All Over Oregon and Washington: Observations on the Country, Its Scenery ...

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Preface

ArriB a residenee of five years on the Pacifio Coast — three of ^hieh were spent in Oregon — a Yisit of several months-was made to the Atlantic States, during which time I was called upon to do Yolumes of talk about the West Coast, espedallj about Oregon and Washington— questions concerning which every body I met was sure to ask. The great dearth of inf ormatlbn concerning these countries there, suggested to me the need of books which should faithfully and familiarly treat of them, their natural features and resources, together with their business and social condition.

Although every summer of my residence in Oregon had heretofore been spent in excursions to different parts of the country, I resolved on my return to repeat some of my previous journeys, and make others in new directions, until all was perfectly familiar, and thoroughly understood, which related to the geography, topography, scenei^, soil, climate, productions, and improvements of the several sections of the two divisions of the North-west Coast treated of in this volume.

While it was a pleasure to me to familiarize myself with the country, the object of it was to enable me to answer, in print, all the various questions which had been asked me concerning it by Eastern people. If the reader^oUows my summer wanderings as here given, he vrill, especially with any thing of a map before him, be able to obtain quite a complete picture of all that magnificent territory, now being rapidly brought into conmiunication with the East, through the enterprise of the several great railroad companies. Besides the general information thus given, I have thought it best to furnish many details of the condition of

IV PREFACE.

the agricultural districts, and their population, for the guidance of those persons who may be looking out for farms; and of the situation and population of towns, with a view to aid immigrants in the selection of homes. It is difficult to write with absolute correctness of those countries whose rapid development outruns the. printer and publisher. Since this volume was put in the hands of the compositor, numerous corrections have been made; and, between that time and this, new town -sites have been laid out, and other improvements commenced, which do not appear in these pages. But these slight omissions do not affect the general faithfulness of their contents; the whole constituting an amount of information which could only be obtained, otherwise, bj a considerable expenditure of time and money.

The betautiful and favored region of the North-west Coast is about to assume a commercial importance which is sure to stimulate inquiiy concerning the matters herein treated of. I trust enough is contained between the covers of this book to induce the very curious to come and see for themselves. ,

PoBTLAHD,^ March, 1872.

Contents

FAOB.

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iKXBODUOTIOn 7

Introduction

•

The River is the Soul of the land to which it belongs. Fringing its banks, floating upon its waters, are the interests, the history, and the romance of the people. Our ideas of every nation are intimately associated with our ideas of its rivers. To mention the name of one, is to suggest the characteristics of the other.

How the word Euphrates recalls the earliest ages of man's history on this globe ! The Nile reminds us of a civilization on which the whole of Europe depended for whatever was enlightened or refined anterior to the Christian Era. The Tiber is rich in historic associations of the proudest empire the world ever knew. What romances of Moorish power and splendor are conjured up by the mention of the Guadalquivir ! The Rhine is so enwreathed with flowers of song, that the actual history of its battlemented towers is lost from view; and yet the mention of its name gives us a. satisfying conception of the ideal Germany, past and present.

So the Thames, the Rhone, the Danube, are sa many words for the English, the French, and the Austrian peoples. In our own country, what different ideas attach to Connecticut, Hudson, Savannah, and Mississippi ! How quickly the pictures are shifted in the stereoscope of imagination by changing Orinoco for San Joaquin, Amazon for Sacramento, or Rio de la Plata for Columbia, upon our tongues. It is not that one is

8 INTKODUCTION.

longer or shorter, or wider or deeper, than another : it is that each conveys a thought of the country, the people, the history, and the commerce of its own peculiar region.

In comparison with other rivers of equal size and geographical importance, the Columbia is very little known. That generation is yet in its prime which was taught that the whole of the North-west Territory was Oregon — that it had one river, the Columbia, and one town, Portland, situaied on the Cduwim. It is the object of this volume to correct these effete notions of one of the most genial and beautiful portions of oiu* Republic ; and to connect with the name of the Columbia some proper ideas of its history, geography, commerce, and scenery, as well as to describe the extensive coimtry which it drains.

