Oregon historical quarterly

UNIV.OF
TORONTO

M ;•.. ;-;Y

,'•

THE

QUARTERLY

OF THE

Oregon Historical Society

VOLUME X

MARCH 1909 -DECEMBER 1909

Edited by
FREDERIC GEORGE YOUNG

7

CONTENTS

SUBJECT INDEX

PAGE

DeSmet in the Oregon Country. By Edwin V. O'Hara 239-262

Financial History of the State of Oregon. By F. G. Young 263-295; 366-384

Fraser River, The Discovery and Exploration of. By Frederick V. Holman. .100-115

Land Tenure in Oregon. By Lon L. Swift 131-235

Wilbur, Father, and His Work. By William D. Fenton 116-130

DOCUMENTS

Brown's, John, Official Report of, Raid Upon Harper's Ferry, Va. ; October

17-18, 1859 3U-324

Jameson, John, Letter of, to Edwin Johnson 390-395

Marriage Certificate, a Hudson's Bay Conpany. With Editorial Notes by

T. C. Elliott 325-328

Ogden, The Peter Skene, Journals. With Editorial Notes by T. C. Elliott. .331-365
Warre and Vavasour's Military Reconnoissance in Oregon, 1845-6, Docu-
ments Relative to. Edited by Joseph Schafer, Ph. D 1-99

Work, John, Journal of. Edited by T. C. Elliott 296-313

AUTHORS' INDEX

T. C- Elliott, Editorial Notes on "A Hudson's Bay Marriage Certificate". .. .325-328

Editorial Notes on "The Peter Skene Ogden Journals" 331-365

Editor of the Journal of John Work 296-313

Fenton, William D., Father Wilbur and His Work 116-130

Floyd, John B., Official Report of John Brown's Raid Upon Harper's Ferry,

Va., October 17-18, 1859 314-324

Holman, Frederick V., The Discovery and Exploration of the Fraser River.. 100-115

Address at the Dedication of the McLoughlin Home 385-389

Jameson, J. Franklin, Letter of, Submitting Letter of John Jameson 390

O'Hara, Edwin V., DeSmet in the Oregon Country 239-262

Schafer, Joseph, Editor Documents Relative to Warre and Vavasour's Mili-
tary Reconnoissance in Oregon, 1845-1846 1-99

Swift, Lon L., Land Tenure in Oregon 131-235

THE QUARTERLY

OF THE

Oregon Historical Society.

Volume X MARCH, 1909 Number I

[The Quarterly disavows responsibility for the positions taken by contributors to its pages.]

DOCUMENTS RELATIVE TO WARRE AND

VAVASOUR'S MILITARY RECONNOIS-

SANCE IN OREGON, 1845-6.

EDITED BY JOSEPH SCHAFER.

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.

The expedition of Lieutenants Warre and Vavasour to
Oregon in 1845-6 has been noted by several writers, among
them H. H. Bancroft in his History of Oregon. References
to the same incident occur likewise in the written recollections
of some of the pioneer settlers of the Willamette Valley, as,
for example, those of Jesse Applegate. But the matter has
never been made prominent because the fragmentary informa-
tion available failed to reveal to anyone — either pioneer or
historian — the real significance of that expedition which was
in its very nature secret. It was known that the gentlemen
concerned in it were British officers and it was supposed they
were upon some secret mission to obtain information for their
government respecting conditions in Oregon ; it was also
thought that they were spying upon Dr. McLoughlin, the
local manager of the Hudson's Bay Company at the instance
of Sir George Simpson, Governor of the Company's terri-
tories in America. Still, a good deal of mystery has sur-
rounded the subject, the nearest approach to a correct interpre-

2 JOSEPH SCHAFER

tation of the objects of the mission being the brief statement
contained in Father DeSmet's "Oregon Missions," published
in 1847.*

Fortunately, the whole matter can now be cleared up; for,
among the manuscript records of the British Government
relating to the Oregon question, there was recently found
a complete documentary history of the Warre- Vavasour
mission. Many of the papers relating to it were duplicated,
one copy in the records of the War Office and one in
those of the Foreign Office; a complete file is contained in
the Foreign Office records relating to America, volume 457.
This volume in the Public Record Office is labeled on the
back, "Warre and Vavasour," and all the papers, charts, etc.,
contained in it have reference to their expedition. The copies
presented herewith were executed by the writer, in part from
the War Office copies and in part from those in F. O. America
457, as the one copy or the other was found to be the more
legible. A very little supplemental matter is taken from other
places, as indicated in the citations. The sketch maps and
charts were traced for the writer from the originals contained
in F. O. America 457, by Lily Abbott Schafer.

The expedition has its origin at that point in the history
of the American-British controversy over Oregon, which, in
a dramatic aspect, appears to have been the most critical. The
negotiations between Secretary Calhoun and Mr. Pakenham
in 1844, though bringing forward conspicuously the new
American interest based upon the colonization of Oregon by
American pioneers, had yielded no tangible results, while the
presidential campaign of the same year issued in the election
of Mr. Polk, on a platform pledging his party to the "reannex-
ation of Texas and the re-occupation of Oregon." The expir-
ing session of the 28th Congress, sharing the eagerness of

*See Thwaites (ed.) Early Western Travels, XXIX, 193-4. The editor in his
foot note (No. 90) gives some information obtained from the later writings of
Henry J. Warre, but he discounts DeSmet's statement and helps to perpetuate an
incorrect view first advanced by Bancroft respecting Warre and Vavasour's secret
commission from the Hudson's Bay Company to report on Dr. McLoughlin.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 3

President Tyler to carry out these features of Democratic
policy, busied itself with both questions and actually settled
that relating to Texas.

The President had recommended the passage of a law cal-
culated to encourage emigration into the Oregon territory,
and for extending to American settlers there the benefit of
legal protection to person and property; but he was careful
to limit the contemplated jurisdiction in such a way that it
would not involve the assumption of sovereignty over the
territory. The Congress was in no mood to discriminate with
nicety between the powers actually possessed under the treaty
of joint-occupation and those which it was felt by the western
members ought to be exerted for the protection and encour-
agement of the pioneers who had crossed the continent in
order to settle the Oregon country. Accordingly, the House
of Representatives on February 3, 1845, by a great majority*
passed a "Bill to organize a Territorial Government in the
Oregon Territory." This measure looked to the eventual
assumption by the United States of sovereignty over the whole
region west of the Rockies and between the parallels of 42
degrees and 54 degrees and 40 minutes. It provided for the
assignment of land to settlers, the erection of a fort at the
mouth of the Columbia, and other acts which manifested a
design to disregard the British claims in the country. Forts
were likewise to be erected along the route leading through
South Pass in order to facilitate emigration into Oregon.

Even before this bill was known to have passed the House,
the British cabinet, who were fully informed of the temper
of Congress, had become alarmed over the situation of affairs
on the Columbia. They feared an infraction of the treaty of
joint occupation by the United States and were concerned
lest the posture of affairs in the Oregon country might favor
what they considered the sinister plans of the American gov-
ernment. It was important to know precisely how strong the
Americans in Oregon were in comparison with the British

*One hundred and forty to fifty-nine.

4 JOSEPH SCHAFER

traders and settlers. "You seem confident," wrote Sir Robert
Peel on the 23d of February, 1845, to L°rcl Aberdeen, "that
we have the upper hand on the banks of the Columbia — that
the settlers connected with the Hudson's Bay Company are
actually stronger than the settlers, the subjects of the United
States, are at present. Have you carefully ascertained this
fact? If our subjects are the stronger at this present time,
may not their superiority be speedily weakened or destroyed
by the accession of fresh strength to the Americans?" He
desired Lord Aberdeen to prepare a circular memorandum on
American relations, especially the Oregon question, for trie
information of members of the cabinet. He suggested, like-
wise, the advisability of sending a frigate to the Columbia
and the placing of a small artillery force on shore.* The
Foreign Office at once applied to Sir John Pelly, Governor
of the Hudson's Bay Company in London, for information
relative to the settlements in Oregon, and received in answer
an extract from Sir George Simpson's report, dated Red
River, 2oth June, 1844. In this Sir George notices the large
influx of American settlers, "from 700 to 800 souls," in the
fall of 1843, the progress of the movement for the establish-
ment of a provisional government in Oregon, and concludes:
"American influence, I am sorry to find, predominates very
much, as, out of a population of about 3,000 souls, not more
than one-third are British subjects."!

A few days after this the news was received from Mr.
Pakenham that the House of Representatives had passed the
Oregon bill, and that the Senate was more likely to pass it
than not to pass it should time permit. Thereupon Lord
Aberdeen notified the Admiralty of the necessity of increased
vigilance on the part of Great Britain, and suggested that
"Rear Admiral Sir George Seymour should himself visit the

*The letter is found in the manuscript correspondence of Lord Aberdeen.
The writer is indebted to Lord Stanmore, son of Lord Aberdeen and custodian of
his papers, for the privilege of examining this correspondence and taking extracts
therefrom.

tThis correspondence, dated the 25th and a6th of February, 1845, is found in
F. O. America 439.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 5

(Oregon) Coast at an early period in the Collingwood with
a view to give a feeling of security to our own settlers in the
country and to let the Americans see clearly that Her Majesty's
Government are alive to their proceedings and prepared, in
case of necessity, to oppose them." No hostile measure, how-
ever, was to be taken, until it should be seen how the Senate
would act on the Oregon bill.*

The Senate, probably for lack of time, failed to pass the
bill; but the same dispatch, of March 4, in which Pakenham
reported this comforting fact to his government contained the
aggravating and disquieting news that President Polk, in his
inaugural of that date, had pronounced the American claim
to the whole of Oregon "clear and unquestionable." f This
seemed to confirm the worst suspicions based upon the attitude
of the late Congress, and since the new Congress was pledged
in advance to the President's policy, there seemed not much
hope of escape from serious difficulty over the Oregon
question.

The London newspapers struck a warlike note, the Govern-
ment leaders in the two houses of Parliament spoke out in
tones of clear defiance, declaring that Britain, too, had rights
in Oregon which were "clear and unquestionable," which
rights the Government could and would defend against the
aggressions of the United States.

The discussion in Parliament occurred on the evening of
April 4th; and so strong and unanimous was the sentiment
revealed that it was deemed important to communicate
promptly to the United States the news of what had passed;
the royal mail steamer, due to sail that day, was detained 24
hours in order that a report of these proceedings might be
included in the Government mail for America.!

On this mail steamer, sailing from England April 5th, went
also Sir George Simpson, armed with the documents now

*F. O. America 440. Letter dated the $th of March, 1845.

fThe news came first by a New York sailing packet on March 27th. See
Everett's despatch to the State Department dated London, April 2, 1845.
Everett's despatch No. 302 of April 16, 1845.

6 JOSEPH SCHAFER

printed for the first time which enabled him to set in motion
the expedition of Warre and Vavasour for the purpose of
making a military reconnoisance of Oregon. Sir George had
prepared his "memorandum on the Oregon question"* on the
29th of March, apparently after the flurry of excitement inci-
dent to the news of Folk's belligerent inaugural had set in.
He proposed, first, the establishment of a small military force
at Red River for the protection of the Company's interests
there, also the embodying of a force of native militia in that
country. Secondly, for the defense of Oregon, he recom-
mended that two sailing vessels of war and two steamships
should be stationed on that coast. The latter were intended
for service in the Columbia. He suggested that a large body
of marines should be carried in the warships, and that a force
of some two thousand natives might be organized under Eng-
lish officers for service within the territory and on its frontiers.
His most specific recommendation was that Cape Disappoint-
ment should be taken by the British and a strong battery
erected thereon, which, under the conditions of navigation
prevailing at the mouth of the Columbia, would absolutely
control the channel of the river.

Simpson's suggestions, whether invited or not, appear to
have made an impression on the cabinet, and on April 2d
Sir George was bidden to an interview with Sir Robert Peel
and Lord Aberdeen at the residence of the prime minister, f
The conference resulted in the determination to send to the
Columbia, overland from Canada, one or two military officers
who should obtain "a general knowledge of the capabilities
of the Oregon territory in a military point of view, in order
that we may be enabled to act immediately and with effect in
defense of our rights in that quarter, should those rights be
infringed by any hostile aggression or encroachment on the
part of the United States. "t It was at first intended to send
an officer from London, but the final decision was to instruct

*See page 13.

tSimpson to Pelly, July 8, 1845.

{Aberdeen to Lord Stanley, April 3, 1845. See page 16.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 7

the Governor General of Canada, Lord Metcalfe, and through
him the Commander of the Forces there, Sir Richard Jackson,
to select one or two officers for the service. They were
admonished to consult with Sir George Simpson in regard to
the instructions which should be furnished the officers selected.
These officers were to proceed to Oregon as private gentle-
men, and the objects of their mission were to be kept secret;
they were to report by any safe opportunity to the Governor
General of Canada, and through him to the Colonial Office
and the Foreign Office.

The Commander of the Forces in Canada selected his Aide-
de-camp, Lieut. Henry J. Warre and Lieut. M. Vavasour of the
Royal Engineers, who were instructed to report themselves to
Sir George Simpson and to be ready "to proceed with him to
the west"; they were also to "regulate themselves according
to his views, and conform in practise, to the instructions he
alone, from his knowledge of the intentions of His Majesty's
Government, and of the country can give."* "It would be
absurd," says the Commander, "to attempt to give detailed
instructions for the survey of a country of which the instructor
knows nothing." So he refers the officers to Simpson, but
makes, nevertheless, a few suggestions for the special benefit
of Lieut. Warre. He is advised to read a manuscript book
on the spirit of military surveying, also the instructions for
the commissariat lately issued; if possible, he is to study Fre-
mont's report on the country to which he is going, and the
reports of the American Secretary of War, 1844, "recom-
mending measures which in their impatience to occupy the
disputed territory the present government of the United States
appear disposed to overlook, although so obviously prudent,
that they may be adopted when that government finds that
its plans cannot be carried into effect without opposition."
This was the project of creating a new territory — ultimately
a new state — on the eastern border of Oregon. The plans for
the defense of the western states, and the journal of Colonel

*Memorandum for Lieutenant Warre, Ad. Camp, Montreal, May 3, 1845.
See page 20.

8 JOSEPH SCHAFER

Dodge's military reconnoisance of the far west, were to be
studied. The point was, to see how similar expeditions, if
directed with hostile intent, toward the Oregon country, could
be cut off. Lastly, the officers were to be prepared to assist
Sir George Simpson, should he deem it wise to develop some
sort of military organization for the "settlers and other
inhabitants" of the Company's territories ; they should be pru-
dent in avoiding "any attempt to imitate the tactics or disci-
pline of regular troops."

The special instructions furnished Lieut. Vavasour by Col-
onel Halloway, Commander of the Royal Engineers, required
him to examine and report on all existing British posts, their
availability for defensive purposes or the means of making
them available. He was also to examine as an engineering
expert the places Sir George might point out as naturally
suited to the erection of defenses for the whole country, and
to keep in mind the necessity of haste in the construction of
such defenses.

Sir George Simpson, after he had made a run to Washing-
ton to see Mr. Pakenham, who dissuaded him from a plan to
actually fortify Cape Disappointment in time of peace*, took
the young officers in charge and conveyed them to Red River,
where they arrived on the 5th of June. He employed them in
the study of the defenses of that territory till the i6th of the
same month, when they were sent forward, under the convoy
of Mr. Peter Skeen Ogden to the Columbia. While at Rainy
Lake, en route to Red River, Simpson had addressed to Warre
and Vavasour a confidential letter summing up his suggestions,
virtual instructions under the terms of Sir Richard Jackson's
instructions of an earlier date.f Her Majesty's Government
had confided to him, so Simpson wrote, that the object of the
military reconnoisance was to gain a "knowledge of the char-
acter and the resources of the country situated between the
Sault St. Marie and the shores of the Pacific, and of the prac-

*Pakenham correspondence, F. O. America, 426.

tSimpson to Warre and Vavasour, 3oth May, 1845. See page 25.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 9

ticability of forming military stations therein and conveying
troops thither." He called their attention first to the cordon
of posts the United States were forming — as he said — along
the Great Lakes, on the Mississippi, and from the Missouri
westward to the Rocky Mountains, a project calculated to
give them a powerful influence over the Indian tribes which
would be a most important preparation in the event of a war
with Great Britain, since the British frontier was quite unpro-
tected. He proposed certain defenses on the Canadian side,
one in the neighborhood of Fort William on Lake Superior,
another at Red River. Simpson described in rather optimistic
terms the route they were to traverse from Red River to the
Oregon country, declaring in advance of their scientific inves-
tigation "that troops, either cavalry or infantry, might by that
route be forwarded to the mouth of the Columbia." He sug-
gested, for the Oregon division of their work, a survey of
Cape Disappointment, which Mr. Ogden had private instruc-
tions to take possession of for the Company, with a view to its
ultimate occupation for military purposes by the Government;
also the examination of Tongue Point, places between Fort
Vancouver and Cape Disappointment on the north side of the
Columbia controlling the ship channel, and the settled portion
of the Willamette Valley. Mr. Ogden had orders to obtain
possession, for the Company, of any points deemed important
in a military point of view. In accordance with his consti-
tutional mental habit, Simpson described with a genial expan-
siveness the resources of the country for the sustentation of
troops. He ordered Ogden to provide all the means necessary
to enable Warre and Vavasour to make their inspection and
to support them in every portion of their work; Ogden was
to keep their mission a secret and give out that they were
known to the officers of the Company merely as private gen-
tlemen traveling "for the pleasure of field sports arid scientific
pursuits."*

The character they were expected to sustain probably ex-

*Simpson to Ogden, 30th May, 1845. See page 35.

io JOSEPH SCHAFER

plains the nature of the preparations the officers made at
Vancouver after their arrival and before beginning the execu-
tion of their orders. They provided themselves with superfine
beaver hats, at $8.88 apiece; frock coats, at $26.40 apiece;
cloth vests, figured vests, tweed trousers and buckskin trousers;
tooth brushes, nail brushes, hair brushes, fine handkerchiefs,
shirts, shoes; also tobacco, pipes, wines, whiskies, extract of
roses — and in short everything absolutely essential to high-
class travelers in an American wilderness, whose bills are paid
not by themselves but by their government.

They arrived at Vancouver on the 25th of August and made
their first Oregon report on the 26th of October.* They pro-
nounced the route over which they passed the Rocky Moun-
tains to be "quite impracticable for the transport of troops,
with their provisions, stores, etc." In a word, they declare
that ''the facilities for conveying troops to the Oregon Terri-
tory, by the route we have lately passed, do not exist to the
extent Sir George Simpson represents." Nor do they regard
the route as practicable for immigrants with wagons; a small
party of Canadian voyageurs did indeed pass to Oregon with
their families, but they were forced to abandon their wagons
on the east side of the mountains.

On the other hand, by the route which the American immi-
grants follow, the passage of the mountains is easy ; hundreds
of wagons had been brought through to the Columbia "in the
last three years. That troops might be sent from the United
States to Oregon, is evident from the fact (of) 300 dragoons
of the United States regular army having accompanied the
last emigrants to ( South Pass), ostensibly for the pro-
tection of the said emigrants from the hostile bands of Indians
infesting the Eastern Plains." They discuss the attempts
which had been made by the settlers to open a route from the
east side of the Cascades direct to the Willamette, and report
the existence of a southern road known only to the Hudson's

*See page 39. The report they sent home from Red River June loth, 1845,
is not included among the documents printed in the following pages.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. n

Bay people, by means of which it would be possible to enter
the Willamette Valley from a point near the California bound-
ary.*

In their historical sketch of the Willamette settlement
Warre and Vavasour emphasize the importance of the emigra-
tion of 1843. They say : "Till the year 1842-3 not more than
thirty American families were resident in the country. In
1843 an emigration of about 1000 persons with a large num-
ber of wagons, horses, cattle, etc., arrived on the Willamette,
having traversed the vast desert section of country between
the Missouri, the Rocky Mountains and the Columbia. . . .
This emigration scattered themselves over the face of the
country." They estimate the 1844 emigration to be about
equal in number to that of 1843, and that of 1845, which was
just arriving, was more numerous than either, probably two
thousand persons; they had five hundred and seventy wagons
drawn by oxen. Of special interest to American readers is
the view expressed by these British officers relative to politi-
cal conditions in Oregon. They speak of the large American
majority in the country from the year 1844, and of the diffi-
culty the Hudson's Bay Company experienced in protecting
their possessions against the "desperate characters" among
them. Yet the British and the Canadian settlers held out
against the American project to form a provisional govern-
ment in 1843. Finally, in 1845, "tne leading gentlemen of
both parties formed a coalition. . . . An organization was
established, neutralizing the preponderating American influ-
ence. ... This compact is independent of the United
States Government. 'Emigrants of all nations, willing to up-
hold the law . . . are enrolled as members. . . . Nor
could (if we can express an opinion) a more judicious course
have been pursued by all parties, for the peace and prosperity
of the community at large." This is the view of the union set
forth in several letters of Doctor McLoughlin and may be

*This road was opened the following summer by a party of American pioneers
living in Oregon whose leader was Jesse Applegate.

12 JOSEPH- SCHAFER

regarded as the Hudson's Bay Company view, which at this
time the British officers accepted without qualification.

Why this view of the case is so radically changed in the
final report,* written apparently at Red River in the month of
June following, we can only surmise. But at that time they
say: "In conclusion, we must beg to be allowed to observe,
with an unbiased opinion [possibly they considered the earlier
opinion biased by the fact of their dependence upon the Com-
pany's officers at Vancouver] that whatever may have been
the orders,t or the motives of the gentlemen in charge of the
Hudson's Bay Company's posts on the west of the Rocky
Mountains, their policy has tended to the introduction of the
American settlers into the country. We are convinced that
without their assistance not thirty American families would
now have been in the settlement." Without the help afforded
them by the British traders, through motives of humanity —
as the officers are willing to believe — the first American emi-
grants to Oregon could not have held out against the ravages
of hunger or the attacks of hostile Indians; since these were
succored — that is, the parties of 1841-42 — others in ever in-
creasing numbers, were encouraged to make their way to the
Columbia in 1843, J^44 anc^ I^45- "The British party are now
in the minority, and the gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany have been obliged to join the organization, without any
reserve, except the mere form of the oath of office. Their
lands are invaded — themselves insulted — and they now require
the protection of the British Government against the very
people to the introduction of whom they have been more than
accessory."

The reports sent home by Warre and Vavasour reached the
Government too late to exert an influence upon the negotia-
tion with the United States concerning the Oregon boundary
question. But they reflect the nature of the impression that
conditions in the Oregon country in 1845 were calculated to

*See page 65.

fWe now know that their orders were to treat the American settlers in a
liberal manner. See Simpson Letters, Am. Hist. Rev., XIV, p. 70, and ff.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 13

produce on the British mind, and since those conditions were
actually brought to the attention of the Government as early
as February, 1846, by the other agents whom Warre and
Vavasour encountered in Oregon, we have good reason to
believe that the attitude of Great Britain in the final stage of
the negotiations was not unaffected by them.*

[No. i.]

SIMPSON'S MEMORANDUM IN REFERENCE TO THE OREGON
QUESTION.*

Dated Hudson's Bay House, London, March 29, 1845.

Should the recent proceedings in the Congress of the United
States on the Oregon question result in hostilities between the
two countries, I think it would be absolutely necessary for the
protection of the Company's interests in Hudson's Bay that
a small military force should be stationed at Red River. Be-
sides this force I think it would be very desirable that a com-
pany of riflemen should be embodied in the country from our
native half caste population, who are admirably adapted for
guerilla warfare, being exceedingly active, and, by the con-
stant use of the gun from childhood, good marksmen. It
would be necessary, however, to forward from Canada along
with the troops a sufficient number of officers to command
and discipline this corps.

The officers and men should be forwarded from Canada,
proceeding by steam to the Sault St. Marie, and I would pro-
vide craft to convey them from thence to Fort William, where

*Lieut. Wm. Peel, son of Sir Robert Peel, arrived in London February 9 or
10, 1846, bearing the report of the Hon. Capt. John Gordon, brother of Lord
Aberdeen, in command of the ship America, which visited Puget Sound in the
autumn of 1845. Captain Gordon's report contains a censure upon the officers of
the Hudson's Bay Company similar to that quoted above from Warre and
Vavasour's second report. Possibly this fact explains their changed attitude be-
tween the first and second report.

*The memorandum found in F. O. America 440 following extracts from a letter
of John McLoughlin dated July 4, 1844.

14 JOSEPH SCHAFER

they should arrive in the course of the month of August. From
Fort William they would be forwarded in light canoes to Red
River, each canoe taking ten men, who would have to work
their passage, experienced bowsmen and steersmen being pro-
vided in the country.

The Company's agents at Red River would conduct the
commisariat department better than strangers.

For the protection of British interests on the Columbia and
N. W. Coast, I would moreover suggest that two sailing ships
of war and two steamers should be stationed there. It would
be highly important to get possession of Cape Disappointment
and to erect thereon a strong battery, which would effectually
command the mouth of the river, as unless the southern chan-
nel may have been found practicable since I was there,* ships
entering the river must pass so close under the Cape that shells
might be dropped almost with certainty upon their decks from
the battery.

The Columbia River, owing to the difficulty of ingress and
egress, cannot be depended upon as a harbor ; and to the south-
ward there is no good harbor nearer than the Bay of San
Francisco in about 40 degrees N. Lat, but in the Straits of de
Fuca, Puget Sound, Hood's Canal, and the Gulf of Georgia
there are many excellent harbours of easy access. Although
it might be unsafe for sailing ships of war to enter the Co-
lumbia River, steamers would find frequent opportunities of
going in and out, even in winter, and in summer the weather
is so uniformly fine they could make certain of crossing the
bar almost any time.

There should be a large body of marines attached to the
ships of war, for boating and land service; and a force of
about 2000 men, half breeds and Indians, might be collected
on both sides of the mountains that could on a short notice
be rendered disposable for active service in any part of the
Oregon territory. It would be necessary, however, that suffi-

*In the fall of the year 1841. See Simpson Letters, Am. Hist. Rev., XIV,
p. 70, and ff.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 15

cient officers should be at hand to command and discipline
these people.

The country is so productive in grain and cattle, and fish
are so abundant, that such a force as I have above pointed out
could with a little preparatory arrangement be provisioned
for twelve months certain.

Should the present negotiations happily result in a partition
of the country, the branch of the Columbia called Lewis River
would be a satisfactory boundary as regards British interests.
But if that cannot be obtained the parallel of 49° might be
continued as a boundary line until it strikes the north branch
of the Columbia, which from that point should be the boun-
dary to the sea. If the 49th parallel be adopted as the boun-
dary line the whole way from the mountains to the sea, then
it would be indispensable to have Vancouver's Island and the
free navigation of the Straits of de Fuca secured to us, as in
consequence of the prodigious tideway in Johnston's Straits
it would be impossible for trading ships to reach Fraser's
River by the northern channel.

On such partition of the country it would as a matter of
course be necessary that the Company and British settlers
should be secured in their present possessions by a provision
in the treaty, and the free navigation of the Columbia River,
as the only practicable communication to the east side of the
mountains, as well as the right of way by land (should a prac-
ticable route be found) from the Gulf of Georgia to the Co-
lumbia, should be secured to us. The provision in the treaty
should also secure to us the undisturbed possession of the
country now occupied by the Puget Sound Company, the
farms on the Cowlitz — in the neighborhood of Vancouver and
on the Multnomah Island — our water privileges on the Wil-
lamette River, our posts on the Columbia and Umpqua Rivers,
and all other establishments now occupied by the Company.*

*It will be seen that the above outline of a treaty respecting boundaries and
possessory rights in Oregon resembles closely the treaty finally proposed by Great
Britain in June, 1846. But three years earlier, March 10, 1842, Simpson urged
the government of Great Britain not to yield "any portion of the countrv north
of the Columbia River." See Simpson Letters, Am. Hist. Rev. XIV, 87.
This is a good Index to the progress of British sentiment on the question during
the period in which Oregon was being settled by immigrants from the United
States.

1 6 JOSEPH SCHAFER

It is very desirable that Lord Aberdeen should instruct Mr.
Pakenham to communicate with me confidentially on the
state of the negotiations respecting the Oregon boundary in
order that I might be prepared to act according to circum-
stances without the loss of time necessary for communicating
with England.

(Signed) GEORGE SIMPSON,

March 29, 1845. Hudson's Bay House.

To Sir J. H. Pelly Bart, Gov. of the H. B. Co.

[No. 2.]

Foreign Office, April 3, 1845.
Confidential, to James Stephen, Esq.

Sir : I am directed by the Earl of Aberdeen to request that
you will state to Lord Stanley that Lord Aberdeen is of opin-
ion that, considering the excitement which appears to exist in
the United States on the subject of the Oregon Territory, the
uncompromising- boldness with which the claims of the United
States to that Territory have been put forward, and the dec-
laration recently made by the new President in his inaugural
address, that he considers the right of the United States to
that country "clear and unquestionable," it will be necessary
to take without delay proper measures for obtaining a general
knowledge of the capabilities of the Oregon Territory in a
military point of view, in order that we may be enabled to
act immediately and with effect in defense of our rights in
that quarter, should those rights be infringed by any hostile
a<T£ression or encroachment on the part of the United States.

With this object Lord Aberdeen would propose to Lord
Stanley that an instruction should be prepared for Lord Met-
calfe ["Oov. Gen. of Canada] to be sent out by this next packet
which sails on the 5th instant, directing him to communicate
confidentially with Sir Richard Jackson [Commander of the
Forces, Canada,], with a view to obtaining from him some
capable officer, or, if it should be thought necessary, two offi-

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 17

cers, to be left entirely to the selection of Sir R. Jackson, who
should proceed as private travelers to the Oregon Territory,
and examine the important parts of the country, in order to
obtain as accurate a knowledge of it as may be requisite for
the future and efficient prosecution of military operations in
it, should such operations become necessary.

Sir George Simpson, the Acting Governor of the Hudson's
Bay Company in America, who proceeds to Canada by this
mail, will be ready to place himself in communication with
Lord Metcalfe, and with Sir R. Jackson, and to impart to
them his views as to the best mode of efficiently carrying out
the object which is contemplated, as well as to communicate
all the practical knowledge, which he possesses in an eminent
degree, of the country which it is intended to visit and sur-
vey. He will further be prepared to assist the officer or offi-
cers who may be dispatched on this service with all the means
which, as deputy governor of the Hudson's Bay Company,
he has at his disposal.

Whatever expenses may be incurred in this expedition may
be defrayed by this office, or by the Colonial Department, as
may hereafter be determined whenever the accounts shall have
been sent in. But it will probably, in the first instance, be
found more convenient that the necessary arrangements for
providing the officers and their attendants with everything
that may be necessary should be made by Lord Metcalfe.

It is almost needless to say that perfect secrecy should, so
far as possible, be preserved as to the expedition and its
objects.

The officer charged with the expedition might, if Lord Stan-
ley approves of that course, be instructed to report his pro-
ceedings by any safe opportunity which may present itself
through the Governor General of Canada under flying seal
to the Colonial Department, by which Department those re-
ports would be communicated to Lord Aberdeen.

(Signed) H. U. ADDINGTON.

i8 JOSEPH SCHAFER

[Endorsement] L. S. [Lord Stanley] : I presume you
know this measure was in contemplation. I propose to mail
a copy of this letter by tonight's mail to Lord Metcalfe for
his guidance. STEPHEN [apparently].

[Second endorsement, different hand:

Send by this mail "Secret." S[TANLEY], April 4.]

Dispatched 4th of April in bag — delivered to Captain
Taylor.

Downing Street, 4th of April, 1845.

Secret. My Lord: I transmit herewith enclosed for your
Lordship's guidance a copy of a letter which has been re-
ceived from the foreign office suggesting that two military
officers should be dispatched by your Lordship to the Oregon
Territory for the purposes described in that letter, and I have
to instruct your Lordship to take the necessary measures ac-
cordingly.

I have, etc., STANLEY.

The Governor General, The Rt. Honorable Lord Metcalfe,
K. G. C. G. Confidential. 3d of April, 1845.

[No. 3.]

Secret. His Excellency, Sir R. D. Jackson, Commander of
the Forces Govt. House, Montreal, May 2d, 1845.

Sir: Referring to the personal communications which I
have had with your Excellency, relating to the nomination of
two military officers for special service in the Oregon Terri-
tory, I proceed to apprise you of the views of Her Majesty's
Government in this mission, conveyed to me by instructions
from the Secretary of the State for the Colonies.

The officers whom you have selected will proceed in com-
pany with Sir George Simpson, the acting Governor of the
Hudson's Bay Company in the Oregon Territory, as private
travelers, and will carefully examine the important features
of the country, in order to obtain as accurate a knowledge
of it as may be required for the future and efficient prosecu-

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 19

tion of military operations in it, should such operations be-
come necessary. Sir George Simpson, who possesses in an
eminent degree a practical knowledge of the country which
it is intended to visit and examine, will be prepared with all
the means which, as acting Governor of the Hudson's Bay
Company, he has at his disposal, to assist the officers to effi-
ciently carry out the important duties entrusted to them.

Whatever expenses may be incurred in the expedition will
be defrayed by Her Majesty's Government whenever the ac-
counts thereof shall be submitted, but the officers may in the
meantime require some advances to be accounted for here-
after which Sir George Simpson is prepared to supply.

The officers will report their proceedings to the Secretary
of State for the Colonies and transmit their dispatches open,
under sealed cover, to me by any safe opportunity which may
present itself.

It is especially to be borne in mind that perfect secrecy
should, so far as possible, be preserved as to the expedition
and its objects.

It is scarcely necessary to add that cordial co-operation
with Sir George Simpson, with reference to the objects of the
mission, will be an essential part of the duties of the officers
employed.

I request that your Excellency will give such instructions
to those officers as you may deem proper to enable them to
accomplish the views of Her Majesty's Government.

(Signed) METCALFE.

[No. 4.]

Montreal, 3d May, 1845.

The commander of the forces has been instructed by His
Excellency, the Gov. General, to select two officers to accom-
pany Sir George Simpson, Gov. of the Hudson's Bay Estab-
lishments in British North America, upon a particular service
of an important description.

20 JOSEPH SCHAFER

The officers so selected are Lieut. Warre, Ad Camp to the
Com. of the Forces, and Lieut. Vavasour, of the Rl. Engineers.

These officers will report themselves, accordingly, to Sir
George Simpson, and will hold themselves in readiness to
proceed with him, at such time, and in such manner, as he
may be pleased to point out to them.

The enclosed letter from His Excellency, Lord Metcalfe,
is transmitted to them for their guidance generally, in rela-
tion to the objects of their mission and mode of transmitting
their reports, etc. Specific instructions will be given to Lieut.
Vavasour by the [officer] Commanding Rl. Engineers with
regard to subjects requiring engineering service. Both offi-
cers will upon matters of interest common to both be regu-
lated by the memorandum addressed by the Commander of
the Forces to his Ad Camp, Lieut. Warre.

(Signed) R. D. JACKSON,

Com. of the Forces.

MEMORANDUM OF LIEUT. WARRE, AD CAMP.

Montreal, May 3, 1845.

1. It would be absurd to attempt to give detailed instruc-
tions for the /survey of a country of which the instructor
knows nothing.

The officers who accompany Sir George Simpson for the
purpose of affording military assistance must regulate them-
selves according to his views, and conform, in practice, to the
instructions, he alone, from his knowledge of the intentions
of Her Majesty's Government and of the country, can give
them.

2. Mr. Warre will do well to consider, in order to carry
out the purpose of his particular line of duties, the general
instructions given to officers of the Quarter Master General's
Department.

He is recommended to read with attention and reflect upon
the "Reports" contained in a manuscript book now lent to

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 21

him exhibiting the spirit of military surveying by very able
officers, and also the instructions for the commisariat, etc., as
lately issued.

3. It would be desirable, if he have an opportunity, for
him to read a report upon the country into which it is sup-
posed he is now going, by Lieut. Fremont, United States
Army, and the reports of the late Secretary of War of the
United States (Mr. Wilkins) in Nov., 1844, recommending
measures which in their impatience to occupy the disputed
territory the present Government of the United States appear
disposed to overlook, although so obviously prudent, that they
may be adopted when that Government finds that its plans
cannot be carried into effect without opposition. I advert to
the establishment of a "new Territory" preparatory to the
formation of a new state on the eastern side of the Rocky
Mountains, before forming a new territory or state on the
western side of the mountains.

4. He will pay attention to the plans proposed for the de-
fense of .the western states by General Gratiot, etc., and the
extract given him of the journal of expedition under Colonel
Dodge of the U. S. Army in 1835, from Fort Leavenworth
to the Rocky Mountains and back by way of the Arkansas
River.

5. It would be desirable to see how such sort of expedi-
tions if carried into the disputed territory for hostile purposes
might be interrupted or cut off.

6. It is not impossible that Sir George Simpson may deem
it prudent to give to the settlers and 'other inhabitants con-
nected with the country under the control of our British Com-
panies some sort of military organization, toward which mili-
tary advice and assistance may be required. In such cases
the officers will be prudent in avoiding any attempts to imi-
tate the tactics or discipline of regular troops.

P. S. For the reasons given in No. I no attempt at instruc-
tions is made as to the survey of particular rivers, mountains,

22 JOSEPH SCHAFER

valleys or sea ports, or of the sea coast generally ; to all these
Sir George Simpson will call attention in proportion to their

importance.

R. D. JACKSON,
Comr. of the Forces.

[Enclosure: Extract from Col. Dodge's report, giving
mainly routes and distances.]

[No. 5.]

CONFIDENTAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR LlEUT. VAVASOUR,
ROYAL ENGR.

1. In consequence of confidential directions received from
his Lordship, the Governor General, from Her Majesty's Gov-
ernment, and of the orders which I have received from his
Excellency, the Commander of the Forces, you will imme-
diately proceed in company with Sir George Simpson, the
Governor under the royal charter of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany, and use your utmost endeavors to obtain a general
knowledge of the capabilities in a military point of view of
such parts of the country as may be indicated to you by that
officer, in order that the British Govt. may be enabled to act
immediately and with effect, in case of any hostile aggression
upon Her Majesty's dominions on the western coast of
America.

2. To this end you are desired to proceed with Sir George
Simpson, ostensibly in the capacity of a private individual,
seeking amusement, but you will examine well the more im-
portant parts of the country referred to, so as to guide the
prosecution of military operations, should such operations be-
come necessary.

3. As Sir George Simpson has been instructed by the
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to co-operate as much
as possible with you, for the accomplishment of the important
objects of your mission, and to impart to you his views as

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 23

to the best mode of efficiently carrying them out, and also to
communicate to you all the practical and local knowledge
which in an eminent degree he possesses, of the country to
be visited, and to assist you with all the means, which in his
official capacity he has at his disposal, you will in all respects
be guided by and conform to his advice and instructions in
the progress of this survey and special service entrusted to
you.

4. You will be careful to preserve perfect secrecy as to
the objects of the journey which you are to undertake, and
by every safe opportunity you will report your departmental
proceedings, and accompany your statements with illustra-
tive sketches, addressing the same to me.

5. As all your communications will be transmitted for the
information of Her Majesty's Government, through the Gov-
ernor General, I need not express to you the necessity of pay-
ing the utmost attention to the rendering of as full and at the
same time of as accurate a representation as possible of what-
ever may come under your observation.

6. It will, of course, be an important part of your duty to
examine and report on all existing British posts, to ascertain
and report if they be of a nature to resist any sudden attack,
or whether they could be made so in a short space of time,
likewise to examine and report the nature of the defenses
which in your professional judgment might if required seem
best adapted for the protection of such posts of the country,
as Sir George Simpson may deem most exposed to attack;
especially on the sea coast, bearing in mind the necessity of
dispatch in their construction, and in all cases where sea bat-
teries or redoubts on the coast of the Pacific or of large rivers
being proposed, that the plans should show how works could
be enclosed, have their exterior faces and lines flanked and
ditched if practicable, and be supported by some proper de-
scription of Keep either in the interior or gorge, and for the
whole to be of more or less strength according to each precise
locality and to the verbal or other communications which will
be afforded to you by me.

24 JOSEPH SCHAFER

7. In all cases of proposed defense, you will state the prob-
able cost, and means which may be available on the spot, as
well as the time required for their construction, and of course
you will forward sketches of each design. To save time and
trouble much pains need not be spent in the preparation of
drawings, outline sketches will suffice for illustrating your
views, but the scale, compass bearings and peculiarities of
site must be particularly shown. For the same reason of dis-
patch, estimates of detail will not be required, but the founda-
tion of your calculations of approximating estimates of ex-
pense should be stated.

8. As the expenses which you may incur will be defrayed
by the government, you will be careful to preserve and trans-
mit statements of your disbursements, duly authenticated.

9. In conclusion, I am to point out to you the necessity of
unanimity between yourself and the other officer associated
with you on this service, and the local authorities, especially
Sir George Simpson, the acting Governor of the British estab-
lishments in the Oregon Territory, and finally as a general
rule for your guidance you will observe all such instructions
as you may receive from Sir George Simpson.

10. You will be pleased to address all your reports on
engineer subjects to the Commanding Royal Engineer, Can-
ada, in order that they may be submitted to the Commander
of the Forces.

(Signed) N. W. HALLO WAY,
Col. on the Staff, Comr. Royal Engr., Canada.

His Excellency, Sir Richard Jackson, has this day informed
me that he has delivered to his A. D. C. Lieut. Warre, the
officer with whom you are to proceed, a copy of the instruc-
tions from the Secretary of State, and also certain instruc-
tions which he will communicate to you confidentially, it be-
ing his particular desire that in all respects you should act
in concert and cordially together.

•(Signed) N. W. HALLOWAY.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 25

[No. 6.]

SIR G. SIMPSON TO WARRE AND VAVASOUR 3OTH MAY, 1845.
Encampment Lac a la Pluie, 30 May, 1845.

Confidential.
H. J. Warre, M. Vavasour, Esquires, Red River Settlement.

Gentlemen : Having been confidentially informed by Her
Majesty's Government that the object of your present journey
is to acquire a knowledge of the character and resources of
the country situated between the Sault de St. Marie and the
shores of the Pacific, and of the practicability of forming mil-
itary stations therein and conveying troops thither, with a
view, should it hereafter become necessary, to the occupa-
tion thereof for military purposes, and having been requested
to afford you every facility for acquiring such knowledge and
to furnish you with such information as my experience might
suggest, I beg to invite your attention to the following partic-
ulars, which I think may be useful as enabling you to frame
your report on the important object of your mission.

You are aware that the United States are forming a cordon
of military posts along their northern frontier, at Micheli-
macinac, the Sault de St. Marie, La Pointe, on the western
shore of Lake Superior, Prairie du Chien, Lake St. Peters,
and Council Bluffs, and others, I understand, are in progress
on the Missouri from that point to the Rocky Mountains,
showing the importance they attach to their Indian frontier,
and acquiring for them an influence among the surrounding
native tribes, which would be highly important in the event
of a war, while the trade and settlements along the British
frontier are altogether unprotected in that way.

Should Her Majesty's Government be desirous of afford-
ing similar protection to the British settlements and interests,
and of securing a similar influence over the Indian popula-
tion in their neighborhood, I should consider that Point
Meuron, on the Kaministaquoia River (falling into Lake Su-
perior), about nine miles above the Hudson's Bay Company's

26 JOSEPH SCHAFER

trading post of Fort William, situated in about 48° 30 min.
N. Lat, and 89° W. Long., and Red River Settlement, at the
outlet of Red River into Lake Winipeg, in 50° N. Lat. and
97° W. Long., are the only two points where such protection
appears at present necessary or desirable, and at those places
military posts could be more advantageously situated than in
any part of the Indian country east of the Rocky Mountains.

As regards the means of transport, troops, ordnance, mili-
tary stores, etc., etc., could be conveyed to the Kaministaquoia
River from Canada in steam or sailing vessels. The inter-
course with the Sault is now so great that for many years
past there has been a constant communication during the sea-
son of open water, by steam and sailing vessels, to that point,
and the Hudson's Bay Company have a sufficient number of
decked and open craft on Lake Superior for any amount of
transport that might be required as far as the Kaministaquoia
River.

The soil and climate of the banks of the Kaministaquoia
are favorable for the production of various descriptions of
grain, potatoes and garden stuffs, with pasturage for any
quantity of cattle, and an inexhaustible supply of very fine
fish in its immediate vicinity.

There is a water communication of about 700 to 800 miles
from the Kaministaquoia to Red River Settlement, through
which you are now passing, but, owing to the obstruction
arising from rapids and falls, it is practicable only for craft
that can be carried over such obstructions, usually known as
"portages." Bark canoes, capable of conveying 15 soldiers
and about 30 cwt. of baggage and provisions, which can be
navigated and carried across the portages by four men, are
the most suitable craft for half that distance, say from the
mouth of the Kaministaquoia to Lac La Pluie, and boats
capable of carrying 30 men with their provisions and luggage,
can be employed from thence to Red River. If the troops
were to render the quantum of assistance in working these
craft which has frequently been afforded by women in the

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 27

Hudson's Bay Company's craft, the journey from Lake Supe-
rior to Red River might be performed in about twenty days,
but if they traveled merely as passengers, the work being per-
formed by the bare number of experienced hands absolutely
required in each craft, the journey would occupy four to six
weeks.

With the co-operation of the Hudson's Bay Company, who
have always large depots of provision and craft on hand, a
regiment might thus be conveyed to Red River Settlement in
the course of one summer. The best mode, however, of con-
ducting their transport would be through the agency of the
H. B. Co., who, I have no doubt, would contract for the main-
tenance and conveyance of troops with their baggage from
Lake Superior to Red River Settlement after the rate of
about forty shillings per man, if they were to assist in the
transport, or about sixty shillings per man if conveyed as
passengers.

Point Meuron, the site I would recommend as a military
post on the Kaministaquoia, is high ground, overlooking the
river, and is not commanded by any other point within reach.
The Indian population in that neighborhood is very thin, not
exceeding 100 to 150 families, of the Chippeway tribe, mild
and docile in their character, and entirely under the influence
of the Hudson's Bay Company, whose posts they frequent and
from whom they receive all their supplies of British manu-
facture.

The Hudson's Bay Company have four establishments on
the route from Lake Superior to Red River Settlement,
namely, Fort William, Lac a la Pluie, Rat Portage and Fort
Alexander, where craft and all other necessary supplies and
refreshment for troops could be provided.

At Red River the Hudson's Bay Company have an agri-
cultural settlement containing about 5000 inhabitants, con-
sisting principally of their retired officers and servants, and
their half caste families, and a few Indians. The country is
beautiful, salubrious, and very productive in wheat, barley,

28 JOSEPfe SCHAFER

pease, etc., etc., cattle, sheep, swine and horses are very abun-
dant, and the fisheries so productive that they would alone
afford the inhabitants the means of living if all other resources
failed. Salt is procured in the settlement from numerous
saline springs in the neighborhood, and maple is so plentiful
as to afford large supplies of sugar.

The distance from the settlement to York Factory, the
company's principal depot on the shores of Hudson's Bay,
in communication with England, is about 700 miles. Lake
Winnipeg, which is navigable by decked vessels, forms nearly
lialf the distance. From thence to the coast the navigation,
by a chain of rivers and lakes, is practically by boats of three
and a half to four tons burden. The downward voyage with
cargoes is usually performed in about 16 days, and the upward
voyage in from five to six weeks. By that route such articles
of British produce and manufacture as might be required in
the country can be conveyed at a charge of about 15 per cent
on English invoice prices.

The Company have at Red River Settlement two establish-
ments or forts, walled in and protected by bastions of suffi-
cient extent to quarter a regiment, and from the facility of
obtaining labor and stone, lime, brush, timber and other mate-
rials, extensive buildings might be erected there at a very
short notice.

Red River Settlement is the most favorable situation in the
Indian Territory east of the Rocky Mountains for a military
depot, and large levies of troops might be there raised from
the half caste population and the neighboring Indian tribes,
who, when properly disciplined, would form such a force as
would overcome many, and greatly harass all, the United
States settlements on the Missouri. A detachment of about
200 regular troops, however, I should consider sufficient to
form the nucleus of a force of several thousand natives, who
from their activity and habits of life, are admirably adapted
for guerilla warfare. The result of your own observations on
the spot will, I have no doubt, confirm all I have said on this

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 29

subject, and in order that you may be the better able to pre-
pare estimates of the expenses that might be incurred in
forming the establishments I have suggested and in the main-
tenance of troops, I beg to annex a tariff or price current list
of labor and supplies of every description.

From Red River Settlement, whither I have now the pleas-
ure of conducting you, a party will be dispatched under the
charge of Mr. Ogden, an influential officer of the Hudson's
Bay Company, to conduct you from thence across land to the
Saskatchewan River, and from thence across the Rocky
Mountains to Fort Colville on the Columbia River. Horse
traveling is the best and most expeditious mode of convey-
ance by that route, and the journey may occupy 40 to 50 days,
having been performed by me in the year 1841 in 47 days.
Mr. Ogden's knowledge and experience will guard against
privation, inconvenience or danger along that route. From
Fort Colville you will be able to reach the Pacific in boats in
five or six days, so that, leaving Red River about the 12
June you ought, according to the ordinary rate of traveling,
to arrive at the mouth of the Columbia River in the Oregon
Territory about the 12 Aup-ust. From Red River you will
find a fine open prairie country, which has been traversed by
wheel carriages to the base of the Rocky Mountains, to a
defile or pass situated in about 51° N. Lat., which, although
impracticable for wheel carriages, is by no means difficult on
horseback, having been lately passed by a large body of emi-
grants' families from Red River Settlement. The country
through which you will have to travel abounds with buffalo,
deer and game, enabling the Hudson's Bay Company to col-
lect depots of jerked meat, pemican, and other provisions to
any extent at their trading stations of Forts Ellice, Pelly,
Carlton, Pitt and Edmonton, so that troops, either cavalry or
infantry, might, by that route, be forwarded from Red River
to the mouth of the Columbia River.

While in the Oregon country I have to suggest your close
examination of Cape Disappointment, a headland on the north

30 JOSEP^I SCHAFER

bank of the Columbia River at its outlet to the Pacific, over-
looking the ship channel, and commanding as far as I was
able to judge when on the spot from superficial observation,
the navigation of the river, the occupation of which, as a forti-
fication would, in my opinion, be of much importance in the
event of hostilities between England and the United States.
Mr. Ogden has private instructions from me to take posses-
sion of that headland on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany, ostensibly with a view of forming a trading post and
"Pilots' Lookout" thereon ; and if after you have made an
accurate survey it be found that any part of the back coun-
try overlooks the Cape, Mr. Ogden has been further instructed
to take possession of such commanding positions also. I have
therefore to request the favor of your communicating to that
gentleman whatever preliminary measures you may consider
it desirable should be taken, with a view to the prior occupa-
tion of all important positions by the company, in order to be
afterwards available by Her Majesty's Govt, should such be
deemed necessary or expedient.

While in the Oregon country I beg to suggest your visit-
ing the Willamette Settlement, where there is a large popula-
tion consisting of citizens of the United States and British
subjects, the retired servants of the Hudson's Bay Company,
that you examine into the resources of the country as regards
the means of subsistence, and that you notice any positions
on the river which may appear to you well adapted for mili-
tary stations, more especially on the north bank of the Colum-
bia, between Fort Vancouver and Cape Disappointment, con-
tiguous to the ship channel, which Mr. Ogden will point out
to you. It might be well to examine Tongue Point, command-
ing the ship channel on the south side, the occupation of which,
from its commanding situation, mignt, I think, become an
object of importance, and if, after examination, you be of the
same opinion, Mr. Ogden has been instructed to take formal
possession thereof for the Hudson's Bay Company. You will
see from the extent of the Company's agricultural operations,

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 31

and from the large quantities of cattle and sheep at their estab-
lishments of Fort Vancouver, the Cowlitz and Puget's Sound,
that they could provide the means of subsistence for any naval
or military force that is likely to be required in that quarter
and other parts west of the mountains, while the sturgeon,
salmon and other fisheries are inexhaustible.

Mr. Ogden has been instructed to meet all your demands
on the Hudson's Bay Company's stores, depots and resources
in furtherance of the objects in view, and to afford you safe
escort and means of conveyance back to Red River, where I
shall expect to have the pleasure of meeting you in the month
of June, 1846, whence a passage will be provided for you to
Canada.

In conclusion, I beg to suggest that you report from Red
River Settlement, for the information of Her Majesty's Gov-
ernment, the result of your observations up to the time of
your departure for Oregon, and from Vancouver, by one of
the Company's vessels that will sail for England in October
you will have an opportunity of communicating such further
information as you may have collected up to that period.

Wishing you a safe and prosperous journey, I have, etc.,

(Signed) GEORGE SIMPSON.

To H. J. Warre and M. Vavasour, Esqrs.

Prices current for labor, provisions, Red River Settlement,
June, 1845.

Labor per diem, Is 6d (equals 36 cts.) and rations.

Team of horses, per diem, 3s.

Team of cattle, per diem, 2s.

Beef (fresh), per lb., 2d.

Mutton, per lb., 2d.

Bread, per lb., l^d.

Biscuit (from 1st and 2d flour), per lb., 2d.

Flour (1st and 2d), per cwt., 11s 6d.

Peas, per bushel, 2s.

Oats, per bushel, Is 6d.

Straw, per load of 800 Ibs., 2s.

Hay, per load of 800 Ibs., 3s.

Lime, per bushel, 4d.

Brick, per M., 40s.

Firewood, per cord, 2s @ 3s.

32 JOSEPH SCHAFER

[No. 7.]

Encampment Lac a la Pluie, 30 May, 1845.
Peter Skeen Ogden, Esqr., Chief Factor, Hudson's Bay
Company.

Confidential.

Dear Sir: Having submitted for your private information
a confidential letter I have under this date addressed to
Messrs. Warre and Vavasour, two British officers now accom-
panying us from Canada on their way to the shores of the
Pacific at the outlet of the Columbia River, which fully ex-
plains the object of their journey, I have now to request the
favor of your conducting those gentlemen from Red River
to their destination by the Saskatchewan, crossing the Rocky
Mountains at the Bow River Pass and touching en route at
Forts Ellice, Pelly, Carlton, Pitt, Edmonton and Colville, and
the other establishments of the Hudson's Bay Company on
the Columbia River.

Your party will consist of six servants of the Company
besides Messrs. Warre and Vavasour, and yourself and Mr.
Lane, one of the Company's clerks, who you will consider as
specially attached to your party, and who is to be employed
as I shall hereafter point out. Messrs. Warre and Vavasour
are to be provided at Red River with two saddle horses each,
and a horse each for the conveyance of their personal luggage,
which are to be relieved by fresh horses at each post you may
visit, and the necessary number of horses for the remainder
of the party will in like manner be provided from station to
station.

It is desirable that you should take your departure from
Red River not later than the 12 prox., so as to reach the Pa-
cific as early as possible, with a view of anticipating Lieut.
Fremont, of the United States Army, who was to have left
St. Louis on the 25th April for the same destination,* and by

•Fremont did not in fact try to reach Oregon on his third expedition until the
spring of 1846, when he essayed to open the southern route into the WilHmette
Valley, but returned from Klamath Lake to the Sacramento Valley on meeting
Gillespie.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 33

a steady prosecution of the journey I am in hopes you may
reach the Pacific by the I2th August.

The first object to be attended to on arrival there is to take
possession, on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company, of Cape
Disappointment, ostensibly with a view to the formation of a
trading post and Pilots' Lookout (should it not have been
previously occupied on behalf of the United States Govern-
ment or any of its citizens). In that case you will be pleased
to employ Mr. Lane and the servants who accompany you in
the building of a house on the Cape, taking possession by a
rough fence of the headland and the isthmus connecting it
with the back country, running a slight fence along the shore
of Baker's Bay and across the point to the shore of the ocean,
so as to enclose as much of the interior as may be desirable
for the exclusion of strangers ; likewise enclosing, for the same
object, any high ground in the rear, within cannon range,
which may command the Cape.

After the necessary enclosures and buildings shall have
been erected, I have to beg that Mr. Lane and two men be
left in charge of the post, to give their attention to the Indian
trade, being furnished with such provisions and supplies from
the depot of Fort Vancouver as may be necessary for the
maintenance of the post.

I have further to beg that you will point out to Messrs.
Warre and Vavasour the ship channel from the mouth of the
Columbia up to Fort Vancouver, directing their attention to
such points on the north shore as may command the channel,
likewise to Tongue Point on the south side, and if those gen-
tlemen be of opinion that the occupation thereof might become
important in a military point of view you will be pleased to
take possession of the headland on behalf of the Hudson's
Bay Company, and erect a house on such position as those
gentlemen may select as the best site for a battery, forming
a rough fence across the neck of land connecting the promon-
tory with the back country and along the edge of the woods
round the promontory, leaving two men there for a few weeks,
the more formally to establish our occupancy.

34 JOSEPH SCHAFER

You will understand, however, that neither Cape Disap-
pointment, Tongue Point, nor any other place is to be taken
possession of by the Hudson's Bay Company if already pos-
sessed and occupied on behalf of the United States Govern-
ment or its citizens ; but after possession has once been taken
by you of any of these points, I have to request that such may
not be relinquished unless compelled to abandon it by superior
force and overt acts of violence on the part of the United
States Government or its citizens, and in that case, either
yourself or the officer for the time being superintending the
Company's affairs at Vancouver will be pleased to report the
same in writing to the commander of any of Her Majesty's
ships with whom you may have an opoportunity of commun-
icating, calling upon such officer for support and protection,
and handing him the best proofs you can adduce of the nature
and extent of the violence that may have been exercised in
dispossessing the Company of the occupied points, transmit-
ting to the Governor and Committee of the Hudson's Bay
Company a detailed report of all proceedings connected with
this subject.

Should Messrs. Warre and Vavasour wish to visit the Wil-
lamette Settlement or any other point of the Oregon country
where we can afforod them protection, you will grant them
the necessary facilities to do so; meeting all their demands
in writing on the Hudson's Bay Company's stores and re-
sources, providing them with a passage to the mountains in
spring, with a view to their accompanying the Express to Red
River, so as to arrive there early in June, 1846, securing for
them the kindest hospitalities and attentions at our different
establishments, and consulting their pleasure, comfort and
convenience, in so far as circumstances may admit. I have
further to beg that all expenses connected with the conveyance
of these gentlemen to and from the Pacific, and all other out-
lay that may be incurred connected with their expedition, like-
wise the wages and provisions of the officer and servants who
may be employed in taking possession of Cape Disappoint-

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 35

ment, or of any other points that may be determined upon,
in accordance with the spirit of the letter referred to, be
charged to an account to be in the meantime headed "Suspense
Account."

I have to request that this letter be considered strictly con-
fidential, and that the object of Messrs. Warre and Vavasour's
journey be not disclosed, but that it be given out that they are
known to us only as private travelers for the pleasure of field
sports and scientific pursuits.

Herewith I hand you an order on the Company's stores and
resources at the different establishments you may visit, in fur-
therance of the objects of this expedition.

I remain, etc.,

(Signed) GEORGE SIMPSON.

[No. 8.]
Sir George Simpson to Lord Metcalfe, 9th July, 1845.

Mechipicoton, Lake Superior, gth July, 1845.
To His Excellency, The Right Honorable Lord Metcalfe,
etc., etc.

My Lord: In conformity to your Lordship's instructions
when I had the honor of seeing you at Montreal in the early
part of May last in reference to the mission of Messrs. Warre
and Vavasour to the Columbia River, I conducted those gen-
tlemen to Red River Settlement, Hudson's Bay, where we
arrived on the 5th June, and dispatched them thence on the
1 6th of the same month overland for Oregon, where I expect
they will arrive in the course of the month of August. From
Montreal to Red River we traveled by canoe by the most
direct route, say the Ottowa River, across Lake Nepisingue,
descending the French River to Lake Huron, along the north-
ern shore of that Lake to the Sault de St. Marie, thence along
the northern shore of Lake Superior to Fort William at the
outlet of the Kaministaquoiah River, descending [sic] that river,
and proceeding by a chain of rivers and lakes to the Lake of

36 JOSEPH SCHAFER

the Woods, thence down the Winnipeg River to the lake of
the same name, and from thence to Red River, which empties
itself into the southern end of that lake. From Red River
Settlement they were forwarded on horseback with a party
consisting- of a clerk and six servants besides guides, interpret-
ers and hunters, under the charge of Mr. Chief Factor Ogden,
who was instructed to take the most direct route to Oregon
by the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Rivers, crossing the
Rocky Mountains at the most southern British pass (in about
Lat. 51°), traversing the Flathead and Kootenai countries, and
falling upon the Columbia River at Fort Colville, whence they
are to proceed to the shores of the Pacific by boats.

At the interview I had with Sir Richard Jackson previous
to my departure from Montreal, I was requested to draw the
attention of Messrs. War re and Vavasour to such points con-
nected with the objects of their mission as I might consider
important, and to afford such information as my experience
might suggest, which might be useful in enabling them to
frame their report for the information of Her Majesty's Gov-
ernment.

I, accordingly, addressed a confidential letter to those gen-
tlemen under date 3Oth of May, copy of which is herewith
forwarded, and I addressed another confidential letter to Mr.
Chief Factor Ogden under the same date (copy of which is
also transmitted), directing that gentleman to take posses-
sion, on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company, of Cape Dis-
appointment at the entrance of the Columbia River, and of
such other positions as might be important in a military point
of view, in conformity to the desire of Her Majesty's Gov-
ernment, as communicated to me at an interview with which
I was honored by Sir Robert Peel and the Earl of Aberdeen
on the 2d of April last.

By reference to my letter to Messrs. Warre and Vavasour
your Lordship will observe that I consider it highly important
to British interests that one or two military posts should be
formed on the southwestern Canadian frontier, in order to

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 37

counteract the influence which the United States Government
is acquiring over the Indian tribes and British settlers, by
means of a cordon of military posts, which have been already
formed, or are in course of construction, along their northern
frontier, extending from Michelimacinac, by the Sault de St.
Marie, La Pointe, Prairie du Chien, Lake St. Peter and Coun-
cil Bluffs, and from thence up the Missouri and Yellowstone
Rivers to the Rocky Mountains, and your Lordship will fur-
ther observe that I have in the same communication pointed
out the situations where I think such British posts might be
most advantageously established; the practicability and ex-
pense of conveying the troops, and the resources of the coun-
try for their maintenance. So dangerous do I consider the
influence thus acquired by the American Government to the
British interests on the frontier that I am induced respectfully
to request your Lordship's favorable consideration of the
remedy for this evil which I have taken the liberty of point-
ing out.

As it may be of interest to your Lordship to possess the
latest information in reference to the proceedings of a public
character in Oregon, I have the honor to transmit herewith
some extracts from a dispatch I have addressed the Governor
and Committee of the Hudson's Bay Company on that sub-
ject, which contains every particular worthy of notice.

Herewith I forward a packet addressed to your Lordship,
which was entrusted to my care by Messrs. Warre and Vava-
sour and with much respect.

I have the honor, etc., etc.

[No. 9.]

Fort Vancouver, Columbia River, November i, 1845.
My Lord: We have the honor to forward, according to
your Lordship's instructions, the accompanying letters, ad-
dressed to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, containing
such information as we have been able to collect up to the
present date, on the Oregon Territory.

38 JOSEPH SCHAFER

We shall have the honor to submit a more detailed report
on our return to Canada next summer, with a statistic of the
separate tribes from whence we have taken our census of the
Indian population, which, we believe, has been based on the
best information to be obtained in the present unsettled state
of the country.

We regret not being able to accompany our report with
more numerous sketches or surveys. The whole of the lower
Columbia is covered with so dense a forest, and is so impen-
etrable that it would be quite imcompatible with the time
allowed to visit so vast a section of the country to give de-
tailed plans of the separate points and the season has been so
short during which operations could be successfully carried
on in the field as to render it impossible to gain more than a
superficial knowledge of the whole.

With regard to Cape Disappointment and the shores of the
Columbia River we could not, consistent with our duty, gain
any information on their capabilities for defense during the
very limited stay we were obliged to allow for that country.
We intend proceeding again to those points, and hope to be
able to complete our survey, and make such observations as
may be advisable under the present circumstances.

The Cape and principal points of the adjacent country be-
ing in the possession of American citizens, has much crippled
our proceedings, having no authority for their purchase. The
absence of Mr. Ogden, to whom Sir George Simpson gave
instructions on the subject, has also delayed our operations
in that quarter.

We have the honor to be, My Lord, your Lordship's obe-
dient, humble servants,
HENRY J. WARRE, M. VAVASOUR,

Lt. 14 Reg. Lieut. Royal Engr.

The Rt. Honorable, The Lord Metcalfe, Gov. General of
Canada.

[The report and the letters seem to be in the handwriting
of Lieut. Warre.]

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 39

[No. 10.]

REPORT OF LIEUTS. WARRE AND VAVASOUR, DATED 26 OCTO-
BER, 1845, DIRECTED TO "THE RT. HON. THE SECRETARY OF
STATE FOR THE COLONIES." RECEIVED JULY 6, 1846.

H. B. Company's Fort Vancouver, Oregon Territory,

October 26, 1845.

My Lord: In continuation of the report, dated June 10,
1845,* an(i forwarded from Red River, referring to the par-
ticular service entrusted to us, by order of His Excellency
Lord Metcalfe, the Governor General in B. N. America:

We have the honor to inform your Lordship of our arrival
at this post, in the Oregon Territory.

The overland journey from Red River to the Columbia
occupied 62 days, having left the i6th of June, we reached
Fort Colville on the i6th August.

There are two lines of communication from Red River to
the Columbia, viz.:

ist. The route by which we have lately passed to a defile
in the Rocky Mountains, in about 50° 30' north latitude
(from whence [to?] the head waters of the north branch of
the Columbia) [which?] is seldom used except by small par-
ties requiring dispatch, and is quite impracticable for the
transport of troops, with their provisions, stores, etc.

The country on the east side of the Rocky Mountains pre-
sents a succession of undulating plains, intersected by numer-
ous belts of thickly wooded swamps, and many dangerous
rivers.

The passage of the Rocky Mountains alone would form a
sufficient barrier to prevent the transport of stores, etc., on
account of the high, steep and rugged nature of the mountain
passes; the same insuperable objections, increased by the
denseness of an almost impenetrable jungle, and more numer-
ous rivers, and mountain torrents, exists on the west side, fol-
lowing the course of McGillivray's River (which is unnaviga-

*In Lord Metcalfe's, 26 July, 1845.

4O JOSEPH SCHAFER

ble), and on the right bank of which we descended to the
Columbia.

2d. The northern water communication in frequent use by
the traders of the H. B. Company, apparently affording
greater facilities for the conveyance of troops, is by the more
circuitous route of Lake Winnipeg, the Saskatchewan and Ath-
abasca Rivers, from whence the "portage" or land carriage
of about no miles across the Rocky Mountains to the boat
encampment on the Columbia.

We shall return by this route in the spring, 1846, and be
then able to report on its capabilities.

We beg to draw your Lordship's attention to the follow-
ing extract of a letter addressed by Sir George Simpson, the
Govr. of the Hudson's Bay Company, to ourselves, in which
is contained all the information or instructions received from
that gentleman on the subject of our present report, viz. :

"From Red River Settlement, whither I have now the pleas-
ure of conducting you, a party . . . etc. [Quote Sir G
Simpson's letter from the above clause down to and including
the following, five and a half pages of matter. "You will see
from the extent of the Company's agricultural operations and
from the large quantities of cattle and sheep at their estab-
lishments of Fort Vancouver, the Cowlitz and Puget's Sound,
that they could provide the means of subsistence for any naval
or military force that is likely to be required in that quarter,
and other parts west of the mountains, while the sturgeon,
salmon and other fisheries are inexhaustible."]

(The report continues) :

Your Lordship will perceive, by the above statement, that
in our opinion the facilities for conveying troops to the Ore-
gon Territory, by the route we have lately passed, do not
exist to the extent Sir George Simpson represents.

The Hudson's Bay Company have a certain stock of cattle,
etc., at each of their different trading posts of Fort Ellice, on
the Assiniboine, and Forts Carlton, Pitt and Edmonton on
the Saskatchewan Rivers, but as far as we could learn they

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 41

depend upon the buffalo and other wild animals for their sup-
plies, and had not more than sufficient for the consumption
of their present occupants.

The difficulties of the journey across the American conti-
nent are much increased by the uncertainty of finding buffalo,
nor did we obtain throughout the whole journey one single
animal to supply provisions for more than the day's consump-
tion, to even our limited party.

The trading posts above mentioned consist of a dwelling
house for the gentleman in charge, and stores, etc., built of
wood, surrounded by strong pickets or palisades, about 15 feet
in height, and small block houses at the opposite angles armed
with field and wall pieces.

They are calculated to resist a sudden attack of a band of
Indians, but cannot be considered as works of defense against
a disciplined force.

The emigration mentioned by Sir George Simpson in the
above extract was composed of several families of retired
trappers and servants of the H. Bay Company accustomed to
a "voyageurs" life, from whom it is impossible to judge of
the practicability of a route for the conveyance of troops. On
the east side of the mountains, to the point where they were
obliged to abandon their wagons, etc., their course was to the
south of that by which we passed, it not being considered safe
for our party, composed of only ten men, to encounter the
wild tribes of Indians on the open plains.

Fort Colville is situated on a small plain surrounded by
lofty sand hills at the head of an unnavigable rapid called La
Chaudiere Falls. It is said to be 2049 ^eet above the level of
the sea, 824 [ ?] miles from the boat encampment on the
Columbia (whence the northern portages of the Rocky Moun-
tains). It is 84 miles below McGillivray's River and 672 miles
from the Pacific Ocean.

The buildings are similar in construction to the trading
posts on the east side of the mountains, and calculated only
to resist the sudden atacks of Indians.

42 JOSEP£ SCHAFER

The soil of the surrounding country is sandy and unproduc-
tive, but the irrigation afforded by the constant overflowing
of the river enables the Hudson's Bay Co. to raise about one
thousand bushels of wheat annually in its vicinity.

They have also about 100 head of cattle and 300 or 400
horses attached to this post.

One hundred and thirty-seven miles below Colville is Fort
Okanogan on the left bank of that river, which is navigable
for canoes and boats for some distance into the interior. The
buildings are similar to Fort Colville, and calculated for the
same defense. There is also a depot of cattle and horses at
this post.

For about 50 miles below Fort Colville the fir timber is
thinly scattered over the face of the country, after which, and
to within 200 miles of the sea, the trees totally disappear. The
country is desolate in the extreme, interminable sandy deserts
extending on either bank of the river as far as the eye can
reach, without vegetation and intersected by ranges of high
sandy hills, surmounted by rugged basaltic rocks. In the
neighborhood of Fort Colville some limestone is found, but
in what quantity or of what quality we had not an opportunity
of judging.

One hundred and eighty miles below Okanogan the Snake,
or south branch of the Columbia River, joins the north, and
nine miles below the junction is Fort Nez Perces, on the
Walla Walla River, built of mud, 120 yards square, and bet-
ter adapted than any of the other posts to resist a sudden
attack.

The Columbia River, between Colville and Walla Walla, is
obstructed by several rapids which it would be dangerous to
descend in boats. No difficulty, however, occurs in making
the "portages," which seldom exceed half a mile.

The current of the river varies according to the season, hav-
ing a rise of 19 feet at Fort Vancouver in the spring of the
year. In ascending the river the chief difficulty is in the scar-
city of fir wood, drift wood being the only obtainable fuel,

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 43

which the Indians collect and sell to the traders for their culi-
nary purposes.

The boats in which we descended are admirably adapted for
this dangerous river navigation and for the conveyance of
troops. Each boat would carry 15 or 20 men. But from the
depth of water between the rapids, where it is necessary to
make a "portage," there is no reason why a much larger boat
might not be constructed for the conveyance of troops, etc.

By the Pescous River falling into the Columbia below Okan-
ogan, and by the Eyakama [Yakima] River above Fort Nez
Perces, Indian roads exist over a mountainous country to
Puget's Sound, which we believe might be made available for
the conveyance of troops (landed in that harbor) into the
interior. But we have not been able to make a personal inspec-
tion of these routes.

In 1841 the Hudson's Bay Company made use of one of
these routes to convey cattle to Nesqually, on Puget's Sound.

Fort Nez Perces on the Walla Walla River was formerly
the point where the emigration from the United States em-
barked on the Columbia, and it is still preferred by large num-
bers of emigrant families. But a more southern and shorter
route has been discovered by which they fall upon the Co-
lumbia about 125 miles below the Walla Walla, at an imprac-
ticable rapid called the "Dalles," formed by the contraction
of the river bed into a narrow "trough" or channel, not more
than 30 yards wide, where the boats, etc., are transported
overland for a distance of one mile.

We find according to the information collected from a num-
ber of emigrants, recently arrived from the United States,
that on leaving the Missouri they ascended the Platte River
for about 400 miles, through a fine open country, with but few
intervening rivers not easily forded, to the Forks, from
whence, following a northwest course for about the same dis-
tance, they reach the Rocky Mountains at a pass which is
easily traversed by wagons, etc., through a valley 80 miles in
length, terminating on the headwaters of the Colorado or

44 JOSEPH SCHAFER

Green River, from thence across sandy deserts to near the
sources of the Snake or south branch of the Columbia River,
on which is a trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company
called Fort Hall.

From this point they descended the north bank of the Snake
River (which is navigable only for small canoes) through a
rugged barren country to the Walla Walla River — or by the
newly discovered route they leave the Snake River about 100
miles from its junction with the Columbia, and following a
southwest course, by the valleys of several unimportant
streams, they fall upon the Columbia at the "Dalles."

The principal obstructions on this line of communication
with the Oregon Territory appear to arise on the west side of
the Rocky Mountains. On the east side the country is com-
paratively level and fertile, abounding in buffaloe, etc.

The passage of the Rocky Mountains presents little or no
difficulty. The valley being open and comparatively level.
Hundreds of wagons have traversed this pass during the last
three years.

That troops might be sent from the United States to Ore-
gon is evident from the fact that 300 dragoons of the United
States regular army having accompanied the last emigration
to the above mentioned valley through the mountains, osten-
sibly for the protection of the said emigrants from the hostile
bands of Indians infesting the eastern plains.

On the west the country is one continuous sandy desert.
Steep ravines and mountain passes constantly intersect the
road. In many places the timber is so scarce that sufficient
for the ordinary camp purposes is with difficulty obtained,
while the sterility of the country not affording food for buf-
faloe and other wild animals no dependence can be placed on
obtaining a fresh supply of provisions by the chase.

The emigrants, on their arrival from the United States,
rendezvous at the "Dalles," where an American Methodist
Mission is established on a rising ground to the south of the
river, about three miles below the rapid.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 45

There is an inexhaustible salmon fishery at this point, to
which the Indians of all the surrounding country resort dur-
ing the months of March and October for their summer and
winter supplies.

Frequent attempts have been made to penetrate to the val-
ley of the Willamette by a more southern route, avoiding the
Columbia River, but the country is so densely covered with
fir trees and intersected by mountains and ravines that the
undertaking has invariably failed, the parties being obliged
to abandon their wagons, with the loss of numbers of their
cattle.*

We have been informed by the gentlemen of the H. B. Co.
that there is a road, known only to their trappers, near the
southern boundary (1819) by which easy access might be
attained to the valley of the Willamette River, where the great
body of the citizens of the United States are settled, f

From the "Dalles" the River Columbia is deep and unin-
terrupted to the Cascades (48 miles), where it forces a pas-
sage through a range of lofty mountains, extending from lat-
itude 49 degrees into California, parallel with the sea coast,
and where it again becomes unnavigable for a distance of
three miles. The south bank is impassable at this point. The
emigrants descend on the north side, recross the river about
15 miles below the rapids, from whence they strike across a
thickly wooded country to the Clackamas River, which they
descend to the valley of the Willamette.

Below the Cascades the Columbia is navigable to the Pa-
cific (150 miles), although occasionally obstructed by sand
bars. Ships of 300 tons burden are constantly navigating its
water to Fort Vancouver, 35 miles below the Cascades (the
principal depot of the Hudson's Bay Company west of the
Rocky Mountains), on the north bank of the river, situated in

*The reference is apparently to those efforts which eventuated a year later in
the opening of the Barlow road, which crossed the Cascade Mountains near
Mount Hood.

fThis road was sought by Fremont, and opened by the Applegate party in 1846.

46 JOSEPH SCHAFER

a small plain, which is partially inundated by the spring
freshets.

Fort Vancouver is similar in construction to the posts
already described, having an enclosure of cedar pickets 15
feet high, 220 yards in length and 100 yards in depth. At the
northwest angle is a square blockhouse containing six 3-lb.
iron guns (vide the accompanying sketch). There is a small
village occupied exclusively by the servants of the H. B. Co.,
on the west side, extending to the river.

The fort was formerly situated on a rising ground in the
rear of its present position, but was removed on account of
the inconvenient distance from the river, for the conveyance
of stores, provisions, etc. The present site is ill-adapted for
defense, being commanded by the ground in the rear.

About five miles above the fort, on a small stream falling
into the Columbia, is an excellent saw mill, and on another
small stream one mile distant is a grist mill, capable of
grinding 100 bushels of wheat daily.

The Hudson's Bay Company have about 1200 acres of

ground under cultivation, producing about bushels of

wheat and - - bushels of potatoes annually. There are
about 2000 sheep, 1300 head of cattle, and between seven and
eight hundred horses belonging to the establishment.

The Willamette River, on which the American citizens have
formed their principal settlement, joins the Columbia by three
channels ; the first, and that in most general use, is five miles
below Fort Vancouver, the two others are little known and
"debouche" 12 and 15 miles lower down, forming a large
fertile island, but covered by water during the spring of the
year, which renders this, as also many of the low lands in
other parts of the country, valueless for cultivation. The
three channels unite about six miles above the mouth of the
upper, at a point called Linnton, where it was intended to
form a village ; this idea appears to have been abandoned, at
the present time but one family lives there.*

*Peter H. Burnett and Morton M. McCarver, of the 1843 emigration, laid out
the town of Linnton, believing that point the head of navigation on the Wil-
lamette.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 47

There is sufficient depth of water in the river for boats of
any size, for a distance of twenty miles, when a shallow, strong
rapid, at the mouth of the Clackamas River, impedes the
navigation (except in the seasons of high water) to the Falls,
about three miles above, where the village or settlement (com-
monly called Oregon City), inhabited principally by Ameri-
cans, is situated.

This settlement was commenced in 1829-30 by Dr. Mc-
Loughlin, the chief resident of the H. B. Company west of
the Rocky Mountains, who cleared land on the right bank
of the Falls, intending to avail himself of their immense
water power by erecting saw mills, etc. In the same year,
1830, four Canadians, retired servants of the Company, settled
in the country above the Falls, and were followed during the
succeeding years, 1831-32-33, by several of their countrymen.
The H. B. Co. gave every encouragement to their undertaking
by supplying them with horses, cattle and implements of hus-
bandry. In 1833 a fur and fishing company to trade in the
valley of the Columbia was formed in Boston, and a vessel
despatched from thence arrived at her destination. But having
failed in their dealings with the natives and being deserted
by many of the crew, who became settlers, the Company was
broken up and the remainder of the party returned on the
following year to their native country.*

In 1834 a large party of missionaries sent across the conti-
nent by the Methodist Missionary Society in the United States,
arrived at the Falls of the Willamette, where they obtained
from Dr. McLoughlin the timber he had prepared, but not
made use of, for the saw mills, to build a church and dwelling
house.

These missionaries remained at the Falls till 1842, when
they quarreled among themselves and sold the greater portion
of their lands and improvements to Dr. McLoughlin, who

*The reference is to the Wyeth enterprise, which is fully illustrated by the
Journals and Letters of Nathaniel Wyeth, published in 1899 under the editorship
of Professor F. G. Young, Eugene, Oregon.

48 JOSEPH SCHAFER

had originally given them the grants from the "claim" he
had made to a portion of this section of the country.

In 1835 many Canadians and H. B. Company's retired
servants settled on the river, and in this or the preceding year*
two Roman Catholic missionaries from Canada established
themselves near the center of what now had become the
Canadian settlement, erecting a church and building a school-
house for the education of the Canadians, half-breeds and
Indian population. During the following years a few Ameri-
cans straggled into the country, attracted by the exaggerated
descriptions of the soil and climate, as represented by the
American traders and trappers, many of whom were in the
service of the Hudson's Bay Company.

In 1841-42 the H. B. Company on the east of the Rocky
Mountains contributed largely to increase the British subjects
in this country, by encouraging and affording means of trans-
port to such of the inhabitants of their settlement at Red
River who might wish to emigrate to the Red River. About
150 families were induced by this means to settle on the Cow-
litz River, and on the plains in the neighborhood of Nesqually,
in Puget's Sound ; and horses, cattle, etc., given to encourage
their labor.

The soil of that part of the country not yielding so great a
return as anticipated, many of them removed in the following
year to the valley of the Willamette.

Till the year 1842-43 not more than thirty American fam-
ilies were resident in the country.t

In 1843 an emigration consisting of about 1000 persons,
with a large number of wagons, horses, cattle, etc., arrived on
the Willamette, having traversed the vast desert section of
the country between the Missouri, the Rocky Mountains and
the Columbia. They arrived at an advanced season of the
year, much exhausted by their arduous journey, and were

*The Catholic missionaries arrived late in the year 1838.

fThis estimate varies from that made by Simpson in November, 1841. See
Simpson Letters, Am. Hist. Rev., XIV, p. 80.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 49

indebted to the H. B. Company for boats, etc., to forward
them to their future homes.

