Burnt River to the Dalles was a panorama of suffering and destitution, and the rear of the caravan remained at Whitman's over winter.[1] Shaw, who turned aside to Whitman's station to lay in provisions, left there a family of seven children named Sager, .whose parents had died on the road, the father while the company was at Green River, and the mother two weeks later. These children were adopted by Dr Whitman.[2] Shaw failed to reach the Willamette that season, as some of his family were prostrated by sickness, and he remained until March 1845 at the Dalles, with several other families.[3]
Two or more small mounted parties, the first to reach the Dalles, took the cattle trail round the base of Mount Hood, and arrived safely in the valley. But the later comers feared this route on account of the advanced season. The families were assisted in descending the Columbia by the loan of boats belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company;[4] and the cattle were crossed by swimming to the north side of the river, driven down to Vancouver, and recrossed in
- ↑ Or. Spectator, Jan. 21, 1849.
- ↑ Shaw's Pioneer Life, MS., 13.
- ↑ Shaw says in his Pioneer Life, MS., 14-18, which is a comparison of pioneer life in the western states and Oregon, with a narrative of the incidents of the emigration, that in March he went down the Columbia to a place seventeen miles above Vancouver, where he made shingles for the Hudson's Bay Company, to pay what he owed them for provisions and clothing furnished him while at the Dalles. In September he removed to the Willamette Valley, where he rented the farm of Beers for one year. The next year he bought a farm of a French Canadian, ten miles north of Salem, where he made his permanent residence.
- ↑ McLoughlin's Private Papers, MS., 2d ser., 9.
immigrants who gave them supper and breakfast. On reaching Umatilla they were joined by a man named Nash. They had also the good fortune to kill a dozen sage-hens. At a Cayuse camp they borrowed a large kettle and made a stew of chicken and potatoes, purchased of the natives with an extra shirt. At Waiilatpu Whitman gave them some corn meal. A cow which belonged to Watt was sold to the doctor for provisions to take them to the Dalles. An immigrant, Barton Lee, was engaged to transport them, and a horse was hired of Adams. At the Dalles they found the fur company's bateaux, which had been placed at the service of certain persons to bring down the immigration with a view to assist them; but for a passage on which they were charged six dollars each by those having them in charge. 'I had no money,' says Watt, 'and they told me if the other passengers would board me they would take me down, but I must sing whenever I was ordered. They called me the "figure-head." On the 16th of November I arrived at Oregon City.' First Things, MS., 1-7.