ALL OYER OREGON AND WASHINGTON.

Chapter I. Discovery.*

From the year 1513, when Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean at Panama, the navigators of Spain, and of every rival naval power which arose for the following two hundred and seventy-nine years, were searching for some strait, or river, which should furnish water communication between the two great oceans which border the American continent. The Strait of Magellan, discovered soon after the Pacific, aflforded a way by which vessels could enter this ocean from the westem side of the Atlantic ; but it was far to the south, crooked, and dangerous. After the discovery by the English buccaneer, Drake, of the passage around Cape Horn, the search was continued with redoubled interest. Not only the Spanish and Portuguese entered into it; but the English, who had found the great inland sea of Hudson's Bay penetrating the continent toward the west, endeavored, by ofiering prizes, to stimulate the zeal of navigators in looking for the North-west Passage.

A rumor continued to circulate through the world, vague, mystical, and romantic, of half discoveries by one and another power; and tales, wilder than any thing but pure fiction, were soberly listened to by crowned heads — all of which went to confirm the belief in the hoped-for straits, which one pretender to discovery even went so far as to name, and give latitude and longitude. The Straits of Anian he called them; and so, all the world was looking for Fretum Anian.

All this agitation could not go for nothing. By dint of sailing up and down the west coast of the continent, some actual discoveries of importance were made, and other hints of things not yet discovered were received. There even appeared upon the Spanish charts the name of a river somewhere between the 40th and 50th parallels — the San Roque — supposed to be a large river, possibly the long -sought channel of communication with the Atlantic ; but no account of having entered it was ever given. Then, vague mention began to be made of the " River of the West," whose latitude and longitude nobody knew.

Just before the War of the Revolution, a Colonial Captain, one Jonathan Carver, being inspired with a desire to know more of the interior of the continent, traveled as far west as the l^eadwaters of the Mississippi. While on this tout, he heard, from the Indians with whom he conversed, some mention of other Indians to the west, who told tales of a range of mountains called Stony Mountains, and of a great river rising in them, and flowing westward to the sea, which they called Oregon.

After the War of the Revolution, Great Britain resumed 'her voyages of discovery. A fleet was fitted out to survey the North-west coast of America, which it was thought might be claimed by her on account of

DISCOVERY. 11

the voyage to it by Captain Cook some years previous. The surveys conducted by Captain Vancouver were elaborate and scientific. He, too, like those who had gone before him, was looking for the " River of the West," or the North-west Passage.

But that obtuseness of perception, which sometimes overtakes the most sharp -sighted, overtook Captain Vancouver when his vessel passed the legendary river ; for it was broad daylight and clear weather, so that he saw the headlands, and still he declared that there was no river there — only a sort of a bay.

Fortunately, a sharper eye than his had scanned the same opening not long before : the eye of one of that proverbially sharp nation, the Yankee. Captain Robert Gray, sailing a vessel in the employ of a firm of Boston traders, in taking a look at the inlet, and noticing the color of the water, did think there was a river there, and so told the English Captain when his vessel was spoken. Finding that his impressions were treated with superior skepticism, the Yankee Captain turned back to take another lopk. This second observation was conclusive. He sailed in on the 11th of May, 1792.

From the log-book of the Odurrim^ Captain Gray's ship, we take the following extracts : At four o'clock, on the morning of the 11th, "beheld our desired port, bearing east-south-east, distant six leagues. At eight A.M., being a little to the windward of the entrance of the harbor, bore away, and ran in east-north-east, between the breakers, having from five to seven fathoms of water. When we wel'e over the bar, we found this to be a large river of fresh water, up which we steered. Many canoes came alongside. At one p.m., came to, with the small bower, in ten fathoms ; black and white sand; The entrance between the bars bore west-south-west, distant ten miles ; the north side of the river, distant a half mile from the ship ; the south side of the same, two and a half miles distant; a village on the north side of the river, west by north, distant three-quarters of a mile. Vast numbers of the natives came alongside: people employed pumping the salt water out of our water casks, in order to fill with fresh, while the ship floated in. So ends/'

No, not so ends, modest Captain Gray, of the ship Colurnbia! The end is not yet, nor will be, until all the vast territory, rich with every production of the earth, which is drained by the waters of the new-found river, shall have yielded up its illimitable wealth to distant generations.