This emigration scattered themselves over the face of the
country, many of them remaining at the Falls, where saw mills
had been erected by Dr. McLoughlin and by Americans ; the
claims fwere?] surveyed and divided into town lots, which
were sold to whoever desired to become a purchaser.

In 1844 about an equal number of emigrants arrived from
the United States as in the preceding year, and avowedly
under the sanction and protection of the American Govern-
ment, who offered a premium of 640 square acres to any
American citizen becoming a settler [sic], seeking by this
means to overrun the country and strengthen their claim to
the disputed Territory.

In 1842 the American Government appointed Dr. White,
previously surgeon to the Methodist Mission in that country,
their agent in Oregon, and he exercised the duties of this
office, drawing his salary through the H. B. Company on the
American Government till this year (1845), when he returned
to the United States.

On our arrival on the Columbia in August last we found a
much more numerous emigration than on any former year
arriving from the United States, having been escorted to the
Rocky Mountains by 300 dragoons of the U. S. Army under
the command of Colonel Kearney — who, we believe, have
returned by the same route.

Lieutenant Fremont, of the Corps of Topographical Engi-
neers, accompanied the emigration of 1843, remained a short
time in the country and returned in the autumn, but being
prevented by the snow from recrossing the Rocky Mountains
at so late a season of the year, he entered North California,
where he wintered, and reached the United States in the
following summer. His report has been published by order
of Congress at Washington, and is said to contain much val-
uable information, which we regret not having been able to
peruse.

5o JOSEPH SCHAFER

This officer has accompanied the present emigration to Fort
Hall, from whence he crossed toward the southern boundary,
and we understand he is making a survey of the Valley of the
Klamet River, with a view to its settlement, and to find a
line of communication between that country and the head-
waters of the Willamette.

This officer always appears in his undress uniform and
makes no concealment of his being employed by the Govern-
ment of the United States.

It is extremely difficult to discover the exact number of
emigrants now arriving in the country, but from the best
information we have estimated their numbers at about 2000
individuals. They have 570 wagons drawn by oxen, which
are found to be preferable to horses for so long a journey,
and it is stated that they started with 6000 cattle, including
milch cows, etc., etc., large numbers have died on the route.
They have a large number of horses and a few mules. Their
wagons are admirably adapted for the long rugged land
journey.

That the gentlemen of the H. B. Company have not exag-
gerated the lamentable condition of these emigrants on former
occasions is evident by the appearance on arrival of this, said
to be the most wealthy and respectable of all the former.
Fever and sickness have made fearful havoc among them, and
many are now remaining in a helpless condition at the
"Dalles" and the "Cascades." They report 30 men, women
and children having died upon the journey.

By the foregoing statement your Lordship will observe that
even in 1844 the citizens of the United States formed a large
majority over the only British subjects in the Oregon country,
viz. : the gentlemen composing the Hudson's Bay Company,
their servants, and the retired servants who had become
settlers.

This majority would be much increased by the arrival of
the anticipated emigration of 1845.

The subjects of Great Britain had great difficulty in pro-

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 51

tecting their lands and possessions from the desperate char-
acters, chiefly the refuse of the Western States, whose enmity
to anything "British" was open and avowed.

In 1843 an organziation had been formed by the citizens
of the United States to administer justice and keep the peace
within what they considered their own territory, as far north
as the Columbia River; against this American compact the
British and Canadian population protested — and this was the
state of affairs till the autumn of 1844.

The property of the H. B. Company had often been threat-
ened, and was at any time liable to be destroyed by the lawless
Americans, influenced by the reports of designing individuals ;
and for the protection of their property, and for the peace
and prosperity of the whole community, the leading gentlemen
of both parties formed a coalition (1845). An organization
was established, neutralizing the preponderating American
influence. A governor chosen by mutual consent and the
fundamental laws for the government of the whole derived
from the statutes of the Territory of Iowa, on the Missouri,
recently joined to the United States. Thus the internal peace
of the country has been preserved and the allegiance of either
party to their respective governments respected.

This compact is independent of the United States Govern-
ment. Emigrants of all nations, willing to uphold the law in
a [the] country, and for the protection of life and property,
are enrolled as members. The governmental offices being
defrayed by a fixed taxation, according to the laws of Iowa,
as before stated.

Nor could (if we can express an opinion) a more judicious
course have been pursued by all parties for the peace and
prosperity of the community at large.

There are about 300 inhabitants at the village on the Falls.
One Roman Catholic and one Methodist chapel, about 100
dwelling houses, stores, etc. An excellent grist mill (the whole
of the machinery, etc., having been exported from England
by Dr. McLoughlin) and several saw mills.

52 JOSBPH SCHAFER

The buildings are of wood and the town is situated on a
ledge of rocks about 30 feet above the average level of the
river. Behind the town a perpendicular scarp rises for about
40 feet, sloping gradually away to the rear. This is one of
the most important points in the settlement, commanding the
navigation of the river, and offering every advantage, as
regards position, for defense.

We regret not having been able to make a survey of this
place, being fearful of increasing the jealousies already excited
by our arrival in the country, which feeling has also prevented
our making sketches of many other points, or obtaining infor-
mation to make our report as efficient as we could wish.

The surrounding country is fertile, and the forests of pine
and oak are interspersed by prairies on which the settlers
build their houses, raise their crops and pasture their cattle.

The settlement extends about sixty miles on either bank of
the river, the country is comparatively level, that on the right
bank being frequently inundated during the spring freshets
for a considerable distance into the interior; the soil yields
an abundant return, with comparatively little labor; and the
pasturage is excellent.

To the eye the country, particularly the left bank of the
river, is very beautiful. Wide extended, undulating prairies,
scattered over with magnificent oak trees, and watered by
numerous tributary streams (on which several saw mills are
now in operation) reach far to the south, over the confines of
North California (to near which boundary our journey was
extended), and offering a field for an industrious civilized
community, but seldom surpassed, for pastural and agricul-
tural purposes.

On the right bank of the river, about 30 miles above the
Falls, is a Roman Catholic Mission, having four resident
priests and six sisters (from Belgium). A church, dwelling
houses, and school houses, where we witnessed the examination
of about sixty children, the sons and daughters of the Catholic
half breed population. About 25 miles above on the same

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 53

bank of the river, an American Methodist Mission is estab-
lished, having one resident minister, a large school house and
dwelling house. We regret not being able to give so prosper-
ous an account of the Methodist Missionaries as of the Roman
Catholic Brethren. In this instance, the school house was in
wretched repair, and but few pupils seemed to attend for
instruction. They are but ill supplied by the society in the
United States, and we fear that religious instruction gives
place to personal aggrandizement with the members of this
society.

There are ferries established across the river, which is wide,
and navigable for small boats and canoes, at the above men-
tioned stations.

Below the Falls the river is said to rise 20 to 25 feet during
the high waters in the Columbia in the month of June. Above
the Falls the rise is also very great, from the quantity of rain
falling during the winter, and the melting of the snow on the
mountains, during the spring.

The total number of inhabitants in the Valley of the Wil-
lamette is about six thousand, of whom about 1000 may be
considered as subjects of Great Britain.*

Notwithstanding the advantages to be found in this valley,
many of the American emigrants become dissatisfied, and
remove to California, where the climate is more salubrious and
their possessions unlimited.

During our absence in the Willamette settlement, Mr. Ogden
proceeded alone to Cape Disappointment, at the mouth of the
Columbia River, to take possession of that headland according
to the instructions he had received from Sir G. Simpson, but
finding it was claimed by two Americans, he entered into
negotiations for its purchase, which are not completed, his

*Lieut. Peel's report, dated September 27, 1845, just one month earlier than
the Warre-Vavasour report, gives the total population of the Willamette settle-
ment at about 3,000 inhabitants, including women and children, of whom about
600 or 700 are Canadians and half-breeds, retired servants of the Company. If
both reports are approximately correct, it follows that the emigration of 1845,
arriving after Peel wrote, amounted to 3,000.

54 JOSEPH SCHAFER

services being required in the interior, from whence he has
not returned.

We also went down the Columbia River, visited Fort
George and Tongue Point on the South side, and made a sur-
vey of the Cape, which we regret not having had time to
complete to forward by the present opportunity.

On our return we found Lieutenant Peel, R. N., and Cap-
tain Parke, R. M., of Her Majesty's ship "America," who had
made a short tour in the Willamette Settlement. We accom-
panied these officers back to their ships in Port Discovery,
Straits of San Juan de Fuca, and informed Captain Gordon of
our arrival in the country and the several objects of our
journey.

From Port Discovery we crossed the Straits to Vancouver's
Island, commencing in the 48 parallel of latitude and extending
260 miles north, and about 50 in breadth.

This island is somewhat intersected by high mountain
ranges, but the soil is said to be fertile and well adapted for
cultivation. We visited the H. B. Company's post, Fort
Victoria in 48° 26' N. Latitude, and 123° 9' W. Longitude, on
the south shore of the Island near the head of a narrow Inlet
(of which we forward a sketch) where they have established
a fort similar to those already described, a farm of several
hundred acres on which they raise wheat and potatoes, and a
depot of provisions, supplies, etc., for the different Trading
posts further to the north. The position has been chosen
solely for its agricultural advantages, and is ill adapted either
as a place of refuge for shipping, or as a position of defense.

The country to the south of the Straits of de Fuca, between
Puget's Sound and the coast is overrun by high rugged
mountains presenting great difficulty in traversing, and but
few inducements to the farmer.

Between the above mentioned points there are some fine
harbors, among which we may mention Port Discovery and
Dungeness, on the south shore, and a bay within three miles
of Fort Victoria, called the "Squimal" by the Indians, which

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 55

from superficial observation appears to afford anchorage and
protection for ships of any tonnage.

The above mentioned harbors contain an abundant supply
of fresh water, in which the rest of the coast is very deficient.
Large rivers are formed in the winter season, which become
perfectly dry during the summer.

There is coal in the neighborhood of Puget's Sound, and
on the Cowlitz River. The specimens used by the H. B. Com-
pany were obtained from the surface, and were probably on
that account not found good.

The specimens of lead found in the mountains on the coast
are apparently very fine.

The fisheries (salmon and sturgeon) are inexhaustible, and
game of all descriptions is said to abound. The timber is
extremely luxuriant and increases in value as you reach a more
northern Latitude. That in 50 to 54 degrees being considered
the best. Pine, spruce, red and white oak, ash, cedar, maple,
willow and yew grow in this section of country north of the
Columbia River. Cedar and pine becomes of an immense size.

At Nesqually, near the head of Puget's Sound, is the farm
of the Puget's Sound Company commenced in 1839* an<^ SUP~
ported chiefly by the gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany. They here cultivate wheat and potatoes, but the mag-
nificent ranges of rich prairie country between the shores of
Puget's Sound and the Cascade Mountains to the east, are
chiefly used as pasturage for the immense herds of cattle and
sheep, the greater number of which were brought from Cali-
fornia in 1840-41.

From Nesqually we crossed the head waters of several large
streams, among others the Nesqually and Chehalis rivers,
rising in the Cascade mountains, extending along the coast
to Latitude 49°. These rivers have their channels sunk, in
some places, upward of a hundred feet below the level of the
country, rendering them extremely dangerous and difficult to
traverse at the seasons of high water.

*That is, as a venture of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company. There
was a settlement at that point as early as 1833.

56 JOSEPH SCHAFER

The Chehalis flows into Gray's Bay on the Pacific, is navi-
gable for small boats and canoes, and forms a barred harbor
for vessels of small tonnage.

The country is easy of access from Nesqually to the Che-
halis River, where the soil changes from graveley loam to a
stiff clay, and numerous little rivers, which overflow their
banks, and flood the country for an immense distance during
the winter and spring freshets, render the land journey to the
Cowlitz river difficult, and during that season almost imprac-
ticable.

There are a few families settled on plains on this route and
the Americans are forcing themselves as far north as Puget's
Sound. During our travels we met five families on their route
to the prairies in that vicinity.*

There is a settlement of about 90 Canadian families on the
Cowlitz River, where the Puget's Sound Company have about
looo acres of ground under cultivation.

The course of the Cowlitz is rapid, and in high water
dangerous, but presenting no obstacles that are not overcome
by the energy and perseverance of the Canadian boatmen.

A small establishment has been formed at the mouth of the
Cowlitz river as a store for wheat, etc., which the H. B. Com-
pany exports in large quantities to the Russian settlement at
Sitka and to the Sandwich Islands.

The accompanying account of the population of the Indian
tribes, has been compiled, with great care, from the best
authorities we could obtain, and from the trading lists lent us
by the kindness of the gentlemen in charge of the H. B. Co.

The Indians of Puget's Sound and the Straits of de Fuca,
also those further to the north, appear to be more numerous
than those of the interior, — and cultivate large quantities of
potatoes, etc., for their own use, and to barter with the vessels
frequenting the coast. They are not so cleanly as the Indians

*The incursion of Americans into the Puget Sound territory is one of the
points reported to his government by Captain Gordon, whose messenger, Lieut.
Peel, reached London on or before February 10, 1846.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 57

of the prairies, nor are they so brave or warlike. Many of
the latter tribes are a very fine race of men, and possess large
herds of cattle and immense numbers of horses.

In the neighborhood of Walla Walla individual Indians
were pointed out to us, who owned more than 1000 horses.
Slavery is common with all the tribes and he who possesses
most slaves and the largest number of horses is considered the
greatest chief.

The Indians of the north are sometimes troublesome, but
those of the Columbia are a quiet, inoffensive, but very super-
stitious race. To the last cause may be traced their quarrels
with the white man and with one another. They are well
armed with rifles, muskets, etc., but from policy they are
much stinted by the H. B. Co. in ammunition.

The Indian Tribes do not remain upon the same ground
during the whole year. In the summer they resort to the
principal rivers and the sea coast, where they take and lay by
large quantities of salmon, etc., for their winter consumption,
retiring to the smaller rivers of the interior during the cold
season.

Neither the Roman Catholic nor the Methodist Missions
have done much toward reclaiming the Indian population, who
are an idle, desolute [sic] race, and very few of them can be
induced to exchange their mode of life or cultivate more than
will absolutely keep them from starvation.

The total abolition of the sale of intoxicating liquors has
done much for the good of the whole community, white as
well as Indian; and so long as this abstinence (which can
hardly be called voluntary) continues the country will prosper.
When this prohibition is withdrawn, and the intercourse with
the world thrown open, such is the character of the dissolute
and only partially reformed American and Canadian settlers,
that every evil must be anticipated, and the unfortunate Indian
will be the first to suffer.

We take the liberty of calling your Lordship's attention to
the accompanying "Oath of Office" under the Organization,

58 JOSEPH SCHAFER

and also to the resolution with regard to the junction of "Van-
couver County" to that organization. The gentlemen of the
H. B. Company appearing to us anxious that their motives
should not be misunderstood in uniting with the Americans
for the mutual protection of their property, or that their
allegiance to the mother country should not be impugned.

Every information has been afforded us, in the kindest
manner, by Dr. McLoughlin and Mr. Douglass, the gentlemen
in charge of the H. B. Company in the Oregon Territory,
without reference to our ulterior objects, and we are convinced
that the same kindness, and hospitality is extended to all of
whatever nation, arriving in this wild country.
We have the honor to be, my Lord,

Your Lordship's Obedient and Humble servants,
HENRY J. WARRE,

Lt. 14 Regt., Ad. Camp.
M. VAVASOUR,

Lieut. Royal Engr.

We have omitted to mention the arrival of H. M. Ship
"Modeste," Captain Baillie, in the Straits of de Fuca, during
our visit to that place. He informed us of his intention to
remain a part of the ensuing winter in the Columbia River
and we have just received the intelligence of his arrival at
Fort George.

REMARKS.

The Gentlemen in charge of the Hudson's Bay Company's
posts on the north of the Columbia have made very accurate
estimates of the Indian population in the neighborhood of
their several stations, and we have every reason to believe, from
our own observations, in the accuracy of these statements.

The Indian tribes on the Columbia and in the interior of
the country are a very migratory race, and it is very difficult
to arrive at their exact numbers. We believe the above state-
ments to be rather under their numerical strength.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 59

We shall have the honor to submit on our return, in 1846,
more detailed Statements of all the separate Tribes.

M. VAVASOUR, HENRY J. WARRE,

Lieut. Royal Engr. Lt. Ad.

REPORT OF WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 26 OCTOBER, 1845.
ENCLOSURE i.

Section A of the Organic Law.

The Officers under this compact shall take an oath as fol-
lows, to-wit:

I do solemnly swear that I will support the Organic Laws
of the Provisional Government of Oregon, so far as the said
Organic Laws are consistent with my duties as a citizen of
the United States or a subject of Great Britain, and faithfully
demean myself in office, so help me God.

An Act to Organize the District of Vancouver.

Be it enacted by the House of Representatives of Oregon
Territory, as follows:

That all that portion of the Territory of Oregon, lying north
of the middle of the main channel of the Columbia River,
shall be, and the same is hereby declared, a separate district,
under the name and style of Vancouver District; and the said
District shall be entitled to elect one member of the House of
Representatives, at the next annual election.

This act to take effect and be in force from and after its
passage.

Oregon City, 20 August, 1845.

Approved, GEO. ABERNETHY,

Governor.

6o

JOSEPH S CHAFER

ENCLOSURE 2.

Warre and Vavasour's Report, October 27, 1845.

Establishments of the Hudson's Bay Company in the Oregon Territory and the
Northwest Coast of America.

vr_ nf

Acres
of land

LIVE S

TOCK.

Men.

culti-
vation

Horses

Cattle

Hogs

Sheep

Fort Simpson

Chatham Sound

20

g

Bohine Lake
Conally Lake

New Caledonia
New Caledonia

5
5

8
4

....

Fort McLeod

New Caledonia

5

10

Fort St. James. . .

New Caledonia . .

10

15

39

94

14

Frasers Lake

New Caledonia

5

20

Fort Chilcoten ....

New Caledonia

5

Fort George

New Caledonia

10

30

Fort Alexander.. . .
Thompson's River

New Caledonia
New Caledonia

10
15

46
6

Fort Longley

New Caledonia

20

240

15

195

180

Fort Victoria
Fort Nisqually. . . .

Vancouver Island. ...
Pugets Sound

35
20

120
100

7
198

23

1857

1

5795

Fort Cowlitz
Fort George

Cowlitz River
Columbia River

30
6

1000
4

103

579

1062

Fort Vancouver. . .
Fort Nez Perces...
Fort Okonogan.. . .
Fort Flathead.

Columbia River
Columbia River
Columbia River
McGillivray's River

200
10
2
5

1200
12

7

702
68

1377
23

1581
12

1991

Fort Colville

Columbia River

30

118

350

96

73

Fort Boise
Fort Hall

Burnt River
Portneuf River

8
20

2
5

17
171

27
95

....

Fort Umpqua

Cape Gregory . .

g

50

46

64

45

23 Posts

484

3005

1716

4430

1906

8848

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6.

61

Warre and Vavasour's Report October 26, 1845. Enclosure 3.

Of the Indian Tribes in the Oregon Territory from Lat. 42° to Lat. 54°, derived
Lists of the Hudson's Bay Company and from best obtainable infor-

from the Trading
mation .

Fort Vancouver — 1845.

Names of Tribes.

Where Situated.

Male

F'm'le

Slaves

Total

INACOTTS, NEWETTE and 27

From Lat. 54° to Lat. 50°,

other tribes speaking par-
tially theQuocott language

including Queen Char-
lotte's Ids., N. end of Van-

couver Id., Milbank Sd.
and Id.,and the main shore

19020

20215

1570

40805

MASSETTES and 13 tribes not
included with the above,

On Queen Charlotte's Island,
not included in the above.

3232

3381

None

6613

and speaking different

languages.

NASS Indians, 4 tribes,

Nass River, on main land . .

857

746

12

1615

speaking the same lan-

guage.
CHYMSEOANS, 10 tribes, all
of whom speak the same
language, with a different

Chatham Sd., Portland Can-
al, Port Epingt9n and
other neighboring islands .

1202

1225

68

2495

idiom.

SKEENA Indians, 2 tribes. . .

At mouth of Skeena River. .

195

120

7

322

SABOSSAS Indians, 5 tribes —

Gardener's Canal, etc

717

601

111

1429

MILBANK SD., 9 tribes ....

Milbank Sd. and vicinity. . .

784

797

47

1628

CLALLAMS, CANOITETINES,

Lat. 50° along coast to

24 tribes, speaking Clal-
lam and Canoitetines lan-

Whidby's Ids. in Lat. 48°,
Pt. of Vancouver's Island

guage

and mouth of Fraser Rv. .

3176

3383

2868

9427

NEW CALEDONIA, 8 tribes . . .

About forts so designated . . .

1265

1150

210

2625

LANETCH INDIANS, 3 tribes. .

De FucaSt., Vancouver Ids..

194

152

None

445

Children under 12 years,99

HALLAMS, 11 tribes

De Fuca St. and Vancouver.

517

461

40

1485

Children under 12 yrs., 476

SINAHOIMISH, 1 tribe

Do.

208

118

13

569

Children under 12 yrs., 230

SKATCAT, 1 tribe

Do.

173

161

18

543

Children under 12 yrs. 191

CONVITIHIN 7 tribes

Do.

542

636

None

1763

Children under 12 yrs. 585

Do., tribes not as yet ascer-

tained say . *

300

LAKE INDIANS, 1 tribe
Children under 12 yrs. 12

Do.

39

39

None

90

CAPE FLATTERY and Gulf of

Georgia Indians

About >

1250

(Exact Nos. not ascertained)

NEBQUALLT 13 tribss

Nesqually River and P. S . . .
On Cowhtz River (about)

1835

1997

182

4014
500

Two TRIBES

CHINOOKS, CLATSOPS, etc ...

Near mouth of Columbia . . .

429

KLICKTTATS, several tribes . .

Near Ft. Vancouver. . . .

500

KALAPOOIAS

Willamette Valley

300
200

CLACKAMAS

Willamette Valley

CHINOOKS, KALAPOOIAS, etc.

4 tribes

Along Columbia

800

KILAMOOKS, 3 tribes

On sea coast bet. mouth of

Columbia and Umpoua

1500

CLAMETS, several tribes

Rogue River, etc

800

WALLA WALLA, Nez Perces,

On Snake River to near

Quakers, and several tribes
near R. Nilo.

Rocky Mountains

3000

COLVILLE and SPOKANE ....

Near Ft Colville

450

OKANOGAN, several tribes . .

On Okanogan and Piscons

Rivers

300

KALLISPELMS,

On the Flathead

Several tribes

On Clarke's River

300

KOOTENOIS, several tribes. .

McGil's R., Flat Bow Lake

450

Total population

33956

35182

5146

86947

62 JOSEPH SCHAFER

RECAPITULATION

Males 33,956

Females 35,182

Children 1,584

Slaves 5,146

Total 75,868 of whom an accurate census has been made.

1 1 ,079 Estimate of Tribes of whom no census has been taken .

Grand total 86,947 Indian population from Latitude 42° to Latitude 54° N .

Barque "Cowlitz," on the Coast . . 23 men.

Barque "Vancouver," on the Coast 23 men.

Steamer "Beaver," on the Coast 23 men.

Schooner "Cadboro," on the Coast 12 men.

Unattached 19 men.

Officers 59 men.

Total men employed 643 men.

RECAPITULATION.

Number of establishments 23

Number of Vessels 4

Number of Men 643

Number of Acres of Land in cultivation 3005

Number of Horses 1716

Number of Cattle 4430

Number of Hogs 1916

Number of Sheep 8846

M. VAVASOUR, H. J. WARRE,

Lieut. Royal Engr. Lt. and An. C.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR'S REPORT OF OCTOBER 26, 1845.
ENCLOSURE 4.

(Maps and Plans Accompanying Warre and Vavasour's
Report.)

Sketch of Commission Harbour, south end of Vancouver's
Island, Straits of de Fuca, showing position of Fort Victoria
and Soundings, Lat. 48° 26' N. Long. 123° 9' W. Highwater
full and change 3 P. M. Rise 8 ft. Tides very irregular.
The soundings are all for low water Spring Tides. Shoal Pt.
bears N. N. E. from Rocky Pt.

Plan of Fort Victoria, Vancouver's Island, Sketch of Nes-
qually and Adjacent Plains on Puget's Sd., Plan of Fort
Vancouver on Columbia River. Sketch of Fort Vancouver
and Adjacent Plains, which are partly flooded in the spring,
[traces the river for about 4 mi., sets the fort in its relative
place, etc., neat map]. Sketch of the Route (in red) from
Red River to the Pacific Ocean.

[2, 4, and 5, bear Vavasour's name, the others bear no
indication of authorship.]

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 63

[No. ii.]

Fort Vancouver, December 8, 1845.
The Right Honorable The Secretary of State for the Colonies.

My Lord : We have had the favor of forwarding a report
of our proceedings to the I2th Novr. by the Honble. H. B.
Co.'s ship "Cowlitz," and beg to apprise your Lordship of the
opening of the House of Representatives for the Oregon Ter-
ritory, and herewith to forward a copy of the Governor's
speech on that occasion.

Mr. Abernethy, the Governor, is an American and a large
majority of the members, thirteen in number, are also citizens
of the United States.

We would beg to draw your Lordship's attention to the
second paragraph in the speech, relative to the organization
of an efficient militia.

In the preamble of the Organic Laws of Oregon, the first
article recommended by the Legislative committee is worded
as follows, viz: "We, the people of Oregon Territory, for
purposes of mutual protection and to secure peace and pros-
perity among ourselves, agree to adopt the following Laws
and Regulations, until such time as the United States of
America extend their jurisdiction over us."

The anxiety shown by Mr. Abernethy for an effective
militia, which would be composed almost entirely of American
citizens, has arisen chiefly from the interest lately taken by
England in the affairs of the country. The arrival, in the
first instance, of H. M. Ship America, Captain the Honble. C.
Gordon, who forwarded an extract from a dispatch for pub-
lication in the settlement, to the purport, that England was
determined to protect her subjects and their interests in the
Territory. Second by the entrance into the Columbia River
of H. M. Ship Modeste, Captain Baillie, with the intention
of remaining the winter.

This militia will naturally support the claims of the govern-
ment of the United States should hostilities actually occur
between that country and England. There are about 50 men

64 JOSEPH SCHAFER

already organized, as a volunteer corps of cavalry, well
mounted, and although undisciplined, are well adapted for the
defense of this impracticable country, from their former hardy,
active life.

Should the number be increased during the present session,
and should England and the United States come into collision,
the British subjects in this country will be completely at the
mercy of the citizens of the United States.

The stations of the H. B. Company are scattered over so
great an extent of country it would be impossible to collect
their men in time to meet an attack ; and altho there are nom-
inally 200 men employed about this fort, not half that number
could be depended upon to meet an aggression.

Some few might be recruited among the half breeds, sub-
jects of Great Britain, in the valley of the Willamette. But,
we fear, that if left to their own resources the Hudson's Bay
Company will be obliged to employ the Indian tribes, from
whom we cannot expect a very manageable or available force.

Her Majesty's Ship "Modeste" is at present lying off this
place and we believe it is the intention of Capt. Baillie to
remain during the winter. This determination will encourage
the British subjects to support their own rights, will prevent
the citizens of the United States taking the law into their own
hands, and give protection to the property of the Hudson's
Bay Company.

The paragraph in the Governor's Message regarding equal-
izing the weights and measures has arisen from the Hudson's
Bay Company using the Imperial measure and the Americans
the old Winchester standard.

(Signed by both officers.)

We beg to add a copy of the Govrs. Speech in August last,
at the opening of the House after the amended laws were
adopted.*

'Speeches not copied — they can be found printed in "Oregon Archives."

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 65

[No. 12.]

WARRE AND VAVASOUR REPORT, JUNE 16, 1846.
The Right Honble. The Secretary of State for the Colonies.

My Lord: In obedience to the orders contained in the
accompanying memoranda, we had the honor to report our-
selves to Sir George Simpson, the Governor of the Hudson's
Bay Company, and embarked at La Chine on the 5th of May,
in boats made of birch bark, the usual conveyance of the
agents of the Company.

[Omit rest of 1st p., 2d p., 3d p., 4th p., 5th p., 6th p., 7th p.,
8th p., to 3d line from the close.]

On the 25th July we entered the Rocky Mountains, crossed
the Bow River in canoes made of skins (carried with us for
the purpose) and commenced the passage of the mountains.

Our daily journeys were now necessarily very short, and
much impeded by the dampness of the forests, the height and
ruggedness of the mountain passes.

We crossed, by means of the skin canoes, the headwaters
of the McGillivray's River, on the 28th July, crossed with con-
siderable difficulty another range of mountains, and encamped
on the 3 ist on the Lake from whence flow the waters of the
Columbia.

Without attempting to describe the numerous defiles through
which we passed, or the difficulty of forcing a passage through
the burnt forests, and over the highlands, we may venture to
assert, that Sir George Simpson's idea of transporting troops,
even supposing them to be at Red River, with men, provisions,
stores, etc., through such an extent of uncultivated country,
and over such impracticable mountains would appear to us
quite impossible.

We descended the right bank of McGillivray's River, crossed
a range of Mountains thickly covered with pine and cedar
trees, to the Flatbow Lake, on the Flathead River, which we
crossed and descended on the left bank to Fort Colville on the
Columbia, where we arrived on the i6th August, having lost

66 JOSEPH SCHAFER

34 horses from lameness and fatigue out of 60 with which
we left Edmonton, distance about 700 miles.

The country on the west of the Rocky Mountains is very
much broken and covered with dense forests of pine and cedar
growing in many instances to an immense size.

The rivers or mountain torrents are very numerous and ex-
tremely rapid. They are scarcely navigable for the small In-
dian canoes, are subject to the sudden rising of the water and
difficult to ford — thereby causing great delay in the construc-
tion of canoes, rafts, etc.

The descent of the Columbia and our proceedings to the
month of November are detailed in the letter addressed to your
Lordship, and forwarded by the H. B. Co. ship "Cowlitz"
from Fort Vancouver Nov. ist, 1845 (a copy of which is here-
with enclosed)..

Since November the weather has been extremely unfavor-
able. The rain, which usually commences about that period,
has continued, almost without intermission, causing much sick-
ness and rendering the climate, followed as it is by the intense
heat of the summer, extremely unhealthy.

The annual express via the northern water communication,
which left Red River on the 2Oth June, arrived at Fort Van-
couver on the Qth November. We have consequently gained
upwards of two months by proceeding overland to the
Columbia.

The American immigrants continued to arrive in the coun-
try till late in December. Their condition was most miserable.
The lateness of the season and humidity of the climate having
occasioned much sickness and suffering.

They have on nearly every occasion conducted themselves
peaceably, but we attribute this conduct to the presence in the
river of Her Majesty's ship "Modeste."

They have evidently been misinformed as to the extent, soil
and climate of the. cultivable portion of the Oregon Territory.
Should Great Britain maintain her right to the Territory, we
are of opinion that large numbers of the present settlers will

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 67

migrate to California, toward which country the Government
of the United States are offering every encouragement for emi-
gration, and to which a large number of emigrants from the
western states are preparing to proceed early in 1846.

We have, accidentally, had an opportunity of perusing the
message of the late President (Mr. Tyler) dated Deer. 3d,
1844, with the accompanying reports, etc.

On referring to that of the then secretary of war, we find
the following important passage, preceding [sic] the recom-
mendation of forming a new territory,' or state, on the eastern
side of the Rocky Mountains as follows :

"In consequence of the conflicting claims of a foreign na-
tion to the Territory west of the Rocky Mountains, Congress
has exhibited a reluctance to organize it under a territorial
government. Entertaining myself no doubt of the propriety
and expediency of the measure, justifiable by the legitimacy of
our claim, I shall say no more on the subject."

The Secretary of War then proceeds to recommend the for-
mation of a Territory on the eastern side of the mountains,
extending from the Kansas River to the Rocky Mountains,
along the Wind River chain of mountains south to the head-
waters of the Arkansas River and back to the mouth of the
Kansas, taking in the headwaters of the Mocho and Osage
Rivers. He proceeds by saying:

"This territory will include the lines of communication to
California to Mexico and Santa Fe, and to Oregon, by a more
southern route recently discovered by Lieut. Fremont 150 miles
south of the present pass.

The establishment of military posts in this territory would
enable the American government to throw troops into Oregon,
and would no longer leave our title a barren and untenable
claim. Its possession and occupancy would thence forward
not depend on the naval superiority in the Pacific Ocean."

An appropriation of $1,000,000 for erecting military posts
from the Missouri to the Rocky Mountains is also recom-
mended by the Secretary at War, to carry out the above plan

68 JOSEPH SCHAFER

of ensuring a foundation on the eastern side of the mountains
previous to taking forcible possession of the west or Oregon
Territory.

In the year 1840 Lieut. Warre traversed the greater part of
this section of the country, recommended as a new territory.

It was found, except in the immediate vicinity of the river
banks, which are liable to constant inundations, to be quite
unsuited for cultivation. Water and timber are very scarce,
having traveled for days in succession without seeing a tree
of any kind and finding only stagnant water strongly impreg-
nated with salt.

The prairies are very beautiful and might be made available
as sheep pasturage, but the Pawnee and Comanchee Indians
are constantly at war with the surrounding tribes, and levy
their contributions from all white traders not strong enough
to resist their importunities.

On the Mocho and Osage Rivers the land is very fine and
many families were settled in their vicinity, but the country
is so unhealthy, from fever and ague that many of the recently
arrived immigrants in Oregon have left their farms [there] on
this account.

The object of the Government of the United States in form-
ing this territory is evident in consequence of its military ad-
vantages. We have before shown that their troops have with
little difficulty been conducted to the Rocky Mountains, the
passage of which at the emigrants pass offers little or no ob-
struction— with how much greater facility will they be able
to traverse the prairies if stations are erected, and stores, pro-
visions, etc., supplied at intermediate points on the route. .

We regret that our time has been so limited as to prevent
our examining the route on the west side of the Rocky Moun-
tains. The country, we are informed, varies little in appear-
ance from the Columbia to the Green River, presenting an ex-
tent of sandy hills and mountains, with very little vegetation,
and a great scarceness in many parts of wood and water.

We entertain no doubt as to the practicability of cutting off,

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 69

or otherwise obstructing the passage of any body of troops
from the United States, in their descent of the south branch
of the Columbia, from the ruggedness of the present route and
the obligation they are under of keeping to the beaten track
to obtain water and wood, and from the fact that troops
brought 2000 or 3000 miles across any country would be har-
rassed by their long march, and rendered unfit for active serv-
ice on their first arrival in the country.

It is therefore both evident and expedient, should it be the
intention of Her Majesty's Government to take military pos-
session of the Oregon Territory, that the British troops should
be in occupation of certain positions, previous to the arrival
of any force from the United States.

We beg, therefore, to request your Lordship's attention to
those points, the prior occupation of which would enable a
comparatively small force to resist any number of regular
troops likely, from the known scantiness of the available force
in the United States, to be dispatched to this country, viz. :

1. The first and principal points are Cape Disappointment
on the north and Point Adams on the south shore, command-
ing the entrance into the Columbia River.

2. Puget Sound is easy of access for ships of any tonnage
at every season of the year, and from Nesqually, near the head
of the Inlet, troops can be forwarded during the summer
months (say from July to October) with great facility, to any
part of the Territory.

3. Fort Vancouver is a central position and would afford
temporary accommodation for troops, but the present site of
the fort is ill chosen for defense, nor does it command any
particular or important point.

4. The falls of the River Willamette, where the village
called "Oregon City" is now commenced, is an important point
and is well adapted for defense, from the steepness and im-
practicability of the immediately surrounding country.

A small force stationed at this point would overawe the
present American population and obtain any quantity of cat-
tle, etc., to supply the troops in other parts of the country.

70 JOSEPH SCHAFER

5. It would be advantageous that an advanced post were
established at some point on the Columbia River, say the "Cas-
cades" or the "Dalles." But there is no accommodation for
troops, and building materials are very scarce ; nor will these
points be of the same consequence, except as a guard against
surprise, should the line of road over the Cascade range of
mountains, which is already projected, be found available. In
which case no troops or emigrants will take the longer and
more tedious route of the Columbia River.

With the above points occupied the approaches to the only
inhabitable part of the country are completely obstructed — the
barrenness of the desert on one side, and the mountains and
denseness of the forests on the other, render it impenetrable
except by the known routes. Nor are there any available har-
bors on the coast where troops could be landed, except in
Puget's Sound, Chehalis Harbor for vessels of very small ton-
nage, and the Columbia River.

I. — THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER.

The "Points" on either bank, and for some miles up the Co-
lumbia River (except Point Adams) although apparently on
superficial observation admirably adapted for positions of de-
fense, are very objectionable on account of the height and steep-
ness of the ground, preventing a battery being placed near the
water level, where it would be most effective, and rendering
extensive outworks necessary to prevent the position being
flanked or commanded by the ground in the rear, or on either
side.

These objections are particularly objectionable to Chinook
Point, to the projecting point opposite Pillar Rock command-
ing the Tongue channel, heading to the north shore from
Tongue Point, and to many positions otherwise adapted for
obstructing the navigation of the river.

In the present state of the country the Columbia River is
the only line of communication leading directly from the coast
to the interior.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 71

The Columbia River falls into the Pacific Ocean in Lat. —
Long. — , forming a barred harbor for shipping, not drawing
over 1 8 feet water. The sea is constantly breaking over this
bar, and perpetually over the sands to the north and south of
the entrance to the river, rendering it dangerous for ships at
all seasons of the year.

The distance from Point Adams on the south and Cape Dis-
appointment on the north shore is about 5 miles, intersected
by sand banks, having two islands, the courses of which are
liable to constant changes in consequence of the shifting sands.

We were enabled to mark the course of the north channel
during our stay at Cape Disappointment by the departure of
two vessels, an American merchant ship and a trader belong-
ing to the Hudson's Bay Company, having taken nearly a
month descending the river in consequence of the prevalence
of the southwesterly winds during the winter, they were de-
taind 47 days in Baker's Bay, showing the uncertainty of the
river navigation and the disadvantages attendant on it as a
place of debarkation.

Cape Disappointment, at the northern entrance, overlooking
the channel in most frequent use by vessels trading to the river,
projects as a peninsula from the main shore, to which it is con-
nected by a narrow neck of land, not over 400 yds. in width,
and is not commanded by any ground in the rear, but the nar-
row ridge of high ground facing the entrance is too steep, and
the headland too small for a work of any magnitude, except
at an enormous and useless expense.

The area of the Cape contains 37 acres, rising toward the
river like a wedge, rendering the greater portion steep and in-
accessible. The area of the neck contains about 194 acres, of
which about 60 are swamp. The soil is rich and deep in the
valleys. The substrata is a kind of rocky, brittle sandstone.
The timber is magnificent and covers the whole Cape, and is
the only material found in the neighborhood calculated for
building purposes. There is one small stream of spring water
on the Cape, and two on the connecting neck of land, but they
are not of very good quality.

72 JOSEPH SCHAFER

Cape Disappointment is inaccessible toward the sea in con-
sequence of the sands, which form an impassable line of break-
ers along the coast. It is also cut off from the mainland by
high, rocky headlands connected by a deep and marshy impas-
sable swamp. There is no lime stone in this part of the coun-
try, but sufficient shells have been collected for building chim-
neys, etc., and coral, making very fair lime, has been frequently
imported from the Sandwich Islands.

The anchorage in Baker's Bay is completely under the com-
mand of the north end of the Cape. The tide usually rises 8
to 10 feet. The currents are very strong and sweep across the
sands, increasing the dangers of the navigation.

During the year 1845 a new SP^ nas formed, nearly across
the north channel, on which there is very little water, and
changing the former bearings for entering the river. We beg
to refer your Lordship to the engineering report of Lieut. Vav-
asour and to the accompanying sketch, for a more minute de-
scription of this headland, with projects for its defense, etc.

The House of Representatives in the United States brought
forward a bill on the 5th Feb., 1845, f°r tne organization of
Oregon as a territory attached to the States.*

They then recommended the immediate construction of for-
tifications at the mouth of the Columbia River, on Cape Dis-
appointment, and we understood from several respectable emi-
grants that Lieut. Fremont, U. S. Topographical Engineers,
had accompanied the present emigration with the intention of
taking possession of the headland on behalf of the United
States Government.! The importance they attach to this point
has induced us to urge the Hudson's Bay Company, through
Mr. Ogden, to take immediate possession of so important a
position, in order to prevent the American Government ob-
taining it, secretly from the present claimants, and occupy it
without the knowledge of Her Majesty's Government.

*This bill passed the House of Representatives on February 3d, 1845, by a
vote of 140 to 59.

tThe editor knows of nothing in the published proceedings of Congress or
the War Department to confirm these statements.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 73

Mr. Ogden was at first inclined to meet our views on this
subject, but his instructions from Sir George Simpson not be-
ing sufficiently explicit, we are under the necessity of laying
before your Lordship the accompanying correspondence with
Mr. Ogden relative to the purchase of Cape Disappointment
from the American citizens, which was not completed till near
the end of February, 1846, and detained us till that period be-
fore we could complete the survey of the Cape or make any
arrangements for fulfilling this important part of our missioa

Your Lordship will observe that Mr. Ogden has taken the
entire responsibility of the purchase upon himself, but he was
induced to effect this in consequence of the importance we at-
tached to gaining peaceable possession of the Cape. The antic-
ipated arrival of Lt. Fremont and the resolutions of the House
of Representatives induced us to form this opinion and we trust
your Lordship will approve of the expense incurred to gain
this object.

Point Adams on the south shore, commanding the south
channel, is low sandy ground, densely covered with fir and
pine timber. The channel has been seldom made use of. The
chief obstacles to its navigation appear to be the strength of
the current and the narrowness of the passage

In the rear of Point Adams are situated the "Clatsop Plains,"
on which about 20 families, Canadians and Americans, are set-
tled. They grow wheat and potatoes, and have sufficient num-
ber of horses, cattle, pigs, etc., to supply troops until provisions
can be obtained from the settlements above.

Her Majesty's ship "Modeste" entered the river on the 2nd
of November, and ascended the Columbia to Fort Vancouver;
she anchored immediately opposite the fort, on the 2Qth Novr.,
having taken nearly a month in the ascent, owing to detention
from wind, etc.

The House of Representatives elected by the settlers in Ore-
gon, assembled at Oregon City on the ist December.

We had the honor of forwarding a copy of the Governor's
message, or speech, on the occasion by the Hudson's Bay Com-

74 JOSEPH SCHAFER

pany's ship "Vancouver," addressed to your Lordship, with
an enclosure to His Excellency the Governor General in Can-
ada, considering that the delay in forwarding our dispatches
through England to Canada in order that they might be re-
turned to England would warrant our deviating from His Lord-
ship's instructions on this occasion.

The House of Representatives remained in session about a
fortnight, many laws, arbitrary in the present state of the coun-
try, were proposed, but the majority of the members being
well and peaceably inclined, they were not adopted.

To show the feeling of the American population against the
British subjects, it may be well to inform your Lordship of
two measures, which were proposed as laws, but rejected.

ist. For the prevention of the half breed population from
holding land or property in the country under the Organic
laws, which would be equivalent to a separation between the
two parties. The half breeds, children of the gentlemen and
servants of the Company and of the Red River settlers, form-
ing the principal and most numerous portion of Her Majesty's
subjects in this country.

2d. For the taxation of the Sandwich Islanders, employed
almost exclusively as servants and laborers, by the H. B. Com-
pany, and intended merely to annoy and embarass the gentle-
men in charge of the said company.

The only laws of importance, except of local interest, that
were passed during the session, were for the formation of two
lines of communication across the Cascade range of mountains,
south of the Columbia, which if practicable will shorten the
distance from the emigrants pass in the Rocky Mountains to
the Valley of the Willamette, and avoid the necessity of de-
scending the Columbia.

We have conversed with the contractor of one of these routes
by the Sandiham [Santiam] River, who is sanguine as to the
result. We should have visited this route had it been practica-
ble at this season, but the snow in the mountains obstructed all
communication. From the numerous difficulties experienced

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 75

by Lieut. Fremont and Dr. White (Indian agent for the U.
States), who endeavored to penetrate by this route, across the
Cascade Mountains, we cannot believe that wagons, etc., can
ever be brought across. Lieut. Fremont succeeded in forcing
a passage, with the loss of all his horses, and great suffering
to himself and men.* Dr. White returned to the settlement
and declared it quite impracticable.

Dr. White returned to the United States in August last at-
tended by only three or four men. We regret to hear that he
encountered a war party of Sioux Indians, after he had made
the passage of the Rocky Mountains, who attacked and it is
reported murdered the whole party, f

The rain continued with but little interruption, notwith-
standing which we visited the inner channel of the Willamette
River, and the settlements situated on the left banks. We
found this channel obstructed by numerous "snags" or fallen
trees.

Having landed at the settlement on Sauvis or Multnomah
Island, which we found much flooded by the high water, we
crossed the river to a small settlement near its mouth, called
"Skapoose," where half a dozen American and Canadian fami-
lies are located on the low ground between the river and a
range of lofty hills, running parallel to the left bank.

The ground is good, but liable to be completely inundated
during the seasons of high water.

From thence we crossed the hills to a large settlement on a
fine rich, open prairie country called the "Tuality Plains,"
where about 150 Canadians, half breed, and American families
are settled.

The route across the Willamette Hills was about impassable
on account of the heavy rains. The creeks and swamps were
flooded and very difficult to traverse. In the dryest season
this road is only passable for cattle and horses, and is the track
used by the Indian tribes. The country is densely covered
with pine and cedar.

*This is a misconception as to Fremont's 1843-4 route.

fBut Dr. White, rather characteristically, lived "to tell the tale!"

76 JOSEPH SCHAFER

From the Plains a wagon road has been commenced to Ska-
poose, which may be available during the summer months, but
the ground must require great care in the construction, and at
an immense expense, in order to be practicable in the winter.

The Tuality Plains are very beautiful, the ground rich and
undulating, intersected by hills of fir and oak timber. The
farms are well stocked with horses and cattle, in addition to
which, hundreds of the latter are running wild throughout
the country, having originally belonged to the H. B. Company.*

In order to reach Oregon City on the falls of the Willamette
we proceeded through a thickly wooded country, with occa-
sional patches of open prairie, watered by numerous streams
and occupied by Canadians and American families. This road
to the falls has been made with much care, but the rivers hav-
ing overflown [sic] their banks and carried away the logs
which had been placed across as a substitute for bridges, we
had much difficulty in effecting our passage, swimming our
horses and wading through numerous swamps and marshes.

From the falls we again ascended to the settlements higher
up the Willamette River, the current in which was very strong.
The banks are high and densely covered with timber. The
roads to the Roman Catholic Mission, etc., were quite as im-
passable at this season as from the Tuality Plains.

The difference in the strength of the current in the river
from that when we formerly (in September) visited this part
of the country, is very remarkable and would scarcely be cred-
ited by any person unacquainted with the extraordinary rise of
rivers in this country.

The village at the falls has much improved in appearance.
Many buildings have been erected and the trees, etc., cleared
from the adjacent heights.

Since the summer a village called Portland has been com-
menced between the falls and Linnton, to which an American
merchant ship ascended and discharged her cargo, in Sep-
tember.

*Many were brought up from California in 1837. See Schafer's History of
the Pacific Northwest, 160-163.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 77

The situation of Portland is superior to that of Linnton, and
the back country of easier access.

There are several settlements on the banks of the river, be-
low the falls. But the water, covering the low lands during
the freshets render them valueless for cultivation, and but few
situations can be found adapted for building upon.

The American immigrants have as yet confined themselves
principally to the valley of the Willamette, which has by far
the richest soil, and finest land, in the whole territory. The
cultivable part of it, however, cannot be said to extend more
than 60 or 80 miles in length, and 15 or 20 miles in breadth.
Nearly all the prairie land is now taken up, and the immigrants
are too indolent to clear the woods. They are consequently
forming new settlements on the banks of the Columbia, at the
mouth of the same river, and on the beautiful but not very
rich plains to the north, in the neighborhood of Nisqually and
Puget's Sound.

During the month of February we again descended the Co-
lumbia, attentively examined the headlands and important posi-
tions on either shore, and completed our survey of Cape Dis-
appointment and beg to submit the following remarks.

Point George, on which Fort George (formerly Astoria) is
situated, is about 12 miles from the mouth of the river; the
ground rises gradually to the rear, covered with pine trees.
The Hudson's Bay Company have a small establishment on
the end of the point, undefended even by pickets. This post
(which they hold by permission of the government of the
United States, having been given up at the close of the last
war) is to be abandoned, and the depot or trading post to be
established on Cape Disappointment.

About three miles above Fort George is Tongue Point, a
high, steep peninsula, covered with timber, containing about
70 acres, connected with the main shore by a narrow neck,
about 80 yards in width. This point completely commands the
ship channel, and is not itself commanded by the ground in its
rear (vide sketches, etc.).

78 JOSEPH SCHAFER

Chinook Point, at the head of Baker's Bay, nearly opposite
Point George, is a long, level, swampy beach, commanded by
the hills in the rear which are covered except on the extreme
point with dense forests of pine.

Above Chinook Point, the north shore presents a succession
of steep, inaccessible, rocky hills, descending to the water's
edge, covered with timber, offering points where a temporary
work might be erected to obstruct the navigation but from the
commanding nature of the ground rendering the construction
of one of a more permanent nature a large and unnecessary
expense.

From above Tongue Point the banks of the river recede,
forming large shallow bays, intersected by numerous small isl-
ands and sandbanks, through which the ship channel has a
tortuous course tending towards the north shore, from thence
to Vancouver, the head of the ship navigation, the breadth of
the river seldom exceeds two miles, and the channel varies ac-
cording to the sand, from shore to shore.

Much difficulty is experienced on the Lower Columbia in
finding "encampments" from the nature of the river banks,
which in some places are low, swampy, and covered with "jun-
gle," and at others high, rocky, and too steep to be easily
ascended.

The tide also covers the low lands for 30 miles from the
mouth of the river. The wet season continued with little inter-
ruption till the 1 7th March.

We have received no intelligence from England since the
2Oth May (1845), and in consequence of the impossibility of
traversing the Rocky Mountains during the melting of the
snows we cannot await the anticipated arrival of the Hudson's
Bay Company's ship, supposed to have left for this country
last September.

We left Fort Vancouver in company with the annual express
forwarded to the Red River Settlement by the northern water
communication on the 25th March. Having made the usual
"portages" at the "Cascades," "Dalles" and Chutes, we reached

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 79

Fort Nez Perces on the Walla Walla River on the 3d April,
from whence we proceeded on horseback, calling at the Meth-
odist [American Board] Missions on the Walla Walla and Spo-
kane Rivers, to Fort Colville over a barren, rocky, sandy desert.
This country for a distance of 200 miles is completely denuded
of timber and with the exception of the Snake (or south branch
of the Columbia River, about 30x3 yards wide, which we crossed
in the Indian canoes, swimming- our horses, the Spokane River
traversed by the same means, and two other small streams), is
very scantily supplied with water. From the Spokane River
to Fort Colville (about 80 miles) the country is well timbered
with pine and larch, but the soil is poor and sandy.

The boats left Fort Nez Perces on the 3d April, ascended the
Columbia, but did not arrive at Fort Colville till the 22d, when
we again embarked and reached "The Boat Encampment" on
the 2d May.

The upper Columbia River, with the exception of two nar-
row lakes about 30 and 25 miles in length, is extremely rapid,
and in many places dangerous even for boat navigation. The
banks are very precipitous and densely covered with small pine
timber, causing much difficulty in hauling the boats and many
impediments in making "portages" at the different rapids.

From the Boat Encampment we proceeded on snow shoes
across the Rocky Mountains by the usual "portage" route,
ascending the Canoe River, through which we had constantly
to wade, for three days, crossed the height of land from whence
the Athabasca River takes its rise and descended the latter
river a distance of no miles to Jasper House, a small post of
the Hudson's Bay Company, at the foot of the Rocky Moun-
tains, where we obtained large and well constructed boats in
which we descended the same river upward of 200 miles to
Fort Assiniboine, formerly a post of some importance to the
H. B. Company, but of late years abandoned except as a depot
of provisions, for the canoes and boats, proceeding to and from
the Columbia and the Athabasca and Mackenzie River stations
further to the north.

8o JOSEPH SCHAFER

The Athabasca River, although very strong at seasons of
high water, is free from dangerous rapids, between the points
above mentioned, nor is it necessary at any season to make a
"portage."

From the Athabasca River we proceeded, on horseback, a
distance of about 100 miles to Edmonton on the Saskatchewan
River, through a flat and nearly continual swampy country,
difficult to traverse at all seasons, and almost impassable dur-
ing the early spring and autumn.

There is one large (the Pamino) and two smaller rivers to
cross, which we effected in canoes, swimming our horses.

We arrived at Fort Edmonton, already described, on the
1 7th May, and embarked on the i8th in large and well built
boats, but too heavy to be serviceable were it necessary to make
portages, from which the Saskatchewan River, although occa-
sionally interrupted by sand banks, is free.

Allowing the boat to drift with the current during the night,
we continued without interruption, descending the same river
to Fort Carlton, from whence we proceeded on horseback a
distance of about 460 miles to the Red River Settlement, by
nearly the same route we followed last year, and arrived at
Fort Garry, the principal trading post of the Hudson's Bay
Company on the 7th June.

Although the more northern route to the Columbia River is
in every way preferable to that by which we entered the Ore-
gon Territory last year, the difficulties of conveying men, pro-
visions, stores, etc., should it ever be deemed advisable to send
troops overland to that country, are also very great. The
ascent of the Saskatchewan and the Athabasca Rivers, which
we descended with great facility, causes much delay and loss
of time. The portage between the two rivers, although not
impracticable, would require much improvement, the swamps
and deep muddy gullies, filled up with "fascenes" to form a
roadway, the swollen streams bridged, on account of the depth
and tenacity of their muddy beds and banks, and boats or rafts
constructed at the "Pamino" River.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 81

The snow covered the whole country to the depth of several
feet, at the season we crossed the Rocky Mountains, and pro-
visions were carried on men's shoulders the greater part of the
before mentioned distance of no miles, but later in the year
the Hudson's Bay Company are annually in the habit of for-
warding- furs, stores, etc., on horseback through the same pass,
and without any serious impediment, except those arising from
the denseness of the forests on either side, the occasional
swamps, which could be made practicable by "fascenes," and
the necessity of constantly fording the headwaters of the Canoe
and Athabasca Rivers.

We beg to forward herewith a more detailed census of the
Indian population, from which our condensed report (for-
warded in Nov. last) was taken.

The Indians of the Northwest Coast appear to be unusually
numerous, but we have been repeatedly assured that their
numbers are not exaggerated. Around the different posts, vis-
ited by us, our own observations led us to believe that the ac-
companying lists are accurate. We have endeavored, when it
was not possible to obtain the exact statement of their num-
bers, to make our estimate rather under the actual numerical
strength. We beg also to forward a condensed report of the
different establishments of the Hudson's Bay Company, visited
by us during our journey to and during our residence in the
Oregon Territory, showing their capabilities of defense, sit-
uation, description of buildings, etc.

In conclusion, we must beg to be allowed to observe, with an
unbiased opinion, that whatever may have been the orders, or
the motives of the gentlemen in charge of the Hudson's Bay
Company's posts on the west of the Rocky Mountains their
policy has tended to the introduction of the American settlers
into the country.

We are convinced that without their assistance not 30 Amer-
ican families would now have been in the settlement.

The first immigrations, in 1841 or 1842, arrived in so miser-
able a condition that had it not been for the trading posts of

82 JOSEPH SCHAFER

the Hudson's Bay Company they must have starved, or been
cut off by the Indians.

Through motives of humanity, we are willing to believe, and
from the anticipations of obtaining their exports of wheat and
flour to the Russian settlements and to the Sandwich Islands,
at a cheaper rate,* the agents of the Hudson's Bay Company
gave every encouragement to their settlement, and goods were
forwarded to the Willamette Falls, and retailed to» these citi-
zens of the United States at even a more advantageous rate
than to the British subjects.

Thus encouraged emigrations left the United States in 1843,
1844 and 1845, and were received in the same cordial manner.

Their numbers have increased so rapidly that the British
party are now in the minority, and the gentlemen of the Hud-
son's Bay Company have been obliged to join the organiza-
tion, without any reserve except the mere form of the oath of
office. Their lands are invaded — themselves insulted — and
they now require the protection of the British Government
against the very people to the introduction of whom they have
been more than accessory.

We leave this settlement (Red River) on the i8th June, and
expect to reach Canada (by the same route we ascended last
year, from La Sault St. Marie) about the 2Oth July.

We have the honor to be, My Lord, your Lordship's obedient,
humble servants,

HENRY J. WARRE,

Lt. I4th Regt.
M. VAVASOUR,

Lieut. Royal Eng.
Employed on the [particular] service.

Sir George Simpson, on his arrival in this settlement, from
Canada, on the 7th June, requested us, in the accompanying
letter, to give him such information connected with the result

*See on this point Simpson Letters, Am. Hist. Rev., XIV, p. 80.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 83

of our late journey to the Oregon Territory as we might feel
at liberty to disclose.

As the instructions received from the Governor General, and
the Commander of the Forces in Canada, desire the most cor-
dial co-operation with Sir George Simpson, and as we could
not fulfill his wishes without multiplying the correspondence,
already too voluminous, we laid our report, etc., before him,
in order that he might receive the desired information.

H. J. W., Lt. i4th.

Fort Garry, Red River Settlement, June i6th, 1846.

Red River Settlement, Fort Garry, loth June, 1846.
Copy. Confidential.

Gentlemen : Referring to my letter of the 3Oth May, 1845,
I have to request the favor of your furnishing me with any
information you may feel at liberty to give connected with the
result of your late mission to the Oregon Territory.

In particular, it is very desirable I should be possessed of
your opinion as to the capabilities and value of Cape Disap-
pointment as a military station, and of the site of Fort Vic-
toria and the neighboring harbor as a port of refuge and re-
freshment for shipping.

I have further to beg the favor of your inspection of the
upper and lower forts in this settlement, with a view to ascer-
taining the protection and extent of accommodations to troops,
and that you will furnish me with a report on that subject,
stating what alterations and improvements you may consider
it advisable to make to place them in a better condition for the
reception of troops.

I shall feel obliged by any general suggestions you may feel
at liberty or be disposed to offer, in reference to the mainten-
ance and defense of the Company's establishments and inter-
ests, in such parts of both sides of the continent as you may
have visited.

(Signed) GEORGE SIMPSON.

84 JOSEPH SCHAFER

Red R. S., June 12, 1846.
Copy. Confidential.

My Dear Sir: In answer to the questions in your confi-
dential letter of the loth June relating to the protection and
accommodations for troops in the establishments of the Hud-
son's Bay Company at Red River, we beg to inform you that
Fort Garry will afford sufficient accommodations for 300 men
including officers, etc., should all the buildings be given up for
the accommodation of the troops. We would also recommend
that chimneys should be constructed at either end of the build-
ings now used as storehouses, and that the walls of the same
buildings be filled between the frame work in order to ren-
der them sufficiently warm for barracks in the winter.

The above are the only alterations we think it advisable to
make at the present time, leaving the alteration of the interior
arrangement to the officers in command after the arrival of
the troops in the country.

(Signed) HENRY J. WARRE, etc.
M. VAVASOUR, etc.

[No. 13.]
LIEUT. VAVASOUR'S [ENGINEERING] REPORT.

Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River,

Oregon Territory, ist March, 1846.

Sir : In continuation of my report dated Red River Settle-
ment 10 June, 1845, I have the honor to inform you that I
left that settlement in company with Lieut. Warre and party
of the :6th June. [Omit down to last ^ on page 7. Matter
omitted refers exclusively to the part of the journey east of
the mountains, a description of the Columbia River and the
trading posts along it, to Fort Vancouver, matter which is
sufficiently covered in the general report.]

Before continuing my repoit, and with reference to the 3d
paragraph of your orders, I beg to insert an extract of a let-

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 85

ter from Sir George Simpson to Lieut. Warre and myself
(Sir George Simpson having remained at Red River), which
contains all the information or advice I have received from
that gentleman.

"While in the Oregon territory" [as per Sir G. Simpson's
letter copied from W. O. records].

By the foregoing extract you will perceive that the points
to which Sir George Simpson has drawn my attention are
Cape Disappointment and Tongue Point. The former has
been purchased by one of the Hudson's Bay Company, for the
disposal of Her Majesty's Government, the latter is in the pos-
session of an American citizen. The banks of the Willamette
River, between the Columbia and the Falls, and also for the
most part settled by British subjects and American citizens.

Fort Vancouver on the north bank of the Columbia River
in 45° 36 min. N. Lat, and 122° 39 min. W. Long., 100 miles
from the Pacific Ocean, at the head of the ship navigation, is
the principal post of the Hudson's Bay Company on the west
of the Rocky Mountains.

The present fort is placed near the end of a small plain on
the bank of the Columbia River, which is nearly inundated
by the spring freshets. A ridge of the high land on which
the old fort was situated confines this plain on the north, in
the rear of the present site, over which it has a command.

This establishment contains several large store houses, made
of squared timber, one small stone powder magazine and sev-
eral framed dwelling houses ; these are surrounded by a picket
fence 15 feet high and 226 yards by 106 yards. At the N. W.
angle there is a bastion block house 20 feet square, the two
lower stories are loop-holed, the upper is an octagonal cap
containing eight 3 Ib. iron guns. The establishment was re-
moved from the rising ground before mentioned in conse-
quence of the inconvenient distance from the river side, for
the conveyance of goods and procuring water, the latter de-
fect has been remedied by sinking two wells in the present
fort, which are supplied by the river, the water filtering

86 JOSEPH SCHAFER

through the soil, which is composed of gravel and sand a few
feet below the surface, these wells rise and fall with the vari-
ations of the river. The plain is inundated in the same man-
ner, the water rising through the earth and forming a lake,
before the banks are overflowed. .

The simplest method of strengthening this post against sud-
den attack would be to dig a ditch round it, throwing the
earth against the pickets, which should be loop holed and a
banquette formed on the interior, erecting another small block
house at the S. E. angle,* to flank the south and east sides,
and placing small traverses behind the gates.

But in the event of Vancouver being occupied by troops, I
would recommend the position marked on the plan, which is
not commanded by any ground in the immediate vicinity, is
contiguous to the ship channel, and presents the advantage of
never being liable to inundation ; it is at present covered with
fine pine trees, which could be made available in the construc-
tion of barracks, etc., all of which must be built of wood, there
being no limestone found on the Columbia nearer than Fort
Colville or Vancouver's Island in the Straits of Juan de Fuca.
The lime used by the Hudson's Bay Company in building
their chimneys being made from coral brought from the Sand-
wich Islands.

For this position I would recommend a picket enclosure,
ditched and flanked by two small block houses, having a bat-
tery facing the river, made of logs, in which two eighteen pds.
[pounders] might be placed to command the ship channel, the
H. B. Co. having two at their establishment, the barracks to
be built of logs or squared timber, which can be procured of
any dimensions in the immediate vicinity.

The H. B. Co. have a saw and grist mill on a small stream
six miles from Vancouver and a large farm attached, with
large bands of horses, herds of cattle, and flocks of sheep.

The Columbia River is about one mile wide at Vancouver
and runs in a N. W. direction towards the sea; six miles be-

* Which was done, to the great annoyance of the American settlers.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 87

low Vancouver the north branch of the Willamette River,
from the south, enters the Columbia, and the south branch 12
miles further down, forming a large island which is nearly
all inundated at the periods of high water.

The Cowlitz River joins the Columbia from the north, about
35 miles below Vancouver. These are the most important
tributaries, but there are innumerable small streams running
into it from either side. About 90 miles from Vancouver on
the south side of the river is Fort George, formerly called
Astoria, which was given up to the American Government
at the close of the last war. At this post there are a few old
wooden buildings, but not even surrounded by a picket fence.
This establishment is about to be abandoned and a new one
formed on Cape Disappointment. A range of hills runs on
either side of the river following its general course, receding
at some places for three and four miles from its immediate
banks, at others abutting immediately on them, forming per-
pendicular scarps, where the hills recede from the river the
intervening ground is low and marshy, and covered with
water for two months in the year. There is no road from
Vancouver to the sea and all communication is carried on by
boats and canoes navigating the river.

The most important points on the Columbia River are Cape
Disappointment, Point Adams and Tongue Point. Cape Dis-
appointment being the extremity of its north and Point Adams
of its south bank. These two points completely command the
entrance of the river, which is about five miles wide.

Cape Disappointment is a high, bold headland, consisting
of two bluffs, having perpendicular scarps toward the sea,
connected by a narrow ridge running nearly N. and S., of
about 30 feet in width on the top, the face being nearly per-
pendicular and about 320 feet in height, sloping more grad-
ually to the rear, where it is connected with the mainland by
a neck of 30 yards in width. The sea coast for about half a
mile presents a scarp of about the same height as the Cape,
but is only a narrow ridge with two spurs running at right

88 JOSEPH SCHAFER

angles toward Baker's Bay. These spurs are also narrow and
steep; that to the N. West falling into a large, deep marsh of
about half a mile in length, and a quarter of a mile in width,
near the extremity of which there are two headlands jutting
into the sea and rising abruptly from it. The Cape and adja-
cent country is densely covered with pine trees.

Point Adams, on the south shore, is a low, sandy point,
densely covered with timber, having some small plains in its
rear, on which there are several families settled. .

The entrance to the Columbia River is obstructed by a very
dangerous bar, two lines of breakers, called the north and
south spits, running respectively from Cape Disappointment
to Point Adams, and also a middle sand, between these two
points, on either side of which run the north and south chan-
nels..

The north and one in general use passes close under the
north bluff of the Cape, which completely commands it, and
also the anchorage in Baker's Bay. The south channel runs
along the Clatsop shore, is straight but narrow, and has sel-
dom been attempted. These channels are constantly chang-
ing ; the difficulties of the northern have been greatly increased
by the formation of a new spit in the channel during the last
year, altering all the former bearings and marks for entrance.

Tongue Point on the south shore of the Columbia and 15
miles from its mouth, is a narrow peninsula, half a mile in
length, containing about 70 acres of land. The highest point
is about 300 feet above the river, from whence it descends,
in a succession of steps, towards the mainland, and its ex-
tremity; the western side is steep in all and quite perpendicu-
lar in many places, on the east side it slopes more gradually,
but is very steep, having a small space of open level on the
summit, the remainder is covered with magnificent fir trees,
having a thick underbrush on the east side. The ship chan-
nel at present known passes round this point, whether the
river is entered by the north or the south channel, for which

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 89

reason the occupation of this point is evidently so advan-
tageous.

For the occupation of Cape Disappointment I would rec-
ommend three batteries of heavy guns. One of four guns on
the center of the Cape, one of four guns on the north bluff,
and a third of two guns on the spur running from the north
bluff toward the middle sand, with a two-storied block house
placed near a small run of water, with the earth thrown up
to form a parapet round it, overlooking the landing place in
Baker's Bay. The block house will be made of wood, being
the only material on the spot, and which can be procured of
any dimensions, many of the trees on the Cape measuring 20
feet in circumference.

On Point Adams I would place a battery of six guns, hav-
ing its gorge defended by a block house similar to that for
Cape Disappointment. These points being covered with im-
mense timber, which would require a length of time to remove,
open works could not easily be formed, more particularly
at the Cape, from the nature of the ground. From the nature
of the coast and the continual line of breakers, boats could
not land for several miles north or south of these points, and
boats entering the river by the ship channel on a calm day
would be exposed from every part of the Cape, and a few men
well disposed could prevent their effecting a landing in Baker's
Bay, the only available spot for the purpose near the Cape.

The nearest place on the sea coast north of Cape Disap-
pointment for a safe landing in boats is 18 miles distant in
Shoalwater Bay, and the nearest harbor in Chehelis Bay, com-
monly called Gray's Harbor, which will admit vessels of the
light draught, having only nine feet of water on the bar, is
40 miles distant.

For the occupation of Tongue Point I would recommend
a battery of heavy guns on the west side, overlooking the ship
channel, with a block house or defensible barrack near its
gorge. Tongue Point might easily be cut off from the main

90 JOSEPH SCHAFER

shore by a ditch across the narrow neck of land connecting
it, which is only 80 yards across.*

There are some other points on the north shore apparently
offering good positions, such as Chinook Point and Point
Ellis. The whole of the north shore from Cape Disappoint-
ment is covered with an impenetrable forest, with the excep-
tion of Chinook Point, which is low and sandy, having a high
bare hill in its rear, at the foot of which there is a small marsh.
Point Ellis is steep and rocky; these points might be made
available for temporary purposes, but, with the occupation of
Cape Disappointment and Tongue Point would not, I think,
be required. The south shore of the Columbia is also high
and covered with forest.

The navigation of the Columbia River is obstructed by
numerous sand banks, which are constantly shifting, and ves-
sels are often detained a long time in ascending and descend-
ing it, as also in Baker's Bay, waiting for a favorable oppor-
portunity of crossing the bar. The H. B. Company's barge
Vancouver was one month from Vancouver to Baker's Bay,
and 45 days laying in the Bay, before an opportunity offered
of leaving the river. An American merchant vessel, the Tou-
lon, was also detained for the same period. The two ships
cleared the bar in company during my last visit to Cape Dis-
appointment.

The other posts belonging to the H. B. Company which I
have visited are the Cowlitz, Nesqually and Puget's Sound,
and Fort Victoria on Vancouver's Island, in the Straits of
Juan de Fuca. Descending the Columbia River for 35 miles
(from Fort Vancouver) to the mouth of the Cowlitz, ascend-
ing it for 45 miles to the Cowlitz farm, the Cowlitz is very
rapid and shallow, but like all the rivers in this country, sub-
ject to sudden rises of the water, caused by the melting of the
snows or the rains in the mountains, during these floods the
river is difficult of ascent, the boats being pulled up by the
branches, the banks being too thickly wooded to admit of

"The present railroad is laid through such a ditch.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 91

tracking with a line, it, however, is navigable at all seasons
for flat bottomed boats, in which the H. B. Company transport
the produce of the Cowlitz farm to Fort Vancouver.

The farm establishment is situated on a large plain about
500 yards from the river, and about one mile from the land-
ing place ; there is a small settlement of about 19 families, and
a Roman Catholic church in the immediate neighborhood.
There are large herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, and bands
of horses at this point.

At the Cowlitz we procured horses and rode to Nesqually,
a distance of about 60 miles. This route, or portage, as it is
usually called, passes through small plains, traversing the in-
tervening points of woods, crossing the Quinze Sous, Vassals,
Chute and Nesqually Rivers, all of which are fordable in the
summer, but become deep and rapid in the winter and spring.

Nesqually is also an agricultural and sheep farm, the build-
ings are of wood situated at the end of a large plain, close to
a fine stream of fresh water, and about one mile from the
shores of Puget's Sound.

This appears the best place for landing troops in the coun-
try. The Straits of Juan de Fuca and Puget's Sound being
accessible to vessels of any tonnage and at all seasons with
safe and commodious harbors. There being large herds of
cattle and flocks of sheep at the Nesqually establishment, pro-
visions could easily be procured, and troops forwarded from
Puget's Sound to the Columbia by the Portage and Cowlitz
River.

Light baggage, etc., can be forwarded from the head of
Puget's Sound, making a portage of five miles through a
thickly wooded country to the head of the Satchal or Black
River, which can be descended in flat bottomed boats or rafts
for 25 miles, to the Chehalis River, ascending which for 30
miles, from whence there is a portage of 15 miles, to the Cow-
litz Farm. This latter portage can be traveled by carts, the
road having been opened by the few settlers on the plains.
The Satchal and Chehalis Rivers are rapid and the latter is

92 JOSEPH SCHAFER

obstructed in one or two places by drift wood. From the Cow-
litz farm the troops, etc., can descend the river in boats, to
the Columbia and proceed to any required position on it, by
the same means.

At Nesqually I would recommend a block house or defensi-
ble guard house, overlooking the Sound, and commanding the
road from the landing place, the banks on the shore being too
steep to be easily ascended excepting at this point. Any de-
scription of works can be thrown up, (such as a bastioned re-
doubt) on the large plain near the Sequality stream, with bar-
racks, etc., for the accommodation of the troops.

Fort Victoria is situated on the southern end of Vancouver's
Island in the small harbor of Commusan, [ ?] the entrance to
which is rather intricate. The fort is a square enclosure of 100
yards, surrounded by cedar pickets 20 feet in height, having
two octagonal bastions, containing each six 6-pd. iron guns, at
the N. E. and S. W. angles. The buildings are made of square
timber 8 in number forming three sides of an oblong. This
tort has lately been established; it is badly situated witn re-
gard to water and position, which latter has been chosen for
its agricultural advantages only. About three miles distant
and nearly connected by a small inlet, is the Squirrel harbor,
which is very commodious and accessible at all times, offer-
ing a much better position and having also the advantage of
a supply of water in the vicinity.

This is the best built of the Company's posts, it requires
loop holing, and a platform or gallery, to enable men to fire
over the pickets; a ditch might be cut round it, but the rock
appears on the surface in many places.

There is plenty of timber of every description on Vancou-
ver's Island, as also limestone, which could be transported to
Nesqually or other places in the territory when it may be here-
after deemed necessary to form permanent works, barracks,
etc.

Oregon City is situated on the right bank of the Willamette
River about 21 miles above its junction with the Columbia,

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 93

and immediately below the Falls, which are about 35 feet in
height. It contains about 300 inhabitants, two churches of
wood, two grist and three saw mills, and about 80 houses, with
one exception built of wood. There are two ferries across
the river communicating with the Tuality Plains. The coun-
try in the immediate vicinity is very high and rocky, forming
two scarps one immediately behind the town and the other
about 500 yards from the river. These scarps are very high,
the first being about 100 feet and the second of still greater
elevation ; the ground falls away towards the Clackamas River,
below the junction of which with the Willamette River there
is a small rapid which is difficult to ascend during high water.
The ground on the left bank of the river immediately oppo-
site to Oregon City is very much broken, steep and rocky, and
both the banks are covered with a thick forest.

The settlement extends about 60 miles up the river on either
bank and contains about 5000 inhabitants, composed of Cana-
dians and Americans. Twenty-five miles from Oregon City
there is a Roman Catholic mission with several large wooden
buildings, two churches, dwelling houses and a nunnery. There
is an American Methodist Mission 25 miles higher up the set-
tlement. At both of these missions ferries are established
across the river.

At Oregon City I would recommend three block houses,
one at the upper end of the town, near the Falls, one near the
lower end overlooking the road to Champooick, and the upper
settlements, to be placed on the first scarp, and a third on the
higher scarp behind, to prevent its being occupied and a com-
mand obtained over the ground below. The mills of Dr. Mc-
Loughlin might be loop holed and made defensible, being
built of square timber.

I have recommended block houses for the defense of those
points of the country at which I think defensive works are
required, as the country is nearly all covered with dense for-
ests at these points ; they are easy of construction and the ma-
terials are on the spot.

94 JOSEPH SCHAFER

All defensive works must be thrown up by the troops, there
being no available labor in the country. Everything there has
a nominal value and there is no circulating medium, wheat
is being taken as the standard. For these reasons I have not
been able to form any estimates of expense.

As all subjects of general information are embodied in the
joint report of Lieut. Warre and myself addressed to his Lord-
ship the Secretary to the Colonies, I have not referred to them
further than as they are connected with the descriptions of the
establishments of the H. B. Company in the country.

(Signed) M. VAVASOUR,

Lt. Royal Engr.

To Coir. Holloway, Comr. Royal Engineers, Canada.

[No. 14.]

Hudson's Bay House, Deer. 16, 1846.

[To Mr. Addington] — Sir: As the expedition of Lieuts.
Warre and Vavasour, and the journeys of Sir George Simp-
son to Washington were undertaken at the instance of the
Earl of Aberdeen, I have forwarded the acct. of the expenses
thereby incurred to the Foreign Office, and request that you
will have the goodness to cause it to be sent to whatever de-
partment of the government it ought to be directed.
I have the honor to be, sir, your most obedt. servant,

A. BARCLAY.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6.

95

Specimen items in the general account of Warre and Vavasour at Fort Vancouver,
showing the prices current on the Columbia in the years 1845 to 1846.

3.66
.08
.18

.18

:S"

.10

.06
.30
.10
.40
.10
2.50

7.32
2.32
1.26
1.12
1.80
1.87
.60
2.60
1.50
.90
1.20
.35
2.40
2.50
24.09
4.88
4.12
2.40
.28

29 Ibs fresh beef

7 Ibs butter

1 ik Jjyson Tea

10 Ibs loaf sugar

15 Ibs salt pork

3% Ibs bar lead .

25 Ibs fresh pork

9 5-8 qt Brandy

1 5-8 qt Port Wine

1 3-8 qt Maderia • •

2 foolscap books 2 quires

1 memorandum, 800

NOTE: At Vancouver the American money table is used, the dollar being the unit.
East of the mountains from and including Ft. Colville, the British table is used.

HER MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT, DR.

To the Hudson's Bay Company for supplies and advances connected with the
expedition of Messrs. Warre and Vavasour to the Oregon Territory and returning to
Canada, as per detailed accounts, viz:

No. 1. Montreal Dept. — Passage from La Chine to Red River
Express Canoes

166

13

4

No 2 Red River 1845 supplies journey to Vancouver

89

14

^

12

7

0

No 4 Saskatchewan supplies journey to Vancouver

246

o

-,

166

12

o

No. 6. Northern 'Dept. Conveyance from Ft. Vancouver to Red River
No. 7. Northern Dept. P., passage from Red River to St. St. Marie —
• Express Canoes

111
110

0

o

0

o

No 8 Red River — Sundry supplies 1846 . .

61

o

o

Total

963

7

4

G. SIMPSON.

Certified:

HENRY J. WARRE,

Lt. 14th Regt.

M. VAVASOUR,

Lt. Royal Engr.

*That is, 963 pounds, 7 shillings, and 4 pence, or about $5,000.

JOSEPH SCHAFER

SUSPENSE ACCOUNT, DR.

To the following supplies to Lieut. Vavasour, viz. :H

1845
Aug.

Aug.

Sept.
Oct.

Nov.
Dec.

1846
Jan.

Feb.
March

27

28

12
20

8
2

8

22

24

22

22

4

24
11
12

16
21

To S fine beaver hat

©

$2.40
.28

.72

.24
.32

.84

.08
2.14
.04

2.20
.10
3.80

3.84
2.24

S 8.88
26.40
4.32
9.12
6.48
9.60
.84
.40
1.44
1.68
.12
.18
.12
.96
1.68
.40
3.72
3.36
1.68
2.08
.16
1.42
.08
.46
.24

5.50
.30
.96
.19
1.80
.18
.12
.04
.16
.06
.02
.24
2.22
3.24
2.08
.08
1.08
.18
1.28
.27
.12

1.40
12.22
7.00

Warre.do.

4 white cotton shirts

1 nail brush

1 large razor strop

1 bundle garnet beads . .

1 bottle Extract of Roses

1 pr. Blucher shoes

2 Paris silk handkerchiefs

2 yds. Hair Ribbon

43 yds H B blue strands . . .

2 yds. Highland gaiters

1 yd white flannel

1 doz. clay pipes

23^ yds. wh. blanketing
3J^ yds grey cotton.. . . ...

J4 yd. 2d dark blue cloth
K lt>. colored thread No. 12

1 yd black padding cloth

2 yds. silk twist thread

2 yds hair ribbon

1 yd. 6d ribbon

1 skein colored silk

Transfer Cr. Mr. Ross

1 pr ladies' shoes

1 box Rowlands Odante

Yz yd. 2d blue cloth
1-6 yd scarlet cloth . . .

1 pc. black carding

Cash paid for newspapers at the Wil-
lamette Falls

To transfer Cr. Mrs. Mclntosh, for

To transfer Cr. Mrs. Pambrum for

$127 .78 @ 4s 6d per dollar is

$127.78
£ 28 15

(Signed)
G. SIMPSON,
M. VAVASOUR.

*Warre's separate account is similar. The general account includes supplies,
etc., for both officers and the men employed by them.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 97

[No. 15.]

Expedition of Lieuts. Warre and Vavasour to the Oregon
Territory. Inclosures in Colonial Office letter of 3d Novem-
ber, 1846.

Schedule of enclosures forwarded by Lieuts. Warre and
Vavasour, with their dispatch and general report, addressed
to the Rt. Hon. the Secy, of State for the Colonies, dated Fort
Garry, Red River Settlement, June 16, 1846.

No. i. Copy of memorandum of the Comr. of the Forces
in Canada.

No. 2. Dispatch addressed by Lord Metcalfe, Gov. Gen-
eral in Canada, to the Comr. of the Forces, dated Montreal,
May, 1845.

No. 3. Instructions from the Comr. of the Forces in Can-
ada to Lieut. Warre.

No. 4. Copy of letter addressed by Sir G. Simpson, Gov.
of the Hon. H. B. Co., to Lieuts. Warre and Vavasour, dated
Encampment Lac La Pluie, May 30, 1845.

