Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 4/Number 1 Documents
DOCUMENTS.
A letter of M. M. McCarver to Hon. A. C. Dodge, Delegate to Congress from Iowa, written immediately on the arrival of the immigration of 1843.
(Reprinted from the Ohio Statesman of September 11, 1844.)
OREGON.
ARRIVAL OF EMIGRATION COMPANY NO. I.
On the first page of to-day's paper will be found a notice of the return of Lieutenant Fremont's exploring company. By this company we are put into possession of several interesting letters from different members of the emigrating company, and, among others, three from our former townsman, M. M. McCarver, one of which, directed to our delegate, together with a letter written by P. H. Burnett to the Saint Louis Reporter, we publish below.—Iowa Gazette [Burlington].
Twalatine Plains, Oregon Territory, November 6, 1843.
Dear Sir: I avail myself of an opportunity offered by one of the vessels belonging to the Hudson Bay Company to forward you a few lines.
The emigrants have not all arrived, though more than half are here, and the remainder may be looked for in a few days, all were at the Methodist Mission, about one hundred and fifty miles distant, near The Dalles. On last week several of the families arrived within a few days of Fort Vancouver and the Wallammatte Falls—some by water and others over the Cascade Mountains. The waggons will be brought from The Dalles by water, as the season is now too far advanced to open a road through the mountains. This expedition establishes the practicability beyond doubt of a waggon road across the continent by the way of the southern pass in the Rocky Mountains. We have had no difficulty with the natives, although we have had a tedious journey. We have had less obstacles in reaching here than we had a right to expect, as it was generally understood before leaving the States that one third of the distance, to wit, from Fort Hall to this place, was impassable with waggons. Great credit, however, is due to the energy, perseverance, and industry of this emigrating company, and particularly to Doctor Whitman, one of the missionaries at the Walla Walla Mission, who accompanied us out. His knowledge of the route was considerable, and his exertions for the interest of the company were untiring. Our journey may now be said to be at an end, and we are now in the Wallammatte Valley. I have been here near three weeks, having left my waggon in charge of the teamster and proceeded on horseback from Fort Hall in company with some thirty persons, principally young men. Your first question now will be, "how are you satisfied with the country? Is it worthy of the notice that Congress has given it?" I would answer these in the affirmative. Perhaps there is no country in the world of its size that offers more inducements to enterprise and industry than Oregon. The soil in this valley and in many other portions of the territory is equal to that of Iowa, or any other portion of the United States, in point of beauty and fertility, and its productions in many articles are far superior, particularly in regard to wheat, potatoes, beets, and turnips. The grain of the wheat is more than one third larger than any I have seen in the States. Potatoes are abundant and much better than those in the States. I measured a beet which grew in Doctor Whitman's garden which measured in circumference two inches short of three feet, and there is now growing in the field of Mr. James Johns, less than a mile from this place where I write you, a turnip measuring in circumference four and one half feet, and he thinks it will exceed five feet before pulling time. Indeed, everything here is in a flourishing condition—trade brisk and everybody doing well. The emigrants generally are all, as far as I know, satisfied. Wages for a common hand is from $1 to $1.50 per day, and mechanics from $2 to $4. Wheat is quite abundant and sold to ship or emigrants at $1 per bushel. Flour is from $9 to $10 per barrel; potatoes and turnips fifty cents per bushel; beef from six to eight cents per pound; American cows from $60 to $70; California, from $15 to $20. The prairie is coated with a rich green grass, perhaps the most nutritious in the world; and I am told that the winter is never so severe or the grass so scarce that a poor horse will not fatten in the space of one month. Nothing is wanted but industry to make this one of the richest little countries in the world. I say little, because the fertile part of it is small compared with the very extensive fertile countries in the valley of the Mississippi; yet we have a country sufficient in extent and resources to maintain in lucrative occupations millions of inhabitants. Its great hydraulic power immediately on the seashore, the advantages for stock grazing or wool growing, its fertile soil and indeed, its very isolated situation from competition with the rest of the civilized world, all combine with other circumstances to make it one of the most desirable countries under the sun for industry and enterprise.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
M. M. McCARVER.
Clatsop, Clatsop Co., Oregon Territory,
February 19, 1846.
