CHAPTER III.
Our First Winter and Summer in Oregon.
The absorbing thought of this winter was keeping up the food supply. The men were out at work in all kinds of weather, not for money, but for food. Father built a ferry boat for A. Beers or James O'Neil. He first caulked the openings between the planks in the bottom of the boat, and then poured in hot pitch. As it was a large boat he used a bushel or two of literature he found in the old house. Tracts and other pamphlets that had been left there by the missionaries were forced into the cracks with a chisel and hammer.
For building the boat father took his pay in provisions; pork and peas constituted the greater part of these provisions. The French settlers seem to have grown peas extensively. I remember wading around in a large bin of peas for an hour or more while we were in camp at Champoeg. These peas were white and very hard. The Indians were very partial to peas, or lepwah, as they called them. They used them for making soup which was called liplip.
I believe there were no dry goods or clothing stores nearer than Fort Vancouver. There was no place where shoes could be gotten. The older people wore buckskin moccasins purchased from the Indians, while the young people went barefooted. Fortunately this proved to he a warm winter, but wet, as a Willamette winter usually is.
I had already learned a number of Indian proper names. We saw Indians on the Columbia River who said they were Spokane. Others said they were Waskopum, Walla Wallas, Kince-Chinook, Klackamas, Klickitat and Chemomachot. After we had settled in the valley we had visitors from the tribes living on the Columbia. When asked where they came from, or where they lived, the answer would he "Katchutehut." I could speak those names just as they were spoken by the Indians, but it is difficult to tell the reader how they should be pronounced. We learned to speak the Chinook [1]Wa-Wa that winter. The mission children spoke it as habitually as they did their mother tongue. We talked Chinook every day with the Indians and half-bloods. There was one Indian who spoke both English and Chinook. He had a droll way of speaking in Chinook and then in English. He would say, "Nika tik-eh chuck," "I want water." "Nika hyas olo," "I am very hungry." "Potlatch tenas piah sap-po-lil," "Give a little bread," and so on. But we could not have had a better teacher than this waggish Indian. There were a few missionaries and Canadian families in the neighborhood. There was a school kept during the winter near where we lived. The children of the three Applegate families, with the French and mission children, made up a school of about twenty-five pupils. No Indian children attended this school. A pious young man, Andrew Smith by name, presided over this religious training school. As soon as a child could spell out words, however indifferently, he or she was required to read religious tracts, which were intended to make the child realize it was wicked and in danger of punishment. These tracts were alarming, more alarming and most alarming. They were our first, second and third readers. Occasionally our teacher would select a tract containing a choice lesson and read aloud to the school. One evening he read one that alarmed me greatly. I can recall the substance of it, which was as follows. There was a little boy whom his parents had never taught to pray to the Lord before retiring to rest at night. He did not know how to ask the Lord to forgive his sins and protect him from the evil one whilst he slept. One night he went to bed and fell asleep. He never awoke and was lost. I was a very small boy and that evening, after I retired I was thinking of the lost boy. It seemed plain that I was in as much danger as he. The chances would surely be against me should I fall asleep. The thought of awakening and finding myself in the "bad place" kept me from sleeping. After suffering for an hour or two from this conflict between drowsiness and fear, I got out of bed and sat down on the hearth of the old fireplace. I scraped together a few live coals from the ashes, intending to sit there until I could make up my mind what to do. My mother's bed was in the same room. She had been watching me all the while and now asked me if I were ill. I denied being sick and told her why I could not sleep. I do not remember her words, but the substance of her speech was this: that I was a good boy and there was no reason why I should be frightened; that I had done nothing to be punished for, only the wicked were punished. She told me to go to bed and think no more about it. I had confidence in mother; besides, what she said was common sense. I went to bed and to sleep immediately.
There were about twenty-five persons, men, women, and children, living in the three cabins. The three Applegate families, and three or four young men who came out with them as help. The wagons, teams and all the cattle and horses had been left at Fort Walla Walla. Much of the furniture, cooking utensils and bedding had been lost in the disaster on the Columbia River. The families had reached the place where they were to pass the winter almost destitute of furnishing goods or food supplies and without visible means of support. I am not prepared to say how nearly destitute they were, but I remember that mother did her baking all that winter on a skillet lid found in the house.