No. 5. Copies of dispatches forwarded from the Red River
Settlement to the Gov. Genl. in Canada and the Secy, of State
for the Colonies, dated Fort Garry, Red River Settlement,
June 10, 1845. Marked (B) and (C).

No. 6. Copies of dispatches forwarded from Fort Van-
couver, on the Columbia River, by the Honble. H. B. Co. ves-
sel the "Cowlitz" to His Excellency the Governor General of
Canada, and the Secretary of State for the Colonies, dated
Fort Vancouver, November ist, 1845. Marked (D) and (E).

No. 7. Copy of bill, organizing the Oregon Territory and
attaching it -to the United States and recommending the imme-
diate construction of fortifications, by the American Govern-
ment, on Cape Disappointment. Marked ( ).

No. 8. Copy of dispatch enclosing speech of Govr. of Ore-
gon, forwarded by Hon. H. B. Co.'s ship "Vancouver," to the
Sandwich Islands, thence under cover to the British Consul
at Bias [ ?] to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, dated
Fort Vancouver, Dec. 8, 1845, marked (H), enclosing dis-
patch to Gov. Genl. in Canada of same date, marked (G).

98 JOSEPH SCHAFER

No. 9. Census of the Indian population in the Oregon Ter-
ritory.

No. 10. Condensed report of the Hudson's Bay Company's
Trading Posts visited by Lieuts. Warre and Vavasour on
their journey to and during their residence in the Oregon
Territory.

No. ii. Copy of a letter addressed by Sir G. Simpson to
Lieuts. Warre and Vavasour on their return to the Red River
Settlement dated Fort Garry, R. R. St. [?], June 10, 1846.

No. 12. Copies of correspondence with Mr. Ogden, Chief
Factor of H. B. Co. service, relative to the purchase of Cape
Disappointment. Marked (F). (Nine letters.)

No. 13. Table of estimated distances on the Columbia River
and in the Oregon Territory.

No. 14. Account given in by the Honble. H. B. Company
for supplies, etc., connected with the expedition of Messrs.
Warre and Vavasour to the Oregon Territory and return to
Canada.

(Signed) HENRY J. WARRE,

Lt. 14 Regt.

Surveys, plans and sketches accompanying the above men-
tioned dispatches.

No. i. Map showing the route of Lieuts. Warre and Vav-
asour to the Oregon Territory.

No. 2. Plan of Fort Vancouver.

No. 3. Plan of Fort Victoria and chart of Camrasan [?]
Harbor.

No. 4. Sketch of the plains in the vicinity of Fort Nis-
qually on Puget's Sound forwarded in November, 1845.

No. 5. Survey of Cape Disappointment showing its com-
mand over the ship channel.

No. 6. Eye sketch of the route from Cowlitz River to
Puget's Sound.

No. 7. Eye sketch showing the site of Oregon City of the
Willamette River.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, 1845-6. 99

No. 8. Survey of Tongue Point on the Columbia River,
showing its command over the ship channel.

APPENDIX.

One result of this expedition was a book entitled : "Sketches
in North America and the Oregon Territory." By Captain
H. Warre. (A. D. C. to the Commander of the Forces).
Lithographed, printed and published by Dickinson and Co.,
New Bond street. [London, Eng.], and dedicated to "The
Governor, Deputy Governor and Committee of the Honorable
the Hudson's Bay Company."

The book contains, aside from the preface, the following
sketches lithographed:

1. Fort Garry.

2. Falls of the Kamanistaquoia River.

3. Buffalo hunting on the W. Prairies and forcing a pas-
sage through the burning prairie. (Two on same page).

4. Distant view of the Rocky Mountains.

5. The Rocky Mountains.

6. Source of the Columbia River.

7. Fort Vancouver and Indian tombs. (Two on same
page).

8. Mount Baker and Cape Disappointment.

9. Valley of the Willamette River.

10. The American Village (Oregon City).

11. Fort George (formerly Astoria), and McGillivray's
or Kootenai River.

12. Les Dalles, Columbia River.

13. Mt. Hood from The Dalles.

14. Mt. Hood.

15. Falls of the Peloos [Palouse] River.

16. The Rocky Mountains from the Columbia River, look-
ing N. W.

fc»

]

THE QUARTERLY

OF THE

Oregon Historical Society.

Volume X JUNE, 1909 Number 2

[The Quarterly disavows responsibility for the positions taken by contributors to its pages.]

ADDRESS DELIVERED BY FREDERICK V.
HOLMAN, AS PRESIDENT OF THE OREGON
HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AT ITS ANNUAL
MEETING HELD AT PORTLAND, OREGON,
DECEMBER 19, 1908.

THE DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF THE FRASER RIVER.

The dedication of a monument to Simon Fraser at New
Westminster, British Columbia, on the thirtieth of September,
1908, in honor of his exploration of the Fraser River, in 1808,
recalls a most daring achievement. It is an historic event of
great interest and of importance in the history of British
Columbia and of the original Oregon Country. The Fraser
and the Columbia are the only rivers which break through
that great range of mountains which starts near the Gulf of
California, and is known in that State as the Sierra Nevada,
and continues through Oregon and Washington as the Cascade
Mountains. This range of mountains finally disappears in
British Columbia.

FOUR IMPORTANT HISTORICAL EVENTS.

In historical importance this exploration by Simon Fraser
should be considered as one of four notable events in con-

2 FREDERICK V. HOLMAN

nection with these two great rivers. These events chronolog-
ically are as follows :

First. The discovery by Captain Robert Gray, May n,
1792, of the Columbia River.

Second. The discovery by Sir Alexander Mackenzie, June
17, 1793, of the Tacoutche Tesse, which is now known as the
Fraser River.

Third. The Lewis and Clark Expedition, in 1804-1806, to
the mouth of the Columbia River.

Fourth. The exploration by Simon Fraser, in the summer
of 1808, of the Fraser River to its mouth.

It is the discovery and exploration of the Fraser River of
which I shall speak particularly in this address.

As the mouth of the Columbia River was theoretically dis-
covered by Captain Bruno Heceta, of the Spanish Navy,
August 15, 1775, who named it Rio de San Roque, so the
mouth of the Fraser River was theoretically discovered by
Lieutenant Don Francisco Eliza, of the Spanish Navy, in
1791, who named it Boca de Florida Blanca,* in honor of the
Prime Minister of Spain. Neither of these discoverers entered
either of these rivers. But the mouth of each of these rivers
was shown on Spanish maps afterwards published.

FAILURE OF VANCOUVER TO FIND THE COLUMBIA AND FRASER

RIVERS.

It is surprising that Captain George Vancouver did not find
the Fraser river. He was an experienced explorer and had
been a midshipman in Captain Cook's last voyage, in the years
1776 to 1780, inclusive. But it is no more surprising than
Vancouver's failure to find the Columbia River. He was put
on his inquiry, if he did not have actual notice, in regard to
the existence of each of these rivers. Had he found them, or
either of them, his fame would be far greater than it is,
although it is still great.

It is not important now to speculate on what might have

DISCOVERY OF FRASER RIVER. 3

been the result had Vancouver, as he should have done, dis-
covered and entered the Columbia River prior to Gray. But
the inquiry arises nevertheless. The United States, in its
official correspondence with Great Britain, strenuously insisted
on its right to the portion of the Oregon Country drained by
the Columbia River by reason of its discovery by Gray.
Although that was only one of the claims urged, it was an
important factor in the final adjustment, by the boundary
treaty of June 15, 1846, of the rights of the United States to
that part of the Oregon Country south of latitude forty-nine.

The mouth of the Fraser River is practically a delta, its
several exits running through what is apparently a sand island,
as viewed from the Gulf of Georgia. On the twelfth and
thirteenth of June, 1792, Captain Vancouver's two vessels
were anchored in the Gulf of Georgia a short distance south
of this delta. June 12 he started to explore in a yawl. He
discovered and named Point Roberts, at the south of the delta.
Proceeding along the delta, he came, early on the morning of
June 13, to Point Grey, which he named. This is the extreme
northern point of the delta and the southern point of English
Bay, immediately south of what Vancouver named Burrard's
Canal, now known as Burrard's Inlet. This delta Vancouver
named Sturgeon Bank. In his Voyage, Vancouver says this
delta has the appearance of an island, but he continues : "this,
however, is not the case, notwithstanding there are two open-
ings between this point [Point Roberts] and Point Grey.
These can only be navigable for canoes, as the shoal continues
along the coast to the distance of seven or eight miles from
the shore, on which were lodged, and especially before these
openings, logs of wood, and stumps of trees innumerable."

Certainly this should have shown Vancouver that there was
a large river near and that these openings were connected with
it. The spring and summer freshet was on in the Fraser, as
it was in the Columbia River, when Vancouver was at the
mouth of the Columbia, April 27, 1792. At the mouths of
each of these rivers the water was discolored, as is shown in

4 FREDERICK V. HOLMAN

in Vancouver's Voyage, and yet Vancouver did not find either
of these rivers!^.

June 22, 1792, as Vancouver was returning to his ship, he
came on two Spanish naval vessels. He showed the Spanish
officers the sketch he had made of his last excursion. Van-
couver says : "They seemed much surprised that we had not
found a river said to exist in the region we had been explor-
ing, and named by one of their officers Rio Blancho in com-
pliment to the then Prime Minister of Spain ; which river these
gentlemen had sought for thus far to no purpose/'

THE JOURNEY OF MACKENZIE TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN.

In 1789 Alexander Mackenzie, afterwards knighted for his
discoveries, discovered the Mackenzie River. He went down
that river to where it flows into the Arctic Ocean. In 1791 he
went to London and returned to Canada in the spring of 1792.
Very soon after he started with an expedition to cross the
continent to the Pacific Ocean. October 10, 1792, he and his
party arrived at Fort Chippewayan, on the Lake of the Hills,
now known as Lake Athabasca. Into this lake flow the waters
of Peace River. With his party he ascended Peace River until
November I, 1792, when they came to a place to which Mac-
kenzie had sent ahead two men to begin the preparation of
winter quarters. On Mackenzie's map it is called Fork Fort.
Its latitude is 56 degrees 9 minutes; its longitude, 117 degrees
35 minutes and 15 seconds, as ascertained by observations
made by Mackenzie. Here Mackenzie and his party passed
the winter. May 9, 1793, they started again on their journey,
ascending Peace river. May 31 they came to the junction of
Finlay and Parsnip Rivers, which form Peace River. The
expedition ascended Parsnip River to its head waters. After
making a short portage, it came to a river, named by Mac-
kenzie Bad River. This river was descended to the place where
the latter river joins the great river, which Mackenzie called
Tacoutche Tesse (Tesse meaning river) being a name given

DISCOVERY OF FRASER RIVER. g

it by a tribe of Indians. This is Fraser River. This discovery
of this great river occurred June 17, 1793.

Mackenzie descended the Tacoutche until he was deterred
by the hostile attitude of the Indians, the physical difficulties
of following the river, and by information given by the Indians
of its dangerous character. Mackenzie then ascended the river,
going north a distance equal to about one degree of latitude.
Here he left the Tacoutche and went overland, westerly, until
he came to an arm of the Pacific Ocean, now called Bentinck
Inlet, at about latitude fifty-two degrees. On his return trip
he arrived at Fort Chippewayan August 24, 1793, where his
Journal ends.

It is sometimes said in a loose way by writers that Mac-
kenzie thought the Tacoutche was a part of the Columbia River.
This was not the case when he discovered the Tacoutche. He
did not then know that the Columbia River had been discov-
ered, nor did he learn of it until after his return from his
discovery of the Tacoutche.

Mackenzie kept a journal. In it he speaks of the Tacoutche
as "the great river," and he also* wrote in his journal:

"The more I heard of the river [Tacoutche] the more I was
convinced it could not empty itself into the ocean to the North
of what is called the River of the West, so that with its wind-
ings, the distance must be very great. Such being the dis-
couraging circumstances of my situation, which were now
heightened by the discontent of my people, I could not but be
alarmed at an idea of attempting to get to the discharge of
such a rapid river, especially when I reflected on the tardy
progress of my return up it, even if I should meet with no
obstruction from the natives."

THE FABLED OREGON OR RIVER OF THE WEST.

In referring to the River of the West, Mackenzie undoubt-
edly had in mind the fabled river described by Jonathan Carver
in his Travels. In 1778 Jonathan Carver published, at London,

6 FREDERICK V. HOLMAN

the first edition of his book, describing his travels in the
interior of North America. Carver was a great traveller, and
also what I may call a great fabricator or fictionist. In the
introduction or preface of his book, Carver says that the
greatest part of his discoveries have never been published.
He added:

"Particularly the account I give of the Naudowesies, and
the situation of the Heads of the four great rivers that take
their rise within a few leagues of each other, nearly about the
center of this great continent, viz : The River Bourbon, which
empties itself into Hudson's Bay ; the Waters of Saint Law-
rence; the Mississippi, and the River Oregon, or the River of
the West, that falls into the Pacific Ocean at the straits of
Anian." This is the first time the word Oregon was used or
mentioned in print.

In the book Carver further wrote of these rivers, and showed
on a map, bound in the book, the Straits of Juan de Fuca be-
tween latitudes forty-seven and forty-eight and a part of the
fabled "Straits of Anian" running southerly from the Straits
of Juan de Fuca into the River of the West sixty or seventy
miles east of its mouth, somewhat as though Puget Sound
extended southerly to the Columbia River. The mouth of the
River of the West he placed at about latitude forty-four. This
location of the mouth of this river was evidently used by
Carver to carry out his fiction, for on his map he placed oppo-
site the mouth of this river the words "Discovered by Agui-
lar." In January, 1603, Martin de Aguilar, a Spanish naval
officer, made an imaginary discovery of a great river, which
he asserted flowed into the Pacific Ocean a short distance
north of latitude forty-three. The mouth of de Aguilar's
river was afterwards shown on maps. It was easy for Carver
to connect the head of his fabled river with the mouth of de
Aguilar's imaginary one.

At the time Mackenzie discovered the Tacoutche, he knew
that the fabled Straits of Anian, and those of De Fonte did
not exist. But he supposed the Oregon or River of the West
might exist.

DISCOVERY OF FRASER RIVER. 7

MACKENZIE'S KNOWLEDGE OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER.

The Columbia River was discovered by Captain Robert
Gray, May n, 1792, about the time Mackenzie left Montreal
on his journey to the Pacific Ocean. The discovery of the
Columbia River was not known to Mackenzie, probably, until
the return of Vancouver to England in 1795, although Mac-
kenzie may have heard of it after his return, in the fall of
1793, to Montreal, from his expedition, for Captain Gray re-
turned to Boston by the way of the Cape of Good Hope in
1793 or 1794. Mackenzie went to England in 1799 and there
supervised the publication of his Journal. It was published
in 1801.

Captain George Vancouver returned to London in Septem-
ber, 1795, and his Voyage was published in London in 1798.
In this book, Vancouver gave a detailed statement of the dis-
covery of the Columbia River, the latitude and longitude of
its mouth, and of the exploration of the Columbia by Lieu-
tenant Broughton from its mouth to Point Vancouver, in
October, 1792, a distance of about one hundred miles.

Mackenzie's main Journal of his expedition was published,
as written by him, subject to editorial supervision. But in
the latter part of this volume is a summary, possibly written
by his cousin, Roderick Mackenzie, who is said to have revised
the manuscript of Alexander Mackenzie. In this summary
the Tacoutche is spoken of as being the Columbia River, and a
map is bound in the volume showing between dotted lines the
Columbia River as being a continuation of the Tacoutche
Tesse, as far south as latitude fifty-one, but no further. Van-
couver's Voyage is the undoubted source of Mackenzie's
knowledge of the Columbia River, as set forth in the summary
to Mackenzie's Journal and in said map.

The course of the Columbia River, for more than the one
hundred miles above its mouth, as explored by Lieutenant
Broughton, was not known until the Lewis and Clark Expe-
dition in 1804-1806, and then only from the junction of the

8 FREDERICK V. HOLMAN

Snake with the Columbia River. North of the Snake River
the course of the Columbia River was not known until 1811.
The first white man who discovered and explored the sources
of the Columbia River was David Thompson, one of the part-
ners of the Northwest Company. He was also the first white
man to descend the Columbia to its confluence with the Snake
River. In 1811 Thompson, in a light canoe, manned by eight
Iroquois and an interpreter, went down the Columbia River,
arriving at Astoria July 15, 1811. This was only a short time
after the founding of Astoria. The Tonquin, the ship which
brought the Astor expedition, entered the Columbia River
March 24, 1811. April 12 the expedition landed and camped
at Astoria to make that place its permanent home.

Alexander Mackenzie was a great and intrepid explorer.
He was the first white man to cross the American continent
from civilization on the Atlantic slope to the Pacific Ocean,
north of latitude forty-two, the northern boundary of Cali-
fornia.

THE FIRST SETTLEMENT IN BRITISH COLUMBIA BY FRASER.

The first permanent settlement on the Tacoutche or Fraser
River was made under the leadership of Simon Fraser on
behalf of the Northwest Company. This was the first perma-
nent occupation of the continent by white men west of the
Rocky Mountains, north of latitude forty-two degrees and
south of latitude fifty-four degrees, forty minutes, and being
what was subsequently known as the Oregon Country.

It was in 1805 that Simon Fraser and his party arrived in
that country. I shall not go into details concerning his occu-
pation of this part of the country except to say that he named
it New Caledonia and established several trading posts or
forts, for this address relates to the discovery and exploration
of the Fraser River and not to settlements in the country.

DISCOVERY OF FRASER RIVER. 9

SIMON FRASER.

Simon Fraser was a near relative of the noted Baron Simon
Fraser Lovat, a Scotchman known as Lord Lovat. The latter
was a Jacobite intriguer, who took part in the Scottish re-
bellion of 1745, which ended in the battle of Culloden. He
was executed in 1747. His family is one of the oldest in the
Scottish Highlands. Simon Fraser, the explorer of Fraser
River, was born in 1776, on his father's farm near Bennington,
Vermont. His father, also named Simon Fraser, emigrated
from Scotland in 1773. In the American Revolutionary War
his father was a British Loyalist or Tory, one of the so-called
United Empire Loyalists. He became a captain in the British
army. He was captured in the war and died in prison. Young
Simon Fraser was taken by his widowed mother to St. An-
drews, Ontario, which was his home during his youth, al-
though he attended school at Montreal. In 1792, when he
was sixteen years old, he joined the Northwest Company. His
promotion was rapid. In 1802 he became a bourgeois or part-
ner of that company. That he arrived at this position when
he was only twenty-six years old is a proof of his ability and
of how he was considered by his company. This is also shown
from his being sent to, and placed in command of, this new
field of operation in New Caledonia.

ERASER'S EXPLORATION OF THE FRASER RIVER.

In the fall of 1807 Simon Fraser received instructions from
the Northwest Company to explore the Tacoutche to its
mouth. It was then believed that this river was a part of the
great Columbia River. This belief was strengthened by the
fact that for a long distance, to the point Mackenzie ceased
to descend the Tacoutche, its course was almost due south,
and the mouth of the Columbia was only about one degree of
longitude west of this part of the Tacoutche. There were
political reasons for this exploration because the expedition of
Lewis and Clark, in 1804-1806, was a military expedition of

io FREDERICK V. HOLMAN

the United States Government. There were business reasons
to ascertain if furs could be shipped by sea and supplies
brought up the river. It was well to spy out the land.

Fraser knew that the mouth of the Columbia was about
eight degrees of latitude, a distance of several hundred miles,
from where he was to start. He knew only of the route so
far as Mackenzie had explored the Tacoutche, from what he
had learned by his own experience, and from what the Indians
had told him. It is doubtful if he had any exact knowledge,
or any knowledge, of what Lewis and Clark had discovered
on the Columbia north of Point Vancouver, for their expedi-
tion had not returned to St. Louis, Missouri, until September
23, 1806, and the instructions to Fraser to explore the river
must have left Montreal in the spring of 1807.

There could have been no doubt in Fraser's mind that his
exploration would be a difficult and dangerous undertaking.
Mackenzie had turned back because he had found the river
so dangerous to navigate. The Indians along the river below
he knew were of a treacherous and warlike character. Fraser
had no guide. He made very careful preparations for his
journey. The expedition consisted of twenty-one men besides
himself, in four canoes. The exact day that the expedition
started is in doubt, but it is not material. It probably left Fort
George on the Tacoutche, which I shall hereinafter call the
Fraser, on May 28, 1808. At the outset one of his canoes was
almost wrecked at Fort George Canyon. The next two days
were very dangerous navigation. May 30 the expedition ar-
rived at the lowest point on the river reached by Mackenzie,
where the latter turned back. But Fraser did not hesitate.
In his Journal he says that for two miles there was a strong
rapid with high and steep banks which contracted the channel
in many places to forty or fifty yards, and that "this immense
body of water, passing through this narrow space in a turbu-
lent manner, forming numerous gulfs and cascades, and mak-
ing a tremendous noise, had an awful and forbidding appear-
ance."

DISCOVERY OF ERASER RIVER. n

As the passage by land appeared even worse, Fraser re-
solved to try to have one canoe run the rapid, with a light
load and manned by his best five men. The attempt was un-
successful, the canoe was dashed against a rock, but its crew
fortunately saved themselves by climbing up the rock. The
rescue of these five men was a perilous act, endangering the
lives of all who took part in it. Fraser says in his Journal :

"The bank was extremely high and steep, and we had to
plunge our daggers at intervals into the ground to check our
speed, as otherwise we were exposed to slide into the river.
We cut steps in the declivity, fastened a line to the front of the
canoe, with which some of the men ascended in order to haul
it up, while the others supported it upon their arms. In this
manner our situation was most precarious ; our lives hung, as
it were, upon a thread, as the failure of the line or a false step
of one of the men might have hurled the whole of us into
eternity."

The Indians advised him to abandon the river and travel
overland. Fraser says in his Journal:

"Going to sea by an indirect way was not the object of my
undertaking. I therefore would not deviate."

He proceeded on the land a short distance with horses, ob-
tained from the Indians. He then voyaged by the river sev-
eral days under great perils, at times portaging his goods and
canoes over mountains and across canyons and ravines. Some-
times they went over rapids and through river canyons, which
it is said never before nor since were attempted.

June 9 the expedition came to a place where "the channel
contracted to a width of about forty yards enclosed by two
precipices of immense height, which bending over toward each
other, make it narrower above than below. The water which
rolls down this extraordinary passage in tumultuous waves
and with great velocity, had a frightful appearance." It was
impossible to carry the canoes overland. The whole party
without hesitation and with most desperate daring embarked
in their canoes. In his Journal, Fraser says: "Thus skim-

12 FREDERICK V. HOLM AN

ming along as fast as lightning, the crews, cool and deter-
mined, followed each other in awful silence, and, when we
arrived at the end we stood gazing at each other in silent con-
gratulation at our narrow escape from total destruction."

Here the Indians made a map and informed Fraser that it
was impossible to proceed further by water, but he continued
for the day. Fraser wrote :

"This afternoon the rapids were very bad, two in particular
were worse, if possible, than any we had hitherto met with,
being a continual series of cascades intercepted with rocks
and bounded by precipices and mountains that at times seemed
to have no end. I scarcely ever saw anything so dreary and
dangerous in any country, and at present, while writing this,
whatever way I turn my eyes, mountains upon mountains
whose summits are covered with eternal snows, close the
gloomy scene."

June tenth he became convinced the party could not con-
tinue down the river by water. So he placed his canoes on
scaffolds and cached a part of his supplies. The whole party
then proceeded on foot, carrying heavy packs, occasionally
traveling by water in canoes hired from the Indians. June 26
Fraser wrote in his Journal :

"As for the road by land we could scarcely make our way
with even only our guns. I have been for a long period
among the Rocky Mountains, but have never seen anything
like this country. It is so wild that I cannot find words to
describe our situation at times. We had to pass where no
human being should venture ; yet in those places there is a
regular footpath impressed, or rather indented upon the rocks
by frequent traveling. Besides this, steps which are formed
like a ladder or the shrouds of a ship, by poles hanging to one
another and crossed at certain distances with twigs, the whole
suspended from the top to the foot of immense precipices and
fastened at both extremities to stones ^and trees, furnish a safe
and convenient passage to the natives ; but we, who had not
had the advantages of their education and experience, were

DISCOVERY OF FRASER RIVER. 13

often in imminent danger when obliged to follow their ex-
ample."

The expedition continued on its journey, sometimes on land,
sometimes on water in the canoes of the Indians. July second
they arrived at a place where the tide rose about two and a
half feet. That day they were compelled to take a canoe forc-
ibly in order to continue their journey. July third they arrived
at one of the mouths of the Fraser, probably what is called
the "North Arm." Although some writers have endeavored
to belittle Fraser's achievement and have asserted that he did
not reach the mouth of the river, it is now completely estab-
lished that he did.

In his Journal Fraser says of the location of the mouth of
the Fraser River:

"The latitude is 49 degrees, nearly, while that of the entrance
of the Columbia is 46 degrees 20 minutes. This river, there-
fore, is not the Columbia." He then adds: "If I had been
convinced of this when I left my canoes, I would certainly
have returned."

Dr. George Bryce truly says in his book, "The Remarkable
History of the Hudson's Bay Company," referring to the latter
entry in Fraser's Journal : "How difficult it is to distinguish
small from great actions ! Here was a man making fame for
all time, and the idea of the greatness of his work had not
dawned upon him."

And Simon Fraser's exploring expedition was a great work,
not only in its accomplishment but in its effects. It is proper
that this river should always bear his name. In exploring a
known river he discovered it. While the Fraser River is
navigable only a short distance above its mouth, it makes the
only water grade possible through almost impassable moun-
tains. The great wagon road and the Canadian Pacific Rail-
way utilize this grade.

Just before and after Fraser arrived at the mouth of the
river, the party narrowly escaped being massacred by the In-

14 FREDERICK V. HOLMAN

dians. This was prevented largely through the fortitude of
Fraser.

Without delay, on July third, the expedition started on its
return trip, arriving at Fort George August sixth, without
any remarkable experiences on the way. It seems somewhat
strange that it took the party a longer time to go to the ocean
than to return. Had Fraser known of the conditions he could
have made his trip much easier by waiting until later in the
season, after the summer freshet was over. But this fact does
not in any way detract from, nor change the renown to which
this intrepid band of sturdy Nor'westers, and especially its
leader, is entitled.

There is no other large river on the Pacific Slope so terrible
or so dangerous to follow as the Fraser, unless it be that part
of the Snake River between Huntington, Oregon, and Lewis-
ton, Idaho, along which Wilson Price Hunt and his party
wandered so helplessly and almost hopelessly in the fall and
winter of 1811.

Those interested in this perilous expedition of Fraser should
read his Journal, which is printed as a part of a work, in two
volumes, written in French by L. R. Masson, entitled "Les
Bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest." The Journal of
Fraser is printed in English. The first edition was published
at Quebec in 1889. Although not an old work, it is now very
difficult to obtain.

In preparing this address I have been given interesting and
important information, personally, by Judge F. W. Howay, of
New Westminster, British Columbia, particularly facts relat-
ing to the Spanish discovery of Fraser River. Notwithstand-
ing his judicial duties, he has found time to become a diligent
student and a scholarly writer of British Columbia history.
I have, so far as possible, examined original sources of infor-
mation in an endeavor to be accurate in statements of fact.

It may be of interest to add that Simon Fraser continued in
the service of the Northwest Company until the coalition of
that company with the Hudson's Bay Company, in 1821.

DISCOVERY OF ERASER RIVER. 15

April 19, 1862, at the age of eighty-six, he died at St. An-
drews, Ontario, where he had lived as a boy.

In recognition of his explorations of the Fraser River,
Fraser was offered knighthood, but his limited means pre-
vented his acceptance. It is said, however, that one reason for
his refusal was that he believed that he was entitled to be
Baron Lovat, as the nearest relative of the noted Lord Lovat,
of whom I have spoken.

Simon Fraser was one of the intrepid explorers and hardy
pioneers of the Pacific Northwest, men who found the way
and showed others where and how to follow. The armies of
occupation and of civilization followed slowly on. In a few
years he was succeeded by the great leaders and successful fur-
traders of the Hudson's Bay Company. At the old, the orig-
inal Vancouver, on the Columbia River, came and ruled, Dr.
John McLoughlin, the Father of Oregon, James Douglas,
afterwards knighted, and Peter Skene Ogden, all held in grate-
ful memory in Oregon and Washington.

In this one hundred years since Simon Fraser's exploration
of the Fraser River, the whole Pacific Northwest has grown
wonderfully in population and in civilization. The days of
centennials, beginning with that of Gray's discovery of the
Columbia River, show that while the long ago of this part of
the continent is comparatively new, its traditions are those of a
hardy, a brave, and an intrepid people.

16 WM. D. FENTON

FATHER WILBUR AND HIS WORK.*

BY WM. D. FENTON.

James H. Wilbur, familiarly and affectionately known as
Father Wilbur, was born on a farm near the village of Low-
ville, N. Y., September n, 1811 ; was married to Lucretia Ann
Stevens, March 9, 1831, and died at Walla. Walla, Wash.,
October 8, 1887, in his 77th year. These three events, as re-
lated to his individual life, were the most important, his birth,
his marriage and his death. The task of the biographer
merges and enlarges itself into the work of the historian. The
simple and short narrative common to the lives of most men
and women concerns but few, and it is only when a life in its
larger development has touched closely the affairs of men and
has caused, or been a part of, the times that the narrative be-
comes historical.

Wilbur was the son of Presbyterian parents, but did not
himself become identified with any church until after his
marriage, when he and his wife were converted and became
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the village of
Lowville, N. Y. At the age of 29 years the presiding elder
of his district, William S. Bowdish, granted to him a license
as an exhorter, in accordance with the customs and usages of
the church at that time, and within two years thereafter Aaron
Adams, as presiding elder, granted him the usual license to
preach, and in July, 1832, he became a member of the Black
River General Conference and entered upon his life work as
a Methodist minister. It is recorded that he traveled the cir-
cuit of Northern New York until he was called to this then
remote field of his future labors, the Oregon Country. George
Gary was then superintendent of the Oregon mission, and
was a former presiding elder over Mr. Wilbur in the Black

*Paper read at celebration of sixtieth anniversary of founding of Taylor-Street
Methodist Church of Portland, December 13, 1908.

FATHER WILBUR AND His WORK. 17

River Conference. On September 27, 1846, in company with
William Roberts, who had been appointed superintendent of
the mission, he sailed from New York on the bark Whitton,
coming by way of Cape Horn to the Columbia River, and
landed at Oregon City, June 22, 1847.

You will recall that the treaty of Washington was signed
June 15, 1846, by which the United States and Great Britain
settled the Oregon boundary, and although a provisional gov-
ernment had been established for the government of the then
Oregon country, it was not until August 14, 1848, that the
Congress of the United States created a territorial govern-
ment embracing this vast region of country between the 42d
and 49th parallels and the Pacific Ocean on the west, and the
Rocky Mountains on the east. James K. Polk was President
of the United States, and James Buchanan was Secretary of
State, and acted as plenipotentiary for the United States, ex-
changing ratification of the treaty of Washington with Rich-
ard Packenham, representing Her Majesty, Queen Victoria.
Wilbur and Roberts arrived 13 years after Jason Lee had
established the Methodist Mission a few miles north of Salem,
but Wilbur and Roberts came, not so much to extend and en-
large the work begun by Lee in an effort to bring religion
and civilization to the Indians in this section, but rather to
establish the foundation of a Christian civilization in this far-
off country by the establishment of missions and churches and
schools for our own people, who were then in increasing num-
bers coming to this section. Some of his co-workers of that
early date who have left their impress upon the institutions of
the church and of the state, were David Leslie, George Gary,
A. F. Waller, Gustavus Hines, William Roberts and T. F.
Royal, all of whom have passed away excepting Thomas F.
Royal. Wilbur's only daughter was the wife of Rev. St.
Michael Fackler, first Episcopal clergyman in the Oregon
Country. Mr. Fackler was a native of Staunton, Va. He
resided on a farm near Butteville, Marion County, for a
time, and conducted services at Champoeg, Butteville, String-

i8 WM. D. FENTON

town, Oregon City, Portland and on the Tualatin Plains. He
married Miss Wilbur in 1849, an(* she died in 1850, and was
buried in the lot in the rear of where Taylor Street Church
now stands. She left an only child and daughter, who sur-
vived her but n years. Father Wilbur's wife died at Walla
Walla, September 13, 1887, in her 76th year, and thus, upon
the death of Father Wilbur, no lineal descendant of his family
survived. He and his wife were buried in Lee Mission Ceme-
tery, near Salem, Oregon.

When Wilbur arrived in Portland in June, 1847, there were

13 houses in a dense forest, where now stands a city of nearly
250,000 people, and at that time Salem and Oregon City were
the chief centers of business and population and influence.
Salem was but a missionary point in a country inhabited
chiefly by Indians ; Oregon City was a trading post with a
few hundred population, and Portland did not exist as a
municipality. In 1849 Wilbur was appointed to the circuit
embracing Oregon City and Portland, and in 1850 built the
first church in this city. It is estimated that the parsonage
and church so constructed cost $5,000; mechanics received $12
per day, and lumber was $120 per thousand. The first sermon
was preached in this city by William Roberts, then living at
Oregon City, and the services were held in a cooper shop on
the west side of First street, between Morrison and Yamhill.
This was on the first Sunday in November, 1847. It *s re~
corded that on the preceding Sunday Rev. C. O. Hosford
rode to a point on the east side of the river, and was ferried
across the stream by James B. Stephens, in an Indian canoe,
and landed at what is now the foot of Stark street; that he
clambered up the muddy bank and entered a dense forest of
fir, and looking southward, entered an opening in the woods,
crawling under and climbing over newly cut logs. At that
time this pioneer preacher, who had been sent by Superintendent
Robert? to arrange a religious service, found scattered about

14 log cabins and a few families. This was on the last Sunday
of October, 1847, and on the succeeding Sunday William

FATHER WILBUR AND His WORK. 19

Roberts held the first religious services and preached the first
sermon in what is now the city of Portland, and James H.
Wilbur preached the first sermon in Taylor Street Church in
the spring of 1850.

Until the General Conference of 1848, Oregon had been
considered a foreign mission, but during the session of that
body in May of that year, in Pittsburg, Pa., the Board of
Bishops were charged to organize during the quadrennium,
what was to be called the "Oregon and California Mission
Conference," and the territory to be embraced therein was to
include all that portion of the United States west of the Rocky
Mountains. California, as a result of the war with Mexico
in 1846, had been added to the territorial possessions of the
United States. The Oregon country, comprising now the
states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, the western half of
Montana and a portion of Wyoming, had been acquired by
the United States by right of prior discovery and occupation
as well as by purchase, and its chief importance lay in the
fact that the United States had claimed this vast section of
country from the discovery of the Columbia River by Captain
Gray, May n, 1792, more than a half century prior to our
acquisition of California, and its pioneer missions and settlers
were chiefly from the United States.

In the spring of 1849 Bishop Waugh, to whom the Board
of Bishops entrusted the details of organization of the "Oregon
and California Mission Conference," gave explicit instructions
to William Roberts, then superintendent of the Oregon Mis-
sion, directing its organization, and accordingly the first con-
ference was held in the chapel of the Oregon Institute in
Salem on September 5, 1849. There were present as partici-
pants, William Roberts, of the New Jersey Conference ; David
Leslie, of the Providence Conference; A. F. Waller, of the
Tennessee Conference; James H. Wilbur, of the Black River
Conference; James Owen, of the Indiana Conference, and
William Taylor, of the Baltimore Conference — six men, two
from California and four from Oregon, charged with founda-

20 WM. D. FENTON

tion work for the great church of which they were official
representatives. Owen and Taylor, of California, were not
present ; Roberts was elected chairman, and Wilbur secretary ;
William Helm, an elder from the Kentucky Conference, was
readmitted, and J. L. Parrish, who had been received on trial
in the Genessee Conference in 1848, was recognized as a pro-
bationer in the Oregon and California Mission Conference,
and J. E. Parrot, John McKinney and James O. Raynor were
admitted on trial. It will be interesting as indicating that they
were in the days of small beginnings to note the record of
membership at that time. Oregon City reported 30 members
and six probationers; Salem circuit 109 members and 25 pro-
bationers ; Clatsop, eight members and one probationer ; an
aggregate of 348 members and six probationers; there were
fourteen local preachers ,and only three churches, one at
Oregon City, one at Salem, and one on the Yamhill circuit;
there were nine Sabbath schools, with 261 scholars.

At this conference William Roberts was appointed superin-
tendent, and James H. Wilbur and J. L. Parrish were assigned
to Oregon City and Portland. For the Salem circuit, William
Helm, J. O. Raynor and David Leslie; Yamhill circuit, John
McKinney and C. O. Hosford ; Mary's River, A. F. Waller
and J. E. Parrot; Astoria and Clatsop were to be supplied.
The Oregon and California mission conference met one year
later, in Oregon City, on September 4, 1850, and there was a
reported increase of only 47 members and 20 probationers.
James H. Wilbur was appointed to Oregon City and the
Columbia River. The third meeeting of the conference was
held in the Oregon Institute on September 3, 1851, and at that
time there were 475 members and 170 probationers. The last
and final meeting of the Mission Conference was held at
Portland on September 2, 1852, and thereafter, by order of
the General Conference held in Boston in May, 1852, Cali-
fornia and Oregon were separated, and each state given a
separate conference.

Wilbur was a strong man mentally and physically, and he

FATHER WILBUR AND His WORK. 21

was not only a forceful preacher, but a great executive. In-
ured to the hardships and privations of pioneer life, he worked
as a common workman in the construction of old Taylor Street
Church and in the buildinng of Portland Academy, of which
he was the founder. One of the earliest cares of the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church in the Oregon country was the estab-
lishment of educational institutions, the oldest one being the
Oregon Institute, now Willamette University. It was in the
mind of Wilbur to feed the university by the establishment of
academies and schools in different parts of the state. With
this end in view, and to serve its immediate constituents, he
established the Portland Academy from a fund arising from
the donation of three blocks of land in this city, one of which
was used as a building site, and the other two of which were
to constitute an endowment. The Portland Academy was
opened in 1851, in charge of Calvin S. Kingsley. Father
Wilbur also founded the Umpqua Academy at the town of
Wilbur, in Douglas County, Oregon.

In September, 1851, Chapman, Coffin and Lownsdale were
the proprietors of the townsite of the city of Portland, and,
recognizing the demands for the establishment of educa-
tional institutions, donated block 205, upon which the Portland
Academy was first built, and block 224, immediately west
of this, for this purpose, the deed to which was made to Father
Wilbur "in trust to build a male and female seminary thereon
and therewith," and it was intended that this should be held
in trust for the Methodist Episcopal Church, of the state of
Oregon. At that time these blocks were covered with heavy
fir timber, and it is recorded that Father Wilbur personally
cleared the ground and hewed out of the native fir the timbers
for the frame of the building, and assisted in its erection.
He solicited subscriptions, advanced and borrowed on his own
credit, about $5,000, and the building was completed Novem-
ber 17, 1851. In June, 1854, the Territorial Legislature incor-
porated the school, with a board of trustees, of which Wilbur
was president; T. J. Dryer, vice-president; C. S. Kingsley,
secretary, and W. S. Ladd, treasurer.

22 WM. D. FENTON

Many of the children of the pioneer men and women of
those early days were students and graduates of this institu-
tion, called Portland Academy and Female Seminary. The
building was constructed at the corner of West Park and
Jefferson streets, and stood there a monument of the devotion
and zeal of these early settlers until within recent years.

The Willamette University was incorporated by act of the
Territorial Legislature January 12, 1853, and Wilbur was
one of the first trustees. You will recall that the Territorial
Legislative Assembly, in 1851, passed an act incorporating the
City of Portland, and that the first election was held on April
7, 1851, Hugh D. O'Bryant being elected Mayor by a majority
of 4 over J. S. Smith. In June, 1851, the territorial election
for Delegate to Congress took place, and as an indication of
the population of the city at that time, it may be noted that
Joseph Lane received 162 votes, and W. H. Willson 60 votes,
or a total of 222 votes.

Taylor Street Church was incorporated under the laws of
the territory by special act of the Legislative Assembly on
January 26, 1853, although the church had been organized
before that time, and the building constructed. The original
structure was a frame building fronting on Taylor street, near
Third street, and the present brick structure was erected in
1868. It will be remembered that the first Protestant Church
erected on the Pacific Coast, from Cape Horn to Bering
Strait, was the Methodist Church in Oregon City, begun in
1842, by Waller, was completed in 1844 by Gustavus Hines,
and that Bishop E. R. Ames, who visited Portland in March,
I853, was the first bishop who presided over an Oregon con-
ference, held at Salem, March 17 of that year. The superin-
tendents of the Oregon mission were: Jason Lee, 1834-1844;
George Gary, 1844-1847; William Roberts, 1847-1849, when
the Oregon mission was succeeded by what was called the Ore-
gon and California Mission Conference, under the strong and
intelligent hand of William Roberts, who conducted the work
of the Oregon and California Mission Conference until it was

FATHER WILBUR AND His WORK. 23

merged in the Oregon Conference, in 1853. In all of this work,
Wilbur was an active participant; his duty led him into close
contact with public affairs, and his activities were not confined
entirely to the immediate work of the Christian ministry.

On September n, 1863, a joint convention of the Legisla-
tive Assembly of the State of Oregon was held at Salem, Or.,
to elect a successor to Benjamin Stark, whose senatorial term
would expire March 4, 1864, and Benjamin F. Harding, of
Marion County, was chosen. James H. Wilbur was nominated
as a candidate before that convention. He was appointed
superintendent of teaching at the Yakima Indian Reservation
in 1860, and was continuously in the Indian service for about
20 years. From the position of superintendent of teaching he
was promoted by President Lincoln to the position of Indian
Agent. It will be remembered that the Yakima Indian Reser-
vation was established near old Fort Simcoe, an abandoned
military fort, and that the Indians there assembled were from
various tribes of Western Washington, but chiefly the Yakimas
on the north bank of the Columbia River.

Wilbur had the confidence of the authorities at Washington,
and in 1873, during the Modoc Indian war, he was appointed
peace commissioner with A. B. Meacham and T. B. Odeneal,
charged with the duty of attempting to negotiate a treaty of
peace with the Modoc Indians. They were to meet at Link-
ville, February 15, 1873, but Meacham declined to serve with
Odeneal or Wilbur, or either of them, and Jesse Applegate
and Samuel Case were appointed in their stead. At that time
Wilbur was Indian Agent at Fort Simcoe. Applegate ac-
cepted his commission, but subsequently resigned, and he
characterized the peace commission as "an expensive blunder/'
It is enough to say that it failed in its mission, and there are
those who believe that if Wilbur had been allowed to serve
with Meacham, his knowledge of Indian character would have
enabled him to negotiate the peace treaty, and would have
avoided the subsequent treachery of the Modocs and the mur-
der of General Edward R. S. Canby.

24 WM. D. FENTON

Wilbur devoted himself to the Indian service for about 20
years, and as it seems to me, made a sacrifice which not only
did him an injustice, but deprived the commonwealth of a
larger service which he might have rendered if he had con-
tinued in his work as a great preacher and constructive builder
of Christian civilization among his own people. At this dis-
tance, and from this point of view, missionary efforts of the
early churches, both Protestant and Catholic, seem to have been
devoid of permanent results. Jason Lee and his associates,
as early as 1834, were inspired with the purpose to convert to
Christianity the Indians in this great, unsettled and undevel-
oped region. The Methodist Church for a generation devoted
its great energy to this work. A like ambition inspired the
mission of Dr. Whitman, Father DeSmet, Archbishop Blanchet
and other devoted men, both Protestant and Catholic. It may
be that their work in some measure acted as a bridge over
which the early pioneers could pass to a riper and better civili-
zation. These missionaries to the Indians, in anticipation of
the probable failure of their work in that direction, turned
their energies toward the establishment of educational institu-
tions and of local churches for the development of our own
people, and in this work Wilbur was a pioneer builder of
strength and character. The foundations laid by him in this
city in the building of Taylor Street Church were broad and
deep, and the influence of what he did in the early '505, in the
work of his hands here, far outreaches any work that he did
or could have done in his self-immolation in the service of a
passing and perishing race. The American Indian, while un-
civilized, was not entirely without religion. While it is true
that he had no special knowledge of religion as we understand
it, and especially of the Christian religion, he was not barren
of all religious instincts and traditions, and was not entirely
without guidance. The work done in his behalf has been tran-
sitory and without permanent effect. This, perhaps, could not
be foreseen, and yet, as civilization has extended its influence
over that vast Indian territory which at one time embraced the

FATHER WILBUR AND His WORK. 25

entire United States, it will be seen that the Indian race itself
has vanished, and that but a fragment here and there now re-
mains. Wilbur, when he retired from work among his own
people and devoted himself exclusively to the Indian service,
was in the prime of a vigorous manhood, and had not yet
reached the age of 50 years. If he had remained in the work
of Christian education and in the work of the ministry among
his own people, it is impossible now to say what might have
been the record of his successful life. There are men and
women still living, here and elsewhere, who were co-workers
with him, and who testify to the sterling qualities with which
he was endowed. He was a type of man devoted to the min-
istry of the church, that has in large measure passed away.
In his day he had much to do of detail, of preparation, of con-
trol, that could not now and ought not to be done by his suc-
cessors. These men were forerunners of a different era, and
did the work which times and conditions required them to do.
They were all men of strong natures, vigorous in thought,
forceful in debate, aggressive along all lines, and unused to
the gentler methods and diplomacy of the modern pulpit. The
work which was here to be done required such men, it was
foundation work, under trying and unfavorable conditions,
and they had the time and opportunity which does not come
to men of the present day. But few of their illustrious num-
ber survive the cares and marks of time. Among that num-
ber are Thomas F. Royal and John Flinn, and there may be
others. Father Flinn — hale and hearty at the age of more
than 90 years — still goes in and out among us in mental and
physical vigor. You will recall that the Taylor Street Church
was organized in 1848, and the building was constructed in
1850. Father Flinn delivered the second discourse in the old
church building. He came from the Maine Conference, and as
early as September 3, 1851, became a member of the Oregon
and California Mission Conference.

Among the contemporaries of Father Wilbur and Father
Flinn in these earlier days were T. H. Pearne, Isaac Dillon,

26 WM. D. FENTON

J. S. Smith, John W. Miller and N. Doane, all of whom were
men of power and influence and of the same general type.
These were the days when an empire was in process of build-
ing. The Oregon territory originally was divided into four
districts or counties — Tuality, Yamhill, Champoeg and Clack-
amas. Tuality County was first established July 5, 1843, and
comprised at that time all of the territory west of the Willam-
ette and north of the Yamhill River, extending to the Pacific
Ocean on the west and as far north as the north boundary line
of the United States, which President Polk and his party
claimed was 54:40. On September 4, 1849, ^ts name was
change from Tuality to Washington County, and Portland,
which was founded by A. L. Lovejoy and F. W. Petty grove, in
1845, was first incorporated in January, 1851, and remained
within the limits of Washington County until the organization
of Multnomah County, on December 22, 1854. At that time
there was no newspaper or other publication in what is now
Multnomah County, and it was not until December 4, 1850,
that Thomas J. Dryer published the first newspaper adn named
it The Weekly Oregonian. The Daily Oregonian was not pub-
lished until February 4, 1861, and The Sunday Oregonian was
first published on the 4th day of December, 1881.

The first school of public instruction in this city was opened
in a little frame building on Front street, at the corner of
Taylor, and was constructed by Job McNamee, the father of
Mrs. E. J. Northrup, who, with her family, were at one time
members of Taylor Street Church. The first school teacher
was Dr. Ralph Wilcox, of New York, and he had under his
charge about a dozen pupils. He was also the first physician
coming to this city, and it will be remembered that for many
years he was Clerk of the United States Circuit Court for
this district and Speaker of the House of Representatives in
the Territorial Legislature of 1848.

Recurring to the statement that Wilbur was nominated in
the joint convention of the Legislative Assembly, September
n, 1863, as one of the candidates for the office of United

FATHER WILBUR AND His WORK. 27

States Senator, it is worthy of historical record that in the
early political history of this state there were strong and
influential men identified with the Methodist Church who were
more or less active in the political forces of the state. In this
same Joint Assembly Thomas H. Pearne, who was a distin-
guished editor of the Pacific Christian Advocate, was also
mentioned as a candidate for the Senate, and had the support
of Addison C. Gibbs, who, on the preceding day, had been
inaugurated as Governor of the state, and who was also a mem-
ber of the Methodist Church; J. S. Smith, who was elected
to Congress as a Democrat in June, 1868, was a preacher in
the Methodist Church under the mission conference presided
over by William Roberts, and was admitted to that conference
in 1851-2. He also was a co-worker with Wilbur in all the
activities of the church in this section. George Abernethy, the
first Governor of Oregon, was a member of the Methodist
Church at Oregon City, and assisted in building the first
Protestant Church erected on the Pacific Coast, which is still
standing at Oregon City. William Roberts was the adminis-
trative officer and active member of the Methodist Episcopal
Church in this jurisdiction for many years during these pioneer
times. He was an ideal executive and a fit co-worker with
James H. Wilbur. The one was skillful to plan, the other
strong to execute, and to these two men, in large measure,
is due the successful issue of the preliminary work entrusted
to their care.

The contemporaries of Wilbur profoundly admired the man,
and in this regard he had the love and affection of men of all
classes. In his zeal and constructive ability he has been re-
garded as the Jesuit of Methodism in the Northwest. If he
had lived in the days of Ignatius Loyola, the Spanish soldier
and prelate, he would have taken the three vows of that great
order founded by him, and devoted himself to a life of poverty,
chastity and obedience in the service of his Master. H. K.
Hines, for some time editor of the Pacific Christian Advocate,
who delivered a memorial discourse at the funeral of Father

28 WM. D. FENTON

Wilbur at Taylor Street Church, October 30, 1887, speaking
of him, said : "So long had he been a chief, if not the chief,
figure in our Methodism on this coast, that it is not at all
strange that his loss is so widely felt and unusually mourned
His place in our church work was unique; and perhaps it
might be said there was place for but one Father Wilbur in
our work. His was a history and a work that can never be
repeated, nor even imitated on this coast. He was essentially
and by nature a pioneer."

Summarizing what Dr. Hines has so well said of the man
whom he knew, it may be said that Father Wilbur as an ad-
ministrative and executive officer had rare discernment and
force. His address was familiar, his carriage imposing, and
his presence indicative of great will force. He was benevo-
lent to a fault, and for many years prior to his death it is said
that he disbursed about $3,000 a year in benevolences, al-
though he was a man of small fortune. By his will he be-
queathed $10,000 to the Missionary Society of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, $10,000 to the Church Extension Society,
and $10,000 to the Freedman's Aid Society, and the remainder
of his estate, amounting to about $17,000, over and above these
specific bequests, was bequeathed to Willamette University.
Speaking of his work among the Indians, Dr. Hines said :
"Twenty-two years of the life of James H. Wilbur were
breathed out into what was such a moral desolation when he
and his companions went there : Lost some would say, in the
all-absorbing and unresponsive soul of paganism." And, while
Dr. Hines dissents from this estimate of the sacrifice which
Wilbur had made, it is debatable whether such a man should
have made so great a sacrifice. A sense of natural justice and
desire to bring light to a race in spiritual darkness, would
prompt such men as Wilbur to give the best of their lives to
such work. It is not true, as Dr. Hines has said, that "very
much that was greatest in the character and most widely in-
fluential in the life and reputation of Mr. Wilbur himself, was
the fruit and growth of that work and these years of conse-

FATHER WILBUR AND His WORK. 29

cration to the redemption of the Indian race." This may in
part be conceded to be true, and yet the biographer and his-
torian who not only narrates events but seeks to discover the
philosophy and purposes of the acts of men and their influence
beyond their times, must regret that the labors of so great a
man should have been so long and so exclusively devoted to
a race that he could not help into a permanent and enduring
civilization. Here and there a remnant of that race yet re-
mains, and its untamed blood lives its nature and instinct,
in a few strong members, but the severe chronicler of the
times must attest the truth of history that in large degree the
work of evangelism among the native races has not measured
up to the expectation of the brave men and women who have
sacrificed so much of life and of treasure and labor in their
behalf. And the chief distinction that will be noted in the life
and work of James H. Wilbur will be that upon virgin soil,
in the unbroken forests of the Oregon country, with his own
hands, he laid the foundation of Taylor Street Methodist
Church, and like institutions and influences in other sections
of this then new country, and that he here began a work
which, in the circle of its influence and in the effectiveness of
its power, will be eternal. What he did here and elsewhere
along these lines was done with no thought of distinction or
enduring fame. Longfellow says that "the talent of success is
nothing more than doing what you can do well, without a
thought of fame," and true greatness takes no notice of what
the future may have in store for those who achieve, and is
not troubled about the memorial tablet. Wilbur lived a life
of usefulness and struggle, but in and through it all there was
purpose and achievement. Daniel Deronda, at the end of
that tragic story so well portrayed by George Eliot, says:
"What makes life dreary is the want of motive; but once
beginning to act with that penitential, loving purpose you have
in your mind, there will be unexpected satisfactions — there
will be newly-opening needs continually coming to carry you
on from day to day. You will find your life growing like a

3O WM. D. FENTON

plant." And so it is that these early pioneer preachers, of
whom Wilbur was a distinguished type, were placed in the
way of empire building, and the motive which most strongly
impelled them to action was that they might establish a Chris-
tian civilization in this distant and remote section of their
country, and that they might set in motion forces that would
endure forever. They were men without fortune, and inured
to the hardships and privations of a new country; they were
poorly compensated in money, and at times overwhelmed by
apparently insurmountable difficulties. A mark of a great
mind is the renewal of effort at each succeeding failure, and
so it was in the case of Wilbur and men of his type, although
they met with difficulties and oftentimes failed to accomplish
results desired, each failure quickened their ambition to a
higher and better effort.

Confucius says : "Our greatest glory is not, in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall." This is, indeed, pagan phil-
osophy, but none the less Christian, for such has been the
mainspring of that effort which has extended the religion of
Jesus of Nazareth from a Roman province to the conquest of
the world.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON *
INCLUDING THE TOPOGRAPHY, DISPOSITION OF PUBLIC LANDS,

LANDLORDISM, MORTGAGES/ FARM OUTPUT, AND PRACTICAL
WORKINGS OF TENANT FARMING OF THE STATE, TOGETHER WITH
TABLES AND COPIES OF LAND LEASES.

BY LON. L. SWIFT.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

i— The United States Census Reports, for 1880, 1890 and
1900.

2 — "Public Land Commissioner's Report, 1904-1905," Sen-
ate Documents, Vol. 4.

3— "The Resources of the State of Oregon, 1890," Collated
and Prepared by the State Board of Agriculture.

4 — "Agricultural Economics," by Prof. Henry C. Taylor.

5 — "Farm Tenancy a Problem in American Agriculture,"
by H. C. Price — Popular Science Monthly, Jan., 1908.

6 — "Farm Ownership in the United States," by Ernest
Ludlow Bogart — The Journal of Political Economy, April,
1908.

7 — Reports from prominent landowners throughout the
State on the practical workings of tenant farming and on the
agricultural credit system of the State.

*Prepared at University of Oregon, 1907-8, in partial fulfillment of requirements
for the Master's degree. Acknowledgment is made of assistance received from
the Carnegie Institution of Washington in the preparation of this study.

32 LON L. SWIFT

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.

Agricultural efficiency is determined largely by the system
of land tenure under which farming is conducted. In Oregon,
as in the United States as a whole, the percentage of tenancy
has been increasing since 1880, the year in which the first data
was collected on this subject. The proportion of rented farms
in Oregon in 1880 was 14.1 per cent of the total number of
farms in the State ; by 1900 this percentage had increased to
17.8. The increase of tenant farming in the United States
during the same period was much greater than in Oregon,
rising from 25.5 per cent in 1880 to 35.3 per cent in 1900. As
soon as the desirable government land that is available for
homestead entry or desert entry is all taken up, as is already
practically the case, tenant farming will increase rapidly. The
high price of land will make it impossible for the farmer of
small means to secure a farm of his own and an ever increas-
ing number will endeavor to rent.

No argument is required to prove that tenant farming is
undesirable. Landowners universally acknowledge that the
farmer should own the land he tills. A tenant, who is merely
concerned with gaining returns from a tract of land for one
or five years, has little interest in improving the soil and pro-
viding for its future efficiency. Farming requires interest of
the farmer in the welfare of the farm to insure the best re-
sults both for present and future; and contract or agreement,
no matter how strict and specific, can not take the place of
direct personal interest. Tenants are seldom found who have
the same concern in preserving and increasing the productivity
of a rented farm that men do in a farm of their own. Life
leases or personal contact of owners and tenants may slightly
alleviate difficulties that would otherwise arise, but no system

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 33

of renting yet discovered proves as satisfactory, both to the
farmer himself and to the community as a whole, as operation
of farms by landowning farmers.

If tenant farming continues to increase, agricultural effi-
ciency will not be as great as it would be under a system of
farming where land is tilled by owners. The soil will become
less productive because it is being constantly "skinned" by
tenant farmers. It has been aptly said that the nation which
tills the soil so as to leave it worse than they found it is
doomed to decay and degradation. Tracts of land have ac-
tually been abandoned in the states along the Atlantic Seaboard
because the soil has become too unproductive to support both
landlord and tenant.

Tenant farming naturally seeks the most fertile lands be-
cause they yield the largest returns for the labor of cultivating
and harvesting. Poor grades of land will scarcely pay a
tenant for his work after the owner receives his share of the
produce; consequently, tenants devastate our best, most pro-
ductive lands, the garden spots of the United States, which
should receive the greatest care and attention. Many reasons
can be given to show that tenant farming is employed mostly
on fertile and valuable lands. Owners of the best farms ac-
quire a competency sooner than their less favored neighbors,
and are enabled to retire from active work and rent their
farms. Capitalists invest their money in the better grades of
land because it yields the surest and largest returns for the
sum invested. Tenants, as a rule, are men of limited means,
who have not the capital to conduct farming on an extensive
scale such as is necessary to make a success of fanning on
poor grades of land where the margin of profit is small. More
risk is involved in farming poor land because the outlay is
necessarily greater in proportion to the amount of returns
and crops are more uncertain. Diversified fanning is espe-
cially adapted to fertile land, and this kind of farming can be
conducted largely by the farmers' own personal labor. These

34 L°N L. SWIFT

facts make it evident that tenant farming is preying on the
better lands and is gradually reducing their productivity.

One wholesome condition in our present system of tenant
farming is the lack of landlordism. A large proportion of
the owners of rented farms in the United States, and especially
in Oregon, rent only one farm; and most of these landowners
reside in the same county in which their farms are located.
They are in no sense the great landlords like England sup-
ports, for they maintain a close personal contact with their
tenants. In 1900, more than two-thirds of the owners of
rented farms resided in the same county in which their farms
were located, and 94 per cent of the owners of rented farms,
rented only one farm. The figures for the United States do
not show such a favorable condition, but the proportion of
landlordism is small. As tenant farming is increasing rapidly
in this country, and as cash tenancy, which is the system gen-
erally employed by the wealthy landlord, is increasing more
rapidly than share tenancy, it appears very doubtful whether
the small proportion of landlordism existing at the present
time will long be maintained.

Short leases tend to increase the evils of tenant farming by
making the renter more transitory and less interested in the
welfare of the land. A very large proportion of leasing in
Oregon is conducted by one year contracts, and farms are
seldom rented in this State for more than two or three years
under definite agreement. This short system of leasing may
be due largely to the newness of the State, but it produces
very unsatisfactory results. The tenant farmer in Oregon
generally has the name of being a land skinner and shiftless
farmer. The best results of tenant farming are said to be
produced by cash tenancy rather than by share tenancy, and
by long leases rather than by short leases.

The object of this paper is to show the conditions and ten-
dencies of land tenure in Oregon and the progress and results
of farming. The practical workings of the systems of renting

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 35

employed in Oregon at the present time are discussed as re-
ported by prominent landowners throughout the State. After
a brief outline of the topography of the State and of the dis-
position of public lands, a somewhat detailed discussion will
be given of tenancy in Oregon, of residents of landowners who
rent their farms, and of the agricultural credit system of the
State. Attention will also be given to the number, size and
productivity of the farms in the different sections and counties
of Oregon. The census reports for 1900 give the latest
figures bearing on tenancy and farm output that have been
obtained, which is a disadvantage, making it impossible to
bring the figures up to the present time. Perhaps the most
vital chapter is that dealing with the systems of tenant farm-
ing employed in Oregon as explained from the reports of
prominent landowners throughout the State. Owing to the
lack of data or other information on the agricultural credit
system of the State, this part of the investigation is incom-
plete and unsatisfactory. The appendix contains copies of
some model leases according to which leading landowners in
different parts of the State have rented and are renting their
farms.

36 LON L. SWIFT

CHAPTER II.
TOPOGRAPHY.

Oregon is nearly an exact parallelogram, being in extent
approximately 275 miles from north to south and 350 miles
from east to west. The Cascade mountains running parallel
with the coast about no miles inland, divide the State into
Eastern and Western Oregon, which differ greatly in cli-
mate, elevation, and productivity. The Willamette Valley,
the most productive portion of the State, lies between the
Cascade mountains and the Coast Range. It is drained by
the Willamette River and its tributaries. The rainfall is be-
tween 40 and 50 inches annually ; but, owing to almost total
absence of precipitation during the summer months and to
the present methods of farming, the farm output can, doubt-
less, be greatly increased by means of proper fertilizing and
irrigation. The soil is fertile and farming so diversified that
almost every kind of agricultural activity attempted in any
country in the latitude of Oregon is pursued. The counties
lying in this section of the State are Multnomah, Washington,
Clackamas, Yamhill, Marion, Polk, Linn, Benton and Lane.
Southwestern Oregon is hilly and mountainous but contains
many fertile valleys. This part of the State is especially
adapted to the raising of fruit. This section includes, in all,
five counties: Douglas, Jackson, Josephine, Curry and Coos.
Curry and Coos are on the coast and not well adapted to
orchards. The other coast counties are Lincoln, Tillamook
and Clatsop. Columbia lies immediately east of Clatsop along
the Columbia River, and the two counties have similar cli-
matic and agricultural conditions. These counties have a very
heavy rainfall and are lined with timbered hills and moun-
tains. The principal farming industry is dairying.

Eastern Oregon is cut off by the Cascade Mountains from
the rainfall enjoyed by the western part of the State, and con-

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 37

sequently is a semi-arid region. The kinds of farming en-
gaged in are principally stock-raising and the production of
wheat. Umatilla county is especially adapted for wheat farm-
ing. The greater part of Eastern Oregon is very sparsely
populated, Baker, Union and Umatilla comprising the more
thickly settled portion. In these three counties, as well as in
Wallowa, farming is somewhat diversified. In the counties
along the Columbia River, Morrow, Gilliam, Sherman and
Wasco, the principal industry is wheat raising; but Wasco
produces a large quantity of excellent fruit. Stock-raising is
the principal industry in the other seven counties, which are
Crook, Wheeler, Grant, Malheur, Harney, Lake and Klamath.
None of these counties are favored with a railroad except
Malheur, Klamath and Grant; but the last two named have
only a branch line extending into their territory.

38 LON L. SWIFT

CHAPTER III.
DISPOSITION OF PUBLIC LANDS.

Oregon has a total area of 61,976,520 acres or 96,838 square
miles, which is one thirty-third of the area of the United
States. Of the total in Oregon, 698,880 acres, or 1,092 square
miles, is water surface, leaving 61,277,440 acres, or 95,746
square miles, of land area. The approximate area of timber
land is 18,459,520 acres, or 28,843 square miles; agricultural
land, 42,817,920 acres, or 66,903 square miles. The area appro-
priated is 26,208,219 acres, or 40,950 square miles; area re-
served, 14,894,967 acres, or 23,274 square miles; area unap-
propriated and unreserved, 20,174,254 acres, or 31,522 square
miles. The actual area included in farms in 1900 was 10,071,-
328 acres, or 15,736 square miles, being nearly one-sixth of
the total area of the State.

The area of land granted under the various acts up to June
30, 1904, may be classified as follows:

Confirmed donation land claims, 2,614,082.24 acres.

Wagon-road construction land grants, 2,453,932.32 acres:
including Oregon Central and Military road, 845,536 acres;
Corvallis and Yaquina Bay road, 90,240 acres; Willamette
Valley and Cascade Mountain wagon road, 861,504 acres;
Dalles Military road, 556,832.67 acres; Coos Bay and wagon
road, 99,819.35 acres.

Railroad construction land grants, 4,812,298.64 acres: in-
cluding Northern Pacific, 602,684.94 acres; Oregon and Cali-
fornia, 3,821,901.80 acres; Oregon Central, 387,711.90 acres.

Swamp lands: selected, 526,903.63; approved, 351,743.16
acres; patented, 249,244.82 acres; rejected, 152,151.41 acres.

Grants of land for common schools, 3,404,302 acres : for
charitable, educational, penal and reformatory institutions, 136,-
080 acres ; for internal improvements, 500,000 acres.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 39

Scrip — Private land claims, 5,200 acres.

Scrip — Sioux half-breeds, 80 acres.

Scrip — Agricultural college located, 70.240 acres .

Allotments to individual Indians, 535,167.45 acres.

Mineral lands, total, 31,184.9 acres, including lode and mill
sites, 2,404.56 acres ; placer, 2,903 acres.

Final homesteads, 3,493,637.24 acres.

Commuted homesteads, 588,029.29 acres.

Final timber-culture entries, 223,861.84 acres.

Land sold under timber and stone acts, 1,940,052.04 acres.

Reservoir rights of way, 1,110.13 acres.

Forest reserves, 4,649,240 acres.

State reclamation land grants, approved, 121,786.04 acres.

Land withdrawn for national reclamation purposes, with-
drawn, 1,504,600 acres; restored, 91,520 acres; balance, 1,413,-
080 acres.

Land disposed of for cash under the various acts, 4,211,-
483.51 acres.

Entries pending in public-lands general land office, on July
ist, 1904; original homestead entries, 2,057,840 acres; final
homestead entries, 59,450 acres ; commuted homestead entries,
29,145 acres; timber and stone entries, 367,140 acres; other
cash entries, 89,900 acres.

Crater Lake national park, 159,360 acres.

Indian lands reservations, 1,274,554 acres.

Ceded Indian lands not open to settlement, 26,111 acres*.

Nearly one-half of the farming land of Oregon has been
taken up under the final or the commuted homestead acts.
The rate at which land is being acquired under these laws is
becoming less year by year. Reports from 1868 to 1904 show
that land available for homestead entry was rapidly diminish-
ing before the latter date.

*Pub. Land Comm. Report, Sen. Doc. Vol. 4, pp. 138-360.

LON L. SWIFT

TABLE 1.

ACREAGE TAKEN UP ANNUALLY UNDER THE FINAL AND COMMUTED HOMESTEAD ENTRIES
FROM 1868 TO 1904.

Year.

1868

Final.
4 068 22

Commuted.

Year. Final
1887 90,774.14

Commuted.
11,810.14
15,267.92
22,625.85
26,153.02
32,291.37
27,484.32
25,655.25
11,653.69
11,082.41
4,789.30
3,387.95
8,327.04
7,475.07
17,268.05
42,457.23
92,173.67
120,709.91
62,164.37

1869

9 528 57

1888 118,925.60

1870.. .
1871.. .

15,371.17
23,498.89

1889 14fi.7fi4.fin

1890
1891

. 140,308.78
.165,641.24
.176,066.13
. 148,787.76
116097 66

1872

26 971 45

1873

39 542 33

1892
1893

1874

36 995 87

1875.. .
1876

.. 47,619.89
44 795 59

1894 .

1895

.132,404.76
.152,265.09
178 001 97

1877 .

58,289.64

1896

1878.. .
1879..

54,749.09
36,024.76

1897

5,312.75
9,614.54
13,436.87
9,371.56
7,517.07

1898

.211,398.10
.179,811.42

1880 .

. . 39,873.50

1899.

1881

50 316 85

1900. . . .
1901. ...
1902.
1903. . . .
1904

.168,145.24
.152,189.49
.130,835.96
.118,437.04
. 109,637.60

1882 .

63,638.26

1883

85 559 67

1884..

77,285.32

1885

. 67,990.56

1886.. .

76,025.09

In general, it may be said that the yearly acreage taken up
under final homestead entry became greater till 1893. During
1893, 1894 and 1895, the acreage was less than it had been
before and much less than it was during the years immediately
succeeding. The largest yearly acreage was taken in 1898,
and the figures steadily grow less since that date. The area
taken up in 1898 was nearly twice as great as in 1904. Com-
muted homestead entries do not show a general de-
cline in acreage during the last years for which the
report is given, but only half the area was com-
muted in 1904 as in the preceding decade. The an-
nual acreage was smaller from 1894 to 1900, inclusive, than
it had been during the years immediately preceding; but from
1901 to 1903, it increased rapidly and fell off in 1904. If the
figures on final and commuted homestead entries since 1904
could be obtained, there is no doubt that they would show a
decided decrease since that time. Practically all land suit-
able for farming that is available to homestead entry has now
been taken up.

*Pub. Land Comm. Report, Sen. Doc. Vol. 4, pp. 138-360.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 41

CHAPTER IV.
LAND TENURE IN OREGON AND OTHER STATES.

Renting has proved unsatisfactory in Oregon as elsewhere.
Tenancy had not reached a high percentage in this State before
1900, the latest date for which figures have been obtained on
land tenure. In table one, it was shown that the yearly acreage
acquired by farmers in Oregon under the final and commuted
homestead acts, had not decreased to any considerable extent
before 1900. As long as good land could be had for the ask-
ing, the landless farmer did not need to rent but secured a
farm of his own. Yet, by 1900, renting was already working
its evils in this State. The tenant had already shown himself
to be anything but a successful farmer. In our discussion, we
will first examine the figures relating to tenant farming in
Oregon as compared with those for other states and geographi-
cal divisions of the United States and then study the different
sections and counties of Oregon itself. Before beginning this
discussion, it may be well to have in mind just what is meant
by the term "farm" and by the classification of farmers into
six groups as defined in the census reports.

In instructing those collecting data for land tenure in the
United States for 1900, the following definition was given to
specify what each farm should include: "A farm, for census
purposes, includes all the land under one management, used
for raising crops and pasturing live stock, with the wood lots,
swamps, meadows, etc., connected therewith, whether consist-
ing of one tract or of several separate tracts. It also includes
the house in which the farmer resides, and all other buildings
used by him in connection with his farming operations, to-
gether with the land upon which they are located. If the indi-
vidual conducting a farm resides in a house not located upon
the land used by him for farm purposes, and his chief occupa-

42 LON L. SWIFT

tion is farming, the house and lot on which it is located are a
part of the farm. If, however, he devotes the greater part of
his time to some other occupation, the house in which he re-
sides is not a part of the farm. If the land owned by an indi-
vidual, firm, or corporation is operated in part by the owner
and in part by one or more tenants or managers, or if the land
is wholly operated by tenants or managers, the portion of the
land occupied by each is a farm, and must be reported in the
name of the individual or individuals operating it. No land
cultivated under the direction of others is to be included in
the report of the land operated by the owner. For census pur-
poses, market, truck and fruit gardens, orchards, nurseries,
cranberry marshes, greenhouses and city dairies are "farms."
Provided, The entire time of at least one individual is devoted
to their care. This statement, however, does not refer to gar-
dens in cities or towns which are maintained by persons for
the use or enjoyment of their families and not for gain. Public
institutions, as almhouses, insane asylums, etc., cultivating large
vegetable or fruit gardens, or carrying on other agricultural
work, are to be considered as farms."*

Six classes of farmers are named by the census reports for
1900 : owners, "part owners," "owners and tenants," managers,
cash tenants and share tenants. Owners are those cultivating
farms belonging to them ; part owners, those owning a part
and renting a part of the farms tilled by them (in 1880 and
1890, farms thus operated were reported as two; one owned,
the other rented) ; owners and tenants, those cultivating farms
operated by the joint direction and by the united labor of two
or more persons, one owning the farm or a part of it, the
other, or others, owning no part but receiving for supervision
or labor a share of the produce ; managers, those operating
farms for a fixed salary ; cash tenants, those cultivating farms
for a definite amount of money ; share tenants, those cultivat-

*U. S. Census Report for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, page XIV.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON.

43

ing farms for a certain per cent of the produce.* In 1880 and
1890, the first four classes were all included in class one.

Some of the questions relating to land tenure in Oregon
that first present themselves for consideration, are the number
of farms operated by each class of farmers, the size of these
farms, and the relative quality of the land as shown by its
value. A classification of the percentage of the number of
farms, farm area, and value of farm property, by tenure for
the United States, Western Division, California, Washington
and Oregon, will reveal the general status of Oregon in regard
to the manner in which its farming was conducted in 1900.

TABLE 2.

PEBCENTAOB OP THE NUMBER OF FARMS, ACRES IN FARMS, AND VALUE OF FARM PROPERTY,

CLASSIFIED BY TENURE FOR THE UNITED STATES, WESTERN DIVISION, CALIFORNIA,

WASHINGTON, AND OREGON, IN 1900. (t)

NUMBER OF FARMS.

Farmers.

United
States.

Western
Division .

California.

Washington

Oregon.

54 9

69.6

60.7

73.3

68.0

Part Owners. . .
Owners and
Tenants
Managers
Cash Tenants .
Share Tenants.

7.9

0.9
1.0
13.1
22.2

10.1

0.6
3.1

7.7
8.9

11.3

0.4
4.5
12.5
10.6

10.5

0.8
1.2
7.1
7.3

11.9

0.9

1.4
7.4
10.4

ACRES IN FARMS.

Owners
Part Owners.. .
Owners and
Tenants
Managers
Cash Tenants .
Share Tenants.

50.2
14.8

1.1
10.7
9.2
14.0

37.6
20.7

0.5
26.7
7.3
7.2

35.1
17.1

0.5
24.3
10.4
12.6

54.7
26.8

0.8

4.4
5.5
7.8

52.0
20.5

1.1
11.5
5.3
9.6

VALUE OF FARM PROPERTY.

51 0

46 1

40 6

57.2

53 8

Part Owners.. .
Owners and
Tenants
Managers
Cash Tenants..
Share Tenants .

12.5

1.2
5.2
12.1
18.0

16.6

0.7
15.5
9.3
11.8

16.0

0.5
18.1
11.4
13.4

21.3

0.9
3.4
6.6
10.6

17.4

1.3

6.3
8.3
12.9

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, p. XLIII.
fU. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, pp. 260-261.

44 LON L. SWIFT

In Oregon, more than two-thirds of the farms, in 1900, were
operated by owners and nearly all the others, by tenants.
Owners operated 68 per cent; part owners, 11.9; share tenants,
10.4; cash tenants, 7.4; managers, 1.4; owners and tenants,
0.9. Some of the land operated by part owners was rented
and some owned by those who cultivated it; that operated by
owners and tenants was farmed jointly by owners and tenants,

Owners operated 13 per cent more farms in Oregon than
in the United States. This difference was made up mainly
by share tenancy and partly by cash tenancy, the percentage
of share tenancy in the United States being twice as large as
in Oregon ; cash tenancy, 5.7 larger ; part owners, 4.0. In the
Western Division, the percentage of the different classes of
tenancy was much the same as in Oregon ; share tenancy, how-
ever, was slightly less, and managers, greater. The relative
number of farms in California operated by managers was
larger than in the Western Division; cash tenancy was 5.1
per cent greater than in Oregon, the difference being equaled
by the percentage of owners. In Washington, the percentage
of farms operated by owners was greater than in Oregon and
by share tenants, less. Washington was much the same as
the Western Division except that it had a smaller per cent of
its farms operated by managers. Tenancy in Oregon, therefore,
more nearly resembled that in Washington than it did that in
California. All the states of the Western Division differed
from the United States in having a smaller percentage of
rented farms, which shows that the older the country be-
comes, the larger is the per cent of farms operated by renters.
This tendency is seen in the difference of the proportion of
tenancy in the three states, California, Washington and Ore-
gon. California had a larger relative number of rented farms
than Oregon, which was the newer state. Washington, like-
wise, being newer than Oregon, had a still smaller percentage
of rented farms. It may also be noted that the highest per
cent of managers was to be found where the largest farms were

LAND TENURE IN OREGON.

45

located. The average size of California's farms was very
large, and this State had the largest per cent of managers.
In the Western Division, where the area of the average farm
was large, the relative number of farms operated by managers
was greater than in Oregon, in Washington, or in the United
States.

Tenure classified according to size of farms and value of
farm property shows that owners operated farms that were
smaller than the average size farm, but more valuable to the
acre. The same condition was, for the most part, true of
farms cultivated by both cash and share tenants. Farms
operated by part owners were much larger than the average,
but in each farm of this class were included not less than two ;
one owned, the other rented, which interpretation makes this
class, also, smaller than the average but slightly less valuable
per acre. By far the largest farms were operated by man-
agers, and this class was much less valuable per acre. Farms
cultivated by the class designated as owners and tenants were
almost average in size and value. Oregon had no exception to
any of these general rules or classifications.

The kinds of farms operated by each of the six classes of
farmers may be further explained by the percentage of land
improved which each cultivated.

TABLE 3.

PERCENTAGE OF FARM LAND IMPROVED OPERATED BY EACH OF THE SIX CLASSES OF
FARMERS, IN THE UNITED STATES, WESTERN DIVISION, CALIFORNIA,
WASHINGTON, AND OREGON, IN 1900.(*)

Farmers.

United
States.

Western
Division .

California,

Washington.

Oregon.

Owners

51.2

35.7

38.9

38.5

33.1

Part Owners.. .
Owners and
Tenants
Managers
Cash Tenants..
Share Tenants .

45.4

59.5
12.5
55.1
70.3

30.2

40.2
11.0
24.1
63.9

54.2

42.8
22.9
31.5
74.0

44.6

47.8
18.8
25.3
66.3

36.9

40.7
11.6
32.8
49.5

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, p. 144.

46 LON L. SWIFT

Farms operated by share tenants had the largest per cent of
improved land. Share tenancy, therefore, is peculiarly favor-
able to farms that are mostly under cultivation, farms that
grow such crops as hay and grain, from which the produce
can easily be divided between owner and tenant at harvest.
Farms rented for cash, in the Western Division, California,
and Washington had less than an average per cent of improved
land as compared with all the farms of each of the geographi-
cal divisions. They were not, to a large extent, at least, stock
ranches, because they were smaller than the average size farm ;
but, as would naturally be expected, those used for diversified
farming, which contained, in many instances, much waste or
uncultivated land. Dairy and fruit farms, and all farms that
do not admit of easy division of their produce, almost inevit-
ably rent for cash. As farms operated by owners are of all
kinds, their percentage of improved land is nearly average.
By far the smallest per cent of land was improved in the farms
conducted by managers, making it quite evident that stock-
raising was the principal farm industry handled by this class
of farmers. The exceptional large size of these farms is in
direct accordance with this statement. The figures showing
the actual average area of farms operated by managers in
comparison with farms of average area are amazing.

TABLE 4.

AVERAGE AREA IN ACRES OF ALL PARM8 AND OF FARMS OPERATED BT MANAGERS IN THE
UNITED STATES, WESTERN DIVISION, CALIFORNIA, WASHINGTON, AND
OREGON, IN 1900.(*)

Classes.

United
States.

Western
Division.

California.

Washington.

Oregon.

All Farms
Managers

147.4
1514.3

393.5
3303.9

403.5
2152.5

258.0
922.2

283.1
2228.3

These figures are so large as almost to lead us to question
their truth, but they need no further explanation than has
already been given.

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, pp. 4 and 5.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON.

47

Another significant classification of the six different kinds
of tenure may be made with reference to the output of farm
produce. The percentage of the total value of live stock on
farms and of the relative value of other commodities pro-
duced by the six classes of farmers as compared with the
valuation of farm property handled by each class, will show
the productive ability secured by the various ways of farming
as well as the kind of farming in which each class of farmers
was principally engaged.

TABLE 5.

PERCENTAGE OP THE VALUE OP LIVE STOCK ON FARMS AND OP THE VALUE OP PARM PRO-
DUCTS, CLASSIFIED BY TENURE, IN THE UNITED STATES, WESTERN
DIVISION, CALIFORNIA, WASHINGTON, AND OREGON,
IN 1900.(*)

UNITED STATES.

Items.

Owners

Part
Owners.

Owners &
Tenants

Managers.

Cash
Tenants

Share
Tenants.

Live Stock.. . .
Products
Property

54.0
53.1
51.0

14.0
11.7
12.5

1.2
1.1
1.2

8.1
4.7
52

9.5
11.5
12.1

13.2
17.9
18.0

WESTERN DIVISION.

Live Stock.. . .
Products
Property

49.2
48.8
46.1

16.3
16.8
16.6

0.5
0.6
0.7

24.9
15.7
15.5

4.8
8.1
9.3

4.3
10.0
11.8

CALIFORNIA.

Live Stock.. . .
Products
Property

41.6
41.6
40.6

15.0
16.6
16.0

0.5
0.5
0.5

20.7
14.9
18.1

12.7
12.7
11.4

9.5
13.7
13.4

WASHINGTON.

