem,
where he spent the remainder of his life. He imme-
diately began business as a merchant, associating
himself with his brother-in-law, Judge R. B. La-
mon, now of Washington, District of Columbia.
After a few months this partnership was dissolved,
Mr. Lamon returning to the East. Mr. Moores, in
company with another relative, Mr. J. N. McDonald,
then purchased a stock of goods owned by the late
Honorable Joseph Holman, and continued the busi-
ness under the firm name of Moores & McDonald
until the death of Mr. McDonald in 1855. By rea-
son of that event Mr. Moores entered into partner-
ship with his brother, Hon. I. R. Moores, Jr., who
was associated with him during the ensuing ten
years. During that period the firm built the brick
block known as Moores' Block, on a spot which at
that time was the extreme north end of the business
part of town. In 1865 that firm was dissolved.
Mr. Moores subsequently purchased the South Salem
Flour and Lumber Mills, and continued that busi-
ness until the year 1876, when he disposed of those
interests and connected himself with the Capital
Lumbering Company. He was connected with that
company as secretary and manager from that
time until his death, which occurred December
15, 1880.
During the whole time of his twenty-eight years'
residence in Salem,-save the last few years, when
his health was so poor as to preclude him from active
duties, Mr. Moores was one of the most active and
enterprising citizens of the Capital city, especially so
in the work of the sanitary cause during the years
of the Civil war. The institutions of Salem and the
state at large found no warmer nor more liberal sup-
porter, in proportion to his means, than John H.
Moores. The confidence of his fellow-citizens in his
capacity and his integrity was shown by the fre-
quency with which they called him into public
service. During his earlier residence in Salem he
acted as its postmaster for a long period. He was
afterwards, for several years, treasurer of the county.
He served the city of Salem for several years as
councilman, and for four terms as its mayor.
In 1870 he was nominated by the Republicans of
Marion county for the position of state senator, and
served in that capacity for four years. In conjunc-
tion with Rev. Dr. Geo. H. Atkinson, he served as
state commissioner, and in that capacity secured for
the state the grounds now occupied by the State
Penitentiary, and the State Insane Asylum grounds.
He was one of the founders of the Oregon State
Agricultural Society, and acted for many years as
its treasurer, and was one of its most active pro-
moters. In the promotion of educational interests
he was ever active, performing for several years
thankless work as one of the directors of the Salem
public schools, and acting for nearly a quarter of a
century as a member and officer of the board of
trustees of Willamette University.
He was always actuated with the belief that it
was the duty of every citizen to bear a share in serv-
ing the public, and to have, and act upon, well-
defined opinions upon every subject of public inter-
est.
It was this that prompted him, as one of the
last acts of his life, to leave his room, -as it proved,
for the last time,-without the knowledge of his
physician, to cast his ballot for Garfield and Arthur
for President and Vice-President of the United
States. That was the last public act of his life.
From the performance of that act he returned to his
home and his bed, never to go forth again until
borne to his last resting-place by the hands of his
brothers of the fraternity of Odd Fellows. He died
remembered and lamented as a man who during a
long and active life had always endeavored to do his
whole duty,-one who had not aspired to the highest
station, but had accepted and conscientiously dis-
charged the duties of humbler places, where the
emoluments were nothing, the honors light and the
burdens heavy, and where too often the capacity and
responsibility required were equal to that demanded
in the highest places.
We can close this sketch in no more appropriate
way than by repeating the words of another: "He
believed in deeds more than in words. As a busi-
ness man, not one blot rests upon the name of the
departed. Kind, affable, accommodating, honest,
he won friends everywhere. As a husband and
parent, he was the same kind, considerate, loving
man, deeply and constantly devoted to the interests
of his family. He leaves a wealth of example, a
heritage of love, better than all the gold of Cali-
fornia.'
LEE MOORHOUSE. — It was some years be-
fore the Inland Empire realized its own wealth. The
hills were formerly accounted worthless. Mr. Moor-
house was among the first to dissipate that notion.
32
480
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
The Prospect Hill farm, of four thousand acres,
eighteen miles west of Pendleton, of which he was
superintendent, during his incumbency of four years,
produced two hundred and fifty thousand bushels of
wheat.
The Moorhouses were from Iowa, Lee having
been born there in 1850. They came to Oregon in
1861, locating in Umatilla county, near the present
site of Pendleton, and when the country was so
sparsely settled that no more than fifteen families
could be found within a radius of twenty-five miles
of that point. The father bought a squatter's right
near Walla Walla; and Lee, at the tender age of
fourteen, set off for a tour of the mines in Idaho and
British Columbia. Despite his youth he met with
fair success.
Returning home he attended school at Walla
Walla for some years, and studied civil engineering
under Horace Hurlburt on the Oregon & California
Railroad. Coming to Pendleton, he was appointed
county surveyor by a Democratic board of commis-
sioners, although he was himself an ardent Repub-
lican. Four years passing away, he engaged in
business with the pioneer merchant, Lot Livermore,
and subsequently with John R. Foster at Umatilla.
The Bannack outbreak of 1878 now required his
services; and he received the appointment of assist-
ant adjutant-general of the Oregon state militia,
with the rank of major, holding that commission
for four years.
In the meanwhile a company of Portland men—
John R. Foster, H. W. Corbett, C. H. Lewis, T. A.
Davis, J. H. Kunzie, Charles Hodge, and Lee Moor-
house had formed a company for buying and
running a large grain farm. The Prospect Hill farm,
already mentioned, was bought and equipped, and
was run at a total expense of one hundred thousand
dollars, but with a large profit. Moorhouse was the
superintendent until 1883, when he re-entered the
merchandising business with Lot Livermore at
Pendleton.
He has been a very active member of the Repub-
lican party, having been a regular delegate to the
convention since he was twenty-two.
He is now
chairman of the county central committee, and a
member of the state central committee. He was
mayor in 1885, and was city treasurer up to the time
he entered upon the duties of Indian agent upon
the Umatilla Indian Reservation, to which he was
appointed by President Harrison in 1889. He is an
enthusiastic believer in the future development of
Pendleton, believing that it will have ten thousand
inhabitants in the near future.
In 1876 he was married to Miss Ella, the daughter
of William Willis, a pioneer of 1852, and a wealthy
farmer and prominent politician of Umatilla county.
There are now four children in the family,—Lessie,
Gussie, Mark and Lavelle. The career of Mr.
Moorhouse, although highly flattering to himself
and useful to his community, has not yet reached
its perihelion.
CAPT. HENRY E. MORGAN. This well-
known pioneer of 1849 is a native of Groton, Con-
necticut, and was born October 30, 1825. He
moved with his parents to Meriden, in the same
state, residing there until April, 1849, when he
set forth for California in a bark via Cape Horn,
arriving in San Francisco the following September.
A short time afterwards he began a sea-faring life,
and for fifteen years sailed the ocean. During that
time he entered nearly all the noted foreign ports, and
later purchased a vessel of his own and followed
a coasting trade. In 1858 he located in Port
Townsend, Washington Territory, and after quitting
the sea began to till the soil, and followed farming
for six years. In 1863 he was elected representative
from Jefferson county, and ably filled that office for
two terms. In 1879 he was appointed inspector of
hulls for the Puget Sound district.
He has invested from time to time in real estate
in Port Townsend, and is now one of the largest
property owners of the city, and after the buffetings
of many years is safely anchored in a happy home,
esteemed by his acquaintances and honored by the
citizens of the town in which he lives. His family
consists of a wife and one daughter.
HON. HIRAM D. MORGAN.- This gentle-
man, whose portrait appears in this history, and who
is so well known up and down the Sound, has led
a varied pioneer life since 1853. He is a native of
Ohio, having been born at Mount Ayre in 1822.
During his boyhood, his parents moved to Marion
and other portions of the state; and in the course of
his development he learned the carpenter's trade,
which has ever been a great reliance to him.
In 1846 he came out to Oskaloosa, Iowa, and in
1853 became one of the Davis party to cross the
plains to Oregon. At Salmon Falls he left the train
and came on to Fort Boise, and with all his posses-
sions on his shoulders walked down to The Dalles,
and at the Cascades was employed by Bush &
Baker in building a large bateau and ferry-boat. In
October he left for Olympia, and in 1854 built there
a schooner, the Emlie Parker, on a speculation,
which he sold to advantage. When the war broke
out in 1855 he was engaged by Michael T. Simmons,
Indian agent, to act as his secretary. Mr. Morgan
was soon selected by the Indians to act as agent.
He built seven houses under contract on the Squak-
son agency, and twelve houses for the Indians on
the Puyallup agency, and in 1861 was appointed by
the government as agent of the Tulalip Reser-
vation.
In 1858 he took a tour home to Iowa via San
Francisco, Panama and New York. Although at-
tempting to live after this on the prairies of Kan-
sas, he recrossed the continent with his family.
He reached Olympia late in the autumn, and
gained a livelihood by plying his trade, but, with
an eye to the future, secured a homestead four
miles west of the town. In 1875 he endeavored
more to leave the territory and to live in
California, but returned after a three months'
absence, and engaged in the grocery business un-
til 1876. In that year he selected a new home and
business at Snohomish, Washington Territory, en-
gaging with his sons in a sawmill and sash and
door factory. He has there a remunerative occu-
pation, and enjoys all the comforts that attend a
well-spent life.
once
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
481
In a public capacity, he has filled the office of
probate judge, justice of the peace and county com-
missioner. He was married in Ohio in 1844 to
Miss Maria Van Arsdell, of New York, who died in
1846, leaving one child. His present wife, Mary J.
Trout, is a native of Ohio. Of their seven children,
four are living,-L. G., the wife of E. C. Ferguson,
John D., Benjamin H. and Alonzo W.
M. J. MORLAN.—This prominent citizen of
The Dalles was born in Lake county, Ohio, in 1835.
In 1846 he moved to La Salle county, Illinois. In
that state his parents were successful in securing
good land and in improving their farms; and this
was the home of our subject until he attained his
majority. With a somewhat limited education, but
with abundance of muscle and determination, he
began life for himself working as a hired hand on
his father's farm, and saving nearly all his earnings.
His innate ambition and desire to reach the
higher walks of life induced him to cross the plains
in 1857 to Portland, Oregon. Being but ill suited
with this Webfoot metropolis, he returned eastward
as far as Walla Walla and found a desirable location
on the Touchet river, improving his own place and
assisting the various ranchers until, in 1860, he was
able to buy a ranch at Dayton. His venture there,
however, proving but a partial success, he disposed
of his property in 1864, and removed again to
Western Oregon, returning eastward in 1867 to
Wasco county and engaging in sheep-husbandry.
The first four years of that occupation were but little
remunerative; and in 1871 he moved to Umatilla
county, engaging very successfully in agriculture.
In 1873 he was married to Miss Mary E. Jones,
who has borne him two children, Charles and Mary.
Some four years since he found that his ranges
were becoming restricted by reason of the extensive
fencing and plowing of the land; and he therefore
disposed of his sheep and invested the proceeds in
land, owning at the present time a fine ranch near
Heppner and grazing lands in Wasco county. Mr.
Morlan has never aspired to political preferment,
but is a fine example of those sturdy pioneers whose
labor has made our state what she is to-day.
ROBERT WILSON MORRISON.-This lead-
ing pioneer of the immigration of 1844 was born
March 14, 1811, in Fleming county, Kentucky, of
Scotch parentage. In 1822 he moved with his
parents to Montgomery county, Missouri, living
with them until his marriage, in 1831, to Miss
Nancy Irwin. Two years later a move was made
to Clay county, and thence to Clinton county, on
the border of the territory occupied by the Indians
of the plains. Upon the consummation of the
"Platte purchase," he moved with his family into
that frontier region, and for six years lived in
Andrew county.
The excitement and interest in respect to Oregon
was then, in 1843-44, reaching a high pitch among
the people of the frontier; and in that particular
neighborhood the Oregon fever was still further
inflamed by letters from a man named Smith, for-
merly of that section, but then in Oregon, who was
urging his people to come to the land by the Pacific
Ocean. Indeed, all information obtainable was found
to be favorable to Oregon; and, in time for the trip
next season, Mr. Morrison was among the number
who were armed, equipped and well prepared for
the march across the plains. His wife and six chil-
dren were of course to accompany him; and there
were two young men taken into the family as fellow-
travelers,―John Minto and Willard H. Rees,—who
have since become eminent in our state.
Many of the incidents of that eventful season on
the plains have been narrated elsewhere; and it
will not therefore be necessary to give the details
here. Upon the organization of the large company
under Colonel Cornelius Gilliam, Mr. Morrison was
chosen one of the captains; and, in point of fact,
there afterwards devolved upon him the larger
share of the management of the company. In the
matter of the stampeding of cattle by the Indians
of the agency, as described elsewhere, he took a
prominent part in recovering scattered stock; and in
the prompt action by which the cattle that had been
slaughtered by the Indians were replaced by animals
from the post, to be paid for out of the Indians' an-
nuities, he was a leading spirit.
At the Vermilion there was a delay of fourteen
days, owing to heavy rains; and although a cross-
ing was finally effected by means of a ferry, and by
swimming the stock, a general feeling began to
prevail that Colonel Gilliam was not fortunate in his
movements; and the independent settlers, with
their own families and teams, not being proper sub-
jects of the military discipline of which the Colonel
in the Florida war had become a master, were now
He
beginning to manifest their dissatisfaction.
therefore, not caring to retain authority over the
whole train, set out ahead with such as wished,
from ability to travel rapidly, or from personal pref-
erence, to be with him; while the greater part of
the company remained behind under the command
of Morrison and Shaw.
The most exciting and difficult portion of the
journey was on the stretch from the eastern slopes
of the Blue Mountains to the Willamette valley.
Even before entering those mountains, on the east-
ern borders of our state, provisions began to show
signs of exhaustion; and, from the Burnt river hills
to the waters of the Umatilla, snow or ice was ex-
perienced. From the Umatilla to The Dalles, there
was great annoyance from the Indians.
On one
occasion an ox was stolen; and Mr. Morrison, cap-
tain of the train, made every effort to recover the
animal for the owner. Finding the track, with a
horse track on each side, he traced it into the hills,
expecting the owner and others to follow. He was,
however, left to make the pursuit alone, and after a
time was joined by four Indians armed with bows
and arrows; while his only weapon was a sheath
knife in his belt.
►
The savages pretended to be interested in his
search, urging him on, and insisting that he should
go over the next hill. By this means his mind was
diverted; and, coming near, they snatched his knife
away and flourished it over his head threateningly.
Without weapons of any kind, he was at their
mercy, but nevertheless faced them calmly, looking
482
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
them steadily in the eye, and, seeing no assistance
coming, walked away deliberately, until he had
passed out of their sight behind a bank, and then
made the best of his way back to the train. There
he found that the owner of the lost ox had started
to accompany him, but had turned back upon seeing
the Indians.
Sometime after this Captain Morrison lost a very
valuable horse of his own, and was also obliged to
follow its tracks for a long distance in the hills,
being careful to provide himself this time with a
rifle, but failing to discover his property. At the
ford of the Des Chutes, while Captain Morrison was
stopping behind to pay the Indian guide, Mrs. Mor-
rison was driving. As she passed by a narrow spot
in the road an ugly Indian appeared, who endeav-
ored to run the team over the bank by whipping
the lead oxen. The plucky lady, however, coun-
teracted his efforts by striking him over the head
with the butt end of her ox-goad. Being much
enraged at this, the Indian now thought to ride
over her, urging the Cayuse upon which he was
mounted towards her; but she rained down the
blows so rapidly that he was soon ready to turn
and flee. The same evening, after camp was made,
Indians came in and showed their ill will by kick-
ing out the fires. Their mischief was stopped by
Rees and Morrison, who soon came in and made
ready with their guns to abate the nuisance.
At The Dalles the wagons had to be left; and,
after sending off young Rees with the cattle on the
trail down the river, Mr. Morrison with his family
took passage some days later on the river for Van-
couver. At a point some eighteen or twenty miles
below The Dalles, a light was discovered on shore;
and, it was thought to be that of white men, the
strangers were hailed. A satisfactory reply being
A satisfactory reply being
received, the boat was urged into shore. Much to
Mr. Morrison's surprise, he found the Rees party
there, and discovered that the cattle had been aban-
doned in the mountains, having become unmanage-
able in a snowstorm, in which the drivers had
become bewildered and lost. Having Rees take
his place in the boat to look after his family, Mr.
Morrison stopped off on shore to hunt up the cat-
tle. Soon securing all but those that had died from
eating poisonous plants, he set out on the return
to The Dalles. At Hood river, then unnamed, they
ate a dog belonging to Mr. Gerrish, preferring its
flesh to that of animals that had been poisoned;
and hence the name Dog river, by which that stream
used to be known.
At The Dalles he left the cattle in charge of
George Bush and David Kindred; and, as the win-
ter proved favorable, the animals came through fat
in the spring. At that time he also made the
acquaintance of Reverend A. F. Waller, who
extended to him the most cordial hospitality, and
afforded him entertainment and all comforts obtain-
able, until he could find passage down the river to
join his family, whom he supposed to be safe at
Vancouver. At the Cascades, however, he was
horrified to find his family still exposed to the win-
ter storms, camping in a rotten tent, and almost
wholly destitute of provisions. Indeed for twelve
days they had been subsisting upon bacon-rinds
that Mrs. Morrison had economically stowed away
on the trip to use for soap grease when she should
reach once more a stationary abode. Rees was
below looking for a boat, but returned about this
time with one that he met on the way; and, under the
guidance of Colonel Ford, the whole party reached
the fort in safety.
They were housed and fed by Doctor McLoughlin,
who also allowed a credit of six dollars to each at
the company's store. Taking his family on to
Linnton, a point somewhat below Portland, he left
them in camp, while he himself went on to the
Clatsop Plains, on the ocean shore near the mouth
of the Columbia, and selected as a claim the place
upon which he now resides, and from which he has
never been absent a Christmas day since 1844. His
wife and children spent the time until January, 1845,
at a point a little above Vancouver, whence they went
to Clatsop.
There a home was made in the face of many diffi-
culties. Mr. Morrison was a pioneer in raising grain
on the plains, and also erected a grist and saw mill.
He served during the Cayuse war, and was the offi-
cer in charge of the fort at The Dalles. He was
also elected and served as a member of the first
legislature of the State of Oregon. He has for
many years been engaged in the stock and dairy
business on Clatsop Plains, and has a fine tract of
land of dune, prairie, meadow and hillside, which
now in the era of railroad construction from Astoria
southward is rapidly rising in value.
Nancy Irwin, for almost sixty years the wife of
R. W. Morrison, was born April 27, 1809, in Flem-
ing county, Kentucky, and removed in 1815 with her
parents to Missouri, where she was married in 1831.
It was much against her wishes and judgment that
the Oregon trip was undertaken; but, once on the
way, there was no woman more heroic nor enthu-
siastic in the performance of the duties which fell
to the lot of a wife and mother during that great
journey. Her chastisement of the ugly Indian has
already been mentioned; and upon another occa-
sion she cleared the corral of Indians who were
trying to make off with her cow. With all her
frontier strength and vigor, she has been, as at
present, a woman of great delicacy and refinement
of character, a devoted Christian, and a possessor
of the winning qualities of the true lady. Of her
nine children, all but one, who died at the age of
eighteen, have reached a vigorous mature life, and
now occupy honorable positions, all living upon
this coast.
HON. JACKSON L. MORROW. It is not
so uncommon a thing in this land of a great future
for a man to lay out a town or build a city; but
there is, we believe, but one man in the state who
may be called the maker of a county, and whose
name is perpetuated in its designation: that man is
Jackson L. Morrow, of Heppner, Oregon, whose
sketch is here presented. This honor was worthily
bestowed upon him at the instance and almost insis-
tence of his neighbors, in recognition of his priva-
tions and labors in settling up the region, in building
Heppner, and in securing the division of Morrow
county from Umatilla.

A
SPRAGUE BREWERY,
OWNED BY R.O.PORACK.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
483
1
A region which was once regarded as inaccessible
and desolate has now become, by the efforts of a
driving body of men, beginning with Mr. Morrow
and Mr. Heppner, a thriving and prosperous portion
of Oregon. The population of the county is now
six thousand, and of Heppner itself about one
thousand, with a good outlook in the near future for
five thousand. A branch line of the Oregon Rail-
way & Navigation Company brings the city within
easy reach of all the markets, and taps a great grain
and grazing belt. The first settler upon the town-
site of the city was G. W. Standsbury. Morrow
and Heppner came next; and together they set in
operation the works which have made the place. A
subsidy of twenty-five thousand dollars was paid to
the railroad company to extend their line and make
the city their terminus, as it will be for many years.
This shows something of the enterprise of the
place.
Mr. Morrow was born in Kentucky in 1827. His
father was a trader, and in pursuit of his calling
moved with his family to Illinois in 1837, and after
three years to Iowa. There he was educated at
Mount Pleasant. Thirteen years subsequently the
young man came to Oregon, soon finding a home
on the Sound at Olympia. Afterwards, in Mason
county, he engaged in merchandising, lumbering,
mail-contracting, ranching, etc., and induced his
parents to come from the East and make their home
upon this coast. The father afterwards moved to
Washington Territory. He was a man of more
than average ability, and showed his capacity for
public affairs by taking an active part in politics,
and occupying a seat in the territorial legislature.
The son, the subject of this sketch, was also inter-
ested in matters political, and was auditor of Mason
county, to which office he was elected on the Demo-
cratic ticket.
During the Indian war of 1855-56, Mr. Morrow
did essential service in collecting the Indians who
were disposed to be peaceable at the head of North
Bay. It was the policy of the government to feed
and protect all the Indians that were willing to sur-
render their arms, to parties appointed to receive
them, and be friendly with the Whites. Owing to
this order during the fall of 1855, Mr. Morrow went
with Colonel Simmons to Fort Nisqually, and with
the influence and assistance of Doctor Tolmie got
the consent of the Indians to be moved to the head
of North Bay, where they could be more easily pro-
tected from the Whites, and where they would also
be away from the influence of the hostiles then in
the field..
Morrow and Simmons succeeded in gathering up
some two or three hundred and locating them at
that point, and kept them for at least four months.
Morrow then received orders from Colonel Simmons
and Governor Stevens to move them onto Square
Island, the place already selected for the reservation.
At that point they collected at least two hundred
more Indians, making five or six hundred in all.
His duties were somewhat disagreeable, as he must
give passes and assign daily rations; and, feeling
this work monotonous, he resigned and went into
the volunteer service, serving in that capacity until
the end of the trouble. Many of his experiences
led him into peril; and he performed a number of
memorable exploits in the field.
In 1864 Mr. Morrow turned his face away from
salt water, going to the heart of the Blue Mountains,
and engaging at La Grande in general merchandis-
ing. He was elected at that place a member of the
common council, and was chosen president of that
body,-ex officio mayor. Mr. Morrow was also
county treasurer of Union county for four years.
After eight years in that delightful valley, he loca-
ted in that portion of Umatilla county which now is
constituted Morrow county, building the first house
and opening a stock of goods, with a determination
to make a city. In this he has been remarkably
successful, the city of Heppner (named by himself
for his partner) having a phenomenally rapid growth.
He was elected to the Oregon legislature while
yet in Umatilla, and in the two houses of that body
pushed through the bill to erect the county of Mor-
row,—named thus at the desire of his constituents.
He still conducts his business with marked ability,
and enjoys the personal esteem of a large and influ-
ential community. He is one of Oregon's promi-
nent, representative men, whose life-work is incor-
porated distinctively in her structure. His city is
his pride; and he looks confidently to its large
increase in a short space of time.
In the Indian war of 1856 he bore his part, being
appointed assistant agent on the Squak Reservation,
and doing active duty as scout under Captain.
Smith.
He married in Iowa Miss Nancy McEwan, and
brought his wife to this new home in the West.
Of their eight children but one, now an active man
of thirty, is living.
OLNEY N. MORSE.-The subject of this
sketch, who was one of the argonauts of 1849, was
born in Westfield, Chautauqua county, New York,
December 4, 1826, and is the son of William and
Lydia Ford Morse. During his early years he
resided on his father's farm, and received his educa-
tion at the common schools until the spring of 1849.
In that year he organized a company with nine other
young men to cross the plains to the gold fields of
California. Being elected secretary and treasurer
of the party, he was sent to St. Louis in advance,
and purchased the outfit and provisions, being soon
joined by his associates. Having come to Council
Bluffs, this little band started on foot or horseback
across the plains, their company being known as the
Westfield train.
They arrived in Sacramento October 17, 1849, and
still maintained their organization as they proceeded
to the Amador mines, where they met with good
success. January 1, 1850, Mr. Morse returned to
Sacramento and opened a restaurant and hotel,
which he conducted until the disastrous floods in
the following March, which swept away his build-
ing. He then engaged in driving freight teams to
the mines at a salary of eleven dollars per day.
followed that occupation until the company inti-
mated a cut of one dollar per day, when Mr. Morse
severed his connection with the company and em-
barked for himself in the general merchandise trade
in El Dorado county, where he conducted a very
He
484
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
successful business for about one year, making over
one thousand dollars per month.
He then closed out and determined to return East,
but upon arriving at Sacramento saw a golden
opportunity in a stage line from Sacramento to
Georgetown, and another line from Sacramento to
Jackson; and in the fall of 1851 he began to operate
those lines, continuing that business until the con-
solidation of his lines with the Oregon & California
Stage Company, Mr. Morse taking thirty thousand
dollars worth of stock in the latter company. This
proved an insecure investment, as a few years later,
owing to the mismanagement of the Oregon & Cali-
fornia company, he met with the entire loss of his
stock. He then followed ranching and hotel-keep-
ing in different places until, in 1861, he purchased
the well-known "Q" ranch, situated in the Ione
valley, Amador county, paying therefor twenty
thousand dollars, and residing upon it until 1879.
In that year he sold out and returned to Sacra-
mento.
In 1883 he came to Seattle, Washington Terri-
tory, and in 1886 leased the well-known and popular
Arlington Hotel, a view of which is placed in this
volume. The popularity of Mr. Morse and that
of his hotel became so general that he was com-
pelled to secure more accommodations for his ever-
increasing patronage; and in 1888 he built on his
own property the magnificent four-story Morse Build-
ing, adjoining the Arlington, upon a foundation
sixty by one hundred and twenty feet. This was
furnished with a thorough system of steam-heating
and gas, and was magnificently furnished. It was
destroyed by fire in the great conflagration on June
6, 1889. Mr. Morse combines all the qualities neces-
sary for a successful hotel proprietor. Having a
disposition to accommodate, and possessed of gener-
ous promptings towards his fellow-man, he greets the
stranger, the guest or the friend in that peculiar way
which carries with it an impression of a kind wish
that seldom fails to leave a desire with the recipient
to do him a favor if he can.
Mr. Morse was married in El Dorado county, Cal-
ifornia, January 12, 1859, to Miss Margaret Winch-
ell, a native of Illinois. By this union they have
three children.
MOSES.- This noted chief, who presides with
almost regal authority over the vast reservation in
Northern Washington named from himself, has had
a strange and romantic history. According to his
own story (the matter has been much disputed) he
is of Cherokee birth. He says that when a child he
went with an uncle to Wisconsin. Having been
lost by that uncle, he wandered several years. At
last, having made his way across the Rocky Mount-
ains, staying long enough among the various tribes to
become somewhat acquainted with their various lan-
guages and customs, he brought up among the Spo-
kanes. His ability and strength soon won him the
admiring recognition of the tribe; and by degrees he
became the head chief of the mongrel remnants of
tribes between the Spokane and the Columbia.
Some have maintained that he is in reality a white
man.
However this may be, it is true that he can
speak and write the language perfectly, and in what-
ever way he may be approached shows extraordi-
nary ability and boldness. He has acquired great
wealth in horses and cattle. There are those who
hint at dark and desperate deeds in the grim defiles
of his "coulée," which have supplied him abund-
antly with gold and jewels. Probably no one can
aver with certainty of this matter; but it is true that
traders and miners have mysteriously disappeared
in those rocky solitudes; and the "king of the cou-
lées" is not known to be in lack of whatever of gold
and wine and women his fiery passions may crave.
He is now about fifty years old. He is of lofty
stature and giant strength. Aside from the uncanny
and searching look of his restless eyes, he is almost
the perfection of barbarous beauty. There is noth-
ing in his looks to sustain the theory of his white
origin. On account of his oratorical ability and
majestic mien, he has often been called the Webster
of the Columbia.
a
COL. LA FAYETTE MOSHER.-There is
perhaps no resident of Oregon more widely known
and generally respected than L. F. Mosher. He
has held so many prominent positions, and is so
well qualified to fill them, that it only seems
natural thing to see him in the senate, and as a
justice of the supreme court. He was born in
Benton county, Kentucky, September 1, 1824.
entirely did he bend his energies to the gaining of
an education, that at the age of nineteen years we
find him a graduate of Woodward College, Cincin-
nati, where he carried off honors on June 30, 1843.
After graduating, he acted as deputy clerk of the
supreme court of Hamilton county, where he
remained until the breaking out of the Mexican
war. He at once came valiantly forward and joined
the Fourth Ohio Regiment, and served in the
brigade of General Joseph Lane until the close of
the war.
When the war was ended he entered the law office
of Pugh & Pendleton, the members of the firm
being ex-Senator George E. Pugh, now deceased,
and ex-Senator George H. Pendleton. He was
admitted to the bar in May, 1852, and at once began
the practice of his profession in Cincinnati. He
came to Oregon with General Lane in 1853, landing
in Portland in May of that year. The following
months he went to the mines in Jackson county,
and took part in the Indian war of the same year,
acting as adjutant-general under General Lane. He
also earnestly engaged in the Indian war of 1855-56,
acting as a volunteer, though not enlisted in any
company. In the year 1855, upon the creation of
the Southern Oregon land district, he was appointed
registrar by President Pierce, and was continued in
the office until the administration of President
Lincoln, when he was removed.
In 1870 he was elected to the state senate, and
three years later was appointed justice of the
supreme court of Oregon by Governor L. F. Grover,
vice A. J. Thayer, now deceased. In 1884 he was
selected by President Arthur as one of the board of
visitors to West Point.
After filling so many prominent positions, and so
well accomplishing his mission in each and all,
Colonel Mosher has now settled quietly down to the
1
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
485
practice of his profession, and is enjoying all the
comforts of home life in the beautiful little city of
Roseburg, in Southern Oregon. He has well earned
the high esteem and universal respect so fully
accorded him by all his acquaintances; and, although
many do not know him personally, they realize his
sterling qualities as a man,-holding a position by
the voice of the people, and acting in accord with
their earnest desires and principles.
He was married to Miss Winifred Lane, a daughter
of General Lane, on July 1, 1856. Their union
has been blessed by six children, two sons and four
daughters.
SIDNEY WALTER MOSS.- Mr. Moss is a
venerable and noticeable character among the pio-
neers, not only for his long residence in Oregon, but
for the esteem in which he has ever been held by
the people. He has, in an eminent degree, that
quality for which the early Oregonians have been
remarkable,-liberality.
He was born in Paris, Kentucky, March 17, 1810.
His father, Moses Moss, was a Baptist minister;
and his mother, Katherine Buckford Moss, was a
woman of great force and elevation of character.
The young man learned the trade of stone-cutting,
and in 1828 left Kentucky for Ohio. He found an
abundance of work in the Buckeye state, but in
1837 went on to Indiana, working at Madison and
on the Madison & Indianapolis Railway. At the
state capital he erected two bank buildings.
In 1839 he was back in Kentucky working on
lock three on the Licking river canal.
In 1841
he was at Fort Smith in full charge of the stone-
cutting department in work then under construc-
tion. But a desire for the wild West there overtook
him; and he joined the company of Doctor White
for Oregon. That was the first genuine immigra-
tion; and the particulars are given elsewhere.
Waiilatpu Mr. Moss met Doctor Whitman, and re-
members his inquiries about the Ashburton treaty,
and in what shape Oregon would be left, and be-
lieves that the Doctor's trip undertaken the October
following with A. L. Lovejoy was for political rea-
sons.
At
Reaching Oregon City, our skilled stone-cutter
found the country a wilderness; and there was no
work to do except chopping wood. The remuneration
for chopping fifteen cords was sufficient to last him
a few days; and after this was completed he found
similar odd jobs requiring neither energy nor skill.
It was impossible to remain in a country on pain of
living a nondescript life; and he did as all the Ore-
gonians of spirit found it necessary: he made work
and created business. He put up a house fourteen
by seventeen feet and seven and one-half feet high,
and opened it as a hotel. In connection with this
he kept a livery stable, the first west of the Rocky
Mountains. The first ferry-boat run on the Wil-
lamette was built by him; and he also mentions
with pride that he dug the first well, grubbed the
first stump, and built the first board fence in Oregon
City. After four years he built a larger hotel and
operated it until 1858. He made his home and
caravansary the instrument of much unrewarded
hospitality; but generous deeds done for the needy,
as so many of the immigrants were, will not be for-
gotten or be without the reward of the just.
Between 1849 and 1854, he also carried a
stock of goods and did a large business. As he
lived at the old capital, he acquired a faith in the
place which led him to invest largely in farming
property; and, although residing at the city, he
gave his chief attention to agricultural operations
until 1871. He did much voluntary public work in
the early days, acting as assessor without salary, and
traveling in that capacity all the way from Vancouver
to Eugene, and from The Dalles to Astoria. Of his
five thousand acres of land, he has given the most to
his children, but retains a competency for himself.
Mr. Moss has ever been a stout Whig and Repub-
lican, although a Kentuckian, and having been
brought up in early life by the aunt of Jefferson
Davis.
JOHNSON MULKEY.-This prominent pio-
neer of Oregon was born in Knox county, Ken-
tucky, in January, 1808. His father, Philip Mul-
key, and mother (whose maiden name was Margaret
Miller), were natives of Germany. In the year 1818
they moved with their young family to Missouri,
settling in Lafayette county, where the father soon
after died, leaving his widow with nine children.
Johnson was married in 1835 to Mrs. Susan Roberts,
née Brown. In the summer of 1845 he crossed the
plains to Oregon, and on arriving took up a land
claim in Benton county three miles west of what is
now Corvallis.
Returning to Missouri in 1846, in the spring of
1847 he again started westward, accompanied by
his family, two brothers, Luke and Thomas, with
their families, and also a large number of old
friends and neighbors. The company brought a
large herd of cattle. After a summer's long, hard
travel, so well remembered by all early pioneers,
they arrived in the Willamette valley in the month
of October. Mr. Mulkey engaged in the avocation
of rearing and dealing in stock. His home was
always open to new settlers, whom he assisted
according to their necessities with work, seeds, and
kind, encouraging words. Finding the church
organization to which he belonged struggling to
gain a foothold in the new country, he immedi-
ately connected therewith and contributed liberally
towards its support; and no man in Benton county
did more to extend its usefulness and influence.
News of the discovery of gold in California reach-
ing Oregon, he was among the first to repair thither
with cattle, pack-trains, etc. Several trips were
also made to Southern Oregon, and later to Idaho.
On his return by stage in February, 1862, from a
business trip to that territory, a severe snowstorm
was encountered, which blockaded the roads, and
compelled the passengers to travel on foot the
remaining distance between the John Day river
and The Dalles. Becoming exhausted from this
exposure, Mr. Mulkey shortly after died at the lat-
ter point. His loss was keenly felt and deplored by
all who knew him.
Simple and unassuming in his manners, but pos-
sessing also great energy and ambition, he involun-
tarily won the respect and esteem of all with whom
486
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
he came in contact. His name, honored and unsul-
lied, is held in sacred memory by his surviving sons
and daughters, who are to-day among the most use-
ful and enterprising citizens of Oregon and Wash-
ington.
MARION FRANCIS MULKEY.-This gen-
tleman, the eldest son of Johnson Mulkey, and who
took up, and conducted in the spirit, and to some
extent in the method, the pioneer activities of his
father, was born in Johnson county, Missouri,
November 14, 1836. He was therefore but a boy
of ten when, in 1847, he accompanied his father
across the continent to Oregon. His, however, was
one of those old heads on young shoulders; and so
responsible was he, and so capable of affairs, that
he was intrusted with the driving of oxen, and all
work adapted to his strength, with the same con-
fidence as a grown man. Upon arriving in Oregon
and beginning life anew on the Donation claim in
Benton county, he played his part of felling tim-
ber, breaking and fencing land, and erecting the
frontiersman's temporary buildings as vigorously as
anyone in the family.
He early drew from his parents a desire for educa-
tion, and after his first essays in learning at the
log schoolhouse, under the tuition of such men as
Senator J. H. Slater and Honorable Philip Ritz,
was eager to take advantage of the assistance fur-
nished by his father to pursue higher studies at
Forest Grove, under the guidance of the late Doctor
S. H. Marsh. This assistance he supplemented by
labor of his own, following the traditional method
of the youth ambitious of self-improvement,-teach-
ing school during vacations. It was while at school
that the Indian war of 1856 broke out; and, although
then but a boy of eighteen, young Mulkey saddled
his pony and rode off to the seat of hostilities.
In 1858 he was able to consummate a purpose
formed long before, that of going East and entering
Yale College. As a companion in this undertaking
he had J. W. J. Johnson, now president of the Uni-
versity of Oregon. Graduating in 1862, he returned
to Portland, and read law with Judge E. D. Shattuck.
For the legal profession he was found to have great
aptitude on account of his naturally logical and
accurate mind; and his acquisitions from the study
of Latin and Greek gave him an understanding of
the power of language, and a facility and direct-
ness in its use, which placed him early in the rank
of old and leading attorneys. In 1863 he took time
from his studies to act as assistant provost-marshal,
and aided in making the enrollment of that year.
In 1864 he was admitted to the bar. He was soon
thereafter intrusted with public duties, being elected
in 1866 as prosecuting attorney of the fourth judi-
cial district; and in 1867 he represented the third
ward in the city council. In 1872 he was elected
city attorney for Portland, and was re-elected in
1873. Since that year and to the time of his death
he was associated with Honorable J. F. Caples as
attorney-at-law, and filled the responsible position
of deputy during the three successive terms of hist
partner's service as attorney for the district.
As a lawyer Mr. Mulkey had few superiors, and
ranked with the ablest men of his profession in the
state.
As a speaker he was logical, and kept his
point in constant view, compelling the attention of
the jury, and convincing them to the full extent of
his premises.
his premises. While usually cool and unemotional,
he was capable of breaking into passages of deep
feeling and eloquence. A lawyer of Portland who
knew him well says of him: "He was a man of tire-
less energy and perseverance, resolutely and
patiently working until his object was accom-
plished. He had consistency of purpose, prudence
and common sense to balance and guide the
energy that impelled him. There was no fritter-
ing away of his powers upon alien pleasures or
pursuits. In court he was a troublesome antag-
onist, and one to be feared; for if there was a weak
point in the case, or a flaw in the logic, he would
mercilessly expose it. I cannot recollect any act of
discourtesy on his part, or any word spoken even
in the heat of conflict that left aught of bitterness
behind."
In business he was exact, and of an accumulative
turn of mind, constantly making acquisitions of
property in and about Portland, which he subse-
quently improved with good edifices, such as the
Mulkey Building, which will always stand as, in
some sort, a memento of his purely business activi-
ties, and his conception of a property-owner's duty
to the city. As an early citizen of the state he had
a love of an orderly and substantial society, free
from the riotous and gambling spirit of a large por-
tion of the West, which should grow by steady in-
crement and natural business evolution and the
development of the resources of the country. He,
as much as anyone, carried this conception to its
present practical dominance in our state.
He was united in marriage, in 1862, to Miss Mary
E. Porter of New Haven, Connecticut, a New
England lady of great intelligence and large culture,
who has brought to bear, in the society and intel-
lectual and moral life of Portland, much the same
strong influence for the best things as was exercised
by her husband in the professional, political and
business fields. Of their two sons, Frank, an alum-
nus of the State University, will follow his father's
profession; while Fred, some years younger, is still
at school.
The death of Mr. Mulkey, which occurred the
25th of February, 1889, was felt as a blow to the
community, and as a personal loss to very many
throughout the state and the Pacific Northwest.
WILLIAM MUNKS.- Mr. Munks, an excel-
lent portrait of whom is placed in this history, is a
veteran of several wars, as well as a pioneer, trap-
per and scout in the early days of the Pacific coast.
He is to-day one of the most widely known men on
Puget Sound, being often called "King of the
Fidalgo Island," as he was the first white man to
locate on its shores. It was then a part of Whatcom
county, Washington Territory, but is now included
in the boundary of Skagit. Mr. Munk was the first
white man that lived within the present confines of
the latter county, and was born in Canton, Ohio.
At the early age of six years he suffered the loss,
by death, of his father.

E.J. WEBSTER,
SPOKANE FALLS, W. T.
UN
OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
487
Upon the breaking out of the war with Mexico,
he enlisted in the Fifteenth Infantry, United States
volunteers, under General (then Colonel) George
W. Morgan, with whom he remained until the
close of hostilities. The military record of the
family is rather bright, his grandfather having
served in the war for independence, his father in
the war of 1812, and his only brother following
the fortunes of Sherman on his march to the sea.
In 1849 he left the East to seek his fortune in the
far West. After hunting and trapping for a time
on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, he
came on to Oregon, and then proceeded to the
mines of Northern California, where he followed
mining with good success until 1855, during which
time he took part in two Indian wars, and had
many skirmishes with the savages. In the fall of
the above year he returned to Oregon and entered
the service of the Indian Department under General
Joel Palmer, with whom he served in different
capacities. He was one of the nine men sent out
by the Department, under the command of Captain
Jake Rhinerson, to gather and bring in the hostile
Rogue river Indians and place them on the Coast
Reservation, located at Fort Yamhill and the Silitz,
during which service he had many very narrow
escapes from savage fury. He then for a time
served as an express messenger for the Indian
Department.
When he had severed his connection with the
Department, he started on a perilous trading and
prospecting trip to the headwaters of the Columbia
river, passing through a hostile Indian country
from The Dalles to the Pend d'Oreille in safety,
owing to his knowledge of the Indian character,
and his possessing the faculty of obtaining the
goodwill and respect of the Indians. After making
this successful trip, he came to Puget Sound, and
served one season on the United States Boundary
Commission, then locating the boundary line.
between Washington Territory and British Colum-
bia. On the breaking out of the great Frazer river
excitement, he was the first to establish a trading-
post above Fort Yale, where he also successfully
embarked in mining operations.
In the latter part of 1859, Mr. Munks concluded
to retire from trapping, hunting and the life of a
mountaineer, and that year selected his beautiful
place on Fidalgo Island, now known as Munks'
Landing. His nearest white neighbor at the time
of his locating on the island was twenty-five miles
distant. Although surrounded by Indians in his
new home, he was never molested. In the spring
of 1860 he again caught the trading fever, and
going to The Dalles purchased pack animals and
loaded them with goods, and went to the Similka-
meen mines, where he disposed of horses and goods
to good advantage, and again returned to The
Dalles. There he joined a government exploring
expedition, under Major Stein, for the purpose of
exploring the Harney Lake country.
In the following fall he returned to his island
home, where he has since resided, engaged in the
cultivation of his large farm, in beautifying his
home, and in conducting his mercantile store, in
which he has been engaged for the past eighteen
years.
He has held various offices of public trust,
and for the past twenty years has been postmaster
at Fidalgo. Mr. Munks has one of the finest farms
on Puget Sound; and Munks' Landing is one of the
old landmarks on the Lower Sound. No one travels
that route without remarking upon the delightful
surroundings and beautiful landscape that greet the
eye as he comes in sight of Fidalgo.
Mr. Munks has accumulated a sufficiency of this
world's goods to enable him to take that ease and
comfort that always attend an active and industrious
life. He owns over one thousand acres of valuable
land in Skagit, Whatcom and King counties. His
Fidalgo property has become very valuable, as the
Ship Harbor Railroad now building has established
a station near his steamer landing; and it is his
intention to plat part of his farm for a townsite. It
is certainly one of the most beautiful locations for a
city to be found on the Sound.
GEORGE MURPHY.--The firm of Murphy &
Burns occupies an important place in the business
of Sprague, Washington. Their book and stationery
business, including also novelties and jewelry, now
aggregates some twenty thousand dollars a year,
and is rapidly increasing. This is a depot for these
articles to the Big Bend and Okanagan countries.
Mr. Murphy is a native of Ireland, and was born
at Limerick. He is a veteran of the United States
navy. He came to New York in 1858, and in 1862
joined the United States marine corps, serving under
Commander E. V. McConley for three years on the
gunboats Fort Henry and Tioga. He was honor-
ably discharged in 1866, and, coming to San Fran-
cisco, was occupied on steamboats and in hotels.
In 1881 he came to The Dalles, where he opened a
small stationery and cigar store, remaining there
one year, after which he came to Sprague and
engaged in his present business. His career does
credit to his intelligence and activity; and as a
defender of the Union he merits the lasting gratitude.
of all.
DAVID MURRAY. This gentleman is a well-
known capitalist. He has retired from active business,
and is now reaping the benefits of a life full of even
and unceasing hard work. David Murray is a name
that every youngster in the Kittitass valley, Washing-
ton, is familiar with. It might be well for those very
same youths if they had a few of the hardships to go
through that Mr. Murray did in his early life. He was
born in Maine in 1831, and at the age of twenty left
his home to seek his fortunes in the Golden state of
California. He embarked on board one of the sail-
ing vessels that brought a dry dock to the Pacific
coast. Rounding the " Horn" with that massive
bulk in cargo was no very safe undertaking. How-
ever, reaching California, he settled at Vallejo, on
San Francisco Bay; and, not having been overstocked
with money upon leaving his home, he was forced
to accept what work he could obtain. He did the
first work that was ever done on Mare Island, where
the government works and navy yard now are. After
finishing his employment there, he led a life of var-
ious pursuits for a period of ten years, among which
were mining, lumbering and ranching. During the
488
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
great Caribou gold excitement of 1862 he made his
way to that field, and took up a ranch on the Fraser
river, 150 miles above Fort Yale. He was the first
rancher in that locality, and worked assiduously on
his claim for a period of six or seven years.
In 1870 he gave up the ranch there, and then came
to Kittitass valley, where he has resided ever since.
He bought a ranch near Yakima, and with his varied
experience and a moderate capital started in to raise
cattle. The ranch covered one hundred and sixty
acres; and the well-known adaptability of the soil to
stock-farming favored his efforts, so that, by careful,
attentive handling, his stock increased and multi-
plied, until at one time he owned the large number
of four thousand head of the finest cattle in the
land, and was one of the "cattle kings" of Wash-
ington Territory. He married in 1878, and, being
in the height of his prosperity, settled down to en-
joy those solid comforts of home and hearth which
he had never previously known on account of his
wandering life. The happiness he had striven so
hard for was not of long duration, however; for, in
the midst of his triumphs and joys, his beloved wife
was called away, leaving the bright home and lov-
ing husband desolate and childless.
Mr. Murray has made one visit to his boyhood's
home in Maine since coming to the coast, but soon
returned to the land that gave him fame and fortune.
He owns considerable property around Ellensburgh,
and was a director and shareholder in the First
National Bank started there, but which closed up on
account of the uncertain prospects of the railroad
being built through the town. A man of generous
and noble instincts, he has ever done all in his power
to advance and promote the interests of Ellensburgh,
and has been prominently connected with many
enterprises for the public weal. Within the past few
years he has retired from business, and as a landed
capitalist is now engaged in loaning his money to
his less fortunate neighbors. His old reminiscences
and experiences in the days of his struggles with
poverty in the Golden state have caused him to feel
a longing to end his days in California,—his first
landing-place in the West.
Mr. Murray's life being one of outdoor work, he
has an iron constitution that has never been under-
mined by the ravages of disease; and his age sits so
lightly on his powerful frame that one could hardly
credit the fact of his being in his fifty-seventh year.
He is six feet tall, energetic in manner, and straight
as an arrow. Everybody has a good word for Mr.
Murray. He possesses the esteem and respect of his
associates, and has many friends and but few ene-
mies. His residence at the head of Second street is
a model of neatness and comfort. It is the finest
and most substantial dwelling in Ellensburgh. Con-
scientious and straightforward, he has ever led an
honest and honorable life, and deserves all the en-
comiums and prosperity that by his diligence he has
attained.
H. A. MYERS. Mr. Myers, for twenty-five
years one of the "pillars of the community" in the
beautiful north end of the Grande Ronde, was born
in Kentucky in 1820, and nine years later removed
with his parents to Missouri, where he grew to man-
hood and received what education might be obtained
at the common schools of that state.
In 1864 he made the journey across the plains im-
mediately to the Grande Ronde, Oregon, and located a
claim three miles west of Summerville. For six years
he was engaged in farming and stock-raising, and
afterwards for six years lived in the village to enjoy
the advantages of education and society. Purchasing,
however, a farm a short distance below town, he
again engaged in agriculture, and two years later
returned to Summerville, establishing a livery stable.
He still pursues that occupation, although retaining
his ranches, which aggregate six hundred and fifty
acres of excellent land.
His wife, Louisa Speaks, to whom he was married
in 1845, is no less prominent than himself in a pub-
lic way. Their home has been blessed with three
girls, Catherine, Sarah and Jeannette, and two boys,
James and Franklin, all of whom have ranches of
their own in that neighborhood.
F. M. NAUGHT.- Mr. Naught, whose life
experience contains many incidents of unique interest,
was born in Illinois in 1838, and removed as a child
to Texas, and in 1846 to Iowa. In 1853 he crossed
the plains to Oregon and located in Polk county.
Upon the outbreak of the Indian war in 1856, he
joined Captain F. M. P. Goff's Company K, Wash-
ington Territory Volunteers, and came east of the
Cascades. In July of that year, a part of Captain
Goff's company quartered at Fort Henrietta was
summoned to the relief of Major Leighton's com-
mand, which was surrounded on the John Day river.
Starting late in the evening with ten days' rations,
they rode that night and arrived upon the scene the
next evening. The Indians fled upon their ap-
proach. Encamping that night with Leighton's
command, the united force of the volunteers started
up the river in pursuit of the Indians, following so
closely in their track as frequently to find meat still
cooking.
Finally, upon the headwaters of Burnt river,
they sighted some of the savages. Lieutenant
William Hunter, with twenty-seven men, was
ordered forward; and a skirmish ensued in which
two of the volunteers were killed and one wounded.
The Indians surrounded them; and for twenty-six
hours it was necessary to fight on the defensive.
But at last the two companies came to his relief; and
the Indians broke and disappeared. The two men
that were killed had ascended a mountain with a
third to keep guard, but were ambushed; and this
was the commencement of the fight. The volun-
teers followed the fugitives through Powder river
and Grande Ronde, where Colonel B. F. Shaw
intercepted them, giving them a severe chastisement.
At Lee's encampment the command met a detach-
ment of men coming to meet them with supplies,
which were greatly appreciated, since they had
subsisted twenty-eight days upon the ten days'
rations.
Later Mr. Naught took part in some of the excit-
ing incidents of the attack on the wagon train,
where the volunteers were moving up Mill creek
from the present site of Walla Walla, after the six
days' council, in which the Nez Perce, Umatilla,
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
489
Walla Walla and Cayuse Indians took part. After
the close of hostilities, Mr. Naught returned to Polk
county, and resumed work upon his father's farm,
and a year later learned the blacksmith's trade at
Bethel, continuing in that employment until going
to the mines at Oro Fino, driving a freight team.
Late in 1861 he went to the Salmon river mines, and
recalls the phenomenal prices paid for provisions,-
two dollars a pound for flour, three dollars and a half
a pound for bacon. Returning to Polk county, he
engaged, in 1863, in packing to the Idaho mines,
and in 1864 enlisted in Captain Lafollett's Company
A. Being discharged June 30th, he returned to
Polk county, but in 1871 found his way to the
Palouse valley, engaging in the sheep business; but
of late years he has made his home in the Walla
Walla valley, Washington Territory, near the town
of Walla Walla, where he has a productive and beau-
tiful farm, and is one of the leading citizens in his
section.
DAVID A. NEELY.-The gentleman who forms
the subject of this sketch was born to John and
Mary Davis Neely in Murray county, Tennessee, on
July 18, 1823. In 1824 his parents moved to Carroll
county, West Tennessee, and settled on government
land. There he lived with his parents, his father fol-
lowing the quiet life of farmer and preacher of the
gospel until the commencement of the Rebellion.
John Neely raised the first company under the
Union flag in West Tennessee. All of his sons, five
in number, joined the Union army; and only two sons
lived to see peace proclaimed, the father and three
sons being killed. Being the eldest of his father's
family he was kept busy on the farm, and only had
the opportunity to attend school a short while in
each fall; so by the next fall he had nearly forgot
ten what he had learned at the log schoolhouse the
year before.
Indeed he was far more interested in
farming, hunting wild turkeys and raccoons than in
securing an education.
On December 22, 1844, he was married to Miss
Irena Kemp, a native of Georgia; and he then left
his parents' farm and settled on a rented farm, living
one year in Carroll county. In December of the
following year, he moved to Gibson county, and after
six years' residence there moved to Obion, Tennes-
see, where he stayed seven months. On July 18, 1852,
he started to Missouri to take up government land.
He found that all of the best land had been taken
up; and, as his desire for a good farm was very
strong, he resolved to go with his wife and three
little boys to Oregon and get a donation of three
hundred and twenty acres. He stayed to raise one
crop in Newton county, Missouri, and then started
across the plains, driving three yoke of oxen and
one of cows.
In May, 1854, he was almost persuaded to stop in
Kansas, as the prospects were very good there at
that time, but instead he pushed on westward.
When they reached Boise river, twenty-five miles
east of Fort Boise, they were warned by the Snake
Indians that they intended to make war for the gain
of their property. There were three trains traveling
near together, i. e., Yantis', Jones' and Estie's
trains, as they thought it necessary for their safety.
On the evening of August 10, 1854, Mr. Yantis
asked our subject to mount one of the mules and
go back with him after some of his stock, which was
missing, which request he at once complied with.
They soon reached the rear of Mr. Jones' train, and
were warned that if they proceeded it would be at
the risk of their lives, as the Indians had acted very
insultingly and hostile; but they thought it best to
go on after the stock.
They had ridden about three miles, when they
saw some twenty horsemen in their front pass rap-
idly into the willow brush. They were just about
crossing a low strip of country, which completely
hid them from the level plain in front, and got their
arms in readiness, resolved to go on notwithstand-
ing they thought the Indians were laying in ambush
for them. When they regained the level plain,
they saw a man coming towards them, and soon
recognized the long hair of an Indian, it being their
custom to wear their hair long and dangling about
the shoulders. They soon met the man; and he
told them that he had their stock, and was taking
them to a camping place only a short distance, and
was very anxious that they should accompany him
and get the stock, as he said he was going on
to The Dalles and could look after the cattle no
longer. Mr. Yantis proposed paying him to bring
the cattle on; but he refused, and to Mr. Yantis'
question replied that he and one other man com-
prised the pack train. As Mr. Neely and Mr.
Yantis had both counted twenty persons they rather
declined going on; indeed, Mr. Neely said, “Darned
if I will ride my mule to death for Yantis or any other
man.”
Mr. Yantis said he couldn't blame him, and
requested the stranger to bring the stock to their
camp, which he still refused. As Mr. Neely was
riding Mr. Yantis' mule, his anxiety for its safety
conveyed a great deal to Mr. Yantis' mind.
So they returned to camp; and all hands com-
menced preparing for defense. The Indians visited
the camp as they usually did; and, as some of H. H.
Jones' cows were missing also, Mr. Yantis and Mr.
David Neely thought it best to go back and warn
the trains just behind them, and also see what the
Indians were doing. So, telling the women and
children that they were going to look after the stock,
they on the fifteenth got the trains on the move
towards Fort Boise, where they expected to arrive
that evening.
A. S. Yantis, H. H. Jones, Amon, Estie and Mr.
David Neely went with two other men to see what the
probable danger was. They soon saw the man they
had met before. He said he was going to The Dalles;
and another man and a squaw with him had Mr.
Yantis' stock, but said they had seen nothing of Mr.
Jones' stock. They soon found the camp of the
two men; and it showed that there had been many
Indians with them. H. H. Jones' stock had been
barbecued; and parts of the carcasses were still over
the fire. All hands were satisfied that there was
danger; and some of the men became very indig-
nant.
Neely and Yantis started on to warn a train which
they saw at a distance; and the others started back
to Boise river. They had gone but a short distance
when they saw that there was trouble ahead, and
490
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
!
that the train was standing still. They at once
wheeled their horses and galloped after the other
party, and after going some distance got them
halted; and all started back together for the train.
When they got near enough they could see the
Indians galloping past the train for the purpose of
drawing the fire of the emigrants. When they got
within a mile or so of the train, they saw that some
of the party were hitching the oxen to two of the
wagons; and they at once decided that the train had
been captured, and that the Indians were starting
with the women and children directly towards
the brush where our party were concealed.
this critical moment Mr. Neely's name was sug-
gested as commander; but he at once declined in
favor of A. S. Yantis, requesting all the men to
keep cool, dismount, stand behind their horses, and
take good aim before they fired.
At
They made a dash to take the wagons, notwith-
standing there were some twenty Indians in charge
of them; and as they passed a clump of brush two
Indians came dashing out with their short stirrups,
bobbing up high in the air, first on one side and
then the other, with the intention of drawing the
first fire of the white men and dodging it. In this
they failed; and Mr. Neely started after one and
Yantis after the other. Mr. Yantis wounded both
Indian and horse; but the other escaped into the
willows. At this time the firing became general
from both parties; and, as Amon was standing
beside his horse, Mr. Neely saw him drop his rifle.
and throw his hands to his head, having been shot
through the head and hip at the same time.
The poor fellow exclaimed, "Boys, don't leave me
here." As the Indian straightened up from behind
a bank, Mr. Neely snatched Amon's rifle and shot
at him. He disappeared; and Neely went to see
what he could do for his wounded comrade, when
Yantis exclaimed: "The boys are demoralized and
gone; they must be stopped," and started after them.
Our subject asked Amon if he wanted his horse, but
received no answer. At that moment his mule
became frightened and started on a run; but he
managed to hold to his double-barreled shotgun and
stop the animal. He at once returned to Amon,
but found him senseless and left him on the ground.
This
Mr. Yantis and the others were about four hun-
dred yards away at the wagons, where the fighting
was going on. The first thing in Mr. Neely's sight
was Robert Ward's yoke of oxen, and the next a
dead Indian. A little farther lay a young white
man, and by his side another dead Indian.
young man was said to be a young lawyer from
Massachusetts, and was decoyed out from the train to
effect a compromise. His name was Babcock; and
no doubt he killed the two Indians mentioned.
As Mr. Neely approached the wagons, he heard
Yantis appealing to the men to stick together or
they would all be lost. The Whites and the In-
dians lay around dead or dying, the white men
being Robert Ward and his son from Missouri,
Samuel Malugen, Illinois, Babcock from Massa-
chusetts, Charley (or Doc) Adams and brother,
California, and three other men, nine in all.
There were some five Indians dead near the
wagons, making seven he had counted killed by
the train men; and the Indians afterwards reported
that Yantis' men killed five of their number, making
a total of twelve Indians killed. The dead were
left on the ground until the seventeenth, when
Nobler's and Yantis' party went back to bury them.
William Ward, a boy thirteen years of age, was
cruelly wounded, having been shot several times
with arrows; but he succeeded in making his escape,
and was out on the plains for several days. Newton
Ward was badly shot with arrows, and was lying
under the wagon tongue, which prevented the hor-
ses from stepping on him. He said he held his
breath as the Indians rode over him; and when he
saw Mr. Neely he held out his hand and said: “How
do you do, Mr. Neely. We have been looking for
you and Mr. Yantis a long time." He was assisted
up behind Mr. Neely; and they started for Boise.
But he begged much harder to be left than he had
to be taken; for his suffering was intense. Two
Dutchmen were yet alive, and begged for water.
The dead were lying around in all directions; and
there were evidences that most of the fighting had
been done hand to hand.
The men who had been killed so terribly bore
nothing in comparison to what the women and chil-
dren who were prisoners endured. Miss Ward only
rode a few hundred yards when she jumped out of
the wagon and was brutally murdered; and Mrs.
White shared the same fate, though her son has
never been heard of since. Two or three of the Ward
children were burned before their mother's eyes;
and Mrs. Ward was burned in many places by red-
hot irons.
The trip across the plains occupied five months;
and they reached White river, King county, Wash-
inton Territory, on October 1,
1854.
On the 9th of
October, Mrs. Irena Neely gave birth to the first
white child born on White river. Mr. Neely at
once located a home on the east bank of White
river, where he still resides, having added two ad-
joining farms to the original Donation claim.
He had now the hardships to contend with of a
new country full of Indians, with no roads. He
had no money, and had a wife and four children
to provide for. Their meals consisted mostly of
potatoes and salmon, and sometimes of only salt and
potatoes. However, he soon secured work away
from home, and was obliged to leave his family
alone four miles from the nearest neighbor's, and
not a sign of a road to go anywhere, all travel being
by canoe. In 1855 he raised a small crop of pota-
toes, and a fine supply of flour just in time for the
hostile Indians to get the benefit.
use.
On the 27th of September, Enos Cooper said to
our subject that he was very uneasy, as he thought
hostilities were about to break out among the
Indians, and proposed going in his canoe to H. H.
Jones' to investigate the situation, and asked Mr.
Neely to clean and put his revolver in readiness for
He cleaned and reloaded the revolver, put it
in his pocket, and went to work. In a short time
one of the little boys told him there were four
Indians at the house wanting to sell some berries.
He found two squaws and two Indians; and they
proposed the berry trade, which Mr. Neely refused.
The two squaws went out into the yard; and the

A
UNIV
74
RESIDENCE OF WALTER J.REED,
NORTH YAKIMA, W.T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
491
Indians commenced making inquiries as to how
many guns and how much ammunition our subject
had. He told them he only had one rifle and very
little ammunition, showing them some damaged
powder; but they refused to believe it was all he
had. After being accused several times in a laugh-
ing way of having more than one gun, he thought
of Cooper's revolver, and drew it out, showing
them how fast it could shoot.
They were greatly surprised, and at once started
up, one going between Neely and the gun, and the
other to the door, when he saw their intention was
to kill him with knives concealed under their
blankets. Suddenly Mr. Cooper came in; and the
Indians left, after which Mr. Cooper told the news
that all the neighbors were on the way to Seattle for
safety. Cooper had seen the four Indians at Neely's
place, and felt sure that he and his family were
murdered. They at once made preparations; and
all went to Seattle.
In a short time they returned home and gathered
up the things they had scattered through the brush.
On the 12th of October he started for Olympia; and,
as his wife refused to stay alone, she accompanied
him in an open scow; and they returned to Seattle
on October 19th. It was rumored that all the set-
tlers on White river were massacred; and on the
nineteenth Mr. Neely, armed with a shotgun, started
out to ascertain the facts. He reached Moses Kirk-
land's about nine o'clock in the evening, and found
everybody attending to their daily affairs with little
fear of the Indians. On his return home he went
to the mouth of Black river and found everything
quiet, and so reported at Seattle, though almost
before his story was told Kirkland, Cox and Lake
were in town, and were certain all the settlers behind
were murdered, which was indeed the case.
On October 23d a company was organized to go
and bury the dead. Our subject joined Company
H, of the First Regiment of volunteers, and acted as
scout most of the time while in the company. At
the expiration of the service of Company H, the
Indians attacked Seattle; and shortly afterwards
Edward Sanders raised Company A, which Mr.
Neely joined, being elected second lieutenant.
the expiration of this company's time he was in com-
mand of the company, and mustered them out of
service on July 29, 1856.
At
Knowing it unsafe to return home, he remained
with his family in Seattle until April, 1857, and then
moved near L. M. Collins' fort, on the Duwamish
river, where he rented a place and managed to slip
home once or twice each year in order to say that
he kept up continuous cultivation on the Donation
claim. There he lived in 1857, '58 and '59, when he
returned to the Donation, and has lived there ever
since, farming and dairying.
He now owns six hundred and thirty acres of
land within two and a half miles of Kent, and eighteen
miles from Seattle. He is engaged extensively in hog-
raising, and is the king bear and cougar hunter of
King county. Mr. Neely is sixty-six years old;
and his wife is sixty-four. They have seven chil-
dren living, and eight grandchildren. He is a Re-
publica... Prohibitionist, and in favor of woman
suffrage. He never held a civil office except that of
postmaster. His religion is,
His religion is, "Do good to all, and
be just and moral; and God will deal in justice
sure."
MATTHEW NEEVES.-Mr. Neeves, a promi-
nent citizen of Pendleton, Oregon, was born near
Syracuse, New York, in 1830. He there received a
common-school education and remained until he was
twenty years old. Going west to Galesburg, Illinois,
he made his way in that new section in the capacity
of a Yankee school-master. After one year in that
place he went to Platt county, and remained another
year as teacher.
+
In 1852 he was induced to join the company of
the veteran pioneer Joab Powell, and arrived at Port-
land in October of the same year. He first turned
his attention to mining on Rogue river, and remained
one year. After this he made his home in Douglas
county until 1862, and went thence to the Florence
mines, and was engaged in mining and freighting
until 1867. At that date he returned to Douglas
county, and remained in that delightful region more
than ten years. After this long rest he was ready
again for a new settlement, and, coming to Umatilla
county, located a claim on Butter creek, and re-
mained engaged in stock-raising and farming until
1880. The attractions of Pendleton, however,
which was now becoming a point of interest and
importance, led him to make his home within her
borders and enjoy the remaining years of his life.
He has one daughter and a stepson. After many
reverses he has been able to collect sufficient property
to live comfortably as his sun draws towards the
west.
HON. JAMES WILLIS NESMITH. Ore-
gon has given a few men to the nation; and the lus-
ter of their memory still shines in the galaxy of her
heroes. Colonel Baker, one of the most brilliant
men ever at Washington, District of Columbia, has
coupled with his title that of senator from Oregon.
Yet he was in no sense an Oregon-made man, but
rather made use of Oregon to elevate him to a seat
which it was impossible for him to attain from Illi-
nois. With Colonel Nesmith, however, the case was
the reverse. He was as truly an Oregon man as one
of his age could be, not only coming to our state
with the first immigration, but gaining largely here
his education, principles and manners. As a com-
manding historical figure, it will be proper here to
notice the circumstances of his life, his political
career, and his mental and moral characteristics.
We do not often find distinguished ability without
finding also antecedent capacity in the ancestry.
The family to which our senator belonged is remotely
of Scotch Presbyterian blood, but as early as 1690.
removed to the north of Ireland, becoming there-
after of the Scotch-Irish race, who have made them-
selves famous on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1718
the family removed to America; and William Morri-
son Nesmith, the father of our subject, connected
himself by marriage, about 1814, to Miss Harriet
Willis, of a distinguished old family of New Jersey,
her father owning the site of Elizabethtown in that
state. The young couple, however, made their home
in Maine; and their third child and only son, James
492
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Willis, was born to them in 1820 in New Brunswick,
while his parents were there on a visit. The child-
hood of this boy was in some particulars quite dis-
tressful. His mother was drowned while he was
still an infant; and when he was but five years old
his father lost his entire fortune, which was large,
by fire.
The peril to life was so imminent in this
casualty that the family escaped only by taking ref-
uge in a marsh, until the city and surrounding
woods had ceased burning. Resulting from the ex-
posure there experienced, his stepmother sickened
and died; and the boy was obliged to live among
friends and even strangers. His father never
amassed another fortune.
Young Nesmith's life was consequently very little
in one place; and his education was very desultory.
He was, however, fond of books, and absorbed the
current ideas of the times as he went from place to
place. He early began to earn his own livelihood,
and as he attained manhood developed the jovial
temper and humorous turn which make care sit so
lightly and baffle misfortune. Being detached from
an established life in the East, he came out to Ohio,
stopping at the home of his cousin, Joseph G. Wil-
son, late member of Congress from Oregon, and with
him attended the district school near Cincinnati.
He still felt the westward tide, and soon after came
on to Missouri, where he was joined by his father,
who died and was buried in that state. With the
loss of this loved parent, the young man had no ties
to restrain his impatience to find the fortune and
honor that awaited him on the Pacific coast, although
he probably imagined as little as anyone that his
restless longings, ever warning him solemnly beneath
the exterior gaiety of his life, meant for him the
distinction and service to which he attained.
In 1842 he mounted a horse and rode off to Inde-
pendence with the intention of joining Doctor
White's party for Oregon. But the train was ahead
of him; and he was prevented from riding after
them by the report of the hostility of the Pawnees.
Remaining on the frontier until the next season, he
gained a year's livelihood by performing carpenter
work at Fort Scott, Kansas, and with the Applegate
party of 1843 crossed the mountains. Perhaps it
was upon this trip that his life-work was first sug-
gested. To while away the time, the lawyers in
this company conjured up a legal case, which was
argued and put through all possible transmutations;
and Nesmith, one of the principal parties concerned,
showed so much address in the hand he bore as to
win the high praise of Peter Burnett, who told him
he ought to study law. Coming to Oregon City,
and finding more or less spare time on his hands, he
adopted the suggestion by gathering up what few
books on this subject he could find. He gained from
them a practical and common-sense idea of juris-
prudence, which enabled him two years later to fill
the office of judge under the Provisional govern-
ment.
In 1846 he made the home which he had been
lacking nearly twenty years, by his marriage to Miss
Pauline Goff, daughter of the pioneer of 1844. She
was a lady whose personal and social attractions
were much appreciated some years later at Washing-
His farm was near the present Dixie, and is
ton.
now occupied by his son James. He was favored at
this time by the loan of cattle to the value of a thou-
sand dollars by Doctor McLoughlin, who proffered
him the lot, telling him that now he was married he
must be wanting a few cows.
In the winter of 1848 he was one of the number
who went to the Cayuse country to avenge the death
of Whitman, for whom he had the highest regard;
and again in 1855 he served with distinction in the
Rogue river and Yakima wars, earning there the title
by which he has ever been known, that of colonel.
In 1857 he was appointed superintendent of Indian
affairs, serving two years. This was a position of
high responsibility, covering a field which included.
Oregon, Washington and Idaho. In the meantime.
he had been to California in 1848 and dug gold six
months, paying his debt to McLoughlin with his
dust, and had built two miles above Dallas a grist-
mill, the operation of which proved very remuner-
ative. He made the acquaintance of General Lane
while on the water coming up from San Francisco.
From his residence at Oregon City, and in Polk
county, and at Salem as United States marshal, and
from his services in the state legislature and in the
army and among the Indians, he was gaining a
thorough grip upon the affairs of our young state, and
becoming one of her most popular men. This led
the way to his political preferment.
The threatened disruption of the Union in 1861 dis-
turbed parties no less in Oregon than elsewhere; and
life-long political friends became widely separated.
General Lane, then senator from our state, took the
side of the south, accepting a place as Vice-Presi-
dent on the old Democratic ticket with Brecken-
ridge. His efforts were thereby calculated to detach
Oregon from the Union, or at least to sever it from
any active sympathy. Without doubt his purpose
looked to an ultimate if not immediate coalition
between the Pacific states and the south in the
great Southern republic of which the Carolina
cavaliers dreamed, which was to include the West
Indies and Mexico. Nesmith, however, was a
Northern man, although personally and hitherto
politically strongly attached to Lane, and all the
old Democrats. He was nothing of an Abolitionist,
and felt no sympathy with the anti-slavery agita-
tion; and for this reason his pro-slavery friends
expected him to unite with them. But he could
not brook the destruction of the Union. That was
first, and must be preserved with whatever conse-
quences to any other institution. He therefore
stood out from the regular party ranks, and in 1860
accepted a position as elector on the Douglas ticket.
In 1861 the Douglas Democrats, largely in the
minority, put him forward as candidate for the
United States Senate; and the Republicans, also a
minority, had such confidence in the Colonel, know-
ing that he was for the Union to the backbone, that
they readily united to secure his election. He
therefore became senator, to fill the place left vacant
by Lane. In taking this course, Colonel Nesmith
assumed a vast responsibility, as, in those uncertain
times, the whole weight of decision to preserve or
to acquiesce in the division of the Union might
turn upon his single vote. Nevertheless his convic-
tions upon this one point of national preservation
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
493
were so clear that he entered upon his duties with
alacrity and enthusiasm. During the entire period
of the war he was indefatigably on the side of the
national authority, and became a trusted adviser of
President Lincoln. He also served on the military
committee; and his military views, picked up on
the frontier and in Indian warfare, were sought by
the generals at Washington, and were frequently of
essential service. His counsels were ever for prompt-
ness and efficiency and decisive results. After the
war was over, however, he strenuously opposed the
reconstruction measures of the Republican party,
and became identified with the Democratic party of
later days. For many years after his return to
Oregon he was leader of his party in our state, and
in 1873 was elected to fill the unexpired term of his
cousin, J. G. Wilson, who by death left vacant his
seat in the United States Congress. The history of
our senator is therefore written deeply in national
history; and his is a fame which is commensurate
with that of the Union in which he identified his
reputation, fortune and life.
Colonel Nesmith's natural and moral character-
istics are worthy of much study, as well as illustra-
ting the kind of mind developed on the frontier.
First of all stands out clearly his confidence in his
own mental operations and conclusions. He took no
steps except upon his own judgment, and felt certain
that what he worked out for himself was practically
correct. This led to his astonishing independence.
It is not an easy thing to withstand one's life-long
associates, to take up with a cause which may throw
one down from a well-earned popularity, and to
identify one's self with a cause which is, for the
present, and may ever be, the weaker. This is a
moral quality of the highest value, and to men with
the qualities of leadership, like Nesmith, to whom
popularity is worth something, is one of the most
difficult to attain. It involves a certain truthfulness
with one's self, and shows a commanding self-
respect which compels fidelity to principle. Coupled
with this high quality, he had a breadth and com-
mon sense which forbade narrowness.
He had not only respect for, and loyalty to, his
own opinions, but respect and charity for the convic-
tions of others. He had peculiarly that large view
which prefers to see men and their ideas go for what
they are worth, and, if they cannot be reconciled
when in conflict, to expect that the best will survive
the struggle. Not a contentious man, he was nev-
ertheless combative, and, while careful to be right,
felt no hesitancy in trying his views by the final
arbitrament. With this martial spirit, he had very
broad sympathies, and never lost his warm personal
regard for General Lane, for whom he had named
his eldest son. It was the request of the general
that, at his funeral, Colonel Nesmith pronounce a
a few words; and no one can read this classic oration
in the light of all the memories involved without
great admiration. Furthermore, at the request of
the Senate, he pronounced a eulogy upon the unbend-
ing Abolitionist, Charles Sumner. That great sen-
ator from Massachusetts was worlds farther than
Lane from Nesmith's own personal sentiments; yet
that speech was so broad and just as to attract uni-
versal attention.
The substratum of his character, it will be seen,
was earnest and rugged, involving a self-respect and
sturdy truthfulness which is found alone in the best
men. To this he added an intellect of exceptional
clearness and vigor, remarkable for its ready reason-
ing and wonderful memory. To ease the
To ease the way of life
he developed a natural streak of Scotch humor; and
his ready memory served him quaint anecdotes and
illustrations for every occasion, and made him one
of the most interesting conversationalists. The same
quality made of him a successful speaker and a flu-
ent writer, although in neither of these fields was he
so perfectly at home as among a group of friends
where he could indulge in jest or repartee. He was
in no respect a man of wide learning; but his own
life and experience had served him a world of facts;
and he was fertile and quick in resources. His char-
acter is well defined in the portrait which we pre-
sent.
His death occurred in 1885; and of none of her
sons may Oregon feel more proud. His public career
was without taint or corruption, as his private life
had been without stain of dishonesty; and, in this
respect, he is a most worthy example for all of the
public servants of our state.
Of his children, the eldest, Joseph Lane, died in
infancy; Mary J., the wife of Levi Ankeny, resides
at Walla Walla; Harriet, the wife of L. L. McArthur,
resides at Portland; Valena, the wife of M. W. Mol-
son, lives at Derry; and James and William reside
upon the old place by the Rickreal.
ROBERT NEWELL.-"Doc" Newell, as he
was commonly called, was one of the same breed of
pioneers as Jo Meek. He was, in fact, associated
with the latter for many years in the wild, trapping
life on the border; and when that was given up he
went with the rest of the little company of trappers
to Oregon and became one of the state-builders there.
He was born near Zanesville, Ohio, on the 30th of
March, 1807. After having spent some time in
Cincinnati, in learning the saddler's trade, he was led
by his adventurous disposition to go with a trapping
party, in his eighteenth year, to the Rocky Mount-
ains. It was there that he became acquainted with
Jo Meek.
Jo Meek. The friendship of the two rough but
warm-hearted trappers deepened into the closest
intimacy; and in after years they stood by each
other through thick and thin.
Newell went with Meek, Doty, Walker, Wilkins,
Ebberts and Larison, in 1840, to the Tualatin Plains,
where most of the number became permanent resi-
dents. Newell himself bore an honorable part in
the affairs of the growing state; and, although he
had had few advantages of early education, he pos-
sessed a natural intelligence and force of character
which gave him due recognition among the strong-
headed men of our early epoch.
He was married in 1846 to Rebecca Newman, of
Marion county. In 1867 he changed his residence.
to Lewiston, Idaho; and there he died in November,
1869.
S. F. NEWHARD.—At the southern end of
the beautiful Grande Ronde valley, on the line of
the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company, and
494
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
at the foot of a high, bald hill, is situated Hot
Lake,—or White Sulphur Lake. This is a circu-
lar body of water of about two and a half acres,
with an average depth of three feet, and is fed by
two boiling springs, which appear near together
at the southern edge where the water is deepest.
These springs are in shape of a basin twenty feet
across and ten feet deep; and the water coming up
perfectly clear from the bottom is the best agent
that has been found for allaying pain and curing all
the ills that the human family is heir to. In one of
these springs the temperature reaches an average of
from one hundred and seventy-five to one hundred
and eighty degrees. Chemical analyses show it
Chemical analyses show it
to contain free sulphureted hydrogen gas, carbonate
and sulphate of calcium, sulphate of soda, sulphate
of potash, alumina and silica, together with organic
matter. This lake is declared by knowing ones to
equal the famed hot springs of Arkansas, and has
already effected relief or cures in many classes of
disease.
Samuel F. Newhard was born in Pennsylvania in
1830. His parents emigrated to Ohio in 1837,
where he received a common-school education and
worked on his father's farm until 1852, when he
crossed the plains to California, and in that sunny
state engaged in mining and farming for twelve
years. The superior attractions of Union county,
however, drew him to its scenes, where he located
the land upon which is situated the lake above-
described, and is still proprietor of this remarkable
water. He has erected a small invalids' hotel, with
facilities for bathing and hygienic appurtenances.
Mr. Newhard is also engaged in stock-raising,
and maintains a vineyard and fruit farm in Cali-
fornia.
JOHN M. NEWMAN. The gentleman whom
we here introduce to the reader, and a view of whose
residence is placed in this history, is a native of
Sullivan county, Missouri, and was born August
10, 1851. While but a lad of thirteen he came
to Eastern Oregon, and, after a sojourn of a year
upon the sage-brush plains, continued the march
to the Willamette valley. Some years were there
spent in Marion and Benton counties, the most
interesting period of his life there being his mar-
riage to Miss Isabel Forgey, a noble woman who
has borne him eight children.
In 1878 he arrived in the Kittitass valley, and
took a claim seven miles from Ellensburgh, Wash-
ington Territory. There he still resides, and is
engaged in cultivating his farm. He intersperses
the time with running a blacksmith shop, which is
well patronized. His one hundred and ninety acres
of excellent land supporting many head of horses
and cattle, producing much grain, and improved
with good buildings and an orchard of three hun-
dred trees, is now one of the most delightful places
in Kittitass county. As justice of the peace, as
school director, and in many public ways, Mr. New-
man assists in helping on the community, and is a
well-respected citizen. His progressive and helpful
qualities are sought, and are ever ready to be lent
in schemes of public improvement, such as immi-
gration, etc. His surviving children are Olive M.,
Lillie V., James Otis, Minnie May, Fred P., Jacob
Niles. Ada and Lena are deceased.
W. B. D. NEWMAN. This well-known pio-
neer and veteran of the Indian wars comes of primi-
tive stock of old Virginia, where the English family
settled on the south bank of the Potomac, and
where the father of our subject was born in 1793,
and grew up to be a stout defender of the young
American republic in the war of 1812. The mother,
Matilda Downing, was also of Virginia, having come
from that state to Kentucky. William was born in
1827 in the latter state, and two years later accom-
panied his parents to Ohio. Meeting with the loss
of his mother at an early age, he was brought up
under the care of his mother's sister, and received
his education at Ripley, Ohio.
At the age of fifteen he began work on his own
responsibility on the banks of the Ohio river, and
upon neighboring farms. His way led down the
Ohio and the Mississippi, even to New Orleans; but,
not liking the South, he bent his steps towards the
West. In 1848 he was in Illinois. Making also a
trip to Indiana, he found there a party preparing to
cross the continent to Puget Sound, and joined the
company. A requirement of the organization made
it necessary that for every four men there should be
provided two yoke of oxen, or two span of horses;
and the party set out in the spring for St. Joseph.
Starting from that point in good style, they made
the journey amid the usual difficulties, hardships
and pleasures of the way, arriving at Olympia
November 15th. A well-remembered circumstance
of that event was their waiting by the shore of the
Sound for the tide to fall so far as to allow them to
get a breakfast of clams, which they took straight.
In 1854, having in the meantime made some in-
spection of the region, Mr. De Newman was engaged
with Governor Stevens in taking the census of the
Indians, and in the summer of 1855 was operating
with Surveyor Byles in preparing the county for
settlement. In the fall of that year he joined a
company of volunteers to quell the Indians, who
were on the war path and committing great depre-
dations. He acted first as wagon-master, and after
the building of the blockhouse on White river was
sergeant at that post. He also participated in the
sharp fight on May 8, 1856, in which the savages
were beaten back and forced to cross the Cascade
Mountains. He accompanied his company in June.
across the mountains to Walla Walla, and passed
over the Blue Mountains into the Grande Ronde,
taking a part there in the horseback fight or run-
ning battle, in which the hostiles were thoroughly
subdued and compelled to sue for peace.
In 1857 Mr. De Newman settled upon the Lower
Chehalis, a region with which he was fully satisfied,
and has lived upon his farm there for nineteen years.
During ten of these years he has operated a sawmill.
His farm is now reached by a railroad line, on
which he has a way station of his own. There he
lives to see the great progress of modern days, a
happy, genial, prosperous man. He was married in
1868 to Mrs. Mary A. Reed, and has a family of
three children, Sarah Belle, Emma Laura and Wil-
liam Clarence. There is also one child deceased.



W. H. PETTERSON, ESQ.,
AUDITOR KITTITAS CO., W. T.
U
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
495
CHARLES NICKELL. Among the young
men of ability and energy in the Pacific Northwest
who have come to the front through their own
efforts is the gentleman whose name is given above.
He is a native of the Golden state, having been
born at Yreka in 1856.
The advantages for receiving an education in
early days were not good; but, notwithstanding this
fact, his natural push gave impetus to a spirit to
improve each opportunity for storing his mind with
that which would fit him for a sphere of usefulness
in the future; and so well did he succeed that at
the age of thirteen years he was assistant teacher at
Yreka with Professor William Duenkal. In 1869
he quit that most trying of all pursuits, and in 1870
entered the office of the Yreka Journal, completing
his printer's apprenticeship in twenty months.
The
In 1871 he permanently removed to Jacksonville,
and worked as compositor and reporter on the
Democratic Times until December, 1872, when, at
the age of sixteen years, he formed a partnership
with P. D. Hull, and launched out as a full-fledged
journalist by the purchase of that paper.
great fire in 1873 swept away the office and entire
plant in common with other buildings. But the
Times existed in a few active brains, not simply in
types and plates, and was running as lively as ever
in a short time thereafter. In 1874 Mr. Nickell
became sole proprietor; and under his personal
management it has become a very remunerative
property, having a circulation of twenty-five hundred,
which is second to no paper published in Oregon
outside of Portland. Through its columns Southern
Oregon has derived great benefit in the way of
advice and advertisement, influencing newcomers to
the state to make that section their adopted home.
As a writer his style is aggressive, clear and
succinct, never aiming at brilliant figures of speech,
nor straining after effect, but appealing directly and
understandingly to the minds of all, with a terseness
that is commendable. Being a Democrat in politics,
the political editorials in the Times herald the prin-
ciples of that party in unmistakable terms, and
champion its leaders. Mr. Nickell has invested his
surplus means quite largely in real estate, now
owning about six thousand acres of choice land in
Southern Oregon, and considerable property in
Multnomah county. He is also interested in mer-
cantile pursuits in Jacksonville, and is prominently
identified with many of the principal enterprises of
Southern Oregon.
Without being an office-seeker, he has become
prominent in politics, and is one of the leaders of
the Democracy. He was nominated against his
will for state printer in 1886, but owing to politi-
cal combinations was defeated by a small majority.
He is at present president of the Oregon Press
Association. In his domestic relations, Mr. Nickell
was highly favored, in 1881 having been united in
marriage to one of Jacksonville's most accomplished
young ladies, Miss Ella, daughter of Judge P. P.
Prim. She was a native of Oregon, and was re-
garded by all who knew her as an exemplary wife
and mother. Her death occurred in the early
summer of the present year. Three children, the
youngest of whom has since died, with their father,
Mr.
were left to mourn her untimely demise.
Nickell's resolute spirit meets all life's experiences
with fortitude, and enables him to pursue his
duties with energy, notwithstanding this terrible
calamity that has befallen him.
con-
CAPT. PLEASENT CALVIN NOLAND.—
Captain Noland, one of the most substantial farm-
ers of Lane county, and for nearly forty years
a resident of Oregon, was born in Missouri in
1830. His ancestry extends to Ireland and Wales;
and his grandfather, Leadstone Noland, was a
soldier in the war of the Revolution. His father,
Smallwood V. Noland, became a pioneer of Mis-
souri, and a very conspicuous man in that region,
and as commissioner of Jackson county was
cerned in the removal of the Mormons, by whom he
nearly lost his life. In 1846, entering the service of
the United States army, Captain Noland, our sub-
ject, was sent to Indian Territory instead of Mexico,
and in 1849 crossed the plains to the mines of
California. Returning East in 1851, he drove the
next year a team to Santa Fé, and in 1853 came to
Oregon. The journey terminated in a manner as
difficult and severe as that of 1845 in Meek's cut-
off; for at Matthews the immigrants were met by a
man from the Willamette valley who was coming to
meet his family and conduct the train by a new
route to the latter place. This was to cross the
Cascades by the middle fork of the Willamette
river.
Nearing the mountains, eight men, including
Captain Noland, went ahead with ten days' rations in-
tending to cross the chain of the Cascade Mount-
ains into the Willamette valley, and procure
provisions for the train, as supplies were already.
growing scant. After a week's travel these scouts
found themselves off the road; and when supplies
failed they killed and "jerked" a fat Cayuse pony.
After crossing the Des Chutes, near the foot of the
Three Sisters, and wandering up on their flanks
without finding a trail, a division arose as to the
direction to be pursued. As it was impossible to
agree, three took a route northerly and five south-
erly.
The men shook hands all around as they sepa-
rated, with much emotion, and gave messages for
their friends, as one party or the other might never
escape. It would be a bit a romance to follow the
toils of these wanderers through those long mount-
ains, and to note how the five in the party to which
Noland belonged finally refused to journey longer
together, two taking one direction and three another,
parting as before with hand-shaking and solemn
farewell messages. The day's travel for Noland
and his two companions after this last parting was
difficult; and their minds were filled with appre-
hension. Climbing a great ridge, from which they
expected to see the Willamette valley, they discov-
ered only another long, blue range as high as that
on which they stood; but, seeing a smoke in the
cañon below, and supposing it to be Indians, they
descended, and were not a little pleased though a
little disappointed to find their companions of the
morning.
In three days they came upon a deserted camp
33
496
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
·
and a fresh deerskin. This latter served to cut
up and roast, and furnished several good meals
for hungry men. They pressed on to overtake who-
ever had gone before. Two days more and they
were up with the men, who proved to be no other
than the three members of the party who first di-
vided. With torn clothes and bare feet, and limbs
scratched and sore, they looked as sorry as the five;
but the reunited companions made no secret of their
joy at meeting, and fell into each other's arms as the
only way to express their emotion. They soon pre-
pared a feast to celebrate their meeting.
This con-
sisted of a salmon that had been picked up on the
bank of the stream, a lot of roasted snails from the
woods, and boiled thistles, with a dessert of elder
berries. The deer spoken of above proved to
have been killed by some wild animal and left on
the spot. After this they toiled on down the widen-
ing stream, eating snails and berries, and at length
came upon a clearing on the banks of the Mackenzie
river. This was the farm of Mrs. Davis; and at her
home they dined as if in a dream,— reminding them
of their dreams of feasting at some royal board
while they were yet sleeping in the hard mountains.
Going on to Springfield they reported the train of
wagons still in the mountains; and a party went out
to meet them, saving them from starvation.
The following spring Captain Noland bought a
place a mile south of Cresswell, and there made his
home, and amid all the comforts of the Oregon farm
lives upon it to the present day.
During the Indian war of 1855-56 he was among
the first to be on the ground, in Captain Buoy's
company. After his term of three months' service
was up, he returned home and raised a company of
which he was commissioned Captain. He partici-
pated in the memorable fight in Southern Oregon;
and it was his company that was attacked at night
in the Cow creek country, which was having a little
sport playing and wrestling. The incident related
in which Captain Noland was to meet by appoint-
ment two others at a certain place, and failing to do
so the two parties fired upon each other in the dark-
ness, Noland's shot knocking off the hammer of a
white man's gun, illustrates the hazards and humor
of warfare with the Indians.
The Captain was married in 1857 to Miss Lena,
daughter of Ellen Stewart, of Eugene. Two sons
were born to them, George and James E., the former
of whom graduated from the State University and
studied law, and is now practicing at Astoria. Mrs.
Noland dying in 1873, the Captain married Miss Me-
lissa Davidson in 1879; and they now have a daugh-
ter, Neva.
CAPT. Z. C. NORTON.— Of the early pioneers
to Oregon who were natives of the Pine Tree state,
the subject of this sketch occupied a prominent
place during his life. He was born in Farmington,
Maine, December 29, 1808, and when fourteen years
of age was sent to sea by his father for the purpose
of learning navigation, and gaining possible pro-
motion to the captaincy of a vessel.
His patron
was an old friend of his parents, and was the com-
mander of the vessel in which our subject began his
travels on the briny deep. By close attention to
the duties of his calling, he rapidly rose in the
estimation of shipowners, and on the arrival of his
majority was given the command of a vessel.
In 1833 he was married to Miss Caroline Norton,
and took his bride on board of his vessel; and for ten
years its cabin was their home. During that time
he was in the European and West India trade, and
by his energetic management and business tact ac-
cumulated sums sufficient to purchase an interest at
different times in various vessels. In 1847 he built
the brig Sequin, and in her made several trips to
the West Indies and to South American ports.
While in the latter trade there occurred the cir-
cumstances which brought about his coming to
the Pacific coast, and his subsequent settlement in
Oregon.
But
In 1848 the Sequin was loaded at Bath with lum-
ber, which the captain hoped to dispose of in Rio
de Janeiro; but on arriving there the market was
found so dull that he weighed anchor and left for
Buenos Ayres, where the lumber was sold at a fair
price, a cargo of hides taken on board, and prepara-
tions made for a return trip to New York.
prior to his departure word came of the wonderful
discovery of gold in California; and he discharged
his cargo of hides and took on a cargo and passen-
gers for San Francisco. He was advised not to un-
dertake the journey around Cape Horn, as he would
arrive there during the stormy winter season.
the Captain had a mind of his own, and was de-
termined not only to venture as intended, but also
to ultimately go into the coasting trade between
San Francisco and the North Pacific. This caused
no little remark among the sea-faring people in
the harbor; and many an ancient mariner warned
the Captain not to attempt the determination ex-
pressed to cross the Columbia river bar, for fear
that the bones of his brig and all the passengers
and crew would bleach on the hostile sands that
rumor had told them of.
But
At that time very few had visited the Pacific
Northwest; but every sea and ocean was haunted
with fearful tales of the dangers that attended the
crossing of the Columbia bar, and in entering our
great river.
He sailed from Buenos Ayres on April
10, 1848, and entered the Golden Gate after an
eventful voyage of one hundred and forty-two days.
On his arrival in San Francisco the gold excitement
was at fever heat. The harbor was full of ships of
all nations that could not find crews; nor could they
find traffic to engage in. The Sequin was just the
craft for the coasting trade of that period; and very
soon Captain Norton was able to carry out his in-
tention of working into the Columbia river trade.
On the 27th of November he sailed from San Fran-
cisco for Portland with a mixed cargo and twenty-
two passengers.
Crossing the Columbia bar in those years was no
child's play. It was winter time; and the heavy
winds made the surf beat furiously. Passengers
gathered anxiously along the bulwarks watching
the heaving of the lead, the frowning, surf-beaten
headlands, and the treacherous sand points that lay
between. There was no pilot waiting outside, and
no tug to offer friendly service for legitimate fees.
Captain Norton on the second offing worked his
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
497
way into the north channel, heaving the lead in a
northeast snowstorm, and towards evening worked
in and anchored at Baker's Bay December 2d. The
next day they reached Fort George; and their
ocean voyage was ended. The passengers had paid
The passengers had paid
from one hundred to two hundred dollars for
their transportation, according to accommodations.
Stephen Coffin, one of the Portland town propri-
etors, was among them; and C. A. Reed, his future
son-in-law, was another.
The passage on the ocean was quick enough; but
the journey up the great Columbia was a much
longer affair. That was a year of freshets, and a
severe winter. The brig pushed along up the river
against high water and floating ice. The passen-
gers were mostly booked for Portland; and nearly
all stayed by the vessel, which was fifty-four days
in the river before it arrived at its destination; and
when at last the city was reached they found little
more than a good-sized village in the woods.
The first mail that ever came to Oregon in United
States postal sacks came on the first trip of the
Sequin, being put on board at San Francisco. The
ship left there in 1849, when there was no regular
steamer service; and, mail for Oregon having accu-
mulated at San Francisco, the postmaster improved.
the opportunity to send up the mail on hand.
Captain Norton made several voyages in his brig,
and found the trade profitable. The first voyage
down he loaded with flour at five dollars a barrel,
and sold it all readily at twenty dollars a barrel.
In one voyage down from Portland the Sequin
cleared its owners eighteen thousand dollars. Besides
carrying passengers, he loaded the brig often to good
advantage. The second trip he brought up coffee,
stored it at Vancouver and Oregon City, and cleared
three thousand dollars on it. The Captain was a
shrewd hand at business, and could make money
honorably and fast enough; but he was not so good
a hand at saving it. Like many others, he did not
show foresight in his disposals for the future. He
abandoned sea-going, and remained for some years
at Portland, attending to business, having built one
of the first, if not actually the first, good frame store
building erected in that city. This was the same
wooden structure that was torn away to make room
for the extension of the Oregonian block. He dealt
in merchandise awhile, and then took up a land claim
in Clackamas county, on the river of that name,
twenty-two miles from Portland. He spent seven
thousand dollars stocking this farm, and lived there
until his death. At that time cows were worth one
hundred dollars, and average lots in Portland the
same price; but the cow and her increase were in the
present, and Portland's lots were in the future.
There are many who made the same mistake; but
Captain Norton enjoyed plenty while he lived, and
left the farm for his beloved wife.
Those who were here in the early times will
remember Captain Norton as one of the characters
of early Portland. He was free hearted and liberal
to all who were in need. Many a time he found
immigrants, who had reached Portland destitute,
after the long journey across the plains, and took
them home to relieve their needs. Having no chil-
dren, they provided for many children who had been
left fatherless. One family, especially, they took
charge of; and its members have lived and grown
up to remember and cherish their memory.
Captain Norton died on February 13, 1879, full
of years and honors, leaving behind, to mourn his
loss, his beloved wife, children whom he had raised,
and legions of sincere friends. In the brief space
alotted to biographies, it would be impossible to por-
tray his many good qualities,-energy, integrity,
affability and philanthropy,-nor yet give, except in
brief, the incidents of his career. In his death the
state lost one of her most useful and capable citizens,
his wife an affectionate and care-taking husband,
and those to whom he dealt out his many acts of
kindness more than a friend,—a father.
Mrs. Norton is now three score and ten, but still
bears her age as if many years younger. For some
two years after the death of her husband she lived
in their handsome and comfortable farm home, when
she removed to Oregon City, residing in that place.
for several years, and finally removing to Portland,
where she makes her home with Mrs. R. Williams,
whom in a great measure she had raised.
Few people who have lived as long as this charm-
ing old lady can look back on life with such an un-
broken record of good deeds as she; and fewer still are
they whose faces wear more cheerful smiles or show
less wrinkles. Hers is a character like Cæsar's wife,
"above suspicion," and a disposition akin to that
which the angels are said to have.
HON. JOHN W. NORVAL.-Mr. Norval, at
present state senator from Union and Wallowa coun-
ties, was born in Knox county, Illinois, June 5, 1840,
and is the son of James and Mahala Applewhite
Norval. He resided upon a farm at his native place
until the age of twenty, having while a mere boy
suffered the loss of his father, and being a member
of a family of four brothers and one sister. In
April, 1860, he came west to Alexandria, Missouri,
where he joined an emigrant train and came across
the plains to California, arriving at Stockton Novem-
ber 6, 1860. He first found employment in teach-
ing school until August, 1861, after which he came
to the Northern mines in British Columbia, and for
five years followed mining in Idaho, Washington
and British Columbia, meeting with varying success.
In the fall of 1866, he located a farm near Sum-
merville, Oregon, and resided there for two years.
In 1868 he located upon his present place, three and
a half miles east of Summerville, where he has five
hundred and sixty acres of choice land in Wallowa
county. During the Bannack war he enlisted in a
volunteer company, and was elected captain. In
1878 he was appointed, by Governor Thayer, major
of the Third Brigade of the Oregon militia. Mr.
Norval was candidate three times for the state legis-
lature, but, from the fact that Union county was
persistently Democratic, he was defeated until June,
1888, when he was elected to the state senate for
Union and Wallowa counties, a position that he has
ably filled.
Mr. Norval was married in Union county in 1867
to Miss Catherine J., eldest daughter of Honorable
Terry Tuttle, who is a native of Iowa. They have
two sons and one daughter.
498
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
HARRISON B. OATMAN.-This gentleman,
a pioneer of the early days, and at present one of
the capitalists of Portland, was born at Courtland,
New York, in 1826. As a child he moved with his
parents to Ohio, and at the new home in Bellevue
attended school, laying a good foundation for his
later study and information. At twelve he removed
with his parents to Rockford, Illinois, and was mar-
ried there in 1847 to Miss Lucena K. Ross.
In 1853 he made with his family the toilsome jour-
ney to Oregon, crossing the plains with ox-teams,
and establishing his home in Jackson county. The
early days of his residence there were spent in min-
ing, and in trading and packing. He was closely
associated with the lamented Fields, whose massa-
cre at the summit of the Siskiyou Mountains in
1855 was the real beginning of the general Indian
war. Indeed, Mr. Oatman was a member of the
party to which Fields belonged, and was with him
on that lonely mountain; and by only a chance,
running between the arrows, he escaped to the set-
tlers and gave the alarm, in response to which a
company was gathered and the mutilated body of
Fields recovered. Mr. Oatman remained in South-
ern Oregon fourteen years, coming thence to Port-
land, where he has since resided. On arriving there
he went into the grocery trade, which he gave up
after a number of years and confined himself to
speculations in land. Being bold, keen and strong-
handed, he has carried on his operations with great
success. Of late years he has invested his capital
largely in the Cœur d'Alene mines, and has realized
large returns.
He has an army record worthy and significant.
In 1865 he joined the First Oregon Infantry, and
after serving two years was mustered out in 1867
with the rank of first lieutenant and with numerous
commendations for gallant conduct upon the field.
HIRAM W. OLIVER,— Mr. Oliver is a native
of Indiana, and was born in 1827. He is the son
of a farmer. In 1849 he moved to Illinois, farming
until the fall of 1853, when he changed his resi-
dence to Iowa. In 1864 he crossed the plains to
the Pacific coast, and located a claim in the Grande
Ronde valley, Oregon, at the north end of the
broad, timbered flat northwest of Summerville, and
purchased a sawmill there which he is still operating.
He manufactures a large quantity of excellent lum-
ber, and also conducts large farming operations.
He married Miss Julia McCaleb in Illinois in
1856; and their seven children are all prominent in
Union county. This companion died in 1874. His
present wife, Maria L. Burt, makes for him and
their three children a delightful home. Mr. Oliver
owns ten hundred and forty acres of timbered land
in the vicinity of his mill, and also has considerable
well-bred stock.
TURNER OLIVER.-This wide-awake citizen
of Union county is the son of Hiram W. Oliver, a
biographical sketch of whom is also included in this
work. He was born on May 7, 1860, in Iowa; and,
although but four years old when crossing the
plains, he remembers distinctly some of the exciting
incidents of the journey to the Grande Ronde,
particularly the pursuit of a band of Indians who
were making off with the horses of the train, but
upon close pressure were obliged to let go all except
those belonging to two Dutchmen, who were in ill
odor with the train for shirking their duty as guards-
men. That day three young men were sent to a
fort some miles distant for government aid, which
they failed to get, and on their return to the train
were fired upon by a scouting party of soldiers and
had two of their horses killed.
had two of their horses killed. He also remembers
how the following winter all his father's family
were obliged to subsist upon boiled wheat, mashed
wheat, and wheat straight, without salt or other
seasoning.
Turner obtained the most of his primary education
by a systematic course of study at home, working
at his father's mill during the day, and studying by
the light of a fire of pine knots at night. By this
assiduous application he fitted himself to teach school,
and began a career in that line at the age of seven-
teen. After he was twenty years of age he made
further attainments by two years' attendance at the
Blue Mountain Academy, and two years more at
the State University.
In 1884 he succeeded to the management of his
father's lumbering business at Summerville. In
1885 he accepted the principalship of the public
school at Union, which he raised from a chaotic
condition to one of the best in Eastern Oregon. He
declined the same position the next year in order to
accept that of deputy county clerk of Union county,
and in that capacity is serving with credit to him-
self and with honor to his county.
Mr. Oliver is of a bold, frank and generous dis-
position, with plenty of nerve and an inflexible will.
He takes great interest in the cause of education,
and allies himself with every enterprise calculated
to benefit society, and to accelerate the wheels of
progress.
MRS. HANNAH J. OLMSTEAD. — Life
upon the Pacific coast brings out the heroic qualities
in women as well as in men. It is a social and
conventional form which keeps them in the shadow
of their husbands' names. But everybody knows
that the greater part of the incentive which a man
has to win a position or a fortune comes from his
wife. It has long been remarked that the women in
the immigrant trains showed more pluck than the
men; and many a dispirited husband was cheered
up and almost carried through by his brave better
half. Delicate women, not used to severe work,
would wield the axe or the ox-whip when it fell
from stronger hands, and in case of the loss of their
companions could take care of their children.
Mrs. Olmstead is one of these women, -a lady
who can run a farm, transact her own business, and
provide for and educate her children. She lives at
Walla Walla, Washington, and owns her home. She
is a native of South Salem, New York, was born in
1835, and is the daughter of Lewis and Eliza Kee-
ler, well-to-do farmers, who, by the way, are still
living, and are now eighty-one and seventy-six
years old, respectively. In 1851 Miss Hannah was
married to Daniel H. Olmstead, of Port Huron.
Soon after their nuptials he was led to the Pacific

:
J.A.COCHRAN ESQ.
J.A.COCHRAN'S FARM RESIDENCE NEAR PULLMAN, W. T.
شد
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
499
coast by the California gold excitement. Like the
most of the gold-hunters, Mr. Olmstead expected to
make his fortune in a few months,-in a year at the
longest,—and then go home to enjoy it. Fortune-
making was not, however, so speedy a process; and
the beginnings of his competency were destroyed
by the fire which devastated Sacramento in 1853.
His property was the Empire Flour Mills. Meeting
this loss with characteristic fortitude, he began
again to pick up the ends of a living, if not a fort-
une, by working with a dray at San Francisco two
years, then a short time at Crescent City, and soon
at Portland. At the last place he found employ-
ment with Colonel Ruckle, of the Cascades, in sail-
ing a schooner between the two points last-named.
In 1859 he was able to return East and bring his
young wife to the home which he had made at the
Cascades, within sight of the most stupendous
scenery of the coast. He had become a Western
man. His return was in 1861. The first winter
passed at that place was terribly severe. Snow fell
to a depth of eighteen feet,-one of those phenom-
enal avalanches which occasionally burst upon the
Cascade Mountains. The thermometer was fre-
quently below zero. In addition to their own hard-
ships, they were beset by half-starved, frost-bitten
wretches from above, trying their best to get
through to some milder clime than that east of the
mountains. Although the Columbia was blockaded
with ice fully three months, and there was no telling
when their household provisions might give out,
no one passed their door without being well warmed
and fed.
In 1864 the Olmsteads moved to Walla Walla
county and purchased a farm near the Oregon line,
but met with little encouragement. The climate
and soil were not so well understood then as now.
After twelve years of hard labor, and the endurance
of the privations of a new and sparsely-settled
country, Mr. Olmstead was taken with a severe
sickness, under which he sank and died. Mrs.
Olmstead, thus bereaved, was left with her four
children, and only a farm which had not yet proved
productive, from which to gain a support. But,
with great spirit and courage, she herself undertook
the management, and was rewarded with a large
crop of oats and hay, and with increasing stock.
For a number of years she conducted the place
with equally good success. In 1880 she moved to
Walla Walla, buying a home for the sake of edu-
cating her family.
There are no failures on this coast, either among
men or women, where hearts are so true and brave
as Mrs. Olmstead's.
ton.
JAMES O'LOUGHLIN. This gentleman,
whose portrait adorns the opposite page, is one of
the representative men of Skagit county, Washing-
He is a native of Ireland, thus making Ska-
git, as every county in the United States, indebted
to the Emerald Isle. County Clare was the region
of his birth; and the time was April 9, 1844. Be-
fore he was three years old, his parents crossed the
ocean to this land of liberty, bringing their nine
children with them. They located at Lyons, New
York, but in 1856 went to Lapeer, Michigan. There
the boy James learned the tinsmith's trade. After
the completion of his apprenticeship, he clerked in
a hardware store nine years. In 1870 he removed
to Yankton, Dakota, where he lived one year. In
the following year he set forth with his family to
cross the continent.
Coming to Puget Sound via San Francisco, he
made his first pause at Port Townsend in May, 1871.
Thence he proceeded to Seattle, and in December of
that year established himself at La Conner. He
worked at his trade there till 1877. Then, having
purchased one hundred and sixty-four acres of land
near the town, he devoted himself to farming. His
neighbors having inveigled him into political life,
he was elected, in the fall of 1880, to be sheriff and
assessor of Whatcom county. At that time, What-
com included Skagit. He was thrice elected to that
office, serving six years in all.
office, serving six years in all. In 1885 he was ap-
pointed inspector of customs under H. F. Beecher,
having his station at La Conner. That post he held
eighteen months, giving, as in all his official rela-
tions, universal satisfaction.
Though a firm Democrat in his political faith,
Mr. O'Loughlin is respected by men of all parties.
Mr. O'Loughlin was married at Lapeer, Michigan,
November 28, 1867, to Miss L. Adell Hough; and
they now have a fine family of nine children.
ESDRAS N. OUIMETTE.-A portrait of Mr.
Ouimette is placed in this work as a representative
business man of Tacoma, Washington, and as one
who located and pinned his faith to the City of Des-
tiny in the early stages of its organization. Mr.
Quimette is a native of the province of Quebec,
Canada, and was born in St. Eustache June 6, 1838.
He was educated at the common schools, afterwards
graduating from the St. Eustache College. He re-
sided in his birthplace until twenty-two years of
age. In 1860 he went to Montreal and engaged as
clerk in a general merchandise store, where he re-
mained for nearly five years.
He then concluded to seek his fortune in the
golden West, and came to Portland, Oregon, in the
latter part of 1865, where he first found employment
with the well-known dry-goods house of Jacob &
Meyer. One year later he engaged in business for
himself in Portland, where he remained until 1869.
He then removed his stock of goods to Olympia,
Washington Territory, where for the following ten
years he conducted a large and prosperous business.
While in Olympia, Mr. Ouimette was looked upon
as one of the most enterprising citizens of the Cap-
ital city, and held the office of Mayor of Olympia
for two terms. Our subject was one of the first
projectors, and mainly instrumental in the building,
of the Olympia & Tenino, now the Chehalis Valley
Railroad.
Railroad. In Olympia as in Tacoma, Mr. Ouimette
has always taken an active part in any movement
or enterprise that would benefit the city in which
he lived.
In 1878 he concluded to seek a new location.
After looking over the territory, he selected Tacoma
for his future home, and in the fall of that year pur-
chased sixty-five feet of land on the corner of Elev-
enth street and Pacific avenue, on which he erected
three two-story buildings, in which he embarked in
500
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
***
the dry-goods trade until 1883, when his buildings
and stock were consumed by fire, entailing a loss of
over ten thousand dollars above insurance. In 1884
he erected on the same site the present beautiful
Ouimette Block, the first three-story brick building
erected in Tacoma. He then sold his dry-goods
business to C. T. Harris & Co., and engaged in the
real-estate, insurance, mortgage and loan business,
in which he has been very successful.
Mr. Ouimette owns a large amount of real estate
on Pacific and Tacoma avenues and on other streets
in the city. He purchased eight additions to the
city by the acre, and sold the entire property in
lots. Mr. Ouimette's success has been phenomenal,
as he is now one of Tacoma's wealthiest men, as
well as one of the most respected in business and
social circles of the residents of the City of Destiny.
He is vice-president of the Washington National
Bank, and is more or less interested in all the differ-
ent enterprises that tend to benefit the City of Ta-
coma.
Mr. Ouimette was united in marriage in Upper
Canada in 1865 to Miss S. M. Curry. By this union
they had five children, one of whom is deceased.
JAMES W. F. OWENS. This gentleman
was the eldest son of the pioneer Thomas Owens,
and came as an infant in arms with his parents to
Oregon in 1843, his birthplace having been Platte
county, Missouri. In 1853 he removed with his
parents to the Umpqua valley, and, amid the beau-
tiful scenes of that almost unearthly region, grew
to a vigorous manhood. His only education was
received during a six months' term of school at
Dallas; but, having a phenomenal memory, this
laid the basis for his large information of later
years. He was one of those men who devour
books and entertain very positive opinions upon
the important subjects of life.
He
The free and withal romantic life of a stock-raiser
suited his bent; and in that business he was very
successful. Marrying Miss Nannie L. Stevens of
Ohio in 1864, he made for himself a cosy home, and
gathered about him the comforts of life. Four chil-
dren came to bless his life; and his early prospects
were equal to those of anyone in our state.
owned for a long time a ferry on the Umpqua river,
but made his residence at Roseburg. Gaining the
confidence of the people, he was elected to the Ore-
gon legislature in 1874 on the Independent ticket.
During those years he was also very active in the
Good Templar lodge, and was advanced to the most
honored positions in that order, being elected state
deputy in 1872. In 1877 he went heart and soul
into the work of organizing the State Grange. In
that year the local association erected a warehouse
at Roseburg; and for nearly ten years it was in
charge of Mr. Owens.
He gained the entire confidence of the city and
county in a business way; and when, in 1886, he
entered into the wool business, he was heartily sup-
ported and accredited by the whole community.
His operations were bold and well designed. His
former business methods, however, proved inade-
quate for his present large dealings. Trusting solely
to his memory,-hitherto a safe and ready recorder,
his affairs began to pass from his control. Trans-
actions and promises upon which he relied had no
written proof of their existence; and their failure
threw him into distress. Buying wool very heavily
for a Boston company on a margin, the market
began falling, and he was called upon to make up
the deficiency. He was led into this large deal by
the advice of the house at Boston. The failure of
the market and the drafts upon his credit exhausted
his own means; and his numerous friends were
doubting as to making further advances.
With a sensitiveness born of integrity, and the
final belief that he had not only ruined himself
but entangled his friends, and fearing that he had
no written proof by which to clear himself from the
suspicion of delinquency or even of dishonesty
which some would be sure to indulge, the burden
of such a prospect for the time darkened his mind
and clouded his reason; and in that despairing state
he took his own life, —as a terrible protest of his
innocence of wrong.
His honor has since been perfectly vindicated,
although for a time it was viciously assailed; and
there is no man whose loss has been more deeply
deplored. In politics he was ever on the progressive
side, examining public questions with reference to
their bearing upon the welfare of the masses, and
their furtherance of public morals. He was the
principal originator of the Prohibition party in Ore-
gon, and the founder of and a large contributor to
the Prohibition Star, or more recently the Pacific
Express.
His family of a wife and four children are living
at Roseburg, and are comfortably provided for.
THOMAS OWENS. Thomas Owens, a pio-
neer of 1843, was born in Tazewell county, Virginia,
in 1808. His father, Thomas Owens, was born in
Wyeth county, Virginia, in 1757, and with his
family came to Floyd county, Kentucky, in 1814,
where he lived to the age of ninety-four. Father
Owens, as his Kentucky neighbors called him, was,
we are told, "A valued citizen, known as a good
husband, affectionate father and kind master.'
Thomas Owens, the subject of this sketch, was a
born pioneer, having the courage to bring his wife
and three children across the plains with the immi-
gration of 1843. All those who crossed to Oregon
in that year will remember the familiar, tall, raw-
boned, athletic Kentuckian, as Thomas Owens might
be said to be. He was the man who knew so well
how to meet and overcome every difficulty, that it
became a common saying among his comrades,
"only give Tom Owens a piece of wet moss, and he
will make a rousing camp fire.
The immigration of 1843 was the first to bring
wagons west of Fort Hall; and Thomas Owens,
John Hobson (the present collector at Astoria),
George Summers and Mr. Holly were the first immi-
grants to bring wagons into Oregon. Our sturdy
pioneers were obliged, owing to the near approach
of winter, to leave their wagons and stock at Walla
Walla in charge of the Hudson's Bay Company in
the fall of 1843. They came on their westward way
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
501
upon a raft to Vancouver, where they left their
families, continuing their journey down the Colum-
bia in a canoe in search of suitable homes. All
went well until they reached Chinook Point, where
a gale of wind wrecked their canoe and left them at
the mercy of the many Indians who then possessed
the land. Fortunately the Indians proved kindly,
and were induced to ferry them across to Astoria,
where they found Mr. James Birnie in charge of the
Hudson's Bay Company's fort, and Colonel McClure,
as the only white men at the town or station. By
their advice, Owens and party went down to Clatsop
Plains, and there found land to suit their wishes.
They immediately started back to Vancouver after
their families. On their way up the Columbia in
the canoe they met Gustavus Hines, Jason Lee and
Robert Shortess coming down the river. We can
easily imagine that those hardy adventurers had a
merry night together as they camped where Colum-
bia City now stands. In those days there was not
a single white man between Fort Vancouver and
Astoria. Arriving at Vancouver, Doctor McLough-
lin very kindly furnished them a full winter's
supply, and a bateau in which to carry their families
and produce to their new homes on the verge of the
Pacific Ocean. Christmas day, 1843, they landed on
Point Adams; and in one day they built houses with
which to accommodate their families.
In June, 1844, Messrs. Owens, Hobson, Summers
and Holly started back to Walla Walla after their
wagons and stock. Early in July they reached
Walla Walla, and found all their stock cattle, horses.
and a span of mules in fine condition. They hauled
their wagons to The Dalles, where Hobson and
Holly took charge of the stock and drove them
across the Cascade Mountains and by the way of
Tillamook to Clatsop Plains; while Owens and Sum-
mers made a raft and with their four wagons, goods,
and Miss Ann Hobson as the only passenger, boldly
pushed out into the Columbia for their destination.
At the Cascades, they were obliged to carry every-
thing around the rapids and to allow their raft to drift
over. It went to pieces in running the Cascades;
and again Mr. Owens had to depend upon the In-
dians for transportation. He obtained two large.
canoes, and by laying a platform between them
(catamaran style) again had a boat. Upon this cata-
maran these dauntless men brought their wagons
and lady passenger safely to Clatsop Point.
Thomas Owens located about the middle of Clat-
sop Plains upon the farm now occupied by Mrs.
Goodwin. There he soon made a comfortable home
and a valuable farm; and there several children were
born. His eldest daughter, Diana, was married to
John Hobson; and no man ever obtained a more
grandly beautiful bride.
When Mr. Owens located on Clatsop Plains, there
were only four other white settlers and two mission-
aries, Reverend Josiah L. Parrish and William Ray-
mond. The white settlers were Trask and Perry,
Solomon Smith and Tibbets, the last two being
pioneers of 1832. Colonel John McClure was at
that time the only American resident of Astoria.
Indians were numerous both on Clatsop Plains and
north of the Columbia river about Chinook Point
and Shoalwater Bay. The early settlers of Clatsop
were supplied with seed potatoes in 1843 by James
Birnie of the Hudson's Bay Company, who kindly
furnished them with ten bushels each, they promis-
ing to return twenty bushels in 1844. Unfortunately,
the crop of that year failed; and Mr. Birnie must
wait until 1845. Mr. Owens, undertaking to return
his potatoes in the fall of that year, was unlucky
enough to lose his canoe as well as potatoes, in a
storm that caught him on Young's Bay. Nev-
ertheless he was not to be discouraged nor turned
aside by any obstacle, but pressed on with the im-
provement of his farm, and gradually found himself
surrounded with neighbors.
As an evidence of his interest in education, we
copy a notice found among his old papers, viz.: "In
pursuance of public notice, the citizens of Clatsop
Plains met at the dwelling-house of Thomas Owens
on the 25th of February, 1851, for the purpose of
organizing two school districts," etc.,-describing
the boundaries of both districts, and being signed
by John Robinson, Chairman, and J. P. Powers,
Secretary. This action formally established the first
two school districts in Clatsop county.
From 1843 to 1850, the Indians of Clatsop Plains
were occasionally aroused against the Whites; and
many times the latter were exposed to great danger
from bands upon the war path. Mr. Owens had
many dangerous encounters with these lawless bands;
and one incident may be mentioned which illustrates
his cool, determined character. In 1847 an Indian
known as Spuckum was known to have killed sev-
eral cattle belonging to Mr. Owens and his neigh-
bors. A warrant for the arrest of this Indian was
put into Mr. Owens hands; and he accordingly went
down near the spot where the Seaside House now
stands to apprehend his man. He found the thief near
a clump of bushes, which served as a retreat to hide
his skulking form. Riding around to the other side,
so as to be in the open land, Owens met the Indian,
now grown bold and savage, coming out of the wil-
low covert with a long, ugly knife carried bare and
held aloft threateningly. Spuckum's evident inten-
tion was to attack and destroy his pursuer. Owens,
however, sat coolly on his horse holding his trusty
Kentucky rifle across the pommel of his saddle, and
began to warn the savage off. This did not check
his advance, and was perhaps misunderstood as a
sign of fear. As many as twenty paces had now
been closed; and only ten more remained. Another
moment would bring him within striking distance.
But this Owens prevented by firing; and Spuckum
fell, having received the bullet at the elbow and
thence through his body. Had Owens' rifle failed
him, he would probably have been murdered. This
cool, determined courage caused him to be held in
high respect ever thereafter by the Clatsop Indians.
Mr. Owens continued to live at his ocean home
until 1853, when he determined to remove to the
Umpqua valley in order that his growing herds.
might have larger pastures. With his true pioneer
independence, he built a large flatboat, upon which
he carried more than one hundred head of cattle
with his family and goods as far up the Columbia as
St. Helens. From that point he made his way by
land to the spot where Roseburg, Oregon, now
stands.
502
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
In the charming Umpqua valley he again very
soon made himself a comfortable home, which he
enjoyed for sixteen years. There he had an exten-
sive and splendid range for his stock. He was a
great lover of fine horses; and as early as 1855 his
grand old horse Jeff was known throughout the
Willamette valley. For this animal Mr. Owens re-
fused eighteen hundred dollars in cash.
In 1869 Mr. Owens' health began to fail; and,
hoping that sunny California might restore his usual
vigor, he went to Shasta county, of that state. Un-
fortunately he obtained little relief, but lingered on
until death came to give his restless spirit repose.
He died at Piety Hill, California, July 23, 1873. His
faithful wife and nine children remained to mourn
his loss. Three of his children who crossed the
plains with their parents have been well and honor-
ably known in Oregon. The eldest, Diana, already
referred to as the first Mrs. John Hobson, was justly
styled in her girlhood as the Beauty of the Plains.
Mrs. Dr. Owens-Adair, who is still highly esteemed
by a host of friends throughout our state, and the
late Hon. W. F. Owens of Roseburg, receive due
mention elsewhere in our pages.
How wonderful and mysterious are the workings
of Providence! The defeat of Charles, called the
Pretender of England, at Culloden, caused one of
his followers, Sir Thomas Owens, to take refuge with
his family in America, and so to make it possible for
his great-grandson, our pioneer, to lay down his life
in our far away Western land.
MRS. DR. OWENS-ADAIR.- Berthina An-
gelina, the second daughter of Thomas and Sarah
Owens, was born February 7, 1840, in Van Buren
county, Missouri. She saw her fourth birthday in
her father's Western home on Clatsop Plains, Clat-
sop county, Oregon, her parents having made the
then dangerous and tedious journey across the
plains with ox-teams in the summer and fall of
1843.
At that time Berthina was a small child,
delicate in stature for her age, and having a highly
nervous and sensitive nature, but with a strong,
vigorous constitution, thus early showing a good
physical foundation for great perseverance and en-
durance. The country reached by her parents was
new to them, and virtually unoccupied, save by In-
dians. It was a wilderness unbroken by the means
and appliances of our civilization, with no visible
evidence of its immediate settlement and develop-
ment. If it were a nice thing to do for these elder
people to leave their old established homes, social
relations and open markets, thousands of miles
away, and come into this new land, from which
they could not return, their experience at the end of
the journey taught them that they had retraced
their steps in their lives to what appeared to be a
childish adventure, and to a place where a child
might lead them. This young girl was now as old
as were her parents in all of their new surroundings.
And we offer this beautiful thought here, that
seems like a mirror, as it were; for it reflected the
impression of the future of this household:
"The gloomiest day hath gleams of light.
The darkest wave hath bright foam near it,
And twinkles through the cloudiest night
Some solitary star to cheer it."
In plain view, where the sensible horizon receives
the sun's dip at eventide, beyond the moaning sea,
and on the beautiful Clatsop Plains, this young
girl took the first step in her life, with that small
band of pioneers, and with them began her hopeful
march towards a higher civilization, which in all
similar cases has been attended with trial, privation
and suffering. In the little to encourage them she
was an equal partaker. In all that brought suc-
cess she had a joint interest. Domestic duties or
confinement to the house had but little favor with
her. The long, open-air journey had prepared
her, as a bird, for a more open or outdoor life;
and, as she was fond of domestic animals, es-
pecially the horse, she found full flow for her ani-
mated spirits in assisting her father in his pursuits.
She was of a precocious and hopeful disposition,
and looked, as her days increased in number, for a
better time to come to herself and family, with its
rewards for making so many unfortunate sacrifices.
And thus she spent her time until she was thirteen
years of age, with no school to attend until she was
eleven years old, when a teacher came into the
neighborhood to teach the traditional three months'
school each year. Under that arrangement Berthina
received the benefit of that school for three months.
At that period her father moved to the Umpqua
valley and settled near Roseburg. On that trip, as
on other occasions, Berthina was of great help to
her father in looking after and driving stock; and
if, in consequence of her excellent health and vigor,
she was enabled to run and jump well, and do a
boy's work, it was her father's pleasure to call her his
boy," it but bespoke the character we accord to
her at her age in frontier experience, which should
exist in a youth to secure in time proper strength
in mental development. Hardly had her family
become settled in the Umpqua valley before this
uneducated and inconsiderate child followed the
wretched custom then in vogue,-early marriage,
by marrying Mr. Legrand Hill May 4, 1854. As
might have been expected, that marriage did not
prove a happy one. At the expiration of four years
a separation took place; and the unfortunate wife
found herself, at the age of eighteen years, broken
in health, penniless, and with a two-year-old baby
boy in her arms. Those four years of trial and
hardship had developed the thoughtless child into
a thoughtful, self-reliant woman.
She found a home in her father's house, where
she, with returning health and strength, was deter-
mined to educate herself and fit herself for the
duties now resting upon her. At that time she
could scarcely read and write; for she had not been
to school but one summer in her life. To aid her
in her purposes she sought all manner of work,
even washing; but her father protested and said:
No, why not stay at home and be satisfied. I am
able and willing to support you." At that time,
the spring of 1858, there was as good a school in
Roseburg as there was in Oregon. Arising at five
A. M., she helped milk, assisted in house-work, and
by half past eight was ready for school. On Satur-
days, despite her father's wish, she did her washing,
and out of school hours did her ironing, thus
realizing from three to five dollars per week, and


C.T. STILES,
PATAHA CITY, W. T.
OF
UNI
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
503
keeping up with her classes all the while. At the
end of three months she found her way through
the third reader.
In September she returned to Clatsop Plains with
her sister, Mrs. Hobson, who resided there. As she
had applied for a divorce, and a change of her name
to that before her marriage, with the custody of
her child, she returned to Roseburg the following
spring to attend court. This suit was hotly con-
tested on account of the custody of the child. S.
F. Chadwick was counsel for Mrs. Hill, and B. F.
Dowell for Mr. Hill. Mr. Chadwick succeeded in
getting her the divorce, the child, and in changing
the name of his client to her maiden name, Owens.
Mrs. Owens always has a kind word for Mr. Chad-
wick for his cheering words in her early troubles
and trials. After this success she renewed her
efforts to sustain herself by sewing, and for a year
and a half was very successful. She grew dis-
contented, and wanted to return to her studies.
Though attractive in appearance, she would not
listen to offers of marriage, certainly not until she
had education enough to make an intelligent wife,
if she married at all.
With this feeling she returned to Clatsop, and
late in the fall of 1860 visited an old friend, Mrs.
Munson of Oysterville. They were playmates in
early life, and ever afterwards devoted friends.
Mrs. Munson suggested that Mrs. Owens remain
with her and go to school; and this offer the
lonely widow accepted. She took in washing to
pay for the schooling, and for three months, with
assistance evenings, made great proficiency in read-
ing and grammar, and returning to her sister at
Clatsop Plains said: "I am determined to go to
school until I get at least a good common education.
I do not wish to make my living over the washtub,
nor at any other form of drudgery. Nor am I wil-
ling to live with any relative for merely board and
clothes; for I know that I can educate both myself
and child, which shall be accomplished." Mrs.
Hobson approved of this determination, and con-
sented that her sister should spend six months with
them; and they would pay her board six months in
Astoria, thereby enabling Mrs. Owens to attend
school for that time.
Do you
She was to live with Mrs. Hobson during the
summer and in Astoria in the winter. This plan
was carried out. Now Mrs. Owens needed a little
money, which she proposed making by teaching a
little country school. So she said to her sister: "By
getting up at five A. M., I can get through with all
the farm work by eight or half-past eight; and then
I could be ready to teach at nine o'clock.
think Mr. Hobson could get me a few scholars?"
She asked Mr. Hobson; and he told her to take the
horse herself and get them, which she did, and re-
ceived the promise of sixteen children at two dollars.
per quarter. This was her first effort in teaching;
and it was made in the old Presbyterian church of
Clatsop Plains, where of her sixteen pupils three
were further advanced than herself, and ranged in
age from five to fourteen years. She was an earnest
and devoted teacher, and frequently borrowed the
books of the advanced scholars, and, with the aid
of her brother-in-law in the evenings, managed to
keep ahead of her work. The advanced scholars
did not know that this teacher was not entirely com-
petent to instruct them.
From this school her first fortune was realized.
It amounted to twenty-five dollars. She added to
this treasure by picking blackberries on Saturdays,
in their season; and in this way her summer time
was occupied. But when winter came around she
found herself, son and nephew in Astoria ready to
go to school again. Her courage never faltered;
and she renewed her washing on Saturdays in order
to provide necessities for herself and boy. Here
was a trial indeed, -an examination in arithmetic
to fix her class. Arithmetic she had scarcely
studied at all, and had found it extremely difficult.
A kind teacher seeing her trouble allowed her to go
into both the first and second classes, and after
school hours helped her forward. She felt her
situation fully when she found herself reciting with
children from eight to fourteen years old. This con-
dition was of short duration; for in a few weeks, by
extra hours of study, she found herself rapidly ad-
vancing, and at the end of the first term was in
most of the leading classes.
easy task.
Many were watching her progress; and, as the
teacher's young wife was prevented by ill health
from longer assisting in the school, the directors for
the second term, mindful of the industry of Mrs.
Owens, appointed her assistant at a salary of twenty-
five dollars per month. This offer was gladly
accepted. She asked for and received permission to
recite in two classes, arithmetic and algebra. In
addition to this she joined a reading class, also a
sewing class, each meeting twice a week. She paid
her board by doing the housework of six or eight
rooms, which, compared with former labors, was an
A young lady from Oysterville, who had
been in an advanced class the preceding term, was
now a pupil of Mrs. Owens in most studies. The
wife of the teacher having resumed her place later
on, Mrs. Owens did the washing for two large fam-
ilies at one dollar and a half each per week, and
another at two dollars per week. This was done
by beginning at three o'clock A. M. Mondays and
Wednesdays, and being at her school desk by ten
A. M. at the latest on those days. To get her iron-
ings done she might be found many nights late, with
her book before her, studying hard her lesson while
pushing the iron. With her school, as assistant
teacher, she had saved a little money; but with the
greatest economy she had hard work to make ends
meet during the winter of 1862 and 1863.
In the spring Captain Farnsworth, a worthy man
and pilot on the Columbia river bar, having noticed
the spirit and determination of Mrs. Owens to suc-
ceed, offered her ample assistance to enable her to
obtain a thorough, collegiate education, which gen-
erous offer was declined, this strong, self-willed,
earnest woman preferring to rely solely upon her own
exertions for advancement rather than incur an obli-
gation from even so sincere and honorable a friend.
She took a school at Bruce Point at twenty-five dol-
lars per month, at which great satisfaction was given,
in view of which the term was continued. When
she applied to Judge Olney, school superintendent,
for a certificate to teach, he said: "I know you are
504
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
competent to teach that school; for I have had my
eyes on you for several years, and am well convinced
that you will do your duty.' This was a tonic to
her energies; and she pushed forward in her work.
From that school she received a call to Oysterville
to take charge of the school there, not forgotten by
her old friend Mrs. Munson, a school in which three
years before Mrs. Owens was an ignorant but a will-
ing scholar. This was accepted; and but a short
time before the term ended she was offered the school
on Clatsop Plains at forty dollars per month. This
being better than any offer yet made, it was
accepted.
She
Having saved all she could of her earnings, she
concluded to build a little home. Being an expert
with a sewing machine, and with crochet needles
and crochet work, then in fashion, she had in nine
months, above all expenses, saved two hundred and
twenty-five dollars. With part of this money she
purchased the ground on which now stands the res-
idence of Mr. I. W. Case, of Astoria, and contracted
with a carpenter to build a house thereon.
moved into an old building at Lexington, now
called Skipanon, and pursued her school and needle
work. This was a healthful place for the young
widow and her son; and by persistent industry she
had saved one hundred and sixty dollars by July 1,
1864, at which time she was enabled to move into
her own little home in Astoria. There she spent
her time in improving herself and boy, doing such
work as offered, occasionally teaching, but residing
in her own home, and at the end of three years
found herself out of debt, with a neatly furnished
home, and having the respect and confidence of the
community to cheer her on her way.
In the fall of 1867 she went to Roseburg to visit
her parents. They urged her to remain; and she
did so.
In the spring, by the aid of a brother-in-
law, she established herself in the millinery business
in Roseburg. For two and a half years she had
uninterrupted success, when opposition appeared in
the form of an expert milliner, who at once became
the attraction, and left the pioneer milliner without
business; and she even laughed at Mrs. Owens for
having no better claim to the trade than that she
had picked up the business. Mrs. Owens' power to
overcome obstacles was quickened by this treatment;
and she went to San Francisco late in the fall of
1870, and received instructions from the best mil-
liner in that city. Her son was left with Reverend
McGadden. She returned to Roseburg in the spring
with a fine stock of goods suited to the season.
With this she succeeded beyond hope, and realized
a yearly profit of fifteen hundred dollars. Her busi-
ness increased from year to year. In 1871 her son
was placed in the University of California.
Her desire to receive a scientific, medical educa-
tion now began to grow upon her. Her experience
in the sickroom increased this determination to im-
prove her mind in the study of materia medica; and
after witnessing, through the ignorance of a physi-
cian, an unpardonable case of malpractice upon a
little child, she at once procured from Doctor Ham-
ilton of Roseburg such medical books as in his
opinion she should study. He handed her first
Gay's Anatomy," and at the same time gave her
(C
some instructions. Hon. S. F. Chadwick, being
present and hearing the conversation, went up and
said to Mrs. Owens, Go ahead, you will win."
The other friend who encouraged her in this study
was Uncle Jesse Applegate, whose excellent advice
caused her to respect him as a father. His encour-
aging words were always an incentive to greater
efforts. Pursuing her studies until she felt that her
intention to go abroad and take a regular course in
medicine should be known by her parents, she an-
nounced it to them, only to receive in return a storm
of objections from every quarter, but which were
repelled with a pleasant reference to them.
A lady friend remarked to her: "Well, I always
gave you credit for being a very smart woman; but
indeed you must be crazy to undertake the study of
medicine." Mrs. Owens observed, with an assuring
smile: "You will change your mind when I come
home a physician and charge you more for doctor-
ing you than I now get for your hats and ribbons.”
Her friend replied: "Not much. You are a good
milliner; but I don't want any woman doctor
around me." Mrs. Owens said: 'Time will tell;
and people sometimes change their minds." As a
matter of fact, in less than three years this same
lady applied to Mrs. Owens for medical treatment.
During her last year's business at Roseburg, Mrs.
Owens gave much attention to temperance matters,
and received the highest office in the Good Templar
lodge. She also was an earnest advocate of woman's
suffrage, and wrote often on those subjects.
In 1872 she went to Philadelphia to begin a reg-
ular course of medicine. Reaching Philadelphia,
she at once matriculated in the Eclectic Medical
University, and employed a private tutor; and then
one hundred dollars secured her the assistance of
the dean for one hour each day. Twice each week
her afternoons were devoted to lectures and clinics
at the Pennsylvania Hospital with the lady students
from all the city schools. After attending two terms
of lectures, she received her degree, returned to
Roseburg, settled up her business, and removed to
Portland, forming a partnership with Dr. W. L.
Adams. They opened out on First street near Tay-
lor, one part of their store being assigned to milli-
nery, the other to drugs and medicines. The mil-
linery store was attended to by her sister. At the
end of a year this partnership ended; and, as Mrs.
Owens had been successful, the millinery store was
no longer needed as a reserve. Her son graduated
at the Willamette University in 1877, being then a
little over twenty-one years of age.
Although prospering in her profession, she felt
that she should have a more thorough training in
that science, and a degree from an old or regular
school of medicine, as she intended to be second to
no physician in the state. When her purpose in this
respect was made known, her friends again made
strong objections, saying,
strong objections, saying, "Why not leave well
enough alone." Strange to say, her old, esteemed
friend Jesse Applegate was strongly opposed to her
going to college. He went to Portland to plead with
Mrs. Owens against a second collegiate course. He
said, Now that you have the foundation of a
medical education, close application to your profes-
sion will increase your knowledge and power." She
((
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
505
established her son at Goldendale, Washington
at Goldendale, Washington
Territory, and on the 2d of September, 1878, was a
passenger for California en route for Philadelphia.
She went prepared with valuable letters from gov-
ernors, United States senators, and eminent doctors,
by which aids she hoped to be admitted into the re-
nowned Jefferson College of Philadelphia, or the
College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York.
At Philadelphia Mrs. Owens called upon Doctor
Hannah Long Shore, a member of the first class of
women graduates from the Philadelphia Woman's
Medical College, and received very flattering atten-
tions from the lady physicians. She had a cordial
welcome when she called on the justly celebrated
Professor Gross of Jefferson College, and an invita-
tion to breakfast with him. Among other things he
said: "I would gladly open the doors of Jefferson
to you my dear little woman; but I have not the
power to do so.
That power rests with the board of
regents; and they are an age behind the times, and
would be enraged and shocked at the mere sugges-
tion of admitting a lady student." He further said:
"Why not enter the Woman's College? It is just
as good as the Jefferson. There students are sub-
jected to the same board of examiners, and obtain
just as high a standing." While Mrs. Owens ac-
knowledged this to be true, she stated that graduates
from a woman's college did not stand at par out
West, and that her diploma must place her in the
front rank out there. Doctor Gross then remarked:
"The University of Michigan is the school for you.
It is a long-term school, and stands second to none
in America."
After trying New York, where she found the same
conditions as at Jefferson, she went to Ann Harbor,
Michigan, where she at once matriculated. A week
later the lectures began, and with them hard and
incessant work for Mrs. Owens. For nine months
she averaged sixteen hours per day, and even in
vacation gave ten hours to this study and answering
in writing questions in anatomy. When her pro-
fessor learned this he said, “You have done more
than any student of the university ever did, and
more than I ever expected any student would do.”
Her college custom was to rise at four A. M., take a
cold bath, use the brush freely, exercise vigorously
for ten minutes, then study till breakfast at seven,
and work regularly during the day. She rested a
half hour after dinner and supper, and continued
studying till nine P. M., when she retired, to sleep
soundly. She was always in perfect health, and
ready for work. Mrs. Owens, at the end of the
second term, graduated in a class of ninety-nine,
many of whom were literary graduates before taking
a medical course. Having arranged to spend three
years away from practice in study and in improving
herself in her profession, she now devoted herself to
hospital work in Chicago, during the summer of
1880. There her son Doctor Hill joined her, and
gave his time to hospital work until October, when
with his mother he returned to Ann Harbor, where
he entered the senior medical class for a past grad-
uate degree.
Mrs. Owens, now a full-fledged M. D., as resident
physician attended all advanced lectures in medicine,
surgery, therapeutics and practice in the homeo-
pathic department. In addition she took two chairs
in the literary department, history and English
literature. She was given free access to the hospital,
and the opportunity of seeing all operations. Thus
for another six months she was occupied from eight
A. M. to six P. M., excepting an hour for dinner,
either with lectures or clinics. At the end of that
time, Doctor Hill having passed a satisfactory ex-
amination, Mrs. Owens and Doctor Hill, accompanied
by two lady physicians, left for Europe in April,
1881. She visited Glasgow, Edinburgh and Ham-
burg. They were entertained by a former class-
mate and graduate of Ann Harbor, Mrs. Doctor
Fulgraff, who had located at Hamburg to practice
her profession of dentistry.
The
From Hamburg they went to Dresden, taking in
Berlin and Potsdam, and seeing everything of inter-
est. Before leaving Dresden, Doctor Hill became
homesick, and declared that he would rather see his
Western sweetheart than all the cities of the old
world, and soon turned his steps homeward.
lady M. D's. continued on through Austria, Prussia,
Switzerland and France, giving special attention to
hospitals and medical laboratories. While in Paris,
Mrs. Owens learned by letter that urgent matters
of business required her early presence in Portland
by July 1st following; and, being anxious to return
to practice again, she returned home. At New York
Mrs. Owens had some trouble with the custom-house
officials in reference to instruments purchased in
Paris, and on which a duty was claimed of seventy-
five dollars; but, as they were for her own use in
her profession, and as she was equal to any emer-
gency, she came off first best.
She was cordially received by friends at Portland
on her arrival, the 28th of June, and on the twenty-
ninth patients came to her for treatment. Her neat
and commodious rooms were located on the corner
of First and Main streets, over the drug store of her
old friend, Dr. O. P. S. Plummer, which rooms were
occupied until Mrs. Owens removed from Portland
in July, 1887. There she obtained a rapidly grow-
ing and lucrative practice, her receipts after the first
year averaging five hundred dollars per month. Mrs.
Owens was extremely gratified that, no sooner had
she announced her readiness to receive patients,
than her parlors were filled by old acquaintances,
who were her friends in the days of her trials and
hardships; and even her enemies, if such they could
be called, came also, all bearing evidence of their
confidence in her, and the respect in which they
held her as a physician. With all of this combina-
tion of poverty, ignorance and efforts made for work,
the promised day of rewards to compensate her for
the struggles and sacrifices made to enable her to
reach the goal of her ambition was now dawning
upon her. Many incidents might be given of deep
interest; but we will refer to only one.
One morning a woman entered her office pale and
trembling from pain and long suffering. She said:
"I have been ill for years; and the doctors say I
can never be cured. But I hear so much of your
skill that I have come to see if you can give me
any relief." Who should this be but Doctor Owens'
old rival in the millinery business at Roseberg in
former years, Mrs. Jackson, who went on to say:
506
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
"We have paid out nearly everything for doctors'
bills; and I know if you cannot help me you will
tell me so." Doctor Owens examined her case and
said to her: "I not only think you can expect
relief, but believe your disease may be cured. I
will treat you for two or three weeks, and then
teach you to treat yourself; and if you will follow
my advice for one year I believe you will recover
your health."
With tears in her eyes she said:
No one will be more faithful than I will be.
What time shall I come to your office?" The
Doctor replied: You are not able to come to my
office; but I will now take you home in my carriage,
and then treat you every day until you are better."
Mrs. Jackson remarked one day: "You are heaping
coals of fire on my head by all this kindness; but I
do want to tell you that I always did have the
greatest respect for you." Doctor Owens replied:
"I do not look at it in that way; for really I owe
you a great debt of gratitude. Had you not gone
out there to Roseburg and goaded me on, by show-
ing me how little I knew about the millinery busi-
ness, I might still be out there plodding along
making common hats and poorer bonnets. You
proved the truth of what a friend of mine once said
to me, namely: "If I wished to make you grow
two inches taller, I would endeavor to press you
down; and you would grow out of sheer resent-
ment. So you see after all, Mrs. Jackson, you have
been my good angel in disguise." This was one of
many similar incidents in Doctor Owens' profes-
sional experience. Mrs. Jackson was in a year en-
tirely restored.
Dr. Owens' skill became known and acknowledged
far and near, which soon brought fortune and, better
than that, great satisfaction; for the Doctor really
loved her profession, and received much pleasure
from her ability to relieve suffering of all kinds.
After three years of constant and hard but ex-
tremely gratifying work, and in the glow of her
prosperity, she met a friend of her childhood days
in Colonel John Adair. Very soon after this meet-
ing "by chance, in the usual way," Colonel Adair
prevailed upon the successful Doctor to add his
name to that of Owens; and the friends of both
were surprised and pleased by receiving their wed-
ding tokens of remembrance and respect. The
event was solemnized in the First Congregational
church of Portland on the eve of July 24, 1884;
and a happier couple, we think, never plighted
their troth in that or any other church. This is an
interesting sequel to the early pioneer days of the
little child that, on the beautiful Clatsop Plains,
showed such great promise of future worth and
usefulness.
"A noble ambition for excellence is the motive
power of the soul, and lies at the foundation of all
that is heroic and good and great.'
G. W. OZMENT.-This gentleman is a veteran
of the Indian wars, a survivor of many a bloody
fight in Southern Oregon, and a pioneer of 1852.
Born at Greensborough, North Carolina, in 1833,
he became an orphan at the age of ten, and at fifteen
went to Western Virginia with an uncle, and some-
what later was in Tennessee, working on his own
account.
The far West, however, was the land of his
dreams; and he saved his earnings to go to Padu
cah, and from that point to St. Louis. Three
months later he was on his way to St. Joseph by
steamer. But ice in the river delayed progress at
the Kansas river; and there he was glad to join the
train of Mr. William McCown, who was on the way
to Oregon.
The journey, begun May 7, 1852, was favorable,
meeting with only the usual hardships of the way
until reaching the Cascade Mountains. There the
train met with snow; and the teams were too much
exhausted to draw the loaded wagons farther. Mr.
McCown pushed on to Oregon City for help, leaving
Mr. Ozment two weeks in the mountains to look
after the goods. The first months of Oregon life
were spent in Clackamas county erecting buildings
for Mr. McCown, the winter with Mr. Case on
Butte creek, and the following spring with Rev-
erend A. F. Waller in Polk county. During the
summer and second winter he was at the Belknap
settlement in Benton county. In 1854 he moved to
the Siuslaw, making his home with Mr. Cartwright,
and was engaged by Moses Miliner in packing to
Yreka.
Mr. Ozment was among the first to volunteer his
services to suppress the Indian outbreak in 1855,
and participated in the savage fight at Hungry hill
and at the big bend of Cow creek. At the former
place he was one of the squad to attempt a flank
movement, and was in the ravine when Thomas
Hudson (Aubrey?) fell wounded. It was terrible
work getting him out; and, as night closed, the
soldiers gathered together at a spring with the dead
and wounded about them. The hours were passed
with the constant dread of an attack by the sav-
ages. The accidental discharge of a gun or pistol
in their midst produced a momentary panic; for the
over-wrought men supposed that the attack had
commenced with the Indians from the very closest
proximity. The real attack came early in the morn-
ing, but was easily repulsed. The Indians could
have been followed up; but the soldiers had been
fasting for twenty-four hours, and were in no con-
dition to give chase. On Cow creek he also saw
hard service, and was at the scene of the night
attack in which John Gardiner and Thomas Gage
were killed.
After being mustered out of the service, he
returned to the Suislaw and took up a Donation
claim. In 1868 he made a visit to his old home
in North Carolina, and, persuading three of his
brothers to make their home on this coast, con-
ducted their train of wagons to Oregon. For some
fifteen years he has been engaged in the sheep
business on his farm of two thousand acres near
Cartwright, Lane county, Oregon. While these
liberally provide for himself, he is equally liberal
minded to others, giving especial attention and care
to public schools, and contributing largely to
churches and all public enterprises. He is a man
of wide influence, and an eminently useful citizen.
AKIELES MEHLERMAN
m mmm
لفكري شاشة
1000.00
CITY BREWERY
BREWERY & RESIDENCE OF MRS. J.H. STAHL,
WALLA WALLA, W. T.
CITY
BREWERY
P

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
507
MYRON W. PACKARD.-This leading citi-
zen of the lower Sound was born in Madrid, St.
Lawrence county, New York, in 1830. At the age
of twenty-three he left his native place, where he
was in the mercantile business, coming as far West
as Illinois, and in the same year journeyed on to
River Falls, Wisconsin. That was his home for
seventeen years, three of which were spent in the
Union army, from which he was mustered out as a
quartermaster-sergeant.
In 1870 he came to Washington Territory, bring
ing his wife and family of five children, and located
on White river, engaging in the mercantile busi-
ness. Regarding Snohomish a more eligible busi-
ness point, he removed thither in the summer of
1871, and engaged in the same business until 1879,
when he returned to Wisconsin, but was detained
no longer than till the year 1882. Returning to
our coast he found a location on Skagit river.
There he remained until 1885, when he once more
went to Snohomish, and with his son in 1887, by
purchase and building, opened his present fine store,
where he is doing a successful business.
Mr. Packard has secured the confidence of the
people, and has served the county as probate judge,
auditor and treasurer. He was also a member of
the first board of trustees of Snohomish, and still
holds that position. He is a Republican, and the
father of the editor of the well-known journal, The
Eye.
WILLIAM C. PAINTER.- William C. Pain-
ter was born in St. Genevieve county, Missouri,
April 18, 1830. His parents, Philip and Jean,
lived on a farm; and the early years of William's
life were passed in that home. In 1850 his father
started for Oregon with his family of wife and seven
children, but died of cholera on the Little Blue river.
Two of his sons had been buried as they camped by
that stream two days before; and only the mother,
with her two daughters, Margaret A. and Sarah J.,
and three sons, William C., Joseph C. and Robert
M., were left to continue their sorrowful journey to
the Pacific coast. Upon the family's arrival in the
Willamette valley, they took up several Donation
claims in Washington county; and the one taken
by William was retained by him until his removal
to Washington Territory in 1863.
When the Indian war of 1855 broke out, he was
one of those who enlisted for that campaign as a mem-
ber of Company D, First Regiment, Oregon Mounted
Volunteers, continuing to follow the fortunes of his
company until it was mustered out of service late in
1856. It was the opportune arrival of this com-
mand upon the scene of action that caused the In-
dians at the battle of Walla Walla, in December,
1855, to give up the struggle and retreat into the
Palouse country. He participated with credit to
himself in all the battles and skirmishes of that
war east of the Cascades, prior to the disbandment
of his company.
Mr. Painter was chosen by his comrades as the
bearer of a flag made by young ladies at the Forest
Grove Academy, and still retains the colors, after
having borne them through the Indian wars of
1855-56 and 1878. Mr. Painter's services in the
latter war were important, and may be mentioned
here. When the hostile Bannacks and Piute In-
dians were being pursued into Washington Territory
by General O. O. Howard, a company of men
enlisted in Walla Walla under W. C. Painter for
active service; and their brief campaign on the
Columbia river received the following mention by
Captain John A. Kress, which was made a part
of General Howard's official report of that war.
Small bands of Indians with large numbers of
horses passed to north side Columbia simultane-
ously, at daylight this morning, at point near North
Willow creek, at Coyote Station, at head of Long
Island, and just above Umatilla. I caught one
band in the act at Long Island, as reported this
morning. Have attacked and dispersed these bands
at different points during the day. Had in my pos-
session two hundred horses at one time, but was not
able to keep them. Captured and destroyed packs,
canoes and other property; captured thirty horses
and packs of one band. Had two very lively skir-
mishes, landing after firing from steamer, and
charging Indians successfully up steep hills; no
casualties known except wounding one Indian,
killing five horses in the attack on one of the bands.
Captain Charles Painter and the forty-two volun-
teers from Walla Walla deserve praise for good
conduct and bravery, not excepting my Vancouver
regulars and Captain Gray with officers and crew of
steamer Spokane, who stood firmly at the posts
under fire."
A week after the close of service on the river, he
was made aid-de-camp on the staff of Governor E.
P. Ferry, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and
immediately took charge of fifty-two men, who
crossed over to assist the people of Eastern Oregon
in defending that region against the onslaught of
the hostile savages, recently defeated by General
Howard. He passed south of the retreating bands
to Camas Prairie with his little force to intercept
their retreat; but the hostiles, learning his position,
avoided a collision by a circuitous route; and the
Colonel returned to Walla Walla with captured
horses as his only visible trophy of that campaign.
These horses were sold at auction; and money
enough was received by this means to pay the entire
expense of his command. Although no battle was
fought in this last expedition, it was considered so
hazardous that ten dollars per day was offered for
guides without its inducing anyone to undertake
the duty.
But let us return to the more ordinary pursuits of
his life, and pick up again the thread in Oregon.
In 1861 and 1862 he left the farm in the Willamette
valley and became a miner in the mountains east of
Snake river, and in 1863 came to Wallula, and
clerked for Flanders & Felton for four years. When
the senior member of the firm was elected to Con-
gress in 1867, Mr. Painter took charge of their busi-
ness, and became postmaster and agent for Wells,
Fargo & Co. at that place. While there, he was
appointed deputy collector of Internal revenue for
Eastern Washington Territory. On receiving this
last appointment, he removed to Walla Walla City,
and has lived in that place since. He resigned as
deputy in November, 1870; but the resignation was
508
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
•
not accepted until the following May. He then
made an unfortunate investment in some mill prop-
erty that proved his financial Waterloo, and was
forced to commence at the foot of the ladder for a
business climb. He then went to work for wages,
and continued this until 1876, when the wheel of
fortune turned in his favor again; and he received
the appointment of receiver in the United States
land-office. This position was held by him until
September, 1878; and he was elected auditor of
Walla Walla county in November of that year, and
re-elected in November, 1880.
In 1864, January 7, he was married to Carrie
Mitchell, the daughter of Israel and Mary Mitchell,
of Washington county, Oregon. Their children's
names are as follows: Philip M. (deceased), Joseph
E., Mary Maud, B. Jean, Roy R., Carrie M., Chas.
F. S., Harry M., Daisy M., Rex M., Bruce I.
Of Mr. Painter it may be said truthfully, that in
his active life no private or public transaction of his
has left a shadow or taint of dishonorable motive or
dishonest act; and those who know him best esteem
him most.
GEN. JOEL PALMER.— There have been few
men in Oregon more universally respected, or whom
the people have more delighted to honor, than Gen-
eral Palmer. A plain, unpretentious man, who as-
sumed absolutely nothing, he was nevertheless con-
scious of his superior abilities, and had no hesitancy
in assuming commensurate responsibilities.
natural capacity and sagacity in great affairs, he
ranks with the first men of our state, such as Gene-
ral Lane, Colonel Cornelius, Judge Kelly or Gov-
ernor Gibbs.
For
He reckoned himself as a New Yorker, both
parents having been natives and residents of that
state, although at the time of his birth they were on
a temporary sojourn in Canada. His boyhood and
youth were spent at the old home in the Empire
state; and he early assumed the responsibilities of
life, marrying, when but nineteen, Miss Catherine
Caffey. Of their two children, Miss Sarah subse-
quently came to Oregon with her father and became
the wife of Mr. Andrew Smith; and the other died
in infancy, the mother not long surviving.
Mr. Palmer was married again to Miss Sarah A.
Derbyshire of Bucks county, Pennsylvania. That
was in 1836. Soon afterwards he moved to Indiana,
and, having become accustomed to the management
of large works, took a contract to build portions of
the White Water canal, and to complete the locks
at Cedar Grove. During his stay in Indiana he
became widely known, and was twice elected to the
state legislature, filling the place with signal ability.
The great excitement about Oregon, beginning in
1844, led him in 1845 to cross the plains with a
companion, Mr. Buckley, to investigate the practical
value of the Northwest Pacific, and to discover the
practical measures for holding it, if it should be
held. He made a thorough survey of the coun-
try; and his Western pre-possessions in its favor
were so far strengthened as to determine him to
bring his family to this utmost West and make it
his home. Returning accordingly in 1846 he agi-
tated for a company, and confirmed the purposes of
those who had Western inclinations; and by May,
1847, he was at the head of a large emigra-
tion. Indeed the number of teams and loose
stock was so great as to necessitate a division; but
this was accomplished with great difficulty, since all
parties wished to travel with Palmer.
Reaching the Willamette valley in October, he
located a claim on the Willamette river six miles
south of the present town of Dayton. Later in
the season he started on a trip to Vancouver for
provisions for his family, but before reaching Oregon
City was met by a messenger from Governor Aber-
nethy informing him of the Whitman massacre,
and desiring to see him immediately. Upon reach-
ing the city the Governor tendered him the rank of
quartermaster-general; and he filled the position
with fidelity and ability throughout the Cayuse war,
the particulars of which are given in the general
history of this work.
After the Indians were quieted, General Palmer
led a company to California in 1848, being the first
to take wagons through to the gold mines. He
operated on the Feather and Yuba rivers, and
returned the next year, and was secured as a pilot
by Lew Hawkins to cross the plains. At Fort Hall,
however, they met Governor Wilson coming west-
ward to California; and, as he had no guide, and as
Hawkins believed he could finish the journey without
further help, the Governor was glad to accept the
services of Palmer, and with him went to the gold
mines. In California the General made a tentative
bargain with Wilson for a large tract of land, and
returned to Oregon for his family. But, just before
going, he went to the present site of Dayton, and,
seeing the great advantages there for a sawmill, and
the opportunities for a town, and feeling perhaps a
pang at the thought of quitting our lovely valley,
gave up the land tract in California; and, securing
a water-power at Dayton, he began building his
mill, and with his son-in-law, Andrew Smith, laid
off the town. The profits of the fruit and grain
raising, together with the avails of his mill, fully
justified his expectations; although he suffered the
loss of the latter property through the carelessness
of an Indian. This man, being employed to remove
slabs, in the absence of the other hands fired the pile
too near the mill, causing the conflagration not only
of the slabs, but of the lumber and the mill itself.
More than ten years later the General, with Samuel
Brown of Gervais, erected on the same site the
Merchant Flour Mills, which were also burned.
In 1853 General Palmer accepted the position of
superintendent of Indian affairs, and in 1856 accom-
plished the great work of gathering and centering
all the Indian tribes of Western and Southern Oregon
on the Grande Ronde and Silitz Reservation. These
tribes had just come out of the Indian war, and
were not only sullen but broken-spirited, thor-
oughly whipped, but still obstinate, or rather too
much overcome to feel any ambition or interest in
improvement. Nevertheless, the General was able
to assimilate them and assign them homes, and
engage their attention in agriculture, until they are
now one of the most peaceable and thrifty commu-
nities in the state.
After many years spent in this humane work of
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
509
reconstruction, he felt the desire to return to his
home at Dayton, and there resumed an active inter-
est in white men's affairs. In 1874 he was selected
as the candidate on the Republican ticket for gov-
ernor of Oregon. His party was at that time in a
reactionary condition, many having become greatly
dissatisfied with the former administration; and
Palmer was chosen as the most popular Republican
in the state. Despite his able canvass, and his
confessed fitness, the count went against him. The
people were in that mood when they were willing to
inflict a punishment on the party; and of course the
candidate suffered. In all that campaign there was not
a breath of reproach nor slander cast at Palmer; and,
if any man could have brought victory, he could.
It was in 1881 that he died. His wife, Mrs. Sarah
A. Palmer, who was born in Bucks county, Pennsyl-
vania, April 11, 1815, is still living at the old home
with her daughter.
Xavier
FRANCIS X. PAQUET.- Francis
Paquet, son of Joseph Paquet and Marie Madaline
Godant, was born in the parish of Saint John, about
thirty miles west of Quebec, at the junction of the
Jacquarka river with the St. Lawrence. Joseph
Paquet was a stonemason by trade, but lived on a
farm and took jobs of stonework. He was the
father of eighteen children, nine boys and nine girls.
F. X. Paquet, the sixteenth child in order, was born
on the fifteenth day of January, 1811. He learned
the trade of shipbuilding at Quebec, being appren-
ticed to Peter Labbe when not quite fourteen years
of age.
When seventeen years of age, he emigrated to the
United States, engaging himself to the American
Fur Company, to go to Mackinaw and construct a
schooner for said company. After the schooner was
completed he took charge of her and engaged in
boating wood from Linwood Island and Round
Island, and also made a trip to Chicago to get oak
timber for staves and for building small boats called
Mackinaw boats. This schooner was named Eliza
Stewart, after the wife of Robert Stewart, who was
the head man of the American Fur Company at
Mackinaw at that time. That was in 1828. Old
man Beaubien was then head man at what was
afterwards Chicago, and which then consisted of
three or four small log houses, one being a store-
house, and another being occupied by men who were
employed getting out staves and making lumber
with whip-saws. These staves were for making five-
gallon kegs to hold and transport alcohol, out of
which whisky was made by adding sixteen gallons
of water to each gallon of alcohol.
In the fall of 1828 he left Mackinaw and came to
Prairie du Chien. The route taken by the traders in
these journeys, which were made regularly every
year, was by way of Green Bay, thence up Fox
river to Fort Winnebago, then making a portage to
the Wisconsin river, down the Wisconsin to the
Mississippi, and up the Mississippi to Prairie du
Chien. It was a long, tedious journey, beset with
dangers, and required about three months' time.
There were generally about seven or eight bateaux
with seven or eight men to each boat; and at the
great falls of Fox river they were obliged to trans-
port both boats and goods overland for some' dis-
tance. F. X. Paquet spent the winter of 1828
at Prairie du Chien, building boats and repairing
wagons, and other work about the trading-post.
Joseph Roullette was head man at Prairie du Chien,
which was a principal trading station, and around
which some fifteen or twenty French settlers had
made their homes.
During the summer of 1829 he made a trip to
Mackinaw with furs, and continued in the employ
of the fur company, making these yearly excursions
from Mackinaw to Prairie du Chien, until the spring
of 1832, when he left Prairie du Chien, and the
employ of the American Fur Company, and went to
Galena to work in the lead mines. He worked in
the lead mines of Galena and Dubuque until 1835,
a part of the time being manager of furnaces for
Langweather Bros., and also for Major Roundtree.
In May, 1832, the Black Hawk war broke out, about
sixty families being massacred on Rock river. Vol-
unteers were called for to suppress the Indians, and
he joined Company A, the first company organized,
and which was under the command of David G. Bates.
Company A followed the Indians to Fort Lake,
and from there to Pictollick, thence to Blue river,
where there was an engagement, and from there to
Bad Ax, where the Indians were surrounded. Black
Hawk and about twenty warriors made their escape,
crossing the Mississippi river; but they were after-
wards captured by a band of Sioux Indians and
brought back and taken to Galena.
It was during the Black Hawk war that the sub-
ject of this sketch had one of the most thrilling
experiences of his life. It was necessary to send
dispatches from Galena, where General Dodge was
in charge of the volunteers, to General Scott, who
had arrived at Rock Island. To F. X. Paquet was
intrusted this responsible duty. To travel on horse-
back a distance of two hundred miles alone, without
roads, with rivers to cross, through a country where
might be met bands of hostile savages on the war-
path, is certainly no everyday experience; and it
required a man of more than ordinary nerve to under-
take the journey. It was successfully accomplished
however; and so pleased was General Scott with
young Paquet that, after a day's rest, he intrusted
him with dispatches to General Dodge in return,
not, however, until he had praised him for his skill
and bravery, and had made him a present of a brace
of army pistols as a reward for his fidelity, and to
show his appreciation of the service performed.
In September, 1835, he left the lead mines and went
to St. Louis, and followed his trade of boatbuilding
and contracting. From 1846 to 1848 he was super-
intendent of construction of water works. On the
12th day of January, 1836, he was married to Marie
Louise Lannadier de Langdeau. On the 1st day of
May, 1852, he left St. Louis with his wife for Oregon.
He went up to St. Joseph by steamboat, being eight
days on the trip.
days on the trip. He stayed at St. Joseph three or
four days, and then started with four ox-teams and
some loose cattle. He arrived at The Dalles on the
22d day of September. After stopping at The
Dalles about a week he started down the Columbia
in boats made of wagon-beds, and came as far as the
Cascades. He then took passage on the steamer
510
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Multnomah, arriving at Portland on the 10th day of
October, 1852, and found that Jupiter Pluvius had
gone into the mist business for the winter.
About the 1st of May, 1853, he moved to Canemah.
In August or September, 1854, he moved onto the
Paquet Donation claim. In the spring of 1863 he
moved back to Canemah, in 1865 to Stringtown,
and in 1876 to Oak Grove in Wasco county, where
he now resides. Marie Louise Paquet, wife of F. X.
Paquet, was the daughter of Lawrence Lannadier de
Langdeau and Theotiste de Tugas de la Violet, and
was born in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, July 7,
1818. Mr. and Mrs. Paquet are the heads of one of
the most extensive and best-known families in the
state; and besides their children, grandchildren and
great-grandchildren, they are loved, honored and
respected by a large number of friends and acquaint-
ances scattered over the state.
The following is a list of the twelve children, and
the present residence of those living: Mary Delema
(Mrs. J. K. Bingman), deceased; Peter, Oregon City;
Joseph, East Portland; John F., deceased; Louis,
East Portland; Louise Elizabeth, deceased; Emma
Adaline (Mrs. G. G. Smith), East Portland; George
W., deceased; Francis X., deceased; Edward,
deceased; Oliver L., Wapinitia; Ida (Mrs. J. W.
Dozier), deceased. In addition to the children, the
family consists of the following connections, all
living in Oregon: Three sons-in-law, all living,
eight grandsons, nine grand-daughters, four great-
grandsons, and two great-grand-daughters.
HON. PETER PAQUET. This pioneer of
1852, who is the son of F. X. Paquet and Marie
Louise Lannadier de Langdeau, was born in the
city of St. Louis, Missouri, on the 13th of January,
1839. He received an education in the private and
public schools of St. Louis. In the spring of 1852
he left the city of St. Louis with his parents, who
had determined to emigrate to Oregon, the family
then consisting of father, mother and six children.
They came up the Missouri river on the old steamer
Timour No. 2, and in eight days reached the town
of St. Joseph, where they completed the outfit.
Sometime in the month of May, with their ox-
teams and wagons laden with the provisions for the
trip, they took their lives and fortunes in their
hands, and started to cross the great American
desert, known as the plains. They pursued their
journey without particular incident or accident,
barring the usual sickness and privations which
were the lot of most of the emigrants of that year,
until they reached the crossing of Snake river.
Here some rascally traders had established them-
selves for the purpose of swindling the tired emi-
grant, and buying the running gear of his wagons,
after persuading him that he could get into a boat,
conjured out of an old wagon-bed, caulked up tight
with rags, and that he could float down the Snake
river into the Columbia, and down the Columbia to
the mouth of the Willamette, and up the Willa-
mette directly into the settlements, without any
obstruction whatever. To the weary and travel-
worn emigrant, who had inhaled the usual amount
of alkali dust, this was indeed an alluring prospect.
The Paquets, with several others, concluded to
try this river route. A busy scene followed. The
running gear of the wagons was sold to the traders,
who were there for that purpose, at their own price.
Nine wagon-beds were speedily converted into nine
little flatboats; and these nine little flats were
lashed together three abreast and three deep, mak-
ing a craft about eleven feet wide, and about thirty
feet long. Into this frail craft all the household
goods of these sturdy pioneers was placed, oars
were rigged, and the command given to start; and
this novel craft, with its living freight, consisting
of eight men, five women, and about one dozen
children, glided gracefully down the stream, the
voyagers little thinking of the troubles in store for
them. The first afternoon was all that could be
desired, and justified the assertions of the traders,
about fifteen miles being made. The next day,
however, they began to encounter rapids and a
rough, rocky bottom; and on the fourth day the
great falls were reached, where it became necessary
to unlash and detach the wagon-beds, and, taking
each one separately, to carry it on the shoulders of
men over steep, rough mountains for over half a
mile, before it could be placed in the water again.
It required three days of almost superhuman effort
to accomplish this result; but it was done success-
fully, and the journey resumed. Every day brought
its new troubles; and such were the difficulties to
overcome that it required twelve days to accom-
plish the journey to the crossing of Snake river
near old Fort Boise, a distance that can be traveled
by land in about four days.
There our voyagers were informed that it was
impossible to reach the settlements in that way, and
the journey was given up. The wagon-bed flat-
boat was sold to some parties for a ferry-boat, and
our travelers compelled to resort to ox-teams and
wagons again. The weary journey was resumed; and
without further incidents, except the usual ones, of
stock stampedes, losses of stock, Indian scares, and
such trifles, the party reached The Dalles in October.
Making the voyage by water to the Upper Cascades,
and overland to the Lower Cascades, they took pas-
sage on the old steamer Multnomah, and arrived in
the little village of Portland in November, having
been about six months on the journey. The
Paquets resided in Portland during the winter of
1852, and in the spring of 1853 moved to Canemah,
and in the fall of 1854 moved out on the place now
known as the Paquet Donation claim. The subject
of our sketch spent the next seven years of his life
on that place, much of the time having charge of
the farm, his father being absent working at his
trade of boatbuilding.
From 1861 till 1866 he followed the trade of boat-
building, and then went into the sawmill business
till 1869. In 1870 Peter Paquet was elected a
member of the legislature from Clackamas county,
and served with such satisfaction to his constituents,
that he was nominated in 1872 for the office of
county clerk, but failed of election by a few votes.
In 1874 he was nominated for state senator, and in
1882 for county judge, but shared the fate of most
of the Republican ticket, and was unsuccessful. In
1888 he was again nominated by the Republican
party of Clackamas county for the legislature, and


WM T. WRIGHT, ESQ.,
UNION, OR.
OF
UNI
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
511
was elected, receiving the highest number of votes.
cast for any candidate for the legislature. He served
as a member of the house of representatives during
the fifteenth regular session, and was recognized as
one of the ablest members of that body, and as a
hard-working and faithful representative of his con-
stituents. Mr. Paquet has been elected nine times
a member of the city council of Oregon City, sev-
eral times receiving the votes of both parties. He
served three times as president of the board of
delegates of the Oregon City Fire Department, of
which he is an exempt member, and has served one
term as mayor of Oregon City.
He was married September 5, 1871, to Miss Sarah
E. Hamilton, and has three children,-Louise J.,
Florence C. and Victor H. H. Mr. Paquet has
been a resident of Oregon City since 1870, and has
followed the occupation of a general contractor and
builder, and has built some of the finest bridges,
steamboats and buildings in the state. He is a
prominent member of Multnomah Lodge, No. 1, A.
F. and A. M., and has been engaged for some time
in writing up a history of Multnomah Lodge and a
biography of its past masters.
I,
In politics Mr. Paquet is an uncompromising
Republican, but always aims to be fair, and has the
respect and confidence of his political opponents.
As a citizen he is a man of high moral character,
and where best known is most respected.
REV. SAMUEL PARKER.— Mr. Parker was
not a pioneer to settle in this country, nor to en-
gage in missionary work, but was a pioneer
of pioneers, a “John the Baptist," to prepare the
way for missionaries and emigrants. He was born
at Ashfield, Massachusetts, April 23, 1779, and was
the son of Elisha and Thankful M. Parker.
In 1806 he graduated from Williams College, and
from Andover Theological Seminary in the first
class that left that institution. He immediately
went west to New York, and engaged in home mis-
sionary work. He was ordained as a Congregational
minister at Danby, New York, November 12, 1812,
and was married first to Miss H. Sears shortly after-
wards. But she soon died; and in 1815 he was
married to Miss Jerusha Lord, who was the mother
of his three children,-Mrs. J. Van Kirk and Doc-
tor S. J. Parker of Ithaca, New York, and Pro-
fessor H. W. Parker of Grinnell College, Iowa.
He labored most of the time at Danby, Ithaca
and Apulia, New York, and Middlefield, Massa-
chusetts until 1833.
At that time the request of the four Nez Perces
who went to St. Louis in search of the white man's
bible was made public; and on April 10, 1833, he
offered himself to the American Board of Commis-
sioners for Foreign Missions as an explorer or mis-
sionary. Having begun life as a home missionary,
he had often looked farther west, but dreaded the
malaria of Ohio, and feared the American desert,
but said, "Over the Rocky Mountains must be a
land worth possessing." Mr. Parker's offer was not
at first accepted; and nothing more was done until
the next January, when he roused the church of
Ithaca, New York, which agreed in the main to
support him, provided the American board would
superintend the work.
superintend the work. This was finally agreed to;
and May 5, 1834, he started with two young men,
Messrs. Samuel Allis and John Dunbar, as mission-
ary companions. They reached St. Louis too late,
however, for the caravan of the American Fur Com-
pany, without whose protection it was unsafe to
travel; hence Messrs. Allis and Dunbar entered
upon missionary work among the Pawnees, and Mr.
Parker returned home. He spent the next winter
in interesting the churches in behalf of his work,
found Doctor Marcus Whitman, and the next year
started with the Doctor.
sors.
They left St. Louis April 8, 1835, and on the 12th
of August reached Green river, the rendezvous of
the fur company.
From all the information which
could there be gathered from traders, trappers and
Indians, it was decided that it was best for Doctor
Whitman to return East for more laborers, while
Mr. Parker should proceed on his journey, explore,
and gain what information he could for his succes-
He did so, traveling with none but Indians
most of the way, passing over the Salmon River
Mountains, down the Clearwater, suffering much
from sickness, and doctoring himself by bleeding;
but on October 6th he reached old Fort Walla Walla,
and a few days later Fort Vancouver, where he
accepted a kind invitation from Doctor J. McLough-
lin to spend the winter. He visited Astoria and the
Willamette valley, and gained what information he
could about the country. The next spring he made
a tour among the Nez Perces, Spokanes, and to
Colville, then came back to Vancouver, and, start-
ing June 21st, returned East by ship via the Sand-
wich, Society and Tahiti Islands and Cape Horn,
and reached home May 25, 1837.
As soon as practicable afterwards, he published a
book entitled, "Parker's Exploring Tour beyond
the Rocky Mountains," with a map.
This gave a
description of the journey, of the Indians on his
route, and in Oregon, of the plants, animals, geology,
meteorology and geography of the country, and
spoke of the practicability of a transcontinental rail-
road.
As an observer he was very close; and his
was intelligent, educated observation. This book
passed through six editions, comprising sixteen
thousand copies, spread broadcast much information
about Oregon, and was highly commended by emi-
nent men. After this he constantly kept interested
in Oregon, lectured about it, and used his influence.
with Honorable Caleb Cushing to prevent its being
lost to the United States.
He supplied various
pulpits until 1847, when he was struck with
paralysis, but, partially recovering from it, lived
until March 21, 1866, when he died at Ithaca,
New York, at the age of nearly eighty-seven years.
HON. W. W. PARKER.—— There is no name in
the city at the mouth of the Columbia better known
in the business and social circles than that of Parker;
and of those bearing it Wilder W. Parker wields
an influence perhaps the most extended. A pioneer
not only in name but also in fact, he has brought to
bear upon public affairs a mind keen, quick and
powerful, and has been able to give the people the
34
512
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
13
benefit of opinions carefully elaborated and lucidly
stated, and held by himself with conscientious firm-
ness. In intellect and character he is the ideal
New Englander, and has found his life interest in the
great political and moral development of the nation.
He was born at Orange, Vermont, October 19,
1824, but removed as a child to Washington in
the same state; and that town became his home un-
til he attained his majority. Being ambitious and
fond of study, he sought an education in advance of
that afforded at the common schools; and for this
purpose selected Newberry Seminary, an institution
under the control of the Methodist denomination and
deemed at the time the best equipped in Vermont. As-
sisting himself by teaching school in the winters, he
graduated from the academic department of that
seminary, and completed his course at Norwich
University, an institution which had grown out of the
military school of Captain Alden Partridge, a distin-
guished educator, and previously a professor and
superintendent at West Point, and who was thus
enabled to give his pupils the benefit of a course the
same as at the government institution, with ancient
languages optional. In April, 1847, young Parker
received the offer of a lieutenancy in the one Ver-
mont company comprised in the New England regi-
ment to serve in the Mexican war, under Colonel T.
P. Ransom; but, in preference to a campaign which
promised to be barren in the notoriously unhealthy
climate of the east coast of Mexico, he accepted a
position as engineer at the copper mines of Lake
Superior on the Ontonagon river. There he spent
fifteen months, but, becoming dissatisfied with the
management of the company, and seeing the diffi-
culty of reducing their hard ores of the Lake
Superior copper, determined to prospect the old
copper mines of Lower California, which had now
by the treaty of Guadaloupe Hildalgo become
accessible to Americans.
The journey thither was undertaken in the au-
tumn of 1848, and involved an almost endless
succession of adventure. Mr. Parker arrived in
New York in ample time to arrange for a passage in
the old steamship California, the first vessel of the
Pacific Mail Company's line to clear for Astoria; and
he was the first passenger to pay his fare on that ship.
By an unforeseen and unexpected event, and not his
own fault, at the sailing of the ship, he was left
behind, and was obliged to take passage in a Span-
ish, or New Grenadian bark for the Isthmus, and
arrived in Panama more than a month ahead of the
steamship.
While he was crossing the Isthmus and awaiting
his steamer at Panama, the reports of gold mines
in California, which had first appeared in a fabulous
form, received full confirmation; and ere the ship
arrived a thousand gold diggers had congregated in
the old city of Panama, across the Isthmus, looking
for transportation to the new El Dorado. Loose crafts,
disengaged coalers, whalers, etc., in the Pacific, as
well as the steamship, sailed in to accommodate the
company. The ticket which Mr. Parker held, and for
which he had paid one hundred and fifty dollars, was
now worth six hundred dollars, in addition to a paid
ticket in one of the sailing vessels.
Arriving in San Francisco February 28, 1849, he,
with three others, built a scow skiff boat of 2 tons'
burthen, took on a ton of provisions and freight,
and went to Stockton and to Tuolumne and en-
gaged in mining, realizing about twenty dollars per
day. A return to San Francisco, however, showed
the greater advantages of business; and, obtaining
some three-inch Oregon planking, costing three
hundred dollars per thousand, he ripped it into
scantling for the frame of a canvas or cloth covered
building, the floor of which was earth, but was pro-
tected with checked matting. This building was
intended for service as a restaurant; and the profits
of its operation were large. Before winter a bakery
was added; and, for the cloth, boards were substi-
tuted. Baker and cook were paid an enormous
salary of six hundred and four hundred dollars per
month respectively. Among the visitors at this
restaurant, and indeed among the waiters whom
Mr. Parker employed, were many interesting char-
acters, big-headed Eastern ex-college professors,
highly cultured young men; while at the board sat
many dignitaries. The business was ultimately
swept away by fire at a loss of twenty thousand
dollars.
While in San Francisco, Mr. Parker was elected
on the city council as a member of the board desig-
nated as "honest," whose special work was to
straighten the accounts and pay the debts of the pre-
ceding spendthrift incumbents. The work of cast-
ing up the interest and arranging the funding of the
debt of two million dollars was done by Mr. Parker.
The celebrated Henry Meiggs, Thomas J. Selby,
afterwards mayor, C. L. Ross (with C. J. Brenham
for mayor) with other well-known characters of
early San Francisco, were upon the same board.
After his loss by fire, Mr. Parker was advised to
seek a location for lumbering in Oregon, and, arriv-
ing at Astoria in 1852, leased the old Harrall saw-
mill on the Lewis and Clarke river, and later bought
Simpson's mill at Astoria. For many years he was
occupied in that line, doing a heavy business, until
in 1861 he received an appointment as deputy col-
lector of the port under W. L. Adams. He held
that position eleven years, serving also under Hon-
orable Alanson Hinman. Since his retirement from
that office he has been active in the real-estate and
insurance business, and in improving his city lots
for public uses.
His animating purpose in coming West was the
ultimate establishment of a journal of the stamp of
the New York Tribune; but, although not realizing
that cherished design, he has ever made his princi-
ples felt. For a time he was editor of the Astoria
Marine Gazette. In 1855 he was the Republican
and opposition candidate, receiving a tie vote with
Judge P. Callender; and in 1859 he was elected
from Clatsop county as representative to the territo-
rial legislature on the platform of approbation of
the Maine liquor law as one of its leading features.
During the session he introduced and had passed by
the house, by a vote of seventeen to thirteen, a bill
authorizing the annual voting in each county for
license or prohibition, with the express provision
that, whenever a majority for prohibition was ob-
tained, the vote should be considered an instruction
to the ensuing assembly to pass a law securing it.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
513
This, considering that the year before the house, by
a larger vote, ordered UNDER THE TABLE a petition
of two hundred citizens of Portland for a prohibit-
ory law, was considered quite a success for temper-
ance. He was the first in his city to urge upon the
school district a free school, which, after several
school meetings, was secured; and he has been
among the most active in promoting public enter-
prises. He has contributed largely to the upbuild-
ing of churches and all moral institutions. He is
at present a stockholder in the Astoria & South
Coast Railway Company, and was one of the five
incorporators of the same. In 1878 he was elected
mayor of Astoria, serving two years.
Although approaching the years of elderly life,
he prosecutes his business with no diminution of
energy, and is one of the representative men of
character in our state. He was married in 1863 to
Miss Inez Eugenia Adams. Mrs. Parker is well
known in all social and church relations, and main
tains a high character for benevolent work, and for
faith and zeal in the moral upbuilding of the city.
She is a lady much beloved by a large circle of
friends.
REV. JOSIAH LAMBERSON PARRISH.
This well-known pioneer, one of the few survivors
of the early missionary force of Oregon, was born
in Onondaga county, New York, on the 14th of
October, 1806. From his father he learned the
trades of blacksmithing and farming; and to them
he devoted most of his time till he reached the age
of twenty-four. At that time failure of his health
from overwork caused him to turn his attention to
the harness and saddlery trade. At about the same
time he began preaching as a local preacher in the
Methodist church. His field of labor was at Pike,
Alleghany county, New York.
In 1833 he was married to Elizabeth Winn. Two
years later he closed out his business as a saddle
and harness dealer, and devoted his time mainly to
preaching until 1839. He was then appointed black-
smith to the Methodist Mission of Oregon by the
New York board. In company with Jason Lee he
came to Oregon in the ship Lausanne. The course
was via Cape Horn. After reaching Oregon, Mr.
Parrish spent two years in blacksmithing for various
missionary stations and settlers in the Willamette
valley.
In 1843 he was appointed missionary to the In-
dians at the mouth of the Columbia river. He re-
mained there until the Mission was closed in 1846.
After a short stay at Oregon City, he was appointed
to the circuit on the west side of the Willamette,
his field extending from Portland to Corvallis. To
the arduous duties of that field he devoted himself
with characteristic energy and faithfulness for nearly
four years.
In 1848 an east-side circuit was added,
extending from near Spoor's place in Lane county
to Molalla Prairie near Oregon City.
In 1849 he was appointed Indian agent for Ore-
gon by President Taylor. He entered upon his
duties a year later, having in his jurisdiction the
vast region between the summit of the Rockies and
the Pacific, and bounded on the north by the Strait
of Fuca, and on the south by the California line.
Through a curious blunder he was appointed as
Joseph L. Parrish, instead of Josiah, and was
obliged to do all business through the latter person-
age as deputy. At his reappointment by President
Pierce, the mistake was rectified. Many persons,
however, supposed that the two names belonged to
two distinct men. Owing to ill health, he resigned.
after the Rogue river war, at the end of which the
Indians were put on reservations. His last work in
that line was the organization of the reservation of
which Port Orford was the headquarters. These
important official duties having been well ended, he
was again appointed by the Oregon conference as a
missionary to the Indians.
In 1856 he was put on the retired list. Since that
time, though he has had no regular charge, he has
maintained his connection with the conference, and
has by no means been idle. For sixteen years he
was acting chaplain of the Oregon Penitentiary,
holding services every two weeks, for which arduous
attention he received neither pay nor reward. On
the alternate Sundays he preached to various con-
gregations, often Indians. At the present time he
preaches with more or less regularity to the Indian
youth at the government training school at Chem-
awa. The name of this school was given by Mr.
Parrish from a band of Calapooias who occupied the
site of the old Methodist Mission near Wheatland,
on the west side of the Willamette.
Father Parrish's family by his first wife consisted
of four sons, Lamberson, Norman, Samuel and
Charles. All but the last were born in the old
home in the East. The eldest died in 1840. Samuel
is now well known as the chief of police in Portland.
Charles is an attorney in Cañon City, Oregon. The
first wife died in 1859, and Mr. Parrish was married
again in the following year to Jennie L. Lichten-
thaler. She died in 1887. A year later Mr. Parrish
was married to Mrs. Mattie A. Pierce, with whom
he is now living.
Though now an octogenarian, this noble old pio-
neer is strong and well-preserved, and has few or
no equals in the country in extent or accuracy of
information concerning all the details of our early
history. He is spending the well-merited rest of a
laborious lifetime, in a beautiful home at Salem,
Oregon. Scrupulous integrity has always been a
distinguishing feature of his private as well as his
official life. At the expiration of his five years of
service over an immense and difficult field as Indian
agent, he found that he was just ninety-two cents
in arrears to the government. He accordingly paid
over that balance, the receipt being duly forwarded
to him with his discharge.
PATKANIM. This famous chieftain was the
hereditary ruler of the Snoqualmie tribe, and also
the ruling spirit of the Indians in general on the
eastern shore of the Sound between the border of
British Columbia and the present northern boundary
of King county. He was noted for shrewdness and
cunning; and at the first coming of the Whites he
was hostile to them. While thus opposing the set-
tlers, he kept on good terms with the officials of the
Hudson's Bay Company. His cunning, not to say
duplicity, is shown by his conduct during the attack
514
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
on Fort Nisqually in October, 1849. While Cus-
sass, his brother, was heading the attack on the out-
side, he was quietly sitting inside smoking the pipe
of peace; and, when the time came for him to leave,
friendly Indians helped him escape.
On the breaking out of the Indian war in 1855,
successful efforts were made to prevent his joining
the hostiles. Governor Stevens authorized him to raise
a company of Indian scouts. These co-operated most
effectively with the volunteers in the northern cam-
paign. During that war he brought to Olympia the
heads of two alleged hostile chiefs, as an evidence of
his loyalty.
It has been questioned whether this Snoqualmie
diplomatist was really friendly to the Whites; but,
whatever his real sentiments, he was cunning enough
to see which way lay the path of safety for himself.
After his first effort in 1848 to excite war against
the settlers, he was thoroughly opposed to hostili-
ties. He lived to a great age.
A. W. PATTERSON, M. D.- Doctor Patter-
son was born in Armstrong county, Pennsylvania,
October 14, 1814. He received his scholastic edu-
cation in the village of Freeport, of his native state,
and afterwards entered the Western University, at
Pittsburgh. He subsequently studied medicine in
the office of Doctor J. P. Gazzam, an old and prom-
inent physician of that city, and in 1841 graduated
with high honors from the Pennsylvania College of
Medicine, of Philadelphia. Coming westward, he
located at Greenfield, Indiana, and there practiced
his profession until 1852, when he concluded to come
to Oregon, and began the long and tedious journey
known only to the pioneer. After his arrival he
went to Lane county and there settled upon a Do-
nation claim near the present site of the flourishing
town of Eugene.
The settlers in those days being few and far
between, there was but little call for those skilled in
his profession; and, being conversant with civil
engineering, he engaged in the surveying business
for a time. Among the contracts taken were several
for the government, they being both in Oregon and
Washington. The reports of surveys to be found in
the surveyor-general's office, submitted by him, will
attest the guidance of a master hand. He also laid
off the townsite of Eugene City. On the outbreak
of the Indian war of 1855-56 in Southern Oregon,
he at once offered his services for the subjugation of
the savages. He was commissioned and served, for
a time, as first lieutenant, and afterwards as surgeon
of the medical department.
The Doctor has also served the commonwealth in
the legislative field, serving as representative from
Lane county in 1854. In 1861 he was appointed
In 1861 he was appointed
chief clerk in the office of the general surveyor,
which was then located at Eugene, and in 1870 was
elected state senator from Lane county for a term of
four years.
In 1872, owing to his very active inter-
est in locating the State University, his home,
Eugene City, was selected as the location. About
that time he entered into a contract with A. L. Ban-
croft & Co., of San Francisco, to prepare the manu-
script for a set of school readers; but afterwards,
being pressed for time to complete the work by a
given date, the contract was limited to a speller;
and the first three readers, and the fourth and fifth,
were assigned, at his suggestion, to another. The
new school law requiring the selection of a uniform
series to be used throughout the state going into
effect was much opposed; still these Pacific coast.
spellers and readers were adopted, and were used
until recently displaced.
In 1882, and again in 1884, he was elected to the
position of county superintendent of the schools, an
office for which he was eminently qualified. Eugene
City in 1883 began to make strides towards being a
city; and the country round about became more
thickly settled as time flew by. The Doctor con-
cluded to go back to his first love, the practice of
medicine; and, since he opened his office, he has
continued in the practice of his profession up to the
present time, and has met with the most flattering
success in every way. The pioneers on this coast
are characterized often by versatility of occupation,
and the Doctor has not been an exception. In all of
the different spheres of life occupied by the Doctor,
be it said to his credit, that he adorned each and
every one of them. In conjunction with his other
affairs he has interested himself in agriculture, and
was the first to cultivate hops in Lane county.
imported new varieties, and experimented exten-
sively in their adaptability to the climate and soil,
now being the most extensive grower of that vine
in Oregon.
He
He was married in 1859 to Miss A. C. Ollingee,
whose father, Abram Ollingee, with his family in
1843 had crossed the plains with the first wagon
train that reached the Columbia river. Several
children were born to this union, all of whom are
not only a credit to their parents but to the com-
munity and state at large.
OTIS PATTERSON.— Mr. Patterson, editor of
the Heppner Gazette, at Heppner, Oregon, and one of
the representative men of common sense and energy
in the Inland Empire, was born at Danville, Indi-
ana, September 4, 1858. He remained in that city
until the age of eighteen, receiving a good common-
school education. He also improved himself by a
scientific course, graduating as B. S. from the Cen-
teral Normal College of Danville. In 1876 he acted
upon the advice of a celebrated father of his profes-
sion, and came to Emporia, Kansas, where he
engaged in educational work.
In 1882 he performed the rest of the journey
across the continent, stopping in California. Re-
maining there only a short time, however, he came
by way of Portland, Oregon, to Walla Walla, where
he once more became a teacher of schools, following
that occupation in various schools in Walla Walla
county until 1885. In that year he became princi-
pal of the Heppner Public School, and conducted
that institution with great success. The following
spring he entered into business, successfully estab-
lishing a store in the hardware line. Seeing the
opportunity and feeling the desire to occupy a some-
what more advanced position as educator, not
simply of children but of men and of the people at
large, he purchased in 1888 the Heppner Gazette,
and has conducted that periodical to the present
[
ப
:.