There was in the neighborhood a small settlement of French Canadians, trappers and mountain men, who had consorted with native women and become ranchers. They had cleared small farms and were growing grain and vegetables. They had horses, hogs, and chickens, and, being kindly disposed toward the emigrants, assisted them, through barter and otherwise, to provide subsistence; that is, the food sufficient to live upon, for luxuries were not thought of. The conditions were hard, and but for the unflinching perseverance of those upon whom the burden fell, there must, of necessity, have been many days of fasting.
We found a tribe of Kalapooyas living along the river at this place. They were not numerous. There were a few families of them living in miserable hovels near us, and down the river, less than a quarter of a mile, was a small village. There were a few huts at other places. But little skill was made manifest in the design or construction of their houses. These Indians were poor in every sense of the word. A few miserable ponies were all the live stock they had—save vermin and fleas. They were spiritless and sickly and seemed to be satisfied with a miserable existence. Many died that winter, and the hideous wail of the mourners, as they conducted the funeral services, was heard almost daily. If any effort had been made to civilize or Christianize this tribe, there was no evidence of it. That they could hardly have been more wretchedly housed, poorer in property, more degraded morally or more afflicted mentally with demonology, was plainly to be seen.
When speaking of live stock, I forgot to mention the dogs with which these Indians were abundantly supplied. A canine adjunct to the family, of cayote descent, lean, lank, and cadaverous, they were neither useful nor ornamental. These people needed no watch dogs, for the squalid and forbidding appearance of their hovels and the noxious fumes floating from them were a sufficient protection.
One evening in the early winter, while we were eating our frugal supper, a great commotion was heard in the direction of the Indian village; loud talking, screams of women and barking of dogs. Then we heard the war whoop and the 'report of a gun. But before any one had time to make a remark, the face of an Indian appeared at a small window back of the table where we were eating. When he saw we had discovered him he shouted "Billy, Molalla," "Billy, Molalla," and immediately disappeared. Billy Doke was a young man who made his home with us that winter. The Indian, who was from the village down the river, had learned his name and had rushed to warn us to prepare to defend ourselves from hostile Indians, the Molallas. All the light we had was furnished by the feeble flame of a twisted rag immersed in a puddle of grease in an old tin plate. This flame was snuffed out instantly, the doors and windows fastened, and preparations made for defense. There were five men to defend the house, and being pioneers, were ready to do battle.
The women and children went to the loft, where the children were put to bed on blankets and quilts spread on the floor. Efforts were made to put the little ones to sleep and to keep them quiet. One child, I distinctly remember, was hard to pacify and caused much anxiety. Some of the men kept watch below. Very few words were spoken, but I heard enough to know that the pioneers were not afraid to fight, but were afraid the Indians would set fire to the house. I must have fallen asleep as soon as the fretful child was quiet, for I can recall nothing more of that night. Shortly after sun-up next day the Kalapooyas prepared to follow the Molalla raiders, who had taken a number of ponies. About twenty warriors made up the party. I saw them march away in pursuit of the [2]"Mesahche Molallas." War paint was smeared on their faces, and some had tied cords and red bandages around their heads from which feathers of many kinds and colors waved and fluttered in the morning breeze. Feathers also decorated the manes and tails of their ponies.
I had seen a great army of the Sioux on the war path against the Blackfeet when we crossed the Dakota plains on our way west the summer before, and I did not think very highly of this war party of Kalapooyas. They returned that same day, having no scalps to show us. They failed to overtake the raiders. A few days after the raid mentioned we heard of a fight at Tum-Chuck in which a Molalla was killed. A white man by the name of Lebreton was shot in the arm with a poisoned arrow and died of the wound. A number of others were struck by arrows but not seriously wounded. We decided that the same Indians made the attack at both places. The stream which flows into the Willamette River a short distance above Oregon City is now known as the "Molalla." In those days all the country round about the Molalla River and its branches, even to the great white mountain eastward, and far south of it, was the land of the Molallas.
I have said our first winter was mild. I can recall but one snow storm and this snow disappeared in a few hours. There was ice on a few mornings, but it was no thicker than window glass. I might have forgotten that little snow storm, had it not been necessary for me to gather sticks and chips for fuel; picking them out of the snow made my hands ache, and when I went to the fire to warm them the agony brought the tears to my eyes. We had no team nor wagon and could not borrow. The home of the man who lived on the mission farm was less than half a mile from our place. This man refused to let father use his yoke of oxen to haul a load of wood. He said he would not allow strangers to use them, as they might be spoiled.
