Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 20/Number 1
THE QUARTERLY
of the
Oregon Historical Society
Copyright, 1919, by the Oregon Historical Society
The Quarterly disavows responsibility for the positions taken by contributors to its pages.
THE SNAKE RIVER IN HISTORY
By Miles Cannon.
Commissioner of Agriculture, Boise, Idaho.
Near the central part of Lewis county, Tennessee, in a lonely wooded spot which is rarely disturbed by any sound save the mournful dirge of the forest trees or the bark of the hunter's hounds, is an old and neglected grave. The place is marked by a marble monument, standing more than 20 feet in height, which was erected in 1848 by the state in which it is located. Centuries before the sod was turned for this grave a great Indian highway ran near by, and this, in time, became a military road known in history as the "Natchez Trace." It was here that Meriwether Lewis, the first white man to look upon the waters of the Snake river, at early dawn October 11th, 1809, at the age of 35 years, yielded up his brief but eventful life. Marching events have long since consigned the "Natchez Trace" to oblivion but human interest in that grave will continue to increase with time, for Meriwether Lewis played a leading role in one of America's greatest political dramas.
The opening scene of this drama was in what is now known Lemhi pass of the Rocky Mountains, situated between Armstead, Montana, and the Salmon river in Idaho. The time was the afternoon of Monday, August 12, 1805. Speaking of the source of the Missouri river the Lewis and Clark notes contain the following lines:
"They had now reached the hidden sources of that river, which had never yet been seen by civilized man. . . . they sat down by the brink of that little rivulet, which yielded its distant and remotest tribute to the parent ocean," etc.
They then proceed to relate that:
"They left reluctantly this spot, and pursuing the Indian road through the interval of hills, arrived at the top of a ridge, from which they saw high mountains partially covered with snow still to the west of them. The ridge on which they stood formed the dividing line between the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans."
Let us tarry at this interesting place and view well the scenes before us. Standing with Mr. Lewis is John Shields, a blacksmith from Kentucky, and George Drewyer, the interpreter and hunter. It is recorded that they carried a United States flag which, at that time, consisted of fifteen stripes and a Union of fifteen stars in the blue field. The colors of our flag had first appeared in history some 3400 years before this time and, likewise, under dramatic surroundings. Bible readers will recall that, at the base of Mount Sinai, the Lord gave to Moses the Ten Commandments and the book of the law, and they were deposited in the Ark of the Covenant within the movable Tabernacle, before which four curtains were suspended, one of purple, one of red, one of white and one of blue. The first color, obtained by the ancients only with the greatest difficulty, was necessarily restricted in use and finally became the distinctive color of imperialism.
The three remaining colors have been handed down through the long centuries and during the last three have quite generally been used in flag making, more especially by countries inclined toward civil freedom. These colors, 3400 years in their coming, are now on the summit of the continental divide and the men who bore them hither look out over one of the most beautiful panoramic scenes in all the world. Down through the fathomless abyss of time that landscape had received from the winter's storms its mantles of snow, and with the breath of each succeeding spring it had burst forth into life again. But never before had a white man beheld its transcendent beauty nor had his feet trod the winding stairs and stately corridors of this magnificent temple of God. Whether or not the sculptor who is to fashion the granite column marking this spot is yet born I know not; but sooner or later a monument will arise in these rugged regions and to it will come the remotest generations to do homage to the memory of Meriwether Lewis.
August 20, the reunited party was encamped several miles below the confluence of the Lemhi and Salmon rivers, probably in the same cove occupied by Bonneville 27 years later, when Captain Clark conferred upon the stream, here 300 feet in width, the name Lewis's river and noted in the journal the information that Captain Lewis was the first white man to visit its waters. During the early days when the country was occupied by mountain men it seems that the principal rivers, with a few exceptions, were called after the tribes which inhabited the adjacent country. Thus the Cowlitz river derived its name, as did the Yakima, the Walla Walla, the Palouse, the Okanogan, and the Spokane. The North-West Company designated what is now southern Idaho as the Snake country and, in time, the name Lewis faded away under the poetic brilliancy of that charming name "Snake." When Jason Lee arrived at Fort Hall he wrote in his journal that he had "camped about noon on the bank of the Snake river as called by the mountain men but on the map Lewis Fork."
The Lewis and Clark journals contain the following:
"They (the Snakes) are the poorest and most miserable nation I ever beheld."
From Alexander Ross we learn how the name originated, as follows:
"It arose from the characteristics of these Indians in quickly concealing themselves when once discovered. They seem to glide away in the grass, sage brush and rocks and disappear with all the subtlety of a serpent."
Father DeSmet gives this version relative to the origin of the name:
"They are called Snakes because in their poverty they are reduced like reptiles to the condition of digging in the ground and seeking nourishment from roots."
Of Mr. Lewis, President Jefferson said:
"About three o'clock in the night he did the deed which plunged his friends into deep affliction, and deprived his country of one of her most valued citizens, whose valour and intelligence would have been now employed in avenging the wrongs of his country, and in emulating by land the splendid deeds which have honoured her arms on the ocean. It lost, too, to the nation the benefit of receiving from his own hand the narrative now offered them of his sufferings and successes, in endeavoring to extend for them the boundaries of science, and to present to their knowledge that vast and fertile country which their sons are destined to fill with arts, with science, with freedom and happiness."
It is perhaps no idle dream if Americans feel that the future holds in store a glorious destiny for our country in the affairs of the world, and that our flag will, throughout the unnumbered centuries, symbolize the highest and most generous elements of civilization. The Snake river basin is able to and will, in time, support a population of many millions of brave, prosperous and happy people. Whether or not they will felicitate us who now occupy a position on the very threshold of an unbounded future, for giving our silent consent to an historical perversion which will perpetuate the memory of the Snake Indians by attaching this name to one of the most valuable and powerful rivers in America, rather than the memory of the man who first visited its waters, is a question of some import and one which affords much food for refiection.
One of the most interesting features in connection with early exploration, discoveries and development of the mountain regions, and one which quite generally has been over looked by contemporaneous writers, are the many and important pre-historic roads. A definite knowledge of these winding trails, the parallel and deep worn furrows, many of which are yet to be seen, is obtained with the greatest difficulty. As an example the journals of Lewis and Clark contain the fol lowing notation in connection with the discovery of Lemhi pass:
"At the distance of four miles írom his camp he met a large plain Indian road which came into the cove from the north east, and wound along the foot of the mountain to the south west," etc.
When he had arrived in the Lemhi valley, Captain Clark interrogated the Indians very minutely relative to roads and obtained valuable information regarding the topography of the country and locations of the rivers. This interview resulted in Captain Clark's deciding to make his way to the road used by the Piercednose Indians in crossing over the mountains to the Missouri, towards the north, which, latterly, became known as the Lolo Trail.
In making some enquiries as to the exact trail which Dr. Whitman followed south from Fort Bridger, in making his memorable journey in 1842 'to save Oregon," a pre-historic road of uch importance is, to a limited extent, brought to our notice. It would seem that this trail extended from Vera Cruz, Mexico, northward to the Rio Grande near El Paso thence to Santa Fe, where it probably converged with the old Spanish trail until it reached the western part of Mesa County, Colorado, near a place called Westwater Canon. From this point the Spanish Tra ed in a more westerly direction crossing Green river near where the Denver and Rio Grande Railway now crosses that stream. The other ascended Westwater canyon, crossed over to White river, thence to Green crossing near where Fort Thornburg was in after years located. From this point the trail followed practically a direct line over the Uintah Mountains to where Bridger was afterward located and from thence to the Snake river near the Fort Hall site. From here it iollowed the Snake to Henry's Lake, where it diverged into three distinct trails, one in the direction of the Yellowstone, one to Three Forks and one toward Ross's Hole, each prong passing through a separate and distinct pass in the Rocky Mountains directly above Henry's Lake.
Returning to the Westwater canyon it may be of interest to note that, several years ago, an inscription was found orn the wall rock of this canyon written in French, a liberal translation of which follows:
"Antoine Robidoux passed this way the 13th of November, 1837, for the purpose of establishing a mission for trading or Green River or the Uintah."
He appears to have established his trading mission on the Uintah a short distance above its confluence with the Du Chesne. The fort is said to have been destroyed by the Utah Indians in 1844. The old trails which in later years became known as the Oregon Trail appear to have joined with the Southern trail in the Bridger bottoms and continued with it Snake river some five miles above where Fort Hall was located. Here the Columbia river trail branched off and followed the left bank of the Snake to Three Islands, near the present town of Glenn's Ferry, Idaho, where one prong crossed the Snake and followed the mountain slopes to Boise river a short distance above the city of Boise as it is today. The other prong continued on the south side of the river and again joined the northern arm, after the latter had re-crossed the Snake at the mouth of the Boise, at a point about six miles south-east of the present town of Vale, Oregon.
It may be pertinent here to observe that early travelers, while they almost invariably availed themselves of these well-worn highways in their ubiquitous wanderings through the mountains, encountered trails which existed in countless numbers and which were almost everywhere in evidence. For this reason it was found necessary, wherever possible, to employ Indian guides. How long these pre-historic trails had been in existence before the advent of the white man will be touched upon later.
We learn from the pen of Mr. T. C. Elliott that David Thompson, in the summer of 1809, descended the Kootenay river as far as the present site of Bonner's Ferry where he transferred his goods to pack animals and transported them over the "Lake Indian Road" to Lake Pend d' Oreille where, on September the 10th of that year, he erected the first building in what is now the state of Idaho, the site being in the vicinity of the present town of Hope. Events leading to a knowledge of the great Snake river were now in the making. Major Andrew Henry, a tall, slender young man, with dark hair and light blue eyes had already associated himself with Manuel Lisa, of St. Louis, and they were alert to avail themselves of any advantages which were to be derived from the success of the Lewis and Clark expedition. While Thompson was establishing "Kullyspell House" on Lake Pend d'Oreille, Henry was making his way up the Missouri with all speed.
The spring of 1810 found him establishing himself, in the interest of the Missouri Fur Company, at the three forks of the Missouri on almost the identical spot where the explorers had encamped five years before. The ruins of the fort which they established here were in evidence until 1870. Being driven out of this section by the Blackfoot Indians they traveled the middle prong of the great Southern trail, heretofore mentioned, and crossed the Continental Divide near Henry's Lake and established themselves on the Snake river at a point, as I conclude after an examination of the country, two miles below the present town of St. Anthony and on the left bank of the river. The melancholy fact should be noted that George Drewyer, whose memory is so closely associated with that of Mr. Lewis, lost his life in the fall of the fort at Three Forks and that his ashes still repose in that vicinity.
The establishment on Snake river, which became known as Fort Henry, and which consisted of some two or three huts, was situated in a small valley of about twenty acres. When the first settlers arrived in this section during the early sixties this valley was still covered with a growth of large cottonwood trees, the only timber in that section of the country. It is now an alfalfa field, and, doubtless the site of the first house in all the territory drained by the Snake river and the second to be erected in the state of Idaho.
In the service of Major Henry at this time were three men of some importance to this narrative and whose names are familiar to readers of Irving's Astoria. Edward Robinson, a Kentucky woodsman then in his sixty-seventh year, a veteran Indian fighter in his native state, and who had been scalped in one of the many engagements in which he took part. He still wore a handkerchief bound round his head to protect the tender reminder. Associated with him were two congenial spirits also from Kentucky, named John Hoback and Jacob Rizner. They had ascended the Missouri in 1809 with Henry, taken part in the battle of Three Forks, crossed the Continental Divide and, with Fort Henry as a base, had trapped on many of the adjacent streams. After the fort was abandoned, they re-crossed the mountains and descended the Missouri, but Henry, it would appear, stopped at a post which the Missouri Fur Company had established on the river near the mouth of the Cheyenne. The three hunters, in the early spring of 1811,
free from their engagements, continued on down the river determined to forever abandon the pursuit of fortune in the
now
wilderness.
By the morning of May 26th, their flotilla, consisting of two log canoes, arrived at a point in the Missouri opposite the mouth of the Niobrara when their attention was attracted by the report of a gun which came from the right bank of the river. The hunters crossed over and landed at the camp of a powerful company of fortune seekers under the command of Wilson Price Hunt, who were then breakfasting around a blazing fire on the green bank of the river. As a result of this unexpected meeting we find these three men, on the evening of October 8, 1811, and after a long ride in the face of a westerly wind and flurries of snow, filing into the lonely precincts of Fort Henry accompanied by not
less
than three scores of
traders, trappers and voyagers, mounted, armed and equipped for the struggle which the phantom of hidden riches too often entails.
Our
three Kentucky hunters, together with Joseph Miller, army man, and a man by name of Cass, were left
a retired
Henry and were the first white men to explore the Snake river basin and become acquainted with the Indian roads of the country, which they did as far east as Bear river. When Robert Stuart reached the mouth of the Boise river
at Fort
the following August, enroute to New York with dispatches for Mr. Astor, he, by the merest chance of fortune, discovered
Miller and the three hunters on the verge of starvation. Having appeased their torturing craving for food Stuart conducted the four unfortunates, Cass having in the meantime been unSNAKE RIVER IN HISTORY
9
the lost, as far as Caldron Linn, now the site of to determined three hunters the where Milner again dam, great
accountably
breast the tide of fortune.
Milner, Idaho, probably stands on the ground where Hunt cached his goods after a vain attempt to negotiate the river in boats. The two rocks which swamped the boat and caused the first
death of a white
man on
the Snake river, and
upon which
the Stuart party found the boat still clinging, now support the dam which diverts water sufficient to create a veritable irri-
gated empire, covering as it does 1,300,000 acres of land reclaimed at a cost of nearly $50,000,000.
Following the arrival at Astoria of the Hunt party, Donald McKenzie, who, with Reed and McClellan, had been detached from the main party at Caldron Linn, and who preceded Hunt to Astoria
set out to establish a post among conclude that he traveled the same
by nearly a month,
Nez Perces Indians. trail from the mouth of the
I
the Walla Walla to the forks of the
Clearwater that Lewis and Clark followed on their return trip six years before and that McKenzie established his post near the
and
mouth of
the
North Fork.
his party after leaving
The movements
Caldron Linn
is
of
McKenzie
involved in
much
mystery but from the nature of the man, his subsequent acts and a knowledge of the country through which he passed, I have no hesitancy in adopting the view that he left the Snake river at the mouth of the Weiser and followed a well known Indian trail up Monroe's creek, thence over to Mann creek, thence over to the Weiser, which he followed to its source. From here he descended the Little Salmon to its junction with the Salmon river proper, which he followed to the mouth of
From here the trail led over the divide somewhat west of old Mount Idaho and down to the Clearwater above the present town of Stites, thence down the Clearwater to the North Fork.
the Whitebird.
I
think, too, that his success in
making
his
way through
the mountains, the knowledge he acquired of the trails and of the country through which they passed, determined Mr. Hunt in
designating McKenzie as the one to operate in the
Nez MILES CANNON
10
Perces country, also in designating Reed, who accompanied McKenzie, as the one to retrace his steps to Caldron Linn for the goods which were cached there. The place where Mc-
Kenzie established his post was on a line of great travel, and ran in several directions from here; it was within a mile or so from the works where Lewis and Clark made their canoes on their outward journey, near where the Lolo trail descended from the Weippe camas fields and a general winter rendezvous for the Indians. It is quite probable, too, that trails
John Reed possessed a satisfactory knowledge of the trails when he consented to return to Caldron Linn and that he traveled the same route that landed them on the Clearwater the winter before. Another evidence which may have a bearing on the question is the fact that there was no other way to get through the mountains and precede the main party by a month. Returning now to the fate of our three Kentucky hunters Stuart left at Caldron Linn, Miller having made good
whom
to quit the country, it seems that they were unable to escape the pursuit of an evil spirit. After being outfitted by Stuart they trapped with varying success higher up the river awaiting the arrival of John Reed from the post at his intention
Nez Perces
in order to complete their
equipment for a two-
years' hunt. Having thus completed their arrangements they set out into the wilderness in quest of the beaver, while Reed,
head of his party, returned to the Clearwater. The following year, 1813, Reed was again detached and sent to the Snake country to trap beaver and search for the three hunters, whom he located late in September of that year. With his party of six voyagers and hunters, besides the squaw and at the
two children of Pierre Dorion, now augmented by the discovery of the three Kentucky woodsmen, Reed located his headquar-
mouth of the Boise. Having lost three of his men during the fall, he, early in the winter, dispatched Rizner at the head of a little party consisting of Leclerc, Dorion and family, to the South Fork of the Boise, a distance of about 100 miles from the Reed house. Between January 1st and
ters at the MILES CANNON
11
10th, Rizner and the two men were massacred while taking beaver on the South Fork, the squaw and two children only
When they arrived at the mouth of the river escaping. was discovered that not one of the party was left alive.
it
The trials and tribulations of this poor Indian woman, from moment until her arrival the following spring in the
this
Walla Walla country, constitutes one of the most heart-rending It is a story that will be told tragedies in western history. as long as people read history and, when properly told, will This brings us to the first Indian massacre in the Snake river valley, a series of which continued, with varying degrees of ferocity and frequency over a period of 58 years. To Stuart is usually accorded the credit of being the first white man to lead a party over the Indian trial that, in time, touch the heart of a nation.
became known
as the
Oregon
Trail.
Of
this trail
I
will
content myself by mentioning only a few of the historic points as they appear today, and as are directly connected with the Snake river in history.
The winter camp of Bonneville, 1833-4, is about eight miles north-west of Bancroft, Idaho, a station on the O. S. L. Ry. It is now in the confines of a farm but the spring still gushes out of the earth in sufficient quantities "to turn a mill" provided the mill were not too large. The trail, in most part, from the Bear river to the Snake, is in a fair state of preservation to the point where it touched the latter stream.
From
this place to the site of
Fort Hall
it is
rather uncer-
only proper for me to state here that there is some doubt in the minds of several gentlemen who have given the
tain.
It is
subject
much thought
as to the exact location of Fort Hall.
I
was given to me by an Indian scout who piloted give me to the place, who was born in its vicinity at a time when the building still stood and whose father was acquainted with the Hudson's Bay traders who were located there. About four miles below the place where the trail strikes the river, on the left bank and within 20 feet of a slightly lower level it
as
it
covered with cottonwood timber,
is,
so
my
guide informed me, MILES CANNON
12 the identical spot.
tonwood logs
cotOriginally the fort was constructed of ground but latterly, when in the pos-
set in the
session of the Hudson's
Bay Company,
it
was enlarged and
enclosed with adobe brick.
The outlines of these walls are plainly discernable, even to the two bastions at opposite corners, and the well inside the The adjoining grove where Jason Lee preached enclosure. the first sermon ever heard west of the Rocky Mountains, July 26, 1834, is still a grand cathedral for the song birds of the desert as the country is untouched by man, it being within the Fort Hall Indian reservation. Three miles below is the crossing of Spring Creek where the stage station was located in 1864, it having been constructed with adobe bricks brought here from the then abandoned Fort Hall. Some three miles farther brings us to the Portneuf crossing from which place the road to American Falls is very near the old trail. This
now
the second wheat shipping station in the United States, still has the marks of the trail within the city limits. It is safe to conclude, however, that few of its citizens have
city,
the slightest conception as to the historic connection of those old deep-worn furrows.
have never been able to determine just how American What American party could have its name. at the falls is not clear, as they seem to have acquired perished that name before the advent of the Americans, unless these falls have been confused with those at Caldron Linn. In that case it is very likely that the accident heretofore mentioned in connection with the Hunt party is responsible for the name. Some 23 miles down the river from American Falls, in the immediate vicinity of Rock Creek, is one of the tragical points I
Falls received
of the
trail.
The
general conditions of this particular section
have not changed since the days when the Oregon Trail was in the heyday of its glory. How many pioneers sleep at the foot of that great perpendicular rock, so long retained in the memory of those who traveled the historic trail, the world will never It was here that, in 1851, the wagons of Mr. Miller, of Virginia, were attacked, a daughter of Mr. Miller seriously
know. SNAKE RIVER IN HISTORY wounded and a Mr. Jackson
killed.
It
13
was here that Mr. Hud-
son Clark, of Scott county, Illinois, while driving his carriage too far in advance of his train, was attacked, his mother and brother murdered and his sister, a beautiful young lady of 22 ravished years, after being dangerously wounded, was brutally by most of the Indians in the party. It was here, also, that the
Harpool train of 20 wagons was attacked 1
in 1851,
and
after
a fearful battle lasting two hours the Indians were repulsed. Standing on the summit of this old rock today, looking to the north and west, a great panorama greets the eye. Scenes of
commerce and husbandry are everywhere in evidence, but the Snake river, as known by the pioneers, is no more. The great Minidoka power plant has transformed it into a most beautiful lake fully 25 miles in length. As I stood there and feasted eyes upon the magnificent landscape I could not avoid the thought of the numerous graves below and of the intense suffering of the brave pioneers who have made these scenes
my
possible.
From is it
here to the
Twin
Falls district
most of the old
trail
yet to be seen but when one arrives at an irrigation canal The Salmon Falls have not changed is lost, forever lost.
day the Stuart party arrived there and gave them name, neither have the adjacent camping grounds been molested. From this place to Pilgrim Springs, where Mrs. Whitman, August 12th, 1836, wrote her beautiful tribute to the abandoned trunk, and where the doctor discarded the bed of his wagon, the trail in most part is still to be seen. It was over this section that Mrs. Sager, in 1844, suffered the agonies of a most pitiful death which relieved her a few hours after the train reached Pilgrim Springs where her dust is since the
their present
mingled with that of the desert.
The
three islands
where the
trail
crossed the Snake river are
down
the mountain from Pilgrim Springs and no change has taken place since the pioneers ceased to brave the As I sat on the bank with one of the rapid current here.
twelve miles
i David Baxter Gray, afterwards, beginning in '78, was widely known in the Willamette Valley and The Dalles, crossed the plains with the Harpool train.
George H. Himes. 14
MILES CANNON
oldest settlers in this section and looked out over the waters of the river, while he traced the ripples which marked the line of travel, I could but wonder at the courage necessary to prompt one to make the attempt. Yet the emigrants who came over the trail plunged into the terrifying waters with
impunity, though not all of them succeeded in reaching shore. At the Hot Springs, on the northern prong of the trail and
within nine miles of Mountain
Home, a bath house
of con-
siderable importance is in operation. The trail touched the Boise river where the Barber lumber mills are now situated,
Just west of Ten Mile the Boise creek, river, is the site of the Ward massacre which occurred August 20, 1854. In Decem-
some
six miles above the city of Boise.
some 20 miles down
ber, 1914, I succeeded, with the help of several pioneers, in
locating the spot and the grave which contains the ashes of several of the victims.
The Canyon ford, five miles west of the Ward battle ground and one mile north of Caldwell, Idaho, the oldest and most prominent ford on the Boise river, has undergone no change in its surroundings save that an iron bridge now spans the stream directly over the historical crossing. From here the followed very nearly the present bed of the river to Old Fort Boise where it again crossed the Snake and joined the
trail
southern branch about eight miles out in the hills in the direction of Vale, Oregon. Noticing for a moment the diary of Jason Lee, who attached himself to the brigade of Thomas McKay at Fort Hall,
would appear that this company followed the southern route. While encamped at the Three Islands, near the present Glenn's Ferry, Mr. McKay, who had buried one native wife, felt himself inclined to embark again. The nuptials were celebrated on Tuesday evening, August 12, 1834. The captain declined, it
however, to present to the relatives of the bride the customary tokens of esteem, informing them that it was the rule among the whites to simply gain the consent of the girl. While at breakfast the following morning, in open and in the day light
presence of thirty people, an Indian not willing to accept the SNAKE RIVER
IN HISTORY
15
white man's peculiar ideas, appropriated one of the captain's horses and made way with it undiscovered.
On
the evening of the 14th, the party was encamped at Willow creek where the old Humboldt and Boise river trail
They appear to have established their a on large island in the river there which afencampments it as forded, yet does, good pasturage for stock. They were still here on Saturday evening when the captain visited the camp of the missionaries and informed them that it was his purpose to remain in that vicinity to trade with the Indians and trap beaver until the following March. Just what effect the operations of Mr. Wyeth back at Fort Hall had produced upon the sagacious captain I have no means
crossed the Snake.
Certain it is, however, that when the Whitman the river at Three Islands and journeyed which crossed party, over the northern trail, and which was attached to the brigade of the same valiant captain just two years later, arrived at a point nine miles below the Canyon ford on the Boise river they were welcomed to Fort Boise by the captain who had gone on ahead from the Snake river encampment to arrange Here it was that that historical bone of for the reception. Whitman the contention, wagon, was left and which remained there in the custody of the Hudson's Bay Company, as an interesting -exhibit, until claimed by oblivion. When Mr. T. J.
of knowing.
Farnham, of the Peoria party, arrived here three years later he found the company engaged in building a new fort twelve miles below at the mouth of the river. From the Winthrop diary under the date of Sunday, Sept. 11, 1853, we learn
was washed away that spring and that the comwas then engaged in building a new one out of the old pany
that the fort
adobes. The site of the old post is now in the channel of the Snake river about 200 feet from the right bank. After its abandonment in 1856 there remained no sign of activity
here by white people until the advent of the mining period when it became the most prominent crossing on the river. With the opening of other roads and construction of bridges the ferry business by 1909
had so dwindled that the location was MILES CANNON
16
At the present time this particular section is given over to the caprices of the two rivers which are conabandoned.
new channels. The last vestige of this historic The seat of said to have disappeared in 1870. political and commercial power has been transferred to the beautiful city of Boise situated 50 miles farther up the Boise stantly seeking
building
is
river.
Reverting briefly to the south bank of the Snake I would mention that section of the old trail lying between Succor creek, on the Idaho side, and the Owyhee river on the Oregon side of the state line. The trail crossed Succor creek about five miles back from the Snake and ascended to a high plain for a distance of several miles when it again descended into the Snake river bottom some miles below what is known as the Big Bend. It may be recalled that it was in this vicinity that Robert Stuart picked up our three Kentucky hunters whose melancholy fate on Boise river already has been mentioned. On the high plain referred to is the spot where, about noon of Sept. 13, 1860, the Vanorman train was attacked by the Indians, eleven of the party killed and the entire train of eight wagons, after thirty-six hours of continuous fighting, were
on
by the victorious savages and nearly 100 head of all the provisions of the company appropriated. Some thirty-four members, mostly children, escaped when the torch was being applied to the wagons and after untold suffering established a camp on the Owyhee about ten rods above the point where the trail crossed that stream. Here they remained until October 17th when they were rescued by a company of troopers from Walla Walla under command of Capset
fire
stock and
tain Dent.
So
was
fire
furiously did the massacre rage when the train that those who escaped were unable, except for a part of a loaf of corn bread, to provide themselves with any provisions whatever, and out of the thirty making their set
on
escape eighteen were children, several of whom were too small In the annals of pioneer tragedies I know of but to walk. one that parallels this the Donner party of 1846. Of the thirty-four
who went
into
camp
at the
Owyhee
far less than SNAKE RIVER IN HISTORY half survived the awful ordeal.
