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THE 


QUARTERLY 


OF  THE 


VOLUME  XX 
MARCH,  1919— DECEMBER, 

Edited  by 
FREDERIC  GEORGE  YOUNG 


Portland,  Oregon 

The  Iry  Press 

1919 


V'  \V         '«.  • 

?MI 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

SUBJECTS 

Page 
ASTORIA,  FORT,  THE  BRITISH  SIDE  OF  THE  RESTORATION  OF 

By  Katharine  B.  Judson 243-260,  305-330 

BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  NORTHWEST 

By  T.  C  Elliott 331-344 

BOUNDARY,  THE  NORTHERN,  OF  OREGON 

By  T.  C.  Elliott 35.34 

CHRISTIANITY,  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF,  IN  OREGON 

By  George  H.  Himes 159-172 

OREGON  CITY,  HISTORICAL  TABLET  AT 

By  George  H.  Himes 297-300 

OREGON,  THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF 

By  Lester  Burrell  Shippee 35-93,  173-218,  261-295,  345-395 

'OREGON  PIONEERS,  QUALITIES  OF  THE 

By  Frederick  V.  Holman 235-242 

PIONEER,  THE 

By  Josepli  N.  Teal 231-233 

*-  POLK  AND  OREGON — WITH  A  PAKENHAM  LETTER 

By  Katharine  B.  Judson 301-302 

RAILROAD,  HISTORY  OF  THE  NARROW-GAUGE,  IN  THE 
WILLAMETTE  VALLEY 
By  Leslie  M.  Scott 141-158 

SNAKE  RIVER  IN  HISTORY,  THE 

By  Miles  Cannon 1-23 

NOTES  AND  COMMENT 

Page 

Where  Was  Blue  Bucket  Mine? 219-220 

Pacific  Railroad  Dates 221 

Name  of  Mount  Rainier 221 

Frequency  of  Slight  Earthquakes 222 

Annual  Meeting  of  Oregon  Pioneers 222 

Encampment  of  Indian  Fighters 223 

The  Battleship  Oregon , 223 

Airplane  and  Stage  Coach 224 

Monument  for  Captain  Hembree 224 

Mr.  Teal's  "The  Pioneer" 224-5 

Examination  of  Nachess  Trail 225 

Miscellany    225-228 

Death  List  of  Oregon  Pioneers 139,  229,  303-4 

[HI] 


AUTHORS 

Page 

CANNON,  MILES,  The  Snake  River  in  History 1-23 

ELLIOTT,  T.  C,  The  Northern  Boundary  of  Oregon 25-34 

The  Northwest  Boundaries 331-334 

HIMES,  GEORGE  H.,  Beginnings  of  Christianity 159-172 

. Historical  Tablet  at  Oregon  City 297-300 

HOLMAN,  FREDERICK  V.,  Qualities  of  the  Oregon  Pioneers 235-242 

JUDSON,  KATHARINE  B.,  The  British  Side  of  the  Restoration 

of  Fort  Astoria 243-260,  305-330 

Polk  and  Oregon 301-302 

SCOTT,  LESLIE  M.,  History  of  the  Narrow-Gauge  Railroad  in  the 

Willamette  Valley  141-158 

SHIPPEE,  LESTER  BURRELL,  The  Federal  Relations  of  Oregon 

35-93,  173-218,  261-295,  345-395 

TEAL,  JOSEPH  N.,  The  Pioneer 231-233 


DOCUMENTS 

Page 
APPLEGATE,  JESSE,  LETTER  OF,  TO  WILLARD  H.  REES,  Secretary 

Oregon  Pioneer  Association 397-399 

FISHER,  EZRA,  THE  CORRESPONDENCE  OF 95-137 

-PAKENHAM,  RICHARD,  LETTER  OF,  TO  THE  EARL  OF  ABERDEEN 301-2 

PELLY,  J.  H.,  GOVERNOR,  LETTER  OF,  TO  GEORGE  CANNING 27-33 


[iv] 


THE  QUARTERLY 


of  the 


Oregon  Historical  Society 

VOLUME  XX  MARCH,  1919  NUMBER  1 

Copyright,  1919,  by  the  Oregon  Historical  Society 
The  Quarterly  disavows  responsibility  for  the  positions  taken  by  contributors  to  its  pages. 


THE  SNAKE  RIVER  IN  HISTORY 

By   MILES   CANNON. 
Commissioner  of  Agriculture,  Boise,  Idaho. 

Near  the  central  part  of  Lewis  county,  Tennessee,  in  a  lonely 
wooded  spot  which  is  rarely  disturbed  by  any  sound  save  the 
mournful  dirge  of  the  forest  trees  or  the  bark  of  the  hunter's 
hounds,  is  an  old  and  neglected  grave.  The  place  is  marked  by 
a  marble  monument,  standing  more  than  20  feet  in  height, 
which  was  erected  in  1848  by  the  state  in  which  it  is  located. 
Centuries  before  the  sod  was  turned  for  this  grave  a  great 
Indian  highway  ran  near  by,  and  this,  in  time,  became  a  mili- 
tary road  known  in  history  as  the  "Natchez  Trace."  It  was 
here  that  Meriwether  Lewis,  the  first  white  man  to  look  upon 
the  waters  of  the  Snake  river,  at  early  dawn  October  llth, 
1809,  at  the  age  of  35  years,  yielded  up  his  brief  but  eventful 
life.  Marching  events  have  long  since  consigned  the  "Natchez 
Trace"  to  oblivion  but  human  interest  in  that  grave  will  con- 
tinue to  increase  with  time,  for  Meriwether  Lewis  played  a 
leading  role  in  one  of  America's  greatest  political  dramas. 

The  opening  scene  of  this  drama  was  in  what  is  now  known 
as  the  Lemhi  pass  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  situated  between 
Armstead,  Montana,  and  the  Salmon  river  in  Idaho.  The  time 
was  the  afternoon  of  Monday,  August  12,  1805.  Speaking  of 
the  source  of  the  Missouri  river  the  Lewis  and  Clark  notes 
contain  the  following  lines : 

"They  had  now  reached  the  hidden  sources  of  that  river, 


2  MILES  CANNON 

which  had  never  yet  been  seen  by  civilized  man.  .  .  .  they 
sat  down  by  the  brink  of  that  little  rivulet,  which  yielded  its 
distant  and  remotest  tribute  to  the  parent  ocean,"  etc. 

They  then  proceed  to  relate  that : 

"They  left  reluctantly  this  spot,  and  pursuing  the  Indian 
road  through  the  interval  of  hills,  arrived  at  the  top  of  a  ridge, 
from  which  they  saw  high  mountains  partially  covered  with 
snow  still  to  the  west  of  them.  The  ridge  on  which  they  stood 
formed  the  dividing  line  between  the  waters  of  the  Atlantic 
and  the  Pacific  oceans." 

Let  us  tarry  at  this  interesting  place  and  view  well  the  scenes 
before  us.  Standing  with  Mr.  Lewis  is  John  Shields,  a  black- 
smith from  Kentucky,  and  George  Drewyer,  the  interpreter  and 
hunter.  It  is  recorded  that  they  carried  a  United  States  flag 
which,  at  that  time,  consisted  of  fifteen  stripes  and  a  Union  of 
fifteen  stars  in  the  blue  field.  The  colors  of  our  flag  had  first 
appeared  in  history  some  3400  years  before  this  time  and,  like- 
wise, under  dramatic  surroundings.  Bible  readers  will  recall 
that,  at  the  base  of  Mount  Sinai,  the  Lord  gave  to  Moses  the 
Ten  Commandments  and  the  book  of  the  law,  and  they  were 
deposited  in  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant  within  the  movable  Taber- 
nacle, before  which  four  curtains  were  suspended,  one  of  purple, 
one  of  red,  one  of  white  and  one  of  blue.  The  first  color, 
obtained  by  the  ancients  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty,  was 
necessarily  restricted  in  use  and  finally  became  the  distinctive 
color  of  imperialism. 

The  three  remaining  colors  have  been  handed  down  through 
the  long  centuries  and  during  the  last  three  have  quite  generally 
been  used  in  flag  making,  more  especially  by  countries  inclined 
toward  civil  freedom.  These  colors,  3400  years  in  their  com- 
ing, are  now  on  the  summit  of  the  continental  divide  and  the 
men  who  bore  them  hither  look  out  over  one  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful panoramic  scenes  in  all  the  world.  Down  through  the 
fathomless  abyss  of  time  that  landscape  had  received  from  the 
winter's  storms  its  mantles  of  snow,  and  with  the  breath  of 
each  succeeding  spring  it  had  burst  forth  into  life  again.  But 
never  before  had  a  white  man  beheld  its  transcendent  beauty 
nor  had  his  feet  trod  the  winding  stairs  and  stately  corridors 


SNAKE  RIVER  IN  HISTORY  3 

of  this  magnificent  temple  of  God.  Whether  or  not  the  sculptor 
who  is  to  fashion  the  granite  column  marking  this  spot  is  yet 
born  I  know  not ;  but  sooner  or  later  a  monument  will  arise  in 
these  rugged  regions  and  to  it  will  come  the  remotest  genera- 
tions to  do  homage  to  the  memory  of  Meriwether  Lewis. 

August  20,  the  reunited  party  was  encamped  several  miles 
below  the  confluence  of  the  Lemhi  and  Salmon  rivers,  probably 
in  the  same  cove  occupied  by  Bonneville  27  years  later,  when 
Captain  Clark  conferred  upon  the  stream,  here  300  feet  in 
width,  the  name  Lewis's  river  and  noted  in  the  journal  the 
information  that  Captain  Lewis  was  the  first  white  man  to  visit 
its  waters.  During  the  early  days  when  the  country  was  occu- 
pied by  mountain  men  it  seems  that  the  principal  rivers,  with 
a  few  exceptions,  were  called  after  the  tribes  which  inhabited 
the  adjacent  country.  Thus  the  Cowlitz  river  derived  its  name, 
as  did  the  Yakima,  the  Walla  Walla,  the  Palouse,  the  Okanogan, 
and  the  Spokane.  The  North-West  Company  designated  what 
is  now  southern  Idaho  as  the  Snake  country  and,  in  time,  the 
name  Lewis  faded  away  under  the  poetic  brilliancy  of  that 
charming  name  "Snake."  When  Jason  Lee  arrived  at  Fort 
Hall  he  wrote  in  his  journal  that  he  had  "camped  about  noon 
on  the  bank  of  the  Snake  river  as  called  by  the  mountain  men 
but  on  the  map  Lewis  Fork." 

The  Lewis  and  Clark  journals  contain  the  following: 

"They  (the  Snakes)  are  the  poorest  and  most  miserable 
nation  I  ever  beheld." 

From  Alexander  Ross  we  learn  how  the  name  originated, 
as  follows: 

"It  arose  from  the  characteristics  of  these  Indians  in  quickly 
concealing  themselves  when  once  discovered.  They  seem  to 
glide  away  in  the  grass,  sage  brush  and  rocks  and  disappear 
with  all  the  subtlety  of  a  serpent." 

Father  DeSmet  gives  this  version  relative  to  the  origin  of 
the  name : 

"They  are  called  Snakes  because  in  their  poverty  they  are 
reduced  like  reptiles  to  the  condition  of  digging  in  the  ground 
and  seeking  nourishment  from  roots." 

Of  Mr.  Lewis,  President  Jefferson  said : 


4  MILES  CANNON 

"About  three  o'clock  in  the  night  he  did  the  deed  which 
plunged  his  friends  into  deep  affliction,  and  deprived  his  coun- 
try of  one  of  her  most  valued  citizens,  whose  valour  and  intelli- 
gence would  have  been  now  employed  in  avenging  the  wrongs 
of  his  country,  and  in  emulating  by  land  the  splendid  deeds 
which  have  honoured  her  arms  on  the  ocean.  It  lost,  too,  to 
the  nation  the  benefit  of  receiving  from  his  own  hand  the  nar- 
rative now  offered  them  of  his  sufferings  and  successes,  in 
endeavoring  to  extend  for  them  the  boundaries  of  science,  and 
to  present  to  their  knowledge  that  vast  and  fertile  country 
which  their  sons  are  destined  to  fill  with  arts,  with  science, 
with  freedom  and  happiness." 

It  is  perhaps  no  idle  dream  if  Americans  feel  that  the  future 
holds  in  store  a  glorious  destiny  for  our  country  in  the  affairs 
of  the  world,  and  that  our  flag  will,  throughout  the  unnumbered 
centuries,  symbolize  the  highest  and  most  generous  elements 
of  civilization.  The  Snake  river  basin  is  able  to  and  will,  in 
time,  support  a  population  of  many  millions  of  brave,  pros- 
perous and  happy  people.  Whether  or  not  they  will  felicitate 
us  who  now  occupy  a  position  on  the  very  threshold  of  an  un- 
bounded future,  for  giving  our  silent  consent  to  an  historical 
perversion  which  will  perpetuate  the  memory  of  the  Snake 
Indians  by  attaching  this  name  to  one  of  the  most  valuable  and 
powerful  rivers  in  America,  rather  than  the  memory  of  the  man 
who  first  visited  its  waters,  is  a  question  of  some  import  and 
one  which  affords  much  food  for  reflection. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  features  in  connection  with 
early  exploration,  discoveries  and  development  of  the  moun- 
tain regions,  and  one  which  quite  generally  has  been  over- 
looked by  contemporaneous  writers,  are  the  many  and  important 
pre-historic  roads.  A  definite  knowledge  of  these  winding 
trails,  the  parallel  and  deep  worn  furrows,  many  of  which 
are  yet  to  be  seen,  is  obtained  with  the  greatest  difficulty.  As 
an  example  the  journals  of  Lewis  and  Clark  contain  the  fol- 
lowing notation  in  connection  with  the  discovery  of  Lemhi  pass : 

"At  the  distance  of  four  miles  from  his  camp  he  met  a  large, 
plain  Indian  road  which  came  into  the  cove  from  the  north- 
east, and  wound  along  the  foot  of  the  mountain  to  the  south- 
west," etc. 

When  he  had  arrived  in  the  Lemhi  valley,  Captain  Clark  in- 


SNAKE  RIVER  IN  HISTORY  5 

terrogated  the  Indians  very  minutely  relative  to  roads  and 
obtained  valuable  information  regarding-  the  topography  of  the 
country  and  locations  of  the  rivers.  This  interview  resulted 
in  Captain  Clark's  deciding  to  make  his  way  to  the  road  used 
by  the  Piercednose  Indians;  in  crossing  over  the  mountains  to 
the  Missouri,  towards  the  north,  which,  latterly,  became  known 
as  the  Lolo  Trail.  . 

In  making  some  enquiries  as  to  the  exact  trail  which  Dr. 
Whitman  followed  south  from  Fort  Bridger,  in  making  his 
memorable  journey  in  1842  "to  save  Oregon,"  a  pre-historic 
road  of  much  importance  is,  to  a  limited  extent,  brought  to 
our  notice.  It  would  seem  that  this  trail  extended  from  Vera 
Cruz,  Mexico,  northward  to  the  Rio  Grande  near  El  Paso, 
thence  to  Santa  Fe,  where  it  probably  converged  with  the 
old  Spanish  trail  until  it  reached  the  western  part  of  Mesa 
County,  Colorado,  near  a  place  called  Westwater  Canon.  From 
this  point  the  Spanish  Trail  led  in  a  more  westerly  direction 
crossing  Green  river  near  where  the  Denver  and  Rio  Grande 
Railway  now  crosses  that  stream.  The  other  ascended  West- 
water  canyon,  crossed  over  to  White  river,  thence  to  Green 
river,  crossing  near  where  Fort  Thornburg  was  in  after  years 
located.  From  this  point  the  trail  followed  practically  a  direct 
line  over  the  Uintah  Mountains  to  where  Bridger  wasi  after- 
ward located  and  from  thence  to  the  Snake  river  near  the 
Fort  Hall  site.  From  here  it  followed  the  Snake  to  Henry's 
Lake,  where  it  diverged  into  three  distinct  trails,  one  in  the 
direction  of  the  Yellowstone,  one  to  Three  Forks  and  one 
toward  Ross's  Hole,  each  prong  passing  through  a  separate 
and  distinct  pass  in  the  Rocky  Mountains  directly  above  Henry's 
Lake. 

Returning  to  the  Westwater  canyon  it  may  be  of  interest 
to  note  that,  several  years  ago,  an  inscription  was  found  on 
the  wall  rock  of  this  canyon  written  in  French,  a  liberal  trans- 
lation of  which  follows : 

"Antoine  Rbbidoux  passed  this  way  the  13th  of  November, 
1837,  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  a  mission  for  trading  on 
Green  River  or  the  Uintah." 


6  MILES  CANNON 

He  appears  to  have  established  his  trading  mission  on  the 
Uintah  a  short  distance  above  its  confluence  with  the  Du 
Chesne.  The  fort  is  said  to  have  been  destroyed  by  the  Utah 
Indians  in  1844.  The  old  trails  which  in  later  years  became 
known  as  the  Oregon  Trail  appear  to  have  joined  with  the 
Southern  trail  in  the  Bridger  bottoms  and  continued  with  it 
to  the  bend  in  the  Snake  river  some  five  miles  above  where 
Fort  Hall  was  located.  Here  the  Columbia  river  trail  branched 
off  and  followed  the  left  bank  of  the  Snake  to  Three  Islands, 
near  the  present  town  of  Glenn's  Ferry,  Idaho,  where  one 
prong  crossed  the  Snake  and  followed  the  mountain  slopes  to 
Boise  river  a  short  distance  above  the  city  of  Boise  as  it  is 
today.  The  other  prong  continued  on  the  south  side  of  the 
river  and  again  joined  the  northern  arm,  after  the  latter  had 
re-crossed  the  Snake  at  the  mouth  of  the  Boise,  at  a  point 
about  six  miles  south-east  of  the  present  town  of  Vale,  Oregon. 

It  may  be  pertinent  here  to  observe  that  early  travelers, 
while  they  almost  invariably  availed  themselves  of  these  well- 
worn  highways  in  their  ubiquitous  wanderings  through  the 
mountains,  encountered  trails  which  existed  in  countless  num- 
bers and  which  were  almost  everywhere  in  evidence.  For 
this  reason  it  was  found  necessary,  wherever  possible,  to  employ 
Indian  guides.  How  long  these  pre-historic  trails  had  been 
in  existence  before  the  advent  of  the  white  man  will  be  touched 
upon  later. 

We  learn  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  T.  C.  Elliott  that  David 
Thompson,  in  the  summer  of  1809,  descended  the  Kootenay 
river  as  far  as  the  present  site  of  Bonner's  Ferry  where  he 
transferred  his  goods  to  pack  animals  and  transported  them 
over  the  "Lake  Indian  Road"  to  Lake  Pend  d'  Oreille  where, 
on  September  the  10th  of  that  year,  he  erected  the  first  build- 
ing in  what  is  now  the  state  of  Idaho,  the  site  being  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  present  town  of  Hope.  Events  leading  to  a 
knowledge  of  the  great  Snake  river  were  now  in  the  making. 
Major  Andrew  Henry,  a  tall,  slender  young  man,  with  dark 
hair  and  light  blue  eyes  hadi  already  associated  himself  with 
Manuel  Lisa,  of  St.  Louis,  and  they  were  alert  to  avail  them- 


SNAKE  RIVER  IN  HISTORY 

selves  of  any  advantages  which  were  to  be  derived  from  the 
success  of  the  Lewis  and  Clark  expedition.  While  Thompson 
was  establishing  "Kullyspell  House"  on  Lake  Pend  d'  Oreille, 
Henry  was  making  his  way  up  the  Missouri  with  all  speed. 

The  spring  of  1810  found  him  establishing  himself,  in  the 
interest  of  the  Missouri  Fur  Company,  at  the  three  forks  of 
the  Missouri  on  almost  the  identical  spot  where  the  explorers 
had  encamped  five  years  before.  The  ruins  of  the  fort  which 
they  established  here  were  in  evidence  until  1870.  Being  driven 
out  of  this  section  by  the  Blackfoot  Indians  they  traveled  the 
middle  prong  of  the  great  Southern  trail,  heretofore  men- 
tioned, and  crossed  the  Continental  Divide  near  Henry's  Lake 
and  established  themselves  on  the  Snake  river  at  a  point,  as  I 
conclude  after  an  examination  of  the  country,  two  miles  below 
the  present  town  of  St.  Anthony  and  on  the  left  bank  of  the 
river.  The  melancholy  fact  should  be  noted  that  George 
Drewyer,  whose  memory  is  so  closely  associated  with  that  of 
Mr.  Lewis,  lost  his  life  in  the  fall  of  the  fort  at  Three  Forks 
and  that  his  ashes  still  repose  in  that  vicinity. 

The  establishment  on  Snake  river,  which  became  known  as 
Fort  Henry,  and  which  consisted  of  some  two  or  three  huts, 
was  situated  in  a  small  valley  of  about  twenty  acres.  When  the 
first  settlers  arrived  in  this  section  during  the  early  sixties 
this  valley  was  still  covered  with  a  growth  of  large  cottonwood 
trees,  the  only  timber  in  that  section  of  the  country.  It  is 
now  an  alfalfa  field,  and,  doubtless  the  site  of  the  first  house 
in  all  the  territory  drained  by  the  Snake  river  and  the  second 
to  be  erected  in  the  state  of  Idaho. 

In  the  service  of  Major  Henry  at  this  time  were  three  men 
of  some  importance  to  this  narrative  and  whose  names  are 
familiar  to  readers  of  Irving's  Astoria.  Edward  Robinson,  a 
Kentucky  woodsman  then  in  his  sixty-seventh  year,  a  veteran 
Indian  fighter  in  his  native  state,  and  who  had  been  scalped 
in  one  of  the  many  engagements  in  which  he  took  part.  He 
still  wore  a  handkerchief  bound  round  his  head  to  protect  the 
tender  reminder.  Associated  with  him  were  two  congenial 
spirits  also  from  Kentucky,  named  John  Hoback  and  Jacob 


8  MILES  CANNON 

Rizner.  They  had  ascended  the  Missouri  in  1809  with  Henry, 
taken  part  in  the  battle  of  Three  Forks,  crossed  the  Conti- 
nental Divide  and,  with  Fort  Henry  as  a  base,  had  trapped  on 
many  of  the  adjacent  streams.  After  the  fort  was  abandoned, 
in  the  early  spring  of  1811,  they  re-crossed  the  mountains  and 
descended  the  Missouri,  but  Henry,  it  would  appear,  stopped 
at  a  post  which  the  Missouri  Fur  Company  had  established  on 
the  river  near  the  mouth  of  the  Cheyenne.  The  three  hunters, 
now  free  from  their  engagements,  continued  on  down  the  river 
determined  to  forever  abandon  the  pursuit  of  fortune  in  the 
wilderness. 

By  the  morning  of  May  26th,  their  flotilla,  consisting  of  two 
log  canoes,  arrived  at  a  point  in  the  Missouri  opposite  the 
mouth  of  the  Niobrara  when  their  attention  was  attracted  by 
the  report  of  a  gun  which  came  from  the  right  bank  of  the 
river.  The  hunters  crossed  over  and  landed  at  the  camp  of 
a  powerful  company  of  fortune  seekers  under  the  command  of 
Wilson  Price  Hunt,  who  were  then  breakfasting  around  a 
blazing  fire  on  the  green  bank  of  the  river.  As  a  result  of  this 
unexpected  meeting  we  find  these  three  men,  on  the  evening  of 
October  8,  1811,  and  after  a  long  ride  in  the  face  of  a  westerly 
wind  and  flurries  of  snow,  filing  into  the  lonely  precincts  of 
Fort  Henry  accompanied  by  not  less  than  three  scores  of 
traders,  trappers  and  voyagers,  mounted,  armed  and  equipped 
for  the  struggle  which  the  phantom  of  hidden  riches  too  often 
entails. 

Our  three  Kentucky  hunters,  together  with  Joseph  Miller, 
a  retired  army  man,  and  a  man  by  name  of  Cass,  were  left 
at  Fort  Henry  and  were  the  first  white  men  to  explore  the 
Snake  river  basin  and  become  acquainted  with  the  Indian 
roads  of  the  country,  which  they  did  as  far  east  as  Bear  river. 
When  Robert  Stuart  reached  the  mouth  of  the  Boise  river 
the  following  August,  enroute  to  New  York  with  dispatches 
for  Mr.  Astor,  he,  by  the  merest  chance  of  fortune,  discovered 
Miller  and  the  three  hunters  on  the  verge  of  starvation.  Hav- 
ing appeased  their  torturing  craving  for  food  Stuart  conducted 
the  four  unfortunates,  Cass  having  in  the  meantime  been  un- 


SNAKE  RIVER  IN  HISTORY  9 

accountably  lost,  as  far  as  Caldron  Linn,  now  the  site  of  the 
great  Milner  dam,  where  the  three  hunters  determined  again  to 
breast  the  tide  of  fortune. 

Milner,  Idaho,  probably  stands  on  the  ground  where  Hunt 
cached  his  goods  after  a  vain  attempt  to  negotiate  the  river  in 
boats.  The  two  rocks  which  swamped  the  boat  and  caused  the 
first  death  of  a  white  man  on  the  Snake  river,  and  upon  which 
the  Stuart  party  found  the  boat  still  clinging,  now  support  the 
dam  which  diverts  water  sufficient  to  create  a  veritable  irri- 
gated empire,  covering  as  it  does  1,300,000  acres  of  land  re- 
claimed at  a  cost  of  nearly  $50,000,000. 

Following  the  arrival  at  Astoria  of  the  Hunt  party,  Donald 
McKenzie,  who,  with  Reed  and  McClellan,  had  been  detached 
from  the  main  party  at  Caldron  Linn,  and  who  preceded  Hunt 
to  Astoria  by  nearly  a  month,  set  out  to  establish  a  post  among 
the  Nez  Perces  Indians.  I  conclude  that  he  traveled  the  same 
trail  from  the  mouth  of  the  Walla  Walla  to  the  forks  of  the 
Clearwater  that  Lewis  and  Clark  followed  on  their  return  trip 
six  years  before  and  that  McKenzie  established  his  post  near 
the  mouth  of  the  North  Fork.  The  movements  of  McKenzie 
and  his  party  after  leaving  Caldron  Linn  is  involved  in  much 
mystery  but  from  the  nature  of  the  man,  his  subsequent  acts 
and  a  knowledge  of  the  country  through  which  he  passed,  I 
have  no  hesitancy  in  adopting  the  view  that  he  left  the  Snake 
river  at  the  mouth  of  the  Weiser  and  followed  a  well  known 
Indian  trail  up  Monroe's  creek,  thence  over  to  Mann  creek, 
thence  over  to  the  Weiser,  which  he  followed  to  its  source. 
From  here  he  descended  the  Little  Salmon  to  its  junction  with 
the  Salmon  river  proper,  which  he  followed  to  the  mouth  of 
the  Whitebird.  From  here  the  trail  led  over  the  divide  some- 
what west  of  old  Mount  Idaho  and  down  to  the  Clearwater 
above  the  present  town  of  Stites,  thence  down  the  Clearwater 
to  the  North  Fork. 

I  think,  too,  that  his  success  in  making  his  way  through 
the  mountains,  the  knowledge  he  acquired  of  the  trails  and  of 
the  country  through  which  they  passed,  determined  Mr.  Hunt 
in  designating  McKenzie  as  the  one  to  operate  in  the  Nez 


10  MILES  CANNON 

Perces  country,  also  in  designating  Reed,  who  accompanied 
McKenzie,  as  the  one  to  retrace  his  steps  to  Caldron  Linn  for 
the  goods  which  were  cached  there.  The  place  where  Mc- 
Kenzie established  his  post  was  on  a  line  of  great  travel,  and 
trails  ran  in  several  directions  from  here;  it  was  within  a 
mile  or  so  from  the  works  where  Lewis  and  Clark  made  their 
canoes  on  their  outward  journey,  near  where  the  Lolo  trail 
descended  from  the  Weippe  camas  fields  and  a  general  winter 
rendezvous  for  the  Indians.  It  is  quite  probable,  too,  that 
John  Reed  possessed  a  satisfactory  knowledge  of  the  trails 
when  he  consented  to  return  to  Caldron  Linn  and  that  he 
traveled  the  same  route  that  landed  them  on  the  Clearwater 
the  winter  before.  Another  evidence  which  may  have  a  bear- 
ing on  the  question  is  the  fact  that  there  was  no  other  way 
to  get  through  the  mountains  and  precede  the  main  party  by 
a  month. 

Returning  now  to  the  fate  of  our  three  Kentucky  hunters 
whom  Stuart  left  at  Caldron  Linn,  Miller  having  made  good 
his  intention  to  quit  the  country,  it  seems  that  they  were 
unable  to  escape  the  pursuit  of  an  evil  spirit.  After  being  out- 
fitted by  Stuart  they  trapped  with  varying  success  higher  up 
the  river  awaiting  the  arrival  of  John  Reed  from  the  post  at 
Nez  Perces  in  order  to  complete  their  equipment  for  a  two- 
years'  hunt.  Having  thus  completed  their  arrangements  they 
set  out  into  the  wilderness  in  quest  of  the  beaver,  while  Reed, 
at  the  head  of  his  party,  returned  to  the  Clearwater.  The 
following  year,  1813,  Reed  was  again  detached  and  sent  to 
the  Snake  country  to  trap  beaver  and  search  for  the  three 
hunters,  whom  he  located  late  in  September  of  that  year.  With 
his  party  of  six  voyagers  and  hunters,  besides  the  squaw  and 
two  children  of  Pierre  Dorion,  now  augmented  by  the  discovery 
of  the  three  Kentucky  woodsmen,  Reed  located  his  headquar- 
ters at  the  mouth  of  the  Boise.  Having  lost  three  of  his  men 
during  the  fall,  he,  early  in  the  winter,  dispatched  Rizner 
at  the  head  of  a  little  party  consisting  of  Leclerc,  Dorion  and 
family,  to  the  South  Fork  of  the  Boise,  a  distance  of  about 
100  miles  from  the  Reed  house.  Between  January  1st  and 


MILES  CANNON  11 

10th,  Rizner  and  the  two  men  were  massacred  while  taking 
beaver  on  the  South  Fork,  the  squaw  and  two  children  only 
escaping.  When  they  arrived  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  it 
was  discovered  that  not  one  of  the  party  was  left  alive. 

The  trials  and  tribulations  of  this  poor  Indian  woman,  from 
this  moment  until  her  arrival  the  following  spring  in  the 
Walla  Walla  country,  constitutes  one  of  the  most  heart-rending 
tragedies  in  western  history.  It  is  a  story  that  will  be  told 
as  long  as  people  read  history  and,  when  properly  told,  will 
touch  the  heart  of  a  nation.  This  brings  us  to  the  first  Indian 
massacre  in  the  Snake  river  valley,  a  series  of  which  continued, 
with  varying  degrees  of  ferocity  and  frequency  over  a  period 
of  58  years. 

To  Stuart  is  usually  accorded  the  credit  of  being  the  first 
white  man  to  lead  a  party  over  the  Indian  trial  that,  in  time, 
became  known  as  the  Oregon  Trail.  Of  this  trail  I  will 
content  myself  by  mentioning  only  a  few  of  the  historic  points 
as  they  appear  today,  and  as  are  directly  connected  with  the 
Snake  river  in  history. 

The  winter  camp  of  Bonneville,  1833-4,  is  about  eight  miles 
north-west  of  Bancroft,  Idaho,  a  station  on  the  O.  S.  L.  Ry. 
It  is  now  in  the  confines  of  a  farm  but  the  spring  still  gushes 
out  of  the  earth  in  sufficient  quantities  "to  turn  a  mill"  pro- 
vided the  mill  were  not  too  large.  The  trail,  in  most  part, 
from  the  Bear  river  to  the  Snake,  is  in  a  fair  state  of  preserva- 
tion to  the  point  where  it  touched  the  latter  stream. 

From  this  place  to  the  site  of  Fort  Hall  it  is  rather  uncer- 
tain. It  is  only  proper  for  me  to  state  here  that  there  is  some 
doubt  in  the  minds  of  several  gentlemen  who  have  given  the 
subject  much  thought  as  to  the  exact  location  of  Fort  Hall.  I 
give  it  as  it  was  given  to  me  by  an  Indian  scout  who  piloted 
me  to  the  place,  who  was  born  in  its  vicinity  at  a  time  when 
the  building  still  stood  and  whose  father  was  acquainted  with 
the  Hudson's  Bay  traders  who  were  located  there.  About 
four  miles  below  the  place  where  the  trail  strikes  the  river, 
on  the  left  bank  and  within  20  feet  of  a  slightly  lower  level 
covered  with  cottonwood  timber,  is,  so  my  guide  informed  me, 


12  MILES  CANNON 

the  identical  spot.  Originally  the  fort  was  constructed  of  cot- 
tonwood  logs  set  in  the  ground  but  latterly,  when  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  it  was  enlarged  and 
enclosed  with  adobe  brick. 

The  outlines  of  these  walls  are  plainly  discernable,  even  to 
the  two  bastions  at  opposite  corners,  and  the  well  inside  the 
enclosure.  The  adjoining  grove  where  Jason  Lee  preached 
the  first  sermon  ever  heard  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
July  26,  1834,  is  still  a  grand  cathedral  for  the  song  birds  of 
the  desert  as  the  country  is  untouched  by  man,  it  being  within 
the  Fort  Hall  Indian  reservation.  Three  miles  below  is  the 
crossing  of  Spring  Creek  where  the  stage  station  was  located 
in  1864,  it  having  been  constructed  with  adobe  bricks  brought 
here  from  the  then  abandoned  Fort  Hall.  Some  three  miles 
farther  brings  us  to  the  Portneuf  crossing  from  which  place 
the  road  to  American  Falls  is  very  near  the  old  trail.  This 
city,  now  the  second  wheat  shipping  station  in  the  United 
States,  still  has  the  marks  of  the  trail  within  the  city  limits. 
It  is  safe  to  conclude,  however,  that  few  of  its  citizens  have 
the  slightest  conception  as  to  the  historic  connection  of  those 
old  deep-worn  furrows. 

I  have  never  been  able  to  determine  just  how  American 
Falls  received  its  name.  What  American  party  could  have 
perished  at  the  falls  is  not  clear,  as  they  seem  to  have  acquired 
that  name  before  the  advent  of  the  Americans,  unless  these 
falls  have  been  confused  with  those  at  Caldron  Linn.  In  that 
case  it  is  very  likely  that  the  accident  heretofore  mentioned  in 
connection  with  the  Hunt  party  is  responsible  for  the  name. 

Some  23  miles  down  the  river  from  American  Falls,  in  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  Rock  Creek,  is  one  of  the  tragical  points 
of  the  trail.  The  general  conditions  of  this  particular  section 
have  not  changed  since  the  days  when  the  Oregon  Trail  was  in 
the  heyday  of  its  glory.  How  many  pioneers  sleep  at  the  foot 
of  that  great  perpendicular  rock,  so  long  retained  in  the  memory 
of  those  who  traveled  the  historic  trail,  the  world  will  never 
know.  It  was  here  that,  in  1851,  the  wagons  of  Mr.  Miller, 
of  Virginia,  were  attacked,  a  daughter  of  Mr.  Miller  seriously 


SNAKE  RIVER  IN  HISTORY  13 

wounded  and  a  Mr.  Jackson  killed.  It  was  here  that  Mr.  Hud- 
son Clark,  of  Scott  county,  Illinois,  while  driving  his  carriage 
too  far  in  advance  of  his  train,  was  attacked,  his  mother  and 
brother  murdered  and  his  sister,  a  beautiful  young  lady  of  22 
years,  after  being  dangerously  wounded,  was  brutally  ravished 
by  most  of  the  Indians  in  the  party.  It  was  here,  also,  that  the 
Harpool1  train  of  20  wagons  was  attacked  in  1851,  and  after 
a  fearful  battle  lasting  two  hours  the  Indians  were  repulsed. 

Standing  on  the  summit  of  this  old  rock  today,  looking  to  the 
north  and  west,  a  great  panorama  greets  the  eye.  Scenes  of 
commerce  and  husbandry  are  everywhere  in  evidence,  but  the 
Snake  river,  as  known  by  the  pioneers,  is  no  more.  The  great 
Minidoka  power  plant  has  transformed  it  into  a  most  beauti- 
ful lake  fully  25  miles  in  length.  As  I  stood  there  and  feasted 
my  eyes  upon  the  magnificent  landscape  I  could  not  avoid  the 
thought  of  the  numerous  graves  below  and  of  the  intense  suf- 
fering of  the  brave  pioneers  who  have  made  these  scenes 
possible. 

From  here  to  the  Twin  Falls  district  most  of  the  old  trail 
is  yet  to  be  seen  but  when  one  arrives  at  an  irrigation  canal 
it  is  lost,  forever  lost.  The  Salmon  Falls  have  not  changed 
since  the  day  the  Stuart  party  arrived  there  and  gave  them 
their  present  name,  neither  have  the  adjacent  camping  grounds 
been  molested.  From  this  place  to  Pilgrim  Springs,  where 
Mrs.  Whitman,  August  12th,  1836,  wrote  her  beautiful  tribute 
to  the  abandoned  trunk,  and  where  the  doctor  discarded  the 
bed  of  his  wagon,  the  trail  in  most  part  is  still  to  be  seen.  It 
was  over  this  section  that  Mrs.  Sager,  in  1844,  suffered  the 
agonies  of  a  most  pitiful  death  which  relieved  her  a  few  hours 
after  the  train  reached  Pilgrim  Springs  where  her  dust  is 
mingled  with  that  of  the  desert. 

The  three  islands  where  the  trail  crossed  the  Snake  river  are 
twelve  miles  down  the  mountain  from  Pilgrim  Springs  and  no 
change  has  taken  place  since  the  pioneers  ceased  to  brave  the 
rapid  current  here.  As  I  sat  on  the  bank  with  one  of  the 

i  David  Baxter  Gray,  afterwards,  beginning  in  '78,  was  widely  known  in 
the  Willamette  Valley  and  The  Dalles,  crossed  the  plains  with  the  Harpool  train.— 
George  H.  Himes. 


14  MILES  CANNON 

oldest  settlers  in  this  section  and  looked  out  over  the  waters 
of  the  river,  while  he  traced  the  ripples  which  marked  the  line 
of  travel,  I  could  but  wonder  at  the  courage  necessary  to 
prompt  one  to  make  the  attempt.  Yet  the  emigrants  who 
came  over  the  trail  plunged  into  the  terrifying  waters  with 
impunity,  though  not  all  of  them  succeeded  in  reaching  shore. 

At  the  Hot  Springs,  on  the  northern  prong  of  the  trail  and 
within  nine  miles  of  Mountain  Home,  a  bath  house  of  con- 
siderable importance  is  in  operation.  The  trail  touched  the 
Boise  river  where  the  Barber  lumber  mills  are  now  situated, 
some  six  miles  above  the  city  of  Boise.  Just  west  of  Ten  Mile 
creek,  some  20  miles  down  the  Boise  river,  is  the  site  of  the 
Ward  massacre  which  occurred  August  20,  1854.  In  Decem- 
ber, 1914,  I  succeeded,  with  the  help  of  several  pioneers,  in 
locating  the  spot  and  the  grave  which  contains  the  ashes  of 
several  of  the  victims. 

The  Canyon  ford,  five  miles  west  of  the  Ward  battle  ground 
and  one  mile  north  of  Caldwell,  Idaho,  the  oldest  and  most 
prominent  ford  on  the  Boise  river,  has  undergone  no  change 
in  its  surroundings  save  that  an  iron  bridge  now  spans  the 
stream  directly  over  the  historical  crossing.  From  here  the 
trail  followed  very  nearly  the  present  bed  of  the  river  to  Old 
Fort  Boise  where  it  again  crossed  the  Snake  and  joined  the 
southern  branch  about  eight  miles  out  in  the  hills  in  the 
direction  of  Vale,  Oregon. 

Noticing  for  a  moment  the  diary  of  Jason  Lee,  who  at- 
tached himself  to  the  brigade  of  Thomas  McKay  at  Fort  Hall, 
it  would  appear  that  this  company  followed  the  southern  route. 
While  encamped  at  the  Three  Islands,  near  the  present  Glenn's 
Ferry,  Mr.  McKay,  who  had  buried  one  native  wife,  felt  him- 
self inclined  to  embark  again.  The  nuptials  were  celebrated 
on  Tuesday  evening,  August  12,  1834.  The  captain  declined, 
however,  to  present  to  the  relatives  of  the  bride  the  customary 
tokens  of  esteem,  informing  them  that  it  was  the  rule  among  the 
whites  to  simply  gain  the  consent  of  the  girl.  While  at  break- 
fast the  following  morning,  in  open  day  light  and  in  the 
presence  of  thirty  people,  an  Indian  not  willing  to  accept  the 


SNAKE  RIVER  IN  HISTORY  15 

white  man's  peculiar  ideas,  appropriated  one  of  the  captain's 
horses  and  made  way  with  it  undiscovered. 

On  the  evening  of  the  14th,  the  party  was  encamped  at 
Willow  creek  where  the  old  Humboldt  and  Boise  river  trail 
crossed  the  Snake.  They  appear  to  have  established  their 
encampments  on  a  large  island  in  the  river  there  which  af- 
forded, as  it  yet  does,  good  pasturage  for  stock.  They  were 
still  here  on  Saturday  evening  when  the  captain  visited  the 
camp  of  the  missionaries  and  informed  them  that  it  was  his 
purpose  to  remain  in  that  vicinity  to  trade  with  the  Indians 
and  trap  beaver  until  the  following  March. 

Just  what  effect  the  operations  of  Mr.  Wyeth  back  at  Fort 
Hall  had  produced  upon  the  sagacious  captain  I  have  no  means 
of  knowing.  Certain  it  is,  however,  that  when  the  Whitman 
party,  which  crossed  the  river  at  Three  Islands  and  journeyed 
over  the  northern  trail,  and  which  was  attached  to  the  brigade 
of  the  same  valiant  captain  just  two  years  later,  arrived  at  a 
point  nine  miles  below  the  Canyon  ford  on  the  Boise  river 
they  were  welcomed  to  Fort  Boise  by  the  captain  who  had 
gone  on  ahead  from  the  Snake  river  encampment  to  arrange 
for  the  reception.  Here  it  was  that  that  historical  bone  of 
contention,  the  Whitman  wagon,  was  left  and  which  remained 
there  in  the  custody  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  as  an 
interesting  -exhibit,  until  claimed  by  oblivion.  When  Mr.  T.  J. 
Farnham,  of  the  Peoria  party,  arrived  here  three  years  later 
he  found  the  company  engaged  in  building  a  new  fort  twelve 
miles  below  at  the  mouth  of  the  river.  From  the  Winthrop 
diary  under  the  date  of  Sunday,  Sept.  11,  1853,  we  learn 
that  the  fort  was  washed  away  that  spring  and  that  the  com- 
pany was  then  engaged  in  building  a  new  one  out  of  the  old 
adobes.  The  site  of  the  old  post  is  now  in  the  channel  of 
the  Snake  river  about  200  feet  from  the  right  bank.  After 
its  abandonment  in  1856  there  remained  no  sign  of  activity 
here  by  white  people  until  the  advent  of  the  mining  period  when 
it  became  the  most  prominent  crossing  on  the  river.  With 
the  opening  of  other  roads  and  construction  of  bridges  the 
ferry  business  by  1909  had  so  dwindled  that  the  location  was 


16  MILES  CANNON 

abandoned.  At  the  present  time  this  particular  section  is 
given  over  to  the  caprices  of  the  two  rivers  which  are  con- 
stantly seeking  new  channels.  The  last  vestige  of  this  historic 
building  is  said  to  have  disappeared  in  1870.  The  seat  of 
political  and  commercial  power  has  been  transferred  to  the 
beautiful  city  of  Boise  situated  50  miles  farther  up  the  Boise 
river. 

Reverting  briefly  to  the  south  bank  of  the  Snake  I  would 
mention  that  section  of  the  old  trail  lying  between  Succor 
creek,  on  the  Idaho  side,  and  the  Owyhee  river  on  the  Oregon 
side  of  the  state  line.  The  trail  crossed  Succor  creek  about  five 
miles  back  from  the  Snake  and  ascended  to  a  high  plain  for 
a  distance  of  several  miles  when  it  again  descended  into  the 
Snake  river  bottom  some  miles  below  what  is  known  as  the 
Big  Bend.  It  may  be  recalled  that  it  was  in  this  vicinity  that 
Robert  Stuart  picked  up  our  three  Kentucky  hunters  whose 
melancholy  fate  on  Boise  river  already  has  been  mentioned. 

On  the  high  plain  referred  to  is  the  spot  where,  about  noon 
of  Sept.  13,  1860,  the  Vanorman  train  was  attacked  by  the 
Indians,  eleven  of  the  party  killed  and  the  entire  train  of  eight 
wagons,  after  thirty-six  hours  of  continuous  fighting,  were 
set  on  fire  by  the  victorious  savages  and  nearly  100  head  of 
stock  and  all  the  provisions  of  the  company  appropriated. 
Some  thirty-four  members,  mostly  children,  escaped  when  the 
torch  was  being  applied  to  the  wagons  and  after  untold  suffer- 
ing established  a  camp  on  the  Owyhee  about  ten  rods  above 
the  point  where  the  trail  crossed  that  stream.  Here  they  re- 
mained until  October  17th  when  they  were  rescued  by  a  com- 
pany of  troopers  from  Walla  Walla  under  command  of  Cap- 
tain Dent.  So  furiously  did  the  massacre  rage  when  the  train 
was  set  on  fire  that  those  who  escaped  were  unable,  except 
for  a  part  of  a  loaf  of  corn  bread,  to  provide  themselves  with 
any  provisions  whatever,  and  out  of  the  thirty  making  their 
escape  eighteen  were  children,  several  of  whom  were  too  small 
to  walk.  In  the  annals  of  pioneer  tragedies  I  know  of  but 
one  that  parallels  this — the  Donner  party  of  1846.  Of  the 
thirty-four  who  went  into  camp  at  the  Owyhee  far  less  than 


SNAKE  RIVER  IN  HISTORY  17 

half  survived  the  awful  ordeal.  That  we  should  allow  the 
capacious  maw  of  oblivion  to  claim  the  deeds  of  our  heroic 
pioneers  is  a  good  and  sufficient  cause  to  make  even  the  stoutest 
heart  weep. 

I  shall  here  make  a  few  observations  relative  to  the  age  of 
the  Snake  river  trails.  Peter  H.  Burnett,  who  crossed  the 
plains  in  1843,  verifies  the  statement  of  many  others  that  the 
Fort  Hall  bottoms  had  been  a  great  resort  for  buffaloes  and 
adds  the  statement  that  "We  saw  the  skulls  of  these  animals 
for  the  last  time  at  Fort  Boise,  beyond  which  point  they  were 
never  seen."  His  remark,  however,  applies  to  the  immigration 
of  that  year,  for  earlier  travelers  had  observed  the  skulls  as 
far  west  as  the  Powder  river  valley,  west  of  which  place  I 
have  never  heard  of  any  trace  of  this  historic  animal. 

It  would  appear,  therefore,  that,  when  the  white  man  in- 
vaded the  Old  Oregon  territory,  the  buffalo  herds  were  re- 
ceding toward  the  east.  As  a  cause  of  this  recession  we  may, 
with  some  degree  of  certainty,  I  think,  look  to  the  acquisi- 
tion of  the  horse  by  the  Indian  as  a  primary  explanation.  Fol- 
lowing the  discovery  of  the  New  World  in  1492,  we  find  the 
natives,  as  early  as  1504,  struck  dumb  with  amazement  upon 
the  discovery  that  the  Spaniards  were  transporting  their  bag- 
gage upon  the  backs  of  four-legged  slaves  of  the  most  strange 
and  wonderful  proportions.  We  find  them  in  Cuba  in  1511, 
in  Mexico  by  1521  and  as  far  north  as  Santa  Fe,  Utah  and 
even  Kansas  as  early  as  1542.  It  is  reasonably  safe  to  con- 
clude, therefore,  that  the  horse  was  in  general  use  among  the 
Coast  Indians  as  early  as  the  beginning  of  the  17th  century. 

That  the  recession  of  the  vast  buffalo  herds  began  on  the 
southern  and  western  borders  of  their  original  feeding  grounds, 
to  be  followed  closely  by  a  general  retreat  from  the  Atlantic 
slope,  is  equally  certain.  By  1832  white  men  had  joined  with 
the  Indians,  the  use  of  fire  arms  had  become  general,  and  the 
wanton  slaughter  was  on.  In  the  fall  of  1883,  I  stood  on  the 
bank  of  the  Missouri  river  at  old  Fort  Pierre  and  watched  a 
steam  boat  from  up  river  make  its  landing.  Going  aboard  I 
observed  a  consignment  of  fifty  tons  of  buffalo  hides  and, 


18  MILES  CANNON 

upon  inquiry,  was  informed  by  the  gray-haired  captain  that 
they  were  taken  on  the  head  waters  of  the  Marias  river  and 
loaded  at  Fort  Benton.  "But,  young  man,"  he  continued,  "if 
it's  buffalo  you  are  looking  for  you  are  too  late.  The  hide 
of  the  last  wild  buffalo  on  the  plains  is  in  that  shipment."  My 
conjecture  is  that  the  deep  winding  furrows  of  the  old  Oregon 
trail  were  made  after  the  introduction  of  horses  by  the  Spanish 
during  a  period  not  later  than  the  dawn  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  that  the  recession  of  the  vast  herds  of  buffalo  from 
both  the  east  and  the  west  was  the  primary  cause  of  its  original 
existence. 

I  shall  now  hasten  my  long-deferred  conclusion.  That  the 
pioneers  who  immortalized  the  Oregon  trail  lived  not  in  vain 
is  evidenced  by  some  very  interesting  epochs  in  the  annals  of 
America.  On  May  2,  1843,  102  of  these  empire  builders  joined 
in  a  convention  at  Champoeg  and  set  in  motion  the  political 
machinery  which  added  a  star  to  the  flag.  Then  a  small  unit 
of  the  emigration  of  the  following  year  displeased,  doubtless, 
on  account  of  the  crowded  conditions  of  the  Willamette  coun- 
try, opened  farms  near  Olympia  in  1845,  gave  us  the  great 
state  of  Washington,  and  still  the  flag  goes  marching  on.  Janu- 
ary 24,  1848,  James  W.  Marshall,  impelled  by  the  purpose 
of  building  a  mill,  set  his  pick  into  the  golden  sands  of  Ameri- 
can river  and,  lo !  the  state  of  California  was  blazoned  into  the 
blue  field  of  Old  Glory.  During  the  summer  of  1860  a  small 
party  of  these  irrepressible  pioneers,  under  the  leadership  of 
E.  D.  Pierce,  encamped  on  the  Weippe  meadows  within  a 
stone's  throw  of  the  Lewis  and  Clark  trail  of  55  years  before, 
and  from  the  blaze  of  that  camp  fire  we  may  now  in  fancy  see 
the  familiar  outlines  of  the  great  state  of  Idaho;  and  still  the 
flag  goes  marching  on.  Two  years  later  John  White  and 
William  Eads  encamped  on  Willard's  creek,  and  Montana  in 
a  short  time  came  into  the  Union. 

The  population  of  the  five  states  mentioned  is  already  in 
excess  of  7,000,000  souls,  and  the  assessed  valuation  of  both 
real  and  personal  property  is  perhaps  more  than  $7,000,000,000, 
though  development  is  hardly  begun.  The  far-seeing  eye  of 


SNAKE  RIVER  IN  HISTORY  19 

Divinity  only  can  fathom  the  future.  Glorious  heritage !  May 
the  final  reunion  of  the  pioneers  in  the  realms  of  a  joyous  eter- 
nity be,  after  all  the  achievements,  his  richest  reward. 

We  will  now  take  a  final  view  of  the  Snake  river  as  we  of 
a  later  generation  have  placed  it  in  history.  After  the  camp 
fires  of  the  emigrant  had  ceased  to  burn  along  the  line  of 
the  Oregon  Trail,  and  its  unnumbered  graves  had  been  leveled 
by  the  winds  of  time,  a  new  and  a  startling  element  entered 
into  the  world's  industrial  affairs.  Though  we  know  not 
what  it  is,  nor  from  whence  it  comes,  nor  whither  it  goes,  it 
is,  nevertheless,  an  element  destined  to  revolutionize  the  efforts 
and  revise  the  rewards  of  man.  We  call  it  hydro-electric 
power. 

By  the  use  of  this  mysterious  gift  of  nature  we  no  longer 
use  the  water  power  to  turn  the  shaft  of  the  mill  situated  on 
the  bank  of  the  stream,  but  to  operate  the  generator  which, 
with  the  use  of  transmission  lines,  conveys  the  power  to  the 
remotest  fields  of  civilization.  Its  marvelous  energy  has,  to 
a  large  extent,  invaded  the  industrial  world,  nor  is  it  any  less 
a  potent  factor  in  the  laboratories  of  science  than  in  the  bound- 
less fields  of  domestic  economy.  In  transportation  it  is  destined 
to  supplant  the  steam  locomotives  in  the  near  future,  for  already 
the  monster  electric  locomotives,  weighing  two  hundred  and 
eighty-four  tons  each,  speeds  through  the  Rocky  Mountains 
hauling  their  eight  hundred  ton  transcontinental  trains  with  the 
utmost  ease.  What  a  marvelous  evolution;  what  a  gift  from 
the  benevolent  hand  of  God ;  what  a  boon  to  the  toiling  masses ! 

As  a  power  river  the  Snake  ranks  with  the  greatest  in  the 
world.  Its  vast  volume  of  water  has  a  total  fall,  from  source 
to  mouth,  of  more  than  one  mile,  and,  in  the  meantime,  it 
develops  a  minimum  of  1,400,000,  and  a  maximum  of  2,900,000 
H.P.  The  latest  information  available  would  indicate  the 
development  at  the  present  time  to  be  about  120,000  H.P. 
I  pay  for  power  $28.00  per  H.  P.  per  season  of  five  months, 
but  putting  it  down  to  $10.00  per  annum  the  Snake  river  would 
appear  to  possess  an  annual  earning  capacity  equal  to  $14,000,- 
000,  and  a  maximum  of  $29,000,000.  Thus  it  seems  that  "the 


20  MILES  CANNON 

stone  which  the  builders  rejected  has  become  the  chief  stone 
of  the  arch." 

