Hall Jackson Kelley, prophet of Oregon

Front matter

Book J^tosr

Hall Jackson Kelley

Prophet of Oregon

Preface

In this monograph is presented the Hfe story of Hall Jackson Kelley, a Boston school master who about 1817 became interested in Oregon, and from 1824 to 1844 was active in the movement for its settlement by American citizens. It tells of his success and of his failures, and of the service which justly entitles him to be known as the "prophet of Oregon."

So far as possible the narrative is given in Kelley's own words, but all available materials have been used which in any way supplement or amend his writings. At the most our information is fragmentary and unsatisfactory on many points ; but as Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge has said, "We can only deal with what we have, and from what we possess must infer the rest, for that alone is permitted to us. The inference thus drawn is history." Not that inferential judgments have been formed where investigation might have disclosed the fact. The search for facts has been pursued for ten years through a score of libraries in all parts of the country, with the results which appear in the pages that follow.

To those who, in common with Mr. Lodge, require that history be "informed by imagination and presented with the finest skill of which literature is capable." this contribution may have little appeal. It is intended for those whose interest lies within the field of the great westward movement in American history and the history of the Northwest Coast. Surely a record of fact is desirable concerning a man who has been mentioned so often and yet so seldom with accuracy.

F. W. P.

Glen Ridge, N. J.

Contents

Chapter. Page

I. YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD - - - - 1

II. YEARS OF AGITATION ------ 11

CHAPTER ONE Youth and Early Manhood

Any statement as to Kelley's early life must be pieced together from fragments now at hand over forty years after his death as a worn-out old man. That he was born at Northwood, New Hampshire, February 24, 1790, is set forth by the town records. He was a descendant of John Kelley, one of the settlers of Newbury, Massachusetts. His grandfather was Samuel Kelley of Salem, and his father was Benjamin Kelley, a native of Salem and a physician who practiced in the New Hampshire towns of Northwood, Loudon, and Gilmanton. His mother was Mary ("Polly") Gile of Nottingham.

Kelley was a boy of ten when his family went to Gilmanton after four years' residence in Loudon. Fie attended Gilmanton academy, and at the age of sixteen taught school at Hallowell, Maine. ^ In 1813 he graduated from Middlebury college, Vermont, with the degree of A.B.^ From his own words it is possible to picture the sort of boy he was.

"Blessed with intelligent and pious parents, who led me in early youth to fear God, I came into active life serious minded; and much inclined to consider my ways, and to seek to know what could make me useful and happy. Before the years of manhood, I resolved on a fearless obedience to the divine commands . . .^ Pious, maternal instructions, in early youth

1 Lancaster, Hist, of Gilmanton, 229, 250, 274; Cogswell, Hist, of Nottingham, Deerfleld and Northwood, 584; Temple, Hist, of the Tozvn of Palmer, 265.

2 The nature of his college environment is indicated by the fact that thirteen out of twenty-nine members of his class entered the ministry.

much inclined me to lead an active and useful life . . .■* It was a mother who taught me never to take the name ot God in vain — never to be guilty of the sin of insulting the Almighty with the breath he gives. She impressed my mind with a profound and pious reverence for Jehovah, and with a high and solemn veneration for the institutions of Christianity ; and so impressed it with the love of truth, that not a single doubt, as to the divine authenticity of the Scriptures, ever profaned the sanctuary of my heart. Her instructions and examples inclined me to be diligent and persevering in business, and faithful and patient in the discharge of duties ; to be hospitable and merciful, — when enemies hunger and thirst, to feed them, and give them drink; and to bless them that persecute . . .