17
That we should allow the
capacious maw of oblivion to claim the deeds of our heroic pioneers is a good and sufficient cause to make even the stoutest heart weep. I shall here
make
a few observations relative to the age of Peter H. Burnett, who crossed the the Snake river trails. of many others that the plains in 1843, verifies the statement
Fort Hall bottoms had been a great resort for buffaloes and adds the statement that "We saw the skulls of these animals for the last time at Fort Boise, beyond which point they were
His remark, however, applies to the immigration of that year, for earlier travelers had observed the skulls as far west as the Powder river valley, west of which place I have never heard of any trace of this historic animal. It would appear, therefore, that, when the white man invaded the Old Oregon territory, the buffalo herds were receding toward the east. As a cause of this recession we may, with some degree of certainty, I think, look to the acquisinever seen."
tion of the horse
by the Indian as a primary explanation.
lowing the discovery of the
New World
natives, as early as 1504, struck
dumb
in 1492,
we
Fol-
find the
with amazement upon
the discovery that the Spaniards were transporting their baggage upon the backs of four-legged slaves of the most strange
and wonderful proportions. We find them in Cuba in 1511, in Mexico by 1521 and as far north as Santa Fe, Utah and even Kansas as early as 1542. It is reasonably safe to conclude, therefore, that the horse was in general use among the Coast Indians as early as the beginning of the 17th century. That the recession of the vast buffalo herds began on the southern and western borders of their original feeding grounds, to be followed closely by a general retreat from the Atlantic
By 1832 white men had joined with slope, is equally certain. the Indians, the use of fire arms had become general, and the wanton slaughter was on. In the fall of 1883, I stood on the bank of the Missouri river at old Fort Pierre and watched a steam boat from up river make its landing. Going aboard I observed a consignment of
fifty
tons of buffalo hides and, MILES CANNON
18
upon inquiry, was informed by the gray-haired captain that and they were taken on the head waters of the Marias river loaded at Fort Benton. "But, young man," he continued, "if
The hide it's buffalo you are looking for you are too late. of the last wild buffalo on the plains is in that shipment." My conjecture is that the deep winding furrows of the old Oregon were made
after the introduction of horses by the Spanish a period not later than the dawn of the seventeenth during that the recession of the vast herds of buffalo from and century,
trail
both the east and the west was the primary cause of
its
original
existence. I shall
now hasten my long-deferred who immortalized the Oregon
pioneers is evidenced by
conclusion. trail lived
That the
not in vain
some very interesting epochs in the annals of America. On May 2, 1843, 102 of these empire builders joined in a convention at Champoeg and set in motion the political machinery which added a star to the flag. Then a small unit of the emigration of the following year displeased, doubtless, on account of the crowded conditions of the Willamette coun-
opened farms near Olympia in 1845, gave us the great Washington, and still the flag goes marching on. Janu24, 1848, James W. Marshall, impelled by the purpose ary of building a mill, set his pick into the golden sands of Ameri-
try,
state of
can river and, lo the state of California was blazoned into the field of Old Glory. During the summer of 1860 a small !
blue
party of these irrepressible pioneers, under the leadership of E. D. Pierce, encamped on the Weippe meadows within a stone's throw of the Lewis and Clark trail of 55 years before,
and from the blaze of that camp fire we may now in fancy see the familiar outlines of the great state of Idaho; and still the marching on. Two years later John White and William Eads encamped on Willard's creek, and Montana in a short time came into the Union. The population of the five states mentioned is already in excess of 7,000,000 souls, and the assessed valuation of both real and personal property is perhaps more than $7,000,000,000, flag goes
though development
is
hardly begun.
The
far-seeing eye of SNAKE RIVER IN HISTORY
19
Glorious heritage May Divinity only can fathom the future. the final reunion of the pioneers in the realms of a joyous eter!
his richest reward. nity be, after all the achievements, will now take a final view of the Snake river as
We
we
of
a later generation have placed it in history. After the camp fires of the emigrant had ceased to burn along the line of the
Oregon
Trail,
and
its
unnumbered graves had been
leveled
by the winds of time, a new and a startling element entered into the world's industrial affairs. Though we know not nor from whence it comes, nor whither it goes, it destined to revolutionize the efforts is, nevertheless, an element and revise the rewards of man. We call it hydro-electric
what
it is,
power.
By the use of this mysterious gift of nature we no longer use the water power to turn the shaft of the mill situated on the bank of the stream, but to operate the generator which, with the use of transmission lines, conveys the power to the remotest fields of civilization. Its marvelous energy has, to a large extent, invaded the industrial world, nor is it any less a potent factor in the laboratories of science than in the boundless fields of domestic economy. In transportation it is destined to supplant the steam locomotives in the near future, for already
the monster electric locomotives, weighing eighty-four tons each, speeds through the
two hundred and
Rocky Mountains hundred ton transcontinental trains with the utmost ease. What a marvelous evolution; what a gift from the benevolent hand of God what a boon to the toiling masses As a power river the Snake ranks with the greatest in the world. Its vast volume of water has a total fall, from source to mouth, of more than one mile, and, in the meantime, it develops a minimum of 1,400,000, and a maximum of 2,900,000 H.P. The latest information available would indicate the development at the present time to be about 120,000 H.P. I pay for power $28.00 per H. P. per season of five months, but putting it down to $10.00 per annum the Snake river would appear to possess an annual earning capacity equal to $14,000,000, and a maximum of $29,000,000. Thus it seems that "the
hauling their eight
! MILES CANNON
20
become the
stone which the builders rejected has of the arch."
chief stone
with a population of 450,000, has a property valuation, according to a tax commission report, of about $500,000,000. Though as a start we are but 28 years
The
old,
state of Idaho,
we have an
indebtedness, including state, county, municipal,
which This interest charge, added to our annual running expenses, makes a burden of $11,000,000 which the people, 80 per cent of whom live within the Snake river watershed, must pay each year
school, highway, etc., amounting to $17,000,000, upon we pay an interest charge of about $3,000 per day.
for taxes.
As a you
sequel I crave your pardon if I find it necessary to lead At the time the Champoeg confar afield once more.
vention was being held,
May
2,
1843, a
Hartford, Conn., was making his alphabet. That he well succeeded
is
six-year-old boy in attempt to master the
little
first
indicated
by the
fact that
he finished his education at the University of Gottingen, Germany, before he reached his 20th year. During the period 1860-5, when states were springing up in the vast territory embraced in Old Oregon, and when the great question of secession
was being
settled
by the arbitraments of war,
this
young
man entered the banking business in the city of New York. Some light as to his success in his chosen work is furnished in
a governmental report* published and distributed in 1912, this man, together with his
and from which we learn that
immediate associates, controlled at that time, $22,245,000,000 out of a grand total of all property in the United States given as $187,739,000,000. In other words he then controlled about one-eighth of all the wealth in the country. You have already guessed the name of the famous American citizen referred to, the late
When
J.
Pierpont Morgan.
Hydro-power was sufficiently developed to insure continuous and permanent use, Mr. Morgan, as a minor achievement, organized the General Electric Company, of the
its
which The Idaho Power Company is said to be a subsidiary concern. During 1915 the latter company took over the The Pujo Congressional
Report. SNAKE RIVER IN HISTORY
21
ownership and control of practically all power plants on the Snake river except one, the Minidoka plant which is owned by the government, and is now operating them in the interest of the parent company. The homebuilders and taxpayers of Idaho as a state have received no direct benefits from the wealth which the waters of Snake river, until the has been wasting into the sea. From the Chicago Tribune, following relative to
March
21,
last decade,
1918, I note the
the Idaho Power Company
"The Idaho
competition, serves with the Snake river plains, extending across
Power Company, operating without electric light
and power
southern Idaho and into eastern Oregon." I might add that every plant they have and every mile of transmission wire I gain are, practically, within sight of the old Oregon Trail. the further significant fact from this paper as follows: "This company operates under the jurisdiction of the public utilities commission of the state of Idaho and the public service commission of the state of Oregon." I have mentioned the fact that, at the present time, the power
development of the Snake river
Of
is
equal to about 120,000 H.P.
amount the government owns and operates at the Minidoka plant 10,000 H.P. This would indicate that the Idaho Power Company has developed about 110,000 and, acthis
cording to the official report published in the paper mentioned, they have in actual use 32,000 H.P. It further shows that the
Gross earnings are Operating expenses, and maintenance
Net earnings
$1,137,425
including taxes
579,201
$ 558,224
The
report shows, moreover, that this 32,000 H.P. if sold at an average of S T cents per kilowatt, and they operate 24 hours per day, would yield the company a net profit of
A
$10,543,180. or a
on $210,863,680.
sum equal
to 5 per cent interest per annum In a statement before the Idaho board of
equalization the company placed a value upon their property of $2,651,000. You have observed that this company operates under the MILES CANNON
22
jurisdiction of the public utilities commission of the state of Idaho and the public service commission of the state of Oregon,
and that
it operates without competition. should conclude, therefore, that the Snake river has passed into the control of a monopoly, owned by individuals and operated for a profit, under exclusive rights conferred by the
I
If
state.
my
conclusions are well founded
we have
revived the
policy of granting monopolies which has always been opposed by the English common law as far back as the beginning of the
seventeenth century, and, likewise, a policy which never has been in good repute in the United States. Unless the people of our country accept these conditions as permanent, on the grounds of public policy, the problem is yet In its solution there are, as far as I know, but to be solved. two theories to be considered. First a state monopoly owned and operated for the benefit of all the people. Second the
abolishment of monopolies by opening the power possibilities all citizens alike under the jurisdiction of the state which
to
should oppose
forms of special privileges.
all
The
condition represents the theory of imperialism the first represents the theory of German socialism the second
present
remedy remedy
the usually accepted American plan, inasmuch as the government, according to this theory, is employed in the highest development of the power and efficiency of the individual. is
its several forms, is now a greater menace has been before in our history. The entire philosophy of Socialism is of German origin and is contained in a book known as "Das Kapital" written by Karl Marx. It is the bible
Socialism, under
than
it
of Socialism no matter in what country or under what name. It is
based upon five elementary principles which are, 1 class 2 abolition of national boundaries 3 abolition of the
hatred
abolition of religion; and 5 abolition of These are the five great rocks upon which
family relations; A
property rights.
our constitution was conceived, and they are the five elementary features of government that have made us, in a short period of 142 years, the most powerful and progressive people in the world. SNAKE RIVER IN HISTORY
23
that capital has invaded the rights of the individual, together with the socialist propaganda during the past 40 years, have not been barren of results. Class hatred is
The charge
being advocated without restraint and the doctrine of a league of nations has already diverted our attention from WashingOur population statistics, when comton's solemn warning. of Church Statistics, indicate, appallBulletin with the pared ing as
it
may
appear, that the increase of church communicants
compared with the increase of population is falling behind at the rate of nearly one million per year. (Reports for 1915-16 as
published in 1916-17).
Open
attacks
upon the rights of prop-
erty have been made with such persistency that the paramount feature of the next national election will probably be the federal ownership and operation of all public utilities, including railroads, telegraph, telephone and power plants in the United States. Tliis bewhiskered quarrel between labor and capital should be settled before the two form a coalition and crush the great middle class whose rights are seldom mentioned. The signs
of the times point to this very thing. The Snake river offers a favorable opportunity for the test. Capital, operating under the protection of the state, and without competition, doubtless,
would seek an
alliance rather than decapitation. At any rate wealth of Snake in is river, power my opinion, destined to Let us indulge the hope that precipitate the final settlement. this picturesque and powerful river, with a name fraught with
the
so
much
historic beauty,
in history
and that
its
may, ultimately, occupy a high place unmeasured wealth may tend to solidify
rather than undermine, the principles of government which
have made us great in the eyes of the world. THE NORTHERN BOUNDARY OF OREGON
By T. C. ELLIOTT.
During twenty-five years prior to June, 1846, the history of Oregon included as its principal theme the dispute between the governments of the United States and Great Britain as to where the boundary line should be located between their respective future territories. On the part of the United States the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude was early proposed and quite consistently held to although the political cry of "fifty-four forty or fight" was not unheard for a time. On the part of Great Britain the course of the Columbia river was considered a fair compromise line, but without entire disavowal of rights to the country north of California or the forty-second parallel. In the two previous issues of this Quarterly attention has been directed to the first overt act of the United States government toward asserting sovereignty over the Columbia River Country or Northwest Coast of America, as it was then called; and the influence of that act in the later discussions of the boundary question. Mention was made in the Quarterly for December, 1918 (pp. 276-7) of an early request by the Secretary of the Foreign Office of Great Britain to the Hudson's Bay Company for the removal of the principal trading post of that company from the south to the north side of the Columbia river. It is now proposed to present the document which contains the authority for that interesting statement.
This publication has been made possible through the courtesy of Dr. Otto Klotz, chief astronomer of the Dominion of Canada, who during years of service has accumulated in his office at Ottawa much valuable data relating to the scientific and physical location of this boundary line as established by treaty and the diplomatic discussions leading up to it. The Amer. Geographical Review for May, 1917, contains an interesting article by Dr. Klotz entitled "The History of the Forty-ninth Parallel Survey West of the Rocky Mountains." T. C. ELLIOTT
26
In the course of his personal research the archives of the
Hudson's Bay Company at their head office in London were examined and he was permitted to make copies of certain These were later printed by the Canadian letters therein. Government in a confidential volume and the seal of confidence has now been removed for the use of this Quarterly, being of special interest to residents of Oregon and pertinent to
now appearing in Federal Relations of Oregon.
the series of articles
its
pages upon The
Hon. George Canning, to whom this particular document was from 1822 to 1827 the most influential man in England, if not in all Europe. He was connected with political life in England from 1793 on, with various vicissitudes, and following the suicide of Lord Castlereagh became the Secretary of the Foreign Office in Sept., 1822, and continued is
addressed,
From the as such until his sudden death in August, 1827. statements in this letter it is evident that his attention was early directed to the relatively unimportant question of British In the United States in 1817, interests in far-away Oregon.
when
President
Monroe contemplated sending
the "Ontario"
to the Columbia river to assert publicly our claim of national sovereignty he directed that John Jacob Astor of New York,
be informed of the plan Mr. Astor was the leading fur trade merchant in America. In England in 1822, when, following the coalition with the "Northwesters," the Hudson's Bay Company contemplated the expansion of operations on the Pacific
Coast the ear of the Foreign Secretary was sought to urge some permanent arrangement be made as to British auThus we thority over the Northwest Coast of America. find that it was the prime beaver skin of the Columbia
that
river basin in its abundance which attracted the attention of both England and America to Oregon; the symbol of the pound sterling and American dollar preceded both the flag in both discovery, and exploitation. And the interests involved also undoubtedly occacommercial purely
and the cross
sioned the delay in final determination of the dispute by means of the treaties of joint policy. THE NORTHERN BOUNDARY The in the
OF OREGON
27
exact date of this request by Sec. Canning is not stated document but under usual course of procedure it would
have been made not later than the winter of 1823-24, when Gov. Simpson was (presumably) in London. We have record of the arrival of Gov. Simpson and Dr. McLoughlin at Fort George (Astoria) in November, 1824 from Norway House, Fort William and Montreal overland.
Adams and U.
We
also
know
that
Ambassador Rush were discussing Secretary the Oregon question with Secretary Canning during 1822S.
1825.
The statements
in this
document
will serve to correct
some
errors of popular belief or conclusion as to the establishment of Fort Vancouver on the Columbia river in 1824-25; facts
not new, however, to close readers of our history. Doctor John McLoughlin did not select the site or the name for that
important trading post but was merely the efficient adminisits erection and the transfer of headquarters. At some future date the writer hopes to contribute an adequate account of the influence and activities of Gov. George Simpson in the course of events on the Columbia river. Governor Felly's historical resume cannot be considered
trator in
other than a partisan statement of the British claims to the Oregon Country, though some of his errors were due to lack
The boundary line he suggests is essentially the same offered by England in 1842 but as alternative Lord Ashburton was then authorized to offer the line of the Koot-
of knowledge.
enay river from the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia and thence along the Columbia to the ocean. However, discussion of the Oregon boundary was not undertaken by Secretary
Webster and Lord Ashburton
in 1842.
[DOCUMENT] Hudson's Bay House, London, 9th December, 1825.
Journal 721. p.
255.
To The Right Honble. George Canning, Sir,
With
&c., &c. reference to the several communications which have had the honor of having with you on the subject of the Country situated on the North West Coast of America and to the West of the Rocky Mountains I have now the honor of requesting your attention to the following circumstances, which it may be of importance to consider in any negotiation for settling the Boundaries with the United States to the West of the Rocky Mountains.
I need not remind you that Captn. Cook in 1778 explored the Coast from Cape Gregory in Lat. 43½ to Lat. 70° and that Spain by the Convention[1] 28th October, 1790, abandoned all particular claim beyond what she at that time held in actual settlement and that consequently the United States cannot have any claim under their purchase of Lousiana from Spain.
In 1778[2] Captains Gray and Kendrick (in command of the Columbia and Washington) were fitted out at Boston for a trading voyage on that Coast and are supposed to have been the first Americans who engaged in that Trade but they did not enter the River Columbia,[3] and it is well known that British Subjects[4] have been carrying on a trade on that Coast previous to the voyages of Captains Gray and Kendrick. The River Columbia was not explored until 1792 when Lt. Broughton entered it in the Chatham and anchored at Red Patch,[5] about 12 miles inland from Cape Disappointment, he then proceeded with the Cutter and Launch up the River as far as Vancouver's Point. Vancouver in Vol. 2, page 66, says "previously to his (Mr. Broughton's) departure however he formally took possession of the River and the Country in its vicinity in His Britannic Majesty's name having every reason to believe that the subjects of no other civilized Nation or State had ever entered this River before; in this opinion he was confirmed by Mr. Gray's sketch in which it does not appear that Mr. Gray either saw or was within five Leagues of its entrance."
According to Lt. Broughton's observations. Vancouver's Point[6] is situated in Lat. 45° 27′ and Long. 237° 50′ computed to be about 100 miles from the mouth of the river.
In 1793. Sir Alexr. McKenzie crossed the Rocky Mountains and reached the coast about Lat. 52½ and soon after[7] that time the North West Company of Montreal established trading Posts in the Country West of the Rocky Mountains on the head waters of the North Branch of the Columbia among the Flathead and Coutouais Tribes, and continued gradually to explore the country and extend their Trade towards the Coast down the Columbia as well as to the Northward.
Capts. Lewis and Clark in the command of an expedition fitted out by the American Government, ascended the Missouri, crossed the Rocky Mountains, descended the South branch of the Columbia called in "Arrowsmiths' map" "Lewis's River" and which falls into the main or North Branch in Lat. 46° 15′; they proceeded to the mouth of the River and passed the winter 1805–6 at Young's Bay, on the South side of the River. At this period,[8] the British fur traders had pushed their trading post nearer to the junction of the Lewis's River with the North Branch of the Columbia River. In 1809 an Association[9] composed of British and American subjects was formed in New York for the purpose of carrying on the fur Trade on T. C. ELLIOTT
30 the North
Company.
West Coast under the Firm of the Pacific Fur They fitted out two expeditions one by land and
the other by sea for the Columbia where they arrived in 1810 and established themselves on the South side of the River, naming their Settlement "Astoria" after their principal partner Mr. Astor of New York. The North West Compy. of Montreal however continued to extend their Trade with the Natives and in 1813 established themselves on the Coast within a few 10 yards of the American settlement of Astoria. and had remained at Astoria from time to Americans The time sent parties into the Interior, but had not made much progress in establishing themselves in the country, when in 1813 they sold their buildings at Astoria (which was afterwards named "Fort George") with the whole of their stock in trade in the Country to the North West Company as per Bill of Sale (Copy of which is annexed) and abandoned the Country. Since that time no American Trader has appeared nor has any settlement been formed by any others than the British Fur Traders. Upon reference to the above circumstances and to the dates of the transaction it does not appear that the Americans can establish any just claim to the Country on the Columbia or to the Northward of it, and that by actual possession Great Britian alone can establish a legitimate Title. In 1818, Captain Hickey of H. M. S. Blossom accompanied by Mr. J. B. Prevost, Agent for the United States Government arrived at the Columbia and delivered to Mr. James Keith of the North West Company, then in charge of Fort George, a letter from Earl Bathurst dated 27th January, H. M. S. Andromache, and in consequence Mr. Prevost took formal possession of the Settlement as his acknowledgment. 11 Copies of these documents are annexed but I think it right to observe that the Settlement and whatever had been previously occupied in that Country by American subjects had been acquired by the North West Company by purchase for a valuable consideration and not by
Capture. By the Convention 20th October, 1818, between Great Britain and America the Trade of the Country to the West of the Rocky Mountains is left open to the subjects of both
We
have the narrative of two eye-witnesses of how the large party of 10 "Northwesters" "established (?) themselves within a few yards of the American settlement of Astoria' in October, 1813; Gabriel Franchere and Alexander Ross. See Franchere' s Narrative, pp. 190-93, and Ross' Oregon Settlers, p. 254. ir For Mr. Prevost's official report of this event see Or. Quar. Vol. 19, p. 277. THE NORTHERN BOUNDARY
OF OREGON
31
Nations for ten years without prejudice to the claim of either Nation; but no American subjects have as yet availed themThe British Fur Traders however selves of this privilege. have never withdrawn from the Country since they first entered it; on the contrary they have gradually and at much risk and expense increased their Settlements which now amount to thirteen in number (besides temporary Stations which are occasionally changed) and extend over a Country exceeding to North of fifteen degrees of Latitude, say from Lat. 45 Lat.
60.
In the year 1821 the Hudson's Bay Company made an arrangement with the North West Company of Montreal by which they acquired possession of all the trading Posts and Stock of that association, and now under their Royal Charter and His Majesty's License the whole Indian Trade of British
America to the North West of Canada is carried on by the Hudson's Bay Company. In order to acquire more correct information respecting the country on the West of the Rocky Mountains and for the purpose of carrying into effect some measures connected with extending our Trade on the North West Coast Governor Simpson was directed to proceed thither last season, and after an arduous and fatiguing journey he accomplished an extensive survey of the Company's Trading establishments and is now in London. He will remain here until the beginning of February, and will attend any appointment that you may be pleased to make should you wish to be possessed of any further information respecting that Country. Whilst at Fort George, Governor Simpson fitted out an Expedition under the direction of an intelligent officer, Mr. Chief Trader McMillan, for the purpose of exploring the coast to 12 the Northward. ?
In the course of his survey he discovered the entrance of Fraser's River between Capes Roberts and Gray in about 13 Lat. 49 15'. The mouth of this River was not discovered by Vancouver nor by the Subjects of any civilized Nation until Mr. McMillan visited it last Winter, but the upper part of the River, and down to within 20 miles of the sea was explored by Messrs. 12 For day-to-day account of this expedition, see Journal of John Work, in Wash. Hist. Quarterly, Vol. 3, p. 198. Simon Fraser is 13 Later research has rendered this statement erroneous. believed to have arrived within sight of the mouth of the river and of the gulf See page 279 of "British Columbia/' by F. W. Howay and into which it flows.
E. O. S. Scholefield. T. C. ELLIOTT
32
Fraser and Stuart, partners of the North West Company in I annex extracts from Mr. McMillan's rethe year 1808. port and as this country appears to be rich in fur bearing animals we have it in contemplation to form permanent es14 to push our discoveries tablishments therein next Summer, to the Northward both inland and on the Coast, and to embark a considerable capital in endeavoring to secure to Great Britain the benefits arising from an exchange of British manufactures for the produce of that Country with its numerous inhabitants.
In compliance with a wish expressed by you at our last interview Governor Simpson when at Columbia abandoned Fort George on the South side of the River and formed a new Establishment on the North side about 75 miles from the mouth of the River at a place called by Lt. Broughton Belle vue Point. 15 Governor Simpson named the new establishment "Fort Vancouver" in order to identify our claim to the soil and trade with Lt. Broughton' s discovery and survey. He considers the soil and climate of this place to be so well adapted for agricultural pursuits, that in the course of two or three years it may be made to produce sufficient grain and animal provisions to meet not only the demands of our own trade but to almost any extent that may be required for other purposes; and he considers the possession of this place and a right to the navigation of the River Columbia to be quite necessary to our carrying on to advantage not only the trade of the upper parts of the Columbia River but also that of the country interior from the mouth of Eraser's River and the Coasting Trade, all of which can be provisioned from this Place. Under existing circumstances I respectfully submit to your consideration whether it might not be advisable to endeavor to arrange a boundary line between Great Britain and the United States in that country to the West of the Rocky Mountains more especially as the attention of Congress has been called to the subject, and in an American map lately published the line of Lat. 49 is continued from the Rocky Mountains to the Sea Coast, and the Country to the South of that line is described to be United States Territory, which at some 14 Fort Langley on the Fraser river was established by James McMillan in July, 1827.
15 This identification of Bellevue Point adds interest to the historic site of Fort Vancouver; from, the narrative by Mr. Broughton or Captain Vancouver It is hardly correct that Fort George was is difficult to locate this Point. abandoned, however, for a trading post was maintained there until 1849 or 1850, when taken over by the U. S. army and custom officer*. it THE NORTHERN BOUNDARY
OF OREGON
33
made use of by the American Governwould deprive Great Britain of a valuable country now occupied and traded by the Hudson's Bay Company, and would occasion many practical inconveniences in carrying on the trade of the Country which would be left future period might be
ment.
This
line
to us.
But as I have already stated it does not appear that the Americans can establish a just claim to any part of the country either to the South or North of the Columbia River, and as the free navigation of that River is necessary to our carrying on the Trade I have endeavored to fix on a boundary which would answer the views of the Hudson's Bay Company, without pushing the claims of Great Britain to their full extent. I have therefore to suggest that starting from Lat. 49 at the Rocky Mountains the line ought to be continued Southward along the Height of Land to the place where Lewis and Clark crossed the Mountains, said to be in Lat. 46 42', thence Westerly along the Lewis's River until it falls into the Columbia, and thence to the Sea, leaving the navigation of both these rivers free to the subjects of both Nations. This line would leave to America the Trade and Possession of an extensive and valuable Country and would furnish fewer opportunities of collision between the Traders of the two Nations than any other line that could be suggested. I send herewith a map on which the line16 which I have taken the liberty of suggesting is colored, and on which the Trading Posts 17 now occupied by the Hudson's Bay Company are
marked. I have the honor to
be,
with the greatest respect,
Your most
obt.
humb
sir
Servant J.
H. P.
GOVR.
1 6 This map is not available for reference. Lat. 46 42' is very close to the Lolo Trail by which Lewis and Clark crossed the Bitter Root range, but that This boundary line as described ridge does not form the continental divide. would leave the Rocky Mountains at Lemhi Pass in Central Idaho and follow the Lemhi and Salmon rivers to the Snake, the Snake to the Columbia and the Columbia to the ocean. Salmon river in Idaho is the stream which was named Lewis river originally by Captain Clark and which should carry that name at the
present day. 17 These trading posts, thirteen in number, were listed in a later letter by Governor Simpson, dated January, 1826, as the following: Vancouver, Nez (Walla Walla), Okanogan, Colvile, Flathead and Kootenais (in the basin of the Columbia; Fort George is omitted), Kilmany, Eraser's Lake, St. James, Chilcotin, Alexandria and Thompson's River or Kamloops (in the basin of the Fraser river), McLeod's, (on Peace river waters).
Perce LIST OF PAPERS INCLOSED.
- Bill of Sale, Pacific Fur Company to North-west Company.
- Letter from Early Bathurst dated 27th January, 1818. Instructions of Captn. Sheriff of H. M. S. Andromache. Mr. I. P. Prevost acknowledgement of possession.
- Extract from Mr. McMillan's report of Voyage and Survey from Columbia to Fraser's River, 1826.
- Map of North America. THE FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
IV
By LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
CHAPTER THE
VII
NEGOTIATIONS OF 1842-1845
Beginning in 1839 Congress was deep in the discussion of Dr. Linn's various resolutions and bills the Oregon issue was already showing a tendency to leave the realm of questions of fact to be settled between two governments, and was assum;
ing that political guise which was to characterize it until the The British government, apparently long forfinal decision. the Northwest of Coast, was stirred to inquiry if not getful
The channel through which information was that which served, as almost the only be derived might the disputed region and the governlink between connecting Hudson's the that is, ment; Bay Company. Sir John Pelly, to immediate action.
head of the organization, was requested by Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston to furnish the government with such information as might be deemed useful to it, especially in view of the fact that Sir George Simpson, in 1841, was 'just departing for the Columbia River. Sir George, therefore, gave the British government the material facts about the actual situation in
Oregon. His dispatch to the officials of the Hudson's Bay Company, l written in November, 1841, gave an account of the settlements made by the Americans, the number of people in each, He their condition and the influence exerted in the land. noted that the missionaries, who formed almost the whole number of Americans, seemed to be making more rapid progress with the extension of their settlements than in the ostensible objects of their residence in the country; he could not learn that they were successful or making much progress in
moral and religious instruction of the natives.
Inferences
i Letter printed by Schafer, Am. Hist. Rev., XIV, 73-82, from F. O., Am. Domestic and Various Papers, Jan. to Mar. 1843. LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
36
from this remark were no doubt strengthened by Sir George's account of finding at Vancouver in August, 1841, Wilkes at the head of an American government exploring expedition. 2 Wilkes, he wrote, was not communicative as to his surveys and examination of the country, but from an
modore was
"intelligent
and
the party he learned that the Comthat his government claim to recommend intending
confidential"
member of
the whole region from 42 to 54 40' 3 Simpson's informant, 4 however, held more moderate views; he intended to recom.
mend
a line through the Straits of Fuca to the mainland south
of Whidby's Island, thence straight to where the Nez Perce (Snake River) emptied into the Columbia. This, he maintained, could not be refused by the British government, for
the justice of allowing the United States the portion of territory with its harbors inside of Cape Flattery could easily be seen; if the southern line of the Columbia should be taken
no secure harbor would
fall to
the United States.
