Lyman's History of old Walla Walla County, Vol. 1
by William Denison Lyman · English · Gutenberg #46807 · 2,033,912 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Lyman's History of old Walla Walla County, Vol. 1
Author: William Denison Lyman
Release date: September 8, 2014 [eBook #46807]
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LYMAN'S HISTORY OF OLD WALLA WALLA COUNTY, VOL. 1 ***
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[Illustration: W. D. LYMAN.]
LYMAN'S HISTORY
_of_
Old Walla Walla County
_Embracing_
Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield
and Asotin Counties
By W. D. LYMAN, M. A., Lit. D.
ILLUSTRATED
VOLUME I
CHICAGO
THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1918
CONTENTS
PART I
THE COUNTY AND ITS EARLIEST STAGES
CHAPTER I
PHYSICAL AND GEOLOGICAL FEATURES, SOIL, CLIMATE, WATER-COURSES, AND
MOUNTAINS 1
CHAPTER II
THE NATIVE RACES OF OLD WALLA WALLA COUNTY 10
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST EXPLORERS AND THEIR ROUTES THROUGH THE REGION 32
CHAPTER IV
THE FUR-TRADE AND FUR-TRADERS 42
CHAPTER V
THE MISSIONARY PERIOD 57
CHAPTER VI
INDIAN WARS AND OPENING OF COUNTRY TO SETTLEMENT 83
PART II
SETTLEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I
THE PERMANENT ORGANIZATION OF WALLA WALLA COUNTY AND FOUNDING
OF THE CITY 109
CHAPTER II
TIMES OF COWBOYS, MINERS AND VIGILANTES 124
CHAPTER III
POLITICAL HISTORY TO TIME OF COUNTY DIVISION 136
CHAPTER IV
THE EARLY TRANSPORTATION AGE 155
CHAPTER V
THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRY IN OLD WALLA WALLA COUNTY TO THE PERIOD
OF COUNTY DIVISION AND AFTERWARDS IN THE PRESENT WALLA WALLA 175
CHAPTER VI
INTELLECTUAL AND RELIGIOUS FORCES OF WALLA WALLA COUNTY; EDUCATIONAL
INSTITUTIONS OF WALLA WALLA 210
CHAPTER VII
THE PRESS OF WALLA WALLA COUNTY 257
CHAPTER VIII
WITH THE LAWYERS, JUDGES AND DOCTORS 265
PART III
PERIOD OF COUNTY DIVISIONS
CHAPTER I
POLITICAL HISTORY OF WALLA WALLA COUNTY SINCE COUNTY DIVISION 285
CHAPTER II
DISTINCTIVE FEATURES IN HISTORY OF COLUMBIA COUNTY 319
CHAPTER III
GARFIELD COUNTY 358
CHAPTER IV
ASOTIN COUNTY 395
CHAPTER V
PIONEER REMINISCENCES 426
BIOGRAPHICAL
481
PART I
THE COUNTY AND ITS EARLIEST STAGES
Old Walla Walla County
(Embracing Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield and Asotin Counties.)
CHAPTER I
PHYSICAL AND GEOLOGICAL FEATURES, SOIL, CLIMATE, WATER-COURSES, AND
MOUNTAINS
A land of scenic charm, of physical interest, of fertile soil and
ample resources, of climate in which living is a delight, of two
great rivers and many impetuous tributaries, of mountain chains with
rich and varied hues and contours of stately majesty,--such is the
imperial domain included in that portion of the State of Washington
lying east of the Columbia River and south of the Snake. While this
region has distinctive physical features, it yet has a sufficient
family resemblance to the other parts of Eastern Oregon and Eastern
Washington to indicate a common origin. We may therefore properly take
first a general view of this larger area. The greater part of the vast
Inland Empire of Northeastern Oregon and Eastern Washington consists
of rolling prairies, sometimes fairly hilly, with extensive "flats"
in various parts, and low-lying, level valleys bordering the numerous
streams. These valleys are usually quite narrow, the three marked
exceptions being the broad valleys of the Walla Walla, Umatilla, and
Yakima, the two latter being outside of the scope of our story. The
Inland Empire varies in elevation above sea-level from about three
hundred and fifty feet on the Columbia River to about nine thousand
at the highest summits of the Blue Mountains. The larger part of the
cultivated portions ranges from eight hundred to two thousand feet.
The variations in elevation have a remarkable effect on temperature
and rainfall, the former decreasing and the latter increasing very
rapidly from the lower to the higher levels. The atmosphere throughout
this region is ordinarily very clear, and the majestic sweep of the
Blue Mountains and the wide expanses of hills and dales and flats lie
revealed in all their imposing grandeur with vivid distinctness.
As there is a general physical similarity in the different parts of
this entire Columbia Basin, so has there been a common geological
history. Broadly speaking, the upper Columbia Basin from near Spokane
on the north to Wallowa on the south is volcanic in origin. The scope
of this work does not permit any detailed discussion of the geology of
the region, but it is of interest to refer to the fascinating little
book of Prof. Thomas Condon, formerly of the Oregon State University,
on the "Two Islands." Professor Condon was the first systematic
student of the geology of the Northwest, and during his active career,
extending from about 1855 to 1890, he accumulated a large and valuable
collection of fossil remains as data from which to infer the stages in
the geological history of the Northwest. One of his working hypotheses
was that there were two islands as the first lands in what is now
the Northwest. These were the Blue Mountain Island and the Siskiyou
Mountain Island. Later geologists have not entirely accepted all the
details of Professor Condon's hypothesis, though they regard his
general reasoning as sound. It is generally believed now that there
was a very early uplift, possibly a third island, in what is now the
Okanogan, Methow, and Chelan highlands and mountains. At any rate,
there is a general concurrence in the opinion that the oldest land in
this part of the continent was those very regions where the two or
perhaps three islands are supposed to have risen. The Chelan region
and thence a vast sweep northeast and then southeast toward Spokane is
of granite, andesite, and porphyry, the primeval crust of the earth.
Again on the south, the core of the Blue Mountains, especially in the
vicinity of Wallowa, is limestone and granite. All these formations are
very ancient. On the other hand, the volcanic regions are comparatively
recent, and those compose practically all the central parts. This
area between those two ancient formations, the part covering the four
counties of our present story being in the very heart of it, seems
to have undergone almost every possible dynamic influence, fire,
frost, and flood. Apparently it was a deep basin between the earlier
elevations and was the scene of stupendous volcanic and seismic energy.
Then it was covered with water and for ages a great lake extended over
much of what is now the Walla Walla Valley and the valleys of its
tributaries and the lower courses of the other streams, as the Touchet
and Tucanon. When the water had drained off, there succeeded an age of
ice and frost, with disintegration by cold and even some glaciation.
Probably there were several alternating eras of fire and frost and
flood. The Yakima Indians have a fantastic tale of the formation of
these lakes and from them the Columbia River, which may have some basis
of scientific fact. They say that in the times of the Watetash (animal
people, before the Indians) a monstrous beaver, Wishpoosh, inhabited
Lake Kachees, now one of the sources of the Yakima. Wishpoosh had the
evil habit of chewing up and cutting to pieces all the trees as well as
other animals in his reach. Speelyi, the chief God of the Mid-Columbia
Indians, endeavored to make way with this destructive monster, but
succeeded only in wounding him severely and making him so angry that he
laid around him with furious energy and soon burst the rocky barriers
of the lake. The water flowing out streamed over the country and formed
the Upper Yakima. The deluge was checked by the mountain ramparts of
the Kittitas Valley, as we know it, and thus was formed a great lake
over all that valley. But the raging beaver finally tore out that
barrier also and the flood passed on into the Yakima Valley, making
another lake over the whole region where Yakima now is, but it was
stayed for a time by the ridge just below the Atahnum of the present.
In like manner that barrier was torn out and the accumulation of waters
swept on to the vast level region where the Snake and Columbia, with
the lesser streams of the Yakima and Walla Walla, unite. Thus, a large
part of the region which we shall describe in this history was a lake.
But the infuriated Wishpoosh was not yet content, and by successive
burstings of barriers the Walla Walla lake was emptied through the
Umatilla highlands, then the Cascade Mountains themselves were parted,
and the chain of lakes was opened to the ocean, the Columbia River
itself being the connecting stream. Wishpoosh having reached the ocean
making havoc among the whales and all other objects of creation, when
Speelyi at last pierced him to the heart and his monstrous carcass was
cast up on Clatsop Beach. There Speelyi cut him into fragments and of
him made the various Indian tribes.
Whatever may be the facts in regard to Wishpoosh, it is quite obvious
that considerable areas of the lower level parts of the Columbia basin
and the tributary valleys are lake beds. While the soil has all the
indications of having been washed from the hills and mountains and
then settled in the lakes, it is plain also that it was originally the
product of fire. For the soil of this region is essentially volcanic.
In the parts which have the larger rainfall, the decaying vegetation
of ages upon ages has covered the volcanic ash with a deep, rich
loam. In other places the action of glaciers grinding and dumping
the triturated marls and clays of the mountains has resulted in the
deposit of heavy white and blue clays. In yet other parts erosion
of the volcanic rocks by wind and rain and frost, together with the
wash of the streams at flood stage, has left great beds of gravel.
Through successive strata of these varying materials there have burst
at intervals new volcanic eruptions. These in turn, worn away by sun
and wind and frost and stream, have been blown and washed over the
earlier strata and have formed a new blanket of the richest soil. This
process of successive stages of volcanic outflow, disintegration, wash
deposit, glacial dumping, dust drift, growth and decay of vegetation,
has gone on through the ages. The result has been that the greater part
of the Inland Empire has a soil of extraordinary depth and fertility.
Analysis has shown that it possesses the ingredients for plant food to
an unusual degree. It is said to have an almost identical composition
with the soil of Sicily. That fair and fertile island was made by the
volcanic matter blown out of Mount Etna, covered by decayed vegetation
and worked over by frost and sun and rain until it became almost an
ideal region for grain production. Two thousand years ago Sicilian
wheat-fields fed the hungry multitudes of Rome, and the same fields
still produce a generous quota of food products. Soil experts expect a
similar history in this country.
In no part of the Columbia basin have the processes of soil creation
been more active than in the parts of the Old Walla Walla County of
this history. Beginning with the Columbia River on the west we find as
soon as we have passed the margin of river sand, which in a few places
has encroached upon the customary volcanic covering, that the soil,
though dry, is susceptible of the highest cultivation and with water
is capable of producing the finest products in the greatest profusion.
Almost every mile from the river eastward towards the mountains seems
to increase the blanket of loam upon the underlying volcanic dust,
until upon the foothills of the Blue Mountains there is a soil hard to
match anywhere in the world, a mingling of volcanic dust, loam, and
clay, a strong and heavy soil, not difficult to work, and retaining
and utilizing moisture with remarkable natural economy. Throughout
this region the soil is of extraordinary depth and there seems to be
no limit to its productiveness. There is a cut forty feet deep through
a hill near Walla Walla, in which the same fertile soil goes down to
the very bottom. It is of lighter color when first opened to the light,
but with exposure turns darker and after a year or two of cultivation
possesses the same friability and productiveness as the top soil. Wells
have been bored in the Eureka Flat region where over a hundred feet of
soil have been pierced without the drills even touching rock. In such
soils the process of sub-soiling can go on almost indefinitely with
continuous preservation and renewal of productiveness.
The climate of the region covered in this work has the general
character of that of the Inland Empire as a whole. As compared with the
portions of Oregon and Washington west of the Cascade Mountains, the
climate of our section is drier and has the seasons more distinctly
marked, hotter in summer and colder in winter. The average yearly
temperature is, however, higher than that of the sea-coast, and
much higher than that of the Atlantic states of the same latitude.
The average of Walla Walla is about that of Virginia, though in the
latitude of Wisconsin and Maine. On account of lower altitude the
climate of the greater part of this section, especially the portions
on the large rivers, all the way from Asotin to Wallula, is warmer
than that of the parts of the state north of Snake River. The weather
reports of Walla Walla ordinarily run from four to eight degrees higher
than those of Spokane. The spring season opens from two to four weeks
earlier than at Spokane or Colfax and the difference is even greater
compared with Pullman.
Perhaps no part of the Inland Empire, unless it be the Horse Heaven
and Rattlesnake Mountain section of Benton County, is so peculiarly
the native home of that most dramatic atmospheric phenomenon, the
Chinook wind. Scarcely can anything more interesting be imagined than
that warm winter wind. No wonder that the native red man, with his
superstitious awe of Nature's tokens of love or wrath, idealized this
heavenly visitant, opening the gates of summer in midwinter chill and
gloom and wooing the flowers from their dark abodes even while the
heavy snows still crown the mountain peaks and pile the timbered flanks
of the hills with their frozen burdens. A long wintry period, two or
three or four weeks in January or February, may have sent the great
blocks of ice down the big rivers, there may be a foot of snow upon
the plains and much more in the mountains and the breath of the north
may wrap all Nature in chill and gloom, when suddenly some afternoon
the frozen fog will lift, a blue-black band will be visible along the
southern horizon, the white tops of the mountains will begin to be
streaked with dark lines, there seems to thrill through the atmosphere
a certain rustle of expectancy, night drops with a rising temperature,
during the night the snow begins to slip from the trees and slide off
the roofs, and with the morning, rushing and roaring, here comes the
blessed Chinook, fragrant with the bloom of the south, turning the snow
and ice into singing streams, calling the robins from their winter
retreats, and bidding the buttercups push from their heads the crust
of winter and open their golden petals to greet the sun. The Klickitat
myth is to the effect that there were originally two sets of brothers,
one of the Walla Wallas from the north, the other the Chinooks from the
south. The fathers of the two lived with their respective sons upon the
shore of the Columbia near the present Umatilla. The Walla Walla were
the cold wind brothers, coming down the river from the north, freezing
the streams and whirling the dust in vast clouds. At one time they
challenged the Chinook brothers to a wrestling match and threw them
all and killed them. The chilly brothers had it all their own way for
a long time after that, and they made the lives of the poor old father
and mother of the vanquished Chinooks a burden. No sooner would the
old man go out in his canoe to fish than the implacable Walla Walla
brothers would blow with their icy breath, crusting the water with ice
and compelling the old man to hurry half frozen to the shore. But a
deliverer was at hand, for one of the fallen Chinooks had left a son.
His mother had taken him to the lower river, and there he had grown up
with only the one thought of avenging his father and uncles. When he
had become grown and so strong that he could pull up huge fir trees and
toss them around like straws, he felt that his time had come. Going
up the river he slept one night near the stream now called the Satus,
and a curious depression in the hills can be seen there now which the
Indians say was his sleeping place. After his night's rest he went on
to the home of his grandparents. He found them in a most deplorable
state, half-starved and half-frozen. Young Chinook washed the grime
and filth from the old folks and from it came all the trout now found
in this region. Then transforming himself into a little creature he
crawled into the stern of his grandfather's boat and bade the old man
put forth for fish. At once the hateful Walla Wallas swept down from
the north to blow on the old man, but for some mysterious reason could
never reach him. Striving desperately in vain they saw the explanation
when suddenly Chinook rose to giant size and challenged them to
wrestle. The God Speelyi now appeared to judge the combat. One after
another the cold wind brothers were thrown. Chinook, more merciful than
they had been, did not kill them. But Speelyi declared that they should
henceforth lose their power and could blow only at very rare intervals
and that Chinook should be the lord of the land. However, Speelyi
decreed that he should blow on the mountain peaks first as a token that
he was coming.
The meteorologists tell us that the Chinook wind is not, properly
speaking, an ocean wind, though when there is a Chinook in the interior
there is a warm wind with rain on the coast. They say that the Chinook
is due to dynamic heating or atmospheric friction. When there is a low
barometer on the coast and a high over Nevada and Utah, as is very
common in winter, the high pressure will descend upon the low and
raise the temperature at a regular rate of about seven degrees to a
thousand feet of descent. This accounts for the fact that the Chinook
strikes the mountains sooner than the valleys. During the prevalence
of a Chinook, as shown by the weather reports, the thermometer will
usually be higher at Walla Walla than at Portland or Astoria. It has
been as high as seventy degrees in January during a big Chinook. As
can be imagined, snow will vanish like a dream under a wind of such
temperature, or even one at fifty degrees or fifty-five degrees, which
is more common.
A few general statistics as to the average records at Walla Walla may
be of interest. The average annual temperature as shown by official
records during thirty-one years is fifty-three degrees. The average
for January is thirty-three degrees; for July and August, seventy-four
degrees. The lowest ever recorded was seventeen degrees below zero, and
the highest was 113 degrees. The average rainfall is 17.4 inches. The
average date of the last killing frost of spring is March 30th, and the
first of autumn is November 7th. The average number of clear or mainly
clear days is 262, of cloudy is 103. The prevailing wind is always
from the south, and the highest velocity ever recorded was sixty-five
miles per hour. There is an average of eight thunder showers in a
year. The other parts of the four counties included in this history
have essentially the same climate as Walla Walla. There is, however, a
regular decrease of temperature and an increase of rainfall from the
west to east. Recent records of the Weather Observer at Walla Walla,
giving a comparison of various stations, show extraordinary differences
in rainfall according to elevation and proximity to the mountains.
Thus, the average precipitation, including melted snow, for some years
past, has been at Kennewick, 6.46 inches; at Lowden, 11.18; at Eureka,
14.35; at Walla Walla, 17.37; at Milton, 19.50; at Dayton, 22.14;
and at the "intake," only fourteen miles from Walla Walla, but at an
elevation of twenty-five hundred feet (Walla Walla being nine hundred
and twenty), and at the entrance to the mountains, it was, in 1916,
47.93. The natural rainfall is sufficient for all the staple grains and
fruits in all parts except the areas in the west and north bordering
the Columbia and Snake rivers. In those semi-arid tracts irrigation is
necessary, and the same means of artificial moisture is practiced for a
succession of vegetables and small fruits and alfalfa in considerable
parts of the other valley lands. One of the interesting and important
features of Walla Walla is the fine system of spouting artesian wells.
There are now over thirty of these wells in the Walla Walla Valley,
the largest having a flow of twenty-five hundred gallons per minute,
sufficient to irrigate a half section of land. Owing to the immense
snowfall on the Blue Mountains, ranging from ten to fifty or sixty
feet during the season, a large part of the slopes and valleys below
seems to be sub-irrigated and also to be underlaid by a great sheet of
water. Hence it seems reasonable to expect that artesian water will be
found in other places. In general it may be said that the climate of
the sections considered in this work is eminently conducive to health,
wealth, and comfort. It is a happy medium between the extreme dryness
of the Great Plateau and the extreme humidity of Western Washington; as
also between the rather muggy and enervating climate of the South and
the biting cold of winter and prostrating heat of summer of the belt
of northern states east of the Rocky Mountains. If we may judge by a
comparison of the native races, as well as by the "bunch-grass" horses
and cattle, the "bunch-grass" boys and girls will be on the road to
becoming superior specimens of humanity. Thus far there is too much of
a mixture of the human stock to make scientific comparisons.
Old Walla Walla County shares with other parts of Washington, Oregon,
Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, the distinction of joint
ownership of one of the sublimest systems of waterways on the globe.
This system consists of the Columbia and its tributaries. The Columbia
itself washes the western verge of Walla Walla County for a distance
of only about sixteen miles. Yet, in this short distance the great
stream sustains its reputation as belonging in the front rank of scenic
rivers. Although the region around the junction of the blue, majestic
Columbia and the turbid and impetuous Snake is regarded as a desert in
its native condition, yet on one of the bright, still days of spring
or autumn views of such grandeur looking either up or down can be
obtained that no appreciative observer would ever say "desert." The
azure and gold and russet and purple that play upon the mountains and
islands looking up river, or upon the Wallula Gateway looking down,
with the mile-wide majesty of the river in the midst, must be seen to
be understood. No words of description can do justice to those scenes.