"Early in youth I acquired a fondness for reading. The post came along once a week and left at my father's house the newspaper. Besides accounts of events, accidents and remarkable occurrences, it contained bulletins concerning the terrible wars then raging in Europe, and thrilling accounts of Bonaparte's invading and devastating armies. They were new to me, and I read wth an intense desire to know about them. . . . I read them, and was led to read books and papers of every kind as they came to hand. They were calculated to inspire ambition and to interest my feelings. ... I did not then, so early in youth, understand the distinctions proper to be made as to the conductors in those wars. But afterwards, in riper years, reading, hearing and observations enabled me better to comprehend the meaning of what was read, and better to discriminate between lovers of their country and philanthropists, and traitors and misanthropes. Hence, was my fondness for reading and itching ears for news. At once I left my juvenile plays and sports, and turned to books and papers. I read at times through the day, and more than once through the night. When taking up a book, treating on some subject I would wish to comprehend,

4 Kelley, Hist, of the Colonisation of Oregon, sit was not laid down until I understood all its pages could inform me. 'Neil's History of the Indians of New England,' the first ever published, and other histories of that benighted and oppressed people were read. While preparing for college I have more than once studied my Virgil lessons by moonlight ; in this way, often times I overstrained the optic nerves, the stress so often brought upon them caused near-sightedness and to be slow of apprehension. . . .

"At the age of fourteen I first experienced a difficulty in utterance. For one or two years I suffered an impediment in my speech ; in the presence of superiors was unable readily to begin utterance. About the time of entering college I discovered myself to be 'slow of speech' (of apprehension). . . ,"^

Earnest, introspective, and diffident, he was also religious to the degree of fanaticism. "In my youth the Lord Jesus revealed to me in visions the lonely, laborious and eventful life I was to live; and gave at the time of the visions, and afterwards, unmistakable signs that the revelations were by Him."' In practical matters, however, he showed early in life a disposition to get at the truth through actual experiment. Thus he said:

"A year or two prior to my entering college, much was said in the papers in regard to a perpetual motion. I went into a workship determined on knowing the reality of such a motion, spent several days in an attempt to find out the truth about it. After several days of study and mechanical labor, I was enabled to demonstrate its impossibility. . . ."'^

Of his college life little is known except that he enjoyed the respect of his fellow students as a young man who could be relied upon to meet the problems which presented themselves.

"When 'in college,' my class was put to the study of astronomy. For the purpose of illustrating, I constructed an Orrery — a machine showing the pathways of the moon round the earth, and the earth round the sun. Lead pencils fixed to the axes of those bodies, and the machine put in motion, their orbits were exactly delineated on paper. It was similar to a figure on one of the plates of Ferguson's Astronomy. My class-mates thought me to have some inventive power and mechanical ingenuity. In my Junior year, a Senior, whose class had been required to calculate and project a certain eclipse of the sun, which would happen far in the future, came to me, saying, if he could be furnished within twenty-four hours, with an accurate projection of that eclipse, he would give me $5.00. I promptly complied with his request, and the money was promptly paid, and was very acceptable, being, as I was at the time, in needy circumstances."^

Kelley sought his opportunity in Boston, where he again became a school teacher.^ On May 4, 1815, he married Mary Baldwin, a daughter of Rev. T. Baldwin, D.D.^^ On the records of the school committee of Boston Kelley's name first appears as master of the West reading school, a position to which he was appointed on September 29, 1818, after several weeks' service as a substitute during the last illness of his predecessor. On June 17, 1820, Kelley was appointed master of the Hawkins Street grammar school, and on March 20, 1821 he became reading and grammar master of the Mayhew school. Here, it appears, he became involved in "difficulties" with the usher, whose dismissal was recommended by the sub-committee of the Mayhew school. Further inquiry was made into the matter by a special committee headed by the mayor, Josiah Quincy, with the result that on July 18, 1823, the secretary was directed to inform Kelley that the school committee would dispense with his services, but that his salary would be continued through the quarter.