NORTHERN PACIFIC COAL COMPANY, ROSLYN, WASH.
1-COAL BUNKERS
2.- ENTRANCE TO MINES.
3. CHIEF OFFICE.
A
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
515
time with very marked success, now owning one of
the best-appointed newspaper offices in Eastern Ore-
gon, and every week issuing a clean, honest and
able paper, of which the county is justly proud.
In 1884 he was married to Miss Mary Gregg of
Walla Walla, and with her enjoys a most comforta-
ble and happy home.
His
JOHN PATTISON. The subject of this
sketch was born in Albany, New York, in 1859, and
is the son of John and Elizabeth Pattison.
father was a Union soldier during the war of the
Rebellion. He lived at home until he was fourteen
years old, being educated in the city public schools.
In 1873 he went to Silverton, Colorado, and engaged
in mining for six years with varying though reason-
able success. He went from there through Arizona
and New Mexico, looking for a better mining loca-
tion, and spending about two years in that country,
making money, but at heavy expense. He came from
there to Colfax, Washington Territory, in April
1882. He worked for about two years with the con-
struction party in building the Palouse branch of
the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company from
Palouse Junction, on the Northern Pacific Railroad,
to Colfax, being employed in the position of commis-
sary. He secured an interest in the Colfax Hotel,
and was one of the proprietors of that house for two
and a half years, jointly with Joseph Ryan.
He was married on the 7th of June, 1885, to Miss
Mary C. Cairns, daughter of Reverend James Cairns,
present pastor of the Colfax Baptist church, and
financial agent of Colfax College. He sold his inter-
est in the hotel to Mr. Ryan in August, 1886, and
engaged in the real-estate, loan and insurance busi-
ness.
Mr. Pattison was the regular Republican candi-
date for coroner of Whitman county in 1884, and
was elected by a majority of eight hundred, the
largest majority ever thrown to a candidate on a
party ticket in the county.
Mr. Pattison has an intimate acquaintance.
throughout Whitman county and Eastern Washing-
ton, which enables him to place loans for outside
parties so as to procure the best security in all cases,
and has built up a large trade by the absolute safety
of all such investments.
MRS. FRANCES N. PATTON. — This esti-
mable lady, the daughter of Hon. E. N. and Eliza
Cooke was born in Erie county, Ohio, on the 3d day
of August, 1837; and the greater portion of her
early life was passed in that state. In 1851, at the
age of fourteen years, she accompanied her parents
across the plains to Oregon, reaching Salem on Oc-
tober 10th of that year. She began attendance at
the Willamette University, which up to 1853 was
called the Oregon Institute; and from the time her
name was first enrolled as a scholar, until she bid
adieu to the schoolroom, she was known as an atten-
tive, painstaking and most exemplary pupil. On
her seventeenth birthday she was united in marriage
to Thomas McF. Patton, who at Council Bluffs
joined the company with whom she journeyed across
the trackless plains. The first year of her married
life was spent in Jacksonville; but, at the earnest
request of her parents, she and her husband removed
to the Capital city, where, with the exception of a
two years' residence in Hiogo, Japan, at which place
Mr. Patton was United States consul, she resided
until the day of her death, which occurred on Wed-
nesday, December 7, 1886.
Mrs. Patton, soon after her arrival in Salem from
Ohio, united with the Congregational church, and
was a member of that church throughout her life.
She was always foremost in alleviating distress and
in dispensing charities, being connected with relig-
ious and benevolent associations having those objects
in view. She was a life member of the Orphans'
Aid Society, and rendered many years of efficient
service to that laudable institution, both as a mem-
.ber and officer. During her residence in Japan, she
was told for the first time that she would, at most,
live but a few months. With an earnest longing that
she might return to Salem, where she could die
amid the sweet companionship of her girlhood days,
she accepted her fate with true christian resigna-
tion.
-
Leaving Hiogo,-coming home to die, — she
reached San Francisco on January 22, 1886, and a
few days thereafter found herself again at home.
She seemed to gain a new hold on life after her ar-
rival in Salem. Here were concentrated all the most
hallowed associations of her life, home, mother,
children and companions. All the relief that human
skill could afford, and every ministration of love and
sympathy, was hers, but without avail; for death
had marked her for its own. Still for her it had no
terrors. It was simply a happy transition to the life
beyond, and an entrance upon eternal happiness.
Having discharged all the duties of her life with
fidelity, and borne all her trials with christian resig-
nation, she calmly awaited the end, upheld in the
sublime faith in the promises of that religion of
which she had been for so many years a devout and
consistent disciple. She left behind to mourn her
loss her husband and a family of three children.
MATTHEW PATTON. This well-known
and now venerable pioneer was born in Monongahela
county, Virginia, November 15, 1805. As a child
he moved with his parents to Highland county,
Ohio, and four years later to Brown county, remain-
ing until he was sixteen years old. Being naturally
mechanical, he was sought and gladly received as
an apprentice to a cabinet business by a certain Mr.
Eli Collins, and at the end of four years of diligent
application mastered the trade. Being young and
ambitious, he turned his face to the far West, as
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois were then called. After
five years of labor and saving, he established a
cabinet business at La Fayette, Indiana. In that
city he wedded the daughter of Joshua and Ellen
Grimes of Adams county, Ohio, on the 15th of
April, 1830.
Owing to the scarcity of money, and the limited
demand for the products of his skill, he was obliged
to take produce from the farmers as pay in exchange
for his goods; and, having a large surplus of manu-
factured stuff, he determined to build a flatboat, load
her with furniture, and embark for New Orleans.
After encountering many dangers and hardships, he
516
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
accomplished the trip, exchanging his load for mer-
chandise; and, returning, he established himself as
a merchant at Frankfort, Indiana. He removed
subsequently to Newtown, and thence to the locality
where he laid out and founded the town of Pattons-
burg, Missouri, which he made his home until 1847,
building during that time a saw and grist mill.
Learning, however, of the vast resources of Ore-
gon, and having had much trouble with the Mor-
mons, or Latter-day Saints, as they are more
frequently designated, he gathered together his
resources, and with his wife and five children em-
barked in a prairie schooner for the land of the set-
ting sun, starting with seventy head of cattle, three
hundred sheep and three horses. After a long and
tedious journey across the desert wilderness, a de-
scription of which would fill a volume, he arrived
at The Dalles. We confine ourselves to but one
incident of the journey, which we commend espec-
ially to the Pullman sleepers of to-day: There being
no practicable way to Portland at that time, the tall
pine trees were felled; and, after several weeks of
hard labor, a rude flatboat was constructed and
launched, and the families of himself and Thomas
Carter, and the dissected wagons, placed aboard.
Manned by inexperienced men, this life preserver
was headed down stream, the more rugged of the
men being intrusted with driving the animals down
by land. The boat, nearing the Cascade fall, was
landed; and the women and children were put ashore
and conducted around the precipitous rocks and
rugged streams by the men seven miles to the Lower
Cascades. Indians were hired to take their chances
with the boat over the dangerous rapids, the descent
of which was made without accident, then deemed
miraculous. The Indians were paid four shirts, two
bars of soap, a butcher knife and a looking glass.
After much hardship they reached the south bank
of the Columbia at a point opposite Vancouver, and
continued the journey into the Willamette valley.
After making satisfactory investigations, Mr. Patton
selected a location for his home in the beautiful
Chehalem valley. Shortly afterwards, when the
gold fever struck Oregon, he left for the new El
Dorado. After six weeks of mining he began the
journey homeward on the bark Undine, which a
drunken captain ran into Shoalwater Bay instead of
the mouth of the Columbia. Mr. Patton was obliged
to make the journey to his home as best he could
from that point, performing much of it on foot; but
nevertheless he brought to his cabin five thousand
dollars in gold dust. He invested his means in town
property and land, one tract being near Oswego,
from which was taken the first iron ore worked in
Oregon.
Mr. Patton is now living at Albina with his second
wife, to whom he was married July 16, 1868. He
is eighty-three years old, and refers his longevity to
his exemplary and temperate habits, and his strict
avoidance of all tobacco or ardent spirits. He has
ever been a man whose word is strictly conscientious,
who over-reaches no one, and takes no advantage of
another's necessity. He is therefore highly respected
and indeed beloved by all who know him. His do-
nations to his children and grandchildren, and to
charitable objects, have been munificent; yet he has
reserved a sufficiency of this world's goods to main-
tain him during the remainder of his natural life.
There is
HON. THOMAS MCF. PATTON.
scarcely a man in Oregon who enjoys a greater
measure of esteem, both in his own community and
abroad, than the gentleman whose name heads this
memoir. With the usual substantial and popular
qualities of the pioneers, he has a touch of dash and
a breadth of view which lift him somewhat above
the horizon of even the first business men and think-
ers of the Pacific Northwest. He is prominent.
among those who have given the tone and pose to
the peculiarly refined and genial society of the
Capital city. He was born in Carrollton, Ohio,
March 19, 1829, and in 1838 moved with his parents
to Findlay. His education was secured at Martins-
burg Academy, and at the Ohio Wesleyan Uni-
versity, Delaware. He chose the law as his
profession, and after the usual preparation passed a
very satisfactory examination, being admitted to
the bar in 1850.
The very flattering reports, which returning
parties from Oregon had circulated relative to that
territory, reaching his ears, he determined to come
West, and in 1851 joined a party of emigrants at
Council Bluffs, arriving at his destination in October
of that year. In that company he first saw the lady,
then a girl of fourteen years, who afterwards became
his wife. He first settled on Yamhill county, where
he remained until December, when he located at
Salem. In the spring of 1853 he removed to Jack-
son county, and was shortly afterwards elected
county judge. During the Indian war of 1855-56
he served as orderly sergeant in Company A, com-
manded by Captain John F. Miller.
On August 3, 1854, he was united in marriage to
Miss Frances M., the only daughter of Hon. E. N.
and Eliza Cooke of Salem. The first year of their
married life was passed in Jacksonville; when, at
the earnest solicitations of the parents of his wife,
they removed to Salem. He served as chief clerk
of the house in 1860, and in 1861 was appointed
chief clerk in the office of the superintendent of
Indian affairs, under W. H. Rector. He was for
several years secretary of the People's Transporta-
tion Company, and was again elected chief clerk
of the house in 1866. In 1872 he was elected
representative to the legislature from Marion
county, and in 1876 was appointed appraiser of
merchandise for the District of Willamette, serving
in such capacity for seven years. In 1884 he was
appointed United States consul at Hiogo, Japan,
and held that position until 1887.
Mr. Patton has for many years taken an active
interest in Masonry, and has ably filled the greater
number of the more important offices within the
gift of that fraternity. He has served as grand sec-
retary, grand treasurer and deputy grand master.
In June, 1889, he was elected grand high priest of
Royal Arch Masons, serving one term, and for six-
teen years served as chairman of the committee on
foreign correspondence for the grand chapter, with
acceptance at home and abroad, his annual reports
being received with marked favor in every grand
jurisdiction. During his career in public life, many
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
517
and varied acquirements were demanded to meet
all the positions he had been called upon to fill;
yet he has adorned all of them. Being a shrewd
business man, and cautious in his investments,
success has attended his enterprises. He owns
considerable real estate in Salem, and is credited
with being well fixed in worldly affairs.
Mr. Patton's greatest sorrow has been brought
about by the death of his estimable wife, which oc-
curred December 7, 1866. His family consists of
three children, two sons and one daughter, the lat-
ter being the wife of John D. McCuly, of Joseph,
Union county, Oregon. Politically speaking, Mr.
Patton is a Republican; and his religious tendencies
are cast with the Congregational church.
DR. MARTIN PAYNE.- This Oregon-made
man of worth and note was born September 14,
1838, in Crawford county, Arkansas, and is the son
of Clayburne and Miriam Somner Payne. On April
17, 1843, the family set out for Oregon, joining the
emigration of that year under Applegate and Bur-
nett, and with the guidance of Doctor Whitman.
On the Rocky Mountains the father died; and the
mother was compelled to care for her little family
by herself the rest of the journey. She secured
kind assistance from her companions; and particu-
larly was Doctor Whitman careful to see that she
was provided with food. At Fort Vancouver she
was also liberally supplied by Doctor McLoughlin.
Arriving in Oregon City October 11th, that place
became the abiding place of the family until a
journey to California was performed by land in
1845. Returning to Oregon the next year, they bid
good-bye upon the commencement of their journey
to the grandfather, G. F. Somner, who returned East.
As young Payne grew up in the valley, he received
his education there, and in 1855-56 served as volun-
teer in the Indian war, belonging to Company E,
Captain A. Hembree. A part of the time he was
serving with Colonel Nesmith, and the remainder
with Colonel Cornelius, being at the camp at
Palouse Falls when the command was fed for thirty
days on horse meat from a band captured by Cor-
nelius from the Indians. He was also in the Yakima
country when Hembree was killed.
After the war he returned to the Willamette
valley, and made his residence in Yamhill county,
near the home of his uncle, Thomas Shadden. Of
late years he has resided in Portland, practicing his
profession as a physician. A frequent tourist, he
has spent quite a portion of his time in California,
at San Diego and other points, but on the whole
prefers Oregon as a home. His mother is still
living at her home in Yamhill county, and enjoys
good health. A brother, also, Jasper Payne, is
living in our state.
to
The Doctor was married August 12, 1858, to Miss
Melissa Ellen Drury, of Illinois, who came
Oregon in 1852. They have five children,-Clay,
William Amon, Rod. K., Wells Drury and Rebecca
Ellen. The Doctor has been a medical practitioner
for more than twenty years.
DANIEL O. PEARSON. One of the most
respected and honored of all of Washington's citi-
zens is the pioneer of Stanwood whose face looks
at us from the opposite page. He is one of those
whose integrity and universal kindness, as well as
public spirit and business enterprise, are of the
truest need in laying the foundations of a com-
munity. Mr. Pearson was born at Lowell, Massa-
chusetts, April 11, 1846. His parents were Daniel
and Susan (Brown) Pearson, who now reside near
Coupville, Washington.
The first removal of the family was to Salmon
Falls, while Daniel was yet an infant. There
they remained till he was twelve years old. Return-
ing to Lowell, they gave the son the best of educa-
tional advantages at the High School of that city.
Having a collegiate education in hope, he was
already well on in the preparatory course, when the
tempest of the Civil war in 1861 called him, with
so many of the other boys of the nation, to her
defense. Mr. Pearson was one of the one-hundred-
day men, enlisting as a volunteer in Company G,
Sixth Massachusetts Infantry. At the expiration.
of his term of service, he returned home and spent
his time at the painter's trade, which he had pre-
viously learned.
Soon after the close of the war, Mercer's Colony
scheme, which created so much interest on this
coast, and even in the East, come to the attention
of the Pearson family, with the result that Daniel,
with his mother and sister, joined the colony. The
object of the colony was especially to enable those
who had suffered in the war, particularly widows
and daughters of soldiers, to begin life anew in the
then far distant Pacific slope. The attention of
the educated and sympathetic was drawn to it; and
for a time there was high hope of its success.
The steamship Continental, a staunch and commo-
dious but clumsy ship, was chartered, and the
advance guard of the colony transported hither, via
the Strait of Magellan.
In California the scheme was much derided, as a
means of bringing out wives for the miners and
sheepmen, who were popularly believed to inhabit
caves and hollow trees. It subsequently fell into
financial straits; and its aim was unfulfilled. After
a delay at San Francisco, Mr. Pearson, with his
mother and sister, went to Whidby Island to join
the father, who with two other sisters had come
out the preceding year. The senior Pearson was
at that time light-keeper at the station on the
island.
Daniel turned his attention to farming on the
island, in which he was occupied until 1877, when
he selected the site of the present town of Stan-
wood as his home. The little place then suffered
under the common-place appellation of Centreville.
But no postoffice having yet been established, it
was not impossible to change the name. Mrs. Pear-
son, having especially interested herself in securing
an office in the place, was honored by having her
maiden name attached to the embryo city. Mr.
Pearson then entered the merchandising business, in
which he is still engaged. He also owns a fine
farm near La Conner.
Mr. Pearson was married at his home on Whidby
Island on June 3, 1868, to Clara J. Stanwood, a
native of Lowell, Massachusetts. Their union has
been blessed with six children, Guy S., Bertha M.,
Eva M., Fred W., D. Carleton, and Ray M.
518
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
JOHN J. PEEBLER. Mr. Peebler was born
in Iowa in 1837, and while but a boy of six years
met the irreparable loss of his parents, who died
within twenty-four hours of each other.
With an
uncle, David Peebler, he crossed the plains in 1853,
and made his home at Harrisburg, in Linn county,
Oregon. During the Indian disturbances of 1855,
he went to Umpqua valley and served with the
volunteers on Rogue river. He continued his jour-
neys to Yreka, where he mined for eighteen months,
returning thereafter to the Umpqua valley.
In 1859 he was married to Miss Antoinette Gru-
ble, and in 1862 went to the Salem river gold mines,
thence to the Grande Ronde valley, and then back
to the Umpqua. Being very much pleased with
the Blue Mountain country, he determined to bring
thither his family and make the Grande Ronde his
home. He located at Ladd's Cañon, Union county,
Oregon, where he still resides, owning five hundred
and sixty acres of fine land, which is stocked with
sheep, cattle and horses. Three married children
are living near them; and three unmarried are at
home.
ALBERT ROLAND PENNICK.— It is said
of this gentleman, "He is a rising young man, is
respected by all who know him, and takes a decided
interest in everything that tends to advance the
interests of the town and county." It also adds
that he is unmarried, but owns a comfortable
home a quarter of a mile from town. This is as it
should be. A bachelor-and he need not be so very
old—has no less a privilege of having a home than
anyone. Besides his residence, Mr. Pennick owns
and runs a grocery store on Main street, has a lum-
ber yard, and conducts an implement house near
the depot. This shows him to have an old head on
young shoulders, and able to hold a position among
the first business men of the city. He is only
twenty-two, was born in Edora, Kansas, in 1867,
and came to Oregon in 1880, selecting his home
at Adams, where he has since resided with the
exception of two years spent in attending school in
Kansas.
HON. SYLVESTER PENNOYER.—Sylvester
Pennoyer, the present governor of Oregon, was born
in Groton, Tompkins county, in the State of New
York, on July 6, 1831. His father was a pioneer
in that section of the country, having moved from
Dutchess county in the same state just after his
marriage, and settled upon a piece of government
land while it was a wilderness, and which he after-
wards, by his own labor and with the help of his
sons, transformed into one of those beautiful and
valuable farms for which New York State is so
famous.
The Governor inherited from his father, Justus
Powers Pennoyer, a native of Amenia, Dutchess
county, an admixture of German and French blood,
and his mother Elizabeth, née Howland, of Kinder-
hook, in the same county, a further admixture of
English, Scotch and Welsh blood. His father was
one of the largest farmers in Groton, and one of the
foremost men of the town in all public enterprises;
and at one time, although no politician whatever,
he represented his county in the New York assembly.
In fact, the Governor has fair reason to be somewhat
proud of his ancestry.
In the year 1670, William Pennoyer, of Norfolk
county, England, who had previously removed from
France to the New Haven colony and thence to
England, died, leaving by his will his estate in such
county subject to a rental charge of forty pounds per
annum, which sum, by the terms of the will, was to
be sent to Harvard College in Massachusetts, to be
applied to the education of the descendants of his
brother, Robert Pennoyer, of the New Haven col-
ony; and, in case they did not apply, it was to be
appropriated to the benefit of any indigent students
whatever. Ever since that period until now, for
more than two centuries, has that forty pounds per
annum been sent out to Harvard College without a
single failure. Even the Revolutionary war, when
nearly all commercial intercourse with the mother
country was stopped, it came with its accustomed
regularity. And when, in 1853, the future gover-
nor of Oregon arrived at the college, he happened
soon after to meet, in the steward's office, the Hon-
orable Jared Sparks, who had previously been presi-
dent of the college, and who thanked young Pen-
noyer for the great favor the brother of his ancestor
had done him, stating that, when he himself had
entered Harvard College, he was a poor boy and had
received the fund to aid in his own education. Such
quiet deeds of charity as that conferred by William
Pennoyer in making such a benefaction, though
silent in their influence, are yet most potent in bet-
tering and elevating the condition of mankind.
The story of the youth of the subject of our
sketch is the same in the main that has to be told
of all New York farmer boys of a half a century
ago. Hard and steady work during the spring,
summer and autumn, with a schooling in the winter
season, gave to him a vigorous constitution, and
created in his mind a desire for a fair education,
which was gratified to the extent of his receiving a
full course of study at Homer Academy, New York,
and afterwards in his receiving a course of law study
at the Dane Law School, Harvard University, from
which he received his diploma in the summer of
1854.
The following year he left his home for the Pacific
coast, and arrived in Portland, Oregon, about the
10th of July, 1855. Shortly after his arrival he
engaged in school-teaching, which he followed for
some five or six years.
The year following his arrival in Oregon, he was
married to Mrs. Mary A. Allen, née Peters, by whom
he had five children, two of whom are still living.
About the year 1862 he became employed in the
lumber business at Portland, in which he is yet
engaged.
From the year 1868 to about the year 1871, he
was for a greater part of the time editor of the
Oregon Herald. As a political writer, his main
characteristic was precision of style and force of
expression. He had the good quality, as a writer,
of always striking the nail on the head. And,
although his political philippics were pungent and
forcible, he had the commendable faculty of avoid-
ing the arousing of animosity, both by the infusion



NELSON BENNETT,
TACOMA, W. T.

OF
UNI
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
519
of a
warm humor and the entire absence of any
manifestation of malice in all his writings. While,
therefore, he became somewhat prominent as a politi-
cal writer, at the period above-mentioned, he never
figured at all prominently in politics until his nomi-
nation in 1886 for governor; for the reason that he
quietly but persistently refused the use of his name
until that time in connection with the nomination
for any office whatever. And it is a fact, somewhat
anomalous in these later times, that his nomination
for governor by the Democratic state convention of
1886 was procured without any exertion whatever
on his part, he having steadily refused to do any-
thing further than to state that if such nomination
was given him he would accept. That was the entire
sum total of his efforts towards securing such nomi-
nation. It is highly probable that the great control-
ling cause that procured his nomination at that
time was the bold stand he had just previously taken
in regard to the agitation of the Chinese question.
During the winter of 1885-86 a strong feeling
against the Chinese was aroused in Portland. Busi-
ness was stagnant, and the immigrant white laborers
who had flooded to this coast to better their condition
found nearly all the avenues of labor filled by the
Chinese, who lived like beasts and who could thus
afford to work at wages that meant starvation to the
white laborer who had a family to support. The
workingmen of Portland perfected an organization;
and a movement was projected looking to the expul-
sion of the Chinese from the city. This led to a
counter-movement; and a bitter state of feeling was
aroused. A meeting was called by those opposing
the expulsion of the Chinese at a certain day at the
courthouse in Portland. The workingmen of Port-
land captured the meeting from their opponents,
placed Mr. Pennoyer in the chair, and after having
passed resolutions in favor of law and order quietly
adjourned. This coup d'état gave peace to the city.
It gave encouragement to the anti-Chinese element
throughout the state, and procured the nomination
and triumphant election of Mr. Pennoyer as governor
of Oregon by a plurality vote of 3,702, although, two
years before, Mr. Blaine, the Republican candidate
for President, had carried Oregon by a plurality vote
of 2,256, thus making a change in two years of
nearly six thousand votes.
Until he began his canvass as candidate for gov-
ernor, Mr. Pennoyer had never had any experience as
a public speaker. Upon the stump he is a plain and
forcible talker, and has the happy faculty of stop-
ping when he gets through with what he has to say.
His inaugural address as a literary production was
faultless. It, however, provoked some sharp criti-
cism on account of the position he took and main-
tained in regard to the absence of power in the
courts to nullify a law of the state. He main-
tained that, while it was the province of the
courts to interpret and enforce the laws of the
legislature, it was not within their delegated
power to declare such a law to be no law.
claimed that, as members of the legislature were
sworn to obey the constitution, they were compelled
in the passage of every law to pass upon its consti-
tutionality; and that, as they had jurisdiction of
that very question by virtue of their office, such
He
determination on the part of the legislature in regard
to the constitutionality of a law which its members
were compelled to pass upon by their oath of office was
as binding upon both the other co-ordinate branches
of the government, as was the judgment of the
court of general jurisdiction binding upon all other
courts of concurrent jurisdiction. He claimed that,
under our state constitution, the courts had no more
right to set aside a law of the legislature by a judicial
opinion than had the governor a right to set it aside
by an executive order.
The Governor is a man of positive opinions; and
he has a positive way of adhering to such opinions
under any and all circumstances. This fact was
madè very plain during the session of the legislature
of 1889. During the previous legislature two years
before, a bill was introduced giving the water com-
mittee of Portland the right to issue bonds for the
purpose of bringing pure water into the city, and
providing that such bonds should be exempted from
all taxation.
all taxation. The Governor then vetoed the bill on
the ground that, when such bonds were paid out by
the city to private parties in exchange for the means
and appliances for bringing water into the city, such
bonds then became private property which, under our
state constitution, could not be exempted from taxa-
tion. His veto was then sustained. In the legisla-
ture of 1889 such a bill was again introduced and
passed. The Governor vetoed it again; and the veto
was again sustained. It was introduced a second
time and passed, and was vetoed a second time; and
the veto was again sustained. Again for the third
time it was, in a different shape, introduced and
passed; and again it was vetoed; and the veto for
the third time during the session was sustained.
The positiveness of his character was also demon-
strated by the action he took in regard to the trouble
anticipated on account of the failure to pay the
laborers by the contractors on the railroad east of
Albany about the close of the year 1888. The Gov-
ernor received a dispatch from an officer of the road
at Corvallis, stating that the laborers were marching
upon the town; that trouble was anticipated, and
begging the Governor to authorize the sheriff to call
out the troops if necessary to suppress any riot,
should it occur. The Governor at once went to
Corvallis, and told such officers that, unless the
laborers were paid in full the wages due them upon
presentation of their orders, and a riot occurred on
account of such non-payment, he would not, under
any circumstances whatever, order out the troops;
but he added that, if they should be paid what was
justly their due, and then a riot should occur, he
would see that it was suppressed. The result of
this positive stand on the part of the Governor was
that the laborers were paid their just dues, and all
danger of a riot avoided.
WILLIAM PENTLAND. This town-builder
and founder of Lexington was born December 26,
1835, in Fleming county, Kentucky, and removed
with his parents in 1831 to Platt county, Missouri,
and three years later made a new location in Bu-
chanan county. He was there engaged in agricult-
ure. In 1847 he made the great journey with
ox-teams across the plains to Oregon, and located
520
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
He
near the present site of Corvallis. He remained
with his people in that neighborhood until 1867,
receiving a good, practical education during his
early days at the common schools of Corvallis.
was married in 1860 to Miss Jane Nordyke, and
afterwards engaged successfully in farming and
stock-raising in Benton county.
In 1867 he came to Willow Creek, in Eastern
Oregon, and has been identified with the stock in-
terests of that section ever since. He has become
the owner of an immense flock of sheep, having
twenty thousand head, owning also a small band of
horses. For the sustenance of this truly patriarchal
flock, he owns fourteen thousand acres of land.
In 1885 he laid out the townsite of Lexington,
Oregon, and is therefore the father of that most vig-
orous, active, prosperous and moral young city.
The large agricultural section and immense grazing
region tributary to that town is sufficient guarantee
of its future prosperity. It is now supplied with a
gristmill of a capacity of fifty barrels per day,
which does a good business.
In that beautiful village Mr. Pentland enjoys a
happy life with his family, and devotes himself to
the public good.
HON. D. F. PERCIVAL.- It is a source of
pleasure to write a biographical sketch of a man
like Mr. Percival, or, in fact, any of the argonauts
of the Pacific slope, as their lives were so fraught
with diversity, their careers so different and so much
more interesting than the monotonous, humdrum
life of the average individual. Among the men
who came West in "early days," as it is called,
there are many who can look back to the times
when, in a comparatively few years, they had been
miners, mechanics, ranchers, teamsters, merchants,
law-givers, office-holders, and turned their heads and
brains to more occupations than any other set of
men on earth. They established camps, framed
laws, and engineered trails and roads over which to
obtain supplies, eventually settling down in some
business where their efforts are now crowned with
success, and where they can expect to enjoy the re-
mainder of their days in comfort, and make compar-
isons between the past and present of the country
they have been instrumental in developing. To my
mind, the lives of such men are not only interesting
in the extreme, but full of instruction, and an in-
centive for the youth who are growing up around.
us, forming the best example of what can be done
by energy and a determination to succeed before they
ceased their efforts, and the pluck with which when
one venture failed they took hold of another.
Taken as a whole, there was never a set of men
possessed of more ability, daring and strength of
character.
They formed a grand army to invade a country,
not to subjugate a foe, but to develop the re-
sources of the land. Owing to the difficulties to be
overcome, there were to be found among them fewer
cowards and more brave men than could be found
in any similar number of people. But they were, in
a sense, only a grand set of adventurers. Ay! ad-
venturers is the word, and it is one which I would
be glad to be able to have connected with my own
name, because it implies a courageous disposition
and a commendable spirit of trust in the divine
Protector for the outcome. There was no place in
their camps for cowards or weaklings. The weak
and dishonest had to either grow strong and reform
their ways, or forego the hope of reaching the goal
now enjoyed by the respected and well-to-do pio-
neers. There are one or more of these men to be
found in nearly every town of importance on the
coast. I have always found them to be men of lib-
eral views, social and entertaining, and hearty sup-
porters of any enterprise conducive to the good of
the community in which they reside.
Hon. D. F. Percival, a portrait of whose genial
countenance is before you as you read, came to Ste-
vens county, Washington Territory, in 1872, trav-
eling all the way from Portland, Oregon, a distance
of four hundred miles, on horseback, and first en-
gaged to a large extent in the stock business. He
has resided there ever since; and there he will prob-
ably pass the remainder of his days in comfort,
enjoyment, and the respect of all his neighbors and
acquaintances. In the meantime, let us make a
short retrospection of his interesting career.
was born in Bangor, Maine, in 1839; and at the age
of eighteen years he engaged in the lumber trade
on his own account, having previously enjoyed the
advantages of a good education.
He
During the war of the Rebellion, young Percival
disposed of his business and enlisted in the army,
and during much active service conducted himself
with characteristic bravery and valor. At the end
of the war he engaged in merchandising at St.
Joseph, Missouri, where he remained only for a short
time. His adventurous nature predominated over
his belief in the adage about the "rolling stone;"
and in 1866 he set out for Montana and the newly
discovered and muck-talked-of El Dorado.
He pur-
chased a stock of goods and set out with ox-teams
for that country via the Black Hills and "Sioux
Nation," and braved the dangers of losing his scalp
to reach it. He remained in Montana until the min-
ing excitement died out, and then started for the
southern country, traveling through New Mexico
and California. After spending some time in San
Diego county, California, he went to Oregon, arriv-
ing there in 1870, where for two years he turned his
attention to his old business, the lumber trade.
After which he came to Stevens county, Washing-
ton Territory, built himself a log house, and
engaged in ranching and stock-raising, thereby
acquiring a most thorough practical knowledge of
the country and its resources.
Mr. Percival is thoroughly conversant with the
locality; and his knowledge has stood him in good
hand, as he has been engaged in the real-estate busi-
ness since 1880, when the Northern Pacific Railroad
first laid out the townsite of Cheney. His home is
on a beautiful elevation, commanding a view of the
whole of the valley and the town of Cheney. It is
a handsome two-story building, surrounded by
young trees, and gives evidence of being the abode
of contentment and domestic felicity.
During his residence in Washington Territory,
the people have shown their appreciation of him in
their political selections. He has been twice elected
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
521
to the territorial legislature, and served three terms
as mayor of the town. He has many times tried to
avoid election to different offices; but his wise and
politic conduct of affairs has been indispensable to
the locality; and the people would not take “no” for
his answer when any display of diplomacy or wis-
dom at the capital of the territory was necessary to
promote any special or general interest to the local-
ity. The organization of Spokane county in 1879,
the wisdom of which was at the time decried by
some of the residents, is only an instance of the keen
foresight of which his constituents have enjoyed the
benefit.
Mr. Percival is now forty-nine years of age, al-
though he looks a much younger man. Plethoric,
vigorous and enterprising, he is as full of life and
youthful spirits as when in 1865 he joined heart and
soul with his gallant comrades in the charges which
resulted in the fall of Richmond and other signal
victories, which are looked back to with pride and
renewed patriotism by the honored and revered
Grand Army of the Republic.
Mr. Percival is at the present time president of
the Bank of Cheney, an institution started through
his efforts in 1886.
HON. J. A. PERKINS. It is a pleasure to see
that this widely known and universally respected
citizen of Colfax, Washington, the father of the
place, is an Oregon man, having crossed the plains
to his Western home in Benton county when but
eleven years of age. He thus received his education
He thus received his education
and the impetus of his life on this coast, although
he was born in Illinois. In 1861 he came to Walla
Walla county, and in 1870 to the Palouse, taking
up a claim upon unsurveyed land at the site of Colfax;
for the whole region was yet a wilderness. There
were then not above a dozen families within the
present limits of Whitman county, now the third
most populous in Washington. No sooner was Mr.
Perkins well established there, than he began push-
ing for the upbuilding of the city. In 1871, with
two others, he built a sawmill, the first north of
the Snake river, except at Colville. In 1872 he
was appointed on a committee to select a county-
seat. His nomination of Colfax was duly ratified
by the people the following November.
In 1873 he was married to Miss Ewart of Whit-
man county, a daughter of Captain Ewart, who
served actively during the war. This step was
scarcely less advantageous to the city than any of
the preceding, since Mrs. Perkins has contributed
very largely to its social, educational and religious
advancement. The family thus formed has fur-
nished four children, Minnie D., Myrtle M., Stella
and Somner E., Minnie being the first white child
born there.
In 1878 Mr. Perkins was elected to the territorial
legislature, serving on important committees in 1879.
In 1880 he bought out C. G. Livingstone, who was
conducting a private bank, and established the Bank
of Colfax in partnership with A. L. Mills. During
his residence there, he has served as member of the
city council, and was elected mayor three times in
succession, refusing the nomination thereafter. As
an active Republican he has sat in important con-
ventions, assisting in the nomination of Selucius
Garfielde, and of Major J. M. Armstrong, for dele-
gate to Congress. He has ever been an indefatigable
worker for railway connections, and is now taking
measures for the construction of a branch road to
the Coeur d'Alene mines, thus bringing the immense
output of that region through Colfax. He has large
real-estate interests in the place, and is one of the
oldest, most active, upright, liberal and highly
respected men in that section. He has recently been
adorning his homestead and the city by the erection
of a fine dwelling-house.
C. S. PERRIN.— Mr. Perrin was born on a
farm near Newton, Jasper county, Iowa, in 1857.
He crossed the plains with his parents in 1871,
locating near Salem, Oregon, engaging with them
in agriculture. There he received his education at
the Willamette University and the Chemeketa
Academy, teaching public school during the sum-
mer season and attending upon a course of study
during the winter, until 1878. After receiving his
education, he followed teaching as a profession un-
til 1881, coming in that year to Eastern Oregon and
locating within the present limits of Gilliam county,
near Arlington, engaging in the stock business, in
which he still retains a considerable interest.
In July, 1889, he was appointed deputy sheriff by
Mr. E. W. Sanderson, and now fills that position
with honor to himself and to the satisfaction of
his superior, and with the marked approval of the
people generally.
WILLIAM H. PETERSON.— Mr. Peterson,
an excellent portrait of whom is placed in this his-
tory, was born in West Virginia, August 31, 1836,
and removed to Missouri in 1868. He became a
teacher of schools and a collector of taxes in the
latter state, and was so efficient in the position last-
named as to remain in office three terms. In 1876
he put behind him the vast plains of the Mississippi,
and even the more expanded region of the Rocky
Mountains, and made his home by the Western sea
in California. Over the northern part of that state
he made many peregrinations, consuming thus three
and one-half years. From that point he undertook
the final stage of his journey to Washington Terri-
tory, settling in Kittitass (then Yakima) county, and
securing a place some nine miles east of Ellensburgh.
He soon gained the confidence of the people and
was elected superintendent of schools, serving two
years. Upon the establishment of Kittitass as a
county in 1883, Mr. Peterson became auditor, and
has been twice chosen to the same office, declining
a re-nomination in 1888. He was also appointed
clerk of the district court by Judge Hoyt, and was
retained by Judges Turner and Nash, a position he
still holds. Other public positions have also been
given him to fill; and he is a trustee of the Ellens-
burgh Academy.
Mr. Peterson was married in West Virginia in
1863 to Miss Anna E. Roach, and has a family of
two children, Joseph W. and Virginia.
While thus himself a pioneer of the Pacific states,
the records of the family to which Mr. Peterson be-
longs indicate that his proclivities for frontier life
522
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
were honestly obtained.
His father was a pioneer
of Western Virginia; and his mother's family was
of extended historical fame, dating to the celebrated
Colonel Elias Lowther, the founder of West Vir-
ginia.
FRANCIS W. PETTYGROVE. The great-
est respect and admiration is due the memory of
the men and women who came to the Pacific
Northwest when it was the home of savage tribes,
and mountain men and a few traders, almost as wild,
to plant homes and lay the foundation of the em-
pires of Oregon and Washington, now so prosper-
ous, and in fact fast verging into the garden spots
of the union. They dared much when they accepted
the role of pioneers. Among those who came in
the earlier emigrations was the gentleman whose
name heads this brief sketch. He was a native of
He was a native of
Maine, having been born at Calais in that state, in
1812. From that time.until 1842 his time was
taken up in securing an education, and in fitting
himself for an active, useful and honorable future
career.
On
In the latter year he accepted an offer of a mer-
cantile firm in the East to bring to Oregon a stock
of goods, open up a store and act as their agent.
After getting the merchandise on board of the ship
Victoria, he set sail in her for the far-off West
via Cape Horn and the Sandwich Islands.
his arrival at the Islands, he transferred his
goods to the bark Farna and not long thereafter
found himself in the Columbia, the vessel having
anchored near Vancouver. There he was compelled
to remain for some two weeks on account of lack of
transportation facilities for getting his goods up the
Willamette to Oregon City, his ultimate destination;
when he secured the services of a small schooner
from the Hudson's Bay Company and embarked for
his adopted home.
On his arrival there he opened out his wares, and
until he disposed of his store met with flattering
success. In connection with merchandising he in-
terested himself in the fur trade, and erected a
warehouse at Champoeg and controlled the wheat
yield of French Prairie. He was one of the first
owners of the claims on which Portland now stands,
and has the honor of having named that foremost
metropolis of the Northwest. At the time of found-
ing that city, he wished to call it Portland after the
capital of his native state; and A. L. Lovejoy, who
was part owner in the property, desired that it should
be christened Boston after the "Hub." To settle
it they agreed to toss a penny, the winner to name
the town; and our subject proved to be the fortunate
winner.
In 1844 there was formed the Pioneer Lyceum
and Literary Club, its objects being to discuss the
whole round of literary and scientific pursuits, as
well as matters of local moment. On the roll of
membership were the names of the more foremost of
the pioneers. The scheme to establish the Provis-
ional government was first discussed in that society;
and, when such régime was inaugurated, its mem-
bers were the foremost in shaping its destiny and
upholding its authority.
In 1851 Mr. Pettygrove sold out his interests in
Portland and removed with his family to Port
Townsend, where he resided until his death in
1887. He was united in marriage in 1842 to Miss
Sophia Roland, just prior to his leaving the East for
Oregon, the fruits of the union being seven chil-
dren, three sons and four daughters.
Few men of those early days did more or exerted
a wider or deeper influence upon the times and peo-
ple than Mr. Pettygrove, either socially, morally or
for the welfare in anywise of the community. And
in his death the Pacific Northwest lost one of her
best and most sturdy, capable and upright citizens.
MARCELLUS MARCUS PIETRZYCKI,
M. D.-Doctor Pietrzycki, the well-known surgeon,
was born April 25, 1843, in Horodyszcze, Sambor
District, Galicia, Austria, and was educated as an
apothecary and chemist. He came to the United
States in 1866, before the Austro-Prussian war.
engaged, soon after his arrival in the United States,
as assistant and prescription clerk with Doctor
Arnold of Hazelton, Pennsylvania, who had a very
extensive coal-mining practice, and remained with.
him for one year studying medicine.
He
He emigrated to California in the fall of 1867, and
settled in San Francisco, receiving the appointment.
as an apothecary in the German Hospital, where he
remained for five years, during part of which time
he attended the Pacific (now Cooper) Medical Col-
lege, from which he graduated in 1872. The next
spring he went to Stockton, California, to practice
his profession, and in November, 1873, removed to
Rio Vista in Solano county, California. We quote
from the history of Solano county, California:
Doctor Pietrzycki came to this county in Novem-
ber, 1873, and settled in Rio Vista, where he now
resides and practices medicine. He always took an
active part in enterprises pertaining to the welfare
of the town. He was twice elected school trustee,
and also clerk of the board. He took a very active
part, and, in fact, was one of the prime movers in
establishing the Montezuma telegraph line from
Suisun to Rio Vista. He married, June 29, 1876,
Miss Mary Warren of San Mateo, daughter of Rev.
J. H. Warren, superintendent of the Home Mission-
ary Society of the Congregational church."
He left California in November of 1879 for Port-
land, Oregon, and went in April, 1880, to Dayton,
Columbia county, Washington Territory, where he
now resides, and where he has a very extensive
practice, both medical and surgical. He was health
officer for the city and county during the fearful
smallpox epidemic in 1881, which he succeeded in
quickly subduing. He has been president of the
Eastern Washington Medical Society, and is at
present, and has been for seven years past, president
of the Dayton Library Association. He is actively
engaged in developing the resources of the country,
and owns a couple of thousand acres of land devoted
to agriculture and stock-raising.
CAPT. ENOCH W. PIKE.—As a rule, the set-
tlers of the Northwest have not passed through very
much actual suffering in subduing the country; but
their experiences have sometimes been severe, as is
illustrated in the career of the subject of this sketch.

T
FARM RESIDENCE OF JOSEPH M. SHELTON,
NEAR ELLENSBURGH, W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
523
Captain Pike is a native of Maine, and was born in
1842. Removing while a boy to Winona, Minnesota,
he was led by the call for soldiers during the war to
enlist in Company K, Ninth Regiment Minnesota
Infantry Volunteers. His regiment was detached
to subdue the Sioux, who were then at war with the
settlers; but after this he served to the close of the
war. Returning to his home in Minnesota, he was
appointed postmaster at Lewiston, but learning of
the opportunities in the far West, and having a
soldier's claim to public land, he crossed the conti-
nent, arriving at Salem in 1867. The expenses of the
journey for himself and his young wife had exhausted
his means, but finding friends at the capital of Ore-
gon he was supplied with work and, in addition to
making a living, was able to buy a lot and erect a
dwelling. Being suited with Linn county he removed
thither, and with his parents, recently from the East,
engaged in agriculture. A back stroke, however,
fell upon him there from having inconsiderately
signed a note for a friend, who proved unreliable
and left him to pay it. This ill-luck decided him to
make use of his soldier's claim as the nucleus of a
new fortune.
Repairing therefore in 1873 to Klikitat county,
he located a claim in the bunch-grass country. The
region was then wholly unoccupied, except by cattle
rangers; and its capability for producing grain and
vegetables was untested. Anyone being caught out
on its expanses must shift for himself, as there were no
neighbors to lend a hand in time of need. With a sick
and discouraged wife, and a broken-down team, the
Captain found himself alone in that wild region.
Laying his soldier's claim, however, and securing a
little lumber, he erected the walls of his cabin, which
an untimely snowstorm filled with drift before the
roof was on. As the winter lingered he was obliged,
in order to comply with the six months' clause of
the law, to shovel out a room in the snow, and, with
robes, blankets and a rousing fire on the cellar-floor,
to pass a night with his family in that storm-bound
spot. Money for subsistence during that hard year
was obtained by securing mail contracts on the route
from The Dalles to Columbus and Goldendale and
Klikitat Landing at fifty dollars per month. That
in the winter-time was a very hard task.
The stockmen, his neighbors, as the spring drew
on, predicted a failure of the crops. But believing
that grain would grow where grass was luxurious,
the Captain prepared a high, dry field, sowed it to
grain, and planted it also with vegetables; and such
was the success of the experiment that others fol-
lowed his example. He thus became a pioneer in
the production of grain on the Klikitat hills.
He did
Space forbids our following the many interesting
experiments and exploits of this veteran.
the country an important service during the Indian
excitement at the time of the Modoc war, and was
in the Yakima and Colville country after the massacre
of the Perkins family, bringing Moses and his braves
to Fort Simcoe after their clever capture by Captain.
Splawn. Captain Pike had organized a company of
his own, and, since these Indian difficulties, has
formed and drilled Company B of Goldendale.
passed all the grades, until in June, 1888, he reached
the colonelcy of the Second Regiment, N. G. W.,
He
He
which he now holds. In 1878 he was elected assessor
of Klikitat county, and in 1880 took the census.
is at present living at Goldendale, conducting an
agricultural implement business. He is also a stock-
holder in the First National Bank of Goldendale.
He has there acquired a handsome property, and is
enjoying the fruits of his former labors and hard-
ships. The foundations of a substantial state are
laid deep in the ground. The first work does not
make the show of the last; but it is there.
HON. ELISHA PING.-In this kindly face we
see another of the honored pioneers of the Pacific
Northwest. Born in Pulaski county, Kentucky,
March 13, 1819, Mr. Ping's early years were spent
in the chase after the fascinating phantom of "Out
West," which lured so many of our best people to
these pleasant shores.
His early years were spent in Illinois and Indiana.
In the latter state he was married in 1840 to Miss
Lucretia Kuykendall. She died in December, 1863.
In 1851, Mr. Ping, with his young family, went to
Wisconsin; but they still yearned for the "West-
most West," and the next year set out across the
plains for Oregon.
Reaching his destination in safety, he made St.
Helens his first stopping-place. After short resi-
dences in St. Helens, and in Douglas and Linn
counties successively, Mr. Ping removed, in 1860,
to Dayton, Washington Territory. His original
homestead is now part of the townsite of Dayton.
That beautiful and fertile region was then part of
Walla Walla county, Columbia not having yet been
created. Mr. Ping served his county two terms as
county commissioner, with conspicuous ability.
His first term began in 1864. He was first elected
to the legislature in 1867, again in 1871 and again
in 1873. He was elected to the council in 1875 and
also in 1877, and again to the assembly in 1883.
He was a member of the first Republican convention
of Washington Territory.
As a legislator, Mr. Ping was always prominent
in his advocacy of measures which would conduce
to the good of the people, and to the maintenance
of honest government. Not less active has he been
in the government of the town where his lot has
been cast. He was a councilman three years,
during which time the expenses of the city were.
reduced about half, and retired only because of his
wish to cease active work.
He was married to his present wife, Sarah E.
Alley, in March, 1882. Her native state is Maine.
Mr. Ping is now enjoying in his elegant home the
well-won rest from his life of toil. His five children,
three daughters and two sons, are all married and
happily settled in life. In his foresight, enterprise
and patience, Mr. Ping is one of the finest examples
of the pioneers of this great northwest. He merits
his success.
ALFRED A. PLUMMER, Sr. This pioneer
of the port of entry was born at Alfred, Maine,
March 3, 1822. He was the son of John and Eliza
Adams Plummer, of an old family of the Pine Tree
state. In early life young Plummer removed to Bos-
ton and learned the saddlery and harness trade,
524
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST— OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
thereby acquiring practical ideas, and the facile use
of his hands, which fitted him for the varied work
of the pioneer on our coast. In 1849 he left for the
Pacific shores, coming with the argonauts who
steered their way across the seas of grass, and the
deserts of the West,-one of those hardy, keen
characters that find a world of resources within their
own hearts and minds sufficient for any demand to
be made upon a human being; and he most fully
justified this confidence in his after career. At San
Francisco he engaged for a time in the hotel busi-
ness, but, feeling the drift of destiny still farther up
the coast, boarded in 1850 the brig Emory, Captain
Balch, and arrived in the Strait April 24th. The
present site of the Port was then wholly uninhabited;
but, seeing its great natural advantages as the first
really practicable landing at the entrance of the
Sound waters, he laid there his Donation claim, and
with Charles Batchelder became the first settler of
the place. His little clearing and log cabin on the
hill long remained to tell the tale of his early labors
and solitary exertions.
In 1853 his home ties were strengthened by his
marriage to Miss Anna Hill, a most amiable and
intelligent lady, who bore to him a family of nine
children: Laura A. (deceased), Alfred A., Enoch
F., Mary E., Ida M., Alphonso (deceased), Frank,
Annie Laura, and George; and they all are persons
of marked and elevated character.
Mr. Plummer early engaged with Hastings &
Pettygrove in merchandising, and during his long
residence was one of the most upright and public-
spirited citizens of the Port. During the Indian
war of 1856 he was captain of the Port Townsend
Guards, and never shirked a public duty. He was
a member of the first Republican convention of
Washington Territory.
He died May 19, 1883; and the following obituary
notice shows the esteem in which he was held by
the people of his community: "The people of this
city were shocked and sorely grieved to learn of the
sudden demise of its honored pioneer citizen. Mr.
Plummer was the first white settler in Port Town-
send, being followed soon after by Messrs. Petty-
grove, Hastings, Clinger and others. His little
clearing and log hut on the hill long remained to
tell a tale of pioneer labor, and a venture into a wild
country inhabited by savages. Here the best years
of his life were spent; here his entire family of sons
and daughters were born and reared; here the wife
of his bosom labored at his side in an honored and
useful career; here he saw the fruits of patient effort
crowned by a gratifying result,-a prosperous town
grown up from the small beginning started by his
own efforts. Mr. Plummer was not an ostentatious
man, but preferred to pursue that even tenor so often
crowned with success. His friends and neighbors,
who are legion, sincerely mourn his death, and
realize that the place has sustained a serious loss.”
ALFRED A. PLUMMER, Jr. This gentle-
man, of whom we present an excellent portrait, is
the son of the pioneer whose sketch appears above,.
and was born in Port Townsend September 7, 1856.
As a boy he received a sound practical education at
the public school of the place, and as a young man
entered into mercantile business, and has become a
leader in business enterprises. In 1881 he inaugu-
rated a business at New Tacoma, but eighteen
months later returned to his native city, and after a
time established with D. W. Smith and J. D. Fitz-
gerald the Port Townsend Foundry & Machine
Company, one of the most important enterprises in
the city, having a capital of twenty-one thousand
dollars, and being operated under the able manage-
ment of our subject. It turns out excellent work,
and is the forerunner of many great enterprises of a
like nature.
In a public capacity Mr. Plummer has been at the
fore, having held the office of county commissioner
of Jefferson county for four years, and having also
been a member of the city council. He was married
in 1881 to Miss Katie, daughter of N. D. Hill. Five
children were born to them, three of whom are now
living.
Mr. Plummer has recently met with a very sad
affliction. On July 28, 1889, death robbed the happy
home of its most precious jewel. The wife and
mother, Mrs. Plummer, was twenty-nine years old
at the time of her decease.
O. P. S. PLUMMER, M. D. Dr. Plummer,
one of the most useful citizens of Portland, was
born at Greenville, Pennsylvania, in 1836. He be-
came a telegraph operator, and was soon one of the
best sound readers in this country. In 1854 he made
his home in the West, selecting Rock Island, Illi-
nois, as his residence. He studied medicine, grad-
uating from Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia
in 1857. After practicing medicine several years,
and serving in army hospital practice during the
first years of the Rebellion, he emigrated to the
Pacific coast. In the spring of 1864, upon the com-
pletion of communication between Portland and
San Francisco, he became the first manager of the
Portland Telegraph office, and for a short time did
all the work of a service which has so grown as to
furnish employment to over sixty persons. He was
office manager and district superintendent nearly
eleven years, and resigned in order to engage in the
drug business.
drug business. For eleven years he has conducted
an extensive trade in this city, being located on the
southwest corner of First and Main streets, Portland,
Oregon.
0
He was married to Martha E. Kelly, daughter of
the late Reverend Albert Kelly, July 4, 1874, and is
the father of eight children, as follows: Mrs. Claud
Gatch of Salem, Mrs. S. J. Chadwick of Colfax,
Washington, and Miss Francette Plummer, now a
leading school teacher in that city, by his former
marriage; and Grace, Agnes, Hildegarde, Ross and
Marion, by his present wife.
men.
Doctor Plummer's remarkable capacity for labor
has withstood unimpaired the many years of con-
stant application to which he has subjected himself.
He is one of Portland's most rugged and capable
He has ever been highly appreciated for his
ability and fidelity in public affairs, and has served
the city of Portland as member of the city council,
and Multnomah county as representative in the state
legislature. In his profession of medicine he has
held a conspicuous position, having filled for a long
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
525
time the chair of materia medica and therapeutics in
the Medical Department of the Willamette Univer-
sity; and he was dean of the faculty.
He is a leading member of the Masonic fraternity,
and has been master of Portland Lodge, No. 55,
during three successive years. He is at present a
member of the Board of Examining Surgeons for
pensions at this city, and has been secretary of that
body since its organization. He is a firm supporter
of morality and good order, and is a member of the
Fourth Presbyterian church of Portland. The state
owes much to him for his untiring zeal in develop-
ing an interest in our fruit culture; and he is one of
the leading members of our Pomological Society.
He is one of our citizens whom we like to see regis-
ter himself in distant or foreign parts as "of Oregon."
It is a service to us.
MCCAULEY PORTER.-This gentleman, one
of the oldest and best farmers in the Willamette
valley, was born in Todd county, Kentucky, No-
vember 28, 1829. At the age of five he removed
with his parents to Montgomery county, Illinois,
and in 1845 made with them a new home in Mis-
souri. In 1848, by the prevalent reports and fab-
ulous stories of Oregon everywhere circulated, his
attention was drawn to the land by the sunset sea;
and with his two brothers, William G. and John
E., he set out upon the journey across the plains
and mountains. He had ox-teams and loose cattle,
and a flock of sheep, yet was but a youth of nine-
teen. He finished the trip barefooted, with his
clothing almost worn out, and without a dime in his
pocket. At the establishment of Foster,-a settler who
was sometimes humorously called "Picayune,”
the west side of the Cascade Mountains, he obtained
work of the foreman at sixteen dollars per month,
but shortly came on to the great prairies of the
Willamette valley, taking his first look at Benton
county. The winter of 1848 he obtained a situa-
tion with Joel Whitcomb at Milwaukee, receiving
one dollar a day. He remembers seeing there the
launching of one of the schooners built at that early
time.
-011
The dullness and lonesomeness of the times were
broken here by the same cry that startled all the
Western world,-that of gold in California. With
a party consisting of himself, Isaac Winkle, John
and James Foster, B. F. Bird, Jacob Martin and
others, Porter set out with ox-teams for the mines,
arriving at Sacramento June 8th. He stayed in the
land of gold until 1852. In the fall of that year
he returned to Oregon in the steamship Columbia,
and the following spring laid his Donation claim in
the immensely rich central section of the Willamette
valley, eight miles south of Corvallis, in Benton.
county, Oregon. There he has lived more than
thirty-five years, developing one of the handsome
old places, and has betimes swelled his land to more
than double its original compass of a square mile,
now owning fifteen hundred acres. During all these
years he has given leading attention to general farm-
ing and stock-raising, a good representative of the
honorable, independent and substantial landowner.
He was married April 7, 1853, to Miss Martha
Winkle, a native of Alabama, with whom he had
made the journey across the plains in 1848. They
have reared five children,-Samuel H., John F.,
Jessie, Isaac and Mark M.
TRUEMAN POWERS.-Among all the pio-
neers; few have left a richer legacy of quiet man-
hood than Trueman Powers. A gentleman of the
past generation, of dignified and considerate man-
ners, of deep conscientiousness, and prevailing force
of mind and will, he occupies a distinctive place in
the memory of all who knew him, and in the his-
tory of Oregon. He was born in Vermont in 1803.
He received in that state the education then in
vogue, which gave much prominence to music in
its curriculum. The proficiency thus gained in
singing was to Mr. Powers a lifelong delight, and
an efficient means of usefulness.
A number of years of his early manhood were
spent in the South and West; and in 1846 he crossed
the plains to Oregon. That year was marked by
unusual Indian atrocities; and the lady who subse-
quently became his wife saw her first husband mur-
dered, and was all night alone with his dead body.
In 1848 Mr. Powers and his wife came to Clatsop
county, and lived about a year on the Clatsop
plains. He then went to the mines of California,
and afterwards laid a Donation claim near the
mouth of the Lewis and Clarke river on the tide
lands in Clatsop county. Becoming deputy collector
by appointment of General John Adair, he made his
residence at Upper Astoria, and lived at that point.
until his death in 1883.
In public works of honor or benevolence, Mr.
Powers was always at the fore. He early made an
expedition far upon the plains to help immigrants
who were in distress. He held a seat in the leg-
islaturé at an early day. He was the first elder in
the first Presbyterian church organized within the
present limits of Oregon. In religious matters he
was very active, being a leader in singing and de-
votions. He was prompt in securing educational
advantages for the children of the community, and
even after the age of seventy taught a school three
months in order to secure for it the state aid.
His death, although coming upon him at the ripe
age of four-score years, with strength already de-
pleted by an accident sustained sometime before,
was greatly mourned by his family and deplored by
the community. His wife had preceded him to the
other world. His only child, Mrs. M. H. Leinen-
weber, wife of the late well-known Christian Lei-
nenweber, a leading business man of Clatsop and
Tillamook counties, lives at Upper Astoria with her
three sons and one daughter, on the old homestead,
improved as it has been by a very handsome res-
idence.
CHARLES H. PRESCOTT.— The subject of
this sketch is second vice-president of the Northern
Pacific Railroad.
He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the
22d of June, 1839, and is the son of Harrison and
Sarah Harris Prescott. His father was a native of
Massachusetts, and can date back for three genera-
tions as members of New England families. Har-
rison Prescott died when his son was yet in infancy;
526
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
and at the age of six he suffered the loss of his
mother. So under the care of guardians he was
educated in the common and high schools of Boston.
At the age of fifteen he found employment as
clerk in the well-known shipping firm of Wilkin-
gram Bros. & Co., who had offices in nearly every
part of the country, and who shipped lumber from
Puget Sound as early as 1854. He remained in the
employ of that firm until March of 1861, when he
began to do for himself, and went to Australia,
where he engaged in mining and sheep raising with
good success.
After spending seven years in Australia, by ex-
posure in the mines his health failed; and in 1868
he visited London, England, for a short time. He
then returned to his native city, and in 1869 went
to Kansas City in the employ of James T. Joy as
auditor and treasurer of the Missouri, Fort Scott &
Gulf Railroad. From that time until 1880, Kansas
City was his home; and probably no one man did
more for that country than Mr. Prescott.
In 1880 he was elected comptroller of the Oregon
Railway & Navigation Company, under the man-
agement of Mr. Villard. That position he held
until 1881, when he was elected to succeed Mr.
Oaks as manager of the corporation. He retained
his position until in 1887 ill health compelled him
to resign; and he returned to Boston.
In 1888 he was appointed to the position he now
fills, and which he ably manages, having charge of
all the company's offices on the coast.
His marriage to Miss Georgianna Bryant took
place in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1870; and they
have one child by adoption.
HON. PAINE PAGE PRIM.- Always to be
remembered along with such men as Thornton,
Strong, Kelly, Lancaster and Boice, among the
judiciary lights of our state, is Judge Prim. He is
a Tennesseean by birth, and graduated from the law
school at Cumberland University, Lebanon, Ten-
nessee, and began his first legal practice at Sparta in
White county of the same state.
Like many am-
bitious young men of the East, he looked to the
West as his best field, and came to Missouri in
1851, but, arriving at Independence, joined an emi-
grant train and came on to Oregon. Arriving in
our state, he took a Donation claim eight miles
from Albany, but the next year came to Jackson
county, mining, and outliving all the Indian battles.
of 1855-56.
Falling back now upon his profession, he opened
an office in the then rude town of Jacksonville,
and in 1857 was elected to represent that section
at the constitutional convention. After the organi-
zation of the state in 1859, he was appointed by
Governor Whitaker as justice of the supreme court
of Oregon, and ex officio judge of the circuit court
of the first judicial district. He held that office
about twenty years, serving personally on the
bench all that time, and maintaining the court with
dignity and ability. After his retirement, he began
the practice of law in Jacksonville, which he still
continues. In 1882 he was elected to the state
senate, serving a full term. He is a Democrat of
the old school, intelligent, honorable, and an active
member of society.
He was married in 1857 to Miss Theresa M.
Sterns, a cultivated lady from Vermont. They
have two daughters and a son.
FREDERICK PROEBSTEL.- This pioneer
of the Wallowa valley was born in Germany in
1829, and with his parents emigrated to America
in 1842 and located in Missouri. In 1852 he made
the crossing of the plains to Lewis county, Wash-
ington Territory, locating on Fourth Plain. Mr.
Proebstel, belonging to the family of this name, a
number of whose biographies are found in this vol-
ume, shared many experiences in common with the
others, and was one of the Indian fighters of 1855-
56, and wishes to bear special testimony to the
liberality of the Hudson's Bay Company during the
hard winter of 1852, when many must have suf
fered without their assistance.
Of the many stories which he tells with feeling
and humor in regard to the early settlement of the
Wallowa valley, the following are specimens: His
niece, returning home from the log schoolhouse
one evening, was met face to face by a panther.
Being near home, she called to her father, and
meantime struck the animal with one of her school
books. The stroke and the scream caused the pan-
ther to slink away; and the father, coming quickly
with his gun, secured a fine skin. In 1879 Mr.
Proebstel drove his herds to the Imnaha, a portion
of the Wallowa country, in order to obtain open
range. There he stayed for four years, and while
there was much annoyed by grizzly bears and
panthers. The grizzlies were frequently disposed
of by setting fifty-pound steel traps in a pen,
wherein was fresh meat bait, and also a large hog
at the opening. The bear usually put his fore foot
into the trap as he attempted to gain the bait, or
was lured on by the hog. Occasionally panthers
were caught in this way; and one is mentioned,
both of whose hind feet were thus pinioned, so as
to make it impossible for him to tear open the
dogs' bodies, as he could have done without this
hindrance.
GEORGE W. PROEBSTEL.-The subject of
this sketch was born upon a farm in Missouri in
1842. When ten years old he crossed the plains
with his father, Jacob Proebstel, driving an ox-team
and experiencing the usual hardships attending
such a trip. On one occasion he saw his mother
pay a dollar a pound for flour, which was hard to
secure even at that price. It was the Fourth of
July that his party reached Independence Rock,
and found there a large train celebrating the holi-
day with music and dancing. The behavior of the
cowboys whom he saw made a lasting impression
upon his mind. Arriving in Clarke county in
November, the family was obliged to put up with
the usual privations of that early day, living on
boiled wheat and going barefooted through the rain
and snow of that severe winter.
George W. was a participator in the Indian war
of 1855, belonging to Captain Kelly's company;
and upon his discharge he found himself in debt

PAUL F. MOHR, ESQ.,
SPOKANE FALLS,W.T.
UNIV
30
OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
527
fifteen dollars for the clothes which he had worn
out in the service. In 1863 he endeavored to find
his fortune by repairing to the Idaho mines, and
remained as much as five years. Returning to Clarke
county in 1868, he married and located a homestead
on heavily timbered land, forty acres of which he
cleared within ten years. In 1878 he selected a
new home at Weston, Umatilla county, and engaged
with his brothers in a flouring mill, which was
burned four years later. After this he clerked in a
store for one year; and, being careful of his earnings,
he was enabled to embark in business upon his own
account, buying out an extensive hardware business,
and establishing a store, which he is at present suc-
cessfully conducting. Mr. Proebstel is one of the
most successful citizens in that locality.
DR. WILLIAM PROEBSTEL.- Few among
our early residents have been more serviceable to
society than the gentleman whose name appears
above. He was born in Germany in 1829, and is
the son of a wine-grower. He received his primary
education in the old country, and at the age of thir-
teen migrated to America, locating in Missouri,
remaining there ten years, and receiving from the
common schools the rudiments of an English educa-
tion. He also took a course in dentistry.
In 1852 he crossed the plains to Oregon, locating
at Portland. The next spring, with two brothers,
he purchased the present site of Albina. In 1855
Mr. Proebstel was one of a party of independent
scouts who figured in Clarke county during the
Indian troubles of 1855-56, after which he removed
to The Dalles, engaging in the grocery business,
which he conducted eighteen months. In the fall
of 1857 he bought a section of land six miles from
Vancouver, and engaged in farming. In 1861 he
married Miss Lucinda F. Nessly, who crossed the
plains with her parents in 1852, and made her
Oregon home at Scappoose.
He removed to the Grande Ronde valley in the
fall of 1863, and located a mile north of La Grande,
where he has resided ever since, and now owns five
hundred and twenty acres of land well improved
and stocked. He made a speciality of stock-raising
until the range was eaten out, varying the monot-
ony by practicing dentistry. He has five children;
and his present home is one indicative of refine-
ment and happiness. His numerous friends are
always entertained in true pioneer style.
GEORGE W, PROSSER.-George W. Prosser
was born in Des Moines, Iowa, December 20, 1846,
and crossed the plains in 1852-53 with his father
and mother. They wintered at old Fort Hall, and
left there the following spring, arriving in Clacka-
mas county, Oregon, on the 25th of June, 1853.
He with his father first settled eleven miles east of
East Portland. They abandoned that claim, and
took up a claim three miles west of Oswego; and
the subject of this sketch discovered and opened the
iron mines now owned by the Oregon Iron & Steel
Company, on said claim. Mrs. Prosser, his mother,
sold out this property to Hawley, Dodd & Co., of
Portland, Oregon. Then he commenced business
4
on his own account at Oswego, and has lived in that
vicinity ever since.
In 1880 he was elected to the Oregon legislature
on the Republican ticket, and served two years.
He is now one of the directors of the Oswego School
District, No. 47, and is also postmaster of that town.
He is at present doing a large business in the general
merchandising line, and is one of the staunch and
progressive men of that section, always ready and
willing to promote the interests of the county and
town he lives in. Mr. Prosser is a married man,
and has a family of one daughter.
COL. WILLIAM F. PROSSER. — This gen-
tleman was born near Williamsport, on the west
branch of the Susquehanna river, in the State of
Pennsylvania, of Welsh parentage, on the 16th of
March, 1834. Shortly after his birth, his father
removed with his family to Cambria county in the
same state, where most of his earlier years were
passed in occupations usual to boys whose parents.
are in moderate circumstances. His early educa-
tional opportunities were limited, and were only
such as were afforded by a winter attendance upon
the public schools of that day, and three terms of
five months each at an academy in Johnstown,
Pennsylvania, in the years 1850 and 1851. Teach-
ing in the public schools, surveying, and reading
law, occupied his time and attention until he was
twenty years of age, when, impelled by that spirit
of enterprise which actuates so many of the youth
of the country, he left his home in Cambria county
for California.
In 1854 the journey across the plains was long,
tedious and laborious; and the party with which he
traveled drove ox-teams, or rode on horseback, from
the city of St. Charles, Missouri, to the new El
Dorado of the West, nearly five months being
required for the trip. He first engaged in mining
on the American river, but in the spring of 1855
went to Trinity county, California, where he was
employed in mining and other pursuits until the
summer of 1861. In 1858, volunteers having been
called for by the State of California to assist the
regular United States troops in protecting the set-
tlements about Humboldt Bay, he with others
enlisted in the Trinity Rangers, a company of one
hundred men, organized and mustered into the
service in Trinity county, of which I. G. Messac
was elected captain, and the subject of this sketch
second lieutenant. After a successful campaign of
great hardship, danger and severity, especially in
the winter of 1858-59, the company was ordered
back to Trinity and mustered out, Lieutenant Pros-
ser and his brother officers receiving the special
thanks of the state authorities. In 1860 he was
the first nominee of the Republican party there for
the state legislature; and, although Trinity county
was strongly Democratic, and party feeling then
ran very high, he was only defeated by a small
majority.
In July, 1861, at the breaking out of the Rebellion,
he disposed of his interests in Trinity county and
returned East to participate in the tremendous strug-
gle which had already commenced. Arriving in
Washington, he was tendered a commission in the
+
35
528
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
regular army by President Lincoln; but this he
declined, undertaking to enlist troops for the
lamented Colonel E. D. Baker, who was in the
meantime killed at Balls Bluff. Shortly afterwards
he enlisted as a private in the Anderson Troop, a
body of one hundred men selected for special cavalry
service from all parts of Pennsylvania. This troop
was ordered from Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania,
to Louisville, Kentucky, thence taking part in all
the laborious marching and fighting which took place
under General Buell, until the field of Shiloh was
reached; and for efficient service in that battle
it was especially complimented. While acting as
quartermaster of this troop he was sent on special
duty to Louisville; and while on the way, Lieu-
tenant Prosser was captured by Morgan's rebel cav-
alry, in June, 1862, paroled and sent to Annapolis,
Maryland, for exchange.
While a prisoner the troop was increased to a reg-
iment; and after his exchange he was temporarily
assigned to duty as quartermaster of the Fifteenth
Pennsylvania Cavalry, the new regiment serving as
such. He joined the regiment at Louisville and
proceeded to Nashville, Tennessee, arriving in time.
to participate with about three hundred men of the
regiment in the battle of Stone River. Of those three
hundred men eighty were killed, wounded or cap-
tured in the first two days of the engagement.
Shortly after that battle he was transferred to the
Second Tennessee Cavalry, of which regiment he
was commissioned major in March, 1863, lieutenant-
colonel in March, 1864, and colonel in June, 1865.
From the time of the transfer, however, he virtually
commanded the regiment, and, for a considerable
time in 1864, a brigade of Tennessee troops consisting
of the Second, Third and Fourth Regiments of Ten-
nessee Cavalry and a battery of artillery. With his
command he participated actively in all the cam-
paigns of the Army of the Cumberland under Rose-
crans, Thomas, Sherman, and at the siege of
at the siege of
Knoxville under Burnside, taking part in all the
principal battles of that army, and in a large num-
ber of skirmishes and minor engagements.
When the Confederate army under General Hood
suddenly and unexpectedly appeared before Decatur,
Alabama, on the 26th day of October, 1864, Colonel
Prosser, who was then in command of the cavalry
in the District of North Alabama, hastily gathered
up about four hundred men and a battery of artil-
lery of his command, and going out a short distance
before that place disposed his force across the entire
front of the line of battle of the enemy; and, taking
advantage of some inequalities of the ground, he held
the rebel army in check from ten A. M. until night
came on, thus giving General Granger time to call
his scattered forces back to Decatur and put the
place in a condition of defense. This delay saved
the place; and, although General Hood remained
before it several days, he failed to effect its capture,
and moved off down the river to Tuscambia. The
time thus gained enabled General Thomas to make
the necessary preparations for the decisive battle of
Nashville in December. The following spring
brought the war to a close; and Colonel Prosser and
his regiment were mustered out of the service July
6, 1865.
Attracted by the natural resources and advan-
tages of Tennessee, he decided to locate there, and
with the return of peace bought a farm near Nash-
ville, and engaged in various business enterprises.
looking to the development of the country. In 1867
he became involved, much against his will, in the
political struggles of those days, which were char-
acterized by intensely bitter feeling. The result was
that in the same year he was elected a member of
the Tennessee legislature for two years, and in 1868
was elected a member of the Forty-first Congress.
from the Nashville District. His practical services
in both bodies were not only highly satisfactory to
the party by which he was elected, but were compli-
mented by leading men of all parties without regard
to their political proclivities. His efforts, more.
especially in behalf of internal improvements and
general education, were highly appreciated.
ment.
In 1871 he was appointed postmaster at Nashville,
and for three years conducted the affairs of that office
with great success. In 1871 he was also appointed
by the governor of Tennessee one of the commis-
sioners from that state to the Centennial Exhibition
at Philadelphia; and for seven years he devoted
considerable time to the preparation for and the clos-
ing up of the affairs of that exhibition. In 1873 he
was one of a committee to visit the World's Fair at
Vienna for the purpose of investigating its manage-
For several years Colonel Prosser published
an influential Republican newspaper in Nashville,
Tennessee; and as a newspaper and magazine writer
he has considerable distinction. Owing to contin-
ued and increasing ill health, contracted during the
war, he determined to carry out his original purpose.
of returning to the Pacific coast; and in March, 1879,
he came to Washington Territory as a special agent
of the general land-office at Washington, District of
Columbia. For more than six years he discharged
the difficult and responsible duties of that position,
not only to the entire satisfaction of the authorities
at the national Capital, but of the people of Wash-
ington and Idaho Territories and of the State of
Oregon, with whom he came in contact in the dis-
charge of his official duties.
On the 6th day of April, 1880, he was married at
Seattle, Washington Territory, to Miss Flora L.
Thornton, daughter of H. G. Thornton, one of the
early pioneers of the State of Oregon. In 1882 he
located a homestead in the lower part of the Yakima
valley, and subsequently became the founder, at the
same place, of the town of Prosser, which is rapidly
growing in business importance, and is situated in
the center of a rich agricultural and stock-raising
region.
This sketch is only a brief outline of some of the
leading events in the busy life of Colonel Prosser; and
it affords no room for reference to a number of posi-
tions of trust and honor which have been held by
him, or to the many other valuable services he has
rendered the country in an official and private capac-
ity. Even in this brief review, however, we cannot
but observe that the Colonel possesses in a very
marked degree the qualities which lead to national
distinction. We cannot but regret that he did not
enter the regular army with the commission of lieu-
tenant as Lincoln intended. If the war had lasted
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
529
four years longer, the military abilities which made
him a colonel would have elevated him to the rank
of major-general. Nevertheless we may in the mean-
time rejoice in the disposition which has made him
a citizen of Washington and a city-builder on our
coast.
J. M. PRUETT, M. D.—The native-born sons
of Oregon who have had the wisdom to prepare
themselves for a professional or business career have
quite generally shown themselves fully equal to
those born and raised elsewhere. The subject of
this sketch is one of these. He was born at Salem
in 1849, his father being the well-known pioneer
J. W. Pruett, who crossed the plains in 1847.
Young James remained with his father until the
death of the latter, which occurred in 1866. He
then went to California, where he remained for two
years, after which he returned to Oregon and began
his education, studying at Philomath, and completing
his course at one of the famous institutes of Cincin-
nati, Ohio, in 1872. Choosing medicine as a pro-
fession, he entered the Ohio Medical College, grad-
uating with honor. In 1875 he located at Pendle-
ton, Oregon, and began the practice of his
profession with very satisfactory results, being in-
deed one of the leading physicians of that thriving
place.
The Doctor was united in marriage to Miss P.
Buckingham, of Benton county, the fruits of such
union being three children.
A. B. RABBESON.-- Mr. Rabbeson, who ob-
serves that "he was born of rich but honest parents"
at New York in 1824, was devoted from his youth
to the most interesting and desperate adventures.
Nevertheless, he was always delivered from his
perils just at the right time, and lives to-day in hale
age at Olympia.
His boyish adventures began not many years
after the death of his father in 1833. His step-
father he did not like, and consequently left home.
We find him out in Canada, soon at New York
City with his grandparents and attending school,
but within a few months on a coasting ship to
Florida, where, with two mutinous sailors, he left
ship and wandered through Georgia, South Caro-
lina, Tennessee and Kentucky to Cincinnati, where
his companions left him to shift for himself. Making
his way to Columbus, Ohio, he obtained steady
work, but also found and read the biography of a
Rocky Mountain man, which fired his mind with a
burning youthful desire to go West and try it for
himself. Nevertheless, it was not until after more
wanderings in Canada, a short period at Buffalo, a
trip on the lakes, and a few years in the old West,
Ohio and Illinois,-- that he finally got his feet on
the Oregon trail; for it was mythic Oregon which
was his lure.
The autumn of 1846 found his party broken down
and given out on the steep brow of Laurel Hill.
Young Rabbeson was the one to go down to Foster's
on the Clackamas and obtain of that kind-hearted
gentleman five yoke of oxen free, with which to re-
turn and haul out his companions. Once in Oregon.
the young man took a brief survey of the west side
of the Willamette valley, but soon turned his steps
towards the wild country of Puget Sound.
It was
a rough trip up the Cowlitz trail on foot, and him-
self his own pack-horse. His food was dried sal-
mon and fern roots obtained of the Indians. Ten
miles past the freight settlement and Hudson's Bay
post he lodged at the cabin of John R. Jackson,
the first American settler of the territory. The food
set before him was boiled wheat straight, -as good
as the farm afforded. At Skookum Chuck he met
for the first time the first settlers of that region,-
Sydney Ford, George Wanch, with their families,
and Joseph Borst, each of whom had a cow or two,
and were living on the fat of the land, that is, peas
and milk.
The pioneers of the Sound whose settlement he
reached the third day out from the Columbia were
then Michael T. Simmons, George Bush, Gabriel
Jones, David Kindred, and the bachelors, Jesse
Ferguson and Samuel Crockett. By all of these he
was treated with the signal kindness of the Western
pioneers, but remembers George Bush, the esteemed
and honored mulatto, as one who, in hospitality,
was even an exception among those exceptionally
free-handed men. Another trip to the Willamette
valley convinced him that his claim near Olympia
was the best on the coast; and although at the
three-house city of Portland he was offered work by
Pettygrove and King at five dollars per day, to be
paid half in goods and half in town lots at five
dollars apiece, he preferred to go to his home.
After a trip in which he lost his canoe near St.
Helens and dug up a skiff that was found buried in
the mud, whose seams he caulked with his shirt
torn in strips, and fitted with a blanket for a sail,
and a cold trip up the shoals of the Cowlitz, he
reached his attractive claim. The struggle for sub-
sistence was maintained during 1847 by making
shingles, one thousand of which equaled a week's
board. Boiled perch, clams and fern roots were the
staple dishes. Brick-making which brought wheat,
peas and horses at Cowlitz Prairie, and carpenter
work at the mission, also helped out existence.
Returning from the mission to the Sound, he
organized the Puget Sound Lumber Company.
The following is Mr. Rabbeson's description of the
mill, and the incidents of its first operation:
The company consisted of M. T. Simmons,
George Bush, Jesse Ferguson, A. B. Carnafi, John
Kindred, Colonel B. F. Shaw, E. Sylvester and my-
self. We purchased of the Hudson's Bay Company
a set of mill machinery then at Vancouver, which
the latter company had shipped from England with
the intention of erecting a mill at some point upon.
the Columbia river; but they, believing it to be to
their advantage, sold the same to us for the sum of
three hundred dollars, to be paid for in lumber de-
livered at Nisqually Landing at the rate of sixteen
dollars per thousand. The mill was built in the
fall and winter of 1847 at the lower falls of the
Tumwater. It had an old-fashioned up-and-down
saw run by a flutter wheel, and cut from twelve
hundred to fifteen hundred feet per day. I remem-
fler very vividly the trouble I had to get room when
the mill was first started up on account of the In-
dians, who flocked to the mill by hundreds to behold
530
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
•
the wonders performed by the Boston man who
could, by a word, make the saw move up and down
and the log advance or recede at will.
We also insert here his account of an early ex-
perience with the Indians. It is too interesting to
be omitted:
"I remember the second log that was sawn.
When I went to put it upon the carriage, I re-
quested the Indians either to get out of the way or
to roll the log upon the carriage themselves; and,
as they desired to make themselves useful, ten of
them attempted it but failed. When I picked up
the cant-dog and turned the log without help, they
were astonished at my remarkable strength; and,
when I proposed to pick up one of them and throw
him from the mill to the other side of the river, they
all declined the experiment,-feeling no doubt that
I could do it. This was the first effort to manu-
facture lumber upon Puget Sound; and I look back
with pleasure to the fact that I had the honor of
being the first to cut a board on its waters."
The following is Mr. Rabbeson's account of his
explorations down the Sound somewhat later:
In the spring of 1848, in company with Thomas
Glasgow, I explored, for the first time by Americans,
Hood's Canal. Crossing our canoe and outfit over
the portage from the head of North Bay to the
head of the canal, we met Indians by the hundreds
that had never seen a white man before. We went
well up Skokomish river, down the canal and
straits as far as New Dungeness, and then to
Whidby Island. There Glasgow took a claim and
planted some wheat, peas and potatoes. While
there he noticed that the Indians were gathering on
the island in large numbers. Their camps had been
made at Pen's Cove, as where we were located
there was but little water. Inquiring as to the
cause of the gathering, the information was given
that the Indians were preparing to have a grand
hunt and big talk. We supposed at the time that
there were camped, within the radius of three miles,
about eight thousand of these wild men. They
built a line of brush fence and nets of seaweed from
Pen's Cove to Ebey's Landing. They then started
the dogs and whippers-in at some lower point on
the island, and drove the wild animals and game
before them. There must have been killed on that
day about sixty or seventy deer, and large quantities.
of other game.
(6
Then was held the biggest barbecue I had ever
seen.
In the Indian war dance there took part about
two thousand bucks. We had a desire to witness
We had a desire to witness
the whole of the performance, but were advised by
Glasgow's woman to hide until the excitement was
over.
On the third day came the big talk. There
were in the assembly representative men from every
tribe on the Sound. Those that seemed to be the
most active were from the Snohomish, Clallam and
Duwamish tribes. The first speech was made by
Patkanim, Chief of the Snohomish. Glasgow's
woman acted for us as interpreter. He spoke very
bitterly against the Hudson's Bay Company, and
urged that all the tribes combine to attack and
destroy the station at Nisqually, divide the goods
and stock, and kill or drive off the King George
men.
He was followed by John Taylor (an Indian
chief) who was in favor of including the Boston
men or Americans at Tumwater. He admitted that
the latter had not much goods; but he had been over in
the Willamette valley, and there had heard that the
Bostons, in their own country, were as numerous as
the sands upon the beach; and, if something was not
done to check their coming, they would soon over-
run the whole country, and the Indians would then
be transported in fire ships to some distant country
where the sun never shone, and there be left to die;
and what few Indians escaped this fate would be
made slaves. He urged that then was the time to
strike terror to the white man's heart and avoid all
future trouble.
"This brought old Gray Head, Chief of the
Tumwater tribe, to his feet. He was a warm friend
of the Boston man, and a fluent speaker. He said
that, before the advent of the Bostons, the Nisqually
tribe was in constant dread because the big tribes
that Patkanim and John Taylor represented had been
constantly making raids upon his people because
they were small, killing them and making them slaves.
But now the Bostons were ever ready to protect
his people; and, if they were driven off, 'who,' he
inquired, 'will shelter us from our enemies?' The
chief of the Duwamish tribe now arose with a great
flourish, and said that as his people occupied the
country between the Nisquallies and the Snohomish
he would protect. But old Gray Head answered
that he would rather have one rifle with a Boston
behind it as a protector than all of the Duwamishes;
and this was the sentiment expressed by all the Nis-
quallies and Chehalises. It caused hard words; and
we expected to see them come to blows. When night
came it was concluded by Patkanim's party that by
killing Glasgow and myself it would compromise
Gray Head and his people; and then they would
join them in their plan of attack upon Fort Nis-
qually and the American settlement.
"Glasgow's woman, however, learning this fact,
informed us; and when night came we stole a small
canoe and pushed out for home, leaving the woman
and our goods behind with instructions to follow at
the first opportunity. That was the last we ever
saw of our goods. Shortly after starting, a favor-
able breeze sprang up; and by daylight next morn-
ing we were off Apple-tree cove. When off Blakeley,
the wind became so strong and the sea so rough that
we were compelled to make for land, but in making
a landing were so unfortunate as to stave in our
canoe, and were left helpless. We succeeded in
keeping our powder dry, and remained upon the
point until the next day, subsisting upon some ducks
that we shot. About noon six Indians came along
in a canoe; and we debated a long time as to the
advisability of hailing them. Had there been but
three or four, we would not have hesitated; but six
to two-if they should prove unfriendly-was too
much odds. But the case was desperate; so the call
was made. They, on their part, consulted a long
time before they would land; and when they came
ashore we pretended to understand but few Chinook
words. By signs we indicated that we wanted to go
to Fort Nisqually, and that we would give them two
blankets to take us. This they agreed to do; and we
entered the canoe, taking our position in the center,
.

UNI
OF
***
BLACKMAN BRO'S MILL, SNOHOMISH, W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
531
one facing the bow, the other the stern. Both of us
being somewhat conversant with their language, we
soon learned that they were Duwamish Indians, and
that they did not intend we should ever see Nis-
qually.
Their plan was to camp at Gig Harbor that
night, and while we slept make good Bostons of us,
take what we had and return home. But, as we were
well armed, and of course disagreed with their
intentions, they discovered that they were making
a slight mistake in their calculations. When we
arrived at the harbor late in the evening, they made
signs that they were going to camp at that place for
the night. We gave them to understand that it was
all right; and all got out of the canoe and made
camp. A fire was built and salmon cooked for sup-
per.
We watched for our opportunity; and, when it
presented, we took possession of their guns, and
made them launch the canoe and get in. Glasgow
took a seat in the stern, guiding the canoe; and I
sat immediately in front of him covering the In-
dians with my revolver. Then we started; and I can
assure you the Indians did not get much rest that
night. When we arrived at Balch's passage, a fair
wind sprang up; and we then made up our minds
that we had no more use for the Indians; so we put
them ashore on the little island in the center of the
passage, leaving them to shift for themselves.”
But we are already prolonging this sketch beyond
the limits. Mr. Rabbeson's dispute with the Hud-
son's Bay Company, his adventures in the Umpqua
and Rogue river, and his fatigues, sickness and suc-
cesses in the California and Salmon river mines, his
voyages by sea, his hard fights in the Indian war of
1855, where he was wounded, would fill many pages.
With the death of Colonel Moses in the fight with
the Indians at Connell's swamp, a petition was
largely signed by the company to give his vacant
place as surveyor of customs to the wounded cap-
tain, A. B. Rabbeson. Serving in that capacity
four years, and more recently engaging in contract-
ing and erecting buildings, putting up some of the
finest on the Sound, owning a brewery for a short
time at Seattle, and also a steamship, the Black
Diamond, getting wrecked with a stock of goods
twenty miles off Humboldt Bay in the steamer
Northern, he has finally reached the peaceful years
age in his old home at Olympia, Washington.
Mr. Rabbeson was the first mail carrier in the ter-
ritory on the route between Cowlitz and Olympia in
1850. He was married to Lucy A., eldest daughter
of Nelson Barnes, of Tumwater, in 1854.
of
JAMES H. RALEY.— Prominent among the
pioneers of Eastern Oregon may be mentioned the
gentleman whose name and portrait appear here-
with, and who now sits as joint senator in the
Oregon legislature from Umatilla and Morrow coun-
ties. He was born in Nebraska City in 1855, and
as a boy, in 1862, crossed the plains with his par-
ents, arriving at Portland at a time so early in the
history of that metropolis as to find an excellent
spot for camping near the present site of the St.
Charles Hotel. A year later the family found a
location at Vancouver, but in 1864 selected the
grassy, virgin hills of the Umatilla as their perma-
nent home, thus antedating Pendleton, and even the
organization of the county.
James gave early attention to books, and occupied
himself in teaching, and during vacations went on
freighting expeditions to Idaho. He completed his
education at the State University, and in 1877 be-
came one of the early builders of Pendleton by
removing to the then little village and opening out
a drug business, operating under the firm name of
Raley & Scott until 1880. To build or rather to
protect a town in those days not only required much
faith and enterprise, but even actual fighting. It
was in 1878 that the Bannacks, whose numbers were
augmented to nearly one thousand by renegades.
from several reservations, came sweeping through
the country, and threatened the town with destruc-
tion. The alarm brought in July 5th by Foster, of
La Grande, met with a prompt response from the
citizens of Pendleton. Foster reported that two
others, Coggin and Bunker, with himself, had been
attacked on the stage road seven miles from Pen-
dleton; that Coggin had been killed, and Bunker
wounded. A party of ten, of which Mr. Raley was
one, went out the same evening to recover the dead
and rescue the wounded. This little band fought
the Indians two hours the next day, driving them
over the mountains, and killing as many as six of
their number, themselves sustaining a loss of two
wounded. Bunker was found secreted in a sand
bank; and the body of the other was secured.
Mr. Raley bore an active part in the affair, and
for his bravery thus displayed in defending the
city, and also for his every-day services in building
it up, rapidly grew in public confidence and esteem.
He was elected the same year on the Democratic
ticket as county surveyor, and for the strength he
developed in that campaign was assigned the same
place and re-elected in 1880. In 1882 he was
chosen a member of the city council, and was one
of the most forward to push the town towards its
first real effort to become a city, and thus to begin
the astonishing growth which has made it so prom-
inent in the Inland Empire. In June, 1888, Mr.
Raley proved his popularity in Umatilla and Mor-
row counties by carrying to a successful issue his
nomination as joint state senator, being the only
Democrat elected from the ticket. His services thus
far in the councils of the state are well and favor-
ably known.
In a business way, Mr. Raley has been success-
ful, and of service to his community. He is the
manager of the Umatilla Real Estate and Loan
Association, which he established, and of which W.
F. Matlock is President and C. S. Jackson secretary.
He owns six hundred and forty acres of improved
land near Pendleton, and was instrumental in secur-
ing railway connection for the city by the Oregon
Railway & Navigation Company. His wife, Min-
nie A., daughter of the pioneer Pruett, and herself
a native Oregonian, is a lady of culture and a leader
in society. A boy and two girls complete the home
circle, and will perpetuate the abilities and virtues
of their parents.
WILLIAM RANCK. This representative cit-
izen of Clarke county was born at East Waterford,
532
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Pennsylvania, in 1829. At the age of five years his
parents moved to Huntington county in the same
state, one and one-half miles from Shade Gap post-
office, where he received the common-school educa-
tion of that early time, which consisted chiefly of
the three R's." At the age of seventeen he went
to Shirleysburg to learn the trade of a wagon and
carriage maker. After some years of employment
at Germantown, and at other points in Pennsylva-
nia and Virginia, on the 1st day of April, 1852, he
left his father's home for the West, going via Pitts-
burg and the Ohio river through Illinois to Dixon
on Rock river. He spent the winter at Petersburg,
and from that place, having concluded to go to Cal-
ifornia in company with Albert Simons and James
Davis, fitted out a wagon with three yoke of oxen
to cross the plains.
Early in March, 1853, they struck out across the
prairies, crossing the Mississippi at Burlington, and
the Des Moines river at Martin's ferry, twenty
miles below Fort Des Moines. There he found
Mr. Harrison B. Oatman, now a resident of Port-
land, Oregon, and his wife, with his brother Har-
vey and his wife. Waiting there, as it was yet too
early in the season to make the start, the company
was organized. After passing through Iowa to
Council Bluffs, they crossed the Missouri river about
the 2d of May. On the Lower Humboldt, the Oat-
man brothers and their wives turned off for the
Rogue river, while Mr. Ranck continued on to Cal-
ifornia, and arrived at Marysville about the middle
of October. At the request of Mr. James Davis,
one of the party, who had stopped at Shady creek
near the middle fork of Yuba river, in Nevada
county, Mr. Ranck returned and joined him in min-
ing for two years, meeting with varying success.
Tiring of the mines, he then went to the Santa
Clara valley, and after various occupations at San
José and about Gilroy found employment at Santa
Clara with Mr. Edwin Smith, who was engaged
there largely in the manufacture of wagons and car-
riages, remaining until October, 1857.
Looking to the North, he now determined to pre-
empt a piece of government land, and, coming by
water to Crescent City, remained some time, making
examinations of the coast country even into Ore-
gon; but, finding nothing satisfactory in that rough
section, he continued his explorations as far as Port-
land, and by New Year's day, 1858, was at Van-
couver. After a stop of some three months there,
he went to Portland, Oregon, and obtained employ-
ment with James Burke, who was then engaged
largely in the manufacture of wagons. In 1859 he
returned and made his permanent home at Vancou-
ver, Washington Territory, and, opening a wagon
shop, followed his business until the fire of August
23, 1866.
At the general election in June, 1862, Mr. Ranck
was chosen a member of the house of representa-
tives, and served in the session of the legislature of
Washington Territory of 1862-63, representing in
part the county of Clarke, and being the first Re-
publican member ever elected from that county. He
was married in November, 1864, at Vancouver, to
Miss Kate Neer of St. Helens. She was born in
Butler county, Pennsylvania, in 1844, and removed
with her parents to Iowa in 1847, crossing the
plains in 1852, and residing with her parents on
their old Donation claim at St. Helens. They have
three children, Lulu, Bertha and Glenn Neer.
Mr. Ranck's public services in Vancouver have been
numerous and eminently satisfactory. He served one
term as city marshal, one term as chief engineer of
the fire department, of which organization he has
been an active member for twenty-one years, three
years as school director, and twelve years as mem-
ber of the city council. He has also been probate
judge of Clarke county for eight years.
HON. JAMES B. REAVIS. Much interest
attaches to the life and work of an attorney such as
Mr. Reavis, whose chief endeavor both privately
and professionally has been to realize a high degree
of public justice. He is a man whom the people
feel safe in having by; for they can trust his sagacity
and integrity, knowing that he is thoroughly incor-
ruptible by any influence, corporate or otherwise.
He is one of the men of whom both unscrupulous
politicians and monopolies have a wholesome fear.
Glancing at his ancestry, we observe that he came
honestly by these rugged qualities, being in lineal
descent from among those who have subdued and
civilized America. He was born in Boone county,
Missouri, in 1848. His parents were Kentuckians,
his grandparents Virginians, and on the maternal
side were descended from the colonial Lee family of
Revolutionary fame.
Mr. Reavis received his education at Lexington,
Kentucky, and studying law was admitted to prac-
tice at Hannibal, Missouri, in 1872. He also began
to exert a wide influence in that state as the editor
of the Appeal, at Monroe; but his prospects in
journalism were voluntarily relinquished in view of
his removal to California in 1874. In that state he
engaged in the practice of his profession, making
his home at Chico. His characteristic and hereditary
restlessness, however, led him to seek a new field;
and in 1880 he came to Washington Territory, mak-
ing his first home at Goldendale, where he formed a
partnership with Hon. R. O. Dunbar.
This was a
strong combination; and for two years a very active
business was conducted. In 1882 he removed to
Yakima, and has made that his permanent residence.
He has been a close student and active practitioner
at the bar all this time, and has been counsel in some
of the most important litigation in Washington
Territory.
Among other cases was that of a suit for damages
against a mob of some forty prominent and wealthy
citizens of an adjoining county for forcibly ejecting
a family from its borders. That case was illustrative
of certain phases of frontier society, as well as of
the character of the lawyer.. A girl of fifteen years
had been betrayed by a wealthy and popular young
man. Her parents were poor; and her father was
indisposed to resent the injury. But the mother
was spirited; and upon her complaint the man was
arrested and brought for examination before the
magistrate. But his friends were numerous and de-
fiant, and assembled in full force in the courtroom;
and at a signal the mother and daughter and other
members of the family were violently taken from the
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
533
room and under armed escort driven from the county,
with threats of death if they attempted to return.
The injured woman and her daughter sought the
office of Mr. Reavis, who, immediately after examin-
ing the facts, brought suit for heavy damages against
the mob. In the trial of the case, Hon. J. B. Allen
and Edward Whitson were with him. The result
was a judgment for heavy damages, and the return
of the family to their former home. There was great
energy, courage and devotion to the cause of the
weak displayed in this case by the counsel for the
stricken family; and the community was taught a
useful lesson, that law is superior to "influence and
mob violence.
Another case of general interest was the mandamus
suit against the Northern Pacific Railroad Company
to build a railroad station at Yakima City. Mr.
Reavis was senior counsel in that case, and success-
fully carried it through the district and supreme
courts against a numerous array of able lawyers re-
tained by the railroad company.
In 1884 he was elected a member of the territorial
council, and served with distinction in that body in
1885-86. He took a prominent position in favor of
the repeal of the " Gross-earnings" tax law for rail-
way property, and was an able and persistent advo-
cate of the forfeiture of the Northern Pacific Rail-
road land grant, and was the author of a memorial
to Congress for that object. He was the author of
the bill establishing the institute for defective youth
at Vancouver.
In 1888 he was elected a member of the board of
regents for the State University at Seattle, and in
this capacity has already made himself influential.
He is, at present, actively connected with the devel-
opment of Yakima, and is president of the Board
of Trade. He has acted with the Democratic party,
although he is recognized in the political field as a
lawyer rather than as a politician.
THOMAS G. REDFIELD. Mr. Redfield, one
of the substantial citizens and capable business men
of North Yakima, Washington, was born in Illinois.
in 1851. During his infancy he accompanied his
parents across the plains to Oregon, and in 1854 was
domiciled with them at their home upon Cow creek
in Douglas county, Oregon. With the exception of
two years in California, Mr. Redfield's early life was
spent in Oregon; and, upon reaching an age of inde-
pendency, he found no field more promising than
Yakima county. He accordingly located at Yakima
City in 1881, opening out a jewelry store, and doing
a successful business. Three years later he moved
with the rest of the business houses to North Ya-
kima, and since that time has been carrying on a
thriving industry in watches and jewelry. He is
one of the property owners of the place, and a citi-
zen of recognized merit.
He was married in Josephine county, Oregon,
June 6, 1879, to Miss Metta Davis of California.
They had five children, one of whom is deceased.
JOHN T. REDMAN.-The subject of this
sketch was born in Linn county, Oregon, January 3,
1856.
He is the second son of B. W. Redman, who
was a prominent citizen of that county, and a staunch
Union man, who upheld the old flag during the early
part of the sixties, when it required more than
ordinary courage to take that stand. In the great
flood of 1861-62 the family lost everything in the
way of property, except horses. Early in February,
1862, John moved with his family and settled on a
farm near Scio, in Linn county, and there worked
the remainder of the year, and attended the public
school during the winter. The next four years he
was occupied in teaching and clerking in the
general merchandise house of A. J. Houston
in Scio. His father dying in 1876, he settled the
estate and also was co-administrator with J. B. Miller
in settling the estate of John Miller.
His health becoming somewhat impaired, he was
advised to seek a drier climate, and in 1877 came to
Walla Walla, and attended Whitman Seminary for
a short time. February 14, 1878, he accepted a
position as book-keeper with Saling & Reese, dealers
in general merchandise at Weston, Oregon. He
remained with that firm as book-keeper and head
salesman until 1883. June 6, 1880, he was married
to Fannie M. Reese, eldest daughter of J. T. Reese,
Jr., partner of the firm. Mr. Reese is one of the
pioneer merchants and wheat dealers of Eastern
Oregon, and is well and favorably known as one of
the first pillars upon which has rested the prosperity
of the Walla Walla and Umatilla region. In July,
1883, J. T. Reese and John T. Redınan opened a
general merchandise store in the town of Adams,
under the firm name of Reese & Redman, where
they have done an immense business, and are now
the largest shippers of wheat from Eastern Oregon.
Mr. Redman is a Republican in politics, and stands
very high as an earnest worker for his party, having
been a delegate to the state convention in 1886. He
is a prominent member of the order of F. & A. M.,
and holds his membership with Weston Lodge. He
will shortly remove to Tacoma, where with his old
partner he will conduct a wholesale grocery business.
The union of John T. Redman and Fannie M.
Reese has been blest with two beautiful and attractive
children, Grace and Herbert. Mrs. Redman was born
in Walla Walla City, March 13, 1862, and is a faithful
and efficient member of the Episcopal church, and
is greatly beloved by all who know her.
WALTER J. REED. A view of this gentle-
man's residence in North Yakima, Washington, hist
hotel (the Reed House in Cle-Elum), together with
the portraits of himself and his estimable wife, is
placed among the illustrations of this work.
Although not a pioneer of Washington Territory,
he has been a great factor in the development of
Yakima and Kittitass counties. He built the first
two-story business house in North Yakima, and is
the founder of the town of Cle-Elum, in Kittitass
county. He has also advanced a great many matters
of substantial interest in both counties, and is one of
the best-known citizens of Kittitass and Yakima
counties.
He is a native of
Scotland's fair land," was
born near Edinburgh, April 3, 1842, and is the
eldest son of John and Isabella (Craig) Reed.
When our subject was six years of age, his parents
emigrated to America, first locating near Logan,
1
534
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Hocking county, Ohio. Four years later they moved
to Cumberland, Alleghany county, Maryland, where
his father, being a thorough miner, found employ-
ment as superintendent of mines; and Walter
attended school. In 1856 they again returned to
Ohio, this time locating in Cambridge, and in 1859
took up their residence in Beaver county, Pennsyl-
vania, his father in all the different places being
superintendent of mines.
August 1, 1861, our subject, then being but nine-
teen years of age, enlisted in Company K, Sixty-
third Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry,
his regiment being among the first three-year men
to enlist in the main cause, and was immediately
assigned to the Army of the Potomac, with whom
they remained and took a prominent part in all the
bloody engagements in which that grand army partic-
ipated. At the famous battle of Gettysburg, Mr.
Reed received a Minié ball in the left leg, a memento
of which he carries to-day in the shape of a small
hole through that limb.
The patriotism of the Reed family for their adopted
country is best shown by the sacrifices they have
sustained. His father, himself and younger brother,
James, all enlisting in different Pennsylvania regi-
ments, went forth to fight for the preservation of the
Union. His father and brother were taken prisoners;
and the former, after nine months in the awful
Andersonville prison, succumbed to the fate that
Defel thousands in that pen. His brother, only
nineteen years of age, died in the prison at Sauls-
bury, North Carolina. Mr. Reed, at the expiration
of his term of service, although his inclination was
to remain in the army, but being prompted by the
filial duty he owed to his mother and younger mem-
bers of the family who had been bereft of their
natural protector, returned to his home in Pennsyl-
vania to care for his widowed mother.
On his return from the war, he embarked in dif-
ferent enterprises until the spring of 1878, when, on
account of Mrs. Reed's health, he concluded to seek
a milder climate. He in that year came to Califor-
nia. After a short sojourn in that place, he came
to The Dalles, Oregon, and from that point started
to seek a location in Eastern Oregon; but, after
many narrow escapes from the red men of the forest,
who were on the warpath in that part of the country
in 1878, he concluded to seek a home where peace
reigned. Having heard of the possibilities of the
great Yakima country, he in the fall of 1879 came
to the present site of North Yakima, and there
located his "soldier's" claim, part of which is now
in the incorporated limits of North Yakima, where
he resided until 1886; when, before the completion of
the Northern Pacific Railroad, he took up the present
site of Cle-Elum as a pre-emption claim. Through the
natural generosity of Mr. Reed, his town has had
a steady and prosperous growth; and in 1887 he
built his present commodious hotel, the "Reed
House," which he now ably conducts.
To Mr. Reed more than to any other man is due the
credit of the development of the great coal fields
that surround Cle-Elum and Roslyn, as he was the
actual discoverer of these valuable mines.
Mr. Reed, although having been but twelve years.
in the territory, has made money rapidly, and is
to-day in very good circumstances. In all his move-
ments and business transactions our subject has been
ably assisted by his beloved wife, a lady of refine-
ment and more than ordinary intelligence, as is indi-
cated by the excellent portrait that appears in this
work.
Mr. Reed was united in marriage in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, September 1, 1864, to Miss Barbara
A. Steiner, a native of Mercer county, Pennsylvania.
Her father, Joseph Steiner, was the first white child.
born in what is now Mercer county, Pennsylvania,
it being at that time, 1812, a portion of Erie county,
Pennsylvania. He died at Mr. Reed's home in Cle-
Elum in October, 1888.
MCDONOUGH B. REES.-This is a brother
of the well-known pioneer, W. H. Rees, of Marion
county, and has in his own right earned a wide
reputation as a man of unusual force of character
and enterprise.
He was born in Ohio in 1831, and came to Ore-
gon in 1854. Much of his life on this coast has been
devoted to prospecting and mining. As early as
1855 he was at the Pend d'Oreille mines, and in
1856 returned to the Willamette valley amid great
dangers from the Indians. After farming a few
years in the Willamette valley, he went to the Sal-
mon river mines. His return to the Willamette was
again amid perils, closely following the Jaggers
party, which perished in the snow on the John
Day hills; and one of their party, a Jew with forty
pounds of gold dust, which he would allow no one
else to carry, died of fatigue and exposure. His
operations in the same mines the next summer
were remunerative. In 1863 he was at Placerville,
thence to the Upper Clearwater diggings; and in
1866 he brought a band of cattle from the Wil-
lamette valley to the Grande Ronde. He continued
the business of drover until 1869, and thenceforward
has devoted himself exclusively to farming and stock-
raising in The Cove, Oregon, where he owns sixteen
hundred acres of fine land, and one hundred milch
cows, besides other stock. He also has town prop-
erty.
He was married in 1856 to Miss America Fe Hall,
of Marion county. They have five children.
JACOB REITH.-Mr. Reith, one of the most
valuable citizens of Umatilla county, passed through
some of the severest hardships on record in coming
to our state.
He is a native of France, having been born in
Alsace in 1836. In 1850 he crossed the ocean with
his father's family, residing for a time in New York
State, and until 1860 in Minnesota.
In that year,
with his brother Joseph, he set out across the
plains for Oregon. That was the time of the
fierce Snake Indian outbreak; and at Bruno creek
the immigrants were attacked at daylight on the
6th of September. They made a brave fight until
the evening of the seventh, losing at the first
onslaught four men; and three more fell before the
battle was over. It became necessary to abandon
the wagons; and thus, leaving their stores and
stock in the hands of the Indians, they were
molested no more. It was, however, a frightful

FRANCIS H. COOK,
SPOKANE FALLS, W.T.
OF
UNIL
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
535
march to the Umatilla. That was two hundred
miles away; and the journey thither must be per-
formed on foot. The forty-four emigrants, men,
women and children, separated into little squads;
and such was the horror of hunger that befell some
of those little parties that a number of those who
survived fed upon the flesh of those who perished;
and only twelve came forth alive from the wilder-
ness. These were Joseph and Jacob Reith; James
Myers, his wife, one boy and four girls; Miss
Emily Trimble; Mrs. Chase; a Mr. Judson, and a
discharged soldier, and two others, perhaps chil-
dren. The Reiths came wholly by themselves and
reached the agency. The rest were rescued by
Captain Dent and Lieutenant Reno, with three com-
panies. Some of the victims were found in a cave
on the Snake river.
After recovering from that awful experience, Mr.
Reith went to the mines at Oro Fino and at Auburn,
and within three years had money. Coming back
to a point on Birch creek near Pendleton, he located
a ranch and became one of the first in that section
to introduce sheep. In 1878, during the raid of
the Bannacks, he suffered the loss of some three
thousand of his animals. His brother, his partner,
narrowly escaped being overtaken, and dissuaded
him from venturing out to do what he could to
save the flocks. In 1881 he turned his attention
chiefly to wheat-raising, having now half a section.
in cultivation. He obtained twenty-five bushels of
this grain to the acre, and, in such a season as was
the last, when, for ninety days after sowing, there
was not a drop of rain and the showers fell only
after the wheat had bloomed, the yield was but little
slackened.
Mr. Reith was married in 1879 to Miss Magdalen
Mark, daughter of a pioneer of 1873. They have
a pleasant home with the frontier good cheer and
refinement, and a family.
A. H. REYNOLDS.-This pioneer of Walla
Walla, Washington, is a bank director, a large real-
estate owner, and has been active in many of the
early enterprises, not only of that city, but of Ore-
gon and California.
He was born in 1808, in St. Lawrence county,
New York; and his memories of early life are
deeply tinged with the exciting events of the war
of 1812, in which his parents had an active part.
Receiving the rigid and economical training of the
old times, he added to his education by efforts of
his own, and qualified himself for active life by
learning the trade of a millwright. After a num-
ber of years spent in the old West, he crossed the
plains to California in 1850 by the old trail.
health failing, he decided to go to Chile, but by
the persuasion of a friend came to Trinidad.
His
Drifting up the coast, he came through Yreka to
Oregon, and so far recovered his health as to engage
in building mills. He put up flour mills in Benton
and Polk counties, and did extensive work on the
first woolen mill at Salem. With the money thus
earned he went to Portland and engaged in financial
enterprises and money-loaning. In 1859 he came to
Walla Walla, on the second trip that the Colonel
Wright made to Wallula. In that valley he set to
work with his hands and brain, building flour mills,
for which he received a one-third interest in the
various mills he constructed. Near Walla Walla he
built the Symes mill, the first one east of the Cas-
cade Mountains.
His period of mill-building ending in the early six-
ties, he went into the money-loaning business, open-
ing a private bank in 1872. That was the ancestor
of the present First National Bank. His interest in
some of his mills, notably the one at Dayton, still
continues. Although not now in active business,
he is a director of the First National Bank at Walla
Walla, and of the bank at Dayton, and interested in
that at Pendleton.
He was married in 1861, his wife being an Ore-
gonian who had crossed the plains in the famous
company of 1843. He has two sons,-Harry, who
graduated recently at Michigan University, Ann
Arbor, and Allen, who is now in attendance at
Whitman College, Walla Walla. He gives his
sons the best of advantages, and is known and
respected in all parts of the Inland Empire.
G. W. RICHARDSON.- Elder G. W. Richard-
son, born in Green county, Illinois, September 26,
1824, was ordained to the ministry and began preach-
ing at the age of eighteen. He crossed the plains.
to Oregon, in company with his brother, Doctor J.
A. Richardson, and other relatives, in 1851, taking,
immediately on his arrival, a Donation land claim
near where afterwards was located the town of Scio,
and organizing, a few months subsequently, the first
church of the Christian Brotherhood in Linn county.
He devoted much of his time to the ministry, with
this church and elsewhere, including invariably two
days in each week, which, during four years, was
wholly without remuneration, receiving, however,
for his first year's labors the present of a nine-dollar
coat. He accomplished extensive and important
evangelical work throughout the state, but especially
in the counties of Linn, Marion, Polk, Yamhill and
Washington; wherein he organized many of the
churches that still survive him, who yet hold him
in pleasing remembrance. Both he and his more
intimate friends, however, always deemed him
stronger in local or pastoral labors, where he became
better known and therefore more fully appreciated,
as in several churches he was annually re-employed
for several successive years.
In educational work he was zealous, untiring and
efficient. Moving from Scio to Polk county, in
1857, he was chief among the leaders who estab-
lished and organized Bethel Collegiate Institute,
which in early days was for years one of the most
popular institutions in this new country, receiving a
large patronage from all parts of the state and Wash-
ington Territory. It was successfully accomplish-
ing academic and collegiate work with him as
president of the board of trustees, until the inter-
ruption of the Civil war broke up its classes.
In politics he was liberal in his views, but always
loyal to his convictions. He was a member of the
state legislature from 1862 to 1864; and while in
the discharge of his legislative duties he was noted
for frankness, industry and prudence.
His widow and seven children still survive him.
536
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
JAMES A. RICHARDSON, M. D.-Doctor
Richardson was born in Adams county, Illinois,
November 15, 1840. His grandfather, George
Richardson, was born in Pennsylvania, near Phila-
delphia, serving in the war of the Revolution, and
after its close taking an active part under Gene-
rals St. Clair and Wayne in the war against the
Indians of now West Virginia and Ohio. After the
suppression of the hostility of those tribes, he, with
one companion, in a canoe, floated down the Ohio
river to its confluence with the Mississippi, and
thence passed up that river to Kaskaskia, then a
French post for trading with the Indians. There a
few years afterwards he married Miss Sarah Griffin,
niece of General B. Whitesides, by whom he raised
five sons and four daughters, all of whom lived to
raise families. John G. Richardson, the eldest and
the father of the subject of this sketch, was born on
the American Bottom, five miles above St. Louis,
where he lived until 1812, when the United States
declared war against Great Britain, and called for
volunteers to protect the rights of America and her
people. Again for the third time the grandfather
shouldered his musket, and this time led his eldest
son, then a lad of sixteen years, to the defense of
his country.
In 18- John G. Richardson married Miss Orphia
Thompson, and moved up to Green county, and
finally to Adams county, Illinois, where they
raised nine boys and one girl. In 1851 he crossed
the plains to Oregon; and, being well prepared for
the great journey, he succeeded in reaching the far
West without unusual hardships, and with only one
battle with the Indians, which took place on Goose
creek, where it empties into Snake river. The
Indians attacked the train while in camp at about
five o'clock P. M., but at sundown withdrew to a
high hill in plain view of the camp, and held a war
dance for the entertainment of the train. At daylight
next morning they renewed the attack, but finding the
train too strong for them again withdrew about nine
o'clock, and gave no further trouble. On.reaching
the Willamette valley, he went directly to Linn
county, where he located a Donation land claim,
upon which he resided until his death, May 2, 1872.
He was a quiet citizen and a true friend, avoiding
notoriety, and caring nothing for office or public
honors; yet he was esteemed by an extensive ac-
quaintance as a man of sterling worth and honor.
Doctor J. A. Richardson graduated in medicine in
San Francisco in October, 1866, and from Bellevue
Hospital Medical College, New York, in March,
1870, taking meanwhile a special course in practical
surgery under Professor Frank H. Hamilton. He
then returned to Salem, Oregon, where he is now
practicing his profession, and where the Doctor has
been called to various positions of trust and honor,
serving in numerous useful positions in the Third
Judicial District Medical Society and the Oregon
State Medical Society. He was one of the organizers
of the latter, and filled for several years a chair in the
Medical Department of the Willamette University.
He also occupied the positions of physician to the
Oregon State Penitentiary, of visiting physician to
the Oregon State Insane Asylum, of physician to
the state institutions for the deaf mutes and the
state school for the blind. He also for four years
represented Marion county in the state senate.
In May, 1871, he was married to Miss Fannie
Boyd, who was born in Yamhill county, Oregon, in
1852, and was educated at Willamette University,
by whom he has two children, Frankie and Boyd.
JOHN Q. A. RICHARDSON.- This gentle-
man, the oldest settler within ten miles of his pres-
ent stock farm of four hundred and seventy acres in
The Cove, Oregon, and a veteran of the Indian wars,
was born in Illinois in 1839, and in 1851 crossed the
plains in company with his parents. The father, Enoch
Richardson, became a permanent citizen of Polk
county, locating near Perrydale. During the jour-
ney on the plains the little party, being among the
last of the season, sustained a fifteen hours' fight
with the Snake Indians on Goose creek.
In 1856 young Richardson enlisted with Captain
Goff's company of Polk county volunteers, and
was present in the big fight in the Walla Walla, in
which Governor Stevens was conspicuous, and saw
his comrade S. Kriggs fall with a mortal wound.
In 1862 he was in the Salmon river mines, and
the following autumn took up his claim at the then
unoccupied north end of The Cove. He is there en-
gaged in raising fine Durham cattle and blooded
horses.
He was married in 1879 to Miss C. E. Bault, and
has a family of five children.
HON. HENRY RINEHART. The retiring
registrar of the United States land-office at La
Grande, Oregon, is one of the representative men
of the state, having come hither from Iowa in
1854, his native state, however, being Illinois, and
the time of his birth 1842.
His first home in Oregon was in Lane county,
near Eugene, where his father, Lewis Rinehart,
settled on a Donation claim; and it was there that
he received a liberal education.
In 1861 he seized the opportunities presented in
the Inland Empire, spent the year 1861 at Walla
Walla, and in 1862 crossed over the mountains to
the Grande Ronde. The trip was made in April;
and snow was still five and six feet deep on the
Blue Mountain Pass. Continuing the journey to
the mines of Powder river, then but recently dis-
covered by Captain Stafford and company, he re-
mained the summer through, mining and prospect-
ing. Returning in the autumn to the Grande
Ronde, he choose that delightful valley for his
future home, and has there remained to the present
time.
He has interested himself in various business
enterprises, and has been blessed with good fortune
in each. In 1863 he was ranching and freighting,
in 1864-65 driving beef cattle to the Eastern Ore-
gon and Idaho markets, and from 1866 to 1868 was
interested in merchandising, together with milling
and freighting, at Summerville. Thenceforth, until
1886, he was operating with stock and in mercantile
affairs. It was in that year that he was appointed
registrar of the land-office, and filled the position
with great acceptance to the community.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
537
In public affairs Mr. Rinehart has ever been
highly esteemed, and as early as 1868 was elected
as representative from Union county to the Oregon
legislature, being at the time the youngest member
in that body.
In 1865 he was married to Miss Margaret A.
Martin, and has two daughters, Nellie and Bertha,
and two sons, Eugene and Clay.
HON. J. H. RINEHART. Mr. Rinehart,
whose portrait appears in this volume, is one of the
pioneers of Eastern Oregon, and the proprietor of
the Mammoth Anna-Lulu Flouring mills. He was
born October 1, 1836, in Adams county, Illinois,
and moved to Mahaska county, Iowa, in 1845. In
1854 he crossed the plains with his parents to Ore-
gon, and located with them at Eugene. In 1855 he
left the parental roof and, although but a boy of
eighteen, sought the gold fields of Northern Cali-
fornia, where he remained a year and a half, and
returned to Oregon soon after the close of the Indian
war in July, 1856.
In July, 1862, he arrived with two of his brothers
in the Grande Ronde valley, and struck camp at a
point where now stands the flourishing city of La
Grande. The valley then had no town nor post-
office, the nearest places being Walla Walla and The
Dalles. The valley at that time was wholly un-
settled, and was covered with tall bunch-grass.
The young settler located on unsurveyed land near
Summerville, Oregon, and in that vicinity has re-
sided for over twenty-six years. The first four
years he was chiefly engaged in stock-raising and
farming, and in 1866 undertook the flouring-mill
business, and still clings to it, having become the
principal proprietor in the Anna-Lulu roller mills at
Summerville.
Mr. Rinehart is the father of Doctor Willard E.
Rinehart of Portland, Oregon, and of H. C. Rine-
hart, cashier of the Farmers' Mortgage and Savings
Bank of Summerville. He has two daughters,
Anna and Lulu; and from the combination of these
two names was formed the present appellation of
his roller mills.
Although having been among the wild savages
of the Northwest, Mr. Rinehart has escaped all
serious difficulty with them, and has no marks or
scars inflicted upon his person by their arrows or
tomahawks. He is one of a family of thirteen
children, all of whom were born and raised on the
frontier; and all but one sister have crossed the
plains to Oregon. He never saw a railroad until he
was twenty-six years old.
In
He has been intrusted with public duties, having
been elected in the fall of 1878 to the state legislature
on the Democratic ticket. Not only a firm Demo-
crat, he is also a sterling temperance man.
December, 1885, he established a bank at Summer-
ville, and is a large owner of real estate, having
some thirteen hundred acres to his name. He also
has a band of two hundred and seventy-five horses
now ranging on Eastern Oregon bunch-grass. With
marked business sagacity, he is not without fine
sentiment, and is one of those better citizens in
whom we see the hope of future progress and
development for the state.
LOUIS B. RINEHART.- Mr. Rinehart was
born in Illinois in 1844, and ten years later accom-
panied his parents across the plains to Oregon.
They followed the tracks of 1853 from the mouth of
the Malheur to Eugene City via Harney Lake. Ten
miles west of Eugene the elder Rinehart located a
half section of land, and provided a home for his
family. Louis remained there until 1862, but that
spring came with his brothers to the Grande Ronde
valley. After living in a tent three months, he
valley.
hauled the logs and assisted in the erection of the
third house in the town of La Grande. A few days
afterwards Mr. Rinehart, with others, conceived the
idea of the location of some of the remarkably pro-
ductive lands in the neighborhood; and in accord-
ance with that conception they commenced staking
their claims. Ere long they were waited upon by a
detachment of the Umatilla Indians, who were
encamped near by, and who pulled up their stakes.
Mr. Rinehart was, for a number of years there-
after, engaged in cattle-ranging and cattle-driving
between the Willamette and Grande Ronde valleys;
until, in 1865, he and his brother erected the first
mercantile house in the village which they after-
wards named Summerville. The next year they
were joined by a third brother, and purchased the
first gristmill in Union county. Being possessed.
with the requisite qualities, Mr. Rinehart was soon
called upon to fill public offices, first as treasurer of
Union county; and later, having moved to Baker
county, he acted as assessor two years. In 1880, in
response to the voice of the people, he represented
Baker county in the House of representatives.
In 1881 he returned to his first home, and en-
camped at the south end of what is now the most
beautiful village in the Pacific Northwest,—that of
Union, Oregon. Since then he has been engaged
in mercantile enterprises and in stock-raising, and
for four years was state senator from Union county.
He is, owner of the townsite of Vale, Malheur
county, and also owns eleven hundred acres of land,
and is in every respect one of the most prosperous
men of the Inland Empire.
WM. E. RINEHART.— Mr. Rinehart was born
in Iowa in 1846 on his father's farm. In 1854 the
parents crossed the plains to Oregon, and made a
home in Lane county, suffering only the usual hard-
ships incident to such a journey, and the depriva-
tions of a new country. The old Donation claim
lies ten miles south of Eugene City. There William
remained with his parents until 1864, in that year
joining his brother James H as drover of a band of
cattle, coming as far as his present abode in the
Grande Ronde valley. There he invested in com-
pany with George Allen of his own Lane county
neighborhood in a Cayuse pack-train, and packed to
Boise until winter. He sold out in time to return
to the land of "Big red apples" before winter, and
remained at the old home two years. The memory
of the Grande Ronde valley, however, attracted him
back to its beautiful scenes; and with a band of his
own cattle he made his headquarters near the pres-
ent site of Summerville, Oregon, where he pursued
the avocation of stock-raising and farming, until in
1883 he closed out his interest in that line and
538
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
engaged in his present occupation as hardware and
implement dealer in the rapidly growing town of
Summerville.
In 1868 he married Miss Elizabeth Jane Martin
of Lane county; and three of their ten children are
now living in the Grande Ronde. Six of their chil-
dren died of the devastating scourge of diphtheria,
all within one week in the year 1881.
HON. L. M. RINGER.-There is moral earnest-
ness about a man who is able to hold his own con-
victions in the face of his neighbors and friends.
We find such a man in Mr. Ringer.
Born June 17, 1834, in Washington county, Mary-
land, he moved as a child to Amherst county,
Virginia, there receiving his education, but later
making his home in Stoddard county, Missouri,
engaging in the mercantile business. When the
war broke out in 1861, that community was strongly
for secession. Mr. Ringer was obliged either to
enter the rebel army or to leave. He chose the
latter course.
The Confederate authorities at once
confiscated his property. He thereupon went to
Patterson, a post occupied by the Union forces, and
was appointed clerk in the ordnance department.
Soon afterwards he returned to Bloomfield, Mis-
souri, a place held at that time by the United States
troops. He was there appointed sheriff of the
county, and adjutant of the post. He was there-
after elected to the position of sheriff and collector,
having a detachment of volunteer state cavalry as
body guard, and served continuously until the close
of the war.
He was true blue" in that difficult
position, enforcing the law rigidly during those
distracted times, maintaining the national authority,
and even compelling the respect of the rebel sym-
pathizers themselves.
เ
In 1870 he left Missouri for Oregon, and settled
at Eugene City, conducting a harness and saddlery
business, and buying a half interest in the Eugene
Guard, a leading newspaper of the place. After a
year's visit back to Missouri, he returned to the
Pacific coast, settling at Rebel Flat, in the newly
organized Whitman county, Washington Territory,
but removing four years later to Almota, on the
Snake river, in the same county. There he opened
a store, and has conducted a remarkably successful
mercantile business.
During his residence in the territory he has served
his county two terms in the lower house of the
territorial legislature, and his district one term in
the council. Although a Democrat, he was appointed
by the Republican majority to the chairmanship of
the all-important ways and means committee in the
legislative council.
Mr. Ringer is a man of honor and integrity, hold-
ing a high position socially, and is universally
esteemed as of unsullied moral character. His por-
trait finds a place in the galaxy of the territory's
most worthy citizens.
In 1859 he was married to Miss Sophia W. Owen,
a lady of excellent character and education. Their
children are Effie, Mertie, Louie, Gertrude, Myrtle,
Eugene, Lulu, Leonard, Lewis and Sophia. The
eldest, Effie, and the five latter, are all living. The
other four were buried in Stoddard county, Missouri.
ANDREW ROBERTS.— Andrew Roberts was
born in Dundee, Scotland, August 12, 1822. When
one year old he had lost both of his parents. He
was then removed to Forfar. As soon as he was
of proper age he learned the trade of a tailor; and
when he had earned and saved sufficient money he
left his native land for the United States. He
thus states that venture: "I left my home in 1842,
and on foot started to Dundee, distant fourteen
miles. I took the steamer from there to Edinburgh,
and traveled thence by rail to Glasgow. I then
went by steamer to Liverpool. I had to remain
there about two weeks awaiting the sailing of the
ship Sea of Norfolk, in which I had engaged pas-
sage for New York. When I landed at New York
I had only five cents.”
Mr. Roberts resided in New York until January
11, 1851, in the meantime working at his trade
and keeping store. He married in 1847; and his
family consisted of himself, his wife and his son.
Peter when in January, 1851, they sailed for San
Francisco on the Empire City, via Chagres and
Panama-the old Isthmus route-up the Chagres
river in bungoes to Gorgona, and thence by mules
across the portage to Panama. At Panama they
were detained until the arrival of the steamer
Columbia on her way out from New York, to take
her place on the route between San Francisco and
Portland, Oregon. On reaching San Francisco
Mr. Roberts rented a store on Clay street near the
postoffice, but soon after moved to Merchant
street.
In the May fire, the building in which his store
was located was burned down; but he succeeded in
saving a large portion of his goods. Another store
was soon rebuilt on the ruins of the old one; and
Mr. Roberts occupied it. In the June (1852) fire,
the building was again consumed; and Mr. Roberts
lost everything. He says: "I was broke; but I had
to do something. There was a friend of mine who
was a banker. So we bought the Phoenix Bakery,
next to the corner of Montgomery and Long Wharf.
It was built on the ashes of the late fires. In the
fall of 1852, Patrick Raleigh visited San Francisco
and advised me to remove to Portland. I took his
advice; and we formed a copartnership, which con-
tinued until the fall of 1854.'
})
The ill health of Mrs. Roberts rendered it neces-
sary for Mr. Roberts to take her from Portland. By
the advice of his physicians he moved to Corvallis,
then called Marysville, where he continued in busi-
ness until 1866. At that time he returned to Port-
land and engaged in the manufacture of clothing.
In 1871 he formed a copartnership with Charles
Fishel; and the firm was a leading house in Port-
land, and had a celebrity throughout Oregon and
Washington. In 1882 Mr. Roberts purchased the
interest of Mr. Fishel, who retired from the business,
and conducted it alone until 1888, when he associated
with him his son-in-law, Philip S. Malcolm, who
was married to his only daughter and sole surviving
child, the business still continuing under the name
and style of A. Roberts. Mr. Roberts lost his wife
in 1870; and his only son was drowned in the Wil-
lamette on the 4th of June, 1872. These bereave-
ments severely afflicted Mr. Roberts.
4

THE
ASHLER
SHEE
THE ASHLER:
THE ASHLER
THE ASHLER
THE ASHLER HOUSE. Property of E.P. CADWELL..
>
THE SHOUDY-CADWELL BLOCK.
→VIEWS IN ELLENSBURGH, W.T··
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
539
As a merchant, citizen and man, Mr. Roberts is
universally respected in the community where he
has lived so long. He has never sought office nor
publicity; and much of his life has been employed
in unostentatiously bestowing charities and doing
deeds of kindness for his fellows. In Masonry,
however, he has become prominent, not only in his
adopted state, but throughout the Pacific slope.
To that institution he has given largely of his time,
and in contributing to its means to dispense charity
and benefit humanity. He has taken almost if not
all of the degrees known to the fraternity, in all
of which his consistency, devotion and faithful
conduct have commended him to the brethren
wheresoever dispersed. His brethren of the lodge,
the chapter, the commandery, the grand lodge, in
both the York and Ancient Scottish Rite, have
marked their appreciation of his zeal and valuable
service by calling him to almost every station and
office in every body of the craft in the city of Port-
land. When it is recorded of him that he is a good
Mason, true in every relation in life, honored by
neighbors, loved by his race, you have only spoken
truthfully of that true man, good citizen and faithful
Mason,—A. Roberts.
A. B. ROBLEY.-The figures which express the
business of the Eastern Oregon shipping points are
instructive and almost startling. Thus, by the record
of Mr. Robley, Centerville shipped in 1888 seventeen
thousand tons of wheat and seven hundred tons of
barley. The average yield of wheat per acre of a
belt of the country extending twelve miles around
Centerville is about thirty bushels. The other grains
and the vegetables are grown to advantage; and the
fruit is a good crop. Centerville has excellent railroad
facilities, being on the direct line of the Oregon Rail-
way & Navigation Company's road, which passes from
Pendleton to Walla Walla; and it also is now reached
by the O.W.T. Ry., giving connection with the North-
ern Pacific,--the first town in Oregon thus touched.
The gentleman of whom we write is engaged there
in the forwarding and commission business, and is
well qualified to render a just and accurate view of
its business.
He is himself one of the guaranties of the progress
of the place. Born in Illinois in 1845, he received
his education in Iowa, and began life as a school-
teacher. In 1867 he started across the country to
Oregon, wintering in Tintic valley, south of Salt
Lake. Reaching Walla Walla the next year, the
company with which he came was disbanded; and
Mr. Robley continued his professional work, teach-
ing three years. Seeking a permanent location, he
went to the Palouse country, ranching and stock-
raising through one administration. He then
returned to Walla Walla, soon finding his choice at
Centerville. Walla Walla is, however, a favorite
place with him. There, in 1875, he found his wife,
Miss Eva Paul. Their three children are boys.
JONAS L. ROE.-Mr. Roe was born at Hunt-
ington, Pennsylvania, January 10, 1852, and is the
son of James Roe, a farmer and carpenter, and a
captain in the state militia. In 1854 our subject
removed with his parents to Iowa, and subsequently
shared with them the returns of hard labor and
sagacious investments. Being a bright boy, dividing
his time between following the plow and attending
school, and growing up a vigorous youth, he took a
thorough course of study at the Kirksville, Missouri,
State Normal School, and at the age of twenty-one
began independent life as teacher in Iowa.
Crossing the plains to Oregon in 1880, he continued
in the same public-spirited profession, and in 1883.
anchored himself to the permanent interests of the
country by purchasing a choice tract of land in the
section known as the Sand Ridge, near Union, Ore-
gon, a region justly celebrated for the production of
wheat. There he has devoted himself exclusively
to farming, having made a financial success of the
undertaking, and has thereby provided his family a
delightful home. He was married to Miss Lucy C.
Cochran in 1875, and has a son and two daughters.
Having ably filled local offices, he was in 1888
elected by the people of Union county to care for
their political interests in the state legislature. In
that capacity he has made an honorable record, and
has extended his influence to adjoining counties.
In 1889 he received an appointment as special agent
of the general land-office, having been a great
admirer and warm supporter of President Harrison in
the late campaign. His canvass prior to that election
was very ably conducted, and won for him the
highest praise. He is no less esteemed for his kind-
ness to the poor and unfortunate, and for his
abundant private charities.
CAPT. HENRY ROEDER. In this veteran
of the early times, as well as of the war of 1856, we
have a representative of the men who first opened
business on the Sound. As such he merits some-
what extended notice.
He was born in Germany on July 4, 1824, his
parents being John and Martha Roeder.
He is con-
nected by family ties with the great European events
of the early part of the century, his father having
been a soldier under Napoleon, and having fought
in the battle of Waterloo. Not wishing to bear arms
for Louis, nor rear his son to fight his battles, he
with his family came to America when Henry was
but seven years of age, and settled at Vermilion,
Ohio. The nautical experience of the young man.
began on Lake Erie; and before he was twenty he
was master of a schooner. In 1849 the gold fever
of California reached his locality; and he made up
his mind to take a run out to the mines, and be back
in a year's time and take charge of a fine vessel in
process of construction on the Vermilion river. It
was twenty-two years before he had seen enough of
the West to think of looking back again to life on
the lake.
The journey was begun February 23, 1850. The
two six-mule teams, two wagons and camp outfit
were secured at St. Louis; and the party of advent-
urers to which he belonged reached Salt Lake in
time to hear Brigham Young deliver his first Fourth
of July oration, in which he stated that the Saints
would set up a government of their own. While
there they disposed of their wagons for twenty-five
dollars each in Mormon money, known as
known as "Holi-
ness to the Lord," which was worth in California
540
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
about seventy-five cents on the dollar. Riding mule-
back into California, they were pestered more or less
by the Indians; and once in the Golden state Mr.
Roeder had about the usual hard luck of the miner.
In going from Ophir Flat, where his party were
mining, to Sacramento City for supplies and mail,
he had an attack of cholera, and was also three
months on his back with typhoid fever. He mined,
packed to the mines, and at length ran a store which
he purchased of a lady who, previous to selling out,
used to send down her half-gallon jars of dust to
Sacramento as her profits. The business was not so
profitable to young Roeder. He lost too much by
selling on credit. There were too many "good fel-
lows."
In a fishing scheme on the Sacramento he made
one hundred dollars per day. The money thus made
he loaned to a friend; and that was the last of his
six thousand dollars; for it was all lost through the
great Sacramento fire. This success in the fishing
line led him to try the same business on a more
extended scale in the waters of the Columbia.
Reaching Portland in the fall of 1852, news came
that San Francisco had been burned, and that lum-
ber was four hundred dollars per thousand. Mr.
Peabody, the first owner of Whatcom, had come
with him from below. The two men now changed
their plan from fishing on the Columbia to lumber-
ing on the Sound. With a canoe from St. Helens,
they took the time-honored old Indian route to the
Cowlitz, footing it from the Cowlitz landing across
to Olympia, in company with Andrew Chambers
and wife, Doctor Latham, and Honorable Charles
M. Bradshaw. Here they must travel once more in
a primitive canoe to North Bay; and, hauling the
craft across the neck to Hood's Canal, they passed
down that body of water to Port Townsend.
Now, in search of the water-power and coal, the
three explorers—for John Heath had joined the party
-came to the Whatcom country, arriving there on
December 14, 1852. Roeder taking one hundred
and sixty acres as a Donation claim on the present
site of Sehome, and Peabody on Whatcom, securing
permission of the Indians to locate there, Roeder
returned to Port Townsend for men and a carpenter,
but on account of high water found no one willing
to undertake the journey. In those days the good
old German adage, “Find a way or make one,” had
the emphasis on the latter clause. The ways and
means to do things had to be made. In pursuance
of this end, Roeder bought a sloop and sailed off for
Victoria, securing there the supplies and men neces-
sary; and upon his return to Whatcom he began
building the mill. The next step was to secure the
machinery, which could be found only in California.
Taking passage on a bark, he made the necessary
purchase at the Sutter Iron Works, paying twenty-
five cents per pound. The mill was thus brought to
completion; but by this time the San Francisco mar-
ket was glutted; and it was useless to endeavor to
effect any sales there. The first lumber from Puget
Sound that reached the Victoria market came from
this mill. The first Church of England was con-
structed with it, also the barracks located at Esqui-
malt during the Crimean war.
A second enterprise begun about that time was
the opening of the Sehome coal mines, which were
discovered after the Captain changed his claim to
where he is now living by the uprooting of a large
tree in a gale of wind. With Brown and Hewitt,
however, he began to develop the vein; and they
afterwards sold it for eighteen thousand, five hundred
dollars, the whole of which Brown ran away with; and
his partners never could either find him nor recover
their shares. In the year 1854, together with two oth-
ers, he built the schooner H. C. Page, the third of
Puget Sound register. She was used for coasting and
lumber export. In 1855 the same company of men
laid out the road to British Columbia, passing across
the Cascades to the Colville mines and thence north.
Roeder himself viewed the road and blazed a way
back from Frazer river. This was about a hundred
and fifty miles of very rough country. In 1856, as
the Indian war broke out, the settlers of the mill
constructed a fort and stockade in the town; and
thus, having their families barricaded, many of the
men went off to the war east of the mountains. The
year 1860 saw the Captain still prospering insomuch
that he was owner of the bark Glimpse, and was
engaged in coasting to San Francisco, thus renew-
ing his nautical life.
The opening of the Caribou mines, however, drew
him again to the mountains and gulches, this time
as hotel keeper at Beaver Pass. Those were lively
times. Meals were two dollars each, hay twenty
cents per pound, barley seventy-five cents. Two
very successful summers were spent at that rendez-
vous. Returning to his farm, he now endeavored
to live quietly, but soon found it necessary to buy
and run a schooner; and in 1866 he opened out the
stone quarry at Chuckamet. The first stone went
to build a lighthouse at New Dungeness. The
quarry is now a bonanza.
In a political way the Captain has kept his end
up, having served one term in the territorial council,
and eight sessions of the house, and as county com-
missioner of Whatcom county four terms. He is a
Democrat, but has turned a regular majority of
twenty-eight hundred on the opposite ticket by one
hundred and twenty-one. His surplus money he
has invested in real estate at Whatcom and on
Whidby Island. His wife, formerly Miss Elizabeth
Austin, came to Washington in 1854 and to What-
com in 1855, and is the daughter of Mrs. Charlotte
Austin, who kept a hospital at Vermilion for the
sick and wounded from Perry's great victory on
Lake Erie. They have two children living: Victor,
now in business at Roeder in the Mohawk valley;
and Lotta C., wife of C. I. Roth, an attorney of
Whatcom. Both the Captain and his wife are mem-
bers of the Washington Pioneer Society.
WILHELM OTTO ROESCH.—The brewery
of Pendleton, Oregon, is operated by Mr. Roesch, a
man who has had long experience in all the pro-
cesses of manufacturing the beverage. Born in
Germany in 1855, he came to America in 1870,
working in a brewery. He followed the same
business in San Francisco in 1874; at Steilacoom
in 1886; at Portland until 1888. At Port Town-
send he built a brewery for himself, running it two
years.
At Heppner, in 1880, he operated his own
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
541
brewery one year. In 1882 he returned to Ger-
many, marrying Miss Anna Rapps. Returning to
Oregon, he is now at Pendleton, operating his own
brewery. He has three children, Freda, Wilhelm
Lewis and Herbert Otto.
E. R. ROGERS. The subject of this brief
sketch is a son of Charles and Jane P. Rogers, and
was born in Freeport, Maine, November 29, 1829.
He there received a common-school education, and
early took to the sea, "a life on the ocean wave
wave"
being the bent of his inclinations. He at the early
age of fourteen shipped in Boston for New Orleans
and Europe. He continued in that calling until
he arrived in San Francisco, on October 19, 1849,
in the bark Sarah Warren, a vessel subsequently
well known on Puget Sound as one of its early lum-
ber vessels.
On arriving in San Francisco, he met his uncle,
Captain Denison, who was master of a vessel home-
ward bound, and who not only offered him, but
urged him to accept, the position of first officer on
his vessel; but he declined, and in June following
was at Big Auburn Gulch, Placer county, mining
for gold. A few days afterwards he was taken ill
with brain and bilious fever, the first and only sick-
ness since his childhood. Want of medical attend-
ance and care protracted his illness until the follow-
ing February. He then prospected for a season,
and met with but very indifferent success.
in the season he joined a company to the American
river at Haniseeket bar; but the season proved
short; and, the freshet coming on before the race-
dam and water-wheel were completed, all was
washed away, making a total loss to all concerned
in the undertaking.
Later
Leaving the mountains in the fall of 1851, he spent
that winter in San Francisco. there making the
acquaintance of one Samuel McCaw, with whom and
others he organized an expedition to Queen Char-
lotte Island on the west coast, buying and fitting
out the old schooner Mexico. They sailed from San
Francisco in March, 1852, in search of gold, and
arrived at the island in the latter part of April of
that year. The search for gold having proved fruit-
less, they headed for Puget Sound, and arrived at
Steilacoom on the 25th of May, 1852. There they
There they
contracted with Mr. John B. Chapman to furnish
them with a cargo of piles, Mr. Chapman having
located a Donation claim at what is now known as
Chapman's Point. It was whilst there that Mr.
Rogers met for the first time the following well-
known gentlemen, viz.: Doctor Tolmie, W. W.
Miller, Lieutenant Slaughter, Captain James M.
Batchelder, John M. Chapman, James Hughes, and
Captain Lafayette Balch, who had located a Dona-
tion claim east of Chapman's in 1850. Having
Having
secured their cargo of piles, they sailed for San
Francisco, taking with them John B. Chapman,
who there and then abandoned his Donation claim
to his son, John M. Chapman. Arriving in San
Francisco, they sold their cargo and vessel, Mr.
S. McCaw returning to Puget Sound and locating
at Steilacoom, from whence he frequently wrote to
his old friend Rogers, who remained near and south
of San Francisco for the next two years.
In February, 1854, Mr. Rogers again made his
way to Puget Sound, and arrived at Steilacoom,
Washington Territory, in that month, where he
found Mr. McCaw engaged in merchandising, hav-
ing bought a stock of goods the fall before in San
Francisco. He shortly afterwards entered into co-
partnership with him; and with their joint capital
they returned to San Francisco and purchased an
enlarged stock of goods. This prosperous partner-
ship continued until within a few weeks of Mr.
McCaw's death, which occurred in April, 1881.
This firm built the first brick building north of the
Columbia river and west of the Rocky Mountains in
1859, such being thirty by eighty feet, one story
high, with sixteen-inch walls, and well plastered
throughout, a view of which will be found in this
work.
NELSON ROGERS. — Born on a farm in Ver-
mont in 1841, and early apprenticed to the trade of
chair-making, Mr. Rogers determined to come to
this coast, and arrived in California in 1858, there
engaging in placer mining and farming for the space
of eight years. The discontinuance of his residence
below was immediately succeeded by a removal to
the Granite creek district, in Eastern Oregon, where
he followed mining until 1873, when he located at
Burke's Hollow and farmed until 1882. Converting
his entire property into money, he made advanta-
geous loans until the reinvestment of his capital in a
mercantile business at Pilot Rock, Oregon, where he
is at present living.
AARON ROSE. This gentleman, one of the
earliest pioneers of the Umpqua valley, was born in
Ulster county, in the State of New York, June 20,
1813, and was raised a farmer. He was married to
Minerva Kelley in 1838.
He crossed the plains with his family in 1851, ar-
riving at Foster's August 22d, and came directly to
the valley of the South Umpqua, and settled at the
mouth of Deer creek, upon the present site of the
flourishing city of Roseburg, Oregon, September
23, 1851. He at once built a house and engaged in
farming, in which he
farming, in which he was very successful. His
house was for many years used as a tavern, which
will be kindly remembered by all the old pioneers
who used to pack or travel over the road to and from
the mines. In 1854 the county-seat of Douglas
county was removed. by a vote of the people, from
Winchester to Mr. Rose's farm, when a town was
surveyed, which was named Roseburg by its set-
tlers.
Mr. Rose showed his liberality at the time by do-
nating the site for the public buildings, and con-
tributing one thousand dollars towards the erection
of the first courthouse. He was elected a member
of the territorial legislature of 1855-56; but he has
never since been a candidate for any office. Possess-
ing great energy, he has always been foremost in
every public enterprise. Upon the completion of the
Oregon & California Railroad to Roseburg, he laid
off a handsome addition to the city, one-half of
which he donated to the company as a bonus for the
establishment of a depot. He has also caused the
erection of a dam on the South Umpqua river,
542
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
which is now utilized to run the city water works,
a woolen mill and a roller flour mill. The business
of the latter he superintends with all the energy of
his youth.
With a kind and genial disposition, and generous
to a fault, Mr. Rose is beloved by all; and it is safe
to say he has no enemy. Mr. Rose has been twice
married, his second wife being Frances Arrington.
He has two daughters by his first wife, and a son
and daughter by his second.
This well-known
GUSTAVE ROSENTHAL,
merchant was born in Bavaria on the 4th of July,
1840. He continued to live in his native country
until 1856. In that year he emigrated to America.
The first three years of his stay he spent in Boston.
Then, removing to the city of New York, he was
engaged in mercantile business until 1861. In Sep-
tember of that year he came by the Panama route
to California; and two years later he resumed his
journeyings, coming to a final pause at Olympia,
Washington Territory. There he soon embarked in
the business of general merchandising in partner-
ship with Isaac Lightner. In 1874 Mr. Rosenthal
purchased the interest of his partner, and has since
conducted the business independently, being now one
of the oldest business men in Olympia.
In 1869 the office of county treasurer was con-
ferred on Mr. Rosenthal. The wife of Mr. Rosen-
thal was Miss Katie Bettman, to whom he was united
at Olympia, and by whom he now has an interesting
family of four children, Bertha, Samuel, Caroline
and Fannie.
GEN. JOHN E. ROSS.- No view of our state
would be complete without the figure of General
Ross, who was so prominent as Indian fighter and
legislator in the early days. He was born in Ohio
in 1818, and after a residence in Indiana and Illinois,
being married at Chicago to the daughter of Alex-
ander Robinson of that city, whose loss by death he
suffered eight years later, he came to the Pacific
coast, arriving in Oregon in 1847. He was captain
of a company that crossed the plains, and soon
after reaching the Grande Ronde came upon some
of the most distressing incidents of the immigrants'
experience. Having hurried on ahead of his train.
with Joseph Kline and an Englishman, he over-
took, on the John Day river, the Warren company,
who had just been attacked and robbed by the
Indians, being even stripped of their clothing.
traded his own garments to the Indians for provi-
sions for this destitute band, and came on with
them to The Dalles, having not a cent of money at
the time of his arrival.
He
Soon after reaching the Willamette valley, the
Cayuse war broke out; and he enrolled his name as
one of the volunteers to avenge the massacre of the
missionaries. He was second lieutenant of the
company of which H. A. G. Lee was captain.
In 1848 he went to California for gold, leaving
his threshing machine standing in the field in his
haste to be off. He was in the rich mnines of Feather
river, and subsequently was one of the discoverers
of the precious metal on Scott river. The camps at
Yreka and on Josephine and Congreve creeks were
also familiar with his figure; and in 1851 he brought
from the Willamette valley a band of cattle to fur-
nish beef at Jacksonville. An attack upon immi-
grants at Bloody creek in 1852 moved him to collect
a force of miners and go to the scene; and the work
of this war was followed the next year by an active
part in quelling the outbreak in the Rogue river
valley. As colonel of two battalions, he conducted
the campaign with the vigor and ability of an
experienced commander. In the same year he was
married at Jacksonville to Miss Elizabeth Hapwood.
In the treaty of 1853, General Ross acted as inter-
preter, being well known by the Indians; although
officially Colonel Nesmith held the position. In the
harder struggle of 1855, he took a leading and
decisive part.
He was also elected in that year to
fill the place left vacant in the Oregon legislature
by the removal of Doctor Cleveland, the member of
the legislature from Jackson county.
Later in the history of our state, General Ross
was equally influential, having been one of the
organizers of the Oregon & California Railroad
Company (1866-67). In 1872 he was appointed,
by Governor Grover, brigadier-general of Oregon
volunteers, in command of the First Brigade.
During the Modoc war he took command of the
troops in the field, and participated in the engage-
ments. In 1878 he was elected Representative of
Jackson county, and was appointed chairman of the
military committee. He was also a member of the
investigating committee to examine the records of
the preceding administration.
His active mind has been clouded in recent years.
by disease; but his valuable services still operate in
the texture of our society.
ADAM B. ROTHRACK, SR. This representa-
tive citizen of the most progressive class in the Inland
Empire was born in North Carolina in 1816. In
1839 he went out to the wild lands of Illinois,
taking his wife and one child, and remaining until
his removal to Iowa in 1863. Two years later he
brought his family and effects across the plains to
Oregon, and for three years engaged in agriculture
in Marion county. In 1868 he made his final move
to Umatilla county, developing an immense band of
cattle; but, like many others, as he found the range
becoming short, he turned his attention to wheat-
growing, and has thereby become one of the most
successful grain-raisers in Umatilla county, whose
northern portion is supposed to be the best in the
world in that line. His area of two hundred and
fifty acres, sown this year, which will return a total
of seventy-five hundred bushels, and upon which
he will realize at least twenty-five cents per bushel,
net, indicates somewhat the safe profits of wheat
culture.
With a liberal spirit worthy of emulation, Mr.
Rothrack has made a home for his family at Weston
for the sake of educating his children at the excel-
lent normal school of that place, although he still
personally superintends his farm. Being of German
extraction, he has recently made a visit to the old
family home, where he has a brother who is a
pastor in the Lutheran church. The climate of our
state still preserves him in hale age; and he is held



P.A.WORTHINGTON,
WESTON, OR.
UN
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
543
in high esteem by the entire circle of his acquaint-
ances, and greatly enjoys life with his five children
and nineteen grandchildren.
L. L. ROWLAND, M. D.-L. L.. Rowland,
M. D., LL. D., F. R. S., was born at Nashville,
Tennessee, September 17, 1831, and came with his
father, Judge Jeremiah Rowland, across the plains
to Oregon in 1844. He dutifully remained and
helped at home on the old Donation land claim,
North Yamhill, until the day he was twenty-one,
when he entered the district school with the ambition
and hope of finally finishing, if possible, a full class-
ical course of education in some Eastern university.
By working somewhat successfully in the California.
gold mines in 1849 and 1851, giving his father for
his time half the product of his mining labors, and
by investing the remaining half in the cheap Mexi-
can cattle of that day, he acquired the necessary
means, for the most part, to take him through col-
lege. Having qualified himself as best he could in
the schools of the country, supplemented by private
instruction, for matriculation, as ordinarily required
by our universities, he left Lafayette for the East.
February 8, 1853, aboard the little steamer that first
plied the Upper Willamette and Yamhill rivers,
proceeding without other than the usual delays inci-
dent to travels at that early day, via San Francisco,
Panama, Havana and New York, and arriving two
months afterwards at his destination. He was the
first youth of the new and distant territory, it is said,
to take the prescribed course of instruction leading up
to the degrees of A. B. and A. M. Traveling sub-
sequently in nearly every state and territory in the
Union, and teaching in some of the best schools.
(meanwhile studying medicine), he was married in
Marivin, Alabama, November 18, 1859, to Miss
Emma J. Sanders, who was born May 1, 1839, and
was educated in Franklin College, Tennessee. She
bore him five children, only one of whom, however,
Levia, now Mrs. Jay C. Smith, survived childhood.
For many years he was among the foremost in
educational work, having as a teacher occupied
a teacher occupied
some of the most responsible positions in the country,
and having as county school superintendent organ-
ized and conducted, in 1860, the first teachers' insti-
tute in the state. He also served as a member of
the state board of examination, and filled for four
years, from 1874 to 1878, the office of state superin-
tendent of public instruction, the first person
elected to that office.
Although he graduated in a theological school,
and was ordained a minister in the Christian church,
serving in some of the highest and most responsible
positions under the state and national associations,
and filling for seven years the pastorate of the Chris-
tian church in Salem; yet he never deemed it his
duty to confine his labors at any time exclusively to
the ministry. His many-sided character and versa-
tility of taste fitted him acceptably for many voca-
tions. The profession of medicine, however, has
always commanded his best energies. He spared
neither pains nor money in his thorough qualification
by careful study in the best universities and hospitals
in both America and Europe for the best work in his
professions; and he constantly keeps abreast with the
advances of science by his many valuable society
relations, several of which were conferred upon him
during his sojourn in the Old World. His profes-
sional brethren have often honored him with the
highest marks of confidence.
Doctor Rowland was one of the organizing mem-
bers of the Oregon State Medical Society in 1874,
filling subsequently many of its important offices,
including that of the presidency. He was several
times elected by societies in which he held member-
ship as a representative to the American Medical
Association. In 1879 he attended the Amsterdam
(Holland) International Medical Association, as a
representative of the Medical Department of the
Willamette University, of whose faculty he was for
a time dean, for several years secretary, and for eight
years professor of physiology and microscopy. He
is now engaged in the practice of medicine in Salem,
Oregon, where he is lecturer on hygiene in the Wil-
lamette University, physician to the Oregon State
School for the Blind, emeritus professor of physiology
and microscopy in the Medical Department of the
Willamette University, and president of the State
Insurance Company, of which he was one of the
organizing members.
ROBERT D. RUCKMAN.-Mr. Ruckman was
born on a farm in Iowa in 1843, and received a com-
mon-school education. At the age of twenty he
leased a neighboring farm and conducted it till
1870, when he engaged in the mercantile business.
In 1872 he crossed the plains to the Grande Ronde
valley, Oregon, bringing with him a few fine horses.
He purchased a farm on what is locally known as
the Sand Ridge, and also secured and developed a
band of cattle. In 1885 he enlarged his business by
taking an interest in the Victor Roller Mills of Sum-
merville, of which he is the present business manager.
He resides with his family on his farm three miles
southeast of Summerville, Oregon. Besides other
stock he keeps a handsome herd of imported thor-
oughbred shorthorn Durham cattle, a breed which
is now the general favorite in the Pacific Northwest,
and which commands almost fabulous prices. He
owns over eight hundred acres of rich, level land,
and in the parlance of this day is "well-to-do.”
In Iowa in 1866 he married Miss Emma S. Coen
of Ohio. Their one son, Elbridge H. Ruckman, is
now a resident of Union county. The mother died
in 1867, when this son was four months old. In
Union county in 1881 Mr. Ruckman married Mrs.
Martha J. Mitchel, née Neville, a native of Iowa.
He has borne an honorable part in public affairs,
having been elected to the state legislature from
Union county in 1876.
JOHN O. RUDENE.This owner of a very
productive farm two miles from La Conner, Wash-
ington, on the Swinomish flat, whose name appears
above, is a native of Sweden, having been born there
in 1850.
At the age of twenty-three he came to
America, locating in Iowa, until his removal across
the continent to the Pacific coast in 1876. He selected
a farm near La Conner, buying one hundred and
eighty-one acres, to which he has since added two
hundred. This fine body of land he has reclaimed
36
544
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
from its original wild growth, and has reduced to
cultivation. The deep, fine alluvium is astonishingly
prolific.
Oats and barley may be depended upon for
from seventy to eighty bushels per acre; and an
average of ninety-five bushels for a field of eighty
acres has been obtained. Hay yields four tons, and
is a profitable crop, usually selling for from ten to
twenty dollars. Fruit, particularly the hardier kinds,
such as apples, yield too heavily for the strength of
the trees. Cabbages and root crops are immense.
This now productive place was entirely raw when
its present owner first saw it, not a claim having
been taken upon the section. His success in making
it productive shows something of the future lying
in wait for the thousands of farms like it to be made
on the coast side of the mountains.
Mrs. Rudene, Bessie J., a daughter of W. Wallace,
the well-known pioneer, came with her parents to
Oregon in 1845, and in 1850 located with them at
Olympia, removing the next year to Whidby Island,
and becoming one of the first residents of that
delightful region. Her three children by a former
marriage, William, Arthur and Nellie M. Cornelius,
live on the farm, the first being married. Mr. Rudene
was elected county commissioner in 1886, and bears
a full part in all public enterprises. He has great
hopes for the future of that region.
HENRY RUST.-This gentleman, who has a
great reputation for energy, was born in Germany in
1835. He came to America in 1860, and almost
immediately entered the Union army. He fought
as a private in the battle of Bull Run, and was in
the subsequent campaigns before Richmond, and in
the severe experiences of the peninsula. Being
severely wounded in 1862, he took a long furlough,
yet re-entered the service and became a captain in
the commissary department. After the war he went
to Virginia City, Montana, mining, and in 1867 came
to Clarksville, Baker county, Oregon, and established
the first brewery. After two years of this business,
he took a tour for his health to South America, and
upon his return took up a more stable life, marry-
ing, and also erecting the Pacific Brewery at Baker
City in 1870. This was early times for that place;
and there were then but some eight hundred inhab-
itants, and but one substantial building in the city.
Since coming there Mr. Rust has occupied a promi-
nent position on the city council, having been presi-
dent of the board in 1884. He is a Republican in
politics, and a prominent member of the Grand
Army of the Republic.
Among his efforts calculated to benefit the county
is his artesian well sunk through gravel, clay, sand
and sandstone at a cost of some five thousand dol-
lars, being the first in Eastern Oregon. The chief
resource of that place is believed by our subject to
consist in its great tributary mines; and a popula-
tion of ten thousand is confidently expected soon.
He re-
A. W. RYNEARSON.- Mr. Rynearson, one of
the most substantial fruit-growers of the Grande
Ronde, was born in Pennsylvania in 1830.
ceived an academic education at McEwansville
Academy, and at the age of eighteen sought a busi-
ness field at La Porte, Indiana.
In 1852 he made the journey across the plains to
Oregon, living first at Butteville, in Marion county.
Ten years later he sought a new location, selecting
the Grande Ronde as the most eligible point, and
locating near La Grande. He has brought his farm
to high cultivation, having an orchard of eight
hundred trees, with small fruit likewise. He has
successfully cultivated hops for three years.
In 1868 he was married to Miss Mollie M. Sharp
of La Porte, Indiana; and they have a family of
three girls. In public affairs Mr. Rynearson has a
well-recognized position as leader, and now occupies
the position of clerk of Oro Dell School District.
During the Union trouble of 1856, he was in the
Rogue river valley, and did his part to restore or-
der.
JOHN AND WILLIAM RYNEARSON.
These most fraternal brothers were born in Pennsyl-
vania. They were brought up on a farm and re-
ceived a common-school education. In 1848 the
parents moved to Indiana, where the young men
learned the blacksmith trade, and worked at that
business in connection with farming until 1865,
when they crossed the plains to Oregon, locating in
Grande Ronde valley near La Grande, and engaging
in farming and stock-raising,- paying twelve and a
half cents a pound for seed wheat to commence with.
They now own three hundred and eighty acres of
fine land, good buildings, a fine orchard, cattle and
horses, and are contented and prosperous.
In 1876 they visited the Centennial Exposition
and their own old home. William took a little hand
in the Bannack war of 1878, and had a number of
thrilling experiences. On one occasion he, with
seven other men and an Indian scout, unwittingly
rode among twenty-seven Indians who were con-
cealed in the brush; and he is still congratulating
himself on having his scalp left. They were, of
course, at the mercy of the savages; and there is a
mystery connected with the fact that they were not
fired upon.
In 1880 Mr. William Rynearson married Miss
Ella Tall of Grande Ronde; and a family is spring-
ing up around him. The brothers have a high
reputation as hunters, having been very successful
in taking deer, elk and bear in the Blue Mountains
around their home during the sixties and early
seventies.
ISHAM E. SALING. The gentleman whose
name appears above is the leading merchant in the
thriving city of Weston, Oregon. He came to his
position by that firm and steady application to busi-
ness which is everywhere the guaranty of success.
Mr. Saling is a native of Monroe county, Mis-
souri, and was born in 1830. In 1852 he came to
Oregon across the plains. At Salmon Falls on the
Snake he exchanged his oxen for horses, packing in
from that point to the Jacksonville mines, and re-
maining in that section until 1855. Coming to
Yamhill county he engaged in farming until 1859,
when he crossed with his stock into the Walla
Walla country. The hard winter of 1863 starving
to death many of his cattle, he decided to confine
himself to farming. This occupation he followed
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
545
until 1874, being among the first to prove the fer-
tility of the general upland soil.
In that year he established himself at Weston
in the merchandise business, and is now head
of the largest business in the county. His
other interests are also large. He owns a half
interest in the brick hotel, three brick stores, and
also the tract known as Saling's Addition, and a
farm of two hundred and thirty acres near by. With
his two sons he has three hundred head of horses
and cattle on a place near the Columbia in Wash-
ington; and he is also much occupied there with
operations in farming.
He was married in 1856 to Miss Melinda Morton
of McMinnville. They have eight children. The
eldest daughters are now married, and are conduct-
ing homes of their own. His sons are in business.
The labors of Mr. Saling and his compeers have
even yet but slightly lifted the curtain of the future
of the valley of the Columbia and its boundless
possibilities. From this starting point, however,
for him, his children, as well as for many others,
has begun a new world.
C. A. SANDER.— This is one of those redoubt-
able men from Prussia who have helped to make
our country great. He was born in 1840. At the
age of twenty-five he came to America. He first
engaged in milling in Florida. He followed the
same business in New York and Kansas. In 1868
he was in Arizona at work in the quartz mines for
about fifteen months. He was next prospecting in
British Columbia in the Peace river country. He
then came down to The Dalles in Oregon, and
worked a winter at milling, from which point he
came to Kittitass county and located permanently
on the ground where he now has a ranch and mill.
For the first seven years after coming thither, Mr.
Sander took whatever work came to hand and which
promised a living, while he was accumulating means
to build a home and to establish his mill.
owns eight hundred acres of the very best land in
the county, has his mill property free from incum-
brances, and also enjoys his own residence and ele-
gant property in Ellensburgh, Washington. The
mill of which we speak has a capacity of seventy-five
barrels per day, and now uses the roller process.
More than half of his ranch is under cultivation, and
has been made very handsome.
He now,
Mr. Sander is enterprising and industrious, always
ready to advance the general interests of the terri-
tory and of his county in particular; and he has
done much already to open up and stimulate trade
in Ellensburgh. He was married to Miss Olive Clem-
mens of Yakima county in 1881, and has now a
family of three children, one boy and two girls.
We hear much said about the necessity of "capi-
tal." The career of the gentleman before us shows
that the capital which we most need is brawny
hands, clear heads and honest hearts. These will
create the other kind.
HON. WILLIAM SAVAGE.—This pioneer of
1845, one of the most successful men of Polk county,
was born at Mexico, New York, in 1826. He was
left an orphan at the age of five, and when sixteen
went to Ohio, and three years later joined Colonel
Taylor's party for Oregon. His first work was taking
the Colonel's stock by water-the Ohio and Missouri
rivers to St. Louis, and driving them thence to In-
dependence. Perhaps this early training in the
handling of livestock gave him a taste for the work.
At least he has been in that business more or less
ever since.
The usual organization, reorganization and disor-
ganization took place on the plains. Perhaps the
question of observing the Sabbath produced as many
differences as any. Some desired to stop that day
for rest and worship; while others spent such days
of recuperation in card-playing or hunting or wash-
ing. By the time the Rocky Mountains were crossed,
each party was going by itself; although one of the
travelers named Welch was considered the captain-
general; and the several companies kept up some
form of taking the lead with good grass and break-
ing the road, and afterwards the rear with poorer
grass but a smoother track. At Fort Hall many of
their companions in toils turned off to California;
and some most unfortunately essayed to reach the
Willamette valley by the Southern Oregon or Ap-
plegate route.
Arriving at The Dalles September 27th, young
Savage found passage on a bateau to Linnton, and,
subsequently, employment in navigating the craft
for the benefit of other immigrants,-a job lasting
till December. Thereupon he repaired to Oregon
City, and took the responsibility of driving Mr.
Ramage's cattle thence to Yamhill. This proved a
severe task. Driving the animals across the Tuala-
tin one evening for the sake of better feed, the
stream rose during the night under a heavy rain
prevailing, which rendered it unfordable. Under-
taking to swim his band back, they took refuge on
an island in midstream, and refused to move. The
young man's only recourse was to wade out to them,
up to his armpits in snow-cold water, and, seizing
each one by the horns, forcibly dislodge the crea-
tures. The wetting, and no dry clothes on hand,
was not the best part of the adventure.
During the succeeding winter, work was obtained.
at Hawn's mill in Moses' valley, and the next sea-
son with Captain Hembree. A look for lands
and homes in the Umpqua valley was undertaken.
No white man, except Hudson's Bay trappers in the
Umpqua, was found south of Mary's river; and the
sites of what are now cities were made without
offense their untented camp ground. This region
was far too lonely, despite its beauty, for living; and
Savage returned to the Yamhill. In 1848 he drove
a band of beef cattle across the Cascades from the
Willamette to The Dalles, disposing of them to the
soldiers then there. Upon this trip he and his com-
rades were without flour the greater part of the
time, and lived wholly upon beef,—not so bad a
fare.
He made the customary trip to California in 1849,
but met with nothing but sickness, and, returning
in 1850, located his Donation claim near Dallas,
where he now lives. There he began farming and
stock-raising, and has continued the business up to
the present time, swelling it to quite large propor-
tions. In 1871 he brought twenty-one hundred
546
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
❤
head of cattle from Texas to Burro creek on the
Snake river, disposing of a part of them at once and
the rest to a beef contractor for the Portland market.
Since 1882 he has revived this business, and has
sold more than a hundred thousand dollars' worth
of animals. He has a stock ranch of his own east
of the Cascade Mountains, and at Dallas also raises
fine stock on his farm. He also conducts a banking
business there. In 1880 he was elected state rep-
resentative from Polk county, and filled his term to
the satisfaction of all.
He was married early in the fifties' to Miss Sarah
Brown, one of the Oregon girls of the old time, and
has reared a family of six sons and two daughters.
Four of the sons are in the stock business in Eastern
Oregon. He was married secondly in 1883 to Mrs.
Mary C. Lady, and has by her two children.
CONRAD G. SAYLOR.— Among the pioneers
to the Pacific Northwest, and especially to the
classic shades" of Yamhill county, Oregon, none
enjoyed a greater measure of esteem than the gen-
tleman whose name is the title to this memoir.
He
was born in Martinsville, Indiana, October 6, 1818,
and in that state resided until he was twenty-two
years of age, when he came west to Iowa. In the
latter state he learned the brickmaking and brick-
laying trades, which he followed in various sections,
first as employé, then as contractor and builder.
Among the numerous buildings which were con-
structed under his supervision, and which attest his
skill as a master mechanic, might be named the
county courthouse at Council Bluffs, Iowa, which
has been for forty years the special pride of the citi-
zens of that place. He was united in marriage to
Miss Mary A. Black at Iowaville, November 3, 1842,
the fruits of their union being five children, three of
whom survive.
Influenced by the reports concerning the Pacific
Northwest, he resolved in 1852 to start for the Occi-
dent, beginning the journey in the spring of that
year. Among the many who left their Eastern
homes for far-off Oregon, there are but few whose
experience on the plains was much more fraught
with sadness than his. The family, at starting, was
unbroken save by the death of a son prior thereto;
but on reaching Elm creek, a small tributary of the
Platte river, the affectionate wife and mother was
suddenly stricken with cholera, which was raging
to an alarming extent that year, and was quickly
called from earth, leaving her husband with four
small children dependent upon him, the youngest of
whom, a daughter, being only eighteen months old.
In October, after a wearisome, sorrowful and danger-
ous journey of six months, the train reached The
Dalles. Learning there that the road over the Cas-
cades was impassable for vehicles, he sent his horses
by trail to Vancouver in the care of his oldest son.
The only route by which he could convey his buggy
to his destination was by water; and, constructing a
raft, he placed it thereon and towed it along behind
an Indian canoe, in which he and the two younger
sons embarked.
His little daughter was left behind in the custody
of a lady who had kindly consented to take care of
her until her arrival at Portland. That was the last
he saw of his babe; for on her way down the river
she took sick, and, in spite of the motherly atten-
tion and solicitude of the lady who had her in charge,
her spirit passed away. Her remains were interred
near Hood River. The winter of 1852 was spent in
Portland; and in the succeeding spring he removed
to Puget Sound, locating at Olympia, where he en-
gaged in making brick until 1854. On May 22d of
that year he was again married, this time to Matilda
J., eldest daughter of Asher Sargent of Grand
Mound Prairie, a pioneer of 1849. By this union
three sons were born. After a brief stay in Olympia
they removed to a farm which he had purchased on
Rock Prairie, some eight miles away.
On the breaking out of the Indian war in the fol-
lowing spring, he was compelled to abandon his
home and seek protection for his family in a common
center to all the settlers in that vicinity. The point
selected was on Grand Mound Prairie; and there
they erected a stockade and blockhouses, naming
their fort after Captain Hennis. He served as a
volunteer in Company F until the fall of 1856, when
he received his discharge, after which he removed
again to the Willamette valley, locating at McMinn-
ville, Oregon, where he permanently resided until
his death. At that time but little of the present city
was visible, the old flouring mill, the old college
building and half a dozen houses constituting its
extent. Soon after his arrival, he opened a general
merchandise store, the pioneer one, and in connec-
tion therewith carried on brickmaking. He followed
such avocation until 1861, when he disposed of his
mercantile business and left for the Oro Fino mines.
On arriving at Walla Walla, adverse reports reached
him concerning the stability of the new El Dorado;
and he retraced his steps, and soon after, with A.
W. Sargent as partner, again engaged in merchan-
dising. This he followed until 1864, when he retired
with a competency and devoted the balance of his
days to its management, and in taking his ease in
the comfortable home he had erected.
Though at various times solicited to accept politi-
cal preferment, he always refused to be a candidate
for office. Notwithstanding this, he was ever an
active and earnest supporter of the Republican party,
to which he allied himself on the breaking out of
the Rebellion; and he stood ready to preserve the
loyalty of Oregon to the Union at the risk of his
life, should an outbreak be made by those who sym-
pathized with the South. Any enterprise which lent
strength and stability to the material welfare of his
adopted home found in him a friend. To the edu-
cational interests of the community he was always
a liberal patron, contributing by donation, at various
times, for the benefit of the college. In early man-
hood he identified himself with the Church, and
through life remained a consistent and upright be-
liever in the teachings of the Master, carrying his
profession into his every-day walk in life and prac-.
ticing what he preached. He was accustomed to
look upon the bright side of life, and imparted the
sunshine of good cheer to those about him. Whole-
souled, genial and courteous, he gained friends at
every turn. All in all, his career was above and
beyond question a model for the youth and a guide
for the adult.

