The great object of the Willamette settlers was accomplished, and an era opened in colonial history which rendered them in no small measure independent of the fur company. The precedent thus established of bringing cattle into Oregon was followed three years later by the Hudson's Bay Company, which obtained a permit in Mexico to drive out from California four thousand sheep and two thousand horned cattle, Scotch shepherds being sent to select the sheep, and the company's trappers in California being employed as drivers.
The number of cattle that survived the first expedition was six hundred and thirty, two hundred having been lost by the way. The expenses of the expedition, and the losses, brought the price up from three to nearly eight dollars each. They were divided in the manner agreed upon when the company was formed, the subscribers taking all that could be purchased with their money at seven dollars and sixty-seven cents a head; while the earnings of the men who went as drivers at one dollar a day were paid to them in cattle at the same rate. The stock obtained were of the wildest, the administrators taking good care that it should be so, and their value was lessened in consequence. But the settlers were allowed to keep the oxen borrowed from McLoughlin in exchange for wild cattle, and calves were accepted in place of full-sized animals, as they were wanted for beef later.[1]
There is some difference of opinion as to whom the credit of this enterprise is due. Mr Hines[2] thinks that it was Jason Lee's energy and perseverance which laid this foundation of rapidly accumulating wealth for the settlers. Perhaps it might more justly have been attributed to Edwards; but as a matter of fact,
- ↑ Copy of a Document in Trans. Or. Pioneer Assoc., 1880, 50–2.
- ↑ Hines' Oregon History, 23.
being pretty evenly divided, an armistice was agreed upon, the division being continued to the end of the journey, and the guard at night being made up of equal numbers of both parties for fear of treachery. This I take to be a sensational story, as Edwards makes no mention of it in his Diary, where less important quarrels are described minutely.
