Portland, Oregon: Its History and Builders/Volume 1/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
"None started but the brave; none got through but the strong."—Miller.
A song for the men who blazed the way,
With hearts that would not quail,
They made brave quest of the wild northwest.
They cut the Oregon trail.
A cheer for the men who cut the trail!
With souls as firm as steel;
And fiery as wrath they hewed the path.
For the coming commonweal.
It is an old and trite saying, that roads and highways are an indication of civilization; and the better the road or highway, the more of civilization. But what shall be said of a great movement of educated and intelligent people, without forecasting preparations, without preliminary investigations, and without maps or guides, which moves out into apparently boundless desert-like plains, to cross snow clad mountains, unbridged rivers, through two thousand miles of wilderness inhabited only by wild beasts and wilder men? The reader may search the whole history of the world in vain to find a parallel or even a suggestive example for the pioneer emigration to Oregon. The travels of the Jews to find the promised land, where kind Providence sent the manna and quails for subsistance, and fire-works by night for cheer and comfort, was but a picnic, compared with the journeyings of our pioneers for two thousand miles through a hostile Indian country offering every imaginable delay and obstruction. The celebrated march of Xenophon with his ten thousand Greek soldiers from the Tigris to the Black sea, celebrated in song and story as the most remarkable military exploit in the world, dwarfs to littleness by comparison with the achievements of the pioneer men and women of this state, burdened with little children, domestic animals and household goods, in their long and laborious struggle to reach the promised land of Oregon.
If the reader will stop to contemplate the size of the movement its originality, boldness, dangers, trials and want of support from the government, whose mission was being executed without orders, he will be lost in wonder at the success finally secured.
The first thought of the new-comer from a foreign shore, or the boy and girl justout of school, wanting to know about this great movement, will be—the road. But there was no road; not a wagon road, or a railroad, or a 
The lower black line is the old "Oregon Trail," according to Meeker's map made by the pioneers in 1843.
Those bold pioneers built their own bridges and ferries, crossed deserts, scaled mountains and floated down wild streams, all out of their own resources, as they went along. The world never had before 1843, and never will have again, the likes of the old Oregon trail. The trail did not, as many people believe, follow the route of the Lewis and Clarke expedition to Oregon, thirty-eight years prior to the making of the trail. The pioneers selected the route and made their own road from day to day. No surveyor or civil engineer preceded them. No guide or map furnished them the direction. Very few of them, if any, knew why they went in one direction or another. The Platte river furnished a general course from the Missouri river to the mountains; but beyond that, there was no distinctive mark to guide them. Fifteen or twenty men preceded the caravan on every day's travel and selected the courses, removed what obstructions they could, and prepared the way to cross streams. The great lumbering caravan, with its wagons, horseback men and women, and the thousands of cattle followed, conquering and to conquer. In one sense the pioneer emigration was national and military; because it decided the title to Oregon by actual settlement. And it cost the nation nothing, but added more in power and influence than all the battle ships afloat, that cost a hundred millions.
Without organization, without preliminary efforts or solicitation, without public meetings to arouse enthusiasm, without advertised rewards, without distresses in the past or hoped for bounties in the future, and without public announcement the pioneers quietly began to gather on the west bank of the Missouri river in the last days of April. Day after day the wagons came in from various parts of Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas, while a few came up the river in the little steamboats of that early day. The travelers camped around the town of Independence and pitched their tents upon the prairie, and day by day the host increased, and all was bustle and eagerness to be on the way. Nothing now was lacking but grass.
Grass! Did you ever think of it? The Creator of the heavens and the earth, covered three-quarters of the globe with water, and the remainder with grass. It was not Spitzenberg apples, or oranges, Lambert cherries or Tokay grapes, but grass that he caused to spring up to support all living creatures; for as the scriptures truthfully declare "all flesh is grass." And so the great caravan of Oregon pioneers had to wait on the banks of the Missouri river for the grass to grow before they could turn a wheel towards the goal of all their hopes. It was the grass that must feed the teams to haul the wagons, that must feed the milk cows for support of men, women and children, and it was the grass to feed the buffalo and antelope to furnish beef and venison to feed the pioneers, on their long and toilsome journey.
The first notable emigration started for Oregon from Independence, Missouri, in 1843. A smaller company had come over the summer before. The caravan of 1843 numbered over one thousand persons, men, women and children; and about five thousand domestic animals. And the making of the Oregon trail, or at least the hunting for a practicable route by the outriders sent forward each day in advance of the train of wagons, fell to the lot of the emigration of 1843. There had been a few traders' wagons over the route as far west as Fort Hall, which was the easy part of the whole distance, but nothing west of that point in the shape of anything better than an Elk or Indian trail.
All readers of the past fifty years are familiar with the advice of the later day Benjamin Franklin—Horace Greeley—who advised all the young men to "go west and grow up with the country." But the Oregon emigration of 1843 was too much for even the optimistic Greeley. "For what" wrote Greeley in his great paper, the New York Tribune, July 22, 1843, "do they brave the desert, the wilderness, the savages, the snowy precipices of the Rocky mountains, the weary summer march, the storm-drenched bivouac, and the gnawings of famine? This emigration of more than one thousand persons in one body to Oregon wears an aspect of insanity."
