History of Oregon (Bancroft)/Volume 1/Chapter 6

by Frances Fuller Victor

CHAPTER VI.

THE WILLAMETTE CATTLE COMPANY.

1836–1837.

Need of Cattle in the Willamette Valley—The Hudson's Bay Company Refuse to Sell—McLoughlin's Views on the Question—Meeting at Champoeg—Formation of the Cattle Company—Ewing Young and Party Sent to California for Stock—Solemn and Momentous Negotiations—The Crossing of the San Joaquin—Herds Drawn Across by Ropes and Rafts—An Indian Ambush—Plot to Shoot Edwards and Young—Division of the Stock and its Increase in Oregon—What Became of Ewing Young's Property.

 

Civilization needs certain things to make it respectable. The followers of Confucius may feed on rice, but it is not seemly that Christianity should have to eat only bear meat and salmon-berries. It was quite necessary that the missionaries of Oregon should have cows and horses before they could take rank among the foremost nations of the world. Ewing Young saw this, for he was a thoughtful, practical man, ready to assist progress and minister to the wants of the race; and as his proposal to supply the settlers with that fiery adjunct of civilization, whiskey, had met with poor encouragement, he concluded to do what he could toward stocking the valley with those gentle beasts which men make their companions, not to say masters. Young's distillery speculation had been like the labor of Cleanthes, who supported himself by drawing water at night in order that he might indulge in plucking the flowers of philosophy during the day; it was not appreciated by the Willamette Areopagus, and his judges were delighted over the prospect of such a useful and perhaps dangerous occupation for so restless a settler. If Young would help civilization and the settlers in this matter, perhaps the settlers and civilization might help Young.

"I found," observes Slacum, "that nothing was wanting to insure comfort, wealth, and every happiness to the people of this most beautiful country, but the possession of neat-cattle, all of those in the country being owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, who refused to sell them under any circumstances whatever."^[1] This oft-repeated charge, in the tone of sufferers from tyranny and injustice, it may be as well to explain. McLoughlin asserts that in 1825 the company had but twenty-seven head of cattle of any age or size. So precious were these that they were allowed to multiply without the slaughter of a single animal. As late as 1839 the company declined to furnish with beef the surveying squadron of Sir Edward Belcher, who complained of this refusal on his return to England.^[2] The policy of the fur magnates could not therefore be called an anti-American restriction. McLoughlin reasoned that if he sold cattle to the settlers they would be entitled to the increase, and he would be deprived of the means of assisting new-comers, and the interests of the coast retarded. If two hundred dollars, which was offered, were paid for a cow, the purchaser would put such a price on the increase that the settlers could not buy. He therefore thought it better, while cattle were still few in the country, to lend to every settler cows and oxen to make him comfortable, though he was not made rich, and all to share alike, while the herds suffered no diminution.^[3]

Jason Lee, Ewing Young, and others so represented the benefits of cattle to them that Slacum made a proposition to carry to California in the brig Loriot all persons wishing to go thither, where cattle could be bought for three dollars a head. A meeting was called for those so inclined to convene at Champoeg to form a cattle company. The object being one of interest to the Canadian as well as to the American settlers, there was a general attendance, and the Willamette Cattle Company was organized, with Ewing Young as leader and P. L. Edwards as treasurer. Mr Slacum at his own option advanced Jason Lee $500, and to this sum was added by the settlers, who had money due them at Fort Vancouver, enough to make the amount $1,600, to which was added nearly $900 by McLoughlin for the Hudson's Bay Company. The collection was purposely made as large as possible, for by purchasing a great number the cost of each would be less, and the expense of driving a large herd was little more than that of driving a small one. But McLoughlin is never mentioned by the missionaries as having thus contributed to the success of the Willamette Cattle Company.^[4]

On the contrary, from the moment of the appearance of Slacum in Oregon, and his championship of the ostracized party of Ewing Young, the former acquiescence of the missionaries in the Willamette Valley in the rules and regulations of the fur company was changed to an opposition as determined, if not so open, as that of either Kelley or Young. That Slacum encouraged this course is true, for he came as the agent of the United States to offer protection to Americans from the despotism of a British corporation, assuming that Oregon was United States territory, and the fur company had no rights, south of the Columbia at least, except such as Great Britain could give it under the convention of 1818.