Dear Brother: It was with pleasure I received yours of March 8, 1845; also one from Cyrel at the same time (Nov. last, 1845), and was happy to hear of general health, and that I am blest with the same, and have been ever since I have been in this territory; and, in fact, I have not had an hour's sickness for five years past. You ask me to give a sketch of my travels since I first arrived in Missouri. It is not possible for me to do so, with any degree of accuracy at present. Although I have a Journal of much of my trampings, it is now 200 miles distant, and I will not be able to get it before our mail starts for the U. S. I have also a daily journal of our journey to this country, and one of the weather for the first year I was here, which I sent you by the return party of 1845, but we have ascertained, that our letters were all lost, so I am aware you did not receive mine of '45, but hope it may not keep you from writing in the spring.
The Ship by which I intended to send you letters, was sold at the Sandwich Islands, and consequently did not return to the U. S. Now of my tramp: I will mearly say that I have ranged over nearly the whole country west of the Missouri River and east of the Rocky Mountains, from the British line on the north to the center of New Mexico on the south. The country is nearly of a sameness, quite a barren, sandy desert, with the exception of borders of streams, valleys, mountains, &c. The whole country abounds in game and Indians—the latter generally hostile. I could tell you of some long hunting yarns, and Indian fights, but they are of too little interest to spend time with now; so I will wait until I take a walk down East, and then some long evening, over a mug of cider and dish of apples, you shall have them.
I was some of the time in employ of Fur & Trading Co., and some of my time a free trapper. A hunter's life is a dog's life, exposed to all kinds of danger and hardships, and but little gained at last, but men soon get so accustomed to it that in a short time they fear neither man, musket, or the D——, and there is so much nature, romance, and excitement in their way of living, that they soon become much attached to it, for it is much easier for a white man to become an Indian, than to reverse the thing. I have been compelled to [by] hunger to eat mules, horses, dogs, wolves, badgers, ground hogs, skunks, frogs, crickets, ants, and have been without food of any kind for six days and nights. Cats, dogs, or anything else, is right good eating meat at such times.
At another time we were four days, and three out of the four compelled to fight our way as we traveled, but hungry men are fond of fight and fear nothing, and so we walked through. You may think crickets and ants rather small game to shoot at, and so it is, but we have another way of taking them, which is by going in search, early in the morning, when the crickets (which are in some parts very numerous and as large as the end of your thumb,) by the coolness of the air and dew are very stupid, and climb to the top of weeds in great numbers that the sun may get a fair chance at them; they are at such times easily captured by jarring them off into a basket and then roasting them with hot stones,—feathers, guts, and all,—and make very good eating—when one gets used to it. The ants are taken by sticking a stick in the center of their hill, and making a fire around it, which compels them to ascend the stick, and from that to the basket or sack; in this way a meal is soon procured. But those times are all past with me.
I am now where we have plenty to eat and out of many dangers to which a man is exposed, and I know well how to prize it. As to how I got here I think I gave you some idea in my letter of 1844, and as I am not able to give the particulars, I will say nothing about it, but I will assure you I am here on Clatsop Plains, at the mouth of the Columbia River, within three quarters of a mile of the Pacific Ocean, in a country that when I arrived here was so thinly populated that I was able to become acquainted with every white person in the territory; but the two last years has so increased the population that two fifths are now strangers to me; 1844 gave by land an emigration of about 1,200; 1845 nearly twice that number; this year we expect them by the thousands. The people who come here are from all parts of the globe, but mostly from the western states of the U. S. A great portion are single men, roving characters, who are from every place but this, and this they can not well leave; and the prospects of our infant country are so flattering that we have no inclination to leave it; at present almost every man that arrives here, is at once filled with enterprise, and dives heels over head into something.
We have now a population of five or six thousand; there is now in operation six sawmills and five flouring mills, six stores, exclusive of the Hudson Bay Co., six blacksmith shops, and three gunsmiths, carpenter shops in any number, two tan yards, Lawyers, Doctors, and Preachers by the dozen. We have a legislature, and they have made scores of laws, the particulars of which you will get in the Oregon Spectator, a paper which is printed at Wellemette Falls, once in two weeks; the first number came out last week. I sent you one or two numbers of the first print of the Northwest Coast. I presume you would like to know something of the situation of our country, the climate, production, natural resources, &c., of which I will attempt to give you a slight idea. The general character of the country is broken and mountainous, but is interspersed with beautiful valleys. The first I shall introduce to you is the place of Clatsop; it is very small, but beautiful; it is bounded on the north by the Columbia, west by the ocean, and south and east by heavy timbered land; it is about twenty miles in length by two in breadth; from the sea beach to the big timber the soil is of the best quality, capable of producing any vegetation grown in any of the northern or western states in the U. S. As the wind is nine tenths of the time from the salt water, I believe it to be one of the most healthy places on the globe. It is now four years since the first whites settled here, and there has not been a case of sickness nor a death as yet, and but ten or fifteen births, for there is not a woman that has a husband, but what well fulfills the Commandment by about every year giving birth to a fine chub, and very often two at a time, and some instances of women, without husbands, lending a hand in populating our valuable country, and all owing to the climate and shellfish (?) which we have in abundance.