And that is what it did look like to the great mass of people of the United States. And although no political sentiment moved the pioneers, yet the movement was big with political consequences; and vital to all the commercial and military interests of the nation at large; and should have had adequate support from the national congress, but did not get even the poor compliment of recognition by any department of the government.
This first caravan was followed by others in succeeding years. Fourteen hundred people in 1844 followed the trail made in 1843; ^"d three thousand men women and children came over in 1845. Probably the largest emigration in any one season came over the trail in 1852. Ezra Meeker, who has been instrumental in getting a congressional appropriation to put up suitable monuments on the old trail, was in the caravan of that year, and has given us a vivid description of it. He says: "The army of loose cattle and other animals that accompanied this caravan five hundred miles in length, added greatly to the discomfort of all. It will never be known the number of such, or of the emigrants themselves. A conservative estimate would be not less than six animals helping pull each wagon, and eighteen loose animals to each one laboring. There were an average of five persons to each wagon; and during four days that we stopped sixteen hundred wagons passed by; making eight thousand persons and nearly thirty thousand domestic animals passing in that four days. We knew from the dates inscribed on Independence rock, and elsewhere, that there were wagons three hundred miles ahead of us, and that the throng had continued to pass the river for more than a month after we had crossed, so that it does not require a stretch of imagination to say the column was covering five hundred miles of trail at one time."
Jesse Applegate came to Oregon with the train of 1843, ^^^ took a prominent part in its conduct and became one of the most useful and influential citizens of the state. In a contribution to the Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, ten years ago, he gives the following graphic picture of the daily routine of the emigrants on the trail:
"It is four o'clock A. M.; the sentinels on duty have discharged their rifles—the signals that the hours of sleep are over—and every wagon and tent is pouring forth its night tenants, and slow kindling smokes begin to rise and float away in the morning air. Sixty men start from the corral, spreading as they make through the vast herd of cattle and horses that make a semi-circle around the encampment, the most distant perhaps two miles away.
"The herders pass to the extreme verge and carefully examine for trails beyond, to see that none of the animals have strayed or been stolen during the night. By five o'clock the herders begin to contract the great moving circle, and the well trained animals move slowly towards camp. In about an hour five thousand animals are close up to the encampment, and the teamsters are busy selecting their teams and driving them inside to be yoked. The corral is a circular pen, three hundred feet in diameter, formed with wagons conected strongly with each other, the front end of one wagon being chained to the rear end of the wagon in front. It is a strong barrier that the most vicious ox could not break, and in case of an attack by Indians would be a strong intrenchment.
"From six to seven o'clock is a busy time; breakfast is to be eaten, the tents struck, the wagons loaded, and the teams hitched to their respective wagons. All know when at 7 o'clock, the signal of march sounds, that those not ready 
Passed over the old trail with an ox-team the second time in 1906. setting up markers along the trail.
"There are one hundred and twenty wagons. They have been divided into thirty divisions or platoons of four wagons each, and each platoon is entitled to lead in its turn. The leading platoon will be the rear one tomorrow, and will bring up the rear unless some teamster, through indolence and negligence, has lost his place in the line. It is within ten minutes of seven; the corral, until now a strong barricade, is opened, the teams being attached to the wagons. The women and children have taken their places in them. The pilot, an old trapper and hunter, stands ready to mount and lead the way. Ten or fifteen young men, not on duty for the day, form a cluster ready to start on a buffalo hunt, well armed, and if need be ready for a brush with the unfriendly Sioux. The hunters must ride fifteen or twenty miles to reach buffalo, shoot and cut up half a dozen for fresh beef for the whole train the next day. The cow drivers are rounding up the cows at the rear of the train for the day's drive.
"It is on the clock strike of seven; the rush is to and fro; the whips crack, the loud commands to the oxen, the wagons creak and move, and the train is again on its slow and toilsome journey, as if every thing was moved by clock work. The loose horses follow next the wagons, guided by boys, but know that when noon comes they can graze on the grass. Following the horses come the cattle, lazy, selfish, unsocial, grabbing at every bunch of grass, straying from the trail, blocking the passageway, the strong thrusting out of the weaker ones, and seemingly never getting enough to eat. Some of the teamsters ride the front of their wagon, others walk alongside of the teams, and all of them incessantly whoop and goad the lazy ox who seems to know that no good thing was ever accomplished in a minute."
Such was the life of the pioneers on the trail. No such a picture of human life was ever at any time in any part of the earth exhibited before. Abraham, the father of the faithful, as he four thousand years ago moved his people out upon their annual stock grazing excursions to the plains of Mesopotamia, with his flocks of Angora goats, fat-tailed sheep, asses and camels, numerous wives, and dark eyed maidens, doubtless could have put up a good show; but the Missourians would have "had to be shown" before they would have yielded the colors.
