Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 8/Number 1
THE QUARTERLY
OF THE
Oregon Historical Society.
[The QUARTERLY disavows responsibility for the positions taken by contributors to its pages.]
RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT.
By T. W. Davenport.
On a very beautiful afternoon in the latter part of September, A. D. 1862, an equestrian alighted from his rather jaded horse, at our gate in the Waldo Hills, and presented me a letter from Win. H. Rector, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Oregon, asking if I would accept the appointment of Special Indian Agent at the Umatilla Agency; and he desired an immediate answer.
My oral reply to the bearer of the dispatch was short and emphatic. "If I am to answer now, I say no; if I can have time to ask my wife if she will accompany me, I may say yes."
"When can you see your wife?" was curtly asked.
"To night," I replied.
"Well, if that is the case, I shall tell Mr. Rector that you can be depended upon, for the women always go. I never knew one to refuse, ' ' remarked the bearer of the message, who was none other than the very shrewd, ever-ready, hard-riding messenger of the Indian Superintendency, One-Armed Brown.
My wife was willing to go, as Brown predicted, and I repaired at once to Salem to obtain my appointment and instructions from the Superintendent.
As to the latter, they were very brief and characteristic of Mr. Rector. He said: "I have sent for you because you are possessed of good judgment, and I believe are competent to manage an Indian Agency. I will give you an account of how 2 T. W. DAVENPORT. things are, up at the Umatilla, and may make some sugges- tions, but you must be the judge at last, and do as you think best." He began by saying that the resident agent there, Wm. H. Barnhart, had killed an Indian some months before, under circumstances which did not seem to warrant so ex- treme a remedy, and the Indians were exceedingly exasper- ated by it. Immediately after the death of the Indian, who was of princely descent in the Cayuse tribe, Uma-howlish, their war chief, put on his war paint and feathers ; others followed his example, and the agent, fearing the loss of his scalp, ap- pealed to the military commandant at Fort Walla Walla for protection, and a detail of cavalry under Lieutenant Capps has been stationed at the agency. Add to this, that the Walla Walla newspapers, in nearly every issue, contain uncontra- dicted affidavits by Charles Goodenough, charging Agent Barnhart with irregular and peculating practices, and you will see that things at the Umatilla are not as they should be. Of course I have had no opportunity to ascertain the truth of the damaging allegations against the agent there, but from letters I have received from respectable persons residing near the agency, I have thought best to order a change for the present. So I will give you an order to Agent Barnhart, re- questing; him to turn over to you the property belonging to the agency. Imploring letters are coming to me, from a man by the name of Pinto, who has been living with his large family at the agency for more than a year, and he states that he was induced to move there from the Cowlitz Country, by promises from influential politicians, members of Congress, otc., that he should be appointed teacher of the Indian school at that place. He is as poor as a church mouse, and in fact unable to get away by his own means. Examine his letters as to whether he was really promised anything, and if you think he was and can be of service as a school teacher, employ him ; if not, cart him off. Old Doctor Teal, whose family resides at the Umatilla Meadows, some twenty miles below the agency, has been the Indians' physician ever since the agency was established. He is a man of much influence among them and KECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. you will likely conclude that he should be retained. John S. White, superintendent of farming operations, has been there long enough to become well acquainted with the Indians, and can render you valuable service. There is a large and well as- sorted stock of annuity goods, in boxes and bales, at the agency, and it is getting along towards the time of year when the Indians will need them. There is no record in this office, showing the names and numbers of the individuals composing the three tribes, Cayuses, Walla Wallas, and Umatillas, gath- ered there, and, of course, a census must be taken first, and if you are reasonably expeditious it will be mid- winter before they get their blankets/' Mr. Rector finished as be began, by saying, "I shall give you no written instructions as to the management of the agency and you will consider yourself free to use your own judgment. ' ' It may be well to state that I was at that time wtoolly unacquainted with the art and science of conducting an Indian agency. I had been led to suppose from my reading, however, that the Government had established the agency system for the double purpose of introducing the aborigines to civiliza- tion and whether more or less successful in it, to divert them by such means from the chase and the war path. As to the method of keeping accounts with the Government I knew nothing. To be sure, I had heard that it was by abstracts and vouchers, and I learned from various sources that by means of them: an agent upon a salary of $1,500 a year had been known to accumulate for himself very much more. The question was asked of Horace Greeley, how an agent, upon such a salary, could in four years get forty thousand dollars, to which he answered with grave simplicity, "It is above my (arithmetic." Of course, I knew there were imperfections in the system and suspected the ordinary amount of unfaithful- ness in officers, but in the main I supposed the good intentions of the General Government were fairly well carried out. My faith was not built so much upon knowledge of what had been done, as upon the character of the men who had been 4 T. W. DAVENPORT. foremost in establishing the system in Oregon. And in this connection my mind reverts to that grand, good man, General Joel Palmer, whose rational altruism, exhibited on every proper occasion, left no room for doubt. He and Governor I. I. Stevens negotiated the treaty by which the three tribes, before mentioned, were brought onto the Umatilla Reservation. At this time was held the first State Fair at the grounds in Salem, and I tarried a few days to attend it. Although it was a week interspersed almost hourly with drenching showers of rain, families from all over the State were encamped upon the grounds, and pioneer sociability, unalloyed, reigned su- preme. A eleven years' residence within the State and Terri- tory, accompanied with much rambling, had blessed me with friends and acquaintances, who wished me well, and some gave assisting advice as to how I should manage in the new role of Indian Agent. If any one of the latter neglected to remind me that "an Indian is an Indian and you can't make anything else of him, " I do not now recall it. The repetition of that peculiar phrase struck me as some- thing queer, and I occasionally suggested that there is a dif- ference in Indians, to which they invariably answered, "Yes, but they are all Indians." One old friend, who at that time stood high in the Federal Government, volunteered lengthy in- structions, for which I was truly grateful. Not that I con r sidered them as sound in every particular, but for the reason that he was more likely to voice the prevalent knowledge and sentiments of those engaged in Government employ, and therefore familiar with the working of the Indian system. He remarked that I was generally understood to be an ardent believer in the civilizing influence of education upon the in- ferior races, and that now I would have a good chance to prove to myself that I had been too optimistic. Said he:
- ' The Indian, .like the negro, is the product of a long succession
of ages, with an environment favorable to barbarism, and of course you do not expect to change him much during the little time you live, and I do not think you had better under- take it. On the outside the appearance is, that the GovernRECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 5 ment is trying to civilize the Indians, when in fact there is no such intention. They are put upon reservations, where goods and rations are occasionally doled out to them, for the reason that it is cheaper to do that than to fight them. The agricul- ture and mechanics supposed to be taught on the agencies is all a pretense. Such things figure largely in the agency re- ports to the Indian Bureau at Washington, but they are in the main fanciful. The whites work and the Indians look on. The Umatilla Reservation is large enough for a county, and has in great part a fine rich soil, which should tempt any- body to agricultural pursuits. But you will find that the Government has been raising crops for the lazy, blanketed Indians to eat. You will not find the Indian of fiction and philanthropy at the Umatilla, though you may see some of the murderers of an eminent man who tried in vain to teach them Christianity and the white man's pursuits, Dr. Marcus Whitman. He sacrified his life mainly in their interest and I shall assume there is nothing to show for it. My advice is, not to spend your time experimenting where others, after long trying, have failed. Go and do something for yourself. ' ' The manner of my distinguished friend was earnest and his logic seemed to be good, but they only whet my curiosity to know if there had been any honest, earnest effort to advance the Indian, and if so, if the same means which had raised the white man from a barbarism as intense as that of the In- dian, must fail when applied to the latter. I was not alto- gether unacquainted with Indians and their character, for I had frequently met them while crossing the plains, and dur- ing my residence in Oregon and Washington had traded with them, and sometimes depended upon them for food and di- rections, very important to me in this new country. It may seem strange, but I considered them human beings capable of modification and improvement. On the morning of the 5th of October, 1862, I left Salem on the north bound stage with as many passengers as could be crowded into it, myself on the seat with the driver. The ground being deeply saturated by the unusually heavy rains, 6 T. W. DAVENPORT. our team of four strong horses was occasionally incompetent to extricate the coach from the holes wherein it had sunk to the hubs, and the calls of the driver to unload were jovially responded to by the passengers, to whom nothing came amiss. Oregon City was reached late in the afternoon, and our toilsome stage ride, of hardly forty miles, was ended at a cost of $7 in gold coin. Thence we avoided the mud road by board- ing the little steamboat plying to Portland. At that time the 0. S. N. Co. furnished travelers with very comfortable passage from Portland, by steamboat, to the Cas- cades of the Columbia, around which there was a portage rail- road of six miles; from there another magnificent steamboat ride to The Dalles; thence a stage ride of fifteen miles to Celilo, at the head of the Dalles, where steamboat navigation began again and continued uninterruptedly to Lewiston, on the Snake River. My river journey ended at the mouth of the Unmtilla. From, there I walked and rode, as I could catch it, up the Umatilla, about forty miles, to the agency, where I arrived without detention or accident on the 10th of October, 1862. Immediately upon my arrival, my credentials were pre- sented to Mr. Barnhart, whom I had never met, along with a kind of letter of introduction given me by Hon. B. F. Hard- ing, at that time United States Senator from Oregon. I found Mr. B. a very intelligent gentleman, ready and willing to show me around, introduce me to the chiefs and headmen of the tribes, explain existing conditions and relate the history of the agency doings during his residence there. He likely saw that I was green in such business and therefore made several suggestions which he thought would aid me in avoiding trouble with the Indians. As to the employees, he deemed it essential that Dr. Teal should be retained as resident physi- cian, and informed us both of his opinion. He also recommended the retention of John S. White, the superintendent of farming, on account of his knowledge and influence with the Indians. The interpreter, Aiitoine Placide, a half-breed Indian, and a man of giant proportions, he charRECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 7 acterized as one half breed who could be depended upon to tell the truth, a very strong testimonial and one which, after an acquaintance, I would not diminsh. George Barnhart had been acting as farmer at a salary of $1,000 a year, but he departed with his brother, thereby making a vacancy to be filled. Although there was no legal provision for a clerk or private secretary to the agent, Mr. B. had one, Matty Davenport, who was mustered on the roll of employees as school teacher at a salary of $1,000 a year. As there was no actual school there, this method of paying a clerk seemed a little irregular to an outsider, but it was said to be the custom at all the agencies. Mr. B. spoke of it as "a paper fiction, ' ' and I thought the term admirable in several points of view. Matty Davenport went away with the retiring agent and there was a vacancy in the office of school teacher, and an end to the paper fictions at the Umatilla. Before going, Mr. Barnhart remarked to me, that * ' the place of agent at the Umatilla is worth $4,000 a year," to which I responded by asking how that could be on a salary of $1,500. He made no reply but told the sutler, Mr. Flippin, that he ' ' could show me how easy it is to do such things. ' ' There was no difficulty in turning over the Government property, though a very broad margin was left for inaccu- racies. Wheat, oats and barley, in the stack, estimated in bushels; several acres of potatoes not dug, but estimated by digging and measuring three rows ; and several hundred dol- lars worth of medicine in the agency drug store, for which 1 had to take the word of Dr. Teal as to the amount. The list contained an item of five plows, only one of which could be shown, and that was broken in removing from the wagon which brought it from the implement store. It had not been used and the others were said to be on the reservation some- where. As Mir. B. said, "may be in some fallen tree top." To the enquiry, whether the Indians had been instructed to return them to the store as soon as they had finished their work, he said, ' ' Yes, but the instruction was not obeyed. Oh, they do not plow, only dig with them a little. Did you ever 8 T. W* DAVENPORT. see an Indian plow ? If not, it would amuse you. He fastens ropes to the plow clevis, and the other ends to the Indian saddles which are tied together with raw hide strings, and the squaws lead the team. The buck tips the plow up onto the nose, and in this way the ground is scratched over. The method of sowing his grain is unique too. He stands in one place and sows a circle, and then moves to another point and sows another circle. They see the white employes doing work in a proper manner but poor 'Lo' refuses to learn.. They are good hunters but poor farmers/' said Mr. Barnhart, and I afterwards learned that his description was about correct. As soon as the receipts were signed, the agent, his brother and the clerk went away on horseback and I was left in com- mand. To fill the vacancy in the office of farmer, I appointed Mr. Dow Montgomery, who had come to the agency on the recommendation of Surveyor General Pengra, and had been at work as field laborer at $35 a month. Dr. Teal was solicited to remain, and he consented to do so on one condition, viz : that his wife should be given the position of teacher of the Indian school. The Doctor was requested to wait until the next day for an answer to his proposal, as I had not investigated the case of Mr. Pinto, an applicant of long standing. Mr. Pinto was found to be fully competent, and the victim of those political promises, which everybody ought to know, are never intended to be fulfilled. Besides, his wife, the mother of a large family, was a consumptive invalid requiring the constant care of the older children. Mr. Pinto 's case was an irresistible appeal to my sympathies, and he was given the position which Dr. Teal wanted for his wife. Other things being equal, as respects the public service, human necessities are likely to decide every case submitted to me. Mr. Pinto was instructed to have the school room warm by 9 o'clock, five days in the week, and be there ready to teach every one in attendance, and furthermore to talk to the parents and as far as possible stimulate a desire for education. By the treaty with these three tribes, they were promised two school houses and two teachers, but as there was one RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 9 school house, only one teacher could be profitably employed, and so Dr. Teal was informed that his wife could not be ac- commodated. His salary was $1,200 a year and he was per- mitted to do outside practice besides, which made his position a very desirable one. Still he had been led to believe that his presence at the agency was absolutely necessary to the sta- bility of the agent's administration, and with this idea firmly fixed in his mind he went to his home on the meadows, but not until he had, in rather bad humor, informed the influential members of the tribes that I had turned him off. In his place, Dr. Roland, who had been a day laborer at the agency, was appointed. Mr. Backus Henry, the carpenter, a brother of Dr. Henry of Yamhill County and an intimate friend of President Lincoln, was retained. To all of the em- ployees this message was delivered : ' ' Gentlemen, we are here to work in earnest, to carry into effect the promises made to these people. Whether the Government was right or wrong in supposing it possible or practicable to civilize them, no one will ever know until the proposition has had a fair and vigor- ous trial. If there is any one of you who is not willing to co- operate with me in this effort, and drop his other avocations to do so, let him make it known now, and surrender the place to which he has been appointed. ' ' All were willing to go for- ward in the new departure. As the harvest was over, John S. White was granted leave of absence to go to Portland, on his private business. The place of blacksmith being vacant and there being urgent need of one to repair the tools and implements, a requisition was made upon Superintendent Rector, who sent Thomas Weston, a former employee at the Siletz Reservation. Only one day passed until Mr. Flippin, the sutler, said to me: "You made a mistake in thirning off Dr. Teal; the In- dians are grumbling and likely you will have to recall him." Mr. F. spoke the Walla Walla language fluently and was withal influential among the red men, so I requested him to tell them that I did not turn Dr. Teal off; the Doctor turned himself off. Mr. F. suggested that such information would 10 T. W. DAVENPORT. sound better coming from headquarters, and deeming the hint pertinent I requested the interpreter to call a meeting of the Indians for next day in the afternoon. At the appointed time the council house was full, and they were asked to state their grievance. The chief of the Cayuses, Howlish Wampo, arose and in a very deliberate manner said that Dr. Teal had been their physician for years, that they had great confidence in him, and felt very much hurt when they heard that the new agent had discharged him. As his people were the ones chiefly interested, he thought they should have been consulted before making any change. It did not make much difference to them who was superintendent of farming, or carpenter, but it was a matter of grave concern who was to treat them when they were sick. He remarked with a grim smile that the Doctor appointed by me, while working in the field that sum- mer, was not suspected of knowing anything of medicine, and he wanted to know how I would take it, if some one would turn off my family physician and send an unknown person to treat me when more than at any time in my life I wanted some one in whom I had confidence? Howlish Wampo ended his speech by saying it was the unanimous wish of his people that Dr. Teal should be recalled. White people who have lost their favorite doctor will judge that the Indian chief had made out a very strong case, and such was my opinion. And lest the reader may think that I have been putting words into his month, I must say once for all that no claim is herein made of giving exact language; only the points as abstracted from the uneducated interpreter's rendering is it possible to -give, and they of necessity must be in my own style. As the meeting was called, not to ascertain the wishes of the Indians, but to explain matters to them, Howlish Wampo was taken at his word and no vote called for. His speech showed strongly that he was a reasonable being and I assumed they all were, and so addressed them. They were informed that Dr. Teal was solicited to stay, but required conditions that could not be complied with, unless I was willing to take his RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 11 wants as a guide by which to manage the agency. Mr. Pinto had been promised the school teacher's place and had been there a year waiting for the fulfillment, and certainly they would not have me violate the promises made to him by dis- tinguished men at the seat of government. Doctors move from city to city and town to town and white folks get a change of doctors without making any fuss about it. They frequently change from choice, and there is no agreement among them as to which is the best doctor. It is likely fortunate that they do not agree, or they would all want the same doctor. No doubt doctors differ, although they learn from the same books. Some are better surgeons, others are preferred to treat women and children, and each is best for some one disease. As for Dr. Roland, I know nothing of his success in practice, but I do know that he is a better educated physician than Dr. Teal, who is what is called among the whites a home-made doctor. The interpreter informed me that some of those present said that Dr. Teal had told them I had turned him off. To this I answered : ' * I have told you the truth, and Dr. Teal will not tell a different story in my presence. " The meeting broke up with a changed feeling and no more was heard of their discontent. The whole of the next week was spent in trying to obtain a knowledge of the present conditions, and with such a purpose in view one would naturally ask to be shown the record evi- dence of what had been done since the agency was estab- lished; the names and numbers of each of the tribes, where located, what assistance had been rendered by the Government and what response to civilizing efforts had been observed in the habits of life of these people ; but strange as it may seem there was not a scratch of pen to reward an investigator. There was a printed copy of the treaty made with them, in- voices of the annuity goods in store, a copy of the receipt given Mr. Barnhart for the property turned over to me, and a small list of articles from the annuities, issued by him to indigent Indians, but from these no comprehensive judgment could be formed as to what had been the method of treatment 12 T. W. DAVENPORT. of these wards of the Government or the measure of success. The records, if any, were at Washington, and too far away to be compared with the facts and things to which they relate. So I was compelled to depend upon personal inspection and the memory of employees, most of whom were new to the place or discretely reticent as to the past management. One patent fact, observable by every one coming to the agency, was the scarcity of Indians. But very few of the three tribes were there, and no one could give any account of the others. They were away without leave. In fact, the reserva- tion was not their abiding place. And when conditions on the reservation were thoroughly understood, no good reason pre- sented itself why they should be there. There was no em- ployment for them, either as hunters or farmers. It was no fit place for civilized or uncivilized men in the condition of poverty common to the Indians. Every one knows how a poor white agriculturist does when he takes up a quarter sec- tion of prairie land in the West. He goes to work for some- body who has something, and from his wages buys a team and with the earnings of himself and team procures little by little the tools and implements necessary for successful hus- bandry. But if there were no one near him with more capital than himself, he would be compelled to emigrate to a com- munity where he could work and earn such things as were essential to start with in the unsettled country. The con- federated tribes on the Umatilla were all alike incompetent, as respects tilling the soil. If they had been white men, educated to agricultural pursuits and inured to toil, they could not have succeeded without levying upon the wealth around them. He would have been indeed a very shifty white man who could have gone onto the reservation and sustained himself from the soil through means obtained from the resources of the Indians. Nearly every Indian family had two or three horses and a few were amply supplied, but this was about all their wealth, and they were ponies, hardy and fleet no doubt, but too small for the plow. Howlish Wampo had 800, some of them bred to fair size by crossing with American stock, RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 13 and Tin-tin-met-sah, another Cayuse headman, had 3,000 head of ponies. It is easy to see how these men, by sales of horses, could have started farming operations full handed, but there was more money in horses than in anything they could raise on the farm. While they could sell a pony for forty to one hun- dred dollars, there was no inducement to raise wheat, especi- ally as two days were required to make the trip to the Walla Walla mill. Even an Indian could see that. In spite of all discouragements a very few Indians had little fields of wheat, which they threshed with