[Illustration: HUDSON BAY POST AT WALLULA. ERECTED IN 1818]
An inspection of the map will show that Snake River touches a much
larger rim than the greater stream. For it borders each one of the
four counties, for a total distance of about a hundred and fifty
miles. For this entire space Snake River is swift and turbid, having
an average fall of about three feet to the mile. Nevertheless, it
is navigable the whole distance during six or eight months in the
year. The immense volume of these two big rivers is not generally
understood by strangers. The Columbia is less than half as long as
the Mississippi, yet it is but slightly inferior in volume to the
"Father of Waters," and far surpasses any other river in the United
States. Its maximum flood stage at Celilo in the flood of 1894, the
greatest on record, was estimated at one million six hundred thousand
second feet, while the maximum of the Snake, just above its mouth, was
about four hundred thousand. We shall have occasion later to speak of
the steamer traffic upon these rivers and the improvements, past and
prospective, by the Federal Government. Suffice it to say here that
as that phase of early history was among the most important, so it is
plain that the future will bring on a new era of water-borne traffic,
and that with it will come a new era of production. Nearly all the
tributaries of the two big rivers flow from the snow banks and the
canons of the Blue Mountains. Though conveying in the aggregate during
the flood season an immense volume, the tributaries are too swift for
navigation. They supply abundant water for irrigation where needed,
and each is a superb trout stream. The largest, the Grande Ronde, is
in truth an Oregon river, for its main supplies come from the Grande
Ronde and Wallowa valleys, but it crosses the corner of Asotin County
and enters Snake River within that scenic country. The Grande Ronde is
a powerful stream and for varied scenes of wild grandeur and gentle
beauty, it is not easily matched. The Wallowa Basin (the "Far Wayleway"
of Longfellow's Evangeline) is sometimes called the Switzerland of
the Inland Empire. Of the historic interest of that region which thus
finds its exit through one of the counties of Old Walla Walla, we shall
speak again. The next affluent of the Snake River below the Grande
Ronde is Asotin Creek, a small stream and yet one of the busiest and
most useful for it is the source of the water supply of that fair and
productive region around Clarkston and extending thence to Asotin City.
Some distance below Clarkston is the Alpowa, also a historic stream.
Yet another stage and about half way between the Grande Ronde and the
mouth of Snake River we find one of the most charming in appearance
as well as most attractive to the fishermen of all the Blue Mountain
streams, the Tucanon. This also is invested with historic interest,
as we shall see later. Below the mouth of the Tucanon the previously
lofty, almost mountainous, shores of Snake River rapidly drop away
and the vast expanse of arid plain stretches away toward the crests
of the Blue Mountains. No more tributaries of the Snake River enter,
and with another stage that most interesting point in the history
of this turbulent and historic river is reached--its mouth, and its
individuality is lost in the mighty sweep of the Columbia. A few
miles below the junction the most historic and in some respects most
beautiful of the small tributaries of the Columbia streams in through
the verdant meadow and overhanging willows, the Walla Walla. The events
which have made the place of entrance, as well as many other places on
the course of this stream famous in the history of the Northwest, will
become manifest as our story proceeds.
In the great semicircle of one hundred and fifty miles in which Snake
River borders our four counties, there are frequent profound canons
through which the snow-crested mountains from which the streams issue
can be seen. The observer who has made that long journey and reaches
the open prairie at the mouth of the Snake will behold with wonder and
delight the distant chain, all in one splendid picture, of which he
had before seen broken glimpses through the rifted canon walls or up
the sources of the foaming creeks. But whether in broken glimpses or
in their grand unity, the Blue Mountains possess a unique charm and
individuality. While not so bold and aiguillated as the Cascades, and
while there are no peaks standing in lonely sublimity to compel the
vision of the traveller, like Mount "Takhoma" or Mount Adams or Mount
Hood, the Blue Mountains are not inferior in many of the features of
mountain charm to their greater brothers. The marvelous coloring is
perhaps the most distinctive of these features. While most mountains
are blue, these are blue blue. They are all shades of blue, according
to the hour and the month and the season--blue, indigo, ultramarine,
violet, purple, amethyst, lapis lazuli, everything that one can think
of to denote variations of blueness. "Blue Mountain" is a real name.
The French voyageurs of the fur-traders were the first to note the
characteristic blue, and according to Ross Cox, began at once to say,
"_Les Montagnes Bleues_." Another characteristic feature of these
mountains is the fact that they do not so much constitute a range or
chain, like the long, narrow, regular Cascade Range, as a huge mass
with prongs radiating from something like a central axis which might
be considered the great granite and limestone knot of peaks about
Wallowa Lake, of which Eagle Cap is the loftiest, over nine thousand
feet in elevation. On account of this ganglionic structure there are
many radiating canons from the long ridges and plateaus to the lower
levels. The views from the open ridges and rounded summits down these
canons constitute a scenic gallery of contours and colorings which may
challenge comparison with even the views of the loftier and bolder
Cascades.
The value of the Blue Mountains in condensing the moisture of the
atmosphere and dropping it upon the plains below in rain and snow
can hardly be conceived unless we reflect that without this vast
reservoir of salvation to all growing things the Inland Empire would
be a desert. Nor could it even be irrigated, for in the absence of the
Blue Mountains there would be no available streams for distribution.
Wonderful indeed is it to consider how the ardent sun of the Pacific
lifts the inconceivable masses of invisible vapor from the ocean and
the west wind carries them inland. The coast mountains constitute the
first condenser of that vapor, and almost constant rain during half the
year with a predominance of clouds and fogs at all times prevails along
the ocean margin of Oregon and Washington. The Cascade Range lifts its
stupendous domes and sentinel-like cliffs to catch the vapor that still
sweeps inland and to feed the greedy rootlets of their interminable
forests and to clothe the heights with perpetual snow and ice. But
those vast demands fail to exhaust the limitless resources of the sky,
and there are yet remaining infinite treasures of moisture floating
eastward. And so the next great suppliant for the vital nourishment
of all life stands with uplifted, appealing hands, our wide-extended
and clustered uplift of the Blues. Nor do they appeal in vain, as the
fertile prairies and benches with their millions of bushels of grain
and their far-reaching cattle ranges and their orchard valleys and
their countless springs can testify.
Whether from the standpoint of the forester or the farmer or the
stockman or the gardener or the orchardist or the fisherman or the
artist or the poet, the Blue Mountains constitute one of the great
vital working facts, the very framework of the life of Old Walla Walla
County. We shall discover that they are not simply a picture gallery,
but that the history of this region is fairly set within this stately
frame.
With these necessarily hurried and fragmentary glances at the physical
scene of the story, we shall be prepared to bring the human characters
upon the stage.
CHAPTER II
THE NATIVE RACES OF OLD WALLA WALLA COUNTY
Any history of any part of America would be incomplete without some
view of the aborigines. Such a view is due to them, as well as to the
accuracy of statement and the philosophical perspectives of history.
Such a view is required also by justice to the natives themselves. The
ever westward movement of American settlement has been marked by trails
of blood and fire. Warfare has set its red stains upon nearly every
region wrested from barbarism to civilization. This has been in many
cases due to flagrant wrong, greed, and lust by the civilized man. It
has been due also to savage cruelty by the barbarian. Perhaps more than
to wrong by either party, it has been due to that great, unexplained
and unexplainable tragedy of human history, the inability of either
party to comprehend the viewpoint of the other. And yet, most of all,
it has been due to that inevitable and remorseless evolution of all
life by which one race of plants, animals, and human beings progresses
by the extermination of others. Perhaps the philosophical mind, while
viewing with pity the sufferings and with reprobation the crimes and
irrational treatment forced upon the natives by the civilized race,
and while viewing with equal horror the atrocities by which the losers
in the inevitable struggle sought to maintain themselves--if to such
a philosophical mind comes the question who was to blame for all this
seemingly needless woe--must answer that the universe is mainly to
blame, and we have not yet reached the point to explain the universe.
We have found in the preceding chapter and shall find in succeeding
chapters frequent occasion to refer to events in connection with
Indians. Our aim in this chapter is rather to give an outline of
locations of different tribes, to sketch briefly some of their
traits as illustrated in their myths and customs, and to state the
chief published sources of our knowledge in regard to these myths
and customs. The history of Indian wars, which also includes other
incidental matter about them, will be found in the last chapter of Part
One of this volume.
The literature of Indian life is voluminous. Practically all the
early explorers from Lewis and Clark down devoted large space to the
natives. The pioneer settlers knew them individually and some of them
derived much matter of general value which has been preserved in brief
newspaper articles or handed down in story and tradition. Out of this
vast mass a few writers have formed groups of topics which serve well
for those generalizations which a bird's-eye view like this must be
content to take. Foremost among the writers dealing with the subject
in a large way is Hubert Howe Bancroft. Although his great work on the
history of the Pacific Coast has been severely and sometimes justly
censured, yet it must be granted that, as a vast compendium of matter
dealing with the subject, it is monumental and can be turned to with
confidence in the authenticity of its sources and in the general
accuracy of its statements of fact, even if not always in the breadth
of its opinions or the reliability of its judgments.
[Illustration: HUMISHUMA, OR MORNING DOVE, A WOMAN OF THE OKANOGAN TRIBE
Her deerskin robe, decorated with beads, elk teeth and grizzly-bear
claws, is worth over one thousand dollars]
In Volume One, Chapter Three, of Bancroft's "Native Races," there is
generalized grouping of the Columbian native tribes which may well
be accepted as a study of ethnology, derived from many observations
and records by those early explorers most worthy of credence. These
general outlines by the author are supported by numerous citations from
those authorities. The Colombians occupied, according to Bancroft,
all the vast region west of the Rocky Mountains lying between the
Hyperboreans on the north and the Californians on the south. They are
divided into certain families and these families into nations, and the
nations into tribes. There is naturally much inter-tribal mingling,
and yet the national and even tribal peculiarities are preserved with
remarkable distinctness. Beginning on the northern coast region around
Queen Charlotte Island are the Haidahs. South of them on the coast
comes the family of the Nootkas, centered on Vancouver Island. Then
comes the family of the Sound Indians, and still farther south that
of the Chinooks. Turning to the east side of the Cascades, which more
especially interests us, we find on the north the Shushwap family,
embracing all the inland tribes of British Columbia south of lat.
52°, 30´. This group includes the Okanogans, Kootenais, and others of
the border between British Columbia and Northeastern Washington and
Northern Idaho and Northwestern Montana. Then comes the Salish family,
in which we find the Spokanes, Flatheads, Pend Oreilles, Kalispels,
and others as far south as the Palouse region. There we begin with the
family of Sahaptins, the one which particularly concerns us in Old
Walla Walla County. Numerous citations in Bancroft's volume indicate
that the early explorers and ethnologists did not altogether agree on
the subdivisions of this family. It would seem that the groups have
been somewhat arbitrarily made, yet there was evidently considerable
effort to employ scientific methods by study of affiliations in
language, customs, treaty relations, range, and other peculiarities.
In general terms it may be said that the different writers pretty
nearly agree in finding some six or eight nations, each divided into
several tribes. These are the Nez Perces or Chopunnish, the Yakimas,
the Palouses, the Walla Wallas, the Cayuses, the Umatillas, the Wascos,
and the Klickitats. The tribes are variously grouped. The modern
spelling appears in the above list, but there is a bewildering variety
in the early books. This is especially true of Palouse and Walla
Walla. The former appears under the following forms: Palouse, Paloose,
Palus, Peloose, Pelouse, Pavilion, Pavion and Peluse. The word means
"Gooseberry," according to Thomas Beall of Lewiston. Our familiar Walla
Walla, meaning, according to "Old Bones," the Cayuse chief, the place
where the four creeks meet, the Walla Walla, Touchet, Mill Creek,
and Dry Creek, appears as Oualla-Oualla (French), Walla Wallapum,
Wollow Wollah, Wollaolla, Wolla-walla, Wallawaltz, Walla Walle, Wallah
Wallah, Wallahwallah, Wala-Wala, and Wollahwollah. For Umatilla we
find Umatallow, Utalla, Utilla, and Emmatilly. Cayuse has as variants,
Cailloux, Kayuse, Kayouse, Skyuse, Cajouse, Caagua, Kyoose, and Kyoots.
Doctor Whitman's station, now known as Waiilatpu, appears in sundry
forms, as Wyeilat, Willetpu, Wailatpui, and Wieletpoo. Some odd names
are found in Hunt, "Nouvelles Annales des Voyages," where it is stated
that the Sciatogas and Toustchipas live on Canoe River (apparently the
Tucanon) and the Euotalla (perhaps the Touchet), and the Akaitchis
"sur le Big-River," i. e., the Columbia. The tribe at the junction
of the Columbia and Snake was the Sokulks, apparently a branch of
the Walla Wallas. It would seem that the Cayuses occupied mainly the
middle Walla Walla region including Mill Creek, the Umatilla, the upper
Walla Walla, and across the high lands to the Umatilla River, while
the Walla Wallas were from the vicinity of the junction of Dry Creek,
the Touchet, and the Walla Walla River to its mouth. It appears that
the most of the region now composing Columbia, Garfield, and Asotin
counties was occupied by Nez Perces. All the tribes were more or less
on the move all the time, to mountains, plains, and rivers, according
to the season and variations in the food supply. The Sahaptin family
seem to have been in general of the best grade of Indians. Lewis and
Clark found the Nez Perces a noble, dignified and honest race, though
they say that they were close and reserved in bargaining. Generally
speaking, the inland Indians were far superior in physique and in
mental capacity to those of the Sound or the lower Columbia. Townsend
in his "Narrative" goes so far as to say that the Nez Perces and
Cayuses were almost universally fine-looking, robust men. He compares
one of the latter with the Apollo Belvedere. Gairdner says that the
Walla Wallas were generally powerful men, at least six feet high, and
the Cayuses were still stouter and more athletic. Others remarked that
very handsome young girls were often seen among the Walla Wallas. With
them doubtless, as with other Indians, the drudgery of their lives and
their early child-bearing made them prematurely old and they soon lost
their beauty.
There seems to have been much variation among these natives as to
personal habits and morality. The Nez Perces and Cayuses are almost
always described as clean, both of body and character. Palmer in his
"Journal," says that the Nez Perces were better clad than any others,
the Cayuses well clothed, Walla Wallas naked and half-starved. The last
statement seems not to correspond with the observations of Lewis and
Clark. Wilkes says that "at the Dalles women go nearly naked, for they
wear little else than what may be termed a breech-cloth, of buckskin,
which is black and filthy with dirt." About the same seems to have
been true of the Sokulks. But among the Tushepaws and Nez Perces and
Cayuses the men and women often wore long robes of buffalo or elk-skin
decorated with beads and sea-shells. Farnham speaks of the Cayuses as
the "Imperial tribe of Oregon, claiming jurisdiction over the whole
Columbia region."
The chief wealth of the tribes of Old Walla Walla County was in horses.
Doctor Tolmie expressed the supposition that horses had come from the
southward at no very long time prior to white discovery. It is well
known that a prehistoric horse, the hipparion, not larger than a deer,
existed in Oregon. Remains of that creature have been found in the John
Day Basin. But there is no evidence that there was a native horse among
the Indians of Oregon. Their "Cayuse horses," to all indications, came
from the horses of California, and they, in turn were the offspring of
the horses brought to Mexico and Southern California by the Spanish
conquerors. At the time of the advent of the whites, horses existed in
immense numbers all through the Columbia Valley. It was not uncommon
for a Walla Walla, Umatilla, Cayuse, or Nez Percé chief to have bands
of hundreds, even thousands. Canoes were a highly esteemed possession
of the Indians on the navigable rivers, and they had acquired marvelous
skill in handling them. The lower Columbia Indians spent so much time
curled up in canoes that they were distorted and inferior in physique
to the "bunch-grass Indians."
Like all barbarian people the Indians of the Columbia Valley were next
door to starvation a good part of the time. They gorged themselves
when food was plentiful, and thus were in distress when the bounty of
Nature failed, for there was no accumulated store as under civilized
conditions. Their food consisted of deer, elk, and other game, in which
the whole Blue Mountain country with the adjoining plains abounded,
and of salmon and sturgeon which they obtained in the Columbia and
Snake rivers by spearing and by ingenious weirs. They also obtained an
abundance of vegetable food from the camas and couse which were common,
and in fact still are in this region. Rather curiously, considering the
fertility of this Walla Walla County, there are very few wild berries,
nuts, or fruits. The huckleberry is practically the only berry in large
quantities and wild cherries the only kind of wild fruit.
Such were the physical conditions, hastily sketched, of the natives
of Old Walla Walla County. Their mental and moral characteristics may
be derived in a degree from the events narrated in the pages which
follow. In their best estate they were faithful, patient, hospitable,
and generous. In their worst estate, in which the whites more usually
found them, they seemed vindictive, suspicious, cruel, and remorseless.
Too many cases of the former type occurred to justify any sweeping
condemnation. One of the finest examples of Indian character in its
better light is shown by an event in this region narrated by Ross Cox
in his "Adventures on the Columbia River." The party of trappers of
the Northwestern Fur Company, of which Cox was one, was on its way
from Astoria to "Oakinagan," as he calls it--a company of sixty-four
in eight canoes. When at a point in the Columbia about equidistant
between the mouth of the "Wallah Wallah" and that of the Lewis (Snake),
a number of canoes filled with natives bore down upon their squadron,
apparently without hostile design. But within a few minutes the Indians
evinced the purpose of seizing the canoes of the whites and plundering
them by violence. It was soon give and take, and arrows began to fly.
Pretty soon one of the company, McDonald, seeing an Indian just at the
point of letting fly an arrow at him, fired and killed the Indian. A
struggle ensued, but the whites broke loose and defended themselves
sufficiently to reach an island, which must have been the one nearly
opposite the present Two Rivers. It was a gloomy prospect. Cox says
that they had pretty nearly given up hope of escaping, and had written
farewell notes which they hoped might reach their friends. It was a
dark, gloomy night in November, with a drizzling rain. During the night
the party saw signal fires on the shore to the northwest, followed
by others to east and west. Soon after a large band of ravens passed
over, the fluttering of whose wings they could hear. This had a most
depressing effect on the superstitious Canadians, and one of them
declared that the appearance of ravens at night was an infallible
sign of approaching death. Mr. Keith, one of the Scotchmen, seeing
the gloomy state of their minds and wishing to forestall the effect,
instantly joined the conversation, declaring that while there was
such a general fear of a night flight of ravens, yet it never worked
disaster unless the flight was accompanied by croaking. But when
ravens passed over without croaking, they were a harbinger of good
news. Much relieved, the Canadians regained their nerve and shouted
out, "you are right, you are right! Courage! There is no danger!" The
beleaguered band on their dismal retreat waited for the dawn, making
all preparations for resistance to the death. Early in the morning
the party crossed to the north bank of the river, and there waited
developments. A large force of Indians soon appeared, well armed, and
yet ready for a parley. The whites sent forward their interpreter,
Michel, to indicate their willingness to parley. A group of thirty or
forty of the relatives of the dead Indians advanced chanting a death
song, which, as they afterwards learned, was about as follows: "Rest,
brothers, rest! You will be avenged. The tears of your widows shall
cease to flow, when they behold the blood of your murderers; and your
young children shall leap and sing with joy, on seeing their scalps.
Rest, brothers, in peace; we shall have blood."
The events which followed this lugubrious song cannot be better told
than by following the vivid narrative of Cox:
"They took up their position in the center; and the whole party then
formed themselves into an extended crescent. Among them were natives
of the Chimnapum, Yackaman, Sokulk, and Wallah Wallah tribes. Their
language is nearly the same; but they are under separate chiefs, and
in time of war always unite against the Shoshone or Snake Indians, a
powerful nation, who inhabit the plains to the southward.
"From Chili to Athabasca, and from Nootka to the Labrador, there
is an indescribable coldness about an American savage that checks
familiarity. He is a stranger to our hopes, our fears, our joys, or
our sorrows; his eyes are seldom moistened by a tear, or his features
relaxed by a smile; and whether he basks beneath a vertical sun on the
burning plains of the Amazonia, or freezes in eternal winter on the
ice-bound shores of the Arctic Ocean, the same piercing black eyes, and
stern immobility of countenance, equally set at naught the skill of the
physiognomist.
"On the present occasion, their painted skin, cut hair, and naked
bodies, imparted to their appearance a degree of ferocity from which
we boded no good result. They remained stationary for some time and
preserved a profound silence.
"Messrs. Keith, Stewart, LaRocque, and the interpreter, at length
advanced about midway between both parties unarmed, and demanded to
speak with them; upon which two chiefs, accompanied by six of the
mourners, proceeded to join them. Mr. Keith offered them the calumet
of peace, which they refused to accept, in a manner at once cold and
repulsive.
