Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 25/Address by Binger Hermann
ADDRESS BY HONORABLE BINGER HERMANN AT PORT ORFORD HOMECOMING AND PIONEER REUNION
August 14, 15 and 16, 1924
We stand here today upon ground consecrated, not only in association of tenderest pioneer memories, but upon one of the most historic spots in our own great state, if not in the nation. The story of Port Orford goes back far beyond the discovery of the Columbia River by Captain Gray. It is blended with fiction, with romance and with all the stern realities of human life. Pioneer struggles in the settlement of new countries have seldom, if ever, been greater. To know what our ancestors endured in those trying times, and what they have transmitted to us in the Christian civilization we now enjoy, and the advantages we possess, should gratefully appeal to the remotest posterity. It has been well said that those who look forward to posterity will ever look backward to ancestry, and that to live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.
We fondly cherish the memory of the nation's early pioneers on Plymouth Rock in 1620, by the "Mayflower;" and long later in 1850, with no less affection we recall today those heroic men on Battle Rock by the "Sea Gull." They were both advance guards in Anglo-Saxon migration to conquer the wilderness and to build an empire, and the latter to found a further civilization here on the Western confines of the Pacific.
Indeed the history of Port Orford is like a play upon the stage in its many parts. It is all a drama in real life, but the pioneer actors who played the parts have nearly all gone. Of them only a few gray heads are here today. But the history of which they are a part will go down as a rich legacy for those they leave behind. THE STRAITS OF ANIAN
Port Orford comes down to us from almost time immemorial. It is a pioneer within itself. Its history was first brought to light over 300 years ago by Martin de Aguilar, an old Spanish explorer, who discovered the westerly headland near here and named it Cape Blanco. He was seeking for the world's prize in the mystic Straits of Anian, which as far back as 1500, Cortereal, another Spanish navigator, claimed to have discovered and passed through in his ship from one great ocean to another leading to India, and which he named as Anian.
Others later claimed to have followed him through the same water ways, even giving the latitude and longitude of their voyages, and describing fabled cities and populated places they passed through.
As Magellan had discovered the strait in the South, it was thought there must be one in the North, also uniting the two oceans. Aguilar proclaimed to the world, not only his discovery of Cape Blanco, but further, near there the real Anian Straits, and still more, he reported his finding of a river near Blanco, and close by here, which he named the Rio de Aguilar. From the productions which he describes at its entrance, we can almost identify a river not far from us here today. Illness of some of his crew, he states, prevented his exploration of the strait and the river.
Equally mysterious, he further reports near Port Orford and the Cape, by the latitude he gives of the north headland, an immense island which he represents on his chart as the Island of California. Appearing upon his charts, other explorers believed him, and the charts of mariners one hundred years after Aguilar's charts in 1602, still contained the legend of the mystic Straits of Anian; and for a time later even the existence of the Island of California, just north of Cape Blanco. Later, however, explorations of the Gulf of California proved otherwise, but the belief in the mysterious strait still continued, and various reputed entrances were platted on the charts of sailors as leading to it both from the Atlantic and Pacific sides, and these voyages were encouraged by the seafaring nations. England offered a reward of twenty thousand pounds to the successful navigator.
CAPTAIN VANCOUVER
Captain George Vancouver as late as 1791 sailed the seas for the same search, and at the same time to grasp an English hold upon Spanish possessions far to the Northwest. He had sailed with Captain Cook on his two previous voyages. Vancouver, in his exploration, charted this Port Orford harbor, and named the cape nearby as Cape Orford in honor of his friend the Earl of Orford. For over 200 years the straits of Anian still continued to be a mystery. All above the 43rd degree of latitude of the Pacific Coast was an undiscovered country through the seventeenth and three-fourth of the eighteenth centuries. At last, through the more searching explorations of Cook and Vancouver, the Anian bubble burst and was no longer a mystery.