sticks and took to the mill aforesaid. Three of them had log houses, and a few of them had set out some apple trees. The two men who were most able to have good houses, barns, stack-yards, and the other accompaniments of permanent settlement, lived in wigwams or tents and par- took of the white man's delicacies, raised flour biscuits with store butter, coffee, tea, sugar, etc., while sitting upon the ground after the fashion of their ancestors. People forget, when they sarcastically smile at sight of an Indian garden patch, how recently he was a nomad depending for his sub- sistence upon hunting and fishing; and if they would only stop and think how many mature white men, with families depending upon them, had been enticed away from home by the fascinations of the chase and become incorrigibly lost to the pursuits in which they had been bred, the smile would take an entirely different expression. The sensible, humane men who negotiated the treaty were fully aware that those Indians could not in any way maintain themselves upon the Umatilla Reservation, ample as it was, and they, therefore, pledged the United States Government to subsist them the first year, while with Government help and under its supervision houses should be built and farms opened so that they might live in the main by agriculture. The Government, as usual had been dilatory and as usual, too, the means given to its agents had been squandered or appropri- ated. The treaty specified that a flouring mill and saw mill should be erected at suitable points on the reservation; and 14 T. W. DAVENPOKT. apparently with the purpose of erecting a flouring mill the first agent, a Mr. Abbott, purchased of a military officer the running gear of an overshot mill located below The Dalles, for an immoderate sum, reported to be forty thousand dollars. He transported the same, at extravagant cost, overland to the Umatilla River, and to a site as foolishly selected as the mill had been. Instead of hauling lumber from Walla Walla, as practical men of sense would have done, Government camps were established in the Blue Mountains, eight or ten miles away, and lumber manufactured by the abandoned process of whip-sawing, in this instance from pitchy pine logs. The result was plainly visible in the fall of 1862, and whatever amount was paid for the overshot, or expended for work in the mountains, was a total loss to the Government of every dollar thus invested. And this costly fraud was perpetrated before there was any wheat to be ground. There were to be expended the first two years, sixty-six thousand dollars, not including the two mills, but any one looking over the premises and taking a bird's-eye view would ask, how ? where ? Two log houses, a half dozen log huts, an open shed for wagons and plows, about a hundred acres of loamy, river bottom fenced and in cultivation, a set of car- penter's and blacksmith's tools, and farming implements in- sufficient for an ordinary half section farm, would hardly satisfy his reasonable expectations. For the rest he must enquire at the Indian Department in Washington, where the most incredulous might be satisfied, if vouchers would satisfy him. For the objects declared in the treaty, the money was no doubt injudiciously, if not fraudulently expended, and there was scarcely a beginning to any rational and methodical system of bringing those people into the way of sustaining: themselves. With but few exceptions, the whites employed there had done the work, and the Indians, wrapped in their blankets, had been lazily looking on whenever they chanced to be pres- ent. For the most part, they were away, fishing along the Columbia, hunting in the Blue Mountains, digging camas in RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 15 Grande Ronde Valley, picking berries along the water courses, or hanging around the towns where they bartered their "ictas" for the white man's goods, or in case of a shortage of their legitimate earnings, engaged in predatory acts very annoying to their white neighbors. Aind this kind of life, at the time of which I write, and notwithstanding its uncertainties, was certainly romantic enough. Enlightened people with white skins will leave remunerative employment and the most sump- tuous apartments where every needful thing is at hand, and with a very meager outfit endure toil and travel in a hot day to enjoy a picnic in shady groves and by cool, purling brooks, and yet they wonder at the Indian families, ponies, papooses, cats and dogs that from early spring to late in the fall enjoy travel and a refreshing camp every day. Or is it supposable that only those of the superior race receive any pleasure from the beauties of Nature ? Likely none of the red race has sung in faultless numbers of the " pleasure in the pathless wood or the rapture on the lonely shore/' but that he is fully as sensuous is shown by his language and the tenacity with which he clings to his birthright, of mountain and valley, grove and stream. Our pioneer history shows that it is no child's play to fight him out of them and coop him up on a reservation where, at best, he dwindles to extinction from confinement, which should be sufficient evidence as to the pleasurable and healthful excitements of his primitive state. There are but two ways of keeping Indians upon a tract of country too small or ill fitted to furnish them a living by their ancestral modes; one is by force, and the other by en- ticement. At the Umatilla neither had been tried. Just enough of the latter had been done to bring them on a visit when other preferable sources of income were not in season. The salaried chiefs, three in number, and their families and dependents remained there most of the time, for they re- ceived more favors than could be given to others. This method of running an agency was quite aptly named by Mr. Montgomery "the subsidy plan." There were also tribal jealousies, which to some extent pre16 T. W. DAVENPORT. vented a willingness among the weaker ones to engage in the work of making a home there. The Cayuses were more nu- merous and powerful and appropriated the greater part of the choice spots along the river. To the reader who has got this far in these recollections it is hardly necessary to say that the system which had been followed I intended to reverse ; hereafter the Indian must take hold of the plows and the whites will look on, instruct and interest him. With the white man improvement has been obtained by rationally directed effort; and as respects agri- culture, to which he is addicted, it must not be supposed that success in it is a settled question. Indeed, it is quite the contrary, for there are very few successful farmers, and those who obtain the best results are the most skillful in the appli- cation of knowledge along with their labor. Hence, although there is constant reward for improved methods in the increase of crops, this is not deemed a sufficient stimulus to the exertion of brawn and brain, and societies offer premiums for excel- lence of product and the exhibition of skill in the perform- ance of farming operations. The present plow is a very perfect specimen of a long con- tinued evolutionary process, and yet no greenhorn, though he may have seen plowing done all his life, can at first adjust a span of horses to it and do good work. And for his imperfec- tion all due allowance would be made, for the reason, "he is not used to it/' Now, the Indian is not used to farming, and looking on will not get him used to it. He must pass through the same ordeal that brought the white man to his present state, a discipline of faculties and powers, the accum- ulation of knowledge and social efficiency of a civilized trend and type. And those who deny to the Indian capability of improvement in this direction should reflect how sadly they would fail in practicing the arts in which he is an adept. The same reflective faculties, powers of observation and me- chanical aptitudes exhibited by the savage in obtaining a liv- ing with bows and arrows and spears will perform all the in- dustrial operations practiced by the civilized man. RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 17 Likely the true interpretation of the phrase so often re- peated, "the Indian is an Indian and you cannot make any- thing else of him," lies not in his want of ability to become a farmer, but that he prefers hunting and fishing and wander- ing habits. I rather suspect this to be true of the Indian, for it is true of the white man, who is only civilized by compulsion and relapses to his first estate whenever the pressure is with- drawn. If he could make no easier or better living than by fishing, he would fish ; and though plowing is one of the most agreeable of farming operations he prefers the gun to the plow. Running a harvester, mower or threshing machine; plowing, hoeing, drilling or harrowing is work, and to most people drudgery. Hunting, though accompanied by greater physical exhaustion, is sport, and the Indian is not alone in loving it. The probable truth is, that men of all colors do not love work for work 's sake, but for what it will bring to them of the necessities, comforts, conveniences and luxuries of this state of existence. That man is a social being, is the supreme fact of human life, but society evolved in conformity to his con- trolling desires is impossible with no other provisions than the spontaneous production of the earth. In this part of the temperate zone not more than two to the square mile could so subsist, and even at the equator where food is comparatively abundant and clothing almost unnecessary, civilized and pro- gressive society seems to be unattainable. Looking over the bald pretense of civilization as I found it at the Umatilla, I was more than ever convinced that tuition was the first thing needed and that it should commence with the parents and grown-up children. And what better to be taught than the unavoidable truth, that under existing con- ditions they could no longer get a living by the methods of their ancestors: the earth could not afford it. Their edible roots, the camas and cous, had been in great degree destroyed by the hogs of white settlers, and the gold miners, roaming the mountains everywhere, had destroyed or frightened away the game. Evidently the time had come when civilization was 18 T. W. DAVENPORT. compulsory with them as it had been with the white man, and they should know and feel it. A person coming newly into the office of Indian agent would need no other proof of the general rascality of agents than the governmental regulations to be observed by them in purchas- ing supplies. All sorts of lets and hindrances to dishonesty have been adopted, publications, contracts, certificates, vouch- ers, oaths before judicial officers ; but they have been of slight avail in preventing frauds. As Judge M. P. Deady once re- marked to me, "It is villainy made easy." The department regulations require an agent to advertise in a newspaper, in- viting bids, and thus through competition to get goods at a reasonable rate, or in case it is not practicable to resort to such kind of publication, require him to obtain competitive bids by personal presentation. Adopting the latter mode as being best suited to the circumstances, I went among the merchants of Portland, soliciting them to mark the price at which they were willing to furnish the goods, and the first one I met was a well-known Jew by the name of Baurn. And this is the way be received me. With a sarcastic grin he said : "Now, Davenport, no more of this d d nonsense; go on and buy those goods where you intend to buy them, and don't waste any time in humbugging. All of us understand you agents, and this thing is getting old/' Receiving about the same compliment from half a dozen others, I abandoned the regulation mode, which had become distasteful through fraud continually perpetrated, and bought such things as I wanted at market rates. Along with the certified contract, I enclosed newspaper clippings showing the state of the market in Portland at the time of making the purchase, and the Indian Department making no objection, I continued it to the end of the term. As Judge Deady said, it is very easy to conform to the reg- ulations of the department and at the same time practice bare- faced frauds, and while the merchants know well how it is done, they cannot prevent it except by turning informers, which they have no time or inclination to do. If advertising RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 19 is had in the newspapers, only those bid who are in the deal, as it is useless for others to do so. The practice of combining against the Government for mutual profit is so common that all agents are regarded in the same unenviable light. I said to one of the older merchants : ' ' It is easy to say that all the agents pilfer in this way, but what do you know about it?" His answer was : " I say all because all that I know about are guilty. The agent at Warm Springs, at the Grande Ronde, at the Umatilla, at the Siletz does so, and I presume that the rest of them do the same. Oh, there is nothing very strange about it." On my return to the Umatilla, I found that Mr. White had progressed rapidly in taking the census, but upon going over the lists with him we very soon discovered that, with a few exceptions, neither of us could pronounce the names so that the Indians recognized them. At that late date such a result was very annoying, but there was only one remedy ; to take it over again with a well defined alphabet. Having learned the phonetic alphabet in 1848, I could write and pronounce any name, however difficult, and with that solvent in my possession, the many-syllabled and otherwise unpronounceable Indian names flowed as easily from the pen as ancestral Eng- lish, and the work of census taking became the most interest- ing part of my duty. Mr. White was somewhat crestfallen at the outcome of his half month's labor but I consoled him with the assurance that the learned secretary of the commission that negotiated the treaty under which we were acting met with no better success. The Indians whose names they signed to the treaty were living, but no human being could find them by pronounc- ing the written names. The fault is with the alphabet, which is totally inadequate to the function required of it. Lexico- graphers cannot succeed with it until they have, by certain diacritical marks, made of it a phonetic alphabet, but it is clumsy and complex and wholly unfitted for every-day use. Hence we are all incompetent to accurately represent human speech, with our present alphabet, and though every educated 20 T. W. DAVENPORT. person knows the fact and that the fault is completely rem- edied by the phonetic alphabet which can be learned in an hour by a child ten years old, there is scarcely an effort by educators and philanthropists to bring about its adoption. I had bought some large geographical maps for the school and during the time of taking the census I made the first use of them, in teaching an adult class composed of the principal men of the three tribes, who were invited to my house. A dozen or more lectures were given for the purpose of showing the condition of the country as respects its population since the discovery by Columbus, and how the Indian tribes once so numerous and powerful, one after another had ceased to exist, because of their tenacity in holding onto the habits of savages instead of heartily adopting the industrial knowledge and habits of the white race. Also the location of the power- ful tribes upon the Atlantic coast and throughout the West, with an idea of their approximate numbers, and short accounts of their wars with the whites and the interminable wars with each other; the destruction of game upon which they depended for subsistence, and their subsequent removal to get out of the way of civilized man, whose advancing column was steadily and irresistibly westward. I emphasized the conclusion as to themselves: " There is no avoidance, you must become agri- culturists and occupy the ground with your improvements or it will be taken away from you. ' ' They were interested auditors and surrounded those maps day after day, engaged in earnest conversation. As a result they applied to me for allotments of land whereon they could work, each for himself. They were informed that permanent allotments I had no authority to make, but they could select small tracts, in severalty, fence them in and have all the pro- ceeds of their labor. Homely, the hereditary chief of the Walla Wallas, by far the most influential one of his tribe, had been supplanted by Pierre, a chief of the white man's choosing, and had conse- quently absented himself from the reservation, taking the most of the tribe with him. Hearing that a new agent had arrived RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 21 at the agency, he and his people returned and now manifested much interest in the new departure. He at once set his ad- herents to work making rails from the balm trees growing along the Umatilla River, and before spring had enough to fence several acres of prairie land. He came frequently to talk and solicited my advice as to where he should begin his improvements. I suggested the springs at the foot of the Blue Mountains on the immigrant road as being a first-class situa- tion in many respects, and chiefly for the reason that he would have a high price market for everything he could raise right at his door. He saw the point, and I surveyed a square ten- acre lot for him, including the springs, which would afford plenty of water for irrigation. I may anticipate a little by saying that he fenced and cul- tivated a part of the lot, raising corn, peas, beans, roots, melons and squashes, etc., and that I ate melons of excellent quality with him on the 4th of July of the same year, 1863. At that time he was very much downcast in spirits, as Agent Barnhart returning to the agency, had issued an order dis- possessing him, and taking the location for a stage and trad- ing station. Homely wanted me to intercede in his behalf, but I was powerless.. He said it was too good for him an Indian and his face bore a dark expression not very difficult of interpretation. As a diversion I said to him, ' ' Go and pick out another place and improve it; there is plenty of fine land within your reservation." Like the great majority of man- kind, Homely 's enlightenment came too late to make the most out of it. Several other lots were surveyed, fenced and cultivation commenced, and only a lack of teams and wagons prevented a more general engagement in farming operations by the In- dians. Another condition stood in the way of general ad- vancement, and that was the subordination of the common herd to the sway of their chiefs. As a rule nothing new could be undertaken by them without the chief's consent, and that would depend altogether upon the effect he considered it might have upon his own personal interests. The influential 22 T. W. DAVENPORT. chiefs owned most of the horses, which were their sole ex- changeable wealth, and they looked with an evil eye upon the scheme of cutting up the land, allotting it in severalty and thus destroying their pasture. The social system of the American Indians may be regarded as a modified feudalism, in which the chiefs, coming to their office by dint of personal prowess, take the place of the hered- itary landlord, while all others are mere retainers. So in speaking of an ordinary Indian he was distinguished as one of Howlish Wampo's men, or Tin-tin-metsah's, or Homely 's, or Winam-snoot's, etc. Even as kind and sympathetic a man as Howlish Wampo became indignant that some of his men con- templated going to work independently. One of his men, ob- serving what an opening there was for them, said that Howlish was a lazy old Indian who did nothing for his people. The former was killed shortly afterward by the fall of a limb or stroke of a club. Complaints had come to me by those Indians who took their wheat to the Walla Walla mill, that they did not get fair treatment in the exchange of wheat for flour. The grist mill affords many opportunities for a successful exhibition of greed, and no doubt on this account calling a miller a thief long ago passed into a habit among white men, when likely in a great majority of cases of disagreement between the miller and his customers there was no valid foundation for any harsh /accusations. The best of wheat loses by cleaning and as no two grists are alike, the net results of exchange must differ. And where such exchanges were conducted by individuals of different races and by the use of different languages, imper- fectly understood by each, there was plenty of room for hon- est disagreement. Supposing, however, that there might be some discreditable foundation for the complaint of the Indians, I addressed a letter to Mr. Simms, the manager of the Walla Walla mills. His reply, written on the obverse side of my letter, was a lucid explanation of their rate of exchange and contained one sentence at the close which for piquancy is seldom excelled. RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 23 I had never met Mr. Simms, but after reading his letter I had a strong desire to make his acquaintance, as he evidently pos- sessed an enquiring mind and a most admirable humor. He died without knowing how often and heartily I laughed over his rather severe strictures of the Indian agency system. The letter and answer are here appended: Umatilla Agency, October 20, 1862. Mr. Simms, or the acting miller at Walla Walla. My Dear Sir: The Indians upon the reservation complain that you do not give them good flour for their wheat, and that you frequently pay them off in shorts or bran. Now, remember that I do not charge you with such transactions 'except upon the testimony of the red people above mentioned. The man who is guilty of such things, does not only sin against the moral and statute laws, but is indirectly filching from the pockets of the people, as the Government is obliged to support the victims in times of scarcity and need. As agent at this reservation, I bespeak for your colored customers a fair turn out and honest deal. Yours for the right, T. W. DAVENPORT, Special Indian Agent, Oregon. T. W. Davenport, Esq., Special Indian Agent. My Dear Sir: I beg leave to say that your complainants He most rascally when they say that they ever got shorts or bran from this mill in exchange for good wheat, or that they ever go<t it at all. And as to our not giving them good flour; we give them just such flour as they select themselves, which is generally middlings, in which they get pound for pound, thereby getting forty cents per bushel more than we pay in cash for such wheat as they bring. Our price for red wheat is two dollars per bushel and our price for middlings is four cents per pound. Whenever the Indians prefer the best quality of flour they can have it by paying the price, but we cannot be expected to give them a pound of flour worth eight cents for a pound of wheat worth only three cents and a third per pound. I admire the interest you manifest for the people under your charge and the horror you express for a departure from the strictest rules of justice and fairness in dealing with them, but it strikes me that a people who have been habitually swindled by wholesale since the foundation of the Government, ought to be slow to complain of the quality of their grist. Respectfully yours, I. A. SIMMS. 