The  state  of  Idaho,  with  a  population  of  450,000,  has  a 
property  valuation,  according  to  a  tax  commission  report,  of 
about  $500,000,000.  Though  as  a  start  we  are  but  28  years 
old,  we  have  an  indebtedness,  including  state,  county,  municipal, 
school,  highway,  etc.,  amounting  to  $17,000,000,  upon  which 
we  pay  an  interest  charge  of  about  $3,000  per  day.  This 
interest  charge,  added  to  our  annual  running  expenses,  makes 
a  burden  of  $11,000,000  which  the  people,  80  per  cent  of  whom 
live  within  the  Snake  river  watershed,  must  pay  each  year 
for  taxes. 

As  a  sequel  I  crave  your  pardon  if  I  find  it  necessary  to  lead 
you  far  afield  once  more.  At  the  time  the  Champoeg  con- 
vention was  being  held,  May  2,  1843,  a  little  six-year-old  boy  in 
Hartford,  Conn.,  was  making  his  first  attempt  to  master  the 
alphabet.  That  he  well  succeeded  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that 
he  finished  his  education  at  the  University  of  Gottingen,  Ger- 
many, before  he  reached  his  20th  year.  During  the  period 
1860-5,  when  states  were  springing  up  in  the  vast  territory 
embraced  in  Old  Oregon,  and  when  the  great  question  of  seces- 
sion was  being  settled  by  the  arbitraments  of  war,  this  young 
man  entered  the  banking  business  in  the  city  of  New  York. 

Some  light  as  to  his  success  in  his  chosen  work  is  furnished 
in  a  governmental  report*  published  and  distributed  in  1912, 
and  from  which  we  learn  that  this  man,  together  with  his 
immediate  associates,  controlled  at  that  time,  $22,245,000,000 
out  of  a  grand  total  of  all  property  in  the  United  States  given 
as  $187,739,000,000.  In  other  words  he  then  controlled  about 
one-eighth  of  all  the  wealth  in  the  country.  You  have  already 
guessed  the  name  of  the  famous  American  citizen  referred  to, 
the  late  J.  Pierpont  Morgan. 

When  the  Hydro-power  was  sufficiently  developed  to  insure 
its  continuous  and  permanent  use,  Mr.  Morgan,  as  a  minor 
achievement,  organized  the  General  Electric  Company,  of 
which  The  Idaho  Power  Company  is  said  to  be  a  subsidiary 
concern.  During  1915  the  latter  company  took  over  the 

•The  Pujo  Congressional  Report. 


SNAKE  RIVER  IN  HISTORY  21 

ownership  and  control  of  practically  all  power  plants  on  the 
Snake  river  except  one,  the  Minidoka  plant  which  is  owned 
by  the  government,  and  is  now  operating  them  in  the  interest 
of  the  parent  company.  The  homebuilders  and  taxpayers  of 
Idaho  as  a  state  have  received  no  direct  benefits  from  the 
wealth  which  the  waters  of  Snake  river,  until  the  last  decade, 
has  been  wasting  into  the  sea. 

From  the  Chicago  Tribune,  March  21,  1918,  I  note  the 
following  relative  to  the  Idaho  Power  Company :  "The  Idaho 
Power  Company,  operating  without  competition,  serves  with 
electric  light  and  power  the  Snake  river  plains,  extending  across 
southern  Idaho  and  into  eastern  Oregon."  I  might  add  that 
every  plant  they  have  and  every  mile  of  transmission  wire 
are,  practically,  within  sight  of  the  old  Oregon  Trail.  I  gain 
the  further  significant  fact  from  this  paper  as  follows: 

"This  company  operates  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  public 
utilities  commission  of  the  state  of  Idaho  and  the  public 
service  commission  of  the  state  of  Oregon." 

I  have  mentioned  the  fact  that,  at  the  present  time,  the  power 
development  of  the  Snake  river  is  equal  to  about  120,000  H.P. 
Of  this  amount  the  government  owns  and  operates  at  the 
Minidoka  plant  10,000  H.P.  This  would  indicate  that  the 
Idaho  Power  Company  has  developed  about  110,000  and,  ac- 
cording to  the  official  report  published  in  the  paper  mentioned, 
they  have  in  actual  use  32,000  H.P.  It  further  shows  that  the 

Gross  earnings  are $1,137,425 

Operating   expenses,    including   taxes 

and  maintenance  579,201 


Net  earnings $   558,224 

The  report  shows,  moreover,  that  this  32,000  H.P.  if  sold 
at  an  average  of  STA  cents  per  kilowatt,  and  they  operate  24 
hours  per  day,  would  yield  the  company  a  net  profit  of 
$10,543,180.  or  a  sum  equal  to  5  per  cent  interest  per  annum 
on  $210,863,680.  In  a  statement  before  the  Idaho  board  of 
equalization  the  company  placed  a  value  upon  their  property 
of  $2,651,000. 

You  have  observed  that  this  company  operates  under  the 


22  MILES  CANNON 

jurisdiction  of  the  public  utilities  commission  of  the  state  of 
Idaho  and  the  public  service  commission  of  the  state  of  Oregon, 
and  that  it  operates  without  competition. 

I  should  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  Snake  river  has  passed 
into  the  control  of  a  monopoly,  owned  by  individuals  and 
operated  for  a  profit,  under  exclusive  rights  conferred  by  the 
state.  If  my  conclusions  are  well  founded  we  have  revived  the 
policy  of  granting  monopolies  which  has  always  been  opposed 
by  the  English  common  law  as  far  back  as  the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  and,  likewise,  a  policy  which  never  has 
been  in  good  repute  in  the  United  States. 

Unless  the  people  of  our  country  accept  these  conditions  as 
permanent,  on  the  grounds  of  public  policy,  the  problem  is  yet 
to  be  solved.  In  its  solution  there  are,  as  far  as  I  know,  but 
two  theories  to  be  considered.  First — a  state  monopoly  owned 
and  operated  for  the  benefit  of  all  the  people.  Second — the 
abolishment  of  monopolies  by  opening  the  power  possibilities 
to  all  citizens  alike  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  state  which 
should  oppose  all  forms  of  special  privileges.  The  present 
condition  represents  the  theory  of  imperialism ;  the  first  remedy 
represents  the  theory  of  German  socialism ;  the  second  remedy 
is  the  usually  accepted  American  plan,  inasmuch  as  the  govern- 
ment, according  to  this  theory,  is  employed  in  the  highest  de- 
velopment of  the  power  and  efficiency  of  the  individual. 

Socialism,  under  its  several  forms,  is  now  a  greater  menace 
than  it  has  been  before  in  our  history.  The  entire  philosophy 
of  Socialism  is  of  German  origin  and  is  contained  in  a  book 
known  as  "Das  Kapital"  written  by  Karl  Marx.  It  is  the  bible 
of  Socialism  no  matter  in  what  country  or  under  what  name. 
It  is  based  upon  five  elementary  principles  which  are,  1 — class 
hatred ;  2 — abolition  of  national  boundaries ;  3 — abolition  of  the 
family  relations;  A — abolition  of  religion;  and  5 — abolition  of 
property  rights.  These  are  the  five  great  rocks  upon  which 
our  constitution  was  conceived,  and  they  are  the  five  ele- 
mentary features  of  government  that  have  made  us,  in  a  short 
period  of  142  years,  the  most  powerful  and  progressive  people 
in  the  world. 


SNAKE  RIVER  IN  HISTORY  23 

The  charge  that  capital  has  invaded  the  rights  of  the  indi- 
vidual, together  with  the  socialist  propaganda  during  the  past 
40  years,  have  not  been  barren  of  results.  Class  hatred  is 
being  advocated  without  restraint  and  the  doctrine  of  a  league 
of  nations  has  already  diverted  our  attention  from  Washing- 
ton's solemn  warning.  Our  population  statistics,  when  com- 
pared with  the  Bulletin  of  Church  Statistics,  indicate,  appall- 
ing as  it  may  appear,  that  the  increase  of  church  communicants 
as  compared  with  the  increase  of  population  is  falling  behind 
at  the  rate  of  nearly  one  million  per  year.  (Reports  for  1915-16 
published  in  1916-17).  Open  attacks  upon  the  rights  of  prop- 
erty have  been  made  with  such  persistency  that  the  para- 
mount feature  of  the  next  national  election  will  probably  be 
the  federal  ownership  and  operation  of  all  public  utilities, 
including  railroads,  telegraph,  telephone  and  power  plants  in 
the  United  States. 

Tliis  bewhiskered  quarrel  between  labor  and  capital  should 
be  settled  before  the  two  form  a  coalition  and  crush  the  great 
middle  class  whose  rights  are  seldom  mentioned.  The  signs 
of  the  times  point  to  this  very  thing.  The  Snake  river  offers 
a  favorable  opportunity  for  the  test.  Capital,  operating  under 
the  protection  of  the  state,  and  without  competition,  doubtless, 
would  seek  an  alliance  rather  than  decapitation.  At  any  rate 
the  power  wealth  of  Snake  river,  in  my  opinion,  is  destined  to 
precipitate  the  final  settlement.  Let  us  indulge  the  hope  that 
this  picturesque  and  powerful  river,  with  a  name  fraught  with 
so  much  historic  beauty,  may,  ultimately,  occupy  a  high  place 
in  history  and  that  its  unmeasured  wealth  may  tend  to  solidify 
rather  than  undermine,  the  principles  of  government  which 
have  made  us  great  in  the  eyes  of  the  world. 


THE  NORTHERN  BOUNDARY  OF  OREGON 

By  T.  C.  ELLIOTT. 

During  twenty-five  years  prior  to  June,  1846,  the  history  of 
Oregon  included  as  its  principal  theme  the  dispute  between 
the  governments  of  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  as  to 
where  the  boundary  line  should  be  located  between  their  re- 
spective future  territories.  On  the  part  of  the  United  States 
the  forty-ninth  parallel  of  north  latitude  was  early  proposed 
and  quite  consistently  held  to  although  the  political  cry  of 
"fifty-four  forty  or  fight"  was  not  unheard  for  a  time.  On 
the  part  of  Great  Britain  the  course  of  the  Columbia  river  was 
considered  a  fair  compromise  line,  but  without  entire  dis- 
avowal of  rights  to  all  the  country  north  of  California  or  the 
forty-second  parallel.  In  the  two  previous  issues  of  this 
Quarterly  attention  has  been  directed  to  the  first  overt  act 
of  the  United  States  government  toward  asserting  sovereignty 
over  the  Columbia  River  Country  or  Northwest  Coast  of 
America,  as  it  was  then  called;  and  the  influence  of  that  act 
in  the  later  discussions  of  the  boundary  question.  Mention 
was  made  in  the  Quarterly  for  December,  1918  (pp.  276-7) 
of  an  early  request  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Foreign  Office  of 
Great  Britain  to  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  for  the  removal 
of  the  principal  trading  post  of  that  company  from  the  south 
to  the  north  side  of  the  Columbia  river.  It  is  now  proposed 
to  present  the  document  which  contains  the  authority  for  that 
interesting  statement. 

This  publication  has  been  made  possible  through  the  courtesy 
of  Dr.  Otto  Klotz,  chief  astronomer  of  the  Dominion  of 
Canada,  who  during  years  of  service  has  accumulated  in  his 
office  at  Ottawa  much  valuable  data  relating  to  the  scientific 
and  physical  location  of  this  boundary  line  as  established  by 
treaty  and  the  diplomatic  discussions  leading  up  to  it.  The 
Amer.  Geographical  Review  for  May,  1917,  contains  an  in- 
teresting article  by  Dr.  Klotz  entitled  "The  History  of  the 
Forty-ninth  Parallel  Survey  West  of  the  Rocky  Mountains." 


26  T.  C.  ELLIOTT 

In  the  course  of  his  personal  research  the  archives  of  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  at  their  head  office  in  London  were 
examined  and  he  was  permitted  to  make  copies  of  certain 
letters  therein.  These  were  later  printed  by  the  Canadian 
Government  in  a  confidential  volume  and  the  seal  of  confidence 
has  now  been  removed  for  the  use  of  this  Quarterly,  being 
of  special  interest  to  residents  of  Oregon  and  pertinent  to 
the  series  of  articles  now  appearing  in  its  pages  upon  The 
Federal  Relations  of  Oregon. 

Hon.  George  Canning,  to  whom  this  particular  document 
is  addressed,  was  from  1822  to  1827  the  most  influential  man 
in  England,  if  not  in  all  Europe.  He  was  connected  with 
political  life  in  England  from  1793  on,  with  various  vicissitudes, 
and  following  the  suicide  of  Lord  Castlereagh  became  the 
Secretary  of  the  Foreign  Office  in  Sept.,  1822,  and  continued 
as  such  until  his  sudden  death  in  August,  1827.  From  the 
statements  in  this  letter  it  is  evident  that  his  attention  was 
early  directed  to  the  relatively  unimportant  question  of  British 
interests  in  far-away  Oregon.  In  the  United  States  in  1817, 
when  President  Monroe  contemplated  sending  the  "Ontario" 
to  the  Columbia  river  to  assert  publicly  our  claim  of  national 
sovereignty  he  directed  that  John  Jacob  Astor  of  New  York, 
be  informed  of  the  plan ;  Mr.  Astor  was  the  leading  fur  trade 
merchant  in  America.  In  England  in  1822,  when,  following 
the  coalition  with  the  "Northwesters,"  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany contemplated  the  expansion  of  operations  on  the  Pacific 
Coast  the  ear  of  the  Foreign  Secretary  was  sought  to  urge 
that  some  permanent  arrangement  be  made  as  to  British  au- 
thority over  the  Northwest  Coast  of  America.  Thus  we 
find  that  it  was  the  prime  beaver  skin  of  the  Columbia 
river  basin  in  its  abundance  which  attracted  the  attention  of 
both  England  and  America  to  Oregon;  the  symbol  of  the 
pound  sterling  and  American  dollar  preceded  both  the  flag 
and  the  cross  in  both  discovery,  and  exploitation.  And  the 
purely  commercial  interests  involved  also  undoubtedly  occa- 
sioned the  delay  in  final  determination  of  the  dispute  by  means 
of  the  treaties  of  joint  policy. 


THE  NORTHERN  BOUNDARY  OF  OREGON  27 

The  exact  date  of  this  request  by  Sec.  Canning  is  not  stated 
in  the  document  but  under  usual  course  of  procedure  it  would 
have  been  made  not  later  than  the  winter  of  1823-24,  when 
Gov.  Simpson  was  (presumably)  in  London.  We  have  record 
of  the  arrival  of  Gov.  Simpson  and  Dr.  McLoughlin  at  Fort 
George  (Astoria)  in  November,  1824  from  Norway  House, 
Fort  William  and  Montreal  overland.  We  also  know  that 
Secretary  Adams  and  U.  S.  Ambassador  Rush  were  discussing 
the  Oregon  question  with  Secretary  Canning  during  1822- 
1825. 

The  statements  in  this  document  will  serve  to  correct  some 
errors  of  popular  belief  or  conclusion  as  to  the  establishment 
of  Fort  Vancouver  on  the  Columbia  river  in  1824-25;  facts 
not  new,  however,  to  close  readers  of  our  history.  Doctor 
John  McLoughlin  did  not  select  the  site  or  the  name  for  that 
important  trading  post  but  was  merely  the  efficient  adminis- 
trator in  its  erection  and  the  transfer  of  headquarters.  At 
some  future  date  the  writer  hopes  to  contribute  an  adequate 
account  of  the  influence  and  activities  of  Gov.  George  Simp- 
son in  the  course  of  events  on  the  Columbia  river. 

Governor  Felly's  historical  resume  cannot  be  considered 
other  than  a  partisan  statement  of  the  British  claims  to  the 
Oregon  Country,  though  some  of  his  errors  were  due  to  lack 
of  knowledge.  The  boundary  line  he  suggests  is  essentially 
the  same  offered  by  England  in  1842  but  as  alternative  Lord 
Ashburton  was  then  authorized  to  offer  the  line  of  the  Koot- 
enay  river  from  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  the  Columbia  and 
thence  along  the  Columbia  to  the  ocean.  However,  discussion 
of  the  Oregon  boundary  was  not  undertaken  by  Secretary 
Webster  and  Lord  Ashburton  in  1842. 

[DOCUMENT] 

Journal  721.  Hudson's  Bay  House, 

p.  255.  London,  9th  December,  1825. 

To 

The  Right  Honble. 

George  Canning, 

&c.,  &c. 
Sir, — With  reference  to  the  several  communications  which 


28  T.  C.  ELLIOTT 

I  have  had  the  honor  of  having  with  you  on  the  subject  of 
the  Country  situated  on  the  North  West  Coast  of  America 
and  to  the  West  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  I  have  now  the 
honor  of  requesting  your  attention  to  the  following  circum- 
stances, which  it  may  be  of  importance  to  consider  in  any 
negotiation  for  settling  the  Boundaries  with  the1  United  States 
to  the  West  of  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

I  need  not  remind  you  that  Captn.  Cook  in  1778  explored 
the  Coast  from  Cape  Gregory  in  Lat.  43^  to  Lat.  70°  and 
that  Spain  by  the  Convention1  28th  October,  1790,  abandoned 
all  particular  claim  beyond  what  she  at  that  time  held  in  actual 
settlement  and  that  consequently  the  United  States  cannot  have 
any  claim  under  their  purchase  of  Lousiana  from  Spain. 

In  17782  Captains  Gray  and  Kendrick  (in  command  of  the 
Columbia  and  Washington)  were  fitted  out  at  Boston  for  a 
trading  voyage  on  that  Coast  and  are  supposed  to  have  been 
the  first  Americans  who  engaged  in  that  Trade  but  they  did 
not  enter  the  River  Columbia,3  and  it  is  well  known  that 
British  Subjects4  have  been  carrying  on  a  trade  on  that  Coast 
previous  to  the  voyages  of  Captains  Gray  and  Kendrick.  The 
River  Columbia  was  not  explored  until  1792  when  Lt.  Brough- 
ton  entered  it  in  the  Chatham  and  anchored  at  Red  Patch,5 
about  12  miles  inland  from  Cape  Disappointment,  he  then  pro- 
ceeded with  the  Cutter  and  Launch  up  the  River  as  far  as 
Vancouver's  Point.  Vancouver  in  Vol.  2,  page  66,  says  "prev- 
iously to  his  (Mr.  Broughton's)  departure  however  he  formally 

1.  Article  V  of  the  Nootka  Sound  Convention  of  October  28th,  1790,  reads  as 
follows: — "It  is   agreed  that  as  well   in   the  places  which    are  to   be   restored  to 
British  subjects  by  virtue  of  the  first  article  as  in  all  other  parts  of  the  North- 
west Coast  of  North  America  or  of  the  islands  adjacent  situated  to  the  north  of 
the    parts    of    said   coast    already    occupied    by    Spain,    wherever    the    subjects    to 
either  of  the  two  powers  shall  have  made  settlements  since  the  month  of  April, 
1789,    or    shall   hereafter    make   any,    the    subjects   of   the   other    shall    have   free 
access   and    shall    carry  on    their  commerce   without   disturbance   or   molestation." 

Any  right,  title  or  interest  of  Spain  to  the  Northwest  Coast  ,'of  North 
America  was  conveyed  to  the  United  States  through  the  Florida  Purchase  of 
1818;  not  through  the  Louisiana  Purchase. 

2.  The  Columbia  and  Lady  Washington  sailed  from  Boston  on  September  30, 
1787,   and  arrived  at  Nootka  in  September,    1788. 

3.  Governor    Pelly    in    this    paragraph    merely    reiterates    the    argument    of 
Captain    George    Vancouver    and    Lieutenant    Broughton    that    the    mouth    of    the 
Columbia   river   was  thirty-five   miles   from   the   ocean    (between   Cathlamet   Point 
and    Skamokawa)     and    that    Captain    Gray    entered    merely    the    bay    or    estuary 
into  which  the  river  flows. 

4  Captain  James  Hanna   in    1785    and   1786.      Captains   Lowrie  and   Guise  in 
1786.     Captain   Barkley  in    1787.     Captains  Portlock  and  Dixon,   1786-7.     Captain 
Meares,  1786-7.     Captains  Colwitt  and  Duncan,  1787,  and  others. 

5  Red    Patch    is   presumably    the    treeless   knob    on    Scarborough    Head    (Fort 
Columbia    of   the    present    day)    where   the    bushes    turn    brown    in    color    in    the 
autumn;    plainly   visible    from   the   entrance   to   the   river.      This   point   is   twelve 
miles    from    the    ocean  *  but    Lieutenant    Broughton's    anchorage    was    just    below 
Frankfort,  opposite  Astoria,  more  than  fifteen  miles  from  the  ocean. 


THE  NORTHERN  BOUNDARY  OF  OREGON  29 

took  possession  of  the  River  and  the  Country  in  its  vicinity 
in  His  Britannic  Majesty's  name  having  every  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  the  subjects  of  no  other  civilized  Nation  or  State 
had  ever  entered  this  River  before;  in  this  opinion  he  was 
confirmed  by  Mr.  Gray's  sketch  in  which  it  does  not  appear 
that  Mr.  Gray  either  saw  or  was  within  five  Leagues  of  its 
entrance." 

According  to  Lt.  Broughton's  observations,  Vancouver's 
Point6  is  situated  in  Lat.  45°  27'  and  Long.  237°  50'  computed 
to  be  about  100  miles  from  the  mouth  of  the  river. 

In  1793,  Sir  Alexr.  McKenzie  crossed  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains and  reached  the  coast  about  Lat.  52^  and  soon  after7 
that  time  the  North  West  Company  of  Montreal  established 
trading  Posts  in  the  Country  West  of  the  Rocky  Mountains 
on  the  head  waters  of  the  North  Branch  of  the  Columbia 
among  the  Flathead  and  Coutonais  Tribes,  and  continued  grad- 
ually to  explore  the  country  and  extend  their  Trade  towards 
the  Coast  down  the  Columbia  as  well  as  to  the  Northward. 

Capts.  Lewis  and  Clark  in  the  command  of  an  expedition 
fitted  out  by  the  American  Government,  ascended  the  Missouri, 
crossed  the  Rjocky  Mountains,  descended  the  South  branch  of 
the  Columbia  called  in  "Arrowsmiths'  map"  "Lewis's  River" 
and  which  falls  into  the  main  or  North  Branch  in  Lat.  46°  15' ; 
they  proceeded  to  the  mouth  of  the  River  and  passed  the  winter 
1805-6  at  Young's  Bay,  on  the  South  side  of  the  River.  At 
this  period,8  the  British  fur  traders  had  pushed  their  trading 
post  nearer  to  the  junction  of  the  Lewis's  River  with  the 
North  Branch  of  the  Columbia  River.  In  1809  an  Association9 
composed  of  British  and  American  subjects  was  formed  in 
New  York  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  on  the  fur  Trade  on 

6  As  to  the  true  location  of  Point  Vancouver,   see  Or.  Hist.   Quar.   Vol.    18, 
page  73. 

7  The  first  trading  post  "established  by  the  North- West  Company  on   Colum- 
bia river  waters  was  by  David  Thompson  in  July,    1807,  near  the  source  of  the 
river    and    called    Kootenais    House.      In    November,    1809,    another    trading    post 
was    established    by    Mr.    Thompson    among    the    Saleesh    or    Flathead    tribe    in 
Montana;  and  Spokane  House  on  that  river  in  1810. 

8  There  were  no  trading  posts  at  all  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  on  rivers 
draining    into    the    Pacific    in    1805    but    in    1806    Simon    Fraser    established    two 
trading  posts  on  the  waters  of  the  Fraser  river  at  Lake  Stuart  and  Fraser  Lake. 

9  The    organization    of    the    Pacific    Fur    Company    is    narrated    in    Irving*s 
"Astoria"   and  by  Mr.   Astor  himself  in   his  letter  dated  January  4th,   1823,   and 
addressed  to   Secretary  of   State  John  Quincy  Adams;    this  is  printed  in   full  in 
the    Appendix    of    Greenhow's    History    of    Oregon.      Mr.    Astor    states    that    he 
furnished  ALL  the  capital   for   the  enterprise  and  that  the  British   subjects  con- 
nected  with   it   were    partners   only   for  a   share   in    any  profits.      Those   subjects 
were    Alexander    McKay,    Duncan    McDougall,    Donald    McKenzie,    David    Stuart 
and  John   Clarke.      They   reached   the   Columbia   in    March,    1811.      (McKenzie   in 
1812.) 


30  T.  C.  ELLIOTT 

the  North  West  Coast  under  the  Firm  of  the  Pacific  Fur 
Company.  They  fitted  out  two  expeditions  one  by  land  and 
the  other  by  sea  for  the  Columbia  where  they  arrived  in  1810 
and  established  themselves  on  the  South  side  of  the  River, 
naming  their  Settlement  "Astoria"  after  their  principal  partner 
Mr.  Astor  of  New  York.  The  North  West  Compy.  of  Mont- 
real however  continued  to  extend  their  Trade  with  the  Natives 
and  in  1813  established  themselves  on  the  Coast  within  a  few 
yards  of  the  American  settlement  of  Astoria.10 

The  Americans  had  remained  at  Astoria  and  from  time  to 
time  sent  parties  into  the  Interior,  but  had  not  made  much 
progress  in  establishing  themselves  in  the  country,  when  in 
1813  they  sold  their  buildings  at  Astoria  (which  was  after- 
wards named  "Fort  George")  with  the  whole  of  their  stock 
in  trade  in  the  Country  to  the  North  West  Company  as  per 
Bill  of  Sale  (Copy  of  which  is  annexed)  and  abandoned  the 
Country.  Since  that  time  no  American  Trader  has  appeared 
nor  has  any  settlement  been  formed  by  any  others  than  the 
British  Fur  Traders. 

Upon  reference  to  the  above  circumstances  and  to  the  dates 
of  the  transaction  it  does  not  appear  that  the  Americans  can 
establish  any  just  claim  to  the  Country  on  the  Columbia  or  to 
the  Northward  of  it,  and  that  by  actual  possession  Great 
Britian  alone  can  establish  a  legitimate  Title.  In  1818,  Captain 
Hickey  of  H.  M.  S.  Blossom  accompanied  by  Mr.  J.  B.  Prevost, 
Agent  for  the  United  States  Government  arrived  at  the  Co- 
lumbia and  delivered  to  Mr.  James  Keith  of  the  North  West 
Company,  then  in  charge  of  Fort  George,  a  letter  from  Earl 
Bathurst  dated  27th  January,  H.  M.  S.  Andromache,  and  in 
consequence  Mr.  Prevost  took  formal  possession  of  the  Settle- 
ment as  his  acknowledgment.11  Copies  of  these  documents  are 
annexed  but  I  think  it  right  to  observe  that  the  Settlement 
and  whatever  had  been  previously  occupied  in  that  Country 
by  American  subjects  had  been  acquired  by  the  North  West 
Company  by  purchase  for  a  valuable  consideration  and  not  by 
Capture. 

By  the  Convention  20th  October,  1818,  between  Great 
Britain  and  America  the  Trade  of  the  Country  to  the  West 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains  is  left  open  to  the  subjects  of  both 

10  We  have  the  narrative  of  two  eye-witnesses  of  how  the  large  party  of 
"Northwesters"  "established  (?)  themselves  within  a  few  yards  of  the  American 
settlement  of  Astoria'  in  October,  1813;  Gabriel  Franchere  and  Alexander  Ross. 
See  Franchere' s  Narrative,  pp.  190-93,  and  Ross'  Oregon  Settlers,  p.  254. 

ir  For  Mr.  Prevost's  official  report  of  this  event  see  Or.  Quar.  Vol.  19,  p.  277. 


THE  NORTHERN  BOUNDARY  OF  OREGON  31 

Nations  for  ten  years  without  prejudice  to  the  claim  of  either 
Nation;  but  no  American  subjects  have  as  yet  availed  them- 
selves of  this  privilege.  The  British  Fur  Traders  however 
have  never  withdrawn  from  the  Country  since  they  first  en- 
tered it;  on  the  contrary  they  have  gradually  and  at  much 
risk  and  expense  increased  their  Settlements  which  now  amount 
to  thirteen  in  number  (besides  temporary  Stations  which  are 
occasionally  changed)  and  extend  over  a  Country  exceeding 
fifteen  degrees  of  Latitude,  say  from  Lat.  45°  to  North  of 
Lat.  60°. 

In  the  year  1821  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  made  an  ar- 
rangement with  the  North  West  Company  of  Montreal  by 
which  they  acquired  possession  of  all  the  trading  Posts  and 
Stock  of  that  association,  and  now  under  their  Royal  Charter 
and  His  Majesty's  License  the  whole  Indian  Trade  of  British 
America  to  the  North  West  of  Canada  is  carried  on  by  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company.  In  order  to  acquire  more  correct 
information  respecting  the  country  on  the  West  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  and  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  into  effect  some 
measures  connected  with  extending  our  Trade  on  the  North 
West  Coast?  Governor  Simpson  was  directed  to  proceed  thither 
last  season,  and  after  an  arduous  and  fatiguing  journey  he 
accomplished  an  extensive  survey  of  the  Company's  Trading 
establishments  and  is  now  in  London.  He  will  remain  here 
until  the  beginning  of  February,  and  will  attend  any  appoint- 
ment that  you  may  be  pleased  to  make  should  you  wish  to  be 
possessed  of  any  further  information  respecting  that  Country. 
Whilst  at  Fort  George,  Governor  Simpson  fitted  out  an  Ex- 
pedition under  the  direction  of  an  intelligent  officer,  Mr.  Chief 
Trader  McMillan,  for  the  purpose  of  exploring  the  coast  to 
the  Northward.12 

In  the  course  of  his  survey  he  discovered  the  entrance  of 
Fraser's  River  between  Capes  Roberts  and  Gray  in  about 
Lat.  49°  15'.13 

The  mouth  of  this  River  was  not  discovered  by  Vancouver 
nor  by  the  Subjects  of  any  civilized  Nation  until  Mr.  McMillan 
visited  it  last  Winter,  but  the  upper  part  of  the  River,  and 
down  to  within  20  miles  of  the  sea  was  explored  by  Messrs. 

12  For  day-to-day  account  of  this  expedition,  see  Journal  of  John   Work,  in 
Wash.  Hist.  Quarterly,  Vol.  3,  p.  198. 

13  Later   research    has   rendered  this   statement   erroneous.      Simon    Fraser   is 
believed  to  have  arrived  within  sight  of  the  mouth  of  the  river  and  of  the  gulf 
into  which  it  flows.     See  page  279  of  "British  Columbia/'  by  F.  W.  Howay  and 
E.  O.  S.  Scholefield. 


32  T.  C.  ELLIOTT 

Fraser  and  Stuart,  partners  of  the  North  West  Company  in 
the  year  1808.  I  annex  extracts  from  Mr.  McMillan's  re- 
port and  as  this  country  appears  to  be  rich  in  fur  bearing 
animals  we  have  it  in  contemplation  to  form  permanent  es- 
tablishments therein  next  Summer,14  to  push  our  discoveries 
to  the  Northward  both  inland  and  on  the  Coast,  and  to  embark 
a  considerable  capital  in  endeavoring  to  secure  to  Great  Britain 
the  benefits  arising  from  an  exchange  of  British  manufactures 
for  the  produce  of  that  Country  with  its  numerous  inhabitants. 

In  compliance  with  a  wish  expressed  by  you  at  our  last  in- 
terview Governor  Simpson  when  at  Columbia  abandoned  Fort 
George  on  the  South  side  of  the  River  and  formed  a  new 
Establishment  on  the  North  side  about  75  miles  from  the 
mouth  of  the  River  at  a  place  called  by  Lt.  Broughton  Belle 
vue  Point.15  Governor  Simpson  named  the  new  establish- 
ment "Fort  Vancouver"  in  order  to  identify  our  claim  to  the 
soil  and  trade  with  Lt.  Broughton' s  discovery  and  survey. 

He  considers  the  soil  and  climate  of  this  place  to  be  so  well 
adapted  for  agricultural  pursuits,  that  in  the  course  of  two 
or  three  years  it  may  be  made  to  produce  sufficient  grain  and 
animal  provisions  to  meet  not  only  the  demands  of  our  own 
trade  but  to  almost  any  extent  that  may  be  required  for  other 
purposes;  and  he  considers  the  possession  of  this  place  and 
a  right  to  the  navigation  of  the  River  Columbia  to  be  quite 
necessary  to  our  carrying  on  to  advantage  not  only  the  trade 
of  the  upper  parts  of  the  Columbia  River  but  also  that  of  the 
country  interior  from  the  mouth  of  Eraser's  River  and  the 
Coasting  Trade,  all  of  which  can  be  provisioned  from  this 
Place.  Under  existing  circumstances  I  respectfully  submit  to 
your  consideration  whether  it  might  not  be  advisable  to  en- 
deavor to  arrange  a  boundary  line  between  Great  Britain  and 
the  United  States  in  that  country  to  the  West  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  more  especially  as  the  attention  of  Congress  has 
been  called  to  the  subject,  and  in  an  American  map  lately  pub- 
lished the  line  of  Lat.  49  is  continued  from  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains to  the  Sea  Coast,  and  the  Country  to  the  South  of  that 
line  is  described  to  be  United  States  Territory,  which  at  some 


14  Fort  Langley  on  the  Fraser  river  was  established  by  James   McMillan  in 
July,  1827. 

15  This   identification    of    Bellevue    Point    adds    interest    to    the    historic    site 
of  Fort  Vancouver;   from,  the  narrative  by  Mr.  Broughton  or  Captain  Vancouver 
it  is   difficult  to  locate  this  Point.      It  is  hardly  correct   that  Fort   George  was 
abandoned,  however,  for  a  trading  post  was  maintained  there  until   1849  or  1850, 
when  taken  over  by  the  U.  S.  army  and  custom  officer*. 


THE  NORTHERN  BOUNDARY  OF  OREGON  33 

future  period  might  be  made  use  of  by  the  American  Govern- 
ment. This  line  would  deprive  Great  Britain  of  a  valuable 
country  now  occupied  and  traded  by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany, and  would  occasion  many  practical  inconveniences  in 
carrying  on  the  trade  of  the  Country  which  would  be  left 
to  us. 

But  as  I  have  already  stated  it  does  not  appear  that  the 
Americans  can  establish  a  just  claim  to  any  part  of  the  country 
either  to  the  South  or  North  of  the  Columbia  River,  and  as 
the  free  navigation  of  that  River  is  necessary  to  our  carrying 
on  the  Trade  I  have  endeavored  to  fix  on  a  boundary  which 
would  answer  the  views  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  with- 
out pushing  the  claims  of  Great  Britain  to  their  full  extent. 

I  have  therefore  to  suggest  that  starting  from  Lat.  49°  at 
the  Rocky  Mountains  the  line  ought  to  be  continued  South- 
ward along  the  Height  of  Land  to  the  place  where  Lewis  and 
Clark  crossed  the  Mountains,  said  to  be  in  Lat.  46°  42',  thence 
Westerly  along  the  Lewis's  River  until  it  falls  into  the  Co- 
lumbia, and  thence  to  the  Sea,  leaving  the  navigation  of  both 
these  rivers  free  to  the  subjects  of  both  Nations.  This  line 
would  leave  to  America  the  Trade  and  Possession  of  an  ex- 
tensive and  valuable  Country  and  would  furnish  fewer  op- 
portunities of  collision  between  the  Traders  of  the  two  Nations 
than  any  other  line  that  could  be  suggested. 

I  send  herewith  a  map  on  which  the  line16  which  I  have  taken 
the  liberty  of  suggesting  is  colored,  and  on  which  the  Trading 
Posts17  now  occupied  by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  are 
marked. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be,  with  the  greatest  respect,  sir 

Your  most  obt.  humb  Servant 

J.  H.  P.  GOVR. 


1 6  This  map  is  not  available  for  reference.     Lat.  46°  42'  is  very  close  to  the 
Lolo   Trail   by   which    Lewis   and   Clark  crossed   the    Bitter    Root   range,    but   that 
ridge    does    not    form    the    continental    divide.      This    boundary    line    as    described 
would   leave   the   Rocky   Mountains   at  Lemhi    Pass   in    Central    Idaho   and   follow 
the  Lemhi  and  Salmon  rivers  to  the  Snake,  the   Snake  to  the  Columbia  and  the 
Columbia  to  the  ocean.      Salmon  river  in   Idaho  is  the  stream  which  was  named 
Lewis  river  originally  by  Captain  Clark  and  which  should  carry  that  name  at  the 
present  day. 

17  These  trading  posts,   thirteen   in  number,   were  listed  in   a  later  letter  by 
Governor    Simpson,    dated    January,     1826,    as    the    following:      Vancouver,    Nez 
Perce     (Walla    Walla),     Okanogan,     Colvile,     Flathead     and    Kootenais     (in    the 
basin    of    the    Columbia;    Fort    George   is    omitted),    Kilmany,    Eraser's    Lake,    St. 
James,  Chilcotin,  Alexandria  and  Thompson's  River  or  Kamloops   (in  the  basin   of 
the  Fraser  river),   McLeod's,   (on  Peace  river  waters). 


34  T.  C.  ELLIOTT 

LIST  OF  PAPERS  INCLOSED. 

1.  Bill  of  Sale,  Pacific  Fur  Company  to  North-west  Com- 
pany. 

2.  Letter  from  Early  Bathurst  dated  27th  January,  1818. 
Instructions  of  Captn.  Sheriff  of  H.  M.  S.  Andromache.    Mr. 
I.  P.  Prevost  acknowledgement  of  possession. 

3.  Extract  from  Mr.  McMillan's  report  of  Voyage  and 
Survey  from  Columbia  to  Fraser's  River,  1826. 

4.  Map  of  North  America. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON— IV 

By  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

CHAPTER  VII 
THE  NEGOTIATIONS  OF  1842-1845 

Beginning  in  1839  Congress  was  deep  in  the  discussion  of 
Dr.  Linn's  various  resolutions  and  bills ;  the  Oregon  issue  was 
already  showing  a  tendency  to  leave  the  realm  of  questions 
of  fact  to  be  settled  between  two  governments,  and  was  assum- 
ing that  political  guise  which  was  to  characterize  it  until  the 
final  decision.  The  British  government,  apparently  long  for- 
getful of  the  Northwest  Coast,  was  stirred  to  inquiry  if  not 
to  immediate  action.  The  channel  through  which  information 
might  be  derived  was  that  which  served,  as  almost  the  only 
connecting  link  between  the  disputed  region  and  the  govern- 
ment; that  is,  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company.  Sir  John  Pelly, 
head  of  the  organization,  was  requested  by  Lord  John  Russell 
and  Lord  Palmerston  to  furnish  the  government  with  such 
information  as  might  be  deemed  useful  to  it,  especially  in  view 
of  the  fact  that  Sir  George  Simpson,  in  1841,  was 'just  de- 
parting for  the  Columbia  River.  Sir  George,  therefore,  gave 
the  British  government  the  material  facts  about  the  actual 
situation  in  Oregon. 

His  dispatch  to  the  officials  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company, 
written  in  November,  1841, l  gave  an  account  of  the  settle- 
ments made  by  the  Americans,  the  number  of  people  in  each, 
their  condition  and  the  influence  exerted  in  the  land.  He 
noted  that  the  missionaries,  who  formed  almost  the  whole 
number  of  Americans,  seemed  to  be  making  more  rapid  pro- 
gress with  the  extension  of  their  settlements  than  in  the 
ostensible  objects  of  their  residence  in  the  country;  he  could 
not  learn  that  they  were  successful  or  making  much  progress 
in  moral  and  religious  instruction  of  the  natives.  Inferences 

i  Letter  printed  by  Schafer,  Am.  Hist.  Rev.,  XIV,   73-82,  from  F.  O.,  Am. 
Domestic  and  Various  Papers,  Jan.  to  Mar.  1843. 


36  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

from  this  remark  were  no  doubt  strengthened  by  Sir  George's 
account  of  finding  at  Vancouver  in  August,  1841,  Wilkes  at 
the  head  of  an  American  government  exploring  expedition. 
Wilkes,  he  wrote,2  was  not  communicative  as  to  his  surveys 
and  examination  of  the  country,  but  from  an  "intelligent  and 
confidential"  member  of  the  party  he  learned  that  the  Com- 
modore was  intending  to  recommend  that  his  government  claim 
the  whole  region  from  42°  to  54°  40' .3  Simpson's  informant, 
however,  held  more  moderate  views;4  he  intended  to  recom- 
mend a  line  through  the  Straits  of  Fuca  to  the  mainland  south 
of  Whidby's  Island,  thence  straight  to  where  the  Nez  Perce 
(Snake  River)  emptied  into  the  Columbia.  This,  he  main- 
tained, could  not  be  refused  by  the  British  government,  for 
the  justice  of  allowing  the  United  States  the  portion  of  terri- 
tory with  its  harbors  inside  of  Cape  Flattery  could  easily  be 
seen;  if  the  southern  line  of  the  Columbia  should  be  taken 
no  secure  harbor  would  fall  to  the  United  States.  Sir  George 
took  occasion  to  impress  the  Governor  of  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company  with  the  significance  of  this  statement  and  wrote, 
"I  trust  you  will  urge  Her  Majesty's  Government  not  to  con- 
sent to  any  boundary  that  would  give  the  United  States  any 
portion  of  the  Territory  north  of  the  Columbia,  as  it  would 
deprive  the  Britsh  of  the  only  valuable  part  of  the  territory, 
the  country  north  of  the  Straits  of  Fuca  not  being  adapted  to 
Agriculture,  or  other  purposes  connected  with  colonization." 
The  report  also  called  attention  particularly  to  the  fact 
that  Wilkes  had  sent  one  division  of  his  party  overland  through 
the  Willamette  valley  and  on  into  California  to  San  Francisco 
Bay,  near  which  the  Russian  settlement  at  Bodega  was  located. 
This  post  was  of  especial  interest  to  the  Company  and  to  look 
into  the  question  of  its  acquisition  had  been  one  of  the  main 
reasons  for  sending  Simpson  to  the  Pacific  Coast.5  A  little 

2  Simpson  to  Pelly,  dated  10  Mar.,  1842,  Honolulu;  Ibid,,  86^93. 
3.  Schafer    says    this    was    probably    Captain    Wm.     L.    Hudson,    second    in 
command. 

4  Wilkes  did  make   such    a   recommendation   in   strong   terms,    but  his   report 
was  not  allowed  to  come  before  Congress.     See  Chapter  V. 

5  See    Adams,    British   interests   and   activities   in    Texas,    1838-1846,    on    the 
topic  of   Simpson's  orders  to  look  into  the  matter   of  the   Russian   settlement  in 
California   as   a   possible   means   of   securing   for   the   company    and    for    England 
A  foothold  at  San  Francisco  Bay. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  37 

later  Sir  George  learned,  when  at  Sitka,  that  the  Russian 
American  Company  had  sold  their  holdings  at  Bodega  to  a 
Swiss  because  the  post  had  always  been  unprofitable.  "The 
sale,"  he  commented,  "was  effected  previous  to  my  arrival  or 
I  would  have  made  the  purchase  for  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany as  a  basis  for  a  future  claim  by  Great  Britain."  Evidently 
the  unattainable  had  greater  attractions  than  that  which  might 
have  been  secured,  for  Sir  George  had  reported  in  November 
that  the  Russians  were  in  California  in  defiance  of  the  Mex- 
icans who  were  powerless  to  drive  them  out,  even  though 
the  former  admitted  that  they  had  no  title  to  the  soil  other 
than  that  afforded  by  occupation ;  he  had  further  stated  that 
the  title  which  the  Russians  could  give  would  be  of  no  value 
unless  backed  by  eighty  or  one  hundred  men,  so  he  could  see 
no  use  in  purchasing  on  any  terms. 

These  reports  arc  interesting  for  the  light  they  throw  on 
the  attitude  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  which  was  the 
most  important  influence  working  with  the  British  govern- 
ment to  prevent  a  compromise  at  49°  or  on  any  line  which 
would  not  leave  the  whole  of  the  Columbia  River  to  the  free 
and  unhampered  use  of  the  Company.  This  influence  was 
recognized  by  those  American  ministers  in  London  who  had 
occasion  to  deal  with  the  Oregon  Question  and  it  was  magnified 
into  a  sinister  power  by  the  Oregon  men  in  Congress. 

Lord  Ashburton,  when  he  was  in  the  United  States  to 
negotiate  the  question  of  the  Northeast  Boundary,  had  heard 
that  Wilkes  was  going  to  urge  the  United  States  to  claim  to 
54°  40'.6  It  was  partly  on  this  account,  partly  because  he  wished 
to  help  clear  up  all  outstanding  issues  between  his  own  and 
the  government  of  the  United  States,  that  he  left  America 
regretting  that  he  could  have  done  nothing  with  the  Oregon 
dispute.7  He  advised  the  Foreign  Office  to  push  the  matter 
immediately  since  the  great  controversy,  that  over  the  Maine 
boundary,  was  settled  and  so  could  no  longer  be  endangered 

6  Ashburton  to  Aberdeen,  29  June,  1842.     F.  O.  Am.  379;  quoted  by  Schafer, 
Am.  Hist.  Rev.  1911,  297. 

7  Everett  to  Webster,  19  Oct.  1842.     No.  West  Bound.    Arb.,  27. 


38  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

by  the  introduction  of  Oregon  issues.  Lord  Aberdeen  was 
no  less  anxious  to  remove  all  menace  to  good  understanding 
between  the  two  nations  and  accordingly  instructed  Fox  in 
Washington  to  propose  to  Webster  that  the  American  minister 
in  London  be  furnished  with  instructions  and  full  powers  to 
negotiate,  assuring  the  American  Secretary  of  State  that  the 
British  government  was  prepared  to  proceed  in  a  spirit  of 
fairness.8  This  suggestion  met  with  the  approval  of  President 
Tyler  although  the  opening  of  Congress  in  December,  1842, 
came  before  anything  was  done  to  start  negotiations. 

Tyler's  Annual  Message  of  this  year,  after  stating  that  it 
became  evident  that  nothing  could  be  done  with  the  Oregon 
Question  during  the  negotiations  conducted  by  Lord  Ashburton 
and  Secretary  Webster,  went  on  to  say,9  "Although  the  diffi- 
culty referred  to  may  not  for  several  years  to  come  involve 
the  peace  of  the  two  countries,  yet  I  shall  not  delay  to  urge 
on  Great  Britain  the  importance  of  its  early  settlement."  Both 
this  and  the  matter  of  commercial  adjustments  he  believed 
would  soon  be  taken  up  since  "it  will  comport  with  the  policy 
of  England,  as  it  does  with  that  of  the  United  States,  to  seize 
upon  this  moment,  when  most  of  the  causes  of  irritation  have 
passed  away,  to  cement  the  peace  and  amity  of  the  two  coun- 
tries by  wisely  removing  all  grounds  of  probable  future  colli- 
sion." This  presentation  of  the  matter  did  not  agree  with  the 
notion  the  British  government  had  of  the  preliminaries ;  Fox 
wrote  Aberdeen10  that  he  would  be  surprised  at  the  "inexact 
manner  in  which  the  message  describes  the  state  of  negotia- 
tions." Aberdeen,  too,  expressed  his  regret  at  the  statement, 
but  felt  that  the  affair  would  be  seen  in  its  true  light  when 
the  correspondence  was  laid  before  Congress;  however,  in 
view  of  the  facts  it  would  have  been  more  candid,  he  thought, 
had  the  President  stated  that  he  had  already  received  from 
the  British  government  a  "pressing  overture"  for  renewing 

8  Fox  to  Webster,   15  Nov.,  H.  Ex.  Doc.  No.   i,  29th  Cong,   ist  Ses.     Aber- 
deen read  the  dispatch  to  Everett  before  it  was  sent. 

9  Richardson,  Messages,  IV,  196. 

10  Fox  to  Aberdeen,  12  Dec.  1842,  Br.  &  For.  St.  Papers,  34;  51. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  39 

negotiations.11  Ashburton,  in  a  private  letter  to  Webster,12 
said  it  was  well  known  that  he  would  always  strive  to  pro- 
mote peace  with  America,  "but  I  cannot  deny  that  your  Presi- 
dential speech  made  European  politicians  of  all  parties  and 
all  countries  stare  with  unusual  surprise."  Furthermore  he 
questioned  if  it  was  indeed  a  good  time  to  negotiate,  although 
if  undertaken  in  good  faith  he  had  no  doubt  of  a  successful 
outcome.  "It  may  be  doubtful  whether  it  might  be  possible 
to  satisfy  such  men  as  Benton  and  Linn  on  the  one  hand, 
or  your  friend  Gushing  on  the  other.  It  is  worse  than  a 
waste  of  time  to  be  negotiating  when  the  spirit  of  the  time 
is  adverse,  for  failure  necessarily  leaves  behind  much  of  irrita- 
tion. .  .  .  The  best  treaty  could  not  satisfy  those  who  are 
predetermined  to  find  fault." 

Something  beside  Congressional  activity,  however,  was  caus- 
ing the  American  government  to  proceed  slowly  in  accepting 
Lord  Aberdeen's  "pressing  overture."  The  Texas  affair  was 
looming  and  with  Texas  there  came  the  possibilities  regard- 
ing California.  To  Tyler  came  the  thought  that  Texas,  Oregon 
and  California  might  be  brought  together  so  that  what  was 
done  with  one  region  would  serve  to  strengthen  the  other. 
He  talked  the  matter  over  with  Webster  who  further  matured 
the  project  and  passed  it  on  to  Everett  in  London.13  The 
"political  profligacy"  which  Adams  so  feared  was  working 
out.  Webster  reminded  Everett  of  the  Oregon  agitation  in 
Congress,  telling  him  that  the  bill  then  under  consideration 
was  favored  by  Benton,  Linn,  McRoberts  and  other  western 
gentlemen,  while  it  was  opposed  by  Calhoun,  Berrien,  Choate, 
McDuffie  and  others. 

"This  new  outbreak  of  interest  and  zeal  for  Oregon  has  its 
origin  in  motives  and  objects  this  side  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains. The  truth  is  there  are  lovers  of  agitation;  and  when 
most  topics  of  dispute  are  settled,  those  which  remain  are  called 
on  with  earnestness  and  avidity.  We  feel  the  importance  of 

11  Aberdeen  to  Fox,  18  Jan.,  1843,  Ibid.,  52. 

12  2  Jan.,  1843,  Private  Correspondence  of  Daniel  Webster,  II,  163,  565. 

13  Webster  to   Everett,    29   Jan.,    1843    (private)    Writings   and  Speeches   of 
Daniel  Webster,  XVI,  393-6.     See  Chapter  VI  above. 


40  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPER 

settling  this  question  if  we  can;  but  we  fear  embarrassments 
and  difficulties,  not,  perhaps,  so  much  from  the  object  itself, 
as  from  the  purposes  of  men,  and  of  parties  connected  with  it. 
Mr.  Calhoun  distinguished  himself  for  his  support  of  the  late 
treaty.  You  know  his  position  before  the  country  in  regard 
to  the  approaching  election  of  President.  Mr.  Benton  as 
leader  of  the  Van  Buren  party,  or  at  least  the  more  violent 
part  of  it,  is  disposed  to  make  war  upon  everything  which 
Mr.  Calhoun  supports ;  and  seems  much  inclined  at  present  to 
get  up  an  anti-English  feeling.  *  *  * 

"You  know  what  is  said  about  the  cession  of  California  to 
the  United  States;  from  you  we  learn  that  England  would 
favor  such  a  transaction,  if  it  might  be  the  means  of  settling 
the  Oregon  question.  ...  It  has  occurred  to  me  to  con- 
sider whether  it  might  not  be  possible  to  make  a  tripartite 
arrangement." 

This  arrangement,  which  Webster  said  was  only  a  thought 
and  not  yet  shaped  into  opinion,  included  these  factors: 

1.  Cession  of  Upper  California  by  Mexico  to  the  United 
States. 

2.  Payment  by  the  United  States  to  Mexico  for  the  cession 
of millions  of  dollars. 

3.  Of  this  sum,   millions  to  be  paid  to  United 

States  citizens  having  claims  against  Mexico. 

4.  The  residue  to  be  paid  to  British  subjects  having  Mex- 
ican bonds  or  other  claims  against  Mexico. 

5.  The  line  between  the  United   States  and  England  in 
Oregon  to  run  "pretty  much  as  I  mentioned  to  you,"  (i.  e., 
approximately  the  line  suggested  to  Simpson.) 

"The  truth  is  if  we  negotiate  for  Oregon  alone,  I  hardly 
know  what  instructions  to  give  you;  because  we  cannot  tell 
what  sort  of  a  treaty  two-thirds  of  the  Senate  would  agree  to." 

Webster  said  that  he  had  mentioned  the  matter  to  Almonte 
but  the  latter  had  no  instructions  on  which  to  base  a  discus- 
sion. The  President  favored  a  special  mission  to  England, 
and  if  there  should  be  a  strong  probability  that  Oregon  and 
California  could  be  taken  up  together  Webster  thought  he 
would  be  nominated  and  probably  would  not  decline ;  as  it  was, 
it  was  impossible  to  make  any  progress  in  Washington ;  "Fox 
and  this  Department  do  not  make  much  progress."  Webster's 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  41 

apparent  willingness  to  negotiate  any  line  for  Oregon  which 
would  receive  the  approval  of  the  Senate  testifies  to  his  poor 
opinion  of  the  value  of  that  country,  a  fact  which  he  mentioned 
to  Everett. 