OF
(ND
11
RESIDENCE OF J. M. NEWMAN,
NEAR ELLENSBURGH, W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
547
At the age of twenty-five he became a member of
the Masonic brotherhood; and his record in that
order for observance of its teachings and principles
was excelled by none. In recognition of his worth
and integrity, the lodge established in McMinnville,
of which he was a charter member, kept him in the
responsible position of treasurer for many years.
In 1884 his health being on the decline, and think-
ing an extended trip to the East might be beneficial,
he left for the scenes of his childhood. But the trip
did not have the desired result; and soon after his
return it became apparent that the end was fast ap-
proaching, as a dropsical affection of the heart had
made its appearance. He gradually became worse;
and on September 13th of that year he breathed his
last. He realized his condition throughout his ill-
ness, and died surrounded by those he loved, and
conscious to the moment when the wing of the wait-
ing angel wafted the soul away. The funeral dis-
course was delivered at the Christian church, of
which denomination he had been for years an earnest
and consistent worker. His burial was conducted
under the auspices of the Masonic fraternity, the
members of which came from far and near to pay
their farewell tribute to an honored brother.
In "the undiscovered country, from whose bourn
no traveler returns," he was soon joined by his wife,
she dying January 23, 1886; and when the large con-
course, of the people of her acquaintance, gathered
around the vault beside the resting-place of her hus-
band, they realized that in her demise they had lost
a valued friend, felt the sweet influences of her kind
and gentle counsel, and gathered new inspiration
from memories coming up from the past like the
fragrant perfume of beautiful flowers. The plainest
truth is at once her highest eulogy, and the sincerest
tribute that can be offered to her memory. Her
character was without a blemish; and in every re-
lation, as a daughter, wife, mother, at home, as a
member of the church, and in society at large, she
displayed the highest qualities of a christian woman-
hood. An elegant, costly monument marks the
place of entombment of these departed pioneers,
having been erected to their memory by their chil-
dren. The family they left behind consists of six
sons, all of whom are grown to manhood, and are
occupying respectable positions in life.
DAVID J. SCHNEBLY.-Among all the edi-
tors whose lives are sketched in this volume, Mr.
Schnebly yields to none the priority, since in 1850 he
was conducting the only newspaper then in Oregon.
He was born near Hagerstown, Maryland, in
1818, and from that state drew the physical com-
pleteness and mental energy for which her people
have been distinguished. As a youth of seventeen
he removed with his parents to Illinois, but there
was greatly afflicted by the loss of his father by
death. In 1840 he returned to his native state in
order to pursue a course of literary study, and spent
some years thereafter at Marshall College.
In 1850 he felt the impulse to give his life to the
establishment of a new state on the Pacific coast, and
arriving in Oregon found scope for his native abili-
ties and for his literary acquirements as editor of
the Spectator. That was the first paper established
He
on the Pacific coast, and the only one published
in Oregon in 1850. In the year following Mr.
Schnebly, having gained the confidence of the peo-
ple, and being well assured by all of his fitness for
the position of publisher and censor of the ideas.
and opinions of the people of the state, purchased
the establishment, and was editor and proprietor
until 1854. Reference to the old files of that jour-
nal show the success that attended his efforts.
sold out, however, in the latter year, to W. L.
Adams, M. D., now of Hood River, who changed the
name to the Argus. In the meantime Mr. Schnebly
had been married to Miss Margaret Painter, of Linn
City. Seven children have been born to them, of
whom Philip H., Charles P. and C. Jean are liv-
ing. The eldest daughter, Mary V., the wife of Mr.
F. F. Adams, died in 1887 at San Diego, California.
After leaving the Spectator, Mr. Schnebly assumed
the arduous labors of rancher, taking a Donation
claim of six hundred and forty acres, which, how-
ever, he disposed of in 1860 and gathered a band
of cattle to begin in the stock business in the Walla
Walla valley. He drove thither a large herd; but
the winter following was that terribly severe season
which old pioneers still remember with a shiver; and
he suffered the loss of all except two horses. By this
disaster he was financially stranded, but in a certain
hopeless way, feeling that there was more use in
action of some kind than passive acquiescence,
bought on credit six yoke of oxen and a wagon,
and began freighting, employing as one of his
teamsters Ed. Ross, who subsequently became the
talented editor of the Walla Walla Union. Success
followed this endeavor; and in 1865 he went up
north to the Spokane river, and built a toll bridge
nine miles above the Falls. Meeting with a good
sale of this property, he returned to Walla Walla,
and in 1870 erected the flouring mill which is now
owned by Dement Bros. By the failure of fortune
in other respects, this enterprise proved a disaster;
and he was again forced to the foot of the financial
ladder.
With good courage and faith in a new country,
he came in 1872 to the Kittitass valley and engaged
for several years in farming. In 1883 the Kittitass
Localizer was established at Ellensburgh, Wash-
ington Territory, with himself as editor and J. M.
Adams as proprietor; but within eleven weeks he
became sole proprietor and publisher, and has
remained such to the present time. In this field
Mr. Schnebly finds scope for his still unwasted
vigor, and for his virile ideas. Although the senior
in point of reckoning as pioneer, and also in years,
of all the editors on the coast, he is still hale and
active at seventy-one. Blest with vigorous health,
and retaining to a marked degree his physical powers,
he belies his years by the freshness of his counte-
nance and the activity of his movements. The
facility of his pen and the strength of his views
are well known to the public; and his paper is also
widely read and much sought after for its well-filled
local columns.
active at seventy-one.
FREDERICK D. SCHNEBLY.- Our subject
was born in Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1832, and
was educated in the Franklin and Marshall College
548
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In 1854 he started for
California by way of Nicaragua. In passing up the
Pacific, the steamer, Star of the West, on which he
had taken passage, took fire; but the horrors of a
burning-ship tragedy were avoided by the timely
and effective labors of the crew and passengers.
After stopping for a time in San Francisco, he
visited the Sandwich Islands, but, returning to the
Golden state, spent two unsuccessful years in mining.
While there, in 1855, he witnessed a bloody pitched
battle between several hundred Kong Kong China-
men and an equal number of their Canton country-
men. Later he became a trader and miner in Siski-
you county, but left that region for the new gold
fields of the Frazer river. After much journeying,
he settled where Dayton, Washington, now stands.
With one exception, he was the first to build a busi-
ness house there. This property he sold, and wan-
dered from camp to camp among the mountains of
Idaho and Montana.
In 1871 he reached Walla Walla, and in 1872 10-
cated a farm in the Kittitass valley near Ellensburgh,
Washington Territory. In 1873 he started the first
agricultural implement establishment in Yakima
county, representing Hawley, Dodd & Co., and
since 1855 continued the same business for Knapp,
Burrell & Co. Mr. Schnebly's political record is
that of a Democrat; and in 1878 he was elected
sheriff of Yakima county by a majority of one hun-
dred and fifty out of a total vote of about six hun-
dred. Two years later he became his own successor
by a majority of fourteen, with two opponents in
the field. During the years of his administration,
it was a time when many desperate and lawless
characters had located, rendering a position of
sheriff, whose duty it often was to arrest them, an
unenviable one, and a position calling for the exer-
cise of coolness, judgment and nerve, which the
subject of this sketch possessed in a marked degree.
Mr. Schnebly was one of the party of five from the
Kittitass valley who went as a volunteer into Chief
Moses country to capture the Indians who had mas-
sacred the Perkins family.
Later he hanged three
of those who were captured. One of them was killed
by his jailor, whom the prisoners attacked in an at-
tempt to escape.
GEO. F. SCHORR.-- The Northwest Tribune is
the oldest newspaper in Eastern Washington north
of the Snake river, having been established at Col-
fax in 1879. It was moved to Cheney in 1883, and
to Spokane Falls in 1886. It gives its readers a full
telegraphic summary of public events, and has a
special department devoted to agriculture and stock-
raising, thus making it of great value to the farm-
ing population, among whom it enjoys a large cir-
culation. It avoids the stale old party cries and
affiliations, giving the news, valuable information,
and advocates right and justice without fear or
favor. It is a success financially, as well as from a
literary point of view.
Its editor, Mr. Schorr, is from California, having
been born in that sunny state in 1856, and having
lived upon his father's farm in the Sacramento val-
ley until he was eighteen, when he went to the Bay
city and learned the printer's trade. To qualify
himself for the best work, he entered the college of
letters at the State University at Berkeley. He dis-
tinguished himself there in the literary societies,
and as editor of a college paper. Receiving the
degree of Bachelor of Arts, he taught school with
great acceptance in Butte and Kern counties, and
in 1884 came to Cheney, Washington Territory,
securing the chief position on the Tribune, and
adding to it its present fame and value.
In 1885 he took a trip to California, marrying
Miss Carrie Bried, daughter of Rev. W. W. Bried,
a pioneer minister in the state. This amiable and
accomplished young lady was a classmate of his
at the University. At Spokane Falls, Washington,
Mr. Schorr occupies a position of influence which is
second to none, and which he uses wisely and con-
scientiously.
JOHN TUCKER SCOTT.- Perhaps there is
no feature in which American life has become more
noticeable than in the development of influential
families. Without titles to
to distinguish those
of distinguished ancestry, we nevertheless have
many among our citizens whose sirnames are pa-
tents of ability, if not of legal nobility. In the
older communities of the Atlantic states, the Chases,
Fields or Adamses illustrate this fact; and the
younger West has examples quite as marked. With-
out instituting comparisons, and only intending
those of unusual force or efficiency, we shall not
miss the general verdict of the people of our state
in naming the family of J. T. Scott as one of these.
All the members of his family have been persons
of marked capacity; and the journalistic field of
the Northwest has been well-nigh dominated by
some of its individuals. Mr. Scott was himself a
very marked man, the very ideal of a Western pio-
neer. Born in Kentucky in 1809, he was, almost
from the day of his birth, on the advance wave of
Western immigration. As the name implies, his
ancestry was Scotch, the original pioneer coming
from Scotland about the year 1755, and ultimately
settling in North Carolina. On the side of his
mother the ancestry was from an old family of
Pennsylvania; and the severity of those times will
be indicated by the fact that in her infancy she
lost both parents by the violence of Indian savages.
It was about 1798 that the family removed to
Washington county, Kentucky, and became there-
fore among the first after the Revolutionary war to
occupy for the American nation the western slopes
of the Appalachian Mountains. The region was
scarcely well under control of the Whites before a
further removal was made in 1824 to the wilder-
ness of Illinois, and a new home made in Tazewell
county on the Illinois river. Remarkable as it may
now seem, these first immigrants chose the timber
lands by the side of the river, grubbing out fields
for cultivation, while the immense prairies lay in
their wanton luxuriance. Yet when we consider
the value of fuel and the logs for building, and the
incredible toughness of the prairie sod, which their
slight plows and insufficient teams could not break,
their selection will not seem unreasonable.
John Tucker Scott grew to manhood, developing a
Herculean frame, and an ambition for work and
There
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
549
progress which even his iron muscles could not
support. There he made his own home, marrying
Miss Anna Roloefson of Kentucky, herself a pio-
neer, and a woman of very superior intellect. There
were ten children born to them on that Western
farm, two of whom died and were buried there.
The difficulties and hardships of early life in Illi-
nois surpass anything ever experienced in Oregon;
and, long before reaching middle life, Mr. Scott's
health was much impaired by excessive labor.
felt that he must make up for the lack of proper im-
plements by his own greater exertions, and was ac-
customed even to handle sawlogs by his own per-
sonal strength. He opened a farm and operated a
sawmill.
He
In 1852, however, when the bulk of the labor of
settlement was passed, he felt again that irresistible
migratory impulse to go west even to the Pacific.
In this way only was it possible for him to work
out his superabundant mental and moral vigor, and
to satisfy his ideality. The crossing of the plains
was undertaken in that year when the cholera was
abroad; and the wife and mother fell a victim to
the scourge. Her death was an irreparable loss,
and has never ceased to be mourned by her chil-
dren. The hazards of a trip across the plains re-
sembled rather those of a military expedition than
the incidents of modern travel. The entire fortune
of the family was in the outfit; and, when the last
day's drive was finished, animals, wagons, provis-
ions, and the strength of the travelers themselves,
were exhausted.
Beginning anew with good resolution, notwith-
standing losses and trials, Mr. Scott made his first
stoppage in Yamhill county, but a year later went
to the Puget Sound country near Olympia. There
he passed through the perils of the Indian war, re-
peating many of the experiences of the old Ken-
tucky life. He saw plainly enough the great future
of that region; but the development of it lingered a
quarter of a century too late for him. In the mean-
time his large family was growing up; and he would
not deprive them of educational advantages. Con-
sequently, he removed to Washington county, Ore-
gon, in 1859, in order to be near Pacific University.
He occupied the old place of Joseph Gale, and the
next year secured town property and removed to
Forest Grove. At that beautiful village he remained
until his death in September, 1880. The score of
years spent there were quiet and happy, being
passed very largely in intellectual recreations, in
attendance upon, and deep interest in, the educa-
tional and literary and religious life of the place,
and in the performance of neighborly offices. He
had married Mrs. Ruth Eckler Stevenson; and her
two sons and his own two children born of that
union were given the best of educational advantages.
Such business operations as he could conduct in
a small town aside from the lines of traffic were
carried on; and at the time of his death his fortune
was sufficient for the necessities of his family.
He
In person he was tall, powerful and erect, with
immense features bold and strongly carved.
was ever a great thinker, and bore a brow deeply
marked with the lines of intellectuality. Morally
he was a man of earnest purposes and positive opin-
ions. He possessed deep religious convictions and
great courage, and was always ready for the further-
ance of educational and religious enterprises. His
feelings were invariably kindly and benevolent; and
never in his life was he engaged in a brawl. His
memory is a perpetual treasure to his family, and the
life he lived of lasting value to the state.
His son, H. W. Scott, for twenty-five years the
leading journalist of the Northwest, has made the
name a household word over the entire Northwest
coast, and within the limits of his influence is no
less familiarly known than Horace Greeley, whose old
Tribune became his early political pabulum. He
was the first graduate of Pacific University, receiv-
ing his degree in 1861; and he soon after began
the study of law, and was one of the most active
during the days of the war to conduct the enroll-
ment of men as subject to military duty. He soon
became editor of the Oregonian, and with the excep-
tion of a few years has continued with it, and is at
present, not only its editor-in-chief, but its controll-
ing stockholder. As the great and controlling jour-
nal, it has been subjected to severe criticism,
inspired partly by envy, and dictated partly by can-
did disagreement; yet its services have unquestion-
ably been as invaluable as its management has been
able and successful. As a steadfast and even pas-
sionate lover of the Union, and as a means of devel-
oping the Northwest, its services have been above
all price. The appreciation by the public of our
timber, mineral and agricultural wealth, and of our
rivers and harbors, and the early opening of the
whole country by railway lines, have been constant
objects held in view; and this earnest aim, with its
attendant exertions, so necessary to the state,
explain very clearly subsidiary courses pursued by
the Oregonian.
Mr. H. W. Scott is personally one of the few
learned men in our state. In the midst of all his
journalistic and business affairs, he has found time
for patient and systematic study of classic as well
as current literature and philosophy.
and philosophy. It is his
mental celerity and phenomenal memory which
enable him to indulge the tastes of the student, and
also to perform the work of a business man.
Mrs. Abagail S. Duniway is scarcely less known
as the first editor of the New Northwest, a paper which
she established for the purpose of carrying on the
contest for woman's suffrage in the Northwest.
Mrs. Kate Coburn enjoys a like reputation as editor
of the Evening Telegram. Mrs. M. F. Cook, wife
of the early resident of Lafayette, and Mrs. S. M.
Kelt of the same place, Mrs. H. L. McCord of
East Portland, and Mrs. R. E. Latourette of Oregon
City, and Charles of Portland, have taken responsible
and honorable positions in society. John, a youth
of great promise and ambition, died in 1860, leaving
his father and brothers and sisters well nigh heart-
broken. Mrs. M. A. Fearnside, a woman remark-
able for the moral beauty of her character, is also
deceased.
SEATTLE.-Without doubt this chief was the
most conspicuous member of that portion of his
→
550
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
race inhabiting Puget Sound. He was the ruler of
the Duwamish tribe from the time of the earliest
settlement of the territory to his death. He was
always the firm friend of the Whites, never heeding,
but to refuse, the frequent importunities of his
people to join the hostile bands. When taunted for
this as cowardice, he replied that when there was
cause for shedding blood they would find him on
the war-path night and day. In after years his
traducers expressed their gratification that his hand,
had not been stained with the blood of the Whites.
In personal appearance Seattle was short, spare,
round-shouldered, with a large head adorned with
masses of long, black hair. His dress was usually
neat and clean, consisting of shirt, pantaloons, and
blanket loosely thrown over his shoulder.
He com-
monly wore a high peaked hat of native manufact-
ure. The death of this good-hearted old man
occurred in 1866, at an unknown though doubtless
great age.
He was buried in accordance with the
rites of the Catholic church in a cemetery near his
village of "Old-man House." His grave is well
kept by his descendants, while all the early white.
settlers join with his own people in revering his
memory. As may be readily surmised, the name
of the Queen City of the Sound is derived from that
of this chief.
JAMES SEAVY.-This representative gentle-
man of Washington is, as we have noted in the case
of many of the leading citizens of that state, a
native of Maine, having been born at Thomaston,
of the old Pine-tree state, January 11, 1825. Receiv-
ing an ample practical education at the public
school and academy of his native town, he main-
tained himself during his early manhood by teach-
ing and farming.
In 1854 he undertook the labor, almost unheard
of in his community, of bringing his family by sea
to the Pacific coast, accomplishing the voyage around
Cape Horn in the bark W. T. Sayward, and reaching
San Francisco in September. In December of the
same year he came up the coast, finding a location
at Port Ludlow. He was book-keeper for the great
mill at that place, and was also sought for public
trusts, serving as county commissioner and as rep-
resentative from Jefferson county. In 1860 he changed
his residence to Port Townsend, a city well known
to him by reason of a short stay there previously as
teacher of the school. In that place he engaged in
mercantile business with Hon. L. B. Hastings.
In 1862 he was appointed postmaster, the duties
of that position gradually absorbing much of his
attention as the years went by; and he was retained
until 1879, thus filling one of the longest terms on
record. In 1862 he was also appointed clerk of the
district court, and with the exception of the years
included in the incumbency of Judge Dennison
served until 1887. In 1867 he was elected auditor
of Jefferson county, and was re-elected every two
years until his resignation in 1886. He was, how-
ever, nominated and placed in office in the year 1888,
and serves in that capacity at the present time. He
has been a thoroughgoing Republican since 1861,
and receives his preferments at the hands of the
Republican party. In all his public career for more
than thirty years he has maintained an unsullied
integrity, and has enjoyed the public confidence
and goodwill.
JOHN F. SEEBER.-Among the now quiet
farmers, business men and professional men whose
outward appearance and conversation give no hint
of stirring adventures and strange experiences, there
is frequently one in whom investigation may find a
witness to the most novel and thrilling scenes in our
early history. Walla Walla, Washington, is some-
what unusually favored with those ancient spirits of
the border, now among the most solid and unsensa-
tional of her citizens.
Among this number is John Seeber. His advent-
ures amid the wild life of the mountains would fill
a volume. Born in Fort Plain, New York, in 1837,
and moving by successive stops from there to Ohio,
and to Iowa, he found himself in 1856 in Jim Lane's
army in the Civil war of Kansas. After a short
experience in that premonitory gust to the tornado
of the great war, he went on to Salt Lake in 1858
with a regiment of United States infantry, acting as
herder of a band of cattle. Thereafter, for several
years, his life was spent in hunting, trapping and
scouting among the Indians, and in riding on the
pony express. In those situations he met with fre-
quent adventures, which in these "piping times
of peace seem hardly possible. Laramie, Salt
Lake, Henry's Fork, Brown's Hole, White River,
Port Neuf, Deer Lodge, Jacko Reservation, Jeffer-
son's Fork, Sun River Agency, Prickly Pear River,
and other of the wild resorts frequented by trappers,
hunters and Indians, became familiar places to the
now well-experienced mountaineer. In those places
he was often raided and robbed by the Indians, and
and still bears many scars to attest his customary
brushes with the redskins. In consequence of this
constant experience of Indian perfidy and violence,
Mr. Seeber came to hate them, as he says,
like a
rattlesnake." He is free to say, however, as to most
of like experiences and observation, that many out-
rages were committed by Whites fully equal in
atrocity to anything done by Indians.
He started
The second
company of
In September, 1862, Mr. Seeber came to Walla
Walla, and on the first night of his stay met his
usual experience of having the Indians steal his
horses. Then he went to driving an ox-team to
Wallula, at which latter place he spent the winter.
After that he went to Florence to mine.
on foot, with his blankets on his back.
day out from Lewiston he overtook a
miners, with whom he struck a league. Soon after
entering the mountains, a violent snowstorm attacked
them; and all their horses were starved to death.
Notwithstanding this backset, the resolute company
dragged their things by hand on improvised sleds,
at the rate of five miles a day, and finally reached
their destination.
In the fall Mr. Seeber returned to Walla Walla,
and there made his home. He was married to
Mrs. Joy, a native of Kentucky, and by her had
eight children, four boys and four girls. In 1880
he met with the irreparable loss of his faithful and in-
telligent wife.
He now lives with his children in a beautiful



CYRUS F. CLAPP,
PORT TOWNSEND,W.T.
UN
O
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
551
place in the suburbs of Walla Walla, an honored
and popular citizen. After his many years of wild
mountaineering, the restraints and conventionalities
of settled life seemed, as he says, at first irksome;
but he is now one of the most contented of men.
THE REV. JAMES R. W. SELLWOOD.—
The Reverend James R. W. Sellwood was born in the
Parish of St. Keverne, county of Cornwall, England,
June 21, 1808. His father died shortly before he
was born; so that he and his older and only brother,
the Reverend John Sellwood of Milwaukee, Oregon,
were brought up and educated by their mother.
In 1833, the three, mother and two sons, emi-
grated to America, first residing for a time in Cin-
cinnati, Ohio, and afterwards going to the then new
State of Illinois. Mr. Sellwood was married in 1837
to Miss Elizabeth H. Dawe, by whom he had four
sons and one daughter, all of whom are still living.
This lady died in Milwaukee, Oregon, January 18,
1871, aged sixty-seven years and eight months.
She was greatly beloved by all who knew her.
Mr. Sellwood moved to South Carolina in 1854,
where he engaged in work as a lay missionary
among the poor white people in the prairies of that
state. On the 31st of March, 1856, he was ordained
a deacon by Bishop Davis in old St. Michael's
church, Charleston. He was then on his way with
his family and brother to Oregon, he and his brother
having been appointed missionaries to our state.
They came hither by the way of the Isthmus of Pan-
ama, and had a pleasant trip, except for the delay
and loss and danger to which they were exposed at
Panama on the never-to-be-forgotten 15th of April.
While they were detained at that place waiting for
the tide to rise so that they could be taken out to
the steamer which lay at anchor in the bay, a fearful
riot broke out among the natives, which resulted in
great destruction of life and property. The whole
Sellwood family were placed in the most imminent
peril, and narrowly escaped with their lives. They
were robbed of all their earthly possessions. One
son was wounded on the head; and the Reverend
John Sellwood received wounds from which he has
never entirely recovered. His nose was broken in
in with a club, one hand was burnt with powder,
the other grazed with a ball, and through his body
a bullet passed so near his heart that but for its con-
traction just at that instant would have touched it.
After some delay at Panama because of this terri-
ble affair, they set sail for Oregon. On the 27th of
On the 27th of
May, 1856, the subject of this sketch and his family
arrived in Portland, then a small and uninviting
place. He met with a cordial welcome from Bishop
Scott. After remaining in Portland but a short time,
he moved to Salem and took charge of St. Paul's
church, remaining in charge a little over nine years.
He was advanced to the priesthood by Bishop Scott,
October 7, 1860.
In 1865 he moved to Milwaukee, and in 1875 to
East Portland, where he still resides, though very
feeble with years.
From the time of his removal to
Milwaukee, up to within a little more than a year ago,
he has been engaged as a missionary at large, going
to such places and doing such work as he was able
and as the bishop might designate.
HON. EUGENE SEMPLE.- Eugene Semple
was born June 12, 1840, at Bogota, South America,
his father being at the time the Minister of the
United States at New Granada. Coming with his
parents to Illinois, his youth was spent in Madison
and Jersey counties of that State. Attending the
common schools of the latter county, he finished his
education at the St. Louis University in 1858. Com-
mencing the study of law in the office of Krum &
Harding, in St. Louis, he afterward attended the Law
School of the Cincinnati College, where he graduated
in 1863, taking the degree of LL.B.
General James Semple, of Illinois, father of Eugene
Semple, took a prominent part in the movement that
caused the Oregon country to be settled by Ameri-
cans, and thus saved to the United States. He made
speeches at Springfield, Illinois, in 1842, and at Cin-
cinnati in 1843, taking strong grounds in favor of
'fifty-four, forty or fight." Afterwards, when a
United States Senator from Illinois, he was an ardent
supporter of the same policy, and introduced a reso-
lution to terminate the treaty of joint occupation
with Great Britain.
The speeches and conversations of his father, and
the accounts of the Oregon country given by the fur
traders of St. Louis, awakened in young Semple a
strong desire to go to the far West and it was with
difficulty his friends persuaded him to wait until his
education was finished. Immediately after gradu-
ating at the law school, however, he set out for Port-
land, Oregon, and upon his arrival opened a law
office. He practiced his profession until 1870, when
he became the editor of the Daily Oregon Herald,
then the leading organ of the Democratic party in
the Pacific Northwest. The motto of the Herald,
formulated by Mr. Semple, was, In all Discus-
sions of American Policy with Us, Liberty Goes
First."
Mr. Semple has been state printer of Oregon, clerk
of the circuit court, police commissioner of the city
of Portland, and is an attorney of the supreme court
of the United States. In 1882 he removed to Van-
couver, Washington Territory, and engaged in the
manufacture of lumber, and is at present operating
extensive sawmills in that city.
He was appointed governor of Washington Terri-
tory, and ably administered the duties of that high
office, with universal satisfaction, until relieved by
by his successor in 1889. He was the candidate of
the Democratic party of Washington for state gov-
ernor, but was defeated, the Republicans electing
their entire ticket. During his career as a lawyer,
editor, legislator, governor or in private life he has
borne an unsullied reputation, and well merits the
confidence reposed in him by the public at large.
Being just in the meridian of life, he has many
years of usefulness to the Pacific Northwest before
him.
Mr. Semple was married in 1870 to Miss Ruth A.
Lownsdale, a daughter of Daniel H. Lownsdale, a
pioneer of 1845. The fruits of the union are four
children, Maud, Zoe, Ethel, and one son, Eugene.
J. H. SETTLEMIER. Mr. Settlemier was
born on the 5th of February, 1840, in Jersey county,
Illinois. In 1849 his parents, George and Elizabeth
552
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Settlemier, becoming imbued with the restless spirit
that possessed all the pioneers of the Pacific coast,
and, selling their home, turned their faces towards
the setting sun. The family at that time consisted
of eleven persons, father, mother, eight boys and
one girl. They crossed the Missouri river at St.
Joseph, and bade a long farewell to civilization; for
at that time there was not a settler's house from the
Missouri to the Sacramento, which was reached early
in September of the same year. The mountain fever
raged fearfully that year among the emigrants; and
many died with none to wait upon them. The
mother and one brother of our subject were laid to
rest in California soil after having endured the pri-
vations and hardships of the American desert; and
the father with the remainder of the family started
for Oregon in December. Arriving in the Willa-
mette valley, they settled on a land claim near Mount
Angel,—where the aged father still resides, sur-
mounted by four-score years and three,—and em-
barked in the farm and nursery business. It was
there young Settlemier drank in the love of the latter
branch of the business which was, in after life, to
distinguish him as one of the foremost horticultur-
ists of the valley.
In 1857, he with two of his brothers, William F. and
Henry W., started a nursery in Linn county where
the town of Tangent now stands. The venture
proved unremunerative; and the place finally passed
into the hands of H. W. Settlemier, who now con-
ducts it as the Tangent Nursery.
Our subject was married in 1862 to Miss Eleanor
E. Cochran. In 1863 they moved upon the home-
stead where he still resides, and engaged in farming
and the nursery business. In the latter line, the
love of his life, he made a great success, and has
reached the proud distinction of having the largest,
best and most successful in the Pacific Northwest,-
the Woodburn Nursery.
The Oregon & California Railroad was built
across his farm in 1870; and he laid out the town of
Woodburn, being named after the place of his birth,
-Woodburn, Illinois. The Oregonian Railway
System was built later, crossing the Oregon & Cali-
fornia Road at right angles at this point.
In 1879 his wife died under very sad circumstances,
which misfortune was followed by the loss of his
farm and home through a defective title. Suit was
brought against him by Sullivan and Green David-
son, through their attorneys, Hill, Durham and
Thompson. The case was tried in the United States
circuit court at Portland, and passed through the
United States supreme court at Washington, where
final judgment was rendered against Mr. Settlemier,
who being thus defeated was compelled to lose the
fruits of sixteen years of hard labor. He bought
the farm over again, together with all its improve-
ments, and was again married to Miss C. S. Gray of
East Portland, who in ten days was stricken down
with typhoid fever; and in twenty-one days more her
soul winged its flight to the great beyond, thus fill-
ing to the brim the bitter cup of adversity that had
been pressed to his lips by a fate as grim as death
itself.
Thus hampered by death and the loss of his home,
he struggled on with indomitable courage to the
success that has at last crowned his efforts, where
weaker spirits would have sunk under the load.
Later on he was married again to Miss Mary C.
Woodworth, who survives with him to walk down
the pathway of life as the shadows of time ap-
proach.
Mr. Settlemier feels proud of the success he has
made in the nursery business, and is now enjoying
the reward of his labors surrounded by his family
of wife and children, six girls and two boys, upon
his beautiful farm in the suburbs of Woodburn.
THOMAS J. SHADDEN. The subject of
our sketch has reached the age of eighty years.
He is a pioneer of 1842, and has seen, and had a
part in, the changes of nearly half a century upon
the Northwest Coast. During this time Oregon has
passed from a region of savages and a few scattered
settlements to a great and productive state,—one of
the most promising in the Union.
As the memory of this venerable pioneer passes
back over his life, and traverses his many expe-
riences, it lingers longest upon the "crossing of the
plains.
plains." It is only a dim and shadowy picture that
we can reproduce of that now historic period. It is
little less than bringing to life one of the old heroes
of the Revolutionary war, to sit for an hour and
listen to the accounts which come from the lips of
the early heroes of Oregon. The crossing of the
plains seems scarcely less distant than the war of
Independence. Both alike belong to a period and
a phase of life that have passed away, and have
become foreign to our methods of existence and
activity.
activity. It is amazing how quickly the rush of
American life buries the acts and manners of yester-
day. It was then an ox-team, or even a pack-sad-
dle, and six months. Now it is a railroad and
scarcely six days. But, if the honest hearts and
strong hands of yesterday do not pass away, we
need not repine.
Mr. Shadden is a native of Pulaski, Giles county,
Tennessee, and was born in 1809. His wife was
born in Mississippi in 1814. Fortune dealt roughly
with the pair. First it was fire. Their house was
consumed, with all the contents except a bed; and
the young farmer himself was turned out-of-doors
in his shirt-sleeves. The ox-team and the cow were
the sole nucleus for a new home and fortune. But,
no sooner was a point reached nearly up to the old
mark, than flood, a water spout, dropped out of the
sky immediately above the Shadden farm, washing
away buildings and drowning stock. Feeling now
that he owed nothing to a country that thus demol-
ished the results of his labor, the Tennesseean
listened to the advice of one Owen Sumner, who
had made a study of Lewis & Clarke's explorations,
and Irving's Bonneville, and never ceased to speak.
of the greatness and wonders of Oregon.
With the frontiersman's sublime boldness, Sumner
and Shadden were canvassing the project of coming
to the Columbia, when the news that Doctor White's
party was to go through decided them to be ready
and meet the Doctor at Independence, Missouri,
about May 1st. On the last of March, 1842, Sum-
ner and Shadden, with their families, and with two
recruits, Joseph Gibbs and Alexander Copeland, set
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
553
out from Sumner's farm, twenty-five miles north of
Van Buren, Arkansas, to cross mountains and plains
of which they knew comparatively nothing.
They found eight persons in Doctor White's
party, among them Medorem Crawford, of Dayton,
Oregon, Mr. Robb, of East Portland, and a Mrs.
Brown and her daughter. Hastings' party soon.
arrived, consisting of some twenty-five persons,
prominent among them being S. W. Moss and A. L.
Lovejoy.
Here is the beginning for a most interesting
history of six months of adventures. But this is
only a sketch. We are forbidden by narrow limits
to tell in detail of the formal and decorous organi-
zation of the party; of the killing of the dogs; of a
"heroic woman who started alone on horseback
to join the little cavalcade, but who was thrown
from her horse on the way; and the wretched beast
ran away, carrying off with him, in the saddle-
pockets, all her money. Nor can we linger upon
the march; nor speak of the death of Bailey, who
was accidentally shot; nor relate at length the cap-
ture of Hastings and Lovejoy at Independence
Rock by the Sioux; nor tell how, upon the halt of
the company and arrangement for battle, at the
command of the guide, Fitz Patrick, the two hun-
dred or three hundred savages, armed heavily with
bow and arrows, long shining spears and fusees,
came forward amicably and delivered their captives
up for a present of a blanket and two shirts.
F. X. Matthieu, a mountain man, had joined the
emigrants on the Platte, and in this emergency
acted as interpreter, speaking firmly and authorita-
tively to the chiefs, and assuring them that his com-
pany was ready to fight if necessary. The Sioux
thereupon grew friendly, visited the camp, offered
to buy a married woman, and the next day set off
upon a raid against the Crows. It is in truth a
striking picture, the forty-two Americans on the
immense plain utterly alone in the wilderness, con-
fronting six times their number of irresponsible
savages, and by simple force of will turning them
from their purpose. They had previously learned
from Buisnett, at Fort Laramie, that the intention of
the Sioux was to kill all of the men and make cap-
tives of the women. Fitz Patrick himself, and F.
X. Matthieu, who appear prominently in this scene,
deserve lengthy mention; but all this matter, together
with the account of the final abandonment of the
wagons at the rendezvous, and at Fort Hall, is all of
such historical value as to find a place in the main
body of the history. To this we must refer the
reader.
On the west slope of the Rocky Mountains Mr.
Shadden became very much interested in many of the
ways of the Indians, who were friendly, particu-
larly their manner of capturing antelope by form-
ing a great circle, and closing in upon them until
within shooting distance. At Whitman's the ex-
hausted stores were replenished; and at The Dal-
les the thieving Wasco plan of driving off horses
and bringing them back for a reward was success-
fully worked, Mr. Shadden's bell mare being the
subject.
Upon reaching Oregon City, October 3, 1842,
and meeting with the Methodist missionary at
Salem, and finding employment with Sidney Smith
at Chehalem, our pioneer felt the most keen and
bitter disappointment. Oregon seemed to him wild,
lonesome and dreary. After an uncomfortable win-
ter, much exposed to the storms, and living much
on boiled wheat, Mr. Shadden embraced the first
opportunity to leave the country. This appeared in
June, a party leaving from George Gay's place on
the Willamette for California. There were nineteen
in the company capable of bearing arms; and at the
end of their march, on the Sacramento river, they
had a battle with the Indians, laying twenty-seven
of the hostiles dead upon the field. Not one of
their number was either killed or wounded.
Seven years did Mr. Shadden remain in California,
returning finally to the state of his first choice, and
settling in Yamhill county, near McMinnville, Ore-
gon, where he still lives. The changes and improve-
ments which he has witnessed upon this coast seem
to him wonderful, as indeed they are. There were
not a thousand Whites on the whole coast, and but
a little over one hundred Americans, in 1842.
There are now a million. Well may this pioneer
take pride in his state, and in his own part in mak-
ing it what it is.
GEORGE D. SHANNON. This well-known
contractor, banker and successful farmer is a man
whom Nature fitted with qualities that inevitably
guide their possessor to success. He was born in
what is now Schuyler county, New York, December
20, 1832, and is the son of Thomas and Mehitable
(Corwin) Shannon. At the age of sixteen he entered
upon business for himself, and with an abundance
of self-reliance began railroading, following that and
other employments until 1854. Soon afterwards he
came to St. Paul, Minnesota, accepting employment
for a large lumber company. In 1858 he was ap-
pointed superintendent of construction of the Win-
ona & St. Peter Railroad, on the completion of
which, in 1860, he was conductor of its first train,
-the first passenger train ever run west of the
Mississippi in Minnesota. He followed railroading
in that state until 1868, and subsequently engaged
in railroad contracting in New York, Indiana and
Wisconsin, completing large works on different
roads in many of the Eastern states.
In 1870 he came to Olympia and accepted the
position of superintendent of construction for the
Northern Pacific on their line from Kalama to Tac-
oma.
In 1873 he purchased his present valuable
farm containing eleven hundred acres, ten miles
from Olympia, Washington Territory, all of which
he maintains in a high state of cultivation, and has
improved with a beautiful home, in which he is
glad to entertain in his most genial way his numerous
acquaintances from among the leading citizens of
the Sound country, and indeed from more remote
regions.
In his capacity as member of the building com-
mittee to which he was appointed by Governor
Ferry, he has been of essential service to the state;
and it is due to him and his associate, Mr. A. F.
Tullis, that the state possesses such a commodious
and handsome building for the insane asylum. He
has for the past two years been chairman of
554
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
the board of trustees of the asylum. He is
also vice-president of the First National Bank of
Olympia, an institution of which he was one of the
incorporators. He is a gentlemen of large means,
and is engaged in various enterprises that tend to
improve and develop his county and community.
In politics he is a Democrat. Personally he is a
most genial gentleman; and his friends are only
limited by the number of his acquaintances.
Mr. Shannon was married in the centennial year
of 1876 at Cleveland, Ohio, to Miss Mary A. Ken-
nedy. An excellent portrait appears in this his-
tory.
HON. E. D. SHATTUCK.— Judge Shattuck
has been prominently connected with the public
affairs of our state for more than thirty years, and
is so closely identified with our interests and society
as to be a distinctively representative man among
us.
His mental strength and clearness, combined with
remarkable accuracy and absence of personal bias,
have made his services of the highest value. He
has ever maintained a peculiar coolness of judgment,
and neither has been swayed by popular excitement
nor has resorted to sensational methods to advance
his own views or interests. He has ever been above
suspicion of corruption or entanglement with corrupt
rings, and has therefore been relied upon as a guar-
dian of justice, and to prick the ambitions or corrupt
designs of those who would trench upon the popu-
lar rights.
For this reason he has been sought continuously
to fill the office of judge; and it is a credit to our
people that they prefer such men for their high posi-
tions. With peculiar plainness of manner and
address, he has ever refused to cultivate popularity,
yet has been frequently named by leading journals
as a satisfactory candidate for governor of the state,
-suggestions which have only lacked his own co-
operation to meet with realization. The remark-
able success of Judge Shattuck both in business, in
his profession, and in public capacities, commends
to young men his integrity and fidelity and honor-
able views of life. He has ever been an ornament
to the legal profession, by his practice condemning
extortion, and carrying honesty into every detail.
E. D. Shattuck was born at Bakersfield, Vermont,
December 31, 1824, spending his childhood and
youth on a farm. Fitting himself for college at the
academy in his native village, he entered Vermont
University at Burlington in 1844, and finished the
course within the prescribed four years. During
college days he assisted himself by teaching school
in the neighborhood. Upon graduating he was em-
ployed as assistant in Bakersfield Academy, and in
1849 obtained a situation in the Newman Seminary,
within some twenty-five miles of Atlanta, Georgia,
and the next year was likewise engaged at Laurel,
Maryland. He devoted his leasure to the study of
law, and upon his return north in 1851 entered the law
office of Parmelee & Fitch of Malone, New York,
and finished his preparation for admission to the bar
in the office of Abner Benedict in New York city.
Being admitted to the bar of New York in 1852, and
casting about for a permanent location, he decided
upon Oregon as his field,-then an almost unknown
region. In December of the same year he was mar-
ried to Miss Sarah A. Armstrong of Fletcher, Ver-
mont.
The couple made immediate preparation for the
journey to their new home, leaving New York January
5, 1852 by steamer via Panama, arriving at Port-
land February 15, 1853. For about four years after
his arrival Mr. Shattuck engaged in teaching, being
for a part of the time professor of ancient languages
at Tualatin Academy and Pacific University.
While in Washington county, he served one year
as superintendent of public schools, and in 1856 was
elected probate judge. That was the beginning of
the public life from which he has been but little ab-
sent ever since. In 1857 he was chosen delegate from
Washington county to the constitutional convention
of Oregon. After finishing his work at the conven-
tion, he located at Portland, forming a partnership
with David Logan, at that time a brilliant lawyer
and a man of great promise, son of Judge Logan of
Illinois. Judge Shattuck entered earnestly upon
the practice of his profession, and in 1858 became
the choice of Washington and Multnomah counties
as joint representative to the last territorial legisla-
ture of Oregon. In 1861 he was appointed United
States district attorney, and held the office about one
year. In 1862 he was elected judge of the supreme
and circuit court for the fourth judicial district, and
served in that office until November, 1867 when he
resigned the position. In 1874 he was again elected
judge of the supreme and circuit court, and served
until the act of 1878 reorganizing the judiciary of
the state. In 1886 he was elected judge of the
circuit court, and at present holds this office.
Since his removal to Portland in 1857, he has con-
tinuously resided in that city, and at various times
has served as member of the city council and as
school director, and is known as one of the founders
of the Portland Library.
men.
In 1881 he followed a course which might be
recommended to half or more of our business
Finding his health impaired by severe men-
tal labor and confinement at his office, he purchased
a farm a little distance from Portland, and for about
three years devoted himself to agriculture. The
experiment was a complete success, and restored
health enabled him to enter again upon public life;
and he feels himself able for many years of activity,
although now in his sixty-fifth year.
In politics judge Shattuck passed from the Whig
to the Republican party, with which he acted until
1872, when he favored the election of Greeley, and
ran as elector on the Independent ticket. Since 1872
he has acted for the most part with the Democratic
party, but is regarded as an Independent rather than
as a partizan.
Judge Shattuck is one whose career has been
marred by no reverses or great misfortunes, who has
kept up a life of activity, and whose success in any
field which he might wish to enter was a foregone
conclusion. He is at present industriously discharg-
ing the duties of his office, and anticipates at the
end of his present term that retirement and rest
which ought to be the reward that old age receives
for a life of labor and activity.

PROSSER MILLS
PROSSER ROLLER MILLS
JENSEN'S
DRUG
STORE.

PROSSER WASHING
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
555
HON. T. C. SHAW.— This honored pioneer of
1844 was born in Clay county, Missouri, near Lib-
erty, the county-seat, February 23, 1823. On his
father's side the stock was Scotch-Irish, and on his
mother's Welsh and English. His father, Captain
William Shaw, was born in Eastern Tennessee, and
belonged to a large family of that name who settled
in Maryland at an early date, whence they removed
into Tennessee, North Carolina and Missouri; and
from the latter state the Oregon branch of the fam-
ily came in the year 1844. His mother, whose
maiden name was Sarah Gilliam, was the sister of
General Cornelius Gilliam, of fame in our early
history.
When T. C. Shaw, the subject of this sketch, was
about ten years of age, he moved to Clinton county,
in the northern part of Missouri, with his father,
who settled on Grindstone creek and engaged in
farming and stock-raising. Here the boy also
learned to be a farmer and stock-raiser, an Occu-
pation which he has never entirely abandoned. In
the year 1838 the family moved into what was then
called the Platte purchase, and took up their resi-
dence near the west fork of the Platte river, about
seven miles south of Savannah, the county-seat. In
the absence of schools in the new county, it was
not possible for young Shaw to get even a common
English education; and in consequence he has had
the laboring oar all through life; and his present.
large information has been acquired wholly by his
own later efforts. Indeed, all his early disadvan-
tages have been more than made up by his own
native good judgment and force of will. In the
winter of 1843-44 the Shaw family, naturally rov-
ers, felt the great excitement then prevalent in all
the western part of, Missouri about the far-away ter-
ritory of Oregon, and especially the great Willa-
mette valley, and as might have been expected pre-
pared to make the great journey hither. They
expected to acquire both land and health upon this
far-off western shore, in the realization of which
they were not disappointed when they actually
reached Oregon.
About the Ioth of May they left camp with the
train, comprising something like one hundred wag-
ons, and moved west. The company was com-
manded at first by General Cornelius Gilliam, but
afterwards broke up into smaller parties and came
across the plains with comparative safety, arriving
at The Dalles about the 15th of November. About
the time the mission was reached, Mr. Shaw was
taken with mountain or typhoid fever; and in con-
sequence the family remained there all winter, and
were treated with the greatest kindness by Rev. A.
F. Waller, in the way of favors to the sick and hos-
pitality to the family in their hard trials. It was
late in the spring of 1845 when the son was fully
recovered; but as soon as the weather would permit
the family moved down the Columbia river, per-
forming the journey in boats and driving the stock
down the obscure Indian trail. Provisions being all
exhausted they were easily persuaded to stop at the
mouth of the Washougal river to make shingles
and cut and raft sawlogs for the Hudson's Bay
Company. Some eight or ten families spent the
summer at that point, but about the last of Septem-
ber came the time for separation. Some moved to
Olympia, some to the Willamette valley. Among
the latter was the Shaw family, who moved on to
the mission farm some twelve miles north of Salem,
then owned by Alanson Beers. T. C. Shaw rented
the south half of this farm. They spent the winter
in chopping wood, and in hewing and getting out
timbers for a large barn which Mr. Beers was con-
structing, and a part of which is now standing as a
fit monument of the past.
In the spring of 1846 there was much interest
among the Americans about a wagon road across
the Cascade Range of mountains. The construc-
tion of such a highway was thought to be a most
important measure; and there were two companies
organized for the purpose. One of these was headed
by Mr. Jesse Applegate, which took the southern
route, which was comparatively smooth with the
exception of the cañon on the South Umpqua. The
other company was headed by General Cornelius
Gilliam and Colonel James Waters, who sought to
build the road up the Santiam river or its branches.
To this company Mr. Shaw belonged. It also had
six Hudson's Bay men besides the five Americans.
They understood that there was an easy pass over
the Cascade Range of mountains up the dividing
ridge between the north and south Santiam. They
started from Salem the 3d of July, 1846; but, after
much hard work and a travel of nearly a week into
the mountains, they found themselves baffled at
Shell Mountain, along whose side on the east was
a small trail sufficient for the trappers and for deer
and elk, but impassable for wagons, and incapable
of improvement by any means then at hand.
Returning from this useless work, Mr. Shaw
moved over into Polk county, and made his home
with his uncle, Mitchel Gilliam, near Dalles, and
was there when the startling news reached the val-
ley of the murder of Doctor Whitman and wife and
some twelve or fourteen other American citizens at
Waiilatpu. Mr. Shaw was one of the first to re-
spond to the call of the government, and enlisting
at Portland entered the service January 8, 1848,
being elected second lieutenant of the company of
which John C. Owen was captain. He performed
a most gallant part in the campaign, the particulars
of which are given elsewhere. Returning to Polk
county after the war was over, he pursued his busi-
ness of farming until in the spring of 1849 he, as
as well as many others, was taken with the gold
fever and went to California. After a year in the
mines he returned to Oregon and made his home
with his parents on Howell Prairie, and the follow-
ing November, on Thanksgiving day, was married
to Miss Josephine Headrick, Elder G. O. Burnett of
the Christian church officiating.
Mr. Shaw now took a claim on the east side of
Howell Prairie, near Salem, Oregon, where he made
a delightful home and good living and reared his
family of five children, named as follows: Mary
Jane, now the wife of Dr. S. C. Stone of Milton,
Oregon; Elizabeth E., the wife of J. C. Lewis, who
resides five miles northwest of Salem in Polk
county; Thurston T., who married Miss Lulu Lowe
and resides at Salem; Grandison B. (deceased); and
Minnie N., who was recently left a widow by the
556
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
death of her husband, Leon W. Smith, and lives integrity. Socially he is genial, and a gentleman
with her parents.
Mr. Shaw is a man endowed with large popular
qualities, and has been continuously sought to fill
public positions. In the year 1864 he was elected
commissioner of Marion county, and in 1866 re-
elected to the same office. In 1870 he was elected
assessor, and was re-elected to the same position in
1872. Upon the expiration of his term he was
chosen sheriff. Retiring to his farm he succeeded
in living a private life until, in 1882, he was chosen
to fill the office of county judge, and in 1886 was
re-elected and is now filling this important position
with his usual ability and popularity. In his official
capacity Judge Shaw is firm in his own opinions,
and in his decisions acts without bias, seeking
chiefly for the facts in the premises, and being satis-
fied only with the ends of justice and equity.
JOHN F. SHEEHAN.- The gentleman whose
name heads this brief memoir, an excellent portrait
of whom appears in this history, has been a leading
business man and resident of Port Townsend, Wash-
ington for almost thirty years. Mr. Sheehan is a
native of the Sunny south, and was born in Balti-
more Maryland, in 1840. When but an infant he
suffered the irreparable loss of his father by death.
His widowed mother then, with her two sons, our
subject being but eighteen months old, paid a visit
to Ireland, and at the end of one year returned to
Baltimore.
John F. was then taken by an uncle to New
Orleans, where he received his education and resided
until fifteen years of age. He then started out to
do for himself, still being but a mere boy. He
started for the Pacific coast, coming via the Nica-
ragua route, and arrived in San Francisco in the
summer of 1856. The first two years in the Golden
state were spent in the mines and at different occu-
pations until the breaking out of the ever-memorable
Frazer river excitement, when Mr. Sheehan joined
the gold-seekers and came north, only to find on
arriving at the mines that All is not gold that
glitters, "and also to find that the great excitement
which had lured thousands was a humbug.
leaving the mines Mr. Sheehan came to Port Town-
send and embarked in the stove and tinware busi-
ness, in which he is still engaged. For the past
twenty-nine years he has done a lucrative and very
successful business, and in 1888 built the beautiful
building in which his store is now located.
Sheehan was a member of the city council of Port
Townsend, and in 1882 was elected sheriff of Jeffer-
son county, an office he held to the entire satisfac-
tion of the citizens of the county, and with credit to
himself for three successive terms.
On
Mr.
Mr. Sheehan, coming as a boy to the Pacific coast,
has through energy, perseverance and pluck,
after many years, secured for himself a competency
in the shape of a successful business, together with
a large amount of valuable real estate in the city of
the Port of Entry, and enjoys the confidence and
esteem, not only of the residents of Jefferson county,
but the entire Sound. He is a man of fine physique;
and in his official capacity was a man of Sterling
whom it is a pleasure to meet.
Mr. Sheehan was married in Port Townsend the
8th of September, 1864, to Miss Mary Loftus, a
native of St. Louis, Missouri. By this union he
had a family of nine children, two of whom are
deceased.
HON. DAVID SHELTON.- Mr. Shelton, one
of the very earliest of the pioneers of Washington
Territory, who with Mr. L. B. Hastings and F. W.
Pettigrove became a founder of Port Townsend, was
born in Buncombe county, North Carolina, Septem-
ber 15, 1812. His father, Lewis Shelton, emigrated
to the territory of Missouri in the year 1819, and
settled in Saline county, but kept on the advance
wave of settlement, ever moving westward as the
state settled up, and died in Andrew county in
1847. In this frontier life young David came to
maturity, and on May 30, 1837, was married to Miss
Frances Wilson. This was a young lady whose
native place was Whitley county, Kentucky, and
the date of her birth March 16, 1817. She had
moved from Kentucky after the death of her father,
David Wilson, with her mother to Missouri in 1829,
and in 1835 had settled in Clinton county.
After marriage this young couple moved into Bu-
chanan county and settled near St. Joseph in 1838. In
1847, feeling their pioneer blood stirred by reports
of the great West and of Oregon, they gathered
together all their household goods and effects, and
on the 9th of May crossed the Missouri river about
three miles above St. Joseph on their way to Oregon.
They found the journey long and tedious, as it was
accomplished wholly by ox-teams; and from the
time of the crossing of the Missouri the way
lay through an Indian country. They found the
Pawnee Indians disposed to be saucy; for at the
mouth of Plum creek on the Platte river the sav-
ages caught a couple of men that were hunting and
stole their clothing and guns, and left them to return
with only hats and boots to the camp. After this
they also tried to stampede the stock; but the immi-
grants, not suffering any such foolishness, deter-
mined to fight them off; and something of a battle
followed. On account of their arrows not having
the range of the white men's guns, the savages failed
to come near enough to do much damage; and the
white men could not determine whether their shots
took effect. After this the emigrants were quite care-
ful to allow only a small company of two or three
Indians to enter the camp at once.
On reaching The Dalles they passed down the
shore nine miles, and built a large scow to bring the
families and wagons and other goods down the river.
The cattle and horses were driven along the shore;
and it was found necessary to swim them across the
river several times in order to avoid the jutting cliffs.
At the Cascades all the goods and things had to be
taken out of the scow, and a portage made of about
six hundred yards. The scow was then turned loose
to drift over the Cascades; and a lot of Indians were
ready to catch her and bring her ashore. By this
time the measles, which had been following along
with the train, reached Mr. Shelton's family; and
both of his children were very sick.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
557
Hiring four Indians with a canoe, he left for Fort
Vancouver and reached that post on the 29th of
November at about eight o'clock P. M. So reduced
were his finances, that he had but one dollar in his
pocket; and the next morning, when the gate was
opened, he went into the fort and gave half of that
dollar for syrup, and the other half for flour. Before
night of that day he was gladdened by the appear-
ance of an old acquaintance of his, Mr. Joseph
Caples, who at once inquired where he was going.
And upon learning that the house of Mr. Alexander
McQuinn was his objective point, Caples replied that
he was himself on his way thither, and kindly
insisted that in his canoe there was room for the
family of Mr. Shelton, with their household goods
and all. By this friendly provision Mr. Shelton and
his family were accordingly taken up safely to Mr.
McQuinn's on Sauvie's Island; and they reached
that place of temporary rest, and ended their march
of three thousand miles on the 30th of November,
1847.
Since coming to the West, Mr. Shelton has been
one of the best citizens of the Pacific coast, ever for-
ward in public matters, and industrious and enter-
prising in private business. He early became a
founder of Port Townsend and of the Lower Sound
country, and is now living in hale age at the town
which has been named for him.
JOSEPH M. SHELTON.
Present misfortune
is our future weal," wrote the old homilist; and in
human experience it has been well enough proved
that in adversity is the power of a man's character
developed.
Joseph M. Shelton, the subject of this sketch, had
lived in comfort and prosperity on the family planta-
tion in Caswell county, in North Carolina; but, in
common with so many of the foremost Southern
families, the Sheltons sustained heavy losses in the
war, and by the liberation of the slaves of which
Joseph's father was a large owner. It was then that
Joseph showed the force of character and sturdy
determination which, in later years, have made him
one of the leading men of the Northwest. He deter-
mined to be no longer dependent on his father, and,
leaving the old plantation, crossed the plains with
an ox-team, arriving in Denver, Colorado, in 1865.
The Godfrey train, with which he traveled, was sev-
eral times attacked by the hostile Indians; and Mr.
Shelton distinguished himself during these skir-
mishes by his bravery and ability as a leader of men.
In Colorado he engaged in stock-raising in Boulder
county, where he remained for seventeen years. It was
during his residence there that he found his lifelong
companion. In March, 1866, he was united in mar-
riage to Miss Missouri C. Jones. Mrs. Shelton is one
of those women who in ancient times were accounted
the mothers of heroes. With the sweetness and
gentleness of the truly refined lady, she combines
the nobility of mind and the force of character that
distinguish the typical women of the West. She was
born in Missouri in 1845. She is of the true pioneer
strain. Her father, John Jones of Virginia, having
come to Missouri in 1840,—also became a citizen of
Colorado in 1873, whither he took the largest band
of cattle hitherto driven there.
Having heard much of the wonders of Washing-
ton Territory, Mr. Shelton, in 1882, disposed of his
his interests in Colorado, and early in the same year
arrived at Walla Walla. After devoting some weeks
to an examination of the country, he finally fixed
upon the Kittitas valley as the spot where he could
make his home; and accordingly he located on the
farm where he now resides, situated about five and
one-half miles due west of Ellensburgh.
When Mr. Shelton arrived in the Kittitass valley,
there was not a road laid out in the section; but with
his characteristic energy he circulated petitions to
remedy this, and soon had the country opened up
with good roads in all directions. His farm embraces
four hundred and forty acres under cultivation, with
a fine house and commodious barn capable of accom-
modating some thirty-five head of stock. On the
farm he raises wheat, barley and oats, reckoning
thirty, sixty and sixty bushels of each cereal, respec-
tively, a good yield. In October, 1885, Mr. Shelton
imported some fine Hereford stock, the first brought
into the territory, believing them to be the cattle best
adapted to the country, as they are beefy and good
mothers, and can weather the rigorous winters.
Raising fine stock, particularly Herefords, and buy-
ing and shipping cattle, have been his chief occu-
pation since that time.
In public matters Mr. Shelton has always taken
a deep interest, though he has never been a poli-
tician; and in 1884 his neighbors elected him to the
office of county commissioner for a term of two
years on the Democratic ticket with almost no oppo-
sition. During his term of office Mr. Shelton assisted
materially in the building of the new courthouse,
the bonds for which were placed upon the market at
the remarkably high figure of eighty-seven and one-
half per cent.
Mr. Shelton has now a family of five children.
Four, Joseph Lee, Dulcena May, Minnie Eva and
Bertha Bell, were born in Boulder county, Colorado;
while the youngest, Pearl Sarah, was born at the
home in Kittitass valley. He resides at the farm
with his family, and is one of the leading citizens
of the county. His sagacity in business affairs, his
careful and methodical habits, and his uniform
justice, have won for him the respect and esteem of
all his fellow-citizens.
JOHN H. SHIELDS.-The reader of this sketch
can find elsewhere within these pages an excellent
view of the mill and lumber yard of the gentleman
named above, and upon glancing at its proportions
will not dispute the assertion that Mr. Shields stands
well to the fore among the more prominent of the
lumber merchants of the Pacific Northwest.
Being attracted with the location of Sprague,
Washington Territory, he established himself there
in 1882. His business grew to such proportions that
in 1885 he found it necessary to add to his equip-
ment a large planing-mill. His enterprise occupies
one block on the corner of G and First streets and
the Railroad avenue. Some idea of his business
can be gleaned from the fact that he keeps in stock
about a million feet of dry and Oregon dressed
lumber.
Mr. Shields was born in Lockport, New York,
558
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
April 6, 1855, and came to the Pacific coast in 1873.
He is one of the most active business men of the
Columbia basin.
SIGMUND SICHEL.- America is made up of
the most intelligent and energetic people from all
parts of the world. It is those who are alert and
keen in the pursuit of information who learn of the
advantages to be found in this country. And it is
those who feel the impulse to stretch their limbs
and operate upon a larger scale of life than the
opportunities the old world afford who undergo the
labors and take the risks involved in a removal
across the Atlantic. This rule, which is not with-
out its exception, is exemplified in the career of the
man whose name appears at the head of this sketch.
He is at present one of the active business men of
Portland, Oregon, and while at Goldendale, Wash-
ington Territory, enjoyed the reputation of being
the youngest man ever elected to the office of mayor
in any city of the Northwest.
He was born in Bavaria in 1857, and prior to his
fifteenth birthday was at school in a commercial
college acquiring the information and training which
have made him so efficient in his line in our state.
He came to America at that age, and the second day
after his arrival engaged as a salesman in a New
York store; but, learning of Oregon and the oppor-
tunities here for independence and competence, he
determined to seek his fortune on the Pacific coast.
He made the trip with his uncle, Solomon Hirsch,
of the firm of Fleischner, Meyer & Co., and spent
the three following years at Portland. Looking
northward he spent six months at Nanaimo, but,
returning to Oregon, found employment eighteen
months in our metropolis.
In 1880 he went to Goldendale and engaged in
the mercantile business in the firm of Lowengart &
Sichel, doing a very thriving business. In 1887 he
became sole proprietor; and his operations were.
quite extensive, his annual sales amounting to
one hundred thousand dollars.
On May 13, 1888, Goldendale was destroyed by
fire, Mr. Sichel being a heavy loser. Still he at
once started again in business, but sold out his
interest there and removed to Portland, and is the
senior partner of Sichel and Mayer, who are en-
gaged in the wholesale and retail tobacco and
cigar trade. This last venture reaps a golden har-
vest; and such is due to the patronage of the
numerous friends Mr. Sichel has made through
courtesy and fair dealing.
MICHAEL T. SIMMONS.--Michael T. Sim-
mons, the leader of an American colony, who estab-
lished the pioneer American settlement upon the
shores of Puget Sound, was born August 5, 1814,
in Bullitt county, Kentucky, three miles south of
Sheppardsville. In 1840 he removed with his family
to Missouri, and located and built a mill on a branch
of the Missouri river, which mill he sold to procure
his outfit to migrate to Oregon. In 1844 he joined
the Independent Oregon Colony, consisting of
consisting of
several separate companies or parties, who joined
together in a quasi military organization, and elected
Cornelius Gilliam General, and Michael T. Sim-
mons Colonel.
It would prove profitable and interesting to accom-
pany those several trains in that voyage across the
plains; but those incidents have been graphically
and faithfully narrated by others. Arrived upon
the banks of the Columbia, the particular company
with whom Colonel Simmons was directly associated
halted at Washougal, on the north side of the Colum-
bia, about twenty-five miles east of the Hudson's
Bay Company's Fort Vancouver, and there estab-
lished quarters for the winter. Colonel Simmons,
however, soon proceeded to Fort Vancouver, and
endeavored to secure room,—accommodations for
himself and family, but for a long time was unsuc-
cessful. Later, he did succeed in renting, for one
month, a room in an outhouse occupied by a Kanaka
servant of the company. Doctor John McLoughlin
treated him with that generous hospitality for which
he was so noted, a hospitality never denied to the
American immigrant, for which all ancient Ore-
gonians hold the good doctor in deserved and grate-
ful remembrance. But the Hudson's Bay Company
officials were reliant at that period that the Colum-
bia river would ultimately be established as the
boundary line between the United States and Great
Britain, and that the territory north of the Colum-
bia river would become British territory. Hence
they discouraged American occupancy, or any acts
which would tend to strengthen the United States
claim. Strenuously they dissuaded Americans from
settling north of the river; and with equal per-
sistency they set forth the inducements of the Wil-
lamette valley, and counseled immigrants to select
their homes in that favored region. Colonel Sim-
mons has told the writer that before leaving Mis-
souri his predilections were for the Rogue river
country; that this effort of the Hudson's Bay offi-
cials to head off American settlement north of the
Columbia first directed his inclinations towards
Puget Sound. Nor is there any doubt, that with
his sturdy Americanism and rather combative
make-up, such British interference or counsel was
most likely thus to have changed his resolution.
Other influences, however, quite as strongly, per-
haps involuntarily, operated; and that he should
have been so influenced is quite as creditable to his
humanity as though his patriotic resentment of the
territorial scheming of the Hudson's Bay Company
had been the sole cause.
In the same company with Colonel Simmons was
George Bush, one of the most prominent and justly
respected of the Western Washington pioneers. He
was a colored man of competent means, shrewd
sagacity and great liberality. Several of the white
families who had accompanied the train of 1844 had
been assisted by him to procure their outfits. With-
out his aid they could not have then come to Oregon;
and he had also ministered to their necessities dur-
ing that tedious journey across the Great American
desert and the Rocky Mountains. He was a man
of mark, an old veteran, a soldier who had fought
the
the "British red coats" (as he claimed with great
gusto and pride) side by side with General Jackson
at New Orleans. Indeed, he asserted with the
utmost confidence, and surely believed it, that
*

P. D. FORBES,
TACOMA, W. T.
OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
559
much of the glory of that immortal field was due
to him for suggestions. made. Be that as it may,
George Bush was deservedly one of the leading
spirits which prompted at that date, and thereafter
promoted and aided, Puget Sound settlement.
None more than he did the full measure of duty
to every newcomer, who, after that long, weari-
some journey, needed rest or assistance. Simmons,
whose broad humanity was not restricted by color
or race-prejudice, a characteristic which was so
thoroughly illustrated by his uniformly humane.
treatment and justice to the aborigines, estimated
George Bush by his true merits and real manhood.
They were intimate friends, relying upon each
other; and insensibly George could, and did, con-
trol the more impulsive Simmons. Bush had
acquired a competency in Missouri; but he was a
liberty-loving man, and restless under the oppres-
sion and restrictions of his race in a slave state.
He sought Oregon, thinking to live in a free terri-
tory. The writer has heard him claim his right
therein by his service for the Republic in the war of
1812. But the legislative committee of the Oregon
Provisional government, in their Organic law of
1844, declaring that "slavery and involuntary servi-
tude shall be forever prohibited in Oregon," had
also adopted a singularly offensive law excluding
from the territory all free negroes and mulattoes.
That same pro-slavery feeling which had dictated
this odious provision might gain sufficient ascend-
ency in the Willamette valley to attempt to enforce
such provision. George Bush wisely concluded that
the territory north of the river, at least so long as
British claim was asserted, was likely to afford to
him the protection of British institutions, and recog-
nize his manhood. This circumstance had influ-
enced George Bush's location of a home. There is
no doubt that such resolution by Bush was the
incentive, mainly, which prompted Simmons and
part of the train of 1844 to change their minds from
Rogue river valley to the shores of Puget Sound.
It is equally a matter of satisfaction to write of the
Puget Sound pioneer, who himself regarded Puget
Sound as a part of Oregon, without shadow of
British claim thereto, that he believed that its soil
should be open to settlement by George Bush as
much as to any other American. Colonel Simmons
labored to secure, and did secure, from the Oregon
Provisional legislature, the passage of an act which
removed George Bush's race-disabilities.
regard and respect which Simmons entertained for
Bush, and the belief by him and his neighbors
that Bush's desire to be recognized as a free man
was the real stimulus to Puget Sound settlement
at that date, are attested in the fact that the site of
the first American settlement was then, is now and
ever will be known as Bush Prairie.
That
The digression was excusable, if not necessary.
It showed why Colonel Simmons and party stopped
at Washougal, instead of crossing into the Wil-
lamette valley, or journeying southward to the
Rogue river. It explained why they tarried in the
vicinity of Fort Vancouver. It accounts for the
expeditions by Simmons to explore the country
northward to Puget Sound.
During the winter of 1844, Colonel Simmons had
been selected to examine that country. In Decem-
ber, 1844, he started in company with Messrs.
Loomis, John, Henry and James Owens and Henry
Williamson. The party reached the forks of the
Cowlitz river, when their stock of provisions became
low; and the further ascent of that rapid stream
was extremely discouraging. Those circumstances
induced the party to return to Washougal. Other
reasons influenced that turning-back. Many an
old settler has heard the Colonel tell about a
"vision" he had in Missouri, about the time of
starting West, which really caused him to turn
back. He had in his great manly nature a deal
of superstition; and he used to say that "that
vision indicated to him that he would find just
such a place as the forks of the Cowlitz, and that at
such place he would be compelled to abandon his
enterprise." He claimed to have beheld at Cowlitz
Forks the identical place depicted in his dream.
Old settlers may take no stock in the "vision;"
but the many thousands who have traveled that
hard road up the Cowlitz in ante-railroad days will
commend the retreat of Simmons and his party.
None of them will think it required a vision to
dictate that turn-back in December by any party
who had no excuse for traveling but to see the
country.
In April, 1845, the wife of Colonel Simmons gave
birth to a son, Christopher Columbus Simmons, the
first American child born north of the Columbia
river, or in the region now known as Western Wash-
ington. In the summer following Colonel Simmons
again started on an exploring expedition to Puget
Sound, accompanied by William Shaw, George
Wanch, David Crawford, Ninian Everman, Selburn
Thornton, David Parker, Michael Moore and John
Hunt. The party reached the Sound in August.
At Cowlitz Farms they learned that John R. Jack-
son, the old American pioneer of Cowlitz Prairie,
Lewis county, had just been there, examined the
country in that vicinity, and had selected a location
and returned to the Willamette for his family. The
Simmons expedition continued exploration, fully
examined the country to the head of the Sound,
made a trip its full length, passing around north-
ward of Whidby Island, and returning through
Deception Pass and the eastern channel. Peter
Bercier, of the Cowlitz Farms, acted as guide of the
party from the Cowlitz to the head of Puget Sound.
Colonel Simmons having returned to the Columbia,
a party was made up, which started in October for
the Sound. The little colony consisted of Colonel
Simmons and family, James McAllister and family,
David Kindred and family, Gabriel Jones and fam-
ily, George Bush and family, Jesse Ferguson and
Samuel B. Crockett. Having ascended the Cowlitz
river to the old Cowlitz Landing, fifteen days were
occupied in cutting a road through from the Cowlitz
Landing to Tumwater, at the head of Budd's Inlet,
Puget Sound, a distance of about fifty-eight miles.
The claim of Tumwater or Falls of the Des Chutes
was taken by Colonel Simmons, who called the site
New Market. The remaining families settled on
prairie claims all within a circuit of six miles from
New Market. To the prairie they gave the name
"Bush Prairie," after Bush, who occupied the most
37
560
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
ony.
remote section of land, the outpost of the little col-
On the formation by the Provisional govern-
ment in 1846, of Vancouver district, embracing all
the territory subsequently divided and respectively
named Clarke, Lewis and Pacific counties, and ex-
tending northward to fifty-four degrees, forty min-
utes, north latitude, Colonel Simmons was one of
the county judges. One of his colleagues was Gov-
ernor James Douglas, then chief factor of the Hud-
son's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver, afterwards.
Sir James Douglas, the first governor of British
Columbia.
While the Puget Sound region was part of Ore-
gon, Colonel Simmons was elected to the legislature
from Lewis county, and, under the territorial organ-
izations of both Oregon and Washington, acted in
some public and official capacity during the remain-
der of his active, busy life. Emphatically a self-
made man, without education, unable to read or
write, he was a leader among men, inspiring all
with respect for his native force of character and
genuine ability and practical sense. Just, generous,
liberal to a fault, impulsive, strong in his attach-
ments, with excess of geniality; which would, per-
haps, have been fettered or restrained by education,
he may have betrayed at times into errors. When
such was the case, he alone was the sufferer; to no
fellow-being did he ever intentionally commit a
wrong. All the early comers to Puget Sound will
ever treasure the remembrance of his unstinted hos-
pitality, his ever ready and active zeal in contribu-
ting to the comfort of every settler. To the extent
of his means, none more than he contributed to the
establishment of schools, churches and roads and
other public benefits. He was a pioneer in every
sense of the word in every location in which he
made his home. He died poor, at his residence in
Lewis county, on Friday, November 15, 1867, leav-
ing a widow and large family. He was universally
known in the early days of Washington Territory;
and by the early settlers his name and many good
deeds are held in just remembrance.
N. K. SITTON.—This pioneer of 1843 was born
in Calway county, Missouri, in 1825. As a boy in
school he read Lewis & Clarke's travels, and being
an active and intelligent youth seventeen years old,
at the time of the great interest that prevailed in
the border states respecting Oregon, was moved to
join the party of Applegate or Burnett, and made
the journey with these noted men across the plains.
He remembers meeting with Whitman on the Sweet-
water, and recalls his services in guiding the emi-
grants from Fort Hall.
Arriving in Oregon he found employment on
various farms and at at a mill, but in 1846 took his
Donation claim on the rich lands five miles north of
McMinnville. He was married soon afterwards to
Miss Percilla Rogers of Chehalem valley. There
the young pair began life, and made a happy home
in which they lived many years. In 1848 Mr. Sitton
made the trip to California for his pot of gold, and got
it.
After his return he made rapid improvements
upon his farm, developing grain and stock.
By his first wife, who died in 1869, he reared a.
family of nine children: C. E., Caroline (Mrs. Rog-
ers), Ora (Mrs. McColough, deceased), H. W., N. H.,
Fred D., Elbridge D., and two who died in infancy.
He was married secondly to Mrs. Mary M. Laughlin,
a daughter of Michael Shelly, an immigrant of 1848.
Her two children, Lesly G. and Effie Rose were
thereby brought into his family; and the home has
been further blessed by the birth of five others:
Frank W., Pratt K., Minnie G., Jennie G. and
Lena S.
Mr. Sitton retains in memory many pleasant
incidents of the early times, and of kind deeds.
performed in the midst of hardships. As for
instance, how his comrade Brown, being taken
sick at Fort Hall, was brought through only by
being put on and taken off his horse morning and
night, and carried down from The Dalles; and how
McLaughlin had him sent to Doctor Barkley, who
nursed and tended him back to life and strength,
dismissing him with his blessing and the remark,
"When you are able, you can pay me twenty dol-
lars." Another reminiscence is of a dark night on
the plains, when Sitton was handling his gun care-
lessly and the piece was discharged. Fearing that
some damage had been done, he followed in the
direction of the shot, feeling his way in the dark,
and at length discovered a fine mule whose body
had been pierced through by the ball. A horse a
little farther on, lying so fast asleep as to be roused
only by a kick, greatly relieved his mind by stand-
ing up unhurt; but he always felt bad about the
mule. He also regrets the sickness in his family in
1856, by which, after raising a company of volun-
teers for the Indian war, he was obliged to relinquish
his position, and turn over his command to Captain
Ankeny.
Thus having the scenes of the past still fresh, but
busy with the affairs of the present, our old pioneer
of nearly half a century is happily passing at his
home the hours described of old as the "cool of the
day."
EUGENE F. SKINNER.- Eugene F. Skin-
ner, whose name is a household word throughout
the length and breadth of Lane county, located in
June, 1846, the Donation claim on which Eugene
City, named for him, now stands. He was born at
Essex, Essex county, New York, September 13,
1809, and is the youngest son of Major John Joseph
Skinner of East Windsor, Connecticut, and a
brother of St. John B. L. Skinner of New York,
who was an influential officer in the Postoffice De-
partment at Washington City, District of Columbia,
under President Lincoln, and first assistant post-
master-general under President Johnson.
Having lost his mother when but three months
old, Eugene was favored with particular attention
by his father, and when he attained the age of four-
teen years was taken to Albany, Green county,
Wisconsin, among relatives who were all interested
in his welfare. While yet in early life, however, he
went back to his native state, and to Plattsburg,
the home of his childhood. Soon after this he
turned his face westward, and settled at Hennepin,
Putnam county, Illinois. In youth he was of a
most industrious disposition, and by diligent appli-
cation obtained a good education, which fitted him
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
561
in after life for many positions of trust and honor.
Having lived on a farm, he naturally learned the
intricacies of agriculture, and drank in of the spirit
of adventure that subsequently developed in him
the desire to assume the arduous undertakings of a
life on the frontier.
He married in Illinois, November 28, 1839, Mary
Cook, who was born in Augusta, Oneida county,
New York, February 7, 1816. While a resident of
Illinois, he was elected to several official positions,
among them being sheriff of Putnam county. Owing
to certain inducements held out to him, and hoping
to regain his lost health, in May, 1845, he and his
wife joined a large company who were going to
California, among the number being Felix Scott,
Wesley Shannon and Elijah Bristow. They arrived
at the hospitable portals of Sutter's fort in Septem-
ber, 1845. There they wintered, and in the spring
of 1846 journeyed to Oregon. Mr. Skinner stopped
in Dallas, Polk county, until in May, 1847, he
turned his face southward and took up his residence
on the claim which he had previously located, erect-
ing a log cabin at the west side of Skinner Butte,
where, Mrs. Skinner reigned as the first and only
lady in Lane county. Theirs was certainly far from
being a bed of roses. The Indians in the vicinity
took umbrage at the white man thus locating in
their midst; and several times they sought to destroy
the family. Mr. Skinner kept watch and ward with
an old musket, while Mrs. Skinner made bullets.
Nevertheless, after many days of fear and anxiety,
no dire deed of vengeance was perpetrated.
Mr. Skinner's family at that time consisted of
only himself, wife and one little daughter, Mary
Elizabeth, who was born in Dallas, Polk county,
Oregon, December 2, 1846, who in time was pre-
sented with three sisters and one brother. Leanora,
the first white child to see the light of day in Lane
county, was born September 2, 1848; Phoebe B.,
born March 29, 1850; St. John B. L., born Novem-
ber 17, 1851; Amelia R., born April 16, 1855. Of
these, the first-named, Mary Elizabeth, died at Eu-
gene City, October 4, 1860; Leanora died at Port-
land, Oregon, August 29, 1862. Phoebe B. married,
August 30, 1868, John D. Rinsey, a native of New
Jersey, who was born in Plainfield, October 12,
1835, and died March 13, 1881, leaving a family of
two daughters, Maggie Clara and Mary Louis. St.
John married, November 23, 1871, Amanda J. Wal-
ton.
Amelia R. married, August 24, 1871, Byron
Van Houten, but is now Mrs. Combs, having mar-
ried in Kansas City, Missouri, February 1, 1883,
Chester D. Combs, a native of New York. Eugene
F. Skinner, the subject of our writing, died at Eu-
gene City, December 15, 1864, aged fifty-five years,
three months and two days. His memory will long
be cherished and honored by the inhabitants of the
town that bears his name, and by the people of the
beautiful valley in which he was one of the first
settlers.
In early times Eugene F. Skinner was clerk of
the courts, and was for many years postmaster at
Eugene City. He also attended to law business for
a large number of the settlers of Lane county. He
was industrious and honest, was a first-class busi-
ness man, and enjoyed the esteem and confidence of
everybody. Mr. Skinner was a good man in the
true sense of the word. He was a most estimable,
public-spirited citizen, a kind husband, a fond and
indulgent parent, and a dear and prized friend to a
large number of state and county residents. Hun-
dreds of needy, destitute emigrants, from the time
of his first settlement in Oregon until the last few
weeks of his life, found in him a provider and friend;
and his charities were freely extended wherever he
knew that want prevailed. All in all, he was a
man of noble impulses and most modest demeanor.
His death was a calamity to the community of
Eugene City; and he was deeply mourned by all.
A cold which he had contracted, little heeded at the
time, was in four days the cause of his sudden
death. The Masons and Odd Fellows of both of
which orders he was a worthy member, conducted
his obsequies on the 17th of December, 1864. Peace
to the ashes of Eugene F. Skinner.
Mrs. Mary (Skinner) Packard, widow of Eugene
F. Skinner, was married February 7, 1867, to Cap-
tain N. L. Packard, a native of Maine, with whom
she lived until her death, which occurred at Eugene
City, Oregon, June 4, 1881.
•
When the town was first laid out, she was awarded
the honor of giving a name to the place; and she
christened the embryo town Eugene, her former
husband's first name. She was a lady of many vir-
tues, kind and charitable, ever ready to assist the
needy and alleviate the sufferings of the unfortuate.
Unaffected in her manners, and caring very little
for distinction of personages, all who came in con-
tact with her were treated with that gentle courtesy
that marks the true woman and lady. In character
she was amiable to a fault, patient, anxious for the
comfort of all about her, speaking no ill of anyone.
Schooled in the dangers and hardships of pioneer
life, that seemed to quicken the symptoms of a heart
naturally gentle and charitable, she lived respected.
by all who knew her, beloved by her associates, and
died mourned by the entire community.
HON. JAMES HARVEY SLATER. Mr.
Slater has ever borne a conspicuous part in the pub-
lic affairs of Oregon; and no one has preserved a
more honorable name. His mental qualities are
solid rather than brilliant, and his operations
weighty rather than keen. He is a man whose
integrity has never been impeached; and he has
ever been relied upon as a friend of the people. In
his two terms at Washington, once as congressman,
once as senator, he has performed some very effec-
tive work for our state; and all Oregonians hold him
in high esteem. The following brief sketch will
furnish the data of his life, and be eagerly read by all.
He was born in Sangamon county, Illinois, in 1826,
and remained there until 1849. He received a
common-school education, and prepared himself for
college; but, abandoning further advance in that
line he concluded to try his fortunes in California,
coming to the Pacific coast in 1849. After a year in
California he came up the coast to Oregon, and loca-
ted near Corvallis in Benton county, where he put
to good use his former education by teaching public
schools for two years. In 1853 he made a venture-
some trip to California, and was at Yreka during
562
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
$
the Indian troubles in which General Joseph Lane
took so prominent a part. He returned to Oregon
the same fall. In 1854 he married Miss Elizabeth
E. Grey, a daughter of Reverend R. D. Grey. Hav-
ing pursued legal studies, he was admitted to the
bar in the same year, and continued his occupation
as clerk of the United States district court, to which
he had been appointed in 1853. In 1862 he came to
Baker county, where he engaged in mining and also
in the practice of law until 1866, when he removed
to La Grande, where he has since resided.
The political history of Senator Slater may be
briefly told as follows: He was elected to the terri-
torial legislature in 1857 as an independent Demo-
crat, and was re-elected in 1858 and at the same
time elected to the first Oregon state legislature.
He served in the first special sessions of that body
after the admission of the state in 1859. In Febru-
ary of that year he began the publication of the old
well-known Oregon Weekly Union at Corvallis, and
continued this until the latter part of 1861, when it
went into the hands of P. J. Malone. In 1855 Mr.
Slater was appointed postmaster of Corvallis, and
served about three years.
In 1866 he was elected district attorney of the
fourth judicial district of Oregon, and in 1868,
as presidential elector on the Democratic ticket
cast his vote for Seymour and Blair. In 1870 he
was elected a member of the Forty-second Congress.
After his return from the duties thus imposed, he re-
sumed the practice of law at La Grande, and engaged
somewhat in agriculture and stock-raising until
1878. In that year he was again called to serve his
state at Washington, being elected to the United.
States Senate, and served the whole term of six
years. In 1885 he again resumed his law practice
in La Grande. In 1887 he was appointed one of
the railroad commissioners for the state of Oregon,
and served until 1889. He is at present practicing
law at his home. Mr. Slater has a family of five
sons and five daughters.
While a member of the United States Senate, Mr.
Slater took an active part in the discussion of the
Chinese, tariff and other public questions. His
speeches on the tariff attracted attention through-
out the United States and England; and as a result
he was elected an honorary member of the Cobden
Club, England, in 1883. Mr. Slater is not, however,
a free-trader, as that term is used, but is opposed to
a tariff levied for protective purposes.
D. W. SMALL. The career of this gentleman
and his brothers, who have been associated with
him in most of his enterprises, well illustrates the
fact that Western life peculiarly develops versatility
and adaptability. The Western man must encoun-
ter sudden and unexpected obstacles. He must
adapt himself to unusual conditions. Precedent is
of little use to him. He has to make his own pre-
cedents. Hence the population of the Pacific slope
is peculiarly noted for a variety of talents. The peo-
ple learn to go across lots to conclusions. In the
fierce struggle for existence which comes in a new
country, the man who cannot shift for himself to
meet almost anything that comes along is bound, in
slang parlance, to "get left." Our towns have been
built up, our resources developed, our hidden wealth
revealed, in its manifold phases, by the bold, keen-
eyed pioneers, who wait for no favorable fortune to
turn up, but simply go themselves and turn some-
thing up. One of the types of these restless, ver-
satile spirits is Mr. Small. He was born in 1838 in
New Brunswick, whence his father and family went.
to Maine seven years later.
The outbreak of the great war found our subject
prompt to array himself in the army of the Union.
He enlisted in the First Maine Cavalry, where he
spent a year, and was then discharged on account of
sickness. During the interval of rest which ensued
he was married, his wife being Martha F. Bradbury.
The war still continuing and Mr. Small's health be-
ing restored, he re-enlisted in October 1863, in the
Second Maine Cavalry Veteran Volunteers. The
regiment saw service under General Banks on the
Red river, and subsequently took part in the Selma
and Mobile campaigns. Mr. Small was several times
non-commissioned officer, and was finally dis-
charged in December, 1865.
a
The great conflict ended, he returned to his home,
which was, however, soon sadly shattered by the
death of his wife and infant child. Taking his two
other children, Dora and Schuyler, with him, he now
turned his face towards the setting sun, and in the
fall of 1871 came to Montana, where his parents were
living. In the following spring, with his brother
Ira, he came to Walla Walla, Washington Terri-
tory. His father died soon afterwards.
This was
just at the time that Doctor Baker was putting his
energies to the construction of his narrow-guage
railroad between Wallula and Walla Walla. The
Doctor had just ended a third unsuccessful attempt
to get ties, the first on the Grande Ronde, then on
the Clearwater, then on the Yakima, having lost
over $40,000 in experimenting. But Dr. Baker was
a man who never gave up anything; and he went to
work, undismayed by his losses, to try again. This
time he found the men who could hang onto the job
with a tenacity which never let go till it was done.
He employed the Small Brothers to superintend the
arduous undertaking; and in due time, amid obsta-
cles that would have discouraged many men, they
pushed the work to a successful conclusion, using
the Yakima as the route for their supply. Thus
was built the first railroad in the Inland Empire,
one whose results were of much moment to the
Walla Walla country, and brought a vast fortune to
its projector.
In the year 1874 a third brother, Albert, joined
the two already in Walla Walla. He brought with
him the children of D. W., and the aged mother of
the brothers, the latter dying within six weeks after
her arrival. Together the three brothers went into
the livery business. In 1876 they added to their
already large interests by taking charge of the Stine
House, which they so administered as to well please
the traveling public of those days. At about the
same time, as if not having enough to do, the began
to take large contracts for transportation and sup-
plies for the government. During three years they
furnished one thousand horses to the govern-
ment.
In 1879 Mr. Small was united in marriage to Miss

*
ERMI
MI
SAW AND FLOURING MILLS OF GEO. A. DAVIS,
* MARSHALL, W. T.
GEO.A.DAVIS,
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
563
Ella Dawson, who still presides over his elegant
home in Walla Walla.
We must not forget to say that in 1877–78, in ad-
dition to their other almost multifarious enterprises,
the Small brothers put a steamer the Northwest, on
the Snake river route. They found this very profit-
They found this very profit-
able.
In 1880 Mr. Small, at first with his brother Ira,
and then with I. C. Ellis of Olympia, took an im-
mense contract to furnish timber for the Northern
Pacific Railroad. They furnished the timber and
ties for two hundred and fifty miles of road, between
Sprague and the second crossing of Clark's Fork in
Montana. In addition to the lumber contract, the
firm cleared the right of way for a hundred miles.
After finishing this contract, they supplied the Ore-
gon Railway & Navigation Company with a large
amount of material for the Palouse branch.
In 1884, as Mr. Small was looking forward to the
enjoyment of the results of all this hard work, he
met with a great series of disappointments and losses.
Fire attacked his mills in the Cœur d'Alene, and in
one swoop deprived him of $50,000. During the
same year he built the opera house in Walla Walla;
and before it was fairly completed a defect of con-
struction caused the building to fall in. All above
the first story had to be entirely rebuilt. This en-
tailed a loss of ten thousand dollars more on the
owner. In spite of this most inopportune misfortune,
Mr. Small pushed the opera house to completion. It
is among the illustrations of this volume, and is one
of the institutions of Walla Walla. It is without
doubt the finest building of the kind in the Upper
Columbia region.
The severe losses of 1884 did not cause Mr. Small
to retire from railroad work. In 1886 he furnished
timber for the Spokane & Palouse Railroad. He is
now just as active as ever, engaged in real estate,
the livery business, and in executing government
contracts. In the variety and magnitude of his
undertakings, Mr. Small is one of the marked men
of the Northwest. Few citizens of the "east of the
Mountains" have been in situations to know more of
our varied resources, and of few can the stranger
obtain more reliable or cheerful information.
He
MRS. ARETHUSA E. ŚMITH.—Arethusa E.,
the daughter of Daniel Lynn, was born near War-
saw, Benton county, Missouri, June 12, 1834. As
a child of six years she removed with her parents to
Platte county, in the same state, remaining until
1844, the year memorable for the great flood. Mr.
Lynn, being very fond of a pioneer life, determined.
to settle in Texas, but was unable to proceed farther
than the White river country, and, being ill suited
with that country, returned to Platte county.
had long heard of Oregon, and decided to cross the
plains thither, and in the spring of 1850 made the
start. But this proved a fatal step for the hardy
pioneer; for cholera attacked him on the Platte
plains, and terminated his useful life. The bereaved
wife and mother, Mrs. Ann Lynn, continued with
the train, and arrived at Portland almost the first of
October. Soon after her arrival her daughters made
homes of their own, with the exception of Miss
Arethusa, who in 1851 accompanied her mother to
the Umpqua valley, and lived with her at the new
home near Yoncalla, where also resided Jesse Apple-
gate, a friend of the family.
On the 21st of October, 1852, she was united in
marriage to Mr. Thomas Smith of Winchester, and
in that delightful spot of the Umpqua has lived for
nearly forty years, making a home for her hus-
band and rearing twelve children, four of whom
are girls. Two of the sons are deceased. Their
home bespeaks the comfort and refinement of a well-
regulated family, under the guidance of a careful
and kind mother.
EDWARD S. SMITH.-The death of Edward
Slade Smith at San Francisco, California, 011
December 31, 1885, and incidents relating to his life
gathered from recollections of Judge Charles H.
Berry, Honorable John A. Mathews and Doctor
James M. Cole.
Edward Slade Smith was born in what was then
Chemung, now Schuyler county, in the State of
New York, February, 28, 1827; and hence at his
decease he was nearly fifty-nine years old. His
parents were Joel and Anna Smith, both early
settlers in Winona, Minnesota, and both of whom
are now dead. There were born to them six sons
and four daughters. Edward Slade Smith, the
second son, gave early promise of those traits of
character, of that enterprise, activity, and great
perseverance, which were the leading features of
his life. His school advantages were not adequate
to his ambitious needs in after life; but his native
genius and inherent judgment seldom failed him.
After a reverse in his early business career, his ex-
periences became his best educators; and they af-
forded him knowledge not attainable in colleges.
However, his common-school acquirements were
sufficient for his business purposes; and his mind
was enlightened, and his views of life broadened,
by extensive reading and intercourse with the able
men of the West.
In 1852 he came to Minnesota. Having been
previously engaged with his eldest brother, Lorenzo
D. Smith, in the lumber business at Gibson, New
York, he very naturally saw the advantages that
the site of the Falls of St. Anthony afforded for an
immense water-power and manufacturing city.
There had been a small mill put up somewhere in
the neighborhood of the falls by the military authori-
ties of Fort Snelling; but its use had long been
abandoned. Seeing an unoccupied location, and
conceiving it to be a grand opportunity, he built
the first sawmill erected by a civilian at what is now
Minneapolis. Finding his squatter right contested
by what he regarded as political favoritism, and to
avoid what he supposed would be a legal or a mili-
tary ejectment from the premises, he sold out his
interest in the mill and its location, and in 1853
established himself in Winona, Minnesota. Soon
after his arrival there, he joined William Ashley
Jones in the purchase of an undivided interest in
what was known as the west half of the Stevens'
claim (eighty acres), which extended along and
back of the river front, and on which the Porter
Flouring Mill and others are now situated.
On the 14th of December, 1854, he was married
564
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
at Winona by Reverend Hiram S. Hamilton, of
the Congregational church, to Miss Mary Frances
Burns, daughter of John Burns. It was not long
before he became a prominent factor in the building
up of the city of Winona.
Together with his brother, L. D. Smith, Abraham
M. Fridley, William Ashley Jones, C. H. Berry,
H. H. Johnson, H. D. Huff, and other prominent
and well-known charter members of the Old Transit
Railroad, now the Winona & St. Peter, he invested
largely in an attempt to build the road by obtaining
congressional and state aid. After a very large ex-
penditure of money and labor by his brother, him-
self, and his associates, Congress, on March 3, 1857,
passed an act by which the Transit Railroad was to
receive through the state one million, two hundred.
thousand acres of land to aid them in constructing
the road. In 1858, also, the legislature, at its first
session, afterwards confirmed by the people of Min-
nesota, authorized a loan of five million dollars to
aid in general construction of railroads; and after
an amendment of its charter, and a change of its
name, ground was broken on the line of the Transit
road on June 9, 1858.
The work was pushed with vigor by the contract-
ors, De Graff & Co.; and five hundred thousand
dollars of state bonds had been received by them,
when the financial crash of 1858-59 came; and all
work was suspended. The state bonds soon became
almost worthless in the market, and the railroad
finally bankrupt. The deceased was in New York
with some of his associates endeavoring to raise
money for construction when the news reached them
of the repudiation of the state bonds. They had
been in Wall street; but no bonds could be placed
there. They met in conference upon the situation;
and the prospects seemed gloomy enough, when a
smile was seen spreading over Smith's jovial face.
He was asked by one in a nervous tone, What do
you see in the situation to amuse you?" He replied,
"I was just thinking that if the bonds could not be
used here in New York, I can use them at home;
for I have enough to paper a room.” The remark
of the deceased was characteristic of the man; for
he could not be suppressed; and, discharging their
hotel bills, the party started for their Western homes.
On returning to Winona, the deceased soon real-
ized that the Transit road, with all its franchises,
would pass into other hands; and he at once turned
his attention to other fields of labor. Having a good
water-power upon his property at Glen Mary,
in Burns' valley, he constructed a flouring-mill of
good capacity, that yielded a fair income to its own-
ers. -* As a means of drawing trade to Winona, he
was active in the construction of good roads into the
city, and subscribed liberally for that purpose. The
long and permanent embankment across the low-
lands at the foot of Lake Winona, usually called
"The Dyke," the foundations of which he helped
to lay, contributing the first five hundred dollars
expended in that work, is a monument to his sagac-
ity and liberality. He followed that contribution
from time to time with very much more, and in all
matters of public interest was always active.
In the somewhat turbulent state of early society
in Winona, Edward S. Smith could ever be relied
on as upon the side of law, harmony and good order;
and very many were the rough places which it was
his province to make smooth. These kindly acts
are retained in the memories of those who survive
him.
use.
In railroad construction, and in the use of mechan-
ical appliances, he had but few superiors in the wide
West. When the line of the North-Western Rail-
road coming into Winona across the Mississippi
river was changed, an attempt was made by its
management to pull up the oak piles driven by the
old contractors, as they were needed for immediate
After a vain attempt had been made made, in
which the costly machinery of the company was
pulled to pieces, the deceased offered to pull and de-
liver them when needed, for a reasonable considera-
tion. Mr. Smith was told by the engineer-in-chief
and the contractors that three machines at least
would be required to draw the piles as fast as needed,
and that fifteen hundred dollars would scarcely build
them. Smith replied, "Very well, you will pay
me then all the more willingly." An agreement.
was made; and the piles were rapidly pulled and
delivered from three machines made on the ground
from the capping of the old bridges at a cost of fif
teen dollars for each extractor.
It was the practical ingenuity of the man that in
1871 led to his selection by General J. W. Sprague
to assist operations as manager of the interests of
the Northern Pacific Railroad on the Pacific coast.
The selection and purchase of the Kalama site
was influenced by his judgment; and the purchase
of the site of the city of Tacoma was intrusted
entirely to his tact and judgment. How well and
faithfully his duties were performed, let the mag-
nificent city overlooking Commencement Bay attest.
When, in the autumn of 1873, Jay Cook failed,
and the contractors on the road from Kalama to
Tacoma were unable to pay the men, and it was
necessary to meet the requirements of Congress to
complete the road to Tacoma before the close of the
year, the railroad company, through the individual
efforts of Captain Ainsworth, put the work into his
hands. Sixteen miles of road remained unfinished;
and it was necessary to construct them within a few
weeks. A force of three hundred men were
encamped under arms at the end of the work refus-
ing to work until paid, and threatening to fire on
anyone else who should attempt to work on the road.
Mr. Smith went out with others to the men, and was
principally instrumental in inducing the men to
return to work. Under his direction, the railroad
was completed within the time required by the char-
ter. The authority for that important work was
contained in a letter from Captain Ainsworth of a
few lines, and which was a veritable carte blanche
as to mode of work.
The Wilkeson coal mines were discovered by him
from information received from one of the United
States surveyors, who had seem some float coal in a
ravine near the mines. Several vain attempts at
exploration with others were made, his companions
giving up the search. When, taking a pack upon
his back, he pursued his way through fallen timber
and vine maple, camping with a single companion
(W. C. Wallace) in the forest until success crowned
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
565
their efforts. After testing the coal in Portland, San
Francisco, and in domestic use, he hastened to secure
title to the mines that yielded the first coking coal
found in Washington Territory. Coke ovens had
been established by his enterprise; and the mines
are now quite extensively worked by the Tacoma
Coal Company, a large interest in which is held by
the heirs to his estate.
It was largely through his discoveries that faith
was inspired in the practicability of the present line
of railroad to Wilkeson. Mr. C. B. Wright reposed
great trust in his judgment; and Mr. Wright's influ-
ence in the board of directors decided the building
of the road up the Puyallup valley to the Wilkeson
coal mines in 1877. This thirty miles of road was
afterwards a potent factor in anchoring the terminus
of the Cascade division at Tacoma, and in stimu-
lating the work of counteraction when hostile influ-
ences were at work endeavoring to divert the termi-
nal point, and to defeat the construction of the road
across the Cascade Mountains. Mr. Smith acquired
large interests in Tacoma real estate; and from the
time of the location of the railroad terminus at
Tacoma in 1873, he never lost heart or faith in the
ultimate future of the city, but exerted every effort
for its settlement and development. In the first few
years of this early period he built and carried on the
sawmill near the railroad wharf, in which Mr. M. F.
Hatch subsequently became an owner, beside open-
ing his coal mine at Wilkeson, already mentioned.
Mr. Smith had a high sense of honor, and was a
great lover of justice. He suffered no man to deal
unfairly with him, and in resisting any such attempt
was uncompromising. His charities were many and
unostentatious. They were not done in the face of
the public, and were generally made known by him
only to the recipient. He aided many to help them-
selves, and their inclination to do so was with him
a test of their worthiness. And yet, if anyone was
really helpless, within his observation and means,
he helped them so quietly that his hand was not
seen by others. Knowing from his character what
he would have done if living, his executors have
made a large donation of land in aid of the Metho-
dist University in course of construction at Tacoma.
In politics, through his life, he was a Democrat;
though he had no taste nor desire for office. He had a
great admiration for Senators Ben Wade and Thurman
of Ohio; and when in Washington, District of Col-
umbia, during their senatorship and that of his per-
sonal friend, Senator Daniel S. Norton, Democratic
senator from Minnesota, they were all to be found
together during adjournment in one or another of their
rooms, the most jolly in their fund of anecdotes of
any brainy men in the nation. Mr. Smith's jovial
but self-poised nature, his humor and ready wit, his
sterling qualities of strong sense, truth and firmness,
made him hosts of friends; and he was at once
recognized as the peer of any of his associates. He
was a man cast in no common mold, and attached to
him warmly those who came much in contact with
him.
At the time of his death, which resulted from
blood-poisoning, he had just completed a fine resi-
dence in Tacoma, and was intending other improve-
ments that would have made his residence and
grounds as desirable as any in the city. These he
had to leave, though not unprepared; for his views
of life and death were based upon firm belief in a
just and merciful God, and a philosophical existence
beyond the tomb. His widow still survives him,
together with their children, Frank, Fred, Harry,
Fanny, Nora and Maud. May his memory be
preserved and honored as one of the noblest types
of a Western pioneer.
HON. E. L. SMITH.-Although these sketches
deal mainly with men who came hither in the forties
and fifties, we are yet occasionally reminded of the
fact that length of residence does not constitute the
only just claim to recognition in our annals. Every
decade has its pioneers. Nearly every year has
seen added to our number someone who by force of
character, intelligence and industry has made him-
self a place in the esteem of the people, and in the
business fabric of the country. The subject of the
present subject was a pioneer of 1861. Though
thus not of especially early residence here, there is
scarcely a man in our history who has touched more
of the experiences of life on this coast than he, or
who has a larger circle of friends and acquaintances,
or who has a greater general knowledge of this
country in all its many unfolding phases.
Mr. Smith was born in Orleans county, Vermont,
in 1837. Removing to Illinois in 1857, he became
for a time a teacher in Tazewell county. In 1858
he entered Lombard University at Galesburg. In
1860 he found his life's partner-a most happy
"find" for both-in the person of Miss Georgia
Slocum, of Woodstock, Illinois. During that same
period of his life, too, though so young, he became,
by reason of his natural powers of oratory, a prom-
inent member of the new Republican party, and
gained the personal acquaintance of Abraham Lin-
coln and other giants of that great epoch. Many are
his present reminiscences of that soul-stirring time.
Early in 1861 he went to California, and engaged
in mining in El Dorado county. In 1865 he became
a member of the California legislature, being with
one exception the youngest member. In 1866 he
received, through the influence of William H. Sew-
ard, the appointment of secretary of Washington
Territory, and accordingly made his home at Olym-
pia. During part of his term he was acting gov-
ernor. In 1874 he was chosen to the legislative
council of Washington.
While in Olympia he formed a partnership with
G. A. Barnes and William Avery in establishing
the first bank of that place. His business and pub-
lic prospects at Olympia were very bright; but a
tendency to pulmonary trouble threatening serious
results, he was compelled to drop all his plans and
seek a dry climate. His first move was a long out-
door engagement in surveying. In company with
R. J. Reeves he took the contract for running the
boundary line between Idaho and Washington Ter-
ritories.
With health regained by the exercise and freedom
of this experience, he next sought a permanent
location in the dry climate of the Inland Empire.
The beauty and healthfulness of Hood river ap-
pealed so strongly to him that, though it was
566
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
somewhat isolated, he resolved to establish himself
there. He accordingly went into the mercantile
business there in 1876, adding to the store the care
of a large ranch. In that most attractive of the
mountain resorts of Oregon he has since made his
home, with one period of absence. That was dur-
ing the three years from 1881 to 1884, when he was
registrar of the United States land-office at The
Dalles.
Since his return to Hood river, Mr. Smith has
resumed on a larger scale his former business, be-
sides devoting much attention to matters of public
interest in his section and in the state. He has
been for three successive years president of the Co-
lumbia River Water-way Association; and with his
broad comprehension of the commercial needs of the
country, and his persuasive manner of speaking, he
has done much to impress upon the popular mind
the need of an open river. He is at the present
time grand master of the A. O. U. W. for Oregon,
Washington and British Columbia.
He has been many times spoken of for the high-
est position in the state, as well as for that of United
States senator; but his political independence is so
great, and his contempt for the arts of the politician
so complete, that the " managers have been a
little afraid to give him the prominence which the
people would gladly bestow. In the year 1888,
however, he was nominated by acclamation by the
Republicans of Wasco county for the lower house.
of the legislature, and after a very lively canvass
was elected by a large majority. At the assembling
of the legislature in the following January, he was
chosen speaker of the house, which important posi-
tion he held with satisfaction to all.
It is deemed a great privilege to be able to claim
the personal acquaintance of Mr. Smith; for his
beautiful home, his peculiar enthusiasm of disposi-
tion, and his boundless hospitality, amply sustained
by that of his wife and daughters, together with his
rare literary taste and love of art, legend, Indian
tradition and pioneer stories, make Hood river a
veritable Mecca. To this must be added the effect
of the majestic scenery of the place, a panorama of
scenic attractions, ever varying and ever new, such
as even this land, fruitful in natural wonders and
beauties, does not elsewhere equal. In politics Mr.
Smith, though an ardent Republican, is a devoted
advocate of temperance and every other great moral
reform. In religion he and his wife are earnest ad-
herents of that denomination, small in numbers but
great in intellect and influence, the Unitarian.
Six children, five girls and one boy, have been
born to Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They have lost the
only son and one of the daughters. The living
children are Jessie (Mrs. Doctor Watt of Pullman,
Washington), Avis (Mrs. William M. Stewart of
The Dalles), Georgia and Anne.
HON. EUGENE D. SMITH. This pioneer of
the logging business of the Snohomish river, a por-
trait of whom is placed in this history, is a repre-
sentative man of the Puget Sound country, and
almost a typical American. Of large and fine propor-
tions physically, self-reliant, capable of taking a hand
at any business, even at politics or war, or, with a lit-
tle brushing up, at almost any profession, he at pres-
ent contents himself with being proprietor and patron
of the handsome town of Lowell, Washington, and
conducting large logging operations on his own
estate of four thousand acres in Snohomish county.
He was born in Maine on April 30, 1837.
While but a child of eight he suffered the loss of
his father at Marshfield, Maine, and two years later
began the battle of life for himself.
Six years a
sailor on the high seas, at the age of twenty-one he
was commander of a brig. In 1858 he left that sit-
uation and came via the Isthmus to San Francisco,
sailing on the well-known old steamers Oriflamme and
Golden Gate; and by the autumn of that year he had
drifted up to the haven of all Maine men, Puget
Sound. At Port Gamble he found employment in
a logging camp, but in 1862 tried his luck at
the Caribou mines. This venture was quickly found
non-productive; and in 1863 he began logging on
the Snohomish. His original claim was on the site
of Lowell. There he has since remained, with but
few breaks, such as going to Idaho for a time to
repair his health in the sixties, and in 1869 to San
Francisco to meet his bride, Miss Margaret B. Getch-
ell, whom he had known long before at Marshfield.
Coming back to the Sound with a home in his
mind, he bought back his old claim at Lowell
and began securing lots and pre-empting, home-
steading and purchasing, until he owns a baronial
estate. He has been active in improving his home,
in creating a mercantile business, building a hotel,
in securing the growth of the town about him, and
in bringing in all the comforts and advantages that
can be obtained for his family.
can be obtained for his family. He has three chil-
dren living; and one has passed beyond. Not a
politician, he nevertheless has pronounced political
views, and has held such offices as postmaster, jus-
tice of the peace and county commissioner.
GREEN B. SMITH.-There are few names more
widely known among the pioneers of Western Ore-
gon than that which stands at the head of this
sketch. Few lives have been more full of advent-
ure. After a long life actively spent among the
trials and vicissitudes incident to a frontier life, he
finally yielded to the fiat of nature; and, in obedi-
ence to the summons that must come to all, he
passed over the dark river. His death, which leaves
but a comparatively small number of that old pio-
neer's phalanx of 1845, who marched two thousand
miles across a trackless desert to found a home in
the far West, occurred on the 7th of May, 1886.
Mr. G. B. Smith was born in Grayson county,
West Virginia, September 10, 1820, and was the son
of George and Nancy (Hamilton) Smith. At the
age of sixteen years, his parents removing to St.
Joseph county, Indiana, he accompanied them
thither, assisting in the cultivation of the farm until
1840, when he emigrated to Platte county, Missouri,
and there remained until the spring of 1845. At
this period, accompanied by his brother Alexander
(who died at the Sandwich Islands in 1850), Mr.
Smith joined a train composed of sixty-six wagons
at St. Joseph, Missouri, under the command of Cap-
tain T'Vault, and commenced the long journey
across the plains.
་


HON. THERON E.FELL,
MORROW, CO.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
567
After successive changes in the leaders of the
party, that well-known veteran, Stephen Meek, un-
dertook to conduct them into the Willamette valley
by the old Columbia route; but unfortunately, when.
at the place since called Silver Lake, located west of
the Blue Mountains, the guide found himself at
fault, and declared himself to be absolutely lost;
upon which the emigrants became so incensed that
they affirmed that Meek must hang, a determination
which so alarmed him that he made his escape at
dead of night, leaving his wife behind under the
care of the late Nathan Olney.
It now forced itself upon their minds that the
Columbia route lay to the northward; but such was
their distress for lack of water that this knowledge
availed them little. Scouring the desert to the east
of the present Prineville for five days, they found
none; therefore they turned to the northward, and,
after one day and night's travel, discovered that
with which to slake their parched throats. Their
supplies too had given out; and they were com-
pelled to kill some of their cattle, and eat their flesh
without salt. After traveling some days, the waters
of the Des Chutes river were reached; and there the
party were met by Black Harris, a mountaineer,
who had learned from the Indians that there were
emigrants lost in the country. Harris led them to
the river opposite what is now known as Tygh
valley, Wasco county.
It now became necessary to cross the Des Chutes;
but the Indians had given them to understand that
it was a difficult feat either for man or beast. Un-
deterred, however, the wagons were unshipped from
the wheels and tightly caulked; but yet another
difficulty presented itself. How was a guy rope to
be conveyed to the opposite bank? Happily there
was a young man in their midst whose courage was
equal to the hazardous task. In him we find that
worthy pioneer, Prier Scott (now living near Corval-
lis), who volunteered to swim the stream, an exploit
he accomplished; and their wagons and supplies
were ferried over. The beasts were made to swim;
and not a thing was lost. Not long after that, they
arrived at The Dalles, where they obtained a supply
of provisions from the Methodist Mission, then
under the charge of Reverend A. F. Waller; and
there, building a raft and shipping their wagons
and goods upon it, they went with the current down
the Columbia to the Upper Cascades; while the
cattle were driven along the southern shore of the
river to the same point.
There the Indians were
hired to assist in swimming the cattle across the
river, which being successfully accomplished the
route was again taken to the Lower Cascades.
There they were assisted by men and boats from the
Hudson's Bay Company's fort at Vancouver, where
they were furnished with clothing and provisions by
Doctor McLoughlin.
Having wintered at the mouth of the Washougal,
some fifteen miles above Fort Vancouver, in the
month of March, 1846, Mr. Smith and his brother
moved to Benton county; and he took up his residence
about twelve miles north of Corvallis and engaged
in farming and stock-raising, his original Donation
claim being still owned by his family. By indus-
try, economy and the exercise of good judgment, Mr.
Smith soon became one of the most prosperous men
and the largest taxpayer in the county. He was a
man of superior intelligence and marked individuality
of character. He represented his county in the terri-
torial legislature in 1849, and although he took an
active interest in public affairs, and an open stand
on questions of public interest, he had no ambition
for political promotion, but was as true as steel to
his friends. He was twice married, in the first
instance in 1848 to Miss Eliza Huggard, a native of
Missouri, who died one year after. By that union he
had one son, Alexander. He was married secondly,
in 1830, to Miss Mary Baker, a native of Tennessee,
who survives him. The issue of this last marriage
is one son, John, who now resides in Corvallis.
The emigration of 1845 contained large num-
bers of the best specimens of true manhood that can
be found in the history of any country in the civil-
ized world; and the subject of this sketch was not
inferior to any in that whole band of pioneers. In
all the elements of character that constitute the true
citizen and representative of the highest type of an
American, he was the peer of any. He was public
spirited, and gave liberally to the various public
enterprises and charitable institutions in his county;
and there were no schemes for the improvement of
his city or county, or for the betterment of the con-
dition of his fellowmen, that were properly pre-
sented to him, but that received his encouragement
and liberal aid and assistance.
His life-work is done; and his character stands
out as grand and as simple as the colossal pillar
of chiseled granite that marks his last resting-
place.
DR. HENRY A. SMITH.-Doctor Smith was
born in Wooster, Ohio, April 11, 1830, and is the
son of Nicholas and Abagail (Teaff) Smith. His
father, who was a Baptist minister, died when he
was but nine years of age, and left his mother a
widow with eleven children, Henry being the
youngest son. When he was about sixteen years
old he moved with his mother and one sister to
Mount Pleasant, Iowa. Soon afterwards he entered
Alleghany College, Pennsylvania, and studied med-
icine.
In the spring of 1852, in company with his mother
and one sister, he started west in Doctor Miller's
train, arriving in Portland October 26th of that year.
He came on to Seattle, Washington Territory, the
following January, and in that year, 1853, took up
one hundred and sixty acres in what is now known
as Smith's Avenue, a suburb of Seattle. In 1855
he spent nine months as surgeon in the Indian war,
and was afterwards elected the first school superin-
tendent of King county.
He has represented King county two terms in the
legislature, Snohomish county, one term in the house
and two terms in the council, at the last session of
which he was president.
He conducted a hospital in Snohomish for eight
years, and in 1866 sold most of his property to the
Seattle & Lake Shore Railroad.
The Doctor has a family of eight children, seven
daughters and one son.
568
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
CAPT. HIRAM SMITH. — Capacity for busi-
ness may make a man a miser or a shark. Gene-
rosity may make him a pauper. In the one case he
may so use his talent as to over-reach and distress
his neighbors; and in the other he may impover-
ish himself and become a burden rather than a
benefit to society. The benevolent heart is best
when joined to a sagacious head. No man seems
so happy, and certainly none so useful, as he who
is able to gratify his love of doing good by having
the means for its accomplishment ever at hand.
Such man was Father Wilbur. Such man also was
Captain Smith. Oregon may well boast of both of
them.
Hiram Smith was born in Danville, New York,
in 1810. That was about the time that many of
the American princes were born;—when the Amer-
ican youth realized that the continent was to be
conquered from nature, as it had been in the last
generation from tyranny. West of the Alleghanies
a man might have about as much land as he could
ride over.
There was the opportunity to repeat the
life which the world has most deeply cherished in
its songs and stories,--of making new homes,
building new towns and constructing new states.
The dross, the slag, of the old incrusted past was
to be left behind, and the pure metal to be pushed
to the western bounds. In the presence of such
In the presence of such
ideas, and embodying them largely himself, he
went out to Cleveland, Ohio, where his life was
made complete by his marriage to Miss Hannah
M. Stone in 1835. This young lady was a pio-
neer herself, a native of Rutland county, Vermont,
and had been since her fourth year living at Cook's
Corners, Ohio, her mother being a sister of the
father of Mr. Jay Cook, the celebrated financier.
When she experienced the real pioneer life of the
Rocky Mountains and the Pacific slope, she was
able to accompany her husband on his longest
expeditions, sharing his hardships, his exploits and
his success.
Soon after their marriage they moved to Findlay,
Ohio, the place which has become so famous for
natural gas.
At Waterville he engaged in the
manufacture of fanning mills, the first in Western
Ohio; and at Findlay he continued the same business
with his brother-in-law, J. E. Stone. In 1845 he came
out to Oregon in company with Colonel Risley and
Colonel Taylor. He made a thorough survey of
Oregon and of the Puget Sound region, and upon
his return in 1846 was able to give accurate infor-
mation which led many to set forth for our state.
In 1850 he himself organized a party, bringing his
wife with him, and intending to make his home
upon the Pacific. Reaching Portland he engaged
in a mercantile business;-Portland even in its
infancy was a great place for "stores;" and in 1852
he drove out on to the plains with provisions and
beef cattle to meet the immigration of that year.
This was a business enterprise undertaken, never-
theless, with the purpose of supplying a large body
of persons who would be nearly destitute at that
stage of their journey. Those of the company
who had money paid for their provisions; and those
who had no money got their flour and beef just the
same. Many of those promised to pay as soon as
they were able; but it is not known that the Cap-
tain ever accepted any such remuneration. So large
a number were impecunious that the enterprise was
not a success financially.
The next year saw him on the plains once more.
His wife was with him; and they were both on
horseback. They were going on a visit home to
Ohio. They stopped three weeks for rest at Salt
Lake, and were but sixty days traveling. This was
a simple frontier pleasure trip, the eighteenth cele-
bration of their honeymoon. The coupie, thus re-
juvenated, completed their tour by a voyage back to
the Pacific via Panama.
Resuming business at the old place in Portland,
he experienced in 1855 a shrewd brush with the In-
dians of the Umpqua, which illustrates the perils of
a merchant's life in the early days. He was taking
two large wagon loads of goods to the Southern Ore-
gon mines; and as usual his wife was accompanying
him. On Cow creek a band of savages burst out
upon the wagons, killing one of the drivers, Charlie
Jonsen, while the other, his nephew, Mr. Stone,
made good his escape to a log cabin near by, where
in company with other refugees the enemy was
fought off. Jonsen's body was shockingly mutilated;
and the oxen were killed and packed off for beef.
The stores were plundered, the goods stolen or de-
stroyed, and the wagons burned. Fortunately, Mr.
Smith and his wife were some two days behind
traveling on horseback. Learning of the outbreak,
they took shelter in a log cabin, an incipient block-
house, belonging to Mr. D. Barnes, who was then at
the front. This was about half way between Rose-
burg and Winchester, near the place occupied by
Colonel Martin. There he made himself comfortable,
laying in provisions and buying some milch cows.
But in a short time wounded soldiers were brought
down from Martin's headquarters; and the place be-
came a hospital. Captain Smith supplied the com-
missary with milk and butter, and with canned fruit
and other delicacies acceptable to wounded men, and
very difficult to obtain. He also employed two
Indian boys, and undertook to keep clean the hos-
pital linen, in short, doing the washing for the es-
tablishment. Mrs. Smith also busied herself among
the soldiers, mending their torn clothing and minis-
tering to their mental as well as physical wants.
For this service the captain received pay in govern-
ment scrip, which his wife thinks he never cared to
redeem. It was with him a work of humanity. He
stayed at his post until the war was over in 1865,
moving on then to California. In 1859 he and his
wife returned again to Findlay, Ohio, remaining
until 1862, when they crossed the plains once more,
with a considerable company, and reaching their
home in Portland entered upon life here with new
zest and zeal for our glorious state.
In 1865 Captain Smith made his sixth trip across
the plains, all before the era of railroads,—and sold
out his property interests in Hancock county, Ohio.
One thousand dollars of the avails he set aside and
gave to the trustees of Findlay, to use as a permanent
fund to buy coal for the widows or children of sol-
diers, should circumstances make such assistance
acceptable. This fund has since greatly increased.
After thirty years, when the need of the soldier's
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
569
widow would be likely to cease, the fund is to be
used for a like service to any poor women who gain
their livelihood by the use of the needle. Besides
these benevolences, over which we naturally linger
with much pleasure, our pioneer was constantly
performing private benefactions. He sought to do
his good deeds in the dark in order to hide himself,
and to avoid being thanked. His is peculiarly that
disposition which let his neighbors know of a good
thing around the corner; and he made opportunities
for the deserving, and was ever ready to lend a help-
ing hand to any fallen person trying to rise. His
own business has prospered; and upon his death, in
1870, he left a comfortable fortune.
Mrs. Smith still resides in Portland, occupying
her handsome residence, and continuing the works
of benevolence in which her husband found his
chief satisfaction. There is nothing like a living
public spirit to cement the different classes of society,
to prevent the rot of sordidness and vice, and thus
to make a hopeful and progressive state.
He
SOLOMON HOWARD SMITH. Mr. Smith,
a most generous and public-spirited citizen, and a
pioneer of so early a day as 1832, was born at Leb-
anon, New Hampshire, December 26, 1809.
came of Revolutionary stock, his maternal grand-
father having been a soldier in the war for Indepen-
dence, and a relative of the Greeley family. His
father was an assistant surgeon in the war of 1812,
and died at Plattsburgh, New York, in 1813.
The boy Solomon was afforded good advantages,
receiving his academic education at Norwich, Ver-
mont; and he studied medicine with his uncle,
Doctor Haven Foster, not, however, taking a diploma.
In 1831, with a number of other adventurous spirits,
he went fishing for cod on the Newfoundland
banks, and met with good fortune, except that upon
the return the schooner was run over by an English
packet ship and sunk with cargo and all. Smith
and the others were picked up and left at Boston
bankrupt, as they were staking their fortune upon
the sale of their fish, which they shared alike.
the city in which he found himself, Smith obtained
employment as clerk, but in 1832 was moved to cast
in his fortune with Captain Wyeth, and build up a
great business upon the Pacific coast.
At
The severe journey across the plains and mount-
ains he endured as well as the best, bidding adieu
to one after another of the scions of the first Boston
families who were in the party, as they turned back,
meeting with William Sublette at the rendezvous on
Green river, at Pierre's Hole. On the trip from that
point to the Columbia, this side of the Salmon River
Mountains, he endured seven days' fasting, eating
nothing but the buds, or pome, of roses. Being at
the head of one of the little parties into which
Wyeth had divided his company, he descried, on
coming out of the mountains, an Indian tent with
smoke in the distance, and making his way thither
at the top of his horse's speed discovered upon ar-
rival that the Indian had but shortly returned from
the hunt, a buffalo lying at the side of the tent;
while the heart of the animal was boiling in the pot
over the fire. To his eloquent gestures indicating
his hunger, the Indian replied by immediately ten-
dering the whole morsel; and the feast was royal
and just completed as the other members of the
party arrived. Their hunger was soon relieved,
however, by recourse to the buffalo.
Reaching Vancouver, Mr. Smith soon found em-
ployment to succeed Mr. Ball as teacher of the
school at the fort, filling out the term of which but
two weeks had been taught, and following the first
with a second term. The year following he mar
ried Celiast (see biography of Mrs. Helen
Smith), and went to Gervais, making a settle-
ment and teaching school at Chemawa. After-
wards he went to the mouth of Chehalem creek,
and assisted Ewing Young to build a mill, and
made that point his home until 1840. Suffer-
ing, however, from ague, and hearing his wife
tell of the excellent climate at her old home by the
ocean, and conferring with McLoughlin, who advised
the making of settlements only in communities large
enough for protection, he with Daniel Lee went
down the river in May, 1840, meeting at the mouth
of the Columbia the ship Lausanne, with the rein-
forcements for the Methodist Mission. In August of
the same year he made a removal to Clatsop, advising
the missionaries also to establish a station there.
From that time he made his home upon the beautiful
Clatsop Plains.
He became the real agricultural pioneer of Clat-
sop county, as the fort of Astoria was simply for
purposes of trade. In his capacity of pioneer
he was the first to bring horses in the spring of 1841
to the mouth of the river, making a ferry-boat by
means of two canoes lashed side by side. The
horses were Spanish animals obtained from the place
of Ewing Young, and were put aboard the craft at
St. Helens. With Mr. Frost he went to the Will-
amette valley and brought cattle via the Grande.
Ronde, Salmon river and Tillamook, and made sub-
sequent trips. He opened out a farm, and, upon
the great revival of business and trade consequent
upon the opening of the gold mines in 1848, sold
butter and beef to great profit, getting two dollars
per pound for the former. He also had supplied
beef to the wrecked crew of the Peacock in 1841, and
for the Shark in 1846.
In 1849 he opened a store at Skipanon, Oregon,
doing a large business and at one time carrying a
stock worth twelve thousand dollars. In 1851 he
went into the lumber business, leasing the old Har-
rall mill on the Lewis and Clarke river, and oper-
ating it successfully. From 1852 onwards he con-
fined himself more strictly to conducting his farm.
From the earliest years he was a friend of good order
and progress. He was especially interested in
schools, and with the few settlers in that region kept
a teacher at a salary of twelve hundred dollars a year.
He held school offices constantly, and in 1874 was
chosen by the people of the counties of Clatsop,
Columbia and Tillamook as senator to the state leg-
islature. It was while serving in that office that he
died, in August, 1876. Sol H. Smith will always
be remembered as a pioneer of great enterprise and
generosity, opening out a new country and extend-
ing every possible assistance to those who came after
him.
He had a family of seven children, three of whom
570
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
ན༔
are living: Silas Smith, born in Chehalem valley Sep-
tember 22, 1839, was brought up with his father,
and at the age of majority went East to study law,
reading with W. N. Blair, a county solicitor, and a
cousin of Senator Blair of New Hampshire. Mr.
Smith is a thorough lawyer and a very effective
speaker, a man indeed of much culture and broad
ideas. He resides upon the old place of his father
near Skipanon. His wife, Mary H., daughter of
Deacon G. W. Swain, of Laconia, New Hampshire,
is a lady of culture and attractive social qualities.
They have five children. Mrs. Josephine Ketchum,
Sol Smith's elder daughter, resides in San Luis
Obispo county, California; Mrs. Charlotte Braillier,
the younger, resides near Skipanon.
MRS. HELEN SMITH.
SMITH. — There survives
within the limits of the old Oregon no person whose
life possesses more universal interest than the lady
whose name appears above, and of whom we present
an excellent portrait. The widow of a pioneer
whose first operations upon this coast belong to the
antique days of Wyeth and Kelly, her own memory
extends to the remote times of the Astor expedition
of 1811; and her infant life was contemporary with
the explorations of Lewis and Clarke in 1805. The
entire panorama of the occupation and settlement of
our state has therefore passed before her eyes. She
has been no careless observer of these great events;
and her mind, still clear and active, retains a sur-
prisingly vivid recollection of our early Oregon his-
tory. As thus pictured in her mind, this possesses
a peculiar interest from the fact that it has been
drawn exclusively from personal observation from
the standpoint of the native owners of our state.
Celiast, whose christian name is Helen, is the
daughter of Coboway (incorrectly written Commo-
wool by Bancroft), and dates her birth in the year
1804. Her father was the chief of the Clatsops, a
tribe whose boundaries extended from the mouth of
the Columbia river southward to Ecahni Mountain
(Carni), eastward thence to Swallalahost or Saddle
Mountain, and thence by Young's river back to the
Columbia. The Clatsops were a quiet and peace-
able people, having the same language as the more
numerous tribe of the Chinooks. They were pos-
sessed of many arts and accomplishments, which,
although of a different order from our own, betrayed
no less the inventive genius and predominance of
the human mind. Their houses, often sixty feet
in length, and made of split cedar planks some-
times twenty feet long and three feet wide, the
canoes hollowed from cedar trees by means of
chisels and mallets, and steamed and strained to
a greater width by means of a fire kindled in the
hollow after the process of chipping out was nearly
completed; the salmon seines made of wild flax
threaded and twisted into chords; and lastly the
clothing made of the skins of wild animals and of
frizzled cedar bark, with elaborate ornamentations
of shells, pebbles, quills, feathers, and later of
beads, were all specimens of industry, and of in-
genuity which would tax the skill and patience of
the European. For some years before the birth
of Celiast, the Clatsop Indians had carried on a
trade with the passing ships for strap and scrap
iron, of which they made their chisels and knives,
and for beads. The traders of Astoria still later
supplied them with cloths, and to some extent with
firearms.
Coboway, chief of this people, held his title as
did the chiefs of the most of the native races,-by
virtue of his intelligence and activity.
He was a
faithful and honest man, of much service to Lewis
and Clarke, and was intrusted by them with the cer-
tificate announcing their arrival and wintering at
the mouth of the Columbia; and this document, as
by request, the chief delivered to the captain of the
first vessel entering the harbor. Among other
duties of the Indian chief was the delivering of the
stories, legends and beliefs of the tribe to his suc-
cessors; and from her father the young Indian girl
learned all the myths of Ecahni, Tallapus and Old
Thunder, with the faiths and maxims of the tribe
delivered as they were in rhythmic language and
vivid narratives. From the regular and clearly
carved features, the lofty brow and large expressive
eyes of this now venerable woman of more than
eighty years, we may suppose that in her youth she
was of unusual beauty. Soon after reaching woman-
hood, in accordance with the custom of the Hud-
son's Bay Company, she was sought and married by
one of the employés of the organization, a French-
man by the name of Porier, the baker at Fort
George or Astoria. She bore him three children,
and in the removal to Vancouver in 1824 accom-
panied him thither.
It was during her residence at the latter point that
there occurred an event which must have been
exceedingly distressing to her feelings. This was
the bombardment of the Indian village at Tansy
Point by a British schooner.
Point by a British schooner. The sanguinary affair
was brought about as a result of the wreck of the
bark William and Ann at the Columbia bar, and a
difficulty in obtaining the wreckage. This was one
of the few occasions upon which McLoughlin
showed severity; and his course has been justified
on the ground that the Indians had murdered the
crews of the vessel. This charge has, however, ever
been earnestly denied by the remnants of the Clatsop
Indians; and it seems hardly just to let it stand
without their protest and explanation. By their
account, and indeed by all authentic records, the
William and Ann, in company with the American
schooner Convoy, Captain Thompson, sought to enter
the river late in the day, in the month of February
or early in March (the month of smelt). The
schooner was in the lead, and passed safely into
Baker's Bay; but the bark missed the channel and
struck on the middle sands, holding fast. A boat
from the schooner, as appears from the accounts of
a sailor of the Convoy, attempted to go to the relief
of the unfortunate crew; but the wind rising brought
them into peril, and compelled them to return with-
out reaching the bark. During the night the William
and Ann went to pieces; and, as the Indians said,
the crew were drowned. The Convoy went up the
river bearing the tidings; and in due time a boat
party came from Vancouver to investigate the wreck.
They found no trace of the crew; but much of the
cargo was in possession of the Indians. Among
other effects of the ship was a boat with the oars,

MURPHY
T1885 1
& BURNS
MURPHY & BURNS
MURPHY & BURNS,
DEALERS IN JEWELRY, SCHOOL SUPPLIES & STATIONERY, SPRAGUE, W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
571
found in the hands of a sub-chief of the Clatsops.
This Indian declared that he found it floating in
Young Bay. He moreover incited the others, and
confirmed them in their intention to retain the
wreckage which they had gathered, all but one of the
Indians refusing to give up any of the property.
Upon pressure and threats from the English, the
saucy chief produced a small, decrepit, bail dipper,
and said that he would send it (with his respects) to
the chief factor. This ultimatum carried back to
Vancouver brought as a response an armed schooner,
which shelled the village, and from which an assault
was inade; and the recalcitrant chief, with two of his
men, was killed. The village was also ransacked
for the lost goods, and generally pillaged. The
bombardment, which occurred, not upon the loss of
the crew, but two months later upon the refusal of
the Indians to give up the plunder, seems to have
had an adequate cause, not in the belief of the
English that the crew had been murdered, but that
it was dangerous to allow any Indians to hold their
old view that they might call their own anything
that they found or that came from the ocean; but
that the property of the English was everywhere
sacred, and must be given up on demand.
Some years after the removal of Celiast to Van-
couver, it was discovered by McLoughlin that her
husband, Porier, had another wife in Canada; and
upon the chief factor's advice she left the French-
man, retaining only the youngest of her three chil-
dren, which she also relinquished a few year later.
She took up her residence with her sister, Mrs.
Gervais, at French Prairie, but was frequently at the
fort.
There she was first seen by Solomon Smith,
and sought by him as a wife. In the absence of any
civil or ecclesiastical authority, ceremony was dis-
pensed with; but in conscience they were bound,
and a few years later were formally joined by the
missionary Jason Lee. They now spent some years
at Chemawa, and later at the mouth of Chehalem
creek; but in 1840 Celiast, or Helen, was rejoiced
to guide the canoe of her husband, which also con-
veyed Daniel Lee and a crew of Wasco Indians, to
the scenes of her old home at the mouth of the
Columbia river. This excursion was made in May.
In August following a regular removal was effected
thither; and after a short stop at the mouth of a
romantic little stream, the Neacoxa, by the ocean
beach, a permanent home was formed at the north end
of Clatsop Plains, on a farm embracing some of the
finest grass land of that region famous for herbage.
There Mrs. Smith has lived for just about half a
century, conducting her household in an exemplary
and capable manner. Since the death of her hus-
band, she has kept a cottage of her own, apart from
the other members of her family, but upon the old
homestead.
In the early years of the settlement on the plains,
she rendered the Whites many important services.
Once as the whole band of Clatsops, augmented by
the Tillamooks, were on the way to massacre the
family of a man at whom they were enraged, she
met them while in full array, and by cogent argu-
ments, directed both to their caution and to their
nobility, turned them back from their bloody pur-
pose.
Her influence over them was remarkable; and
it is probable that, if she had not used it at that
very moment in the interest of the white settlers, a
local and perhaps a general Indian war would have
ensued. At another time she saved the life of that
worthy gentleman, Mr. Frost, by seizing by the hair
the Indian, Katata, and wrenching from his hand
the gun with which he was about to shoot the mis-
sionary. Once more she wrenched from the hand
of her husband the gun-stock with which he was
about to brain an Indian who was making upon him
a murderous attack, but whose arm was already par-
alyzed by one blow of the weapon. Mr. Smith was
ever glad to have been prevented from killing the
fellow, as he proved after his punishment to be a
faithful friend.
These incidents illustrate the courageous and
noble nature of Mrs. Smith; and the careful study
of her portrait impresses one with the benevolence
and integrity of her character. Although now an
octogenarian, she is still in good health; and her
mind is not impaired by age. She must not be
omitted from among the number of those who have
made our state, since her services, whether as wife
and mother in a new settlement, as a pioneer of one
of the oldest of our counties, or in bidding a hun-
dred excited Indians to leave the settlers unharmed,
have been of the highest value.
CAPT. THOMAS SMITH.- Captain Smith,
the intrepid Indian fighter and pioneer, has seen the
beginning of every Indian disturbance in Southern
Oregon; and his narratives are therefore of peculiar
interest.
He was born September 14, 1809, in Campbell
county, Kentucky. At the age of seventeen he
removed with his recently widowed mother to Boone
county, and learned the trade of a carpenter. In 1839
he went to Texas, and in 1849 formed a party desig-
nated as the Equal Rights Company, to cross the
plains by the southern route via El Paso and the
Gila river to California. The journey was notably
difficult, chiefly from the excessive heat and lack of
water. Captain Smith's indomitable spirit had many
occasions in which to be tested, as when he recov-
ered a horse and mule from the Pima Indians on the
Gila, or led his column-seventy-five men and two
hundred and fifty animals-across the desert, fol-
lowing Colonel Crook's trail by the animals of the
government train which had died and had dried up
by reason of the desert air, and finding water and
grass on a sunken river and at a small lake.
Arrived in California in the autumn, Captain
Smith's experiences in the mines at Dry creek, Oro-
ville, and on the Feather river, were of the checkered
character of the argonauts,-more of sickness and
ill luck than of success. By 1851 he was at Yreka,
and thence came over into Oregon; and, seeing a
better prospect in raising vegetables than in digging
gold, he induced three others, Patrick Dunn, Fred-
erick Alberding and David S. Earl, to join him on
a place near the present site of Ashland. That was
almost the first settlement of Southern Oregon. The
difficulties of that undertaking are so explicitly
described by the Captain that we insert here his own
account. He says:
'While waiting for my com-
panions to come to my claim, I was left here about
572
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
eleven days and nights, and saw not one white man,
but great numbers of Indians who were anxious to
know why I wanted to stop here. I had to delude
them the best I could; and, when the boys came,
old Tipsy the chief came to have an understanding,
as he saw that all of us were still remaining. I then
knew that if we were to stop here I must tell him
the truth. He first inquired as to which of us was
the tyee. Dunn told him that I was; and he there-
fore directed his talk to me; and we had a long con-
versation, which amounted to a treaty. We were to
be good people, and not to disturb one another, not
to steal, and in particular not to interfere with their
women or horses. We were to be allowed to stay
there one warm season and raise a crop of vegetables
and trade, as they called it, for 'chickamin,' and
then leave the country to them. They on their part
were not to allow any bad Indians to come here and
disturb or steal from us while we were thus engaged.
"In a very few days John Gibbs, James H. Rus-
sell, Hugh F. Bowman and Thomas Hair came over
the mountains and settled on the Mountain House
claim, giving us two small parties of men in this
end of the valley. In the meantime N. C. Deane
and Jack Kennedy settled at the Willow Springs;
and E. K. Anderson, Stone and Pints settled on
Wagner's creek. It was now the middle of No-
vember or later; and we were hurrying to get our
logs for a cabin hauled so that Alberding could start
for our supply of seed, to be obtained from the Wil-
lamette valley. Getting him off, we began putting
up our house; and while at it some Indians stole
from our tent all our guns, revolvers, butcher knives,
powder and lead, and other things that they fancied,
leaving us in a serious position. Tipsy's son pass-
ing by late in the evening, I sent by him word to
his father to be at home next morning; that I was
going down and tell him of the theft. In the
morning early I went to see Tipsy, his camp then
being where the plaza now is, and where the Ash-
land Flouring Mill now stands. I was soon informed
by a blind Indian, who was led by a squaw, that
Tipsy and all the Indians had gone to my place.
So I returned and found a large body of Indians
around my tent; and the chief informed me that I
must talk to his interpreter, a sign that serious
business was on hand. I told him what had been
stolen, and that it was done by Indians, as we knew
by the tracks left in the mud, and that the goods
must be returned. Tipsy declared that his Indians
had not committed the theft, and that the goods
could not be returned; that some bad Indians had
come and done the capswallaing. This story he
stuck to strictly till evening. Having thus spent a
whole day in useless questioning and answers, I got
out of all patience; and, having learned that it was
a part of the Indian's nature to respect a brave man,
I determined to try an experiment. There were
but four of us,-Gibbs, from the Mountain House,
having joined our number, and a host of them.
But I instructed the interpreter to tell Tipsy that I
had heard that plea long enough, and would have
no more of it; that the stolen goods must be re-
turned, or I would go to Yreka and raise a company
of men and come back and mimaluse every Indian
that we could find, and burn their houses and run
—a
their families out of the country, unless the missing
articles were returned. As soon as it was made
known, the warriors sprang to their feet and raged
around terribly. Some strung their bows and took
three arrows in their teeth, and were begging Tipsy
to let them settle the matter. This we all could
see; and one of my party left his seat and came to
me, begging me to take back what I had said, and
let the things go. I told him to be quiet; that they
had passed me for a chief, and that it was only I that
could talk. He turned away reluctantly, saying,
'Settle it, then;' and I do not know that he could
have looked any more pale and ashy had he been
dead. The Indians all saw his condition. And
then Tipsy spoke two or three soft words and qui-
eted the tumult. He addressed the interpreter, who
turned to me and asked what I had said I would do
in case the things should not be returned; and
while I was just about to answer, a tall Indian that
we called Big Impudence came forward within three
feet of me, and looked me steadfastly in the eye
while I repeated precisely what I had said before.
I also added that I knew what they were talking
about; that they were talking of killing us; that
there were plenty of them to do it; and I pointed at
them, saying: 'You would be great cowards to do
so after you have stolen our calapins, and now we
have nothing to fight with. If you are going to
murder us, give us our guns, and then talk about
killing us; and we will fight all of you. Your tyee
has told me that he was brave, and that you are all
brave; but I see you are cowards.'
"While this speech was taking effect, Tipsy's
squaw came to the front and made a speech in her
native language, which I judged from her gestures
was very eloquent. Thereupon, leaving us, they
had a big talk among themselves; and as a result
the interpreter was directed to tell me that they
would settle the trouble by sending for the things.
It was now late in the evening; and I was informed
that they had determined to start early in the
morning and get our property; but the chief wanted
to know how many suns I would allow them to go
and return in. He held up three fingers to denote
the number of days. After a little further delay,
five days were agreed upon; and the next morning
early two Indians called at our tent well mounted,
and said they were going after our ictas, and wanted
their breakfast; and as soon as that was over they
mounted and left in the direction of Yreka, saying
it was the Shastas that had stolen our things; and I
found this to be true. The third day, late in the
evening, they returned with two rifles, and said that
the other things had been traded off to Indians who
would kill them if they went among them; should
they tell Tipsy that we were satisfied and would be
friendly? I answered, no; that we were not satis-
fied as long as any of our things remained stolen.
"Tipsy came around early the next morning, and
declared that he had done all that could be done
without risking the lives of his Indians; and he
wanted to be friendly. Would I not be satisfied
and be friends? I told him it could not be as long
as anything was stolen and not returned. At this
his patience gave way; and he stormed and stamped
upon the ground, and declared that this was his
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
573
illihee. 'This is my ground. You have never given
me anything for it. It don't belong to you.' I
replied to him that we did not claim the ground;
but that he had agreed to let us stay here one warm
season and plant and raise hieu wappatoes and ictas;
and we were not to be disturbed; and bad Indians
were not be allowed to come here and steal. At
this he said 'close,' and then asked, if he gave me
a certain boundary of country, whether I would
say no more about our stolen goods and be friendly.
I told him I would. He said 'close,' or all right,
and with great kindness and dignity came up and
took me by the hand, saying, 'This land is yours.
My people will not claim it any more; and we will
be friends.'
"A few days afterwards he was at my place; and
I was reading a medical work. Tipsy expressed
a great desire to see the sketches, and asked me if
it were all Boston waw-waw (language), and desired
to know if I understood it. I told him that I did."
A few days afterwards Tipsy was wounded in a
fight with the Shastas, and sent his sons for Smith
to come and see him. Says the Captain: "In the
morning I went down; and, entering his wigwam,
I could not see Tipsy, and when I inquired for him.
was pointed to some blankets at one side, where
they had him in a pit that had been well heated
with hot rocks, and was reeking with steam by
water having been poured upon them. I had him
taken out and cooled off, and found that he was
about gone.
After getting him so that he could
breathe and talk again, I examined his wounds,
one of which had been made with a pistol shot in
the chin, and the other by a knife in the small of
the back; and still a third was a long gash from an
arrow down the right shoulder blade. I shortly
had him revived; and he feebly asked me if I
thought he would get well. I told him that, if his
people had not made matters bad by heating him so
hot, he certainly could, but now I could not tell.
I had, however, with me some material to make
poultices, and had had some practice in treating
wounded men on the frontier. After poulticing him
with some wild wormwood, dampened with whisky,
he said he felt so much better that he would try to
get well, and asked me, if the Siwash doctoring had
not mimalused him, how long I thought it would
be until he could walk again. I told him that, if it
all came out right, he might walk again in ten or
twelve suns; and at the expiration of that time he
walked all the way up to my place to show me that
I had saved his life, and to thank me for it. He
said that the Indians would surely have killed him;
that he was nearly dead; that a little while and
Tipsy would have been no more; and he told me
that he would always be my friend, and that he
never would fight me nor my friends, and that his
men must never shoot at me; for I was a good
medicine man and must not be killed.
"While I was getting him recruited, there were
about fifty Indians in the wigwam; and when I told
him he might get well they began all talking in
turn. They would jabber as fast as they could speak;
and those not engaged in the talk would come in
like a Methodist with their amen. I asked the
interpreter what they were talking about. He
replied that they were waw-wawing-pointing his
finger upward to the Socalee Tyee (the Great
Spirit) to help me to make Tipsy skookum (strong);
and always afterwards, when I would see Tipsy, he
would talk to me of our old trouble, and how well
we had settled it, and how he liked a good, brave
man; and said that, if my tum tum (heart) had been
little and weak like the man's who came to me
when I was talking skookum, his men would have
killed us all; that he told his men that I had a big
heart and must not be killed."
Captain Smith thus relates the last he saw of
Tipsy: "As the Whites began to encroach, Tipsy
often called upon me to talk about the way the set-
tlers were treating him about his land. He said
that, when he asked them to pay him for it, they
would curse him and tell him to clatawa; and in the
spring of 1853 he came by one day to bid me a final
farewell, saying that he was going away, and that
he would not come back to this valley any more.
He said he had agreed with me that he would not
kill any Boston men. They kept coming and
taking his land; and when he asked them for pay
they cursed him and made him go away.
declared that he did not claim my land any more,
that we were friends, and that that was all right.
He first went to Applegate creek, and then over to
the cave of the Klamath, where his old enemies,
the Shastas, met and killed him. In justice to his
memory I have to say that ever after our first
troubles he was honorable with me."
He
The war of 1853 was provoked by the secret mur-
der of a white man, Edward Edwards, who was
found shot dead with arrows. Some eleven men
collected, with Isaac Hill as captain; and Smith,
with three other men, were detailed to enter the
camp of Sambo, chief of a neighboring tribe, and
learn the cause of the murder. The Captain thus
relates what there occurred: "Getting to their
camp, we found them all lying about in the shade;
and I began talking to the interpreter, whom we
called Jim, and said that we had come to have
a talk with them; and I wanted him to tell all
his people that they must all be there to meet the
Bostons, who were coming to have a friendly coun-
sel. He said all right, and was just in the act
of speaking to his people, when I observed a large,
strange, wild-looking Indian just in the act of get-
ting up and throwing his quiver over his shoulder,
and picking up his bow, when Carter (one of the
white men's party), who was a little to my right,
shouted at the top of his voice, 'Stop, stop, I'll
shoot you;' and before I had time to speak he
fired an old single-barreled pistol, the only firearm
he had with him. It bounded back and cut his
forehead; and I saw the pistol bury itself in the
sand thirty feet away. By this very foolish maneu-
ver we were thrown into a very ugly little fight.
On our side Carter and Dunn were wounded. In
the evening we had about twenty Indian women
and children and seven men, and found one dead
warrior at the edge of the brush, the others having
gone to the woods."
The settlers made a fort, to which five men with
their families and seven single men repaired. Smith
stayed on his place.
stayed on his place. Sambo, with ten Indians,
574
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST— OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
surrendered, gave up his arms and wanted to stop
at the fort. Smith was anxious to get them away;
but neither Ross nor the captain at Fort Hoxie
would take them. Apprehensive of an attack by
outside Indians to relieve the captives, Smith kept
a lookout, and thus relates what happened:
On my return from Fort Hoxie in the evening,
when within six hundred yards of our fort I saw an
impress made by an Indian's heel in the dust where
he had jumped across the road. I got down and on
examination found quite a number of tracks; and
when reaching the fort I called Gibbs and told him.
of the discovery I had made. I said these were
Indians that had come to release the prisoners, and
that they surely would do it if he were not well on
his guard. I declared that, if the attack were made,
the Indians would massacre every one in the fort
and burn all the property. I advised him to arrange,
without alarming the women, to have all the men
on guard, and if he got through the night I would
take some men and scour the woods in the morning.
But he had great confidence in Sambo, and said if
there were Indians about Sambo would have told
him. He even called Sambo and said that I could
satisfy myself; and to my questioning he denied all
knowledge of any Indians in the region. Gibbs.
then said to me that I could see he knew nothing of
it. I persisted, however, that Sambo could not be
believed, and reluctantly rode away to my cabin.
So deeply was I impressed with the presence of
danger, that I did not remove my clothes, and even
had my mule saddled, and tied him in the chimney
corner, while I took what rest I could.
At early
twilight in the morning, I was already moving,
when I heard a gun fired at a distance of about
half a mile; and as quickly as it could be done, I was
on my mule and galloping down. When within
eighty yards of the fort, the firing ceased; and I
saw the flames rising from the grain stacks. I
rushed into the fort without injury; but in what a
condition I found my companions! They had put
but one man on guard; and he had come to the con-
clusion that he would rather sleep, and had lain
down on a bench at the back of the house with a
lady's work-basket as a pillow, and was roused
a pillow, and was roused
from his slumber by an Indian ball tearing through
the basket. I found Hugh Smith killed. Gibbs,
Fordyce, Hodgins, Whitmore, Morris, Howell, and
I think one other, were wounded. Hodgins, Whit-
more and Gibbs died soon after. I found that when
the firing began Gibbs and Howell were lying
together on the porch with Sambo near by; and, as
Gibbs rose with his gun in his hand, this treacher-
ous savage seized and wrenched the piece from him,
and stepping back shot him down."
The war of 1855 began with horse-stealing by the
Indians. Smith lost a fine span in 1854; and a band
of hunters at Green Spring in 1855 lost a horse.
Returning to the settlements, these hunters made up
a party of fifteen, including Smith, that went to the
mountains in August to recover the property. The
Captain thus describes the first encounter of that
war. "When we arrived at the place where the
Indians were camped when the horse was stolen,
we found that they had gone; so we passed on
through the clump of timber to open ground, and
happened to be talking about the way that the In-
dians were doing business, when I saw an Indian's
head protrude from the brush above, and said to
the boys, 'I better call to him.' But just at that
moment he ducked his head and fired off a gun,
evidently a signal; and, supposing it was intended
to harm us, I said to the boys, 'Curse them, if they
are for fighting, draw your revolvers and we will go
into them.' Advancing, we found several camp
fires, and plenty of women and children all going
in the opposite direction; and up the hill, getting to
the edge of the brush, I saw two bucks eighty or
ninety yards ahead, and hailed them in jargon to
come back, as I wanted to talk. One of them
hallooed back in the same language, that he did
not want to talk to Bostons. I then gave orders to
shoot. Two shots were fired; and we charged up in
the direction the Indians were running. But, upon
reaching the spot where the first two had disap-
peared in the brush, I saw that we were getting into
a trap, and hallooed back to the boys, warning them
of the situation, and telling them to get behind
something immediately. Very quickly the Indians
opened on us with their guns. But all of our party
had started to retreat, some running directly from
their fire; and some few were more lucky in going a
little farther so as to cross their fire. I selected a
far-off tree as a good place for safety. In approach-
ing it I clutched the bark with my left hand to give
a quick lodgment and stop myself in time, and in
doing so came up against my comrade, A. Hedden."
an
From this unlucky beginning the little company
did its best to get back safely to the settlement.
Two men, Tabor and Alberding, were wounded
and at great risk carried out; and one Keene
was killed; but his body was recovered. During
the war that followed, Captain Smith took
active part with a company of thirty men, and later
with a company of thirty-five. Lieutenant Switz-
ler, to whom he tendered his first company, he
found indisposed to fight; while Major Fitzger-
ald, who was sent up from Fort Lane with forty
men to avenge the death of Fields and Cunning-
ham, who were shot from an ambuscade on the
Siskiyou Mountain, to whom Smith offered thirty-
five men, was ready to chastise the savages. The
volunteers followed the Indians to the agency, and
there occurred the fight which has been called the
massacre, a full account of which is found in the
history of the war in Southern Oregon, in the first
volume of this work.
After these troublous times, in which the country
was conquered from its original possessors, Captain
Smith returned to his home, but was soon elected
to the legislature, and has been re-elected a number
of terms, 1880 being the date of his last election.
He was married in 1867 at Salem to Miss Margaret
P., daughter of William Harrison of Missouri, and
a member of the Tippecanoe family of presidential
fame. In the white winter of his age, at four-score
years, Captain Smith is still an active man, and
greatly respected by all his neighbors, and honored
in history.
THOMAS SMITH.- Mr. Smith, whose life
labors have had as their result in one particular the

CHAS. B. REED,
ELLENSBURGH,W.T.
UN
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
575
upbuilding of the handsome village of Winchester,
near the Umpqua river, was born in Oxfordshire,
England, February 12, 1824; and he crossed the
Atlantic with his parents in 1830. The first
American home was at Rochester, and a year later
at Euclid near Cleveland, Ohio; and in 1834 a re-
moval was made to La Porte county, Indiana.
Thirteen years were spent in Indiana with his
parents; but in 1847 the desire to go forth and test
his powers in competition with others induced him
in company with a younger brother to come West.
He made the six months' journey as a teamster,
armed with his rifle and equipped with an ox-whip.
Many and varied were the scenes and incidents of
the trip; and the usual hardships common to the
most of the pioneers who came "the plains across”
were suffered and endured. Not the least ex-
citing of these were the fording of the numerous
deep and swift mountain streams. Vast herds of
buffaloes occasionally broke through the train;
and continual rumors of Indian outrages, combined
with oft-recurring pursuit of the savages for sto-
len stock, rendered the journey anything but
monotonous. Only once was pursuit successful,
securing both stock and Indians. At other times
they were glad to get themselves back safely.
The last ox stolen was on Grave creek; and the
last horse stolen occurred in the timber on Wolf
creek in Josephine county. The last of an ex-
ceptionally tiresome and hazardous journey was
made at the end of October; and the Willamette
valley was entered from the Calapooia Mountains.
It was with the most hearty enjoyment that on the
twenty-sixth of that month the cabin and improve-
ment of Eugene Skinner at the present city of Eugene
were sighted. The wife and child of this pioneer,
and the cheery sign of a little civilization after so
long a sojourn in the wilderness, greatly stimulated
the courage of the travelers; and Mr. Smith went
on down the valley hopefully to Butteville in
Marion county, formerly Champoeg county.
Being ready with the axe and maul, he was soon
splitting rails, and there and at Lafayette followed
this form of labor. Before winter he was back
again to Eugene, helping to construct cabins for a
number of newcomers, tenting under a comfortable
fir tree until Christmas. He occupied the remainder
of the winter in rail-splitting, varied by an occasional
tramp to look for a claim. His first location was
north of the Willamette near Eugene; but after work
done on the mill dam for Willard Shaw, and the
delay of a year waiting for his parents, he set out
for the gold mines. Upon reaching Roseburg, he
found Daniel Hasty, the owner of the ferry at the
Umpqua, preparing to go below to the mines; and,
trading his team and outfit for the ferry and boat,
Mr. Smith began plying at the site of the old Brown
Ferry, but upon the loss of his craft in 1850 selected
the site near Winchester. There he built a boat
and operated the ferry until July, 1865, at which
time he sold out his interest in the ferry. He re-
moved to Roseburg in 1887, where he is still living.
In 1852 occurred his marriage to Miss Arethusa E.
Lynn, who became the mother of twelve children,
ten of whom are now living, and who have increased
for them the enjoyment as well as cares of life.
Mr. Smith has ever held an honorable and im-
portant position in public affairs, having served as
one of the first commissioners of Douglas county,
being three years in office. In 1874 he was elected
to the responsible position of county judge, serving
acceptably four years. He has given efficient aid
to all worthy enterprises in the county, which is
largely indebted to him as one of her earliest and
most valuable citizens for the high positions he has
occupied, ranking sixth in the state in point of
wealth.
REV. H. H. SPALDING.— Reverend Henry
Harmon Spalding was born at Prattsburg, New
York, November 26, 1803. In early life he was
left an orphan, and was brought up by strangers,
who gave him almost no school advantages, so that
at the age of twenty-one he began the rudiments of
English grammar and arithmetic, could read so as
to be understood and write after a copy. Having
become a Christian, he united with the Presbyterian
church of his native place in August, 1826; and be-
tween 1825 and 1828 he went to school so much
that he was able to teach school. A part of the
time he worked for his board and walked three
miles to school. In 1828 he gave himself to the
missionary work, and entered Prattsburg Academy;
and by 1831 he was able to enter the junior class
-half way through- of Hamilton College, New
York. On account of his poverty and the help he
received from the education society, he was soon
obliged to leave and go to the Western Reserve
College, Ohio, from which he graduated in 1833.
On October 12, 1833, he was married to Miss
Eliza Hart, of Trenton, New York, who was born
at Berlin, Connecticut, being the daughter of Cap-
tain Levi and Martha Hart, and who had been
brought up in Ontario county, New York.
In the fall of 1833 he entered Lane Theological
Seminary, where he remained two years, and in
August, 1835, was ordained by the Bath Presbytery
of New York, and soon after was appointed by the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions to the Osage Indians.
In the winter and spring of 1835, Doctor Whit-
man was hunting for someone to come to Oregon
with himself as a missionary. After repeated fail-
ures, the board mentioned Mr. Spalding to him; and
he found Mr. and Mrs. Spalding already on the
way to the Osages. After a short consultation and
prayer, they determined to come to Oregon.
The trip across the plains was made in 1836 with
Doctor Whitman and wife and Mr. W. H. Gray.
It was very severe on Mrs. Spalding, whose health
was delicate; and once it was thought she would die.
But she rallied and reached Fort Walla Walla Sep-
tember 3, 1836. Having spent a short time at Fort
Vancouver, they settled at Lapwai among the Nez
Perces, their first home there being in a house made
of buffalo skins, where they stayed from November
29th to December 23d, until a log house was built.
There they remained until late in 1847. The
first Presbyterian church on the Pacific coast, of
which he was pastor, was organized August 18, 1838.
The first apple trees in Idaho were planted by him
in 1837. The first printing on the coast was done
38
576
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
4.
at his station in May, 1839. During these years at
times the Indians seemed very tractable, and ad-
vanced rapidly in civilization and christianity; and
at other times they seemed to go backward, and
everything was discouraging. Yet it was the testi-
mony of Honorable A. B. McKinley, Commodore
Wilkes, Reverend E. Walker and Doctor E. White,
first United States Indian Agent, that he was on the
whole very successful, more so than any of his co-
workers in the Mission. At different times Mr. W.
H. Gray, Mr. C. Rogers, Mr. A. T. Smith, Rever-
end J. S. Griffin and others were associated with him
at his station.
When Doctor Whitman was killed in 1847, Mr.
Spalding was near Walla Walla, and narrowly
escaped; and only after severe suffering, both bodily
and mental, did he reach his home a week later.
When Governor Ogden in December rescued the
captives from the Cayuses and took them to the
Willamette, Mr. Spalding and family and several
others from his station were also taken, having
been protected by the friendly Nez Perces. They
arrived at Oregon City December 31, 1847. From
that time, until 1859, he waited in the Willamette
for an opportunity to return to his work.
short time he taught school at the Tualatin Plains,
but most of the time lived at Calapooia, near where
Brownsville now stands. There he was pastor of a
church; was school superintendent of Linn county
in 1849-50; was territorial commissioner of common
schools for Oregon 1850-55; was one of the first
trustees of Whitman Seminary, now Whitman Col-
lege, at Walla Walla, in 1859; and was United
States Indian agent 1850-53.
For a
Mrs. Spalding died at Oregon City, January 7,
1851. She was one of the excellent women, and
was especially successful with the Indians; but she
never fully recovered from the shock and anxiety
occasioned by Doctor Whitman's death, and the
dangers through which her husband and daughter
Eliza then passed, the latter having been held a
captive by the Cayuses. She left four children:
Eliza (Mrs. Warren); Henry H., of Almota, Wash-
ington; Martha J. (Mrs. Wigle), of The Dalles,
Oregon; and Amelia (Mrs. Brown) of Brownsville,
Oregon.
In May, 1853, Mr. Spalding was again married
at Hillsboro, Oregon, to Miss Rachel J. Smith,
sister-in-law of Rev. J. S. Griffin. She was born
in Boston, Massachusetts, January 31, 1808, and
came to Oregon in 1852. She survived her husband,
and died at Hillsboro April 22, 1880.
The country east of the Cascades having been
opened to settlement in 1859, Mr. Spalding returned
to that region, but was not allowed to enter the
Nez Perce Reservation for two or three years, on
account of government interference; so that it was
not until 1862 that he fairly began this work again.
He was received by the Indians with great joy;
but officials changed and interfered; and he was not
allowed peaceably to pursue his work until 1871.
A part of the intervening time he spent in Eastern
Washington, a part at Brownsville, Oregon, and in
1870 went East, returning the next year. During
that trip East, he had printed Executive Document
No. 37, Forty-first Congress.
In 1871 he went to the Nez Perces, among whom
he lived until the time of his death, baptizing 694
of them, and 253 Spokane Indians. He died at
Lapwai, Idaho, August 3, 1874, aged nearly seventy-
one. Mr. Spalding's publications consist mainly
in many articles to the Missionary Herald of Boston,
Massachusetts, 1836-48; in the Oregon American
and Evangelical Unionist, in 1848, about the causes
of the death of Doctor Whitman; in the San Fran-
isco-Pacific, in 1864, about the early work of the
American board on this coast and its results; in the
Albany, Oregon, States Rights Democrat, in 1866–67,
on the same subject; in the Walla Walla Statesman,
in 1866-67, about the death of Doctor Whitman;
the congressional pamphlet already referred to,
which was on these same general subjects, and a
reply to one by Father Brouillet on the same sub-
ject; also of a hymn book, some elementary instruc-
tion books, and a translation of the gospel of
Matthew by himself in the Nez Perce language.
It is probably to his influence, more than to any
other single cause, that the most of the Nez Perce
Indians have ever remained friendly to the Whites
during many Indian wars, and are now
civilized.
so well
HON. JAMES B. SPERRY.-The striking
difference between a savage and a civilized commu-
nity is the multiplication of different industries in
the latter. The most of our interest in life arises
from the interdependence of many persons, each
supplying some single necessity of all the rest.
The man who makes flour for the people of Hepp-
ner, Oregon, is Mr. Sperry. He built his mill with
a capacity of seventy-five barrels in 1885, from
means realized by the sale of his band of fourteen
thousand sheep, which he drove to Montana to
market. He is one of the substantial men of the
city, a reliable, kind neighbor, as well as a driving
man of business.
He was born in Lawrence county, Ohio, in 1834.
After living some time in Iowa, the family moved
on across the plains without disturbance from the
Indians, and located in Linn county, Oregon, in
1856. Farming and trading over the country, and
mining by odd spells, engaged his attention for a
number of years. During the Rogue river Indian
war of 1855-56, he bore an active part, assisting in
the fight at Big Meadows. He was also in a com-
pany of twenty sent to Rogue river to escort a
government train. Being an active young man of
twenty, and always ready for a brush, he was
usually elected for any special work. He was record
sergeant for his company.
In 1877 he went to Umatilla county (Morrow),
engaging in sheep-raising, which he prosecuted
successfully. In 1882 he was elected representative
to the state legislature on the Democratic ticket by
a majority of over three hundred. He pushed
through the house the bill setting off Morrow
county; but the session closed before it passed the
senate.
At the outbreak of the Indian trouble of 1878,
he was absent in the Willamette valley, but returned
to Heppner immediately. He found the city barri-
caded; and no one was willing to leave the place to