24 T. W. DAVENPORT. During my absence at Portland an event occurred which brought the little community of white people at the agency to the verge of consternation, and it happened in this wise : Two renegade Indians of the Umatilla tribe who, with a dozen or so others, prowled along the Columbia River above and below the mouth of the Umatilla, chanced to cross the reservation on the Walla Walla road to the agency, and ob- serving a returning miner asleep on the ground they envied him his comfortable condition and essayed the trick of slip- ping off the blankets without waking the sleeper. They re- moved one without disturbing him, and being full of some- thing stronger than the swats that reamed in Tarn O'Shan- ter's noddle, they bravely but indiscretely pulled the next one, which brought the miner to his feet, when he grappled with and threw the nearest Indian and was about to cut his throat when the other fired a, pistol, the ball passing through the fleshy part of the miner's rump. The two Indians escaped without injury and made their way to the lodge of Howlish Wampo, on the bank of the Uma- tilla River, near the agency buildings. It was not later than 11 o 'clock at night when they arrived, and after warming and resting awhile, they departed no one knew where, but presum- ably to their haunts on the Columbia. The miner, not finding himself seriously hurt, saddled his horses and traveled to Fort Walla Walla, some twenty-five miles distant, and laid his complaint before Colonel Steinberger, then in command of the fort. The Colonel acted without delay and sent a de- tachment of cavalry, under the command of Lieutenant Capps, to investigate the matter. He ascertained the facts as before related, and rightly judging that the miscreants were in- flamed by whiskey obtained back at the crossing of Wild Horse Creek, the boundary of the reservation, where it was surreptitiously sold by the hotel keeper, he and my wife con- cocted a scheme to catch the reckless fellow. A soldier was dressed and painted like an Indian, and he, with a veritable Siwask, went and bought and drank liquor at the place, from the proprietor. Although most of the troubles RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 25 which arise between the two races are result of " fire-water, " and that in a great majority of cases the red man is the prin- cipal sufferer, he is seldom treacherous to the rascally white man who supplies it. Having obtained the testimony of the mock Indian, Lieutenant Capps, on his return to the fort, raided the premises of the white outlaw and destroyed every- thing pertaining to the traffic. The man himself soon after absconded. When the Lieutenant first arrived at the agency he sum- moned the Indians in council to ascertain the whereabouts of the criminals. They were not at the agency, and no one except Howlish Wampo and his family had seen them. They came in the night and departed in the night, and although they were known to be of the rovers along the Columbia and that their names were Machkus and Chuhkliyah, there was not much evidence to connect them with the assault upon the sleeping miner who did not know one Indian from another then. As they were seen to enter Howlish Wampo 's lodge and were not seen to leave, the Lieutenant concluded to hold that Indian chief responsible for the renegades, and thereupon took him in irons to the fort. The Indians and whites looked on in utter amazement at such an absurd and really dangerous proceeding. Some of the Cayuses put on their war paint and feathers, and Mr. Flippin, the sutler, was fearful that a massacre was impending. My wife was the most discreet and courageous one of the number and instructed the interpreter to assure the Indians that no harm would come to Howlish Wampo and that as soon as I returned he would be released and every danger removed. For fear that some of the members of the chief's family might be excited to frenzy, the chiefs of the Walla Wallas put a strong guard around her house and maintained it until my return. She also sent a messenger to the fort to ascertain what the Commandant had decided with reference to the Cayuse chief, and received word that he was sentenced to be hanged the Friday following ; a most summary proceed26 T.W.DAVENPORT. ing, even if he had been proven guilty of shielding the perpe- trators of the crime. To hasten matters she sent the carriage to the Umatilla landing, and when the steamboat touched the wharf I was surprised to see Mr. L. D. Montgomery, the agency farmer, seated in the carriage and ready to convey me home. As I had been detained one day at The Dalles, he had been waiting as long and brought the only account of the happenings I have just described. There was no telegraphic connection be- tween the Umatilla and down the river towns in those days, and I had been pursuing the even tenor of my way in blissful ignorance of the distressful things taking place at the agency. This was Wednesday, and in order to reach Walla Walla the next day, we must get home that night, which we did about 11 o'clock. The Indians had horsemen on the road and were, therefore apprised of my coming, and waiting at my house to hear what I had to say to them. I first enquired if they had learned anything new as to the Indians who committed the outrage, but they had not, and the circumstances were so vague and disconnected that no white man could be convicted upon such evidence. Howlish Wampo, however, had no knowledge that a crime had been committed. My advice was to go to their homes and not to be at all anxious, for there was really nothing in it. Early the next morning I set out alone for the fort, and though the wintry air was crisp enough to make one's ears tingle, the drive was exhilarating and pleasant. Just before sunset I stopped at the west gate of the fort and there beheld a scene which awakened in me sympa- thies I was scarcely conscious of having. I had often read of the incarceration of the victims of injustice, and how their friends and relatives had endured toil, privations, sickness and even death to rescue them, but reading is one thing, while wit- nessing such devotion is quite different. The fort is situated on a treeless plain, the soil of which is an alkaline dust mixed with gravel and sparsely set with sage and srreasewood. At this time a hoar frost made it especially uncomfortable for campers, even though well furnished with RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 27 tent and blankets ; but here, in close proximity to the prison, an Indian pony was fastened by a hair rope to a sage bush, an Indian, with a blanket drawn around him, was crouching over a very meagre brush fire and no sign of bed, cooking utensil or food to sustain him through the long, cold and cheerless night. An Indian, better than a white man, knows how to pick out the best camping place a country affords, for in this he is experienced, and so I knew instantly that something very unusual and pressing fastened that Indian to such an unde- sirable spot. Approaching him to ascertain the cause, I per- ceived that it was a younger brother of Howlish Wampo. No further explanation was needed ; the fires of affection kept him warm and furthermore sent a thrill through me that waked up a very decided resolution. He had been there as much as possible ever since his brother's capture, and I could not persuade him to come inside with me and seek more com- fortable quarters. After supper I was introduced to Colonel Steinberger by Captain George B. Currey, an old acquaintance, and the object of my visit stated in diplomatic language. He appointed 10 'clock the next morning for a hearing. The same evening I visited Wampo in the prison and watched him closely to see what effect the incidents of the last few days had wrought upon him. If he had been an ordinary white man I should have expected to find him fidgety and denunciatory ; to accord with the common opinion of Indian character, he should have been stern and stoical. In truth I found him neither. He got up from his seat and walked deliberately to meet me, his bronzed face wearing a pleasant smile, though somewhat mixed with care. He shook my hand slowly, uttering deliber- ately the monosyllable, tots, tots, tots, a Walla Walla word for good, good, good, while the tears stood in his eyes. He was one of the few Indians that could not speak Chinook and 1 could not speak the Walla Walla tongue, so we had to com- municate by signs and an occasional word of those languages we both knew. I pointed at him and asked, " Co-mi-such V ' his language for sick, and he answered in the negative, 28 T. W. DAVENPORT. "Watch." With the few Chinook words he understood I told him not to worry and bade him good night. After talking with the Colonel the next morning, I must say that my astonishment was extreme at his declaration of intention to hang the chief on the ground that he should be held responsible for the acts of the buck Indians. But I re- marked that the Indians who attacked the miner were not Cayuses. Howlish had nc supervision of them ; did not even know them except by name. All the time they were at his lodge he did not know that a crime had been committed. And even if there were not any doubts as to his complicity in shielding them, we should recollect that he had been the friend of the whites when his own people were at war with them, just after the Whitman massacre. No presentation of the case seemed to move the Colonel; Howlish Wampo must be hanged for the good of the service. "Well, Colonel, our personal relations have been pleasant and I have one request to make, and that is, you will give me three days to get my wife and little daughter away from the reservation, as I shall not stay there a minute after the exe- cution of Howlish Wampo. I should like to stay until spring but I cannot remain if my opinions and wishes are to be totally disregarded. ' ' He started up from his chair and said rather excitedly: "How am I to go back on the report of my Lieutenant?" ' ' There is no need of humbling your Lieutenant. Is it not a fact that since he made his report much evidence has come to light, of which he could not know ? In view of this, it would not be disrespectful to him to grant a rehearing of the case. I can send to the agency and bring such witnesses as you prefer and have an examination as soon as they arrive." To this he assented, and said, "Choose such witnesses as are best qualified." The interpreter, Antoine Placide, Alex. McKay, both half breeds who spoke English fairly well, and some others were suggested. I wrote a letter to my wife, stating the arrangements and gave it to the brother of Howlish Wampo, who immediately mounted his horse to ride forty RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 29 miles in the night. I expected the witnesses would arrive at the fort the next evening, but they with several others and the ever dutiful brother were back before sunrise the next morning, the latter having ridden eighty miles in less than twelve hours. The case was called about 10 o'clock, and the examination, conducted entirely by the Colonel, was concluded in less than half an hour. The innocence of the chief was clear beyond a doubt, and to make the decision complimentary, the Colonel formally handed him over to me. As he was much past the prime of life I suggested that he better stay until morning and ride back with me in the carriage, but he seemed anxious to put as much ground between himself and the prison as possible, and before 9 o'clock that night they were all back at the agency again, the brother having ridden 120 miles in less than twenty-four hours. In the course of my nine months' stay there I had an ex- cellent opportunity to study the man Howlish Wampo, and I am satisfied that he was considerably more than an ordinary specimen of his race. After his (release he visited me often and spent much time at my house, conversing with me through the interpreter or, in the absence of the latter, he strove with the few words of English, Chinook and Walla Walla we both understood to communicate his most important thought. He was of medium stature, thick set, muscular, and when young , no doubt very strong and enduring. He had an intellectual head and face, a penetrating but kindly eye, and a voice both deep and musical. Mr. Flippin, who spoke the Walla Walla language fluently, said that Howlish Wampo was the only In- dian orator he ever knew. A United States military officer had given him a fine, blue broadcloth cloak, which he wore on all important occasions, and with all the dignity and grace of a Roman senator. He did not seem to be conscious of jt either. The speech he made to the troops that came to protect Agent Barnhart was pronounced by Mr. Flippin the most impressive one to which he ever listened. The circumstances were promotive of deep feeling and as the murdered man was 30 T. W. DAVENPORT. a relative of Howlish Wampo, his rather lethargic nature was aroused into effective action. Mr. Flippin quoted passages from it, which seemed to confirm his high opinion. The speaker arose with much solemnity and for a few moments silently surveyed the assemblage. Then, throwing back bis cloak and raising his right hand deprecatingly, he began: "I see the soldiers have come among us." Pointing with his index finger at them, he asked with much emphasis, "What have you come for? Have you come to protect any- body ? If you have, we need your protection. Have you come to punish anybody? If you have there is the man (pointing to Barnhart), there is blood upon his hands." Mr. Flippin was in the habit of rehearsing the speech in the Walla Walla language and imitating the manner of the untaught orator. I obtained his translation of it into English and kept it for many years, but the wooden box in which I placed my records was not proof against the curiosity of children, who left them exposed to the mice and rats that soon destroyed them. The quotation above given is exact and I think myself competent to reproduce the whole speech with but little variation. It was so superb all through that my doubts were frequently expressed as to its genuineness, but the narrator was willing to swear to the veracity of his report. A ride in an easy carriage drawn by a sprightly team of fine horses is rather inspiring at almost any time, but over such a country as greets the eye from Walla Walla to the agency buildings on the Umatilla River, and at this time of year, when the still air of December is tempered by an unclouded sun, one's feelings stop little short of ecstasy. Much of this delight was no doubt due to the vast and magnificently out- lined scenery. On the left rose the colossal front of the Blue Mountains, rendered more grand and somber by the crown of evergreen forest which seemed, like fabled hosts of old, to frown down upon the unprotected valley. Away to the north- west stretched the undulating prairie to the Columbia River, and beyond, terminating the hazy distance, rose the dim and shadowy outline of the higher Cascade range, with its glittering snow peaks full in view. The beauty and grandeur of the scenery was some recompense for the tremendous decline in my previous high estimation of the military arm of the Republic.
To an American boy, when the army is mentioned, come memories of Bunker Hill, Lexington, Valley Forge, Yorktown and the sublime virtues of the revolutionary patriots. Nothing sordid or mean mars his patriotic fervor. To be sure, he may have read about some bickerings among aspiring under-officers in the Continental Army, but they were so overshadowed by Arnold's treachery, so lost to sight by reason of the general loyalty and the matchless career of the Father of His Country that he fails to consider such trifles as incident to human nature. At least, such had been my mental condition until my visit to the fort, when I became disagreeably conscious, in the short space of two days, that the selfish in human nature did not depart when American citizens joined the army. Intrigue and jealousy resulting from favoritism were very noticeable. At first I could not understand why an apparently intelligent man like Colonel Steinberger should propose so irrational a scheme as ordaining capital punishment upon a ward of the Government, against whom no felony had been charged, much less proved; for certainly it was no crime to allow two unknown persons to come into one's house and depart without hindrance. I was amazed at the determination and asked Captain Harding what he thought of the matter. His reply was so sententious and striking that I shall never forget it. "Oh! he wants to kill an Indian; he has never killed one." But I learned afterwards that the Colonel was not that kind of man. AB the boys now say, "he was merely standing in" with his pet Lieutenant, whom he wished not to see humiliated by a bootless foray in search of the miscreants who robbed and shot the miner. I had small opportunity to study the Colonel, but had no thought that he was a vicious person; rather that he lacked a judicial mind. The officers under him, so far as I heard, said he had the rare faculty of keeping the spirit of the troops up to the military standard. As this was a favorite saying of his admirers and repeated by 32 T. W. DAVENPORT. those who could not be thus counted, I infer it is suscepti- ble of a double interpretation. He charged me, as we parted, to apprehend and deliver to him the Indians guilty of the crime. So, immediately upon my arrival home, the interpreter, with Alex McKay, a half breed, and some four full-blood Indians of the Umatilla and Walla Walla tribes were despatched on the hunt. Passing southwest to the Too-too-willa, where several familes of In- dians resided; thence to the Columbia, which they crossed, swimming their horses; thence up the river to an Indian village of "renegades," where they found them and set out for the agency, travelling that extensive circuit at the rate of sixty miles a day. As I put the handcuffs upon them I felt a conviction that they would not be tried and proven guilty before execution, and such was really the case. They had no semblance of a trial ; their guilt was presumed and that was sufficient, under the peculiar conditions then existing, to warrant an execution. They were taken to the fort, kept in confinement a month, when they escaped, were retaken, and after another month's confinement both were hanged. They made no confession, no denial. In fact they could not understand our language and no interpreter was provided for them, as any one knows. The case in a nutshell reads something like this. The miner was slightly wounded by a pistol bullet which if rightly aimed might have killed him. Whoever it was, intended to steal his blankets, but did not succeed. In the night time he could not be sure that his assailants were Indians ; he thought so, and so reported to the military authorities at Walla Walla. Two Indians came from that direction and when first observed were fifteen miles from the scene of the disaster. That was all. A white man would not have been held upon such evidence, but they were Indians and not in good standing with the more aristocratic agency Indians. Besides, it was war times, when enlightened white men were shot by the thousand. Of course. Matchkus and Tchukliyuh were as nothing while they sang RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 33 their death song upon the scaffold. I wonder if they have been taken account of, anywhere by anybody ? I left the Umatilla Agency at the end of the second quarter of the year 1863, and of course knew nothing personally of the trial and execution of the two Indians delivered to Colonel Steinberger in the winter. So I had to depend upon the recol- lections of soldiers stationed at the fort for what has been written concerning them. I talked with Lieutenant Seth R. Hammer, Captain John T. Apperson and several privates, but as their memories did not reach to particulars, I wrote a letter to Colonel Geo. B. Currey August the 25th, 1898, and received the following reply: La Grande, October 1, 1898. T. W. Davenport, Esq., Salem, Oregon. Dear Sir: Eesponsive to yours of August 25, directed to me at Grants Pass and forwarded to me at this place, where it arrived this morning, I will say -that you and Lieutenant Hammer are both right. As a matter of fact, there was a slight showing as to a trial; and as a matter of law and justice, there was no trial. Colonel SFteinberger, by his order, created a commission to try the case and detailed Col. E. F. Maury, Capt. E. J. Harding and myself ,to constitute the commission. We met one morning and had a kind of trial. I first raised the point that we had no legal right to act under the order of Colonel Stein- berger, for the reason that the civil law was operative in that section and the courts were open for all such purposes. But the other members overruled me. The prisoner made a statement which left an impression on my mind that he was so drunk he vaguely remembered what actually took place. I do not recollect that any other than the accusing witness was before the commission; I distinctly remember that I felt, the testimony showed, no high crime had been committed. The commission talked very little about the case, when Captain Harding spoke very gruffly, "Damn the Indians, hang them." Colonel Maury acquiesced, the verdict was so rendered and recorded and the hanging took place. I felt then and so feel now, that the hanging was unlawful and un- necessary and that the pretended trial was the veriest sham. The day of the execution, I left the garrison, not being willing to witness what I then regarded a murder. I expected Colonel Steinberger would arrest me for absence without leave, but he did not. Very respectfully, GEO. B. CUEREY. 34 T. W. DAVENPORT. Not deeming his answer sufficiently explicit, I wrote again on the 4th of the month, to which he responded on the 7th as follows: La Grande, Oregon, October 7, 1898. T. W. Davenport, Salem, Oregon. Dear Friend: Kesponsive to yours of the 4th inst., I will say that my memory presents only fragments of the transaction about which you enquire. I can recall but one Indian, a light built, slim armed, bony fingered young fellow, whose name I do not recall. Of the incident of his escape, or of the escape of any Indians from ithe guard, I have not the slightest recollection. Neither do I recall who acted as interpreter, but presume there was one. I recollect very clearly that the Indian made a talk, narrating "the scrap," and that I objected to his making any statement until informed that he was not required to incriminate himself. This was overruled and the quizzing went on. I made several ineffectual attempts to confine the examina- tion to something like ordinary lines in courts, but the whole proceed- ing was farcical. It may seem strange that I remembered so little, but the fact is, I was trying to know just as little as possible of what took place in the garrison. Steinberger was running things with a high hand, and the Oregon cavalry officers were afraid of him. He had already browbeaten Colonel Cornelius out of the service and he was after my scalp. The guard house was full of soldiers, sometimes of citizens and often of Indians. I made one effort to arrest the outrages but was reported for dismissal for insubordination. With the exception of Dr. What- kins, I had no man at the garrison to stand by me. I had to play a lone hand and in playing it I had to shut my eyes and shun knowing many things. I never went to the post, or regimental headquarters except on official business. Many of the officers seemed to shun my company for fear of compromising their standing with the ruling potentate. Thus isolated, I knew very little of what was going on outside of my own duties and did not want to know. Captain Apper- son or Lieutenant Kapus will doubtless be able to assist you, as Kapus was St'einberger's Adjutant and Apperson had nothing to hinder him from knowing what was going on. Very respectfully, GEO. B. CUKEEY. p s. And not pertinent to your enquiry, I will say that as a se- quence of my controversy at Walla Walla, I had the pleasure of caus- ing Colonel Steinberger's muster out of the service, summarily, and I relieved him of the command of Fort Walla Walla. Later on I relieved Colonel Maury of the command of thie district and in a few days RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 35 became commander of the Department of the Columbia. I make this note that you may form some idea of the ordeal I was going through when the incident occurred about which you were desirous of knowing some minor details. G. B. c. Learning that the Hon. L. T. Barin, of Portland, was a soldier at the fort in that period, I consulted him personally and learned particularly as to the execution. He was Captain of the Guard that took the Indians to the scaffold and sur- rounded it until the drop fell. He said that while the smaller Indian was singing a low-toned, mournfully monotonous death song the taller one made a speech in which he denied commit- ting any crime which would confine a white man, and de- manded that he be set at liberty. We had a lengthy conver- sation, in which he said that the soldiers at the fort understood the case thoroughly and the unanimous expression was that the execution was unlawful, unnecessary and without any shadow of excuse. Almost every day something occurred to show the predatory instincts of human beings and how the presence of an inferior order of civilization, like an Indian reservation, contributes to acts of outlawry. Bad white men and bad Indians, the lower specimens of both races, provoke a continual disturbance, and race prejudice, inflamed by the memory of past grievances, tends to bring on a general conflict. Such is the philosophy that explains the predisposing phases of our Indian wars. Although the reservation system of managing the Indians has been quite generally condemned by the American people, I am of the opinion that for us it was a necessity. They claimed the land upon which they lived and roamed, and the claim was certainly good if possession gives any right. It was as good as ours, and hence, the only rational and just way to get peaceable possession was to treat with them for such lands as were needed for settlement and cultivation. Joint occu- pancy by peoples so different in language, religion, habits of life and social tendency could mean nothing less than continual warfare. The mistake of the Government was not in admitting the title of the Indian to the country occupied by them, but in 36 T. W. DAVENPORT. not doing enough in the line of civilizing agencies. With but few exceptions the agents of the Government were faithless as to the success of the project, even when they could spare the time from schemes for their own enrichment. They did not enter the work with any heart and acting upon the maxim that it is cheaper to feed than to fight Indians, of course, nothing could come of it. Suppose, on the other hand, that as many incentives to exertion had been given them as the white man enjoys; practical tuition, prizes for skill and excellence in agricultural methods, industrial fairs, etc. ; who can doubt that the red man, too, would have become a successful agri- culturist and stock raiser? But, cooped up on a tract of country not large enough to afford them a living by their ancestral modes, waiting upon the promises of the Government, which were often delayed and never entirely fulfilled, partly fed, partly clothed, and always in doubt as to the spirit and meaning of the whole business, what else could they be except vagabonds or social derelicts, judged in either the savage or civilized sense? The boundary of the reservation, from the head of Wild Horse Creek, a straight line along the crest of the Blue Moun- tains to an uncertain place known as Lee's Encampment, was in continual dispute; also the northwestern boundary, a straight line from the mouth of McKay Creek to the mouth of Wild Horse Creek, was in doubt, for the reason that the latter creek had several mouths, and landless white men, choosing a mouth to suit themselves, were pushing their improvements over onto the Indian's ground, as he thought. All such en- croachments festered in his flesh, for it was in the memory of every Indian that it was the white man's coming which re- duced him to his present narrow quarters, and an every-day experience that the white man's stock pastured on his un- fenced grounds. Complaints were made nearly every day and it was a very difficult matter to explain to them the inevitable- ness of such conditions, and thus allay their irritable feelings. In fact, it could not be done entirely, and human nature is prone to retaliation, or as the slang goes, "to get even." RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 37 A main traveled road passed through the reservation from the Umatilla landing on the Columbia River, over the Blue Mountains to the Grande Ronde Valley the Old Immigrant Road. There was much travel upon it in the years when the Powder River and the former valley were being settled and the gold mines worked, and as there were no taverns on the road, people passing that way were compelled to camp and turn their teams upon the