While  the  British  government  was  inclined  to  listen  to 
Everett's  presentation  of  Webster's  project  an  insuperable  dif- 
ficulty presented  itself;  Mexico  had  no  intention  of  even  dis- 
cussing a  cession  of  California.  Consequently  the  spring  wore 
on  and  the  negotiation  lagged.  Unofficially  Everett  was  in- 
formed in  March  that  soon  he  might  expect  a  formal  notifica- 
tion that  the  President  had  requested  the  British  government 
to  resume  negotiations  at  Washington  both  for  the  boundary 
and  for  a  new  commercial  convention.14  But  August  came 
and  the  instructions  had  not  been  received,  so  Fox  was  di- 
rected to  proceed  with  the  subject  if  the  Washington  govern- 
ment so  desired.15  Upshur,  who  had  replaced  Webster,  took 
the  hint  to  the  President  who  told  the  Secretary  to  direct 
Everett  to  take  up  the  matter  in  London.  The  instructions 
allowed  the  minister  to  offer  49°  as  the  boundary  with  the 
added  privilege  of  allowing  the  nationals  of  both  countries 
to  navigate  the  Columbia  on  equal  terms,  but  "beyond  that 
the  President  (was)  not  prepared  to  go."16 

The  delay  had  been  too  great,  so  when  Everett  informed 
Aberdeen  that  he  had  powers  to  negotiate  he  was  told  that 
such  an  arrangement  would  have  been  welcomed  earlier,  but 
it  was  then  too  late  since  Fox  had  been  recalled  and  Richard 
Pakenham  sent  in  his  place  with  special  instructions  on  the 
Oregon  issue.  Among  other  reasons  for  the  change  it  was 
felt  that  the  Oregon  negotiation  would  benefit  by  being  placed 
in  new  hands  although  the  course  had  not  been  adopted  until 
all  hope  that  Everett  mipiit  receive  instructions  to  proceed 
had  been  abandoned.17  Everett  still  thought  that  he  might 
accomplish  something  before  the  new  minister  left  England. 

_______  '    I        >l  r-     ]    ]    \ 

14  Webster  to  Everett,  20  Mar.,  Private  Correspondence  of  Webster,  II,  171. 

15  Everett   to  Upshur,    17   Aug.,    No.    West  Bound.   Arb.,   28;   Aberdeen   told 
Everett  that  he   regretted  having  to  transfer  the  question  to^  Washington   for  he 
had  hoped  that  Everett  might  bring  it  to  a  successful  issue  in  London. 

1 6  Upshur  to  Everett,  9  Oct.,  No.  West  Bound  Arb.,  28. 

17  Blair  to  Van  Buren,  see  note  14  above. 


42  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPER 

He  had  a  long  conversation18  with  Aberdeen  in  which  he 
pointed  out  the  advantages  of  49°  as  a  boundary,  for  it  had 
been  only  where  this  line  had  been  adopted,  no  matter  what 
the  topography  of  the  country  might  have  been,  that  there 
had  been  no  controversy.  Everett  thought  Aberdeen  was  im- 
pressed with  the  general  import  of  his  remarks;  expressing 
the  hope  that  Congress  would  do  nothing  at  its  next  session  to 
embarrass  the  negotiations  "he  (Aberdeen)  said,  if  this  can  be 
avoided,  'I  do  not  think  we  shall  have  much  difficulty.'  "  Such 
a  remark  Everett  interpreted  to  mean  that  Pakenham  would 
go  to  America  instructed  to  offer  49°  with  some  sort  of 
modification ;  recognizing  the  necessity  of  his  own  govern- 
ment's making  some  sort  of  a  modification  of  its  previous 
offers,  he  suggested  that  it  was  possible  that  all  of  Vancouver's 
Island  might  be  yielded,  although  he  added  that  he  had  no 
instructions  on  the  point.19  He  felt  that  this  had  been  a 
happy  suggestion  for  at  a  later  conference  Lord  Aberdeen  told 
him  that  as  49°  had  long  ago  been  offered  and  rejected  the 
question  was  different  than  if  it  were  coming  up  for  the 
first  time;  each  party  must  be  expected  to  yield  something 
from  its  original  demands.  "I  regard  this  observation,  now 
made  to  me  for  the  first  time,  although  the  Oregon  boundary 
since  my  residence  in  England  has  been  the  subject  of  very 
frequent  conversation  between  Lord  Aberdeen  and  myself,  as 
very  important."20  Then  Everett  added  to  Upshur,  in  re- 
porting the  conversation,  that  Aberdeen  had  asked  if  he  was 
confident  of  his  statement  and  also  wished  it  to  be  remembered 
that  Great  Britain  had  offered  to  cede  certain  territory  north 
of  the  Columbia.  Taking  this  as  an  indication  that  the  British 
government  was  preparing  to  abandon  its  stand  for  the  Co- 
lumbia, Everett  was  in  high  hopes  of  an  agreement;  "I  may 
be  in  error  in  this  view  of  the  subject;  but  it  is  the  result  of 
the  closest  consideration  I  have  been  able  to  give  it,  that  the 
present  government,  though  of  course  determined  not  to  make 

18  Everett  to  Upshur    (private   and   confidential)    Ibid.,   29-30,    14   Nov. 

19  Everett  to  Aberdeen,  30  Nov.,  Ibid.,  32. 

20  Everett  to  Upshur,  2  Dec.,  Ibid.,  30-2. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  43 

any  discreditable  sacrifice  of  what  they  consider  their  rights, 
are  willing  to  agree  to  reasonable  terms  of  settlement." 

Under  apparently  favorable  conditions,  therefore,  did  Paken- 
ham  undertake  the  task  of  settling  the  Oregon  Question  when 
he  arrived  in  America  in  1844.  The  surface  of  affairs  was 
not  even  ruffled  by  the  inept  reference  to  Oregon  in  Tyler's 
Annual  Message,  where  he  again  seemed  to  charge  to  the 
British  government  the  delay  which  had  occurred.  The  first 
interviews  with  Upshur,  in  the  latter  part  of  February,  added 
to  the  good  impressions  which  Pakenham  had  already  re- 
ceived, and  he  could  report  to  his  government  that  the  best 
spirit  seemed  to  prevail.21  Furthermore  the  seed  which  Everett 
had  dropped  about  the  ultimate  concessions  which  might  per- 
haps be  expected  from  the  American  government  appeared  to 
be  germinating  as  shown  by  some  private  instructions  sent 
Pakenham  after  he  left  England.22 

"Should  my  apprehensions  be  verified  (i.  e.  that  the  United 
States  should  refuse  to  accept  the  Columbia  as  a  boundary), 
you  will  endeavor,  without  committing  yourself  or  your  gov- 
ernment, to  draw  from  the  American  negotiator  a  proposal 
to  make  the  49th  degree  of  latitude  the  boundary,  with  the 
proviso  that  the  ports  to  the  south  of  that  parallel  to  the 
Columbia  inclusive,  shall  be  free  ports  to  Great  Britain.  The 
navigation  of  the  Columbia  should  be  common  to  both;  and 
care  should  be  taken  that  the  49th  degree  of  latitude,  as  a 
boundary,  is  to  extend  only  to  the  sea;  and  not  to  apply  to 
Vancouver's  island." 

A  hint  of  what  had  been  done  was  given  Everett  who, 
though  he  was  not  charged  with  the  negotiation,  continued  to 
bring  what  pressure  he  could  to  bear  upon  Lord  Aberdeen. 
He  was  told  that  Pakenham's  instructions  had  been  modified  to 
allow  a  great  discretion,  and  from  this  he  drew  the  conclusion 
that  the  British  government  no  longer  expected  to  secure 
the  Columbia  and  would  in  the  last  resort  accept  49°  and 
Everett's  suggested  modification.  "They  do  not,  therefore, 
I  imagine,  much  regret  the  agitation  of  the  subject  in  the 

21  Pakenham  to  Aberdeen,  27  Feb.,   1844,  Br.  &  F.  St.  Papers,  34;   57-8 

22  Aberdeen  Papers,  cited  by  Schafer,  Am.  Hist.  Rev.,  1911,  296-7. 


44  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

United  States,  and  are  willing  we  should  advance  a  claim  to 
54°  40';  such  a  course  on  our  part  will  make  it  easier  for 
them  to  agree  to  stop  at  49°  .  .  ."28 

But  this  smooth  sailing  could  not  continue.  The  particular 
form  which  the  54°  40'  agitation  took  did  not,  contrary  to 
Everett's  belief,  urge  the  British  government  to  further  con- 
cessions. The  congressional  bills  and  resolutions  and  debates, 
the  party  discussions  and  intrigues,  especially  that  portion 
relating  to  the  annexation  of  Texas,  all  served  to  cool  the  con- 
ciliatory ardor  of  Aberdeen  and  the  British  ministry.  And 
then,  just  four  days  before  the  Foreign  Secretary  sent  to 
Pakenham  his  new  instructions,  came  the  death  of  Upshur, 
leaving  the  State  Department  in  the  hands  of  the  Assistant 
Secretary  Nelson  until  a  successor  could  be  chosen. 

Had  Aberdeen  been  able  to  foresee  the  selection  of  John 
C.  Calhoun  as  Secretary  of  State  he  might,  in  view  of  the 
past  record  of  that  gentleman,  have  felt  that  British  interests 
were  in  no  danger.  To  Calhoun  the  Texas  and  Oregon  ques- 
tions were  the  sole  reasons  weighty  enough  to  cause  his 
resignation  as  Senator  and  acceptance  of  a  Cabinet  position 
under  Tyler;24  it  was  these  reasons  which  Tyler  used  to  in- 
duce Calhoun  to  accept,25  for  without  such  overwhelmingly 
important  issues  no  one  can  doubt  that  the  leading  Southern 
Democrat  would  have  immediately  refused  the  offer  of  the 
recusant  Whig.  Texas  was  a  powerful  lever  both  with  Calhoun 
and  with  his  political  confidants  of  the  South.  It  was  of  such 
importance  that  the  Oregon  negotiations,  so  often  postponed 
and  hindered,  once  more  had  to  wait  a  moment  which  was 
not  occupied  with  the  Texas  treaty,  political  plans  connected 
with  the  coming  presidential  election,  routine  official  duties 
and  the  like.  Several  times  Pakeham  called  Calhoun's  atten* 
tion  to  the  waiting  question  but  he  was  put  off.26 

23  Everett  to  Nelson,   i   Apr.,  No.   West  Bound.  Arb.,  33,4. 

24  See,  e.  g.,  Calhoun  to  Mrs.  T.  C.  Clemson,  o  Mar.,  1844;  W.  Lumpkin  to 
Calhoun,    23    Mar.,    Correspondence   of   Calhoun,    576,    942.      For    account   of  how 
Tyler  came  to  nominate  Calhoun  see  Wise,  Life  of  Henry  A.  Wise,  98-101. 

25  Tyler  to  Calhoun,  6  Mar.,  Correspondence  of  Calhoun,  938-9. 

26  See  Pakenham's  dispatches  in  Br.   &  F.  St  Papers,   34;    59   seq.     Also  in 
H.  Ex.  Doc.  No.  2,  29th  Cong,  ist  Ses. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  45 

Late  in  August,  however,  Calhoun  could  inform  the  British 
minister  that  he  had  the  leisure  to  consult  with  him  about 
Oregon  and  the  negotiation  started  again.  For  the  first  time 
since  the  conversations  of  1826-7  the  matter  was  taken  up 
with  the  intention  on  both  sides  to  bring  about  a  decisive 
settlement;  both  governments  wished  the  question  closed,  the 
more  so  because  the  campaign  of  1844,  then  in  progress,  held 
possibilities  of  increased  difficulties  in  the  future.  The  con- 
tinued agitation  in  Congress  for  the  past  years  impressed  the 
British  government  with  the  idea  that  the  sooner  the  settlement 
came  the  better  it  would  be,  while  the  American  Administra- 
tion was  anxious  to  smooth  the  ways  for  the  Texas  program 
in  the  next  session  of  Congress.  Neither  President  nor  Sec- 
retary of  State  was  willing  to  let  Oregon  stand  in  the  path 
of  Texas,  and  both  thought  that  an  amicable  settlement  with 
Great  Britain  would  serve  to  remove  certain  obstacles  which 
might  be  placed  in  the  way  of  expansion  to  the  southwest, 
especially  if  it  should  be  connected  with  California. 

After  the  customary  preliminaries  Pakenham  presented  a 
statement  of  the  claims  upon  which  the  British  title  was 
based  and  then  made  the  offer  which  had  been  submitted  in 
1824  and  modified  in  1826;  i.  e.,  the  Columbia  with  a  detached 
region  between  the  River  and  the  Sound  for  the  United  States. 
To  this  old  offer  Pakenham  added  that  of  any  port  desired 
by  the  United  States  on  the  mainland  or  on  Vancouver's 
Island  south  of  49°. 21  This  was  declined  by  Calhoun  who 
presented  an  elaborate  review  of  the  American  claim.  Paken- 
ham answered  this  with  a  counter-reply  setting  forth  the 
British  claim  and  inviting  Calhoun  to  suggest  an  arrange- 
ment acceptable  to  the  United  States.  In  response  Calhoun 
said  that  his  government  could  not  consent  to  the  view  that 
Great  Britain  possessed  and  exercised  rights  of  joint  occupancy 
of  which  she  could  be  divested  only  by  an  equitable  partition 
of  the.  disputed  territory,  a  premise  which  Pakenham's  counter- 
reply  contained ;  therefore  he  must  decline  to  make  a  counter- 


27  Unless  otherwise  noted  the  correspondence  is  in  Ho.  Ex.  Doc.  No.  2,  apth 
Cong,  ist  Ses. 


46  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

proposal  until  the  question  of  title  was  settled,  and  as  to  that, 
the  United  States  had  a  clear  title  to  all  the  area  drained  by 
the  Columbia  and  considered  itself  the  party  in  possession  until 
this  question  should  be  settled.  Thereupon  Pakenham  de- 
clared he  did  not  feel  authorized  to  enter  into  a  discussion 
of  the  territory  north  of  49°,  which  was  understood  by  his 
government  to  be  the  basis  of  negotiations  on  the  American 
side  as  the  Columbia  River  was  for  the  British.  Here,  on 
the  twentieth  of  September,  the  negotiation  stood,  and  here 
they  remained  for  some  weeks. 

Meanwhile  the  election  campaign  was  being  waged  and  in 
the  West,  especially,  Oregon  was  made  the  leading  issue; 
consequently  everything  pointed  to  a  renewal  of  Congressional 
agitation  in  December.  In  view  of  this  situation  Lord  Aber- 
deen felt  that  there  could  be  little  hope  that  the  "United 
States  (would)  relax  their  pretensions,  and  meet  us  in  any 
scheme  which  we  could  safely  and  honorably  adopt.  Under 
these  circumstances  and  taking  into  consideration  the  state 
of  excitement  so  prevalent  in  the  United  States  on  this  sub- 
ject, by  which  the  free  action  of  the  government  is  greatly 
fettered,  if  not  altogether  paralyzed,  I  think  it  will  be  de- 
sirable ...  to  have  recourse  ...  to  arbitration."28 
No  opportunity,  however,  offered  itself  to  Pakenham  before 
the  middle  of  January  to  carry  these  latest  instructions  into 
effect.  At  that  time  he  reminded  Calhoun  that  there  were 
papers  still  under  consideration,  and  in  view  of  the  impatience 
manifested  in  the  United  States,  Her  Majesty's  Government 
had  authorized  him  to  propose  arbitration  as  the  fairest  mode 
of  settlement  and  suggested  an  interchange  of  notes  on  the 
subject.  This  suggestion  was  promptly  rejected  although 
Calhoun  expressed  the  hope  that  the  problem  might  still  be 
solved  by  negotiation.  Pakenham  thought  that,  although  the 
proposal  had  not  been  accepted,  no  harm  had  been  done  and 
perhaps  it  had  even  accomplished  some  good.29 

Across  the  ocean  Everett  had  been  continuing  his  efforts 

a8  Aberdeen  to  Pakenham,  i  Nov.,  1844,  Br.  &  F.  St.  Papers,  34:86. 
29  Pakenham  to  Aberdeen,  29  Jan.,  1845.  Ibid.,  88. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  47 

to  bring  Lord  Aberdeen  to  see  that  anything  less  than  49° 
with  the  possible  exception  of  the  tip  of  Vancouver's  Island 
would  never  be  accepted  by  the  United  States.30  But  Aberdeen 
had  not  been  brought  to  this  view.  The  short  session  of 
Congress  was  drawing  to  a  close  and  it  had  already  become 
evident  that  the  "notice"  as  passed  by  the  House  would  not 
be  accepted  by  the  Senate;  consequently  he  felt  that  the  final 
disposition  of  Oregon  was  of  no  immediate  or  pressing  in- 
terest to  either  party;  on  the  other  hand  the  "artificial  ex- 
citement" in  the  United  States  and  the  "violent  proceedings" 
in  the  House  of  Representatives  tended  to  hinder  negotiations, 
consequently  arbitration  was  the  best  way  out.31  Accordingly, 
Pakenham  was  authorized,  as  soon  as  the  House  resolution 
had  been  rejected  in  the  Senate,  to  offer  arbitration  again,  if 
in  the  meantime  no  reasonable  proposition  has  been  brought 
forward  by  the  United  States. 

Before  Pakenham  could  receive  these  instructions  the  old 
government  was  out  of  office  and  the  Polk  Administration  was 
at  the  helm.  The  Inaugural  Address  had  been  pronounced 
and  the  people  of  the  United  States  expected  the  President 
to  maintain  an  uncompromising  attitude.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
the  advice  Lord  Ashburton  transmitted  through  Everett  would 
have  produced  any  effect  had  it  arrived  before  March  4, 
1845.  Nevertheless  it  is  interesting  to  read  the  words  of  a 
man  who  had  helped  to  tide  over  one  crisis  and  who  knew 
pretty  well  the  temper  of  his  own  people.  Everett  had  been 
telling  Ashburton  his  confident  opinion  that  the  United  States 
would  never  accept  any  compromise  which  gave  his  country 
a  less  favorable  boundary  than  49°  to  the  sea,  for  he  evidently 
took  every  possible  occasion  to  impress  this  line  upon  all  in- 
fluential men  with  whom  he  was  on  terms  of  intimacy,  and 
Ashburton  said,  "he  did  not  think  there  would  be  much  dif- 
ficulty of  coming  to  an  adjustment  unless  steps  were  taken 
on  our  (United  States)  side  which  wore  the  appearance  of 
defiance  and  menace.  Any  such  step  would  put  it  out  of  the 

30  Everett  to  Calhoun,  28  Feb.,  No.  West  Bound.  Arb.,  35. 

31  Aberdeen  to  Pakenham,  St.  Papers,  34:90. 


48  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

power  of  England,  as  a  similar  step  on  her  part  would  put 
it  out  of  the  power  of  the  United  States,  to  compromise  on 
any  terms."  "I  attach,"  added  Everett,  "the  greater  im- 
portance to  these  remarks  because  Lord  Ashburton  had  lately 
conferred  with  Lord  Aberdeen  on  the  subject."32 

To  Aberdeen  the  Inaugural  did  present  the  appearance 
of  "defiance  and  menace,"  for  immediately  upon  receipt  of 
a  copy  of  it  he  prepared  new  instructions  for  Pakenham,  and 
detained  the  American  mail  a  day  in  order  that  they  might 
be  received  at  the  earliest  possible  moment.33  Said  he,  the 
speech  "has  impressed  a  very  serious  character  on  our  actual 
relations  with  the  United  States;  and  the  manner  in  which 
(the  President)  has  referred  to  the  Oregon  question,  so  dif- 
ferent from  the  language  of  his  predecessor,  leaves  little  rea- 
son to  hope  for  any  favorable  result  of  the  existing  negotia- 
tion." If  the  renewed  offer  of  arbitration  should  be  rejected 
on  the  grounds  taken  by  President  Tyler,  i.  e.,  that  further 
discussion  was  desired,  then  the  negotiation  was  to  be  con- 
sidered as  continuing;  if,  however,  the  offer  was  rejected  and 
not  accompanied  by  any  specific  proposition,  the  negotiation 
must  be  considered  ended.  In  that  case  Pakenham  was  to 
offer  to  renew  for  ten  years  the  terms  of  the  convention  of 
1818,  a  poor  solution,  but  perhaps  better  than  none.  The 
language  of  the  President  led  Aberdeen  to  conclude  that  the 
American  government  would  renounce  the  treaty  without  de- 
lay, in  which  case  local  collisions  would  be  likely  to  occur 
leading  not  improbably  to  war.  "At  all  events,  whatever  may 
be  the  course  of  the  United  States  Government,  the  time  is 
come  when  we  must  be  prepared  for  every  contingency." 
The  naval  force  in  the  Pacific  had  been  ordered  to  go  to 
Oregon.  Pakenham  was  told  to  "hold  a  temperate,  but  firm, 
language  to  the  members  of  the  Government  and  all  others, 
and  let  it  be  known  that  the  British  Government  was  still 
ready  to  adhere  'to  the  principle  of  an  equitable  compromise; 
but  we  are  perfectly  determined  to  concede  nothing  to  force 

32  Everett  to  Calhoun,  (received  by  Buchanan)  7  Mar.,  No.  West  Bound  Arb. 

33  Btrlin  Arb.,  426.  Cong.  3d  Ses.     Ex.  Doc.  I,  pt.  6,  223. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  49 

or  menace."  The  conciliatory  instructions  of  a  year  before 
were  withdrawn.  The  delay  of  the  mail  had  the  additional 
result  of  allowing  the  proceedings  in  Parliament  to  be  known 
in  America  at  an  early  date.34 

Aberdeen's  gloomiest  expectations  were  not  met.  When 
Pakenham,  late  in  March,  proposed  arbitration  to  Buchanan,35 
the  new  Secreary  of  State  told  him  that  he  would  take  an 
early  opportunity  to  discuss  the  matter  with  the  President. 
"He  did  not  seem  taken  with  the  notion  of  arbitration,"  re- 
ported Pakenham,  but  he  said  the  matter  ought  to  be  settled 
by  negotiation  on  the  principle  of  give  and  take.  In  May, 
Pakenham  was  informed  that  arbitration  did  not  meet  the 
approval  of  the  President  and  his  Cabinet;  they  all  objected 
to  it  and  preferred  negotiation.  When  Buchanan  gave  this 
information  he  took  occasion  to  say  that  the  British  minister 
might  assure  Lord  Aberdeen  of  the  friendly  disposition  of  the 
American  government.36 

The  negotiation  was  resumed  in  July  by  Buchanan  who  took 
it  up  at  the  point  where  it  had  been  dropped  by  Calhoun,  i.  e., 
by  making  a  counter-proposal  prefaced  by  another  discussion 
of  American  claims  which  went  over  the  same  ground  so 
often  traversed  by  former  negotiators.37  The  offer  was  49° 
as  the  boundary  together  with  ?ny  port  or  ports  on  Vancou- 
ver's Island  south  of  49°  which  might  be  desired  by  the  British. 
The  proposition  was  accompanied  by  the  statement  that  the 
President,  in  view  of  the  strength  of  the  American  title, 
would  never  have  made  the  offer  but  for  the  fact  that  it  had 
been  made  by  his  predecessors  and  that  negotiations  were  on 
foot  when  he  entered  office.  To  McLane,  in  London,  Buchanan 
explained  in  more  detail :  the  president  doubted  if  the  civilized 
world  would  judge  in  favor  of  the  United  States  if  a  war 
should  be  waged  for  a  "comparatively  worthless  territory  north 
of  49° ;"  arbitration  was  out  of  the  question ;  but  if  this  offer 
should  be  made  and  be  rejected  he  would  feel  himself  free  to 

34  See  Chapter  XI,  below. 

35  Pakenham  to  Aberdeen,  29  Mar.,  St.  Papers,  34:91,2. 

36  Same  to  same,   13  May,  Ibid.,  92. 

37  Buchanan  to  Pakenham,  la  July,  Sen.  Doc.  No.  489,  29th  Cong.  ist.  Sea. 


50  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

insist  on  the  full  right  to  the  Russian  line.  To  McLane,  how- 
ever, Buchanan  added  that  while  the  President  was  silent 
on  the  right  of  navigation  of  the  Columbia  in  his  offer,  since 
it  would  cause  endless  trouble,  he  had  offered,  the  free  ports  as 
a  counterpoise,  and  he,  McLane,  might  intimate  to  the  British 
ministers  that  the  United  States  would  not  accept  anything 
south  of  49°,  the  only  possible  concession  being  the  exchange 
of  the  small  cape  of  Vancouver  south  of  the  line  for  an 
equivalent.38 

Two  weeks  after  the  American  offer  was  made  Pakenham 
replied,  controverting  the  assertions  of  Buchanan  as  to  title, 
and  then  rejecting  the  proposal  as  one,  in  fact,  less  in  value 
than  the  earlier  offer  since  the  free  port  on  Vancouver  could 
not  counterbalance  the  free  navigation  of  the  Columbia.  Con- 
sequently, acting  in  accordance  with  Aberdeen's  instructions 
as  he  understood  them,  he  closed  his  communication  with 
these  words:39 

"The  undersigned,  therefore,  trusts  that  the  American  pleni- 
potentiary will  be  prepared  to  offer  some  further  proposal  for 
the  settlement  of  the  Oregon  question  more  consistent  with 
fairness  and  equity,  and  with  the  reasonable  expectations  of 
the  British  Government." 

This  response  opened  for  the  American  government  an 
opportunity  to  halt  the  negotiations  and  at  the  same  time 
throw  upon  the  British  minister  the  apparent  burden  of  prov- 
ing himself  in  the  right.  Technically  Pakenham  might  claim, 
as  he  did,  that  the  offer,  being  less  than  had  previously  been 
presented  to  his  government,  amounted  to  no  real  counter- 
proposal ;  hence  the  game  remained  as  it  had  been  left  by  Cal- 
houn  with  the  next  move  for  the  United  States.  The  rather 
peremptory  tone  of  the  rejection,  on  the  other  hand,  could  be 
taken  as  "scarcely  courteous  or  respectful"  as  the  President 
chose  to  regard  it,  and  the  flat  rejection  of  the  offer  without  a 
reference  to  the  British  government  was  for  Polk  a  sufficient 
reason  to  let  the  negotiation  rest  until  the  other  party  desired 


38  Buchanan  to  McLane,  July  12,  Ibid.,  27-32. 

39  Polk,  Diary,  I,  355,  360.     Nil**  Register,  12  Scut,  1846. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  51 

to  resume  and  make  some  move.  Accordingly,  in  spite  of  the 
eager  desire  of  Buchanan  to  insert  some  clause  to  the  effect 
that  the  Administration  would  listen  to  a  further  proposition, 
the  President's  will  prevailed  and  the  offer  was  withdrawn 
with  no  qualifications.  In  the  notification,  which  he  tried  in 
vain  to  have  postponed  for  further  consideration,  Buchanan 
asserted  that  the  title  of  the  United  States  to  54°  40'  was  the 
"best  title  in  existence  to  this  entire  region ;  and  that  the  claim 
of  Great  Britain  to  any  portion  of  it  has  no  sufficient  founda- 
tion."40 The  note  was  approved  by  Walker  and  Bancroft, 
Secretaries  of  War  and  Navy,  and  by  Postmaster  General 
Johnson.  None  of  the  Cabinet  disapproved  the  stand  except 
Buchanan,  who  said,  when  the  note  had  been  delivered  at  the 
British  legation,  "Well,  the  .deed  is  done."  But  he  did  not 
think  it  was  wise  statesmanship  to  deliver  such  a  note  with 
relations  between  the  United  States  and  Mexico  as  they  were.41 

Pakenham's  rejection  of  the  American  offer  did  not  meet 
with  the  approval  of  his  government.42  Aberdeen  told  McLane 
that  he  regretted  and  disapproved  the  action  of  the  minister  to 
the  United  States;  if  the  offer  had  been  referred  to  London, 
as  it  should  have  been,  it  would  have  been  taken  as  a  basis  for 
further  negotiation.  Aberdeen  felt  sure  that  he  would  have 
been  able  to  propose  modifications  leading  to  mutually  satis- 
factory arrangements.  McLane  reported  that  he  had  not 
failed  to  impress  upon  Lord  Aberdeen  the  difficulties  in  the 
President's  situation  in  conceding  what  he  had  by  the  propo- 
sition, and  he  added  that  he  was  sure  the  British  minister  was 
convinced  that  ultimately  he,  Aberdeen,  would  propose  terms 
which  would  be  accepted  by  Polk. 

Pakenham  was  uneasy  even  before  he  learned  his  govern- 
ment's opinion  of  his  act.  He  had  several  interviews  with 
Buchanan,  friendly  in  tone,  in  which  he  attempted  to  ascertain 
whether  the  President  could  not  be  persuaded  to  renew  the 

40  See   Polk,   Diary,   I,    1-5.  Buchanan    to   Pakenham,   30,   Aug.,    H   Ex.   Doc. 
No.    2,    177-92.      Polk    had   recalled   Buchanan    to    Washington    from    his   vacation 
early  in  August  in   order  that  the  answer  to  Pakenham's  note  might  not  be  de- 
layed.    Polk  to  Buchanan,  7  Aug.,  Works  of  James  Buchanan,  VI,  223-4. 

41  Polk,  Diary,  I,  5,  6-8,  n. 

43  McLane  to  Buchanan,  3  Oct.,  No.  West  Bound  Arb.,  41. 


52  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

offer  as  a  basis  for  compromise,  or,  if  that  could  not  be  done, 
how  a  new  proposition  from  the  British  side  would  be  re- 
ceived.43 Finally  he  submitted  to  Buchanan  a  note  to  be  con- 
sidered offijcial  or  not  according  to  the  answer  it  would  re- 
ceive.44 Polk  insisted  that  Pakenham  must  name  the  char- 
acter of  his  note  and  then  an  answer  would  be  made;  he 
repeated  a  statement  which  he  had  already  made  to  his  official 
family,  that  if  a  British  proposition  should  be  made  he  would, 
according  to  its  nature,  submit  it  to  the  Senate  for  previous 
advice  or  reject  it  at  once,  but  he  was  convinced  that  no  sat- 
isfactory proposal  could  be  made.  With  great  reluctance 
Buchanan  left  the  President's  office,  found  Pakenham  and 
asked  him  to  state  whether  the  note  was  official  or  not,  adding 
that  it  could  hardly  be  expected  that  the  United  States  would 
abandon  the  position  already  taken.  Then  Pakenham  with- 
drew his  note.  "I  think  it  unfortunate,"  Polk  wrote  in  his 
Diary,  "that  he  (Buchanan)  made  any  remark  to  Mr.  Paken- 
ham that  indicated  to  him  what  my  settled  decision  was,  as  I 
think  that  Mr.  Pakenham's  note  &  answer  should  have  been 
official." 

The  relation  between  the  Oregon  and  California  situations 
was  already  beginning  to  show  itself  during  this  time  when 
Pakenham  was  finding  it  difficult  to  struggle  out  of  the  dead- 
locked position.  Information  that  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany was  at  work  in  the  south  began  to  reach  Washington. 
The  United  States  Consul  at  Monterey  reported  that  it  ap- 
peared that  arms  and  money  had  been  furnished  by  an  agent 
of  the  Company  to  the  Californians  to  aid  them  in  driving  out 
the  Mexicans,  although  later  it  was  the  same  Company  which 
financially  backed  an  expedition  of  Mexican  troops  to  be  sent 
north  to  quell  the  disturbances.  It  looked  threatening,  and  the 


43  When    Me  Lane's   letter   was   received   the    Cabinet   discussed  it  at   length, 
and  Buchanan  again  urged  Polk  to  allow  some  intimation  that  the  United  States 
was  willing  to  negotiate  further;   Polk  stuck  to  his  position  and  said  that  Great 
Britain  must  take  the  next  step,  although  he  was  sure  no  acceptable  offer  would 
be  made.     Polk,  Diary,  I,   62-4.     Buchanan  to  McLane,   13   Sept.,  Sen.  Doc.  No. 
489. 

44  Buchanan    to    McLane.    28    Oct.,    Works    of   Buchanan,    VI,    285-6.      The 
Cabinet  discussioni  is  given  at  length  by  Polk,  Diary,  I,  62-82,  passim.     Buchanan 
to  McLane,  5  Nov.,  Sen.  Doc.  No.  489. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  53 

President,  wrote  Buchanan,45  "could  not  view  with  indiffer- 
ence the  transfer  of  California  to  Great  Britain  or  any  other 
European  power.  The  system  of  colonization  by  foreign 
monarchies  on  the  North  American  continent  must  and  will 
be  resisted  by  the  United  States."  In  the  same  strain  Polk 
talked  over  the  situation  with  Senator  Benton  when  that  gen- 
tleman arrived  in  Washington  prior  to  the  opening  of  the 
session  of  Congress.  From  this  time  forth,  although  California 
did  not  often  appear  upon  the  surface  in  the  negotiations 
with  Great  Britain,  it  must  be  regarded  as  a  factor  in  them 
so  far  as  Polk  was  concerned  with  them. 

How  to  start  the  ball  rolling  again  and  at  the  same  time 
not  appear  too  anxious  to  resume  the  discussions  was  the 
problem  which  presented  itself  to  Lord  Aberdeen.  He 
showed  McLane  some  of  the  dispatches  which  he  had  received 
from  Washington  where  Pakenham  explained  why  he  had 
rejected  Folk's  offer  and  also  why  he  believed  it  well  to 
attempt  to  reopen  the  negotiation.  Pointing  out  the  insuffi- 
ciency of  Pakenham's  grounds  for  the  rejection  of  the  Ameri- 
can offer  McLane  explained  at  length  the  reasons  for  the 
withdrawal  of  it  as  he  understood  them.46  Aberdeen,  how- 
ever, could  view  the  matter  in  no  other  light  than  a  closing  of 
the  discussions  by  Polk  and  no  alternative  remained  but  for 
him,  Aberdeen,  to  propose  arbitration;  if  this  should  be  de- 
clined for  the  same  reasons  Calhoun  had  declined  them  there 
would  be  an  opportunity  to  renew  negotiations;  if,  however, 
the  President  declined  in  such  a  way  as  to  warrant  the  British 
ministry  in  assuming  that  he  meant  to  insist  upon  the  full 
claim,  then  it  could  be  regarded  in  no  other  way  than  an  ulti- 
matum and  they  must  abide  by  the  result. 

When  McLane  outlined  to  Buchanan  the  very  palpable 
advice  as  to  how  they  could  get  upon  the  track  again,  with  no 
loss  of  dignity  to  either  side,  he  wrote,  "Although  I  am  quite 
sure  that  the  Earl  of  Aberdeen  has  no  idea  at  present  of 

45  Buchanan  to  Thomas  O.   Larkin,  Consul  at  Monterey,   17  Oct.,   Works  of 
Buchanan,  VI,  275-6. 

46  McLane  to  Buchanan,  i  Dec.,  Sen.  Doc.  No.  489- 


54  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

accepting  the  compromise  contained  in  the  President's  propo- 
sition, it  would  not  surprise  me  if  an  arrangement  upon  that 
basis  should  prove  acceptable  to  large  and  important  classes 
in  this  country;  indeed  it  is  complained  of  principally  by  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  and  those  in  its  interest.  That  the 
Ministry  would  find  it  difficult  and  hazardous  to  prefer  war 
to  such  a  settlement  may  well  be  imagined;  although  you  may 
assume  it  to  be  certain  that  when  war  becomes  inevitable,  it 
will  receive  the  undivided  support  of  the  British  people."  He 
added  further  that  it  was  the  current  belief  in  England  that 
the  Annual  Message  would  present  again  the  opinion  the 
President  had  expressed  in  his  Inaugural,  with,  perhaps  a 
recommendation  that  the  joint  occupancy  be  terminated.  This, 
he  thought  would  not  necessarily  embarrass  the  relations  be- 
tween the  countries.  Aberdeen's  instructions  to  Pakenham 
contained  the  course  outlined  to  McLane;  arbitration,  he  be- 
lieved, would  be  the  most  prudent  step  and  best  calculated  to 
allay  the  "effervescence  of  popular  feeling,"  therefore  Paken- 
ham should  propose  it  at  the  first  opportunity.47 

Such  was  the  situation  when  Congress  convened  in  Decem- 
ber, from  which  time  the  diplomatic  and  legislative  currents 
meet  and  run  along  together,  sometimes  intermingling,  some- 
times clearly  differentiated,  and  it  is  to  the  legislative  side  to 
which  attention  must  now  be  turned. 

47  Aberdeen  to  Pakenham,  28  Nov.,  Br.  &  F.  St.  Papers,  34:130-1. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
GIVING  NOTICE. 

Folk's  Annual  Message  of  1845  with  its  accompanying 
carefully  edited  excerpts  from  the  diplomatic  correspondence 
of  Buchanan  and  Calhoun  was  the  spark  which  set  off  the 
powder-magazine  in  Congress.  Although  there  were  some 
genuine  munitions  of  war  there  a  great  deal  of  the  noise 
resulted  from  the  detonation  of  political  fireworks,  both  spec- 
tacular and  deafening  but  not  intended  to  be  harmful.  If 
Oregon  had  hitherto  been  overshadowed  by  other  issues  that 
neglect  was  now  fully  atoned  for  by  the  attention  it  received 
from  the  Twenty-ninth  Congress,  where,  until  the  resurgence 
of  the  Texas-Mexico  question  and  the  opening  of  hostilities  on 
the  southern  border,  it  succeeding  in  ousting  from  serious 
consideration  all  other  matters. 

The  political  alignment  on  the  topic  cannot  be  separated 
from  the  question  itself:  although  there  was  much  talk  about 
taking  up  the  issue  on  its  merits  few  members  of  Congress 
framed  their  speeches  or  laid  their  plans  without  an  eye  to 
their  political  prospects  in  the  coming  elections,  congres- 
sional and  presidential.  The  Whig  party  had  been  bitterly 
disappointed  by  the  results  of  the  election  of  1844;  its  high 
expectations,  held  in  check  by  the  recalcitrant  Tyler,  were 
again  put  to  one  side,  for  there  was  to  be  no  protective  tariff, 
no  revision  of  the  government's  fiscal  methods,  despite  Folk's 
ambiguous  stand  after  his  nomination.  Hence  it  was  the  pur- 
pose of  this  party  to  discredit  the  Administration  and  its  course 
on  Oregon  seemed  to  offer  a  point  of  attack. 

The  Democrats  were  seriously  split.  For  the  most  part 
the  southern  wing  followed  Calhoun  and  were  for  a  course 
of  moderation;  there  was  fear  of  the  consequences  of  a  rup- 
ture with  Great  Britain  and  its  possible  effect  upon  the  Texas 
situation.  It  was  well  known  that  Mexico  had  not  acquiesced 
willingly  in  the  loss  of  that  province,  and  should  hostilities 


56  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

with  England  occur  it  was  not  improbable  that  Mexico  would 
seize  the  opportunity  to  regain  what  she  had  lost;  this  would 
also  put  a  stop  on  hopes  of  securing  other  northern  Mexican 
possessions.  The  western  Democrats,  and  Whigs  too  for  the 
most  part,  supported  the  extreme  attitude  of  the  Message, 
with  the  exception  of  a  small  number  of  whom  the  most 
notable  was  Senator  Benton.  He,  according  to  Folk's  idea, 
had  fallen  into  disfavor  on  account  of  his  attitude  on  Texas 
and  was  endeavoring  to  regain  his  standing  in  the  party  by 
pursuing  a  course  of  moderation  on  the  Oregon  Question 
with  the  southern  wing  rather  than  by  joining  the  ultras  of  the 
Northwest.  In  the  North  the  Democrats  for  the  most  part 
supported  their  western  brethren ;  in  addition  to  whatever  real 
interest  they  had  in  the  matter  itself  they  were  actuated  by 
opposition  to  Calhoun  dominance  as  against  Van  Buren  lead- 
ership, besides  being  more  or  less  impelled  by  an  avowed  deter- 
mination to  allow  Great  Britain  to  secure  no  more  territory 
from  the  United  States. 

Personal  aggrandizement  had,  in  the  opinion  of  some  con- 
temporary observers,  a  large  place  among  the  motives  of 
some  who  took  a  leading  part  in  the  discussions  and  schemes. 
While  the  new  Administration  was  less  than  a  year  old  it  was 
not  too  soon  to  begin  planning  for  the  election  of  1848.  Cal- 
houn, long  aspiring  to  the  presidency,  still  had  hopes;  Cass 
and  Allen  vied  for  the  western  vote;  and  Buchanan  and 
Walker,  although  members  of  Folk's  Cabinet,  felt  that  they 
should  be  considered  among  the  possibilities  and  used  their  in- 
fluence accordingly. 

"The  truth  is,"  Polk  believed,  "that  in  all  this  Oregon  dis- 
cussion in  the  Senate,  too  many  Democratic  Senators  have 
been  more  concerned  about  the  Presidential  election  of  '48, 
than  they  have  been  about  settling  Oregon  whether  at  49°  or 
54*  40'.  'Forty-eight'  has  been  with  them  the  Great  Question, 
and  hence  the  divisions  in  the  Democratic  party.  I  cannot  but 
observe  the  fact,  and  for  the  sake  of  the  country  I  deeply 
deplore  it."1 

i  Diary,  I.  345- 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  57 

Another  contemporary  observer,  William  Grason,  summed 
up  the  situation  in  this  way,  after  Congress  had  been  in  ses- 
sion about  a  month  :2 

"...  As  far  as  I  can  learn,  from  conversation  with 
different  classes,  there  appears  to  be  no  definite  opinion 
formed,  among  the  people  who  control  the  elections,  respect- 
ing the  extent  of  our  claim  to  the  Oregon  territory.  There 
is  a  general  feeling  of  excitement,  because  they  think  the 
question  is  approaching  a  crisis,  and  is  likely  to  be  attended 
with  serious  consequences.  I  have  seen  but  two  men  who  are 
in  favor  of  a  war  for  any  part  beyond  49°.  I  have  seen 
others,  however,  who  think  we  can  recover  more  by  claiming 
all  and  making  speeches  to  that  effect.  My  opinion  is,  that, 
if  we  bring  on  a  war,  by  contending  for  more  than  we  have 
offered  to  take,  the  party  that  brings  it  about  will  have  very 
little  to  do  in  making  peace.  Unless  we  were  victorious  in 
every  quarter,  and  we  could  not  expect  to  be  so  at  first,  Mr. 
Polk  would  be  succeeded  by  Mr.  Clay  or  some  other  Whig,  the 
majorities  in  the  two  houses  would  be  reversed;  and  after 
establishing  a  national  bank  and  extending  the  privileges  of 
all  kinds  (of)  corporations,  our  Whig  rulers  would  take  the 
Columbia  as  the  dividing  line,  and  justify  themselves  to  the 
people  on  the  ground  that  we  had  been  precipitated  into  the 
war  without  necessity  or  preparation.  John  Q.  Adams,  who 
is  now  for  all  of  Oregon,  and,  in  the  event  of  war,  is  for 
driving  the  British  to  the  North  Pole,  would  insist  that  he 
had  warned  the  nation  of  the  consequences ;  and  other  Whigs, 
who  assert  our  extreme  rights,  would  say  that  they  were  never 
opposed  to  a  war  for  the  maintenance  of  these  rights,  but 
that  they  never  could  approve  of  the  measures  of  men  who 
were  incompetent  to  their  stations.  The  Democrats  them- 
selves, who  are  generally  engaged  in  agricultural  pursuits,  or 
who  live  by  their  labor,  would  find  double  taxes  and  no  mar- 
kets, and  at  the  same  time,  witness  volunteers  marching  to 
Canada,  and  war  steamers  entering  our  harbours.  If,  in  the 
mean  time  they  saw  we  had  lost  Texas  without  taking  posses- 
sion of  Oregon,  they  would  not  become  much  attached  to 
the  theoretical  doctrine  of  not  suffering  any  European  power 
to  interfere  in  the  affairs  of  the  American  continent." 

Briefly  then  the  party  alignment  may  be  summed  up  in  this 

2  Grason  to  Van  Buren,   10  Jan.,   1846,   Van  Bur  en  Papers,  Vol.  53. 


58  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

way :  on  general  grounds  the  southern  Democrats  and  Whigs, 
especially  in  the  Senate,  were  opposed  to  anything  which  was 
likely  to  precipitate  a  crisis,  specifically  they  wished  no  notice 
or,  if  it  had  to  be  given,  one  in  such  terms  as  create  the  least 
friction ;  they  were  opposed  to  demanding  54°  40'  and  felt  that 
the  United  States  was  bound  to  compromise  on  not  more 
than  suggested  in  previous  offers.  The  western  Democrats 
and  Whigs  were  for  the  whole  claim,  come  what  may,  while 
the  bulk  of  the  northern  Whigs  urged  a  moderate  course  and 
compromise  in  opposition  to  their  Democratic  colleagues  who 
backed  the  extreme  demands  of  the  Administration.  The 
North  and  South  wished  to  avoid  war,  but  the  West  pro- 
fessed to  believe  that  Great  Britain  would  recede  from  her 
position ;  if  this  should  not  be  the  case,  then,  they  preferred 
war  to  the  surrender  of  any  portion  of  Oregon. 

The  Message  was  accompanied  by  those  documents  which 
had  passed  between  the  two  governments  and  which  in  bare 
outline  afforded  a  view  of  what  had  taken  place ;  that  is,  the 
reopening  of  negotiations,  the  British  offer  and  Calhoun's 
reception  of  it,  the  American  offer  and  its  rejection,  together 
with  the  statement  of  claims  on  both  sides.8  Nothing  of  the 
correspondence  with  McLane  or  anything  which  tended  to 
show  that  there  was  any  hope  of  getting  a  better  offer  from 
Great  Britain  accompanied  the  Message.  The  challenge  was 
accepted  by  both  branches  of  Congress  forthwith  and  dis- 
cussion started  early  in  January. 

In  the  lower  House  the  campaign  was  opened  by  a  seven- 
barrel  resolution  by  Bowlin,  a  Missouri  Democrat,  by  which  the 
respective  committees  on  Naval  Affairs,  Military  Affairs,  In- 
dian Affairs,  Public  Lands,  Militia,  and  Post  Offices  and 
Post  Roads  were  directed  to  take  into  consideration  the  parts 
of  the  Message  dealing  with  Oregon,  while  the  Committee  on 
Foreign  Affairs  was  given  charge  of  the  specific  portion  relat- 
ing to  the  giving  notice  to  Great  Britain.  It  was  the  report 
of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs  which  gave  vent  to 
the  pent-up  feelings  of  the  House. 

3  Given  in  Sen.  Ex.  Doc.  No.  i;  H.  Ex.  Doc.  No.  2,  agth  Cong.  ist.  Scs. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  59 

Ingersoll  of  Pennsylvania  presented  the  majority  report  and 
Garett  Davis  of  Mississippi  the  minority  report  on  January 
fifth.  The  majority  report  was  a  simple  resolution  directing 
the  President  forthwith  to  cause  notice  to  be  given  to  Great 
Britain  that  at  the  expiration  of  twelve  months  the  joint  occu- 
pation should  cease.  The  report  which  Davis  presented  was 
signed  by  him  and  Truman  Smith  of  Connecticut,  both  Whigs, 
and  Caleb  Smith  of  Indiana,  a  Democrat.  It  raised  the  con- 
stitutional question  of  whether  the  House  could  act  in  the 
matter;  the  treaty  had  been  made  by  the  President  by  and 
with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate  without  any  action 
on  the  part  of  the  House,  hence,  while  the  House  might 
express  an  opinion  by  means  of  a  resolution,  it  could  not  share 
in  directing  the  President  to  act.  "And  why  should  the  House, 
by  a  violation  of  all  propriety  of  form,  and  without  any  effec- 
tive authority  over  the  subject,  make  itself  a  party  to  this 
proceeding  ?" 

The  majority  had  recommended  the  first  Monday  in  Feb- 
ruary as  a  time  to  take  up  its  report,  but  the  House  would 
have  no  such  delay ;  a  motion  was  made  to  refer  both  reports 
to  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  House  on  the  State  of  the 
Union  to  be  made  the  special  order  of  the  next  day.  Giddings, 
a  Whig  of  Ohio,  wished  to  know  if  this  did  not  open  the 
whole  subject  matter  to  discussion,  and  when  the  Speaker 
ruled  that  it  did  launched  out  into  the  only  speech  of  the 
whole  debate  wherein  the  slavery  issue  was  made  prominent. 
He  said  he  had  previously  voted  against  giving  notice  but 
now  that  Texas  had  been  "reannexed"  the  South  was  willing 
to  compromise  on  Oregon ;  Texas  had  given  the  slave  party 
the  balance  of  power  and  now  the  North  was  bound  hand 
and  foot.  The  South  feared  a  war  with  Great  Britain  for 
Oregon  for  it  would  mean  the  end  of  slavery  when  the  blacks 
of  the  West  Indies  came  and  started  a  servile  insurrection, 
and  then  the  slave-holders  would  call  upon  the  North  to  de- 
fend them.  Gidding's  violent  speech — and  his  speeches  usu- 
ally were  violent  when  slavery  was  the  subject — provoked  a 
response  from  his  Democratic  colleague  McDowell,  who  de- 


60  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

plored  Gidding's  sectional  attitude,  extolled  the  "Texas  Invin- 
cibles"  who,  at  the  last  session,  had  brought  in  that  republic. 
Then  he  went  on  to  sound  the  note  uttered  by  all  westerners : 
all  Oregon;  no  more  negotiations  if  that  meant  loss  of  any 
part ;  no  war,  he  hoped,  but  if  war  did  come,  there  was  Canada 
to  be  thought  of.  Rhett,  of  South  Carolina,  a  Democrat, 
opened  for  the  opposition  with  the  arguments  which  were  used, 
in  one  form  or  other,  by  all  those  who  were  against  the  Ad- 
ministration :  giving  notice  would  be  to  oust  Great  Britain 
and  that  meant  inevitable  war  resulting  probably  not  in  all 
of  Oregon,  but  none  of  Oregon.  Both  North  and  West  wished 
for  war,  said  Rhett;  it  was  a  part  of  the  political  game  in 
which  the  northern  Democrats,  disappointed  at  the  defeat  of 
their  favorite  Van  Buren,  were  determined  to  play  a  double 
part,  get  control  of  the  government  and  punish  the  South. 

The  debate  continued  on  into  the  next  day  ostensibly  on  the 
question  of  reference  to  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  but 
actually  on  the  issue  itself.  In  order  to  allow  other  business 
of  a  routine  nature  to  go  on,  reference  was  made  and  the 
debate  proceeded.4  From  the  sixth  of  January  to  the  sixteenth 
of  February,  this  topic  occupied  the  attention  of  the  House. 
Extended  as  it  was  the  debate  was  participated  in  by  more 
than  half  the  Representatives ;  it  grew  in  intensity  all  the  time 
even  though  it  was  impossible  for  either  side  to  bring  up  new 
arguments  on  the  merits  of  the  question.  The  discussion  on 
one  side  consisted  largely  in  assertion  of  the  title  of  the  United 
States  to  all  of  Oregon, — give  notice  and  let  war  come  if  it 
must ;  the  opposition  asserted  a  colorable  title  by  Great  Britain, 
the  necessity  of  negotiation,  the  unpreparedness  of  the  United 
States  for  war,  and  the  disaster  which  would  follow  hostili- 
ties. Jefferson  Davis  added  a  variation  when  he  asked  what 
would  be  gained  if,  on  account  of  the  excitement  aroused  by 
the  debate,  Mexico  should  make  unreasonable  demands,  de- 
feat the  acquisition  of  California  and  so  cause  the  United 


4  Globe,    XV,    150.      Many  of  the   speeches,    which    were   in   most  cases   "ex- 


4  Globe,    XV,    150.      Many  of  the   speeches, 
tended,"  appear  in  the  Appendix  to  Vol.  XV. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  61 

States  to  lose  the  key  to  Asiatic  commerce.5  Isaac  Parrish 
of  Ohio  contended  that  there  was  no  good  reason  for  stopping 
at  54°  40';  there  was  an  area  of  500,000  square  miles  north 
of  that  line,  exclusive  of  the  islands  to  which  Russia  had  good 
title,  to  which  the  United  States  had  as  good  a  claim  as 
Great  Britain.  If  Great  Britain  wanted  war  she  would 
find  a  pretext  in  any  case,  and  if  her  desire  for  peace  was 
sincere  she  would,  if  met  with  firmness,  yield  all  the  territory 
west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  John  Quincy  Adams  main- 
tained that  the  title  of  the  United  States  was  founded  on 
Genesis  1 :26-28  and  made  a  54°  40'  speech  in  which  he  asserted 
that  Great  Britain  wanted  the  land  for  hunters  while  the 
United  States  would  fill  it  with  settlers. 

When  the  eloquence,  as  well  as  the  patience,  of  the  House 
was  well  nigh  exhausted  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  came 
to  the  point  of  voting  on  the  various  propositions  before  it. 
In  addition  to  the  two  reports  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign 
Affairs  some  twenty  other  sets  of  resolutions  and  amend- 
ments had  been  offered,  varying  in  vehemence  from  Parrish's 
demand  for  the  whole  northwestern  portion  of  the  continent 
to  Winthrop's  where  he  asserted  that  the  matter  was  still  a 
subject  for  negotiation,  that  it  would  be  a  "dishonor  to  the 
age  in  which  we  live"  if  war  resulted.  If  direct  negotiation 
failed  Winthrop  was  in  favor  of  arbitration,  for  the  news  that 
Polk  had  rejected  such  a  proposal  had  been  brought  before 
the  House  by  a  resolution  calling  for  late  correspondence.6 
One  after  another  the  substitutions  and  amendments  were 
voted  down  after  the  word  "forthwith,"  at  Ingersoll's  own 
suggestion,  had  been  removed  from  the  original  resolution. 
An  attempt  to  insert  the  words  "that  the  question  is  no  longer 
a  question  for  negotiation  or  compromise"  was  defeated ;  like- 
wise every  amendment  that  would  seem  to  direct  the  President 
how  the  settlement  must  be  made  was  rejected.  The  form 

5  Appendix  to  XV,  212-7. 

6  Immediately    after    Winthrop   introduced   his   resolutions   Douglas   sought   to 
counteract  their  influence  by  some  of  his  own  in  which  he  stated  that  the  title 
to    any    part    between   42°    and    54°    40'    was    not    open    to   compromise,    and    the 
question  of  territory  should  not  be  left  to  arbitration. 