Live Stock.. . .
Products
Property

61.1
58.7
57.2

18.9
20.9
21.3

0.97
0.8
0.9

5.0
2.9
3.4

7.2
6.7
6.6

7.1
10.0
10.6

OREGON. '

Livestock....
Products
Property

58.6
57.2
53.8

15.5
18.1
17.4

0.9
1.1
1.3

13.3
6.4
6.3

5.0
6.4
8.3

6.7
10.8
12.9

Owners operated 53.8 per cent of the value of farm property
in Oregon. On these farms was reported 58.6 per cent of all
live stock in the State, and 57.2 per cent of the value of farm

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, pp. 260-261.

48 LON L. SWIFT

products came from land cultivated by this class of fanners.
Owners, therefore, maintained about an equal percentage of
live stock and products in proportion to the value of the land
which they cultivated, and a higher per cent of each than the
relative value of the land on which they farmed, making it
evident that they were a thrifty, productive class of farmers,
and that no one class of agriculture was especially followed by
those who operated the farms which they owned. What was
true of Oregon in this respect was equally true of the other
geographical divisions.

Tenants, on the whole, in each of the five divisions, reported
a smaller per cent of live stock than valuation of farm property
operated by them, but almost an equal ratio of farm produce.
In Oregon, their percentage of farm output, though less in
live stock than in produce, was especially small in both.
Tenant farming may be said to be unfavorable to the raising
of live stock and better adapted to the production of cereals
and other crops; but, in Oregon, it is not a success in either.
Farms operated by owners, which represent two classes of
farms, owned and rented, form a go-between of renting and
ownership, holding about an equal ratio in output to valua-
tion. This class of renters, however, are, doubtless, more self-
reliant and earnest farmers than other tenants. Yet in Oregon,
the farm output of part owners was in 1900 lower in percent-
age than the valuation of the farms.

Farms operated by managers had a very high valuation of
live stock in proportion to the value of the land controlled
by them, and the value of products raised on these farms was
not below the average. This means of farming, unlike ten-
ancy, is exceedingly favorable to the raising of live stock, and
is not altogether bad for the production of cereals and other
crops. It has produced better results in all kinds of farming
in Oregon than have been obtained through renting. Owners
and tenants, the third class of farmers, have not specialized
in any particular lines of farming, nor have they proved overly
successful.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON.

49

To sum up, the farmers that have reached the best results
in all kinds of farming are, with the exception of managers, at
least, those who own the land they cultivate. Renters, on the
other hand, both cash and share, are the most unsuccessful
farmers; but, perhaps, those who own one farm and rent
another have shown better efficiency than those who have no
land of their own. Renting has also proved wholly unsatis-
factory in stock-raising, which industry has been most suc-
cessful on farms cultivated by managers.

The proportion of live stock raised on farms operated by
the different classes of farmers varies greatly in each class
according to the kind of stock. Farms conducted by man-
agers raised a much larger percentage of cattle and sheep than
of swine or goats ; renters, both cash and share, raised a large
proportion of swine to the number of sheep or cattle. It is as
significant to note how the different kinds of stock were raised
as how all stock were raised.

TABLE 6.

PERCENTAGE OF CATTLE, HORSES, SHEEP, SWINE, AND GOATS RAISED ON FARMS OPERATED
BY THE DIFFERENT CLASSES OF FARMERS, IN OREGON, IN 1900.(*)

Farmers.

Cattle.

Horses.

Sheep.

Swine.

Goats.

Total.

57 5

60 5

56 0

61 4

67 0

58 6

Part Owners. .
Owners and
Tenants
Managers
Cash Tenants.
Share Tenants.

12.4

00.9
18.3
05.6
05.3

15.9

01.0
0.97
04.7
08.2

20.3

00.4
16.9
03.1
03.3

15.5

01.5
02.1
07.7
11.8

17.9

02.0
00.9
02.4
09.8

15.5

00.0
13.3
05.0
06.7

Farms operated by owners raised about an equal percentage
of cattle as compared with the valuation of cattle raised on all
farms. Owners were slightly above the average in horses and
swine, and below in sheep. A very large per cent of goats
was raised by owners, but this class of live stock was small
in valuation and of little importance. The farmers that varied
most in percentage of the different kinds of stock were man-
agers. The relative valuation of all live stock raised on farms
conducted by managers was 13.3 per cent. They were consid-

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, p. 336.

50 D>N L. SWIFT

erably above the average in cattle and sheep, below in horses,
and raised a very small percentage of swine or goats. Cash
and share tenant farms both raised a larger relative amount of
swine than the average of either class showed in the valuation
of all live stock. Share tenants also exceeded their average
in horses and goats; cash tenants, in cattle. Both raised few
sheep. Part owners raised a large per cent of sheep but a
relatively small number of cattle.

An examination of the different kinds of cereals in the same
way will show that classes of tenure have been favorable or
unfavorable to the production of the various grains.

TABLE 7.

PERCENTAGE OF THE NUMBER OF BUSHELS OF WHEAT, OATS, BARLEY, CORN AND RYE

PRODUCED ON FARMS OPERATED BY THE DIFFERENT CLASSES OF FARMERS,

IN OREGON, IN 1900.(*)

farmers.

Wheat.

Oats.

Barley.

Corn.

Rye.

Total
Products.

Owners

46.2

49.7

55 4

62.8

62.2

57.2

Part Owners. .
Owners and
Tenants

26.3
01.5

19.0

01 7

20.7
01 3

15.2
01 8

23.3
02 4

18.1
01 1

Managers
Cash Tenants.
Share Tenants.

02.0
05.1
18.9

01.9
06.3
21.4

02.1
07.0
13.5

00.8
09.6
09.8

00.6
03.0
08.5

06.4
06.4
10.8

Share tenants raised 10.8 per cent of the value of all prod-
ucts, but a much smaller proportion of wheat, oats and barley.
Owners produced a small per cent of these grains as compared
with their total output of products. Cash tenants, however,
are not large producers of these grains, and managers are
small producers. Share tenants, therefore, are especially en-
gaged in the production of the staple grains.

The relative increase of tenant farming in Oregon during
the two decades previous to 1900, may be seen by the accom-
panying table.

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. VI, p. 96.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON.

TABLE 8-

PERCENTAGE OF FARMS OPERATED BY OWNERS, CASH TENANTS, AND SHARE TENANTS, IN

THE UNITED STATES, WESTERN DIVISION, CALIFORNIA, WASHINGTON, AND

OREGON, BY DECADES FROM 1880 TO 1900. (*)

UNITED STATES —

Year.

Owners.

Cash Tenants.

Share Tenants.

1880..

74.5

08.0

17.5

1890..

71.6

10.0

18.4

1900.

64.7

13.1

22.2

WESTERN DIVISION —

1880.

86.0

05.5

08.5

1890.

87.9

05.0

07.1

1900.

83.4

07.7

08.9

CALIFORNIA —

1880.

80.2

08.9

10.9

1890.

82.2

08.7

09.1

1900.

76.9

12.5

10.6

WASHINGTON —

1880.

92.8

03.2

04.0

1890.

91.5

03.0

05.5

1900.

85.6

07.1

07.3

OREGON —

1880.

85.9

04.6

09.5

1890..

87.5

04.2

08.3

1900..

82.2

07.4

10.4

The percentage of tenant farming did not increase so fast
in Oregon from 1880 to 1900 as in the United States, but cash
tenancy increased more than share tenancy. The Western
Division, California, and Washington, all show much the same
tendency as Oregon. The comparatively slow increase in
tenant farming in the Western states up till 1900, was due,
unquestionably, to the open public domain, which granted
choice land to the settler merely for the asking, and required
a very small amount of capital for the farmer to secure a place
of his own. It is to be noted that cash tenancy increased much
faster in the western states and in Oregon than share tenancy ;
but it is difficult to say for certain why this is true.

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, pp. 688-689.

LON L. SWIFT

CHAPTER V.
LAND TENURE IN THE COUNTIES OF OREGON.

The conditions of land tenure in Oregon have been outlined
for the States as a whole and the State has been compared
to other geographical divisions. Let us turn our attention
to the different counties and sections of the State itself. The
figures showing in what counties the percentage of each of the
different classes of farmers was the highest in 1900 will tend to
explain the kinds of farming in which each was principally
engaged.

TABLE 9.

PERCENTAGE OF THE NUMBER OF FARMS OPERATED BT THE DIFFERENT CLASSES OF
FARMERS IN OREGON IN 1900, CLASSIFIED BT COUNTIES. (*)

Counties.

Owners.

Part
Owners.

Owners &
Tenants.

Managers.

Cash
Tenants

Share
Tenants.

Harney
Curry

84.8
83.4

06.3
02 4

4.0
2 8

2.0
9 0

2.9
2 4

Tillamook
Columbia
Malheur
Wallowa
Grant

82.9
82.8
80.1
79.5

79 2

09.7
06.2
06.7
06.7
08 5

0.1

'i'.o
1.1

0.8
1.1
4.3
0.6
2 0

4.3
6.6
2.4
3.4
3 2

2.2
3.3
6.5
8.8
6 0

Wasco
Lincoln
Josephine
Wheeler
Baker

77.8
77.5
77.2
76.7
76 1

87.6
11.0
07.7
14.3
03 7

Y.4
0.7
0.8
01 7

1.7
0.2
0.9
0.8
3 6

4.4
6.8
5.2
3.3
5 1

8.5
3.1
8.3
4.1
9 8

Clatsop

73 9

04 6

00 2

2 8

15 0

3K

Morrow
L,ake
Union

73.4
73.3
72.9

15.2
08.3
08.5

01.2
01.3
01.0

1.0
5.3
1 0

1.2
6.3
4 6

8.0
5.5
12 0

Lane
Klamath
Coos . . .

71.6
70.2
70 0

10.1
12.1
07 9

01.1
01.8
00 8

0.8
1.5
0 7

6.0
5.1
16 9

10.4
9.3
Q 7

Washington.. .
Clackamas
Crook
Douglas
Umatilla
Jackson
Marion

69.2
69.0
68.8
68.2
66.4
65.7
62.0
61 5

09.8
11.8
16.8
08.2
14.3
10.0
13.8
17 8

01.1
01.2

66 '.7

01.1
01.5
00.4
01 6

0.7
0.5
2.4
0.9
2.4
1.7
2.1
0 2

10.7
10.0
5.6
12.1
4.0
12.0
5.0
6 5

8.5
6.5
6.4
9.9
11.8
9.1
16.7
12 4

Yamhill
Linn . .

60.2
59 2

15.5
13 1

01.6
01 4

0.9
0 7

5.7
4 5

16.1
21 1

Gilliam
Multnomah. . .
Polk
Sherman

58.5
58.3
54.2
50.6

31.3
06.8
15.0
32.1

66 '.3
01.5
00.6

0.7
0.7
0.9
0.4

2.9
28.5
3.5
0.9

6.6
4.4
24.9
15.4

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, pp. 116-117.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 53

Owners operated a larger percentage of farms in the newer
and more isolated districts than in other places. As was seen
in the discussion of tenure for the different geographical
divisions of the United States, the older sections have the
largest proportions of rented farms. The coast counties and
those situated east of the mountains in central and southern
Oregon had the largest percentage of owners. The smallest
proportion of owners was in the Willamette Valley, with the
exception of Sherman and Gilliam, which are in the wheat
belt along the Columbia River. Harney reported 84.8 per cent
of its farms operated by owners. Curry, Tillamook, Columbia
and Malheur, each had over 80 per cent handled in the same
way. Sherman reported only 50.6 per cent of its farms oper-
ated by owners, and a large number of the Willamette Valley
counties reported less than 60 per cent. Land owning farm-
ers, those who till their own farms, do not specialize in any
particular kinds of farming. A high proportion of this class
are found invariably in the more undeveloped counties almost
regardless of the kind of farming to which the country is
adapted.

Where the percentage of ownership is smallest, share ten-
ancy is largest; and share tenancy is least in operation where
ownership has its highest percentage. The older sections of
the State had, in 1900, the largest proportion of share tenancy.
The counties of the Willamette Valley ranked first ; the north-
west and southwest, next; central and eastern Oregon, third;
and the coast had the smallest percentage of share tenancy.
Polk and Linn counties had over 20 per cent of their farms
operated by share tenants; most of the other counties of the
Willamette Valley, between 10 and 20 per cent. The coast
counties had less than 4 per cent of their farms operated by
this class of tenants. It may be well to note that the sections
in which share tenancy was most prevalent were those pro-
ducing the bulk of the main cereal crops; and in the great
stock counties, which ranked first in cattle, horses and sheep,
there was a small percentage of share tenancy. The produc-

54 LbN L. SWIFT

tion of cereals was the kind of farming principally engaged
in by share tenants; dairying, fruit or live stock do not come
in this class. The facilities with which cereal crops can be
divided at harvest as compared with other kinds of farming,
bears out the conditions indicated by the tables.

Cash tenancy, like share tenancy, had its highest percentage
in the older sections of the State; but unlike share tenancy,
it was most prevalent where farms were small and where
orchard and dairy products gave the principal farm income.
Cash tenancy may be said to take the place of share tenancy
where farms are small and where farming is more intensified
and diversified. Multnomah county, which is favored with the
metropolis of the state, had by far the largest percentage of
cash tenancy, showing a total of 28.5 per cent. In general, the
coast ranked first in cash tenancy ; Willamette Valley, second ;
and Eastern Oregon showed the smallest proportion of cash
tenancy. Stock raising or the production of cereals are neither
favorable to cash tenancy. Such counties as Sherman, Mor-
row, Gilliam, Malheur, Harney, Grant and Wheeler reported
the smallest proportion of cash tenant farmers.

Part owners, the class of farmers that operated two farms
(one owned, the other rented), farmed for the most part, in
the same sections that reported the highest percentage of
share tenancy. The wheat belt along the Columbia River
was particularly favorable to this class. These farmers ap-
pear to have been nearly all share renters and to have been
engaged mostly in the production of cereals and live stock.
The 'eastern part of the State ranked first in part owners ; the
Willamette Valley, second ; and the coast, last.

Counties excelling in large stock farms showed the highest
percentage in managers. This is the same idea that was
clearly demonstrated in the discussion of the different geo-
graphical divisions of the United States. Nearly one-half of
the counties in Oregon had less than one per cent of their
farms operated by managers, while Lake, Malheur and Harney

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 55

each reported four per cent or more. The eastern part of
the State ranked ahead of the western part in percentage of
managers.

Seven counties reported no farms operated by owners and
tenants. Klamath, which showed the highest percentage of
this class of farmers, had only 1.8 per cent. No particular
section of the State was noticeable in advance in the propor-
tion of this class of farmers, yet the smallest percentage was
in the sections devoted almost exclusively to stock-raising.

LON L. SWIFT

CHAPTER VI.
How TENANCY WORKS IN OREGON.

Many prominent landowners in different parts of the State
have responded to a list of questions sent to them in regard
to tenancy. The questions pertained principally to the prac-
tical workings of cash and share tenant farming as these sys-
tems are employed in the State at the present time. The views
of these landowners, who are well informed on conditions of
renting, will be discussed as reported by them by taking the
different phases of our subject in order and reviewing each of
the different sections and counties of the State.*

Keeping in mind the statistics we have just considered,
which, though taken eight years ago, form a good basis for
our study, we will remember that the counties of the Wil-
lamette Valley with the exception of Multnomah, Washington
and Clackamas, showed the highest percentage of share ten-
ancy ; also that the kind of farming in which share tenants
were principally engaged was the production of the cereals.
These two ideas were substantiated by every answer given by
the landowners residing in these counties. It was unanimously
reported throughout the State that the production of cereals
favors share renting, while cash renting favors dairying,

*From questions sent out, 43 answers were received. Twenty-one counties
reported as follows:

Umatilla 2 answers.

Union 3

Sherman 2

Klamath 3

Josephine 1

Malheur 2

Gilliam 3

Tillamook 2

Wheeler 1

Lincoln 1

Crook
Wallowa . . .

3 an
a

3wers.

Benton. . . .

. . 2
.. 2
. . 2
.. 3

.'.' 2
1

Marion
Baker

Grant
Clackamas .
Morrow.. . .
Lake.

'.'.'.'.'.'.

. . 3
. 1

Curry...

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 57

fruit raising and the production of vegetables. Stock raising
is said, for the most part, to be let by cash tenancy, but some-
times on shares. Hay land is generally rented for cash ; hops,
generally on shares. The reasons for different kinds of farm-
ing favoring different forms of tenancy is said to be due, as
might be supposed, to the nature of the crop produced. Grain
land is not rented for cash because the quantity of the crop
from year to year is so uncertain, a large crop one year not
insuring an equal output the next; and the produce is easily
divided at harvest time. In fruit raising, dairying or garden-
ing, conditions are different. The quantity of the output is
more certain and the produce almost impossible to divide.
The hay crop is both reasonably certain and easy of division,
and is generally rented for cash because this relieves the owner
of the responsibility of looking after the selling of his share
and allows the renter to do as he pleases with little restriction,
making him more independent and self-supporting. Stock
raising favors cash renting because it is not always easy to
make an equitable division of the property, yet stock are often
rented on shares.

It is generally conceded that the cash tenant has more money
than the share tenant, but in a few cases this is denied. Share
tenancy is said by many to be the form of renting employed
because the renter has little or no money to pay cash. Cash
tenancy is the method preferred by all the landowners but three
or four who have reported, if the kind of farming will permit ;
the idea being that the cash tenant is, as a rule, more indus-
trious and thrifty, more independent and self-reliant, and the
owner is relieved of responsibility.

Statistics prove beyond all doubt that tenant farming is in-
creasing not only in the United States but in each and every
state in the Union. This fact is conceded by most of the
landowners in this State, but some deny it, as do many people
well acquainted with the figures, by saying that tenants be-
come landowners in time, and that tenancy is only a stepping
stone to ownership. This idea is true but not conclusive.

58 LON L. SWIFT

Those who acknowledge that tenancy is increasing attribute
the increase to immigration, lack of more fertile public domain,
rise in land values, and retirement of older and more wealthy
farmers from active work, all of which ideas are the facts
that statistics substantiate. As soon as the public land in
Oregon is all taken up, as it nearly all now is, that can be
cultivated, and no more fertile tracts lay further -removed
from civilization as has been the condition in the past, tenancy
will increase rapidly for years to come unless steps are taken
to avert this movement.

Many forms of share renting are employed in Oregon to
meet the needs of the different kinds of farming and varied
conditions throughout the State. For cereal farming when
the lessee furnishes everything and delivers the owner's share
to market, the lessor receives from one-third to one-fourth
of the crop, varying according to the productivity of the soil,
distance from market, and other conditions. In the Willamette
Valley, the lessor often receives one-third delivered to market
and stands no expense except taxes; but the more common
practice appears to be a division on this ratio with the grain
delivered in bin on the farm. The prevalent rule is the same
in other parts of the State except on the large wheat farms
along the Columbia River, where the lessor usually furnishes
the sacks for his share of the grain and receives one-third
of the crop delivered to market if it is not hauled over five or
six miles ; if the hauling is a greater distance, he receives
one-fourth. The fertility of the soil is also taken into con-
sideration. When the lessor furnishes the seed, horses and
machinery, he generally receives one-half of the crop. On
irrigated lands, the owner furnishes all, or sometimes one-half,
of the water.

Hay, when baled, is divided on the same ratio as grain;
when not baled but put in stack or barn, it is divided equally
between owner and tenant. The lessor furnishes the water for
irrigation.

If stock are rented on shares, as they often are, the increase

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 59

is divided equally between lessor and lessee. The lessor fur-
nishes sires, bulls, rams, half of wool sacks, half of dipping
material; tenant furnishes hay, fodder, pasture, range, and
does all the work. This, in general, is the system employed
throughout the State for renting stock on shares.

Pasture land is usually rented separately from grain land
for so much an acre, or else the owner retains the pasture for
his own use. Sometimes the lessee is allowed enough pasture
for a few stock. In the wheat belt along the Columbia River,
the pasture is a secondary consideration and the lessee is
often allowed the free use of it for the few stock he may have.
Straw is generally the property of the lessor the same as the
pasture, but it is often divided equally beetween owner and
tenant.

Up till harvest, the horses are sometimes fed from the un-
divided hay and grain and sometimes not. No rule prevails
in regard to this, for it is about as often one way as the other.
During harvest, however, they are more often fed from the
undivided produce than not; and hay is more often fed in
this way than grain.

An agreement is seldom made in regard to poultry, but in a
very few cases, the eggs are divided equally between lessor
and lessee. The lessee is generally allowed to keep what
poultry he wishes as long as they do no particular damage to
crops, which agreement is commonly understood and no speci-
fied agreement is made in regard to this matter.

Cash rent is generally figured on five per cent of the value
of the land. For grain land it varies from two to five dollars,
according to the fertility of soil, distance from market, and
other conditions. Hay rents from two to six dollars an acre,
alfalfa bringing the highest rent ; wild grass, the lowest. When
grass is seeded, lessor furnishes the seed. Pasture land rents
from one to two dollars an acre, but poor quality is some-
times let at a lower rate, dry land in the eastern part of the
State demanding only $.25 to $1.00 an acre. A report from
Josephine county says that ordinary farming land in that sec-

60 LON L. SWIFT

tion rents from $8.00 to $10.00 an acre when it is near town ;
when eight or ten miles from market, for $5.00 to the acre;
and truck land near town brings $20.00 an acre. An answer
from Marion county gives the rental of nursery land at $10.00
an acre. Range land is rented for ten cents an acre.

More leases are made for one year than for any other period
of time. This fact is probably due to the newness of the State,
because the landowners do not wish to make long-time con-
tracts with people they do not know. In the Willamette Val-
ley and coast counties, which have been settled longer than
Eastern Oregon, more long-term leasing is done. Where
summer-fallowing is carried on almost exclusively as in the
Columbia River district, farms rent mostly for two years, be-
cause each farm is divided into two sections and it takes two
years for each part to raise a crop. What is summer-fallowed
one year raises grain the next. But in counties that are newer
than the average, like Wallowa and Grant, grain land is
seldom rented for more than a year at a time. Many farmers
throughout the State who rent for one year give the lessee
the option of leasing the next if he does good and satisfactory
work. Stock ranches are generally rented for three or five
years, because it takes time for stock to mature. Landowners
are almost unanimous in desiring that the system of renting
should be long. They say this secures the best results because
it gives the tenant a better chance to take an interest in the
farm by reaping the benefit of his labors and improvements;
and in a long period of time, the renter has a much better
opportunity of making money enough to buy a farm, which is,
of course, the desired goal of this class of farmers.

A long-term lease does not make any difference in the share
each party receives except when new land is to be broken and
brought under cultivation, in which case, the lessee generally
gets the whole crop for the first year. Both the lessor and the
lessee receive the benefits derived by long-term leasing and
the ratio of division does not change. Scarcely anywhere in
Oregon is it customary to give a written notice three or six

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 61

months before the end of the year if either party wishes to
bring the lease to a close. Clatsop county, however, reports
that it is the custom to do so, and a few landowners located
in different parts of the State give a like answer ; but provision
for bringing the lease to a close is generally made in the
contract.

How the partnership property should be divided is generally
specified in the lease. The crops each year are generally
divided by the number of bushels at the thresher or by weights
at the warehouse; hay in the stack, by measurement. Plow-
ing, cultivating or improvements are paid for by the owner,
or else the lessee gives an equivalent of such things as ex-
isted when he first acquired possession, as for example, 300
acres of plowed land at the beginning of the lease calls for an
equal acreage plowed at its expiration. Stock is generally not
divided till the close of the lease, when it is often done, in the
case of sheep, by running them through a shut and making
them dodge right and left alternately through a dodge-gate
into separate corrals; cattle and horses, by each party choos-
ing alternately. The herd is sometimes sold and the lessor
first is paid the appraised value of his stock when he leased in
the beginning and half the increased value received by the sale.

Owners do not as a rule co-operate with their tenants in the
management of their farms, but the tenant follows his own
judgment as to what he shall do as long as he observes the
agreement set forth in the lease. Sometimes the lessor may
assist the tenant in the way of advice or he may advance him
money.

Artificial fertilizers are almost unknown in Oregon. The
only way in which the land is fertilized is by feeding stock on
the farm and hauling manure from the stables and corrals and
spreading it over the fields, but in most parts of the State,
nothing whatever is done to replenish the nourishment of the
soil. Many farmers in Eastern Oregon require their land to
be summer-fallowed every other year and cultivated during
the summer months to keep down the weeds. West of the

62 LON L. SWIFT

mountains, very little summer-fallowing is done. Landowners
of the Willamette Valley report that no provisions are made
in renting land to prevent weeds or to replenish the soil. They
appear to be unable to solve the problem of maintaining the
efficiency of the farms. The only means used to keep tenants
from skinning the land is the stipulations of the lease, but
these are, in nearly all cases, wholly inefficient to meet the
requirements of good farming, and very often not observed
at all. Rotation of crops is almost unheard of unless it be
from one kind of grain to another. Summer-fallowing is the
only method used in the eastern part of the State, but this is
aided somewhat by cultivation of the plowing. Many land-
owners say that they believe it impossible to keep tenants from
skinning the land.

Owners are generally secured in receiving their part of the
rent. Grain, when divided at the thresher, is looked after by
the owner who is present in person or by agent; when it is
delivered at the warehouse, checks are made out to the owner
for his portion of the grain. Sometimes the owner has marked
sacks and secures his portion at the thresher in this way.
Lessors of large wheat farms along the Columbia River often
have contracts that give them a lien on the crop till the lessee
has completed the year's farming, delivered the grain, and ful-
filled all of the agreements. Many lessors do not secure them-
selves in any way, but trust to the tenants to fulfill the terms
of the contract. Cash rent is often paid in advance ; when not
paid at the beginning of the lease, lessors generally require
security in the way of a gilt-edge note or bond. Dairy farms
rented for cash may divide the income from milk at the cream-
ery so that the lessor receives his amount specified in the lease ;
if rented on shares, then the checks are made out according
to the specified ratio to owner and tenant, respectively, at the
creamery.

New fences and buildings are generally, if not always, con-
structed by the owner. The most common rule for keeping
them in repair when farms are rented is that the owner fur-

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 63

nishes the material and the tenant does the work of hauling
and repairing. The contract generally states that the tenant
shall keep all fences and buildings in as good order and condi-
tion as they are when he takes possession of the farm, damage
by the elements being excepted; but the owner is to furnish
the material for this purpose. In the sections of the State
where irrigation is carried on, the owner makes the ditches,
generally pays for the water, and the tenant keeps all lateral,
private ditches in repair, but the owner furnishes necessary
lumber and other material. Sometimes the tenant constructs
the lateral ditches.

Tenants very seldom work the road tax. It is generally
paid by the owner. In a few exceptional cases, the contract
specifies that the tenant shall work the road tax ; more often,
he does this work and is paid by the owner for his labor. The
tenant, as a rule, secures firewood on the farm if any is to be
had. In most of the farming communities in Oregon, no tim-
ber or trees that will make firewood is found on the farm, and
the farmers either buy wood or coal.

Two of the greatest common causes of difficulty between
owner and tenant are poor farming on the part of the renter
and incomplete or verbal contracts. Among other causes men-
tioned are feeding from the individual hay and grain, failure
to keep ditches in repair, interference on the part of the owner
when the tenant is farming according to the contract, and the
terms of the lease allowing the tenant too small a share of the
crop to allow him to farm in the manner that good farming
should be done and make money. Not putting the grain in
properly at the right time, overstocking and not doing enough
cultivating are mentioned as either causes of trouble between
owner and tenant. Reports from Tillamook county and a few
from other parts of the State say there has been no difficulty
as yet. The general idea expressed in regard to tenant farm-
ing is that the tenant is a poor farmer, who is prone to be
shiftless, lazy and dishonest in carrying out the stipulations

64 £ON L. SWIFT

of the contract. Undesirable tenants are much more plentiful
than reliable and energetic ones.

Landowners would rather rent their farms than have them
handled by hired laborers, notwithstanding the undesirability
of renting. The general opinion expressed is that hired labor
constitutes a poorer class of farmers than tenants, and re-
quires supervision from day to day. Renting relieves the
owner of the responsibility that hiring does not, and the
tenant has more interest in the amount and quality of the
work done. Hired labor, which is very high-priced in Ore-
gon, will, if not closely supervised and directed, eat up all the
profits. It is also very unreliable and scarce at harvest time
when the demand for farm labor is much greater than at any
other season of the year. Farm work is of such a nature that
labor has a better opportunity and greater temptation to shirk
than in most other occupations, so it must be closely directed
by one who is interested in the results produced, or else, at the
end of the year, the balance sheet will be large on the wrong
side. One man has well expressed the farmers' idea in regard
to hired labor by saying that he prefers to let somebody else
be worried by hired help.

During the last few years, not much change has taken place
in what each party furnishes, in the respective shares received
by the owner and tenant, or in any other way. The owners
of large wheat farms along the Columbia River say that, since
the railroad has been put through, those having places within
five miles of the railroad receive one-third of the crop instead
of one-fourth as formerly. Replies from different parts of
the State say that the amount and also the proportion of cash
rent has increased. Attention is also called to the fact that
small orchards are charged for extra, which was not the case
a few years ago. The large majority of answers claim that
no change has taken place recently, thus indicating that the
change for the State as a whole has not been marked for
several years passed.

In Oregon, the prevailing opinion among landowners is that

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 65

there are more people desiring to rent farms than there are
farms offered to rent. A great many, on the other hand, say
that the number of rented farms and of renters is about equal.
These different answers come not from distinct, separate sec-
tions of the State, but each view, from all parts. Morrow
county, unlike others, gives the report that enough tenants can
be found to rent the land. The reason for this condition is
not given, but it probably is because farming must be con-
ducted on a large scale to make it pay, the yield per acre being
very small; and the party who farms the land has a great
risk to run. When the crop is exceptionally good and the
price of wheat high, then the farmer strikes it rich; if the
opposite is the case, then he will lose money. Very few
renters have enough capital to undertake farming under such
speculative conditions. This argument is not conclusive and
may be a little overdrawn, yet it may help to show the condi-
tions that prevail in that section.

Tenant farmers, in nearly all parts of Oregon, manage, if
they are industrious and ambitious, to accumulate money by
tenant farming to acquire land of their own. The only coun-
ties reporting the opposite are Lincoln and Marion. All the
other counties claim that a good per cent of the tenants be-
come landowning farmers in time. Nearly all government
land suitable for farming in this State has been taken up, and
tenants are compelled to buy farms when they become land-
owners. The counties reporting available public domain suit-
able for farming are Lake, Malheur, Baker, Umatilla, Crook
and Tillamook. The first four named offer government land
available either to homestead entry or to desert entry; Tilla-
mook, of course, has no dry land. Practically all the desert
land remaining can not be irrigated ; and, when taken up, must
be farmed to raise only such crops as will grow with very
little water. At present, very little attractive government land
remains anywhere in the State.

When landless farmers acquire land, banks or loaning asso-
ciations will nearly always advance from 40 to 60 per cent of

66 LON L. SWIFT

the value of the property, but the more prevalent way in which
land is transferred is by the purchaser paying one-fourth or
one-half of the value of the farm and giving the original
owner a mortgage on the balance. The usual rate of interest
charged is eight per cent. State school money can sometimes
be had for one-third of the value of the property, and this
loans at the rate of six per cent interest. If no other means
is available, the private money lender will generally advance
money on mortgage security to one-half of the value of the
property. The percentage of encumbered farms varies in dif-
ferent parts of the State. Landowners in the Willamette Val-
ley and on the coast report that no more than 10 or 15 per
cent of the farms in their counties are encumbered, while in
all parts of Eastern Oregon except in a few older counties like
Union county, from 50 to 75 per cent are encumbered. The
proportion of mortgaged farms is very high in Klamath county
owing to the method of selling employed whereby small tracts
of land can be had on easy terms. From what little informa-
tion has been gained of foreclosures, it appears that mortgages
are paid except in very rare cases. The older sections of the
State having the smaller percentage of encumbered farms
tends to prove that mortgages are, in the main, an indication
of development of agricultural resources.

Most of the rented farms belong to aged retired farmers or
to landed capitalists, who hold the land for investment or spec-
ulation, and a few to those to whom land has reverted in de-
fault of payments of mortgages or who have received land by
inheritance. It was largely a guess for the landowners to
answer this question, but they for the most part agree through-
out the State that the first two classes include nearly all who
rent land.

Tenant farming is said by the majority of landowners to
be on land more fertile and productive than the average land.
They say that tenants will always choose the best place to
rent available, because, as is evident, the more the yield for
a given amount of work and expense, the larger the profit.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 67

Tenants want land that is sure to yield a crop, for they have
not much money as a rule and must be certain that what they
spend will bring returns. More logical arguments are that
farmers who own the most productive land secure a com-
petency sooner and retire from active work when they either
rent their farms or sell ; and another class of renters are the
old settlers, too old to work or wishing to retire for other
reasons; these came to the country first and had the choice
of the best land in the State. One report from the coast claims
that renters are found mostly on tide-water lands, which is
the most productive but requires the most work for operating.
Many landowners say that land must be fairly productive be-
fore it will give enough returns for both owner and tenant,
and tenants can not handle the poor land because the profit
is too small. On the other hand, reports from Union, Benton
and Josephine, say that renters generally occupy poorer lands
than owners because owners farm their best places and sell
and rent poorer tracts that are not so valuable, and renting
tends to depreciate the land, so rented farms necessarily lose
much fertility in time. The other counties, however, give the
stronger arguments and have the majority of answers.

It is agreed by most of the landowners in nearly all parts
of the State that renting is detrimental to the soil, yet the
coast counties hold that it is not detrimental. Long-term
leases are offered by some as a remedy for better farming, but
most of them see no way out of the difficulty. Opinion is
equally divided as to the question of citizenship, progressive-
ness and thrift of tenants. Many claim that they are "like the
rolling stone that gathers no moss," that they have little in-
terest in the upbuilding and improvement of the community;
while others say tenants are progressive, being actuated by
the desire of becoming owners. Some reports claim that
tenants are of two classes, good and bad, which view is prob-
ably nearly correct. It appears reasonable that those who are
trying to acquire homes of their own and are making progress
in that direction are as progressive and well-meaning citizens

68 LON L. SWIFT

as owners, but those who rent and do not accumulate money
for themselves or secure good returns for their lessors are
hardly worthy of the responsibility which they hold. Yet we
must not lose sight of the fact that tenancy, in a large and
ever increasing proportion, is not a desirable condition of
tenure. The farmer who owns his farm is the most satisfied,
stable, independent and among the best citizens of our com-
monwealth.

Prevailing opinion indicates that the majority of tenants are
from the eastern states ; mainly Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Kan-
sas, Nebraska and other states of the Middle West. The coast
counties report a large number of foreigners, consisting of
Scandinavians, Norwegians and Finns, who are attracted to
that section by the fishing industry. Swedes, Germans, Irish
and other nationalities are also represented on the coast and
throughout the State. Not a very large per cent of tenants
are natives of Oregon. Landowners say that both easterners
and foreigners are as good and conscientious farmers as Ore-
gonians who rent, and the fact that renters come largely from
outside the State only indicates that those who rent are, for
the most part, newcomers.

As a large and ever increasing percentage of tenant farming
is not desirable for our country, the question of placing a
check on this tendency deserves the earnest consideration of
every citizen who desides to better the welfare of society and
of the nation. In answer to the question of how to check the
ever increasing proportion of tenant farming, the landowners
were generally agreed that large tracts of land should be cut
up into smaller farms and farming made more intensive. They
say that ownership on small tracts produces more efficient and
economical results and more independent, progressive and sat-
isfied citizens than tenancy on large tracts. Many claim this
might be brought about by longer terms of leasing, but more
certainly, by allowing the farmer an agreement whereby he
may pay for the farm instead of paying rent by selling at a
reasonable price on moderate interest. In this way, he is in

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 69

much the same position as tenant at first; but, if he proves a
good farmer, who can secure results, in a few years he will be
an owner. He will have the incentive of ownership to encour-
age him, and his whole interest will be for future progressive-
ness. A system much on this basis is in vogue in Klamath
county at the present time, and is said to work very satisfac-
torily. Conditions in Klamath, however, are wholly different
to those in older settled communities where the problem offers
greater difficulties. No solution has ever been offered for the
problem except by such radical reformers as single taxers or
socialists, whose theories, if put in practice, would involve far
more disastrous results according to the present teachings of
economics and sociology than tenancy will when increased to
a much larger proportion than it holds today.

70 LON L. SWIFT

CHAPTER VII.
LANDLORDISM.

In the majority of cases, landowners, who rent farms, reside
in the same county in which the farm is located. The census
reports for 1900 show that 67 per cent of farm lessors resided
in the same county in which their land was located; 19 per
cent, in the same state but not in the same county ; 8 per cent,
outside of the state; and the remaining six per cent were not
reported. These figures were not peculiar to Oregon alone,
but represent conditions throughout the northern states of the
Union.* Two-thirds of the farm lessors of this State reside
in the same county as their tenants, with whom they come into
close contact and maintain a personal relation. In other words,
the majority of owners know their tenants personally and are
in contact with the work of the farm, seeing what progress is
being made. This is wholly a desirable condition and obviates
much of the trouble that arises in other countries where con-
tact between landlord and tenant is more distant.

The more remote the residence of the landowner from his
farm, the larger is the proportion of cash tenancy employed
instead of share tenancy. Of the 4,246 farms rented and
owned by residents of the same county in which the farms are
located, 2,671 were rented on shares; 1,575, for cash. Of the
1,234 rented farms owned by residents of the same state but
not of the same county, 687 were rented on shares ; 547, for
cash ; of these owned by residents not of the same state, 195
were rented on shares; 280, for cash. In the first case men-
tioned, share tenancy had many more farms than cash tenancy ;
in the second, cash and share were almost equal ; in the third,
cash was much larger than share. As cash tenancy is increas-
ing much faster than share tenancy, these figures seem to indi-

'U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, pp. 310-311.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 71

cate that the close contact between owners and tenants in the
United States is gradually being severed; and as tenancy in-
creases, its inner workings become less harmonized and un-
suited for the agricultural welfare of the country as a whole.

It is a question whether so-called landlordism is not in-
creasing in the United States at the present time. Such a
condition would be altogether undesirable. Free public domain
is practically all taken ; what land is acquired by poor or rich,
from this time on, must be bought. Our cities are growing in
number, size and wealth ; money is collecting in the hands of
great capitalists; interest is lowering; the close contact be-
tween owner and tenant is slowly but surely being severed —
all of these facts augment the pressure toward landlordism.
But it is pleasing to note, in 1900, this movement had not ac-
quired a noticeable or dangerous proportion.

Eighty per cent of the owners of rented farms in the United
States, in 1900, owned only one farm ; in the Western Division,
over 90 per cent. So a very few of the land lessors owned
more than one farm. The following tables showing the per-
centage of the number of owners of rented farms classified by
the number of farms owned by one person, and also the num-
ber of rented farms classified in the same way, will make it
evident that landlordism is making slow progress in the United
States.

TABLE 10.

PERCENTAGE OP THE NUMBER OF OWNERS OP RENTED FARMS CLASSIFIED BY THK NUMBER
OP FARMS OWNED BY ONE PERSON. (*)

Geographical
Divisions.

1
Farm.

2
Farms.

3 and
under
5 Farms.

5 and
under
10 Farms.

10 and
under
20 Farms.

20 farms
and over.

United States.
Western Div'n
California
Washington.. .
Oregon

80.8
91.1
89.0
93.0
94.0

11.4
5.9
07.0
05.0
05.0

5.4
1.9
02.0
02.0
01.0

2.3
0.8
01.0

$

0.7
0.2
01.0

(1)
(1)

0.2
0.1

$

*Ibid.

(i) Less than one-tenth of one per cent.

LON L. SWIFT

TABLE 11.

CENT. OF THE NUMBER OF RENTED FARMS CLASSIFIED BT THE NUMBER OF FARMS
OWNED BT ONE PERSON. (*)

Geographical
Divisions.

1
Farm.

2
Farms.

3 and
under
5 Farms

5 and
under
10 Farms

10 and
under
20 Farms

20 Farms
and over.

United States.
Western Div'n

52.0
76.6
70 0

14.8
10.0
11 0

11.6
5.3
07.0

9.7
3.7
05.0

6.0
2.3
04 0

5.9
2.1
03 0

Washington.. .
Oregon

82.0
86.0

09.0
08.0

04.0
04.0

02.0
01.0

01.0
01.0

02.0

In Oregon, 94 per cent of the owners of rented farms owned
only one farm, while 5 per cent owned two farms, leaving
only one per cent who owned more than two farms. Land-
lordism in 1900 was practically unknown in this State. Yet,
for the reasons given above, landlordism may increase in the
future, and it will be interesting to note what change reports
for the next decade and those immediately following will bring.
The United States shows a much larger proportion of land-
lordism than the newer states of the Western Division ; but as
Prof. Taylor points out, this condition is largely, if not wholly,
due to the peculiar conditions in the South, where landlordism
has succeeded large slave plantations. t Landed capitalists in
a country like ours is a class to be guarded against for the
welfare of the commonwealth, and its increase will form a
more complicated problem with tenant farming that now exists,
which is not the best form of farming even when guided by
the personal relation now existing between landowner and
tenant.

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, pp. 312-313.
tProf. Taylor's "Agricultural Economics," pp. 259-260.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 73

CHAPTER VIII.
MORTGAGES.

In 1900, 20 per cent of the farm homes in the United States
were encumbered, and about the same proportion in Oregon.
The percentage of mortgages on farms increased a little over
one per cent both in the United States and in Oregon during
the decade from 1890 to 1900. Foreclosures in every part of
the United States are very rare, averaging between one and
two per cent of the farm mortgages. No statistics can easily
be collected at this time on the number of foreclosures in
Oregon, but they are known to be very rare.

Our mortgage system, if handled in a judicious way, as it
is in the great majority of cases at the present time, is the
stepping stone from tenancy to ownership. It is the means
that assists the energetic farmer who wishes to acquire a home
of his own. It does away with paying rent and gives the
farmer of limited means a spirit of independence and reward
for his efforts to make money. The only agricultural credit
system employed in the United States at the present time is
the mortgage system. Low rates of interest and division of
large farms into smaller tracts of land, which encourages in-
tensive farming, are the two principal aids to assist tenants to
become owners through the mortgage system, the carrying
out of which would bring a desirable result both from the
standpoint of the kinds of farming engaged in and of the
class of farmers forming the rural population.

National banks can not loan money directly on farm se-
curity, but nearly all other banks do loan up to one-half of
the value of the land at eight per cent interest. State school
money is loaned on one-third of the value of the land at six
per cent interest. Private money lenders and loan associa-
tions will generally advance money to one-half the value of

74 LON L. SWIFT

the land at eight per cent. Of all of these forms of loaning
money on farm mortgage security, the most prevalent method
employed throughout the State is for the man who sells the
property to receive from one-fourth to one-half of the value
of the land cash in hand when the transfer is made and for
him to take a mortgage on the land for the balance at the rate
of six or eight per cent interest and give the buyer plenty of
time to pay the balance. This facility is a great aid to the
landless farmer. It can be made better if owners can be in-
duced or compelled to sell small tracts of their farms to dif-
ferent individuals at a reeasonable price and at a low rate of
interest. The two principal classes who sell farm land are
those who are getting too old for active work and those who
wish to move to town and retire or change their occupation ;
and, secondly, those who hold land for speculation, who are
called landed capitalists. If public opinion is not strong
enough to bring great pressure to bear on these classes and
on others who wish to sell land, to dispose of their farms in
such a way that they may become more beneficial to society,
the government should have a right to interfere and direct
any and all transfers of farm land so that the community as
a whole will be benefited rather than injured. Society must
meet new problems that arise as civilization becomes more
complex ; among these, one which is by no means of small
importance is the system of land tenure. The District Credit
Associations of Germany* might not be practicable in the
United States, but it at least gives us an idea towards reform-
ing our present system.

The percentage of encumbered farms belonging to farmers
classed according to ages and of hired farms classed in the
same way, shows at what ages mortgages are greatest and at
what ages tenancy is mostly employed.

*Prof. Taylor's "Agricultural Economics," pp. 226-233.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 75

TABLE 12.

PERCENTAGE OF ENCUMBERED AND OP HIRED HOMES IN THE UNITED STATES CLASSIFIED
ACCORDING TO THE AGES OF OWNERS AND TENANTS. (*)

Encumbered Hired

Age. Homes. Homes.

Under 25 years 7.2 72 .2

25 to 34 years 15 .9 54 .7

35 to 44 years 20.4 35 .6

45 to 54 years 21 .8 29 .3

55 years and over , 18.6 18.6

Encumbrances increased from youth to middle age and de-
creased at old age. Tenancy is greatest for those under 25
years of age and steadily decreases with the age of the farmer.
This tends to show that the next step after tenancy is encum-
brance, which declines last. The problem is to lower the per-
centage of tenancy at all ages and facilitate ownership.

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. II, p. CCXI.

LON L. SWIFT

CHAPTER IX.
OREGON'S FARMS IN 1900.

In order to get a view of the agricultural conditions of Ore-
gon, the nature and extent of farming in this state will be con-
sidered. Our study will deal first with the number and average
area of farms, total and improved acreage of farm land, total
and average value of farms.

The total number of farms in Oregon in 1900 was 35,578,
the average area per farm, 283.1 acres, making a total num-
ber of 10,071,328 acres, or 15,736.45 square miles of farm
land, which is approximately one-sixth of the total area of the
state. The improved portion of farm land was 3,328,308
acres, or one-third of the total area of farm land. The total
value of the farm land in the state was $172,761,287, being an
average value per farm of $4821, a value equal to $17.15 for
each and every acre of farm land.

A clearer conception of the data on these points may be had
by comparing Oregon to each of the four geographical divis-
ions : United States, Western Division, California and Wash-
ington.

TABLE 13.

NUMBER, TOTAL AND IMPROVED (WITH PER CENT. IMPROVED) ACREAGE; TOTAL AND

AVERAGE VALUE OP FARMS, AND AVERAGE VALUE PER ACRE OF FARM

LAND IN THE UNITED STATES, WESTERN DIVISION, CALIFORNIA,

WASHINGTON, AND OREGON, IN 1900.(*)

Items.

United
States

Western
Division

California

Washington

Oregon

Total number
of farms

5,705,695

238,641

71,451

32,945

35,578

Average area
per farm

147.4

393.5

403.5

258.0

283.1

Total area of
farm land.. . .

841,201,546

93,796,860

28,828,951

8,499,297

10,071,328

Improved area
of farm land .

414,793,191

27,155,681

11,958,832

3,465,960

3,328,308

Per cent, of
area improved

49.3

29.0

41.5

40.8

33.0

Total value of
farm land.. . .

$20,514,001,838

$1,714,593,969

$796,527,955

$144,040,547

$172,761,287

Average value
per farm

$3,574

$7,059

$10,980

$4,338

$4,821

Average value
per acre

$24.39

$18.28

$27.63

$16.95

$17.15

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, pp. 688-689 and
692-695.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON.

77

Oregon had a greater number of farms than Washington,
but only half as many as California. Oregon's farms were
also larger than Washington's; on the other hand, they were
smaller on an average of 120 acres than California's. The
total area of farm land in Oregon was, in round numbers,
1,500,000 acres greater than in Washington, but scarcely more
than one-third of that in California. Washington and Cali-
fornia both had a larger per cent of their farm land improved
than Oregon, Washington's improved area being slightly
greater than Oregon's, and California's nearly four times as
great. The average value per acre of farm land in Oregon
and Washington was nearly equal, while in California it was
more than ten dollars higher than in these states. To find the
relative status of agricultural conditions in Oregon to that in
Washington and California, the total value of farm land in
each state may be taken as the most exact basis of comparison.
By this criterion, Washington's farm wealth was 0.84, and
California's 4.6 times that of Oregon.

A more exact idea of the relative size of the figures for Ore-
gon in the items of the above table may be had if the figures
for this state are taken as a unit in comparison with the num-
bers for the other four divisions.

TABLE 14.

NUMBER OF TIMES EACH OP THE FOUR DIVISIONS UNITED STATES, WESTERN DIVISION,

CALIFORNIA, AND WASHINGTON IS GREATER OR LESS THAN OREGON IN

THE ITEMS OF TABLE 13.

Items.

United
States

Western
Division

California

Washington

Oregon

Total number of farms

160.37

6.71

2.01

0.93

1.00

Average area per farm ....

0.53

1.42

1.45

0.91

1.00

Total area of farm land . . .

83.52

9.29

2.86

0.84

1.00

Improved area of farm land

124.63

8.01

3.59

1.04

1.00

Per cent of area improved . .

1.49

0.88

1.26

1.23

1.00

Total value of farm land . . .

119.15

9.92

4.60

0.84

1.00

Average value per farm ....

0.74

1.48

2.28

0.89

1.00

Average value per farm. . .

0.74

1.48

2.28

0.89

1.00

Average value per acre

1.41

1.07

1.61

0.99

1.00

78 LXDN L. SWIFT

Table 14 shows that in 1900 the United States had 160 times
as many farms as Oregon, 83 times the total area of farm land,
a much larger per cent of which was improved than in Oregon,
a higher average value per acre, and 119 times the total value
of farm land. Oregon appears rather insignificant when com-
pared to the United States ; but when compared to the West-
ern Division it is seen to have had in 1900 greater agricultural
wealth than the average of these eleven states. The average
area of the farms in the Western Division was much larger
than the average size farm in Oregon ; the per cent of improved
farm land less ; the average value per acre slightly more. Ore-
gon had approximately one-tenth of the total value of the
farm land of the eleven states of the Western Division. If
the total value of farm land is taken as the basis of compari-
son, it may be said that the agricultural wealth of the United
States was 119.15 times that of Oregon; the Western Divis-
ion, 9.92 ; California, 4.6 ; Washington, 0.84.

The next point considered is the principal sources of income
of Oregon's farms. A study will be made of the nine largest
classes of produce ; hay and grain, live stock, vegetables, fruits,
dairy produce, sugar, flowers and plants, nursery products,
and miscellaneous. Everything is included in the last class
that is not in the other eight. The items selected for the eluci-
dation of this subject are the total value of each class of prod-
ucts in Oregon in 1900, and the number of farms, total acre-
age, impr6ved acreage, and total value of farm property, class-
ified according to their principal source of income.

Oregon derived its principal source of income in 1900 from
live stock; hay and grain ranked second; miscellaneous third;
dairy produce fourth ; vegetables fifth ; fruits sixth ; nursery
products seventh ; flowers and plants eighth ; sugar, ninth.
These items maintained the same rank when classified accord-
ing to the number of farms and the total acreage of farm land
from which each item was derived as a principal source of
income. The raising of hay and grain requires more improved
and more valuable land than the raising of live stock, and a

LAND TENURE IN OREGON.

79

larger improved area and a greater value of farm property
derived its principal source of income from hay and grain
than from live stock.

TABLE 15.

TOTAL VALUE OF THE PRINCIPAL SOURCES OF INCOME, AND TITE NUMBER OF FARMS, TOTAL

AND IMPROVED AREA OF FARM LAND (WITH PER CENT IMPROVED), AND

THE TOTAL VALUE OF FARM LAND CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO

THEIR PRINCIPAL SOURCE OF INCOME IN

OREGON IN 1900.(*)

Items.

Value of
Farm
Products

Number
of
Farms

Total
Acreage

Improved
Acreage

Per Cent
Improved

Total Value
of Farm
Land

Live Stock

$14,907,210

10,218

4,644,659

856,070

18.4

$ 59,627,943

Hay and Grain

$11,960,059

9,712

3,137,205

1,877,026

59.8

$ 61,892,811

Dairy Produce

$ 2,793,920

3,751

660,991

161,633

24.5

$ 14,176,453

Vegetables

$ 1,191,990

1,676

162,849

48,498

29.8

$ 5,011,107

Fruits . . .

$ 1,026,970

1,072

119,068

38,193

32.1

$ 4,863,662

Nursery
Products... .

$ 154,530

33

1,847

1,631

88.3

$ 220,870

Flowers and
Plants

$ 90,850

38

94

85

90.4

$ 199,230

Sugar

$ 34,080

11

3,070

2,088

68.0

$ 125,507

Miscellaneous..

$ 5,931,360

9,326

1,341,545

343,084

25.6

$ 26,643,704

Total

$38,090,969

35,578

10,571,328

3,328,308

33.0

$ 172,761,287

The total farm income derived from live stock in Oregon
in 1900 was $14,907,210; hay and grain yielded approximately
four-fifths of this value ; miscellaneous, two-fifths ; dairy pro-
duce, one-fifth, and vegetables and fruits, over a million dollars
each. Nearly as large a number of farms derived their prin-
cipal source of income from hay and grain and from miscel-
laneous products respectively as from live stock. It may be
noted that only 18.4 per cent of the land used mainly for the
raising of live stock was improved, while in the production
of hay and grain the per cent improved was 59.8. About one-
fourth of the land was improved that derived its principal
source of income from either miscellaneous or dairy produce.

A comparison of the valuations of the principal sources of
income in Oregon in 1900 with those in each of the four divis-

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V. pp. 222-223.

8o

L. SWIFT

ions ; United States, Western Division, California and Wash-
ington, will show the relation of the produce of Oregon's
farms to that of other sections of the country and also the
lines of production in which Oregon was most favored.

TABLE 16.

VALUATION OP THE PRINCIPAL SOURCES OF INCOME OF THE FARMS IN THE UNITED STATES,
WESTERN DIVISION, CALIFORNIA, WASHINGTON, AND OREGON, IN 1900. (*)

Items.

United
States

Western
Division

California

Washington

Oregon

Live Stock

$1,654,135,912

$ 130,045,047

$ 26,009,040

$ 7,407,880

$ 14,907,210

Hay and Grain...

$1,240,978,449

$ 103,092,172

$ 45,375,905

$ 16,574,775

$ 11,960,059

Dairy Produce...

$ 384,953,680

$ 26,900,822

$ 12,841,980

$ 3,761,830

$ 2,793,920

Vegetables

$ 118,225,243

$ 11,753,929

$ 5,038,140

$ 1,075,430

$ 1,191,990

Fruits

$ 81,994,100

$ 35,802,735

$ 32,066,175

$ 934,940

$ 1,026,970

Nursery
Products

$ 10,279,135

$ 954,537

$ 533,038

$ 27,228

$ 154,530

Flowers and
Plants,

$ 18,505,881

$ 1,012,941

$ 595,392

$ 52,900

$ 90,850

Sugar

$ 40,804,284

$ 1,861,960

$ 1,454,400

$ 41,340

$ 34,080

Miscellaneous... .

$ 589,163,235

$ 25,219,314

$ 7,774,050

$ 4,951,092

$ 5,931,360

By taking the figures for Oregon in these items as units, the
relative status of this state in the different lines of production
will be more easily seen.

TABLE 17.

NUMBER OF TIMES THE VALUE OF THE DIFFERENT SOURCES OF FARM INCOME IN EACH OF
THE FOUR DIVISIONS, UNITED STATES, WESTERN DIVISION, CALIFORNIA,
WASHINGTON, AND OREGON, WAS GREATER OR LESS THAN IT
WAS IN OREGON, IN 1900.

Items.

United
States

Western
Division

Cali-
fornia

Wash-
ington

Oregon

Live Stock

110.96

8.73

1.76

0.50

1.00

Hay and Grain

103.84

8.61

3 79

1 39

1 00

Dairy Produce

137.78

9.63

4.60

1.35

1 00

99 18

9 86

4 203

0 90

1 f\o

Fruits

79 84

34 86

31 22

0 91

1 00

66 52

6 17

3 45

0 18

1 00

Flowers and Plants

203.69

10.05

6.05

0.58

1.00

Sugar

1,197.34

54.63

42.68

1.21

1.00

Miscellaneous

99.33

4.25

1.32

0.84

1.00

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V. pp. 222-223.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 81

The highest proportional source of farm income in Oregon
in 1900 was derived from nursery products ; fruits ranked sec-
ond ; vegetables third ; miscellaneous fourth ; hay and grain
fifth ; live stock sixth ; dairy produce seventh ; flowers and
plants eighth ; sugar ninth. The income from live stock in
the United States was 110.96 times that in Oregon; hay and
grain, miscellaneous and vegetables each about 100; fruits,
79.84; dairy produce, 137.78. Oregon's farms raised a large
amount of fruit, but received a small proportionate income
from dairy produce.

The production of fruit in the Western Division (especially
in California), was very large, the income from this source
being 34.86 times that in Oregon. Sugar yielded, in the West-
ern Division, 54.63 times Oregon's value of this product, but
Oregon produced very little sugar. In the other main sources
of farm income the eleven states of the Western Division
were approximately on an equal ratio to Oregon. California's
farm income from sugar was 42.68 times as great as Ore-
gon's; from fruits, 31.22. On the other hand, her farm in-
come from live stock was only 1.76, and miscellaneous prod-
ucts 1.32 times that of Oregon. In Washington the farm in-
come from hay and grain was 1.39, and from dairy produce
1.35 times what it was in Oregon. On the contrary, Wash-
ington's farm income from live stock was only 50 per cent of
Oregon's. It may also be noted that Washington raised a very
small relative amount of nursery products as compared with
Oregon's yield.

Now that a general outline has been given of the principal
sources of income of Oregon's farms, a more detailed study
will be made of the value of the different kinds of live stock
raised and of cereals produced on farms in this state. All live
stock are considered under the name of domestic animals and
are divided into seven classes: Neat cattle, horses, mules,
asses and burros, sheep, swine and goats. Cereals are divided
into eight classes: Corn, wheat, oats, barley, rye, buckwheat,
rice and kafir corn. The value of the different classes of live

LON L. SWIFT

stock in Oregon and in the four divisions, United States,
Western Division, California, Washington, will first be given,
and the figures for Oregon will be compared, taken as a unit,
with those of the other divisions in order that the relative
status of the state under consideration may be more evident.

TABLE 18.

TOTAL VALUE OF ALL DOMESTIC ANIMALS AND OP EACH CLASS, AND VALUE RECEIVED IN

1899 FROM SALE OF LIVE ANIMALS, IN THE UNITED STATES, WESTERN

DIVISION, CALIFORNIA, WASHINGTON, AND OREGON, IN 1900.*

Classes.

United
States

Western
Division

Cali:
fornia

Wash-
ington

Oregon

All domestic
animals

$2,981,722,945

$ 361,453,453

$ 65,000,738

9 21,437,528

8 33,172,342

Neat Cattle

$1,476,499,714

$ 190,709,487

$ 32,655,146

$ 9,440,038

$ 15,164,897

Horses

$ 896,955,343

$ 66,883,447

$ 17,844,993

$ 8,550,034

$ 8.651,060

Mules

$ 196,812,560

$ 6,068,904

$ 4,610,909

$ 138,185

$ 318,449

Asses and Burros..

$ 5,820,539

$ 435,520

$ 146,697

$ 16,418

$ 42,423

Sheep

$ 170,337,002

$ 90,519,411

$ 7,003,231

$ 2,450,929

$ 7,563,447

Swine

$ 232,027,707

$ 6,218,187

$ 2,476,781

9 830,704

$ 1,057,037

Goats

9 3,226,080

$ 1,418,503

$ 262,981

$ 10,757

$ 375,229

Received from
sale of live
animals

$ 722,913,114

$ 60,262,686

$ 13,305,165

$ 3,517,053

$ 6,598,325

TABLE 19.

FIGURES IN TABLE 18 COMPARED BY TAKING THE FIGURES FOR OREGON AS A UNIT.

Classes.

United
States

Western
Division

Cali:
fornia

Wash-
ington

Oregon

All domestic animals

86.8

10.9

1.9

0.6

1.0

Neat Cattle

96.7

12.6

2.2

0.6

1.0

Horses

103.7

7.6

2.1

1.0

1.0

Mules

618.0

19.1

14.5

0.4

1 0

137 3

10 3

3 5

0 4

1 0

Sheep

22 5

11 9

0 9

0 3

1 0

Swine

219 5

5 9

2 3

08

1 0

Goats

8 7

3.7

0 7

(1)

1 0

Received from sale of live
animals

109.6

9.1

2.0

0.5

1.0

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, pp. 326-327.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON.

The valuation of sheep in the United States in 1900 was
only 22.5 times that in Oregon; cattle, 96.7; goats, 8.7. On
the other hand, the proportional valuation of swine and mules
was far greater in the United States than in Oregon. The
Western Division received 9.1 times as much as Oregon from
the sale of all live animals; California, 2.0; Washington, 0.5.
The Western Division had a noticeably large valuation of
mules as compared with Oregon, but was weak in swine and
goats ; California was strong in the raising of mules but weak
in sheep and goats ; Washington was strong in horses and
swine, weak in sheep, and raised scarcely any goats. On the
whole Oregon was a large producer of sheep and goats, and
was well represented in the raising of live stock ; she was a
small producer of mules and swine.

Let us now examine Oregon's relative importance in the pro-
duction of the eight classes of cereals ; corn, wheat, oats, barley,
rye, buckwheat, rice and kafir corn. The total value of cereals
produced in Oregon and in each of the four divisions, United
States, Western Division, California and Washington, and the
figures for these divisions compared with those for Oregon
taken as a unit will give a basis for comparison.

TABLE 20.

VALUE OF CEREALS RAISED IN 1899 IN THE UNITED STATES, WESTERN DIVISION, CALI-
FORNIA, WASHINGTON, AND OREGON, AND COMPARISON. (*)

Items.

United
States

Western
Division

Cali-
fornia

Wash-
ington

Oregon

Value of Cereals. .

$1,484,231,038

$ 71,357,916

$ 33,674,733

9 12,191,397

$ 9,271,500

Comparison

160.1

7.7

3.8

1.3

1.0

Oregon was in 1900 not a large producer of cereals. The
United States produced 160.1 times as much as Oregon; West-
ern Division, 7.7; California, 3.8; Washington, 1.3. The West-
ern Division had a small relative production of cereals as com-
pared with Oregon, but Washington's yield was greater than
Oregon's, and California's was nearly four times as great.

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. VI, pp. 62-63.

84

LON L. SWIFT

The amount of each class of cereals produced in each of
the four divisions may be more easily seen by examining the
per cent of the value of each class in comparison with the
value of all cereals in each division.

TABLE 21.

PERCENTAGE OF THE VALUE OF THE CLASSES OF CEREALS TO THE TOTAL VALUE OF CEREALS
IN EACH DIVI8ION.(*)

United
States

Western
Division

Cali-
fornia

Wash-
ington

Oregon

Corn

55.8

3.2

2 1

09

1.7

Wheat

24 9

62 0

59 9

74 0

68 6

Oats

14 6

14 4

5 1

14 5

22 4

Barley

2 8

19 5

31 6

10 4

6 5

Rye

0 8

0 6

0 7

0 2

07

Buckwheat ...

04

fl)

(I)

d)

0 1

Rice

06

* * *

Kafir Corn

0.1

0.3

0.6

(1)

Oregon, Western Division, California, Washington, all pro-
duced a large relative amount of wheat when compared with
the United States. Nearly seven-tenths of Oregon's yield of
cereals was wheat, and even a larger percentage of Washing-
ton's, whereas only one-fourth of the value of the cereals pro-
duced in the United States came from wheat. Oregon was a
large producer of oats, appearing to be quite exceptional in
this line of production. As is well known, the Western States
produce very little corn. The Western Division was excep-
tional in the raising of barley, and California even more so,
but Oregon was scarcely above normal in the production of
this grain when compared with the United States.

To sum up, Oregon's farm land had in 1900 a greater total
value than the average of the eleven states of the Western
Division, greater than Washington's, but less than two-ninths
of California's. The total value of farm produce in Oregon
was greater than that in the average of the eleven states of

. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. VI, pp. 68-69.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 85

the Western Division; two-sevenths of California's, and
greater than Washington's. Oregon was a relatively large
producer of hay, miscellaneous products, live stock and fruits
as compared with the United States. Among live stock, sheep,
goats and cattle were her favorites. This state was an ex-
ceptionally large producer of oats, and her principal cereals
were wheat and oats.

&5 *LON L. SWIFT

CHAPTER X.

GROWTH FROM 1850 TO 1900.

Now that a general idea has been given of Oregon's farms
as they were in 1900, let us next study the growth of agricul-
ture in this state since 1850, noticing particularly the peculiar
tendencies of Oregon as compared with other geographical
divisions. If the number of farms and the area of farm land
(especially improved land) have increased rapidly, it will show
that the exploitation of Oregon territory is recent and that the
state is new, so to speak. If the farms are becoming smaller
and at the same time more valuable to the acre, farming is
becoming more intensive. If the income derived from any
class of produce has made rapid strides, Oregon, as a whole, is
particularly adapted to the raising of that commodity. To
compare the figures for Oregon to those for the four geograp-
ical divisions : United States, Western Division, California and
Washington, would make our tables and discussions so com-
plex as to lead only to confusion ; so our governing principle
shall be to concentrate attention on Oregon and make compari-
sons to other sections only where they are of unique signifi-
cance.

A comprehensive view of the number, size and value of Ore-
gon's farms may be given by the figures for the end of each
decade from 1850 to 1900. A second table is given to show
the percentage of increase by decades from 1850 to 1900:

LAND TENURE IN OREGON.

TABLE 22.

TOTAL NUMBER OP FARMS, AVERAGE AREA PER FARM, TOTAL AND IMPROVED ACREAGE,

PER CENT. IMPROVED, TOTAL VALUE, AVERAGE VALUE PER FARM, AND AVERAGE

VALUE PER ACRE OF FARM LAND, IN OREGON, CLASSIFIED BY DECADES,

FROM 1850 TO 1900.(*)

Items

1850

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Total No.
of farms . . .

1,164

5,806

7,587

16,217

25,530

35,578

Average area
per farm.. .

371.8

354.9

314.9

259.9

270.7

283.1

Total area of
farm land..

432,808

2,060,539

2,389,252

4,214,712

6,909,888

10,071,328

Improved
area of
farm land .

132,875

896,414

1,116,290

2,198,643

3,516,000

3,328,308

Per cent, of
area im-
proved. . . .

30.7

43.5

46.7

52.2

50.9

33.0

Total value
of farm
land

$4,908 782

22 099 161

30 475 387

76 975 140

143 024 800

172 761 287

Av. value
per farm.. .

$ 4,217

3,806

4,017

4,747

5,602

4,821

Av. value
per acre . . .

* 11.34

10.72

12.76

18.26

20.70

17.15

TABLE 23.

PERCENTAGE OF INCREASE BY DECADES OF NUMBER OF FARMS, ACRES OF FARM LAND,
AND VALUE OF FARM PROPERTY, IN OREGON, FROM 1850 TO 1900.(t)

1850

1860

1870

1880

1890

Items.

to

to

to

to

to

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Number of farms

3988

30 7

113 7

57 4

40 4

Acres of farm land

376.1

16.0

76.4

63.9

45.8

Value of farm property

350.2

37.9

152.6

85.8

20.8

The value of farm property, which is, doubtless, the best
general criterion of agricultural growth, increased very rap-
idly during the decade from 1850 to 1860. This is character-
istic of all the states of the Western Division at this time ex-
cept Washington, for which the figures are not given, but
there was scarcely any farming in Washington before 1860.

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, pp. 688-689 and
692-695.

tlbid. pp. 702-703.

£8 LQ^NT L. SWIFT

During the next decade, farming grew very slowly, and this
condition is applicable to each and every part of the United
States from 1860 to 1870. The check was, without doubt, the
result of the Civil War. The ten years from 1870 to 1880
marks a larger percentage of growth in Oregon than either
of the two following decades. In the Western Division, Cal-
ifornia and Washington, the period from 1880 to 1890 had
the largest growth. It is peculiar to see how the percentage
of growth has decreased in the Western Division, California,
Washington and Oregon in the last decade, being in each case
except Washington lower than that of the United States.
California's was only 2.5 per cent, while the increase of the
United States was 27.6. It would appear from this general lull
in the rate of agricultural growth of the Western States during
the last decade that the choice lands of this territory had al-
ready been exploited before 1900, but the figures are mislead-
ing, as the census reports were taken on a different basis.

As percentages of growth by decades are, in appearance at
least, somewhat deceiving, a more accurate idea of the real
increase in agricultural wealth may be obtained by examining
the figures in table 22. The total value of farm land in
Oregon increased from 1850 to 1860 approximately $17,000,-
ooo ; from 1860 to 1870, $8,000,000; from 1870 to 1880, $47,-
000,000; from 1880 to 1890, $66,000,000; from 1890 to 1900,
$30,000,000. The two largest decades of growth were from
1870 to 1890, and that of the ten years following 1890 was
less than half of the amount for the preceding decade. But
this difference in the last decade was due largely to a differ-
ence in the standard of valuation used in taking the census.

Since 1870 the number of farms in Oregon has steadily
increased at the rate of nine or ten thousand a decade, and the
area of farm land also shows a constant increase. Up till
1890 the per cent of improved land was high, the average
value per farm and per acre of farm land was on the rise, and
the average area per farm was decreasing. This would tend
to show that farming was becoming more intensive, and that

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 89

much attention was given to the raising of cereals, fruits,
vegetables and miscellaneous products. But the figures for
1900 mark a direct departure from these tendencies during
the last decade. During this time the area of improved land
has actually become less, the per cent of improved land has
fallen 16 per cent, the average value per farm and average
value per acre of farm land is much less, while the average
area per farm is greater. The census reports, however, are not
comparable on these points, because the last were made accord-
ing to a different rule from those in the former decades;
nevertheless, they are more marked for Oregon than for the
other Western States, and show a tendency peculiar to Oregon.
A census of all the different classes of production was not
taken before 1900, and our historical study will be confined
to live stock and cereals. The figures for the total value of
live stock on farms and the number of cattle, horses, sheep,
and swine on farms and ranges at the end of each decade
from 1850 to 1900 will give some idea of the increase in live
stock during this period.

TABLE 24.

TOTAL VALUE OF ALL LIVE STOCK AND NUMBER OF CATTLE, HORSES, SHEEP, AND SWINE ,
ON FARMS AND RANGES IN OREGON, BY DECADES, FROM 1850 TO 1900. (*)

Items.

1850

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Total value of
all live stock . .

$1,876,189

5,946,255

6,828,675

13,808,392

22,648,830

33,917,048

No. of cattle

41,729

154,131

120,197

598,015

520,648

531,980

No. of horses

8,046

36,772

51,702

124,107

224,962

261,794

No. of sheep

15,382

86,052

318,123

1,368,162

1,780,312

1,961,355

No. of swine

30,235

81,615

119,455

179,195

208,259

281,406

The total value of all live stock on farms in Oregon in
1850 was approximately $2,000,000. The increase from 1850
to 1860 was nearly $4,000,000; from 1860 to 1870, $1,000,000;
from 1870 to 1880, $7,000,000; from 1880 to 1890, $9,000,-
ooo ; from 1890 to 1900, $11,000,000. The growth has been

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, pp. 704-705.

L. SWIFT

steady and has increased about $2,000,000 every decade except
during the ten years from 1860 to 1870. The figures for
the number of cattle are so confusing as to make an accurate
estimate impossible; but it appears that cattle have not in-
creased as rapidly as horses, sheep, or swine.

The increase in the production of cereals since 1880 may
be indicated by the total number of bushels produced at the
end of each decade, the number of acres used in raising
cereals, and the percentage of this acreage producing each
class of cereals.

TABLE 25.

TOTAL NUMBER OF BUSHELS OF CEREALS, ACREAGE IN CEREALS, AND PER CENT. OF

ACREAGE USED FOR THE PRODUCTION OF EACH CLASS OF CEREALS, IN

OREGON, BY DECADES, FROM 1880 TO 1900. (*)

Items

1880

1890

1900

Number of bushels

12 933,019

16,423 768

23,225,515

Number of acres

632 871

828 706

1,222,648

Percentage of wheat

70.3

66.7

71.4

Percentage of oats

24.0

26.4

21.4

Percentage of barley

4.6

4.6

5.0

Percentage of rye

0.1

0.8

0.8

Percentage of corn

0.9

1.5

1.4

The cereal production from 1880 to 1900 was not rela-
tively as great as that in the raising of live stock; in the
latter decade, however, it was almost as marked. The per-
centage of land used in the production of wheat decreased
during the ten years from 1880 to 1890, but increased in the
next decade ; thus, showing that less attention was given to
the production of wheat in the Willamette Valley in 1890
than in 1880, and that wheat farming was developed in the
eastern part of the State during the next decade. The per-
centage of oat ground increased from 1880 to 1890 and
decreased by 1900. The percentage of barley acreage has
remained almost stationary, and none of the other cereal
crops has been large at any time.

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. VI, pp. 68-69.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 91

CHAPTER XL
FARMS AND FARM OUTPUT IN COUNTIES OF OREGON.

Some of the principal conditions of farming in Oregon as
a whole have been outlined and their growth considered. Let
us examine conditions in the different counties and sections
of the State and discover what localities are the largest or
smallest producers of certain crops. The questions relative
to the largest farms, the number of farms, the valuation of
farm lands, and the output of farms will be taken up.

A comprehensive view of the number and average size of
farms, total and improved acreage, and total value of farm
lands may be given by the following tables:

LON L. SWIFT

TABLE 26.

NUMBER OF FARMS, AVERAGE SIZE OF FARMS, TOTAL AND IMPROVED ACREAGE IN
AND TOTAL VALUE OF FARM LANDS, IN COUNTIES, AND RANK OF COUNTIES,
IN OREGON IN IQOO.C*)

Counties.

Number
of
Farms

Rank.

Counties.

Average
Size of
Farms.

Rank

State

35 578

State

283.1

Marion

2 754

1

Crook

1,360.2

1

2 568

2

Morrow

870.2

2

2 417

3

Harney

784 1

3

Lane

2 370

4

Gilliam

772.0

4

2 302

5

Wheeler

719 9

5

1 641

g

Lake

697 9

g

Yamhill

1,595

7

Sherman

555.0

7

Umatilla

1 593

8

Klamath

489.1

8

1 481

9

Grant

453 9

Q

1 356

10

Umatilla.

441 8

10

Wasco

1 351

11

Malheur

379 1

11

Multnomah .

1 276

12

Curry . . ...

356 0

12

Polk.. .

1 192

13

Douglas

337 1

13

Benton. . .

865

14

Wasco

319 5

14

Coos

863

15

Benton

272 4

15

Wallowa

803

16

Union

264 2

16

Columbia

801

17

Baker

243.4

17

Baker

725

18

Wallowa

241.7

18

Grant

697

19

Jackson

216.9

19

Tillamook

631

20

Polk

215 5

20

586

21

212 4

21

Malheur

583

22

203 3

22

Crook. .

576

23

Coos

199 7

23

Josephine

557

24

Lincoln

183.4

24

Sherman

545

25

Columbia

178.4

25

Lincoln

489

26

Yamhill

178.3

26

Klamath

453

27

172 4

27

Gilliam

441

28

167 5

28

Clatsop.. .

433

29

Tillamook

161 5

29

Lake

397

30

Marion

143.8

30

Wheeler

390

31

Clackamas

116.2

31

Harney .

348

32

1093

32

Curry

290

33

Multnomah

80.7

33

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, p. 294.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON.

93

TABLE 26— Continued.

Counties.

Total
Acreage
in Farms.

Rank

Counties.

Improved
Acreage
in Farms

Rank

State

10 071 328

State

3,328,308

Crook

783 485

1

Umatilla

382,763

1

Umatilla

703,852

2

Linn

216,582

2

553 168

3

199 254

3

Morrow

509,858

4

Sherman

198,285

4

Lane

503,405

5

Union

162,495

5

Linn

491,439

6

Morrow

144,457

6

Wasco

431,600

7

Lane

140,513

7

396,091

8

Gilliam

136,258

g

391,299

9

Yamhill

134,832

g

Gilliam

340 460

10

Polk

127 072

10

Grant

316,346

11

Harney

125,549

11

302 432

12

Douglas

122 997

12

298 491

13

Wasco

115 059

13

294,163

14

Lake

195 824

14

Yamhill

284,385

15

Washington. ....

92 512

15

Wheeler

280,754

16

Jackson..

92 103

16

Harney

272,877

17

Malheur

91,250

17

Polk

256,847

18

90061

18

Washington

251,568

19

Benton

85,823

19

Lake

249 288

20

Baker

78 389

20

235 652

21

Klamath

72 239

21

Klamath

221,554

22

Crook

55 134

22

Malheur

221,043

23

Wallowa ....

55 131

23

Wallowa

193,255

24

Grant

41,222

24

Baker

176 455

25

Coos

37 622

25

Coos

172 336

26

34 196

26

Columbia

142 906

27

Tillamook • •

26 940

27

Curry

103,236

78

Curry

23 149

28

102 926

29

T hi

22 139

2Q

^^ " * *

Tillamook

101 912

30

Wheeler

22 056

30

96019

31

Columbia

18 045

31

Lincoln

89,665

32

Clatsop

14 694

32

Clatsop

72,515

33

Lincoln

8,823

33

94

LON L. SWIFT

TABLE 26— Continued.

Counties.

Total Value
of Farm
Land

Rank

Counties.

Total Value
of Farm
Land

Rank

gtate

$ 172,761,287

Union

$ 5 884 100

7

Marion

10,186,780

1

Lane

5 815 290

g

Umatilla

. . 9,301,870

2

Washington

4,993 820

9

Linn'

7 516 860

3

Polk

4 977 240

10

6 664 350

4

Douglas

4 764 020

11

6 642 490

5

Jackson

3 614 660

12

Yamhill

. . 5,989,550

6

Benton

3 381 460

13

Wasco

3,019,650

14

Gilliam

1 438 470

24

Crook . ....

2,846,440

15

Tillamook

1 339 680

25

Sherman

2,458,750

16

Lake

1,324,840

26

Baker

2,190,425

17

Wallowa

1,283,305

27

Malheur

2,142,850

18

Grant

1,220,870

28

Coos

2,117,570

19

Curry

999300

29

Morrow

1,982,331

20

Wheeler

993 506

30

Clatsop

1 559 170

21

958 200

31

Columbia

1,465,660

22

Klaniath

807,780

32

Harney

1,457,920

23

Lincoln

546,910

33

The total value of farm land, which more nearly than any
other one set of figures, represents the agricultural wealth of
a place, may be taken as the first basis of comparison. Marion
County in 1900 held first rank in this respect, having a valua-
tion of over $10,000,000. The five counties lying south of the
Columbia River and immediately west of the Cascade Moun-
tains, Multnomah, Clackamas, Marion, Linn, and Lane, each
had a valuation of farm property of over $5,000,000; while
Washington, Yamhill, and Polk, lying on the west side of the
Willamette River, were of almost equal rank. It is to be
noted, however, that Umatilla County, situated in the great
wheat belt in the northeastern part of the State, ranked
second ; and on its east, Union was seventh. Douglas and
Jackson, in southern Oregon, were eleventh and twelfth. The
counties that had the lowest valuation of farm property were
Lincoln, on the coast; Wheeler and Klamath, both in the

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 95

interior east of the mountains and away from railroads, and
Curry and Josephine, in the southwestern corner of the State.
These five each had less than $1,000,000 valuation. Of the
others, Benton and Wasco had over $3,000,000; Crook, Sher-
man, Baker, Malheur, and Coos, each between $2,000,000 and
$3,000,000; Morrow, Gilliam, Grant, Clatsop, Columbia, Tilla-
mook, Harney, Lake, and Wallowa, each between $1,000,000
and $2,000,000.

The number of farms is only another criterion of the agri-
cultural magnitude of the counties, yet less exact than the
total valuation. It is well to note, however, that the relative
status of counties according to the number of farms was in
general much the same as that according to valuation. There
were two or three rather marked variations to this rule.

The classification according to the average size of farms in
each county is valuable to indicate the kinds of farming that
is carried on. The more thickly settled districts, and, other
things being equal, the more fertile or highly cultivated lands
where farms are cut up into smaller tracts, as the result of
intensive farming, are conditions indicated by small farms.
In general, it may be said that the farms of the counties
east of the mountains were in 1900 larger than those west of
the mountains. Crook County had the largest average in the
size of farms, reaching the enormous area of 1,360.2 acres to
the farm. Morrow, Harney, Gilliam, Wheeler, Lake, and
Sherman, all of which are in eastern Oregon, each had farms
with an average size of over 500 acres. Three more eastern
counties, Klamath, Grant, and Umatilla, each averaged be-
tween 400 and 500 acres to the farm ; and Malheur, the large
southeastern county, only slightly less than 400 acres. The
average acreage in Curry, Douglas, and Wasco was over 300
acres. The average size of Multnomah's farms, which is the
smallest county in the State, was 80.7 acres. Marion, Clack-
amas, and Washington each averaged less than 150 acres to
the farm. , The counties averaging between 100 and 200 acres
to the farm were Benton, Polk, Lane, Linn, Union, Baker,

96 LON L. SWIFT

Wallowa, and Jackson; those between 150 and 200 acres were
Josephine, Coos, Lincoln, Tillamook, Clatsop, Columbia, and
Yamhill.