As to the results of his educational activities, he claimed, "I improved the system of coimnon school education in my adopted

10 Middlebnry College, General Catalogue, 1800-1900, 46; Temple, 265.

State. The Black Board and the Monitorial Desk were first introduced into the schools of Boston by me. The late distinguished Joseph Lancaster was the first to use them."^^ Now that the blackboard has fallen into disfavor and the Lancasterian monitorial system has been long since abandoned by educators, no one is likely to dispute the claim. He also interested himself in the subject of industrial education, "I attempted the founding of an institution, to be called, 'Massachusetts Mechanical and Agricultural College/ The subject was two years before the legislature. The Committee on Education said to me, that if I would raise a fund of $10,000, the State would give $10,000 more. A munificent individual of Charlestown proposed to subscribe $2,000 ; myself would give a portion of my estate in the town."^^ The project was abandoned; but Kelley expressed satisfaction that "his zealous efforts . . . excited in others of abler talents, correspondent intentions and labors, which resulted, in some small benefit, to our literary institutions."^^ However active he may have been in promoting this movement, he was not its originator; nor does his name appear in any of the published documents relating to the matter.^^

Kelley's interest in the welfare of youth also prompted him to take an active part in the organization of the Boston Young Men's Education Society, of which he was the first secretary, and in the founding of the Penitent Females' Refuge, which was organized in 1821 and incorporated in 1823.^^ His strong

13 Kelley, Geographical Sketch of Oregon, 5.

14 In 1825 the legislature received a memorial from the town of Stock-bridge praying for the endowment of "an institution best calculated to afford instruction to laborious classes in practical arts and sciences." A brief report was made by a committee of the house of representatives within the year, and a joint committee was appointed to "prepare and digest a system" for such an institution. — Mass. Resolves, 1825, c. 88. This committee presented two reports in 1826 and a third in 1827 and also a bill "To establish the Mass. Seminary of Arts and Sciences." This bill provided for an appropriation of $20,000, not $10,000 as stated by Kelley, the grant being contingent upon the raising of $10,000 by subscriptions and donations. — Governor's Messages in Mass. Resolves, VI, 381, 579; also H. Doc. 5 and S. Doc. 23 of 2 sess. 1826-7. \\'hi!e this matter was under discussion, the legislature was also considering the needs of the elementary schools, the result being a revised education law, passed in 1827. It was undoubtedly this act that Kelley had in mind when referring to the results of the labors of "others of abler talents."

religious bent naturally led him to attempt to promote the systematic study of the Bible. "The first Sunday School in Boston and perhaps New England was organized by me with the assistance of the late Rev. Daniel Chessman. In 1820, or the year following, I prepared for the use of the Sunday Schools in Boston, a small book called Sunday School Instructor."^®

As a writer of elementary school books, Kelley met with considerable favor, if we are to judge by the number and variety of editions. First came The Instructor's First Book.^^ Diligent search has failed to bring to light a single copy of this work, and its date of publication is unknown. It was doubtless the same as the First Spelling Book, Or Child's Instructor, the eighth edition of which was published in 1827. In 1825 appeared The American Instructor, Second Book, which according to the title page was "Designed for the common schools in America ; containing the elements of the English language ; lessons in orthography and reading, and the pronunciation of Walker's Critical Pronouncing Dictionary ; all made easy by the arrangement and division of words, and an improved use of figures and letters." A second edition was published in 1826. A fifth edition, published in 1827, bore the title Kelley's Second Spelling Book. There was a further change of title in 1832, when The Western Spelling Book was published in Cincinnati.

The American Instructor contains selections for reading on geography, agriculture, architecture, mechanics, astronomy, and prosody, with special attention to Thomson's poetry. Its frontispiece shows Minerva, book in hand, directing two boys to the "temple of fame" on a nearby height ; a globe, a compass, and i6 Kelley, Explanatory Remarks, Ms. attached to a copy of Kelley's Second Spelling Book, presented to the Amherst college library about 1869.

"In 18 1 8 provision was made for the instruction of children from four to seven years of age. The primary schools established for this purpose seem to have originated in a general desire of our citizens to relieve the Sunday-schools from the great amount of secular instruction received there, which was fast crowding out the reli^ous training that should be the object of such institutions." — Dillaway, Education, in Winsor, Memorial Hist, of Boston, IV, 245.