"Michel was thereupon ordered to tell them that, as we had always been
on good terms with them, we regretted much that the late unfortunate
circumstance had occurred to disturb our friendly intercourse; but that
as we were anxious to restore harmony, and to forget what had passed,
we were now willing to compensate the relations of the deceased for the
loss they had sustained.
"They inquired what kind of compensation was intended; and on
being informed that it consisted of two suits of chief's clothes,
with blankets, tobacco, and ornaments for the women, etc., it was
indignantly refused; and their spokesman stated that no discussion
could be entered into until two white men (one of whom should be
the big red-headed chief) were delivered to them to be sacrificed,
according to their law, to the spirits of the departed warriors.
"Every eye turned on McDonald, who on hearing the demand, 'grinned
horribly a ghastly smile'; and who, but for our interposition,
would on the spot have chastised the insolence of the speaker. The
men were horrified, and 'fear and trembling' became visible in their
countenances, until Mr. Keith, who had observed these symptoms of
terror, promptly restored their confidence, by telling them that such
an ignominious demand should never be complied with.
"He then addressed the Indians in a calm, firm voice, and told them
that no consideration whatever should induce him to deliver a white
man to their vengeance; that they had been the original aggressors,
and in their unjustifiable attempt to seize by force our property,
the deceased had lost their lives; that he was willing to believe
the attack was unpremeditated, and under that impression he had made
the offer of compensation. He assured them that he preferred their
friendship to their enmity; but that, if unfortunately they were not
actuated by the same feelings, the white men would not, however deeply
they might lament it, shrink from the contest. At the same time he
reminded them of our superiority in arms and ammunition; and that for
every man belonging to our party who might fall, ten of their friends
at least would suffer; and concluded by requesting them calmly to
weigh and consider all these matters, and to bear in recollection that
upon the result of their deliberation would in a great measure depend
whether white men would remain in their country or quit it forever.
"The interpreter having repeated the above, a violent debate took place
among the principal natives. One party advised the demand for the two
white men to be withdrawn, and to ask in their place a greater quantity
of goods and ammunition; while the other, which was by far the most
numerous, and to which all the relatives of the deceased belonged,
opposed all compromise, unaccompanied by the delivery of the victims.
"The arguments and threats of the latter gradually thinned the ranks
of the more moderate; and Michel told Mr. Keith that he was afraid an
accommodation was impossible. Orders were thereupon issued to prepare
for action, and the men were told, when they received from Mr. Keith
the signal, to be certain that each shot should tell.
"In the meantime a number of the natives had withdrawn some distance
from the scene of deliberation, and from their fierce and threatening
looks, joined to occasional whispers, we momentarily expected they
would commence an attack.
"A few of their speakers still lingered, anxious for peace; but their
feeble efforts were unavailing when opposed to the more powerful
influence of the hostile party, who repeatedly called on them to
retire, and allow the white men to proceed on their journey as well as
they could. All but two chiefs and an elderly man, who had taken an
active part in the debate, obeyed the call, and they remained for some
time apparently undecided what course to adopt.
"From this group our eyes glanced to an extended line of the enemy who
were forming behind them; and from their motions it became evident that
their intention was to outflank us. We therefore changed our position,
and formed our men into single files, each man about three feet from
his comrade. The friendly natives began to fall back slowly towards
their companions, most of whom had already concealed themselves behind
large stones, tufts of wormwood, and furze bushes, from which they
could have taken a more deadly aim; and Messrs. Keith and Stewart, who
had now abandoned all hopes of an amicable termination, called for
their arms.
"An awful pause ensued, when our attention was arrested by the loud
tramping of horses, and immediately after twelve mounted warriors
dashed into the space between the two parties, where they halted and
dismounted. They were headed by a young chief, of fine figure, who
instantly ran up to Mr. Keith, to whom he presented his hand in the
most friendly manner, which example was followed by his companions. He
then commanded our enemies to quit their places of concealment, and to
appear before him. His orders were promptly obeyed; and having made
himself acquainted with the circumstances that led to the deaths of
the two Indians, and our efforts towards effecting a reconciliation,
he addressed them in a speech of considerable length, of which the
following is a brief sketch:
"'Friends and relations! Three snows only have passed over our heads
since we were a poor miserable people. Our enemies, the Shoshones,
during the summer stole our horses, by which we were prevented from
hunting, and drove us from the banks of the river, so that we could not
get fish. In winter they burned our lodges by night; they killed our
relations; they treated our wives and daughters like dogs, and left us
either to die from cold or starvation, or become their slaves.'
"'They were numerous and powerful; we were few, and weak. Our hearts
were as the hearts of little children; we could not fight like
warriors, and were driven like deer about the plains. When the thunders
rolled and the rains poured, we had no spot in which we could seek a
shelter; no place, save the rocks, whereon we could lay our heads. Is
such the case today? No, my relations! it is not. We have driven the
Shoshones from our hunting-grounds, on which they dare not now appear,
and have regained possession of the lands of our fathers, in which they
and their fathers' fathers lie buried. We have horses and provisions in
abundance, and can sleep unmolested with our wives and our children,
without dreading the midnight attacks of our enemies. Our hearts are
great within us, and we are now a nation!'
"'Who then, my friends, have produced this change? The white men.
In exchange for our horses and for our furs, they gave us guns and
ammunition; then we became strong; we killed many of our enemies, and
forced them to fly from our lands. And are we to treat those who have
been the cause of this happy change with ingratitude? Never! Never! The
white people have never robbed us; and, I ask, why should we attempt
to rob them? It was bad, very bad!--and they were right in killing
the robbers.' Here symptoms of impatience and dissatisfaction became
manifest among a group consisting chiefly of the relations of the
deceased; on observing which, he continued in a louder tone: 'Yes! I
say they acted right in killing the robbers; and who among you will
dare to contradict me?'
[Illustration: Hotel Dacres]
[Illustration: Grand Hotel
LEADING HOTELS OF WALLA WALLA]
"'You all know well my father was killed by the enemy, when you all
deserted him like cowards; and, while the Great Master of Life spares
me, no hostile foot shall again be set on our lands. I know you all;
and I know that those who are afraid of their bodies in battle are
thieves when they are out of it: but the warrior of the strong arm
and the great heart will never rob a friend.' After a short pause, he
resumed: 'My friends, the white men are brave and belong to a great
nation. They are many moons crossing the great lake in coming from
their own country to serve us. If you were foolish enough to attack
them, they would kill a great many of you; but suppose you should
succeed in destroying all that are now present, what would be the
consequence? A greater number would come next year to revenge the death
of their relations, and they would annihilate our tribe; or should not
that happen, their friends at home, on hearing of their deaths, would
say we were a bad and wicked people, and white men would never more
come among us. We should then be reduced to our former state of misery
and persecution; our ammunition would be quickly expended; our guns
would become useless, and we should again be driven from our lands,
and the lands of our fathers, to wander like deer and wolves in the
midst of the woods and plains. I therefore say the white men must not
be injured! They have offered you compensation for the loss of your
friends: take it; but, if you should refuse, I tell you to your faces
that I will join them with my own band of warriors; and should one
white man fall by the arrow of an Indian, that Indian, if he were my
brother, with all his family, shall become victims to my vengeance.'
Then, raising his voice, he called out, 'Let the Wallah Wallahs, and
all who love me, and are fond of the white men, come forth and smoke
the pipe of peace!' Upwards of one hundred of our late adversaries
obeyed the call, and separated themselves from their allies. The
harangue of the youthful chieftain silenced all opposition. The above
is but a faint outline of the arguments he made use of, for he spoke
upwards of two hours; and Michel confessed himself unable to translate
a great portion of his language, particularly when he soared into the
wild flights of metaphor, so common among Indians. His delivery was
generally bold, graceful, and energetic. Our admiration at the time
knew no bounds; and the orators of Greece or Rome when compared with
him, dwindled in our estimation into insignificance.
"Through this chief's mediation, the various claimants were in a
short time fully satisfied, without the flaming scalp of our Highland
hero; after which a circle was formed by our people and the Indians
indiscriminately: the white and red chiefs occupied the center, and our
return to friendship was ratified by each individual in rotation taking
an amicable whiff from the peace-cementing calumet.
"The chieftain whose timely arrival had rescued us from impending
destruction was called 'Morning Star.' His age did not exceed
twenty-five years. His father had been a chief of great bravery and
influence, and had been killed in battle by the Shoshones a few years
before. He was succeeded by Morning Star, who, notwithstanding his
youth, had performed prodigies of valor. Nineteen scalps decorated
the neck of his war horse, the owners of which had been all killed in
battle by himself to appease the spirit of his deceased father. He
wished to increase the number of his victims to twenty; but the terror
inspired by his name, joined to the superiority which his tribe derived
by the use of firearms, prevented him from making up the desired
complement by banishing the enemy from the banks of the Columbia.[1]
[1] The Indians consider the attainment of twenty scalps as
the summit of a warrior's glory.
"His handsome features, eagle glance, noble bearing, and majestic
person, stamped him one of Nature's own aristocracy; while his bravery
in the field, joined to his wisdom in their councils, commanded alike
the involuntary homage of the young, and the respect of the old.
"We gave the man who had been wounded in the shoulder a chief's coat;
and to the relations of the men who were killed we gave two coats, two
blankets, two fathoms of cloth, two spears, forty bullets and powder,
with a quantity of trinkets, and two small kettles for their widows.
We also distributed nearly half a bale of tobacco among all present,
and our youthful deliverer was presented by Mr. Keith with a handsome
fowling-piece, and some other valuable articles.
"Four men were then ordered to each canoe, and they proceeded on with
the poles; while the remainder, with the passengers, followed by land.
We were mixed pell-mell with the natives for several miles: the ground
was covered with large stones, small willows, and prickly-pears; and
had they been inclined to break the solemn compact into which they had
entered, they could have destroyed us with the utmost facility.
"At dusk we bade farewell to the friendly chieftain and his companions,
and crossed to the south side, where we encamped, a few miles above
Lewis River, and spent the night in tranquillity.
"It may be imagined by some that the part we acted in the foregoing
transaction betrayed too great an anxiety for self-preservation; but
when it is recollected that we were several hundred miles from any
assistance, with a deep and rapid river to ascend by the tedious and
laborious process of poling, and that the desultory Cossack mode of
fighting in use among the Indians, particularly the horsemen, would
have cut us off in piecemeal ere we had advanced three days, it will be
seen that, under the circumstances, we could not have acted otherwise."
And now we most turn to another phase of Indian life and character
which is most worthy of record, and one in which more than anywhere
else they show some of those "touches of nature which make the whole
world kin." This is that phase exhibited in myths and superstitions.
Here we shall find, as almost nowhere else, that Indians are, after
all, very much like other people. In this portion of this chapter the
author is incorporating portions of articles written by himself for the
_American Antiquarian_.
Like all primitive men, the Oregon Indians have an extensive
mythology. With childlike interest in the stars and moon and sun
and fire and water and forests, as well as plants and animal life
and their own natures, they have sought out and passed on a wealth
of legend and fancy which in its best features is worthy of a place
with the exquisite creations of Norse and Hellenic fancy, even with
much of the crude and grotesque. Yet it is not easy to secure these
legends just as the Indians tell them. In the first place few of the
early explorers knew how or cared to draw out the ideas of the first
uncontaminated Indians. The early settlers generally had a stupid
intolerance in dealing with Indians that made them shut right up
like clams and withhold their stock of ideas. Later the missionaries
generally inclined to give them the impression that their "heathen"
legends and ideas were obstacles to their "salvation," and should be
extirpated from their minds. Still further the few that did really get
upon a sympathetic footing with them and draw out some of their myths,
were likely to get them in fragments and piece them out with Bible
stories or other civilized conceptions, and thus the native stories
have become adulterated. It is difficult to get the Indians to talk
freely, even with those whom they like and trust. Educated Indians seem
to be ashamed of their native lore, and will generally avoid talking
about it with whites at all, unless under exceptional conditions.
Christianized Indians seem to consider the repetition of their old
myths a relapse into heathenism, and hence will parry efforts to draw
them out. In general, even when civilized, Indians are proud, reserved,
suspicious, and on their guard. And with the primal Indians few can
make much headway. The investigator must start in indirectly, not
manifesting any eagerness, and simply suggest as if by accident some
peculiar appearance or incident in sky or trees or water, and let the
Indian move on in his own way to empty his own mind, never suspecting
any effort by his listener to gather up and tell again his story. And
even under the most favoring conditions, one may think he is getting
along famously, when suddenly the Indian will pause, glance furtively
at the listener, give a moody chuckle, relapse into stony and apathetic
silence--that is the end of the tale.
Our stories have been derived mainly from the reports of those who have
lived much among the Indians, and who have been able to embrace the
rare occasions when, without self-consciousness or even much thought
of outsiders, the natives could speak out freely. There is usually no
very close way of judging of the accuracy of observation or correctness
of report of these investigators, except as their statements are
corroborated by others. These stories sometimes conflict, different
tribes having quite different versions of certain stories. Then again
the Indians have a peculiar habit of "continued stories," by which at
the teepee fire one will take up some well known tale and add to it and
so make a new story of it, or at least a new conclusion. As with the
minstrels and minnesingers of feudal Europe at the tournaments, the
best fellow is the one who tells the most thrilling tale.
One confusing condition that often arises with Indian names and
stories is that some Indians use a word generically and others use
the same word specifically. For instance the native name for Mount
Adams, commonly given as "Pahtou," and Mount Rainier or Tacoma, better
spelled "Takhoma," as sounded by the Indians, really means any high
mountain. A Wasco Indian once told the author that his tribe called
Mount Hood, "Pahtou," meaning the big mountain, but that the Indians on
the other side of the Columbia River applied the same name to Adams.
A very intelligent Puyallup Indian says that the name of the "Great
White Mountain" was "Takhoma," with accent and prolonged sound on the
second syllable, but that any snow peak was the same, with the second
syllable not so prolonged according to height or distance of the
peak. Mount St. Helens was also "Takhoma," but with the "ho" not so
prolonged. But among some other Indians we find Mount St. Helens known
as "Lawailaclough," and with some Mount Hood is known as "Yetsl." Still
other names are "Loowit" for St. Helens and "Wiyeast" for Hood. Adams
seems to be known to some as "Klickitat." "Koolshan" for Baker, meaning
the "Great White Watcher," is one of the most attractive of Indian
names and should be preserved. There is "Shuksan" or "The place of the
Storm Wind," the only one of the northwestern peaks which has preserved
its Indian name. In reference to "Takhoma," a Puyallup woman told the
writer that among her people the name meant the "Breast that Feeds,"
or "The Breast of the Milk White Waters," referring to the glaciers or
the white streams that issue from them. On the other hand, Winthrop in
"Canoe and Saddle," states that the Indians applied the name "Takhoma"
to any high snow peak. Mr. Edwin Eells of Tacoma has written that he
derived from Rev. Father Hylebos of the same city the statement that
the name "Takhoma" was compounded of "Tah" and "Koma," and that among
certain Indians the word "Koma" meant any snow peak, while "Tah" is a
superlative. Hence, "Tahkoma" means simply the great peak.
We find something of the same inconsistencies in regard to the Indian
names of rivers. Our maps abound with supposed Indian names of rivers
and yet an educated Nez Percé Indian named Luke, living at Kamiah,
Idaho, says that the Indians, at least of that region, had no names of
rivers, but only of localities. He told the author that "Kooskooskie,"
which Lewis and Clark understood to be the name of what we now call
the Clearwater, was in reality a repetition of "Koos," their word
for water, and they meant merely to say that it was a strong water.
On the other hand we find many students of Indian languages who have
understood that there were names for the large rivers, even for the
Columbia. In the beautiful little book by B. H. Barrows, published and
distributed by the Union Pacific Railroad Company, we find the name
"Shocatilicum" or "Friendly Water" given as the Chinook name for the
Columbia. It is interesting to notice that this same word for "friendly
water" appears in Vol. II, of the Lewis and Clark Journal, but with
different spelling, in one place being "Shocatilcum" and in another
place "Chockalilum." Reverend Father Blanchet is authority for the
statement in "_Historical Magazine_," II, 335, that the Chinook Indians
used the name "Yakaitl Wimakl" for the Lower Columbia. A Yakima Indian
called William Charley gives "Chewanna" as still another Indian name
for the Columbia.
We have many supposed Indian names for God, as "Nekahni," or "Sahale,"
but Miss Kate McBeth, long a missionary among the Nez Perces, records
in her book about them that those Indians had no native name for
the deity. Of these Indian myths many deal with the chief God, as
"Nekahni," "Sahale," "Dokidatl," "Snoqualm," or "Skomalt," while others
have to do with the lesser grade of the supernatural beings, as the
Coyote god, variously named "Tallapus," "Speelyi," or "Sinchaleep."
Others may treat of "Skallalatoots" (Fairies), "Toomuck," (Devils),
or the various forms of "Tomanowas" (magic). A large number of these
myths describe the supposed origin of strange features of the natural
world, rocks, lakes, whirlpools, winds and waterfalls. Some describe
the "animal people," "Watetash," as the Klickitats call them. Some of
the best are fire-myths. These myths seem to have been common among all
Indians of the Columbia Valley.
In the preceding chapter we have given two of the best Indian myths,
that of Wishpoosh and that of the Chinook Wind. We insert here two
stories of a very different nature, derived from the same investigator
as the two preceding, Dr. G. B. Kuykendall of Pomeroy, Washington.
There is a legend among the Yakima Indians which seems to have the
same root in human nature as the beautiful Greek myth of Orpheus and
Eurydice, showing the instinctive desire of people on earth to bring
back the spirits of the dead, and the impossibility of doing so. This
myth sets forth how Speelyi and Whyama the eagle became at one time
so grieved at the loss of their loved ones that they determined to go
to the land of the spirits and bring them back. The two adventurers
journeyed for a long distance over an unbroken plain, and came at last
to a great lake, on the farther side of which they saw many houses.
They called long and vainly for someone to come with a boat and ferry
them over. But there was no sign of life and at last Whyama said
that there could be no one there. Speelyi insisted, however, that
the people were simply sleeping the sleep of the day and would come
forth at night. Accordingly, when the sun went down and darkness began
to come on, Speelyi started to sing. In a few minutes they saw four
spirit men come to the bank, enter a boat and cross the lake to meet
them. It seemed not necessary for them to row the boat, for apparently
it skimmed over the water of its own accord. The spirit men, having
landed, took Whyama and Speelyi with them in the boat and began their
return to the island of the dead. The island seemed to be a very sacred
place. There was a house of mats upon the shore, where music and
dancing were in progress. Speelyi and Whyama begged leave to enter,
and feeling hungry, they asked for food. The spirit land was so much
less gross than the earth that they were satisfied by what was dipped
with a feather out of a bottle. The spirit people now came to meet them
dressed in most beautiful costumes, and so filled with joy that Speelyi
and Whyama felt a great desire to share their happiness. By the time of
the morning light, however, the festivities ceased and all the spirit
people became wrapped in slumber for the day. Speelyi, observing that
the moon was hung up inside the great banquet hall and seemed to be
essential to the ongoings of the evening, stationed himself in such a
place that he could seize it during the next night's meeting. As soon
as night came on the spirits gathered again for the music and dance.
While their festivities were in progress as usual, Speelyi suddenly
swallowed the moon, leaving the entire place in darkness. Then he
and Whyama brought in a box, which they had previously provided, and
Whyama, flying swiftly about the room caught a number of the spirits
and enclosed them in the box. Then the two proceeded to start for the
earth, Speelyi carrying the box upon his back.
As the two adventurers went upon their long journey toward the earth
with the precious box, the spirits, which at first were entirely
imponderable, began to be transformed into men and to have weight. Soon
they began to cry out on account of their crowded and uncomfortable
position. Then they became so heavy that Speelyi could no longer carry
them. In spite of the remonstrances of Whyama, he opened the box.
They were astonished and overwhelmed with grief to see the partially
transformed spirits flit away like autumn leaves and disappear in the
direction from which they had come. Whyama thought that perhaps even
as the buds grow in the spring, so the dead would come back with the
blooming of the next flowers. But Speelyi deemed it best after this
that the dead should remain in the land of the dead. Had it not been
for this, as the Indians think, the dead would indeed return every
spring with the opening of the leaves.