ぶい
​THE
ARCADE
ESTABLISHED
1876
ARCADE BUILDING, PROPERTY OF W. P. BOYD & CO.
SEATTLE, W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
577
discover what was doing outside. Mr. Sperry was
not at home three hours before he found a man who
would accompany him, and set out for Pendleton.
In February, 1856, Mr. Sperry was united in
marriage to Miss R. J. Rice, daughter of a pioneer
of 1850. In 1875 this lady died, leaving a daughter.
In 1877 Mr. Sperry was married secondly to Mrs.
S. B. Spencer, who died in 1889, leaving two daugh-
ters, Ethel and Susan.
CHARLES A. SPLAWN. This veteran of
Indian wars was born in Clay county, Missouri, in
1831. He went from there to Davis county, near
Galiton, and was there during the Mormon trouble.
His mother, in the absence of his father, was com-
pelled to leave her home by the "saints," who threat-
ened to burn the house over her head if she remained
another night. In 1844 he moved with his father's
family to Holt county, and in 1851 crossed the
plains to Oregon. After reaching this territory he
became alternately trader, miner and packer, until
in 1853 he joined the forces under General Lane in
the war on Rogue river. It was in this trouble that
the Indians were decoyed into a fort on Grave creek
where they were all killed. Again he became packer
and miner until 1855, when his train narrowly
escaped capture on Bear creek. After this he went
with his express friend to the Pend d'Oreille with
a party of miners, receiving fifty dollars for a horse.
or one hundred and fifty dollars for each two miners
who had three horses. On his return he heard at
John Day river that General Stevens had been cut
off by Indians in the upper country. The miners
whom he had taken up came back with him on
account of the Indian trouble. He sold his train
to the Oregon government, and became a packer
for the army in the field under John Fortune.
Mr. Splawn was married to Miss Dulcinea H.
Thorpe in 1861, by which union they had one
daughter, Viola. Mrs. Splawn died ten years later;
and in 1873 he married Miss Melissa F. Thorpe.
Mrs. Splawn was absent in Seattle during the excite-
ment of 1878. The settlers had gone into a fort,
and were canvassing the idea of demanding the val-
ley İndians to surrender their arms. Learning of
this, these friendly people came to Mrs. Splawn's
house, turned their arms over to her, and became
her body-guard as against the hostiles until the
excitement passed away.
Mr. C. A. Splawn was the first sheriff of Yakima
county, and served two and one-half terms. He was
probate judge for two terms, and has been justice
of the peace in Yakima and Kittitass counties for a
number of terms. His home is at Ellensburgh,
Washington.
MATTHIAS SPURGEON.-This pioneer of
Clarke county is a native of Iowa, having been
born in Cedar county in 1838. In his childhood he
was bereft of his parents, and found a home in the
family of an uncle, Mr. George Spurgeon. With
this relative he came to Oregon while but a boy of
fourteen, and found a home in the household of
Mr. William H. Dillon. Soon after becoming of age,
he spent two years in the mountains and gorges of
Idaho prospecting for gold, meeting, however, with
but little success. Returning to Clarke county he
took up the business of farming, renting the well-
known Petrain place near Vancouver, Washington.
He was so successful, that in three years he made
a portion of this farm his own by purchase; and it
is still his home, stock-raising, farming and dairying
occupying his attention. He was married in 1877 to
Miss Olive Dillon, who was born in Oregon in 1856.
They have four children,-Ella A., Mary J., John
M. and Matthias J. This is one of the prosperous
and well-ordered families of the Northwest.
MRS. JOHN H. STAHL.-This lady is a native
of Niederklein, Prussia, and came to San Francisco
in 1858. In 1860 she was married to John Stahl,
and in 1862 came to Cañon City, Oregon. There
Mr. Stahl engaged in the brewery business in 1863;
but, upon the burning of the city and the loss of
their property, they removed to Walla Walla, Wash-
ington Territory. Indeed, Cañon City saw rough
times in those days, having been once burned and
twice washed away, and often invaded by the Indi-
ans. Still pursuing the same business in Walla
Walla, they again met with a loss by fire in the
destruction of their dwelling-house in 1871. During
his residence there, Mr. Stahl served as city council-
man, and in 1880 enlarged his business by building
a new brewery, and purchasing six acres of ground
for the site of his business and residence. He also
owned a block for which he paid eight thousand
dollars, and erected upon it a building at the expense
of six thousand dollars.
In 1883 Mr. Stahl died after a long illness. Mrs.
Stahl found that his business was under heavy
incumbrances, but, developing large capacity of her
own, immediately began an active supervision of the
work. She soon extricated them from debt, and
within three years was receiving a handsome income.
In addition to her city property, she owns a farm
stocked with forty head of cattle and twenty-five
horses. Mrs. Stahl is another illustration of the
Western woman's capacity for independent business.
Notwithstanding the loss of her husband and her
eldest son, she has lived through her troubles and
conducted a large business successfully.
J. H. STANLEY.-J. H. Stanley is a native of
Missouri, where he was born in 1858. In 1878 he
came to the Willamette valley, where he studied for
three years, finishing his education. He then went
to Union county, Oregon, and taught as principal
of the City School at Union for one year. After-
wards he went to Weston, where he taught in the
same capacity. He then went to Morrow county,
where he took up a ranch in 1883, which he still
owns and runs. He commenced teaching in the fall
of 1885, and was appointed county school superin-
tendent, and since that time has twice been elected
to the same position on the Republican ticket.
was twice a delegate to the Republican state con-
vention from Morrow county. He always takes an
active part in politics, and is always ready to sanc-
tion and aid any movement that tends to the
advancement and interest of the country.
He
Mr. Stanley is a married man, and the father of
four handsome and bright children.
578
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
HON. GEORGE A. STEEL. The subject of
this sketch was born in Stafford, Ohio, on April 22,
1846. Coming to Portland in 1863, he soon re-
ceived an appointment to a clerkship in the Port-
land postoffice. Afterwards, accepting the secre-
taryship of the old Oregon Iron Works, he gave
such satisfaction that Ladd & Tilton offered him a
situation as accountant in their bank, a position
which he held for five years.
In 1870 he was elected treasurer of Multnomah
county, a place he filled with general approval.
During the first year of his official life, he and J.
K. Gill purchased the book and stationery business
of Harris & Holman; and for many years the firm
of Gill & Steel, in spite of the rather unpromising
name, won golden opinions throughout the country
as one of the most thoroughly reliable in the metrop-
olis. They increased their business by the purchase
of the rival firm of Bancroft & Morse, Mr. Bancroft
becoming a member of the firm. The business
having reached great magnitude, Mr. Steel bought
out his partners, and conducted the business himself
under the name of G. A. Steel & Company. In
1872, having invested heavily in real estate, he be-
came financially embarrassed, but with the high
sense of honor characteristic of him made no assign-
ment disadvantageous to his creditors, but met his
obligations dollar for dollar. From this severe trial
he emerged with a name untarnished.
In 1876 Mr. Steel began an active political career,
and was chosen chairman of the Republican state
central committee. He did distinguished service
for his party during that campaign. In January,
1877, he was appointed special agent of the post-
office department for the Northwest coast. In that
responsible position he well sustained the name al-
ready gained for ability and energy. After two
years of hard work in that office he resigned, and
was appointed deputy collector of customs by Hon-
orable John Kelly. In that position he remained
until September, 1880. He received the commis-
sion of postmaster at Portland in the following
March, at the beginning of the Garfield administra-
tion. He held the place under reappointment from
President Arthur till November 30, 1885.
turned his office over to his successor with the
proud satisfaction of knowing that it had been well
administered, and that the public had appreciated
the fact. In June, 1886, he was elected state sen-
ator from Multnomah county.
He
During his public life he has handled over twenty
million dollars, every cent of which has been ac-
counted for. Through wise investments in real
estate, Mr. Steel has acquired a handsome fortune,
one sufficient to place him among the foremost of
the moneyed men of the state. A magnificent fruit
farm on the Willamette river, about seven miles
south of Portland, attests his enjoyment of farm
life. He has spent a large sum of money on it;
and it promises corresponding returns. Since his
retirement from the postoffice, he has been engaged
with his brother James in the insurance business,
much profit to both having resulted. He is now
president of the Metropolitan Railway Company.
This organization is building an electric railway
from Portland southward.
Mr. Steel was married in 1869 to Miss Eva Pope
of Oregon City.
DR. ALDEN H. STEELE.– Olympia will
always be a place for pleasant homes," says one of
her citizens well qualified to render an opinion,-
the gentleman whose name appears above. The
wide streets, magnificent shade-trees and comfort-
able residences of the capital of Washington Terri-
tory, together with her delightful climate, an
extensive view of water and mountains, fully justify
the remark; and no place could have a more pleas-
ant recommendation. The Doctor has also exam-
ined the facilities of the place for a naval station,
and finds that the location is most desirable from
the following particulars: Safe anchorage and good
harbor; ease of defense; abundance of coal, iron
and ship timber; opportunity for a fresh-water dock
and basin at small cost at Priest's Point; ease of
communication; and advantage of tide.
Doctor Steele, whose presence as a resident con-
tributes much towards the pleasantness of Olympia,
is a native of New York State, having been born in
1823 at Oswego, where his father had long been a
successful merchant. At the age of twenty our
subject graduated from the medical department of
the University of New York, and also from the
office of Doctor James R. Woods, the distinguished
professor of surgery. The first practice of the
young physician was at Oswego, New York; but in
1849, in company with the mounted riflemen under
Lieutenant-Colonel Loring, he crossed the plains to
Oregon and stopped at Vancouver, where he prac-
ticed his profession four years.
In 1854 he was united in marriage to Miss Han-
nah H. Blackler, of Marblehead, Massachusetts.
Her grandfather was a captain in the war of the
Revolution, and had command of the flotilla with
which Washington crossed the Delaware. Of their
two children, their daughter Fannie is now living,
and is the wife of General Ross O'Brien.
After leaving Vancouver, the Doctor made his
home at Oregon City, practicing his profession and
serving in public positions. For eleven years he
was either councilman, recorder or mayor, and left
the latter office only because he declined to be
longer a candidate. For a few months in 1857 he
was with General Palmer on the Grande Ronde In-
dian Reservation, and there, as at Oregon City, had
much influence with the red men. He used to doc-
tor the Indians at the falls, and for his success in
this line was sometimes called upon by the Indian
men or women to quiet their whisky rows, and
would often go into the camps even in the midst of
turbulent affrays, while the excited savages were
shouting and stabbing, and take away their liquors
and break the bottles on the rocks.
His
In 1863 he entered the service of the government
as physician at The Dalles; and there, and at Fort
Stevens, and at Fort Steilacoom, was surgeon until
1868, when he resigned and came to Olympia.
life there has also been largely occupied in public
duties. He was two years in the council, two years
regent of the Territorial University, by appointment
of Governor Ferry, and six years medical inspector
of the Washington penitentiary and army. Since

SIG. SICHEL,
PORTLAND, OR.
UN
OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
579
1873 he has been examining surgeon for pensions.
In 1852 the Doctor administered chloroform in am-
putating a limb at the thigh,--the first used in sur-
gery north of San Francisco.
JAMES B. STEPHENS.
This original owner
of a large portion of the townsite of East Portland,
Oregon, was born in 1806 in Virginia, and removed
to Indiana when but a boy of eight, and came still
farther west to Hancock county, Illinois, in 1832.
In 1830 he married Miss Elizabeth Walker of Ohio,
and passed on to Missouri, and in 1843 made prepa-
rations to come to Oregon. Failing, however, to
reach the rendezvous in time, the journey was post-
poned until the next year. Crossing the plains in
1844, he endured the hardships of that toilsome year,
and reached Oregon City as late as December 24th.
The year following he bought a squatter's right
to the site of East Portland, which was held by
Doctor McLoughlin as administrator of one Porier,
a Frenchman. Living there and working at coop-
erage for the Hudson's Bay Company, Mr. Stephens
availed himself of the Donation land law to secure
his claim, thereby acquiring a property which stood
him in stead during all his vicissitudes. As early
as 1846 he established a ferry between East and
West Portland, using a simple flatboat propelled
with oars, and with this passed the few horsemen
and occasional teams that traveled in those days to
and fro. In that year he also laid out the city of
East Portland.
Mr.
In 1848 he, with all the rest of the Oregonians,
tried his luck in California. Projecting a large busi-
ness plan, he bought a site for a bridge across the
American river, making the structure of hewed tim-
bers, some of which were ninety-five feet long, set
upon heavy buttresses. An ox-team could be hired
only for sixteen dollars a day. This valuable prop-
erty was washed away the next winter at a loss esti-
mated by its owner at not less than $20,000.
Stephens was himself in Oregon at the time and sold
the bridge site for $5,000. The next summer, with
James Terwilliger, he hewed out on his own place a
quantity of square timbers, which he shipped to
California, selling them upon his arrival at a good
price to a pioneer well known in Oregon, Barton Lee,
then in California. Stephens, arriving with his tim-
bers, was to receive his payment immediately. But
that happened to be the day of the squatters' riot;
and all business was closed. Lee's creditors, taking
advantage of this, closed upon him; and he disap-
peared with what gold dust he had about him. The
creditors took a keg of gold dust, and everything
else. Stephens thereby lost his pay, which amounted
to $16,000,—a hard blow to an honest man.
Returning to Oregon, he resolved to stay away
from a country like California, where luck went so
much against him. Arriving at his old home, he
thereupon devoted himself to his ferry, building a
new boat, the iron work of which cost him fifty cents.
a pound. With William Frush as manager, he con-
ducted the business for a number of years, making
it quite remunerative. During the war of 1855-56
he transported soldiers, munitions, and furnished
feed for horses, etc., receiving for the work govern-
ment scrip, which was not redeemed until after the
outbreak of the war of the Rebellion, and then in
depreciated currency. He believes that the shrink-
age was about $15,000; but, despite these losses, he
kept his ferry in successful operation until 1865,
having replaced the oars by horse-power and the
horse-power by steam long before. In that year he
disposed of the property to Joseph Knott, the pres-
ent wealthy proprietor.
Sometime in the sixties he was so unfortunate as
to embark in the banking business with his son-in-
law, Doctor A. M. Loryea; and his whole estate be-
came involved. Failing to meet the mortgage, he
thereby lost a large portion of his land, which is
now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The
entire indebtedness not being met by this sacrifice,
he was induced to take a deed of trust for the remain-
der of his property to provide against actual want.
This movement was ill advised; and it was by a
hair's breadth that he retained any of his original
estate. A portion of it, however, was preserved,
and, owing to the great rise in value, is now easily
worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
spite the losses, therefore, which have clouded his
life, Mr. Stephens was never suffered to want; and,
more than all, though betrayed more than once by
seeming friends, he still retained his cheerful and
benevolent disposition. He had no words of com-
plaint nor censure; and his heart was warm towards
all to the last.
De-
His wife departed this life in 1887. He himself
made all preparations which he deemed necessary
for following her, having made, in his mind, dispo-
sition of his property and prepared a monument for
the grave of both his wife and himself. He had
engraved upon this marble a life-sized likeness of
them both; and this is followed by a pathetic and
beautiful inscription. It was this calm waiting for
his last sleep and for the life of the other world
which made his old age serene, and relieved it of the
somber colors into which it otherwise might have
been cast. He died in March, 1889; and his loss
was mentioned with regretful interest throughout
the whole community in which he lived so long.
•
HON. ISAAC INGALLS STEVENS.- Gov-
⚫ernor Stevens was born at Andover, Massachusetts,
March 18, 1818. He graduated from West Point in
the class of 1839, of which he stood at the head,
and immediately thereafter was commissioned second
lieutenant of engineers. In 1840 he was promoted to
a first lieutenantcy. In the war with Mexico (1846–
48) he served on the staff of General Scott, and for
gallant and meritorious services at Contreras, Chu-
rubusco and Chapultepec earned the brevet rank of
major. He was severely wounded in the capture of
the City of Mexico, from the effects of which he
suffered during life. At the close of that war, Alex-
ander Dallas Bache, Superintendent of the United
States coast survey, appointed him chief clerk in
charge of the office at Washington, District of
Columbia, a position he resigned in March, 1853,
and also his commission in the United States army,
to accept the first governorship of Washington Ter-
ritory. He journeyed thither across the continent,
exploring a route from the headwaters of the Mis-
sissippi river to Puget Sound.
580
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
On the 29th of September, 1853, he entered the
territory and assumed the performance of his guber-
natorial duties therein. He issued his proclamation
thereof at the crossing of the dividing ridge on the
summit of the Rocky Mountains bearing that date.
During the years 1854 and 1855, as superintendent
of Indian affairs, he concluded treaties with the
native Indian tribes within the territory, by which
the so-called Indian title to an area of land includ-
ing one hundred thousand square miles was ex-
tinguished. In the latter year he also served as a
member of the joint commission to effect peace and
amity between the tribes divided by the Rocky
Mountains, viz.,—the Blackfeet and other nations in
the buffalo country east of the mountains, and those
tribes upon the western side whose necessities com-
pelled them to cross the mountains in quest of
buffalo, at that time and prior thereto the great
source of supply of food and raiment to the aborigi-
nes. During his absence at the Blackfoot Council,
the Indian war of 1855-56 had been inaugurated.
Upon his return to Olympia, he called out one
thousand volunteers, assumed general direction ast
commander-in-chief, and prosecuted the war with
vigor until peace was restored in the fall of 1856. At
the election in July, 1857, he was chosen delegate to
Congress, and served with distinction to himself and
benefit for his territory for two terms, ending March
3, 1861.
Early after the breaking out of the Rebellion he
hastened East, and offered his services and sword
for the preservation of the integrity of the Union
and the perpetuity of the life of the nation. They
were accepted; and he was appointed colonel of the
Seventy-ninth Regiment, New York Volunteers (the
Highlanders). Eight companies of that regiment,
dissatisfied with being commanded by a West Point
officer, mutinied. But his resolute courage and
energetic conduct restored discipline; and he soon
had become the idol of his regiment. Gaining dis-
tinction in many engagements in which he took a
conspicuous part, he had been promoted (July 4,
1862) major-general United States volunteers.
On the morning of September 1, 1862, his divis-
ion encountered the Confederate forces near Chan-
tilly, Virginia. Major-General Stevens, with his
characteristic dash, seized the colors of his old regi-
ment (their color-sergeant had just fallen; and the
line was wavering). On foot at the head of that
regiment, bearing aloft those colors with his own
hands, and while cheering his old comrades, his gal-
lantry animating the whole division, he was shot
through the head and instantly killed; and when
his body was found among the piles of slain, in his
death-grip was clenched the flagstaff he had so gal-
lantly borne in the face of the foe. That check of
the Confederate advance, which he there and then
had caused, afforded the precious time and oppor-
tunity so needed on that day of gloom and saddened
memory to put the nation's capital in a state of
defense, and save the world and it from that humili-
ation,—its fall into the hands of the enemy.
GEN. JOHN H. STEVENS.— This hero of a
hundred Western adventures, and a pioneer of the
great Inland Empire, was born on a town line in
Windham county, Vermont. The son of Asa
Stevens, a miller and farmer, he learned to use his
hands and brain in practical affairs, and at the vil-
lage school obtained a good working education. In
his youth he followed business in Boston, and was
engaged in lumbering in Pennsylvania. In 1832
he came west to Michigan, and at Coldwater, Branch
county, kept a hotel, advancing his business also by
taking mail contracts, and in such early ventures as
the conditions of life in the Wolverine state afforded
at that early day. He became a colonel in the state
militia, and succeeded also to a generalship. Eight
years he served as sheriff of Branch county, and
during that time made many notable arrests.
In 1852 he prepared for the journey to Oregon,
rigging up a large team of mules and horses, and
with his daughter Mary C., who subsequently became
the wife of the famous lawyer of Eugene, Oregon,
Stukeley Ellsworth, and with thirteen young men,
among whom was Green Arnold, now of La Grande,
made the journey across the plains. Although in
the midst of the pestilential cholera, he lost but one
man. He made a speedy trip, covering the distance
from the Missouri to the Willamette in four months.
In our virgin territory of thirty-seven years ago
he undertook business as hotel-keeper in company
with Green Arnold, and as successor of W. H. Rees
at Champoeg. He dug gold in the early days at
Shelly gulch in Josephine county. His services
were also sought in the legislative halls; and he
helped our young state to effect its entrance into the
Union. He heard the drum-beat and lively shots of
the volunteers to the Yakima war, and together with
his son John joined their company to establish the
white man's supremacy.
white man's supremacy. His arduous task in that
service was caring for the stock of the column; and
after the war he was assigned the task of selling at
public auction all the stock, wagons, effects and
accoutrements of the volunteers, -a six days' labor.
Returning to his farm near Silverton, he contented
himself with agriculture and stock-raising, until in
1862 the reports of gold mines in Eastern Oregon
drew him to the Grande Ronde valley. At the
promising city of La Grande he made his home, and
became one of its most energetic citizens.
He was
landlord there during the days of gold dust.
his means accumulated, he invested his surplus in
three hundred and twenty acres of land on Clover
creek, near North Powder, Union county, and there
resides amid all the comforts and refinements of the
successful Eastern Oregon rancher, having large
herds of cattle, and much other livestock. He holds
a leading place in the public affairs, and in the confi-
dence of his community,—a venerable and noble old
gentleman.
As
He was married firstly in 1830 to Miss Mary
Adams of Pennsylvania, by whom he had two chil-
dren. Her death occurring three years later, he was
married secondly to Miss Harriet M. Pierce of Michi-
gan, by whom he has had five children. He has six
grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren living
in the West.
HON. JAMES P. STEWART.—In a notice of
the Honorable James P. Stewart by the local press,
when his name was presented for the suffrages

RESIDENCE OF JOHN NASH,
ELLENSBURGH,W.T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
581
of his fellow-citizens for a seat in the legislature
of Washington Territory, it was most truthfully
said: "He is a man of affairs, -a big, bronzed,
broad-shouldered man, who moves about among his
fellow-men with that quiet consciousness of strength
that carries conviction and wins. He has been a
winner all his life; and people applaud his winning,
He has been as honest as he has been progressive.
Mr. Stewart is a native of the State of New York,
and was born in Delaware county September 21,
1833. He lived on the farm of his parents, enjoy-
ing the customary opportunities for acquiring
knowledge or education afforded the farm lads of
the Middle states one-half century ago. Young
Stewart, full of energy, made the best use of his oppor-
tunities, and at the age of nineteen left the parental
home and engaged in teaching school, working on
the farm through the summer, and devoting the
winter to teaching. He migrated to Oregon in 1855,
and settled at Corvallis. He remained there until
April, 1859, when he removed to the Puyallup val-
ley, Washington Territory, and located the claim,
on the last day of that month, which has since been
his home. During his residence at Corvallis he
occupied his time in merchandising, teaching school,
and served one official term as sheriff of Benton
county.
In 1861 the people of Pierce county elected him
judge of the probate court, which office he held for
the term of four years, with great credit to himself,
and to the entire satisfaction of his fellow-citizens.
He was unanimously nominated for re-election in
1864. But his business, which had become exten-
sive, demanded his exclusive attention; and he de-
clined. He was married that year to a daughter of
Archibald McMillain, one of the most prominent of
the old pioneer settlers, both of Thurston and Pierce
counties.
In 1872 he accepted the unanimous nomination of
the Republican conferrees of Pierce and Mason
counties for joint representative in the legislature;
though the district was hopelessly Democratic, he
made a vigorous canvass, and greatly reduced the
usual party majority by his earnest efforts and per-
sonal popularity. As a recognition of his efficient
service, unsolicited on his part, he was proffered the
appointment of United States Indian agent at the
Makah Reservation, with the salary of fourteen
hundred dollars per annum. He would not abandon
his private business nor his residence, and declined
the appointment. Without his seeking, President
Lincoln's postmaster-general appointed him post-
master at Puyallup, which office he did accept, and
served the public in that trying capacity-for which
no adequate compensation was allowed-for eleven
years.
In 1887-88 he served Pierce county in the house
of representatives of the territory. His conservative
course merited the hearty approval of his constitu-
ency, and made him prominent among the list of those
from whom a nominee for delegate to Congress was
selected in the election of 1888. It was conceded
that, had it met Mr. Stewart's approval, he would
have received a generous if not unanimous support
of his county delegation for the nomination. The
truth, however, is that he has never been an office-
seeker, has failed to attend nominating conventions,
and, when nominations have been tendered, persua-
sion has been required to induce him to abandon
business and accept office.
It is, however, as a merchant, successful hop-raiser,
agriculturist and banker, that James P. Stewart has
acquired his high standing in the community. In
every enterprise to which he contributes, and in every-
thing he undertakes, he brings to bear admirable
judgment and indomitable energy. As a business
man or operator, he is enterprising and fearless, far-
seeing and sagacious. In the culture of raspberries
he demonstrated the capabilities of the valley, and
the profits of such a specialty. He has one of the
largest and most profitable fruit orchards in Pierce
county. He was third in rank, acreage and product
in that long list of hop-growers in Puyallup valley.
He gave an estimate of the average return of his
hop-raising experience for the period of fifteen years,
commencing with 1871, the year he entered the
business. He sold his crops for the fifteen years at
an average of twenty-one cents, -three mills per
pound. The product was an average of eighteen
hundred pounds to the acre, making a net profit of
over two hundred dollars per acre per annum.
He was one of the founders of the Pacific National
Bank in the city of Tacoma, and has continued a
director since its existence. At present he is a
partner of Charles P. Masterson, the able president
of that institution, in a banking business at Puyal-
lup, under the firm name of Stewart & Masterson,
of which he is manager. The firm is a strong one;
and it has secured the entire confidence of the com-
munity in the so-called Puyallup Bank.
Whether as financier, farmer, merchant, legislator,
probate judge, school teacher or citizen, James P.
Stewart has always been a success. That success
gives evidence of the truth of the old adage, "Noth-
ing is denied to well-directed industry." The man
of purpose, self-reliant and consistent, must always
succeed.
HON. JOHN STEWART. This gentleman
was born February 12, 1800, in Virginia, that grand
old state which has given birth to heroes and cra-
dled the world's best since the white man first took
possession of this fair land of ours.
There our
subject was nurtured through all his infancy and
until his fifteenth year, when his parents moved to
Terre Haute, Indiana. He resided in that state
until 1837, learning the blacksmith trade, which
calling so nearly broke down his health that he
abandoned it and engaged in trading in cattle.
He first earned his title of captain in the Black
Hawk war, through which he served from begin-
ning to end. In 1837 he left Indiana and moved to
Holt county, Missouri, where he was elected county
judge for four successive terms. On January 7,
1842, Captain Stewart was united in marriage to
Miss Mary Scott; and the happy couple lived in all
peace and mutual esteem for three years, when they
started on May 12, 1845, to journey across the
plains to Oregon. Mr. Stewart was elected the
captain of a company of five hundred wagons and
about twenty-five hundred souls.
The company
also drove an immense herd of cattle and horses,
582
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
but had the misfortune to lose so many that on
arriving at the journey's end they had compar-
atively few.
Just after leaving Fort Laramie the train was
stopped by the Pawnee Indians; and all the men
declined risking their lives in meeting and treating
with the chiefs. However, Captain Stewart and
Prior Scott were prompt volunteers, and succeeded
in effecting a compromise with the Indians by pay-
ing a tribute and being allowed to pass on. A com-
pany of soldiers from Fort Leavenworth were sent
after the company, overtook them and traveled in
company with them until they reached the Sweet-
water. The train suffered and withstood all the
many trying ordeals which so many of the early
emigrants succumbed to. The sickness, death and
accidents incident to the long and wearisome jour-
ney did not pass them by. At Fort Boise the com-
pany divided; and Captain Stewart's command took
the Meek cut-off," which resulted in much suffer-
ing, as they lost their way and were ten days at one
place without water, except from a small spring not
affording, half enough to supply the needs of the
company. After ten days' search, water was found;
and the company moved on at night, it being so hot
as to make travel in the day unendurable. After
these terrible experiences the company finally
reached Tualatin Plains, where they stopped; and
Mrs. Stewart there gave birth to a daughter.
(
™
When they reached Linnton, six miles below Port-
land, which they did on the 28th of October, 1845,
out of the one hundred and eight cattle and horses
with which Captain Stewart began his journey,
there were only twenty-five left. They located on
the Willamette river, just below Corvallis, where
they have since resided, Captain Stewart on his
death leaving a most beautiful home for the com-
fort of his gentle and lovely widow. He expired
on the 28th of February, 1885, leaving his wife
with a family of six children, and the memory of
an honorable, upright man, respected by all whom
his life brought him in contact with, and sincerely
mourned by a loving wife and children. He had
been good, kind and generous to all; and no one
mentions Captain Stewart's name but who can tell
of some kindly deed either to themselves or some
friend. He did his part nobly in making "this
world what it might be if hearts were always kind."
He was an honorable and active member of the
Methodist-Episcopal church; and his house was
always open to all ministers of the gospel as a
most cheerful and welcome home to sojourn in.
Indeed, his home was used for holding divine ser-
vices until the church was built, rendering its use
no longer necessary. His 'estate was valued at one
hundred thousand dollars, which he and his helpful
and hopeful wife had honestly earned.
Mrs. Stewart is left to mourn her husband, but
is also left the consolation that he had not a single
enemy, and passed away in joy and with a soul
full of hope. Mrs. Stewart is still a beautiful
woman, and promises many years of strength and
health to be added to what is already a fruitful and
happy life. In fact, she is growing old gracefully,
beloved by her neighbors and respected by all.
She is generous and charitable to the poor, letting
not her left hand know what her right hand doeth,
and bestows her benefits in an unostentatious and
modest manner. In fact, she is one fit to have
been the helpmeet of the grand and good old man
who has gone before. She was born in Switzland
county, Indiana, in 1821, where she lived with her
parents until 1840, when she went to Missouri, and
was afterwards married to Captain Stewart in that
state.
HON. PETER G. STEWART.- Peter Grant
Stewart was born on the 6th of September, 1809,
in Stanford, Delaware county, New York. When
eight years of age he moved to Jefferson, Scohane
county, where he received a common-school educa-
tion, and learned the trade of a watchmaker. He
followed the occupation of watchmaker and jeweler
in Middlebury until the spring of 1838, when, with
a selected stock of watches, jewelry, etc., he started
for the West, going by way of Niagara Falls, Buf-
falo, Toledo and Fort Wayne to Mount Vernon, In-
diana, and from there to Morganfield, Union county,
Kentucky, where he located, working at his trade
until fall. From Morganfield he traveled down the
Ohio and Mississippi rivers, stopping at the princi-
pal points for the purpose of trade, arriving in due
time at New Orleans. From there his route took
him to Mobile, Mariawa, Jackson county, Florida,
Columbus, Georgia, Clarksville and Pendleton,
South Carolina. There he was taken sick, and re-
turned to New York.
Having recovered his health, in January, 1840,
he went to Kentucky, and in the spring to Spring-
field, Missouri. On the 1st of September, 1842, he
was married to Miss Rebecca R. Cason. During
the year 1842 he was appointed brigade paymaster
by General Smith. Having made the necessary
preparations during the winter, on or about the 17th
of April, 1843, he left Springfield, Missouri, in com-
pany with others, and bidding adieu to friends and
home started to cross the trackless desert on his
way to his future home in Oregon. At Spanish
encampment, near Independence, a committee of
three, J. W. Nesmith, Peter G. Stewart and another
(name forgotten), reported a plan of organization,
which, being adopted, officers were elected; and
Captain Grant, a mountain man, was hired to pilot
the train to Fort Hall, which afterwards proved an
unnecessary expense, as Doctor Whitman overtook
this train and joined them, and proved of great ser-
vice to the company.
The combined trains proving to be too large a
company, it was divided, one part being under the
command of Jesse Applegate, with Doctor Whitman
as pilot, and the other under command of Peter H.
Burnett, with Captain J. W. Nesmith second in com-
mand, and with Captain Grant as pilot, with which
company Stewart and his family traveled. The
progress of the company was slow and tedious, and
also hazardous, on account of the high stage of
water on the South Platte, Laramie Fork and other
streams, being obliged to ferry across with impro-
vised ferry-boats of wagon-beds, canoes, etc. At the
rossing of the South Platte Mrs. Stewart gave birth
to a daughter, and was seriously ill for a time, but
finally recovered. The little child of the plains,
cro
1

LEE MOORHOUSE,
PENDLETON, OR.
UA
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
583
however, lived but a short time, and was buried at
Doctor Whitman's Mission. About twenty-five of
the wagons having separated from the company at
Fort Hall and taken the road to California, the re-
mainder pursued their long, weary journey without
particular incident, and reached The Dalles in
safety. At The Dalles, Stewart and his family, and
F. C. Cason (Stewart's father-in-law) and his family,
secured the services of Indians and their canoes,
and in this manner came down the Columbia and
up the Willamette, reaching the objective point of
their journey, Oregon City, on the 6th of Novem-
ber, having been nearly seven months on the jour-
ney. Locating at Oregon City, Stewart followed
his trade of watchmaking.
In May, 1844, he was elected one of the executive
committee of the Provisional government of Oregon
for one year. In 1845 he was elected by the legisla-
tive committee first judge of the district court for
Clackamas county, and served nearly a year, when
he resigned. In the fall of 1848, in company with
Peter H. Burnett, four of the Casons, and a large
company of others, with ox-teams, he started for
the gold mines of California. He mined on the
Yuba until the latter part of December, and re-
turned home in February, 1849, in company with
General Lane, who was on his way to Oregon to
take charge of the office of governor of Oregon
Territory, which appointment he had received.
In 1850 he became interested in the townsite of
Pacific City to the extent of two-twentieths of six
hundred and forty acres, and held the claim in his
own name to secure to himself and associates the
title of the same. He lived on this place at the
mouth of the Columbia river between two and three
years, until it was reserved by the government for
military purposes. After having spent about seven
thousand dollars in money, and two a half years of
hard labor in improving the claim which he had
taken, he was obliged to give up the claim, and has
never been able to recover anything from the gov-
ernment for his outlay of time and money. In ad-
dition to this loss of time and money, Mr. Stewart
has been deprived of his right to take up another
Donation claim, as he left the Pacific City claim in
such destitute circumstances that he had to borrow
money to support his family, after his return to Ore-
gon City. In justice to Mr. Stewart, the United
States government ought to remunerate him for the
loss sustained by him in losing his claim. The
money expended by him in improvements ought to
be refunded; and he ought to receive fair compen-
sation for his two and a half years of labor. It does
seem like gross injustice that an old pioneer, after
having endured the hardships and privations of an
early life in the wilderness of Oregon, cannot recover
a claim which seems to be so manifestly just and
right.
Mr. Stewart is now an old man, and is dependent
on his labor for the support of himself and family.
If justice were done to him in the matter of this
claim, he could spend his declining years with the
comfort and satisfaction which he ought to have en-
joyed long years before, and to which his services to
the country and state justly entitle him. In the
spring of 1853, after having moved back to Oregon
City, Mr. Stewart was appointed by President Pierce
surveyor and inspector of the revenue for the port of
Pacific City, a position which he held for one year;
but, being required to reside at Pacific City, and not
being able to support himself and family at that
place on account of the high prices of everything
which prevailed at that time, he resigned his position
and returned to Oregon City. Business being very
dull in Oregon City in the spring of 1861, he moved
to Portland and opened up a shop on First street.
In October, 1863, his kind and affectionate wife,
who had been with him in prosperity and adversity
for twenty-one years, died, leaving him and five
children to mourn her loss. Mr. Stewart had buried
four children previous to the loss of his wife. In
the spring of 1864, on account of ill health, he paid
a visit to his old home in New York, returning in
the fall improved in health. Conducting his busi-
ness in Portland, he enjoyed a fair degree of pros-
perity until the big fire of December, 1872, when he
had the misfortune to be burnt out, suffering a loss.
of six or eight thousand dollars. The second big
fire came soon afterwards; and again he was a suf-
ferer. Then, becoming discouraged, he gave up his
business in Portland and became a wandering dealer
in and repairer of watches, spectacles, etc., until
September, 1876, when, becoming tired of his wan-
dering life, he married the widow of Doctor Rose-
crans, formerly of Butteville. He then located at
Gervais, Oregon, where he has resided since, and
where he follows his old vocation of watchmaker
and jeweler. Mr. Stewart was recorder of Gervais
for three years, and enjoys the respect and esteem of
all his neighbors.
Mr. Stewart is a prominent member of the order
of F. and A. M., and enjoys the distinction of being
one of the three masons who issued the call for the
organization of Multnomah Lodge, No. 1, F. and
A. M., and became one of the charter members of
that lodge. The following are the names of Mr.
Stewart's children who survived their mother:
Charles F.; Kate, who married D. B. Hannah;
George L.; Maggie, who married Samuel Perryman;
and Mrs. Mary Gondy, who died a few years ago.
HON. CHARLES T. STILES. One who has
enjoyed the advantages of education, and has been
the recipient of wealth left him by fond and indul-
gent parents, is surely worthy of the encomiums due
to success thereby attained. But how much more
so is the one who, without this pedestal of fame and
fortune, attains an equal eminence by his own un-
aided exertions. As an example of this latter career,
there was none more notable than the gentleman
whose name appears above, whose late untimely de-
mise has removed from the scene of activity one of
our most valuable and honored representative men.
Briefly stated, the course of his life is as follows:
He was a native of Whitneyville, Maine, having
been born in that state June 16, 1847. In 1860,
when he was but thirteen years of age, he came with
his mother to the Pacific coast to join his father, who
had crossed the plains into California in 1849, whom
they found at Vancouver, Washington Territory, hav-
ing located a Donation claim of nine hundred acres
near Washougal.
*
584
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
The subject of this sketch resided there until
1877, when he moved to Portland, Oregon, his father
having died in 1873. In Portland he speculated in
produce of every kind until July, 1878, when he re-
moved to Columbia county, Washington Territory,
and located in Pataha City, which is now in Garfield
county.
In 1882 he purchased the farm where his widow
now resides, a most beautiful place half way between
Pomeroy and Pataha. From the time of his settle-
ment in this growing section, he became an influen-
tial member of its society, moving in every matter
of public improvement, and soon gaining a firm
grasp upon the confidence of the people. Previously
he had been honored with high political preferment,
having been elected in 1875 to the house of repre-
sentatives of Washington Territory from Clarke.
county; and in 1887 he was elected to serve in the
same body from his new home. In his official
capacity he was instrumental in erecting Columbia
from Walla Walla county, and Garfield from Colum-
bia.
In his new sphere of life at Pataha City, he was
most energetic in developing and upbuilding the
region, having been first to bring to that point a
stock of goods, and doing much, by every practica-
ble means, to make that the flourishing place that
it now is. He died August 28, 1886; and his demise
was not only deeply mourned by his family, but also
deplored by the community in general. He was a
man known for his earnestness, breadth of view,
sterling integrity and christian charity. In him
those unfortunate in the battle of life always found
a friend; and the successful regarded him as a com-
rade and brother. As a benefactor, a builder of a
new community, and as a leader in every worthy
field, he will long be remembered.
In 1872 he was married to Miss Lizzie Caples, of
Vancouver, Washington Territory, a most estimable
lady, who now resides in a beautiful residence at
Pataha City, and superintends the education of her
five children.
HON. THEODORE L. STILES.—Honorable
Theodore L. Stiles was born at Medway, Clarke
county, Ohio, July 12, 1848, and was the only child
of Daniel J. and Marie S. Stiles. His mother's
maiden name was Lamme; and she, too, was a native
of the same county as her son. Mr. Stiles' father was
born of German and English parents, in Danplin
county, Pennsylvania. His mother's family were
emigrants from Virginia in 1809. Until the age of
sixteen, he remained at his birthplace, which was a
small interior farming village. But, his mother hav-
ing died in 1863, his father removed in 1865 to
Indianapolis, Indiana, where he entered into mercan-
tile business; and the young man was for a few months
an assistant of his father's firm. But although his
father had not had the advantages of education, he was
one of those who to the keenest degree realized its
future importance to the young; and he, therefore, at
great sacrifice to himself, opened to his son the use
of his lifetime earnings.
The young man was fairly prepared for study, and
chose at first to enter the Ohio University at Athens.
There he spent two years, laying the foundation for
admission to Amherst College, at Amherst, Massa-
chusetts, where he entered as freshman September
10, 1867. After the usual college course of four
years, he graduated in 1871, and at once entered up-
on the active study of law at the Columbia College
Law School in the city of New York. Feeling, as
many young men at twenty-three do, that life was
something to be mastered, he obtained the leave of
the law school authorities to double the course, so
as to get through in a little over one year instead of
two; and he ended his student career in June, 1872.
His admission to the bar followed within a few weeks,
at Indianapolis, Indiana, where he immediately went
to work to "lay out the world." In the following
December, however, friends in New York advised
him to remove thither; and the idea of a metropoli-
tan practice was too seductive to be overcome. He
went, and soon afterwards became associated with
Honorable Edward Jordan, late solicitor of the
United States treasury, and Daniel G. Thompson,
his junior in years, but who has since become one of
the leading legal and literary men of New York.
Mr. Stiles' years thenceforward, until 1877, were oc-
cupied by the varied demands of time and labor made
upon a young lawyer in New York, with some of the
ups but rather more of the downs of life.
Seeing and believing the life of a lawyer to be
brighter and clearer and success more assured on the
Western side of the continent than at the East, he
in that year resolved to follow the advice of the la-
mented Greeley and go West; and the fall of 1878
found him on the Union Pacific Railroad, bound for
Oregon, where recent booming travelers had report-
ed an El Dorado as famous as that of the Columbia
discoveries. Arizona was then approachable from
the east only by a stage journey of nine hundred
miles from the Colorado terminus of the Santa Fé
Railway; but its confines were touched by the
Southern Pacific at Yuma. Therefore the subject of
our sketch chose to journey via San Francisco and
Los Angeles, the latter then a sleepy half-Mexican
town of no particular prospects. He went on by stage
three hundred miles from Yuma to Tucson, and land-
ed there half dead for want of sleep and from an
excess of dust, November 21, 1878. The mining
fever was on " in the country; and he endured its
fortunes and the torrid heats of the country for near-
ly nine years.
In 1887, however, the proprieties which are repre-
sented by those rodents who are said to leave a sink-
ing ship suggested to his mind that there must be a
country where
country where "booms" were fewer, and the path
of life more certain than in the "sun-kissed" lands
of the south. So, on the Fourth of July, 1887, on
the day when Tacoma was celebrating her wedding
with the empire to the eastward of the Cascades,
through the completion of the "Switchback" over
the Stampede Pass, the now matured lawyer of thirty-
nine cast his lot with the City of Destiny and its
pushing and prosperous people. Nearly two years
of residence in Tacoma had passed, when Congress
ordered an election in Washington of delegates to
the convention for the framing of the new constitu-
tion of Washington. Mr. Stiles was one of those
delegates sent from the twenty-second district, the
other two being P. C. Sullivan and Gavin Hicks.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
585
In the convention he was chairman of the committee
of county, township and municipal organization, and
a member of the committee on rules, judiciary and
public lands. The convention having adjourned, he
was sent as a delegate from Pierce county to the
Republican state convention at Walla Walla, and
was chosen and served as the permanent chairman
of that body. The business of the convention in-
volved the nomination of five supreme court judges.
It was deemed that Pierce county, as one of the
largest counties of population, was entitled to one of
the five; and Mr. Stiles was nominated by the adop-
tion of the vote of 256 of the 298 delegates present.
The election followed October 1st; and with the rest
of his party associates he was elected by a large ma-
jority.
E. D. STILLMAN. — Mr. Stillman was born
in New York in 1828, and learned the trade of a
mechanic and machinist. In 1849 he crossed the
plains to Oregon in the capacity of wheelwright for
the regiment of mounted riflemen who were sent here
on the strength of Joe Meek's urgent representations
at Washington, and for the protection of the settlers.
of this little-cared-for wilderness on the Pacific. He
well remembers an exciting incident near Green
river. The command was there met by one Bap-
tiste, who bore messages from Governor Joe Lane.
This Baptiste proved to be a desperado, who the
next day shot Wilcox, the guide, on account of an
old quarrel, and then emptied his revolver indis-
criminately at the soldiers, each shot, however,
taking effect,—and held the whole command at bay
for some minutes.
Arrived at Oregon City, Mr. Stillman was engaged
by General Lane to repair and run the McLoughlin
sawmill, of which he then held a lease, paying him
twenty-five dollars per day. In that capacity he
was thrown much into his company, and recalls
that on one occasion, when the soldiers were leav-
ing for the mines without permission or excuse,
a squad of them walking boldly over some officers,
and striking out on their own responsibility,-the
General shouldered his rifle, and with two or three
old-timers soon escorted the fugitives to the guard-
house. When the five Cayuse Indians were hanged
at Oregon City, Mr. Stillman was one of the many
who were quietly "heeled" to see that no effort
"to
was made to rescue them. He relates that when
Marshal Joe Meek was about to cut the rope which
held the trap, he observed, "God Almighty have
mercy on your souls. I can't." After the drop fell,
the knot on one of the necks did not slip well; and
the murderer, not dying fast enough to suit Joe, he
ascended the scaffold, and with his foot shoved the
noose tight.
In 1850, acting on the advice of General Lane
and others, who predicted that Milwaukee would
be the mark for Oregon, Stillman bought lots and
built a house there, and secured employment on the
machinery of the steamer Lot Whitcomb at ten dol-
lars per hour. In 1851 he went to the Siskiyou
mines, where he delved in the ground ten years,
and thence came to Granite creek on the John Day
river, where he married and continued mining until
1872. He then purchased a fruit farm near Milton,
Oregon, and has since worked at his trade in Pen-
dleton, leaving his ranch to be conducted by his
family.
William D.
WILLIAM D. STILLWELL.
Stillwell was born in Logan county, Ohio, on the
16th of November, 1824. While he was still quite
young his parents moved to Michigan, and to Towa
in 1838. After living there five years, he concluded
in 1843 to emigrate to Oregon. Finding it too late
to join the emigration trains, he stopped in Mis-
souri until the following year, when he was among
the first to camp at the starting point near Inde-
pendence.
The emigration company were slow in their prep-
arations for starting; and, as Mr. Stillwell was eager
to be off, he started out on the long journey across
the plains with a small company of ten wagons,
believing that the regular emigrant train would
soon overtake them.
The season was unusually wet; and many of the
streams were swollen so as to make the crossing
dangerous in the extreme. Many of them had to
be forded; or, when timber long enough could be
procured, they would make canoes and lash them
together, ferry the families and wagons across,
and swim the stock. In this way they proceeded
for hundreds of miles, until finally it became neces-
sary to halt, on account of the incessant rains and
consequent high waters. They rested for twenty-
one days; and still the rains continued, until the
cattle were in danger of miring; and the wagons
settled in the mud down to the axle-trees.
At the earliest moment possible they moved on
up the Platte to the dry lands, and thence on
towards the Rocky Mountains. The cattle became
afflicted with foot-evil from the sudden change from
wet and mud to the dry, hot sand and alkali plains;
and many had to be left along the way. The
disease spread among the stock, and became so
universal that it threatened to become a serious
matter, and retarded their progress very much.
They had hoped to reach their journey's end in
the course of three or four months, and had started
with provisions sufficient for that length of time.
But here they found themselves scarcely half way
to their destination, their teams jaded or wholly
given out, and the supply of provisions nearly
exhausted. Mr. Stillwell's father was in poor
health; and it seemed impossible that his mother
could ride horseback in case they had to abandon
the wagons, as she was a very large woman, weigh-
ing at that time two hundred and sixty pounds.
Such anxiety was sufficient to cause the singular
circumstance which Mr. Stillwell tells of himself.
He was at that time in his nineteenth year; and
his hair, which was coal black at starting, turned
quite gray; but a few years in the Willamette val-
ley restored it to its original color.
At Bear river they fell in with a company of Nez
Perce Indians and a white man. One Indian in
the party had been educated at St. Louis, and could
talk good English. They traveled on to the upper
crossing of Snake river, where their teams gave
out; and they traded them off to some mountain
men for pack-horses. When at Boise river they
586
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
turned off with the party of Nez Perce Indians,
going up the Platte across the Salmon river and
down on the Clearwater to Lapwai to Mr. Spald-
ing's Mission.
Fortunately, Mr. Stillwell possessed a Hawkins'
rifle, and killed plenty of buffalo, antelope, sage-
hens and other game, which was their only food for
nearly half the way. They reached Mr. Spalding's
Mission in good season, the route being much
shorter than that to Whitman's station; and his
mother and the horse she rode endured the fatigue
wonderfully well.
They spent the winter at Mr. Spalding's; and, as
Mr. Stillwell had some knowledge of printing, he
was employed to assist Mr. Fasey in printing the
books of Matthew and Luke, which Mr. Spalding
was translating into the Nez Perce language, as
well as several hymn books and a dictionary for the
use of the Indians. Mr. Spalding had procured a
printing-press such as was to be had at that time,
and which was undoubtedly the pioneer printing-
press of the Pacific coast.
In 1845 they moved to the Willamette valley,
settling at North Yamhill, where Mr. Stillwell lived
for twenty-five years. At that time the settlers were
few and so scattered that often it was many miles
to the nearest neighbor. There were but few mills
in the country, and many of them on streams
which went dry during the summer months; so it
was necessary to go to mill in the winter; when the
water was high. There were no bridges; and the
grist must be taken from the pack-horse and carried
across on a foot log, while the animal swam the
stream. He would then pack up again and go on
to the next stream, where the programme would be
repeated. It took several days, and sometimes even
weeks, to make the trip to mill and back, as it was
forty miles to Oregon City or Salem.
The big black wolves were plentiful in the mount-
ains at that time; and it was a common occurrence
in the winter for them to come down and kill a cow
or horse. In comparing those times with to-day,
Mr. Stillwell says: "I worked for Cook & Fletcher
at Lafayette for half price to get cash enough to
buy me an axe; for it required cash to purchase the
article. Yet I could get from a dollar and a half to
two and a half per day in orders on the Hudson's
Bay or Abernethy's stores; but they could not fur-
nish axes for the orders or wheat at from one to one
and a half dollars per bushel, which was the circu-
lating medium at that time. It required cash to
buy an axe; and I journeyed to Oregon City to buy
it. I was offered on several occasions a horse worth
at that time twenty-five dollars for it."
In the winter of 1846 quite a number of emi-
grants who came by the southern route barely got
into the Willamette valley until their teams gave
out; and they themselves were so worn out and ill
they could not come over to the settlements, and in
many cases were suffering for food. The settlers at
North Yamhill contributed ten pack-loads of provi-
sions; and Mr. Stillwell and a son of Chicamen
Smith volunteered to take it and distribute it to
those who were actually suffering, without pay.
They started in December, a time when all the
streams were swollen out of their banks; and not one
of them but the Lacrosse did they succeed in ford-
ing, having to pack their cargo over on foot logs, or
ferry them across on rafts or in canoes, and swim
their horses. Sometimes they would not be able to
proceed more than a mile or two in a whole day's
travel. When they came to the Long Tom, they
found a man and his family camping where his
team had given out; and they were not able to
move on. He told Mr. Stillwell they had had
nothing to eat for two days. In reply he said:
"You are the kind of people we are looking for.
Bring something to carry it in, and I will give you
something to eat." After being supplied with flour
and meat enough to last them several days, the
poor man actually cried, as the relief came so unex-
pectedly; and he could not pay for it. He had started
his son off to the settlements that very morning
with the last dollar he had in the world, but prom-
ised to pay as soon as he was able.
"Never mind,"
said Mr. Stillwell, "this is for those who have noth-
ing to eat, and nothing to buy it with."
After crossing the stream, they met a company of
ten wagons, who still had two or three days' provi-
sions, but were eager to secure all Mr. Stillwell had.
Of course he would not sell to them; and they drew
their guns and talked of taking the cargo by force.
Young Smith kept driving the packed animals
along; and he and Mr. Stillwell both cocked their
guns, which caused the emigrants to change their
minds. So they passed on, making only two or
three miles a day, until they reached the spot where
Eugene City now stands. After distributing their
cargo among the needy, they took the women and
children of two families on their pack-horses, the
men and boys all walking, and started back to the
settlements. When they reached Sap creek their
provisions were gone; but a party had brought
some wheat for seed, which he let them have; and
they hailed it for supper and breakfast, but began
eating it as soon as it was hailed. They relished it
without salt or anything else with it.
In the following March Mr. Stillwell returned to
the upper valley with some of the emigrants to get
their wagons and other articles they had left when
coming in. Thinking it would be much easier to
come down the river in boats, they made two or
three canoes, lashed them together, and after load-
ing on the wagons and goods started down the
river. They had gone but a short distance when the
boat struck a snag and upset; and they with diffi-
culty got out on an island. After searching for
some time they discovered a shallow place, and
waded to the mainland. So, without provisions and.
wet to the skin they started for Belknap settlement,
being above the mouth of Long Tom. Mr. Still-
well swam over and procured a canoe, and assisted
his companion, Mr. Buckingham, across the stream,
and then on to a point where they crossed the
Muddy during the night. Here he waded the Slacon
creek for hours before he found the way out where
he could get food.
In December of 1847 he joined Captain Thomp-
son's company in Yamhill. On the 25th of that
month they reported to the governor at Oregon City
in response to a call for volunteers to punish the
Cayuse Indians for the massacre at Whitman's Sta-

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
587
tion. The company was ordered to a point on the
Willamette where Albina is now located, and from
there to The Dalles by way of Vancouver, and soon
after to Des Chutes. There was a call for two men
from each company to volunteer as scouts under
Lieutenant Lee; and Mr. Stillwell and Chicamen
Smith, of Captain Thompson's company, volun-
teered to go.
Starting out early in the morning, about three
o'clock in the afternoon they saw a party of Indians
riding directly towards them. It had been raining
hard; and they were ordered to halt and re-prime
their guns amid great excitement, as these were the
first hostile Indians that had been seen. They were
soon ordered to charge; and, as Mr. Stillwell had a
good horse, he was soon up with the Indians, and
dismounting fired at an Indian who was trying to
get away. The command was suddenly ordered to
retreat; and, as Mr. Stillwell did not hear the order,
he stopped to reload and catch an Indian horse,
changed his own saddle to it, and started to drive
his own and Lieutenant Lee's horses after the com-
mand.
Now, for the first time, he saw he was cut off
entirely from his comrades, and was surrounded by
Indians. He turned towards the Des Chutes river,
though about forty mounted Indians had surrounded
him; and it seemed only sport to capture or kill
him. At any rate, they reserved their balls for more
difficult game, and only showered arrows at him.
Before long his horse was filled with arrows, and
could go no farther; and Mr. Stillwell sprang over
his head and ran two hundred yards, when he was
shot in the hip with an arrow. He succeeded in
pulling out the arrow; but the flint remained im-
bedded in the flesh. He ran down a cañon; and the
Indians followed on both sides, sometimes coming
within forty yards, when he would present his gun,
but not fire, knowing that to reserve his fire would
serve to keep them at a distance. Once he came near
going over a precipice; and again a rifle ball passed
through his hair just over his ear. It seems almost
a miracle that he escaped; but after it was dark he
lay by and rested, after which he resumed his jour-
ney, and arrived at camp at daylight, greatly to the
surprise of his comrades, as he was given up as lost.
He remained with the regiment, taking part in every
battle, and was out with most of the scouts, living
on horse-meat, without salt or anything else to eat.
The Indians at the battle of the Des Chutes were
the bravest met in that campaign, says Mr. Still-
well: "They never left their positions until we blew
smoke in their very faces."' He says they overtook
the Indians as they were driving up their horses;
and he came in contact with a big warrior, who ran
his horse against Mr. Stillwell's animal. He asked
permission to shoot the Indian; but it was refused,
and the act was repeated several times before the
Indian seemed satisfied. To this day Mr. Stillwell
thinks the campaign was badly managed, and that
they should have attacked the Indians instead of
waiting for them to begin hostilities, which they did
in the night.
After this war was ended, he returned to the Will-
amette, and in 1849 went to the gold mines. He
stopped at Redding's diggings, where he did well at
mining but had a severe attack of cholera, and
returned to Oregon and turned his attention to rais-
ing horses.
In 1851 he was married to Miss Elizabeth Baxter,
a grand-daughter of Samuel Laughlin of Yamhill
county. They were blessed with six children, two
of whom died in infancy. Those living are Thomas
G., Levi L., Minnie V. and Baxter. Mrs. E. Still-
well died the 12th of January, 1863.
On
Mr. Stillwell was first lieutenant in Captain
Ankeny's Company C of recruiting volunteers, and
was in active service in the war of 1855-56.
one occasion, when they were short of amunition,
he was sent with an escort to The Dalles to procure
a supply. They made the journey there (225 miles)
in two days and nights, and the return trip with the
amunition in five days, making the round trip of
450 miles in seven days. On their return the bad
roads and hard travel caused their horses to give
out; and Mr. Stillwell took the amunition on the
saddle horses, and walking himself brought it to
headquarters at the expense of badly blistered feet.
He was only a short distance from Captain Hem-
bree when he was killed while out scouting after
Indians.
After the war closed he returned to his home in
North Yamhill, and in 1864 was married to Miss
Joanna Gubsen. Six children were the result of
this union,-Willa, now Mrs. Ebermon, Arthur J.,
William J., Walter R., and two who died in infancy.
Mrs. Joanna Stillwell died September 20, 1879.
In 1870 Mr. Stillwell moved to Tillamook, where
he has since resided, serving the county as school
superintendent, assessor and sheriff.
ULMER STINSON.—Mr. Stinson is among
the most successful of the lumbermen of the Snoho-
mish, and like the most of his compeers in this busi-
ness is a native of Maine, having been born in
Kennebec county in 1836. He lived, was educated
and gained his business head in his native town,
leaving it only at the age of twenty-seven. From
his youth he was a lumberman and logger.
But in 1863 he determined to try business upon a
somewhat larger scale, and selected this coast as his
field. He mined a year in Nevada county, Cali-
fornia, but tiring of the unaccustomed life of that
region sailed up to the Sound on a bark, and found
his first home at Port Gamble. Soon he saw the
inducements of living at Snohomish, Washington
Territory, and after twelve years for others engaged
in logging on that river for himself. To be a suc-
cessful logger one requires extreme prudence. The
ways of breaking up are numerous, and the path to
a competence narrow. Our subject, however, has
not lost the way, but for a number of years has been
operating and laying by a surplus at each clean up.
He employs some twenty-five men. His timber
and farm lands embrace fifteen hundred acres; and
he owns a fine residence in the city.
He was married at Clinton, Maine, in 1856, to
Miss Christina Stewart, a native of Maine, and a
lady of intelligence and refinement. They have
three children, George Edgar, Charlotte E., the
wife of James B. Cole, and Marette E.
Mr. Stinson is a very large man physically, and
588
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
is said to be very positive and tenacious in his views.
An excellent portrait of him, and also a view of
his residence, can be found within these pages.
JAMES L. STORY.- Mr. Story, the present
mayor of The Dalles, Oregon, and a lawyer of lead-
ing character, is one of the Oregon educated men of
whom the state has reason to be proud.
He was born in Missouri in 1845, but at the age
of eight years came with his parents across the
plains to Oregon. The first home was on the Wil-
lamette river among the groves of maple and mag-
nificent cottonwood trees where is now situated the
little town of Lincoln. In 1854 he removed to Mc-
Minnville, and at that place, in 1864, enlisted in
the First Oregon Infantry as quartermaster's clerk,
serving until 1865.
Resuming civil life, he engaged in teaching, and
by that means was enabled also to perfect himself
in the English branches and in the sciences at Mc-
Minnville College. In 1868 he entered upon the
more substantial duties and joys of life, marrying
Miss Lucretia Cozine of McMinnville, and engaging
in agriculture. In 1872 he made a trial of the cli-
mate and opportunities of the Inland Empire, lo-
cating at Weston, where he followed his former pro-
fession as teacher, and added to those duties the
study of law, reading with Brents & Reed of Walla
Walla. Returning to McMinnville, he completed
his legal training under the tutelage of James Mc-
Kean, and was admitted to practice before the
supreme court of our state in 1881.
Five years succeeding were spent upon the sea-
coast to improve the health of his family; and a
stay of a year at McMinnville after their life by the
ocean was followed by a removal to their present
home, The Dalles. Mr. Story is widely and favor-
ably known, not only at The Dalles, but far into
the surrounding regions, and with his law part-
ner, J. E. Atwater, has a large practice. As mayor
of the city he lends dignity and decorum as well
as vigor to the municipal government, and is very
much a man of the people.
J. L. STOUT.—The proprietor of the townsite of
Sea View on the weather beach, a city which boasts
of a population of from five to eight thousand during
the summer bathing season, is from the Buckeye
state, having been born in Ohio in 1824. During
his boyhood his father took him to Illinois; and he
passed his early life on the frontier. He came up
with a generation of men whose natural force and
enterprise led them into the most exalted position in
the great West which their energies had developed.
While in Illinois he was ever restless, moving from
county to county, and in the northern part of the
state learned the trade of a cooper.
He was married at an early age to Miss Abigail E.
Beckwith, but at his home in Marshall county his
wife and children suffered greatly from malarial sick-
ness, his two oldest children dying. Those were also
hard “Democratic times "as Mr. Stout expressed it;
and for a poor man it was very difficult to advance.
Having heard constantly of the gold of California,
he determined to come to its mines and dig the pre-
cious metal for himself.
Accordingly, in 1850, he crossed the plains, start-
ing from the Missouri with a train of oxen late in
April. He reached Hangtown, or Placerville, early
in August, making a phenomenally speedy trip.
Cholera was abroad on the plains; but he kept in ad-
vance of it. He proved the endurance and capacity
of oxen, his animals overtaking horses that had
passed him in the early stages of his trip; and in
crossing the Humboldt desert the brave fellows
traveled continuously thirty-six hours without a
bite of grass or a drop of water. On this desert,
three hundred and twenty-five dead horses were
counted; and the road on both sides was strewn
with the remains of wagons, and some excellent
vehicles which were standing without teams to draw
them. Reaching California, Mr. Stout was not long
in the mines before he was taken sick; and his gold-
digging aspirations were cut short. He took passage
for Oregon with the hope of recovering his health,
and at Astoria was fully restored.
But the Pacific coast did not fully satisfy him; and
he returned East with the determination never to
leave his old home again. He had not been long in
Illinois before he was equally determined to get back,
if possible, to Oregon; and in 1852 he crossed the
plains once more, bringing his family, arriving in
Portland in August of that year. His old Oregon
acquaintances were astonished to see him back, but
ready to welcome him; and in that city the following
winter he did a remunerative business. In 1853 he
went into Clackamas county, taking up a Donation
claim some twelve miles from Oregon City, where
he remained five years. But, his wife's health fail-
ing, he removed to the city for the sake of being in
reach of a physician; but within two years his
companion departed this life.
He
Making his home then at Astoria, he married Miss
Annie Gearhart of Clatsop Plains, and removed to
Oysterville on Shoalwater Bay, engaging in a business
then comparatively new,-that of oystering.
was fairly successful a number of years; but at
length a high tide swept away his home and his
whole property. That was a memorable flood. A
full moon and a south wind occurring together, the
waters were piled into the bay; and at this stage the
wind suddenly shifted to the southeast, blowing
violently and driving the water upon the town,
submerging it in the flood, and wrecking the build-
ings with the heavy swell.
In 1862 the collector of customs, W. L. Adams,
reposing especial confidence in him, appointed him
as customs inspector to look after the interest of
the government at Shoalwater Bay. He held this
office for several years, and discharged his duties
to the entire satisfaction of the collector who
appointed him. No smuggling was done at that
port while Mr. Stout held the office.
Leaving the place of his misfortune, he now went
to the head of Baker's Bay and established a home.
A number of houses grew up; and a postoffice was
created, with Mr. Stout as postmaster. At the
request of an old settler of the region, Mr. Picker-
nall, the place was named Unity. This was the
original Ilwaco. Desiring to make of this some-
thing of a town, Mr. Stout erected a hotel which,
at the suggestion of a friend, was christened “Bay
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
589
View." In 1871, finding eligible land yet untaken
on the North Beach, by entry and purchase he
acquired four hundred acres on the ocean shore.
Its value was not fully appreciated at that time.
Captain Simpson, the lumber-dealer and shipbuilder
of Coos Bay and Astoria, made the remark to its
owner soon after the acquisition, that four bits an
acre was too much for it It is now held at about
six hundred dollars per acre; and when the climate,
the nature of the soil, and other advantages are
taken into consideration, it is probably the cheapest
land in the Northwest.
It is
This transformation in value has not been due to
accident. Its proprietor began with a steadfast pur-
pose to bring it to public notice. He built a hotel,
and by liberal treatment attracted guests, and
explained to them the advantage of the place as
a summer resort, its proximity to the cape, to Shoal-
water Bay, and its magnificent ocean beach.
also a place of groves. As the site began to become
known, he laid it off in lots, which he began sell-
ing some five years since at twenty-five dollars each.
The year following he was able to command for
them the sum of fifty dollars. Soon they ran up
to one hundred dollars. Many reasons have con-
spired to make Sea View the favorite resort of the
summer visitor; and its fame and attractiveness have
fully established Long Beach or North Beach as a
point of great importance on the coast. Mr. Stout
was the first to put into operation, if not to con-
ceive the plan, of drawing seaside travel to the
North Beach; and he has succeeded admirably in
his undertaking.
With the expansion of the country, he has reaped
the reward of his industry and sagacity. Mr. Stout
was inspector of customs for six years, and served
as pilot commissioner of the Columbia river and bar
for eight years.
Fortune has at last smiled on the old pioneer, and
justly too; for none of all the long list of pioneers
is more worthy of her smile.
Mr. Stout has four sons, Jonathan, Philip, Oliver
and Chester, and a daughter, Miss Inez, all of whom
may well feel proud of their father; for he has left
them a name that will be remembered as long as
Oregon and Washington exist, and one, too, that
is respected by all; for it stands without a tarnish.
HON. R. S. STRAHAN.- Judge Strahan, as
a member of the Oregon supreme court, is widely
known as being able and upright, and is universally
recognized as one of our most popular representatives
of the state judiciary.
He was born in Kentucky in 1835. During his
childhood he removed with his father to the Platte
reserve, as the section was then known, in Missouri,
and several years later to Mexico in the same state,
living on a farm until he reached manhood, and cul-
tivating the use of brain, brawn and nerve, and
cherishing a country-boy's ambition. The strength
and hope thus developed on a farm has served many
a man, as well as Judge Strahan, with the impetus.
which has borne him far into the higher realms of
action and society. He obtained all the education
to be had at the country school-house, and to this
added a brief academic course preparatory to the
study of law, to which his tastes inclined him. He
entered upon legal studies at Lousa, Kentucky,
early in 1856, and completed his course and was
admitted to the bar in 1857. Returning to the state
which he now called his home, he set up a practice
at Milan, Missouri, and met with due success. His
abilities became so well known as to attract attention
and inspire confidence among the people of the
county (Sullivan); and he was appointed probate
judge, acting in that capacity four years, and ever
discharging the duties of that important position
with dignity and to the entire satisfaction of those
having business in his court.
In 1864 he was led to seek a wider field upon our
coast, and coming to Oregon located at Corvallis,
where he continued the practice of law. In 1868
he had so far advanced in the confidence of our
people as to be elected district attorney of the second
district, and in 1870 state senator from Benton
county. In 1886 he was before the people of the
whole state as candidate upon the Democratic
ticket for supreme judge, and in the contest was
elected by a small majority over Chief Justice Waldo,
a man of great and deserved popularity. The
official reports of the court bear witness to the
efficiency with which he performed the labors of his
distinguished position.
The Judge maintains a very robust and vigorous
physical condition, and applies to his duties some-
thing of the force and energy exemplified in an
electric engine. This not only enables him to dis-
patch a vast deal of current business, but permits
the hope that he will for many years be able to
perform the duties of the first position in the state,
and to occupy a leading position in the profession
which his abilities and character have already
adorned.
REV. HOWARD W. STRATTON.-This en-
thusiastic builder of correct ideas upon our coast
has a distinguished ancestor. He is the grandson.
of Honorable Elisha W. Stratton, who was one of
the first settlers of Ohio, and for nearly twenty
years representative to the United States Congress
from the nineteenth district of that state, and also
controller of the treasury under three Presidents.
He is the son of William O. Stratton, a leading
clergyman of the Presbyterian church of Ohio.
H. W. Stratton, the subject of this sketch, after a
number of years spent in business in Ohio, was
ordained to the ministry in 1866 over the same
church of which his father had been pastor nearly
a quarter of a century. Soon afterwards he began
preaching in Kansas, continuing five years, and in
1871 came to Oregon, ministering to the Presby-
terian and Congregational churches united at
Albany. Leaving that field at the instance of his
presbytery, he served a church as synodical mis-
sionary for one year, among other things organizing
the first Presbyterian churches east of the Cascade
Mountains at Weston and Walla Walla respectively.
He also gathered and organized the first church of
Whites at Boise, Idaho. He afterwards ministered
to the First Presbyterian church at Seattle for more
than two years. Subsequently he went to Spokane
Falls, Washington Territory, and located a quarter
590
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
section of land north of the river, securing thereby
a share in the general prosperity of the region.
His home is at Prospect Place, four miles north of
town, overlooking the city and Spokane valley.
Mr. Stratton devotes his time principally to the
cultivation of fruits and flowers, giving to the
church such occasional service as he is able to ren-
der. His daughter, the wife of Honorable J. J.
Brown, and two of his sons, live near him. His
home is a delightful spot, being an intellectual as
well as a finely established domestic center. Like
all pioneers, Mr. Stratton has unbounded admira-
tion for his home country, and unlimited faith in its
future.
HON. WILLIAM STRONG.—There is no
name more thoroughly associated with Oregon and
Washington judicature than that of William Strong.
His marked characteristics are indelibly impressed
upon the system of law of both states, especially
that of the latter. To long and distinguished ser-
vice as associate justice of the supreme court, and
in the ex-officio character of judge of the district
courts in both states while they were territorial gov-
ernments, must be added his connection with their
legislation, and also his brilliant career as a law
practitioner, for over a generation, in all the courts
of both states.
He was born at St. Albans, Vermont, on the 15th
of July, 1817. His youth was spent in the vicinity
of Rushville, New York, where he received his pre-
paratory education. At the age of seventeen he
entered Yale College, from which he graduated with
distinguished honors in the class of 1838. Having
selected the law for his profession, he engaged in
teaching the ensuing two years, whereby he earned
those means which contributed largely to enable
him to gratify his desire. So ambitious was he that,
by industry and close application to study in the in-
tervals from teaching, he had made sufficient progress
in his studies to secure a license in 1840 to practice
law. Admitted to the bar, he immediately removed
to Cleveland, Ohio, and at once entered upon a
large and lucrative practice, and took a foremost
rank in the profession. On the 15th of October,
1840, he married Lucretia Robinson, whom he sur-
vived but about two years.
In 1849, having resolved upon migrating to Ore-
gon, his many friends procured for him, September
17, 1849, the appointment by President Zachary
Taylor of associate justice of the supreme court of
Oregon Territory, to succeed the Honorable Peter
H. Burnett, an appointee of President James K.
Polk, who had removed to California, and had de-
clined the appointment. At about the same date,
Major John P. Gaines of Kentucky had received
the appointment of governor; and General Edward
Hamilton of Ohio had been commissioned secretary
of the territory. The writer of this tribute to his
departed friend cannot forego quoting from that
most interesting paper, the annual address of Hon-
orable William Strong at the sixth annual reunion,
1878, of the Oregon Pioneers. It happily illus-
trates that direct form of expression, that plain,
unassuming style, that occasional quaintness of
thought and expression which abound in his
speeches, opinions and numerous contributions for
the press. There are also presented the evidences
of his careful observation and remembrance of every
incident which chronicles the growth or progress of
places visited. How pleasant, too, that retrospect
of Oregon as it was when he first entered the great
Columbia. How hopeful he was of its assured
future. In that address, the voyage to this coun-
try of that distinguished party of Oregon's early
and surely most-talked-about “ Federal officials
was thus referred to:
"The United States storeship Supply was, when
we were appointed, fitted out at the Brooklyn navy
yard for a voyage to San Francisco with stores for
the Pacific squadron; and our party was tendered a
passage on her, but were required to find our own
supplies.
"The Supply was a fine ship of seven hundred
and fifty tons burden, famous as the one which had
conveyed the exploring party of Commodore Lynch
to Palestine, where he had discovered (as reported)
on the shores of the Dead Sea, Lot's wife in a pillar
of salt, into which she had been transformed for
turning her face to catch a last lingering look of
Sodom as Lot's family were fleeing from that
doomed city, and where she has remained forever.
We accepted the offer; and on the 3d of January,
1850, our party, consisting of Governor Gaines and
family, General Hamilton and family, and myself
and family, set sail from New York City for Oregon.
A sea voyage is necessarily monotonous; and I
will not weary your patience nor consume your time
by describing the incidents of the trip. A long trip
by sea upon a sailing vessel is unspeakably tedious,
especially to persons who have no duties to perform
on board the ship. I am not sure but it is more
trying to the temper and disposition than a trip
the plains across,' though I cannot say that any-
one of our party lost their religion upon this voy-
age,—an accident which it is said has not unfre-
quently happened to travelers on the plains; but
according to my recollections our patience was often
sorely tried.
When we
At Rio Janeiro, where we first stopped, we met
the wife of Mr. Morehead, late United States consul
at Valparaiso, on her way home, a passenger in the
United States frigate Saratoga. We learned from
the officers of the vessel that Mr. Morehead had
rented all the flouring mills at Chile, and was sure
of making a half million dollars by the monopoly
of flour in the San Francisco market.
arrived at Valparaiso, we were informed that, on
account of large supplies shipped from the Eastern
states, the speculation would prove ruinous. On
our arrival at San Francisco, however, we learned
that the party had cleared a million and a half dol-
lars. This incident is mentioned to show the vicis-
situdes of trade in those days. How much truth
there was in the statement, I never fully learned.
The speculation, I believe, turned out very remt:-
nerative.
С
As San Francisco was the end of the voyage of
the Supply, we exchanged vessels there and came
to Oregon on the sloop-of-war Falmouth, Commander
Pettigrew, arriving at Astoria on the 14th day of
August, 1850. Our voyage consumed seven months

JUDGE W.H.WHITTLESEY
PORT TOWNSEND, W.T.
UN
OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
591
and eleven days,-two hundred and twenty-four
days in all. As we stopped nine days at Rio
Janeiro, twenty-one at St. Catherines, ten at Valpa-
raiso and ten at San Francisco, in all fifty days, our
sailing time was one hundred and seventy-four days.
Our ship was a fine sailer, and might have made
the voyage in much shorter time; but government
vessels are not pressed as are merchant ships. They
take their time, and exercise unusual prudence in
making and shortening sail.
"There was nothing of particular interest in
the voyage to the public. Except for the great
length of time consumed, it was more comfortable
and pleasant than either of the other modes of mov-
ing a family to Oregon could have been. Our stop-
Our stop-
page at St. Catherine, a port three hundred miles
south of Rio, was rendered necessary on account of
the yellow fever, which we took aboard at Rio.
Some of our party, and a large part of the officers
and crew, were taken down with it. At one time
it seemed as if the ship would be entirely disabled
before we could reach a port. It proved fatal, how-
ever, in only four cases. Our eldest son, four and a
half years of age, was the first victim, and was
buried at sea in the Atlantic, whose waves washed
the distant shores of his native land. A young sea-
man, in whom we all took great interest, next died;
and Governor Gaines lost two daughters, interesting
and accomplished young ladies, who had been the
life of our party.
"It was a bright and beautiful morning when we
entered the Columbia. The air was delightful, the
scenery grand. The shores were covered with a
dense green foliage, the hills crowned with magnifi-
cent evergreens. On our voyage up the western
coast of South America, we had seen little except
brown and hazy sunburnt mountains. Nothing
green was visible. Around the Bay of San Fran-
cisco, everything at that season of the year looked
dry and barren. The hills having recently been
burned over, consuming the crop of wild oats with
which they had been luxuriantly covered, presented
a black and desolate appearance. The great con-
trast which the shores of the Columbia presented
was cheering to the heart. The first impressions of
our new home were delightful.
When Astoria was pointed out as we reached
the point below, I confess to a feeling of disappoint-
ment. Astoria, the oldest and most famous town in
Oregon, we had expected to find a larger place. We
saw before us a straggling hamlet consisting of a
dozen or so of small houses, irregularly planted.
along the river bank, shut in by the dense forest.
We became reconciled and, indeed, somewhat eleva-
ted in our feelings, when we visited the shore, and
by its enterprising proprietors were shown the beau-
ties of the place. There were avenues and streets,
squares and public parks, wharves and warehouses,
churches, schools and theaters, and an immense
population, all upon the map. Those proprietors
were men of large ideas, large hopes. They assured
us that in a short time Astoria was to become the
commercial metropolis of the Pacific coast. Some
of those proprietors have passed away and gone
where they are beyond the reach of hope or fear.
Some remain; and, though their eyes sparkle and
brighten when they talk of the future grandeur of
Astoria, they manifest a slight feeling of sadness,
and drop the subject with the remark:
"This may
not be in our day; but it will surely come.
and I may not see it; but our children will.'
((
You
Astoria at that time was a small place, or rather
two places,--the upper and lower town,-between
which there was great rivalry. They were about a
mile apart, with no road connecting them except by
water and along the beach. The upper town was
known to the people of Lower Astoria as Adairville.
The lower town was designated by its rival as Old
Fort George, or McClure's Astoria. A road between
the two places would have weakened the differences
of both, isolation being the protection of either.
In the upper town was the custom-house, in the
lower two companies of the First United States En-
gineers, under command of Major J. S. Hathaway.
There were not, excepting the military and those
attached to them, and the custom-house officials, to
the best of my recollection, to exceed twenty-five
men in both towns.
At the time of our arrival in the country, there
was considerable commerce carried on, principally
in sailing vessels between the Columbia river and
San Francisco. The exports were chiefly lumber,
the imports general merchandise.”
At the time when Judge Strong entered upon the
performance of his official duties, Oregon embraced
all of the territory west of the Rocky Mountains
lying between forty-two degrees north latitude (the
northern boundary line of California) and the forty-
ninth parallel of north latitude (the southern
boundary of British Columbia). That immense
area was divided into three judicial districts, to each
of which was assigned one of the justices of the Ore-
gon supreme court, as presiding judge of the courts
in their respective district.
in their respective district. The third judicial dis-
trict of Oregon Territory comprised all of Oregon
north of the Columbia river, and the county of
Clatsop south of that river. There were no organ-
ized counties east of Clarke county at that time; but
that county extended eastward to the Rocky Mount-
ains. The other county north of the river was named
Lewis; it extended northward to the British bound-
ary. Thus it was that Judge Strong's district
included all of what is now Washington Territory,
Idaho and Montana north of the forty-sixth paral-
lel, and west of the Rockies, besides the county of
of Clatsop in Oregon, of which Astoria is the
county seat.
During the winter of 1850-51, Judge Strong with
his family resided at Vancouver. In the early
spring of 1851, he took a claim at Cathlamet on the
north side of the Columbia river, under the Dona-
tion act of September 27, 1850, which required four
years' residence upon the land, and where he resided
until his removal to Portland, Oregon, in 1862.
This is not the place in which to chronicle the pro-
ceedings in detail of the courts over which Judge
Strong presided. His judicial life was commenced
in Oregon when party spirit ran high, when politics
to a great extent became matters of personal differ-
ence, when differences as to political questions were
made the occasions to mar and destroy social rela-
tions, to alienate and estrange personal friends and
39
592
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
neighbors. This strange result arose from local
issues, from the intensity of personal feeling grow-
ing out of the location, or rather the removal, of the
seat of government. It became necessary for the
It became necessary for the
supreme court of the territory to decide where the
seat of government was located. It so happened
that the dominant party in the territory made the
capital removal a party question; and it was perhaps
unfortunate that the majority or quorum of the
supreme court, appointees of a Whig national admin-
istration, viewed the law which they were called upon
to administer as inoperative to effect that removal.
During all the years of Judge Strong's first judi-
cial term, that and kindred questions were constantly
agitated and embroiling the public mind. Never
were judges more severely denounced, more the sub-
jects of personal and malevolent attack, than were
Justices Nelson and Strong, the quorum of the
supreme court who decided that the Omnibus bill,
as it was called (which had provided for the loca-
tion of the seat of government at Salem, and for a
commission to supervise the erection of the capital
buildings thereat; the location of a university, and
for a commission to sell the university lands to pro-
vide funds for its erection; and nominating the site
as also providing for the building of a penitentiary,
as also a commission to build it), was inoperative
and void under the Organic act, because it included
more than one object, and the title of the bill clearly
failed to express its object. Unawed and unmoved,
the quorum of the supreme court met at Oregon
City, the place by them decided as the seat of gov-
ernment. They calmly heard the question argued;
bravely and judiciously, in opinions creditable for
ability and for evidence of painstaking considera-
tion, each filed an opinion announcing the conclu-
sion reached. There is no necessity to call back
any humiliating incidents which mark those years
of Oregon politics or social life. After well nigh
two score of years completed, who will attempt to
detract from any honors sought to be accorded to
the scholarly and gentlemanly Chief Justice Nel-
son? Who will stop short in hearty commendation
of the ability and integrity which marked the judi-
cial career of his more vigorous and stalwart brother
Strong in those troublous stormy days, when jurid-
ical administration had become the issue whereby
partisan rancor was kindled? Nor will it be denied
that each possessed to an eminent degree those four
motives or qualities which the wise Socrates has said
must actuate the Judge: “To hear courteously, to
answer wisely, to consider soberly, and to decide
impartially."
Judge Strong was still on the bench when Wash-
ington Territory was (March 2, 1853), set off from Ore-
gon.
In the whole of that newly created territory,
as defined by its Organic act, he continued to act as
sole judge until Governor Stevens' proclamation,
late in November, divided the territory into three
judicial districts, and assigned to each, one of the
judges of the supreme court of Washington terri-
tory appointed by President Franklin Pierce. The
first legislature of Washington Territory was in
politics Democratic; yet William Strong, the
late Whig judge, was by a unanimous vote
associated with Chief Justice Edward Lander and
Associate Justice Victor Monroe as a commission to
sit during the session of the legislature to report
laws from day to day. That commission worked
laboriously; but it is not derogatory to either of the
other members to say that by far the largest portion
of the body of law enacted at that first session was
reported in the admirable clerical hand of Judge
Strong. But little of his work needed revision or
rewriting. Judge Lander gave as much time and
valuable service as did Judge Strong; but the clerk
of the commission was obliged, in laws reported by
him, to make copies. That body of law was very
generally enacted with little or no alteration, and
was infinitely better when first adopted than now,
with the innovations of a quarter century's legisla-
tion.
After the close of that session, Judge Strong retired
to his residence at Cathlamet. For the next few
years he divided his time between practicing law in
the various courts of Oregon and Washington, in
which he was employed in almost every suit of im-
portance, and in surveying the public lands, at which
he was a thorough adept, and for which he took
several government contracts.
+
In May, 1855, he received the Whig nomination
for delegate to Congress. He and the Democratic
nominee, Colonel J. Patton Anderson, made a joint
canvass of the territory, which was ably conducted;
nor were the amenities of social life and the relations
of gentlemen ever ignored. Washington Territory
was thoroughly Democratic. Judge Strong received
his full party vote, which was all that he had any
right to expect against his gallant and generous
competitor. At the breaking out of the Indian hos-
tilities, in the fall of 1855, when Governor Mason
called for two companies of volunteers in response
to a requisition of Major Rains, U. S. Army, Com-
mander of the Columbia river and Puget Sound
district, one to rendezvous at Vancouver and report
to Major Rains, Judge Strong raised a company and
was unanimously elected its captain. That com-
pany was known as Company A, First Regiment
Washington Territory Volunteers. It was mustered
into the United States service, and performed con-
siderable duty in Clarke county and vicinity. The
company prayed to be sent to the upper country to
escort Governor Stevens on his return from the
Blackfoot council through the hostile Indian country;
but so hostile was General Wool, then commanding
the Department of the Pacific, to Governor Stevens
and the two territories, that against the urgent pro-
test of Captain Strong he disbanded Company A
before their term of enlistment had expired.
In April and May, 1856, Governor Stevens caused
the arrest of certain persons in Pierce county, Wash-
ington Territory, who, being intermarried with
Indian women and living in the hostile region, were
suspected and accused of furnishing the hostile In-
dians with supplies and information, that led to a
serious and protracted conflict between the courts
and the territorial military authorities. Judge
Strong was retained by the governor as his law ad-
viser. Perhaps it would be proper to say that his
duties partook of the nature of attorney-general, as
also of judge-advocate-general on the governor's
staff, although no commission was issued to him.

มามา
C.A.SANDERS FLOURING MILL & RESIDENCE,
NEAR ELLENSBURGH, W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
593
That clientage necessitated the most intimate con-
fidential relations with the governor, and identified
him with the war policy of the executive.
Shortly subsequently he was elected a member of
the house of representatives of the territory. The
issue in great measure at the election of 1856 was
"Stevens" and "Anti-Stevens." The Whig party
had ceased to exist; and those who know how
strongly Judge Strong was influenced by personal
associations and surroundings, his party a matter of
the past, and with him a secondary consideration,
the politics of the territory almost entirely based
upon personal support of personal policy, will not
for a moment be surprised that Judge Strong es-
poused the cause of his client, and cast his political
lot with his personal friends. He gave his adhesion
to the Democratic party, not to the Republican
organization, which had just been inaugurated in
the territory. At the session of the legislature he
championed Governor Stevens and his war policy.
At that session, upon him devolved the duty of con-
forming the various practice acts of the territory,
the laws for the impaneling of juries, and providing
for terms of court, to a recently passed act of Con-
gress, which limited the courts the expenses of
which were borne by the United States to three,
to be held only at three places.
In 1858, Hon. O. B. McFadden having been pro-
moted to the office of chief justice, Judge Strong
was appointed associate justice, succeeding Judge
McFadden as judge of the first judicial district. He
held this office until succeeded by Honorable James
E. Wyche in 1861.
Judge Strong continued to reside and practice law
within Washington Territory until December, 1862,
at which time he removed to Portland, Oregon. He
at once acquired an extensive and profitable general
practice, but later on was almost exclusively engaged
in the business of the Oregon Steam Navigation
Company, whose counsel he continued to be until
the transfer of their interests to the Henry Villard
combination, resulting in the organization of the
Oregon Railway & Navigation Company as its suc-
cessor.
Thereafter he gradually retired from active prac-
tice. His large business was ably handled by his
two very intelligent and competent sons, Fredric R.
and Thomas Nelson Strong; and the good old man
rested from his long and arduous professional labors.
From 1883 the profession had been abandoned by
him; yet he was not idle. His busy pen continued
to work in treasuring the reminiscences of early
years, of the men who had been his cotemporaries,
and the events in which he had been so conspicuous
an actor.
In April, 1887, the full three-score years and ten
completed, that stalwart frame, that manly and
robust form, succumbed to age and bodily infirmity;
that vigorous intellect, that active brain, that large,
generous heart yielded to the inexorable. An active,
busy, useful life was ended.
He was a most untiring worker; and few indeed
could accomplish so much. His mind was of the
most active and vigorous character; and he carried
to his practice at the bar, or his administration upon
the bench, that marked individuality for which he
He was
was distinguished. He was always positive. No
uncertain language, nor words of compromise, nor
demagogic attempts to conciliate the public, marked
his enunciations of a conclusion reached.
one thing or the other; and hence he was at times
the object of ultra and bitter partisan criticism. But
that never swerved him from his own chosen line of
duty.
duty. Neither did such criticisms influence him to
personal controversy or justification. He ignored
those assaults, and was as kind and urbane to those
who censured his judicial acts as though they had
spoken of him in terms of laudation.
As a judge none were readier than he to seize
instantly the pivotal points of a case. Few indeed
possessed greater acumen power of analysis or re-
sources to fortify the conclusion reached. As a
speaker he was fluent, earnest, impressive,—too
practical to be eloquent.
practical to be eloquent. As a lawyer, counselor,
legislator or judge, he was alike at home in each
capacity. His forte, however, was perhaps in felici-
tous, happy and forcible expression in aptest lan-
guage of a proposition or conclusion of law. In
dictating a decree, making a record of an order or
judgment, he needed no form-book.
He had no
superior in announcing in the fewest appropriate
words a conclusion of law or a judicial determin-
ation. He was a natural clerk. He made practice,
molded procedure, and established precedents, for
his bar to follow. His orders of court, his decrees
in chancery, his drafts of laws, are models of ex-
pression. How aptly he placed the right word in
the right place. As a lawyer he was ingenious and
untiring in resource.
resource. Thoroughly equipped for
every-day practice and every vicissitude; he was
learned in the science of his profession, and loved it
as such, and was thoroughly devoted to the cause of
his client, for whom he labored to succeed while
there was any hope to win. As a judge he was
patient, urbane, fearless, independent, unselfish,
deferential to his brethren of the bench, and con-
siderate to members of the bar.
Those who knew him in the early days, the old
settlers of Oregon and Washington, will treasure
his memory, will continue to recall his genial kind-
ness, his encouraging and cheerful sympathy.
HON. J. A. STROWBRIDGE. Mr. Strow-
bridge, universally known as one of the leading
business men and philanthropists of Portland, Ore-
gon, was born in 1835 in Monteur county, Penn-
sylvania. With his parents he early made a home
in Ohio, receiving the substantial home training of
very careful christian parents, and gained thereby the
habits of thrift, industry and enterprise which have
made him uninterruptedly successful through life.
He was also afforded excellent advantages at school,
and prepared himself to enter the Ohio Wesleyan
University at Delaware, Ohio, with a view to study-
ing law. When but a lad of fourteen he was prom-
ised by an eccentric old gentleman, a Mr. Oldham,
a school to teach, if he could obtain a certificate
from the board of examiners. Encouraged by this.
incentive, he at once set to work to make the
attempt, and appearing with some fifty or sixty
other applicants before the board at Marion, Ohio,
passed the examination with flying colors, and was
594
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
complimented by the examiner, Mr. John J. Wil-
liams, who was enough impressed with his youth-
fulness to address him, "My boy." Mr. Oldham
was as good as his word; and young Strow-
bridge finished his term with success and pleasure,
although many of his pupils were older and larger
than himself.
He deemed it a considerable sacrifice to forego his
plan of study, and come to Oregon. The journey
was undertaken in October, 1851, and was performed
that autumn across the several states with the com-
paratively easy and expeditious conveyance of horse-
teams, to St. Joseph, Missouri. There the winter
was spent in taking care of the stock and giving
attention to matters pertaining to the comfort of
the family, while the young man secured a school
by the employment of a Mr. Robinson, and, gath-
ering a considerable number of pupils, taught a
very pleasant term. The rest of the journey was
performed in the season of 1852. That was the
year of the great immigration, when cholera raged
among the trains and tents, and dotted the wayside
with graves. Mr. Strowbridge's family was invaded
by the pestilence; and one of the children, a little
boy, fell a victim to the scourge. By this event
the father was very much dispirited; and, feeling
anxious and apprehensive for the safety of his
family, and determined to do all in his power to
get them to Oregon alive, he took upon himself
great burdens and cares, and moreover contracted
mountain or typhoid fever. He took sick at The
Dalles, and died soon after reaching Portland.
By this severe blow J. A. Strowbridge, still but a
youth, was very greatly distressed, and thought that
life henceforth would be insupportable, or even impos-
sible, in the absence of this greatly beloved parent.
He was himself sick, and now felt the responsibility
of his mother's family. In his great trouble, however,
he found the people of Portland-then but a little
hamlet in the deep woods-big-hearted and kind, and
ready to make his life as cheerful as possible. Follow-
ing close upon the bereavement of the family by the
death of the father came the loss of the entire band
of stock, worth many thousand dollars, which had
been brought across the plains with the greatest
care and without loss. Their destruction now was
brought about by the fall, near the middle of Decem-
ber, 1852, of about two feet of snow, which lay on
the ground many weeks, making grazing impossi-
ble, while feed was not to be had.
Thus, upon the opening of the season of 1853,
Mr. Strowbridge found himself in a new country,
practically without means, and with no resources ex-
cept such as were in his own courageous heart, active
brain and willing hands. Setting to work bravely,
and taking any employment that offered, he soon
had some means ahead, and forming a business
cònnection, in a small way, with San Francisco,
greatly improved his outlook. In 1853 he bought
a few boxes of Oregon green apples, which were
among the first, if not the very first, placed in the
San Francisco market. Going into the business
more extensively, he made a tour among the farmers,
and encouraged them to set out apple orchards, offer-
ing as an inducement that he would take all they
could raise at from fifteen to thirty cents a pound,-
from five to twelve dollars a box. By this he
became one of the first to inaugurate the shipping
of fresh fruit, a business which increased to such
an extent by 1860 that the total shipments of
apples from Oregon amounted to over one hundred
thousand boxes.
The first results of his labors were, however, swept
away by the failure of Adams & Co., bankers and
expressmen, at San Francisco; for, upon going to
that city at the request of his commission mer-
chants, he put into Adams & Co's bank, for safe-
keeping, his entire avails, and but a few days after
learned, in common with many others, that the
establishment had totally failed. He improved his
remaining time at the city, however, by examining
the produce market, both as to stock on hand, and
that incoming as indicated by the shipping lists
from New York. Returning to Oregon, he
entered boldly, almost without money, into the
produce and commission business in Portland and
the surrounding country. By very careful calcula-
tions and exact methods, and the timely tender by
a friend of a small sum of money, which he was
soon able to return, he made rapid financial head-
way, and has never been obliged to seek aid outside
of his own resources. Never since his first estab-
lishment has he worked for a salary, but has been
controller and operator of large kinds of business,
and one of those men that seek employés instead of
employment.
Continuing his trade in produce, he transferred
his interests in 1859 to the boot and shoe trade,
forming a partnership with Mr. C. M. Wiberg. In
1870 the firm closed out; and Mr. Strowbridge made
a specialty of leather and shoe-findings. In the
great fire of August, 1873, he was burned out and
lost heavily, but was among the first to rebuild, and
to get a stock again on the market. He has fol-
lowed this business with great fidelity up to the
present time, becoming known for his integrity and
fair dealing. He has been successful, reaping the
honest fruits of his application, sagacity and good
investments. He has the satisfaction of liquidating
all honest debts the moment they are due, of pay-
ing a hundred cents on the dollar, and of knowing
that no one ever lost a farthing through him. This
is a clean and handsome record, of which any man
may be proud. He is one of our men of wealth
who holds nothing but what legitimately belongs to
him.
He has been extensively engaged in real
estate operations in the city, and has pursued the
liberal policy of improving his property, and thus
furnishing accommodations for business and stimu-
lating the growth of the city.
In addition to this record in exact affairs, he has
been closely identified with public measures to
develop the city and state. Inclined to be conserv-
ative, believing rather in steady growth than in
ephemeral excitement, and quiet and careful, he has
nevertheless done more than could be told within
these pages to make Portland a true emporium.
In the interest of public good and philanthropy, he
has a wide influence, being a friend of the public
schools and of the churches, contributing to almost
every religious organization in the city. He was
one of the first members of the Portland Volunteer
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
595
F
Fire Department, organized about 1853, and is now
an exempt and honorary member. He has been a
member of the Portland Board of Trade since its
first organization. He was one of the incorporators
of the Lone Fir Cemetery. He is a member of the
Boys and Girls Aid Society, a director in the Pacific
Fire Insurance Company, a member of the board
of trustees of the First Congregational Church, and
was one of the first members of the Portland Li-
brary, and has a perpetual membership therein.
Mr. Strowbridge has steadily refused all political
offices, except that in June, 1888, he suffered his
name to be used in nomination as representative
from Multnomah county; and his popularity was at-
tested by the largest majority on the whole legisla-
tive ticket, as he received 6,052 votes out of 9,384
cast.
He was married July 4, 1864, to Miss Mary H.
Bodman, of Oxford, Ohio, a lady of rare education,
culture and social abilities. She is the eldest daugh-
ter of Doctor H. A. Bodman, who volunteered as
surgeon in the war of the Rebellion, and was as-
signed to service on the fleet of Admiral Porter on
the Mississippi river. They have a delightful home,
with all the surroundings of comfort, refinement
and wealth, and a family of five children,-Alfred
B., Geo. H., Joseph A., Henry J. and Mary H.
HON. ROBERT F. STURDEVANT.— Mr.
Sturdevant is known as the pioneer lawyer of Day-
ton, Washington, and is one of its most enterprising
citizens. His birthplace was Warren county, Penn-
sylvania; and the date was November 18, 1841.
About eighteen months after that important event in
his history, his parents moved to Iowa, and settled.
in Lee county. There they remained until 1854,
when they removed to Clark county, Wisconsin.
There Robert attended school, and in 1860 be-
gan the study of law. He was engaged in pro-
fessional study and practice till 1873, when, in
company with his father and mother and wife, he
came to Washington Territory. Their first home
was at Olympia. The parents returned to Wiscon-
sin the next year; and Mr. Sturdevant with his
family removed to Dayton. There was no lawyer in
the city at that time; and Sturdevant's was the first
attorney's sign.
In 1875 Columbia county chose the pioneer lawyer
her probate judge, thus making him the pioneer at
the bench as well as at the bar. In 1878 he was
elected prosecuting attorney on the Republican
ticket, for the first judicial district of the territory.
He served in that office for two years. He has also
served as mayor of Dayton, and was a member of
the constitutional convention of Washington Terri-
tory. Always ready to forward the interests of
Dayton, he has used his means largely in making
improvements. What is known as the Sturdevant
block will long stand as a monument of his busi-
ness spirit. He is also the owner of much other
real estate in the city.
In politics Judge Sturdevant is firmly Republican.
He was married in 1866 at Neilville, Wisconsin, to
Miss Mary J. Townsley. Eva M. and Edith D. are
their two children. A beautiful residence at the
west end of Dayton, and a tract of sixty acres ad-
joining, afford Mr. Sturdevant and his family all the
comfort and good cheer of a happy home.
GEORGE W. SWAGART.- Mr. Swagart,
identified since 1853 with the interests of our coast,
and now one of the cattle kings" of Eastern
Oregon, was born May 1, 1848, near Galena, in Joe
Davis county, Illinois. In 1853 he came with his
parents to Oregon, locating in Lane county, where
he received a common-school education, and became
inured to the hardships of an early pioneer life in
the saddle, and to the arduous labors of farming,
until, in 1865, he branched out for himself in the
stock business, driving a band of sheep across. the
Cascade Mountains to the ranges of Umatilla
county, in the vicinity of the old Centerville stage
station between Pendleton and Walla Walla. There
he laid the foundations for the success which had
crowned his efforts. The following five years were
spent in the mining camps of Nevada, and in follow-
ing the various speculations which a rapidly devel-
oping country offered to the speculator.
In 1878 he returned to Umatilla county, and em-
barked in the stock business and other outside
interests. There he has remained ever since, rais-
ing a family of five children, having been married
in 1871 to Miss Mildred Clark, his present wife.
Mr. Swagart is interested in raising Clydesdale
horses and shorthorn cattle, as well as securing a
moderate holding of sheep. He now lives at Hepp-
ner, Morrow county, Oregon, where he has made
his home for the last eleven years; and he is fully
content with that magnificent region.
HON. JAMES G. SWAN.— Hon. James G.
Swan was born in Medford, Massachusetts, January
11, 1818. He came to San Francisco via Cape Horn
in 1850. He came to Shoalwater Bay in 1852,
which was then a part of Oregon, and remained till
1856, when he went East as private secretary to
Governor Isaac I. Stevens, Delegate to Congress at
Washington, District of Columbia. He returned to
the territory in 1858, and settled in Port Townsend.
In 1862 he was appointed teacher in charge of the
Makah Indian Agency at Neah Bay, and remained
till 1866, having charge of the government property
during the war. He rendered effective service in
keeping peace among the Indians, and in protecting
the Agency from incursions of foreign Indians from
British Columbia.
At the close of the war of the Rebellion, when
the Confederate steamer Shenandoah was destroying
our whalers in the Arctic Ocean and Behring Sea,
the people of Puget Sound were in daily apprehen-
sion of the rebel cruiser destroying the lighthouse
at Cape Flattery, the agency buildings at Neah
Bay, and the towns and mills on Puget Sound.
There were no tug-boats nor steamers on the Sound
as at present; and the sight of one excited general
remark. One afternoon the smoke of a large steamer
was discovered from the tower of the school building
at Neah village, approaching from the north. It
was supposed to be the Shenandoah coming to
destroy the government property. George Jones,
596
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
the agency farmer, asked Mr. Swan what they
should do. "Climb up the flagstaff and nail the
flag to the masthead," said Mr. Swan. "I will
never haul it down to a rebel." George climbed up
and did as he was ordered; and all awaited the re-
sult. The steamer came in and anchored; but it
was too dark to distinguish her flag. Soon a boat
came ashore and announced that the steamer was
Her Majesty's ship Devastation, Captain Fox, re-
turning from Barclay Sound, where she had been to
chastise the Ahosett Indians for killing a white man.
The next morning Captain Fox came ashore and
complimented the employés for their bravery in
protecting government property. The Victoria
papers related the incident; and Agent Webster,
who was in Washington, complimented Mr. Swan.
In 1868 the Clallam Indians at Dungeness mas-
sacred a party of Tsimsean Indians on the 20th of
September. One woman, who was supposed to be
dead, finally recovered. Mr. Swan, at the request
of General McKenney, Superintendent of Indian
Affairs, arrested the whole of the Indian murderers,
twenty-six in number, and took them to the Skoho-
mish Indian Agency at Hood's Canal; and, when the
woman recovered, he sent her, with the presents Gen-
eral McKenney furnished to pacify the Tsimseans,
to her home at Fort Simpson, British Columbia. Mr.
Swan is acknowledged to have more influence with,
and to be better known to, the coast Indians from
the Columbia river to Alaska, than any other one
man; and he has been able to effect much good
among them.
On seven different occasions Mr. Swan has been
to Alaska as a commissioner of the government to
procure articles of Indian manufacture for the
National Museum in Washington. The result of
his labors may be seen in the largest and most
valuable collection in the museum of the manufac-
tures of the Indians of the north coast of North
America. His last official visit was in 1883 to
Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, where
he made a most complete and valuable collection of
Haida works of art, in gold and silver jewelry, and
stone and wood carvings. It was during this cruise,
which lasted all summer, that Mr. Swan prepared
the first black cod ever brought to Victoria in a mer-
chantable condition; and he has the credit of having
been the first to introduce this delicious food to
public notice. Mr. Swan has been agent and cor-
respondent of the United States Fish Commission
since it was first established by the late Professor
Spencer F. Baird.
He is Hawaiian consul at Port Townsend, Puget
Sound pilot commissioner, commissioner for the State
of Oregon, United States commissioner, and secretary
to the Puget Sound Fish Preserving Company at
Port Townsend.
Mr. Swan has written many elaborate contribu-
tions for the press. Among the most valuable are
the following: On the manners and customs of the
Indians of the Northwest coast, for "Schoolcraft
History, North American Indians;" volume VI;
1857. "The Northwest Coast;" one volume, octavo,
435 pages; Harper & Co., New York; 1857. Com-
pendium with Boston Transcript on Washington
Territory; 1857. Compendium with Washington
and Boston papers on Washington Territory; 1858.
Articles in Harper's Magazine on Amoor river; 1858.
Article in Hunt's Merchant's Magazine on Amoor
river; 1858. Series of articles in San Francisco
Bulletin on Puget Sound; 1859 and 1860. A series
of descriptive articles in Washington Standard,
Olympia, Washington Territory; 1861-68. "Indians
of Cape Flattery," published in the Smithsonian
contributions to useful knowledge; 1869. “Haida
Indians of Queen Charlotte Islands, British Colum-
bia," illustrated; published by the Smithsonian
Institution; 1874. "Criticism on the Linguistic
Treatise in volume I, Contributions to North
American Ethnology;" published by the Bureau of
Ethnology; 1879-80. A vocabulary of the Haidas
of Queen Charlotte Islands. A vocabulary of the
Makahs of Cape Flattery.
Mr. Swan has, for more than thirty years, been a
regular correspondent and collaborator of the Smith-
sonian Institute of Washington, District of Colum-
bia, where his contributions to the National Museum
are of marked interest to all visitors; and his many
valuable articles on the food fishes of the North
Pacific have received honorable mention in nearly
all the reports of the Smithsonian during the long
period from 1856 to the present.
In November, 1871, Mr. Swan was appointed judge
of the probate court of Jefferson county, Washington
Territory, which office he held for seven years, and
has retained the title of "Judge" ever since. Judge
Swan's reports to the Northern Pacific and Union
Pacific Railroads, on the Amoor river and the Asiatic
commerce still to be developed in Siberia, Manchooria,
Corea and Japan, have done much to direct the atten-
tion of these two great corporations to the magnitude
of that trade, and will be a means of inducing its
development in the near future.
As vice-president of the Association of Pioneers of
Washington Territory, Judge Swan marched at the
head of the pioneers in the procession at the inaugu-
ration of the new State of Washington on the 18th
of November, 1889. He is an active, energetic mem-
ber of the Port Townsend Chamber of Commerce,
and a respected and valued citizen. He has lived in
Washington through its whole territorial existence,
and with his fellow-pioneers rejoices that Washing-
ton is now a state.
J. B. TABOR.-The gentleman whose name
appears above is one of those driving and thriving
men whose situation has, through his own indus-
try and sagacity, become one of enviable prosperity
and comfort. Mr. Tabor owns a large stock ranch
ten miles south of Colfax, Washington, and also a
fruit ranch on the Snake river bottom. For the
latter he paid nine thousand dollars some years ago.
He is the stepfather of W. J. Hamilton, the leading
druggist of that city; and his two daughters are
living near. One of these, the wife of J. B. Holt,
is living on the Snake river place; and the other,
Mrs. W. L. Lafallett, is located on the delightful
farm near his own. The Snake river ranch is
devoted to fruit. This strip of lowland, sandy,
warm and in many places supplied with water from
the springs or creeks from the surrounding hills, is
equal to California for the production of grapes,.

WM M.CHANDLER
SPRAGUE, W. T.
UNIL
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
597
peaches and sweet potatoes. Lands well situated
for fruit command from seventy-five to one hundred
dollars per acre. Mr. Tabor's orchard is gradually
becoming extensive; and, as the market is good, it
is and will be a fine source of income.
He deserves his prosperity. He has been a
frontiersman nearly all his life, having been born in
Tennessee in 1821; and in 1840 he moved to Mis-
souri. In 1849 he crossed the plains with ox-teams,
and began mining at Grass Valley. In 1851 he
came up to Oregon and took a farm in the Willa-
mette valley. He there engaged in stock and grain
raising. In 1856 he joined the volunteers and,
with Colonel Cornelius, followed the Indians all
over the Inland Empire; and even then he marked
the choice location.
In 1872, desiring to change his home, he went up
to the Palouse country, laying his claim ten miles
south of Colfax, and engaged in raising horses,
cattle, and especially sheep. Those high hills, from
one thousand to two thousand feet above the sea-
level, and nearly as high above the river bottoms,
are the places for stock ranges and for grain.
Twenty-five bushels of wheat per acre is assumed
to be the average capacity of those uplands. Since
going into the fruit business, Mr. Tabor has largely
disposed of his stock. Upon his first arrival in the
country, Colfax had no existence; and the first
settlers, Cox, Perkins and Hollingsworth, who
made the city, were very isolated frontiersmen.
Mr. Tabor shares with these men the honor of
creating Whitman county, and proving its adapta-
bility to the uses of civilization. Large agricult-
ural, mineral and lumber interests of that section
lie at the back of Colfax; and the railways assure
its future.
Mr. Tabor has been county commissioner, and
has always been ready to serve the community in
every way. He is a man whose sturdy self-reliance,
integrity and energy have won universal esteem.
ALBERT H. TANNER.- Albert H. Tanner
was born in what was at one time a part of the
Oregon Territory; but, when Congress cut the ter-
ritory in two and made Oregon and Washington
Territories, it left him in Washington Territory,
with the mighty Columbia between him and his
now much-loved Oregon. His birthplace was on
what is commonly known as Cape Horn Mountain,
some fifty or sixty miles below the Cascades. In a
little log cabin, the favorite habitat of the early
settler of this Western country, on the 9th of Sep-
tember, 1855, the subject of this sketch first saw
the light. His father was Benjamin F. Tanner, a
native of Kentucky; and his mother was Sarah
Turner, a native of Missouri.
When Albert was about eight years of age, they
separated and were divorced; and he went with his
father to Sheridan, Yamhill county, where he
moved about from place to place a homeless lad,
until he became of sufficient age to be of assist-
ance to his father, who was a carpenter by trade,
when he went to work with him with a boyish
purpose of following the trade of his sire. He con-
tinued in this employment, working in the summer
and attending the district school during the winter
months, until he had attained the age of sixteen
years. He was industrious at his work, and a
faithful and diligent student in school. About this
time Professor T. F. Campbell, the President of
Christian College, at Monmouth, Oregon, visited
Sheridan in the interest of the college, delivering
lectures on the subject of education. Young Tan-
ner attended those lectures, and was inspired with
an enthusiastic desire for an education, and to rise
above the obscure station which he seemed at the
time destined to fill. He set about at once to get
together what money he had earned; and, borrow-
ing some from friends, he started for Monmouth,
and was soon matriculated as a student of that
institution, then considered the best in the state.
He attended this college for three years, graduating
in 1874, sharing the first honors of the class with
Mr. T. Jay Graves, of McCoy, Poik county, Oregon.
In the fall of 1875 Mr. Tanner came to Portland,
Oregon, with the avowed intention of studying law
and becoming a lawyer, and entered the law office
of the then well-known firm of Messrs. Dolph,
Bronough, Dolph & Simon, as a law student, where
he devoted himself with great diligence to the
study of the law and general literature.
He sus-
pended his reading during a part of 1876, and
taught a term of school. He returned to the read-
ing of law, and was admitted to the bar in 1878.
He immediately entered upon the practice of his
profession in Portland, and has been in active prac-
tice ever since, growing in strength and experience,
and in the estimation of the public, as the years
go by.
He soon began to look into politics with an in-
terest natural to a rising young lawyer. In the
presidential campaign of 1880 he was an enthusi-
astic advocate of the election of Garfield and Arthur,
making speeches in various parts of the state. He
also assisted in making a canvass of the state in
the last presidential campaign.
In 1882 he was nominated by the Republicans of
Multnomah county as a candidate for the legisla-
ture, and was elected by a large majority. At the
session of the legislature, he was appointed chair-
man of the judiciary committee of the house, which
position he filled with success, and otherwise proved
himself an active and useful member of the house.
In 1884 he was the Republican nominee for dis-
trict attorney of the fourth judicial district, having
as a competitor for the office John M. Gearin, the
Democratic nominee. They both made a thorough
canvass of the district; and, though the best of
feeling prevailed between them and between their
mutual friends, the race was hotly contested. There
was a fusion ticket, the beginning of a labor agita-
tion that two years later swept the state over to the
Democracy.
The Democratic candidate, by working this for
all there was in it, and with a solid Democracy pull-
ing for him, was enabled to overcome the Republi-
can majority, defeating Mr. Tanner by a hundred
and ninety-four votes. It was openly charged at
the time that the Republican candidate had been
counted out, and that the machinery of the party
had been used against him. It is believed, however,
}
598
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
that Mr. Tanner never joined in those assertions,
but took his defeat manfully and without complaint.
In January, 1885, he was appointed city attorney
of the city of Portland, and served in that capacity
until July, 1887. He attracted wide attention in
that office by his successful management of im-
portant city cases, some of which involved many
thousand dollars to the city in money or property,
and retired with the best wishes of the entire com-
munity. He is at present associated with Senator
John H. Mitchell in the law business.
As a lawyer, Mr. Tanner ranks among the ablest
at the Portland bar. He has assisted in the trial of
He has assisted in the trial of
many important cases, and has fine tact in handling
witnesses and getting in evidence. He prepares
his cases with care and research, having the law and
the evidence thoroughly in hand, and can, when
interested and aroused in a case, make a stirring and
powerful speech to the jury.
In 1880 Mr. Tanner was married to Miss Marcella
Kelly, daughter of Hon. John Kelly, ex-Collector
of Customs of Portland, Oregon; and they have.
three bright children. Their domestic life is of the
happiest kind. Mr. and Mrs. Tanner are devoted.
to each other and to their children.
There is no better example of a self-made man
than the subject of this sketch. Born of poor
parents, in the obscure wilds of the West, left by
domestic trouble at a tender age without a home,
knocked about from "pillar to post" in his younger
years, he struggled on through adverse circum-
stances, by his own efforts acquired an education,
and has a place in the legal profession that even
older men might well feel proud of. He is still
comparatively a young man, not having yet reached
his thirty-fifth year. As the old pioneers fall from
the ranks, leaving places for the new generation,
Albert H. Tanner is bound to take a high place in
the public estimation, and in useful public service.
ARTHUR J. TAYLOR.— The subject of this
sketch, whose portrait appears herein, was born in
Staffordshire, England, on the 18th of August, 1857.
When but two years of age his parents brought him
to America, locating at Richmond, Virginia. Their
residence there was but brief, as they soon removed
to Halifax, Nova Scotia, perhaps anticipating the
political troubles of the next few years. When but
a boy of twelve, Arthur came West, upon his own
responsibility, to the Red River of the North, where
he lived until 1884.
His next move, in April of that year, made him
a citizen of Mason county, Washington Territory.
In the following August, on the death of Mr. Wil-
son, Auditor of that county, Mr. Taylor was ap-
pointed to fill the unexpired term, thus showing
the rapidity of political preferment in America. The
immigrant arrives in the spring. He is county au-
ditor in the fall. But this was not all. The Re-
publicans insisted upon Mr. Taylor filling the same
place in 1887. The people of Mason county in-
dorsed this and elected him, although the others on
the same ticket were defeated. It is his sterling
integrity which has given him so large a measure of
public confidence and esteem.
His investments at Oyster Bay, as well as in other
localities, have been very successful, proving him
not only a competent official, but a financier as well.
Mr. Taylor was united in marriage on March 10,
1888, to Miss Mayme E. Bell, a native of the Em-
pire state.
COL. JAMES TAYLOR.-The immigration
of 1845 was large, and furnished many of the lead-
ing men of the Northwest, among that number
being Colonel James Taylor of Astoria, Oregon.
Although now past eighty years of age, he is still
one of the active citizens of a city which boasts of
many men of energy. He is one of the fathers of
the place, not only in point of time, but as owner of
considerable property in the city and adjacent coun-
try, embracing the heights west of the city, which
will one day be occupied with handsome residences,
as they command a magnificent view of the estuary
of the Columbia river, and Young's Bay, and its
beautiful rivers, also of the imperial Saddle Mount-
ain or Swallatache, and a wide view of the main
ocean beyond the Clatsop Plains.
The Colonel is of Scotch and Irish descent, and
was born in Bedford county, Pennsylvania, in 1809.
When thirteen years of age his father moved west to
Mansfield, Ohio, and bought a farm near by, where
he spent his boyhood. The winter of 1830-31
found him teaching a six-months' school in the
neighborhood. The following summer he joined
an older brother who had preceded him to Fort
Findlay, now the city of Findlay, Ohio, then a wil-
derness, including the great black swamp of the
Maumee country, and inhabited by several tribes of
Indians, including the Wyandottes, Ottawas and
others, who lived by hunting, and whose peltries.
were the principal trade then in that new country.
He and his brother were largely engaged in trade
with the natives until they were moved by the gov-
ernment still farther west; and the country was rap-
idly settled up by the Whites.
Mr. Taylor, now being married to Miss Esther
de Armon, and being fond of the adventures of a
pioneer life, and believing the Pacific coast still
offered a fine field for his ambition and prospects
for such a life, in the latter part of the winter of
1845 resigned the office of registrar of a land-
office which he then held in Ohio, and organized a
small company, consisting of Orville Risley, wife
and two children, Levi Rice and one child, A. E.
Skinner, Hiram Smith, Noah Huber, C. Main, Will-
iam Savage, Abel George, E. C. Crow, J. C. Creigh-
ton, and eight or ten others, whose names are like-
wise well known in our early annals. They repaired
with wagons, horses and much other outfit for the jour-
ney by the Ohio and Missouri rivers to the general
rendezvous near Independence, Missouri, where Mr.
Taylor purchased cattle and other supplies for the
journey; and, with five fully equipped teams, they
were off by the 10th of May for the long trip. That
was a favorable year on the plains; and at the ren-
dezvous and on the plains many life-long acquaint-
ances were made. Stephen Meek, a mountaineer,
was selected as guide. He will always be connected
with the disastrous expedition into what is called
the cut-off, where Meek himself became bewildered;
and the whole company that followed him was lost

n
M
8:8:8:8:8:8:8:8
RESIDENCE OF H.S.HOLLINGSWORTH,
COLFAX, W. T.
nnnnnnnn
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
599
in the sands and lonely Ironstone Mountains of
Middle Oregon. The starving emigrants endured
much suffering, but finally found their way out.
Taylor's party was not in this scrape, as it followed
the old route by Snake river and the Grande Ronde
valley to the Umatilla and Columbia river.
Soon after starting on the journey from the ren-
dezvous, it was seen that the whole army, upwards
of two thousand persons, with thousands of loose
stock, besides horses and yoke-cattle, could not
travel in one company. The Colonel's party, with
General Palmer's small company, in which was a
Lieutenant McDougall of the United States army,
who was fleeing on account of an unlucky duel
which he had fought at St. Louis, set off by them-
selves and pushed ahead. On this side of the
Rockies they met Doctor White and party en route
for the East, who delivered a speech to the emi-
grants, concluding with the advice to keep on the
old route down Snake river; and Doctor Whitman
also met them at the foot of the Blue Mountains,
and traveled with them down to the Columbia river.
Upon arriving at The Dalles, they found that Cap-
tain Samuel K. Barlow had preceded them and was
cutting a road across the Cascade Mountains, push-
ing out to the foothills to assist in getting a road
across to the Willamette valley. They took only
as many horses as were necessary to carry the fam-
ilies across, and drove the loose stock, having left
their wagons and supernumeraries behind. They
made the crossing safely, reaching Oregon City Oc-
tober 10th, having made a quick and prosperous
trip of only six months from Ohio, eight months
being the usual time of former emigrations.
In the spring of 1847 Colonel Taylor took his
family to Clatsop Plains, buying out a still earlier
settler, and securing the farm which he still owns.
The Indian trouble of 1847-48, caused by the mas-
sacre the fall before of Doctor Whitman, family and
others, induced him to take his family back to Ore-
gon City for safety; and he himself served in the
Cayuse war. Seeing the beauty and fertility of the
Cayuse country, and as George Abernethy, then
Provisional governor of Oregon, had declared that
country open to settlement by the Whites, and by
order had stationed a company of soldiers at Fort
Waters, the Whitman station, Colonel Taylor,
Captain Philip Thompson and Captain Abso-
lem Hembree determined to colonize the Walla
Walla country. They went to the Willamette val-
ley for settlers, and also purchased several thousand
dollars' worth of cattle to be driven to the prospec-
tive home. But this flourishing enterprise was dis-
sipated as with a breath by the news of gold mines
in California. Settlers and soldiers alike made a
stampede for the mines, leaving but few, mostly
women and children, to take care of the whole of
the Oregon country, and fight off the Indians.
The Colonel and his partners sold their stock of
cattle; and with his family he remained at Oregon
City, not going to the mines, but with General
Lovejoy and Medorum Crawford built sawmills and
carried on the lumber business until January, 1850,
when the mills with much sawed lumber and logs
in the boom were carried away by the great flood
of that winter. This left our pioneer many thousand
dollars minus. The summer of 1849 found much
gold dust drifting to Oregon from the California
mines, which could not be used well as a currency;
and, having no coin in the country except what
the Hudson's Bay Company shipped in, and which
was used to buy up the dust at a very low figure,
the Provisional legislature then in session passed
an act establishing a mint to coin the dust so as
to be used as a currency. Colonel Taylor was made
comptroller of it, and commenced coining in Sep-
tember of that year, and continued until the win-
ter following, when Governor Lane, appointed by
the President of the United States, arrived and
assumed jurisdiction over the country, and declared
such coining unconstitutional, and caused its sus-
pension. Thus originated the noted Beaver Money,
which gave Oregon its first circulating medium
and materially raised the price of the gold dust.
In the spring of 1851 he again returned with
his family to his Clatsop farm, ever his stand-by, and
engaged in farming and stock-raising until the fall of
1855, when he moved to Astoria, where he now
resides. In the meantime he kept up a trade by
shipping and driving cattle to Victoria and Brit-
ish Columbia, which was then a remunerative
business. In 1854 the Colonel went into a sheep
speculation with Jacob Rinearson, W. H. Gray and
Robert McEwen. He furnished each about three
thousand dollars to go East with and buy sheep and
drive them to Oregon. Rinearson bought horses and
cattle instead, and sent them to California. Gray
succeeded in getting about six hundred head through
to Astoria in safety; but, in crossing Young's Bay
to get to Clatsop Plains, the scow upon which he
had them was wrecked, drowning all the animals.
McEwen delivered about three hundred and fifty at
Oregon City, which were distributed over the
country. Though not remunerative, this venture
gave a start of sheep in the country.
As the country has grown, the Colonel has found
the management of his farm and large real-estate.
interests at Astoria sufficient to occupy his attention;
and he built a handsome residence on the site of the
old fort of John Jacob Astor's time (1811), where
he still lives. Mrs. Taylor, of the De Armon family
of Pennsylvania, was also a pioneer of Ohio, and
has been to the social life of Oregon what her hus-
band has been to its business interests. Of their
five children, one son is a merchant in Astoria; and
another is the judge of the fifth judicial district
of Oregon. Their oldest daughter is the wife of
Captain White, U. S. revenue marine. Another
daughter is married and is living in Portland; and
a single daughter is at home.
The Colonel has never been a politician in the
usual acceptation of that term, but in 1856 was the
first Republican ever elected to an Oregon legisla-
ture, but was counted out, however, by brother
Whigs and Democrats on account of his politics,
which could not be tolerated at that early day by
the old parties then dominant.
Thus pleasantly situated, in an exceptionally
vigorous old age, surrounded by their children, and
by the result of their labors, these venerable pio-
neers enjoy the life and the state which they have
done so much to establish.
600
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
W. H. TAYLOR. The subject of this sketch
was born in Michigan in the year 1851. He was a
farmer boy of that New England stock which has
enriched so many of our American commonwealths.
His parents removed to Iowa, and afterwards to
Kansas, while he was a mere lad. At the age of
twenty he abandoned the life of a farmer boy for a
place where his talents would have a broader field of
usefulness, and entered the office of the Commercial,
the leading paper in his section, where he learned
the trade of a printer. Before the expiration of his
apprenticeship he was made the foreman of the office,
and the next year became the publisher of the Daily
Evening Argus. Soon afterwards, following the
advice of an able journalist, he set out for the Pacific
coast, with the intention of establishing a newspaper
at San Francisco.
Having stopped off at Salt Lake City, he quickly
discovered an opportunity for usefulness in the line
of his profession in the Mormon capital There were
at that time three dailies at Salt Lake City, two of
which were devoted entirely to the cause of Mormon-
ism; while the third, which pursued a weak and
vascillating policy on this great question, was in the
last stages of mental and financial dissolution. Mr.
Taylor, associating himself with one of his former
employés and a few others, secured the leading con-
trol of the Tribune. He and his associates at once
placed that paper in the front rank of American
journalism, and made it a literary and financial
success second to that of none between Chicago and
San Francisco. To the Tribune, under the manage-
ment of Mr. Taylor and his associates more than to
all causes combined, is due the now decaying fortunes
of the latter day hierarchy. It was a fight to the
death from the start; and the noble part borne by the
Tribune advanced the reputation of that journal and
its managers to the orbit of national reputation.
When the battle for American supremacy in Utah
had been fought until the issue was no longer doubt-
ful, Mr. Taylor, unable to continue to bear a life of
confinement such as journalism alone imposes, sought
a home in the territory of Washington, intending to
devote his time to private business affairs. But it is
not possible for such a man to long deprive the public
of the benefit of his services, or escape the duty of
citizenship which a character and nature such as he
possesses imposes. In 1887, the business men of
Spokane Falls, without regard to party, elected him
mayor of that beautiful and progressive city, an office
which he administered with untiring energy, integ-
rity and capacity. Declining a re-election, he became
president of the Spokane National Bank, and of the
Board of Trade of Spokane Falls, which position he
now fills.
Mr. Taylor is a Republican in politics, and a man
of intense convictions. He is, however, broad and
liberal in his views, and commands the confidence
and respect of the entire community in which he
lives. He is one of the progressive men of the
Pacific Northwest, and contributes largely to all
enterprises of a public and progressive character.
He is a man of abundant wealth, a large stock and
land owner, and is extensively engaged in mining
in Washington and Idaho Territories. Few men are
so entirely devoid of ostentation; and none affords a
better example of American manhood when directed
to honorable ends.
HON. CHARLES C. TERRY.-The name and
labors of this gentleman fill an important part in the
history of the North Pacific coast. He was not only
one of the first settlers here in point of time, but
has ever been foremost among those who have laid
the foundations of our society and business. He was
born in New York State when that was itself the
frontier, and received his education in his native town.
The fame of the soil and climate of the North
Pacific coast had already reached the Atlantic slope.
Adventurers and daring men in various parts of the
country were preparing to seek their fortunes there;
and among these was Mr. Terry. He joined a party
of homeseekers in 1851; and their point of departure
from civilization was the old site of Council Bluffs.
Thence their route was up the long valley of the
Platte by way of Fort Laramie; up the Sweetwater
and under the shadow of Frémont's peak; down the
Bear and Snake rivers to the Columbia. From Mr.
Terry's old home it was three thousand miles; and
most of the way was through an almost trackless
wilderness, swarming with powerful tribes of Indians.
The journey was successfully made; and the party
arrived at Portland in August, 1851. While the
rest of the company awaited at that place to rest
and recover from the fatigue of their journey, Mr.
Terry and two others made an exploration to Puget
Sound. After a month's absence in an almost track-
less forest, he returned and reported favorably upon
that country for permanent homes. As soon as
preparations could be made, a party of twenty-one
took passage on the schooner Exact, and landed at
what is now Alki Point in September. The whole
party camped in the forest until log cabins could be
built. The first work of the settlers after building
was to cut and skid to the Sound a load of piling for
the brig Leonesa. This work, with its pay, was a
God-send to the settlers. Without teams or anything
but their axes and strong arms, they felled the great
forest trees, cut them up, forced the piling by hand
to the Sound, and floated it to the brig.
In a small way Mr. Terry and Mr. Lowe, another
of the party, commenced merchandising at the point
of their landing, which they named Alki, an Indian
word meaning "by and by." This word was an
indication of the faith these brave men held as to
the future of that country. It was so apt and ex-
pressive that it was subsequently adopted by the
territory of Washington as its motto.
This mer-
cantile business, under careful and able manage-
ment, grew to importance, and was continued for
six years, when Mr. Terry traded his interest in it
for a land claim located on what is now a part of
the city of Seattle. While merchandising he had also
engaged successfully in sawmilling. With that
foresight which had characterized his location of the
party on the Sound, Mr. Terry saw the future of
Seattle; and he bought other claims, so that finally
he became one of the principal owners of the pres-
ent site of that metropolis. He was an active par-
ticipant in the measures that led to the organization
of Washington Territory, and also shared in the
dangers and hardships of the Indian war of 1855–56.


CHAS. NICKELL,
JACKSONVILLE, OR.
M
UNI
OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
601
He possessed the unbounded confidence of his
fellow-citizens, and was honored by them with an
election to the territorial legislature, and to the posi-
tion of mayor of the city which he did so much to
found and build. He was a natural leader of men;
but he had no taste for office-holding. His influ-
ence in politics has been shown in his management
of the party outside of office. He was active in all
that tended to settle and develop Washington Terri-
tory, and especially Puget Sound. He had the
broadest and most comprehensive views of the
future, foreseeing that the great forests, the iron and
the coal, insured a manufacturing and commercial
future; and his every effort was towards such a reali-
zation. In private life he was a model man. In his
family he was all that was purest, gentlest and best.
When his iron constitution succumbed to the pres-
sure of mental and physical labor, and he passed
from earth, he left a widow, two sons and three
daughters to mourn their irreparable loss. Mr.
Terry was a man whose long life left nothing to ex-
tenuate, and very much to emulate.
HON. A. J. THAYER.- Few of the pioneers
of Oregon are more worthy of having their memo-
ries perpetuated for their worth and services to the
state than the late Judge Thayer.
Andrew Jackson Thayer, the second child of
Gideon Anne (Dodge) Thayer, was born in Lima,
Livingston county, State of New York, on the 27th
of November, 1818. He received an academic edu-
cation at what was known as the Wesleyan Semi-
nary, afterwards the Wesleyan University, studied
law in the office of Doolittle & Thayer, the latter
being his cousin. He was married to Melissa D.
Chandler on the 9th of October, 1842, at Warsaw,
Wyoming county, New York.
He re-
He was admitted to the bar of the supreme court
of New York in 1849, and entered into partnership
with his brother, Ed. Thayer, at Buffalo.
mained in Buffalo until March 28, 1853, when, accom-
panied by his wife, he started for Oregon. Buying
an ox-team at St. Joe, they crossed the plains in the
usual style of the overland emigrants. The journey
though tedious was uneventful; and they arrived at
Salem August 28, 1853. From Salem he went to
Corvallis, and on the 9th of October of that year
settled upon the farm three miles north of Corvallis,
which is still in possession of the family. Upon the
admission of Oregon into the Union in 1859, Judge
Thayer was appointed by President Buchanan the
first United States district attorney, a position he
held with honor for six months, when he resigned,
giving as a reason that he would much rather defend
than prosecute a criminal.
In 1860 a question arose in Oregon as to the proper
time of holding the congressional election, the por-
tion of the party to which Judge Thayer belonged
contending that it should be held in November, and
that the election in June was illegal. Accordingly
Judge Thayer was nominated, and at the election in
November, 1860, was elected representative of Ore-
gon in the Thirty-seventh Congress. He was admit-
ted to the seat at the extra session in July, 1861,
which he held till the close of the session, when it
was awarded to Honorable George K. Shiel, who
was elected in June. In 1862 Judge Thayer was dis-
trict attorney for the second judicial district of Ore-
gon, which office he held two years. In 1870 he
was, in the same district, elected associate justice of
the supreme court, which office he held at the time
of his death, which occurred in Corvallis, April 28,
1873. Upon his monument the loving hands of friends
have traced the appropriate words, "An honest man
and a true friend.
Melissa D. Chandler, wife of A. J. Thayer, was
the youngest child of Moses and Clara (White)
Chandler, and was born in Hartford, Washington
county, New York, November 13, 1821. Mrs.
Thayer is a typical pioneer woman, one who was
ever the help-mate of her husband; and in the battle
of life she has borne her share of its struggles and
toils nobly and well. A woman of unflinching per-
sonal courage, she stayed night after night entirely
alone in the wide prairie, and "held the claim" while
her husband was "riding the circuit" engaged in the
practice of his profession; and by close economy and
the prudent administration of household affairs she
aided him in getting a foothold in their chosen
state.
Four children were the issue of their marriage:
William Augustine Thayer, born in Warsaw, New
York, October 30, 1845, died in Pittsford, N. Y.,
September 19, 1851. Clara Melissa Thayer, born
May 29, 1855, graduated at the Agricultural Col-
lege June 18, 1873, and was married July 2,
1876, to John B. Eglin, a lawyer of Roseburg, who
died at The Dalles, Oregon, November 14, 1877.
She is still a childless widow, and resides in Port-
land, Oregon. Emma A. Thayer, born July 2, 1857,
graduated at the Agricultural College June 17, 1874,
and was married December 25, 1878, to S. W. Rice,
a lawyer, and at that time county judge of Multno-
mah county. They have one child, Claude Thayer
Rice, born November 2, 1879, and reside at Portland.
Edwin Alden Thayer, the youngest child, born at
Corvallis November 19, 1860, is a tinsmith by trade,
is unmarried, and also resides at Portland.
At the May term, 1873, of the district court held
at Roseburg, Judge Mosher presiding, the members
of the bar passed resolutions of respect and sym-
pathy, which were ordered placed upon the record.
Honorable L. F. Lane, in presenting these reso-
lutions, faithfully portrayed the character of Judge
Thayer when he said: 'As a lawyer he won the
respect and esteem of the entire bar of the state.
As a gentleman he was kind, affable and courteous.
As the head of a family he was devoted and affec-
tionate, as a judge firm, dignified and prudent. We
can say with pride that he held the scales of justice
evenly poised, and always compelled the right to
incline the balance; and, although he has forever
departed from the busy scenes of life, yet, if true
merit here is rewarded with immortality hereafter,
then angels will welcome our brother into the bright
portals of heaven."
HON. W. W. THAYER. William Wallace
Thayer, the present chief justice of the supreme
court of Oregon, came to this state in 1862. He
was born at Lima, Livingston county, New York,
July 15, 1827. His boyhood was spent upon a farm
A
602
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
in that county, where he attended the common
schools and received the meager instruction that the
times and circumstances of farm life afforded. But
an early love for books and a retentive memory,
characteristics that mark him even to-day, supplied
what was lacking in his school education. He be-
He be-
came a wide reader of standard literature; and, hav-
ing determined to fit himself for the practice of
the law, he began a course of reading to that end,
covering the best productions in history and bi-
ography, as well as the usual elementary legal
works. He attended law lectures at Rochester,
New York, and was admitted to the bar of the
supreme court of that state in that city in March,
1851. It may be mentioned that in the class of ap-
plicants for admission who were examined at the
same time was Professor John Norton Pomeroy,
LL.D., who also then received his certificate of admis-
sion to practice, and who subsequently became well
known as the author of several law books of note.
During the early years of his practice, Judge
Thayer laid the foundation for a broad and thorough
knowledge of the law by constant and discrimina-
ting study of reported cases. Notwithstanding the
years that have elapsed since that period, his clear
memory of the leading cases read at that time, par-
ticularly those of the New York reports, is frequently
noted and remarked upon by his associates on the
bench and the bar of this state, and attests the
thoroughness with which he mastered his task.
In November, 1852, he married Miss Samantha
C. Vincent of Tonawanda, New York. He practiced
his profession at Tonawanda and Buffalo, New York,
until the spring of 1862, when he emigrated with
his family and his team overland to Oregon. He
settled at Corvallis, Benton county, where his older
brother, Judge A. J. Thayer, had already preceded
him; and for a time they were in partnership. But in
the summer of 1863 he removed to Lewiston, Idaho,
where he opened a law office. There his talents
were soon recognized; and he was successively
elected a member of the territorial legislature and
district attorney of the third judicial district of
Idaho.
Resigning the latter office in 1867, he came to
Portland, Oregon, for the benefit of the health of
his family, and has since resided at that city, and at
his surburan residence near East Portland. He
soon gained an enviable standing at the Portland
bar; and his urbanity and sociability brought about
him a host of warm friends in his new home. He
was nominated by the Democratic party for the office
of governor in 1878; and such was his popularity
that, though the rest of the ticket was defeated, he
was elected by a fair majority. He was inaugurated
September 11, 1878, and served the full term of four
years. His administration was remarkable in many
respects. It was a time in the history of the state
when reform was much needed in the administration
of its affairs. Under his economical and non-parti-
san management, the penitentiary, insane asylum,
and other public institutions, were put on a new
basis, to their great improvement and to the financial
benefit of the state. The swamp and tide lands
were made a source of revenue to the state; and
the school fund was satisfactorily husbanded and
invested. In all departments reforms were instituted;
and party politics were not allowed to control either
the public business nor appointments to office.
At the close of his term as governor he declined
renomination, and earnestly devoted himself to the
practice of his profession at Portland; but in 1884
he was unanimously, and against his repeatedly ex-
pressed preference for private life, nominated by his
party as its candidate for the office of judge of the
supreme court. He was again elected when most of
his ticket failed, and was duly inducted into office in
July, 1882. He has since that time faithfully and
conscientiously discharged the laborious and con-
stantly increasing duties of his office; and his lumi-
nous and masterly opinions are recognized as the
ripe fruit of his diligent and comprehensive study
in his younger years.
•
He became chief justice of the court in July, 1888;
and his term of office expires in July, 1890. He
has one son, Claude Thayer, an attorney and mem-
ber of the banking firm of C. & E. Thayer, at Tilla-
mook, Oregon.
JOHN M. THOMAS. Mr. Thomas was born
in Nicholas county, Kentucky, July 8, 1829, and is
the youngest son of a family of seven children.
When he was four years old his parents moved to
Indianapolis, Indiana, where his father died a year
later. In 1844 he went to an older brother in Ken-
tucky, where he remained for five years, and in
October, 1849, returned to Indianapolis.
On March 30, 1852, he went to St. Louis, and
one month later to St. Joseph, and there joined a
friend from Indianapolis; and together they started
with ox-teams for Oregon. At Fort Hall they lost
some of their stock, and traded that left for pack-
horses, and came on into the Grande Ronde valley,
arriving there about August 30th. At Willow creek
his partner left him; and he came on alone to Port-
land, arriving on September 5, 1852. He found
employment at Tryon's mill in Milwaukee, where
he remained for two months, when he was taken
sick and returned to Portland. In February, 1853,
he went to Oswego, and in the same year went to
Puget Sound and took up his residence in Port
Townsend, where he remained until July, 1853.
He then, in company with E. McFarland, came to
White river; and, after looking over the country, in
January, 1854, he took up the place now owned by
J. B. Hewitt, and became the first white settler on
White river. He lived there until driven off by
the Indians. He soon returned, however, but only
remained a short time, when he went to Seattle for
safety. There he joined a company and came back
to help bury the victims of the Indian massacre near
the town of Slaughter.
He afterwards went to Port Orchard and engaged
in running a stationary engine in a mill.
He soon
returned to the blockhouse built by Captain Dent,
and was secured by the Captain to act as guide all
through the Indian war. When the war closed he
located a homestead seven miles lower down, where
he remained until 1877, when he located on his
present place at Thomas Station and engaged in
hop-raising and general farming. He served as
county commissioner for a term of three years, those
.

O.N. Morse. Esq.
ARLINGTON HOUSE
THE ARLINGTON HOUSE,
SEATTLE, W. T.
G D X
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
603
of 1857, 1858 and 1859. He was married in 1854
to Miss Nancy Russel of Ohio, and has nine children
living.
JOSEPH A. THOMAS. This leading citizen
of Gilliam county and a "native son" of our state,
was born in Douglas county, September 18, 1854.
With his parents he moved to Jefferson, Marion
county, in 1862, and was furnished with good edu-
cational advantages, attending upon the excellent
common-school of that town. In 1874 he went
into business with his father, E. N. Thomas, a mer-
chant with headquarters at Jefferson, but also with
branch houses in various other localities, and indeed
much occupied in other lines, such as livestock, of
which he had accumulated as many as ten thousand
head in Washington Territory; and who also main-
tained a large drug business in Arlington.
This father has now retired from active business
and lives at his home in Jefferson, having buried
there his first wife, Margaret, née Cosper, who died
in September, 1888, leaving two boys and one girl,
-Laura G., Rosco and Clyde.
Mr. Joseph A. Thomas, our subject, who early
took charge of the business in Eastern Oregon, is
one of the representative men of Arlington, and
indeed of all Gilliam county, and is much respected
by all associated with him. He has been publicly
honored by the people, having been elected mayor
of Arlington in 1886 and re-elected to the same office
in 1887. He was elected county treasurer of Gil-
liam county in 1886, and served two years.
He was
elected in 1888 on the Republican ticket, by a ma-
jority of three hundred and fifty, to represent Gil-
liam county in the Oregon legislature, and served
with credit and a good record throughout the last
session, having been appointed a member of the
committee on commerce.
HON. LEVANT F. THOMPSON.-There are
but few lives of the pioneer settlers of the many com-
munities upon the Pacific slope which illustrate in a
greater degree than does that of the subject of this
sketch the varied experiences of those who lay the
bases of future commonwealths; the motives under-
lying action; the vicissitudes which mold and alter
resolution; and the patient waiting for the reward
of following sagacious and far-seeing judgment in
the adoption of location. Here is a man who was
comparatively denied the education of the schools;
who has assimilated practical knowledge as he
struggles with life, and profits by what is passing
around him; who makes no claim to pre-eminent
ability, intellectually or physically; who assumes
no superiority because of gifts or advantages; but
who, with only proper self-reliance, simply, steadily
obeys the dictates of intuitive good judgment so
aptly described in our Western unabridged language
as "horse sense." Yet Mr. Thompson is a state-
builder, the impress of his life being plainly stamped
upon the embryo settlements of Pierce county and
the State of Washington; and his works will live
after him. Perhaps "he builded wiser than he
knew;" for he did not seem ambitious for public
recognition, and never sought public honors nor
offices. When he did serve the public, it was he
who was sought. He was unpretentious, unassum-
ing. Indeed, his innate diffidence made him the
counselor in retirement rather than the public leader.
He was sent to the first territorial house of repre-
sentatives of Washington in 1854. Thirty-five
years later, without his solicitation, and unknown
to him until after his nomination, his fellow-citizens
of Pierce county placed his name on the ticket for
the first senate of the State of Washington, and
elected him by a triumphant majority. In that
interval he had attended to his private business,
content with giving his time and means liberally
to that more useful service of building up a good,
growing and moral community, in the vicinity
which to him and his interesting family constituted
home.
Levant F. Thompson was born December 26, 1827,
near Jamestown, Chautauqua county, New York,
and continued to reside upon the farm of his parents,
his birthplace, until 1850. The story of every farm
lad is the story of his youth. His education, if such
it may be called, was that which could be acquired
at the common school of a rural district; and its
amount or the thoroughness of its course depended
rather upon the will and aspiration of the youth than
the opportunities bestowed. The discovery of gold
in California attracted him to the Pacific slope; and
in February, 1850, he started for the great El Dorado.
At Chicago he joined a company of seven young
men, who, having purchased outfits and horse teams,
started with him on their journey across the plains.
They traveled what was called the Carson route,
and had a successful trip until they reached the
Great American desert. There they experienced
extreme hardships, their provisions having become
scant, and being destitute of water. They traveled
from four o'clock of the afternoon when they entered
the desert until ten o'clock next day; and then they
abandoned wagons and harness, loaded their animals
with the remaining provisions and blankets, and
started to walk out of that desert region. They had
intended to return for their wagons, but did not do
so, but pushed ahead on foot, using their horses as
pack animals. After walking six hundred miles,
they reached Sacramento August 15, 1850, having
suffered untold privations on that march, and being
in an almost starving condition.
Nothing
While on that journey the little part of gold-
seekers had camped on the site of the present city
of Omaha for three days, at which time not a single
house had been erected. Mr. Thompson, upon his
arrival at Sacramento, was penniless.
daunted, he at once set out on foot to the Placerville
and Weaver creek mines, where he worked for
nearly four months with more than average success.
He then resolved to come to Oregon to engage in
the lumber business. Late in that year, or early in
1851, he took passage on board the schooner Urana
for Portland. Among his fellow-passengers was
John Gates, late mayor of the City of Portland, de-
ceased. The voyage occupied four weeks. On ar-
riving at Portland, Gates and himself applied for
work at Abram's mill, and were offered one hun-
dred dollars per month. Gates accepted, but
Thompson went to Milwaukee, where he secured
the position of foreman in the sawmill of Meek
604
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
& Llewellyn. He continued there for several
months, during which employment much of the
lumber used in the construction of the pioneer
steamer Lot Whitcomb was sawed under his super-
vision.
In 1851, upon the advice of General Joseph Lane,
Mr. Thompson went to the Yreka mines, and from
thence to those on Scott's bar. In those two South-
ern Oregon locations he followed mining until July,
and then prospected all the way to Feather river,
and thence back to Oregon, without any encouraging
success. That ended prospecting for gold and min-
ing. He returned to Milwaukee, and was employed
in the lumber business by Lot Whitcomb. Shortly
subsequently he leased the mill and conducted the
business; but ill health compelled him to surrender
the lease and engage in other pursuits. With David
Miller he purchased a ten horse-power threshing
machine (the first one of that power brought to or
used in Oregon) and two McCormick reapers. The
threshing machine cost seventeen hundred dollars
laid down at Champoeg. They sold the reapers.
for four hundred dollars each. During that season
they threshed, charging fifteen cents per bushel,
and realized three thousand dollars in sixty days.
That was really the first raise Mr. Thompson had
made since leaving his farm-house home in Chau-
tauqua, New York. Intent on building a sawmill,
he came to Puget Sound, and about the last of
December, 1852, located a Donation claim at the
mouth of Sesqualitchad creek, near Fort Nisqually.
In company with Captain Lafayette Balch, the en-
terprising proprietor of the town of Steilacoom, he
commenced the erection of a sawmill near the shores
of the Sound, and completed it despite the repeated
notices to quit served by the agent of the Puget
Sound Agricultural Company, who claimed the land
under the treaty of June 15, 1846. That was the
third sawmill erected in the Puget Sound basin;
and it was run continuously and profitably, its pro-
ducts being taken to San Francisco by Captain
Balch's vessels until the breaking out of Indian
hostilities in the fall of 1855, at which time Mr.
Thompson was compelled to abandon it; and the
hostile Indians destroyed it.
As before stated, on the organization of the Wash-
ington territorial government, at the first election
Mr. Thompson was elected a member of the house
of representatives of the legislative assembly, which
assembled at Olympia February 27, 1854. Although
he was the youngest member of that body, his at-
tention to business, his ripened experience gained
in a very chequered life, and his intuitive good
sense, caused him to be recognized as a useful mem-
ber.
This
At the commencement of the Indian war, October,
1855, he served for a short time with the regular
troops under Lieutenant McKeever, U. S. Army, as
assistant quartermaster at Fort Steilacoom, purchas-
ing pack-animals and serving in the field.
service at times was exceedingly hazardous, requir-
ing Mr. Thompson to travel through sections of
country where he was liable to meet small bands of
hostile Indians on their predatory excursions. His
trips were through Pierce, Thurston and Lewis
counties between Fort Steilacoom and the Cowlitz.
Having secured about one hundred head of horses,
he left that service and joined the Pierce county
company of the Second Regiment of Washington
Territory Volunteers. After a month's service in
the field, he was transferred to the quartermaster's
department, territorial volunteers, as assistant
quartermaster and commissary at Steilacoom, in
which capacity he served about six months.
At the close of the war he established an extensive
logging camp on the Nisqually river, at the site of
its present crossing by the county road between
Olympia and Steilacoom. He there gave employ-
ment to eight men, among whom was Stephen Jud-
son, now one of the most prominent citizens and
leading public men of the State of Washington.
Though the war had ended, the state of the country
was yet unsafe by reason of apprehended Indian
hostilities. The camp was continued in a posture
of defense; and the loggers had to work with their
rifles in reach, to guard against a hasty attack by
the perfidious Squally Indians, in whose territory
the camp had been established. After several
months, he sold his interest in the logging camp.
to Balch & Webber, and became proprietor of the
hotel at Steilacoom, which he continued to run
successfully until the fall of 1860.
((
He had, on July 1, 1856, married Susanna Kin-
caid, who has ever been to him an affectionate help-
mate and counselor, full of courage and devotion
to all his interests. Before the outbreak the Kincaid
family had lived near the site of the present thrifty
town of Sumner. The Indians had long been pre-
paring to make a simultaneous strike upon the
outer and exposed settlements on the Sound. The
blow fell in the last weeks of October, 1855. The
notice was short but peremptory. A friendly
Indian rode to each farmhouse in Puyallup, warning
the settlers to get out of the way, as the Musa-
chee" or hostile Indians were coming. Nor was
any time to be lost. Many saved only the clothing
in which they stood. That cruel haste, as also the
bravery of our women pioneers, finds the happy
illustration in the hurried escape of the Kincaid
family. It was bedtime. The hostile Indians were
heard prowling near the lone and isolated Kincaid
log cabin. Quick as thought all the lights were
extinguished; and in the dread darkness the fam-
ily sought safety in flight towards Stuck river.
Susan, the future Mrs. Thompson, seized her young
brother Joseph, to whom, since their beloved
mother's death, she had supplied a mother's place;
and on that dread October night-in that gloom,
the savages intent on murder, so close at hand that
their movements could be heard-she carried him
in safety across a small alder log spanning Stuck
river to a safe place of concealment. There they
remained through that long night, she the guardian
of the charge committed to her care. Brave though
she was, under ordinary circumstances she would
not by daylight herself alone have ventured to cross
that meager bridge. But her affection, her duty,
her presence of mind amid appalling danger, stimu-
lated the effort, and carried her triumphantly
through the ordeal. The family, she and her charge
all escaped. Throughout the night they remained
hidden in sight of their late home, which was in
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
605
flames. On the next day they reached Steilacoom
in safety, with their worldly wealth upon their
backs, their home, household effects and supplies
having been destroyed by the murderous savages.
Mr. Thompson removed to Puyallup valley in
1860, and first made his residence upon land rented
of Mrs. Meeker. In the spring of 1863 he pre-
empted the tract, now his valuable farm, upon which
he has since resided. In 1865 he associated with
him his brother-in-law, E. C. Meade, in a hop ven-
ture, under the firm name of Thompson & Meade.
They set out twenty-five hundred hop cuttings,
and commenced the culture of hops as a crop in the
Puyallup valley. Since that beginning the valley
has obtained a world-wide celebrity for the quantity
and quality it has produced and is annually pro-
ducing. The experiment proved a success until
1868, at which time their annual product was about
twenty thousand pounds. That fall a fire consumed
their entire crop, as also all their houses and appli-
ances, leaving the firm heavily in debt.
Being compelled to recuperate his finances, he
accepted the appointment of farmer-in-charge of an
Indian reservation, whither his wife accompanied
him. They served for several months, when they
were transferred to the Puyallup Reservation, he
having been appointed teacher. There they remained.
about two years, when they returned to their farm
and resumed hop-raising. Since that time Mr.
Thompson has been very successful, and is now a
man of wealth. In 1883 he built a beautiful resi-
dence in Sumner. His real-estate holdings in the
city of Tacoma are extensive and very valuable.
In 1884 he became an incorporator and director in
the Merchants' Bank of Tacoma, and is now a
director and large stockholder in the Washington
Bank of that city. During the past year he organ-
ized and became president of the Bank of Slaughter,
in King county.
In 1889 he became senator-elect from the county
of Pierce, in the first state legislature under the new
state constitution. By reason of his past experience,
his mature judgment, his intimate knowledge of
the territory, its needs and resources, his fellow-
citizens confidently believe that his presence in that
body will prove of infinite value to the future state.
FIELDEN M. THORP.-Mr. Thorp is spoken
of as rough in his exterior, but as having a warm
heart, a man who has taken great interest in im-
proving the Indians among whom he has lived, and
as of such strict honesty that his word is taken
everywhere to be as good as his bond. He is every
inch a frontiersman, and is the son of a frontiersman
who ranged over Missouri before that region was
set off as a state. This old father was, moreover,
a veteran and pensioner of the war of 1812.
Fielden left Missouri in 1844 for the Pacific coast,
coming across the plains with a party of twenty-six
men, and a train of twelve wagons. Much of the
way led through sage-brush; and, as was customary,
the head team of one day took the rear the next
day, each one thus taking a turn at breaking the
brush. The trip down the Columbia from The
Dalles was effected by rafts as usual; but Mr. Thorp,
with one other man, added to this the feat of shoot-
ing the Cascades in a canoe, perhaps the only craft
of this kind that ever came safely through that fear-
ful torrent. The Hudson's Bay people might well
have looked upon those "Missourians" as bearing
a charmed life, when, unused to water, they safely
took such risks.
Making a landing near the present site of Port-
land, Mr. Thorp went out to the Tualatin Plains,
finding employment in splitting rails to an extent
sufficient to procure, with the proceeds of this labor,
provisions for the winter; and after that he went
into Polk county, where he lived for a number of
years, and subsequently resided in Benton county.
But the Willamette valley, as the years sped by,
grew too populous; and in 1861 he sought the unin-
habited region of the Yakima, making a new home
in the Moxee valley, ranching and cattle-ranging
until 1869, when he pushed farther into the wilder-
ness, taking up his present farm on the Kitittass,
near Ellensburgh, Washington Territory. His
youthful restlessness was wearing away; and his
farm and home are a comfortable retreat. His busi-
ness is flourishing; and he lives in a sunny old age,
surrounded by his children, all of whom are well-
to-do.
Mrs. Thorp, whose maiden name was Bound, was
born in Tennessee in 1822, and now in her sixty-
eighth year is active and well able to conduct her
household duties. She has reared a family of nine
children, three of whom died in their infancy. The
lives of both Mr. and Mrs. Thorp have been full of
toils, labors and hardships, but have been of great
use to the Pacific Northwest, and are crowned with
such blessings as this old earth can afford.
LEONARD L. THORP.-This pioneer of the
Yakima country is a native of Oregon, having been
born in Polk county in 1845. He came to Klikitat
county, at the present site of Goldendale, as early
as 1858, and to the Yakima in 1861, engaging in
stock-raising in the Moxee and Selah valleys until
1870, when he occupied his present place three miles
from North Yakima, Washington Territory, consist-
ing of one hundred and twenty acres of very rich land.
He also owns eighty acres somewhat nearer town,
upon which he has an extensive orchard with a very
fine exposure, and other requisites for the successful
culture of fruit.
culture of fruit. His principal business is handling
large lots of cattle, and delivering them to the vari-
ous cities of the Sound.
The early pioneer days of Mr. Thorp were event-
ful with the experiences relating to a frontiersman's
life. When he was but a boy of sixteen, the lonely
family was surprised one morning by the appearance
of an Indian war party bearing down upon the cabin.
Hastily hiding the women in the feather beds, the
father and son stationed themselves behind the fence
out of sight of the Indians, who were approaching,
with old Smohallah at their head, to reconnoiter.
They were armed and mounted, and were decked
with war paint. As they reached the fence, the
elder Thorp sprang over the fence and seized the
chief's horse by the bridle, covering Smohallah him-
self with his revolver, and demanding the reason
for such a warlike approach. Being quick-witted,
the old Indian smiled and offered to shake hands
606
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
in friendly fashion, saying, by way of excuse, that
he had heard of an injurious report current among
the Whites, that he had a thousand warriors with
which to attack and overwhelm the settlements;
and he had now come around with this little band
to show his white neighbor that these few braves
were all he had. Then with bows and smiles the
war party rode away. The Thorps believed that
The Thorps believed that
the cold muzzle of the pistol looking into his eyes
wrought a pacific effect upon Smohallah's mind.
Upon another occasion, young Thorp was sent to
Idaho to gather up a band of cattle belonging to
his father. It was in the middle of winter. The
snow was two feet deep; and the cattle were scat-
tered over an area of forty-five square miles. For
two weeks of that Rocky Mountain winter, with
no shelter but his blankets, the young man—only
twenty-gathered in the stock, and afterwards.
remained in a log hut until March. He drove
the cattle thence into the mining camps, with no
competent help, and received for the sale twenty-
two thousand dollars, which he managed to bring
a hundred and seventy-five miles through a coun-
try infested by higwaymen, and delivered it to the
express office in Lewiston. This is but a specimen
of the shifts and hardships of the life of the fron-
tiersman and stock-ranger. At every turn it
requires grit, address, force, and a world of endur-
ance.
Mr. Thorp has served as sheriff and assessor of the
county, and also as school commissioner and as dis-
trict clerk many terms. He has a happy home,
having been married in 1869 to Miss Philena W.
Hanson, of Yakima county. He has one boy and
three girls, Martha, Eva, Dale Owen and Mar-
garet.
CAPT. HENRY L. TIBBALS, Sr.— One of
the most active men of whom Port Townsend,
Washington, boasts is the captain whose name
appears above. He has done much to make that
city, and merits the recognition and wealth which
its rapid growth awards him.
He was born in Middleton, Connecticut, on De-
cember 18, 1829. His parents were in good circum-
stances; but at the age of ten he took the responsi-
bility of shipping as cabin boy on a brig, at seven
dollars and a half per month. From that time
forth, nearly half a century, his life has been spent
upon the sea or salt water. At the age of twenty
he was master of a brig on a voyage to the West
Indies, and until 1849 was mate or master in active
sailing. In that year he came around Cape Horn
to San Francisco in charge of the sailing vessel
Draco. Returning East, he came out in 1853 on
another cruise, reaching San Francisco the next
season, and thence went to Australia in charge of
the bark What Cheer.
In 1856 he arrived at Puget Sound as sailing mas-
ter of the revenue cutter Jeff Davis, and was sta-
tioned with her at Port Townsend one year. Then,
leaving the water, he opened a hotel, and in 1858
built the Pioneer Hotel on the present site of the
Cosmopolitan. He conducted this house greatly to
the credit of the city, and with good pecuniary re-
turns, for twelve years. Retiring from the hotel in
1871, he built the Union wharf and became agent
for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. After six
years he assumed control as general agent of the
Pacific Coast Steamship Company for another term
of six years, and was also pilot of the Straits. In
1888 he resigned those positions, and retired from
active business. During all those years he was
making opportune investments in city property, and
is now one of the heaviest taxpayers in the county.
His political history dates back as early as 1863,
when he was elected to the legislature, and in 1864,
when he became sheriff of Jefferson county. Fif-
teen years he served as president of the board of
county commissioners, and for years was postmaster
of Port Townsend and a member of the city coun-
cil. He is also a leading member of the Masonic
order, being one of the three surviving charter
members of Lodge No. 6, and has held all the of
fices within the gift of that body. In politics Cap-
tain Tibbals is a Democrat of strong views, and is
in all respects a man of great power. His three-
score years are belied by his rugged appearance;
and, with his family of wife and seven children, he
occupies a high position in the business, political
and social world of the lower Sound.
The Captain has always been energetic in every
work he has undertaken; and his energy has
brought him work from prominent sources. It was
he who tested the great iron diving-bells invented
by Major Henry B. Sears, and constructed at West
Point for the Havre de Grace bridge across the
Susquehanna river. The bells were used in building
the abutments, and faithfully fulfilled their mission.
He is now building a one-mile racecourse and
park just two and one-half miles from the head of
his own wharf. He says of the racetrack, that “ it
will be one of the fastest in the world.”
HON. GEORGE W. TIBBITTS.— A portrait
of Mr. Tibbitts is placed among the illustrations of
this history. He was born in Acton, Maine, Janu-
ary 22, 1845, and is the son of Daniel and Mary
(Witham) Tibbitts, and was the youngest in a
family of fifteen children. When our subject was
but one year of age, the family suffered the irrepar-
able loss of their mother; and at the age of four
years George was placed with an aunt in West Mil-
ton, New Hampshire, with whom he remained until
he was fifteen years of age. He then went to Great
Falls, in the same state, to do for himself.
July 12, 1861, being then but sixteen years of
age, he enlisted in Company F, Fourth New Hamp-
shire Infantry, with which he served for three years.
On the expiration of that time he re-enlisted in the
same company and regiment, during which time he
attained the rank of orderly sergeant. Mr. Tibbitts
during his army life suffered the privations and
hardships that caused thousands of the brave boys
to succumb. On August 15, 1864, at the battle of
Deep Bottom, he with thirty-eight of his company
was taken prisoner and incarcerated in Libby Prison.
One month later they were transferred to the famous
Belle Isle, where he remained until October, 1864.
They were then sent to Saulsbury, South Carolina,
where Mr. Tibbitts remained until March 14, 1865,


JOHN T. REDMAN,
ADAMS, OR.
M
C
UNI
OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
607
when he was returned again to Libby Prison, from
which he was paroled in the latter part of March;
1865.
In June, 1865, owing to a broken constitution
caused by his long imprisonment, he was mustered
out of the service, and returned to his former home
in New Hampshire to recuperate. A short time
afterwards he started west for the benefit of his
health, and finally located in Monitor county, Mis-
souri, where he engaged in a mercantile business
until 1871, when he with his wife and family came
to Portland, Oregon, and one year later to Puget
Sound, locating in 1872 on his present valuable prop-
erty near the present thriving town of Gilman, Wash-
ington, where he has since resided, with the excep-
tion of one year on Whidby Island and three years
in the mercantile trade at Renton, during which
time he was postmaster of the above place. Mr.
Tibbitts has added from time to time to his original
purchase at Gilman, until he now possesses a valu-
able estate of over one thousand acres. Together
with the management of his general merchandise
store in Gilman, he is engaged in farming and hop-
raising on a large scale, and is looked upon as one
of the leading as well as substantial men of King
county.
Mr. Tibbitts was one of the organizers of Grand
Army Post No. 1, of Washington, which is appro-
priately named "General I. I. Stevens Post," in
honor of the general of that name, and who was the
first governor of Washington Territory. Mr. Tib-
bitts was elected senior vice-commander at its organ-
ization, and one year later was elected commander.
In 1887 he was elected to the territorial legislature,
and in 1881 was elected brigadier-general of state
militia for two years. For ten years he has been
justice of the peace, notary public and postmaster
of Squawk. In 1889 Mr. Tibbitts was a member of
the constitutional convention that met at Olympia
to frame the constitution for the new State of Wash-
ington. Mr. Tibbitts was united in marriage in
Missouri, in March, 1868, to Miss Rebecca Wilson,
a native of that state, by which union they have a
family of four children. He is a gentleman of
broad and liberal views, and through energy and
perseverance has amassed a competency, and enjoys
the esteem and confidence of the residents of the
entire community in which he lives.
GEN. JAMES CLARK TOLMAN.— One of
the leading citizens of Jackson county, and foremost
among the representative men of Oregon, is Gene-
ral James Clark Tolman, ex-surveyor general of
this state. A man of great decision of character
and executive ability, he has always occupied the
position of a leader, and, after fifty years of active
participation in the affairs of his country, retains
the confidence and respect of not only his political
associates, but of adherents of the opposite party.
From youth he was an enthusiastic Whig, during
the lifetime of that party, and since has been a con-
sistent and unswerving Republican. He comes of a
family of patriots and pioneers, and has inherited
the genuine pioneer sentiments. His father, Seth
Tolman, a son of Silas Tolman, traces his ancestry
to Holland; and Mary, his mother, a daughter of
Both
Captain Clark, is of English parentage.
grandfathers were veterans of the Revolutionary
war. When peace returned, his parents settled in
Washington county, Pennsylvania; but by discreet
conduct they managed to escape ruin from the
devastations of the whisky insurrectionists. They
next removed to Marietta, Ohio, where they were
frequently compelled to fort up" in blockhouses
with their neighbors for defense against hostile
Indians.
Judge Tolman was born in Washington county,
Ohio, March 12, 1813, and eight years later moved
with his parents to Champaign county in the same
state. Those were the pioneer days of Ohio, when
unfrequent log-houses were the only habitations. In
such a house he lived; and in the schoolhouse of
like character he received his education. At the
age of seventeen he apprenticed himself to Jesse C.
Phillips (a cousin of Thomas Corwin), and spent
four years in learning the business of manufacturing
leather. He then entered the university at Athens,
Ohio, pursuing English branches with assiduity for
a year; during which time he also imbibed much
knowledge of a useful and practical nature by the
exercise of his large powers of observation.
several years he was engaged in various pursuits,
lending to each his full energy and enthusiasm. He
was an earnest supporter of General Harrison in
1888 as he had been of the unsuccessful "Tippeca-
noe" in 1836, and successful in 1840.
For
The family, consisting of father, mother, two
brothers and himself, removed to Iowa in 1839, and
began again a pioneer life. Land claimants were
bought out, two hundred acres of land being bid
in at public sale by him at Burlington; and the
General engaged in farming in Van Buren county,
Iowa. Iowa at that time was strongly Democratic;
yet he adhered firmly to his Whig principles. He
was placed on the ticket of that party for the terri-
torial legislature; and, though party lines were
closely drawn, and a warm canvass followed, during
which he was the only Whig speaker on the ticket,
he obtained four hundred Democratic votes, and
missed only sixty of being elected. In the fall of
1845 he removed to Ottumwa and engaged in the
manufacture of leather. There he was again placed
on the Whig ticket, contrary to his desires, but ac-
cepted the nomination at the solicitation of friends,
who urged that his opponent was hard to defeat.
The whole county ticket was elected by small major-
ities, though the Democrats carried the county by a
hundred and twenty-five for delegate to Congress.
In 1844 General Tolman's thoughts were turned
towards the Pacific; and, when news of the gold
discovery reached Iowa in the fall of 1848, he be-
gan preparing to seek the El Dorado the following
spring. In due time he started, and, as sole pilot of
an ox-team, arrived in the mines in October, 1849.
Declining several advantageous business offers, he
went to work with pick and shovel as a true
miner. His usual energy and attention to his busi-
ness secured ample results; and he returned to Iowa
in the fall of 1851. Ill health during the winter caused
him to seek once more the shores of the Pacific.
In April, 1852, he was married to Elizabeth E.
Coe, of Oskaloosa, Iowa, and within forty-eight
40
608
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
hours was again en route across the plains, the pilot
and adviser of ten wagons of emigrants. The train
reached Yreka in eighty-two days without the loss
of an animal, notwithstanding their journey through
the hostile tribe of the Modocs. General Tolman
crossed the Siskiyous into the Rogue river valley
with a portion of the train, arriving the last of
August, and bringing the first families to the valley
from across the plains direct. He purchased the
rights of two squatters, and began preparing to
raise stock.
Early in 1853, perceiving the impending trouble
with the Indians, he took his stock to California and
sold them. He then went to Coos Bay to look after
some investments he had made there for two young
men, and returned to the valley in time to sit on the
coroner's jury which investigated the death of the
first white victim in the Indian war of 1853. Upon
the cessation of hostilities, he sold out his place,
and with his wife and child took a mule-back ride to
Empire City, on Coos Bay. He soon withdrew
from the locality without realizing anything on
his investment, and took up a half section of
land, upon which he located the town of Marshfield,
where he erected a rude house for his family. He
spent the spring of 1854 in exploring that re-
gion, being the first white man to discover the
Indian trail across the isthmus between Coos Bay
and the Coquille river.
In August, 1854, he returned to the Rogue river
valley, leaving his claim in charge of a man, who
sold it out and disappeared. Upon his return to the
valley the General purchased for eighty-five hundred
dollars the ranch he now owns, including the stock
thereon, and again engaged in stock-raising. When
the Indian war broke out in 1855, he hastily gath-
ered his herds and drove them to California, selling
them for what they would bring. It was two years
before he could resume his business.
He then pur-
chased blooded stock,- English turf horses, Mor-
gans and Lion Hearts, and in a few years realized
handsomely on his investment. The severe winter
of 1861-62, however, almost annihilated his band
of cattle.
In the public affairs of our state, General Tolman
has ever borne a conspicuous and honorable part.
When the state government was formed in 1858, he
was elected judge of Jackson county, receiving a
large majority, although three-fourths of the voters
were Democrats. He was re-elected in 1862, de-
feating his opponent two to one. In that important
position he was enabled during the critical times of
the Civil war to do more than anyone else to prevent
open hostilities in our state. He was also instru-
mental in reducing county taxation fifty per cent,
and rescuing the county from threatened bank-
ruptcy. He was nominated for governor on the
Republican ticket in 1874; but the formation of a
third party gave the administration into the hands
of the Democracy; and he accepted his defeat with
becoming dignity and resignation. In 1878 he was
appointed surveyor-general of Oregon by President
Hayes, and was re-appointed by President Arthur
in 1882. His administration of the affairs of that
office meets with the hearty approval of the admin-
istration and of the people generally. He is firm
and prompt in the discharge of his official duties;
and never has his integrity been impeached.
During half a century of active business and
official life, he has won and retains the respect of all
with whom he has come in contact; and, though he
has never sought official positions, they havé come.
to him unsolicited.
M. C. TRUE.- The proprietor of the Palace
Hotel at the city of Pullman, Washington, is a
native of Indiana, and was born in 1847. While
but a boy, his family removed to California, locating
in 1853 upon a farm. Somewhat later his father
began hotel-keeping and is still the proprietor of
the Suscol House at Napa. While at that place
young True received a good education, and assisted
in the hotel, but in 1880 sought a field of his own.
He went to Moscow, Idaho Territory, and leased and
ran the Barton House. Two years later he came to
Pullman, and built and has since conducted the
finest hotel in that city. In 1887 it was enlarged to
a capacity of twenty-five rooms.
Aside from his private business, Mr. True takes a
leading interest in the public schools, having served
as clerk for two years. The facilities of the schools
have been increased to accommodate seventy-five
pupils. A healthy publie feeling on the subject of
education prevails; and the three children of the
gentleman of whom we write illustrate their father's
interest and care in this regard. The agricultural
resources and railway facilities at Pullman assure
its steady growth; and, while not expecting to rival
such places as Walla Walla, Spokane Falls, or the
City of Destiny, it will always be an important com-
mercial point. There Mr. True has a pleasant
home, and enjoys life with his family, having been
married in California, and having three promising
children.
JOSEPH TRUESDALE. The name Trues-
dale is so well known throughout Oregon as desig-
nating the captain of the plains as to need little
introduction here. The son Joseph was born in
Illinois in 1850, and two years later made the jour-
ney to California with his father and mother, the
latter of whom died the same year; while the former
returned to Illinois in 1855, taking the boy with
him. Marrying again in 1856, the Captain brought
an ox-team across the Rocky Mountains in 1862 to
form a settlement in the Grande Ronde valley.
For many
In 1865 young Truesdale went to the Upper San-
tiam, and there received his education. Two years
later he collected a band of three hundred cattle,
which he drove to the Grande Ronde, losing one
hundred head in the Cascade Mountains.
years he has followed a goodly variety of occupa-
tions, conducting a livery stable at Walla Walla;
operating in the mercantile business at Weston three
years; in the agricultural implement business in
Umatilla county; buying wheat at Union Point one
year; in the hotel business at Summerville three
years; and one year and a half in the butcher busi-
ness there. From the latter point he removed to La
Grande, Oregon, where he is at present engaged in
conducting the Golden Rule Hotel, of which he is a