1 7 Stttiement of Oregon, 9.

several books giving to the scene a scholarly setting. "Delightful task to rear the tender thought ;" so runs the legend. This, of course, was Kelley's only by adoption. It was typical of that generation of school masters who forced our grandmothers, while in their 'teens, to read and appreciate such ponderous books as Watts' Improvement of the Mind; and — it helps us to understand Kelley.^^

According to the minutes of the meeting of the corporation of Middlebury college held on August 16, 1820, Kelley was "admitted to the degree of Master of Arts." This was not an "honorary" degree, as we now understand the term, for according to the president of the college, "as it was quite customary at that period to confer that degree upon any graduate of more than three years' standing who applied for it, it could not be regarded as a distinguished honor." Within the year Harvard also conferred the same degree ad eundem gradum}^

Kelley was twice married. His second wife was Mary Perry, adopted daughter of T. D. Bradlee of Boston, to whom he was married on April 17, 1822 at Boston. They had three sons, Benjamin, John S., and Charles H. His first wife also left a son, Thomas B.-'^

After his second marriage, and probably after his dismissal from the Boston schools, Kelley took up his residence in Charlestown. Many years later, he gave a description of his property in Charlestown and Boston. There was an "estate in Milk Row, Charlestown," and four other "estates." "One comprised twelve acres of land ; and is situate near Craigie's Point, Charlestown. . . . The other three consisted of houses and lands, situate in Boston, where at this time [1854] are the Lowell, the Eastern and the Western railroad depots.

i8 "Perhaps no spelling book while this was extant, and its author was about in the land looking to its interest, had a wider circulation and was more popular: and perhaps there was no book of the kind more perfect in orthography and laethod of showing the true vowel sound and correct pronunciations. Walker's orthography as far as it regards words ending with lick and our is now an objection to its use — tnet of Webster now being generally adopted in the schools." — Kelley, Explanatory Remarks, Ms.

30 Middlebury College, General Catalogue, 1800-1900: 46; Temple, 365.

. . . They had been purchased in anticipation of improvements which it was supposed would much enhance their value."-^ This is evidence that early in life Kelley possessed a certain amount of business enterprise. His subsequent business ventures were of quite another sort.

We do not know when Kelley took up the work of a surveyor. We do know that he was interested in higher mathematics, and he tells us that as early as 1815 he had conceived what he considered an improved system of geographical and topographical surveying. After declaring that the system in general use was unsatisfactory in both theory and practice, he said:

"The system which I propose scarcely admits of an error. It points out an easy and correct mode of running the lines required in the survey. My method has many advantages over that now in practice.

"The numerous errors of the compass are entirely avoided. The interests of the land proprietor are better promoted, and the wide door so much open for litigation, which often costs him his freehold, is effectually closed. It is the only simple method by which right lines, having a given course, can be run with precision. It is attended with as much certainty as the high operation of trigonometrical surveys. "^^ His nearest approach to a definite description of his system appeared in the Manual of the Oregon Expedition, or General Circular, in which he set forth the manner in which divisions of lands should be made in Oregon.

"All boundaries of towns, and lots of land, will be identified with meridian lines, and parallels of latitude, — not by the parallels as found on the surface of the earth, where they are crooked, as the hills and depressions make them uneven ; but by such, as they would be, provided the surface was smooth. . . . It is, however, true, that the divisions of land, as they lay south of each other, increase in quantity, in proportion to

21 Kelley, harrative of Events and Difficulties, 6.

22 Settlement of Oregon, ii.

the divergence of the meridian lines ; nevertheless their boundaries will be distinctly marked, and their contents exactly known. A country thus surveyed, gives the advantage of ascertaining, without admeasurement, the relative position or distance of any one place from another, consequently the latitude and longitude of the metropolis being determined, those of any other place are known. "^^

Confident that the principle he advocated would be of great public utility if generally adopted and practiced, he presented his system to the national government in the form of a petition to congress on April 10, 1830.-'*

