CHAPTER VI.
THE WILLAMETTE CATTLE COMPANY.
1836–1837.
Need of Cattle in the Willamette Valley—The Hudson's Bay Company Refuse to Sell—McLoughlin's Views on the Question—Meeting at Champoeg—Formation of the Cattle Company—Ewing Young and Party Sent to California for Stock—Solemn and Momentous Negotiations—The Crossing of the San Joaquin—Herds Drawn Across by Ropes and Rafts—An Indian Ambush—Plot to Shoot Edwards and Young—Division of the Stock and its Increase in Oregon—What Became of Ewing Young's Property.
Civilization needs certain things to make it respectable. The followers of Confucius may feed on rice, but it is not seemly that Christianity should have to eat only bear meat and salmon-berries. It was quite necessary that the missionaries of Oregon should have cows and horses before they could take rank among the foremost nations of the world. Ewing Young saw this, for he was a thoughtful, practical man, ready to assist progress and minister to the wants of the race; and as his proposal to supply the settlers with that fiery adjunct of civilization, whiskey, had met with poor encouragement, he concluded to do what he could toward stocking the valley with those gentle beasts which men make their companions, not to say masters. Young's distillery speculation had been like the labor of Cleanthes, who supported himself by drawing water at night in order that he might indulge in plucking the flowers of philosophy during the day; it was not appreciated by the Willamette Areopagus, and his judges were delighted over the prospect of such a