The number of families at this place is fourteen, counting in five bachelor halls. The tide flows from 9 to feet perpendicular at the mouth of the Columbia. We will now proceed up the river. Thirteen miles from the bar is old Astoria, now occupied by the H. B. Co. This place is a beautiful situation for a town, and will probably be the New York of Oregon; it has a full view of the whole harbor, and a vessel can lay at any time in perfect safety. Now three miles and we come to Tongue Point; this is a narrow point of land running into the river; a fortification on it could have full command of the river, as the channel runs near the point. On we go; heavy timber and broken land on each side of the river, which is from three to ten miles wide; we now come to the mill which I told you I was erecting. I will tell you more of that by and by, but we will go ahead. The banks of the river heavy timbered and broken, but the soil rich; we now come to Coulitye [Cowlitz] River, which is about 200 yards wide at the mouth, comes in on the north side of the Columbia, about 50 miles from the mouth of the Columbia. We will ascend this river 15 miles, against a strong current. The country now opens out into a large plain, many miles in length and breadth, the soil of the best quality, beautifully watered, and interspersed with timber. At the time I first visited these parts there were but fourteen families of French and half-breeds, but since that time there has been a number of American families settled in this section. The valley is one or more hundred miles, in diameter, and situated on one of the noblest harbors on our coast, that, is the Puget Sound. Now we will return to the Columbia, and ascend 40 miles to the Willemette River, of which you will get an idea by the paper which I send. Six miles above the Willemette River is Vancouvers, the principal depot of the Hudson Bay Co.; all of their shipping ascends to this place, though not without some difficulty, particularly if the craft draws more than thirteen feet of water.
In the vicinity of Fort Vancouver there is much fine farming land. The company has fine farms, and many thousand head of cattle. Fifty or sixty miles above are the Cascades; it is where the river crosses the Cascade Mountains, a range running north and south. East of these mountains is a country extending many hundred miles in each direction, and most particularly adapted to grazing. Stock of all kinds can live here winter and summer without the least care. This is as far as I have seen the country, though it is said there is much fine country in the south of the territory, but no settlements in that section.
Our stock keeps fat through the winter without care; we had no snow last winter nor this. Buds are now swelling, and some flowers in bloom. You wished to know where we get saws to saw our big timber. I brought two, of the longest kind, with me, and we have since had two from the Hudson Bay Co., and three from the States. We have timber of all sizes, so we take our choice; we have some 16 feet in diameter and 300 feet in length; no mistake. I have measured such. We have shipped three cargoes of lumber to the Sandwich Islands, for which we received $20 per thousand feet, clear of freight. Lumber is, and will be, a great source of wealth to this country. The Columbia, and its tributaries, are alive with salmon during the summer months; the Indians take them in great numbers with spears, nets, and seines; there are many packed and sent to foreign markets annually.
I am now improving me a farm on Clatsop Plains. I have a splendid claim of six hundred and forty acres of land, about fifty acres timber, the rest prairie—laying immediately on the Pacific. We are all very anxious to hear the result of the treaty (if one is made) between the U. S. and John Bull. We are very much afraid Uncle will fool away the north of the Columbia; if he does we shall be Silux. We are very anxious the U. S. should extend her jurisdiction over our valuable country, and we are nearly out of patience with the delay. We are not all thieves and runaways, as represented by the Hon Mr. Mc——, nor our country a booty. Boy, if it is, it's inferior to none in point of beauty, pleasant climate, natural resources, and advantages of wealth; and if the settlers were ever thieves they have wholly reformed, for it is generally believed that no other colony has ever equaled this in point of bravery, enterprise, hospitality, honesty, and morality. There are men who arrived here in October last who have at this time one hundred acres fenced and sown to wheat. Now, all we want is a little of Uncle Sam's care, that capitalists may be safe in investing their money.
