THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 149
ransomed from the captivity of Cayuse Indians. The record is that on the return trip, the river being low, Mr. Ogden risked the passage by water and swept down through the Dalles with- out portage in his anxiety to place his passengers beyond the reach of the Indians. Had this obstruction not existed the risk to these helpless people would not have been necessary. Neither would there have been occasion for some criticism against Mr. Ogden for, on his way up the river, distributing to the Indians at the Portage the usual toll of a small amount of powder and ball for their assistance.
Beginning with the forties the "tramp of the pioneer" began to be heard along the Columbia, and with the pioneer came the development of a wagon road. The first wagon to come through to the Columbia from across the plains was that of Dr. Robert Newell in 1840, and it is said to have been shipped down the river (the following year) by boat from Fort Walla Walla. In 1843 the first large wagon train came through, a migration of more than eight hundred people. Upon arrival at Fort Walla Walla they were told both by Mr. McKinlay, the trader in charge, and by Dr. Marcus Whitman, that no road existed along the river bank, which was literally true. In a MS. in the Bancroft Library Mr. Jesse Applegate has written; "All of the immigrants of 1843 did not reach the Dalles in wagons. A company including the Burnetts, Applegates, Hembrees, etc., 71 souls in all, built boats at Walla Walla (now called Wallula) and descended the Columbia by water." [See Mrs. Victor's "River of the, West" pp. 335-7.]
Jesse Applegate was one of the most influential of the Ore- gon pioneers ; and Peter H. Burnett afterward became governor of California. The Applegates lost members of their family by drowning in these Dalles, and their goods not carried across the portage were lost.
But a larger number of the immigrants drove through by land and pioneered the first wagon track south of the river, which became the road for later migrations. This road climbed the hills after crossing the Des Chutes river and came upon