The Klickitat Indians, living along the Dalles of the Columbia, have
another legend of the land of spirits. There was a young chief and
a girl who were devoted to each other and seemed to be the happiest
people in the tribe, but suddenly he sickened and died. The girl
mourned for him almost to the point of death, and he, having reached
the land of spirits, could find no happiness there on account of
thinking of her.
And so it came to pass that a vision began to appear to the girl by
night, telling her that she must herself go into the land of the
spirits in order to console her lover. Now there is near that place one
of the most weird and funereal of all the various "memaloose" islands,
or death islands, of the Columbia. The writer himself has been upon
this island and its spectral and volcanic desolation makes it a fitting
location for ghostly tales. It lies just below the "great chute," and
even yet has many skeletons upon it. In accordance with the directions
of the vision, the girl's father made ready a canoe, placed her in it,
and rowed out into the great river by night to the memaloose island. As
the father and his child rowed across the dark and forbidding waters,
they began to hear the sound of singing and dancing and great joy. Upon
the shore of the island they were met by four spirit people, who took
the girl but bade the father return, as it was not for him to see into
the spirit country. Accordingly the girl was conducted to the great
dance house of the spirits, and there she met her lover, far stronger
and more beautiful than when upon earth. That night they spent in
unspeakable bliss, but when the light began to break in the east and
the song of the robins began to be heard from the willows on the shore,
the singers and the dancers began to fall asleep.
The girl, too, had gone to sleep, but not soundly like the spirits.
When the sun had reached the meridian, she woke, and now, to her
horror, she saw that instead of being in the midst of beautiful
spirits, she was surrounded by hideous skeletons and loathsome,
decaying bodies. Around her waist were the bony arms and skeleton
fingers of her lover, and his grinning teeth and gaping eye-sockets
seemed to be turned in mockery upon her. Screaming with horror she
leaped up and ran to the edge of the island, where, after hunting
a long time, she found a boat, in which she paddled across to the
Indian village. Having presented herself to her astonished parents,
they became fearful that some great calamity would visit the tribe on
account of her return, and accordingly her father took her the next
night back to the memaloose island as before. There she met again the
happy spirits of the blessed and there again her lover and she spent
another night in ecstatic bliss.
In the course of time a child was born to the girl, beautiful beyond
description, being half spirit and half human. The spirit bridegroom,
being anxious that his mother should see the child, sent a spirit
messenger to the village, desiring his mother to come by night to the
memaloose island to visit them. She was told, however, that she must
not look at the child until ten days had passed. But after the old
woman had reached the island her desire to see the wonderful child was
so intense that she took advantage of a moment's inattention on the
part of the guard, and, lifting the cloth from the baby board, she
stole a look at the sleeping infant. And then, dreadful to relate, the
baby died in consequence of this premature human look. Grieved and
displeased by this foolish act, the spirit people decreed that the dead
should never again return nor hold any communication with the living.
As showing still another phase of Indian imagination, the stories of
the "Tomanowas Bridge" of the Cascades may well find a place here.
This myth not only treats of fire, but it also endeavors to account for
the peculiar formation of the river and for the great snow peaks in
the near vicinity. This myth has various forms, and in order that it
may be the better understood, we shall say a word with respect to the
peculiar physical features in that part of the Columbia. This mighty
river, after having traversed over a thousand miles from its source
in the heart of the Rocky Mountains of Canada, has cleft the Cascade
range asunder with the cañon 3,000 feet in depth. While generally very
swift, that portion of the river between The Dalles and the Cascades,
of about fifty miles, is very deep and sluggish. There are moreover
sunken forests on both sides of the river, visible at low water, which
seem plainly to indicate that at that point the river was dammed up
by some great rock slide or volcanic convulsion. Some of the Indians
affirm that their grandfathers have told them there was a time when the
river at that point passed under an immense natural bridge and that
there were no obstructions to the passage of boats under the bridge.
At the present time there is a cascade of forty feet at that point.
This is now overcome by Government locks. Among other evidences of
some such actual occurrence as the Indians relate is the fact that the
banks of the river at that point are gradually sliding into the river.
The prodigious volume of the Columbia which here rises from fifty
to seventy-five feet during the summer flood and which, as shown by
Government engineers, carries as much water as the Mississippi at New
Orleans, is here continually eating into the banks. The railroad has
slid several inches a year at this point toward the river and requires
frequent readjustment. It is obvious at a slight inspection that this
weird and sublime point in the course of this majestic river has been
the scene of terrific volcanic and probably seismic action. One Indian
legend, probably the best known of all their stories, is to the effect
that the downfall of the great bridge and consequent damming of the
river was due to a great battle between Mount Hood and Mount Adams, in
which Mount Hood hurled a great rock at his antagonist, but falling
short of the mark the rock demolished the bridge instead. This event
has been made use of by Frederick Balch in his beautiful story, "The
Bridge of the Gods," the finest story yet produced in Oregon.
But the finer, though less known legend, which unites both the physical
conformation of the Cascades and the three great snow mountains of
Hood, Adams, and St. Helens, with the origin of fire, is to this
effect. This story was secured by Mr. Fred Saylor of Portland.
According to the Klickitats there was once a father and two sons who
came from the east down the Columbia to the vicinity of where Dalles
City is now located, and there the two sons quarreled as to who should
possess the land. The father, to settle the dispute, shot two arrows,
one to the north and one to the west. He told one son to find the arrow
to the north and the other the one at the west and there to settle and
bring up their families. The first son, going northward, over what
was then a beautiful plain, became the progenitor of the Klickitat
tribe, while the other son was the founder of the great Multnomah
nation of the Willamette Valley. To separate the two tribes more
effectively Sahale reared the chain of the Cascades, though without
any great peaks, and for a long time all things went in harmony. But
for convenience' sake Sahale had created the great tomanowas bridge
under which the waters of the Columbia flowed, and on this bridge he
had stationed a witch woman called Loowit, who was to take charge of
the fire. This was the only fire in the world. As time passed on Loowit
observed the deplorable condition of the Indians, destitute of fire and
the conveniences which it might bring. She therefore besought Sahale
to allow her to bestow fire upon the Indians. Sahale, having been
greatly pleased by the faithfulness and benevolence of Loowit, finally
granted her request. The lot of the Indians was wonderfully improved
by the acquisition of fire. They now began to make better lodges and
clothes and had a variety of food and implements and, in short, were
marvellously benefited by the bounteous gift.
But Sahale, in order to show his appreciation of the care with which
Loowit had guarded the sacred fire, now determined to offer her any
gift she might desire as a reward. Accordingly, in response to his
offer, Loowit asked that she be transformed into a young and beautiful
girl. This was effected and now, as might have been expected, all the
Indian chiefs fell deeply in love with the beautiful guardian of the
tomanowas bridge. Loowit paid little heed to any of them, until finally
there came two magnificent chiefs, one from the north called Klickitat,
and one from the south called Wiyeast. Loowit was uncertain which of
these two she most desired, and as a result a bitter strife arose
between the two, and this waxed hotter and hotter, until finally, with
their respective warriors, they entered upon a desperate war. The land
was ravaged, all the beautiful things which they had made were marred,
and misery and wretchedness ensued. Sahale repented that he had allowed
Loowit to bestow fire upon the Indians, and determined to undo all his
work in so far as he could. Accordingly he broke down the tomanowas
bridge, which dammed up the river with an impassable reef and put to
death Loowit, Klickitat and Wiyeast. But, he said, inasmuch as they
had been so grand and beautiful in life, he would give them a fitting
commemoration after death. Therefore he reared over them as monuments
the great snow peaks; over Loowit what we now call Mount St. Helens,
over Wiyeast the modern Mount Hood, and above Klickitat the stupendous
dome of what we now call Mount Adams.
And now it is a matter of much interest to learn something of the
chief original sources and the most reliable investigators of these
myths. This survey is necessarily incomplete. The endeavor is to name
the students and writers of myths as far as possible. This search goes
beyond Old Walla Walla and covers Old Oregon.
First in the natural order of the investigators and records of Indian
myths come the early explorers and writers of Old Oregon. Most of these
give us little on the special subject of myths, though they give much
on the habits, customs, occupations, and implements of the natives.
The earliest explorer in Oregon, so far as known to the author, to
give any native legend, is Gabriel Franchere, who came to Astoria with
the Astor Fur Company in 1811. In his narrative, upon which Irving's
"Astoria" is largely based, we find a fine story of the creation of men
by Etalapass, and their subsequent improvement by Ecannum. Franchere
says that this legend was related to him by Ellewa, one of the sons
of Concomly, the one-eyed Chinook chief, who figures conspicuously
in Franchere's narrative. Of valuable books of the same period of
Franchere, are Ross Cox's "Adventures on the Columbia River," and
Alexander Ross' "Adventures on the Columbia," both of which contain
valuable references to the customs and superstitious ideas of the
natives, though not much in the way of myths. Ross gives an interesting
myth of the Oakinackens (Okanogans as we now say) about the origin of
the Indians or Skyloo on the white man's island, Samahtumawhoolah.
The Indians were then very white and ruled by a female spirit, or
Great Mother, named Skomalt, but their island got loose and drifted
on the ocean for many suns, and as a result they became darkened to
their present hue. Ross gives also an account of the belief of the
Oakinackens in a good spirit, one of whose names is Skyappe, and a bad
spirit, one of whose names was Chacha. The chief deity of those Indians
seems to have been the great mother of life, Skomalt, whose name also
has the addition of "Squisses." Ross says that those Indians change
their names constantly and doubtless their deities did the same.
[Illustration: POSTOFFICE, WALLA WALLA]
Of valuable books a few years later than those just named, one
especially deserving of mention is Dr. Samuel Parker's "Exploring Tour
Beyond the Rocky Mountains," the result of observations made in 1835
and 1836. This, however, contains little in the way of mythology.
Capt. Charles Wilkes, the American explorer of the early '40s, gives
a very interesting account of a Palouse myth of a beaver which was
cut up to make the tribes. This is evidently another version of the
Klickitat story of the great beaver, Wishpoosh, of Lake Cleelum. One
of the most important of the early histories of Oregon is Dunn's, the
materials for which were gathered in the decade of the '40s. With other
valuable matter it contains accounts of the religious conceptions
of the Indians, and here we find the legend of the Thunder Bird of
the Tinneh, a northern tribe. In this same general period, though
a little later, we find the most brilliant of all writers dealing
with Oregon; that is, the gifted scholar, poet and soldier, Theodore
Winthrop. His book, "Canoe and Saddle," has no rival for literary
excellence and graphic power, among all the books which have dealt with
the Northwest. The book was first published in 1862, and republished
fifty years later in beautiful form by John H. Williams of Tacoma.
"Canoe and Saddle" commemorates a journey from Puget Sound across the
mountains and through the Yakima and Klickitat countries in 1854. It
contains several fine Indian stories, notably that of the Miser of
Mount Tacoma, and that of the Devil of the Dalles. Winthrop does not
state from whom directly he secured the second of these myths, but no
doubt from the Indians themselves, though the peculiar rich imagination
and picturesque language of Winthrop are in evidence throughout the
narration. The tale of the Miser of Mount Tacoma is attributed by
Winthrop to Hamitchou, an Indian of the Squallygamish tribe.
At about the some time as Winthrop's, occurred the visit and
investigations of James G. Swan, whose book, "The Northwest Coast," was
published in 1857. In this is found the creation myth of the Ogress
of Saddle Mountain, relating the issuing forth of Indians from eggs
cast down the mountain-side by the Ogress. Many years ago Rev. Myron
Eells told the writer a variation of that story, which has appeared
in sundry forms and publications, being the story of Toulux, the
South Wind, Quootshoi the witch, and Skamson the Thunder Bird. In
addition to the legend of the Thunder Bird, Swan gives many items of
peculiar interest. Among these we find his idea that certain customs
of the Indians ally them with the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. His final
impression seems to be, however, that they are autocthonous in America.
He refers to the observation of General George Gibbs of the similarity
of Klickitat myths to those in Longfellow's Hiawatha. He also refers
to the beeswax ship of the Nehalem. In connection with the thought
of Indian resemblance to the Ten Lost Tribes, it is worth noticing
that this has come forth from various directions. Miss Kate McBeth
has expressed the same in connection with the Nez Perces. It was also
a favorite idea with B. B. Bishop, one of the earliest builders of
steamboats on the Columbia, who lived many years at Pendleton, Oregon.
He told the writer that the Indians at the Cascades had a spring
festival with the first run of salmon. They would boil whole the first
large salmon caught, and have a ceremony in which the whole tribe would
pass in procession around the fish, each taking a bit. They exercised
the utmost care to leave the skeleton intact, so that at the end it had
been picked clean but with not a bone broken. Mr. Bishop thought that
this was a survival of the Jewish idea of the Paschal Lamb.
Among the great collectors of all kinds of historical data in what
might be called the middle period of Northwest history and not exactly
belonging to any one of the specific groups, is H. H. Bancroft, already
referred to in the first part of this chapter. In his "Native Races,"
are found many myths, with references given, but these mainly deal
with Mexican, Central American, and Californian Indians. He refers to
Holmburg's ethnological studies in German as containing valuable matter
in regard to our Northwestern Indians. _Harmon's Journal_, with its
reference to the Tacullies of British Columbia and their legend of the
Musk Rat, is also named. In the same connection we find reference to
Yehl the Raven, an especial favorite of the Indians of British Columbia
and the upper part of Puget Sound.
From what may be termed the first group of narrators of native tales,
we may turn to those that may be called the scientific ethnologists.
We are indebted to Dr. Franz Boas, himself the foremost of the group,
for the list of these professional students of the subject. These men
took up the matter in a more scientific and methodical way than the
travellers and pioneers and have presented the results of their work in
form that appeals to the scholar, the work of trained investigators,
seeking the facts and giving them as exactly as possible, not affected
by the distortions and exaggerations common to unscientific observers.
They were all connected with the Smithsonian Institute, and their work
was mainly under the Government.
The Bibliography as given by Doctor Boas, is as follows:
Edward Sapir, Wishram Texts (publications of the American
Ethnological Society, Vol. II).
Leo J. Frachtenberg, Coos Texts (Columbia University contributions to
Anthropology, Vol. I).
Leo J. Frachtenberg, Lower Umpqua Texts (Ibid., Vol. IV).
James Teit, Traditions of the Thompson Indians (Memoirs of the
American Folk-Lore Society, Vol. VI). (This is not Washington, but
practically identical with material from the interior of Washington.)
James Teit, Mythology of the Thompson Indians (Jesup North Pacific
Expedition Publications, Vol. VIII).
James Teit, The Shuswap (Ibid., Vol. II).
Franz Boas, Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Küste Amerikas.
Franz Boas, Mythology of the Indians of Washington and Oregon
(Globus, Vol. LXIII, pp. 154-157, 172-175, 190-193).
H. J. Spinden, Myths of the Nez Percé (Journal of American Folk Lore,
Vol. XXI).
Louisa McDermott, Myths of the Flathead Indians (Ibid., Vol. XIV).
Franz Boas, Sagen der Kootenay (Berlin Society for Anthropology,
Ethnology, etc., Vol. XXIII, pp. 161-172).
Livingston Farrand, Traditions of the Quinault Indians (Publications
of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Vol. II).
Franz Boas, Chinook Texts (Bureau of Ethnology, Government Printing
Office, 1894).
Franz Boas, Cathlamet Texts (Ibid.).
James Teit, Traditions of the Lilloost Indians (Journal of American
Folk-Lore, Vol. XXV).
Jeremiah Curtin, Myths of the Modocs (Little, Brown & Co.).
To these may be added, as of special value, the studies of Prof.
Albert S. Gatchett among the Modocs, found under the title, "Oregonian
Folk-Lore" in the _Journal of American Folk-Lore_, Vol. IV, 1891,
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. The other volumes of the _Journal of American
Folk-Lore_ from 1888 to 1913 contain valuable matter.
Doctor Boas found a treasury of information in an old Indian named
Charlie Cultee, at Bay Center in Willapa Harbor, Wash., and from that
source derived the material for the most scientific and uncolored study
of Indian lore yet given to the public. These appear in the Chinook
Texts of Doctor Boas. In this is a fine story of the first ship seen by
the Clatsops. This is found also in H. S. Lyman's History of Oregon. In
Professor Gatchett's book are found some of the finest fire myths and
fish myths of the Northwest.
Following the groups of the explorers and the professional
ethnologists, may come the larger body of miscellaneous collectors and
writers, who, through local papers and magazines and published books,
as well as personal narration, have rescued many quaint and curious
gems of Indian mythology from oblivion and through various channels
have imparted them to the slowly accumulating stock.
Those no longer living may properly appear first. Of comparatively
recent students no longer living, Silas Smith of Astoria was of the
best. His father was Solomon Smith of the Wyeth Expedition, while his
mother was Celiast, daughter of the Clatsop chief Cobaiway. Through his
Indian mother Mr. Smith obtained much interesting matter, much of which
was preserved by H. S. Lyman in his history of Oregon, and in articles
in the _Oregonian_, _Historical Quarterly_, and other publications. H.
S. Lyman was also an original investigator, deriving his data mainly
from Silas Smith and from a group of Indians who formerly lived at the
mouth of the Nekanicum. These stories appear in his history of Oregon
and in a group contained in the "Tallapus Stories," published in the
_Oregonian_. Another intelligent and patient investigator was Rev.
Myron Eells, who lived for many years on Hood's Canal. Many years ago
the author heard from him legends from the Indians which he derived
directly from the natives, such as the Thunder Bird, the Flood around
Mount Tacoma (which he thought colored by the story of Noah in the
Bible), and others. In the book by Mr. Eells, entitled "Ten Years'
Missionary Work in Skokomish," he gives a valuable description of the
"Tomanowas." In various numbers of the _American Antiquarian_ Mr. Eells
has valuable articles as follows: "The Religion of the Twana Indians,"
July, 1879; "Dokidatl, or the God of the Puget Sound Indians,"
November, 1884; "The Indians of Puget Sound," May, 1888, and March,
1890.
Prominent among the scholars and lecturers of Oregon is the great name
of Thomas Condon, for a long time in the State University, and the
earliest student in a large way of the geology of the Northwest. He
was interested in Indian myths as in almost everything that had to do
with man and nature. The legend of the "Bridge of the Gods," already
given in this chapter, particularly appealed to him. One of the notable
students of both the geology and anthropology of the Northwest was
George Gibbs, who came to Oregon as a Government geologist in 1853.
In his report on the Pacific Railroad in House of Representatives
Documents of 1853-4, he gives the first published version, so far as
we can discover, of the "Bridge of the Gods." He tells the story thus:
"The Indians tell a characteristic tale of Mount Hood and Mount St.
Helens to the effect that they were man and wife; that they finally
quarreled and threw fire at one another, and that St. Helens was
victor; since when Mount Hood has been afraid, while St. Helens, having
a stout heart, still burned. In some versions this story is connected
with the slide which formed the Cascades of the Columbia." Mr. Gibbs
also gives some Yakima legends.
One of the most distinguished of all the literary pioneers of Old
Oregon was Samuel A. Clark. In his "Pioneer Days in Oregon" are several
interesting legends well told. In this we find the legend of the
Nahalem, with Ona and Sandy and all their tribulations. We find here
told also the story of the Bridge of the Gods, in which Hood and Adams
are represented as the contending forces, having been originally the
abutments of the Bridge of the Gods. But the most noted contribution
of Mr. Clark to this legend was his poem called, "The Legend of the
Mountains," referring to the fabled bridge, which appeared in _Harper's
Magazine_ of February, 1874. This represents Mount St. Helens as a
goddess for whom Hood and Adams contended, hurling huge stones at each
other and finally breaking down the bridge. The story of the bridge
became the most noted of all native myths, being related to practically
every traveller that made the steamboat trip down the Columbia.
Let us now turn to those discoverers and writers of Indian myths who
are still living. The majority of these are from the nature of the case
adaptors and transcribers, rather than original students. But some
among them are entitled to the place of genuine investigators. Among
these a foremost place must be accorded to Fred A. Saylor of Portland.