Merchandise is generally high here, owing to the scarcity and great demand. Salt $1 per bush.; sugar 12½ cts. per lb.; coffee 25 cts. per lb.; molasses 50 cts. per gal.: tea 50 cts. to $1.50; nails 18 cts.: window glass 10 to 12 cts. per light; dry goods in proportion; beef, pork, hides, tallow, and most kinds of produce taken in payment; beef $6 per h.; pork $10; hides $2 apiece by the lot; tallow 8 to 10; butter 20 to 25; wheat 75 cts. to $1; oats 75 cts.; potatoes 50 cts. per bu.; lumber from 15 to $25 per 1,000 feet; shingles 4 to $5 per 1,000; common laborers $1 per day, and mechanics $2. You see by the manner of my writing that I am in great haste, therefore you must allow me to close.
After you peruse this I want you to enclose it, and, with love and respect, send it to Cyrel, for I have not a moment's time to write to him, and I have nothing to say to him only to be sure he is right and then go ahead; and for you both, to send me letters every chance, for I value each letter at five hundred dollars—provided I could get them no cheaper. Give my love to father, sister, and all inquiring friends, and should like to see some of you in Oregon.
Yours, most affectionate,
T. B. WOOD.
The above letter was written by Tallmadge B. Wood, from Clatsop, Clatsop County, Oregon Territory, February 19, 1846, to Isaac M. Nash, his brother-in-law, at Ballston Spa, Saratoga County, New York.—Florence E. Baker.
Copy of a letter written from Oregon City, formerly Willemette Falls, Oregon, December 23, 1847, by Tallmadge B. Wood to his brother-in-law, Isaac Nash, and sister.—Florence E. Baker.
Oregon City, December 23, '47.
Dear Brother: I avail myself of this opportunity of writing you a few lines that you may know that I am still in the land of the living. I received one letter from you by the arrival of Mr. Shively, being the second one that I have received from you since I have been in this brush. We, of course, got news of the fate of the "Oregon Bill" of last session, and as you may judge was very much disappointed, but we grin and bear it because there is no other way for us to do. We are at present in rather an awkward situation; there has of late been some serious difficulties with the upper country Indians in which Dr. Whitman, wife and nine others were murdered.
There were fifty men dispatched last week to protect the Mission at the Dals, [Dalles]; we have had no news from them since. There are orders for the raising of five hundred men to go up and give the scoundrels a wiping out. So you may say we have the loud cry of war in Oregon; but what is done here, is done by the voluntary acts of the people and without pay. And as there is such a diversity of opinions, as to the best way to proceed, I think there will not be as much done at present, as we have got so many people here that it is not so easy for them all to agree as it was in former times.
This year's emigration was very large. They all got through with less difficulties than that of last year. There has been considerable sickness with them. Their disease being the measles, the disorder is proving quite fatal with the natives; it was in consequence of this that Dr. Whitman was killed, as they held a malice against the whites for bringing the disorder unto the country.
Our legislature being in session, it has authorized Mr. Meek to go to the United States with dispatches to the government, informing it of our situation. He starts to-morrow morning, and it is by him that I send this letter. It is a general time of good health and spirits, in Oregon, with the exception of now and then a case of the measles. Our commerce has much improved within the last year. A large number of ships have left our port the last season well ladened.
The winter thus far is very fine, no freezing, and little rain. Wheat looks well, and great quantity sown. I have sold my interest in my mill, and also my farm. I am going to put up salmon next spring, and after the season is over, which will be in August, I am going to build a mill, as I now have one of the best sites on the Columbia, and lumbering the best business in Oregon.
I would write much more, had I time and room on my sheet—though I am sure it would not be very interesting. Be sure and send me a letter every time the Ship Whiton sailed for the U. S. as it will return to this country. Be sure and avail that chance though I missed it. Give Father my Respects; tell him I intend on coming to see him once more. I must scratch a few lines to sisters, so I bid you a Farewell.
Dear Sisters, I have only room to tell you that I am well. I Farmed it and did housework last summer, but I guess I don't do it again soon. There are lots of pretty girls here now, but I do not get time to get one of them just now, but will take a year or two, by and by, and attend to these matters.
Frances must write to Cyrel for me, for it is now late and I haven't time. Give my love to all cousins and inquiring friends. Write every chance.
Good by, your affectionate brother,
T. B. WOOD."
To I. Nash, S. C. Nash, J. A. Wood.
The above letter was folded, and sent without an envelope: It was sealed with a red seal; it cost ten cents postage; it was mailed at St. Joseph, Mo.; it was directed to Isaac Nash, Ballston Spa, Sarotogo County, N. Y.; it arrived at Sarotogo Springs June 5th. It was marked Missent. This letter was written on large sheets of pale blue paper with black ink, and is in good preservation now, 1908.—Florence E. Baker.