The OdunibialB log-book certainly does not betray any great elation of mind in her officers on reaching the "desired port." Everything is recorded calmly and simply — quite in the way of business. Only from chance expressions, and the determination to make the "desired port," does it appear that Gray's heart was set on discovering the San Roque of the Spanish navigators — the "River of the West" of the rest of mankind. No explorer he, talking grandly of "minute inspections" and of "unalterable opinions ! " Only an adventurous, and, withal, a prudent trader, looking out for the main chance, and, perhaps, emulous of a little glory.

No doubt his stout heart quaked a little with excitement, as he ran in for the " opening." We could pardon him if it shrank somewhat at sight of the hungry breakers; but it must have been a poor and pulseless affair of a heart that did not give a throb of exultation, as his good ship, dashing the foam from

DISCOVERY. 13

her prow, sailed between the white lines of surf safely — through the proper channel, thank God! — out upon the broad bosom of the most magnificent of rivers.

We trust the morning was fine, and that Captain Gray had a perfect view of the noble scenery surrounding him : of a golden sunrise from a horizon fretted by the peaks of lofty hills, bearing thick unbroken forests of giant trees; of low shores embowered in flowering shrubbery; of numerous mountain - spurs putting out into the wide bay, extending miles east and west, and north and south, forming numerous other bays and coves, where boats might lie in safety from any storm outside; of other streams dividing the mountains into ridges, and pouring their tributary waters into the great river, through narrow gaps that half revealed and half concealed the fertile valleys nestled away from inquisitive eyes: and that, as he tried in vain to look beyond the dark ridge of Tongue Point, around whose foot flowed the broad, deep current whose origin was still a mystery, he realized by a prophetic sense the importance of that morning's transaction. No other reward had he in his lifetime, and we trust he had that.

From the ship's log-book, we learn that he did not leave the river for ten days, during which time the men were employed calking the pinnace; paying the ship's side with tar, painting the same, and doing such carpenter -work as was needed to put the vessel in repair after her long voyage out from Boston. All this time, "vast numbers" of natives were alongside continually, and the Captain must have driven a thriving trade in furs, salmon, and the like. On the 14th, he sailed up the river about fifteen miles, getting aground just above Tongue Point, where he mistook the chanuel among the many islands; but the ship "coming off without any assistance," he dropped down to a better anchoring place.

On the 15th, in the afternoon. Captain Gray, and Mr. Hoskins, the first ofl&cer, " went on shore in the jolly-boat, to take a short view of the country." On the 16th, the ship returned to her first position off" the Chinook village, and was again surrounded by the canoes of that people. Just as it was seventy-nine years ago, the Chinook village remains to-^ay — a cluster of huts on the north side of the river; but its people are no longer numerous. It is rare to see a single canoe, where they used to swarm in fleets on this portion of the river.

Captain Gray was thinking of getting to sea again by the 18th; but on standing down the river toward the bar, the wind came light and fluttering, and again the anchor was dropped. He must now decide upon a name for this great stream, which from its volume he knew must come from the heart of the continent. The log of the 19th says : *^ Fresh and clear weather. Early a number of canoes came alongside : seamen and tradesmen employed in their various departments. Captain Gray gave the river the name of Columbia's River; and the north* side of the entrance. Cape Hancock ; that on the south side. Point Adams."

On the 20th of May, the ship took up anchor, made sail, and stood down the river, coming, as the following extract will show, near being wrecked: "At two, the wind left us, we being on the bar with a very strong tide, which set on the breakers. It was now not possible to get out without a breeze to shoot her across the tide; so, we were obliged to bring up in three and a half fathoms, the tide running five knots.