AGAIN DISCOVERS PORT ORFORD
But this section of the Oregon coast, and indeed from Cape Mendocino to the Columbia River, for another sixty years remained largely unexplored until 1850, when another navigator, and he an American—sailing by, discovered this harbor, and in the Sea Gull on June 9, 1851, determined to acquire its possession, which his experienced eye could perceive would become valuable. This navigator was Captain William Tichenor. His ship reaching Portland in her regular journeys from San Francisco, he at once made notification and entry in the Surveyor General's office at Oregon City for one section of land, embracing this site and naming it Port Orford—transferring and adopting Vancouver's name of "Orford" from the cape and restoring its former name. Congress the previous year had enacted the Donation Land Law, giving to heads of families 640 acres of land and to others less.
A NEW ERA
From now on events moved rapidly, and a new era began for all this region of Oregon. On that same journey to Portland, the Captain and his friends agreed upon a townsite for his new entry, and naming it Port Orford. And, more than this, they proposed to construct a pack trail communication over the Coast Range Mountains with the Northern California and Rogue River gold mines, as Port Orford was deemed to be the nearest and most accessible shipping point on the coast from these rapidly populating mining regions of the interior. To this end it was concluded to begin construction immediately.
PORT ORFORD BEGINS
SIEGE OF BATTLE ROCK
Before their arrival, however, a tragic scene had occurred on the rock. On the 10th the Indians had made a combined attack upon the little band. At first a hundred or more assembled upon the beach, and from there with wild yells and a fusilade of drawn arrows toward the rock, then with a mad rush up the narrow defile the foremost began grappling in hand and knife conflicts with the defenders, and then, Kirkpatrick with flaming torch uplifted, lowered it to the cannon priming, and with lead and powder its explosion swept the advance crowd off the ridge with deadly effect and with thirteen killed outright, and then with four more killed with revolver and rifle shot, all the rest were in reckless flight and the entire rock was soon made free from every hostile.
In the beginning a singular feature was observed in the one first leading the attacking Indians in his red shirt and long brandishing knife, he seemingly being more experienced than the rest. When, by permission of the besieged, the dead were removed from the rock by two unarmed hostiles, they refused.to remove the red shirt leader found among the dead, and were observed to kick his body violently. The whites buried him, and when closer seen he was found to be a white man, once a Russian sailor, wrecked on the coast, and adopted by the Indians, and so stated by them.
Disguising their position by an apparent increase in strength, and observing 114 Indians left on guard to be retiring for further reinforcements, they resolved to steal away to the mainland, and late in the afternoon of the 10th they entered the dense forest nearby and rapidly escaped up the coast. Their perilous flight in the forest made after four days of tortuous travel ended, they reached the settlements on the Umpqua, and this would be another story of itself. And ere long may there be erected upon the summit of that historic rock a ment of stately granite as a memorial of the heroic men and the valorous defense they made there in the pioneer days of old Oregon.
The steamer's delayed arrival with recruits found the rock vacated, but with evidences of a deadly conflict all about. Kirkpatrick had left a written note of the attack and the fight, which was found, but no further explanation of the escape, and it was assumed that all had been massacred, and the next day it was so reported at Portland by the ship's captain.
The newcomers were all landed and housed in a temporary fortification on the townsite, while the steamer with Captain Tichenor continued on her way to Portland. Further road builders were there again procured under command of Colonel W. G . T'Vault, a well known Oregon pioneer and editor and publisher of the first American newspaper west of the Rocky Mountains. He had also guided the American regular army troops under Major Kearney to California in 1846, all of which rightly commended him to Captain Tichenor as a competent leader for the Port Orford road makers. This new corps were then brought and safely landed at Port Orford on September 3rd, together with a portion of U. S. troops found stationed at Astoria, which because of the Battle Rock siege and further expected hostilities was thought necessary by the military authorities. Port Orford now also became a military camp with other troops from California ordered forward.
