the first movement toward the reorganization of military companies since the treaties of September 1853.[1] Knowledge of these things coming to Ambrose, in charge of the reservation Indians, Smith of Fort Lane started off with a company of dragoons, and collecting most of the strolling Indians, hurried them upon the reservation. Those not brought in were pursued into the mountains by the volunteers, and one killed. The band then turned upon their pursuers, and wounding several horses, killed one man named Philpot. Skirmishing was continued for a week with further fatal results on both sides.[2]
A party of California volunteers under William Martin, in pursuit of hostile Indians, traced certain of them to the Rogue River reservation, and made a demand for their surrender, to which Commander Smith, of Fort Lane, very properly refused compliance. Let the proper authorities ask the surrender of Indians on a criminal charge, and they should be forthcoming, but they could not be delivered to a mere voluntary assemblage of men. Afterward a requisition was made from Siskiyou county, and in November two
- ↑ Or. Argus, June 16, 1855; Sac. Union, June 12, 1855; S. F. Chronicle, June 15, 1855; S. F. Alta, June 18, 1855.
- ↑ A bottle of whiskey sold by a white man to an Indian on the 26th of July caused the deaths, besides several Indians, of John Pollock, William Hennessey, Peter Heinrich, Thomas Gray, John L. Fickas, Edward Parrish, F. D. Mattice, T. D. Mattice, Raymond, and Pedro. Dowell's Or. Ind. Wars, MS., 39; Or. Argus, Aug. 1855, 18; S. F. Alta, Aug. 13 and 31, 1855.
Scrap-Book; Letters; Biographies, and various pamphlets which contain almost a complete journal of the events to which this chapter is devoted.
Benjamin Franklin Dowell emigrated from New Franklin, Mo., in 1850, taking the California road, but arriving in the Willamette Valley in Nov. He had studied law, but now taught a school in Polk county in the summer of 1851, and afterward in the Waldo hills. It was slow work for an ambitious man; so borrowing some money and buying a pack-train, he began trading to the mines in southern Oregon and northern California, following it successfully for four years. He purchased flour of J. W. Nesmith at his mills in Polk county at 10 cents per lb., and sold it in the mines at $1 and $1.25. He bought butter at 50 cents per lb., and sold it at $1.50; salt at 15 cents per lb., and sold it at $2 and $3 per lb., and other articles in proportion. When Scottsburg became the base of supplies, instead of the Willamette Valley, he traded between that place and the mines. When war broke out, Dowell was 'the first in and the last out' of the fight. After that he settled in Jacksonville, and engaged in the practice of law and newspaper management.