62  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

adopted  by  the  committee  and  reported  to  the  House  contained 
two  parts;  the  first  part  directed  the  President  to  cause  the 
notice  to  be  given,  and  the  second  added, 

"Resolved,  That  nothing  herein  contained  is  intended  to 
interfere  with  the  right  and  discretion  of  the  proper  authorities 
of  the  two  contracting  powers  to  renew  or  pursue  negotiations 
for  an  amicable  settlement  of  the  controversy  respecting  the 
Oregon  territory." 

The  House  by  a  vote  of  172  to  46  concurred  with  the  report 
of  the  Committee  of  the  Whole,  and  the  resolutions  were 
ordered  engrossed  for  the  third  reading  by  163  to  54.  The 
real  test  of  strength  came  when  the  resolutions  were  reported 
to  the  House  by  a  vote  of  109  to  94,  but  as  there  was  no  call 
of  the  roll,  no  party,  sectional  or  other  alignment  can  be  deter- 
mined from  it.  The  vote  on  the  third  reading,  however,  gives 
the  following  results : 

For  resolutions        Against  resolutions 
Whigs  42  34 

Democrats  117  18 

Native  Americans  4  2 

North  68  23 

South  36  24 

West  59  7 

Slave  States  55  29 

Free  States  108  25 

Of  the  Democratic  votes  against  the  resolution  seventeen 
were  from  Virginia,  South  Carolina  and  Alabama.  Of  these 
Polk  wrote  a  little  later:7  "By  his  (Calhoun's)  influence  he 
induced  16  Democrats  in  Virginia  and  South  Carolina  in  the 
House  to  vote  against  the  notice,  and  now  that  he  is  probably 
convinced  of  his  mistake,  and  finds  that  he  will  not  be  sus- 
tained by  either  party  in  the  country,  he  feels  bound  not  to 
desert  the  friends  in  the  House  whom  he  has  caused  .  .  . 
to  commit  the  same  mistake."  One  western  Democrat,  Caleb 
B.  Smith,  of  Indiana,  completed  the  total  of  eighteen.  Of 

7  Diary,  I,  afig. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  63 

the  Whigs  in  opposition  twenty-one  were  from  the  North  and 
the  rest  from  Tennessee,  Kentucky  and  Georgia,  with  one 
each  from  Ohio,  Maryland  and  South  Carolina.  Whether 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee  are  called  southern  or  western  (they 
are  ranked  as  western  in  the  table  above)  the  opposing  pull  of 
the  South  and  West  is  revealed.  Little  light  is  shed  by  the 
classification  in  free  and  slave  States,  and  it  would  appear 
that  this  issue  did  not  figure  mere  largely  in  the  vote  than  it 
had  in  the  debate. 

While  the  proceedings  in  the  House  of  Representatives 
aroused  more  or  less  comment  there  had  been  little  doubt  of 
the  result,  hence  people  looked  to  the  Senate's  action  with 
much  keener  interest,  for  the  decisive  action  would  be  there. 
The  Senate,  however,  had  not  pushed  the  matter  while  the 
House  debate  was  carried  on;  the  more  cautious  Senators 
wished  to  await  both  the  action  of  the  House  and  possible 
results  of  the  negotiation.  Webster,  one  of  the  moderate 
Whigs,  wrote  a  propos  the  situation  :8  "As  to  Oregon,  the  bill 
will  pass  the  House.  It  will  pass?  however,  in  a  very  diluted 
state,  with  sundry  objectionable  provisions  struck  out.  .  .  . 
This  whole  proceeding  is  in  opposition  to  the  known  wishes 
of  the  President  and  Mr.  Calhoun.  The  fact  is,  a  majority  of 
the  House  of  Representatives  appear  to  be  rash,  headstrong, 
and  uninformed  men,  and  men  who  cannot  comprehend  the 
delicacy  and  importance  of  the  subject,  with  which  they 
meddle." 

Senator  Allen  of  Ohio,  one  of  the  staunchest  of  Oregon 
men,  had  seen  the  President's  Message  before  it  had  been  sent 
to  Congress,9  and  had  "heartily  approved"  its  tone  on  the 
Oregon  Question.  He  opened  the  campaign  in  the  Senate  in 
the  middle  of  December  by  introducing  a  resolution  advising 
the  President  to  give  notice  "forthwith."10  Resolutions  for 
the  same  end  were  introduced  by  Hannegan  of  Indiana,  who 


8  Webster  to   Haven,   2   Feb.,    1846;   Private  Correspondence  of   Webster,   II, 
216.     See  also  Webster  to  N.  Appleton,  20  Jan.,  and  to  F.  Webster,  27  Jan.,  Van 
Tyne,  Letters  of  Daniel  Webster,  306-7. 

9  Pblk,  Diary,  I,  108. 

10  Globe,  XV,  76,  182-3. 


64  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

was  not  hampered  as  Allen  was  by  being  chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Foreign  Relations;  he  could,  therefore,  express 
more  of  the  true  western  spirit  than  his  colleague  from  Ohio. 
His  resolutions  declared  that  the  country  from  42°  to  54°  50' 
was  the  property  and  part  and  parcel  of  the  United  States; 
that  no  power  existed  in  "this  Government  to  transfer  its  soil, 
and  the  allegiance  of  its  citizens,  to  the  dominion,  authority, 
control,  and  subjection  of  any  foreign  prince  or  sovereignty"; 
that  an  abandonment  or  surrender  of  any  portion  would  be 
an  "abandonment  of  the  honor,  the  character,  and  the  best 
interests  of  the  American  people."  This  challenge  of  the  West 
was  answered  by  Calhoun  in  resolutions  which  stated  that  the 
President,  by  renewing  the  offer  of  49°,  did  not  abandon  the 
honor  of  the  country  nor  exceed  his  constitutional  powers.11 
Thus,  at  the  end  of  December,  the  division  in  the  Senate  and 
in  the  Democratic  party  on  the  question  of  Oregon  was  clearly 
stated.  Polk,  who  desired  that  each  house  should  pass  an 
unqualified  resolution  at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  had 
foreseen  that  Calhoun  would  not  support  the  Message.12  His 
conviction  on  this  point  was  strengthened  when  he  was  in- 
formed by  Congressman  Turney  of  Tennessee  that  Calhoun 
and  Benton  were  acting  together  "whenever  they  thought  it 
safe  to  break  ground  against  the  Administration."13  While 
Benton's  position,  Turner  thought,  would  mean  only  one  vote, 
many  southern  members  were  opposed  to  war  and  would  fol- 
low Calhoun,  while  at  the  sarnie  time  some  of  the  members 
from  the  West  were  almost  mad  on  the  subject  of  Oregon. 
He  felt  that  the  President  would  find  himself  between  two 
fires  and  whatever  he  did  would  not  satisfy  one  wing  of  the 
party.  The  two  opposing  resolutions,  Calhoun's  and  Hanne- 
gan's,  were  the  war  cries  of  the  opposing  factions,  and  the 
question  of  their  consideration  provoked  a  preliminary  skir- 
mish. Hannegan's  demand  for  immediate  discussion  brought 
a  protest  from  Haywood  of  North  Carolina  that  the  resolutions 

11  Ibid.,  i  ox. 

12  Polk,  Diary,  I,  iji. 

13  Ibid.,  140. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  65 

were  practically  a  threat  aimed  at  the  President,  to  the  effect, 
"You  made  this  offer  once ;  take  care  how  you  do  it  again." 

"That  is  it,"  responded  Hannegan,  "take  care  how  you  do 
it  again."  The  President's  Message  had  clearly  stated  that 
the  negotiations  were  at  an  end ;  besides,  continued  Hannegan, 
there  was  a  disputed  boundary  between  the  Nueces  and  the 
Rio  Grande,  yet  there  was  no  talk  of  negotiations  with  Mexico 
—the  disputed  area  was  just  taken. 

Negotiations,  however,  as  Calhoun  and  Hay  wood  contended, 
were  pending,  and  this  fact  caused  the  Senate  to  agree  to  put 
the  resolutions  over  until  February  tenth.  Those  presented 
by  Allen,  by  Hannegan  and  by  Calhoun  were  not  the  only 
ones  on  the  subject.  Crittenden,  in  January,  offered  a  con- 
ciliatory form,  which  stated,  in  the  preamble,  that  it  was  desir- 
able to  settle  the  dispute  by  negotiation,  and  then  proceeded 
in  the  form  of  a  bill  to  authorize  the  President  to  give  notice 
after  Congress  had  adjourned,  "in  order  to  afford  ample  time 
and  opportunity  for  the  amicable  settlement  and  adjustment" 
of  all  differences.  "Crittenden  told  my  wife/'  said  F.  P.  Blair, 
writing  to  Van  Buren,  "that  he  brought  in  his  resolutions 
in  relation  to  Oregon  in  homage  to  young  Hickory,  who 
coveted  the  responsibility  of  making  the  issue  with  England 
'all  Oregon  or  none'  on  his  own  hook."14  Young  Hickory, 
however,  if  we  are  to  take  his  own  word  for  it,  desired  above 
all  things  at  that  moment  the  passage  of  resolutions  for  notice 
without  any  string  of  any  sort. 

Postponing  all  action  and  most  of  the  discussion  until  Febru- 
ary was  a  momentary  gain  for  the  forces  of  conciliation; 
Senator  Allen  and  his  54°  40'  friends  feared  the  results  of 
delay  as  tending  to  weaken  the  chances  of  ultimate  success, 
and  sought  comfort  from  the  President  in  repeated  interviews. 
The  Forty-nine  men,  also,  tried  to  secure  some  hint  from  Polk 
assuring  them  that  he  would  accept  a  compromise  or  at  least 
agree  to  arbitrate,  for  they  feared  that  an  unyielding  attitude 
would  cause  war,  just  as  Cass,  Allen,  Hannegan  and  other 

14  18  Jan.,  1846;  Van  Buren  Papers,  Vol.  53. 


66  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

westerners  feared  the  extreme  demands  might  be  dropped. 
The  Calhoun  wing  thought  of  Mexico ;  it  would  never  do  to 
have  hostilities  break  out  with  the  southern  neighbor  while 
the  Oregon  affair  was  pending,  for  they  felt  that  war  with 
Great  Britain  would  surely  follow.15 

All  efforts,  then,  to  take  steps  which  were  in  the  direction 
of  violence  were  opposed,  usually  with  success,  by  the  moder- 
ates. For  example,  Calhoun  prevented  the  reading  of  Allen's 
resolutions  which  reiterated  Folk's  statement  of  the  applicabil- 
ity of  the  Monroe  doctrine.  Benton  in  a  vigorous  speech  op- 
posed Fair  field's  navy  bill,  denouncing  it  as  a  war  weapon 
when  all  indications  were  pointing  to  peace.  Webster  thought 
this  speech  might  have  some  good  effect  and  give  trouble  to 
the  war  party.16  Benton's  efforts  throughout  all  this  period  are 
summed  up  in  his  words  at  an  evening  reception  when  he  was 
asked  his  attitude  on  Crittenden's  resolutions,17 

"Sir,  conciliation,  conciliation — it  is  necessary  in  a  national 
struggle." 

Through  it  all  the  President  was  not  to  be  drawn  out.  He 
listened  to  all,  whether  it  was  a  suggestion  from  Calhoun  or 
Benton  on  the  necessity  of  compromise,  or  Allen  with  a  new 
argument  against  compromise.  To  leaders  on  both  sides  he 
dropped  the  hint  that,  if  a  reasonable  proposition  were  made 
by  Great  Britain,  he  would  probably  submit  it  to  the  Senate  for 
advice  before  he  acted,  and  in  this  both  sides  thought  they  saw 
a  gleam  of  hope  for  their  contentions.  He  always  informed 
his  callers  that  he  believed  there  would  be  no  war,  and  yet, 
when  Cass  talked  with  him  about  the  probable  results  of  the 
fall  of  the  Peel  ministry  and  was  strongly  in  favor  of  vigorous 
preparations  for  defence,  Polk  appeared  to  concur  in  the  view. 
When  he  received  from  both  houses  of  Congress  requests  for 
copies  of  correspondence  which  had  taken  place  after  that  sent 
them  with  the  Annual  Message  he  agreed  with  Buchanan  that 
Congress  and  the  American  people  should  know  of  the  military 

15  Calhoun  to  T.  W.  Clemson;  29  Jan.,  Corresp.  of  Calhoun,  679-80. 

1 6  Webster  to  F.  Webster,  27  Jan.,  Van  Tyne,  Letters,  307. 

17  Blair  to  Van  Buren,  see  note  17  above. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  67 

and  naval  preparations  in  England  as  reported  by  McLane.18 
To  all  Senators  with  whom  he  talked  he  gave  his  opinion  that 
the  best  way  to  settle  the  whole  matter  was  first  to  give  the 
notice,  and  he  wished  his  authority  in  this  to  be  unhampered 
in  any  manner. 

On  the  tenth  of  February,  the  day  set  for  taking  up  the 
Oregon  resolutions,  the  joint  resolutions  on  this  subject  were 
received  from  the  House  and  referred  to  the  Committee  on 
Foreign  Relations.  Those  who  were  for  immediate  action 
succeeded  by  a  vote  of  23  to  22,  in  having  all  previous  orders 
postponed  and  the  resolutions  taken  up.19  From  this  day  until 
the  resolution  for  notice  was  adopted  on  April  sixteenth  there 
was  no  topic  other  than  Oregon  seriously  considered  in  the 
Senate.  At  the  outset  the  main  issue  was  whether  notice 
should  be  given  at  all;  later  it  changed  to  the  question  of 
what  form  the  resolution  should  take.  War  possibilities  occu- 
pied the  attention  of  the  earlier  speakers ;  Allen's  speech,  open- 
ing the  debate,  took  the  stand  that  there  was  no  longer  a 
question  of  title  to  discuss,  it  was  merely  a  question  whether 
or  not  the  United  States  would  act  or  be  deterred  by  a  war 
scare  such  as  Great  Britain  had  manufactured  in  1842  to  secure 
a  portion  of  Maine.  This  theme,  with  variations,  was  running 
through  most  of  the  speeches. 

There  were  few  Senators  who  did  not  share  in  the  debate, 
and  fewer  still  of  the  features  of  the  situation  which  were 
not  touched  upon.  The  dry  straw  of  the  title  was  threshed 
over  again  by  many.  One  of  the  interesting  speeches  of  the 
earlier  debate  was  that  delivered  by  Benton  on  February  nine- 
teenth. While  Benton  had  not  ceased  to  urge  conciliation  he 
now  took  the  stand  that  arbitration  was  inadmissible,  and 
argued  for  all  the  Oregon  recommendations  of  the  Message. 
He  denounced  the  system  of  joint  occupation  as  "always  un- 
just, unequal,  and  injurious  to  us";  he  believed  that  the  time 
was  ripe  for  negotiation,  and  that  the  United  States  should 
take  advantage  of  it.  It  was  a  speech  of  such  a  nature  that 


18  Polk,  Diary,  I,  257. 

19  The  Senate  debate  is  found  in  the  Cong.  Globe,  XV,  350  seq. 


68  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

both  the  Oregon  men  and  moderates  could  draw  soothing  con- 
clusions from  it. 

On  the  night  of  February  twenty- fourth,  after  a  day  largely 
taken  up  by  the  Oregon  discussion,  Haywood  of  North  Caro- 
lina called  upon  the  President  and  informed  him  that  there  was 
a  plan  on  foot,  devised  by  Calhoun  and  McDuffie  and  perhaps 
others,  to  bring  forward  in  Executive  Session  a  resolution 
advising  the  President  to  reopen  negotiations  with  a  view  of 
settling  the  issue  by  compromise.  Benton  had  told  Haywood 
that  he  would  oppose  this  as  it  would  virtually  take  the  whole 
question  out  of  the  President's  hands;  Calhoun,  he  thought, 
would  be  willing  to  agree  to  any  terms  in  order  to  get  the 
credit  of  settling  the  controversy.  Haywood  himself,  while 
against  the  proposed  action,  was  in  favor  of  settling  with 
Great  Britain  approximately  at  49°.  Later  on  in  the  same 
evening  Allen  called,  for  he  too  had  heard  of  the  scheme, 
and  warned  the  President  that  there  were  "certain  men"  in 
the  Senate  who  wished  to  induce  him  to  compromise;  if  they 
succeeded,  Allen  said,  it  would  break  him  down  and  destroy 
his  popularity ;  nine  or  ten  States  of  the  West  and  Southwest 
would  oppose  .any  compromise.  Polk  assured  the  Senator 
that  he  had  no  political  aspirations  and  would  not  be  a  candi- 
date for  re-election  so  that  whatever  he  did  would  not  be  with 
that  possibility  in  view.20 

The  next  day  Haywood's  story  was  confirmed  by  the  ap- 
pearance at  the  President's  office  of  Calhoun  and  Colquitt,  of 
Georgia,  armed  with  a  letter  from  McDuffie.  They  said  that 
they  thought  the  time  had  come  for  some  action  looking 
toward  a  peaceful  settlement  so  that  news  might  go  to  Eng- 
land by  the  next  steamer.  When  Calhoun  mentioned  the  plan 
proposed  for  Executive  Session  Polk  said  he  could  not  advise 
such  a  step  at  that  time,  although  confidentially  he  would 
state  that  if  a  proposition  came  from  Great  Britain  he  would 
feel  it  his  duty  to  submit  it  to  the  Senate  for  advice.  He  re- 
jected Calhoun's  suggestion  that  a  compromise  at  49°  would 


20  Polk,  Diary,  I,   246-8. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  69 

not  be  dishonorable  to  the  United  States  and  that  it  might  be 
proposed  by  Polk,  for  he  insisted  that  the  next  proposition  must 
come  from  England.  As  to  the  free  navigation  of  the  Colum- 
bia, when  the  point  was  brought  up  by  Calhoun,  the  President 
stood  by  the  Message. 

Recognizing  that  this  course  would  probably  fail,  for  it 
would  require  a  two-thirds  vote  to  carry  the  resolutions  in 
Executive  Session,  the  conciliation  faction  attempted  the  next 
day  to  attain  the  same  end  by  changing  the  form  of  the  resolu- 
tion for  notice.  Colquitt  introduced  an  amendment  to  Critten- 
den's  resolutions  containing  this  sentence : 

"That  it  is  earnestly  desired  that  the  long  standing  contro- 
versy ...  be  speedily  settled,  by  negotiation  and  com- 
promise, in  order  to  tranquilize  the  public  mind,  and  to  pre- 
serve the  friendly  relations  of  the  two  countries." 

This  modification  received  the  support  of  many  Whigs  and 
to  Haywood  it  appeared  possible  that  a  combination  of  Whigs 
and  Calhoun  Democrats  might  succeed  in  taking  the  whole 
issue  into  their  own  hands.  When  giving  an  account  of  the 
proceeding  to  the  President,  with  whom  he  was  in  such  fre- 
quent communication  as  to  cause  people  to  think  he  was  in 
some  manner  the  spokesman  of  the  Executive  in  the  Senate, 
"he  was  excited  and  spoke  in  strong  terms  of  disapprobation  of 
the  course  of  Calhoun"  and  his  followers.21  Even  Colquitt, 
when  the  President  spoke  to  him  about  the  delay  in  the  Senate, 
said  he  was  willing  to  withdraw  his  amendment  and  vote  for 
the  naked  resolution  or  any  other  form  that  was  reasonable; 
he  agreed  with  Polk  that  the  split  in  the  party  was  unfortu- 
nate, both  as  affecting  the  Oregon  Question  and  other  Demo- 
cratic measures. 

Whigs  as  well  as  Democrats  went  to  the  President  to  use 
their  influence  for  a  conciliatory  course.  Senator  Archer  of 
Virginia  requested  an  appointment  and  took  the  occasion  to 
say  that  he  and  his  colleagues  were  most  anxious  to  settle  the 
question  and  avoid  war.  While  Polk  maintained  that  he  stood 
by  his  word  in  the  Message  he  gratified  Archer  very  much  by 

21  Ibid.,  260. 


70  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPER 

telling  him  what  he  had  already  told  so  many  Democrats,  that 
if  a  proposition  came  from  Great  Britain  he  would  submit  it 
to  the  Senate.  Archer  told  of  a  conversation  which  he  had  had 
with  the  British  minister  in  which  he  had  urged  Pakenham 
to  use  his  influence  with  his  government  not  to  insist  upon 
free  navigation  of  the  Columbia.  This  conversation  with  the 
Virginia  Senator  made  Polk  doubt  the  accuracy  of  Buchanan's 
information,  which  was  imparted  with  some  excitement  to 
the  President,  about  a  Whig  plot  to  throw  the  whole  responsi- 
bility upon  the  President  if  the  advice  of  the  Senate  should  be 
asked. 

On  the  fourth  and  fifth  of  March  a  new  interest  was  roused 
in  the  Senate  debate  by  a  speech  of  Haywood,  who  explained 
that  while  the  President  was  constitutionally  authorized  to 
make  treaties  he  could  not  unmake  them;  conventions  could 
be  annulled  only  by  mutual  consent  or  by  law  and  the  Presi- 
dent had  chosen  to  follow  the  latter  method.22  The  President, 
continued  Haywood,  had  receded  to  49°  on  a  compromise  and 
still  stood  on  it  as  such,  he  would  never  enter  a  long  war  in 
order  to  determine  the  meaning  of  the  Nootka  Convention. 
While  partisans  had  raised  the  cry  of  "All  Oregon  or  none," 
or  "54°  40'  fight  or  no  fight"  this  was  not  the  attitude  of  the 
President;  if  it  had  been,  he,  Haywood,  would  have  been  forced 
to  turn  his  back  upon  the  Administration  He  would  vote  for 
the  President  to  give  notice  and  if  Great  Britain  would  not 
yield  her  demands  south  of  49°  then  the  United  States  must 
fight. 

Both  Hannegan  and  Allen  attempted  to  obtain  from  Hay- 
wood  a  statement  as  to  whether  he  had  authority,  directly  or 
indirectly,  to  speak  for  the  President,  and,  when  he  answered 
ambiguously,  pressed  the  point,  whereupon  Haywood  said,  "I 
have  not  assumed  to  speak  by  authority  of  the  President." 

"Then  the  Senator  takes  back  his  speech?"  asked  Allen. 

"Not  at  all,"  replied  Haywood,  "but  I  am  glad  to  see  it 
takes" 


22  Globe,  XV,  Appen.  370-6.  Haywood  told  'the  reporter  that  he  wished  to 
report  his  own  speech  and  it  appears  much  edited  in  the  Appendix,  bristling 
with  capitals  and  italics. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  71 

Apparently  it  had  taken  for  it  provoked  applause  both  from 
the  Senate  and  from  the  galleries.  The  54°  40'  men  feared 
that  the  President  had  deserted  them  and  Hannegan,  greatly 
excited,  asked  him  the  same  day  whether  Haywood  had  been 
speaking  for  him,  but  Polk  replied  that  no  one  spoke  ex 
cathedra  for  him.  The  conciliation  forces  were  delighted  with 
Haywood's  speech  and  many  went  to  the  President  to  tell  him 
so.  Yulee  of  Florida  and  Lewis  of  Alabama  told  him  that 
people  took  the  speech  to  be  an  answer  to  the  warlike  utter- 
ances of  Allen,  whom  before  this  they  had  supposed  to  speak 
for  the  Administration  on 'account  of  the  warlike  tone  of  the 
Message.  Polk  mildly  remarked  that  he  did  not  consider  the 
Message  warlike  and  if  the  notice  were  to  be  passed  by  a  de- 
cided majority,  as  had  been  the  case  in  the  House,  he  was 
sure  peace  would  continue. 

"I  venture  the  remark  in  reference  to  the  feverish  excite- 
ment of  members  of  the  Senate/'  wrote  Polk  in  his  Diary, 
"on  the  question  of  Notice  on  the  Oregon  question,  that  it  all 
proceeds  from  the  ambitious  aspirations  of  certain  leading 
members  of  that  body.  For  example,  Mr.  Calhoun  probably 
thought  by  opposing  the  Notice  at  the  early  part  of  the  session, 
he  would  best  advance  his  views  upon  the  Presidency,  by  plac- 
ing himself  at  the  head  of  the  peace  party  in  the  country.  He 
now  finds  his  mistake  and  is  struggling  to  extricate  himself 
from  his  embarrassment  .  .  .  Mr.  Allen,  on  the  other 
hand,  will  bear  no  compromise  under  any  circumstances,  and 
would  probably  prefer  war  to  peace,  because  it  might  sub- 
serve his  ambitious  views.  Mr.  Cass  takes  the  same  view  that 
Mr.  Allen  does,  as  probably  his  best  chance  of  reaching  the 
Presidency,  and  therefore  he  acts  with  Mr.  Allen,  but  is  not 
so  ultra  or  ardent.  Col.  Benton  feels  that  he  has  lost 
cast(e)  with  Democracy  on  the  Texas  question,  and  feels  sore 
and  dissatisfied  with  his  position.  In  the  midst  of  these  fac- 
tions of  the  Democratic  party  I  am  left  without  any  certain 
and  reliable  support  in  Congress,  especially  in  the  Senate. 
Each  leader  looks  to  his  own  advancement  more  than  he  does 
to  the  success  of  my  measures."23 

23.  Polk,  Diary,  I,  264-5.  General  Cass  had  a  reputation  as  a  fire-eater.  At 
one  time  in  the  debate  he  arose  and  announced  that  he  would  speak  to  one 
topic  only.  "Inevitable  war?"  asked  Haywood.  No,  he  was  not  going  to  make 
a  war  speech,  but  before  he  ended  he  had  advocated  an  increase  of  the  army 
and  navy  and  had  invoked,  in  respect  to  Oregon,  the  "inevitable  destiny."  "Yes," 
said  Webster,  "war  is  inevitable." 


72  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

Cass,  McDuffie,  Turney,  Atchison  and  Allen  all  took  occa- 
sion to  speak  to  Polk  about  the  altercation  of  Hannegan  and 
Haywood.  While  the  peace  people  were  pleased  with  the 
general  tone  of  their  champion,  both  parties  were  a  little  in- 
clined to  apologize  for  the  ardor  of  their  representatives,  and 
some  viewed  it  all  as  an  apparent  attack  upon  the  integrity  of 
the  President's  course.  Hannegan  himself  told  Polk  that  he 
was  his  friend,  seeming  to  desire  to  remove  the  impression 
that  he  had  attacked  and  denounced  the  President  in  advance 
of  action ;  but  he  evidently  wanted  to  be  sure  of  his  ground 
in  the  future  for  he  asked  the  President  point  blank  what  he 
intended  to  do,  go  for  54°  40'  or  compromise  at  49°.  Polk 
replied  that  he  would  tell  no  man  on  earth  what  he  would  do 
in  the  future,  and  Atkinson,  who  was  present  at  the  interview, 
said  the  President  was  right. 

Allen  was  also  desirous  of  finding  where  things  stood.  He 
told  the  President  that  Haywood  spoke  the  sentiments  of  four 
Senators  who  were  friends  of  Silas  Wright,  Governor  of  New 
York,  (Governor  Wright  was  also  presidential  timber)  and 
the  speech  was  a  deliberate  attack  upon  himself  as  chairman 
of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations.  The  President  then 
reminded  Allen  that  he,  too,  a  few  days  before,  had  been  asked 
about  the  authority  with  which  he  spoke  and  he  had  replied 
that  he  had  spoken  from  the  documents  submitted  by  the 
President;  Haywood  could  have  spoken  from  no  other  auth- 
ority for  none  had  been  given  him.  Allen  still  was  not  satis- 
fied and  obtained  another  interview  for  the  next  night,  Sunday. 
At  that  time  he  went  over  the  whole  matter  again  and  then 
produced  from  his  hat  a  paper  containing  what  he  proposed 
to  say  in  the  Senate.  As  nearly  as  Polk  understood  it  the 
"substance  was  that  he  was  authorized  to  say  that  I  had 
asserted  the  United  States  title  to  Oregon  up  to  54°  40'.  and 
that  I  had  not  changed  my  opinion."  The  desired  authority, 
however,  was  not  given. 

Colonel  Benton  also  went  over  the  ground  with  the  Presi- 
dent. He  said  that  the  debate  had  taken  a  curious  turn;  in- 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  73 

stead  of  discussing  the  President's  views  as  shown  in  the  docu- 
ments, Senators  were  "guessing-  or  conjecturing"  what  he 
would  do  next.  He  urged  Polk  to  examine  Colquitt's  amend- 
ment and  speak  to  his  friends  about  it  if  he  approved  it.  But 
Benton  could  obtain  no  further  satisfaction  than  the  oft-re- 
peated statement  about  asking  the  advice  of  the  Senate. 

While  Polk  continued  to  receive  visits  from  Senators  who 
were  anxious  to  find  out  more  about  the  Haywood  matter 
another  turn  of  affairs  afforded  an  outlet  for  excitement.  On 
March  ninth  Colquitt  read  and  denounced  an  article  in  the 
Washington  Times  wherein  it  was  stated  that  there  was  a  con- 
spiracy between  the  British  minister  on  one  side  and  the  Whig 
Senators  and  the  "anti-Oregon"  Democrats,  "with  some  West- 
ern members  for  an  exception,"  on  the  other.  They  were 
plotting  to  defeat  the  House  notice  and  substitute  a  conditional 
one  leaving  the  time  of  giving  it  to  the  discretion  of  the 
President  and  binding  him  to  further  negotiation  which  would 
result  in  compromise.  The  writer  of  the  article  was  denounced 
by  Colquitt  as  a  liar,  and  the  article  was  framed  to  drive  back 
into  the  ranks  all  recreant  Senators  by  coupling  their  names 
with  that  of  the  British  minister.  Three  days  later  Jarnagin, 
a  Whig  from  Tennessee,  brought  the  matter  up  again  and  in- 
troduced a  resolution  for  a  committee  of  inquiry  to  report  such 
measures  as  should  be  "necessary  to  vindicate  the  character 
and  honor  of  the  Senate  against  the  charges  of  corruption." 

On  the  sixteenth  of  March  the  committee,  of  which  Benton 
was  chairman,  reported  that  they  had  found  no  truth  in  the 
charges  that  at  a  dinner  at  the  British  minister's  some  Whig 
Senators  had  discussed  the  Oregon  Question ;  that  there  had 
been  held  in  the  Capitol  a  meeting  of  Whig  Senators  the  day 
before  the  Cambria  sailed,  with  Pakenham  present,  and  a  vote 
had  been  taken  to  be  sent  to  Great  Britain ;  that  Senator  J.  M. 
Clayton  had  admitted  that  he  had  been  at  a  dinner  where 
"noses"  had  been  counted.  The  two  persons  named  by  the 
editors  of  the  Times  as  having  knowledge  of  the  affair  ad- 
mitted that  they  had  none,  and  no  one  could  be  found  who 


74  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

would  sustain  the  charges  of  the  editors  and  owner  of  the 
Times.  More  than  all  this  the  committee  had  sworn  state- 
ments from  all  the  Senators  alleged  to  have  been  mixed  up  in 
the  plot  denying  the  charges.  The  committee  recommended 
that  the  reporters  of  the  Times  be  excluded  from  the  reporters' 
gallery  in  the  Senate,  and  the  whole  report  was  unanimously 
concurred  in. 

This  whole  "plot"  was  in  essence  just  what  rumor  had  been 
reporting  about  the  capital  for  some  time.  And,  indeed, 
although  no  voting  or  anything  of  the  sort  had  taken  place, 
pretty  nearly  what  was  charged  had  happened;  the  British 
minister  had,  in  accordance  with  his  instrutcions,  talked  freely 
with  influential  men,  and  Whigs  and  peace  Democrats  were 
working  harmoniously  to  prevent  a  rupture  of  the  relations 
with  Great  Britain. 

In  the  meantime  the  debate  went  on  with  no  particular  fea- 
tures until  March  sixteenth.  On  that  day  Calhoun  for  the 
first  time  took  a  prominent  part  by  pronouncing  an  able  speech 
in  which  he  analyzed  the  situation  to  date.  He  concluded  his 
observations  by  stating  that  he  was  inclined  to  think  that 
notice  should  be  given  for  two  reasons;  it  would  prevent 
carrying  the  matter  into  the  next  presidential  campaign,  and 
it  would  serve  to  hasten  a  solution  of  the  issue,  because  until 
it  was  given  Great  Britain  would  make  no  move.  He  was 
for  the  notice,  but  not  in  its  naked  form,  or  not  in  the  equivo- 
cal form  in  which  it  came  from  the  House,  but  in  a  form  that 
would  plainly  state  what  was  meant.  The  situation  was  dif- 
ferent from  what  it  had  been  in  1843  for  the  Oregon  country 
was  filling  up  and  it  would  be  necessary  to  end  the  old  ar- 
rangement which  had  worked  well  enough  when  there  were 
few  people  there.  Giving  notice,  however,  meant  compromise 
or  fight ;  war  was  inconceivable  in  view  of  the  disastrous  effect 
it  would  have  on  the  fortunes  of  the  United  States,  and  so 
nothing  was  left  but  an  honorable  compromise.24 

When  Edward  Everett  read  this  speech  he  wrote  Calhoun25 

24  Globe,  XV,  502-6;  Appen.  471-6. 

25  6  April,   Correspondence  of  Calhoun,    1080-1. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  75 

that  it  alone  was  nearly  decisive  of  the  question  of  peace  or 
war,  and  in  delivering  it  Calhoun  had  rendered  the  country  an 
inestimable  service.  Calhoun  himself  said26  that  his  friends 
considered  it  the  best  he  had  ever  delivered,  although  he  soon 
saw  that  he  had  aroused  the  jealousy  of  the  leaders  of  his 
party  for  both  the  Intelligencer  and  the  Union  (the  Adminis- 
tration paper)  disregarded  his  request  to  suspend  its  publica- 
tion until  he  should  have  seen  it  in  print  and  had  revised  it. 
He  thought  that  he  had  opened  the  door  for  Polk  to  compro- 
mise, and,  in  confidence,  he  stated  that  he  feared  the  Presi- 
dent's Message  had  been  diplomatic,  that  the  notice  had  been 
recommended  only  to  play  a  game  of  intimidation  with  the 
British  government.  Now  the  Administration  could  leave  its 
"timid,  vacillating  course"  and  take  some  decisive  step.27  Mc- 
Lane  in  London  did  not  feel  this  way  about  Calhoun's  effort ; 
he  thought  this  speech,  along  with  those  of  Webster  and 
others,  advocating  peace  and  urging  the  British  title  to  a  large 
portion  of  Oregon  had  made  the  tone  of  the  British  more  arro- 
gant and  their  demands  greater.28 

Calhoun's  assault  upon  the  stronghold  of  the  war  party  was 
followed  by  similar  attacks  by  others  of  his  way  of  thinking : 
Berrien  and  Archer,  both  Whigs,  and  Niles,  a  Connecticut 
Democrat,  added  their  voices  for  compromise  and  for  checking 
an  Executive  policy  which  single-handed  would  settle  the 
question  of  war  or  peace  for  the  country.  The  Fifty-four 
Forties,  however,  were  encouraged  on  March  twenty-fourth 
by  the  President's  answer  to  a  Senate  resolution  of  the  seven- 
teenth inquiring  whether  in  his  judgment  "any  circumstances 
connected  with  or  growing  out  of  any  foreign  relations  of 
this  country  require  at  this  time  an  increase  of  our  naval  or 
military  forces."29 

Such  a  request  fell  in  with  previous  suggestions  from  Polk: 
in  February  certain  portions  of  McLane's  communications, 


26  Letter  to  Mrs.  T.  W.  Clemson,  23  March,  Ibid.,  684-5. 

27  Calhoun  to  T.  W.  Clemson,  23  March,  Ibid.,  686. 

28  Polk,  Diary,  I,  344-5- 

29  So   Webster    wrote   his   son,    26    Mar.,    Writings   and   Speeches   of   Daniel 
Webster.  XVI,  447-8. 


76  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPER 

with  information  about  British  military  and  naval  activity,  had 
been  forwarded  to  Congress ;  later  in  the  month  Buchanan  and 
Polk  discussed  the  advisability  of  recommending  to  Congress 
a  consideration  of  further  military  preparation,  and,  while  no 
message  was  framed  at  the  time,  Buchanan  talked  freely  with 
Democratic  Senators  and  Representatives  about  the  alarming 
activity  of  England  while  he  urged  the  President  to  consider 
the  danger  and  take  the  necessary  steps  to  guard  against  it.30 
This  change  of  tone  on  the  part  of  his  Secretary  of  State  Polk 
attributed  to  presidential  aspirations;  Buchanan  believed  that 
war  sentiment  was  uppermost  and  it  was  policy  to  put  himself 
at  the  head  of  the  procession.  Buchanan's  suggestion  was 
discussed  in  the  Cabinet  but  no  action  resulted.  When  the 
Senate  resolution  was  received,  however,  Buchanan  was  for  a 
strong  message;  he  found  Folk's  draft  altogether  too  mild 
and  penned  one  with  a  much  more  warlike  spirit.  "His  ob- 
ject, I  think,  "wrote  Polk,  "is  to  supersede  Gen'l  Cass  before 
the  country,  and  to  this  motive  I  attribute  his  change  of  tone 
and  the  warlike  character  of  his  draft  of  my  proposed  message. 
I  think  he  is  governed  by  his  own  views  of  his  chances  for 
the  Presidency.  It  is  a  great  misfortune  that  a  member  of 
the  Cabinet  should  be  an  aspirant  for  the  Presidency,  because 
I  cannot  rely  upon  his  honest  and  disinterested  advice,  and 
the  instance  before  me  is  clear  evidence  of  this."31 

While  the  Message  was  not  strong  enough  for  Buchanan 
who  would  have  included  an  implied  censure  of  the  Senate 
for  the  delay  about  the  notice,  it  was  forceful  enough  to  com- 
mand attention  and  stimulate  action.  The  President  recurred 
to  his  recommendation  of  the  Annual  Message  advising  a  force 
to  protect  Oregon  emigrants ;  he  saw  no  reason  to  modify  this 
advice  but  believed  additional  provision  should  be  made  for 
public  defence.  He  referred  to  the  reports,  prepared  by  the 
Secretaries  of  War  and  Navy,  which  had  been  communicated 
to  the  appropriate  committees  in  January,  and  added  that 
"subsequent  events  have  confirmed  me  in  the  opinion  that 

30  Diary,  I,  208  seq;  241-3;  257-8. 

31  Ibid.,  297-8. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  77 

these  recommendations  were  proper  as  precautionary  meas- 
ures ...  A  controversy  .  .  .  now  exists  between  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain,  and  while,  so  far  as  we  know, 
the  relations  of  the  latter  with  all  European  nations  are  of 
the  most  pacific  character,  she  is  making  unusual  and  extra- 
ordinary armaments  and  warlike  preparations,  naval  and  mili- 
tary, both  at  home  and  in  her  North  American  possessions." 
"It  cannot  be  disguised  that  however  sincere  may  be  the  desire 
for  peace,  in  the  event  of  a  rupture  these  armaments  and 
preparations  would  be  used  against  our  country/'  After  com- 
menting further  on  English  activities  Polk  again  recommended 
the  passage  of  the  notice.  Toward  the  end  of  the  Message 
he  referred  to  the  fact  that  the  relations  with  Mexico  were  still 
in  an  unsettled  condition ;  a  new  revolution  in  that  country 
might  possibly  defeat,  as  it  had  delayed,  the  settlement  of 
differences  with  the  United  States.  His  concluson  was  this : 

"In  view  of  the  'circumstances'  it  is  my  'judgment'  that  'an 
increase  of  our  naval  and  military  force  is  at  this  time  re- 
quired' to  place  the  country  in  a  suitable  state  of  defense.  At 
the  same  time  it  is  my  settled  purpose  to  pursue  such  a  course 
of  policy  as  may  best  be  calculated  to  preserve  both  with 
Great  Britain  and  Mexico  an  honorable  peace,  which  nothing 
will  so  effectually  promote  as  unanimity  in  our  councils  and  a 
firm  maintenance  of  our  just  rights." 

The  reference  to  communications  to  committees  of  the  Sen- 
ate caused  Webster  to  inquire  what  they  were,  observing  that 
this  practice,  a  new  one,  ought  not  to  be  encouraged.  Fair- 
child,  for  the  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs,  replied  that  it 
was  in  accordance  with  this  report  that  his  committee  had 
brought  in  the  bill  for  ten  steamers.  Benton,  for  the  Com- 
mittee on  Military  Affairs,  after  stating  that  the  reports  had 
been  the  result  of  inquiries  from  the  Senate  at  the  beginning 
of  the  session,  said  that  some  of  the  information  was  of  such 
a  character  that  it  ought  not  yet  to  be  made  public.  Where- 
upon Webster  requested  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Military  Affairs,  when  in  his  opinion  it  was  discreet  and  not 
inimical  to  the  public  service,  to  communicate  to  the  Senate 
that  part  of  the  information  which  might  be  made  public. 


78  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

On  the  same  day  the  "war"  Message  was  received  Allen 
began  his  efforts  to  have  a  day  fixed  for  voting  on  the  resolu- 
tions for  giving  notice.  The  day  before,  in  an  interview  with 
Polk,  he  had  mentioned  Folk's  statement  about  submitting  a 
British  offer  to  the  senate,  and  had  urged  the  President  to 
send  with  a  decided  declaration  of  his  own ;  he  believed,  never- 
theless, that  if  two-thirds  of  the  Senate  advised  the  President 
to  accept  the  offer  he  ought  to  do  so.  Polk  would  give  no 
inkling  of  what  sort  of  a  message  he  would  send.  He  did, 
however,  again  urge  Allen  strongly  to  get  the  resolutions 
voted  on. 

But  the  Senate  was  not  yet  willing  to  go  on  record  in  a  vote, 
and  the  debate  dragged  on.  While  both  factions  were  agreed 
that  it  was  necessary  to  pass  some  sort  of  a  resolution,  the 
peace  party  were  unwilling  to  vote  until  they  were  sure  it 
would  be  in  such  a  form  as  to  preclude  the  possibility  of  war, 
and  they  were  as  yet  not  quite  sure  of  their  strength.  On  the 
first  of  April  Senator  Benton  came  out  flatly  for  a  compromise 
at  49°  to  the  sea.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  had  taken  a 
prominent  part  in  Oregon  discussions  for  twenty-five  years 
this  was  the  first  time  he  had  clearly  stated  his  position32  His 
speech  provoked  a  bitter  reply  from  Hannegan,  who,  as  he 
said,  had  learned  the  lesson  of  55°  from  Benton,  his  political 
teacher  in  many  ways.  He  congratulated  the  Senator  from 
South  Carolina  on  the  convert  he  had  made ;  the  antipodes  had 
met.  Replying  to  a  jocular  remark  Benton  had  made  about 
Cass  as  Agamemnon  and  Hannegan  as  Ajax  he  said: 

"I  would  rather  be  the  private  soldier,  than  with  my  haughty 
foot  press  the  lowly  earth  as  though  it  were  too  mean  for  my 
tread ;  rather  be  the  private  soldier  than  in  every  look,  and 
attitude,  and  act,  and  expression,  proclaim — 'I  am  the  ruler! 
I  will  rule  or  I  will  ruin ;  and  it  is  indifferent  to  me  whether 
the  consequence  be  rule  or  ruin !'  Sir,  be  he  who  he  may, 
there  is  no  man  in  this  land  so  high  as  to  have  it  in  his  power 
to  elevate  or  depress  public  sentiment  in  America  at  his  will. 
Be  he  who  he  may  who  makes  such  an  attempt,  he  will  speedily 


32  Globe,  XV,  581  seq. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  79 

find  his  level.  'Little  Ajax'  let  it  be;  but  let  me  remind  the 
Senator  from  Missouri  that  Agamemnon  and  the  A j axes  were 
not  the  only  actors  at  the  siege  of  Troy.  There  was  an 
Achilles  there ;  and  we  may  have  an  Achilles  here.  Let  the 
Senator  from  Missouri  beware,  lest  he  be  the  Hector  who  will 
grace  the  triumph  of  this  Achilles." 

It  may  be  questioned  whether  the  burst  of  applause  from 
the  galleries  which  followed  this  speech  was  all  due  to  the 
warlike  temper^  of  the  auditors  or  in  part  to  the  too-true  pic- 
ture of  the  venerable  Senator  from  Missouri,  whom  Calhoun 
once  called  the  "Great  I  AM  THOMAS  H.  BENTON." 

Benton's  speech,  and  especially  the  argument  based  on  Jef- 
ferson as  the  "discoverer  of  Oregon/'  started  again  the  subject 
of  title  which  was  debated  for  some  three  weeks  more.  In 
the  course  of  it  Mangum,  a  Whig  from  North  Carolina, 
charged  the  President  with  "botching"  the  whole  business  ;33 
the  firebrand  of  the  Oregon  question  (it  had  formerly  been  the 
"firebrand  of  the  Texas  question")  had  been  thrown  among  a 
people  prone  to  be  warlike,  and  yet  there  was  obvious  contra- 
diction between  the  Message  and  the  lack  of  warlike  prepara- 
tions. The  Administration  was  remarkable  for  its  secretive- 
ness  ;  the  President  had  so  placed  himself  on  the  question  that 
he  could  move  in  either  direction  without  dislocating  his 
political  opinions  any  more  than  he  would  his  physical  struc- 
ture; he  could  agree  to  a  compromise  on  49°  without  being 
absolutely  denounced  by  the  mass  of  Americans.  After  this, 
Mangum  thought,  the  Chief  Executive  should  be  chosen  from 
among  the  able  men  of  the  land. 

Had  the  Senator  from  North  Carolina  been  present  that 
same,  evening  at  an  interview  between  Colonel  Benton  and 
the  President  he  would  have  been  doubly  convinced  of  his 
own  acumen.  Benton  told  Polk  that  it  would  be  better  to  settle 
on  the  compromise  line  and  asked  the  President  whether  it 
might  not  be  well  to  ask  the  Senate  whether  the  offer  should  be 
renewed.  Benton  thought  this  a  good  plan  and  believed  he 
would  make  a  speech  on  the  subject.  Polk  told  him  it  would 

33  Ibid.,  635-6. 


80  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

be  well  to  wait  until  an  Executive  Session  otherwise  the  British 
government  would  know  the  whole  situation  as  well  as  the 
Americans  did,  and  the  United  States  would  have  exposed  its 
hand  while  the  adversary  kept  hers  concealed.  This  point  ap- 
pealed to  Benton  and  he  agreed  to  wait  before  he  spoke  on  the 
subject.34 

A  request  of  the  eleventh  of  April  for  copies  of  late  corre- 
spondence produced  the  reply  that  there  was  nothing  new  to 
submit.  Literally  this  was  true  but  the  Senate  might  have 
received  a  great  deal  of  information  had  the  President  chose 
to  transmit  copies  of  some  of  the  letters  received  from  Mc- 
Lane.  With  or  without  new  letters,  however,  the  Senate  was 
at  last  wearying  of  its  protracted  debate  and  fixed  a  day  upon 
which  it  should  end,  but  not  so  early  that  Sam  Houston,  the 
new  Senator  from  Texas,  could  not  add  his  voice  for  a  naked 
notice,  54°  40',  and  war  if  necessary. 

On  April  sixteenth,  the  day  for  the  vote,  Allen  moved  that 
the  House  resolution  be  taken  first,  but  Reverdy  Johnson's 
motion  that  resolutions,  which  were  essentially  Crittenden's 
preamble  and  bill,  be  adopted  as  amendments  to  the  House 
resolutions  showed  the  Senate  alignment  on  the  whole  topic. 
The  amendment  was  adopted  by  a  vote  of  30  to  24.  The 
minority  was  all  Democratic,  with  twelve  western  Senators  in 
the  number.  The  majority  rallied  the  Whig  vote  from  all 
sections  together  with  six  Democratic  votes — Calhoun  and 
McDuffie  of  South  Carolina,  Haywood  of  North  Carolina, 
Lewis  of  Alabama,  Speight  of  Mississippi,  and  Westcott  of 
Florida. 

The  result  of  the  vote  provoked  Allen  to  lecture  the  Senate 
on  its  stand;  he  said  the  preamble  was  inconsistent  with  the 
resolutions  for  the  President  had  called  upon  Congress  to 
advise  him,  and  now  the  Senate  referred  the  matter  back  to 
him  after  having  accused  him  of  want  of  discretion  in  the  past. 
Now  Great  Britain  would  drag  out  the  negotiations  until  after 
the  adjournment  of  Congress,  make  further  military  prepara- 

34  Polk,  Diary,  I,  324-5. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  81 

tions,  scare  the  Administration  and  get  all  of  Oregon.  The 
result  was  not  to  be  changed,  however,  and  the  conciliatory 
resolutions  were  passed  by  a  vote  of  40  to  14.  The  fourteen 
Invincibles  included  Evans  and  Fair  field  of  Maine  (the  former 
a  Whig),  Clayton  of  Delaware,  Dickinson  of  New  York, 
Jeness  of  New  Hampshire,  Sturgeon  of  Pennslyvania  and 
Westcott  of  Florida. 

The  House  was  not  satisfied  with  the  resolutions  as  they 
came  back  from  the  Senate,  and  struck  out  the  words  "at  his 
discretion"  in  the  part  authorizing  the  President  to  give  notice. 
This  move  was  viewed  with  apprehension  by  the  President 
and  his  Cabinet  who  feared  that  the  non-concurrence  of  the 
House  meant  that  the  Senate  would  indefinitely  postpone  ac- 
tion.35 This  fear  was  increased  when  the  Senate  refused  to 
accept  the  House  amendment  by  a  vote  of  29  to  21.  In  its 
turn  the  House  refused  to  recede  from  its  amendment,  and  the 
Senate,  when  informed  of  the  vote,  was  equally  stubborn.  A 
committee  of  conference  was  appointed,  composed  in  majority 
of  peace  men,  and  after  two  nights'  discussion  brought  in  a 
report  which,  as  Allen  pointed  out  to  the  Senate,  was  identical 
with  Crittenden's  original  measure.  Nevertheless  the  report 
was  adopted  in  both  houses  (42  to  10  in  the  Senate  and  142  to 
46  in  the  House)  and  the  President  was  authorized,  "at  his 
discretion"  to  give  the  notice,  while  "the  attention  of  both 
Governments"  was  "the  more  earnestly  directed  to  the  adop- 
tion of  all  proper  measures  for  a  speedy  and  amicable  adjust- 
ment of  the  differences  and  disputes  in  regard  to  the  (Oregon) 
territory."36 

"Our  triumph  is  complete,"  wrote  Calhoun  to  his  son-in- 
law,  "in  both  houses  and  in  the  country;  of  which  the  ma- 
jority in  the  two  houses  on  the  resolution  for  giving  notice  af- 
fords an  indication.  With  little  exception  the  vote  separates 
the  war  and  peace  parties."37  Calhoun  still  feared  that  the 
notice  would  be  given  to  extort  an  offer  from  Great  Britain 

35  Polk,  Diary,  I,  335-6. 

36  Globe,  XV,  720;  the  resolutions  were  passed  23  April. 

37  To  T.  C.  Clemson,  25  April,  Correspondence  of  Calhoun,  688-9. 


82  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPER 

rather  than  to  serve  as  a  means  for  reopening  negotiations  and 
thus  further  complicate  the  situation  which  had  been  "wretch- 
edly managed,  and  ought  to  have  been  settled  long  ago."38 

The  President  lost  no  time  in  acting  on  the  authority  con- 
ferred by  the  resolutions;  the  notice  was  given  in  the  simplest 
form  directed  not  to  Aberdeen  as  Secretary  of  State  for  For- 
eign Affairs,  but  to  the  Queen  herself,  a  peculiarity  which  was 
satirically  commented  on  by  the  British  press.39 

Among  the  motives  which  made  the  conciliatory  attitude 
prevail  in  Congress  was  concern  about  the  Mexican  situation. 
In  January,  when  it  was  definitely  known  that  the  Mexican 
government  would  not  renew  diplomatic  relations  by  receiv- 
ing Slidell,  General  Taylor  had  been  ordered  to  the  Rio 
Grande.  On  the  twelfth  of  April  General  Ampudia  ordered 
the  American  commander  to  withdraw  his  forces  beyond  the 
Nueces.  This  challenge  was  not  known  officially  in  Washing- 
ton until  the  ninth  of  May  but  earlier  rumors  of  the  general 
situation  had  come,  causing  Cabinet  discussions  of  the  Mexican 
affair.  Polk  had  spoken  to  some  congressmen  of  his  thought 
of  outlining  the  whole  situation  in  a  message  to  Congress,  but 
the  peace  men,  Calhoun  especially,  urged  him  to  wait  until 
the  Oregon  matter  should  have  been  settled.  On  May 
eleventh,  however,  when  General  Taylor's  communication  had 
been  received,  Polk  sent  to  Congress  a  message  announcing 
that  hostilities  had  begun,  and  the  Oregon  Question  retired 
from  the  center  of  the  stage. 

38  Calhoun  to  J.  E.  Calhoun,  i  April,  Ibid.,  688. 

39  Polk,  Diary,  I,  355,  360.    Niks'  Register,  12  Sept,  1846. 


CHAPTER  IX 
OREGON  AND  CONGRESS  :    1845-1846 

While  the  attitude  of  Congress  toward  Oregon  has  been 
brought  out  in  the  discussion  of  the  "notice"  resolutions,  it 
would  be  leaving  the  matter  inadequately  treated  if  reference 
were  not  made  to  other  lines  on  which  the  whole  question  was 
attacked  during  the  session.  The  Message  recommended  other 
action  than  that  alone:  the  protection  of  emigrants,  by  mili- 
tary posts  and  forces;  extension  of  the  laws  of  the  United 
States  over  its  citizens  in  Oregon,  in  default  of  which  they  had 
been  obliged  to  organize  themselves  provisionally;  establish- 
ment of  an  overland  mail  route;  provision  for  an  Indian 
agency  and  laws  regulating  intercourse  with  the  Indians. 