I went to school all that winter. We children followed a foot path through wild shrubbery higher than our heads. After a rain we were well sprinkled from the wet bushes, and often arrived at the school house thoroughly soaked. The school room being a cold and cheerless place, we considered ourselves fortunate if we were dry by noon. I can remember no play time, no games, not even tag. The last school day I recall must have been near the close of the term, for I went from the old well near the school house door to the fence on the mission farm and saw that the wheat was as high as the fence.
Our people harvested on the mission farm, using sickles and scythes to cut the grain, which was afterwards bound into bundles or sheaves. My work was to stack the sheaves into shocks. A vine known as the ground blackberry had grown with the grain. When they cut the grain they failed to separate it from the vines, which were bent and twisted into loops all through the stubble, and were also in and around the bunches of bound up wheat and oats. My poor, bare feet had to wander in thorny paths and the scratches on my hands made me forget that I was tired and hungry. Sometimes I would find a sheaf securely bound to the earth by vines; in that case I had to pull the vines out of the ground before I could get the sheaf. By harvesting this crop our people supplied themselves with grain to take to the new settlement. The wheat was the red bearded variety.
Many families arrived in the Willamette Valley in November and December, and located in different parts of the country. The Waldoes, Kaisers, Looneys, and others went up the river and settled on the Waldo Hills, Chemeketa and valleys of the Santiam. The Millicans, Bakers, Holmans, Hembres, Hesses, Birds and others crossed the river and established settlements in the rich valleys of the north and south Yamhill.
When our families had been established in winter quarters in the deserted mission houses, the country west of the river was explored, and places for settlement selected on a stream called Salt Creek, at the eastern base of the Coast range. In December Uncle Jesse Applegate established himself there in a shanty or hut. Here he, with one or two young men, resided during the winter, making improvements and preparing a home for his family. The settlement in Salt Creek Valley was about three miles north of where the city of Dallas, Polk County, now is. The three Applegate brothers located on three adjoining sections, since known on the township map as the donation claims of James Frederick, A. H. Whitley and George Brown.
When our families started west again, we crossed the river in the ferry boat which father built during the winter. Taking a southerly course between the hills and the river to Salt Creek Valley, then west through a low gap in the range of hills six miles north of The Mill, now the city of Salem, we traveled west about nine miles and kindled our last camp fire on the bank of a branch of Salt Creek under the brow of the Coast Mountain range. In order to make this move, a team had been hired or borrowed. There may have been more than one team, although I can recall but one. This was the beginning of the first road in Polk County. The road was laid out before there was a county. It was difficult to break a road through the prairie on account of the luxuriant grass. Wild game was not scarce, for that afternoon some of the young men killed a deer and a bear and the two carcasses hung on a tree in our camp that night. No other camp scene of pioneer days is so deeply impressed upon my mind as that of that evening, our first night in our new home.
Our camp was in a grove of large oak trees. The three camp fires were close together and lighted the avenues between the trees up to a dark canopy of leaves overhead. We children playd games in the grove early in the evening. One game I remember was "Miley-Bright." We chose sides and then one party called out, "How many miles to Miley-Bright?" The answer came from the other side, "Three score and ten." Then the question, "Can I get there by candle light?" and the answer, "Yes, if your legs are long and your body light, but look out for the witches on the way." Then away we would all go as fast as we could run, on our way to "MileyBright." We were all around the camp fires when bed time came, when a sound of mighty wings was heard and an awful voice came from overhead saying, "Chuchonnyhoof-ouf! ouf! ouf!" Again came that awful voice crying, "Who! Who! Who are you?" The three younger children, trembling with fear, clung to mother's skirts, but she laughed and told us it was only an owl. That is what I believed, too, until I had become learned in the religion of the [3]Kommema and was told all about the great Kalapooya goblin, Chuchounyhoof.
Our second camp scene in the grove of oaks was brilliant while it lasted. Uncle Jesse Applegate's hut was covered with fir houghs which had become very dry. In the evenings it was his custom to read and write by the light of pitch splinters, a substitute for candles. While so engaged, quite late one evening, the volume of flame suddenly increased, the tongue of fire shot up and instantly the roof of boughs caught fire, with an explosion like gunpowder. All the upper part of the shanty burned away before the fire could be checked. I doubt if Uncle Jesse considered this sudden combustion of the roof of his "study" as a capital joke, but I heard laughter in the grove after the illumination.