A study of the total and improved areas in farms will
show the relative amount of land in actual cultivation and in
waste or pasture in each county; and a further comparison of
the improved areas with the total valuation will give a more
exact idea of the fertility of the soil. In 1900 one-third of
the farm land in the State was improved. It will be remem-
bered that, with few exceptions, the counties of the Willamette
Valley had the highest valuation of farm land. Of these,
Multnomah was almost at the bottom of the list in rank of
total area of farm lands and had about one-third of this area
improved, which was the average for the State, showing a
normal amount of waste or pasture land in this county, a
very high fertility of soil of the improved land, and the
raising of valuable crops. Multnomah, however, is favored
by Portland, the metropolis of the State, which offers an
advantageous market and other superior conditions. Clack-
amas ranked thirteenth in total area and had less than one-
third of its farm lands improved ; Marion, eighth in total area,
but half of its farm lands were improved. There was not so
much uncultivated farm land in Marion County as in Multno-
mah orClackamas,but its cultivated areas did not produce crops
as valuable as those of Multnomah or Clackamas ; however,
Portland is the great market center of Oregon, and the farther
distant a place is from this metropolis, the greater disad-
vantage it must face in marketing its produce.

Linn ranked sixth in total area of farm lands ; Lane, fifth ;
the two being nearly equal. The former had two-fifths of this
area improved; Lane had considerably less than one-third
improved. Lane, therefore, had more waste land, but its
cultivated farms were more valuable. Washington ranked
ninteenth ; Yamhill, fifteenth ; Polk, eighteenth ; Benton,
twenty-first. Washington had more than one-third improved ;
Yamhill, almost one-half; Polk, the same; Benton, one-third.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 97

Of the two eastern counties with a high valuation, Umatilla
and Union, the former ranked second in total acreage of farm
lands and had nearly four-sevenths improved; Union was
ninth, with two-fifths improved. In southern Oregon, Doug-
las ranked third ; Jackson, fourteenth ; Douglas having slightly
more than one-fifth improved ; Jackson, one-third.

The other counties may be reviewed by sections. In the
southwestern corner of the State, Coos ranked twenty-sixth in
total farm area, having one-fifth improved ; Curry, twenty-
eight, less than one-fourth improved; Josephine, thirty-first,
less than one-fourth improved. In the northwest, Columbia
was twenty-seventh, having one-eighth improved; Clatsop,
thirty-third, one-fifth improved; Tillamook, thirtieth, one-
fourth improved; Lincoln, thirty-second, one-tenth improved.
East of the mountains in southern Oregon, Klamath was
twenty-second, having one-third improved; Lake, twentieth,
two-fifths improved; Harney, seventeenth, one-half improved;
Malheur, twenty-third, two-fifths improved. In central Ore-
gon, Crook ranked first, having one-fourteenth improved;
Wheeler, sixteenth, one-thirteenth improved; Grant, eleventh,
one-eighth improved. Along the Columbia River, Wasco
ranked seventh, having one-fourth improved; Sherman,
twelfth, two-thirds improved ; Gilliam, tenth, two-fifths im-
proved; Morrow, fourth, two-fifths improved. In the north-
eastern part of the State, Wallowa ranked twenty-fourth, hav-
ing one-fourth improved; Baker, twenty-fifth, two-fifths im-
proved.

The counties along the Columbia River east of the moun-
tains had a comparatively large per cent of their farm lands
improved, and were not low in rank of the total acreage of
farm lands ; but these counties did not show a high valuation.
Their cultivated lands, therefore, were of relatively small
value to the acre as compared to the State as a whole. It was
seen also that their farms were large. These facts all coin-
cide to show that this was not primarily a stock country nor
a thickly settled community of intensive farming, but a section
of large wheat farms not overly productive, where one man
can handle a large tract of land. Wallowa and Baker had a

98 LON L. SWIFT

smaller total area of farm lands than the counties along the
Columbia River, and their farm lands, Baker's especially, were
more valuable to the acre and evidently given more to diversi-
fied farming. The counties of central Oregon had a very
small per cent of their farm lands improved and were of low
valuation, showing that the principal industry was stock-
raising. It is well known that the four large southern coun-
ties, Klamath, Lake, Harney, and Malheur, were devoted
almost wholly to the raising of stock, and, consequently, we
should expect to find a small per cent of their farm lands
improved ; but the figures show the contrary. This apparent
inconsistency can be reconciled, perhaps, by the fact that in
1900 all of these counties were too far away from railroads
and rainfall was too scant to entice grain farmers to this
section. The stock men did not extend their fences to secure
grazing lands for their herds, but relied on the range. The
farm land itself was used mainly for the raising of hay for
feed during the winter months. The total area of farm lands
being small in these counties is a fact that bears out this idea.

Columbia, Clatsop, Tillamook, and Lincoln, the four coun-
ties in the northwestern part of the State, were among the
smallest in total area of farm lands, and the per cent improved
was low. Several counties were lower in valuation than
Columbia, Clatsop, and Tillamook. In the southwest, Coos
presented much the same appearance as the three in the north-
west ; but Curry and Josephine showed a lower valuation, and
may be classed with Lincoln.

Our study of the farms in relation to their value, number,
size, and total and improved area, gives a general knowledge
of farming conditions in the different sections and counties
of the State. This, however, should be substantiated and
made more plain, definite, and exact by a consideration of
the production of some of the staple commodities. Live stock,
cereals, dairy produce, orchard products, and poultry will be
taken up in this connection.

A table showing the figures and relative rank of the coun-
ties for the value of all domestic animals on farms and ranges,
and the number of cattle, horses, sheep, swine, and goats, in
1900, will make a basis for the study of live stock.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON.

99

TABLE 27.

TOTAL VALUE OP DOMESTIC ANIMALS ON FARMS AND RANGES, AMOUNT RECEIVED
SALE OP LIVE ANIMALS, NUMBER OF CATTLE, HORSES, SHEEP, SWINE AND
GOATS, ON FARMS IN OREGON, IN 1900, CLASSIFIED BT COUNTIES,
AND RANK OF COUNTIES. (*)

Counties.

Value of
domestic
Animals.

Rank

Counties.

Rec'd from
Sale of
Animals.

Rank

State

$33,917,048

State

$ 6,598,325

Malheur

2,817,691

1

Lake

514,068

1

1 926 512

2

Crook

440 103

2

Umatilla . ...

1 882 712

3

Grant

432 711

3

Lake

1,762 304

4

Harney

410049

4

Crook

1,639,931

5

Malheur

374,049

5

1,431,914

6

Umatilla

322,325

6

Grant

1,401,484

7

Union

311,753

7

Baker

1 382 955

g

Baker

290 760

g

Linn

1 368 080

9

Klamath

285 917

g

1,308 645

10

258 025

10

1,250,944

11

Wheeler

254 954

11

Lane

1,175,898

12

Morrow

251 793

12

1,129,210

13

Wallowa

250 845

13

Wasco

1,100,797

14

Douglas

244,191

14

Wallowa

1,052,860

15

Lane

228,993

15

Clackamas

886,283

16

Gilliam

177,207

16

Gilliam . ...

841 993

17

171 561

17

Wheeler

840,558

18

168 399

18

Klamath

839,984

19

Wasco

157 207

19

Yamhill

803,040

20

Clackamas

132 806

20

Washington

794,249

21

Yamhill . ...

130,762

21

763 252

22

113 375

22

Polk

713 731

23

99 345

23

Benton

628 288

24

Polk

91 683

24

Coos

548,754

25

Washington

86,836

25

Multnomah

529 335

26

Tillamook

73 369

26

Sherman

522,663

27

Columbia . .

55 525

27

Tillamook

370 390

28

53 045

28

Columbia

320 757

29

48 811

29

Curry

283 064

30

50 780

30

Josephine

236 859

31

34211

31

Clatsop

205 167

32

L* 1

30 014

32

Lincoln

179,630

33

Clatsop

22,450

33

'U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. V, pp. 470-473.

100

LQN L. SWIFT

TABLE 27 — Continued.

Counties.

Number
of
Cattle

Rank

Counties.

Number
of
Horses

Rank

State

531 980

State

261 794

Malheur

81 203

1

Malheur

34 905

1

Harney

71 260

2

Crook . .

23 040

2

Lake

43,365

3

Umatilla. . .

16 827

3

Douglas

32,535

4

Harney

15 390

4

Baker

32,461

5

Union

14 825

5

Grant

31,509

6

Baker

12 557

6

Crook

31 431

7

Grant

12 387

7

28 429

g

Lake

12 234

g

27 853

g

10 319

9

Union

26,418

10

Wasco

9,462

10

Klamath

25 694

11

9 402

11

Marion

19,755

12

Wallowa

9 359

12

Umatilla

19,571

13

Gilliam

8 957

13

Jackson

19,404

14

Wheeler

7 997

14

Coos

19,321

15

Morrow.

7 949

15

Clackamas

18,907

16

Lane ... ...

7 909

16

Wallowa

16,475

17

Klamath

7 558

17

Wheeler

14 450

18

7 027

18

14 076

19

6 496

19

Tillamook

13 217

20

6 084

20

Wasco . . . .

11 424

21

6 062

21

Multnomah

10,941

23

Yamhill

5,807

22

Yamhill

10 665

23

5 786

23

Benton

10,270

24

Polk .

5,119

24

Polk

9,083

25

Benton

3,817

25

8 550

26

3 186

26

8 192

27

2 283

27

Columbia .

8 024

28

1 810

28

Gilliam

7 800

29

Columbia

1 630

29

Josephine

7,532

30

Tillamook.

1,356

30

Clatsop

6 509

31

976

31

5 235

32

822

32

Sherman

3,832

33

Lincoln

765

33

LAND TENURE IN OREGON.

101

TABLE 27— Continued.

Counties.

Number
of
Sheep

Rank

Counties.

Number
of
Swine

Rank

State

1,961,355

State

287,406

322 650

1

Jackson

22,588

1

Malheur

294,898

2

Marion

20,644

2

Crook

256 288

3

20,201

3

Lake

251,722

4

Douglas

20,072

4

Grant

241 290

5

Wallowa

17,783

5

Umatilla

222 907

6

Clackamas

17,616

6

Wasco .

200 620

7

Lane

16,927

7

Gilliam

176,016

8

Union

16,046

8

Wheeler

147 311

g

Yamhill

13 576

g

Baker

140 759

10

12,866

10

Wallowa

131 890

11

Polk

10,749

11

Harney

130 448

12

Wasco

10,633

12

Union

65,020

13

Umatilla

10,027

13

Linn

53,558

14

Benton

8,075

14

Marion

49,846

15

Coos

6,995

15

Polk

43 950

16

Baker

5 794

16

Ben ton

42 963

17

5 648

17

Douglas

41 812

18

Multnomah ....

4,608

18

Sherman

41,610

19

Curry

3,883

19

Lane

36 204

20

Wheeler

3 627

20

Curry.

33 475

21

Gilliam

3 502

21

Yamhill. . .

30930

22

3 460

22

Clackamas

17 965

23

Grant

3 339

23

Coos

17 638

24

Columbia

3,232

24

Jackson

13,387

25

Morrow

3,087

25

Washington .

13 237

26

Tillamook

2 337

26

Klamath . .

7 773

27

Klamath

2 245

27

Lincoln

7 061

28

Crook

1 964

28

M ul t no ma h

2 606

29

Malheur

1 902

29

Columbia

2,521

30

Clatsop

1 898

30

Tillamook

1,928

31

Lake

1,741

31

Clatsop

1 409

32

1 491

32

Josephine

384

33

Harney

951

33

102

LON L. SWIFT

TABLE 27— Continued.

Counties.

Number
of
Goats

Rank

Counties.

Number
of
Goats

Rank

State

109 661

Polk

19,066

1

Yamhill

14,109

2

Multnomah

333

18

Benton

11,939

3

Columbia

267

19

Linn

11,639

4

Klamath

109

20

9 866

5

100

21

9 202

6

75

22

Douglas

8 247

7

Wasco

58

23

Baker

6 054

g

Union ....

39

24

Washington

5 134

9

Malheur

36

25

Clackamas. . .

5,002

10

Clatsop

20

26

Lincoln

3,598

11

Wheeler

12

27

Jackson

2,073

12

Umatilla

8

28

Lake

1,147

13

Wallowa

8

29

Tillamook

432

14

Crook

6

30

Josephine

383

15

Gilliam

6

30

339

16

32

Coos

336

17

Sherman

33

Malheur County had a valuation of live stock nearly fifty
per cent greater than any other county in the State. Malheur,
Harney, Lake, Crook, Grant, Baker, Umatilla, and Union
each raised more live stock in 1900 than any county west of
the mountains. Malheur's valuation was $2,817,691 ; Har-
ney's, which ranked second, $1,926,512; Baker, eighth, $1,382,-
955 ; Marion, Linn, Lane, and Douglas each had over $1,000,-
ooo valuation of live stock ; also, Wasco, Morrow, and Wal-
lowa. Clackamas, Yamhill, Gilliam, Wheeler, and Klamath
reported between $800,000 and $900,000 each. The counties
having the smallest valuation of live stock were Lincoln,
Tillamook, Clatsop, Columbia, Curry, and Josephine, each
reporting less than $400,000. The figures for the amount
received for the sale of live animals coincided, in general,
notwithstanding a few exceptions, with those for the total
valuation of live stock.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 103

Malheur, which was the banner stock county of the State,
ranked first in cattle and sheep, and had fifty per cent more
horses than any other county. Malheur and Harney each
raised twice as many cattle as any other county. Lake ranked
third, reporting over 40,000 head ; Douglas, Baker, Grant, and
Crook had over 30,000 each ; Lane, Linn, Union, and Klamath,
between 20,000 and 30,000; Polk, Morrow, Gilliam, and Sher-
man; Columbia, Clatsop, and Lincoln; Curry and Josephine,
were among the smallest, each reporting less than 10,000.
Southern Oregon east of the mountains was by far the greatest
cattle producing part of the State, and central Oregon ranked
next. The counties raising the smallest number were those
along the Columbia River, except Umatilla, three on the coast,
and Columbia and Josephine. The northeastern corner of the
State and the Willamette Valley were about of equal rank.

The raising of horses may be classed in almost the same
way. In general, the counties of eastern Oregon raised the
most horses, those of the Willamette Valley ranked next,
southern Oregon west of the mountains, next, and the coast
last. Eastern Oregon raised by far the most sheep, all but
two counties, Sherman and Klamath, in this part of the State
reporting more than any county west of the mountains. Mor-
row ranked first with 322,650; Malheur, Crook, Lake, Grant,
Umatilla, and Wasco each had between 200,000 and 300,000.
The counties of the Willamette Valley may be classed next
to eastern Oregon; but Douglas, Jackson, and Coos had,
county for county, nearly as large a number. The coast re-
ported the lowest rank. Jackson County ranked first in the
number of swine, reporting 22,588. Marion, Linn, and Doug-
las each had over 20,000. The counties of the Willamette
Valley and Jackson and Douglas reported the largest number
of hogs ; eastern .Oregon and the coast, the smallest. The
Willamette Valley ranked first in the number of goats, Polk
County being an easy leader. None of the eastern Oregon
counties reported many goats except Baker. Douglas and
Jackson were ahead of most of the coast counties.

*
io4 LON L. SWIFT

No one set of figures has been obtained that represents the
production of all classes of cereals. Seven-tenths of the land
raising cereals, however, was producing wheat in 1900; one-
fifth, oats; and five per cent, barley. Very little corn or rye
was produced. Wheat, therefore, was in 1900 the main cereal
crop of Oregon, and the production of oats was quite large.
The figures showing the number of bushels of each of the
five cereal crops, wheat, oats, barley, corn, and rye, raised in
the different counties of the State, will give an outline for
this discussion.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON.

105

TABLE 28.

NUMBER OF BUSHELS OF WHEAT, OATS, BARLEY, CORN, AND RYE, RAISED IN OREGON, IN
1900, CLASSIFIED BY COUNTIES. (*)

Counties.

Bushels
of
Wheat

Rank

Counties.

Bushels
of
Oats

Rank

State

14 508 636

State

6,725,828

Umatilla

3,212,120

1

Marion

1,059,220

1

Linn

1,252,620

2

Linn

853,010

2

Marion

1,094,150

3

Yamhill

659,220

3

Yamhill

1 072,740

4

Washington

651,650

4

1,050,400

5

Polk

561,820

5

Polk

958,920

6

Lane

552,650

6

Union

767,000

7

Clackamas

511,790

7

Lane

635 590

s

408 430

g

Benton

548 390

g

Benton

392,390

9

523,320

10

Union

299,350

10

Wasco

504,980

11

Baker

161,690

11

463,090

12

Multnomah

110,230

12

Gilliam

406,480

13

Wallowa

64,650

13

395 260

14

Umatilla

50980

14

Douglas

387,420

15

Wasco.

49,280

15

Morrow

381,350

16

Jackson

45,740

16

Baker

151,183

17

Sherman

34,120

17

Wallowa

150 170

18

Crook

33 030

18

Crook. .

42,880

19

Columbia

29 510

19

Klamath

38,380

20

24 600

20

Multnoniah

37,490

21

Coos . .

24,060

21

Grant

31 800

22

Klamath

14 850

22

Malheur

27340

23

Malheur

14 090

23

Josephine

21,670

24

Grant

13 430

24

Wheeler

15,720

25

Tillamook

13 200

25

Lake

12 150

26

Clatsop

10 150

26

Coos..

11 920

27

9 720

27

Columbia

10800

28

Curry

9 458

28

Harney

3 730

29

Gilliam

6420

29

Clatsop

3,300

30

6050

30

Curry.

1 813

31

5 730

31

Lincoln .

520

32

Wheeler

5 090

32

Tillamook

80

33

Lake

2,310

33

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. VI, p. 180.

io6

LON L. SWIFT

TABLE 28— Continued.

Counties.

Barley

Rank

Counties.

Corn

Rank

State

1,515,150

State

359,523

Umatilla

380,340

1

Jackson

109,000

1

Union

215,640

2

Douglas

63,300

2

Baker

109 773

3

Lane

32,930

3

Wallowa

97,710

4

Marion

19,780

4

76,650

5

Coos

19,010

5

Wasco

75,700

6

Josephine

14,720

6

57,360

7

Wasco

14,150

7

Gilliam

43,870

8

Linn

9,980

8

42 440

g

Yamhill

8 500

9

42 230

10

Ben ton

8290

10

Malheur

31 660

11

Clackamas

8,100

11

Coos ....

29 180

12

Polk

7.950

12

27 520

13

Umatilla. —

7,780

13

24,910

14

Malheur

5,470

14

Lake

23,360

15

Wallowa

4,150

15

Yamhill

21,960

16

Union

3,880

16

21,830

17

Multnomah

3,330

17

Polk

20,910

18

Sherman

2,650

18

19 800

19

2 606

19

Washington

19,140

20

Washington

2,580

20

Wheeler

17 810

21

Baker

1,489

21

11 790

22

Grant

1,130

22

Crook

10 710

23

Crook

830

23

9 830

24

Columbia

450

24

Multnomah

9 220

25

Gilliam

420

25

y.

8 250

26

340

26

4 920

27

Clatsop

220

27

4 607

28

Lake

188

28

Columbia

3,140

29

Klamath

160

29

Ben ton

2,700

30

Wheeler

80

30

Tillamook

490

31

Harney

31

L' 1

90

32

32

Clatsop

20

33

Tillamook

33

LAND TENURE IN OREGON.

107

TABLE 28— Continued.

Counties

Rye.

Rank

Counties.

Rye.

Rank

State

109 234

Wheeler

5 240

7

Klamath

23,190

1

Gilliam

4,900

8

Crook

18 030

2

Wallowa

3 710

9

11 070

3

Lake

3 300

10

10830

4

Baker

2,998

11

Lane. . . .

6,300

5

Clackamas

2,960

12

Umatilla

5 840

6

2 380

13

2 200

14

Sherman

680

24

Malheur

1 840

15

Jackson .

620

25

Yamhill

1 660

16

Multnomah

460

26

Washington .

1 430

17

Douglas

420

27

Harney

1 200

18

Benton

400

28

Josephine

1,100

19

Tillamook

180

29

Grant

970

20

Clatsop

110

30

Linn

810

21

Coos

50

31

Polk..

780

22

Columbia

40

32

Wasco

750

23

Curry

36

33

Umatilla in 1900 produced 3,212,120 bushels of wheat, or
two and one-half times as much as any other county in the
State. Linn, Marion, Yamhill, and Sherman each raised over
1,000,000 bushels; Polk, 958,920; Union, 767,000. Lane, Ben-
ton, Washington, and Clackamas ; Wasco, Gilliam, and Mor-
row ; Jackson and Douglas, each between 380,000 and 636,000
bushels. Tillamook, which was at the bottom of the list,
produced only 80; Lincoln, 520. Harney, Clatsop, and Curry
each reported between 4,000 and 1,800 bushels; Josephine and
Coos; Wheeler, Lake, and Columbia, between 22,000 and 10,-
ooo. On the whole, the Willamette Valley counties, those
along the Columbia River, and those in the northeastern part
of the State, made the largest yield; Jackson and Douglas,
however, each ranked ahead of Baker or Wallowa. Central
and southern Oregon east of the mountains had a larger
output than the coast counties.

io8 LON L. SWIFT

By far the largest production of oats was made in the Wil-
lamette Valley. The northeastern part of the State ranked
next with the exception of Douglas. The output of the coast
counties was, in general, larger than that of the remaining
ones in eastern Oregon. Marion county, which raised 1,059,-
220 bushels of oats, produced nearly twice as much of this
grain as any other county. Linn, Yamhill, Washington, Polk,
Lane, and Clackamas each produced between 660,000 and
500,000 bushels.

The counties in the northeastern corner of the State took
the lead in the production of barley. Umatilla ranked first
with 380,340 bushels, or nearly twice as much as any other
county, excelling almost as noticeably as in the production
of wheat. The Columbia River counties, together with Jack-
son and Douglas, were next to Umatilla, Union, Baker, and
Wallowa. Some of the coast counties were the smallest pro-
ducers. Most of the corn was raised in southwestern Oregon
and the Willamette Valley. Eastern Oregon excelled in the
production of rye; the Willamette Valley ranked second; the
southwestern and coast counties were at the bottom of the list.

Conditions of fanning in Oregon may be further explained
by an examination of the value of dairy produce, orchard
products, and poultry, in the different counties of the State.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON.

109

TABLE 29.

VALUE OP DAIRY PRODUCE IN OREGON IN 1900, CLASSIFIED BT COUNTIES. (*)

Counties.

Value.

Rank

Counties.

Value

Rank

State

$ 3 550 953

Morrow

$ 57 923

17

346,781

1

Curry

57 417

18

227,050

2

Josephine

46,714

19

Washington

220 023

3

Sherman

46 246

20

210 869

4

Wallowa

43 771

21

197 770

5

Malheur

41 706

22

Coos

197 436

6

Benton

41,121

23

Umatilla

183,770

7

Lincoln

39 357

24

Tillamook

162 309

g

Baker

37 418

25

151 023

9

Columbia

37 208

26

Yamhill

126 637

10

Crook . .

37017

27

113 099

11

Klamath

31 597

28

Clackamas

112,747

12

Gilliam

28,689

29

Wasco

90,827

13

Harney

26,090

30

Grant

85 545

14

Wheeler

25 555

31

83 465

15

Lake

22 999

32

Polk

75,971

16

Clatsop

20,229

33

Most of the dairy produce came from the Willamette Val-
ley, and the least from eastern Oregon and some of the coast
counties. Multnomah took the lead, having an output of $346,-
781, which was fifty per cent more than that of any other
county. Marion, Washington, and Lane each had an output
valued at more than $200,000; Linn, Coos, Umatilla, Tilla-
mook, and Union, over $150,000 each; Yamhill, Douglas, and
Clackamas, over $100,000 each ; Wasco, Grant, Jackson, Polk,
Morrow, and Curry, over $50,000 each. Counties in the Wil-
lamette Valley were, for the most part, the greatest producers.
Some coast counties ranked high ; others, low. Coos was
sixth ; Tillamook, eighth ; Curry, eighteenth ; Lincoln, twenty-
fourth ; Clatsop, thirty-third. In northeastern Oregon, Uma-
tilla was seventh ; Union, ninth ; Wallowa, twenty-first ; Baker,
twenty-fifth. Douglas was eleventh ; Jackson, fifteenth ; Jose-

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. VI, p. 44.

no

LON L. SWIFT

phine, nineteenth. Along the Columbia River, Wasco was
thirteenth ; Morrow, seventeenth ; Sherman, twentieth ; Gil-
Ham, twenty-eighth. None of these districts, therefore, was
especially favored, but all had exceptional counties.

TABLE 30.

VALUE OF ORCHARD PRODUCTS ON FARMS IN OREGON IN 1900, CLASSIFIED BY COUNTIES. (*)

Counties.

Value

Rank

Counties.

Value

Rank

State

$ 906,015

Ben ton

18,583

17

Jackson

169,718

1

Columbia

14,421

18

Douglas

149,194

2

Grant

14,110

19

Yamhill

49,596

3

Sherman

10,793

20

Multnomah

47,101

4

Gilliam

8,165

21

U '

44 366

5

Wheeler

7 571

22

...

37 487

6

6 751

23

Coos

37 239

7

Wallowa

6 459

24

Wasco . .

36 748

8

Morrow

5 824

25

34 918

9

Malheur . .

4 983

26

Marion

32,682

10

Lincoln

4,767

27

Linn

31,208

11

Clatsop

3,566

28

Baker

26,161

12

Crook

2 801

29

Clackamas

25,593

13

Lake

2,520

30

Washington

24,605

14

Tillamook

2,182

31

Umatilla

24 471

15

Klamath

] 116

32

Polk

18,964

16

Harney

33

Southwestern Oregon yielded by far the greatest relative
amount of fruit. Jackson ranked first ; Douglas, second ; Jose-
phine, sixth ; but Curry, twenty-third. Jackson and Douglas
each yielded more than three times as much as any other
county. Next to the southwestern district, the Willamette
Valley and the northeastern counties were most productive in
fruit raising. The greater part of eastern Oregon and some
of the coast counties made the smallest output. Wasco ranked
thirteenth in 1900.

hU. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. VI, p. 674.

LAND TENURE IN OREGON.

in

TABLE 31.

VALUE OP POULTRY IN OREGON IN 1900, CLASSIFIED BY COUNTIES. (*)

Counties.

Value.

Rank

Counties.

Value

Rank

State

$ 582,524

Coos

$ 8,663

17

j .

59 535

1

Columbia

8 624

18

XJlllll*.

49 612

2

Sherman.

8 472

19

46,551

3

Malheur

8,196

20

41,057

4

Morrow

6,082

21

Douglas

41,002

5

Grant

6,045

22

Washington

34 773

6

Gilliam

5 865

23

Umatilla

31 435

7

Crook

5 395

24

Yamhill . .

29,965

g

Clatsop

4 793

25

28,205

9

Josephine

4 597

26

Polk

22,727

10

Klamath

4,590

27

22 433

11

Tillamook

4 182

28

20 599

12

Wheeler

3 738

29

Wasco

.... 19,244

13

3 485

30

Benton

18,024

14

Lake

2 663

31

Baker

12,951

15

Harney

2 442

32

Wallowa

9,956

16

Curry

2,420

33

*U. S. Census Reports for 1900, Twelfth Census, Vol. VI, p. 47.

H2 LON L. SWIFT

APPENDIX.
LEASES EMPLOYED IN VARIOUS PARTS OF THE STATE.

Share Lease for Grain and Hay Employed by the Eastern
Oregon Land Company in Sherman County.

THIS INDENTURE, made this first day of October, in the
year 1904, BETWEEN the EASTERN OREGON LAND
COMPANY, a corporation duly incorporated under the laws
of the State of California, and having its principal office in
the City and County of San Francisco, State of California,
the Party of the first part, and Robert Urquhart, Moro, Sher-
man County, Oregon, the Party of the second part,

WITNESSETH, That the said party of the first part, for and
in consideration of the rents, covenants, and agreements here-
inafter mentioned, reserved, and contained, on the part of the
said party of the second part, to be paid, kept and performed,
does by THESE PRESENTS, demise, lease and farm-let unto the
said party of the second part, all of those certain lots, pieces
or parcels of land situated, lying and being within the County
of Sherman, State of Oregon, bounded and described as fol-
lows, to-wit :

containing about 320 acres, upon the terms, covenants, and
conditions hereinafter contained.

To HAVE AND TO HOLD the same, with the appurtenances,
for the term of two years commencing on the first day of
October, 1904, andt ending on the first day of October, 1906.
And the said party of the second part covenants and agrees
to give peaceable possession of said property in good order
and condition to said party of the first part, on said first day
of October, 1906, without further notice from said party of
the first part; said party of the second part agrees to pay
therefor unto the said party of the first part, its assigns or

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 113

successors, as rent for said premises one-third (1-3) of any
and all crops that may hereafter be raised on said land, during
the term of this lease, the same to be delivered annually, free
of any expense to the said party of the first part, in wane-
house at the nearest railway station, in good order and con-
dition, within twenty days after the same is threshed and
sacked, if grain, or as soon as the same is baled,, if hay.
Should the party of the second part fail or refuse to deliver
said first party's share of the crop within the time above speci-
fied, the party of the first part may, if it so elect, have the
same delivered, and the expense of such delivery to be borne
by said party of the second part. Party of the first part hereby
agrees to furnish sacks for its share of grain.

And it is hereby agreed that if said crop shall be harvested
for grain, then the same shall be properly threshed and sacked
in new sacks, free of expense to said party of the first part ; if
said crop is harvested for hay, then the same shall be properly
baled, free of expense to the said party of the first part ; pro-
vided, however, that no hay shall be cut from the ground
seeded to grain without the written consent of the said party
of the first part.

And it is hereby agreed that the party of the first part, its
assigns, or successors, shall be allowed to enter the premises
at any and all times ; and as soon as the crop is sacked or
baled, they will be allowed to mark their share, and no grain
or hay to be removed from land until company's share is
marked.

And it is hereby agreed that the party of the second part
shall protect and care for said grain or hay belonging to the
party of the first part, and will hold himself responsible lo
the party of the first part for the same against damage or
theft during all the ^time that said grain or hay is in the field,
and until such time as the same is delivered in warehouse as
aforesaid.

And it is hereby agreed that the title of all crops raised on
the premises herein described be and remain in the said party

H4 L°N L. SWIFT

of the first part, until said party of the second part shall
perform all the covenants and agreements herein contained.

It is hereby agreed that the party of the second part shall
farm the land, in a good and husbandman-like manner, every
year during the term of this lease, and that he will summer-
fallow the land every alternate year, plow the same six or
eight inches deep and harrow the plowing promptly there-
after; that he will find and furnish all seeds necessary to be
sown, and will seed all summer-fallowed land not later than
October I5th of each year, unless permission is granted in
writing by the party of the first part to do otherwise.

And it is hereby agreed by the party of the second part
that he will plow the land to be summer-fallowed, as soon as
the same is in proper condition after the frost leaves the
ground in the spring, and have it completed not later than
May ist each year, and cultivate and till the soil during the
spring and summer, sufficiently to retain the moisture and
keep the same free from weeds. And it is hereby agreed that
the party of the second part shall pay to said party of the
first part the CASH RENTAL of One Dollar per acre for all
tillable land described in this lease which he may neglect or
fail to farm according to the terms thereof, and $.10 per acre
for all non-tillable land described in this lease.

It being hereby mutually understood and agreed by and
between the said parties of the first and second parts, that the

lands described in this lease,. (estimated)

acres are tillable, and (estimated)

acres are non-tillable land.

The party of the second part covenants with the party of
the first part that he will not commit, or suffer, any waste
of the said premises, or permit any trespasser to enter upon,
or hold possesion of, said land or any part thereof.

And it is hereby further understood and agreed that the
said party of the second part shall not at any time during
the term of this lease, assign, set over, transfer, under-lease
or underlet said premises, or any part thereof, or in any other

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 115

manner part with the possession or occupation of the same,
without the special consent, in writing, of the said party of
the first part.

It is hereby mutually understood and agreed that none of
the land covered by this lease shall be volunteered without
the special written consent of the party of the first part.

Party of the second part hereby agrees to keep the within
described tracts free from the weeds known as the "Russian
Thistle" and the "Chinese Thistle"; that he will extirpate
said thistles before any thereof has shed its bloom or com-
menced to form the seed. Furthermore, should said second
party fail to destroy the said Russian thistle or Chinese thistle
in proper time, and the party of the first part has reason to
believe that said thistles would be liable to go to seed before
said second party could possibly remove and destroy the
same, then the said first party may employ sufficient help and
proceed to eradicate the said thistles, the expenses incurred
for such work to be borne by the party of the second part.

Party of the second part further agrees that if the crop is
harvested by a combine machine that he will immediately haul
and pile the grain in a convenient place on the land, no wheat
to be removed until Company's share is marked, and that he
will cover the grain with straw promptly thereafter ; also that
he will harvest Company's grain before going outside to assist
others.

Party of the second part further agrees that should he cut
hay for feed, when harvesting with a combine, that he will
stack the same before using any portion thereof.

Party of the second part hereby agrees that he will not
pasture nor permit to be pastured any of the land leased
from the party of the first part after the same has been seeded
to grain; a violation of this clause will be deemed sufficient
cause for cancellation of this lease without further notice.

Party of the second part agrees that he will not seed to
oats, barley, or rye any of the land described in this lease
without the written consent of the party of the first part.

n6 LON L. SWIFT

It is further mutually agreed between the parties hereto
that in case the party of the second part shall fail to fulfill
any of the covenants or shall fail to perform any of
the agreements herein contained, then the party of the first
part may immediately without notice re-enter upon said
premises, remove all persons therefrom and repossess and
enjoy all its first and former estate therein and proceed to
cultivate said land, harvest and market any and all growing
crops thereon, sell and dispose of the same and out of the
proceeds of that portion of said crop which would, after divi-
sion, belong to the party of the second part, pay all expenses
of such cultivation, harvesting and marketing.

And the said party of the second part agrees upon default
or failure, to vacate said premises without notice, and if it
becomes necessary to bring action at law to recover possession
thereof, to pay a reasonable attorney's fee therefor.

It is further understood and agreed that as soon as the
crops of grain are harvested, the party of the second part will
stack the straw in proper shape so that the same will not be
destroyed by stock or rain, such straw to be for the use of the
occupant the following season.

It is further understood and agreed that at the termination
of this lease the party of the second part, at the option of
the party of the first part, shall either be allowed to seed any
summer-fallowed land that then may be on the premises and
harvest the same at the rate of $1.25 per acre, for one plow-
ing, and cultivating of said land.

It is further understood and agreed, that the sale of the
lands described herein, or any portion thereof, shall cause
this lease to immediately cease and terminate with respect to
such of said lands as may be sold, provided, that said party
of the second part may retain undisturbed possession of such
portion of said premises as have been seeded for the next
crop, subject to the terms of this lease, until the then growing
crops, if any, have been harvested.

It is further understood and agreed between the aforesaid

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 117

parties, that the party of the first part reserves the privilege
to give right of way through the aforesaid lands for railroads,
ditches, etc., at any time during the term of this lease.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, The said party of the first part has
caused these presents to be signed in its corporate name by
its President and Secretary, and its corporate seal to be here-
unto affixed, and the said party of the second part has here-
unto set his hand and seal the day and year first above
written.
Signed, Sealed and Delivered EASTERN OREGON

in the presence of LAND COMPANY,

By (Seal)

President.

(Seal)

Secretary.

(Seal)

Share Lease for Grain Employed by the Bank of lone in
Morrow County.

This indenture, made this I3th day of February, in the year
nineteen hundred and five, between the Bank of lone, a cor-
poration under the laws of the State of Oregon, and having
its office in the City of lone, Morrow County, State of
Oregon, the party of the first part, and G. A. Miller and J. H.
Miller of Cecil, Morrow County, State of Oregon, parties of
the second part.

Witnesseth, That the said party of the first part, for and
in consideration of the rents, covenants and agreements here-
inafter mentioned, reserved and contained, on the part of the
party of the second part, to be paid, kept and performed, does,
by these premises, demise, lease and farmlet unto the said
parties of the second part, all the following described land,
lying and being in the County of Morrow and State of Oregon,
to-wit : containing three hundred and

I
118 LON L. SWIFT

twenty acres, more or less, according to the U. S. government
survey thereof. To have and to hold the same, with the
appurtenances, for the years of 1905 and 1906, commencing
the 1 3th day of February, 1905, and ending the first day of
October, 1906, providing, that if the parties of the second part
plant or sow any grain during the spring of 1905, then this
lease on such land so sown or planted shall expire on the first
day of October, 1905. And the said parties of the second part
agree to give immediate and peaceable possession of the said
property in good order and condition to the said party of the
first part, on the first day of October, 1905, if sown and planted
as above stated, and if no crop is sown thereon during the
spring of 1905, the said parties of the second part agree to
give immediate and peaceable possession to the said party of
the first part, on the first day of October, 1906, subject to the
provisions of this lease. The said parties of the second part
do agree to pay unto the said party of the first, their successors
or assigns as for the said premises, one-fourth (j4) of a^ anc^
any crops that may hereafter be raised on said land, during
the term of this lease, the same to be delivered free of any
expense to the said party of the first part, in such warehouse
at lone, Douglas or Cecil, as the said first party shall direct,
in good order and condition in sacks within twenty days after
the same is threshed and sacked, the parties of the first part
to furnish sacks for their share at lone,. Oregon. Should the
parties of the second part refuse or fail to deliver said first
party's share of the crops as above specified, the parties of the
first part may, if they select, have the same delivered, the ex-
pense of delivery to be borne by the party of the second part,
and to be deducted from his share of the crop as herein
specified.

It is further understood and agreed that the sale of the
lands herein described, shall cause this lease to immediately
cease and terminate with respect to the lands sold, provided,
that the said party of the second part may retain undisturbed
possession of any such portion of the said premises as have

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 119

been seeded for the next crop, subject to the terms of this
lease until the said growing crops, if any, have been harvested.
But should the said party of the second part have lands that
are plowed or summer fallowed and the same be not seeded,
then the parties of the first part, if they so elect, may pay for
the same at the rate of $1.00 per acre for land so plowed, and
at the rate of $1.25 per acre for each harrowing, if any there
be, and the said parties of the second part agree to give to full
and immediate possession of the premises herein described
when so paid. It is agreed that there should be no plowing or
summer fallowing, as herein specified, that the parties of the
second part shall give full, immediate and peaceable possession
of the said premises in case of sale, upon written notice thereof.

It is further understood and agreed that the parties of the
second part are to fence all the land described herein as the
parties of the first part may direct, in a good and sufficient
manner, the parties of the first part to furnish the material for
said fence at lone, Oregon.

It is further understood that the title to the crops raised
on the premises herein described be and remain in the said
parties of the first part, until the parties of the second part
shall perform all the covenants and agreements herein con-
tained. And the parties of the first part reserve the right to
enter upon said premises and mark their share of the crops
after the same have been threshed.

It is hereby agreed that the parties shall farm all the land
herein described, in a good and husbandlike manner during
the life of this lease. That he will find and furnish all seeds
necessary to be sown, and that they will seed all the summer
fallow not later than October I5th, unless permission is granted
in writing by the parties of the first part to do otherwise.
That they will plow at least three inches deep, and that they
will immediately harrow the lands so plowed to keep the same
from drying out, and that they will also harrow the same dur-
ing the summer months sufficiently to retain the moisture and
prevent the growth of weeds. And that they will complete all

126 LON L. SWIFT

plowing before the first day of May. And that they will com-
mence plowing as soon as the ground is in proper condition
after the frost leaves it.

And it is further understood and agreed that the party of
the second part will not at any time during the life of this
lease, assign, set over, underlease or underlet said premises
or any part thereof, or in any way part with the possession
or occupation of the same, without the written consent of the
parties of the first part. Nor will they permit any one to enter
upon, or in any way to trespass on the said premises as herein
described.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, The said parties of the first part
have caused these presents to be signed by its cashier, in its
corporate name, and the said parties of the second part have
hereunto set their hands and seals the date and day first above
written.

Grain Share Lease Employed in Klamath County.

This indenture, made this 2ist day of February, A. D. 1908,
by and between the Lakeside Company, a corporation, and
Joseph Cox and John Cox, copartners, of Merrill, Oregon.

Witnessed!, That in consideration of the covenants herein
contained on the part of the said Joseph Cox and John Cox
to be kept and performed by them, the said Lakeside Company
does hereby lease, demise and let unto the said Joseph Cox
and John Cox the following described premises, to-wit :

To have and to hold the

same to the lessee for the term of one year from the date
hereof, the said lessee paying therefor the rental of one-third
of the crops grown thereon, payable when threshed and to be
delivered on said premises.

And the said lessee, or their executors and administrators,
do hereby covenant to and with the said lessor and his assigns,
to pay the said rent as provided herein, and that they Will
make no unlawful, unproper or offensive use of the premises;

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 121

that at the expiration of the said term or upon any sooner
termination of this lease they will quit and deliver up the
premises and all future erections and additions to or upon the
same, to the said lessor, or those having its estate therein
peaceably, quietly, in as good order and condition (reasonable
and wearing thereof, fire and other unavoidable casualties ex-
cepted) as the same now are or may be put in by the lessor
or those having its estate in the premises ; that will not suffer
nor permit any strip or waste thereof, nor make, nor suffer
to be made, any alterations or additions to or upon the same,
nor assign this lease, nor underlet, or permit any person or
persons to occupy the same, without the consent of the said
lessor or those having its estate to the premises, being first
obtained in writing, and also that it shall be lawful for the
said lessor and those having its estate in the premises, at
reasonable time, to enter into and upon the same to examine
the condition thereof.

It is agreed that the lessees shall keep up all fences around
said fields as they shall use and shall keep the same in good
repair, and it is agreed that the lessor shall pay for all water
used by lessees for the irrigation of crops growing on said
premises.

Provided always, and these presents are upon this condition,
that if the said rent shall be in arrears for the space of

, or if the lessee or their representatives or

assigns shall neglect or fail to perform, and observe any or
either of the covenants hereinbefore contained, which on their
part are to be performed, then any of the said cases, the said
lessor, or those having its estate in the said premises lawfully
made, immediately or at any time thereafter, and while said
neglect or default continues, and without further notice or de-
mand, enter into and upon the said premises, or any part
thereof, in the name of the whole and repossess the same, of
its 'former estate, and expel the said lessees, and those claim-
ing under them, and remove their effects, without being taken
or deemed guilty in any manner of trespass, and without

122 I.ON L. SWIFT

prejudice to any remedies which might otherwise be used for
arrears of rent, or preceding breach of covenant.

In testimony whereof, the said parties have set their hands
and seals, on the day and year first above written to this, and
another instrument of the same tenor and date.

Share Lease for Grain Employed in Benton County.

Know all men by these presents, that I, Robert Richardson,
the lessor, in consideration of the rents, covenants and agree-
ments herein mentioned, reserved, and contained on the part
and behalf of Zierolf Brothers, a partnership consisting of

, the lessees, have leased and by these

presents do lease and let unto said Zierolf Brothers, all of the

following described property, to-wit :

, all in Benton County, State of

Oregon, for the term of one year from the first day of October,
1904, until the first clay of October, 1905. To have and to hold
the above described premises unto the said lessees for the term
aforesaid.

In consideration whereof the said lessees hereby covenant
and agree that they will occupy, till and in all respects culti-
vate the premises above described, during the term aforesaid,
in a good, farmerlike manner and according to the usual
course of farming practiced in the neighborhood ; that they
will not commit any waste nor suffer any to be done; that they
will plow, seed to grain, all of the tillable land on said leased
premises, being all the land that has heretofore been in crop ;
that they will keep the fences up in reasonably good condition.

That they will at their own cost, harvest and thresh all grain
grown on said leased premises, and when so threshed that
they will haul and deliver to said lessor at mill in Monroe or
Finley's warehouse (at option of lessor) an equal one-third
part of grain grown on said premises, which said one-third
shall be equal both as to quantity and quality ; and when so
stored to deliver receipts therefor to said lessor ; the division of

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 123

the grain to be made according to warehouse weights, and
grain retained by said lessees and not stored to be estimated on
the basis of warehouse weights of similar grain.

It is understood that this lease shall expire absolutely on the
first day of October, 1905 ; and that no holding over shall be
considered as a renewal thereof; and the said lessees hereby
waive all statutory notice to quit.

In Witness Whereof, The parties hereto have unto set their
hands and seals, in duplicate, this first day of October, 1904.

Share Lease for Grain and Hay Employed in Crook County.

This agreement, made and entered into on this 27th day of
October, 1906, by and between Morrow and Kennan, parties of
the first part, and E. D. Holms, party of the second part :

Witnesseth : — That the parties of the first part, in considera-
tion of the covenants and agreements to be kept and performed
by the party of the second part and hereinafter set forth, do
hereby lease, demise and let unto the said party of the second
part for the term of five years from the I5th day of Septem-
ber, 1906, to the I5th day of September, 1911, the following

described lands in Crook County, Oregon, to-wit :

but with the reser-
vations herein set forth, and upon the terms and conditions
herein contained. The party of the second part hereby agrees
and binds himself to cultivate and sow to grain 400 acres of
said land, during each of said years, and to plow and summer
fallow 400 acres, during the first year, and sow the same to
grain, along with the other lands during this lease. It is
understood and agreed that as a rental for said land, the parties
of the first part shall receive one-third of all crops raised upon
said land during the term of this lease, said share of one-third
of entire crop to be delivered to said parties of the first part
on said premises as soon as the same is harvested, and it is
agreed and understood that the said parties of the first part
shall have the option of having said crops cut for hay or

124 L0N L. SWIFT

threshed, they to notify the said party of the second part
within a reasonable time before harvest for either hay or grain,
and the party of the second part is to abide by such notice.
The parties of the first part reserve all rights to pasture upon
said lands after harvest, the said party of the second part hav-
ing no right to use said lands for grazing or pasture at any
time or at all during this lease. The said party of the second
part agrees to grub and clear all of said land and to remove
all brush and all surface rock therefrom, the said rock to be
piled in separate heaps at convenient places upon said land off
the tillable land, the grubbing and clearing applying only to
plow lands that are suitable for cultivation. All summer
fallow is to be plowed by June ist of each year and harrowed
and worked down by July ist of each year, and harrowed
as often as necessary to keep down weeds and vegetation
from July ist to September I5th of each year of summer
fallow when fall plowing shall commence. All summer fallow
is to be kept clear of vegetation and harrowed each month if
necessary to keep weeds and vegetation down. All fences are
to be put in good repair by the parties of the first part at the
commencement of this lease, and the same are to be so1 main-
tained by the party of the second part during this lease, and
all stock are to be kept off such lands at all times except the
stock belonging to the parties of the first part. All summer
fallow is to be prepared and worked as herein described at
the end of this lease and upon which no crops have been
raised for the year in which lease expires shall be measured
and paid for at the rate of $2.00 per acre by the parties of
the first part to the parties of the second part. All new land
broken and put to crops $2.00 per acre also.

All hay and straw is to be properly stacked and taken care
of, and all crops handled in the best approved methods. All
wheat and barley is to be vitrioled before sowing and only
clean seed sowed, and all seeding to be done by April ist of
crop year. Two crops are to be raised in succession on new
land before summer fallowing, and thereafter summer fallowed

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 125

every other year. Second crop on new land is to be disked or
plowed as the party of the second part may deem best.

The said parties of the first part shall have and hold a lien
upon all crops raised upon said premises for their interest,
for interest for money advanced for seed, sowing, harvesting
or caring for said crops, and for any damages or failure of
the said party of the second part to carry out the terms of this
lease on his or their part to be kept or performed, and said
parties of the first part are hereby authorized and directed to
take immediate possession of said premises, crops and produce
raised thereon, upon any breach of this lease, without notice
to the said party of the second part, and to hold and dispose
of the crops raised thereon, paying themselves for the ex-
penses, costs in attending to the crops, harvesting and caring
for the same, all money advanced for seed or . otherwise, and
damages, and pay the overplus, if any, over to the said party
of the second part.

That this lease is not to be assigned, sub-let or transferred
without the written consent of the parties of the first part,
and said parties of the first part may at any time upon breach
of the terms of this lease by the party of the second part de-
clare this lease at an end and take immediate and entire control
of the premises, and the party of the second part agrees to
give up such possession quietly and peaceably. That no crops
raised upon said premises before the division thereof shall be
mortgaged, sold or assigned or transferred in any way. That
said premises at the end of this lease shall be surrendered in
as good order and condition as the same are now in or may
be put into, reasonable wear and tear thereof, and damages by
the elements and fire excepted as to both parties thereof.

In Witness Whereof, The parties hereunto set their hands
and seals to this agreement in duplicate this 27th day of Octo-
ber, 1906.

.

126 LON L. SWIFT

Cash Lease for Pasture Land in Grant County.

This indenture, made this 23rd day of October, in the year
nineteen hundred and five, between the Eastern Oregon Land
Company, a corporation duly incorporated under the laws of
the State of California, and having its principal office at the
City and County of San Francisco, State of California, the
party of the first part, and Kenneth M. McRae, Dayville,
Grant County, Oregon, the party of the second part.

Witnesseth, that the said party of the first part, for and in
consideration of the rents, covenants and agreements herein-
after mentioned, reserved and contained on the part and behalf
of the said party of the second part, his executors, adminis-
trators and assigns, to be paid, kept and performed, does by
these presents demise, lease and let unto the said party of the
second part, his executors, administrators and assigns, all those
certain lots, pieces or parcels of land, situate, lying and being
within the County of Grant, State of Oregon, bounded and

described as follows, to-wit :

, containing about 9927.53 acres,

upon the terms, covenants and conditions hereinafter contained.
To have and to hold the same, with the appurtenances, for the
term of one year, commencing on the first day of October,
1905, and ending on the first day of October, 1906.

And the said party of the second part covenants and agrees
to give peaceable possession to the party of the first part, on
said first day of October, 1906, without further notice to the
said party of the first part ; said party of the second part pay-
ing therefor unto the said party of the first part, its assigns
or successors, the annual rent, or sum of $860, payable accord-
ing to the terms of one promissory note hereinafter described.

And it is hereby agreed that if any rent shall be due and
unpaid, or if default shall be made in any of the covenants
herein contained, then it shall be lawful for the said party of
the first part, its assigns or successors, to re-enter the said
premises, and to remove all persons therefrom, and to repossess

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 127

and enjoy all its first and former estate therein, anything here-
inbefore contained to the contrary notwithstanding.

And the said party of the second part does hereby covenant,
promise and agree to pay to the said party of the first part
the said rents in the manner hereinabove specified.

And that after the expiration of the said term or any sooner
determination of this lease, the said party of the second part
will quit and surrender the premises hereby demised in good
order and condition.

It is understood and agreed, that in the event of a sale being
made by the party of the first part, of the whole or any por-
tion of the premises herein demised, then the said party of the
second part shall, upon notice of thirty days being given him
in person, or by letter mailed to his postoffice address, quit
and surrender unto the party of the first part, all that portion
the said premises of which sale have been made, and in case
of sale of part of the demised premises, the party of the second
part shall be entitled to a prorata abatement of the rent for
the remainder of the term.

In case the party of the second part shall be ejected by any
person or party claiming title superior to the title of the party
of the first part, then the said party of the first part shall not
be liable to any damage by reason thereof.

The party of the second part covenants with the party of
the first part that he will not commit, or suffer any waste of
said premises, or permit any trespassing to enter upon or hold
possession of said lands or any part thereof.

And it is hereby agreed that the party of the second part,
his or their executors, administrators or assigns, or any or
either of them, shall not at any time during said term, assign,
set over, transfer, underlease or underlet said premises or any
part thereof, or in any other manner part with the possession
or occupation of the same without the special consent in writ-
ing of the said party of the first part.

In Witness Whereof, The said party of the first part has
caused these presents to be signed by its corporate name by

128 LON L. SWIFT

its President and Secretary, and its corporate seal to be here-
unto affixed, and the said party of the second part has here-
unto set his hand and seal the day and year first above
written.

Cash Lease Employed for Cattle in Gilliam County.

This contract, made this 23rd day of December, 1897, be-
tween W. W. Steiwer of Fossil, Oregon, party of the first
part, and J. P. Perin and Wm. L. Metteer of Pine Creek,
Gilliam County, Oregon, parties of the second part:

Witnesseth, That said party of the first part has leased to
the said parties of the second part the entire S. T. brand of
cattle, numbering about 300 head, more or less, for a period
of five years, running from November 1st, 1897.

The parties of the second part hereby agree to brand and
otherwise care for said cattle during the entire time of this
lease, to prepare feed sufficient to feed them in winter when
necessary, to gather them at all times when necessary, and
to bear all the expenses in connection with running and caring
for said cattle, except that each of the two parties to this lease
are to pay (one-half of all taxes. The party of the first part
hereby agrees to furnish the use of the Jones Ranch on Pine
Creek without charge to the parties of the second part, or in
the event of it being considered best to dispense with the use
of the Jones Ranch, or if the party of the first part can not
rent said ranch at an annual rental not exceeding $100, then
the party of the first part agrees to furnish an amount equal
to the rent now being paid for said ranch, viz., $100 per year
and the taxes on the same ranch, toward the maintenance and
running of said cattle. And it is further hereby agreed that
the cost price or present appraised value of said band of cattle,
viz., $4000, shall be paid to the party of the first part from
the first sales of cattle until it is all paid, except that each of
the two parties to this lease are to have $100 from any sales
of cattle each year. When said cost price as above stated

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 129

shall have been all paid to the party of the first part, then any
other sales of cattle the proceeds shall be equally divided be-
tween the two parties of this lease, and at the expiration of
this lease and after said cash price has been all paid to the
party of the first part, the remaining cattle shall be all gathered
and equally divided between the two parties of this lease. All
sales of cattle shall be made by the party of the first part.
The parties of the second part agree also to be at all expense
running the Jones Ranch and keeping the same in reasonable
repair, or any other ranch that may be used in connection
with the running of said cattle during this lease.

Dairy Lease Employed in Clatsop County.

This agreement, made and entered into this day of

1907, between O. I. Peterson, party of the first part, and
Alpheus C. Miller, party of the second part :

Witnesseth, That whereas, the party of the first part is the

owner of 90 acres of land, more or less

in Clatsop County, Oregon, and gen-
erally known as the Sunflower Dairy and referred to as the
Sunflower Dairy.

And whereas, the party of the second part is desirous of
operating and of farming said Sunflower Dairy as tenant to
the party of the first part, and whereas, the party of the first
part has agreed to accept him as tenant on the terms in this
agreement hereinafter set forth.

Therefore, in consideration of the covenants and agreement
of the party of the second part to be observed and performed
by him, the party of the first part does hereby lease, demise
and let unto the party of the second part said Sunflower Dairy
with all the tenements, hereditaments and appurtenances be-
longing thereto or in any wise appertaining, and all stock,
cattle, horses, brood sows, hogs, tools, farming and dairy im-
plements, and apparatus now being thereon or hereafter to be
put thereon, all of which are more particularly a part of this

130 LON L. SWIFT

agreement for the term of twelve months from the first day
of May, 1907, to the first day of May, 1908, the lessee yielding
and paying to the lessor the yearly rent of $1000 in monthly
installments of $83 per month, payable on the last of each and
every month during said term, the first installment to be pay-
able on the last day of May, 1907, and the lessee covenants to
pay the said rent in manner and at times aforesaid, and that
he will farm and cultivate the said Sunflower Dairy during
said term in a good farmlike, dairyman and husbandlike man-
ner and according to the usual custom of dairying and farming
in the neighborhood, that he will properly care for, feed, milk
and treat all stock on said place, and especially give the best
of care to the registered Dutch Belted cattle put on said place
this spring by the party of the first part, and will test the milk
from each cow thereon once at least in every three months
or quarter during said term, and will also weigh the milk
from each cow on the first, tenth and twentieth days of each
month both morning and night, and within five days there-
after report in writing to the lessor the results of each test
and weighing, and that he will keep a faithful record of the
breeding time of each cow and hog thereon, and report the
same in writing to said lessor at the end or sooner determina-
tion of said term ; that he will at all times keep all stock and
hogs clear and away from all dykes on said land ; that at the
end or sooner termination of said term he will turn over and
deliver up to the lessor all stock described in said schedule
except such of said stock as shall be sold or dead, and all such
he shall replace with animals of a similar quality to the satis-
faction of the lessor ; that he will keep up and swarm in season
all hives or stands of bees now on said place ; that he will keep
all shrubbery and fruit trees and garden bushes in good order
and condition; that he will dig a reasonable amount of open
ditches, as agreed upon by both parties ; that he will level a
reasonable amount of small ditches on said farm, and will put
in during said year about 25 rods of underdraining ; that he
will keep down and destroy all wire grass, weeds and thistles

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 131

on said place, all wire grass to be cut and removed by the end
of the summer as near as practical ; that he will perform and
do a certain amount of clearing land, consisting of hauling off
logs and trees and brush, and burn the same on a piece of land
commonly called railroad land, as agreed upon by both parties ;
that he will cut off all brush on the old hot water dyke and
destroy the same ; that he will seed down all meadows on said
farm sufficiently to keep the same in good condition and culti-
vation, and will at least once in the year haul all manure pro-
duced on said place and spread it on the meadows and root
fields thereon ; that he will keep all slips, barns and driveways
clear and clean, and will coal tar the silo inside and outside
at least once during the year, the lessor to furnish coal tar at
Astoria ; that he will keep in good order and repair and condi-
tion all buildings, fences, cutters, bridges, dykes, sluice-boxes,
aprons, roadway leading to high land, and the boat landing,
and will at all times keep the boom sticks around said landing
so tied or chained as to protect the same from damage; that
when the materials are provided by the lessor at Astoria there-
for the lessee will haul all necessary lumber for repairing of
fences and buildings; that he will keep clean and in good
order, repair and condition all machinery, implements, tools
and dairy utensils, and especially the manure spreader, and will
oil and clean all the harvest implements before putting them
away for winter, and will once a year at least, wash and oil
all working harness on said farm; that he will, as soon after
harvest as practicable, cut down and burn all weeds and small
brush which has grown up and around the trees and stumps
and along the banks of sloughs in all meadows on said farm,
and that he will cut out and burn or haul all wire grass in
small meadow commonly called Weathers Meadow as soon
after haying as practical ; that he will clear out and keep open
all ditches now on said farm ; that he will keep down and de-
stroy all wire grass and thistles on a piece of land commonly
called railroad land ; that he will haul some planks from old
county road providing same is improved, said planks to be

132 LON L. SWIFT

used on said farm for road and slips or bridges; that in case
line fence has to be constructed between Mrs. I. S. Keeny and
O. I. Peterson place, party of the second part will build O. I.
Peterson's part of the fence, party of the first part to furnish
material at Astoria, Oregon; that he will, if weather permits,
burn up all weeds on dykes on said farm once a year at least ;
that he will allow the lessor and his family to visit and stay
on said farm at and for such time as they shall see fit, and
shall allow the lessor to keep his horse thereon and put the
same in stable with the other horses on the farm at any time.

It is further understood and agreed upon by both parties
that if any of the mares now on farm is bred, each of the
parties is to pay half of the stud fee, and the offspring is to
be owned by both parties, each own half interest of the off-
spring of said mares.

It is further understood and agreed upon by both parties
that party of the second part will take extra good care in
feeding and stabling all the registered Dutch Belted cattle
now on said Sunflower Dairy, or may hereafter be installed
on said place, and the party of the second part will fit them
for the show ring on exhibition at the Oregon State Fair,
both parties to stand the expenses, share and share alike, of
transporting them to the fair grounds and back home again,
and also while on exhibition at the fair grounds.

And it is further understood by both parties that any prizes
in money secured by exhibition of said cattle at said fair is to
be divided share and share alike by both parties.

And it is further understood and agreed by both parties
that any offspring as a result of breeding the registered Dutch
Belted cattle, party of the first part is to own half interest of
such offspring, that the party of the second part will quit and
deliver up to the lessor at the end of or sooner termination of
said term the said premises with the buildings and stock
specified in said schedule in as good order, repair and condi-
tion, reasonable wear and tear and damage to the buildings
only excepted, provided, always, that these presents are upon

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 133

this condition, that if the lessee shall fail, neglect or refuse to
perform any part of the covenants herein contained on his
part to be observed and performed, or if the above rent shall
be in arrears and unpaid for the space of ten days after the
same or any part thereof shall become due, upon the breach
on nonperformance of any of the covenants herein contained
on his part to be observed and performed, the lessor may imme-
diately or at any time thereafter while such default or breach
shall continue, and without further notice or demand, enter
into and upon said premises or any part thereof in the name
of the whole and repossess the same as of his former estate,
and expel the said lessee or those claiming under him, forcibly,
if necessary, without being taken or deemed guilty of trespass,
in any manner and without prejudice to any remedies which
might otherwise be used for arrears of rent or preceding
breach of covenant.

It is also agreed and understood upon by the party of the
second part that this lease is not transferable to any one with-
out the consent of the party of the first part.

In testimony whereof the parties hereto have unto set their
hands and seals the day and year first above written.

Lease and Land Sale Agreement Employed in Klamath

County.

This agreement, made and entered into on this, the sixth
day of April, 1907, between J. Frank Adams, party of the
first part, and H. F. Tolle, party of the second part.

Witnesseth, That the party of the first part, for and in con-
sideration of the sum of $100 to him in hand paid, receipt of
which is hereby acknowledged, and the covenants and agree-
ments of the party of the second part herein contained, agrees
to and with the party of the second part to let him into the
immediate possession and allow him the exclusive use of occu-
pation of the following described premises, to-wit : in Klamath

134 L°N L. SWIFT

County, Oregon, containing 20 acres of land, more or less,
for the full term of five years from January ist, 1907.

And the party of the second part, in consideration of the
aforesaid agreement, hereby agrees to and with the party of
the first part that he will enter upon, occupy and use said
premises for and during said period, and that he will pay or
cause to be paid to the party of the first part, his agents or as-
signs, on or before the 3ist day of January of each and every
year of said term the full sum of sixty dollars ($60.00) lawful
money of the United States, and that he will keep up all nec-
essary fences and other improvements now existingor hereafter
put upon said premises in proper repair, and that he will neither
permit nor commit any waste or strip thereof and will neither
make or permit any unlawful or improper use thereof ; and he
further agrees that in case of neglect or failure on his part to
do or perform all or any of the agreements herein specified to
be by him performed, he will immediately, upon notice and
demand therefor, peaceably and quietly quit and surrender
the possession of said premises, and of the whole thereof, to
said party of the first part, his agents or assigns, and the said
party of the first part shall at any and all times during said
term have the free right to enter thereon to view and inspect
said premises.

And the party of the first part agrees that he will pay or
cause to be paid all taxes levied upon said premises when due,
and that upon performance of the agreements and conditions
above mentioned and the annual payments therein specified,
the party of the second part shall and may peaceably use and
have said premises and the whole thereof during the full
period above stated, and also further agrees that on the pay-
ment of the party of the second part to him of the further
sum of $600 lawful money of the United States on or before
the expiration of said term (with rent as then due), he will
and his heirs, executors, administrators or assigns shall make
or cause to be made, executed and delivered to said party of
the second part, his heirs, executors, administrators or assigns

LAND TENURE IN OREGON. 135

a good and sufficient deed to the whole of said premises con-
veying the same in fee simple, with the appurtenances thereto,
free and clear of all encumbrances except county roads and
existing or resultant obligations to the Klamath Water Users'
Association and the United States of America.

The party of the second part agrees to pay all water rates
assessments or charges during the time he holds said premises
under this agreement levied either by the Klamath Water
Users' Association or the United States under agreements
made by the party of the first part.

In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands and seals
interchangeably in duplicate on this the day and year of this
agreement first above mentioned.

NOTES.

The semi-centennial of the admission of Oregon into the
Union was observed with fitting exercises at the State House
on Monday, February isth. The Legislature joined with the
Oregon Historical Society, which had provided the pro-
gramme. The main address was given by the Hon. Frederick
N. Judson, of the St. Louis bar. Mr. Judson took as his theme
the interrelations between the national affairs during the first
half of the century and the exploration and settlement of the
Oregon country. Judge George H. Williams, who was one
of the leading members of the constitutional convention, be-
ing chairman of the committee on judiciary, also made an
address of remarkable interest, on phases of life in the early
Oregon community. The opening address was made by the
Hon. Frederick V. Holman, President of the Historical
Society.

During the last few months some noteworthy writings on
Northwestern history have appeared. Prof. Edmond S. Meany,
of the University of Washington, is the author of the first
comprehensive account of th^ history of that state from the
first explorations down to the present time. It is published by
the Macmillan Company, and it is being received with much
favor as a work of fine scholarship and dramatic interest. An
exhaustive work of high merit, giving the story of the state
of Washington in four volumes, comes from the pen of Clinton
A. Snowden of Tacoma. The people of Washington are to
be congratulated on having such capable and conscientious
activity devoted to its annals. Mr. Snowden's book is brought
out by the Century History Company of New York.

In Prof. W. D. Lyman, of Whitman College, the Columbia
River (Putnam's) found a sympathetic, enthusiastic and
worthy historian. Professor Lyman's book does not, however,
center upon a systematic, account of the exploration and set-

NOTES 137

tlement of the Columbia River basin by the white man. He
is concerned, rather, with presenting a picture of the Columbia
River country and how it has molded the thought and activi-
ties of its indwellers from earliest mythical eras down to the
present day when the river figures as the great inland water-
way-to-be of an empire. The work throughout has unity and
exceeding charm.

As evidence that historians of note are among our new-
comers we have The Settlement of Illinois (Chicago Historical
Society), by Professor Arthur Clinton Boggess, of Pacific
University, and Beginnings of Texas (University of Texas),
by Professor Robert Carlton Clark, of the University of
Oregon. These are both works of exhaustive research in their
respective fields.

THE QUARTERLY

OF THE

Oregon Historical Society

Volume X SEPTEMBER, 1909 Number 3

[The Quarterly disavows responsibility for the positions taken by contributors to its pages.]

DE SMET IN THE OREGON COUNTRY.

BY EDWIN V. O'HARA.

In the present article the writer intends to present a nar-
rative of the missionary activities of Father DeSmet in the
Oregon Country. A recital of the story of 'this modern
"Apostle of the Nations" can scarcely fail to be of interest at
a time like the present, when the memories of early frontier life
are growing dim and the very names of the pioneers seem to be
borne to us from a distant heroic age. The "Oregon Country"
is selected as the theater of the events we are to recount both
because DeSmet's most effective and permanent work was
accomplished here, and because of the historical and geographi-
cal unity of the territory lying between the Rocky Mountains
and the Pacific Ocean, bounded on the south by the Mexican
Possessions and extending as far north as latitude fifty-four
degrees and forty minutes, a territory known in DeSmet's day
as the "Oregon Country."

The first tidings of the Catholic faith reached the Oregon
Indians through the trappers of the various fur-trading com-
panies who had learned their religion from the pioneer mission-
aries of Quebec and Montreal. Large numbers of Canadian
voyageurs accompanied the expeditions of Lewis and Clark in
1805 and of John Jacob Astor in 1811. This latter expedition
especially — which resulted in establishing at the mouth of the

240 EDWIN V. O'HAJRA

Columbia the first white settlement in Oregon, the present
flourishing city of Astoria — was accompanied by a number of
Catholic Canadians, who. became the first settlers in the Wil-
lamette valley. The piety of these voyageurs may be seen in
the rather unusual fact that the early missionaries on their
arrival found a church already erected.

Another agency instrumental in bringing the faith to the
far west was the Iroquois Indians. These Indians, among
whose tribe the seeds of faith had been sown at an early date
by Father Jogues, were in the employ of the Hudson's Bay
Company at its various forts. The trappers and Iroquois told
the tribes of Oregon of the religion of the Black-robes, taught
them the simple prayers they remembered, inculcated the
observance of Sunday and aroused among them a great desire
to receive the ministrations of the Black-robes. An Iroquois
named Ignace became a veritable apostle to the Flatheads.
Such was the effect of his teaching and example that the Flat-
heads, together with their neighbors, the Nez Perces, sent a
deputation to St. Louis in 1831 to ask for priests.

It was to St. Louis rather than to Montreal that the Indians
turned for assistance, for since the days of the great travelers,
Lewis and Clark, the traders had renewed their relations
annually with that city. The deputation consisted of four
Indians. They found Clark still living in St. Louis. Two of
the company took sick and died after receiving baptism and
the last sacraments. The return of the remaining members of
the deputation is uncertain. They had repeated the Mace-
donian cry, "Come over and help us." The Catholic mission-
ary forces were too weak to respond at once to the appeal. But
the presence of Indians in St. Louis from far distant Oregon
on such a mission was the occasion of a movement with far-
reaching results. The incident was given publicity in the
Protestant religious press, and aroused wonderful enthusiasm
and set on foot perhaps the most remarkable missionary cam-
paign in the history of this country; a campaign which was
fraught with important consequences for Oregon. The Method-

DESMET IN THE OREGON COUNTRY. 241

ists came in 1834 under the leadership of Jason and Daniel
Lee, and Dr. Whitman with Spalding and Gray, of the Ameri-
can Board Mission, arrived at Vancouver in 1836.

But to return to our Flatheads. In 1835 the Flathead
chief Insula went to the Green River rendezvous to meet those
whom he was informed were the Black-gowns. Much to his
disappointment he met, not the priests, but Dr. Whitman and
Rev. Mr. Parker, of the American Board. On reporting his ill-
success it was determined that the old Iroquois Ignace and
his two sons should go in search of missionaries. They met
Bishop Rosati at St. Louis, but were unsuccessful in their
quest. Nothing daunted, they renewed the attempt, and a depu-
tation under young Ignace again reached St. Louis in 1839. It
was on this occasion that DeSmet comes into view for the first
time. Young Ignace and his companions paused at Council
Bluffs to visit the priests at St. Joseph Mission, where Father
DeSmet was stationed.. DeSmet gives us the following rec-
ord of the meeting :

"On the 1 8th of last September two Catholic Iroquois came
to visit us. They had been for twenty-three years among the
nations called the Flatheads and Pierced Noses about a thou-
sand Flemish leagues from where we are. I have never seen any
savages so fervent in religion. By their instructions and ex-
ample they have given all that nation a great desire to have
themselves baptized. All that tribe strictly observe Sunday
and assemble several times a week to pray and sing canticles.
The sole object of these good Iroquois was to obtain a priest
to come and finish what they had so happily commenced. We
gave them letters of recommendation for our Reverend
Father Superior at St. Louis." Father DeSmet could scarcely
have hoped that it should be his privilege to receive these chil-
dren of the forest, who so greatly interested him, into the fold
of Christ.

Meanwhile certain other events transpired that affected the
Oregon Indians. In 1833 the second Provincial Council of
Baltimore petitioned that the Indian missions of the United

242 EDWIN V. O'HARA

States be confided to the care of the Society of Jesus. In
July of the following year the Holy See acceded to the request.
Hence, when the deputation of Indians visited St. Louis and
obtained from Bishop Rosati the promise of missionaries, it
was to the Jesuit Fathers that the Bishop turned for volun-
teers. In a letter to the Father General of the Society in Rome,
under date of October 20, 1839, Bishop Rosati relates in detail
the story of the various journeys of the Indians in search of the
Black-robes and gives us the following interesting account of
young Ignace and his companion, Pierre Gaucher:

"At last, a third deputation of Indians arrived at St. Louis
after a long voyage of three months. It is composed of two
Christian Iroquois. These Indians who talk French have
edified us by their truly exemplary conduct and interested us
by their discourse. The Fathers of the college have heard
their confessions, and today they approached the holy table
at my Mass in the Cathedral church. Afterwards I admin-
istered to them the sacrament of Confirmation ; and in an
allocution delivered after the ceremony, I rejoiced with them
in their happiness and gave them the hope of soon having a
priest."

Father DeSmet, deeply impressed by the visit of young
Ignace, offered to devote himself to the Indian missions. The
offer was gratefully accepted by his Superior and by the Bishop,
and DeSmet set out on his first trip to the Oregon country late
in March, 1840. Past Westport (now Kansas City), he jour-
neyed along the Platte River, through herds of antelope and
buffalo, across the country of the Pawnees and Cheyennes to
the South Pass across Continental Divide. Here, on the 25th
of June, he passed from the waters tributary to the Missouri
to those of the Colorado. "On the 3Oth (of June)", says
Father DeSmet, "I came to the rendezvous where a band of
Flatheads, who had been notified of my coming, were already
waiting for me. This happened on the Green River, a tributary
of the Colorado, it is the place whither the beaver hunters and
the savages of different nations betake themselves every year

DESMET IN THE OREGON COUNTRY. 243

to sell their peltries and procure such things as they need."
On the following Sunday, Father DeSmet assembled the
Indians and trappers for divine worship. In a letter dated
February 4, 1841, he writes: "On Sunday, the 5th of July, I
had the consolation of celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of Mass
sub dio. The altar was placed on an elevation, and surrounded
with boughs and garlands of flowers ; I addressed the con-
gregation in French and in English and spoke also by an in-
terpreter to the Flatheads and Snake Indians. It was a spec-
tacle truly moving for the heart of a missionary, to behold an
assembly composed of so many different nations, who all
assisted at our holy mysteries with great satisfaction. The
Canadians sang hymns in French and Latin, and the Indians
in their native tongue. It was truly a Catholic worship. This
place has been called since that time, by the French Canadians,
la prairie de la Messe."

DeSmet was now in the land of the Shoshones or Snake
Indians. Three hundred of their warriors came into camp at
full gallop. DeSmet was invited to a council of some thirty
of the principal chiefs. "I explained to them," he writes,
"the Christian doctrine in a compendious manner. They were
all very attentive; they then deliberated among themselves for
about half an hour and one of the chiefs, addressing me in the
name of the others, said: 'Black-gown, the words of thy
mouth have found their way to our hearts ; they will never be
forgotten.' I advised them to select among themselves a
wise and prudent man, who every morning and evening, should
assemble them to offer to Almighty God their prayers and
supplications. The meeting was held the very same evening,
and the great chief promulgated a law that for the future the
one who would be guilty of theft, or of other disorderly act,
should receive a public castigation." This was the only occa-
sion on which Father DeSmet met the Snake Indians. His
subsequent trips to Oregon were, with one exception, by a
different route.
After spending a week at the Green River rendezvous,

244 EDWIN V. O'HARA

Father DeSmet and his Flathead guides, together with a
dozen Canadians, started northward across the mountains which
separate the headwaters of the Colorado from those of the
Columbia. They crossed the historic Teton's Pass and came
to the beautiful valley at the foot of the three Tetons, of which
Father DeSmet has left a striking description. In this valley
they found the camp of the Flatheads and of their neighbors,
the Pend d'Oreilles, numbering about 1,600 persons. DeSmet
describes the affecting scene of his meeting with these children
of the wilderness : "The poles were already up for my lodge,
and at my approach, men, women, and children came all to-
gether to meet me, and shake hands and bid me welcome. The
elders wept with joy, while the young men expressed their sat-
isfaction by leaps and shouts of happiness. These good savages
led me to the lodge of the old chief, called in his language,
'Big Face.' He had a truly patriarchal aspect and received me
in the midst of his whole council with the liveliest cordiality.
Then I had a long talk on religion with these honest folk.
I set a schedule of spiritual exercises for them, particularly for
the morning and evening prayers in common and for hours of
instruction."

"One of the chiefs at once brought me a bell to give the
signals, and on the first evening I gathered all the people about
my lodge ; I said the evening prayers, and finally they sang
together, in a harmony which surprised me very much, several
songs of their own composition on the praise of God. This zeal
for prayer and instruction (and I preached to them regularly
four times a day) instead of declining, increased up to the
time of my departure."

DeSmet was wholly astonished at their fervor and regularity
at religious exercises. In speaking of this subject on another
occasion he exclaims: "Who would not think that this could
only be found in a well-ordered and religious community,
and yet it is among the Indians in the defiles and valleys of
the Rocky Mountains." He was likewise astonished at the
innocence of their lives and he has left pages of writing in

DESMET IN THE OREGON COUNTRY. 245

which he extols their virtues, and their docility. It would be
difficult to find a parallel in the history of Christian missions for
this rapid and permanent transformation of a savage tribe into
a Christian community with morning and evening prayers in
common.

The camp gradually moved up the Henry Fork of the
Snake River to Lake Henry, one of the sources of the Columbia
River. Here DeSmet climbed the mountain of the Continental
Divide, whence he was able to see Red Rock Lake, the ultimate
source of the Missouri. "The two lakes," he writes, "are
scarce eight miles apart. I started for the summit of a high
mountain for the better examination of the two fountains
that gave birth to these two great rivers; I saw them falling
in cascades from an immense height ; hurling themselves with
uproar from rock to rock; even at their source they formed
two mighty torrents, scarcely more than a hundred paces
apart. The fathers of the Company who are in missionary
service on the banks of the Mississippi, from Council Bluffs,
to the Gulf of Mexico, came to my mind." And his heart
went out to the nations on the banks of the Columbia to whom
the faith of Christ was yet to be preached. There he en-
graved on a soft stone, this inscription: Sanctus Ignatius,
Patronus Montium, Die Juln 23, 1840. ,

After two months among the Flatheads, DeSmet determined
to return to St. Louis for assistance. He appointed a chief
to take his place, to preside over the devotions and to baptize
the children. He was accompanied by thirty warriors, among
whom was the famous chief, Insula, whose futile trip to the
rendezvous on the Green River in 1835, we have already
mentioned. Father DeSmet reached the St. Louis University
on the last day of the year, 1840. His first missionary journey
to the nations of the Oregon Country had been accomplished
and, like another Paul, he returned rehearsing all the things
that God had done with him, and how he had opened a
door of faith to the Nations.

On the feast of the Assumption, 1841, Father DeSmet had

246 EDWIN V. O'HARA

again penetrated the Oregon Country as far as Fort Hall, on
the Snake River. Fort Hall occupied a large place in early
Oregon history. It was built by Nathaniel Wyeth, in 1834.
Wyeth sold it to the Hudson's Bay Company two years later,
and consequently at the time of DeSmet's visit, it was under
the direction of Dr. John McLoughlin, Chief Factor of the
Hudson's Bay Company in Oregon. The local agent, Ermatin-
ger, was prominent in the service of the Company, and his
courtesy and generosity to DeSmet were only typical of the
treatment accorded to the Catholic missionaries by the gentle-
men of the Hudson's Bay Company, at all of their forts dur-
ing the McLoughlin regime. DeSmet speaks of Ermatinger
in the following terms : "Although a Protestant by birth, this
noble Englishman gave us a most friendly reception. Not
only did he repeatedly invite us to his table, and sell us at
first cost, or at one-third of its value, in a country so remote,
whatever we required; but he also added as pure gifts, many
articles which he believed would be particularly acceptable —
he assured us that he would second our ministry among the
populous nation of the Snakes, with whom he had frequent
intercourse."

When Father DeSmet met the Flatheads at Fort Hall on
this occasion, he was better prepared to minister to their
needs than on his former journey. He was accompanied by
two priests and three brothers. The priests are well known in
the early annals of Oregon. They were Fathers Nicholas
Point and Gregory Mengarini. We shall meet them again
in the course of our narrative. DeSmet had been successful,
too, in securing financial aid for his missions. The Bishops
and clergy of the dioceses of Philadelphia and New Orleans
had responded very generously to his appeal. On reaching
the Bitter Root Valley, the home of the Flathead tribe, DeSmet
was thus enabled to lay the foundations of a permanent mis-
sion. He chose a location on the banks of the Bitter Root
River, about twenty-eight miles above its mouth, between
the site of old Fort Owen and the present town of Stevens-

DESMET IN THE OREGON COUNTRY. 247

ville. St. Mary's Mission has had an eventful history. In
1850 it was closed temporarily, the improvements being leased
to Major John Owen. Not until September, 1866, was the
mission re-opened in charge of the venerated Father Ravalli.
It is today a point of interest for the sight-seer in the Bitter
Root Valley.

While the work of establishing the mission was in progress,
Father DeSmet received a delegation from the Coeur d'Alene
nation. They had heard of his arrival among the Flatheads,
and came to request his services. "Father," said one of them
to him, "we are truly deserving of your pity. We wish to
serve the Great Spirit, but we know not how. We want some
one to teach us. For this reason we make application to
you." Their wish was granted, and the little tribe received
the Christian religion with the same zeal and devotion that
the Flatheads had displayed. The Pend d'Oreilles, too, a
numerous tribe who dwelt in what is now northern Idaho,
welcomed the missionaries, as also did the Nez Perces. Father
DeSmet had little hope of converting the Blackfeet. They are
the only Indians, he writes, of whose salvation we would
have reason to despair if the ways of God were the same as
those of men, for they are murderers, thieves, traitors, and all
that is wicked. Father Point established a mission among
them, but the Blackfeet are pagans even to this day.

In establishing the Rocky Mountain Missions, Father De-
Smet and his companions had constant recourse to the ex-
perience of the Jesuit missionaries among the Indians of
Paraguay. He expressly states that he made a Vade Mecum
of the Narrative of Muratori, the historian of the Paraguay
missions. The field west of the Rocky Mountains suggested
to him many similarities with that among the native races of
South America. The only obstacle to conversion in the one
case as in the other, was the introduction of the vices of the
whites. That alone stood in the way of the ultimate civiliza-
tion of the natives. DeSmet refers to his missions as "re-
ductions," a name borrowed from the South American system

248 EDWIN V. O'HARA

where it refers to the settlements which the missionaries in-
duced their nomadic neophytes to adopt. He directed Father
Point to draw up plans for the mission stations in conformity
with the plans formerly adopted in the missions of Paraguay
and described in detail by Muratori.1

One of the problems that DeSmet had to meet at the out-
set, was that of Indian marriages. He acted on the principle
that there were no valid marriages among the savages, and he
alleges the following reason : "We have not found one, even
among the best disposed, who after marriage has been con-
tracted in their own fashion, did not believe himself justified in
sending away his first wife whenever he thought fit and taking
another. Many even have several wives at the same time.
We are then agreed on this principle, that among them, even to
the present time, there has been no marriage, because they
have never known well in what its essence and obligation
consisted."2 Consequently, immediately after the ceremony
of baptism, the marriage ceremony was performed, after the
necessary instruction had been given. This procedure gave
rise to various interesting situations. "Many who had two
wives, have retained her whose children were the most numer-
ous, and with all possible respect dismissed the other." Father
DeSmet tells of one savage who followed his advice and dis-
missed his youngest wife, giving her what he would have
wished another to give to his sister, if in the same situation,
and was re-united to his first wife whom he had forsaken.