But it was not all fun, or hard work or excitement. There were serious phases, and sad, pathetic scenes. The caravan made and enforced its own laws; and without such proper regulations the train would have been stranded in hopeless anarchy. There was the selected council of experienced and responsible men, which was a court to all intents and purposes, and before it was brought every offender to be tried by the common law of decency and even handed justice. This council exercised both legislative and judicial powers. If an offence was found to be without an applicable rule or punishment, a law was forthwith enacted to meet all such cases. The council held its sessions when the train was not moving—Sundays and rest days. It considered the caravan as a whole in the aspect of a state or commonwealth, and as such it had first consideration. The common welfare being cared for, the council would then, as a court, take up and decide disputes between individual members of the train, hearing both the aggrieved complainant and the offender, and by counsel when desired, and then deciding every case upon its merits. See what a training school here in the heart of the wilderness, as the lumbering caravan dragged its slow length across plains, mountains and deserts. Some of the improvised judges became distinguished legislators and statesmen in Oregon, and young men who appeared before that pioneer court arose to judicial honors in the states they helped to build in the Columbia river valley. Burnett, distinguished in Oregon, became governor of California. Nesmith was a judge, congressman, and U. S. senator from Oregon. Applegate was a legislator and helped make the constitution of the state. John McBride was legislator, congressman, and afterwards chief justice of Idaho. And many others might be named.
All sorts of incidents of human life break the monotony of the march. Suddenly a wagon is seen to pull out of the train and off to the wayside. The only doctor in the train (Marcus Whitman) goes off with it. Many are the inquiries of the unusual event; and grave fears expressed of the danger of leaving a lone wagon behind in an Indian country. The lumbering caravan moves slowly on, passes behind the bluffs and out of sight, and the anxiety and fears for the lone wagon left behind increase. The train halts for the night, forms its defensive circle, fires are lighted for the evening meal and the shadows of the night are creeping down upon the camp—when, behold the lone wagon rolls into camp, the doctor smiling and happy—it was a newborn boy—mother and child all right and ready for the continued journey.
Applegate, in the article mentioned, speaking of Dr. Whitman, who had been over the trail once before, says his constant advice was "travel, travel, TRAVEL; nothing else will take you to the end of your journey; nothing is wise that does not help you along; nothing is good for you that causes a moment's delay." And Applegate adds his testimonial as follows: "It is no disparagement to others to say, that to no other individual are the emigrants of 1843 so much indebted for the successful conclusion of their journey as to Dr. Marcus Whitman."
The watch for the night is set; the flute and violin have ceased their soothing notes, the enamored swain has whispered his last good night, or stolen the last kiss from his blushing sweetheart, and all is hushed in the slumber of the camp of one thousand persons in the heart of the great mountains a thousand miles from any white man's habitation, with savage Indians in all directions. What a picture of American ideas, push, enterprise, courage, and empire building. Risking everything, braving every danger, and conquering every difficulty and obstruction. We are a vain, conceited, bumptious people, boasting of our good deeds and utterly ignoring our bad ones. But where is the people who have accomplished such a work as these Missourians and their neighbors from Iowa, did in literally picking up a commonwealth in pieces, on the other side of the continent and transporting it two thousand miles to the Pacific coast and setting it down here around and about this Portland townsite in the Willamette valley, and starting it off in good working order at Champoeg, with all the state machinery to protect life and property and promote the peace and happiness of all concerned, and all others who might join in the society. In is something to be proud of.
To accomplish this result the pioneers who founded the city of Portland passed through every phase of human experience. Toils, labors and dangers beyond number or description; joys, sorrows, pains, suffering and death. The unmarked graves by the wayside of those who fell in the march to Oregon were thousands. The dust and heat at times were intolerable. Think, if you can, of a moving mass of humanity and dumb brutes, often mixed in inextricable confusion, moving along in a column twice as wide as Portland street. Here and there were drivers of the loose cattle lashing them to keep moving. Young girls riding astride ponies with a younger child behind, and all packed, jammed into a roadway, too narow for a tenth of its travelers through mountain defiles, and all looking ahead as if the next turn of the trail would bring them the promised land. To all this was added to the train of 1852, the panic and scourge of the Asiatic cholera. This was the largest train ever started to Oregon, and it suffered proportionately. This caravan was in fact made up of many trains from different localities in the border states. Mrs. M. E. Jones of North Yakima, relates that forty persons of their train died of cholera in the Platte valley in one day. A family of seven person from Hartford, Warren county, Iowa, all died of cholera in one day and were buried in one grave. While camped with a sick brother, above Grand island on the Platte, Ezra Meeker states he saw six
Nearing the end of the two thousand mile, six months' journey, from the Missouri River to Portland, Oregon, sixty-four years ago. "None started but the brave, None got through but the strong."
The sad recital is ended, and the victory won. The grizzled pioneers unhitched their oxen from the wagons and hitched them up to the plow. They laid away their weapons of warfare and builded a state, and, quoting Sam Simpson, a pioneer's son:
"But the pictures of memory linger,
Like the shadows that turn to the east.
And will point with a tremulous finger
To the things that are perished and ceased;
For the trail and the foot-log have vanished.
The canoe is a song and a tale.
And flickering church spire has banished,
The uncanny red man from the vale;
And the wavering flare of the pitch light.
That illumes your banquets no more.