Protection  of  American  citizens  both  in  the  territory  and 
on  the  Oregon  Trail  necessitated,  the  President  thought,  an 
adequate  force  of  mounted  riflemen.  This  recommendation, 
together  with  the  Message's  information  on  the  negotiation, 
caused  Senator  Cass  to  introduce  resolutions  directing  the 
respective  committees  on  Military  Affairs,  Militia  and  Naval 
Affairs  to  inquire  into  the  condition  of  the  defensive  forces  of 
the  United  States  and  to  recommend  such  changes  as  seemed 
necessary.  Cass  definitely  stated  that  there  was  little  doubt 
of  the  United  States  being  in  danger  of  war  over  Oregon; 
the  notice  would  be  given,  the  United  States  would  have  to 
recede  from  the  position  taken  by  the  President  or  war  would 
follow  at  the  expiration  of  the  year.  Thus  the  war  party  first 
sounded  its  trumpet,  and  drew  from  the  peace  party  a  counter- 
blast, for  the  whole  Oregon  Question  was  invoked.  Rather 
than  precipitate  a  debate  over  a  subsidiary  point  the  Senate 
passed  Cass'  resolutions  unanimously  and  then  took  up  the 
question  of  notice.1 

Just  after  this  discussion  the  Administration  learned  of  the 
warlike  preparations  in  England  and  the  question  of  defence 

I  debt,  XV,  45-60. 


84  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

was  seriously  considered;  the  Secretaries  of  War  and  Navy, 
it  was  decided  in  Cabinet,  should  consult  with  appropriate 
committees  of  each  house  and  assist  in  the  preparation  of 
proper  bills.  The  result  of  this  decision  and  of  the  receptive 
mood  of  the  committees  was  the  introduction  of  measures  in 
both  branches  of  Congress  for  an  increase  in  the  armed  forces 
of  the  country.  Haralson,  for  the  House  Committee  on  Mili- 
tary Affairs,  brought  in  a  bill  for  two  regiments  of  mounted 
riflemen  and  moved  its  reference  to  the  Committee  of  the 
Whole  House  as  a  special  order  of  the  day.  Objection  to  this 
produced  a  result  similar  to  that  coming  from  Cass'  resolutions 
in  the  Senate,  and  discussion  immediately  switched  from  the 
subject  in  hand  to  Oregon,  joint  occupancy  and  all  the  other 
aspects  of  the  question. 

Haralson,  who  desired  the  bill  to  be  considered  on  its  own 
merits,  stated  that  the  committee  had  not  framed  it  with  an 
idea  that  it  would  be  looked  upon  as  a  measure  of  preparation 
arising  from  the  international  situation.  He  withdrew  his 
motion  for  a  special  order  and  called  for  the  previous  question 
on  reference  to  the  Committee  of  the  Whole.  The  House, 
however,  was  not  going  to  be  cheated  out  of  discussion  in 
this  fashion,  just  because  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs 
had  been  slow  in  reporting,  and  refused  to  desist,  continuing 
its  debate  on  the  President  and  his  policy  with  Oregon  into  the 
next  day.  Then  came  Sunday,  and  on  Monday  the  Committee 
on  Foreign  Affairs,  having  been  spurred  into  activity,  reported 
and  Oregon  could  be  discussed  under  the  resolutions  for 
notice.  Until  that  topic  had  been  exhausted  and  the  resolu- 
tions passed  no  other  matters  dealing  with  Oregon  could  get 
a  continued  hearing  before  the  House. 

On  the  twenty-third  of  March  the  bill  for  mounted  rifle- 
men was  taken  up  again.  On  the  tenth  of  the  previous  month 
occurred  one  of  the  events  which  gave  point  to  the  proposed 
measure.  The  House,  in  response  to  a  resolution,  had  received 
from  the  President  information  calculated  to  show  that  there 
was  a  possibility  of  hostilities  with  Great  Britain.  McLane's 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  85 

letter2  of  January  third,  which  had  told  that  Aberdeen,  while 
denying  the  preparations  were  pointed  at  America,  said  Her 
Majesty's  government  had  to  consider  the  possibility  of  diffi- 
culties over  Oregon,  accompanied  the  correspondence  with 
Pakenham  over  arbitration.  Another  incentive,  in  spite  of  the 
pacific  turn  in  the  debate  on  the  notice,  had  been  furnished  by 
the  Senate  resolution  of  March  seventeenth  calling  on  the 
President  to  state  whether  there  was  anything  in  the  relations 
of  the  United  States  which  called  for  an  increase  in  the  naval 
and  military  establishments.  All  these  occurrences,  together 
with  the  disquieting  rumors  from  the  Mexican  border  and 
newspaper  accounts  of  British  sentiment,  made  some  Congress- 
men feel  that  some  preparation  was  wise.  On  the  other  hand, 
many  of  the  Oregon  men  were  discouraged  at  what  had  hap- 
pened in  the  Senate  and  openly  stated  their  belief  that  the 
House,  too,  had  lost  its  zeal  for  the  Northwest  Coast.  Then, 
on  March  twenty-fourth,  came  the  President's  Message  in 
answer  to  the  Senate  resolution.  The  next  day  the  House, 
without  debate,  passed  the  bill  for  the  mounted  riflemen 
by  a  vote  of  165  to  15.8 

In  the  Senate  Benton  had  also  introduced  a  bill  for  riflemen 
and  for  posts  along  the  road  to  Oregon.  He  described  it  as  a 
peace  measure  calculated  merely  for  the  defence  of  the 
frontier,  and  as  such  it  was  passed  without  discussion  early  in 
January. 

Further  results  of  the  conferences  between  the  heads  of 
the  War  and  Navy  Departments  and  the  Congressional  Com- 
mittees were  also  in  evidence.  Fairfield,  chairman  of  the  Sen- 
ate Committee  on  Naval  Affairs,  by  reporting  a  measure  foi 
ten  additional  steam  warships  broueht  about  a  discussion  of 
the  possibility  of  war  with  Great  Britain,  but  no  action  was 
taken.  Haralson,  toward  the  end  of  January,  brought  before 
the  House  a  sweeping  measure  by  which  the  President  would 
be  authorized  "to  resist  any  attempt  ...  on  the  part  of 
any  foreign  nation  to  exercise  exclusive  jurisdiction  over  any 

2  Polk,  Diary,  I,  133-4;  Globe,  XV,  332. 

3  Ibid.,  XV.  553  «eq. 


86  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPER 

part  of  the  territory  of  the  United  States,  or  any  territory  in 
dispute  between  the  United  States  and  any  foreign  govern- 
ment, as  well  as  to  sustain  the  rights  of  the  United  States  to, 
and  to  repel  invasion  from,  the  said  territory."  Six-  or  twelve- 
month volunteers  might  be  called  upon  and  a  sum  of  money 
was  to  be  appropriated.  This  measure,  like  the  naval  bill  in 
the  Senate,  did  not  advance,  nor,  indeed,  was  there  any  debate 
upon  it. 

In  April  when  it  was  seen  clearly  enough  that  the  resolu- 
tions for  notice,  probably  with  some  qualifying  restrictions, 
would  pass,  the  House  took  up  the  riflemen  bill  in  order  that 
it  might  be  passed  in  time  to  provide  troops  which  could  be  of 
some  service  in  the  spring  migration  to  Oregon.  With  amend- 
ments, which  increased  the  discretion  of  the  President  in  the 
matter  of  organization  of  the  force,  and  provided  for  grants 
of  land  in  Oregon,  the  bill  passed  on  April  eleventh. 

Immediately  after  passing  this  bill  the  House  took  up  an- 
other measure  on  Oregon  which  had  been  reported  from  the 
Committee  on  Territories  in  December  but  which  had  been 
shoved  aside  for  other  topics.  This  bill  would  extend  the  juris- 
diction of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Iowa  over  American  citizens 
in  the  territory  west  of  the  Rockies  and  in  that  west  of  the 
Missouri  River  between  40°  and  43°.  It  further  provided  a 
grant  of  320  acres  of  land  for  every  white  person,  male  or 
female,  over  the  age  of  eighteen,  who  should  have  resided  in 
Oregon  for  five  years,  although  this  provision  would  not  be- 
come active  for  five  years.  Its  object  as  an  inducement  to 
Oregon  emigration  was  rather  obvious.  The  bill  further  pro- 
vided for  placing  the  Indian  trade  under  a  Superintendent  of 
Indian  Affairs.  As  originally  introduced  it  had  made  pro- 
vision for  blockhouses  along  the  Oregon  route,  for  two  regi- 
ments of  mounted  men  "to  guard  and  protect  emigrants,  set- 
tlers, and  traders  against  the  Indians,"  and  for  carriage  of 
mail  at  least  once  a  month  from  Fort  Leavenworth  to  Coast 
points  via  South  Pass. 

The  Oregon  title  was  debated  anew  as  the  result  of  an 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  87 

attempt  to  limit  the  operation  of  the  measure  to  points  south 
of  49°.  The  Oregon  men  would  specifically  rather  than  by 
implication  extend  jurisdiction  over  all  the  disputed  region, 
although  J.  Q.  Adams,  in  defending  the  title  clear  to  the 
Russian  line  thought  that  no  action  on  this  bill  should  take 
place  until  the  Senate  had  passed  the  notice.  The  House, 
however,  was  apparently  in  no  mood  to  maintain  a  protracted 
debate  on  the  title,  so  after  two  days'  discussion  the  bill,  with 
the  mounted  riflemen  clauses  dropped,  was  reported  by  the 
Committee  of  the  Whole  in  essentially  the  same  form  it  had 
come  from  the  Committee  on  Territories.  In  the  final  steps 
in  the  House  Garett  Davis'  amendment  for  a  fully  organized 
territory  and  two  amendments  bearing  on  the  slavery  question 
were  rejected,  and  the  bill  was  passed,  two  days  after  the 
Senate  resolutions  on  the  notice  were  passed. 

The  measure  was  received  in  the  Senate  and  referred  to 
the  Committee  on  Territories  where  it  rested  although  the 
President  urged  Benton  to  take  charge  of  it  and  press  it  for 
he  feared  the  Whigs,  with  a  few  Democrats,  would  be  in- 
clined to  suppress  it.  Haywood  also  was  consulted,  but  he 
was  disinclined  to  act,  whereupon  Polk  told  him  that  the 
action  of  the  House  had  shown  the  attitude  of  the  country, 
and  if  the  Senate  should  block  the  matter  he,  as  President, 
would  make  it  an  issue  before  the  nation.  But  Haywood  could 
promise  no  more  than  look  into  the  question.4  The  Senate's 
dilatoriness  delayed  House  action  on  another  bill  which  had 
been  introduced  to  provide  regulation  of  Indian  affairs  west 
of  the  Rockies.  An  ordinary  measure  of  its  kind  it  had  passed 
to  the  third  reading  on  April  twentieth  and  then  further  action 
was  postponed  until  the  first  of  June  when  it  should  be  seen 
what  the  upper  house  did  with  the  jurisdiction  bill. 

It  is  to  be  noticed  that  all  these  measures  dealing  with  Ore- 
gon, except  the  resolutions  for  notice,  came  to  a  standstill  in 
the  latter  part  of  April.  There  was  a  disposition  to  wait  and 
see  what  would  be  the  result  in  England  of  the  passage  of 
the  notice  before  further  action  was  taken. 

4  Polk,  Diary,  I,  376-8  passim. 


88  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPER 

Before  news  from  England  could  be  received,  however,  the 
Mexican  situation  came  to  the  crisis  and  swept  everything 
else  aside.  Two  of  the  measures  for  defence,  which  had 
proceeded  through  the  first  stages,  fitted  in  most  opportunely 
with  the  new  conditions.  The  House  bill  authorizing  the  use 
of  the  military  and  naval  forces  of  the  United  States  and  such 
portion  of  the  militia  as  should  be  necessary  was  taken  up 
the  day  the  President's  Mexican  Message  was  received  (11 
May)  and  passed  by  an  overwhelming  majority.  The  blanks 
were  filled  to  allow  a  call  for  50,000  volunteers  and  the  use 
of  $10,000,000.  while  the  preamble  was  amended  to  state  that 
a  condition  of  war  existed  between  Mexico  and  the  United 
States.5  It  was  passed  by  the  Senate  the  next  day  with  but 
two  dissenting  votes. 

Two  days  later  the  bill  for  mounted  riflemen  with  the  House 
amendments,  which  had  been  reposing  in  committee,  was 
hastilv  brought  to  light,  the  House  amendments  rejected  and 
passed.  The  House  receded  from  its  amendments  and  the 
President  signed  the  bill.8 

Men  began  to  wonder  and  to  relate  various  apparently  dis- 
connected circumstances ;  thev  found  themselves  wholly  at  a 
loss  to  explain  the  course  of  the  Administration.  Witness 
C.  C.  Cambreling.  writing  from  Washington  just  after  the 
Mexican  Message  reached  Congress:7 

.  "I  am  utterly  astonished  at  the  little  judgment  and 
less  integrity  which  has  distinguished  the  course  of  this  ad- 
ministration. First  as  it  regards  England — when  some  three 
or  four  months  ago  she  was  making  war-like  preparations — 
McLane  was  instructed  to  inouire  of  Aberdeen  whether  those 
oreparations  were  intended  for  us — and  now  it  appears  that 
before  the  enquiry  was  made,  Bancroft  was  'confidentially' 
recommending  ten  war  steamers — the  Bureaus  fortv  war 
steamers  and  March  fiftv  thousand  volunteers  with  the  knowl- 
edge and  approbation  of  the  President!  What  explanation 
could  McLane  make  to  Aberdeen  of  these  secret  preparations 

5  Globe,   XV,   791.   795,   804. 

6  Polk  records   (Diary,  al,  407-24  passim")   that  he  was  besieged  by  hundreds 
of  applicants  for  the  thirty-odd  commissions  which  the  act  created. 

7  To  Van  Buren,  16  May,  Van  Buren  Papers,  Vol.  53. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  89 

for  war  in  the  face  of  our  demand  of  the  British  government  ? 
How  uncandid  and  dishonorable  must  the  conduct  of  the 
President  and  his  Prime  Minister  appear  in  the  eyes  of  all 
honest  men." 

The  feeling  that  the  Administration  had  blundered  was  ex- 
pressed on  every  side. 

"The  administration,  as  such,  has  no  cordial  support 
in  either  house  of  Congress,  and  in  the  three  important  branches 
at  the  present  time,  considering  the  state  of  our  foreign  rela- 
tions, of  State,  war  and  navy,  the  general  and  prevailing  senti- 
ment certainly  is  that  they  are  wanting  in  nearly  every  quali- 
fication that  the  emergency  requires.  I  do  not  think  it  is  well 
possible  to  have  mismanaged  more  completely  the  negotiations 
either  about  Oregon  or  with  Mexico;  for  certainly  all  the 
international  occurrences  both  in  England  and  Mexico  have 
been  such  as  to  have  aided  our  views  had  they  been  judiciously 
taken  advantage  of  .  .  ."8 

The  mounted  riflemen,  intended  originally  for  Oregon,  were 
used  in  the  conflict  with  Mexico,  and  this  is  a  good  illustration 
of  the  fate  of  the  measures  dealing  with  the  Northwest  Coast. 
The  House  bill  for  extending  jurisdiction  of  American  laws 
over  Oregon  was  thought  by  the  Senate  Committee  on  Terri- 
tories inexpedient  at  the  time,  although  Westcott,  for  the  com- 
mittee, reported  that  it  was  believed  Congress  should  provide  a 
territorial  organization  and  gave  notice  that  he  would  move  a 
postponement  of  consideration  until  the  following  December. 
Benton  took  occasion  (it  was  the  twenty- first  of  May,  while 
all  were  awaiting  news  of  the  British  reception  of  the  notice) 
to  prepare  the  Senate  for  an  offer  of  49°  from  Great  Britain. 

In  a  speech  which  occupied  several  hours  on  each  of  three 
days9  he  proceeded  to  demolish,  to  his  own  satisfaction  at  least, 
the  fiction  that  54°  40'  was  a  line  for  the  northern  boundary 
of  the  United  States'  claim.  It  was,  he  said,  the  intention  in 
1824  to  divide  the  Pacific  Coast  between  Russia,  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States,  Great  Britain  taking  the  middle  por- 
tion from  49°  to  54°  40'.  The  plan  did  not  work  out,  owing 

8  H.  D.  Gilpin  to  Van  Buren,  24  May,  Ibid. 

g  Globe,    XV,    847,    850-62,    913-20.      This   speech    was   in   line   with    Benton's 
proposition  when  he  consulted  the  President  on  April  ninth.     Polk,  Diary,  I,  325. 


90  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

to  the  attitude  of  Russia,  so  the  other  nations  each  negotiated 
directly  with  the  Czar  and  then  arranged  between  themselves 
the  non-colonization  agreement;  each  confined  Russia  to  the 
coasts  and  islands  north  of  54°  40'.  But  54°  40'  had  been  taken 
up  as  a  line  to  which  the  United  States  had  always  laid  claim, 
the  more  so  because  of  a  map  made  by  Mr.  Greenhow,  a  clerk 
in  the  Department  of  State,  who  so  long  as  he  confined  him- 
self to  the  business  of  copying  maps  and  voyages  did  very 
well,  but  when  he  went  to  issuing  opinions  upon  national  sub- 
jects and  setting  the  world  right  about  the  execution  or  non- 
execution  of  a  great  treaty,  such  as  that  of  Utrecht — "when 
he  goes  at  this  work,  the  Lord  deliver  us  from  the  humbug!" 
The  map  on  which  Mr.  Greenhow  and  those  who  had  been 
so  eager  for  war  and  54°  40'  did  not  show  that  line  as  a  limit 
for  the  claim  of  the  United  States  but  merely  a  line  which 
separated  Russian  from  British  claims.  This  was  known  to 
American  negotiators  when  they  had  offered  to  settle  at  49°. 

"This  is  the  end  of  that  great  line!  All  gone — vanished — 
evaporated  into  thin  air — and  the  place  where  it  was  not  to  be 
found.  Oh !  mountain  that  was  delivered  of  a  mouse,  thy  name 
shall  henceforth  be  fifty-four  forty! 

"All  Oregon  or  none!" 

The  whole  theme  of  Benton's  speech  was  that  the  treaty 
of  Utrecht  had  settled  the  whole  question ;  49°  had  been  forced 
upon  the  United  States  in  1803  and  1819  as  the  northern 
boundary  of  Louisiana  and  as  such  had  been  submitted  to  by 
Great  Britain.  Jefferson's  attitude  in  dealing  with  the  Louisi- 
ana Territory  after  its  purchase  demonstrated  that  he  thought 
so.  Finally  turning  to  the  bill  before  the  Senate  Benton  main- 
tained that  it  was  not  in  accordance  with  the  recommendations 
of  the  President  who  wished  Congress  merely  to  go  as  far  as 
Great  Britain  in  the  matter  of  jurisdiction  and  no  farther. 
All  the  Oregon  measures  would  have  passed  long  ago,  just 
like  the  blockhouse  bill,  if  they  had  not  been  brought  in  as 
war  measures.  He  moved  a  recommitment  with  instructions  to 
the  committee  to  prepare  an  amendment  extending  the  laws 
of  the  United  States  over  Oregon  to  the  same  degree  that  the 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  91 

British  Act  of  Parliament  had  extended  British  laws,  and  to 
bring  in  a  bill  for  a  full  and  perfect  territorial  organization 
to  go  into  effect  as  soon  as  the  convention  for  joint  occupa- 
tion should  have  been  annulled,  and  to  apply  to  such  a  portion 
as  should  be  agreed  upon  with  Great  Britain.  Until  an  agree- 
ment should  have  been  reached  let  the  northern  limit  be  49*. 

Cass  took  up  the  issue  and  contended  that  Americans  would 
never  be  satisfied  with  this  explanation  until  evidence  had  been 
brought  from  Paris  to  substantiate  it.  He  accused  Benton  of 
reversing  the  stand  he  had  taken  in  1842  and  1843.  Neither 
Benton  nor  Cass,  however,  could  obtain  action  for  the  majority 
agreed  with  Webster  when  he  said  that  he  would  never  think 
of  creating  a  territorial  establishment  before  the  boundary  had 
been  settled. 

Even  after  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  which  did  settle 
the  boundary  there  were  further  obstacles  to  be  overcome. 
When,  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  June,  the  question  of  a  date  for 
final  adjournment  came,  several  Senators  agreed  that  some- 
thing should  be  done  before  the  session  closed,  but  as  a  steamer 
was  due  on  the  third  of  August  and  the  British  ratification 
would  probably  arrive  then,  they  thought  it  would  be  well  to 
take  up  other  matters  until  that  time.  The  ratification  arrived 
according  to  schedule,  and  the  treaty  was  laid  before  Congress, 
but  still  the  organization  was  delayed.  Senator  Hannegan, 
still  resentful  over  the  defeat  of  his  plans,  said  that  it  was 
inconceivable  that  a  bill  for  territorial  government  should  be 
passed  before  the  treaty  had  been  debated.  The  treaty  was 
nothing  more  or  less  than  another  agreement  for  joint  occupa- 
tion south  of  49*  while  Great  Britain  had  a  clear  title  north 
of  that  line ;  the  grant  in  perpetuity  to  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany of  free  navigation  was  evidence  of  his  contention.10 

It  was  not  the  fault  of  the  House  that  Congress  adjourned 
with  no  definite  Oregon  action.  On  the  same  day  the  treaty 
was  received  from  the  President  (6  August)  the  Committee 
on  Territories  brought  in  a  bill.  With  almost  no  discussion 

10  Globe,  XV,   1023-4,   1179,   1198-0.     Cass   (Ibid.,   1204)  agreed  with  Hanne- 
gan about  the  navigation  of  the  Columbia. 


92  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPER 

the  Committee  of  the  Whole  House  reported  it  to  the  House 
with  the  amendment  that  "neither  slavery  nor  involuntary 
servitude  (should)  ever  exist  in  said  Territory,  except  in  the 
punishment  of  crimes."  By  a  vote  of  108  to  43  the  House 
accepted  the  amendment  and  passed  the  bill.11  But  the  Senate 
would  not  act. 

While  the  measures  just  described  were  the  chief  of  those 
before  Congress,  they  were  by  no  means  all.  Among  the  Ore- 
gon activities  two  committee  reports,  one  in  each  house,  on 
the  question  of  a  railroad  to  Oregon  deserve  a  few  words. 
In  the  House  a  memorial  from  George  Wilkes  and  others  pray- 
ing Congress  to  appropriate  the  means  of  constructing  a  rail- 
road from  some  point  on  Lake  Michigan  or  from  Fort  Inde- 
pendence was  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Roads  and  Canals. 
The  committee  reported12  that  while  it  found  no  constitutional 
obstacle  the  whole  scheme  was  too  gigantic  and  impracticable 
at  the  time.  In  the  Senate  where  Eli  Whitney  again  attempted 
to  get  a  hearing  for  his  Northern  Pacific  Railroad,  Senator 
Breese  appeared  as  a  supporter  of  the  proposition.  He  intro- 
duced the  memorial,  spoke  in  its  favor,  and,  for  the  Committee 
on  Public  Lands,  reported  a  bill.  When  the  bill  had  been  read 
in  part  Senator  Benton  interrupted  to  say  that  it  was  entirely 
improper  then  to  take  the  time  of  the  Senate  for  such  an  absurd 
matter;  here  was  a  person  who  applied  to  Congress  for  90,- 
000,000  acres  of  public  land  and  agreed  to  build  3,000  miles 
of  railroad,  in  the  face  of  that  he  would  not  be  surprised  if 
some  one  came  along  and  offered  to  take  over  the  whole  gov- 
ernment. The  bill  was  not  only  the  most  ridiculous  and  absurd 
ever  presented  to  Congress  but  it  was  impudent  as  well.  The 
Senate,  however,  was  less  outspoken  in  its  scorn,  and  allowed 
the  committee  to  have  its  report  printed. 

Oregon  came  up  in  resolutions  from  State  legislatures,  in 
petitions  touching  upon  all  sides  of  the  controversy,  as  well  as 
in  requests  for  grants  of  land ;  among  the  latter  was  one  from 
the  widow  of  Captain  Gray,  the  discoverer  of  the  Columbia 

ii  Ibid.,  1200-3. 

i a  Ho.  Rep.  No.  779,  agth  Cong.   ist.   Ses. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  93 

River.  Oregon  appeared  in  the  debates  on  the  Rivers  and 
Harbors  Bill  in  an  amendment  "for  the  improvement  of  the 
Columbia  river  in  Oregon,  $100,000,"  whereat  one  Congress- 
man said  he  had  no  objection  to  a  little  sport  but  he  thought 
it  was  going  too  far  to  propose  an  appropriation  for  the  Co- 
lumbia until  it  was  known  "whether  we  owned  it  or  not." 
"But  the  title  is  'clear  and  unquestionable'  you  know,"  came 
the  response  from  various  parts  of  the  House. 


CORRESPONDENCE  OF  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

Edited  by  SARAH  FISHER  HENDERSON,  NELLIE  EDITH  LATOURETTE,  KENNETH  SCOTT 

LATOURETTE 

(Continued  from  Page  372  in  Quarterly  for  December,  1918) 

Oregon  City,  Oct.  8th,  1854. 
Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  Am.  Bapt.  Home  Mission  Soc. 
Dear  Brother: 

Yours  of  Sept.  18th  containing  your  account  with  me,  also 
a  bill  of  goods  sent  me  by  the  Am.  Bapt.  Home  Mission 
Society  Sept.  6th,  amounting  to  $466.66,  with  a  bill  of  lading 
for  six  boxes  and  two  barrels  of  merchandise,  were  received 
by  the  last  mail.  Was  very  glad  to  learn  that  they  are  on 
the  way.  Since  I  last  wrote  I  have  visited  West  Tualatin 
Church  and  spent  nearly  a  week  with  the  Shilo  Church  on 
a  council  called  on  account  of  difficulties  existing  between 

Elder and  the  majority  of  the  church  on  one  hand  and 

the  minority  of  the  church  on  the  other.    Br. had  been 

quite  imprudent  and  serious  charges  were  preferred  against 
him,  but  with  not  sufficient  proof  to  induce  the  council  to 
recommend  his  being  deposed  from  the  ministry.352  After 
three  days'  and  two  nights'  hard  labor,  the  council  gave 
their  advice  to  the  church  and  all  the  parties  concerned, 
which  resulted  in  an  amicable  adjustment  of  all  difficulties. 
We  have  felt  the  necessity  of  our  church  members  under- 
standing and  practicing  gospel  discipline  in  case  of  difficul- 
ties before  they  come  before  the  church.  Our  Divine  Master 
has  condescended  to  give  us  the  most  simple  and  yet  the 
most  perfect  rules  for  discipline  either  in  private  trespasses 
or  public  immorality. 

Yours  with  sentiments  of  Christian  affection. 

EZRA  FISHER. 
Received  Dec.  26. 

352  This  was  Rev.  William  M.  Davis.  Shortly  after  th«  firrt  council  here 
mentioned,  a  second  council  was  called,  which  urged  drastic  action,  and  the  church 
entirely  repudiated  him. — Mattoon,  Bap.  An.  of  Or*.,  I:io. 


96  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

Oregon  City.  O.  Ter.,  Oct.  17th,  1854. 
Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  A.  Bap.  Home  Mission  Society. 
Dear  Brother: 

I  have  just  returned  from  the  yearly  meeting  of  the 
Pleasant  Butte  Church,  seventy-five  miles  up  the  valley 
from  this  place  and  thirty-five  south  of  Salem.  This  church, 
like  all  our  churches,  is  located  in  the  heart  of  a  flourishing 
country  admirably  adapted  to  grazing  and  the  growing  of 
wheat,  corn,  oats  and  all  kinds  of  vegetables  and  fruits 
adapted  to  this  climate.  I  spent  ten  days  with  the  church, 
preaching  Saturdays  and  Sabbaths  and  one  sermon  each 
night.  The  meetings  were  interesting,  but  not  attended  with 
the  same  results  as  last  year.  During  the  meeting  six  were 
added  by  letter,  one  was  received  for  baptism,  there  were 
two  hopeful  cases  of  conversion  and  four  or  five  others  were 
manifestly  interested  in  their  souls'  welfare.  Br.  Wm. 
Sperry  is  the  pastor  with  whom  I  have  labored.  This  church 
has  a  flourishing  Sabbath  school  and  meets  every  Sabbath 
for  preaching  or  prayer.  The  converts  of  last  year  appear 
very  well.  The  church  will  probably  hire  a  man  and  put 
him  on  Br.  Sperry's  farm  the  coming  year  and  by  this  means 
mostly  liberate  him  to  the  work  of  the  ministry  in  that 
church  and  vicinity.  This  is  much  better  than  the  entire 
neglect  of  the  ministry.  This  closes  up  our  yearly  meetings 
till  the  opening  of  the  spring.  I  had  hoped  that  I  should 
have  been  able  to  give  particular  attention  to  Washington 
Ter.  at  the  close  of  this  meeting,  but  there  are  two  pressing 
calls,  one  in  Washington  County  and  the  other  in  Marion, 
twelves  miles  south  of  Salem,  which  are  obviously  more 
immediately  important  than  the  exploration  of  Washington 
Ter.  at  this  season  of  the  year.  Our  brethren  here  urge  a 
delay  of  the  exploration  of  that  territory  till  another  season. 
So  also  the  Methodist  minister353  who  has  charge  of  that 
district  advises.  I  am  collecting  facts  relative  to  the  region 
of  Pugets  Sound  and  shall  be  able  to  give  you  a  pretty 

353  This  was  Rev.  John  F.  De  Vore. — George  H.  Himes. 


CORRESPONDENCE  97 

general  view  of  the  relative  importance  of  that  country  in 
three  or  four  weeks.  My  present  impressions  are  that  the 
Baptist  cause  in  that  region  is  not  suffering  so  much  for 
the  want  of  immediate  attention  as  the  more  populous  parts 
of  Oregon  and  California  are.  Here  we  have  numbers  of 
organized  church,  which  must  be  visited  occasionally,  and 
of  settlements  where  churches  might  be  constituted  if  they 
could  have  the  encouragement  of  preaching  four  Sabbaths 
in  a  year,  and  for  want  of  which  labors  our  members  are 
either  lying  still  or  joining  Methodist  and  Cumberland 
Presbyterian  churches.  I  visited  Salem  on  my  return  from 
Pleasant  Butte  Church  last  week.  Find  Salem,  the  capital 
of  the  Ter.,  with  a  population  of  about  1200  souls,  with  a 
Methodist  Episcopal  church  and  a  good  house  of  worship, 
a  Protestant  Methodist  church  and  house  nearly  finished,  an 
Episcopal  house  completed  and  a  Congregational  church  and 
house  completed.  Found  but  five  Baptist  members  in  the 
place  and  but  one  of  them  who  can  be  considered  permanent. 
There  are  two  members  probably  permanently  located  two 
miles  from  the  town  who  wish  to  promote  the  cause  in 
town.  The  whole  surrounding  country  is  settled  mostly  on 
section  claims  one  mile  square.  The  place  must  have  a 
rapid  growth.  There  is  no  doubt  but  a  man  if  sent  there 
and  supported  would  call  a  small  congregation  around  him, 
if  his  talent  were  popular  and  piety  undoubted,  with  good, 
sound  common  sense,  and  he  might  hope  to  see  his  congre- 
gation increase  with  the  growth .  of  the  place.  Besides,  a 
good  substantial,  efficient  minister  located  there  would  do 
good  service  through  the  whole  surrounding  country  with 
its  four  Baptist  churches.  Salem  certainly  should  not  be 
long  neglected  by  your  Society.  Some  aid  no  doubt  could 
be  obtained  from  the  surrounding  churches  towards  sustain- 
ing an  effective  minister  in  that  place.  Yet  most  of  a 
minister's  salary  would  have  to  come  from  home,  and  it 
would  require  from  $600  to  $800  to  give  a  family  of  ordinary 
size  an  annual  support.  I  have  no  doubt  but  the  expenditure 
for  such  an  appointment  would  be  judicious,  if  your  Board 


98  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

can  sustain  such  a  man  there  after  supporting  the  suffering 
cause  at  Portland  and  Oregon  City,  both  of  which  places 
are  probably  in  greater  need  of  a  minister  than  Salem.  Port- 
land has  some  permanent  and  able  supporters.  At  Oregon 
City  is  our  school  for  the  Territory.  All  our  towns  are 
subject  to  frequent  changes,  yet  they  are  towns,  and  will 
continue  to  be  places  of  trade  from  which  an  influence  will 
be  continually  going  out  into  the  surrounding  country  and  into 
the  whole  world.  A  minister's  Sabbaths  should  mostly  be 
spent  in  town  unless  he  can  have  his  place  filled  occasionally 
by  proxy,  or  little  can  be  effected  by  the  side  of  other  organized 
churches  with  a  stated  Sabbath  ministry. 

As  ever  yours, 

EZRA  FISHER. 
*      *      *      * 

Received  Nov.  25. 


Oregon  City,  Ore.  Ter.,  Nov.  8th,  1854. 
To  Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  Am.  Bapt.  Home  Mission  Soc.,  New  York. 
Dear  Br.  Hill: 

This  is  to  inform  you  that  Rev.  William  F.  Boyakin,354 
formerly  from  Carrolton,  Illinois,  and  late  of  St.  Joseph, 
Missouri,  arrived  in  Portland  about  the  tenth  of  October 
with  his  family.  Since  that  time  he  has  been  preaching  to 
the  scattered  Baptist  brethren  in  that  place.  I  visited  Port- 
land three  weeks  since  on  a  tour  west  and  south.  Found  he 
was  making  a  favorable  impression  on  the  minds  of  the  Bap- 
tist members  and  the  public;  gave  them  some  advice.  Since 
my  return  Br.  Boyakin  has  preached  in  this  place.  He  informs 
me  that  the  Baptist  members  have  invited  him  to  labor  with 
them  in  Portland  for  one  year  and  that  they  have  agreed  to 
ask  the  Home  Mission  Society  to  appoint  him  as  their  mis- 
sionary to  Portland  for  one  year  with  a  salary  of  $800,  $200 

354  Rev.  W.  F.  Boyakin  helped  to  organize  the  Portland  Church  in  May,  1855. 
In  1856  he  moved  to  Corvallis  at  the  invitation  of  the  church  there. — Mattoon,  Bap. 
An.  of  Ore.,  I:n,  14.  Mattoon  says  he  was  from  Mississippi. 


CORRESPONDENCE  99 

of  which  the  people  pledge  themselves  they  will  pay.  They 
therefore  ask  your  Board  to  pay  him  $600  of  the  $800.  I 
have  the  impression  that  your  acquaintance  with  Br.  Boyakin's 
reputation  as  a  preacher  is  better  than  mine.  I  think  he  has 
been  favorably  known  ,both  in  Illinois  and  Missouri,  as  an 
effective  Baptist  preacher.  I  think  from  the  short  acquaintance 
I  have  with  him  that  he  is  well  adapted  to  get  up  an  interest 
in  Portland.  He  commends  himself  at  once  to  the  people  as 
an  eloquent  man  well  acquainted  with  that  form  of  human 
nature  which  develops  itself  in  our  rising  towns  in  the  West. 
He  seems  to  have  the  true  missionary  spirit.  Should  he  con- 
tinue to  wear  as  he  now  promises,  we  have  no  man  in  Oregon 
so  well  adapted  to  that  field  as  he  is.  I  think  he  will  need 
$800  salary  to  support  his  family  (of  7  persons  I  believe)  in 
Portland.  I  think  the  people  will  supply  $200  of  the  salary, 
probably  not  more  the  first  year.  Br.  Boyakin  is  poor,  having 
expended  almost  all  his  means  in  reaching  the  field,  seems 
desirous  of  trying  what  he  can  do  in  Portland  and  I  am 
now  impressed  favorably  with  the  thought  that  the  Lord  has 
directed  him  in  a  very  favorable  time  to  his  appropriate  field 
of  labor.  He  is  calling  a  good  congregation  to  a  school-house 
which  the  brethren  have  fitted  up  temporarily  as  a  place  of 
worship.  As  it  relates  to  the  importance  of  the  place,  you 
hardly  need  any  further  information.  Portland  is  the  principal 
port  for  Oregon  at  present,  numbering  probably  about  2000 
souls,  with  from  30  to  50  trading  houses,  wholesale  and 
retail,  and  must,  for  years  at  least,  be  the  most  commercial 
town  in  the  Territory.  When  the  resources  of  the  country 
are  developed,  I  think  the  great  commercial  city  of  the 
Columbia  River  will  be  somewhere  below  the  mouth  of  the 
Willamette  River,  yet  Portland  will  even  then  be  an  important 
point.  By  a  reference  to  the  map  of  the  surveyed  parts  of 
Oregon,  you  will  see  that  it  is  14  miles  above  the  mouth  of 
the  Willamette  in  the  heart,  or  rather  at  the  foot,  of  one  of  the 
most  fertile  portions  of  country  in  North  America.  Our 
country  is  fast  filling  up  and,  although  at  present  the  influence 
of  the  Nebraska  and  Kansas  movements  may  for  two  or  three 


100  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

years  somewhat  retard  our  onward  progress,355  yet  I  think 
the  immigration  will  be  checked  only  to  flow  in  more  abun- 
dantly when  the  Nebraskan  excitement  shall  have  worked  its 
discontent  among  the  early  settlers  to  that  territory.  I  trust 
your  Board  will  be  prompt  in  making  the  appointment  and  may 
God  in  His  infinite  mercy  bless  to  the  building  up  of  a  strong 
interest  in  Portland  and  the  surrounding  country. 
With  much  esteem,  your  unworthy  brother, 

EZRA  FISHER. 

N.  B. — Br.  Boyakin,  in  behalf  of  the  brethren  in  Portland, 
will  make  the  application  stating  the  time  they  will  wish  the 
appointment  to  take  effect. 
Received  Dec.  26. 


Oregon  City,  O.  Ten,  Jan.  1st,  1855. 
To  Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  of  Am.  Bap.  Home  Mission  Society : 
Herein  I  send  you  my  report  of  labor  under  the  appoint- 
ment of  the  Home  Mission  Society  as  Exploring  Agent  for 
the  third  quarter  ending  the  thirty-first  day  of  Dec.,  1854. 
During  the  quarter  I  have  visited  Portland  twice,  the  Cas- 
cades in  Washington  Ten,  The  Dalles,  east  of  the  Cascade 
Mountains,  West  Union  Church,  West  Tualatin  Church 
twice,  Shilo  Church  and  a  settlement  of  unorganized  Baptists 
near  the  junction  of  the  Columbia  and  Sandy  rivers  in 
Clackamas  County;  labored  13  weeks;  traveled  to  and  from 
my  appointments  617  miles ;  paid  nine  dollars  eighty-two  cents 
($9.82)  for  traveling  expenses  and  eighteen  cents  ($0.18)  for 
postage;  preached  20  sermons.  I  attended  a  council  in  case 
of  difficulty  of  a  serious  kind  in  which  I  labored  three  days 
and  almost  two  nights,  with  but  six  hours'  intermission.  The 
result  of  our  labors  seemed  blessed  under  God  in  restoring 
union  to  the  distracted  church, 

Respectfully  submitted, 

EZRA  FISHER, 
Exploring  Agent. 


355  The  Kansas-Nebraska  Act  of  May,  1854,  organized  these  territories  and 
left  the  question  of  slavery  to  the  vote  of  the  settlers.  This  led  to  a  large  immi- 
gration to  these  regions  from  both  North  and  South. 


CORRESPONDENCE  101 

Oregon  City,  O.  Ten,  Jan.  1st,  1855. 
To  Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  of  Am.  Bapt.  Home  Mission  Soc. : 
Herein  I  send  you  my  report  of  labor  under  the  appoint- 
ment of  the  Home  Mission  Society  as  General  Itinerant  for 
the  3rd  quarter  ending  the  31st  day  of  Dec.,  1854.  I  have 
labored  thirteen  weeks  in  the  quarter;  preached  20  sermons; 
attended  six  prayer  meetings,  two  church  covenant  meetings 
and  one  council  of  three  days ;  visited  religiously  fifty- four 
families  and  other  persons,  one  common  school ;  traveled  to 
and  from  my  appointments  six  hundred  and  seventeen  miles. 
Connected  with  the  churches  I  have  visited  are  three  Sabbath 
schools,  one  in  Pleasant  Butte  Church  on  Calapooia  River, 
Lynn  Co.,  one  in  West  Union  Church,  Washington  County, 
and  one  in  Oregon  City,  numbering  each  about  twenty-five 
scholars  and  four  teachers. 

Respectfully  submitted, 

EZRA  FISHER. 

General  Itinerant. 
Received  Feb.  9. 


Oregon  City,  O.  Ter.,  Jan.  15th,  1855. 
Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  Am.  Bap.  Home  Mission  Society. 
Dear  Br. : 

I  take  my  pen  to  give  you  a  brief  account  of  my  late  tour 
from  this  place  to  The  Dalles,  a  rising  town  and  a  military 
post  on  the  Columbia  near  the  east  base  of  the  Cascade 
Mountains. 

I  left  home  on  the  17th  of  Nov.  and  traveled  twenty-two 
miles  north  to  the  mouth  of  the  Sandy,  a  stream  nearly  as 
large  as  the  Mohawk,  which  rises  in  the  eternal  snows  of 
Mount  Hood  and  flows  into  the  Columbia  at  the  west  base 
of  the  Cascade  Range,  twenty-five  miles  west  from  the 
celebrated  Cascade  Falls.  Having  failed  of  reaching  the 
Columbia  in  time  to  take  the  regular  steamer,  I  was  detained 


102  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

several  days  till  the  next  trip  of  the  boat.  Here  I  found 
between  fifteen  and  twenty  Baptist  members,  including-  an 
aged  minister  (Br.  Bond),  with  an  enfeebled  wife  for  many 
years  mostly  confined  to  her  bed.  They  are  scattered 
through  a  fertile,  timbered,  undulating  country  eight  or  ten 
miles  from  north  to  south  and  perhaps  half  that  distance 
from  east  to  west.  Br.  Bond  is  preaching-  what  he  can  while 
laboring  with  all  his  powers  to  obtain  a  comfortable  support 
for  himself  and  helpless  family.  These  brethren  occupy 
prospectively  one  of  the  most  important  country  positions  in 
all  Oregon,  but  at  present  they  have  to  contend  with  all  the 
inconveniences  of  removing1  forests  of  enormous  growth  before 
they  can  reap  a  harvest  from  their  generous  soil.  However, 
they  will  soon  be  placed  above  want  and  probably  abound  in 
the  farmer's  wealth.  A  church  will  be  constituted  here  in 
the  coming-  spring,  if  not  before.  This  point  is  more  promis- 
ing than  many  fields  in  the  Mississippi  Valley  where  labor  and 
money  are  expended  by  missionary  societies. 

The  following  week  I  took  the  steamer  and  visited  The 
Cascades,  a  town  site,  with  eight  or  ten  families  scattered  on 
the  north  bank  of  the  Columbia  for  a  distance  of  three  miles 
from  the  head  to  the  foot  of  the  Cascade  Falls,  about  midway 
of  the  Cascade  Mountains,  from  east  to  west.  These  families 
have  resorted  here  for  matters  of  speculation  and,  with  few 
exceptions,  manifest  less  desire  for  the  bread  of  eternal  life 
than  for  the  mammon  of  unrighteousness.  This  is  the  great 
natural  gateway  through  the  Cascade  Mountains  and  must  at 
no  distant  day  become  a  place  of  great  commercial  and  manu- 
facturing importance,  it  being  the  head  of  ship  navigation  to 
the  Columbia  and  there  being  a  vast  region  of  the  best  grazing 
country  in  North  America  on  the  Columbia  and  its  hundred 
tributaries,  which  must  soon  be  put  in  requisition  to  graze  the 
cattle  and  horses  of  Oregon  and  Washington  territories. 
Occasionally  through  the  summer  a  Methodist  circuit  preacher 
has  visited  and  preached  in  this  place.  Here  I  found  one 
pious  Methodist  sister  and  one  or  two  Campbellite  members. 
The  country  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Columbia  is  now  settled 


CORRESPONDENCE  103 

with  families  and  bachelors  most  of  the  way  from  this  place  to 
Vancouver,  a  distance  of  forty-five  miles. 

The  next  week  I  took  the  steamer356  for  The  Dalles; 
ascended  the  broad,  deep  Columbia  twenty-five  miles  to  the 
mouth  of  Dog-  River,357  a  considerable  stream  tumbling  down 
with  great  rapidity  from  the  snowy  sides  of  Mt.  Hood. 
Here  I  found  Br.  Coe,  late  postal  agent  for  Oregon,  and 
wife.  This  settlement  consists  of  three  white  families,  but 
will  soon  be  swollen  to  fifty  or  100.  The  steamer  having  left 
me,  on  the  29th  of  November,  to  save  a  weeks  delay  and  an 
exorbitant  price  for  an  Indian  and  horses,  I  took  my  post- 
bags  and  traveling  apparel  on  my  back  at  ten  A.  M.  and  took 
the  emigrant  trail,  which  lay  over  high  mountains  and 
through  deep  defiles,  and,  although  the  thawing  of  the  frozen 
ground  coming  in  constant  contact  with  my  India  rubber  boots 
rendered  the  traveling  exceedingly  slippery,  I  reached  the 
first  settlement,  three  miles  from  The  Dalles,  a  distance  of 
eighteen  miles,  at  four  P.  M.,  unusually  fatigued,  yet  grateful 
to  the  gracious  Giver  for  strength  to  perform  even  the 
physical  labors  of  a  pioneer  missionary.  I  found  twenty-four 
families,  including  three  or  four  of  the  officers  and  soldiers,  in 
this  place  and  vicinity,  beside  a  number  of  white  men  who  had 
married  Indian  women  and  some  thirty  or  forty  single  men 
in  trade  and  farming,  and  gambling,  as  I  had  good  reason  to 
suppose.358  Here  are  stationed  two  or  three  companies  of 
government  troops  to  defend  our  frontiers  from  Indian 
invasion.  Here  also  are  constantly  a  considerable  number  of 
Indians,  amounting  to  forty  or  fifty  families,  who  dwell  here 
and  cultivate  small  fields  of  potatoes,  corn  and  melons.  Here 
too  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  have  a  mission  established 
with  the  Indians  and  have  set  up  their  claim  to  640  acres  of 
land  for  the  mission,  immediately  below  the  town  and  extending 
almost  to  the  river  bank.859 

356  This  steamboat  was  probably  the  "Mary,"  the  first  steamer  to  run  between 
the  Cascades  and  The  Dalles. — Bancroft,  His.  of  Wash.,  Idaho  and  Mont.,  p.  145- 

357  This  is  the  present  Hood  River.     It  was  called  Dog  Creek,  because  in  the 
early  forties  some  immigrants  camping  there  were  reduced  to  dog  meat  for  food. — 
George  H.  Himes. 

358  See   note   309. 

359  This  claim  of  the  Roman  Catholics  was  later  set  aside.     They  were,  how- 
ever, allowed  to  retain  about  half  an  acre  of  ground  for  a  building  site. — Bancroft, 
Hist,  of  Ore.,  11:292. 


104  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

The  soil  in  the  vicinity  of  The  Dalles  is  generally  a  loamy 
sand,  mixed  with  vegetable  mould  and  decomposed  rocks  of 
various  kinds,  some  of  which  appear  to  contain  considerable 
quantities  of  alkalies,  in  some  places  so  much  so  as  to  prevent 
the  growth  of  vegetation,  except  a  kind  of  wild  rye  which 
grows  with  great  luxuriance  where  the  alkalies  destroy  all  the 
ordinary  grass.  This  soil  must  hereafter  become  very  rich 
manures  for  lands  requiring  alkalies.  Potatoes,  onions,  beets, 
cabbage,  squashes,  melons,  wheat,  oats,  peas,  etc.,  have  all 
been  successfully  raised  here. 

The  river  from  the  head  of  The  Cascades  to  this  place  is 
broad  and  sufficiently  deep  for  the  largest  class  of  steamers 
and  the  current  very  gentle.  This  must  be  the  great  place 
of  trade  for  all  the  upper  Columbia  country  in  all  future  time, 
unless  a  railroad  should  be  constructed  through  this  great 
valley  to  Pugets  Sound,  and  in  that  event  a  branch  will  come 
down  the  Columbia  to  this  place. 

At  this  place  I  find  two  persons  who  have  been  Baptists 
.  .  .  The  same  Methodist  missionary  circuit  preacher  who 
has  visited  The  Cascades  has  visited  this  place  a  few  times 
the  past  summer.  The  people  here  desire  the  labors  of  a  good 
Protestant  preacher,  but  as  yet  they  are  entirely  uncommitted. 
An  efficient,  common-sense  minister  should  be  placed  here  to 
labor  at  this  place  and  The  Cascades.  He  would  occupy 
emphatically  a  missionary  post  which  will  be  a  post  of  observa- 
tion. It  will  prove  to  the  sreat  Columbia  Valley  what  St. 
Louis  or  Chicago  is  to  the  Mississippi  Valley.  True  it  is  small 
now,  but  it  will  soon  be  the  kev  to  hundreds  ot  millions  of 
wealth  and  millions  of  souls.  I  spent  two  Sabbaths  at  this 
place,  preached  to  attentive  congregations  and  received  the 
most  cordial  hospitality  of  the  citizens.  Will  your  Board  send 
a  man  to  The  Dalles  and  for  once  occupy  an  important  post 
first  amonsr  Protestants — one  who  may  be  able  to  work  by 
the  side  of  Romans,  who  are  doing  what  they  can? 

T  shall  soon  attempt  to  give  you  what  information  I  have 
collected  from  Washington  Ter. :  also  make  one  more  earnest 


CORRESPONDENCE  105 

appeal   for  Oregon  City  and  other  parts  of  the  Willamette 
Valley. 

Yours  as  ever  with  high  esteem, 

EZRA  FISHER, 

Exploring  Agent. 
Received  Feb.  26. 


Oregon  City,  O.  Ten,  Jan.  18th,  1855. 
To  the  Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  Am.  Bap.  Home  Mission  Society,  New  York. 
Dear  Brother  Hill : 

I  shall  be  obliged  to  draw  an  order  on  you  for  $200  or 
$300  in  favor  of  Abernathy,  Clarke  and  Co.,  or  josiah  Failing 
&  Co.  at  Portland,  in  three  or  four  weeks,  as  I  am  now 
straitened  for  funds  to  keep  up  my  ordinary  family  and  trav- 
eling expenses.  I  am  also  expecting  to  hear  from  the  goods, 
which  you  shipped  on  the  Wild  Ranger  for  San  Francisco, 
by  every  mail  and  I  have  not  the  means  to  pay  the  freight 
from  San  Francisco  to  this  place.  I  send  this  that  you  may 
have  at  least  two  weeks  notice  before  the  order  is  presented. 
I  gave  Br.  J.  D.  Post  an  order  of  $150  on  you  sometime  last 
summer  or  autumn,  but  have  never  heard  from  it  since ;  but 
presume  it  is  paid.  If  that  is  paid,  I  suppose  there  will  be 
due  me,  after  you  receive  my  last  report,  which  was  made  out 
and  forwarded  the  first  day  of  this  month,  about  $420.  I 
have  received  $13  from  the  Baptist  Church  in  this  place 
( Oregon  City),  and  wish  you  to  send  twenty  (20)  copies  of 
the  Home  Mission  Record,  twenty  (20)  copies  of  the  American 
Messenger,  twenty  (20)  copies  of  the  Macedonian  and  one 
(1)  copy  of  the  Missionary  Magazine,  all  postpaid,  to  William 
C.  Johnson,  Oregon  City,  if  that  amount  will  meet  all  the 
expenses:  if  not,  send  equal  numbers  of  the  Record  and 
Macedonian,  fewer  of  the  American  Messenger  and  one  copy 
of  the  Missionary  Magazine  and  prepay  the  postage,  applying 
$13  on  these,  no  more  and  no  less.  Charge  the  same  to  my 
account.  Also  pay  B.  R.  Soxley.  Philadelphia,  one  dollar  ($1) 


106  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

for  Mrs.  Mary  Winston,  Oregon  City;  also  one  dollar  for 
Mrs.  Rebecca  Fanno,  Portland,  for  the  Mothers'  Journal  and 
Family  Visitant  and  charge  the  same  to  my  account.  Will  you 
see  that  this  is  promptly  paid,  as  they  wish  to  have  their 
Mothers'  Journal  continued. 
Received  Feb.  26. 


Oregon  City,  O.  Ten,  Feb.  8th,  1855. 
Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.   Sec.  Am.   Bap.  Home  Mission   Society,   Nassau   St., 

New  York. 
Dear  Brother: 

I  take  this  opportunity  to  write  you  a  few  lines  on 
matters  in  general.  And  first,  our  good  people  in  Portland 
are  about  making  an  effort  to  build  a  house  for  public 
worship,360  and  today  the  ladies  of  that  place  make  a  dinner 
as  the  first  effort  in  furtherance  of  that  important  work.  As 
they  commence  the  work  in  feasting,  I  hope  they  will  complete 
it  in  praying.  The  church  in  Oregon  City  have  been  employ- 
ing a  temporary  supply,  or  rather  reciving  it,  since  I  left 
their  service  last  June,  but  are  making  an  effort  to  secure 
the  labors  of  a  man  in  Oregon,  if  they  can,  and  ask  the  Home 
Missionary  Society  to  aid  them  in  his  support,  as  they  feel 
that  there  is  great  uncertainty  in  obtaining  a  man  soon  from 
the  States.  Oh,  that  the  Lord  would  raise  up  faithful  laborers 
and  send  a  few  to  our  Pacific  borders !  We  are  in  perishing 
need  of  faithful  pastoral  labors  throughout  our  churches.  We 
must  pray  and  try  to  raise  up  ministers  in  Oregon.  I  wish 
we  had  a  well  endowed  school  manned  with  two  or  three 
good  pious  professors,  to  which  we  could  direct  our  young 
men  who  desire  to  serve  God  with  singleness  of  heart.  But 
money  is  now  scarce,  though  this  is  not  half  so  alarming  as 
the  fact  that  so  few  of  our  brethren  take  a  comprehensive 
view  of  our  wants  and  the  true  remedy.  We  must  educate 
,  j  -  nrnHEn 

360  The  building  was  not  actually  begun   until   1861. — Mattoon,   Bap.  An.   of 
Ore.,  1: 140. 


CORRESPONDENCE  107 

our  ministry  on  the  Pacific  slope,  and  I  am  beginning  to  think 
that  we  are  more  able  than  willing.  But  this  business  must 
be  accomplished  by  "line  upon  line."  We  cannot  do  this  work 
at  once,  but  we  must  not  cease  doing  till  this  is  done;  then 
we  shall  support  a  pious,  intelligent,  efficient  ministry.  Our 
seat  of  government  is  removed  from  Salem  to  Corvallis,  about 
thirty  miles  farther  up  the  Willamette  River.361  Corvallis  was 
formerly  called  Marysville,  the  county  seat  for  Benton  county. 
The  Territorial  University  is  removed  from  Corvallis  to  Jack- 
sonville, county  seat  of  Jackson  County.  Now  we  have  an 
able  church  at  Corvallis  and  I  think  we  should  make  immedi- 
ate effort  to  put  in  operation  a  high  school  at  that  place.  I 
shall  leave  tomorrow  with  a  view  of  visiting  two  or  three 
churches  in  that  vicinity.  I  shall  feel  of  the  public  pulse,  as 
it  beats  through  some  of  our  leading  men,  on  the  subject  of 
bringing  up  an  educational  interest  at  the  seat  of  government. 
We  all  think  an  enterprise  of  this  kind  will  in  no  way  operate 
prejudicially  to  our  school  at  Oregon  City,  but  rather  favor- 
ably. As  to  the  question  of  your  removal  from  the  Bible 
house,  I  hope  the  Society  will  let  the  good  brethren  in  New 
York  build  you  a  good  mission  house,  if  that  will  end  the 
unhappy  strife.362  What  is  $40,000  or  $100,000  as  an  offset 
to  an  unhappy  division? 