uncultivated grass lands of the reservation. This afforded an excellent opportunity for reck- less Indians to secrete the animals and return them for a finder's reward. To what exent this game was practiced could not be known, for in most instances the Indians were ignor- antly .regarded as benefactors working for fair wages, and no complaint was therefore carried to the agent. Only one instance of the kind came to my knowledge during the nine months of my agency. Yellow Hawk, a headman of the Cayuse tribe, was privy to secreting a span of horses turned out to graze by a teamster travelling to the Grande Ronde Valley. As usual, after a few hours' unsuccessful search, a reward of $5 was offered by the owner to the first Indian he met, a confederate waiting to be seen, and who galloped away, ostensibly to search for the missing animals, but really to get them from the thicket on the bank of the river wherein he had placed them. Two white men, riding that way, saw the horses tied within the copse and wondered as to the cause of it, until they saw the Indian leading them on the road, the way they were travelling. Soon meeting the owner, they apprized him of the facts, at which, very naturally, he became enraged and, as usual, threatened the whole Indian population. The In- dian came up with the horses and demanded the reward before delivery. The angry man refused compliance, and all parties came before me for a decision. There was no proof that the Indian had driven the horses away from where the owner had turned them loose, but there was no doubt that he had concealed them to obtain a reward. Hence there was no difficulty or delay in restoring the animals free of cost to the owner. To placate his wrath and mete out some sort of re38 T. W. DAVENPORT. straining punishment upon the transgressors was more of an undertaking. While it is the habit of white men to denounce Indians gen- erally, and suffer the war spirit to rise upon every fresh occasion of an irritating nature, I have found from experi- ence that only a few of them are implacable when they have the whole truth laid fairly before them. To judge the Indian according to his deserts, his grievances must be contemplated also, but white men, as the result of education and selfish im- pulse, are hardly ever in the mood for weighing them. Only a little while before the occurrence above narrated, some bad white men, returning from the "mines," had driven off forty horses belonging to the Cayuse Indians, on the road towards Lewiston. To retake them 'by force meant open war; to get them by legal process was slow, doubtful and expensive; so the Indians, without informing me, followed unobserved and recaptured their property during the night while the thieves were sleeping. One of the most exasperating incidents occurred in Novem- ber, 1862. A farmer Indian of the Walla Walla tribe, whose name I do not recall, went to the Walla Walla flouring mill with a wagon load of wheat to exchange for his winter supply of flour, and while his horses were feeding from his wagon a gambler issued from a nearby saloon, took one of the horses, and leading it into a livery stable instructed the keeper to "let no one have it without an order from me." And this outrage was perpetrated in broad daylight, before several white persons and in spite of the earnest protest of the angry but discreet owner, who, thus deprived of half his team, be- strode his remaining horse and returned to the agency. I re- ported the case to the United States District Attorney, a Mr. McGilvrey stationed at Walla Walla, who instructed me to bring: two white witnesses and the Indian could obtain his horse. Both Mr. Flippin and Dr. Roland had positive knowl- edge as to the ownership of the horse, but neither was willing to become a witness against the gambler, so much at that timo were people under the sway of the desperadoes of the gambling RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 39 dens of that young and growing city. The gambler laid no legal claim to the horse ; he took him, he said, ' ' because he had use for him and the d d Indians had no right to horses anyway." The sutler bought much of his supplies at Walla Walla, and he asserted that rather than become a mark for the gamblers he would buy the Indian another horse, and it was done, Mr. Flippin contributing mostly towards the purchase. Such facts as these opened the eyes and soothed the feelings of the irate traveler who was in fact a considerate an conservative fellow citizen, but, like nearly all of American birth and edu- cation, fully of the opinion that there are no good Indians except dead Indians, and that in every case of conflict between the races the red man is the agressor. Another incident, occurring in the spring of 1863, was so remarkable in several points of view that I here relate it. Two merchants of Auburn, a brisk mining town in Baker County, stopped at the sutler's store on their way home from Port- land, where they had been purchasing goods, when an Indian by the name of Yuck-a-lux, having observed the horsemen a quarter of a mile away, came running to the store and claimed one of the horses as his property. Notice of the claim was at once given to me by the interpreter, and I sent a request to the possessor of the horse to call at the agent's office for a conference. He came mounted to my door, and in the presence of the employes and several Indians heard what I had to say concerning the Indian's claim. He showed much irritation at being detained, as his business at home was urgent, and when informed that upon the reservation an Indian's testi- mony is as good as a white man's, he wanted to know if I intended to rob him of his horse on the word of a d d Indian. " Oh, no ! you shall not be dispossessed on the evidence of an In- dian ; probably forty can swear that the horse you are riding is the property of this red man Yuck-a-lux. ' ' With increasing anger he said: "I suppose aill the Indians would like to get my horse and be willing to swear for it." I replied that the horse should not be taken from him until the proof was satis- factory, which allayed his feelings somewhat. He stated that 40 T. W* DAVENPORT. five days before he bought the horse at a livery stable in The Dalles, where he had seen him on his way down ten days previously, and he had no doubt as to the livery man's title. In answer to this I called the sutler to tell what he knew of the matter. After inspecting the horse carefully, Mr. Flippin said he had known the horse for more than two years, had ridden him several times, and until recently he had been in the possession of Yuck-a-lux. That some three or four weeks ago the latter came to the store and reported that his brown horse could not be found on the range where he was foaled and raised and probably he had been stolen. He knew that Yuck-a-lux had hunted for the horse several days since, a very idiotic proceeding if the horse had been sold with his knowledge and consent. Dr. Roland and the superintendent of farming testified similarly. The merchant made no objec- tion to the proof but was far from being pleased. After a moment's silence he said, "Ask the d d Indian if he will let me have the horse to ride home." I replied, ' ' Here is the interpreter at your service, ask him yourself; and as a matter of policy let me suggest that you leave out the word 'd d' : All eyes were turned upon Yuck- a-lux as the interpreter put the question, and after what had passed no one expected the request would be granted, and consequently listened for the discreet answer "way-toh," no. What he did answer was a complete surprise to all of us, and to the merchant a mild rebuke which he would never forget and never recall without being impressed with the personality of an Indian who was both humane and sagacious. Yuck-a-lux, after a short pause, during which he seemed to be engaged in self communion, very deliberately answered, "No, but I wilj let him have another one." Mr. Flippin was so much elated with the answer that he cried out, "Bully for Yuck-a-lux," a phrase used often there- after as a morning salutation. "How loner will it take to bring the other horse?" asked the merchant. "Half an hour," responded the Indian. "Bring him," said the merchant.
It being noon, I invited the stranger to dine with me, and during the time regaled him with incidents and personal experience, since taking charge of the reservation, to all of which he listened with marked interest. Evidently his sympathy was enlisted in my work of trying to establish justice between the habitually hostile races of human beings, and in two weeks, the first opportunity, the borrowed horse was returned without injury. I have not seen or heard of the merchant since and regret that I have lost his name.
From the last two incidents we can readily see how easy it is to incite race conflicts and how difficult to preserve the peace between those who are taught from birth to undervalue and hate each other. A SOLDIER OF THE OREGON FRONTIER.
By Will J. Trimble.
(The author of this article is not related to the subject. Because of bearing the same name their mail became mixed, while the former was stopping near the home of the latter, and friendship ensued.)
Joel Graham Trimble, a retired Major of the United States Army, lives at Berkeley, California. He may well be called a soldier of Old Oregon, because, save only the interruption of the Civil War, for thirty years he was a frontier soldier in Oregon, Washington and Idaho.
Major Trimble is of medium height, compact in build, white-haired and white-bearded, clear of eye, pleasant in speech, genial and modest in manner. Despite his age he is still erect and alert. Somewhat of the agility of the seasoned cavalryman still characterizes his movements. Veteran instincts survive also in his love for his good horse, which it is his delight to care for personally. He still treasures his old saddle, which in these days of his honorable repose brings back vividly the long rides and the hard charges of the Old Oregon days. The land for which he fought is very dear to him and its later development a matter of fatherly pride. Keen, also, is his interest in its history. Very willingly, therefore, he gave the writer the facts on which the following sketch is based.
The life story of Major Trimble commences back on the old Atlantic shore at Philadelphia in 1832. Soon after his birth the family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. When the lad was seventeen he entered Kenyon College. Hardly had he done so, however, when there came the tidings of gold in California. Having secured his father's consent, he left college and started with four companions for California. At St. Joe, however, the cholera summoned two of the party to shores other than those of the Pacific, and two others turned back. Not so young Trimble. Though now out of money, he had become fascinated with Western life. So he tramped sixty weary miles to Fort A SOLDIER OF THE OREGON FRONTIER. 43 Leavenworth and secured work as herder with the First Rifle Regiment, which was then just starting for Oregon. The command arrived in Oregon City in November, 1849. Soon after the arrival Trimble hired an Indian and made a canoe trip to the mouth of the Columbia. In the spring of 1851, again as civil employee, he joined the command of Major Phil. Kearney, which was bound for California. On the way this command participated in the first Rogue River War. In trying to rescue a wounded soldier from a ravine, young Trimble received a troublesome wound in the hand. At about the same time gallant Captain Stuart was killed. Trimble still recalls the details of his death and burial. Such experiences, however, did not deter him from enlisting so soon as he became of age. This he did at Fort Tejon, Cali- fornia, joining the First U. S. Dragoons. Ordered north, he arrived on the Columbia in time to assist in the rescue at the Cascades. His next service was to help in establishing the cantonment at Walla Walla. He participated with conspicu- ous gallantry in both the Steptoe and the Wright expeditions. When his time expired, he rode the Pony Express until the breaking out of the Civil War. Then he re-enlisted in the Second Dragoons. Back to the Atlantic he went. At Williamsburg was his first fight. Very different from fighting Indians on the bunch- grass hills of the Palouse was that stern facing of the men of his own race on the gray Peninsula. At Malvern Hill he was Avounded, but the splendid vigor bred of Western life told for speedy recovery. From that time onward clear to Appomatox in every great battle of the Army of the Potomac he had his part. At Gettysburg he was again wounded, and again cure came so quickly that he was soon clattering after Sheridan down the Shenandoah. At Cedar Creek he was personally thanked by General Sheridan for daring service. The end at Appomatox brought little lull to Trimble, for he was soon hurrying to Texas as part of that stern hint which halted French aggression in Mexico. Then, after a few months spent in recruiting service, he was ordered back to Old Oregon, the land which he loved.
Here soon arose the unfortunate Modoc War. By this time Trimble was a veteran in all sorts of fighting, being especially adept in Indian craft. His account of the capture of the Indian leader, Captain Jack, seems of special interest. He narrates that, while operating under ranking Captain Perry, he separated with his command from the latter and took an independent course. He had with him two Warm Springs Indians, who were expert trailers. After a few hours these struck the trail of three or four Indians. This trail was followed rapidly. After some time a queer Indian dwarf appeared on a rock ahead, making signs of friendship. This was Job, who was closely attached to Jack. After some parleying, Jack himself appeared and surrendered. The writer is acquainted with a certain scout who also claims to have captured Jack. But his account cannot be said to be unimpeachable, while that of Trimble is circumstantial and is confirmed in general by Bancroft. After the Modoc War, Trimble held commands at Camps Warner and Harney in Southeastern Oregon. The comparative quiet of these years was roughly ended by the Nez Perces outbreak. Hard service then. A forced march to Mt. Idaho, a bloody repulse in White-bird Canon, a perilous, but successful, dash for the rescue of the besieged miners up the Salmon were followed by the chase after Joseph across the Salmon, the swift doubling back to counter Joseph's strategy and the battle of the Clearwater. Speaking of the Nez Perces charge at the latter point, the Major says, "No more daring feat of prowess was performed by skirmishers at any period of the Civil War." In the pursuit of Joseph eastward Major Trimble did not take part, being ordered to Spokane with his troop to furnish the cavalry contingent for General Wheaton. This was his last campaign. A few years later he was retired. It is in suggestive sidelights, such as the above comment on the Nez Perces charge or in familiar description of some noteworthy person, more, perhaps, than in connected narrative, that the Major's reminiscences are valuable. For example, he describes General Wool as " a small, neat man with violet- colored eyes. These I noticed above all the glitter of his uniform or that of his staff. They were very sharp, like a bald eagle's." Again, in commenting on the poor equipment of the Step toe expedition, he pays his respects to the "old, single-barreled pistol, which I have often seen used as a policeman's club in the hands of a sturdy Irish corporal, but never as a weapon in war."
The defeat of the Step toe forces, indeed, was due in no small measure to the inferiority of the soldiers' arms to those of the Indians. Most of the soldiers were armed with the short, wide-mouthed musketoon, which carried a ball and three shot. It was of no account at over fifty yards. The rest had the old-fashioned yager rifle, which carried well, but which could be loaded by a man on horseback only with great difficulty. The worthless pistol and a worse than worthless sabre completed the equipment. The Indians, on their parr, were armed with effective Hudson Bay rifles. It is interest- ing to recall in this connection that Ouster's men likewise did not have as good arms as their opponents. In most In- dian battles, however, the advantage in this respect has been with the whites. In the encounters with the Indians which the Wright forces had only a few months after the Steptoe affair, the Indians, who were exultingly expecting to find the troops at as great a disadvantage as before, were dismayed to find their comrades falling under the fire from the new minnie rifles, while their own bullets fell short. Indian defeats have been due in no small degree to ingenious mechanics fashioning in peaceful shops new devices for de- struction. The conquests of civilized man over his barbaric foes have been the result, indeed not so much of the superior bravery or skill of individuals as of the co-operating energies of organized society exerted against the fitful and in part isolated struggles of individualism. In the Steptoe affair, however, as I have said, the representatives of higher civiliza- tion fought at a disadvantage and a number of brave men fell. 46 WILL J. TRIMBLE. Of these the highest in rank was Capt. 0. H. P. Taylor. His initials stood for Oliver Hazard Perry. He was thus named because of relationship on his mother 's side to the naval hero. Captain Taylor was a Kentuckian by birth and a grad- uate of West Point. He is described by Major Trimble as a small man and very erect. He was exacting in discipline and rather hot-tempered, yet he was much loved and respected. An especially sad feature of his death was that he left at Walla Walla a wife and two children. They had come out the year before and had faced many perils in order to be with the husband and father in the far frontier fort. Lieutenant Gaston, who was killed in the same fight, was an unmarried man, only twenty-four years of age. He had graduated the year before from West Point. He was a "tall, slim, handsome man" so tall, indeed, that on his arrival at the post he had been promptly nicknamed " Shanghai. " Both his name and Taylor's appeared in the roster of West Point graduates who had been killed in Indian wars, which was conspicuous in the government building- at the Lewis and Clark Exposition. In dying on the field of battle, Gaston met the death he desired, for a cancerous growth on his neck had troubled him so much that he feared death from disease. Colonel Steptoe, the Commander, survived the expedition. He, like Taylor and Gaston, was a Southerner, being descended from an old family of Virginia. A Dr. Steptoe is mentioned in the *Fithian Journal as a prominent member of Virginia society in the years just preceding the Revolution. Whether or no the Colonel was related to the doctor I do not know for certain, but, at any rate, Trimble describes the former as an "elegant man and aristocratic in his ways." He was about five feet ten inches [in height, slendefr in build and dark of complexion, with black mustache and hair. At the time of the expedition he was about forty years of age. He, too, had grad- uated from West Point and, in addition, had served in the
- The Fithian Journal was written by a young man named Fithian, who, on
graduation from Princeton College, was employed as tutor in the winter of 1773-74 at Nomini Hall, a large Virginia country-seat. A SOLDIER OF THE OREGON FRONTIER. 47 Mexican War. Colonel Steptoe might have been very suc- cessful in fighting Mexicans, but for fighting Indians, in Trimble's opinion, he lacked one essential qualification. That was * * craft. ' ' Into that word the Major 's tone threw a world of meaning. When I asked him what he meant by "craft," he replied: '"'Craft' means to know Indians and frontiers- men. You must know how to fight the way the Indians do. You must know signs. You must watch the weather. You must be on your guard all the time. In fact, 'craft' be- comes a sort of instinct or second nature." The Major said that on the expedition Colonel Steptoe was in civilian attire and rode along carelessly and confidently, carrying in his hand a small riding whip. Caution and prudence seem not to have been characteristic of Colonel Steptoe. In contrast with his negligence are the forethought and carefulness of the man who retrieved his disaster. Among all the men who led other men in the struggle between civili- zation and savagery on the frontier of old Oregon, none was more efficient, none more respected and beloved by those un- der him than Colonel (later General) George Wright. "He was a genuine soldier and a soldier's friend," Major Trimble enthusiastically declared. As evidence of Wright's careful- ness the Major relates that on the expedition the soldiers were required to get up an hour before daylight and stand under arms, to guard against surprise. In order to lessen the area of the camp cavalrymen were ordered to tether their horses at half length. Although he was thus earnest and severe in discipline, Colonel Wright was kind to his men and thought- ful for their welfare. Kindliness and benevolence showed in his open, manly face. One trait in him was, however, pre- eminenthis love of justice. As the Major talked quietly of the man who had defeated the Indians and slaughtered their horses and hanged their rascals, and who yet had retained their admiration and respect, he gave the key to his achieve- ment in one brief phrase : "He was very just." Officers of the frontier army had to manage not only In- dians, but often also bad white men. "It was the bad men on 48 WILL J. TRIMBLE. both sides who made the trouble, ' ' Major Trimble said. He told me of a somewhat ludicrous meeting which he once had with one of the white outlaws. Trimble was proceeding at the time from Walla Walla to The Dalles, accompanied by a few men. When about half way there in the evening of a raw, wintry day, they saw far down the trail a man approaching. He looked like a black dot on the landscape. When the fellow came near enough to be plainly seen he presented an odd sight. He appeared to have been plucked. What had been a long overcoat had been shorn of its tails, and the pieces were muffled around the feet of the weary plodder. He came right to Trimble (who was in command) and said that he had es- caped from prison at The Dalles and that he was so worn out from exposure and fear of the Indians that he wanted to sur- render. Trimble recognized him as Jack Hurley, a noted gam< bier and desperado. He guarded him carefully until he handed him over to the authorities at The Dalles. Hurley was taken later to 'Frisco. As the vessel was entering the Bay he knocked the sheriff overboard with the handcuffs which he wore and made a desperate effort to escape. But in this he failed. Not only in restraining these dangerous characters was the army of the frontier of worth to advancing civilization, but also in a more material way. It made roads, built bridges and constructed cantonments. In the latter employment it was interesting to notice how the peculiar qualifications of men of different nationalities were utilized. The Irishman dug the trenches and ditches, the German made the garden, and the American swung the axe. Major Trimble says that the fron- tier army contained many foreigners and that the army life taught them patriotism and American ways. Consequently, when the Civil War broke out, most of the common soldiers formed themselves into Union Clubs and remained true to the Government, while many of the officers, who, in many cases were Southern survivors of the Mexican War, plotted against the Government and tried to seduce the men. That the bulk A SOLDIER OF THE OREGON FRONTIER. 49 of the army of the frontier remained loyal was of the greatest moment to the North. The private soldiers, likewise, in their service in old Oregon, were generally not out of harmony with the settlers. That there was unfortunate friction between the army and the set- tlers was due most of all to certain high commanding officers, who understood neither frontiersmen nor Indians who, in- deed, in the Major's phrase, lacked " craft." The latter grew indignant as he told me of the treatment he had seen settlers receive at the hands of one or two officers how that some set- tlers had been ruined financially by furnishing supplies to the army, which were paid for only by the promises of the com- mander ; and how others had given daring and unselfish serv- ices in times of need and had received no recognition. Major Trimble's years of close contact with settlers gave him sym- pathy with them. "None but those in actual contact with the settlers," he writes in a recent letter, "can fully appreciate the exposure to their lives of those who planted the germ of civilization in these wild regions and kept it nourished with their blood and tears. The hardships and life of the pioneers of the Pacific Coast are particularly interesting by reason of the great distance traversed by them to gain a home. I have often witnessed the anxiety and risk caused thereby. After completing a campaign to Salt Lake and Camp Floyd in 1859 a detachment of us was started back from Fort Walla Walla in November to assist or rescue some emigrants near the Sal- mon River Falls of the Snake River. This party of emigrants had endured such extremities by reason of the assaults of the Indians and complete loss of all stock as to be reduced (as we suspected) to cannibalism. However, we brought them away, though overtaken by deep snow." The reference in the preceding paragraph to the illy ad- justed conduct of one or two officers may be mistakenly under- stood to mean that Major Trimble rates the higher officers of the frontier army low. His criticism, however, applies to very few. "The bulk of the old regular army officers," he asserts, "were gentlemen par excellence, and their many brilliant 50 WILL J. TRIMBLE. deeds are a shining example to those who come after them. They were genteel, economical and courteous, with no ostenta- tion. ' ' That qualities such as these are compatible with the rugged life of a frontier soldier is proven, at least to the author's mind, in the person and character of the modest
gentleman who has furnished the material for this sketch. January 25, 1821.