T'VAULT MASSACRE
Barely had these precautions been observed when another tragedy occurred at the mouth of the Coquille River, far more disastrous to the whites engaged than at Battle Rock. This was of the T'Vault road makers. Eighteen of these had proceeded on their way up the Rogue River, but in a few days became confused in their course, and then lost in the impenetrable forests and mountain gorges. One-half of the number turned back by retracing their course and reached Port Orford, while the others determined to work their way to the first large stream, and thence to some settlement or to the coast and back to Port Orford. Their situation became distressing from want of food, although in a game country, and from days of exposure and prostration. Their horses were all abandoned in the mountains, and they at last emerged upon the upper South Coquille River, descending which, friendly Indians were met who conveyed them in canoes down the stream, until when within two miles of the ocean on September 14, 1851, they were attacked by hostile Indians who were awaiting their approach. At once they were overcome by largely superior numbers and the massacre began. Five men were soon dead; two—Williams and Hedden—after killing several Indians, themselves escaped, with Williams almost fatally wounded and carried for four terrible days on Hedden's tired back, although praying for death and stoppage along the impassable mountain defiles and over the chilling streams, but Hedden refused and held on until the Umpqua settlements were reached.
T'Vault and Brush, the other two, leaped in the river, and both reached the banks, although Brush had been partly scalped by an Indian knife. For two days they traveled down the coast, at one point meeting Indians who robbed them of their clothes and their weapons, but allowed them to reach the fortifications at Port Orford in safety.
BATTLE WITH COQUILLE INDIANS
The military was now again called for. Troops from California with some from the local post, and Lieutenant Kautz with twenty U. S. Riflemen from Astoria, were soon in motion to the Indian country on the Coquille.
Under Colonel Silas Casey portions of three companies on October 31, 1851, were soon in pursuit of the enemy, who were found ready for action at the middle fork of the Coquille River on November 22, 1851, where, after a brief engagement, 15 Indians were killed and the rest forced to retreat through the forest, with no casualties among the troops. Soon these were on their return to Port Orford, and then back to California on December 1, 1851.
SOLDIERS' WRECK
Another disaster in Port Orford history was the wreck of the ship Captain Lincoln with 40 regular army soldiers and the ship's crew, from San Francisco to Port Orford, on January 2, 1852, two miles north of Coos Bay. The ship had sprung a leak when eleven days out, and though with strenuous pumping was found unable to reach port; therefore, the crew took the desperate chance of steering for the open beach at flood tide, through the mountainous waves, and landed high upon the sandy shore.
Though with five feet of water in the hold, they managed to save most of their munitions and supplies, and soon had a tent village upon the sand hills with fresh water near at hand, and with friendly Indians soon there with abundance of oysters, elk, deer meat and fish to barter for ship's stores, discarded blue jackets and brass buttons.
Here they were encamped for four months, and were supposed to have been lost. Messages finally reached military headquarters at San Francisco, when a ship came to remove the equipment and stores, while the troops were marched along the beach and through impenetrable swamps, over wide rivers, and across rugged mountain heights facing the ocean, for four days to Port Orford. At last, almost exhausted, they reached their comrades, who had come on another ship.
The punishment inflicted upon the hostile Indians and the military preparations for further hostilities with a competent garrison now retained at Port Orford did much to overawe the warring Indian element, and peace for a period was the result all along the coast.
GOLD DISCOVERED
A new and better fate in 1853 now awaited the little settlement in the unexpected turn of fortune in its uncertain destiny. Gold was discovered in the beach sands and for thirty miles up and down the sea shore the glittering sands were worked out by excited throngs. Coming from California mines and new settlements on Coos Bay and interior Oregon, soon thousands of these hungry gold seekers were washing out from ten to twenty dollars per day by every kind of crude device and handmade structure.
A CITY GROWS
Port Orford, like a fabled dream of Utopia, at once grew into city proportions in a few weeks time. Ships by steam and sail came into port with passengers, mail, stores and supplies to maintain the gathering hosts. By 1854 and 1855 there were 6 hotels, 9 retail stores with one wholesale firm, mechanical shops, 2 meat markets, 2 drug stores, with bakeries, bowling alleys, billiard parlors, saloons and places of amusement on different streets, and with tents spread out in every direction.
