All Over Oregon and Washington

Front matter

ALL OVER

OBSERVATIONS ON THE COUNTRY,

WITH AN OUTLINE OF ITS EARLY HISTORY, AND REMARKS ON ITS GEOLOGY, BOTANY, MINERALOGY, ETC.ALSO, HINTS TO IMMIGRANTS ANDTRAVELERS CONCERNING ROUTES, THE COST OF TRAVEL, THE PRICE OF LAND, ETC.

Chapter 1

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, afforded a way by which vessels could enter this ocean from the western 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 offering 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 headwaters of the Mississippi. While on this tour, 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 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 look. This second observation was conclusive. He sailed in on the 11th of May, 1792.

From the log-book of the Columbia, 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 were 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-southwest, 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 Columbia! The end is not jyt, 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 Columbia's 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 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 cast 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 chan- nel 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 officer, "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-day—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. 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 river 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 off, 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 1812, which interrupted this sort of traffic for the time.

Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.

EARLY 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 abalone 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 southern 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 France of the Louisiana territory. This was a vast area of country, drained by the waters of the Mississippi, and originally settled by the French 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 countries, 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 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 granted to Law's Mississippi 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 the 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 line 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 was 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 it"—that is, embracing the 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 offer 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. Those 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 belong 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, had the same right to this remote territory that they 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 naught 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.

Such must have been the thought, half-indulged, half-repressed, in the American mind, previous to the acquisition of the great Louisiana territory. After that acquisition, it became more decided. The fact that Gray had discovered the great River of the West, which for a century had been sought after, the increasing evidences of the incapacity of Spain to hold this far-off coast against intruders, the feeling that Great Britain had no right to the countries she had so pompously taken possession of in the face of their actual discoverers—all these reasons, joined to the probable fact that the Louisiana territory bordered upon that drained by the great western river, which an American was first to enter and explore, at length shaped the policy of a few leading minds among American statesmen.

It was even contended by some, that, as the western boundary of Louisiana had never been fixed, and, indeed, was entirely unknown—since the Missouri and its tributaries had never been explored—the limits of the newly-acquired territory might be considered as extending to the Pacific; and if one were to consult the old French maps for confirmation of such an opinion, he would find New France, to which Louisiana belonged, extending from ocean to ocean. Yet, a perfectly candid mind would ignore the authority of maps drawn from rumor and imagination, and wish to found an opinion upon facts. It was to secure such facts and to carry out, as far as possible, the lately formed policy of loading statesmen, that President Jefferson, even before the transfer of Louisiana was completed, addressed a confidential message to Congress, urging that means should be immediately taken to explore the sources of the Missouri and the Platte, and to ascertain whether the Columbia, the Oregon, the Colorado, or any other river, offered a direct and practicable water-communication across the continent, for purposes of commerce. The suggestions of the President being approved, commissions were issued to Captains Merriwether Lewis and William Clarke to perform this service. Captain Lewis made immediate preparations, and, by the time that the news of the ratification of the treaty had been received, was ready to commence his journey to the unknown West.

It was already summer when this news was received, and, although the party were ready to advance into the Indian country, it was too late to accomplish much of their journey before winter; besides which, some delay occurring in the surrender of the country west of the Mississippi, the party were not able to cross that river until December—in consequence of which detention, the ascent of the Missouri could not be undertaken before the middle of May, of the following year. The exploring party consisted of but forty-four men—an insignificant force to send into an Indian country—yet, perhaps, all the safer for its insignificance. They had to make the ascent against the current of the Mad River in boats, three of which sufficed to accommodate this adventurous expedition. By the end of October, they had arrived in the Mandan country, near the forty-eighth degree of latitude, or sixteen hundred miles from the Mississippi, where they made their winter camp. As every school-library is furnished with the printed journal of Lewis and Clarke, it is unnecessary to dwell upon the incidents of their memorable journey across the continent. It is only with its results that we have to deal in this sketch.

One of its results was developed at this early period, or during their stay at the Mandan village: which was, to alarm the North-west Fur Company, and, through them, the English Government, as to the designs of the Americans concerning the northern coast of the Pacific. It has been before stated, that the North-west Company had been compelled reluctantly to resign the posts along the Great Lakes, belonging to the United States, after the Revolutionary War. They still continued to hunt and trap, and had established their trading-posts in all that country lying about the headwaters of the Mississippi; and their employees were scattered throughout the region east of the Missouri, and west of the Lakes—even having penetrated, on one occasion, to the foot of the Rocky Mountains.

It happened that, while Lewis and Clarke were at the Mandan villages, the fact of their visit, and the object of it, which had been explained to the Indians, were communicated to some members of the North-west Company, who had a post about three days' journey from there. So much alarmed was Mr. Chaboillez, who resided at this post, that he wrote immediately to another partner, Mr. D. W. Harmon, a native of New England; and, upon receiving a visit from him, urged Mr. Harmon to set out in the following spring upon the same route pursued by Lewis and Clarke, accompanied by Indian guides, doubtless with the intention of arriving at the head-waters of the Missouri, in advance of the American expedition; but, in this praiseworthy strife for precedence they were in this instance defeated—Mr. Harmon proceeding no further than the Mandan villages, while Lewis and Clarke prosecuted their undertaking with diligence, leaving the Mandan country on the 7th of April, 1805, and arriving at the Great Falls of the Missouri on the 13th of June. The reader need not be reminded of the difficulties attending such a journey as the one undertaken by our exploring party: when, the course of navigation being interrupted, boats had to be abandoned, toilsome portages made, new boats constructed, and all the novel hardships of the wilderness endured. Such tests of courage have been encountered by thousands since that time, in the settlement of the Pacific Coast; but that fact does not lessen the glory which attaches to the fame of the great pioneers commissioned to discover the hidden sources of America's greatest rivers. Those faithful services secured to us inestimable blessings, in extended territories, salubrious climates, and exhaustless wealth of natural resources.