He was for several years editor of the _Oregon Native Son_, and for
it he wrote a number of stories which he derived directly from the
Indians. A student of these stories from boyhood, he has accumulated
the largest collection of matter both published and unpublished of
anyone in the Northwest. This collection is preserved by him in
fourteen large scrap books, and constitutes a treasury of valuable
data which it is to be hoped may soon appear in a published form for
the delight and profit of many readers. Among the legends of which
Mr. Saylor is entitled to be regarded as the discoverer are these:
"The Legend of Tahoma"; "Why the Indian Fears Golden Hair," or, "The
Origin of Castle Rock;" "Speelyi, or the Origin of Latourelle Falls,
and the Pillars of Hercules;" "Thorns on Rosebushes;" "The Noah of the
Indians;" "The Strange Story of a Double Shadow;" "The Legend of Snake
River Valley;" "A Wappato Account of the Flood;" "The Last Signal Fire
of the Multnomah;" "The Legend of the Willamette;" "The Love of an
Indian Maid;" "Enumpthla;" "Coyote's Tomb;" "Multnomah." The last named
has been presented by students on the campus of the State University
and also at the Agricultural College of Oregon.
Of investigators known to the author, none seems more worthy of
extended and favorable mention than Dr. G. B. Kuykendall of Pomeroy,
Wash. He was for a number of years the physician for the Yakima
Reservation at Fort Simcoe. He began his work of collecting in 1875,
deriving his knowledge directly from the Indians. His authorities
were almost entirely old Indians, for from such only could he secure
narrations of unadulterated character. His first published writings
were in the "West Shore," of Portland, in 1887. His most mature
contribution, which may indeed be considered the best yet given to the
public, is found in Vol. II, of the "History of the Pacific Northwest,"
published by the North Pacific History Co., of Portland, in 1889. This
is an admirable piece of work, and students of the subject will find
here a treasure of native lore. The following is the list of stories
given by Dr. Kuykendall in that work: "Wishpoosh, the Beaver God, and
the Origin of the Tribes;" "Speelyi Fights Enumtla;" "Speelyi Outwits
the Beaver Women;" "Rock Myths;" "Legend of the Tick;" "Mountain Lake
Myths;" "The Origin of Fire;" "Water Nymphs;" "Wawa, the Mosquito God;"
"Origin of the Loon;" "Castiltah, the Crayfish;" "Wakapoosh, the Rattle
Snake;" "The Tumwater Luminous Stone God;" "The Wooden Fireman of the
Cascades;" "Contest Between the Chinooks and Cold Wind Brothers;"
"Speelyi's Ascent to Heaven;" "Coyote and Eagle Attempt to Bring the
Dead Back from Spirit Land;" "The Isle of the Dead."
Another original investigator and the author of an unique and
picturesque book devoted exclusively to Indian myths, is W. S. Phillips
of Seattle, well known by his non-de-plume of "El Comancho." The book
by Mr. Phillips is "Totem Tales." Mr. Phillips says that he gathered
the matter for "Totem Tales" from the Puget Sound Indians and from
Haida Indians who had come south. This work was mainly done about
twenty-five years ago. He verified much of his matter by comparing
with Judge Swan, and by the stories acquired by Doctor Shaw, who was
at one time Indian agent at Port Madison, and whose wife was one of
the daughters of old Chief Sealth (Seattle). He derived matter for
comparison also from Rev. Myron Eells. The chief Indian authority of
Mr. Phillips was old Chisiahka (Indian John to the Whites), and it
was a big tree on the shore of Lake Union that suggested the idea of
the "Talking Pine," which the author wove so picturesquely into the
narrative. Mr. Phillips has also published the "Chinook Book," the most
extensive study of the jargon language yet made. To the others he has
added a most attractive book entitled, "Indian Tales for Little Folks."
Another present day investigator, whose work is especially worthy of
mention is Rev. J. Neilson Barry, an enthusiastic and intelligent
student of every phase of the history of the Northwest. In Chapter III
of Volume I of Gaston's "Centennial History of Oregon," Mr. Barry gives
a valuable contribution to Indian legends.
Yet another original student is Miss Kate McBeth of Lapwai, Idaho,
who with her sister lived for years among the Nez Perces, performing
a most beneficent missionary work for them. In her book, "The Nez
Perces Since Lewis and Clark," may be found the Kamiah myth, and a few
others derived directly from those Indians. Mention may well be made
here also of a Nez Percé Indian named Luke, previously referred to,
living at Kamiah, who has a very intelligent knowledge of all kinds of
Indian matters. Miss McBeth says that the Nez Perces do not like to
discuss generally their "heathen" stories and customs. In connection
with the Nez Perces it may be stated that Yellow Wolf of Nespilem is an
authority on the myth of the Kamiah Monster.
Still another enthusiastic student of Indian legends is Lucullus V.
McWhorter of North Yakima. He is an adopted member of the Yakima tribe,
and has been of incalculable benefit to the Indians in instructing them
as to their rights, in presenting their cause to the Government, and in
making known their needs as well as some of their wrongs to the general
public through voice and pen. He has made a specialty in recent years
of organizing the Indians and taking them to "Round-Ups" and "Frontier
Days." A recent pamphlet by him on the treatment of the Yakimas in
connection with their water rights is an "eye-opener," on some phases
of Indian service and Indian problems. Mr. McWhorter has gathered a
large amount of matter from the Indians, in which is material for three
books: "Traditions of the Yakimas;" "Hero Stories of the Yakimas;" "Nez
Percé Warriors in the War of 1877." Among the proteges of Mr. McWhorter
from whom he tells me much of interest could be derived, are Chief
Yellow Wolf of the Joseph Band of Nez Perces, and Mrs. Crystal McLeod,
known to her people as Humishuma, or Morning Dove, an Okanogan woman
of unusual beauty and intelligence and well instructed in the English
language. Her picture appears in this work from photographs taken by
Mr. John Langdon of Walla Walla.
Any reference to any phase of Oregon would be incomplete without
mention of John Minto, one of the most honored of pioneers, one of
the noblest of men, and one of the best examples of those ambitious,
industrious, and high minded state builders who gave the Northwest its
loftiest ideals. Mr. Minto was a student of the Indians and discovered
and gave to the world various Clatsop and Nehalem legends. Hon. E. L.
Smith of Hood River, Ore., well known as an official and legislator
of both Oregon and Washington, and a man of such character that all
who ever knew him have the highest honor for him in every relation
of life, has made a lifelong study of the natives and has a great
collection of myths both in mind and on paper. He is one of the most
sympathetic, tolerant, and appreciative of investigators, one whom the
Indians of the Mid-Columbia trust implicitly. He has written little for
publication in comparison with what he knows, and it is to be hoped
that his stores of material may be brought within reach before long.
Worthy of mention as a general student of the geography and language
of the Indians is Mr. John Gill of Portland. While he has not made a
specialty of myths, he has studied the habits and language with special
attention, and his dictionary of the Chinook jargon is one of the most
valuable collections of the kind.
It is proper to mention here several who are well versed in native
lore, yet who have not given their knowledge of legends or myths to the
public in book or magazine form. The most conspicuous, indeed, of this
group is no longer living. This was Dr. William C. McKay, a grandson of
the McKay of the Astor Fur Company, who lost his life on the Tonquin.
The mother of Doctor McKay was a Chinook "princess." He was a man of
great ability and acquired a fine education. He lived for years, in
Pendleton, Ore., where he died some time ago. In the possession of his
children and grandchildren there is undoubtedly valuable material and
if it could be reduced to written form it would furnish matter of great
interest. Certain others of Indian blood may be properly added here who
could give material for interesting narrations. Among these are Henry
Sicade and William Wilton, living on the Puyallup Reservation near
Tacoma, Samuel McCaw of Yakima, Wash., and Charlie Pitt of the Warm
Springs Agency in Oregon.
This summary of Indian stories and their investigators is necessarily
incomplete. One of the hopes in including it in this work is that it
may lead to added contributions. As we contemplate the beauty and
grandeur of Old Oregon, which includes Washington and Idaho and a part
of Montana, and the pathos, heroism and nobility of its history, and
as we see the pitiful remnant of the Indians, we cannot fail to be
touched with the quaint, the pathetic, and the suggestive myths and
legends that are passing with them into the twilight. In our proud days
of possession and of progress we do well to pause and drop the tear of
sympathy and place the chaplet of commemoration upon the resting place
of the former lords of the land, and to recognize their contributions
to the common stock of human thought.
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST EXPLORERS AND THEIR ROUTES THROUGH THE REGION
Of all events in early American history influential in their bearing
upon the territorial development of the United States, the Louisiana
Purchase in 1803 must be accorded the foremost place. Until that
event the United States, in spite of the fact that it had gained
independence, was essentially European in its habit of thought
and colonial in its aspirations and outlook. A few seers indeed
recognized the possibilities of continental expansion. The doctrine of
"manifest destiny" had held the glowing vision of the place in history
which might be wrought by a continent, or at least the dominating
parts of it, under the control of the same race of men who had
redeemed the Atlantic seaboard from the wilderness and successfully
maintained against the greatest empire of the world the proposition
that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the
governed." The author of those words had seen more clearly perhaps than
any other the world vision of a great American democracy, independent
of Europe and yet by reason of geographical position as well as
political ideals and social aspirations, the natural mediator among
peoples and the ultimate teacher and enlightener of mankind.
When, therefore, as a result of the political revolution of 1800
and the permanent establishment of the democratic conception in the
leadership of American politics, Thomas Jefferson found himself
invested with the enormous responsibility of framing policies and
measures for the new era, one of his foremost aims was to turn the face
of the nation westward. Having long entertained the idea that the true
policy was to secure such posts of vantage beyond the Alleghenies as
would lead by natural stages to the acquisition of the country beyond
the Mississippi, even to the Pacific, he was alert to seize any opening
for pursuing that truly American policy. He did not have long to wait.
At the time of his inauguration the stupendous energies of the French
Revolution had become concentrated in that overpowering personality,
Napoleon Bonaparte. Holding then the position of first consul, but
as truly the imperial master as when he placed the iron crown of the
Lombards upon his own head, "the man on horseback" perceived that a
renewal of the great war was inevitable and that Austria on land and
England at sea were going to put metes to his empire if human power
could do it. Nothing was more hateful to Napoleon than to let French
America, or Louisiana, slip from his grasp. But he had not the maritime
equipment to defend it. England was sure to take it and that soon.
Monroe, the American envoy, was in Paris fully instructed by President
Jefferson what to do. All things were ready. The man and the occasion
met. The Louisiana Purchase was consummated. For less than three cents
an acre, a region now comprising thirteen states or parts of states,
estimated at over five hundred and sixty-five million acres, equal in
extent to all Europe outside of Russia and Scandinavia, became part of
the United States.
[Illustration: HIGH SCHOOL, WAITSBURG]
When that great event was consummated and one of the milestones in the
world's progress upon the highway of universal democracy had been set
for good, the next step in the mind of Jefferson was to provide for
the exploration of the vast new land. The westward limits of Louisiana
were not indeed defined by the treaty of purchase otherwise than as the
boundaries by which the territory had been ceded by Spain to France,
and those boundaries in turn were defined only as those by which France
had in 1763 ceded to Spain. Hence the western boundary of Louisiana
was uncertain. Although subsequent agreements and usages determined
the boundary to be the crest of the Rocky Mountains as far south as
Texas, Jefferson seems to have thought that the entire continent to
the Pacific ought to be included in the exploration, for he saw also
that the destiny of his country required the ultimate union of Atlantic
and Pacific coasts, as well as the great central valley. From these
conceptions and aims of Jefferson sprang that most interesting and
influential of all exploring expeditions in our history, the Lewis and
Clark exploration from St. Louis up the Missouri, across the Rocky
Mountains, and down the Snake and Columbia rivers to the Pacific Ocean.
Jefferson had contemplated such an expedition a long time. Even as far
back as December 4, 1783, in a letter to George Rogers Clark, he raised
the question of an exploration from the Mississippi to California.
In 1792 he took it up with the American Philosophical Society, and
even then Meriwether Lewis was eager to head such an expedition.
In a message to Congress of January 18, 1803, before the Louisiana
Purchase, Jefferson developed the importance of a thorough exploration
of the continent even to the Western Ocean. With his characteristic
secrecy, Jefferson was disposed to mask the great design of ultimate
acquisition of the continent under the appearance of scientific
research. In a letter to Lewis of April 27, 1803, he says: "The idea
that you are going to explore the Mississippi has been generally given
out; it satisfies public curiosity and masks sufficiently the real
destination." That real destination was, of course, the Pacific Ocean,
and the fundamental aim was the continental expansion of the then crude
and straggling Republic of the West. Considering the momentous nature
of the undertaking and the possibilities of the unknown wilderness
which it was to cover, it is curious and suggestive that Lewis had
estimated the expenses at $2,500, and Jefferson called upon Congress
for that amount of appropriation. An explorer of the present would
hardly expect to go out doors on that scale of expense. Jeffersonian
simplicity with a vengeance!
The scope of our book does not permit any detailed account of the
preparations or of the personnel of the party. Suffice it to say that
the leader, Meriwether Lewis, and his lieutenant, William Clark, were
men of energy, discretion, courage, and the other necessary qualities
for such an undertaking. While not men of education or general culture
(Clark could not even spell or compose English correctly) they both
had an abundance of common sense and in preparation for their mission
gained a hurried preparation in the essentials of botany, zoology, and
astronomy such as might enable them to observe and report intelligently
upon the various objects of discovery and the distances and directions
traversed.
Jefferson's instructions to Captain Lewis give one an added respect for
the intelligence and broad humanity of the great democrat. Particularly
did he enjoin upon the leader of the party the wisdom of amicable
relations with the natives. The benevolent spirit of the President
appears in his direction that kine-pox matter be taken and that its use
for preventing smallpox be explained to the Indians. All readers of
American history should read these instructions, both for an estimate
of Jefferson personally, and for light they throw on the conditions and
viewpoints of the times.
The number in the party leaving St. Louis was forty-five. But one death
occurred upon the whole journey, which lasted from May 14, 1804, to
September 23, 1806. Never perhaps did so extended and difficult an
expedition suffer no little. And this was the more remarkable from the
fact that there was no physician nor scientific man with the party
and that whatever was needed in the way of treating the occasional
sicknesses or accidents must be done by the captains. While to their
natural force and intelligence the party owed a large share of its
immunity from disaster, good fortune surely attended them. This seems
the more noticeable when we reflect that this was the first journey
across a wilderness afterwards accentuated with every species of
suffering and calamity.
The members of the party were encouraged to preserve journals and
records to the fullest degree, and from this resulted a fullness
of detail by a number of the men as well as the leaders which has
delighted generations of readers ever since. And in spite of the fact
that none of the writers had any literary genius, these journals are
fascinating on account of the nature of the undertaking and a certain
glow of enthusiasm which invested with a charm even the plain and
homely details of the long journey.
The first stage of the expedition was from St. Louis, May 14, 1804,
to a point 1,600 miles up the Missouri, reached November 2. There
the party wintered in a structure which they called Fort Mandan. The
location was on the west bank of the Missouri, opposite the present
City of Pierre. The journey had been made by boats at an average
advance of ten miles a day. The river, though swift and with frequent
shoals, offered no serious impediments, even for a long distance above
Fort Mandan.
After a long, cold winter in the country of the Mandans, the expedition
resumed their journey up the Missouri on April 7, 1805. Of the
interesting details of this part of their course we cannot speak.
Reaching the headwaters of the Missouri on August 12, they crossed that
most significant spot, the Great Divide. A quotation from the journal
of Captain Lewis indicates the lively sentiments with which they passed
from the Missouri waters to those of the Columbia: "As they proceeded,
their hope of seeing the waters of the Columbia rose to almost painful
anxiety; when at the distance of four miles from the last abrupt turn
of the stream, they reached a small gap formed by the high mountains
which recede on either side, leaving room for the Indian road. From
the foot of one of the lowest of these mountains, which rises with a
gentle ascent for about half a mile, issued the remotest water of the
Missouri. They had now reached the hidden sources of that river which
had never before been seen by civilized man; and as they quenched their
thirst at the chaste and icy fountain--as they sat down by the brink
of the little rivulet which yielded its distant and modest tribute to
the parent ocean--they felt themselves rewarded for all their labors
and difficulties. * * * They found the descent much steeper than on the
eastern side, and at the distance of three-quarters of a mile, reached
a handsome, bold creek of cold, clear water running to the westward.
They stopped to taste for the first time the waters of the Columbia."
After some very harassing and toilsome movements in that vast cordon
of peaks in which lie the cradles of the Missouri, Yellowstone, Snake,
Clearwater, and Bitterroot rivers--more early reaching starvation point
than at any time on the trip--the party emerged upon a lofty height
from which their vision swept over a vast expanse of open prairie,
in which it became evident that there were many natives and, as they
judged, the near vicinity of the great river, which, as they thought,
would carry them in short order to the Western Ocean of their quest.
They little realized that they were yet more than six hundred miles
from the edge of the continent. Descending upon the plain, they made
their way to the Kooskooskie, now known as the Clearwater River. As
judged by Olin D. Wheeler in his invaluable book, "On The Trail of
Lewis and Clark," the explorers crossed from what is now Montana into
the present Idaho at the Lolo Pass, and proceeded thence down the
broken country between the north and middle forks of the Kooskooskie,
reaching the junction on September 26. The camp at that spot was called
Canoe Camp. There they remained nearly two weeks, most of them sick
through overeating after they had sustained so severe a fast in the
savage defiles of the Bitter Roots, and from the effects of the very
great change in temperature from the snowy heights to the hot valley
below. At Canoe Camp they constructed boats for the further prosecution
of their journey. They left their thirty-eight horses with three
Indians of the Chopunnish or Pierced-Nose tribe, or Nez Percé as we now
know them.
With their canoes they entered upon a new stage of their journey,
one easy and pleasant after the hardships of the mountains. Down the
beautiful Kooskooskie, then low in its autumn stage, they swept gaily,
finding frequent rapids, though none serious. The pleasant-sounding
name Kooskooskie, which ought to be preserved (though Clearwater is
appropriate and sonorous), was supposed by the explorers to be the
name of the river. This it appears was a misapprehension. The author
has been told by a very intelligent Indian named Luke, living at
Kamiah, that the Indians doubtless meant to tell the white men that the
stream was _Koos_, _koos_, or _water_, _water_. _Koos_ was and still
is the Nez Percé word for water. Luke stated that the Indians did not
regularly have names for streams, but only for localities, and referred
to rivers as the water or _koos_ belonging to some certain locality.
After a prosperous descent of the beautiful and impetuous stream
for a distance estimated by them at fifty-nine miles (considerably
overestimated) the party entered a much larger stream coming from the
south. This they understood the Indians to call the Kimooenim. They
named it the Lewis in honor of Captain Lewis. It was the great Snake
River of our present maps. The writer has been told by Mr. Thomas
Beall of Lewiston that the true Indian name is Twelka. Still another
native name is Shahaptin. The party was now at the present location
of Lewiston and Clarkston, one of the most notable regions in the
Northwest for beauty, fertility, and all the essentials of capacity
for sustaining a high type of civilized existence. The land adjoining
Snake River on the west is Asotin County, one of the components of our
history. The party camped on the right bank just below the junction,
and that first camp of white men was nearly opposite both Lewiston
and Clarkston of today. They say that the Indians flocked from all
directions to see them. The scantiness of their fare had brought them
to the stage of eating dog-meat, which they say excited the ridicule
of the natives. The Indians gave them to understand that the southern
branch was navigable up about sixty miles; that not far from its mouth
it received a branch from the south, and at two days' march up a larger
branch called Pawnashte, on which a chief resided who had more horses
than he could count.