In Slacum's report to the secretary of war, he says that at the public meeting held at Champoeg for the organization of the cattle company, he told the Canadians that, although they were located within the territorial limits of the United States, the title to their farms would doubtless be secured to them when that government took possession of the country. He cheered them also, he says, with the hope that erelong measures would be adopted for opening trade with the Oregon Territory, when, instead of getting fifty cents a bushel for their wheat delivered at Fort Vancouver, they might receive the dollar and a half which the Russians paid in California.^[5] So much interest was he able to create by this suggestion, that a petition was drawn up praying the congress of the United States "to recognize them in their helpless and defenceless state, and to extend to them the protection of its laws, as being, or desiring to become, its citizens," and signed by both Americans and Canadians.

Little time was consumed by Slacum in executing his mission in Oregon. On the 17th of January, four days after he was met at Champoeg by Jason Lee, who had been on business to Fort Vancouver, eleven members of the Willamette Cattle Company^[6] left in a canoe for the anchorage of the Loriot, a mile and a half below Wapato Island, to embark for California. On the 21st they went on board, and the following morning Jason Lee took leave of them, first gathering the company on the quarter-deck, and praying for the success of their undertaking.

Two days were spent in descending the river, and when Baker Bay was reached it was found that the Nereid and Llama, two of the fur company's vessels, had been detained there since the 22d of December. The sea being still rough, on the morning of the 30th of January the Loriot parted her cables and was driven on shore, but, being assisted by the other vessels, escaped unharmed. It rendered it necessary, however, for Captain Bancroft to return to Fort Vancouver to procure a chain-cable and anchors, so that it was not until the 10th of February that the Loriot was able to go to sea. Nine days were occupied in the voyage to Fort Ross, where permission was obtained to land the cattle company at Bodega, and horses and guides were furnished to take Slacum to San Francisco.

On the 28th the Loriot, with Edwards and Young on board, resumed her voyage to San Francisco Bay, while the eight men left at Fort Ross found employment and good wages at Cooper's mills, until their services should be needed by Young. The Loriot, after some dangerous coast navigation, arrived at San Francisco on the 1st of March, and taking on board Mr Slacum, proceeded to Monterey, where was the residence of General Vallejo, whom Young wished to consult about driving out cattle, to which measure the Mexican government was averse. Edwards remained behind, occupying his time in excursions about the bay, and in studying the customs of the country.^[7]

On the 10th Young returned from Monterey with the tidings that Vallejo declined giving permission to drive cattle out of the country, saying it was the prerogative of the civil government, which was at Santa Barbara. Thither Young had proceeded, while Edwards continued to increase his knowledge of California customs, and the affairs of Americans whom he found about San Francisco Bay, visiting, in company with Birnie, Leese, and McNeil of the Llama, the mission of San Rafael, Sonoma, Martinez, Cooper's mills, and the farms of several of his countrymen. On the 8th of May he took passage in the ship Sarah and Caroline, Captain Steel, for Monterey, where on the 12th he met Young, who, after going from San Francisco to Monterey, from Monterey to Santa Barbara, and from Santa Barbara to Santa Cruz, and back again to Monterey, where the matter was laid before the deputation then in session, had at length obtained consent to drive from the country seven hundred head of cattle, on condition that they were purchased of the government, and not of the missions to which they belonged.^[8] The sale of cows was only brought about after much exertion on the part of Vallejo, who on second thought lent his influence to assist the Oregon company, and won to the purpose Alvarado and the president of the missions.

Permission being thus obtained, the next step, and one quite as difficult, was to get the cattle and horses into safe possession. There were forty horses purchased near Santa Cruz and driven to San Francisco. Young was then obliged to go to Sonoma to obtain the order of Vallejo, who had been appointed government agent in the sale of the cattle. The order was given for two hundred head from the mission of San Francisco, one hundred and seventy cows and thirty bulls; but the administrator at the mission used every means to evade the order, and insisted on inverting the ratio and only furnishing thirty cows. Thereupon Young was obliged to return to Yerba Buena to have the order translated, that he might be sure it was correct.