A. H . Thrift, of the Randolph mines, in careful estimates made, computed ten millions of dollars as taken from the beach sands along the coast, and one million alone from the Randolph deposits, during the course of the mining season. To these should be added the coarse gold mining in the coastal interior, such as Coquille River, Salmon Mountain, Johnson Diggings, and the Sixes mines, which largely influenced Port Orford prosperity.
PORT ORFORD CEDAR
This growth made building material necessary, and in the immense white cedar forests so near the town, sawmills were soon attracted. The first one of size was by the Neefus and H. B . Tichenor Company of San Francisco. The first schooner load of manufactured lumber was shipped in the spring of 1854 to San Francisco, and brought $125 per thousand there.
William S. Winson,of honored pioneer name, was the mechanical manager there, and was among those to prepare this first shipment to market. It went there under the name he gave it, as Port Orford Cedar, and by this name it is still known to the world.
A plank road was made to the mills, and saw dust covered over it, and the great teams of Percheron horses easily and smoothly drew the tremendous loads over such road and down to the ship wharves every few hours in the day.
DEEP SEA FISHERIES
Deep sea fisheries soon followed, and many Italians were constatntly seen plying their trade, with boat and seine, in the waters adjacent.
It seemed that an era of permanent prosperity had now come for Port Orford, but fate willed it otherwise; for, as the poet says:
"Fate steals along with silent tread,
Found oftenest in what least we dread;
Frowns in the storm with angry brow,
But in the sunshine strikes the blow."
DESTINY CHANGES WITH INDIAN WAR
Gold, which brought the newcomers in quest of fortune from mother earth and a tide of material prosperity, also brought war and cruel depredation and death from the hostile Indians. The white man crowded him aside, and without treaty or compensation occupied his domains. Even the white man's increasing and overpowering military could not repress him. When at the last Colonel Buchanan with his forces met the assembled hostiles at the mouth of the Illinois River to secure their surrender and their removal to the distant government reservations, it was Chief John who stepped forth into the council, and defiantly addressing the Colonel, said: "You are a great chief, so am I. This is my country. I was in it when these trees were very small, not higher than my head. My heart is sick with fighting, but I want to live in my country. * * * But I will not lay down my arms and go with you on the reserve. I will fight. Goodby."
And this, as they spoke to us old pioneers, was the feeling of all. As they were overpowered in the country of the upper Rogue River valleys, they made a last stand on the coast. On the sadly remembered night of February 22, 1856, at Gold Beach, as the settlers were enjoying a dance at the close of ceremonies on Washington's natal day, massacres began of those at home, such as Ben Wright, the Indian Agent, and Captain Poland of the Volunteers, and most of the Geisel family; with attacks upon the company of volunteers waiting in anticipation of an uprising of the local tribes.
SETTLERS MASSACRED
The regular soldiery under Major Reynolds stationed at Port Orford were insufficient in number to leave the town without defense, and could not respond to the appeals of 130 settlers forted up near the mouth of the river, who remained there besieged by the surrounding hostiles for 31 days until volunteers and regular army forces came to the rescue; although in the meantime ineffectual efforts by Captain Tichenor and others from the sea with coasting schooners were of no avail, only ending in the death of several of the brave souls who attempted to reach the surrounded fort through the waves. The story, as the war continued and ended, is a long and sad one. That of the captivity and ransom of Mrs. Geisel, her infant and thirteen year old daughter, Mary, ransomed by a brave captor, after the massacre of the husband and three sleeping children and the burning of the dwelling and bodies on the fatal night of February 22nd, is most pathetic.