דיד
RESIDENCE OF JOHN HARFORD, ESQ.
HOUSER & HARFORD'S ROLLER MILL.
.....
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
609
most kindly and agreeable host. He also owns a
first-class livery stable.
He was married in 1873 to Miss Ella Shore of
Walla Walla, who died in 1876, leaving him one
boy. In 1877 he was married to Miss Emma Lewis.
They have one daughter, Ettie. During the Nez
Perce and Bannack wars, Mr. Truesdale served as
teamster on the civil list. He is highly esteemed
for his many excellent social and moral qualities,
his business abilities and integrity as a man and
citizen.
J. C. TRULLINGER.— There is scarcely a
man in Oregon who has been engaged in more vari-
ous, or, on the whole, more successful enterprises
than the man whose name appears above. With
a tendency, possibly, to push his efforts a little be-
yond the line of safety, and to overcrowd himself
with different schemes, he has nevertheless a sub-
stantial grip on property and business which proves
his sagacity. If his love of making inventions and
introducing improvements incline him to temerity,
his career shows that he has a solid judgment which
warns him when to put on the brakes. Oregon
owes much to his inventiveness and energy.
His business at Astoria, Oregon, is very large.
He owns the West Shore sawmills, which are now
running at the rate of one million feet per month,
besides a large amount of lath. He owns a large
body of the finest timber land on the Wyluski, a
stream some seven miles, by water, from Astoria.
To this he has built and equipped a standard-gauge
railroad from the head of tide water, a distance of
three miles. Thereby he is able to put two hundred
thousand feet of logs into the boom per day. To
feed the fifty or one hundred men in his mill and at
the logging camp, he has bought a tide-land farm of
three hundred and twenty acres, which he has diked
and stocked with Jersey, Guernsey and Holstein ani-
mals, and from which he gets his supply of butter
and beef. This is one of the richest farms in the
country, and is easily worth twenty-five thousand
dollars. Besides this extensive business, he owns,
as he first introduced, the electric-light system of
Astoria, furnishing the city with fifty arc lights.
In Yamhill county he also owns a farm of seven
hundred and thirty-five acres, two miles west of
Newburg, in the beautiful valley of the Chehalem.
Last year he raised six thousand bushels of grain
and a large quantity of fruit upon that place. That
business is not only sufficient for the active brain of
Mr. Trullinger himself, but gives employment to
his six sons, who are all adults, the youngest being
seventeen. His two daughters are married. His
ability to engage his own family in his extensive
business is as remarkable as it is safe, and insures
both his and their profit.
When we inquire into his former life, we find him
in 1848 a young man crossing the plains with his
father's family to Oregon; and in the following
winter he and his brother found it no easy matter to get
horses for going to the mines in California. His early
enterprises in Oregon have been almost endless. Soon
after returning from the mines on the schooner
Montague, making a perilous voyage, he engaged in
warehousing at Milwaukee. In 1852 he took up a
claim nine miles south of Portland on the Tualatin,
remaining eleven years, clearing fifty acres of brush
and timber land, and putting up a flour and saw-
mill. He was among the first to plant an orchard
and sow timothy. In 1863 he bought property
at Oswego, and rebuilt the sawmill there in 1865.
He laid a logging railway from the Tualatin to
Sucker lake, placed a steam scow on the lake, and
made a portage to connect with the Willamette.
Joseph Kellogg and the People's Transportation
Company co-operated, the former running a small
steamer on the Tualatin river into Washington
county.
In 1863, with A. A. Durham, of whom he had
purchased a half interest in the townsite of Oswego,
he sold four acres of land with water privileges to
the iron company; and, having bought the Bishop
Scott Grammar School tract, he laid off a townsite,
setting as the first stake the first pig of iron run
from the iron works, or indeed west of the Rocky
Mountains. In 1870 he bought the famous old
flour-mill at Centerville in Washington county,
which was built and owned by John Jackson. He
ran this until 1879, when it was burned.
he bought the forty-acre tract at Astoria owned by
Alanson Hinman, and soon erected his sawmill on
the splendid water-front thus secured. There he
has remained, with a diversion of two years' mining
in Jackson county, with the results which we have
already seen.
In 1875
Mr. Trullinger has been active in making inven-
tions, having seven which he has covered with
patents, among the most notable of which are the
'Duplex Axe," and a Turbine water-wheel. He
has always been public spirited in support of schools
and churches, and is fully up with the times in pub-
lic matters, taking an active interest in politics, and
pushing for railroad connection for Astoria. The
partner of his labors and successes, Miss Hannah
Boyles, became his wife July 24, 1853, and now
shares the name and fame which she has done much
to create.
HON. AMOS F. TULLIS.-Amos F. Tullis was
born January 6, 1830, at Carthage, Rush county,
Indiana. Both of his parents were natives of Ohio,
and, having migrated to Indiana, followed farming.
At the age of five years his mother died; and five
years later his father followed her to the great silent
majority, leaving a family of four sons and two
daughters, of whom Amos was the fourth child.
He lived on the farm of his parents until 1846, when
he accompanied an older sister with her husband to
Iowa. He resided at Mount Pleasant, Burlington.
and Ottumwa in that state until March 18, 1852.
On that date, with his two brothers, John, now de-
ceased, and James, now one of the substantial farmers
of Lewis county, he started with ox-teams to cross
the plains for Oregon. They arrived at Portland on
the 8th of August. They did not tarry at that
embryo metropolis, but started for Olympia, on
Puget Sound (then Oregon Territory), which they
reached August 27th.
Mr. Tullis found immediate employment in the
sawmill of Ward & Hays at Tumwater, and shortly
afterwards leased the mill for six months. He
610
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
loaded the ship Leonesa with the entire result of his
occupancy, and accompanied her to San Francisco,
intrusting the sale of the same to a commission mer-
chant in San Francisco; but not a dollar was ever
realized by him for that six months' labor. It was
Mr. Tullis' intention with the proceeds of that cargo
to have returned to his home in Iowa; but his
scheme was defeated by his bad luck. Without
means, he returned to Olympia, which he reached
in March, 1854, and then followed different employ-
ments until the breaking out of the Indian war in
the fall of 1855. He was then appointed captain by
Acting-Governor Mason, and with a small command
guarded the transportation of the mails between
Monticello, near the mouth of the Cowlitz river, and
Olympia. Through the continuance of the Indian
war, from October, 1855, till nearly that date in the
following year, he patiently and faithfully performed
that hazardous service, much of which required
travel at night-time through sections within short
distances of the haunts of the hostile Indians.
At the termination of Indian hostilities, in Octo-
ber, 1856, he purchased a farm in Lewis county,
where he engaged successfully in farming, dairying
and stock-raising. In later years, after the Fraser
river excitement had filled the mining regions of
British Columbia, and the cities of Victoria and New
Westminster, with a numerous population, he be-
came an extensive dealer in stock. He engaged in
buying in Lewis and the neighboring counties, as
also in Oregon, all the stock he could secure, and
shipped it to Victoria. In that occupation he real-
ized a handsome fortune. He continued to reside
upon his farm in Lewis county until 1885, when he
sold it and came to Tacoma, Washington Territory,
where he has since resided. He invested early and
wisely in real estate in that growing city, and is now
among its wealthiest citizens.
During his residence in Lewis county he was
generally in official life. He held the several posi-
tions of sheriff, county commissioner and also as a
member for the counties of Lewis and Thurston in
the council, the upper house of the legislative as-
sembly, a body which corresponds with the state
senate. In 1880 he was appointed by Governor
Newell one of the territorial board of commissioners
to build the insane asylum of the territory of Wash-
ington, on the old site of Fort Steilacoom, which
had been donated to the territory by the general
government for that purpose. The building itself,
not to refer to the success of that magnificent char-
ity to those of God's poor who have been bereft of
reason, is Mr. Tullis' best testimonial for efficiency
of service and faithfulness to public duty, as also
to his broad humanity and utilitarian views.
served in that labor of love for seven years. Let it
be remembered, as an evidence of his financiering
ability, his economy and strictness of business, that
the great structure received entire completion out
of the first appropriation that was made. But Mr.
Tullis would be offended were not an equal meed
of credit awarded to his able, efficient and ever-
attentive colleague on the board, George Shannon,
the liberal and whole-souled banker of Olympia.
To the benevolent labors of those two men, the citi-
zens of the territory must greatly attribute the suc-
He
cessful erection of the asylum building, and the
prosperous condition and enlarged usefulness of one
of the noblest of the people's charities.
In 1887 he became one of the county commis-
sioners of the county of Pierce, and is now the
chairman of that board. Though in affluent cir-
cumstances, Mr. Tullis' active life must be engaged
in business.
in business. His leisure from official duties finds
employment in looking after his interests as a stock-
holder in the Alaska Mercantile & Packing Com-
pany. Numerous other enterprises enlist his atten-
tion. He is never idle; and all his energies are
devoted to elevating the community of which he is
an honored member. A successful farmer, an able
financier, a business man of sagacity and spotless
integrity, such is very briefly a sketch of the life
service of one of the most reliable and substantial
solid men of Tacoma.
TERRY TUTTLE. — Mr. Tuttle, one of the
first residents of the Grande Ronde, and the first
school superintendent of Union county, was born in
Ohio in 1831. Until the age of twenty he remained
with his father, working on the farm and obtaining
an education in the log schoolhouse. The next year
he was married to Miss Maria A. Lewis, of Indiana,
with whom he still sails his bark on the sea of life.
Six children have blessed their home; and four of
these are now living in Union county with their own
children about them.
From 1850 to 1862 the years were spent in Iowa.
The latter date the journey was made across the
plains to Oregon; and a home was erected in the
Grande Ronde valley. The usual life of the Ore-
gon farmer was there assumed, raising stock with
more or less grain and other produce, but devoting
especial attention to horticulture. He has at pres-
ent three hundred and twenty acres of fine land
near Summerville, Oregon, and a neat residence and
farm well stocked. In a public way Mr. Tuttle has
borne his share of responsibility, having served
three terms as superintendent of schools, one term
as assessor, and one term in the Oregon legislature,
-as representative for Union county for the session
of 1880.
CHARLES T. UHLMAN.—Mr. Uhlman, a
portrait of whom is placed in this history, although
a young man, is an example of what the possibili-
ties are for a young man when guided by honesty,
industry and business ability. Coming to Tacoma
but a few years ago, our subject entered a meat
market as an apprentice at a salary of fifteen
dollars per month. To-day he is a member of the
council that guides the interests of the City of Des-
tiny, the proprietor of a large and increasing trade,
with branch houses at different points on the Sound,
and is erecting handsome brick blocks that will stand
as monuments to the enterprise and industry of one
of Tacoma's brightest business men.
Mr. Uhlman was born in Washington, District of
Columbia, January 10, 1861, and is the son of Charles
J. Uhlman, a former district surveyor of the District
of Columbia. His mother was Minnie (Frank) Uhl-
man, both of his parents being of German descent.
When our subject was but five years of age, the
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
611
family suffered the irreparable loss of the husband
and father. They resided in Washington until
March 4, 1869, when he with his mother and four
brothers started West, coming to St. Louis, Mis-
souri, and one year later to Portland, Oregon.
Our subject then attended school for eighteen
months. The family, in 1872, located a homestead
on Chehalis river, where Charles remained until
1881. Most of that time he found employment as
a farm hand, and for three years worked for "Block-
house" Smith. He was also two years in the employ
of A. W. Sargent. While in the latter's employ he
met with a severe accident, having his leg fractured.
On recovering from that accident, he came to
Tacoma with the idea of learning a trade. He
selected the butcher trade, and entered the employ
as apprentice of the Original Ranier Market, then
owned by Myson D. Barlow & Bros., at a salary of
fifteen dollars per month. He remained in that
market through all the changes of proprietorship
until it passed into the hands of S. Coulter & Sons.
He was then placed in charge, and managed the
wholesale business for the latter firm for the follow-
ing three years. During that time he purchased
the Original Ranier Retail Market, which he con-
ducted for himself. Two years later he purchased
the wholesale business of Coulter & Sons, which he
has since conducted; and his field of operations
extends over the entire Sound country. Twice
during one year Mr. Uhlman suffered the entire
loss of his market by fire, but each time built
larger than before. During all that time he had
unbounded faith in the future of the City of Des-
tiny, and purchased property from time to time,
until now he owns some of the most valuable real
estate in the city, part of which is the building now
occupied by Chester Cleury & Co's dry-goods store
on Pacific avenue. In 1888 he built the Uhlman
Block, a magnificent three-story building on the
corner of A and Ninth streets, opposite "The
Tacoma," where he has fitted up without question
the finest market on the Pacific coast.
Mr. Uhlman in 1889 organized the Puget Sound
Pressed Beef & Packing Co., a corporation destined
to fill an important place in the resources of the
State of Washington. He is a large property owner
in other parts of the Sound, more especially on
Bellingham Bay, where he possesses valuable real
estate adjoining the city of Fairhom. In March,
1888, he was elected a member of the city council
of Tacoma, a position he still holds, and is to-day
regarded as one of the most responsible and pro-
gressive business men in the city. He was united
in marriage in Columbus, Washington Territory,
August 26, 1883, to Miss Myrtle Middleton, a native
of Illinois. By this union they are blessed by the
possession of two beautiful daughters.
JAMES URQUHART.-Many are the illustra-
tions found, as we proceed with this history, of the
qualities spoken of as "taking hold with the hands
and dwelling in kings' palaces." The pioneers of
The pioneers of
this country dwell on their own townsites and on
their own lands, which are frequently of more value
than the domains of some of the kings alluded to;
while their houses are often better than the palaces.
The enterprises of our own settlers' are, from
the standpoint of real utility, of more magnitude
than those of many of the old-world princes whose
names are now famous. In the lives of the makers
of the Northwest, we find peculiarly effective illus-
trations of those qualities which prepare the way
for public prosperity and happiness. The subject of
this sketch is one who has borne his part manfully
in the foundation epoch of this country.
Mr. Urquhart was born March 15, 1822, in New-
ton, of Ferentosh, Ross-shire, Scotland. His parents
were Andrew and Margaret (McKenzie) Urquhart.
At the age of fifteen, James went to Arbroath to work
in his uncle's store. He might next have been found
at Linlithgow, railroading. November 18, 1845, he
was married to Miss Helen Muir. In 1851 the storięs
from beyond the sea so appealed to his imagination,
and indeed to his reason, that he determined to come
to America. He reached New York, September 15th,
and spent the following winter at the south, visiting
Arkansas and Louisiana. Iowa was his next termi-
nus; but in May, 1852, he joined an emigrant train
bound for Oregon. Among his comrades on that
journey were William Ginder, of Vancouver, David
Powers (deceased), who resided near Portland, and
other old pioneers.
Not till September of that year did the long journey
close at The Dalles. From there to Portland he
traveled by small boats and on foot, as there were
then no steamboats from The Dalles to Portland.
Mr. Urquhart's first work in Oregon was wharf-
building at St. Helens, at that time aspiring to be
the shipping city on the Columbia and Willamette
rivers. Mining in Southern Oregon absorbed his
labors for a time; but returning northward he stopped
a little out from Oregon City, helping Mr. De Lash-
mutt build a machine to shave shingles. In Febru-
ary, 1853, he was again on the Columbia at Cowlitz
Landing, doing whatever came to his hand. In 1853
he was at Young's Bay, near Astoria, employed on
the Akin & Flavel steam sawmill, built by John
West, foreman and millwright. This occupied the
summer; and in the autumn he was again back to
the Cowlitz, and voted in November at the first
election held after Washington was organized as a
territory. There he decided to set his stakes for
good, and settled on land near Eden Prairie. That
was a happy decision; for at the same time that he
found a home he might also be joined by his family.
This, consisting of a wife and five children, he had
left in Scotland while he could make a home for them
in the new world. They came to the country via
Cape Horn, and arrived at San Francisco January 1,
1855, having been six months on the voyage. They
came thence by ship to Oak Point, Washington
Territory.
After more observation, Mr. Urquhart, deciding
that he could improve on his first selection of land,
entered a half section near the present site of Napa-
vine, and abandoned his old place beyond the Cowlitz
river near Eden Prairie. As rapidly as able, he
added to his possessions, now owning a large body
of fine land, upon a part of which is situated the
town of Napavine, which he laid off December 17,
1883, near Stutson, said to be the Indian name for
wild-flowers, the Indian name Napavoon signifying
612
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
a small prairie. Mr. Urquhart is to be commended
for the attractive name which he has bestowed upon
the town. It bespeaks his taste, as the establish-
ment of the town tells of his enterprise. In addition
to his farming operations, Mr. Urquhart has busied
himself and his sons in the mercantile business which
he established in 1873 in company with his son John,
who in June, 1878, began business at Chehalis, and
was county treasurer and postmaster when he died.
He has been honored by his neighbors with three
terms of service in the legislature, and three terms
on the board of county commissioners.
Mr. Urquhart's wife was Miss Helen Muir, of Lin-
lithgow, Scotland. They have had nine sons and.
two daughters. The career of this sturdy pioneer
illustrates anew that not only competence but also
honor lies at the end of the pathway of enterprise,
which is but a revised form of old-fashioned industry.
WILLIAM M. URQUHART. This gentle-
man, the son of James Urquhart, whose biography
is immediately preceding, was born at the family
residence near Napavine, Washington Territory,
on the 22d of December, 1855. He remained on
the farm till he had attained his majority. He
then entered his father's store at Napavine, where
he attended strictly to business and became thor-
oughly acquainted with trade, remaining there un-
til 1880. In that year he removed to Chehalis,
and began merchandising for himself. In this inde-
pendent venture he was eminently successful, and
had one of the largest mercantile houses in Lewis
county. The confidence reposed in him by his
neighbors may be inferred from the fact that for
eight years he was county treasurer, a position
which he held until the people of the county
elected his brother David county auditor. For
six years he was postmaster of Chehalis. As has
already appeared,~ Mr. Urquhart was a member
of, one of the most conspicuous of the old pioneer
families of the territory. He was personally a
large, noticeable man, of the most winning manners.
His recent death was deeply deplored by the
community and mourned by his family. He was
a man of noble nature, and did great service to his
community. He left a widow and three children.
In
HENRY VAN ASSELT.- The subject of this
sketch was born in Holland April 11, 1817.
1847 he emigrated to the United States, being the
first person living in the locality of his old country
home to come to this country. Prior to leaving
home he promised to travel from one end of the
Union to the other, and write his people and friends
the results of his observations. From Castle Gar-
den he went to New Jersey, and in that state re-
mained for nine months, and then came west to St.
Louis, Missouri. After a stop there of five months
he went to Iowa, and worked there in a sawmill for
ten months, and then journeyed on to Illinois, liv-
ing in that state until 1850, when he returned to
Iowa, and made one of a party of eight, who with
two ox-teams as a motive power started across the
plains to Oregon. The party consisted of John and
James Thornton, Humphery Long, Jake Wagner
and Charles Hendricks.
They met with many experiences and hardships.
incident to such a trip, but arrived in safety at
Clackamas river, near Oregon City, on September
21, 1850. They crossed the Willamette and went
up to the Tualatin, where they worked at making
shingles until spring. Everybody then had the
gold fever; and the entire party caught the disease,
and accordingly started for the Northern California.
gold mines. In five and a half weeks of mining
they divided up their accumulation of gold dust;
and it was found that each was the possessor of one
thousand dollars' worth of the precious metal. The
water supply giving out, the claims could not lon-
ger be worked; and five of the party returned to the
Willamette valley in June, 1851. On the road they
fell in with L. M. Collins, who had a land claim on
the Nisqually river, on Puget Sound. In his party
was Hill Harmon, of New Tacoma, and Jacob and
Samuel Maple. He persuaded John Thornton,
Charles Hendricks and our subject to go to the
Sound with him.
In ferrying across the Columbia river at St.
Helens, on July 7th, Mr. Asselt accidentally shot
himself in the right arm and shoulder, and was
compelled to remain at St. Helens a month for medi-
cal treatment. That accident, which seemed a
great affliction at that time, afterwards proved a
great blessing to him and to his companions, which
will appear later on in this sketch. Starting again
on his journey, in company with John Thornton,
who had remained behind with him, they proceeded
to the mouth of the Cowlitz river in a small boat,
up that stream to Pumphrey's Landing in a canoe,
and from thence footed it across the country to Nis-
qually, where they joined the others of the party
who had left them at St. Helens. From Nisqually
he made excursions, on foot and on horseback, in
every direction, thoroughly exploring the section.
now embracing the counties of Thurston and Pierce.
But he could find nothing to suit him, and made
up his mind to return again to the Willamette val-
ley. His intention was changed through an offer
of Collins to hire a boat and take the party to a lo-
cation some forty miles down the Sound, where he
thought they would find homes acceptable to them.
The plan being agreed to, they set out for the
Duwamish river on September 12, 1851; and on the
fourteenth they camped at what is now Milton.
The site now occupied by Seattle was a howling
wilderness, inhabited by nothing but Indians; and
at that time there was not a white settler within the
The
boundaries of King county. On the morning of
September 15, 1851, they entered the mouth of the
Duwamish river, and proceeded up that stream as
far as the mouths of White and Black rivers.
appearance of the country pleased our subject; and
he proposed to the party that if any of them would
take up a claim that he would second him. Collins
agreed to locate a claim provided that he could dis-
pose of his interest at Nisqually, which he did, find-
ing a purchaser in Balland.
The matter being settled, Messrs. Collins, Eli and
Jacob Maples and our subject staked out their loca-
tions, the latter also selecting one for Sam Maples.
This claim so taken up by Mr. Van Asselt yet re-
mains in his possession. The preliminaries towards

JAY. A.KELLOGG, ESQ.,
DAYTON, W. T.
OF
M
BICH
UNIV
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
613
founding a home being completed, they returned to
Nisqually to prepare for moving on their places.
From there our subject, accompanied by Collins,
went to Olympia; and they purchased a scow on
which to transport their household effects, etc. The
stock belonging to the party consisted of twenty
head of horses and cows. These were driven
from Nisqually to Puyallup, and from there around.
the beach as far as Milton, where they were put on
the scow and taken to their new home. The loca-
tions already made were followed soon after by those
of D. T. Denny, Doctor Maynard and others; and
within nine weeks after the first claim stakes were
in the ground there were nine houses between Alki
Point and that of our subject.
The nearest store where provisions and clothing
could be procured was located at Steilacoom; and
often that establishment would be out of stock. In
such event a trip to Olympia or Tumwater for the
wanted articles would be necessary. The last of
these trips made by our subject was in 1851-52.
Those going with him were George Holt and Au-
gust Hograve. The time now consumed in mak-
ing the journey on one of the numerous palatial
steamers on the Sound is but a few hours; but, in
those pioneer days, the whistles of such craft had
not echoed on its shore, nor yet plowed its waters
with their prows. The trip then was made with
canoe or scow, the former being used on this occa-
sion; and three weeks were consumed in getting to
Olympia and back home again, both Christmas and
New Year being spent on the way. Early in the
spring of 1852 Charles C. Terry and John Low
opened up a little trading store on Alki Point,
which gave the settlers a market nearer home.
For the first few years, in addition to opening their
farms, they got out square timbers and cut piles,
which they sold to Captains Plummer and Fuller,
who ran schooners between the Sound and San
Francisco. Settlers continued to come in slowly;
and places were one by one being taken up.
On the arrival of our subject at the home of his
adoption, and for some time thereafter, he carried
his arm in a sling, not having recovered from the
wound received at St. Helens. Meeting some In-
dians, they were curious to know the cause, and
were often shown the wound and allowed to feel
the buckshot still remaining in his shoulder. This
excited great wonderment in their minds; and they
began to look upon him as a devil; for, among
their many other superstitions, they believe that
one with lead in his body cannot be killed by being
shot. The first difficulties with the Indians in the
locality where our subject resided occurred in 1852.
It was brought about through a misunderstanding
between a Mr. Loweman and an Indian called Griz-
zly. It finally culminated in the latter's enlisting
the services of other Indians in his cause; and they
took possession of Loweman's place. He appealed
to his neighbors for help; and Sam and Jacob Ma-
ples, Collins and our subject responded. They ac-
companied Loweman to his place, and on arriving
found the Indians in possession and fortified. At
the risk of their lives they took the guilty Indian
out, chained him, locked him up, and sent to Steil-
acoom for the soldiers. In lieu of such there came
an Indian agent; and, instead of punishing Grizzly,
he gave him a couple of shirts and a blanket, and
told him to be a good Indian in the future.
On
Again, during that same summer, the Indians broke
into the Peace brothers' house, on what is now
known as the Terry farm, and stole everything.
Our subject promised a friendly Indian five dollars
if he would find out who the transgressors were.
After an absence of three days he returned and
reported that Tom Pepper and his father were the
thieves. Giving the informant his reward, our
subject, together with six of his neighbors, went to
an Indian village of several hundred inhabitants
located on Black river, where Pepper lived.
their arrival there they went to the culprit's lodge,
and found Pepper very busily engaged in transfer-
ring the stolen property from the house to the
brush. When an attempt was made to arrest the
old scamp, he showed fight and drew a large knife
as a weapon of warfare. Before he could use it,
however, he was knocked down with the butt of a
rifle. During this time twenty or thirty guns were
leveled at the party by the Indians. Knowing
their superstition relative to our subject, he charged
on them; and the would-be assailants took flight
without firing a shot. After securing the captive,
the party took him to their settlement and endeav-
ored to wring from him a confession as regard to
who did the stealing. For a time he maintained
that he did not know, but became more conversant
with the facts in the matter after he had been hung
up by the neck a few times, and confessed that he
and his father were the guilty parties. Old Chief
Seattle heard of the trouble, and the next day came
up and pawned guns and blankets for the safe re-
turn of the stolen property; and it is needless to
say it was all returned to its rightful owners.
Shortly after this a party of Indians came to Sam
Maples' place in the evening. Maples was sick, and
asked a young Indian to split him some wood,
promising him his supper. While doing the work
the boy cut his foot. At the sight of the blood the
Indians pounced upon the sick man with their
knives, and would have killed him had he made
any resistance. He lay still and allowed them to
carry out all the provisions, cooking utensils and
everything else there was about the house. After
they had plundered the place, the sick man crawled
out and started for assistance. In going to where
our subject was hewing out timber, he met Mr. Van
Asselt; and the recital of the Indian's deviltry
roused him so that his first impulse was to mete out
punishment upon several of them with his axe; but
on reflection it was deemed best to use strategy.
Learning that the savages had some property at the
home of Collins, the settlers collected and made that
point a rendezvous. When the Indians came along
for their belongings, they were made prisoners, and,
by threats of sending for the soldiers, were induced
to give up the stolen articles, and pay in venison for
their meanness.
Little affairs of that kind would occasionally hap-
pen; but on the whole the Indians were peaceable
and friendly till September 15, 1855. On that event-
ful Sunday morning, just four years from the date
of the first settlement of what is now King county,
614
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
the merciless Indians, in pursuance of well-arranged
plans, swooped down on the settlers of White river,
and massacred Mr. and Mrs. King, Mr. and Mrs.
Jones, Mr. and Mrs. Brannan and child, and a Mr.
Cooper. During the night the Indians had secreted
themselves in the brush near the residence of these
people, and in the morning shot the settlers down
as they ventured from their houses. Joe Lake, a
settler on White river, was also shot, but not killed;
and it was through him that the news spread before
other murders could be committed. People in ter-
ror left their farms and fled to Seattle. In twelve
hours after the massacre, the only white persons in
King county, outside of Seattle, were Sam Maples,
Doctor Grow and his brother, and our subject. They
remained on their places till the morning of the six-
teenth, but slept in the woods for safety, and left at
daylight for Seattle. Shortly afterwards the Indians
came along and burned their houses, barns and
fences, stole their horses and drove off their stock.
Not a building of any description was left standing
from the head of White river to the mouth of the
Duwamish.
On the morning of the sixteenth, as these settlers.
were leaving for Seattle, a party of friendly Indians
came along with three white children belonging to
the Jones family. Their parents having been mur-
dered, they were turned over to the party, who took
them to Seattle and placed them in the custody of
the authorities, who cared for them and finally sent
them to their friends in the East. Seattle was barri-
caded by the people, who converted the town into a
fort; and a three months' volunteer company of set-
tlers was formed, with Captain Hayward in com-
mand. The company protected the town, marched
through the country, killed a few Indians, and were
finally mustered out.
In the meantime an American man-of-war, the
Decatur, had arrived, and was lying at anchor in the
harbor. She would occasionally send a cannon ball
whizzing by the town into the woods where the In-
dians were secreted. On the 5th of January, 1856,
after the disbanding of the volunteer company, the
Indians attacked the town and killed two men,-
one a brother of Lemuel Holgate, and another whose
name cannot now be called to mind. A six months'
volunteer company was then organized, with Judge
Lander as captain, and A. A. Denny and D. Neely
as lieutenants. This company did good service in
guarding the town and converting the hostiles into
good Indians. One day it was reported that the In-
dian who had killed Holgate was upon the hill above
the fort, about where John Collins' house now
stands, firing at anyone who chanced to put in an
appearance. Our subject, believing that he could
stop the Indian, began to watch closely the locality
from whence the firing came, and in a short time
discovered him. It was noticed that the Indian
would get behind a tree and load his gun, and then
go to a log where he could get a better aim and fire
away. Taking his Sharpe's carbine, our subject
laid down behind a fir stump just outside the fort
and fired. He can't say whether he hit his mark or
not; but at all events the settlers were not troubled
again by the Indian.
H. L. Vesler at that time had a sort of charge or
supervision over a lot of friendly Indians camped at
what is now Milton. One evening Sergeant John
Hannan, of the volunteer company, called Mr. Van
Asselt out and said there was a hostile Indian named
Lucha and his squaw over at Milton trying to induce
the peaceable Indians at that place to join the hos-
tiles, and that Yesler had ordered him to leave there
before the next morning. He determined to blockade
the mouth of the river, in order to kill Lucha and
all who went with him to join the hostiles. Among
those who made up the party sent in this behalf was
our subject. An account of what transpired is here
given in his own language:
"That night the moon shone out brightly; and
the weather was bitter cold. We waited till the In-
dians were all asleep, when a party of five took a
canoe and paddled cautiously to the mouth of the
river, a little above the place where Conkling's
house now stands, where there is a short curve in
the stream. Drawing our frail craft out into the
brush, we divided and posted ourselves in three
different places,-two men together, forty yards.
apart, and myself forty yards above the upper two.
The understanding was that the lower two should
let the canoes pass, and when they were opposite the
second two should be fired upon. The party con-
sisted of J. W. Johns, C. D. Boren, John Hannan,
Sam Bicklehammer and myself. We remained at
our posts until daybreak without an adventure.
The weather was fearfully cold; and we were stiff
and numb. We held a consultation; and a majority
favored returning home. But I urged them to re-
main half an hour longer; and all consented.
We again took our posts; and in less than fifteen
minutes we heard the splash of paddles, and knew
that a number of canoes were, approaching. Finally
a dugout, containing the before-mentioned hostile
and his wife, hove in sight. When directly in front
of us, I heard three guns snap and one fire. At the
first crack of the guns the Indian crouched down
and lurched his boat over for protection. His wife
rose up and yelled in Chinook:
'Don't kill us; we
are your friends! Don't kill us.' We did not want
to kill her. Three of our guns had been rendered
useless by the damp and cold. I, however, banged
away at Mr. Indian, and riddled his boat with bullet
holes; but he made his escape in the brush on the
opposite side of the river.
"The other canoes, hearing the report of the
guns, turned back. We launched our boat and made
chase. We soon sighted a canoe, and worked hard
to overtake it. By this time the guns had been
cleaned and reloaded; and all four of my compan-
ions fired at the Indians; but their shots fell short.
I was steering the boat. Mr. Boren stood up in
front of me; and I gave him my gun and told him
to fire. He did; and the Indians all dodged down,
then rose up and paddled for shore. They landed
at the extreme mouth of the river, beached their
canoe and took to the woods. We ran alongside,
captured their boat and found it smeared with blood
from one end to the other. We afterwards learned
that Boren's shot had struck one of the Indians in
the shoulder. We took the canoe out into the bay
and broke it up.
>>
By 1857 hostilities had ceased; and the settlers

A
H. H. DEARBORN & CO. REAL ESTATE.
SEATTLE W.T.
*
1886
DEARBORN
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
615
+
returned to their homes. Our subject among others
then found plenty to do. His houses and barns had
to be rebuilt, his fences renewed; and, in fact, he
almost had to begin anew. When he had got things
in a somewhat comfortable shape, he left for the
Willamette valley, and there worked for several
months; and with the funds thus derived he restored
his ranch. He was united in marriage to Miss Jane
Maples in 1862, the fruits of the union being four
children.
Mr. Van Asselt, through his energy in the past,
has acquired means sufficient to surround his home
with comfort during the declining years of himself
and his estimable wife. Aside from the distinction
of being a pioneer and state-builder, it is said of him
by all that he is a man of strict integrity and un-
sullied reputation, and that he has legions of friends,
and few if any enemies.
J. J. H. VAN BOKKELEN. We constantly
find among those that are here present lives of such
incident and fullness, that any sketch must be so
meager as to be well-nigh worthless. The active
career of Mr. Von Bokkelen, covering more than
half a century, is one of these.
He inherits his name and much of his rugged
mentality from an old Holland family on his father's
side, which at the time of the entrance of the
French and flight of the King came to New York.
There the grandfather became one of the first physi-
cians, settling in the old Bowery, he having been
in Holland physician to the King's household.
During the war of 1812 his father continued the
active reputation of the family by making a haz-
ardous voyage with one Captain Main to Japan for a
load of saltpeter for Uncle Sam, running the gaunt-
let of two British war ships on the return voyage
by the Cape of Good Hope. His father during the
balance of his life followed a shipping and commer-
cial business.
On the mother's side our subject is of a hardy
sea-faring Welsh family, that came to New York in
1867, his grandfather on his mother's side being the
third licensed pilot in New York; and during the
Revolutionary war he was most famous for piloting
the French fleet into the bay. His early recollec-
tions extend to the visit of Lafayette, whom he saw
at the house of his grandmother, whither the great
Frenchman had come to present her with a golden
anchor in commemoration of the services of her
husband. His active and lively boyhood was spent
in school, in society and with the New York Fire
Department. He saw the opening of the Erie
Canal, and with his father called upon David Clin-
ton. There was scarcely a public event in and
around New York which escaped his keen scrutiny.
This observance of and interest in public matters
during his youth and early manhood brought him
into personal contact with the great events and men
of the times. He early began as a clerk in a whole-
sale house, and led the high-pressure life of the
young men of those days. In 1843 he went south
to Alabama as shipping clerk in the cotton business
a year, and two years longer as agent of mail con-
tracts. The wild and reckless life into which he
was thrown proved inimical to his health; and he
went home to die at his father's new residence in
North Carolina. A full year of sickness, however,
failed to kill him; and, upon the recommendation
of physicians, he set off on a voyage to California
to recover his strength. By the time that the Horn
was doubled and the Golden Gate reached, his old
vigor had returned; and, at Big Bar and Pilot Hill,
he dug gold as fast as the best of them. Hoping
to make some great strike, he performed a prospect-
ing tour in the mountains, from which he returned
dead-broke and had to work his way to San Fran-
cisco, where he soon found himself appointed as
inspector of customs through the influence of David
Broderick and Fred Kohler, formerly his associates
in New York.
This occupation proved too slow; and with a few
companions he set sail for Queen Charlotte's Island
in April, 1851, to discover gold. But the findings
were so small as to make him glad to take passage
on a Hudson's Bay ship to Port Rupert; and he
returned to California in the fall of 1852. There
once more he set to digging in earnest, and was so
successful as to be nearly ready to return home.
But a land-slip, or cave-in, of his mine, burying
him under rocks and gravel, so seriously impaired
his frame, breaking bones, etc., as to detain him
over winter; and in the meantime he took ship in
June, 1853, with Captain Coupe of the bark Success
for Puget Sound. Landing at Penn's Cove on
Whidby Island, he assisted the Captain in building
a town; and he cut the first tree felled at Coupeville.
But, hearing of the coal on Bellingham Bay, he
steered thither, soon crossing over to Nanaimo. In
that British region he got into a singular difficulty.
Some of the squad to which he belonged felled a
tree before daylight, which dropped upon and
crushed some machinery just brought from England,
and intended for enlarging the works at the coal
mine. In their fright, these men averred that Van
Bokkelen was an agent of the Bellingham Bay
Company, sent secretly to persuade some twenty of
the men to leave the Nanaimo mine for its Amer-
ican rival. He was accordingly arrested and sent
to Victoria under the conduct of ten Indians.
was held in prison for a month awaiting a ship to
sail to London, where he was to be tried for high
treason against the Hudson's Bay Company; but,
as it was manifestly impossible to establish against
him any charge, he was set free; and after working
around a few weeks for money he crossed the straits
for Port Townsend.
He
About this time the Indian war broke out; and,
joining the command of Captain Ebey, he went to
the Snohomish river. He rose by election to the
position of orderly sergeant, and after four months.
to the captaincy of Company E, and was finally
made a major in the Northern Battalion.
He saw
very active service, and was scouting constantly in
the mountains.
Returning from the war he began farming, but
was soon appointed deputy collector, serving a part
of the time in the Colville district. He also acted,
while at Port Townsend, as county auditor and post-
master. After leaving the custom-house, he con-
tinued in the two latter offices, and subsequently
served the county as probate judge and sheriff. He
616
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
was also a member of the territorial council a term
from Colville district, and two terms from Port
Townsend district, in the house.
His two children have reached adult life; and
the daughter is married. Now, at the age of seventy-
three, Mr. Van Bokkelen devotes his energies,
which are but little impaired, to conducting the
Seamen's Bethel at the Port, and in assisting the
Methodist church of that city. Although having
seen as much as anyone of the shines and shadows
of life, and having tried it from all sides, none of
his memories are more bright than those which re-
late to his mother's and his father's training of his
early years; and, in all his varied fortunes and mis-
fortunes, he finds nothing of which to complain or,
indeed, to regret.
THEODORE C. VAN EPPS.—Mr. Van Epps,
a portrait of whom is placed among the illustra-
tions of this work, is one of the best known men
in Washington's capital city. He was born in
New Scotland, eight miles west of Albany, New
York, February 15, 1847, and is the son of Charles
and Angelica (Vedder) Van Epps, both of whom
were born in New York of Holland parentage, his
mother being a cousin of ex-President Martin Van
Buren. His great-grandfather was from Holland,
and founded the town of Amsterdam in New York
State.
At the age of six Theodore moved with his parents
to Davenport, Iowa, and in that city received his
education. In 1867, having spent one year at St.
Louis, he found employment as a school-teacher in
Muscatine, Iowa. In the autumn of 1868 he moved
to Cass county, Nebraska, and located a homestead
on which he lived until 1875. In that year he
crossed the mountains to Washington, selecting
Olympia as his future home, and purchasing with
S. C. Woodruff as partner the stationery store of
A. J. Burr & Co. In 1881 Mr. Van Epps pur-
chased his partner's interest, and continued the
business, conducting one of the largest and most
successful book, stationery and notion stores to be
found on the Sound. In February, 1889, he sold
his store to his son, W. A. Van Epps, for some
years previous his able assistant, and opened his
present elegant office in the Olympia Block, where
he has done a general real-estate and loan business.
In public affairs Mr. Van Epps has been active
and progressive. He is a past grand master of the
Grand Lodge of A. O. U. W., and past grand rep-
resentative of the I. O. O. F. Of sterling integrity
and fine business ability, he has identified himself
with all the enterprises in his community which
have been undertaken to improve the city, and has
added to his own resources until he has become pos-
sessor of the enjoyments and comforts of a beauti-
ful home and the respect and confidence of the
people.
He was united in marriage in Muscatine, Iowa,
in September, 1868, to Miss Rosalia J. Schoonover,
a native of Indiana. By this union they have three
children, Eltney L., W. Arley, and Iva R.
ALBERT B. VAUGHN.—This leading man of
the younger generation in our state was born at
Cottage Grove, Lane county, August 16, 1857, his
father, J. W. Vaughn, being the proprietor of a
mill located there. Our subject remained with his
father until he was twenty-one years of age, receiv-
ing a common-school education. In 1878 he removed
to Rock creek, and three years later came to Arling-
ton, Oregon, and has made that flourishing town
his home until the present time, conducting a remu-
nerative business. In 1889 he was elected a mem-
ber of the city council, and occupies that position
to the present time. He is a man of growing influ-
ence, and one held in great esteem by all who know
him.
JOHN S. VINSON.-The proprietor of Nolin,
Oregon, was born in Iowa in 1848. His father,
James Vinson, was a native of Ohio, and was born
in 1808. In 1852 our subject crossed the plains
with his father, who located a Donation claim in
Clackamas county, Oregon, and was first postmas-
ter at the town of Needy, where he subsequently
kept a store. After the wars of 1855-56 he bought
largely of the volunteer scrip, which as yet has
never been paid by the government. This brought
the elder Vinson financial ruin, and caused him to
remove to Umatilla county in the early days, where
he has ever been a respected citizen, and is still hale
and hearty.
Our subject, John S. Vinson, was raised as a far-
mer in the old Webfoot" state, and received a
common-school education. At the age of nineteen
he began to do for himself, working for wages and
teaching school in Umatilla county. He finally
located a land claim at the town of Vinson in
1871. In 1873 he was appointed postmaster at
Vinson, and opened a general store in 1875, and
continued in that business till 1883. In 1885 he
purchased the site of Nolin, and was appointed
postmaster and commenced merchandising there,
and still follows that occupation. In 1880 he was
an unsuccessful candidate for the legislature on the
Republican ticket.
Nolin, situated six miles east of Echo, on the
Umatilla river, is a country village in a semi-devel-
oped though productive portion of Umatilla county,
and is the natural shipping point for about thirty
thousand acres of good wheat land. As its proprie-
tor and leading citizen, Mr. Vinson possesses the
requisite qualities to make it a progressive point;
and we may look for its steady growth.
JUSTUS WADE. This gentleman, the brother
of Phares E. Wade mentioned in these pages, was
born in Virginia in 1843. He remained with his
parents on the farm in Iowa, receiving a common-
school education, and in 1864 crossed the plains to
join his brothers in the Grande Ronde valley, arriv-
ing among them with but a five-dollar greenback,
which was then worth but two dollars in these parts.
He farmed three years with his brothers, and returned
to Iowa with eighteen hundred dollars, thinking to
remain there. But the beauties of the land of which
we write could not be erased from his memory; and
having, in 1868, married Miss Mary E. Connor, an
old schoolmate, he boldly set out in 1871 and returned
to the scenes of his former success. He engaged once
1



W.T.COOK,
CENTERVILLE, OR.

UNI
N
OF
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
617
:
0
He
more in farming and stock-raising, and pursued that
avocation until 1885, when he sold out the most of
his stock and engaged with a brother in a general
merchandise business in the town of Summerville,
Oregon, of which he is the present manager.
still conducts his stock farms and raises thorough-
bred cattle, and follows his real-estate interests in
town. His three daughters and a son are now attain-
ing adult life, and receive his careful supervision in
education and the acquisition of accomplishments.
Mr. Wade's business methods are bold as well as
successful. In 1876 he purchased of the Umatilla
Indians a band of Cayuse ponies, and drove them
across the plains to Nebraska, where he sold them.
Also in 1885 he drove three hundred of the horses
he had raised across the plains to the same point.
PHARES E. WADE.--A native of the Old
Dominion, born in 1840, the subject of this sketch,
at the age of fourteen, removed with his parents to
Iowa and engaged in farming, remaining at home
until 1863. In that year he crossed the plains to
the Grande Ronde valley, where he continued his
agricultural business, raising grain and stock, and is
at the present time living upon a beautiful farm, which
he has improved for nearly a quarter of a century.
This is two and a half miles east of Summerville,
Oregon, and consists of twelve hundred acres of re-
markably rich, level and productive land. Upon this
farm he has a handsome residence, with good out-
buildings and pleasant surroundings. He has large
bands of cattle and horses and flocks of sheep on
the surrounding ranges, and is living in health and
contentment. All this prosperity has sprung from
his own labor; since he had but a few dollars upon
his arrival here.
In 1865 he married Miss Mary C. Myers of the
Grande Ronde valley; and they have brought up
five children. Mr. Wade is a lover of the hunt, and
very many of the elk and deer which, in the sixties
and seventies, were wont to roam the mountains
that circle the Grande Ronde valley, have fallen at
the crack of his rifle. On one occasion he and two
companions killed seven elk within ten minutes.
In
THOMAS WADE.- Mr. Wade was born in
Virginia in 1837, and is the eldest of the three
brothers, mention of whom is made herein.
1853 he emigrated to Wayne county, Iowa, where
he engaged in farming, and so continued until 1862,
when he crossed the plains and located in the
Grande Ronde valley on his present homestead.
There he commenced with a capital stock of about
two dollars and fifty cents to assist in developing
that portion of our glorious Northwest, subsisting
on game and some flour from the Willamette valley.
The next spring he paid fifteen cents per pound for
seed wheat and oats. There he has delved and
digged until now, a hale and hearty man of fifty-
two summers, he is in possession of a thousand
acres of the choicest land in the world, with a fine
residence, out-buildings, orchard, a large herd of
range cattle, and a band of horses, including thor-
oughbreds in each line. He is a partner in the
large mercantile establishment at Summerville, and
is a notably hospitable as well as a successful and
happy man.
In the winter of 1866 he returned to Iowa by way
of San Francisco, Panama and New York, and
came back to Oregon in the spring of 1867. In
1870 he returned to Iowa and married an old friend,
Miss Lucy J. Jackson, of Van Buren county. Dur-
ing the years of his residence here, Mr. Wade has
crossed the plains four times, and has come upon
many fresh indications, such as embers still aglow,
of the devastations of Indians; yet luckily he has
never been attacked, and never lost anything by
them.
JUDGE AARON E. WAIT.- Judge Wait,
who needs no introduction to the people of Oregon,
was born in Whately, Massachusetts, on Sunday,
December 26, 1813. His father was a soldier in the
war of that period, and died in the service. His
family name on his mother's side was Morton, of
Scotch descent. His ancestry on his father's side
were English. At fourteen years of age Aaron
went to the adjoining town of Hatfield and learned
the "broom trade." By money earned at that
trade, and afterwards by teaching, he was enabled to
increase his education. He taught country winter.
schools, and was an assistant teacher in "Erasmus
Hall," Flatbush, Long Island, six months, but
never really liked teaching.
In 1837 he went to Michigan and located at Cen-
terville, the county-seat of St. Joseph county, where
he read law with Judge Columbia Lancaster, now
of Vancouver, Washington Territory. Judge Wait
has taken an interest in political matters since a boy,
and has always been a Democrat. In the presiden-
tial campaign of 1844 he edited a Democratic paper
in Michigan, and afterwards, until he left that state,
held the office of millitary secretary of his Excel-
lency, John L. Barry, Governor of that state. Judge
Wait was asked to accept important and honorable
office in Michigan under Governor Woodbridge, and
also under President Fillmore in Oregon, but de-
clined.
In the spring of 1847, Judge Wait, in company
with Judge Lancaster, wife and one child, and Mr.
Adam Van Dusen and wife, left Centerville with ox-
teams en route for Oregon, and arrived at Oregon
City about the middle of September of that year.
Watchful care was exercised; and no serious acci-
dent nor difficulty occurred on the journey. Other-
wise than being tiresome, the journey was not an
unpleasant one. Judge Wait in crossing the plains,
as before and since, because of near-sightedness,
wore spectacles. The Indians, pointing to the spec-
tacles, wanted to know what they were for. He
told them that they were to enable him to see
away off." From that they thought he could see
anything anywhere.
Soon after arriving in Oregon, Judge Wait entered
into an agreement with Governor Abernethy to edit
the Oregon Statesman for the year. The only ex-
changes of the Spectator at that time were a paper
published at Honolulu and two seven-by-nine papers
published in California, one at San Francisco and
the other at Monterey, which were received when
vessels arrived. At that time some of the people in
618
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
Oregon received letters and papers from the "States
once a year by immigrants.
When the Cayuse war broke out, Judge Wait was
appointed first assistant commissary-general under
General Joel Palmer. While engaged in that
capacity he had a little experience with a man well-
known on the Tualatin Plains, which is worth
repeating. He was endeavoring to get provisions
for the use of the troops in the field; and someone
said, "Go to God-Almighty' Smith. He is able
to give, but won't; but you try him." Judge Wait
arrived at Mr. Smith's late in the day, and made his
errand known. Mr. Smith said, "You must stay
with me all night; and we will talk it over." The
result was that he agreed to furnish an equipment for
one of the soldiers in the field, and rendered other
aid. He also went with the Judge to a settler's
ranch near the foothills, and assisted in procuring a
drove of hogs for the department.
In the summer of 1848 Judge Wait drew the deed
conveying the Portland townsite of over six hun-
dred acres from Francis W. Pettygrove to Daniel H.
Lownsdale, the consideration being five thousand
dollars in leather.
In the spring of 1849, the Judge went to Califor-
nia on a little seventeen-ton schooner built by his
friend Lot Whitcomb. At Sacramento he met Judge
Peter H. Burnett, who urged him to remain in Cali-
fornia. He remained, however, only until the fall
rains drove him out of the mountains. On his
return to Oregon he was elected commissioner to
audit the claims of the Cayuse war. The most of
them he audited, and has the satisfaction of know-
ing that every claim allowed by him was paid pre-
cisely as allowed.
Judge Wait was the first chief justice of the
supreme court of Oregon. He was also a member
of both houses of the legislature, and was elected at
one time mayor of the city of Portland, to fill the
unexpired term of Mayor Holmes. This last posi-
tion, however, he declined on account of ill health.
He has also held other offices and positions; but he
says that he never held an office for which he sought
a nomination, but that he has always preferred to
practice his profession. His doctrine in his younger
days was that no man had a right to ask office nor re-
fuse it. While on the bench during the war, he reluc-
tantly accepted a congressional nomination from the
Democratic party, and was defeated, as he expected
to be. He was one of the Democratic candidates
for presidential elector in the McClellan campaign,
and made the canvass in Eastern Oregon. At the
preceding June election, every county in Eastern
Oregon had gone Republican; but in November
every one went Democratic.
Judge Wait was engaged in nearly every impor-
tant land case growing out of the Donation law; and
his practice was generally as large as he could well
attend to. Early in the seventies his voice failed him
for public speaking; and he retired from his profes-
sion, since which time he has attended to but two
important land cases in the departments at Salem and
Washington. These were attended to at the request
of his friend, Judge O. C. Pratt of California.
After retiring from his profession he spent part of
two years with his wife and daughter in Southern
California for their health, and then went upon his
farm in Clackamas county. In the fall of 1886 he
went to Portland to make his home, and there has
lived ever since.
When he left the East his friends tried to deter
him from his undertaking, by saying that he would
be homesick; but he thought that almost an im-
peachment of his manhood. He told them that
perhaps he might be back in five years. As a mat-
ter of fact he did not again see the East till the
summer of 1884, when he went as a member of the
Democratic national convention. He has suffered
the deep afflictions of the loss of two wives and four
children. He now has but two children living.
These are Charles N. Wait of Portland, and Annie
Everline Hanford of Seattle.
Among the many interesting reminiscences of
Judge Wait's life, he tells of a conversation with
Doctor McLoughlin which has never appeared in
print. It was in his office in Oregon City. No one
happening to be present but themselves, the Judge
remarked playfully, "Doctor, they say that when
you were governor of the Hudson's Bay Company
at Vancouver, those who approached you were ex-
pected to do so with their heads uncovered. How
is that?"
The Doctor was taken all aback; and
reddening somewhat, exclaimed, "The French!
the French! A very polite people, a very polite
people!" The Judge said, "Of course, Doctor,
but-"; when the Doctor again exclaimed, more
vehemently than ever, "The French! Very polite,
very polite." Soon recovering himself, however,
the good Doctor gave reasons which required
neither blush nor palliation. Among other things
he said, "I was at the head of the Hudson's Bay
Company in this country. When I came there were
many Indians here. The success of the company,
depended on the manner in which the Indians were
treated and controlled. The lives of all the servants
and employés, and the property of the company,
were in my keeping. I knew enough of Indian
character to know that, if those around me respected
and deferred to me, the Indians would do the same.”
The Judge also remembers with great interest his
connection with Bishop Scott in passing the bill to
incorporate the Bishop Scott Grammar School at
Portland. Honorable Amory Holbrook drew up
the bill, and fixed the capital stock at five hundred
thousand dollars. The bill was intrusted to Judge
Wait to present to the senate. It passed that body
with no trouble, but met violent opposition in the
house. The astonished and mortified Bishop, who
had not dreamed of opposition to his purely benevo-
lent scheme, after listening in silence a few min-
utes to the aspersions on his noble purposes and
character, rose and left the room, muttering to
himself, Well, well, some people are wise and
some otherwise." Judge Wait has always said
that the good Bishop's indignation was “righteous
indignation." The bill was subsequently passed
with its capital stock reduced.
(C
The many interesting, thrilling and characteris-
tic anecdotes of this first and one of the most
honored of Oregon's judges would fill a volume;
and great is the privilege of those who may hear
them from his own lips.

સ
T. F. & J. W. BURGESS’ORCHARD.
ON THE SNAKE RIVER.
MESSRS. TABER & HOLT'S ORCHARD,
ON THE SNAKE RIVER.
UA
C
7
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
619
*
REV. ELKANAH WALKER. Rev. E.
Walker was born at North Yarmouth, Maine, Au-
gust 7, 1805, and was the son of a farmer. He was
brought up in his native place. He was converted
when about twenty-six years old, and soon after-
wards began to study for the ministry. He took an
academic course, but did not go to college, a fact
which he afterwards regretted. He entered Bangor
Theological Seminary, Maine, in 1834, and gradu-
ated in 1837.
Having given himself to the foreign missionary
work, he was appointed by the American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions to South Africa,
with Rev. C. Eells. But a fierce war between
two native chiefs there detained them; and in the
meantime the call from Oregon became so urgent
that, with their consent, their destination was
changed to this coast. He was ordained at Brewer,
Maine, as a Congregational minister in February,
1838, and was married March 5, 1838, to Miss Mary
Richardson.
She was born at Baldwin, Maine,
April 1, 1811. Before her engagement to Mr.
Walker she was appointed as a missionary by the
board to Siam; but after that event her destination
was changed first to Africa and then to Oregon.
The next day after their marriage they started
on their bridal tour across the Rockies, in company
with Rev. C. Eells, A. B. Smith, Mr. W. H. Gray
and their wives, where no white women had ever
traveled, except Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding.
They made the journey from Missouri on horseback,
and arrived at Doctor Whitman's station at Walla
Walla, August 29, 1838. The next ten years were
spent at Tshimakain, Walker's Prairie, among the
Spokane Indians, in company with Rev. C. Eells
and wife. At first the Indians were much inter-
ested; but, when they found that christianity meant
that they should give up gambling, incantations
and such things, their interest grew less, so that
none united with the church before they left.
Mr. Walker studied the language of those In-
dians quite thoroughly, and learned its scientific,
grammatical construction more thoroughly than his
companion, Mr. Eells. He prepared a small primer,
which was printed in 1841 on the mission press at
Lapwai, Idaho,-the only book ever printed in the
Spokane language.
After the massacre of Doctor Whitman and others
at Walla Walla in November, 1847, they remained
at their station until March, 1848, when they went
to Fort Colville, where they enjoyed the protection
of Chief Factor Lewis until June, when they were
escorted to the Willamette valley by Oregon volun-
teers.
Mr. Walker remained at Oregon City from June,
1848, until 1850, when he moved to Forest Grove,
Oregon, which was his home as long as he lived,
nearly thirty years. While at Oregon City he made
a tour with Doctor Hart, Indian Agent, through
some of the country east of the Cascades, but de-
cided that it was not his duty to return to that
region to live, although the Spokane Indians were
He also, with
friendly, and wished him to go.
four other ministerial brethren, organized the Con-
gregational Association at Oregon City in July,
1848.
From 1852 to 1856 he was pastor of a Presbyte-
rian church at Forest Grove; and from 1856 until
1875, with the exception of about three years and
a half, he was pastor or joint pastor of the Con-
gregational church at the same place, having been
assisted by Rev. S. H. Marsh, D. D., H. Lyman, C.
Eells and T. Condon. During that time eighty-two
persons united with the church, fifty of them on
profession of faith. The church building was also
erected during his pastorate at great effort, and at a
cost of over seven thousand dollars, of which he
gave one thousand.
In 1848 he aided in establishing Tualatin Acad-
emy and Pacific University at Forest Grove, of
which he was chosen a trustee in 1866, in which
capacity he served until his death,—eleven years,
and for which he gave a thousand dollars of his
property.
In 1870 he returned to Maine with his wife on a
visit, which he greatly enjoyed.
He died at Forest Grove, November 21, 1877,
aged seventy-two years. His wife still survives
him, and is living at the old homestead. He had
eight children,-Cyrus H., Abigail B. (Mrs. J. A.
Karr), Marcus W., J. Elkanah, Jeremiah (deceased),
John R., Levi C. and Samuel T. Of these, the
oldest, Cyrus H., was the first white boy born in
Oregon, Washington or Idaho,-December 7, 1838.
J. Elkanah has been a missionary in China since
1872; and four of them have at different times been
engaged in christian work among the Indians of
Oregon and Washington.
COL. WILLIAM H. WALLACE.-The sub-
ject of this sketch was born in Troy, Miami county,
Ohio, July 19, 1811. His early life was spent in
Indiana, where he studied law and was admitted to
the bar. In 1835 he removed to Iowa, and was
appointed, by Governor Lucas, colonel of the state
troops. He was elected a member of the first legis-
lature, and served as speaker of the house. He
was thereafter elected to the council, and was presi-
dent of that body. He was appointed, by President
Taylor, receiver of public moneys at Fairfield, Iowa.
In 1853 he removed to Washington Territory, and
served for several sessions in the territorial legisla-
ture, and was chosen president of the council of
which he was a member. He was appointed by
President Lincoln, in 1861, governor of Washington
Territory, and was afterwards elected delegate to
the Thirty-seventh Congress. Before his term ex-
pired, the territory of Idaho had been set off from
Washington, and he was commissioned the first
governor of that territory. Upon his arrival thither,
pending the first election, he was nominated by the
Republicans, and was elected first delegate to Con-
gress from that territory. When his term had ex-
pired, he returned to his Pierce county home, and
resumed the practice of his profession.
He was then elected probate judge of Pierce
county, which honorable position he held until his
death, which occurred in Steilacoom on February 7,
1879. Judge Wallace was a Mason for over forty
years, and was at the time of his death master of
Steilacoom Lodge, No. 2, A. F. and A. M.
620
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
During the Indian war he was captain of a com-
pany which did good service in the field, whilst his
wife and son slept in the blockhouse at Steilacoom,
to help hold the fort.
He was married February 3, 1839, to Miss Suzana
Brazelton, a native of Guilford county, North Car-
olina. She was a daughter of General Brazelton,
of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, and had a family of
three children, two daughters and one son. The
son, William W. Wallace, is living in Washington,
District of Columbia. He is in his forty-sixth year,
and has been clerk in the third auditor's office for
twenty-one years. He is married and has a family
of six children.
REV. A. F. WALLER. — Alvin F. Waller for
many years was one of the most familiar figures in
the pioneer life of Oregon. There was with him an
individuality of person and life that easily lifted
him out of the common multitude of the street and
the field, and marked him as no ordinary man.
For more than thirty years he wrought among the
foundations of Oregon society and life with a zeal
and a wisdom that made his name a proverb; and
no man was more widely known and more thor-
oughly respected than he.
He was born in Abingdon, Pennsylvania, in
1808, but removed to Elba, New York, before
reaching his majority, where he began his public
life as a preacher of the gospel about 1832. Soon
after he became a member of the Genessee Confer-
ence, in which very able and distinguished body he
maintained a good standing until 1839, when he
was appointed a missionary to Oregon. He came
to this then little-known country around Cape Horn
in the same vessel that brought Gustavus Hines and
J. L. Parrish, landing on the soil of Oregon June
1, 1840.
The most prominent fields of his work on this
coast were at Willamette Falls, now Oregon City,
The Dalles Indian mission, as presiding elder of
the Portland district, and as managing agent of the
Willamette University. While he had charge of the
Indian mission at The Dalles, his wisdom and
courage were often put to a severe test, as it was a
time when the Indians were restless, and when large
immigrations were entering the country overland;
but he always proved himself equal to the occasions
of either danger or responsibility that surrounded
him. Much good was done among the Indians by
his faithful ministrations; and his name is affection-
ately remembered by many of the older of the
Yakima and Warm Spring Indians until this day.
Perhaps the work in which Mr. Waller wrought
most successfully was as agent of the Willamette
University. This school was peculiarly the child of
his affections. He helped to lay its foundations as
the Oregon Institute; and for many years he put
his time and toil and money into it with the gener-
osity of a father's hand. In gathering means for it
he traveled all over Oregon repeatedly, and sought
among high and low the little or the much to help
forward this cherished interest.
He was once honored by his brethren in being made
delegate of the Oregon Conference to the general
conference of his church. For many years he served
gratuitously as chaplain to the state penitentiary,
and was held in highest esteem by its officers and
inmates.
As a man and a minister, Mr. Waller had great per-
severance, energy and fidelity, and was a clear,
logical, powerful preacher. His judgment had
weight in the public mind on all questions, whether
connected with state or ecclesiastical interests, because
his intellect was many-sided. He was a minister,
and had an intense loyalty to his church; but he was
more,—a broad, catholic, patriotic and public-spirited
man. In such pioneers as Alvin F. Waller a great
blessing came to the early days, when civilizations
were made and commonwealths founded on the
shores of the Pacific.
For nearly all the thirty-two years of his life on
this coast, the home of Mr. Waller was in Salem, in
which city he died December 26, 1872.
GEORGE W. WALLING.-George W. Wall-
ing was born in Ohio on December 18, 1818. He
moved with his parents to Iowa in 1828, and remained
there ten years. He came thence to Oregon in 1847,
crossing the plains by ox-team with his parents.
He was married in Iowa to Miss Frances Nye. His
first son was born at a place called Mud Springs, on
the summit of the Rocky Mountains. He arrived
in Oregon City on the 10th of September, 1847, and
remained there one year, when he moved to the place
he now occupies about two miles from Oswego, on the
west bank of the Willamette river, where he has
lived for over forty-one years. He once owned the
Willamette Nursery; but as old age grew on, and
feeling unable to attend to the business himself, he
turned it over to his oldest son, who now owns it.
He has a family of seven children, four boys and
three girls. He has been a school superintendent
for fifteen years, and is one of the leading old pio-
neers of his section. He still retains his vigor, and
takes an active part in the working of his magnifi-
cent orchard and farm.
JUDGE JOSHUA J. WALTON.- This emi-
nent jurist and public leader of our state was born
April 6, 1838, at Rushville, Illinois. At the age of
two years he was taken by his parents to a new
home near Springfield, Illinois. After a brief
sojourn there another move was made, bringing the
family as far west as St. Louis, Missouri; and in
1842 they moved on to Keosauque, Iowa.
In 1849
the plains were crossed with ox-teams, on the route
via Salt Lake City; and the journey was brought
to an end at Frémont, California, a place at the
junction of the Feather and Sacramento rivers.
Two years later the line of march was resumed;
and Yreka was made the objective. The next year
a more permanent location was found in the Rogue
river valley; and a Donation claim was taken on
Wagner creek on the beautiful farm now known
as the Beason place. That was at a time when the
Rogue river Indians were very troublesome, and
quite generally on the warpath. The elder Walton
engaged to some extent in mining at Jacksonville
and Rich Gulch; and young Joshua, then but a
lad of fourteen, also essayed to make his pile by
rocking a "Long Tom."
Long Tom." With his father he also
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
621
".
used to go on freighting expeditions to procure
goods from the Willamette valley for the market
at Jacksonville, Vreka, or the mining camps on the
Klamath; and his work was to ride the bell animal.
While thus occupied. he carried his school books,
and spent the slow hours in the saddle acquiring
the rudiments of an education.
Upon the outbreak of the Indian war in 1853,
the family went to the fort at Jacob Wagner's, and
remained until the autumn. By the various scares
and indeed great perils of the time, Mrs. Walton
had acquired a constant dread of the savages, and,
in order to give her less anxiety, Mr. Walton
decided to seek a new location, less isolated and
less exposed, and consequently sold his right to
Mr. Beason, and made the same year a new home
in the Umpqua valley, a few miles west of Oak-
land, in a little oasis known as Green valley.
Among other benefits derived from this change
was the advantage of a good school then just
started, at which Joshua made rapid progress in
his books under the tutelage of Professor J. S. Gil-
bert, a worthy man and an excellent teacher.
In the fall of 1858 a final removal was made to
Eugene City, Oregon. At that beautiful place a
permanent home was located; and there Judge Wal-
ton resides at the present time. With the excep-
tion of a short time spent in the Idaho mines, he
has resided there continuously. At that center,
which even in the early days boasted much culture
and ability, young Walton found opportunities not
hitherto enjoyed for the development of his mind,
and soon began the study of law under Honorable
Riley E. Stratton, then circuit judge of the second
judicial district. He also read somewhat with
Honorable Stukeley Ellsworth. He was admitted
to the bar in 1863, at the September term of the
supreme court, in the first class ever examined by
that court in open session. The class was large,
including in the number some whose names have
since become eminent, as C. B. Bellinger, Joseph
F. Watson, P. S. Knight and other men of mark.
Soon after completing his studies, Mr. Walton
was called upon to occupy public positions, and has
spent the greater part of his life in official or other
public duties. In 1866 he was elected county judge
of Lane county. In 1876 he was appointed to the
same position by Governor L. F. Grover, to fill the
place made vacant by the resignation of Judge John
M. Thompson. In the same year his position was
confirmed by election; and he served out a full
term. In 1874 he was elected president of the
Union University Association, and successfully
superintended the erection of the university build-
ing at Eugene, and also succeeded in securing the
location of the State University at that city. In
1880 he received the nomination for circuit judge
of the second judicial district; but the contest
resulted in the election of his opponent on the
Republican ticket, Honorable Joseph F. Watson.
Judge Walton has been twice married, first to
Miss Lizzie Gale, who died in 1873, and secondly,
in 1876, to Miss Emma Fisher.
MRS. ELIZA WARREN. — All will feel the
deepest interest in this intelligent and refined woman,
+
seeing that she is the daughter of the missionary,
Reverend H. H. Spalding. She is the "Eliza
whose name has become familiar in the many narra-
tives touching upon the history of Oregon. Not
only in her historical but in her own personal char-
acter, she well deserves the consideration of her
friends, whose number is that of all Oregonians.
Her father's consecration and her mother's life of
the utmost devotion reappear in her own, although
not now projected upon the black background of
tragedy as was theirs.
own race.
She was born at the Indian station at Lapwai,
among the Nez Perces, and was brought up princi-
pally in the schoolroom with her mother, until, at
the age of nine, it was deemed better to take her to
Whitman's school at Waiilatpu, where she might
have the companionship of more children of her
Her first trip thither was under the es-
cort of an Indian woman, her father being unable
to leave his post at the time. In 1847, after a visit
home in the summer, she was taken by her father
to Whitman's. That was but a short time before
the massacre of November 30th, a full account of
which is given in the general history of the first
volume of this work. The awful scenes of that
massacre, all of which were transacted before her
eyes, are still vivid in her mind. She was the only
one surviving who understood the Indian language,
and during the three weeks succeeding, while the
captives were held by the Indians, was called upon
to act as interpreter, both to explain the commands
of the Indians and the wants of the Whites. This
was a difficult, and, under the circumstances, heart-
rending position for a child less than ten years old.
She also sewed the winding sheets upon the muti-
lated bodies of the dead, when, by the command of
the priests, they were buried. She was not released
until the general ransom, notwithstanding the ar-
rival of two Nez Perce Indians with a message to
convey her to her father.
After the massacre, she came with her parents to
the Willamette valley, and at the age of seventeen
was married to Andrew Warren. Their child,
America, has the
America, has the distinction of being the oldest
grandchild of white parents born in Oregon.
Mr. Warren, who was born in Lexington, Mis-
souri, in 1822, and came to Oregon in 1852, served
during the Indian troubles of 1855-56, and became
thereafter a dealer in stock and a rancher east of the
Cascade Mountains. Returning in 1861 to Browns-
ville, for a seven years' residence, he spent subse-
quently much time in the Ochoco valley, develop-
ing a large stock interest. He died at his home in
Brownsville, Oregon, in 1886; and there his widow
still resides, enjoying good health, and being in
good circumstances. Her four children, America
J., Martha E., Amelia E. and James H., were all
born at that place and live in the vicinity.
W. H. WATKINS, M. D. — William Henry
Watkins was born in Yorkshire, Cattaraugus county,
New York, on the 16th of April, 1827. He grad-
uated as Doctor of Medicine from the Buffalo Medi-
cal College in 1849; and after his graduation as
doctor his thoughts turned to the Pacific coast and
i
622
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
to Oregon as a field of his life-work, whither he re-
moved in 1852. He settled first in Josephine county,
but in 1861 removed with his family to Portland. In
December of that year he tendered his services to
the government in view of the impending crisis.
brought on by the Rebellion, and was appointed
surgeon with the rank of major. His regiment was
the First Oregon Cavalry. He was with them in
all the burdens of war up to 1864, when the organi-
zation was dissolved and himself mustered out with
the rest in December of that year.
Returning to Portland he engaged in the practice
of his profession, and from that time until his death
enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most
careful, conscientious and successful of physicians.
It will be impossible to trace the life of this man
through all its multiplied forms and forces for good.
It fell to the lot of but few to do so much and in
such various forms, or to do all so well as he. As
a man, a citizen, he was intelligent and careful in
his estimates of public duty, and faithful and con-
sistent in the discharge of public obligations. Early
in his life in Oregon, he was intrusted with one of
the most important of public responsibilities by
being made a member of the convention that framed
the constitution of the state. There, as everywhere,
he did his work well, and won the confidence and
respect of all by his comprehension of the issues in-
volved in the deliberations of the body, and the work
it was called upon to perform. But his choice was
not the arena of political ambition, but the more
quiet field where he could work out his own ideal of
personal character and public good. He was one of
the noblest members of one of the noblest profes-
sions among men; and he honored that profession.
To him it was more than a profession; it was a mis-
sion. In it he was conscientious, charitable and
humane. Many are the homes of rich and poor that
have sadly missed the presence of this able and
learned physician, this earnest and sympathizing
friend, and this sincere and devoted Christian.
He was earnest and active in the Church, and
foremost in works of philanthropy. An excellent
popular lecturer upon temperance and medicine, he
became well known throughout the state, and was
one of those large-brained men to whom the people
look for substantial information, and who carry a
weight of personal character in every community or
line of endeavor in which they may operate. He
was one of those physicians who would anywhere
rise to the front rank in their profession, and, had
he chosen Philadelphia, New York or London as
the field of his practice, would not thereby have les-
sened his fame; for he had the qualities which would
have given him a reputation equal to the field in
which he worked. Although never giving personal
attention to political contests, he was ever ready to
assist the public in matters of political importance,
and served as a member of the constitutional con-
vention of Oregon in preparing it for admission as a
state of our Union. He served at various times as
member of the city council of Portland, and was also
one of the presidential electors on the Lincoln ticket
of 1864.
In April, 1858, he was married at Hempstead,
Long Island, to Anna E. Bloomfield, who was born
June 10, 1833, at Richfield Springs, Central New
York. The children born in their home, some of
whom are already well known in our society, are as
follows: William Bloomfield, now a physician of
Portland; Edward L., deceased; Frederick G.;
Francis, deceased; Lorinda V.; Mary Elizabeth;
Edna Louise; and Harry W.
WM. PENN WATSON.-Of those who came
to the Pacific Northwest in pioneer days and settled
within its boundaries, and closely identified them-
selves with its material, social and political welfare,
the exemplary citizen named above took a very
active and foremost part. He was born December
18, 1828, in Morgan county, Illinois. When he was
only three weeks old, his mother closed her eyes in
death; and the infant left behind was confided to
the care of foster parents, Allen Q. Lindsey and
wife, who gave the orphan boy the best of attention
and one of the best of homes. In those days the
advantages for securing an education were extreme-
ly limited; but with application and diligent study
at his adopted mother's knee, and during the three
months' term of school in the old log schoolhouse,
he mastered enough of learning to enable him at
the age of nineteen to begin teaching on his own
account. This avocation he followed during the
winter months, devoting the rest of the time to the
improvement of the farm and home of those who
had reared him.
In 1848 some of the neighbors conceived the idea
of emigrating to Oregon, and determined to start
during the spring of the following year. Our sub-
ject caught the fever of exodus himself; but being
without funds his dreams of accompanying the
others savored of nothing except disappointment
for him until a Mr. John C. Dennis, who knew his
worth, volunteered to assist him. This offer was
gladly accepted; and, his outfit being completed,
he bid adieu to the scenes of his childhood, and
with L. B. Lindsey and Samuel Green left for St.
Joe, Missouri. On arriving there they joined a
party of nineteen others, from Springfield, Illinois,
who were under the leadership of a Captain Baker.
This was a small party to undertake the long and
dangerous trip across the plains; but, being well
equipped with arms, and brave-hearted, they headed
their oxen towards the setting sun, and after a
wearisome journey of one hundred and twenty
days reached the far-off Oregon. The trip was
fraught with many incidents that would be inter-
esting reading; but the space allotted for biogra-
phies forbids herein a résumé of what took place.
Mr. Watson, however, kept a journal of what tran-
spired on the trip, and after his arrival gave in letters
to friends left behind his reminiscences of the jour-
ney, which were published in some of the Eastern
papers. These not only created a desire among
others to emigrate, but also contained valuable in-
formation to such, as well as amusing details.
He first located in Oregon City, the capital of
Provisional Oregon; and after a brief period, to-
gether with L. B. Lindsey and Isaac Constandt, his
comrades "the plains across," he secured a contract
to furnish Lot Whitcomb, of pioneer steamboat
fame, with a hundred thousand shingles and sixty

C.A.BARRETT,
CENTERVILLE,OR.
UNI
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
623
thousand feet of square timber. The compensation
for the shingles was to be five dollars per thousand,
and for the square timber ten cents per lineal foot,
all of which Mr. Whitcomb shipped to San Fran-
cisco and sold at fancy prices. While thus em-
ployed, our subject, true to the confidence reposed
in him by Mr. Dennis, began at once to save from
his earnings the amount sufficient to reimburse that.
gentleman for the sum expended by him in the
equipment furnished; and it was not long before our
subject had the requisite number of dollars, nor yet
much longer before they were in the hands of his
patron.
In the spring of 1850 he received a letter from
Mr. Dennis that the latter intended removing to
Oregon, and wished him to select him a location,
build him a house and prepare for the coming of
a large band of stock; and he at once set about
in this interest by going to the "classic shades of
Yamhill" county, where he built a house in Lafay-
ette, rented two farms and planted them extensively
with grain. About the time he expected Mr. Dennis
to arrive another letter came announcing a change
of mind, and that he was not coming. Thereupon
our subject closed out the enterprises and went to
Polk county, locating a homestead of three hundred
and twenty acres. He removed his young bride
thereto, he having been married previously, while
in Lafayette, to Miss Priscilla Patton of Yamhill
county. After proving up on this claim he removed
to Washington county, where he settled and began
fruit culture, but met with poor success, as his
orchard got frozen out. This disgusted him for the
time being in that business; and he invested in
beaver-dam land at Beaverton.
After reclaiming this he disposed of it at a hand-
some profit, and removed to Hood River in 1871,
and there undertook again the raising of choice
fruits, especial attention being given to peach-grow-
ing. After a fine success for a time, the blight of
1875 destroyed the orchard; and he was compelled
to abandon the enterprise. In conjunction with this
fruit farm he also established near The Dalles
another orchard on a large scale; but the climate,
not being suitable to the growing of the various
fruits, he had only indifferent success. Finding that
there was nothing to be made in fruit culture, he
engaged in the stock business in Pleasant Home
valley, Klikitat county.
Receiving sufficient inducements to sell, he dis-
posed of this ranch and removed to Yaquina Bay,
where he intended to take life easy; but, at the
earnest solicitation of his father-in-law, he removed
to Albina.. Here he thought of quiet and rest; but
it could not be so. An active brain would not ad-
mit of idleness; and he engaged in the real-estate
business in Albina, Portland and suburban property,
and is meeting with fine success. In this avocation
he ought to succeed; for he knows from what he
has seen where people miss great opportunities in
not investing in realty in growing cities.
look back thirty years and see himself out gunning
on a spot near where the Mechanics' Pavilion now
stands, and where soon afterwards he was at the
door of a rudely constructed woodsman's cabin,
without door, shutter or window, with the dirt floor
He can
for a fire-place. About the only culinary utensil to
be seen or had in those days was a frying pan; and
the bill of fare was "Oregon slab," or in other
words sliced bacon, potatoes, and black molasses for
dessert. Cedar blocks took the place of chairs; and
two poles placed in the cracks of the cabin and cov-
ered with moss answered for lounge and bed.
In contrast with these views the many palatial
residences now to be seen miles beyond the rural
and forest scene, or step inside, inspect and find
them grandly finished and furnished, the table
loaded with all and every delicacy the markets of
the world produce. In a word, a forest almost then,
and now a city which counts its population and
houses by the tens of thousands, riches by the mil-
lion, streets and street-car lines by the mile, and has
institutions of learning, churches, manufactories,
railroads, steamers, etc., of vast number, and with
new enterprises constantly springing up on every
hand. The story of the pioneer is a most irresistible
argument; and they who do not act upon his opinion
relative to what a decade will bring forth for Port-
landers will in time often remember his advice and
regret that they did not invest.
Mr. Watson has never been known to any great
extent in the way of grasping for the "loaves and
fishes" of office, the bent of his mind being for the
material welfare of the commonwealth through non-
party means. The most prominent feature of Ore-
gon's advancement for many years has been the
State Agricultural Society; and with this associa-
tion he has been identified for many years, serving
as its president for four terms. During such time
more of an interest was awakened among the people
than ever before to advance, in the way of the ob-
tainment and culture of better stock, grains, fruits,
etc., than what had previously been their habit to
raise; and the world at large gained a better knowl-
edge of Oregon, her industries, advantages and op-
portunities. The society, appreciating his efforts.
and success, at the close of his term of office pre-
sented him with a handsome gold watch, a token
much more honorable than one gained in the field
of politics. He has also been a member of various
societies of like nature ever since 1860, when the
first one in the state was organized, such being the
Horticultural Society of Clackamas county; and of
this one he served as president for two years. Mr.
Watson has always been a promoter of education
and morality, and an earnest worker against the
evils of liquor and tobacco, and justly prides him-
self that he does not use them in any form; and to
his credit it can be said that his three sons, now
reared to man's estate, touch, taste nor handle
not." Such men as he are state-builders in every
sense of the term; and the voice of Oregon will be,
when this nobleman among her number gives over
to the sleep that knows no waking, "Well done,
thou good and faithful servant.”
((
The maiden name of our subject's estimable wife
was Patton, her father being Hon. Mathew Patton,
now of Albina, Oregon. She was born in Lafay-
ette, Indiana, and emigrated to Oregon with her
parents in 1847. She became the wife of our sub-
ject in Lafayette, Oregon, January 4, 1851. The
fruits of this union have been five children, two
41
624
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
daughters and three sons, all of whom are living,
and are counterparts of their parents in morality,
integrity, respectability and kindness of heart.
REV. THOS. G. WATSON. To the ministry
more than to any other class of men does a community
owe its moral progress; and with such development
opportunity is given for progress in other directions.
This is strikingly illustrated in the life of the minis-
ter whose name appears above. He was born in
Geneva, New York, in 1836, and was educated in
his native place, graduating in 1857 from Hobert
College. He took his theological course at New
Brunswick, New Jersey, and entered upon mission-
ary work at Cayuga county, preaching eight years
at Cato, Fair Haven and Victory, and assisting one
church out of a heavy debt, and another to purchase
a new church and parsonage.
changed to Brighton Heights, Staten Island, at the
urgent request of the secretary of Domestic Missions;
and his ministry of two years was greatly blessed.
His health, however, was broken by excessive labor;
and he removed to Wisconsin in the fall of 1872, and
settled at Waukesha, which was then becoming at
watering place, popular on account of its numerous
springs. There he was called to preach to the First
Presbyterian church of that place, and consented to
do half work, and after a year and a half was in-
stalled as pastor. He remained there, laboring also
in the interests of Carroll College, until 1883.
His field was then
Under the returning desire to enter the missionary
field, he was appointed to the work which brought
him to this coast. The Board of Home Missions
assigned to him the charge of that portion of Eastern
Washington and Northern Idaho whose natural cen-
ter is Spokane Falls. He began the work in May,
1883, and the next month organized the First
Presbyterian church with nineteen members. This
church has since grown to a membership of one
hundred and seventy-five. A lot was purchased for
twelve hundred and fifty dollars in 1885; and in
1886 a pretty and commodious church was built at a
cost of forty-nine hundred dollars. Having outgrown
this church in two years, the property was sold for
twenty-one thousand dollars, and another location
selected on the south side of the railroad. During
this period of labor,-six years,-Mr. Watson also
organized churches at Rockford and Davenport, in
Lincoln county, Washington Territory, at Spangle,
Rathdrum and Coeur d'Alene City, in Idaho, and a
second church, the Centenary, in Spokane Falls,
Washington Territory.
Aside from his ministerial labors, he has taken an
active part in the development of Spokane Falls,
being one of the thirty who bought the water works
to secure them until the city could float its bonds.
He took an active part in the Board of Trade.
was one of the founders of the first Public Library
Association, and was its president several years, and
is now president of the new association.
He
Mr. Watson was married in 1861 to Miss Fannie
C. Seelye, who died at their residence on Staten
Island. He was married again in Waukesha to Mrs.
Walker L. Bean. They have three children, Walker
L. Bean, Fannie S. and Thomas S.
ALEXANDER WAUGH.— This gentleman is
a native of Indiana, and was born in 1826. He was
a farmer boy and navigator on the inland rivers.
Upon reaching mature life and being married, he
came west to Rock Island, Illinois, in 1853, and in
1864 was on the plains for Oregon, making a suc-
cessful trip despite an attack by the Sioux. He
made his first location on Birch creek, Umatilla
county, in September of that year, arriving with a
total capital of four mules and seventy-five dollars
in money.
His one hundred and sixty acres of land,
a small band of cattle, together with strict industry
and economy, have kept him on the steady up-grade
towards a competence; and in 1887 he realized ten
thousand dollars by the sale of cattle, which the
restricted range made it no longer profitable to
attempt to keep. He invested this capital in a large
tract of land, and continued in stock-raising upon
the safe basis of a large provision for the winter
months, and stall-feeding, and by replacing the
common or scrub cattle by graded animals of the
best breeds. His business success, which makes his
assets foot up to twenty-five thousand dollars, has
not been attained by the neglect of his duties to
society or to his family, having given his own chil-
dren a sound education, and also having assumed
the care and education of his orphan grandchildren.
JOHN W. WAUGHOP, M. D.- The subject
of this sketch was born in Tazewell county, Illinois,
October 22, 1839, and is now in his fiftieth year.
His early life was that common to boys on a
Western farm, working in the summer and going to
school in the winter. By the aid of private instruc-
tion, he prepared for and entered Eureka College, at
Eureka, in his native state.
Before the close of his college course, the war of
the Rebellion broke out; and those whose memory
runs back to that time can never forget the fire of
patriotism and enthusiasm which swept over the
land. The flames burnt brightest perhaps in those
centers of learning where the feeling was intensified
by the warm blood and generous impulses of youth;
and Eureka College, like many a more famous one,
sent out its devoted little company of student sol-
diers under command of a favorite professor. Young
Waughop formed one of this gallant band, and with
it took part in some of the bloodiest battles of the
war, among others Shiloh and Donelson.
Towards the close of the war his health became
impaired; and, as the active service of the Army of
the West had ceased, he sought and obtained a posi-
tion in the hospital service, a field offering great.
attractions to those contemplating the study of medi-
cine, the young man's chosen profession.
After the war had ended, Mr. Waughop prosecu-
ted his medical studies at Ann Arbor, and subse-
quently at the Long Island College Hospital, from
which latter institution he graduated with distinc-
tion.
He began the practice of medicine in White Cloud,
Kansas, of which city he afterwards became mayor.
In 1866 he married Eliza S. Rexford, second daugh-
ter of Stephen Rexford, a prominent citizen of Cook
county, Illinois.
county, Illinois. He then settled in Blue Island,
Illinois, and practiced his profession until 1871,
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
625
when he moved to the Pacific coast and settled in
Olympia, Washington Territory. He continued in
general practice in that city until 1880, when he
was elected superintendent of the Hospital for the
Insane of Washington Territory, at Fort Steilacoom,
which position he still holds. Through his efforts
a fine brick hospital building, with all modern im-
provements, has been erected; and to-day this insti-
tution ranks with the best in the country. The
wisdom and energy of the Doctor's administration
have more than justified the choice of the people,
and have shown them where to look when the need
appears for still further public services.
ALFRED H. WEATHERFORD.—This repre-
sentative citizen of Columbia county was born on
a farm in Missouri in 1853. While but a child he
suffered the loss of his father and mother. At the
early age of thirteen he began life for himself. His
first venture was in working on a farm at seventy-
five cents per day. In 1868 he emigrated to Cali-
fornia and worked on a farm for wages, until two
years later he came to Washington and bought a
ranch on the stream euphoniously termed Whiskey
creek, and in 1872 formed a home, marrying Miss
Allie M. Baldwin. In 1880 he changed his resi-
dence to Shutler Flat, twelve miles below Arlington,
and farmed there until 1884. In that year he was
honored by election as commissioner of Wasco
county, and upon its division was appointed com-
missioner of Gilliam county. In 1885 he disposed
of his property there and returned to Columbia
county, Washington, and purchased five hundred
and twenty acres of very productive land six miles
south of Dayton. He has since managed this farm
personally, raising an average of thirty bushels of
wheat to the acre.
At the November election in 1888, he was elected
representative to the Washington legislature. In
the following January he suffered the irreparable
loss of his wife by death, who left him with three
little boys and four little girls, whom to properly
educate and train has become his ambition. A large-
hearted, generous-minded man, Mr. Weatherford is
highly respected by his many friends, and fully
trusted by the constituency whom he publicly repre-
sents.
MRS.
M. WEATHERFORD.— Of all the
pioneers of Oregon, none have performed a more
devoted part than this now venerable lady, who is
well known and esteemed in our chief city. She
was born near Beaufort, North Carolina, September
22, 1822.
In her fifth year she accompanied her
father Josiah Harris and family to Indiana, making
a new home. In 1839 she was married to William
Weatherford, a young physician from Richmond,
Virginia. Thus united they entered upon various
scenes, and made their home in a number of different
places in the old West, selecting New Haven, Illi-
nois, as their first residence. The location, how-
ever, proving unhealthful, they advanced further
towards the outposts of civilization to Iowa, stop-
ping successively at Keosauque, Bonaparte and
Oskaloosa. With none of these were they fully
satisfied; and the Doctor determined to push to the
very verge of the continent, and to become a
builder of a new state on the Pacific shores. Pre-
paring for this great undertaking, he was able to be
off on April 22, 1852.
With his family of wife and five young children,
and in company with Mr. William Dart and family,
he set forth. Soon after starting, two young men
were taken into their company; and these were the
sole regular associates of their march. The journey
on the Nebraska or Platte river was made uncom-
fortable at times by bands of Pawnee Indians stop-
ping them and demanding toll; and more than once
Mrs. Weatherford was addressed by an Indian with
a drawn knife for a supply of victuals. By appeals
to their sympathy, she avoided difficulty. They
found the plains populous with emigrants, and were
not lacking in chance traveling companions. On
the plains east of the Rockies they were overtaken
by that dread pestilence which scourged the immi-
gration of that season,—the cholera,—of which
Mrs. Weatherford had repeated attacks; and the
Doctor was called upon to administer to the sick in
the trains before or behind. Great was the suffer-
ing thus experienced, and such that one in anticipa-
tion would not believe endurable.
On the western slope of the continent the mount-
ain or typhoid fever was almost as malignant, and
called for as great attention on the part of the
Doctor. It was, therefore, with great satisfaction
that in August they passed the ridge of the Cascade
Mountains, and at last saw Mount Hood behind
them. To a gentleman asking Mrs. Weatherford
how she had enjoyed the trip, she replied that if
that mountain were a wedge of solid gold, and
should be hers for crossing the plains to get it, she
would refuse the gift at that price;- not that she
was sorry for coming, but felt that her strength
would be insufficient for such an undertaking. It
was by the exertions of such wives and mothers,
who gave all but life and sometimes even that, that
our state was purchased from savagery.
The first home was made at Lafayette, the Doctor
entering there upon the practice of his profession.
He was led to believe, however, that at Portland
was the best opportunity for business and a career,
and in 1855 moved to the then little city in the
woods. Besides attending upon the sick, he estab-
lished in 1856 a drug business, dealing both in a
wholesale and retail line. In 1869 this was enlarged
by a branch house at Salem, under the management
of his son, J. W. Weatherford, now a practitioner in
Portland. Being a man of wide information and
much ambition, in about 1867 he assumed the man-
agement of the Herald, the Democratic paper of
Portland. He found it in a bankrupt condition;
but so able and popular was his management that
it almost immediately became a financial as well as
a literary success.
Owing to the cares of a business so extensive, he
began to decline in health, and in 1872 retired from
active business in Portland, although still retaining
his interest at Salem. In 1880 his life forces gave
way; and he passed from this to the better life.
Although in the midst of much weakness during
the last weeks of life, he preserved his faculties in
perfect clearness, had his business affairs in perfect
626
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
order, and was afflicted by no dread nor shadow of
the future. He left his family provided with ample
means.
During the years of her husband's activity, Mrs.
Weatherford made for him a home of comfort and
refinement, strengthened his hands in the commu-
nity, and herself furnished of her endowment some-
thing of the refinement and better ideas so essential
to transform the wild society of early Oregon into
our present elevated position. The labor of creating
christian communities in our state fell, as the credit
should be awarded, to women like Mrs. Weather-
ford, who would not lower their conception of life,
even though living away from all the ordinary incen-
tives to social exertions.
She has reared a family of nine children: Mary E.
(Mrs. F. H. Simmons); J. W.; William G. (deceased);
Lewis C.; Emma C. (Mrs. S. S. Douglas); Sarah
E. (Mrs. David Steel); Ada H. (Mrs. R. Schmidt);
Lilly M. (Mrs. Doctor S. N. A. Downing); and
Charles E.
EDGAR J. WEBSTER.—Mr. Webster not only
has a claim upon our interests as a citizen of Wash-
ington Territory, but also as a veteran of the war.
Born in Michigan in 1847, he was of an age, at the
commencement of hostilities, to enter the army,
whither his father and three brothers had already
gone. At the battle of Cold Harbor, he was shot
through both legs, and after a year's confinement in
the hospital returned home and pursued the legal
and special literary course at the State University.
During the last year of his course, he was appointed
private secretary of Thomas M. Cooley, and through
him received the appointment of United States
deputy marshal for taking the census of 1870. Fin-
ishing that arduous work, he began the practice of
his profession at Hudson, Michigan, but within a
year suffered, a loss of all his office and equipment
by fire. This led him to make a tour of California,
during which he also visited nearly all the towns
and cities in the West, and returned home by water
by way of New York City. Disposing of his
property, he returned by water to the Golden state,
visiting the cities of Mexico and Central America
on the way. At Oakland he found employment as
deputy county clerk, and afterwards practiced law,
remaining ten years. There he was also married to
Miss Ida S. Grisby. In 1883 he came to Spokane
Falls, Washington Territory, locating permanently
and engaging in the practice of his profession. He
furthermore undertook real-estate and mining inter-
ests. He has identified himself largely with the
educational interests of the city, developing the
present admirable school system, and has acted for
six years as trustee. He is one of the foremost in
these as in all the public concerns of the city of his
choice.
HON. ALLEN WEIR. This universally
known and universally respected maker of public
opinion and founder of pioneer institutions in Wash-
ington Territory, of whom we present a portrait,
was born in Los Angeles county, California, April
24, 1854, and is therefore in his thirty-sixth year.
In 1860 the family removed from California to Puget
>>
Sound, arriving at Port Townsend June 1st of that
year. They located on government land in the
Dungeness river bottom in Clallam county, and
there resided and " grew up with the country.'
They were among the early pioneers of that section,
moving in when there were but a few white families
in the whole country. In such surroundings young
Allen became accustomed to toil, and to that inde-
pendent, self-reliant industry that overcomes natural
obstacles and plants civilization where previously
existed only a wilderness or an arid desert.
His father, John Weir, was a typical frontiersman.
Born and raised in Missouri (his father before him
a hunter and trapper for the Missouri Fur Company)
John Weir combined the sturdy qualities that impel
men to push out into Western wilds. He crossed
the plains with his family, journeying by ox-teams
from Texas to California in 1853. Finding that the
best lands about Los Angeles and Santa Barbara
were owned in large Spanish grants, he pushed
northward in 1858, going to the Frazer river gold
mines. By the time he reached Victoria, however,
the excitement had subsided; and he crossed Puget
Sound and took up land at Dungeness, the family
(four daughters and two sons) following two years.
afterwards. Mr. Weir was thoroughly identified
with the best interests of the community in which
he lived.
he lived. In all the local Indian troubles, and when
white vagabonds had to be driven out by vigilantes
for the common public safety, he was one of the
foremost in protecting lives and property. He en-
joyed the respect and confidence of all who knew
him. His father, the grandfather of our subject,
William Weir, crossed the Rocky Mountains in
charge of a small party of hunters and trappers in
1808, returning in 1809, four years after the Lewis
and Clarke expedition. They passed the entire
winter on the banks of the Columbia river, about
where the city of Portland, Oregon, now stands.
John Weir was the village blacksmith at Dungeness
during the sixties; and his boys worked with him
at the forge when not engaged in clearing the heavy
growth of timber from the land.
In 1866 the elder of the two boys, Marion, died
after a prolonged illness. The father had to seek
employment at a neighboring sawmill; and Allen
(then but twelve years old) was left to take charge
of the little farm, which by that time had been
cleared and was in cultivation. From that time
until he was nineteen, he could not be spared from
the work at home long enough to attend even one
term of school. He had, however, an aptitude for
books, and put in the long winter evenings study-
ing. At nineteen he was "given his time” and a
father's blessing, and set out with no earthly pos-
sessions but the clothes he wore, to seek fame and
fortune. His first object was to obtain an educa-
tion; and to get the means it was necessary to work
two years, which he did, the latter part of the time
being occupied in driving a team in a logging camp.
When finally the long-anticipated opportunity for
schooling came, it was appreciated far more than
such opportunities ever can be appreciated by the
petted sons of luxury who never learn to work their
way. During the two years when young Weir was
attending school at the Olympia Collegiate Insti-

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1881
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Bejelen
ESHELMAN, LLEWELLYN & CO Real Estate Brokers
ESHELMAN, LLEWELLYN & CO.REAL ESTATE BROKERS,
SEATTLE, W.T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
627
tute, no student could be found more industrious
than he. With natural abilities long before noticed
and commented upon, with a love for books that
amounted to a passion, with a vigorous physical
constitution capable of enduring the severest strain,
with a fond instructor who saw and appreciated
what there was in the young man, it is not remark-
able that he accomplished more during those two
years than is usually accomplished in five. Even
though carrying half a dozen studies, and doing the
janitor work in the academy building, he found time.
enough to ransack large libraries to which he had
access, and to acquire a reputation in a local debat-
ing club conducted by grown-up college students.
Before his studies were half completed, he began
to learn the printer's trade and to fit himself for
the practical duties of journalism. At the age of
twenty-three, within two weeks from the time he
left school, he was doing the editorial work for a
daily newspaper in Olympia; and, before a month
had elapsed, he had purchased the Puget Sound
Argus newspaper and job-printing office at Port
Townsend, where he immediately settled himself in
business. There he forged his way steadily ahead
from small beginnings until, at the end of twelve.
years, he sold out and retired from active business
with a comfortable competence. It was in this
newspaper field that he acquired most of his hard-
earned fame in public affairs. With slender means
at the start, he met obstacles which, to an ordinary
person, would have been insurmountable. An ardent
adherent of the Republican party, he had advocated
its principles in season and out of season, and suc-
cessfully, too, though the prevailing sentiment in
his town was Democratic. Four opposition news-
papers went down in succession before his energy
ere a Democratic newspaper was finally established
in the town.
Mr. Weir was also an enthusiastic temperance
worker, and was active in church matters.
Neither
of these proclivities added to his popularity in the
dominant saloon element in his town; yet he was
respected and extensively supported by the very
class of people whose interests he most vigorously
opposed. A member of the Methodist-Episcopal
church, he had been licensed as a local preacher
before he left school. After entering business, he
served two years as secretary of the grand lodge of
Good Templars for Washington and British Colum-
bia, being subsequently elected presiding officer by
acclamation.
At the territorial legislative session of 1879, he
served as chief clerk of the council, performing the
duties of the position so well that the completed
record was filed with the territorial secretary sixteen
hours after adjournment. Subsequently he was
elected justice of the peace and police judge of Port
Townsend, serving two full years. He served part
of a term as regent of the Territorial University,
and was at its expiration appointed a member of the
Territorial Board of Health. In that capacity he
served three full terms of two years each, being
chairman of the board the last term. He was de-
feated for a seat in the territorial legislature by a
mere scratch, owing to a failure of a full vote in one
precinct, in 1884. In 1888, however, he was elected
a member of the upper house of the legislature by a
majority of nearly a thousand in a district composed
of seven counties. In both instances his opponents
were excellent gentlemen. In the spring of 1889,
upon preliminary steps being taken to organize a
state government, Mr. Weir was elected a member
of the constitutional convention, and was also one
of three prominent candidates for the nomination
of his party for member of Congress from the new
state.
As a newspaper publisher and editorial writer,
Allen Weir has long since occupied a place in the
front ranks. The Argus under his management
rapidly became one of the most prominent and
widely quoted papers in the territory. Locally it
was a power felt in the promotion of every public-
spirited enterprise. In June, 1882, Mr. Weir began
publishing a daily edition of the paper, being the
first daily newspaper ever published in Port Towns-
end. It was successful from the start.
Two years
later he became secretary of the local Board of
Trade; and in that capacity, as well as with his
newspaper, he labored incessantly and effectively
for the growth of the town.
His first entry in the field of territorial politics
was in 1884, when he was chosen a member of the
territorial Republican convention, and headed a
large delegation in the interest of a leading con-
gressional candidate. He took part in the campaign
that followed; also in 1886 he was a member of the
territorial convention, and canvassed over half the
territory, delivering speeches that commanded at-
tention everywhere. In 1888 he was again a mem-
ber of the territorial Republican convention, and
was elected its secretary without opposition. In the
campaign that followed, he scored more than an or-
dinary victory. During the winter following, he
was a member of a statehood convention called to
meet at Ellensburgh. Mr. Weir possesses the graces
of oratory, and never lacks the courage of his con-
victions. While yet a young man, his future part
in public affairs may be estimated from the fruitful
past.
He enjoys the benefit of a large circle of personal
friends, and is happy in his domestic relations. He
was married in November, 1877, to Miss Ellen
Davis of Dungeness, the fruits of the union being
three bright children. Their home in Port Towns-
end, Washington, is distinguished for comfort and
attractiveness.
CAPT. WILLIAM BENJAMIN WELLS.
This skillful early navigator of the Willamette and
the Columbia, and one of the first projectors of the
great steamboat and transportation companies of the
later time, was born in Ogdensburg, New York,
July 18, 1822, and at that port imbibed his love of
the water which followed him his whole after life.
At the age of twelve he moved with his father to
the western district of Upper Canada, remaining in
that province until his marriage in 1844 to Miss Mary
J. Richardson. The young pair, who were very
much devoted to each other, were ambitious to try
life in the Western territories, and removed to Iowa,
engaging in agriculture. Mr. Wells, however, was
not satisfied with this secluded life, and took service
628
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
on one of the barks on the lake. During a severe
storm he proved his coolness and intrepidity, and
for his gallant conduct was promoted. He further
showed his humanity and devotion to the suffering
at Ann Arbor, where his ship was detained while
the cholera was raging. For many days and nights
he took care of those in all stages of that.dreaded
disease, many of whom were deserted by all others.
Returning to his family in 1849, he prepared for
the journey to Oregon, and accomplished that great
undertaking the following season. Reaching our
state, he engaged in boating on the Columbia above
The Dalles. Little later he invested his returns from
that business in the Eagle, a steamer on the Lower
Willamette, and with Captain Richard Williams as
partner plied between Oregon City and Portland.
Two years afterwards the captains built for them-
selves the steamer Bell (1853), and operated with her
on the Lower Willamette and the Columbia, on the
line with the steamer Mary above the Cascades.
In 1856 he was active in the Indian war, trans-
porting troops under Phil Sheridan from Vancouver
to the portage. In the fight which occurred soon
after, there happened a pleasant incident, hitherto
unrelated, illustrating the coolness of our Captain.
Being a portly man of fine bearing, and standing
somewhat exposed observing the fight, a stray bullet
passed so near as to take a cigar from his mouth and
to kill a soldier at his side. A non-commissioned
officer standing by observed, "Captain, with your
permission I will retire a little, as you are most too
conspicuous a mark for this occasion.”
Captain Wells took the first boat that ever went
through the basin up to the Willamette Falls Com-
pany's works, on the Linn City side of the Willa-
mette opposite Oregon City, in 1854. He also took
the first boat that went from the Lower Cascade
Landing to the Middle, and the first that went from
the Middle to the Upper Cascades.
In 1859 he sold his interest in the steamer to the
Oregon Steam Navigation Company, and established
himself at North Cove, Shoalwater Bay, Washing-
ton Territory, taking a pre-emption claim and in-
creasing his domain by purchase. He invested also
in stock, and became a successful seacoast rancher
in one of the most salubrious and delightful of all
our seaward looking valleys.
In February, 1863, his useful life was ended, his
brave heart stilled, by an accident in a sailboat.
While crossing the bay in a plunger, a squall struck
and capsized the little craft, drowning Captain Wells
and his companion, a Mr. Clymer.
His wife having joined her husband in 1853, she
undertook, upon his death, the conduct of the farm,
and managed it successfully, until in 1869 she was
united in marriage with Honorable W. W. Bristow
of Eugene, and is now passing her years in the re-
finements of society and of a pleasant cultivated
home at the city of Portland.
WILLIAM A. WETZELL. The gentleman
of whom we write was born in Washington, Vir-
ginia, on October 3, 1852. His parents are Jefferson
and Catherine Wetzell, of good old Virginia stock.
He lived with his parents in Virginia until 1861,
when they moved to Farmer City, where William A.
•
In
attended the public schools. At the early age of
seventeen years he began teaching in the same.
1876 he was admitted to the Illinois Wesleyan Uni-
versity, where he took an eclectic course, and was
regarded as one of the brightest and most promis-
ing students of that institution. After finishing the
course, he entered the State University, where he
occupied the chair of professor of elocution and as-
sistant teacher of English, both of which positions
he filled to the entire satisfaction of the board of
regents, and with honor and credit to himself.
After two years he resigned his position and ac-
cepted the one tendered as superintendent of the
East Portland schools, in 1884. The Professor
brought to these schools the ripe experience of fif-
teen years as teacher in the best schools of Illinois.
The success in East Portland has been almost phe-
nomenal; and no educator in the public schools
stands higher in the esteem of the pupils and pa-
trons. The people of East Portland are justly proud
of their schools, and believe Professor Wetzell to be
the right man in the right place. In 1888 he was
elected school superintendent for Multnomah county,
and has there, as always, proved himself equal to
the emergency. The schools under his manage-
ment have grown in efficiency until they are unex-
celled by any in the Northwest.
CALEB N. WHITE.-Mr. White is a represen-
tative of that class of our citizens who have gained
from their own strength and application a share in
the advantages and wealth of our Western commu-
nities.
He was born in Illinois in 1850. In 1864 his par-
ents took the first steps of the journey across the
plains; but, the father dying at Fort Bridger, the
family was compelled to remain there over winter.
While thus waiting, cattle to the value of one thou-
sand dollars were stolen from them. With the
opening of the following season, however, the
journey was resumed; and the Grande Ronde valley
was reached in September, 1863. Upon their arrival
there were but seventy-five cents in the family; and
Caleb and his brother began at once seeking and
finding work for the maintenance of the others.
In 1871 they came into Indian valley, Oregon,
north of the Grande Ronde, and there laid claims.
The sickness and death of his brother within the
next year was a severe trial to Caleb; but neverthe-
less, maintaining a stout heart, he clung to his place,
cultivating and improving it. His operations have
gradually enlarged, until he is at present owner of a
fine herd of cattle, with other livestock. He has a
pleasant home, and has a family of wife and six fine
children. In that beautiful valley of his choice he
has met the prosperity which everywhere awaits
patient labor.
In 1866, during the Nez Perce trouble in the
Wallowa, Mr. White was sergeant of the volunteers,
and guarded the few persons living in that much-
exposed settlement. During the trouble the two
succeeding summers, the same efficient duty was
performed. For that service, as well as for his
general character and abilities, Mr. White is very
highly esteemed in his community.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
629
S. S. WHITE. The pioneer experiences of
Judge White are of an exceptionally interesting
character. This well-known and highly valued
citizen of Portland was born in Franklin county,
Indiana, December 14, 1811. His father was much
of a frontiersman, and, after a removal to Ohio in
1815, went three years later to Sangamon county,
Illinois, settling on Sugar creek, twenty miles south
of Springfield. This was then a remote and un-
occupied region, Mr. White's family and those of a
Mr. Ellis and Mr. Vancil being the only families.
within the limits of the present Sangamon and
Morgan counties, and sixty miles from white settle-
ments. Various removals were made subsequently
within that state. Upon arriving at his majority,
young White entered the mercantile business, and
continued in it near Galesburg.
In 1831 occurred his marriage to Miss Huldah
Jennings; and the next year an effort was made in
company with Mr. Amzi Doolittle, and M. M. Mc-
Carver, so well known as one of our early citizens,
to settle on a tract of land soon to be thrown open
in consequence of a treaty of relinquishment from
the Indians. The land was not to be subject to
settlement until June of that year; but, not appre-
hending any opposition, these men located lands
and put up cabins in February, but were removed
with much rigor by government troops under
Jefferson Davis, then a lieutenant in the United
States army; and their cabins were burned. Even
a shed built afterwards to protect their household
goods while the families were absent in Knox
county was destroyed. Nevertheless a claim was
secured there, and was occupied until a removal to
Burlington. Taking up and closing out business at
Burlington, and in Hancock county, Illinois, he
entered into partnership with Mr. Doolittle in 1840
to operate a ferry at Madison. In 1845 he crossed
the plains for Oregon, bringing the family of Mr.
McCarver, who met them at The Dalles with a bateau
and crew to transport them down the Columbia.
With difficulty provisions were obtained at that
point for the eight days' trip down to Vancouver.
Owing to the necessity of driving the stock, — one
hundred and forty-four cattle and thirty horses,-
the journey was prolonged to four weeks; and,
after the usual food was exhausted, the nine men
subsisted solely upon milk boiled and thickened with
a little flour. The autumn storms were also blow-
ing; and the buffalo robes with which the immi-
grants were provided became soaked with rain.
They peeled off the hair, and grew rank to the
smell. They had no tents.
Reaching the valley, however, without sickness
or disaster, Judge White purchased a farm near
Oregon City, but was soon sought by Governor
Abernethy as the very man wanted for associate
judge of Clackamas county under the Provisional
government. The year following he was advanced
to the position of chief justice of Clackamas county.
The judicial work of those days, although of com-
paratively small volume, was exacting; and the
fidelity with which it was done may serve as a per-
petual admonition to the future. Judge White was
also elected to the Oregon legislature, and upon
taking his seat in 1847 was almost immediately
called upon to prepare legislation with reference to
the Whitman atrocity, just perpetrated,— being
appointed on a committee of three to draft a bill to
authorize raising a military force. The bill prepared
by him was adopted, notwithstanding some vigorous
opposition from Colonel Nesmith.
In 1848, as the news of gold in California came
to our settlements, the judge consented, after hesi-
tation, to the proposition of Peter H. Burnett to go
with wagons to the mines. Letting their purpose
be known, and naming the 13th of September as
the day of their departure,- but five days distant,
they were joined by forty-two wagons, and un-
der the guidance of Thomas McKay made the journey
to the Sacramento. The open pine woods offered
little obstruction; and no difficulty was experienced
until reaching a belt of fir with underbrush and
fallen logs, near the divide of Feather river. After
passing Pitt river, they followed in the tracks of
wagons coming in at that point from the East, and
overtook a band of utterly discouraged and worn-
out immigrants tangled in the forest. This was a
party under one Lawson; and, with teams and pro-
visions exhausted, they were giving themselves up
for lost. A hundred Oregon axes, however, made
short work of cutting a road forty miles through the
fir woods; and Oregonians and immigrants went on
together to the Sacramento. They were none too
early, as the mountains were white with snow as
they left them in their rear.
Six weeks' work on the Yuba brought them about
a hundred ounces of dust apiece; and the mines
were left, and San Francisco reached in time to take
passage on a bark for Oregon, the same vessel
that brought up General Lane and his escort. The
journey was uncomfortable from the crowd; and the
passengers were on an allowance of water six of
the eighteen days of the passage. The trip from
Astoria was by canoe, there being no other means of
transportation.
Expecting to return to dig gold the following
spring, Judge White made all preparations, but,
learning that his partners Jennings and Hannah
had engaged in the mercantile business, he deemed
it best to remain in our state, and engaged in build-
ing the Lot Whitcomb, of which he was a one-fourth
owner, the first steamer built on our waters. This
boat was sold to advantage in San Francisco after a
few years.
The Judge resided principally on his farm
until his removal to Portland in 1873. For a
number of years subsequently he was himself en-
gaged at Tacoma in erecting buildings for business
purposes and in providing a residence for his family.
The failure of the Northern Pacific Railroad Com-
pany, however, induced his return to Portland; and
he is there well known as a justice of the peace, an
office which he held for six years.
Although age has not left him without its im
press, it sits lightly upon his shoulders; and he is
still, at the age of seventy-eight years, full of vigor,
and does the work of a very active man.
MARCUS WHITMAN, M. D.-A volume
might be written in regard to the life and death of
this man. Hence, in the brief space here given to
630
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
him, only a synopsis of his life can be given. He
was born at Rushville, New York, September 4,
1802, and was the son of Beza and Alice (Green)
Whitman. His father having died in 1810, he was
brought up by his paternal grandfather, at Plain-
field, Massachusetts. There he was converted in
1819; and in January, 1824, he joined the Congre-
gational church at his native place, of which he re-
mained a member until 1833, when he united with
the Presbyterian church at Wheeler, New York, of
which he was elected a ruling elder. In 1838 he
was one of the original members of, and the elder
in, the Presbyterian church at Walla Walla, the first
church of that denomination on the Pacific coast.
He studied medicine under Doctor Ira Bryant, of
Rushville, receiving his diploma in 1824. He prac-
ticed four years in Canada, and afterwards in
Wheeler, where, in the winter of 1834-35, he be-
came interested in Oregon, through Reverend Sam-
uel Parker. He started the next spring with Mr.
Parker, and went as far as the rendezvous of the
American Fur Company on Green river, when it
was thought best for the Doctor to return for more
missionaries, while Mr. Parker should proceed and
explore. On his journey he performed some very
important surgical operations on some of the mount-
ain men, which gave him a reputation that was of
great service to him afterwards. On his return he
took with him two Indian boys, who went to school
'that winter, and returned to Oregon with him the
next year. That winter he was married to Miss
Narcissa Prentiss, a daughter of Judge S. Prentiss.
She was born at Prattsburg, New York, March 14,
1808.
Having procured Rev. H. H. Spalding and wife
and Mr. W. H. Gray, as colaborers, in 1836 he
again started for Oregon. Mrs. Whitman, with
Mrs. Spalding, made this journey mainly on horse-
back, the first white women to cross the continent,
an event which proved to be of very great impor-
tance to Oregon, as far as homes and settlements
were concerned. The Doctor, with great difficulty
and with no little opposition from others, but with
great perseverance, took a wagon as far as Fort
Boise, an event which likewise greatly affected the
destinies of Oregon.
On the 2d of September they reached Fort Walla
Walla one day in advance of Mr. Spalding, and
were received with great demonstrations of joy.
Having visited Fort Vancouver, in order to consult
with Doctor McLoughlin, Governor of the Hudson's
Bay Company, he returned to Walla Walla and set-
tled among the Cayuse Indians at Waiilatpu on the
Walla Walla river, six miles from the present city of
Walla Walla.
There Alice Clarissa Whitman, the only child
they ever had, was born, March 4, 1837, believed to
be the first white child born on the Northwest coast;
but she lived to be but little more than two years
old, when, June 23, 1839, she was accidentally
drowned in the Walla river.
That was their home until the time of their death.
They labored earnestly and faithfully to teach agri-
culture, civilization, morals and the christian relig-
ion; and although but few if any of the Indians
united with the church, and some of them helped
in the massacre, yet subsequent events have shown
that some of those Cayuses were true Christians;
and the seed then sown is still growing in the Prot-
estant church on the Umatilla reservation.
In the winter of 1842-43 Doctor Whitman made
his famous winter journey across the Rocky Mount-
ains to the Eastern states, with Hon. A. L. Love-
joy, amid great suffering and hardships. There has
been much discussion in regard to his reasons for
doing so, the editor-in-chief of this work, Colonel
Elwood Evans, taking one view, and the writer an-
other. This is not the place for much discussion of
the subject; but perhaps the writer may be permit-
ted to say that to his mind, and to that of many
others, the evidence is such as to induce the belief
that he had at least four objects in view:
1. To induce the American Board to rescind the
order which they had given in 1842 to abandon the
stations of Doctor Whitman and Mr. Spalding;
2. To induce christian lay families to come and set-
tle in the regions of the missions, as a nucleus for
further settlements, and as a support to the missions;
3. To induce emigrants of all kinds to come to
Oregon; 4. And to do what he could to convey
such information to the authorities at Washington,
that they should know of the value of Oregon, and
not trade off any part of it to Great Britain.
In the first of these objects he succeeded; in the
second he failed. According to almost universal
testimony, he did very much to aid the immigration
of 1843, the first with wagons to come successfully
through; and, in regard to the fourth, opinions
differ.
After his return his work went on until suddenly,
November 29, 1847, at his station, the massacre oc-
curred, in which he and his wife were killed by the
Indians. On that day, and a little later, twelve
others lost their lives; and the missions of the
American Board in Oregon were broken up.
A wide discussion has taken place as to the causes
of this massacre; but this is not the place to con-
sider them. They fell at their post, died a martyr's
death, have been honored with a martyr's memory
in this world, and a martyr's crown in heaven.
WM. H. WHITTLESEY. This popular
young gentleman, who has brought to our coast a
business capacity and enthusiasm of progress which
augers well for the city in which he has made his
home, was born in Virginia August 8, 1858, and is
a son of the gallant Major Joseph H. Whittlesey of
the United States Army. The mother, Kate K.
Fauntleroy, belonged to one of the first families of
the Old Dominion.
The son William, of whom we write, remained in
the south while his father, the major, was trans-
ferred to the Department of the Columbia, having
command of Fort Dalles; and his grandfather,
General Fauntleroy, was in command at Vancouver,
and later at Benicia, California.
Upon the outbreak of the Civil war, the family
returned to their old home; and after this fearful
political storm was over, and the year of 1872
reached, our subject, now become an ambitious
youth, went to Princeton College, graduating with
honor four years later, then being but eighteen


GEO. F. SCHORR,
SPOKANE FALLS, W. T.
UNI
OF
/C
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
631
years of age. Repairing to Washington City, he
entered the Columbia Law School, securing a legal
education, and also filling a position as clerk in the
War Department at the Capital.
Seeking a career at the West, he came to Lead-
ville, Colorado; and, being admitted to practice in
the supreme court of the state, he entered upon pro-
fessional work. With the facility of the Western
man, he also engaged in mining. In 1882 he saw
the greater opportunities upon our coast, and came
to Puget Sound, stopping at Whatcom and later at
Seattle. In 1885 he selected Port Townsend,
Washington Territory, as his future home, and
entered the customs service as deputy collector. Re-
signing the year following, he began his grip upon
the great business of that section as ticket, freight
and express agent for the Northern Pacific Railroad
Company, acting also as their customs attorney,
and having special charge of the shipment of all
particularly valuable cargoes, such as teas. In 1886
he had so far advanced in reputation and public
favor as to be elected probate judge and justice of
the peace, and was also appointed clerk of the dis-
trict court, a position which he still holds. He was
appointed the same year as disbursing agent for the
custom-house, whose payments aggregate nearly a
quarter of a million dollars. From 1883 to 1886 he
was secretary of the Bellingham Bay Railway &
Navigation Company.
Mr. Whittlesey has recently severed his connection
with the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, and
now devotes his whole energy and enthusiasm to
the real-estate business. He is exceedingly sanguine
as to the future of Port Townsend; and his confi-
dence is of that contagious character which is worth
thousands or millions of dollars to an aspiring city.
In a public capacity he has borne his full share,
having acceptably filled the position of secretary of
the state central committee of the Democratic party.
He has also served as vestryman for the past three
years at St. Paul's church. He has a delightful
home, with all the surroundings of comfort and
refinement; and with his wife, Lilian Bell, of
Zanesville, Ohio, and their two boys, he enjoys a
most happy, domestic life.
REV. JAMES HARVEY WILBUR, D.D.-
It will not be claimed that the plain people, whose
lives are briefly recorded in this volume, merit the
title of greatness. They were simple honest men
who did their duty. They merit a niche in the halls
of our history, since it was they who hewed out the
stones with which this stately structure has been
built. It requires very great qualities to be called
great. In many regards, such as self-reliance, ability
to live alone with little or no inspiration or motive
except such as they found within themselves, the
power to propose their own plan and theory of life,
and to hold their lives up to its requirements, the
pioneers and frontiersmen of the Pacific coast show
qualities very much like those of the great men of
history; and we almost think that, if their field had
been as great as that of others, their fame might not
have been less.
One of the great-hearted men of the early days,
now passed away, was Father Wilbur." He has
been everywhere known. His memory will be
revered; and the boys of Oregon should be taught
his heroic virtues. As a friend of the Indians, he
deserves special mention; for the Indian War Vete-
rans are most prompt of all in recognizing whatever
is worthy and good in the Indian character as
brought out by kind treatment and discipline.
Mr. Wilbur was born in New York State in 1811,
and in 1846 was sent out as a missionary to Oregon
by the Missionary Society of the Methodist-Episco-
pal church. He came around Cape Horn in the
bark Whitton, Captain Gelston, a trim little vessel,
noted in pioneer days. Upon the voyage he had a
characteristic adventure. Being of a very active
and bold disposition, he was always ready to do
work on the ship to relieve the tedium of the voy-
age, and while in the tropics was taking a hand in
painting, in fact, working on the outside. He fell
off his board, paint bucket and all. The ship was
going eight knots; and it was half an hour before
he was picked up. With his usual self-control, he
had made no effort except to keep afloat, and when
he was taken on board was none the worse for
his misadventure.
Upon reaching Oregon, in June, 1847, he found
Portland a city of three houses; and his circuit, of
which Salem was the center, reached out south
seventy-five miles, and embraced the entire width of
the Willamette valley. There was then but one
Protestant church edifice on the Pacific coast, the
Methodist church still standing at Oregon City, the
then metropolis of the Northwest. Mr. Wilbur set
to work with great earnestness, multiplying himself
by means of Cayuse ponies, and preaching with the
fervor of a Paul wherever he found a listener. Per-
haps there is no greater strain upon one's spiritual
fiber than to live in a sparse community and be de-
pendent only upon one's self for impetus. Wasting
one's self " upon the desert air" quickly exhausts
the life and saps the vigor of one not endowed with
living fervor of his own. Mr. Wilbur, however,
grew with his work; and many were the rough
mountain men and the neglected immigrants who
were led to a decent christian life by his preaching.
While at Salem he also conducted the Oregon Insti-
tute, now the Willamette University with the assis-
tance of his wife, teaching the boys and girls of the
science and art beyond the mountains.
Two years later he was appointed to the circuit
embracing Oregon City and Portland, and in 1850
built the first church in the latter city. The Metho-
dist church and parsonage cost five thousand dollars.
Mechanics received twelve dollars per day; and
lumber was one hundred and twenty dollars per thou-
sand. In the following year Mr. Wilbur erected the
Portland Academy and Female Seminary at a cost of
eight thousand eight hundred dollars. In both these
enterprises he did much work himself, going about in
his striped shirt, and mixing mortar and carrying
hods. Sixteen thousand dollars in all was raised for
these and other church purposes during the two
years of his pastorate in Portland.
His next charge, his allotted two years expiring
in Portland, was as presiding elder of the Umpqua
district. It was a serious undertaking to move such
a distance, over unfrequented roads, and across
632
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
rivers without bridges or ferries. This was in the
springtime, too, when the rivers were full, and, in
managing his two yoke of oxen and two span of
horses, the preacher frequently had to be out in
water waist deep. That, with mud and other delays,
made the journey sixteen days longer. There he
remained from 1853 to 1857, living through the
Rogue river gold fever and two Indian wars. The
war of 1855 in Southern Oregon arose in the fol-
lowing way, as reported by Wilbur: Three hunters
in the mountains picketed their horses; and upon
their return, in twenty-four hours, one animal was
missing. Accusing some Indians near by of steal-
ing it, and meeting a denial, they cruelly murdered
two of the tribe; although in a short time they
found that the horse had simply strayed down the
mountains and was feeding in the meadows. This
outrage excited the Indians, who rallied and fell
upon an immigrant train, and began massacring
the settlers. The miners in turn formed a company
and began almost as indiscriminate a retaliation,
attacking Indians who knew nothing of the disturb-
ance on either side. Thus the alarm spread; and
the whole country was in arms.
During this whole period Wilbur went wherever
and whenever he pleased, and although surrounded
by Indians, at one time being stopped by a band of
warriors in the road, was never harmed. He
thus spoke of the cause of his immunity: "They
They
did not harm me because I was unarmed. I have
had, I believe, more experience with Indians than
any man on the coast; and I never carried a knife,
pistol, nor any other weapon; nor did I ever have
occasion to defend myself, and have never been
injured by them." It was partly his confidence in
their fairness, which appealed to their kindlier
nature, and partly his perfect fearlessness, which
overawed them, that thus enabled him to walk
without peril in their midst. During his sojourn in
Southern Oregon, he erected the institution known
as the Wilbur Academy, to which he contributed
one thousand dollars in money, and sixty acres of
land, from his own means. It cost four thousand
dollars.
His next move was back to the Willamette valley,
being appointed presiding elder of the Willamette
district in 1857. Having a keen business head, he
saw many opportunities for buying land or lots.
cheap, and in this way made a large number of pur-
chases all the way from Umpqua to Walla Walla,
which rose in value and placed him in easy financial
circumstances. It was in this way that he obtained
means for his large benevolences. Being again in
the Portland district, he paid a visit, in 1859, to his
field in the wilds, "east of the mountains.” At
The Dalles he bought a Cayuse horse for the jour-
ney; but the brute took occasion to run off soon
after, leaving the itinerant to foot it across the hills
to the Blue Mountains. He was on the march fifty-
four hours without a meal. He could have gotten
one at The Dalles; but that was the wrong direction.
The result of his tramp was the organization of a
church of seven members at Walla Walla, the pur-
chase of a block of land, and the erection of a small
church edifice thereon. That city then consisted of
about five houses of very narrow dimensions. It
was not all serene for the elder. While he was
preaching some of the baser men of the place got
up a cattle auction within fifty feet, trying, perhaps,
to make an equally attractive show.
In 1860 began Wilbur's work for the Indians on
the Yakima reservation, which has become famous
throughout the Union. The Yakimas, with a num-
ber of other tribes, were wild, sullen, and wholly
averse to civilization. There were some three thou-
sand assigned to that reservation; and even upon
that ample domain there was no wild living for that
number. Their only interest in remaining was for
the government annuities; and their only incentive
was fear of the troops. Mr. Wilbur was appointed
superintendent of instruction, and at once opened a
school, gathering in the children; and his wife, with-
out asking a cent of pay, immediately began the
process of cleaning, training, teaching and winning
them. The work was but well under way, about a
year after his appointment, when Kendall, Superin-
tendent of Indian Affairs, dismissed Wilbur without
explanation. Upon his proffer of service without
pay, he was sent from the reservation.
He appealed to the government, however, and was
not only sustained, but was appointed as agent, with
plenary powers. As he assumed the entire adminis-
tration of the agency, his aim of Indian training
was to bring his wards to the point of self-support.
No annuities were allowed except for an equivalent
in work. In a short time grains, vegetables and
cattle, sufficient for sustenance, and even for export,
were produced. The children at the schools were
taught different trades. A steam mill (saw and
grist) and house were put up by the Indians worth
fifteen thousand dollars. They also built four
churches of a seating capacity of two hundred each,
and one of six hundred and fifty, completed in every
particular by themselves. For twenty-two years the
Wilburs remained at their post, bringing their
Indians up to a very high level of thrift and pros-
perity. In 1882 they were reluctantly, after repeated
resignations, allowed to go; and they took up their
residence at Walla Walla.
Father Wilbur died at Walla Walla in 1887,
one of Oregon's best loved and most renowned pio-
neers; a man of virile qualities and a noble heart;
ready for all sorts of work; a great philanthropist;
faithful to his ministry and his God; and well worthy
to stand in that noble company of Methodist preach:
ers embracing, besides himself, Lee, Leslie, Waller,
Hine, and others who wrought with them and after
them in the same fields and with like devotion.
HON. GEORGE H. WILLIAMS. — Judge
Williams alone among the citizens of our state,
and of the Pacific coast, has had the distinction of
occupying a place in the highest councils of the
nation,-in the cabinet of a President. He was also
regarded by President Grant as the man most fit
and able to hold the position of chief justice of the
United States. The bitter struggle following his
nomination to this supreme position is well remem-
bered for the sectional feeling displayed and the
dissent of certain members of the senate which led
the Judge to withdraw his name. Our state was
therefore denied the honor designed by our most
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
633
popular President. It is not, however, to recall
the personal bias or envies of the past,-they have
been long forgotten and forgiven,-but to remind
ourselves that it was upon an arena no less great
than that of the nation that Judge Williams has
passed the most intense years of his life, and that
it is as one of a group of men the first among
Americans a company composing our "Great
Round Table" in the most eventful years of our
history-that he has been accustomed to move.
In his long shadow that stretches from our state
to the national Capitol, we not only think our-
selves a little greater, but feel more strongly the
ties that unite us to the national life. A statesman
is not worth much except as a patriot, and in
nothing is there more assurance of the permanence
of our central government than in the pride and
honor which the states feel in a field of action com-
mensurate with the abilities of their chosen and
loved men, where they may project their master-
ful endeavors. While we could make no exception
of any of our senators or representatives that have
been at Washington, remembering the fiery Baker
and the noble and jovial Nesmith, it is only jus-
tice to allow the national dimensions of Judge Wil-
liams. He was a positive additive power in the
senate during his term; compacting dispersed and
wavering feeling, and giving form to uncertain ten-
dencies; and was, moreover, able to defend his policy
before great audiences in all parts of the union.
It is only coldly and briefly that we can give the
statistics of his life and work, but ask the special
attention of the reader to notice how completely
the Judge has been a pioneer of Oregon as well as
a statesman of the union.
He was born in New Lebanon, Columbia county,
New York, March 26, 1823, and removed at an
early day to Onondaga county, receiving his educa-
tion at the Pompey Academy. He studied law with
Honorable Daniel Scott; and at the age of twenty-
one was admitted to practice in New York. In the
same year, 1844, he removed to Iowa Territory,
practicing law; and in 1847 was elected judge of
the first judicial district of that state at the first
election after the formation of the state govern-
ment, serving five years. In 1852 he was one of
the Presidential electors at large, and canvassed
the state for Franklin Pierce. In 1853 he was ap-
pointed chief justice of Oregon Territory; and was
reappointed by Buchanan in 1857. He terminated
his services in this position by his own resignation,
and resumed the practice of law. He became a
member, however, of the constitutional convention
to form the constitution for Oregon, and was chair-
man of the judiciary committee. While in this
responsible position he was active in opposing the
introduction of slavery into Oregon; and, as a con-
stitutional convention required the popular vote
upon that question, was active in presenting the
question before the people; and in 1860 in the for-
mation of a Union party; and was subsequently
very earnest in supporting Lincoln's administra-
tion and in suppressing the Rebellion. In 1864 he
was elected senator in Congress; and was a member
of the committee on finance and public lands, and
also of the reconstruction committee.
Among the measures which he introduced into
the senate and which became laws, are the follow-
ing: An act creating a new land district in Oregon,
with a land office at La Grande; an amendment to
the act granting lands to the State of Oregon to
engage in the construction of a military road from
Eugene City to the eastern boundary of the state,
granting odd sections to supply any deficiency in
the original grant; various acts establishing post
roads; a general law to secure the election of United
States senators; the "Tenure-of-office act," which
kept Republicans all over the United States from
being turned out of office by Andrew Johnson,-
vetoed by the President and passed over the veto;
a resolution against the importation of coolies;
an act to provide a more efficient government of
the insurrectionary states, called the "Reconstruc-
tion act,” under which all the Southern states were
reconstructed,—vetoed and passed over the veto of
President Johnson; numerous appropriations for
Oregon; an amendment to the act of 1861 relative
to property lost in suppressing Indian hostilities in
Oregon; an amendment to the Judiciary act of
1789; an amendment to the act granting lands to
aid in the construction of a railroad from the Cen-
tral Pacific in California to Portland in Oregon; an
act fixing elections in Idaho and Washington Ter-
ritories on the same day as the election in Oregon;
an act to pay two companies of Oregon volunteers
commanded by Captains Walker and Olney; an act
to strengthen the public credit; an amendment to
the act granting lands to aid in the construction of a
railroad from the Central Pacific to Portland, by
which the grant was prevented from reverting to
the government; an act granting lands to aid in the
construction of a railroad and telegraph line from
Portland to Astoria and McMinnville; a resolution
to facilitate the building of a lighthouse at Yaquina
Bay, and other lighthouses on the coast of Oregon;
an act granting certain lands to Blessington Rut-
ledge, a citizen of Lane county; a resolution to
increase the pay of assistant marshals in taking the
census of 1870; an act extending the benefits of the
Donation law of 1850 to certain persons; an act
creating a new land district in Washington Terri-
tory, with a land office at Walla Walla.
Senator Williams entered the senate at the most
exciting and important period in the history of the
government. A great war had just closed. One-
third of the states of the Union were disorganized.
To restore them was a great work, no less difficult
than had been the suppression of the rebellion.
From the first Judge Williams took a prominent
part in the debates of the senate and wielded a power
second to none in that body, and far greater than any
new member. He soon became a recognized leader
among the first men of the nation, many of whom
possessed great talent, unbounded ambition, long
experience in the senate, world-wide fame, with
prestige of old populous and powerful states to sus-
tain them in their efforts to lead and control their
associates and to shape legislation.
He originated the most important measures of a
political and national character which passed Con-
gress during his term of service,—the Reconstruction
law, and the Tenure-of-office act. While ten states
634
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
were in a condition of anarchy, and our wisest and
most experienced statesmen were quarreling among
themselves and waging a fierce contest with Presi-
dent Johnson as to how these should be restored to
their proper places in the Union, Senator Williams
brought forward his military Reconstruction bill;
and after long and earnest debate it passed both
houses and became a law notwithstanding the oppo-
sition of the President and of the Democratic party.
Under this law and its amendments, chaos was
converted into order, peace was established, and the
Union was permanently restored on a free and pros-
perous basis.
When the President was dispossessing of office
the loyal men who had elected him, and filling their
places with those unfriendly to the reconstruction
measures, Senator Williams prepared a bill to regu-
late the tenure of office. This was passed over the
President's veto and saved the Republican party.
The Senator did much also during those days to give
Oregon a reputation abroad and to build up the state
at home. His bills for the welfare of our state were
carefully nurtured, well adapted to the conditions
then existing, and in their working have been the
means of developing our domestic and interstate
commerce and opening for us the markets of the
world.
In 1871 he was appointed one of the joint high
commissioners to frame a treaty for the settlement of
the Alabama claims and the Northwestern boundary,
and other questions in dispute with Great Britain.
In that capacity he bore himself with his usual
dignity; and his counsels proved of material value.
Indeed, his part in predetermining the decision of
the Northwestern boundary in favor of the United
States is something that has never been generally
known; and his sagacity and foresight probably gave
us the territory in dispute. Being appointed on the
commission as a citizen of the Pacific coast, he was
expected to keep special watch of the disposition of
the Northwest boundary. The dispute is familiar,
and is presented elsewhere in this work. Great
Britain was fully determined, and by diplomatic
correspondence was committed, to maintain that the
boundary ran through the Rosario Strait; while the
United States contended that the center of the Canal
de Haro was the true line. It was a point of especial
difficulty both from the inflexible position of each
nation, and from the obscurity of the words of the
treaty by reason of their reference to the "channel'
which was imperfectly known at the time they were
written.
As the only probable solution of the vexed ques-
tion, it was proposed in the commission to refer the
whole matter to the decision of the Emperor of
Germany. Seeing at once that this was a loose and
dangerous expedient, without some determining
canon to serve as a guide, and that in the interest
of harmony the Emperor might easily yield to a dis-
position of the question upon other than its legal
merits, Judge Williams refused to agree to the
Emperor's arbitration except with the proviso that
his decision should be strictly an interpretation of
the treaty of 1846; that he should not decide de novo,
but simply explicate the meaning or intention of the
agreement already made. So cogently did he pre-
sent these views that the commission finally acceded,
being compelled to recognize that in no other form
could it be worthily submitted. This virtually decid-
ed the question in our favor; for the Emperor could
allow that the treaty intended nothing else but the
main or most-used channel, which proved to be the
Canal de Haro. By this, the United States secured
the San Juan and other islands.
To
In December, 1871, he was appointed attorney-
general of the United States by President Grant, and
for three years fully sustained the rights and dignity
of the government. Here again it is not generally
known to how large an extent the force and pith of
the President's policy with reference to the Southern
states was in the hands of Judge Williams.
govern these states was the difficult point in the
whole question of administration. It was during
the time of the Ku Klux outrages; and the laws
defied by the clans must be maintained by the at-
torney-general. President Grant devolved upon him
the entire charge of the disturbances and political
affairs of the Southern states, so far as concerned the
government; and the Secretary of War was directed
to wait upon his instructions as to the movement of
troops into the disquieted regions. At the time of
rival governments from a number of the Southern
states, each seeking the recognition of the President,
Attorney-General William's advice was closely fol-
lowed, in accordance with which the Democratic
government of Arkansas and the Republican govern-
ment of Louisana was recognized. The contending
parties in Alabama agreed to submit their claims.
to him; and his plan of settlement was accepted,
restoring peace to a distracted people.
In 1872 he made a tour of the South, delivering
addresses in Richmond, Savannah, Charleston and
other Southern cities, declaring the purpose of the
President to maintain fair elections, and that every
voter should be allowed to cast his ballot accord-
ing to his preferences. The full vote in the elec-
tion following, and the return of Republicans from
Virginia, South Carolina, Arkansas and some other
Southern states, proved the impression made by his
words. Since that time, with the change of admin-
istrative policy, the Republican party has made but
little showing in those states.
In 1874 his name was presented to the senate for
the place of chief justice left vacant by the death
of the illustrious Chase. It was hard for the old
East to admit that the West was entitled to such an
honor as would be bestowed by the elevation of the
Oregon statesman; and after a contention which
promised to be a great controversy, and which well-
nigh threatened the disruption of the Republican
party, the Judge withdrew his name, much to the
regret of President Grant, who was willing to stake
upon his confirmation the success of the adminis-
tration.
Since his return to unofficial life the Judge has
made his home at Portland in our state, practicing
law and giving essential aid to all our great public
causes. He has been constantly sought for heavy
political campaign work, and to grace the festivals
of our metropolis with his felicitous addresses.
Much interest has centered in his recent utterances
respecting historical christianity; and a lecture

UW
REED
OUSE
REED HOUSE
REED HOUSE
CLE-ELLUM, W. T.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
635
prepared and delivered by him upon the divinity of
Christ is regarded as an invaluable contribution to
this discussion.
JOHN P. WILLIAMSON. This active busi-
ness man and capitalist of Union county, Oregon,
was born in Philadelphia in 1851, and spent the
years of his infancy upon a farm. At the age of
four he came with his parents to Iowa, three years
later to Missouri, and in 1862 crossed the plains
to the Grande Ronde valley.
He recalls many
interesting scenes and incidents of that journey,
among others how his elder sister, in following the
well-known maxim of the traveler of the early day,
to wit, "Get out and walk," was chased through a
cut-off by two Shoshone Indians,—and how as an
Atalanta she outstripped them and came back to
the train amid the cheers of the company.
The Oregon home was made at the old town of
La Grande, and the stock and grain there raised
were early sufficient to afford an ample sustenance.
There the father remained until his death in 1884;
and there the aged mother still resides.
The education of our subject began in a log
schoolhouse in Missouri, and was continued in the
district school in the Grande Ronde. As he grew
to manhood the choice was offered by his father of
five hundred head of cattle or a college education.
He chose the latter, and by two years of earnest
work at Monmouth Academy, and by further appli-
cation, secured a diploma from the National Associ-
ation of Business Colleges.
In 1873 he began an extensive tour of the gold
mines of Eastern Oregon, in part for the digging of
gold, but even more in order to make a practical
examination of the topography and geological for-
mation of our mountains and mineral belts.
To a
man of his education this was not only a delightful
series of studies, but put him in possession of in-
valuable information.
In 1880 he was chosen principal deputy sheriff of
Union county, and served two years. Failing by
thirty-nine votes of election as county clerk, he then
devoted his attention exclusively to the development
of the quartz mines of that section.
In 1887 he was married to Miss Minnie Wilkin-
son, the daughter of a prominent merchant of La
Grande, and a native of the beautiful valley in
which he proposes to pass the remainder of his
days. He dwells in a home of peace and beauty,
blessed also by the presence of a beautiful little girl,
his only child.
S. B. WILLIAMSON.-Raising cattle on the
hills, and allowing them to fatten in the summer
and to starve in the winter, is being superseded by
the more profitable as well as more humane method
of feeding large bands in the winter to be ready for
the market at any time. The Blue-Mountain region
The Blue-Mountain region
is peculiarly fitted for this manner of preparing ani-
mals. The range in the hills is good; and the rich
bottom lands produce large crops of hay, grain and
roots. One of the pioneers in this line is the gen-
tleman whose name appears at the head of this
article. He conducts his business in partnership
with his brother-in-law, Mr. R. J. Rogers. They
have five ranches, five and one-half miles east of
La Grande, on the Oregon & Navigation Com-
pany's line; on Catheon creek, two miles east from
La Grande, and on the Grande Ronde river. They
ship each month some three hundred animals, of
which about two thirds are sheep. This business
finds its chief outlet in the markets of the Sound,
and is but the beginning of greater things.
Mr. Williamson is a pioneer of 1862, having
crossed the plains in that year with Captain Yount,
a veteran of the Mexican war. He was in the same
company with Mr. Harvey McAllister of the Grande
Ronde. The father of our subject, with his five
children, made the trip without trouble except for
high water in the streams. They reached the Grande
Ronde in the autumn, and found two clap-board
shanties where La Grande now stands. Taking a
ranch near this point, the Williamsons began their
pioneer life. In the fall of 1862 they prepared
ground for a crop, and the following season raised
an abundance of vegetables and grain. The iron
for the plow which they used was forged by a smith
in The Dalles and cost fifty dollars; but the crop
amply repaid them for all expenditures. Potatoes
sold readily for ten cents per pound; grain (they
had twenty acres of wheat and barley) was twelve
and a half cents, butter one dollar a pound, and
watermelons two dollars and a half apiece. Gold
dust was the only money in use. Time was also spent
in the gold mines fifty miles east of La Grande ; and
the elder Williamson realized profits. He passed
the bounds of his life in 1886, aged sixty-one years.
It was in 1870 that Mr. S. B. Williamson engaged
in the cattle business with the success above de-
scribed. He was married in 1878 to Miss Susan,
the daughter of the pioneer H. McAllister, and has
a family of three children, Ruth, Thomas, and
Louise. In addition to his cattle he has some three
hundred horses of improved stock. He uses Short-
horn and Hereford cattle for improving his herds.
Mr. Williamson is a substantial citizen of La
Grande, of the most progressive character. He is
one of the men who has made the state and is earnest
for improvements of all kinds.
JAMES A. A. WILSON.-Mr. Wilson is one
of our characteristic Oregonians of the early times,
whose career the pen would willingly linger upon.
He was born in Carrol county, Mississippi, in 1841,
and in 1853 with his father crossed the plains to
California. Remaining as an assistant in that state
until 1858, he made a visit in that year to the north-
ern coast, stopping off at Victoria; and, after an
inspection of various points, he made a residence
near McMinnville, where in 1859 he was married to
Miss Susannah Owens. He continued here in farm-
ing and stock-raising until 1863, in the meantime
driving one band of cattle to California, on one oc-
casion being hemmed in by Pitt river Indians for
seven days and nights, during which he did his
sleeping on horseback.
In 1863 he removed to the Grande Ronde valley
with cattle, packing and driving stock to Idaho until
1870. Having located a place in The Cove, Oregon,
he began in the latter year a regular course of farm-
ing and stock-raising, which he pursues to the
636
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
present time, meeting with large success. There at
The Cove is his home; and his cattle and sheep dot
the ranges. He had brought up a family of nine
children. His three eldest sons are prominent land
and stock owners in the valley, one of whom, B. G.
Wilson, was clerk of Union county two years.
ROBERT BRUCE WILSON, M. D.— A well-
known figure both in the earlier and later stages of
Portland's development was that of Doctor Robert
Bruce Wilson, the son of Holt Wilson, of Virginia.
He was born June 12, 1828, in the historic city of
Portsmouth, in the Old Dominion, of which his
father was an honored and substantial citizen.
At
an early age he finished a thorough course of medi-
cine at the University of Virginia, but in so doing
became deprived of sight in his left eye, a loss pecu-
liarly unfortunate to one in his profession.
Joining in the impulse common to the most enter-
prising and adventurous men of the time, he made
his way around Cape Horn to California in 1849,
and set out with pick and shovel for the mines,
but true to his vocation soon reassumed profes-
sional life. After practicing for a short time in San
Francisco, he accepted the position of surgeon on
the steamer Gold Hunter, running down the Cali-
fornia coast. While in that service the steamer
made, in December, 1850, a trip to Portland; and
the Doctor decided to cast in his lot with that then
new settlement. Thus was begun a career in his
profession to which he did eminent credit through-
out, working with an ardor greater than a simple
desire for a livelihood, or even for wealth, would
warrant.
He never refused the calls of duty, but responded
alike to rich and poor. He was an earnest student,
keeping always fully abreast of the times, and tak-
ing advantage of the latest ideas and inventions.
that might render his endeavors more effective.
Thus he became a power not only in alleviating
distress, but in elevating the tone of his profession,
which, in those days of isolation from the outer
world, before telegraph and railroad communica-
tion, might have been in great danger of being
lowered. It is difficult to estimate the value to
our city of a man possessed of his culture, and of
conscientious application to his profession. He had
that peculiar force of character, and, as it might be
said, that ideality, which held him true to the
requirements of his chosen occupation, and which
would in any case or in any part of the world have
kept him in the lead, both in the scientific and the
practical, or in the applied department of medicine.
He was one of those men of whom Oregon fur-
nishes a number of examples, who preserve within
themselves the motives to high and assiduous
endeavor.
In September, 1854, he married the eldest daugh-
ter of Captain John H. Couch, the eminent pioneer
of Portland's commerce; and in the course of a
singularly happy married life he had a large family
of sons and daughters whom it was his great privi-
lege to live to see grow up, not only to revere his
example, but, in the persons of his sons, to take
up with credit the walk and profession that he had
adorned.
With the exception of a three-years' trip to
Europe, his labors were uninterrupted, and naturally
told on a constitution not too robust. He died of
pneumonia, after a short illness, in August, 1887,
having prepared for himself the reward of a life not
spent in vain, and leaving the world better and
richer by the leaven of his culture and kindly heart.
WILLIAM WILSON.— Mr. Wilson was born
of Irish parents in 1835. His father and mother
were Irish; and he is Irish still." His parents
secured to him a common-school education; and his
father, falling a victim of the cholera in New York
in 1848, William assumed the management of his
affairs and conducted the business until 1852, when
he left home and started for California. On the
Isthmus he was stricken with Panama fever and
laid three weeks among strangers, convalescing
only to realize the fact that his money and ticket
were missing. He finally shipped, as he supposed,
for California; but in fact he was aboard a trader,
and for twenty-one months had to sail upon the sea,
going to almost all parts of the world, but finally
in Valparaiso was relieved by the American consul
and sent to California. There he first found work
in the humble capacity of a sand-cart driver, but in
1855 was able to establish for himself a hack and
dray business, in which vocation he continued until
1859, when he was off to Frazer river and mined
near Yale, British Columbia. The next year he
prospected the Frazer, and was one of the discov-
erers of the Caribou gold mines. He made money
there and was familiar with such men as Steel,
Cunningham, Loren, Dillon, Kiethby, Williams,
Whitney and Sweeny.
In 1862 he was one of a party of seventeen who
attempted a new route from Fort Alexander on the
Frazer to Victoria, via the "Bentic Orsu" route.
Having constructed rafts, they attempted the descent
of the Bellacola river to the mouth of the Bentic.
The raft soon succumbed to the elements; and the
men, provisionless and friendless, were three days
and three nights in making the twenty-four miles
to the point of intended embarkation on shipboard,
snow having fallen to the depth of six feet during
that time. In their extremity a suggestion was
made that Mr. Wilson's dog be killed for mutton.
But Wilson objected to the slaughter of his favorite;
and the party had to forego the feasting. The
natives, not knowing the value of money, would
trade dried salmon for only brass buttons and
neckerchiefs. Embarking on a trader, they were a
month or so in arriving at Victoria. There Mr.
Wilson found employment as stage driver until the
spring of 1863, when he returned to his Caribou
diggings. In 1864 he struck out for the Idaho gold
fields, working his passage thither from The Dalles
with a pack-train. Arriving in Idaho City, money-
less, he got a job shoveling tailings, worked all
night, and when relieved in the morning was obliged
to suggest to the foreman that he had not eaten for
twenty-four hours.
Having made a stake he prospected in what is
now Southeastern county, Oregon, over the ground
which the writer is safe in asserting will twenty
years hence be the grand mining camp of the world.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
637
That fall he came to La Grande and later assisted
the elder Beagle in whipsawing lumber for his
sluices, which demonstrated that at the head of the
Grand river existed gold mines which Mr. Wilson's
grandchildren will read of with wonder.
His ex-
periences in the Pacific Northwest as related by
himself would fill this volume. Suffice it to say that
the writer feels safe in alleging that Mr. Wilson has
experienced many of the vicissitudes incident upon
laying the foundations of the empire which we at
present enjoy.
He was night watchman of the town of La Grande
for twenty-two months. He served four years in the
capacity of jailer under A. C. Craig, the first sheriff
elected in Union county, and followed that with four
more years in the same capacity under Craig's suc-
cessor, Arthur Warnick.
Not having seen his mother, who lived in New
York, for twenty-one years, he paid her a visit in
1873, and takes pride in relating that she is in good
health and spirits at the advanced age of fourscore.
In 1874, the seat of government being removed from
La Grande to Union, Mr. Wilson returned to San
Francisco, and after four years in city life came back
to the Grande Ronde valley, making his home at
Union, Oregon; and there we find him engaged in
a profitable business. He was married in December,
1883, at Baker City, to Miss Barbara Oth, by whom
he has two sons and a daughter. Besides his town
property and stock, Mr. Wilson is the owner of six
hundred and forty acres of Union county land.
ROBERT WINGATE. Among the many en-
terprising and successful representative men to
whom the city of Tacoma owes so much for her
present advanced position among Pacific cities, and
for the assurance of future success, Robert Wingate
deserves an exalted place. He is a Scotchman by
birth, but is thoroughly identified with the land of
his adoption, and is warmly attached to her popular
institutions. He was born near Glasgow, Scotland,
on the 17th of March, 1840. He received a thorough
common-school education at the Western Academy
in Glasgow. His father was a coal expert, a min-
ing engineer, and the lessee of several coal mines.
Upon leaving school, the son Robert entered upon
an apprenticeship, beginning at the lowest round,
and received under that practical father a training
exclusively restricted to coal-mining. That mining
education was only acquired by passing through
every gradation.
In his eighteenth year he became underground
foreman in the Craig End Colliery. That continued
to be his duty until, at the age of twenty, he had
been promoted to the position of superintendent,
called in Western Scotland manager. In that station
he acted until 1864, greatly maturing his knowledge
and experience, and being invested with great re-
sponsibility. During that year he came to California,
bearing with him highly commendatory testimonials
as to his knowledge, experience and reliability from
the coal inspectors of the Western district of Scot-
land. His first experience on the Pacific slope was
in the employ of Robert William Watt, in quartz-
mining in Grass valley, Nevada county, California.
He only continued at that for a short time.
In September, 1864, he returned to California and
assumed the management of the Eureka and Inde-
pendent coal mines at Mount Diablo. The Inde-
pendent mine was about seven hundred feet deep,
and had been considered the most difficult mine in
the whole region. It had been worked for three
years, and had always been regarded as a failure.
In the twenty-fifth year of his age, Mr. Wingate took
charge. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
had been expended; and until then there had been
no prospect of a return for the investment. Mr.
Wingate was a man of great pride as to his profi-
ciency in utilizing labor; and his highest ambition
was to procure a successful development and a profit-
able return for mining labor. To him at that time
salary was but a secondary object. He looked
ahead; he aimed to acquire reputation in his pro-
fession, which he intended to secure in the successful
accomplishment of the best results to his employers.
His administrative ability was remarkable, his
energy untiring. He asked no men under his charge
to go where he himself would not go; and working
with them he gained them to his purpose, and im-
bued them with the same ambitious hopes that he
himself entertained. His control over men was
singularly great. He selected the men he needed.
He fully appreciated the task expected of them, and
aptly understood the method of stimulating them to
the greatest service. Every man was tried and
tested. Each were then associated with him in his
purpose to accomplish a named result; and seldom
did his personal will-power fail to secure cordial co-
operation in his plans by those who were under his
charge. He himself visited and inspected every
part of the work, not as a spy to observe who were
guilty of short-coming, but by his presence to en-
courage labor and suggest his views. In fact he
labored with them as one of themselves; and thus
he succeeded by example and personal presence in
winning to himself hearty and zealous coadjutors,
who gladly seconded him in the performance of his
designs.
Under his administration of affairs, that mine for
the first time in its history became a success. His
management gave infinite satisfaction and great joy
to the German stockholders. When he took charge,
the shaft was twenty-two feet long, nine feet wide,
and was all twisted. It required to be entirely re-
timbered. When engaging his services, the com-
pany had asked the length of time required to place
the mine in a working condition. His answer was
ninety days. The company appropriated thirty-five
thousand dollars to meet the expenses and disburse-
ments, and allowed him three months. His arrange-
ments were all so skilfully made, and so successfully
executed by his employés, that in seventy-eight
days he was taking out coal.
days he was taking out coal. Thereafter the mine
has continued to be a success and a source of large
profit to its owners. The compensation the com-
pany allowed to Mr. Wingate was three hundred
and fifty dollars per month; and he continued to
manage its mines until August, 1869.
From there he went to the Eastport mine at Coos
Bay, Oregon. That mine had been producing only
in a small way. Again Mr. Wingate's administra-
tive abilities were called in requisition; and again
638
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
he organized systematic, co-operative labor and de-
velopment. The result was soon apparent in a
largely increased output of coal; and for the first
time the mine yielded profit. It paid a dividend of
one per cent on an inflated stock of two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars.
At the beginning of 1875, Mr. Wingate located in
San Francisco, where for three years he devoted
himself exclusively to the pursuit of a mining ex-
pert. Within that period he had visited Vancouver
Island, British Columbia, and done considerable.
prospecting for coal. His examinations resulted in
his recommending R. D. Chandler to open the South
Wellington mine. Subsequently Mr. Chandler em-
ployed Mr. Wingate to go to Vancouver Island and
open that mine, which he successfully accomplished
during the year 1878. At the close of that year,
Mr. Wingate came to Tacoma. In the month of
November, 1879, he prospected the rich and exten-
sive coalfields in the vicinity of Carbon river, in
Pierce county, for the Carbon Hill Coal Company,
and opened and developed the coal mines at Carbon-
ado. He continued in charge of the mining oper-
ations of that company at Carbonado for two years,
at which time those mines were sold to Charles
Crocker. Mr. Wingate then came to the city of
Tacoma, Washington Territory, with his family,
and has from that time made his residence in that
city.
Mr. Wingate is emphatically a man of work. He
has never been idle, but has been and continues to
be one of the most enterprising, active and public-
spirited of Tacoma's citizens. No public enterprise
is projected that fails to receive his substantial en-
couragement; and every plan for the promotion of
the public welfare has the benefit of his hearty good-
will and zealous co-operation. He is a man of
broad and charitable views, aiding every movement
for the advancement of education, morality or the
well-being of the community. Of large physique,
with a brain and heart in proportion, Robert Win-
gate is one of the biggest, broadest and best of Ta-
coma's substantial men. The architect of his own
fortune, the trusted and zealous laborer for the best
interests of those who secured and recognized his
services, he is now reaping in comparative ease, not
inactivity, however, the well-earned reward of in-
tegrity, industry, devotion to business, and the
natural accretion resulting from wisely made invest-
ments in real estate, dictated by sagacity and far-
reaching views as to the possibilities of the great
Northwest. None to a greater extent enjoys the
confidence of the business men of the community in
which he dwells; and none more than he deserves
the affectionate regard of his fellow-citizens for his
works of charity, and for an enlarged and unstin-
ted sympathy with every movement which makes
the community better adapted for the homes of men,
women and children.
Mr. Wingate, since his adoption of Tacoma as a
residence, has practiced his profession of mining en-
gineer. He has been a successful operator in real
estate, and has attained wealth by judicious in-
vestments. Coal, however, has been his specialty;
and liberally has he expended money and time in
prospecting and locating coal mines. At present he
cor-
gives considerable attention to the duties of the
office of vice-president of the Olympia & Chehalis
Valley Railroad Company, and as a director in the
Tacoma National Bank, in both of which
porations he is a large stock holder. The portrait
which accompanies this sketch presents features
which unmistakably portray the strong will, the
earnest purpose, the unselfish and disinterested
liberality and sterling integrity which are the
characteristics of him who has largely contributed
to the rapid development and assured future promi-
nence of the city of Tacoma, his adopted home.
LYMAN WOOD.- This popular gentleman,
recently auditor of King county, Washington, wast
born in Gallatin county, Illinois, February 25, 1839,
and lived at that place until he moved with his
parents in 1845 to Moline, Rock Island county,.
Illinois. Here he was educated and grew to man-
hood. On the 11th of August, 1862, enlisted in
Company K, One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Regi-
ment, Illinois Volunteers. He served until May,
1863, when he was mustered out on account of dis-
ability. During the winter of 1863-64, he was
employed as clerk in the office of the adjutant-
general of Iowa.
His home was still at Moline, Illinois, until he
removed with his little family to Lancaster county,
Nebraska, in 1871, building the first dwelling-house
in the town of Firth in that county, and keeping
boarders for a time until a hotel could be erected.
He was married at Davenport, Iowa, May 22, 1865,
to Mrs. Nellie Allen, daughter of Benjamin and
Rebecca Shanks, the first pioneers of Joliet, Will
county, Illinois. Mr. and Mrs. Wood have one
child, Enoch Wellington. Mrs. Wood had two
children by her previous marriage, William F. and
Fannie, the latter having been the wife of Mr. C.
Hoisington, of Firth, Nebraska. Soon after reach-
ing maturity and entering upon married life, they
both passed away with consumption.
Mr. Wood came to Seattle May 1, 1882. His
first employment after arriving here was a two
months' job of grubbing,-clearing lots on Lake
Union. He next went to work at shingling, and
afterwards at carpentering, working on the new
Arlington Hotel from the sills to the roof. He next
served about one month as day clerk at the Arling-
ton, after which he became general delivery clerk at
the Seattle postoffice, remaining in that position for
one year. He next served as deputy assessor for
one year under Mr. Chilberg, and one year with
William H. Hughes. He was then elected clerk of
the board of city schools, serving one year, and in
November, 1886, was elected county auditor for the
term of two years, which expired March 4, 1889.
Mr. Wood has been known on this coast and
wherever he has resided as a hard-working and able
man, popular with the people, and trusted alike by
the rich and the poor. Although having won his
daily bread by manual labor, and having never
acquired a fortune, he has held prominent public
positions, and has from boyhood to the present time
borne an unsullied reputation as an honest, faithful,
liberal-minded and conscientious man. In Nebraska
he was postmaster for about five years at Firth, and



ARTHUR J. TAYLOR,
SHELTON, W. T.