Will return like a wandering witch light,
And uncrimson the fancies of yore—
When you dance the "Old Arkansaw" gaily,
In brogans that followed the bear.
And quaffed the delight of Castaly,
From the fiddle that wailed like despair;
And so lightly you wrought with the hammer.
And so truly with axe and with plow.
And you blazed your own trails through grammar,
As the record must fairly allow;
But you builded a state in whose arches.
Shall be carven the deed and the name.
And posterity lengthens its marches,
In the golden starlight of your fame."
What started this two thousand mile emigration, that crossing the plains and the mountains, settled the Willamette valley and founded the city of Portland?
The answer may be to get land, and lots of it, for the emigrant. That was doubtless a moving reason for thousands. But it was not the real fact that started the stone to roll. The land was here in plenty, as good as could be found, but not so much better than millions of acres which the emigrants passed over in the Platte valley, as to justify the long and perilous journey to Oregon to get a chance for it, and not knowing what government might control it. The land was in the possession of the Indians, it could not run away, and there would be plenty of time to get it after the government title was settled.
But something out of the ordinary set the frontier to thinking about it, and from thinking they were moved to action. What was that original exciting cause?
It was for the glory of God and the salvation of souls that Columbus appealed to Queen Isabella for ships and money to discover a new world. It was the motive power of religion that moved everything down to the period of the rebellion of the American colonies against old England. It was religion, the right to worship God according to the dictates of an untrammeled conscience that huddled the Puritans on to the Mayflower and sent them starving, sickening, and dying across the stormy ocean to the bleak and unhospitable shores of New England. The religionists that worshiped according to the dictates of kings and popes, drove away with bitter persecution, the religionists who wanted to make their own creeds and sit under their own vines and apple trees. And so they came to America.
Now when the four Flathead Indians in 1832, traveled over the mountains and plains fifteen hundred miles, to find Captain William Clarke, who had been out here a quarter of a century before, to get "the white man's book of heaven," that fact did not greatly excite Clarke, or the frontiersmen of St. Louis. Old St. Louis was not much celebrated for its piety. The fur traders, and the river men, comprising about the entire population, had no religion of their own worth mentioning; and the forlorn natives returned to their distant homes without the bible and without religious teachers. But the fact of their visit and the purpose of these Indians being published in the religious and other newspapers of the day, reached the eyes and ears of the religious people of New York and New England; and behold the great fire the little spark kindled.
The first public notice of this event that we have been able to find is the letter of Mr. William Walker, agent and interpreter at the Wyandotte Indian mission, printed in the Christian Advocate and Journal of New York, March 1, 1833. Mr. Walker says: "Immediately after we landed in St. Louis, I proceeded to the office of General Clarke, superintendent of Indian affairs, to present our letters of introduction from the secretary of war. While in his office and transacting business with him, he informed me that three chiefs from the Flathead nation, west of the Rocky mountains, were at his house and were sick, and that one, the fourth, had died, a few days ago.
"Never having seen any of these Indians, but often heard of them, I was prompted to step into an adjoining room to see them. I was struck with their appearance. General Clarke related to me the object of their mission, and it is impossible for me to describe my feelings while listening to his narrative. I will relate it briefly: Some white men had passed through their country and witnessed their religious ceremonies that they faithfully performed at stated periods. These men informed them that their mode of worship was wrong and displeasing to the great spirit. They also informed them that the white people away over toward the rising sun had the true mode of worshiping God, and that they had a book containing directions, so that they could hold converse with him; and all who would follow the directions given in this book would enjoy the favor of the great spirit in this life, and after death be received into his country to live forever. Upon receiving this information, the Indians called a great council, and appointed four of their chiefs to go to St, Louis to see their great father, General Clarke, and learn the whole truth about it. And on their arrival. General Clarke being sensible of his responsibility, gave the chiefs a history of man from the creation down to the advent of Christ; explained to them the moral precepts of the Bible; informed them about Jesus of Nazareth, his death, resurrection and ascension, and the relation he bears to man as mediator; and that he would judge all men in the end."
This letter was printed broadcast in the papers of the eastern states, but no mention of it is made in the west. The western people had but little confidence in christian Indians, or making christians out of Indians. But Zion's Herald, Pittsburgh Journal, New York Observer, and other papers gave it large circulation. And on March 9, 1833, Wilbur Fisk, president of the Wesleyan university, issued a proclamation calling upon the Methodists everywhere to rally to the appeal of these Flathead Indians, saying in his address: "We are for having a mission established there at once. I propose the following plan: Let two suitable men, unencumbered with families, and possessing the spirit of the martyrs, throw themselves into the Flathead nation, live with them, learn their language, preach Christ to them, and, as the way opens, introduce schools, agriculture, and the arts of civilized life."
In the pursuance of this proclamation of the Methodist university, and the wide extended religious enthusiasm which it aroused Revs. Jason and Daniel Lee, Messrs. Walker and Edwards were sent out by the Methodists in 1834; Rev, Samuel Parker by the Presbyterians in 1835, and Dr. Marcus Whitman, Rev, H. H. Spalding, and William H, Gray, by the Presbyterians, in 1836, Revs. Elkanah Walker and Cushing Ealls in 1838, and the Lausanne party of fifty Methodist missionaries and laymen that came around Cape Horn in 1839. All of these people were from the state of New York, and they were all educated intelligent persons, and at once on reaching this country set to work writing letters back to their friends and to newspapers fully describing the advantages of the country for settlement.
