mer to be ready to join Whitman on his return to Oregon.
At Fort Hall there was the usual discussion upon changing from wagons to pack-animals, it being finally decided to retain the wagons, as there ^ were men enough to make a road where none existed. The chief objection was the lateness of the season. In their councils, both Grant of Port Hall and Whitman were consulted. While admitting that the wagons might be taken to the Columbia River, Grant acknowledged that he did not know how it could be done, as he had travelled only by the pack-trail; but Whitman, from Newell's experience, believed that a wagon road was feasible, and encouraged the emigrants to decide in favor of the undertaking.
It had been the intention of the emigrants to take their wagons to the Columbia. They would open the way, and show congress that the enterprise which the government was so slow to undertake was not beyond the ability of private individuals. But they miscalculated distance and obstacles, and found, when the Rocky Mountains were passed, that with foot-sore cattle and worn-out horses, they had still the most trying part of the journey before them; and thereupon doubts began to assail them of the wisdom of attempting to carry out their original plan of making a road to the Pacific, with the risk of being caught in the storms of autumn among the mountains, and having to abandon their property there.
Yet upon mature deliberation, with the spirit that impelled them to set out as founders of empire, they persevered in their determination to reach the Columbia River with all their wagons and herds. In coming to this conclusion they were influenced by the advice of Whitman, and the encouragement of William Fowler, one of the emigrants who had been in Oregon before. Fowler was a western man, and understood much better than Whitman what ox-teams could do.[1]
- ↑ Applegate's Marginal Notes, MS., 289-90.
