into a beautiful {208} little prairie, at the side of which stood the doctor's neat hewn log cabin, sending its cheerful smoke among the lofty pine tops in its rear. We soon sat by a blazing fire, and the storm that had pelted us all the way, lost its unpleasantness in the delightful society of my worthy host and his amiable wife. I passed the night with them. The doctor is a Scotchman, his wife a Yankee. The former had seen many adventures in California and Oregon and had his face very much slashed in a contest with the Shasty Indians near the southern border of Oregon. The latter had come from the States, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Mission, and had consented to share the bliss and ills of life with the adventurous Gael; and a happy little family they were.[1]
The next day Mrs. Bailey kindly undertook to make me a blanket coat by the time I should return, and the worthy doctor and myself started for the Mission. About a mile on our way, we called at a farm occupied by an American, who acted as blacksmith and gunsmith for the settlement. He appeared to have a good set of tools for his mechanical business, and plenty of custom. He had also a considerable tract of land under fence, and a comfortable house and {209} out-buildings. A mile or two farther on, we came upon the cabin of a Yankee tinker:[2] an odd fellow, this; glad to see a countryman, ready to serve him in any way, and to discuss the matter
- ↑ Townsend was at Fort Vancouver when Bailey was brought in wounded, after his contest with the Rogue River Indians. See his Narrative in our volume xxi, pp. 328-330. Mrs. Bailey was a Miss Margaret Smith, who came out in 1837 to reinforce the Methodist mission.—Ed.
- ↑ The blacksmith and tinker were apparently Thomas J. Hubbard and Calvin Tibbitts, who came to Oregon with Wyeth. See for the former, W. H. Gray, History of Oregon (Portland, Oregon, 1870), pp. 191, 198; for the latter our volume xxi, p. 73, note 50. Both were instrumental in laying the foundations of the Oregon provisional government.—Ed.