The native population in our neighborhood was a tribe of the Kalapooya and near and far, even to the sea, were the Tillamook, Tawalatin, Chemeketa, and Luckyuke [4]tilikum, all seeming to be one tribe and speaking the same language. They were a degenerate and priest-ridden people, but their language was remarkably smooth and musical. It was a custom of these Indians, late in the autumn, after the wild wheat, [5]Lamoro sappolil, was fairly ripe, to burn off the whole country. The grass would burn away and leave the sappolil standing, with the pods well dried and bursting. Then the squaws, both young and old, would go with their baskets and bats and gather in the grain. The lamoro sappolil we now know as tar-weed.
It is probable we did not yet know that the Indians were wont to baptise the whole country with fire at the close of every summer; but very soon we were to learn our first lesson. This season the fire was started somewhere on the south Yamhill, and came sweeping up through the Salt Creek gap. The sea breeze being quite strong that evening, the flames leaped over the creek and came down upon us like an army with banners. All our skill and perseverance were required to save our camp. The flames swept by on both sides of the grove; then quickly closing ranks, made a clean sweep of all the country south and east of us. As the shades of night deepened, long lines of flame and smoke could he seen retreating before the breeze across the hills and valleys. The Indians continued to burn the grass every season, until the country was somewhat settled up and the whites prevented them; hut every fall, for a number of years, we were treated to the same grand display of fireworks. On dark nights the sheets of flame and tongues of fire and lurid clouds of smoke made a picture both awful and sublime.
In the summer of 1844, the cattle, horses and wagons left at old Fort Walla Walla were sent for and the remnants arrived at the settlement late in the fall. A part of the cattle were not found. A few it was supposed, had been appropriated by the Indians. Probably fifty head reached the settlement, a majority of which belonged to Jesse Applegate. What was recovered of the wagons I don't know, except that of the three left by Lindsay Applegate only four wheels were found and brought down, and they were all hind wheels. Those wheels were used to make two carts.
Wagons were made wholly of wood. The wheels were without hub, spoke, or felloe; they were simply short sections of large trees, three or four feet in diameter, sawed off and holes made in the center for the axles. This wagon was called a truck, a very clumsy affair, which without a load, a small yoke of oxen could not draw with ease even on level ground. The friction on the spindles in the wheels, though they were well tarred, was such that, even with a load of rails requiring three yoke of oxen to draw them, the truck did not need any brake going down a steep hill. Under a heavy moving load, the spindles, if not abundantly tarred, would send forth a fearful scream with variations that could he heard for miles. One evening after dark we heard loud screaming or yelling a mile and a half away across the prairie, and presently a fire was seen to start up like a flash. Some one said it must be a band of Indians on the war path, whooping, and firing the grass, for it was autumn and the grass was dry. The facts were, as we learned next day, that Uncle Charlie's truck heavily loaded and drawn by three yoke of oxen was enroute across the valley and one of the spindles took fire and burned off before the teamster, who was busy with the cattle, noticed that anything unusual had happened.
Sleds were also used for hauling. They were very heavy to draw on the ground and there was hardly ever any snow. Fifty green rails on a sled were a load for two yoke of oxen. As we had much fencing to do, the hauling of rails was a very common occupation. At times we worked three yoke of oxen to the sled and could haul a hundred dry rails, and with such a team we could haul all the firewood we could load onto the sled.