On this missionary movement the Methodists expended nearly two hundred thousand dollars, and the Presbyterians must have spent fully one fourth as much. And while they, all of them, came out to teach the Indians, they, each and all, soon saw that they could not maintain their positions in this country if they placed their sole dependence upon the natives. That the beautiful and pathetic story of the Flatheads could be applied to the other Indian tribes with very little hope of success. And consequently, the sequel shows, that very soon after these missionary men and women got here they were actively convassing by correspondence in every direction to get recruits to come out from the states to settle in the country as farmers and home builders, independent of any Indian reformation. Zion's Herald of April 27, 1837, contains a two column letter from Jason Lee showing the advantages of the country for settlement. In the summer of 1838, Jason Lee returned to the states overland, and before starting he drew up a memorial to congress which was signed by the American settlers. From that memorial, we take the following extract:
"A large portion of the territory from the Columbia river south to the Mexican line, and extending from the sea coast to the interior for 300 miles, is either well supplied with timber or adapted to pasturage and agriculture. The fertile valleys of the Willamette and the Umpqua are varied with prairies and woodlands, and intersected by abundant lateral streams affording facilities for machinery. Perhaps no country of the same latitude can be found with a climate so mild. The ground is seldom covered with snow, which remains but a few hours. We need hardly allude to the commercial advantages of the territory for trade with China, India and the west coast of America. Our interests are identical with those of the country of cur adoption. We flatter ourselves that we are the germ of a great state."
Here was this Methodist preacher, born and reared in the British province of Canada, coming over to the land of the stars and stripes, and becoming as true and tried a citizen of the United States as was ever born under its flag, voicing the sentiments of all the Americans in old Oregon—about two dozen all told — and proclaiming themselves to be the germ of a great state. Could the imagination of a Poe or a Byron, have drawn a longer bow? And yet they made good that hopeful prophecy. They did not do it all, but they did all they could. They started the ball to rolling.
Within twenty-four months after Lee and his little band prepared the above memorial to congress, which Lee himself carried east in 1838, and delivered in person at Washington city, Daniel Webster, then secretary of state, wrote to Edward Everett, the American minister to London, as follows: "The ownership of Oregon is likely to follow the greater settlement, and the larger amount of population."
The conduct of the great Daniel Webster—"the god-like Daniel"—in this Oregon controversy was open to severe criticism. If he was not actually opposed to making a fight for Oregon, his lukewarmness in the cause was utterly disgusting. But it only shows how much more determined and vigilant the Americans in Oregon had to be. It is a safe proposition to assert that the "boosting" for this country from 1835 to 1840, was done almost wholly and solely by the missionaries. Of course there were other Americans here, such men as Col. Joe Meek—who were just as sincerely the defenders of the flag and the rights of Americans as were the missionaries. But these men had not the address or the facilities to reach and arouse the people of the states. Very few if any letters were written back to the states except by the missionaries. And as to those men who were making their living trapping for furs, they did not want any settlers here of any kind. They wanted the country left as a game preserve just as the Hudson Bay Company wanted it. And but for the active efforts of the missionaries, the people of the extreme west who furnished the emigrants, to come in and save the day, would not have learned in time to come here and form a state organization under American auspices.
But all the credit and glory does not belong to the missionaries. There is another man who has never had his just deserts from any historian for his work for Oregon. And although he was not a missionary, he was a religious enthusiast, that might well have his name inscribed alongside of the heroic defenders of American rights to Oregon. And while he did not preach from the house tops, he scattered his appeals for settlers in Oregon, and for the propagation of the gospel as thick as forest leaves. Hall J. Kelley of Three Rivers in the state of Massachusetts commenced agitating the Oregon question in 1815 and kept on incessantly advocating the settlement of this country for more than forty years.
The list of his books, pamphlets, circulars, letters, public lectures, memorials to congress, and miscellaneous writings on the Oregon question would fill a page in this book. It will not be claimed that he was always wise, judicious, or practical in his propaganda for settlement and education or religious teaching in this wild west region. He was hardly an acceptable co-laborer in the cause, for the peculiarity of his temperment did not harmonize well with those who did not always coincide with his views. But he was tireless, incessant and courageously persistent. He secured a hearing by his perseverance, and he made the claims of Oregon known to thousands of men, who, but for his work and his omnipresent pamphlets would never have known anything about this country. He had ability too; and wrought practical works. While here in Oregon, and very much disabled by a long spell of sickness, he made a survey of the Columbia river to Astoria that was of real value, and it was the first survey of the river by an American. And that his numerous published articles, given to the public before any of the missionaries came to Oregon, were the first public statements to call attention to the feasibility of settling Oregon by overland emigration there can be no dispute. The public meetings held to raise funds to send the missionaries to Oregon had Kelley's writings on the subject before them. And his constant agitation of the subject for so many years unquestionably interested many persons and led them to investigate the claims of Oregon. And so we conclude, that it was a religious motive in the beginning, which gathered the seeds of information about this country and planted them in the fertile soil of Iowa and Missouri, where they sprang up and bore fruit, a thousand fold, in brave men and noble self-sacrificing women, who, taking their lives in their hands, toiled and struggled along the two thousand miles of dusty rocky mountain way over the old Oregon trail, and settled and saved this country to the American union.