This being at length explained, and part of the men having joined them, Edwards and Young proceeded toward the San Jose mission with their first purchase, there to obtain the remaining five hundred. The administrator of San Francisco, for collecting and guarding the cattle as far as Martinez, exacted presents for his Indians, as he pretended, to the value of over fifty dollars, and Young had a sharp altercation with the authorities there on account of these exactions. The whole number of cattle purchased was not delivered until the 22d of June, three weeks having been occupied in going from San Francisco to the mission of San Jose. Some of the animals escaped on the way; and of those at the mission, some were found to have been kept seven days in a corral with little or nothing to eat. The wildest were starved or beaten until sufficiently subdued to drive; but then they were too weak to travel, and many dropped to the ground the first day. Complaint being made to the administrator, he agreed to furnish others for those that were lost, from a place beyond, but on reaching the spot designated no cattle were there. Then another order was given, to be filled from a rancho still farther on; nevertheless when they reached the San Joaquin River, the 25th of June, eighty animals were missing.

To cross the river was next in order, and at the same time to train these wild snorting brutes to cross rivers, for there were more of them beyond. The company were nearly all together again, and their number was here augmented by Henry Wood, B. Williams, Moore, and two others. First, a strong corral was put upon the river bank, and the cattle driven into it. Then on the 12th of July a few cows were induced to swim over after their calves, which were towed across by men in a canoe. Next day all present, some on foot and some mounted, lent their aid to induce the cattle to take to the water. Most of them were driven in; but when half-way across a panic seized them and they turned back, with a loss of seventeen drowned. To lasso and tow each animal over singly was next attempted, for the accomplishment of which rafts of bulrushes were made, and on them men seated themselves, some to pull the raft over by a rope stretched across the river, and others to drag each an animal through the water by a rope about the horns. In this tedious labor the company engaged till the 20th; the work of herding and guarding at night being increased by the division of both men and cattle on the opposite side of the river. Edwards, who was on the north side, was obliged to be on horseback sometimes the greater part of the night, after toiling, as he says, "in sweat, water, and great danger" through the day, with myriads of mosquitoes which maddened the animals beyond bounds. There had been little opportunity to rest since the first of June, and this last trial taxed strength and patience to the utmost. But the climax came on the same afternoon that the crossing was finally effected. While driving to a new encampment, the horse on which the ammunition was packed ran into a small tule lake or pond, and all the powder became wet.

All day long Edwards had ridden hard, and far into the night he had labored to induce his charge to cross a slough, albeit but knee-deep; and now before he could sleep he must return to Yerba Buena for powder. If he had ever rebelled at the wild ways of the half-broken oxen of the Hudson's Bay Company in Oregon, he now remembered those days with regret. "The last month, what has it been!" he exclaims. "Little sleep, much fatigue, hardly time to eat, mosquitoes, cattle breaking like so many evil spirits, and scattering to the four winds, men ill natured and quarrelling; another month like the past, God avert! Who can describe it?"^[9] And yet he was only sixty miles on his way, with five hundred miles still between him and the Willamette Mission. Again at Mission San Jose he exchanged two horses for cattle, to replace some which were lost; but when he brought the purchaser to Livermore's, where one of the horses had been left, he found it had been stolen. By dint of bargain and exchange, however, he secured twenty head, which with considerable assistance were driven to camp. With these, and others he was able to purchase on the road, notwithstanding losses, he had seven hundred and twenty-nine when he encamped on the San Joaquin August 14th.