One day my oldest brother and myself were sent to haul a load of rock from a place in the hills a mile or so from the house; we had never hauled rock. As we had a team of three yoke, we piled rock on the sled till the bulk appeared to be about as big as a hundred rails. My brother had a long whip lash braided of rawhide with a buckskin thong for a cracker and with a straight wild cherry sprout for a stock. When he whirled the whip around and applied it to an ox, the cracker popped like a toy pistol and cut the hair like a glancing bullet. The sled being loaded, my brother spoke to the oxen to move on and cracked his whip, but though the team surged forward a little, the sled did not move; then the long lash of the whip performed rapid circles through the air and the cracker became a terrible scourge. The oxen sprang forward, wavered, then stood still. But the sled had not moved an inch. That team had never balked before. We were indignant, and after a short consultation, concluded that the use of the whip was not sufficient for the occasion; so it was laid aside and we both went to a hazel thicket and cut switches about nine feet long. With these we attacked the team in the rear, on the flanks, and all along the line, shouting the while words of encouragement and threats that awoke the echoes of the hills far away to the spurs of the Coast range. Every steer was by this time mad all over and resolved to move forward if he had to burst his yoke; every ox at the same moment lowered his head, lashed his tail spitefully, and with all his ponderous bulk and mighty strength advanced. The power exerted now was almost irresistible; something must give way or the sled move. For just one second there seemed to be a doubt, then the tongue parted from the sled. This trial of sterngth suggested a fact which we well knew, but had not made a practical use of in this case, namely, that a load of stone is much heavier than a load of wood of like bulk. Putting the team into position again, we attached the tongue to the sled with logchains and began throwing off rock; and after the load had been considerably reduced in this way, we started up the team again but as the sled did not move, we threw off more rock. We continued to reduce the load in this way until we had thrown off all but about two washtubs full of rock; and with this load we managed to reach home late in the afternoon. Since the broken sled could not be hidden, an explanation was demanded which led to our making a full confession of this very foolish affair.
The pioneers in the beginning had to make their own agricultural implements, such as plows, harrows, and all kinds of implements to clear and cultivate the ground. My father, Lindsay Applegate, was handy with carpenter's tools of the few and simple kinds they had, and Uncle Charles was a rough blacksmith, who shod horses when it was necessary, made bars, shears, coulters and clevises for plows; rings and clevises for ox yokes, and repaired broken ironings of wagons; and generally speaking, did all kinds of frontier blacksmithing. Father did the wood work in making plows and harrows and in repairing wagons. Every part of the plow was wood except the bar, shear, coulter and clevis. Tough oak was used in the beam and the mould-board was of ash timber. Ash was also generally used in ox yokes.
The prairie lands fenced for cultivation were more or less heavily sodded and set with tufts of brushwood and strong roots of various kinds, and it was necessary to have very strong plows to break the lands. A strong two wheeled truck, with a large strong plow attached to it, drawn by four yoke of oxen, was an outfit often seen breaking prairie. To the largest plow supported by a wheel attachment, which was necessarily very strong and heavy, I think they used a team of six yoke of cattle; and with this outfit broke three and four acres of prairie land in a day. Horses were seldom used to work in harness. In crossing the plains I remember seeing only one team in which a horse was used. That team was made up of a yoke of milch cows on the wheel and an old roan mare in the lead. The outfit belonged to Henry Stout and its uniqueness and economic makeup was not overlooked nor soon forgotten.
When we arrived at the place where we settled on Salt Creek in September, we had no time to spare from the building of cabins and other preparations for winter to make plows; and so it happened that the first plow to break ground in that country was one brought by Lindsay Applegate from the Old Mission where we had passed our first winter in Oregon. This plow was probably purchased from a missionary or French-Canadian settler, but there were no names or figures discovered on it, telling where, when or by whom made.
After the first rains had softened the ground, about the last week in November, 1844, prairie was broken with this, plow for spring wheat and a garden patch, and I think plowing was done from time to time during the winter where the ground was a little rolling and not too wet.
The wild country I am now speaking of was afterwards named Polk County, and this plow being the very first to poke its nose into the virgin soil of that county, should be entitled to some distinction, and its mysterious origin, private life and tragic end should be noted. The beam and handles were wood; all the balance was metal, cast in sections and fastened together with bolts and screws. The bar was one piece and the knee, shear, heel, coulter and nose were each separate. The first piece that broke disclosed the fact that it was pot-metal. All of the pieces were of the same metal. Each had been cast in a mould. When one of the sections was broken a new section had to be hammered out of iron at the blasksmith shop. In the course of four or five years all the parts had been broken and replaced with wrought iron sections, except the mould board; and the beam and handles had been removed, but it continued to be the same plow; and as we had named it the Cast-plow in the beginning, we never changed its name, and it never changed its habit of trying at times to stay on top of the ground, or of trying to go to the center of the earth; and it was this habit that made us boys wish it might sometimes wear out; although the prospect was discouraging in view of the renewal of its parts. To cultivate old ground with it, where there were no sod and roots, was bad enough, for it was like dragging an anchor, since the mould board was never known to scour. But although the mould hoard was of such shape that sod rolled up before it like a scroll, it turned up its nose at every root it approached and, unless prevented by the person at the handles, would glide over the top of it, or, if prevented, would try to go under it.