During the closing months of 1841, DeSmet undertook a
journey from the Bitter Root Valley to Fort Colville on the
Columbia. On All Saints Bay he met two encampments of
the Kalispel nation, who were to be a great consolation to
the missionary. The chief of the first camp was the famous
Chalax. Although they had never seen a priest before, they
knew all the prayers DeSmet had taught the Flatheads. This
is a striking illustration of the religious sentiment among

1 See a letter dated St. Mary's, Rocky Mts., 26th Oct., 1841.

2 Letter dated Dec. 30, 1841.

DESMET IN THE OREGON COUNTRY. 249

the Oregon Indians of the interior. Their knowledge
of these prayers is thus explained by DeSmet: "They had
deputed an intelligent young man, who was gifted with a
good memory, to meet me. Having learned the prayers and
canticles and such points as were most essential for salvation,
he repeated to the village all that he had heard and seen. It
was, as you can easily imagine, a great consolation for me to
see the sign of the cross and hear prayers addressed to the
great God and His praises sung in a desert of about three
hundred miles extent, where a Catholic priest had never
been before."

The Kalispels had been visited during the summer by minis-
ters who had attempted to disaffect the minds of the savages
towards the Catholic missionaries. The Indians' natural and
instinctive reverence for the Black-robe, however, soon over-
came the prejudice instilled by the hostile ministers. Interest-
ing light is thrown on the missionary situation at this time by
a private letter of the wife of the leader of the American Board
mission. Mrs. Whitman, writing in 1842, and faithfully re-
flecting the sentiments of her husband, considered that the
interests of the Oregon country hung in the balance with
the "prosperity of the cause of Christ on the one hand and
the extension of the powers and dominion of Romanism on
the other." She continues: "Romanism stalks abroad on
our right hand and on our left, and with daring effrontery,
boasts that she is to prevail and possess the land. I ask, must
it be so? The zeal and energy of her priests are without a
parallel, and many, both white men and Indians, wander
after the beasts. Two are in the country below us and two far
above in the mountains."1 The priests below at Vancouver were
Fathers Blanchet and Demers ; those above were DeSmet and
Point. Narcissa Whitman bears striking testimony to their
zeal and energy. With this letter before us we shall not be
surprised to learn that when Dr. Whitman and his wife were
massacred by the Indians in 1847, n^s co-workers were in a

x From a letter dated Waiilatpu, August 23, 1842.

250 EDWIN V. O'HARA

temper to lay the blame for the outrage at the door of the
Catholic missionaries.

Father DeSmet's journey to Fort Colville led him past the
beautiful Lake Pend d'Oreille and the magnificent forest at
its head. He was an ardent lover of nature and the record
he has left of his impressions on beholding this splendid scene
is typical of his many descriptions of nature. "At the head
of Lake Pend d'Oreille," he writes, "we traversed a forest
which is certainly a wonder of its kind ; there is probably noth-
ing similar to it in America. The birch, elm and beach, gen-
erally small elsewhere, like the toad of La Fontaine that
aimed at being as large as the ox, swell out here to twice
their size. They would fain rival the cedar, the Goliath of
the forest, who, however, looking down with contempt upon
his pitiful companions,

"Eleve aux cieux
Son front Audacieux."

The birch and the beech at its side, resemble large candelabra
around a massive column. Cedars of four and five fathoms in
circumference are here very common. The delicate branches
of these noble trees entwine themselves above the beech and
elm; their fine, dense and evergreen foliage forming an arch
through which the sun's rays never penetrate; and this lofty
arch, supported by thousands of columns, brought to the
mind's eye the idea of an immense temple reared by the
hand of nature to the glory of its author."

He reached Fort Colville about the middle of November, and
received a very hearty welcome from the commandant, Archi-
bald Macdonald. Fort Colville was one of the Hudson's
Bay Company's stations. Macdonald had been in the employ
of the company for many years, having founded Fort Nisqual-
ly, until recently the nominal seat of the present Catholic dio-
cese of Seattle. The reception given to DeSmet at Fort Hall was
repeated at Fort Colville, and our missionary voices the gen-
eral sentiment of his co-workers when he takes occasion of

DESMET IN THE OREGON COUNTRY. 251

Macdonald's hospitality to write, "Whenever one finds the
gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Company, one is sure of a
good reception. They do not stop with demonstrations of
politeness and affability; they anticipate your wishes in order
to be of service to you." Any adequate history of the Cath-
olic missions in Oregon will contain an important chapter deal-
ing with their relations to the Hudson's Bay Company. The
record is the same at Forts Vancouver and Hall, Colville and
Nisqually, Okanogan and Walla Walla, and the rest. No
doubt the influence of Dr. McLoughlin was the determining
factor in the attitude of the Company.

Returning to his mission in the Bitter Root Valley, in Decem-
ber, 1841, with the provisions and implements secured at
Fort Colville, Father DeSmet spent the winter among his
Flathead neophytes. In April, of the following year, he set
out on his first visit to Fort Vancouver and the Willamette
Valley, a journey of a thousand miles. In the course of his
travel on this occasion he evangelized whole villages of Koot-
enais, Kalispels, Coeur d'Alenes, Spokans, and Okanogans,
establishing, in almost every case, the practice of morning and
evening prayers in each village. He found the Coeur d'Alene
camp at the outlet of the great lake which bears their name.
The entire camp turned out to welcome him. An extract from
one of his letters will show how eagerly they listened to his
words : "I spoke to them for two hours on salvation and the
end of man's creation, and not one person stirred from his
place during the whole time of instruction. As it was almost
sunset, I recited the prayers I had translated into their language
a few days before. At their own request I then continued in-
structing the chiefs and their people until the night was far
advanced. About every half hour I paused, and then the
pipes would pass round to refresh the listeners and give time
for reflection." Never did DeSmet experience so much sat-
isfaction among the Indians as on this occasion, and nowhere
were his efforts crowned with greater and more permanent
success. The Coeur d'Alenes have still the reputation of being

252 EDWIN V. O'HARA

the best and most industrious Indians in the Rocky Mountains.

The journey from Fort Colville to Fort Vancouver was
marred by an unfortunate accident. At one of the rapids of
the Columbia, the barge containing DeSmet's effects, capsized,
and all the crew, save three, were drowned. Providentially,
Father DeSmet had gone ashore, intending to walk along the
bank while the bargemen directed the boat through the rapids.

After brief visits at Forts Okanogan and Walla Walla, he
hastened on to Vancouver, where he received a most affecting
welcome from the pioneer Catholic missionaries of the Oregon
Country, Blanchet and Demers. The latter has related how
Blanchet and DeSmet ran to meet each other, both prostrating
themselves, each begging the other's blessing. It was a meet-
ing fraught with important consequences for the Catholic
Church in Oregon.

In his Historical Sketches, Archbishop Blanchet gives us a
few details in addition to those mentioned in DeSmet's Letters,
from which it appears that Father Demers met the Jesuit
missionary at Fort Vancouver, and conducted him to the resi-
dence of the Vicar-General at St. Paul. "Rev. M. Demers
brought him to St. Paul," says the Archbishop; "he spent
eight days with the Vicar-General, sung High Mass on Sun-
day, addressed words of exhortation to the congregation. Of
the Catholic Ladder he said: That plan will be adopted by
the missions of the whole world/ DeSmet returned to Van-
couver with Father Demers, followed a few days later by
Father Blanchet, 'to deliberate on the interests of the great
mission of the Pacific Coast.' " At the conference, it was de-
cided that Father Demers should proceed to open a mission
in New Caledonia (now British Columbia), leaving the Vicar-
General at St. Paul, while DeSmet should start for St. Louis
and Belgium in quest of more workers and material assistance
for the missions of Oregon. Dr. McLoughlin, though not
yet a Catholic, strongly encouraged Father DeSmet to make
every effort to increase the number of Catholic missionaries.
On June 30, 1842, DeSmet bade farewell to his new friends

DESMET IN THE OREGON COUNTRY. 253

at Fort Vancouver, and set out for the East, to secure recruits
and supplies for the Oregon missions.

Twenty-five months elapsed before Father DeSmet returned
again to Fort Vancouver. After visiting many of the chief
cities of Europe, he set sail from Antwerp on the brig In-
fatigable, early in January, 1844, accompanied by four Fathers
and a lay brother of the society, and six Sisters of Notre
Dame de Namur. The Infatigable rounded Cape Horn on the
2Oth of March, 1844, and came in sight of the Oregon coast
on the 28th of July. After a terrifying experience, they
crossed the Columbia bar in safety on the 3ist of July, the
feast of St. Ignatius. Father DeSmet frequently refers to the
"divine pilotage," which brought them unharmed through the
shallow passage and the treacherous breakers. From Astoria,
DeSmet set out for Fort Vancouver in a canoe, leaving his
companions to follow when a favorable wind would permit.
He was received with open arms by Dr. McLoughlin, and by
Father Demers, who was planning to leave shortly for Canada
to secure Sisters to open a school. From Father Demers he
received the good news that the missionaries in the Rocky
Mountains had received a strong re-inforcement from St.
Louis during his absence. The Vicar-General, Father Blanchet,
was at St. Paul when informed of DeSmet's arrival. He im-
mediately set out for Vancouver, bringing a number of his
parishioners with him and traveling all night by canoe.

On the eve of the feast of the Assumption, the newly
arrived recruits for the mission, left Fort Vancouver for St.
Paul. "Our little squadron," says Father DeSmet, "consisted
of four canoes manned by the parishioners of Fr. Blanchet,
and our own sloop. We sailed up the river and soon entered
the Willamette. As night approached, we moored our vessels
and encamped upon the shore. (This must have been within
the limits of the present city of Portland. ) The morning's dawn
found us on foot. It was the festival of the glorious Assump-
tion of the Mother of God. Aided by the nuns, I erected
a small altar. Father Blanchet offered the Holy Sacrifice, at

254 EDWIN V. O'HARA

which all communicated. Finally, the I7th, about eleven
o'clock, we came in sight of our dear mission of Willamette.
A cart was procured to conduct the nuns to their dwelling,
which is about five miles from the river. In two hours we
were all assembled in the chapel of Willamette, to adore and
thank our Divine Saviour by the solemn chanting of the
Te Deum"

On arriving at St. Paul, DeSmet's first care was to seek
a convenient location for what was intended to be the base
of missionary activities in Oregon. The Methodists offered
to sell him their Academy, which they had decided to close.
Ten years had passed since Jason and Daniel Lee founded the
Methodist mission in the Willamette Valley; a large sum of
money had been expended in the enterprise, but as an Indian
mission it was confessedly a failure. Hence it was decided to
suppress it and sell all the property in 1844. Father DeSmet,
however, secured a more advantageous location, where he
laid the foundations of the St. Francis Xavier Mission on the
Willamette.

When winter came on, Father DeSmet was again among
his Indians in the mountains. He re-visited the Sacred Heart
mission, founded among the Coeur d'Alenes by Father Point
in 1842. Leaving the Pointed Hearts, he set out for St.
Mary's mission in the Bitter Root Valley, but was twice
foiled in the attempt by the heavy snows and swollen mountain
torrents. He was thus compelled to pass Christmas, 1844,
among the Kalispels. He gives us an interesting description
of the manner in which the day was passed. He writes : "The
great festival of Christmas, the day on which the little band
(of 144 adults) was to be added to the number of the true
children of God, will never be effaced from the memory of our
good Indians. The manner in which we celebrated midnight
Mass may give you an idea of our festival. The signal for
rising, which was to be given a few minutes before midnight,
was to be the firing of a pistol, announcing to the Indians that
the House of Prayer would soon be open. This was followed

DESMET IN THE OREGON COUNTRY. 255

by a general discharge of guns in honor of the infant Saviour,
and three hundred voices rose spontaneously from the midst
of the forest and intoned in the language of the Pend
d'Oreilles, the beautiful canticle, 'Du Dieu puissant tout an-
nounce la gloire.' A grand banquet, according to the Indian
custom, followed the first Mass. The union, the contentment,
the joy, and the charity which pervaded the whole assembly
might well be compared to the agape of the primitive Chris-
tians." On the same Christmas morning, the entire tribes of
Flatheads and Coeur d'Alenes received Holy Communion in
a body at their respective missions. "The Christmas of 1844,
was therefore," concludes Father DeSmet, "a great and glor-
ious day in the Rocky Mountains."

The paschal time, 1845, Father DeSmet spent among the
Flatheads at St. Mary's mission in the Bitter Root. As the
snow began to disappear with the coming of spring, he
set out for Vancouver, and the mission of St. Francis
Xavier, on the Willamette. He went by canoe down the
impetuous Clark's River, to Father Hoeken's mission of St.
Ignatius, among the Kalispels. After selecting a site for
a new establishment of St. Ignatius, "in the neighborhood of
the cavern of New Manresa and its quarries, and a fall of
water more than two hundred feet, presenting every advantage
for the erection of mills," he hastened to Walla Walla, where
he embarked in a small boat and descended the Columbia
as far as Fort Vancouver.

At Vancouver he found Father Nobili, who ministered dur-
ing the absence of Father Demers to the Catholic employees
of the Fort and to the neighboring Indians. Of his visit to
the Willamette settlement, DeSmet writes: "Father Nobili
accompanied me in a Chinook canoe up the beautiful river of
Multnomah, or Willamette, a distance of about sixty miles,
as far as the village of Champoeg, three miles from our
residence of St. Francis Xavier. On our arrival, all the
Fathers came to meet us, and great was our delight on being
again reunited after a long winter season. The Italian Fathers

256 EDWIN V. O'HARA

had applied themselves chiefly to the study of languages;
Father Ravalli, being skilled in medicine, rendered considerable
services to the inhabitants of St. Paul's mission; Father
Vercruysse, at the request of Right Reverend Bishop Blanchet,
opened a mission among the Canadians who were distant from
St. Paul's. Father DeVos is the only one of our Fathers of
Willamette who speaks English. He devotes his whole at-
tention to the Americans, whose number already exceeded 4,000.
There are several Catholic families and our dissenting brethen
seem well disposed." It was De Vos, who received into the
church a year later, at Oregon City, one of the most dis-
tinguished of the Oregon pioneers, Chief Justice Peter H.
Burnett, afterwards first Governor of California.

Father DeSmet went overland from St. Paul to Walla
Walla, past the foot of Mt. Hood. The trail to The Dalles
was strewed with whitened bones of oxen and horses, which
appealed to our traveler as melancholy testimonies to the
hardships which had been faced by the American immigrants
during the three preceding years. He becomes enthusiastic
about Hood, "with its snowy crest towering majestically up-
ward, and losing itself in the clouds." Leaving Fort Walla
Walla, Father DeSmet traversed the fertile lands of the Nez
Perces and Cayuse Indians, the richest tribes in Oregon. It
was among these Indians that Dr. Marcus Whitman had
established a mission for the1 American Board, and it was here
that the savage and brutal massacre of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman,
in 1847, made the name of the Cayuse Indians ever infamous
in Oregon annals.

Our missionary spent the feast of St. Ignatius, 1845, at
Kettle Falls, in the vicinity of Fort Colville, on the Columbia,
where nearly a thousand savages of the Kalispel nation were
engaged in salmon fishing. He had a little chapel of boughs
constructed on an eminence in the midst of the Indian huts,
and there he gave three instructions each day. The Indians
attended faithfully at his spiritual exercises and he spent the
3ist of July (St. Ignatius' Day) baptizing the savages. He

DESMET IN THE OREGON COUNTRY. 257

recalls that it is just a year since he crossed the Columbia
bar "as if borne on angels' wings," and reviews the work of
the Catholic missions in Oregon during that period with deep
appreciation of the kindly Providence which gave the in-
crease in the field which he had planted.

An interesting incident early in August, 1845, brings Father
DeSmet's views of public affairs to our attention. The "Oregon
Question" was then the all-absorbing theme. While DeSmet
was ascending the Clark River, he had an unexpected inter-
view on this subject. As he was approaching the forest on the
shore of Lake Pend d'Oreille, several horsemen issued from
its depths, and the foremost among them saluted him by name.
On nearer approach, Father DeSmet recognized Peter Skeen
Ogden, one of the leading representatives of the Hudson's
Bay Company. Ogden was accompanied by two English
officers, Warre and Vavasour. DeSmet was alarmed by the
information he. obtained from the travelers regarding the
Oregon question. He writes : "They were invested with
orders from their government to take possession of Cape
Disappointment, to hoist the English standard, and to erect a
fortress for the purpose of securing the entrance of the river
in case of war. In the Oregon question, John Bull, without
much talk, attains his end and secures the most important part
of the country; whereas Uncle Sam loses himself in words,
inveighs and storms ! Many years have passed in debates
and useless contention without one single practical effort to
secure his real or pretended rights."

Some writers have gathered from those expressions that
Father DeSmet was hostile to the claims of our country, and
would have preferred to see the Oregon Country fall under
British sovereignty. This view was given wide circulation
by the Protestant missionaries. For example, Dr. Whitman
writes from Waiilatpu, under date of Nov. 5, 1846: "The
Jesuit Papists would have been in quiet possession of this,
the only spot in the western horizon of America, not before
their own. It would have been but a small work for them

258 EDWIN V. O'HARA

and the friends of the English interests, which they had also
fully avowed, to have routed us, and then the country might
have slept in their hands forever."1 The truth is, of course,
quite the contrary to these representations. What Father De-
Smet feared was that Oregon might be lost to the United
States, at least temporarily, by indecision on the part of our
government.

In a letter to Senator Benton, written in 1849, DeSmet
recounts a conversation which he had with several British
officers on the brig Modeste, before Fort Vancouver, in 1846,
in which his attitude towards the Oregon question is made
clear. The party was discussing the possibility of the Eng-
lish taking possession, not merely of Oregon, but of California
as well. Father DeSmet ventured the opinion that such a
conquest was a dream not easily realized, and went on to
remark that should the English take possession of Oregon
for the moment, it would be an easy matter for the Americans
to cross the mountains and wrest the entire country from
them almost without a blow. On hearing these sentiments,
the captain asked DeSmet somewhat warmly: "Are you
a Yankee?" "Not a born one, Captain," was my reply, "but
I have the good luck of being a naturalized American for
these many years past; and in these matters all my good
wishes are for the side of my adopted country."

Father DeSmet pushed on from Lake Pend d'Oreille,
through dense forests, to the Kootenai River, where he en-
countered a branch of the Kutenai (Kootenai) tribe, which
he calls the Flat-bows. He found them well disposed and
already instructed in the principal doctrines of the Catholic
faith by a Canadian employee of the Hudson's Bay Company.
On the feast of the Assumption (1845), ne celebrated Mass
among them and erected a cross, at the foot of which the
Indians renounced their practices of jugglery and superstition.
The Kutenai tribe furnished another illustration of the marvel-
ous dispositions for faith which Providence had planted in

i Trmnsactiams of tit Oregon Picmeer Association for 1893, pa§« *o«.

DfiSMET IN THE OREGON COUNTRY. 259

the hearts of the Oregon Indians. They remain Catholics to
this day.

In June, 1846, DeSmet was back again at Fort Colville, and
was there joined by Father Nobili, who had just returned from
a missionary journey to Fort St. James, the capital of Ne\«
Caledonia, situated on Stuart Lake. The end of June saw
him at St. Francis Xavier mission on the Willamette. A
few weeks later he was making his way up the Columbia
in an Indian canoe with two blankets unfurled by way of
sails. At Walla Walla he experienced the hospitality of
Mr. McBean, the superintendent of the Fort. Taking fare-
well of Mr. McBean, Father DeSmet visited the Nez
Perces, Kalispels, and Coeur d'Alenes, among whom were
stationed Fathers Hoeken, Joset, and Point. On the feast
of the Assumption, he was again among the Flatheads in the
Bitter Root Valley. St. Mary's mission had prospered, both
materially and spiritually. He found the little log church
which had been erected five years before, about to be replaced
by a large and handsome structure. Another agreeable sur-
prise awaited him. The mechanical skill of Father Ravalli
had erected a flour mill and a saw mill. "The flour mill,"
writes Father DeSmet, "grinds ten or twelve bushels a day and
the saw mill furnished an abundant supply of planks, posts,
etc., for the public and private building of the nation settled
here."

On August i6th, 1846,. Father DeSmet left St. Mary's
mission in the Bitter Root and reached the University of St.
Louis, December 10. His missionary work in Oregon was at
an end. His biographers, summing up this period of his
career, write as follows: "The results of his labors from
a missionary point of view, were highly successful. The
whole Columbia valley had been dotted with infant establish-
ments, some of which had taken on the promise of permanent
growth. He had, indeed, laid the foundation well for a
spiritual empire throughout that region, and but for the ap-
proach of emigration, his plans would have brought forth

26b EDWIN V. O'HARA

the full fruition that he expected. But most important of
all, from a public point of view, was the fact that he had
become a great power among the Indian tribes. All now
knew him, many personally, the rest by reputation. He was
the one white man in whom they had implicit faith. The
government was beginning to look to him for assistance. The
Mormon, the Forty-niner, the Oregon emigrant, came to him
for information and advice. His writings already known
on two continents and his name was a familiar one, at least
in the religious world."1

Father DeSmet paid two subsequent visits to the scenes of
his missionary labors in Oregon. The first of these visits was
occasioned by the Indian outbreak in 1858, known as the
Yakima war. The savages, viewing with alarm the en-
croachments of the whites upon their lands, formed a league to
repel the invaders. Even the peaceful Flatheads and Coeur
d'Alenes joined the coalition. The United States Govern-
ment sent General Harney, who had won distinction in sev-
eral Indian wars, to take charge of the situation. At the
personal request of General Harney, Father DeSmet was
selected to accompany the expedition in the capacity of chap-
lain. Their party reached Vancouver late in October, 1858.
The news of the cessation of hostilities and the submission
of the Indians had already reached the fort. But the Indians,
though subdued, were still unfriendly, and there was constant
danger of a fresh outbreak. The work of pacification was
still to be effected. Upon this mission, DeSmet left Vancouver,
under orders of the commanding general, to visit the mountain
tribes some 800 miles distant.

He visited the Catholic soldiers at Fort Walla Walla, and
there met Father Congiato, superior of the missions, from
whom he received favorable information concerning the dis-
positions of the tribes in the mountains. By the middle of
April, 1859, Father DeSmet had revisited practically all the
tribes among whom he had labored as a missionary. On April

i Chittenden and Richardson, Vol. i, page 57.

DESMET IN THE OREGON COUNTRY. 261

1 6, he left the mission of St. Ignatius, among the Pend
d'Oreilles to return to Fort Vancouver. He was accompanied,
at his own request, by the chiefs of the different mountain
tribes, with the view of renewing the treaty of peace with
the General, and with the Superintendent of Indian affairs.
The successful issue of Father DeSmet's mission is seen from
a letter of General Harney, dated Fort Vancouver, June i,
1859. He writes: "I have the honor to report, for the in-
formation of the General-in-chief, the arrival at this place of
a deputation of Indian chiefs, on a visit suggested by my-
self through the kind offices of the Reverend Father DeSmet,
who has been with these tribes the past winter. These chiefs
have all declared to me the friendly desires which now animate
them towards our people. Two of these chiefs — one of the
upper Pend d'Oreilles, and the other of the Flatheads — re-
port that the proudest boast of their respective tribes, is the
fact that no white man's blood has ever been shed by any one
of either nation. This statement is substantiated by Father
DeSmet. It gives me pleasure to commend to the General-
in-Chief, the able and efficient services the Reverend Father
DeSmet has rendered." Having fulfilled his mission, DeSmet
secured his release from the post of chaplain and returned
to St. Louis, visiting a score of Indian tribes on the way. It
is typical of him that he should have planned, despite his three
score years, to cover the entire distance from Vancouver to
St. Louis on horseback — a project which he was regretfully
compelled to abandon because of the unfitness of his horses
for so long a journey.

Once more, in 1863, DeSmet traversed the "Oregon Coun-
try," renewing his acquaintances with the various missions and
enjoying the hospitality of the three pioneer bishops of the
province, at Portland, Vancouver, and Victoria.

DeSmet's missionary labors in Oregon had come to a close
before the arrival of Bishop A. M. A. Blanchet in the Pacific
Northwest. But Archbishop Blanchet and Bishop Demers
were co-apostles with him in this new corner of the Lord's

262 EDWIN V. O'HARA

vineyard, and with him had borne the burden of the pioneer
work. Now, however, the pioneer days were over, and De-
Smet as he set sail from Portland on the I3th day of October,
1863, could bear witness to the altered aspect of the country.
But with all the signs of progress about him, there was one
undeniable feature of the situation which brought sadness
to his heart. The Indian tribes for whom he had labored
with such apostolic zeal, the children of the forest, whose
wonderful dispositions for Christian faith and Christian virtue
had been his consolation and his glory, were doomed. The
seed of the Gospel, which he had sown, had taken root and
sprung up and was blossoming forth with the promise of an
abundant harvest when the blight came. The white man was
in the land. The Indian envied his strength and imitated his
vices and fell before both. "May heaven preserve them from
the dangerous contact of the whites!" was DeSmet's last
prayer for his neophytes as he bade farewell to the "Oregon
Country."

THE FINANCIAL HISTORY OF THE STATE
OF OREGON'

Acknowledgment is made of assistance received from the
Carnegie Institution of Washington in preparation of this
study.

PART ONE.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.

On the first Monday in June, 1857, the people of Oregon
Territory by a vote of nearly five to one decided to have a con-
stitutional convention. Congress had passed no enabling act
but this Oregon community of some 45,000 people, in the far-
outlying and then isolated Pacific Northwest, had at divers
times been under the necessity of acting independently and
without express leave granted at Washington. The people of
this territory had shown considerable facility in community
achievement of a political character and some disposition to
have their own way2. Congress, on the other hand, was at

1 For an account of the "Finances of the Provisional Government" of Oregon
see Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, volume vii, pp. 360-432; volume
viii, pp. 129-190, contains an article on "The Finances of the Territory of Oregon".

2 The original nucleus of this settlement had in 1843 quite independently
organized its "provisional government," the first American political organization
west of the Rocky Mountains. This it reorganized and elaborated in 1845 and
maintained in a good state of efficiency until superseded by a territorial govern-
ment in 1849. In the fall and winter of 1847 it had been under the necessity of
conducting a campaign against the tribes of Indians who were harboring the per-
petrators of the "Whitman Massacre." (For an account of the financial manage-
ment of this war, see Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, volume vii,
pp. 418-432). In 1855-6 the territory with but slight aid from the troops of the
national government had waged successful war against a powerful combination of
the tribes of the Pacific Northwest.

264 F. G. YOUNG

this time embroiled with the issue of the restriction or exten-
sion of slave territory and had its hands pretty well tied when
it came to the task of passing enabling acts.

On this matter, however, of moving for admission as a
state the people of Oregon had never manifested any enthusi-
asm. The politicians among them had not failed to start the
agitation of the question at the earliest possible moment and
to keep persistently at it. The question of the formation of a
state government was brought up in the first session of the
legislative assembly of the territory in 1849. The subject was
discussed at each succeeding session thereafter and in 1854
the promoters of the movement succeeded in getting the
proposition submitted to a vote of the people. Then a vote
was had regularly each year until a majority in favor of a
convention was secured in 1857.'

The Anticipated Financial Burden of the Support of a
State Government the Main Cause of the Reluctance of the
People to Support the Movement for the Formation of a
Constitution.

Under the provisional government of the forties the older
settlers had had sufficient experience in supporting the ma-
chinery of a commonwealth government to serve as a basis for
suggesting to them the additional burdens involved in the
exchange of the territorial for a state government. Under
their territorial government they were receiving some $32,000
a year for the salaries of their officials. Special appropri-
ations for public buildings and the territorial library made
the average annual receipts of funds from Washington nearly
double this sum.2 The flow of this stream of wealth to Ore-
gon would be arrested as soon as they passed out of the status
of a territory into that of a commonwealth, and another vol-

1 House Journal, First Session, p. 13, July 13, 1849; General Laws, Third
Session, 1851-2, Jan. 20, 1852, pp. 62-3; House Journal i4th Session, 1853, Jan.
15, p. 104.

2 Quarterly Oregon Historical Society, "Finances of the Territorial Period,
i849-59»" PP- I4I-IS4-

FINANCES IN OREGON. 265

ume of funds — one of ever growing proportions — must then
originate from their own pockets. They alone would be re-
sponsible for the pay of their state officials and the mainte-
nances of their state institutions.

The desires and activities of the few who aspired to official
position were clearly back of the sustained movement for
statehood, while the evident reluctance of the people to assume
the financial burdens involved in the support of the machinery
of a state government is as evident in their repeated rejec-
tions of the proposal to hold a constitutional convention.
However, after eight years of virtually continuous agitation
and three refusals to take the initial step towards statehood,
the people yielded to the importunities of the politicians.1

There, too, were compensations to be hoped for under state-
hood. With administrative and judicial officers of their own
choosing their common purposes might be more readily real-
ized. But a more substantial interest in statehood had just
been created through the accumulation of claims to the extent
of some two millions they had against the national govern-
ment because of services and supplies furnished in carrying on
the Indian war of 1855-6. A full state delegation of three
members at Washington in place of one territorial delegate
could naturally be more effective in securing the recognition
of this claim as well as avail for securing the benefit of the
regular internal improvement land grants as also additional
grants to stimulate railway building, such as the states of the
Mississippi valley were at this time receiving.

It can hardly be said that the Oregon people in pushing
towards statehood evinced a clearly defined purpose which they
proposed to realize through this more independent organiza-
tion. The natural desire for the larger degree of autonomy
it would secure was reason enough of course. Aside from
that the proposed transition had suggestions of a trade in it:

i "Really the people were worn out by the incessant importunities of the self-
seeking politicians and obtained an easement by giving 5593 majority in favor of a
constitutional state government." — T. W. Davenport in Ore. Hist. Quart., vol.
ix., p. 243.

266 F. G. YOUNG

The easy conditions but narrow outlook of a territorial status
were exchanged for some immediately expected substantial
perquisites of statehood — the heavier taxes to follow were yet
below the horizon.

The Oregon community that thus resolved for a consti-
tutional convention lived comfortably, if frugally, on the re-
turns from agriculture and grazing. Their few outlying min-
ing camps and the great mining center in the neighboring state
of California, with which they had extensive and profitable
trade relations, supplied them with a fair market and an
abundant medium of exchange. Still the conditions among
a handful of people so isolated from the rest of the world
were necessarily primitive. Development through immigra-
tion would be slow. Profitable commerce would be restricted
to a few staples. Under these circumstances wisdom would
suggest utmost simplicity in political organization, the closest
restriction of the scope of governmental activities and the
limitation of expenditure in any direction to very modest
sums.

Furthermore, the exodus to Oregon from the then young
states of the Mississippi valley had followed close on the dis-
astrous venture of those states in public canal and railway
building. That set-back for these states had in a measure been
the cause impelling the more restless spirits to move on across
the plains. Many before leaving for the Pacific slope had no
doubt at one time or another been touched by the evils attend-
ing the use of state and private banks of issue when those evils
were most unchecked. In their new home even they had ex-
perienced a cycle of prosperity and stagnation. They were thus
fully sobered. There was little in prospect to stimulate them to
discount the future. The future was secure enough but it
would be slow. We must expect them in framing and adopt-
ing a constitution to exhibit the full force of the reaction
against the assumption by the state of the work of providing
internal improvements and conducting state banking insti-
tutions. Even the power accorded the legislature over their
purse strings would be carefully guarded.

FINANCES OF OREGON. 267

CHAPTER II.

FINANCES IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION — ATTITUDE
AND IDEAS EXPRESSED IN THE DEBATES ON FINANCIAL
MATTERS.

The constitutional convention was composed of representa-
tive men of the territory. It was efficiently officered, de-
veloped no serious factional spirit and maintained a deliber-
ative procedure throughout its sessions so that its discussions
and the document it submitted to the people for their ratifi-
cation may be taken as fairly reflecting the public will on
matters financial.

The regulation of the finances of the future state figured
in the discussions of the convention in a decidedly one-sided
way. There was at all times the keenest anticipation of the
burden involved in supporting the proposed commonwealth
organization, with but little or no realization of the possi-
bility of lightening this load either by better adjustment in
improved systems of taxation and treasury administration, or
by increasing the financial strength to carry the load that
the right use of a state organization might afford.

The regular list of standing committees of the convention
contained none on Finance. The convention seemed "to fight
shy" of the subject as a wholly unpleasant one, and it was
quite oblivious of the resources in rightly ordered financial
arrangements. No committee on finance was provided for
until more than three-fourths of the term of the convention
had expired. This committee on finance reported its article
within three days after its membership had been announced.
Its report elicited no discussion and was adopted without
even having been taken up in the committee of the whole.1

i The motion for the appointment of such a committee was first made on Sep-
tember 9, its membership was announced on September 10 and reported on Sep-
tember 13. The convention convened on August 17 and adjourned on Septem-

• *

268 F. G. YOUNG

There were provisions pertaining to finance incorporated in
other articles of the constitution, notably in that containing
the bill of rights and in one on corporations and internal im-
provements. All these taken together determined the nature
of the financial system the state must of necessity develop. The
general character of that system will be sketched presently.

The records of the deliberations of the convention clearly
indicate that a consciousness of the necessity of closest econ-
omy was present in the minds of the great majority to a
degree as to make it of the nature of an obsession. The sup-
port of a political establishment comprising all the features of
an American state by less than fifty thousand widely scattered
people was a pretentious undertaking. The disposition to
simplify for economy's sake, to consolidate offices that older
states had kept distinct and that should be so held, to reduce
salaries to a minimum, so dominated the attitude taken by
the great majority on every proposition as to draw from the
president of the convention about the middle of its work the
following querulous remark:

"Every question which comes up here is first discussed on
the ground of its expense — as though a government could be
devised without expense."

The suggested consolidations of offices seriously considered
by the convention included the making of the governor also
the treasurer, and the county judge also county treasurer.
Some would have limited the county board to the county judge
and others urged the elimination of the grand jury through
the substitution of examinations before a magistrate for pre-
sentment by grand jury. Among the consolidations effected
were the making of the governor superintendent of public
instruction, the circuit judges justices of the supreme court
and the county clerk also clerk of the circuit court.

Other manifestations of this ever present consciousness of
the necessity of the strictest limitation of the cost of the pro-
posed state government are seen in the recurrent and pro-
tracted discussions of the salary schedule. It went without

FINANCES OF OREGON. 269

saying that there should be a hard and fast constitutional limi-
tation of all salaries. To the legislature was entrusted the
naming of the salaries only of the county officials and of those
connected with offices that might later be created.1

The concern for keeping the burden of the support of the
state government light is evident in the proposal to definitely
defer the time before which the erection of a state house should
not begin. The date for the utilization of the University fund
was placed ten years in the future. The proposal to divert this
fund to common school purposes and thus avoid the line of
public expenditure for higher education had strong champion-
ship. Participation in activities for internal improvement either
by the state or local governments was rigidly denied and the
use of public credit by either the state or local governments
was closely limited. The employment of a convention stenog-
rapher to keep an official record of the debates was dispensed
with on account of the expense it would have involved. The
"pay as you go" and "hard cash" rule of business practice was
enjoined in the prohibition of all banking activities for the
circulation of instruments of credit. The strongest consider-
ation with them against the unlimited liability of stockholders
in corporations was the fear that such discouragement of cor-
porate enterprise would lead in the end as it had in Missouri
and other states to an irresistible demand to guarantee the
loans of transportation companies by the state and local gov-
ernments.

The spirit of the convention as evidenced by its discussions
as well as by the document submitted to the people was en-
tirely of the safe and sane order. It was profiting from the
disastrous experience of the states of the Middle West during
the generation preceding in their state canal and railway build-
ing and wildcat banking excesses. There was a strong dispo-

i "The salaries were fixed at a very low figure for the time in the constitution
because the leading men in the convention were over-anxious to commend the con-
stitution to their parsimonious constituents and thereby secure its adoption. But
for special efforts of a few, the salaries would have been fixed twenty-five per
cent below what they are." — Daily Oregonian, Oct. 8, 1870.

270 F. G. YOUNG

sition to limit the debt contracting power of municipalities
even to an amount equal to their revenue for one year. It was
recognized, however, that they must normally have recourse
to credit in the construction of public works and so the "pay
as you go" maxim was departed from with reference to them
to the extent of requiring legislatures in granting municipal
charters to restrict their powers of taxation and of contracting
debts. There was only one suggestion to make an exception
to the policy of withholding state credit from enterprises for
internal improvement and that was a proposal to aid a railway
connecting Oregon with California. It was summarily re-
jected.

FINANCES OF OREGON. 271

CHAPTER III.

SALIENT FEATURES OF OREGON'S SYSTEM OF FINANCE AS
CONDITIONED BY THE FINANCIAL PROVISIONS OF HER STATE
CONSTITUTION AND BY THE SPIRIT WITH WHICH THESE
HAVE BEEN USED.

The temper of the constitutional convention was for closely
restricting the power of the legislature in financial matters.
There was little or no apprehension of the danger in this rigid
prescription. Specifically, fixed salaries, absolute limitations of
the use of credit except for public defense, and rigidly deter-
mined methods of taxation were among the financial features
embodied in the constitution.

The members of the convention were clear on what not to
do and on what not to have in a financial system ; but the
absence of all discussion O'f financial topics, except those of
the salaries and of the use of public credit, seems to indicate
a pretty complete lack of constructive ideas pertaining to
finance. Nevertheless, with the starting of the machinery of
state government taxation and public expenditure must begin.
To live the state government had to have support. Some
financial system had to* be evolved having conformity to the
constitutional restrictions. And as the financial provisions of
the constitution were retained unchanged for nearly fifty
years it is worth while to get in mind the salient features of
the system these determined.1

The phraseology though specific of this enduring consti-
tution does not, however, alone suffice as the cue for ascer-
taining the characteristics of Oregon's financial system. The
genius of the people needs also to be taken into account as it
exhibits itself in progressive legislative enactment, in adminis-

i Through initiative enactment cities and towns were given exclusive power to
enact and amend their charters June 4, 1906.

272 F. G. YOUNG

trative devices and in the decisions of her supreme court as
they do or do not yield in their constructions to the changing
demands of social welfare. The financial methods and activi-
ties of Oregon have for half a century thus had their develop-
ment within a restraining mold constituted by an unchanged
set of constitutional provisions, except as through legislative
enactment elaboration may have resulted and as judicial inter-
pretation may have here and there permitted modification.

Just how then has this constitution affected the development
of Oregon's financial code and practice in some of the more
vital matters?

Taxation — The constitution required "a uniform and equal
rate of assessment and taxation" and "a just valuation for
taxation of all property," excepting such only for municipal,
educational, literary, scientific, religious or charitable pur-
poses as may be specifically exempted by law. These pro-
visions tied the hands of the legislature so that, aside from
such systems of licensing as might be elaborated, only the gen-
eral property tax was available for any and all revenues for
state and local needs.1

All the property of each taxing jurisdiction must under
these provisions bear the levies for all the different public
needs in that jurisdiction. State, county, municipal, school
and road taxes are imposed in a cumulative levy upon each
and all of the different forms of property of each jurisdiction.
The state has had distinct sources of revenue (but mainly of
recent development) in the inheritance tax, insurance licenses
and tax on net premiums, general corporation fees and licenses
and minor miscellaneous sources. But these have sufficed to
supply only a small, though increasing, fraction of its needs.

The valuations made by the county assessors have thus,
except during the brief period recently while an expenditure
basis of apportionment of state taxes was used, determined the
quotas of the respective counties in their contributions to
the state treasury. The county assessor and his deputies felt

i Governor's message, 1907, p. 6.

FINANCES OF OREGON. 273

the full force of the motive to relieve through low assessments
his county from it fair share of the burden of state taxes.

The evils connected with the under-valuation incident to
the use of the general property tax for state and local reve-
nues Oregon has had in common with other states. A climax
was reached in 1901. Then recourse was had to an expendi-
ture basis of apportionment of state taxes. The dispensing
with the valuation basis was followed with most salutary
results. Approximation to a full cash value assessment was
not attained immediately, nor did some counties do as well as
others. After the use of a modified form of the expenditure
basis of apportionment some six years its constitutionality was
called into question. The language of the constitution was
held to forestall the use of it.

But the worst iniquities perpetrated through taxation in
Oregon must not be laid at the door of the constitution. A
vain effort to avoid double taxation and to shield the debtor
was long persisted in. The latter years during which the
law for the exemption for indebtedness was in force wit-
nessed most heinous procedures in tax-dodging. The lan-
guage of the constitution did not impose upon the legislature
the enactment of exemption laws and yet avoidance of double
taxation and exemption for indebtedness were aims wholly
in harmony with the constitutional injunction to tax all prop-
erty at a uniform and equal rate. Both are impracticable and
have led to results essentially vicious.

Because of a lack of legislative initiative the general prop-
erty tax was retained in its most primitive form. Local
assessment of all forms of property of general situs was the
exclusive rule until but a few years ago. In 1906 a gross
earnings tax on car, express, telegraph and telephone compa-
nies was substituted for a locally assessed property tax. The
legislative assembly of 1909 finally provided for a state tax
commission to assess other transportation companies.

No attempt has ever been made to classify the different
forms of property for the purpose of applying different rates

274 F. G. YOUNG

or using a different species of tax. This was forestalled either
by an implicit faith in the salutariness of the uniformity rule
or a slavish deference to the letter of the constitution. An
attempt to commute taxes from railway companies, for services
they might be called upon to render in carrying troops and
muntions of war, was balked by an adverse decision. The
measure was held to violate "the equality and uniformity"
requirement.1 On the other hand attempts to use the consti-
tutional provisions as a means to block special assessments for
the securing of public improvements were not sustained by the
courts. So long as the assessments did not exceed the benefits
accruing to the property and were in proportion to the benefits
derived, the court held the uniformity and equality require-
ment not traversed.2 The supreme court of the state has had
to pass, too, upon the question as to v/hether varying total
levies for all purposes in different taxing jurisdictions were
not in violation of the constitutional restrictions requiring an
equal rate.3

Exemptions — The attitude toward the constitutional pro-
visions pertaining to the matter of exemptions has striking
illustration. The constitution provides that property "only for
municipal, educational, literary, scientific, religious or chari-
table purposes" * * * "may be specially exempted by law."
notwithstanding the fact that the legislature was subject to
these explicit constitutional restrictions and had no warrant
for relieving a certain minimum amount of property of each
tax-payer, yet such exemption was provided for by law during
the whole period of statehood down to 1900, when the con-
stitutionality of the law was called into question and the
practice ceased only to be resumed under another statute.4

Salaries — While the taxation clauses of the constitution
have held the main features of Oregon's system of taxation

1 Hogg v. Mackay, 23 Ore. 339.

2 Kadderly v. Portland, 44 Ore. 118.

3 East Portland v. Multnomah Co., 6 Ore. 62.

4 Laws Special Session 1903, p. 29.

FINANCES OF OREGON. 275

as in a vise the salary clauses have from the beginning been
quite completely ignored. The intent of the makers of the
constitution in specifically naming the sum to be received by
each of the different state officials whose offices were created
by the constitution, with no authority granted to the legisla-
ture to change, is clear. Furthermore, these officials "shall
receive no fees or perquisites whatever for the performance of
any duties connected with their respective offices."1 These con-
stitutional provisions pertaining to salaries were flouted.
Twice the regular procedure was followed in attempting to
increase these salaries each time the amendments proposing
the increase were lost at the polls.2 Nothing daunted, the
legislatures added special compensations when additional ad-
ministrative duties were developed and allowed the collection
and retention of fees galore ; but finally in 1905 a "flat salary"
law was passed naming a sum "in lieu of all salaries, fees,
commissions and emoluments" then received.3 What the fate
of this law will be if tested in the courts is uncertain. In this
connection I am concerned only with the influence of the con-
stitution upon the salaries. The economy (or rather lack of
economy) of the fee system long maintained in connection with
the state offices will be discussed when the salient character-
istics of Oregon's system as a whole are examined.

Internal Improvements — Public corporate participation in
internal improvement was tabooed. Enterprise by private cor-
porations even was strongly deprecated by not a few of the
leaders in the convention. The ideal of the convention was
ultra-individualistic. The document it framed gave no license
for participation by the state government, or by any munici-
pality that might be created under it, in any industrial or
commercial activity. The contracting of public indebtedness,

1 Article XIII.

2 The proposed amendment of 1864 provided for granting to the Legislature
authority "to alter or modify" salaries; that of 1872 provided for specific "flat"
salaries. Memorials and Resolutions, 1864, p. 15, and Session Laws 1872, p. 216.

3 Session Laws, 1905, p. 133.

276 F. G. YOUNG

loaning of credit or investment in corporate securities by
public corporations was either absolutely denied or so nar-
rowly and securely limited as to amount to absolute prohi-
bition.1 The lessons taught by the results of the rash public
participation in internal improvements by many of the states
and municipalities of the Middle West in the preceding
decades were still fresh in the minds of those who emigrated
to the Pacific coast. The simple life of the frontier, too, had
become habitual and almost endeared to most. It had been
the condition of their fathers and of their fathers' fathers as
they had made up the van from the first of the westward move-
ment. They looked askant at the disturbing innovations pro-
duced by canals, railways, banks and large scale manufactures.
Indicative of this position are the following expressions made
on the floor of the convention while the motion to make the
stockholders of all corporations "individually liable for all
debts and liabilities of such corporations" was under con-
sideration :

Mr. Boise, chairman of the standing committee on legis-
lation, said, "I heard it once remarked by the man who is
known as 'the learned blacksmith' (Elihu Burritt), who came
up to the place where I was residing in Massachusetts, in the
midst of these corporations (and with them I am familiar — •
and heard their bells morning, noon, and night, from year to
year), he said to me he had visited England, and he said he
believed that these corporations were the ruin of humanity
in Europe. He had taken a great deal of interest in the com-
mon schools, and in the intellectual growth of the country,
and had paid attention to these subjects, he said that he be-
lieved that in this country the corporations — these stimulants
to wealth — were to be the bane and curse of the country. That
the people of Massachusetts and the people of New England
had fallen from the ancient dignity which they once had; that
there was not now in Massachusetts that intellectual power

i Article XI, sections 5-10.

FINANCES OF OREGON. 277

and strength of mind and moral force, that there was in it
before the corporations had drawn off from the healthful pur-
suits of the country life, the young women of the country.
And I believe, Mr. Chairman, that he was right."

Mr. Deady, president of the convention and mover of the
motion under discussion, said, "A great deal has been said
about bringing capital into the country and encouraging enter-
prise. How much better will we be off then than now ? Con-
trast your own condition with the countries that have manu-
factories scattered over them. They have millions of wealth,
and millions of poor human beings degraded into the condition
of mere servants of machinery, overtasked and overworked,
and seething in misery and crime from the age of puberty to
the grave. Enter in imagination if you will one of those giant
factories, so common in old England or in New England. See
that hive of human beings with scarcely room to breathe,
keeping time to the revolutions of the never ceasing unwearied
machinery, and notice the sunken eye, and the collapsed chest,
and the mournful sense of servitude legible on every limb.
Contrast their condition with the condition of your people,
breathing the pure air, with the canopy of heaven for venti-
lator, and then tell me with whom is the preference? Every
one must admit that the preference is with us. And why?
It is with us simply for the reason that we yet retain our indi-
vidual independence, and have not become absorbed by these
institutions which dwarf the energies of the body and the
soul. I am not in favor of encouraging a fungus growth of
improvement in this country."

While provisions for the unlimited liability of the individual
stockholder was not incorporated in the constitution a very
strong array of inhibitions to prevent the use of public funds
for corporations for internal improvement was put in. And
yet new conditions developed a new attitude, and led to a
different policy though the old constitutional provisions remain.
In 1870, state bonds were voted for a canal and locks com-
pany. Anticipated proceeds from the internal improvement

278 F. G. YOUNG

land grant were pledged to the payment of the principal and
interest of these bonds, so that the measure was not counted
as a violation of the provision forbidding the loaning of the
credit of the state. The legislature (1909) registered the
widest departure from the constitutional and traditional policy.
Several municipalities were created for harbor improvement
purposes, authorized to contract indebtedness if sanctioned by
popular vote. This legislature also submitted to the people an
amendment providing that the "state, or any county, munici-
pality or railroad district, may pledge its credit," to create
a fund for the purchase, or construction, or operation of rail-
roads or other highway within the state.1

Financial Legislation and Treasury Administration — The
almost complete silence on matters pertaining to financial leg-
islation and treasury administration in the convention should
prepare us for careless policies and practices along these lines.
During two bienniums, the machinery of the state government
and its institutions had to make shift to run without the
passage of appropriation bills.2 Not until 1905 was any atten-
tion given to the matter of loaning the surplus state funds ;3
and not until the last session of the legislature were the steps
taken to develop a budgetary procedure for adequate pre-
paration and early introduction of appropriation bills.4

The annals of Oregon legislation betray the all-too-common
dominance, to a blighting degree, of partisan interests in which
the hope of spoils or purely personal allegiance was the con-
trolling motive. It was the recurrence of this to a sickening
frequency that impelled the people to the extreme of most
radical methods of direct legislation. Subjected time and
again to witnessing the spectacle of seeing the members of
their legislative assemblies converted into coteries for the
advancement of the interests of this or that candidate for the

1 Session Laws, 1909, pp. 484-5.

2 1868 and 1897-99.

3 Session Laws, 1907, pp. 248-254.

4 Session Laws, 1909, pp. 484 and 491-2.

FINANCES OF OREGON. 279

United States Senate, while financial legislation was either
ignored or made the pawn of personal politics, it was not
unnatural that they should turn to the device of the popular
election of their representatives in the upper house of Con-
gress.

Public Domain — Oregon received liberal grants of public
lands. The constitutional provisions pertaining to the disposi-
tion of them were in entire accord with those controlling the
matter of internal improvements. Here too a let-alone policy
toward the work of internal improvements was provided for.
The proceeds of the 500,000 acre grant, as well as the pay-
ments of five per cent of the net proceeds from the sale of
public lands in Oregon by the national government, were to
be diverted to the common school fund, if Congress would
consent. This fine spirit for the up-building of the youth of
the state was not sustained so as to bring full consummation
for this purpose. To be sure Congress was slow in granting
permission, but I fear its tardiness was due mainly to the fact
that the matter was not followed up. Only the more recent
remnants of these funds reached the common school fund.
The commercial motive overcame the educational in the early
seventies.

In entrusting the selection and sale of the lands of the
state, and the care of the funds from them, to a board con-
sisting of the governor, secretary of state, and state treasurer,
the makers of the constitution no doubt believed that they
had executed a fine stroke. It gave these officials some sub-
stantial work to do during the infancy of the state. On that
score, the constitutional arrangement was justified, but on
other grounds it was to cost dearly, and prove a penny-wise-
pound-foolish arrangement. It assigned specialized work to
political officials elected with reference to fitness for quite
different duties. Nor has the vital interest embodied in the
different state lands, until quite recently, been placed more
permanently in the care of specialists. As the state developed
and their distinctive duties engrossed the attention and ener-

28o F. G. YOUNG

gies of the state officials, the state's land business was turned
over with but slight supervision to irresponsible clerks.

One looks in vain in the constitutional debates and during
the whole course of legislation on the public domain for some
recognition cof far reaching commonwealth interests centered
in it. Conversion into private ownership, mainly at nominal
prices, was the governing motive. "The actual settler," and
small holdings were encouraged, but never effectually. It
must be said that during the first three decades of Oregon's
statehood the problem of conserving the patrimony of the
Oregon people in their public lands was an exceedingly dif-
ficult one. But just when, in the later eighties, it became very
clear what the situation called for, the bars were let down and
the looting began.

FINANCES OF OREGON. 281

PART TWO

OREGON'S SYSTEM OF STATE REVENUES.

CHAPTER I.
TAXATION.

State governmental activities in Oregon have been sup-
ported through revenues derived from the following sources :

1. Taxation, including license charges imposed upon in-
surance companies, and more recently upon corporations in
general.

2. Sales of public lands and from loan of proceeds.

3. State loans.

4. Minor miscellaneous activities.

Taxation has uniformly been the main source and, as the
public domain of the state has been almost all disposed of
without sufficing to accumulate funds sufficient to yield an
income representing any considerable fraction of the growing
needs of the state treasury, taxes must continue to be the al-
most exclusive reliance for state and local revenues.

As already noted, the constitutional provisions pertaining to
taxation have up to this time, made the general property tax
virtually the exclusive form of taxation possible. There have
been, however, subsequent to the first few years, minor sources
yielding revenues for the state treasury. The proceeds of a
poll tax were used by the state government from 1864 to
1877 ; a special license tax upon Chinamen yielded some state
as well as local revenue in southern mining counties during the
sixties; an inheritance tax has produced returns since 1904;
insurance company licenses with stamp and later net premium
taxes have been collected since 1872; and a general corpora-
tion license tax has been a revenue producer of considerable
importance since 1904. These auxiliary sources of state rev-

282 F. G. YOUNG

enues will be first reviewed and then the history of the general
property tax in Oregon will be sketched.

A Poll Tax for Commonwealth Purposes was traditional in
Oregon at the time of the admission of the state into the
Union. During the period of the provisional government,
a poll tax of fifty cents had been collected.1 The territorial
legislature revived this poll tax for territorial purposes in
i854.2 The state legislature, in 1862, again had recourse to it
for revenue, "to defray current expenses of the state. "3 The
amount was fixed at one dollar. The receipts from the poll
tax from September 9, 1862, to September 4, 1864, were only
$7,093.25. A census of the voting population gave the number
14,755. Thus not more than one-third of those from whom
the tax was due had paid during the biennial period. The
secretary of state, on the basis of this showing argued that
if the tax could not be generally enforced, it should be abol-
ished.4 However, by requiring its collection by the assessor at
the time of assessing it; first, of all persons whose real and
personal property did not aggregate $500, and later, of all
persons liable to it, the difficulty with it was remedied. s The
receipts for the second period were $24,057.16, and there was
a regular increase until the last period of its use for state
expenditures.

The exemption of firemen began in i87O.6 Militiamen were
also later relieved. In 1876 it was enacted that this poll tax
should be retained by the counties.7 It was still levied under
state law and continued to be until 1907. County authorities
that decided upon a money tax for road purposes were in
1893, required to levy a $2 poll tax in addition to the old $i

1 Oregon Spectator, Feb. 19, 1846, vol. i, No. 3.

2 Session Laws, 1854, p. 43.

3 General Laws, 1862, p. 89.

4 Report of Secretary of State, 1864, Appendix House Journal, p. 82.

5 General Laws, 1862; General Laws, 1866, p. 37.

6 General Laws, 1870, p. 20.

7 General Laws, 1876, p. 69.

FINANCES OF OREGON. 283

state poll tax. In 1903, the county poll tax was raised to $3.
The old state poll tax no longer collected by the assessor
had degenerated so that the tax commission of 1905 estimated
that "probably not one tenth of the persons in the state who
are subject to its payment ever meet the tax."1

Akin to this state poll tax, for general state purposes, was
a tax of $2 upon every person liable for military duty, en-
acted in 1862. The county court was to levy, and the sums
collected were to be paid to the state treasurer and placed by
him in a separate fund, known as "the military fund." This
tax was abolished in i865.2 It had been collected of those li-
able for -military duty and not members of "some independent
company." Members of these companies received two dollars
a day for the time they were required to* drill. The military
fund was drawn upon for such payments.3

The Chinese Tax — Oregon's tax upon Chinamen belonged
to that class of taxation in which revenue is incidental. Be-
ginning in 1857, through enactment by the territorial legis-
lature, Oregon indulged in discriminatory legislation against
the Chinamen within her borders. Under the first law, China-
men alone were mulcted, but in 1859, "Kanakas" (Hawaiian
Islanders) and in 1862, Negroes and Mulattoes also were in-
cluded in the class thus touched. The earlier acts imposing
this tax were uniformly entitled "to tax and" protect Chinamen
mining in Oregon," and the tax was designated a license. The
payments required were more commonly, $2 a month, but
in 1858, the amount was raised to $4. For the privilege of
trade and barter among themselves, $50 a month was to be
collected.4 From 15 to 20 per cent of the proceeds were to
go to the state treasury. A liberal commission, generally
20 per cent, was paid for collection, and the remainder was
retained by the county. In the biennium, from 1868-70, $7,-

1 Report of the Board of Commissioners, 1906, p. 82.

2 General Laws, 1862, p. 6; General Laws, 1865, p. 20.

3 Governor's Message (Appendix to House Journal), p. 10.

4 General Laws, 1857, P- 213; 1858, pp. 42-3; 1860, pp. 49-52; 1862, pp. 76-7.

284 F. G. YOUNG

667.70 were received from this source by the state. This was
more than three times as large as reported for any other
two year period. The "equal protection of the laws" that
must not, under the fourteenth amendment to the constitution
of the United States, be denied by any state put an end to
such taxation in Oregon.

Insurance Company Licenses and Stamp and net Premium
Taxes. — The business of fire, marine and life and accident
insurance were under the primitive conditions of early Ore-
gon, quite exclusively in the hands of companies having their
homes in the eastern states and abroad. Even to this day, the
departure from such a situation has advanced but 'a slight
degree. The transaction of the business of assuming risks
and of paying losses does not demand the use and owner-
ship by these foreign concerns of local property. The profits
secured through these different forms of the insurance business
would thus, under a state revenue system, made up of a
bare general property tax, wholly escape taxation. The prob-
lem of securing tribute from these foreign corporations for
the people of Oregon was early taken up by the officials whose
duty it was to recommend improvements in financial system
of the state. They soon discovered how a system of lucrative
fees could be developed in connection with the special taxation
of the insurance companies. Their meagre constitutional
salaries could be supplemented through license charges ex-
acted of these concerns for the privilege of writing policies in
Oregon.

First in 1864, there was a futile effort to obtain revenue
from fire and marine companies through local taxes imposed
upon a bond deposit required of them as surety for their
meeting their losses.1 In 1870, the bond deposit of fire and
marine companies was ordered placed with the state treasurer
and a license charge was imposed upon the agents of life
insurance companies. It was in connection with the re-

i Deposits were to be in United States bonds or Oregon state bonds. The U. S.
bonds were non-taxable and the state bonds were not available.

FINANCES OF OREGON. 285

ceiving and the administering of these deposits by the state
treasurer that a vigorous branch of the fee system was
sprouted. It was provided that the state treasurer should re-
ceive $10 for filing each certificate of deposit and for keeping
the bonds and returning the coupons to the depositors ; he
was to have one-eighth per cent per annum on all amounts in
his charge. The secretary of state received a still better deal.
He was to receive $10 annually for issuing licenses to agents or
solicitors of life insurance companies ; also $25 for issuing
and recording each certificate of deposit of bonds; and five
per cent of the proceeds of the sale of stamps that fire and
marine insurance companies were required to affix to their
policies in amounts determined by the size of the premiums.
This stamp tax was in 1889 changed to a one per cent net
premium tax. The annual license payment of $100 at first re-
quired of fire and marine companies, of which the secretary
received $10, was in 1887 changed to a charge of $50. Life
and accident companies were now for the first time brought
under this tax, and the sum placed at $100. The secretary
of state was at this time made "insurance commissioner,"
with extensive powers of control over the insurance business
within the state. His compensation for various examinations
and certifications was effected by a system of fees which he
was allowed to retain. Forty per cent of all annual license
moneys collected by him were also his.

In 1895, the net premium tax was extended to include
along with fire and marine companies, life, accident, plate
glass, and steam boiler companies, and the rate was raised
from one to two per cent. Surety companies also came in for
both annual license payments and net premium taxes. The
secretary and treasurer continued to receive their respective
quotas of fees and percentages until 1907, when a "flat" salary
law went into effect. The significance of these fees as a
feature of the state salary system will be discussed in another
connection. The annual license charge, stamp tax on premiums
and percentage tax on the net premiums of the different

286 F. G. YOUNG

forms of the insurance business are referred to here to indicate
the development of the features of the system of taxation in
Oregon, that were supplementary to the general property
tax. The treasury receipts from these sources were an
almost negligible quantity until the beginning of the last
decade. More recently they are netting the state substantial
sums.

The General Corporation Organisation and License Fees.
— A further step in the direction of supplementing the general
property tax was taken in 1903, when organization fees were
required of all domestic corporations and an annual license
fee of all foreign and domestic corporations. This corporation
license charge has from its first introduction yielded a sum
equal to about ten per cent of the revenues for the state gov-
ernment.

The Annual License of Gross Earnings upon Car, Express,
Telegraph and Telephone Companies. — As transportation
facilities developed, it became particularly notorious that the
businesses conducted within the state by the car, express,
telegraph and telephone companies were not being reached
under the processes of the general property tax. An annual
license upon the gross earnings of these concerns was in 1906
enacted through the initiative procedure. The constitutionality
of this law has been attacked by a telephone company on the
ground that the initiative procedure in lawmaking is in con-
flict with the provision of a republican form of government
which the national government is to guarantee each state.
The case is still pending before the Supreme Court of the
United States.

An Inheritance Tax. — An inheritance tax law was enacted
in 1903. This was creditable as the first venture of the state
in inheritance taxation, but it embodies only in a weak way the
desirable traits of an inheritance tax.

The foregoing comprise the supplementary features of Ore-
gon's system of taxation. It must be conceded that these
annual license charges and net premium tax from insurance

FINANCES OF OREGON. 287

companies, the organization fees and annual license charge
from corporations in general, and the annual license upon
gross earnings of the minor transportation agencies do in a
rough way tend to even up the tax burden where the inad-
equacies of the general property tax are most patent.1

The General Property Tax in Oregon. — Having passed in
review the different auxiliary features of Oregon's system of
taxation, we are now ready to examine the experience of the
state with its main reliance for revenue, state and local. It
will be found that the methods used with the general property
tax and the results obtained from it have varied little during
the period of statehood. The closely restrictive constitutional
provisions precluded any progressive development of it by
the successive legislatures. The system set up and maintained
with but minor variations exhibits the characteristic problems
of the general property tax wherever used. The discussion of
the salient features developed in Oregon is probably best ar-
ranged under the three following heads :

1. Assessment and apportionment of state taxes among
the counties.

2. Exemptions for indebtedness and taxation of credits,
including mortgage taxation.

3. Specially designated levies and rates for general and
special purposes.

i. Assessment and apportionment of state taxes among
the counties.

Oregon has all along experienced the usual measure of
trouble in the form of general under-valuation, but with the
degrees of it varying from county to county. She has had to
face regularly the failure to reach invisible forms of property
and even a large proportion of all personalty. Under-assess-
ment has its main motive in the desire on the part of counties
to shift their respective quotas of state taxes. Where the
township is the primal fiscal unit the race in under-valuation

i Governor's Message, 1907, p. 6.

288 F. G. YOUNG

begins among the township assessors. Oregon, not having
the township organization, and using the county assessing
district, has not had both township and county agencies pull-
ing for lower assessments.

The valuations reported by the different county assessors
constituted the basis for the apportionment of the state taxes
among the counties from the beginning of statehood down
to 1901. x Complaint against under-assessment and the con-
sequent unequal taxation resulting therefrom was expressed
by almost every governor the state has had. Nevertheless,
during more than three decades, from the beginning of state-
hood down to 1892, there was no supervising authority what-
ever for equalizing the valuations reported from the different
counties.2 It was a sort of honor system among the counties ;
or, more likely, they severally were so keenly sensitive about
vesting power in any outside body to add to the state taxes
for which they would be liable, each county preferred to
take its chances in a state of anarchy. A state board of
equalization was provided for by an act of the legislature of
1891, the first members of the board being elected by popular
vote in June, 1892.3 The board was made up of one member
from each judicial district and exercised what authority it
had until 1898. It was during just this period that undervalu-
ations were carried to their limit in Oregon. In 1893, when the
board began its work the total valuations of the state amounted
to $168,000,000. In 1901, they had sunk to $118,000,000. The
board had come to an ignominious end in 1898 when the
act of abolishing it provided that "inasmuch as there will be
a great saving to the state by the immediate passage of this
act, an emergency is declared to exist, and the act shall be

i A decision of the Supreme Court of the state in 1909 pronounced unconstitu-
tional the law of 1901 making county expenditures the basis of apportionment.
This compels a return to the valuation basis.

2 An act providing for a state board of equalization was passed in 1872. A
board was appointed, but as its work was affected by a judicial decision, its acts
were not enforced. The law was repealed in 1874.

3 General Laws, 1891, pp. 182-4.

FINANCES OF OREGON. 289

in full force on and after its approval by the governor."1 It
was not at all strange that its efforts so far as correcting
under valuations was concerned had been utterly futile, for
the act creating it had provided, "but said board shall not re<-
duce, nor shall it increase the aggregate valuations, except
in such amount as may be reasonably necessary to a just
equalization." It had no authority whatever over the earlier
stages of assessment. The legislature of the succeeding year
attempted the enactment of a law constituting the governor,
secretary of state and state treasurer, a board of equalization,
but with no adequate authority, and without such adjustment
as would have made it possible for these state officials to have
attended to such additional duties. It was wisely vetoed by
Governor Geer, who, in his message of 1901, recommended a
plan, involving the assessment against each county, for state
purposes, an amount in proportion to its wealth or population
providing that the first taxes collected shall be paid on the
state tax.2 The legislature of 1901, responded to Governor
Geer's suggestion with the first enactment of an expenditure
or local revenue basis of apportionment of the state taxes.
Reports were to be made to the isecretary of state, of the
county expenditures each year, excepting at first those for
roads, and later those also for the erection of court houses,
those on account of pestilence or epidemics and those for pay-
ments of interest and the principal of county indebtedness.
The ratio that the average of such expenditures for five years
for each county bears to the average of the total of these ex-
penditures for all the counties shall determine the ratio of
the state taxes that such each county respectively shall pay.
However, a provisional set of ratios based upon preceding
county assessments was to be used until the data for ex-
penditures covering a period of five years had been accu-
mulated. The law of 1901, named 1905 as the first year when

1 General Laws, 1898, p. 15.

2 Governor's Message, 1901, pp. 1-17.

F. 6. YOUNG

the expenditure basis should be used, but manifestly ' reports
for only four years of county expenditures would be available
for an average, by that time, so the legislature of 1903 set 1910
as the date for beginning the use of the expenditure basis,
continuing in the meantime the set of arbitrary ratios. In
1907 there was another postponement, this time to 1912, be-
fore expenditure ratios were to be used. In each case the
state officials were to be spared the trouble of making a
computation of the averages oftener than once in five years.

Under this departure from the valuation basis of apportion-
ment there was a salutary reaction throughout the state from
the low assessments of previous years. In some counties
there was soon an approximation to a cash value assessment.
The law elicited most favorable comment far and wide.1 It is
probable that if the principle had been actually applied and if
there had been a readjustment of ratios from year to year no
county would have contested the validity of the plan.

As it was one of the counties of the state felt that it was
getting the worst of it under the arbitrary set of ratios that
had been continued down from 1901, and its official was en-
joined from paying over to the state the amount that its per-
centage in the list called for. By the decision rendered in 1909,
it was held that the expenditure plan was unconstitutional. The
valuation basis is again enacted. Were it not for the fact
that a tax commission was provided for with some supervising
authority over assessments, and the further fact that con-
stitutional amendments of the taxation clauses were submitted,
a repetition of the same mad scramble for under assessment
might be, would almost certainly be, repeated.

The constitutional amendments, affecting the power of taxa-
tion, now pending would empower the legislature to* make
reasonable and equitable rules governing the matter of ap-
portionment ; they would also authorize it to separate the
sources of state and local revenues. If these amendments
are ratified, the legislature will have a choice of methods for

i State and Local Taxation, First National Conference, pp. 58, 501-2, 528-9.

FINANCES OF OREGON. 291

obviating the motives to under assessment. With the effecting
of a natural segregation of the sources of revenue and the
reservation of property of general situs for state taxes and
property of local situs to local governments, the Gordian knot
of difficulty arising from apportionment will be cut.1

The problem of partial assessment has always been in evi-
dence in Oregon along with that of under assessments. The
fact of the incompleteness of the returns of their property
made by the tax-payers to the assessors had become so notor-
ious in the very first years of statehood that the second gov-
ernor (1864) proposed a schedule for listing personal property
in order that more of it might be discovered for the assessors'
rolls.2 That one-third of the property was omitted from the
assessment roll in 1866, is the estimate of a good authority.3
Intangible personalty had at this time but little development in
Oregon. Conditions would grow worse with larger use of
credit in business unless effective means were interposed.
The way out of this injustice incident to such partial assess-
ment, through exemption of money and credits and reliance on
the compensating force of competition, was barred by the
constitutional requirement of the uniform taxation of all
property. Legislative effort was made to secure full returns
of recorded instruments and bank deposits. The practical
effect of this legislation is inextricably interwoven with Ore-
gon's long continued policy of exemption of indebtedness. It
is to the wiles of the tax-dodger that this policy fostered, to
the shifting of the tax-burden to the humble producer and to
the embarrassment of the state official handling such a system,
that we now turn.

From earliest territorial days, Oregon has persistently at-
tempted to tax credits as personal property. Only during
a period of eleven years, from 1882 to 1893, were mortgages
treated as real property and taxed to the owner of the mort-

1 General Laws, 1909, pp. 483, 485-6.

2 Appendix House Journal, 1864, p. 13.

3 San Francisco Bulletin, January 31, 1867.

292 F. G. YOUNG

gage at the situs of the land mortgaged. As already stated,
the inclusion of money and credits among the subjects of taxa-
tion was controlled by the constitution. Under these circum-
stances, the exemption of indebtedness represented the pur-
pose of shielding the debtor from double taxation.

As early as 1856, during the territorial era, a deduction of
indebtedness within the territory was allowed to the amount
of solvent claims returned by each taxpayer to the assessor.1
This was continued as the law under the state government
until 1863. In 1865, the policy of exemption on account of
indebtedness was revived, but differing from the earlier prac-
tice in that the whole amount "of indebtedness within this
state/' was to be deducted from the assessable property of
the taxpayer.2 Under this law the grossest iniquities in taxa-
tion were soon engendered. As property was generally assess-
ed at about one-third its real value and every dollar of in-
debtedness offset a dollar on the assessment roll, it was only
necessary for the tax-payer to borrow a sum equal to one-
third of the value of his property to escape all taxation.3

And yet the law providing for deduction on account of in-
debtedness was retained. In 1874, however, the sum deducted
for the indebtedness of any tax-payer was limited to one
thousand dollars.4 In 1880, it was required that the liability

1 Session Laws, 1855-6, pp. 77-8.

2 General Laws (Special Session), 1865, pp. 26-7.

3 "There is another defect in our taxing system, which works, perhaps, a
greater inequality and injustice than those named (inequality in the assessments
of the several counties). In assessing property, under the present law, the party
assessed is permitted to deduct his indebtedness from the valuation of his property.
In counties where property is assessed at one-third its real value, as is the case in
most counties, a person being in debt one thousand dollars would pay no tax; for
his property, worth three thousand dollars, would be valued at one thousand by
the assessor, which would be balanced by his indebtedness of one thousand dollars.
But a prudent neighbor, worth .the two thousand dollars or any other sum, and
not in debt, would be required to pay taxes on the full amount of his assessment.
It will thus be seen, that every dollar of indebtedness, under our present mode of
assessment, may balance real value of property to the amount of three dollars.
And if the indebtedness of our citizens, taken collectively, amounts to ten million
dollars, the amount of property untaxed, on this account, is thirty millions." — Bien-
nial Message of Governor L. F. Grover, :872» PP- 8'9-

4 Session Laws, 1874, pp. 117-8.

FINANCES OF OREGON. 293

must be actual and not merely contingent due to a surety
pledge and that deduction could be allowed only to the amount
of the proportional liability in any joint debt.1 The enactment
of such legislation is evidence complete as to the practice
rife.

In 1893, the whole policy of deduction for indebtedness was
thrown overboard.2 Under the law providing for the deduc-
tion of indebtedness the amount of indebtedness deducted had
each year been greater than the whole amount of moneys and
credits assessed. This disparity became larger and larger.
By 1885, the amount deducted for indebtedness was more
than twice as great as the sum of moneys and credits taxed.3
Debts were largely created for the purpose of being used in
avoiding taxation, and yet the law had been retained some
three decades. A special committee of the state senate on
assessment and taxation as late as 1891, was not able to
secure a unanimous report recommending its repeal. The
minority report of this committee contains a plausible argu-
ment for the retention of the law: in a modified form.* Under
the constitution of Oregon, as interpreted by the supreme
court of the state and the United States circuit court, credits
must be made taxable and any law exempting them from taxa-
tion would be void. By virtue of such liability to taxation cred-
itors secured higher rates of interest whether they paid the tax
on credits or not. The return of assessable credits had been in-
creased in cases cited through the law allowing deduction of
indebtedness upon the debtors giving the name of the cred-
itor. So the situation was that the creditors had to be taxed
and the law allowing deduction for indebtedness could be
made to serve in the detection of tax-dodging creditors. There-
fore, the wise policy would allow the debtor to deduct his
debt to the amount of the assessable value of the credit within

1 Session Laws, 1880, p. 52.

2 Session Laws, 1893, p. 6.

3 Report of Board of Commissioners on Assessment and Taxation, 1886, p. 85.
4 Report of Special Senate Committee, 1891, pp. i-io.

294 "F. G. YOUNG

the state to which he can point the assessor. But this argu-
ment did not save or secure the amendment of the law.

It is probable that the overthrow of the policy of deduc-
tion for indebtedness was hastened through the fact that
attention was called by the governor in 1891 to the part the
national banks were free to take in aiding the fraudulent
practices of tax-dodging under this law. The notes and
accounts owned by these institutions could not be assessed.
To deduct claimed indebtedness to such banks would leave the
door wide open for fraud. With under assessment, and no
scaling of the debts, an exchange of notes between two tax-
payers was all that was necessary to avoid taxation — unless
the assessor always was pointed to a taxable credit within
the state equal to the indebtedness deducted. And the fiscal
statistics of Oregon during these years do not show that any
progress was being made in this direction. The plea for
lenience to the debtor through deduction of indebtedness, for
a policy purporting to shield him from double taxation, must
have sounded well to the rank and file of the Oregon popula-
tion to blind it to the abominations practiced for more than
a generation under the Oregon law for the deduction of in-
debtedness. This failure to discern a common and public
interest is illustrated in about the same form in the situation
in which enormous incomes are allowed the state officials
while the people hug to their bosoms the constitutional pro-
visions limiting the salaries of these officials to meagre sums.
The same civic blindness and obliquity is shown, and the
selling out of the public good accomplished by the shrewd and
sly efforts of the unscrupulous few, in the state's policy for
a period with her public domain. Misled by the supposed
economy in compelling the intending purchaser of lieu lands
to find his own basis lands, he was given, for $1.25, land
worth at the time four or five times that sum and easily
seen to be worth fifty times that sum to the state in the very
near future.

To sum up. A distinctively primitive form of the general

FINANCES OF OREGON. 295

property tax has characterized Oregon's revenue system down
to date. Rigid constitutional prescriptions have called for
the uniform and equal assessment and taxation of all property
except certain enumerated properties applied to public uses.
In the matter of exemption alone, the legislature has con-
sistently stretched its scant measure of freedom. It provided
exemptions of a certain minimum to householders. It also
attempted to eliminate the double taxation incident to the
taxation of credits, and, from the nature of things, failed.
A striking innovation in the apportionment of state taxes
failed also. But this latter failure came through the invoking
of the restrictive authority of the constitution over tax legis-
lation. Two special state tax commissions, one in 1885, and
the other in 1905, to investigate and report changes needed in
Oregon's tax code, failed to have their main recommendations
adopted. They were hampered in each case by constitutional
obstructions that barred the way to salutary revision. The
last legislature (1909), in submitting the needed constitutional
amendments and in centralizing authority in assessment, and
in providing a permanent state commission to constitute the
assessing board for the property of general situs, took a long
stride forward toward modernizing an archaic system.

With a competent commission studying the situation and
free, under an amended constitution, to advocate needed
changes in the grouping of properties, and the segregation of
sources to different taxing jurisdictions, as well as bring up to
date the inheritance tax, Oregon would secure a fairly satis-
factory system in the near future.

(To be continued.)

JOURNAL OF JOHN WORK

April 30th to May 3ist, 1830.
Edited by T. C. Elliott. Editor's Introduction

John Work, the writer of this journal, was one of the
tireless and forceful "gentlemen" in the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany's employ west of the Rocky Mountains, and more particu-
larly along the Columbia River and its tributaries, beginning
with the year 1823.

In the course of serving his time as a clerk, he was sent
from York Factory on Hudson's Bay in July, 1823, with the
annual express, in charge of Peter Skene Ogden, to Fort
George (Astoria). This was one year prior to the coming of
Dr. John McLoughlin to assume charge of the business of
the Company west of the mountains.

From 1823 to 1830, John Work's field of employment was
principally at the Posts or Forts of the upper Columbia;
Spokane House, Colvile, Flathead and Kootenai, and it was
he who superintended the building of Fort Colvile, just
above Chaudiere or Kettle Falls (Ilth-Koy-Ape, according to
David Thompson) in 1825-6, and the abandonment of Spokane
House in 1826. In 1830, he was promoted to Chief Trader
and appointed to succeed Mr. Ogden in charge of the Snake
River Brigade, leaving in the fall of that year.

We very little appreciate or understand at the present day
the constant and extensive demand for horses in the fur
trade, primarily as beasts of burden, but very often as neces-
sary articles of food ; and the difficulty of obtaining them.

Among the descendants of John Work are his grand-chil-
dren, comprising the family of the honored Dr. Wm. Fraser
Tolmie, deceased, once a member of the legislature of the
Provisional Government of Oregon and a scholar as well as a
gentleman and man of affairs. The original journal is in

JOURNAL OF JOHN WORK. 297

the possession of these grandchildren and through the courtesy
of Mr. R. E. Gosnell, Archivist for the Province of British
Columbia, has been copied for this, its first publication.

To definitely designate the route from day to day is not
possible, but the more important stopping places will be
readily recognized. The party followed from Fort Colvile at
Kettle Falls the more direct Indian trail up the valley of Col-
ville (as now spelled), or Mill River to its source and then
across the divide to the wide ridges along Tsimakane (or
Chimakine) creek, flowing into the Spokane River, crossing
that river considerably below the site of Spokane House,
and thence south to the Snake River at the mouth of the
Palouse. This afterward became the regular wagon road
between Colville and Walla Walla, and is very clearly shown
on the map published with John Mullan's Military Road Re-
port. Governor Stevens followed this route very closely in
the fall of 1853.

By the Hudson's Bay men, Snake River as far up as the
Clearwater was often called the Nez Perces1 River, and Fort
Walla Walla was commonly designated as Fort Nez Perces.
It would appear from the journal that at that point the
party crossed the Columbia to the west or north side, but
at John Day River they are clearly on the south bank again
and from there to The Dalles. The usual crossing place
afterward was ten miles below at Lyle, the mouth of the
Klickitat River, but they recrossed above The Dalles and
from there to Vancouver kept to the higher trails along the
ridges and prairies back from the Columbia through a very
rugged country of course, as the time consumed plainly in-
dicates.

Mountains Hood, St. Helens, Rainier and Baker are all
familiar names to Mr. Work, indicating that a set of "Van-
couver's Voyages" was then in the library at Fort Vancouver,
and whether the first or second edition does not matter.

298 f . C. ELLIOTT

FRIDAY, APRIL 3Oth, 1830.

Left Colvile near 6 o'clock in the evening, accompanied
by five men — F. Payette, A. Baindijain, J. Pierre, Edward
Besland, and C. Quesnelle, with 35 horses for Walla Walla,
and then to Fort Vancouver. Encamped a few miles from
the Fort. The whole day was occupied getting the horses
collected and separated, which was the cause of our being so
late in starting. I would have been off some days sooner, but
a considerable number of the horses were lately traded, and
being very lean, required some time to recruit before taking
the journey; some of them will have enough to do to perform
it yet.

Saturday, May 1st.

Heavy rain nearly all day.

Started at an early hour, and encamped near sunset at the
swampy plain.1 We stopped an hour and a half to break-
fast. The small rivers are very deep, and the road in many
places soft and miry. The horses had to swim across two of
the rivers, and the luggage to be taken across a temporary
bridge of trees thrown across them. All hands were soaked
with wet, and both men and horses much fatigued in the
evening.

Sunday, May 2d.

Heavy rain part of the day. Proceeded on our journey a
little past sunrise, and reached Spokane River in the after-
noon. It was near sunset by the time the horses and baggage
were got across the river, though the Indians lent us a
canoe to cross with. We put up here for the night. The
road today was in several places deep and miry, but much
better than yesterday, nevertheless, the horses were a good
deal jaded. The Indians came and smoked with us in the

i Chewelah?