On the 20th the company reached the mountains at the head of the Sacramento Valley, fording the Sacramento River without difficulty, following the trail of Michel La Framboise and his trapping party. As they proceeded north the mountains were higher and harder to ascend, being stony, with a close growth of bushes, into which some of the cattle escaped. On the afternoon of the 26th a high and rugged mountain seemed to close the way. Riding up the steep, Young declared that there was another mountain above it. "Now," said he to Edwards, "if you are a philosopher, show yourself one!" But alas! no man is a philosopher longer than his bodily frame can be made to support his resolution. The patience of the company was nearly at an end. The men, tired of eating dried meat, and irritable with toil and privation, insisted that a beef should be killed that night, which Young refused, on account of having to carry the meat over the mountain. A quarrel ensued, in which they defied authority. "Kill at your peril!" said Young; and the storm blew over. The mind of the leader was stronger than the muscles of the men; still it was evident that the courage of the company was declining.

It was not until the 12th of September that the Rogue River Valley^[10] was gained. Threats had been made by Turner, Gay, and Bailey that after Rogue River was passed there would be Indians killed in revenge for the attack on their party in 1835. Their purpose was kept hidden from Young, who for the safety of the property would have forbidden retaliation.

On the 14th, having crossed the river, camp was made about five miles beyond. A few natives approached, and one of them, accompanied by a boy ten years of age, entered the camp in a friendly manner. Gay deliberately raised his gun and fired, and as the Indian attempted flight, Bailey also fired, and the man fell. The cry then arose, "Shoot the boy! shoot the boy! "but he escaped behind a point of rock. This dastardly act could not be excused on the ground of revenge, as the spot where these men were attacked two years before was yet four days distant. The folly of inciting a conflict with the natives, under the circumstances, was indefensible.

The men had become so excited by past wrongs and present sufferings, aggravated now by bloodshed, that on the following day, after a toilsome march through dust and heat, their insubordination culminated in a quarrel with guns and knives, which continued for fifteen minutes, while threats and curses emphasized their acts. Then once more the firmness of their leader prevailed, and peace was restored.

For several days and nights Young was on the alert for the expected retaliation of the natives; he doubled the guard, and used extreme caution in passing through the frequent defiles, where the enemy might lurk in ambush. The first night Edwards fired on a party of five Indians stealing through the woods, and frightened them off. The next day there were arrows shot from each side of the road, and several of the cattle wounded, but only one killed.

On the morning of the 18th, when the company entered that part of the country where Turner, Gay, and Bailey had been attacked, Indians were discovered running along the mountain side as if to intercept them in some defile. It was nearly noon, and they were passing between the banks of the Rogue River, when suddenly from the thickly wooded mountains yells were heard, and arrows showered upon those in advance. Young, apprehending such an attack, was making a reconnoissance with three of his men some distance in advance in the pass, but had discoverd nothing until the cattle came within range of the arrows, when the savages were found to be on both sides of the trail. Young ordered the men in charge of the cattle to remain where they were, while he undertook to repel the enemy. The Indians were driven off after Gay had been wounded and Young's horse shot with two arrows. That night strict guard was kept, and no further trouble was experienced.

From this point onward, though the road was still rough and over toilsome mountains, the condition of the cattle improved, as there was an abundance of grass and water. With prospects more favorable, a better state of feeling was restored, and they reached the settlement in good spirits about the middle of October, nine months from the time of their departure.^[11] Edwards' unpublished diary of the expedition is the only reliable account extant of the experiences of the cattle company on the road. It is evident that to him this journey was a prolonged horror. In one place he remarks: "Short-sighted man! happy that his knowledge is not prospective, else he would not adventure upon some of his most ennobling enterprises. Few of our party, perhaps none, would have ventured on the enterprise could they have foreseen all its difficulties. It boots little to reflect that the future gains will amply compensate for present suffering. Most of the party cursed the day on which they engaged, and would hardly have exchanged a draught of cool water for their share of the profits."^[12]

The great object of the Willamette settlers was accomplished, and an era opened in colonial history which rendered them in no small measure independent of the fur company. The precedent thus established of bringing cattle into Oregon was followed three years later by the Hudson's Bay Company, which obtained a permit in Mexico to drive out from California four thousand sheep and two thousand horned cattle, Scotch shepherds being sent to select the sheep, and the company's trappers in California being employed as drivers.