Now we boys knew all the tricks of this veteran implement, and one day in the early summer time of 1849, we were required to break a small tract of sod ground with it. We had two yoke of heavy steers and their gait on a warm day, without urging, was very slow. Several times when the plow had struck a root and was prevented from jumping out of the ground, it had turned its point downward and balked the team. There was only one thing we could do then: dig the plow out and take a new start. After several hours spent in stopping and digging up the plow, we talked the matter over and concluded that the team stopped because the oxen moved so slowly, so the next time we were approaching a root, a large wild sunflower, I urged the team forward till the oxen were almost ready to break into a trot, while my brother put his arms under the plow handles and raised them to his shoulders to prevent the plow from jumping out of the ground. This time when the plow struck the root and turned its nose down, the team did not balk; it walked right along dragging a shattered plowbeam and the old "Cast Plow" was a total wreck. There we left its remains buried in the soil of the valley. If, as the pioneer plow of old Polk, it had anything to do with "Saving Oregon," it builded much better than it plowed.
The hills of the Coast range rose like a continuous wall four thousand feet high along the line of the ocean. Covered over with a dense evergreen forest, vast, dark and as yet unexplored, they marked the western line of our horizon. Being now comfortably fixed, father concluded to go on a hunting and exploring trip into these mountains. Supposing the natives were in the habit of roaming through these mountains, father wished to have one go with us as a guide. But no Indian wanted to go. Numerous as they were, no consideration would induce one to go with us into this vast wilderness. We went without a guide. Traveling west four or five miles, through open woods of white oak timber, we began the ascent of a spur of the Coast range. Following a winding foot path made by wild beasts, the ascent was not difficult. Traveling through an unbroken forest all day, we made camp near the summit of the range just as the sun went down. There was a spring of good water here and a meadow covered with grass and clover which afforded good pasture for our horses. It may have been the fear of getting lost which caused me to take this precaution, but before dark I took my hatchet and blazed a tree which stood near our camp fire. I marked the tree exactly on the reverse side from where I saw the sun go down that evening. I was up early the next morning and soon dressed. I greased my feet with marrow from the shank of a deer, they being a little sore, and put on what was left of my seal skin cap, which was not much; the brim had been lost on the "plains," and we boys had used the crown a number of times for a target when practicing archery with our bows and arrows. I looked east, as I supposed, for the sun to rise, when it came up directly behind me. I went to my witness tree but no blaze was there. I walked around it and found the blaze on the other side. We left our horses in the meadow and climbed to the summit on foot. In some places the trees were so close together we had to turn sidewise in order to pass between them. I blazed the way as we went. We found a broad district of almost level country. At the highest point on the summit brother Elisha climbed a tree, and from this lofty perch could see the Pacific Ocean. We found a vast district of burned and fallen timber. The logs were covered with dewberry vines bearing the largest and sweetest berries I have ever eaten. We found also hundreds of acres of salal berries. Bear are very fond of these berries, but we found them sweet and insipid. We returned home in less than a week. That we returned unharmed seemed to astonish the natives. They asked many questions as to where we went and what we saw. Some of the Indians assured us, as their reason for not going with us, that there was a very dangerous goblin in the Coast mountains, whose awful name was Chuchonnyhoof. When we expressed no fear, saying we would shoot him if we found him, just as we would a deer or a bear, they said, "Wake klietan kokshot. Skin hyas kull kahkwa chickamin," that is, "His hide is bullet proof; it is as hard as iron." Our parents did not seem to regard this story as of any consequence; they said it was only an Indian superstition. But my training in the school at the Old Mission had developed the bump of curiosity in my head and I absorbed this story eagerly. I had been taught that there was an evil spirit roaming about this earth, and I thought this goblin the Indians told us of might be he. I interviewed many Indians on the subject, but gained little information. I discovered that the low caste native had faith in the existence of the goblin and that it was greatly feared. Their priest, Dickadowdow, said it would be a fearful thing to fall into the hands of Chuchonnyhoof.
Although slow in making the discovery, I eventually learned that there was among the natives a professional class possessed of all the learning not considered necessary in the ordinary affairs of life. These professors were known in the Chinook language as Lamachin, that is, Medicine men or doctors. The Klamath and Modoc name for these learned men was Keyox, meaning one skilled in healing by the use of natural remedies or by magic. They were supposed to be learned in the law, and in every branch of a religious or superstitious character. I became acquainted with two or three professionals. But when I introduced Chuchonnyhoof as a text to be expounded, I found them averse to discussing the subject without the assurance that I was not prompted by idle curiosity or other unworthy motive.