Sir George
took occasion to impress the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company with the significance of this statement and wrote, "I trust you will urge Her Majesty's Government not to consent to any boundary that would give the United States any portion of the Territory north of the Columbia, as it would
deprive the Britsh of the only valuable part of the territory, the country north of the Straits of Fuca not being adapted to Agriculture, or other purposes connected with colonization." The report also called attention particularly to the fact that Wilkes had sent one division of his party overland through the Willamette valley and on into California to San Francisco
Bay, near which the Russian settlement at Bodega was located. This post was of especial interest to the Company and to look into the question of reasons for sending
acquisition had been one of the 5 Simpson to the Pacific Coast.
its
2 Simpson to Pelly, dated 10 Mar., 1842, Honolulu; Ibid,, 86^93. says this was probably Captain Wm. L. Hudson, 3. Schafer
A
main little
second
in
command. 4 Wilkes did make such a recommendation in strong terms, but his report was not allowed to come before Congress. See Chapter V. 5 See Adams, British interests and activities in Texas, 1838-1846, on the topic of Simpson's orders to look into the matter of the Russian settlement in California as a possible means of securing for the company and for England A foothold at San Francisco Bay. FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
37
Sir George learned, when at Sitka, that the Russian American Company had sold their holdings at Bodega to a Swiss because the post had always been unprofitable. "The sale," he commented, "was effected previous to my arrival or I would have made the purchase for the Hudson's Bay Com-
later
pany as a basis for a future claim by Great Britain." Evidently the unattainable had greater attractions than that which might have been secured, for Sir George had reported in November that the Russians were in California in defiance of the Mexicans
who were
powerless to drive them out, even though
the former admitted that they had no title to the soil other than that afforded by occupation he had further stated that
which the Russians could give would be of no value unless backed by eighty or one hundred men, so he could see no use in purchasing on any terms. These reports arc interesting for the light they throw on the attitude of the Hudson's Bay Company which was the most important influence working with the British government to prevent a compromise at 49 or on any line which would not leave the whole of the Columbia River to the free and unhampered use of the Company. This influence was recognized by those American ministers in London who had occasion to deal with the Oregon Question and it was magnified the
title
power by the Oregon men in Congress. Lord Ashburton, when he was in the United States
into a sinister
to
negotiate the question of the Northeast Boundary, had heard that Wilkes was going to urge the United States to claim to 6
was partly on this account, partly because he wished up all outstanding issues between his own and the government of the United States, that he left America regretting that he could have done nothing with the Oregon 54
40'.
It
to help clear
7
He
advised the Foreign Office to push the matter immediately since the great controversy, that over the Maine boundary, was settled and so could no longer be endangered dispute.
Am.
6 Ashburton to Aberdeen, 29 June, 1842. Hist. Rev. 1911, 297. 7 Everett to Webster, 19 Oct. 1842.
F. O.
Am.
379; quoted by Schafer,
No. West Bound. Arb.,
27. LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
38
by the introduction of Oregon issues. Lord Aberdeen was no less anxious to remove all menace to good understanding between the two nations and accordingly instructed Fox in Washington to propose to Webster that the American minister in London be furnished with instructions and full powers to negotiate, assuring the American Secretary of State that the British government was prepared to proceed in a spirit of fairness. 8 This suggestion met with the approval of President Tyler although the opening of Congress in December, 1842, came before anything was done to start negotiations. Tyler's Annual Message of this year, after stating that it became evident that nothing could be done with the Oregon Question during the negotiations conducted by Lord Ashburton and Secretary Webster, went on to say, 9 "Although the diffi-
not for several years to come involve countries, yet I shall not delay to urge on Great Britain the importance of its early settlement." Both
culty referred to the peace of the
may
two
and the matter of commercial adjustments he believed would soon be taken up since "it will comport with the policy of England, as it does with that of the United States, to seize upon this moment, when most of the causes of irritation have passed away, to cement the peace and amity of the two counthis
all grounds of probable future colliThis presentation of the matter did not agree with the notion the British government had of the preliminaries Fox
tries
by wisely removing
sion."
wrote Aberdeen 10 that he would be surprised at the "inexact manner in which the message describes the state of negotiations." Aberdeen, too, expressed his regret at the statement, but felt that the affair would be seen in its true light when the correspondence was laid before Congress; however, in view of the facts it would have been more candid, he thought,
had the President stated that he had already received from the British government a "pressing overture" for renewing 8 Fox to Webster, 15 Nov., deen read the dispatch to Everett 9 Richardson, Messages, IV, 10 Fox to Aberdeen, 12 Dec.
H. Ex. Doc. No. before it was sent.
i,
29th Cong,
ist
196.
1842, Br.
&
For. St. Papers, 34; 51.
Ses.
AberFEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
39
12 11 Ashburton, in a private letter to Webster, negotiations. said it was well known that he would always strive to pro-
mote peace with America, "but I cannot deny that your Presidential speech made European politicians of all parties and Furthermore he all countries stare with unusual surprise." questioned if it was indeed a good time to negotiate, although if undertaken in good faith he had no doubt of a successful outcome. "It may be doubtful whether it might be possible to satisfy such men as Benton and Linn on the one hand, It is worse than a or your friend Gushing on the other. waste of time to be negotiating when the spirit of the time adverse, for failure necessarily leaves behind much of irrita-
is
tion.
.
.
.
The
best treaty could not satisfy those
who
are
predetermined to find fault."
Something beside Congressional activity, however, was causing the American government to proceed slowly in accepting Lord Aberdeen's "pressing overture." The Texas affair was looming and with Texas there came the possibilities regarding California. To Tyler came the thought that Texas, Oregon and California might be brought together so that what was done with one region would serve to strengthen the other. He talked the matter over with Webster who further matured the project and passed it on to Everett in London. 13 The "political profligacy" which Adams so feared was working out. Webster reminded Everett of the Oregon agitation in Congress, telling him that the bill then under consideration was favored by Benton, Linn, McRoberts and other western gentlemen, while it was opposed by Calhoun, Berrien, Choate, McDuffie and others. "This new outbreak of interest and zeal for Oregon has its origin in motives and objects this side of the Rocky Mountains. The truth is there are lovers of agitation; and when most topics of dispute are settled, those which remain are called on with earnestness and avidity. feel the importance of
We
Aberdeen to Fox, 18 Jan., 1843, Ibid., 52. 12 2 Jan., 1843, Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, II, 163, 565. 13 Webster to Everett, 29 Jan., 1843 (private) Writings and Speeches Daniel Webster, XVI, 393-6. See Chapter VI above. 11
of LESTER BURRELL SHIPPER
40
settling this question if we can; but we fear embarrassments and difficulties, not, perhaps, so much from the object itself, as from the purposes of men, and of parties connected with it. Mr. Calhoun distinguished himself for his support of the late
You know his position before the country in regard Mr. Benton as to the approaching election of President. leader of the Van Buren party, or at least the more violent part of it, is disposed to make war upon everything which Mr. Calhoun supports and seems much inclined at present to
get up an anti-English feeling. "You know what is said about the cession of California to the United States; from you we learn that England would favor such a transaction, if it might be the means of settling the Oregon question. It has occurred to me to consider whether it might not be possible to make a tripartite treaty.
...
arrangement." This arrangement, which Webster said was only a thought and not yet shaped into opinion, included these factors: Cession of Upper California by Mexico to the United
1.
States.
Payment by the United
2.
of
Of
3.
States to
Mexico
for the cession
millions of dollars. millions to be paid to United this sum,
States citizens having claims against Mexico. 4. The residue to be paid to British subjects having Mexican bonds or other claims against Mexico. 5. The line between the United States and England in Oregon to run "pretty much as I mentioned to you," (i. e., approximately the line suggested to Simpson.) "The truth is if we negotiate for Oregon alone, I hardly know what instructions to give you; because we cannot tell what sort of a treaty two-thirds of the Senate would agree to."
Webster
said that he
had mentioned the matter to Almonte
but the latter had no instructions on which to base a discus-
The
sion.
and
President favored a special mission to England,
there should be a strong probability that Oregon and California could be taken up together Webster thought he would be nominated and probably would not decline as it was, if
was impossible to make any progress in Washington "Fox and this Department do not make much progress." Webster's
it
- FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
41
apparent willingness to negotiate any line for Oregon which would receive the approval of the Senate testifies to his poor opinion of the value of that country, a fact which he mentioned to Everett.
While the British government was
inclined
to
to
listen
Everett's presentation of Webster's project an insuperable difficulty presented itself; Mexico had no intention of even dis-
Consequently the spring wore on and the negotiation lagged. Unofficially Everett was informed in March that soon he might expect a formal notification that the President had requested the British government cussing a cession of California.
resume negotiations at Washington both for the boundary and for a new commercial convention. 14 But August came and the instructions had not been received, so Fox was di-
to
rected to proceed with the subject
ment so
desired. 15
if the Washington governUpshur, who had replaced Webster, took
who told the Secretary to direct Everett to take up the matter in London. The instructions allowed the minister to offer 49 as the boundary with the
the hint to the President
added privilege of allowing the nationals of both countries to navigate the Columbia on equal terms, but "beyond that the President (was) not prepared to go." 16 The delay had been too great, so when Everett informed
Aberdeen that he had powers to negotiate he was told that such an arrangement would have been welcomed earlier, but it was then too late since Fox had been recalled and Richard Pakenham sent in his place with special instructions on the Oregon issue. Among other reasons for the change it was felt that the Oregon negotiation would benefit by being placed in new hands although the course had not been adopted until all hope that Everett mipiit receive instructions to proceed had been abandoned. 17 Everett still thought that he might
accomplish something before the _______
new
minister
left
England. '
I
>l
r-
]
]
14 Webster to Everett, 20 Mar., Private Correspondence of Webster, II, 171. 15 Everett to Upshur, 17 Aug., No. West Bound. Arb., 28; Aberdeen told Everett that he regretted having to transfer the question to^ Washington for he had hoped that Everett might bring it to a successful issue in London. 1 6 Upshur to Everett, 9 Oct., No. West Bound Arb., 28. 17 Blair to Van Buren, see note 14 above. LESTER BURRELL SHIPPER
42
He had
a long conversation 18 with Aberdeen in which he pointed out the advantages of 49 as a boundary, for it had been only where this line had been adopted, no matter what the topography of the country might have been, that there
Everett thought Aberdeen was imwith the pressed general import of his remarks; expressing the hope that Congress would do nothing at its next session to
had been no controversy.
embarrass the negotiations "he (Aberdeen) avoided, 'I do not think we shall have much
said, if this
can be
"
Such would mean that Pakenham America instructed to offer 49 with some sort of difficulty.'
a remark Everett interpreted to
go
to
recognizing the necessity of his own government's making some sort of a modification of its previous offers, he suggested that it was possible that all of Vancouver's
modification
Island might be yielded, although he added that he had no instructions on the point. 19 He felt that this had been a
happy suggestion for at a later conference Lord Aberdeen told him that as 49 had long ago been offered and rejected the question was different than if it were coming up for the first time; each party must be expected to yield something from its original demands. "I regard this observation, now
made
to
since
my
me
for the first time, although the Oregon boundary England has been the subject of very
residence in
frequent conversation between Lord Aberdeen and myself, as 20 Then Everett added to Upshur, in re-
very important."
porting the conversation, that Aberdeen had asked if he was confident of his statement and also wished it to be remembered that Great Britain had offered to cede certain territory north of the Columbia. Taking this as an indication that the British
government was preparing to abandon its stand for the Columbia, Everett was in high hopes of an agreement; "I may be in error in this view of the subject; but it is the result of the closest consideration I have been able to give it, that the present government, though of course determined not to 18 Everett to Upshur (private and confidential) 19 Everett to Aberdeen, 30 Nov., Ibid., 32. 20 Everett to Upshur, 2 Dec., Ibid., 30-2.
Ibid.,
29-30,
make
14 Nov. FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON any discreditable
sacrifice of
what they consider
43 their rights,
are willing to agree to reasonable terms of settlement." Under apparently favorable conditions, therefore, did Pakenham undertake the task of settling the Oregon Question when
he arrived in America in 1844.
The
surface of affairs
was
not even ruffled by the inept reference to Oregon in Tyler's Annual Message, where he again seemed to charge to the
The first British government the delay which had occurred. interviews with Upshur, in the latter part of February, added to the good impressions which Pakenham had already reand he could report to his government that the best 21 Furthermore the seed which Everett seemed to prevail. spirit had dropped about the ultimate concessions which might perhaps be expected from the American government appeared to be germinating as shown by some private instructions sent ceived,
Pakenham
after he left England.
22
"Should my apprehensions be verified (i. e. that the United States should refuse to accept the Columbia as a boundary), will endeavor, without committing yourself or your government, to draw from the American negotiator a proposal to make the 49th degree of latitude the boundary, with the proviso that the ports to the south of that parallel to the Columbia inclusive, shall be free ports to Great Britain. The navigation of the Columbia should be common to both; and care should be taken that the 49th degree of latitude, as a boundary, is to extend only to the sea; and not to apply to Vancouver's island."
you
A
what had been done was given Everett who, was he not charged with the negotiation, continued to though what bring pressure he could to bear upon Lord Aberdeen. hint of
He was
told that
Pakenham's instructions had been modified to
allow a great discretion, and from this he drew the conclusion that the British government no longer expected to secure the Columbia and would in the last resort accept 49 and Everett's suggested modification. "They do not, therefore, I imagine, much regret the agitation of the subject in the
&
Pakenham to Aberdeen, 27 Feb., 1844, Br. F. St. Papers, 34; 57-8 22 Aberdeen Papers, cited by Schafer, Am. Hist. Rev., 1911, 296-7. 21 LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
44
United States, and are willing we should advance a claim to 54 40'; such a course on our part will make it easier for 28 ." them to agree to stop at 49 But this smooth sailing could not continue. The particular form which the 54 40' agitation took did not, contrary to .
.
Everett's belief, urge the British government to further concessions. The congressional bills and resolutions and debates,
party discussions and intrigues, especially that portion relating to the annexation of Texas, all served to cool the con-
the
ardor of Aberdeen and the British ministry. And then, just four days before the Foreign Secretary sent to Pakenham his new instructions, came the death of Upshur, ciliatory
leaving the State Department in the hands of the Assistant Secretary Nelson until a successor could be chosen.
Had Aberdeen
been able to foresee the selection of John Calhoun as Secretary of State he might, in view of the past record of that gentleman, have felt that British interests were in no danger. To Calhoun the Texas and Oregon quesC.
tions
were the
sole
reasons
weighty enough to cause his
resignation as Senator and acceptance of a Cabinet position under Tyler; 24 it was these reasons which Tyler used to in-
duce Calhoun to accept, 25 for without such overwhelmingly important issues no one can doubt that the leading Southern Democrat would have immediately refused the offer of the recusant Whig. Texas was a powerful lever both with Calhoun and with his political confidants of the South. It was of such
importance that the Oregon negotiations, so often postponed and hindered, once more had to wait a moment which was not occupied with the Texas treaty, political plans connected with the coming presidential election, routine official duties
and the
like.
Several times
Pakeham called Calhoun's was put off. 26
atten*
tion to the waiting question but he
23 Everett to Nelson, i Apr., No. West Bound. Arb., 33,4. 24 See, e. g., Calhoun to Mrs. T. C. Clemson, o Mar., 1844; W. Lumpkin to For account of how Calhoun, 23 Mar., Correspondence of Calhoun, 576, 942. Tyler came to nominate Calhoun see Wise, Life of Henry A. Wise, 98-101. 25 Tyler to Calhoun, 6 Mar., Correspondence of Calhoun, 938-9. 26 See Pakenham's dispatches in Br. F. St Papers, 34; 59 seq. Ex. Doc. No. 2, 29th Cong, ist Ses.
&
H.
Also in FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
45
Late in August, however, Calhoun could inform the British him about started For the first time the and again. negotiation Oregon since the conversations of 1826-7 the matter was taken up with the intention on both sides to bring about a decisive settlement; both governments wished the question closed, the
minister that he had the leisure to consult with
more
campaign of 1844, then in progress, held of difficulties in the future. increased The conpossibilities tinued agitation in Congress for the past years impressed the British government with the idea that the sooner the settlement so because the
came the better it would be, while the American Administrawas anxious to smooth the ways for the Texas program
tion
in the next session of Congress.
Neither President nor Sec-
retary of State was willing to let Oregon stand in the path of Texas, and both thought that an amicable settlement with
Great Britain would serve to remove certain obstacles which
might be placed in the way of expansion to the southwest, especially if it should be connected with California. After the customary preliminaries Pakenham presented a statement of the claims upon which the British title was based and then made the offer which had been submitted in 1824 and modified in 1826; i. e., the Columbia with a detached region between the River and the Sound for the United States. To this old offer Pakenham added that of any port desired by the United States on the mainland or on Vancouver's Island south of 49. 21 This was declined by Calhoun who an review elaborate of the American claim. Pakenpresented ham answered this with a counter-reply setting forth the British claim and inviting Calhoun to suggest an arrangement acceptable to the United States. In response Calhoun
government could not consent to the view that Great Britain possessed and exercised rights of joint occupancy of which she could be divested only by an equitable partition said that his
disputed territory, a premise which Pakenham's counterreply contained therefore he must decline to make a counter-
of
the.
27 Unless otherwise noted the correspondence Cong, ist Ses.
is in
Ho. Ex. Doc. No.
2,
apth LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
46
proposal until the question of title was settled, and as to that, the United States had a clear title to all the area drained by the Columbia and considered itself the party in possession until
Thereupon Pakenham dequestion should be settled. clared he did not feel authorized to enter into a discussion this
of the territory north of 49, which was understood by his government to be the basis of negotiations on the American side as the Columbia River was for the British. Here, on the twentieth of September, the negotiation stood, and here they remained for some weeks.
Meanwhile the
campaign was being waged and in Oregon was made the leading issue;
election
the West, especially,
consequently everything pointed to a renewal of Congressional agitation in December. In view of this situation Lord Aber-
deen
felt
that there
States (would)
could be
little
hope that the "United
relax their pretensions, and meet us in any
scheme which we could safely and honorably adopt. Under these circumstances and taking into consideration the state of excitement so prevalent in the United States on this subject,
by which the free action of the government
fettered,
sirable
if
not altogether paralyzed, to have recourse
...
I
think
...
to
it
is
will
greatly be de-
arbitration." 28
No opportunity, however, offered itself to Pakenham before the middle of January to carry these latest instructions into Calhoun that there were papers still under consideration, and in view of the impatience manifested in the United States, Her Majesty's Government had authorized him to propose arbitration as the fairest mode of settlement and suggested an interchange of notes on the This suggestion was promptly rejected although subject. effect.
At
that time he reminded
Calhoun expressed the hope that the problem might
still
be
solved by negotiation. Pakenham thought that, although the proposal had not been accepted, no harm had been done and 29 perhaps it had even accomplished some good. Across the ocean Everett had been continuing his efforts
&
F. St. Papers, 34:86. a8 Aberdeen to Pakenham, i Nov., 1844, Br. 29 Pakenham to Aberdeen, 29 Jan., 1845. Ibid., 88. FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
47
Lord Aberdeen to see that anything less than 49 with the possible exception of the tip of Vancouver's Island would never be accepted by the United States. 30 But Aberdeen had not been brought to this view. The short session of
to bring
Congress was drawing to a close and it had already become evident that the "notice" as passed by the House would not be accepted by the Senate; consequently he felt that the final disposition of Oregon was of no immediate or pressing interest to either party;
on the other hand the
"artificial ex-
citement" in the United States and the "violent proceedings" in the House of Representatives tended to hinder negotiations, 31 consequently arbitration was the best way out. Accordingly, Pakenham was authorized, as soon as the House resolution had been rejected in the Senate, to offer arbitration again, if
in the meantime no reasonable proposition has been brought forward by the United States. Before Pakenham could receive these instructions the old government was out of office and the Polk Administration was The Inaugural Address had been pronounced at the helm. and the people of the United States expected the President to maintain an uncompromising attitude. It is doubtful whether the advice Lord Ashburton transmitted through Everett would have produced any effect had it arrived before March 4,
words of a and who knew pretty well the temper of his own people. Everett had been telling Ashburton his confident opinion that the United States would never accept any compromise which gave his country a less favorable boundary than 49 to the sea, for he evidently 1845.
Nevertheless
man who had
it
is
interesting to read the
helped to tide over one
crisis
took every possible occasion to impress this line upon all influential men with whom he was on terms of intimacy, and said, "he did not think there would be much difcoming to an adjustment unless steps were taken on our (United States) side which wore the appearance of defiance and menace. Any such step would put it out of the
Ashburton ficulty of
30 Everett to Calhoun, 28 Feb., No. West Bound. Arb., 35. Aberdeen to Pakenham, St. Papers, 34:90.
31 48
LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
power of England, as a similar step on her part would put out of the power of the United States, to compromise on "I attach," added Everett, "the greater imany terms." these remarks because Lord Ashburton had lately to portance conferred with Lord Aberdeen on the subject." 32 To Aberdeen the Inaugural did present the appearance of "defiance and menace," for immediately upon receipt of a copy of it he prepared new instructions for Pakenham, and detained the American mail a day in order that they might 33 Said he, the be received at the earliest possible moment. on a serious character our actual "has impressed very speech relations with the United States; and the manner in which
it
(the President) has referred to the Oregon question, so different from the language of his predecessor, leaves little reason to hope for any favorable result of the existing negotiaIf the renewed offer of arbitration should be rejected tion."
on the grounds taken by President Tyler, i. e., that further discussion was desired, then the negotiation was to be considered as continuing; if, however, the offer was rejected and not accompanied by any specific proposition, the negotiation must be considered ended. In that case Pakenham was to offer to renew for ten years the terms of the convention of The 1818, a poor solution, but perhaps better than none.
language of the President led Aberdeen to conclude that the American government would renounce the treaty without delay, in which case local collisions would be likely to occur leading not improbably to war. "At all events, whatever may be the course of the United States Government, the time is come when we must be prepared for every contingency." The naval force in the Pacific had been ordered to go to
Oregon. Pakenham was told to "hold a temperate, but firm, language to the members of the Government and all others, and let it be known that the British Government was still ready to adhere 'to the principle of an equitable compromise; but we are perfectly determined to concede nothing to force 32 Everett to Calhoun, (received by Buchanan) 7 Mar., No. West 33 Btrlin Arb., 426. Cong. 3d Ses. Ex. Doc. I, pt. 6, 223.
Bound Arb. FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON or menace."
The
were withdrawn.
49
conciliatory instructions of a year before delay of the mail had the additional
The
result of allowing the proceedings in Parliament to be America at an early date. 34
known
in
When Aberdeen's gloomiest expectations were not met. 35 in arbitration late to March, Buchanan, proposed Pakenham, the new Secreary of State told him that he would take an early opportunity to discuss the matter with the President. "He did not seem taken with the notion of arbitration," re-
ported Pakenham, but he said the matter ought to be settled by negotiation on the principle of give and take. In May,
Pakenham was informed
that arbitration did not meet the
approval of the President and his Cabinet; they all objected When Buchanan gave this to it and preferred negotiation. information he took occasion to say that the British minister might assure Lord Aberdeen of the friendly disposition of the
American government. 36 The negotiation was resumed in July by Buchanan who took it up at the point where it had been dropped by Calhoun, i. e., by making a counter-proposal prefaced by another discussion of American claims which went over the same ground so 37 The offer was 49 often traversed by former negotiators. as the boundary together with ?ny port or ports on Vancouver's Island south of 49 which might be desired by the British.
was accompanied by the statement that the of the strength of the American title, view President, would never have made the offer but for the fact that it had been made by his predecessors and that negotiations were on foot when he entered office. To McLane, in London, Buchanan explained in more detail the president doubted if the civilized world would judge in favor of the United States if a war
The
proposition in
should be waged for a "comparatively worthless territory north but if this offer
- " arbitration was out of the question
of 49
should be
made and be
rejected he
would
feel himself free to
34 See Chapter XI, below. 35 Pakenham to Aberdeen, 29 Mar., St. Papers, 34:91,2. 36 Same to same, 13 May, Ibid., 92. 37 Buchanan to Pakenham, la July, Sen. Doc. No. 489, 29th Cong.
ist.
Sea. LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
50
on the full right to the Russian line. To McLane, however, Buchanan added that while the President was silent on the right of navigation of the Columbia in his offer, since it would cause endless trouble, he had offered, the free ports as a counterpoise, and he, McLane, might intimate to the British ministers that the United States would not accept anything insist
south of 49, the only possible concession being the exchange of the small cape of Vancouver south of the line for an 38
equivalent.
Two
weeks
after the
American offer was made Pakenham Buchanan as to title,
replied, controverting the assertions of
and then rejecting the proposal as one, in fact, less in value than the earlier offer since the free port on Vancouver could not counterbalance the free navigation of the Columbia. Consequently, acting in accordance with Aberdeen's instructions as he understood them, he closed his communication with 39 these words:
"The undersigned, therefore, trusts that the American plenipotentiary will be prepared to offer some further proposal for the settlement of the Oregon question more consistent with fairness and equity, and with the reasonable expectations of the British Government." This response opened for the American government an opportunity to halt the negotiations and at the same time throw upon the British minister the apparent burden of proving himself in the right. Technically Pakenham might claim, as he did, that the offer, being less than had previously been presented to his government, amounted to no real counterproposal hence the game remained as it had been left by Calhoun with the next move for the United States. The rather peremptory tone of the rejection, on the other hand, could be
taken as "scarcely courteous or respectful" as the President chose to regard it, and the flat rejection of the offer without a reference to the British government was for Polk a sufficient reason to
let
the negotiation rest until the other party desired
38 Buchanan to 39 Polk, Diary,
McLane, July I,
355, 360.
12, Ibid., 27-32.
Nil** Register, 12 Scut, 1846. FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
51
resume and make some move. Accordingly, in spite of the eager desire of Buchanan to insert some clause to the effect that the Administration would listen to a further proposition, the President's will prevailed and the offer was withdrawn with no qualifications. In the notification, which he tried in vain to have postponed for further consideration, Buchanan asserted that the title of the United States to 54 40' was the "best title in existence to this entire region and that the claim of Great Britain to any portion of it has no sufficient founda40 The note was approved by Walker and Bancroft, tion." Secretaries of War and Navy, and by Postmaster General to
Johnson.
Buchanan,
None of the Cabinet disapproved the stand who said, when the note had been delivered
British legation, "Well, the .deed
is
done."
except at the
But he did not
was wise statesmanship to deliver such a note with between the United States and Mexico as they were. 41 Pakenham's rejection of the American offer did not meet with the approval of his government. 42 Aberdeen told McLane that he regretted and disapproved the action of the minister to the United States; if the offer had been referred to London, as it should have been, it would have been taken as a basis for further negotiation. Aberdeen felt sure that he would have think
it
relations
been able to propose modifications leading to mutually satisMcLane reported that he had not factory arrangements. failed to impress
upon Lord Aberdeen the
difficulties in
the
President's situation in conceding what he had by the proposition, and he added that he was sure the British minister was
convinced that ultimately he, Aberdeen, would propose terms which would be accepted by Polk.
Pakenham was uneasy even ment's opinion of his
act.
before he learned his governhad several interviews with
He
Buchanan, friendly in tone, in which he attempted to ascertain whether the President could not be persuaded to renew the
H
Ex. Doc. 40 See Polk, Diary, I, 1-5. Buchanan to Pakenham, 30, Aug., Polk had recalled Buchanan to Washington from his vacation 2, 177-92. answer to Pakenham's note might not be deearly in August in order that the Polk to Buchanan, 7 Aug., Works of James Buchanan, VI, 223-4. layed. 41 Polk, Diary, I, 5, 6-8, n. 43 McLane to Buchanan, 3 Oct., No. West Bound Arb., 41.
No. LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
52
offer as a basis for compromise, or, if that could not be done, how a new proposition from the British side would be received. 43
sidered
Finally he submitted to Buchanan a note to be conor not according to the answer it would re-
offijcial
44
Polk insisted that Pakenham must name the charand then an answer would be made; he repeated a statement which he had already made to his official family, that if a British proposition should be made he would, according to its nature, submit it to the Senate for previous advice or reject it at once, but he was convinced that no satWith great reluctance isfactory proposal could be made. Buchanan left the President's office, found Pakenham and asked him to state whether the note was official or not, adding that it could hardly be expected that the United States would abandon the position already taken. Then Pakenham withdrew his note. "I think it unfortunate," Polk wrote in his Diary, "that he (Buchanan) made any remark to Mr. Pakenceive.
acter of his note
ham
that indicated to
him what
think that Mr. Pakenham's note
my &
settled decision was, as I
answer should have been
official."
The relation between the Oregon and California situations was already beginning to show itself during this time when Pakenham was finding it difficult to struggle out of the deadInformation that the Hudson's Bay Comlocked position. in the south began to reach Washington. work was at pany The United
States Consul at Monterey reported that it apand money had been furnished by an agent arms that peared of the Company to the Californians to aid them in driving out it was the same Company which an backed of Mexican expedition financially troops to be sent north to quell the disturbances. It looked threatening, and the
the Mexicans, although later
43 When Me Lane's letter was received the Cabinet discussed it at length, and Buchanan again urged Polk to allow some intimation that the United States was willing to negotiate further; Polk stuck to his position and said that Great Britain must take the next step, although he was sure no acceptable offer would Buchanan to McLane, 13 Sept., Sen. Doc. No. be made. Polk, Diary, I, 62-4. 489.
The 44 Buchanan to McLane. 28 Oct., Works of Buchanan, VI, 285-6. Cabinet discussioni is given at length by Polk, Diary, I, 62-82, passim. Buchanan McLane, 5 Nov., Sen. Doc. No. 489.
to FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
53
45
"could not view with indifferPresident, wrote Buchanan, ence the transfer of California to Great Britain or any other
The system of colonization by foreign European power. monarchies on the North American continent must and will be resisted by the United States." In the same strain Polk talked over the situation with Senator Benton when that gentleman arrived in Washington prior to the opening of the session of Congress. From this time forth, although California did not often appear upon the surface in the negotiations with Great Britain, it must be regarded as a factor in them
so far as Polk
was concerned with them.
How
to start the ball rolling again and at the same time not appear too anxious to resume the discussions was the
He which presented itself to Lord Aberdeen. showed McLane some of the dispatches which he had received from Washington where Pakenham explained why he had rejected Folk's offer and also why he believed it well to
problem
attempt to reopen the negotiation. Pointing out the insufficiency of Pakenham's grounds for the rejection of the Ameri-
can offer McLane explained at length the reasons for the withdrawal of it as he understood them. 46 Aberdeen, however, could view the matter in no other light than a closing of the discussions by Polk and no alternative remained but for him, Aberdeen, to propose arbitration; if this should be declined for the same reasons Calhoun had declined them there
would be an opportunity to renew negotiations; the President declined in such a
way
if,
however,
as to warrant the British
ministry in assuming that he meant to insist upon the claim, then it could be regarded in no other way than an
full ulti-
matum and they must abide by the result. When McLane outlined to Buchanan the very palpable advice as to how they could get upon the track again, with no he wrote, "Although I am quite sure that the Earl of Aberdeen has no idea at present of
loss of dignity to either side,
45 Buchanan to
Thomas O. Larkin, Consul
Buchanan, VI, 275-6. 46 McLane to Buchanan,
i
at
Monterey, 17 Oct., Works of
Dec., Sen. Doc. No. 489LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
54
accepting the compromise contained in the President's proposition, it would not surprise me if an arrangement upon that
and important classes complained of principally by the
basis should prove acceptable to large in this
country; indeed
it
is
Hudson's Bay Company and those in its interest. That the Ministry would find it difficult and hazardous to prefer war to such a settlement
assume
it
may
well be imagined; although you
to be certain that
when war becomes
may
inevitable,
it
undivided support of the British people." He added further that it was the current belief in England that will receive the
the Annual
Message would present again the opinion the President had expressed in his Inaugural, with, perhaps a recommendation that the joint occupancy be terminated. This,
he thought would not necessarily embarrass the relations between the countries. Aberdeen's instructions to Pakenham contained the course outlined to
McLane;
arbitration, he be-
lieved, would be the most prudent step and best calculated to allay the "effervescence of popular feeling," therefore Paken-
ham
should propose
it
at the first opportunity. 47
Such was the situation when Congress convened in December, from which time the diplomatic and legislative currents meet and run along together, sometimes intermingling, sometimes clearly differentiated, and it is to the legislative side to which attention must now be turned. 47 Aberdeen to Pakenham, 28 Nov., Br.
&
F. St. Papers, 34:130-1. CHAPTER
VIII.
GIVING NOTICE.
Annual Message of 1845 with its accompanying from the diplomatic correspondence of Buchanan and Calhoun was the spark which set off the powder-magazine in Congress. Although there were some Folk's
carefully edited excerpts
genuine munitions of war there a great deal of the noise resulted from the detonation of political fireworks, both spectacular and deafening but not intended to be harmful. If
Oregon had hitherto been overshadowed by other neglect was now fully atoned for by the attention
issues that it
received
from the Twenty-ninth Congress, where, until the resurgence of the Texas-Mexico question and the opening of hostilities on the southern border, it succeeding in ousting from serious consideration
The
all
other matters.
alignment on the topic cannot be separated from the question itself: although there was much talk about political
taking up the issue on
its
framed their speeches or their
merits few
members of Congress
laid their plans without
in
the
coming
an eye to
congresparty had been bitterly disappointed by the results of the election of 1844; its high expectations, held in check by the recalcitrant Tyler, were sional
political
and
prospects
presidential.
elections,
The Whig
again put to one side, for there was to be no protective tariff, no revision of the government's fiscal methods, despite Folk's ambiguous stand after his nomination. Hence it was the purpose of this party to discredit the Administration and its course on Oregon seemed to offer a point of attack. The Democrats were seriously split. For the most part the southern wing followed Calhoun and were for a course of moderation; there was fear of the consequences of a rupture with Great Britain and its possible effect upon the Texas It was well known that Mexico had not acquiesced situation. in the loss of that province, and should hostilities willingly LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
56
was not improbable that Mexico would what she had lost; this would also put a stop on hopes of securing other northern Mexican possessions. The western Democrats, and Whigs too for the most part, supported the extreme attitude of the Message, with the exception of a small number of whom the most notable was Senator Benton. He, according to Folk's idea, had fallen into disfavor on account of his attitude on Texas and was endeavoring to regain his standing in the party by with England occur
it
seize the opportunity to regain
pursuing a course of moderation on the Oregon Question with the southern wing rather than by joining the ultras of the Northwest. In the North the Democrats for the most part
whatever real were actuated by they to Calhoun as Van Buren dominance leadopposition against besides or an more less avowed deterership, being impelled by mination to allow Great Britain to secure no more territory from the United States. Personal aggrandizement had, in the opinion of some consupported their western brethren interest they had in the matter
in addition to
itself
temporary observers, a large place among the motives of some who took a leading part in the discussions and schemes. While the new Administration was less than a year old it was not too soon to begin planning for the election of 1848. Calhoun, long aspiring to the presidency, still had hopes; Cass and Allen vied for the western vote; and Buchanan and Walker, although members of Folk's Cabinet, felt that they should be considered among the possibilities and used their influence accordingly. "The truth is," Polk believed, "that in
cussion in the Senate, too
all this
many Democratic
Oregon
dis-
Senators have
been more concerned about the Presidential election of '48, than they have been about settling Oregon whether at 49 or 54* 40'. 'Forty-eight' has been with them the Great Question,
and hence the divisions in the Democratic party. I cannot but observe the fact, and for the sake of the country I deeply deplore i
it."
Diary,
1
I.
345FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
57
Another contemporary observer, William Grason, summed up the situation in this way, after Congress had been in ses2 sion about a month
"...
As
far as I can learn, from conversation with different classes, there appears to be no definite opinion formed, among the people who control the elections, respect-
ing the extent of our claim to the Oregon territory. There is a general feeling of excitement, because they think the question is approaching a crisis, and is likely to be attended with serious consequences. I have seen but two men who are I have seen in favor of a war for any part beyond 49. others, however, who think we can recover more by claiming
and making speeches to that effect. My opinion is, that, bring on a war, by contending for more than we have offered to take, the party that brings it about will have very Unless we were victorious in little to do in making peace. every quarter, and we could not expect to be so at first, Mr. Polk would be succeeded by Mr. Clay or some other Whig, the majorities in the two houses would be reversed; and after establishing a national bank and extending the privileges of all kinds (of) corporations, our Whig rulers would take the Columbia as the dividing line, and justify themselves to the people on the ground that we had been precipitated into the all if
we
necessity or preparation. John Q. Adams, who for all of Oregon, and, in the event of war, is for driving the British to the North Pole, would insist that he had warned the nation of the consequences and other Whigs, who assert our extreme rights, would say that they were never opposed to a war for the maintenance of these rights, but that they never could approve of the measures of men who were incompetent to their stations. The Democrats them-
war without is
now
who
are generally engaged in agricultural pursuits, or labor, would find double taxes and no markets, and at the same time, witness volunteers marching to Canada, and war steamers entering our harbours. If, in the mean time they saw we had lost Texas without taking possession of Oregon, they would not become much attached to the theoretical doctrine of not suffering any European power to interfere in the affairs of the American continent." selves,
who
live
by their
Briefly then the party alignment 2
Grason
to
Van Buren,
10 Jan.,
1846,
may
be
summed up
Van Bur en Papers,
Vol. 53.
in this LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
58
way on
general grounds the southern Democrats and Whigs,
especially in the Senate,
were opposed
to anything
which was
likely to precipitate a crisis, specifically they wished no notice or, if it had to be given, one in such terms as create the least
and felt that not more on compromise than suggested in previous offers. The western Democrats and Whigs were for the whole claim, come what may, while the bulk of the northern Whigs urged a moderate course and compromise in opposition to their Democratic colleagues who The backed the extreme demands of the Administration. North and South wished to avoid war, but the West professed to believe that Great Britain would recede from her friction
they were opposed to demanding 54
the United
States
was bound
40'
to
position if this should not be the case, then, they preferred war to the surrender of any portion of Oregon.
The Message was accompanied by
those documents which
had passed between the two governments and which in bare outline afforded a view of what had taken place that is, the reopening of negotiations, the British offer and Calhoun's reception of it, the American offer and its rejection, together with the statement of claims on both sides. 8 Nothing of the correspondence with McLane or anything which tended to show that there was any hope of getting a better offer from Great Britain accompanied the Message. The challenge was accepted by both branches of Congress forthwith and dis;
cussion started early in January. In the lower House the campaign was opened by a sevenbarrel resolution by Bowlin, a Missouri Democrat, by which the respective committees on
Naval Affairs, Military Affairs, Indian Affairs, Public Lands, Militia, and Post Offices and Post Roads were directed to take into consideration the parts
of the Message dealing with Oregon, while the Committee on Foreign Affairs was given charge of the specific portion relat-
ing to the giving notice to Great Britain. It was the report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs which gave vent to the pent-up feelings of the House. 3
Given in Sen. Ex. Doc. No.
i;
H. Ex. Doc. No.
2,
agth Cong.
ist.
Scs. FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
59
Ingersoll of Pennsylvania presented the majority report and Garett Davis of Mississippi the minority report on January fifth. The majority report was a simple resolution directing the President forthwith to cause notice to be given to Great
Britain that at the expiration of twelve
months the
joint occu-
The report which Davis presented was him and Truman Smith of Connecticut, both Whigs, by
pation should cease.
signed and Caleb Smith of Indiana, a Democrat. It raised the constitutional question of whether the House could act in the
matter; the treaty had been made by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate without any action
on the part of the House, hence, while the House might express an opinion by means of a resolution, it could not share in directing the
by a
President to
act.
"And why
violation of all propriety of form,
tive authority
over the subject, make
should the House, and without any effecitself a
party to this
proceeding ?"
The majority had recommended the first Monday in February as a time to take up its report, but the House would have no such delay a motion was made to refer both reports
to the
Union a
Committee of the Whole House on the State of the to be
Whig
made
the special order of the next day. Giddings, know if this did not open the
of Ohio, wished to
whole subject matter to discussion, and when the Speaker ruled that it did launched out into the only speech of the whole debate wherein the slavery issue was made prominent. He said he had previously voted against giving notice but now that Texas had been "reannexed" the South was willing to compromise on Oregon Texas had given the slave party the balance of power and now the North was bound hand and foot. The South feared a war with Great Britain for Oregon for it would mean the end of slavery when the blacks of the West Indies came and started a servile insurrection, and then the slave-holders would call upon the North to de;
fend them.
Gidding's violent speech and his speeches usuwere violent when slavery was the subject provoked a response from his Democratic colleague McDowell, who de-
ally LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
60
plored Gidding's sectional attitude, extolled the "Texas Invincibles" who, at the last session, had brought in that republic.
Then he went on to sound the note uttered by all westerners all Oregon; no more negotiations if that meant loss of any part no war, he hoped, but if war did come, there was Canada
to be thought of. Rhett, of South Carolina, a opened for the opposition with the arguments which
Democrat, were used,
all those who were against the Adgiving notice would be to oust Great Britain and that meant inevitable war resulting probably not in all
in
one form or other, by
ministration
of Oregon, but none of Oregon. Both North and West wished for war, said Rhett; it was a part of the political game in which the northern Democrats, disappointed at the defeat of their favorite
Van
Buren, were determined to play a double government and punish the South.
part, get control of the
The debate continued on
into the next day ostensibly on the of reference to the Committee of the Whole but question In itself. on the issue order to allow other business actually
of a routine nature to
go
on, reference
was made and the
debate proceeded. 4 From the sixth of January to the sixteenth of February, this topic occupied the attention of the House. Extended as it was the debate was participated in by more
than half the Representatives it grew in intensity all the time even though it was impossible for either side to bring up new arguments on the merits of the question. The discussion on
one side consisted largely
must
in assertion of the title of the
United
of Oregon, give notice and let war come if it the opposition asserted a colorable title by Great Britain,
States to
all
the necessity of negotiation, the unpreparedness of the United States for war, and the disaster which would follow hostili-
Jefferson Davis added a variation when he asked what would be gained if, on account of the excitement aroused by the debate, Mexico should make unreasonable demands, defeat the acquisition of California and so cause the United ties.
4 Globe, XV, 150. Many of the speeches, which were in most cases "extended," appear in the Appendix to Vol. XV. FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
61
5 Isaac Parrish States to lose the key to Asiatic commerce. of Ohio contended that there was no good reason for stopping
at
54
was an area of 500,000 square miles north
40'; there
of that line, exclusive of the islands to which Russia had good title, to which the United States had as good a claim as
Great
If
Britain.
Great
Britain
wanted war she would
find a pretext in any case, and if her desire for peace was sincere she would, if met with firmness, yield all the territory west of the Rocky Mountains. John Quincy Adams maintitle of the United States was founded on made a 54 40' speech in which he asserted and Genesis :26-28 that Great Britain wanted the land for hunters while the United States would fill it with settlers.
tained that the 1
When the eloquence, as well as the patience, of the House was well nigh exhausted the Committee of the Whole came to the point of voting on the various propositions before it. In addition to the two reports of the Committee on Foreign Affairs some twenty other sets of resolutions and amendments had been offered, varying in vehemence from Parrish's demand for the whole northwestern portion of the continent to Winthrop's where he asserted that the matter was still a subject for negotiation, that it would be a "dishonor to the age in which we live" if war resulted. If direct negotiation failed Winthrop was in favor of arbitration, for the news that Polk had rejected such a proposal had been brought before resolution calling for late correspondence. 6 after another the substitutions and amendments were
House by a
the
One voted
down
after the
word "forthwith,"
at
Ingersoll's
own
suggestion, had been removed from the original resolution. An attempt to insert the words "that the question is no longer a question for negotiation or compromise" was defeated likewise every amendment that would seem to direct the President how the settlement must be made was rejected. The form
5
Appendix
to
XV,
212-7.
6 Immediately after Winthrop introduced his resolutions Douglas sought to counteract their influence by some of his own in which he stated that the title and 54 to any part between 42 40' was not open to compromise, and the question of territory should not be left to arbitration. LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
62
adopted by the committee and reported to the House contained two parts; the first part directed the President to cause the notice to be given, and the second added, "Resolved, That nothing herein contained is intended to interfere with the right and discretion of the proper authorities of the two contracting powers to renew or pursue negotiations for an amicable settlement of the controversy respecting the Oregon territory." The House by a vote of 172 to 46 concurred with the report of the Committee of the Whole, and the resolutions were ordered engrossed for the third reading by 163 to 54. The real test of strength came when the resolutions were reported to the House by a vote of 109 to 94, but as there was no call roll, no party, sectional or other alignment can be determined from it. The vote on the third reading, however, gives
of the
the following results
For
Whigs Democrats Native Americans
North South
West
resolutions
42
Against resolutions 34
117
18
4
2
68 36 59
24 7
Slave States
55
Free States
108
23
29 25
Of the Democratic votes against the resolution seventeen were from Virginia, South Carolina and Alabama. Of these Polk wrote a little later: 7 "By his (Calhoun's) influence he induced 16 Democrats in Virginia and South Carolina in the House to vote against the notice, and now that he is probably convinced of his mistake, and finds that he will not be sustained by either party in the country, he feels bound not to House whom he has caused commit the same mistake." One western Democrat, Caleb
desert the friends in the to
.
B. Smith, of Indiana, completed the total of eighteen. 7 Diary, I,
afig.
.
.
Of FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
63
in opposition twenty-one were from the North and from the rest Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia, with one Whether each from Ohio, Maryland and South Carolina. Kentucky and Tennessee are called southern or western (they
the
Whigs
are ranked as western in the table above) the opposing pull of Little light is shed by the the South and West is revealed. classification in free and slave States, and it would appear that this issue did not figure had in the debate.
mere
largely in the vote than
it
While the proceedings in the House of Representatives aroused more or less comment there had been little doubt of the result, hence people looked to the Senate's action with much keener interest, for the decisive action would be there.
The Senate, however, had not pushed the matter while the House debate was carried on; the more cautious Senators wished to await both the action of the House and possible of the negotiation. Webster, one of the moderate 8 "As to Oregon, the bill a the situation wrote propos Whigs, It will pass however, in a very diluted will pass the House. results
?
state,
with sundry objectionable provisions struck out.
This whole proceeding
is
in opposition to the
of the President and Mr. Calhoun.
The
fact
.
.
.
known wishes
is,
a majority of
House
the
and
of Representatives appear to be rash, headstrong, uninformed men, and men who cannot comprehend the
delicacy
and importance of the subject, with which they
meddle." Senator Allen of Ohio, one of the staunchest of Oregon men, had seen the President's Message before it had been sent to
Congress,
9
and had "heartily approved"
its
tone on the
Oregon Question. He opened the campaign in the Senate in the middle of December by introducing a resolution advising 10 Resolutions for the President to give notice "forthwith." the same end were introduced by Hannegan of Indiana, who 8 Webster to Haven, 2 Feb., 1846; Private Correspondence of Webster, II, 216. See also Webster to N. Appleton, 20 Jan., and to F. Webster, 27 Jan., Van Tyne, Letters of Daniel Webster, 306-7. 9 Pblk, Diary, I, 108. 10 Globe, XV, 76, 182-3. LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
64
was not hampered as Allen was by being chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations; he could, therefore, express more of the true western spirit than his colleague from Ohio. His resolutions declared that the country from 42 to 54 50' was the property and part and parcel of the United States; that no power existed in "this Government to transfer its soil, and the allegiance of its citizens, to the dominion, authority, control, and subjection of any foreign prince or sovereignty"; that an abandonment or surrender of any portion would be an "abandonment of the honor, the character, and the best interests of the American people." This challenge of the West was answered by Calhoun in resolutions which stated that the President, by renewing the offer of 49, did not abandon the honor of the country nor exceed his constitutional powers. 11 Thus, at the end of December, the division in the Senate and in the Democratic party on the question of Oregon was clearly stated. Polk, who desired that each house should pass an unqualified resolution at the earliest possible moment, had foreseen that Calhoun would not support the Message. 12 His conviction on this point was strengthened when he was informed by Congressman Turney of Tennessee that Calhoun and Benton were acting together "whenever they thought it safe to break ground against the Administration." 13 While Benton's position, Turner thought, would mean only one vote, many southern members were opposed to war and would follow Calhoun, while at the sarnie time some of the members from the West were almost mad on the subject of Oregon. He felt that the President would find himself between two fires and whatever he did would not satisfy one wing of the The two opposing resolutions, Calhoun's and Hanneparty. gan's, were the war cries of the opposing factions, and the question of their consideration provoked a preliminary skirmish. Hannegan's demand for immediate discussion brought
a protest from 11 Ibid.,
i
Haywood
ox.
12 Polk, Diary, 13 Ibid., 140.
I,
iji.
of North Carolina that the resolutions FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON were
practically a threat
"You made "That
is
aimed
at the President, to the effect,
how you do it again." once responded Hannegan, "take care how you do
this offer it,"
65
take care
The President's Message had clearly stated that again." the negotiations were at an end besides, continued Hannegan, there was a disputed boundary between the Nueces and the it
Rio Grande, yet there was no talk of negotiations with Mexico the disputed area was just taken. Negotiations, however, as Calhoun and Hay wood contended, were pending, and this fact caused the Senate to agree to put Those presented the resolutions over until February tenth. and Calhoun were not the only Allen, by Hannegan by by ones on the subject. Crittenden, in January, offered a conciliatory form, which stated, in the preamble, that it was desirable to settle the dispute by negotiation, and then proceeded in the form of a bill to authorize the President to give notice after Congress had adjourned, "in order to afford ample time and opportunity for the amicable settlement and adjustment"
my
"Crittenden told wife/' said F. P. Blair, Van "that he to Buren, brought in his resolutions writing in relation to Oregon in homage to young Hickory, who
of
all
differences.
coveted the responsibility of making the issue with England 14 'all Oregon or none' on his own hook." Young Hickory, however, if we are to take his own word for it, desired above all
things at that
moment
the passage of resolutions for notice
without any string of any sort. Postponing all action and most of the discussion until February was a momentary gain for the forces of conciliation; Senator Allen and his 54 40' friends feared the results of delay as tending to weaken the chances of ultimate success, and sought comfort from the President in repeated interviews. The Forty-nine men, also, tried to secure some hint from Polk
assuring them that he would accept a compromise or at least agree to arbitrate, for they feared that an unyielding attitude would cause war, just as Cass, Allen, Hannegan and other 14 18 Jan., 1846;
Van Buren
Papers, Vol. 53. LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
66
westerners feared the extreme demands might be dropped. of Mexico it would never do to
The Calhoun wing thought
break out with the southern neighbor while the Oregon affair was pending, for they felt that war with Great Britain would surely follow. 15
have
hostilities
All efforts, then, to take steps which were in the direction
of violence were opposed, usually with success, by the moderFor example, Calhoun prevented the reading of Allen's ates.
which reiterated Folk's statement of the applicabildoctrine. Benton in a vigorous speech opFair field's posed navy bill, denouncing it as a war weapon when all indications were pointing to peace. Webster thought this speech might have some good effect and give trouble to resolutions ity of the
the
war
Monroe
16
Benton's efforts throughout
party.
summed up
in his
asked his attitude
all this
period are
words at an evening reception when he was on Crittenden's resolutions, 17
"Sir, conciliation, conciliation
it
is
necessary in a national
struggle."
Through listened to
it
all,
all
was not to be drawn out. He was a suggestion from Calhoun or
the President
whether
it
Benton on the necessity of compromise, or Allen with a new argument against compromise. To leaders on both sides he dropped the hint that, if a reasonable proposition were made by Great Britain, he would probably submit it to the Senate for advice before he acted, and in this both sides thought they saw a gleam of hope for their contentions. He always informed his callers that he believed there would be no war, and yet,
talked with him about the probable results of the of the Peel ministry and was strongly in favor of vigorous preparations for defence, Polk appeared to concur in the view.
when Cass fall
When
he received from both houses of Congress requests for copies of correspondence which had taken place after that sent them with the Annual Message he agreed with Buchanan that
Congress and the American people should know of the military 15 16 17
Calhoun to T. W. Clemson; 29 Jan., Corresp. of Calhoun, 679-80. Webster to F. Webster, 27 Jan., Van Tyne, Letters, 307. Blair to Van Buren, see note 17 above. FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON and naval preparations
To
all
way
England
as reported
18 by McLane.
whom
Senators with
the best
in
67
to settle
he talked he gave his opinion that the whole matter was first to give the
notice, and he wished his authority in this to be unhampered in
any manner.
On
the tenth of February, the day set for taking up the Oregon resolutions, the joint resolutions on this subject were
received from the
House and referred
to the
Committee on
Foreign Relations. Those who were for immediate action succeeded by a vote of 23 to 22, in having all previous orders 19 From this day until postponed and the resolutions taken up. the resolution for notice was adopted on April sixteenth there was no topic other than Oregon seriously considered in the Senate.
At
the outset the
should be given at
all;
main
later
it
what form the resolution should
issue
changed take.
was whether
notice
to the question of
War
possibilities occu-
pied the attention of the earlier speakers ; Allen's speech, opening the debate, took the stand that there was no longer a question of title to discuss, it was merely a question whether or not the United States would act or be deterred by a war scare such as Great Britain had manufactured in 1842 to secure
a portion of Maine. This theme, with variations, was running through most of the speeches. There were few Senators who did not share in the debate,
and fewer
still
of the features of the situation which were
not touched upon. The dry straw of the title was threshed over again by many. One of the interesting speeches of the
was that delivered by Benton on February nineWhile Benton had not ceased to urge conciliation he now took the stand that arbitration was inadmissible, and argued for all the Oregon recommendations of the Message. He denounced the system of joint occupation as "always unjust, unequal, and injurious to us"; he believed that the time was ripe for negotiation, and that the United States should take advantage of it. It was a speech of such a nature that earlier debate
teenth.
18 Polk, Diary, I, 257.
19
The Senate debate
is
found in the Cong. Globe, XV, 350
seq. LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
68 both the Oregon clusions
from
men and moderates
could draw soothing con-
it.
On the night of February twenty- fourth, after a day largely taken up by the Oregon discussion, Haywood of North Carolina called upon the President and informed him that there was a plan on foot, devised by Calhoun and McDuffie and perhaps others, to bring forward in Executive Session a resolution advising the President to reopen negotiations with a view of Benton had told Haywood settling the issue by compromise. that he
would oppose
this as
it
would
virtually take the
whole
question out of the President's hands; Calhoun, he thought, would be willing to agree to any terms in order to get the credit of settling the controversy. Haywood himself, while against the proposed action, was in favor of settling with Great Britain approximately at 49. Later on in the same
evening Allen called, for he too had heard of the scheme, and warned the President that there were "certain men" in the Senate who wished to induce him to compromise; if they succeeded, Allen said, it would break him down and destroy his popularity nine or ten States of the West and Southwest would oppose .any compromise. Polk assured the Senator that he had no political aspirations and would not be a candidate for re-election so that whatever he did would not be with
20 that possibility in view.
The next day Haywood's pearance
story
was confirmed by the apCalhoun and Colquitt, of
at the President's office of
Georgia, armed with a letter from McDuffie. They said that they thought the time had come for some action looking toward a peaceful settlement so that news might go to Eng-
land by the next steamer. When Calhoun mentioned the plan proposed for Executive Session Polk said he could not advise
such a step at that time, although confidentially he would state that if a proposition came from Great Britain he would feel
it
his duty to
submit
it
to the Senate for advice.
jected Calhoun's suggestion that a 20 Polk, Diary,
I,
246-8.
compromise
at
49
He
re-
would FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON not be dishonorable to the United States and that
69 it
might be
proposed by Polk, for he insisted that the next proposition must come from England. As to the free navigation of the Colum-
when the point was brought up by Calhoun, the President stood by the Message. Recognizing that this course would probably fail, for it
bia,
would require a two-thirds vote
to carry the resolutions
in
Executive Session, the conciliation faction attempted the next day to attain the same end by changing the form of the resoluColquitt introduced an amendment to Crittenden's resolutions containing this sentence "That it is earnestly desired that the long standing contro-
tion for notice.