Read twice, and, with the bill, committed to a committee of the whole House tomorrow. The Committee to whom was referred the resolution of the 19th of December, 1820, to inquire into the situation of the settlements upon the Pacific Ocean, and the expediency of occupying the Columbia River,
REPORT:
That they have carefully examined the subject referred to them, and, from every consideration which they have been able to bestow upon it, believe, from the usage of all nations, previous and subsequent to the discovery of America, the title of the United States to a very large portion of the coast of the Pacific Ocean to be well founded; nor have they been able to ascertain that any other government than Spain has made claim to any part of it, from Cape Horn to the sixtieth degree of North latitude.
52 DOCUMENTS. When this continent was first made known to Europe, by the bold and enterprising genius of Christopher Columbus, it seemed for a long time conceded that the Spanish monarchy, which alone could be prevailed upon to listen to his plans and propositions, was most entitled to the benefits resulting from the successful issue of his undertaking. Though Ferdinand and Isabella, who, at that time, filled the throne of that coun- try, did not rest their title upon the tacit consent of other nations, or even upon their armies or fleet, which was, at that period, formidable and well provided; but instructed by the example of the Portuguese, who had obtained a grant for all countries east of the Azores, from pole to pole, they obtained a similar grant from the Roman Pontiff, of all the territories they wished to occupy west of the same point, as the super- stition of the times conferred on him a right of dominion over all the kingdoms of the earth. Thus, in virtue of his power, as the vicar and representative of Jesus Christ, did Alexander VI, in 1493, grant to the crown of Spain, in full right, all the countries inhabited by infidels, which they had or should discover. Enormous as the power was, which the Popes then exercised, it was recognized and submitted to by the monarchs of that day, and considered as having vested in Spain a title which they deemed completely valid, and authorized her to extend her discoveries and establish her dominion over a great portion gressional document urging the occupation of the Pacific Northwest. It "in its expression and embodiment of the ideas and impulses that were to shape the progress of events," says Professor E. G. Bourne, "bears the same relation 1o Oregon that Richard Hakluyt's famous 'Discourses on Western Planting' bears to the foundation of the English colonies in America." See "Aspects of Oregon History Before 1840" in the September Quarterly, Volume VI, Number 3, pp. 255-275. Professor Bourne contends for fuller recognition of Floyd's efforts in awakening the American people to a realization of their interests in the Oregon Country. To him Floyd's work for Oregon "seems immensely more important than Hall J. Kelley's." Floyd was first to apply the name "Oregon" to the Pacific Northwest. Charles Floyd of the Lewis and Clark party was John Floyd's first cousin, and William Clark was his friend from early youth. At Brown's hotel, his boarding place in the early winter of J 820-21, he met Mr. Ramsey Crooks and Mr. Russell Farnham, ex-members of the Astor party. This document is the first of a series on the Oregon Question that will be reprinted. OCCUPATION OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 53 of the new world. The Spanish crown, as well as individuals, the subjects of that power, continued to fit out ships for voy- ages of discovery, and, in the space of a few years, had visited various parts of the coast of America, from the Gulf of Mexico to many degrees south of the equinoctial line, taking possession, according to the custom of that day, in the name of the Spanish King. Nor was their zeal for discovery con- fined to the Atlantic shore alone, parties under daring and enterprising leaders, penetrated far into the interior of the continent, and even to the shores of the Pacific ocean, wrest- ing by violence the rich empires of Peru and Mexico from the peaceful and legitimate sovereigns who reigned over them, and annexed them to the Crown of Spain, by the triple title of con- quest, discovery, and the grant of the Pope. So well satisfied do the rest of Europe seem to have been of the rights of Spain, derived from such high authority, that they permitted her to progress unmolested in her career of discovery and conquest for many years, until she had ac- quired the undisputed possession of most of the Atlantic coast of South America, and the whole shore of the Pacific, as high as the northern extremity of California, and, as they affirmed, after they came in possession of Louisiana, to a point far to the northward of that. Though discoveries were frequently made of countries among the most beautiful and fertile, where nature seemed to invite the industry of man to the enjoyment of luxuriant abundance, yet none seemed to arrest the attention of either government or people, but those which contained the precious metals ; this morbid thirst for gold may be the cause why no settlements were made north of California, as no metal of that descrip- tion is believed to be found in that region. About this time, it became the interest of the British Crown to think differently on the subject of religion from the See of Rome, and, separating entirely from it, assumed the right of annexing to their Crown all the territories discovered by their subjects, and of bestowing them by charter upon individuals. To this end, grants were issued by Elizabeth in the year 1578 54 DOCUMENTS. and 1584, the one to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the other to Sir Walter Raleigh, which were limited to a certain number of leagues; but those issued in 1606, and 1608, and 1611, by James I in the charters for Virginia, were declared to embrace the whole extent of country from thirty-four to forty-five de- grees of north latitude, extending from sea to sea, always excepting the territories of any Christian Prince or people. It is believed, that when these charters were granted by the Monarchs of England, they were not well apprized of the ex- tent of country they were giving away, but from their reser- vations, in regard to the title of Christian Princes or people, they were apprized of the title of Spain upon the western ocean, though not informed of its extent ; as it is evident, from the words Christian and infidel often occurring, both in the charters of the Monarchs and the bulls of the Pope, the legiti- mate sovereigns, as well as people of this country in that day were considered as possessing no rights. With whatever care they avoided collisions with each other respecting territory, which might produce a war Avith a Power equally skilled in the military art with themselves, they were not scrupulous in dispossessing the natives of both Americas of their country, all of whom, as brave, as generous, and magnanimous as them- selves, and some of whom as far advanced in civilization and the arts of peace, though not professing to be Christians, or skilled in war. The opinion of Europe undergoing another change upon the subject of discoveries in unknown regions, they were now re- duced to more definite and reasonable extent, consequently in a few years, a third mode of obtaining territory came to be admitted by all as the basis on which they could safely rely for a just decision of their claims, should difficulties present them- selves; and one which, to a moderate extent, gave to all na- tions the benefits of their own labors. By this rule, too, all the territory thus acquired was vested in the State, rather than the Crown, which Spanish jurisprudence, under the authority of the Pope, seemed to consider. Hence, the Power which discovered a country was entitled OCCUPATION OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 55 to the whole extent of soil, watered by the springs of the principal river or water course passing through it, provided there was settlement made, or possession taken, with the usual formalities, in the name and on the behalf, of the Govern- ment to whom the individual owed allegiance. Though the tacit consent of all seemed to yield the sovereignty from sea to sea, where no settlement or express possession was had of an intermediate country ; and such right was held good to the whole extent, but not wholly confirmed until another settle- ment was made at a distinct point upon the same territory beyond the water of the first or so distant as not manifestly to encroach upon the establishments of the coast ; other Powers, though, might avail themselves of the failure of the first to occupy another principal stream, or distant point and become thereby vested with a full right of sovereignty. This seema to have been the condition of America until the close of the war of 1812 ; since which time all treaties have yielded to the different Powers, in full right, all they claimed, either by settlement, or from the failure of others to occupy the prin- cipal streams when they might do so. There is now no longer territory to be obtained by settlement or discovery, and if there should be any difficulty it wi.ll be where the different limits of the different Powers shall be fixed. Impressed with a belief, that under this mode, valuable pos- sessions might be added to the French monarchy, it is pre- sumed Sieurs Joliet, and Marquette, penetrated the unknown wilderness from Canada and discovered the Mississippi so long ago as the year 1673, and explored it down to the Arkan- saw. Perhaps encouraged by their success, a few years after, Hennepin visited those regions and pursued that river to its mouth. His representations, with other considerations, two years after, induced M. de la Salle and M. Tonti, to descend that river with a considerable force to the Gulf of Mexico, and they are believed to have built the fort during that trip, the bricks and other remains of which are now to be seen on the first high ground on the west side of the Mississippi, below the mouth of the White river. 56 DOCUMENTS. After this period, in 1685, M. de la Salle, being on his re- turn from France, landed on the west side of the Bio Colo- rado, in the bay of St. Bernard, and planted a considerable colony there, taking possession in due and solemn form, in the name of the French King. Such were the discoveries which gave rise to France the country called Louisiana, from the Rio Grande del Norte, being the next great river to the west of that settlement, along the mountains of Mexico and New Spain west, as the western limits, and California as the eastern boundary. That France, and all other nations in- terested in its boundary, considered it in the same light, is ascertained in various ways, to the conviction of the most incredulous. In consequence of these settlements and discoveries of the French, Louis the XIV granted, by letters patent, in the year 1712, to Anthony Crozat the exclusive commerce of that coun- try, and defines its boundary, declaring that it comprehends all lands, coasts, and islands, situated in the Gulf of Mexico, between Carolina on the east, and Old and New Mexico on the west. The French title to these boundaries is farther estab- lished by the Chevalier de Champigny, who lived in the coun- try, and declares Louisiana to extend to the Rio Grande del Norte, and the mountains of Mexico. This appears to be the opinion of other writers, who, it is presumed, had the most intimate knowledge of the subject, and among them we find that intelligent statesman, the Count de Vergennes, in a work, entitled an Historical and Political Memoir of Louisiana, where, he says, it is bounded by Florida on the east, and by Mexico on the west. The same extent is assigned to it by Don Antonio de Alcedo, an officer of high rank in the service of Spain, entitled "Diccionario Geografico Historico de las Indias Occidentales o America." Don Thomas Lopez, geog- rapher to the king of Spain, in a map published in 1762, is of the same opinion, which is supported by the opinion of De L'Isle. of the Royal Academy of Paris, in the year 1782. Upon the testimony of so many respectable writers, many of whom in the employment of both France and Spain, not OCCUPATION OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 57 to mention the authority of Du Pratz, it is believed the United States may with safety rely, they having, by the Treaty of Paris of 1803, become possessed of the French title. If. however, there exists any obscurity in the boundary of that province, Spain, with whom it is supposed the title conflicts, has no right to claim any benefit arising from it, as all the writers and geographers, above referred to, agree in fixing Mexico, New Spain, the Rio Grande del Norte, and the moun- tains of Mexico, as the true boundary anterior to the treaty of 1763. If she, then, by treaty, obtained from France that country, with these limits, as asserted by France, and dif- ferent ones not being stipulated for by her, she cannot now. with any shadow of justice, propose others. Moreover, Spain, by the Treaty of St. Ildefonso, retroceded this same country to France, with the same extent of boundary it had when originally in her possession, thereby confirming to France, without doubt, all she originally claimed, particularly, as no notice is then taken of the invalidity of the original French title to the full extent of their claim; at all events, it is believed, if there was difficulty in regard to it, during this last transfer would have been the time to adjust it ; or, by the law of nations it is thought, as well as candor and good faith, she has not, or ought not, to be permitted to insist upon other boundaries. That law, in one place, declares, that "if the party making them (meaning grants or cessions) fails to ex- press himself clearly and plainly, it is the worse for him : he cannot be allowed to introduce, subsequently, restrictions which he has not expressed. " It is proper, before this part of the subject is passed over, to remark, that, from the examination of the best records of the times, from the discovery of America until the year 1763, the bull of the Pope rather gave a title to the country, the coast of which had been examined by the Spaniards, than confirmed beyond the participation of other nations the hemi- sphere west of the Azores; but, where an extensive coast had been discovered by them, and no settlement attempted pre- vious to 1763, that coast, and its extended interior, has been 58 DOCUMENTS. considered the property of the nation so discovering it; or discovering the interior, the unoccupied coasts become a part. Great Britain, as was her interest, maintained for a long time the old notion of a right to grant by charter all the countries from sea to sea, where it did not interfere with the territory of any Christian Prince or people; and her ob- stinate adherence to that system is considered as largely con- tributing to the production of the war of 1755, when she was opposed by France and Spain, as granting away almost all Mexico and the French possessions, both claiming much of the intermediate country, and the coast of the Pacific. Great Britain, at the close of that war, abandoned her pre- tensions, and gave manifestation of her sincerity, by revoking the first charter granted to Georgia, and in the second, in 1764, limited it to the Mississippi, and agreed, in 1763, to limit her whole territory to that river in the west. Where territory has been acquired, as already shown, upon any coast, and the same coast actually settled, or occupied by another Power, at such a distance as not manifestly f o encroach upon the first, the point equidistant from either is considered as the utmost limits of each; this principle, it is believed, was fixed and settled by all the most important treaties which have engaged the Powers of Europe in affairs appertaining, in any way, to possessions in this country, and, it is believed, was acted upon and sanctioned, not only by the treaty of 1763, but, in some measure, by that of Utrecht, in 1713. Spain, by virtue of her original discovery, and actual set- tlement in Mexico, together with her title to Louisiana, claimed the Pacific coast of North America, as hierh up as the sixtieth degree of north latitude; and, to enforce her claim, in the year 1789, sent a ship of war up the coast 10 capture, or drive from those waters, several English ves>sels fitted out in the East Indies by English merchants, upon their own authority, and at their own risk, to trade with the nativos in that quarter. This service was performed by Martine/, of his Catholic Majesty's navy: and, in the year 1790, beOCCUPATION OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 59 came the subject of a message from the British king to his Parliament. Although much debate ensued, and some resent- ment expressed towards Spain for her treatment of the British subjects who were made prisoners, yet no claim was alleged on the part of England to territory there. Great Britain, in the course of that transaction, seems to have recognized the claim of Spain, and was willing to treat for the enjoyment of privileges on that coast, which she obtained, and was, by stipulations, invested with the further right to fish even as low down as the Gulf of California. The Spanish monarch, being in possession of the French title, regardless of that which the United States had obtained, according to the mode last adopted, felt great confidence in his negotiations with the British government, in the year 1790. But the territory, the title to which gave that confidence, has since, by the Treaty of Paris, come into the possession of the United States, and it is believed the Treaty of St. Ildefonso confirmed to France the full extent of boundary originally claimed, Spain taking no notice of the original error, if any existed. Under this view of the case, the United States, being pos- sessed of the title of France, and, by a just application of the law of nations, that of Spain too, if she ever had any, leaves them the undisputed sovereignity of that coast, from the sixtieth degree of north latitude down to thirty-six, which is believed to be the situation of the mountains of Mexico, alluded to in all the authors and charts before referred to. If, however, there should remain a doubt, that doubt is re- lieved by a reference to the subordinate principle recognized by the Treaties of Utrecht and of Paris, in 1763. When we know that all the formalities deemed necessary in the posses- sion of a newly discovered country have been complied with on the part of the United States; that, in the year 1785-6, an establishment was made at the mouth of the Columbia river, by Mr. Hendricks, the full and entire benefit of whose courage, enterprise, and success, results to this Union ; and at a later day, in 1805, Messrs. Lewis & Clark, in executing 60 DOCUMENTS. the desires of this government, again visited the Columbia and the western ocean, twelve miles from which they built Fort Clatsop, yet to be seen these establishments made by the United States, not so near the settlements of California as manifestly to encroach upon them, entitles them to the whole country north of Columbia. And, in applying the principle known to govern in such cases, the point equi- distant from the Spanish actual settlements, and the mouth of that river, is the true point at which a line drawn separat- ing the two countries, should commence. The actual settle- ments of Spain are believed to have been, at that time, upon the Colorado of California, in latitude 32 degrees north; but, even supposing the point to be the extreme south of the claim of the United States, which is believed to be 36 degrees, then the line of separation would fall at 41 degrees. And if any doubt arose as to the claim of the United States to the full extent of the Spanish title, to the north of Fort Clatsop, as high as 60 degrees of latitude, there could remain no doubt, as far as the equidistant point, which would be at the com- pletion of the 53d degree of latitude, leaving us twelve degrees of coast on that ocean. From every information which can be obtained, worthy co be relied upon, our coast on the Pacific, for years past, has been the theatre of much individual enterprise, stimulated by the rich returns of numerous whale ships, and the great profit of the fur trade, together with the flattering accounts of Messrs. Lewis & Clark, relative to the resources of the in- terior, though no regular trade or well organized system of commerce existed until the year 1810, in the course of which year a vessel was fitted out in the city of New York, well supplied with provisions and seed of every description neces- sary in a permanent occupation of the coast, which they con- templated. This little colony consisted of an hundred and twenty men when it arrived in the Columbia; and after as- certaining its soundings, they removed some miles above Fort Clatsop, and built the towji of Astoria, where a portion of them cultivated the soil, whilst the other engaged in the fur OCCUPAPION OF THE COLUMBIA RlVER. 61 trade with the natives. The soil was found to be rich, and well adapted to the culture of all the useful vegetables found in any part of the United States ; as turnips, potatoes, onions, rye, wheat, melons of various kinds, cucumbers, and every species of pease. In the course of a year or two, it was be- lieved their interest would be promoted by cultivating and securing the friendship and confidence of the tribes inhabiting the waters of that great river; to which end, the town of Astoria was maintained by about thirty men, whilst the rest established themselves at five other points, to become fixed stations, to raise their own vegetables, trade with the natives, and receive supplies of merchandise from the general depot at Astoria, and return to it the fruits of their labor. One of these subordinate establishments appears to have been at the mouth of Lewis' river; one at Lantou; a third on the Columbia, six hundred miles from the ocean, at the confluence of the Wantana river, a fourth on the east fork of Lewis' river ; and the fifth on the Multnomah. Thus situated, this en- terprising little colony succeeded well in all their undertak- ings, nor met with but one misfortune, which seemed to par- take largely of that kind which had, for a long time, so cer- tainly and so unseen, been inflicted upon our Western inhabi- tants : this was the loss of the Tonquin, a vessel they had taken from New York, whilst trading down the coast, where, in time past, she had been, in common with the ships of some European Powers, enjoying the friendship and confidence of the natives. This confidence had, by some means, been de- stroyed, and, whilst they induced many of the ship 's company to go on shore, many of their own number went on board the ship, and suddenly attacking the crew, the whole were de- stroyed, as well as the vessel. This, though a great affliction to the survivors on the Columbia, did not dishearten them, as other vessels were expected soon to arrive, and, with these expectations, they continued their trade, which, "becoming profitable, they were less inclined to abandon. But the opera- tions of the war of 1812, which took place between the United States and Great Britain, was destined to mar their prosperity. 