Of all the men of the priestly order the patriarch of the tribe we found inhabiting the country between the south Yamhill and north Luckyuke was probably the deepest learned in mythological and mystic lore. This was Dickydowdow. His forehead had been flattened when he was an infant; it retreated in a line from his brows to his crown and was as flat as the board against which it had grown. The flattening process had made his head unusually high above his ears. He had numerous wives, as poligamy was not prohibited by the Kalapooya code. Though well acquainted with the patriarch I was not so with his family, and can now recall hut one of his children, a daughter who had reached the age of young womanhood. This girl wore an ornament thrust through her nose and resting on her upper lip. The ornament looked like ivory, was about four inches long and tapered to a point at each end. All agreed in calling it a spindle, and so this ornament won for her the name she was proud of, Spindle. I frequently saw shells, various in size and color, worn by the natives in this manner, but this ornament worn by "Spindle" was unusual in shape and size. Dickydowdow, with his family and relatives, had permanent quarters on the Rickreol. Here he had his winter house, and some of his relatives had a fish trap. There was a tradition that a long time ago, even before the patriarch had reached years of wisdom, the Cleopatra of the northwest coast lived at this old village. She was said to have been the child of Kalapooya and Mexican parents and very beautiful. She became known as La Creole. At this place the Indians built their best houses; and moving from place to place during the dry season, returned to them as winter approached.
Father built his first cabin on the point of a ridge a hundred and fifty feet above the valley. He said that in the river bottom where we lived in Missouri we had chills and fever. He wanted to build where we could get plenty of fresh air. In this he was not disappointed, for the sea breeze kept the hoards on the roof rattling all through the autumn season, and the first storm of winter blew the roof off. I awoke that night to find the rain pouring down into my face. I could see nothing overhead but darkness. The wind was blowing a gale while the rain poured down in torrents. The house being no longer a shelter or protection, we left it and retreated down the eastern slope of the hill to a big black stump. This place was not so much exposed to the fury of the gale and a fire was kindled against the stump. There was an abundance of wood, logs, tree tops and broken branches, and we soon had a roaring bonfire which lighted and dried the ground more than fifty feet around and made us so comfortable we children laughed in the face of the furious storm. Darkness gave way before the blaze and stood like a black wall around our brilliant fire. We remained in camp here while the cabin was being made habitable.
We had had no bread since we had lived at the Old Mission where mother did her baking on the skillet lid. Father loaded a horse with two or three sacks of wheat, and taking as a companion a young man by the name of Alby Shaw, started to a grist mill at the mission settlement on the other side of the Willamette River, about fifteen miles from where we lived. The weather was stormy and, having no tent, they camped under a fir tree on the bank of the river. Here they worked for two or three days making a canoe, as there was no way to cross the river. When the canoe was almost completed one of their axes struck a knot with such force as to make a hole in the bottom of the boat. They were made almost desperate by this misfortune, and knowing a new mission had been establish across the river, set up a loud cry for help. After hallowing themselves hoarse, a man came with a canoe and took them with their grain across the river; and when the grain was ground brought them back again. Father returned at the end of a week, getting home late at night. We had all retired and I had been fast asleep, but was awakened by the smell of baking bread. A sack of flour had been opened and mother was making pancakes. This was my second realization of perfect bliss; the first had been the smell of frying pork at Doctor White's. The flour was coarsely ground and there being seven in our family, and two men employed on the place, our supply did not last long. Various substitutes for bread were tried. Wheat scalded with lye made from wood ashes was used as hominy. Some tried to provide flour by grinding wheat on a coffee mill, while others resorted to the mill used by the Indians. This mill was a stone basin and a pestle, but was abandoned after a few trials, as the flour was very coarse and the quantity obetained in this way small.
The settlers now resolved to have a mill in the neighborhood, and it was through their influence that James O'Neil came to our house in the spring of 1845 to consult about the matter. Father went with him to show him the mill site on the Rickreol. The place is a mile above where the city of Dallas now is. The mill operated one run of stones. These stones were made from a granite boulder found about two miles from our home. A man by the name of Williams split this stone with steel wedges and made the pair from the halves. This was the work of an entire winter.