The far-reaching influence of the frontier emigration to Oregon in 1843–4 and 5 has never been fully comprehended. Had the nation secured what it had a just right to claim, the British government could have been shut out of the west coast of America, and its power limited to the east side of the Rocky mountains north of the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude. Then in that case, the Pacific ocean would have been practically an American (United States) lake. For we would have had everything from the northern boundary of Mexico clear up to the Arctic ocean. But as it is, England now holds Vancouver island in front of United States territory and three hundred and fifty miles of frontage, on the Pacific ocean, with many good harbors. On this frontage and in these harbors, British battle ships are posted as a menace to American commerce, and as a protection to the piratical Canadian seal fishery poachers. This menace, and the friction thereby imposed may be borne for a long time; but sooner or later, an American Jackson will go into the presidential chair, and then the first infraction of tariff laws or sailors rights will see an inglorious British backdown, or a lively scrimmage for possession of the whole coast. As it is now, the proximity of the British ports to American centers of trade and population, with all the differences in tariffs, foreign labor laws, diverse populations, British control of navigable channels between the American Pacific coast states and the American territory of Alaska, and British control of competing transcontinental railroads, is a continually disturbing factor in Pacific coast commerce and a menace to the prosperity of Portland and other American Pacific seaports.
The Oregon pioneers saw all these points of possible trouble, clearly. Senators Benton and Linn of Missouri, and Semple of Illinois, foresaw the whole story, and made their battle for the whole coast from Mexico up to Alaska. The presidential election which placed James K. Polk in the White House, was fought upon this platform. It was everywhere in the air. The pioneer wagons, the plains across, had emblazoned on their canvass tops, "Fifty-four, forty or fight." The great mass of the people were ready for the contest with old England.
The pioneers who organized the provisional government at Champoeg in May, 1843, were fully awake to the warlike temper of the two nations. There were two sessions of the Oregon legislative committee, which adjourned to wait and hear what news the emigration of 1844 would bring from the states. The British subjects in Oregon were quite as anxious to hear the news as the Americans. Dr. McLoughlin was not insensible to the strained relations between the United States and England on the Oregon question; and it is said added another bastion to old Fort Vancouver to resist a possible attack from Americans—although the explanation given was that there was danger of an uprising from the Indians. The British war ship Modeste, entered the Columbia, came up the river and anchored in front of Fort Vancouver. Congressman Wentworth of Illinois declared in congress in January, 1844: "I think it is our duty to speak freely and candidly, and let England know that she never can have an inch of Oregon, nor another inch of what is now claimed as the United States territory." And Sir Robert Peel of the British parliament responded to the challenge of Wentworth, by saying: "England knows her rights and dares maintain them." But at the last minute President Polk backed down and sold the Oregon pioneers out to the Hudson Bay Company. It was the most disgraceful chapter in the diplomacy of the United States. And this is the reason why the merchants and manufacturers of this city are not now, this day, supplying all the traders and consumers of the whole coast north of Portland clear up to the Arctic ocean with Oregon manufactures and produce.
As the emigrants of 1843 not only made the old Oregon trail, but also substantially decided the future political status of Oregon, by bringing here a body of forceful men who were possessed of the necessary courage, intelligence and enterprise to execute all necessary movements locally to hold the country, it seems to be not only meet and proper, but due their services and memory, that their names be preserved here as a part of the record of this city, and a precious heritage of their descendants. No complete record of those who composed the emigration of 1843 is in existence. J. W. Nesmith, a young man from Maine, who was elected orderly sergeant, with the duties of adjutant, made a roll of all the male members of the caravan of 1843 who were capable of bearing arms, which included all above sixteen years of age. This roll was preserved by Nesmith until long after he had become United States senator from the state of Oregon. And thirty-two years after he had made that "roll of honor" he read it before the Oregon Pioneer Association at its third annual reunion in 1875, and there requested all the survivors of that roll to answer to their names, as present for duty, and only thirteen responded. There were undoubtedly many more still alive in the state at that time who were not present at that reunion.