62 DOCUMENTS. That Government, it appears, dispatched a vessel of war, called the Raccoon, to destroy or possess Astoria, which, by the as- sistance of the Indians, influenced by the Northwest and Hudson's Bay companies of fur traders, they were easily enabled to do ; and have, from that period to the present time, continued to reside at it, as well as on the river above, though a messenger, or agent, was sent by the authority of the United States to receive, and did receive, that post from them, at the close of the late war. From every reflection which the Committee have been able to bestow upon the facts connected with this subject, they are inclined to believe the Columbia, in a commercial point of view, a position of the utmost importance; the fisheries on that coast, its open sea, and its position in regard to China, which offers the best market for the vast quantities of furs taken in those regions, our increasing trade throughout that ocean, seems to demand immediate attention. The fur of every country which has produced it, has been ever esteemed one of its most valuable commodities, and has long held a rank among the most profitable articles of com- merce; it was much sought for even in the days of Tatila, a Visigoth, who reigned in Italy about the year 522, at which time they drew their supplies from the Suethons, who in- habited that part of Europe called Sweden. The AVelch set a high value on them as early as the time of Howel Dda, in 940, and, from its being first an article of dress, used only by the poorer class of the community, it, by gradually extending it- self, came to be one of luxury, of the highest value, in which kings and princes vied with each other in their costly magnifi- cence and display; their clothes were not only fashioned of them, but even their tents were lined with the finest varieties. Such was the display of the great Cham of Tartary, when he was visited in his tent by Morco Polo, about the year 1252. It had become so much in use, and so high in price, that Edward the 3d, in the year 1337, deemed it expedient to prohibit its use to any but those who could afford to spend an hundred pounds a year, without detriment to their property. At that OCCUPATION OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 63 day, having exhausted those parts of Europe which had sup- plied them, the price increasing with a growing demand, they were obliged to seek them elsewhere, and procured their sup- plies from the north of Asia. This, for a long time, poured into the adjoining parts of Europe, immense sums, as it was in that direction they were brought to market. This trade, so valuable to that part of the world had no competition, nor were other sources of supply even known until Francis I. of France, in the 1514, sent Jacques Cartier, of St. Maloes, to make discoveries in this country. That gentleman entered the St. Lawrence and exchanged his merchandise for fur, which was the commencement of a feeble trade, that was con- tinued until the year 1608, when Samuel Champlain went some distance up that river, and laid the foundation of the town of Quebec, as a trading establishment, and commenced a system which, however, did not greatly flourish until about the year 1649. But very soon after that country came into possession of England, this trade was cherished and greatly increased, and the dominion of the Hudson's Bay enabled her, not only to supply Russia itself and all Europe, but even to send it to Turkey, and round the Cape of Good Hope, to distant China, That trade which had destroyed all competi- tion, and, in the hands of well regulated companies, capable of enriching an empire, had yielded a part of its profits to the skill and industry of individuals on our western shore; that skill and that industry has withered, not for the want of fostering care, but justice and protection. The fur trade of Canada has long been conducted by well organized companies; and, although they encounter infinite difficulties, yet the great profit of their business enables them to overcome them, and to divide a considerable per cent. All those articles intended as supplies for the Indians are shipped to Montreal, and carried far into the interior, through lakes and rivers and difficult streams, until they arrive even in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains. The increasing wealth de- rived from this source, induced a larger increase of capital, and corresponding exertions to obtain a more extensive knowl64 DOCUMENTS. edge of the rivers and lakes through which their merchandise was to be carried, and a more extensive acquaintance with the natives, among whom they were eventually to be disposed of for furs, the produce of the labor of the savage. With views of this kind small parties have been dispatched, at diiferent times, from the year 1774 until the year 1793, to examine the rivers of the West. At the period last mentioned, one of those parties, under the direction of Alexander M'Kenzie, pene- trated even to the Western Ocean, thereby greatly adding to their stock of useful knowledge in that branch of commerce, which they have not failed duly to appreciate. Notwithstand- ing the great difficulties which the British furriers encounter, from the embarrassment of their commerce by their different systems of exclusive privilege, these companies find it a source of vast profit, far exceeding anything known in the United States ; this, too, when the merchandise is so much advanced in price, from the distance and the numerous obstructions. The enhanced value of the articles, and their difficulties in transporting them, may be fully understood, when it is known the tract of transport is equal to three or four thousand miles, through more than sixty lakes, some of them very considerable in extent, and numerous rivers, and the means of transporta- tion are bark canoes. Furthermore, these waters are inter- rupted in at least an hundred places by falls and rapids, along which the trader has to carry his merchandise on his back, and over an hundred and thirty carrying places, from twenty or thirty yards in extent to thirteen miles, where both canoe and cargo have to be conveyed by the same means. These are some of the obstructions which the Northwest Company encounters; yet their exports from Quebec alone are valued at more than a million of dollars annually, without reference to those brought to the United States, and shipped from New York and Philadelphia direct to China, rather than incur the cost and delay in procuring them a passage iO London, and thence to India, in the ships of the East India Company. Indeed, it appears that many of the goods of that company, destined for this trade, particularly on the coast of OCCUPATION OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 65 the Pacific, are shipped to Boston and immediately reshipped in American vessels, for the benefit of drawback. These ves- sels are sometimes employed to make a voyage for them from the mouth of Columbia to Canton. To illustrate more fully the increasing value of this trade, it is only necessary to ob- serve, that from Quebec in 1803, there were exported the skins of six hundred and fifty thousand seven hundred and twenty- nine quadrupeds, ninety-three thousand seven hundred and seventy-eight of which were beaver. Since that time they have extended their trade beyond the Rocky Mountains, and have, as has already been observed, established themselves at the mouth of the Columbia. The amount of their export from that port cannot be ascertained, but it is thought to be of great value. The Hudson's Bay Company is believed to be consid- erable, and, from a state of former depression, is fast becom- ing the rival of the other, but for several years past have withdrawn their traders from the west side of the Rocky Mountains; they have fewer difficulties to overcome in arriv- ing at the highest point of navigation, than the Northwest Company. Their route is through Hudson's Bay, the Nelson river, to Lake Winnipie ; thence, by passing other lakes, they ascend the Red River to their establishment, which is within ninety miles of the Missouri river, at a point called the Mandan villages. This river takes its rise in the Rocky mountains in about the forty-third degree of latitude, and observes a course north and north-east towards Hudson's Bay until it arrives at the Mandan villages, a distance of nearly 1200 miles, when it turns short to the south, without any apparent cause, and joins the Mississippi; the water running to the Hudson's Bay at that point, approaching within one mile, and no hill or high ground to separate them of any magnitude. Yet, notwith- standing the many advantages which the Hudson's Bay Com- pany possessed over the Northwest Company, the Earl of Selkirk, the patron of the former, and a man of uncommon enterprise, was exceedingly desirous to obtain the privilege of supplying his establishments upon the Red River by ascend- ing the Mississippi to the St. Peter's, thence to its source in 66 DOCUMENTS. Stone Lake, then, by a short portage, through open woods and a level country, to his stations; or, taking the route by; the Missouri to the Mandan villages, thence, by a portage of ninety miles, to his place of destination. The exports of this company, for a short time past, have been very little less than that of the Northwest Company. The Committee, from carefully examining all the facts con- nected with the subject referred to them, are well persuaded that the situation of the United States is such as to enable it to possess all the benefits derived from this trade, which, in the hands of others, amounts to millions; many of whose trad- ing establishments east of the Rocky mountains, are within the acknowledged limits of the republic, as fixed by the Conven- tion of London of the 20th of October, 1818 ; and, it is believed that no power, with the exception of Spain, has any just claim to territory west of them, or on the Pacific. The dependence for subsistence of many of those establishments, is upon the buffalo beef hunted by the Assiniboin Indians, who inhabit the country between the river of that name and the Missouri ; their hunting ground is far within our boundary. To succeed in procuring to the people of the United States all the wealth flowing from this source, it is only necessary to occupy with a small trading guard the most northeastern point upon the Missouri river, and confine the foreigners to their own terri- tory; at the same time occupying, with a similar guard, the mouth of the Columbia. The great profit derived from this trade by the Canadian companies, when we know the distance and obstructions in their rivers, and in the various streams they ascend in carrying it on, the advance of price consequent upon it becomes rather a matter of amazement than otherwise, and inclines us to examine our own rivers with a view to the same object. Instead, however, of those formidable obstruc- tions, we find a smooth and deep river running through a boundless extent of the most fertile soil on this continent, containing within its limits all those valuable furs which have greatly enriched others ; a certain, safe, and easy navigation, with a portage of only two hundred miles, uniting it with OCCUPATION OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 67 another river, equally smooth, deep, and certain, running to the great Western Ocean. Thus are those two great oceans separated by a single portage of two hundred miles! The practibility of a speedy, safe, and easy communication with the Pacific, is no longer a matter of doubt or conjecture: from information not to be doubted, the Rocky Mountains at this time, in several places, is so smooth and open that the labor of ten men for twenty days would enable a wagon with its usual freight to pass with great facility from the navigable water of the Missouri to that of the Columbia: the actual distance from river to river several hundred miles from their source, that is from the great Falls of Missouri to the fork of Clark's river, is one hundred and forty-nine miles; the dis* tance, therefore, of two hundred is to good navigation on the Columbia, which is the only river of any magnitude upon that whole coast, north of the Colorado of California, though there are several good harbors, secure and safe for vessels of any size. The region of country from the Ocean to the head of tide water, which is about two hundred miles, is heavily timbered, with a great variety of wood well calculated for ship building, and every species of cabinet, or carpenter's work ; though there is a heavily timbered country thence for two hundred miles further, yet it is of a lesser growth, and quality is not so durable; at that point commences the plain country when the soil becomes more thin, and almost without wood, until it arrives at the table lands below the mountain. Though the soil of this region is not so good as in any other part of this great valley, yet it produces grass of the finest quality, and is emphatically called the' region favorable to the production of the horse ; this noble animal so far surpassing all others in use- fulness, courage and swiftness, is here produced in greater perfection than even in Andalusia, or Virginia. But, inde- pendent of all the wealth which may be derived from the fur trade of that river, and the Missouri, the security too which the peace of this country would find in the influence which the American traders would obtain over the native, is the in- creasing commerce in the Western Ocean. There is no em68 DOCUMENTS. ployment so well calculated to make good seamen, as the whale fisheries, which are known to be more profitable on this coast than any other; at the same time the oil is far preferable to that taken on any other coast, being clear and transparent as rock water. Whilst so many of our citizens are industriously engaged in the various branches of trade in those seas, more valuable to this country it is believed than any other; whilst all nations who have claims upon that coast, and some who have none, are anxious to occupy some position upon it, even at a vast expense, to enable them to participate in its benefits we have neglected to extend to it any portion of our care, though it appears, from the best information, that there is at this time eight millions of property owned by citizens of this republic in the Pacific Ocean. Russia, whose dominions on the Asiatic coast, occupy nearly the same position upon that side, which ours do on this, has long been well informed of the great and increasing value of that commerce ; and whilst she has been no where visible, not even to the powers of Europe, only as she has of late taken part in a few memorable enterprizes, she has been felt every- where. No labor, care or expense, is avoided, to make tribu- tary the four quarters of the globe ; forts, magazines, towns, cities, and trade, seem to arise on that coast as if by magic; with an army of a million of men, she sits not only in proud security as it regards Europe, and menaces the Turk, the Pers- ian, the Japanese, and Chinese, but even the King of Spain's dominions in North America is equally easy of access, and equally exposed to her fearful weight of power. Her watchful- ness is ever in advance in discerning the most practicable av- enues to profitable commerce. In the midst of all her busy ar- rangements she has not neglected the opportunity of possessing herself of two important stations on the American shore of the Pacific the one at a place called New- Archangel, in about 59 cleg, of north latitude, the other at Bodiga Bay, in latitude 38 deg. 34 min. At the former of these military positions, for the protection of her commerce it is presumed, she has incurred much expense, and built a fort of great strength, situated upon OCCUPATION OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 69 one of the best harbors on the coast, standing upon a point of land projecting into the little bay, giving something the ap- pearance of a conical island in the centre of it ; this fort is well supplied at all times with provisions and military stores, mounting an hundred and twenty cannon carrying balls from eighteen to twenty-four pounds weight. That at Bodiga is well constructed and supplied with cannon, and has a good harbor; at this point they have ammunition and merchandize in abun- dance, and find the Indian trade at this post as well as New- Archangel very considerable; besides the fine condition of this fort and its defences, they have many field pieces, some of brass, of the finest construction, in good order and well mounted. All these supplies have been conveyed to those places through immense oceans round Cape Horn, which would have appalled any but Russian policy and perseverance. The light articles destined for this trade are transported from St. Petersburgh, in sledges, which will perform in three months. that which would require two summers of water conveyance to effect ; their communications are open to Kamtschatka, to fort St. Peter, and St. Paul, by Okhotsk, in the Pacific, where they have the finest harbor in the world ; the distance is esti- mated at ten thousand miles. The nation which can encounter such journeys as these, often through seas of ice, and storms of snow so terrible as to obscure an object beyond the distance of a few paces, to prosecute any branch of commerce, must be well and fully informed of its value. That the objects she has* in view may not, by any event, be taken from her grasp, aftev encountering such vast difficulties, she has found it expedient to occupy one of the Sandwich Islands, which not only enables her effectually to maintain her positions, but to command the whole northern part of the Pacific Ocean. These Islands lying just within the tropics, in the direct course from the lower coast of North America to Canton, are well supplied not only with all the fruits of that climate, but with every vegetable and animal known in this country. It is worthy of remark, that among other advantages which the Russian position on the opposite coast possesses, is, that a 70 DOCUMENTS. voyage from Kamtschatka to Japan can be made in an open boat, as it is a continued chain of Islands from the Okhotsk sea, until it arrives at its place of destination. Your Committee are well pursuaded that, by a little care and small expense, the citizens of this Republic might reap all the benefits of this trade, not only profitable now, but from every view of the subject there is a strong probability that it- will increase for many years. Were an establishment made at the mouth of Columbia which should be allowed to take with them their women and children, there can be no doubt of success, as so many years experience of the English fur companies have amply shown this mode has the most powerful effect in separating the minds of the men from pursuits, which often in frontier countries lead to strife, as it gives them a local interest and feeling, and makes them even more vigilant and prudent in the discharge of all their duties. It is believed that population could be easily acquired from China, by which the arts of peace would at once acquire strength and influence, and make visible to the aborigines the manner in which their wants could be supplied ; the coast of the Pacific is in its climate more mild than any part of the continent in the same parallel, and many vegeta- bles on that shore grow in great abundance in the native forest, which are likewise natives of China. It is known, that when the Spanish Government, in 1789, sent their ships of war up the coast to capture the British vessels, which were intruding, they found seventy Chinese, whom the English had procured to emigrate, that they might be employed in the mechanic arts; and though the people of that country evince no disposition to emigrate to the territory of adjoining princes, it is believed they would willingly, nay. gladly embrace the opportunity of a home in America, where they have no prejudices, no fears, no restraints in opinion, labor, or religion. The Committee cannot doubt, that an establishment made on the Pacific would essentially benefit the natives, whilst it would give this country the advantage of all its own treasures, OCCUPATION OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 71 which otherwise must be lost forever, or rather never enjoyed ; and, from all that can be ascertained relative to its present and increasing value, of more profit to this country than the mines of Potosi. From the best information which can be had, it appears that the Indian trade on the Missouri, below the Mandan villages, is worth about $120,000, and that on the Mississippi is valued at $250,000, making the sum of $370,000 annually. They have reflected upon this trade, and that prosecuted by the whalers on that coast, and are irresistibly drawn to the conclusion, that they are the most valuable to this nation, and demand its care and attention in a high degree. This trade, unlike any other, originates its own capital, and may fairly be said to bring into the United States $370,000 every year, where not one dollar previously existed, and adds that much to the wealth of the community, as decidedly as though it had been fished from the bottom of the rivers in gold and silver, as it is in the market of China, or any oth^r market, capable of purchasing as much: and if, with that amount in furs, a vessel should sail from the mouth of Columbia to Canton, which is a voyage of from fifty to munity $740,000, which is the result not of a profitable voyage, but a creative trade. It is believed that a shipment of tobacco, flour, or cotton bears no comparison in point of profit with this, as they are properly the rough manufactures of the country, and the result of considerable, capital, and the cargo brought back ir return for them, in European or other fabrics, is only an in- creased value they receive by being exported, and returned to us in that shape. Hence, the exportation of $370,000 worth of tobacco or cotton, should it return to us $740,000 in European silks and cloth, is still the original cargo of tobacco or cotton, as nothing but these have been paid for them; but, in the first instance, he who manufactures either the tobacco, flour or cotton, is compelled to take into consid- eration the capital employed, and then the balance is his gain ; 72 DOCUMENTS. but in the fur trade, and the whale fisheries, there is in the one little capital, in the other, none. Under the strongest belief that, by a new organization of the system of Indian trade, comprehending a settlement on the Columbia river, that great benefits would result to the citizens of the Republic, whilst the aborigines would be better pro- tected and provided for, by instructing them in agriculture and the minor branches of the mechanic arts, the Committee ask leave to report a bill. The bill is as follows: Be it enacted, &c, That the President of the United States be, and he is hereby authorized and required, to occupy that portion of the territory of the United States on the waters of the Columbia river, and to extinguish the Indian title to a district of country not exceeding miles square, on the borders of said river, in the region of tide water; and that - acres of land be allowed to each actual settler, being the head of a family, and to each unmarried man, between the age of eighteen and forty-five years, who shall establish himself in said district, and cultivate ground therein within years after the Indian title shall be extinguished thereto. Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the President shall prescribe regulations for the government of said district, and the administration of justice therein, and appoint the neces- sary officers for carrying the same into effect. Sec. 3. And ~be it further enacted, That the President be authorized to open a port of entry, as soon as he shall deem it expedient, within the said district, and to appoint custom- house officers for the regulation of the same ; from and after which time the revenue laws of the United States shall be ex- tended over said district, and be of full force therein. Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the President be authorized and required to appoint agents for the Indian tribes on the waters of the Columbia, and to fix the salaries of the agents so appointed, not exceeding the salary now allowed to the agent to the Indians on the Upper Missouri: and that from and after such appointment, all laws of the United States OCCUPATION OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 73 for regulating intercourse with the Indian tribes, shall be deemed and had to be in full force throughout the territories inhabited by the said tribes. Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That there shall be a Superintendent of Indian Affairs, who shall reside at St. Louis ; and all the Indian agents to the different tribes on the waters of the Upper Mississippi, the Lakes Michigan, Erie, and Superior, and the waters of Missouri, Arkansas, Red River, and Columbia, shall be under his control and direction, and shall corrspond with him, and through him, to the De- partment of War. The said Superintendent shall be author- ized and required to grant all licenses to Indian traders, and shall have over them a general superintendence; that each trader shall make a full and accurate report to him of the state and condition of the Indians with whom they trade, at least once a month ; and the Superintendent shall forward the same, digested in a general report, to the Department of War, once in three months, or oftener if thereto required. Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That so much of every act which establishes a superintendency of Indian Affairs at Washington city, and so much of every act which establishes factories among the Indian tribes, be, and the same is hereby, repealed. Sec. 7. And be it further enacted, That the property in the hands of the Superintendent of Indian Affairs at Washington city, and the respective factors in the service of the United States, be sold, and the proceeds accounted for in such manner as the Secretary of the Department of War may direct. Sec. 8. And be it further enacted, That licenses shall not be granted to trade with any of the Indian tribes, to any but citizens of the United States, of approved moral character. and of ability to embark at least dollars annually in the trade ; and every trader obtaining a license so to trade, shall have a fixed habitation ; to which end he may lease from the tribe where such habitation is fixed, a tract of land not ex- ceeding miles square, and for a term not exceeding years, nor shall it be within miles of a similar location 74 DOCUMENTS. previously made, and shall have leave to trade within the limits of their respective licenses; and each trader shall set up a blacksmith shop, and shall supply the Indians with such working tools as they may be willing to purchase; and are hereby required to cultivate at their establishments, the dif- ferent kinds of grain and fruit, which the climate and soil will produce, and shall rear the domestic animals in common use ; and shall furnish seed and stock animals to such Indians as may wish to buy them, and shall induce them to cultivate the soil and rear domestic animals. Nor shall any trader be permitted to sell to any of the Indian tribes ardent spirits of any kind, under the penalty of - - dollars for every such offence, and shall ever after be debarred the privilege of trading with any Indian tribe. Each trader shall pay - dollars annually for his license, but it shall be granted during good behaviour upon his giving bond with sufficient security, which shall be judged of by the superintendent, and may by him be required to give additional security in proportion to his additional capital employed every two years, the license to be annulled for breach of conditions, which shall be deter- mined by the verdict of a jury. Sec. 9. And ~be it further enacted, That the money paid to the superintendent annually for licenses by the Indian traders, shall be by him appropriated to the purchase of any kind of seed or domestic animals, for such Indians as may want to cultivate such seed, or rear such animals ; but if, at the end of the year, there should be money remaining in his hands accru- ing from this fund, he shall make payment of it into the Treasury of the United States, where it shall be kept as a dis- tinct fund, to be applied to the building of mills in such place and manner among the different tribes as the President may direct; and it is hereby made the duty of the agent who has care of the affairs of that tribe where such mill is built, to superintend the building of the same, and to transmit an accurate account of his disbursements to the superintendent, and by him to the Department of War. OCCUPATION OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER. 75 Sec. 10. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of every Indian agent to report to the Superintendent of In- dian Affairs upon the state and condition of the Indians, and the conduct of the traders, within their respective agencies, at least once a month, and of tener if thereto required ; the said reports to be made in the form prescribed by the Secretary of the Department of War, and upon all such points as may be indicated by the said department; and the superintendent shall forward the same, digested into a general report, to the Department of War, at least once in three months, and as much oftener as may be required. Sec. 11. And be it further enacted, That all Indian agents, not under the direction of the superintendent as herein di- rected, shall be authorized to issue licenses to traders within the limits of the Indian territory under their authority, and shall correspond directly with the Department of War. Sec. 12. And be it further enacted, That the sum of dollars is hereby appropriated to carry into effect the pro- visions of this act, to be paid out of any money in the Treas-
ury not otherwise appropriated. LETTERS.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN TO SIMEON FRANCIS. 1
"Springfield, Illinois, August 4, 1860. "Friend Francis: "I have had three letters from you one, a long one, received in February; one, telling me of the deputation of Mr. Greeley to cast the vote of Oregon in the Chicago convention, received a few days before that convention; and one written since you knew the result of your Oregon election, received a few days ago. I have not, till now, attempted an answer to any of them, because I disliked to write you a mere note, and because I could not find time to write at length. "Your brother Allen has returned from California, and, I under- stand, intends remaining here. Josiah is running the J. P. court, about as when you left We had a storm here last night which did considerable damage, the largest single instance of which was the Withies A wall of their brick shop building was thrown in, and, it is said, destroyed ten thousand dollars worth of carriages. I have heard of no personal injury done.