Yours, 

EZRA  FISHER. 
Received  March  24. 


Oregon  City,  O.  Ter.,  March  5th,  1855. 
Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  Am.  Bap.  Home  Mission  Society. 
Dear  Brother: 

About  three  weeks  since  I  drew  an  order  on  you  in  favor 

361  The  legislature  of  the  winter  of  1854-5  changed  the  capital  from  Salem  to 
Corvallis.  and  the  university  from   Corvallis  to  Jacksonville.     The  capital  was  re- 
located at  Salem!  Dec.    12,   1855. — Bancroft,  His.  of  Ore.,  II:3$i,   .152.     The  legis- 
lature of  1855-6  repealed  all  acts  locating  the  university. — F.  G.  Young,  Financial 
Hist,  of  Ore.  in  Ore.  Hist.  Soc.  Quar.,  VIII:  162. 

362  In    1853   a  serious  discussion   arose  in   the  Baptist  Home  Mission   Society 
over  the  acceptance  from  the  American  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  of  rooms  in  its 
new  building  on   Nassau    Street.      Friends   of  the  "Bible  Union"  opposed   the  ac- 
ceptance   and    the   trouble    threatened   to    split   the   Home    Mission    Society.      The 
rooms  in  the  A.  &  F.  B.  S.  building  were  occupied  until  1862. — Bap.  Home  Mis. 
in  N.  Am.,  1832-1882,  p.  543. 


108  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

of  George  Abernathy  &  Co.  to  the  amount  of  $300.  This  I 
did,  as  I  have  done  a  few  instances  before,  on  account  of 
our  great  distance.  The  long  delays,  after  making  our  quar- 
terly reports,  if  we  must  first  wait  till  we  can  get  drafts 
from  New  York  before  we  can  draw  on  your  treasury,  some- 
times subject  us  to  great  inconvenience.  As  in  the  present 
case,  I  had  ordered  a  year's  supply  of  clothing  for  my  family 
a  year  ago  last  October  (I  think).  The  bill  was  lost  in 
the  ocean ;  a  second  order  was  made  in  about  four  months. 
The  filling  of  the  bill  was  no  doubt  necessarily  delayed  by 
the  sickness  of  yourself  and  family.  The  goods  were  shipped 
almost  a  full  year  after  the  first  bill  was  mailed  at  Oregon 
City,  and  last  week  I  received  three  boxes  and  two  barrels,  a 
part  only  of  the  goods.  I  hope  to  hear  from  the  balance  in 
two  or  three  weeks.  But  in  this  case  my  available  means  were 
used  up,  the  money  has  been  earned  and  the  labor  reported. 
I  consequently  made  a  draft  on  you,  although  it  is  out  of 
your  ordinary  way  of  doing  business.  I  trust  your  Board 
will  pay  the  order  and  indulge  me  again  under  similar  cir- 
cumstances. I  have  received  for  religious  periodicals  the  fol- 
lowing sums  which  I  wish  you  to  pay  to  the  respective  agents 
and  charge  the  same  to  my  account :  For  the  Mothers'  Journal, 
from  Hector  Campbell,  one  dollar;  Mr.  Campbell  wishes  his 
Journal  discontinued.  From  Mrs.  Olive  F.  D.  Ogle,  one 
dollar;  Mrs.  Ogle  is  a  new  subscriber;  her  post-office  is  Fair- 
field,  Marion  Co.,  O.  Ter.  For  the  Christian  Chronicle,  Phil- 
adelphia, from  Thomas  M.  Read  of  Marysville  (now  Cor- 
vallis), two  dollars;  he  wishes  his  paper  stopped.  For  the 
New  York  Recorder,  from  John  Robinson,  Marysville  (now 
Corvallis),  two  dollars  and  fifty  cents. 

Respectfully  yours, 

EZRA  FISHER. 

March  6th. — I  have  just  returned  from  a  tour  to  the  cen- 
tral part  of  the  valley.  Visited  Santiam  church,  Corvallis 
(Marysville)  church,  Albany  and  French  Prairie  churches. 
Our  churches  seem  too  well  contented  with  monthly  Sab- 


CORRESPONDENCE  109 

baths  and  rest  apparently  satisfied  with  few  pastoral  labors 
performed  among  them.  The  result  is  a  want  of  spirituality, 
too  great  a  conformity  to  the  world  and  a  reliance  almost 
exclusively  upon  special  meetings  for  seasons  of  refreshings 
from  the  Most  High.  I  spent  some  time  in  endeavoring  to 
ascertain  the  state  of  public  sentiment  relative  to  the  expedi- 
ency of  establishing  a  school  in  the  central  part  of  the  valley. 
All  seemed  desirous  of  seeing  such  a  work  put  in  successful 
operation,  but  as  yet  they  have  had  no  conference  on  the 
subject  and  want  some  effective  man  to  take  the  responsibility 
upon  himself  of  planning  and  executing.  While  this  is  being 
done,  the  Methodists,  who  have  already  three  high  schools  in 
the  valley  and  one  in  Umpqua,  will  step  into  Corvallis,  the 
only  important  point  now  to  be  occupied  and  raise  up  an  im- 
portant school  and  leave  us  with  the  alternative  of  building 
up  a  high  school  at  some  unimportant  post  some  six  or  eight 
years  hence,  or  of  raising  a  rival  school  at  their  door.  Now 
the  influence  and  wealth  in  the  vicinity  is  Baptist  more  than 
any  other  denomination.  The  Baptists  have  the  only  house 
of  worship  in  the  place.  The  Methodists  are  making  an  effort 
to  build  a  house  of  worship.363  Lest  they  should  not  be  able 
to  drive  all  others  out,  they  obtained  a  charter  for  a  high 
school  in  the  place  as  early  as  '51.  The  Presbyterians  are 
looking  to  the  place  for  the  location  of  a  college.  Their 
principal  proprietor  assured  me  he  would  give  a  block  of  lots 
worth  about  $1000  for  the  site,  if  the  Baptists  would  build  a 
good  high  school.  Although  the  people  in  Oregon  are  almost 
destitute  of  money  and  are  much  alarmed  at  the  hard  times, 
I  think  a  building  worth  from  $2000  to  $3000  could  be  built 
by  the  Baptists  the  coming  year,  if  the  brethren  in  the  upper 
country  would  see  their  interests  in  their  true  light,  without 
materially  affecting  the  Oregon  City  College  otherwise  than 
favorably.  You  may  reasonably  ask,  Why  trouble  ourselves 
about  another  school  while  the  one  at  Oregon  City  can  hardly 
live?  In  the  absence  of  a  good  common  school  system,  evan- 

363  The  Methodists  dedicated  their  church  building  in  Corvallis  in  December, 
1856.— Bancroft.  Hist,  of  Ore.,  11:352. 


110  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

gelical  Christians  have  opened  schools  adapted  to  the  wants 
of  the  people,  employed  good,  pious  teachers,  and  by  these 
schools  they  wield  a  strong  influence.  If  we  remain  inactive, 
we  must  lose  our  hold  on  the  confidence  of  the  people  and  be 
set  down  as  inefficient;  besides,  the  sooner  we  can  commit 
the  denomination  to  some  benevolent  enterprise  the  better  for 
them  and  the  rising  generation.  They  will  do  the  more  for 
other  work  strictly  of  an  evangelical  character.  Again,  I 
strongly  think  we  must  look  to  our  churches  for  our  rising 
ministry  on  the  Pacific  borders  before  twenty  years  roll 
around.  The  great  question  with  me  is,  Ought  the  ministers 
now  in  the  field  and  almost  worn  out  to  give  any  considerable 
portion  of  their  time  to  the  cause  of  education,  while  so  much 
of  our  field  lies  waste  for  the  want  of  faithful,  Godly  ministers 
given  wholly  to  preaching  the  Word? 

Br.  Chandler  baptized  two  converts  into  the  French  Prairie 
church  Sabbath  before  last. 

Affectionately  yours, 

EZRA  FISHER. 
Received  April  9. 


Oregon  City,  O.  Ten,  April  1st,  1855. 
To  Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  Am.  Bap.  Home  Mission  Soc. 
Dear  Brother: 

Herein  I  send  you  my  report  of  labor  under  the  appoint- 
ment of  the  Home  Mission  Society  as  General  Itinerant  for 
the  4th  quartet  ending  March  31st,  1855.  I  have  labored  13 
weeks  in  this  quarter;  preached  15  sermons;  attended  10 
prayer  meetings  and  four  church  meetings ;  visited  religiously 
45  families  and  other  persons ;  visited  one  common  school : 
traveled  to  and  from  my  appointments  307  miles.  Two  were 
received  into  the  French  Prairie  church  by  baptism  under 
the  labors  of  Rev.  George  C.  Chandler.  Sabbath  schools  in 
the  territory  are  the  same  as  last  quarter.  During  the  quar- 
ter I  have  distributed  about  2500  pages  of  tracts.  Several 


CORRESPONDENCE  111 

of  our  churches  and  congregations  are  beginning  to  study  the 
Bible  by  subjects  and  meet  monthly  to  give  their  views  of 
the  duties  enjoined,  such  as  the  obligations  of  the  Sabbath, 
the  duties  of  religious  parents,  etc.  The  churches  generally 
are  training  their  young  members  as  well  as  could  be  expected 
where  but  monthly  Sabbaths  are  enjoyed.  However,  many  of 
the  members  visit  from  church  to  church,  so  that  perhaps 
they  attend  the  Baptist  meetings  two  Sabbaths  in  a  month. 
The  remaining  time  they  either  attend  other  meetings  or  stay 
at  home. 

Respectfully  submitted, 

EZRA  FISHER. 


Oregon  City,  O.  Ter.,  April  1,  1855. 
To  Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  Am.  Bap.  Home  Mission  Soc. 

Herein  I  send  you  my  report  of  labor  under  the  appoint- 
ment of  the  Home  Mission  Society  as  Exploring  Agent  for 
the  4th  quarter  ending  March  31st,  1855.  I  have  visited 
during  the  quarter  Corvallis,  Albany,  Oregon  City,  Corvallis 
church,  French  Prairie  church,  a  settlement  of  Baptist  breth- 
ren five  miles  east  of  Albany,  Lynn  Co.,  who  will  soon  be 
constituted  into  a  church;  a  settlement  of  Baptists  on  the 
Molalla  prairie,  where  are  encouraging  prospects;  Clackamas 
church  and  Pleasant  Butte  church;  traveled  307  miles  to  and 
from  my  appointments.  I  have  labored  13  weeks  during  the 
quarter;  preached  15  sermons;  paid  for  traveling  expenses  $2, 
for  postage  37>4  cents. 

N.  B. — The  traveling  has  been  unusually  bad  this  winter 
and  my  health,  for  three  or  four  weeks  of  the  first  part  of 
the  quarter,  was  not  so  good  as  usual  in  the  winter.  This 
may  account  for  the  unusually  small  amount  of  labor  I  have 
performed.  I  have  labored  under  the  influence  of  bronchitis 
and  dyspepsia.  I  have  adopted  a  rigid  system  of  diet  and 
hope  to  be  able  to  perform  my  wonted  labors  the  coming 
season. 

Respectfully  submitted, 

EZRA  FISHER, 
Exploring  Agent. 


112  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

Oregon  City,  Mar.  10th,  1855. 
Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill. 
Dear  Brother: 

The  church  in  Oregon  City  have  invited  Br.  Johnson  and 
Br.  J.  D.  Post  to  supply  them  the  coming  year  and  agreed 
to  give  Br.  Johnson  $50  and  Br.  Post  $75.  Perhaps  this 
is  the  best  they  could  do  on  the  whole.  But  it  falls  far  short 
of  meeting  our  wants.  Br.  Post's  time  is  engrossed  in  his 
school  and  the  most  he  can  do  is  to  preach  half  the  Sabbaths, 
attend  the  weekly  prayer  meetings  and  perhaps  visit  a  little 
Saturdays  in  the  afternoons.  Br.  Johnson  will  preach  half 
the  Sabbaths,  but  does  not  contemplate  visiting  at  all.  You 
will  see  by  this  that  the  church  must  be  greatly  neglected 
in  the  pastoral  relations.  I  hoped  the  church  would  have 
chosen  some  man  as  their  pastor  and  asked  the  Home  Mis- 
sionary Society  to  help  in  his  support,  so  that  he  could  give 
himself  to  the  ministry,  or  have  asked  your  Board  to  send 
them  a  minister  and  let  him  enter  upon  the  work  as  a  man 
of  God.  Perhaps  all  is  for  the  best.  I  do  not  yet  see  it  so. 

I  noticed  in  the  January  number  of  the  Home  Mission 
Record  a  notice  of  my  reappointment.  I  shall  endeavor  to 
serve  the  Board  to  my  best  ability  through  the  summer  and 
fall  at  least,  if  my  health  will  permit  and  God  blesses.  I 
have  received  no  letter  from  you  for  near  three  months. 
Suppose  one  was  lost  on  the  Southerner364  when  wrecked.  I 
expect  to  spend  most  of  the  coming  season  with  the  churches 
in  the  upper  part  of  the  valley  and  in  Umpqua  and  Rogue 
River  valleys  and,  when  in  Rogue  River  Valley,  I  may  cross 
the  Ciscue  [Siskiyou]  Mountains  into  Chasty  [Shasta]  Val- 
ley, as  it  will  be  but  about  25  miles  from  Rogue  River  Valley 
and  125  from  the  settlement  in  the  Sacramento  Valley.  A 
large  town  called  Yreka  has  sprung  up  in  that  valley,  in  which 
it  is  said  there  are  numbers  of  Baptist  members  who  have 
had  but  few  Baptist  sermons  preached  to  them.  Yreka365  is 


364  The  steamship  "Southerner,"   Capt.   F.   A.   Sampson,   was  wrecked  on  the 
shing 

began  in  1850.""  Important  diggii  _ 

town,  which  was  incorporated  in   1854.     It  declined  with  the  mines  after   1857. — 
Bancroft,  Hist,  of  Calif.,  VI:4P4. 


Washington  coast  at  Cape  Flattery,  Dec.  26,   1854. — Oregpnian,  Jan.  27,   1855. 

365  Yreka  sprang  up  as  a  result  of  the  mining  in   Shasta  County,   California, 
which  began  in  1850.     Important  diggings  opened  in  March,  1851,  gave  rise  to  the 


CORRESPONDENCE  113 

said  to  be  as  large  as  Portland.  Should  I  visit  Chasty  Valley, 
or  will  our  California  brother  penetrate  the  mountains  from 
the  south  and  explore  this  mining  district? 

With  sentiments  of  Christian  esteem, 

EZRA  FISHER. 
Received  April  24. 


Oregon  City,  O.  Territory,  May  3d,  1855. 
Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  Am.  Bapt.  Home  Mission  Soc. 
Dear  Brother: 

Yours  of  March  3d  has  just  come  to  hand  and  I  now  sit 
down  to  answer  it.  It  is  with  mingled  emotions  that  I  learn 
that  your  Board  have  reappointed  me  to  the  work  of  ex- 
ploring agent  and  general  itinerant.  I  shall  endeavor  in  the 
fear  of  God  to  enter  upon  those  duties  to  the  best  of  my 
abilities,  but  in  view  of  the  gradual  decline  of  my  physical,  not 
to  say  mental  powers,  I  am  led  to  hope  that  your  Board  will 
be  looking  out  for  a  man  of  ripe  Christian  experience  and 
strong  physical  constitution  to  enter  upon  the  responsibilities 
of  this  work  after  the  present  year.  I  feel  that  I  have  a  right 
to  ask  for  a  more  limited  field  which  will  call  for  less  exposure 
in  winter  rains  and  the  inconveniences  of  a  frontier  life.  Yet 
I  often  feel  that  I  would  prefer  the  ways  of  Providence  to 
those  of  my  own  choosings.  I  wish  it  to  be  distinctly  under- 
stood by  the  Board  that  my  personal  inclinations  have  for  a 
long  time  been  to  locate  so  that  I  could  reach  the  extent  of 
my  field  of  labor  by  a  day's  ride.  Should  you  find  a  suit- 
able man  to  enter  upon  this  work  at  an  earlier  period  than 
the  expiration  of  the  present  year,  I  will  rejoice  to  facilitate 
his  introduction.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  labor  of  such  a 
man  in  Oregon  should  not  be  dispensed  with.  As  it  relates 
to  the  work  of  collecting  for  the  Home  Mission  Society,  you 
know  that  I  am  willing  to  do  all  that  I  can  in  the  further- 
ance of  that  object.  It  is  likewise  true  that  your  Society 
ought  to  have  found  more  pecuniary  aid  flowing  into  your 


114  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

treasury  from  Oregon.  Yet  our  servants  and  their  fellow 
laborers  have  been  laboring  as  fast  as  they  thought  the 
churches  would  bear  to  bring  about  this  object  in  as  healthy 
and  as  permanent  a  manner  as  possible.  We  have  to  meet 
all  the  influence  of  monthly  Sabbaths  and  Missouri  opinions, 
and  an  educated  anti-mission  influence  in  our  missionary 
churches.  These  prejudices  are  so  far  worn  away  I  believe 
in  all  our  churches  that  they,  as  churches,  recognize  the 
principle  that  our  ministry  should  be  given  to  the  work  and 
that  they  should  be  sustained  somehow  or  other  in  that  work. 
At  our  last  association  we  made  a  direct  effort  to  sustain 
one  man  in  Lane  County,  which  was  an  important  missionary 
field.  I  should  at  that  time  have  pleaded  the  cause  of  the 
Home  Mission  Society  and  asked  that  these  efforts  might 
in  some  way  or  other  have  gone  through  that  channel,  but 
for  the  fact  that  your  Board  was  at  the  time  sustaining  no 
man  but  myself  in  Oregon.  The  right  kind  of  work  was 
doing  to  accomplish  the  work  and  open  the  sympathies  of 
our  brethren.  The  churches  as  a  whole  are  coming  up  to 
the  work,  although  much  slower  than  is  desired  by  every 
liberal-souled  disciple  of  Christ.  It  is  hard  teaching  our 
brethren  the  lesson  of  being  dead  to  the  world  and  alive  to 
God.  Yet  four  churches,  two  of  which  were  as  little  hopeful 
as  any  in  the  Association,  have  absolutely  paid  their  minister 
(Br.  Riley)  not  less  than  $1000  the  last  year  by  buying  him  a 
claim  and  providing  him  with  clothing  and  food  for  his 
family.  Four  more  are  paying  Br.  Chandler  the  present  year 
nearly  $600.  And  I  do  not  know  of  a  church,  small  as  our 
churches  are,  which  pays  their  minister  less  than  $100  for  one- 
fourth  of  the  time,  while  they  scarcely  get  the  labors  of  the 
minister  more  than  two  days  in  a  month,  except  in  the  riding 
to  and  from  the  appointments,  which  may  take  two  days  more. 
Thus  you  will  perceive  that  your  missionaries  have  not  been 
indifferent  to  the  true  interests  of  Christ's  church,  although 
we  have  not  been  able  to  do  so  much  as  we  would,  nor  to 
direct  what  is  done  through  the  channel  which  might  be 


CORRESPONDENCE  115 

desired.  I  rejoice  in  the  love  of  our  divine  Master  that  you 
have  appointed  two  more  missionaries  for  Oregon  and  that 
they  are  in  their  field  of  labor.  The  way  is  now  open  for  me 
to  work  directly  for  you  without  putting  on  the  air  of  supreme 
selfishness  and,  although  we  are  feeling  the  effects  of  what 
the  world  calls  hard  times,  I  intend  to  try  and  do  what  I  can 
for  Br.  Boyakin  at  Portland  and  Br.  Stearns366  at  Jacksonville 
by  personal  appeals  to  private  brethren,  as  well  as  by  collec- 
tion in  the  churches,  if  I  can  get  the  subject  before  the 
churches,  and  I  doubt  not  I  can.  But  the  amount  that  can 
be  done  this  year  cannot  be  expected  to  be  large.  I  have  no 
fears  of  injuring  my  ministerial  character  in  this  work  if  God 
goes  with  me.  My  greatest  fear  is  that  I  may  not  do  the  work 
as  well  as  some  other  man  might.  We  feel  that  we  must 
make  an  effort  to  sustain  two  ministers  by  the  Association 
strictly  as  missionaries  in  destitute  fields;  in  this  all  our 
brethren  will  probably  unite.  We  have  the  men  on  the  ground 
whom  we  may  probably  employ,  our  brethren  see  them  and 
know  them,  and  have  an  assurance  that  something  will  be 
done  for  them  in  Oregon  when  they  pay  their  money.  I  have 
felt,  in  view  of  all  the  circumstances,  that  we  should  aid  in 
this  kind  of  work,  and,  although  we  cannot  do  the  work  in 
the  way  we  would  desire,  we  shall  do  much  of  the  work  which 
we  should  do  if  all  prejudices  were  removed  and  we  were 
doing  the  work  precisely  as  you  would  have  us  do  it.  We 
have  with  us  an  old  brother,  Thomas  Taylor,  formerly  from 
Illinois  (I  think  he  formerly  was  in  the  service  of  the  Home 
Mission  Society  in  111.),  who  has  a  destitute  field,  embracing 
a  part  of  Clackamas  County  and  a  part  of  Yam  Hill  County, 
in  which  there  are  a  number  of  Baptist  members  scattered. 
The  field  locally  is  important,  but  the  country  is  mostly  tim- 
bered, consequently  slow  of  improvement  comparatively.  One 
of  the  points  I  reported  last  winter,  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Sandy  on  the  Columbia  River.  A  year's  labor  would  probably 

366  This  was  probably  Rev.  M.  N.  Stearns,  who  had  arrived  that  year  from 
the  East  with  his  father,  Rev.  John  Stearns,  and  was  chosen  pastor  of  the  Table 
Rock  (Jacksonville)  Baptist  Church. — Mattoon,  Bap.  An.  of  Ore.,  1:13. 


116  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

result  in  the  formation  of  from  one  to  four  churches.  Br. 
Taylor's  family  consists  of  himself  and  wife.  He  says  he  can 
labor  a  year  for  $300  and  will  run  the  risk  of  raising  half  that 
sum  on  the  field.  Br.  Chandler  proposes  to  pay  $25  of  the  bal- 
ance. Br.  Chandler  is  very  desirous  that  he  should  be  put  into 
that  field.  Now  will  your  Board  make  him  the  appointment 
under  such  conditions  as  you  may  think  proper  and  require 
him  to  report  to  you  and  allow  me  to  see  what  I  can  raise  on 
the  field  for  him,  yet  so  as  not  to  interfere  with  any  efforts  I 
may  make  for  Br.  Boyakin  and  Br.  Stearns?  Will  you  leave 
Br.  Taylor  to  consult  with  Br.  Chandler  and  myself  respecting 
the  field?  The  country  we  propose  is  as  densely  peopled  and 
as  destitute  as  any  part  of  Oregon  and  the  most  remote  point 
not  more  than  24  miles  from  Oregon  City. 

As  ever  your  fellow-laborer  in  the  vineyard  of  our  common 
Master, 

EZRA  FISHER, 
Exploring  Agent. 


Oregon  City,  O.  Ter.,  May  4th,  1855. 
Rev.  B.  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  A.  B.  M.  Soc. 
Dear  Brother: 

I  some  weeks  since  wrote  you  an  explanation  of  the  reason 
why  I  drew  on  you  an  order  payable  to  George  Abernathy 
&  Co.  to  the  amount  of  $300.  I  have  all  the  while  supposed 
from  the  course  that  you  had  allowed  me  to  pursue  that  you 
would  grant  me  some  privileges,  on  account  of  my  distance 
and  the  length  of  time  it  took  for  me  to  get  your  drafts  after 
requesting  you  to  forward  them.  My  pay  has  mostly  come 
in  goods  and  exchange  of  money  collected  here.  You  know 
I  have  always  waited  as  much  as  I  could  to  suit  the  con- 
venience of  the  Society,  and  I  trust  I  have  not  show  an  un- 
usual spirit  of  avarice  in  this  matter.  But  it  would  be  ex- 
ceedingly mortifying  to  me  as  a  prompt  Christian  minister  in 
all  my  business  relations  to  have  my  order  protested  and 


CORRESPONDENCE  117 

come  back  to  Oregon  so.  I  have  never  in  my  public  life 
owed  a  man  over  $200  at  any  given  time,  and  never  but  once 
failed  of  meeting  my  pecuniary  liabilities  punctually  at  the 
time.  Now  if  I  have  sinned  in  drawing  this  draft,  I  have 
sinned  as  I  have  done  before,  unadmonished.  I  sincerely  re- 
gret to  occasion  you  or  the  Board  any  trouble  on  that  account 
or  in  any  measure  to  occasion  Abernathy  to  doubt  my  integ- 
rity. If  your  Board  should  protest  the  order,  will  they  do 
me  the  favor  to  issue  a  draft  in  favor  of  me  to  that  amount 
and  pass  it  over  to  Abernathy  &  Co.  and  pay  it  immediately, 
as  I  have  received  the  money  and  been  obliged  to  pay  out  a 
part  of  it  already  to  keep  up  my  family.  The  remaining  part 
is  passing  away  in  the  same  way.  Will  you  do  me  the  favor 
hereafter  to  settle  my  accounts  at  the  end  of  each  quarter,  on 
the  receipt  of  my  quarterly  report,  and  within  three  weeks 
from  that  time  forward  me  a  draft  covering  the  amount  due 
me  at  the  time  and  let  this  be  a  standing  order  except  when 
otherwise  directed. 

Rest  assured,  dear  brother,  that  I  do  not  make  this  request 
through  any  unkind  feelings.     .     . 

As  ever  yours, 

EZRA  FISHER, 
Exploring  Agent. 


Received  June  8. 

Oregon  City,  O.  Ter.,  July  1st,  1855. 
To  Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  of  Am.  Bap.  Home  Mission  Soc. : 

Herein  I  send  you  my  report  of  labor  under  the  appoint- 
ment of  the  Home  Mission  Society  for  the  first  quarter  of 
the  year,  ending  June  30th?  as  General  Itinerant. 

I  have  labored  13  weeks  in  the  quarter;  preached  23  ser- 
mons ;  attended  12  prayer  meetings,  nine  church  covenant 
meeting's;  have  assisted  at  the  organization  of  the  church  in 
the  city  of  Portland  :367  have  traveled  to  and  from  my  appoint- 

-  ,  q  ;    '  r!  \ 

367  This  was  organized  by  Revs.  W.  F.  Boyakin,  H.  Johnson,  and  the  author, 
May  6,  1855. — Mattoon,  Bap.  An.  of  Ore.,  1: 14.  The  author  says  there  were  eleven 
constituent  members;  Mattoon>  ten. 


118  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

ments  494  miles;  have  visited  religiously  30  families  and  22 
individuals.  The  church  at  Portland  takes  her  place  beside 
older  ones  of  other  denominations  under  favorable  prospects, 
as  you  will  learn  from  the  reports  of  Br.  Boyakin. 

Respectfully  submitted, 

EZRA  FISHER, 
General  Itinerant. 


Oregon  City,  O.  Ter.,  July  1st,  1855. 
To  Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  of  Am.  Bap.  Home  Mission  Soc. : 

Herein  I  send  you  my  report  of  labor  under  the  appoint- 
ment of  the  Home  Mission  Society  as  Exploring  Agent  for 
the  first  quarter  ending  June  30th,  1855.  I  have  visited  Port- 
land, Santiam,  Providence,868  Pleasant  Butte,  Lebanon,  West 
Tualatin,  West  Union  and  Yam  Hill  churches,  the  Willam- 
ette Baptist  Association  and  Ministers*  meeting. 

Have  collected  $24.48  by  collection  taken  on  Sabbath  at 
the  Association.  Have  obtained  a  subscription  in  Tualatin 
Plains  of  forty  bushels  of  wheat  to  be  paid  to  Br.  Boyakin 
in  Portland  on  or  before  the  first  day  in  Oct.,  to  apply  on 
his  salary.  Br.  Boyakin  will  report  the  value  to  you  as 
soon  as  received.  It  will  probably  be  worth  from  $0.75  to 
$1.00  per  bushel.  Paid  $3.92  for  traveling  expenses  and 
$0.25  for  postage — $4.17.  Have  aided  in  the  constitution  of 
the  first  Baptish  church  in  Portland  with  eleven  members. 
Have  preached  23  sermons  and  traveled  to  and  from  my 
appointments  494  miles. 

All  which  is  respectfully  submitted, 

EZRA  FISHER, 

Exploring  Agent. 
Received  Aug.  11. 


368  The  Providence  Baptist  Church  in  Linn  County,  at  the  forks  of  the  San- 
tiam River,  was  organized  April  9,  1853. — Mattoon,  Bap.  An.  of  Ore.,  I:ia.  The 
other  churches  mentioned  have  previously  been  commented  upon. 


CORRESPONDENCE  119 

Oregon  City,  O.  Ten,  July  2,  1855. 
Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  A.  B.  H.  M.  Soc. 
Dear  Brother : 

I  have  just  returned  from  the  annual  meeting  of  the 
Willamette  Baptist  Association,  which  was  held  with  the  Yam 
Hill  church,  ten  miles  west  of  Lafayette,  the  seat  of  justice 
for  Yam  Hill  County.  As  a  business  meeting,  it  exceeded 
in  interest  and  harmony  all  preceding  meetings.  The  churches 
appear  to  be  gradually  arousing  to  the  importance  of  the 
ministry  becoming  devoted  to  the  one  great  calling,  the  ministry 
of  reconciliation,  and  that  they  should  be  sustained  in  that 
work  by  the  churches.  Three  brethren  now  in  the  field  have 
the  assurance  that  their  salary  from  the  churches  the  present 
year  will  exceed  $600  each,  and  other  churches  are  expressing 
a  willingness  to  contribute  according  to  their  ability.  The 
Association  resolved  that  they  would  make  an  effort  to  sus- 
tain two  missionaries  the  coming  year,  one  in  Lane  County  and 
vicinity  and  the  other  in  Clackamas  County  and  vicinity,  and 
something  over  $200  was  subscribed  on  the  spot.  Resolutions 
were  passed  in  favor  of  the  great  Christian  enterprises,  such 
as  the  Baptist  Home  Mission  Society,  Publication  Society,  etc. 
The  changes  in  the  Association  were  as  follows:  Six  new 
churches  received  into  the  body.869  One  hundred  and  twenty- 
three  baptized;  net  gain,  232.  Some  efforts  were  made  to 
remove  the  school  from  Oregon  City,  which  resulted  in  a 
resolution  to  open  subscriptions  for  a  college  in  favor  of  five 
places,  towit:  Oregon  City,  Corvallis,  Santiam,  Cincinnati370 
and  Lafayette,  and  report  next  year.  The  Home  Missionary 
Society  is  gradually  securing  the  confidence  of  the  denomi- 
nation, but  while  this  is  said,  other  home  mission  societies 
are  represented  in  Oregon,  and  we  cannot  predict  the  results. 
Elder  Johnson  is  acting  as  a  missionary  of  the  Free  Mission 

369  These   six   were   the  Union    (Polk   County),    Good   Hope    (Linn    County), 
Mount   Zion    (Lane   County),  Willamette   Forks    (Lane   County),    Palestine    (Lane 
County),  and  First  Portland  Churches. — Minutes  of  Willamette  Baptist  Association 
and  Mattoon,  Bap.  An.  of  Ore.,  I:i6,  17. 

370  Cincinnati  is  the  present  Eola  in  Polk  County. 


120  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

Society,  but  prudently,  and  at  this  session  of  our  Association 
we  met  an  agent  for  the  Bible  Union  soliciting  life  member- 
ships and  offering  for  sale  a  portion  of  the  Scriptures  as 
translated  by  the  Union,  also  introducing  their  periodicals. 
I  have  no  objection  to  the  Union's  translating  the  Scriptures 
and  selling  them  to  whoever  may  wish  to  purchase.  But 
we  in  Oregon  must  be  wiser  than  our  brethren  at  home,  if 
the  introduction  of  an  agent  to  our  little  Baptist  community, 
gathered  from  the  ends  of  the  earth,  does  not  strike  some 
discordant  notes  in  our  infant  land.  The  Lord  give  us  wis- 
dom and  prudence  equal  to  our  day,  and  save  us  from  sin- 
ning in  this  matter. 

As  ever  yours, 
Received  Aug.  11.  EZRA  FISHER. 


Oregon  City,  O.  Ter.,  July  3,  1855. 
Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  of  Am.  Bap.  M.  M.  Soc. 
Dear  Brother: 

I  made  my  last  quarters  report  on  the  first  instant.  In 
this  letter  I  wish  to  order  you  to  attend  to  several  branches 
of  business  for  me.  By  this  mail  I  shall  order  the  discon- 
tinuance of  the  Christian  Chronicle  and  substitute  the  New 
York  Recorder  and  Baptist  Register  in  its  place.  I  shall 
also  order  the  weekly  Tribune,  if  it  is  furnished  to  ministers 
at  $1  per  year.  You  will  therefore  meet  the  orders  which  I 
send  you  for  the  payment  on  the  above-named  papers.  You 
will  also  pay  an  order  which  I  shall  send  you  for  the  Baptist 
Missionary  Magazine.  I  shall  also  order  you  to  pay  three 
dollars  to  the  agent  for  the  Mothers'  Journal. 

You  will,  therefore,  please  send  me  a  draft  for  the  sum 
due  me,  after  deducting  twenty-four  dollars  and  forty-eight 
cents  ($24.48),  the  amount  of  the  collection  taken  up  at  the 
Willamette  Association,  and  ten  dollars  ($10)  to  meet  the 
periodical  demands  against  me,  at  your  earliest  convenience. 
Should  the  periodical  bills  exceed  ten  dollars,  the  publishers 


CORRESPONDENCE  121 

must  wait  till  after  I  make  my  next  quarter's  report,  as  I 
am  much  in  want  of  funds  to  meet  my  forthcoming  expenses. 
Let  the  draft  be  drawn  to  me  or  order. 

Respectfully  yours, 

EZRA  FISHER. 


Oregon  City,  July  3d,  1855. 
Rev.  B.  M.  Hill,  Cor.  Sec.  Soc. 
Dear  Brother: 

Our  school  affairs  are  moving  along  but  slowly.  Our  com- 
munity is  so  fluctuating,  being  subject  to  so  many  excite- 
ments and  so  many  fluctuations,  and  so  extreme,  that  it  is 
next  to  impossible  to  keep  any  class  of  scholars  above  a  few 
months,  except  a  few  from  the  more  able  permanent  citizens. 
We  have  been  suffering  the  last  twelve  months  all  the  in- 
conveniences of  stagnation  in  business.371  Farmers  have  wheat 
and  beef  and  pork  and  butter  in  profusion,  but  it  is  hard  to 
convert  their  produce  into  cash  or  family  supplies.  Now 
another  panic  has  struck  the  farmers.  New  and  rich  gold 
diggings  are  beginning  to  be  worked  high  up  the  Columbia 
near  Fort  Colville.372  This  is  drawing  away  the  floating 
laborers,  and  some  of  the  farmers  are  leaving  their  standing 
wheat  for  the  mines.  It  has  not  yet  been  ascertained  how 
extensive  the  gold  field  is  on  the  Columbia,  or  how  product- 
ive it  will  prove,  yet  notwithstanding  the  high  waters,  in- 
experienced miners,  Frenchmen  and  half-breeds  are  said  to 
wash  from  fifteen  to  twenty  dollars  per  day  with  nothing  but 
pans.  About  $5000  worth  of  the  gold  has  already  reached 
this  place  and  is  pronounced  to  be  gold  of  the  finest  quality. 
With  these  and  other  and  varied  exciting  causes  moving  upon 
the  minds  of  a  heterogenious  community  thrown  together  from 
every  part  of  the  globe,  it  is  no  strange  thing  that  teachers 

371  These  hard  times  are  assigned  by  Bancroft  to  Indian  disturbances,  and  to 
the  falling  off  in  the  yield  of  the  California  mines.      Business  was  prostrated  in 
California. — Hist,   of  Ore.,   11:337- 

372  This  gold  discovery  was  in  the  spring  of  1855  and  caused,  as  the  author 
indicates,  the  usual  stampede  to  the  diggings. — Bancroft,  Hist,  of  Wash.,  Idaho  and 
Mont.,  p.   1 08. 


122  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

become  discouraged  and  efforts  to  cultivate  the  minds  and 
morals  of  the  rising-  generation  should  prove  less  successful 
than  in  older  and  better  graduated  communities.  Although 
our  school  has  failed  of  exerting  that  direct  and  salutary  in- 
fluence on  the  denomination  which  was  anticipated,  yet  it  has 
done  much  to  elevate  the  views  of  the  Baptists  in  Oregon 
and  has  shed  its  blessings,  both  direct  and  indirect,  upon 
hundreds  of  our  fellow  citizens.  I  fear,  however,  that  we 
shall  be  compelled  to  make  another  change  of  teachers,  how- 
ever much  such  a  change  is  to  be  dreaded.  Br.  Post  has 
already  manifested  discontent  and  I  fear  that  it  may  before 
long  ripen  into  a  removal.  I  do  not  know  that  it  is  possible 
to  find  a  thorough,  self-sacrificing  teacher  who  will  merge  all 
the  interests  of  the  school  into  the  interest  of  the  denomination 
so  as  to  worthily  claim  the  name  of  a  missionary  school  teacher. 
Yet  that  should  be  the  case  with  our  teachers  as  well  as  with 
our  home  missionaries. 

Br.  Boyakin  is  doing  well  at  Portland,  is  popular  with  his 
church  and  the  world.  I  have  but  little  doubt  that  the 
Masonic  fraternity373  sympathize  with  him  and  lend  him  their 
aid  as  a  brother  of  the  same  order.  I  hope  he  will  not  over- 
rate the  privileges  of  that  order.  He  is  energetic  and  elo- 
quent and  abounds  in  figures  and  epithets.  May  God  bless 
him  abundantly.  I  expect  to  go  south  in  three  or  four  weeks. 
Shall  be  able  to  take  up  some  collections  for  the  Home  Mis- 
sion Society.  Deacon  Failing  has  engaged  to  take  up  a  col- 
lection monthly  in  the  Portland  church  for  the  Home  Mis- 
sion cause.  Br.  Boyakin  will  probably  report  the  amount 
quarterly. 

Yours  with  Christian  esteem, 

EZRA  FISHER. 
Received  Aug.  11. 

373  The  first  Masonic  lodge  in  Oregon  was  organized  at  Oregon  City  in  1848 
under  a  charter  granted  by  Missouri,  Oct.  19,  1846.  By  1855  and  1856  lodges  had 
become  quite  numerous. — George  H.  Himes. 


CORRESPONDENCE  123 

Oregon  City,  Aug.  2d,  1855. 
Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  Am.  Bap.  Home  Mission  Society. 
Dear  Brother: 

Yours  of  May  25th  was  duly  received.  With  this  I  shall 
send  you  the  minutes  of  our  Association.  The  new  gold  ex- 
citement in  our  territory  at  the  present  time  calls  for  a  com- 
munication from  me.  The  gold  region  is  on  the  large  north 
fork  of  the  Columbia  River,  about  thirty  miles  above  Fort 
Colville.  It  has  now  become  quite  certain  that  the  mines  are 
rich  and  they  are  supposed  to  be  extensive.  But  nothing 
definite  can  be  relied  upon  except  that  most  of  the  French 
in  the  Willamette  Valley  have  either  been  and  returned  and 
gone  the  second  time  or  are  preparing  to  go.  Already  about 
1000  of  the  American  population  of  the  Willamette  Valley 
are  on  their  way  to  these  new  mines.  Many  more  are  pre- 
paring to  go;  others  are  anxiously  awaiting  the  first  reliable 
information.  The  most  extravagant  rumors  are  in  circulation 
respecting  the  richness  of  the  mines  and  the  facilities  of  ac- 
quiring the  golden  treasures.  It  is  pretty  satisfactorily  as- 
certained that  the  Roman  priest  at  Colville  has  known  of  these 
mines  for  years  and  has  enjoined  secrecy  upon  the  Indians. 
Rumors  reliable  say  the  chiefs  forbid  the  Oregonians,  except 
French  and  half-breeds,  to  dig  till  they  have  treated  with  the 
Indian  agent  for  their  lands.  Money  is  extremely  scarce  in 
this  valley  and,  if  there  is  much  gold  to  be  had,  our  citizens 
will  have  their  proportion  of  it,  even  at  the  price  of  blood. 
They  will  not  stand  by,  by  the  thousands,  and  see  French 
Catholics,  half-breeds  and  Indians  monopolize  the  best  of 
the  diggings.  Some  reports  say  that  the  gold  has  been  found 
on  only  two  small  bars  of  the  river ;  others  say  that  the  region 
of  gold  is  300  miles  in  extent.  I  have  been  waiting  for  the 
last  two  weeks  to  get  at  facts  before  writing  you,  but  this  is 
safe  at  the  present.  Nearly  all  the  lands  between  the  Cascade 
Mountains  and  these  mines,  on  both  sides  of  the  Columbia 


124  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

River,374  have  been  purchased  of  the  Indians  and  now  open 
one  of  the  most  inviting  regions  to  the  emigrant  for  settlement 
in  North  America.  The  Dalles  must  immediately  become  a 
point  of  importance  and,  should  the  mines  prove  rich  and 
extensive,  a  point  at  The  Dalles  will  become  a  second  Sacra- 
mento and  another  at  the  Cascades,  45  miles  below,  will  scarcely 
be  less  in  importance.  We  should  have  a  man  at  The  Dalles  at 
this  moment,  awake  to  all  the  interests  of  religion  and  hu- 
manity in  that  region.  Trade  is  springing  up  at  that  point 
with  great  rapidity.  The  Methodist  Church  will  undoubtedly 
have  a  man  there  in  a  few  months.  The  Congregationalists 
are  looking  on  with  interest  and  have  sent  their  man  to  sur- 
vey that  field.  I  shall  visit  that  place  as  soon  as  I  learn 
more  definitely  the  state  of  things  in  relation  to  the  mines. 
Will  you  have  a  man  for  The  Dalles  and  Cascades  as  soon 
as  possible?  It  will  cost  as  much  to  sustain  a  man  in  that 
field  as  it  does  at  Portland. 

I  am  strongly  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  I  shall  settle  as 
near  the  centre  of  middle  Oregon  as  circumstances  will  justify, 
perhaps  on  the  waters  of  the  Walla  Walla,  at  the  close  of 
this  year,  as  a  self-supporting  missionary,  to  finish  my  days 
where  I  can  be  with  my  family  and  a  little  more  exempt 
from  responsibilities  than  in  my  present  agency.  But  I  leave 
that  in  the  hands  of  the  All  Wise  Being  to  direct.  My  friends 
here  decidedly  approve  of  my  plans.  Very  little  can  be  done 
in  the  agency  by  way  of  collecting  funds  this  summer  or  next, 
should  the  gold  excitement  prevail.  Most  of  our  men  will 
go  to  the  mines  and  we  must  preach  to  women  and  children 
and  runners  to  and  fro.  If  ever  missionaries  needed  an 
unction  from  on  high,  ministers  and  churches  in  Oregon  at 
this  time  are  that  people.  O  Lord,  give  grace  to  thy  servants 
to  make  an  entire  consecration  to  Thee! 

Last  Sabbath  I  assisted  in  organizing  a  church  of  eleven 
members,  fifteen  miles  northeast  from  this  place,  between 


374  This  purchase  was  by  the  'treaties  with  the  Nez  Perces,  Cayuses,  Walla 
Wallas,  Umatillas,  and  Yakimas,  in  June.  1855,  and  with  the  John  Day,  Des  Chutes 
and  Wascopans,  about  the  same  time. — Bancroft,  Hist,  of  Ore.,  II:36o-8. 


CORRESPONDENCE  125 

Clackamas  and  Sandy  Rivers.  Next  week  I  leave  for  the 
upper  part  of  this  valley.  Our  churches  generally  are  pass- 
ing through  trials  and  declensions,  such  as  are  too  common 
after  revivals,  where  monthly  preaching  and  monthly  meet- 
ings take  the  place  of  weekly  Sabbaths  and  faithful  pastoral 
labors  through  the  week.  We  are  everywhere  attempting 
to  impress  the  churches  with  a  sense  of  the  importance  of 
regular  Sabbath  preaching  and  constant  pastoral  labors,  and 
not  without  success.  Yet  changes  in  this  respect  are  slow, 
but  will  come  in  a  few  more  years.  I  made  my  last  quarterly 
report  on  the  first  of  July  and  ordered  you  to  pay  for  me  ten 
dollars  on  periodicals.  Also  ordered  you  to  forward  me  a 
draft  for  what  will  be  my  due,  after  paying  those  little  period- 
ical accounts.  I  rejoice  at  the  prospect  of  harmony  being 
restored  to  the  churches  on  the  Home  Mission  question.  God 
grant  that  the  Bible  question  may  soon  be  put  to  rest.  Our 
Bible  Union  brethren  will  have  the  Bible  translated  into  the 
English  language.  I  hope  they  will  do  the  work  faithfully 
and  leave  the  American  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  to  prosecute 
her  appropriate  work  unmolested  and  that  the  Peace  which 
Christ  left  with  the  disciples  may  find  a  home  in  every  church 
and  every  heart. 

Respectfully  yours, 

EZRA  FISHER. 
Received  Sept.  11. 


Oregon  City,  O.  Ter.,  Sept.  1st,  1855. 
To  Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  of  Am.  Bap.  Home  Mission  Soc. : 
Herein  I  send  you  my  report  of  labor  under  the  appoint- 
ment of  the  Home  Mission  Society  as  General  Itinerant  for 
the  second  quarter  ending  Sept.  30th,  1855. 

I  have  labored  13  weeks;  preached  21  sermons;  attended 
five  prayer  meetings  and  six  church  covenant  meetings;  two 
yearly  meetings  of  the  churches;  visited  religiously  34  fami- 
lies and  26  individuals;  have  assisted  in  the  organization  of 


126  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

the  Cedar  Creek  church,  Clackamas  County;  have  traveled  to 
and  from  my  appointments  818  miles.  Four  persons  have 
been  received  into  the  La  Creole  church  by  baptism  after  a 
sermon  I  preached  on  the  subject  of  communion  at  the  re- 
quest of  the  pastor,  Br.  Riley.  Monthly  concert  and  weekly 
prayer  meeting  are  observed  in  the  Oregon  City  church. 
Connected  with  the  churches  which  I  have  visited  are  small 
Sabbath  schools  in  the  Oregon  City,  Pleasant  Butte  and 
Santiam  churches. 

Respectfully  submitted, 

EZRA  FISHER. 


Oregon  City,  O.  Ter.,  Sept.  1st,  1855. 
To  Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  Am.  Bap.  Home  Mission  Soc. : 

Herein  I  send  my  report  of  labor  under  the  appointment 
of  the  Home  Mission  Society  as  Exploring  Agent  for  the 
second  quarter  ending  Sept.  30th,  1855. 

I  have  visited  Oregon  City,  Corvallis,  Cascades  and  The 
Dalles,  Oregon  City,  Cedar  Creek,  Luckiamute,375  Lebanon, 
Pleasant  Butte,  Santiam  and  Providence  churches;  traveled 
to  and  from  my  appointments  818  miles;  labored  13  weeks. 
Have  taken  up  the  following  collection: 

In  the  Luckiamute  church,  $2.00 $  2.00 

In  the  Pleasant  Butte  church,  $6.58 6.58 

In  the  Santiam  church,  $5.80 5.80 

In  Oregon  City  church,  $6.12 6.12 


Total $20.50 

Paid  for  traveling  expenses $16.45 

For  postage 20 

Total $16.65 

which  you  will  charge  to  my  account. 

375  The  Luckiamute  Church  was  organized  April  i,  1854. — Mattoon,  Bap.  An. 
of   Or*.,    1: 1 6.      Luckiamute    is   about    four    miles    south    of    Monmouth,    in    Polk 


CORRESPONDENCE  127 

Preached  21  sermons ;  have  attended  the  constitution  of  the 
church  on  Cedar  Creek.     .     .     . 

Respectfully  submitted, 

EZRA  FISHER. 

N.  B. — The  extra  traveling  expenses  are  for  a  tour  to  The 
Dalles,  which  I  shall  make  as  soon  as  the  yearly  meetings 
are  over  this  month.    If  I  fail  to  go  I  shall  deduct  the  amount 
in  my  next  report. 
Received  Oct.  17. 


Oregon  City,  O.  Ter.,  Oct.  3d,  1855. 
Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor  Sec.  Am.  Bap.  Home  Mission  Soc. 
Dear  Brother: 

Last  Thursday  I  took  the  steamer  for  The  Dalles  and  arrived 
at  The  Cascades  about  eight  in  the  evening.  Found  The 
Cascades  in  a  high  state  of  excitement  through  fear  of  a 
nightly  attack  of  the  Yaccima  [Yakima]  and  Clickitat 
[Klickitat]  Indians,  which  was  daily  expected.376  About  500 
of  their  warriors  were  reported  to  be  encamped  in  a  plain 
about  35  or  40  miles  northeast  of  The  Cascades,  who  are 
said  to  aim  at  the  destruction  of  the  whites  at  The  Cascades 
and  thus  cut  off  communication  between  the  Willamette  Valley 
and  the  upper  country  (or  middle  Oregon).  Some  15  whites 
are  reported  as  already  murdered  by  these  tribes,  chiefly 
miners;  one  Indian  agent  is  included  in  the  number.  Yet 
Indian  rumors  are  uncertain.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  I  found 
The  Cascades  mostly  deserted  by  the  women  and  children. 
The  men  had  organized  themselves  into  a  military  company 
for  self  defense.  The  family  residing  on  the  north  side  of 
the  river  midway  between  The  Cascades  and  The  Dalles  had 
moved  to  The  Dalles  for  safety.  Thirty  soldiers  had  been 
sent  down  from  The  Dalles  to  guard  the  house  and  out- 


376  This  was  the  beginning  of  the  Indian  War  of  1855-6,  which  arose  partly 
over  dissatisfaction  with  the  treaties  of  1855,  and  partly  over  the  large  influx  of 
whites,  and  which  involved  Eastern  Oregon  and  nearly  all  of  the  present  Wash- 
ington.— Bancroft,  Hist,  of  Wash.,  Ida.  and  Mont.,  pp.  108-170. 


128  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

buildings.  While  I  lay  at  The  Cascades  an  express  came  down 
from  The  Dalles  making  a  requisition  for  all  the  soldiers  that 
could  be  spared  at  Vancouver  to  be  sent  immediately  to  The 
Cascades.  With  this  state  of  excitement,  I  thought  little  could 
be  expected  from  a  visit  to  The  Dalles,  as  this  warlike  ap- 
pearance from  the  Indians  will  seriously  retard  the  settlement 
of  the  whole  upper  country  for  a  year  or  two  at  the  least. 
Consequently  I  return  without  even  spending  a  night  on  the 
land. 

All  the  Pend  d'  Oreille  miners  have  returned,  except  a  few 
French  and  perhaps  a  very  few  whites.  About  25  or  30 
white  families  are  settled  in  the  vicinity  of  The  Dalles,  and 
ten  or  twelve  more,  besides  some  fifty  or  sixty  French  whites 
and  half-breeds,  are  in  the  Walla  Walla  Valley  in  the  vicinity 
of  the  Whitman  Mission  Station.  Although  we  have  some  80 
or  100  regular  troops  at  The  Dalles,  these  scattered  families 
will  be  in  great  danger,  should  the  Indian  war  become  gen- 
eral with  the  tribes  above  the  Cascade  Mountains.  O,  when 
will  wars  cease,  and  men  everywhere  submit  to  the  glorious 
Prince  of  Peace !  If  I  were  a  young  man,  I  sometimes  think 
I  should  delight  to  propagate  the  blessed  gospel  among  these 
tribes  and  see  if  they  could  not  be  saved  from  the  brutal  lusts 
of  outlawed  whites  and  the  Jesuital  intrigues  and  supersti- 
tion of  the  Roman  priests.  I  have  but  little  doubt  that  the 
same  artful  teachers  are  at  work  with  those  Indians  that  were 
accessory  to  the  Whitman  massacre.  O,  when  shall  that 
great  City  Babylon,  in  whom  was  found  the  blood  of  the 
prophets  and  of  saints  and  of  all  that  were  slain  upon  the 
earth,  be  thrown  down  and  found  no  more !  Oh  Lord,  hasten 
it  in  Thy  time. 