The names on Nesmith's old roll, embracing those capable of bearing arms in the emmigration of 1843, are as follows: Jesse Applegate, Charles Applegate, Lindsay Applegate, James Athey, William Athey, John Akinson, William Arthur, Robert Arthur, David Arthur, Amon Butler, George Brooke, Peter H. Burnett, David Byrd, Thomas A. Brown, Alexander Blevins, John P. Brooks, Martin Brown, Orris Brown, George Black, J. P. Black, Samuel Black, Layton Bane, Andrew J. Baker, John G. Baker, William Beagle, Levi F. Boyd, WilHam Baker, Nicholas Biddle, George P. Beale, James Braidy, George Beadle, Thomas Boyer, Boardman, Louis Bergerin, William Baldridge, Feudal C. Cason, James Cason, William Chapman, John Cox, Jacob Champ, L, C. Cooper, James Cone, Moses Childres, Miles Carey, Thomas Cochran, L. Clymour, John Copeahaver, J. H. Coton, Alfred Chappel, Daniel Cronin, Samuel Cozine, Benedict Constable, Joseph B. Chiles, Ransom Clark, John G. Campbell, Chapman, James Chase, Solomon Dodd, William C. Dement, W. P. Dougherty, William Day, James Duncan, Jacob Dorin, Thomas Davis, Daniel Delaney, Daniel Delaney, Jr., William Delaney, William Doke, J. H. Davis, Burrill Davis, George Dailey, John Doherty, V. W. Dawson, Charles H. Eaton, Nathan Eaton, James Etchell, Solomon Emerick, John W. Eaker, E. G. Edson, Miles Eyres, John W. East, Ninowon Everman, Nineveh Ford. Ephraim Ford, Nimrod Ford, John Ford, Alexander Francis, Abner Frazier, William Frazier, William Fowler, William J. Fowler, Henry Fowler, Stephen Fairly, Charles E. Fendall, John Gantt, Chiley B. Gray, Enoch Garrison, J. M. Garrison, W. J. Garrison, William Gardner, Goodell, S. M. Gilmore, Richard Goodman, Major William Gilpin, Gray, B. Haggard, H. H. Hide, William Holmes, Riley A. Holmes, Rickard Hobson, John Hobson, William Hobson, J. J. Hembree, James Hembree, W. C. Hembree, Andrew Hembree, A. J. Hembree, Samuel B. Hall, James Houck, W. P. Hughes, Abijah Hendrick, James Hayes, Thos. J. Hensley, B. Holley, Henry H. Hunt. S. M, Holderness, L C. Hutchins, A. Husted, Joseph Hess, Jacob Howell, William Howell, Wesley Howell, G. W. Howell, Thomas E. Howell, Henry Hill, William Hill, Almoran Hill, Absolom F. Hedges, Henry Hewett, William Hargrave, A. Hoyt, John Holman, Daniel S. Holman, B. Harrigas, Calvin James, John B. Jackson, John Jones, Overton Johnson, Thomas Kaiser, J. B. Kaiser, Pleasant Kaiser, Kelley, Kelsey, Solomon King, W. H. King, A. L. Lovejoy, Edward Lennox, E. Lennox, Aaron Layson, Jesse Looney, John E. Long, H. A. G. Lee, F. Lugur, Lewis Linebarger, Isaac Laswell, J. Loughborough, Milton Little, Luthur, John Lauderdale, McGee, Wm. J. Martin, James Martin, Julius Martin, McClelland, F. McClelland, John B. Mills, Isaac Mills, William A. Mills, Owen Mills, G. W. McGarey, Gilbert Mondon, Daniel Matheney, Adam Matheney, J. N. Matheney, Josiah Matheney, Henry Matheney, A. J. Nastine, Justin McHaley, Jacob Myres, John Manning, James Manning, M. M. McCarver, George McCorcle, William Mayes, Elijah Millican, William McDaniel, D. McKissic, Madison Malone, John B. McLane, William Manzee, John Mclntire, Jackson Moore, W. J. Matney, J. W. Nesmith, W. T. Newby, Noah Newman, Thomas G. Naylor, Neil Osborn, Hugh D. O'Brien, Humphrey O'Brien, Thomas A. Owen, Thomas Owen, E. W. Otie, M. B. Otie, Bennett O'Neil, A. Olinger, Jessee Parker, William G. Parker, J. B. Pennington, R. H. Poe, Samuel Paynter, J. R. Patterson, Charles E. Pickett, Fredrick Prigg, Clayborne Payne, Martin Payne, P. B. Reading, S. P. Rogers, G. W. Rodgers, William Russell, James Roberts, G. W. Rice, John Richardson, Daniel Richardson, Philip Ruby, John Ricord, Jacob Reid, John Roe. Solomon Roberts, Ensley Roberts, Joseph Rossin, Thomas Rives, Thomas H. Smith, Thomas Smith, Isaac W. Smith, Anderson Smith, Ahi Smith, Robert Smith, Eli Smith, Samuel Smallman, William Sheldon, P. G. Stewart, Nathaniel K. Sitton, C. Stimmerman, C. Sharp, W. C. Summers, Henry Sewell, Henry Stout, George Sterling, Stout, Stevenson, James Storey, Swift, John M. Shively, Samuel Shively, Alexander Stoughton, Chauncey Spencer, Hiram Straight, D. Summers, Cornelius Stinger, C. W. Stringer, Lindsey Tharp, John Thompson, D. Trainer, Jeremiah Tetler, Stephen Tarbox, John Ummicker, Samuel Vance, William Vaughn, George Vernon, James Wilmot, William H. Wilson, J. W. Wair, Archibald Winkle, Edward Williams, H. Wheeler, John Wagoner, Benjamin Williams, David Williams, William Wilson, John Williams, James Williams, Squire Williams, Isaac Williams, T. B Ward, James White, John Watson, James Waters, William Winter, Daniel Waldo, David Waldo, William Waldo, Alexander Zachary, John Zachary.