DISCOVERY. 15

At three-quarters past two, a fresh wind came in from seaward; we immediately came to sail and beat over the bar, having from five to seven fathoms water in the channel. At five p.m., we were out, clear of all the bars, and in twenty fathoms water."

Captain Gray proceeded from Columbia's River to Nootka Sound, a favorite harbor for trading vessels, but in dispute at that time between Spain and Great Britain. Here he reported his discovery to the Spanish Comandante, Quadra, and gave him a copy of his charts. In the controversy which afterward happened between Great Britain and the United States, concerning the title to the Oregon territory, the value of this precaution became apparent: for in that controversy the Comandante's evidence destroyed the pretensions of Vancouver's lieutenant, Broughton, who, on having heard of Gray's discovery, returned to the Columbia River, and made a survey of it up as far as the mouth of the Wallamet, founding upon this survey the claim of Great Britain to a discovery - title. The subterfuge was resorted to of denying that the Columbia was a mer below Tongue Point; but it was claimed that it was an inlet or sound. Were it not a fact patent to every one, that a river must extend as far as the force of its current is felt, the pretense would still be perfectly transparent, since Gray must have passed Tongue Point, and been in what Broughton claimed to be the actual river before he grounded. Years afterward, the log-book of the obscure Yankee trader, and the evidence of Comandante Quadra, overbore all strained pretenses, and manifest destiny made Oregon and its great river a portion of the American Republic.

Captain Robert Gray was the first man to carry the flag of the United States around the world, having.

in the spring of 1792, just returned from a voyage from Nootka to Canton, and from Canton to Boston, by way of the Cape of Good Hope. He continued to command a trading vessel up to the time of his death, in 1809. Gray's Harbor, on the coast of Washington Territory, was discovered and named by him, the name remaining as a memorial. Ought he not have some other ?

In October, 1792, Vancouver having finished the survey of Puget Sound, in which the Spanish fleet was also engaged, Broughton was dispatched to the Columbia River, with the Chatham^ which grounded just inside Cape Hancock; was got oflF, and anchored in a small bay on the north side of the river, known as Baker's Bay. In this cove he found, to his surprise, another vessel, the brig Jenny, from Bristol, England, commanded by Captain Baker, from whom he had parted in Nootka Sound. The cove was thence named Baker's Bay. From this time, the Columbia continued to be visited by trading vessels up to the war of 1 812, which interrupted this sort of traffic for the time«

Chapter II. Earlt History

In the commencement of the present century, when we paid for our teas and silks with seal-skins, cocoanut oil, and sandal-wood, not to mention turtle and abklone shells, the United States were bounded by the British provinces on the north, by the Spanish possessions, called Florida, on the south, and by the French possessions, called Louisiana, on the west. Our sea-coast extended only from the northern boundary of Maine to the southerji boundary of Georgia; and the Mississippi River represented our western water-front, although the settlements in that part of our territory were chiefly French. Beyond the Mississippi was an expanse of country whose extent was undreamed of, as its geographical configuration was unknown. The explorations of the British Fur Companies in the north had revealed the existence of high mountains, and great rivers in that direction; while the little knowledge obtained of the sources of the Missouri, the Columbia, and the Colorado, together with the immense volumes of these rivers, at so great an apparent distance from their springs, was sufficient to stimulate public inquiry and scientific research. How long such inquiry would have been deferred, but for a fortunate turn in the public affairs of the United States, can only be conjectured.

Our young Republic had barely established her independence, and shaken off* the lingering grasp of

Great Britain from the forts and towns bordering on the Great Lakes ; had only just begun to feel the young giant's blood in her veins, and to trust her own strength when measured with that of an older and adroit foe — when the nineteenth century dawned, in which so much has already been accomplished, though its seventh decade is but just completed.