...
be speedily settled, by negotiation and comversy promise, in order to tranquilize the public mind, and to preserve the friendly relations of the two countries." This modification received the support of many Whigs and
Haywood it appeared possible that a combination of Whigs and Calhoun Democrats might succeed in taking the whole issue into their own hands. When giving an account of the to the with whom he was in such frePresident, proceeding quent communication as to cause people to think he was in some manner the spokesman of the Executive in the Senate, "he was excited and spoke in strong terms of disapprobation of the course of Calhoun" and his followers. 21 Even Colquitt,
to
him about the delay in the Senate, withdraw his amendment and vote for the naked resolution or any other form that was reasonable; he agreed with Polk that the split in the party was unfortunate, both as affecting the Oregon Question and other Demo-
when
the President spoke to
said he
was willing
to
cratic measures.
Whigs
as well as
Democrats went
to the President to use
their influence for a conciliatory course.
Senator Archer of
Virginia requested an appointment and took the occasion to say that he and his colleagues were most anxious to settle the question and avoid war. While Polk maintained that he stood
by
his
word
in
21 Ibid., 260.
the
Message he
gratified
Archer very much by LESTER BURRELL SHIPPER
70
him what he had already told so many Democrats, that a proposition came from Great Britain he would submit it to the Senate. Archer told of a conversation which he had had telling if
with the British minister in which he had urged Pakenham to use his influence with his government not to insist upon free navigation of the Columbia. This conversation with the
Virginia Senator
made Polk doubt
the accuracy of Buchanan's
information, which was imparted with some excitement to the President, about a Whig plot to throw the whole responsibility
upon the President
if
the advice of the Senate should be
asked.
On
the fourth and fifth of
March a new
interest
was roused
Senate debate by a speech of Haywood, who explained that while the President was constitutionally authorized to in the
make treaties he could not unmake them; conventions could be annulled only by mutual consent or by law and the President had chosen to follow the latter method. 22 The President, continued Haywood, had receded to 49 on a compromise and still stood on it as such, he would never enter a long war in order to determine the meaning of the Nootka Convention. While partisans had raised the cry of "All Oregon or none," or "54 40' fight or no fight" this was not the attitude of the President; if it had been, he, Haywood, would have been forced to turn his back upon the Administration He would vote for the President to give notice and if Great Britain would not yield her demands south of 49 then the United States must fight.
Both Hannegan and Allen attempted to obtain from Haystatement as to whether he had authority, directly or indirectly, to speak for the President, and, when he answered
wood a
ambiguously, pressed the point, whereupon Haywood said, "I have not assumed to speak by authority of the President." "Then the Senator takes back his speech?" asked Allen.
"Not
at all," replied
Haywood, "but
I
am
glad to see
it
takes" 22 Globe, XV, Appen. 370-6. Haywood told 'the reporter that he wished to report his own speech and it appears much edited in the Appendix, bristling
with capitals and
italics. FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
71
Apparently it had taken for it provoked applause both from the Senate and from the galleries. The 54 40' men feared that the President had deserted them and Hannegan, greatly excited, asked
him the same day whether Haywood had been
Polk replied that no one spoke ex were delighted with to went the President to tell him and many Haywood's speech him that of Alabama told Lewis and Florida Yulee of so. answer utterbe an to the warlike to people took the speech had to before this whom ances of Allen, they supposed speak for him, but
speaking cathedra for him.
The
conciliation forces
for the Administration on 'account of the warlike tone of the
Polk mildly remarked that he did not consider the Message warlike and if the notice were to be passed by a decided majority, as had been the case in the House, he was Message.
sure peace would continue. "I venture the remark in reference to the feverish excitement of members of the Senate/' wrote Polk in his Diary, "on the question of Notice on the Oregon question, that it all proceeds from the ambitious aspirations of certain leading members of that body. For example, Mr. Calhoun probably thought by opposing the Notice at the early part of the session, he would best advance his views upon the Presidency, by placing himself at the head of the peace party in the country. He now finds his mistake and is struggling to extricate himself Mr. Allen, on the other from his embarrassment .
.
.
hand, will bear no compromise under any circumstances, and would probably prefer war to peace, because it might subserve his ambitious views. Mr. Cass takes the same view that Mr. Allen does, as probably his best chance of reaching the Presidency, and therefore he acts with Mr. Allen, but is not so ultra or ardent. Col. Benton feels that he has lost cast(e) with
and
tions of the
and
Democracy on the Texas
dissatisfied with his position.
Democratic party
I
question, and feels sore
In the midst of these facam left without any certain
support in Congress, especially in the Senate. Each leader looks to his own advancement more than he does 23 to the success of my measures." reliable
General Cass had a reputation as a fire-eater. At 23. Polk, Diary, I, 264-5. one time in the debate he arose and announced that he would speak to one "Inevitable war?" asked Haywood. No, he was not going to make only. a war speech, but before he ended he had advocated an increase of the army and navy and had invoked, in respect to Oregon, the "inevitable destiny." "Yes," said Webster, "war is inevitable."
topic LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
72
Cass, McDuffie, Turney, Atchison
and Allen
sion to speak to Polk about the altercation of
all
took occa-
Hannegan and
Haywood. While the peace people were pleased with the general tone of their champion, both parties were a little inclined to apologize for the ardor of their representatives, and some viewed
an apparent attack upon the integrity of Hannegan himself told Polk that he was his friend, seeming to desire to remove the impression that he had attacked and denounced the President in advance of action but he evidently wanted to be sure of his ground in the future for he asked the President point blank what he intended to do, go for 54 40' or compromise at 49. Polk replied that he would tell no man on earth what he would do in the future, and Atkinson, who was present at the interview, said the President was right. Allen was also desirous of finding where things stood. He it all
as
the President's course.
told the President that
Senators
York,
who were
Haywood
spoke the sentiments of four
friends of Silas Wright, Governor of (Governor Wright was also presidential timber)
New and
the speech was a deliberate attack upon himself as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. The President then
reminded Allen that he, too, a few days before, had been asked about the authority with which he spoke and he had replied that he had spoken from the documents submitted by the President;
Haywood
could have spoken from no other auth-
ority for none had been given him. Allen still was not satisfied and obtained another interview for the next night, Sunday. At that time he went over the whole matter again and then
produced from his hat a paper containing what he proposed to say in the Senate. As nearly as Polk understood it the "substance was that he was authorized to say that I had asserted the United States title to Oregon up to 54 40'. and
had not changed my opinion." The desired authority, however, was not given. Colonel Benton also went over the ground with the PresiHe said that the debate had taken a curious turn; indent.
that I FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON stead of discussing the President's views as
ments,
73
shown
in the
docu-
Senators were "guessing- or conjecturing" what he
would do next. He urged Polk to examine Colquitt's amendment and speak to his friends about it if he approved it. But Benton could obtain no further satisfaction than the
oft-re-
peated statement about asking the advice of the Senate. While Polk continued to receive visits from Senators
who
were anxious to find out more about the Haywood matter another turn of affairs afforded an outlet for excitement. On March ninth Colquitt read and denounced an article in the Washington Times wherein it was stated that there was a conspiracy between the British minister on one side and the Whig Senators and the "anti-Oregon" Democrats, "with some Western members for an exception," on the other. They were a and substitute conditional notice to the House defeat plotting one leaving the time of giving
it
to the
discretion of the
to further negotiation which would The writer of the article was denounced
President and binding him
result in compromise. by Colquitt as a liar, and the
article
was framed
to drive
back
recreant Senators by coupling their names with that of the British minister. Three days later Jarnagin, into the ranks
all
a Whig from Tennessee, brought the matter up again and introduced a resolution for a committee of inquiry to report such
measures as should be "necessary to vindicate the character and honor of the Senate against the charges of corruption." On the sixteenth of March the committee, of which Benton was chairman, reported that they had found no truth in the charges that at a dinner at the British minister's some Whig Senators had discussed the Oregon Question that there had
a meeting of Whig Senators the day before the Cambria sailed, with Pakenham present, and a vote
been held
in the Capitol
had been taken to be sent to Great Britain that Senator J. M. Clayton had admitted that he had been at a dinner where "noses" had been counted. The two persons named by the editors of the Times as having knowledge of the affair admitted that they had none, and no one could be found who
- LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
74
editors and owner of the committee had sworn statements from all the Senators alleged to have been mixed up in The committee recommended the plot denying the charges. that the reporters of the Times be excluded from the reporters'
would sustain the charges of the
More than
Times.
all
this the
gallery in the Senate, and the whole report
concurred
was unanimously
in.
This whole "plot" was in essence just what rumor had been And, indeed, reporting about the capital for some time. sort had taken place, the no or of anything although voting pretty nearly what was charged had happened; the British minister had, in accordance with his instrutcions, talked freely
with influential men, and
working harmoniously with Great Britain.
Whigs and peace Democrats were
to prevent a rupture of the relations
In the meantime the debate went on with no particular features until
March
sixteenth.
On
that day
Calhoun for the
time took a prominent part by pronouncing an able speech in which he analyzed the situation to date. He concluded his first
observations by stating that he was inclined to think that notice should be given for two reasons; it would prevent carrying the matter into the next presidential campaign, and
would serve to hasten a solution of the issue, because until was given Great Britain would make no move. He was for the notice, but not in its naked form, or not in the equivocal form in which it came from the House, but in a form that would plainly state what was meant. The situation was different from what it had been in 1843 for the Oregon country was filling up and it would be necessary to end the old arrangement which had worked well enough when there were few people there. Giving notice, however, meant compromise or fight war was inconceivable in view of the disastrous effect it would have on the fortunes of the United States, and so 24 nothing was left but an honorable compromise.
it it
When Edward
Everett read this speech he wrote Calhoun 25
24 Globe, XV, 502-6; Appen. 471-6. 25 6 April, Correspondence of Calhoun,
1080-1. FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON that
it
75
alone was nearly decisive of the question of peace or in delivering it Calhoun had rendered the country an
war, and
inestimable service.
considered
saw
it
that he
Calhoun himself said 26 that his friends had ever delivered, although he soon
the best he
had aroused the jealousy of the leaders of his
party for both the Intelligencer and the Union (the Administration paper) disregarded his request to suspend its publica-
have seen it in print and had revised it. He thought that he had opened the door for Polk to compromise, and, in confidence, he stated that he feared the Presition until he should
Message had been diplomatic, that the notice had been recommended only to play a game of intimidation with the dent's
British government.
Now
the Administration could leave
its
27 Mc"timid, vacillating course" and take some decisive step. Lane in London did not feel this way about Calhoun's effort
he thought this speech, along with those of Webster and others, advocating peace and urging the British title to a large portion of Oregon had made the tone of the British more arro28
gant and their demands greater. Calhoun's assault upon the stronghold of the war party was followed by similar attacks by others of his way of thinking
Berrien and Archer, both Whigs, and Niles, a Connecticut
Democrat, added their voices for compromise and for checking Executive policy which single-handed would settle the
an
question of
war or peace
for the country.
The
Fifty-four
were encouraged on March twenty-fourth by the President's answer to a Senate resolution of the seventeenth inquiring whether in his judgment "any circumstances Forties, however,
connected with or growing out of any foreign relations of country require at this time an increase of our naval or
this
29 military forces." Such a request fell in with previous suggestions from Polk: in February certain portions of McLane's communications,
26 Letter to Mrs. T. W. Clemson, 23 March, Ibid., 684-5. 27 Calhoun to T. W. Clemson, 23 March, Ibid., 686. 28 Polk, Diary, I, 344-529 So Webster wrote his son, 26 Mar., Writings and Speeches Webster. XVI, 447-8.
of Daniel LESTER BURRELL SHIPPER
76
with information about British military and naval activity, had been forwarded to Congress later in the month Buchanan and Polk discussed the advisability of recommending to Congress a consideration of further military preparation, and, while no message was framed at the time, Buchanan talked freely with
Democratic Senators and Representatives about the alarming England while he urged the President to consider the danger and take the necessary steps to guard against it. 30 This change of tone on the part of his Secretary of State Polk activity of
Buchanan believed that was policy to put himself Buchanan's suggestion was
attributed to presidential aspirations;
war sentiment was uppermost and
it
head of the procession. discussed in the Cabinet but no action resulted. at the
When
the
Senate resolution was received, however, Buchanan was for a strong message; he found Folk's draft altogether too mild
and penned one with a much more warlike
spirit.
"His ob-
"wrote Polk, "is to supersede Gen'l Cass before the country, and to this motive I attribute his change of tone ject, I think,
and the warlike character of his draft of my proposed message. I think he is governed by his own views of his chances for the Presidency. It is a great misfortune that a member of the Cabinet should be an aspirant for the Presidency, because I cannot rely upon his honest and disinterested advice, and
the instance before
me
is
clear evidence of this." 31
While the Message was not strong enough for Buchanan who would have included an implied censure of the Senate for the delay about the notice, it was forceful enough to command attention and stimulate action. The President recurred to his recommendation of the Annual Message advising a force to protect Oregon emigrants he saw no reason to modify this
advice but believed additional provision should be made for He referred to the reports, prepared by the public defence. Secretaries of
War
and Navy, which had been communicated
to the appropriate committees in January, and added that "subsequent events have confirmed me in the opinion that 30 Diary,
I,
208 seq; 241-3; 257-8.
31 Ibid., 297-8. FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
77
these recommendations were proper as precautionary measnow exists between the ures controversy
... A
.
.
.
United States and Great Britain, and while, so far as we know, the relations of the latter with all European nations are of the most pacific character, she is making unusual and extraordinary armaments and warlike preparations, naval and military, both at home and in her North American possessions." "It cannot be disguised that however sincere may be the desire event of a rupture these armaments and would be used against our country/' After compreparations further on English activities Polk again recommended menting for peace,
in the
the passage of the notice. Toward the end of the Message he referred to the fact that the relations with Mexico were still in
an unsettled condition
a
new
revolution in that country
might possibly defeat, as it had delayed, the settlement of differences with the United States. His concluson was this
"In view of the 'circumstances' it is my 'judgment' that 'an increase of our naval and military force is at this time required' to place the country in a suitable state of defense. At the same time it is my settled purpose to pursue such a course of policy as may best be calculated to preserve both with Great Britain and Mexico an honorable peace, which nothing will so effectually
promote as unanimity in our councils and a firm maintenance of our just rights." The reference to communications to committees of the Senate caused Webster to inquire what they were, observing that
new one, ought not to be encouraged. FairCommittee on Naval Affairs, replied that it accordance with this report that his committee had
this practice, a child,
was
for the
in
brought in the bill for ten steamers. Benton, for the Committee on Military Affairs, after stating that the reports had been the result of inquiries from the Senate at the beginning of the session, said that some of the information was of such a character that it ought not yet to be made public. Where-
upon Webster requested the Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, when in his opinion it was discreet and not inimical to the public service, to communicate to the Senate that part of the information which might be made public. LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
78
On the same day the "war" Message was received Allen began his efforts to have a day fixed for voting on the resolutions for giving notice. The day before, in an interview with Polk, he had mentioned Folk's statement about submitting a British offer to the senate, and had urged the President to send with a decided declaration of his theless, that if two-thirds of the
own he
believed, never-
Senate advised the President
to accept the offer he ought to do so. inkling of what sort of a message he
Polk would give no would send. He did,
however, again urge Allen strongly to get the resolutions voted on.
But the Senate was not yet willing to go on record in a vote, and the debate dragged on. While both factions were agreed that it was necessary to pass some sort of a resolution, the peace party were unwilling to vote until they were sure it would be in such a form as to preclude the possibility of war, and they were as yet not quite sure of their strength. On the first of April Senator Benton came out flatly for a compromise In spite of the fact that he had taken a at 49 to the sea.
Oregon discussions for twenty-five years time he had clearly stated his position32 His speech provoked a bitter reply from Hannegan, who, as he from Benton, his political said, had learned the lesson of 55 He congratulated the Senator from teacher in many ways. in
prominent part
was the
this
first
South Carolina on the convert he had made the antipodes had Replying to a jocular remark Benton had made about Cass as Agamemnon and Hannegan as Ajax he said:
met.
"I would rather be the private soldier, than with my haughty foot press the lowly earth as though it were too mean for my tread rather be the private soldier than in every look, and 'I am the ruler! attitude, and act, and expression, proclaim I will rule or I will ruin and it is indifferent to me whether the consequence be rule or ruin !' Sir, be he who he may, there is no man in this land so high as to have it in his power
to elevate or depress public sentiment in
Be he who he may who makes such an 32 Globe,
XV,
581 seq.
America
at his will.
attempt, he will speedily FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
79
find his level. 'Little Ajax' let it be; but let me remind the Senator from Missouri that Agamemnon and the j axes were not the only actors at the siege of Troy. There was an Achilles there and we may have an Achilles here. Let the Senator from Missouri beware, lest he be the Hector who will grace the triumph of this Achilles."
A
may
It
be questioned whether the burst of applause from
the galleries which followed this speech was all due to the warlike temper^ of the auditors or in part to the too-true picture of the venerable Senator from Missouri, whom Calhoun
once called the "Great
I
AM THOMAS
H.
BENTON."
Benton's speech, and especially the argument based on Jefferson as the "discoverer of Oregon/' started again the subject of title which was debated for some three weeks more. In it Mangum, a Whig from North Carolina, with "botching" the whole business 33 President the charged the firebrand of the Oregon question (it had formerly been the "firebrand of the Texas question") had been thrown among a
course of
the
people prone to be warlike, and yet there was obvious contradiction between the Message and the lack of warlike preparations.
he
The Administration was remarkable
for
its
secretive-
the President had so placed himself on the question that could move in either direction without dislocating his
ness
any more than he would his physical struche could ture; agree to a compromise on 49 without being denounced by the mass of Americans. After this, absolutely the Chief Executive should be chosen from Mangum thought, political opinions
among
Had
the able
men
of the land.
the Senator from
North Carolina been present that same, evening at an interview between Colonel Benton and the President he would have been doubly convinced of his
own acumen. Benton
told Polk that it would be better to settle on the compromise line and asked the President whether it might not be well to ask the Senate whether the offer should be renewed. Benton thought this a good plan and believed he would make a speech on the subject. Polk told him it would 33 Ibid., 635-6. LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
80
be well to wait until an Executive Session otherwise the British
government would know the whole situation as well as the Americans did, and the United States would have exposed its hand while the adversary kept hers concealed. This point appealed to Benton and he agreed to wait before he spoke on the 34
subject.
A
request of the eleventh of April for copies of late correspondence produced the reply that there was nothing new to submit.
Literally this
was true but the Senate might have
received a great deal of information had the President chose to transmit copies of some of the letters received from Mc-
Lane.
With
or without
new
letters,
however, the Senate was
wearying of its protracted debate and fixed a day upon which it should end, but not so early that Sam Houston, the
at last
new Senator from Texas, could not add notice, 54 40', and war if necessary.
On
his voice for a
naked
April sixteenth, the day for the vote, Allen moved that resolution be taken first, but Reverdy Johnson's
House
the
motion that resolutions, which were essentially Crittenden's preamble and bill, be adopted as amendments to the House resolutions showed the Senate alignment on the whole topic. The amendment was adopted by a vote of 30 to 24. The minority was the number.
Democratic, with twelve western Senators in The majority rallied the Whig vote from all
all
together with six Democratic votes Calhoun and McDuffie of South Carolina, Haywood of North Carolina, Lewis of Alabama, Speight of Mississippi, and Westcott of sections
Florida.
The
result of the vote
provoked Allen to lecture the Senate
stand; he said the preamble was inconsistent with the resolutions for the President had called upon Congress to
on
its
advise him, and
him
now
the Senate referred the matter back to
after having accused him of want of discretion in the past. Great Britain would drag out the negotiations until after
Now
the adjournment of Congress, 34 Polk, Diary,
I,
324-5.
make
further military preparaFEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
81
Administration and get all of Oregon. The was not to be changed, however, and the conciliatory resolutions were passed by a vote of 40 to 14. The fourteen Invincibles included Evans and Fair field of Maine (the former
tions, scare the
result
a Whig), Clayton of Delaware, Dickinson of New York, Jeness of New Hampshire, Sturgeon of Pennslyvania and
Westcott of Florida.
The House was not satisfied with the resolutions as they came back from the Senate, and struck out the words "at his discretion" in the part authorizing the President to give notice. This move was viewed with apprehension by the President and his Cabinet who feared that the non-concurrence of the
House meant tion.
35
that the Senate would indefinitely postpone acThis fear was increased when the Senate refused to
accept the House amendment by a vote of 29 to 21. In its turn the House refused to recede from its amendment, and the Senate, when informed of the vote, was equally stubborn. A committee of conference was appointed, composed in majority of peace men, and after two nights' discussion brought in a
report which, as Allen pointed out to the Senate, was identical with Crittenden's original measure. Nevertheless the report
was adopted in both houses (42 to 10 in the Senate and 142 to in the House) and the President was authorized, "at his
46
discretion" to give the notice, while "the attention of both
Governments" was "the more earnestly directed to the adoption of all proper measures for a speedy and amicable adjustment of the differences and disputes in regard to the (Oregon) 36
territory."
"Our triumph
is complete," wrote Calhoun to his son-in"in both houses and in the country; of which the malaw, jority in the two houses on the resolution for giving notice af-
With little exception the vote separates war and peace parties." 37 Calhoun still feared that the notice would be given to extort an offer from Great Britain fords an indication.
the
35 Polk, Diary, I, 335-6. 36 Globe, XV, 720; the resolutions were passed 23 April. 37 To T. C. Clemson, 25 April, Correspondence of Calhoun, 688-9. LESTER BURRELL SHIPPER
82
rather than to serve as a means for reopening negotiations and thus further complicate the situation which had been "wretch38 edly managed, and ought to have been settled long ago." The President lost no time in acting on the authority conferred by the resolutions; the notice was given in the simplest
Aberdeen as Secretary of State for ForQueen herself, a peculiarity which was 39 commented on by the British press. satirically Among the motives which made the conciliatory attitude prevail in Congress was concern about the Mexican situation. In January, when it was definitely known that the Mexican government would not renew diplomatic relations by receiving Slidell, General Taylor had been ordered to the Rio
form directed not
to
eign Affairs, but to the
Grande.
On
the twelfth of April General
Ampudia ordered commander to withdraw his forces beyond the This challenge was not known officially in Washing-
the American
Nueces.
May but earlier rumors of the general had come, causing Cabinet discussions of the Mexican Polk had spoken to some congressmen of his thought affair. of outlining the whole situation in a message to Congress, but the peace men, Calhoun especially, urged him to wait until On May the Oregon matter should have been settled. communication had when General eleventh, however, Taylor's a been received, Polk sent to Congress message announcing that hostilities had begun, and the Oregon Question retired from the center of the stage. ton until the ninth of situation
38 Calhoun to J. E. Calhoun, i April, Ibid., 688. 39 Polk, Diary, I, 355, 360. Niks' Register, 12 Sept, 1846. CHAPTER IX OREGON AND CONGRESS While the
attitude of Congress
1845-1846
toward Oregon has been
brought out in the discussion of the "notice" resolutions, it would be leaving the matter inadequately treated if reference
were not made to other lines on which the whole question was attacked during the session. The Message recommended other action than that alone: the protection of emigrants, by military posts and forces; extension of the laws of the United States over its citizens in Oregon, in default of which they had been obliged to organize themselves provisionally; establishment of an overland mail route; provision for an Indian
agency and laws regulating intercourse with the Indians. Protection of American citizens both in the territory and on the Oregon Trail necessitated, the President thought, an adequate force of mounted riflemen. This recommendation, together with the Message's information on the negotiation, caused Senator Cass to introduce resolutions directing the respective committees on Military Affairs, Militia and Naval Affairs to inquire into the condition of the defensive forces of the United States and to recommend such changes as seemed
necessary.
Cass definitely stated that there was
little
doubt
of the United States being in danger of war over Oregon; the notice would be given, the United States would have to recede from the position taken by the President or war would follow at the expiration of the year. Thus the war party first
sounded
its
trumpet, and drew from the peace party a counterwhole Oregon Question was invoked. Rather
blast, for the
than precipitate a debate over a subsidiary point the Senate passed Cass' resolutions unanimously and then took up the 1 question of notice. Just after this discussion the Administration learned of the warlike preparations in England and the question of defence I
debt, XV,
45-60. LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
84
was seriously considered; the Secretaries of War and Navy, it was decided in Cabinet, should consult with appropriate committees of each house and assist in the preparation of proper
mood
The result of this decision and of the receptive bills. of the committees was the introduction of measures in
both branches of Congress for an increase in the armed forces of the country. Haralson, for the House Committee on Military Affairs, brought in a bill for two regiments of mounted riflemen and moved its reference to the Committee of the Whole House as a special order of the day. Objection to this
produced a result similar to that coming from Cass' resolutions in the Senate, and discussion immediately switched from the subject in hand to Oregon, joint occupancy and all the other aspects of the question. Haralson, who desired the
on its own had framed it with an not merits, stated that the committee idea that it would be looked upon as a measure of preparation He withdrew his arising from the international situation. motion for a special order and called for the previous question on reference to the Committee of the Whole. The House, however, was not going to be cheated out of discussion in this fashion, just because the Committee on Foreign Affairs had been slow in reporting, and refused to desist, continuing its debate on the President and his policy with Oregon into the next day. Then came Sunday, and on Monday the Committee on Foreign Affairs, having been spurred into activity, reported and Oregon could be discussed under the resolutions for Until that topic had been exhausted and the resolunotice. tions passed no other matters dealing with Oregon could get bill
to be considered
a continued hearing before the House. On the twenty-third of March the bill for mounted
men was
rifle-
On
the tenth of the previous month occurred one of the events which gave point to the proposed
measure.
taken up again.
The House,
in response to
a resolution, had received
from the President information calculated was a possibility of hostilities with Great
to
show
Britain.
that there
McLane's FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
85
2
of January third, which had told that Aberdeen, while denying the preparations were pointed at America, said Her Majesty's government had to consider the possibility of diffi-
letter
culties
over Oregon, accompanied the correspondence with Another incentive, in spite of the arbitration.
Pakenham over
pacific turn in the debate the Senate resolution of
President to state
on the
notice,
had been furnished by calling on the
March seventeenth whether there was anything
in the relations
of the United States which called for an increase in the naval
and military establishments. All these occurrences, together with the disquieting rumors from the Mexican border and newspaper accounts of British sentiment, made some Congressmen feel that some preparation was wise. On the other hand, many of the Oregon men were discouraged at what had happened in the Senate and openly stated their belief that the House, too, had lost its zeal for the Northwest Coast. Then, on March twenty-fourth, came the President's Message in answer to the Senate resolution. The next day the House, without
debate,
passed the
bill
for
the
mounted riflemen
8 by a vote of 165 to 15. In the Senate Benton had also introduced a bill for riflemen and for posts along the road to Oregon. He described it as a peace measure calculated merely for the defence of the frontier, and as such it was passed without discussion early in
January.
Further results of the conferences between the heads of War and Navy Departments and the Congressional Committees were also in evidence. Fairfield, chairman of the Senthe
ate Committee on Naval Affairs, by reporting a measure foi ten additional steam warships broueht about a discussion of the possibility of war with Great Britain, but no action was
Haralson, toward the end of January, brought before a sweeping measure by which the President would be authorized "to resist any attempt on the part of taken.
the
House
...
any foreign nation to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over any 2 Polk, Diary, I, 133-4; Globe, 3 Ibid., XV. 553 eq.