INDIAN SURRENDER
To Port Orford on July 2, 1856, came the last of the surrendered hostiles to the number of 1,300, with old Chief John in the rear; and he only surrendering on condition that his comrades should not suffer punishment for their war. They were conveyed to the Siletz and Hoskins Reserves, where a young lieutenant of the army was in charge—who later became the great Phil. Sheridan of Civil War fame.
GREAT AMERICAN GENERALS
Other officers experienced much of their service and early discipline in the Indian troubles just ended, and who at one time or another exercised their military authority in the fortifications here at Port Orford. Some afterwards became great generals in the Civil War for the Union, among whom may be named Generals John F. Reynolds, A. J. Smith, E. O. C. Ord, C. C. Augur, W. H. Buchanan, A. V. Kautz, and Silas Casey. Of these, it was General Reynolds whose corps led the vanguard of the Union armies at Gettysburg in the first day's fight of that terrible battle, and there met his death.
ENOS HANGED
COUNTY CREATED
When Curry County was created by the Legislature of December 18, 1855, "Orford" was first proposed as its name, and then many more members suggested and favored that of "Tichenor," but the Captain, who was then a member, declined the honor, and insisted on that of Curry, in response to the wish of many of his constituents in appreciation of territorial Governor Curry's prompt action in providing for the Volunteer Company defenders at the time of the sudden Indian outbreak. The bill was introduced by Captain William Tichenor. The county seat was located where Gold Beach now is, and named Ellensburg, after Ellen, the Captain's daughter.
FIRST CHILD BORN
The first white child born in Port Orford was Thomas Orford Langlois, the son of^William and Mary Langlois; and Laura E. Riley, the first white girl born there, the daughter of Michael Riley, the first sheriff of the county; and both were of the first old families there. The first family to settle here was that of Captain Tichenor in 1852, and their end was here, and in the little cemetery of the town the marble slabs point out their last resting place.
THE TOWN DESTROYED
But at last, when peace, prosperity and safety had come to Port Orford, and as if fortune and misfortune had not spent their forces, there came in October, 1868, in that ill-fated and unguarded moment, the terrible holocaust of fire and destruction, which, beginning in the forest vicinity, soon enveloped the entire town, and before nightfall, but two dwellings—those of the Tichenor and Knapp families, remained. All the rest were in blackened waste, with the sawmills nearby and a large acreage of the valuable cedar timber either destroyed or greatly damaged.
It was a calamity that proves how true the saying that a "thousand years scarce serve to form a state, an hour may lay in dust." But that glorious pioneer spirit that once developed this continent and came early to this remote spot in the Republic to shed the light of civilization, could not be halted in its course, and, Phoenix-like, is here again pushing to the front.
A HARBOR OF REFUGE
The vast timber, coal, and gold bearing resources tributary to Port Orford, and now made accessible by transportation facilities, with greatly increased manufacturing investments here and nearby, now more than ever justifies the local improvement of harbor shipping; while the old-time necessity for a safe port for sailing vessels to enter during a heavy southwest gale is more than ever called for by the increasing commerce on the high seas.
ENGINEER'S REPORT
Port Orford, the engineers report, is the best summer roadstead between Point Reyes and the Straits of Juan de Fuca. The point of land making out to the southwest is what protects the harbor from the west and northwest storms, but the gales most dreaded by mariners are from the southwest, and generally from November to April. The first official recognition for this improvement was by Act of Congress of June 10, 1872, pursuant to which the majority of the U. S. Engineers Corps by Major H. M. Roberts reported a plan and estimates for an immense project to extend 500 yards long and to cost $2,902,000. A later Act of Congress, that of September 19, 1890, provided for minimizing this and reducing the cost. This was reported by Captain Thomas W. Symonds of the Engineers Corps, and two great wharves, to cost $350,000, with extensions, were favored. By Act of Congress of June 3, 1896, over one-third of a million dollars was appropriated to begin the project, but the Secretary of War, under the discretion allowed him, held the improvement not worthy at that time—28 years ago. Let us insist the improvement is worthy now, and should commence at once.
