Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/82

74 T. C. ELLIOTT % try he passed through and Thomas H. Benton in his "Thirty- Year's View" speaks of being entertained by Mr. Crooks at Brown's Hotel in Washington for days with descriptions of the region beyond the Rockies, while he, Benton, in 1821, was waiting for Missouri to be admitted to the Union and his credentials as its first senator to be passed upon by the Senate ; and it was this same Ramsay Crooks who helped to inspire Dr. John Floyd of Virginia to introduce that first measure ever introduced in Congress respecting the occupation of Oregon. Ramsay Crooks after 1813 became prominent in the fur trade of the Lakes and was in charge of Mr. Astor's interests there. And by way of diversion the opportunity offers here to retell a story of Mr. Silas B. Smith's of Clatsop Plains before the Ore- gon Hist. Society in 1899. Speaking of the arrival in the Colum- bia in 1840 of the ship Lausanne from New York with the rein- forcement of Methodist missionaries Mr. Smith said : "It was arranged that we should take passage on the ship. The bar pilot had been engaged at Honolulu, a sailor who had entered the river once twenty years before. No wonder there were terrors on the bar ! At Baker's Bay an Indian by the name of Ramsay was engaged as river pilot, the same who was interpreter on the, Tonquin at the time of her destruction at Clayoquot. He had only one eye but was a good pilot. Ramsay was his Eng- lish name ; it came, I think, from Ramsay Crooks, given the same way as General Joe Lane gave half his name to the Rogue river chief who was afterwards known as Chief Joe. * * * Above Oak Point a special express from Dr. McLoughlin met us with vegetables and fresh provisions ; with the express was a mulatto with the high sounding name of George Washing- ton. He had a statement from Dr. McLoughlin that he was a river pilot. Of course, with such a paper from the Doctor, he was immediately installed as chief pilot, to the great humilia- tion of Ramsay. George, however, did not run the vessel many miles before he placed her high on a sand bar. It was Ram- say's opportunity; stepping to the captain and pointing to George Washington, he said, 'He know how to cook the meat, he no pilot, you let me pilot ship and me run her aground,