XV,
332. 86
LESTER BURRELL SHIPPER
part of the territory of the United States, or any territory in dispute between the United States and any foreign government, as well as to sustain the rights of the United States to,
and to repel invasion from, the said
territory." Six- or twelve-
month volunteers might be called upon and a sum of money was to be appropriated. This measure, like the naval bill in the Senate, did not advance, nor, indeed, was there any debate upon
it.
when it was seen clearly enough that the resolufor notice, probably with some qualifying restrictions, would pass, the House took up the riflemen bill in order that In April
tions
might be passed in time to provide troops which could be of some service in the spring migration to Oregon. With amendments, which increased the discretion of the President in the matter of organization of the force, and provided for grants of land in Oregon, the bill passed on April eleventh. it
Immediately after passing this bill the House took up another measure on Oregon which had been reported from the Committee on Territories in December but which had been This bill would extend the jurisof Iowa over American citizens Court Supreme in the territory west of the Rockies and in that west of the Missouri River between 40 and 43. It further provided a grant of 320 acres of land for every white person, male or
shoved aside for other
topics.
diction of the
female, over the age of eighteen, who should have resided in Oregon for five years, although this provision would not be-
come active for five years. Its object as an inducement to Oregon emigration was rather obvious. The bill further provided for placing the Indian trade under a Superintendent of Indian Affairs. As originally introduced it had made provision for blockhouses along the Oregon route, for two regi-
ments of mounted men "to guard and protect emigrants, settlers, and traders against the Indians," and for carriage of mail at least once a month from Fort Leavenworth to Coast points via South Pass.
The Oregon
title
was debated anew
as the result of an FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
87
attempt to limit the operation of the measure to points south of 49. The Oregon men would specifically rather than by implication extend jurisdiction over
the disputed region, the title clear to the although J. defending Russian line thought that no action on this bill should take The House, place until the Senate had passed the notice.
Q. Adams,
all
in
mood to maintain a protracted so after two title, days' discussion the bill, with the mounted riflemen clauses dropped, was reported by the however, was apparently in no debate on the
Committee of the Whole in essentially the same form it had come from the Committee on Territories. In the final steps in the House Garett Davis' amendment for a fully organized territory and two amendments bearing on the slavery question were rejected, and the bill was passed, two days after the Senate resolutions on the notice were passed. The measure was received in the Senate and referred to the Committee on Territories where
it rested although the President urged Benton to take charge of it and press it for he feared the Whigs, with a few Democrats, would be in-
clined to suppress it. Haywood also was consulted, but he was disinclined to act, whereupon Polk told him that the
House had shown the attitude of the country, and if the Senate should block the matter he, as President, would make it an issue before the nation. But Haywood could 4 The Senate's promise no more than look into the question. dilatoriness delayed House action on another bill which had action of the
been introduced to provide regulation of Indian affairs west of the Rockies. An ordinary measure of its kind it had passed to the third reading on April twentieth and then further action was postponed until the first of June when it should be seen
what the upper house did with the
jurisdiction bill. these measures dealing with Oregon, except the resolutions for notice, came to a standstill in the latter part of April. There was a disposition to wait and It is
see
to be noticed that
what would be the
all
the notice before further action 4 Polk, Diary,
I,
England of the passage of was taken.
result in
376-8 passim. LESTER BURRELL SHIPPER
88
Before news from England could be received, however, the
Mexican else
situation
Two
aside.
came
to the
and swept everything had fitted in most opportunely
crisis
of the measures
for defence, which
proceeded through the first stages, with the new conditions. The House
bill authorizing the use of the military and naval forces of the United States and such portion of the militia as should be necessary was taken up
Mexican Message was received (11
the day the President's
May) and were
filled
passed by an overwhelming majority. The blanks to allow a call for 50,000 volunteers and the use
of $10,000,000. while the preamble was amended to state that a condition of war existed between Mexico and the United 5
It was passed by two dissenting votes.
States.
the Senate the next day with but
Two days later the bill for mounted riflemen with the House amendments, which had been reposing in committee, was hastilv brought to light, the House amendments rejected and The House receded from its amendments and the passed. President signed the
Men
bill.
8
wonder and
to relate various apparently disthev found themselves wholly at a Witness loss to explain the course of the Administration.
began
to
connected circumstances
C. C. Cambreling. writing from Washington Mexican Message reached Congress: 7
"I
just after the
am
utterly astonished at the little judgment and which has distinguished the course of this administration. First as it regards England when some three or four months ago she was making war-like preparations McLane was instructed to inouire of Aberdeen whether those oreparations were intended for us and now it appears that before the enquiry was made, Bancroft was 'confidentially' recommending ten war steamers the Bureaus fortv war steamers and March fiftv thousand volunteers with the knowlWhat explanation edge and approbation of the President! could McLane make to Aberdeen of these secret preparations .
less integrity
5 Globe, XV, 791. 795, 804. 6 Polk records (Diary, al, 407-24 passim") that he was besieged by hundreds of applicants for the thirty-odd commissions which the act created. 7 To Van Buren, 16 May, Van Buren Papers, Vol. 53. FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
89
war
in the face of our demand of the British government ? uncandid and dishonorable must the conduct of the President and his Prime Minister appear in the eyes of all honest men." The feeling that the Administration had blundered was expressed on every side.
for
How
"The administration,
no cordial support important branches at the present time, considering the state of our foreign relations, of State, war and navy, the general and prevailing sentiment certainly is that they are wanting in nearly every qualification that the emergency requires. I do not think it is well in either
house of Congress, and
as such, has
in the three
possible to have mismanaged more completely the negotiations either about Oregon or with Mexico; for certainly all the international occurrences both in England and Mexico have
been such as to have aided our views had they been judiciously 8 taken advantage of ." .
.
The mounted
riflemen, intended originally for Oregon, were used in the conflict with Mexico, and this is a good illustration of the fate of the measures dealing with the Northwest Coast.
The House bill for extending jurisdiction of American laws over Oregon was thought by the Senate Committee on Terrialthough Westcott, for the comwas believed Congress should provide a organization and gave notice that he would move a
tories inexpedient at the time,
mittee, reported that territorial
it
postponement of consideration until the following December. Benton took occasion (it was the twenty- first of May, while all were awaiting news of the British reception of the notice) to prepare the Senate for an offer of 49 from Great Britain. In a speech which occupied several hours on each of three 9 days he proceeded to demolish, to his own satisfaction at least, the fiction that 54
40'
was a
line for the
northern boundary he was, said, the intention in 1824 to divide the Pacific Coast between Russia, Great Britain and the United States, Great Britain taking the middle portion from 49 to 54 40'. The plan did not work out, owing of the United States' claim.
It
8 H. D. Gilpin to Van Buren, 24 May, Ibid. This speech was in line with Benton's g Globe, XV, 847, 850-62, 913-20. proposition when he consulted the President on April ninth. Polk, Diary, I, 325. LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
90
to the attitude of Russia, so the other nations each negotiated directly with the Czar and then arranged between themselves
the non-colonization agreement; each confined Russia to the coasts and islands north of 54 40'. But 54 40' had been taken
up the
which the United States had always laid claim, more so because of a map made by Mr. Greenhow, a clerk
as a line to
in the
Department of
State,
well, but jects
when he went
who
so long as he confined him-
copying maps and voyages did very
self to the business of
upon national suband setting the world right about the execution or nonto issuing opinions
execution of a great treaty, such as that of Utrecht
"when
he goes at this work, the Lord deliver us from the humbug!" The map on which Mr. Greenhow and those who had been so eager for war and 54 40' did not show that line as a limit for the claim of the United States but merely a line which separated Russian from British claims. This was known to American negotiators when they had offered to settle at 49. "This is the end of that great line! All gone vanished evaporated into thin air and the place where it was not to be found. Oh mountain that was delivered of a mouse, thy name !
be fifty-four forty!
shall henceforth
"All Oregon or none!" The whole theme of Benton's speech was that the treaty of Utrecht had settled the whole question 49 had been forced
upon the United States in 1803 and 1819 as the northern boundary of Louisiana and as such had been submitted to by Great Britain.
Jefferson's attitude in dealing with the Louisiits purchase demonstrated that he thought so. Finally turning to the bill before the Senate Benton maintained that it was not in accordance with the recommendations
ana Territory after
who wished Congress merely to go as far as Great Britain in the matter of jurisdiction and no farther.
of the President
All the
Oregon measures would have passed long ago,
like the
blockhouse
war measures.
bill,
just
they had not been brought in as a recommitment with instructions to
if
He moved
the committee to prepare an amendment extending the laws of the United States over Oregon to the same degree that the FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON British
91
Act of Parliament had extended British laws, and to and perfect territorial organization
bring in a bill for a full
soon as the convention for joint occupation should have been annulled, and to apply to such a portion as should be agreed upon with Great Britain. Until an agree-
to
go
into effect as
ment should have been reached let the northern limit be 49*. Cass took up the issue and contended that Americans would never be satisfied with this explanation until evidence had been brought from Paris to substantiate it. He accused Benton of reversing the stand he had taken in 1842 and 1843. Neither Benton nor Cass, however, could obtain action for the majority agreed with Webster when he said that he would never think of creating a territorial establishment before the boundary had been
settled.
Even
after the ratification of the treaty which did settle the boundary there were further obstacles to be overcome. When, on the twenty-fifth of June, the question of a date for final adjournment came, several Senators agreed that some-
thing should be done before the session closed, but as a steamer was due on the third of August and the British ratification
would probably arrive then, they thought it would be well to take up other matters until that time. The ratification arrived according to schedule, and the treaty was laid before Congress, Senator Hannegan, the organization was delayed. resentful over the defeat of his plans, said that it was inconceivable that a bill for territorial government should be
but
still
still
passed before the treaty had been debated. The treaty was nothing more or less than another agreement for joint occupation south of 49* while Great Britain had a clear title north the grant in perpetuity to the Hudson's Bay Com10 of free pany navigation was evidence of his contention. It was not the fault of the House that Congress adjourned
of that line
with no definite Oregon action. On the same day the treaty was received from the President (6 August) the Committee on Territories brought in a bill. With almost no discussion 10 Globe,
XV,
1023-4,
1179,
1198-0.
gan about the navigation of the Columbia.
Cass
(Ibid.,
1204) agreed with HanneLESTER BURRELL SHIPPER
92
Whole House reported it to the House with the amendment that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude (should) ever exist in said Territory, except in the
the Committee of the
punishment of crimes."
By
a vote of 108 to 43 the House
accepted the amendment and passed the would not act.
bill.
11
But the Senate
were the chief of those all. Among the Orein each house, on one committee activities two reports, gon the question of a railroad to Oregon deserve a few words. In the House a memorial from George Wilkes and others pray-
While the measures
just described
before Congress, they were by no means
ing Congress to appropriate the means of constructing a railroad from some point on Lake Michigan or from Fort Independence was referred to the Committee on Roads and Canals.
The committee
12
that while it found no constitutional whole scheme was too gigantic and impracticable at the time. In the Senate where Eli Whitney again attempted to get a hearing for his Northern Pacific Railroad, Senator
reported
obstacle the
Breese appeared as a supporter of the proposition. He introduced the memorial, spoke in its favor, and, for the Committee on Public Lands, reported a bill. When the bill had been read Senator Benton interrupted to say that it was entirely improper then to take the time of the Senate for such an absurd in part
matter; here was a person who applied to Congress for 90,000,000 acres of public land and agreed to build 3,000 miles of railroad, in the face of that he would not be surprised if
some one came along and offered to take over the whole government. The bill was not only the most ridiculous and absurd ever presented to Congress but it was impudent as well. The Senate, however, was less outspoken in its scorn, and allowed the committee to have
Oregon came up petitions touching
its
report printed.
from State legislatures, in sides of the controversy, as well as
in resolutions
upon
all
in requests for grants of land
widow
the
among
ii Ibid., 1200-3. i
a
the latter
was one from
of Captain Gray, the discoverer of the Columbia
Ho. Rep. No.
779, agth Cong.
ist.
Ses. FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON
93
Oregon appeared in the debates on the Rivers and Harbors Bill in an amendment "for the improvement of the Columbia river in Oregon, $100,000," whereat one Congressman said he had no objection to a little sport but he thought it was going too far to propose an appropriation for the Columbia until it was known "whether we owned it or not." "But the title is 'clear and unquestionable' you know," came the response from various parts of the House.
River. CORRESPONDENCE OF REVEREND EZRA FISHER
Edited by Sarah Fisher Henderson, Nellie Edith Latourette, Kenneth Scott Latourette
(Continued from Page 372 in Quarterly for December, 1918)
Oregon City, Oct. 8th, 1854.
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill,
Cor. Sec. Am. Bapt. Home Mission Soc.
Dear Brother:
Yours of Sept. 18th containing your account with me, also a bill of goods sent me by the Am. Bapt. Home Mission Society Sept. 6th, amounting to $466.66, with a bill of lading for six boxes and two barrels of merchandise, were received by the last mail. Was very glad to learn that they are on the way. Since I last wrote I have visited West Tualatin Church and spent nearly a week with the Shilo Church on a council called on account of difficulties existing between Elder and the majority of the church on one hand and the minority of the church on the other. Br. had been quite imprudent and serious charges were preferred against him, but with not sufficient proof to induce the council to recommend his being deposed from the ministry.[10] After three days' and two nights' hard labor, the council gave their advice to the church and all the parties concerned, which resulted in an amicable adjustment of all difficulties. We have felt the necessity of our church members understanding and practicing gospel discipline in case of difficulties before they come before the church. Our Divine Master has condescended to give us the most simple and yet the most perfect rules for discipline either in private trespasses or public immorality.
Yours with sentiments of Christian affection.
EZRA FISHER.
Received Dec. 26. REVEREND EZRA FISHER
96
Oregon
City.
O. Ter., Oct. 17th, 1854.
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, Cor. Sec. A. Bap. Home Mission Society. Dear Brother:
from the yearly meeting of the seventy-five miles up the valley from this place and thirty-five south of Salem. This church, like all our churches, is located in the heart of a flourishing I
have just
returned
Butte
Church,
Pleasant
country admirably adapted to grazing and the growing of wheat, corn, oats and all kinds of vegetables and fruits
adapted to
this
climate.
spent ten days with the church,
I
and Sabbaths and one sermon The meetings were interesting, but not attended night. the same results as last year. During the meeting six added by letter, one was received for baptism, there two hopeful cases of conversion and four or five others preaching
Saturdays
manifestly interested in Sperry is the pastor with
their
whom
souls'
welfare.
Br.
each with
were were were
Wm.
have labored. This church has a flourishing Sabbath school and meets every Sabbath I
The will
converts of last year appear probably hire a man and put
Br. Sperry's farm the mostly liberate him to the
coming year and by this means work of the ministry in that
for preaching or prayer.
very
well.
The church
him on
church and
This
vicinity.
is
much
better than the entire
neglect of the ministry. This closes up our yearly meetings I had hoped that I should till the opening of the spring. have been able to give particular attention to Washington
Ter. at the close of this meeting, but there are two pressing calls, one in Washington County and the other in Marion,
Salem, which are obviously more than the exploration of Washington immediately important Our brethren here urge a Ter. at this season of the year.
twelves
miles
south
of
delay of the exploration of that territory till another season. So also the Methodist minister 353 who has charge of that I am collecting facts relative to the region district advises.
of Pugets
Sound and
353 This was Rev. John F.
shall
De
be able to give you a pretty
Vore.
George H. Himes. CORRESPONDENCE
97
general view of the relative importance of that country in three or four weeks. My present impressions are that the Baptist cause in that region is not suffering so much for
more populous parts Here we have numbers of organized church, which must be visited occasionally, and of settlements where churches might be constituted if they
the want of immediate attention as the
of
Oregon and
California are.
could have the encouragement of preaching four Sabbaths in a year, and for want of which labors our members are lying still or joining Methodist and Cumberland Presbyterian churches. I visited Salem on my return from Find Salem, the capital Pleasant Butte Church last week.
either
of the Ter., with a population of about 1200 souls, with a Methodist Episcopal church and a good house of worship,
a Protestant Methodist church and house nearly finished, an Episcopal house completed and a Congregational church and
Found but five Baptist members in the house completed. and them who can be considered permanent. but one of place There are two members probably permanently located two miles from the town who wish to promote the cause in town. The whole surrounding country is settled mostly on The place must have a section claims one mile square. There is doubt no but a man if sent there rapid growth. call a small congregation around him, and supported would if his talent were popular and piety undoubted, with good, sound common sense, and he might hope to see his congregation increase with the growth of the place. Besides, a good substantial, efficient minister located there would do good service through the whole surrounding country with .
its
four Baptist churches.
Salem
certainly
should not be
Some aid no doubt could long neglected by your Society. be obtained from the surrounding churches towards sustainan
minister in that place. Yet most of a would have to come from home, and it would require from $600 to $800 to give a family of ordinary I have no doubt but the expenditure size an annual support. for such an appointment would be judicious, if your Board
ing
effective
minister's
salary REVEREND EZRA FISHER
98
can sustain such a man there after supporting the suffering cause at Portland and Oregon City, both of which places are probably in greater need of a minister than Salem. Port-
At Oregon land has some permanent and able supporters. All our towns are is school for the our Territory. City subject to frequent changes, yet they are towns, and will continue to be places of trade from which an influence will be continually going out into the surrounding country and into
A
the whole world.
Sabbaths should mostly be
minister's
town unless he can have
his place filled occasionally effected can be little or by the side of other organized by proxy, churches with a stated Sabbath ministry.
spent in
As
ever yours,
EZRA FISHER.
Received Nov. 25.
Oregon City, Ore. M. To Rev. Benjamin Hill, Cor. Sec.
Dear
Am.
Bapt.
Home
Ter.,
Mission Soc.,
Nov.
New
8th, 1854.
York.
Br. Hill:
This
is
to
inform you that Rev. William F. Boyakin,354
formerly from Carrolton, Illinois, and late of St. Joseph, Missouri, arrived in Portland about the tenth of October with his family. Since that time he has been preaching to I visited Portthe scattered Baptist brethren in that place. and south. Found he west land three weeks since on a tour
was making a favorable impression on the minds of the BapSince tist members and the public; gave them some advice. return Br. Boyakin has preached in this place. He informs me that the Baptist members have invited him to labor with them in Portland for one year and that they have agreed to
my
Mission Society to appoint him as their missionary to Portland for one year with a salary of $800, $200
ask the
Home
354 Rev. W. F. Boyakin helped to organize the Portland Church in May, 1855. In 1856 he moved to Corvallis at the invitation of the church there. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., I:n, 14. Mattoon says he was from Mississippi. 99
CORRESPONDENCE
of which the people pledge themselves they will pay. They I therefore ask your Board to pay him $600 of the $800.
have the impression that your acquaintance with Br. Boyakin's reputation as a preacher is better than mine. I think he has been favorably known ,both in Illinois and Missouri, as an I
effective Baptist preacher. I
have with him that he
in Portland.
think from the short acquaintance
well adapted to get up an interest commends himself at once to the people as
He
is
an eloquent man well acquainted with that form of human nature which develops itself in our rising towns in the West. He seems to have the true missionary spirit. Should he continue to wear as he now promises, we have no man in Oregon so well adapted to that field as he is. I think he will need $800 salary to support his family (of 7 persons I believe) in I think the people will supply $200 of the salary, not more the first year. Br. Boyakin is poor, having probably expended almost all his means in reaching the field, seems
Portland.
desirous of trying
what he can do
in Portland
and
I
am
now
impressed favorably with the thought that the Lord has directed him in a very favorable time to his appropriate field
of labor.
He
is
calling a
good congregation to a school-house fitted up temporarily as a place of to the importance of the place, you
which the brethren have worship.
As
it
relates
hardly need any further information.
Portland
is
the principal
Oregon at present, numbering probably about 2000 with from 30 to 50 trading houses, wholesale and and must, for years at least, be the most commercial
port for souls, retail,
town are
in the Territory.
developed,
I
think
When the
the resources of the country commercial city of the
great
Columbia River will be somewhere below the mouth of the Willamette River, yet Portland will even then be an important a reference to the
of the surveyed parts of 14 miles above the mouth of Oregon, you the Willamette in the heart, or rather at the foot, of one of the most fertile portions of country in North America. Our point.
By
will see that
it
map
is
country is fast filling up and, although at present the influence of the Nebraska and Kansas movements may for two or three years somewhat retard our onward progress,[11] yet I think the immigration will be checked only to flow in more abundantly when the Nebraskan excitement shall have worked its discontent among the early settlers to that territory. I trust your Board will be prompt in making the appointment and may God in His infinite mercy bless to the building up of a strong interest in Portland and the surrounding country.
With much esteem, your unworthy brother,
Ezra Fisher.
N. B. — Br. Boyakin, in behalf of the brethren in Portland, will make the application stating the time they will wish the appointment to take effect. Received Dec. 26.
Oregon City, O. Ter., Jan. 1st, 1855.
To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill,
- Cor. Sec. of Am. Bap. Home Mission Society:
Herein I send you my report of labor under the appointment of the Home Mission Society as Exploring Agent for the third quarter ending the thirty-first day of Dec., 1854. During the quarter I have visited Portland twice, the Cascades in Washington Ter., The Dalles, east of the Cascade Mountains, West Union Church, West Tualatin Church twice, Shilo Church and a settlement of unorganized Baptists near the junction of the Columbia and Sandy rivers in Clackamas County; labored 13 weeks; traveled to and from my appointments 617 miles paid nine dollars eighty-two cents ($9.82) for traveling expenses and eighteen cents ($0.18) for postage; preached 20 sermons. I attended a council in case; of difficulty of a serious kind in which I labored three days and almost two nights, with but six hours' intermission. The result of our labors seemed blessed under God in restoring union to the distracted church, Respectfully submitted, EZRA FISHER, Exploring Agent. CORRESPONDENCE
Oregon
To
Rev. Benjamin M.
City,
101
O. Ten, Jan.
1st,
1855.
Hill,
Am. Bapt. Home Mission Soc. send you my report of labor under the appointment of the Home Mission Society as General Itinerant for Cor. Sec. of
Herein
I
I have the 3rd quarter ending the 31st day of Dec., 1854. labored thirteen weeks in the quarter; preached 20 sermons;
attended six prayer meetings, two church covenant meetings and one council of three days visited religiously fifty- four families and other persons, one common school traveled to
and from my appointments six hundred and seventeen miles. Connected with the churches I have visited are three Sabbath schools, one in Pleasant Butte Church on Calapooia River, Lynn Co., one in West Union Church, Washington County, and one in Oregon City, numbering each about twenty-five scholars and four teachers. Respectfully submitted,
EZRA FISHER. General Itinerant.
Received Feb.
9.
Oregon
City,
O. Ter., Jan. 15th, 1855.
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill,
Am. Bap. Home Mission
Cor. Sec.
Dear Br.
Society.
my
pen to give you a brief account of my late tour The Dalles, a rising town and a military post on the Columbia near the east base of the Cascade Mountains. I left home on the 17th of Nov. and traveled twenty-two I take
from
this place to
mouth of the Sandy, a stream nearly Mohawk, which rises in the eternal snows
miles north to the large as the
Mount Hood and
as
of
flows into the Columbia at the west base
Cascade Range, twenty-five miles west from the Cascade Falls. Having failed of reaching the Columbia in time to take the regular steamer, I was detained
of
the
celebrated REVEREND EZRA FISHER
102
Here I found the next trip of the boat. and twenty Baptist members, including- an aged minister (Br. Bond), with an enfeebled wife for many several days
between
till
fifteen
They are scattered mostly confined to her bed. a fertile, timbered, undulating country eight or ten through miles from north to south and perhaps half that distance from east to west. Br. Bond is preaching- what he can while years
laboring with all his powers to obtain a comfortable support for himself and helpless family. These brethren occupy prospectively one of the most important country positions in all Oregon, but at present they have to contend with all the
inconveniences of removing forests of enormous growth before they can reap a harvest from their generous soil. However, 1
they will soon be placed above want and probably abound in church will be constituted here in the farmer's wealth.
A
the coming- spring,
ing than
money The
many
if
not before.
This point
fields in the Mississippi
is
more promis-
Valley where labor and
are expended
by missionary societies. I took the steamer and visited The week following a town with site, Cascades, eight or ten families scattered on the north bank of the Columbia for a distance of three miles from the head
to the foot of the Cascade Falls, about
midway
of the Cascade Mountains, from east to west. These families have resorted here for matters of speculation and, with few exceptions, manifest less desire for the bread of eternal life
mammon of unrighteousness. This is the great natural gateway through the Cascade Mountains and must at no distant day become a place of great commercial and manufacturing importance, it being the head of ship navigation to than for the
the Columbia and there being a vast region of the best grazing country in North America on the Columbia and its hundred
which must soon be put in requisition to graze the and cattle horses of Oregon and Washington territories. Occasionally through the summer a Methodist circuit preacher has visited and preached in this place. Here I found one pious Methodist sister and one or two Campbellite members. The country on the north bank of the Columbia is now settled tributaries, CORRESPONDENCE with families and bachelors most of the
103
way from
this place to
Vancouver, a distance of forty-five miles. The next week I took the steamer356 for The Dalles; ascended the broad, deep Columbia twenty-five miles to the mouth of Dog- River, 357 a considerable stream tumbling down with great rapidity from the snowy sides of Mt. Hood. Here I found Br. Coe, late postal agent for Oregon, and This settlement consists of three white families, but wife. soon be swollen to fifty or 100. The steamer having left on the 29th of November, to save a weeks delay and an me, exorbitant price for an Indian and horses, I took my postbags and traveling apparel on my back at ten A. M. and took the emigrant trail, which lay over high mountains and will
although the thawing of the frozen ground coming in constant contact with my India rubber boots rendered the traveling exceedingly slippery, I reached the
through deep
first
defiles, and,
settlement, three miles
from The Dalles, a distance of
eighteen miles, at four P. M., unusually fatigued, yet grateful to the gracious Giver for strength to perform even the physical labors of a pioneer missionary. I found twenty-four families, including three or four of the officers and soldiers, in this place
and
vicinity, beside a
married Indian
number of white men who had
women and some
thirty or forty single
men
and farming, and gambling, as I had good reason to 358 Here are stationed two or three companies of suppose. government troops to defend our frontiers from Indian in trade
invasion.
Here
also are constantly a considerable
number of
who
dwell here Indians, amounting cultivate small fields of potatoes, corn and melons. Here too the Roman Catholic Church have a mission established to forty or fifty families,
and
with the Indians and have set up their claim to 640 acres of land for the mission, immediately below the town and extending almost to the river bank. 859 356 This steamboat was probably the "Mary," the first steamer to run between the Cascades and The Dalles. Bancroft, His. of Wash., Idaho and Mont., p. 145357 This is the present Hood River. It was called Dog Creek, because in the early forties some immigrants camping there were reduced to dog meat for food.
George H. Himes. 358 See note 309. 359 This claim of the Roman Catholics was later set aside. They were, however, allowed to retain about half an acre of ground for a building site. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore., 11:292. REVEREND EZRA FISHER
104
The
soil in
the vicinity of
The
generally a loamy and decomposed rocks of
Dalles
is
sand, mixed with vegetable mould various kinds, some of which appear to contain considerable quantities of alkalies, in some places so much so as to prevent the growth of vegetation, except a kind of wild rye which
grows with great luxuriance where the alkalies destroy all the ordinary grass. This soil must hereafter become very rich manures for lands requiring alkalies. Potatoes, onions, beets, cabbage, squashes, melons, wheat, oats, peas,
etc.,
been successfully raised here. The river from the head of The Cascades to
have
all
this place is
broad and sufficiently deep for the largest class of steamers and the current very gentle. This must be the great place of trade for all the upper Columbia country in all future time, unless a railroad should be constructed through this great valley to Pugets Sound, and in that event a branch will come
down
the Columbia to this place. this place I find two persons
At .
.
.
who have been
The same Methodist missionary
Baptists
circuit preacher
who
has visited The Cascades has visited this place a few times the past summer. The people here desire the labors of a good Protestant preacher, but as yet they are entirely uncommitted. efficient, common-sense minister should be placed here to
An
He would occupy labor at this place and The Cascades. emphatically a missionary post which will be a post of observaIt will prove to the sreat Columbia Valley what St. tion. Louis or Chicago is to the Mississippi Valley. True it is small now, but it will soon be the kev to hundreds ot millions of wealth and millions of souls.
I spent
two Sabbaths
at this
preached to attentive congregations and received the most cordial hospitality of the citizens. Will your Board send a man to The Dalles and for once occupy an important post place,
first
one who may be able to work by Romans, who are doing what they can? soon attempt to give you what information I have from Washington Ter. also make one more earnest
amonsr Protestants
the side of T shall
collected
- CORRESPONDENCE
appeal for
Oregon City and other
105
parts of the Willamette
Valley.
Yours
as ever with high esteem,
EZRA FISHER, Exploring Agent. Received Feb. 26.
To
the Rev.