The first of these must be the Asotin Creek, unless indeed they
referred to the Grande Ronde, which is the first large stream, but
is considerable distance from the junction. The Pawnashte must have
been the Salmon, the largest tributary of the Snake. The Snake at the
point of the camp of the explorers was discovered to be about three
hundred yards wide. The party noticed the greenish blue color of the
Snake, while the Kooskooskie was as clear as crystal. The Indians at
this point are described as of the Chopunnish or Pierced-Nose nations,
the latter of those names translated by the French voyageurs into the
present Nez Percé. According to the observations of the party, the men
were in person stout, portly, well-looking men; the women small, with
good features and generally handsome. The chief article of dress of the
men was a "buffalo or elk-skin robe decorated with beads, sea-shells,
chiefly mother-of-pearl, attached to an otter-skin collar and hung
in the hair, which falls in front in two queues; feathers, paints of
different kinds, principally white, green, and light blue, all of
which they find in their own country. The dress of the women is more
simple, consisting of a long skirt of argalia or ibex-skin, reaching
down to the ankles without a girdle; to this are tied little pieces
of brass and shells and other small articles." Further on the journal
states again: "The Chopunnish have few amusements, for their life is
painful and laborious; and all their exertions are necessary to earn
even their precarious subsistence. During the summer and autumn they
are busily occupied in fishing for salmon and collecting their winter
store of roots. In the winter they hunt the deer on snow-shoes over
the plains, and towards spring cross the mountains to the Missouri for
the purpose of trafficking for buffalo robes." It may be remarked here
parenthetically that there is every indication that buffalo formerly
inhabited the Snake and Columbia plains. In fact, buffalo bones have
been found in recent years in street excavations at Spokane. What
cataclysm may have led to their extermination is hidden in obscurity.
But at the first coming of the whites it was discovered that one of the
regular occupations of the natives was crossing the Rocky Mountains to
hunt or trade for buffalo.
Soon after resuming the journey on October 11, the explorers noted with
curiosity one of the vapor baths common among those Indians, which they
say differed from those on the frontiers of the United States or in the
Rocky Mountains. The bath-house was a hollow square six or eight feet
deep, formed in the river bank by damming up with mud the other three
sides and covering the whole completely except an aperture about two
feet wide at the top. The bathers descended through that hole, taking
with them a jug of water and a number of hot rocks. They would throw
the water on the rocks until it steamed and in that steam they would
sit until they had perspired sufficiently, and then they would plunge
into cold water. This species of entertainment seems to have been
very sociable, for one seldom bathed alone. It was considered a great
affront to decline an invitation to join a bathing party.
The explorers seem to have had a very calm and uneventful descent
of Snake River. They describe the general lay of the country
accurately, noting that beyond the steep ascent of 200 feet (it is in
reality a great deal more in all the upper part of this portion of
Snake River) the country becomes an open, level, and fertile plain,
entirely destitute of timber. They note all the rapids with sufficient
particularity to enable anyone thoroughly familiar with the river to
identify most of them. They make special observation of the long series
of rapids commonly known now as the Riparia and Texas Rapids, and
below these observe a large creek on the left which they denominate as
Kimooenim Creek. This is rather odd, for that had already been noted
as the native name of the main river. A few miles further down they
pass through a bad rapid but twenty-five yards wide. Of course, it
must be remembered that the time was October and the river was about
at its lowest. This was the narrow crack of the Palouse Rapids, which,
however, is not so narrow as they estimated, even at low water. At the
end of this rapid they discovered a large river on the right, to which
they gave the name of Drewyer, one of their party, their mighty hunter
in fact. This was a many-named stream, for it was later the Pavion,
the Pavillion, and at the last the present Palouse, the equivalent, we
are told again by Thomas Beall, for gooseberry. The principal rapids
below the entrance of the Palouse are known at present as Fishhook,
Long's Crossing, Pine Tree, the Potato Patch, and Five Mile. Five
Mile looked so bad to them that they unloaded the canoes and made a
portage of three-quarters of a mile. At a distance below this, which
they estimated as seven miles, they reached that interesting place
where the great northern and southern branches of the Big River unite.
They were then at the location of the present Village of Burbank.
Many interesting events and observations are chronicled of their stay
at that point. Soon after their arrival a regular procession of 200
Indians from a camp a short distance up the Columbia came to visit
them, timing their approach with the music of drums, accompanied with
the voice. There seems to have followed a regular love-feast, both
parties taking whiffs of the friendly pipe and expressing as best they
could their common joy at the meeting. Then came a distribution of
presents and a mutual pledging of good will.
The captains measured the rivers, finding the Columbia 960 yards wide
and the Snake 575. From their point of observation across the continued
plain they noted how it rose into the heights on the farther side
of the river. They had already taken into account the far distant
mountains to the south, our own Blue Mountains, which they thought
about sixty miles distant, just about the right estimate. It is to be
hoped that it was one of the perfect days not infrequent in October
and that the azure hues of those mountains which we love today were
before them in all their rich, soft splendor. They noted in the clear
water of the river the incredible number of salmon. The Indians gave
them to understand that frequently in the absence of other fuel they
burned the fish that, having been thrown upon the bank, became so dry
as to make excellent fuel. These Indians were of a tribe known as
Sokulks. According to the description they were hardly so good-looking
a people as the Chopunnish, but were of mild and peaceable disposition
and seemed to live in a state of comparative happiness. The men, like
those on the Kimooenim, were said to content themselves with a single
wife. The explorers noted that the men shared with their mates the
labor of procuring subsistence more than is usual among savages. They
were also very kind to the aged and infirm. Nor were they inclined to
beggary. All things considered, these Sokulks at the junction of the
big rivers were worthy of much esteem. Captain Clark made a journey
up the Columbia, in the course of which he made sundry interesting
observations on the Indian manner of preparing salmon for preservation,
as well as for present use. At one point he entered one of the mat
houses. He was immediately provided with a mat on which to sit and his
hosts proceeded at once to cook a salmon for his repast. This they did
by heating stones, and then, bringing in the fish in a bucket of water,
they dropped in the hot stones in succession till the water boiled.
After sufficiently boiling the salmon, they placed it before the
captain. He found it excellent. He noticed that many of these Indians
were blind in one or both eyes and had lost part of their teeth. The
first of these unfortunate conditions he attributed to the glare of the
water on their unshaded eyes, and the second to their habit of eating
roots without cleansing them from the sandy soil in which they grew. It
would appear from the topography of the journal that Captain Clark went
a short distance above the present site of Kennewick, for he was near
the mouth of a large stream flowing from the west, which the Indians
called the Tapteal, but which later became known as the Yakima, also a
native name. While on land during this trip, the party got grouse (or
what we now call prairie chickens) and ducks, and also a "prairie cock,
about the size of a small turkey." This was evidently a sage hen. It is
recorded that they saw none of that bird except on the Columbia. While
camped at the junction of the rivers, the men were busily engaged in
mending their clothes and travelling outfits and arms, and otherwise
preparing for the next stage of the journey. One very interesting
feature of the stay here was the fact that one of the chiefs with one
of the Chimnapum, a tribe further west, provided the party with a map
of the Columbia and the nations on its banks. This was drawn on a robe
with a piece of coal and afterwards transferred by some one of the
explorers to a piece of paper. They preserved it as a valuable specimen
of Indian delineation.
On October 18, the party packed up and pushing off into the majestic
river, proceeded downward toward the highlands, evidently what we
call the Wallula Gateway. In the general journal, called the Edition
of 1814., in which the contributions of all the party are merged,
there seems to be some confusion as to the mouth of the Walla Walla
River. The record mentions an island near the right shore fourteen and
one-half miles from the mouth of Lewis' River and a mile and a half
beyond that of small brook under a high hill on the left, "seeming to
run its whole course through the high country." This evidently must
be the Walla Walla River, though it can hardly be called a "small
brook," even in the low season, and it flows quite distinctly in a
valley, though the highlands begin immediately below. They also say:
"At this place, too, we observed a mountain to the southwest, the
form of which is conical, and its top covered with snow." This is
obviously incorrect, for Mount Hood, which is the only snow mountain
to the southwest visible anywhere near that place, cannot be seen from
near the mouth of the Walla Walla, except by climbing the highlands.
On the next day, October 19, the party was visited by a chief of whom
they saw more and tell more on their return. This was Yelleppit. They
describe him as a "handsome, well-proportioned man, about five feet,
eight inches high and about thirty-five years old, with a bold and
dignified countenance." His name is preserved in a station on the S.
P. & S. Railroad, located just about at the place where the party met
the chieftain.
After the meeting with Yelleppit, the party once more committed
themselves to the downward rushing current of the Columbia, and passed
beyond the range of our story. Of the interesting details of their
continued journey down the river and the final vision of the ocean,
"that ocean, the object of all our labors, the reward of all our
anxieties," we cannot speak.
Having spent the winter at Fort Clatsop, about ten miles from the
present Astoria and nearly the same distance from the present Seaside,
they left Fort Clatsop for their long return journey, on March 23,
1806. They saw many interesting and important features of the country
on the return, which they failed to note in going down. Among these,
strange to say, was the entrance of the Willamette, the largest river
below the Snake. The return was made as far as the "Long Narrows" (The
Dalles) with the canoes, but at that point they procured horses and
proceeded thence by land. They passed the "Youmalolam" (Umatilla) and
then entering the highlands, were again within the area of "Old Walla
Walla County." Reaching the country of the "Wallawollahs," they again
came in contact with their old friend, whose name appears in that
portion of the journal as Yellept. They found him more of a gentleman
than ever. He insisted on his people making generous provision for the
needs of the party, and gave them the valuable information that by
going up the Wallawollah River and directly east to the junction of the
Snake and Kooskooskie they might have a route full of grass and water
and game, and much shorter than to follow the banks of Snake River.
Accordingly crossing from the north bank of the Columbia, which they
had been following, they found themselves on the Wallawollah. They do
not now describe it as before as a "small brook," but as a "handsome
stream, about fifty yards wide and four and a half feet in depth." They
got one curious misapprehension here which was held later by explorers
in general in regard to the Multnomah or Willamette. They understood
from the Indians that the Willamette ran south of the Blue Mountains
and was as large as the Columbia at the mouth of the Wallawollah, which
they say was about a mile wide. They infer from the whole appearance,
as the Indians seem to explain it, that the sources of the Willamette
must approach those of the Missouri and Del Norte. One quaint and
curious circumstance is mentioned at this stage of the story, as it has
been, in fact, at various times. And that is the extravagant delight
which the Indians derived from the violin. They were so fascinated with
the sound of the instrument and the dancing which accompanied it that
they would come in throngs and sometimes remain up all night. In this
particular instance, however, they were so considerate of the white
men's need of sleep that they retired at ten o'clock.
On the last day of April, 1806, the party turned their horses' heads
eastward up the Wallawollah River across sandy expanses, which,
however, they soon discovered to improve in verdure and in groves of
trees. Having followed the main stream fourteen miles, they reached
"a bold, deep stream, about ten yards wide, which seems navigable for
canoes." They found a profusion of trees along the course of this creek
and were delighted to see all the evidences of increasing timber. This
stream, which they now followed for a number of miles, was evidently
the Touchet, and the point where they turned to follow it was at the
present Town of Touchet. Their course was up the creek for about
twelve miles to a point where the creek bottom widened into a pleasant
country two or three miles in width. This presumably was the fertile
region beginning a mile or so east of the present Lamar, and extending
thence onward to Prescott and beyond. The party made a day's march of
twenty-six miles and camped at a point, which according to the figures
of the next day, would have been near the present Bolles Junction.
One rather quaint incident appears at this point in the narration, to
the effect that when encamped for the night, three young men of the
Wollawollahs came up with a steel trap which had inadvertently been
left behind. The Indians had come a whole day's journey to restore
this. This exhibition of honesty was so gratifying that the narration
affirms that: "Of all the Indians whom we have met since leaving the
United States, the Wollawollahs were the most hospitable, honest, and
sincere."
Resuming the march the next day the explorers noted at a distance of
three miles a branch entering the creek from the "southeast mountains,
which, though covered with snow, are about twenty-five miles distant,
and do not appear high." That branch must have been our Coppei, which
joins the main creek at our pleasant little City of Waitsburg. Having
proceeded a total distance of fourteen miles from the previous night's
camp, the travellers found themselves at a point where the main creek
bore to the south toward the mountains from which it came, and where a
branch entered it from the northeast. This spot was evidently the site
of Dayton, and the branch from the northeast which they now followed
was the Patit. The next day they crossed the Kimooenim, which is the
same that they had designated the Kimooenim Creek on their descent of
Snake River in the fall, being, curiously enough, as already noted, the
same name that they had already understood to be the Indian name of
Snake River. The stream was evidently the Tucannon. From the Tucannon
the course led our adventurers over the high, fertile plains near
to the "southwest mountains" to a ravine "where was the source of a
small creek, down the hilly and rocky sides of which we proceeded for
eight miles to its entrance into Lewis' River, about seven miles and
a half above the mouth of the Kooskooskie." This creek was the Asotin
and therefore the point where they again reached Snake River was that
grand and picturesque place where the attractive town of Asotin is now
located.
The explorers having crossed the river were beyond the jurisdiction of
this volume, and even of the State of Washington, being within that of
Idaho, and hence we cannot follow them further on their return journey.
We must content ourselves, in this farewell glance at this first, and
in many respects, the most interesting and important of all the early
transcontinental expeditions, with saying that the effects were of
momentous, even transcendent value to the development of our country.
Without the incorporation of Old Oregon into the United States, we
would in all probability not have got California, and without our
Pacific Coast frontage, think what a crippled and curtailed Union this
would be! We would surely have missed our destiny without the Pacific
Coast. The Lewis and Clark expedition was one of the essential links in
the chain of acquisition. The summary of distances by the party is a
total of 3,555 miles on the most direct route from the Mississippi at
the mouth of the Missouri, to the Pacific Ocean, and the total distance
descending the Columbia waters is placed at 640 miles.
[Illustration: Y. M. C. A. BUILDING, WALLA WALLA]
President Jefferson did not exaggerate the character of this expedition
in the tribute which he paid to Captain Lewis in 1813, when he
expressed himself thus: "Never did a similar event excite more joy
throughout the United States; the humblest of its citizens have taken
a lively interest in this journey, and looked with impatience for the
information which it would furnish. Nothing short of the official
journals of this extraordinary and interesting journey will exhibit
the importance of the service, the courage, the devotion, zeal, and
perseverance, under circumstances calculated to discourage, which
animated this little band of heroes, throughout the long, dangerous,
and tedious travel."
Though many additional valuable discoveries of this land where we live
were made by later explorers, Lewis and Clark and their assistants may
justly be regarded as the true first explorers. They were, moreover,
the only party that came purely for exploration. Later parties, though
making valuable explorations, did such work as incidental to fur trade.
With the completion of this great expedition, therefore, we may regard
the era of the explorers completed and that of the fur-hunters begun.
CHAPTER IV
THE FUR-TRADE AND FUR-TRADERS
With the great new land between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean
opened to the world by the Lewis and Clark expedition, the question
came at once to the active, pushing, ambitious spirits of America and
England, what shall we do with it, and what can we make of it? The
rights of the natives have usually had little concern to civilized
man. His thought has been to secure as rapidly and easily as possible
the available resources, to skim the cream from the wilderness ahead
of all rivals. Two great quests have commonly followed discovery of a
new land; that for the precious metals, and that for furs. Gold and
silver and precious stones have always had a strange fascination, and
the search for them and the wars of conflicting nations for possession
of their sources of supply have constituted the avenues of approach to
some of the greatest changes of history. The search for furs, while not
making so brilliant and showy a chapter in history as that for gold and
jewels, has had even profounder effects upon the march of exploration
and conquest and the formation of states.
Now, it must be remembered that though the Lewis and Clark expedition
was the first to cross our part of the continent and to give the world
any conception of the interior and its resources within the area
composing the western half of the United States, yet the coast line had
been known for many years, and the region around Hudson Bay and thence
northward to the Arctic Ocean and westward to the Pacific had also
been traversed some years earlier. Oregon had long been a lure to the
explorers and fur-hunters of all nations. There had taken shape before
the discoverers of the age of Columbus the conception of a Northwest
passage through the new continent to Asia. Strange to say, they did not
realize at first the surpassing importance of a new world, but thought
of it mainly as an impediment to the journey to the land of the "Great
Cham" and other supposed magnates of the Orient. Hence the vital thing
was to find a way through the intercepting land. Only eight years after
Columbus landed on San Salvador, the Portuguese, Gaspar Cortereal, had
announced that sailing westward from Labrador he had discovered the
connecting strait between the Atlantic and the waters that bordered
eastern Asia. Out of that supposed discovery the idea of the Strait of
Anian grew and for two centuries persisted in the minds of mariners. It
was while searching for Anian that Juan de Fuca, just a century after
the first landing of Columbus, entered that strait which now bears
his name. Along the western edge of California and Oregon during that
same century, the English flag was borne by the Golden Hind of Francis
Drake. Later Spanish explorers, Cabrillo and Ferrelo, and Vizcaino
and Aguilar, had made their way up the Oregon coast and there is some
reason to believe that the last-named had looked upon the mouth of the
Columbia. Following that earlier era of discovery, there was a long
interval. Spain, England, France, Holland, Austria, Germany, and Italy
were absorbed in the gigantic wars growing out of the Reformation, and
their ships almost entirely disappeared from the Pacific. But during
the latter part of the seventeenth century there was initiated that
vast movement in eastern Europe and northern Asia which shaped and
will yet more shape the policies and destinies of the world. Peter
the Great, one of the world figures, started to lead Russia out of
barbarism. Then was began that glacier-like movement of the "Colossus
of the North" toward the open waters of two continents which will no
doubt never end until the political world comes to a condition of
stable equilibrium. The successors of Peter pursued the same march for
warm water and open ports. A series of explorers made their way across
Siberia. In 1728 and 1741 Vitus Bering, one of the true "Vikings of
the Pacific," made his daring and significant voyages with the aim of
realizing Peter's great conception of the Russian acquisition of the
shores of the Pacific by sailing eastward from Asia to America. In
his last voyage, after having gone as far south as Oregon, and then
turned north along the Alaskan coast, the heroic Bering was cast upon
the desolate island which bears his name, and there in the cold and
darkness of the Arctic winter he died. His men found during that winter
that the sea-otters of the island had most beautiful furs, and they
clothed themselves with the skins of those animals. Returning in the
spring in rude boats constructed from the fragments of their wrecked
ship to Avatscha Bay, these survivors of Bering's voyage made known
to the world the possibilities of the use of these treasures of the
animal world. That was the beginning of the Russian fur-trade. A new
era in history was inaugurated. Within a few years an enterprising
Pole, Maurice de Benyowski, conveyed a cargo of furs from Kamchatka to
China. That country was then the great market for furs, and the success
of Benyowski's venture suggested to others the enormous possibilities
of the business. The great girdle of volcanic islands beginning a
little east of Kamtschatka and extending northeast and then southeast,
known now as the Aleutian Islands, and the Alaskan coast and thence
southward to Oregon and California, were found by Russians, Spaniards,
and English to abound in fur-bearing animals, of which the sea-otter
was most available immediately upon the coast, though it was soon known
that the beaver, the fox, and many others existed in great numbers
further inland.
In connection with the eager search along the coast some of the most
famous of all explorers steered their course. Among them was James
Cook, one of the most manly and intrepid of all that long line of
navigators who bore the Union Jack around the "Seven Seas." Cook's
great series of voyages, beginning in 1776 and lasting several years,
and extending through all parts of the Pacific, were designed primarily
as voyages of discovery. But while in Alaskan waters his men secured
many sea-otter furs. They did not fully realize their value until they
reached China some time later and saw the huge profit on furs in that
market. Now there was in Cook's service a certain very interesting
American sailor, John Ledyard. Ledyard was a genuine Yankee, keen,
inquisitive, and observing. He noted the possibilities of the fur-trade
in Oregon and Aleutian waters, and determined that as soon as he could
reach his own home country he would interest his countrymen in sending
their own ships upon the quest. That was just when the Revolutionary
war was in progress and several years elapsed before Ledyard was in
America. When there he lost no time in getting into communication
with leading Americans. Among others he greatly interested Thomas
Jefferson. Here then we have a most important chain of sequences. Cook,
Ledyard, Jefferson, English and American rivalries and counter aims
and claims on the Pacific coast of America--a whole nexus of related
events out of which the fabric of great history became woven. Within
a few years the race for possession of Oregon by sea was on. Earlier
than Cook, Heceta, the Spaniard, had sailed along the Oregon coast
and looked into the mouth of the Columbia. But after Cook came a long
line of Spanish explorers whose names appear upon our present day
maps, Bodega, Camano, Fidalgo, Galiano, Valdez, and many more. Then
came another group of Englishmen, Portlock, Dixon, Meares, Barclay,
Douglas, Colnett, and, most prominent of all, Vancouver. But to us,
more important than any other of the nations whose banners were carried
along the western coast, was the new republic, the United States of
America. The Stars and Stripes were flying on the Pacific. Robert Gray
in the Lady Washington, and John Kendrick in the Columbia Rediviva
had been placed in command of an expedition by certain enterprising
merchants of Boston in the very same year of the construction of the
American constitution. In 1788 they reached the coast of Oregon. That
was the initiation of the American fur-trade. Those were the great days
of that business. A ship would be fitted out with a cargo of trinkets
and tobacco and tools and blankets, and sail from Boston or New Bedford
or Marblehead or New York for its three years' round-up of the seas.