I  shall  start  tomorrow  for  a  tour  in  the  upper  part  of  the 
valley  and  propose  visiting  some  of  the  feeble  churches  in 
Lane  County,  if  God  permits.  I  have  nothing  more  that  is 
new  to  communicate  at  this  time,  but  shall  communicate  on 
the  subject  of  the  school  in  this  place  in  a  few  weeks.  I  fear 
Br.  Post  will  set  up  an  independent  school  about  two  miles 


CORRESPONDENCE  129 

from  this  place  in  the  opening-  of  the  spring.377  But  I  cannot 
communicate  with  you  officially  on  that  subject  till  the  com- 
mittee visit  him  and  report  to  the  trustees. 

Yours  very  affectionately, 

EZRA  FISHER. 

N.  B. — The  school  is  now  full.     May  God  pour  out  His 
Holy  Spirit  upon  it. 

E.  FISHER. 
Received  Nov.  14. 


Oregon  City,  O.  Ter.,  Nov.  27th,  1855. 
Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill,  D.  D., 

Cor.  Sec.  Am.  Bapt.  Home  Mission  Society,  New  York. 
Dear  Brother: 

Yours  of  Sept.  1st,  containing  draft  No.  8650,  $376.24,  was 
duly  received.  We  here  think  that  Br.  Post  has  very  little 
reason  to  complain  respecting  support.  The  school,  accord- 
ing to  his  statement  last  spring,  has  been  a  paying  concern 
ever  since  the  first  three  weeks  after  he  commenced  teaching, 
and  I  am  quite  sure  it  has  paid  better  since  that  time  than 
it  did  before,  if  he  succeeds  as  well  in  collecting  as  he  did 
formerly. 

Private.  His  course  with  us  as  a  board  has  been  rather 
singular.  He  has  from  time  to  time  avowed  his  intention  to 
open  an  independent  school  about  two  miles  from  town.  Last 
May  the  Board  of  Trustees  met  to  take  into  consideration 
the  state  of  the  school  and  invited  him  to  meet  with  us.  The 
first  meeting  he  did  not  attend.  A  committee  was  appointed 
to  wait  on  him  and  inquire  into  sundry  reports  which  we 
thought  unfavorable  to  the  prosperity  of  the  Oregon  City 
College,  such  as  the  following:  That  he  had  changed  the 
name  of  the  school  in  his  advertisements;  had  proposed  to 
take  females  as  scholars,  which  he  has  since  done;  had  pri- 
vately expressed  his  determination  to  open  an  independent 

377  This  school  was  opened  and  ran  for  a  time  just  outside  the  present  south- 
ern limits  of  Oregon  City. 


130  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

school,  as  stated  above,  without  consulting  with  any  of  the 
Trustees  on  the  subject,  and  that  he  had  announced  in  a 
church  meeting  that  he  did  not  know  who  the  Trustees  were, 
except  two  or  three,  and  he  did  not  care.  The  committee 
waited  on  him  and  inquired  after  most  of  these  reports.  He 
made  some  apologies  and  explanations.  He  was  told  that  an 
attempt  to  set  up  an  independent  school  would  be  injurious  to 
all  parties  and  especially  to  himself;  that  the  Board  of  Trus 
tees  could  not  cherish  the  scheme  for  a  moment.  He  agreed  to 
desist  from  that  enterprise,  if  the  Trustees  would  allow  him  to 
reside  on  his  land  and  teach  in  our  school  building.  He  was 
told  that  we  did  not  care  particularly  where  he  resided,  pro- 
vided he  discharged  the  duties  of  a  teacher  faithfully.  At 
that  time  he  probably  would  have  been  dismissed  but  for  Br. 
Chandler  and  myself.  We  felt  that  it  was  difficult  to  secure 
the  labors  of  a  competent  teacher  and  that  the  Home  Mis- 
sionary Society  had  already  sent  us  three  teachers  and  we 
had  little  hope  they  would  send  us  the  fourth.  We,  therefore, 
smothered  the  bursting  flame  and  hoped  he  would  be  more 
prudent  in  the  future.  But  it  is  probable  he  will  open  an  in- 
dependent school  as  soon  as  next  summer,  unless  he  can  again 
be  persuaded  to  desist.  As  a  teacher,  with  few  exceptions,  we 
have  little  occasion  to  find  fault.  Yet  we  have  always  felt 
that  it  would  have  been  desirable  that  the  school  should  have 
made  a  more  decidedly  religious  impression  on  the  public 
mind.  In  view  of  all  the  circumstances,  we  feel  that  it  is 
safe  to  treat  this  matter  kindly  till  we  see  some  opening  in 
providence  for  action. 

As  ever  yours, 

EZRA  FISHER. 


Oregon  City,  Nov.  27th,  1855. 
Rev.  B.  M.  Hill,  D.  D. 
Dear  Brother: 

Br.  Boyakin  will  probably  leave  Portland  at  the  close  of 
the  year.     He  has  so  signified  in  a  communication  to  the 


CORRESPONDENCE  131 

church  in  that  place.  I  regret  much  that  his  stay  must  be  so 
short.  I  believe  his  plea  principally  is  the  sickness  of  his 
family.  No  doubt  the  town  is  subject  to  intermittent  and  re- 
mittent fevers  during  the  summer  and  autumn,  but  much  less 
severe  than  in  many  of  the  towns  on  the  Mississippi  River. 
Should  he  not  settle  at  Corvallis,  he  will  probably  leave  Ore- 
gon. The  brethren  and  citizens  at  Corvallis  appear  quite 
solicitous  that  he  should  settle  with  them  and  they  think  they 
can  raise  $500  towards  his  salary  for  the  first  year.  They 
have  invited  him  and  requested  me  to  exert  my  influence 
to  induce  him  to  go  to  that  place.  I  shall  not  encourage  a 
separation  at  Portland,  but,  should  he  conclude  to  go  to  Cor- 
vallis, he  will  need  about  $300,  above  the  $500  the  citizens 
propose  raising  him,  to  sustain  his  family.  It  is  to  be  regretted 
that  the  ministers  should  return  to  the  States  after  they  have 
incurred  all  the  expense  and  privations  of  removing  overland 
to  Oregon.  May  the  Good  Lord  direct  him  and  the  little 
feeble  band  at  Portland  to  His  name's  praise!  Portland  must 
have  a  minister  if  practicable. 

Yours  affectionately, 

EZRA  FISHER. 

N.  B. — At  the  strong  solicitude  of  the  Santiam  church,  I 
have  consented  to  take  the  pastoral  charge  of  that  feeble, 
afflicted  band  at  the  expiration  of  the  current  year.  Elder 
Richmond  Cheadle,  an  influential  member  of  the  church,  has 
avowed  his  disfellowship  with  that  church.  He  will  probably 
join  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  with  him  several  more  may 
go.  It  is  thought  advisable  by  all  with  whom  I  have  con- 
sulted that  I  should  accept  their  invitation  and,  as  they  pro- 
pose to  move  my  family  immediately  and  the  place  will  be 
more  central  for  my  winter's  labors  than  this,  I  have  con- 
sented to  move  in  a  few  days.  I  shall  hereafter  address  you 
at  Washington  Butte  Post-office,  Linn  County,  O.  T.  You 
will  still  address  me  at  this  place  and  the  letters  will  be 
promptly  forwarded  to  me  at  Washington  Butte.  It  is  thought 
that  my  presence  at  the  Santiam  church  may  be  instrumental 


132  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

in  arresting  the  sophistical  arguments  in  favor  of  promiscuous 
communion,  while  I  may  be  at  home  the  coming  winter.  This 
situation  was  unsought  and  entirely  unexpected  on  my  part, 
and,  after  much  prayer  on  the  subject,  I  have  concluded  that 
it  was  one  of  Providence's  calls.  The  church  is  very  nearly 
in  the  center  of  the  valley  and  removed  far  away  from  most 
of  the  talent  in  the  ministry.  Should  the  Board  require  it, 
I  will  make  up  the  time  I  shall  lose  in  moving,  which  will 
be  but  a  few  days,  after  the  first  of  April. 

Yours  in  gospel  bonds, 

EZRA  FISHER. 
Received  Jan.  15,  1856. 


Oregon  City,  O.  Ter.,  Nov.  28th,  1855. 
To  Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill,  D.  D., 

Cor.  Sec.  of  Am.  Bap.  Home  Mission  Soc. : 
Herein  I  send  you  my  report  of  labor  under  the  appoint- 
ment of  the  Home  Mission  Society  as  General  Itinerant  for 
the  third  quarter  ending  Dec.  31st,  1855.  I  have  labored  13 
weeks  in  the  quarter ;  preacher  27  sermons ;  attended  1 1  prayer 
meetings;  one  yearly  meeting;  six  church  covenant  meetings; 
visited  religiously  42  families  and  31  individuals;  traveled  to 
and  from  my  appointments  660  miles. 

Respectfully  submitted, 

EZRA  FISHER, 

General  Itinerant. 

P.  S. — The  results  of  the  yearly  meeting  with  the  Provi- 
dence church  in  the  forks  of  the  Santiam  and  a  subsequent 
meeting  held  in  the  vicinity  is  about  70  hopeful  conversions 
and  about  40  baptized.  A  new  church  constituted;  also  a 
protracted  meeting  held  on  the  south  fork  of  Santiam;  some 
eight  or  ten  baptized  and  a  church  constituted.  For  the  last 
five  months  the  French  Prairie  church  have  been  somewhat 
revived  and  have  had  additions  almost  every  month  amount- 
ing to  six  or  eight,  and  the  interest  still  continues.  This  is 
in  Br.  Chandler's  field  of  labor. 

Yours,  EZRA  FISHER. 


CORRESPONDENCE  133 

Oregon  City,  O.  Ter.?  Nov.  28th,  1855. 
To  Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill,  D.  D., 

Cor.  Sec.  of  Am.  Home  Mission  Soc. : 

Herein  I  send  you  my  report  of  labor  under  the  appoint- 
ment of  the  Home  Mission  Society  as  Exploring  Agent  for 
the  third  quarter  ending  Dec.  31st,  1855. 

I  have  visited  Corvallis  twice,  Albany,  Salem  and  Oregon 
City,  Corvallis,  Oregon  City,  French  Prairie,  Shilo,  Santiam, 
Willamette  Forks,  and  Palestine  churches.  Have  labored  13 
weeks  during  the  quarter;  traveled  to  and  from  my  appoint- 
ments 660  miles;  have  paid  for  traveling  expenses  $3.00; 
postage,  30  cents ;  total  $3.30. 

N.  B. — Last  quarter  I  was  detained  from  going  to  The 
Dalles,  consequently  my  traveling  expenses  were  four  dollars 
overcharged.  You  will  therefore  deduct  four  dollars  from 
that  quarter's  traveling  expenses,  which  will  then  read  $9.25, 
instead  of  $13.25. 

Respectfully  submitted, 

EZRA  FISHER, 

Exploring  Agent. 
Received  Jan.  15,  1856. 


Oregon  City,  Oregon  Ter.,  Nov.  29th,  1855. 
Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  Am.  Bapt.  Home  Mission  Society. 
Dear  Brother : 

To  accommodate  Brother  George  C.  Chandler,  I  have  re- 
ceived of  him  thirty-two  dollars  and  fifty  cents  ($32.50)  to 
be  paid  to  Edward  H.  Fletcher,  141  Nassau  St.,  New  York. 

$32.50 

Mothers'  Journal,  118  Arch  St.,  Philadelphia 5.00 

Missionary  Magazine,  33  Somerset  St.,  Boston 3.00 

Total . . $40.50 

Also  Mothers'  Journal  for  Mrs.  Lucy  Jane  G. 

Latourette 1.00 

Total  .  .  .$41.50 


134  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

I  shall  order  you  to  pay  the  above  in  a  few  weeks.  Deduct 
$41.50  from  the  amount  due  me  on  the  receipt  of  the  report 
accompanying  this  and  forward  me  a  draft  to  cover  the  bal- 
ance, which  will  then  be  my  due,  at  your  earliest  convenience. 

EZRA  FISHER. 


Soda  Springs,  Linn  Co.,  O.  Ter.,  Jan.  1st,  1856. 
Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  Am.  Bap.  Home  Mission  Soc., 
Baptist  Mission  Rooms,  N.  York  City. 
Pay  the  agent  for  the  Mothers*  Journal,  118  Arch  Street, 
Philadelphia,  five  dollars  and  charge  the  same  to  my  account. 

EZRA  FISHER. 


Soda  Springs,  Linn  Co.,  O.  Ter.,  Jan.  1st,  1856. 
Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Sec.  Am.  Bap.  Home  Mission  Soc., 

Baptist  Mission  Rooms,  New  York  City. 
Pay  the  agent  of  the  Baptist  Missionary  Magazine,  No.  33 
Somerset  Street,  Boston,  Mass.,  three  dollars  and  charge  the 
same  to  my  account. 

EZRA  FISHER. 


Washington  Butte,  Linn  Co.,  Co.,  Oregon,  Mar.  31,  1857. 
Rev.  Benjamin  M.  Hill, 

Cor.  Sec.  Am.  Bap.  Home  Mission  Soc. 
Dear  Brother  Hill: 

I  now  take  up  my  long  neglected  pen  to  give  you  a  brief 
outline  of  the  cause  of  Christ  in  Oregon  at  present;  and  I 
may  say  at  once  that  we  are  all  famishing  under  the  influ- 
ence of  a  spiritual  dearth.  The  results  of  the  revivals  in 
'55  and  '56  are  being  witnessed  to  an  alarming  degree.  In 
some  churches,  most  of  the  converts  continue  to  maintain  a 
form  of  godliness;  in  others,  more  than  half  the  number  of 
those  who  united  with  the  church  are  now  walking  in  the 
broad  road  of  sin,  I  fear,  to  ruin;  and  there  are  churches 


CORRESPONDENCE  135 

in  which  the  wayside  hearers  and  professors  hold  a  still  greater 
proportion.  Do  you  ask  the  cause  of  this  declension?  I 
conceive  it  is  not  one  but  legion.  Monthly  Sabbaths,  and  in 
too  many  instances  no  Sabbaths,  and  visiting  represent  in  a 
great  degree  all  Bible  reading,  as  well  as  almost  all  religious 
reading  among  the  youths.  Sabbath  school  and  Bible  classes 
may  be  sustained,  but  it  is  only  the  few  of  our  youths  be- 
longing to  religious  families  who  can  be  induced  to  become 
habitual  members.  Our  members  are  in  each  church  scattered 
over  large  districts  of  country,  with  few  conveniences  for 
bringing  their  families  together  on  the  Lord's  day.  Those 
who  would  concentrate  their  influence  cannot  without  a  sac- 
rifice larger  than  they  can  willingly  make. 

And  then  the  pastoral  relation  in  the  churches,  beyond  that 
of  preaching  on  Saturday  and  Sabbath  once  in  a  month  to 
a  given  church,  and  occasionally  visiting  the  most  delinquent 
members,  is  merely  nominal;  we  have  but  two  Baptist  min- 
isters in  Oregon  who  profess  to  give  themselves  to  the  work 
of  the  ministry,  and  one  of  them  is  talking  of  leaving  for  the 
States;  the  other  is  laboring  at  a  salary  of  $300,  and  that 
from  the  States,  while  clerks'  hire  is  from  $600  to  $2200  per 
annum.  Our  families  are  supported  as  Paul  supported  himself 
while  laboring  for  the  Corinthian  Church. 

And  then  the  question  of  slavery,  as  well  as  that  of  tem- 
perance,..must  needs  be  noted,  both  in  and  out  of  the  church, 
as  we  approach  the  period  of  the  adoption  of  a  state  consti- 
tution, and  as  we  hear  of  the  wrongs  endured  by  the  Kansas 
patriots  on  account  of  their  love  for  the  inalienable  rights  of 
man.  A  large  portion  of  our  members  are  from  slave-holding 
states,  and  a  larger  portion  are  professedly  opposed  to  slavery, 
"but  all  their  sympathies  are  with  the  South."  What  a  para- 
dox! 

And  then,  too,  many  of  our  revivals  have  singing  as  the 
instrument  more  than  humiliation,  prayer,  the  reading  of  the 
word  of  God  and  the  preached  word.  With  such  a  train  of 
causes,  what  could  we  expect  other  than  the  sad  results  we 


136  REVEREND  EZRA  FISHER 

are  now  witnessing"  through  our  whole  territory  ?  Is  it  a 
wonder,  under  such  influences,  that  our  best  ministers  should 
talk  sometimes  of  leaving  the  ministry,  and  betake  themselves 
to  teaching,  as  a  means  of  procuring  an  honest  livelihood? 
Ministers  indeed  seem  willing  to  make  great  sacrifices  for  the 
cause  of  the  blessed  Redeemer,  and  will  preach  what  they  can 
under  the  circumstances.  But  they  must  become  secularized. 
Their  minds  will  not  be  fruitful  in  word  and  doctrine,  and  all 
the  blighting  influences  of  an  ignorant,  undisciplined,  dis- 
organized ministry  and  churches  driven  by  every  wind  of 
doctrine  must  be  the  tendency  in  such  a  state  of  things. 

Now  what  is  to  be  done?  Should  we  not  have  in  Oregon 
at  least  two  substantial,  efficient  ministers,  fully  -sustained, 
who  will  approve  themselves  workmen  not  needing  to  be 
ashamed?  Should  not  the  Home  Mission  Society  immediately 
give  us  such  men,  either  by  sending  us  the  men,  or  appointing 
such  as  we  have  among  us? 

Should  your  Board  appoint  Brother  Chandler  to  the  Ore- 
gon City  church,  that  church  would  do  what  they  could  to 
help  sustain  him.  Portland  church  is  virtually  extinct  for  the 
want  of  a  suitable  man.  I  would  suggest  that  the  second 
man  be  appointed  to  locate  himself  discretionarily,  but  at  some 
important  point. 

With  the  interest  of  the  churches,  our  school  at  Oregon 
City  has  suffered.  Br.  Post  has  withdrawn  from  that  school 
and  set  up  an  independent  school  less  than  two  miles  from 
the  building  erected  by  the  Baptists  and  where  he  formerly 
taught.  His  course  with  us  has  not  been  in  harmony  with 
the  interests  of  the  Baptists.  I  think  I  speak  the  sentiment 
of  the  whole  denomination,  so  far  as  he  is  known,  when  I 
say  that  his  whole  course  has  seemed  to  be  governed  by  his 
views  of  his  own  interest  in  dollars  and  cents. 

At  present  the  school  is  taught  by  a  son  and  daughter  of 
Br.  Hezekiah  Johnson,  your  former  missionary,  and  the  school 
is  doing  as  well  as  could  be  expected  under  the  circumstances. 
But  we  need  a  teacher  qualified  to  teach  the  higher  branches 


CORRESPONDENCE  137 

of  mathematics  and  Latin  and  Greek,  as  well  as  the  natural 
sciences.  We  all  think  such  a  man  would  be  well  sustained 
and  patronized  by  the  denomination  and  the  citizens,  if  he  will 
come  to  us  willing  to  identify  himself  with  the  Baptist  interests. 
A  liberal-minded  man  need  feel  no  embarrassments  on  this 
subject.  The  public  mind  in  Oregon  seems  wonderfully  im- 
pressed with  the  thought  that  they  are  to  have  no  good  schools 
in  Oregon  except  such  as  are  under  the  fostering  care  of  some 
religious  denomination;  and  to  the  evangelical  churches  they 
will  look  for  good  high  schools  till  they  learn  effectually  that 
the  churches  will  not  assume  this  responsibility.  We  might 
to-day  have  half  a  dozen  flourishing  high  schools  in  Oregon, 
if  we  had  the  houses  and  teachers  and  necessary  apparatus. 
The  question  is  a  grave  one.  Shall  we  as  Baptists  suffer  these 
positions  to  slide  over  into  the  hands  of  the  Methodists  and 
Congregationalists  ?  Or,  what  is  worse,  leave  the  rising  gen- 
eration in  Oregon  unprovided  with  even  the  means  of  acquiring 
a  business  education,  and  our  churches  uncared  for  in  the 
great  work  of  raising  up  a  living  ministry  in  our  midst?  Will 
you  once  more  send  us  a  man  for  Oregon  City  University? 
I  write  officially. 

Yours  truly, 

EZRA  FISHER. 


Route  of  Narrow  Gauge  Railroad  in  the  Willamette  Valley 


DEATH  LIST  OF  OREGON  PIONEERS 
JANUARY  I—MARCH  31,  1919 

Compiled  by  GEORGE  H.  HIKES. 

Balaton,  Noah  F.  Gregg,  b.  Or.  1852;  d.  Sheridan,  Feb.  n,  1919. 
Barker,    Mrs.    Miary   Ann   Hobson,    b.    Mo.,    Nov.    22,    1843;    1847; 


March  24,  1919. 


Echo, 


Batcsheller,  John  Wesley,  b.  1830;    1852;   d.  near  Seattle,  Wash.,  Feb. 

28,  1919. 

Boise,    Mrs.    Emily   Parmenter,    b.    Mass.    1827;    1859;    A    Salem,    March   26, 
1919. 

Bush.,    D.    W,    b.    .    1854;    d.    Portland,    Jan.    12,    1919. 

•Chance,  William  G.,  b.  Ky.,  Jan.  18,  1849;  1852;  d.  Portland^  Jan.  21,  1919. 

Cook,   Robert  A.,  b.   Tenn.   May  31,    1833;    1853;   d.   Gold  Hill,   Or.,   March 
16,  1919. 

Davenport,  John  C,  b.  N.  Y.  18 — ;  1851 ;  d.  Hoquiam,  Wash.,  March  i,  1910. 

Driver,   Samuel   B.,   b.   Ind.  June   14,    1852;   Or.    1853;   d.   Wamis,   March  4, 
1919;  nephew  of  Rev.  I.  D.  Driver. 

Egan,  John  T.,  b.  Canada,  1852;  Or.  1852;  d.  Albany,  Jan.  n,  1919. 

Evans,   Mrs.  Amanda  Jane.  b.  May  7,   1851;  Or.   1852;  d.  Feb.   11,   1019. 

Foster,  Mrs.  Nancy  Jane  Hubbard,  b.  I1L  Feb.  6,  1847;  Or.  1853;  d.  Portland, 
Jan.  19,  1919. 

Fuller,  Mrs.  Laura  M.,  b. ;  Or.  1852;  d.  Portland,  Marcch  28,  19x9. 

Harpole,  Peter,  b.  111.  Feb.  5,  1841;  Or.  1847;  d.  Junction  City,  F«b.  15,  1919. 

•Hawn,  Jasper  C.,  b.  Texas,  Feb.  8,  1840;  Or.  1843;  d.  Yamhill,  Jan.  25,  1919. 

•Hembree,  James  Thomas,   b.  Tenn.   Sept.   13,   1826;   Or.   1843;   d.   Portland, 
Jan.  12,  1919. 

Hughes,  Mrs.  Ella,  b.  Ohio,  1851;  Or.   1858;  d.  Feb.  6,  1919. 

'    March  22,  1919. 

Mass.  Jan.  12,  1919. 

,  'Portland,  March  27,  1919. 

•La  Rue,  Mrs.  Lydia  W.,  b.  Vt.   1834;  Or.  1853;  d.  Portland,  Feb.  8,  1919. 

Lewis,  Frederick  George,  b.  Or.  1847;  d.  Airlie,  Feb.  19,  1919. 

Magers,  J.  E.,  b.  Ohio,  1848;  Or.  1852;  d.  near  Portland,  Jan.  25,  1919. 

Martin,  James  White,  b.   Or.  Aug.,   1853;  d.   Lafayette,  Jan.  23,   1919. 

Mays,  J.  R.,  b.  111.  June  29,  1836;  Or.  1852;  d.  North  Plains,  Feb.  7,  1919. 

Miller,  W.  G.,  b.  Mo.  June  25,  1834;  Or.  1852:  d.  Dillard,  Jan.  12,  1919. 

•Mitchell,  William  H.,  b.  111.  1834;  Or.  1853;  d.  Los  Angeles,  Cal.,  March  14, 
1919. 

•McHaley,  Andrew  J.,  b.  Mo.  1839;  Or.  1843;  d.  Portland,  Jan.  24,  1919. 

McClure,   Mrs.   Laura  V.   Pierce,   b.   Ohio,   May   13,   1837;   Or.    1852;   d.   La 
Grande,  March  — >,  1919. 

•Pittock,  Henry  Lewis,  b.  England,  March  x,   1835;  Pittsburgh,  U.  S.,   1839; 
Or.  1853;  d.  Portland,  Jan.  28,  1919. 

•Robison,  George  Crews,  b.  111.  Oct.  18,  1837;  Or.  1853;  d.  McMinnville,  Jan. 
31,  1919. 

Russell,  A.   P.,  b.   Me.    1832;   Cal.    1849;   Or.   Linn  county,   18 — ;   d.   Salem, 
March  xo,  1019.     Father  of  17  children,  twelve  surviving. 

Sears,  Charles  W.,  b.  Va.  1837;  Or.  1854;  d.  Albany,  Feb.  18,  1919. 

Severson,  Peter  W.,  b.  N.  Y.   1830;  Cal.   1856;  Or.   1858;  d.  Portland,  Jan., 
1919. 

Taylor,  John  A,  b.  N.  Y.  Sept.  12,  1825;  Or.  1852;  d.  Feb.  12,  1919. 

Tustin,  Caleb  S.,  b.  111.  1830;  Or.  1847;  d.  McMinnville,  Feb.  xx,  1919. 

Umphlette,  Mrs.   Serena,  b.   Mo.    1833;   Or.   1850;  d.  near  Amity,  March  ax, 
1919. 

Van  Ogle,  H.  E.,  b.  Ohio,  Sept.  21,  1825;  Or.  1853;  d.  Orting,  Wash.,  F«b.  17, 
1919. 

Washburn,    Charles   W.,    b.    Ohio,    Sept.    13,    1824;    Cal.    1849;    Or.    1853;    d. 
Junction  City,  Jan.  12,  1919. 

Welch,  Mrs.   Margaret  Levisa  Simmons,  b.  Iowa,  May  4,   1838;  Or.  ;  d. 

Ridgefield,  Wash.,  Feb.  13,  1919. 


Only  those  marked  with  a  *  were  ever  at  any  time  members  of  the  Oregon 
'Pioneer  Association  which  was  organized  in  1873. 


THE  QUARTERLY 


of  the 

Oregon  Historical  Society 

VOLUME  XX  JUNE,  1919  NUMBER  2 

Copyright,  1919,  by  the  Oregon  Historical  Society 
The  Quarterly  disavows  responsibility  for  the  positions  taken  by  contributors  to  its  pages . 

HISTORY  OF  THE  NARROW  GAUGE  RAILROAD  IN 
THE  WILLAMETTE  VALLEY  1 

By  LESLIE  M.  SCOTT 

Forty  years  ago  the  Willamette  Valley  was  eager  for  rail- 
roads, just  as  now  for  automobile  highways.  The  navigable 
river  which  drains  the  valley  was  an  easy  avenue  of  transport- 
ation, but  wagon  roads  leading  to  the  river  were  difficult,  and, 
in  much  of  the  productive  area,  were  impassable  in  winter  and 
impossible  in  summer.  Two  lines  of  railroad  reached  south- 
ward from  Portland,  the  one  forty-eight  miles  to  Saint  Joseph, 
on  Yamhill  River2,  the  other,  two  hundred  miles  to  Roseburg3, 
in  the  valley  of  Umpqua  River.  Wagon  road  approaches  to 
these  steel  highways  were  difficult,  like  those  to  the  river.  In 
short,  agricultural  growth  was  held  back  by  poor  means  of 
hauling  to  market.  The  best  remedy  then  known  was  con- 
struction of  iron  railroads.  And  the  cheapest  railroad  to 
build  and  operate  was  the  narrow-gauge.4 

1  The  writer  is  indebted,  for  matter  of  this  article,  to  Charles  N.   Scott,  who 
as  receiver  of  the  narrow  gauge  railroad,   was  its  manager  in   1885-90;   to   Richard 
Koehler,    who   was   foremost   in   management   of   the   property   after   its   acquisition 
by   the   Southern   Pacific   in    1890;    to   F.    E.   Beach,   who   was  manager  in    1878   in 
the  initial  stages  of  the  railroao:;  to  Joseph  Gaston's  Centennial  History  of  Oregon, 
the  author  of  which  promoted,  financed  and  built  the  first  twenty  miles  in   1878; 
and,   especially,   to  the  files  of  The  Oregoniati,  the  consecutive  reading  of  which 
has  afforded  the  working  materials  of  this  article.      See  history  of  narrow  gauge 
in  The  Oregonian,  January  i,  1889;  also  March  6,   1889,  by  William  Reid. 

2  Built  in  1870-72;  the  Oregon  Central  Railroad. 

3  Built  in  1868-72;  the  Oregon  and  California  Railroad. 

4  The  rails  of  the  narrow   gauge  were  three  feet  apart;   of  standard  gauge, 
are  four  feet  eight  and  one-half  inches. 


142  LESLIE  M.  SCOTT 

The  narrow  gauge  or  "Yamhill"  railroad,  initiated  in  1877 
between  Dayton  and  Sheridan,  in  Yamhill  County,  with  a 
branch  to  Dallas  in  Polk  County,  grew  in  1879-81  to  be  an 
ambitious  system,  embracing  the  length  of  the  Willamette 
Valley,  from  Portland  to  Airlie  80  miles  on  the  west  side, 
and  to  Coburg,  123  miles  on  the  east  side,  a  total  trackage  of 
183  miles,  with  proposed  extensions  to  Winnemucca  on  the 
Central  Pacific  in  Nevada,  and  to  Astoria  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Columbia  River,  and  with  proposed  connections  with 
Yaquina  Bay,  the  whole  system  to  contain  nearly  one 
thousand  miles  of  track,  seaports  at  Astoria,  Portland  and 
Yaquina,  and  transcontinental  rail  connections  with  the  Cen- 
tral Pacific  and  Union  Pacific  railroads.  The  scheme  ended 
in  1881  when  the  Oregon  Railway  and  Navigation  Company 
leased  the  railroad  in  order  to  rid  Henry  Villard' s  system  of 
its  rivalry. 

The  narrow  gauge  exercised  important  competitive  effects 
upon  other  railroad  lines  in  Oregon.  It  forced  extensions  of 
the  Oregon  and  California  Railroad.  It  influenced  the  policies 
of  Henry  Villard,  who  was  then  in  command  of  the  Northern 
Pacific,  the  Columbia  River  rail  route  of  the  present  Oregon- 
Washington  Railroad  and  Navigation  Company,  and  the  pres- 
ent east  side  and  west  side  lines  of  the  Southern  Pacific  in 
Oregon.  But  the  narrow  gauge  was  only  partly  built;  the 
bridge  across  the  Willamette  River  near  Dundee,  to  connect 
the  two  main  branches,  was  not  constructed;  tracks,  rolling 
stock  and  bridges  fell  into  disrepair  under  Villard;  the  exten- 
sion to  Portland  did  not  reach  completion  until  a  later  time, 
and  then  under  its  Southern  Pacific  owners,  who  discarded 
the  large  scheme,  and  used  the  tracks  merely  as  "feeders"  to 
other  lines.  The  tracks  of  the  narrow  gauge,  broadened  to 
"standard,"  now  are  components  of  the  Southern  Pacific,  some 
of  them  electrified. 

The  history  of  the  narrow  gauge  makes  an  important  nar- 
rative in  the  progress  of  Oregon,  a  narrative  which  the  writer 
has  had  in  mind  during  several  years,  and  to  which  he  finds 


THE  NARROW  GAUGE  RAILROAD  143 

himself  brought  suddenly  by  the  unexpected  call  of  the  editor 
of  this  magazine  for  "copy." 

The  initial  credits  for  financing  the  railroad  were  supplied 
by  Yamhill  and  Polk  county  farmers.  The  San  Francisco 
firm  that  furnished  the  rails  took  mortgage  security,  and  had 
to  resort  to  foreclosure  for  collection.  Other  credit  came 
from  Joseph  Gaston,  who  had  promoted  the  Portland-Forest 
Grove  railroad  in  1867-70,  and  who,  though  possessing  but 
small  means  in  cash,  owned  lands  which  he  offered  as  pledges. 
These  financial  resources  were  so  inadequate  that  the  project 
soon  fell  into  receivership,  from  which  it  was  extricated  by 
Scotch  capitalists  headed  by  William  Reid,  who  in  1878-81 
invested  some  $2,500,000  in  the  property.  This  capital  of  the 
Scotchmen  also  proved  insufficient,  a  further  expenditure  of 
more  than  $400,000,  borrowings  by  the  Oregon  receiver  in 
1885-89,  failed  to  place  the  railroad  on  a  sound  financial  basis, 
and  finally  the  property  passed  to  the  Southern  Pacific  for 
less  than  half  its  original  cost,  netting  to  the  Scotchmen  an 
apparent  loss  of  some  $1,300,000. 

So  much  for  the  general  survey  of  the  history.  Now  for 
details. 

Farmers  of  Yamhill  and  Polk  counties  had  been  waiting 
many  years  for  promised  railroad  construction,  when,  in  1877, 
a  narrow  gauge  scheme  was  proposed,  to  extend  from  steam- 
boat connections  at  Dayton  to  Sheridan,  twenty  miles.  The 
farmers  had  grown  impatient.  Joseph  Gaston  had  promised 
them  a  railroad  in  1867-70,  and  Ben  Holladay  in  1870-73. 
The  latter  had  opened  the  west  side  railroad  from  Portland 
to  Saint  Joseph,5  near  McMinnville,  in  1872,  and  then  had 
collapsed  financially.  Residents  of  Yamhill  and  Polk  had 
expected  big  things  from  the  west  side  line,  and  had  seen 

5  By  way  of  Forest  Grove.  At  this  time  the  Oregon  and  California  Railroad, 
operating  between  Portland  and  Roseburg,  and  between  Portland  and  Saint 
Joseph,  could  not  finance  the  extensions  demanded  by  the  people  of  Willamette 
Valley,  and  the  best  that  it  could  do  was  to  extend  fifty  miles  in  1878  from  Saint 
Joseph  to  Corvallis.  This  period  of  popular  clamor  for  railroads,  which  resulted 
in  the  narrow  gauge  project,  was  a  period  of  depression  in  the  earnings  of  the 
Oregon  and  California  lines,  brought  about  partly  by  low  rates,  which  were  due 
to  river  competition  and  by  the  need  of  stimulating  wheat  producti9n,  and  partly 
by  high  cost  of  replacement  construction  of  trestles,  bridges  and  rails.  "The  net 
earnings,"  writes  Mr.  Richard  Koehler  in  a  recent  letter  to  the  writer,  "dwindled 
down  to  less  than  was  necessary  to  pay  one  per  cent  on  the  bonds  outstanding." 


144  LESLIE  M.  SCOTT 

their  hopes  dashed  to  disappointment.  So  they  were  keenly 
responsive  to  the  independent  scheme  of  the  Dayton-Sheridan 
promoters. 

A  leading  sponsor  in  its  early  stages  appears  to  have  been 
Isaac  Ball,  one  of  the  long-suffering  farmers.  At  his  instiga- 
tion, citizens  held  a  meeting  at  Amity,  October  20,  1877,  to 
consider  the  project.  The  meeting  named  a  committee  to 
report  upon  the  practicability  of  the  plan,  which  committee 
met  at  McMinnville,  November  1,  and  reported  at  a  second 
meeting  at  Amity,  November  17.  The  report  estimated  the 
cost  of  the  railroad  between  Dayton  and  Sheridan  at  $150,000, 
based  upon  costs  of  similar  construction  in  Ohio,  Illinois  and 
Missouri.  It  cited  that  the  railroad  would  serve  300,000  acres 
of  land,  which  would  produce  1,000,000  bushels  of  wheat 
annually.  An  assessment  of  fifty  cents  an  acre  would  build 
the  railroad,  and  add  five  dollars  to  the  value  of  every  acre.6 
The  report  continued : 

"Let  every  farmer  figure  for  himself.  Let  him  count  the  time  it  takes  to 
haul  his  grain  away  to  Dayton  now;  count  the  wear  and  tear  of  himself,  his 
teams  and  the  harness  and  wagons;  and  the  loss  in  the  prices  of  grain  in  not 
being  handy  to  the  market  to  catch  it  at  the  top  notch.  Let  him  also  count  the 
increased  cost  of  all  machinery,  merchandise,  salt,  iron,  lime,  etc.,  that  must  be 
hauled  from  Dayton  or  Saint  joe.  And  then  let  him  consider  how  much  more 
grain  he  could  raise,  if  he  could  save  the  time  spent  in  hauling  off  his  crop  to 
Dayton,  and  put  it  on  the  farm  in  fall  planting." 

This  report  was  dated  at  Dayton,  November  5,  1877,  and 
was  signed  by  B.  B.  Branson,  Charles  Lafollette  and  W.  S. 
Powell.  The  second  meeting  at  Amity,  which  received  the 
report  November  17,  responded  promptly  by  pledging  $24,000 
to  the  enterprise.  The  committee  also  went  through  the  pre- 
liminaries of  incorporating  a  company,  the  Dayton,  Sheridan 
and  Grand  Ronde  Railway  Company.7  The  directors  of  the 
company  were  B.  B.  Branson  (the  first  president),  Ellis  G. 
Hughes  (the  succeeding  president,  elected  March  22,  1878), 
Sylvester  Farrell,  W.  S.  Powell,  and  F.  E.  Beach.  The  sec- 
retary of  the  company  and  its  manager  in  1878  was  Mr. 


6  See  The  Oregonian,  November  15,  1877;  also  September  24,  1878. 

7  Date  of  incorporation   of  the   Dayton,   Sheridan   and  Grand   Ronde   Railway, 
November   14,    1877;  capital   stock,  $200,000;   2,000  shares,  par  $100. 


THE  NARROW  GAUGE  RAILROAD  145 

Beach,8  until  the  railroad  passed  into  the  hands  of  a  receiver, 
George  Revette. 

Joseph  Gaston,  well  known  railroad  promoter,  attended  the 
two  meetings  at  Amity,  and  subscribed  to  one-half  of  the 
2000  shares.  He  was  authorized  to  canvass  the  farmers  so  as 
to  enlist  them  to  make  pledges.  The  pledges  were  payable  in 
three  instalments,  at  specified  stages  of  construction,  were  to 
be  refunded  by  the  railroad  in  three  payments,  namely,  No- 
vember, 1,  1880,  November  1,  1881,  November  1,  1882,  and 
were  to  be  evidenced  by  "freight  orders  or  script,"  that  is, 
the  railroad  was  to  redeem  the  pledges  by  rendering  an  equiva- 
lent value  of  railroad  service.  This  "freight  script"  was  later 
held  chargeable  to  the  railroad  by  the  supreme  court  of  Ore- 
gon, and  $61,000  was  refunded.9 

The  heaviest  financing  was  performed  by  the  creditor  that 
supplied  the  rails,  the  Pacific  Rolling  Mill  Company,  of  Cali- 
fornia.10 It  accepted  three  mortgages  as  follows : 

Rails  for   20   miles,   mortgage  executed   November   5,    1878 $62,724.56 

Rails  for   12  miles  to  Dallas,   executed  December  4,    1878, 27,134.00 

Mortgage    executed    May    7,    1879 4,058.00 

Total $93,916.56" 

As  the  railroad  company  was  unable  to  make  the  payments 
due  under  the  mortgage  in  1878,  the  rolling  mill  company 
began  suit  to  recover  January  23,  1879,  and  had  the  receiver, 
Revette,  appointed,  who  conducted  the  management  more  than 
a  year,  or  until  April  17,  1880.11 

By  arrangement  with  the  Scotch  buyers  of  the  railroad, 
headed  by  William  Reid,  the  rolling  mill  company  was  satis- 
fied. The  railroad  was  conveyed  June  2,  1879,  to  a  company 
representing  the  new  investors,  the  Willamette  Valley  Rail- 
road Company,  and  the  old  company  was  dissolved.12 


8  See  Powell  vs.   Dayton,   Sheridan  and  Grand   Ronde  Railroad  Company,    16 
Oregon  34. 

9  Joseph    Gaston's    Centennial  History   of   Oregon   says   that   farmers   pledged 
$45,000   and  citizens  of  Dallas   put   up   $17,000   additional   for   the   branch    to   that 
town.      See  Vol.   I,   p.   533.      See  also   Branson   et  al   vs.    Oregonian   Railway  Com- 
pany,   Limited,    10    Oregon    279;    Powell    vs.    Oregonian    Railway   Company,    U.    S. 
reports,   Sawyer  13,  536. 

10  The  contract  for  rails  was  dated  February  14,  1878. 

11  See  Pacific  Rolling  Mill  Company  vs.  Dayton,  Sheridan  and  Grand  Ronde 
Railroad    Company,    Willamette    Valley    Railway    Company,    Joseph    Gaston    et    al, 
U.   S.   Court,   Ninth   Circuit,   Sawyer  7,   61. 

12  See    Powell    vs.    Dayton,    Sheridan    and    Grand    Ronde    Railroad    Company, 
13  Oregon  450-52. 


146  LESLIE  M.  SCOTT 

Contract  for  construction  had  been  let  in  April,  1878,  and  the 
track  between  Dayton  and  Sheridan  opened  for  traffic  October 
24,  1878.  The  track  was  poorly  constructed  and  not  ballasted. 
Speed  did  not  exceed  twelve  or  fifteen  miles  an  hour.  The 
equipment  consisted  of  two  Baldwin  locomotives,  not  heavier 
than  ten  tons  each,  and  a  number  of  flatcars,  from  which  pas- 
senger coaches  were  improvised.  The  rails  weighed  twenty- 
eight  pounds  to  the  yard. 

At  this  juncture,  the  Pacific  Northwest  was  just  opening 
upon  a  progressive  period  of  railroad  construction,  and  begin- 
ning to  receive  great  funds  of  outside  capital.  In  the  years 
1880-83  Henry  Villard  expended  $150,000,000  upon  the  lines 
of  the  Northern  Pacific  railroad  and  its  allied  properties.13 
His  German  capitalists  of  the  Oregon  and  California  Railroad 
extended  in  1878-79  the  Portland-Saint  Joseph  line  fifty  miles 
to  Corvallis,14  and  the  Portland-Roseburg  line  in  1881-84,  one 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  to  Ashland.15  His  Eastern  investors 
in-  1879  acquired  properties  of  the  Oregon  Steam  Navigation 
Company  and  the  Walla  Walla-Wallula  Railroad,  and  in 
1880-84,  built  the  lines  of  the  Oregon  Railway  and  Naviga- 
tion Company  from  Portland  to  Huntington  and  to  points 
north  of  Walla  Walla.16  The  Northern  Pacific  connected  with 
the  Oregon  Railway  and  Navigation  Company,  at  the  mouth 
of  Snake  River,  by  building  lines,  in  1879-83,  through  the 
Spokane  country  and  the  Clark's  Fork  region.  The  Pacific 
Northwest  was  electrified  with  the  spirit  of  financial  venture. 
And  the  Willamette  Valley  was  an  inviting  field  for  the 
investment  of  Scotch  savings.  Although  the  money  returns 
were  poor  to  the  thrifty  folk  of  Scotland,  yet  who  will  deny 
that  the  stimulus  afforded  to  the  farmers  of  Oregon  may 
have  strengthened  the  sons  of  Oregon  to  aid  the  "kilties"  on 
the  late  battlefields  of  France? 

13  Villard  gained  control  of  the  Northern  Pacific   Railroad  in  June,   1881. 

14  Opened,   Portland  to   Saint  Joseph,   late  in    1872,  by  Ben   Holladay;    Saint 
Joseph  to  Corvallis,  January  25,   1879,  by  Henry  Villard.    . 

15  Opened,  Portland  to  Roseburg,  November  2,   1872,  by  Holladay;  Roseburg 
to  Ashland,  by  Villard,  May  4,  1884.     Villard  took  the  management  of  the  Holla- 
day  lines    (Oregon   and  California  Railroad)    April   18,    1876. 

1 6  Villard   organized  the   Oregon   Railway  and   Navigation   Company  in   June- 
July,   1879. 


THE  NARROW  GAUGE  RAILROAD  147 

There  came  to  this  far  off  shore  in  1874,  from  Dundee, 
Scotland,  a  man  who  was  destined  to  extend  the  narrow  gauge 
through  the  wheat  fields  of  the  Willamette  Valley,  and  later, 
to  lead  the  way  to  realization  of  a  railroad  for  the  Tillamook- 
Astoria  region.  He  was  William  Reid.  He  heralded  his 
coming  with  copious  newspaper  comments  both  on  things  of 
Oregon  and  on  things  of  his  native  heather.  With  him  came 
as  an  asset  of  his  equipment  a  fund  of  Scotch  persistency  and 
shrewdness.  For  five  years  he  acted  at  Dundee,  Scotland,  as 
American  vice  consul,  in  which  capacity  he  published  in  1873 
a  pamphlet  entitled:  "Oregon  and  Washington  as  Fields  for 
Capital  and  Labor."  This  pamphlet  had  wide  circulation  and 
resulted  later  in  the  promotion  by  Reid  at  Portland  of  the 
Oregon  and  Washington  Trust  Company,  which  was  con- 
verted into  the  Dundee  Mortgage  and  Trust  Investment  Com- 
pany. Thus  Reid  became  resident  agent  at  Portland  for  Scotch 
funds,  first  for  mortgages  and  then  for  the  narrow  gauge 
railroad.  He  organized  a  board  of  trade  at  Portland  and 
became  its  secretary,  in  which  capacity  he  wrote  many  de- 
scriptions of  Oregon  resources  and  progress.  He  organized 
the  Oregon  and  Washington  Mortgage  Savings  Bank  at  Port- 
land, and  later  the  Portland  National  Bank.  At  Salem  he 
organized  the  First  National  Bank.  At  Turner  and  Salem  he 
built  flour  mills.  Due  to  his  operations,  the  Legislature  of 
Oregon  enacted  a  law  in  1878  authorizing  foreign  corporations 
to  build  railroads  in  Oregon.17  Reid's  record  in  Oregon  prog- 
ress is  that  of  an  energetic  and  useful  constructor. 

The  Dundee  buyers  of  the  thirty-two  miles  of  narrow  gauge 
railroad,  having  taken  hold  of  the  property  in  1879,  built  in 
1880-81  one  hundred  and  fifty  additional  miles  of  track,  ex- 
pending, in  all,  sums  as  follows  :18 

17  See  session  laws,  p.  85. 

18  Figures  taken   from  Dundee  Courier  and  ^Argus,   March   8,    1889,    at  time 
of  bankruptcy  in   Scotch  court.     The  original  capital  was   16,000  shares,  par    £10 
each,    issued   in    year    1880;    16,000    additional    shares    issued    in    1881.      Original 
mortgage    £95,000,   6   per  cent,  ^  dated   February  ^  14,    1881;     £119,700,    6   per  cent, 
dated  February  4,  1882.     To  this  capital  expenditure  was  added  in   1885-89  by  the 
receiver  the  further  sum  of  $423,000. 


148  LESLIE  M.  SCOTT 

Funds  from   sale  of  capital   stock,   32,000   shares,   par    £10,    @     £7    17$ 

6d,     £252,000    $1,227,240 

Funds  from  sale  of  bonds,    £214,700 1,045,589 

Other  borrowed  funds    255,225 

Total    $2,528,054 

Construction  went  forward  rapidly  in  1880.  Ground  was 
broken  for  the  east  side  branch  at  Silverton,  April  19,  1880, 
by  the  wife  of  Governor  W.  W.  Thayer.  The  line  was  opened 
from  Ray's  Landing,  on  Willamette  River,  near  Saint  Paul, 
to  Silverton  via  Woodburn,  October  4,  of  that  year;  to  Scio, 
November  4,  and  to  Brownsville,  December  28.  The  line 
leached  Coburg  in  July,  1882.  William  Reid  offered  to  build 
to  Albany,  if  that  city  would  erect  a  river  bridge  and  pay  a 
bonus  of  $45,000,  but  the  total  outlay  to  Albany  of  between 
$100,000  and  $140,000  was  deemed  excessive,  and  so  the  nar- 
row gauge  passed  by  Albany  to  the  eastward.19  The  west 
side  branch  of  the  road  was  extended  from  Dallas  to  Mon- 
mouth  in  June,  1881,  and  to  Airlie  in  the  following  Septem- 
ber: from  Lafayette  to  Dundee  and  Fulquartz  Landing,  on 
Willamete  River,  opposite  Ray's  Landing,  September  16,  1881. 
To  connect  the  east  side  and  the  west  side  branches  a  bridge 
was  to  be  built  between  Ray's  Landing  and  Fulquartz  Land- 
ing. The  Earl  of  Airlie,  president  of  the  railroad,  when  in 
Portland  in  October,  1880,  directed  the  chief  engineer  Major 
Alfred  F.  Sears,  to  begin  at  once  construction  of  this  viaduct. 
This  work  began  the  following  month  but  was  halted  next 
year  by  Henry  Villard.20 


10  See  The  Oreponian,  March  13,   1880. 

20  These  operations  were  conducted  by  the  Oregonian  Railway  Company, 
Limited,  a  corporation  of  Dundee,  Scotland,  formed  April  30,  1880.  This  com- 
panv  succeeded  the  Oregon  Railway  Company.  Limited,  of  Oregon,  incorporated 
ft  'Portland.  February  20.  1880,  by  William  Reid,  Donald  Macleay  and  Ellis  G. 
Hughes,  and  formally  took  over  the  railroad  from  the  earlier  company,  December 
TI,  1880.  The  Oregon  Railway  had  been  preceded  by  the  Willamette  Valley 
Railroad  Company,  which  conveyed  to  it,  April  2.  1880,  and  which  has  been  re- 
ferred to  earlier  in  this  article  as  the  successor  of  the  original  Dayton,  Sheridan 
and  Grand  Ronde  Railway.  The  chief  and  the  longest  lived  of  these  companies 
was  the  Oregonian  Railway  Company.  Its  officers  in  1881  were  William  ReiJ, 
president,  and  Ellis  G.  Hughes,  secretary.  (Hughes  vs.  Oregonian  Ry.  Co.,  n 
Oregon  159.)  It  is  the  view  of  Mr.  Richard  Koehler  that  the  Central  Pacific 
project,  from  Winnemucca,  Nevada,  to  the  Willamette  _  Valley,  in  the  period 
1880-81,  was  not  seriouslv  considered  by  the  Huntington  interests,  and  that  their 
advantage  and  their  preference  lay  along  the  land-grant  route  of  the  Portland- 
Sacramento  line.  "If  there  'was  in  Mr.  Reid's  mind  at  that  time,"  writes  Mr. 
Koehler  in  a  recent  letter  to  the  writer,  "a  vision  of  a  railroad  to  Winnemucca. 
it  was  in  connection  with  a  similar  vision  of  Mr.  B.  J.  Pengra,  who  maintained 
from  the  earliest  planning  of  railroad  enterprises  that  the  most  practicable  and 
cheapest  route  was  from  Winnemucca,  via  the  Pengra  Pass  and  the  Middle  Fork 


THE  NARROW  GAUGE  RAILROAD  149 

The  junction  of  the  two  branches  was  to  be  at  Dundee,  from 
which  place  the  railroad  was  to  lead  to  Portland.  The  com- 
pany directors  in  Scotland  had  ordered  completion  of  the 
line  to  Portland  prior  to  September  1,  1881,  and  construction 
was  carried  on  in  a  desultory  way  within  ten  miles  of  that 
city,  beginning-  in  March,  1880,  but  was  stopped  in  1881  by 
Villard.  As  the  east  side  and  west  side  branches  were  sep- 
arated by  the  Willamette  River,  and  the  extension  of  the  west 
side  branch  to  Portland  was  not  opened  until  November  26, 
1887,  the  railroad  company  operated  two  steamboats,  City  of 
Salem  and  Salem,  through  its  subsidiary,  Oregonian  Naviga- 
tion Company,  Limited.21  These  steamboats  and  others  con- 
nected with  the  east  side  branch  at  Ray's  Landing,  and  the 
west  side  branch  at  Dayton.  By  taking  steamboat  from  Port- 
land at  7  o'clock  a.  m.,  passengers  reached  Dayton  at  2  o'clock 
that  afternoon,  whence  the  railroad  conveyed  them  to  Lafay- 
ette, Dallas,  Monmouth  and  Airlie.  The  train  reached  Sheri- 
dan at  6:30  p.  m.  In  September,  1881,  completion  of  the  track 
from  Lafayette  to  Fulquartz  Landing  expedited  this  business. 
The  company  also  maintained  connections  with  Salem,  Cor- 
vallis  and  Albany  by  means  of  river  boats.  Amid  the  rosy 
railroad  prospects  in  1880-81,  Central  Pacific  extensions  to 
Oregon  by  the  route  of  Humboldt  River,  Goose  Lake, 
Sprague  River,  Pensra  Pass  and  Middle  Fork  of  the  Willam- 
ette River,  possible  connection  with  the  Scottish  narrow  gauge 
were  often  heralded.  The  country  was  agog  with  the  grand 
expectations  of  Villard's  and  Huntington's  railroad  system. 
The  Dundee  investors  were  happy  over  the  prospect.  Airlie, 
when  in  Portland  in  October,  1880,  ordered  a  survey  of  the 
intermediate  route.  An  ambitious  company,  the  Astoria  & 
Winnemucca  Railroad,  incorporated  at  Astoria,  May  8,  1879, 
pursued  this  scheme,  and  the  Oregon  Legislature  in  1880 

of  the  Willamette.  .  .  .  T  also  firmly  believe  that  while  Mr.  Reid  may  have 
spoken  and  written  about  this  errand  system  of  narrow  gauge  lines,  reaching  from 
Portland  to  Winnemucca,  to  Yaquina  Bay  and  to  Astoria,  he  based  his  action 
in  taking  over  and  extending  the  narrow  gauge  system  upon  the  belief  that  by 
building  nearer  to  the  foothills  on  both  sides  of  the  river,  than  the  then  existing 
lines  of  the  Oregon  and  California  Railroad,  he  could  gather  a  very  substantial 
part  of  the  valley  business,  and  thus  make  the  narrow  gauge  lines  pay." 
21  See  ii  Oregon  159,  Hughes  vs.  Oregonian  Railway  Company. 