Cor. Sec.
Oregon City, O. Ten, Benjamin M. Hill,
Am. Bap. Home Mission
Dear Brother I
$300
&
Hill
Society,
New
York.
shall be obliged to in favor of
Jan. 18th, 1855.
draw an order on you
for $200 or and or Co., josiah Failing Abernathy, Clarke
Co. at Portland, in three or four weeks, as I
eling expenses.
I
am
am now
ordinary family and travalso expecting to hear from the goods,
straitened for funds to keep
up
my
which you shipped on the Wild Ranger for San Francisco, by every mail and I have not the means to pay the freight from San Francisco to this place. I send this that you may have at least two weeks notice before the order is presented. I gave Br. J. D. Post an order of $150 on you sometime last summer or autumn, but have never heard from it since but presume it is paid. If that is paid, I suppose there will be due me, after you receive my last report, which was made out and forwarded the first day of this month, about $420. I have received $13 from the Baptist Church in this place ( Oregon City), and wish you to send twenty (20) copies of the Home Mission Record, twenty (20) copies of the American Messenger, twenty (20) copies of the Macedonian and one (1) copy of the Missionary Magazine, all postpaid, to William C. Johnson, Oregon City, if that amount will meet all the expenses: if not, send equal numbers of the Record and Macedonian, fewer of the American Messenger and one copy of the Missionary Magazine and prepay the postage, applying $13 on these, no more and no less. Charge the same to my account. Also pay B. R. Soxley. Philadelphia, one dollar ($1)
- REVEREND EZRA FISHER
106
Mary Winston, Oregon City; also one dollar for Mrs. Rebecca Fanno, Portland, for the Mothers' Journal and Family Visitant and charge the same to my account. Will you see that this is promptly paid, as they wish to have their for Mrs.
Mothers' Journal continued. Received Feb. 26.
Oregon Rev. Benjamin M. Sec.
Am.
New
York.
Cor.
City,
O. Ten, Feb. 8th, 1855.
Hill,
Bap.
Home
Mission Society, Nassau
St.,
Dear Brother: take
I
this
opportunity
to
you a few
write
lines
on
And
matters first, our good people in Portland effort to build a house for public an about are making in general.
360 and today the ladies of that place make a dinner worship, as the first effort in furtherance of that important work. As they commence the work in feasting, I hope they will complete it
in praying.
The church
in
Oregon City have been employ-
ing a temporary supply, or rather reciving it, since I left their service last June, but are making an effort to secure
man in Oregon, if they can, and ask the Home Missionary Society to aid them in his support, as they feel that there is great uncertainty in obtaining a man soon from the labors of a
Oh, that the Lord would raise up faithful laborers We are in perishing and send a few to our Pacific borders need of faithful pastoral labors throughout our churches. We must pray and try to raise up ministers in Oregon. I wish we had a well endowed school manned with two or three good pious professors, to which we could direct our young men who desire to serve God with singleness of heart. But
the States.
!
money
is
now
scarce,
though
this
is
not half so alarming as
the fact that so few of our brethren take a comprehensive must educate view of our wants and the true remedy. j nrnHEn
We
-
,
360 The building was not actually begun until 1861. Ore.,
1: 140.
Mattoon, Bap. An. of CORRESPONDENCE
107
our ministry on the Pacific slope, and I am beginning to think we are more able than willing. But this business must be accomplished by "line upon line." We cannot do this work at once, but we must not cease doing till this is done; then that
we
shall support a pious, intelligent, efficient ministry.
seat of
government
thirty miles farther
is
removed from Salem to
Our
Corvallis, about
361 up the Willamette River.
Corvallis
was
formerly called Marysville, the county seat for Benton county.
The
Territorial University is removed from Corvallis to Jackwe have an county seat of Jackson County.
Now
sonville,
able church at Corvallis
and
I
think
we
should
make immedi-
ate effort to put in operation a high school at that place. shall leave
tomorrow with a view of
visiting
I
two or three
churches in that vicinity.
I shall feel of the public pulse, as beats through some of our leading men, on the subject of bringing up an educational interest at the seat of government. it
We
think an enterprise of this kind will in no way operate prejudicially to our school at Oregon City, but rather favorall
As to the question of your removal from the Bible ably. house, I hope the Society will let the good brethren in New York build you a good mission house, if that will end the 362
What unhappy strife. an unhappy division?
is
$40,000 or $100,000 as an offset
to
Yours,
EZRA FISHER. Received March 24.
Oregon Rev. Benjamin M. Cor. Sec.
Am.
City,
O. Ter., March
5th, 1855.
Hill,
Bap.
Dear Brother: About three weeks
Home since I
Mission Society.
drew an order on you
in favor
361 The legislature of the winter of 1854-5 changed the capital from Salem to Corvallis. and the university from Corvallis to Jacksonville. The capital was relocated at Salem! Dec. 12, 1855. Bancroft, His. of Ore., II:3$i, .152. The legislature of 1855-6 repealed all acts locating the university. F. G. Young, Financial Hist, of Ore. in Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar., VIII: 162. 362 In 1853 a serious discussion arose in the Baptist Home Mission Society over the acceptance from the American and Foreign Bible Society of rooms in its new building on Nassau Street. Friends of the "Bible Union" opposed the acThe ceptance and the trouble threatened to split the Home Mission Society. rooms in the A. & F. B. S. building were occupied until 1862. Bap. Home Mis. in N. Am., 1832-1882, p. 543. REVEREND EZRA FISHER
108
&
Co. to the amount of $300. This I few instances before, on account of our great distance. The long delays, after making our quarterly reports, if we must first wait till we can get drafts from New York before we can draw on your treasury, some-
of George Abernathy did,
as I have done a
times subject us to great inconvenience. As in the present case, I had ordered a year's supply of clothing for my family a year ago last October (I think). The bill was lost in the ocean
a second order was
made
in
about four months.
The
filling of the bill was no doubt necessarily delayed by the sickness of yourself and family. The goods were shipped almost a full year after the first bill was mailed at Oregon
City,
and
last
week
I
received three boxes and
two
barrels, a
I hope to hear from the balance in part only of the goods. two or three weeks. But in this case my available means were
money has been earned and the labor reported. consequently made a draft on you, although it is out of your ordinary way of doing business. I trust your Board used up, the I
pay the order and indulge me again under similar cirI have received for religious periodicals the folI wish you to pay to the respective agents sums which lowing same For the Mothers' Journal, to my account and charge the from Hector Campbell, one dollar; Mr. Campbell wishes his From Mrs. Olive F. D. Ogle, one Journal discontinued. dollar; Mrs. Ogle is a new subscriber; her post-office is FairFor the Christian Chronicle, Philfield, Marion Co., O. Ter. adelphia, from Thomas M. Read of Marysville (now CorFor the vallis), two dollars; he wishes his paper stopped. New York Recorder, from John Robinson, Marysville (now Corvallis), two dollars and fifty cents. will
cumstances.
Respectfully yours,
EZRA FISHER. March tral
6th.
I
have just returned from a tour to the cenVisited Santiam church, Corvallis
part of the valley.
(Marysville)
church, Albany and French Prairie churches. too well contented with monthly Sab-
Our churches seem CORRESPONDENCE
109
baths and rest apparently satisfied with few pastoral labors performed among them. The result is a want of spirituality,
too great a conformity to the world and a reliance almost exclusively upon special meetings for seasons of refreshings
from the Most High. I spent some time in endeavoring to ascertain the state of public sentiment relative to the expediency of establishing a school in the central part of the valley. All seemed desirous of seeing such a operation, but as yet they have had subject and
want some
effective
man
work put
in successful
no conference on the
to take the responsibility
upon himself of planning and executing. While this is being done, the Methodists, who have already three high schools in the valley and one in
Umpqua, will step into Corvallis, now to be occupied and raise up an
the
imonly important point portant school and leave us with the alternative of building up a high school at some unimportant post some six or eight years hence, or of raising a rival school at their door. Now the influence and wealth in the vicinity is Baptist more than any other denomination. The Baptists have the only house
of worship in the place.
The Methodists
are
making an
effort
Lest they should not be able to build a house of worship. 363 to drive all others out, they obtained a charter for a high school in the place as early as '51. The Presbyterians are Their looking to the place for the location of a college. principal proprietor assured me he would give a block of lots worth about $1000 for the site, if the Baptists would build a good high school. Although the people in Oregon are almost destitute of
money and
are
much alarmed
at the
hard times,
think a building worth from $2000 to $3000 could be built by the Baptists the coming year, if the brethren in the upper I
country would see their interests in their true
light,
without
materially affecting the
Oregon City College otherwise than You favorably. may reasonably ask, Why trouble ourselves about another school while the one at Oregon City can hardly live?
1856.
In the absence of a good
common
school system, evan-
363 The Methodists dedicated their church building in Corvallis in December, Bancroft. Hist, of Ore., 11:352. REVEREND EZRA FISHER
110
gelical Christians have opened schools adapted to the wants of the people, employed good, pious teachers, and by these schools they wield a strong influence. If we remain inactive,
we must lose our hold on the confidence of the people and be set down as inefficient; besides, the sooner we can commit the denomination to
them and the other
work
some benevolent
rising generation.
strictly
enterprise the better for They will do the more for
of an evangelical character.
Again,
I
strongly think we must look to our churches for our rising ministry on the Pacific borders before twenty years roll around. The great question with me is, Ought the ministers
and almost worn out to give any considerable to the cause of education, while so much time of their portion waste for the want of faithful, Godly ministers field lies our of
now
in the field
given wholly to preaching the Word? Br. Chandler baptized two converts into the French Prairie
church Sabbath before
last.
Affectionately yours,
EZRA FISHER. Received April
9.
Oregon
To
Rev. Benjamin M.
Cor. Sec.
Am.
Bap.
City,
O. Ten, April
1st,
1855.
Hill,
Home
Mission Soc.
Dear Brother: Herein
I
ment of the
send you my report of labor under the appointHome Mission Society as General Itinerant for
the 4th quartet ending
weeks
in
March
31st, 1855.
15
this
I
have labored 13
sermons; attended 10
quarter; preached prayer meetings and four church meetings visited religiously 45 families and other persons visited one common school
my appointments 307 miles. Two were received into the French Prairie church by baptism under Sabbath schools in the labors of Rev. George C. Chandler. traveled to and from
the territory are the same as last quarter. During the quarSeveral ter I have distributed about 2500 pages of tracts. CORRESPONDENCE
111
of our churches and congregations are beginning to study the Bible by subjects and meet monthly to give their views of the duties enjoined, such as the obligations of the Sabbath, The churches generally the duties of religious parents, etc. are training their young members as well as could be expected
where but monthly Sabbaths are enjoyed. However, many of members visit from church to church, so that perhaps they attend the Baptist meetings two Sabbaths in a month. the
The remaining time they
either attend other meetings or stay
home.
at
Respectfully submitted,
EZRA FISHER. Oregon
To
Rev. Benjamin
Am.
Cor. Sec.
M.
Bap.
City,
O. Ter., April
1,
1855.
Hill,
Home Mission Soc. my report of labor
under the appointsend you Home Mission Society as Exploring Agent for I have visited the 4th quarter ending March 31st, 1855. Herein
I
ment of the
during the quarter Corvallis, Albany, Oregon City, Corvallis church, French Prairie church, a settlement of Baptist brethren five miles east of Albany, Lynn Co., who will soon be constituted into a church;
a settlement of Baptists on the
Molalla prairie, where are encouraging prospects; Clackamas church and Pleasant Butte church; traveled 307 miles to and from my appointments. I have labored 13 weeks during the quarter; preached 15 sermons; paid for traveling expenses $2, for postage 37>4 cents. N. B. The traveling has been unusually bad this winter and my health, for three or four weeks of the first part of the quarter, was not so good as usual in the winter. This
account for the unusually small amount of labor I have performed. I have labored under the influence of bronchitis and dyspepsia. I have adopted a rigid system of diet and
may
hope to be able to perform
my
wonted labors the coming
season.
Respectfully submitted,
EZRA FISHER, Exploring Agent. REVEREND EZRA FISHER
112
Oregon
City,
Mar.
10th, 1855.
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill. Dear Brother:
The church
Oregon City have invited Br. Johnson and them the coming year and agreed and Br. Post $75. Perhaps this on do could the whole. But it falls far short they in
Br. J. D. Post to supply to give Br. Johnson $50 is
the best
Br. Post's time is engrossed in his of meeting our wants. school and the most he can do is to preach half the Sabbaths, attend the weekly prayer meetings and perhaps visit a little
Saturdays in the afternoons.
Br. Johnson will preach half
the Sabbaths, but does not contemplate visiting at all. You will see by this that the church must be greatly neglected I hoped the church would have in the pastoral relations.
chosen some
man
as their pastor and asked the
Home
Mis-
sionary Society to help in his support, so that he could give himself to the ministry, or have asked your Board to send
them a minister and
let
him enter upon the work
as a
man
do not yet see it so. Perhaps I noticed in the January number of the Home Mission Record a notice of my reappointment. I shall endeavor to
of God.
all is
serve the Board to
my
for the best.
I
best ability through the
summer and
at least, my health will permit and God blesses. I have received no letter from you for near three months. fall
if
364 when wrecked. I Suppose one was lost on the Southerner of the season with the churches coming expect to spend most in the upper part of the valley and in Umpqua and Rogue River valleys and, when in Rogue River Valley, I may cross the Ciscue [Siskiyou] Mountains into Chasty [Shasta] Valley, as it will be but about 25 miles from Rogue River Valley and 125 from the settlement in the Sacramento Valley. A large town called Yreka has sprung up in that valley, in which it is said there are numbers of Baptist members who have had but few Baptist sermons preached to them. Yreka 365 is
364 The steamship "Southerner," Capt. F. A. Sampson, was wrecked on the coast at Cape Flattery, Dec. 26, 1854. Washington shing Oregpnian, Jan. 27, 1855. 365 Yreka sprang up as a result of the mining in Shasta County, California, which began in 1850. diggii _ opened in March, 1851, gave rise to the 1850."" Important diggings town, which was incorporated in 1854. It declined with the mines after 1857. Bancroft, Hist, of Calif., VI: 4P4. 113
CORRESPONDENCE
said to be as large as Portland. Should I visit Chasty Valley, or will our California brother penetrate the mountains from the south and explore this mining district? With sentiments of Christian esteem,
EZRA FISHER. Received April 24.
Oregon
City,
O. Territory,
May
3d, 1855.
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, Cor. Sec.
Am.
Bapt.
Home
Mission Soc.
Dear Brother: Yours of March 3d has just come to hand and I now sit down to answer it. It is with mingled emotions that I learn that your Board have reappointed me to the work of exI shall endeavor in the ploring agent and general itinerant. fear of
God
to
enter
upon those
duties to the best of
my
but in view of the gradual decline of my physical, not to say mental powers, I am led to hope that your Board will be looking out for a man of ripe Christian experience and
abilities,
strong physical constitution to enter upon the responsibilities of this work after the present year. I feel that I have a right
more
limited field which will call for less exposure and the inconveniences of a frontier life. Yet I often feel that I would prefer the ways of Providence to those of my own choosings. I wish it to be distinctly understood by the Board that my personal inclinations have for a long time been to locate so that I could reach the extent of my field of labor by a day's ride. Should you find a suitable man to enter upon this work at an earlier period than
to ask for a
in winter rains
the expiration of the present year, I will rejoice to facilitate It seems to me that the labor of such a his introduction.
man to
Oregon should not be dispensed with. As it relates the work of collecting for the Home Mission Society, you
know
in
am
willing to do all that I can in the furtherIt is likewise true that your Society ance of that object. ought to have found more pecuniary aid flowing into your that I REVEREND EZRA FISHER
114
Yet our servants and their fellow treasury from Oregon. laborers have been laboring as fast as they thought the churches would bear to bring about this object in as healthy and as permanent a manner as possible. have to meet
We
the influence of monthly Sabbaths and Missouri opinions, and an educated anti-mission influence in our missionary all
These prejudices are so far worn away
churches.
I believe
in all our churches that they, as churches, recognize the principle that our ministry should be given to the work and that they should be sustained somehow or other in that work.
At our one
association
last
man
in
we made
a direct effort to sustain
Lane County, which was an important missionary
should at that time have pleaded the cause of the Mission Society and asked that these efforts might in some way or other have gone through that channel, but for the fact that your Board was at the time sustaining no I
field.
Home
man
but myself in Oregon.
The
right kind of
work was
doing to accomplish the work and open the sympathies of our brethren. The churches as a whole are coming up to the work, although much slower than is desired by every It is hard teaching our liberal-souled disciple of Christ. brethren the lesson of being dead to the world and alive to God. Yet four churches, two of which were as little hopeful as any in the Association, have absolutely paid their minister
(Br. Riley) not less than $1000 the last year by buying him a claim and providing him with clothing and food for his family. Four more are paying Br. Chandler the present year
And I do not know of a church, small as our churches are, which pays their minister less than $100 for onefourth of the time, while they scarcely get the labors of the minister more than two days in a month, except in the riding nearly $600.
to
and from the appointments, which may take two days more. will perceive that your missionaries have not been
Thus you
indifferent to the true interests of Christ's church, although we have not been able to do so much as we would, nor to direct
what
is
done through the channel which might be CORRESPONDENCE
115
I rejoice in the love of our divine Master that you desired. have appointed two more missionaries for Oregon and that they are in their field of labor. The way is now open for me to work directly for you without putting on the air of supreme selfishness and, although we are feeling the effects of what the world calls hard times, I intend to try and do what I can 366 at Jacksonville for Br. Boyakin at Portland and Br. Stearns
by personal appeals to private brethren, as well as by collecin the churches, if I can get the subject before the But the amount that can churches, and I doubt not I can. be done this year cannot be expected to be large. I have no tion
fears of injuring
goes with me. as well as
make an
my
My
ministerial character in this
greatest fear
is
that I
may
work
God work
if
not do the
some other man might. We feel that we must two ministers by the Association
effort to sustain
fields; in this all our have the men on the ground whom we may probably employ, our brethren see them and know them, and have an assurance that something will be done for them in Oregon when they pay their money. I have felt, in view of all the circumstances, that we should aid in this kind of work, and, although we cannot do the work in the way we would desire, we shall do much of the work which we should do if all prejudices were removed and we were strictly
as missionaries
in
brethren will probably unite.
destitute
We
doing the work precisely as you would have us do it. We have with us an old brother, Thomas Taylor, formerly from Illinois (I think he formerly was in the service of the Home Mission Society in 111.), who has a destitute field, embracing a part of Clackamas County and a part of Yam Hill County, in which there are a number of Baptist members scattered.
The
field locally
is
important, but the country
is
mostly tim-
bered, consequently slow of improvement comparatively. One of the points I reported last winter, near the mouth of the year's labor would probably Sandy on the Columbia River.
A
366 This was probably Rev. M. N. Stearns, who had arrived that year from the East with his father, Rev. John Stearns, and was chosen pastor of the Table Rock (Jacksonville) Baptist Church. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:13. REVEREND EZRA FISHER
116
result in the formation of
from one
to four churches.
Br.
Taylor's family consists of himself and wife. He says he can labor a year for $300 and will run the risk of raising half that sum on the field. Br. Chandler proposes to pay $25 of the balance.
Br. Chandler
Now
is
very desirous that he should be put into
your Board make him the appointment under such conditions as you may think proper and require him to report to you and allow me to see what I can raise on the field for him, yet so as not to interfere with any efforts I
that field.
may make
will
for Br. Boyakin
and Br. Stearns?
Will you leave
Br. Taylor to consult with Br. Chandler and myself respecting the field? The country we propose is as densely peopled and
any part of Oregon and the most remote point 24 miles from Oregon City. not more than As ever your fellow-laborer in the vineyard of our common as destitute as
Master,
EZRA FISHER, Exploring Agent.
Oregon Rev. B. M.
City,
O. Ter.,
May
4th, 1855.
Hill,
Cor. Sec. A. B.
M.
Soc.
Dear Brother: I some weeks since wrote you an explanation of the reason why I drew on you an order payable to George Abernathy & Co. to the amount of $300. I have all the while supposed from the course that you had allowed me to pursue that you would grant me some privileges, on account of my distance and the length of time it took for me to get your drafts after My pay has mostly come requesting you to forward them. of collected here. You know in goods and exchange money have always waited as much as I could to suit the convenience of the Society, and I trust I have not show an unBut it would be exusual spirit of avarice in this matter. I
ceedingly mortifying to me as a prompt Christian minister in all my business relations to have my order protested and 117
CORRESPONDENCE
come back to Oregon owed a man over $200 failed of
meeting
Now
time.
sinned as
I
if
I
have never in my public life any given time, and never but once I
so.
at
pecuniary liabilities punctually at the have sinned in drawing this draft, I have
my
have done before, unadmonished.
I
sincerely re-
Board any trouble on that account
gret to occasion you or the
or in any measure to occasion Abernathy to doubt my integIf your Board should protest the order, will they do rity.
me
the favor to issue a draft in favor of
me
to that
amount
and pass it over to Abernathy & Co. and pay it immediately, as I have received the money and been obliged to pay out a part of it already to keep up my family. The remaining part Will you do me the favor is passing away in the same way. hereafter to settle my accounts at the end of each quarter, on the receipt of my quarterly report, and within three weeks from that time forward me a draft covering the amount due me at the time and let this be a standing order except when otherwise directed.
Rest assured, dear brother, that through any unkind feelings. .
I
do not make
As
ever yours,
this request
.
EZRA FISHER, Exploring Agent. Received June
8.
Oregon
To
Rev. Benjamin M.
City,
O. Ter., July
1st,
1855.
Hill,
Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. send you my report of labor under the appointment of the Home Mission Society for the first quarter of Cor. Sec. of
Herein
I
the year, ending June 30th as General Itinerant. I have labored 13 weeks in the quarter; preached 23 ser?
mons
12 prayer meetings, nine church covenant have assisted at the organization of the church in meeting's; the city of Portland 367 have traveled to and from my appoint;
attended
-
,
q
'
r!
367 This was organized by Revs. W. F. Boyakin, H. Johnson, and the author, May 6, 1855. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1: 14. The author says there were eleven constituent members; Mattoon> ten. REVEREND EZRA FISHER
118
ments 494 miles; have visited religiously 30 families and 22 individuals. The church at Portland takes her place beside older ones of other denominations under favorable prospects, as you will learn from the reports of Br. Boyakin. Respectfully submitted,
EZRA FISHER, General Itinerant.
Oregon
To
Rev. Benjamin M.
City,
O. Ter., July
1st,
1855.
Hill,
Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. send you my report of labor under the appointment of the Home Mission Society as Exploring Agent for Cor. Sec. of
Herein
I
the first quarter ending June 30th, 1855.
Tualatin,
West
ette Baptist Association
Have
I
have visited Port-
868
Pleasant Butte, Lebanon, West Union and Yam Hill churches, the Willam-
land, Santiam, Providence,
and Ministers* meeting. by collection taken on Sabbath
collected $24.48
at
Have
obtained a subscription in Tualatin Plains of forty bushels of wheat to be paid to Br. Boyakin in Portland on or before the first day in Oct., to apply on
the Association.
his
salary.
Br.
soon as received.
Boyakin It will
will
report the value to you as
probably be worth from $0.75 to
Paid $3.92 for traveling expenses and $1.00 per bushel. $0.25 for postage $4.17. Have aided in the constitution of the first Baptish church in Portland with eleven members.
Have preached 23 sermons and
traveled to and
from
my
appointments 494 miles. All which is respectfully submitted,
EZRA FISHER, Exploring Agent. Received Aug.
11.
368 The Providence Baptist Church in Linn County, at the forks of the Santiam River, was organized April 9, 1853. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., I:ia. The other churches mentioned have previously been commented upon. CORRESPONDENCE
Oregon
119
City, O.
Ten, July
2,
1855.
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc.
Dear Brother
have just returned from the annual meeting of the Willamette Baptist Association, which was held with the Yam Hill church, ten miles west of Lafayette, the seat of justice As a business meeting, it exceeded for Yam Hill County. in interest and harmony all preceding meetings. The churches appear to be gradually arousing to the importance of the ministry becoming devoted to the one great calling, the ministry of reconciliation, and that they should be sustained in that work by the churches. Three brethren now in the field have the assurance that their salary from the churches the present year will exceed $600 each, and other churches are expressing I
a willingness to contribute according to their ability. The Association resolved that they would make an effort to sus-
two missionaries the coming year, one in Lane County and and the other in Clackamas County and vicinity, and something over $200 was subscribed on the spot. Resolutions were passed in favor of the great Christian enterprises, such
tain
vicinity
as the Baptist
Home
The changes
in the Association
Mission Society, Publication Society, etc. were as follows: Six new
churches received into the body. 869
One hundred and twenty-
three baptized; net gain, 232. Some efforts were made to remove the school from Oregon City, which resulted in a resolution to open subscriptions for a college in favor of five 370 places, towit: Oregon City, Corvallis, Santiam, Cincinnati
and Lafayette, and report next year.
The Home Missionary
Society gradually securing the confidence of the denomibut while this is said, other home mission societies nation, are represented in Oregon, and we cannot predict the results. is
Elder Johnson
is
acting as a missionary of the Free Mission
369 These six were the Union (Polk County), Good Hope (Linn County), Mount Zion (Lane County), Willamette Forks (Lane County), Palestine (Lane
County), and First Portland Churches. Minutes of Willamette Baptist Association and Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., I:i6, 17. 370 Cincinnati is the present Eola in Polk County. REVEREND EZRA FISHER
120
Society, but prudently, and at this session of our Association agent for the Bible Union soliciting life member-
we met an
ships and offering for sale a portion of the Scriptures as translated by the Union, also introducing their periodicals. I have no objection to the Union's translating the Scriptures and selling them to whoever may wish to purchase. But we in Oregon must be wiser than our brethren at home, if the introduction of an agent to our little Baptist community, gathered from the ends of the earth, does not strike some discordant notes in our infant land. The Lord give us wisdom and prudence equal to our day, and save us from sin-
ning in
this matter.
As Received Aug.
ever yours,
EZRA FISHER.
11.
Oregon
City,
O. Ter., July
3,
1855.
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, Cor. Sec. of
Am.
Bap. M.
M.
Soc.
Dear Brother: I
made my
last
quarters report on the
first
In
instant.
wish to order you to attend to several branches of business for me. By this mail I shall order the discontinuance of the Christian Chronicle and substitute the New this letter I
York Recorder and also order the at $1 per year.
I shall Baptist Register in its place. is if it furnished to ministers Tribune, weekly
You
will therefore
meet the orders which
I
send you for the payment on the above-named papers. You will also pay an order which I shall send you for the Baptist
Missionary Magazine.
I
shall also
order you to pay three
dollars to the agent for the Mothers' Journal. You will, therefore, please send me a draft for the
sum
due me, after deducting twenty-four dollars and forty-eight cents ($24.48), the amount of the collection taken up at the Willamette Association, and ten dollars ($10) to meet the periodical demands against me, at your earliest convenience. Should the periodical bills exceed ten dollars, the publishers CORRESPONDENCE must wait
am much
till
in
after I
make my next
want of funds
Let the draft be drawn to
to
meet
me or
my
121
quarter's report, as I
forthcoming expenses.
order.
Respectfully yours,
EZRA FISHER. Oregon Rev. B. M.
City, July 3d, 1855.
Hill, Cor. Sec. Soc.