The number of cattle that survived the first expedition was six hundred and thirty, two hundred having been lost by the way. The expenses of the expedition, and the losses, brought the price up from three to nearly eight dollars each. They were divided in the manner agreed upon when the company was formed, the subscribers taking all that could be purchased with their money at seven dollars and sixty-seven cents a head; while the earnings of the men who went as drivers at one dollar a day were paid to them in cattle at the same rate. The stock obtained were of the wildest, the administrators taking good care that it should be so, and their value was lessened in consequence. But the settlers were allowed to keep the oxen borrowed from McLoughlin in exchange for wild cattle, and calves were accepted in place of full-sized animals, as they were wanted for beef later.^[13]

There is some difference of opinion as to whom the credit of this enterprise is due. Mr Hines^[14] thinks that it was Jason Lee's energy and perseverance which laid this foundation of rapidly accumulating wealth for the settlers. Perhaps it might more justly have been attributed to Edwards; but as a matter of fact, it was Ewing Young, as Walker says, who "put in motion the introduction of Spanish cattle in Oregon."^[15] He was the only man among the settlers who knew enough of California and its customs to intelligently propose such a plan, and to overcome the almost insuperable difficulties of its execution.^[16] He, too, it was who resented the restrictions of the fur company, and determined upon the independence of American settlers. No longer under a cloud, after his return Young rose to an important position in the colony. He built a saw-mill on the Chehalem at considerable expense, which was kept in operation until the winter of 1840–1, when it was carried away by high water. Soon after this misfortune Young died.^[17] The provisional government of 1841 was organized to take charge of Young's estate, and the jail was built with it, the government pledging its faith to restore it or its value to his heirs. It was restored in part to his heirs years afterward when Oregon had become a state.

In 1854, while Oregon was still a territory, there appeared Joaquin Young, a son of Ewing Young by a Mexican mother, who petitioned the territorial legislature for his father's money. An act was passed empowering him to commence suit in the supreme court to recover the sums paid into the treasury of the provisional government by his administrators, said action to be prosecuted to final judgment. The suit, however, was not brought; the legislature deferred passing a bill authorizing the payment of the judgment until 1855. Finally the supreme court, consisting of George H. Williams and M. P. Deady, gave judgment for Joaquin Young. In the mean time the claimant sold his interest to O. C. Pratt; and when this was known, R P. Boisé, a member of the legislature, and opposed to Pratt in politics, secured the passage of a bill stopping the payment of the judgment. The matter then rested until 1862, when a law was enacted, chiefly through the influence of Judge Deady, authorizing persons having claims against the territory or state to bring suit for recovery. Under this act Pratt brought suit, and obtained judgment for the amount, receiving $5,108.94, in November 1863, twenty-two years after the property was taken in charge by the Methodist Mission.^[18]

Slacum, after having been of such real service to the settlers, sailed for San Blas a few days after his arrival in California, on his way through Mexico to Washington. He took a share in the company, and deputed Young to take charge of his proportion of the stock, amounting to twenty-three animals. Four years afterward, in consequence of Slacum's death, his nephew, a midshipman of the United States exploring squadron, claimed his uncle's share, with the increase, which amounted to sixty-three, and these he obtained and sold to McLoughlin for $860.^[19]

From the presence of Ewing Young in Oregon sprang two important events in the settlement of the country: the coming of an authorized agent of the United States, and the disinthralment of the settlers from what they felt to be the oppressive bondage of the fur company. By his death Ewing Young gave the colony a further and still more important impulse, as will be shown during the progress of events.

From the life of Ewing Young—indeed, from any man's life—we may safely conclude that it is better to laugh at sorrow and slight, and even indignity, especially where the wrong is only fancied, as is usually the case, than to cry over these things. There is nothing in the wide world worth mourning for; if all our joys have taken their departure, they are but a step before us. But it has always been so, the chief occupation of man being to torment himself withal. At first, on coming to Oregon, Ewing Young would be king; but finding there a monarch so much his superior, he fell into hateful ways. So mightily had he been mistaken in the beginning, that soon he felt it hardly safe to be sure of anything. But when the shore lines of his life were worn somewhat smooth by the eroding waves of humanity's ocean, and the rewards of benificent conduct far exceeded the most sanguine anticipations of benefits to flow from evil practices, might not the broad truth have come home to him, that he is made as conspicuously uncomfortable whose virtues lift him above the common sentiment of society, as he whose vices sink him below the general level?

