But their success, like their organization, was of brief duration. Colonel Loring and the governor went in pursuit and overtook one division in the Umpqua Valley, whence Lane returned to Oregon City about the middle of April with seventy of them in charge. Loring pursued the remainder as far as the Klamath River, where thirty-five escaped by making a canoe and crossing that stream before they were overtaken. He returned two weeks after Lane, with only seventeen of the deserters, having suffered much hardship in the pursuit. He found the fugitives in a miserable plight, the snow on the Cascade Mountains being still deep, and their supplies entirely inadequate to such an expedition, for which reason some had already started on their return. Indeed, it was rumored that several of those not accounted for had already died of starvation.[1] How many lived to reach the mines was never known.
Great discontent prevailed among all the troops, many of whom had probably enlisted with no other intention than of deserting when they reached the Pacific coast. Several civil suits were brought by them in the district court attempting to prove that they had been enlisted under false promises, which were decided against them by Judge Pratt, vice Bryant, who was absent from the territory when the suits came on.[2]
Later in the spring Hathaway removed his artillery company to Astoria, and went into encampment at Fort George, the place being no longer occupied by the fur company. A reserve was declared of certain lands covered by the improvements of settlers, among whom were Shively, McClure, Hensill, Ingalls, and Marlin, for which a price was agreed upon or allowed.[3]
- ↑ Or. Spectator, April 18, 1850.
- ↑ See case of John Curtin vs. James S. Hathaway, Pratt, Justice, in Or. Spectator, April 18, 1850.
- ↑ Ingalls remarked concerning this purchase: 'I do not believe that any of them had the slightest right to a foot of the soil, consequently no right to have erected improvements there.' Whether he meant to say that no one