CAPTAIN WILLIAM TICHENOR
But in my review of Port Orford's port, I should not close without reference to a few pioneer worthies, and especially in eulogy of the one who first brought it to historic light, and gave to it continuous and effective aid to the end of his life. He was a man of rare and diversified talents, of indomitable energy, and a fighter to the last. In his day he was one of Oregon's most active and influential men. And this was Captain William Tichenor.
DISCOVERED PORT ORFORD
He was the first to discover Port Orford in his sailing voyage in 1850, and to select it as his site in 1851; and then to bring his family here in 1852. This was after its long obscurity, since the days of the great English navigator Captain George Vancouver in 1791.
A SAILOR
Captain Tichenor was born in Newark, New Jersey, June 13, 1813, and of American parentage. When but twelve years of age his restless spirit sought the life of seafaring, until in 1833, when he quit for a time, but returned to it after visiting the West. Then again he left the sea, and removed to Illinois, where he studied law and was elected by the people as State Senator.
LAWYER AND SOLDIER
Then the great Mexican War began, and he recruited two volunteer companies of soldiers for Colonel Edward D. Baker's regiment. In 1849 the same resolute energy directed him to the gold fields of California, where with pick and shovel he mined on the American River. Still not satisfied, the white sails of commerce again beckoned him to the high seas, and with his earnings he bought the schooner, the J. M. Ryerson—and sailed to explore the Gulf of California, and the more northern shores of the Pacific, where his penetrating judgment was attracted to the spacious bay 8 miles south of Cape Blanco in 1850 in December, and this was his first arrival in the Territory of Oregon.
SEA CAPTAIN
Then in command of the steamer Sea Gull on its regular voyages between San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, on June 9, 1851, he landed here and became a resident, and soon obtained a title to its site with the heroic defenders, as told in the tragic story of the siege of Battle Rock.
LEGISLATIVE CAREER
From that day on he became tireless in its advocacy, and was twice elected to the Territorial Legislature, and later to the State Senate from the counties of Coos, Curry and Umpqua in 1860. In that year we beheld the remarkable coincidence of his former old Illinois Colonel E. D. Baker, being the republican candidate for U. S. Senator from the State of Oregon. Although the Captain had been elected as a Douglas Democrat, he cast his vote for his old friend Baker, and also for his partizan friend, Col. James W. Nesmith, both of whom were elected as Oregon's Senators,that year.
A LAST TRIBUTE
As a last tribute of remembrance, the names of some of the old pioneers should not be omitted, whom I now recall, and knew here sixty-five years ago. In a vision I summon to view their once familiar faces and grasp them by the hand.
Their strong lives early impressed us and made our own better by their remembrance. Each one was a character noticeable for some special trait, different from the other, but all with courage of convictions, resourcefulness, energy, personal bravery, and to do and to dare for the right, and the defense of their fellowmen. They were faithful as good citizens to their country and their state.
Let me now call the roll from my own memory that you may know them by closer contact.
Captain William and Elizabeth Tichenor, Rachel Knapp, Peter Ruffner, William Winsor, Michael Riley, John Hamblock, Ned Fahy, Charles Hilburn, William Gauntlet, Andrew and John Nasburg, Joe Ney, Fred Unican, George Dart, Randolph Tichenor, George M. Dyer, Captain E. H. Meservey, William and Mary Langlois, M. M. Bates and Mrs. Fanny M. Bates, Asa Carman, J. B. Tichenor, Jake Summer, Mrs. John Geisel, Samuel Colt, F. A. Stewart, M. B. Gibson, Alvord, Getchell, Saxe and Dunbar, with Louis Knapp, senior, who in venerable old age still survives the rest and holds the fort at the same old place—the Last of the Mohegans.
Such pioneer names are worthy of the honor you do them in this assemblage today, and may their memories be equally cherished by those who shall follow after. They come down to us as a good pioneer American ancestry and go down to a patriotic American posterity.