all persons wishing to go thither, where cattle could be bought for three dollars a head. A meeting was called for those so inclined to convene at Champoeg to form a cattle company. The object being one of interest to the Canadian as well as to the American settlers, there was a general attendance, and the Willamette Cattle Company was organized, with Ewing Young as leader and P. L. Edwards as treasurer. Mr Slacum at his own option advanced Jason Lee $500, and to this sum was added by the settlers, who had money due them at Fort Vancouver, enough to make the amount $1,600, to which was added nearly $900 by McLoughlin for the Hudson's Bay Company. The collection was purposely made as large as possible, for by purchasing a great number the cost of each would be less, and the expense of driving a large herd was little more than that of driving a small one. But McLoughlin is never mentioned by the missionaries as having thus contributed to the success of the Willamette Cattle Company.[1]
On the contrary, from the moment of the appearance of Slacum in Oregon, and his championship of the ostracized party of Ewing Young, the former acquiescence of the missionaries in the Willamette Valley in the rules and regulations of the fur company was changed to an opposition as determined, if not so open, as that of either Kelley or Young. That Slacum encouraged this course is true, for he came as the agent of the United States to offer protection to Americans from the despotism of a British corporation, assuming that Oregon was United States territory, and the fur company had no rights, south of the
- ↑ It is stated in Hines' Oregon Hist., 23, that the organization of a cattle company was indirectly opposed by the authorities at Fort Vancouver; but this can hardly be true. Slacum says in his Report, already quoted, that $1,600, or enough to purchase 500 cattle, was raised in the Willamette Valley by his advancing $500. Daniel Lee states in his account, Lee and Frost's Or., 144–6, that 800 were purchased at $3 a head, and 40 horses at $12 a head, making the whole outlay $2,880. If it were not for the explanation given by McLoughlin himself, in A Copy of a Document, Trans. Or. Pioneer Assoc., 1880, 51, we should be left as much in the dark by the missionary statements as by Slacum himself, concerning the source from which the $880 additional was obtained.