"When you wrote, you had not learned of the doings of the Demo- cratic convention at Baltimore; but you will be in possession of it all long before this reaches you. I hesitate to say it, but it really appears now, as if the success of the Republican ticket is inevitable. We have no reason to doubt any of the States which voted for Fremont. Add to these, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and the thing is
l Note. Simeon Francis was editing The Oregonian. He edited the Illinois State Journal at Springfield, Illinois, from 1831 to 1857, and during those years formed the acquaintance of Mr. Lincoln, which ripened into a life-long and most intimate friendship. Mr. Francis came to Portland in 1859, and was connected with The Oregonian until September 9, 1861, when he was appointed Paymaster in the United States Army. David Logan, spoken of, was a son of Judge Stephen T. Logan, once a law partner of Mr. Lincoln at Springfield. Colonel Baker, alluded to, was Edward Dickinson Baker, a mutual friend of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Francis, who came to California in 1852, and to Oregon early in 1860. He was elected to the United States Senate by the Oregon legislature in September, 1860, raised a regiment for the Union soon after the beginning of the Civil War, and was killed at the head of his command at the battle of Ball's Bluff, Virginia. October 21, 1861. The letter was given to the Oregon Historical Society by Mrs. Byron Z. Holmes, a niece of Mr. Francis. The "Allen" referred to was Hon. Allen Francis, Mrs. Holmes' father, who for many years was United States Consul at Victoria, British Columbia. This letter is printed for the first time. George H. Himes, Assistant Secretary. DOCUMENTS LETTERS. 77 done. Minnesota is as sure as such a thing can be, while the democ- racy are so divided between Douglas and Breckinridge in Pennsylvania and New Jersey that they are scarcely less sure. Our friends are also confident in Indiana and Illinois. I should expect the same division would give us a fair chance in Oregon. Write me what you think on that point. "We were very anxious here for David Logan's election. I think I will write him before long. If you see Col. Baker, give him my respects. I do hope he may not be tricked out of what he has fairly earned. "Make my kindest regards to Mrs. Francis; and tell her I both hope and believe she is not so unhappy as when I saw her last. "Your friend, as ever, "A. LINCOLN." The following is a copy of an autograph letter, now owned by the Society, from Gen. George E. Pickett who, in July, 1863, led the Confederate charge against the Federal forces at Gettysburg. The person to whom it is addressed was Major, afterwards Colonel, Reuben F. Maury, a veteran of the Mexi- can War, an Oregon pioneer of 1852, and Lieutenant-Colonel of the First Oregon Cavalry during the Civil War. General Pickett, a captain in charge of the United States troops on San Juan Island, Washington, at the time the letter was written, and Colonel Maury were classmates at West Point. This letter was given to the writer for the Society in 1903. Colon* ] Maury was a resident of Jackson County, Oregon, for many years, and died near Jacksonville on February 20, 1906, in his eighty-fifth year. George H. Himes, Assistant Secretary. GEO. E. PICKETT TO REUBEN F. MAURY. San Juan, W. T., February 13, 1861. My Dear Major: I should have answered your kind note long since, had I not seen in the Portland [Oregonian?] that you were on the eve of saying good- bye to us. It was only by the last steamer I learned much to my grati- fication that the report was untrue, knowing as I did too that you yourself preferred being let alone. However, my dear Major, I am afraid it is but a short respite for I think we [officers] of the Grande Armee shall be compelled t6 go. I much fear the Register of 1861 78 DOCUMENTS LETTERS. will be the last published. Write me what you think the best course to pursue in case of a break up. What will we do with the public property & funds. In some places there may be a general scramble. Major Eagan has no money. The troops ought to be paid very promptly in this crisis, that is if the government wish to use them. I myself come from a Union loving State, but matters are taking such a phase at present that she & the other border & Union States such as Ky., Tenn., Md., Mo. cannot make their voices heard. The Republicans in their pride & flush of victory will not listen to the terms proposed by the conservative element from those good & true States, when they ask but their rights and no more. No they are ignommiously rejected. On the other hand I do not like to be bullied nor draged out of the Union by the precipitancy and indecent haste of South Carolina. Since seeing you last I have learned the sad news of my mother's death. Sad and desolate as it leaves me still it would be a selfish wish on my part that it were otherwise. For years she has been an invalid and lately has been a constant sufferer, uncomplaining always. My sister wrote me that her bodily pains were sometimes terrible to wit- ness. A woman of bright intelligence, very well read, and of a dis- position full of love and tenderness. Even to her last hour she made those around her happy. It is a great consolation to know that she is where she can no longer be subjected to our earthly afflictions, and that she did not live to see the country she was so proud of torn with civil strife & discord, and our once great nation a ruin. My uncle writes me that her estate is left to be divided amongst her three children, and which a year ago was worth at least $100,000 could not now be sold for half that sum in fact I don't suppose it could be disposed of at all, on account of the depreciation in the value of slaves, etc. Everything is quiet here. We see a good deal of the offrs [officers] from the other camp and are on very sociable and pleasant terms. Please present my regards to Mrs. Alvord & Mr. Charles. Love to John Kellogg. All here Griffin included desire to be remembered to you. Where is Longstreet?
Ever your friend, GEORGE E. PICKETT. NOTES AND NEWS.
The Oregon people must be credited with a most gratifying political achievement in the nearly unanimous ratification by the legislature of the popular choice for United States Senators. This exhibition of .leadership in the solution of what was becoming a decidedly vexatious problem in American democracy betokens genius for the exigencies of self-government. Of course the problem connected with the choice of representative men is not fully solved, and no sagacious Oregonian deludes himself into thinking that Oregon's radical innovations are perfect, yet there is a deep convition that the State has struck out on the right line and that it means the attainment of a larger and richer commonwealth life and achievement. All patriotic Oregonians are already earnestly deliberating upon improvements in the devices of the direct primary and the method of popular choice of United States Senators that shall retain for Oregon primacy in these great innovations.
The new railway and banking legislation put the State in line with the requirements, as to law and administrative machinery, that modern economic development and achievements demand. By wise adaptation and elaboration of these new departments through interpretation of our own experience and utilization of the experience of other States incalculable returns in higher welfare for the Oregon people are insured. In the matter of taxation and financial administration only minor improvements were secured. It is to be especially deplored that nothing was accomplished by the legislature for the development of irrigation institutions. On the right development of our water resources for irrigation and power purposes hangs so much of the future greatness and happiness of the people of the State—and every postponement of the right start enhances the difficulties of the problem, if it does not permanently dwarf the possibilities of the State—that this failure of the legislature was nothing less than a calamity.
Our situation connected with the organization and work of the institutions of normal and higher education was not relieved. It was hoped that the right co-ordination of these agencies would be entrusted to a representative committee that would undertake a thorough study of all the elements of the problem. The legislative proceedings as well as the discussions carried on by the press of the State indicate that the people are awakening to a realization of their interests at stake in the control of the public utilities. This is exceedingly auspicious.
The Macmillan Company has just published in a most attractive form "Vancouver's Discovery of Puget Sound." Professor Edmund S. Meany of the University of Washington, in preparing this unique work, has given the historical setting of Vancouver's explorations, also extended biographies of Vancouver and Bodega and sketches of the men honored in the naming of the geographical features of Northwestern America. Finely executed portraits of all the historic characters are inserted in connection with the text of Journal of Vancouver. The Journal is complete for all the movements of the expedition on the Sound and "muster tables" are given in the appendix. More extended notice of this volume will be given in the next issue of the Quarterly. The price of the book is $2.50 net.
The Sunset for March contains a noteworthy article by Joseph Gaston on "Oregon's Inland Empire." The same periodical has W. F. Bailey's "Overland by the Butterfield Stage."
Professor Joseph Schafer is engaged upon a careful study of the life and public services of Jesse Applegate.
The Hon. John Minto has been contributing to the columns of the Morning Oregonian and the Salem Statesman a spirited discussion of the interest of the people in the forestry policy of the National Government. Mr. Minto is a firm believer in the American idea of entrusting the largest measure of control of national resources consonant with public welfare directly to the people.
Principal William I. Marshall of the Gladstone School of Chicago died on October 30, 1906. Mr. Marshall was accounted a man of sterling worth in the circle in which he moved and most highly esteemed and loved by his pupils. This man with his bread winning activities in Chicago made the correction of a version of an event of Oregon history his life mission. He is to be credited with a distinct and large service to the cause for disclosing by his indefatigable researches many valuable data. For a score of years he seems to have made the question of how the Pacific Northwest came under American rule his one hobby. He surely knew more about this epoch of Oregon history than any person will be likely to know again. In personal association he was genial and an exemplar in amenity and modest deference, but with his pen he was drastic and would not brook with equanimity a difference of position. If his was not the judicial mind of the great historian he had in the highest measure keenness and zeal in research and for directing his great energies and fine abilities toward the Oregon field he was adjudged deserving the recognition of an election to honorary membership in the Oregon Historical Society. While the results of his investigations have appeared from time to time in the Sunday Oregonian his final statement of them will, it is expected, appear in book form.
Reverend Myron Eells, D. D.,—the leading protagonist championing an opposite view from that of Principal Marshall as to the measure of influence of Dr. Marcus Whitman upon the destiny of Oregon—died at his home on the Skokomish Reservation, near Union, Mason County, Washington, on January 4, 1907. Dr. Eells was a worthy representative of the second generation of that group of missionaries sent out by the American Board in the thirties. Though the spirit and labors of this band did not have any decisive influence in shaping the destiny of Oregon, nevertheless they did add much to the higher life of the Pacific Northwest. Myron Eells was born on Walker's Prairie, near the present city of Spokane. October 7, 1843, and was the second son of Reverend Cushing Eells and Myra Fairbanks Eells, who came across the plains in 1838 as missionaries of the American Board to assist Dr. Marcus Whitman and wife and Reverend Henry H. Spalding and wife in their work among the Oregon Indians. Myron entered Pacific University in 1861 and was graduated in 1866. He then went East and began his study in theology in Hartford Seminary, from which he was graduated in 1871. He was pastor for the Congregational Church at Boise from 1871 to 1874, when he received an appointment by the American Missionary Association as a missionary on the reservation where he continued his labors until his death. During this period of more than thirty years, however, he was most active and influential in promoting the educational and scientific interests of the Pacific Northwest. He was a trustee of Whitman College and of Pacific University for many years. He had a membership in the Anthropological Society at Washington, D. C., and in the Victoria Institute, London, England, and in many others. The publications of the Smithsonian Institution contain many of his contributions. He was the leading authority in the Pacific Northwest on all questions pertaining to Indian life. He was also a zealous student of the missionary history of this region and made most valuable contributions to the literature bearing on missionary activities. In addition to many minor pamphlets and newspaper articles we have his "History of Indian Missions of the Pacific Coast Oregon, Washington, and Idaho," published by the American Sunday School Union in 1882; and his "Father Eells, or the Results of Fifty-five Years of Missionary Labors in Oregon and Washington"—essentially a life of his father. This was issued by the Congregational Sunday School and Publishing Society, Boston, in 1894. Pacific University is, I believe, about to publish his history of that institution. In order to prosecute such studies in ethnology and history in his isolation on the reservation it was necessary for him to collect an extensive library and museum. His collections in his fields of productive activity were most valuable and were in large part bequeathed to Whitman College. Dr. Eells was married to Miss Sarah M. Crosby in Boise, Idaho, on January 18, 1875, and she, with several children, mostly grown, survive him. THE PREFATORY NOTE TO THE NESMITH DIARY.
It has come to the notice of the Editor of the Quarterly through anonymous and signed letters that exception is taken to an expression in the prefatory note to the Nesmith diary. They animadvert upon a casual statement that the migration of 1843 was led by Dr. Marcus Whitman. Mr. McArthur, who prepared his grandfather's diary for publication and who wrote the biographical note, made this reference to Dr. Whitman in connection with the migration of 1843 just as he had in the preceding lines used the name of Dr. Elijah White in connection with the migration of 1842, solely to indentify the migration more clearly than the abstract date would suffice to do. Under these circumstances it did not occur to the Editor there could be read into this expression an implied claim, or hint even, that the migration of 1843 was worked up and organized by Dr. Whitman. As a matter of fact, Dr. Whitman was that year retracing a large part of the emigration route the fifth time, so his counsel to the leaders of the migration of 1843 at certain stages of the route, as documentary evidence confirms, must have been quite important.
Furthermore, the Editor of the Quarterly feels that after having published hundreds of pages of prime sources for this period of Oregon history, and after having personally searched through many files of eastern newspapers of this period and having copied for publication much new material to aid in arriving at the whole truth in this matter, that he might fairly receive credit for being without serious bias on the issues of this unfortunate controversy. He had hoped, too, that all sensitiveness had disappeared as the verdict on the main issues was rendered years ago. Nevertheless, he regrets exceedingly that the expression used has disturbed the thought of any of the readers of the Quarterly. ACCESSIONS
To January 30. 1907.
Gleanings from the Eecords of the Boston Marine Society, Through Its First Century, 1742 to 1842. Compiled by Nath'l Spooner. Bos- ton: Published by the Society, 1879. 12mo, Cloth, 191 pp.
Twenty Eventful Years of the Oregon Woman's Christian Temper- ance Union, 1880-1900. Statistical, Historical and Biographical. By Mrs. Lucia H. Faxon Additon, National Organizer and Lecturer, State Historian. Gotshall Printing Company, Portland, Oregon, 1904. 8vo, Cloth, 120 pp. Illustrated with numerous portraits. Presented by the Author.
Baptist Annals of Oregon, 1844 to 1900. By Rev. C. H. Mattoon. With an Introduction by Hon. W. Carey Johnson, LL. D. Vol. I. Press of the Telephone-Register Publishing Co., McMinnville, Oregon, 1906. 8vo, Half leather, 464 pp. Copiously illustrated. Presented by the Author and Publishing Committee.
Eighth Biennial Eeport of the State Auditor of Washington to the State Legislature, Session of 1905. Published by Authority. Seattle, Washington. The Metropolitan Press, Inc., 1904. 8vo, Cloth, 410 pp. Presented by H. W. Scott.
McCarver and Tacoma. By Thomas W. Prosch. Lowman & Han- ford Stationery and Printing Company, Seattle, Wash., 1906. Illus. 8vo, Cloth, 198 pp. Presented by the Author. (Mr. McCarver was an Oregon Pioneer of 1843, a man of affairs in many respects, and the founder of Tacoma, Washington, in 1868.)
Cardinal, The. Portland High School Annual. Class number pub- lished by the June Class, 1906. Illus. 8vo, Cloth, 128 pp.
Executive Journal of Iowa 1838-1841, Governor Eobert Lucas. Edited by Benjamin F. Shambaugh, Professor of Political Science in the State University of Iowa. Published by the State Historical So- ciety of Iowa, Iowa City, 1906. 8vo, Cloth, 344 pp.
Governors of Iowa, Messages and Proclamations of. Compiled and edited by Benjamin F. Shambaugh. Vol. VII. Published by the State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, 1905. 8vo, Cloth, 480 pp.