JOURNAL OF JOHN WORK. 299

evening. The people are always glad to see whites coming
among them.

Monday, May 3rd.

Fair weather.

The men were on the move by daylight collecting the
horses. One of them were missing and, although all hands
were employed seeking him till n o'clock, he could not be
found, and was supposed to be gone off on the N. P.1 road,
and so far off from the distance he was followed that it would
have taken all day to come up with him, even were we sure
he had gone that way, and as by waiting in the same encamp-
ment we were likely to lose more we moved on, and left word
with the Spokane chief to seek the horse and bring him back
to Colvile, which he promised to do. Camped in the evening
at a place called the Fortress, on the edge of a plain. The
road this day was pretty good.

Tuesday, May 4th.

Stormy during the day, heavy rain towards the evening.

Four of the horses had strayed in the morning and, al-
though all hands were in pursuit of them, they were not found
till 3 o'clock in the afternoon, when it was considered too
late to move, besides I wish to stop and send for the horse
lost at Spokane, which, I hear from an Indian lad that was
passing, is found by the Indians. We had no thought any of
the horses would stray off so far.

Wednesday, May 5th.

Very heavy rain in the night, fair weather during the
day.

Sent two men back for the stray horse that remained at

i Nez Perces.

300 T. C. ELLIOTT

Spokane, which they found, and came up with us at noon.
Landed to wait for the men who were late in starting, and
again stopped a good while at breakfast. We encamped in the
evening at 5 o'clock, having marched seven hours during the
day, which, though little, is enough for some of the horses.
Set a guard on the horses last night, which is intended to be
continued during the journey to prevent the horses from
straying or being stolen by the Indians.

Thursday, May 6th.

Showers of rain towards evening.

Continued our route at an early hour, and fell upon the
Nez Perces1 River, near 6 o'clock in the evening, where we
put up for the night. Allowed the horses 3 hours to feed and
repose in the middle of the day, and marched altogether 8
hours. Part of the road was very stony and bad for the
horses' feet.

Friday, May 7th.

Heavy rain in the night and the greater part of the day,
particularly in the afternoon.

Proceed on our journey, and after passing Grand Point2
again fell upon the river opposite an Indian lodge, and cross-
ed our baggage. The horses were allowed to rest before
crossing there; from the bad weather they were so afraid of
taking the water that all the men's efforts assisted by the
Indians could not put more than 16 of them across, the others
were obliged to be left on the opposite shore for the night.
The men were completely drenched with wet and benumbed
with cold in consequence of which, and the continued rain,
keeping guard will be dispensed with tonight.

i Snake.
a Fish-hook Bend.

JOURNAL OF JOHN WORK. 301

Saturday, May 8th.

Incessant rain all day.

Another attempt, without success, was made to cross the
remaining horses in the morning, but towards evening they
were all got across but one, which ran off and could not be
caught; the most of them had to be crossed by the cord. One
was missing in the morning and cannot be found ; we cannot
tell whether he strayed or attempted to cross the river in
the night, and was drowned; it is not likely that he was
stolen. The men were again soaked with wet and cold. The
poor Indian rendered us all the assistance in his power.

Sunday, May Qth.

Sent across the river for the horse that could no.t be found
yesterday and to seek for the one that is missing; no marks
of the latter could be found. We then loaded the horses,
when two men were again sent off in quest of the stray horse;
and the others moved on to Nez Perces,1 where we arrived
about i o'clock. The other two men arrived towards evening
without seeing any trace of the horse.

Monday, May loth.

Heavy rain in the night and forepart of the day, and
stormy.

We intended to have crossed the horses to the opposite
side of the river this evening and have started tomorrow, but
the wind raised such a swell in the river that swimming the
horses across was impracticable without a great risk of drown-
ing them.

i Fort Walla Walla at mouth of Walla Walla River.

302 T. C. ELLIOTT

Tuesday, May nth.

Fair weather, but blowing strong all day.

On account of the roughness of the weather and the rwell
in the river, crossing the horses could not be attempted, which
has delayed us another day. This I regret as this cool weather
is favorable for marching, and not so fatiguing for the horses
as when the heat is great.

Wednesday, May I2th.

Stormy in the morning, but calm, fine weather afternoon.

After the weather moderated, received 16 horses from Mr.
Black,1 making our whole number 50, and got them across the
river safe. It was late by the time the baggage and e\ery-
thing was across the river.2 I received another man, J. Baker,
here and changed one of my men, Pierre, for J. Guy, to ac-
company us as guide. We also received 15 quarts of corn,
35 pieces of salmon and a little horse meat in addition to our
provisions, also some ammunition and tobacco to procure an
Indian guide below. Baker is a man from Vancouver, and
has been waiting here for us since the express passed.

Tuesday, May I3th.

Some heavy showers during the day.

The men were on the river by daylight collecting the horses,
one of them was missing, and although all hands were seek-
ing him in every direction till four o'clock, no marks of him
could be discovered. We then gave up hopes of finding him,
and started with the rest, but some time after, met an Indian
who had also been seeking him. It was said that he had
been got from an Indian below, and was going back to where

i Samuel Black, afterward murdered at Kamloops, but then at Fort Walla
Walla.

2 Probably the Walla Walla River, then in flood.

JOURNAL OF JOHN WORK. 303

his master usually resided. From the distance he went I
suspect he was taken the lend of by some Indian who prefers
riding to walking. On account of the delay, we made but a
short day's journey, only across the point where the road
falls on the river, and it was late when we reached the plain.
But indifferent feeding for the horses.

Wednesday, May I4th.

Some heavy showers in the night and during the day.

Kept guard over the horses during the night, and got
under way by 6 o'clock. Came on at a brisk rate and en-
camped in the evening a good piece below Big Island,1
stopped in the middle of the day to feed and repose. The
road was generally good. Passed some lodges of Indians from
whom we received a little salmon. There are not many Indians
on the river, and what little fish they get is barely sufficient
for themselves. From their miserably lean appearance it may
be supposed they have not known what a plentitude of food
is for some time past.

Thursday, May I5th.

Heavy showers in the night, fair weather during the day.

Continued our journey before 6 o'clock, and encamped be-
fore 5 in the evening at a little lake on the hill, a little above
Day's River. We stopped thus early on account of it
being a good feeding place for the horses ; and that probably
another such is not to be found before we would be obliged
to camp where the road we mean to follow strikes into the
country from the river. Some of the horses were also a good
deal fatigued, and need a little repose. The road during this
day's journey was frequently, but indifferent, being in many
places stony and again sandy, which made the marching
heavy and fatiguing for the horses.

i Near Castle Rock.

304 T. C. ELLIOTT

Passed several lodges of Indians, from whom we obtained
enough of salmon for breakfast. Stopped 31-2 hours in the
middle of the day to rest and feed the horses.

Friday, May i6th.

Very warm, sultry weather.

Resumed our journey past 5 o'clock. Left the river and
struck into the country, and again fell on the Columbia at
the little river1 below the Dalles at 6 o'clock in the evening,
where we encamped. The object of taking this route was to
avoid the Dalles and chutes, where numbers of Indians are
collected at this season, and likewise for a better road, as
that along the river is very hilly and stony.2 The road we
took was very hilly and stony in places on leaving the river.
Afterwards the road lay through a plain, and is good till
nearly falling on the river, where it is for a considerable dis-
tance woody and some very steep hills. On account of the
heat, the horses are a good deal jaded.

Saturday, May I7th.

Weather warm and sultry.

The Columbia is so high it is impracticable to cross the
horses at the entrance of the little river, the usual crossing
place; we had, therefore, to seek another place which we
found a few miles up the river, and, with a good deal, of
trouble got the horses across by n o'clock, when we moved
on about 3 hours, when we encamped in consequence of
engaging a guide to take us by another road, as that on the
banks of the river, on account of the height of the water, is
considered very difficult, if not impassable in places. The
road we were to pursue by the interior is said not to occupy

1 Mill Creek.

2 The immigrants did the same in later years.

JOURNAL OF JOHN WORK. 305

more than four days. This, however, 1 much doubt, but
if we get done in six days it will be very well. The road
is said to be good enough except a mountain that is to cross
and where there is likely to be some snow yet. Our inter-
preter, J. Guy, does not fully understand the Indians. I have
heard it said that formerly some freemen came from Van-
couver to opposite The Dalles on horse by this route in three
days. This used to be a grand war road of the Kyauses and
Nez Perces to go down to Kersinous village. We delayed
the aft part of the day till our guide would get ready to
accompany us, however.

Sunday, May i8th.

Clear, very warm weather.

Our Indian guide was not ready to accompany us till 7
o'clock, when we proceeded on our journey, and encamped at
past 6 o'clock in the evening at a place at the foot of Mt.
St. Helens,1 which is north of us, on the great Kyauses road
which we are to pursue across the mountains. On leaving the
river, we ascended hills of considerable height, and, but thinly
wooded, but on reaching, the summit we found the country
thickly wooded, which mostly continued so to our encampment.
The road lay over hills, some of them very steep, and steep
valleys. We crossed some small rivers, but the water is not
high, having recently fallen a great deal, which lead us to in-
fer that there is but little snow on the mountains — a great
deal of snow to obstruct our passage gave us some concern.
Though we marched all day, except about 3 hours we stopped
for the horses to feed ; we have not made a long day's journey ;
owing to the hilliness of the roads, sometimes we had an
Indian road, and sometimes we had none. We were in ex-
pectation every hill we ascended of seeing the fine plain
the Indians said the road lay through, but there was none

i Mt. Adams.

306 T. C. ELLIOTT

till the one we are now at. Had we had a guide, we might have
come in a much shorter time from Walla Walla to this place
through the plains, or in fact from any part of the Columbia
above the chutes. The road that way must be good, as it
lies through the plains with little wood and few hills. Though
we were told we would be only three nights of getting to the
Fort, our guide now tells us that we will be 8 or 10, and
represents the road as being difficult, independent of the snow.
As we are now close to the mountain, which is the worst part
of it, it is determined to try it, and should it be found im-
passable to turn back and gain the Columbia again. Our
guide's brother also accompanied him in order to be with
him coming back. Another lad also started to accompany us
on foot, so that there are three of them with us. We did
not expect to see an Indian here yet they made theri ap-
pearance shortly after we encamped.

Monday, May iQth.

Fine, warm weather forepart of the day, but towards even-
ing it became stormy with a great deal of thunder and very
heavy rain.

Continued our journey before 6 o'clock, and encamped at
4 o'clock at a little plain. We had gone a little farther into
the woods to gain the foot of the mountains which we were
to pass, but we intend to return to this place that the horses
might have some feeding. The road today was good ; it lies
through rather clear woods not often thicketty and but few
hills. In the morning we crossed the river1 that empties it-
self into the Columbia, between The Dalles and Cascades. It
runs its waters to the northwest of Mt. St. Helen,2 where we
forded, it is a considerable stream and the current very
strong, but the waters appear to have fallen greatly lately.
During the forepart of the day the ground among the trees

1 The White Salmon.

2 Mt. Adams.

JOURNAL OF JOHN WORK. 307

was clothed with verdure and flowers, but afterwards several
patches of snow was seen in the woods, and the rest of the
ground seemed to be freed of it, not long since, and vegetation
has yet made but small progress. From where we are en-
camped, there are two roads to cross the mountains ; that to
the right is represented to be the best road, but at the same time
likely to have more snow in it than the other. Our guide
has decided, therefore, to take the latter. Payette, accom-
panied by the Indian, went a good piece into the wood with
the intention of proceeding to foot of the mountain to ex-
amine it, but the Indian got tired and returned. So far as
they went, the road is not bad, and the snow, which is only
in patches, not deep. The Indian says it is all the same way
to the mountains, and that though the snow is deeper that in a
day he expects he will get over the whole of it.

Tuesday, May 2oth.

Stormy. Showers in the morning, and drizzling rain the
most of the day.

In order to allow the horses to feed and have their bellies
full, lest we might be a night on the mountains without food,
we did not move camp today; the grass is not good, but the
horses got a little.

Wednesday, May 2ist.

Fine, fair weather.

At an early hour we were on the move and crossed the
dreaded mountains1 by midday, but one of the horses stepping
off the road in a thicket of woods was left and had to be
sent back for, which prevented us from proceeding in the
afternoon. We are here on the side of a nearly bare hill,
which yields tolerable good feeding for the horses. The road
across the mountains is not bad nor is the mountain itself

i Wind River Mts.

308 T. C. ELLIOTT

very high. In some spots the snow is pretty deep, but not as
much so as to retard our progress. From the top of the hill
where we are now encamped there is an extensive view and
nothing to be seen but mountains and deep valleys as far as
the eye can reach, Mt. St. Helen1 is but a short distance to
the northeast, and Mt. Rainier2 bears north, at still a shorter
distance. Mt. Baker,3 I suppose, is seen at a great distance
between the two. We are still but a short way from the
Columbia, immediately beyond it is seen Mt. Hood, and
further off another high, snowy mountain, Mt. Jefferson.
Several of the lower mountains are thickly covered with
snow and many patches extending low in the valleys. None
of these mountains seem to be continued ridges, but scattered
about in every direction. The country through which we have
to pass tomorrow has a bad appearance, all burnt woods.

Thursday, May 22nd.

Fine, warm weather.

Recommenced our journey at past 5 o'clock, and by noon
fell upon the road which we left on the other side of the
mountain. The country we passed through this forenoon is
dreadfully bad, a considerable portion of it burnt woods, im-
mense trees fallen in every direction, and several deep ravines
to cross, very steep for the horses to ascend and descend.
Besides the woods are thicketty, and large fallen trees are so
numerous that we could scarcely get any way found through it.
There is no way through this space. The road by which we
crossed the mountain went in another direction and was lost.
In the afternoon the road lay also through burnt woods, but

being was pretty good except frequently barred with

large fallen trees. We encamped at 5 o'clock in a place where
there is scarcely a mouthful of grass for the horses, and,

1 Mt. Adams.

2 St. Helens.

3 Mt. Rainier.

JOURNAL OF JOHN WORK. 309

what is worse, we will be two nights more without anything
for them to eat. This was an exceedingly harassing day,
both for men and horses; 'the latter on account of the heat
of the day, and the difficulty of the road, particularly jumping
over the large trees and ascending the steep hills, are com-
pletely jaded; one of them stopped on the road, but was got
up to the camp in the evening. The ridge, our road lay in
this afternoon, is divided from the foot of Mt. Rainier,1 by a
deep valley and river along which our road lay.

Friday, May 23rd.

Proceeded on our journey about 5 o'clock, and in less than
3 hours descended a steep hill and fell upon the river. During
this distance, the road was the same, and through the same
sort of country as yesterday. There is a pretty broad and
very rapid river, its banks covered with thick woods, at this
place burnt. Here a river falls in from the southward, which
has now but little water. The main river seems to run
towards the W. N. W. Our road here lies on the north
shore of it. After some search, we found a fordable place,
and with some trouble, got across a little past noon, and
continued our journey. The woods were burnt and the road
barred with immense large fallen trees through which we
made our way with a great deal of difficulty, and much labor,
both to men and horses, particularly the latter ; indeed, it is sur-
prising they don't break their legs. We encamped at past
6 o'clock. No grass for the horses.

Saturday, May 24th.

Fine weather till towards evening, when there was some
heavy rain.

Continued our journey before 6 o'clock, and had proceeded
but a short distance till we came to where the road used to

i Mt. St. Helens.

310 T. C. ELLIOTT

pass along some beaches in the river, but the water is now so
high that it is impassable; the luggage we had had to be
carried along the side of a steep hill by the men, where they
were in danger of tumbling into the river, and the horses
taken up by the hill, a very steep and difficult road which
fatigued them greatly; indeed, both men and horses were ex-
hausted in the evening, though the distance we made is not
more than 5 or 6 miles. To avoid losing the horses we used
to guard them in the night, but, as there is not grass and
only leaves for them to eat, we let them loose tonight so that
they may pick up what they can, as it is to be apprehended
they will get so weak with hunger that they will not be able to
march. Two Indians came to us in the evening, and have
agreed to accompany us to the crossing place, and point out
the best road to us as they are better acquainted with the
country than our guide.

Sunday, May 25th.

Rained constantly almost all day.

Started early, and with our new guide got on pretty well.
The road through thick woods and over several steep hills ;
the road less difficult than these days past. One of our horses
gave up, and we could not delay to> let him rest; and as he
would have been lost, he was killed and the meat, bad as it
is, brought in to serve us till we got to the Fort. Our
provisions are getting short. All hands were wet to the
skin. The horses have very little grass among the bushes
this evening.

Monday, May 26th.

Fair weather, but the bushes still hang with wet.

Continued our journey early and arrived at a small plain
not far from the crossing place at 5 o'clock, where we en-
camped. The road lay through thick woods and over some
steep hills. Found a small plain at noon where we stopped to

JOURNAL OF JOHN WORK. 311

let the horses feed 3 hours. Where we are encamped is a
good feeding place, and much need they have of it. One of the
horses, so jaded that he stopped and could not be got on with
the others. Sent a man and an Indian to bring him on after he
rests a little. We mean to remain here tomorrow to allow
the horses to repose and feed, of which they are in much
need.

Thursday, May 27th.

Fine weather till towards evening, when it rained a little.
Did not move camp today, but remained; to allow the horses
to feed and repose.

Friday, May 28th.

Fair weather in the morning, heavy rain towards evening.

We moved camp at an early hour, reached the river1 at
10 o'clock and got across it with all the luggage, horses, etc.,
by noon, and by 5 in the evening encamped at a plain where
there is good feeding for the horses for the night. Our road
to the traverse was as difficult as usual, and after crossing
the river, we had a very steep hill to mount, which took us
nearly 3 hours to ascend, and was very fatiguing, both for
horses and men, though the road is pretty good. The road
afterward was better than usual. There are some Indians
encamped not far from us, but they fled to the hills on our
appearance, supposing we were enemies.

Saturday, May 29th.

Heavy rain all day.

Proceeded on our journey at 6 o'clock, and encamped in
a swamp at 5, which is the only place we saw to stop at dur-
ing the day. Part of the road today was pretty good, being
through clean pine woods, but a great deal of it was very

i Washougal.

312 T. C ELLIOTT

difficult. Crossed a pretty broad river, which was a branch
of the one we left yesterday, and on\ leaving it had a long
hill to ascend with a bad road. Several more of our horses
getting very weak, notwithstanding the slow rate at which
we march. The Indians tell us that we will be only another
night in getting to the Fort, and that the road is better. This
we have been frequently told, and found it not to be so.

Sunday, May 3Oth.

Rained part of the day, fair towards evening.

Continued our journey at 6 o'clock, and encamped in an-
other swamp, the only stopping place we saw during the
day, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon on account of some of the
weak horses not being able to come up. We had few hills
today; the road was, nevertheless, full as difficult. As usual,
a great deal of burnt fallen wood which was very ill to get
through as it repeatedly barred up the road; there was also
several boggy places which were very hard upon the weak
horses. Our custom has been to keep the weak horses be-
hind, so that they might have the advantage of a little road
after the others all passing through the bad places of fallen
woods, thickets, etc. Hamdijna was behind today with four,
one of which, a very weak one, stuck in a bog and he was not
able to get him out. He came up with us, and Payette and a
man went back to aid him and get the horse out of the bog,
but he was so weak that he could not rise, and it is expected
he will be dead before morning. During that time another
of the weak ones, a white mare, strayed and could not be
found. The old man became confused in his difficulties and
cannot tell exactly about where they lost him, but he is con-
fident he had him at another bog, a little farther off where
he had some difficulty getting another of the horses out. I
marched ahead with the guide, myself and * * •* brings
up the rear, but today he came on with one of the middle
brigades or probably none of the horses would have been mis-

JOURNAL OF JOHN WORK. 313

sing, as he is an excellent hand with the horses in the woods.
The men were completely drenched with rain all day yes-
terday and most of today, for though it did not rain today, the
bushes are so charged with wet that a continual shower was
falling as we passed through them. The road, exceedingly
harassing all day, and men and horses much fatigued. It
was past sunset when the men arrived, that were seeking the
stray mare, and taking the horses out of the bog. Had it not
been for the delay caused by their misfortunes, we meant to
have gone on a little further to a fine plain which our guides
represent to be ahead a little way.

Monday, May 3ist.

The horse which was dragged out of the bog yesterday
evening was dead this morning. The other that was missing
and another which had also strayed were not found till n
o'clock, when we started, and arrived at Fort Vancouver at
7 o'clock in the evening with 48 of our 50 horses, several
of them nearly worn out * * * The road for some distance
in the morning was as bad as usual until we got into a pretty
boggy place which is so overflowed with water at this season
that it may be called a swamp, where, though the road is
soft, it is infinitely superior to the thickets we have been pass-
ing for some time back. After passing this plain we had
another part of woods, through which the road is good, then
a fine dry plain, and another part of woods where the road
is good, when we fell upon the plain on which the Fort
stands, all the low parts of which is .now under water, the
Columbia being unusually high at this season. We are glad
our difficult and troublesome journey is finished.

OFFICIAL REPORT OF JOHN BROWN'S RAID

UPON HARPER'S FERRY, VIRGINIA,

OCTOBER 17-18, 1859'

[The semi-centennial anniversary in the month of October of
John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry makes a reprint of the
Secretary of War's report of the affair to Congress apropos.
The editor of the Quarterly is indebted to Hon. Thomas W.
Prosch, of Seattle for the suggestion and the text of this re-
port.]

The recent conspiracy and effort at insurrection and plunder
attempted at Harper's Ferry constitutes altogether one of the
most surprising and startling episodes in the history of our
country. A fanatical man, stimulated to recklessness and des-
peration by the constant teachings and intemperate appeals of
wild and treasonable enthusiasts, unrestrained by the Consti-
tution and laws of the land, by the precepts of religion, by the
appeals of humanity or of mercy, formed a conspiracy to make
a sudden descent upon the people of Harper's Ferry, to rob
the arsenal, plunder the public property, and stir up servile
insurrection. The plan devised and the mode of executing it
were such as to promise every hope of success. The conspir-
ators rented a farm in the State of Maryland, within a few
miles of Harper's Ferry, where they remained for some
months, apparently following peaceful, probably useful pur-
suits ; during which time they took effectual means to conciliate
the kind feelings of the people of the adjacent country, and
particularly those of the village of Harper's Ferry. They be-
came perfectly familiar with all the localities of the place,

i Part of the Message from the President of the United States to the Two
Houses of Congress at the Commencement of the First Session of the Thirty-sixth
Congress.

JOHN BROWN'S RAID, 1859. 3*5

streets, houses, arsenals and workshops, so that its contem-
plated seizure might be effected at any hour of the night with-
out confusion or any usual movement calculated to attract at-
tention or arouse suspicion. They knew, perfectly, the univer-
sal and unsuspecting security of the entire population. Up to
the night of that attack there never was a man, within the
Commonwealth of Virginia, who went to his bed with the
slightest apprehension of danger from attack by citizens of the
United States in any numbers, from any region, or for any
purpose whatever. The sense of profound security was per-
fect and absolute. Having also no apprehension whatever of
the slave population (and this assurance was fully justified
by the event), nothing could be more favorable for the consum-
mation of the diabolical designs of the conspirators. Having
cut the telegraphic wires, they entered, under the cover of night,
unmolested and unobserved, into the village, seized upon the
solitary watchman placed at the arsenal as protection against
fire only, and possessed themselves speedily of all the buildings
containing arms or suitable for defense. The next movement
was to seize the principal men of the place, with whom their
long residence near there had made them acquainted, and con-
fine them securely under their own control. These arrests were
made singly, and, in every instance, by several perfectly armed
men, who conveyed their prisoners to the place of confinement.
This process was carried on throughout the night, and ex-
tended not only to the village, but to the country around.

When the morning came, and the state of things was par-
tially discovered, the people of the village gathered to the
scene of confusion about the arsenal. The conspirators now
commenced to fire upon the citizens. Then, for the first time,
did the atrocious designs of these men fully appear, and,
strange as it may seem, it was only then discovered that the
citizens of the place were almost wholly without arms and am-
munition of any sort. Presently, however, some arms and
ammunition not in possession of the plunderers were found,
when the men of the village, and those who had assembled

316 JOHN B. FLOYD

from the neighborhood, arming themselves, immediately re-
turned the fire of the assailants with such effect that in the
course of a few hours they were driven from their positions,
and all either killed or wounded, with the exception of the
leader and half a dozen others of his party, who were driven
into an engine-house, whither they fled for security. They
carried along with them ten or twelve of the prisoners they
had taken the night before, who were to be used as hostages,
as the robbers alleged, to prevent the fire of the citizens out-
side from being directed towards themselves in the house
where they had taken shelter.

Throughout the whole day on Monday, from twelve o'clock,
at which time intelligence of the outbreak reached this city, the
most exaggerated accounts were received of the state of things
at Harper's Ferry, and the number of persons engaged in it.
Prompt measures, however, were taken, and Brevet Colonel
Robert E. Lee, of the First Cavalry, was at once summoned
to take command of a detachment of marines and two com-
panies of volunteers from Frederick, Maryland, who had
promptly offered their services. The troops left this city by
the afternoon train, and, taking up the volunteers on the way,
reached the scene of action during the night.

The next morning, at an early hour, Colonel Lee gave or-
ders to the marines to attack and carry the house where the
conspirators were strongly barricaded, which was very
promptly and gallantly done, with the loss of one man killed,
another wounded. Colonel Lee's report of his proceedings
is herewith communicated, which gives all other information
on the subject thought to be of interest.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient ser-
vant, JOHN B. FLOYD,

Secretary of War.

The PRESIDENT.

JOHN BROWN'S RAID, 1859. 3X7

PAPERS ACCOMPANYING THE REPORT OF
THE SECRETARY OF WAR

DISTURBANCES AT HARPER'S FERRY.

Colonel Lee to the Adjutant General.

HEADQUARTERS HARPER'S FERRY,

October 19, 1859.

Colonel: I have the honor to report, for the information
of the Secretary of War, that on arriving here on the night of
the 1 7th instant, in obedience to Special Orders No. 194 of that
date from your office, I learned that a party of insurgents, about
ii p. m. on the i6th, had seized the watchman stationed at the
armory, arsenal, rifle factory, and bridge across the Potomac,
and taken possession of those points. They then dispatched six
men, under one of their party, called Captain Aaron C. Ste-
vens, to arrest the principal citizens in the neighborhood and
incite the negroes to join in the insurrection. The party took
Colonel L. W. Washington from his bed about 1 130 a. m. on
the 1 7th, and brought him, with four of his servants, to this
place. Mr. J. H. Allstadt and six of his servants were in the
same manner seized about 3 a. m., and arms placed in the
hands of the negroes. Upon their return here, John E. Cooke,
one of the party sent to Mr. Washington's, was dispatched
to Maryland, with Mr. Washington's wagon, two of his ser-
vants, and three of Mr. Allstadt's, for arms and ammunition,
etc. As day advanced, and the citizens of Harper's Ferry
commenced their usual avocations, they were separately cap-
tured, to the number of forty, as well as I could learn, and
confined in one room of the fire-engine house of the armory,
which seems early to have been selected as a point of defense.
About ii a. m. the volunteer companies from Virginia began
to arrive, and the Jefferson Guards and volunteers from

318 JOHN B. FLOYD

Charlestown, under Captain J. W. Rowen, I understood, were
first on the grounds. The Hamtrack Guards, Captain V. M.
Butler; the Shepherdstown troop, Captain Jacob Reinhart;
and Captain Alburtis' company from Martinsburg arrived in
the afternoon. These companies, under the direction of Colo-
nels R. W. Baylor and John T. Gibson, forced the insurgents
to abandon their positions at the bridge and in the village, and
to withdraw within the armory inclosure, where they fortified
themselves in the fire-engine house, and carried ten of their
prisoners for the purpose of insuring their safety and facili-
tating their escape, whom they termed hostages, and whose
names are Colonel L. W. Washington, of Jefferson County,
Virginia; Mr. J. H. Allstadt, of Jefferson County, Virginia;
Mr. Israel Russell, Justice of the Peace, Harper's Ferry ; Mr.
John Donahue, clerk of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad ; Mr.
Terence Byrne, of Maryland; Mr. George D. Shope, of Fred-
erick, Maryland; Mr. Benjamin Mills, master armorer, Har-
per's Ferry arsenal ; Mr. A. M. Ball, master machinist, Har-
per's Ferry arsenal; Mr. J. E. P. Dangerfield, paymaster's
clerk, Harper's Ferry arsenal ; Mr. J. Burd, armorer, Harper's
Ferry arsenal. After sunset more troops arrived. Captain B.
B. Washington's Company, from Winchester, and three com-
panies from Fredericktown, Maryland, under Colonel
Shriver. Later in the evening the companies from Baltimore,
under General Charles C. Edgerton, second light brigade, and
a detachment of marines, commanded by Lieutenant J. Green,
accompanied by Major Russell, of that corps, reached Sandy
Hook, about one and a half miles east of Harper's Ferry. At
this point I came up with these last-named troops, and leaving
General Edgerton and his command on the Maryland side of
the river for the night, caused the marines to proceed to
Harper's Ferry, and placed them within the armory grounds
to prevent the possibility of the escape of the insurgents.
Having taken measures to halt, in Baltimore, the artillery com-
panies ordered from Fort Monroe, I made preparations to
attack the insurgents at daylight. But for the fear of sacrific-

JOHN BROWN'S RAID, 1859. 3!9

ing the lives of some of the gentlemen held by them as
prisoners in a midnight assault, I should have ordered the
attack at once.

Their safety was the subject of painful consideration, and
to prevent, if possible, jeopardizing their lives, I determined to
summon the insurgents to surrender. As soon after daylight
as the arrangements were made, Lieutenant J. E. B. Stewart,
ist cavalry, who had accompanied me from Washington as
staff officer, was dispatched, under a flag, with a written sum-
mons (a copy of which is hereto annexed, marked A). Know-
ing the character of the leader of the insurgents, I did not ex-
pect it would be accepted. I had therefore directed that the
volunteer troops, under their respective commanders, should
be paraded on the lines assigned them outside the army, and
had prepared a storming party of twelve marines, under their
commander, Lieutenant Green, and had placed them close to
the engine-house, and secure from its fire. Three marines
were furnished with sledge-hammers to break in the doors, and
the men were instructed how to distinguish our citizens from
the insurgents; to attack with the bayonet, and not to injure
the blacks detained in custody unless they resisted. Lieutenant
Stewart was also directed not to receive from the insurgents any
counter propositions. If they accepted the terms offered, they
must immediately deliver up their arms and release their
prisoners. If they did not, he must, on leaving the engine-
house, give me the signal. My object was, with a view of sav-
ing our citizens, to have as short an interval as possible between
the summons and attack. The summons, as I had anticipated,
was rejected. At the concerted signal the storming party
moved quickly to the door and commenced the attack. The
fire-engines within the house had been placed by the besieged
close to the doors. The doors were fastened by ropes, the
spring of which prevented their being broken by the blows of
the hammers. The men were, therefore, ordered to drop the
hammers, and, with a portion of the reserve, to use as a batter-
ing-ram a heavy ladder, with which they dashed in a part of

320 JOHN B. FLOYD

the door and gave admittance to the storming party. The fire
of the insurgents up to this time had been harmless. At
the threshold one marine fell mortally wounded. The rest, led
by Lieutenant Green and Major Russell, quickly ended the
contest. The insurgents that resisted were bayoneted. Their
leader, John Brown, was cut down by the sword of Lieutenant
Green, and our citizens were protected by both officers and
men. The whole was over in a few minutes.

After our citizens were liberated and the wounded cared for,
Lieutenant Colonel S. S. Mills, of the 53d Maryland regiment,
with the Baltimore Independent Greys, Lieutenant B. F. Simp-
son commanding, was sent on the Maryland side of the river
to search for John E. Cooke, and to bring in the arms, &c.,
belonging to the insurgent party, which were said to be de-
posited in a school-house two and a half miles distant. Sub-
sequently Lieutenant J. E. B. Stewart, with a £>arty of marines,
was dispatched to the Kennedy farm, situated in Maryland,
about four and a half miles from Harper's Ferry, which had
been rented by John Brown, and used as the depot for his men
and munitions. Coloned Mills saw nothing of Cooke, but found
the boxes of arms (Sharp's carbines and belt revolvers), and
recovered Mr. Washington's wagon and horses. Lieutenant
Stewart found also at the Kennedy farm a number of sword
pikes, blankets, shoes, tents, and all the necessaries for a cam-
paign. These articles have been deposited in the government
storehouse at the armory.

From the information derived from the papers found upon
the persons and among the baggage of the insurgents, and the
statement of those now in custody, it appears that the party
consisted of 19 men — 14 white, and 5 black. That they were
headed by John Brown, of some notoriety in Kansas, who in
June last located himself in Maryland, at the Kennedy farm,
where he has been engaged in preparing to capture the United
States works at Harper's Ferry. He avows that his object
was the liberation of the slaves of Virginia, and of the whole
South ; and acknowledges that he has been disappointed in his

JOHN BROWN'S RAID, 1859. 321

expectations of aid from the black as well as white population,
both in the southern and northern States. The blacks whom
he forced from their homes in this neighborhood, as far as I
could learn, gave him no voluntary assistance. The servants
of Messrs. Washington and Allstadt, retained at the armory,
took no part in the conflict, and those carried to Maryland
returned to their homes as soon as released. The result proves
that the plan was the attempt of a fanatic or madman, which
could only end in failure ; and its temporary success was owing
to the panic and confusion he succeeded in creating by magni-
fying his numbers. I append a list of the insurgents (marked
B.) Cooke is the only man known to have escaped. The other
survivors of the expedition, viz. : John Brown, A. C. Stevens,
Edwin Coppee, and Green Shields (alias S. Emperor), I
have delivered into the hands of the marshal of the western
district of Virginia and the sheriff of Jefferson county. They
were escorted to Charlestown by a detachment of marines,
under Lieutenant Green. About 9 o'clock this evening I re-
ceived a report from Mr. Moore, from Pleasant Valley, Mary-
land, that a body of men had, about sunset, descended from
the mountains, attacked the house of Mr. Genett, and from
the cries of murder and the screams of the women and children,
he believed the residents of the valley were being massacred.
The alarm and excitement in the village of Harper's Ferry
was increased by the arrival of families from Sandy Hook
fleeing for safety. The report was, however, so improbable
that I could give no credence to it, yet I thought it possible that
some atrocity might have been committed, and I started with
twenty-five marines, under Lieutenant Green, accompanied by
Lieutenant Stewart, for the scene of the alleged outrage, about
4% miles distant. I was happy to find it a false alarm. The
inhabitants of Pleasant Valley were quiet and unharmed, and
Mr. Genett and his family safe and asleep.

I will now, in obedience to your dispatch of this date, direct
the detachment of marines to return to the navy yard at Wash-
ington, in the train that passes here at 1% a. m. tonight, and

322 JOHN B. FLOYD

will myself take advantage of the same train to report to you
in person at the War Department. I must also ask to express
my thanks to Lieutenant Stewart, Major Russell, and Lieuten-
ant Green, for the aid they afforded me, and my entire com-
mendation of the conduct of the detachment of marines, who
were at all times ready and prompt in the execution of any
duty.

The promptness with which the volunteer troops repaired
to the scene of disturbance, and the alacrity they displayed to
suppress the gross outrage against law and order, I know will
elicit your hearty approbation. Equal zeal was shown by the
president and officers of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
Company in their transportation of the troops, and in their
readiness to furnish the facilities of their well-ordered road.

A list of the killed and wounded, as far as came to my
knowledge, is herewith annexed (marked C) ; and I inclose a
copy of the "Provisional Constitution and Ordinances for the
People of the United States," of which there were a large num-
ber prepared for issue by the insurgents.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. E. LEE, Colonel Commanding.
Colonel S. COOPER,

font General U. S. Army, Washington City, D. C.

A.

HEADQUARTERS HARPER'S FERRY,

October 18, 1859.

Colonel Lee, United States army, commanding the troops
sent by the president of the United States to suppress the
insurrection at this place, demands the surrender of the persons
in the armory buildings.

If they will peaceably surrender themselves and restore the
pillaged property, they shall be kept in safety to await the
orders of the President. Colonel Lee represents to them, in all

JOHN BROWN'S RAID, 1859. 323

frankness, that it is impossible for them to escape ; that the
armory is surrounded on all sides by troops; and that if he is
compelled to take them by force he cannot answer for their
safety.

R. E. LEE,
Colonel Commanding United States Troops.

B.
List of Insurgents. — 14.

John Brown, of New York, commander-in-chief, badly
wounded; prisoner.

Aaron C. Stevens, Connecticut, captain, badly wounded;
prisoner.

Edward Coppee, Iowa, lieutenant, unhurt ; prisoner.

Oliver Brown, New York, captain ; killed.

Watson Brown, New York, captain; killed.

Albert Hazlett, Pennsylvania, lieutenant ; killed.

William Leman, Maine, lieutenant; killed.

Stuart Taylor, Canada, private ; killed.

Charles P. Tidd, Maine, private; killed.

William Thompson, New York, private ; killed.

Adolph Thompson, New York, private ; killed

John Kagi, Ohio, private ; killed.

Jeremiah Anderson, Indiana, private ; killed.

John E. Cooke, Connecticut, captain ; escaped.

Negroes. — 5.

Dangerfield, Newly, Ohio; killed.
Louis Leary, Oberlin, Ohio; killed.

Green Shields, (alias Emperor,) New York, unhurt;
prisoner.

Copeland, Oberlin, Ohio; prisoner.

O. P. Anderson, Pennsylvania, unaccounted for.

324 JOHN B. FLOYD

List of the killed and wounded by the Insurgents. — 14.

Fontaine Beckham, railroad agent and mayor of Harper's
Ferry ; killed.

G. W. Turner, Jefferson county, Virginia; killed.

Thomas Boerly, Harper's Ferry ; killed.

Hey wood Shepherd, negro, railroad porter; killed.

Private Quinn, marine corps; killed.

Mr. Murphy; wounded.

Mr. Young; wounded.

Mr. Richardson ; wounded.

Mr. Hammond ; wounded.

Mr. McCabe ; wounded.

Mr. Dorsey; wounded.

Mr. Hooper : wounded.

Mr. Woollet ; wounded.

Private Rupert, marine corps; wounded.

Colonel Lee to the Secretary of War.

HARPER'S FERRY ARSENAL,

October 18, 1859.

SIR: Upon a more deliberate examination of the wounds
of O. Brown, they are believed not to be mortal. He has three
wounds, but they are not considered by the surgeon as bad as
first reported. Please direct me what to do with him and the
other white prisoners.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R. E. LEE,
Colonel Commanding.
HON. SECRETARY OF WAR,

Washington, D. C.

A HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY MARRIAGE •
CERTIFICATE

Editorial Notes by T. C. Elliott.

The marriage certificate, herewith reproduced in facsimile,
is interesting to students of Oregon history as an illustration of
the procedure provided by the rules of the Hudson's Bay
Company for the marriage of their officers and employes in
the Fur Country under conditions of residence where a cere-
mony and certificate by a representative of the church or a
magistrate were usually impossible. In addition to the issu-
ance of such a certificate as this by the Chief Factor or Chief
Trader or Chief Clerk in charge at any fort or post, a record
was ordered to be made on the journal kept at that particular
fort, and this record became a part of the annual report to
the Deputy Governor and Council at York Factory or Norway
House. In this manner the Deputy Governor was kept in-
formed of any alliances entered into, and was, when necessary,
able to exert a moral influence through the power of the
Council to withhold promotions and regulate appointments to
this and that district; and all officers were under personal
bond to the Company.

It may be truthfully said that the character of the factors,
traders and clerks of the company was, as a rule, so high that
the marriage relation, although with women of Indian blood,
was held in high respect. While for actual protection of life,
as well as furtherance of trade in remote districts or during
dangerous expeditions, marriage of a temporary nature with
Indian women was under exceptional instances indulged in,
children by any such marriage appear to have been educated
and provided for by the father. At Fort Vancouver, in June,
1840, it would have been possible to have arranged a ceremony
by a priest of the Catholic faith or a Protestant minister, but

326 T. C. ELLIOTT

the company method was preferred. It may be added that
this form of common law marriage, so called, will stand in
almost any court of England or the United States today.

The certificate is also interesting because of the autographs
it contains — that of Dr. John McLoughlin, the "Father of
Oregon" ; that of Archibald McDonald, one of the most com-
petent and trusted chief traders of the Company, who from
1830 to 1833 commanded at Fort Langley on the Fraser River,
and who was for so many years in charge of Fort Colvile on
the upper Columbia, the chief fort of the interior; whose
annual letters, whether addressed to Edward Ermatinger in
Upper Canada or to John MacLeod at Norway House, reveal
so much of the personnel and events of the Columbia district;
that of Alex. C. Anderson, another prominent clerk and chief
trader, for many years stationed at Fort Vancouver, and whose
manuscripts are in the Bancroft collection at Berkeley ; also
those of Archibald McKinlay and his wife, who resided near
Oregon City and Champoeg from 1846 until Mr. McKinlay,
in common with so many others, was ruined financially by the
floods of December, 1860, and in 1861 or 1862 removed with
his family to Lac La Hache in British Columbia. There they
resided for more than twenty years ; but their last years were
spent at the hospitable home of their own daughter, Sarah
(wife of the kind and courteous Mr. A. B. Ferguson), at
Savona's Ferry at the end of Lake Kamloops. Their graves
are in the little cemetery on the hill across the Thompson River
from Savo<na's, indistinctly seen from passing trains on the
main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Sarah Julia Ogden was the favorite daughter of Peter Skene
Ogden, named Sarah after that of his own mother, who was
from an aristocratic family of Livingston Manor near New
York City, and Julia after that of his wife, who was a woman
of no uncommon attainments from the Spokane tribe of In-
dians. Sarah Julia Ogden was born, according to the family
record, on January 1st, 1826, so that in June, 1840, she was in
her fifteenth year ; and Archibald McKinlay was fifteen years

A HUDSON'S BAY Co. MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE. 327

her senior. Her father had been since 1835 stationed at Fort
St. James on Lake Stuart (British Columbia) in charge of
the New Caledonia district, and his family resided with him
there, and Mr. McKinlay was a clerk in the same district. It
is probable that the daughter was educated for the most part
at home, but, perhaps, had been at Fort Vancouver attendng
school previous to her marriage. In 1841 Mr. McKinlay was
placed in charge of Fort Walla Walla and remained there
until 1846, when he was promoted to be chief trader and went
to Oregon City to take charge of the company's business there.
Some time after the treaty of 1846 he succeeded to the busi-
ness as member of the firm of Allan, McKinlay & Co. He
became an American citizen and took title to a donation land
claim on the outskirts of Oregon City and the house he built
and occupied on that claim is still standing. Afterward he was
engaged in raising stock on a farm on the west side of the
Willamette opposite Champoeg.

If the sto>ry be true, Sarah Julia Ogden, during her infancy,
was an innocent participant in an exciting episode among the
mountains or on the plains of Southern Idaho. The story goes
that during one of the trapping expeditions of her father, at a
time when there was strenuous rivalry with the American
trappers, the camp of Mr. Ogden was raided one morning and
the horses stampeded, and that one of the horses with a baby
strapped to its board and tied to the saddle ran into the camp
of the Americans, but that the mother of the child, Mrs.
Ogden, followed right into the camp, caught and mounted the
horse and made off, and on the way caught and led away a
packhorse loaded with furs; while the American trappers
shouted and threatened with their rifles but were too gallant
to shoot. Joseph L. Meek gave this story to Mrs. Victor and
it appears in "The River of the West," but Mr. Meek had not
come to the mountains until 1829, after Mr. Ogden had made
his last trip to the Snake country. Miss Laut in her "Conquest
of the Great Northwest," published in 1908, gives the same

328 T. C. ELLIOTT

incident as of the year 1825 ; but this is a trifle early for Miss
Sarah to have been present.

Doubtless some such incident occurred during some Indian
raid and became a common tale among the trappers, and
Joseph L. Meek easily attached the Ogden name and Ameri-
can gallantry to it. It is fairly certain that the rival trapping
parties did not raid each others' camps. The writer is in po&-
session of a copy of the journals of Peter Skene Ogden during
the period of his command of the Snake Country Brigades,
and these make no mention of any such incident, or of his
family accompanying him; and probably they did not.

•

THE QUARTERLY

OF THE

Oregon Historical Society

Volume X DECEMBER, 1909 Number 4

[The Quarterly disavows responsibility for the positions taken by contributors to its pages.]

THE PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

EDITORIAL NOTES BY T. C. ELLIOTT.

The publication of the Ogden Journals, four in number, is
made possible by the courtesy of Miss Agnes C. Laut, who for
a very nominal consideration indeed consented to dispose of
her copy of these Journals to the writer of these notes. Miss
Laut is deserving of great credit for her success in obtaining
this copy from the originals in London, England.

The Journal reproduced in this number of the Quarterly
covers the period of Mr. Ogden's second expedition to the
Snake country. As yet no Journal has been found of the first
expedition, and the reader will appreciate such brief mention
of that expedition as is at this time possible from original Hud-
son's Bay Company sources; particularly as some new light
will be thrown upon a certain oft mentioned occurrence of the
fur trade involving the trapping parties of the H. B. Co. from
the Columbia river and of the Americans from St. Louis. (See
entry of April 10, 1826 ultra.)

Let it be briefly stated here that Peter Skene Ogden, then
in the thirtieth year of his age and already a Chief Trader of
the Hudson's Bay Company, on the 27th of October, 1824, at
the mouth of the Spokane river met (Deputy) Governor
George Simpson of that Company (Gov. Simpson passed down
the Columbia that Fall in company with Dr. John McLoughlin

332 PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

and party to spend the Winter at Ft. George) and on the 3ist
Inst. following received his instructions to proceed at once to
Flathead House and meet there Mr. Alexander Ross, who was
returning from the Snake Country, and there refit the Snake
Country party and conduct it back to the hunting grounds.
These facts are taken from a Journal of John Work, now in
the possession of his descendants at Victoria, B. C.

Of Mr. Ogden's party and his start toward the Snake Coun-
try at the beginning of Winter, 1824, Mr. Ross gives us some
glimpse in the "Fur Hunters of the Far West," and doubtless
the experiences were not much less strenuous than those of
Mr. Ross the year previous ; but travel across the mountains
and plains in the Winter season was not then regarded as a
very unusual thing. Mr. Ross in his book argues very strongly
against the use of Spokane or Flathead House as a base for the
Snake Country operations and doubtless emphasized this with
Mr. Ogden as well as with Gov. Simpson ; for the instructions
were to return the party to Ft. Nez Perces (Walla Walla).
From various hints here and there it is certain that during
the Winter and early Spring Mr. Ogden's party trapped along
the various streams forming the headwaters of Snake river
and in all probability (it is not possible yet to say with cer-
tainty) then penetrated to the northerly borders of Great Salt
Lake and the river and valley afterward named in his honor.
The entry on June 6, 1826 (ultra), suggests this and he is so
credited by Amer. authorities (See Bancroft Hist. Utah, pp.
21 and 22 note). The chapter entitled "The Red Feather" in
that rare book, "Traits of American Indian Life and Charac-
ter," may be considered a source as to the whereabouts of
this party that Spring, in the opinion of the writer. Perhaps
because of finding the American trappers already upon the
waters flowing into the Pacific, Mr. Ogden became ambitious
to cross to the waters of the Missouri ; for there he was in the
month of July, as shown by the Journal of Mr. Work, already
mentioned, from which the following quotations are drawn.

At Ft. Okanogan on the Columbia, 1825, "Tuesday, July 26.

EDITORIAL NOTES BY T. C. ELLIOTT 333

A little past noon an Indian arrived from Spokane with a note
from Mr. Birnie and a packet which had recently reached that
place from Mr. Ogden, dated East branch of the Missouri, loth
July. * * I deemed it my duty to open the dispatch, which
I am sorry to find contains intelligence of a disagreeable
nature. A series of misfortunes have attended the party from
shortly after their departure, and on the 24th of May they fell
in with a party of Americans, when 23 of the former deserted.
Two of this party were killed, one by the Indians, and one by
accident, and the remainder of the party are now coming out
by the Flat Heads."

Again when on Pend d'Oreille river en route to Flat-Head
House, "Monday I5th (Aug.). Embarked at 4 o'clock and
reached the Indian camp at the Chutes at n o'clock, where I
found Mr. Kittson and two men from Mr. Ogden's party with
38 packs;" and "Wed. I7th, Joachim Hubert accompanied the
Indians with the horses that brought the Snake furs and a
small supply of articles for Mr. Ogden, to whom I wrote and
forwarded a number of letters and dispatches addressed to him.
The package was put in charge of Grospied, on[e] of the F.
Head chiefs, as being more safe. It was not till I was perfectly
satisfied by Mr. Kittson that there was no danger of these doc-
uments falling into improper hands that I would trust them.
The chiefs are directed to give them to no one but Mr. Ogden,
and in case of any accident having befallen him to bring them
back. It was Mr. Ogden's directions to Mr. Kittson that only
one man should be sent back to him." And again at Flat-Head
House on Thurs. 25th : "I found two of Mr. Dease's men who
had arrived with dispatches from the sea a few hours before.
Now it is uncertain whether Mr. Ogden may equip his men at
the Flat Heads or take them to Nez Perces." And "Sat. 27th.
A young Indian was engaged to carry the dispatches to Mr.
Ogden in the Snake country. He is to have a horse for his
trip and promises to make the most expedition he can." Mon-
day, 5th Sept. "Three of the freemen belonging to Mr. Ogden's
party arrived here * * * Mr. Ogden's notes are dated on

334 PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

the 1 5th of August, when all the freemen but six had parted
from him, his party then being only 15 strong, and he was
going through a dangerous country." And at Spokane House
again on Monday, Sept. 26. "Late last night Faneant, one of
Mr. Ogden's men, arrived from the Missouri with letters dated
on the nth inst. Mr. Ogden is now on his way with 20 men to
Walla Walla by the Snake country and has sent orders here for
the part of his outfit that is at this place. He expects to reach
that place about the 2Oth October. He also requires Mr. Dears
to be sent to meet him with horses." And writing from Ft.
Nez Perces (Walla Walla) to John McLeod on Nov. 9, 1825,
Dr. John McLoughlin, who was there impatiently waiting,
says : "I have this moment been called off to receive Mr.
Ogden ; his men are to be here in two days. His horses are so
knocked up that we cannot send you any until he is supplied."
From these sources and references in the Journals it is
known that Mr. Ogden was absent upon his -first Snake Coun-
try expedition almost a year and met with reverses (not by any
stampede or physical encounter, but) by the desertion to the
Americans of nearly all his free trappers (French-Canadians)
with their furs and outfits,and that he returned along the trails
previously used by an equally corpulent and resourceful prede-
cessor, Mr. Donald McKenzie of the Northwest Company,
across Southern Idaho and by the valleys of Burnt River, Pow-
der River and the Grand Ronde to the "Valley of the Walla
Walla, a route afterward followed by the first wagons ever
brought to the Columbia (by Robt. Newell, Francis Ermatin-
ger and others) and later by the various migrations and still
later by the steel rails. Reaching Ft. Walla Walla he found
his old companion Samuel Black just succeeding Mr. John
Dease to the command there, and his chief factor, Dr. Mc-
Loughlin ; and while spending the twelve days of his brief va-
cation before starting on the second expedition that "strange
occurrence" took place which is related in Chapter III. (en-
titled The Burial of the Dead and the Living) of the book
"Traits," etc., already mentioned.

EDITORIAL NOTES BY T. C. ELLIOTT 335

From the entry on Nov. 25th (ultra), it is seen that Dr. Mc-
Loughlin had selected in advance the route for the second expe-
dition and had sent ahead toward the headwaters of the Des
Chutes a party under Finan McDonald and Thos. McKay.
This Finan McDonald had been in the Flathead and Spokane
country as early as 1809-10 with David Thompson, and Thos.
McKay had arrived at Astoria with his father, Alex. McKay,
in March, 1811, both of the Astoria party on the Tonquin.

According to the entry of April loth (ultra), by some advan-
tage held over them (the full nature of which is not yet
understood) the deserters of the previous year were compelled
to pay their debts to the H. B. Co. by turning in over four
hundred dollars' worth of beaver (not eight thousand one hun-
dred and twelve beaver skins). There are later references to
this incident under which it will be more appropriate to discuss
it. It will be noted that whenever Mr. Ogden could start for
the Columbia with more than three thousand beaver skins in
the packs he was a happy man.

Readers of these Journals will be interested in reading in
comparison Chapter XXXI. of Miss Laut's "Conquest of the
Great Northwest," and a sketch of the life of Mr. Ogden soon
to appear in this Quarterly.

JOURNAL OF PETER SKENE OGDEN; SNAKE EXPEDITION,
1825-1826.

(As COPIED BY Miss AGNES C. LAUT IN 1905 FROM ORIGINAL IN HUDSON'S BAY
COMPANY HOUSE, LONDON, ENGLAND.)

Monday, November 21, 1825. Having sent off all hands
yesterday in company with Mr. Dears1 I took my departure
from Ft. Nez Perces2 and about 10 o'clock I overtook my party
who were waiting my arrival. Tho 6 horses were missing I
gave orders to raise camp. We followed the banks of the Co-

i Mr. Dears, a clerk; not to be confounded with Mr. Dease, who was a chief
trader.

a For* Walla Walla.

336 PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

lumbia, course S. W., and encamped near the Grand Rapid,
distance 9 miles — the road hilly and sandy.

Tuesday, 22d. Altho many of our horses were not to be
found this morning, I gave orders to raise camp, leaving 6 men
to go in quest of them. Several of the fort Indians followed
us, more with a view of giving us trouble. We reached the
Utaka1 River and encamped. Here we found a large camp of
Indians from within. We traded some salmon and firewood;
distance 8 miles; course west; road hilly; we have great
trouble with our wild horses ; weather hazy and foggy.

Wednesday, 23d. The party I sent off yesterday in quest
of our horses did not return, and 4 more being missing this
morning, I sent Mr. Dears with two men in quest of them,
but provisions being so scarce, I was obliged to raise camp —
in fact the sooner we can get rid of the Indians the safer our
horses will be. We came this day only 6 miles and encamped
late in the evening. All hands with the exception of one man
arrived with all our lost horses excepting one, which the In-
dians had killed for food ; road fine ; weather fine.

Thursday, 24th. I this morning received a note from Mr.
Black2 informing me that he had recovered four of our six
horses missing on the 21. The absent man also made his ap-
pearance. He informed me that 4 Indians had pillaged all his
ammunition, but I d'oubt the truth of this. Altho we com-
mence at the dawn of day to collect our horses, we are never
ready to start before 10 o'clock. We had a fine road this day
and encamped at the long island distant 10 miles ; weather very
mild; grass in abundance for horses.

Friday, 25th. Rain all night. Altho weather was bad we
raised camp and continued marching until evening our route
along the banks of the river. We met with two of the Cayuse

1 Perhaps intended for Utalla in Original Journal; the Umatilla River.

2 Mr. Samuel Black, then in charge at Fort Walla Walla, but murdered at
Kamloops in 1841.

SNAKE EXPEDITION, 1825-1826 337

chiefs who proposed to me to follow their route ; that the road
was shorter to Mr. McDonald's1 camp. But my guide being of
a different opinion, I gave way to him, however anxious I feel
to join Mr. McDonald, and provisions being scarce, I must
comply. Course S. W., 15 miles; rainy.

Saturday, 26th. Rain all night. Some Indians came to our
camp this morning and traded a horse. It was mid-day before
we found all our horses. The road this day very hilly and
sandy; very fatiguing for our horses; two of them could
scarcely crawl when we reached the encampment; it is dis-
tressing to undertake a long journey with such miserable crea-
tures, and I seriously apprehend if the Winter is severe 2-3 will
die ; distance 8 miles S. W. ; cloudy.

Sunday, 27th. Started early, camped at sunset; 20 Indians
came to our camp ; all very quiet ; our route along the banks of
the Columbia; distance 12 miles; course S. ; cold and hazy.

Monday, 28th. Rain prevented starting. We were so lucky
as to trade 3 horses ; 40 salmon fish caught.

Tuesday, 29th. As we were starting an Indian arrived and
brought the goods back for one of the horses we traded, which
was returned to him, although it was fair trade. I did not think
it prudent to comply with his request. One of the men's horses
missing this morning. Altho search was made it was vain.
We reached John Day's River and found our old Walla Walla
chief waiting our arrival ; 10 miles ; course west.

Wednesday, 3Oth. A great many Indians collected about
our camp this morning. In the night 2 traps were stolen from
the men. We traded 2 horses at an extravagant rate, but were
too much in need, and well do the natives know this, and act
accordingly. We raised camp late, altho it was rainy, but I
am not only anxious to reach Mr. McDonald, but to get rid of
the natives, who are troublesome; distance 4 miles; course
south. This day I forwarded dispatches to Ft. Vancouver.

i Finan McDonald. See introduction.

338 PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

Thursday, December i. Again horses missing; no doubt
stolen. It was late ere we started and we reached the River of
the Falls1 early and camped. We found upwards of 100 In-
dians. The 2 traps stolen were recovered. Many horses of-
fered for sale, but too extravagant in demands. Toward night
one Indian stole some ammunition out of the free men's
tents. The Walla Walla chief started in pursuit of the thief
and returned in the night with the stolen property ; road stony
and hilly ; course S. W. ; distance 6 miles.

Friday, 2d. Three of the men's horses wanting, also some
belonging to the natives. This did not prevent raising camp,
as by remaining here we should lose more than gain, but to-
morrow shall send party back in quest of our horses. We hac
some difficulty in crossing over the river, its banks being over-
flowed owing to the mild weather and late rains. Having
crossed, we bade farewell to the Columbia River and took S. E.
direction and camped on a small river2 which, discharges into
Columbia below Grand Dalles ; distance 6 miles ; commenced
keeping watch as I fear now the Indians know of our leaving
them they may attempt to take a band of our horses. Soil
firm and well wooded ; few oak trees ; no signs of beaver.

Saturday, 3d. It was late ere we started; number of In-
dians that followed us yesterday traded 30 salmon and bade us
farewell. I engaged a chief to return with 3 men in quest of
our stolen horses. On starting we left the river, crossed over
a point of land 9 miles, then followed the river about a mile.
It being dark, we camped. It is scarcely credible, altho we are
yet so short a distance from the Columbia what a difference
there is ; soil rich ; oak of a large size, abundant ; grass green,
weather warm; route hilly; high hills at a distance covered
with snow ; distance 10 miles ; course S. S. W. ; men constantly
employed about our horses.

1 Des Chutes River.

2 Fifteen Mile Creek.

SNAKE EXPEDITION, 1825-1826 339

Sunday, 4th. Started at 10 o'clock. Change in weather
since yesterday; cold and cloudy. We commenced ascending
and descending high hills; came 10 miles. Finding a small
brook, camped ; course south. The 3 men and Indians in quest
of stolen horses returned with all; they found them on north
side of Columbia and to get them were obliged to pay 30 balls
of powder — no doubt the thief himself restored them, a com-
mon practice with the Columbia Indians. Shortly after we
camped an Indian arrived who told us he left Mr. McDonald's
party 8 days since, all well but starving, having taken few
beaver ; prospects bright ; fine oaks, but wood scarce ; soil good.

Monday, 5th. Started at 8 A. M. Our guide informed us
there were some small deer to be seen. I despatched 3 hunt-
ers; about 12 o'clock came to the end of the hills — a grand
and noble sight — Mount Hood bearing due west, Mt. St. Hel-
ens and Mt. Nesqually1 Northwest, covered with eternal snow,
and in a southern direction other lofty mountains in form and
shape of sugar loaves. At the foot of all these mountains were
lofty pines, which added greatly to the grandeur of the pros-
pect. Could anything make it more so? After descending the
last hill, which occupied nearly 2 hours, we reached a fine
plain; sandy soil covered with wormwood. We crossed over
to this place, a large fork of the River of the Falls; another
fork of the same was also seen near, taking its course S. E.,
and the latter S. W. Both forks were wooded and formerly
stocked with beaver, but the Nez Perces Indians have destroyed
all ; both appear to take their rise from a mountain not far, and
covered with snow. The mild weather must account for the
high water and muddy colour — in fact so thick we could
scarcely swallow it. My hunters had no success. An Indian
who killed an antelope gave me a share; a most acceptable
present; the first meat since we left the fort. Some petrifac-
tions of the fir tree were collected. Course S. E. ; distance 15
miles.

i Mt. Adams, from near Tygh Valley.

34° PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

Tuesday, 6th. Hunters off in quest of deer ; 2 horses miss-
ing, one of the Company's. Remained in camp till II, hoping
to find him, but in vain. Before leaving sent an Indian and
one man in quest of him. Crossed1 over the S. E. with some
difficulty over route hilly; country very stony. We reached
the foot of the mountains. Our guide killed a deer. The
Walla Walla chief departed from us ; traded a horse from him ;
distance 12 miles S. S. E. Man and Indian returned without
horse.

Wednesday, 7th. Broke camp an early hour ; began ascend-
ing; continued so for 3% hours. However great the ascent,
the descent was not great. By the time we reached level
ground our horses were greatly fatigued, and tho early, we
encamped; road very stony; country covered with rocks and
stones ; deer abundant ; upwards of 100 seen ; travel too swift
to be overtaken ; hunters killed 3 ; distance 10 miles.

Thursday, 8th. Rain all night. We started at 10 o'clock —
passed over a rugged country, stony and hilly; horses sinking
knee deep in the mire; late ere we found a small brook to
camp; course south; distance 10 miles; hunters killed 2 deer
and a mountain sheep. Shortly after camping, were joined by
Mr. McKay1 and 4 men. He informed me Mr. McDonald was
at a short distance, anxiously waiting my arrival. Their suc-
cess had not been great, only 460 beaver, but this is solely
owing to the poverty of the country and not to want of effort.
Their wait has recruited their horses, which mine greatly re-
quire. Anxious to find beaver ere I make a halt ; weather
cloudy and cold.

Friday, Qth. Started early. Route, as usual, over a hilly
country for 8 miles, when we reached Mr. McDonald's camp
on the bank of the Falls River; fine large stream. Both par-
ties pleased to meet. Many of the hills we crossed are of blood

i Thomas McKay, a sure shot at Indians; son of Alexander McKay, of the
Astor party.

SNAKE EXPEDITION, 1825-1826 341

red color, very rich from grass on them. In this quarter are
3 boiling fountains1 which I did not see, but am told are sul-
phur. The country since the 4th has been bare, only a few fir
trees — flint stones in abundance ; animals scarce ; all the rivers
being discharged into the Columbia. From the chief factor,
McLoughlin, I expected to have found Mr. McDonald pro-
vided with guides, but it is the reverse and places me in an
unpleasant situation. I must find an Indian who knows the
country. If not, must make the attempt without; this will
cause loss of time, it being such a mountainous country ; course
south.

Saturday, loth. Remained in camp. As we cannot ford the
river with our horses we have a canoe made. Indians who had
accompanied Mr. McDonald from Ft. Vancouver took their
departure for this quarter and I forwarded letters by them to
the Columbia; also sent 4 men invalided to Vancouver; were
not benefit here. Paid our guide from Nez Perce, though from
his conduct he was not entitled to any payment. The anxiety
and trouble Indian guides give is known only to those at their
mercy. An Indian promised to go for his family and accom-
pany me on my voyage, but the evening has come without his
appearance. Four of our horses missing — had the rest sent
across. The current strong, but not a horse drowned. More
fortunate than I expected. An Indian brought the two horses
missing on the 6th. So far lucky.

Sunday, nth. Very (foggy. Horses missing yesterday
found today; the rest crossed also part of the property with
men to guard the horses. Made Charley Nez Perce a present
for past services, also as a bait to induce some Indian to ac-
company us. Of many here, two only are acquainted with
the country I wish to reach. A Snake Indian, who has lived
for many years with the Cayuse Indians, consented to come. A
more fit person could not have been selected. If he does not
desert us we may consider ourselves fortunate.

i In neighborhood of Warm Springs Indian Agency.

342 PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

Monday, I2th. At daylight began crossing over the river
the rest of the property, but it was near night ere all was
transferred. Having remained on this side with Mr. McKay
to watch the motions of our new guide, I was not a little sur-
prised to learn of the death of a slave who belonged to Mr.
McDonald's party. The particulars are: Joseph Despard and
deceased were employed taking the goods to the top of the
hill when words took place between them, but no blows. Des-
pard loaded himself to ascend and when nearly at the top of
the bank, the deceased came up to him and struck him on the
back. D — then threw down his load and a battle took place,
continuing for about 5 minutes, when deceased went to his
camp. During the night he threw up blood, and this day at 2
P. M., expired, prior to death suffering greatly. On examin-
ing the body, I could not observe any marks of violence or
blows, except a hard swelling on the abdomen. A report hav-
ing circulated that D — kicked the deceased, I made enquiry,
but found it incorrect. I had a grave made and the body in-
terred. It is not in my power to send D — to Vancouver. I
have allowed the affair for the present to remain quiet until
we return to headquarters. The poor man is miserable and
unhappy. Weather mild.

Tuesday, I3th. Rainy and stormy, which prevented start-
ing. I delivered to Mr. McDonald's men each i horse, also I
Ib. tobacco, also took account of furs on hand and gave traps to
some of the party who were in want. We learned from Indian
report that a party of Cayuse are off to warn the Snake In-
dians that we are coming to pay them a visit, but I am not of
opinion it is the case; if so, it is with a view of taking beaver
on the borders of this territory before we reach it.

Wednesday, I4th. The rain continued all night, but clear
this day. We collected our horses and raised camp. Ground
hilly and stony. Many of our horses lame. We reached a
small creek and encamped ; distance 10 miles ; 20 traps out, but
no great hopes of success. Saw a fine herd of sheep, but too
swift for us. Course S. E.

SNAKE EXPEDITION, 1825-1826 343

Thursday, I5th. Raised traps and started; only 2 beaver.
Hunters off in quest of food. Route is stony. In the moun-
tains snow is to be seen — the hills covered with wormwood;
rivers scarce ; poor prospect of beaver ; found a small creek and
camped ; distance 9 miles. Course S. S. E. ; 3 sheep killed this
day.

Friday, i6th. Started early with camp. Our hunters off
before daylight over route ; for 4 miles a fine valley, then S. E
over hills; encamped on same brook as last night. Hunters
came in with 3 deer. One saw an Indian scampering off. This
must be a Snake. Consequently had our horses well guarded
during the night within call of camp.

Saturday, I7th. Started early. Horses safe this day. S. E.
for 4 miles across a high mountain covered with firs; de-
scended to a large plain, crossed due S. and fell on another
fork of the River of the Falls and camped ; nearly 100 traps
set out ; in crossing the mountains we saw 40 huts of Indians
not more than 10 d*ays abandoned, resembling in form and
shape those I saw last Fall in the lower Snake country; con-
cluded they must be Snake Indians. Of course we shall soon
see them. This day 8 miles.

Sunday, i8th. Had remainder of our traps set, as I want to
give the river a chance and rest our horses. Being on the
border of the Snake Land we require to watch by day and
night and regulate our march accordingly in case Winter
should be severe. Winter mild; no cause to complain. God
grant it may remain so; 14 beaver this day.

Monday, igth. Cloudy, with showers of rain; fine weather
for hunting beaver. We did not raise camp. This day took
38 beaver.

Tuesday, 2Oth. Really warm. One-third of traps are in
the rear. I did not raise camp. If this river had not
been visited by the Nez Perces it would have yielded 400 to 500
beaver. This day 21 beaver. Many of the trappers have ob-

344 PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

tained permission to sleep out of camp and have not come in.
One caught a raccoon the size of our Indian dog. I presume
this fellow was also in quest of beaver. Indeed beaver are a
prey to man and beast.

Wednesday, 2ist. Rain all night. Three-fourths of trappers
are in advance with their traps. I ascended main fork 3 miles
and encamped. Course east. Soil rich. Grass 7 feet high,
making it difficult to set traps. We must now change our
course; 39 beaver, 2 otter.

Thursday, 22d. Froze last night, 2 inches thick ; not in our
favor. If we do not soon find animals we shall surely starve.
My Indian guide threatens to leave us and it was with trouble
I persuaded him to remain. Few can form any idea of the
anxiety an Indian guide gives. The fellow knows we are de-
pendent on him. If we can but reach the Snake waters, he
may go to the devil. We raised camp. Ascended a small
fork; a fine valley ; fine hills ; 16 miles due east. All the trap-
pers set their traps with little hope of success, they are so
crowded. Today 15 beaver, 3 otter. Did not see the trace of
an animal and as the cold increases, I feel very uneasy regard-
ing food. As the beavers do not lay up a stock of provisions
for the winter, as is the case in cold countries, I hope the cold
spell will soon pass ; otherwise how can they exist, as we well
know without food we cannot.

Friday, 23d. Very cold. About mid-day 2 Nez Perces ar-
rived, having 2 traps, to accompany us for beaver. They left
the fort some time after I did and are ignorant of the country ;
23 beaver and i otter ; many of the traps fast in the ice ; 2 lost
by chains breaking. I sent 2 men to examine the source of this
fork. They report no appearance of beaver. Mr. McKay and
6 men started to follow the large fork we left on the 22d. We
shall follow. Juniper and fir here.

Saturday, 24th. Cold increasing fast. It is far from pleas-
ant in cold weather to ride at snail's pace, but it must be so or

SNAKE EXPEDITION, 1825-1826 345

starve. We ascended a light stony hill. The frozen ground
made it difficult for horses to reach the top. We crossed a
sky line 10 miles, descended gradually, reached the fork we left
on 22d and camped. Course S. S. E. River here wide and
lined with willows. Mr. McKay and party joined us. They
have not found beaver, and their traps are all fast in the ice.
Saw another old camp of Snake Indians about 10 days old. I
wish from my heart I could see them. It would free us of our
present guide; 15 beaver this day; a feast tomorrow.

Sunday, 25th. This being Christmas, all hands remained
in camp. Prayers were made. Cold increases; prospects
gloomy ; not 20 Ibs. of food remain in camp, and nearly all our
traps out of water.

Monday, 26th. Cold. Raised camp and ascended river now
fast with ice, our route over hilly country, being obliged from
the cut rocks to cross over the river 3 different times; had
some difficulty; two bales of goods and some skins got wet;
our hunters are in search of deer ; encamped early ; distance
5 miles east. Toward evening the weather became overcast
and the water rising fast, the trappers set out with their traps.
Hunters brought in 4 small deer, miserably poor.

Tuesday, 27th. Weather very cold. On collecting horses,
we found one-third limping and many of them could not stand ;
were found lying on the plain. Some of the trappers started
trenches, the rest visited the traps, returned at night with no
success, their traps fast in ice, and no beaver from the trenches.
The river is so wide we cannot get beaver with the ice chisel.
The hunters came in with 5 small deer. If this cold does not
soon pass my situation with so many men will not be pleasant,
but last year I met with so many reverses, men grumbling and
discontented, that I am in a manner prepared, but can afford
them no relief. If we escape starvation it will depend on the
hunters. God preserve us. Today 4 beaver.

Wednesday, 28th. Early this A. M. Mr. McKay and 7 men
set off in quest of deer; trappers off with their ice chisels,

346 PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

much against their will. The cold is greater than I ever before
experienced on the Columbia; 2 beaver this day. Ice chisels
produced nothing, nor will in this river, tho no scarcity of
beaver.

Thursday, 29th. I intended raising camp, but stormy
weather and non-arrival of McKay prevented.

Friday, 3Oth. Cold increases. My guide refuses to proceed ;
says there are no animals in the Snake Country, nor any bea-
ver, and our horses will die; that we cannot cross the moun-
tains. This is discouraging, but we must make a trial. On
promising him a gun at Fort Nez Perces he consented to go.
Followed the river S. E. for 5 miles ; 6 small deer, 57 beaver.1

Saturday, 3ist. Great severity of weather. No beaver to be
expected. One of the freemen, being 3 days without food,
killed one of his horses. This example will soon be followed
by others. The only chance we have is of finding red deer,
but from our guide we can learn nothing. He appears unwil-
ling to give any information. Two hunters returned, but with
no success. The deer very wild; I beaver today. Gave the
men half rations for tomorrow, which will be devoured tonight,
as three-fourths of the party have been two days without food.

Sunday, Jan. i, 1826. Remained in camp. Gave all hands a
dram. There was more fasting than feasting. The first New
Year's day since I came to the Indian country when my men
were without food ; 4 beaver today.

Monday, 2d. Altho 6 men are absent since 3Oth, I ordered
camp raised. Followed up the stream 6 miles S. E. Altho
bank is well lined with willows, only a few trees to be seen on
the hills of the juniper species. Trappers report favorable
beaver signs, but ice prevents taking any ; 3 beaver today. The
absent men still out.

Tuesday, the 3d. Cold has decreased, but still severe for
Columbia. Followed stream S. E. 12 miles and camped at an

i On headwaters of eastern branch of Des Chutes River.

SNAKE EXPEDITION, 1825-1826 347

Indian barrier made last Summer for taking salmon (weir).
I wish I could discover some of these Indians. One man
reported he had seen 12 beaver houses. I must steer my
course this way on my return. Another horse killed for food.
Except for 7 beaver the men without food this day.

Wednesday, the 4th. Proceeded 3 miles, when we came to a
fork from south, but our guide did not follow it. Continued 4
miles and camped. The river free of ice. All hands out with
traps. Our course this day 3 miles N ; E. 4 miles. The moun-
tains1 appeared about 30 miles distant, covered with snow and
trees. They gave hope of red deer. A small red deer killed this
day was divided, making 3 oz. of meat per man. Absent men
have not yet come ; 4 beaver today.

Thursday, the 5th. Snow at night. Mr. McKay with 3 men
started for the mountains seen yesterday in quest of deer, also
the trappers in quest of beaver. Wind veered S. W. with rain.
I wish it might continue for 40 days and nights. We require it.
One of the absent men arrived at night with a small deer —
this will make a meal for all hands ; 1 1 beaver today.

Friday, 6th. Sent 3 men for mountains. Mild this A. M.
Many of the horses can scarcely crawl for want of grass, owing
to frozen ground. March they must or we starve. We pro-
ceeded about 5 miles, encamped on a small fork lined with
aspen. We are now on very high land and expect soon to see
another river from the long range of mountains visible. From
our guide is no information, tho I am confident the country
is well known to him. In the evening Mr. McKay and party
arrived without seeing the track of an animal, reporting 4 ft.
of snow in mountains, so this blasts my hopes of finding deer.
What will become of us? Nine beaver this day and 2 otter.
All our traps set, but very crowded, in ice and rain.

Saturday, 7th. Rain and snow all day, with appearance of
cold. So many are starving in the camp that they start before

i Blue Mountain Range.

348 PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

day to steal beaver out of their neighbors' traps if they find
nothing in their own. Altho strong suspicions against the men,
we could not prove them guilty. Our traps gave us 10 beaver.

Sunday, 8th. Snow today. Absent men arrived with 2
small deer ; divided it fairly amongst all. Had the pleasure of
seeing a raven this day. Some wolves were also seen by the
trappers; 12 beavers and i otter.

Monday, 9th. Our horses assembled, we started early N. N.
E. for 4 miles and crossed over a fine fork, then ascended some
high hills, very stony. A violent storm obliged us to encamp.
General course N. N. E. and E. 8 miles. Two Nez Perces in-
timated they would leave us to morrow. Starving does not
agree with them ; 2 beaver this day.

Tuesday, loth. Wrote the gentlemen of Columbia, gave the
Indians presents for the trouble of carrying the letters. Came
only short distance, when wind obliged us to encamp; 9
beaver; 2 horses killed for food. Seeing our horses killed
makes me wretched, for I know full well in the Spring we will
require them all. Two of the hunters arrived starving. They
had been gone three days and did not see the track of a thing.

Wednesday, nth. Started early; weather mild. About
dusk we reached the sources of the Day's River, which dis-
charges in the Columbia, 9 miles from main falls. Here we
camped; 15 miles; 3 beaver.

Thursday, I2th. Nearly two-thirds of horses too lame to
move, but require food, and followed down stream 3 miles on a
horrid road, one continued rock and stone, ascended a high
hill, descended to a fork of the river and camped — course N. N.
W. 3 miles, £.451 beaver ; 12 colts killed for food.

Friday, I3th. Five men absent since the loth. I am obliged
to wait, altho we are starving. A mountain must be crossed
ahead and it is necessary our horses should rest. We have
taken in all 265 beavers and 9 otters. This day 2 beavers.

SNAKE EXPEDITION, 1825-1826 349

Saturday, I4th. At daybreak Mr. Dears and a man started
in quest of the 5 absent men. Rain all night. I apprehend they
will not be able to find the tracks of the lost. Our course W.
by N. 2 miles, then N. 6 miles along the main branch of Day's
River, a fine large stream nearly as wide again as it is at the
Columbia. From appearances this river takes its source the
same quarter as the River of the Falls and Utakka * * *
We found Snake huts not long abandoned. I sent 20 men with
traps ahead of us. It was night ere we camped. The horses
sink knee deep in mire all day. The road cannot be surpassed
in badness in so short a distance. Here the grass is green, no
snow, the frogs croaking as merrily as in May ; 2 beaver this
day.

Sunday, I5th. I intend to try luck here and await Mr.
Dears. Set all the trappers off well loaded with traps. Tracks
of small deer were seen and 2 killed. One of my men saw 2
Snake Indians. He conversed by signs with them, but they
could not be persuaded to come to camp. As soon as he parted
from them they disappeared, no doubt to hide and watch an
opportunity to steal horses and traps ; 12 beaver, i otter this
day.

Monday, i6th. Rain all night. The river rises 2 feet, so no
hope from traps. Our horses all safe, but some of the traps
gone ; 6 beaver and 2 otter.

Tuesday, I7th. Rain again. No word of Mr. Dears and the
absent men. Gave orders to raise camp, but sent a young man
to raise a fire in the mountains so if the party have lost our
track the fire will direct them. Our course N. by E. for five
miles to large fork bearing east and camped. The horses sank
knee deep in the mud. Mr. McKay, who was in quest of deer,
found a Snake Indian ; hid in the rocks, secured him and
brought him to the camp, treated him kindly and in the even-
ing he informed us that this fork will conduct us nearly to
Snake River. The road fine, no snow and a few beaver; 25
beaver today and 2 otter. Our guide killed a small deer.

35O PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

Wednesday, the i8th. This A. M. sent out 6 men well
loaded with traps. The Snake Indian left us this morning. I
sent my guide with him, as he said he had 10 beaver skins, to
induce him to return to trade. About mid-day Mr. Dears with
the absent men arrived. He found them in the mountains we
crossed on the nth. They were in quest of us and from the
route they were taking would probably never have found us.
They have 15 beaver and I otter. Well I sent for them. At
night my guide returned and informed me the Snake Indian
on reaching his hut, found all abandoned ; his family and fol-
lowers had fled, but the Snake had gone in pursuit and would
bring them to my camp ; 4 beaver and 2 otter this day, making
in all 19 beaver, 2 otter; 4 traps lost, owing to high water.
Mr. McKay came back with one small deer.

Thursday, iQth. Early 5 Snake Indians paid us a visit and
traded 6 large and 2 small beaver for knives and beads and 10
beavers with my guide for a horse. I treated them kindly and
made a trifling present to an old man with them whom they
appeared to respect. They were fine, tall men, well dressed,
and for so barren a country in good condition. None of my
trappers returned. From this I conclude they are doing well.

Friday, 2oth. Ascended fork 8 miles, our course due east,
our route over Barren Hills, but a lofty range of mountains
visible on both sides of the river, well wooded with Norway
pines ; today 27 beaver and 4 otter.

Saturday, 2ist. Seventeen beaver and 2 otter today; nearly
sufficient to supply us with food.

Sunday, 22d. Cold increasing. Ice will soon form again.
This day 26 beaver.

Monday, 23d. Severe cold. Two horses missing. Course
west ; distance 9 miles ; beaver 7.

Tuesday, 24th. Floating in the river 2 horses supposed to
be stolen by Snake hunters ; killed an antelope ; 27 beaver and 2
otter.

SNAKE EXPEDITION, 1825-1826 351

Wednesday, 25th. Continued ascending river easterly 6
miles, then N. E. 6 miles. From the starving state we are in
I cannot wait for the men in the rear ; 6 beaver and one otter.

Thursday, 26th. Ice forming on river ; course east by north
8 miles over a lofty range of hills bare of wood N. E. Here
we leave the waters of Day's River. Since joining Mr. Mc-
Donald, allowing we had one hundred hunters, had we not our
traps we must have starved to death. Where the Indians of
this part resort in winter I cannot (tell) ; have no doubt con-
cealed in the mountains ; 6 horses to and work to reach camp
last night 12 beaver and my Snake hunter killed one antelope.

Friday, 27th. My guide refuses to proceed; says road is
bad and horses require day's rest. I was obliged to comply.
Thank God, when we get across the mountains I trust I shall
soon reach Snake River or south branch of the Columbia; 9
beaver and i otter.

Saturday, 28th. Our guide says there are 6 ft. of snow in
mountains ; impossible to pass in this direction ; must try
another. Many in the camp are starving. For the last ten days
only one meal every two days. Still the company's horses must
not fall a sacrifice. We hope when we are across the moun-
tains to fare better ; today 4 beaver.

