No significance was attached to the fact that one of the Greenwoods of the previous year's pilgrimage to California was at Fort Hall with a young man named McDougal, from Indiana, who had been despatched from California to guide the travellers through, and who were, as Palmer says, well stocked with falsehoods to induce them to take the California road. According to Palmer, fifteen wagons had been fitted out for California at the outset, and the owners of thirty-five more were persuaded by these men to join them.[1] He was probably speaking of his wing of the immigration; for Saxton informs us that there were forty-six wagons destined for California on leaving Independence.[2] Gray admits that L. W. Hastings, of White's immigration, did all he could to turn the people to California. The anxiety to populate that territory became intelligible when in the following spring, Fremont, acting on secret despatches, retraced his steps to California, in order that by land as well as by sea English occupancy should be anticipated by Americans.[3]
The immigration progressed well after leaving Fort Hall, with the exception of the loss of two men supposed to have been killed by the natives, while hunting at the crossing of Snake River;[4] and from there to the Malheur River all went well. But at the Hot Springs near Fort Boisé a portion of the endless caravan, one of the Independence companies, was met by White, of whose unsuccessful explorations of a few weeks previous I have already given an account.[5]
- ↑ He also says in a note to his Journal, p. 44, that the immigrants alluded to, not finding California to be as represented, removed from there to Oregon; but he does not give their names.
- ↑ Forty-six wagons, 320 oxen, 98 men, 40 women, and 57 children. Gray's Hist. Or., 453.
- ↑ The Collingwood, says Roberts, was on her way to seize California when they found they were too late. Several nations had an eye, about that time, to this coast. The Irish were temporarily quieted by the passage of the Maynooth bill. Recollections, MS., 60.
- ↑ Hancock's Thirteen Years, MS., 70.
- ↑ The first companies White met were Barlow's, Knighton's and McDonald's, numbering 800, near Grand Rond. The second was Palmer's near