What did all these men come away out here to Oregon for in the year 1843? The dangers, toils, troubles and vicissitudes of the journey have already been described. It is an interesting question in this history, for these men not only made Portland possible but were by labors and influences a part of Portland in every sense of the word, and one of them (A. L. Lovejoy) helped name the town. Their original personal reasons for coming to Oregon was not to oppose the British and hold the country for the United States, although that sentiment was prominent in all their thoughts and they were ready to serve the country in that respect. Home, comfort, independence and business were their first thoughts. But why should they leave established homes in the Mississippi valley, and come to Oregon, where the work of home building must be done all over again?
A few facts will answer this question satisfactorily. All the western states had then, prior to 1843, but recently passed through the worst bank and money panic in the history of the country, resulting in widespread financial distress to everybody. The farmers were rich in all farm productions and the necessaries of life which the farm could produce. But the banks had failed everywhere. There was no money in circulation to do business with. The era of speculation preceding the panic, founded on "wild cat" bank paper, had left everybody in debt with nothing but unsalable lands and farm produce to pay with. There was not a mile of railroad west of the Allegheny mountains at that time, and all surplus produce had to be sent down the rivers to New Orleans and take such prices as might be offered. Jesse Applegate, one of the pioneers named above, just before starting for Oregon, sold a steamboat load of bacon and lard for one hundred dollars, which was used for fuel to make steam on Mississippi steamboats, and started for Oregon without trying to sell his land at all. The writer of this book remembers perfectly well seeing the farmers of Central Ohio in Morgan county building flatboats, called "broad horns," and loading them with farm produce, wheat, flour, corn, corn meal, bacon, lard, soft soap, honey, cider, salt, dried apples, beans, maple sugar, and whiskey, and then floating the cargo down the Muskingum river into the Ohio and down the Ohio into the Mississippi, and down that river to New Orleans, where the cargo was traded for groceries. New Orleans sugar, and molasses, and such other necessaries of life that could be had with possibly ten or fifteen per cent, of the proceeds in Spanish silver coin ; and then after unloading the cargo, break the boat up and sell it for lumber, and shipping the purchased goods back on the little steamboats of that day.
It was this great money panic in the west, and the want of a market for their produce, that set them to thinking. They got their idea that Oregon with a mild climate and rich lands, was on the sea coast, and that there would be an outlet to the markets of the world, and for that reason, its future was more inviting and reliable than that of what they then considered "the overcrowded west." Senator Linn of Missouri, had then already, in 1840, introduced in congress a bill to give every able bodied male person one thousand acres of land. This proposition was of course known to all the frontiersmen, and had settled their minds in favor of Oregon as far as the land question was concerned.
What sort of people were these bold emigrants? To begin with, they were nearly all farmer folks, brought up to hard work on western farms. With more than average intelligence and education for the meager opportunities the frontier west afforded, they were wide awake, alert, and practical, and confident of their rights to come into this disputed territory and claim its lands. They understood the risks which they were taking in what most of the world would have called a fool-hardy enterprise. And these very risks, and all the common dangers and labors of the venture tended to knit them together in a common brotherhood, with a unity of purpose, and serving and laboring on a common level. Making not overmuch professions of piety or religion, they were yet one of the most noteworthy body of respectable, moral and law abiding people that could have been collected in so short a time and in so small a field in all the western states. The offences against honesty, honor, common decency, and good order while on the trail, were trifling; and their conduct after reaching Oregon was beyond criticism. Not one of the pioneer men fell down as a drunkard, defaulter, law-breaker, or oppressor of his fellow-man. The emigration under review furnished no divorce scandals, no inmates to the peniteniary, or insane asylum, and we have yet to hear of one who became an object of public charity. They were honest, modest, conscientious, industrious, sober, patriotic, public spirited men and women ; and made and constituted the backbone, heart, and brains of the future state. Some of them were honorably ambitious for public esteem and station, and were honored and esteemed according to their merits. But in not one single instance was politics or office holding adopted as a trade or profession as it is in these latter times. And for that reason, as well as the worth and works of those pioneers, the public business was transacted with an eye single to the welfare and prosperity of the community, and evenhanded justice was given to all as long as the lives and numbers of these pioneers remained a controlling force in the community. The pioneer and first judges of the territory and state were the best judges the state has ever had. The first governors were also the ablest and most efficient the state has ever had; and both judges and governors took pride in serving the state and laboring for the interests of the people for the honor of the service, and one half of the salary paid such officials at the present day. The lust for money, the pride of station, the rush for business, and the selfishness of competition, had not then eaten out the best that was in mankind, and left the empty shell of outside pretensions. We have vastly more of the conveniences of life; vastly more of the agencies of instruction, and education; and vastly more of productive agencies of business; but we have also in even a greater ratio, all the demoralizing agencies of vice, crime, poverty, and insanity. If our pioneers were not distinguished for the greatness that is now the strife of men and money, they were appreciated for that better part which sought each other's welfare with true and honest hearts:
Unpolished charity, unbroken faith,—
Love, that midst grief began,
And grew with years and faltered not in death."