The first event of importance marking this period, and bearing upon the history of Oregon, was the purchase from !Prance of the I/mismui territory. This was a vast area of country, drained by the waters of the Mississippi, and originally settled by the Freiich from Canada, especially in its more northern parts. Notwithstanding the Spaniards had discovered the lower Mississippi, and claimed a great extent of country under the general name of Florida, King Louis XIV. of France, in consideration of the fact that the region of the Mississippi remained unoccupied by Spain, while it was gradually being settled by his own people, thought proper to grant to Antoine Crozat, in 1712, the exclusive trade of the whole of southern Louisiana, the country included in this grant extending *' from the sea-shore to the Illinois, together with the Rivers St. Philip (the Missouri), and the St. Jerome (the Ohio), with all the couh tries, territories, lakes in the land, and rivers emptying directly or indirectly into that part of the River St. Louis " (the Mississippi). Spain not being able to offer any successful opposition to this extensive land-grant of territories to which she laid claim by the right of discovery, Crozat remained in possession of Louisiana, under the general government of New France, until 1717, when, not finding the principality such a mine of wealth as he expected it to be, and having suffered a

EAELY HISTORY. 19

great private grief which took away the love of power, he relinquished his title, and Louisiana reverted to the crown. The Illinois country was afterward added to the original Louisiana territory, and the whole once more graiited to Lavis Mississi^ Company, which company held it until 1732, when, the bubble of speculation being hopelessly flattened, Louisiana once more reverted to the French crown, and remained a French province until 1769.

In the meantime, however, certain negotiations were being carried forward which were to decide the future boundaries of the United States. In 1762, on the 3d of November, a convention was held at Paris, to settle the preliminaries of peace between France and Spain on the one part, and England and Portugal on the other, in which convention it was agreed • that France should cede to Spain "all thd country known under the name of Louisiana, as also New Orleans and the island on which that city is situated." On the 23d of the same month, this cession was formally concluded, giving to Spain, with the consent of Great Britain and Portugal, all the country drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries, except a small portion north of the Illinois country, which was never mentioned in the boundaries of Louisiana.

In less than three months after the cession of Louisiana to Spain, a treaty was concluded in Paris between the same high contracting parties, by which Great Britain obtained from France Canada, and from Spain Florida, and that portion of Louisiana east of a libe drawn along the middle of the Mississippi, "from its source to the River Iberville, and thence along the middle of the Iberville, and the Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain, to the sea."

This treaty defined the limits of the territories belonging to Great Britain, and set aside any former grants of English Kings, made when the extent of the continent was not even surmised. Thus, at the close of the Revolutionary War, when the United States became heirs of all the British possessions south of Canada, their western boundary, as before mentioned, was the Mississippi, as far south as the River Iberville and Lake Pontchartrain — ^New Orleans and the mouths of the Mississippi belonging to Spain.

Florida, during the time it was in the hands of Great Britain, had been divided into two provinces, separated by the Appalachicola River, and settled chiefly by emigrants from the south of Europe, to whose numbers, also, a few Carolinians were added. This colony of foreigners was used, in connection with the savage natives of Florida, with great effect against the southern colonies during the War of Independence. However, while they were directing their energies against Georgia, the Spaniards of Louisiana seized the opportunity for making incursions into these nondescript British provinces, and captured their chief towns, thereby rendering them worthless to Great Britain; and in 1783, Florida was retroceded to Spain, in whose hands it was in the beginning of the nineteenth century, then forming the southern boundary of the United States.

In all these transactions the limits of neither Florida nor Louisiana had ever been distinctly defined ; the southern boundaries of the latter infringing upon the western boundaries of the former territory. In 1800, when Spain retroceded Louisiana to France, it wks described in the treaty as being the **same in extent that it now is in the hands of Spain, and that it had been when France possessed U^^ — that is, embracing the

EARLY HISTORY. 21

whole territory drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries, "directly or indirectly."