It was as a surveyor that Kelley in 1828 became interested in the affairs of the Three Rivers Manufacturing company, which had been incorporated in 1826 to build and operate a textile mill in the village of Three Rivers in the town of Palmer, Massachusetts. This village, which was then but a hamlet, lies at the point where the combined waters of the Ware and Swift rivers join the Quaboag and form the Chicopee, which is one of the branches of the Connecticut. The company had met with unexpected difficulties in digging a canal, for its engineers were unable to make much progress on account of the solid granite rock near the dam which they had built. Kelley put his money as well as his efforts into the project. He made surveys and prepared a comprehensive plan, including the manufacturing plant, the water power, and the village itself. One of his hobbies was straight streets and rectangular blocks (a natural reaction in a Boston engineer),

23 Kelley, General Circular, 13.

24 "The [senate] committee [on naval affairs] to which the subject was referred, for a good and obvious reason, gave the investigation of the subject to General [Simon] Bernard, then at the he id of the corps of civil engineers.

"This profound mathematician carefully examined the papers and the formula I had prepared for their illustration, reported an opinion highly creditable to his own talent, liberally estimating the talents of the memorialist. Notwithstanding the system was recommended as being worthy of public adoption, yet nothing was done to bring it into practice. President Jackson promised to adopt it, whenever a book, giving directions for its practice and a proper apparatus, should be prepared. I had described minutely the apparatus and the manner of using it, and had negun the table of deflections necessary for the book, and this was all my Oregon enterprise afforded me time to do. The tables might require for their preparation one or two yeirs of assiduous attention of some learned mathematician." — Settlement of Oregon, lo-i; 21 cong. i sess. S. jour., 236, 275.

but the position of the rivers and the configuration of the land fortunately limited his efforts in that direction. True to his New England inheritance, he reserved land for a small common in the center of the village.

The company soon became bankrupt, however, and Kelley lost heavily. At the sale of the company's property, he purchased some land, having become enthusiastic about the ultimate prosperity of the village ; and early in 1829 he brought his family from Charlestown and established his home there.^'

Kelley was now in his fortieth year; yet in the record of his life as here set forth, there is little that would seem to bear out his early vision of a "lonely, laborious and eventful life." It is a workaday record of a school master and a man of small affairs. We have now to consider the man of dreams — and his all-possessing dream of the settlement of Oregon.

25 Settlement of Oregon, 23; Temple, 262-3: Alkn, The Town of Palmer, in Copeland, Hist, of Hampden County, II, 144. Temple is authority for the statement that Kelley projected a canal from Three Rivers to the Connecticut river for the transportation of the supplies and goods of the mill and village. This plan was not new, however. The citizens of nrookfield, at .1 public meeting held on May 23, 1825, had proposed the construction of a canal to Springfield, via the Quaboag and Chicopee rivers. — Springfield Republican, June i. 1825. The canalfniilding spirit was at its height in Massachusetts in the twenties.

CHAPTER TWO Years of Agitation

The Biddle version of the journals of Lewis and Clark was published in 1814.^ On December 24, 1814, the War of 1812 between Great Britain and the United States was terminated by the Treaty of Ghent, which provided that "All territory, places, and possessions whatsoever, taken by either party from the other during the war . . . shall be restored without delay," and ratifications were exchanged early in 1815. At the end of the war, Astoria, John Jacob Astor's trading station and fort at the mouth of the Columbia river, was held by the British, by whom it had been renamed "Fort George." Under the terms of the treaty the United States announced its intention of asserting sovereignty over this fort and the region of the Columbia, but no response came from Great Britain. Accordingly a sloop of war was dispatched in September, 1817 to take possession. This action compelled the British to declare themselves, which they did by asserting a claim to the territory upon the ground that it had been "early taken possession of in his majesty's name, and had been since considered as forming part of his majesty's dominions."