Sunday, 29th. Three inches of snow ; raised camp for S. E.
6 miles ; our guide says he intends to return. A horse this day
killed ; on examining his feet, the hoof entirely worn away and
only raw stump.1

February 2. We are now on the waters of the south branch
of the Columbia.

February 3. This surely is the Snake Country ; as far as the
eye can reach, nothing but lofty mountains. A more gloomy
country I never yet saw ; too ( ?) horses killed for food today.

i Next three days evidently crossing the divide from head of John Day River
to head of Burnt River.

352 PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

Saturday, Feb. 4th. We have taken 85 beaver and 16 otter
on Day's River; my Snake guide brought in 4 sheep (Ibex).
He says this is Burnt River.

Feb. 5th. Course E. N. E. Crossed river three times and
found the ice sufficiently strong to bear our horses. One of
the men detected this day stealing a beaver out of another
man's trap; as starvation was the cause of this, he was par-
doned on condition of promising not to do it again.

10 Feb. Followed the banks of Burnt River S. S. E. 10
miles. One horse killed. Nearly every bone in his body
broken. Two of the men could not advance from weakness.
We have been on short allowance almost too long and resem-
ble so many skeletons ; one trap this day gave us 14 beaver.

1 1 Feb. Crossed Burnt River within 3 miles of its discharge
into Snake River on south branch of Columbia. It has given
us 54 beaver and 6 otter.

Sunday, Feb. 12. Following the banks of the river1 we
discovered a fire on the opposite side of the river ; two Indians
came down to the beach. I signed them to follow us ; but on
a rocky point of land we lost sight of them.

February 13. Two Snake Indians came to camp. They
had nothing to trade; encamped on same spot as last Fall.
Found a camp of Snake Indians, 3 tents, 5 men, women and
children. It is not long since they left the buffalo country.
They appeared in good condition, but have nothing to trade.
Two trappers came in with nothing, starving for the last 3
days, but they have no encouragement here, so off again to-
morrow ; 3 beaver today.

Tuesday, I4th. Started early; sent my two Snake hunters
out with 6 traps each and 2 horses to north side of river. I also
gave them 2 scalping knives, % dozen rings, % dozen buttons,
to trade, and 20 balls to hunt. I have now all my trappers in

i Snake River, east of Huntingdon.

SNAKE EXPEDITION, 1825-1826 353

motion. We encamped on River au Malheur (unfortunate
river) so called on account of goods and furs hid here discov-
ered and stolen by the natives. Gervaise killed 2 small deer ; 3
beaver.

Tuesday, i6th. Cold last night ; very severe ; rain froze; our
prospects gloomy ; we must continue to starve ; now all are re-
duced to skin and bones ; more beggarly looking beings I defy
the world to produce. Still I have no cause to complain of the
men; day after day they labor in quest of food and beaver
without a shoe to their feet ; the frozen ground is hardly com-
fortable ; but it is an evil without remedy. The Snake Indians
paid us a visit empty handed; they, too, complain of starva-
tion. Were our horses in good condition, in 10 days we could
make the buffalo ground. In their present weak state we can-
not go in less than 25 ; I small deer and not one beaver.

Friday, I7th. About 10 o'clock we started our course S. and
E., distance 15 miles, and camped South Branch on leaving
Riviere a Malheur. This day saw a large fork on north; it
was in this region called Payettes River, that in 1819, 3 Sand-
wich1 Indians were killed by the Snake Indians ; cold is intense ;
what little beaver there is we cannot take ; while this weather
continues starve we must.

Saturday, i8th. Severe cold. It was late ere we started; our
horses, many of them, could scarcely stand this morning. Grass
scarce in this quarter ; our course south 4 miles, when we reached
Sandwich Island River, so called, owing to 2 of them mur-
dered by Snake Indians in 1819. This is a fine large river; on
the north side opposite this fork is Reed's River, who was also
with all his party, to the number of n, murdered by the Snakes
and their establishment destroyed. This party was in the em-
ploy of the Pacific Fur Company. Subsequent to this Mr. D.
McKenzie made a post at the entrance to the river, but it was
abandoned from want of food and hostility of natives ; fortu-

i Sandwich Islanders; Owyhee River named after them.

354 PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

nate they did1 for 2 Canadians were killed only 3 days after,
it is gloomy to reflect the number of lives that have been lost
in this quarter and without the death of one being revenged,
not from want of will, but circumstances which prevented it.
Hunt this day 2 beaver, altho 50 traps were out ; such a tardy
Spring.

Sunday, iQth. Two horses killed this day for food.

Tuesday, 21. From the weak state of our horses and want
of food I this day decided to send back 2 parties with the weak-
est horses to trap the country we have traveled. Jean Baptiste
Gervaise2 with 7 men, to await our arrival about July 15, and
Antoine Sylvaille with 5 men to trap Sandwich Island and Un-
fortunate River until they receive tidings from me. By this
means, in regard to food, we shall be 14 less, and the horses
will recruit.

Wednesday, 22. At an early hour I started the rear party
and have only to add I wish them success and that we may all
meet again. Until we do, I shall feel uneasy from the number
of accidents we have met with in this cursed country; but
there is no other alternative.

Sunday, 26 February. On our travels this day we saw a
Snake Indian. His hut being near the road, curiosity induced
me to enter. I had often heard these wretches subsisted on
ants, locusts and small fish, not larger than minnies, and I
wanted to find out if it was not an exaggeration of late travel-
ers, but to my surprise, I found it was the case ; for in one of
their dishes, not of small size, was filled with ants. They col-
lected them in the morning early before the thaw commences.
The locusts they collect in Summer and store up for their
Winter ; in eating they give the preference to the former, being
oily ; the latter not, on this food these poor wretches drag out

1 Fort Boise of Hudson's Bay Company, afterwards in the same vicinity.

2 Afterwards a settler on French Prairie, between Aurora and Salem, Marion
County.

SNAKE EXPEDITION, 1825-1826 355

an existence for nearly 4 months of the year; they live con-
tented and happy ; this is all they require. It appeared strange,
and the only reason I can give for it is the poverty of this
country and food, that few or no children are to be seen among
them. We have seen upwards of 30 families and only 3 chil-
li en among them. Before many years, not many will be liv-
ing; ants and locusts will again increase.

Thursday, March 2nd. This day took an account of beaver
and otter taken during the last month, in all 174, had the
weather been mild, we should have had from this country at
least 3000 beaver and not one horse would have fallen for the
kettle.

Friday, 3d. Reached River Malade, Sickly River,1 and en-
camped on this river, a fine large stream ; derives its name from
the beaver living on a poisonous root. Formerly, in 1819, all
who ate of the beaver taken here were seriously ill. Beaver
here must subsist on roots. Saw incredible number of deer,
black-tail and white, miserably poor, skin and bone but most
exceptible[sic] to us all.

Saturday, March n. My men four days without food.

Sunday, March 12. We are now encamped within 100
yards where the Pacific Fur Company traders lost a man by
the upsetting of one of their canoes. We cannot be far from
the place where the Blackfeet killed one of my party last
spring. If the Americans have not visited this place since I
left, we surely shall find beaver and buffalo.

Monday, March 13. Hunters arrived with 13 elk; never did
men eat with better appetite; many did not stop to go to bed
till midnight.

Friday, March I7th. A Snake Indian of the plains informed
us buffalo were near. I gave the call to start in pursuit and
with the assistance of Indian horses, two buffalo were killed ;
our horses being too poor for buffalo running. Mr. McKay
killed four elk.

i On north side of Snake Hirer.

356 PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

Sunday, March i8th. The Snake Indian who arrived yes-
terday left today. The villain in going off discovered a woman
belonging to our camp near at hand collecting wood. He for-
cibly threw her on the ground and pillaged her of some beads
and other ornaments she had on her leather dress. This fellow
we shall not see again.

Monday, March 2Oth. I sent two men with traps to ex-
amine Raft River.1 About 30 Indians paid us a visit. They
report that a party of Americans and Iroquois a're not three
days' march from us ; near the spot one of my party was killed
last spring. If this be the case, I have no doubt our hunts are
damned, and we may prepare to return empty handed. With
my discontented party I dread meeting the Americans. That
some will attempt desertion I have not the least doubt, after
the sufferings they have endured. This stream is lined with
Snake Indians preparing to descend to avoid the Blackfeet
Indians. They left us promising to return to trade; but ap-
peared independent of our goods ; well armed and well stocked
in ammunition, knives and iron; not a beaver skin among
them all.

Wednesday, March 22d. We have upwards of 100 traps
set. The Snake camp began to move about sunrise and con-
tinued passing till night ; not less than 400 heads, nearly double
that number of horses, with buffalo meat. This camp is bound
to Sickly River for roots and salmon. In the fall they will
return to winter in the Buffalo plain. This is the life they
lead. The Blackfeet are fast diminishing their numbers and
before many years all will be killed. Two of the chiefs paid us
a visit ; they are well dressed, and comport themselves decent-
ly. I made each a present of a knife and an awl. They are to
meet the Nez Perces Indians at the entrance of Burnt River to
trade. We are now in a country of danger and guard at night.
Nine beaver today.

i On south side of Snake River.

SNAKE EXPEDITION, 1825-1826 357

Friday, March 24th. Retraced back our steps to the en-
trance of Raft River. Saw another Snake camp of 200 who
wintered with the Americans and carry an American flag.
They had 60 guns and ammunition not scarce. It was this
camp that destroyed Mr. Reid and party, on Sandwich Islands,
10 Americans and pillaged free men two years since. They
informed me the American camp of 25 tents were on Bear's
River and it is a month since they left. This day 36 beaver
and one otter.

Saturday, March 25th. The Snakes continued to move. I
had no idea the Snakes were so numerous. The Plains Snakes,
said to be 1000 men, annually go to the Spanish settlements
to trade and steal horses. The Lower Snakes are not less than
1500 men, independent of women and children. The Black-
feet steal great numbers of horses from them; they retaliate
in kind; they have 150 guns. Our horses are well guarded,
day and night. No less than 13 traps stolen by the natives.
Forty-five beaver this day.

Tuesday, March 28th. Course northeast. We reach the
Falls, commonly known as the American Falls ; not high, about
10 feet ; tracks of Indians, supposed to be Blackfeet, as we are
now in their territory. Forty-two beaver today.

Wednesday, March 2Qth. At the break of day, the morning
watch called us to arms; "Blackfeet," resounded from one end
of camp to the other; horses were scarcely secured when they
were in sight and advanced slowly singing, but not with bad
intention ; bows unstrung, cases on their guns, we advanced to
receive them, when the chief came forward and presented his
hand. I was surprised to recognize an old acquaintance of
mine in this chief. They were soon seated and requested to
speak. They informed me they left the Saskatchewan in
December last and were in quest of the Snakes to steal
horses ; they discovered our men last night and did not venture
to come to the camp; the truth is, they found our horses too

358 PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

weak and well guarded. We were now fully convinced we
were in a country of danger. This party consists of 80 men
and as usual with them their reserve amounts to 20 and cannot
be far distant; they are poorly armed, only 15 guns; scarcely
any ammunition; bows and arrows scarce among them. If
rascals deserve reward, they do for the distance they came in
quest of horses and scalps. Well may the Snakes dread. They
remained about camp all day. Many of our traps were not
visited and those near at hand were all brought into camp late
at night; the reserve camp of Piegans made their appearance,
ten men and two women; every precaution taken with our
horses for the night to keep them snug. Ten beaver.

Thursday, March 3Oth. It was 12 oclock before the Piegans
set out in quest of the Snakes. They left in our camp one
sick man and two women. Our course, north north east.

Friday, March 3ist. Counted 40 horses dead in Snake win-
ter camp; 27 beaver today, which makes our first thousand,
and leaves two to begin the second thousand. I hope to reach
Vancouver with 3,000.

Saturday, April ist. A stormy night, at daylight a call from
the guard "to arms." We were soon out and seven men came
to our camp. Fort Nez Perces Indians, who passed the win-
ter with the Flatheads and left them 40 days since. These
fellows are in quest of Snakes to steal horses and seemed dis-
appointed to find the Piegans before them.

Sunday, April 2d. Course north nor'east. Camped Port-
neuf Fork ; a finer country for beaver never seen ; if the war
tribes do not oblige me to change quarters, we shall do well.
Today 27 beaver.

Monday, April 3d. We are not more than two miles from
Benoit's grave,1 who was killed this season last year. Large
head of buffalo seen near camp.

i Indicated on map as south side of Snake River.

SNAKE EXPEDITION, 1825-1826 359

Tuesday, April 4th. Blackfeet seen near camp, but secreted
themselves. These villains appear determined to watch every
opportunity to steal our horses. Forty beaver today.

Friday, April 7th. Mr. McKay and man who went buffalo
hunting arrived safe about 10 o'clock; had a narrow escape;
saw the enemy at a distance and had full time to conceal them-
selves. So far well. Shortly after four of the party in pursuit
of the Snakes arrived ; starvation obliged them to return ; they
have seen the track of a war party; we are surrounded on all
sides by enemies ; if we escape, we shall be lucky ; little done
towards progress home; obliged to keep on our guard. One
beaver.

Saturday, April 8th. Early this morning upwards of 100
Indians came ; many strange faces. We did not allow them to
come too near our camp ; many are well armed, but not stocked
with ammunition; one of the trappers was again pursued by
the Blackfeet; these rascals will not allow us to remain quiet
till an example be made of some of them. Some meat dried
today for the journey home.

Sunday, April gth. Forty Blackfeet seen near camp ; we did
not allow them to enter ; traded horse slings from them. About
10 a. m. we were surprised by the arrival of a party of Ameri-
cans and some of our deserters of last year, 28 in all. If we were
surprised they were more so from an idea that the threats of last
year would have prevented us from returning to this quarter,
but they find themselves mistaken; they camped a short dis-
tance away ; all quiet. With the glass we could observe Black-
feet scattered about the hills watching our motions. Five
beaver.

Monday, April loth. The second watch gave us a start
from our beds, Mr. McKay having fired on an Indian detected
in the act of stealing a horse. This fellow will not make an-
other attempt. The strangers paid me a visit and I had a busy
day settling with them, and more to my satisfaction and the

360 PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

company's than last year. We traded from them 93 large and
small beaver and two otter seasoned skins at a reasonable rate
and received Si.121 beavers in part payment of their debts due
the company, also two notes of hand from Mr. Monton (Mon-
tain) for his balance, Patrick Prudhomme and Pierre Sinani-
togans.2 We secured all the skins they had. Our deserters
are already tired of their new masters and from their manner
will soon return to us. They promised to reach the Flatheads
this fall. I cannot imagine how the Americans can afford to
sell their beaver to reap profit when they pay $3 per pound
for coarse or fine, but such is the case.

Tuesday, April nth. Separated from the Americans. They
ascended the stream ; we descended. Goddin's son, having re-
quested to join his father, and being a worthless scamp, I gave
him his liberty, the Americans having advanced three beaver to
make up his debt. Young Findlay has joined our camp, a
Canadian by name Lounge has joined with traps and horses.
Not one of our party appeared the least inclined to desert; so
much to their credit.

Thursday, April I5th. The Piegan chief will leave us to-
morrow ; he tells us we cannot be too much on our guard ; that
we are surrounded by war parties.

Saturday, April I5th. Weather mild, wind strong. The
Piegans have set fire to the plains to destroy us or collect war
parties to surround us.

Saturday, April 22d. Guard informs us three halfbreeds are
bent on desertion. I secured their horses, arms and blankets.
They do not relish the idea of a journey on foot and followed
us ; one of them, for his impudence, received a drubbing from
me. We camped within two miles of the American Falls.

Saturday, April 29th. Twelve buffalo killed for provisions
back.

1 Eighty-one pounds, twelve shillings.

2 Tinanitogans.

SNAKE EXPEDITION, 1825-1826 361

Saturday, May 6th. Over hilly, stony country, bare of wood
to Raft River; began to snow and continued the greater part
of the night. Many of the trappers came in, almost froze,
naked as the greater part are, and destitute of shoes, it is sur-
prising not a murmur or complaint do I hear; such men are
worthy of following Franklin. Two-thirds without a blanket
or any shelter, and have been so for the last six months.
Thirty-four beaver today.

Tuesday, May gth. Half the camp ill from meat of beaver
fat from eating hemlock.

Sunday, May 2ist. The Snakes inform us a party of
Americans, about 30 in number, has descended this stream on
their return from Salt Lake, without beaver ; this agrees with
the account of Mr. Montain.

Tuesday, May 23d. We saw the corpse of an Indian lying
on the plains. The Snakes have a mode of burying their dead
different from all other natives ; where he falls he is allowed to
remain, without a grave or covering; a feast for the wolves
and crows ; nor is any ceremony observed or grief of long dura-
tion ; how pleasant to part with friends without regretting them.
The Snakes have one advantage over us ; I envy them.

Friday, June 2d. Proceeded but a short distance when we
met with a Snake ; this Indian I saw last year on Bear's River ;T
it was this rascal who headed the party who pillaged us two
years ago. He also headed the party who murdered nine
Americans and pillaged all their property, and last year again
pillaged the Americans of all they had.

Saturday, June 3d. Mr. Dears started from Indian tent in
the hope of trade, but without success. In fact, with the
Snakes, you must take them by surprise; take their property
ere they have time to secure it, and recompense them for it.
By any other means, you cannot obtain anything from them,

i Probably the date of Mr. Ogden's first trip to Great Salt Lake.

362 PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

so averse are they to trade provisions, nor do I blame them
in such a wretched country; nor would they remain in this
quarter, but the dread of losing their scalps. They are sur-
rounded on all sides by enemies; are at peace with Flatheads
and Nez Perces, but have the Crows, the Utas, the Saskatche-
wan tribes to guard against.

Friday, June 8th. Had a visit from the Snakes. Within
the last 10 months they have plundered 180 traps from the
Americans and guns, knives and other articles. This, with 13
men murdered in 1825, is sufficient to make them independent
of trade. The Americans swear to make an example of them ;
I do hope from my soul they may.

Saturday, June loth. We started at an early hour; one of
the trappers reports that yesterday he saw a party of Indians,
30 in number, who, on seeing him, went off at full speed and
took to the mountains. Some are of the opinion they have
killed our men left here, or suspect us to be Americans. I
feel most anxious about the six men we were to find in this
quarter ; so far no tidings of them ; this gives me hope they
are safe ; by the route we are taking we cannot be long with-
out hearing from them ; I only hope we shall find them alive and
well loaded with beaver; we require all to make up our three
thousand.1 Saw a family of Indians on the move ; they had no
horses and are well loaded — men, women and children with
roots ; they endeavored to escape from us. They were allowed
to pass without molestation. This is the season of roots in
this quarter the bitter and another a good substitute for flour,
if it were dried. The seed of the sunflower they also collect
for food, but it does not appear to be common here. Six
beaver from 50 traps today ; course, northwest north, 14 miles.

Sunday, June n. We have every cause to apprehend some
treachery from suspicious manner of the Indians. At this sea-
son beaver are not easily taken. The bait of castoreum is no

i Confirms note on entry of April loth.

SNAKE EXPEDITION, 1825-1826 363

inducement as they discharge this castoreum, abandon the fe-
male to the young and will live on grass till the sap of the trees
ceases flowing and flowers from blooming, when they com-
mence preparing their winter habitation; they are at present
very shy. Our last party were to have ascended Sandwich
Island River and to have trapped it ; and I am surprised not to
see them. I rewarded our guide to the amount of eight skins,
Indian tariff, and he was highly pleased. Mr. McKay discov-
ered some Snake Indians concealed in the hills, no doubt to
steal our horses. This day 44 beaver, which enables us once
more to feast. The discontent was dispelled. Gaiety reigns in
camp.

Monday, June I2th. Last night we were alarmed by the
guide calling out "Thieves." An Indian was seen near the
horses, but made his escape ; had he delayed two hours longer,
when all the camp would have been asleep, he would have suc-
ceeded; it will have a good effect on the men. Canadians in
general require an alarm every few days to keep on guard.
Some of our traps were stolen last night ; suspect men ( ?) the
camp's. This day we finished our second thousand beaver. If
our absent men are safe I trust them to add a thousand more.

Wednesday, June I4th. We trust to chance now as we have
no guide and all are equally ignorant of this country. Two
Snake Indians, well-mounted, came boldly to camp ; they gave
us some idea of the road, and no tiding of our absent men.
God grant no accident has befallen them.

Thursday, June I5th. All along our route this day the
plains were covered with women digging roots; at least 10
bushels were traded by our party; the men (Indians) all gone
to join the Fort Nez Perces Indians. Reached a fork of Owy-
hee River. Still no account of our men.

Sunday, June i8th. The stones are as sharp as flints ; our
tracks could be followed by the blood from our horses' feet.

Monday, June 26th. Very evident our absent men have

364 PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

passed here; Burnt River, but how long since we could not
from the tracks discover. Tomorrow I shall separate from
my party leaving Messrs. McDonald, McKay and Dears to
proceed to Nez Perces and then go to Fort Vancouver in
boats with the furs. The appointment to meet Gervais on July
1 5th is the cause of my going. Our horses are in a low state to
undertake it, but I cannot abandon my men and must see if
they be dead or alive.

Thursday, June 29th. Separated1 this morning for my
camp of February 3d. Saw tracks and hopes of our men, but
found a bit of Spanish blanket which makes me conclude this
must be the path of Snakes.

Tuesday, July ist. Reached the waters of Day's River; a
bad road from trees lying crosswise.

Saturday, July 8th. Encamped on waters of Willamette.

Sunday, July i6th. Arrived at Willamette River at 2 p. m.,
where we found a freeman encamped. The man can accom-
modate us with a canoe. I was happy to learn our friends on
the Columbia are safe and well, and Sylvaille and party safely
arrived, but no word of Gervais and party.

Monday, July I7th. Embarked; arrived at falls at 10; ex-
changed our two canoes for a large one. I should suppose the
height of the falls to be about 45 feet. We reached Ft. Van-
couver a little after sunset ; received by Dr. McLoughlin with
every mark of attention. Distance from where I started this
morning to Ft. Vancouver is 56 miles. With the exception of
the falls not a ripple to be seen ; a finer stream than the Wil-
lamette is not to be found ; soil good ; wood of all kinds in
abundance; roots, elk, deer, salmon and sturgeon abundant;
man could reside here and with but little industry enjoy every

i Mr. Ogden himself with small party proceeds west across Blue Mountain
Range and Central Oregon and the Cascade Range to Willamette River by some
route. He evidently had never before seen the Willamette as far south as that.
His men and furs proceed direct to Ft. Walla Walla by way of Powder River and
Grand Ronde Valley, as usual.

SNAKE EXPEDITION, 1825-1826 365

comfort. The distance from the ocean is 90 miles. No doubt
ere many years a colony will be formed on the stream, and I
am of opinion it will, with little care, flourish, and settlers, by
having a seaport so near them, with industry, might add greatly
to their comforts and to their happiness. Thus ends my second
trip and I am thankful for the many dangers I have escaped
with all my party in safety. Had we not been obliged to kill
our horses for food, the success of our expedition would have
yielded handsome profits as it is fortunately no loss will be
sustained.

FINAL EDITORIAL NOTE.

We are fortunate in having a statement of the exact returns
of this expedition, as made up after the arrival at Ft. Vancou-
ver of both Mr. Ogden by way of the Willamette and his furs
by way of the Columbia. It is given in a letter written by Dr.
John McLoughlin to John McLeod, the original of which is
now in the Dominion Archives of Canada at Ottawa, as fol-
lows: "Fort Vancouver 8th August, 1826. Enclosed is a copy

of the Snake Expedition A/C current; 2740 Large

Beaver W't 4285 Ibs. 837 small Beaver w't 551 Ibs. 114 Large
Otter 9 small Otter 3 Misquash 12 Beav'r Coating apparent
gain £2,533-18.

(Sgd) John McLoughlin. "

SECOND PAPER.

THE FINANCIAL HISTORY OF THE STATE
OF OREGON

CHAPTER II.
OREGON'S PUBLIC DOMAIN.

As with the other Western States, excepting Texas, the title
to the lands lying within the borders of Oregon was originally
vested in the national government. The early American set-
tlers in Oregon had, however, become entitled to more than
an average measure of liberality on the part of Congress in its
disposition of these lands. These Oregon pioneers by their
long, hazardous and wearisome journey across the plains and
occupation of this remote region, had largely won the Pacific
slope to the Union. The Donation Act of 1850, securing to
each man and wife a tract of 640 acres, was but a fair acknowl-
edgment of this national service of the early Oregon pioneer.

But these liberal grants to individuals affected the finances
of the territory and state only in that they brought large
tracts privately owned under taxation. More directly do the
grants to the state collectively, for education and internal im-
provements, and to corporations for providing transportation
facilities within its borders, figure in the public finances.

From the Oregon lands received from the national govern-
ment the state treasury secured income of two quite distinct
kinds. The proceeds of some of these grants, the educational,
went into irreducible funds, only the interest incomes from
which could be used for public educational purposes. Of the

FINANCES OF OREGON 367

proceeds from the other class of grants the principal itself was
available for public expenditures. Along with this latter treas-
ury resource from the sales of internal improvement lands by
the state was a money payment of five per cent of the net pro-
ceeds of the sales of public lands within the state by the na-
tional government. Closely allied with this last are the more
recent payments of percentages of the sales of timber from the
forest reservations within the state.

In addition to the grants of lands that were made over to
the state to have and to hold, or to dispose of for the purposes
for which they were accepted, there were land grants to rail-
roads and wagon roads in connection with which the state
acted merely as an intermediary. The proceeds from these did
not figure in the treasury statements.

The public domain has figured in Oregon's finances in the
following ways and items :

I. Through grants for common and higher education: a,
the common school grant first made in the act organizing the
the territory, August 14, 1848, of sections 16 and 36 of each
township ; b, a grant for the use and support of a state univer-
sity first made in the donation act, September 27, 1850, of two
townships and the "Oregon City Claim"; c, the grant under
the Morrill Act, July 2, 1862, for the support of a college for
the cultivation of agricultural and mechanical science and art,
of 30,000 acres for each of the three members of Congress
Oregon then was entitled to.

II. Through grants for internal improvements, public
buildings and other uses of the state: a, a grant of 500,000
acres to which Oregon was entitled under the act of September
4, 1841, for internal improvements; b, a grant of 10 sections
for public buildings made at the time of admission into the
Union, February i4, 1859; c, a grant of not exceeding 12 salt
springs with six sections of lands as contiguous as may be to
each, at the time of the admission into the Union (but this
grant lapsed because of neglect) ; d, swamp lands for reclaim-
ing, under act of September 28, 1850, and extension to Ore-

368 F. G. YOUNG

gon through act of March 12, 1860; e, tide lands through
sovereignty of state; f, five per cent of the net proceeds of the
sales of public lands within the state by the national govern-
ment. At first 10 and now 25 per cent of the receipts from
sales of timber from reservations within the state.

The measure of wealth that the people of Oregon have in
common today for the support of the public activities abso-
lutely essential to a democracy has been determined by the
policy they permitted in the disposition of the grants of land
made to them by the national government. The social condi-
tions involved in the distribution of land ownership are to a
certain extent resultants of the same policy. That policy either
supported or opposed the forces making for wide and uniform
distribution, or for uneven and massed holdings. Even the
speculative mania was fostered or starved. Oregon's adminis-
tration of its various grants reflects the ideas and spirit of the
people during the first 50 years of statehood.

For what transpired in connection with the grants made by
Congress of public lands lying within the borders of Oregon
to railroads and wagon road companies this state has not been
largely responsible. In connection with these the most that de-
volved upon the state legislature, aside from memorializing
Congress for the different grants, was to designate the corpo-
ration that should be the beneficiary of the grant, or upon the
executive to pass upon the construction work as to whether or
not it fulfilled the conditions under which the title to the lands
was to pass to the corporation.

The disposition of the lands of which the state did become
the owner will be traced mainly for the purpose of illustrating
the results of the presence or the absence of the requisite civic
spirit and foresight to conserve the common weal of the pres-
ent and coming generations. Considering the fact that only
a mere remnant of the lands are still held, and the bad taste
left from the transactions of a decade or so ago, the matter
may appeal to some as merely a "spilled milk" episode. It is,
however, of transcendent importance that the lesson it teaches

FINANCES OF OREGON 369

should be learned by the Oregon people. These lands were a
tangible public interest and the outcome with them should
make clear the attitude to be taken and the course followed
with the more intangible resources the public is ever develop-
ing. So the real significance for this generation of Oregon's
public land policy lies not in what "might have been" done with
this particular resource, that for the public has been so largely
squandered, but rather in the suggestion it gives of the need
of the public spirit and intelligence that arouses the imagina-
tion to take hold of the problem of conserving the common and
collective good latent at every stage of social evolution. Every
day brings a turn of events in which the genuinely loyal and
competent citizenship will find opportunity. The present day
stock of public resources in timber, water power, and public
utilities generally, should challenge enlightened thought and
patriotic purpose. The whole status of property rights in its
relation to the welfare of democracy should be clearly com-
prehended.

It goes without question that it was most salutary that the
valley lands and the arable uplands of Oregon should have
passed as rapidly as possible into the hands of the actual culti-
vator. Little valid objection can be raised even to the giving
away of vacant lands under conditions that bring them into
use by the independent husbandman. What the national home-
stead act contemplated was sound public economy. It was par-
ticularly so if the farming it gave opportunity for was not
characterized by soil butchery and soil wastage. But the dis-
position of vacant lands for the nominal sum of $1.25 per acre
under conditions which resulted in their being massed into
larger holdings, in their being largely exempt from taxation,
and in bringing communities under the blighting disadvantage
of sparse settlement and long continued isolation, while the
land speculator was amassing a fortune through unearned in-
crements— such a policy of quick sale of public domain has
none of the redeeming features of the normal working of the
homestead law.

370 F. G. YOUNG

The story of the endowment of the State of Oregon with
its lands is probably best made clear through a reference to
the successive stages in Oregon's development to statehood and
in the creation of titles to lands within its borders. There was
first the period of the provisional government from 1843 to
1849. Under this organization of the settlers a land law pro-
vided for the establishment of and definition of claims to tracts
of not more than 640 acres in extent. No provision existed for
collective commonwealth holdings. Through the act of Con-
gress of August 14, 1848, by which the laws of the United
States were first extended to the Oregon country and the ter-
ritory created, all legislation of the provisional government
affecting titles to lands was "declared to be null and void."
This organic act creating the territory did not, however, pro-
vide any law in place of that set aside. What legal rights
private individuals had to their claims were thus dissolved or
at least held in abeyance. Commonwealth interests fared bet-
ter. Bountiful provision was made for its common schools in
reserving, as they were surveyed, sections 16 and 36 of each
township for the schools.

The settlers were left in suspense as to their claims for some
two years. By the Donation Act of September 27, 1850, each
family settled in Oregon was entitled to a section and each un-
married man to a half-section. The reservation of sections 16
and 36 for schools was reaffirmed, and these public lands of
the people of the territory were supplemented by a grant of
two townships, and the unsold remnant of the "Oregon City
claim," to aid in the establishment of a university. The special
liberality to Oregon settlers was continued down to 1855.

On the passage of the act for the admission of Oregon,
February 14, 1859, and the acceptance of certain specified con-
ditions affecting the grants it made, by the Legislature of Ore-
gon, June 2, of the same year, this state was vested with com-
plete rights not only to the common school and university
grants previously received, but also became possessed of the
following additional grants :

FINANCES OF OREGON 371

The internal improvement grant, 500,000 acres; the public
buildings grant, 6,400 acres; the salt springs grant, 46,080
acres ; the tide lands within the borders of the state ; five per
cent of the net proceeds of the sales made by the national gov-
ernment within the state.1

By act of Congress of March 12, 1860, the swamp lands were
secured to the state in order that it might through the means
they would provide have funds for reclaiming them by levees
and drains; and on July 2, 1862, 90,000 acres were added to
the state's endowment, as its quota for the support of an agri-
cultural college.

It will be noticed that the common school lands have their
location specifically described, while to secure title to specific
tracts under the other grants required that a selection be made.
Even in the case of the common school lands, the settlement
prior to survey of sections 16 or 36 necessitated selection of
lieu lands as also did a mineral character of the school sections.

I. THE SELECTION OF OREGON LANDS.

The selection, and the securing of the approval of such selec-
tions by national authorities, was the first step of administra-
tion necessary on the part of the state in availing itself of the
congressional grants of lands other than the school lands. Even
in the case of the common school grant sections 16 and 36
were found occupied in the valleys of Western Oregon when
the surveys were made — as the settlement of this part of the
territory had been in progress for some ten years before the
survey was begun. The law respected the rights of these prior
claimants. The selection of lieu school lands was thus neces-
sary to make up for the loss sustained in the valleys of the
Willamette, Umpqua and Rogue Rivers. Furthermore, lands
of a mineral character were excepted from the common school
grant, and the state's quota of school lands was cut down in
the creation of Indian reservations and more recently through

i General Laws of Oregon, 1843-1872, pp. 101-104.

372 F. G. YOUNG

the setting apart large tracts covering water sheds for national
forest reserves. The state was entitled to indemnity school
lands for all these losses. It was in connection with the secur-
ing of lands in lieu of these losses that the most grievous
blunders were made.

The conduct of the work of selection throughout creates an
impression of dilatoriness and lack of intelligent procedure.
The salt springs' grant of 46,080 acres was wholly forfeited
through neglect.1 The state would have fared likewise with
other grants had not extensions of the periods within which
selections were to be made been allowed by congress. It
must be admitted that there was little to suggest to the early
Oregonians that the lands away from the centers of the valleys
would ever be worth securing. An unlimited timbered wilder-
ness and beyond that to the east a continental stretch of semi-
arid plains hedged about the small settled areas in the valleys.2
These were mitigating circumstances that excuse the early dila-
toriness, but they in no way exonerate the state from blame for

1 It is a question whether Oregon had the kind of springs or the conditions
that originally inspired the custom of a salt springs grant. Yet there is no
evidence that the state officials were deterred on that score from attempting
selections.

2 The first governor in his first message spoke of the difficulty of making
selections of value. He says: "Although this grant [Oregon's aggregate endow-
ment in 1860] appears liberal and generous, yet, it may be difficult to find lands in
any of the valleys west of the Cascade range of mountains of a desirable quality,
unoccupied, subject to be located under the provisions of this bill." — House
Journal, First Session, 1859, p. 27.

The following also indicates somewhat the ideas entertained concerning the
resources in the public lands: The "Memorials and Resolutions" of the session of
1864 contain the copy of a memorial praying for favorable action on a bill the
legislature proposed to have presented by the Oregon senators and representatives,
asking for the granting to the State of Oregon all the unsurveyed lands within her
boundaries. The ground on which they made this request was that "the great
body of lands now unsurveyed within the boundaries of Oregon is of little value;
and that scattered through it are many small tracts of comparatively small extent,
that the expense to the government to extend the surveys to include these small
isolated sections of good lands and to bring them into the market, can never be
repaid by their sale; that, therefore, while being to the government of no value,
they may be by economical systems of surveys under state authority be of much
value to the state, and might be applied to create a fund for internal improve-
ments to great advantage to Oregon." — Special Laws, 1864, under "Memorials and
Resolutions," pp. 11-12.

FINANCES OF OREGON 373

the policy most perserve later pursued in making indemnity
school land selections. Instead of proceeding in a business-like
way by inspecting the areas available from which selections
could be made, and conserving the interests of the people as a
whole by making a selection of the best, the state assumed a
passive attitude that played into the hands of the speculative
exploiter. Under such a policy the hard-working creator of
wealth doing a real service to the community was placed at a
great disadvantage, and the speculative schemer with parasitic
inclinations was given every opportunity. The inevitable out-
come was to make the state the harbor of a goodly number of
notorious land thieves. Yet the national land legislation must
share with that of the state the ignominy in the looting of the
public domain in Oregon. The national land laws were not
made with Oregon conditions in view and were not adapted to
them, but lent themselves to practices that meant the sacrifice
of the public good.

To take up the story of the Oregon grants in detail. The
selection of the lieu or indemnity school lands was first to be
undertaken and has been in constant progress, as the surveys
have been extended, and always of major importance; yet since
the complications and the abuses in connection with these selec-
tions were quite recent, a decade or two ago, the account of
them is best reserved until last.

University Lands. The selection of the areas of the unde-
fined grants began with the university lands. It will be re-
membered that this two-township grant was made by Congress
in 1850 in the Donation Act. The first selections of university
lands were made in 1853. About $9000 worth of the selected
lands were sold at public sales in 1855 anci I8s6. Selections suf-
ficient to make up the two townships granted were located, but
as will appear later the procedure necessary to perfect the title
of the state to these lands was not carried out. A $4 per
acre minimum price put on them brought activity in selling to
a close. For some ten years nothing more appears on the
records concerning these university lands except that they

374 F- G. YOUNG

were to be found among the river bottom lands along the
Willamette and its tributaries and in the foothills and that they
were being despoiled of their timber and the trespassing was
resistless.1 The board of commissioners for the sale of school
and university lands say in 1868 as to the university lands that
"there appears on the record to have been selected and ap-
proved 7,494.35 acres (an excess of 1,414.35 acres.")2 Gover-
nor Grover, however, in his biennial message of 1872 makes
the astounding statement "Efforts at locating these lands be-
gan as early as 1853, but owing to irregularities of the work,
and misapprehension of its conditions, the locations remained
totally unrecognized by the United States, and consequently
open for pre-emption or homestead settlement. From these
facts, many of the lands first selected under this grant have
been lost to the state, and others of necessarily a poorer quality,
had to be located to fill the grant."3

Of the selection of its university land, then, it must be said
that the territorial authorities in the first instance were not
dilatory, but having secured an inchoate title to the lands, they
suffered them to be despoiled and in part taken from the state's
possession so that lands of a poorer quality had to substituted.

The Agricultural College Lands. Through the conditions of
the Morrill Act of July 2, 1862, Oregon became entitled to
90,000 acres for the support of an agricultural college. The
selection of these lands under the act of the Legislature of
October 15, 1862, providing generally for the selection of state
lands, devolved upon the Governor of the state. Two years
later in reporting progress with this matter Governor Gibbs in

1 University Land Commissioner's Report, 1858.

2 Report Commissioners for Sale School and University Lands, 1868, pp. 40-41.

3 Governor's Message, 1872, pp. 10-11.

A feature of the original grant for university purposes in addition to the two
townships was the "Oregon City Claim." This involved cruel injustice to Dr. John
McLoughlin, to whom the land of right belonged. Naturally there was resistance
to the State in taking possession. The tract comprised the site of Oregon City.
After selling a few lots, the State made over its rights to the heirs of Dr.
McLoughlin in 1862 for $1000. — General Laws, 1862, p. 90.

FINANCES OF OREGON 375

his biennial message says : "There is great difficulty in finding
lands subject to location in this state. I have considered it of
paramount importance to first select lands for the benefit of the
common schools. Enough of that class has not yet been found
to make up the amount to which the state is entitled, therefore
no lands have yet been selected for the benefit of the agricul-
tural college."1

As these lands had not yet been selected in 1868 and as the
state's extension of time in which to erect the college would
have nearly elapsed by the time of the next session of the
Legislature, the Legislature of 1868 appointed a special com-
mission to select the agricultural college lands and to prepare
plans for the college. This committee reported in 1870 that
it had selected all such lands to which the state was entitled
excepting some 92 acres. These selections were made in a
block in the Klamath Lake country. This was then a region re-
mote from settlement. The lands were located there because
no considerable body of surveyed lands subject to private entry
near settled districts was available. The Klamath lands, how-
ever, were not technically subject to private entry as the terms
of the act of Congress required they should be to make them
available for selection by the state for agricultural college
lands.2

It required an act of Congress to legalize this selection by
the state. This was secured in the session of 1871-2, and the
administrative ratification of the selection soon followed. The
lands of the agricultural college grant were thus fully vested
in the state after a lapse of some ten years from the time the
act making the grant was passed.

The Internal Improvement Grant. An act of Congress of
September 4, 1841, provided that 500,000 acres of public lands
shall be granted "to each state that shall hereafter be admitted
into the Union," for internal improvements. This act was in

i Appendix to House Journal, 1864, p. 5.
» GoTernor's Message, 1872, pp. 12-13.

376 F. G. YOUNG

force at the time of the admission of Oregon. The dilatoriness
that characterized the state's action in making selections of uni-
versity and agricultural college lands did not obtain with this
grant. It was rather a form of precipitancy in the legislation
affecting these lands that caused considerable of a tangle and
some loss. By an act of the Legislature of October 19, 1860, it
was intended to secure to individuals the right to pre-empt
lands that should later be selected as part of this grant.1 The
transaction arranged for under this statute clearly constituted a
case of contracting to sell property to which the state as yet
had no claim. The lands thus pre-empted under state law
were still national property and were liable to be sold or taken
as homesteads without regard to the interests of those who had
made payments to the state treasury as pre-emptors. The state
had no control over any public lands until these had under
some grant been selected and approved.2 By an act of October
15, 1862, the act of the preceding session essaying to provide
"possessory and pre-emptory rights" was formally repealed
and the claims taken under it, and held, whether amounting to
320 acres or not, were so accounted by the state to the national
government in order to make their selection valid.3

The Governor by this act of 1862 was authorized to employ
temporarily an agent acquainted with the locality where it was
proposed to select lands. By 1868 some 300,000 acres of this
5oo,ooo-acre grant had been selected, the greater portion being
in Union, Baker and Umatilla Counties.4 By 1870 the amount
approved to the state had reached 431,516 acres.5 Nearly 457,-
000 acres had been approved by 1872, the selection of the
remainder was certain to be ratified in a short time.6 So this

1 General Laws, 1860, pp. 55-57.

2 Governor's Message — Appendix to House Journal, 1862, pp. 26-27.

3 General Laws, 1862, pp. 105-7.

4 Report of the Commissioners for the Sale of School and University Lands,
1868, pp. 44-46.

5 Report of the Commissioners for the Sale of School and University Lands,
1870, p. 18.

6 Governor's Message, 1872, p. 14.

FINANCES OF OREGON 377

internal improvement grant after which the state started
precipitantly in 1860 was fully vested in the state after a
period of some fourteen years.1

The Public Buildings Grant. As this grant to Oregon
amounted to only ten sections (6,400 acres) it was not strange
that it should have been overlooked for some time.2 However,
Governor Grover, during his first term, 1870 to 1874, made the
securing of title by the state to all public lands granted 10 it
the leading object of his administration and was able to report
in 1874 concerning this grant that the lands had been selected
during the last preceding biennium, the selections approved at
the local land offices and were awaiting final approval by the
Department of the Interior.3

The Salt Springs Grant. Oregon on its admission as a state
became entitled to all the salt springs within its borders, "not
exceeding twelve in number, with the six sections of land ad-
joining or as contiguous as may be to each. . . . the same
to be selected by the Governor thereof within one year after
the admission of the state." No selection of these springs or
lands was ever made. It was not, however, the fault of the first
Governor, John Whiteaker. He made three successive applica-
tions to the Commissioner of the General Land Office for in-
structions in accordance with which the selections might be
made. He was not enlightened.4 Congress extended the time
for selection for three years from December 17, 1860, and this
period expired without selections having been made.

Governor Grover in 1874 claimed that there were "several
salt springs of superior character and great future value al-
ready known," and thought others would be discovered. He
requested that Congress be memorialized to extend again the
time for selecting salt springs and contiguous lands. The

1 Governor's Message, 1874, p. 10.

2 Governor's Message, 1872, p. 10.

3 Governor's Message, 1874, pp. 13-14.

4 Governor's Message, 1862, p. 5. \ ;. ».

378 F. G. YOUNG

Legislature, however, did not respond, and a possible addition
of 46,080 acres of lands for the state was not secured.

Probably it was just as well that the right of Oregon to
the salt springs grant was forfeited. Oregon's excellent min-
eral springs are not of the character or type of the salt springs
of the Ohio valley in connection with which and similar springs
this grant to states became customary. Nor have the Oregon
springs had a similar function in the early economic conditions
of the state. It was not strange that Governor Whiteaker un-
der the peculiar circumstances existing in Oregon should have
anxiously sought instructions before making selections. And
it may be possible that Governor Grover's zeal in finding a
basis for Oregon's right to the salt springs grant was due more
to his laudable ambition to get a full share of the public lands
for the state rather than to carry out the purpose for the public
welfare under which the custom of the grant originated.1

The Swamp Land Grant. The application of the customary
swamp land grant to conditions existing in Oregon was at-
tended by an even nearer approach to chicanery than the reali-
zation on the salt springs grant would have been. Oregon has
very little surface area that approximates in character to the
lands bordering on the Mississippi River in the States of
Louisiana and Arkansas, to which the swamp land grant was
first applied. Moreover, it has but a small extent of surface
like that of the lake and marsh districts of glacial origin to be
found in Minnesota, the state with which Oregon was linked,
in the extension of the swamp land grant. Under these cir-
cumstances we expect to find Governor Whiteaker, upon whom
the selection of the Oregon swamp lands devolved, again in
trouble when he took up his task of the selection of them.

The act of Congress of March 12, 1860, extending the pro-
visions of the swamp land grant act to Oregon and Minnesota
further prescribed that the selection of the swamp lands," from
lands already surveyed, at the time of the passage of the act

i Governor's Message, 1874, p. 15.

FINANCES OF OREGON 379

must be made within two years after the adjournment of the
Legislature of each state at its session next after the date of the
act, and as to all lands thereafter surveyed, within two years
from such adjournment at the next session, after notice by the
Secretary of the Interior to the Governor of the state that the
surveys have been completed and confirmed."1 It was the rule
of the Department of the Interior to allow the different states
the option ( I ) of taking the field notes of the survey designat-
ing the lands swampy in character which would pass to them
under the grant; or (2) of selecting the lands by the state's
own agents and report the same to the United States surveyor-
general with proof of swampy character of the same. The
Governor accordingly submitted the matter to the Legislative
Assembly of 1860 in September and again called its attention
to the matter of expressing its option the following month. But
that body did not choose to take any action in the premises.
Again in 1862 Governor Whiteaker reminded the Legislature
that if there should be no exception made in favor of Oregon
its swamp lands would be forfeited and that they were pass-
ing into private ownership through sale and pre-emption along
with the general body of public lands so offered.2 Notwith-
standing these repeated warnings there was utter neglect of
the swamp land grant on the part of the Oregon Legislative
Assemblies until 1870. Neither did the Department of the In-
terior have the deputy surveyors in Oregon designate in their
notes the land of swampy character; nor did it give notice to
the Governors of the state when surveys were completed, with
intimation that the state should select from among them lands
claimed as swamp lands. However, in 1870 the Oregon Legis-
lature woke up to a realization of commonwealth interests cen-
tered in the state's getting its swamp lands. It proceeded sum-
marily and boldly to appropriate the swamp lands of the state
without so much as asking "by your leave" of Congress. The

1 Donaldson's The Public Domain, p. 703.

2 Governor's Message, 1862, (Appendix to House Journal), p. 5.

380 F. G. YOUNG

board of school land commissioners were ordered to appoint
an agent to select and to offer for sale at one dollar an acre
the lands selected as swamp lands without asking the approval
of such selections by the national authorities.1 A list of their
selections, amounting to 174,219 acres in 1872, was filed at the
local public land offices, but there the same lands were being
offered to homestead and pre-emption settlement. Governor
Grover had during the preceding year taken up the matter with
the Department of the Interior charging that the general land
office of the United States had been neglectful in the execution
of the laws of Congress making this grant in so far as it re-
lated to Oregon. Special apprehension was expressed con-
cerning the fact that the large railway land grants, which were
being located at this time, would infringe upon the swamp
land areas.2 This most unsatisfactory situation was continued
another two years. The agents of the state extended their
selections and had filed lists amounting to 266,600 acres by the
time of the meeting of the Legislature in 1874. The Secre-
tary of the Interior, however, had no attention paid to these
selections as he held that in the act of 1870 the state had not
complied with the regulations of the department as to indication
of mode of selection it had chosen, nor did that act provide for
proof of swampy character of lands selected. That headway
might be made toward securing a clear title to the lands chosen
Governor Grover counselled the Legislature to pass a resolu-
tion specifically electing to select the swamp and overflowed
lands by agents of the state and to instruct the board of school
land commissioners to furnish such evidence, and in such
manner to the Department of the Interior of the character of
these lands as it should prescribe. The Legislature complied
and passed3 an act requisite for securing the selection of swamp
lands in accordance with rules of the Department of the
Interior.

1 General Laws, 1870, pp. 54-57.

2 Governor's Message, 1872, pp. 14-20.

3 General Laws, 1874, p. 24, ,

FINANCES OF OREGON 381

The handling of the Oregon's swamp land grant during the
seventies and eighties was wholly discreditable to the state. To
say that it exhibits the extreme of credulity and supineness
on the part of the Legislatures and Governors of these decades
is placing the most charitable interpretation possible upon the
policy pursued. It was not an orgy of land looting in which
any considerable number of Oregon people participated but
rather a neatly executed scheme on the part of foreign capital-
ists who got a half a million acres of valuable lands for a song.
A few private citizens served as tools and Legislatures and
state officials were duped into acquiescence.

The Legislature of 1870 was befoozled into passing the act,
already referred to, under which a single individual could be-
come purchaser of an unlimited area of such lands as amen-
able state agents could be induced to designate as swamp lands.
A payment of 20 cents an acre secured possession of these
lands from the state and if three crops of hay were cut within
ten years they were accounted "reclaimed" ; a further payment
of 80 cents an acre secured full title to the lands so far as the
state could give it.

The sale of the swamp lands was so bound up with the selec-
tion of them that it is exceedingly difficult to discuss these
transactions separately. In fact, we shall see that the great
body of the lands were construed as sold some years before
they were selected. But to return to the progress in selection.
The first fruits of the perverse handling of the matter of selec-
tion appear in the statement of the board of school land com-
missioners of 1876. By that time the selections by the state
agents in the aggregate amounted to some 324,000 acres ; yet
only 1,336 acres had been approved to the state by the national
authorities. Several purchasers who had made first payments
to the state, on the basis of its right to these lands under the
procedure of the act of 1870, were withdrawing their money
as their lands were being taken away from them by pre-
emptors under national law.1

i Report of Commissioners for Sale of School and University Lands, 1876,
p. 14-

382 F. G. YOUNG

The nature of the influences that dominated the situation is
revealed through the report for 1878 of this same state land
board : "There has been selected and listed 237,864 acres [dur-
ing the last two years] making in all 562,083.97 acres. There
are on file in the office at the present time applications for a
large lot of lands that have not been listed or selected; also
there are applications on file for about one million acres that
are yet unsurveyed. . . . Some lists have been approved by
him [the surveyor-general] and forwarded to the Commis-
sioner of the General Land Office, and are awaiting his action.
He has, however, approved to the state about 2,000 acres in
all." This report, however, fails to divulge the fact which
would have been a very pertinent one for it to have made
known, namely, that this prodigious filing had nearly all been
done by one party. As it was it made it quite evident that
there was a wide disparity between the views of state officials
and swamp land purchasers on the one hand and the national
approving officials on the other as to what were swamp lands.

The mistaken notion, acted upon under the law of 1870,
as to the summary power of the state in determining what
belonged to it as swamp lands, arose in a measure from the
fact that the courts, both national and state, had declared the
grant as in praesenti, vesting the right to the swamp lands in
the state whether it had title to specific tracts or not. In the
eighties it receded from its presumption and proceeded in co-
operation with the authorities of the national government to
make selections.

In the early eighties the national government sent out "spe-
cial agents" to investigate character of swamp lands listed.
With these state agents conferred in making selections. The
Legislature had in 1878 attempted to balk the wholesale
grabbing of the swamp lands under the act of 1870 by rais-
ing the price to $2.50 an acre on all lands applied for under
this act. Furthermore, the applicant under act of 1870 must
now under the law of 1878 take all he applied for at $2.50
instead of $i an acre, or be limited to 320 acres as were all

FINANCES OF OREGON 383

purchasers under the act of 1878. But alas, the Legislature
of 1870 had been too pliant. It had legitimized the applica-
tion by any purchaser of an unlimited amount of swamp lands
at a price of one dollar an acre. Notwithstanding the repeal
of the law of 1870 by the act of 1878 before the state had ap-
proved lists of swamp lands above a few thousand acres, the
enormous areas applied for by one or two parties under the
conditions of the act of 1870 had to be delivered. So ruled
the state land board of two successive administrations of the
eighties. This was the most preposterous part of the whole
swamp land transactions. A single party — the tool of foreign
capitalists — received a deed to at least 350,000 acres on the
ground that filings had been made for that amount before the
law of 1870 had been repealed. These filings were for lands
which the state at the time did not own and on which not a
cent had been paid before the law under which they were
made was repealed. Yet the administrative officials held that
they had the force of contracts which neither the Legislature
nor the Governor could set aside. A pretty result we have in
this of the status and strength of private property rights as
against the power and general welfare of the people.

The purpose for which the swamp land grants by the na-
tional government to the states was initiated received only
nominal recognition in the first Oregon legislation pertaining
to the grant. In all subsequent acts this purpose was com-
pletely ignored. The morale exhibited throughout in connec-
tion with the handling of Oregon's swamp land grant was
about as follows : After an ineffectual effort by the first Gov-
ernor to develop the state's claims to its swamp lands the mat-
ter lay in abeyance some ten years. Then, beginning with
1870, Governor Grover makes the realization by the state on
its different land grants his leading activity. His attitude, how-
ever, suggests strongly that he felt that all the public domain
of right should have belonged to the state unconditionally,
though he outlines no large purposes that might thus have been
served. The several Legislatures, with their attention directed
to these resources of the state, seemed mainly susceptible to

384 F. G. YOUNG

suggestions that promised traffic in lands and money in the
treasury. Legislators with purposes pitched on such a low
plane naturally became the victims of ingenious schemers who
were on hand with plausible objects, in the shape of wagon
road projects, to solicit appropriations anticipating the receipts
from swamp land sales. With no adequate administrative
supervision these wagon road appropriations became what they
were planned to be — means for relieving the treasury of ex-
pected surplus funds. In this account of the selection of the
swamp lands the sale of them and the disposition of the pro-
ceeds from them have been anticipated, as all these transactions
were bound up together. In fact, binding contracts for the sale
of these lands and appropriations of anticipated proceeds were
practically all made before the selection of any had been com-
pleted. In it all there was not the least service by the state gov-
ernment to the people. Only syndicates of land-grabbers, on
the one side, and, to all appearances, sets of treasury swindlers,
on the other, profited.

In a state in which the extension of the government survey
has been so gradual and not yet completed, the swamp land
selection must go on apace. Oregon's geological formations
do not include those giving rise to any considerable areas of
swamp lands, except in its southeastern counties. The swampy
areas of that section were exploited in the seventies and
eighties. Even there large areas were, through the connivance
of state and national agents, adjudged swamp lands simply
because they were overflowed during brief periods at certain
seasons.1

i Selections of lands under the robbers' act of 1870 have been made with
the view of cutting off access to the water. All the lands bordering on lakes and
streams are taken. Every acre where hay can be cut. As no one can find means
to live away from the water, the surrounding country for some miles becomes a
cattle range for the land grabber. Up to the highest high water mark and above
it the land surrounding lakes or lying along streams is called swamp land, even
in places where water could not be had by digging to the depth of 30 feet. . .
. . . Agents of 'the general government and of the state paid to protect the
public interests, have connived at the scheme of spoliation; or, even worse, have
taken the money of the spoilers to aid them in consummation of the outrages upon
the country." — Daily Oregonian, February 29, 1884.

(To be continued.)

DEDICATION OF THE M'LOUGHLIN HOME

Sunday, September 5, 1909, the McLoughlin Home was
dedicated at Oregon City. Dr. John McLoughlin, the head of
the Hudson's Bay Company on the Pacific Coast from 1824 to
1846, and the founder of Oregon City, built this house in
1845-46, and occupied it until his death on September 3, 1857.
For a number of years past it has been the desire of a number
of the best citizens of that place that the old home of the "good
old doctor," as he was affectionately known by the pioneers of
early days, should be restored and preserved. An effort with
this end in view was begun about two years ago, but was
delayed by a number of unexpected obstacles. Early in 1909,
the lot upon which it was originally built having changed
hands, the time seemed opportune to the friends of the enter-
prise to begin anew an effort to save the building, particularly
as the new owner of the lot upon which it stood needed the
ground for other purposes, and offered the building without
cost to the friends who had been endeavoring to save it.
Accordingly the "McLoughlin Memorial Association" was
organized for the purpose of initiating a movement to remove
and restore the building. Friends of the effort in Oregon City,
pioneers, members of the Oregon Historical Society, and
others, generously aided by pioneers, members of the Oregon
Historical Society in Portland, and other friends favoring the
effort, raised something over $1,000, and caused the structure
to be removed from its original site to a new and sightly loca-
tion upon the bluff in a park block which was given to Oregon
City by the doctor years before his death. Then the building
was repaired, painted, and a new roof put on, and in general
restored to original condition so far as its outward appearance
is concerned. Unfortunately there was a little local prejudice
against the restoration and removal of the building, and the
intervention of the courts was sought to prevent it; but the

386 DEDICATION OF McLouGHLiN HOME

McLoughlin Memorial Association won the day at every turn.
The last effort to stop the movement for saving the home
occurred on December 6, 1909, when the opposition invoked
the referendum against it, but that effort was defeated on the
date mentioned by a decisive vote on the part of the people of
Oregon City. Obstructive tactics are now at an end.

The dedication ceremonies on the day first above alluded to
were as follows : Overture, The Concert Band ; introductory
remarks, Dr. W. E. Carll, Mayor; address, Frederick V. Hoi-
man, President of the Oregon Historical Society, Portland;
selection, The Concert Band ; remarks, Rev. Thomas Sherman,
son of the late General William T. Sherman; address, P. H.
D'Arcy, Vice- President of the Oregon Pioneer Association;
selection, The Concert Band. Several hundred persons were
present, among them a goodly number of pioneers who had
had frequent personal intercourse with Dr. McLoughlin.
Among these was Hon. Francois Xavier Matthieu, whose ac-
quaintance with the doctor began in 1842.

The officers of the McLoughlin Memorial Association, now
incorporated under the laws of the state, are as follows : E. G.
Caufield, President; George A. Harding, Vice-President ;
Charles H. Caufield, Treasurer ; Edward E. Brodie, Secretary ;
Directors, Rev. A. Hillebrand, Joseph E. Hedges, Judge J. U.
Campbell, C. D. Latourette, William Sheahan, Charles H. Dye,
Dr. W. E. Carll.

ADDRESS OF FREDERICK V. HOLMAN AT THE HOME OF DR.
JOHN MCLOUGHLIN SEPTEMBER 5, 1909.

Mr. Mayor, Oregon Pioneers, Ladies and Gentlemen : It is
with great pleasure and in due appreciation of the honor con-
ferred upon me that I speak on this occasion of the dedication,
or, rather, the re-dedication, of this house so long the home of
Dr. John McLoughlin here in Oregon City.

Its dedication was when he made this his final home in the
Oregon Country. It was during the time of the joint-occu-

ADDRESS OF FREDERICK V. HOLMAN 387

pancy of the Oregon Country by the United States and Great
Britain. It was built after his resignation, and after he had
ceased to be the head of the Hudson's Bay Company on the
Pacific Coast, which was the direct result of his philanthropy
and humanity to the early pioneers. He built this house to
be his permanent abiding place in the Oregon Country. In
selecting Oregon City for his permanent home, he anticipated
that it would be a part of the United States when the boundary
treaty should be made and the dispute as to the ownership of
Oregon should be determined between the United States and
Great Britain. He had determined to change his allegiance
and become an American citizen as soon as he could do so.
This he carried out. Although born and brought up a British
subject, Dr. McLoughlin's feelings and principles were for rule
by the people under a republican form of government. Through
his whole life he was ever the friend of the distressed and the
champion of the oppressed. He made this house his home in
pleasant anticipation of a happy and prosperous old age — to
be with his wife and his children, and his children's children;
to be one of those to make Oregon into a prosperous com-
munity, guided by his experience and his helping hand ; to con-
tinue that aid by precept and example, by being of them as
well as with them. These ideas he carried out to the best of
his ability. I shall not dwell on what he did in assisting in
the upbuilding of Oregon, and his aids and assistance to the
early pioneers. It is a part of the folklore of Oregon.

It was here that the newly-come immigrants, discouraged by
their long and arduous trips across the plains, were made hope-
ful by his kindly words and encouraged by his timely aid and
assistance. It was here to the last that hospitality reigned
supreme. His darkest days were never too dark to give a wel-
come to his friends and to the strangers within his gates. It
was a place of culture, of refinement, the one attractive place in
Oregon, where the log cabin was the rule, and the struggle for
existence and to gain a foothold was the lot of most of the
early pioneers.

388 DEDICATION OF MCLOUGHLIN HOME

Happy as was the original dedication of this house, with its
clustering, charming memories of today, it was in it that Dr.
McLoughlin suffered from despoiling hands, from the rapacity
of some of those he had befriended, and some of those whose
greed of gain outweighed all other considerations, even reli-
gious pretensions. It was here he saw his fortune disappear,
his hopes frustrated, his life wrecked, and where finally his
great heart broke. It was here he suffered martyrdom. It
was here he died . I shall not go into these details. They are
matters of history. He was deprived of the ownership of this
house by the United States Government under the Oregon
donation land law, through the machinations of conspirators,
men, some of whom, enjoyed a little prosperity and public
prominence, whose memories survive mostly through their
unworthy actions toward him. That it was restored to his
heirs by the State of Oregon, is a matter of state pride to every
true Oregonian. It was an act which appeals to the right feel-
ing of every lover of justice and humanity. It was an official
acknowledgment of the injustice done to Dr. McLoughlin, and
a recognition of his services in succoring the early immigrants
and of what he had done for Oregon and what Oregon owed
to him. It is to be regretted that the dark days of his last
years were not brightened by this act of justice. His memory
has now come into its own.

It is proper that this house should stand here in perpetual
memory of its original builder and owner — a man who
stands supreme as the first, the greatest, of Oregon's citi-
zens. It is the one house in Oregon which typifies the old and
binds together the old and the new — the days of heroic Oregon
and the days of the greater Oregon of today. Its preserva-
tion and its removal to the present site represents something
of earnest and heartfelt endeavors, something of romantic
interest, something of patriotism, something of higher feelings
in the appreciation and determination that the house of Ore-
gon's great humanitarian should be preserved and protected,
not only for those of today but for those of the past, whom he

ADDRESS OF FREDERICK V. HOLMAN 389

befriended, and by whom he was beloved, and also for those
of the future, who will respect and venerate his memory. To
those who were instrumental in the accomplishment of this act
be all honor and praise. It is a noble act of generous and
grateful people. It shows them to be men and women who pos-
sess the qualities of gratitude and of affection, and are respect-
ers of favors received by their ancestors, and appreciators of
noble qualities in others.

This house has its fitting resting place in this park, which
Dr. McLoughlin generously gave to this city. It is only one
of his numerous benefactions to the public. Let it be a shrine
to him who loved his fellowmen. As long as it exists, this
house will be a monument to him and of what he was and is
to the people of Oregon. May it rest here forever. It will
stand for courage and right and humanity as against a com-
pany's selfish policy; for straightforwardness and honesty as
against crookedness and dishonesty; for loving kindness as
against malice ; for a people's gratitude as against conspirators'
rascality and ingratitude; and for a triumphant memory as
against the calumnies and aspersions of contemptible contem-
poraries.

Here will come the stranger to show his appreciation of this
great and good man; here will come the pioneers of Oregon,
and their descendants to the remotest generations to do honor
and reverence to the father of Oregon, whose loving kindness
and humanity can never be forgotten. This house will be con-
secrated by their prayers, their tears, and their love.

DOCUMENTS.

Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Washington, D. C.
Department of Historical Research.
J. Franklin Jameson, Director.

The Editor of the "Oregon Historical Quarterly,"

Dear Sir: I lately found among the papers of my uncle,
who died four years ago, the letter of which I inclose a careful
copy. The writer was his elder brother, my father, John
Jameson of Massachusetts. I have thought that its list of
wholesale prices in Oregon in 1852 might be of some interest
to students of economic conditions in that early period.

My father, who was born in 1828, went out in 1851 to
Oregon, going in a sailing vessel to San Francisco and thence
by steamer to Portland. After a brief stay there he went to
Buteville. I see that in this letter he spells it "Buteville," but I
had always understood from him that it was properly spelled
Butteville. I do not find the name in the Postal Guide, but the
village was in existence some years ago. Indeed, I think you
printed nine or ten years ago the reminiscences of an ancient
French-Canadian who had lived there some sixty years and
whom my father, to whom I showed the article in your Quar-
terly, remembered very well.1

These few months in Buteville were the only part of my
father's life that was spent in commercial pursuits. He came
back to Massachusetts in 1852, studied for the bar, taught for
several years, and then practiced law. He died in 1905. The
brother, ten years younger, to whom the letter is addressed,
was subsequently Dr. R. Edwin Jameson of Boston.
Very respectfully yours,

J. F. JAMESON.
The Carnegie Institution of Washington,

November 27, 1909.

i F. X. Matthieu is no doubt the man to whom Dr. Jameson refers. See
Quarterly, Vol. I, pp. 73-104. — Ed. Quarterly.

JOHN JAMESON 391

Buteville, Marion Co. Tues. Aug. 17, '52
Dear Brother Edwin,

I must commence with asking you to ask father to be sure
to send me the Boston semi weekly Atlas from the receipt of
this till the middle of November or until all the election returns
are in EXCEPT California. Some time ago father asked me to
send you a price current. I will transcribe from my Invoice
Book the wholesale prices which I paid for my goods. The
retail price (my selling price) is from 25 to 100 per cent above
this. Freight from Portland here is about $20.00 per ton some
by weight & some by measurement. So you see if / only sell
enough I shall make a very good profit. I cannot stop to
arrange them in the proper order.

Womens shoes pgd 83 — i.oo

Kit boots pr 2.66

Grain " " 2.50

Cowhide " 3.00

Youths brogans " 75

cut tumblers p doz 1.75 — 2.00

Linen check 20 — .26

Gingham 18 — .25

delaine , 27 — .47

Lawn i3/^— -25

Prints , 10 — .20

Irish linen 37^2 — .54

Diaper & towelling — .16 2-3

Linen thread pr Ib i.oo — 1.50

wh spool cotton pr doz 65 — .75

Sad Irons " Ib , 08

Essences (oz) pr doz , 37 — .75

Saleratus 09

Sugar Manilla 09

China 10

B Havanna 13

White 14

white flannel „ 45

392 DOCUMENTS

Sheeting II — .16

table cloths, col'd. . . 1.25

Bl'k Satinett 75

Kentuck Jean 3$

Pins pr doz i. . . .65 — .75

white wove drawers . . . . 1.33

red flannel " ,. 1.33

white shirts . . 1-33

fancy " .62

Hudson Bay " 1.25

Tobacco 25— .50

Chintz . . ., .10

Coffee 13— -IS

Bed spreads 2.00

white linen table cloths 1.25

Coarse Sack coats 3.00

common 6.00

Fine " " 8.00

Misses hose (worsted) i.

Ladies cotton " .18%

white hats (fine fur)

" common 1.08

Blk brush hats 1.50

Mens cloth caps i.oo

" oil" " 50

Soap brown pr Ib 10 — .

" toilet " " 25

Butcher knives . 25 — .50

dining knives & forks pr doz .5-°°

Powder pr Ib i.oo

Soup tureens — 2.00

Rice 06 — .10

Blk glazed cambric .09

Fig'd Alpacca 55

red flannel 35

Shirt buttons pr gro 75

JOHN JAMESON 393

Hickory shirting 13

writing paper pr ream 4.00

Sewing Silk pr Ib , , 8.00

Starch 10

Tea 45—

Allspice 50

Ginger 10

Hooks & eyes pr gro

Camphor pr Ib 75

Percussion Caps pr 1000 1.25

Mould Candles 20

Adamantine ' 50

Sperm " 62^

Needles pr M 3.00

dried apples . . . . 12 — .14

raisins (cask) pr Ib 10 — .12

Salt Liverpool " " 03^

Pork Mess pr bbl 30.00

" Oregon" " 35.oo_

Cigars Havana pr M .25.00 — 40.00

English Walnuts pr Ib 20

Candy Stuarts " " 50

tweed 72

Lead (for bullets) .14

tin pans pr doz .2.00 — 6.00

wash bowls 42

Blankets pr pair 4.75

tacks pr doz papers , i.oo

Screws pr gro 75

Nails cut 10

Nutmegs pr Ib i.oo

common brass candlesticks 50

Syrup (Sugar House) gall 50

Vinegar pr gall .25

Pepper Sauce pr doz 4.50

Mustard " " 4.50

394 DOCUMENTS

Grindstones 5.00

tobacco pipes pr gro 2.00

wooden pails 45

Hoes & handles 75

Brooms pr doz 3.00

Fry pans 62%

Grain Sacks 50

Collins axes pr doz 20.00

Shingling hatchets pr doz , 9.00

Axe " " " 9.00

Bench " " 24.00

Augers pr qr in 20

Claw hammers per doz 6.00 — 15.00

Iron table spoons per doz i.oo

" tea " " 35

Padlocks 42

Door latches 16 2-3

Iron wedges pr Ib 12

Beetle rings " " 12

Log Chains " " 12 J*

Wrapping twine" " i.oo

Matches ' gro 2.50

Castor Oil pr bottles 62^

Shovels round point 2.00

Chocolate pr Ib 25

Common bowls doz. 2.00

Small " " 1.50

Large yellow bowls doz 6.00

white bowls doz 3.33

deep dishes " 3.50 — 7.50

blue edge pudding dish doz 4-5°

white " " " 6.00

blue edge platters ' 7-5°

white " " 9.00

Creamers white ' 4.00

colored " 3.00

JOHN JAMESON 395

Pitchers yellow ' 4.50

Pitchers white pr doz 9.00

cover'd chambers " ' 5.50

Blk tea pots " " 6.00

White " " 9.00

" Sugar bowls" " 7.50

Yellow " " " " 6.00

Soup plates pr doz 2.00

dining " " " 1.75

Breakfast " ' 1.50

Tea " " " 1.25

Preserve " " " i.oo

I have omitted many articles I keep but I guess your list is
long enough. My sales at present are very small as all the
farmers are harvesting. I take in & pay in goods or cash,
chickens (alive) at .75 to i.oo a piece; Eggs at 50 cts doz;
butter at 4oc; wheat at 1.75 bus & Oats at 75c. And now
my dear brother I must close with a little good advice. Be
not an eye servant but do just the same when Mr. Davis is out
as when he is in; Obey your dear parents & obey them cheer-
fully & with alacrity. I hope to hear of your going to
sch[ool] again soon for you are losing the most precious days
of your life. If you ever think of coming out here, study
French. It is a very great disadvantage to me not under-
standing it. And now My dear Ed, good bye & may God
Almighty bless you & may you try & serve him better &
better as you grow older.

Yours truly

John Jameson
Write soon.

INDEX

INDEX TO VOL. X

ABERDEEN, LORD, requested by Sir Rob-
ert Peel to prepare memorandum on
conditions on the Columbia and on
American relations connected with
the Oregon question, 4; suggests that
Rear Admiral Sir George Seymour
should visit the Oregon Coast, 5.

B

BOGGESS, PROFESSOR ARTHUR C., author
of "The Settlement of Illinois," 237.

BROWN'S, JOHN, Official Report of Raid
upon Harper's Ferry, Va., October
17-18, 1859, 3H-24-

CALHOUN, SECRETARY, negotiates on
American-British controversy over
Oregon, 2.

CARVER, JONATHAN, writes of the
"River of the West," 105-106.

CLARK, PROFESSOR ROBERT CARLTON, au-
thor of "Beginnings of Texas," 237.

Compact of 1845 between leaders of
American and British residents in the
Oregon Country, contrasting views as
to whether it was a judicious course
for the Hudson's Bay Company of-
ficials, 11-13.

DE SMET in the Oregon Country, 239-
262; at Green River rendezvous,
242-4; at Fort Hall, 246; on Bitter
Root River, 246-7.

DE SMET'S treatment of problem of In-
dian marriage, 248; at Fort Colville,
249-51; goes to St. Paul Mission,
253-4; missionary travels through
Oregon Country, 257-8; a power for
peace among Indian tribes of Pa-
cific Northwest, 259-262.

ERMATINGER, FRANCIS, agent at Fort
Hall, 246.

ELLIOTT, T. C., editor of Journal of
John Work, 296-313; editorial notes
of, accompanying "A Hudson's Bay
Company Marriage Certificate," 324-
8; editorial notes of, on "The Peter
Skene Ogden Journals," 331-365;
throws light on Ogden's first expedi-
tion to the Missouri and return via
the Snake River, 333-5.

FENTON. WILLIAM D., Father Wilbur
and His Work, 116-130.

FLOYD, JOHN B., official report of John
Brown's raid upon Harper's Ferry,
Va., October 17-18, 1859, 314-24.

Fortifications recommended for the pro-
tection of the British interests in
Oregon, 84-94.

Fraser River, the discovery and explo-
ration of, 100-115; one of the four
notable events in connection with it
and the Columbia, 101-2; failure of
Vancouver to find, 102-4; Mackenzie
discovers and names it 'the Tacoutche,
104-5.

FRASER, SIMON, settlement on Fraser
River under his leadership, 108;
family and youth of, 109; his ex-
ploration of the Fraser River, 109-
"5.

H

HALLOWAY, COLONEL, commander of
Royal Engineers, suggestions of, to
Lieutenant Vavasour, 8.

HOLMAN, FREDERICK V., presidential ad-
dress of, at annual meeting of the
Oregon Historical Society, Dec. 19,
1908, on "The Discovery and Ex-
ploration of the Fraser River," 100-
115; address of, on the occasion of
"The Dedication of the McLoughlin
Home," 385-9.

Hudson's Bay Company establishments,
statistics of, in the Oregon Territory
and in the Northwest Coast of Amer-
ica, 1845-60.

I

IGNACE, IROQUOIS, an apostle to the
Flatheads, 240-2.

Indian Tribes in Oregon Territory, sta-
tistics on, in Warre and Vavasour's
report, 61-2.

Indian, deputations of, go to St. Louis,
for priests, 240-2.

Indians, failures of missionaries to,
124-5.

J

JAMESON, DR. J. F., letter of, submit-
ting letter of his father written from
Oregon in 1852, 390.

JAMESON, JOHN, letter of, written In
1852, from Butteville while engaged

4OO

INDEX

in mercantile business giving price
list of merchandise, 391-3.

LEE, COLONEL R. E., report of proceed-
ings as colonel commanding in secur-
ing the surrender of John Brown's
party at Harper's Ferry, 317-24-

LYMAN, PROFESSOR W. D., author of
work on the Columbia River, 236-7.

M

MCDONALD, FINAN, 335 ; 337; 34°'2>
35i.

McKAY, THOS., 335; 340, 345-

MACKENZIE, ALEXANDER, journey of, to
the Pacific Ocean and the discovery
of the Fraser River which he named
Tacoutche, 104-5; source of the mis-
take that imputes to him the sugges-
tion that the Fraser River was the
Columbia, 107.

McLouGHLiN, DR., Warre and Vava-
sour were supposed to be spying
upon, 1-2; dedication of the home of,
385-9.

Malade River, origin and name of, 355.

Malheur River, incident from which
name was received, 353.

MEANY, PROFESSOR EDMOND S., author
of History of the State of Washing-
ton, 236.

METCALFE, LORD, Governor-General of
Canada, suggestions of, to Lieutenant
Warre, 7.

METHODIST CHURCH, membership in
1849, 119-20; activity in politics, 127.

Militia, Warre and Vavasour report up-
on recommendation of Governor Aber-
nethy of an efficient organization ot,
63-4-

Modoc War Peace Commission, 123.

OGDEN, PETER SKENE, Sir George Simp-
son's letter of instructions to, in con-
nection with his part in military re-
connoissance of 1845-6, 32-5.

OGDEN, THE PETER SKENE, Journals,
33J-365; text of journal of second
expedition to Snake country, 335-365;
catch of beaver on second expedition,

O'HARA, EDWIN V., DeSmet in the
Oregon country, 239-262.

Oregon Agricultural College lands, se-
lection of, 374-5.

Oregon Agricultural growth, 186-190.

Oregon Conference of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, the first, 122.

Oregon and California Mission Confer-
ence of the Methodist Church, first
organized, Sept. 5, 1849; 119.

Oregon Constitutional Convention, atti-
tude and ideas expressed in debates
of, on financial matters, 267-71.

Oregon Constitution, provisions of, con-
ditioning features of system of fi-
nances of state, 271-80.

Oregon farms in 1900, 176-86.

Oregon internal improvement land

grant, selection of, 371-7.
Oregon lands, selection of, 371-84.
Oregon, land tenure in, and in other

states, 145-51; in the counties of

Oregon, 151-5-

Oregon Leases, copies of, 212-35.
Oregon, mortgages in, 173-5.
Oregon people, reluctance of, to assume

burden of the support of a state gov-
ernment, 263-6.

Oregon's public domain, 366-84.
Oregon, public lands in, disposition of,

138-40.
Oregon salt springs grant, failure to

secure, 377-8.
Oregon semi-centennial of admission

into Union observed, 236.
Oregon tax system, 281-95.
Oregon topography, 136-7.
Oregon University lands, selection of,

Owyhee River, origin of name of, 353.

Pacific Fur Company, 353-5.

PAKENHAM, negotiates American-Brit-
ish controversy over Oregon, 2; dis-
suades from plan actually to fortify
Cape Disappointment, 8.

Parliament discusses the claims to the
Oregon country on receipt of news
of position taken by President Polk
in his inaugural messages, 5.

PEEL, SIR ROBERT, inquiries concerning
comparative strength of American
and British settlements upon the Co-
lumbia, 4.

POLK, PRESIDENT, pronounces American
claim to the whole of Oregon "clear
and unquestionable," 5.

Portland Academy and Female Semi-
nary, I2I-2.

Prices current for labor and provisions
at Red River settlement, June, 1845,
31-

R

ROBERTS, WILLIAM, comes to Oregon
with Wilbur, 117; holds first religious
services in what is now the city of
Portland, 119; administrative officer
and active member of Methodist Epis-
copal Church, 127.

Ross' "Fur Hunters of Far West,"
source of information on Snake
country fur trading operations, 332.

SCHAFER, JOSEPH, editor documents rel-
ative to Warre and Vavasour's mili-
tary reconnoissance in Oregon, 1845-
6, 1-99.

SCHAFER, LILY ABBOTT, sketcher of
Warre and Vavasour reproduced
maps and charts, 2.

INDEX

401

School, first, of public instruction in
Portland, 127.

SIMPSON, SIR GEORGE, report on influx
of American settlers to Oregon, 4;
sails to America to direct military
reconnoissance, 1845-6, 5; recommen-
dations of, for protection of British
interests in Oregon, 6; conference
with prime minister and minister of
foreign affairs which results in deter-
mination to make reconnoissance, 6-7;
summary of his instructions to Warre
and Vavasour, 8 ; memorandum of, in
reference to Oregon question, 13-16;
instructs Peter Skene Ogden in con-
nection with military reconnoissance,
32-35; reports to Lord Metcalfe of
dispatch of Warre and Vavasour
across the continent, 35-37-

SNOWDEN, CLINTON A., author of a four
volume history of the State of Wash-
ington, 236.

SWIFT, LON L., land tenure in Oregon,
131-235-

T

Taxation in Oregon, 281-95.

Taylor Street Church, 122.

Tenancy, how it works in Oregon, 156-

69.

Tenant farming undesirable, 132-5.
Territorial Government in the Oregon

Territory, bill to organize a, 3.

V

VAVASOUR, LIEUTENANT, engineering re-
port of, military reconnoissance of,
84-94.

Voyageurs instrumental in bringing

Catholic faith to Oregon country,
239-40.

w

WARRE, CAPTAIN H., book of "Sketches
in North America and the Oregon
Territory" (list of sketches included
given), 99.

WARRE AND VAVASOUR, first report of,
summarized, 10-12; change of views
on compact of 1845, 12-13; influence
of data secured, 13; documents giv-
ing procedure through which selection
of, and instruction of them to make
reconnoissance effected, 16-24; Sir
George Simpson's letter of sugges-
tions to, 25-31; first report of, 35-59;
list of maps and plans accompanying
report, 62; report on Governor of
Oregon's message relative to organiza-
tion of an efficient militia, 63; second
report of military reconnoissance, 65-
84; specimen items of accounts with
Hudson's Bay Company for supplies,
95-96; schedule of enclosures for-
warded with dispatch of general re-
port, 97-8.

West, River of the, 105-6.

WILBUR, JAMES H., family and youth
of, 116-7; comes to Oregon "to es-
tablish foundation of a Christian civ-
ilization," 117; co-workers of, 117-8;
estimates of character and work of,
127-130.

WORK, JOHN, Journal of, 296-313.

WORK, JOHN, in service of Hudson's
Bay Company, 296; probable route
with drove of horses from Fort Col-
ville to Fort Vancouver, 296-7; jour-
nals of, source of light on Ogden's
first expedition, 332-5.

YOUNG, PROFESSOR F. G., the financial
history of the State of Oregon, 263-
295; 366-84.

F Oregon historical quarterly

871

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