In 1803, April 30th, this vast extent of country was ceded to the United States by France, "with all its rights and appurtenances, as fully, and in the same manner, as they had been acquired by the French Republic," by the retrocession of Spain. By this transfer on the part of France, the Spanish government seemed at first disposed to be offended, and to ofier obstacles to the settlement of the Americans in their newly acquired territory. Doubtless, this feeling arose from the unsettled condition of the boundary questions, and a fear that the United States would, as they did, demand the surrender of the whole of the original territory of Louisiana, called for by the treaty. Spain then undertook to prove that the pretensions of France to any territories west of the Mississippi could not be supported, and that the French settlements were only tolerated by Spain for the sake of peace. Such a discrepancy between the views of the two nations forbade negotiation at that time, and the matter rested, not to be revived until 1817. In the meantime, however, the United States, in 1811, feeling the necessity of holding the principal posts in the disputed territory against all other powers, took possession of the country west of the Perdido River, which was understood to be the western limit of Florida. But a British expedition having fitted out from Pensacola during the second war with Great Britain, the United States sent General Jackson to capture it, which he did in 1814, and again in 1818, as also the Fort of St. Mark. These repeated demonstrations of the spirit of the United States led to further and more successful negotiations with Spain, which power finally ceded to

* the American Government the whole of the territory claimed to bejong to Florida, February 22, 1819, the boundaries being settled as follows :

"Article 3. The boundary line between the two countries west of the Mississippi shall begin on the Gulf of Mexico, at the mouth of the River Sabine, in the sea, continuing north, along the western bank of that river, to the 23d degree of latitude; thence, by a line due north, to the degree of latitude where it strikes the Rio Roxo of Natchitoches, or Red River; then, following the course of the Rio Roxo westward, to the degree of longitude 100 west from London and 23 from Washington; then, crossing said Red River, and running thence, by a line due north, to the River Arkansas ; thence, following the course of the southern bank of the Arkansas, to its source in latitude 42 north ; and thence, by that parallel of latitude, to the South Sea."

Other particulars are added in the article quoted, the meaning of which is the same as the foregoing: intended to fix the western boundary of the United States, as regarded the Spanish possessions, and the eastern and northern boundaries of the Spanish possessions, as regarded the United States*

Spain had never withdrawn her pretensions to the North-west Coast; but, being unable to colonize this distant territory, and still less able to hold it by garrisons in forts, she tacitly relinquished her claim to the United States, by making the forty-second parallel the northern limit of her possessions on the Pacific. The United States were then at liberty to take possession of that which Spain relinquished in their favor; in fact, liad the same right to this remote territory that they

EABLT HISTORY. 23

had to the Florida and Louisiana territories, which were obtained by treaty from nations claiming them by the right of discovery.

But the claims of the United States to the so-called Oregon territory had even better foundations than this, if it be considered that Spain had actually abandoned her possessions in the north-west; for, in that case, the Oregon territory was theirs by the right of discovery and actual occupation, as well as by contiguity, by treaty, etc. At the time that Gray discovered and named Columbia's River, important as the discovery was, it. awakened but little thought in the American mind ; because, as yet, we had not acquired Louisiana, stretching to the Rocky Mountains, nor even secured the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, which was much more of an object, at that time, than the coast of the Pacific. However, when Louisiana became ours, the national mind awoke to the splendid possibilities of the nation's future. It was not for njtught that a company of Boston merchants had opened a trade between China and the North-west Coast; albeit, their captains gathered up trinkets of all sorts to add to their stock in trade, should furs fall short of the market. Not in vain had the prying Boston traders peered into all inlets, bays, and rivers on the North-west Coast. When it came to discovery-rights, they had more claims than any people, the original discoverers excepted; and when Captain Vancouver's journal was published, it only convinced them that they should be fools not to profit by what it was so evidently fair they should profit by, though they did not quite see the way clear to the occupancy of the country which Columbia's River was believed to drain, nor of the islands and bays which their trading ships had explored. If Spain chose to hold possession of these coasts, they would not interfere ; but if Great Britain attempted to override both Spain and America, in laying claim to the Pacific side of the continent, something might be done by way of preventing this attempt.