Dear Brother:
Our school affairs are moving along but slowly. Our community is so fluctuating, being subject to so many excitements and so many fluctuations, and so extreme, that it is next to impossible to keep any class of scholars above a few months, except a few from the more able permanent citizens. We have been suffering the last twelve months all the inconveniences of stagnation in business. 371 Farmers have wheat and beef and pork and butter in profusion, but it is hard to
Now convert their produce into cash or family supplies. New and rich gold another panic has struck the farmers. diggings are beginning to be worked high up the Columbia near Fort Colville. 372
This is drawing away the floating and some the farmers are leaving their standing of laborers, wheat for the mines. It has not yet been ascertained how extensive the gold field is on the Columbia, or how product-
notwithstanding the high waters, inexperienced miners, Frenchmen and half-breeds are said to wash from fifteen to twenty dollars per day with nothing but About $5000 worth of the gold has already reached pans. this place and is pronounced to be gold of the finest quality. With these and other and varied exciting causes moving upon the minds of a heterogenious community thrown together from every part of the globe, it is no strange thing that teachers ive
it
will prove, yet
371 These hard times are assigned by Bancroft to Indian disturbances, and to Business was prostrated in the falling off in the yield of the California mines. California. Hist, of Ore., 11:337of was in the and caused, as the author This discovery spring 1855 gold 372 Bancroft, Hist, of Wash., Idaho and indicates, the usual stampede to the diggings. 1 08. Mont., p. REVEREND EZRA FISHER
122
become discouraged and morals of the
efforts to cultivate the
minds and
generation should prove less successful than in older and better graduated communities. Although rising-
our school has failed of exerting that direct and salutary influence on the denomination which was anticipated, yet it has done much to elevate the views of the Baptists in Oregon and has shed its blessings, both direct and indirect, upon hundreds of our fellow citizens. I fear, however, that we shall be compelled to make another change of teachers, however much such a change is to be dreaded. Br. Post has already manifested discontent and I fear that it may before long ripen into a removal. I do not know that it is possible to find a thorough, self-sacrificing teacher who will merge all the interests of the school into the interest of the denomination
so as to worthily claim the name of a missionary school teacher. Yet that should be the case with our teachers as well as with
our home missionaries. Br. Boyakin is doing well at Portland, is popular with his I have but little doubt that the church and the world. Masonic fraternity373 sympathize with him and lend him their aid as a brother of the same order. I hope he will not overrate the privileges of that order.
He
quent and abounds
epithets.
him abundantly.
I
and
in figures
expect to
Shall be able to take up
is
energetic and elo-
May God
bless
go south in three or four weeks.
some
collections for the
Home
Mis-
sion Society. Deacon Failing has engaged to take up a collection monthly in the Portland church for the Home Mission cause.
Br.
Boyakin
will
probably report the amount
quarterly.
Yours with Christian esteem,
EZRA FISHER. Received Aug.
11.
373 The first Masonic lodge in Oregon was organized at Oregon City in 1848 under a charter granted by Missouri, Oct. 19, 1846. By 1855 and 1856 lodges had become quite numerous. George H. Himes. CORRESPONDENCE
Oregon
123
City,
Aug.
2d, 1855.
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, Cor. Sec. Am. Bap. Home Mission Society. Dear Brother: Yours of May 25th was duly received. With this
I
shall
send you the minutes of our Association. The new gold excitement in our territory at the present time calls for a com-
The gold region is on the large north fork of the Columbia River, about thirty miles above Fort It has now become quite certain that the mines are Colville.
munication from me.
and they are supposed to be extensive. But nothing can be relied upon except that most of the French the Willamette Valley have either been and returned and
rich
definite in
gone the second time or are preparing to go. Already about 1000 of the American population of the Willamette Valley are on their way to these new mines. Many more are preparing to go; others are anxiously awaiting the information.
The most extravagant rumors
first reliable
are in circulation
respecting the richness of the mines and the facilities of acIt is pretty satisfactorily asquiring the golden treasures. certained that the Roman priest at Colville has known of these
mines for years and has enjoined secrecy upon the Indians.
Rumors
reliable say the chiefs forbid the
French and half-breeds, to dig
till
Oregonians, except they have treated with the
Indian agent for their lands. this valley and, if there is
Money much gold
is
extremely scarce in
to be had, our citizens
have their proportion of it, even at the price of blood. will not stand by, by the thousands, and see French Catholics, half-breeds and Indians monopolize the best of
will
They
the diggings. Some reports say that the gold has been found on only two small bars of the river others say that the region
300 miles in extent. I have been waiting for the last two weeks to get at facts before writing you, but this is safe at the present. Nearly all the lands between the Cascade Mountains and these mines, on both sides of the Columbia
of gold
is REVEREND EZRA FISHER
124 374
have been purchased of the Indians and now open one of the most inviting regions to the emigrant for settlement in North America. The Dalles must immediately become a point of importance and, should the mines prove rich and extensive, a point at The Dalles will become a second Sacramento and another at the Cascades, 45 miles below, will scarcely be less in importance. We should have a man at The Dalles at River,
moment, awake to all the interests of religion and humanity in that region. Trade is springing up at that point with great rapidity. The Methodist Church will undoubtedly have a man there in a few months. The Congregationalists are looking on with interest and have sent their man to survey that field. I shall visit that place as soon as I learn this
more
definitely the state of things in relation to the mines. man for The Dalles and Cascades as soon
Will you have a
It will cost as as possible? field as it does at Portland.
much
to sustain a
man
in that
I am strongly inclined to the opinion that I shall settle as near the centre of middle Oregon as circumstances will justify, perhaps on the waters of the Walla Walla, at the close of this year, as a self-supporting missionary, to finish my days
where I can be with my family and a little more exempt from responsibilities than in my present agency. But I leave that in the hands of the All Wise Being to direct. My friends here decidedly approve of in the
agency by way
my
plans.
Very
little
can be done
summer or next, Most of our men will
of collecting funds this
should the gold excitement prevail.
go to the mines and we must preach to women and children and runners to and fro. If ever missionaries needed an unction from on high, ministers and churches in Oregon at
O Lord, give grace to thy servants an entire consecration to make to Thee! this time are that people.
Last Sabbath
members,
I
fifteen
assisted in organizing a church of eleven
miles
northeast
from
this
place,
between
374 This purchase was by the 'treaties with the Nez Perces, Cayuses, Walla Wallas, Umatillas, and Yakimas, in June. 1855, and with the John Day, Des Chutes and Wascopans, about the same time. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore., II:36o-8. CORRESPONDENCE
125
Clackamas and Sandy Rivers. Next week I leave for the upper part of this valley. Our churches generally are passing through trials and declensions, such as are too common after revivals, where monthly preaching and monthly meetings take the place of weekly Sabbaths and faithful pastoral We are everywhere attempting labors through the week. to impress the churches with a sense of the importance of
regular Sabbath preaching and constant pastoral labors, and Yet changes in this respect are slow, not without success.
but will come in a few more years. I made my last quarterly report on the first of July and ordered you to pay for me ten
on periodicals. Also ordered you to forward me a draft for what will be my due, after paying those little perioddollars
accounts.
ical
I
rejoice at the prospect of
restored to the churches on the
harmony being
Home
Mission question. soon be put to rest.
God
Our grant that the Bible question may Bible Union brethren will have the Bible translated into the English language. I hope they will do the work faithfully and leave the American and Foreign Bible Society to prosecute her appropriate work unmolested and that the Peace which Christ left with the disciples
and every
may
find a
home
in every
church
heart.
Respectfully yours,
EZRA FISHER. Received Sept.
11.
Oregon
To
Rev. Benjamin M.
City,
O. Ter., Sept.
1st,
1855.
Hill,
Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. send you my report of labor under the appointment of the Home Mission Society as General Itinerant for Cor. Sec. of
Herein
I
the second quarter ending Sept. 30th, 1855. I have labored 13 weeks; preached 21 sermons; attended
prayer meetings and six church covenant meetings; two yearly meetings of the churches; visited religiously 34 famifive
lies
and 26 individuals; have assisted
in the organization of REVEREND EZRA FISHER
126
the Cedar Creek church, Clackamas County; have traveled to
and from my appointments 818 miles. Four persons have been received into the La Creole church by baptism after a sermon I preached on the subject of communion at the request of the pastor, Br. Riley.
Monthly concert and weekly
prayer meeting are observed in the Oregon City church. Connected with the churches which I have visited are small
Sabbath schools in the Oregon City, Pleasant Butte and Santiam churches. Respectfully submitted,
EZRA FISHER. Oregon
To
Rev. Benjamin M.
Cor. Sec.
Am.
Herein
send
of the
I
Home
City,
O. Ter., Sept.
1st,
1855.
Hill,
Home
Mission Soc. my report of labor under the appointment Mission Society as Exploring Agent for the Bap.
second quarter ending Sept. 30th, 1855. I have visited Oregon City, Corvallis, Cascades and The
Cedar Creek, Luckiamute, 375 Lebanon, Pleasant Butte, Santiam and Providence churches; traveled to and from my appointments 818 miles; labored 13 weeks. Dalles,
Oregon
City,
Have taken up the following collection: In the Luckiamute church, $2.00 In the Pleasant Butte church, $6.58
$ 2.00 6.58
In the Santiam church, $5.80 In Oregon City church, $6.12
5.80
6.12
Total
$20.50
Paid for traveling expenses
$16.45
For postage
20 Total
which you
will
charge to
$16.65
my
account.
375 The Luckiamute Church was organized April i, 1854. Mattoon, Bap. An. Luckiamute is about four miles south of Monmouth, in Polk of Or*., 1: 1 6. CORRESPONDENCE
127
Preached 21 sermons have attended the constitution of the church on Cedar Creek.
.
.
.
Respectfully submitted,
EZRA FISHER. traveling expenses are for a tour to The Dalles, which I shall make as soon as the yearly meetings are over this month. If I fail to go I shall deduct the amount
N. B.
The extra
in my next report. Received Oct. 17.
Oregon
City,
O. Ter., Oct. 3d, 1855.
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, Cor Sec. Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. Dear Brother: Last Thursday I took the steamer for The Dalles and arrived Found The at The Cascades about eight in the evening.
Cascades in a high state of excitement through fear of a
Yaccima [Yakima] and Clickitat which was daily expected. 376 About 500 [Klickitat] Indians, were warriors of their reported to be encamped in a plain miles or 40 northeast of The Cascades, who are about 35 of the whites at The Cascades said to aim at the destruction and thus cut off communication between the Willamette Valley and the upper country (or middle Oregon). Some 15 whites are reported as already murdered by these tribes, chiefly Yet miners; one Indian agent is included in the number. Indian rumors are uncertain. Suffice it to say that I found The Cascades mostly deserted by the women and children. The men had organized themselves into a military company The family residing on the north side of for self defense. the river midway between The Cascades and The Dalles had moved to The Dalles for safety. Thirty soldiers had been sent down from The Dalles to guard the house and outnightly
attack
of
the
376 This was the beginning of the Indian War of 1855-6, which arose partly over dissatisfaction with the treaties of 1855, and partly over the large influx of whites, and which involved Eastern Oregon and nearly all of the present WashBancroft, Hist, of Wash., Ida. and Mont., pp. 108-170. ington. REVEREND EZRA FISHER
128
buildings.
While
The Cascades an express came down
I lay at
from The Dalles making a requisition for all the soldiers that could be spared at Vancouver to be sent immediately to The Cascades. With this state of excitement, I thought little could be expected from a visit to The Dalles, as this warlike appearance from the Indians will seriously retard the settlement of the whole upper country for a year or two at the least. Consequently I return without even spending a night on the land.
All the Pend d' Oreille miners have returned, except a few French and perhaps a very few whites. About 25 or 30 white families are settled in the vicinity of The Dalles, and ten or twelve more, besides some fifty or sixty French whites and half-breeds, are in the Walla Walla Valley in the vicinity of the Whitman Mission Station. Although we have some 80
or 100 regular troops at The Dalles, these scattered families will be in great danger, should the Indian war become gen-
above the Cascade Mountains. O, when wars cease, and men everywhere submit to the glorious If I were a young man, I sometimes think Prince of Peace
eral with the tribes will
!
should delight to propagate the blessed gospel among these tribes and see if they could not be saved from the brutal lusts I
of outlawed whites and the Jesuital intrigues and superstiI have but little doubt that the tion of the Roman priests.
same
work with those Indians that were massacre. O, when shall that whom was found the blood of the
artful teachers are at
accessory to the
Whitman
great City Babylon, in prophets and of saints and of earth, be thrown it
in
Thy
all
that
were
down and found no more
!
slain
Oh
upon the
Lord, hasten
time.
tomorrow for a tour in the upper part of the and propose visiting some of the feeble churches in valley Lane County, if God permits. I have nothing more that is new to communicate at this time, but shall communicate on the subject of the school in this place in a few weeks. I fear I shall start
Br. Post will set
up an independent school about two miles CORRESPONDENCE
129
from this place in the opening- of the spring. 377 But I cannot communicate with you officially on that subject till the committee visit him and report to the trustees. Yours very affectionately,
EZRA FISHER. N. B.
Holy
The
Spirit
school
upon
is
now
May God
full.
pour out His
it.
E.
Received Nov.
Oregon Rev. Benjamin M. Cor. Sec.
FISHER.
14.
City,
O. Ter., Nov. 27th, 1855.
D. D., Bapt. Home Mission Society,
Am.
Hill,
New
York.
Dear Brother: Yours of Sept.
1st, containing draft No. 8650, $376.24, was here think that Br. Post has very little duly received. reason to complain respecting support. The school, according to his statement last spring, has been a paying concern
We
three weeks after he commenced teaching, sure it has paid better since that time than quite did before, if he succeeds as well in collecting as he did
ever since the
and it
I
first
am
formerly. Private.
His course with us as a board has been rather has from time to time avowed his intention to singular. an independent school about two miles from town. Last open
He
May
the
Board of Trustees met
to take into consideration
him
to meet with us. The did he not attend. committee was appointed meeting to wait on him and inquire into sundry reports which we thought unfavorable to the prosperity of the Oregon City
the state of the school and invited first
A
That he had changed the College, such as the following: his in school the of advertisements; had proposed to
name
take females as scholars, which he has since done; had privately expressed his determination to open an independent 377 This school was opened and ran for a time just outside the present southern limits of Oregon City. REVEREND EZRA FISHER
130
school, as stated above, without consulting with any of the Trustees on the subject, and that he had announced in a church meeting that he did not know who the Trustees were,
The committee except two or three, and he did not care. waited on him and inquired after most of these reports. He apologies and explanations. He was told that an up an independent school would be injurious to all parties and especially to himself; that the Board of Trus tees could not cherish the scheme for a moment. He agreed to
made some
attempt to set
from that enterprise, if the Trustees would allow him to reside on his land and teach in our school building. He was told that we did not care particularly where he resided, prodesist
vided he discharged the duties of a teacher faithfully. At that time he probably would have been dismissed but for Br.
We
felt that it was difficult to secure Chandler and myself. the labors of a competent teacher and that the Home Mis-
sionary Society had already sent us three teachers and we little hope they would send us the fourth. We, therefore,
had
smothered the bursting flame and hoped he would be more prudent in the future. But it is probable he will open an independent school as soon as next summer, unless he can again be persuaded to desist. As a teacher, with few exceptions, we
Yet we have always felt occasion to find fault. would have been desirable that the school should have made a more decidedly religious impression on the public mind. In view of all the circumstances, we feel that it is safe to treat this matter kindly till we see some opening in have
that
little
it
providence for action.
As
ever yours,
EZRA FISHER. Oregon Rev. B. M. Hill, Dear Brother:
City,
Nov. 27th, 1855.
D. D.
Br. Boyakin will probably leave Portland at the close of He has so signified in a communication to the the year. CORRESPONDENCE
131
I regret much that his stay must be so believe his plea principally is the sickness of his No doubt the town is subject to intermittent and re-
church in that place. I
short.
family.
mittent fevers during the summer and autumn, but much less severe than in many of the towns on the Mississippi River. Should he not settle at Corvallis, he will probably leave Ore-
The
gon.
brethren and citizens at Corvallis appear quite he should settle with them and they think they
solicitous that
can raise $500 towards his salary for the first year. They have invited him and requested me to exert my influence I shall not encourage a to induce him to go to that place. separation at Portland, but, should he conclude to go to Corvallis,
he will need about $300, above the $500 the
citizens
propose raising him, to sustain his family. It is to be regretted that the ministers should return to the States after they have incurred all the expense and privations of removing overland to Oregon. May the Good Lord direct him and the little feeble band at Portland to His name's praise! Portland must
have a minister
if
practicable.
Yours
affectionately,
EZRA FISHER. N. B. At the strong solicitude of the Santiam church, I have consented to take the pastoral charge of that feeble, afflicted band at the expiration of the current year. Elder Richmond Cheadle, an influential member of the church, has avowed his disfellowship with that church. He will probably join the Presbyterian Church, and with him several more may It is thought advisable by all with whom I have congo. sulted that I should accept their invitation and, as they propose to move my family immediately and the place will be winter's labors than this, I have conmore central for
my
sented to
move
in
a few days.
I shall hereafter
address you
Washington Butte Post-office, Linn County, O. T. You will still address me at this place and the letters will be
at
promptly forwarded to that
my
me
presence at the
at
Washington Butte.
Santiam church
may
It is thought be instrumental REVEREND EZRA FISHER
132
in arresting the sophistical arguments in favor of promiscuous communion, while I may be at home the coming winter. This situation was unsought and entirely unexpected on my part, and, after much prayer on the subject, I have concluded that it was one of Providence's calls. The church is very nearly in the center of the valley and removed far away from most of the talent in the ministry. Should the Board require it, I will make up the time I shall lose in moving, which will be but a few days, after the first of April. Yours in gospel bonds,
EZRA FISHER. Received Jan.
15, 1856.
Oregon City, O. Ter., Nov. 28th, 1855. Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, D. D., Cor. Sec. of Am. Bap. Home Mission Soc. Herein I send you my report of labor under the appoint-
To
ment of the Home Mission Society as General Itinerant for the third quarter ending Dec. 31st, 1855. I have labored 13 weeks in the quarter preacher 27 sermons attended 1 1 prayer
meetings; one yearly meeting; six church covenant meetings; visited religiously 42 families and 31 individuals; traveled to
and from
my
appointments 660 miles. Respectfully submitted,
EZRA FISHER, General Itinerant. P. S.
The
results of the yearly meeting with the Proviin the forks of the Santiam and a subsequent
dence church meeting held in the vicinity is about 70 hopeful conversions and about 40 baptized. A new church constituted; also a protracted meeting held on the south fork of Santiam; some eight or ten baptized and a church constituted. For the last five months the French Prairie church have been somewhat revived and have had additions almost every month amounting to six or eight, and the interest still continues. This is in Br. Chandler's field of labor.
Yours,
EZRA FISHER. CORRESPONDENCE
133
Oregon City, O. Ter. Nov. To Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, D. D., ?
Am. Home Mission
Cor. Sec. of
Soc.
28th, 1855.
send you my report of labor under the appointment of the Home Mission Society as Exploring Agent for the third quarter ending Dec. 31st, 1855.
Herein
I
have visited Corvallis twice, Albany, Salem and Oregon Oregon City, French Prairie, Shilo, Santiam, Willamette Forks, and Palestine churches. Have labored 13 I
City, Corvallis,
weeks during the quarter; traveled to and from my appointments 660 miles; have paid for traveling expenses $3.00; postage, 30 cents total $3.30. N. B. Last quarter I was detained from going to The Dalles, consequently my traveling expenses were four dollars
You
overcharged.
will therefore
that quarter's traveling expenses, instead of $13.25.
deduct four dollars from
which
will then read $9.25,
Respectfully submitted,
EZRA FISHER, Exploring Agent. Received Jan.
15, 1856.
Oregon Rev. Benjamin M. Cor. Sec.
Am.
City,
Oregon
Ter.,
Nov. 29th, 1855.
Hill,
Bapt.
Home
Mission Society.
Dear Brother To accommodate Brother George C. Chandler, I have received of him thirty-two dollars and fifty cents ($32.50) to be paid to Edward H. Fletcher, 141 Nassau St., New York.
$32.50
Mothers' Journal, 118 Arch St., Philadelphia Missionary Magazine, 33 Somerset St., Boston
5.00
3.00
Total Also Mothers' Journal for Mrs. Lucy Jane G. .
$40.50
.
Latourette
Total
1.00
.
.
.$41.50 REVEREND EZRA FISHER
134
order you to pay the above in a few weeks. Deduct from the amount due me on the receipt of the report $41.50 accompanying this and forward me a draft to cover the balance, which will then be my due, at your earliest convenience. I shall
EZRA FISHER. Soda Springs, Linn
Co.,
O. Ter., Jan.
1856.
1st,
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, Cor. Sec.
Am.
Bap.
Home
Mission Soc.,
Baptist Mission Rooms, N. York City. Pay the agent for the Mothers* Journal, 118 Philadelphia, five dollars
and charge the same to
Arch
my
Street,
account.
EZRA FISHER. Soda Springs, Linn Rev. Benjamin M. Hill, Sec.
Am.
Bap.
Home
Co., O. Ter., Jan. 1st, 1856.
Mission Soc.,
Baptist Mission Rooms, New York City. Pay the agent of the Baptist Missionary Magazine, No. 33
Somerset Street, Boston, Mass., three dollars and charge the
same to
my
account.
EZRA FISHER. Washington Butte, Linn Rev. Benjamin M. Cor. Sec.
Am.
Co., Co.,
Oregon, Mar. 31, 1857.
Hill,
Bap.
Home
Mission Soc.
Dear Brother Hill:
now
take up my long neglected pen to give you a brief outline of the cause of Christ in Oregon at present; and I I
say at once that we are all famishing under the influThe results of the revivals in ence of a spiritual dearth. '55 and '56 are being witnessed to an alarming degree. In
may
some churches, most of the converts continue to maintain a form of godliness; in others, more than half the number of those
who
now walking in the and there are churches
united with the church are
broad road of
sin,
I
fear, to ruin; CORRESPONDENCE
135
which the wayside hearers and professors hold a still greater Do you ask the cause of this declension? I proportion. conceive it is not one but legion. Monthly Sabbaths, and in too many instances no Sabbaths, and visiting represent in a in
great degree
all
Bible reading, as well as almost all religious Sabbath school and Bible classes
the youths.
reading among may be sustained, but
it
is
only the few of our youths be-
longing to religious families who can be induced to become habitual members. Our members are in each church scattered over large
districts
of country, with few conveniences
for
Those bringing their families together on the Lord's day. influence cannot without a sacwho would concentrate their than they can willingly make. then the pastoral relation in the churches, beyond that of preaching on Saturday and Sabbath once in a month to rifice larger
And
a given church, and occasionally visiting the most delinquent members, is merely nominal; we have but two Baptist ministers in Oregon who profess to give themselves to the work of the ministry, and one of them is talking of leaving for the States; the other is laboring at a salary of $300, and that from the States, while clerks' hire is from $600 to $2200 per
Our families are supported as Paul supported himself while laboring for the Corinthian Church. And then the question of slavery, as well as that of tem-
annum.
perance,..must needs be noted, both in
and out of the church,
we approach the period of the adoption of a state constitution, and as we hear of the wrongs endured by the Kansas as
on account of their love for the inalienable rights of large portion of our members are from slave-holding and a larger portion are professedly opposed to slavery,
patriots
A
man. states,
"but
all
their sympathies are with the South."
What
a para-
dox!
And
then, too, many of our revivals have singing as the instrument more than humiliation, prayer, the reading of the word of God and the preached word. With such a train of
causes,
what could we expect other than the sad
results
we REVEREND EZRA FISHER
136
now witnessing" through our whole territory ? Is it a wonder, under such influences, that our best ministers should talk sometimes of leaving the ministry, and betake themselves are
to teaching, as a
means of procuring an honest
livelihood?
Ministers indeed seem willing to make great sacrifices for the cause of the blessed Redeemer, and will preach what they can
under the circumstances. But they must become secularized. Their minds will not be fruitful in word and doctrine, and all the blighting influences of an ignorant, undisciplined, disorganized ministry and churches driven by every wind of doctrine must be the tendency in such a state of things. Now what is to be done? Should we not have in Oregon at
two
least
who
substantial,
efficient
ministers,
fully -sustained,
approve themselves workmen not needing to be ashamed? Should not the Home Mission Society immediately give us such men, either by sending us the men, or appointing will
we have among us? Should your Board appoint Brother Chandler to the Oregon City church, that church would do what they could to help sustain him. Portland church is virtually extinct for the want of a suitable man. I would suggest that the second man be appointed to locate himself discretionarily, but at some such as
important point.
With
the interest of the churches, our school at
City has suffered.
and
set
Oregon
Br. Post has withdrawn from that school
up an independent school
less
than two miles from
the building erected by the Baptists and where he formerly His course with us has not been in harmony with taught. I think I speak the sentiment the interests of the Baptists. of the whole denomination, so far as he is known, when I
say that his whole course has seemed to be governed by his views of his own interest in dollars and cents.
At present the school is taught by a son and daughter of Br. Hezekiah Johnson, your former missionary, and the school is doing as well as could be expected under the circumstances. But we need a teacher
qualified to teach the higher branches of mathematics and Latin and Greek, as well as the natural sciences. We all think such a man would be well sustained and patronized by the denomination and the citizens, if he will come to us willing to identify himself with the Baptist interests. A liberal-minded man need feel no embarrassments on this subject. The public mind in Oregon seems wonderfully impressed with the thought that they are to have no good schools in Oregon except such as are under the fostering care of some religious denomination; and to the evangelical churches they will look for good high schools till they learn effectually that the churches will not assume this responsibility. We might to-day have half a dozen flourishing high schools in Oregon, if we had the houses and teachers and necessary apparatus. The question is a grave one. Shall we as Baptists suffer these positions to slide over into the hands of the Methodists and Congregationalists? Or, what is worse, leave the rising generation in Oregon unprovided with even the means of acquiring a business education, and our churches uncared for in the great work of raising up a living ministry in our midst? Will you once more send us a man for Oregon City University? I write officially.Yours truly,
EZRA FISHER.
- ↑ 1. Article V of the Nootka Sound Convention of October 28th, 1790, reads as follows:—"It is agreed that as well in the places which are to be restored to British subjects by virtue of the first article as in all other parts of the Northwest Coast of North America or of the islands adjacent situated to the north of the parts of said coast already occupied by Spain, wherever the subjects to either of the two powers shall have made settlements since the month of April, 1789, or shall hereafter make any, the subjects of the other shall have free access and shall carry on their commerce without disturbance or molestation."
Any right, title or interest of Spain to the Northwest Coast of North America was conveyed to the United States through the Florida Purchase of 1818; not through the Louisiana Purchase. - ↑ The Columbia and Lady Washington sailed from Boston on September 30, 1787, and arrived at Nootka in September, 1788.
- ↑ Governor Pelly in this paragraph merely reiterates the argument of Captain George Vancouver and Lieutenant Broughton that the mouth of the Columbia river was thirty-five miles from the ocean (between Cathlamet Point and Skamokawa) and that Captain Gray entered merely the bay or estuary into which the river flows.
- ↑ Captain James Hanna in 1785 and 1786. Captains Lowrie and Guise in 1786. Captain Barkley in 1787. Captains Portlock and Dixon, 1786-7. Captain Meares, 1786-7. Captains Colwitt and Duncan, 1787, and others.
- ↑ Red Patch is presumably the treeless knob on Scarborough Head (Fort Columbia of the present day) where the bushes turn brown in color in the autumn; plainly visible from the entrance to the river. This point is twelve miles from the ocean but Lieutenant Broughton's anchorage was just below Frankfort, opposite Astoria, more than fifteen miles from the ocean.
- ↑ As to the true location of Point Vancouver, see Or. Hist. Quar. Vol. 18, page 73.
- ↑ The first trading post "established by the North-West Company on Columbia river waters was by David Thompson in July, 1807, near the source of the river and called Kootenais House. In November, 1809, another trading post was established by Mr. Thompson among the Saleesh or Flathead tribe in Montana; and Spokane House on that river in 1810.
- ↑ There were no trading posts at all west of the Rocky Mountains on rivers draining into the Pacific in 1805 but in 1806 Simon Fraser established two trading posts on the waters of the Fraser river at Lake Stuart and Fraser Lake.
- ↑ The organization of the Pacific Fur Company is narrated in Irving's "Astoria" and by Mr. Astor himself in his letter dated January 4th, 1823, and addressed to Secretary of State John Quincy Adams; this is printed in full in the Appendix of Greenhow's History of Oregon. Mr. Astor states that he furnished ALL the capital for the enterprise and that the British subjects connected with it were partners only for a share in any profits. Those subjects were Alexander McKay, Duncan McDougall, Donald McKenzie, David Stuart and John Clarke. They reached the Columbia in March, 1811. (McKenzie in 1812.)
- ↑ This was Rev. William M. Davis. Shortly after the first council here mentioned, a second council was called, which urged drastic action, and the church entirely repudiated him.—Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., I:10.
- ↑ The Kansas-Nebraska Act of May, 1854, organized these territories and left the question of slavery to the vote of the settlers. This led to a large immigration to these regions from both North and South.