The Indians had not yet learned the value of furs. On one occasion
Gray secured for a chisel a quantity of furs worth $8,000. The cargo
of trinkets and tools and blankets out and the cargo of furs in, the
next stage of the voyage was from Oregon to Canton, in China, where
the cargo of furs was displaced by one of tea and nankeen and silk,
and then the ship would square away for her home port, a three-years'
round-up. The glory, the fascination, and also the danger of the sea
was in it. Fortunes were sometimes made in a single voyage--and also
sometimes lost. For ships and crews were sometimes lost by wreck
or savages or scurvy. Yet in spite of disasters the game was so
fascinating that during the period from 1790 to 1818 there were 108
American vessels, twenty-two English and several French and Portuguese
vessels regularly engaged in the business on the Oregon coast. Profits
were sometimes immense. Dixon, an English trader, says that during
the years 1786 and 1787 5,800 sea-otter skins were sold for $160,700.
Sturgis states that he knew a capital of $50,000 to yield a return of
$284,000.
The fur-trade on the coast was naturally first in the order of growth.
But exploration of the interior would naturally follow when the great
results of the sea-trade were known. Moreover, it most be remembered
that the fur-trade had been pursued with great assiduity and success
in Canada and even Louisiana long years before Gray and Vancouver
were contesting for the discovery of the "River of the West," or the
solution of the mystery of Juan de Fuca. As the Spaniards were the
first to try to grasp the treasure of precious stones and metals
in the New World, so the French were the pioneers in the attempted
exploitation of the treasure of the furs. Monopoly by kingly favor was
the chief method of driving out rivals and monopolizing advantages in
those days. An American railway or iron master has a feeble grip on the
bounty of a state or nation compared with the grip of a Seventeenth
Century royal favorite. Way back in the early part of that century,
Louis XIII and his minister, Richelieu, granted concessions to De
Monts, Pontgrave, Champlain, Radisson, Crozat, and others. Later, La
Salle, Joliet, Hennepin, D'Iberville, and still later the Verendryes
and many more had similar monopolies from Louis XIV and Louis XV.
The regions of the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi
were the fields of these great concessionaires. But England was not
inactive all that time. In the desperate rivalry of Gaul and Briton for
supremacy in America, the Fleur-de-lis was lowered before the Cross
of St. George and North America became British instead of French.
The fur-trade, one of the chief prizes of contest, fell to English
monopolists. Long before the final decision on the Plains of Abraham
when Montcalm fell before Wolf, Charles II had granted to Prince Rupert
a charter to the Hudson's Bay Company. That gigantic organization,
which later had so intimate a relation to Oregon, was established in
1670 with a capital of 10,500 pounds. Besides the vast enterprises
connected directly with the fur-trade, this company carried on many
great geographical expeditions. But this great monopoly could not, even
with all its privileges, entirely prevent rivalry. In 1783, the French
and Indian wars and the American Revolution now being past, a new
organization arose, destined to bear a vital part in northwest history.
This was the Northwestern Fur Company. One of its leading partners,
Alexander Mackenzie, discovered in 1789 the river which flows to the
Polar Sea and which fittingly bears his name. Four years later he made
even a more notable journey from the upper Athabasca waters across the
mountains and down the Pacific slope to a point on what was later known
as Cascade Inlet. There he proclaimed his journey by painting upon a
rock the inscription: "Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada by land, the
twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three."
That was only a year after Gray discovered the Columbia River and
Vancouver circumnavigated the island which bears his name.
Thus we see that from both sea and land the fur-traders were converging
upon Oregon. It was emerging from the mists of myth and romance into
the light of modern conditions. The rivalry between the Hudson's Bay
Company and the audacious Northwesters who had ventured to break into
their monopoly became keen and indeed sanguinary. Pitched battles were
fought and lives lost. The bold and aggressive Northwesters pushed to
the western side of the Rockies and in 1807 David Thompson, one of the
most admirable of all the early explorers of any of the rival nations
or companies, began to establish posts at various strategic points upon
Columbia waters. During several years beginning with 1807 he located
trading stations on Lake Windermere near the head of the river, on the
Spokane at the Junction with it of the Little Spokane, and on the Pend
d'Oreille and Coeur d'Alene lakes.
While the Northwesters were thus posting themselves at some of the
vantage points of Oregon, the Americans were not idle. The reader who
desires an extended view of the fascinating theme of the American
fur-trade should consult that foremost book on the subject by Gen. H.
M. Chittenden of Seattle, to which we here make our acknowledgments.
What was to become the American trade began indeed with Frenchmen and
Spaniards before the independence of the United States. In 1764 Pierre
Liguest and Auguste Chouteau founded St. Louis, which became the center
of all trading operations for many years. The Treaty of Paris of 1763
had as a matter of fact already delivered all the country west of the
Mississippi to Spain, but the Frenchmen did not yet know it. In 1800
the Louisiana Territory again became French, and three years later,
by a happy juxtaposition of statesmanship and good fortune, it passed
from French to American control. Then immediately followed, as already
narrated, the Lewis and Clark expedition with its momentous results.
After St. Louis became an American town the fur-trade was still largely
in the hands of French and Spanish traders established there during the
possession by their respective governments. Of these the most prominent
were Pierre Chouteau, Jr., a Frenchman, and Manuel Lisa, a Spaniard.
The first expedition to the Far West was that of Lisa in partnership
with William Morrison, an American of Illinois, and Pierre Menard, a
Frenchman, also living in Illinois. One interesting feature of this
expedition is that it occurred in the same year with the first of David
Thompson. Another is that on the way the party met John Colter who had
been one of the Lewis and Clark party, but on the return had decided
to stop in the wilderness to trap and explore. He was on his way to
the settlements, but was induced to return to the Rocky Mountains with
the party. In connection with Colter we may very properly digress a
little, for he was one of the typical adventurers of that period and
some of the events of his career in the wilderness cast a vivid light
upon the conditions of those times. Lisa proceeded with his party to
the mouth of the Bighorn River and there established a fort. Desiring
to notify the Indians of the arrival of the party, Lisa sent Colter
all alone on a journey of several hundred miles to the Crows on Wind
River and to the Blackfeet at the Three Forks of the Missouri. On this
journey Colter became an unwilling participant in a battle between
those two contending tribes. He was on the side of the Crows, and after
rendering efficient aid to his side in winning a victory, was severely
wounded in the leg. Nevertheless, nothing daunted, he set forth across
the ranges of towering, snowy peaks to reach Lisa's fort. He succeeded
in the solitary and desperate undertaking, and in the course of it
discovered Yellowstone Lake and the geyser region which now makes the
Yellowstone Park one of the wonders of the world. Returning to the
mountains, Colter was captured by the savage and cruel Blackfeet.
Wishing to have a little sport with their hapless victim, the Indians
stripped him and asked him if he was a fast runner. From his knowledge
of their customs he understood that he was to be put up in a race for
life against several hundred Indians. He gave them to understand that
he was a poor runner, though as a matter of fact he was very fast.
Accordingly they gave him several hundred yards start on the open
prairie with the Jefferson fork of the Missouri six miles distant. Away
he sped with the whole pack behind him like a band of wolves, with the
war-whoop ringing over the plain. With his naked feet torn and bleeding
from the cactus Colter soon outdistanced most of the pursuers, but half
way across the plain, glancing over his shoulder, he saw that one swift
Indian armed with a spear was gaining on him. With the violence of
Colter's exertions the blood was streaming from his nostrils down the
front of his body, and just as the Indian was almost within striking
distance Colter suddenly stopped and turned, a ghastly spectacle, with
extended arms. The Indian was so disconcerted with the unexpected
move that in endeavoring to wield his spear he lost his footing and
fell. Instantly picking up the spear Colter pinned his assailant to
the ground and on he went again toward the river. The foremost of the
pursuing Indians, finding their expiring comrade, paused long enough to
set up a hideous howl and then rushed on. But Colter, though almost
at the limit of his strength, drove himself on to the river ahead of
the band, and breaking through the copse of cottonwoods which skirted
the stream he plunged in. Just below was a small island against which
drift had lodged. Diving beneath the drift Colter managed to find a
crack between the trees where he might get his head in the air. There
he remained undiscovered all night while the savages were shrieking
around like so many devils. In the early morning he let loose from the
drift and floated and swam a long ways down the stream, and when day
fairly broke had got beyond the immediate vicinity of his enemies. But
in what a horrid plight! Stark naked, with no food and no weapons for
game, the soles of his feet pierced thick with the cruel spikes of the
cactus! Yet such is the endurance of some men that in seven days during
which his only subsistence was roots dug with his fingers, Colter made
his way to Lisa's fort. "Such was life in the Far-West." The story was
told by Colter to Bradbury, who narrated it in his book, "Travels in
North America." Irving used it in his "Astoria," and it also appears in
Chittenden's "American Fur-trade."
One of the partners of Lisa in the Missouri Fur Company, Andrew Henry,
in 1810 built a fort on the west side of the Great Divide on a stream
afterwards known as Henry's Fork, a branch of Snake River. It was near
the present Egin, Idaho, and was the first structure built by white men
upon Snake River or any of its tributaries.
We have given the extended narration thus far of fur-traders prior to
any actual entrance by any of them into the region treated in this
work, in order that the nature of the business and the manner in
which all parts of Oregon were involved might become clear. We now
bring upon the scene still another enterprise which came yet closer
to our own region. This was the Pacific Fur Company of John Jacob
Astor. This first of the great business promoters of our country
was born in Germany, and coming to New York in 1784 began his great
career as a fur merchant. Having made a fortune in the business almost
entirely by operations in Canada, Astor conceived the project of a
vast emporium upon the Columbia to which should converge the trade
in furs from all the region west of the Rocky Mountains and south of
the region definitely occupied by the Northwestern Fur Company. He
contemplated also a lucrative business with the Russians centered
around Sitka and Kodiak on the north, and the Spaniards on the south.
It was a noble enterprise and worthy of all success. It would have
had a most important bearing upon the progress of American enterprise
and settlement in Oregon and might have materially changed certain
chapters in history. That it failed of full accomplishment was due to
various untoward circumstances, of which the chief were: first, Astor's
own error of judgment in selecting the majority of his partners and
employees from Canadians and also selecting captains for his first two
ships who were not qualified for their important task; and second, the
War of 1812. It will be remembered that the Northwesters of Canada were
thoroughly located upon the Athabasca and had crossed the Divide and
as early as 1807 had built posts on the upper Columbia and Spokane and
on the lakes in what is now Northern Idaho. Astor no doubt anticipated
a strenuous contest with those bold, ambitious Canadians, but his own
highly successful enterprises thus far had been with Canadians and he
knew them well qualified. He reasoned that he could make it well worth
their while to be loyal to him and to the company to which he admitted
them. It is probable that all would have worked as he calculated had
not the war with Great Britain defeated all his well-laid plans.
The part of the great Astoria enterprise which more especially comes
within the scope of our story is that of the journey of the land party
across the Rocky Mountains and down the Snake and Columbia rivers,
and the subsequent establishment of forts and trading posts. The land
division was under Wilson Price Hunt of New Jersey, the partner second
in command to Astor himself. He was one of the comparatively few
Americans in the company and seems to have been a man of the highest
type, brave, humane, enterprising, and wholesouled, worthy of a place
at the head of those Jasons of the Nineteenth Century who sought
the golden fleeces of the Far-West. Both divisions got under way in
1810, the land division from Montreal in July, and the sea division
in September. The latter, however, reached the promised land of the
Columbia first, for after a tragic entrance of the mouth of the river,
the Tonquin with the party on board brought to in Baker's Bay on the
north side of the river on March 25th. Astoria was founded on April
12, 1811. A few months later, owing to the criminal obstinacy and bad
judgment of Captain Thorn, the Tonquin with all her crew but one (from
whom the story is derived) was captured by Indians and then blown up
at a place presumably Nootka Sound or near there on the west side of
Vancouver Island.
Hunt, with three other partners, McKenzie, Crooks, and Miller, after
having collected and fitted out a party of such miscellaneous material
as they could find at various places between Montreal and St. Louis,
left the latter place on October 21, 1810, and reaching a stream called
the Nadowa, near the present site of St. Joseph, Mo., stopped for the
winter. Resuming the long journey on April 21st of the next year, the
party reached the abandoned Fort Henry on October 8th. They were now on
the headwaters of Snake River. Down that wild stream they ran a losing
race with oncoming winter. For before they reached the present vicinity
of Huntington, Ore., the December snows fell thick upon them. McKenzie
and McLellan with seven of the strongest men went ahead of the main
party, and reaching the vicinity of the present Seven Devils country
made their way after twenty-one days of struggle and peril through
the great canyon of Snake River to its junction with the Clearwater,
the site of the present Lewiston and Clarkston. They had a clear idea
then of their location by a knowledge of the experiences of Lewis and
Clark. They were then within the area of our four counties of this
history and had no trouble in making their way, though in midwinter,
down the Snake, then at its lowest stage and not difficult to navigate,
to that most interesting spot, the junction of the Snake and Columbia.
Thus the advance party on this historic journey, the first of the
fur-traders, though later than the Lewis and Clark expedition, reached
the Columbia. With their canoes floating upon its broad waters they had
an easy and pleasant journey, after their former desperate straits, to
the rude stockade of Astoria, which they reached on January 18, 1812.
The main party had a more distressing time. After nearly starving and
freezing they turned toward the mountains from the present Huntington
and must have very nearly followed the course of the present railroad
from that point to the Grande Ronde. They were at just about the limit
of endurance when on December 30th, looking down from their snowy
elevation they saw far below them a sunny valley, looking to the
winter-wasted refugees like a vision of paradise. Thither hastening
they found several lodges of Indians who took pity on their forlorn
and destitute state and provided them with food and fuel. Irving gives
with his graphic pen a brilliant narration of the celebration of New
Year's day in this valley of salvation for this party. Rested and
recuperated by these few days in the Grande Ronde, they essayed their
last tussle with the mountains by scaling the snowy heights between
their resting place and the Umatilla. Reaching that warm and beautiful
valley they found that their deliverance was at hand, for there they
took a two-weeks' rest. On January 21st, having started again, they
beheld before them a blue flood nearly a mile wide hastening toward the
sunset, evidently the "Great River." Their journey afoot down the river
to the Cascades and thence in canoes to Astoria was a soft and gentle
exercise after the arduous struggles though the mountains.
[Illustration: PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDING, DIXIE]
Such was the inauguration of the Pacific Fur Company in this country.
While amid such suffering the Americans were endeavoring to launch
their great enterprise, the Northwesters were employing great energy
and skill in planting themselves upon the upper river. They, too,
looked for new fields to conquer. In July, 1811, the redoubtable David
Thompson appeared at Astoria expecting to file a claim on the lower
river for his company. He was too late by three months, for Astoria had
been founded in April. The Scotchmen of the Astoria Company fraternized
with their countryman, but to David Stuart, one of the American
partners, this was not pleasing. Hastening his preparations he hurried
on his journey up the river. At the mouth of Snake River he found a
British flag upon a pole and on it a paper claiming the country in the
name of Great Britain. It was obvious to Stuart that there would be a
contest between his company and the Northwesters. He wished to secure
certain strategic points as far inland as possible and accordingly he
pressed on up the Columbia to the mouth of the Okanogan, estimated
to be five hundred and forty miles above Astoria. There on September
2nd, Stuart planted the American flag and started the construction
of a post, the first American structure within the present State of
Washington.
Of the interesting and varied events in the Okanogan and Spokane
countries Alexander Ross and Ross Cox, clerks in the Astor Company,
have given the most complete data. These events, important as they
were, are outside the scope of our story. We will simply say that the
rivalry between the Astorians and the Northwesters came to a sudden
climax by the War of 1812. Misfortune dogged the course of the Astor
Company. Hunt had gone from Astoria to Sitka in the second ship from
New York, the Beaver, and had started a profitable business with the
Russians, but on the return to the Columbia, the captain of the Beaver,
finding his ship damaged by a storm, insisted on going to Honolulu,
though Hunt's presence was sorely needed at Astoria. At Honolulu Hunt
received the evil tidings of the wreck of the third ship, the Lark.
With the cargo of the Beaver conveyed to Canton, while Hunt was wasting
his vitally important time at Honolulu, the same timid captain, Sowles,
lost all the best chances of the market, both for selling his furs
and buying Canton goods. Thus the whole voyage was a failure. After
an intolerable delay, Hunt chartered a vessel with which he left the
Sandwich Islands and reached Astoria August 20, 1813. more than a year
from the time of his departure. But his return was too late. The Scotch
partners had sold the company out to the Northwesters.
Such was the untoward end of the vast undertaking of John Jacob Astor.
The Americans were down and out. The Britishers were in possession of
the fur territory of Oregon. By the Joint Occupation Treaty of 1818,
both English and Americans were privileged to carry on business in
Oregon, but the effect of the downfall of the Astor Company was to
place the country in the hands of the Northwesters. That company had
two great aims: first, to get rid of American rivalry; second, to
prevent the entrance of the Hudson's Bay Company. Having accomplished
the first purpose, they set about the second. The upshot of that was
the final coalescence of the two companies in 1821 with the name of
the Hudson's Bay Company, but with the members of the younger company
on equal terms, and as far as Oregon was concerned, with the advantage
of profit in the hands of the partners of that company. And now for
twenty-five years the Hudson's Bay Company, thus reorganized, lorded it
over Oregon.
During all the years from the time of the entrance of the Pacific Fur
Company through the struggle between it and the Northwesters and then
the united fortunes of the Northwesters and the Hudson's Bay Company
down to American ownership in 1846, Walla Walla and the rest of the
region which now composes the scene of our history were prominent in
the affairs of the fur-traders. Perhaps the most valuable narrative
by any of the Astor Company of entrance into the Walla Walla County,
is that by Alexander Ross, one of the clerks, in a book of which the
full title is, "Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or
Columbia River." In this narrative Ross tells of their first journey
into the interior, beginning July 22, 1811. Describing the passage
of the Cascades and the "Long Narrows" (The Dalles) and the Falls
(Celilo) he mentions a river which he calls the Lowhum (Des Chutes),
then the Day (John Day), then the Umatallow (Umatilla). He describes
here a "large mound or hill of considerable height," which from its
peculiar form they called Dumbarton Castle. This was doubtless the
curious rock just east of Umatilla, noticeable to all travellers by
steamer. Passing through the "colonnade rocks," the party soon found
themselves at a bluff where there "issues the meandering Walla Walla,
a beautiful little river, lined with weeping willows." Here they
found a great concourse of Indians, "Walla-Wallas, Shaw Haptens, and
Cajouses, altogether 1,500 souls." Some were armed with guns and some
with bows and arrows. Their chiefs rejoiced in the names of Tummatapam,
Quill-Quills-Tuck-a-Pesten, and Allowcatt. The plains were literally
covered with horses, of which there could not have been less than four
thousand in sight of the camp. Passing beyond the Walla Walla, the
party reached the junction of the two big rivers, noting the difference
in color of the two. Noting also the fine salmon fishing, where,
however, Ross observed that not so many salmon can be captured in a
day as on the Copper Mine River or in Kamtschatka. They soon reach the
Eyakema (Yakima), and here they note that the landscape at the mouth
of that river surpassed in picturesque beauty anything that they had
yet seen. They are surprised at being overtaken at that point by three
Walla Walla Indians on horseback who brought to them a bag of shot
which they had accidentally left at the preceding camp,--an evidence
of honesty similar to that experienced by Lewis and Clark among the
Walla Wallas. From the "Eyakema" this party proceeded up the river to
Okanogan, where, as already related, they built the first structure
erected by white men in the present State of Washington.
It gives some conception of the hardihood of the traders of that time
to note that Ross remained entirely alone at "Oakanacken," while the
rest of the party went northward 350 miles to find a new fur region.
During their absence of 188 days Ross secured from the Indians 1,550
beaver skins for 35 pounds, worth in Canton (China) market 2,250 pounds!