OF
UNI
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
639
He
deputy clerk of the district court at Lincoln.
was also adjutant of Farragut Post, No. 25, G. A. R.,
and a member of Friendship Lodge, No. 47, I. O.
O. F., at Firth. In official life in Washington Ter-
ritory he showed himself pleasant and accommoda-
ting, and continually inspired those around him
with life and energy. During much of the time
that he was in office he employed as many as twenty-
one clerks; and over sixty different ladies and gen-
tlemen were in one way or another employed by
him.
He was called the ladies' friend, as they
voted for him; and he proved consistent, and
remembered them when he came to the bestowment
of favors. The Grand Army, The Odd Fellows,
The Knights of Labor and the Liberals, of which
organizations he is a member, are proud of his
record, and respect him for his uniform kindness.
He is now living on a pre-emption claim on Whidby
Island.
The son of a pioneer, David R. Wood, and the
grandson of a pioneer, Beder Wood, who came from
Rochester, New York, to Gallatin county, Illinois, .
in 1815, while that state was still a territory, our Mr.
Wood, by his enterprise and willingness to do pio-
neer work upon the Pacific coast, proves himself to
be one of the most useful men of the people.
THOMAS A. WOOD.—It is gratifying to
observe that to a large extent those who first lived
in Portland, Oregon, and took the rough blows and
made the numerous shifts of the early days, have
kept their position in the ranks, and as Portland
has grown have become her men of wealth. Ladd,
Reed, Corbett, Failing, Lewis and about a hundred
others illustrate this fact, and so also does our sub-
ject, Mr. Wood.
One so much a real-estate speculator as he should
be the son of a speculator; and such we find to be
the case. His father, William W. Wood, was one
of the men who created Illinois, and made her rapid.
growth the wonder of the sixth decade of our cen-
tury. He founded Woodborough in Montgomery
county, and there, in 1833, Thomas was born.
an early age he assisted his father in his many
operations, when only ten years old being compe-
tent to hire and discharge men on the farm and in
the store.
At
The great conflict culminating in the Civil war
absorbed the interest of his early life. His family
was Democratic and from South Carolina, whence
the grandfather removed at an early date to Illinois.
But they were abolitionists, the grandfather freeing
his slaves upon arriving at the frontier. An uncle
was so outspoken against slavery as to have a
reward of five hundred dollars publicly offered for
his head at St. Louis. In 1852 Thomas, at the age
of nineteen, crossed the plains to Oregon in Cap-
tain Gilliam's company, and upon his arriving
began business by buying apples at six dollars per
bushel, and selling them from his little stand at
one and two bits each. He soon found a place in
the grocery store of W. S. Ladd, and later was
employed with S. J. McCormick, the original sta-
tioner and bookseller of Portland. He was receiv-
ing one hundred and twenty-five dollars per month
in that position; but, feeling a desire for more
education than he had yet received, he left his
work, and, crossing back, entered Delaware College,
Ohio.
Soon after this the war broke out; and he became
very active in raising recruits. He made a three-
months' tour of speaking in a county that he men-
tions as tolerably strong copperhead, and there
secured three companies. He was offered the rank
of major, but declined, accepting in lieu thereof
the chaplaincy of Holman's battalion, Frémont's
body-guard. Serving one hundred days, he returned
to college, and graduating came out in 1862 again
to Oregon, making the journey alone with his wife
and two men. He began business here the second
time as dealer in turpentine, but afterwards became
a member of the Methodist conference, preaching at
Roseburg, Salem, Vancouver and again at Salem,
in all a period of nine years. Removing to Port-
land, he opened a museum, a collection of natural
curiosities.
In 1876 he took up the real-estate business; and
in this has continued to the present time with great
success. In 1883 he laid out the town of Sellwood,
and is at present developing the delightful suburban
retreat at Garden Home or West Portland. He has
also been active in a public way to improve the city
and state, being one of the number to solicit funds
for the Board of Immigration, securing pledges
which will produce an income of twenty-five hun-
dred dollars a month.
As an Indian fighter, Mr. Wood served in the
company of Colonel Backenstock in 1855, and saw
some skirmishes in the Cœur d'Alene country, and
was nearly captured at the Des Chutes. As a pio-
neer, he was first to build a quartz mill on Pine
creek, and operated the Gem gold mine. He was
the first to build and run a flour-mill in the Grande
Ronde, and was a member of the first party to set
a flag on the top of Mount Hood. He has a fine
family, as follows: William Hosea, Edward C., Vir-
ginia A., Emma R., Mary B., John and Nellie.
His home has a refinement secured not only by
wealth, but by the mental culture of the father and
mother, and the morality pervading all its members.
A. P. WOODWARD.- Those who had the
sharp work of quieting the Indians, and of defend-
ing the homes and families of the Whites in 1855–56,
did not at that time suppose that their work would
ever be of historic interest. But the time is coming
when every name of the veterans will be inscribed
as with letters of gold upon the records of the
state.
He
One of these veterans is Mr. Woodward.
was born in Muskingum, Ohio, and, after the man-
ner of many Westerners, spent his early days in
gradually passing westward, moving by slow stages
through Illinois and Iowa. In 1852 he came across
the plains with a party numbering fifty. Young
Woodward having, however, fallen sick on the
way, was left in the Grande Ronde valley to re-
This led to his residence of two years in
the Walla Walla valley; and in 1854 he went out
into Idaho with Major G. O. Haller and Captain
Olney to quiet the Indian disorders consequent upon
the Ward massacre. That campaign occupied the
cover.
42
640
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
entire season; and upon their return in 1855 they
tendered their services in the general outbreak of
that year. Woodward was in Major Rains' expedi-
tion to Fort Hall. He was among those who cap-
tured and hanged some of the Indians. Later in
the year he was detailed with Captain Olney to
warn the Whites in the Walla Walla valley of their
danger, and to conduct them to The Dalles. This
was a hazardous undertaking, requiring both endur-
ance and courage, but was successfully accomplished
within twenty days. At The Dalles the young
soldier found the Oregon Volunteers just arriving
from below, and took service with them, and passed
through the seven-months' campaign that succeeded.
In the winter of that campaign he was sent, in
company with one Cayuse George, a white man, to
carry a message to The Dalles, to hasten the for-
warding of troops, as the Indians were harassing
the soldiers above and pressing heavily upon their
lines of communication. He also went down to
Portland and communicated with the governor.
Upon his return to the field, he was met by severe
weather, which filled the mountains with snow and
the Columbia with ice. He crossed the ponderous
floes and ice fields of the river to and fro on the sec-
tion below the Cascades, and above that point made
the frozen river itself his pathway. He and his
pony met with no mishap, but rounded the mouth
of Hood or Dog river outside of the broken ice
and air-holes always to be found at its junction
with the Columbia. Leaving his animal there, the
messenger passed on to The Dalles, still traveling on
the ice. Rarely is such a journey possible; and it
is never very safe. That was in January, 1856.
The following summer he left the volunteers and
took service with the regular army as messenger,
serving until 1858. During that time his duties.
called him into the most difficult and dangerous
positions, often bringing him within an inch of
death.
Returning to civil life, he settled on a farm fifteen
miles from Walla Walla, making that his home.
until 1883, when he removed to the Umatilla Reser-
vation, Oregon, and engaged in farming. There he
lives happily with his family of six children.
HENRY H. WOODWARD.-The life of a pio-
neer of any country is a hard one. But the pioneer of
the Pacific coast had really more to contend with than
his early brother of any other state east or west of
the great Mother of Waters. His daily life was not
only one of almost unendurable hardship and pri-
vation, with the eternal gnawings of want; but it
was also beset with imminent danger; and he was in
continued dread of death from the poisoned arrow
of the red man, or his more fortunate fellow who used
a gun. The pioneer of this coast held himself in ever
readiness to go to the front, at a moment's call, to
assist in the subjugation of the various bands of
Indians who held retreats in the mountain fastnesses
which chain and interchain the country on every
side, and who were continually swooping down upon
the little handful of settlers in every section, and
ofttimes massacring them before the news of their
arrival could be sent from house to house.
Taking a complete history of all the tribes that
ever inhabited this continent, as far as we have any
knowledge, the tribes which roamed the Pacific coast
at will for untold ages, were the most treacherous,
brutal, savage and warlike, perhaps because they
were virtually cut off from the rest of the world;
and, while the march of civilization was gradually
pressing its way westward, and their kindred tribes
in the more eastern states were being treated with
and placed under control, they were as wild as the
more primitive bands which preceded them centuries
before. Then they firmly believed this country was
their undisputed own. Indeed, it had never before
been disputed; and generations had been born, and
had lived and passed away, in lone possession. To
them it was the greatest mark of injustice, intrusion
and outrage to see the white man within the limits
of their domain; and, like the owners of all other
firesides, with them it was to do or die. They de-
fended the right of their broad home with the same
zeal, fervor and ferocity with which the humblest
among us would defend his little cottage home and
cheery fireside against the destroying element of hist
all.
But the bravery, valor and undaunted spirit of
those who came before to hew and prepare the way
for those to come after shall not be forgotten. The
history of their lives, trials and dangers will be
written upon the tablets of the living, that all may
read and know just what it took to make this
country one of the grandest the sun
ever shone
upon.
Among those who came to the coast in an early
day, and who passed through the many trying
vicissitudes of pioneer life, is Mr. H. H. Wood-
ward, the subject of this biography. He first saw
the light of day on December 30, 1826, at Sheffield,
Yorkshire, England. His parents were highly re-
spected, and enjoyed the lives of good livers, as
his father was a master plumber and conducted an
extensive business for himself. J. H. Abraham
gave Mr. Woodward a commercial education, he
having sustained the loss of his parents at the early
age of thirteen.
Having a natural inclination for a seafaring life,
he was entered as an apprentice to William Tindall,
a shipowner in London, to become a mariner, with
whom he remained fully five years, giving entire
satisfaction both as an apprentice and as a finished
master of his business. Afterwards he was appointed
third mate of the Persia. That was before his term of
indenture had expired, which shows the confidence
which was reposed in his youthful ability. Later
he made five voyages in the ship to Ceylon, East
India. Afterwards he shipped in the Pearl, which
was also owned by Mr. Tindall, on a voyage to the
South Sea Islands. That was in 1849. The vessel
was chartered by some Frenchmen to sail to San
Francisco, where it arrived in December of that
year. It was there seized by the United States au-
thorities for being a British vessel carrying a foreign
cargo. The captain did not know that it was neces-
sary for Congress to ratify the new treaty. But
that treaty settled all disputes, and gave the hands
leave of absence ashore, at will. Mr. Woodward
preferred to go ashore, and, being tired of the high
seas, found employment on the steamer McKim,
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
641
which plied between Sacramento and San Francisco.
He remained until the spring of 1850, when he
turned his attention to mining, casting his first
luck on the Yuba river. In the fall of that year he
gave up the hunt for gold as a lost mission, and re-
turned to San Francisco, from which place he
started for the Umpqua river, Oregon, in the Min-
crva with Captain Toney, which they entered No-
vember 27, 1850.
In the spring of 1851 he established what is now
known as Smith's ferry, on the main Umpqua. He
disposed of the ferry the following winter, and en-
gaged in the packing business to the Southern
mines, also to Randolph, Coos county, which he
followed for three years.
In the spring of 1854, Mr. Woodward took a
claim under the Donation act, on the south fork of
the Coquille river, in Coos county, Oregon. A
treaty soon followed with the Upper Coquille tribe
of Indians; and our subject was engaged by Gen-
eral Joel Palmer to collect them for the purpose of
negotiating a treaty between them and the govern-
ment, which he did to the General's great aid. He
not only did that, but also was instrumental in in-
ducing the tribe to go to Port Orford, under the
escort of Agent Benjamin Wright, who was killed
in the fall of 1855 in the massacre at Rogue river.
Many of the Indians were very superstitious; and
some of them could not be induced to place them-
selves under the protection of the government.
They remained very hostile, under the Chief Wash-
ington, who was the instigator in all of the "cuss-
edness" in that locality.
At the breaking out of the Rogue river war,
all
the settlers in Mr. Woodward's locality had left for
safer retreats. Having no protection, he also
thought it best to leave; so he enlisted as a pri-
vate in Company I, Second Regiment of Oregon
Mounted Volunteers, under Captain W. W. Chap-
man. Our subject served his full three months,
that being the time for which he had enlisted. The
Indians were still in the mountain fastnesses; and,
the settlements being without protection, he re-
enlisted in the company as second sergeant until
May 14, 1856, when he was honorably discharged
from the military service of the territory of Oregon.
The hardships and perils which Mr. Woodward
underwent in that short time on the frontier as a sol-
dier would fill a volume. When peace was restored
he returned to his farm on the Coquille. The Indi-
ans had taken everything from the place that was
loose at both ends; and that which they found fast
they had destroyed. Our subject was financially
embarrassed when he returned to his farm. In fact,
he lacked three cents of having any kind of change.
His only possessions consisted of the horse which
he owned before the war, and which served him
faithfully all through the service, a rifle, hunting
knife, saddle, bridle and two blankets. But he
thought of the many who did not own as much as
he did; and, consoling himself with the fact that
there were many others in the same fix, he went
to work, and was soon "on his feet" again. With
this start he again commenced packing, and farming
on his Donation claim in Coos county.
In 1867 he disposed of his claim and other prop-
erty, and removed to Roseburg, Douglas county,
Oregon, and engaged as a book canvasser for A. L.
Bancroft & Co., of San Francisco, in whose employ
he remained several years. For him canvassing
was not profitable, as he was sadly deficient in that
essential to success in that line,-cheek. He quit
canvassing, and engaged as warehouseman with
Marks & Co., of Roseburg, in whose employ he
remained until 1884, when he left for a voyage to
visit the scenes of his childhood and an only sister.
In July, 1875, he returned to Roseburg. During
his trip abroad, Mr. Woodward wrote and pub-
lished a small volume of poems, consisting of two
hundred and eight pages, a few copies of which he
brought to Oregon. On his return to Roseburg, he
found that positions were not plentiful; and he
again entered the employ of Bancroft & Co. He
remained with that firm for several years, when he
again entered the service of Marks & Co. as ware-
houseman, and remained until 1886, when he left
that firm's employ to reside on a small property he
had in Roseburg, where he continues to live.
Mr. Woodward has managed, by the close prac-
tice of economy and frugality, to save enough out
of the buffetings of business to keep him in comfort
the balance of his life. Lyrics of the Umpqua "
is the title of his last volume of poems; and a ready
home market brings him a well-rounded income
alone. The work was published by the Alden book
concern of New York City, and is a very neat piece
of typographical work. The work is dedicated to
the Pioneers and Veterans of the Northwest Coast
of the United States of America," and consists of
some two hundred pages.
Mr. Woodward served the county of Coos as su-
pervisor of a road district in 1863. A year prior
he taught a district school one term in the same
county. In 1857 he acted as judge of election in
Johnson's precinct. He also served as justice of the
peace two terms, one by appointment under Judge
S. S. Mann, and the other by election in 1886-87.
In 1880 he had the honor of being appointed one of
the enumerators of the census of the United States,
his labors in that capacity being concentrated in
Douglas county.
Mr. Woodward is now in the afternoon of life,
with the morn well spent; and he has nothing to
look back to with regret. During all of these years,
he never found it meet to take unto himself a com-
panion for life. He never saw that woman with
whom he ever had the least desire to join his des-
tiny; so he has led a life of signal unity. He is now
waiting for the setting of his day's sun, when he
will close his eyes to the scenes of this world with
the profound comfort of a life well spent, and the
unwavering consolation of having done his full
duty on every occasion where time with its changes
has called him.
P. A. WORTHINGTON.-Weston, Oregon com-
mands as fine a prospect as any city in the Inland
Empire. It grows handsome itself very largely in
proportion to its increase in population. This is be-
coming one of the pleasant features of towns and
cities on the plains of the Columbia. These grassy
hills and plateaus, destitute of timber for scores of
642
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
miles, seem weary and monotonous in their very
extensiveness. But the villages, cities and the bet-
ter class of rural houses are now places of water
and trees, arbors, turfy lawns and plazas, fruits and
flowers, and are therefore of a nature of a retreat
from the magnificent prairies and rolling plains
which are at one time green and purple with young
grass, later buff and tawny with the same grass
sere, or a few weeks in winter white with snow.
Weston is one of these places; and one of the hand-
somest residences there is that of Mr. P. A. Worth-
ington.
His home is an index of his prosperity; and we
find, upon inquiry, that he is one of the foremost
men of the place. His career illustrates how men
in the Northwest rise from a capital consisting of
their hands and their brains to a competency. Born
in Eastern Tennessee in 1853, he moved to Missouri
in 1874; and, crossing the plains with horse-teams
in 1875, located permanently at Weston. Knowing
the ins and outs of carpentering, he went to work
with his hands at his trade; and, when work of this
kind did not offer, accepted any manual labor.
After a time he found an opportunity to keep books,
and spent thus two years at the desk. This led the
way to a position as clerk in the large mercantile
establishment of Saling & Rees. When that firm
dissolved partnership, he was prepared to go into
business in the firm of Saling & Co., one of the
strongest in Umatilla county.
He was married in 1878 to Miss Cora A. Saling;
and it is undoubtedly much due to her that he has
secured such great prosperity. They have one
daughter, Helen. Mr. Worthington is still a young
man, and has a hold upon the business of the coun-
try which should lift him into the front rank of the
men of affairs. He had faith in the Weston coun-
try when many declared it too rough and dry for
any practical use except for grazing. He now reaps
the reward of his confidence.
The work
GENERAL GEORGE WRIGHT.
of this stern and skillful soldier in quelling some
of the Indian wars of the Pacific Northwest was so
conspicuous that the reader who has learned the
story of his campaigns will be anxious to know
the general features of his life. Born in Vermont
in 1803, he received an appointment to West Point,
from which he graduated in 1822. He was early
introduced to the Indian warfare of the frontier,
spending the first nine years of his army life at
various places in the great West. In 1831 he went
to Louisiana, where he remained till 1836. He then
took part in the Florida Indian war. After this he
spent several years in quiet, to again enter the field
on the outbreak of the Mexican war. In this he
served with great distinction under both Taylor and
Scott.
He came to the Pacific coast in 1852 as a major
in the Fifth Infantry. He took a leading part in
the military operations in the Pacific Northwest in
the great Indian wars of 1855-56 and later. His
exploits in those events, and especially his thor-
oughness in dealing with the Indians who had
handled Steptoe's command so roughly, have been
chronicled many times. In 1861 he was ordered to
San Francisco to relieve General Sumner, receiving
in September of that year his promotion to a briga-
dier-generalship. He remained in San Francisco
till 1865, when he was transferred again to Oregon.
He set sail for his old department on the ill-omened.
steamer Brother Jonathan, which was wrecked on
the coast of Southern Oregon on the 30th of July;
and the old hero, with his wife and three hundred
other passengers, was drowned.
JACKSON WRIGHT.— Mr. Wright's life on
this coast embodies bits of as sharp experience with
Indians as may be found in the records of any of
our pioneers. He was born in Missouri in 1842,
and in 1850 came to Oregon with his father Lazorus
Wright, who took up a Donation claim on Myrtle
creek, and was a captain in the war of 1855-56.
He removed to the Grande Ronde valley in 1863,
where he lived until his death in 1885.
At the age of twenty-two our subject engaged in
business of his own, and in 1868 was married to
Miss Marindia J. Richardson of Myrtle Creek. It
was in 1861 that he met with the attack from the
Indians. Incompany with Captain Bailey of Eugene,
driving a band of eight hundred and sixty-two
cattle, bound for Washoe, he met with an attack
from the Pitt river Indians, by whom Bailey and
Samuel Evans were killed, the former shooting
down before his death seven Indians in as many
minutes. The rest of the men escaped, leaving
the cattle to the savages. Six hundred and forty-
seven of them belonged to Wright, for the loss of
which he has never been reimbursed by the gov-
ernment.
In 1874 he came to the Grande Ronde valley, en-
gaging in sheep-husbandry, finally investing in real
estate, and now owning eight hundred acres of ex-
cellent land at the north end of the Cove, Oregon,
upon which he has a fine residence. Amid pleasant
surroundings, with his nine children and two grand-
children, he possesses the happy life of the Eastern
Oregon farmer.
WM. T. WRIGHT.— Mr. Wright, who has
demonstrated the practicability of fruit culture in
the Umatilla country, was born in Massachusetts in
1830. His father was a molder and worker in
iron furnaces, and in 1840 moved to Ohio, where
Mr. Wright as a boy received a common-school edu-
cation, and remained with his parents until of age,
when he engaged in stock-dealing on his own ac-
count. In 1853 he came to California, mining,
gardening, speculating and stock-dealing. In 1859
he returned to Ohio and engaged in the oil-well
region at Mecca and in Pennsylvania.
Ten years
later he went to the plains of the West with the
intention of raising stock in Kansas, and he also
engaged in milling in Missouri.
In 1879 he crossed the plains to Umatilla county,
Oregon, and pre-empted the tract of land immedi-
ately northwest of the town of Milton.
He com-
menced experimenting with the different fruits of
the country, raising one year three thousand pounds
of strawberries and eight thousand pounds of grapes
upon one acre of land, and other fruits in propor-
tion. This marked success stimulated others to

M
MOSCOW, IDAHO.
HOTEL DEL NORTÉ
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
643
develop small portions of the so-called gravel flat;
and as a consequence large profits were realized.
These are now well covered with orchards, vine-
yards, etc.; and these hitherto unvalued lands are
now as productive as any. Mr. Wright has four
acres in grapes of twenty varieties, and has demon-
strated without a doubt the value of that quality
of land for growing all kinds of small fruits.
In October, 1883, he purchased and platted
North Milton, which addition to that town is rap-
idly growing. The Peacock Roller Mills, the
Milton Paper Mills, and the Oregon Railway &
Navigation Company's depot grounds are situated
in that region.
W. T. WRIGHT.-- Among the many who with
their parents braved the dangers and endured the
hardships of the pioneer's life, Mr. Wright, whose
portrait is herewith presented, deserves a prominent
place.
He was born in 1845 in the state of Illinois, and
in 1852 with his parents came the ever-memorable
plains across." Although he was then a small
lad, the terrors of that trip, over the long, dry,
dusty and ofttimes dangerous roads, with slow, toil-
ing ox-teams,. are still vividly remembered by Mr.
Wright, after a lapse of more than a third of a cen-
tury; and their recollection will never be effaced.
Arriving at the present site of Portland in the early
winter of 1852, with a depleted purse, but rich in a
strong determination to win in the battle of life, and
to assist in the great work of building up a state,
the father, George Wright, went to work, and until
1861, when he left for the mines of Idaho, was rec-
ognized as one of Portland's substantial and worthy
citizens. He is now living in Union, Oregon, sur-
rounded by all the comforts of life, and enjoying
the respect and confidence of all who have ever
known him.
In Portland the subject of our sketch attended
school at the old Portland Academy, from which
he graduated with the highest honors in 1865,-
having in the meantime taken a thorough course in
book-keeping at the A. G. Beach Business College,
San Francisco. In the years 1861-62 he was en-
gaged with his father and Captain A. P. Ankeny in
merchandising at Oro Fino and Lewiston, Idaho.
After his graduation from school, in 1865, he went
to Union, where his father had settled, and engaged
in the mercantile and milling business; and from
thence, until 1883, the firm of George Wright &
Sons, largely under the management of W. T.
Wright, was one of the largest and most successful
houses in that country.
In 1882, somewhat against his judgment, he was
persuaded by his fellow Republicans to accept the
nomination for county clerk. The county was
Democratic by about two hundred majority; but his
popularity carried him through; and he was elected,
and served out his term, making a splendid officer.
While in that office, in 1883, he organized the First
National Bank of Union, of which he is now and
has been since its organization cashier and manager,
controlling a majority of its stock. The success of
this bank has been all that anyone could wish, and,
considering its situation, almost wonderful; and
it proves Mr. Wright to be a financier worthy of
a larger and more extensive field. His whole busi-
ness career has been very successful; and at the
early meridian of life we find him possessed of an
ample competence and laying more extensive plans
for the future. He is possessed of large landed in-
terests in Union and Baker counties; and doubtless
his future operations, guided by conservative and
well-governed business principles and extensive ex-
perience, will be as successful as have been the past.
In politics Mr. Wright is an earnest Republican,
not for office, for that he has not sought, but
from principle, and has not failed for many years
to attend the state conventions of his party as a del-
egate from his county. He is well-informed, a great
reader, and wields a trenchant pen.
Mr. Wright is a zealous Mason, advanced to the
degree of Knight Templar, and has enjoyed in the
order every mark of distinction which his brethren
could show. In 1883 he was elected grand master
of Masons of the state of Oregon, having previously
served as senior and junior grand warden and dep-
uty grand master. His administration of the affairs of
that high office was wise, discreet and able, and stamps
him as an executive of high ability. His interest in
the affairs of Masonry is shown by the fact that for
fifteen years he has not missed an annual commu-
nication of the grand lodge, in which body he is an
influential member. He is also an Odd Fellow, and
a member of the A. O. U. W.
In 1870 Mr. Wright was married to Miss Belle
Mallory, a native of New York. They have a
family of eight children, all strong, active and in-
telligent. He has a splendid home, and is sur-
rounded by all the comforts and luxuries of life.
Possessed of a vigorous constitution and sound
health, his prospects for a long, useful and happy
life could not be better. He is a man of strong
character, self-reliant, slow in forming attachments;
but, when once formed, they are lasting. He is de-
votedly attached to his family; and his home is one
of the most pleasant that can be found. His life
has been a successful one; and his future seems to
be unclouded save with roseate shadows.
HON. HENRY L. YESLER.-There are two
very distinct types of men-those that think, and
those that act. One of the former class finds his
satisfaction in reaching a conclusion. One of the
latter class finds his satisfaction in performing a deed.
The man of thought must of necessity act more or
less; but his acts are characterized by hesitation,
doubt, or perhaps carelessness. He may be borne
along by the activity of others, his choice of this or
that being overruled by the general stream of the
world's or the community's business.
formances may turn out well, or ill, not so much
from anything which he does or leaves undone, as
from the drift of the circumstances of others' crea-
tion. He may think like a Socrates, or like a
Diogenes, and like them go barefoot, or live in a
tub. Such men are of the greatest use to the world,
and in the course of their lives may make plain and
simple a world of discordant facts by discovering the
true theory of their relation; but their tremendous
mental fervor seldom goes outside of their own brains.
His per-
644
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
On the contrary, the man of action, while he thinks,
plans and examines, does all his thinking merely to
carry it into some visible effect, to form an empire,
to make a state, to build a railroad or mill, to open
a farm, or to make a home. The thinker is conscious
chiefly of the process of his thoughts, and cannot
well hold his mind upon anything else. The actor
The actor
is chiefly conscious of what he is doing, and usually
has no sensation or remembrance of the course of
thought which led him to his deed. His actions
seem to be intuitive; and there is no appreciable
period between impression and performance. His
hands and feet move with the operations of his mind;
and at every important turn his acts are impulsive.
When a man has this type of temperament or char-
acter joined to a strong and accurate brain, he can
do almost anything. The greatness of his exploits
are limited only by the field or age in which he is
born; and even in any place or time he will find
room for greatness.
We need not look to the bright-or dusty-names
of the world's history—to Alexander or Hannibal or
Cæsar, to Fulton or Arkwright or Grant or Sheri-
dan-for examples of the men of action. It is a
mistake to suppose that we must go a thousand
miles away from home, or a few centuries back in
the world's history, for the first and best qualities.
We find them on the Pacific coast as well as on the
Atlantic or in Europe. We have them here, per-
haps in the rough quartz, not yet refined by the
process of history, in which the trivial, the "
mon and unclean," is separated and lost out of sight
from the perfect and enduring.
com-
We
We are led to these reflections from observing how
many of the pioneers of the Pacific slope have been
almost typically men of action. Brought face to face
with dangers and difficulties by sea or land, having
before them the solution of Indian troubles and of
the problem of existence when the means of sub-
sistence were the most scanty, their faculties for
prompt and courageous action seemed to have been
sharpened; and a thousand hard experiences have
crystallized into a second nature distinguished by
penetration and facility. This type of mind, so
largely developed by the conditions of pioneer days,
shows itself in the business men of the coast.
sometimes hear that our business is sluggish, that
our methods are superannuated, and that our leaders
are slow. But the cold statistics show that per
capita the people of the Pacific Northwest produce
more than any other people in the world. The vol-
ume of business done here per year is enormous.
It is true that our great resources have been scarcely
touched as yet. Gold, silver, lead, iron, copper and
coal lie undug and almost unknown. The plow has
scarcely scratched our fields. The orchards of the
future are not yet planted. We have water-power
sufficient for the world, five falls of the Columbia
being sufficient to supply force, to be conveyed away
by electric cables, for all the manufactories of the
Union; and all yet remain in their primal wildness.
It is yet to be fully recognized that Washington
and Oregon have facilities enjoyed by no other part
of the world for great world-wide enterprises. When
we mine, mill and manufacture for the world, we
shall reap the full benefit conferred upon us by the
bounty of nature. In a few lines has this been done,
and with the most satisfactory results. Our wheat,
our fish and our lumber go to all parts of America
and the old world.
We may appropriately name this here; for Mr.
Yesler, of Seattle, of whom we are writing, is the
pioneer in the manufacture of Puget Sound lumber
for the world's market. He is one of our Western
men of action, whose nerves are not far from his
brain; and he, of all men, was the first to put into
practical and remunerative effect, if, indeed, he did
not first conceive, the plan of opening the great
forests of the Sound to the markets of all ports.
California, Mexico, Central America, the Pacific
coast of South America, the South Sea Islands,
Japan, China, the Straits Settlements and Aus-
tralia are now regular consumers of Puget Sound
lumber; and timber grown on our shores floats
on every sea in the world. This gigantic busi-
ness once existed only as an idea in Mr. Yesler's
brain. Beginning with his efforts, it now exists.
as a notable part of the world's commerce. It
is yet, however, but upon the threshold of its
future magnitude. There are two hundred billion
feet of timber left standing, despite the ravages
of the axe and fire. It will last a century at four
times the present rate of consumption; and by that
time the second growth, now from ten to fifty years
old, will be ready for the saw. This presupposes
some care of our forests, however.
Washington Territory is indebted to Washington
in Maryland for her pioneer in the timber business;
for Mr. Yesler was born there in 1810. He resided
in that city until he was of age, when he removed
to Ohio, remaining nineteen years. In 1851 he
canie to Oregon with his family, and worked in
Portland at his trade of a carpenter and millwright.
Desiring some employment more in the nature of a
business of his own, he went to California soon
afterwards, operating a mine at Magnolia. Still
feeling himself capable of greater things, and hav-
ing a penchant for the seacoast, he sought a place
for some great lumbering business, with an open-
ing on tide water, with a world of timber to draw
upon, and with the world for his market. This he
found on Puget Sound, at Seattle, where he put
up a steam sawmill of a capacity of fifteen thousand
feet per day, a little mill," but the forerunner of
all the mills on the Sound. From the establish-
ment of this enterprise we may date the prosperity
of Seattle itself. In those early days, 1854, the
only available labor was Indians, whom the pro-
prietor employed in large numbers, treating them
so honestly and kindly that in the difficulties of the
succeeding year he was able to be of the highest
service to the territory.
Governor Stevens, looking for a man to visit the hos-
tile savages and propose terms for agreement, could
find no one more fully possessing their confidence than
Mr. Yesler, who therefore made the hazardous trip and
carried the reply of the chiefs to the governor, and,
upon his request, went the second time alone with
two friendly Indians to the hostile camp, and
brought back with him one hundred of the Indians
lately on the warpath, delivering them at the execu-
tive mansion. This transaction involved a personal
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
645
prowess and sagacity, marking Mr. Vesler as a man
of very high practical ability. Upon another occa-
sion he saved the settlement from massacre by timely
word sent to the naval authorities.
When the territory was organized, he was made
auditor, and held the office several terms. He
has been commissioner of King county a number
of times, and twice mayor of Seattle. These
honors have all been in recognition of his ability
and dignified discharge of public duties. During
his last term as mayor, in 1885, occurred the Chi-
nese riots. Although not a friend of foreign labor,
he did not flinch from the suppression of mob vio-
lence.
While thus occupied with public duties, and also
conducting a large real-estate business, Mr. Yesler
still continues the operation of his mill, which now
has a capacity of eighty-five thousand feet per day.
His frame is but little bent by his seventy-nine
years of activity. His geniality and hospitality
only expand with the widening of his field of life.
It is his chief enjoyment to receive his friends and
old acquaintances in his opulent home, and recall
with them the scenes of past times, and, like
enough, to prognosticate the events of the new
times that are coming.
No less mindful is he to entertain strangers, the
newcomers, who, human-like, may begin their West-
ern life with something of home-sickness or diffi-
dence. It is also in his home, and homes like his,
that distinguished visitors from abroad gain those
favorable impressions of our coast and her people,
which, carried back with them to the older centers
of business and society, do us the most substantial
good. Although thus occupying so prominent a
public and social position, he has never forgotten
to be a good neighbor to those in narrow circum-
stances, and has always lent a helping hand to
those requiring aid.
Mr. Yesler has been the creator of a great busi-
ness, is universally known, and will ever be remem-
bered as one of the noted founders of the Pacific
Northwest.
JUDGE HUGH G. YOAKUM. — Judge Voa-
kum, who enjoys a very high reputation as a man
of probity and fidelity in public affairs, was born in
Tennessee in 1831, and removed to Missouri in 1834.
He was married in 1851. In 1863 he came to Ore-
gon, settling in Lane county, and in 1867 made his
permanent home on the Umatilla river, near the
town of Nolin. The domestic circle was sadly
broken by the death of his wife in 1886. But his
daughter, Minnie Lee, and two sons, D. J. and H. C.,
still remain at the farm.
In political life Mr. Yoakum has taken a promi-
nent part, having been elected justice of the peace
in 1868 and again in 1870. In 1872 he was chosen
county judge, and was re-elected in 1876. Entering
upon the duties of the latter office, he found affairs
at loose ends, and the county heavily in debt. The
clerk of the former court had taken the privilege of
issuing county warrants of which the board of com-
missioners have found no record; and the stub books
were destroyed. The presentation of these warrants,
which still continues to a limited extent, made strict
economy necessary. Vigilance was further required
as to expenses, by the disproportion of crime in the
county, made by its being the rendezvous of miners,
etc., and by the extra pay of three per cent allowed
witnesses, jurors, etc., on account of the greater ex-
pense of travel in that region. From all these
reasons improvements were not largely made; but
the county was put in splendid shape for them now.
For his ability shown in office, as well as for his
sterling qualities in private and personal life, Judge
Yoakum is held in high esteem by all his fellow-
citizens and the community generally.
Young's
EDWARD THOMAS YOUNG.
YOUNG.
Hotel, at the capital of Washington Territory, is a
conspicuous building, well known to the traveling
public and to the members of the legislature, and is
the pride of the city. Its proprietor, whose name it
bears, is a native of London, England. He was
born in 1846. At an early age he crossed the water
and lived with his parents at Newcastle, Canada.
Subsequently he went to Bruce county, near Lake
Huron, where he worked at the carpenter's trade
and general building, and acquired the means to
cross the continent.
He came with a brother, William, to Santa Barbara,
and there still further increased his capital by strict
attention to contracting and building. Sickness,
however, set him afloat once more; and in Oregon
he found employment as bridge builder on the Ore-
gon and California Railroad. Advancing northward,
he reached Olympia in 1869. He still continued his
trade of house and general building, and in 1872,
after a brief sojourn in Old Tacoma, started the res-
taurant and bakery at Olympia, afterwards known
as the New England Bakery and Restaurant, con-
ducting it with such satisfactory results as to war-
rant him in enlarging his business by the lease of
the Tacoma Hotel. Three years and eight months
of operating that house enabled him to make the
building his own by purchase; and he has since kept
it up to its old mark of popularity, indeed, passing
that mark with each successive season.
In 1882, in company with his wife, he made a tour
of the Eastern states, visiting his old home in Canada.
Upon his return to the United States he visited
Washington City, and secured the order for the open-
ing to settlement of a strip of land fifteen miles wide
and sixty miles long across the entire reservation of
Chief Moses. His efforts at the same time went far
towards throwing open the entire reservation to the
public. The valuable silver quartz mines there, in
which he and others were interested, was his incen-
tive to accomplish the work of opening the country
for settlement.
It
Mr. Young is president of the Eagle Mining Com-
pany of Mount Chopaaca and Smilkimeen mining
district, Okanagan county. This county has been
created since the reservation was thrown open.
previously formed a part of Stevens county.
Arriving home from his trip, he again assumed
the management of his hotel, adding such improve-
ments as the progress of the times and growth of
the city demanded.
He has filled public offices, having been mayor of
Olympia, and member of the council ten years.
646
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
His wife, Josephine Dofflemyer, is a native of Olym-
pia. The fruits of their union were six children,
one of whom is deceased. Mr. Young is one of the
broad-minded men of the place, and very energetic
in the pursuit of his objects; and he has done as
much as any one citizen of the beautiful city of
Olympia to bring her great advantages to the
knowledge of railroad people and capitalists. The
results of his efforts will be seen-like the bread
cast upon the waters—to return after many days.
MRS. SARAH ZACHARY.-This pioneer of
1843 is not only one of the first settlers of Oregon,
but among the oldest persons in the Northwest.
She has attained her eighty-sixth year, and is still
in firm health and of sound mind. Eleven children
Eleven children
were born to her, eight of whom are now living.
She has seventy-six grandchildren, and sixty-five
great-grandchildren.
She is a Kentuckian, born in 1804, and was mar-
ried at nineteen to Alex Zachary, with whom she
moved to Arkansas in 1824, and to Texas in 1836,
coming out to Oregon five years later. They were
in the famous company of Applegate, Burnett,
Nesmith and Shively, which was piloted by Doctor
Whitman. They shared the usual hardships and
pleasures of the company, experiencing nothing
peculiar but a serious and almost fatal accident at
the Kaw river. The ferry-boat with which the
crossing was made was overloaded and perhaps
badly managed. At all events it sank in midstream,
drawing down the goods and provisions, and scat-
tering Mrs. Zachary and the nine children amid the
waves and strong current. Quite a party of Indians
were along the shore, who showed their goodwill by
immediately diving into the water and bringing all
the children safely to the land. Mrs. Zachary
caught hold of an ox-yoke, and was thus kept
afloat, but not without being drifted far down stream
before her rescue. As their entire outfit was thus
lost, the distressed mother begged her husband to
return and to tempt the dangers of the way no
more. But the other emigrants were able each to
spare a little of their provisions, and insisted upon
the unfortunate family continuing the journey.
The plains were crossed; and the old-fashioned
method of loading the wagons and children on rafts
at The Dalles, and from the Cascades by bateau, and
driving the cattle over the trail north of Mount
Hood, was brought into use; and the Zacharys
found themselves at Oregon City safe and well.
Mr. Zachary bought the Five Oaks farm in Wash-
ington county, going to work almost immediately
with the same cattle with which he had crossed the
plains. He plowed and sowed fifty acres of land,
and hauled sufficient rails to fence a hundred acres.
This was thrift. This pioneer was born in 1802 in
North Carolina, moving west to Kentucky and
finally to Oregon. He lived upon his magnificent
farm until his death in 1859. He served during the
Cayuse war, and went to California, gold-digging, in
1848. Of their eleven children eight are still living.
Two of the daughters are in Washington county,
and one in Wasco county, Oregon. Two of the
sons are in Eastern Oregon; and the others are in
the Willamette valley. The venerable Mrs. Zachary,
still vigorous, makes her home with her second
eldest daughter, Mrs. Emerick, at Cornelius, Ore-
gon, and enjoys life with her children, grandchildren
and great-grandchildren, and is one of the mothers
of Oregon. A world of interest, delight and pathos
lingers about the sunset years of such a life as that
of this lady.
DESCRIPTION OF SOME HISTORIC TOWNS, INDUSTRIES, ETC.
ARLINGTON, OREGON.- Not all virgins or
virgin towns experience so favorable a change in
material circumstances after changing their names
as has the town of the above heading. The coy
maid of Alkali (not a drawing appellation for the
man who hoped to maintain himself on the land-
dowry of the heiress of the wool ranches) has
become transmogrified into the stately dame of
Arlington; and, presto! her lands and storehouses
are filled to overflowing; and in the markets of the
wool exchanges, as well as in the rooms of the im-
migration bureaus, her name leads all the rest.
Alkali was, in truth, a misnomer; for though there
are some alkali in spots everywhere in the Upper
Columbia basin, and in fact throughout the entire
country west of the Rocky Mountains, there is no
especial proportion of it in the vicinity of the place
which formerly bore that sinister title.
Arlington, as people have now learned to call it,
is particularly famous as the center of the wool
trade in the Pacific Northwest. We might perhaps
more accurately say that it divides that distinction
with Heppner; for the land of the sheep lies between
the two places, and mountainward from the latter.
But we do not deem ourselves reckless in asserting
that the future claim to greatness of the counties of
Morrow, Gilliam and Wasco is going to be based on
agriculture rather than on stock. The stock busi-
ness has its valuable features; and no one should
underestimate the enormous benefit that it has been
to this coast. But it has had its day. It represents
the nomadic type of industry, and can never com-
pete with farming as an inducement to immigrants.
None will be more glad than the heavy sheep and
cattle men of most of the region named to divide
their range with the homeseeker. For they realize
that, vast as are the capabilities of their section for
the production of range stock, its ability to yield
crops of grain and fruit and stalled cattle are even
greater. And they realize, too, that the same enter-
prise which made them wealthy in the solitary
occupation of the cowboy and sheep-rancher will
stand them in stead in the more crowded and social
conditions of farming and commercial life. Hence
they await the inevitable and already enacting
change.

CLINTON P. FERRY,
TACOMA, W. T.
UA
M
C
DESCRIPTION OF SOME HISTORIC TOWNS, INDUSTRIES, ETC.
647
But mark, we do not meau to say that the wool
business and the cattle business which have hitherto
so largely built up the prosperity of Arlington,
Heppner and The Dalles, and which still constitute
the largest single item in their account, will cease or
even diminish. On the contrary, such is the vast-
ness of those industries, and such the nature of
much of the country through which they have their
hold, that they will without doubt continue to
flourish. But what we do mean to say is that the
stock business will lose its relative importance; and
that the regions contiguous to Arlington and
Heppner will become, with the process of the years,
sister cities to Pendleton, Walla Walla and Colfax,
in the character of the products grown about them.
Consult your map again (we do nothing without
maps), and you will discover that Arlington is situ-
ated on the Columbia river at a point just about
midway between the mouth of the Snake river and
the Cascades. It is the largest town between The
Dalles and Walla Walla, having a population in
1889 of about twelve hundred. As you glance at
the vast region naturally tributary to it, and espe-
cially if by actual observation you comprehend the
resources yet lying in embryo in its vicinity, you will
see easily enough that it has a reason for existence.
The town may be said to have begun to be in 1881.
At that time Rodkey's store and Kirby's stable were
already in existence; and J. W. Smith erected a
building since used as a warehouse. The Gilmore
House and the Jordan Hotel were established the
following year, and at once found an abundance to do
in entertaining the numerous strangers whom the
promising prospects of the place attracted thither.
Two churches, a Congregational and a Methodist, were
soon got under way; and, upon lots donated by J.
W. Smith, there were erected buildings which were
a great addition to the appearance of the embryo
city.
In 1885 an important change took place; for in
that year the county of Gilliam was established;
and Arlington (thus newly named) was duly in-
augurated as the county-seat. In that same year
Messrs. Condon & Cornish established a bank, which
was subsequently organized as the Arlington Na-
tional Bank. There is another bank in the place,
the First National, organized in 1887. At the or-
ganization of the county in 1885, the town was duly
provided with a city charter and government, J. A.
Thomas being the first mayor.
On March 22, 1888, Arlington underwent what
seems to be the regular orthodox experience of all
Pacific coast towns, i. e., a destructive fire. As in
other places, too, this temporarily distressing event
prepared the way for a better style of buildings, and
ushered in the second period of the history of the
place. Brick buildings became the watchword of
improvement; and fire and water departments were
organized on a scale that would do credit to a much
larger place. The latter of these has the whole
Columbia river to back it up, sufficient for all the
cities of the earth. The water is pumped by steam
power to a reservoir on the hill half a mile from the
town, and is thence distributed to every house in
the place. Adequate provision is made also for a
supply to be used in case of fire; and, with the
efficient fire company, there is little danger of a
repetition of the disastrous experience of a year
ago.
Arlington is practically the terminus of the Hepp-
ner branch of the Oregon Railway & Navigation
Company (though it diverges from the main line at
the Willows); and it has the roundhouse and other
features of railroad work, by which a number of
men are employed. There are fifteen business
houses of various kinds in Arlington, two banks,
three hotels, two livery stables, two churches, good
schools, and all the accessories of refined and pro-
gressive society. Among these we must not omit
to mention the most potent agency of all, the press.
The representative of this in Arlington is the Ar-
lington Times, which is a consolidation of the Ar-
lington Enterprise and Inland Times. We would
urge emigrants to see this bright place and develop-
ing region before settling elsewhere.
BLACKMAN BROS.' SAWMILL, SNOHO-
MISH, WASHINGTON.-The Blackman Bros.'
sawmill at Snohomish is one of those mammoth
concerns which are found on the shores of Puget
Sound. It turns out some twenty million feet of
lumber per year,-enough to build a city of ten
thousand inhabitants every season. It was first
erected in 1882, forty by one hundred feet; but to
this has been made an addition of forty by one hun-
dred feet, a shingle mill thirty by one hundred and
twenty, and a dryer eighteen by seventy-two. This
dryer they found expensive, but a necessity, as it
was not remunerative to ship green shingles. The
engine and machine-room is thirty by seventy feet,
and is furnished with all the latest appliances. Fir,
cedar and spruce are the principal sorts of lumber
shipped; and the shingles all go to Ohio, the rest
of the lumber readily finding a local market.
superior grade of lumber is manufactured, and is
furnished already seasoned at the mill.
A
The Blackman Bros. log from their own land, of
which they have thirty-four hundred acres, and
operate four camps. The first of these, which was
on Lake Blackman, has been discontinued; another
adjoining the city of Snohomish is still productive
after seven years of steady logging. The largest
camp is on the Quellaceda, a small tributary of the
Snohomish. Another rivaling this is at the junc-
tion of this river with the Skykomish; and the last
is at Fort Susan, and is operated in company with
a partner, W. W. Howard. What constitutes the
public interest of these camps is the use in them of
steam tram-cars for logging. This car is an ex-
ceedingly valuable invention, and was made and
has been perfected by Mr. Hyrcanus Blackman.
We will give here a short description of this car.
As all are aware, the difficulties of logging in our
forests are very great. The logs themselves are so
immense that it requires very heavy teams to move
them. There is, moreover, no snow nor frozen
ground, as at the East, upon which to move. Roads
cut past trees, over knolls, and through holes,
become very shortly a succession of quagmires.
The skid road has been the chief reliance; but this
is useless in the wet months; and in our deep forests
on the coast the skidways do not dry out until June
648
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
or July, and are again impaired by the September
rains. Heavy logs passing over the skids, while
the roadbed is wet, soon displace them; and the
earth between is soon turned into mire.
To avoid as many as possible of these difficulties,
Blackman constructed the tram-car. It is calculated
to run on rails of hardwood, which are simply laid
upon the ground without cross ties at a proper
distance apart. The wheels of the car are enforced
with double flanges; and the tread of the wheel
is made somewhat wider than the rail. So that,
at each passage of the car, some little play is
allowed; and the rails are exactly distanced. To
allow for making curves, the car is constructed with
two double-wheel trucks; and each has a flexible
attachment to the boulster. To allow for passing
over uneven ground or knolls or holes, the coupling
is hinged to the truck; and, to allow for easy
variation in length adapted to different lengths of
logs, the pole is made of two bars, with perforations
at stated intervals, and joined together by pins. A
load of from ten to twenty tons may be safely and
expeditiously carried by this car over wooden rails.
It is operated either by steam or horse power. This
is a most valuable contrivance, not only at logging
camps, but, on every farm where hay, straw or
fertilizers are to be hauled, it would save time and
strength. The rails last for years. They may be
laid in a few hours anywhere; and, except upon
very steep or sidling ground, a load may be taken.
It is perfectly adapted to ordinary roadways; and
we think that it might profitably be operated by
steam upon the public highways.
蜜
​While going to press, the news comes that this
large establishment was destroyed by fire, but not
unaccompanied with the statement that it would.
not only be rebuilt, but on a larger scale.
COLFAX, WASHINGTON.— It is interesting
to notice the varying physiognomies of our cities.
One, as Port Townsend, has the countenance of the
sea, the blowzing airs, the salt spray, and the far
look that comes from much gazing towards infinite
expanses. Another, like Spokane, has the eager,
self-centered and omnipresent expression that belongs
to a manufacturing point. Colfax, too, has its typi-
cal look. This is the healthy and comfortable agri-
cultural look. It is apparent to the stranger on
first entering the place that it is the center of an
agricultural region. The raison d'être of its entire
existence is evidently to supply the vast and fer-
tile tract of farming land adjoining with the sun-
dry accessories of the work of the agriculturist. It
is sufficiently obvious to the observer that there is
need of some town or towns to meet this need; for,
new as Whitman county is (most of it being but
about twelve years old), it now contains twenty-five
thousand inhabitants; and its output of products is
greater in proportion to its population than that of
any county in the territory, unless it be Walla
Walla.
There is one thing worthy of notice in the county.
and that is, that though there are ten or twelve
flourishing towns, their population is not large rel-
atively to that of the country; and hence the amount
of business transacted is very large in proportion,
This is peculiarly true of Colfax; for, though its
population is but twenty-five hundred, its volume
of business and its whole development is suited to a
place of four times that. The contiguous country
is so rich in farm products, and its prospective
capacity so great, that the towns are taxed to the
utmost to perform the business devolving upon.
them, while at the same time the actual number
of people residing in them is not great.
Colfax is very pleasantly situated on the banks of
the swift and cold Palouse, the north and south
branches of which unite there. The general surface
of the great plain is about two hundred feet above
the stream, and is rolling and naturally destitute
of timber. But a small fraction of it has yet been
brought under cultivation; and what it may become
is a matter which another century must be appealed
to to know. We have presented in another chapter
some of the results of farming there. It is said that
the gross money value of the various exchanges in
Colfax is over seven million dollars per year. It is
provided with excellent public schools, and has in
addition a well-conducted college under the charge
of the Baptist denomination, and also a convent
in charge of the Catholics.
Among the various extensive public institutions
of the city are an electric-light system, telephone.
and messenger service, foundry, creamery and pack-
ing house. There is also an excellent system of
water works. Among the various business houses
we find three banks, two bakeries, nine groceries,
one feed store, two shoe stores, two brick yards, two
book stores, two tailor shops, one flouring-mill, five
dressmaking establishments, three paint shops, two
wagon shops, one marble works, one photographic
establishment, three drug stores, one auction house,
three barber shops, four wash-houses, two machine
shops, three jewelry stores, three loan agencies, four
millinery stores, two hardware stores, three clothing
stores, three harness shops, three furniture stores,
three blacksmith shops, six grain warehouses, one
fanning-mill factory, two sash and door factories,
five livery and feed stables, two real-estate and in-
surance agencies, five agricultural establishments,
four express and transfer lines, besides the usual
number of restaurants, carpenter shops, etc. The
grain warehouses have a capacity of a million bush-
els. There are also four hotels.
Like most of our new places, Colfax was origi-
nally built of slight wooden buildings; but latterly
fine brick structures are taking their places. There
are large lumber mills there.
In conclusion, the stranger may be safely advised
to include the metropolis of the Palouse and its
magnificent country in his system of travel.
FIRST NATIONAL BANK, SPRAGUE,
WASHINGTON.-This bank is the outgrowth of
the private banking business of Messrs. Fairweather
& Brooke, who began business in Sprague in May,
1882. The bank was chartered as the First National
Bank in July, 1886. It is the pioneer bank of Lin-
coln county. The capital, fully paid up, is fifty
thousand dollars. It is in a flourishing condition,
and is doing a business highly satisfactory to its
DESCRIPTION OF SOME HISTORIC TOWNS, INDUSTRIES, ETC.
649
stockholders, and acceptable to the community.
The president is Mr. H. W. Fairweather. The
cashier is Mr. George S. Brooke.
GONZAGA COLLEGE, SPOKANE FALLS,
WASHINGTON. This widely known institu-
tion, established by the fathers of the Society of
Jesus, is one of the flourishing schools of learning
in the Pacific Northwest, and is an attractive orna-
ment to the city of Spokane Falls. In this rapidly
developing center it finds a most advantageous loca-
tion for its work. Being under the auspices of the
powerful Jesuit Society, which commands wealth
and talent to an almost unlimited degree, it is not
likely to lack for means or patronage; and, owning
half a section of beautifully lying land which the
city is rapidly surrounding, it has in its own right
an ample endowment. The college buildings and
campus are situated on the bank of the Spokane
river, and command an extensive view of the Spo-
kane valley. The object of the school is declared
to be to afford Catholic youth the facilities for secur-
ing a solid and complete education, based on the
principles of religion, and calculated to fit them for
a successful career in life. The building is large
and commodious. The grounds are extensive, and
afford ample facilities for outdoor amusements and
healthful exercise. The course of study is intended
to offer every advantage for a classical and commer-
cial education, comprising Latin, Greek and English
branches, with French and German optional. Chris-
tian doctrine is given a prominent place; and math-
ematics, particularly in the concrete form of book-
keeping, have special attention. A preparatory
course, as is common with the most of our Western
colleges, is maintained; and all advance to higher
grades is as a result of careful examinations.
pupils are admitted without preparatory examina-
tion; and their standing is thereby carefully deter
mined. The ambition of the youth is stimulated
by awards of merit and the distribution of medals,
with a system of class standing.
No
The school year is divided into two terms, begin-
ning respectively in September and February, and
completes an entire session of ten months. The
students are carefully supervised by the prefects,
and, while furnished physical exercise and the
opportunity of amusement, are not suffered to idle
their time in the city, or to go back and forth to
their homes without permission. The fee of two
hundred and fifty dollars per session covers all ex-
penses except those of travel, clothing, amusements,
etc.; and the spending money of each student is to
be left with the prefect, and subject to his direction
in its use.
The intercourse of the students is also
subject to the inspection of the prefect, their letters
being opened for his perusal, as well as all letters
received by them.
A great enlargement is soon to be made in the
accommodations. A building of truly magnificent
proportions will be erected, and the institution be
made equal to any of the Eastern Catholic colleges,
and rival the famous institutions at San Francisco
and Santa Clara, of California. It will be made to
accommodate over four hundred students, and will
maintain a high grade of studies. Of the twenty
Of the twenty
thousand population at Spokane Falls, three thou-
sand are said to be of Catholic preferences.
The school is well equipped with a faculty of
ability, numbering eight professors, prefects and
instructors, under the efficient management of Rev.
J. Rebbman, S. J., president, prefect of studies and
treasurer. Probably no college in the Northwest
has a more hopeful outlook.
HEPPNER, OREGON. This active place, lo-
cated nearly in the middle of Morrow county, of
which it is the county-seat, is the twin of Arlington
in the wool trade. It was founded by Henry Hepp-
ner, from whom it was named. It was at first, and in
fact until about 1885, the time of the organization of
the county, mainly a center of the wool and cattle
business. But, along through the middle of the
present decade, there was a constantly increasing
interest in the farming capabilities of the spacious
region which is now comprehended in the new
counties of Morrow and Gilliam.
""
Dr.
This part of the great Columbia basin is drier
than any other, unless it be the valley of the Yakima;
but it has not the facilities for irrigating that that
has. Hence it was for many years deemed devoid
of all possibilities of successful agriculture. But,
at about the time alluded to, there had been accumu-
lated such a body of experience in regard to the
results of dry farmning," that experiments on a
large scale were tried with gratifying results.
Blalock was the leader in this line of experiments;
and his success near the place named from him stim-
ulated others, until in a few years there were grain
fields all over the supposed deserts of Butter and
Willow creeks and the John Day and Des Chutes
rivers. This vast region is in general less rolling
and more easily traversed than the earlier developed
land of the Palouse. A more beautiful, gently undu-
lating surface than is seen on Shuttler Flat, for
instance, or on much of the land in the near vicinity
of Heppner or Arlington, cannot be imagined.
It is true that the rainfall is slight; but it is equally
true that the permeability and friability of the soil
are so great that with proper cultivation fine crops
of almost everything can be raised without rain.
The country is like an immense sponge, and absorbs
the moisture which comes in the ocean of air that
rises from the Pacific and bathes all the mountains
and even these apparently arid plains. The author
has seen the choicest of vegetables raised on land
on which no rain had fallen from the time of plant-
ing to that of harvest. That was in the vicinity of
Arlington; and even more favorable conditions of
moisture and absorbtive power exist towards Hepp-
ner and the mountains.
The same fertility of soil and the same advantages
of climate which are now producing vast crops of
grain have in former years spent their energies in
the formation of oceans of bunch-grass. On these
bunch-grass hills cattle and sheep have ranged in
almost countless numbers. The situation of Hepp-
ner, on the plains and yet within easy access of the
mountains, is the best possible for success in direct-
ing and supplying the wool market; for accessibility
to the mountains is one of the especial needs of the
great flocks of sheep which during the spring range
650
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
the plains. A change from bunch-grass to the pine-
grass of the mountains, or the fine blue,bunch-grass,
the most nutritious of all kinds, is a great advantage
to the sheep. Some of the great sheepmen have
even driven their bands to the flanks of Mount
Adams, one hundred miles across the Columbia,
where, in the cool of the great elevation, and with
opportunity for the purest of water and the most
luxuriant of green feed, they appear to take on new
life.
Built originally on the basis of supplying the
business demands of the stockmen, especially those
concerned in the rearing of sheep, Heppner has
waked up at once to the new order of things which
recent railroad development has fostered. It is no
longer exclusively a "sheep town." Farms have
been opened on the plains round about. Large
stocks of goods in the stores and an abundance of
new buildings, both of a residence and business
character, attest the fact that Heppner is falling
into line with the new conditions. One of the most
potent factors in this new state of things is the
branch line of railroad from the Willows to Hepp-
ner. This supplies one of the most imperative
demands of Heppner and the region around. This
branch is forty-five miles in length, extends from
the Willows on the main line of the Oregon Rail-
way & Navigation Company, and was completed in
December, 1888. Heppner is the present terminus.
Heppner contains at the present time about eight
hundred people, there being a steady and constant
increase. There are nineteen business houses of
different kinds, besides the usual number of black-
smith and carpenter and tailor shops, restaurants,
saloons, etc. There are two hotels, the Pioneer
and the City. There are also two banks, the
National Bank of Heppner and the First National.
The large amount of business done by these two is
some index to the great and varied resources of
the region round about. There are two active
real-estate and insurance agents, J. W. Morrow and
Orrin L. Patterson, from whom any stranger or
intending settler can secure needed information.
There are excellent schools in Heppner, and four
churches, Baptist, Methodist, Methodist South, and
Catholic. The Presbyterians also have an organiza-
tion, but no building. Among the other notable
structures of the town is the great roller mill of
J. B. Sperry. It is one of the best of the kind;
and the rapidly increasing grain crop of the region
there pushes its capacity to the utmost. We cannot
We cannot
pass by in this brief enumeration the immense ware-
house of the Morrow County Land & Trust Com-
pany. This is said to be the best structure of the
kind in the Inland Empire. It is especially designed
for the handling of wool. It may be readily sup-
posed that there is need of such an establishment;
for it is expected that there will be not less than
three million pounds of wool shipped from Hepp-
ner this season. Last, but not least among the
institutions of the City of the Plains, we must
name the local paper, the Heppner Gazette, founded
by Colonel J. W. Reddington, but now published
by Otis Patterson. It is one of the most active and
attractive journals in our vast interior.
of the great resources of this place, and the coun-
try tributary to it. There are many undeveloped
industries, from which the future will see important
results. Such for example are the coal mines of
Matteson Brothers, eighteen miles from Heppner.
Such also are the timber resources of the western
spur of the Blue Mountains south of the town.
And above all such are the enormous agricultural
powers of Morrow county, largely latent as yet.
The assessor's rolls for the past year show that
there are in that county one hundred and fifty
thousand acres of deeded land, eight thousand and
forty-two horses and mules, seven thousand, three
hundred and four cattle, one hundred and ninety
thousand sheep, not counting lambs, of which there
are seventy-six thousand. It is also estimated that
there is a population of over five thousand people
within its area.
LA CONNOR, WASHINGTON.- Among the
multitude of attractive and salubrious towns on
Puget Sound, La Connor, in Skagit county, is sur-
passed by none. This live town, whose buildings,
people and general air are calculated to startle the
traveler, who still has the mists of past days in his
eyes, by their general metropolitan style and appear-
ance, commands indeed a wide section of tributary
country at its back, and a long sweep of water in
front. As shown by our excellent engraving, it is
picturesquely situated on an almost level shore,
which rolls away in the distance, and gives a view
beyond of the towering Cascade Mountains, and the
snowy Mount Baker.
Across the arm of the Sound which lies in front
is seen the sinuous shore line of Whidby Island;
while to the north opens the narrow pass leading to
Paddle Bay. A little north of west, about twelve
miles distant, is Deception Pass, dividing Fidalgo
from Whidby Island, and making a passage way
westward to the Strait of Fuca. Leading up on the
south, or a little east of south, is a long level way of
waters, making a deep, broad path for the boat or
ship to Utsalady, and past the east shores of Whidby,
along to Tulalip, Port Gardiner, and into the main
sound to Seattle and Tacoma. With a fertile and
extensive country at its back, and such facilities for
navigation in front and to left and right, the future
of La Connor as an important commercial point.
seems assured. It is well calculated to be the em-
porium for the large and productive Skagit valley,
which is the most extensive, and, taken all in all,
the most important, of any of the valleys opening
on the Sound. The Skagit, the water-course of this
region, is a powerful river nearly one hundred and
fifty miles in length; and, drawing its waters largely
from British Columbia, it cuts into the Cascade
Range of mountains, making one of the deepest
passes in the range.
From this fact it is believed that at some time a
railway will be constructed to connect with some
northern transcontinental line. If ever accomplished,
as does not seem unlikely, large inland interests
would be added to the local advantages of La Con-
In this view it must be confessed that she en-
This brief sketch gives but an inadequate view joys a rare position, and may well stand as a rival
nor.

TENN
魚​麵
​STOCK RANCH & RESIDENCE OF MR. STOVER,
BIRCH CREEK, UMATILLA CO.,OR.
་
DESCRIPTION OF SOME HISTORIC TOWNS, INDUSTRIES, ETC.
651
to Whatcom, and other ports on the east shore of
the Lower Sound. Even if not looking so far
ahead, and to such wide results, she possesses great
attractions for the business man and capitalist, and
will soon be the center of a railroad system extend-
ing along the east coast of the Sound, and up the
Skagit valley.
This is found to be a delightful community for
residence, and is blest with intelligent and refined
society. It is a town where good taste and public
spirit, and a love of good order and good morals,
are well united to work the best results. Its people
enjoy easy communication with other parts, having
but a strip of twelve miles to reach Mount Vernon,
the county-seat; and eighty-six miles brings them
to Seattle. It is itself the seat of the district court.
For the religious needs of the people, three churches
are supported; and a circulating library contributes
to literary culture and enjoyment. Among the
hotels which may be named as well fitted for the
accomodation of the traveling public is the McGlinn
House, one of the best hotels on the coast.
four-story Planter's Hotel of Thomas Ligget is also
well spoken of. It is there that the well-known
Puget Sound Mail is published, a weekly paper,
Republican in politics. It was established in 1873,
and is owned by a company of which F. Leroy
Carter is president, and June Henderson secretary.
The town is supplied by over a dozen mercantile
houses of all descriptions, meat markets, photograph
gallery, restaurants, blacksmith shops, dental rooms,
drug stores, etc., and such like institutions as are
to be found in our more comfortable towns.
The
The public school is supported with great enthu-
siasm, the citizens being ever ready to carry it to its
highest efficiency. There is no more popular man
or successful merchant than Bedford L. Martin, of
this place, a biographical sketch of whom will be
found in this volume. The Skagit County Bank is
presided over by William E. Schricker, who is also
proprietor. This institution is on a sound basis,
and in a flourishing condition.
A suc-
Among those thoroughly known throughout
Washington as a man of recognized ability, not
only in his profession, but also in public matters, is
Doctor George V. Calhoun, who was for many
years a resident of Port Townsend, but has in these
later times made his home at La Connor.
cinct account of his life and work will be found on
another page. Among other public names may be
found those of Mr. H. S. Connor, Honorable James
O. Loughlin, Mr. Perry Polson, agent of the North-
west Express Company, and also hardware dealer,
and Messrs. James and George Gashes, general mer-
chants. A personal acquaintance with the people
of this town only confirms one in the opinion that it
is on a thriving basis, and has the promise of large
future growth; and it assures one that the best inter-
ests of the community, educationally and morally, as
well as commercially; will ever be well guided.
The present population is nearly one thousand,
and is increasing. In the growth that is coming so
rapidly thoughout the whole of Washington, and,
so to say, the transference of empire to the Western
waters, La Connor is destined to have no incon-
spicuous part.
LA GRANDE, OREGON.--Persons have been
heard to remark, What a pity that the great
plains of the Columbia are broken in Eastern
Oregon by the tangled range of the Blue Mount-
ains!" But to one familiar with the country it is
evident that, though much land is occupied by
these mountains which might otherwise be plowed,
yet these same mountains are after all the indispen-
sable conditions of the fertility and productiveness
of the greater part of the entire southern half of
the Columbia basin. With their multiplied fingers
they reach up into the clouds and wring the moist-
ure from them and strew it over the plains. From
the disintegrated fragments of their jagged volcanic
declivities, the countless streams and icy springs
wash the sediment that has made the rich acres of
plow land far below.
The Blue Mountains are, in short, the chief
agency which make Northeastern Oregon and
Southeastern Washington a garden instead of a
desert. Timber, rain, pure water, mineral resources,
cooling breezes, and a wealth of scenic beauty,
such are some of the benefactions of this great tri-
angular range of mountains, such that a more im-
aginative age might deify them as the old Egyptians
did the Nile. But it is not to be inferred that these
mountains are destitute of tillable land. On the
contrary, their slopes and plateaus embrace mil-
lions of acres of the choicest land, while in their
eastern part are three great valleys or parks. These
are the Grande Ronde, the Wallowa and the Pow-
der river; of these three, the chiefest is the Grande
Ronde. Though not quite equal to the Wallowa in
territorial extent, it has a greater part that is til-
lable, and is enough lower to have a very material
advantage in the productions of the farm and orch-
ard, and especially of the garden. This lovely park,
about twenty miles each way (with extensive foot-
hill additions), lies like an emerald in its setting of
rugged and snow-tipped heights.
In a sheltered nook in the southern part of the
valley is the city of La Grande, the metropolis of
this portion of the Blue Mountains. Though
settled long ago, it grew slowly, as did all the
towns of Old Oregon. In its isolation, walled round
with vast heights of rock, inaccessible from the out-
side during the winter, it had merely a local trade,
proportioned to the slow growth of the rich, beauti-
ful, healthful, but remote valley around it. But in
the year 1884 all that was changed. The railroad
was put through the valley. A station was estab
lished in the outskirts of La Grande. It became a
part of the world; and forthwith, as by magic, it
sprung into the knowledge and appreciation of the
world.
+
During the five years from 1884 to the present
date, the population has increased from five hun-
dred or six hundred to over two thousand; while
the people of the valley have in the same time in-
creased from about eight thousand to over twelve thou-
sand. This population is indeed small compared to
the possibilities of the region and the place. As is
the case with many of the towns of the Pacific coast,
the number of people in a place is hardly a proper
measure of its business importance. Two thousand
people would hardly seem more than a little village
652
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
in Ohio or New York; but in Oregon it may mean,
and in this case does very emphatically mean, a city.
The business of a tract of land (including the
Grande Ronde and Wallowa valleys as well as the
Indian valley and the vast plateau regions joining
the three to each other) of not less than twenty-five
hundred square miles in area, and containing about
twenty-five thousand people, practically centers in
La Grande. It has a great diversity of industries
represented in this business. Agriculture is of
course the basis. Wheat is legal tender for every-
thing, and the measure of all values. When we
consider that this grain produces an average of forty
bushels to the acre here, we are not surprised at its
importance in the market.
Statistics of freight receipts at the railroad station
at La Grande give one some conception of its im-
mense production. These statistics show that ship-
ments for 1888 averaged eight carloads a day, or
three trains a week of nineteen cars each, classified
as follows: Stock four hundred cars, hay one hun-
dred, flour one hundred, wool fifty, lumber two
hundred and fifty, wheat and barley one thousand,
and railroad ties six hundred, during the year. The
amount shipped to La Grande in the way of mer-
chandise is in proportion, and is said to amount to
ten tons a day. It is, in fact, a greater amount than
is received at any station in the state except Port-
land.
Besides the great amount of agricultural products
shipped from that city, there is, as the statistics just
given indicate, a very large lumber trade. Encir-
cling the Grande Ronde, Wallowa, Powder river
and Indian valleys is a vast timber belt, consisting
of tamarack, fir and pine. In these forests a num-
ber of large mills have been of late established.
There are at or within a short distance of La
Grande a score or more of these mills, the combined
capacity of which is over one hundred thousand feet
per day.
But, besides the products of the farms and the
forests, there is vast mineral wealth in the mount-
ains around the city, the results of which are felt in
the distribution of money there, and the establish-
ment of the various enterprises which mark the
mining interest. It is well settled that the ancient
granitic belt of the Blue Mountains (which is on the
eastern side, the western being exclusively a lava
formation) is one of the most promising gold belts
in the Northwest.
We can hardly overestimate the importance to La
Grande of the diversity of interests which will be
secured by such a combination of capabilities. The
present appearance of the city is a good proof of its
rapidly growing prosperity. It now contains over
sixty business houses, among which we note ten
general stores, four variety stores, two hardware,
two furniture, three drug, besides three good hotels
and the usual number of restaurants, shops, etc.
There is also a very successful creamery just fairly
under way, with a capacity of one thousand pounds
a day. In addition we observe a large planing-mill,
with sash and door factory adjoining.
In short, in whatever direction we look in La
Grande, we see growing enterprises and brilliant
possibilities. In the marvelous beauty of the sur-
roundings, in the invigorating quality of the cli-
mate, and in the rapid unfolding of its business
opportunities, it may well be said that it is one of
the marked towns of the Northwest.
THE MOXEE COMPANY, YAKIM A
COUNTY, WASHINGTON.- The Moxee Irri-
gating Company of the Yakima valley is one of the
great institutions of Central Washington. By the
impetus which has been given to scientific and me-
thodical irrigating in the rich but arid region of the
Yakima, Washington is almost approaching the San
Joaquin valley of California as the home of "in-
tensive" farming. The Moxee valley is on the
north or northeast side of the Yakima river, nearly
opposite the Atahnum.
opposite the Atahnum. This fertile tract of land
was taken by the company as the scene of their
experiment in irrigating. Having ample means
(being sustained by Eastern capital) they secured
five thousand acres of choice land, which they pro-
ceeded to cover by well-constructed ditches from the
Yakima river.
Two hundred thousand dollars in all have been
expended; and the land is now ready for subdivis-
ion into fifty-acre tracts. These small farms are to
be sold at an average price of seven hundred and
fifty dollars. In addition to this the company
expects to charge about seventy-five dollars a year
for water. When thus subdivided and irrigated,
this beautiful tract of land will produce immense
quantities of fruit, garden truck, tobacco, hops,
sorghum, etc., such as will place its happy residents
in a condition of prosperity far beyond that of the
average wheat farmer, even on the rich lands of the
Palouse or the Umatilla.
(
The Home Farm of the Moxee Company is
six miles from the city of Yakima, and is almost an
ideal rural residence, surrounded with every comfort
and many of the luxuries of life. All in all the Moxee
experiment (though now hardly an experiment) is
one of the most interesting and important of all the
valuable enterprises which the last years have wit-
nessed in this territory. In addition to their other
work, they have done much to introduce fine stock
into the territory. They have a number of thor-
oughbred black Polled Angus and Hereford cattle.
By their example in these various lines of farming,
they are a constant incentive to their neighbors to
reach a like improvement.
NORTH PACIFIC COAL COMPANY, ROS-
LYN, WASHINGTON.—The mineral belt on the
east slope of the Cascade Mountains in the State of
Washington is proving very extensive. The coal
croppings at Roslyn indicate a large field not yet
wholly explored. The portion delimited, and belong-
ing to the North Pacific Coal Company, comprises
about thirty thousand acres, containing sufficient
coal, at a product of three million tons a year,—-as
much as all the coal mines of Washington now
yield, -to last a century. The present product is
something over half a million tons per annum.
There are two beds open. The first shipment from
the Roslyn veins was made December 15, 1886.
The capacity of this mine is one thousand tons per
day. The second mine, two miles from Roslyn, also
DESCRIPTION OF SOME HISTORIC TOWNS, INDUSTRIES, ETC.
653
has a capacity of a thousand tons per day. There
has been a demand for as much as four thousand
tons per day; and the railway branch line three
miles long from Cle-Elum to Roslyn will be extend-
ed to open other mines, and to reach the great de-
posits of iron, copper, plumbago and silver which
are on Lake Cle-Elum and towards Mount Steward.
Three-quarters of a million dollars have been
spent by this company in making developments and
erecting works; and they will soon be employing
two thousand man. The vein of coal now worked
is five feet thick, with shale or dirt, and comes out
in large lumps. It burns to a red ash, leaves no
clinker, and makes a fair coke. Besides the coal,
natural burning gas has been discovered; and there
are good indications of petroleum. A very valua-
ble light sandstone is here obtained, having the
peculiar quality of withstanding fire, so that it is
utilizable in place of firebrick. Besides the minerals
there are found on the mountain slopes great bodies
of the most valuable timber. For its own purposes
and for export the company operates a sawmill with
a capacity of thirty thousand feet per diem. We
present an excellent view.
PATAHA CITY, WASHINGTON.—The city
with the high-sounding name above given is a fine
example of the substantial country towns which more
than any other kind embody the essential principles
of progress in a new country. The great cities may
be the brains of a country; but the villages are its
lungs. A country in which villages do not naturally
and abundantly spring up has something radically
wrong with it.
We have a strong example of that
evil tendency in some parts of California; and the
soulless, oligarchico-slave population (if we may be
permitted such an expression) which congregates in
such places, is a forcible reminder of what other
countries may look for that do not encourage homes
and a home type of life. For that country is doomed
that does not have homes; and home-life seeks its
best expression in the village, equally distant from
the isolation and meager opportunities of the
country, and the shoddy pomp of the great cities.
Thus far our Northwest has been very fortunate
in the normal character of its growth, and the solid
core of real manhood and womanhood developed
among its people. At no point in the rapidly develop-
ing country of Eastern Washington is there a more
pleasing home village than Pataha City. It is one of
three rival villages founded about twelve years ago,--
Pataha, Mulkeyville and Pomeroy. Of these three
the first-named was located highest up on the creek,
and the last-named the lowest. Mulkeyville and
Pomeroy were named from their respective founders.
The former was manifestly destined for something
else than a village, and gracefully yielded the ghost;
while the latter continued to grow, and has now
become the county-seat of Garfield county. Pataha
is but two and a half miles from Pomeroy, and like
it is stretched gracefully along the banks of the
rushing Pataha creek.
The sources of the prosperity of Pataha are suf-
ficiently manifest in the magnificent grain fields
which stretch in all directions from it. The country
thereabouts is a plateau elevated probably fifteen
hundred feet above Snake river. Though this ele-
vation causes the cañons of the main streams to be
very deep and steep; yet, once upon the general
level, it can be seen that the country is quite smooth,
much more so in fact than the greater part of the
region north of the Snake. It is of the very finest
for wheat-raising. The yield is from twenty-five to
sixty bushels per acre. Land is cheap, too, con-
sidering its excellence and advantages of location.
From ten to thirty dollars may be considered about
the range of farming lands within a distance of a
dozen miles from Pahata.
As to the town itself, we may add that it has an
excellent location in the midst of the fine country
surrounding it. Its present population is about five
hundred. It is substantially built, and has a dozen
well-equipped business houses of all kinds. There
is one bank owned by Captain John Harford. This
same gentleman is also half owner of a large flour-
ing-mill. This mill is a completely furnished roller
mill, one of the best in all the upper country. It is
in fact the chief claim of the town to distinction so
far as special lines of business are concerned. Such
is one of the bright little places typical of this second
period of growth of the Northwest.
THE PIONEER PRINTING PRESS. — One
of the most remarkable relics of pioneer days now
reposes in a quiet nook in the capitol building at
Salem. Though of small intrinsic value, it is price-
less as a souvenir of those historic days that tried
the souls of pioneers. As a memento of the struggle
to civilize and christianize the land now so mar-
velously advancing, it will be held in veneration by
the children's children of those who bore the brunt
of that struggle. This relic is the pioneer printing
press of Oregon.
In the year 1819 this very printing press was
borne by a company of missionaries in a ship from
Boston to the Sandwich Islands. Reaching Hono-
lulu these devoted missionaries employed it, with
their other agencies, in their wonderfully successful
attempts to redeem those fair islands. So great
became the demand for books and papers, that the
capacity of this small press was soon outgrown; and
it became necessary to send home for a completer
outfit. The old press was then presented to the
American Board to be used in the new mission in
Oregon. Thither it was transported in 1839, and
was taken to the Lapwai Mission on the Clearwater.
There the missionary Spalding used it for printing
hymns, parts of scripture, etc., in the Nez Perce,
Spokane and Flathead tongues. Some of the books
thus made are preserved to this day by the Indians,
so deeply impressed were they with their worth a
half century ago.
Edwin O. Hall, with his wife, came to this country
with this printing press, and during the year of his
stay operated it, thus being the first printer of the
Pacific Northwest. After his return to the East,
several persons tried their hands at "setting up.'
Among these was N. G. Foisy, who died in Marion
county in 1879. After the Whitman massacre, and
the consequent abandonment of the eastern missions,
the invaluable press went to the Tualatin Plains
into the hands of Rev. J. S. Griffin. He established
654
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
the second newspaper in the territory, calling it the
Oregon American Evangelical Unionist. When the
mining excitement in California attracted the
printers, with so many others, the paper suspended
publication; and the press, worn and rusty with age,
went out of use forever.
A few years ago it was presented to the State of
Oregon by Mr. Griffin and Mrs. Spalding. It will
be held in trust by the state in its present place,
until a fitting and permanent receptacle is provided.
PORT TOWNSEND,
WASHINGTON.-
This city is a striking example of the peculiarity
common to a number of the now growing places of
the Northwest. It is now having a second growth.
Like Salem, Vancouver, Corvallis, Astoria and
Seattle, it is an old town, founded in the infancy of
the country, partaking of the slow growth and iso-
lation which marked the early history of Oregon.
Though in a new and undeveloped country, those
cities were old in all the traits which mark the char-
acter of cities at the time of the great business
awakening which has sprung out of the completion
of the great railway lines to the East.
Up to that time additions to the population had
been few and scattering. The business methods
which the people had learned in the East in the
forties and fifties they had retained; while the
great world beyond the mountains had been whirl-
ing past them. They had become very set in their
ways. They were, though large-hearted and gener-
ous to an unusual degree, averse to new methods,
and not inclined to enterprise of any daring kind.
Old Oregon and Washington presented, in short,
the phenomenon of an old-new country. But,
with the completion of the great railway lines in the
eighties, all was suddenly changed. Immigration
rushed in, new methods and new enterprises were
introduced at a rate which startled the natives at
first, but which, with the substantial basis of char-
acter and industry which they possessed in spite of
their apparent sluggishness, they were quick to
learn and become foremost in taking advantage of.
And thus the whole business and social fabric of
the Northwest is being transformed. None of our
cities have been quicker than Port Townsend to take
advantage of the new order of things. Its dry
bones have been mightily shaken up within the last
year. Its pleasant lawns and half-wild picturesque
suburbs which were for so many years the delight
of artists and tourists, and the despair of its ambi-
tious business men, have as if by magic assumed
the character of bustling enterprise.
It is the object of this sketch to ascertain some of
the reasons for this ancient " port of entry" to be
thus so speedily clothed in the habiliments of mod-
ern life, to so quickly assume the style and attain
the advantages of the new epoch, the second growth
in the history of the Northwest. We must seek the
answer, first in the location, second in the outlying
resources, and third in the facilities for transporta-
tion. As to the first, look at your map, that indis-
pensable companion of every intelligent student of
a country. You will observe that Port Townsend
sits at the gates of the sea. She has spread out her
pleasant homes and her great wharves and multiply-
ing business buildings just at the angle between the
southeastern end of the Strait of Fuca and the
northwest end of Admiralty Inlet. It is located
where it catches the business both ways. A glance
at the map is sufficient to indicate this commanding
situation,-far enough inland to be near the centers
of production, and far enough seaward to be easily
and cheaply and safely accessible at all times from
the ocean.
He
But the flat surface of a map is inadequate to
fully impress upon the mind of the stranger the op-
portunities offered here in the way of location.
should come to the city itself and enter the magnifi-
cent bay, confessedly a notch ahead of any on the
Sound. He must then climb with us the bold height
of San Juan de Fuca, a name preserving, as does
that of the Strait, the memory of the mythical nav-
igator who "passed by divers islands in that sail-
ing," which he says took him from the waters of
the Pacific to those of the Atlantic. From this pict-
uresque height we look down on the bold margin
of bluff and "juts of pointed crag" along the edge
of the wide expanse of waters, which farther out
are of the richest sea hues, and on which the set-
ting sun may "turn to yellow gold its salt-green
streams." Thirty miles to the north he may see
the bluffy edging of the luminous horizon which
marks the presence of the beautiful archipelago of
San Juan. Eastward and near at hand is the blue
elevation of Whidby Island. Far away to the
northeast, old Baker, with his coronet of ice, holds
sway; while, in solitary and unapproachable grand-
eur, Tacoma, with its triple heights far within the
zone of perpetual congelation, makes majestic the
already beautiful landscape of the southeast. A
rare combination of scenic attractions, surely,
notable even in this land of grandeur.
What in the second place may be said of the nat-
ural resources of the country about Port Townsend?
There is timber, of course, oceans of it; but so is
there elsewhere on the Sound. The multiplied
fingers of this unapproachable body of waters have
clutched within their grasp an infinity of that indis-
pensable product. And yet, though timber is no
rarity on all the shores of this inland sea, it exists
in even unusual quantities here, and of even marked
excellence; and it is moreover uncommonly easy to
get at.
The mills of Hadlock and Port Discovery,
together with the local mills at the city itself, turn
out over four hundred thousand feet of lumber a
day. In addition to this there are the mammoth
concerns of Port Ludlow and Port Townsend, which
are within the general sweep of the influence of
Port Townsend, and will in the future much more
than in the past contribute to its support. So vast
is the timber supply in the great belt south of this
city, that it is estimated that it will yield a hundred
million feet to the mile along the proposed line of
the Port Townsend & Southern Railroad.
But the timber resource is not the only one within
the reach of this fortunately located place. Its ag-
ricultural possibilities are, as compared with most
of the Sound country, very considerable. There
are five valleys, small indeed compared to the farm-
ing regions of the Willamette or the East-of-the-

UNIL
W
CH
OF
CAPT.JOHN STEWART,
MRS. MARY STEWART,
CORVALLIS, OR.
PIONEERS OF 1845.
DESCRIPTION OF SOME HISTORIC TOWNS, INDUSTRIES, ETC.
655
་
Mountain country, and yet in the aggregate being
very considerable. The soil, too, is of the most
fertile character, and peculiarly adapted to fruit and
hop culture. These valleys are Leland, Tarbou,
Quilcene, Chimicum, and-most marvelously named
of all the Docewallops. In addition to these fer-
tile spots on the mainland, we must add the fertile
bits of the islands, which, though small individu-
ally, constitute an extensive aggregate of very de-
sirable land, which is being fast settled and will
become more and more dependent on Port Townsend
for its supplies.
There is one fact in regard to the whole region
contiguous to Port Townsend, already alluded to
elsewhere in these pages, but so remarkable as to
demand mention here, and that is the warmth and
dryness of the climate. It is almost like the cli-
mate of that part of the coast of California south of
Point Concepcion. The sun shines far more than
in the Willamette valley or along the eastern side
of the Sound. While the rainfall is thus so small
relatively,—not more than two-thirds that at most
points on the Sound, the temperature is not less
in winter than in Eastern Washington, but is in-
creased by the union of the sunshine and the bland
and scented airs from the sea. The result is a cli-
mate which for pleasantness and healthfulness has
scarcely any equal on the coast.
The cause of this peculiar phenomenon in regard
to the climate seems to be that the snowy Olympic
Range to the west and southwest catch and "milk"
the clouds on the western and southern slopes, and
that the ocean airs thus pass over the island region
robbed of their moisture. The comparative small-
ness of these mountains prevents any very extensive
area from being thus sheltered; and hence to both
the north and south the ordinary amount of rain
and fog and cloud prevails; while the Port Towns-
end region is bathed in almost perpetual sunlight.
It is a repetition on a small scale of the physical
conditions which create the dry climate throughout
the Upper Columbia basin.
But timber and agriculture are but two of a host
of resources about our city. We must needs speak
of the iron mines, vast in extent, and the only ones
in Washington in which iron ore is yet reduced to
pig iron. Irondale, across the bay to the south
from the city, is the center of the iron industry.
The furnaces there have a capacity of fifty-five
thousand tons per day. The Port Townsend foundry
and machine shops are the natural adjuncts of these
furnaces, which are already so far equipped that
they can make in all parts and turn out for business
a first-class vessel. It is said that the heaviest of
ship castings can be successfully cast here, and that
the work of any foundry in the United States can
be reproduced.
A fourth great resource of this city is manufactur-
ing. From what we have already said of the quan-
tity of iron and lumber, it is sufficiently obvious
that manufactures are soon to be turned out here at
a rate commensurate with the raw material which
abounds on every hand.
Such is a very incomplete account of the natural
resources contributory to Port Townsend; and now,
thirdly, what may we say of her means of transpor-
tation and traffic? And first under this head, we
may inquire as to the oldest and most easy method
of transportation, viz., by water. It is scarcely
necessary to ask whether the place is well situated
for shipping. There would be no need of having
maps if this question were not at once settled by
reference to one. Anything that can float and go
anywhere can get to Port Townsend at any time
and in any kind of weather. The broad and sound-
less depths of the Strait of Juan de Fuca open in-
vitingly before the mariner, bidding him enter.
Tugs and pilots are at a discount here. Anybody
can go anywhere. The winds are sometimes very
heavy; but so uniform and reliable are they, that
they constitute no impediment to navigation.
The number of ships annually stopping at this
outmost port of the Sound system of waters is some-
thing astonishing to the man who has not examined
the matter. During the fiscal year ending June 1,
1888, there were 971 entrances, with a total tonnage
of 834,104 tons, and 954 clearances, with a total
tonnage of 804,853 tons. The trade brought to the
city by the vessels and sailors is estimated to be
more than four million dollars annually; while the
entire trade is considered to double that. Much of
the Alaska trade centers at Port Townsend.
But the modern era demands railroads; and our
city, though having such unrivaled facilities for
navigation, is not to be behind the procession in the
matter of railroad equipment. Already there is
being equipped and gotten under way a very impor-
tant and extensive system of rail communication
with the centers of grain and other agricultural
production. This road, the completion of which
will mark the most important era in the history
of the place, is the Port Townsend & Southern.
This will extend from Port Townsend along the
western shore of the Sound through a region rich
in timber and mineral resources, and, in places,
of farming capability, to its ultimate destination,
Portland, two hundred and seven miles distant.
This road is to be a very important factor in solv-
ing some of the transportation problems which now
vex the souls of interstate shippers.
As may very readily be inferred from the view
which these statements give of the present progress
of this place, there is a marvelous transformation in
building and all other features in the external pre-
sentment of the city. Its naturally rather rugged
site is being subjected to a process of grading and
improvement such as it never knew before. Rapid
as has been the growth of the boom in real estate
a perfectly legitimate and healthful boom—that in
building has fairly kept pace with it.
During the
present summer it is said that there are now in pro-
cess of construction not less than three hundred and
fifty buildings,-more than twice the number of a
year ago; while three years ago the number of
buildings under way was not great enough to count.
Of this number-truly an extraordinary number in
a place of only five thousand inhabitants—there are
some twenty-five or twenty-eight business houses,
some of which have "cost money.” Several have
cost in the neighborhood of twenty thousand dollars;
while one has cost nearly fifty thousand dollars.
Among the number are many attractive residences.
43
656
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
The place has, in fact, rare natural inducements for
residences. The hill already alluded to, San Juan
hill, has been eagerly sought for residence purposes;
and at an early day its commanding height will no
doubt be crowned with homes which will be in har-
mony with their marvelous surroundings of natural.
beauty.
In conclusion we can only say to the one interested
in progress and intelligent devotion of a people to
the proper development of their resources, Go to
Port Townsend and learn something.
PROSSER, WASHINGTON. This enterpris-
ing young place is the business center of the great
region known as the Lower Yakima country. The
rare natural advantages of the upper part of that
valley contiguous to North Yakima and Ellensburgh
have long been known; and their productive power
has been amply demonstrated. The lower part of
the valley has been less developed, and its desira-
bility less noised abroad. This is partly due to the
fact that the vast Yakima Indian Reservation occu-
pies so much territory as to give strangers the im-
pression that there is no room for anything else.
Then again the rainfall steadily decreases towards
the eastward; and intending settlers, not fully con-
versant with methods of irrigation, are deterred
thereby from planting themselves in the midst of
such apparent sterility.
But the time has now come when it is generally
known that there is a large area of the richest land
in the Lower Yakima country. It is known, too,
that though it is almost destitute of rain, its facili-
ties for irrigation are so great that the farmer is not
beholden to the clouds, but can control his rain-
fall to suit himself. This immense region extends
from the eastern bounds of the Indian reservation
to the Columbia river, and from the Rattlesnake
Mountains on the north to the Horse Heaven coun-
try on the south. It is almost enough for a small
empire in itself, and till within two or three years
was without settlements or dwellings aside from the
rude huts of the stockmen in various sheltered
nooks.
The part of this country immediately contiguous
to the Yakima river is rich valley land covered with
wild rye and sage-brush, and forming a strip some
thirty miles long and six or eight wide. This is
capable of unlimited cheap irrigation from the river.
The high lands adjoining are rolling bunch-grass
prairie, exceedingly fertile, and though too high in
general for irrigating, yet by the common peculi-
arity of the climate having so much more rain that
there is ordinarily no need of artificial water supply.
In the midst of this beautiful and prospectively
wealthy land lies the town of Prosser. It was
founded and named by Colonel William F. Prosser,
one of the solid men of North Yakima. It is about
fifty miles southeast of North Yakima, on the line
of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Its elevation above
the sea is about six hundred feet; and by reason
of this low level the climate is warm; and the prod-
ucts of every part of the temperate zone reach the
finest development in the vicinity.
There is located here one of the finest gristmills
in the territory, owned by L. A. Heinzerling & Com-
pany. There are well-stocked stores, among which
may be especially named the drug store of Mr. Carl
Jensen. Here are the greatest falls of the Yakima
river. The total descent is about fifty feet. The
water-power thus afforded is almost limitless; and
it will no doubt be taken advantage of by númerons
manufactures in the near future. The view of this
place which accompanies this sketch will convey to
the reader an impression of its pleasant site. The
rushing river in front, the fertile valley adjoining,
the rolling hills beyond, and in the far distance the
stupendous bulk of Mount Adams,-these combine
to make an ideal location for what will sometime be
one of the large places of Central Washington.
ROSLYN, WASHINGTON.-One by one the
treasures of the wilderness are yielded up. Although
our Northwestern land is so new, its enterprising
spirits have already penetrated deeply into its
mountain labyrinths, and have discovered the won-
ders of its interior and its long-treasured wealth.
The various forms of mineral resource have been
longest hid. New mines of coal, iron, copper, gold
and silver are almost daily startling the eager out-
posts of enterprise. When fairly discovered they
do not stand long on the order of their develop-
ment. The present age of enterprise in our coun-
try just touches the rugged and desolate mountain;
and forthwith, as by a magical wand, the hidden
riches pour forth.
The town of Roslyn is the focal point in one of
these quickly unfolding mineral founts of wealth
in Washington. What Baker City is to the gold
region of Oregon, what Wardner is to the silver
belt of the Cœur d'Alenes, what Butte is to the
copper and silver mines of Central Montana, Ros-
lyn is to the coal mines of the Cascades. A
description of this town is of necessity a descrip-
tion of the mineral region which contains it and its
future growth.
It may be remarked in the first place that the
entire portion of Kittitass county within the limits
of the Cascade Mountains is bountifully supplied
with minerals of nearly all kinds, though coal and
iron take the leading places. The Roslyn or Cle-
Elum coal field, as thus far developed, is about
thirteen miles long and four or five wide. It
contains three distinct veins, the one now chiefly
worked being five feet thick. The coal is of very
fair quality. The field is owned by the Northern
Pacific Coal Company. Although there has been
during the past year a good deal of trouble in
adjusting terms of agreement between the company
and the miners, there is now harmony; and the
production is going on at the rate of one thousand
tons a day. The total output for the year 1888 was
two hundred and thirty-four thousand, two hundred
and one tons, being considerably in excess of that
of any other point in the state. The coal is shipped
to all parts of Washington.
As to the town itself, thus surrounded and sup-
ported, it may suffice to say that it is a typical
mining town of the West, lively, progressive,
changing so rapidly that a description will hardly
keep long enough to be accurate.
It is situated on
a branch of the main line of the Northern, four
DESCRIPTION OF SOME HISTORIC TOWNS, INDUSTRIES, ETC.
657
miles from Cle-Elum Junction. In the spring of
1886 the town consisted of a few prospectors' tents;
while all around lay the majestic solitudes of the
Cascade Mountains in their most rugged point. In
the fall of 1886 the first buildings were erected.
By April, 1888, it reported thirteen hundred inhab-
itants, four hotels, six general stores, and other lines
of business in proportion. It has steadily improved
since that time, and now has a population of prob-
ably not less than sixteen or seventeen hundred.
Although so new, it has kept up with the times in
the establishment of schools and churches, being
well provided with the former and having three of
the latter. The Knights of Labor have a peculiarly
strong organization here, consisting of over three
hundred members, and being provided with the
largest building in the place.
SNOHOMISH, WASHINGTON.--The great
business boom on Puget Sound has not omitted this
most attractive place from its raging. Nor are
there many places where the natural combination
of resources of production and transportation and
manufacture present a higher average than here.
As will be seen from a glance at the map, Snoho-
mish is located on the Snohomish river in nearly
the central part of the inhabited portion of the
county of the same oft-repeated and musical name.
The county is almost square in shape, being thirty-
six by about forty miles in extent, and extends from
the summit of the Cascade Mountains to the western
shore of the Sound. Within this area are resources
almost limitless in extent and variety. Like the
Sound country in general, these resources are mainly
timber; and of these we may indicate the past and
present immensity by saying that it is estimated
that during the past twenty years over a billion
feet of lumber have gone down the Snohomish
river. In 1888 one hundred and ten thousand feet
were marketed. Practically the entire surface of
the county is covered with forests; and these con-
tain the finest quality of lumber.
But the resources of this county are by no means
confined to its foremost industry. They include
coal and iron, and, for the Sound country, fine
agricultural possibilities. There are a number of
small streams, whose combined sibilance of name
(for they are the Snohomish, Skykomish, Steilagua-
mish, and Snoqualmie) somewhat astounds the
"tenderfoot," which have great fertility of soil
and very desirable locations. They are at present
but slightly cultivated, by reason of the jungles of
timber and brush which the rich loam combines
with the humid atmosphere to produce. There can
be no doubt that these small valleys will become
very valuable in the near future. The general
paucity of good farming land in proportion to the
enormous timber and mineral wealth of the Sound
will inevitably enhance the worth of that which is
there.
The wonderful growth of Snohomish county is
well seen from the contemplation of the following
figures: Population of the county in 1878, ten hun-
dred and forty-two; in 1885, twenty-four hundred
and seventy-nine; and in 1888, sixty-two hundred.
This growth, as in the case of most of the country, is
the natural outgrowth of the increase of develop-
ment of transportation facilities which has made.
the last year memorable. The various railroad
systems radiating from the city of Seattle include
Snohomish within the field of their benefits. Prom-
inent among them is the Seattle, Lake Shore &
Southern. This had on January 1, 1889, eighteen
miles of track laid within the limits of Snohomish
county, and is now pushing on to important con-
nections to the north and east. One branch will
doubtless deflect at Snohomish City and follow up
the Skykomish river to Cady's Pass in the Cas-
cades, whence it will pursue its way to the vast
mines of Okanagan and Kittitass counties, and
thence onward to Spokane and the East. An ele-
gant station has been erected by this railroad com-
pany also; and, in ways too obvious and too numer-
ous to name, it has ushered the town into a second
period of growth.
During the year 1888 the town was incorporated;
and the inauguration of an efficient city board has
secured advantages long needed and not otherwise
attainable. Among other important enterprises,
electric lights have been introduced. Two large
shingle mills have been built; while the business of
those already in existence has been greatly increased.
It seems indeed that this line of the lumber busi-
ness will become one of the most important ones in
the place. As an example of the distance to which
the products of the Snohomish shingle mills go, it
may be said that Blackman Brothers have shipped
to Columbus, Ohio. Besides these, other enterprises
have assumed remarkable increase. Over two hun-
dred buildings were erected in 1888; and new bridges
have been built to accommodate the spreading
growth of the town.
As may be readily inferred, real estate in Snoho-
mish is lively; and numerous real-estate firms have
gone into business during the year just ended. In
addition to the increasing railroad facilities, which
are destined to play such an important part in the
development of this place and county, it must not
be forgotton that, although Snohomish is not on the
immediate waters of the Sound, the river is a tide-
water stream in its lower course, deep and placid,
and navigable for good-sized steamers. Hence boats
reach the town; and for them it becomes necessary
to build wharves. This has been done to an unusual
extent during the past year. Messrs. Ferguson
and Jackson have built wharves during the last year
far superior to any others ever built.
With all its remarkable rapidity of growth during
the past year, Snohomish has not had any of the
spasmodic features of a typical "boom," and may
be regarded as one of the most solid and substantial
towns on Puget Sound.
THE STEAMER BEAVER.This is prob-
ably the most interesting relic of pioneer days. The
Beaver was the first steamer to cut the American
waters of the Pacific, if not actually the first to enter
the greatest ocean at any point. While there is a
controversy as to the last point, the reader can be
assured of the accuracy of the following details,
gathered, as they are, from the ex-chief factor of the
Hudson's Bay Company, Doctor William F. Tolmie.
658
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
In 1836 the Beaver arrived in the Columbia river
as a sailing vessel, bringing to Vancouver a cargo for
the company. On the way out she was accompanied
by a consort which brought, with other cargo, a
boiler and engine for the Beaver. These steamboat
paraphernalia were immediately placed in position.
The Beaver made her trial trip the same year. Her
course was around Sauvie's Island. She carried as
passengers Doctor McLoughlin and other officers,
together with a number of ladies and children. Soon
after, the steamer was taken to Puget Sound to carry
on the fur trade. Her field of operations extended
from Fort Nisqually to Linn Canal at the head of
Chatham Strait.
Her boilers having been repaired in 1846, she con-
tinued to ply the waters of the Northwest Pacific
until sometime in the sixties, when she was leased
to the British government and employed under
Lieutenant Pender to complete the surveys of the
northern interior passages. Ten years later she was
sold to private parties, and has since been used as a
tug-boat in Victoria harbor. Though she has met
with many knocks in her long career, she still re-
mains in good preservation as one of the visible
relics of the earliest pioneer days.
In
WHATCOM, WASHINGTON. — Some of the
most general and striking features of Puget Sound
have already been given in preceding chapters.
this one we propose to present more specific accounts
of special localities. The extraordinary rapidity of
growth of the Sound cities seems almost unreason-
able to the stranger at a distance; but to anyone
who has been there the sources of the growth are
manifest. It is an unquestioned fact that Puget
Sound possesses two capabilities which will never
be exhausted, and which in all countries and all
ages have been the sure foundations of commercial
prosperity. These are good harbors, and limitless.
supplies of the finest timber and coal. In the former
respects the Sound has no rival on the coast of the
United States. In the latter it surpasses any part
of the world in timber; while in coal it has few
equals.
Fine harbors are no rarity on Puget Sound; and
hence, when one attracts unusual attention, it may
be considered prima-facie evidence that it has extra-
ordinary advantages. This is the fact in regard to
Bellingham Bay, on which is located the city of
Whatcom. A glance at the map will show the
stranger the peculiar commercial advantages pos-
sessed by Whatcom, and the cluster of towns which
with it dot the shore of Bellingham Bay. As may
be seen, the bay is on the eastern side of the archi-
pelago which lies between the Strait of Fuca on the
west, the Gulf of Georgia on the north, and Admir-
alty Inlet on the south. The bold and picturesque
heights of the archipelago so break the force of
the heavy winds which rush inland over the broad
expanse of the Strait that it is peculiarly sheltered
in its position at the "hub" of the waters of the
"Mediterranean of the Pacific." To the east and
north of the bay are rugged and densely timbered
hills rising in green waves of vegetation until they
break against the eternal frosts of Mount Baker,
which, cold, white and sublime, seems with its ma-
jestic regardlessness of time to be guarding the busy
pigmies at its feet.
The cities of Bellingham Bay are four in number,
Whatcom, Sehome, Bellingham and Fair Haven. The
four form almost a horseshoe in shape, two and a half
miles long,-Whatcom and Fair Haven at the ends
and the other two in the middle. The bay which
stretches in front of them is six miles wide and ten
miles long. It has a depth of from thirty to one
hundred and twenty-five feet. From the glacial
heights of Mount Baker, thirty miles distant, flow
a number of cold mountain streams, part of whose
waters are gathered into the beautiful lake of What-
com, the western extremity of which comes to within
two miles of the bay.
The valley of the Nootsack and Lummi rivers,
though emptying its waters into Lummi Bay, is
properly a part of the region naturally contributory
to Whatcom; and in it, as also in the other small
valleys near by, is a large amount of rich farming.
land, a feature not usual on the Sound. The inter-
ests of these four towns are practically one; and
they all recognize the fact that future growth will
make them one municipality, and with rare good
sense and patriotism indulge in none of the bitter
rivalries and recriminations which mark the rela-
tions of some towns in the Pacific Northwest that
might be named.
might be named. The four sister towns named
contain a population of probably four or five thou-
sand, the greater number being in Whatcom. The
population is the growth mainly of the last two
years, we might even say of the last year.
Let us briefly ask the two important questions in
regard to this city and its smaller sisters. First, its.
native resources; second, its means of transporta-
tion. We can indeed hardly enumerate the varied
capabilities included in the first category. What-
com has, to begin with, an infinity of timber. It
is of the finest kind; and all the cutting thus far
has scarcely let the light in. Secondly, its adjacent.
hills are underlaid with coal of excellent quality
and boundless in extent. Third, it has much land
of peculiar adaptability to fruit, vegetables and
hop-culture. Fourth, it has the finest imaginable
sites for ship-building. Fifth, it has a whole host
of resources, as yet not much developed, but right
there and waiting only for capital and industry to
unfold them to the world.
It has mountains of iron, lime, marble, copper
and lead; while gold and silver have been found
about the base of Mount Baker in sufficient quantity
to warrant the assertion that the future will see a
great development in that direction. Bellingham
Bay already furnishes the most of the fine building
stone in the Pacific Northwest. This is from the
Chukanut quarry. The Portland postoffice was
built with it.
Such, briefly touched on, are the native resources
of Bellingham Bay. Now, what of its means of
getting out its products to the world, and getting
the money for them? This is one of Whatcom's
strongest points. It has, in the first place, the bay
and the widening waters beyond, which, with the
regular and reliable winds of the Strait, make it
accessible by all kinds of craft at all times, with.

CAPT. Z. C. NORTON,
MRS. CAROLINE NORTON,
PORTLAND, OR.
JAMES MC BRIDE, M.D.
YAMHILL GO, OR.
WM D. STILLWELL,
TILLAMOOK, OR.
CAPT. J. M. GILMAN,
PORTLAND, OR.
UNI
OF
THE NEZ PERCE WAR.
659
little expense for pilotage or tugs. Vessels can sail
right to their wharves at Whatcom, load up, and
then away again without asking leave of pilot or
tug-master.
But again, Whatcom and Bellingham Bay in
general are getting a system of railroads established
unsurpassed in extent and convenience. It is suffi-
ciently obvious that the shrewd and far-seeing pro-
jectors of these lines recognize the future possibilities
of the place. There are four railway lines projected
and partly built. The one nearest completion is
that of the Bellingham Bay & Navigation Company,
commonly known as the Canfield road, from Honor-
able Eugene Canfield, who has been especially instru-
mental in building it. This road joins the New
Westminster & Southern from Frazer river, at the
national boundary line, the two forming uninter-
rupted communication between New Westminster
and Whatcom. The road traverses a magnificent
timber region, and passes directly through the fertile
and beautiful valley of the Nootsack. By means
of this road, at least half a million acres of the
finest land are rendered tributary to Whatcom.
This road will be running before September 1st.
Another road of great promise is the Fair Haven &
Southern, which will be built to the Skagit during
the present summer (1889), and will ultimately be
pushed to the Columbia river. The next road ·is
the Bellingham Bay & British Columbia, which is
expected to ultimately reach Fort Hope, British
Columbia. This is commonly known as the Corn-
wall road. Still another line is proposed by the
ubiquitous and always successful Nelson Bennett,
the exact limits of which are not yet known to the
public, but are believed by some to point to an
Eastern connection.
In brief, Whatcom and its surroundings are among
the most promising in all this new land of promise.
Immigration is flocking thither at a rate that ren-
ders hotel accomodations inadequate, though the
hospitality of the people make any discomfort to
strangers unknown; and fine new buildings are
appearing on all sides. Prices of property, though
there has been an immense rise in the last year, are
still very moderate. It is an eminently safe place
to invest; and strangers need but take the ordinary
precautions of good judgment to insure themselves
handsome profits.
THE NEZ PERCE WAR.
By the Nez Perce Treaty of June 11, 1855, that
tribe of Indians relinquished to the Unitd States their
title in and to the area of territory described in said
treaty, excepting the large reservation of country
defined, in which reservation was embraced the Wal-
lowa valley. Upon the 9th of June, 1863, Calvin H.
Hale, Superintendent of Indian Affairs of Washington
Territory, and Indian Agents Samuel D. Howe and
Charles Hutchins, Commissioners on the part of
the United States, concluded a supplementary treaty
between the United States and the several bands of
the said Nez Perce nation, the latter being repre-
sented by fifty-one chiefs, headmen and delegates,
all of whom subscribed said treaty. By the latter
treaty Wallowa valley was excluded from the
reservation. In other words, it was surrendered to
the United States, and the Indian title thereto extin-
guished. Old Joseph subscribed the treaty of 1855.
His band had participated in the Walla Walla
Council.
By order of the general land-office, May 28, 1867,
Wallowa valley and vicinity were surveyed as public
lands and declared open for settlement. Under that
order eleven townships were surveyed, and the plats
approved May 9, 1868. Eighty-seven pre-emption
and homestead claims were filed. The effect of the
treaty of 1863 was to divide the Nez Perce nation.
Those who agreed to that treaty were called
"Treaty Indians." Those who claimed that they
had not been parties to that treaty, and who refused
to consent to the modified reservation, or to the
surrender of the territory, became known as "Non-
treaty Nez Perces. Old Joseph had died in 1871,
leaving two sons, Joseph and Ollicott, who claimed
Wallowa valley as the home of their band, and
,,
repudiated the treaty of 1863, by which the other
bands of Nez Perces had relinquished the territory.
Young Joseph, who succeeded his father as chief,
became the most prominent leader of the "non-treat-
ies." During the year 1871, and the years immedi-
ately following, a number of white settlers took claims
in Wallowa valley. Joseph ordered them to leave, but
attempted no violent demonstration. The discontent
of the Indians continued to manifest itself. Their
conduct became more offensive, defiant and threat-
ening. The disaffection became more and more
wide-spread, and had assumed the shape of organ-
ized opposition to white occupancy. In 1874 the
settlers complained to General Davis, commanding
the Department of the Columbia, that the "non-
treaties" or malcontents had congregated in large
numbers in Paradise and other valleys, ostensibly for
the purpose of digging roots; but that they, however,
were very defiant and impudent to the settlers, and
threatened mischief. General Davis dispatched two
companies of troops to the vicinity, who remained
till the Indians dispersed. In 1875 President Grant
issued an executive order proclaiming Wallowa
valley public land of the United States, and open
to settlement. Two cavalry companies were sent to
the valley to see that the Indians remained quiet.
After General Howard, U. S. Army, had assumed
the command of the Department of the Columbia,
being impressed with the belief that he could solve
the Indian problem peaceably, he held several coun-
cils with the "non-treaties," but without material
result. He failed to convince them that they were
under obligation to live up to the treaty, or that
they should go on the Nez Perce Reservation.
Finally he and Indian Agent Monteith, as commis-
660
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST-OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
sioners on behalf of the government, informed them
that the government would issue an order directing
them to go upon the reservation; and that, upon
their failure to comply, force would be employed to
put them there. In January, 1877, the orders were
received by the Indian agent at Lapwai to place the
Nez Perces on the reservation. The agent com-
municated notice of the order to all the bands.
Patiently he labored to persuade the "non-treaties
to go upon the reservation. Failing, he obeyed the
instruction to call upon the United States forces
to assist in the execution of the order. General
Howard spent much of April and May at Wallula,
Fort Walla Walla and Lapwai in interviews and
talks with the disaffected, urging every argument to
have them voluntarily go upon the reservation.
Finally, on the 19th of May, they pretended to
assent, but asked for thirty days in which to do so.
General Howard consented; but believing that the
Indians had no intention to comply with his orders,
and that the delay was a ruse to gain time to organ-
ize their forces and make preparation for open hos-
tilities, he at once concentrated all his available
troops in the vicinity of the disaffected country.
Before the thirty days had elapsed, White Bird ap-
peared in Wallowa valley and murdered a number of
defenseless women and children. That war chief of
the "non-treaties," arrayed in his war paint, rode
through the country, defying the Whites and loudly.
proclaiming that they would not go upon the reser-
vation, that the country belonged to them, and
that they would kill soldiers or citizens who opposed
their keeping it.
About the same time an outbreak had occurred at
Mount Idaho, twenty white men and women having
been murdered, and a number of women brutally
outraged. On hearing this, General Howard sent,
June 15th, two companies of United States cavalry,
Captains Perry and Trimble, to White Bird cañon,
where White Bird's band were found in force. The
Indians opened fire on Captain Perry's command,
which he returned. After an hour's severe fighting,
Perry was compelled to fall back on Grangeville,
sixteen miles distant, the Indians pursuing and
fighting him all the way. He lost thirty men and
one officer, Lieutenant Theller. On June 21st,
eight companies, or rather fractions of companies,
amounting in all to something over two hundred
effective men rank and file, were at Fort Lapwai
with a small company of volunteers under Captain
Paige. General Howard took the field in person.
The march commenced at noon of the twenty
second. Detachments of troops were sent in several
directions, all of which were to concentrate at John-
son's Ranch, near Grangeville. From there the
column moved to the head of White Bird cañon.
Preparations were now made to cross the Salmon
river. Joseph with his Indians had avoided an en-
gagement. Several skirmishes had taken place, the
little detachment commanded by Lieutenant S. M.
Rains having all been murdered on scouting service.
On the 11th of July the Indians were discovered
encamped on the South fork of the Clearwater. In
Joseph's camp were three hundred warriors, perhaps
an equal number of squaws, who rendered most
efficient assistance in providing spare horses and
ammunition, and many boys bearing arms. Gen-
eral Howard's fighting force was four hundred men.
The battle of Clearwater continued for two days,
when the Indians scattered and fled in every direc-
tion, closely pursued by the troops. Joseph lost
twenty-three killed, forty wounded, many of whom
subsequently died; and forty were taken prisoners.
General Howard's loss was thirteen killed and
twenty-two wounded. The Indian camp was aban-
doned in haste; and the lodges were left standing,
filled with their effects, blankets, buffalo robes, cook-
ing utensils, food cooking on the fires, flour, jerked
beef and plunder of all descriptions (1).
General Howard renewed the pursuit the next
morning in the direction of Kamiah. The Indians.
crossed the Clearwater and reconcentrated at We-ipe
creek; and on the fifteenth Joseph started for Mon-
tana and the buffalo country by the Lolo trail. On
having ascertained this, General Howard sent couri-
ers to the nearest telegraph station to advise General
Sherman and the posts east of the Bitter Root
Mountains of the flight of Joseph and the hostiles,
He also sent notice to General John Gibbon, com-
manding the District of Montana, reporting the
situation,—that Joseph had started across the Lolo
trail, and requested the sending of troops to inter-
cept the hostiles, if possible; while he should follow
them with such force as could be available.
General Gibbon at once sent orders to Captain
Rawn, commanding Fort Missoula, to watch the
fugitives, head them off, hold them if possible, or
turn them back. Captain Rawn's command consis-
ted of his own and Captain William Logan's com-
pany of the Seventh Infantry; and they were rein-
forced by a hundred Montana citizens. Advised of
the approach of the Indians, they took a position
at the mouth of a cañon on Lolo creek, which they
fortified. Joseph advanced the next day, and sent
a flag of truce, asking to pass quietly into the valley.
Captain Rawn demanded the surrender of the arms of
the party, which occasioned two days parley. Many
of the citizens urged the granting of Joseph's request.
At the end of the second day, Joseph notified Cap-
tain Rawn that he was going into the valley the
next morning. At daylight firing was heard along
the skirmish line, as though the Indians designed
attack. While all were intent on watching the
front, it was ascertained that Joseph had left a few
men to skirmish with the pickets; while the main
body, through gulches, has passed the line of works.
Captain Rawn pursued the fugitives as quickly as
possible, but failed to overtake them before they
reached Bitter Root valley. He found them en-
camped in a strong position on a ridge in a body of
timber. As it was the height of rashness with his
force to attack them, he returned to his post to await
reinforceinents.
On the 30th of July, General Howard, his force.
now strengthened to seven hundred men, began the
march across the Lolo trail. General Gibbon, hav-
ing received General Howard's dispatch, with a force
of one hundred and forty-six United States troops
and seventeen officers, and thirty-six citizen volun-
Chief Joseph: His pursuit and Capture," by O. O. Howard,
Brigadier-General, U. S. Army, page 166.
(1)

