The Pioneer Stimulus of Gold 149
Dalles*^ and Wallula. Settlers were enjoined from the interior country in 1856, by order of General Wool, commander of the department of the Pacific, U. S. A., who sought thereby to placate the savages."
Frontier settlements existed in the valleys of Willamette, Umpqua, Rogue and Cowlitz rivers and at Puget Sound. Their population was sparse and the people had simple wants, few goods, arduous toil and the realization that they dwelt on the edge of the world. Forests, on every side, baflfled the seekers of the soil, except the strongest and most courageous, who could cut the trees and grub the stumps. Mails were distributed weekly or fortnightly, and the routes were few. Newspapers were few and their contents meager. The Willam- ette River, and the Colvmibia and Cowlitz rivers, served, with steamboats, as almost the only avenues of transportation. Roads were bad and practically impassable in Winter. Occa- sional stage lines were operated in favorable season between the main towns — Portland, Oregon City, Salem, Lafayette, Albany, Winchester (near Roseburg) and Jacksonville, Cres- cent City, Yreka, arid the Klamath and Trinity River mines, and between the head of Cowlitz navigation, near the modern town of Kelso, and 01)rmpia.
The first gold discovery, prior even to that in California, appears to have been in the Malheur country in 1845, on the route of the "Meek cut-oflf party."^' The gold was not then recognized, and subsequent efforts to locate the spot were
11 The Columbia River afforded the earliest route for pioneers between Willamette Valley and the interior country. Wagons were floated down stream on rafts or were hauled ^long a route which followed the Washington side below Cascades.
12 This order, dated August 2, 1856, at Benicia. California, headquarters of the department of the Pacific, directed to Colonel George Wright at The Dalles, and signed W. W. Mackall, assistant adjutant general, is contained in 34th Cong. 3d sess., vol. I, ot. 2, p. 160. The order read: "No emigrants or other whites, except the Hudson's Bay Company, or persons having ceded rights from the Indians, will be permitted to settle or remain in the Indian country, or on land not ceded by treaty, confirmed by the Senate, and approved by the President of the United States. These orders are not, however, to apply to miners engaged in collecting gold at the Colville mines. The miners will, however, be notified that, rtiould they interfere with the Indians or their squaws, they will be punished and sent out of the country." General Woo! thou^t the Cascade Mountains "a most valuable wall of separation between the two races." {Life of Isaac /. Stevens, by Hazard Stevens, vol. ii, p. 226).
13 See The Oregonian. November 1, 1903, p. 28; Februarv 14, 1896, p. 7. The 'Host diggings of 1845*' are supposed to have been on Malheur River. For details of these mines in 1861, see The Oregonian, August 26, 1861. See also note 88, p. 164, following.
