Four other members of the original party reached Fort Vancouver in the following May, just when the Lausanne, bearing the reënforcement of Jason Lee, touched her landing. These were Holman, Cook, Fletcher, and Kilborne. They had proceeded leisurely from post to post of the fur-traders, and been compelled to winter in the Rocky Mountains. When they reached Fort Vancouver they were clad in skins, bare-headed, heavily bearded, toilworn, and sadly travel-stained, yet looking so boyish and defiant, that the ship's company at once set them down as four runaways from homes in the States. McLoughlin, with his usual kind impulse, at once sent them to the dairy.[1] Like Farnham, these four seemed to have given up all thought of their projected city at the mouth of the Columbia, and were content to be incorporated with the settlers of the Willamette.[2]
The Peoria company were not the only adventurers who made in 1839
'The first low wash of waves, where soon
Shall roll a human sea.'
A second party, eleven in number, started from Illinois this season, and followed the same route as the first, but did not reach Oregon as a party.[3] As
- ↑ Holman's Peoria Party, MS., 1–4.
- ↑ Joseph Holman attached himself to the Mission as a carpenter, and married in 1841 Miss Almira Phelps, as already mentioned. In 1843 he took a land claim near Salem, and farmed it for 6 years. Subsequently he was merchant, penitentiary commissioner, superintendent of the construction of the state-house at Salem, and president of the Pioneer Oil Company at that place. Holman was born in Devonshire, England, in 1817, and emigrated to the United States at the age of 19, and to Oregon at the age of 22. Portland West Shore, Nov. 1876; Portland Standard, July 2, 1880. Holmans Peoria Party, MS., is a narrative of the adventures of the 4 young malecontents who abandoned Farnham on account of Sidney Smith, and agrees substantially with Farnham's account up to the time they separated at Bent Fort. Holman's dictation was taken by S. A. Clarke of Salem in 1878, and contains several facts which do not appear in any printed authority. Of Holman's companions, Fletcher settled in Yamhill County, where he died. Cook survived him at Lafayette, in that county. Kilborne went to California in 1842.
- ↑ The name of one of this party has been preserved, that of Robert Moore, who reached Oregon in 1840. He was born in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, October 2, 1781, of Irish parentage. He removed to Mercer County, where he married Margaret Clark. They were the parents of 10 children. Moore served in the war of 1812; and in 1822 emigrated to Genevieve County, Mis-