Iowa Biographical Series. Lucas, Eobert; Life of. By John C. Parish. State Historical Society of Iowa, 1907. Illus. 8vo, Cloth, 356 pp. 86 ACCESSIONS. Directory of Ashland, Medford, Jacksonville, Gold Hill, Central Point, Grants Pass, Eoseburg, Drain, Oakland, and Yoncalla. Vol. I 1906. 8vo, 594 pp. Cloth back, paper sides. E. L. Polk & Co., 1906. American Commonwealth, The. By James Bryce, M. P. Abridged and Eevised from First Edition, with Historical Appendix. John D. Morris & Co., Philadelphia. Illus. 8vo, Cloth, 358 pp. Smith of Bear City and Other Frontier Sketches. By George T. Buffum, New York. The Grafton Press, 1906. Illus. 8vo, 250 pp. Presented by the Author. Maine Historical Society, Collections of. S'eries III, Vol. II. Pub- lished by the Society. Portland, 1906. Illus. 8vo, Cloth, 500 pp. Documentary History of the State of Maine, containing the Baxter Manuscripts. Edited by James Phinney Baxter. Vol. IX. Portland, Maine: Lefavor-Tower Company, 1907. 8vo, Cloth, 497 pp. South Dakota Historical Collections. Illustrated with Maps and Engravings. Compiled by the State Historical Society. Vol. Ill 1906. News Printing Company, Aberdeen, S. D., 1906. 8vo, Cloth, 592 pp. United States Life-Saving Service, Annual Eeport of, for the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1906. Washington: Government Printing Offic'e, 1906. 8vo, Cloth, 460 pp. Chicago, Eighteenth Annual Eeport of the Trade and Commerce of, for the Year ending December 31, 1875. Chicago, 1876. 8vo, Cloth, 232 pp. (Two copies.) Eegnlations for the Medical Department of the Army. Washing- ton: George W. Bowman, Public Printer, 1860. 8vo, Leather, 88 pp. (Contains autograph of Dr. E. Glisan, and notes by him.) Eevised United States Army Eegulation of 1861. With an Ap- pendix containing the Changes and Laws Affecting Army Eegulations and Articles of War to June 25, 1863. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1863. 8vo, Cloth, 594 pp. Eegist'er of the Commissioned, Warrant, and Volunteer Officers of the Navy of the United States, including Officers of the Marine Corps and Others, to January 1, 1863. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1863. 8vo, Paper sides, leather back, 248 pp. Side Title: "E. H. Lamson, U. S. Navy." (Mr. Lamson was appointed to Annapolis from Oregon.) Medical and Surgical Directory of the United States for 1886. By E. L. Polk & Co. 8vo, Cloth, 1452 pp. ACCESSIONS. 87 Interstate Commerce Commission, Fourth Annual Eeport of. De- cember 1, 1890. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1900. 8vo, Cloth, 443 pp. Eeport of the State Commissioners of Fisheries, for the year 1897 for Pennsylvania. Clarence M. Busch, State Printer, 1897. Illus. 8vo, Cloth, 412 pp. Secretary of the Navy, Eeport of, with an Appendix, containing Eeports from Officers, December, 1862. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1863. 8vo, Cloth back, paper sides, 530 pp. (Bears autograph of "B. H. Lamson, Bureau of Navigation, Navy Depart- ment, Washington." Annals of Sandy Spring; or Twenty Years History of a Eural Com- munity in Maryland. By William Farquhar. Baltimore: Cushings & Bailey, 1884. 12mo, Cloth, 325 pp. (Presented by Eichard Brooke Magruder, a descendant of one of the Sandy Spring Families, and distantly related to Mr. Lloyd Brooke, a well known Oregon Pioneer of the year 1849.) Jewitt, John E., Narrative of the Adventures and Sufferings of. The only Survivor of the Ship Boston, during a Captivity of Nearly Three Years among the Savages of Nootka Sound, 1803-1806. Illus. Ithaca, N. Y.: Andrus, Gauntlett & Co., 1851. 12mo, Leather, 166 pp. Statistician, The, and Economist, 1901-1902. San Francisco: L. P. McCarty. 8vo, Cloth, 680 pp. Across the Plains and Over the Divide: A Mule Train Journey from East to West in 1862, and Incidents Connected With It. By Eandall H. Hewitt. Maps and Illustrations. Broadway Publishing Co., New York. 12mo, Cloth, 534 pp. (Presented by the Author.) Flora of Northwest America: Containing Brief Descriptions of all Known Indigenous and Naturalized Plants growing without Cultiva- tion North of California, West of Utah, and South of British Colum- bia. By Thomas Howell. Vol. I. Phanerogamae. Portland, Oregon: August 10, 1903. 8vo, Cloth, 818 pp. Eapid Transit, The Story of. By Beckles Wilson. Illus. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1903. 8vo, Cloth, 204 pp. Mississippi Eiver, Discovery of the Sources of, in 1832. By Henry E. Schoolcraft. Illus. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1855. 8vo, Cloth, 596 pp. Constitution of the United States of America, Documentary History of, 1786-1870. Derived from the Eecords, Manuscripts, and Eolls De88 ACCESSIONS. posited in the Bureau of Bolls and Library of the Department of State. Vol. I. Washington: Department of State, 1894. Eoyal 8vo, Cloth, 385 pp. - Vol. II, 897 pp. - Vol. Ill, with special index, 904 pp. Public Buildings under the Control of the Treasury Department, (Exclusive of Marine Hospitals and Quarantine Stations), History of. Dec'ember 24, 1900. Illus. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1901. Eoyal 8vo, 648 pp. Library of Congress, Division of Manuscripts. A Calendar of Washington Manuscripts in the Library of Congress. Compiled under the Direction of Herbert Friedenwald, Ph. D. Washington: Govern- ment Printing Office, 1901. 8vo, Cloth, 315 pp. Eeport of Librarian for the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1902. 8vo, Cloth, 228 pp. - Eeport of Librarian for the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1903. 8vo, Cloth, 600 pp. Expedition down the Zuni and Colorado Eivers, Eeport of an. By Captain L. Sitgreaves, Corps Topographical Engineers. Maps, Sketches, Views, and Illustrations. Washington: Eobert Armstrong, Public Printer. 8vo, Cloth, 200 pp. Bible. American Bible Society Edition of 1846. Brought across the plains to Oregon in 1847 by Charles Hubbard, after whom the town of Hubbard, Oregon, was named, he having taken a Donation Claim there. (Contains autograph of Mr. Hubbard.) (Presented by his widow, Mrs. Mary Cook Hubbard, Dallas, Oregon.) Pioneer Days of Oregon History. By S. A. Clarke. Two Volumes. Illus. Portland: J. K. Gill Company, 1905. 8vo, Cloth 729 pp. Pioneer Eeminiscences of Puget Sound; The Tragedy of Leschi. From Personal Observations during Fifty Years Eesidence, Contem- porary Pioneer Eeminiscences and other Authentic Sources. Ulus. By Ezra Meeker, Seattle, Wash. Seattle: Lowman & Hanford Stationery and Printing Company, 1905. 8vo, Cloth, 554 pp. New York Historical Society. Collections, 1902. Abstracts of Will. Vol. I 1665-1787. New York, 1893. 8vo, Cloth, 520 pp. Vol II, 1708-1728, with appendix. 525 pp. Vol. Ill, Deane Papers, 1778-1779. 490 pp. Vol IV, Deane Papers, 1779-1781. 561 pp. Vol. V, Deane Papers, 1782-1790. 692 pp. Muster Eolls, 1755-1764. 621 pp. ACCESSIONS. 89 Lincoln, Abraham, Life and Public Services of. By Henry J. .Raymond. Illus. New York: Derby & Miller, Publishers, 1865. 8vo, Leather, 808 pp. Clay, Henry, Life and Speeches of. Vol. II. Steel Engraving of Birthplace. Philadelphia: Published by Leary & Getz, 1859. 8vo, Leather, 695 pp. Belden's Guide to Natural Science, History, Biography, General Literature, Etc. By C. Belden, M. A. Illus. San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Co., 1883. 8vo, Half roan, cloth sides, 828 pp. Journal of the Seventh Biennial Session of the House of Eepre- sentatrv es of the Legislative Assembly of Oregon, September 9-October 23, 1872. Salem, Oregon: Eugene Semple, State Printer, 1872. 8vo, Half she'ep, paper sides, 654 pp. New Clerk's Assistant, The; or, Book of Practical Forms. Adapted to the New England, Northern and Western States, and California. By John S. Jenkins, counselor at law. New York: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1855. (Contains autograph of John D. Crawford.) Statesman's Manual, The: Containing the Presidents' Messages, In- augural, Annual, and Special, from 1789 to 1849, compiled from Official Sources, by Edwin Williams. Vol. III. Illus. New York: Edward Walker, 114 Fulton Street, 1849. 8vo, Cloth, 467 pp. General Laws of the State of Oregon passed at the Fifth Eegular Session of the Legislative Assembly, 1868. 8vo, Half sheep, paper sides, 250 pp. Acts and Eesolutions of the Legislative Assembly of Oregon, Fourth Session. 1866, with an Appendix, containing the Decisions of the Supreme Court of Oregon as filed in the office of the Secretary of State since the publication of 1862. 8vo, Half sheep, paper sides, 228 pp. (The foregoing eight volumes presented by Miss Charlotte E. Crawford, and her sister, daughters of John D. Crawford, a pioneer of 1847.) Statesman's Manual, The: Containing Addresses and Messages of the Presidents of the United States from 1789 to 1846. Compiled from Official Sources by Edwin Williams. Vol. II. New York; Edward Walker, 1849. 8vo, Cloth, 870 pp. (Presented by S. L. Brooks, The Dalles, Oregon.) Geology of the Comstock Lode and the Washoe District. Illustrated by plates. Libiary of Congress. A. L. A. Portrait Index to Portraits contained in Printed Books and Periodicals. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906. 8vo, Cloth, 1600 pp. 90 ACCESSIONS. Library of Congress. A. L. A. Catalogue for Popular Library of 8000 volumes. Prepared by the New York State Library and the Library of Congress under the auspices of the American Library Association Publishing Board. 1904. 8vo, Cloth, 888 pp. Preliminary Check List of American Almanacs, 1639-1800. By Alexander Morrison, of the Library of Congress. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1907. Journals of the Continental Congress. Edited from the Orig- inal Records in the Library of Congress by Worthington Chauncey Ford, Chief, Division of Manuscripts. Six Vols. Washington: Gov- ernment Printing Office, 1906. Eoyal 8vo. - The Records of The Virginia Company of London. The Court Book from the Manuscript in the Library of Congress. Edited, with an Introduction and Bibliography, by Susan Myra Kingsbury, A. M., Ph. D., Instructor in History and Economics, Simmons College. Preface by Herbert Levi Osgood, A. M., Ph. D., Professor of American History in Columbia University. Vol. I 1619-1622. Quarto, Cloth, 1906. - Vol. 111622-1624. Calendar of the Correspondence of George Washington, Com- mander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, with the Continental Con- gress. Prepared from the original Manuscripts in the Library of Con- gress by John C. Fitzpatrick, Division of Manuscripts. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906. 8vo, Cloth, 741 pp. - Naval Eecords of the American Revolution, 1775-1788. Pre- pared from the Originals in the Library of Congress, by Charles Henry Lincoln, of the Division of Manuscripts. Washington: Govern- ment Printing Office, 1906. 8vo, Cloth, 549 pp. United States Geological Survey, 16th Annual Report of, to the Secretary of the Interior, 1894-95. Charles D. Walcott, Director. Part ill Mineral Resources of the United States, 1894. Metallic Products. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1895. 8vo, Cloth, 646 pp. - Part IV Mineral Resources of the United States, 1894. Non- Metallic Products. 1895. 735 pp. Maps and Diagrams. - 17th Annual Report. Part III Mineral Resources of the United States, 1896. Metallic Products and Coal. Maps and Dia- grams. 542 pp. - Part HI continued. 1896. 518 pp. 18th Annual Report. Part V. 1897. 642 pp. ACCESSIONS. 91 - Part V continued. 1897. 757 pp. - 19th Annual Keport. 1898. Part VI. 651 pp. - Part VI continued. - 20th Annual Eeport. Part VI 1898-99. 616 pp. - Part VI continued. 1898-99. 804 pp. Unired States Geological Survey, Fifth Annual Eeport, to Secre- tary of the Interior, 1883-1884. By J. W. Powell, Director. Wash- ington: Government Printing Office, 1885. 8vo, Cloth, 469 pp. Maps, plates, engravings. Oregon, Souvenir of. Issued by the Oregon and Washington Division of the Travelers' Protective Association of America, for distribution at the National Convention of that body held in Portland, June 3-7, 1902. Portland: Press of Irwin-Hodson & Co., 1902. Illus. Quarto, Cloth, 113 pp. (Two copies.) Bureau of Ethnology. Ninth Annual Eeport, to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1887-1888. By J. W. Powell, Director. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1892. Illus. Maps. 8vo, Cloth, 617 pp. Twenty-Third Annual Eeport. 1901-1902. Ulus. 8vo, Cloth, 634 pp. Illustrated History of the World, The. By James D. McCabe. 8vo, Cloth, 1260 pp. (Presented by Mrs. L. A. Bozorth, Vancouver, Wash.) Cape Gray's Company; or, Crossing the Plains and Living in Oregon. By Mrs. Abigail J. Duniway. Portland, Oregon: Printed and Published by S. J. McCormick, 1859. 12mo, Cloth, 342 pp. General Laws of Oregon, passed by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory at the Second Session at Oregon City, begun December 2, 1850. Oregon City: Asahel Bush, Territorial Printer, 1851. 8vo, Full sheep, 301 pp. (Autograph of "G. E. Cole, Benton Co., O. T." on flyleaf. Conductor Generalis: or the Office, Duty and Authority of Justices of the Peace, High-Sheriffs, Under-Sheriffs, Coroners, Constables, Goalers, Jury-Men, and Overseers of the Poor. As also the Office of Clerks of Assizes and of the Peace, &c. To which are added, Several Maxims in Law, &c. Compiled chiefly from Burn's Justice, and several books on thos-e subjects. By James Parker, Esquire, late Justice of the Peace in Middlesex County, New Jersey. New York: Printed by John Patterson, for Eobert Hodge, No. 237 Queen Street, 1788. 8vo, Full calf, 539 pp. 92 ACCESSIONS. Boyhood of Great Men, The. Author unknown. New York: Harper Bros. 12mo, Cloth, 385 pp. Conduct of the War of the Eebellion, Eeport of the Joint Com- mittee on. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1863. 8vo, Cloth, 756 pp. - Part 111863. 512 pp. Port Pillow Massacre and Returned Prisoners. 1864. Illus. 168 pp. Analysis of the Derivative Words of the English Language. By Salem Town, A. M. Third Edition. New York: Harper Bros., 1836. 12mo, Cloth, 164 pp. (Once owned by Gov. Geo. Abernethy, a pioneer of 1840, and Provisional Governor of Oregon, 1845-1849. Contains his autograph. Bought at auction, Portland, May 27, 1880, by W. F. Trimble.) Complete Spanish Course. By Louis Ernst. New York: George E. Lockwood, 1861. 12mo, Cloth, 418 pp. (Contains autograph of W. B. Norman, a Portland business man of 1866-68, who gave it to W. F. Trimble February 28, 1867.) Foreign Systems of Naval Education, Eeport on. By Prof. James Eussell Soley, U. S. N. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1880. 8vo, Cloth, 335 pp. Sanders' Fifth Evader. Eevised Edition. 12mo. Sheep, 454 pp. Mutilated. (Contains stencil of "D. H. Jackson." Bought at auction, Portland, by W. F. Trimble.) Secretary of the Treasury, Eeport of the, for 1871. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1871. 8vo, Cloth, 558 pp. Commissioner of Agriculture, Eeport of, for 1867. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1868. 8vo, Cloth, 510 pp. Commission'er of General Land Office, Eeport of, to the Secretary of the Interior, for the year 1869. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1870. 8vo, Cloth, 406 pp. (Bears autograph of the late Senator and Judge, James K. Kelly, of Oregon; also autograph of W. F. Trimble.) Portland Directory, 1866. 104 pp. S. J. McCormick, Publisher. Also, Appendix, containing city ordinances for 1865. 60 pp. 8vo, Paper sides. - 1874. 270 pp. Appendix, containing city charter. 36 pp. (Portraits of first five Mayors of Portland, viz., Hugh D. O'Bryant, ACCESSIONS. 93 1851; A. C. Bonnell, 1852; Josiah Failing, 1853; W. S. Ladd, 1854; George W. Vaughn, 1855.) - 1875. 212 pp. Appendix, city charter and ordinances, 85 pp. Oregon Business Directory and State Gazetteer. Compiled by John Mortimer Murphy. First year of publication. S. J. McCormick, Publisher. Portland, Oregon, 1873. 8vo, Paper sides. Illus. 382 pp. (Two Copies.) Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, First Session, 1859-60. Four Parts. - 41st Congress, Second Session, 1869-70. Six Parts. - 41st Congress, Third Session, 1869-70. Three Parts. - 42d Congress, Third Session, 1872-73. Three Parts. (Dupli- cates.) Congressional Record. Vol. 2, Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 43d Congress, First fcession, June 15 to June 23, 1874. Vol 5, Part I, 44th Congress, Second Session, December 4, 1876, to January 23, 1877. (Part 4 contains the Proceedings of the Electoral Commission, appointed by act of Congress approved Janu- ary 29 1877.) Congressional Record, Vol. I, Special Session, United States Senate, March 4 to 26, 1873. Military Commission to Europe in 1855 and 1856. Report of Major Alfred Mordecai of the Ordnance Department. Washington: George W. Bowman, Printer, 1860. Plates. Quarto, Cloth, 232 pp. Coast Survey, Report of Prof. A. D. Bache, Superintendent, show- ing progress in 1855. Washington: Cornelius Wendell, Printer, 1856. Sixty jlates and maps. Quarto, Cloth, 420 pp. Explorations and Surveys for a Railroad Route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, under the Direction of the Secretary of War. Authorized by acts of Congress, March 3, 1853, May 31, 1854, and August 5, 1854. Vol. I. Washington: Beverly Tucker, Printer, 1855. Quarto, Cloth. - Vol. XI. Washington: George W. Bowman, Printer, 1861. Appleton's Journal of Literature, Science and Art. Vol. I. April 3 to August 14, 1869. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1869. Royal 8vo, 644 pp. (Preceding twenty volumes presented by Mrs. C. A. Trimble, Portland.) Washington, The Evergreen State, History of. By Julian Haw94 ACCESSIONS. thorne Vol. I. New York: American Historical Publishing Co., 1893. Illus. 8vo, Half mor. cloth, 709 pp. - Vol. II. 676 pp. Michigan, Annual Eeports of State Board of Health, 1888 to 1902, inclusive. 15 vols. 8vo, Cloth. Oregonian's Handbook of the Pacific Northwest, 1894. Illus. 8vo, Cloth, 631 pp. Science Eecord for 1876. Illus. Edited by Alfred E. Beach. New York: Munn & Co. 8vo, Cloth. Indian Affairs in the United States, Eeport of Eev. Jedidiah Morse, D. D., to the Secretary of War, as a Eesult of Investigations made in 1820. New Haven: Printed by S. Converse, 1822. 8vo, Calf. (Contains autograph of "John Kennedy," also a portrait of a Pawnee Brave.) Londonderry, N. H., History of. By Eev. Edward L. Parker. Illus. Boston: Perkins and Whipple, 1851. 8vo, Cloth. Oregon Weather Bureau, Second Biennial Eeport. B. S. Pague, Local Forecast Official, Portland. 1893. Salem: Frank C. Baker, State Printer, 1893. 8vo, Cloth, 249 pp. Nebraska Constitutional Convention, Official Eeport of the Debates and Picceedings of, at Lincoln, June 13, 1871. Edited by Addison E. Sheldon, Director of Field Work, Nebraska Historical Society. Vol. XL Neb. His. Soc. Pubs., 1906. 8vo, Cloth, 582 pp. (Portrait of Silas A. Strickland, President of the Convention.) Familiar Science, Guide to. By E. C. Brewer, St. Helen, Isle of Jersey, 1851. 12mo, 558 pp. Lost Trappers, The; A Collection of Interesting Scenes and Events in the Eocky Mountains, together with a short Description of Cali- fornia, also some account of the Fur Trade of the Pacific Coast. By David H. Coyne. Cincinnati: J. A. and U. P. James, 1847. 12mo, Cloth, 255 pp. Atlantic Cable, History of the. By Charles F. Briggs and Augus- tus Maverick. New York: Eudd & Carlton, 1858. Illus. 12mo, Cloth, 255 pp.
- ↑ On December 19, 1820, on motion of John Floyd, of Virginia, a committee was appointed to inquire into the situation of the settlements upon the Pacific Ocean, and the expediency of occupying the Columbia River. Mr. Floyd, Mr. Metcalfe, and Mr. Swearingen were appointed the said committee. Annals of Congress, Sixteenth Congress, second session, p. 679.
The report of that committee is given in that volume, pp. 946-959. It was the work, no doubt, mainly, if not solely, of John Floyd, and is the pioneer