ROBERT MORAN,
SEATTLE, W. T.
MAYOR OF THE CITY 1889.
HON.J.D.LEE,
POLK COUNTY, OR.
A NATIVE OREGONIAN
HON.G.W. TIBBITTS,
SEATTLE, W. T.
A. M. BROOKES,
SEATTLE W. T.
COL. J. C. HAINES,
SEATTLE, W. T.
CHIEF MOSES' DEMONSTRATION.
661
teers, who joined him on the march, proceeded to
Fort Missoula. Joseph had been reinforced by
eighteen lodges of renegade Nez Perces under the
chieftainship of Poker Joe. Joseph had with him
four hundred warriors and one hundred and fifty
squaws. General Gibbon came up with the enemy
on the 8th of August. At early daylight on the
next morning he surprised the hostile camp, charged
it, and drove the Indians out. Throughout the day
the fight continued, and part of the next day; when
General Howard with a party, coming up, the In-
dians fled. The loss of General Gibbon was thirty-
one killed, among whom were Captain William
Logan, First Lieutenant James H. Bradley, First
Lieutenant William L. English and Second Lieuten-
ant C. A. Woodruff; thirty-six wounded, among
whom were General John Gibbon, Captain Constant
Williams, First Lieutenant C. A. Coolidge.
The Indian loss was eighty-nine buried. Joseph
subsequently admitted a loss of two hundred and
eight. Among the Indian slain were the war chief
and diplomat Looking-glass, and Tups-sis-il-pilp
and Wallitze, two of the three Indian murderers
who precipitated the war. General Howard re-
sumed the pursuit as soon as practicable.
He fol-
lowed the hostiles through the mountains. Having
learned their intention to escape into the British
possessions, he sent a courier to General Miles at
Fort Keogh; and that efficient officer and brilliant
Indian fighter headed off the fugitives at Bear Paw
Mountain. Before reaching that last battle-ground,
Joseph had attacked General Howard on the 19th
and 20th of August, at Camas Meadows, but had
been beaten off. General Sturgis had struck him on
the 13th of September. General Miles overtook him
on the 30th of September. Desultory firing lasted
four days. On the 4th of October, he surrendered to
General Miles. In that battle Ollicott and old Too-
hul-hul-sote were among the slain. White Bird
escaped with a small band, and crossed the British
boundary. The remainder, between three and four
hundred men, women and children, were transferred
to the Indian Territory, and located on the salt fork
of the Arkansas river. Congress passed an act March
3, 1885, authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to
send them to any Indian reservation which he might
choose. They have since been escorted by troops
back to Idaho. A portion has returned to the Nez
Perce nation. Joseph and the remainder are on the
Colville Indian Reservation in Washington.
CHIEF MOSES' DEMONSTRATION.
In the summer of 1878, the citizens of the eastern
portion of Washington Territory were alarmed by
the excitement among the Indians, growing out of
the outbreak of the Shoshones; and in some places
measures for self-protection were deemed necessary.
Chief Moses and his band, numbering about two
hundred warriors, had refused to go upon any reser-
vation; and they were suspected also of having been
accomplices in the murder of Mr. Perkins and his
wife, who met their death at the hands of a vagrant
band of Columbia river Indians, instigated or in-
fluenced by that great mischief maker, Smo-heller
the "dreamer.” In that fall, Reverend J. H. Wil-
bur, Indian Agent in charge of the Yakima Reser-
vation, was instructed to induce Moses and his
people to go upon the Yakima Reservation.
Moses was sent for, but declined to go, giving as
his reason that the government had assured him
that he should be assigned to a separate reservation.
He not only denied all complicity in the Perkins
murder, but offered guides to assist him in the
arrest of the murderers, whom he alleged were
located about forty miles from his camp. A party
was organized, consisting of fifteen Yakima Reser-
vation Indians and thirty white volunteers from
Yakima City; and it was understood that Moses and
his party should have one day's start of the Yakima
party, in order to make arrangements for crossing
the Columbia river.
When Moses arrived at the appointed place, he
found that the arresting party had proceeded to a
point twelve miles below. This circumstance, to-
gether with the fact that he had been advised
that the Whites had plotted to waylay and kill
him on the way home, and also that the police
and volunteers intended to arrest him and con-
fine him in the Yakima jail, excited his sus-
picions. He declined to furnish the guides as he
agreed; and he, with sixty armed men, defiantly
confronted the volunteer party. After considerable
talk, without collision, Moses returned to his camp.
Three days later he asserts he started with nine of
his band to join the volunteer party, who were en-
deavoring to capture the murderers.
Before over-
taking them he camped for the night; and the
volunteers who were in the vicinity, mistaking
Moses' camp-fires for those of the party of murderers
they were seeking, surrounded the camp and took
Moses and his nine men prisoners. All were dis-
armed. Five went after the murderers, and arrested
one, the other having killed himself to avoid arrest.
Moses and the other four of his band were taken to
Yakima City and confined in jail without formal
examination.
examination. A week later Indian Agent J. H.
Wilbur induced the citizens of Yakima to turn over
to him Moses and his fellow Indian prisoners.
der a strong guard, to prevent the citizens from
killing him, Moses and his four companions were
taken to the agency, where they remained for three
months, notwithstanding the persistent efforts of the
citizens to have them returned to the jail.
Un-
On the 12th of February, 1879, the Commissioner
of Indian affairs ordered Moses to Washington for a
conference. This order was communicated to the
authorities of Yakima county; and, upon their
agreement that he should not be arrested, he was
allowed to return to his camp and make preparations
for his journey to Washington. At the end of ten
662
HISTORY OF PACIFIC NORTHWEST—OREGON AND WASHINGTON.
days he was sent for, and promised to meet the agent
at Yakima ferry in four days. When the agent
arrived at the ferry, the sheriff of Yakima county
with a posse was guarding every crossing on the
river within a distance of twenty miles, determined
to take Moses dead or alive. (1). Unable to ac-
complish anything, Agent Wilbur returned to
Yakima City; and the next morning Chief Moses
was brought in by the sheriff. The prosecution then
asked for a continuance of the case for eight days.
Agent Wilbur then waived a preliminary exami-
nation, offered bail for Moses' appearance at the
next term of court, which was accepted; and Moses
(1) Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1879, page sixteen.
went to Washington. After several conferences
with him, on the 19th of April, 1879, a reservation
was set apart for Moses and his people, called the
Columbia Reservation, which adjoins the Colville.
Reservation on the west. The delegation returned
to the general commanding the department with the
special request to that officer, and a similar one to the
governor of the territory, requesting that Moses and
his party be forwarded to their reservation without
arrest or further interference. The Perkins murder-
ers were tried at the October, 1879, term of the
Yakima court; and three of them were convicted of
murder. The charge against Chief Moses was dis-
missed, the grand jury failing to find any indictment.
END OF VOLUME II.
鲞
​INDEX.
Abbe, Charles C., i. 416.
Abbott, Lieut., i. 441, 454.
Abbott, Agt., i. 645.
Abbott, Geo. H., i. 6.
Abel, L. N, i. 288.
Aberdeen, Lord, i. 34; instructions to
U. S. minister, 140.
Abernethy, Alex. D., tribute to, i. 336.
Abernethy and Clarke, erect sawmill
on Oak Point river, i. 336.
Abernethy, Alex. S., i. 480, 491, 505;
defeated for Congress, 511; president
of constitutional convention, ii. 50.
Abernethy, George (gov.), i. 201, 271,
280, 301, 302; arrival, ISS; Provisional
gov., 188 note; tribute to services of
Gov. Ogden, 203; opposed to inde-
pendent government, 236; claims
authorship of "Petition of 1843,
243; Shortess' statement, 243; elected
first governor under Organic law, 268;
treasurer of Oregon Spectator Assoc.,
273; receives colors of the Shark from
Lieut. Howison, 274; re-elected 1841,
275; message to Cong., 277; commis-
sions Maj. Lee col., 283; biog. of,
ii. 184.
Abernethy, Thos., i. 340.
Abernethy Island, i. 254.
Abiqua, battle of the, i. 285.
Academies in O., list of, ii. 148.
Academies in Wash., list of, ii. 149.
Academy for girls, opened at St. Paul,
1844, by sisters, i. 212.
Accolti, Rev., i., 212.
Ache-kiah, chief, i. 198.
Achilles, J. H., i. 575; raid with Moxon,
579.
Ackles, Geo., biog. of, ii. 184.
Active, str., i. 339, 548.
Ada co. (Idaho), outline history of,
ii. 183.
Adair, John, collector of customs,
1. 303, 311, 314, 351 note; ii. 138.
Adams, Lieut., i. 652.
Adams, Andrew J., i. 287, 288.
Adams, Dr. Chas., i. 531, 532.
Adams, Geo. W., i. 287.
Adams, Henry, i., 443.
Adams, Israel B., i. 437.
Adams, Jno. F., biog. of, ii. 184.
Adams, Jno. Quincy, instructions to
Richard Rush on British claims,
i. 124-27; announces negotiation of
treaty of August 6, 1827, 129; extracts
from speech in Cong. 1845-46, 132–33;
reference to N. W. coast, 1825, 138;
to joint occupancy, 1827, 139; chair-
man of com. on foreign affairs, re-
ports adversely on bill, 154.
Adams, Dr. W. L., biog. of, ii. 184-90.
Adams co. (Wash.), outline history of,
ii. 179.
Addington, A. H., i. 564.
Addington, Henry W., i. 128.
Admiralty Inlet, surveyed by Ring-
gold, under Wilkes, 1841; i. 227.
Admission bill, passed, i. 366; terms
imposed by, 366.
Agricultural College (Or.), sketch of,
ii. 148.
Agriculture, progress in, i. 642; re-
sources, ii. 106–19.
Aiken, James, i. 428.
Aiken, John, i. 379, 389.
Ainsworth, John C., i. 320; ii. 15, 102.
Alaska, interest its acquisition imparts
to Adams' letter to Rush in 1823, i.
125; good effects of disappearance of
slavery shown in vote in ratifying
treaty of, 168.
Alaskan, boat, ii. 103 note.
Alava, Miguel Ricardo, makes restora-
tion of Nootka to British, i. 47.
Albany, description of, ii. 157.
Albatross, ship, i. 74, 79.
Alberding, Frederick, i. 396, 399, 432.
Albin, John, i. 413.
Albion, ship, seized and forfeited, cut-
ting timber, i. 312; remitted, 312
note.
Albright, J., i. 288.
Alcom, Capt., i. 450.
Alcoon, Capt., i. 444.
Alden, Capt. B. R., i. 410, 411, 413, 414,
415, 416, 417.
Alden, Capt. Jas., i. 548; ii. 37.
Alderman, Alfred L., biog. of, ii. 190–92.
Alderman, Isreal W., i. 266.
Aldrich, Milton, ii. 114.
Aleutian Islands, surveyed by Cook,
i. 36.
Alexander,
>
i. 599.
Alexander, John, i. 338.
Alexander, Robert, i. 651.
Alexander, Capt., ii. 53.
Alger, Russell (gov.), on Washington
fir, ii. 125.
Algin, J., i. 608.
Alki Point, i. 342; settlement and
growth of, 338.
Allegiance of residents, to whom owed,
1841, i. 223.
Allen, Benj., i. 287.
Allen, Edward Jay, i. 461; employed
to build citizens' road, 341; govern-
ment contract on military road, 342.
Allen, Geo. T., i. 642.
Allen, Jesse K., i. 631.
Allen, John B., ii. 55; elected U. S.
senator, 59; biog. of, 192.
Allen, L. F., i. 440.
Allen, Samuel, biog. of, ii, 193.
Allen, Wm., i. 158, 165.
Allen, McKinley & Co., i. 390, 399.
Alley, Jas., i. 188.
Allis, Samuel, Jr., i. 193.
Allphin, Thos., i. 287.
Allston, Lieut. B., i. 433, 440.
Alpow-on-ah, i. 626.
Alturas co. (Idaho), outline history of,
ii. 183.
Alvord, Gen. B., i. 409, 414, 417, 418,
423; assumes command of Depart-
ment of Oregon, ii. 16; sends expedi-
tion
to protect immigrants, 17;
requisition for volunteers, 20.
Alvord, Thos. M., biog. of, ii. 193.
Amash, the Owl, slain by Coyote
(myth), ii. 66.
Ambrose, Geo. H., i. 408, 422, 432; ap-
peals to miners for protection, 400.
Amelia, bark, i. 339.
America, explorations culminate in
discovery of, i. 1; adversely claimed
by Spain, France and Great Britain,
68.
American Board of Commissioners of
Foreign Missions, i. 193.
American element under Provisional
government in ascendancy, i. 265.
American Fur Company, i. 462.
American Philosopical Society, i. 70.
American Settlers, first petition of
presented in Senate by Liun, 1838,
1.
i. 151; Farnham, Holman et al.,
1839, 216; missionary party of Clarke,
Smith and Littlejohn, 1840, 219.
American ships monopolize northern
Pacific trade on account of war in
Europe, i. 55.
American trader, exclusion treatment
of, by H. B. Co., i. 102.
Ames,
i. 532.
Ammen,
Master, i. 532.
Amnesty, chiefs excepted from, i. 612,
615.
Anderson, Lieut., ii. 12.
Anderson, Alex. C., services of, i. 179,
227.
Anderson, Butler P., i. 45; work on
compilation of laws unrequited, 523.
Anderson, Eli K., biog. of, ii. 193.
Anderson, George, i. 413.
Anderson, James Patton, i. 460–61;
elected delegate to Congress, 491;
sketch of, 491 note; visits gold mines
at Fort Colville, 492; ii. 54.
Anderson, Levi, i. 358.
Anderson, William, biog. of, ii. 194.
Anderson, Winslow, kills Cockstock,
i. 262; Sub-Indian Agent White's
report of the quarrel, 263-64.
Andrews, C. L., biog. of, ii. 194.
Andrews, Geo. P., ii. 6, 7.
Andrews, John, i. 646.
Angell, Martin, i. 408, 410, 427, 445.
Anian Strait, discovered by Gaspar
Cortereal, i. 4; origin of name, 5; the
myth an incentive to discovery, 5;
pretended voyages of Maldonado,
De Fuca and De Fonte to discover,
5-10; existence regarded probable
up to 1776, 35; theory of, exploded
by Cook's voyage, 37; Carver's plan
to establish posts about, 59.
Animal Gods, ancient (myth), ii. 63.
Ankeny, Capt. Alex., i. 567, 568, 570;
ii. 15.
Ansure, Mongo Antoine, i. 287.
Antoine, spaniard, i. 280.
Applegate, Capt. Jesse, i. 268, 358, 377,
386, 389, 398, 418; eulogy on Dr.
Jno. McLoughlin in letter to Mrs.
Victor, 174 (see note); journey with
emigrants of 1843, 256; commands
the cow column," 257; factor in
664
INDEX.
the "Cattle Contract," 258; his “Day
with a Cow Column," 260; dispatches
to Gov. Mason, of Cal., for aid, 1847,
278; leads first immigrant party to
Willamette valley over new road,
370; locates at Yoncalla, 375; com-
plimented by Kearney, 384; ii. 4,
139; home of, 157; biog. of, 195–96.
Applegate, Lindsay, i. 371, 398, 649.
Applegate, Capt. Oliver E. i. 652.
Appler, W. H., author of ditty sung at
Tamerick's banquet, i. 403.
Appropriations, congressional, to com-
plete capitol and penitentiary at Sa-
lem, i. 352.
Archbishop of Or. See Blanchet, F. N.
Archer, W. E., i. 165.
Archipelago de Haro, i. 228.
Arctic explorations, outgrowth of the
Anian myth, i. 10.
Arctic Ocean, examined by Cook, i. 36;
Mackenzie follows river to, 64.
Argonaut, ship, i. 42, 43, 51.
Arlington (Or.), town, outline history
of, ii. 646-47.
Arms, question of supplying, i. 538;
difficulty in procuring, 539; scarcity
of, 543.
Armstrong, Lieut., 1. 446.
Armstrong, Capt. A. N., i. 414, 538.
Armstrong, Christopher H., i. 575.
Armstrong, Pleasant, 1. 219, 416.
Arnold, Prof. B. L., ii. 148.
Arnold, Green, biog. of, ii. 197.
Arnold, Richard, i. 342.
Arteaga, Capt. Ignacio, commands
Princesa, 1779, i. 33; surveys Port
Bucarelli, 33; sees Mt. St. Elias, 33;
enters archipelago 60° north, 33;
searches in vain for northern pas-
sage to Arctic, 33; scurvy appears,
returns to San Blas, 33; enters S. F.,
33; Fleurien's remarks of the expe-
dition, 33.
Articles of Compact, i. 239; adopted,
240.
Ashburton Treaty, i. 153.
Ashland, description of, ii. 158.
Asliley, Chester, i. 165, 231.
Ashley, Wm. H., journey across Rocky
Mts., 1823-26, i. 111; amasses a for-
tune and sells to Rocky Mt. Fur Co.,
II2.
Assiniboine river, i. 58.
Assumption Inlet, named by Heceta,
i. 52.
Astor, Jno. Jacob, contemplated enter-
prise, i. 74; projects Pacific Fur Co.,
76; makes plans known to North
West Co., 77; invites co-operation,
77; offers one-third interest, 77; de-
clined, 77; partners taken, 77; to
remain in N. Y., 77; held fifty shares
of stock, 77; secures U. S. convoy
Constitution to accompany the Ton-
quin, 78; his proposition to North
West Co. declined, 79; Beaver sails
with his instructions, 81; learns of
fitting out of armored ship Isaac
Todd by North West Co., 82; antici-
pates difficulty, 82; appeals to U. S.
for force to defend Astoria, S2; fail-
ing, fits out the Lark, 82; a pretense
for MacDougal, 83; his opinion of
MacDougal's transfer of his prop-
erty to North West Co. given in letter
to Secretary of State, 84; unable to
realize results of British hatred and
jealousy, 86; his scheme grand, but
did not foresee effects of war in
Europe, 86; conduct of MacDougal
and Mackenzie, 86, 87; never re-
郾
​sumes fur trade in Oregon, SS; con‐
tinued head of No. Am. Fur Co., III.
Astoria, name given to settlement on
Point George by party from the
Tonquin after Astor, i. 78; Ross
Cox's description of, 81, 82; the
Isaac Todd fitted out to seize, S2;
matters in A. unsatisfactory, 82;
MacDougal resolves to abandon, 82;
captured by British ship Raccoon, 84;
Cox's account of, 84; restored to U.
S. under treaty of Ghent, 1814, 87;
the Multnomah sails to, 116; re-
occupation demanded, 123; declared
port of entry, 303; harbor of, ii. 103.
Astoria & Coast R. R., ii. 145.
Astoria & Willamette Valley R. R.,
incorporation of, 1858, ii, 139.
Astoria Co., outline history of, ii. 181.
Astrolabe, L', ship, i. 49.
Atalınam Mission, i. 597.
Atchison, David R., i. 158.
Athabasca, or Elk river, i. 63.
Atherton, Chas. G., i. 165.
Athey, Wm., i. 287.
Alvarida, frigate, i. 51.
Attorneys, admitted to practice, i. 347.
Atwell, i. 600.
}
Atwood, Dr. Jas. P., biog. of, ii. 198.
Aubrey, Thos. J., i. 440.
Augur, Capt., i. 453, 454, 455, 456.
Avery, J. Č., i. 428; biog. of, ii. 198.
Ayers, Capt., provocation of Tonquin
tragedy attributed to, i. 79.
Babcock, A. D., i. 358.
Babcock, Dr. I. L., i. 188, 225, 234, 237,
238, 240, 241.
Babcock, Wm., i., 531.
Bachelder, Jas. M., i. 583.
Bachelor, Chas., i. 339.
Bacon, Hon. Juo. M., biog. of, ii. 199.
Badger, Geo. E., debate on Oregon
bill, i. 295.
Bagby, Arthur P., i. 165.
Bagot, Sir Chas., i. 125, 126.
Bailey, - i. 599.
་
Bailey, Dr., i. 370.
Bailey, H., i. 438.
Bailey, Isaac, i. 443.
Bailey, Capt. Jos., i. 439, 440, 446.
Bailey, Capt. Jos., and Evans, Daniel,
party massacred by Indians, i.646-47.
Bailey, M., i. 608.
Bailey, Wm. J., i. 225, 264.
Baillie, Capt., i. 273.
Baker, killed by Indians, i. 643.
Baker, (of N. Y.), ii. 57.
Baker, Col. E. M., ii. 23, 24. 30.
Baker, Col. E. D., elected Senator, ii.
4; sketch of, 4 note.
Baker, John, i. 258.
Baker, Hon. M., biog. of, ii. 199.
Baker, Nathan, biog. of, ii. 199.
Baker, Thos., biog. of, ii. 200.
Baker City, description of, ii. 160.
Baker co. (Or.), outline history of, ii.
172.
Baker's Bay, i. 336.
Balboa, Vasco Numez de, crosses conti-
nent and discovers the Pacific Ocean,
and takes formal possession, i. II.
Balch, Capt. Lafayette, i. 339, 345, 346,
493: settles Port Steilacoom, 337;
memorial to reimburse, 466.
Bald Eagle, Indian name given to Dr.
McLoughlin, i. 174.
Ball, Edward, i. 628.
Ball, Jesse B., biog, of, ii, 200.
Ball, Jno., i. 182; opens school at Van-
couver, Jan., 1833, 117; a failure, 117.
Ballard, Dr. Levi W., biog. of, ii. 201.
Balton, John, i. 286.
Bancroft, George, ii. 34, 44.
Bancroft, H. H., reference to work of,
i. 179 note; estimate of immigration
of 1844, 266; refutation of statement
in History of Oregon, purporting to
be taken from Lane's autobiography,
434 note
Banks,
Bend, i. 210.
(botanist), lost in Big
Banks, incorporation by state prohib-
ited, i. 360.
Bannack. See Shoshones.
Baptiste, Jno., i. 287.
Barbour, Jno., i. 138.
Barclay, Forbes, i. 108.
Barden, Henry, i. 288.
Barker, Richard A., i. 538.
Barkwell, Dr., i. 450.
Barlow, Mrs. Martha H.,biog. of, ii. 206.
Barlow, Dr. Samuel, ii. 46.
Barlow, Samuel Kimbrough, i. 272,
278, 286; biog. of, ii. 201-06.
Barlow, Wm., biog. of, ii. 206.
Barnchio (or One-Eyed Jim), i. 653.
Barnes,
>
i. 286.
Barnes, Alfred, i. 628.
Barnes, Ellis, i. 340.
Barnes, Capt. Jas., i. 446, 452, 457.
Barnett, Eugene L., biog. of, ii. 206.
Barnhart, Jake, i. 340.
Barnum, E. M., i. 362, 537.
Barrel, Jos., sends Gray and Kendrick
on voyage, 1787, i. 50.
Barrett, Chas. A., biog. of, ii, 207.
Barrow, Maj., i. 396, 399.
Barry, Corp., i. 548.
Barry, Capt., ii. 18, 19.
Barry, Beekman du, Lieut., i. 462.
Barstow, Stephen D., i. 423.
Bartholet, Matthew, biog. of, ii. 207.
Bates, Capt., i. 409.
Bates, Edward, i. 139.
Battle of Big Bend, on Rogue river,
Col. Chapman's account of in his
biography, v. 2, i. 445 note; Capt.
Smith's official report of, 455-56.
Battle of Four Lakes, i. 624, 631.
Battle of Two Buttes, account of, i. 554.
Bauche,
i. 51.
Baughman, Dan., i. 601, 608.
Baughman, E. W., i. 604.
Baxster, A. M., i. 287.
Bay of Islands, named by Cook, i. 33;
by Heceta Port Remedios, 33.
Bayley, Chas., i. 469.
Bayley, Dr. J. R.. biog. of, ii. 207.
Bayliss, Francis, i. 135.
Beachey, Capt. F. N., commands Br.
surveying expedition to Pacific, i.
218; returns, leaving command to
Lieut. Killett, 218; Capt. Belcher
takes command at Panama, 218.
See Belcher.
Beale, Wm. K., i. 412.
Bean, R. S, ii. 147.
Beane, Jas. i. 641.
Bear Lake co. (Idaho), outline history
of, ii. 183.
Beardsley, Ross, biog. of, ii. 208.
Beardy (Indian), i. 284.
Beattie, Juo., i. 287.
Beauharnais, Marq. de, i. 58.
Beaver, ship, i. So, 81, 82, 85, 227, 228,
497, 512, 548, 549; property of H. B.
Co. 99; description and armament,
99 note; infringes revenue laws, 347;
seized by inspector, 347; libel filed,
347; warrant for arrest of Capt.
Stuart allowed by court, 347: libel
of vessel denied, 347; Stuart flies to
Victoria, 347; libel dismissed, 348;
ii. 138.
INDEX.
665
Beaver money, coinage of, i. 301.
Beaver women, Coyote outwits the
(myth), ii. 68.
Beekman, C. C., i. 423; ii. 147.
Beekman, Wm., i. 286.
Beers, Alanson, i. 187, 237, 238, 241.
Beezley, Josephi, biog. of, ii. 208.
Beggs, W. J., i. 429.
Behring, Capt. Vitus, in Russian navy,
put in command of expedition by
Peter the Great, appointment con-
firmed, after Peter's death, by Cath-
erine, sailed from Kamchatka 1728,
his own account of the voyage, re-
turns to St. Petersburg 1730, i. 21, 22;
sails on the St. Paul 1741, his death,
Müller's account, island named after
him, 24, 25.
Behring Strait, discovery completed
by Schestakow's expedition, i. 23;
breadth of determined by Cook, 36;
Clarke sails through and back, 37.
Beirne, Col. R. F., ii. 25.
Belcher, Capt. Sir Edward, on board
Sulphur, commanding Br. expl. exp
arrives at Columbia river, i. 218;
startles American settlers, 218; ex-
tract from instructions, 218.
Belew,
1. 200.
Belknap, Rolin S., i. 425.
Bell, Jas., i. 340.
Bell, John, i. 363; ii. 3.
Bell, Col. Juo. Colgate, biog. of, ii. 209.
Bell, Wm. N., i. 338.
Bellamy, G. W., i. 237.
Belle, str., i. 604; ii 15.
Bellinger, Col., i. 652.
Bellingham Bay, coal discovered at,
1852, i. 339; claims located, 340; set-
tlement increased, 340.
Bellingham Bay Coal Co. purchase
coal claims, i. 340.
Belsham, Wm., comments on Nootka
Treaty, i. 46, 48.
Benn, Samuel, biog. of, ii. 210.
Bennett, Capt. Chas., killed in battle,
i. 273, 538, 554, 559, 561, 564.
Bennett, Hon. Jas. Abner, biog. of,
ii. 210.
Bennett, John, i. 340.
Bennett, Nelson, ii. 145; biog. of
210-II.
Bent, Col. Chas., i. 112.
Bent, Wm., i. 112.
Bent's fort, i. 217.
Benton, Jno. A., votes for Treaty of
Limits, i. 165; joint debate on Ore-
gon bill, 298.
Benton, Sidney S., biog. of, ii. 212.
Benton, Thos. H., senator from Mis-
souri, i. 134; efforts in Cong. to effect
"sole occupancy" by U. S., 135,
138; extract from his "Thirty Years'
View," 138; tribute to Lewis F. Linn,
154; presents memorial of 1845 to
Coug., 268; his allusion to, 268; name
given to county, ii. 163.
Benton co. (Or.), i. 350; outline history
of, ii. 163.
Benton co. company, i. 552.
Bercier, Peter, i. 267.
Berger, Gotleib, i. 628.
Bergeren, Vatall, i. 288.
Bergeron, Vitelle, i. 288.
Berkley, Capt., voyage in 1787, i. 49;
names Destruction Island, 49; in-
forms Meares of strait, 49.
Bernard, Lieut. R. F., ii. 24.
Bernaur, Fred., i. 602, 603.
Berrien, Jno. McP., i. 165.
Berry, Wm., i. 280, 286.
Bewley, Miss, i. 200.
Biddle, Capt. Jas., commands On'ario,
i. 87; raises U. S. flag in Astoria,
restoring the name, 87, 123.
Bienville,
settles in New Orleans,
i. 68.
Biernaisse, E., i. 288.
Bigelow, Dan. R., i. 338, 347, 348.
Bigler, Jno. H., i. 287, 288.
Biles, Capt. J. D., i. 377.
Billings, Fred., ii. 48, 49.
Billings, Wm., biog. of, ii, 212.
Bingham co. (Idaho), outline history
of, ii. 183.
Birch, Elijah R., i. 628.
Bird, Hon. Juo., biog. of, ii. 213.
Bird, Nicholas, i. 287.
Birnie, Jas., i. 266, 336; biog. of, ii. 213.
Bishop,
locates, i. 312.
Bissell, Lieut., i. 598.
Bitter Root valley, i. 71.
Black,
companion of J. S. Smith
in Indian fight, i. 114.
Black, Capt., of Raccoon, exclamation
on seeing Astoria, i. 87.
Black, Henry, i. 219.
Black Jim, i. 651, 652, 653.
Blackenridge, Milton, i. 437.
Blacker, Henry, i. 287.
Blackfoot Council, Stevens' return
from, i. 549, 573.
Blackman Bros. (Alanson A., Elhanan
and Hyrcanus), biog. of, ii. 214.
Blackman Bros. sawmill, sketch of,
ii. 647-48.
Blackman, Alanson A. See Blackman
Bros.
Blackman, Arthur M., biog. of, ii. 214.
Blackman, Elhanan. See Blackman
Bros.
Blackman, Hon. Henry, biog. of, ii. 215.
Blackman, Hyrcanus. See Blackman
Bros.
Blackwell, Dr., i. 447.
Blair, Chas., i. 287.
Blair, T. J., i. 288.
Blair, Thos. R., i. 288.
Blakeley, Capt., i. 451, 452, 457.
Blakeley, Wm. M., biog. of, ii. 215.
Blakesley, (editor), i. 444.
Blalock, Dr. N. G., wheat patch of, ii.
114; biog. of, 215.
Blanca, Count de, Spanish minister of
state, i. 44; negotiations with Fitz-
herbert, 44, 45.
Blanchard, Hon. Dean, biog. of, ii. 216.
Blanchet, A. M. A., Catholic bishop,
arrives at Walla Walla, 1847, i. 200,
212.
Blanchet, F. N., archbishop of Or., i.
61; account of origin of word
"Ore-
gon," 61; in charge of Catholic
mission, 209; instructions, 209; jour-
neys overland, 1838, 210; missionary
work at Cowlitz and French Prairie,
210; visits Puget Sound, 1840, 211;
favorable report by Sir James Simp-
son, 211; appointed bishop of Phil-
adelphia, 212; Oregon made
vicariate apostolic, with Blanchet
bishop, 212; goes to Montreal for
consecration, 212; title changed to
Bishop of Drasa, 212; goes to Europe
to solicit aid, 212; Oregon made an
ecclesiastical province, and Blanchet
archbishop, 212, 225, 237; biog. of,
ii. 217.
a
Blanchet, Jos., biog. of, ii. 218.
Blankenship, J. H., i. 287, 585.
Bledsoe, Capt., i. 452, 455.
Blockhouses, erected, i. 542, 578; at
Muckleshoot Prairie, 591; at Cas-
cades, 607; on Mill creek, 615.
Bloody Chief, i. 198.
Bloom, Samuel M., biog. of, ii. 219.
Blossom, frigate, i. 87.
Blue books, big and little, i. 329–30.
Blue Wing, schooner, ii. 45.
Blunt, Simon F.,
i. 311.
Boddy, Rufus, i. 651.
Boddy, Wm., i. 651.
Boddy, Wm., Jr., i. 651.
Bodega y Quadra, J. T. de la, com-
mands Sonora in Heceta's expedi-
tion, i. 32; parts from Heceta and
cruises north, 32; sights Mt. San
Jacinto, 33; named the land Engano,
the bay Port Remedios (bay of
islands of Cook), 33; the south bay
Port Guadalupe, 33; reached 58°
north, 33; named Extension Bay
Port Bucarelli, 33; channel north
called Perez Inlet, 33; discovered
and named Bodega Bay, 33; sur-
veyed it and returned to Monterey,
33; in 1779 commands the Favorita,
33.
Bodega Bay, discovered, named and
surveyed by Bodega, i. 33.
Boggs, Thos., i. 288.
Bogue, C. G., ii. 48.
Bogus, Henry, i. 371.
Boise, Reuben P., i. 358, 396; elected
justice superior court, 362; ii. 2.
Boise City (Idaho), description of, ii.
160.
Boise Co. (Idaho), outline history of,
ii. 182.
Boise Mines, discovered, ii. 33.
Boldine, Jno. B. Z., i. 211.
Bolon, Andrew J., murder and crema-
tion of, i. 493, 534.
Bomford, B. B., i. 468.
Bonanpaus, Antoine, i. 287.
Bonneville, Capt. B. L. E., i. 231, 412
explorations to Rocky Mountains,
1832, 117; leave from army, 117;
financial aid obtained, 117; reached
Walla Walla, 117 (see Irving, W.,
works); penetrates valley of Hum-
boldt, Sacramento and Colorado,
II7.
Booth, Wm., i. 444.
Boothe, Wm. R., biog. of, ii. 219.
Boren, Carson D., i. 338, 339.
Borst, Jeremiah W., biog. of, ii. 219.
Borst, Jos., i. 288.
Boston, ship, i. 55, 139.
Boston Charley, i. 653.
Boston Daily Advertiser, quotations
from, i. 75.
Bostonian, ship, wrecked in Umpqua
river, i. 379; found by the Kate
Heath, 379; crew founded Gardiner,
379.
Bostons, Indian term applied to Amer-
icans in Oregon, i. 178.
Bosworth, J. H., i. 286.
Boundary line between Great Britain
and United States, negotiations to
settle, i. 122-23.
Boundaries of Oregon established and
described, i. 359.
Bourbon, half breed, i. 601, 608.
Boussole, La, ship, i. 49.
Bow river, i. 230.
Bowen, Lieut., ii. 21.
Bowermaster, Solomon, i. 425.
Bowlby, Dr. Wilson, biog. of, ii. 222.
Bowman, Henry, biog. of, ii. 220.
Bowman, Ira, i. 287.
Bowman, Nathaniel, i. 287.
Boyce, Jno. H., biog. of, ii. 220.
Boyd, Wm. P., biog. of, ii. 221.
Brackett, Geo., biog. of, ii. 221.
666
INDEX.
Bradbury, Clements Adams, biog. of,
ii. 221.
Bradbury & Co., i. 390, 399.
Bradford & Co's horse railroad, ii. 15.
Bradford Bros. (Daniel F. and Put-
nam), locate, i. 312; Coe's descrip-
tion of the siege of store of, 598,
599-601.
Bradley, Isaac, i. 416.
Bradshaw, Hon. Chas. M.,
biog. of, ii. 222.
Brannan, Jos., biog. of, ii. 223.
i. 340;
Bras Croche, Indian guide to Red river
Bratton, Benj., i. 286.
colony, i. 230.
Brattain, Paul, i. 358.
Braun, J. H., i. 449.
Brazee, Capt. J. W., ii. 102.
Breckenridge, J. D., i. 227.
Breckenridge, John C.,
ii.
3.
Breese, Sidney, i. 165.
Brents, Thos. H., ii. 55.
Brewer, H. B., i. 188, 191.
Bricks made, i. 302.
Briggs, Hon. Albert, biog of, ii 223.
Bright, Geo. R., i. 541.
Bright, Jesse D., moves consideration
of Oregon bill in Senate, June 1,
1847, i. 293; one of select senate
committee, 296.
Bristow, W. W., i. 358.
British Columbia, Mackenzie's explor-
ations in, 1793, i. 62; Finlay and
MacDougal, 1805, 73; trading-posts
established by North West Co., 73;
Simon Fraser, 73; Harmon, 1810, 74;
Robt. J. Walker on ceding of, in
Treaty of Limits, 1848, 168; act to
establish government, 520.
British East India Co., license, i. 31.
British surveying expedition (Beachy),
i. 218.
i. 433.
Brittain, Daniel P.,
Brittain, J. H., i. 358.
Bromley, W. R., i. 303.
Brook, Henry, biog. of, ii. 224.
Brooke, Geo. S., biog. of, ii. 224.
Brooke, Lloyd, i. 468.
Brookes, A. M., biog. of, ii. 224.
Brookes, John E., biog. of, ii. 225.
Brooks, John P., i. 273.
Brooks, John T., i. 358.
Brooks, Quincy A., i. 347.
Brotherton, Rufus, i. 651.
Brotherton, W. K., i. 651.
Brotherton, Wm., i. 651.
Broughton, Lieut. Robt., sails with
Vancouver in the Chatham, 1791,
i. 46; dispatched to England from
Nootka, 47; returns on the Provi-
dence, 47; terminates the visits of
the English, 48; anchors in Gray's
Bay, 55; examines river 100 miles,
55; names Point Vancouver, 55; un-
just denial of Gray's claim, 55.
Brouillet, Rev. J. B. A., i. 200, 212.
Brown, A. C., i. 286.
Brown, Angus, i. 436.
Brown, B. W. and wife, i. 608.
Brown, Benj., biog. of, ii. 226.
Brown, George, i. 470.
Brown, Hugh L., biog. of, ii. 227.
Brown, J., i. 645.
Brown, J. C., i. 340.
Brown, Jas. A., i. 287.
Brown, Martin P., i. 287.
Brown, Samuel, i. 50.
Brown, W. H. and family, massacre of,
i. 543.
Brown, Dunn & Co., i. 390, 398.
Brown's Hole, i. 217.
Browne, Isaac M., i. 343 note.
Browne, Hon. J. J., biog. of, ii. 227.
Brownfield, Daniel F., i. 324, 326; first
white settler at New Dungeness, 340.
Bruce, Capt. Jas., i. 417, 422, 439, 449,
442, 443, 445, 446, 447, 449, 450, 452,
457; biog. of, ii. 228.
Bruce, Robt., biog. of, ii. 229.
Bruce Company formed, i. 313.
Bryant, Wm. P., chief justice, i. 254,
303, 307, 323; holds court at Fort
Steilacoom, 309; his report, 309; re-
sigus and returns to Indiana, 314.
Buchan, James, Walker acquits of
abandoning, too readily, armed pol-
icy, i. 168.
Buchanan,
453, 454, 455.
Lieut.-Col., i. 448,
Buchanan, James, i. 137; ii. 1.
Buchtel, Jos., biog. of, ii. 229-32.
Buckminster,
Engineer, i. 601.
Buckner, T. M., i. 287.
Budd's inlet, i. 302.
Buildings, public, discussion in legis-
lature, 1854, on location of, i. 352.
Bulfinch, Chas,
i. 50.
Bulfinch harbor, named by Gray, now
called Gray's harbor, i. 54.
Bullin, Henry, i. 449.
Bull, Walter A., biog. of, ii. 232.
Bulwer-Lytton, Sir E., correspondence
with Sir Jas. Douglas on rights of
H. B. Co., i. 519–21.
Bunker, Capt. T., i. 641.
Bunton, Wm., i. 266, 287.
Buoy, Capt. Laban, i. 441, 447, 450.
Burbank, Hon. A. R., biog. of, ii. 233.
Burbank, Miss Eva L., biog. of, ii. 234.
Burbank, Mrs. Mary E., biog. of, ii.
234.
Burch, Hon. B. F., biog. of, ii. 232.
Burch, Benj. J., i. 287, 358, 371, 567,
568, 570.
Burdon, H., i. 288.
Burge, Andrew J., i. 544.
Burlington Gazette, i. 322.
Burnett, A. J., i. 651.
Burnett, Jas. D., i. 436, 443, 444; biog.
of, ii. 233.
Burnett, Hon. John, biog. of, ii. 235.
Burnett, Mrs. Martha, biog. of, ii. 236.
Burnett, Peter H., i. 264, 273, 275;
among immigrants of 1843, 254; his
career, 254; counsel for McLoughlin,
254; captain of train of Oregon em-
igrants of 1843, with Applegate,
Nesmith et al., 256-57; publishes
"Journal of an Immigrant," 258;
immortalizes the march of 1843 in
his "Recollections of a Pioneer,
i. 260; appointed assoc. justice, 307;
declines, 314.
Burney, Jas., admiral, remarks on voy-
age of Discovery, i. 35-36; account
of Ledyard's adventure, 36.
Burns, Hugh, i. 278.
Burns, Dr. M. P., i. 541, 586.
Burns & Beggs, i. 643.
Burns & Wood, i. 390, 399.
Burntrager, D. E., i. 575.
Burpee, John, locates on Kalama river,
removes to Cowlitz, i. 336.
Burroughs, D. D., i, 287.
Burrows, Juo. M., i. 538, 561, 564.
Burt,
See Butler, J. L.
Burton, Wm., i. 288.
>
Bush, i, 599, 601.
Bush, Asahel, i. 319; editor Oregon
Statesman, 353; moves paper to Cor-
vallis, 353; ii. 147; biog. of, 236.
Bush, Geo. (colored), one of Simmons'
party to settle on Puget Sound,
i. 267; character and influence in
effecting the settlement, 267 note;
granted a section of land, 467.
Bushey, Mike, i. 424, 447.
Bustamenti, Capt., i, 51.
Butler, Hon. Hilory, biog. of, ii. 237.
Butler, Ira F. M., i. 362; biog. of, ii. 238.
Butler, J., i. 286.
Butler, John L., and Burt,
kill
Stikeen chief, and the vengeance
that followed, i. 469-70; wanton act,
471.
Buxton, Henry, biog. of, ii. 238.
Bybee's ferry, i. 417.
Byles, Hon. Chas. N., biog. of, ii. 239.
Byrd,
i. 547.
Cabot, Sebastian, letter mentioning
his voyage, 1496, i. 4.
Cabot, brig, i. 338.
Cabrillo, Juan Roderiquez de, com-
mands expedition to Cal. coast, dis-
covers San Diego and Monterey Bays,
driven by storm to San Miguel,
where he died, 1543, i. 15; left com-
mand to Ferrelo, 15.
Cadboro, sloop, i. 182, 183.
Cadwallader, Jesse, i. 287.
Cadwell, Edward P., biog. of, ii. 239.
Cady, Lieut. - Col. Albemarle, com-
mands Or. military district, ii. 16.
Caines, Capt., i. 339.
Calapooia Mts., i. 374.
Calderwood, i. 608.
Caldwell, Capt. W. S., i. 450, 537, 570;
ii. 18.
Caleb Curtis, vessel, i. 379.
Calespelles Indians, i. 637.
Calhoun, Dr. Geo. V., biog. of, ii. 239.
Calhoun, Jno. C., succeeds Upshur,
i. 141; declines Pakenham's offer
of Columbia river boundary, 141;
ground therefor, 141-43; Pakenham's
reply, 143-45; answers Pakenham's
arguments tersely, but in detail,
144-47; member of select com., 151;
votes for Treaty of Limits, 165.
California, Mendoza's expedition to,
1542, under Cabrillo and Ferrelo,
reaches 44° north, i. 15; name ap-
plied by Spain to whole coast north
of Mexico, 15; Vizcaino surveys
coast of, 1602, from Cape San Lucas
to Mendocino, 19; under control of
military governor from 1769, 30;
settlements purely missionary colo-
nies, 30; name an enigma, 62; ex-
peditions (fur) extended to, 112;
explored, 1826, by J. S. Smith, across
Sierra Nevada to San Diego, 112;
first Am. to make the journey, 114
(see Smith, J. S.); certificate of
Smith's peaceable intentions pre-
served in State archives, 113; gold
discovered in, 1848, 300; cattle in-
troduced from, 370; journey of J. S.
Smith from head of Sac. valley to
Rogue river, 1827, 369; of Kelly and
Young, 1834, 370.
California, Lower, Vizcaino explores,
1596, i. 18; spiritual conquest of
tried by Spain, 27; possession of
taken by Fathers Kino and Tierra,
1697, 27; great success of and expul-
sion, 28; determined a peninsula, by
Father Kuhn in 1700, by Ulloa in
1540, on charts before Kuhn as an
island (Islas Carolinas), 28; Gaspar
de Portola, governor of, 29.
California, str., i. 315, 323, 545.
California archives, copy of letter of
J. S. Smith to Father Duran, of Mis-
sion San José, and reply, preserved
in, i. 113.
INDEX.
667
California Cattle Co. formed 1836, i.
214; party headed by Young, 214;
assistance rendered by Slacum, 214
-15; results, 215; Dr. McLoughlin's
version of, 247; Rev. Daniel Lee's
account, 247.
Callahan, Jno., i. 286.
Calvin, John, i. 401.
Camaspelo, chief of Cayuses, i. 204,
283.
Cambreleng, Churchill C.,
i. 139.
Cameron, Simon, i. 165, 363.
Camp Alden, i. 417.
Camp Alvord, ii. 19.
Camp Bailey, i. 440.
Camp Cornelius, i. 567.
Camp Dahlgreen, ii. 20.
Camp Henderson, ii. 19.
Camp Lander, ii. 21.
Camp Maury, ii. 18.
Camp Montgomery, i. 577, 582.
Campbell, A. C., biog. of, ii. 240.
Campbell, A. J, i. 358.
Campbell, Archibald, letter to Gen.
Harney, ii. 42.
Campbell, Mrs. F. A., biog. of, ii. 241.
Campbell, Dr. F. C., biog. of, ii. 241.
Campbell, Hamilton, i. 301.
Campbell, Hector, i. 320, 358.
Campbell, Robt., i. 112.
Campbell, T. F., ii. 30.
Canal de Haro, named by Quimper,
i. 51; ii. 34, 35, 36, 37.
Canby, Gen. Edward Richard Sprigg,
i. 420; succeeds Crook, 650; settlers'
petition referred to, 651; member of
Peace Commission, 652; murdered
by Indians, 652.
Canby, Thos., i. 288.
Canfield, Hon. Eugene, i. 200; ii. 659.
Canfield road, ii. 145, 659.
Canning, Statford, i. 125, 126, 127.
Cannon, Hon. A. M., biog. of, ii. 242.
Cannon, Wm., i. 180.
Cano, Sebastian del, subordinate of
Magellan, makes first complete cir-
cumnavigation of globe, i. 12.
Cantrel, Asi, i. 287.
Cantrel, Jno. M., i. 287.
Cantwell, Oliver, killed by Indians,
i. 643.
Capacity, vessel, i. 390.
Cape Disappointment, named
named by
Meares, i. 50; reached by Lewis and
Clarke, 71; H. B. Co's possessions at,
107; history and value of, 107 note;
military occupancy of mouth of
Columbia river, 107 note.
Cape Engano, named by Heceta, i.
33.
Cape Flattery, on Spanish charts as
Martinez, i. 31; named by Cook, 35.
Cape Frondosa, named by Heceta, i. 32.
Cape North, named by Perez Santa
Margarita, i. 31.
Cape Orford, named Blanco de San
Sebastian by Vizcaino, 1603, i. 19.
Cape San Roque, named by Heceta,
1. 32.
Cape Santa Margarita.
North.
See Cape
Capital on Wheels," i. 353.
Capitol, appropriations for, i. 319.
Captain Jack, leader of Modocs and
Modoc war, i. 650-53; hanged, 653.
Captain John, chief, i. 586.
Captain Lincoln, str., loss of, i. 406.
Captives, list of, ransomed by Gov.
Ögden, i. 203.
Captives, Waiilatpu, arrive at Fort
Vancouver, i. 279.
Carey, Chas. H., biog. of, ii. 243.
Carmichael. See Young, E.
Carolina, str., i. 315; ii. 138.
Carpenter, Chas., biog. of, ii. 243.
Carpenter, W. W., i. 286.
Carrie Ladd, boat, ii. 15.
Carrol, Jas., i. 413.
Carson, Jno., biog. of, ii. 243-44.
Carson, Kit, i. 373.
Carsons, arrival of, i. 340.
Carter, Andrew J., i. 410, 412.
Carter, E. J., i. 427.
Carter, Jos. L., biog. of, ii. 245.
Carter, Wm. D., i. 319.
Carver, Jonathan, expedition, i. 58;
his purposes stated in journal, 58–59;
two years among the Indians, 58;
first use of word Oregon, 59; applied
to "Great River of the West," 59;
after Gray's discovery, the Columbia
accepted as that one, 60; voyage
of no scientific value, 60; name
either coined or derived from the
Indians, 62.
Cary, Mrs. C. B., biog. of, ii. 245.
Cary, Miles, i. 258.
Cascade branch road, ii. 48.
Cascade Indians, i. 598; adjudged
guilty of treason, 608.
Cascade Mountains, immigration
across, 1853, i. 340; features of, 369;
reached by wagon exploring party,
373; geographical description of, ii.
46, 47, 96.
Cascade Railroad Co., incorporated,
i. 524.
Cascades (falls), description of, ii. 103;
boats that have shot the, 102-03.
Cascades (town), located, 1850, i. 312;
trading-post at, 336; importance and
condition of, 597; attacks on, 598-
610; trial and execution of hostiles,
608.
Case, Lieut., i. 227.
Case, Hon. Samuel, biog. of, ii. 245.
Casey, Col. Silas, i. 493, 577, 584, 585;
expedition to Port Orford and defeat
of Indians, 395; arrives with Ninth
Infantry, 574; habeas-corpus pro-
ceedings, 581; commands Puget
Sound district, 590; establishes
blockhouses at Muckleshoot Prairie,
591; sketch of, 591 note; marches to
Lemmon's Prairie, 591; sends relief
to Lieut. Kautz, on White river, 592;
reinforced, 593; asks Gov. Stevens
for two volunteer companies, 593;
letter of refusal, 594-95; continues
operations against Indians at Stuck
Prairie, Boise creek and Lake Du-
wamish, 595; ii. 39, 42.
Cash, Wiley, i. 446.
Cason, Capt., i. 569, 570.
Cass, Lewis, ii. 36.
Cassia co. (Idaho), outline history of,
ii. 183.
Castle, Barney, i. 449.
Castleman, Fred, i. 444.
Castleman, Philip T., biog. of, ii.
246-48.
Castiltah, the Crayfish or Lobster God
(myth), ii. 75.
Castor, Lieut., i. 424.
Cathcart, Isaac, biog. of, ii. 249.
Cathlamet, i. 336.
Catholic fathers, fruitless endeavor to
pacify Indians, i. 621.
Catholic missionaries.
Catholic.
See Roman
Catholic priests, proof of early visits
to Southern Oregon, i. 369.
Catlin, Hon. John, biog. of, ii. 249.
Catlin, Seth, i. 336.
Cattle, California Cattle Co., and ven-
ture, i. 214-15; introduced from Cal-
ifornia, 370, 371; first in Willamette
valley, i. 377; increase of, 642;
interests in, ii. 126-28; ranges, 128.
Cattle Contract, i. 257-60.
Cattle policy of H. B. Co., i. 246–48.
Cavalho, Juan, name assumed by
British merchants, i. 40; furnishes
ships to association, 40.
Cavendish, Thos., sails from England,
1586, through Strait of Magellan,
along coast of Chile and Peru, burnt
and sunk nineteen ships, discovered
and named Port Desire, returns by
Cape of Good Hope, i. 18.
Caviness, Jno. L., biog. of, ii. 250.
Cayuse Indians, i. 173, 194, 481, 535,
563; become turbulent, 197; number
of, 197; murderers of Whitman, 201;
Gov. Douglas' comments on charac-
ter of, 201; council of chiefs after
massacre, 204-05; Blanchet's address,
204; replies, 204; message to Gov.
Abernethy, 204; Blauchet's com-
ments, 205; Lane's reference to in
his message, 307; to be punished,
307; Whitman murderers surrender,
310; trial, 310; death warrant last
act of Lane, 311; execution, 311;
provisions of treaty with, 487.
Cayuse war, i. 276; necessary conse-
quence of Whitman massacre, 207;
account of and events leading to,
277-86; list of officers and men who
served in, 286–88; petition of Pro-
visional govt. to Cong. as to, 292;
settlement of expenses to, 302; con-
gressional appropriation for expenses
of, 332.
Census of Or. 1845 (Capt. Meek's), i.
267; of 1849, 305; of 1850, 334.
Census of Wash., 1853, i. 461.
Cession of Rogue river Indians to
U. S. boundaries of, i. 420.
Center, Saml, i. 288.
Central Battalion, i. 577.
Chadwick, Stephen Fowler, i. 323, 389,
390, 399, 409, 423; ii. 30; biog. of, 250.
Chadwick, Hinsdale & Co., i. 390, 399.
Chaffee, Chas. M., ii. 9, 10, 11, 13.
Chalmers, Jos. W., i. 165.
Chamberlin, Martin L., biog. of, ii, 251.
Chambers, A. H., biog. of, ii. 251.
Chambers, Thos. M., i. 337, 342.
Chambers' Prairie, i. 578.
Champoeg, i. 108.
Champoeg co. becomes
i. 308.
Champoeg district, i. 239.
Chance, Johnny, i. 608.
Chandler, John, i. 138.
'Marion,"
Chandler, Wm. M., biog. of, ii. 252.
Chandler, Zachariah, i. 363.
Chansey, vessel, i. 428.
Chapel, Geo., i. 287.
Chaplin, Daniel, biog. of, ii. 252.
Chapman, Capt., i. 446, 447, 449.
Chapman, Jno. B., i. 337.
Chapman, Jno. M., i. 337.
Chapman, Col. W. W., one of inimi-
grant party of 1847, i. 374; account
of battle of Big Bend in his biog-
raphy, v. 2, 445 note; ii. 139; biog.
of, ii. 254-69.
Chapman, Wm., i. 287; biog. of, ii.
252-53.
Chapman, Wm. H., biog. of, ii. 254.
Charles III. of Spain, expels Jesuits
from Lower California, i. 28.
Charleston convention, delegates to,
ii. 2.
668
Charley (Indian), i. 343, 344.
Chase, Albert, ii. 13.
Chase, Daniel and family, ii. 9, 10, 11,
12, 13.
Chase, Daniel, Jr., ii. 13.
Chase, Mrs. Elizabeth, ii. 12, 13.
Chase, Henri M., i. 575.
Chase, Henry Martyn, biog. of, ii. 269.
Chase, Mary, ii. 12, 13.
Chase, Sam., i. 287.
Chatham, ship, i. 46, 47, 54, 55.
'Cheek of Vancouver's Cascade Ca-
nal,” i. 64.
Cheetsamahoin. See Duke of York.
Chehalis co. (Wash.), i. 467, 469; out-
line history of, ii. 173.
Chehalis Indians, volunteer as scouts
under Capt. Ford, i. 577.
Chehalis, John (Indian), i. 579.
Cheney, Jas., i. 586, 589.
Chenoweth, Francis A., i. 460, 464, 468,
479; locates and opens store. 312;
and the habeas-corpus proceedings,
581-83.
Chenoweth, Hardin, i. 601.
Chenoweth, Jim (chief), hung, i. 608;
evidently co operated with Klikitats
in Cascade raid, 610.
Cherry, Dr. Chas., i. 471.
Cherub, ship, i. 84.
Chesapeake, vessel, i. 390.
Chetco Indians, depredations of, i. 641,
643.
Chetco river, i. 369.
Chetcoe Jennie (squaw), i. 449.
Chieftainship ignored by H. B. Co.,
i. 198.
Chills and fever, Indians on Sauvie's
Island nearly exterminated by, i. 118.
Chimsyan Indians, i. 345.
China, Cook's vessels reach Canton,
under Lieut. Gore, i. 37; lively com-
merce started, 38; impetus given fur
trade by China market, 38; excessive
port charges of, 40.
Chinese miners raided by Indians on
Butte creek, ii. 23; efforts to exclude,
50-54; number of, 51; attacks on and
murder of, 51-52; obliged to leave
Seattle, 53.
Chinn, Maj. Mark A., i. 538, 562; asks
for reinforcements, 555, 556; and the
command at Fort Henrietta, 559;
advances with Col. Kelso against
the Walla Wallas, 564.
Chinook (town), i. 336.
Chinook winds, ii. 115.
Chinooks, i. 63, 106.
Chuckmouse, i. 579.
Church
government, missionaries
adopt any form of, i. 195.
Cibola, reported populous and wealthy
by Niza, i. 14.
Cimmaron river, i. 115.
Citizens' road to Puget Sound, i. 341;
useless character of, 341; expense of,
341; used by government for military
road, 342; reimbursement asked of
government, 342.
City Rocks," ii. 6.
Clackamas co. (Or.), i. 351; outline
history of, ii. 165.
Clackamas co. company, i. 554.
Clackamas district, boundaries of, i.
239.
Clackamas Indians, i. 310.
Clackamas rapids, i. 116.
Claiborne, Capt., i. 310.
Clallam co. (Wash.), i. 468; outline
history of, ii. 173.
Clallam Indians, Stevens' account of,.
i. 475, 479.
INDEX.
Clapp, Cyrus F., biog. of, ii. 270.
Clarendon,
i. 548.
>
Clark, Frank, i. 472, 581.
Clark, John S., biog. of, ii. 271.
Clark, Sam, i. 287.
Clark, T. J. V., biog. of, ii. 271.
Clark, Wm. Gaylord, ii. 46.
Clarke, D. D., ii. 48.
Clarke, Rev. Harvey, journey from Ill.
with Smith and Littlejohn and wives,
1840, in two wagons, i. 219; settles
in Willamette valley, 219; Smith's
account of, 219.
Clarke, John, i. 77, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85.
Clarke, Gen. N. S., succeeds Wool,
i. 629; informed of situation by Col.
Wright, 629; orders Wright to Walla
Walla, 629; in his report upholds
Stevens' treaties with Indians, 639;
ii. 42; rescinds the Wool interdict, 32.
Clarke, Gen. Wm., i. 186. See Lewis, M.
Clarke, S. A., ii. 139.
Clarke co. (Wash.), changed from
Vancouver, i. 308; population, 1850,
313; census shows H. B. Co's ad-
herents preponderate 335; location
for county-seat, 335 note; outline
history of, ii. 177.
Clarke Co. Rangers, i. 575.
Clarke's Fork river, ii. 100.
Clatsop co. (Or.), outline history of,
ii. 163.
Clatsop co. (Wash.), with North Ore-
gon forms one council district, i.
334, 350.
Clay, Henry, refers to British claims
in dispatch to Gallatin, i. 128; mem-
ber of select com., 151; Whig nom-
inee for president, 1844, 156; extract
from instructions to Panama com-
missioners, 1826, 156; defines his
position on Oregon question, 156;
to Gallatin on Spanish title, 156.
Clayoquot, or Port Cox, demanded in
treaty by Vancouver, i. 46.
Clayton,
i. 469, 470.
Clayton, Jesse, i. 287.
Clayton, John M., i. 165; member of
select com., reports bill for organi-
zation of territories of Oregon, Cal.
and New Mexico, 296.
Clayton, Thos., i. 165.
Cleaves, Fred. D., biog. of, ii. 272.
Clendenin, John S., i. 460.
T
Clerke, Capt. Chas., commands Dis-
covery under Cook, 1776, i. 35; suc-
ceeds to command on death of Cook
(see Cook), 37; sails from Sandwich
Islands, April, 1777, to Behring
Strait, 37; meets ice in Arctic and
repasses Strait, 37; dies August 23d,
succeeded by Lieut. Gore (see
Gore), 37.
Cleveland, Dr. E. H., i. 408, 417.
Clifton, John H., i. 452.
Cline, Elliott, i. 340.
Clothier, Hon. Harrison, biog. of, ii.
272.
Cluggage, Jas., i. 398, 399, 411, 414.
Clyoquot Sound, i. 78.
Coal, discovered by Capt. Wm. Prattle
at Bellingham Bay, 1852, i. 339;
claims located and leased to S. F.
Co., 340; but little developed, 340;
later discoveries by Brown & Hew-
itt, 340; other claims, 340; first
cargo, 428; mines opened at Coos
Bay, 431; shipments to San Fran-
cisco, 642; fields east of Tacoma, ii.
Coal creek, assault on Chinese at, ii.
48; resources, 134.
52.
Coast of California in the South Sea,
applied to territory north of Cape
San Lucas, i. 15.
Coatney, John R., i. 287.
Coats, Jas., i. 232.
Cockstock, vicious Wasco Indian,
killed, i. 262; Sub-Agent White's
report on, 263–64.
Code, Indiana, i. 198.
Code commission created, i. 466.
Coe, Henry W., i. 286.
Coe, Lawrence W., letter describing
siege of Bradford's store, i. 599–601;
account of attack of Lower Cas-
cades, 603-04, 608; ii. 15, 102, 138.
Coe, N., i. 399.
Coeur d'Alene
Indians, missions
among the, i. 476; combine with
other tribes for war, 623; defeat
Col. Steptoe, 624; Fathers Congeato
and Joset ask amnesty for,629; Gens.
Clarke and Wright make war on,
621-25; enter into treaty with Col.
Wright, 636.
Coeur d'Alene mines, ii. 150.
Cœur d'Alene mission, i. 635.
Coeur d'Alene river, i. 81.
Coffee, i. 585.
Coffin, Capt., i., 378.
Coffin, Emma, i. 425.
Coffin, Esther J., i. 425.
Coffin, Vestal, i. 425.
Coffin, W., Jr., i. 425.
Cohen, D. Solis, biog. of, ii. 272.
Colburn, A. C., killed by Indians, i.
413.
Cole, Geo. E., ii. 54, 55.
Colester, Joseph, i. 288.
Colfax, Schuyler, i. 366.
Colfax (Wash.), sketch of, ii. 648.
Colleges, list of, ii. 148.
Collins,
i. 450.
Collins, Capt., ii. 23.
Collins, Jack, i. 437.
Collins, John, i. 651.
Collins, Luther M., i. 338.
Collomon, Jacob, i. 363.
Colnett, Capt. Jas., on leave, in com-
mand of Princess Royal, arrives in
Nootka Sound, i. 40; put in com-
mand of Argonaut, 42; attempts
possession of Nootka, 43; alterca-
tion with Martinez, 43; receives his
schooner at Hawaii from Quimper,
1790, 51.
Colonel Wright, boat, ii. 15, 138.
Colquitt, W. T., i. 165.
Columbia, name advocated for new
state, i. 348.
Columbia, ship, i. 42, 50, 53, 193, 212,
391, 448, 516, 642, 643; ii. 138.
Columbia & Puget Sound R. R., ii.
143.
Columbia co. (Ör.), outline history of,
ii. 164.
Columbia co. (Wash.), outline history
of, ii. 180.
Columbia Fur Co., merged into No.
Am. Fur Co., i. III.
Columbia river, Heceta and Vancou-
ver's voyages, i. 52; Vancouver on
Gray's claim, 53; named by Gray,
54; Capt. Robt. Gray accepted dis-
coverer of, 55; discovery led to belief
that it was Carver's "great river,"
60; probability of it, 61; called by
Chinooks Wikaitli Wimakl (grand
river). 62; free navigation guaran-
teed H. B. Co. by Treaty of Limits,
105; U. S. vessels renew trade on,
115; surveyed by Wilkes in 1841, 152;
Frémont reaches it in 1843, 153; the
north boundary, 266; settlement ex-
INDEX.
669
t
tended, 1850, 312; natural boundary,
333; settlements at mouth of, 336;
Key's description of crossing bar of,
546; and its tributaries, ii. 99-104;
discharge equal to that of Missis-
sippi, 102; scenery of, 158.
Columbia Transportation Co., ii. 144.
Columbian, began publication, i. 348;
advocates division of territory, 348.
Colville, Andrew, agt. Puget Sound
Agricultural Co., i. 108.
Colvin, Ignatius, i. 343 note.
Comanche Indians, fight and kill J. S.
Smith, i. 115.
Comeford, J. P., biog. of, ii. 272.
Committee of Fifteen, ii. 53.
Commodore, str., i. 516.
Commodore Preble, vessel, i. 390.
Como, Thos., i. 589.
Co. M, First Artillery, i. 307.
Comstock, J. J., i. 646.
Conception, ship, i. 50.
Congeato, Father, asks amnesty for
Coeur d'Alenes, i. 629.
Congle, J. B., biog. of, ii. 273.
Congress (U. S.), proceedings relative
to sole occupancy, 1820-29, i. 134–39;
petition of Whitcomb and others for
federal jurisdiction, 1838, 215; of
Leslie and others, 1840, 221; em-
phatic declaration of intention to
Americanize Oregon, 221; struggle
over territorial bill, 289–99.
Congressional appropriation for sur-
veys of P. R. R., ii. 46.
Connell, Thos. R., i. 412.
Connell's Prairie, battte of, Hays' ac-
count of, i. 578.
Conner, Sgt. ii., 24.
Constitution, ship, convoy to Tonquin,
i. 78.
Constitutional convention (Or.), first
attempt for, 351; bill passed, 1853–54,
to submit to popular vote propriety
of holding, 351; defeated at election,
1854, 351 note; real reason, 351 note;
occupies session of 1854, 352; ena-
bling act passed house, but fails in
senate, 352; session of 1855-56, bill
passed for election of delegates to,
354, 356; also to take sense of people
on holding, 354; delegates elected,
but vote against convention, 354;
Lane's efforts for bill, 357; objected
to on ground of want of population,
357; defeated in senate, 357; conven-
tion held Aug. 17, 1857, 358, names
of members, 358; provisions of,
358-61; ratified Nov., 1857, 362.
Constitutional convention (Wash.), at-
tempts to call, ii. 49; meets, 50.
Continuity, claims of England and
France by right of, i. 142, 143; ex-
tinguished by treaty of 1763, 142;
Calhoun on, 145.
Convention of Escurial. See Nootka
Treaty.
Convention at Lafayette, 1847, i. 275;
committee appointed to draft me-
morial to Cong., 275.
Conventions held to establish new ter-
ritory, i. 427; delegates present, 427.
Conventions, political, i. 490.
Convoy, schr., i., 115, 116.
Cook, Amos, i. 216, 217, 233.
Cook, Daniel P., i. 137.
Cook, Francis H., biog. of, ii. 273.
Cook, Capt. James, commands expedi-
tion in Resolution and Discovery,
1776, to New Albion, i. 34; instruc-
tions to determine northwest pas-
sage, 34-35; Lieut. Young sent to
Baffin's Bay to co-operate with him,
34; sails for Plymouth in Resolution,
35; Capt. Clerke in Discovery, 35;
Vancouver as midshipman, 35; visits
Sandwich Islands, thence to Pacific.
coast, 35; thick weather keeps him
off the coast, 35; Burney's remarks,
35; arrives at Nootka Sound, 35;
thence through Behring Strait, 36;
stopped by ice in Arctic, turus
south, 36; surveys Aleutian group,
36; Burney's account of Ledyard's
enterprise, 36; returns to Sandwich
Islands for supplies, 36; Burney's
account of his visit and death, 36-37;
results of the voyage, 37; explodes
theory of northwest passage, 37;
command devolves on Capt. Clerke,
37; notable features of the voyage,
38 (see Clerke); his conclusion of
continuation of continent verified
by Mackenzie, 64.
Cook, Samuel Y., i. 286.
Cook, Wm. T., biog. of, ii. 274.
Cook, Wesley, i. 288.
Cook, Wm., i. 505.
Cooke, Hon. Clas. P., biog. of, ii. 274.
Cooke, E. N., ii. 139.
Cooke, Hon. Edwin N., biog. of, ii.
275.
Cooke, Mrs. Eliza, biog. of, ii. 276.
Cooke, Jay & Co's, advances to N. P.
R. R., ii. 47; failure of, 48.
Cooley,
i. 458.
Coon, L. E. V., starts Roseburg ex-
press, i. 645.
Cooper,
>
massacre of, i. 543-
Cooper, Dr. J. G., i. 461.
Coos Bay, i. 642; Cynosure brings first
cargo to, 1853, 426; beach mines at,
fail, 428.
Coos Bay Co., organized, i. 425; mem-
bers, 425; Fourier system adopted,
425; draft of a bill to Congress,
425.
Coos Bay harbor, description of, ii. 104.
Coos co. (Or.), created, 1853, bound-
aries, i. 426; outline history of, ii.
164.
Coos river, i. 369, 425.
Copenhagen, John, i. 287.
Coppei creek, i. 563.
Coppermine river, i. 64.
Coquille Indians, i., 451.
Coquille river, i. 369.
Corbaley, Richard, biog. of, ii. 277.
Corbett, Elijah, i. 646.
Corbett, Henry W., ii. 31; biog. of,
277-79.
Corliss, Geo. W., i. 512; self and wife
murdered, 512 note.
Cornage, John, i. 646, 647.
Cornelius, Sam, i. 287.
Cornelius, Col. Thos. R., i. 286, 354,
538, 552, 648, 649; elected colonel on
resignation of Nesmith, 565; instruc-
tions from Gov. Curry, 566; his
official report, 567-71; ii. 16, 139,
156; biog. of, ii. 279-86.
Cornoyer, Capt. Narcisse A., i. 538,
556, 559, 561, 562, 563, 567, 570, 571;
biog. of, ii. 286.
Cornwall road, ii. 145.
Coronado, Francisco Vasquez de, com-
mands Mendoza's expedition to
Cibola, i. 14.
Corporations, no law in Oregon to
form, ii. 15.
Cortereal, Gaspar, voyages of, 1500-04,
i. 4.
Cortereal, John vaz, discovers New-
foundland, 1463, i. 4.
Cortez, Hernando, discovers and sub-
jugates Mexico, sends expeditions
up the Pacific coast, returns to Spain
to answer complaints, appointed by
Charles V. captain-general of New
Spain, i. 13; resisted by De Guzman,
sends expeditions northward under
Mendoza, who reaches 27° north;
returns, wrecked and killed by
Indians, and vessels seized repeat-
edly by De Guzman, 13; complains
to Spanish court, sails against Guz-
man, reaches Lower California and
names it Santa Cruz, 14; riches
reported, 14; sends other expedi-
tions, 14; superseded as captain-
general, remains admiral of South
sea, 14; sends Ulloa to Lower Cal-
ifornia, finds it a peninsula, and
explores Gulf of California, 14;
departs for Spain, 14.
Corvallis, site of university secured at,
i. 352; act passed to remove seat of
government to, 352; removal of
offices of governor and secretary to,
353.
Corveniat, Chas., i. 287.
Corwin, Thos., repudiates expenses of
Georgiana rescue in letter to secre-
tary, i. 346.
Cosby, Gen. Jno. D., i. 413, 417; sent
from California with volunteers to
punish Lake Indians, 641; effected
nothing, 642.
Coshaw, Oliver P., biog. of, ii. 286.
Cosper, David, i. 538.
Cosper, Wm., i. 288.
Couch, Capt. Jno. H., i. 273; sails in
the Maryland to Columbia river,
221; abandons sea and settles near
Portland, 221; biog. of, ii. 287.
Couger, S. F., i. 645.
Council, volunteer, results of, i. 584;
arranged for, 587; with Klamaths,
Modocs and Shoshones, 649.
Council Bluffs, Pilcher's party leave,
1827, 115.
Counties, boundaries of, 467; changed,
514.
County history of Idaho, outline of,
ii. 181-83.
County history of Oregon, outline of,
ii. 162–72.
County history of Washington, outline
of, ii. 172-8I.
Court, special term of, for trial of ships
Mary Dacre and Beaver, i. 347.
Courtney, W. F., biog. of, ii. 288.
Couteaux mines. See Fraser river.
Couthouy, Jos. P., i. 227.
Cow creek Indians, i. 443, 641.
Cowan, Robt., i. 375.
Cowles, Renwick, ii. 16.
Cowles (Sam D.) & McDaniel (E. P.),
biog. of, ii. 288.
Cowlitz, i. 170; Sir Geo. Simpson's
description of, 1841, 229.
Cowlitz co. (Or.), i. 467; outline history
of, ii. 177.
Cowlitz farms, i. 266; claim of Puget
Sound Agricultural Co. to, i. 109.
Cowlitz Landing, i. 336.
Cowlitz Prairie, first bricks used north
of Columbia, made at, i. 302.
Cowlitz river, i. 107.
Cowlitz valley, agricultural resources
of, ii. 109.
Cox, -, i. 542.
Cox, Anderson, biog. of, ii. 289.
Cox, Jesse, i. 358.
Cox, John, i. 288.
Cox, John C., i. 288.
670
INDEX.
Cox, Joseph, i. 358.
Cox, Ross, description of Astoria, i.
So; narrates capture of Astoria, i. 84.
Cox, S. S., speech in favor of admis-
sion of Washington Territory as a
state, ii. 56; how the four new states
were added, speech at Huron, 57.
Coyle, Reuben S., i. 358.
Coyote, the great creator in all Indian
myths, ii. 62-63; characteristics of,
64; legends of, 65, 68, 79, 80 (see
Speelyai).
Crabtree, Geo., i. 288.
Crabtree, H. F., i. 564.
Craig, Adna C., biog. of, ii. 289.
Craig, Wm., i. 219, 573.
Craigie, guide, ii. 11.
Craize, Wm., i. 399.
Cram, Capt., i. 545.
Cram, Dr. Chas. H, i. 422, 442, 453,
456.
Cram, Rogers & Co., i. 422.
Crampton, Jno. F., ii. 35, 36.
Crank, Jos.. i. 288.
Crawford,
i. 278.
Crawford, David, i. 267, 287, 288.
Crawford, Medorem, with Dr. White's
party, 1842, i. 232; account of the
journey and country found, from his
addresses, 232-33; chronicles the
casualties and causes of discourage-
ment of, 1843, 242.
Crawford, Peter W., i. 335, 336.
Creighton, Capt., i. 451.
Crescent Harbor, i. 337, 342.
Cressy, Judson, ii. 8, 13.
Crete, Edward, i. 287.
Crittenden, Jno. J., i. 158, 363; opinion
on Location bill, 321; recomiends
Congress to terminate controversy,
327.
Crocker, Nathaniel, i. 232; drowned in
1843, 242.
Crockett, Sam. B., i. 267.
Crockett, Walter, goes to Whidby
Island, 1852, i. 337; sketch of, 337;
biog. of, ii 290.
Crook, Gen. Geo. W., i. 422, 441, 631;
succeeds Maj. Marshall in command
of Boise dist., 26; on trail of Sho-
shones, 26-28; forced to terms of
peace, 29; assigned to district of the
lakes, 27; methods of peace-making,
29; name given to county, ii. 170.
Crook co., (Or.), outline history of, ii.
170.
Crooks, J. M., i. 412.
Crooks, Ramsay, i. 77, 80, 81, 134.
Crosby, Hon. Clanrick, biog. of, ii.
290.
Cross, Maj., i. 545.
Crossen, Jas. B.. biog. of, ii. 291.
Crouch, W. H., i. 440.
Crouch & McLane, i. 399.
Crover, S. M., i. 288.
Crow, Elijah, i. 646, 647.
Crow, Henry, i. 564.
Crow, Capt. Jas. J., biog. of, ii. 291.
Crowder, Reuben, i. 287.
Crowel, Jno. W., i. 287.
Crozat, Antoine, obtains grant of Lou-
isiana from France, i. 68; relinquished
in five years, 68.
Crozet, Jas., i. 628.
Crum, O., i. 288.
Cuis, A. P. de, i. 425.
Culberson, Wm. A., i. 287.
Cullough, C., i. 444.
Culver, S. H., i. 418, 422, 432.
Culver, Sam., i. 395, 396, 399, 427.
Cummings, S., i. 286.
Cummings, S. C., i. 286.
Cunningham, Jno., i. 287, 433.
Cunningham, Wm. H., i. 112.
Curl, Maj., i. 570.
Curley-headed Doctor, chief, i. 405.
Currency law enacted, 1845, i. 271.
Currey, Capt. Geo. B., i. 648; ii. 16, 17;
expedition to Snake country, 1864,
18-21; appointed Lieut. - Col., 21;
takes command District of Oregon,
22; of Dept. of Columbia, 22.
Currey, Lieut. Jas. L., ii. 21.
Currier,
i. 287.
Curry, Gov. Geo. L., i. 275, 278, 362,
413, 474, 549, 611, 623; appointed
sec'y of terr., 351; acting governor,
on Lane's resignation, 351 note; also
on Davis' departure, 352; appointed
governor, 352; sketch of and char-
acter, 352 note; issues requisition for
troops, 412; proclamation for volun-
teers, 439; thanked by legislature
for services, 499, 514; proclamation
for troops, 537; addresses Gov. Ma-
son, 551; also Col. Nesmith, 552;
ii. 2, 4; name given to county, 164.
Curry, Manly, i. 287.
Curry co. (Or.) organized, i. 354; boun-
daries, 640; outline history of, ii. 164.
Curtis, Maj., ii. 16.
Curtis, E. J., i. 398.
Cushing, Caleb, i. 150, 151.
Cushman, Jos., Freesoil candidate to
Cong., i. 491; sketch of, 491 note.
Cussans, R. W., copy of license to,
ii. 37.
·
Cussass (Indian), i. 306; delivered up
and executed, 309.
Cutmouth John (Indian), i. 482.
Custer co. (Idaho), outline history of,
ii. 182.
Cutter, Lyman A., ii. 38.
Cutting, Chas., i. 538.
Cyclops, brig, i. 644.
Cynosure, vessel, brings first cargo into
Coos Bay, i. 426.
Cyphers, Levi H., biog. of, ii. 292.
Dagan, Theo., i. 399.
Dagan & Co., i. 400.
Dakota, admission of, ii. 57.
Dakotahs, i. 59.
Dall, Capt. W. E., i. 545, 605; struggle
with Chief John, 643-44.
Dall, Wm., ii. 138.
Dallas,
ii. 38.
Dalles (falls), i. 260; mission station
formed at, 187; description of, ii.
106, 159.
Dalles, boat, runs Cascades, ii. 103.
Damaris Cove, schr., i. 345; relieves
the Georgianna sufferers, 346.
Dammon, Capt. J. D., biog. of, ii. 292.
Dana, Jas. D., accompanies Wilkes'
expedition from Vancouver to S. F.,
1841, i. 227, 371.
Dana, Capt. Wm. P., i. 112.
Dancing, Indian custom of, ii. 82.
Danby, G. B., i. 632.
Danford, Juo., i. 398.
Danford, Jno. C., i. 286.
Danforth, Manly, i. 287.
Daniel, Jas. R., biog. of, ii. 292.
Daniels, R. P., i. 399, 408.
Darragh, Jno., i. 427, ii. 27; leader of
scouts, 26.
Dart, Anson, i. 343; ignores existence
of Indian tribes, 388; expedition to
Port Orford a failure, 395; returns to
Astoria, 395.
Dart, Geo., i. 411, 417.
Davis,
i., 410.
Davis, Lieut., i. 649.
Davis, Albert G., i. 287.
Davis, Bird, i. 287.
Davis, Catherine S., biog. of, ii. 293.
Davis, Geo., i. 219.
Davis, Geo. A., biog. of, ii. 293.
Davis, Harrison, i. 287.
Davis, Jas. S., biog. of, ii. 294.
Davis, Gen. Jeff C., succeeds Gen.
Cauby, i. 652; ii. 659.
Davis, Jno., i. 165.
Davis, Jno. W., i. 429; character of,
351 note; succeeds Lane as governor,
351; reaches Salem, 351; action in
delaying his message, 351; resigns,
1854, 351; imported official, 351.
Davis, L. A., i. 417.
Davis, Louis, i. 437.
Davidson, Lieut., i. 632, 634.
Davidson, Prof. Geo., 110te on true lo-
cation of Ferrelo's Mendocino, i. 15.
Davilla, Cil Gonzales, discovers Lake
Nicaragua, i. II.
Day, Sgt., killed by Indians, i. 424.
Day, N., i. 533, 536.
Day, Adamı, i. 641.
Day, J. P., i. 444.
Dayton, Wm. L., i. 165.
Dead, rehabiliment of the, by Indians,
ii. 93.
Deady, M. P., i. 418, 645; refers to
Young and Kelley, 183; condition
of country in 1840 and promise of
(address), 222 and note; opinion
on Land law, 317; elected president
of council, 1852, 329; encomium
on, 329; historic notice of "Early
Oregon Laws," 330; associate jus-
tice third district, 350; supplanted
for one term by McFadden, 350
note; fiasco caused by error in
spelling christian name, 350 note;
requalified, 350 note; president of
constitutional conv., 358; "General
Laws of Oregon," 361 note; elected
justice of supreme court, 1858, 362;
noted immigrant of 1849, 376; first
term of U. S. dist. ct., July, 1853,
409; first case homicide (Joseph
Knott), 409; held first term of dist.
court of Jackson co., Sept. 5th, 422;
of Douglas co., Sept. 19th, 423; re-
moval by mistake, 1853, 427; protest
by people, 427; held first term of dist.
court at Empire City, 1854, 429; ii.
2, 4; president of Univ. of Or., 147;
biog. of, 294.
Deal, Richard W., biog. of, ii. 295.
Dean, N. C., i. 396, 399, 410.
Dearborn & Co., i. 641.
Decatur, ship, i. 497, 543, 548, 574, 595.
Deception Bay, named by Mears, i. 50;
called by Heceta Assumption Inlet,
52.
De Courcey,
ii. 40.
Degie, Philip, oldest inhabitant, i. 180.
De Haro, Gonzalo Lopez, pilot, i. 51.
De Haro, Luis, i. 42.
De Lashmutt, Van B., biog. of, ii. 296.
Delegates to constitutional convention,
apportionment of, ii. 50.
Delin, Nicholas, i. 340.
Deluge, 1861–62, i. 648.
Dement, Lieut. John, i. 346.
Demers, Father, i. 198.
Demers, Rev. Modeste, associate of
Father Blanchet, i. 209; journey to
Vancouver, 210; visits Indians of
Puget Sound, 210; Upper Columbia,
1840, 211; 1845, appointed Bishop of
Vancouver, 212.
Democratic party, in favor of U. S.
claim to all Oregon, 1844, i. 156;
Polk the nominee, 156.
INDEX.
671
Democratic state convention, ii. 3.
Democratic terr. convention, 1855,
meets at Salem, i. 353; nominates
Lane, 353.
Democratic vote on Admission bill,
i. 363.
Democratic Standard, account of hat-
tle of Two Buttes, i. 554.
Demonstration of Chief Moses, ii.
661-62.
De Moss, Jas. M., biog. of, ii. 297.
Denny,
i. 505.
Denny, Arthur A., locates at Seattle,
i. 338; files plat of town, 338; ii. 55;
biog. of, 297-99.
Denny, David T., i. 338; biog. of, ii.
300.
Denny, Jno., i. 362.
Dent, Capt. F. T., i. 593, 595, 626, 631,
632; expedition of relief to Salem
falls survivors. II; official report of,
11-13.
Department of Pacific, reinforced by
Ninth Infantry, i. 590.
Derby, John, i. 50.
Derendorf, C. H., i. 286.
De Russy, Lieut.-Col., ii. 54.
Deschnew, Samoen, expedition, 1648,
i. 21.
Des Chutes Indians, i. 563.
Des Chutes river, ii. 101.
Deserters from Mounted Rifles, i. 376.
De Spain, Jeremiah, biog. of, ii. 300.
De Spart, Jos., i. 288.
Despont, Jos., i. 288.
Destruction Island, name given to
Heceta's Isla de Dolores, i. 32 note;
named by Capt. Berkley, 49.
Devore, Rev. Jno. F., biog. of, ii.
301-03.
Duwamish Indians, i. 479.
Diamond Peak, height of, ii. 97.
Dick, Franklin T., biog. of, ii. 303.
Dickerson, Mahlon, i. 138.
Dickerson, Dan S., i. 165.
Dickson, Jas., i. 287.
Dillard, Jno. i. 443.
Dillon, Wm. H., biog. of, ii. 303.
Dinsmore, Jno., i. 287.
Discovery, ship, i. 34, 35, 36, 37, 46, 54.
Discubierta, frigate, i. 51.
District boundaries, 1844, i. 266.
Districts established, i. 239.
Division of territory, act passed, i.
332; change in name, 349; retro-
spective view of affairs leading to,
333-349.
Dix, Juo. A., i. 165.
Dixon, Capt. Geo. See Portlock and
Dixon.
Dixon's channel, i. 40; entered by
Perez, 1774, i. 31.
Doctors, Indian, Tamanowash or spirit
power, ii. 86-88.
Doedalus, ship, i. 54.
Dogs, eaten for food by Farnham's
party, i. 217; cooked for food by
deserters, 377.
Doke, Wm., i. 287.
Dolland, Wm. i. 436.
Dolly, schooner, first United States
vessel built on Pacific, launched
October 2, 1811, i. 8o.
Dolph, Jos. N., ii. 31, 147.
Domiuis, Capt., i. 115–16.
Donation act, sec. XI, i. 254.
Donation act, explained, i. 404.
Donation claims, located, i. 339, 340,
400.
Donation law, Or. land bill signed, i.
315; intention of, 317; requirements
of, 318; two classes embraced, 318.
Donation law, amendatory act, 1854,
i. 473.
Doncaster, Hiram, biog. of, ii. 303.
Donelson, A. J., i. 462, 463.
Donnie, Jno. N., i. 286.
Dorio, Baptiste C., i. 287, 288.
Dorr, Eben May, U. S. inspector, i.
312; seizes Albion and Gadboro, 312.
Dostins, D. D., i. 287.
Doty, Jas., i. 481, 572.
Doughty, Wm., i. 219, 234.
Douglas, Sir James, i. 218, 266, 270,
278, 469, 473, 630; sketch of, 177;
comments on character of Cayuse
Indians, 201; withdraws objections
to Catholic missions in Willamette
valley, 211; letter referred to in
Abernethy's message, 1847, 277 nɔte;
Gov. Mason's acknowledgment of
services of, 497; approved by legis-
lature, 497; correspondence with
home government on influx to
Fraser river, 514, 517; plans in inter-
est of Great Britain, 517-18; instruc-
tions from Bulwer-Lytton, 519-20;
commission as first governor of
British Columbia, 520; co-operation
in Indian troubles, 544; humane
reply to Gov. Stevens' request in
regard to purchase of supplies, 576;
copy of license to Cussans, ii. 37;
letter from Gen. Harney, 41, 42;
correspondence with Gen. Scott,
43-44; biog. of, 304.
Douglas, Stephen A.,. introduces bill
in house to establish territorial
government of Oregon, 1846, i. 290;
in senate, 1848, 291; moves appoint-
ment of committee of conference,
298; reports bill to senate, 363; ii. 3.
Douglas, Capt. Wm., commands Iphe-
genia in Meares' expedition, 1788, i.
40; instructions from Meares, 41;
sails for Cook's river, 41; arrives at
Nootka in August, 41.
Douglas co. (Or.), formed from Ump-
qua co., i. 326; created, 1851-52,
397; boundaries, 397; first election,
398; officers elected, 1853, 408; affairs
in 1853, 423; outline history of, ii.
267.
Douglas co. (Wash.), outline history
of, ii. 179.
Douglass, A., killed by Indians, i. 413.
Dovell, John, biog. of, ii. 304.
Dowell, B. F., brings relief train into
Jacksonville, 1852, i. 407; biog. of,
ii. 305-07.
Dowell's pack-train, i. 571.
Downey, Hon. Wm. R., biog. of, ii.
307.
Downeys, The, i. 340.
Downing,
i. 187.
Downing, John, i. 288.
>
Downs, Dr. Horace P., biog. of, ii. 307.
Downy, Wm., i. 589.
Drain, Chas., i. 363.
Drake, Lieut., i. 543.
Drake, Capt., expedition to Suake
river, 1864, ii. 18-21; succeeds Currey
in Department of Columbia, 22.
Drake, Sir Francis, voyage to Pacific,
1578, in Golden Hind, to 43° north,
found it cold, i. 17; sailed east and
south along coast to find harbor,
took possession of the country as
New Albion, and returned to Eng-
land by Cape of Good Hope, 1560,
17; two accounts of voyage pub-
lished, disagreeing as to north point
reached, 18; much argument results
as to claim of Oregon Territory, 18;
probably never reached north of 43°,
18; knighted by the Queen, 18;
Golden Hind preserved as a me-
mento, 18.
Drake's Bay, i. 74.
Drasa, Bishop of. See Blanchet.
Drayton, Jos., draughtsman
Wilkes, i. 227.
Drayton, Wm., i. 139.
with
Drew, Chas. S., i. 408, 417, 427, 649;
ii. 16, 17.
Drew, Dr. E. P., i. 379, 399, 448.
Drew, Dr. Jos. W., i. 399, 441, 447;
elected representative of Umpqua
co., 389.
Drowning of Crocker, Rodgers and
party, 1843, i. 242.
Drum, Henry, biog. of, ii. 307-09.
Drum, John, i. 436.
Dryar,
i. 651, 652.
Dryar, Thos. J., i. 319, 358; ii.
. 4.
Drydon, Capt., i. 338.
Dueber, Peter, biog. of, ii. 309.
Dufield, T., i. 287.
Duffin,
explores Juan de Fuca
50 miles, i. 50.
Dugan, Richard, i. 427.
Dugan, Robert, i. 417.
Dugan & Co., i. 422.
Duke, Wm., i. 421.
Duke of York (Cheetsamahoin), biog.
of, ii. 309.
Duluth, ii. 47.
Dunbar, John, i. 193.
Dunbar, Hon. R. O., biog. of, ii. 309.
Dunbar, Robt. W., surveyor, Milwau-
kee, i. 351 note.
Dunbar, W. K., biog. of, 310.
Duncan, L. J. C., i. 396.
Duncann, Jefferson K., i. 461.
Dunlap & Co., i. 390, 398.
Dunn, Patrick, i. 396, 399, 410, 412.
Dupra, Francis, i. 180.
Dupres, Francis, i. 287.
Dupuis, Edward, i. 287.
Duran, Father, letter from Jedediah S.
Smith to, preserved in California
archives, i. 113.
Durbin, S. D., i. 287.
Dutch, The, discover Cape Horn, 1615,
i. 20.
Duval, Franklin, i. 564.
Duwamish river, settlers on, i. 338,
342.
Dyer, Edward S., i. 522.
Dyer, Jerome, i. 432.
Dysart, James S., biog. of, ii. 311.
Eads, John, i. 288.
Eads, Wm., i. 287.
Eagle, boat, account of, ii. 138.
Eagle from the Light, chief, i. 617.
Earhart, Hon. Rockey P., biog of, ii.
311.
Earl, Jos., i. 287.
Earl, S. D., i. 287.
East India Co. discontinues licenses to
British subjects, i. 55.
Eaton, Abel E., biog. of, ii. 312.
Eaton, Capt. Chas. H., organizes com-
pany of rangers, i. 541; attack on
by Indians, 542, 544.
Ebberts, Geo. W., i. 219, 234; ii. 156;
biog. of, ii. 313.
Eberman, N. A., biog. of, ii. 314.
Ebey, Col. Isaac N., i. 335, 349, 469,
545; locates on Whidby Island, 1850,
313; goes there, 1852, 337; sketch of,
337; murder of, 338; admitted as
attorney, 347; reports on case of
Beaver, 347; collector of customs
for Puget Sound, 460; controversy
over revenue. jurisdiction over San
44
672
INDEX.
Juan Island, 472; defeated for dele-
gate, 491; murdered by Northern In-
dians, 512; delayed recovery of his
head, 512.
Ebey's landing, i. 338, 342.
Echandia, Gen., military commandant
of presidio, i. 112; gives passport to
J. S. Smith, 113.
Eckerson, Maj. Theodore J., biog. of,
ii. 314.
Edgar, John, i. 554; marries Klikitat
woman, 341; employed to find route
of Citizens' road, 341.
Education, becomes subject of vital
interest, i. 189; provision for, 361.
Education, and social sketch of, ii.
146-49.
Edwards, Chas., i. 287, 288.
Edwards, P. L., i. 118, 186, 187, 188,
214, 247, 248, 370, 423.
Edwards, Richard, murdered by In-
dians, i. 410.
Edwards, Samuel, ii. 114.
Eells, Rev. Cushing, i. 194, 284; biog.
of, ii. 315.
Eendracht, ship, i. 20.
Eenumtla (or Thunder), legend of,
ii. 67.
Egan, Capt. J. H., i. 390.
Eisenbeis, Hon. Charles, biog. of, ii.
316.
Eldredge, Edward, i. 340; biog. of,
ii. 316.
Eldredge, John, i. 287.
Election, first under Organic law, 1845,
and officers, i. 268.
Election, 1858, candidates at, i. 362;
result, 362.
Election for Umpqua co., i. 389.
Election, first in Douglas and Joseph-
ine cos., 1852, 398.
Election, 1853, officers elected, i. 408.
Election of delegates to Cong., 1855,
i. 491.
Elections, provisions for exciting, 1860,
ii. 3.
Electrels, Jas., i. 287.
Elembough, Squire, i. 287.
Elijah, chief, i. 412, 413.
Elisa, Lieut. Francisco, i. 50, 51.
Elizabeth, Drake's vessel, left him
and returned to England, i. 17.
Elk river. See Athabasca.
Elkins, Luther, i. 358, 362; ii. 3, 4.
Elkton, laid out, i. 379; county-seat,
and P. O. at, 389.
Ellen Maria, boat, ii. 45.
Ellen Wood, brig, i. 643.
Ellensburgh, sketch of, ii. 153.
Elliff, Hardy, i. 396, 413, 437, 439, 644;
heads a party for mines, 381.
Elliott, J., i. 286.
Elliott, S. G., ii. 139.
Elliott, Gen. Washington L., ii. 27.
Elliott, John S., biog. of, ii. 317.
Elliott, Wm., biog. of, ii. 317.
Ellis, elected chief of Nez Perces, i.
198.
Ellsworth, Hon. Stukely, biog. of, ii.
318.
Elmore, Franklin Harper, i. 151.
Ely, Lieut., i. 413.
Ely, Philologus, biog. of, ii. 318.
Emerick, Solomon, biog. of, ii. 318.
Emerson, Geo. Harvey, biog. of, ii. 319.
Emigrant wagon road, explorations of,
i. 371-73.
Emily Farnham, vessel, i. 390.
Empire City, str., i. 323.
Engart, A., i. 286.
Engart, John, i. 286.
Engart, Peter S., i. 286.
England, jealous of Spanish commerce
in Pacific, i. 17; repudiates titles of
Spaniards, 17; fits out voyages, 17.
English, Hiram, i. 288.
English, Capt. Levin N., i. 280; list of
officers and men in co. of, 288; roll
of co. of, 288.
English, Levin N., Jr., i. 288.
English, Nathan, i. 287.
English, Wm. L., ii. 661.
Enixon, John, i. 437.
Enos (Indian), treachery of, i. 449;
execution of, 642.
Ensenada de Regla, named by Ar-
teaga, i. 33; known as Prince Will-
iam's Sound, 33 note.
Ensign, Shirley, i. 341, 468, 589.
Erasmus, Christopher, i. 651.
Ermatinger, Fred., i. 220.
Ervin, S. S., i. 340.
Espinosa, Gaspar de, founds Panama,
1519, i. II.
Essex, ship, captured by Hillyer, i. 84.
Esticus (Indian), i. 201.
Ettinger, Sigismund, i. 411, 425, 428.
Eugene (Or.), description of, ii. 157
Europe, war in, suspends northwestern
voyages, i. 55.
Eustis, Lieut., i. 586, 588, 589.
Evans, Allen, i. 437.
Evans, David, i. 381, 398, 450; mur-
dered by Indians, 647.
Evans, Elwood, i. 491; admitted as
attorney, 347.
Evans, Geo., i. 165.
Evans, Dr. John, i. 462.
Evans, Samuel D, i. 646, 647.
Everett, Edwd., advocates Sole-occu-
pancy bill, i. 139; ii. 3.
Everman, Ninian, i. 267.
Everst, David, i. 286.
Ewing, schr., i. 312.
Exact, schr., i. 338.
Excelsior, str., i. 642.
Executive committee, 1844, i. 264;
abolished by amendment, and office
of governor substituted, 264; last
meeting of, 268; committee ap-
pointed to draft memorial to Cong.,
268.
Executive power invested in commit-
tee of three, i. 240.
Express, 1852, i. 399, 400.
Faber, J. Q., i. 432.
Fackler, Rev. St. Michael, biog. of,
ii. 319.
Failing, Hon. Henry, ii. 147.
Failing, Hon. Jos., biog. of, ii. 320.
Fairchild, Capt., i. 652.
Fairchild, John, i. 165.
Fairweather, Hon. H. W., biog. of, ii.
321.
Falkland Islands, British
colonies
driven out by Spanish, i. 31.
Falmouth, sloop, i. 314.
Fanagan & Rogers, i. 642.
Farnham, Russell, i. 134.
Farnham, Thos. J., captains a party
from Peoria, Ill., 1839, for permanent
settlement, fishing, etc., on Colum-
bia, i. 216; Jos. Holman's account
of journey, 216, 217.
Faron, Jno., i. 287.
Farrar, Wm. H., i. 358, 538.
Farris, H. G., i. 427.
Fashion, formerly the Jas. P. Flint,
ii. 15, 138.
Fauntleroy, W. H., i. 538.
Fawn, wreck of, i. 641.
Fay, Capt. Robt. C., i. 335.
Federal officers, 1860, ii. 4.
Feat, Jno., i. 287.
Fee, Jas. H., biog. of, ii. 321.
Felice, ship, i. 40, 41, 42.
Felix, W., i. 288.
Felker, Capt., i. 342.
Fell, Hon. Theron E., biog. of, ii. 321.
Fellows, Capt. A. M., i. 538, 561.
Fells, missionary, i. 285.
Felt, J. J., i. 342 note.
Fendall,
i. 494.
Ferguson, Clark, biog. of, ii. 322.
Ferguson, Hon. Emory C., biog. of,
ii. 322.
Ferguson, Jesse, i. 267, 343 note.
Ferguson, S., i. 286.
Ferrelo, Bartolomé, pilot for Cabrillo,
on his death assumes command and
reaches Mendocino, i. 15.
Ferries over Columbia, i. 341; at
Winchester, 379; on Rogue river,
1851, 381; across bend of Umpqua
river, 389.
Ferriss, Hon. Alvin T., biog. of, ii. 323.
Ferry, Clinton P., biog. of, ii. 323.
Ferry, Elisha P., territorial governor
Washington, 1872, and first governor
of state, ii. 54; biog. of, ii. 324.
Fessender, Wm. P., i. 363.
Fever and ague, causes great mortality
among Indians in 1829, i. 172; at-
tributed to peculiar treatment, 172;
said to have been unknown in
Oregon until the first plowing, 172;
rages among Indians, 200.
Fidalgo, i. 50.
Field, Stephen A., opinion on land
law, i. 316, 433.
Fields, Calvin M., i. 433.
Fields, Samuel, i. 287.
Fiester Jno., i. 287.
Fife, Wm. H., biog. of, ii. 324.
Fillmore, Millard, message on Loca-
tion bill, i. 328.
Finlay,
>
i. 599.
Finlay, Jas., i. 73.
Finlayson, Roderick, i. 266 note.
Finnier, John, i. 286.
Fire, origin of (myth), ii. 73.
First Infantry, ii. 20.
First National Bank, Sprague (Wash.),
sketch of, ii. 648.
Fisgard, frigate, i. 273.
Fish, Albert H., i. 287, 288.
Fish creek, i. 71.
Fisher, Dan. F., leads parties to Jo-
sephine creek mines, i. 396.
Fisheries, ii. 131-33.
Fisk, Wilbur, i. 186.
Fiske, Dr. E. R., i. 399; claim known
as Middle Scottsburg, 390.
Fitzgerald, Maj. Edward, i. 436, 442,
545; with U. S. dragoons does good
service assisting Wright, 405; extract
from report of fight, 433, 434.
Fitzherbert, Alleyne, British ambassa-
dor to Spain, i. 44; negotiations with
Blanca, 44, 45.
Fitzhugh, Col. Edmond C., manager
of Bellingham Bay Coal Co., i. 340;
appointed associate justice, 514.
Fitzhugh, Solomon, i. 358, 408; pro-
bate judge, 398.
Fitzpatrick,
meets Smith at
Pierre's Hole, i. 114.
Flag of truce, i. 447.
Flanagan, Patrick, i. 318, 426.
Flanagan & Rogers, i. 431.
Flanders, Alvan, ii. 54, 55.
Flathead Indians, i. 106, 550; sent to
St. Louis for missionaries, 186; treaty
with, i. 489.
Flathead Lake, Pilcher winters on,
1828-29, i. 115.
INDEX.
673
Fleet, John, biog. of, ii. 326–28.
Fleming, Lieut. H. B., i. 624, 632.
Fleming, Jesse, i. 564.
Fleming, Lieut. John, i. 272, 286, 562.
Fleming, Thos., i. 286.
Flesher, Henry, i. 416.
Fletcher, Francis, i., 216, 217, 233, 593,
595; biog. of, ii. 325.
Fleurieu, Chas. Pierre Claret de, says
Arteaga's expedition might as well
have remained in San Blas, i. 33.
Flint, A. R., i. 398, 399.
Flint, Eugene, i. 443.
Flint, Isaac, i. 443.
Flint, boat, ii. 15.
Flinda, effect of Indian difficulties on
land law, i. 317.
Flour mills, 1854, i. 428.
Flowery Hundred, Va., i. 75.
Floyd, Dr. Jno., efforts in Congress
towards sole occupancy, i. 134-39.
Floyd, Jno. B., and the debt to Sir Jas.
Douglas, i. 576.
Flying Fish, tender, i. 151, 227, 228.
Folger, Capt., i. 338.
Fonté, Admiral de, pretended voyage
of discovery of Strait of Anian, i. 8.
Foote, Henry S., debates on Oregon
bill, i. 294.
Forbes, Peter Dewar, biog. of, ii. 328.
Ford, David, biog. of, ii. 329.
Ford, Nineveh, i. 288.
Ford, Sidney S., i. 288; 343 note; cap-
tain of Indian scouts, 575, 577.
Fordyce, Asa, i. 412.
Fordyce, Jas. M., i. 444.
Forrest, Lieut., i. 494.
Forrest, Chas., i. 270.
Fort Ashley, i. III, 112.
Fort Boise, settled by H. B. Co. on
Snake river to compete with Fort
Hall, i. 107; ii. 22.
Fort Chipewyan, i. 63; in charge of
Harmon, 74.
Fort Clatsop, i. 71.
Fort Colvile, settled by H. B. Co.,
1825, i. 106; description of, 106; gold
discovery at, 492; mines of, 597.
Fort Dallas, i. 596.
Fort George, i., 73, 87.
Fort Hall, i. 217; settlement of H. B.
Co., 107; established by Wyeth,
1834, 107; described, 107; named by
Wyeth, 118.
Fort Henrietta, i. 555.
Fort James, i. 73.
Fort Klamath, ii. 17.
Fort Kootenais, unimportant settle-
ment of H. B. Co., i. 106.
Fort Lane, built by Capt. Smith, i.
422; school of prominent soldiers,
Crook, Hood, et al., 422.
Fort Lapwai, ii. 660.
Fort Martindale, attacked, i. 450.
Fort Nez Perce. See Fort Walla
Walla.
Fort Nisqually, i. 266; settlement of
H. B. Co., established by Kittson,
1833, 107; described, 108; attack on,
305-06.
Fort Okanagan, i. 80; settlement of
H. B. Co., established by Astor's
co., 1811; transferred by North West
Co., 106.
Fort Rains, attack on, Williams' ac-
count of, i. 601-03.
Fort Simpson, i. 345.
Fort Spokane, ii. 100.
Fort Taylor, i. 631.
Fort Umpqua, settlement of H. B.
Co., 107; established by McLeod &
Framboise, 1832, 107; described, 107.
Fort Vancouver. See Vancouver.
Fort Vannoy, i. 447.
Fort Victoria, settlement of H. B. Co.,
i. 266 note.
Fort Walla Walla, settlement of H. B.
Co., originally Fort Nez Perce, es-
tablished by Odgen, 1818, i. 106;
described, 106.
Fort William, named by Wyeth, i. 118;
salmon fisheries established, 118.
Fortuna, ship, i. 22, 23.
Forward, Walter, ii. 2.
Fosher,
Foster,
i. 547.
i, 449.
Foster, Isaac M., i. 287.
Foster, Hon. Jos., biog. of, ii. 329.
Foster, Resin D., i, 287, 288.
Four Lakes, battle of, i. 624, 631.
Fourth of July, Wilkes' account of
celebration at Nisqually, 1841, i. 227.
Fowler, Capt. Enoch S., i. 339, biog.
of, ii. 329.
Fowler, Parnel, i. 288.
Fowler, W. W., i. 398, 427; commands
volunteers, 411.
Fox, Alvin K., i. 287.
Framboise, Michael de, with McLeod
founds Fort Umpqua, 1832, i. 107.
France refuses to assist Spain, i. 45;
claims Louisiana, 67; grant to Crozat,
68; treaty with Spain, 68; cedes
Louisiana, 68; treaty with France
and Spain and Great Britain and
Portugal, 68; receives Louisiana
again, 69.
France in U. S.: La Salle, i. 67; d'Iber-
ville, 68; Bienville and French set-
tlers, 68; Crozat, 68; Law's Missis-
sippi Co., 68.
Francis Helen, brig, i. 428.`
Franchere, Gabriel, notes on
Oak
Point, i. 75; with Pacific Fur Co., 78.
Franciscans, monks of order of St.
Francis, received all property of
Jesuits, i. 28; Junipero Serra made
president, 28.
Francisco, wreck of, i. 641.
Franklin Adams, brig, i. 342.
Franklin co. (Wash.), outline history
of, ii. 179.
Frazer, Geo. E., i. 287.
Frazer, Jacob, biog. of, ii. 330.
Frazer, Simon, i. 73.
Frazer river, named Rio Blanca by
Malaspina, 1789, i. 51.
Frazer river mining excitement, i.
514-22; started and abetted by Sir
Jas. Douglas, 519; hastens downfall
of H. B. Co., 519; benefit to Pacific
slope, 522; mines, ii. 14.
Freanor, Col., i. 386, 387.
Fredrick, John, i. 532.
Free State Republican party, i. 357.
Frémont, John C., explores to South
Pass, 1842, i. 153; goes to Columbia
river, 1843, connecting with Wilkes'
survey, 153; of value on public
mind, 153; survey of 1842 limited,
231; expedition of 1843 to South
Pass and Fort Walla Walla, 260;
Jas. W. Nesmith's facetious account
of, 260; spot of Modoc attack reached
by emigrant wagon road party, 373;
presidential candidate, 510.
Fremont, str., i. 408.
French Prairie, i. 170; account of set-
tlement of, 180; W. H. Rees' re-
marks on, 180; first mass in Willa-
mette Valley, 1839, at, 210.
Friend, Ulric, i. 337.
Friendly Cove, i. 47.
Frobisher & Pond, i. 63.
Frog and the Moon (myth), ii. 70.
Frontenac, Count, governor of Canada,
i. 68.
Frost, J. H., i. 188, 191.
Fry, Nathan, i. 564.
Frye, Sam, i. 432.
Fuca, Juan de, pretended voyage of
discovery of Strait of Anian, i. 7.
Fuca, Strait of, claimed to be discov-
ered by Perez, 1774, i. 31; not seen
by Cook, 35; discovered by Berkley,
1787, 49; examinations by Vancouver,
Meares, Gray, Kendrick and Spanish
navigators, 49-51; by Vancouver, 52;
ii. 34, 35.
Fuller,
i. 546.
Fuller, Henry, i. 287.
Fur trade, Russian, opened by Behr-
ing's voyage, 1741, i. 26; where con-
centrated for shipment, 39; motive
of expeditions to Rocky Mountains,
58; development of, 63; Astor's Pa-
cific Fur Co., 76; act of Cong., 1816,
regulating Indian trade, III; secures
to Americans exclusive right, 111;
American traders in Mexico, III;
Columbia Fur Co., No. Am. Fur.
Co., II; Ashley's expedition, 111;
Rocky Mt. Fur Co., 112; Smith's
journey, 112-15; trading voyages to
the Columbia, 115; Wyeth's voyages,
117, 118; end of, 119.
Furth, Fred, biog. of, ii. 330.
Future state, Indian idea of, ii. 94.
Fyfer, Julius T., biog. of, ii. 331.
Gabriel, ship, i. 22, 23.
Gage, Alex., i. 288.
Gage, Edward, i. 443.
Gage, Thos., i. 446.
Gaines, Gov. John P., i. 314, 321; ap-
pointed governor, Oct., 1849, 311;
member of committee to present
colors to Lot Whitcomb, 320; de-
nounced by meetings, 325; asks for
investigation of Judge Pratt's con-
duct, 327; calls extra session of leg-
islature, 329; nominated delegate by
Whigs, 1855, 353; orders election,
389.
Gale, Capt. Joseph, i. 182, 241; interest
in cattle, ii. 126.
Gali, Francisco de, makes the coast of
New Spain, 37° 30′, as in Hakluyt,
i. 16.
Galiano, Antonio Alcala, surveys Gulf
of Georgia, meets Vancouver, i. 51;
claimed Vancouver to be an island,
51.
Gallatin, Albert, Clay's dispatch to
his negotiations with England, i.
128-29.
Galley, Wm., i. 408.
Gallice creek, i. 437.
Galvez, José de, appointed to Council
of Indies, 1764, visitor-general, 1765,
ordered to re-discover San Diego,
i. 29; organizes expedition by land
and sea, settles San Diego and Mon-
terey, 29.
Gamble, Jas. S., commands expedition
to Port Orford, i. 392.
Gambling, a passion with Indians, i.
173.
Gansevoort, Capt., i. 548, 595.
Gant, Capt. John, pilot for Burnett et
al., i. 256.
Gardiner, Capt. J. W. T., i. 462.
Gardiner, John L., i. 446.
Gardiner, founded by crew of Bosto-
nian, i. 379; postoffice at, 389.
Garfield co. (Wash.), outline history
of, ii. 181.
674
INDEX.
Garfielde, Selucius, i. 523; canvasses
for election of Stevens to Cong.,
1857, 510-11; ii. 55.
Garland, D. O., i. 287.
Garnett, Francis, killed by Indians,
i. 413.
Garnett, Maj. R. S., i. 508, 595, 616,
630; sketch of, 593 note.
Garnier, John, i. 370.
Garrick,
i. 439.
Garrish, J. J., i. 286.
Garrison, A., i. 288.
Garrison, A. E., i. 287, 288.
Garrison, Jos. M., i. 287, 288; list of
officers and men in co. of, 288.
Garrison, Wm. J., i. 287.
Gary, Chief, i. 636; interview with Col.
Wright, 634.
Gary, Rev. Geo., appointed superin-
tendent of Oregon mission, i. 191;
succeeds Lee as superintendent of
Methodist mission, and sells the
property to McLoughlin, 253.
Gaston, Jos., biog. of, 331.
Gaston, Wm., i. 624, 625, 627, 628, 637.
Gates, Hon. John, biog. of, ii. 332.
Gates, N. H., i. 363.
Gatliff, Dr.
1. 417.
Gay, Geo., i. 233, 237, 241, 270.
Gay, Geo. K., biog. of, ii. 332.
Gay, Jesse, i. 287.
Gay, Richard, i. 449.
Gazlay, Jas. W., i. 137.
Geary, Rev. E. R., fails to effect coun-
cil of Bannacks, ii. 6.
Geddis, S. R., biog. of, ii. 333.
Geer, Heman J., biog. of, ii. 333.
Geer, Ralph C., i. 285.
Geiger, Wm., i. 198, 218.
Geisel, Mrs.
i. 448.
Geisel, John, four children butchered,
wife and daughter prisoners, but
soon exchanged, i. 449.
General Humphreys, boat, runs Cas-
cades, ii. 103.
Gentry, Ben, i. 437.
George, Lieut. Abel, i. 421, 439, 447,
450.
George Emery, brig, arrives from San
Francisco Dec. 5, 1850, i. 339; names
of passengers, 339; 340, 343, 345.
George, Hugh N., biog. of, ii. 334.
George, J. W., biog. of, ii. 334.
George, M. C., ii. 31; biog. of, 334.
George, Mahala, biog. of. 334.
George, Presley, biog. of, ii. 334.
George, Samuel, biog. of, ii. 335.
Georgianna, sloop, Capt. Rowland, sails
for Queen Charlotte's Island with
gold seekers, i. 343; names of offi-
cers and passengers, 343 note; wreck
of, 343; plundered by Hydah
Indians, 344; sloop stripped, 344;
ransom promised for deliverance of
party to Fort Simpson, 344; treat-
ment of party, 344; failure to keep
promises, 344; Howe's mission to
Fort Simpson, 344; Balch unable to
help, 345; writes to Collector Moses,
345; appeals to Capt. Hill, 345; relief
sent and party rescued, 346; ransom
paid, 346 note; Corwin's opinion to
secretary of treasury on paying, 346;
congressional appropriation to reim-
burse, 347.
German, A., i. 389.
i. 340.
German, A. & Co., i. 390, 399.
Gerrow, H. C., i. 449.
Gerrish, G. H., i.
Gervais, Isaac, i. 287.
Gervais, J. B., i. 564.
Gervais, Jos., i. 180, 237.
Gervais, Xavier, i. 288.
Gethard, Sam, i. 286.
Gholson, Richard D., ii. 54.
Giaashetucteas, Indian, i. 310.
Gibbon, Gen., ii. 53, 54, 660, 661.
Gibbs, Gov. Addison C., i. 398, 399,
406, 422;
collector of customs,
Umpqua, 351 note; ii. 17, 18, 20, 30.
Gibbs, Benj., i. 343 note.
Gibbs, Geo., i. 461; defeated as nom-
inee as delegate to Congress, i. 491;
sketch of, 491 note.
Gibbs, Capt. John, i. 339, 396, 408, 412.
Gibbs, Richard, i. 343 note.
Gibson, Geu. H. B., i. 422.
Gibson, Lieut. H. G., i. 438, 440, 441,
632, 633.
Gibson, John B., Jr., i. 312.
Gibson, Juo. G., i. 286.
Gideon, Solomon S., i. 343 note.
Gilbert, Col., describes Steptoe's expe-
dition in his "Historical Sketches,"
i. 625-26.
Gilbert, G. N., i. 287.
Gilbert, Jos. L., i. 408.
Gilbranson, J. N., biog. of, ii. 335.
Gill,
1. 2CO.
Gill, Thos., i. 440.
Gillespie, Jno., i. 440.
Gilliam, Col. Cornelius, i. 652; com-
mander of immigrant party of 1844,
266; settlement made, 267; elected
colonel of volunteers, 1847, 278;
threat against H. B. Co., 278; actions
in Cayuse war, 278–82; accidentally
killed, 282; explores Rogue river
and Klamath valleys, 374; name
given to county, ii. 169; biog. of,
335-43.
Gilliam co. (Or.), outline history of,
ii. 343.
Gilman, Capt. Jas. M., biog. of, ii. 343.
Gilmore, Jas., i. 642.
Gilmore, M., i. 264.
Gittern,
>
i. 200.
Glasgow, Thomas W., i. 313; locates
on Whidby Island, 1848, 302; fear
of Indians, 302; goes to Tumwater,
302.
Gleason, A. B., biog. of, ii. 344.
Gleason, Parsons, biog. of, ii. 344.
Gleason, Samuel, ii. 11, 13.
Glidden, Stephen S., biog. of, ii. 344.
Glisan, Dr. Rodney, biog. of, ii. 344.
Goats, interest in, ii. 131.
God, no synonym in any dialect of
Oregon tribes for, i. 173 note.
God, crayfish (or lobster). See Cas-
tiltah.
•
Gods, ancient animal (myth), ii. 63;
special care over each tribe (myth),
77.
Goff, David, i. 371, 374.
Goff, Lieut. Francis M. P., i. 538, 575,
585, 586, 588.
Gohome,
i. 3c6.
Gold, discovery of in Cal., i. 300; pro-
moted Pacific settlement, 300; turned
tide of emigration from Or. to Cal.,
300; quartz from Queen Charlotte's
Island by Capt. Rowland, 343; in
Rogue river valley, 1851, 399; in
Rich Gulch, 1852, 399; near Port
Orford, Gold Beach and Whisky
Run, 425; at Fort Colvile, 492, 514;
on Frazer river, 644; on Coffee creek,
644; influence of discovery of, ii. 114;
in Southeastern Wash., 32-33; effects
on growth of territory, 33.
Gold Beach, gold at, i. 425.
Gold Dust, boat; runs Cascades, ii. 103.
Gold Harbor, i. 343, 345.
Gold Mines on Queen Charlotte's
Island, i. 338; Exact sails for, 338;
specimens brought from, 343; Geor-
gianna, sloop, 343.
Golden, Wm., i. 389.
Golden Hind, Drake's vessel, orig-
inally the Pelican, preserved as a
memento, i. 17.
Goldendale & Columbia River R. R.,
ii. 145.
Goldsborough, Hugh S., i. 491.
Goldsborough, Louis M., U. S. com-
missioner, i. 311.
Goldsby, John, i. 440.
Gonzaga College, Spokane
(Wash.), sketch of, ii. 649.
Falls
Goodall, Capt., i. 413, 414, 415, 416,
418; flags presented to, 417.
Goodall, Jas. P., biog. of, ii. 345.
Goodall, Oliver P., biog. of, ii. 346.
Goodell, E., ii. 110.
Goodell, Hon. Melancthon Z., biog.
of, ii. 346.
Goodhue, Samuel, i. 371.
Goodwin, Chas., i. 440, 586.
Goodwin, Geo. W., biog. of, ii. 347.
Goodwin, Gov. Jno. M., ii. 48.
Gordon, Capt. Samuel, i. 439, 440, 446.
Gore, Lieut., native of Va., on death
of Capt. Clerke assumes command
of Cook's expedition, i. 37; returns
to China, 37; and opens important
commerce with Chinese in furs, 38.
Gorham, Benj., i. 139.
Gosnell, Wesley, i. 577.
Goudy, Capt. Geo. B., i. 545-
Gove, Hiram, i. 646, 647.
Gove, Capt. Warren, i. 575; biog. of,
ii. 347.
Gracie, Lieut., i. 481, 482.
Graham, Jas. A., i. 630.
Graham, Wm. M., i. 462.
Grandy, Benj. W., biog. of, ii. 348.
Grans, Harvey, i. 287.
Grant, Chas., i. 128.
Grant, Capt. John, i. 112.
Grant, U. S., ii. 11; on decision of San
Juan dispute, ii. 44; name given to
CO., 171.
Grant co. (Or.), outline history of,
ii. 171.
Graves, S. C., i. 427.
Graville, Gideon, i. 287.
Gray, C. B., i. 287.
Gray, Chesley, i. 396.
Gray, Geo. C., biog. of, ii. 348.
Gray, Capt. Robt., i. 42, 60, 61; reaches
Nootka, Sept., 1788, enters Strait of
Fuca, 1789, and returns to China, 50;
thence to Boston via Cape of Good
Hope, 50; first U. S. circumnavigator
of the globe, 50; driven by savages
from an opening supposed to be
mouth of Columbia, 53; second voy-
age, 1790, 53; own account of his
discovery of Columbia, 54; accepted
discoverer of Columbia, 55, 124;
Pakenham's view of priority of dis-
covery of, 144; name given to Gray's
harbor, ii. 173; career in Tillamook
co., 163.
Gray, Wm. H., i. 194, 237, 238, 268,
273; supt. Or. Institute, 190; interest
in sheep, ii. 130; biog. of, 348-50.
Gray's harbor, i. 336; called by Gray
Bulfinch harbor, 54; description of,
ii. 104; named after Capt. Gray, 173.
Great Britain, colonists driven out of
Falkland Isles by Spanish, i. 31;
turns attention to discoveries on
Pacific Coast, 1776, i. 34; Cook dis-
patched with Resolution and Dis-
INDEX.
675
covery for New Albion, 35; his in-
structions, 35; Lieut. Young sent to
Baffin's Bay to co-operate with him,
35; anxious to settle question of
N. W. passage, and to establish
right of Drake's piratical cruise in
1578, 35; account of Cook's voyage
and death, 37 (see Cook); Nootka
Treaty with Spain, 1790, and events
culminating therein, 39-48 (see Noot-
ka Treaty); lines of her territory in
Northwest outlined by Mackenzie,
66; acquires Canada and Louisiana
east of Mississippi, 68; never fails to
recognize colonizing acts, 87; orders
North West Co. to give up Astoria,
87; controversy with U. S. delays
land grant to H. B. Co., 105; claims
on Northwest coast, 121; controversy
with U. S., 123; Adams' instructions
to Rush, 123-27; Russian treaty of
1824 leaves fight between
Britain and U. S., 128; attempt to
adjust, 1828, 128; Clay's instructions.
to Gallatin, and his efforts, 128-29;
results in treaty of 1827, 129; reflec-
tions on situation, 130; debate in
Cong., 1845-46, 131-33; proposal of
Columbia river boundary justified
by Pakenham, 144; negotiations re-
sumed with U. S., 1831-44; 140-44;
status of claimants, 145-48; property
rights of Am. citizens and British
subjects, 249-50; trespasses on tim-
ber lands, 311; Albion seized, 312;
negotiations, 312; Cadboro seized,
312; exposé of policy, 520; San Juan
imbroglio, ii. 34–44.
Great
Great Salt Lake visited by Wm. H.
Ashley, 1824, i. 111.
Great Slave Lake, i. 63.
Green, Albert C., i. 165.
Green, J. N., i. 286.
Green, Jeptha, i. 443.
Green, Col. John, i. 651.
Green river, i. III; Pilcher winters on,
1827-28, 115.
Greenwood, trapper, i. 272.
Greer, Jacob, i. 287.
Gregg, Lieut. D. McM., i. 624; de-
scribes fight at To-hoto-nim-me, 628;
ii. 8.
Gregory, Thos., i. 288.
Gribble, Andrew, i. 287, 288.
Grier, Maj. Wm. N., i. 631, 632, 633,
634, 637; ii. 6, 7.
Griffin, Lieut. Burrel B., i. 408, 410,
412; biog. of, ii. 350.
Griffin, Chas. Henry, ii. 38.
Griffin, Chas. John, ii. 39.
Griffin, Rev. J. S, i. 234; and wife fail
to establish an important Indian mis-
sion, 218; go to Willamette valley,
219; ii. 156.
Griffiths, Thos. C., ii. 55.
Gristmill on Umpqua river, i. 396.
Griswold, Geo., i. 601, 602, 608.
Gros, John, i. 287.
Grover, Caleb M., i. 288, 398.
Grover, Lieut. Cuvier, i. 462, 463.
Grover, La Fayette, i. 356, 358, 362,
363, 412, 418, 422, 423, 537, 651, 652;
ii. I, 2, 3, 4, 30, 31, 138; biog. of,
351-53.
Grubbe, Benj. J., i. 389. -
Grubbe, Sami, i. 412.
Guess, John, i. 449.
Guinean, Thos., biog. of, ii. 353.
Gulf of Georgia, surveyed by Quimper,
1790, 50; named Canal de Haro, 51;
surveyed by Galiano, 1792, 51.
Gurley, Henry H., i. 139.
Guthrie, Capt., i. 590, 591, 592.
Guzman, Nuno de, governor of Panuco,
resists Cortez and seizes his vessels,
i. 13.
Gwosdew, surveyor with Krupischew,
i. 23.
Habeas Corpus, entitled to, i. 239:
proceedings, 581-82.
Hadley, Sam B., i. 408, 439.
Hadlock, Samuel, biog. of, ii. 353.
Hagar, Henry, i. 608.
Hagerman, Simon S., i. 564.
Hailey, Wm., i. 287.
Haines, Col. J. C., biog. of, ii, 354.
Hale, Calvin H., Supt. of Ind. Affairs
of W. T., ii. 659.
Hale, Horatio, philologist, with Wilkes,
i. 227.
Hale, John P., i. 293, 294, 363.
Haley, Lieut., i. 568.
Haley, Capt., i. 571.
Hall,
Hall,
Hall,
1. 200.
i. 432.
i. 547.
Hall, Judge, i. 584.
Hall, Edwin O., introduces printing,
i. 194; ii. 653.
Hall, Isaac N., i. 408.
Hall, J. N., i. 389.
Hall, Capt. Lawrence, i. 286.
Halleck, Gen., ii. 23, 26, 29; charged
with favoring California in dispo-
sition of troops, 25.
Haller, Maj. Granville O., i. 474, 481,
622; commands expedition against
Yakimas, 493; against Ward mur.
derers, 533; takes troops to Fort
Boise, to guard immigrant road, 533;
to Yakima country, 534-35; orders
to demand murderers of Bolon, 534;
repulsed, 535; ii. 39; biog. of, 355-60.
Hallett, John L., ii. 110.
Halley, Maj. G. O., i. 536.
Halloran, Patrick, biog. of, ii. 360.
Hamilton,
9
i. 435.
Hamilton,
i. 601.
>
Hamilton,
i. 604.
Hamilton, Edward, i. 314.
Hamilton, S., ii. 147.
Hamlin, Hannibal, i. 363.
Hammond, Ormond W., i. 628.
Hanan, Archimedes, Lieut., i. 538;
biog. of, ii. 361.
Hancock, Samı., i. 272.
Hand, Lieut. Chas. B., i. 538, 561.
Hanford, Hon. Cornelius H., biog. of,
ii. 361.
Hanley, Michael, i. 443.
Hannah, Lieut. Dolphus Brice, i. 538,
561; ii. 2; biog. of, 362–64.
Hannegan, Edwd. A., i. 165.
Happy Camp, i. 432.
Harbors of Pacific Northwest,ii. 104-06.
Hardie, Capt. J. A., i. 632, 633.
Hardin, John R., i. 398, 410.
Harding, Capt. Ben, i. 538, 569 571.
Harding, Benjamin F., U. S. Atty., i.
351 note, 409; ii. 16, 30.
Harding, Capt. E. J., i. 648; ii. 16.
Harford, Capt. Juo., biog. of, ii. 364.
Harkness, McDonough, i. 452.
Harmou, Daniel William, crosses
Mts., 1810, i. 74; supt. of New Cal-
edonia, 74; remains till 1819, pub-
lished journal, 74.
Harmon, Robt., i. 287.
Harney, Gen. W. E., assumes com-
mand of Dept. of Or., ii. 4; revokes
the Wool interdict, 4: sends two
expeditions into Snake country, 6;
petition to, 38; letter to Sec'y of
War, 38; orders Capt. Pickett to
occupy San Juan Island, 38; Pick-
ett's report, 40; addresses Sir Geo.
Simpson, 40; requests war vessels, 42;
letter from Archibald Campbell, 42;
to report in person to Sec'y of War,
44; name given to co., 171.
Harney co. (Or.), outline history of,
ii. 171.
Harney Lake, ii 6.
Haro Archipelago, ii. 34. 35.
Harper, D., i. 286.
Harriet, vessel, i. 390.
Harris, Capt. A. L. S., i. 439.
Harris, Daniel, i. 340.
Harris, Geo., i. 440.
Harris, Geo. W., i. 435, 437; biog. of,
ii. 365.
Harris, L. S., i. 440.
Harris, Moses, i. 371.
Harris, Capt. T. S., i. 648; ii. 16, 17, 29.
Harris, Wm. H., i. 425.
Harrish, Chas. H., i. 628.
Harrison, Lieut., i. 457, 544, 545.
Harrison, Judge M. V., biog. of, ii. 365.
Hart, Horace, i. 287.
Hartan, Jas., i. 363.
Hartley,
i. 399.
Hartley, D. H., i. 287.
Hartson, Geo. E., biog. of, ii. 365.
Haskill, Chas. H., i. 425.
Hassalo, boat, ii. 138; shoots Cascades,
102.
Hastings, Lansford W., i. 232, 242, 245;
favors an independent government,
236.
Hastings, Loren B., locates at Port
Townsend, i. 339; buys Mary Taylor,
and carries passengers from Port-
laud, 339; helps lay out the town,
339; biog. of, ii. 365.
Hatch, Crowell, i. 50.
Hathaway, Maj., i. 307.
Hathaway, M. R., i. 575; biog. of, ii.
366.
Havermale, S. G., biog. of, ii. 367.
Hawkins, Lieut., i. 307; captain of
Mounted Rifles, 376; ii. 40.
Hawkins, Wm., i. 287.
Hawley, Lieut. i. 458.
Haworth, Jas., i. 646.
Hayden, Capt. Ben, i. 538.
Hayden, Mr. and Mrs. Gay, biog. of,
ii. 367-69.
Hayes, Mrs., i. 200.
Haygart, Dr. Geo., asserts word "Ore-
((
gon to be from Spanish word
orejon," meaning "big ear,” i. 61;
theory improbable, 62.
Hays, Capt. Gilmore, i. 434, 491, 575,
577; capt. Co. A, 540; reports to Capt.
Maloney number of force, 550; re-
port of battle of Connell's Prairie,
578; reports Indians disheartened
and resigns, 579.
Hays, Capt. Isaac E., i. 544, 545, 547,
550.
Hays, Richard, i. 288.
Hays, Richmond, i. 287.
Hays, Smith, i. 339, 340.
Hays, Thos., i. 416.
Haywood, Wm. H. Jr., i. 165.
Hazen, Lieut., i. 445, 447.
Heald, Timothy, i. 480.
Healy, Jas., i. 628.
Heceta, Capt. Bruno, i. 61; commands
expedition with Perez, 32; sails on
Santiago north, anchors in Port
Trinidad, 32; crew of Sonora mur-
dered on Isla de Dolores, 32; dis-
covers a great bay, driven to sea, 32;
named bay Ensenado de San Roque,
by Spaniards Heceta's Inlet, 32;
676
INDEX.
names Assumption Inlet, 52; en-
trance to Columbia river verified, 52;
Pakenham's view of claim of pri-
ority of discovery of, 144.
Heceta's Inlet, so called by Spaniards,
i. 32.
Hedding, Bishop, i. 191.
Hedges, A. F., i. 537.
Heeber, Andrew, i. 288.
Helen, S. S., i. 537.
Helner, Sigismund A., biog. of, ii. 369.
Hembell, Capt. A. J., i. 538.
Hembree, Capt. A. J., i. 537, 567, 568,
569, 571.
Hendershott. Jas., biog. of, ii. 369.
Hendershott, Sidney B., i. 358.
Henderson, J. H. D., ii. 31.
Henderson, Jas. O., i. 287.
Henderson, Capt. Wm., i. 112.
Henderwell, Capt., i. 312.
Hendrick, Samuel, i. 449.
Hendricks, Chas., i. 343 note.
Henly, Maurice, i. 628.
Henness, Capt. B. L., i. 545, 547, 575,
578, 585, 586, 587, 588, 599.
Henry, Prince, the pioneer of navi-
gators, i. I.
Henry, Alexander, i. 74.
Henry's fort, ii. 100.
Heppner, Col. Henry, name given to
town, ii. 169; biog. of, 369.
Heppner (Or.), town, description of,
ii. 159, 649-50.
Herber, Fred, i. 412.
Herbert, Geo. A., biog. of, ii. 370.
Herbert, Geo. F., biog. of, ii. 370.
Herman, Binger, ii. 31.
Herman, Jim, i. 601.
Herrall, Geo., biog. of, ii. 370.
Herren, Dan., i. 288.
Herren, John C., i. 288.
Hewitt, Capt. C. C., i. 545, 547, 574;
account of White river massacre, 542.
Hewitt, Henry, biog. of, ii. 371.
Hibbler, Lieut. John P., i. 538.
Hickey, Capt., i. 87.
Hicks, Capt. W. E., i. 575.
Hidden, Cyrus, i. 391, 393, 394.
Hill, A. C., i. 646.
Hill, Capt. Bennett H., i. 309, 345, 346;
stationed at Steilacoom, 307.
Hill, David, i. 241, 264, 268.
Hill, Fleming R., i. 287, 398, 439; biog.
of, ii. 372.
Hill, Isaac, i. 412.
Hill, Hon. Robt. C., biog. of, ii. 373.
Hill, R. P., i. 409.
Hill, Wm. G., i. 429, 430.
Hill, Hon. Wm. Lair, biog. of, ii.
373-75.
Hillman, Jno. W., i. 645.
Hillyer, Commodore, i. 84.
Hinsdale, Capt. T. D., i. 642.
Hines, Rev. Gustavus, i. 191, 224, 240,
241; arrival, 188; historian of Or.,
188 note; extract on organization of
government, 233; biog. of, ii. 375.
Hinman, Alanson, i. 279; biog. of, ii.
376-77.
Hirsch, Hon. Edward, biog. of, ii.
377-79.
Hirstel & Co., i. 398.
Histoire de la Lousiane, i. 58.
Hitchcock, Gen., i. 395, 414.
Hobart, Lieut., ii. 21.
Hobson, John, biog. of, ii. 379.
Hock, Wm., i. 287.
Hockens, Father de, i. 211; 621 note.
Hodgdon, Stephen, i. 340.
Hodges, Henry C., i. 461.
Hodgkins, Wm., i. 412.
Hoffman,
·
1.200.
Hogan,
Hogan,
i. 390.
i. 399:
Hogs, interest in, ii. 131.
Holbrook, i. 314.
Onl
Holbrook, Amory, U. S. Atty., i. 310;
sketch of, 310 note; opinion
Location bill, 321; ii. 4.
Holbrook, R. B., i. 470.
Holcomb, Guy C, i. 449.
Holcomb, S. A., i. 286.
Holgate, John, i. 286, 288.
Holladay, Ben, introduces Jersey cat-
tle, ii. 126; promotion of railroads,
139.
Holland, Thomas, i. 444.
Holman, Jos., account of journey of
Farnham and others from Peoria,
Ill., 1839, i. 216–17; biog. of, ii. 380.
Holmes, Wm., i. 589.
Holmes, W. H., biog. of, ii. 381.
Homicide, first trial for, 1853, i. 409.
Hood, Gen. John B., i. 422.
Hood's Canal, surveyed by Lieut. Case,
under Wilkes, 1841, i. 227.
Hooker, Maj. W. F., i. 644; biog. of,
ii. 382.
Hoorn, ship, i. 20.
Hopwood, Moses, i. 399.
Hornby, Capt. G. Phipps, ii. 40, 41.
Horses, interest in, ii. 128.
Hoult, Hon. Enoch, i. 358; biog. of,
ii. 382.
Houser,
}
i. 603.
Houser, Wm., i. 603.
Houston, Samuel, i. 165.
Hovenden, Alfred, biog. of, ii. 382.
Hovey, Hon. A. G., ii. 147; biog. of,
ii. 383.
Howard, Lieut., i. 632, 633.
Howard, Benj. C., i. 151.
Howard, Capt. D. J., i. 338.
Howard, Fales, i. 288.
Howard, Gen. O. O., ii. 659; fights
battle of Clearwater, 660; begins
march across Lolo trail, 660.
Howard, Capt. Wm. A., i. 340.
Howe, Col., ii. 8.
Howe, E. W., i. 449.
Howe, Samuel D., i. 343 note, 575;
goes to Fort Simpson to relieve
crew of Georgianna, 344; own ac-
count of the trip, 344; heartless
treatment by Capt. McNeil, 344;
representative in first legislative as-
sembly of W. T., 346; Ind. agt., ii.
659.
Howell, G. W., i. 288.
Howell, Morris, i. 412.
Howell, S. P., biog. of, ii. 383.
Howell, Wesley, i. 288.
Howison, Lieut. Niel M., receives the
launch of Peacock, i. 271; commands
Shark on examination of coast of
Or., 273; extract from report, 273–74;
presents colors of Shark to Or, 274.
Howland & Aspinwall, ii. 138.
Howlish-wampun (Indian), i. 617.
Hoyt, Hon. John P., biog. of, ii. 384.
Hubbard, Goalman, i. 287.
Hubbard, Thos. J., i. 182, 237, 238.
Hubbard's wagon train, i. 571.
Hubert, Andrew, i. 288.
Hubert, Geo. F., i. 399.
Hubbs,
ii. 38.
Hudson, Capt. Thos., arrives at Nootka
Sound in command of Prince of
Wales, i. 40.
Hudson, Lieut. W. L., i. 227.
Hudson's Bay Co., trade of, i. 62; rival
in No. West Fur Co., 63; exclusive
occupancy of territory by No. West
Co., 89; their history and policy, 90;
policy and methods of H. B. Co.
compared, 90-91; territory claimed,
91; Selkirk grant, 91; defeated by
No. West Co., 92; competition con-
tinues, 93; license of exclusive trade
granted, 93; succeeds to all rights of
No. West Co., 94; becomes sole
grantee, 94; exclusive occupants of
Or., 95; license of trade, 95; charter
of 1670 ratified in 1690, 95; to be
known as Rupert's Land, 95; con-
stituted "true and absolute lords,"
95; sole grantor of licenses of trade,
96; stock value, 96; executive man-
agement, 96; power of trial granted
officers, 96; powers granted, 96; ab-
solute over employés, 96; liberality
of charter, 97; distribution of em-
ployés, 97; pay and obligations of
servants, 97-98; feudal exactions of
the system, 98; consequences, 98;
secures new license 1838, 99; its
grants, 99; possessions and property,
99; system of trade, 100-02; praise-
worthy policy to the Indians, 101;
treatment of Americans, 102; ab-
sorbs wealth of the country, 103;
political mission to strengthen Brit-
ish claims, 103; first license merely
conferred right of exclusive trade,
103; applies for grant of land, Pel-
ly's petition, 103-04; Simpson's tes-
timony, 104; delayed by controversy
between U. S. and Great Britain,
105; Treaty of Limits accepted, 105;
its advantages to co., 105; establish-
ments, 105-07; formation of Puget
Sound Agricultural Co., 108; under
Hudson's Bay Co., 108; management
and purposes, 108; influence wielded
in international affairs, 109; its
claims under treaty of 1846, 109–10;
policy illustrated by visit of Owyhee
and Convoy, 116; tends to delay a
Provisional government, 153; offi-
cials and attachés of co. only white
residents prior to 1821, 174; head-
quarters removed from Fort George
to Fort Vancouver, 1824, 174; num-
ber of employés, 180; control over
residents, 223-24; opposition to Am.
citizens, 243-46; cattle policy, 246–48;
only settlers in Vancouver district
1844, 266; yields financial support to
Provisional govt., 269; refuses loan
for Cayuse war, 278; gives permission
to cut timber, 312; Cadboro seized,
312; preponderated in Northern Or.,
335; settlers in Puyallup valley re-
tired servants of, 340; counsel for in
llibel case, 347; journeys of trappers of
from Sacramento valley to Columbia
before Americans, 369; attempt to
investigate claims of, 474; memorial
to purchase rights of, 481; monop-
olize Fraser river, 518; rights defined
by Bulwer-Lytton to Douglas, 519;
license revoked, 520; Indians not to
expect sympathy of, 544; right of
entry, 630; purchase of stolen prop-
erty by to be stopped, 630; ii. 35, 37,
38, 39, 40, 41, 42.
Huggins, Edwd., biog. of, ii. 384.
Huggins, Capt. Wm., i. 545.
Hughes, Chas., i. 628.
Hughes, James M., i. 338.
Hughes, Wm. P., i. 287.
Hulan, Lester, i. 287.
Hull, Capt. Isaac, i. 78.
Hull, Orley, biog. of, ii. 385.
Hulse, John, i. 436.
Hult, Lieut. i. 570.
INDEX.
677
Humason, O., i. 537, 538, 539, 555.
Humboldt river reached by wagon-road
party, i. 373.
Humbug creek massacre, i. 432.
Humphrey, Capt., i. 386, 387, 401.
Humphrey, Geo., biog. of, ii. 386.
Hungate, Harrison H., biog. of, ii. 386.
Hunsaker, J. T., biog. of, ii. 386.
Hunt, surveyor, i. 471.
Hunt, Capt. Jas. C., ii. 22, 44.
Hunt, Wilson P., i. 74 note, 87, 180, 231;
chief agt. Pacific Fur Co., 77, 78;
with party reaches Astoria, 80; diffi-
culty in securing men in Montreal
and St. Louis, through jealous in-
terference of other companies, 80;
journey back, 80; sails in Beaver for
Sitka, 81; negotiations with governor
of Russian empire, 81; goes to Oahu,
SI; arrives in Astoria, 83; goes to
Sandwich Islands and returns, 85;
sails for N. Y. on Pedler, 85.
Hunt system of railroads, ii. 144.
Hunter, Lieut., i. 586, 588.
Hunter, Wm., i. 424.
Huntington,
i. 649.
?.
Indian supt. of Or.,
Huntington, Henry D., i. 336.
Huntington, J. W. P., i. 398.
Huntington, Jabez W., i. 165.
Hurd, Jared S., i. 540.
Hurd, Jas. K., i. 343 note, 575.
Hurtado, Bartolomé, cruises north to
Costa Rica in canoes, i. II.
Huskisson, Wm., i. 127, 128.
Hussey, Jos., i. 390.
Huston, H. C., i. 458.
Hutchings, A. O., i. 433.
Hutchins, Indian Agent, ii. 659.
Hutchinson, Lieut. i. 568.
Hydah Indians capture and plunder
Georgianna party, i. 343; at war with
the Chimsyans, 345; worst natives of
coast, 346; ii. 45.
Iberville, Lemoine, enters Mississippi
river, i. 68.
Idaho, included in Or. bill, i. 299.
Idaho, boat, shoots Cascades, ii. 102.
Idaho co. (Idaho), outline history of,
ii. 182.
Idaho Terr., cannot be considered sep-
arately in Shoshone war, ii. 17 note;
establishment of, 33; schools of, 149;
outline history of counties of, 181-83.
Ide, Chester D., biog. of, ii. 387.
Ide, Wm. B., i. 272.
Idles, John, i. 449.
Ignatief, Isai, expedition from Kolyma
river, 1646, i. 21.
Ihrie, Lieut., i. 448, 632.
Iles, H., i. 408.
Ilwaco & Soalwater Bay R. R., ii. 143.
Imbler, Jesse, biog. of, ii. 387.
Imbrie, Jas. J., biog. of, ii. 387.
Immigration of 1844, i. 266; of 1847,
276; of 1848, 286; of 1862, ii. 17.
Immigrants, volunteer aid sent to,
under Walker, i. 429.
Imperial Eagle, ship, i. 49.
Indefatigable, L', ship, i. 212.
Independence, boat, ii. 15.
Independence day, first celebration at
Olympia, 1852, i. 348; all Northern
Or. represented, 348; division of
State discussed, 348.
Independent Or. Co. of 1844, i. 266, 267.
Indian council at Walla Walla, i. 482.
Indian land titles, i. 474-75.
Indian scouts. See scouts.
Indians, rumors of rovings of stim-
ulate expeditions, i. 57; elevating
policy of H. B. Co. towards, 101;
J. S. Smith's adventures with on
Umpqua river and escape, 114;
plunder the William and Ann, 116;
threaten trouble to the Convoy, 116,
the native population, 170; source
of names, 170; characteristics, 170–71;
utilized by trappers, 171; introduc-
tion of missionary influence, 171;
more friendly to English, suspicious
of Americans, 171; American settle-
ments the banishment of the Indian,
172; ravages of fever and ague, 172;
number, habits and life, 171-72; no
supreme being or synonym for God,
173; gambling their passion, 173;
relations towards British and Am.
elements, 173; both Catholic and
Protestant, 195; begin to display
insolence, 195; indignities to Dr.
Whitman and family frequent, 195;
not to be converted, but bought,
hence no use for missionaries, 196;
combinations of tribes to destroy
missions, 197; defenseless condition
of stations increases their insolence,
indignities frequent, 197-98; council
held, code adopted, 198; influences
to excite, 198-99; soured at Amer-
icans, 199; Whitman massacre, 200;
council called by Ogden, 201; as
found on Farnham's journey, 217;
Dr. E. White appointed sub Indian
agt. 1842, 234; reports of combination
of tribes, 234; council called by
White, 234; "White Code," 235;
depredations at Willamette Falls,
262; Cockstock killed, 262; death of
Geo. Le Breton, 262; citizens arm
for defense, 262; compensation for
widow of Cockstock, 263; White's
report on 263-64; Cayuse war, dep-
redations and skirmishes preceding
and through, 277-88; battle of Abi-
qua creek, 285; law against selling
liquor to, 302; Lane's policy, 305;
attack on Fort Nisqually, 305-06;
pursuit, 307; trial and execution and
expenses, 309; attack on J. S. Smith's
party, and Kelley and Young, and
trappers from Sac. valley, 370;
threaten Wilkes' expedition, 371;
attacks on emigrant wagon - road
party, 372-73; forced treaty with,377;
capture Negro scout, 377; surprise
Nichols' party, 1851, 381; Kearney's
raid on, 382-87; attack Kirkpatrick
and party at Port Orford, 1851, 391;
T'Vault massacre, 393-94; defeat by
Col. Casey and men, 1851, 395; fu-
tility of Gaines' treaty emboldens,
400; attack Brown, Moffit and Jones
party, 400; miners appealed to, 400;
Lamerick's volunteers, 400; war,
401-02; corraled, 402; treaty signed
proves a mistake, 402; character of
volunteers, 403; humanitarian de-
fense of, 404; Modoc attack on pack
party near Yreka, 1852, 404; Ben
Wright wreaks revenge, 404-05;
Grave creek band's assaults and
punishments, 409; Rogue river In-
dians, 409; league for extermination
of Whites, 409; murder of Richard
Edwards, 410; murders in Rogue
river valley, 410; kill Wells and
Nolan, 410; Dr. Rose, 411; heroic
response of volunteers, 411; Capt.
Alden, 411; appeal to governor, 411;
Curry's requisition, 412; Nesmith
and Grover's co., 412; pursuit, 413;
Lane in command, 413; his account
from his dispatch to Gen. Hitchcock,
414-17; flags of honor, 417; Capt.
Smith's march, 418; treating for
peace,418-20; negotiators threatened
with murder, 420; treaty of Sept. 10,
conclusion of treaty and terms, 420;
treaty Indians located on Table Rock
Reservation, 422; conduct, 421; re-
taliatory depredations, 422; pro-
tecting immigrants' trains, 423;
murderers hanged and punished,
423-24; expedition against, 1854,
under Walker, 429; serious engage-
ments, 429–30; 1855, depredations at
Happy Camp and Indian creek, 432;
Humbug creek massacre, 432; driven
to the reservation, 423; killing of
Keene, Fields and Cunningham, 433;
pursued and scattered by Maj. Fitz-
gerald, 433; conduct of Indians ex-
cused by agents, 434; realize that
their days are numbered, 435; united
effort from Brit. Columbia to Nor.
California, 435; Chiefs John and
Limpy on warpath, 435; murder of
Going, Hamilton, Shelton and Mr.
and Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Waggoner and
child et al., 435; numerous murders
and depredations, 435–38; volunteers
arm in pursuit, 436-37; Lieuts. Gib-
son and Kautz, 438; Gov. Curry
issues proclamation for nine com-
panies of mounted volunteers, 439;
pursuit and attack, 440; savages
victorious, 440; cause of failure, 440;
reorganization for the war, 441–43;
continued depredations, 443-44;
1856, commit new depredations, 445;
fortified on Applegate creek, 445;
pursuit by Capt. Rice, 445-46; es-
cape, 446; Bruce in the field, 44€;
attack Capt. Bailey's camp, 446; re-
organization of military, 447; Chief
Limpy brings flag of truce, 447;
departs unharmed, 447; Chief Sam
and friendly Indians escorted to res-
ervation, 447; U. S. troops from S.
F., 448; surprise and butchery of
Capt. Poland's co., 448; treachery
of Enos, 449; Chief John murders
and plunders, 449; fights with Bruce
and Buoy, 450; concentrate about
Big Bend of Rogue river, 451; Gen.
Lamerick's orders, 451; repulsed by
Col. Kelsay and Maj. Bruce, 452;
Capt. Smith's campaigns, 453-54;
negotiations for surrender, 455; bat-
tle of Big Bend, 455; Capt. Smith's
official report, 455-58; Chief John
surrenders, end of war, 458 (sec
Oregon - Washington Indian war);
Stevens' estimate of number and
character of, 465; vengeance of
Northern Indians wreaked on inno-
cent men, 469-70; disturbance of
Puget Sound tribes, 470-72; Stevens'
report to Indian bureau, 474-76;
Yakimas murder miners and Agent
Bolon, 493; Haller's expedition, 493;
troubles at Steilacoom, 493; Capt.
Swartwout punishes,494-95; Stevens'
address to legislature on Indian war,
499-503; trial and execution of Cas-
cade murderers, 608; depredations
of 1856 in Southern Or., 641-43;
murder Ledford and party, 645;
Bailey & Evans' party, 1861, 646–47;
train of fourteen families near Goose
Lake, 648; volunteers against, 649;
treaty of 1864, 649; attack immi-
grants in Snake country, ii. 6, 7, 8;
massacre at Salmon Falls, 9, 10;
piracies and depredations of, 45.
678
INDEX.
Indians of Pacific Northwest ethno-
logically considered, ii. 60-61; dis-
tribution of the tribes and their
characteristics, 61; mythical crea-
tions of, 62-63; gods of the Wat-tee-
tash age, 63; myths, legends and
customs of, 64-95. See myths.
Indies, voyages to forerunners to Pa-
cific Coast expeditions, i. 1; discovery
of revolutionizes commerce of the
East, i. 2.
Industries of Pacific Northwest, ii.
161-62.
Inland Empire, growth of, ii. 32.
Inman,
i. 601.
Interregnum provided for, i. 362.
Iowa, laws of used, i. 240, 329–30.
Iowa, schr., wreck of, i. 641.
Iphegenia, ship, i. 40, 41, 42, 43.
Irkootsk, i. 69.
Iron resources, ii. 135.
Irrigation, extract from J. C. Straugh-
an's report, ii. 118.
Irven, Wm., i. 589.
Irvine, Lieut. C. E., complimented in
Kearney's report, i. 384.
Irving's Astoria,” book, i. 78.
Irving, Wm., i. 641.
Isaac Todd, ship, i. 82, 83, 84, 85.
Isaacs, Henry Perry, biog. of, ii. 388.
Ish, W. K., i. 410.
Isla de Dolores, crew of Sonora mur-
dered on, 1775, i. 32; named by
Berkley Destruction Island, 32 note.
Island co. (Wash.) formed, i. 331; out-
line history of, ii. 174.
Isle of the dead (myth), ii. 81.
Jack, Captain (Keintpoos), biog. of,
ii. 388.
Jack, Wm. A., i. 287.
Jackson, Br. minister, i. 77.
Jackson,
Jackson
Jackson,
i. 280.
i. 286.
i. 335.
Jackson, Maj., i. 650, 651.
Jackson, Audrew, Pres., negotiations
under administration of, i. 140; ap-
points Slacum special agent, 150;
Gen. Stevens likened to, 583.
Jackson, David, i. 112.
Jackson, Jno. R., i. 267, 268, 545.
Jackson, Jno. W., i. 287.
Jackson, Peter, i. 288.
Jackson, T. J., i. 287.
Jackson, Wm. H., i. 425.
Jackson co. (Or.), formed from Ump-
qua co., i. 326; created 1851-52, 397;
boundaries, 397; complaint of topog-
raphy shown by legislators, 397; first
election, 398; officers elected 1853,
408; business interests of, 1853, 422;
outline history of, ii. 168.
Jacksonville, act passed to remove uni-
versity to, 1855, i. 352; gold placers
in Rich gulch 1852, 399.
Jacksonville Herald started, i. 643.
Jacob Ryerson, schr., i. 390.
Jacobs, Hou. Orange, ii. 55; biog. of,
389.
Jacquith, Henry, i. 389.
Jake's tribe, i. 444.
James P. Flint, first steamer above
mouth of Willamette, ii. 138.
Japanese Junk wrecked on coast of
Kamtchatka, survivors reach St.
Peters, voyage provided to Japan,
established fact of sea to Japan,
i. 22.
Jarnagin, Spencer, i. 165.
Jeffers, Mrs. Sarah H., biog. of, ii.
389-91.
Jefferson, Thomas, Pres., i. 123; in-
duces Ledyard to a voyage, 69;
route suggested, 69; proposition to
Am. Philosophical Soc., 70; recom-
mends to Cong. exploration to Pa-
cific, 1803, 70; tribute to Capt. Lewis,
72.
Jefferson Davis, cutter, i 497, 543.
Jefferson co. (Wash.), formed, i. 331;
outline history of, ii. 173.
Jeffreys,
i. 533.
Jeffries, Lieut. Jolm T., i. 538, 561.
Jeffs, Richard, biog. of, ii. 391.
Jenkins, A. B., i. 381.
Jenkins, Richard, i. 288.
Jenkins. Stephen, i. 287.
Jenness, Benning W., i. 165.
Jennings, Capt. I, ii. 24.
Jessup, Thos. S., i. 136, 137
Jesuits, failure of missionary conquest
of California, i. 27; annual subsidy
offered by viceroy, but declined, 27.
Jewell, Capt., i. 475.
Jewell, Ambrose, i. 343 note.
Jewell, Jno. T., biog. of, ii. 391.
Jewett,
i. 435.
Jewett, Mrs. Harriet, biog. of, ii. 391.
Jewett, John R., survivor of the Boston,
i. 55.
Jewett brothers, i. 381.
Jim (Hydah Indian), ii. 45.
Jobe, Alfred, i. 287.
Jobe, Noah, i. 286.
Jocelyn, settlement and raid on, i. 598.
Joe, Chief, i. 343, 344, 412, 413, 432, 435,
445. 446, 450, 451, 455, 456, 458; sent
to S. F. on Columbia, with sou, 643;
struggle to seize steamer, 643-44.
John Adams, bark, i. 475.
John Davis, brig, i. 342.
John Day river, ii. 101.
John Marshall, brig, i. 339.
Johns, Isaiah M., i. 287.
Johnson,
Johnson,
i. 187.
i. 604.
Johnson, Lieut., i. 439.
Johnson, Chas., i. 437.
Johnson, Chas. F., introduces tele-
graph, i. 353.
Johnson, Chas. W., i. 425.
Johnson, Daniel, biog. of, ii. 392.
Johnson, Frank, biog. of, ii. 393
Johnson, Geo., i. 604.
Johnson, Geo. L., i. 312.
Johnson, Geo. W., i. 312.
Johnson, H. C., i. 287.
Johnson, Herschell V., ii. 3.
Johnson, Henry, i. 165.
Johnson, Jacob, i. 286.
Johnson, Jas., biog. of, ii. 393.
Johnson, John A., i. 287.
Johnson, Prof. Jno. W., ii. 147.
Johnson, Reverdy, i. 165.
Johnson, Rufus, i. 287.
Johnson, Thos., biog. of, ii. 394.
Johnson, Win., i. 218, 225.
Johnson, Wm. R., i. 287.
Johnson, A. Sidney, ii. 5.
Joint commission, memorial to, i. 110.
Joint military occupation of San Juan,
ii. 44.
Joint occupancy the only claim of
Great Britain, i. 12.
>
Joint-occupancy Treaty, i. 103, 250, 318.
Joint resolution, full text of, with no-
tice, i. 160; acceptance of, 161.
Jones,
i. 435.
Jones, Lieut., i. 453, 454.
Jones, Benj., i. Sr.
Jones, David, i. 288.
Jones, Gabriel, i, 267.
Jones, Henry, biog. of, ii. 394.
Jones, John, i. 371.
Jones, John E., biog. of, ii. 394.
Jones, Nelson, biog. of, ii. 394.
Jones family, massacre of, i. 542.
Joseph, Chief, leader of
non-treaty"
Nez Perces, ii. 659; orders settlers
to leave Wallowa valley, 659; fights
battle of Clearwater, 659; starts for
Montana by Lolo trail, 660; fight
with Gen. Gibbon, 661; surrenders
to Gen. Miles, 661.
Joseph, Father, i. 624.
Joseph Kellogg Transportation Co., ii.
144.
Josephine, Dr. S. E., biog. of, ii. 394.
Josephine co. organized, i. 354; created,
640; boundaries, 640; outline history
of, ii. 108.
Josephine creek, i. 396.
Joset, Father, i 621 note, 635; asks
amnesty for Coeur d'Alenes, i. 629.
Journalism. See Newspapers.
Judah, Capt., report to Capt. Smith,
i. 442; approved by Smith, 443.
Judic al districts, i. 307; remodeled,
320, 350; of Washington, 464, 468,
507.
Judicial expenses, act of Cong. regu-
lating, i. 507.
Judicial power invested in a supreme
court, i. 240; how vested, 361.
Judson, L. H., i. 188.
Judson, Peter, i. 340.
Jump-off-Joe, i. 437.
Kahler, Wm., i. 410.
Kaiser, J. B., i. 288.
Kaiser, Jno., i. 288.
Kaiser, Pleasant C., i. 288.
Kaiser, T. D., i. 256, 264; capt. of
Oregon Rangers, 262.
Kakes (or Kikans) murder Col. Ebey,
i. 337, 512.
Kalama, ii. 47.
Kamiah, i. 194.
Kamiakin, Chief, i, 482, 486, 493, 534,
555, 563, 569, 618, 630, 635; instigator
of war on Whites, 618-19; inaugu-
rates hostile movements 1858,622–23.
Kamtchatka reached in 1647-48, i. 21;
merged in Russian empire 1711, 21.
Kanaka laborers, i. 80.
Kanakas, i. 88.
Ka-nas-kat, i. 547; Keyes' description
of killing of, 591.
Kansas, Lane on admission of, in
Cong., i. 364.
Kate Heath, schr., i. 378, 379, 399.
Kautz, Lieut. A. V., i. 418, 438, 440,
441; beseiged at White river crossing,
592; Keyes' account of fight, 592-93;
sketch of, 592 note; cool determina-
tion of, 593.
Kayler, Thos. H., biog. of, ii. 396.
Keady, Hon. Wm. F., biog. of, ii. 396.
Kearney, Chas., i. 287.
Kearney, Henry, i. 287.
Kearney, Gen. Phil, petitioned, while
en route to Benicia, by settlers for
protection, i. 382; text of petition,
with names of signers, 382; report
of fight with Indians, 383-87.
Keath, P., i. 413.
Keene, Granville, i. 432.
Keeney, Capt., i. 441, 442.
Keeney, Jas. B., biog. of, ii. 396.
Kehl,
i. 591.
Keintpoos. See Jack, Capt.
Keith,
i. 87.
Keith, Capt., i. 451, 452, 457.
Keith, D. W., i. 439.
Keller, Jas., i. 287.
Kellett, Lieut. H., i. 218.
INDEX.
679
Kelling, Detrick, biog. of, ii. 397.
Kellogg, Capt. Chas. H., biog. of, ii.
401.
Kellogg, Dr. Geo., biog. of, ii. 397.
Kellogg, Jay A., biog. of, ii. 397.
Kellogg, Mrs. Dr. Mary C. E., biog.
of, ii. 397.
Kellogg, Capt. Jos., biog. of, ii. 399-
400.
Kellogg, Noah S., career of, ii. 150;
biog. of, ii. 401.
Kellogg, Capt. Orrin Jr., biog. of, ii.
400.
Kelly, Rev. Clinton, biog. of, ii. 402.
Kelly, Hall J., presents petition to
house for a grant, i. 139; arrives
with Ewing Young, 182; Walker on,
183; sketch of, 184; McLoughlin on,
184-85; published matter on Or.,
185; Slacum's visit probably induced
by representations of, 214; and
Young's journey from the Sacra-
mento to the Columbia river, 1834,
370; attacked by Indians, and res-
cued by La Framboise, 370.
Kelly, Capt. Hugli, i. 652.
Kelly, Jas., i. 628.
Kelly, Col. Jas. Kerr, i. 356, 362, 538,
555, 568, 569, 570; elected president
of council, 356; account of march to
Walla Walla, 559-60; battle, 561-62;
pursuit of hostiles, 562; ii. 3, 30, 31;
biog. of, ii. 402.
Kelly, Hon. John, i. 378; biog. of, ii.
403-04.
Kelly, Sgt. M., i. 598; in Fort Rains,
601; noticed in army orders, 603 note.
Kelly, Penumbra, biog. of, ii. 405.
Kelly, Wm., i. 541, 552, 575, 648, 649;
ii. 16; sent to build Fort Klamath, 17.
Kelsay, Col. John, i. 358, 447, 451, 452.
Kelso, i. 561, 564.
Kempton, Jesse, i. 601, 608.
Kendrick, Capt. John, i. 42; commands
the Columbia, 50; passes through
Strait of Fuca, 50.
Kennedy, A., i. 286.
Kennedy, John, i. 440.
Kennedy, Dr. John H., i. 345; biog. of,
ii. 405.
Kennedy, John P., i. 363.
Kenney, D. M., i. 427.
Kenny, Jos., i. 287.
Kent, Bent, i. 450.
Kesling, Jas., biog. of, ii. 405.
Kester, Jos., i. 286.
Keyes, Capt. Erasmus D., i. 547, 548,
631, 632, 633; describes crossing bar
of Columbia in his Fifty Years,
546 note; number of his force, 550;
describes killing of Kanaskat, 591
note; fight at White-river crossing,
592; further description, 593.
Kiasumkin (Indian), i. 310, 311.
Kikans. See Kakes.
Kilborn, W. H., i. 301.
Kilbourn, R. L., i. 216, 217.
Killingworth, Jas. i. 287.
Kimball,
Kincaid,
i. 200.
i. 546.
Kincaid, Harrison Rittenhouse, biog.
of, ii. 406.
Kincaid, Jno. Francis, biog. of, ii. 406.
Kincaid, Hon. Orvin, biog. of, ii. 406.
Kincaids, the, i. 340.
Kindred, B. C., biog. of, ii. 407-08.
Kindred, David, i. 267.
Kineth, Chas. T., biog. of, ii. 409.
Kineth, John, biog, of, ii. 409.
King,
i. 424.
King, A. N., biog. of, ii. 409.
King, Dr. Geo. W., biog. of, ii. 410.
King, Sarah Fairbanks (Mrs. S. A.
King), biog. of, ii. 410.
King, T. Butler, i. 131.
King, Wm. M., speaker of house 1851,
i. 325; surveyor of Portland, 351 note.
King co. (Wash.) formed, i. 331; out-
line history of, ii. 175.
King family, massacre of, i. 543.
King George, ship, i. 39.
King Georges, Indian term applied
to British in Or., i. 173, 178.
King George's Sound, name given by
Cook to Nootka Sound, i. 35.
King George's Sound Co., formed 1785,
i. 39; purposes, 39; fits out voyage of
Portlock & Dixon (see Portlock), 39.
Kinnear, E. M., biog. of, ii. 411.
Kinnear, Capt. Geo., ii. 54.
Kinney, representative, i. 324, 326.
Kinney, D. M., i. 402.
Kinney, Robt. Couch, biog. of, ii. 411.
Kinney, Samuel, biog. of, ii. 412.
Kinnison, H. A. and J. P., biog. of,
ii. 413.
Kino. See Kuhn.
Kinsey, A., i. 286.
Kinsey, Sam, i. 286.
Kinsey, Thos., i. 286.
Kip, Lieut., extract from journal, i. 483
note.
Kirk, T. J., biog. of, ii. 413.
Kirkland, Jos. E., biog. of, ii. 414.
Kirkpatrick, J. M., Port Orford adven-
tures, i. 391; account of Indian
attack, 391-92.
Kishnell, Chas., ii. 8, 13.
Kitsap, Chief, i. 509, 547, 585, 612, 615,
616, 618; sketch of, 508.
Kitsap co. (Wash.) named, i. 508; out-
line history of, ii, 175.
Kittitass co. (Wash.), outline history
of, ii. 178
Klamath co. (Or.), outline history of,
ii. 170.
Klamath Indians, i. 285, 286, 414:
Klamath lakes, description of, ii. 158.
Klamath river, navigation of, i. 378.
Klamath valleys explored by Gilliam,
1847, i, 374, 378.
Klay, John, i. 628.
Klikitat, application of name, i. 343.
Klikitat Indians, i. 577, 610; protect
settlers from Southern tribes, 375;
ordered into surveillance, 550; raid
of, 598.
Klikitat co. (Wash.), outline history
of, ii. 178.
Klink, David, i. 64.
Klippel, Henry, i. 436, 645; biog. of,
ii. 414.
Knapp, Sewell M., biog. of, ii. 414.
Knighton,
i. 272.
Knights of Labor, ii. 51.
Knott, A. J., i. 436, 437.
Knott, Levi, i. 436.
Knott, Jos., i. 397; trial for homicide,
1853, 409.
Knowles, J. A., i. 408.
Knox,
mail carrier, i. 285.
Knox, Lieut, i. 227.
Knox, S. B., i. 287.
Kodiak Island, Russian establishment,
1763, i. 38; only settlement north of
Cal. 1779, 38.
Koehler, Richard, ii. 189.
Kom-she-wah harbor, i. 343.
Kone, W. W., i. 188, 191.
Koontz, Hon. Jas. H., biog. of, ii. 415.
Kooskooskie river, i. 71.
Koosta, Chief, i. 285.
Kootenai co. (Idaho), outline history
of, ii. 182.
•
Kootenai Indians, treaty with, i. 489.
Kootenai river, description of, ii. 99.
Kotzebue, Otto von, extract from
Quarterly Review on voy. of, i. 125.
Krupischew sails under orders of Sches-
takow; i. 23; voyage of great interest
in Europe, 23.
Kuhn, Father, accompanies Otondo
to Lower Cal., i. 27; establishes La
Paz, 27.
Kuhn, Hon. Jos. A., biog. of, ii. 415.
Kuklux act, ii. 53.
Kurtz, M. A., finds pottery image of
human form three hundred feet deep,
ii. 61.
Kuykendall, Dr. Geo. Benson, biog.
of, ii. 415.
Kyle, German boy, i. 602.
Kyle, H., i. 608.
Kyle, Jake, i. 608.
Kyle, Jas., killed by Indians, i. 423.
L. P. Foster, schr., i. 342 note.
Labonte, Lewis, i. 180, 233.
Laborain, Alex., i. 288.
Labouchere, ship, i. 512.
La Brache, Louis, biog. of, ii. 416.
Lackey, Jas., i. 401, 403.
La Connor (Wash.) town, description
of, ii. 650-51.
La Course, Pierre, i. 287.
Lacy, Walter W. de, Capt., i. 575, 583,
585.
Ladd, Jno., i., 436.
Ladd, Jn10. R., biog. of, ii. 416.
Ladd, W. Sargent, interest in cattle,
ii. 126.
Ladd, Wm. Sargent, biog. of, ii. 417-
19.
Ladd & Co., i. 245.
La Dow, George A., ii. 31.
La Du, Crumline, i. 522.
La Paste, Antoine, i. 287.
La Framboise overtakes Kelly and
Young, i. 370.
La Grande (Or.), town, sketch of, ii.
651-52.
Lahalet (Indian), i. 306.
Lake Chelan, extent of, ii. 100.
Lake co. (Or.), outline history of, ii.
170.
Lake (mountain) myths, ii. 71.
Lake Washington, description of, ii.
155.
Lalake (Indian chief), i. 641, 645.
Lambert. Capt., i. 118.
Lamerick, Gen. J. K., commands vol-
unteers, i. 410, 411, 414, 441, 447,
452; orders for disposition of forces
as given in letter to Gov. Curry,
1856, 451.
Lamerick, Juo. H., calls for volun-
teers, i. 400; fight with Indians,
401-2; as soldier and officer, 402;
banquet to, by citizens, 402; Skin-
ner's congratulatory letter, 403.
Lancaster, Columbia, i. 232, 324;
organizes as council of one, 326;
continued meetings, 326; called
"Old basaltic formation," 327; re-
moves to Lewis river, 336; defeated
for delegate, 491; elected delegate
to Congress, Wash., 464, ii 54; biog.
of, 419.
Land claims, law relating to, i. 240.
Land districts, newly created, i. 431.
Land law, claims taken under, i. 336.
Law office, U. S., at Olympia, i. 460.
Lander, Edward, Chief Justice, i. 339,
460, 466, 468, 469, 479, 548, 575; de-
feated for delegate, 491; elected
capt. of vol., 574; the habeas-corpus
proceedings, 582.
45
680
INDEX
Lander, Fredk.. Jr., i. 462, 463, 467.
Lauder, Hon. Fredk. W., biog. of, ii.
420.
Landes, Col. Henry, biog. of, ii. 421.
Lands, Act of Oregon Laud bill or
Donation law, i. 315; status of land
titles, 315; situation defined by Chief
Justice Waite. 315-16; Field's opin-
ion, 315; Deady's opinion, 316; con-
gressional expression, 316; Congress
committed to policy, 316-17; require-
ments of Donation law, 318; Juo. B.
Preston, Surveyor-General, 319.
Lands, school, i. 460.
Land. See Donation Law.
Lane, Gen. Joseph, i. 254, 333, 341,
403, 411, 428, 437; appointed gov-
ernor, 303; arrives March 2, 1849,
303; assumes office, March 3, 303;
directs census, 1849, 305; ex-officio
superintendent of Indian affairs,
305; visits Columbia river tribes,
305; returns on account of murder
of Wallace, 305; requests aid of
Tolmie, message to first Legisla-
tive Assembly and assigns judges
307; disapproves Thornton's reward
for murder, reports to Indian
Bureau, 308; signs death warrant of
Cayuse murderers, resigns May 27,
goes to Cal. mines, 311; elected
delegate to Congress, 1851, charac-
ter of, 323; appointed governor, re-
signs to accept Dem. nomination of
delegate, elected, 351; re-elected,
1855, 353; introduces bill in Con-
gress for convention; nomination
for Congress, 1857, 357; claims seat,
363; from speech on admission of
Kansas in Congress, 364; sworn in
as senator, term drawn, 366; volun-
teers to pursue deserters, 376; forces
treaty of peace with Indians, 377;
organizes co. against Rogue river
Indians, 386; complimented by
Kearney, 387; remarks on the fight,
receives captives from Kearney and
delivers them to Gov. Gaines, 388;
insists on military post on Rogue
river, 400; appointed brigadier-
general, 413; tendered command,
wounded, 415; report of Indian
fight to Geu. Hitchcock, 414-17;
presents flags, 417; speech in Indian
council, 420; agreement with Tip-
su, 422; coucludes preliminaries of
treaty with chiefs, 418; narrow es-
cape at council, 419; autobiography,
-denial of its existence as referred
to by Bancroft, 434 note; one of
first U. S. senators, ii. 1, 3, 4; aspi-
rant for Presidency, delegates in-
structed to vote for, 2; home of, 157;
biog. of, 422.
Lane, Lafayette, ii. 31.
Lane co. (Or.) organized, i. 320, 350;
outline history of, ii. 167.
Lanes, the, i. 340.
Lang,
>
i. 266.
Langlois, Rev. Anthony, i. 211.
Lankton, Miss, teacher, i. 188.
Lansdale, Dr. Richard H., iocates
Oak Harbor, on Whidby Island,
brings other settlers, i. 337; moves
to Penn's Cove, 338.
La Perouse, voyage, 1785, names Port
des Français, last heard of from
Botany Bay, Feb. 7, 1788, i. 49; ex-
pedition, 1786, explores Pacific
coast, disappeared, i. 49.
Laplante, Louis, i. 287.
La Plata, river, discovered, 1515, i. 12.
Lapwai, station, i. 194.
Lariet, vessel, i. 370.
Lark, ship, i. 82, 85.
Larkin, J., i. 287.
Larogen, i. 82.
Laroque, Geo., i. 288.
La Salle, Robt., examines Mississippi
river, and in name of France claims
country of Louisiana, his prediction
to governor of Canada, i. 68.
Lasater, Jas. H., biog. of, ii. 423.
Lassater, Jno., i. 286.
Latalı co. (Idaho), outline history of,
ii. 182.
Lator, Davis, i. 287.
Latshaw, Wm. H., Maj., i. 447, 457,
458.
Lattee, Mr., i. 273.
Lausanne, ship, i. 188.
Lawler,
1. 437.
Lawrence, Henry, i. 449.
Laws' Mississippi Co. receives French
grant, 1717, i. 68.
เ
Laws enacted, 1844, i. 268.
Laws Laws of Iowa, Deady's letter
ou, i. 329; Steamboat Code,
"big " and "little" blue books,
action on Iowa laws, 330; "big
book adopted, 331.
Laws of Iowa, i. 329.
Lawson, Geo. W., defeated by Lane,
i. 357; appointed receiver, 431.
Lawson, Lewis, ii., 8, 13.
Lawyer, Chief, i. 482, 483, 626; biog.
of, ii. 423.
Layson, Andrew, i. 287.
Layton, Capt. Davis, i. 538, 559, 564,
586.
Leabo, Jacob, i. 287.
Leadbetter, Danville, U. S. Commis-
sioner, i. 311.
Learn, Matthias M., i. 425.
Learned, Hon. Alphonso Fowler,
biog. of, ii. 423.
Leasure, Hon. Jno. C., biog. of, ii.
424.
Le Breton, Geo. W., i. 225, 234, 237,
238, 240; quarrel with Cockstock
Indians, and death; his career, 262;
sub-Indian agent White, report on,
263-4.
Le Compton question, i. 366.
Ledford, Eli, murder of, and party, i.
645.
Ledyard, John, adventure in Aleutian
as
Islands, i. 36; undertakes explora-
tion of interior of U. S. from Russia
via Kamtchatka and Nootka Sound,
wintered in Irkootsk, arrested
spy and taken to Polish frontier, 69.
Lee,
i. 217.
Lee, .Daniel, i. 118, 186, 191, account
of his "Ten Years in Oregon," of
the Cal. Cattle Co., 247.
Lee, Hals, i. 268, 273, 278, 286, 299,
545.
Lee, Maj. Henry A. G., i. 280, com-
missioned as col., also supt. of In-
dian affairs, 283; resigns as col. and
elected lieut.-col., 284.
Lee, Rev. Jason, i. 118, 224, 232, 250:
supt. of Oregon mission, 186; jour-
neys with Capt. Wyeth, 1834, to
Oregon, 186; establishes missions
and schools, 187; returus East for
aid, 187-88; inaugurates Oregon
Institute, 189; elected president,
190; goes East, 1843, for aid, i91;
correspondence with McLoughlin
on Waller's claim to Oregon city,
251; biog. of, ii. 424.
Lee, Mrs. Jason, gives birth to a son
-first-born white American male-
mother and son both die, i. 188.
Lee, Hon. Jos. D., biog. of, ii. 425.
Leezer, W. J., biog. of, ii. 426.
Legaspi, Miguel Gomez de, commands
expedition under Philip II., and
captures Philippine Islands, founds
Manilla and made governor, i. 16.
Legate, Jas. F., ii. 54.
Legislative com., 1844, i. 264; super-
seded by House of Representatives,
265.
Legislative power invested in com-
mittee of nine, i. 240.
Legislative representatives, 1852, i.
398.
Legislature (Or.), 1847-48, i. 276;
1853-54, 351; acts of, 428; 1854,
acts of, 352; 1855-56; Curry and
Josephine counties organized, 353;
meets at Corvallis, 354; only act
passed to re-locate at Salem, meets
there, 354; mention, 640; 1856-57,
act to provide for holding conven-
tion in Aug., 355; mention, 356;
1857, last territorial legislature,
little done, 362; 1858, meets to elect
senators, Lane and Delazon Smith
elected, 362; meets Dec. 6, elects
territorial officers, 363, 1860, ii. 3.
Legislature (Wash.), first session, i.
464; 1854-55, 479; 1855-56, 495-503;
1856-57, 504; 1857-58, 512; 1858-59,
522; resolution to procure extra pay
to Kelly et al., 603.
Le Maire, Isaac, head of the Southern
co., i. 20.
Lemhi co. (Idaho), outline history
of, ii. 182.
Lemmon,
i. 547.
Lenegralty, Louis Jos., i. 287.
Leoncsa, brig, i. 338.
Le Page du Pratz, "Histoire de la
Lousiane' containing story of a
Yazoo Indian, 58; reliable writer,
58.
Leralley, Henry, i. 286.
Leschi, Chief, i. 478, 541, 542, 548,
549, 585, 612, 615, 616, 618; exe-
cuted, 508; battle with Patkanim,
577.
Leslie, Rev. David, i. 184, 187, 224;
petitions to Congress for federal
jurisdiction, 1840, 221; biog. of, ii.
426.
Lettleys, Anthony, i. 428.
Levi (Indian), i. 624.
Levi, Kent & Co., i. 398.
Levins,
>
i. 439.
Lewis,
Lewis,
}
i. 306.
i. 396.
Lewis, Dixon H., i. 165.
Lewis, Elisha H., biog. of, ii. 427.
Lewis, Haman C., i. 358; biog. of, ii.
427.
Lewis, Jas. H., i. 287, 288.
Lewis, Joe, i. 200, 204, 205, 281, 283.
Lewis, Meriwether, seeks position to
explore Northwest, i. 70.
Lewis and Clarke, exploration the
result of Pres. Jefferson's message,
i. 70; instructions, 70; number of
party, 71; winter on Wood river,
70; cross the Mississippi, May 14,
1804, 71; winter in Mandan villages,
71; reach Cape Disappointment
Nov. 14, 1805, post written notice,
which is found by Capt. Hall and
brought to U. S. via Canton, 71;
return by same route, separating at
Traveler's Rest creek, 72; Lewis
INDEX.
681
explores Marias river, Clarke pro-
ceeds to the Yellowstone, 72; all re-
unite at mouth of Yellowstone,
Aug. 12, and reach St. Louis, Sept.
23, 1806, 9,000 miles without the loss
of a member, 72; summary by
Lewis, 72; return creates a seusa-
tion, Jefferson's remarks, 72; reached
Washington Feb. 1807, 72;
warded by grants, 72; Lewis ap-
pointed governor of Louisiana,
Clarke general of militia, and after-
wards commissioner of Indian
affairs, 72; Lewis commits suicide,
72.
Lewis, Wm., i. 442.
re-
Lewis, Wm. B., i. 437, 439.
Lewis co. (Wash.), established 1845,
i. 272; extent and influence in
politics, 302; Tolmie the first repre-
sentative, 302; decided Abernethy's
election, 303; bricks made, 303;
third judicial district, 307; no judge
in, 309; population, 1850, 313;
northern part set off as Thurston
co., 326; one district, 334; outline
history of, ii. 176.
Lewiston, ii. 33.
Libels, filed against Beaver and Mary
Dare, report of inspector, i. 347.
Library, matter of appropriations for,
i. 466.
Lienberger, A., i. 286.
Lienberger, J. H., i. 286.
Lighthouses, ordered, i. 474; com-
pleted and recommended, 523.
Lilley, T. N., i. 589.
Linpy, Chief, i. 447; his tribes, 432.
Lincoln co. (Wash.), outline history
of, ii. 179.
Lindsay, Jas., i. 601, 608.
Lindsey,
i. 258.
Lingenfelter, J. W., i. 286.
Linn, Lewis F., efforts in Congress, i.
150; provisions of bill, 150; presents
first petition from Am. settlers, in
Senate, 1838, 151; sketch of, with
Beuton's tribute, 154.
Linn co. (Or.), i. 350; outline history
of, ii. 167.
Linn co. company, i. 552.
Linnet,
i. 287.
Liquor, excluded from Indians, i. 478,
480; not to be sold to Kanakas, 513.
Liquor law, duplicate of Maine law
defeated, i. 480.
Lisa, Manuel, i. 74.
Lisle, J. N. de, astronomer, advises
Europe of discoveries in Pacific,
1750, 28; note on family of, 28.
Lisle, Samuel I., biog. of, ii. 428.
Lister, David, biog. of, ii. 428.
Little, John, i. 286.
Little, Jake, i. 608.
Littlejohn, Rev. A. B., i. 258; house
broken open and pillaged,234; Indian
detected and punished with lashes,
234.
Littlejohn, P. B., arrives with Clarke
and Smith 1840, settles in Willamette
valley, i. 219.
Livingston, Edward, i. 140.
Live stock interests, viz.: Cattle, ii.
126-28; horses, 128; sheep, 129-31;
goats, 131; hogs, 131.
Livermore, Lot, biog. of, ii, 429.
Loan commission, 1847, unsuccessful
efforts of, i. 278.
Location bill.
ment.
See Seat of govern-
Lockhart, Ella, i. 425.
Lockhart, Esther M., i. 425.
Lockhart, Freedman G., i. 425.
Lockhart, Lillias M.,
i. 425.
Logan, David, i. 347, 358, 649; ii. 4.
Logan, Capt. Wm., ii. 660; killed, 661.
Lok, Michael, inventor of Juan de
Fuca's discovery of Anian, i. 7.
Long, Lieut. A. K., i. 227.
Long, Andrew J., i. 429.
Long, Edward, biog. of, ii. 429.
Long, Jack, i. 436.
Long, Jacob, biog. of, ii. 430.
Long, Dr. John E., i. 264, 268, 273.
Long, Sylvester, i. 449.
Longtain, Andrew, i. 180.
Looking Glass, Chief, i. 483, 572; ii.
661.
Loomis,
i. 267.
Loomis, L. A., biog. of, ii. 431.
Loon, Origin of the (myth), ii. 75.
Looney, Jesse, i. 256.
Lopez Island, timber on, i. 339.
Lord, Corp. Wm. B., ii. 24.
Lord, Hon. Wm. P., biog. of, ii. 431-32.
Loring, Col. W. W., i. 376; commands
Mounted Rifle regt., i. 310.
Loriot, brig., i. 215.
Loryea, A. M., ii. 139.
Los Angeles, pueblo of, i. 30.
Lot Whitcomb, str. launched and chris-
tened, i. 320; ii. 138.
Lou-Lou fork (creek), i. 71.
Loughlin, J. H., i. 287.
Louisiana: Lewis, governor of, i. 72;
ceded by France to Spain, 1762,
boundaries, 67; retroceded, 1800, 67;
purchased by U. S., 1803, 67; extent
of, historically described, 67; limits
subject of negotiations between U.
S., Spain and Great Britain, i. 69;
claim of continuity acquired by pur-
chase, 122; opposition to purchase,
geographical and anti-slavery (Walk-
er's speech, 1848), i. 168.
Lousingnot, Johu, i. 286.
Lovejoy, Gen. Amos Lawrence, i. 196,
232, 264, 273, 275, 278, 312, 351 note,
358; biog. of, ii. 433.
Low, John, i. 430.
Low, John N., i. 338.
Lowden, Oliver, i, 286.
Lower Cascades, Phil Sheridan's ac-
count of attack on, i. 604-07.
Lower Scottsburg, i. 379.
Lownsdale, Daniel H., biog. of, ii. 434.
Lownsdale, J. P. O., biog. of, ii. 435.
Lucas, Jay P., biog. of, ii. 435.
Lucier, Etienne, i. 237; first settler on
French Prairie, 180; sketch of, 180.
Ludlum, Anthony, ships oysters to S.
F., 1850, i. 313.
Lugenbeel, Maj., locates Fort Boise,
11. 17.
Lupton, Maj., i. 434.
Lurline, str., ii. 144.
Luse, H. H., i. 431.
Lyman, Prof. Horace, biog. of, ii. 436.
Lynch, James, i. 628.
Lyon, D. J., i. 429.
Lyon, Lieut. H. B., i. 632.
Lyons, Lord, ii. 36.
Lyttle, Thos., i. 443.
MacCrimmon, J. C., biog. of, ii. 436.
MacDougal, Duncan, i. 77, 78, 79,
83-84, 85, 86, 87.
MacDougal, Jos., i. 73.
MacEldowny, Wm., interest in cattle,
ii. 126.
Mackenzie, Alexander, first white man
to cross Rocky Mts., i. 62; formation
of North West Co., 63; a partner in
charge of Fort Chipewyan, 63; first
journey to solve outlet of Great Slave
Lake, 63; follows outlet northward
to Arctic Ocean, 63; gave it his name,
63; determines impossibility of pas-
sage of sea east of Behring Strait, 64;
second journey, Oct., 1792, 64; con-
firms Cook's conclusion of extension
of continent to Behring Strait, 64;
effect to invite inland fur traders to a
new field, 64; ascends Unjigah river,
descends Tacoutche Tessee to Pacific
and returns to Fort Chipewyan, 64;
urges British capitalists to enter, 64;
proposed division of territory, 64;
describes Rocky Mts., 65; establishes
non-existence of any passage by sea,
but by rivers, 65; mistakes the Ta-
coutche Tessee for Columbia, 65; his
scheme for utilizing, 65; heralds fu-
ture policy of his co., foreshadows
British policy, and defines the lines
of British claims in Northwest, 66.
Mackenzie, Donald, i. 77, 78, 80, 81,
82, 83, 85.
Mackenzie river, followed and named,
i. 63.
Maclellan, Robt., i. 77, 80, 81.
Madison, B. J., i. 339, 340.
Magdelena Island, named by Arteaga,
i. 33; by Cook Montague's Island,
33 note.
Magek, Corporal, i. 544.
Magellan, Fernando, in Portuguese
service, entered that of Spain, sails,
1519, and Oct., 1520, enters straits,
into Pacific to Philippines, in 1521
killed on Island of Matan, i. 12.
Magone, Lieut. Jos., i. 283, 284, 285,
286.
Magruder, Theophilus, i. 301.
Mahaffey, Pierce A., biog. of, ii. 437.
Mahard, Wm., i. 343 note.
Mail routes, extended, i. 475.
Mail service, contract for, between
Panama and Or., 315; between S. F.
and Klamath river, in sailing vessels,
by steamship after June 1, 1850,
regular service, March, 1851, be-
tween S. F. and Portland, 315; de-
fective, 465.
Maine liquor law, i. 48o.
Major Tompkins, str., 481; notice of,
481 note.
Makah Indians, i. 479.
Malaspina, Alejandro, expedit'n, 1789,
to examine Maldonado's claims, i.
51; with Bustamenti, declares no
strait found, discovers mouth of
Fraser river (Rio Blanca), 51.
Maldonado, Capt., pretended voyage
of discovery of the Strait of Anian,
i. 5; Malaspina sent to verify, 51.
Malheur co. (Or.), outline history of,
ii. 172.
Malheur Reservation, ii. 29.
Mallet, Jos., biog. of, ii. 437.
Mallory, C. M., biog. of, ii. 437.
Mallory, Hon. Rufus, biog. of, ii. 438.
Maloney, Capt. Maurice, i. 537, 545,
547, 554, 548, 549, 554; expedition
towards Yakima country, 540.
Mandan Indians, Lewis and Clarke
winter with, i. 71; chief returns with
them, 73; escorted back by soldiers,
73; attacked by Indians and re-
turns, 73.
Mangum, Willie P, i. 165.
Manilla, founded by Legaspi, 1565;
becomes Spanish metropolis of East
Indies, commerce opened to Mex-
ico, i. 16.
Mankis, F. M., i. 288.
Maple, Jacob, i. 338.
682
INDEX.
Maple, Samuel, i. 338.
Maquilla, i. 48.
Maquinna (or Mazuilla), Chief, i. 41;
destroys the Boston, 55.
March, G. H., i. 288.
Marchand, Étienne, voyage, i. 51.
Marchmean, Michael, i. 586.
Marcy, Wm. L., letter to Governor
Stevens, ii. 38.
Marquam, Hon. P. A., biog. of, ii. 439.
Marias river, explored by Lewis, i. 72.
Marigold, vessel, lost in Drake's voy-
age, 1578, i. 17.
Marill, Wm., i. 288.
Marine department of San Blas or-
ganized, i. 29.
Marion co. (Or.), i. 350; altered from
Champoeg, 308; outline history of,
ii. 166.
Markham & Kellogg, i. 648.
Marple, Perry B., i. 358.
Marple, Perry G., organizes Coos Bay
Co., i. 425.
Marriage, Indian custom of (myth),
ii. 83.
Marsh,
i. 200.
Marsh, David, biog. of, ii. 440.
Marsh, Edward, i. 286.
Marsh, S. P., biog. of, ii. 440.
Marshall, Jas. W., discovers gold in
Cal., i. 300; reached Or. in 1844, goes
to Cal. in 1845, in partnership with
Jno. A. Sutter in erecting a mill on
the Coloma, gold dust found in 1848,
300.
·
Marshall, Maj. L. H., ii. 22, 26; ex-
peditions against Indians, inhuman-
ity of, 23; scouts
23; scouts Goose Creek
Mountains and defeats Indians, 24.
Martial law, i. 503; legislative dis-
approval of, 505-06; legislature re-
scinds action disapproving of Gov.
Stevens' proclamation, 514; in
Pierce co., 581; in Thornton co.,
582; martial law proclaimed, ii. 54.
Martin, Bedford L., biog. of, ii. 441.
Martin, Charlie, i. 646.
Martin, Horace, i. 287.
Martin, Marshall, i. 286.
Martin, W. J., i. 283, 408.
Martin, Capt. Wm., i. 257, 285, 376,
418, 441, 442, 443, 446, 447, 540, 578;
list of officers and men in co. of,
288; home of, ii. 159; biog. of, 441.
Martin and Barnes, i. 398.
Martinez, Estevan José, pilot, i. 31;
sent to take possession of Nootka,
with De Haro, 1789; seizes the
Iphigenia and North America, 42.
Martinez de la Rosa, Francisco, alter-
cation with Colnett; refuses him
possession of Nootka, i. 43.
Martinez. See Cape Flattery.
Mary, str., i. 599, 600; attack on, 601.
Mary Dare, ship, Capt.: W. A. Mouat,
breaks revenue laws; seized by in-
spector; special term of court called,
bond accepted, i. 347; libel filed,
forfeiture remitted, 348.
Mary Taylor, pilot boat, i. 339.
Mayre, Simon B., i. 347.
Maryland, brig, i. 221.
Mason, Allen C., biog. of, ii. 442.
Mason, Chas. H., Gov. of Cal., i.
278; app. Sec of W. T., 460; county
named for, 468; acting gov. of W.
T., 469; 514, 540, 541, 543, 580,
652; message of 1855, 495-97; issues
call for volunteers, 536; bearer of
dispatches to Washington on con-
dition of Indian affairs, 575; biog.
of, ii. 443.
Masou co. (Wash.), i. 468; outline his-
tory of, ii. 175.
Mass, first at Fort Vancover, Nov. 25,
1838; first in Willamette valley,
1.210.
Massachusetts, ship, i. 307, 311, 493,
494, 495.
Massachusetts, steamer, ii., 39, 42.
Massacre of Capt. Poland's co., i. 449.
Massey, Maj., i. 452.
Massly, E. L., i. 447.
Mastin, W. H., biog. of, ii. 443.
Matheny, Adam, i. 287.
Matheny, Dan, i. 287.
Matheny, Isaiah, i. 288.
Matheny, J. C., i. 287.
Matlock, E. L., biog. of, ii. 444.
Matlock, Edward D. K., biog. of, ii.
444.
Matlock, Thos. G., biog. of, ii. 444.
Matlock, W. T., member of Oregon
City house of reps.; elected speaker
pro tem., i. 326.
Matt, Chas. P., i. 287.
Matthews, Capt., i. 648.
Matthews, Wm. J., ii. 16.
Matzger, Wm., i. 358.
Maurelle, pilot, with Bodega, i. 32.
Maury, Col. R. F., i. 649; ii. 16, 17,
18, 21, 22.
Maxon, Maj. H. J. G., i. 287, 575, 585,
586, 587, 588.
May, J. D., i. 399.
May Dacre, ship, i. 118, 186.
Mayfield, Ira, i. 440.
Maynard, David S., i. 338.
Mazuilla. See Maquinua.
McAlister, Jas., i. 267, 343 note, 508,
541, 542.
McAllister, D. A., biog. of, ii. 444.
McAlmond, E. H., i.
i. 340.
McArthur, L. L., ii. 147.
McArthur, W. P., commands the Ew-
ing, and takes charge of Albion, i.
312.
McAuliffe, Jas., i. 538, 562.
McBean,
i. 200.
McBride, Dr. Jas., i. 382; ii. 445.
McBride, John R., i. 358, 362; ii. 31.
McCall, Lieut., ii. 18.
McCall, John Marshall, biog of, ii. 447.
McCarthy,
i. 546.
McCarthy, J. W., biog. of, ii. 448.
McCarthy, John, i. 450.
McCarthy, Rev. John, biog. of, ii. 447.
McCarver, Mrs. Julia A., biog. of, ii.
448.
McCarver, Gov. Morton Matthew, i.
264, 268, 441, 447; biog. of, ii. 448–
51.
McCaw, Lieut., i. 546.
McClellan, Gen. Geo. B., i. 461, 463;
explores Cascade Range, ii. 46.
McClelland, Alex. C., biog. of, ii. 452.
McClelland, John A., motion on terr.
bill, i. 293.
McCloud, Carson, i. 443.
McClure, Chas. M., biog. of, ii. 452.
McClure, John, i. 268, 457.
McClusky, Pat, i. 449.
McConalia, Geo. N., President of
Monticello convention, i. 348;
notice of, 464 and note.
McCord, S. B., biog. of, ii. 453.
McCorkle, Capt., i. 545.
McCormick, Sam J., i. 358.
McCoy, John, i. 287.
McCoy, Thos. K., biog. of, ii. 453.
McCracken, Col. John, ii. 2.
McCrossen, i. 626.
McCue, Daniel, i. 432.
McCue, Felix, i. 449.
McCullough, Pat, i. 449.
McCully, Madison, i. 287.
McCumber, D. M., i. 287.
McCune,
i. 391.
McCurdy, Dr. J. C., i. 412.
McCurdy, Jas., biog. of, ii. 454.
McCurdy, Dr. Samuel M., biog. of,
ii. 453.
McDaniel, E. P.
McDaniel.
See Cowles and
McDermit, Chas., commands supply
train to immigrants, and narrow
escape, i. 404.
McDonald, - ii. 57.
McDonald, Mrs. and child drowned,
i. 641.
McDonald, Alexander, i. 280, 286.
McDonald, Archibald, i. 194, 514.
McDonald, B. F., i. 343 note.
McDonald, E., i. 287.
McDonald, H., biog. of, ii. 454.
McDonald, Joshua, i. 287.
McDonald, N. G., i. 288.
McDonald, Wm. H., biog. of, ii. 455
McDonnell, N. G., i. 287.
McDowell, Gen. Irwin, in command
of Dept. of Pacific, ii. 21; visit of
inspection, 21.
McDowell, Tom, 1. 602.
McDuffie, Geo., i. 165.
McElroy, Prof. E. B., ii. 147; biog. of,
ii. 455.
McElroy, Thornton F., i. 348.
McEwan, Robt. S, interest in sheep,
ii. 130.
McEwen, Duncan, i. 343 note.
McFadden, Obadiah B., Judge, i. 423,
460, 468, assoc.-justice of Or., 350;
supplants Justice Deady one term,
350 note; transferred to Wash. Terr.,
350 note; appointed in place of
Deady, 427; removed and appointed
district judge of Wash. Ter., 1854,
427; appointed chief justice, 514; ii.
55.
McFarland, Frank, biog. of, ii. 456.
McFarland, Homer, biog. of, ii. 457.
McFeely, Lieut., i. 533.
McGill, Henry M., ii. 45.
4
McGilvery, Napoleon, biog. of, ii. 457.
McGlynn, Hon. John, biog. of, ii. 457.
McGraw, John H., sheriff, ii. 53.
McGuire, Francis, biog. of, ii. 458.
McHenrie, Capt., ii. 45.
McKay,
i. 649.
McKay, Lieut., ii. 27.
McKay, Alex., i. 77, 78, 86, 232, 287,
436.
McKay, Chas., i. 237, 287, 288.
McKay, Donald, ii. 18.
McKay, John, i. 232.
McKay, Capt. Thos., i. 198, 280, 282;
list of officers and men in co. of, 287.
McKay, Wm., i. 287.
McKay, Wm. C., leader of scouts, ii. 26;
home of, 159; biog. of, 459-62.
McKee, Joel, i. 286.
McKeever, Lieut., i. 547.
McKenzie, Daniel G., biog. of, ii. 462.
McKinlay, Archibald, i.
1. 195, 196,
198, 199; notice of services, 179; chief
trader of H. B. Co., and the cattle
contract, 257-60.
McKinley, Allen, ii. 138.
McLane, John Birch, biog. of, ii. 451.
McLane, Louis, Minister to England,
i. 161; joint resolution correspond-
ence, 161; ii. 34.
McLaughlin, Joseph, i. 233.
McLellan, vessel, i. 390.
McLeod, Jno., i. 580; with Framboise
establishes Fort Umpqua, 1832, 107.
INDEX.
683
McLoughlin, Dr. John, i. 114, 115, 170,
181, 193, 195, 198, 217, 225, 266, 270,
310; establishes Ft. Vancouver, 1824,
106; his humanity shown, 116; pur-
chases Fort Hall, 1837, 118; in charge
of H. B. Co., removes headquarters
from Fort George to Fort Vancouver,
174; Indian name for him,
"Bald
Eagle," 174; eulogium of, by Hon.
Jesse Applegate (note) in letter to
Mrs. Victor, 174-76; associated with
Ogden and Douglas, 176; gives £100
to Catholic Mission, 211; remarks on
Slacum's visit, 215; chronicless ar-
rival of Dr. White, 233; charges
against, in petition of 1843, 242-45;
answer to same, 246–7; his version of
Cal. Cattle Co., 247; resigns from H.
B. Co., and declares intention to be-
come an Am. citizen, May 30, 1849,
255; congratulated by executive com.
(letter of Russell and Stewart in note)
on his dealing with a disregard of
treaty obligatious by citizens of U.
S., 266; answer to charges of Lieuts.
Warre and Vavasour, 270-71; interest
in cattle, ii. 126; home of, 165; biog.
of, ii. 462-64.
McManus, O., i. 602.
McMillen, Capt. J. H., i. 286; sergeant
in Or. rifles, 286; statement in Ore-
gonian, 286; ii. 165; biog. of, 464–65.
McMillen, Mrs. Tirzalı B., biog. of ii.
466.
McMillen, Wm., i. 288.
McMinnville (Or.), sketch of, ii. 157.
McMullin, Fayette, divorce bill of, i.
514; appointed governor, 512; mes-
sage to legislature, 513; ii. 54.
McNamara, Michael, biog. of, ii. 466.
McNeil, Capt., i. 227; heartless treat-
ment of Howe, agent for relief of
Georgianna sufferers, 344.
McNiel, Robt., i. 75.
McNulty, Capt., ii. 102.
McTavish, Duncan, i. 390, 398.
McTavish, Johu Geo., i. 82, 83.
McVay, A. J., i. 425.
McVay, Jos. H., i. 425.
McWilliams, Robt. J., biog. of, ii. 466.
Meacham, A. B., Supt. Indian Affairs,
i. 650, 651, 652; ii. 29.
Meadows, i. 373.
Means, Harvey C., biog. of, ii. 466.
Meara, Sgt., ii. 28.
Meares, Captain John, commands ship
Nootka for East India Co., i. 40;
sails 1786, with Tipping in Sea Otter,
40; wintered in Prince William's
Sound, 40; returned to China, 1787,
40; commands Felice for British mer-
chants under name of Juan Cavallo,
Portuguese; with Capt. Douglas in
Iphigenia, 40; papers made out in
Portuguese, 40; national liability of
the voyage, 40; Portuguese voyage
under Portuguese flag to avoid Chi-
nese port duties, 40; no claim to
British nationality, 40; Meares' in-
structions, 40; reiterates them to
Capt. Douglas, 41; force to be used,
41; the voyage, 41; arrives in Nootka
Sound, and receives from Maquinna
a grant of ground for a house in re-
turn for pair of pistols, 41; house
completed, and schooner Northwest
America begun, 41; all promised to
Maquinna on his departure, 41; first
settlement south of Russian settle-
ments, 41; acts assumed as of British
subjects by British govt., 41; initial
of British claims, 41; arrival of the
Iphigenia, 41; furs placed in Felice;
sails for Macao, 41; returns on in-
formation of Berkley's discovery of
strait, 49; examines strait, 49; de-
scription of, 50; vain search for He-
ceta's Rio de San Roque, 50; affirms
there can be no river there, 50; sails
south to 45° north, thence to Nootka,
50.
Medicine Creek Treaty, i. 477.
Medicine-man, forfeit of, i. 205.
Mediterranean of the Northwest, i. 52.
Medway, Wm., i. 288.
Meek, Jos. L., i. 217, 219, 220, 234, 238,
281, 609; takes census 1845, 267;
special messenger to Washington,
278; special messenger to Congress,
bearer of legislative prayer, appeals
for protection of American settlers
in Oregon, 289; first U. S. marshal,
303, 314; ii. 156; biog. of, 466.
Meek, Stephen H., misleads immi-
grant party, 1845; i. 272.
Meigs, C. R., i. 358.
Meigs, Geo. A., i. 342 note.
Mel-kap-si, Chief, i. 636.
Melawers, Wm., i. 288.
Melville, David, i. 470.
Memorial to Congress, 1847, i. 275.
Memorial to Congress, 1845; novel
episode connected therewith, i. 268.
Mendell, Lieut. Geo. H., i. 593, 644.
Mendocino, Cape, named by Ferrelo,
1543, in honor of Mendoza, shown
by Prof. Davidson in note to have
been Punta de los Reyes, i. 15.
Mendoza, Diego Hurtado de, com-
mands expedition for Cortez from
Tehuantepec, reaches latitude 27°
north, returns on account of mutiny,
wrecked and killed, i. 13.
Mendoza, Antonia de, supplants Cor-
tez as viceroy of New Spain, sends
Niza to explore interior, he reported
fabulous cities, expeditious organ-
ized, land and naval, to verify,
Cibola found by Coronado, sends two
vessels north to Cal. under Cabrillo
with Ferrelo as pilot, ‘i. 14; satisfied
no rich cities in interior and no strait
from Atlantic to Pacific, 15.
Mercer, Elias D., i. 452.
Mercer, Thos., biog. of, ii. 467.
Merchantman, schr., i. 320.
Merriam, Dr. C. K., biog. of, ii. 467–68.
Merrick, Wm. D., i. 154.
Merritt, Oppenheimer & Co., i. 390,
398.
Metcalfe, R. B., Indian Agent 1856, i.
422, 448.
Metcalfe, Robt., i. 417.
Methodist Mission. See Oregon Meth-
odist Mission.
Methodist Union (Wash.), ii. 149.
Mexicano, schr., i. 51.
Mexico, known as New Spain, i. 15;
expedition extended to, 112.
Michael river, i. 579, 580.
Michaux, Andri, accept service in
Northwest exploration, but is re-
called by French minister, i. 70.
Micon, Wm. D., i. 628.
Middle Scottsburg, i. 379.
Middleton,
i. 128.
Minister to Russia,
Mikibbin, Lieut. David B., i. 592, 593.
Milborn, Wm., i. 286.
Miles, Henry, i. 480.
Miles, Jos., i. 541.
Miles, Gen. N. A., ii. 661; Chief Jo-
seph surrenders to, 661.
Military commission, trial by, i. 583.
Military Dept. of Pacific, division of,
ii. 4; 16, note.
Military districts, ii. 21.
Military post at Vancouver, 335; claimı
to, 335 note.
Military posts in territory, 1885, i. 527.
Military posts, authorization for, ii. 17.
Military roads,appropriation for, i. 332.
Militia, act to organize, 1856, reorgan-
ization of, i. 447.
Mill creek, i. 586.
Millard, M. B, i. 575.
Miller, Mr. (Jacksonville), i. 410.
Miller, Capt., i. 567, 570, 585, 586, 587.
Miller, Alfred, i. 338.
Miller, Capt. Bluford, i. 575, 582.
Miller, Cincinnatus H. (Joaquin), ii.
18.
Miller, Enoch, i. 440.
Miller, Henry, i. 651, 652.
Miller, Isaac, i. 429, 561, 564.
Miller, Rev. J. W., i. 439.
Miller, Jacob W., i. 165, 440.
Miller, Joaquin. See Miller, C. H.
Miller, John, i. 287.
Miller, John F., i. 408, 412, 414, 416,
418, 652; commands volunteers, 411;
surprises camp of Modocs, 421; ap-
pointed quartermaster-general, re-
signs, candidate for legislature, 441;
commissary, 538; ii. 30.
Miller, Joseph, i. 80, 81.
Miller, R. E., i. 429.
Miller, Richard, i. 285, 358.
Miller, Wm. W., i. 574; surveyor of
port of Nisqually, 343.
Milligan, John, i. 443.
Millikin, Elijah, i. 258.
Mills, Z. C., biog. of, ii. 469.
Mills, Jas., i. 432.
Milwaukee, rival of Portland, i. 308.
Mineral resources, coal, ii. 134; iron,
135; other minerals, 135-37.
Minerva, vessel, i. 379, 390.
Mines on Scott river and Yreka, i. 381.
Mines at Coos Bay fail, i. 428.
Minto, John, biog. of, ii. 469–71.
Mints, John, enumerates the uses of
sheep, ii. 130.
Missions, of Jesuits in Cal., i. 27; of
Franciscans, 30; description of, 30.
See Oregon Methodist Mission, Ore-
gon Mission, Roman Cath. Mission.
Mississippi river, i. 46, 59; discovered
by Soto 1539, examined by La Salle,
1680-83, 67; florid description of,
d'Iberville enters, Bienville, 68;
western boundary of British colonial
possessions and eastern boundary of
Spanish possessions, 69.
Missouri Fur Co. establishes trading
posts, 1809-10, i. 74; baffles Hunt's
efforts in St. Louis to secure men,
continues persecutions up the Mis-
souri river, 80.
Missouri river traced to its source by
Verendrye in 1743, 58, 59; explored
by Lewis and Clarke, 71; Hunt's
party ascends 450 miles, 80; Lieut.
Donelson's exploration of, 462.
Mitchell, Frank, biog. of, ii. 471.
Mitchell, Jas. C., i. 139.
Mitchell, John, i. 628.
Mitchell, John H., ii. 31; biog. of, ii.
471-73.
Mitchell, Matthias W., biog. of, ii. 473.
Modeste, ship, i. 266, 272, 273.
Modoc Indians, i. 373; murderous at-
tack on pack-train, 404; Ben Wright's
revenge on, 405; surprised by Mil-
ler's co., 421; depredations of, 641;
council with, 649.
684
INDEX.
Modoc war, Treaty of 1864 key to,
i. 649; causes and details of, 630-53.
Moffat, i. 608.
Mohr, Paul F., biog. of, ii. 473.
Molalla Indians, i. 285, 286.
Moluccas, or Spice Islands, westward
route to sought by Spain, i. 12.
Moncacht-Ape (Indian), adventures in
Rocky Mountains, i. 58; truthfulness
of, 58.
Mondon, Gilbert, i. 286.
Monroe, Jas., President, i. 123; invites
attention of Cong. to Oregon, 1824,
137.
Monroe, Victor, i. 460, 466, 468.
Montana, west part included in Oregon
bill, i. 299; setting off of, ii. 33.
Monteith, Indian agent, ii. 659.
Monterey, presidio established at, 1770,
i. 30.
Monterey Bay discovered by Cabrillo,
1542, 1. 15.
Montgomery (Wash.), i. 646.
Monticello, division convention at,
1852, i. 348.
Montiznie, Narcisse, i. 287.
Montour, Geo., i. 287.
Montour, Louis, i. 287.
Montreal, chief point of shipment of
furs, i. 62.
Montreville, Henry, i. 628.
Moody, L. T., i. 323.
Moody, Hon. Zenas F., ii. 30; biog. of,
474-76.
Moore, E., i. 427.
Moore, F., ii. 54.
Moore, Geo., i. 286, 335, 343 note.
Moore, Lieut. Jas., i. 450.
Moore, Hon. Miles C., ii. 54; biog. of,
476.
Moore, Robt., i. 219, 238, 241.
Moore, Robt. S., i. 547.
Moore, Samuel, i. 641.
Moore, W. A., i. 437.
Moores, I. R., i. 358; ii. 138, 139.
Moores, J. H., biog. of, ii. 478–79.
Moorhouse, Lee, biog. of, ii. 479.
Moran, Robt., biog. of, ii. 476.
Morehead, Jas. T.. i. 165.
Moreland, Rev. Jesse, biog. of, ii. 477.
Morelock, Edward B., biog. of, ii. 478.
Morgan, Capt. Henry E., i. 390, 632;
with Woodbury, established first
store in Southern Oregon, 379; biog.
of, ii. 480.
Morgan, Hon. Hiram D., biog. of, ii.
480.
Morgan, Isaac, i. 287.
Morgan, J. W., i. 286.
Morlan, M. J., biog. of, ii. 481.
Morris, B., i, 412.
Morris, Jas. M., i. 287.
Morrison,
}
i. 339; locates at Bel-
lingham Bay, 340.
Morrison, Capt., i. 266.
Morrison, Lieut., i. 547.
Morrison, Robt. Wilson, biog. of, ii.
481.
Morrow, J. L., name given to county,
ii. 169.
Morrow, Hon. J. L., biog. of, ii. 482.
Morrow co. (Or.), outline history of,
ii. 169.
Morse, Capt., killed at launch of Lot
Whitcomb, i. 320.
to
Morse, Olney N., biog of, ii. 483.
Mosely, Henry C., i. 460 note, 491.
Moses, Chief, biog. of, ii. 484; his
demonstration, 661-62; goes
Washington City, 662; with his peo-
ple goes upon Columbia Reserva-
tion, 662.
Moses, A. Benton, i. 339, 541.
Moses, Simpson P., collector, i. 343,
345; admitted as attorney, 347;
reads declaration, 1852, 348.
Mosher, Capt. L. F., i. 417, 418, 427,
442, 443; history of Southern Ore-
gon contributed by, 311
note;
appointed registrar, 431; author of
portion of work on Southern Oregon,
493 note; biog. of, ii. 484.
Moss, Sidney Walter, biog. of, ii. 485.
Mouat, Capt. Wm. A., i. 347.
Mt. Adams, height of, ii. 97.
Mt. Baker, height of, ii. 97.
Mt. Edgecombe, discovered and named
by Heceta, San Jacinto, i. 32.
Mt. Hood, height of, ii. 97.
Mt. Pitt, i. 369; height of, ii. 97.
Mt. Ranier (Tacoma), height of, ii. 97;
description of and derivation of
name, 153.
Mt. St. Helens, height of, ii. 97.
Mt. San Jacinto. See Mt. Edge-
combe.
Mt. Scott, height of, ii. 97.
Mt. Thielson, i. 369; height of, ii. 97.
Mountain Buck, boat, ii. 15.
Mountain Herald, i. 427.
Mountain House, i. 396.
Mountain Queen, boat, shoots Cas-
cades, ii. 102.
Mountain Rifle Regiment, act for, 1846;
raised, 1847; ordered to Mexico; to
Oregon; established Fort Laramie
and Cantonment Loring; in Oregon
City till 1850, i. 310; deserters to
California mines, 310; reach Fort
Vancouver over Applegate route,
376; 300 desert for California gold
fields, 376; pursued by party volun-
teers under Lane, 376; overtaken by
storm, 376; rescued in starving con-
dition, 377; human food and dog's
nose, 377.
Mourning customs of Indians, ii. 91.
Mowry, Sylvester, i. 461.
Moxee Company, The (irrigating) Ya-
kima valley (Wash.), sketch of, ii.
Moxon, Capt., i. 282, 579, 580, 581.
Moy, Victor Chas. de, i. 628.
Muckleshoot Prairie, i. 577, 578, 591.
Mulkey, Lieut. Cy., i. 439.
Mulkey, Johnson, biog. of, ii. 485.
Mulkey, Marion Francis, biog. of, ii.
486.
Mulkey, Sam, i. 377.
Mullan, Lieut. Juo., i. 462, 631, 632,
634.
Müller,
account of Schestakow's
expedition, i. 23.
Mulligan, Samuel, i. 531, 532.
Multnomah, sloop, sent to Ft. George
to trade, i. 116.
Multnomah Company, i. 537.
Multnomah co. (Or.), outline history
of, ii. 165.
Munger, Asahel and wife, i. 219.
Munkers, F. M., i. 288.
Munks, Wm., biog. of, 487.
Munson, G., ii. 10, 11, 12, 13.
Munson, Capt. Lyman B., 538, 556,
559, 561, 564.
>
Murder, Indian laws relating to, ii. 85.
Murdock,
ii. 9, 13.
Murphy, Fletcher, i. 608.
Murphy, Geo., biog. of, ii. 487.
Murphy, Bill, i. 604.
Murray, David, biog. of, ii. 487.
Murray's grammar repeated verbatim
by Indian scholar in school at Van-
couver, 1833, i. 118.
Myers, Carrie, ii. 13.
Myers, Eugenie, ii. 12.
Myers, H. A., biog. of, ii. 488.
Myers, Harriet, ii. 12.
Myers, Isabella, ii. 12.
Myers, Jno. W., ii. 13.
Myers, Jos., ii. 10, 11, 12, 13.
Myers, Margaret, ii. 12.
Myers, Mrs. Mary E., ii. 10, 12, 13.
Myers, Lieut. W. H. H., i. 538.
Mynatt, Stephen, i. 437, 439.