These events served to arouse great interest in the Pacific Northwest. It was only natural, therefore, that Hall Jackson Kelley should have sought out the Lewis and Clark journals and read with avidity all that they had to tell of the far-off land. Here was a young man with boundless enthusiasm and ambition, and with energy which refused to be confined. Fate had placed him in Boston, the home port of Captain John Kendrick, Captain Robert Gray, and the Winships. There were men in Boston who could tell of their voyages and of

I The History of the t.xpedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, to the sources of the Missouri, thence across the Rocky mountains and down'the River Columbia to the Pacific ocean. Philadelphia, 1814. 2 v.

the nature of the disputed lands. Such an opportunity was not to be neglected. To Kelley it meant an objective which dwarfed all other interests and governed his thoughts and movements throughout the rest of his long life. Of his awakening, or "vision" as he termed it, he said :

"In the year 1817 'the word came expressly to me' to go and labor in the fields of philanthropic enterprise and promote the propagation of Christianity in the dark and cruel places about the shores of the Pacific. . . ? The perusal of Lewis and Clark's journal, personal conference with intelligent navigators and hunters who had visited and explored the territory beyond the Rocky mountains, and facts derived from other sources entitled to credit . . . satisfied me that this region must, at no remote period, become of vast importance to our Government, and of deep and general interest. ... I foresaw that Oregon must, eventually, become a favorite field of modern enterprise, and the abode of civilization."^

In another place, writing in the third person, he declared : "He then conceived the plan of its colonization, and the founding of a new republic of civil and religious freedom, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean . . . and without conferring with flesh and blood, and in despite of entreaties of prudent, worldly-wise friends, he resolved on the devotion of his life in the realization of his plans, hoping to do something worthy the sacrifice, by planting, in the genial soil of those regions, the vine of Christianity and the germ of Civil Freedom."^

His plans developed slowly, however, for he needed first to inform himself as to the nature of the Oregon country ; its climate, its soil, its natural products, and its native inhabitants. The possibilities of trade with the Atlantic states,

2 Kelley, Htst. of the Settlement of Oregon, 124; see also Kelley, Petition. 1866: I. Kelley himself was uncertain as to the exact date of the conception of his colonization idea. In pn earlier stateinent lie said it was "about the year 1818." — Kelley, Memorial, 1844, in Palmer Sentinel, December 10, 1846.

3 Kelley, Memoir, in Committee on Foreign Affairs, Territory of Oregon, supplemental report, 47, 25 cong. 3 sess. li. rep. loi.

4 Petition, j866: 1.

with Mexico and South America, and with the Asiatic peoples demanded investigation, and the possibihty of a practicable route overland invited attention. No less important was the question of title to the territory itself. Besides, there was the immediate, personal matter of a livelihood. As we have seen, Kelley became a master in the Boston public schools in 1818 and continued in that employment until 1823, when he left it not at his own desire. The prudent man when he finds himself out of one position, looks for another; not so Kelley, who now took up the matter of Oregon to the practical exclusion of lesser interests.

Meanwhile, events had been shaping themselves in such a manner as to emphasize the need for action. In 1818 by the joint-occupation treaty it was agreed that the disputed territory west of the Rocky mountains should be "free and open for the term of ten years" thereafter ; thus leaving the question of title unsettled while putting a premium upon early occupation. By the Florida treaty, Spain in 1819 ceded to the United States all claims to the Northwest country. Russia, -/owever, in 1821 asserted a claim to lands in that territory as far south as the fifty-first parallel. Within the year, by act of parliament, the North-West company was merged with its great rival, the Hudson's Bay company, thus strengthening and consolidating British interests in that region. Already, December 19, 1820, the expediency of occupying the Columbia river had been brought to the attention of the house of representatives by John Floyd of Virginia, and a committee had been appointed to inquire into the situation, but "more through courtesy to a respected member, than with any view to business results" f and the attitude of the succeeding congress was no more favorable to positive action.

We have no means of knowing as to how familiar Kelley was with contemporaneous developments on the Columbia, or even with the proceedings of congress, but we may safely assume that he knew of Floyd's activity and of the disposition

5 Benton, Thirty Years' View, I, 13.

of the national government to defer official action. To assume less would be to deny to Kelley that marked propensity for getting information which so distinguished him in all cases of which we have knowledge.