One of the most characteristic incidents of the life of that time
is found in an account given in the narratives of Cox, Ross, and
Franchére, about the Indian wife of Pierre Dorion, a hunter in one of
the parties which had been located in the Blue Mountains south of Walla
Walla. Following Franchére's account of this, it appears that while a
party of Northwesters of which he was one were on their way in 1814 up
the Columbia to cross the mountains into Canada, while they were in the
river near the mouth of the Walla Walla, they heard a child's voice
from a canoe call out: "Arretez donc, Arretez donc!" (Stop! Stop!) The
woman with her two boys were in an canoe trying to overtake the party.
Halting, they discovered that this pitiful little group were all that
remained of the trappers that had been located among the Snake Indians.
According to Madame Dorion's story, while they were engaged in trapping
in January, the trappers had been attacked one by one by the Indians
and all murdered. Securing two horses the brave woman mounted her boys
upon them and started for the Walla Walla. In the bitter cold they
could not proceed and having no other food, the woman killed the horses
and after spending the rest of the winter in the mountains made her way
with the children to the Walla Walla, where the Indians treated them
with kindness and placed them where they might find the boats of the
white men. Think of the endurance and faithfulness of the woman who
could win such a fight for life for her children.
Ross Cox gives an interesting account of his journey from Astoria to
Spokane in 1812. He too commends the "Wallah Wallah" Indians for their
honesty and humanity. He describes the immense numbers of rattlesnakes
around the mouth of the Wallah Wallah, and--a more pleasing theme the
appearance of the mountains which he says the Canadians called from
their color, "Les Montagnes Bleues." From what Cox says in this same
connection, it appears that the name Nez Perces was a translation into
French from the name Pierced-Nose, which had already been applied to
the Indians up Snake River by Lewis and Clark.
The most important event in this stage of the history was the founding
of Fort Walla Walla, at first called Fort Nez Perces. This was founded
in 1818 by Donald McKenzie. This efficient and ambitious man will be
remembered as one of Astor's partners, one who accompanied Hunt on his
great journey and had been one of the most active and influential in
the sale of Astoria to the Northwestern Company. Having been for ten
years prior to his connection with Astor a member of the Northwestern
Company, he felt more at home with it, and upon its establishment
in practical possession of the fur trade of Oregon. McKenzie became
one of its most faithful and useful managers. McKenzie seems to have
been opposed by his associates in his desire to establish a post on
the Walla Walla. But with a keen eye for strategic places and with
a sagacity and pertinacity unequalled by any of them, he forced all
to his views. Orders came from headquarters that he be allowed the
needful men and equipment, and in July, 1818, with ninety-five men
and our old friend Ross as his second in command, he set to work in
the construction of the fort at the point half a mile above the mouth
of the Walla Walla, long known in the annals of the Columbia during
both British and American possession. At that spot the foundation of
the fort may still be seen, and just abreast of it is the present
landing of the Wallula ferry. The structure consisted of a palisade of
timbers 30 inches wide, 6 inches thick, and 20 feet high. At the top
were loop-holes and slip-doors. Two bastions and water tanks holding
200 gallons still further guarded against both attack from Indians and
danger of fire. The enclosure was 100 feet square, and within it were
houses built of drift logs, though there was one of stone. Subsequently
adobe buildings were added, and some of those remained in some degree
of preservation till the great flood of 1894.
From Fort Walla Walla, as it came to be known within a few years,
McKenzie carried on a great and profitable trade to the Snake country
and the Blue Mountains. At one of his encampments while having a force
of only three men, and with a very valuable stock of furs and goods, a
crowd of piratical Indians tried to rush the ramp and plunder the whole
establishment. McKenzie with his usual nerve seized a match and holding
it over a keg of powder declared that if they did not immediately
clear out, he would blow them all up. They cleared out and left him
in possession. It is said that Archibald McKinley performed a similar
exploit at Walla Walla.
Many interesting things could be told of this historic fort. Gardens
were started, cattle brought to feed on the meadow land of the Walla
Walla, and by the time that the missionaries and immigrants began to
come in the '30s and '40s the lower Walla Walla bore a homelike and
civilized appearance. Other pasture and garden regions were added,
one of the most extensive being that now known as Hudson's Bay, the
location of the "Goodman Ranch," about fifteen miles southwest of the
present City of Walla Walla.
Our limits forbid space for all the other fur enterprises and companies
aside from the two important companies already described. There were,
however, three Americans who come within the range of our story
whose careers were so interesting and important that we cannot omit
mention of them. These were Jedadiah Smith, Nathaniel Wyeth and B.
L. E. Bonneville. The first named was a member of the Rocky Mountain
Fur Company, of which W. H. Ashley was founder. The main operations
of the company were on the Upper Missouri, Green River, and around
Great Salt Lake. Smith, however, made several remarkable journeys far
beyond the earlier range. He was a very unique character, a devout
Christian and yet one of the boldest of traders and discoverers. He
might be said to have carried the Bible in one hand and his rifle in
the other. He usually began the day with devotions and expected his
men to be present. Yet he pushed his business and discoveries to the
limit. His first great trip was in 1826. He proceeded from Great Salt
Lake to the Colorado, thence across Arizona and Southern California,
to San Diego, a route unknown to whites before. After going up and
down California hundreds of miles he crossed the mountains and deserts
eastward the next summer, following a more northern route abounding in
perils and hardships. In 1827 the journey to California was repeated
almost immediately upon his return from the first. In the spring and
summer of 1828, he struck out on an entirely new course. This was up
the Sacramento and northwesterly across the lofty ranges of Southern
Oregon to the Umpqua on the Oregon Coast. There, with his nineteen
men he did successful trapping, but a difficulty with the Indians
resulted in the massacre of the whole party except himself and three
others. Those three being separated from the leader, he made his way
in utter destitution and with great suffering to the Hudson's Bay Fort
at Vancouver. Dr. John McLoughlin, the chief factor, with his usual
generosity supplied the survivors of this disaster with their vital
necessities and sent a well-armed party to secure the valuable furs
of which the Umpquas had robbed them. Most of the furs were brought
to Vancouver and McLoughlin paid Smith $20,000 for them. Remaining in
Vancouver till March, 1829, Smith made his way up the Columbia to the
Flathead country and thence along the Rocky Mountains to the Teton
range on the Upper Snake River. This vast series of routes by Jedadiah
Smith through Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, California, Oregon,
Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado, was the most extensive that
had yet been taken and did more than any other to give a comprehensive
view of what became the west third of the United States. In 1831,
lamentable to relate, this truly heroic and enterprising master trapper
was killed by Comanche Indians on the Cimarron desert.
Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth and Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville were
practically contemporary, and in their adventurous careers crossed
each other's trails. Wyeth was born at Cambridge, Mass., and from
the traditions of the family should have been a graduate of Harvard
College. He was, however, so eager to enter some active career that
he did not complete a college course. He became quite fascinated with
the utopian ideas about Oregon given to the world by Hall J. Kelley,
and in 1832 he started upon a grand enterprise toward the setting
sun. He had conceived a general plan of a vast emporium of American
business in furs and salmon, similar to that of Astor. With an ardent
imagination and yet great practical good sense, Wyeth had the material
for an empire builder. That he failed to fulfil his grand design was
due partly to sheer bad luck, but mainly to the invincible monopoly of
the Hudson's Bay Company. The work of Wyeth was, however, an essential
link in the great chain which finally led to American ownership of
Oregon. The first trip of Wyeth was in 1832. He crossed the mountains
in company with Sublette, a noted trapper of the Rocky Mountain
Company, and after some disasters with the Indians, he traversed the
Blue Mountains and reached Fort Walla Walla (the present Wallula) in
October. Pierre Pambrun was the Hudson's Bay Company's agent at Walla
Walla and he received the destitute and nearly famished Americans with
lavish hospitality. After recuperating a few days at Walla Walla,
Wyeth descended the Columbia, with unabated enthusiasm, expecting to
find the ship which had left Boston in the spring, well laden with
stores already waiting his arrival. But alas for human hopes! When he
reached Fort Vancouver he learned that his vessel had been wrecked.
His men had already suffered much and lost faith in the lucky star
of their employer and asked to be relieved from further service. He
was compelled perforce to grant their request, for he had no money.
Spending the winter in and around Vancouver, treated by McLoughlin with
utmost kindness, and acquiring much knowledge and experience, but no
money, the indomitable Yankee determined to return and raise another
fund and challenge fate and his rivals again. February, 1833, found him
again at Walla Walla. Thence he pursued a devious course to Spokane
and Colville, across the Divide, down the mountains to the Tetons on
the Upper Snake, where he fell in with Bonneville. First planning to
go with Bonneville to California, Wyeth suddenly decided to return to
Boston and make ready for an immediate new expedition to Oregon. He
made an extraordinary voyage down the Bighorn and finally down the
Missouri to St. Louis in a "bull-boat." Safely reaching Boston in
November, he brought all his contagious enthusiasm to bear on certain
moneyed men with the result that he organized a new company known as
the Columbia River Fishing and Trading Company. A new vessel, the May
Dacre, was outfitted for the voyage around Cape Horn to Oregon.
Again with new men and equipment and with such experience from his
former journey as made success seem sure, Wyeth started on his new
expedition from St. Louis on April 3, 1834. One interesting feature of
this journey was that two conspicuous scientists, Thomas Nuttall and J.
K. Townsend, and the advance guard of the missionaries, Jason Lee and
party of the Methodist Church, accompanied the party. But even though
better equipped than before and though seemingly having the sanction of
both Science and the Church to bless his aims, the same old ill-fortune
seemed to travel with him. He had brought, under a contract made on his
return the year before, a valuable stock of goods for the Sublettes
of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and now when on reaching their
rendezvous he made ready to deliver the goods brought with on much toil
and expense, the Sublettes refused to receive them. Their company was,
in fact, at the point of dissolution. Though Wyeth had the forfeit
money that they had put up with the contract, that was small recompense
for his labor of transportation. But nothing daunted, the stout-hearted
promoter declared to the Sublettes, "I will roll a stone into your
garden which you will never be able to get out." In fulfillment of his
threat he prepared to invade their territory by building a fort in
which to store the rejected goods and from which to send his trappers
to all parts of the upper Snake. The fort thus established was the
famous Fort Hall, the most notable fort on the whole route, in the near
vicinity of the present Pocatello. In spite of delays, the party seems
to have travelled with unparalleled celerity, for leaving Fort Hall
they reached the Grande Ronde on August 31st, a date at which previous
parties had hardly reached the head of Snake River. In the Grande Ronde
the party again encountered Bonneville. Three days more saw them at
Walla Walla, and on September 2d, Wyeth was once more at Vancouver.
Here came misfortune number two. He had expected to find the May Dacre
already in the river with a good haul of salmon which they planned to
salt and take east on the return trip. But the vessel reached Vancouver
the next day after Wyeth's own arrival, too late for any effective
fishing that year. She had been struck by lightning and had lost three
months' time in repairs. With indefatigable energy, Wyeth inaugurated
his plans. He sent a detail of men to Fort Hall with supplies. He
conducted an extensive trapping expedition to Central Oregon up the
Des Chutes River. He built Fort William on Sauvie's Island. If anyone
ever deserved success, Wyeth did. But Doctor McLoughlin, though the
kindest of men and though personally wishing every success to Wyeth,
could not forget that he was responsible to the Hudson's Bay Company.
He underbid Wyeth for the Indian trade and headed him off at every turn
in opening new regions. Nothing but a purse as long as that of the
Hudson's Bay Company's could have stood the pressure. Worst of all, a
pestilence broke out among the Indians from which they died like flies
and from which some of Wyeth's own men perished. The Indians attributed
the scourge to the evil "Tomanowas" of the "Bostons" and absolutely
boycotted them. The brave fight was lost. Bad luck and the Hudson's Bay
Company were too much for this all-deserving Yankee. Wyeth threw up his
hands, sold out to the Hudson's Bay Company for what they would give,
yielding to them possession of his cherished Fort Hall, which became
one of their most advantageous posts, and made his way, baffled but by
no means disheartened, to his New England home. With his downfall it
became clear that no ordinary force could dispossess the great British
Company from its vantage ground in Oregon.
[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF MRS. AUGUSTA WARD REES, ON BIRCH STREET,
WALLA WALLA]
But meanwhile Bonneville was upholding the Stars and Stripes as
valorously, but not more successfully than Wyeth. Bonneville was
a Frenchman who came to New York in his youth, and who had most
influential friends, and had also the extreme good fortune of
attracting the favorable notice of Washington Irving and becoming the
hero of one of the most fascinating books of that leading American
writer, "Bonneville's Adventures." Through this introduction to the
reading public, greedy in those days for tales of the romance and
adventure of the Far-West, Bonneville acquired a fame and vogue and
became invested with a certain glamour beyond that of any of the
fur-traders of Old Oregon. By the favor and influence of Thomas Paine,
Bonneville became a West Point appointee and graduated in 1819. When La
Fayette came to America in 1825 Bonneville was detailed to accompany
the "Hero of Two Continents" on his tour of the States. Greatly pleased
with his young compatriot, La Fayette took him back to France on his
return, and for several years the young French-American was a member
of the household of that great man. Returning to the land of his
adoption and resuming his army connections, Bonneville became absorbed
with the idea that he might gratify both his love of adventure and of
money by entering the fur trade in the Far West. Securing from the
War Department an appointment as a special explorer of new lands,
and investigator of the Indian tribes, he was also allowed to make a
personal venture in the fur trade.
H. H. Bancroft in his "Pacific Coast History" viciously attacks
Bonneville as well as Irving who immortalized him. General Chittenden
in his "History of the American Fur Trade in the Far-West" defends both
in a very spirited and successful manner.
The series of expeditions undertaken by Bonneville extended over the
years 1832-5. Those years were replete with adventure, hardship,
romance of a sort, but very little success in the quest of furs. In
the course of those years the adventurous army officer traversed and
retraversed the country covered by the water-sheds of the Snake River
and its tributaries, Green River and the Colorado, the Great Salt Lake
Basin, and down the Columbia. One of the most valuable journeys of
his party was through the Humboldt Basin, across the Sierras and into
California, a new route somewhat similar to the earlier one of Jedadiah
Smith. That, however, was commanded not by Bonneville himself, but by
I. R. Walker, Bonneville's most valued assistant. The most interesting
part of Bonneville's expedition to the inhabitants of Old Walla Walla
County was his winter trip from the Grande Ronde to the "Wayleway"
(Wallowa), down the Snake to the present vicinity of Asotin, thence
across the prairies of what is now Garfield and Columbia counties,
to Walla Walla. He describes that region as one of rare beauty and
apparent fertility and predicts that it will sometime be the scene
of high cultivation and settlement. Reaching Fort Walla Walla, he
was received by Pierre Pambrun with the same courtesy which that
commandant had bestowed on Wyeth, but when he tried to secure supplies
for his depleted equipment, Pambrun assured him that he would have to
draw the line at anything which would foster the American fur-trade.
Like Wyeth, Bonneville discovered to his sorrow and cost that he was
"up against" an immovable wall of monopoly of the hugest and most
inflexible aggregation of capital in the western hemisphere. He could
not compete at Walla Walla. Descending the Columbia River he found the
same iron barrier of monopoly. He too threw up his hands. The American
fur-traders were at the end of their string. They retired and left the
great monopoly in undisputed possession.
Thus ends, in American defeat, this first combat for possession of
Oregon. Another combat and another champion for the Americans was due.
Exit the trapper. Enter the missionary. Another chapter--and we shall
see what the new actor could do and did do on the grand stage of Oregon
history.
CHAPTER V
THE MISSIONARY PERIOD
In the preceding chapter we learned that the various attempts of
American trappers and fur companies to control the fur trade of
Oregon failed. The Hudson's Bay Company was too firmly entrenched in
its vast domain to be loosened by any business of its own kind. Nor
would there have been any special advantage to the United States or
the world in dislodging the great British company and substituting an
American enterprise of the same sort. The aims and policy of all fur
companies were the same: i. e., to keep the country a wilderness, to
trade with the natives and derive a fortune from the lavish bounty
of wild animal life. The Hudson's Bay Company was as good as any
enterprise of its type could be. The unfortunate fact was not so much
that it was the British who were skimming the cream of the wilderness,
as that the regime of any fur company was necessarily antagonistic to
that incoming tide of settlers who would bring with them the home,
the shop, the road, the church, the school, in short, civilization.
Hence the necessary policy of the great fur company was to discourage
immigration, or, in fact, any form of enterprise which would utilize
the latent agricultural, pastoral, and manufacturing resources of
Oregon. This policy existed, in spite of the fact (of which we shall
see many illustrations later) that individual managers and officers
of the company were often of broad and benevolent character and
predisposed to extending a cordial welcome to the advance guard of
American immigration. A few stray Americans had drifted to Oregon and
California with the hope of inaugurating enterprises that would lead to
American occupation. In general, however, the land beyond the Rockies
was as dark a continent as Africa.
But in 1832 a strange and interesting event occurred which unlocked
the gates of the western wilderness and led in a train of conditions
which made American settlement and ownership a logical result. In
1832 a party of four Indians from the Far West appeared at St. Louis
on a strange quest--seeking the "White Man's Book of Life." Efforts
have been made by certain recent writers to belittle or discredit
this event, for no very apparent reason unless it be that general
disposition of some of the so-called critical school of investigators
to spoil anything that appeals to the gentler or nobler emotions, and
especially to appose the idea that men are susceptible to any motives
of religion or human sympathy or any other spirit than the mercenary
and materialistic. But there can be no question about the journey of
these four Indians, nor can there be any reasonable doubt that their
aim was to secure religious instruction for their people. The details
of the journey and the nature of the expectations of the tribe and of
the envoys might of course be variously understood and stated, but the
general statements given by reliable contemporary authorities are not
open to doubt.
To what tribe the Indians belonged seems uncertain. It has been stated
by some that they were Flatheads and that tribe, though quite widely
dispersed, had their principal habitat in what is now Northern Idaho
and Northwestern Montana. Miss Kate McBeth, for many years a missionary
to the Nez Percé Indians, and located at Kamiah and then at Lapwai,
near Lewiston, thought that three of the Indians were Nez Perces and
one a Flathead. Nor is it known how those Indians got the notion of a
"Book of Life." Bonneville states in his journal that Pierre Pambrun,
the agent at Fort Walla Walla, taught the Indians the rudiments of
Catholic worship. Some have conjectured that the American trapper,
Jedadiah Smith, a devout Christian, may have imparted religious
instruction. Miss McBeth formed the impression that their chief hope
was that they might find Lewis and Clark, whose journey in 1805-6 had
produced a profound effect on the Nez Perces. It is interesting to
note that Clark was at the very time of this visit of the Indians the
superintendent of Indian affairs at St. Louis. He has left no statement
as to the location of these Indians, though he referred to the fact
of their visit to several passers who have recorded his statements.
The first published account of this visit appeared in the _New York
Christian Advocate_, of March 1, 1833. This was in the form of a letter
from G. P. Disoway, who had charge of the removal of certain Indians
to a reservation west of St. Louis. In his letter Disoway enclosed one
from William Walker, an interpreter for the Wyandotte Indians. Walker
had met the four Indians in General Clark's office in St. Louis. He was
impressed with their appearance, and learned that General Clark had
given them some account of the origin and history of man, of the coming
of the Savior, and of his work for the salvation of men. According to
Walker, two of the Indians died in St. Louis. As to whether the others
reached their home he did not know.
Walker's account was confirmed in a most valuable way by George Catlin,
the noted painter and student of Indian life. He was making a journey
up the Missouri River on one of the first steamers to ascend that
stream to Fort Benton. In the Smithsonian Report for 1885 can be found
Catlin's account, as follows: "These two men, when I painted them, were
in beautiful Sioux dresses which had been presented to them in a talk
with the Sioux, who treated them very kindly, while passing through the
Sioux country. These two men were part of a delegation that came across
the mountains to St. Louis a few years since, to inquire for the truth
of the representations which they said some white men had made among
them, that our religion was better than theirs, and that they would all
be lost if they did not embrace it. Two old and venerable men of this
party died in St. Louis, and I travelled 2,000 miles, companion with
these two fellows, toward their own country, and became much pleased
with their manners and dispositions. When I first heard the objects
of their extraordinary
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