Myths, customs, etc. of Indians, to wit,
Amash the owl, slain by Coyote, ii.
66; animal gods, ancient, 63; Castil-
tah, the crawfish or lobster god, 75;
Coyote and Eagle attempt to bring
the dead back from spirit land, So;
Coyote destroys the power of a water-
god, 65; Coyote outwits the beaver
women, and supplies the people with
salmon, 68; Coyote's ride on the star
(Coyote's fall), 79; dances, 82; doc-
tors, 86; Eenumtla (or thunder), 67;
fire, origin of, 73; frog and the moon,
70; gods, ancient animal, 63; gods,
special care of, over each tribe, 77;
isle of the dead, 81; lake (mountain)
myths, 71; loon, origin of, 75; mar-
riage, 83; mourning customs, 91;
murder, laws relating to, 85; nam-
ing of children, 84; owl, see Amash;
rabbit myths, 70; rehabiliment of the
dead, 93; rock myths, 68; sick, treat-
ment of, So; soul and future state,
94; Speelyai (Coyote), the great god,
64; Speelyai and his wonderful dog,
65; Speelyai fights Eenumtla, 67;
Speelyai's ascent to heaven, 79;
spiritualism, 90; tamanowash, or
spirit power, 86; tick, legend of the,
69; tribes, origin of the, 62; Tum-
water luminous stone god, 76; Wak-
a-poosh, the rattlesnake, 76; water
nymphs, 75; Wawa, the mosquito
god, 74; wind brothers, contest be-
tween Chinook and cold, 77; won-
der fireman of the Cascades, 76.
Nahchess Pass, i. 585; immigration
through in 1853, 340; citizens'
road built through, 341; adopted
for military route, 342.
Naming of children, Indian custom
of, ii. 84.
Narwaz, José, i. 51.
{
Nass, killed by Indians, i. 651.
Nassau, schr., i. 406.
Naudowessies Indians, i. 59.
Naught, F. M., biog. of, ii. 488.
Naylor, G., i. 258.
Neah Bay, i. 51, 345.
Neah Bay Treaty, i. 479.
Neal, Lt. Orlando, i. 533.
Neely, David A., biog. of, ii. 489-91.
Negro servant, captured by Indians,
i. 377.
Nelson, Thos., Justice, i. 324; arrives
Apr., 1851, with Oregon party,"
323; denounced, 325; assigned to
second district, 331; succeeded by
Williams, 350.
Nelson, Chief, i. 585, 612, 615, 616,
618.
Nesmith, Col. Jas. Willis, i. 256, 268,
270, 276, 277, 278, 375, 417, 418,
523, 537, 538; humorous character-
ization of Frémont in speech in
Cong., i. 260; U. S. marshal, 351
note; commands co. of volunteers,
412; appointed supt. of Indian
affairs of consolidated district, 514
note; rank compared with that of
Rains, 539; letter to Gov. Curry on
Rains' refusal of arms, 551; corre-
INDEX.
685
spondence with Rains, 552-53;
moves into Yakima country, 554;
account of operations, 554; applied
to for military aid, 556; asks aid
from Gen. Wool at Vancouver for
Maj. Chinn, 556; correspondence
with Rains, 557; aid declined by
Gen. Wool, 558; address to gover-
nor on condition of troops, 559;
sketch of, ii. 3 note; elected senator,
4; senator, 30; representative, 31;
home of, 157; biog. of, 491–93.
New Albion, name given by Drake to
California, i. 17; Cook ordered to
reach, 34; England shows int. in, 35.
New Dungeness, i. 52; settlement of,
340.
New France, i. 58.
New Market (Tumwater), i. 303.
New Mexico, included in "Omnibus
bill," i. 57; stricken out, 58.
New Spain, Cortez appointed captain-
general of, i. 13; Mexico known as,
15; coast of, made by Gali, 37° 30′,
claimed by Valdez to be 57° 3′, 16.
New territory projected of Northern
Cal. and Southern Or., i. 427.
New York, headquarters of No. Am.
Fur Co., i. 112.
New York code, followed, i. 467.
Newby, W. T., ii. 138; founds
McMinnville, 166.
Newcomb, Daniel, i. 358.
Newell, Dr. Robt., i. 217, 219, 234,
237, 238, 279, 264, 273, 541, 549, 550;
brings first wagons from Fort Hall
to Fort Walla Walla, 220; practica-
bility of wagon road, and account
of trial, 220; Indian agent, 307;
leaves for Cal. mines, 309; biog. of,
ii. 493.
Newell, Dr. Robt. T., ii. 156.
Newell, Wm. A., ii. 54.
Newes, Matthew, biog. of, ii. 491.
Newfoundland, discovered by Corte-
real, 1463, i. I.
Newhard, S. F.. biog. of, ii. 493.
Newman, John M., biog. of, ii. 494.
Newman, W. B. D., biog. of, ii. 494.
Newspapers, i. 273, 319; on which
Gov. Curry had been engaged, 352
note.
Nez Perce Chief, boat, shoots Cascades,
ii. 102.
Nez Perce co. (Idaho), outline history
of, ii. 182.
Nez Perce Indians, i 173, 194, 279, 281,
283, 284, 545, 550, 586; commission-
.ers to treat with, 481; council at
Walla Walla, 482; provisions of
treaty with, 487; Stevens holds con-
ference with, 572; furnish him with
escort, 573; Col. Wright negotiates
treaty with, 630.
Nez Perce Treaty of June 11, 1855, ii.
: 659.
Nez Perce Treaty of June 9, 1863, ii.
659.
Nez Perce war, history of, ii. 659–61.
Nicaragua Lake discovered, 1522, i. 11.
Nichols, B. F., i. 288.
Nichols, Henry B., i. 358.
Nichols, I. B., i. 386, 411, 414, 443;
account of surprise by Indians, 381.
Nikell, Chas., biog. of, ii. 495.
Niles, John M., i. 165.
Niles' Weekly Register, quotation
from, i. 75.
Nino, Andres, discovers Gulf of Fron-
seca, and enters Gulf of Tehuante-
pec, i. II.
Ninth Infantry, i. 590–93.
Nisqually, land at claimed by Puget
Sd. Agricultural Co., i. 109; Sir Geo.
Simpson's description of, 229; port
of entry, 311.
Nisqually Claim, i. 303.
Nisqually Ferry Guards, i. 545, 575.
Nisqually Indians, i. 477.
Noble, Lieut., ii. 19, 22.
Noble, Curtis, i. 425.
Noble, Geo. N., i. 468.
Noble, Jno. F., i. 532.
Nobili, Rev., i. 212.
Nodowa river, i. 80.
Nolan, mate, i. 644.
Nolan, Rhodes, i. 393; killed by Indi-
ans, 410.
Noland, Capt. Pleasant Calvin, biog.
of, ii. 495.
Noland, W. R., i. 286, 446, 452, 457.
Nootka, ship, i. 40.
Nootka Sound, called by Perez Port
Lorenzo, i. 31; Cook reaches, 35;
resorted to by fur traders, 1785, 39;
object of strife between Russians and
Spaniards, 42; explorations adjacent
to, 49; visited by twenty-eight ves-
sels in 1791, 51; Spanish navigators
in, 50-51.
Nootka Treaty (or convention of the
Escurial) trouble with Spain on N.
W. coast, 1785, i. 39; Nootka port
for vessels, 39; South Sea Co. license,
39; British East India Co. license,
39; King George's Sound Co., 39;
fits out Portlock & Dixon's expedi-
tion, 1785, 39; Meares & Tipping,
under East India Co., 1786, 40; Brit-
ish cruise under name of Juan
Cavalho, Portuguese, to avoid Chi-
nese port charges, 40; Meares voyage
under Portuguese flag, 40; Douglas
in Iphegenia, 40; instructions, 41, set-
tles Nootka, 41; builds ship North-
west America, 41; acts of Meares
and associates assumed by British
government as of British subjects,
41 (see Meares); Spain uneasy at oc-
cupation of Nootka, 42; dispatches
Martinez and De Haro to occupy as
Spanish territory, 42; reach Nootka,
May, 1779, seize Iphegenia and
Northwest America in port, 42;
Cavalho bankrupt, 42; merchant pro-
prietors combine with King George's
Sound Co. and send expedition un-
der Colnett, 42; refused possession
of Nootka by Martinez, 43; arrest
ordered, vessel seized, 43; Spain
complains of encroachm't, 43; Eng-
land demands reparation, 43; Spain's
statement, 43; negotiations com-
menced, Fitzherbert's claim, Blan-
ca's reply, 44; Spain's terms of pro-
vision, 45; proposition to refer to
Emperor declined by Great Britain,
45; Great Britain claims no right of
territory, Spain appeals to France
in vain, 45; negotiations ended, Oct.
28, in Nootka Treaty, 45; terms of
treaty, 46; Balsham's comments on,
46; Vancouver, commissioner to
receive prop. of, Art. 1, 46; negotia-
tions with Quadra, Spain's commis-
sion fruitless, 46, 47; future meeting
in Mexico arranged, 47; restoration
of the British possessions effected
March 28, 1795, 47; Belsham's view
of it, 48; war declared by Spain,
1796, 48; rights acquired by treaty
never availed of, 48; principles set-
tled by, 126; Calhoun's reply to
Pakenham, 146.
Norfolk harbor, resorted to by fur trad-
ers, i. 39; named by Heceta Port
Guadalupe, 33.
Norris Shubrick Co., i. 537, 538.
North Am. Fur Co., headquarters in
N. Y., i. 112; dispatches parties west
of Rocky Mts., 115.
North Pacific Coal Co., Roslyn (Wash.),
sketch of, ii. 652–53.
North Pacific, Russian and Siberian
voyages in, i. 20-26; carrying trade
restricted to American vessels, 55.
Northwest American, ship, i. 41, 42, 43,
48, 49.
Northwest coast, conflicting claims of
Russia, Spain, Great Britain and U.
S. to, 120-22.
Northwest Co., established, object aud
growth, i. 63, 73; no trading-posts
south of 52° north, 76; intrigues of
against Pacific Fur Co., 77; baffle
Hunt's efforts in Montreal to secure
men, 80; McDougal's conduct in
obedience to interest of, 87; con-
tinues trade with Indians, under
treaty of 1818, 88; Mackenzie's voy-
age in interest of, 89; Harmon's voy-
age for them, 89; Fraser's, 89; fail-
ure of Astor's enterprise leaves it
exclusive occupancy of the Colum-
bia, 89; extent of the territory, 89;
wielded powerful influence, 89; his-
tory and policy of co., 90; organized
in 1784, 90; rival of H. B. Čo., 90;
assimilates the interests of the old
North West Co., 91; condition of em-
ployés, 91; competition with H. B.
Co., and comparison of the merits of
the two companies, 91; Selkirk grant,
91; provokes hostility to, 92; defeat
his plans, 92; competition continues,
93; charter to H. B. Co., 93; they
acquire all rights of North West Co.,
94; transfers Fort Okanagan to H. B.
Co., 106.
Northwest passage, for centuries the
desideratum, i. 4; after Vizcaino's ex-
pedition ceased to be sought as pro-
motion of Pacific commerce, 19;
theory of dispelled by Cook's voy-
age, 38.
Northcraft, Wm. S., killed by Indians,
i. 577.
Northern Battalion, i. 439; reorganiza-
tion of, 447.
Northern boundary line, i. 474.
Northern Indians become troublesome,
i. 493; Wartwort receives their sur-
render at Port Gamble, 495.
Northern Pacific R. R. exploration,
purpose and instructions, i. 461;
western division under McClellan,
officers and associates, 461; eastern
division under Stevens, officers and
associates, 462; itinerary and work
of, 462-63; appropriations recom-
mended to continue, 465; act incor-
porating, and route, 509; origin, pro-
gress and completion, ii. 45-49; ac-
count of, 140.
Northrup, Capt., i. 85.
Northrup, P. G., i. 286.
Northrup & Symonds, i. 428, 642.
Norton, Capt. Z. C., biog, of, i. 496–97.
Norval, Hon. Jno. W., biog. of, ii. 497.
Notice of Joint Resolution, full text
of, i. 160; acceptance of same, 161.
Notre Dame de Namur, Sisters of, i.
212.
Nugen, Lieut., i. 541.
Nuttall, Dr., accompanies Wyeth, i.
118.
686
INDEX.
·
Nye, Chauncey, i. 408.
Nymphs, water (myth), ii. 75.
Oak harbor, i. 342; located by Lans-
dale, 337; other settlers, 337.
Oak Point, claims of settlement of, i.
75; location of, 336.
Oak Point river, i. 336.
Oath of office, amended, 1844, i. 265.
Oatman, Harrison B., i. 433; biog. of,
ii. 498.
Oblat missionaries at St. Joseph, i. 302.
O'Brien, John, i. 449.
O'Bryant, Lieut. Hugh D., i. 286, 362.
O'Cain, ship, i. 74.
Odeneal, T. B., i. 651.
Officer, Jos., i. 287, 288.
Ogden, Cornelius A., U. S. commis-
sioner, i. 311.
Ogden, Peter Skeen, i. 277, 312; estab-
lishes Fort Walla Walla. 1818, 106;
takes possession of Cape Disappoint-
ment as military occupancy of mouth
of Columbia river, 1848, 107 note;
sketch of, 176; goes to Walla Walla
on news of Whitman's murder, 201;
calls council of chiefs of Cayuse
nation, protracted council, 201; his
address, 201; chiefs' replies, 202;
success of his mission, captives re-
turned and ransom paid, 203; names
of captives ransomed, 203; Aber-
nethy's tribute to services of, 203;
brings in Waiilatpu captives, 279;
a friend in need ", 279.
Ogle,
i. 641.
Okanagan, boat, wrecked in attempt
to shoot Cascades, ii. 102.
Okanagan co. (Wash.), outline history
of, ii. 178.
killed by Modoc Indians,
Okanagan river, description of, ii. 100.
Old Chief Joseph, i. 483; ii. 659.
Olds, W., i. 358.
Oliver, Hiram W., biog. of, ii, 498.
Oliver, L. W.,
i. 449.
Oliver, Turner, biog. of, ii. 498.
Olney,
i. 449.
Olney, Cyrus, i. 358.
Olney, Nathan, i. 286, 533, 551, 560,
562, 563; apprises Gov. Curry of hos-
tilities, 535; account of killing of
Peu-peu-mox-mox, 564; ii. 18.
O'Loughlin, Jas., biog. of, ii. 499.
Olympia, i. 302; name given to Smith-
field claim by Sylvester, 1850, 312;
head of Sound called, 334; first cel-
ebration of Independence day at,
348; seat of government, 463, 480;
Chinese troubles at, ii. 54; terminus
of N. P. R. R., 48; description of,
155.
Olympia & Chehalis Valley R. R., ii.
143.
Olympia Treaty, i. 479 note.
Olympian, steamer, ii. 141,
Omnibus bill. See seat of government.
One-eyed Jim. See Barncho.
One-horse council, i. 326-27, 444.
O'Neal, Capt., i. 449.
Oneida co. (Idaho), outline history of,
ii. 183.
O'Neil, James A., i. 182, 233, 237, 238,
241.
Oneonta, steamer, shoots Cascades, ii.
I02.
Ontario, sloop, i. 123.
Orbit, brig, first Am. vessel from Puget
Sound, i. 335.
Orchard, John, i. 287.
Orchilla, vessel, i. 390.
Ord, Capt. E. O. C., i. 448, 453, 454,
455, 545, 632, 633.
Oregon, origin of name uncertain, i.
58; first used by Carver, 58; extracts,
59; "Great river of the West," 59;
his claims, 59-60; name applied to
the Columbia, 60; came to refer to
whole country, 61; Indian origin not
tenable, 61; Spanish claim to, 61;
Haygart claims from Spanish ore-
jou, "big ear, a peculiarity of na-
tives, 61; its improbability, 62; will
always remain an enigma, 62; appli-
cation of name changed from river
to country, 62; North West Co., 62-
63; Mackenzie's expedition, 63-65;
Louisiana purchase, 67-69; Lewis &
Clarke, 70-72; trading-posts west of
the Rocky Mountains, 73-74; Mis-
souri Fur Co., 74; commercial enter-
prise of U. S. citizens, 74; Winship's
trading expedition, 74-75; Astor's
Pacific Fur Co., and trouble with
North West Co., 76-77; founding of
Astoria, 78; loss of Tonquin, 78–79;
launch of the Dolly, first U. S. ves-
sel built on Pacific coast, 80; Pacific
Fur Co., 81; transfer of Astor's stock
to North West Co., 83; British ship
captures Astoria, 85; changes name
to Fort George, 85; end of Pacific
Fur Co., 87; restoration of Astoria
under Treaty of Ghent, 87; North
West Co. exclusive occupants of ter-
ritory west of Rocky Mountains, 89;
history of policy of co., 90; hostility
against H. B. Co., 90-91; Selkirk
grant, 91-92; H. B. Co's license of
exclusive trade, 93; succeeds to all
rights of North West Co., 94; fur-
trading partnership assumes a polit-
ical mission to occupy territory and
enforce British laws, 94; H. B. Co.
exclusive occupants, 95; charter of,
95-97; license of trade, 95; internal
organization of, 96-97; employés and
their distribution, 97-98; feudalism
of the system, 98; new license 1838,
99; system of trade, 100-02; politi-
cal mission of the co. to strengthen
British claims, 103-05; its establish-
ments, 105-07; Puget Sound Agri-
cultural Co., 108; its claim and prop-
erty, 109-10; Treaty of Limits, 110;
Am. trading enterprises west of
Rocky Mountains, III; Ashley's ex-
pedition, III; Rocky Mountain Fur
Co., 112; J. S. Smith's adventures,
112-15; trading vessels in the Colum-
bia, 115-16; Bonneville's expedition
1831, 116–17; Wyeth's second enter-
prise, 117; establishes Forts Hall and
Williams, 118; his memoir attracted
attention to Oregon, 119; conflicting
claims to Northwest coast, 120-22;
abortive attempts to settle respective
boundaries, 122-23; convention of
1818, 124; article referring to Ore-
gon, 124; Florida treaty yields up
Spanish claims, 124; John Quincy
Adams' exposition of claims in let-
ter to Rush, minister to England,
124-27; Russia limited to 54°, 40′,
127; Great Britain and U. S. only
claimants to Oregon, 128; attempt to
adjust claims of Great Britain 1828,
128; Clay's instructions to Gallatin,
128; treaty of 1827, 129; motives and
results of the joint-occupancy con-
vention, 130-33; proceedings in Con-
gress relative to sole occupancy, and
extension over it of federal jurisdic-
tion, 134-39; negotiations resumed
by Great Britain and U. S. 1831-
1844, 140-44; correspondence be-
tween Pakenham and Calhoun,
143-47; résumé of status of claim-
ants, 146-47; question becomes a
national one, 147; territory becom-
ing Americanized by influx of immi-
grants, 149; congressional and ex-
ecutive action 1835-1846, 149-69;
Jackson appoints Slacum special
agent 1835, 150; result embodied in
memorial to Congress 1837, 150;
legislation of 25th Cong. 1837-38,
150-51; Wilkes' expl. exp. 1838, 151;
struggle in sessions of 1838 and 1839,
151-52; Dr. Elijah White app. Indian
agent, 152; Wilkes surveys Colum-
bia river, 152; Frémont explores to
Columbia river, 153; emigration so-
cieties formed, 153; attempt to form
Provisional gov't attracts attention
of people, 153; great emigration
crosses plains 1842, 153; President
Tyler's reference in message Dec.,
1842, 153; attempts in session of
1842-43, 154; Tyler invokes atten-
tion of Congress 1843-44, 155; peti-
tions to Cong. for a settlement, 155;
presidential election of 1844, 156;
Oregon claim a plank of both par-
ties, 156; Clay's doctrine, 156; Tyler
reiterates previous recommendations
to Congress 1844-45, 155; bill "to
organize a territorial gov't" intro-
duced in House Dec., 1844, by Mr.
Duncan, 157; amendm't by Win-
throp excluding slavery, 157; passed
Feb., 1845, 156; bill deferred in Sen-
ate, 158; Polk's view in his inaugu-
ral, 158; negotiations between Bu-
chanan and Pakenham, 158-59; ani-
mus of President's message, 159;
"joint resolution" passed April 23,
1846, 160; full notice of resolution,
160; acceptance, 161; Pakenham pro-
poses arbitration, 162; Buchanan de-
clines, 162; treaty from Great Britain
submitted, 162; Polk's accompany-
ing message on presenting it, 162;
protocol, 163; articles, 164; accepted
by Senate, 165-66; letter of notifica-
tion, 165; treaty signed June 15,
1846, 166; Treaty of Limits, Ben-
ton's speech in its advocacy, 166–
67; controversy thus temporized,
167; boundary dispute as to main
channel revived, 167; Canal de
Haro decided by Emperor William
to be the channel referred to in
treaty, 167; Hudson's Bay Co. per-
mitted to continue, 168; compensa-
tion claimed, 168; R. J. Walker on
the surrender to Great Britain, 168;
acquits Polk and Buchanan of too
readily abandoning their avowed
policy, 169.
1836. Settlement, 170; previous
Occupancy restricted to explora-
tions and fur trade, 170; elements of
colonization. I. Native population,
number, distribution, characteristics
and relations to white races, 170-73.
II. British subjects - Hudson's Bay
Co's officers, employés and retired
servants, 174-80; sketches of Ogden,
Douglas and Tolmie, 176-79; early
settlers of French Prairie, 181; first
settlement at Oregon City, 181.
III. Ante 1836 - American settlers
before 1836; personnel of indepen-
dent residents, 182; Wyeth's first
and second expeditions, 1832-34,
182; first school west of Rocky
INDEX.
687
Oregon-cont'd.
Mountains, 182; sketches of Ewing
Young and Hall J. Kelly, 182-85;
immigrants of 1835, 185. IV. Mis-
sionaries - Oregon Methodist mis-
sion (1834-44), 186–92, q. v.; Oregon
mission (1835-48) 192-207, 9. v.; Ro-
man
Catholic mission (1838-48),
208-13, q.v. V. 1836-40-American
settlers, 214-22; declaration of in-
tention to Americanize Oregon, 221;
Judge Deady on condition of country
in 1840 and its prospects (extract
from address, 1875), 222.
1841. Political relations of resi-
dents, 1841, 222-23; abortive effort to
form a Provisional government, 223-
26; Wilkes' exploring expedition,
1841, 226-27; his description of
Fourth of July celebration on Puget
Sound, 227-28; Sir Geo. Simpson's
picture of Cowlitz and Nisqually,
1841, 228-29; Red River colony to
Puget Sound, 229–30.
1842. Dr. Elijah White appoint-
ed sub-Indian agent, 231; Frémont's
first expedition to South Pass, 231;
Dr. White's party and immigration
of 1842, 232; Medorem Crawford's
account of the journey, and of
country as found, 232; efforts to
form Provisional government, 233;
importance of White as public func-
tionary, 234; citizens combine for
self-protection, 234; White's admin-
istration of Indian affairs, 234; re-
port to Indian Bureau, 234; "White
Code" of laws for Indians, 235.
1843. Formation of Provisional
government, 236-41 (see Provisional
government); discouragements in
spring, 242; departure of immigrants
of 1842 for California, 242; petition
of 1843, its authorship and contents,
243-45; Dr. McLoughlin's, 245;
Shortess' tribute to, 245; document
of charges against, 246; his answer
to, 246-47; cattle policy of H. B.
Co., 247; McLoughlin's version of
formation of Cal. Cattle Co., 247;
Daniel Lee's account in "Ten Years
in Oregon," 247-48; Oregon City
claim, 248-56; property rights of
American citizens and British sub-
jects, 249; Section XI of Donation
act, 255; immigrants arriving, 256;
P. H. Burnett, Applegate, Nesmith
and others, 256-57; McKinlay cattle
contract, 258-59; Frémont's second
expedition, 260.
1844-47. Under the Provis-
ional government. Indian depreda-
tions at Willamette Falls, 266; death
of Geo. W. Le Breton, 262; arming
of citizens for defense, 262; amend-
ment to Organic law, 1844, 264-65;
prohibitory liquor law, 265; first
American settlement north of Co-
lumbia, 267; Oregon City incorpor-
ated, first municipal incorporation
west of Rocky Mountains, 268; in-
corporation of Oregon Institute, 268;
Abernethy elected governor, June,
1845, 268; memorial to Congress, 268;
Thos. H. Benton's commentary on,
268; novel episode of Dr. White's,
269; Hudson's Bay Co. yields sup-
port to Provisional government, 269;
charges against Dr. McLoughlin,
270; his reply, 270; disposition of
launch of U. S. sloop Peacock, 271;
currency law enacted, 271; Lewis
and Polk counties established, 272;
immigration of 1845 large, 272; Or-
egon Spectator, 273; Oregon Rang-
ers formed, 1846, 273; visit and report
of Neil M. Howison, U. S. navy,
273-74; wreck of Shark, 274; her
colors presented to Provisional gov-
ernment, 274; reception of news of
treaty of June 15, 1846, 274; Thorn-
ton, bearer of memorial to Congress,
275; immigration of 1847; cause of
the Cayuse war, 276.
1847-48. Gov. Abernethy's
message, 277; volunteers enrolled,
278; legislation authorizes raising a
regiment, 278; loan commission, 278;
Joel Palmer appointed superintend't
of Indian affairs, 279; peace com-
mission, 279; Gilliani advances for
Waiilatpu, 280-81; victory over Pa-
louses, 282; death of Col. Gilliam,
282; Maxon in command, 282; appeal
for provisions, 282; Lee appointed
colonel and superintendent of Indian
affairs, 283; resigns in favor of Col.
Waters, 284; Lee appointed lieuten-
ant-colonel, 284; march into Nez
Perce country, 284; close of the cam-
paign, 285; battle of Abiqua, 285;
list of officers and men serving in
the Cayuse war, 286-88.
As a Territory.-Struggle in Con-
gress, 1846-48, to become territorial
govt., 289-99 (see Territorial bill);
last years of Provisional govt., 300-
04; discovery of gold in Cal. draws
immigration from, 300; creates
market for products. 300; gold dust
arrives, 300; want of market, 300;
absence of money, 301; gold dust
becomes circulating medium, its
liability to loss causes law for coin-
ing money, 301; mint erected and
officers appointed, establishment of
territorial govt. forced coinage into
private hands, 301; "Beaver
money" coined, 301; disappeared
on establishment of U. S. mint at
S. F., 301; legislature without
quorum, 1848, 301; special election
called to fill vacancies, 301; last
session of Provisional govt., Feb. 5,
1849, 301; Abernethy's message, 301;
to provide for expenses of Cayuse
war, amendments to Organic law,
sale of ardent spirits, appointing
clerks of courts and recorders of
land claims, 302; latter passed by
House but vetoed, 302; "prohibi-
tion" modified to regulate," 302;
Lewis county a factor in politics,
302; its growth, 302; determines
election of Abernethy, 302; Sound
tribes resist Am. settlements, 302;
Rabbeson elected sheriff, L. L.
Smith to legislature, 302; Mission
St. Joseph established, 302; Nis-
qually claim made, 303; return of
Thornton and Meek, 303; Meek
appointed U. S. marshal, 303;
Joseph Lane governor, 303; terri-
torial government assumed, 303 (see
under Territorial bill); officers, 303;
members of supreme bench, 303;
Astoria the port of entry, 303; Adair
collector of customs, 303; governor
assumes office, March 3, 1849, 303;
officers present, 303; territorial
govt. in force, 303; declared neutral
ground, 303; strength of Provisional
govt. demonstrated, 304 ;
taken, 305; Lane Indian Superin-
census
tendent, 305; visits Columbia river
tribes, 305; Snoqualmies attack Fort
Nisqually, 306; Leander C. Wallace
murdered, 306; hostile attitude of
Indians, 306; Whites build block-
houses, 307; governor reaches Tum-
water, 307; judicial districts de-
clared and judges assigned, 307;
sub-agencies assigned to Thornton
and Newell, 307; Thurston elected
delegate to Cong., 307; meeting of
first legislature, July 16, 1849, 307;
names of counties changed, 308;
historic names of towns, 308;
Thornton visits Puget Sound, 308;
offers reward for murderers of Wal-
lace, 308; disapproved by Governor
Lane, 308; Thornton resigns, 308;
trial and execution of murderers,
309; arrival of Mounted Rifle Regi-
ment, 310; desertion to Cal. gold-
fields, 310; surrender, trial and
execution of murderers of Whit-
man, 310; J. P. Gaines appointed
governor, 311; Lane resigns and
leaves for Cal. mines, 311; U. S.
steamer Massachusetts arrives, 311;
Adair, collector of customs, 311;
timber trespass, 311; British ship
Albion seized at New Dungeness,
312; survey of Columbia river made
by Lieut. McArthur, 312; Albion
condemned as a forfeiture, 312;
seizure and release of schooner
Cadboro, 312; progress of settle-
ments on Puget Sound and Colum-
bia river, 312; population increases,
312; oysters discovered at Shoal-
water Bay, 313; the Bruce company,
313; U. S. census of 1850, 312;
shows reaction in favor of, 313,
Taylor's appointments, 314; three
months without governor, 314; mail
service, 315; Donation law passed,
315; land claims, 315-18; 11ews-
paper, 319; second sess. legislature,
1850, 319; Lot Whitcomb built, 320;
new counties, 320; judicial districts,
320; seat of govt. 320-29 (see under
Seat of govt.); extra session of
legislature, 329; feeling on decision
as to Iowa laws, 329; Judge Deady's
historic notice, 330-31; Pierce
elected President, 331; progress of
settlements, 331; new counties, 331;
judicial districts, 332; division of
territory, 332; for continuation on
Northern Oregon, see Washington
Territory.
Pierce appoints territorial officers,
350; reconstruction of judicial dis-
tricts, 350; Lane's election to Cong.
351; Davis' arrival, 351; legislature,
1853-54, 351; attempt to call con-
stitutional convention, 351; reason
of defeat at election, 1854, 351 note;
Curry succeeds Gov. Davis, 352;
legislature, 1854, 352; Multnomah
co. formed, 352; legislative and
congressional actions regarding
admission as state, 352; location of
public buildings, 352; Gaines nom-
inated for delegate, 353; election,
June, 1853, 353; Lane elected, 353;
constitutional convention defeated,
353; re-agitation of location of capi-
tal, 353-54; two elections favored
Eugene City, 354; continued at
Salem, 355; ignored by supreme
court and assembly, 355; legisla-
ture, 1855-55, 354; Curry and Joseph-
ine counties organized, 354; state of
46
688
INDEX.
Oregon-cont'd.
political parties, 355; organization
of Republican party, 355-57; Lane
nominated by Democrats, 357; op-
posed by Lawson, 357; Lane re-
elected, 1857, 358; large majority
for constitutional convention, 358;
names of delegates, 358; results of
convention, 358; articles incorpo-
rated in constitution, 358-61; ques-
tion of slavery to be voted on
separately, 358; Salem voted per-
manent seat of govt., 360; legisla-
ture, 1857, 362; election, 1858, 362;
Grover elected, 362; Lane and De-
lazon Smith to senate, 362; John
Whiteaker inaugurated first gover-
nor of state, 362; legislature, 1858,
362; Admission bill in Cong., 363;
vote in Senate, 363; Lane's speech,
364-65; opposition to, 365-66; ad-
mitted Feb. 14, 1859, 366; conditions
imposed on state, 366-67; incorpo-
rated into Union, June 3, 1859, 367.
residue made part of Washington,
367.
Southern Oregon. — 1827 - 47.
Natural divisions, i. 368; topograph-
ical features, 368-69; early immigra-
tion to, 369–70; introduction of cat-
tle, 370; emigrant wagon road, 371;
heroic corporation, 371; their names,
371; exploring journey, 372-74; pio-
neer road builders, 372; first immi-
grant train through, 374.
1848-50. Early argonauts, i.
375; discovery of gold in Cal. hastens
settlement, 375; first settlers south
of the Calapooias, 375; U. S. troops,
376; half regiment deserts, 376;
starving condition and relief, 377;
first cattle, 377; Lane forces a treaty
of peace, 377; first vessel to enter
Umpqua river, 378; founding of
Umpqua City, Gardiner, Scottsburg
and Winchester, 379; Umpqua co.,
380.
1850-51. Gold on Scott river
and Yreka, 381; Elliff's party, 381;
Indian troubles, 381-82; settlers ap-
peal to Kearney, 382; Kearney's re-
port, 383-84; Capt. Walker's report,
385; Kearney's final report, 386-87;
Lane's comments on, 388; gives
Kearney receipt for Indians, 388;
delivers them to Gov. Gaines, 388;
Rogue river Indians, 388.
1851. Settlement and organiza-
tion of Umpqua co., 389-90; settle-
ment of Port Orford, 390-95; Kirk-
patrick's account of Indian attack,
391-92; disastrous search for road to
mines,393; T'Vault massacre, 393-94;
military expedition to punish Indi-
ans, 395; settlement of Rogue river
valley, 395; gold mines in Scott
river and Yreka, 396; sawmills and
gristmills, 396.
1852. Douglas and Jackson cos.
created, 1851-52, 397; boundaries,
397; first elections, 398; first courts,
398; merchants, 398; pony express
and terr. roads, 399; U. S. mail, 399;
gold discovered in Rogue river val-
ley, 1852, 399; Gaines' futile treaty,
400; marauding Indians, 400; Lam-
erick's volunteers, 400; war with
savages, 401-02; treaty made a mis-
take, 402; banquet to Lamerick, 402;
Skinner's letter of regret, 403; Ap-
pler's ditty, 403; heroism of pioneers,
403; government neglect of settlers,
404; protecting immigrants, 404;
Indian ambuscades, 404 ;
Women
and children butchered, 405; Ben
Wright's vengeance, 405; drawback
to Port Orford, 406; prosperity on
the Umpqua, 406; hard winter, 407.
1853. Judge Deady's first term,
i. 4c8; Knott's trial, 409; uurderous
savages, 409–10; volunteers respond,
411; Jackson co. appeals to governor,
411; Gen. Lane appealed to, 411;
promptly responds, 411; Nesmith
and Grover volunteer, 412; Indians
captured, 412; pursuing savages, 413;
Lane in advance of his commission,
414; Lane's account of campaign,
414-17; Alden and Lane wounded,
415; Indians surrender, 416; flags of
honor, 417; Gen. Smith's heroic
march, 418; treaty of peace, 419-20;
territory ceded by Indians to U. S.,
420; conduct of treaty Indians, 421;
protecting immigrant trains, 421; ill-
treatment of settlers by government,
422; pony expresses, 422; mines and
business, 422; first courts in Jackson
and Douglas cos., 423; murderers
hanged, 423-24; settlers assassinated,
424; discovery of gold, 425; Coos
Bay Co. and settlement, 425.
1854. Mild weather and pros-
perous times, 427; new territory pro-
jected, 427; conventions held, 427;
Oregon legislature, 428; Roseburg
county seat, 428; milling industries,
428; disastrous trip of the Frances
Helen, 428; first newspaper of So.
Or., Umpqua Gazette, 429; first term
of court at Empire City, 429; protec-
tion of immigrants, 429; Walker's
volunteer co., 429; serious engage-
ment with Indians, 429; repulsed by
Indians, 430; patriotism of volun-
teers, 430.
1855. Prosperity, 431; new land
dist., 431; Moslier registrar, Lawson
receiver, 431; Indian depredations
revived, 432-36; dark and memorable
day, 435; settlers organize for de-
fense, 437-38; Gov. Curry calls for
volunteers, 439; campaign and its
failure, 440-43; ended for the winter,
443; renewed depredations, 444;
Umpqua Herald removed to Jack-
sonville and called Table Rock Sen-
tinel, 444; much snow and extreme
cold, 444.
1856. Indian depredations re-
newed, 445-46; Major Bruce in the
field, 445; reorganization of militia,
447; renewal of the campaign, 448;
Capt. Poland's co. surprised and
butchered, 449; treachery of Enos,
449; continued depredations, 449-50;
efforts for protection, 451; minor
skirmishes, 452; Gen. Wool's plan,
452; movements of Smith and Bu-
chanan, 453-55; battle of Big Bend
on Rogue river, 455; Capt. Smith's
official report, 455-58; surrender of
Chief John, end of war, 458; bill of
admission approved, boundary line,
524.
Oregon-Washington Indian war
(1855-56), 525 et seq. See under
Oregon-Washington Indian War
Operations on Columbia river and
in Yakima and Walla Walla country,
i. 550-71
1856-73. Counties of Josephine
and Curry created, i.640; boundaries,
640; shipwrecks, 641; Indian depre-
dations, 641; Gen. Cosby sent from
California to punish Lake Indians,
641; business and trade, 642; exe-
cution of Enos, 642; Jacksonville
Herald, 643; Chetco and Pistol In-
dians subdued, 643; Chief John sent
to S. F., 643; desperate attempt to
capture the steamship, 643-44; mili-
tary wagon road, 644; Ledford mas-
sacre, 645; first overland mail from
Sacramento, 645; Indian attack on
Bailey and Evans' party, 646-48; del-
uge of, 1861-62, 648; effects of war of
secession, €48; volunteers again in
field, 648-49; Indian council at Klam-
ath Lake, 649; treaty with Klam-
aths, Modocs, etc., 649; Modocs
dissatisfied and treacherous, 650;
causes and details of Modoc Indian
war, 650; Capt. Jackson's attack,
651; Gen. Wheaton's attempt, 652;
peace commission organized, 652;
murder of Gen. Canby and Mr.
Meacham, 652; Jeff C. Davis suc-
ceeds Gen. Canby, 652; Modoc lead-
ers captured, tried and hanged, 653.
As a State.-1859-89. Formal
admission, ii. 1; Lane, Smith and
Grover sworn in, 1; federal appoint-
ments, 2; Stout elected to Cong., 2;
delegates to national convention at
Charleston to vote for Gen. Lane for
Pres., 2; election of Geo. K. Shiel,
3; exciting elections of 1860, 3; Ba-
ker and Nesmith elected U. S. sena-
tors, 4; death of Baker, 4; Stark ap-
pointed senator, 4; Gen. Harney
commander of Dept. of Oregon, 4 ;
Wallen wagon-road expedition, 5;
protection to immigrants, 5; Steen
and Smith's expedition into Snake
country, 6; attack on Capt. Smith,
6; Col. Wright succeeds Harney, 6;
relief sent to Maj. Steen, 6; massa-
cre of immigrants at Salmon Falls,
9; Capt. Dent commands expedition
of relief, II; report, 11-13; Oregon
Steam Navig. Co., 14-15; military
operations in Snake country, 16;
Fort Boise established, 17; military
operations in Snake country, 18-23;
Maj. Gen. Halleck visits Oregon,
25; Shoshone war, 26-29; Gen. Crook
on the trail, 27; close of the war, 29;
political, legislative and current
résumé, 30-31.
Oregon, outline history of counties of,
ii. 162-72.
Oregon, brig, i. 228, 315.
Oregon & Cal. R. R. organized, ii. 139.
Oregon & Wash. Terr. R. R. (or Hunt
system), account of, ii. 144.
Oregon boundary commission, ap-
pointed, ii. 35, 39.
Oregon boundary question, ii. 34-44.
Oregon Cavalry, ii. 16.
Oregon City, i. 170; mill, etc., at, 1829,
181; the metropolis of the ecclesi-
astical province of Or., 212; Indian
depredations at, 1844, 262; incor-
porated, 1844, 268; first municipal
incorporation west of Rocky Mts.,
268; seat of goverment, 320; quorum
of legislature declares it to be seat
of govt., 327; description of, ii. 158.
Oregon City claim, i. 248-56.
Oregon Exchange Co. (assoc'n of
bankers), i. 301.
Oregon Free Press, commenced by
Geo. L. Curry, March, 1848, i. 352
note; first weekly journal on Pacific
coast, type of Or. wood, 352 note.
INDEX.
689
I
Oregon Imp. Co., routes of, ii. 143.
Oregon Institute, inaugurated, 1842, i.
189; support pledged by M. E.
Church, 190; Methodist institution,
190; Wolf meeting at, 1843, Feb. 2,
237; incorporated, 1844, 268.
Oregon Land bill. See Donation law.
Oregon Methodist Mission, i. 236, 238,
250; pioneer party of, 118; estab-
lishment and history, 1834-44, 186-
92; visit of Flatheads to St. Louis
asking missionaries, 186; formation
of, 186; Jason Lee and associates'
journey, 1834, 186; mission in Willa-
mette valley, 187; schools establish-
ed at Willamette and Fort Van-
couver, 187; efforts to christianize
Indians, 157; Dr. Elijah White and
Rev. David Leslie arrive, 187; Or.
missionary society formed, 187; sta-
tion at Dalles, 187; Supt. Lee goes
East for aid, 188; meetings held in
States, 188; returns with new outfit,
188; status of the mission, Institute
incorporated, 1842, character and
means, Lee made president, 190; its
character changed, 190-91; its failure
as a christianizer, but success as an
Americanizer, 192; control over resi-
dents, 223; Gary sells its property
to McLoughlin, 253.
Oregon Mission, under auspices of
Am. Board of Commissioners of
Foreign Missions, 1835-48, 192–207;
established by Dr. Marcus Whitman,
195; Cayuse war, 195-206; Whitman
goes East, 197; hostility of Indians
to Americans, 198-200; massacre of
Whitman et al., 200; ransom of cap-
tives, 203; council of chiefs, 205;
summary of massacre, 206.
Oregon Mission Manual Labor School,
sold to Oregon Institute, 191.
Oregon or the grave, motto of Mrs. T.
J. Farnham, 216.
Oregon Pac. R. R., sketch of, ii. 142.
Oregon Railway & Navigation Co., ii.
48; account of its sysmem, 141–42.
Oregon Rangers, i. 273; organized,
1844, 262.
Oregon Rifles, roll of, i. 286.
Oregon Short Line R. R., sketch of,
ii. 142.
Oregon Spectator, first paper west of
Rocky Mts., 1846, i. 273; 352, note.
Oregon Statesman, i. 319, 353.
Oregon Steam Nav. Co., growth and
mission of, ii. 14-15; history of, 138.
Oregon Territory, claims of Great
Britain and U. S. to, depended upon
limit of latitude reached by Drake,
settled by treaty of June, 1846, i. 18;
name adopted, 239.
Oregon - Washington Indian War.-
1855-56. Causes, 525-26; condi-
tion of territories for defense, 527;
treacherous nature of savages, 527;
race conflict for supremacy, 528-30;
Snake river or Ward massacre, 531-
32; Ward party, 531; pursuit, 533;
Bolon's murder, 534; Haller's expe-
dition to Yakima country, 534; offi-
cial knowledge of hostile intention
of Indians, 535; Maj. Rains' requi-
tions on governors of O. and W. for
volunteers, 537; Gov. Curry's call
for volunteers, 537; response thereto,
537-38; officers and men First Regt.
Oregon Mounted Volunteers, 538;
refusal of Maj. Rains to furnish
arms, 539; Nesmith elected colonel,
539; Maj. Rains app. brig-gen. W. T.
Volunteers, 539; war exists, 540; Co.
A, Capt. Hays, reports to Capt.
Maloney, U.S. A., at Fort Steilacoom,
540; his expedition towards Yakima
country, 541; killing of Moses and
Miles, 541; Co. B, Capt. Strong,
reports to Maj. Rains at Fort Van-
couver, 541; uprising of Indians on
Sound, 541; Capt. Eaton's co. of
rangers, 541; killing of Lieut. Mc-
Allister, 542; Capt. Eaton's com-
mand beseiged, 542; Gov. Mason's
reserve force, 542; massacre of fam-
ilies on White river, 542; war policy
established; 543; hostile ground de-
fined, 543; embarrasments of volun-
teer service, 543; generous co-oper-
ation of Capts. Sterrett and Pease,
of the Decatur and Jefferson Davis
and of Gov. Douglas, 543-44; bat-
tle on White river, 544; killing of
Juo. Edgar, 544; disposition of forces
by Capt. Maloney, 544-45; night
attack by hostiles, 546; killing of
Lieut. Slaughter and two corporals
by Kanaskat, 547; steamer Active
cruises near Steilacoom with arms,
548; Gov. Stevens returns from
Blackfoot_council, 549; force of
troops and volunteers in W. T., 550;
estimate of number of hostiles, 550;
Major Rains declines to furnish
arms to volunteers, 551; Nesmith's
appeal to Gov. Curry, 551; corres-
pondence between Rains and Nes-
mith, 552-53; both move into Yaki-
ma country, 554; battle of the Two
Buttes, 555; Rains' account, 554;
Dem. Standard's account, 554; Nes-
with applies to Gen. Wool for rein-
forcements for Maj. Chinn, 556; cor-
respondence between Nesmith and
Rains, 557; refusal by Wool, 558;
Lieut. Kelly's account of march to
Walla Walla, 559; Peu-peu-mox-
mox with flag of truce, 560; battle
with the Walla Wallas, 561-64;
death of Peu-peu-mox-mox, 564; loss
of Oregon troops, 564; volunteers
go into winter quarters, 565; Thos.
R. Cornelius elected col. in place of
Nesmith, resigned, 565; instructions
from Gov. Curry, 566; detailed re-
port of his campaigu, 567–71.
1856. Gov. Stevens' operations,
572; return journey from Blackfoot
council, 573; addresses legislature,
573; issues proclamation for six com-
panies, 574; attack on Seattle, 574;
Col. Casey, with Ninth Infantry,
arrives, 574; appointments by gov.,
574; list of companies mustered in,
575; Gov. Mason visits Washington
to report condition of Indian affairs
to govt., 575; Gov. Douglas' timely
aid, 576; Patkanim battles with Les-
chi's band, 576; murder of North-
craft and White, 577-78; battle of
Connell's prairie, 578; Indians de-
moralized, 578; Maj. Hays' resigns,
579; raid of Maxon and Achilles'
companies up Nisqually, 579; arrest
of Wren, McLeod et al., 580; habeas-
corpus proceedings, 580; martial law
in Pierce and Thurston cos., 581;
trials by military commission, 582;
discharge of Wren, McLeod et al.,
583; trial of Col. Shaw and Gov.
Stevens for contempt of court, 583;
Col. Shaw's campaign east of Cas-
cade Mts., 585-89; disbanding of
volunteers, Oct. 3, 1856, 589.
Regulars, 1856.—Campaign of reg-
ulars west of Cascades, 590-95; con-
dition of Puget Sound, 590; Ninth
Infantry reinforces Dept. of Pacific,
590; two companies for Fort Steil-
acoom, Col. Casey in command, 590;
six companies to Columbia district,
Col. Wright in command, 590; Casey
establishes a blockhouse at Muckle-
shoot Prairie, 591; killing of Kanas-
kat, 591; fight at White river cross-
ing, 592; requisition of Casey on
Gov. Stevens for two vol. cos., 593;
Stevens' declination, 594-95; expe-
ditions to Stuck Prairie, Boise creek
and Duwamish Lake, 595; of Dent,
Pickett and Fletcher to Green and
Cedar river country, 595; Casey re-
ports war west of Cascades ended,
595; Maj. Garnett's command ordered
to join Col. Wright east of Cascades,
595; campaign east of Cascades, 596
-620; Gen. Wool's instructions to
Col. Wright, 596; attack on the
Cascades, 598; Coe's account of
seige of the Bradford store, 599-601;
Sergt. Williams' account of gallant
defense of middle blockhouse by
Sergt. Kelly, 601-03; resolution of
legislature to Cong. to grant extra
pay to Kelly et al. for meritorious
conduct, 603; Coe's account of attack
on Lower Cascades, 603-04; Phil
Sheridan to the rescue, 604; Sheri-
dan's account of the check of sav-
ages, 604-07; capture of Cascade
Indians, 607-08; trial and execution
of Indians, 608; Sheridan's account
of massacre of Spencer (Indian)
family by Whites, 608-10; Kamia-
kin's design in exciting the raid, 610;
peaceable excursion of Col. Wright
into Yakima country, 611; efforts of
volunteers to co-operate, 611-12;
Gov. Stevens' attempt to hold coun-
cil with Indians, 613; volunteers
attacked, 614; Col. Steptoe asks vol-
unteers to return with and escort
him, 615; Col. Wright delivers up
Chiefs Leschi, Quiemuth, Kitsap,
Nelson and Stehi to Gov. Stevens
for trial, 616; Wool orders Wright
to Walla Walla, 616; treaty with
hostiles, 617; Gen. Wool announces
war at an end, 618; Peu-peu-mox-
mox and Kamiakin the moving
spirits of the war, 618; Gen. Wool's
indifference and antagonism to white
settlers, 619-20.
1858. Campaign of Gen. Clarke
and Col. Wright east of Columbia
and north of Walla Walla, i. 621-
39; peace of 1856 abortive, 621;
Kamiakin still hostile, 621-22; com-
bination of eastern tribes, 623; dep-
redations in Walla Walla region,
623; expedition of Col. Steptoe and
his defeat, 624-25; Col. Gilbert's de-
scription from his Hist. Sketches of
Walla Walla, 625-26; his own official
report, 626-28; Lt. Gregg's acct. of
the fight, 628; summary, 629; Col.
Wright's views, 630; treaty with
Nez Perces, 631; Col. Wright sets out
on Northern expedition, 631; battle
of Four Lakes, 631-32; battle of
Spokane Plains, 632-33; Spokanes
yield, 633; Wright's report of inter-
view with Gary, 634; Coeur d'Alenes
submit, 635; death of Owhi and
Qual-chen, 637; submission of Pa-
louses, 638; war ended, 638.
690
INDEX.
Oregonian, paper, i. 319.
Oregonian Railway, sketch of, ii. 143.
Organic law, adopted, i. 240; amend-
ments to, 264; general features of, 460.
Oriolan, vessel, i. 379.
Oro Fino mines, discovery of, ii. 33.
Ortolan, vessel, i. 390.
Osborn,
Osborn,
1. 200.
}
i. 310.
}
Osborne, Bennett, i. 371.
Osgood, Isaac F., i. 462.
O'Shaughnessy, Corporal, shoots Ka-
naskat, i. 591.
Otis, Maj. Elmer, i. 651.
Otondo, Isidro de, commands expedi-
tion to Gulf of Cal., i. 27.
O'Toole, Sergeant, ii. 26.
Otsehoe, Chief, ii. 29.
Otter, Abbey, ii. 13.
Otter, Chas., ii. 13.
Otter, Emma, ii. 13.
Otter, Henry, ii. 9, 11, 12, 13.
Otter, Mr. and Mrs. and family, ii. 9,
II, 12, 13.
Otter, Wesley, ii. 13.
Otter, str., i. 472, 473, 497, 544 note.
Otters, Indians, i. 58.
Ottley, Wm., ii. 8, 13.
Ouimette, Esdras N., biog. of, ii. 499.
Overbeck, Andrew B, i. 425.
Overland mail, established from Cal.,
i. 645; management, 646.
Owen, Capt. Juo. W., i. 287.
Owens-Adair, Mrs. Dr., biog. of, ii.
502-06.
Owens, E. A., i. 411, 419, 421.
Owens, Jas. W. F., biog. of, ii. 500.
Owens, Johu, i, 371, 468.
Owens, Thos., biog. of, ii. 500-02.
Owens (2 brothers), i. 267.
Owhi, Chief, i. 621; imprisonment of,
637.
Owl and Coyote, legend of the (myth),
ii. 66.
Owyhee, brig, i. 115, 116.
Owyhee co. (Idaho), outline history
of, ii. 183.
Oysters, discovered at Shoalwater Bay
by Feldstead, 1850, i. 313; trade on
Pacific coast, 313 note; attracts
people, 337.
Ozment, G. W., biog. of, ii. 506.
Pacific City, i. 336.
Pacific coast, incentives for exploring,
i. 3; national character of settle-
ments of, 56; between north line of
Cal. and Russian America claimed
by Spain,
Spain, Great Britain and
America, 56; U. S. commission to
examine, 1848, 311.
Pacific Coast Steamship Co., account
of, ii. 143.
Pacific co. (Wash.) organized, i. 320;
established, 337; outline history of,
ii. 173.
Pacific Fur Co., formed by Astor, i.
76; its scheme, partners, articles of
organization, Wilson P. Hunt, chief,
assured of British recognition as a
commercial co., 77; Tonquin sent
with outfit to mouth of Columbia
river, 78; founding of Astoria, 78;
loss of Tonquin, 78–79; treachery of
British partners, 79; Hunt's party
arrive overland, 80; hardships en-
dured, 80; favorable negotiations
with governor of Russian Am., 81;
Beaver, with furs, sails for Canton,
81;
war declared between Great
Britain and U. S., 82; Astor antici-
pates trouble, 82; appeals to U. S.
to defend Astoria, 82; Northwest
Company's ship Isaac Todd to take
Astoria, they decide to abandon it
and sell out to North West Co., 83;
transferring all property, 84; As-
toria captured, Cox's account, 84;
failure of a magnificent enterprise,
85; effect of the war not considered
by Astor, 86; McDougal and Mac-
kenzie traitors to Astor, 86-87;
Astoria restored by Treaty of Ghent,
87; company never resuscitated, 88;
transfers Fort Okanagan to North
West Co., 106.
Pacific Mail S. S. Co., i. 315.
Pacific Navigation Co., ii., 144.
Pacific Northwest, as it is to-day, ii.
96; geographical outline, 96-99;
rivers and harbors, 99-106; agricul-
tural resources, 106-19; timber
resources, 19-25; live-stock inter-
ests, 126-31; fisheries, 131-33;
mineral resources, 133-37; trans-
portation facilities, 137-45; educa-
tion and social state, 146-49; towns,
scenic attractions, etc., 149-62;
outline of county histories, 162-83;
biographical sketches, 184 et seq.
Pacific Ocean, explored in search of
the Indies, i. 3; wreck of Japanese
junk on coast of Kamtchatka estab-
lished fact of intermediate sea to
Japan, 22; reached by Mackenzie
overland, the first one, July 22,
1793, 64.
Pacific republic, favored by some
leading citizens, i. 236.
Pacific University (Forest Grove),
sketch of, ii. 148.
Pack trails, i. 389.
Pack trains, i. 396, 399, 409, 641.
Packard, Myron W., biog. of, ii. 507.
Packwood, James, i. 287.
Packwood, Wm. H., i. 358, 575.
Packwood squad, i. 445.
Paige, Capt., ii. 660.
Paine, Jos., i. 287.
Painter, Wm. C., biog. of, ii. 507.
Paixham gun, explosion of, i. 141.
Pakenham, Richard, British plenipo-
tentiary, arrives to negotiate relative
to boundaries of Oregon, 141; offers
Columbia river boundary, declined
by Calhoun, 141; replies in regard
to Spanish claim, 143; labors the
claim of Heceta and Gray as to
prior discovery, and arrays British
claims against Spanish and Ameri-
can, 144; justifies British proposal
of Columbia river boundary, 144;
asks Calhoun to state extent of
claims of U. S., and what he pro-
poses, 145; conference with Bu-
chanan, July, 1845, 158; rejects his
offer of 49th parallel, 159; proposes
to submit to arbitration, Buchanan
refuses, 162; modifies proposition,
Buchanan's reply, 162; submits
draft of treaty proposed, 1846, 162;
presented to Senate by Polk, with
message, 162; text of message, 162;
of protocol, 163; articles, 164; vote
on in Senate, 165; text of letter of
acceptance to British govt., 165.
Palege, Geo. A., i. 343 note.
Palestine, schr., i. 642.
Palmer, Capt., ii. 21.
Palmer, Gen. Joel, i. 272, 278, 391, 412,
418, 434, 448, 458, 483, 484, 493, 558;
appointed superintendent of Indian
affairs, 279, 351 note; retires as
superintendent, 283; Índian com-
missioners, 481; ii. 30; biog. of, 508.
Palmer, Norman, i. 608.
Palmer, P. D., i. 391.
Palmer Bros., i. 603.
Palouse Indians, i. 282, 283, 635; not
peaceful, 621; predatory attacks of,
622-23; fight with, 624 et seq; in
battle of Four Lakes, 631; peace
restored with, 637.
Panama, founded in 1519, i. II.
Panama, str., i. 315.
Panama canal, fruitless projects of, i.
20.
Pankey, John, i. 440.
Paquet, Francis X., biog. of, ii. 509.
Paquet, Hon. Peter, biog. of, ii. 510.
Parker, David, i. 267.
Parker, Rev. Samuel, i. 231, 320; mis-
sionary tour with Whitman, 1835, to
Green river, proceeds to Fort Van-
couver, explores Oregon and returns
via Honolulu, 1837, 193; journal
imparts valuable information of the
country, 193; president of legisla-
ture, 325-45; biog. of, ii. 511.
Parker, Hon. W. W., ii. 138; biog. of,
511-13.
Parker, Wm., i. 371.
Parma, Duke of, i. 69.
Parnell,
ii. 28.
Parrish, Rev. Josiah Lamberson, i.
188, 191, 217, 395; biog. of, ii. 513.
Pataha City (Wash.), description of, ii.
653.
Pathfinder, Nesmith's definition of
Frémont as a, i. 261.
Patkanim, Chief, i. 306, 479; chief of
Snoqualmies, 302; urges sound tribes
to resist American settlers, 302;
offered reward by Thornton, 308;
takes field with friendly warriors,
576; battle with Leschi's band, 577;
biog. of, ii. 513.
Patterson, Dr. A. W., biog. of, ii. 514.
Patterson, C. M., ii. 114.
Patterson, John, i. 287.
Patterson, Otis, biog. of, ii. 514.
Pattie, J. O., i. 112.
Pattison, John, biog. of, ii. 515.
Pattle, Capt. Wm., looking for timber,
crosses to Bellingham Bay and dis-
covers coal, takes up claim and
leases to S. F. co., i. 339.
Patton, Mrs. Frances N., biog. of, ii.
515.
Patton, Matthew, interest in sheep, ii.
130; biog. of, ii. 515.
Patton, Thos. McF., i. 408, 427; biog.
of, ii. 516.
Paul, Frederick, i. 287.
Paulutzki, Capt. Dimitro, joins Sches-
takow's expedition, avenges his
death, fails to fix limits of Siberia,
i. 23.
Payne, J. R., i. 288.
Payne, Dr. Martin, biog. of, ii. 517.
Payne, T. J., i. 564.
Peabody, Russel V., i. 340, 375.
Peace Commission, 1847, i. 279; meets
Modocs, 1873, 652; massacre of, 652.
Peacock, sloop-of-war, i. 151, 227; loss
of, 228; disposition of the launch
of, 271.
Peale, T. R., naturalist with Wilkes,
i. 227.
Pearce, Ashby, i. 287.
Pearce, Jas. A., i. 165.
Pearcey, Chas., i. 425.
Pearcey, Jos., i. 440.
Pearl, Henry, i. 440.
Pearson, Daniel O., biog. of, ii. 517.
Pearson, Jos., i. 288.
Pease, Capt. W. C., i. 497, 543.
INDEX.
691
Pecares, John, i. 288.
Pedler, Representative, i. 85.
Peebler, John J., biog. of, ii. 518.
Peebles, John C., i. 358.
Peers, Capt., i. 545.
Pelican, Drake's vessel, name changed
to Golden Hind, i. 17.
Pellet, Henry, i. 287.
Pelly, Sir John Henry, agent Puget
Sound Agricultural Co., i. 108;
presents petition to Parliament for
land grant to H. B. Co., i. 103-04.
Pemberton, Augustus F., ii. 45.
Pembram, P. C., i. 220.
Pend d'Oreille Indians, i. 550; success
of missions among, 476.
Pendleton (Or.), description of, ii. 159.
Pengra, B. J., ii. 4.
Penitentiary, located at Vancouver, i.
480; congressional appropriation to
complete, 352.
Penitentiary commission bill amended,
i. 509.
Penn's Cove, i. 338.
Pennick, Albert Roland, biog. of, ii.
518.
Penning, Joe, i. 651.
Pennoyer, Hon. Sylvester, ii. 30, biog.
of, 518-19.
Pennypacker, Isaac S., i. 165.
Pentland, Wm., biog. of, ii. 519.
Pepson, Lieut. Silas, ii. 23.
Percival, Hon. D. F., b og. of, ii. 520.
Perez, Juan, commander of San An-
tonio, i. 29; of expedition in Santi-
ago, 1774, his orders, goes to Mon-
terey, thence north, lands on Queen
Charlotte's Island, names Cape Santa
Margarita (Cape North), 31; enters
Dixon's Channel, scurvy on board,
turns south, enters Nootka Sound
(Port Lorenzo), sees Mount Olym-
pus, passes Cape Mendocino and
reaches Monterey, 31; claims dis-
covery of Cape Flattery, 32; results
concealed many years, and honors
claimed by later voyagers, 32; ac-
companies Heceta's expedition as
ensign, 32.
Perham, Addison, i. 544.
Perham, Josiah, first president of N. P.
R. R., ii. 47.
Perit, J. W., i. 389.
Perkins,
ii. 661.
self and wife murdered,
Perkins, Chas., i. 381.
Perkins, Rev. H. K. W., i. 187, 191.
Perkins, Hon. J. A., biog. of, ii. 521.
Perrin, C. S., biog. of, ii. 521.
Perry, Capt. David, ii. 22, 27, 29, 660.
Perry, Elijah, i. 408.
Perry, Frank, killed by Indians, i. 413.
Perry, Wm. T., i. 398.
Peter the Great, instructions to Capt.
Behring, i. 21.
Peterson, Wm. H., biog. of, ii. 521.
Petition to Gen. Kearney for protec-
tion, i. 382.
Petition of 1843, authorship and con-
tents, i. 242-45.
Petre, British consul, ii. 44.
Pettigrew, Jonathan, i. 440.
Pettingill, i. 475.
Pettygrove, Francis W., foreman of
jury in Cayuse trial, i. 310; visits
Port Townsend, 339; biog. of, ii. 522.
Peu-peu-mox-mox (Yellow Serpent),
Chief, i. 198, 281, 282, 283, 483, 555,
556, 573; provisions of treaty with,
487; killed in trying to escape, 564;
killing of, 564-65; one of chief spirits
in inciting war on Whites, 618–19.
Phelps, Miss, teacher, i. 188.
Phelps, Elisha, i. 154.
Phelps, Saml. S., i. 165.
Philadelphia, Bishop of. See Blauchet.
Philip II. of Spain orders Velasco, Vice-
roy of Mexico, to conquer Philippine
Islands, i. 16.
Philippine Islands, taken possession
of by Legaspi, April, 1565, in name
of Crown of Spain, i. 16.
Philips, Wm., i. 288.
Phillips, R. R., i. 471, 472.
Phillips, Lieut., i. 457.
Phillips, Private, i. 450.
Philpot,
"
i 432.
Phipps, Robt., i. 450.
Phoebe, frigate, i. 83, 84.
Phoenix, ship, i. 193.
Picard, Jno., i. 288.
Pickering, Charles, naturalist with
Wilkes, i. 227.
Pickering, Wm., ii. 54.
Pickett, Capt. Geo. E., i. 595; sketch
of, 590 note; ii. 40, 41, 44; stationed
on San Juan Island, 39; instructions,
39.
Pickett, J. W., i. 437.
Pierce,
i. 547.
Pierce, A., i. 389.
9
Pierce, Lieut. E. D., receives the res-
toration in Nootka Treaty, his ac-
count, i. 47; ii. 32, 33.
Pierce, Franklin, i. 150, 151; elected
President, 331.
Pierce, T. B., i. 312.
Pierce co. (Wash), i. 342; formation
of, 331; volunteers, 546; outline his-
tory of, ii. 175.
Pietrzycki, Dr. Marcellus Marcus,
biog. of, ii. 522.
?
Pike, Capt. Enoch W., biog. of, ii. 522.
Pilcher, Maj., i, 112, 231.
Pilcher,
going through South
Pass, 1827, i. 115.
Piles, i. 342; shipped from Puget Sound
to S. F. 1850, 335; cut, 337; piles for
S. F., 338; from Budd's Inlet, 339.
Pillow, Lieut. Chas. B., i. 538, 561, 567,
570.
Pilot's Cove, i. 227.
Ping, Hon. Elisha, biog. of, ii. 523.
Pintarel, John M., i. 50.
Pinto, H. H., i. 338.
Pion, Gideon, i. 287.
Pioneer Co., i. 575.
Pioneer Company, attacked, i, 579.
Pioneer and Democrat, paper, 515:
516.
Pioneer Printing Press, sketch of, ii.
653.
Pioneers, annual reunion of Oregon,
1879, extract from address by W. H.
Rees, i. 180.
Piper, Lieut. Alex., i. 607.
Pistol river Indians, depredations of,
i. 641, 643.
Plante, Antoine, i. 287, 288.
Plante, Xavier, i. 288.
Platte river, ascended to its source by
Ashley, 1823, i. 111.
Pleiades, ship, ii. 40.
Plemendon, Simon, representative, i.
302.
Plowing, first in Oregon said to have
marked the era of fever and ague
among Indians, i. 172.
Plumb, Wm. W., i. 469.
Plummer, Alf. A., Jr., i. 339, 342, 345;
biog. of, ii. 524.
Plummer, Alf. A., Sr., biog. of, ii. 523.
Plummer, Dr. O. P. S., biog. of, 524.
Plumper, ship, ii. 40, 41, 42.
Poe, Alonzo M., i. 339, 340, 347, 470,
505, 512, 541.
Poiecor, Francis, i. 288.
Poinsett, Joel R., i. 137.
Point Elliott Treaty, i. 479.
Point George, named Astoria, i. 78.
Point Grenville, called by Heceta
Punta de Martires, i. 32 note.
Point-no-Point Treaty, i. 479.
Point of Martyrs. See Point Grenville.
Point Wilson, i. 52, 339.
Poisle, Frank, i. 626.
Poisier, Antoine, i. 287.
Poison, Indians charge Dr. Whitman
of using, i. 201.
Poker Joe (Indian), ii. 661.
Poland, Capt, Jno., co. surprised and
butchered, i. 447–48.
Pole co. (Or.), outline history of, ii.
166.
Political parties, status of, 1856, i. 503.
Polk, Jas. K., i. 139; Democrats' nomi-
nee for President 1844, 156; assur-
ance to the people, "Fifty-four forty
or fight," 156; message to Congress
1845, with history of negotiations
and recommendations, 159; notifica-
tion of "Joint resolution," 160; text
of message to Senate Jan. 10, 1846,
162; acquitted by Rob't J. Walker
of too readily abandoning avowed
policy, 168; message to Congress on
Oregon bill June 15, 1846, 289; Dec.
8, 1846, 290; Dec. 7, 1847, 291; May
29, 1848, 292; on signing bill Aug.
14, 1848, 298.
Polk co. (Or.), i. 350; established 1845,
272.
Pollard, Richard, i, 287.
Pollock, Thos., i. 287.
Polotkin, Chief, i. 634, 636.
Poole, Jas., i. 399.
Population, increase of, 1850, i. 312.
Porpoise, brig, i. 151, 227, 228.
Port Bucarelli, named by Heceta, i. 33.
Port Cox. See Clayoquot.
Port des Français, named by La Pe-
rouse, i. 49.
Port Guadalupe. See Norfolk Sound.
Port Lorenzo. See Nootka Sound.
Port Orford, named by Tichnor 1849,
first attempt to settle, May, 1851, i.
390; savage Indian attack, 391-92;
settlement effected in July by volun-
teers under Jas. S. Gamble, 392;
igorance of topography in locating
election precinct at, 1852, 398; draw-
backs to, in 1852, 405-06; discovery
of gold near, 1853, 424; harbor, draft
of, ii. 104.
Port Remedios, named by Heceta;
called by Cook Bay of Islands, i. 33.
Port Steilacoom. See Steilacoom.
Port Townsend, i. 342; located and laid
out, 339; as a harbor, ii. 105.
Port Townsend & Southern R. R. ii.
145.
Port Townsend Argus, i. 73.
Porter, Commodore, i. 84.
Porter, McCauley, biog. of, ii. 525.
Porter's Prairie, i. 578.
Portland, Milwaukee rival of, i. 308;
port of entry, 311; description of,
ii. 156.
Portland Times, i. 319.
Portlock (Capt. Nath.) and Dixon
(Geo.), command voyage under
King George's Sound Co., 1785;
reach Cook's river July, 1786, i. 39;
names Dixon's channel and Queen
Charlotte's Island, 40; sail for China,
1787, 40.
692
INDEX.
Portola, Gaspar de, Governor of Lower
Cal., leads land expedition to San
Diego, March, 1769, i. 29; returus to
Mexico, 30.
Ports of Entry, designated, i. 311, 332.
Portsmouth, sloop, i. 275.
Port Townsend (Wash.), description
of, ii. 654-55.
Portugal, early explor. of, i. 1, 2, 4.
Postoffices in Umpqua co., first south
of Calapooia Mts., i. 389.
Powell, Capt., i. 575, 585, 586.
Powers, Trueman, biog. of, ii. 525.
Pownall, Lieut. Jos. A., i. 538, 570.
Poyntz, i. 396.
Prather, Theo., i. 439.
Pratt, Judge O. C., i. 314, 323, 398; ap-
pointed associate justice in place of
Turney, first of appointees to arrive,
Feb., 1848, 303; associate justice,
307; presiding judge, 310; opens
court at Salem, 1851, 324; denoun-
ced, 325; governor asks investiga-
tion of conduct of, 327; term ex-
pires, 331; nominated chief justice,
withdrawn, 350.
Prattle, Capt., i. 470.
Pray, A. W., i. 342.
Precious metals and mines, ii. 136–37.
Pre-emption law, provisions extended,
i. 473.
Prentice, Narcissa, marries Dr. Whit-
man, i. 194.
Prescott, Chas. H., biog. of, ii. 525.
Presidential candidates, 1860, ii. 3.
Presidential election, 1864, ii. 20.
Presidios established in San Diego,
Monterey, S. F. and Santa Barbara,
i. 30; description of, 30.
Preston, Jno. B., first surveyor-general,
i. 319; arrives, 323.
Preston, Geo. C., Indian agt., i. 307.
Preston, Wm. C., i. 150.
Prevost, J. B., i. 87, 123, 512; ii. 41.
Price, E. G., i. 547.
Price, Tommy, i. 604, 608.
Priests, arrival of, i. 200.
Prim, Hon. Paine Page, i. 358, 645;
ii. 2; biog. of, 526.
Primary meeting of people of Or., as-
sembled Feb. 17, 1841; officers pre-
siding; purposes of; resolution of
admission; H. B. Co's jurisdiction;
adjourned to 18th, i. 224; regard for
every element in selecting officers;
officers elected; resignation of chair-
man of constitutional committee
(Blanchet); action deferred to cou-
sult Commodore Wilkes and Mc-
Loughlin, 225; Wilkes' advice; ad-
journed meeting never held, 226.
Prince of Wales, ship, i. 40, 42.
Prince William's Sound, i. 39.
Princesa, ship, i. 42.
Princess Royal, ship, i. 40, 42, 43, 50,
51.
Princeton, str. U. S., explosion of gun
and death of Secy. Upshur, i. 141.
Pringle, Clark S., i. 288.
Printing introduced, i. 194.
Pritchett, Kintzing, appointed Secy.,
i. 303; defends Indians, 310; acting
governor, 314.
Probst, W. S., i. 645.
Proctor, Jos. B., i. 286.
Proebstel, Dr. Wm., biog. of, ii. 527.
Prohibition modified to "regulate,” i.
302.
Prohibitory liquor law passed, 1844,
provisions of, i. 265.
Property rights of American citizens
and British subjects, i. 249-50.
Prosser, Col. Wm. F., biog. of, ii.
527-28.
Prosser, Geo. W., biog. of, ii. 527.
Prosser (Wash.), description of, ii. 656.
Protestant and Roman Catholic con-
troversy sequel to massacre, i. 206.
Protocol of convention, i. 163.
Provencher, Very Rev. Jos. Newbert,
i. 208 note.
Providence, ship, i. 47.
Provisional government, disposition of
Ewing Young's estate led to first
attempt to form, 1841, i. 184; petition
of J. L. Whitcomb and others for
federal jurisdiction, 1838, 215; peti-
tion of Rev. David Leslie et al. to
Congress for federal jurisdiction,
1840, emphatic declaration, 221;
abortive effort to form, 223 to 226;
Young dies intestate, 223; committee
appointed to settle estate, 222; call
for "primary meeting of people of
Or.," 222; exclusive and conditional
resolution of admission, 224; pro-
ceedings of convention, 224–26.
Provisional government, Hines' ac-
count (from his history of Oregon)
of revival of subject of organizing a
government, i. 233; confidence of
settlers that government would not
long delay assertion of rights, 234;
1843, attempt not abandoned, 236;
question agitated during 1841, 1842,
236; national bias of residents, 236;
Wolf meeting, 237; committee of
twelve on organization, 237; plan re-
ported, adopted, and officers elected,
238; first legislative committee, 238;
first hall (the Granary) described,
238; assembly meets, May 16, re-
ports Organic law, 238; preamble,
239; division into districts, articles
of compact, 239; provisions of sec. 2,
240; Iowa laws adopted as code, 240;
Organic law approved, July 5, 241;
Provisional government established,
Oregon Americanized, 241; bounda-
ries, 241; a success, 265. See also
under Oregon.
Pruett, Dr. J. M., biog. of, ii. 529.
Public buildings, appropriation by
Cong. for, i. 513; commissioners ap-
pointed to provide, 513.
Puget Sound, settlers on, i. 302; set-
tlements extended, 312; center of
settlements, 333; citizens' road to,
341; condition of in 1856, 590; effect
of Fraser river excitement on settle-
ment of, ii. 34; harbors of, 105.
Puget Sound Agricultural Co., i. 230,
240; formation of, prospectus, under
H. B. Co., limit of operations, man-
agement, purpose to occupy lands,
108; influence in international affairs,
108; shares sold, 109; imports sheep
from Cal., 109; memorial to joint
commission, 109; lands claimed, 109;
property, 110; asserts Nisqually
claim, and occupies lands south, 303;
settlers remonstrate, remove their
cattle, 303.
Puget Sound Shore R. R., ii. 143.
Pugh, Silas G., i. 280, 286, 288.
Punta de Martires. See Point Grenville.
Purnell, Wm., i. 440.
Purvis, Thos., i. 287.
Puyallup Indians, i. 477.
Puyallup valley, i. 338; most of settlers
in retired servants of H. B. Co., 340.
Quadra, Bodega Y., Spanish commis-
sioner at Nootka, i. 46; negotiations
with Vancouver, 47.
Quadratus, ship, wreck of, i. 641.
Qual-chen, Chief, i. 621, 631; death of,
637.
Quallawowt, Indian, i. 306; delivered
up and executed, 309.
Quarterly Review, extract from arti-
cle on Kotzebue's voyage, i. 125.
Queen Charlotte, ship, i. 39.
Queen Charlotte's Island, visited by
Perez, 1774, i. 31, mention, 40; vis-
ited by Marchand, 1791, published
map and description, 1798, 51.
Queen of Pacific, steamer, ii. 53, 141.
Queenaitl, Indian, i. 479.
Queltehutes, Indians, i. 479.
Quisnee, Francis, i. 180.
Quiemuth, Chief, i. 478, 508, 541, 542,
547, 577, 585, 612, 615, 616, 618.
Quimper, Manuel, voyage, i. 50-51.
R. R. Thompson, str., ii. 141, 156.
Rabbeson, Antonio B., i. 302, 541, 575,
578; biog. of, ii. 529–31.
Rabbit myths, ii. 70.
Race conflict for supremacy, i. 528–29.
Raccoon, ship, i. 84.
Radford, Lieut., i. 424.
Railroads, inception and development
of systems of, ii. 138-45.
Rains, Maj. Gabriel J., i. 474, 481, 541,
545, 598; request for investigation
of, 499; makes requisition for armis,
etc., upon Govs. Mason and Curry,
536; commissioned by Gov. Masou
'brig.-gen. of Wash. Terr. Volun-
teers, 539, 542; number of command,
550; declines to furnish arms to vol-
unteers, 551; correspondence with
Col. Nesmith, 552-53; moves into
Yakima country, 554; detailed ac-
count in dispatch to Gov. Mason,
554; correspondence with Nesmith,
557-
Rains, Lieut. S. M., ii. 660.
Rainwater, A. N., i. 288.
Raley, Jas. H., biog. of, ii. 531.
Ralston, Jos. R., i. 287.
Ramsey, F. H., i. 286.
Ramson, Lieut., i. 632.
Ranck, Wm., biog. of, ii. 531-32.
Randolph, Asst. Surgeon, i. 624.
Randolph, town, i. 425.
Randolph mines, i. 426..
Ranier, Mount, description of and der-
ivation of name, ii. 153.
Ransom paid Indians, i. 203.
Rattlesnake (wak-a-poosh), myth of
the, ii. 76.
Ravalli, Rev., i. 212.
Ravelle, Father, i. 634.
Rawn, Capt., ii. 660.
Raymond, Daniel, i. 421.
Raymond, Narcisse, i. 555.
Raymond, W. W., i. 188, 242.
Reavis, Hon. James B., biog. of, ii.
532.
Recaid, Rev. Pascal, establishes mis-
sion of St. Joseph, i. 302.
Rector, Ludwell J., i. 288.
Rector, Wm. H., i. 301; ii. 4
Red river colony, emigrants to Puget
Sound under Capt. Jas. Sinclair, i.
229; Sir Geo. Simpson on, 229-30;
itinerary of journey, 230; a failure,
230.
Red Wolf, Chief, i. 617.
Redfield,
i. 437.
Redfield, Thos. G., biog. of, ii. 533.
Redman, John T., biog. of, ii. 533.
Reece,
i. 278.
Reed, Calvin C., i. 396.
Reed, Geo., i. 449.
Reed, Martin, i. 449.
INDEX.
693
Reed, S. G., interest in cattle, ii. 126.
Reed, Walter J., biog. of, ii. 533.
Rees, McDonough B., biog. of, ii. 534.
Rees, Williard H., gives extracts from
the parish register of St. Paul's
church in address on Early Settle-
ments of French Prairie," i. 180.
Rehabiliment of the dead among In-
dians, ii. 93.
Reid, Lieut., i. 227.
Reindeer, vessel, i. 379.
Reith, Eugene, home of, ii. 159.
Reith, Jacob, ii. 10, 13; biog. of, 534.
Reith, Joseph, ii. 10, 13.
Relief, ship, i. 151, 227.
Religion, conflict of, i. 206.
Remly, John, i. 343 note.
Reno, Lieut., ii. 11, 13.
Renton, Wm., i. 342 note.
Republican party, rise of, i. 355; for-
mation of in Oregon, 356; extension
of, 357; organized, 510.
Republican state convention, 1860,
11. 2.
Republicans who voted for and against
Admission bill, i. 363.
Reserve force called for, i. 542.
Resolution, ship, i. 34, 35, 36, 37.
Revais, Capt., i. 567, 568, 570.
Reveille, paper, i. 352 note.
Revenue jurisdiction disputed, i. 472.
Revenue laws disregarded,
seized, i. 347.
Reynolds, John, i. 154.
vessels
Reynolds, Maj., i. 448, 449, 451, 453,
545; ii. 5.
Reynolds, A. H., biog. of, ii. 535.
Reynolds, R. B., i. 310.
Rhinehart,
ii. 17.
Rhodes, Capt., i. 413, 418; flags pre-
sented to, 417.
Rice, Capt. Harrison, i. 443, 445, 446,
450.
Rice, Judge L. A., i. 275, 398.
Rich, Wm., botanist with Wilkes, i.
227..
Rich Gulch (Jacksonville), gold dis-
covered at, 1852, i. 399.
Richards, Capt., i. 575; ii. 41.
Richardson, of La., i. 139.
Richardson, Private, i. 446, 586.
Richardson, A., i. 646.
Richardson, Dan, i. 449.
Richardson, G. W., biog. of, ii. 535.
Richardson, J. D., i. 287.
Richardson, Dr. James A., biog. of, ii.
536.
Richardson, John, i. 286.
Richardson, John C., i. 440.
Richardson, John Quincy Adams, biog.
of, ii. 536.
Richmond, Dr. J. P., i. 1SS.
Ricord, John, connection with Waller's
Oregon City claim, i. 251–53.
Rideout,
1
i. 391.
Riley, C. W., i. 575.
Rinearson, Maj. J. S., i. 286, 437, 438,
439, 440; ii. 16, 17; interest in sheep,
130.
Rinehart, Hon. Henry, biog. of, ii.
536.
Rinehart, Hon. J. H., biog. of, ii. 537.
Rinehart, Louis B., biog. of, ii. 537.
Rinehart, Wm. E., biog. of, ii. 537.
Ringer, Hon. L. M., biog. of, ii. 538.
Ringgold, Lieut. Cadwalader, i. 227.
Rio Blanca. See Fraser river.
Rivers of Pacific Northwest, ii. 99-104.
Rives, Wm. C., i. 158.
Rivet, Lieut. Antoine, i. 536.
Rivet, Francis, i. 180.
Roach, Private, i. 603.
Roads, carried by Rocky Mountain
Fur Co. to eastern base of Rocky
Mountains, i. 115; report practica-
bility of good road over mountains,
115; extract from letter to Secretary
of War, 115; citizens' road to Puget
Sound, 340; emigrant wagon road
from Willamette valley to Fort Hall,
exploration for, 371-74; from Marys-
ville to Winchester, 1852, and from
Winchester to Yreka, 399; military,
409; determined and built from
Myrtle creek to Rogue river, 423;
wagon road from Scottsburg to Cal.
road, 428; military from Scottsburg
to Rogue river, 428; recommended
by Gov. Stevens, 464-65; appropria-
tion for military, 499; military roads
from Scottsburg, 644; Wallen wagon-
road expedition, ii. 5.
Robbins, Nathaniel, i. 358.
Robbins, Thos., i. 112.
Robert Bruce, schooner, i. 313.
Roberts, Andrew, biog. of, ii. 538.
Roberts, Geo. B., i. 108; services of,
179.
Roberts, Jesse, i. 423, 425.
Roberts, Joseph, i. 397.
Roberts, Win. Milner, ii. 48.
Robeson, Edward, i. 286.
Robie, A. H., i. 575, 585.
Robinson, i. 570.
Robinson, Capt., i. 457.
Robinson, Edward, i. 287.
Robinson, Jesse, i. 427.
Robinson, R. S., i. 575, 576.
Robison, J. C., i. 287.
Robison, Wm., i. 287.
Robley, A. B., biog. of, ii. 539.
Rock Myths, ii. 68.
Rocky Mountain Fur Co., brings out
Ashley, i. 112; members of, 112;
continues fur trade after Smith's
death, 115.
Rocky Mts., first rumors of existence
of, i. 7; fabulous stories stimulate
interior explorations, 57; Indian
rumors in beginning of 18th cen-
tury, 57; Verendrye first white man
to see them, 58; Mackenzie first
white man to cross, 62; Carver's
"Highest Lands," 59; Indians
probably aware of existence of, 60;
information given to travelers, 60;
discribed by Mackenzie, 65; Hunt's
party cross, So; crossed twice by
Ashley, 1823-24, III.
Rodgers, teacher, i. 200.
Rodgers,
i. 472.
Rodgers, B. B., i. 286.
Rodgers, Cornelius, i. 194, 198, 242.
Roe, Jonas L., biog. of, ii. 539.
Roeder, Capt. Henry, i. 340; biog. of,
ii. 539.
Roesch, Wilhelm Otto, biog. of, ii. 540.
Rogers,
i. 262.
Rogers, Lieut., i. 285.
Rogers, Amos E., i. 389.
Rogers, Clark, i. 287.
Rogers, E. R., biog. of, ii. 541.
Rogers, Nelson, biog. of, ii. 541.
Rogers, Wm., i. 287.
Rogers and Flanagan, i. 428.
Rogue river, i. 369; followed by Smith
and party to the ocean, 1827, 369;
reached by Kelly and Young, 370;
explored by Gilliam, 1847, 374.
Rogue river Indians, i. 432, 443;
treaty with, 311; molest emigrants,
381-82; Kearney's report of pursuit
and fight with, 383-87; Capt. Walk-
er's report, 385-86; Lane's remarks
on, 386; war with, 400-03; treaty of
peace signed, and conditions, 402;
character of, 402; unite with other
bands, 414; cede territory to U. S.,
420; disregard treaty, murder Kyle,
and murderers hanged, 423.
Rogue river valley, gold and other
attractions to, i. 399.
Rohrer, David, i. 425.
Roman Catholic and Protestant con-
troversy, sequel to massacre, i. 206.
Roman Catholic Mission, delays the
Provisional government,
i. 153;
missionaries began labors in 1839;
no stations, but Catholic Indians,
195; petition from Canadian-French
families, 208; not permitted south
of Columbia river, 208; Simpson's
letter to Archbishop of Quebec,
208; Rev. Francis Norbert Blanchet
in charge, 209; instructions from
archbishop, 209; journey, 210;
reach Fort Vancouver, Nov. 24,
1838; mass held at Cowlitz and
French Prairie, 210; permission
granteď, 1839, to occupy Willa-
mette valley, 211; Blanchet takes
charge of Willamette Mission, and
Modeste Demers of Cowlitz, 211;
Blanchet visits Puget Sound, De-
mers Upper Columbia, 211; Father
de Smet, 211; Rev. Anthony Lang-
lois and John B. G. Bolduc dis-
patched, via Cape Horn, 1842, 211;
increased, 1843, by Fathers de Vos
and Hockens from St. Louis, 211;
St. Joseph's College opened at St.
Paul, 211; Blanchet appointed
Bishop of Philadelphia, 212; title
changed to Bishop of Drasa, 212;
1844, other arrivals, 212; Nov. 4,
Oregon made a vicariate apostolic,
with Blanchet bishop, 212; its es-
tablishment, 212; Blanchet goes to
Montreal for consecration, and to
Europe for aid, 212; 1846, Oregon
becomes an ecclesiastical province,
and Blanchet archbishop, 212;
arrival of A. M. A. Blanchet and
others, number in 1867, success and
influence, 212.
Rooney, Lawrence, i. 602.
Rosario Strait, ii. 34, 35, 36.
Rose, Dr., killed by Indians, i. 411.
Rose, Aaron, i. 398, 428; biog. of, ii.
541.
Roseburg, made county-seat, i. 428;
Umpqua land-office moved to, 645;
description of, ii. 157.
Roseburg Express, i. 645.
Rosenthal, Gustave, biog. of, ii. 542.
Roslyn (Wash.), description of, ii.
656-57.
Ross, Gen. John E., i. 286, 375, 396,
403, 416, 418, 427, 439, 440, 652;
leads a company against Modocs,
and, with Wright, defeats them,
404-05; commands company of vol-
unteers, 429; biog. of, ii. 542.
Ross, Sherry, i. 286.
Roth, Chas., i. 288.
Rothrock, Adam, ii. 114.
Rothrock, Adam B., Sr., biog. of, ii.
542.
Rouse,
i. 423.
Roush, Jacob, i. 608.
Rousseau, Gen. Lovell H., ii. 29.
Rowand, chief trader, i. 212.
Rowell, Jackson, i. 288.
Rowland, Green, i. 287.
Rowland, John B., i. 287.
Rowland, Dr. L. L., biog. of, ii. 543.
694
INDEX.
Rowland, Capt. William, i. 343, 344;
extract from letter on Georgianna
wreck, 345.
Ruckel, J. S., ii. 15.
Ruckman, Robt. D., biog. of, ii. 543.
Rudene, John O., biog. of, ii. 543.
Rupert's land, acquisitions under char-
ter to be called, i. 95.
Rush, Richard, i. 125, 127.
Rush, Thos. J., i. 165.
Russel,
i. 399.
Russell, Chas. J. W., takes oysters to
S. F., i. 337.
Russell, James H., i. 396.
Russell, Lord John, ii. 36.
Russell, Odo, ii. 44
Russell, Osborne, i. 184, 264, 268.
Russell, Thos. S., i. 471.
Russell, Wm., i. 287, 641.
Russia, claim to Northwest Am. had
origin in Behring's voyage, i. 26; oc-
cupied Kodiak Island, i. 38; claims
on Northwestern coast, 120; grant
(1799) by Emperor Paul, 120; treaty
of 1824, settler's claim of U. S. to 50°
40', 128.
Russian-Am. Fur Co., i. 120.
Russian voyages in North Pac., i. 20~26.
Russie, Augustine, i. 287.
Russler, Sgt., ii. 28.
Rust, Henry, biog. of, ii. 544.
Ryne, Thos., i. 440.
Rynearson, A. W., biog. of, ii. 544.
Rynearson, John, biog. of, ii. 544.
Rynearson, Wm., biog. of, ii. 544.
Sacramento valley, L. W. Hastings and
party from Willamette go to, 1843,
i. 242; trappers from, 370.
Sagar, Francis, i. 200.
Sagar, John, i. 200.
Sahaptan Indians, i. 173.
St. James Mission, Catholic mission at
Vancouver, i. 335; title to, 335 note.
St. Joseph's College opens in 1843, i.
2II.
St. Lawrence river, i. 59.
St. Louis, i. 72; headquarters of Rocky
Mountain trade except North Amer-
ican Co., 112.
St. Louis co., i. 112.
St. Paul, ship, Behring sails in, i.
lost on Behring's Island, 21.
20;
St. Paul's church, extract from parish
regents, i. 180.
St. Peter's river, Carver ascends 200
miles, i. 59.
St. Peter, ship, i. 24.
Salaries of officers, i. 361.
Salem declared capital by Congress, i.
329; description of, ii. 158.
Sales, Mr., i. 200.
Saling, Isham E., biog. of, ii. 544.
Salmon Falls massacre, ii. 8-10,
Salmon fishery established by Wyeth
on Sauvie's Island, i. 118.
Salmon fishing abandoned by Wyeth,
i. 214.
Salmon river, i. 71.
Salmon river excitement, ii. 33.
Salomon, Edward S., ii. 54.
Sam, Chief, i. 432.
Sambo, son of Tipsu, i. 412.
Sampson's band of Indians, depreda-
tions of, i. 641.
Samuel Roberts, schr., i. 378.
San Antonio, ship, i. 29.
San Carlos, ship, i. 29, 32, 42, 50, 51.
San Diego, mission established by
Serra July 16, 1669, i. 29; first white
settlement in Upper Cal., 29; presidio
estab. at. 1769, 30; reached by J. S.
Smith 1826 across Sierra Nevada, 112.
San Diego Bay, discovered by Cabrillo
1542, 1. 15.
San Diego, vessel, i. 19.
San Francisco, presidio established at,
1776, i. 30; entered by Capt. Arteaga
Oct. 15, 1779, 33; arrival of the
O'Cain in 1810, 74; Azstros sent
to, from Shoalwater Bay, 1850, 313;
called Yerba Buena, 371; excitement
in Frazer river mines, 517.
San Francisco Bay, did Drake stop in?
see note from Coast Pilot, i. 17;
hunting seals near, 79; first over-
land trip from Atlantic to, 1826, by
J. S. Smith, 114 (see Smith); Wilkes'
instructions to examine, 226; ren-
dezvous Oct., 1841, 228.
S. F. Herald, i. 517.
San Gabriel mission (Cal.), i. 113.
San José, pueblo of, i. 30.
San José (Cal.), sloop-of-war Ports-
mouth at, 1848, i. 275.
San José mission (Cal.), i. 113; Kelly
and Young leave 1834, 370.
San José, vessel, i. 29.
San Juan co. (Wash.), outline history
of, ii. 174
San Juan Island, revenue jurisdiction
disputed, i. 472.
San Juan Island imbroglio, ii. 34-44.
San Roque river, Meares' search for,
i. 50; says there is no river, 50;
named by Heceta, 1788, 52.
San Tomas, vessel, i. 19.
Sand Island, account of, ii. 103.
Sander, C. A., biog. of, ii. 545.
Sanders, Sam, i. 437.
Sandwich Islands, visited by Cook in
1776, and named after Earl of Sand-
wich, i. 35; again in 1778, 36; Cook's
quarrel and death, 36, 37; Conroy
winters at, 1821-22, 116.
Sangster, Collector, claims revenue
jurisdiction over San Juan Island, i.
472.
Santa Anna, vessel burned by Caven-
dish off San Lucas, i. 18.
Santa Barbara, presidio established at,
1780, i. 30.
Santa Cruz, pueblo of, i̟. 30.
Sauta Stromina, schr., i. 51.
Santiago, ship, of Perez, i. 31; of
Heceta, 32.
Saphar, Jas., i. 440.
Saragossa, Treaty of, 1529, i. 3.
Sarah Stone, sloop, i. 472.
Sargent, Asher, i. 337, 343 note, 344.
Sargent, E. Nelson, i. 343 note.
Saskatchewan river, i. 58.
Satellite, ship, i. 518; ii. 40, 41.
Saunders, (miner), i. 200.
Sauvie's (or Wapato Island), i. 107;
salmon fishing established on by
Wyeth, 118.
Savage, C. W., i. 286.
7.
Savage, Hon. Wm., biog. of, ii. 545.
Sawmill at Tumwater, i. 302; on Oak
Point river, 336; at Tacoma and
Skookum Bay, 340; of Yesler, first
on Puget Sound, 342; others erected,
342 and note; near Winchester, 396;
erected, 1855, 431.
Sawamish co. (Or.), i. 467.
Saxton, St. Rufus, i. 461.
Saylor, Conrad G., biog. of, ii. 546.
Sayward, Wm. T., i. 342 note.
Scarborough, Capt. Juo., i. 266, 416.
Scar-faced Charley, i. 651.
Schestakow, Col., proposition to Rus-
sian Empress, expedition of, and
death, Müller's account, i. 23.
Schmoldt, Adolf, i. 449.
Schnebly, David J., biog. of, ii. 547.
Schnebly, Frederick D., biog. of, ii.
547.
Schonchis, Chief. See Sconchin.
School lands, how to be applied, i. 361.
Schools (Or.), list of, ii. 148.
Schools (Wash.), failure of attempt of
Jno. Ball at Vancouver, 1833, i. 117;
kept by Solomon H. Smith in same
place eighteen months, 118; success,
118; Murray's grammar repeated ver-
batim, 118; list of, ii. 149.
Schorr, Geo. F., biog. of, ii. 548.
Schouten, Capt. Wm., sails for the
Dutch and discovers Cape Horn,
1615,with the Eendracht and Hoorn,
i. 20.
Schroter, Ernest, ii. 45.
Scoggin, J. S., i. 286.
Sconchin, Chief, i. 405, 653.
Scott, Jas., i. 112.
Scott, John, i. 371.
Scott, John Tucker, biog. of, ii. 548–49.
Scott, Jos. W., i. 286.
Scott, Levi, i. 358, 371, 386, 398; guides
parties over the Applegate route,
374; made commiss'er, 374; locates
Scott valley, 375; as guide, 376;
complimented by Kearney, 384;
claim known as Upper Scottsburg,
390.
Scott, Hon. R., ii. 147.
Scott, Gen. Winfield S., assumes com-
mand of Pacific coast; instructions
from Secretary of War, ii. 43; corres-
pondence with Sir James Douglas,
43-44.
Scott river, mines on, i. 379.
Scottsburg, laid out, i. 379; divisions
of, and names of firms in, 390; firms
in, 1852, 398, 399; trade increases,
406; trade increased, 1853, 408.
Scouts, Indian, Army bill providing
for, ii. 25-26; dispute over allotment
of, 26.
Scurvy, on Perez expedition, i. 31; in
Heceta's crew, 32.
Sea Gull, tender, i. 151, 227, 315, 390,
406.
Sea Otter, ship, i. 40.
Sea otter skins, trade in, i. 78.
Sea Serpent, schooner, i. 312.
Seals, hunting near S. F. bay, i. 79.
Seat of govt. (Or.), debate on in sec-
ond terr'l legislature, i. 320; location
of public buildings, 320-22; Omnibus
bill, 321; Holbrook's opinion, 321;
Crittenden's opinion, 321; arrival of
Oregon party, 323; location question
again, 324; controversy between
Nelson and Pratt, 324-26; quorum
of supreme court at Oregon City,
324; Pratt held court at Salem, mi-
nority at Oregon City, 324-25; me-
morial to Cong., 325; Pratt's letter,
324; session of 1851-52, 326; appeal
to President, 327; Fillmore's mes-
sage, 328; Salem declared seat of
govt., 329; Congress ratifies laws
made there, 329; act passed 1855 to
remove to Corvallis, 352; congress-
ional appropriation of $27,000 to
complete capitol at Salem, and
$40,000 for penitentiary, 352; office
of governor and secretary removed
to, 353; notified that congressional
approval of act was required, and no
moneys paid out except at Salem,
353; return to Salem, 353; work on
public buildings resumed, 353; act
passed 1855-56 to submit selection
to people, 354; in election, June,
#
INDEX.
695
Seat of govt. (Or.)—cont'd.
1856, Eugene City voted seat of
govt., 354; non-returns of some
counties invalidate, 354; election in
October, Eugene City again chosen,
354; popular verdict disregarded,
Salem remained capitol, 355; article
in constitution indicating manner
of locating, 360; act to submit to
popular vote, 360; at election, 1862,
no majority received, 360; 1864,
Salem 79 majority and declared the
permanent seat of govt., 360.
Seat of govt. (Wash.), controversy
over, i. 480; located at Olympia, 480;
ii. 57.
Seattle, Chief, i. 479; biog. of, ii. 549.
Seattle, located by Denny, Bell and
Boren, i. 338; two plats filed, 338;
first occupation, 342; Indian attack
on, 574; anti-Chinese meetings at,
and Chinese driven out, ii. 53; nat-
ural advantages of, 105; description
of, 154.
Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern R. R.,
sketch of, ii. 143.
Seavy, James, biog. of, ii. 550.
Seeber, Juo. F., biog. of, ii. 550.
Seidner,
343 note.
Selah Fishery, i. 596.
Select Senate Committee of 8, i. 296.
Sellwood, Rev. James R. W., biog. of,
ii. 551.
Semmes, Lieut., i. 494.
Semple, Hon. Eugene, ii. 54; biog. of,
551.
Semple, Jas., i. 165.
Señorita, boat, ii. 15.
Senters, Samuel, i. 288.
Serra, Junipero, created president of
missions, i. 28; accompanies expe-
dition to San Diego, 29; takes pos-
session of Cal. in name of Spain, 29.
Settle, Capt., i. 567.
Settlemier, J. H., biog. of, 551.
Settlement, first (Am.) north of Co-
lumbia river, i. 267.
Sevier, Ambrose H., i. 154, 165.
Seward, Nathan H., i. 363.
Seward, Wm. H., ii. 2, 36 note.
S'Geass, Indian, i. 306.
Shaaf, Lieut. Arthur, ii. 39.
Shadden, Thos. J., biog. of, ii. 552.
Shain, Thos., i. 287.
Shamberg, ii. 9, 13.
Shane, J., killed by Indians, i. 413.
Shannon, i. 286.
Shannon, Davis, i. 358.
Shannon, Geo. D., biog. of, 553.
Shark, schr., i. 271, 273.
Sharp,
i. 585.
Shastas, Indians, i. 414.
Shatapan, i. 82.
Shattuck, Hon1. E. D., i. 358; biog. of,
ii. 554.
Shaw, B. Frank, i. 288, 335, 575.
Shaw, Frank, i. 348.
Shaw, Geo., i. 288.
Shaw, Geo. W., i. 288.
Shaw, Thos., i. 112..
Shaw, Hon. T. C., biog. of, ii. 555.
Shaw, Col. Wm., i. 266, 267, 575, 581,
582, 583; list of officers and men in
company of, 288; campaign east of
Cascades, 584-89; official report of
his own command, 586-89; expedi-
tion of Washi. Terr. Volunteers to
Walla Walla country, 611; intro-
duces sheep, ii. 130.
Shazar, Geo., i. 341.
Shead, Capt. Oliver, i. 575.
Sheehan, John F., biog. of, ii. 556.
Sheep, interest in, ii. 129.
Sheets, J. Tilton, ii. 48.
Sheffield, Capt. Ed., i. 447, 451.
Sheldon, Wm., i. 286.
Shelton, Hon. David, i. 339; biog. of,
ii. 556.
Shelton, Hawkins, i. 440.
Shelton, Isaac, i. 435.
Shelton, Jos. M., biog. of, ii. 557.
Sheiras, Nicholas, i. 651.
Shiel, Edw'd, i. 411.
Shiel, Geo. K., i. 409.
Shields, John H., biog. of, ii. 557.
Shepard, Jack, i. 646, 647.
Shepard, Wm., i. 287.
Shepherd, Cyrus, i. 118, 186, 187.
Sheppard, Lieut. A., i. 538, 600, 601.
Sheridan, Private, i. 602, 6ʊ3.
Sheridan, Gen. Phil H., i. 603, 604;
and company at Fort Vancouver,
598; account of attack on Lower
Cascades, 604-07; account of murder
of Spencer family (Indian), 608-10;
name given to town, ii. 166.
Sherman, Gen. W. T., i. 652.
Sherman co. (Or.), outline history of,
ii. 169.
Sherwood, Lieut. Walter, i. 652.
Shiel, Dr. Ed., i. 417.
Shiel, Geo. K., ii. 3, 31.
Shields, Gen. James, i. 358; tendered
governorship, declined, 303.
Shipwrecks, 1856, i. 641.
Shirley, Wm., i. 287.
Shoalwater Bay, i. 336; named by
Meares, 1788, 50; oysters found in,
313; as a harbor, ii. 104.
Short, Amos M., claims to land in
Vancouver, i. 335; equities of, 335
note.
Short, R. V., i. 358.
Shortess, Robt., i. 237, 238, 241; ex-
planation of authorship of "Peti-
tion of 1843," 243; tribute to Dr.
McLoughlin, i. 245.
Shoshone, boat, shcots Cascades, ii.
102.
Shoshone co. (Idaho), outline history.
of, ii. 182.
Shoshone Falls, description of, ii. 160.
Shoshone Indians, i. 173, 217; coun-
cil with, 649; Wallen describes char-
acter of, ii. 5; expeditions to Snake
country against, 7-13; extent of their
territory, 17 note; predatory attacks
of, 22-23; military preparations
against, 22-26; Gen. Crook on trail,
27-28; close of war on, 29.
Show, Daniel, i 343 note.
Shrie, Lieut., i. 643.
Shrum, Nicholas, i. 358.
Shultz, Rudolph, i. 532.
Shumake, D., i. 286.
Shutz, Zebulon, i. 413.
Siberia merged in Russian Empire,
1711, i. 21.
Siberian voyages in North Pacific, i. 21.
Sichel, Sigmund, biog. of, ii. 558.
Sick, Indian treatment of the, ii. 89-90.
Sierra Nevada Mts. first crossed by
white men 1826, i. 114.
Simmes, Ed., i. 646, 647, 648.
Simmons, Jas. F., i. 165.
Simmons, Col. M. T., i. 302, 312, 335,
340, 543, 576, 577; col. of "Inde-
pendent Oregon Co. of 1844," 266;
settlement on Puget Sound, 267;
report on cargo of Mary Dare, 347;
app. Ind. agt., 490; biog. of, ii. 558-60.
Simmons, name given to part of Lewis
co., changed to Thurston, 326.
Simmons, Wm., i. 288.
Simpson, A. M., i. 431.
Simpson, Benj., i. 288.
Simpson, Sir George, testimony for
land grant to H. B. Co., i. 104-05;
agent Puget Sound Agricultural Co.,
108; offers Smith free passage to
London, 114; opinion of missionary
work, 196; letter to the Archbishop
of Quebec, 208; favorable report on
labors of Blanchet and Demers, 211;
visits Oregon, Aug., 1841, 228; de-
scribes Cowlitz and Nisqually, 229;
Red river col., 229-30; Gov. Stevens
sent to Montreal to interview, 462.
Simpson and Jackson, i. 641.
Sims, Columbus, i. 398, 408, 409, 417,
427.
Sinclair, Lieut.-Col., ii. 22.
Sinclair, James, i. 599, 601, 608.
Sioux Indians, i. 59, 217; attack Gray's
party, 194.
Sisters of Charity of the House of
Providence, incorporated, i. 524.
Sitton, N. K., biog. of, ii. 560.
Siuslaw river, i. 369.
Six-bit House, i. 437.
Skagit co. (Wash.), outline history of,
ii. 174.
Skamania co. (Wash.), i. 468; outline
history of, ii. 177.
Skewhamish. See Snoqualmie.
Skidegate Channel, i. 343.
Skinner, Judge Alonzo A., i. 396; dis-
trict atty., 309; nominee for Cong.,
but defeated by Lane, 351; unquali-
fied for Indian agent, 368; tries to
make peace with Indians, 401; letter
of regret for absence from public
dinner to Lamerick, 403.
Skinner, Eugene F., i. 560.
Skookum Bay, sawmill at, i. 340.
Sky-skie (Indian), i. 580.
Slacum, W. A., i. 244, 247, 248; special
agent to visit Oregon, and instruc-
tions, 150; results embodied in me-
morial to Cong., 150; arrives Dec.,
1836, 214; co-operates with Cal. co.,
215.
Slanders, on people in Southern Or.,
refuted, i. 434.
Slater,
i. 391.
Slater, Hon. James Harvey, ii. 31;
biog. of, 561.
Slaughter, Lieut. W. A., i. 534, 535,
540, 543, 545; tribute to by legisla-
ture, 499; sketch of, i. 508 note;
leaves for White river, 546; murder
of, 547; sketch of, 548.
Slaughter co. (Wash.), created, changed
to Kitsap, i., 508.
Slave river, i. 63.
Slavery, claimed by Robt. J. Walker
in speech, 1848, to be chief obstacle
to annexation, i. 168; discussion in
Cong. on sec. 12 of Oregon Territorial
bill, 292-97; constitutional provision
on, 358.
Sloan, Wm., i. 379; claim known as
Lower Scottsburg, 390.
Sloat, Commodore, i. 273.
Sloluck (or Cok), i. 653.
Slow-i-archy, Palouse chief, i. 637, 638.
Small, D. W., biog. of, ii. 562.
Small, Lieut. Thos. J., i. 538, 568; ii.
16, 25, 29.
Smalley, Daniel, i. 340, 575.
Smead, Hiram, i. 288.
Smet, Father Peter John de, sent by
Bishop of St. Louis to Flathead In-
dians, 1840-41, i. 211; visits Europe
for assistance, 211; returns with
others, 1844, 212.
47
696
INDEX.
Smith,
Smith,
pilot, i. 426.
settler, i. 437.
Smith, Private, Co. K., i. 586.
Smith, A. B., i. 194, 195.
Smith, Capt. A. J., i. 416, 418, 419, 420,
432; erects military post at Ft. Lane,
412; marches to camp from Port
Orford, and difficulties of the trip,
418; report of engagement lost, 441;
expedition to Snake country, ii. 6–7.
Smith, Absalom M., i. 288.
Smith, Alvin T., account of journey
from Ill., 1840, with Harvey, Clarke
and Littlejohn, i. 219; ii. 1IO.
Smith, Mrs. Arethusa E., biog. of, ii.
563.
Smith, C. W., i. 398.
Smith, Caleb B., brings up Territorial
government bill in House, May 29,
1848, i. 293.
Smith, Charles Hart, i. 312.
Smith, D. C., i. 286.
Smith, Daniel, i. 589.
Smith, Delazon, i. 358; claims seat in
Cong., 363; sworn in as senator,
term drawn, 366; one of first sena-
tors, ii. 1, 3, 4, 30.
Smith, Hon. E. L., biog. of, ii. 565.
Smith, Edward S., biog. of, ii. 563-65.
Smith, Hon. Eugene D., biog. of, ii.
566.
Smith, G. W., i. 286, 561, 564.
Smith, Green B., biog. of, ii. 566.
Smith, H. H., i. 287.
Smith, Mrs. Helen, biog. of, ii. 570-71.
Smith, Dr. Henry A., biog. of, ii. 567.
Smith, Capt. Hiram, biog. of, ii. 568.
Smith, Hugh, killed by Indians, i. 412.
Smith, Col. I. W., i. 286, 580; ii. 48.
Smith, J. C., goes to Oro Fino mines,
ii. 33.
Smith, J. Gregory, ii. 47.
Smith, J. H., i. 287.
Smith, J. L., U. S. Commissioner, i.
311.
Smith, Jedediah S., member of Rocky
Mt. Fur Co., crossed Sierra Nevada,
1824, with party of 40, in 1825, and
established camp on Am. fork of
Sac. river, i. 112; returns with skins,
112; crosses again in 1826, attempts
to reach Columbia river and follow
it up to Snake river to meet his
party, 112; explores country to San
Diego for horses, 112; obliged to pro-
cure passport from Gen. Echaudia to
remain, 112; certificate to his honesty
given by Am. shipmasters, 113; ob-
liged to remain in the country, 113;
letter to Father Duran of San Jose,
telling who he was, 113; certificate
and letter preserved in archives of
Cal. as memento of first crossing of
Sierra Nevada by a white man, and
first overland trip from Atlantic
States to S. F. Bay, 114; goes to
Rogue river, 114; account of adven-
tures with Indians on Umpqua
river, and escape, 114; killed on
Cimmaron river, 1831, by Indians,
115; journey from Sac. valley to
Columbia river, 1827, 369-70.
Smith, Lieut. Jno. H., i. 538.
Smith, Jos. S., i. 491, 505; ii. 31.
Smith, L. A., i. 580.
Smith, Levi Lathrop, i. 302.
Smith, Miss Lucy, arrives at Willa-
mette valley, Sept., 1836, i. 187.
Smith, Noyes, i. 301.
Smith, Robt., i. 287, 371.
Smith, Sidney, i. 216, 233, 237.
Smith, Royal C., i. 336.
Smith, Solomon H., i. 182; teaches in
Vancouver eighteen months, 117;
confusion of tongues, 117; scholars
learn English, 118; biog. of, ii. 569.
Smith, Capt. Thos., i 379, 396, 398, 399,
432, 433, 434, 442, 443, 445, 447, 448,
453; official report of battle of Big
Bend on Rouge river, 455–58; biog.
of, ii. 571-74.
Smith, Thomas, biog. of, ii. 574.
Smith, Capt. Wm., i. 79, 287; state-
ment about Oak Point, 75; sketch
of, 75.
Smith, Wm. M., i. 287.
Smith & Reed, i. 398.
Smithfield claim, called Olympic, i.
312.
Smoheller the "dreamer" (Indian),
ii. 661.
Smythe, Alex., i. 137.
Snake country, Steen and Smith's ex-
pedition to, ii. 6-7; military opera-
tions in, 1864, 18-20.
Snake Indians.
Snake river, i. 71, 81, 107, 567; descrip-
tion of, ii. 1oI.
See Shoshones.
Suake river or Ward massacre, i. 531.
Sneckster, Hariot, i. 628.
Snelling, George L., i. 389, 390, 398,
428.
Snider, Henry, ii. 9, 13.
Snohodemtah, Chief, favors peace,
i. 302.
Snohomish (Wash.), town, description
of, ii. 657.
Snohomish co. (Wash.), outline history
of, ii. 174.
Snohomish Indians, i. 479.
Snook, Jasper, i. 564.
Snooks, P., i. 608.
Snoqualmie Indians, attack Fort Nis-
qually (or Skewhamish), 305-06;
murder Wallace, 306; pursuit, 307;
murderers delivered, convicted and
executed, 309.
Snoqualmic Pass, i. 585.
Snow, three feet at Jacksonville, 1852,
i. 407.
Socklate Tyee, Chief, friend of Whites,
i. 376.
Soldiers, discharged, become settlers in
Puyallup valley, i. 340.
Sole occupancy by U. S., progress in
Congress, i. 134, 139.
Solide, Le, ship, i. 51.
Solis, Juan Diaz de, sails from Spain,
discovers river La Plata, and killed
by natives, 1515, i. 12.
Soltees (Indian), i. 624.
Sonora, ship of Bodega, i. 32.
Sonora, expedition extended to, i.
I12.
Soto, Hernando, discovers Mississippi
river, and claims country for Spain,
i. 67.
Soul and future state, Indian idea of,
ii. 94.
Sound country, name given to north-
ern country, i. 333.
Sound Indians, decline to resist Ameri-
cans, i. 302; disturbances of, 470-72.
South Sea Co., license granted, i. 39.
South Pass in Rocky Mts., discovered
by Stuart, i. 81; evidence of its prac-
ticability, i. 231.
Southern Battalion, i. 439; reorgani-
zation of, i. 447.
Southern Company, institute voyages,
i. 20.
Southern Pacific R. R. system, ac-
count of, ii. 139-40.
Sowles, Capt., i. 80.
Spain, voyages of to discover the In
dies, i. 2; Europe jealous of her
growing commerce in Pacific, 17;
anxious for settlements on Cal.
coast to protect fleets, 27; Oton-
do's expedition sent with Father
Kuno, finds Gulf of Cal., settles La
Paz, but abandons after three years,
27; spiritual conquest decided upon,
contributions raised, Kuno joined
by Tierra, Ugarte to act as agent in
Mexico, 27; Tierra plants mission
of Loreto, and possession of Lower
Cal., 27; great success of missions,
28; jealousy excited and Jesuits ex-
pelled by Charles III., 28; succeeded
by Franciscans, Junipero Serra made
president, 28; marine department
of San Blas organized, 29; De Gal-
vez ordered to recover San Diego,
29; expeditions by land and sea,
reach San Diego July, 1769, Mon-
terey June 3, 1770, 29; country taken
possession of by Serra and missions
established from San Diego north,
29-30; presidios established in San
Diego, Monterey, S. F. and Santa
Barbara, 30; the two Californias a
department of Spain under military
governors, 30; policy of occupation
on Pacific maintained, 31; fears en-
croachment of Great Britain, diffi-
culties threatened, aid of France
asked, declined but acts as mediator,
voyages of exploration renewed, 31;
expedition of Perez 1774, 31; of He-
ceta, 32; of Bodega and Maurelle,
32-33; of Arteaga, 1779, 33; war de-
clared with Great Britain 1779,ended
explorations, 33; Nootka Treaty with
Great Britain 1790, and events cul-
minating therein, 39-48 (see Nootka
Treaty); declarations of rights to
South Seas, 43; negotiations with
Great Britain, claims and counter-
claims, 44; continues navigations in
Nootka Sound, 50; claims Louisiana
1539, 67; treaty with France, and
supports her in war, 68; retrocedes
Louisiana to France in return for
Duke of Parma's grant, 69; claims
on Northwest coast, 121; Florida
Treaty, 1819, eliminates Spain from
controversy, 124; claimed whole
continent by grant from the Pope,
142; discoveries of noticed by Cal-
houn, 143; Pakenham rejoins on, 143;
Calhoun's final argument, 145-46.
Spalding, Eliza, i. 200.
Spalding, Rev. Henry H., i. 194, 197,
205, 273, 310, 311, 395; interest in
sheep, ii. 130; biog. of, 575.
Spangberg, Capt. Martin, examines
the Kurili Islands 1738, and voyages
to Japan in 1739, i. 24.
Spanish names given, i. 51.
Speelyai (Coyote), myths of, ii. 64, 65,
67, 79.
Speight, Jesse, i. 165.
Spence, John, i. 287.
Spencer family (Indian), Sheridan's
account of murder of, 609-10.
Sperry, Hon. James B., biog. of, ii. 576.
Spiritualism among Indians, ii. 90.
Splawn, Chas. A., biog. of, ii. 577.
Spokane & Northern R. R., account
of, ii. 144.
Spokane co. (Wash.), made, and boun-
daries, i. 514; formed, ii. 33; outline
history of, 180.
Spokane Falls, description of, ii. 150–
51.
INDEX.
697
Spokane House, i. 78 note.
Spokane Indians, i. 283, 284, 550; coun-
cil with, 573; join Coeur d'Alenes
and Palouses and Yakimas in war,
623; defeat Col. Steptoe, 624; fight
in "batttle of Four Lakes," 631; of
Spokane Plains, 632; treaty with Col.
Wright, 636.
Spokane Invincibles, i. 545.
Spokane Plains, battle of, i. 632.
Spokane river, i. 81; historic interest
of, ii. 100.
Sportsman, Wm., i. 371.
Spotted Eagle, Chief, i. 572; com-
mands volunteers, 545.
Sprauge, Gen. John W., ii. 23, 48.
Sprague (Lincoln co), account of, ii.
152.
Springer, Wm. M., ii. 57.
Spurgeon, Matthias, biog. of, ii. 577.
Squak valley, attack où Chinese at,
ii. 51.
Squaw creek, ii. 23.
Squire, Gov. Watson C., proclaims
martial law, ii. 54; elected U. S. sen-
ator, 59.
Stafford, Capt. Samuel B., i. 538.
Stahl, Mrs. John H., biog. of, ii. 577.
Staley, J. A., i. 533.
Stanfield, Jos., i. 200.
Stanley, Lieut., i. 395.
Stanley, J. H., biog. of, ii. 577.
Stanley, James M., i. 462.
Stannus, John, i. 440.
Stanton, Edwin M., ii. 26.
Stark, Benjamin, ii. 30; succeeds Col.
Baker, 4; sketch of, 4 note.
Stark, Gen. Geo., ii. 48.
Stark, Henry A., i. 425.
Starkweather, Wm. A., i. 358.
Starling, Edward A., appointed Indian
agent, i. 343.
Starling, ship, i. 218.
Starr, Capt. L. M., ii. 142.
Stars, Samuel, i. 399.
State of California, ship, ii, 141.
Steamboat Code, i. 329, 330.
Steamer Beaver, sketch of, ii. 657-58.
Steel, Elijah, i. 400, 427.
Steel, Hon. Geo. A., biog. of, ii. 578.
Steele, Dr. Alden H., biog. of, ii. 578.
Steele, Maj. Gen. Frederick, ii. 26, 29;
assumes command of District of the
Columbia, 1866, 22; disposition of
troops, 22-23; consults Gov. Woods,
25.
Stehi, Chief, i. 577, 615, 616.
Steilacoom, i. 480; settled by Balch
and Chapman, 337; arrivals, 1850,
339.
Steilacoom Indians, i. 477.
Steinberger, Col. Justus, ii. 16.
Steinermon, Chris., i. 287.
Stephens, Alexander H., statement
of population, i. 363.
Stephens, Ebenezer, i. 408.
Stephens, H. N., i. 286.
579.
Stephens, James B., biog. of, ii.
Steptoe, Col. Edward Jenner, i. 598,
603, 606, 607, 622; correspondence
with Gov. Stevens in regard to sup-
plying aid, 613-15; asks for volun-
teers to escort him, 615; Indian
design to force him to make expe-
ditions, 623; country under an inter-
dict, 623; commands expedition
and is defeated at Four Lakes, 624;
official report, 626-28; Lieut. Grigg's
account of the disastrous expedi-
tion, 628; summary of fight, 629; to
be left at Walla Walla, 629.
Sterrett, Capt. Isaac S., generous
conduct acknowledged by Gov.
Mason, i. 497; aid given to Wash.
Terr. Volunteers, 543.
Steve Meek cut-off, fight at, i. 280.
Stevens, Gov. Isaac Ingalls, i. 464,
467, 493, 495, 499, 504, 621, 623; in
charge of N. P. R. R. survey; 460–
63; first annual message, recom-
mendations, 464-66; applies to Sec-
retary of War for arms, etc., re-
fused, 473; report on Indian affairs,
1854, 474-76; treaties with Indians,
477-79; appointed commissioner to
treat with Indians, 481; council at
Walla Walla, 482; Treaty of Ya-
kima, 484; other treaties, 489; re-
turns to Fort Benton, 489; tribute to
humanity of, 490; defeated for dele-
gate, 491; address to legislature,
1856, on Indian affairs, 499-503;
last message, 1856, 505; issues reg-
ulations for Indian chiefs, 508;
spirited canvass for election as dele-
gate, 1857, 510; elected, 511; in-
structions to repeal anti-Stevens
measures of 1856-57, 511; vacancy
caused by his election to Congress,
512; legislature rescinds action dis-
approving proclamation of martial
law, 514; official testimony of hos-
tility of tribes, 535; escort of, 545;
arrives from Blackfoot country,
549; letter to Col. Kelly, 563;
attends Blackfoot council, 572;
account of return journey, 572-73;
neglect on part of Gen. Wool, 573;
conference with Spokanes, addresses
legislature, 573; issues proclama-
tion for volunteers, preamble, 574;
correspondence with Sir James
Douglas on purchase of supplies,
576; orders suspects brought in,
579; causes to justify proceedings
of, 580; places them in custody of
Col. Casey, 581; habeas-corpus pro-
ceedings, 581-82; proclaims martial
law in Pierce and Thurston coun-
ties, 581-82; revoked, 583; fined for
contempt of court, 583, likened to
Gen. Jackson, 583; refuses troops to
Col. Casey, 584; favors Shaw's ex-
pedition, 585; letter refusing call for
volunteers for Casey, 594-95; noti-
fies Col. Wright of Col. Shaw's ex-
pedition, 611; attempts to hold
council of Indians at Walla Walla,
613-15; renews demand for delivery
of chiefs of Col. Wright, 615;
correspondence, 616; Wright com-
plies, 616; protests to Secretary of
War against Col. Wright's treaties,
617; treaties made with Indians ad-
vocated by Gen. Clarke, 639, ii. 38;
46, 47, 54, 55; biog. of, 579.
Stevens, Gen. Juo. H., biog. of, ii. 580.
Stevens' Guards, i. 545.
Stevens co. (Wash.), outline history of,
ii. 177.
Stewart, A., i. 286.
Stewart, Daniel, i. 287.
Stewart, David, interest in cattle, ii.
126.
Stewart, Hon. James P., biog. of, ii.
580.
Stewart, Hon. Jno., biog. of, ii. 581.
Stewart, Lewis, i. 288.
Stewart, Hon. Peter G., i. 184, 264, 268;
survey of Pacific City, 351 note; biog.
of, ii. 582.
Sticcas, Chief, i. 281, 283, 310, 482, 617.
Stikeen Indians, i. 469.
Stiles, Hon. Charles T., biog. of, ii.
583.
Stiles, Hon. Theodore L., biog. of, ii.
584.
Stillman, E. D., biog. of, ii. 585.
Stillwell, Wm. D., i. 287; biog. of, ii.
585-87.
Stinson, Ulmer, biog. of, ii. 587.
Stokes, Wm., i. 286.
Stone,
i. 396.
Stone, Col., i. 646.
Stone, Asa, i. 287.
Stone, David, i. 309.
Stone, E. T., i. 287.
Stone, Nathan, i. 309.
Stoneman, Lieut., i. 405.
Store, first in Southern Or., i. 379.
Story, Jas. L., biog. of, ii. 588.
Stout, J. L., biog. of, ii 588.
Stout, Lansing, ii. 2, 3, 31.
Strahan, Hon. R. S., biog. of, ii. 589.
Straight, Hiram, i. 258.
Stratton, Rev. Howard W., biog. of,
ii. 589.
Stratton, Riley E., i. 390, 398; elected
justice supreme court, 362.
Straughan, Jos. C., on irrigation of arid
lands, ii. 118.
Striethoff, John, i. 287.
Striethoff, Reuben, i. 287.
Strong, Capt. Wm., i. 314, 324, 460,
466, 491, 505, 523, 541, 549; holds
court to try Beaver and Mary Dare,
347; appointed assoc. justice, 514;
murder of his force, 550; on Or. St.
Nav. Co., from an address, ii. 15;
biog. of, ii. 590-93.
Strowbridge, Hon. J. A., biog. of, ii.
593-95.
Strutevant, Jos., i. 564.
Stuart, Capt. Chas. E., i. 434; Beaver
libel filed against, 348; flees to Vic-
toria, libel dismissed, 348.
Stuart, David, i. 77, 82, 83, 85; goes up
Columbia, 79; erected Fort Okana-
gan, So.
Stuart, Jas., killed in Kearney's fight
with Indians, i. 334.
Stuart, John, i. 73, 83.
Stuart, Robt., i. 77; takes dispatches to
Astor, 81; discovers South Pass in
Rocky Mts., winters on Platte river
and reaches St. Louis in April, 1813,
SI.
Stuckling, L., killed by Indians, i. 413.
Stulharrier (Indian), i. 309.
Stump, Capt. I. J., ii. 102.
Sturdevant, Hon. Robt. F., biog. of,
ii. 595.
Sturgeon, Daniel, i. 165.
Sturgis, Gen., ii. 661.
Suard, Lieut. Smith, i. 538.
Sublette, Milton, i. 112.
Sublette brothers, i. 231.
Suckley, Dr. Geo., i. 462, 533.
Suez Canal, commenced and aban-
doned, i. 20.
Sulphur, ship, i. 218.
Summer, Gen. E. V., ii. 16 note.
Summers, R. E., i. 391.
Sumner, Clement W., i. 337.
Supply, storeship, i. 314.
Supreme Court, majority meet at Ore-
gon City and minority at Salem,
1851, i. 324.
Surveyor-general, Jno. A. Benton first,
i. 319.
Suspects, scouting party for, i. 579;
captured, 580; turned over to Col.
Casey, 581; tried and discharged, 583.
698
INDEX.
Sutherlin, Fendel, i. 398.
Sutil, schr., i. 51.
Sutter, John A., partner of James W.
Marshall, 1848, i. 300.
Swagart, Geo. W., biog. of, ii. 595.
Swan, Hon. Jas. G., list of trading
vessels, 1787-1809, given in his
"Northwest Coast," i. 75; biog. of,
ii. 595.
Swan, John, i. 548.
Swanton, Capt., i. 512.
Swartwout, Capt. Samuel, i. 512; ex-
pedition against Northern Indians
at Port Gamble, 494; subdues them,
495.
Sweetwater river, named by Ashley,
i. III.
Sweitzer, Lieut., ii. 6.
Sweitzer, Gen. N. B., i. 422, 432, 433,
442, 453, 456.
Swindal, Calvin W., i. 575, 577, 578.
Switzler, John, i. 602.
Sword, Lieut., i. 559.
Sylvester, Edmond, i. 335; calls Smith-
field claim Olympia, 312.
Sylester, Joseph, i. 288.
Sylvia de Grasse, ship, i. 303.
Syner, F. M., i. 471.
T. J. Potter, str., ii. 141, 156; steamer
built of Oregon woods, 124.
Table Rock, i. 412.
Table Rock Reservation, i. 422.
Table Rock Sentinel, originally Ump-
qua Herald, i. 444.
Tabor, J. B., biog. of, ii. 596.
Tacoma, Delin's location in, i. 340; ii.
48; anti-Chinese meetings at, 53;
harbor of, 105; description of, 153.
Tacoutche Tesse, "the great river," i.
64; proved to be Fraser, 65.
Taftson, Martin, i. 337.
Taggart, Lieut., i. 567.
Talbot, Capt. W. C., i. 342 note.
Tallentire, Thos. i. 339.
Tamahos, Indian, i. 201, 310.
Tamanowash, or spirit power (myth),
ii. 86.
Tamaree, cook, i. 343 note.
Tamsuky (Indian), i. 201, 281, 283.
Tanner, Albert H., biog. of, ii. 597.
Tatam (Indian), i. 309.
Tau-i-tau (Indian), i. 199, 281, 283.
Taylor, (editor), i. 444.
Taylor, Dr., i. 547.
Taylor, —, killed by Indians, i. 643.
Taylor, Arthur J., biog. of, ii. 598.
Taylor, Col. James, i. 301, 340; interest
in sheep, ii. 130; biog. of, 598.
Taylor, Jere, i. 446.
Taylor, Jim (Indian), killed by Owen's
party, i. 419.
Taylor, Jno. W., i. 139.
Taylor, Col. O. H., i. 555, 624, 625,
627, 628, 637.
Taylor, W. H., biog. of, ii. 600.
Taylor, Zachary, Pres., appoints terri-
torial officers, i. 314.
Teaser, boat, shoots Cascades, ii. 102.
Tecumseh, Chief, i. 478.
Tedford, (miner), shot by Indians,
i. 423.
Telau-ka-ikt, Chief, i. 201, 224, 281,
283, 284, 310.
Telegraph, introduced by Chas. F.
Johnson, i. 353; first message be-
tween Portland and Oregon City,
Nov. 16, 1855, 353; not extended to
California for several years, 353.
Telephone, str., ii. 144, 156.
Teredo, in Puget Sound, ii. 106; expe-
dients to neutralize ravages of, 106.
Terra de Baccalhaos, or Newfoundland,
discovery of, i. 4.
Territorial bill, struggle in Cong., i.
289; so-called delegates, Meek and
Thornton, 289; Polk's appeal to
Cong., Jan. 1846, 289; Douglas re-
ports bill to House, 290; amend-
ments excluding slavery and extend-
ing Indian laws added, 290; both
passed, 290; Polk's second appeal,
Dec. 1846, 290; bill rejected in Sen-
ate on account of anti-slavery sec-
tion, 290; Polk's third appeal, Dec.
1847, 291; Douglas transferred to
the Senate, 291; introduces bill Jan.
10, 1840, 291; substitute for anti-
slavery clause an express Congres'l
ratification of the articles of com-
pact of Provisional government,
ratified by people of Or., 292; petition
of Provisional legislature as to Cay-
use war reaches Wash., 292; Presi-
dent's message on, 292; attitude of
affairs at Capital on arrival of Meek
and Thornton, 293; in House, bill
made special order, May 29, 293;
referred, on motion of McClernand,
to Com. of Whole, 293; President's
message introduced, bill sent to
Com. on Military Affairs, 293; re-
sumed in Senate, on motion of
Bright, 293; discussion on amend-
ments to sec. 12, 293; Hale moves
to engraft provisions of ordinance
of 1787, 293; Butler says opposition
to bill at former session was from
intention to make it conform to Iowa
laws, 293; Bright said bill called up
because of urgent condition of
affairs in Or., 293; Bright deprecates
Hale's amendment, 294; Hale with-
draws it, 294; Bright consents to
strike out sec. 12, 294; Hale gives
notice of renewing amendment,
294; discussion between Hale, Bag-
by, Foote, Westcott, 294; Bright
withdraws motion to strike out sec.
12, 294; Berrien of Ga. renewed
the motion, 294; ayes and noes
ordered, 294; Westcott replies, 294;
discussion continued by Turney,
Badger, Rusk, Butler, Niles and
Downs, 295; Houston moves amend-
ment, 295; carried, 295; debate in
Senate by Davis, Badger, Johnson
and Foote, 296; amendment by
Davis not to prohibit slavery, 296;
another by Hale, 296; Davis amend-
ment discussed in Senate till July
12, 296; on motion of Clayton, bill
recommitted to special committee of
eight, 296; names of com., 296; July
18, Clayton reports bill to organize
territories of Or., Cal. and New
Mexico, 296; discussed and passed
Senate July 27, 1848, 297; laid on
table in the House, 297; Oregon bill
taken up, 297; attempt to embody
Missouri Compromise fails, 297; bill
passed Aug. 12, 298; President's
reasons for approval in message,
298; act included Oregon, Washing-
ton, Idaho and part of Montana
west of Rocky Mts., 299.
Territorial Geographical and Statisti-
cal Society, act of incorporating, i.
509.
Territorial govt. Wash., proclamation
of act, i. 464.
Territorial legislative assembly, first,
i. 307.
Territorial legislature, 1851, second
sess., officers, Gaines' message, ap-
propriations for capitol, i. 319; new
counties organized, 320; judicial
districts, 320.
1851-52, quorum assembles at
Salem, minority at Oregon City,
324: Salem branch, memorial to Con-
gress, 325; changes in judicial dis-
tricts, 325; Judge Nelson's grievance,
325-26; new counties, 326. Oregon
City branch, proceedings, i. 326–27;
memorial to Congress, 326; law-con-
struing power at Oregon City, law-
making power at Salem, 327; extra
session called, July 26, 1852, 329.
1852-extra sess. Elects Deady
president, Harding speaker, 329;
action of Congress reported, 329;
Salem seat of government, 329;
Democratic, 331; new judicial dis-
tricts, 331; memorials, 331-32.
Territory of Columbia, name to be
given north Oregon, i. 349; bill in
Congress to organize, 349; Wash-
ington sub. for Columbia, 349.
Territory of Northern Cal, and South-
ern Or., project of, i. 351 note.
Terry, Capt., i. 313, 421.
Terry, Hou. Chas. C., i. 338, 339; biog.
of, ii. 600.
Terry, Chester N., Secy. of Constitu-
tional Convention, i. 358.
Terry, Lee, i. 338.
Tetherow,!
i. 272.
Texas, opposition to annexation of,
mainly anti-slavery (Walker's
speech), i. 168.
Thayer, Judge, ii. 139.
Thayer, Hou. Andrew J., ii. 2; biog.
of, 601.
Thayer, Hon. Wm. W., ii. 30; biog.
of, 601.
Theft, extent of among Indians, de-
pendent alone on opportunity, i. 173.
Theller, Lieut., ii. 660.
Thibeault,
i. 306.
Thomas, Capt., i. 116.
Thomas, Rev. Mr., i. 652.
Thomas,
i. 339.
Thomas, A. J., i. 286, 287.
Thomas, Geo., i. 646.
Thomas, O. S., i. 287.
Thomas, John M., biog. of, ii. 602.
Thomas, Jos. A., biog. of, ii. 603.
Thos. H. Perkins, brig, becomes Ore-
gon, i. 228.
Thompson (Indian), hanged, i. 423.
Thompson, David, i. 84; surveyor of
North West Co. starts for Columbia
river, 77; to intercept Tonquin, 78;
reaches Astoria, 79; friendly with
MacDougal, 79-80.
Thompson, David P., ii. 16.
Thompson, J. Edgar, ii. 47.
Thompson, Jim, i. 601, 608.
Thompson, Jno., i. 287.
Thompson, Hon. Levant F., i. 646;
biog. of, ii. 603-05.
Thompson, Dr. L. S., i. 390, 398, 399,
408.
Thompson, L. T., i. 648.
Thompson, Capt. Philip F., i. 284, 287,
650.
Thompson, R. R., ii. 15, 102, 138.
Thompson, Robt., Quartermaster, i.
538.
Thompson, Wm., i., 449.
Thompson, boat, shoots Cascades, ii.
103.
Thornburg, C. N., i. 427.
INDEX.
699
Thorndike, Capt. J. K., i. 342 note.
Thorn, Capt., killed, i. 78; misunder-
standing with Indian chief, 79.
Thornton, J. Quinn, delegate to pre-
sent memorial to Congress, i. 275;
takes passage on Portsmouth from
San José, Cal., 275; Nesmith remon-
strates against appointment of, to
any office, 276; Thornton claims
found in his works, 276 note; so-
called delegate to Congress, mission
and performance thereof in his
works (note), 289; returns from
Wash., 303; Indian agent, 307; gets
data for report on Sound tribes, 308;
offers bribe for murderers of Wallace,
308; disappointed by Lane, 308.
Thornton, John, i. 340, 343 note.
Thornton, S. P., i. 287.
Thornton, Seyburn, i. 267.
Thorp, Fielden M., biog. of, ii. 605.
Thorp, Leonard L., biog. of, ii. 605.
Three Feathers, Chief, i. 572.
Three Sisters (mts.), heights of, ii. 97.
Thurber, John, i. 651.
Thurston, Sam. R., i. 386; first dele-
gate to Congress, 254; author of
Donation law, 254; from speech in
Congress, 255-56; elected delegate,
i. 307; effects changes in mail con-
tract, 315; death at sea, 1851, 322;
sketch of, 322-23.
Thurston co. formed from Lewis co.,
i. 326; northern part divided into
Pierce, King, Jefferson and Island,
331; changed to Mason, 467, outline
history of, ii. 176.
Tibbals, Capt. Henry L., Sr., biog. of,
ii. 606.
Tibbetts, Calvin, i. 182.
Tibbitts, Hon. Geo. W., biog. of, ii.
606.
Tichenor, Capt. Wm., i. 449, 643; dis-
covers Port Orford, 1849, 390; first
attempt to settle, 1851, 390; second,
392; convinces War Department of
importance of Port Oreford, 394;
loses Sea Gull, 406; ii. 3.
Tick, legend of the (myth), ii. 69.
Tidd, Wm. i. 541.
Tierney, T. T., i. 418.
Tierra, Salva, joins Father Kino; es-
tablishes Mission of Loreto and
takes Lower Cal., i. 27.
Tilcoax (Indian), i. 622, 635.
Tillamook co. (Or.), outline history
of, ii. 163.
Tillamook Indians rescue J. S. Smith
from Umpquas, i. 114.
Tilton, Gen. Jas., i. 542, 574; first sur-
veyor-general of Wash., 460 note;
surveys of, ii. 47.
Timber, cut, i. 337, 342; resources, 119-
25; comparative wealth of, 119; forest
areas, 119; varieties, 120-27; mills
and capacity for cutting, 124-25.
Timothy, Chief, accompanies Col. Step-
toe, i. 624; shows route of escape,
625; indebtedness of Steptoe to, for
escape, 629.
Tinkam, A. W., i. 462, 463.
Tinton, Metey, i. 617.
Tipping, Capt., commands
Sea Otter,
1786; lost with ship, i. 40.
Tipsu. Chief, i. 410; agreement of peace
inade with, 422; band, 443.
Tober, Jno., i. 651.
Todd,
i. 512.
To-hoto-nim-me, battle at, i. 624, 626,
628.
Tolman, Elizabeth E., i.
i. 425.
Tolman, Gen. Jas. Clark, i. 425; ii. 30;
biog. of, 607.
Tolman, Mary, i. 425.
Tolmie, Dr. W. F., i. 108, 250, 307, 515,
548; sketch of, 178–79; representa-
tive, 302; waited upon by com. from
Tumwater, 303; requested to detain
suspects, 585.
Toner, Capt. Isaac, drowned, i. 390.
Tongue Point, i. 54.
Tonquin, ship, Pacific Fur Co's, sails
under convoy of U. S. frigate Con-
stitution Sept. 8, 1810, i. 78; arrives
at mouth of Columbia 22d March,
1811, 78; eight of crew lost crossing
bar, 78; Astoria founded, 78; mate-
rials landed for building a 30-ton
schooner, 78; sails north to Clyo-
quot Sound, 78; began trade with
Indians, 78; crew surprised and mur-
dered and ship blown up, 78-79
(see Irving's "Astoria ").
Too-hul-hul-sote (Indian), ii. 661.
Tooley, Wm. F., i. 589.
Tootwiler, Sgt., i. 547.
Tordesillas, Treaty of, 1494, i. 2.
Torrie, Wm., i. 287.
Touchet river, i. 559.
Towie, Wm., i. 288.
Town, Albert, i. 139.
Town of Olympia incorporated, i. 524.
Towns, prominent, i. 308.
Townsend, Maj. E. D., i. 545.
Townsend, Lieut. Ira S., i. 538.
Townsend, John K., accompanies
Wyeth, i. 118.
Trading-posts on the Upper Columbia
and Willamette, i. 81; at Cascades,
336.
Trail, laid out from Umpqua to main
thoroughfare, i. 379.
Train, C. F., succeeds Pratt, i. 331.
Train Guard, i. 575.
Transportation facilities, ii. 137–45.
Trapper, free, definition of, i. 112
note.
Trappers, i. 73, 369, 370; form volun-
teer co., accepted by U. S., 541.
Trask, Capt. Alden Y.,
i. 340.
Traveler, str., i. 494, 495.
Traveler's Rest, i. 71.
Treaties between Spain and France,
and between Spain and France on
the one side and Great Britain and
Portugal on the other, i. 68; of
1818, between Great Britain and
United States (Joint-occupancy
Treaty), 88, 124; of June 15, 1846,
274; with Indians, Sept. 10, 1853,
negotiations for, 418-19; negotia-
tions, 419; signed, 420; delay in
ratification of, 1.ot cause of next
war, 489; provided for extinguish-
ment of all Indian titles, 490; of
Oct. 4, 1864, key to Modoc war, 649;
by whom made, cessions of, 649;
ratified, 1869; protest of Capt. Jack,
650.
Treaty obligations, regard for by Ex-
ecutive Committee displeasing to
many, i. 266.
Treaty of Florida, i. 124; Calhoun's
statement of claims under, 141.
Treaty of Ghent, 1814, i. 87, 123.
Treaty of Limits, i. 48; accepted,
1846; terms of, 105; submitted by
Pakenham to Buchanan, Secretary
of State, June 6, 1846, 162; trans-
mitted to Senate by Polk with his
message, 162; text of protocol, 163;
articles, 164; accepted by Senate,
June 10, 165; roll of the vote, 165;
letter of Secretary of State com-
municating action to British Gov-
ernment, 165; signed, June 15, 1846,
166; ratified, June 18, 166; extract
from Benton's remarkable speech,
166-67; ii. 34.
Treaty of Louisiana, Calhoun's state-
ment of claims under, i. 141.
Treaty of Medicine Creek, i. 477; the
only one of Stevens' treaties ratified
at the time, 478 note.
Treaty of Neah Bay, i. 479.
Treaty of Olympia, i. 479 note.
Treaty of Point Elliott, i. 479.
Treaty of Point-no-Point, i. 479.
Treaty of Wasco, i. 489.
Treaty of Washington, concluded, ii.
44.
Treaty of Yakima, i. 481-89.
Tres Reyes, vessel, i. 19.
Trial, by jury, entitled to, i. 239; by
military commission, 583.
Tribune, frigate, ii. 39, 40, 41.
Trickey, Geo., i. 449.
Trimble, Capt., ii. 660.
Trimble, Christopher, ii. 10, II, 12,
13.
Trimble, David, i. 137.
Trimble, Mrs. Elizabeth, ii. 9, 10, II,
12, 13.
Trimble, Susan, ii. 210.
Troup, Capt. J. W., ii. 102.
Truax, Capt. Sewall, i. 648; ii. 16, 17.
True, M. C., biog. of, ii. 608.
Truesdale, Joseph, biog. of, ii. 608.
Trullinger, J. C., biog. of, ii. 609.
Trumbull, Lyman, i. 363.
Tshimikan, station, i. 194.
Tschirikow, Capt. Alexer, expedition
with Behring, 1741, i. 24.
Tualatin district, boundaries of, i. 239.
Tucker, Starling, i. 135.
Tuffts, Ben, i. 437.
Tullis, Hon. Amos F., biog. of, ii.
609.
Tullis, James, i. 541.
Tumwater, sawmill at, i. 302.
Tumwater luminous stone god (myth),
ii. 76.
Tupper, O., i. 286.
Tupper, R. S., i. 286.
Tups-sis-il-pilp (Indian), ii. 661.
Turner, settler, i. 437.
Turner, J., i. 370.
Turner & Chisen, i. 390.
Turney, Hopkins L., i. 165.
Turney, James, appointed associate
justice, but declines, i. 303.
Turpin, Dick, i. 601, 608.
Tuttle, Terry, biog. of, ii. 610.
T'Vault, Wm. G., i. 272, 362, 406, 410,
417, 444; edits Oregon Spectator,
273; complimented by Kearney, 384;
expedition from Port Orford to find
overland trail, 393; gives account of
massacre of party by Indians, 393–
94; reaches Port Orford.
T'Vault & Co., start express, 1851, i.
399.
Tyler, Lieut., i. 632, 633.
Tyler, Geo. W., i. 417.
Tyler, President John, negotiations
under administration of, i. 140; refers
to Oregon question in message,
December, 1842, 153; invokes at-
tention of Cong., 1843, 155; reiterates
previous recommendations, 1844-45,
157; term expires without satisfac-
tory termination of negotiations,
157.
700
INDEX.
Ugarte, Father, enlisted to aid spirit-
ual conquest of Cal., i. 27.
Uhlman, Chas. T., biog. of, ii. 610.
Umatilla, boat, first to shoot Cascades,
ii. 102.
Umatilla co. (Or.), outline history of,
ii. 170.
Umatilla Indians, i. 481, 563; provis-
ions of treaty with, 487.
Umatilla river, ii. 101.
Umpqua, schr., i. 642.
Umpqua City formed, i. 379; postoffice
at, 389.
Umpqua co. organized, i. 320; Douglas
and Jackson taken from, 326; organ-
ized 1851, boundaries, 380; petition
to Kearney, 382; established, 389;
election held April, 1851, Elkton
county-seat, postoffice at, 389; set-
tlements and increase, 390; Scotts-
burg, 390: officers elected 1853, 408.
Umpqua harbor, account of, ii. 104.
Umpqua land-office removed to Rose-
burg, 645.
Umpqua river, i. 369; scene of J. S.
Smith's quarrel with Indians, 114;
first vessel in, 378.
Umpqua valley, prosperity of, 1852, i.
398.
Umpqua Gazette, first paper of South-
ern Or., i. 429.
Umpqua Herald, removed from Scotts-
burg to Jacksonville and called Ta-
ble Rock Sentinel, i. 444.
Umpqua, Joe, Indian, i. 437.
Umtuts, Chief, i. 551.
Underwood, Lieut., i. 445, 447.
Undine, str., ii. 144, 156.
Union Transportation Co., formation
of, ii. 15.
Union co. (Or.), outline history of, ii.
172.
United States, Western limits, 1792, i.
67; Louisiana purchase, 67-69; im-
portant discoveries by citizens cre-
ates claims to Pacific territory, 69;
American vessels monopolize China
and East India trade, 69; interior
little known, beginning of explora-
tions, 69 (see U. S. explorations);
hesitates in recognizing colonizing
acts, 87; dispatches the Ontario,
Capt. Biddle, to assert claims and
re-occupy Astoria, 87; controversy
with Great Britain delays land grants
and H. B. Co., 105; Treaty of Limits,
115; Northern boundary fixed by
treaty of 1846, 110; conflicting claims
in Northwest, between Russia, Great
Britain and U. S., 120-21; claim of
U. S. in its own right, 122; as suc-
cessors to France, 122; Louisiana
purchase, 122; controversy with
Great Britain, 123; instructions to
Rush, minister to England, 123-27;
treaty of 1824 limits Russia to 54
40', 128; attempt to adjust claims of
Great Britain, 1828, 128; Clay's in-
structions to Gallatin, 128; Galla-
tin's effort, 128-29; results in treaty
of 1827, 129; reflections of the status
of, 130; debate in Cong., 131-33; ne-
gotiations with Great Britain re-
sumed, 1831-44, 140-44; status of
claimants, 145-48; W. A. Slacum,
special agent to visit Oregon, 1836,
214; property rights of Ami. citizens
and British subjects, 249-50; makes
use of "citizens' road" for military
road, 341; appropriations, 341; asked
to reimburse citizens, 341; refuses
3
Stevens' appeal for arms, 473; gov-
erument neglect of settlers, 404; as-
sumes expenses of Indian war of
1853, 422; commission appointed,
and amount fixed upou, ½ of which
only was ever paid, 422; considera-
tions for ceded territory and duties
imposed by treaties, 468-69; tardy
recognition of debt to Sir Jas. Doug-
las for supplies, 576; military dis-
position of 1866, ii. 22; Army bill,
1866, 25; military insufficient to com-
pete with Indians, 25.
United States explorations, Veren-
drye, i. 58; Carver, 58; Ledyard's
abortive attempt from Russia via
Nootka Sound, 69; Lewis and Clarke,
70; summary by Clarke, 72; Wm.
Weir, 73; Harmon, 74; Missouri Fur
Co., 74; trading-posts, 74; Winship,
74; Pacific Fur Co., 76; Wilson P.
Hunt's journeys to Columbia, 80;
Wm. H. Ashley, 111; Jedediah S.
Smith, 112; Bonneville, 116; Wyeth,
117-19; Wilkes, 151, 152; Frémont,
153; Samuel Parker, 194; Frémont's
first expedition to South Pass, 231;
Northern Pacific R. R. explorations,
461-63.
U. S. flag hauled down at Astoria, i. 85.
U. S. mail, i. 399.
U. S. troops, sent 1849, i. 379; from
Benicia to Port Orford, 400; from
S. F. 1856, 448; stationed in the ter-
ritory in 1855, 527; ordered to field,
545; Ninth Infantry reach Steila-
coom, 574; campaign of regulars
west of Cascades, 590–95.
University of Oregon, site secured at
Corvallis, 352; little realized from
sales of lands, 352; act passed to re-
move to Jacksonville, 352; provision
for funds, 361; relocated at Corvallis,
513; sketch of, ii. 147.
University of Wash., location ques-
tion, i. 480.
Unjigah river, explored by Mackenzie,
i. 64.
Upham, Wm., i. 165.
Upper Pend d'Oreille Indians, treaty
with, i. 489.
Upshur, Abel P., succeeds Webster as
Secretary of State, i. 141; killed by
explosion on Princeton, 141.
Urdaneta, Andreas, accompanies expe-
dition to conquer Philippine Islands,
returns to Acapulco, charts of voy-
age followed many years, i. 16.
Urquhart, James, biog. of, ii. 611.
Urquhart, Wm. M., biog. of, ii. 612.
Utter, Wm., i. 340.
Valdes, Antonio, i. 51.
Van Assalt, Henry, i. 338; biog. of, ii.
612-15.
Van Bergen, J. O., ii. 15.
Van Bokkelen, J. J. H., i. 575; biog.
of, ii. 615.
Van Brant, G. J., U. S. com., i. 311.
Van Buren, President Martin, i. 140;
report to House, 151.
Van Cleave, Juo. M. S., i. 513.
Vancouver, George, midshipman in
Cook's vessel, i. 35.
Vancouver, Capt. George, appointed
commissioner to recive property of
Nootka Treaty, i. 46; sailed 1791 in
discovery, with Lieut. Broughton in
Chatham, 46; reached Nootka, Aug.
28, 1792, 46; negotiations with Qua-
dra unsuccessful, 46, 47; social rela-
tions friendly, 47; country named
Quadra and Vancouver Island, 47;
arranged to meet in Monterey, Mex-
ico, 47; Broughton offered passage
in ship San Blas, on way to England,
47; ordered to Madrid, 47; ordered
to proceed on Providence to Nootka,
47; found place deserted by Span-
iards, 47; restoration made March 28,
1795, by Gen. Alava, to Lieut. Pierce,
47; Pierce's account, 47; meets Gali-
ano, 51; instructions besides com-
missioner under Nootka Treaty, 52;
second account of his voyage, 52;
his observations on Gray's Inlet, 53;
continues voyage northerly, 54;
learns of Gray's reported harbor,
and cruises for it, 54; denies exis-
tence of good harbor, continues on
coast till 1794, explorations minute,
record most complete and accurate,
55.
Vancouver, Fort, i. 170, 266, 480; des-
tination of voyages of H. B. Co., 99;
settlement of H. B. Co., 1824, by
McLoughlin, 106; described, 106;
school opened by John Bale, 1833,
117; failure, 118; taught for eighteen
months by S. H. Smith, 118; suc-
cessful, 118; most historic town, 335;
headquarters of H. B. Co., 335; ac-
count of settlement of, 335; disputed
claims, 335-36; acts for relief, 336
note.
Vancouver, Klikitat & Yakima R. R.,
ii. 145.
Vancouver co. becomes Clark co., i.
308.
Vancouver Island, U. S. yields claim
to by Treaty of Limits, i. 105; the
derelict of all nations (Benton's
speech), 167; portion yielded to
Great Britain by Treaty of Limits,
ii. 34.
Vancouver Transportation Co., ii. 144.
Vanderpool,
i. 601.
Van Dusen, Robt., i. 646.
Van Epps, Theodore C., biog. of, ii.
616.
Vannoy,
i. 449.
Van Ogle, Lieut., i. 340, 578.
Vanorman, Abigail, ii. 9, 10, 11, 12,
13.
Vanorman, Alexis, ii. 9, 10, II, 12,
13.
Vanorman, Lucinda, ii. 13.
Vanorman, Mark, ii. 9, 10, II, 12,
13.
Vanorman, Monroe, ii. 13.
Vanorman, Reuben, ii. 13.
Vatris, Alexis, i. 287.
Vaughn, Albert B., biog. of, ii. 616.
Vaughn, Geo. W., ii. 15.
Vaughn, Jno., i. 287.
Vaughn, Wm., i. 287, 288.
Vavasour. See Warre.
Vercruysse, Rev., i. 212.
Verendrye, , expedition to head-
waters of Missouri, 1731, i. 51; first
white man to see Rocky Mts., 58.
Vernon, G. H., i. 288.
Victoria, purpose to make it port of
entry, i. 518.
Vila, Vicente, comander of San Car-
los, i. 29.
Viliell, Eli, i. 288.
Villard, Henry, ii. 48, 49; and his rail-
way scheme, 141; aid to the Univer-
sity of Oregon, 147; monument to
the genius of, 158.
Vincennes, sloop-of-war U. S., i. 151,
227, 228.
INDEX.
701
Vizcaino, Sebastian, expedition to ex-
plore California, sailed 1596, crossed
Gulf of California, established La
Paz, returns to Acapulco, i. 18; com-
mands fleet to survey ocean side of
California, 1602, surveyed Cape San
Lucas, San Diego, Monterey, thence
to Mendocino, named Blanco de San
Sebastian, 19.
Volunteers, Oregon, enrolled, i. 278;
list of officers and men in Cayuse
war, 286-88; requisition for, 536;
First Regiment, muster of, 538; main-
tain their own identity, 539; appoint-
ments by governor, 574; muster rolls
of companies accepted, 575; disband
Oct. 3, 1856, 589; Wool's innuendo
against, 598; again in the field, 648–
49; 1860, ii. 16; requisition for, 17;
in Snake country, 1864, 18-20; laws
to encourage, 1864, 20; organizations
disbanded, 22.
Volunters, Wash. Terr., mustered in
service, U. S., i. 539; Co. A enrolled,
540; officers, 540; Co. B and officers,
541; embarrassments of, 543; First
Regiment, classification of, 544.
Voorhees, Chas. S. ii. 55.
Vos, Sather de, i. 211.
Voyages of 16th and 17th centuries,
animus of, i. 3; Portuguese and
Spanish to discover the Indies, 2.
Wade, Ben F., i. 363.
Wade, Phares E., biog. of, ii. 617.
Wade, Thos., biog. of, ii. 617.
Waggoner,
i. 435, 452.
Waggoner, Jacob, i. 410.
Wagner, Jos., i. 449.
Wagons, first brought through from
Fort Hall and Fort Walla Walla by
Dr. Newell, 1840, with account, i.
220.
Waiilatpu Mission, in charge of Dr.
Whitman, i. 194, 195, 197, 198, 199,
201, 204, 205, 206, 207, 311; captives
arrive at Fort Vancouver, 279;
source of joy-kindled war feeling,
279.
Wait, Lieut., i. 587.
Wait, Judge A. E., representative, i.
324; elected justice supreme court,
362; member of Oregon City house,
326; biog. of, ii. 617-18.
Wait, Israel C., ii. 37.
Waite, Jos., i. 421.
Wahkiakum co. (Wash.), i. 467; out-
line history of, ii. 176.
Wak-a-poosh, the rattlesnake (myth),
ii. 76.
Walden, John, i. 440.
Waldo, Daniel, i. 256, 264, 285, 288.
Waldo, Lieut. David, i. 288.
Waldo, Wm., i. 288.
Waldron, purser, i. 227.
Walgamot, Israel, i. 286.
Walker, missionary, i. 288.
Walker, Wm., i. 445.
Walker, Lieut. C. H., ii. 21, 22.
Walker, Courtney M., i. 182, 183, 186,
187, 215; accompanies Wyeth, 118.
Walker, Rev. Elkanah, i. 194; biog.
of, ii. 619.
Walker, Capt. Jesse G., report of de-
tachment fight with Rogue river
Indians after Whitman massacre, i.
385-86; complimented by Kearney,
387; expedition against Indians, 1854,
429.
Walker, Joel, i. 219.
Walker, John, i. 398.
Walker, Robt., i. 286.
Walker, Robt. J., i. 150, 151, 154, 158;
acquits Polk and Buchanan of too
readily abandoning avowed policy,
168; extract from letter on the ced-
ing of British Columbia in Treaty
of Limits (Wash. Daily Morning
Chron.), 168 and note.
Wall, Garret D., i. 150.
Walla Walla, i. 82; description of, ii.
159-60.
Walla Walla & Blue Mt. R. R., ii. 143.
Walla Walla co. (Wash.), extent of, i.
468; organization of, 468 note; vol-
unteers of, 575; organization of, ii.
32; outline history of, 180.
Walla Walla Indians, i. 173, 282, 283;
become turbulent, 197; number, 197,
council, 482-84 (see Yakima Treaty);
provisions of treaty with, 487; hos-
tilities of, 555; battle of the, 561;
pursuit of, 562-63; loss of Oregon
troops in, 564.
Walla Walla river, ii. 101.
Wallace,
botanist, lost in Big
Bend, i. 210.
Wallace, Leander C., murder of, 305-
06; murderers executed, 309.
Wallace, Wm., i.
i. 337.
Wallace, Col. Wm. H., i. 457, 464, 480,
491, 505, 545, 546, 550, 581; president
of council, 1856, 504; sketch of,
note; ii. 54, 55; biog. of, 619.
Wallen, Capt. Henry D., commands
wagon-road expedition to Suake
river, ii. 5; report, 5, 6.
Waller, Rev. A. F., i. 188, 191; claim
of to Oregon City, 251-54; biog. of,
ii. 620.
Walling, A. G., slanders in his "His-
tory of So. Oregon," i. 434.
Walling, Geo. W., biog. of, ii. 620.
Wallitz (Indian), ii. 661.
Wallowa co. (Or.), outline history of,
ii. 171.
Wallula (W. T.), ii. 33.
Walters, W. W., i. 286.
Walton, Judge J. J., ii. 147; biog. of,
620.
Wanch, Geo., i. 267.
Wapato Island. See Sauvie's Island.
Wapito Prairie, i. 577.
War policy inaugurated, i. 543.
Warbass, Edwd. D., i. 313, 575; settles
at Cowlitz, lays off Warbass Port and
opens store, 313.
Warbass Port, i. 313.
Ward, Alex. i. 531, 532.
Ward, Newton, 532.
Ward, Robert, 532.
Ward party, massacre of, i. 474; names
of parties, 531.
Warm Spring Indians, ii. 18, 19, 26.
Warner, Capt Lorenzo, i. 430, 449.
Warner's Rock, i. 429.
Warre and Vavasour, Lieuts., visit of
investigation of charges against offi-
cers of H. B. Co., i. 270.
Warren, Mrs. Eliza, biog. of, ii. 621.
Wasco, stimr., i. 600, 601; ii. 15, 138.
Wasco co. (Or.), outline history of, ii.
168.
Wasco Indians, i. 279; treaty with, of
Middle Or., 489.
Wascopam, mission station formed, i.
187.
Washington, ship, i. 42, 50, 53, 399,
642.
Washington co. (Or.), i. 350; outline
history of, ii. 165.
Washington co. (Idaho), outline his-
tory of, ii. 182.
Washington Daily Morning Chronicle,
extract from, i. 168 note.
Washington Terr. (Northern Oregon).
For earlier account see under "Ore-
gon (Northern), Territory of Colum-
bia;" included in Oregon bill, i. 299;
act to establish, 332; extent, 332;
Columbia river the natural bound-
ary, 333; need of early division
recognized, isolated by position and
commerce, 333; settlements chiefly
on Puget Sound, 333; isolated from
Willamette valley, 334; impossible
to trace history of the two Õregons
together, 334; Northern Oregon to
be given from 1850 till division, 334;
made one council district by Gov.
Lane, 334; census, 1850, 334; status
of settlements, 335; growth of Van-
couver, 335; competing claims to
site, 335-36; settlements north of
river and north of Olympia, 336-41;
ferry on Columbia river and road to
sound, 341; appropriation for mili-
tary roads, 341-45; citizens' road,
341; Starling, Indian Agent Puget
Sound district, 343; census of In-
diaus, 343; collection district of
Puget Sound, revenue officers arrive,
343; disastrous expedition of gold
hunters to Queen Charlotte's Island,
captured by Indians, 343; account
of, 343-46; ransom of captives, 344;
seizure and libel of the Beaver and
Mary Dare at Olympia, 347; first
celebration of Independence day,
348; division of territory advocated,
348-49; Monticello convention, 348;
Congress establishes Territory of
Washington, 349 (see Territory of
Columbia); act of organization
changes judicial districts of Oregon,
35I.
1853-59. Political and local
history of, as a territorial govern-
ment until admission of Oregon as a
state, 459-524; area, features of
Organic act, 459; established as a
separate land district, Pierce's ap-
pointment of federal officers, 460;
census taken by Anderson, 461;
N. P. R. R. explorations, 461-63;
Gov. Stevens' arrival, 463; first
proclamation, 463; organization of
territorial government, 464; judicial
districts established, 464; Columbia
Lancaster elected delegate to Cong.,
464; first legislative assembly, 464;
governor's first message, 464-66;
new counties created, 467-68; Sec'y
Mason becomes acting governor,
469; Indian disturbances on Puget
Sound, 469-72; collectors of cus-
toms of Fort Victoria and Puget
Sound claim revenue jurisdiction
over San Juan Island, 472;
gressional legislation for the terri-
tory, 473-74; Stevens' report to In-
dian Bureau, 474-76; treaties with
Indians, 477-79; legislature of
1854-55, 477; proceedings, 479–81;
Indian council at Walla Walla,
482-84; Yakima Treaty with tribes
signed, 484; cessions made, 484;
conditions, 485; treaty with tribes
of Middle Oregon, 489; Col. Ander-
son elected delegate to Cong., 491;
gold discoveries at Fort Colvile,
492; murder of miners and Indian
Agent Bolon, 493; Capt. Swartwout
chastises them, 494-95; legislature
con-
702
INDEX.
Washington Terr.—cont'd.
of 1855-56, 495; Gov. Mason's
message, 495-97; legislation, 498–99; ·
Gov. Stevens' address on Indian
war, 499–503; people in blockhouses,
503; stagnation of business, 503;
campaigns ended, 504; legislature
of 1856-57, 504; Gov. Stevens' last
message, 504-06; legislation, 507-09;
organization of Republican party,
510; Gov. Stevens elected delegate
to Cong. 511; Col. Ebey's murder,
512; Fayette McMullin appointed
governor, 512; legislature of 1857-
58, 512; governor's message, 513;
legislation, 513; McFadden chief
justice, 514; Fraser river mining
excitement, 514-22; revocation of
license of H. B. Co., 521; legisla-
ture of 1858-59, 522-23; Oregon ad-
mitted as state, 524; area of Wash-
ington increased by residue of
Oregon, 524; Oregon-Washington
Indian wars, 1855-56, 525-49; con-
dition of territory at the outbreak,
540 (see Oregon-Washington Indian
War).
1859-89. Rescinding of Wool
interdict settles up Western Wash-
ington, ii. 32; area enlarged by ad-
mission of Oregon as a state, settlers
in Walla Walla valley, 32; discovery
of gold in Southeastern Wash., 32;
setting off Idaho and Montana, 33;
Puget Sound region a result of Fra-
zer river excitement, 34; San Juan
Island imbroglio, 34-44; settled by
award of William I. of Germany,
44; piracies and depredations of
Northern Indians, 45; N. P. R. R.,
origin, progress and completion, 45–
49; convention to frame constitu-
tion, 49; efforts to secure admission
as a state, 50; efforts to exclude Chi-
nese, 51-54; condensed political his-
tory, 54-55; question of admission,
55-58; bill passed, 58; Allen and
Squire elected first U. S. senators,
59; outline history of counties of,
172-81.
Washington Transportation Co., ii. 144.
Washougal, town, i. 267.
Water nymphs (myth), ii. 75.
Waterman, Jno. Orvis, editor of West-
ern Star, i. 319.
Waters, Jas., i. 278, 282, 283, 284.
Watkins, Geo., i. 608.
Watkins, Jimmy, i. 608.
Watkins, Dr. Wm. H., i. 358, biog. of,
ii. 621.
Watkins family, i. 599, 600.
Watson, Lieut., ii. 18.
Watson, Wm. Penn, biog. of, ii. 622.
Watson, Rev. Thomas G., biog. of, ii.
624.
Watt, Joseph, introduces sheep, ii. 130.
Watta, Jno. W., i. 358.
Watts, Alex., Indian troubles on ac-
count of stock, i. 424.
Waugh, Alex., biog. of, ii. 624.
Waughop, Dr. John W., biog. of, ii.
624.
Wawa, the mosquito god (myth), ii. 74.
Waymire, Fredk., i. 358, 537.
Waymire, Lieut., ii. 17, 18.
Waymires, the, i. 272.
Weatherford, Alfred H, biog. of, ii.
625.
Weatherford, Mrs. M., biog. of, ii. 625.
Weaver, Jas., i. 443, 641.
Webber, Henry, i. 473.
Webster, Daniel, i. 165; replies to Lord
Aberdeen, 140; resigns as Secretary
of State, 140; speaks on Or. bill, 297.
Webster, Edgar J., biog. of, ii. 626.
Weed, Chas. E., i. 343 note, 575.
Weir, Hon. Allen, i. 73; biog. of, iì.
626-27.
Weir, Wm., crosses Rocky Mts. and
traps on Columbia, i. 73.
Welch
}
i. 272.
Welcker, Lieut. Wm. T., i. 609.
Wellingsley, brig., i. 339.
Wells, Fargo & Co., i. 422, 423.
Wells, Dan B., i. 389.
Wells, Thos. J. i. 410.
Wells, W. W., i. 408.
Wells, Capt. Wm. Benjamin, biog. of,
ii. 627.
Wells Springs, i. 555.
Welton, A. S, i. 287, 440.
Wenet Indians, massacre Ward party,
i. 474.
Wesley, Geo., i. 286, 288.
West,
i. 336.
Western Star, paper, i. 319.
Westfeldt, C., i. 429.
Westley, Geo., i. 288.
Weston, G. W., i. 286.
Wetzell, Wm. A., biog. of, ii. 628.
We-wa-we-wa, Chief, ii. 29.
Whatcom (Wash.), description of, ii.
658-59.
Whatcom co. (Wash.), i. 468; ii. 38,
42; includes San Juan Island, 35;
outline history of, 174.
Wheat, made lawful tender, i. 272; big
yields of, ii. 114.
Wheaton, Col. Frank, i. 651, 652.
Wheeler, Jas., Jr., i. 624.
Wheeler, Jason, i. 287.
Wheelock, O., i. 427.
Whidby Island, i. 272, 512; Glasgow
locates on, 302; location at Öak
Harbor by Lansdale, 337.
Why convention held at Corvallis
nominates Gaines, i. 353.
Whig party, in favor of Oregon claim,
1844, i. 156; Clay the nominee, 156.
Whippy, Capt., i. 426.
Whiskey Run, gold at, i. 425.
Whitcomb, J. L., petition of (and
thirty-five others) to Congress for
federal jurisdiction, i. 215.
Whitcomb, Lot, i. 280; publishes
Western Star, 319; builds steam-
boat, 320; named by legislature,
Lot Whitcomb of Oregon, 320; stand
of colors given, 320; ii. 139.
White Bird, Chief, ii. 660; escapes to
British ty. with small band, 661.
White Bird cañon, ii. 660.
White, C. L., estimate of timber cut
1888, ii. 125.
White, Caleb N., biog. of, ii. 628.
White, Chas. A., ii. 48.
White, Dr. Elijah, i. 197, 198, 199, 237,
242, 253; appointed sub-Indian agt.,
152; arrives with party, 187; ap-
pointed sub-Indian agt. 1842, 231;
requirements, 231; companions on
the journey, Crawford's description,
reaches Vancouver Sept. 20, 232;
McLoughlin's mention of his arrival,
233; Hines' notice from his History
of Oregon, 233; council with Indi-
ans, 235; code of laws, 235; extract
from report, 235; report on Indian
quarrel at Oregon City, 1844, 263;
from his report in his "Concise
View of Oregon," 263 note; com-
pensates widow of Cockstock, 263;
report on the quarrel, 263–64; takes
memorial of 1845 to Washington,
268; novel episode with, 268; ac-
complishes nothing, 269; lays out
Pacific City, 336.
White, J. L., i. 632, 633.
White, Jacob, i. 608.
White, Jno. S., i. 358.
White, Capt. Jos., i. 575, 577, 578.
White, R. J., Sec'y of Monticello con-
vention, i. 348.
White, S. S., biog. of, ii. 629.
White, William, killed by Indians,
i. 578.
White, Mrs. Wm., killed by Indians,
i. 531.
"White Code" of laws, i. 235.
White river massacre, i. 542.
Whiteaker, Gov. Jno., elected first
governor of Oregon state, 1858, i.
362; inaugurated July 8th, 362; ap-
points Prim to succeed Deady, 645;
11. 4, 30, 31.
Whiting, Capt. R. L., ii. 138.
Whitley, Stock (Indian), i. 563.
Whitman, Dr. Marcus, i. 257, 276,
277; preliminary exploration, 1835,
across Rockies to Green river with
Sam Parker, 193; returns and reports
field good to establish missions, 194;
appointed to establish missions, 194;
proceeds again to Green river, thence
to Vancouver, 194; establishes sta-
tion at Waiilatpu, 195; insolence of
Cayuses, 195; goes East, 1842, for aid
to continue his mission, 196; politi-
cal consequences attributed to his
going, 197; increasing hostility to
American settlers, 198-99; returns to
Waiilatpu, 1843, 199; occupants of
the stations, 200; massacre by the
Cayuses, 200; summary, 205-07; Mrs.
White massacred, 200; welcomes
Dr. Newell and party, 220; surren-
der and trial of murderers, 309; ex-
ecution, 310; efforts towards intro-
duction of sheep, ii. 130; biog. of,
629.
Whitman co. (Wash.), outline history
of, ii. 180.
Whitman Mission, i. 281. See Waii-
latpu Mission.
Whitmore, Brice, i. 412.
Whitney, Asa, schemes for a Northern
Pac R. R., ii. 46.
Whittlesey, Wm. H., biog. of, ii. 630.
Whyerk (Indian), i. 309.
Whyman, Lieut., i. 395.
Wicanish's tribe of Indians, attack and
murder crew of Tonquin, i. 78-79;
Capt. William Smith attributes mas-
sacre to conduct of Capt. Ayres, of
Boston, a short time previous, 79.
Wigger, Thos., i. 288.
Wikaitli Wimakl (grand river), applied
to Columbia by Chinooks, i. 62.
Wilber, Capt., i. 567, 571.
Wilbert, Jos., i. 287.
Wilbur, Lieut. Hiram, i. 538.
Wilbur, Rev. James Henry, biog. of,
ii. 631; Indian agent, 661, 662.
Wilcox, Dr. Ralph, i. 272.
Wiley, A. E., i. 649.
Wiley, Jas. W., i. 506; editor of the
Columbian, 348; sketch of, 542 note.
Wilkes, Commander Chas., assigned
to command expedition, 1838, in-
structions and vessels, 151; surveys
Columbia river and Puget Sound,
152; on value of, in effect upon
popular mind, 153; expedition in
INDEX.
703
Wilkes, Commander Chas.-cont'd.
Columbia river, 1841, 225; instruc-
tions of primary meeting to consult,
225; his advice, 226; instructions
of navy department, 226; scientific
corps to accompany, 227; ships of
squadron and officers, 227; journeys
made, 227; account of Fourth of
July celebration, 227; loss of the
Peacock, 228; changes necessitated,
all reported at San Francisco, Octo-
ber 28, 228; intention of disposition
of launch of the Peacock in letter to
McLoughlin, 271; expedition from
Vancouver to Yerba Buena, 1841, and
route, 371.
Wilkins, Caleb, i. 219, 220, 234.
Wilkinson, Jos., i. 449.
Willamette Cattle Co., sends Young to
Sacramento valley for cattle, 1837,
i. 310.
Willamette Falls, i. 170, 320; titles of
Am. citizens to and around, com-
bated by H. B. Co., 243-46.
Willamette river, course of, i. 369;
description of, with tributaries, ii.
103.
Willamette valley, mission established
at, 1834, i. 187; Catholic mission in,
1839, 211; towns of Oregon all in,
308; agricultural resources of, ii.
109-10.
Willamette University, Salem (Or.),
sketch of, ii. 148.
William I., Emp. of Germany, arbi-
trates the question of boundary
between U. S. and Great Britain,
his award, ii. 44.
William and Ann, ship, i. 116.
Williams,
Williams,
i. 233.
i. 394.
Williams, A., i. 286.
Williams, Capt. Constant, ii. 661.
Williams, Hon. Geo. H., i. 358; ap-
pointed chief justice, and assigned
to 1st district, 350; ii. 2, 4, 31; biog.
of, 632-34.
Williams, Capt. L. F., ii. 21, 22.
Williams, M. M., i. 447, 450.
Williams, Richard, ii. 31.
Williams, Sgt. Robert, i. 625; account
of attack on Fort Rains, 401-03.
Williams, Col. Robt. L., i. 280, 440,
443, 446, 447, 575, 585, 587, 588.
Williams, Samuel H., i. 343 note.
Williams, W., i. 286.
Williams, Wm. C., i. 628.
Williamson, Henry, i. 266, 267, 335.
Williamson, John P., biog. of, ii. 635.
Williamson, Lieut. R. L., i. 405, 438,
439; complimented in Kearney's re-
port, 387; commands volunteers, 411.
Williamson, S. B., biog. of, ii. 635.
Willow Springs, i. 410.
Wilson, A. E., i. 238, 243.
Wilson, Capt. A. V., i. 262, 537, 538,
555, 556, 559.
Wilson, Collins, resigns office of col-
lector of customs, 1852, and reasons
therefor, i. 406.
Wilson, Geo. O., i. 339.
Wilson, Gilbert, i. 339.
Wilson, Henry C., arrives at Port
Townsend, i. 339; clerks for Capt.
Balch, 339; made inspector of cus-
toms, 339; justice of peace of Lewis
county, 343.
Wilson, Jas. A. A., biog. of, ii. 635.
Wilson, John L., ii. 55.
Wilson, Joseph G., ii. 31.
Wilson, Robt. Bruce, biog. of, ii. 636.
Wilson, Thos., i. 287.
Wilson, Wm., i. 287, 440; biog. of, ii.
636.
Wilson, Wm. H., i. 187, 188, 237, 238,
278, 408.
Wilton, Wm., i. 339.
Winchester, firms in, 1852, i. 398.
Winchester, Payne & Co. form Kla-
math exploring expedition, i. 378;
fit out the Samuel Roberts, and
Kate Heath later, 378.
Winder, Capt. Chas. S., i. 624, 632, 633.
Wind brothers, contest between Chi-
nook and cold (myth), ii. 77.
Wingate, Robt., biog. of, ii. 637–38.
Winnass (Indian), trial and hanging
of, i. 532, 533.
Winship, Capt. Jonathan, sails via
Cape Horn and Sandwich Islands to
Columbia river, attempts settlements,
but abandons, 74; continues trading,
74.
Winship, Nathan, voyage to Columbia
river, 1810, i. 74; true settler of Oak
Point, 75.
Winter, Jos. F., i. 461.
Winter, a hard, 1852, i. 407.
Winters, John, i. 440.
Witchey, Joel, i. 286.
Withers, Lieut., i. 428, 538; report on
number of force in Wash. Terr.,
Nov., 1855, in U. S. service, i. 550.
Wold Bros., ii. 51–52.
Wolf meeting, i. 237.
Women, married, property rights of
protected, i. 360.
Women, hostile, to be killed, i. 360.
Wood, Isaac, i. 288.
Wood, Israel, i. 288.
Wood, Lyman, biog. of, ii, 638.
Wood, Mary, i. 514.
Wood, Polly, i. 514.
Wood, Thos. A., biog. of, ii. 639.
Wood river, i. 71.
Woodard, John, i. 601.
Woodbridge, Wm., i. 165.
Woodbury, J., i. 390. See Morgan,
Capt.
Woodcock, i. 266.
Wooden fireman of the Cascades
(myth), ii. 76.
Woods, Gov. Geo. L., ii. 26–30.
Woodruff, Lieut. C. A., ii. 661.
Woodward, A. P., biog. of, ii. 639.
Woodward, Henry H., i. 389; biog. of,
ii. 640-41.
Woodworth, trapper, i. 370.
Wool, Gen. Jolin E., i. 429, 434, 448,
451, 533, E11; plan of capturing
Indians with regular troops, 452;
course condemned by legislature of
1857, 514; acknowledges hostilities;
536; ignores the authorities of Ore-
gon and Wash. Terr., 549; arrival at
Vancouver, influence in defeating
winter campaign, 555; addressed by
Nesmith for aid, 555; reply, 558; his
hate for the territories, 573; orders
to Col. Wright, 596; effeminate war
policy illustrated by war-prohibiting
instructions, 597; innuendo against
Oregon citizen soldiery, 598; orders
Col. Wright to Walla Walla, 616;
announces war at an end, 619; war
policy inimical to Whites, 619-20;
motive of his course actuated by
prejudice against Oregon and Wash.,
620; letter of apology for Indians to
Secretary of War 1857, 623; interdict
against white settlers revoked by
Harney, ii. 4, 32.
Woolerys, The, early settlers of Puyal-
lup valley (Wash.), i. 340, 546.
Wordsworth, Peter and Ladd, i. 390,
398.
Work, Gov. John, reply of (to letter
of inquiry of Capt. Hill), doubting
probability of help for Georgianna
sufferers coming from Fort Simpson,
i. 345.
Work, John, Jr., i. 345.
Worthington, P. A., biog. of, ii. 641.
Wren, Charles, i. 306, 580.
Wright, partner of Vannoy, i. 449.
Wright, Capt. Ben, i. 288, 403, 448, 449,
642; organizes company and defeats
Modocs, 404-05; killed by Enos, a
treacherous Canadian Indian, 449;
horrible mutilation of body by
Enos, 449.
Wright, Clas. B., ii. 48.
Wright, Dick, i. 646.
Wright, Franklin, i. 642.
Wright, Col. George, i. 395, 508, 522,
567, 568, 584, 585, 590, 595, 609, 610;
course condemned by legislature,
1857, 514; receives orders from Gen.
Wool, 596; sketch of life, and death
by sinking of Brother Jonathan off
coast of Southern Or., 596 note; his
command, 598; leaves Fort Dalles,
598; turns back, 606; advises Gov.
Stevens of his Indian plans, 610; re-
quests Gov. Curry to withdraw Ore-
gon volunteers, 611; peaceable ex-
cursion to the Yakima country, 611
reports to Gen. Wool, the war ended,
612; effects treaty of peace with In-
dians, 617; Stevens' protest to Sec-
retary of War against treaties of, 617;
assigned to expedition to country
north of Walla Walla, 629; instruc-
tions, 630; negotiates treaty with
Nez Perces, 630; battle of Four
Lakes, 631; of Spokane Falls, 632-
33; report of interview with Gary,
634; goes to Coeur d'Alene Mission,
635; treaty with Cœur d'Alenes, 636;
with the Spokanes, 636-37; imprison-
ment of Owhi and death of Qual-
chen, 637; with the Palouses, 637–38;
announces war closed, 638; results of
campaign, 638-39; succeeds Gen.
Harney, ii. 6; commands Depart-
ment of Pacific, 16; his campaign
subjugated the hostiles, 32; biog. of,
642.
Wright, Jack, i. 647.
Wright, Jackson, biog. of, ii. 642.
Wright, Lazarus, i. 641.
Wright, Martin, i. 287.
Wright, Robt., i. 412.
Wright, W. T., biog. of, i. 643.
Wright, Wm. T., biog. of, i. 642.
Wrights, The, early settlers of Puyal-
lup Valley (Wash.) i. 340.
Wyeth, Capt. Nathaniel J., i. 182, 186;
establishes Fort Hall, 1834, 107; oc-
cupies Sauvie's Island, 107; goes
overland to Oregon, 1832; dis-
patches vessel via Cape Horn, 117;
vessel lost, 117; he reaches Van-
couver, Oct. 20, 117; returns to
Boston, 1833, and dispatches two
vessels, 118; crosses continent with
200 men, accompanied by Dr.
Nuttall and John K. Townsend,
118; abandons salmon fishing, 214.
Wyse, Maj., i. 631.
Yager, Ephraim, i. 440.
Yakima co. (Wash.), outline history
of, ii. 178.
704
Yakima Indians, i. 282, 283, 584, 611,
626, 629, 630, 638; formation of ter-
ritory released by, considerations
and terms, 486; make new war on
miners, 493; expedition of Rains
and Nesmith against, 554-55; attack
Cascades, 598.
Yakima river, description of, ii. 100.
Yakima Treaty, commissioners to treat
with Indians, 481; council at Walla
Walla, 482-84; cessions of territory,
484-86; terms and conditions, 486–
89.
Yakooskin band of Snakes, treaty
with, key to Modoc war, i. 649.
Yamhill co. (Or.), i. 351; outline his-
tory of, ii, 165.
Yamhill district, boundaries of, i. 239.
Yantis, Benjamin F., i. 480, 545.
Yantis, Wm., i. 532.
Yaquina Bay (Or.), terminus Oregon
Pacific R. R., description of, ii. 104.
INDEX.
Yarborough, R., i. 286.
Yazoo Indian. See Moncacht-Ape.
Yell, —, i. 443.
Yellowstone river, explored by Clarke,
i. 72.
Yerba Buena, original name of San
Francisco (Cal.), i. 371.
Yesler, Hon. Henry L., i. 33; first saw-
mill on Puget Sound, 342; biog. of,
ii. 643-45.
Yoakum, Judge Hugh G., biog. of, ii.
645.
Yoncalla,
i. 389.
York, Alex., i. 288.
Young, (miner), i. 200.
Young, Lieut., dispatched in the Lion
to co-operate with Cook, i. 34.; 493.
Young, Edward Thos., biog. of, ii. 645.
Young, Ewing, i. 245, 247, 248; sketch
of, 182; McLoughlin warned by Gov.
Figuero of his being a horse-thief,
182; retracted, 183; Courtney M.
Walker writes of, 183; M. P. Deady
on, 183; estate appropriated by Pro-
visional authorities, 184; led to first
attempt to form Provisional govt.,
184; and Carmichael forced to aban-
don erection of distillery, 214; set-
tlement of estate referred to com.,
223; leader of Willamette Cattle Co.,
370; journey with cattle from Sacto.
valley, 1837, 370; brings first cattle
to Willamette valley, 377; intro-
duces band of Spanish cattle, ii. 126
(see Kelly, Hall J.)
Young, Wm., i. 471.
Yreka mines discovered, 1850, i. 381.
Yulee, David L., i. 165.
Yulee, Elias, i. 460 note.
Zachary, J. L., i. 286.
Zachary, Mrs. Sarah, biog. of, ii. 646.
Zeiber, Albert, i. 537.
Zummord, Chas., i. 287.
Zumwalt, T. R., i. 287.
INDEX TO PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOLUME I.
PAGE.
PAGE.
Abernethy, Hou. Geo., first gov.
of Or. Ter.
Adams, M.D., W. L.
Alderman, A. L.
Allen, Samuel
•
Anderson, E. K.
Arnold, Green
Asselt, Henry Van
Avery, J. C.
Bacon, Hon. J. M.
Baker, M.
Ball, J. B., Esq.
Barlow, Samuel K.
Chamberlin, M. L.
332
Frazer, Jacob, Esq.
12
Chambers, Esq., A. H.
•
•
576
Gagnier, J. B.
PAGE.
116
20
584
•
•
144
•
572
156
Chambers, Mrs. Mary A.
Chaplin, Hon. Dan’l
•
Chapman, Mrs. E. L., née Miss
Bewley
404
Gates, Hon. John
·
•
468
264
Gay, Geo. K.
Geddis, S. R.
92
528
264
Chapman, Col. W. W.
ou
Gleason, A. B.
•
64
Glisan, R., M.D.
500
Chapman, Wm.
428
596
Clark, T. J. V.
488
208
Coffin, Gen. Stephen
320
216
•
Congle, Hon. John B.
304
484
Cooke, Hon. Č. P.
268
Goodall, Capt. James P.
Goodell, Hon. M. Z.
Goodwin, Geo. W.
Gove, Capt. Warren
Grandy, Hon. B. W.
•
324
Cooke, E. N.
356
Gray, Mrs. M. A.
Bayley, Mrs. Elizabeth
512
Cooke, Mrs. E. N.
356
Gray, Hon. W. H.
Bayley, J. R., M.D.
•
428
632
276
628
•
396
560
300
•
132
•
132
512
Corbaly, Richard.
192
Griffin, Rev. J. S.
Beezley, Mrs. M. J. .
464
Corbett, Hon. H. W.
416
Beezley, Joseph
464
Cornelius, Col. T. R.
212
•
Bell, John C.
200
Cornoyer, Major N. A.
72
Bell; Mrs. J. C.
200
Coshow, Oliver P.
380
Grover, Gen. Cuvier
Grover, Hon. L. F. .
Hadlock, Samuel
Haller, Col. G. O.
28
416
416
·
•
•
440
200
Benton, S. S.
604
Coshow, Mrs. Sarah E.
Blalock, Dr. N. G.
Billings, Wm.
Bird, Hon. John
Birnie, James
Borst, J. W.
Bowlby, Hon. Wilson
Bowman, Henry
Blanchet, Archbishop
Blanchet, Bishop .
Blockhouse, Upper Cascades
Bracket, George, Esq.
Bradbury, C. A.
Bradshaw, Hon. Chas. M.
Briggs, Hon. Albert
380
Hanen, A.
204
432
Couch, Capt. John H
64
Hannah, Hon. D. B.
500
•
548
Crockett, Hon. Walter, Sr.
60
Harford, John
•
348
644
Crockett's Old Stockade
80
Hastings, Hon. Loren B.
228
492
Crosby, Hon. Clanrick
616
Hathaway, M. R.
•
404
•
256
Damman, J. D.
516
Herbert, Geo. F.
584
588
Davis, Mrs. C. S.
488
Herrall, Geo.
144
384
Davis, James S.
136
Hewitt, Mrs. E. M.
168
40
Deady, Hon. Matthew P.
56
Hewitt, Henry
168
40
Demers, Bishop
40
Hill, Mrs. Delinda
620
•
So
Denny, Hon. Arthur A.
536
Hill, F. R..
620
•
460
Denny, Mrs. A. A.
•
536
Hill, Hon. Robt. C.
448
·
440
Denny, David T.
•
536
•
360
Denny, Mrs. D. T:
•
536
Hinman, Alanson
88
•
•
Denny, Mrs. O. N., née Miss Hall 52
Bristow, Mrs. M. J.
•
Brooks, John E.
I20
De Smet, Father
40
Hines, Rev. Gustavus
·
Hirsch, Hon. Edward
Hobson, Hon. John
32
424
292
540
•
544
De Vore, Rev. John F.
560
Burch, Hon. B. F.
Brouillet, Father
Brown, Hon. Hugh L.
Brown, Mrs. Clarrisa
Bruce, Major James
Burnett, Hon. John
•
Burnett, Hon. James D.
Bush, Hon. A.
Butler, Hilory
•
Butler, Hon. Ira F. M.
Holbrook, Amory
•
•
356
40
Douglas, Sir James
16
Holman, Joseph
380
Dowell, Hon. B. F.
•
524
Holmes, W. H.
380
Downey, Hon. W. R.
560
•
184
Dysart, J. S., Esq.
648
184
Earhart, Hon. R. P.
632
Hoveuden, Alfred
•
276
Eaton, Abel E..
•
556
Hooker, W. F. .
Hoult, Hon. Enoch
Hovey, Hon. A. G.
•
•
92
368
372
104
•
584
200
332
Ebbert, Geo. W.
•
20
Howard, Gen. O. O., U. S. A.
68
212
Eberman, N. A.
•
152
Huggins, Edward
476
·
500
Eckerson, Major T. J., U.S.A.
512
Hunsaker, Mrs. Emly
620
•
424
Eells, Rev. C., D.D.
28
•
Buxton, Henry
Hunsaker, J. T.
620
496
Eells, Mrs. M. F.
168
Byles, Hon. Chas. N.
Jacobs, Hon. Orange
164
*
636
Eldridge, Edward
232
Jeffs, Richard
Calhoon, Hon. G. V.,
456
M.D.
336
Elliott, Wm.
•
248
Canby, Gen. E. R. S., U.S. A.
Jewett, Mrs. Harriet, née Mrs.
68
Elliott, Mrs. Nancy
248
Kimball
Cannon, A. M., Esq.
52
148
Cary, Miles
572
Cary, Mrs. C. B.
·
572
Carson, John
Castleman, P. F.
Castleman, Mrs. I. J.
Cates, Mrs. E. A.
Cathcart, Isaac, Esq.
Catlin, Hon. John
Chadwick, Hon. S. F.
•
476
488
488
Failing, Hon. Josiah
584
444
Ferry, Hon. Elisha P.
•
632
Ellsworth, Hon. S..
Emerick, Solomon.
Emerick, Mrs. S.
Evans, Col. Elwood
Fackler, Rev. St. Michael
Ferguson, Hon. Emory C.
Fletcher, Francis
•
104
Johnson, Daniel
548
236
Johnson, Mrs. Elsina
548
·
236
Johnson, James
•
548
104
Johnson, Mrs. Juliett
548
44
Kelling, D.
288
64
328
•
320
Kellog, Capt. Orrin, Jr.
304
Flett, John
•
•
404
476
Kellog, Dr. G.
Kellog, Mrs. Dr. G.
Kellogg, Capt. Chas. H.
Kellogg, Mrs. Estella
120
120
452
•
452
•
452
706
INDEX TO PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS, VOLUME I.
PAGE.
452
452
400
Newell, Dr. Robert T.
•
452
Noland, P. C.
248
Norval, Hon. J. W.
64
144
640
Osborn, Wm. T.
248
Ozment, G. IV.
·
248
Palmer, Gen. Joel
356
Palmer, Mrs. S. A.
·
524
Paquet, Hou. P.
•
524
Parker, Rev. Samuel
156
Parker, W. W.
292
Parrish, Rev. J. L.
472
Patkanim
416
Patterson, A. W.
56
Pattison, John
56
Patton, Hon. Matthew
436
Patton, Mrs. Polly G.
36
Patton, Hon. T. McF.
76
32
Percival, Hon. D. F.
•
584
Pettygrove, F. W., Esq.
600
Ping, Hon. Elisha
*
536
520
ARIES
368
·
416
MISSIONARIES.
292
184
SIONARIES
320
•
320
ARIES
592
84
Kellogg, Capt. Joseph
Kellogg, Mrs. Margaret
Kellogg, N. S.
Kellogg, Capt. Orriu
Kelly, Clinton
Kelly, Col. J. K.
Kelly, Hon. John
Kineth, John, Esq.
King, Amos N.
King, Mrs. M.
King, Mrs. Sarahı A.
Kinney, Hon. Robt. C.
Kinney, Samuel
Klippel, Henry
Kuight. Col. Ñ. B.
Kuykendall, G. P., M.D.
Ladd, William S.
•
Lancaster, Hon. C.
Lander, Hon. Edward
Landes, Col. Henry
Lane, Gen. Josephi
Lawyer
Leslie, Rev. David
Lewis, Haman C.
Lister, David
•
•
Log Cabin of A. ‘A. Denny
Loomis, L. A.
Lord, Hon. W. P.
Lovejoy, Gen. A. L.
Lownsdale, Dan'l H.
Mallory, Hon. Rufus
Marquam, Mrs. Emina
Marquam, P. A.
Marsh, David
Martin, Capt. Wm.
•
·
•
NOTED INDIAN CHIEFS
Olmstead, Mrs. Hannah J.
Smith, Mrs. A. E.
•
Spalding, Rev. H. H.
Spinning, Dr. C. H.
Stratton, Howard W.
Strowbridge, Hon. J. A.
Swan, Hon. James G.
Taylor, Mrs. Ester
PAGE.
Neglected Grave of Whitman and
PAGE.
Associate Dead in 1882
392
·
568
Smith, C. B.
276
20
Smith, Hon. E. D.
376
•
596
Smith, Hon. E. L.
596
•
184
Smith, Mrs. Hannah M.
312
76
Smith, Hiram
128
308
Smith, Hon. Thomas
·
392
•
392
Smith, Thomas
•
428
488
28
168
•
•
560
168
Steamer Beaver
16
532
Steel, Hon. Geo. A.
260
28
Stephens, Mrs. Elizabeth
224
524
Stephens, James B. .
224
32
Stevens, Gen. Isaac I., first gov.
76
of Washi, Ter.
24
104
Stewart, Hon. P. G.
500
·
440
Stinson, Ulmer, Esq.
•
480
644
Stout, J. L.
144
644
Stover, Henry
•
412
356
Strahan, Hon. R. S.
Pennoyer, Hon. Sylvester
368
292
·
•
252
388
260
I 12
620
504
PIONEER CATHOLIC MISSION-
344
Taylor, Col. James
•
344
40
PIONEER CONGREGATIONAL
Terry, Hon. Chas. C.
180
Thayer, Judge A. J.
512
28
PIONEER EPISCOPALIAN MIS-
Thayer, Mrs. A. J.
512
Thayer, Hon. W. W.
368
44
Thompson, Mrs. E.
404
PIONEER METHODIST MISSION-
Thornton, J. Q.
92
32
Three Feathers
Pioneer Printing Office, Lapwai .
76
So
Thurston, Hon. Saml. R.
56
PIONEER TRAPPERS AND SCOUTS
20
Mastin, W. H.
Tibbals, Capt. H. L.
624
Plummer, A. A.
352
160
McCall, J. M.
McCarty, J. W.
McCarver, Gen. M. M.
McCarver, Mrs. M. M.
McClane, J. B.
•
McClane, Mrs. J. B.
McDonald, H.
Tolman, Judge J. C.
•
156
Plummer, O. P. S., M.D.
332
260
Tolmie, Dr. Wm. F.
McCarty, Rev. John, D.D.
16
44
Presentation Page
Frontispiece.
Trimble, Mrs. Sarah (née Allen)
572
572
Prim, Hon. P. P. .
156
Trullinger, J. C.
476
Rabbeson, Antonio B.
552
564
Urquhart, James
.
476
Reavis, Hon. J. B.
340
•
392
428
Van Bokkelen, J. J. H. .
124
Reynolds, A. H.
244
D
428
Van Epps, T. C., Esq.
612
•
212
•
McDonald, Mrs. H..
212
McElroy, Prof. E. B.
332
Richardson, J. A., M. D.
Rinehart, Hon. James H.
Ringer, Hon. L. M.
Roberts, Andrew.
304
Waiilatpu or Whitinan Mission
408
prior to 1847 ·
568
•
296
Wait, Hon. Aaron E.
56
632
McGilvery, Napoleon
Walker, Rev. E.
28
•
404
McKay, Wm. Ĉameron, M.D.
Roeder, Capt. Henry
176
48
Rose, Aaron
•
596
Waller, Rev. A. F.
McKinley, Archibald .
184
Ross, Col. John E.
•
200
McLoughlin, Dr. John
Warren, Andrew
16
McMillen, Capt. J. H.
440
McMillen, Mrs. T. B.
•
440
Rowland, L. L., M.D.
Savage, William
Saylor, C. G.
•
596
Wallace, Hon. W. H.
Warren, Mrs. Eliza, née Miss
560
32
380
144
Spalding
52
Meek, Col. Joe.
500
Watkins, Wm. H., M. D..
304
20
Mercer, Thomas
Middle Blockhouse, Cascades,
Schnebly, David J., Esq.
100
Watson, Mrs. Priscilla
644
240
Scott, J. Tucker
332
Watson, W. P.
644
Scott, Capt. Levi .
276
We-as-kush
W. T.
76
So
•
Scott, Bishop
44
Minto, Hon. John
Wells, Capt. W. B.
120
608
Seavey, Hon. James
196
Minto, Mrs. M. A.
608
Sellwood, Rev. J. R. W.
44
Mitchell, Hon. J. H.
Wert, Mrs. S. M.,
S. M., née Miss
Kimball
52
260
Semple, Hon. Eugene
580
Monument Hill and Blue Moun1-
WHITMAN MASSACRE, SOME OF
Settlemier, J. H.
104
THE SURVIVORS OF
tains
568
Shadden, Thomas J.
52
96
Moody, Hon. Z. F.
Wilbur, Rev. J. H.
32
632
Shannon, Geo. D.
508.
Williams, Hon. Geo. H.
Moore, Hon. Miles C.
304
320
Shattuck, Hon. E. D.
212
Moores, Hon. J. H.
Wilson, R. B., M.D.
•
92
92
Shaw, Col. B. F.
464
Morrison, R. W..
Wingate, Robert
•
272
608
Shaw, Mrs. Sarah
•
464
Morrison, Mrs. R. W.
Woods, Hon. Geo. L.
292
608
Shaw, Judge Thomas C.
260
Morrow, Col. John L.
Woodward, A. P.
364
220
Shaw, Capt. Wm.
464
Mosher, Hon. L. F.
I 20
Shelton, Hon. David
420
Moss, Sidney W.
Munks, Wm.
Nesmith, Hon. J. W.
Woodward, Capt. Henry H.
Wright, Gen. Geo., U.S.A.
156
68
•
•
276
280
Sheridan, Gen. Philip H., U.S.A.
68
Yesler, Hon. H. L..
.
140
Simmons, Col. M. T..
20
York, Duke of.
76
64
Skinner, Eugene F.
392
Zachary, Mrs. Sarah
236
NDEX TO
TO PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOLUME II.
PAGE.
PAGE.
Allen, H. H. .
Allen & Chapman's Drug Store, in-
terior of, North Yakima, W. T. . 414
Almota House (H. H. Spaulding,
Prop'r), Almota, Wash
Alvord, Thos. M..
Arlington House, Seattle, Wash.
Arlington, Or.
PAGE.
274
Fell, Hon. Theron E.
•
366
McConnell, W. J. .
•
Ferry, Clinton P..
346
646
McCurdy Block, Port Townsend
186
•
Fife, Wm. H. .
•
214
McGlinn, Hon. John
326
•
142
•
First Brick Store erected in Wash. T.
First National Bank, Sprague, W. T.
Forbes, P. D
154
390
McGuire, Francis
•
354
29
Medcalf, Mrs. M. A.
1
390
•
558
Medcalf, William
602
•
·
Foster, Hon. Joseph
390
•
354
Meeker, Hon. Ezra.
350
Fowler, E. S..
214
250
Ashler House, The, property of E. P.
Cadwell
Mercer, Thos., residence of.
Furgueson, John B
302
•
318
Merriam, C. K., M. D. .
538
Fyfer, J. T.
374
Baker City, Or., beautiful homes in,
1. Dr. L. W.
342
Miles, Z. C.
450
Fyfer, J. T., property of, Huntington,
382
Mohr, Paul F., Esq.
526
►
142
Or..
342
Moorhouse, Lee
•
29, C. A.
nett, Nelson
bennett, Hon. J. A. .
Bennett, Mrs. L. E. R.
Betz's, J., Brewery.
Blackman, Alanson A.
Blackman Bros.' Mill, Snohomish
Blackman, Elhanan
•
582
622
Gamble, Thomas L.
•
428
Moran, Robert
660
•
518
Gaston, Joseph.
286
Morgan, Hon. Hiram D.
20
238
Geddis, S. A., ranch and farm of, near
238
Ellensburgh, Wash.
386
398
George, Hugh N.
16
454
George, M. C.
16
•
530
George, Mrs. Mahala
16
454
George, Presley
16
Blackman, Henry
•
Blackman, Hyrcanus
478
George, J. W.
16
•
454
Gilbranson, J. N., residence of
•
Boyd & Co., W. P., Arcade Building,
94
Nash, John, residence of
Gilman, Capt. J. M.
•
568
Seattle
1
Brannan, Joseph
•
Brooke, Geo. S.
Brookes, A. M..
•
Browne, Hon. J. J.
·
576
Guinean, Thomas
74
178
Haines, Col. J. C.
660
Neely, D. A.
470
Hanford, Hon. C. H.
458
•
660
Harford, John, residence of
608
62
Buchtel, Joseph
Browne, J. J., Esq., residence of, Spo-
kane Falls
Bull Ranch, The, Ellensburgli, W. T. 174
Havemale & Son, S. H., flouring mill
Moscow, Idaho.
Moses
Moxie Co, The, headquarters of
Mt. Vernon, W. T.
Murphy & Burns, building of.
Murray, Hon. David
·
Murray, Hon. David, residence of
Newman, Hon. W. B. D. .
Newman, J. M., residence of
Nickell, Charles
Northern Pacific Coal Co., Roslyn,
Wash.
642
4
•
134
of, Spokane Falls
406
Norton, Capt. Z. C.
126
•
Hayden, Gay.
202
Norton, Mrs. Caroline
238
Hayden, Mrs. M. J.
202
•
NOTED INDIAN CHIEFS
•
Heppner, Henry .
90
Oatman, H. B.
Burbank, Hon. A. R.
D
254
Heppner, Or .
•
70
Oatman, Mrs. H. B.
Burbank, Mrs. Mary E.
250
Hill, Hon. Wm. Lair.
286
Burbank, Miss Eva L.
250
Hollingsworth, H. S., residence of
•
Burgess, T. F. & J. W., orchard
598
618
•
Hotel Penobscot
222
•
Burnett, Mrs. Martha
238
Houser & Harford's Roller Mill
608
•
Campbell, A. C.
178
Carpenter, Charles.
Hoyt, Hon. John P.
Odd Fellows Hall, Olympia, W. T.
O'Loughlin, James.
Oregon City Orders (facsimiles)
Owens-Adair, Mrs., M. D. .
W.T..
•
286
Owens, J. W. F.
•
106
570
•
150
•
150
580
•
•
390
546
•
142
600
•
514
•
658
658
38
50
162
54
•
·
426
•
426
•
366
Indian War Bond (facsimile), 1847
I
Case, Hon. Sam'l.
Owens, Mrs. Sarah .
286
Jack, Capt
•
Catholic Institution of Spokane Falls. 282
Chambers' Block, A. H.
Jeffers, Hon. Joseph
•
278
Jeffers, Mrs. Sarah
Chandler, Wm. M.
596
Johnson, Frank, residence of
Clapp, Cyrus F.
158
+0000 0
4
Owens, Thomas
426
426
38
Ouimette, E. N.
•
354
38
Patalia City, W. T.
422
Payne, Dr. Martin
250
550
Johnson, Thomas, view of mills of,
Pearson, Daniel O.
Cochran, J. A., Esq .
•
498
Cle-Elum, W. T.
330
170
Cochran, J. A., farm residence of
Perkins, J. A. residence of
•
•
•
498
•
Joseph, Young Chief
370
•
Colfax, Wash.
4
·
586
Petterson, W. H., Esq
·
494
Josephi, S. E., M. D.
286
Comeford, J. P.
Pietrzycki, Dr. M. M.
114
•
290
Kellogg, Jay A.
•
612
Cook, Francis H..
Plummer, Alfred A., Jr.
•
·
250
534
Kincaid, H. R.
Cook, W. T.
•
318
Port Gamble Mills
•
616
Kincaid, John F
310
•
Crow, Capt. J. J.
178
Port Hadlock, Wash
•
142
Kineth, Chas. T., residence of
24
Davis, Geo. A., saw and flour mills.
174
562
Port Ludlow Mill, on Puget Sound. 362
Kindred, B. C.
46
Davis, Geo. A.
•
3.38
Port Townsend, W. T.
Kindred, Mrs. B. C.
38
Dearborn & Co., H. H., Seattle, W. T. 614
De Lashmutt, Hon. Van B
318
•
De Spain Block, property of Mrs. N.
E. De Spain
Kinnear, E. M., store of, Sprague,
Wash.
46
Powers, Hon. T. P.
38
Prescott, C. H..
466
Presentation Page.
Koontz, James H.
458
Frontispiece.
•
28
Prosser, Col. Wm. F.
82
378
Kuhn, Hon. J. A. .
•
De Spain, J.
•
146
Prosser, Wash.
•
554
242
La Conner, Wash.
210
De Spain, Mrs. N. E., residence of 242
Pullman, Wash.
118
•
La Grande, Union Co., Or.
8
Doncaster, Hiram
Raley, James H.
•
•
•
Drum, Hon. Henry.
•
218
458
Ladd, John R.
262
Redman, John T.
•
•
462
606
•
Dunbar, Hon. R. O.
•
298
Dunbar, Wm. Rice
306
Ellis, Isaac C.
•
358
Leasure, Hon. John C.
Lee, Hon. J. D..
Long, Edward
·
Marsh, Mrs. M. E.
•
446
Reed, Charles B. .
•
574
660
Reed House, Cle-Elum, W. T.
634
•
74
Reed, Mrs. Barbara
234
Ellsworth, C. W. P., residence of.
270
Reed, Walter J.
234
174
Marsh, S. P.
1
•
Emerson, George H.
270
•
34
Mason, Allen C.
Eshelman, Llewellyn & Co., Brokers,
214
Reed, Walter J., residence of.
Reith, Eugene, Esq., residence of
4
•
490
•
2,30
McAlister, D. A.
66
Seattle, W. T.
626
McAlister's Ranch
•
66
Fairweather, H. W.
Reynolds, A. H., residence of .
Rogers, E. R.
•
334
410
McBride, James, M. D.
390
658
Roslyn, Wash. Ter..
•
474
708
INDEX TO PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS, VOLUME II.
PAGE.
r
PAGE.
Saling, I. E.
•
idence of.
PAGE.
•
190
Snohomish, Wash
•
246
Seattle.
Sanders, C. A., flouring mill and res-
•
Schorr, Geo. F. .
Seeber, J. F., residence and farm,
Snoqualmie Hop Ranch
Thompson, Hon. Walter J.
•
·
354
•
314
Thorp, Fielden M.
•
78
592
Splawn, John A.
226
Thorp, Leonard L.
166
630
•
Sprague Brewery
•
•
482
Thorp, Mrs. L. L.
·
166
4
Stahl, Mrs. J. H., brewery and resi-
Thorp, Mrs. Margaret
dence of, Walla Walla
78
506
Tibbitts, Hon. G. W.
Walla Walla
·
660
206
Stewart, Capt. John
654
Sheehan, J. F., Esq.
•
·
198
Stewart, Hon. Jas. P.
•
178
Shelton, Joseph M.
Uhlman, Charles T.
122
•
•
Stewart, Mrs. Mary
458
Shelton, Mrs. Missouri.
122
Stiles, C. T.
502
Shelton, Jos. M., farm residence of. 522
Shields, J. H., lumber yard of,
Sprague, Wash.
Stiles, Hon. Theodore L.
•
654
Tullis, Hon. Amos F
Utsalady Mill, on Puget Sound
Walton, Hon. Joshua J..
Waughop, John W.
214
458
•
362
318
Stilwell, Wm. D..
98
658
Weatherford, Mrs. M.
•
258
Stinson, Ulmer, residence of
74
266
Shoudy-Cadwell Block.
Weatherford, Dr. Wm.
•
538
Stover, Mr., stock ranch and resi-
74
Sichel, Sig.
Webster, E. J.
578
486
Sitton, N. K.
74
Small's Opera House and Livery Sta-
ble, Walla Walla, W. T.
dence of, Birch Creek, Or.
Stratten, H. W., Esq., farm res. of
Strong, Hon. Wm.
•
650
Weir, Hon. Allen
130
86
Wetzell, Prof. W. A.
•
318
·
238
Whatcom, Wash
138
•
102
•
Sturdevant, R. F.
182
Smith, Edward S.
Whittlesey, Judge W. H.
•
590
214
Taber & Holt's orchard
618
Smith, Mrs. S. B.
Smith, Hon. Henry A.
Smith, Mrs. Helen.
Smith, Silas B.
Smith, Sol. H.
Smohallah.
Willis, W. G., residence of.
58
·
354
Taylor, Arthur J.
•
6.38
Wood, Lyman, Esq.
•
IIO
•
Taylor, W. H.
322
394
Worthington, P. A.
•
542
110
Taylor, W. H., residence of, Spokane
Wright, Wm. T., Esq.
•
510
IIO
•
Falls.
•
194
Yesler, Hon. H. L., residence of
IIO
·
Thomas, John M
30
•
142
Young, E. T., Esq.
·
402
4
Thompson, Hon. L. F.
178
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