there the United States surveying schooner Ewing, in the hope of obtaining a good report of the harbor. But on learning the designs of the California company, a hearty coöperation was offered on one part, and willingly accepted on the other. Another circumstance in favor of the Umpqua for settlement was the peaceable disposition of the natives, who since the days when they murdered Jedediah Smith's party had been brought under the pacifying influences of the Hudson's Bay Company, and sustained a good reputation as compared with the other coast tribes.
On the morning of the 7th the schooner proceeded up the river, keeping the channel by sounding from a small boat in advance, and finding it one of the loveliest of streams;[1] at least, so thought the explorers, one of whom afterward became its historian.[2] Finding a good depth of water, with the tide, for a distance of eighteen miles, the boat's crew became negligent, and failing to note a gravelly bar at the foot of a bluff a thousand feet in height the schooner grounded in eight feet of water, and when the tide ebbed was left stranded.[3]
However, the small boat proceeded to the foot of the rapids, where Scott was located, this being the head of tide-water, and the vessel was afterward brought safely hither. In consideration of their services in
- ↑ It is the largest river between the Sacramento and the Columbia. 'Vessels of 800 tons can enter.' Mrs Victor, in Pac. Rural Press, Nov. 8, 1879. 'The Umpqua is sometimes supposed to be the river discovered by Flores in 1603, and afterwards referred to as the "River of the West."' Davidson's Coast Pilot, 126.
- ↑ This was Charles T. Hopkins, who wrote an account of the Umpqua adventure for the S. F. Pioneer, vol. i. ii., a periodical published in the early days of California magazine literature. I have drawn my account partly from this source, as well as from Gibbs' Notes on Or. Hist., MS., 2–3, and from Historical Correspondence, MS., by S. S. Mann, S. F. Chadwick, H. H. Woodward, members of the Umpqua company, and also from other sources, among which are Williams' S. W. Oregon, MS., 2–3.; Letters of D. J. Lyons, and the Oregon Spectator, Sept. 5, 1850; Deady's Scrap-Book, 83; S. F. Evening Picayune, Sept. 6, 1850.
- ↑ Gibbs says: 'The passengers endeavored to lighten the cargo by pouring the vessel's store of liquors down their throats, from which hilarious proceeding the shoal took the name of Brandy Bar.' Notes, MS., 4.