1. Slacum's Report, in Supp. to H. Rept. 101, 25th Cong., 3d Sess.
2. Belcher's Voyage, i. 296; Applegate's Views of Hist, MS., 28.
3. Copy of a Document, in Trans. Or. Pioneer Assoc., 1880, 51.
4. It is stated in Hines' Oregon Hist., 23, that the organization of a cattle company was indirectly opposed by the authorities at Fort Vancouver; but this can hardly be true. Slacum says in his Report, already quoted, that $1,600, or enough to purchase 500 cattle, was raised in the Willamette Valley by his advancing $500. Daniel Lee states in his account, Lee and Frost's Or., 144–6, that 800 were purchased at $3 a head, and 40 horses at $12 a head, making the whole outlay $2,880. If it were not for the explanation given by McLoughlin himself, in A Copy of a Document, Trans. Or. Pioneer Assoc., 1880, 51, we should be left as much in the dark by the missionary statements as by Slacum himself, concerning the source from which the $880 additional was obtained.
5. In another part of his report he says that a cargo of 5,000 bushels could at that time be obtained from the settlers on the Willamette, and also that the Russians required 25,000 bushels annually. This was, of course, a great inducement to the settlers to strive for independence in trade, and to oppose the monopoly of the fur company.
6. Their names were P. L. Edwards, Ewing Young, Lawrence Carmichael, James O'Neil, George Gay, Calvin Tibbets, John Turner, W. J. Bailey, Webley Hauxhurst, and two Canadians. De Puis and Erguette.
7. Among other scraps of knowledge, he remarks in his Diary, MS., 13, of the expedition, that on the stock-ranches 'spotted mares are generally broken in, and much esteemed on the following account: all the horses of a band follow her, attracted by her peculiarity of color, and are not so likely to stray abroad.'
8. 'And all this rumpus,' says Edwards, 'on account of an old colonial law which forbids the exportation of male and female animals from the colonies.' Diary, M.S., 16.
9. Diary, MS., 24.
10. Edwards in his diary calls this place Chasta valley and river.
11. Lee and Frost's Or., 146.
12. Edwards' Diary, MS., 30–1. In the Nevada Gazette of June 5, 1869, is an article by an anonymous writer which refers to this expedition. It represents Young as overbearing, and disliked by the men; also saying that in the Siskiyou Mountains five of them had conspired to kill him and others on a certain night, and to divide the stock among themselves, the murder to be committed as Young and Edwards returned from looking for lost cattle, Turner being the one elected to shoot Young. On coming into camp and seeing by the looks of the men that something was wrong, Young questioned them, and one of the conspirators commenced cursing Turner for his cowardice, and the plot was revealed. An altercation took place, and the company being pretty evenly divided, an armistice was agreed upon, the division being continued to the end of the journey, and the guard at night being made up of equal numbers of both parties for fear of treachery. This I take to be a sensational story, as Edwards makes no mention of it in his Diary, where less important quarrels are described minutely.
13. Copy of a Document in Trans. Or. Pioneer Assoc., 1880, 50–2.
14. Hines' Oregon History, 23.
15. Sketch of Ewing Young, Or. Pioneer Assoc. Trans., 1880, 58; Wilkes' Nar., U. S. Explr. Ex., iv. 384.
16. Marsh's Letter MS., 16.
17. It was said that his mind became affected by disease, or from his many trials and disappointments. White's Ten Years in Or., 154.
18. See Special Laws Or., 1855–6, 92; General Laws Or., 1862, 78; Message and Docs., 1864, 72; Or. Jour. Council, 1855–6, app., 92; Or. Statesman, Jan. 2, 1855.
19. Wilkes' Nar., U. S. Explr. Ex., iv. 384.