150  LESLIE  M.  SCOTT 

offered  free  right  of  way  through  state  lands.  This  project 
revived  in  1885  in  negotiations  with  Huntington,  and  again 
in  1890,  when  Huntington  took  over  the  narrow  gauge  and 
planned  extensions.  It  revived  once  more  during  the  activities 
of  E.  H.  Harriman  in  1906-10,  and  finally  lapsed  on  account 
of  government  repression  of  railroads. 

Villard's  move  to  protect  his  Oregon  and  California  Railroad 
from  competition  of  the  growing  narrow  gauge  was  the  logical 
one  of  gaining  control  of  the  invader.  The  narrow  gauge 
had  given  him  and  his  associates  a  taste  of  competition  when 
they  had  felt  impelled  to  build  a  road  in  1879  to  Corvallis,  and 
to  Lebanon  in  1880.  For  the  latter  extension  Villard  had 
caused  to  be  incorporated  the  Albany  and  Lebanon  Railroad 
Company,  March  1,  1880,  by  Joseph  N.  Dolph,  J.  Brandt  Jr., 
and  Paul  Schultze,  capital,  $200,000.  He  had  also  caused  to 
be  incorporated  a  similar  company  to  build  from  Salem  to 
Silverton.  This  extension  was  not  built,  but  the  Lebanon  ex- 
tension, eleven  miles,  opened  September  22,  1880. 

So  Villard  sent  to  Scotland,  to  negotiate  a  lease  with  the 
narrow  gauge  owners  for  ninety-six  years,  J.  B.  Montgomery, 
who  had  built  ninety  miles  of  the  narrow  gauge  from  Ray's 
Landing  to  Brownsville  and  had  also  built  parts  of  the  North- 
ern Pacific.  The  lessee  was  Villard's  Oregon  Railway  and  Navi- 
gation Company,  which  like  the  Oregon  and  California  and  the 
Northern  Pacific,  were  then  controlled  by  Villard's  Oregon 
and  Transcontinental.  The  annual  rental,  $140,000,  to  be  paid 
to  the  Scotch  owners,  represented  seven  per  cent  a  year  on 
the  total  investment,  which,  up  to  that  time,  amounted  to 
nearly  $2,000,000  or  one  hundred  and  sixty  miles  of  track. 
This  lease  was  strenuously  opposed;  by  William  Reid,  builder 
and  president  of  the  narrow  gauge,  who,  in  three  years  saw 
his  reasons  for  opposition  to  a  rival  that  meant  no  good  to 
the  narrow  gauge,  amply  verified.  Reid's  purpose  was  a  con- 
nection with  the  Central  Pacific  at  Winnemucca  by  the  Pengra 
Pass  and  Htimboldt  route,  the  success  of  which  would  have 
brought  to  the  Pacific  Northwest  a  transcontinental  connec- 


THE  NARROW  GAUGE  RAILROAD  151 

tion  with  the  Central  Pacific,  Union  Pacific,  and  valuable 
activities  of  progress.  Reid  sent  Ellis  G.  Hughes,  vice  presi- 
dent of  the  narrow  gauge  company,  to  New  York  to  deal  with 
Huntington  for  these  connections  at  the  same  time  that  Vil- 
lard  sent  Montgomery  to  Scotland  to  deal  with  the  owners. 
Hughes  arranged  a  lease  for  payment  to  the  stockholders  of 
the  narrow  gauge  four  and  one-half  per  cent  annually  on  the 
cost  of  the  road,  plus  one-half  of  the  net  receipts  of  the 
Winnemucca  extension.  But  as  the  four  and  one-half  per  cent 
offered  by  Huntington  was  visibly  less  than  the  seven  per  cent 
offered  by  Villard,  the  thrifty  Scotch  prized  more  highly  the 
larger  promise  and  chose  the  money  that  three  years  later 
proved  them  penny  wise  and  pound  foolish.22 

The  successful  lessee  took  charge  of  the  narrow  gauge, 
August  1,  1881,  and  immediately  set  about  doing  its  real  pur- 
poses. Extensions  to  Portland  and  Yaquina  immediately 
stopped ;  also  the  terminal  plans  for  use  of  the  public  levee  at 
Portland,  of  which  more  will  be  said  later;  also  the  bridge 
project  at  Ray's  Landing  which  would  have  united  the  two 
branches  of  the  system.  Villard  showed  plainly  his  real  policy, 
namely,  to  subordinate  the  lines  of  the  troublesome  invader 
and  make  them  serve  as  feeders  to  the  Oregon  and  California 
Railroad.  When  taken  over  by  the  receiver  in  1885  the  nar- 
row gauge  system  was  divided  into  six  separate  parts:  (1) 
Coburg  to  South  Santiam,  39  miles,  operated  in  connection 
with  the  Lebanon  branch  of  the  Oregon  and  California  Rail- 
road ;  (2)  South  Santiam  to  West  Stayton,  eleven  miles,  not 
operated;  (3)  West  Stayton  to  Woodburn,  thirty-nine  miles, 
operated  in  connection  with  the  Oregon  and  California  Rail- 
road; (4)  Woodburn  to  Ray's  Landing,  ten  miles,  not  oper- 
ated: (5)  Fulquartz  Landing"  to  White's  Junction,  sixteen 
miles,  not  operated ;  (6)  White's  Junction  to  Airlie,  forty 
miles,  operated  in  connection  with  the  Oregon  and  California 
Railroad.  This  policy  worked  ruin  to  the  narrow  gauge  prop- 
erty. Bridges  washed  out  by  floods  were  abandoned.  The 

22  See  details  of  lease  negotiations  in  The  Oregonian,  March  6,  1889,  written 
by  William  Reid. 


152  LESLIE  M.  SCOTT 

railroad  in  the  three  years  ensuing  the  lease  went  to  wreck 
as  an  earning  property.  Finally,  the  Oregon  Railway  and 
Navigation  Company,  after  retirement  of  Villard  from  its 
affairs,  abandoned  the  narrow  gauge  and  repudiated  the  lease, 
May  14,  1884,  as  null  and  void.23  Consternation  ensued.  Bonds 
of  the  narrow  gauge  at  once  fell  from  120  to  40.  Stock  shares 
which  had  brought  $40  fell  to  $2.  Without  terminal  connec- 
tions, tracks  and  rolling  stock  dilapidated,  the  plight  of  the 
railroad  was  sad,  indeed.24  A  receivership  ensued  under 
Charles  N.  Scott,  who  was  appointed  by  the  circuit  court  of 
the  United  States,  Judge  Deady,  March  30,  1885,  and  took 
charge  of  the  property  April  14,  1885. 2S  The  receiver  was 
named  in  the  lease  suit  against  the  Oregon  Railway  and  Navi- 
gation Company  and  not  in  foreclosure  for  the  creditors. 
Under  the  receiver's  management  bridges,  track  and  equip- 
ment were  restored  as  well  as  available  borrowings  would 
avail  until  the  railroad  was  taken  over  in  1890  by  the  Southern 
Pacific. 

The  Scotch  owners  sought  remedy  in  the  United  States 
circuit  court  of  Judge  Deady  to  bind  the  Oregon  Railway  and 
Navigation  Company  to  the  ninety-six  year  term  of  the  lease 
and  were  victorious  in  that  court  by  winning  judgments  for 
the  rental  dues,  but  the  supreme  court  of  the  United  States  on 
March  5,  1889,  held  the  lease  void  because  it  had  not  been 
validated  by  the  Legislature  of  Oregon.  Judge  Deady,  on 
March  18,  1885,  and  at  intervals  thereafter  awarded  judgment 
against  the  lessee  for  accruals  of  unpaid  rent.  The  supreme 
court  of  the  United  States  held  that  the  Oregonian  Railway 
Company  had  no  power  to  execute  the  lease  and  the  Oregon 
Railway  and  Navigation  Company  no  power  to  accept  it. 

For  success  of  the  narrow  gauge  system,  after  the  lease 
fiasco  in  1884,  it  was  clear  that  these  several  things  must  be 

23  The   Oregon    Railway  and    Navigation    Company  continued   to    operate   the 
lines  until   November   15.   1884.      See  The  Oregonian,  November   12,    1884. 

24  See  article  by  William   Reid,   The  Oregonian,   March  6,   1889. 

25  Charles    Napier    Scott    proved    himself    an    effiicent    railroad    man    and    an 
able  administrator  of  the  narrow  gauge.     Before  coming  to  Oregon  he  had  many 
years'    experience    in    railroading.      He    was    born    April    16,    1846,    at    Hamilton, 
Ohio.     He  is  a  resident  of  Portland,  Ore.     He  was  finally  discharged  as  receiver 
August  12,   1891.      (Portland  Evening  Telegram,  August  12,   1891.) 


THE  NARROW  GAUGE  RAILROAD  153 

done:  Restoration  of  the  bridges  across  North  Santiam  and 
South  Santiam;  erection  of  a  bridge  between  Ray's  Landing 
and  Fulquartz  Landing ;  extension  of  thirty  miles  to  a  terminal 
outlet  at  Portland  from  Dundee;  purchase  of  new  rolling 
stock  and  renewals  of  ties  and  trestles.  Receiver  Scott  set 
himself  to  the  task  of  rebuilding  the  Santiam  bridges,  repair- 
ing the  tracks  and  roadbed  and  buying  new  equipment,  while 
William  Reid  undertook  the  work  of  building  the  connecting 
bridge  across  Willamette  River  and  the  extension  to  Port- 
land. As  the  receiver  could  raise  funds  only  by  borrowing, 
he  was  authorized  by  the  United  States  court  to  issue  certif- 
icates of  indebtedness  amounting  in  all  in  the  five  years  of 
his  administration,  to  some  $423,000.26 

The  Dundee-Portland  extension  was  undertaken  by  the  Port- 
land and  Willamette  Valley  Railway  Company,  incorporated 
January  19,  1885.27  The  widespread  interest  taken  in  the  crea- 
tion of  this  company  throughout  Willamette  Valley  is  attested 
by  the  large  number  and  the  scattering  of  its  incorporators, 
who  were:  W.  S.  Ladd,  H.  C.  Leonard,  R.  B.  Knapp,  Wil- 
liam Reid,  Van  B.  DeLashmutt,  Aaron  Meier,  J.  A.  Chapman, 
Ira  F.  Powers  (Sr.),  John  Schuerer,  J.  F.  Coyne,  C.  E.  Smith, 
William  Gallick  of  Portland;  A.  R.  Burbank,  H.  Hurley,  J.  H. 
Olds,  W.  D.  Fenton,  P.  P.  Gates,  J.  M.  Kelty,  R.  P.  Bird,  R. 
R.  Daniel,  W.  M.  Townsend,  J.  W.  Watts  of  Lafayette;  L. 
Bently,  T.  S.  Powell,  A.  W.  Lucas,  D.  T.  Stanley,  Wm.  Daw- 
son,  N.  B.  Gregg  of  Monmouth;  Goodman  Hubbard,  Charles 
F.  Johns,  H.  L.  Deacon,  Geo.  W.  Crystal,  Wm.  Grant,  F.  G. 
Richmond  of  Dallas;  Peter  Hume,  J.  M.  Moyer,  Oliver  P. 
Coshow,  W.  R.  Kirk,  Thomas  Kay,  R.  N.  Thompson  of 
Brownsville ;  A.  Coolidge,  R.  C.  Geer,  L.  C.  Russell  of  Silver- 
ton;  Robert  Pentland,  W.  E.  Price  Jr.,  J.  C.  Johnson,  R.  F. 
Ashly,  H.  A.  Johnson  Jr.,  Frank  J.  Villa  of  Scio.28 

The  Portland  and  Willamette  Valley  Railway  Company  was 
capitalized  at  $150,000  capital  stock  and  $400,000  bonds.  Its 


26  Contracts  for  the  Santiam  bridges  were  let  July  26,   1886;   first  authoriza- 
tion to  borrow  money  granted  by  United  States  circuit  court  ApriJ   ig,   1886. 


27  See  The  Oregonian,  January  18,   1885. 

28  See  The  Oregonian,  January  18,   1885. 


154  LESLIE  M.  SCOTT 

funds  were  supplied  by  Huntington,  Thomas  H.  Hubbard  and 
their  associates,  but  the  source  of  the  money  was  not  publicly 
known  at  the  time  of  construction.  The  work  of  building  tres- 
tles and  making  rock  cuts  was  extensive  and  costly.  For  ex- 
ample, Chehalem  Creek  was  spanned  by  a  700-foot  trestle ;  Blair 
Creek  by  a  1000-foot  trestle;  Rock  Creek  by  an  1800-foot 
trestle  and  Tualatin  River  by  a  180-foot  trestle.  Deep  rock 
cuts  were  made  at  Elk  Rock?  Oswego  and  Chehalem  Gap.  The 
chief  engineer  was  H.  Hawgood. 

Construction  of  the  route  had  suspended  in  1881,  at  the 
time  of  the  Villard  lease  and  was  resumed  in  January,  1886, 
by  the  new  company.  The  track  was  finished  to  Elk  Rock, 
near  Oswego,  in  the  following  December.  This  progress  was 
signalized  December  11,  1886,  by  an  excursion  of  Portland  citi- 
zens to  Dallas.29  The  first  train  arrived  in  South  Portland, 
November  26,  1887.  The  first  train  started  from  Jefferson 
Street,  Portland  (public  levee),  July  23,  1888. 

The  narrow  gauge  system  gravitated  to  the  Southern  Pa- 
cific in  the  years  1885-90.  In  that  period  the  Southern  Pa- 
cific absorbed  the  Oregon  and  California  Railroad.  The 
Southern  Pacific  entered  into  negotiation  in  1887  with  the 
stockholders  and  bondholders  of  the  Oregon  and  California 
and  succeeded  in  adding  the  railroad  properties  of  that  com- 
pany to  its  extensive  domains  and  of  connecting  them  with  its 
California  lines.30  Southern  Pacific  acquisition  of  the  narrow 
gauge  by  steady  steps  was  a  natural  sequence  and  became 
obvious  in  1887,  when  Huntington's  ownership  of  the  Port- 
land-Dundee line  was  no  longer  concealed,  and  his  negotia- 
tions with  the  Scotch  owners  of  the  other  branches  of  the 
system  were  tending  to  a  focus.  In  May,  1887,  control  was 
announced  of  the  Portland  and  Willamette  Valley  Railway  by 
the  Pacific  Improvement  Company,  the  principal  stockholders 
of  which,  C.  P.  Huntington,  Leland  Stanford,  Charles  Crocker, 


29  By   steamboat,    City  of  Salem,   Portland  to   Elk   Rock.     For  narrative,   see 
The  Oregonian,   December   13,    1886. 

30  See  Argument  of  B.  D.  Townsend,  U.  S.  vs.  Oregon  and  California  Rail- 
road   Company,    p.    17.      Connection    with    California   made    at   Ashland,    December 
17,  1887. 


THE  NARROW  GAUGE  RAILROAD  155 

Charles  F.  Crocker  and  Timothy  Hopkins,  controlled  the 
Southern  Pacific.  This  second  merging  of  the  two  railroads 
of  the  Willamette  Valley  (the  first  by  Villard  in  1881),  was  a 
disappointment  to  Oregon  citizens,  who  had  hoped  for  com- 
petitive activities.31 

A  corporation,  formed  by  Reid  to  build  the  Ray's  Landing 
bridge,  called  the  Oregonian  Railway  Bridge  Company,  in- 
corporated at  Portland,  July  21,  1886,  capital,  $100,000,  but 
the  merging  with  Southern  Pacific  interests  in  1887  made  the 
bridge  project  superfluous.  This  bridge  was  repeatedly  au- 
thorized by  the  Oregon  Legislature.32 

The  "seizure"  of  the  public  levee  at  Portland  for  a  terminal 
by  William  Reid  and  his  Portland  and  Willamette  Valley 
Railway,  made  many  vexing  episodes  in  the  progress  of  the 
extension  to  that  city.  This  property  on  the  river  bank  at  foot 
of  Jefferson  Street  had  been  bestowed  upon  the  city  by  Stephen 
Coffin,  one  of  the  proprietors  of  the  townsite,  for  public 
wharfage  purposes.  It  was  situated  just  where  Reid  needed 
his  terminal,  and  Reid  proceeded  to  appropriate  it  through 
the  Legislature,  against  protests  of  Portland.  This  action  had 
the  support  of  farmers  of  the  Willamette  Valley,  who  desired 
to  afford  an  outlet  for  the  narrow  gauge  system.  The  Legis- 
lature made  two  grants  of  the  levee,  the  first  in  1880,33  the 
second  in  1885.34  The  first  franchise  was  awarded  to  the 
Oregonian  Railway  Company  over  Governor  Thayer's  veto, 
but  the  act  was  defeated  in  the  supreme  court  of  Oregon  in 
March,  1881,35  but  Judge  M.  P.  Deady  in  the  United  States 
circuit  court  allowed  temporary  use  of  the  levee  pending  the 
suit.  This  franchise  lapsed  by  its  own  limitations,  because  the 
narrow  gauge  extension  was  not  built  before  expiration  of  the 
time  limit  for  completion,  July  1,  1882. 

The  second  award  of  the  levee,  this  time  to  the  Portland 


31  S«e  The  Oregonian,  July  8,  1889,  for  history  of  control  by  Southern  Pacific 
On  May  5,  the  Pacific  Improvement  Company  acquired  for  the  Southern  Pacific, 
stock   control   of   the   Oregonian    Railway   Company,   but   not  control  of  the   bond 
ownership  until   1889. 

32  See  session  laws  1887,   pp.   339-40;   also  session  laws,    1889. 

33  See  session  laws,  pp.  57-60. 

34  See  session  laws,  pp.  100-06. 

35  See  9  Oregon  231,  Oregonian  Railway  Company  vs.  City  of  Portland. 


156  LESLIE  M.  SCOTT 

and  Willamette  Valley  Railway,  included  a  free  right  of  way 
through  state  lands.  The  railroad  entered  into  possession  of 
the  levee  December  1,  1887,  after  tests  in  the  state  and  federal 
courts.  The  company  built  warehouses  and  a  depot  on  the 
river  bank,  and  its  successors  occupied  the  property  some 
twenty-five  years. 

The  latter  history  of  the  narrow  gauge  is  soon  told.  The 
lines  of  the  Oregonian  Railway  Company  were  foreclosed  by 
a  group  of  Southern  Pacific  interests  in  1890,  chief  of  whom 
were  C.  P.  Huntington  and  Thomas  H.  Hubbard.  The  line  of 
the  Portland  and  Willamette  Valley  Railway  was  foreclosed 
in  18?2  by  the  same  interests.  A  new  company  was  formed 
in  1890  to  take  over  the  property,  the  Oregonian  Railroad 
Company,  T.  E.  Stillman,  president;  Richard  Koehler,  vice 
president;  W.  W.  Bretherton,  secretary;  Charles  N.  Scott, 
superintendent ;  C.  B.  Williams,  auditor ;  A.  L.  Warner,  acting 
auditor;  George  H.  Andrews,  treasurer.  Receiver  Scott 
turned  over  the  railroad  to  this  company  in  May,  1890.  Soon 
afterwards  the  work  began  of  broadening  the  east  side  road 
to  standard  gauge.  At  this  time  Huntington  was  considering 
large  projects  in  Western  Oregon,  among  them  the  Astoria 
railroad  and  the  Fengra  route  across  Cascade  Mountains,36 
together  with  an  extension  of  the  narrow  gauge  from  Silver- 
ton  to  Portland.37  Surveys  for  the  latter  ran  by  way  of  Lents 
and  Molalla,38  but  the  surveyors  were  called  in  late  in  189039 
and  the  project  was  abandoned.  Huntington  extended  the 
railroad  from  Coburg  to  Springfield  and  Natron.  Further 
extension  to  Wendling  was  made  in  1900.  The  west  side 
branch  was  made  standard  gauge  in  1893.  Crocker  and  Stan- 
ford interests  for  a  time  opposed  Huntington's  schemes  as  to 
the  narrow  gauge  acquisition,  and  were  brought  into  line,  ac- 
cording to  current  gossip,  by  Huntington's  threats  of  connect- 
ing the  narrow  gauge  system  with  the  Central  Pacific.40 

36  For  Huntington's  plans,  see  Quarterly,  vol.  xv,  pp.  231-32. 

37  See  The  Oregonian,  April  7,  1890. 

38  See  The   Oregonian,  August  5,    1890. 

39  See   The   Oregonian,   December   2,    1890. 

40  See  The  Oregonian,  November  24,    1890;  December  24,   1890. 


THE  NARROW  GAUGE  RAILROAD  157 

The  mortgage  bonds  of  the  Oregonian  Railway  Company, 
amounting  to  £214,700  or  $1,045,589,  were  paid  in  full  by 
Huntington  in  1889,  pursuant  to  arrangements  made  with  the 
official  liquidator,  David  Myles,  appointee  in  bankruptcy  by 
the  supreme  court  of  session  of  Scotland,  March  20,  1889,  to 
wind  up  the  affairs  of  the  Oregonian  Railway  Company,  Lim- 
ited, and  sell  its  property  for  benefit  of  the  creditors.41  Myles 
sent  to  Oregon  his  attorney,  Alexander  Mackay,  to  examine 
the  railroad  properties.  The  number  of  stockholders  of  the 
bankrupt  railroad  was  183?  only  two  of  whom  dwelt  in  Oregon, 
J.  B.  Montgomery,  4,000  shares  out  of  32,000,  and  William 
Reid,  149  shares.  Reid  had  also  owned  4,000  shares  before 
the  Villard  lease,  and  sold  all  but  his  149  shares  because  dis- 
liking the  prospect  of  Villard's  control.  The  price  paid  to  the 
liquidator  yielded  a  balance  of  some  $135,000  over  the  bonds, 
to  pay  floating  indebtedness  due  Scotch  creditors,  amounting 
to  $250,000.  The  proceeds  were  distributed  to  the  various 
creditors  in  Scotland,  January  15,  1890.  Huntington  paid,  in 
addition,  receiver's  certificates  to  the  amount  of  some  $423,000. 
The  cost  to  him  of  the  147  miles  of  the  Oregonian  Railway 
amounted  as  follows  :42 

To  the  mortgage  bondholders,    £235,000  and  other  creditors  ............  $1,064,450 

To   the  holders  of  receiver's  certificates    .............................      423,000 


.$1,487,450 

The  cost  of  the  thirty  miles  of  the  Portland-Dundee  line 
probably  brought  the  total  up  to  $2,000,000.  The  loss  accruing 
from  the  narrow  gauge  system  came  out  of  the  pockets  of  the 
stock  subscribers  which  appears  to  have  been  practically  a 
total  loss,  $1,227,240,  and  also  out  of  the  coffers  of  Dundee 
bank  lenders  to  the  extent  of  $115,000  additional.  The  lines 
of  the  Oregonian  Railway  Company  were  foreclosed  in  the 
United  States  circuit  court  at  Portland,  in  1890,  and  the  report 
of  the  master  in  chancery,  George  H.  Durham,  was  finally  ap- 
proved August  12,  1891.  The  transfer  to  Huntington  took 
place  May  20,  1890.  Huntington  made  an  inspection  of  the 

41  See  The  Oregonian,  February  10,   1890. 

42  Newspaper  dispatches  of  the  time  of  the  sale  stated  the  purchase  price  at 
$1,500,000.     (The  Oregonian,  June  27,   1890.) 


158  LESLIE  M.  SCOTT 

road  April  27,  1890.  The  receivership  of  Charles  N.  Scott  was 
not  officially  terminated,  however,  until  August  12,  1891.  In 
the  summer  of  1890  the  newly  organized  company  abandoned 
the  line  between  Woodburn  and  Ray's  Landing,  ten  miles.  Late 
in  1890  the  narrow  gauge  system  was  leased  to  the  Oregon 
and  California  Railroad,  but  was  not  formally  absorbed  by 
the  latter  company  until  1893.43 

43  The  principal  places  along  the  route  of  the  narrow  gauge,  and  the  mileage, 
were  as  follows:  Portland  to  Oswego,  7.3  miles;  Tualatin,  13.1;  Newberg,  26.4; 
Dundee  Jt,  28.8;  Fulquartz,  31.2;  Kay's  Landing,  33.3;  St.  Paul,  35.4;  Wood- 
burn,  43.4;  Mt.  Angel,  49.7;  Silverton,  53.9;  Howell  Prairie,  58.2;  Macleay, 
63.8;  Waldo  Hills,  66.1;  Aumsville,  69.1;  West  Stayton,  72.9;  North  Santiam, 
75;  West  Scio,  78.3;  South  Santiam,  83.8;  Lebanon  Jt.,  90.8;  Brownsville, 
103.7;  Coburg,  123.0.  Dayton,  32.7;  Lafayette,  34.7;  Dayton,  Tt.,  37.8;  Whites, 
44.8;  Sheridan  Jt.,  50.2.  Ballston,  52.9;  Sheridan,  57.2.  Perrydale,  52.4;  Dallas, 
63.0;  Monmouth,  70.1;  Airlie,  79.4. 

From  official  time  tables,  1887.  Running  time,  Portland  to  Dundee  Jt.,  3 
hours;  Dundee  to  Lafayette,  37  minutes;  Sheridan  Jt.  to  Airlie,  2  hours,  30  min- 
utes; Ray's  Landing  to  Coburg,  8  hours. 


BEGINNINGS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  IN  OREGON 

By  GEORGE  H.  HIMES 

To  determine  the  exact  date  when  the  first  seeds  of  Chris- 
tian truth  were  planted  in  Oregon  soil — meaning  historic 
Oregon,  or  the  "Oregon  Country/'  the  area  bounded  on  the 
south  by  the  42d  parallel,  west  by  the  Pacific  Ocean,  north  by 
the  49th  parallel,  and  east  by  the  summit  of  the  Rock  Moun- 
tains— is  very  difficult.  So  far  as  known,  the  first  white  men 
known  to  have  set  foot  on  any  portion  of  this  soil  were  Davis 
Coolidge,  first  mate  of  the  sloop  Washington,  commanded 
at  this  time  by  Capt.  Robert  Gray,  and  Robert  Haswell,  third 
officer  of  the  Columbia,  who  had  been  transferred  to  the  sloop 
as  second  mate,  and  several  of  the  crew.  On  or  about  August 
3,  1788,  the  little  vessel  "made  a  tolerably  commodious  harbor" 
—presumably  Tillamook  Bay — when  Captain  Gray  sent  the 
officers  named  ashore  with  several  of  the  crew,  among  them 
his  colored  boy,  Marcos,  to  get  some  grass  and  shrubs.  The 
latter,  having  used  a  cutlass  in  cutting  grass,  carelessly  stuck 
it  in  the  sand  while  carrying  the  grass  to  the  vessel ;  whereupon 
a  native  seized  it  and  ran  to  the  Indian  village.  Marcos  pur- 
sued the  thief  and  seized  him  by  the  neck,  but  was  soon  over- 
powered by  the  savages  and  killed.  The  officers  and  men  re- 
treated to  their  boats  and  rowed  to  the  sloop,  followed  by  the 
natives  in  canoes,  who  were  checked  by  swivel  fire  from  the 
sloop.  One  of  the  crew  was  wounded  by  a  barbed  arrow. 

The  next  men  to  touch  the  soil  of  Oregon  were  Captain  Gray 
and  his  clerk,  John  Hoskins,  "in  the  jolly-boat,"  and  presuma- 
bly a  number  of  his  crew — all  going  "on  shore  to  take  a  short 
view  of  the  country,"  in  the  afternoon  of  May  15,  1792,  on 
the  north  bank  of  the  Columbia  at  a  point  about  twenty  miles 
from  its  mouth. 

Whether  Gray  or  any  of  his  men  gave  the  Indians, 
who  were  very  numerous  about  the  good  ship  Columbia 
when  it  was  anchored  in  what  is  now  known  as  Gray's  Bay, 
any  hint  or  suggestion  relating  to  religion  in  any  sense,  is  not 


160  GEORGE  H.  HIMES 

known.  There  is  no  doubt,^  however,  that  there  were  white 
men  upon  the  Oregon  shore  before  the  date  above  mentioned, 
but  who  they  were,  and  where  they  came  from,  or  whether  they 
sought  to  instill  religious  convictions  of  any  sort  into  the  minds 
of  the  natives,  is  and  probably  always  will  be  unknown. 

With  the  advent  of  the  Lewis  and  Clark  Exploring  Expedi- 
tion in  November,  1805 — the  first  expedition  of  the  kind  sent 
out  by  the  Government  of  the  United  States — the  John  Jacob 
Astor  sea  expedition  in  October,  1810,  and  the  Wilson  Price 
Hunt  party,  the  overland  section  of  the  Astor  party,  in  April, 
1811,  the  North- West  Company  in  December,  1813,  and  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company,  which  absorbed  the  North-West 
Company  in  1821  and  began  active  operations  in  Oregon  in 
1824 — there  came  a  considerable  number  of  French  Canadian 
employees  and  traders,  most  of  whom  had  been  trained  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  church  to  some  extent.  While  these  men  led 
wild  lives  to  a  considerable  degree,  yet  they  never  forget  their 
faith,  and  in  every  emergency,  when  danger  threatened,  they 
appealed  to  God  for  succor.  However  elemental  their  ideas  of 
worship,  they  probably  followed  the  best  light  they  had  at 
the  time.  In  this  manner  the  Indians  by  whom  these  trappers 
and  traders  were  surrounded  received  their  first  impressions 
of  the  White  Man's  "Book  of  Life,"  and  learned  of  the  "Black 
Gowns"  long  before  they  were  visited  by  a  priest. 

The  Wilson  Price  Hunt  party  already  alluded  to  as  coming 
overland  in  1811-12,  endured  great  hardships  and  lost  a  good 
many  men  by  desertion,  among  them  twenty-four  Iroquois, 
who  had  received  religious  instruction  from  the  Jesuits,  or 
"Black  Robes,"  as  they  were  known,  belonging  to  the  mission 
near  St.  Louis.  By  intermarriage  they  became  members  of 
the  tribe  whose  territory  was  embraced  in  what  is  now  the 
country  in  the  vicinity  of  the  present  city  of  Spokane,  Wash- 
ington. Before  long  they  began  to  yearn  for  the  presence  of 
the  "Black  Robes,"  and  a  council  was  called  and  the  probability 
of  securing  a  visit  from  them  discussed.  Finally  four  braves 
volunteered  to  go  to  St.  Louis  to  communicate  their  desires, 


BEGINNINGS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  IN  OREGON  161 

and  in  the  spring  of  1831  they  started  eastward  and  reached 
their  destination  that  fall.  Their  presence,  however,  did  not 
seem  to  attract  any  special  attention,  since  there  were  many 
Indians  about  St.  Louis  at  that  time.  The  hardships  of  the 
journey  told  heavily  upon  them,  and  two  became  dangerously 
ill  and  afterwards  died.  In  their  sickness  both  asked  to  be 
baptized  by  the  black-robed  priests,  which  was  done.  Their 
Christian  names  were  Narcissa  and  Paul,  and  the  record  is  in 
the  Cathedral  of  St.  Louis,  and  both  were  buried  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  cemetery  at  that  place,  Narcissa  on  October  31st  and 
Paul,  November'l7th,  1831. 

The  story  of  the  Indians  going  from  the  "Oregon  Country" 
to  St.  Louis  in  search  of  the  white  man's  "Book  of  Life"  has 
been  repeatdly  told,  but  has  been  doubted  in  many  quarters. 
The  above  statement  with  reference  to  the  occurrence  was  con- 
densed from  the  writings  of  Rt.  Rev.  Joseph  Rosati,  Bishop  of 
St.  Louis  in  1831 ;  and  a  further  proof  that  the  Indians  ar- 
rived in  St.  Louis  in  1831  may  be  found  in  the  letter  books  of 
Gen.  William  Clark,  Governor  of  Missouri  at  that  time,  now 
in  possession  of  the  Kansas  Historical  Society. 

A  second  deputation  was  sent  in  1832,  consisting  of  one 
Iroquois  and  his  family.  He  arrived  safely  in  St.  Louis,  had 
his  children  baptized,  was  returning  home  to  his  people,  with 
the  hope  of  soon  having  priests  in  his  country,  but  was  killed 
by  the  Sioux  Indians. 

Dr.  John  McLoughlin,  of  Canada,  who  began  his  career  in 
1800  as  an  employee  of -the  North-West  Company,  when  that 
company  was  merged  into  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  in  1821, 
was  selected  as  chief  factor  to  take  charge  of  the  combined 
business  of  both  companies  in  all  the  territory  west  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains.  He  came  to  Oregon  in  1824  and  changed 
the  headquarters  from  Astoria  to  Belle  Vue  Point — the  site  of 
the  present  citv  of  Vancouver — and  built  a  fort  there.  He 
permitted  the  employees  whose  terms  of  service  had  expired 
to  settle  in  the  Willamette  vallev  and  on  the  Cowlitz  river. 
Numbers  of  these  men  had  married  Indian  wives,  had  children, 
and  began  to  wish  for  the  presence  of  a  priest. 


162  GEORGE  H.  HIMES 

Upon  Dr.  McLoughlin's  arrival  he  began  the  practice  at  once 
of  reading  the  services  of  the  Episcopal  Church  every  Sunday, 
and  frequently  would  read  a  chapter  in  the  Bible,  a  sermon  or 
a  tract  or  a  prayer.  Most  of  the  gentlemen  of  Fort  Van- 
couver, according  to  Mrs.  Whitman,  who  arrived  there  in 
September,  1836,  were  Scotch  Presbyterians,  and  a  few  were 
Episcopalians.  However,  many  of  the  laborers  were  Roman 
Catholics  and  had  a  service  of  their  own,  at  which  Dr.  Mc- 
Loughlin  officiated  in  French,  and  sometimes  would  translate 
a  sermon  or  a  tract,  but  this  kind  of  service  was  not  satisfac- 
tory. Accordingly  two  petitions  were  sent  to  the  Bishop  on 
Red  River  for  a  priest,  one  on  July  3,  1832,  and  the  other  on 
February  23,  1833.  In  response  two  missionaries  were 
granted — Rev.  F.  N.  Blanchet  and  Rev.  Modeste  Demers ;  but 
thev  did  not  arrive  at  Fort  Vancouver  until  November  24, 
1838,  after  enduring  incredible  hardships  in  coming  over  the 
northern  lake,  river  and  horseback  route.  These  fathers  toiled 
alone  for  four  year?,  and  in  1842  were  reinforced  by  two 
more  priests.  On  December  1.  1843.  the  Oregon  Mission  was 
erected  into  a  vicariate  apostolic.  This  was  erected  into  an 
ecclesiastical  province  on  July  24,  1846.  with  three  sees — 
Oreeon  City.  Walla  Walla  and  Vancouver  Island.  Rt.  Rev.  F. 
N.  Blanchet,  Rt.  Rev.  A.  M.  A.  Blanchet,  and  Rt.  Rev.  Modeste 
Demers  being  constituted  the  presiding:  Archbishops  and 
Bishops  respectively,  with  perhaps  forty  helpers. 

So  much  for  the  planting  of  the  Roman  Catholic  work. 
Now  I  will  recite  the  origin  of  the  Protestant  work  among  the 
Indians. 

By  the  close  of  the  vear  1832  the  knowledge  of  the  Indians' 
trip  to  St.  Louis  became  generally  known  throughout 
Protestant  missionary  circles,  and  plans  began  to  be  formed 
with  reference  to  responding*  to  their  request.  Dr.  Samuel 
Parker,  of  Ithaca.  N.  Y.,  a  Congregational  minister  and  a 
supporter  of  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  For- 
eign Missions — the  foreign  Missionarv  Societv  of  the  Congre- 
gational. Presbvterian  and  Dutch  Reformed  Churches — was 
one  of  the  first,  and  I  am  not  sure  but  the  very  first,  among 


BEGINNINGS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  IN  OREGON  163 

Protestants,  to  take  up  the  call  and  urge  a  quick  and  hearty 
response.  But  his  efforts  did  not  arouse  those  to  whom  he 
appealed  to  sufficient  activity  to  begin  operations  at  once. 
The  Macedonian  cry  reached  the  ears  of  Dr.  Wilbur  Fisk, 
President  of  the  Wesleyan  Methodist  Academy  at  Wilbraham, 
Mass.  He  was  a  man  of  action,  prompt  and  decisive,  and  on 
March  20,  1833,  he  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Methodist  Missionary 
Board  suggesting  the  establishment  of  a  mission  to  the  Flat- 
heads  without  delay.  This  Board  having  a  fund  which  could 
be  used  at  once,  considered  the  suggestion  favorably,  and  after 
a  few  preliminaries,  Dr.  Fisk  became  the  leading  spirit  in  pro- 
moting the  enterprise. 

In  recalling  the  young  men  who  had  been  former  students 
under  him,  his  mind  reverted  to  one  Jason  Lee,  who  had  come 
to  his  school  from  Canada,  and  who  was  then  in  the  service 
of  the  Wesleyan  church  at  Stanstead,  Canada,  the  place  of  his 
birth. 

Mr.  Lee  caught  the  inspiration  from  Dr.  Fisk  and  at  once 
said,  "Here  am  I,  send  me."  Needed  preparations  were  made 
as  rapidly  as  circumstances  would  permit,  and  in  March,  1834, 
Revs.  Jason  Lee  and  Daniel  Lee,  and  three  laymen,  Cyrus 
Shepard,  P.  L.  Edwards  and  C.  M.  Walker,  started  in  com- 
pany with  Captain  Nathaniel  J.  Wyeth,  of  Massachusetts,  who 
was  coming  west  on  a  business  expedition. 

On  the  way  across  the  plains,  Sunday,  July  27,  1834,  Mr. 
Lee  held  public  worship  in  a  grove.  This  was  the  first  re- 
ligious service  he  conducted  after  starting  for  the  Pacific 
slope  from  Liberty,  Mo.,  April  21,  1834.  His  audience  was  a 
mixed  company  of  Indians,  half  breeds  and  Canadian  French- 
men. That  evening,  while  two  of  the  French-Canadians  were 
racing,  a  third  one  ran  across  the  track  and  a  collision  ensued 
which  caused  the  death  of  one  of  the  riders.  Although  the 
deceased  person  was  a  Roman  Catholic,  Captain  Thomas  Mc- 
Kay, requested  Mr.  Lee  to  conduct  the  funeral  service,  which 
he  did  the  next  day,  thus  making  Monday,  July  28,  1834,  mem- 
orable as  being  the  day  on  which  the  first  funeral  service  west 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains  was  conducted  by  a  Protestant  min- 


164  GEORGE  H.  HIMES 

ister.  On  Monday,  September  15,  1834,  Mr.  Lee  and  party 
arrived  at  Fort  Vancouver,  and  were  kindly  received  by  Dr. 
McLoughlin  and  the  gentlemen  of  the  fort.  Several  days  were 
spent  by  Mr.  Lee  in  looking"  out  a  mission  station.  At  length  a 
suitable  one  was  found,  whereupon  he  returned  to  the  fort  on 
Saturday,  September  27.  The  next  day  he  held  religious  serv- 
ices at  the  fort,  and  the  following  account  I  take  from  his 
diary: 

"Essayed  to  preach  to  a  mixed  congregation  of  English, 
French,  Scotch,  Irish,  Indians,  Americans,  half-breeds,  Japan- 
ese, etc.  some  of  whom  did  not  understand  five  words  of 
English.  Found  it  extremely  difficult  to  collect  my  thoughts 
or  find  language  to  express  them ;  but  am  thankful  that  I  have 
been  permitted  to  plead  the  cause  of  God  on  this  side  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  where  the  banners  of  Christ  were  never 
before  unfurled.  Great  God !  grant  that  it  may  not  be  in  vain, 
but  may  some  fruit  appear  even  from  this  feeble  attempt  to 
labour  for  thee. 

"Evening: — Preached  again,  but  with  as  little  liberty  as  in 
the  morning:  but  still  I  find  it  is  good  to  worship  in  the  public 
congregation.  My  Father  in  Heaven,  I  give  myself  to  Thee. 
May  I  ever  be  Thine  and  wholly  Thine — always  directed  by 
Thine  unerring  counsel,  and  ever  so  directed  as  to  be  most 
beneficial  in  the  world,  and  bring  most  glory  to  the  Most  High, 
that  I  may  at  last  be  presented  without  spot,  and  blameless 
before  the  throne." 

Lee  intended  to  locate  in  the  Flathead  country,  but  Dr.  Mc- 
Loughlin nersuaded  him  to  abandon  that  idea  and  establish 
his  mission  in  the  Willamette  Valley,  giving  as  a  reason  that 
he  would  be  more  easily  protected  in  the  event  of  attack  by 
Indians  if  he  was  not  so  far  away  from  Vancouver.  Lee 
vielded  to  this  argument,  and  began  his  work  in  what  is  now 
Marion  County,  a  few  miles  below  Salem.  That  mission  farm 
is  now  owned  by  Mr.  A.  M.  Lafollet.  It  may  be  of  interest 
to  know  that  on  September  22,  1834,  Lee  and  his  companions 
were  on  French  Prairie,  that  on  the  following  Sunday,  Sep~ 


BEGINNINGS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  IN  OREGON  165 

tember  28,  he  preached  at  Vancouver,  and  on  the  next  day, 
September  29,  preparations  were  made  for  returning  to  lay  the 
foundation  of  Christian  work  here,  and  on  October  6  the  jour- 
ney was  completed  and  the  party  encamped  on  the  spot  selected 
for  their  mission  ten  miles  north  of  Salem,  on  the  east  bank  of 
the  Willamette  river. 

The  first  sermon  preached  by  Mr.  Lee  in  the  Willamette 
Valley  was  on  October  19  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Gervais,  near 
the  present  town  of  that  name,  and  the  congregation  was 
composed  of  French,  half  castes  and  Indians.  The  following 
March,  Mr.  Shepard,  who  had  taught  school  at  Vancouver 
during  the  winter,  assumed  charge  of  the  mission  school.  Lee 
soon  saw  that  he  was  poorly  equipped  to  accomplish  what  he 
desired,  hence  he  appealed  for  reinforcements.  In  response, 
Dr.  Elijah  White  and  his  wife,  Alanson  Beers  and  wife.  Miss 
Anna  Maria  Pittman,  Miss  Susan  Downing,  and  Miss  Elvira 
Johnson,  arrived  in  May,  1837,  and  in  September  of  that  year 
Rev.  David  Leslie  and  wife,  Rev.  H.  K.  W.  Perkins  and  Miss 
Margaret  Smith  arrived.  With  this  addition  the  way  seemed 
clear  to  Lee  to  advance  his  outposts.  Accordingly  he  made 
a  trip  as  far  south  as  Fort  Umpqua,  from  which  he  returned 
in  March,  1838.  This  not  proving  altogether  satisfactory,  he 
concluded  to  establish  a  mission  at  The  Dalles,  and  with  this 
purpose  in  view  he  left  the  Willamette  on  March  14,  1838,  and 
reached  his  destination  on  the  22d.  The  mission  there  was 
decided  upon  and  placed  in  charge  of  Rev.  H.  K.  W.  Perkins 
and  Rev.  Daniel  Lee. 

Affairs  moved  along  in  the  even  tenor  of  their  way  until 
July  16,  1837 — a  day  which  should  be  forever  memorable  in 
the  history  of  religious  effort  on  the  Pacific  Coast.  That  day 
Jason  Lee  was  married  to  Anna  Maria  Pittman,  Cyrus  Shep- 
ard to  Susan  Downing,  and  Charles  Roe  to  Miss  Nancy,  an 
Indian  maiden  of  the  Callapooia  tribes.  Rev.  Daniel  Lee  offi- 
ciated at  the  marriage  of  Jason  Lee,  and  then  the  latter  per- 
formed the  ceremony  for  the  other  two  couples,  and  preached 
a  powerful  sermon  from  Numbers  10:29 — "Come  thou  with  us, 
and  we  will  do  thee  good :  for  the  Lord  hath  spoken  good  con- 
cerning Israel." 


166  GEORGE  H.  HIMES 

The  rules  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  were  then 
read  by  Mr.  Lee,  after  which  he  baptized  the  young  man  just 
married  and  received  him  into  the  church  and  administered 
the  Lord's  Supper.  At  this  point  a  young  man  who  had  been 
raised  a  Quaker  and  who  for  some  time  had  shown  a  change 
of  heart,  asked  to  be  baptized  and  partake  of  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per. This  man's  name  was  Webley  Hauxhurst,  and  I  have 
been  informed  that  he  lived  a  consistent,  well  ordered  Christian 
life  until  his  death  fifty  years  later.  Thus  it  was  that  the  ordi- 
nances of  the  church  were  observed  for  the  first  time,  according 
to  the  Protestant  form,  on  the  Pacific  Coast. 

The  following  winter  Lee  felt  that  a  special  effort  should  be 
made  to  arouse  a  greater  interest  in  the  religious  work  of 
Oregon,  and  began  to  realize  that  it  was  not  alone  to  the  In- 
dians that  the  Gospel  should  be  preached,  but  that  the  gradu- 
ally increasing  population  of  the  whites  should  also  have 
Christian  privileges.  With  this  in  view  he  started  east  over- 
land in  March,  1838,  carrying  with  him  a  memorial  to  Con- 
gress from  the  American  settlers  in  Oregon  which  aroused 
such  a  degree  of  interest  on  the  part  of  the  President  and 
Congress  that  five  thousand  dollars  was  given  out  of  the  "Se- 
cret Service"  fund  of  the  Government  to  aid  in  Americanizing 
Oregon.  Lee's  efforts  produced  a  sensation,  arousing  the  mis- 
sionary authorities  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  to  vig- 
orous action.  This  resulted  in  the  equipment  of  the  Ship  Lau- 
sanne for  a  voyage  around  the  Horn  to  Oregon,  and  upon  Octo- 
ber 25,  1839,  she  set  sail  for  the  Far  West  carrying  51  souls, 
known  as  the  "Great  Reinforcement/'  arriving  in  the  Columbia 
in  May,  1840,  and  finally  debarking  at  Vancouver  on  June  1st. 
Soon  after,  three  buildings  were  erected  in  Salem — the  first 
there — and  thus  that  place  became  the  headquarters  of  the 
Methodist  mission  field.  The  preaching  force  brought  on  the 
Lausanne  were  allotted  as  follows :  Nisqually,  Puget  Sound. 
J.  P.  Richmond;  Clatsop,  J.  H.  Frost;  Umpqua,  Gustavus 
Hines,  W.  W.  Kone;  The  Dalles,  Daniel  Lee,  H.  K.  W.  Per- 
kins ;  Willamette  Station,  Daniel  Leslie ;  Willamette  Falls,  A.  F. 
Waller. 


BEGINNINGS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  IN  OREGON  167 

In  connection  with  Rev.  J.  P.  Richmond  it  may  be  said  that 
he  was  the  first  minister  to  begin  work  north  of  the  Columbia 
River ;  that  in  the  summer  of  1840  he  went  to  a  point  about 
twenty  miles  from  the  present  city  of  Tacoma,  and  built  a  log 
cabin,  and  surrounded  it  by  a  stockade  for  defense  from  the 
Indians,  about  three-quarters  of  a  mile  from  old  Fort  Nis- 
qually,  which  was  a  post  of  the  Puget  Sound  Agricultural 
Company,  a  branch  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  established 
in  1833,  and  that  here,  on  August  16,  1841,  Dr.  W.  H.  Willson 
and  Miss  Chloe  A.  Clark  were  married.  The  first  child  of 
this  union  was  the  late  Mrs.  J.  K.  Gill  of  this  city. 

The  name  of  Willamette  Falls  was  soon  changed  to  Oregon 
City,  and  there  Waller  erected  the  first  Protestant  church  on 
the  Pacific  Coast,  the  building  of  which  was  begun  in  1843  and 
dedicated  in  1844.  A  little  later  he  built  the  first  house  of 
worship  in  Salem.  Early  in  1842  it  was  decided  to  create 
an  educational  institution  to  be  known  as  the  Oregon  Institute, 
and  on  October  26,  1842,  it  formally  came  under  the  control 
of  the  Methodist  Church,  and  the  "Oregon  and  California  Mis- 
sion Conference"  was  organized,  by  authority  given  by  the 
General  Conference  of  the  United  States,  on  September  5, 
1849.  At  this  time  on  the  entire  Pacific  Coast  there  were  348 
members  of  the  Methodist  Church  and  six  probationers;  of 
Stinday  Schools  there  were  nine,  with  261  scholars.  At  the 
close  of  the  Conference  of  March  22,  1853,  which  by  that  time 
was  called  the  Oregon  Conference,  there  were  35  local  preach- 
ers. 558  church  members,  and  214  probationers. 

The  first  camp  meeting  in  Oresron  or  on  the  coast  was  near 
what  is  now  Hillsboro,  and  was  begun  on  July  12,  1843.  The 
first  dav  14  were  present,  Rev.  Jason  Lee  preaching  from  the 
text.  "Where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together  in  my  name 
there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them."  The  other  ministers  present 
were:  Rev.  Gustavus  Hines,  Rev.  H.  K.  W.  Perkins,  Rev. 
David  Leslie,  and  Rev.  Harvey  Clark,  the  latter  a  Congrega- 
tionalist.  Mrs.  Wiley  Edwards,  now  of  Portland,  is  probably 
the  only  person  living  who  was  present  at  that  meeting.  On 
Sunday  there  were  about  60  present,  of  whom  19  were  not  pro- 


168  GEORGE  H.  HIMES 

fessing  Christians.  At  the  close  of  the  day  16  of  these  made  a 
public  profession,  among-  them  Joseph  L.  Meek,  so  well  known 
in  the  early  annals  of  Oregon. 

I  now  return  to  Dr.  Parker.  By  the  spring  of  1835  he  had 
been  commissioned  by  the  American  Board,  and  had  chosen 
Dr.  Whitman  to  be  his  companion  in  undertaking  "an  explor- 
ing mission  to  ascertain  by  personal  observation  the  condition 
of  the  country,  the  character  of  the  Indian  tribes,  and  the 
facilities  for  introducing  the  Gospel  and  civilization  among 
them."  Dr.  Parker  started  on  March  14,  from  Ithaca,  New 
York,  and  arrived  at  St.  Louis  on  April  4,  finding  Dr.  Whitman 
already  there.  They  proceeded  on  their  journey  and  arrived 
at  Green  River  on  August  12.  Here  they  met  a  large  number 
of  Indians,  and  it  became  apparent  at  once  that  they  were 
not  prepared  to  do  the  work  that  they  saw  would  be  needed 
among  the  Indians,  consequently  Dr.  Whitman  returned  east, 
taking  with  him  two  Ne£  Perce  boys,  whose  presence  in  the 
East  greatly  assisted  him  in  arousing  the  Christian  public 
to  activity  in  missionary  effort.  The  effect  of  this  was  to 
secure  an  adequate  equipment,  and  in  March,  1836,  Dr.  and 
Mrs.  Whitman,  Rev.  and  Mrs.  H.  H.  Spalding,  and  Mr.  W.  H. 
Gray  started  on  the  trip  overland  to  Oregon.  They  arrived  at 
Vancouver  September  12.  Mrs.  Whitman  and  Mrs.  Spalding 
were  the  first  white  women  to  cross  the  continent,  and  for  the 
first  time  a  wagon  was  brought  to  waters  flowing  into  the 
Columbia.  Dr.  Whitman  at  once  selected  his  mission  station 
at  Wai-il-et-pu,  six  miles  west  of  the  present  city  of  Walla 
Walla,  and  in  October  he  and  Mrs.  Whitman  went  thither  and 
began  their  work  among  the  Cayuses.  In  November  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Spalding  went  to  Lapwai  on  the  Clearwater,  thirteen  miles 
from  the  present  city  of  Lewiston,  a  tributary  of  the  Snake, 
and  raised  their  standard  among  the  Nez  Perces.  The  mis- 
sion church  at  Wai-il-et-pu  was  formally  organized  August 
18,  1838,  with  seven  members.  That  fall  reinforcements  ar- 
rived in  the  persons  of  Rev.  Elkanah  Walker  and  wife,  Rev. 
Cushing  Eells  and  wife,  Rev.  A.  B.  Smith  and  wife,  W.  H. 
Gray  and  wife,  and  Andrew  Rogers — all  sent  by  the  American 


BEGINNINGS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  IN  OREGON  169 

Board.  All  of  these  united  with  the  mission  church  already  re- 
ferred to  on  Sept.  2d,  making  a  membership  of  sixteen.  At  a 
meeting  held  soon  after  Mr.  Gray  was  selected  to  assist  Mr. 
Spalding,  Mr.  Smith  to  aid  Dr.  Whitman,  Messrs.  Walker  and 
Eells  were  to  select  a  new  location  among  the  Spokanes,  and  the 
place  chosen  was  six  miles  north  of  Spokane  river.  In  the 
summer  of  1839  Mr.  Smith  located  at  his  own  request  at 
Kamiah,  sixty  miles  from  Lapwai,  and  remained  until  1842, 
when  he  dissolved  his  connection  with  the  mission  and  went 
to  Sandwich  Islands.  In  the  fall  of  1839  Mr.  Gray  removed 
from  the  mission  and  located  in  the  Willamette,  and  for  a  time 
was  a  teacher  at  the  Oregon  Institute  at  Salem.  With  these 
exceptions  the  missionary  force  among  the  Indians  remained 
the  same  until  it  was  broken  up  by  the  massacre  of  Dr.  Whit- 
man, his  wife,  and  twelve  others  on  November  29-30,  1847. 

In  1840  Rev.  Harvey  Clark  and  Rev.  John  S.  Griffin  came 
to  Oregon  as  independent  Congregational  missionaries.  The 
latter  sought  a  location  among  the  Indians  of  the  Snake  River 
region,  but  finally  abandoned  it  and  came  to  the  Willamette 
valley  and  settled  in  the  vicinity  of  what  is  now  Hillsboro. 
Mr.  Clark  also  came  to  the  valley  and  settled  at  West  Tualatin, 
now  Forest  Grove.  The  first  Congregational  church  to  be 
organized  was  that  of  "The  First  Church  of  Tualatin  Plains," 
as  it  was  originally,  called,  in  1842,  of  which  Rev.  Mr.  Griffin 
was  the  acting  pastor.  In  1845  the  location  was  changed  to 
Forest  Grove,  when  Rev.  Harvey  Clark  became  the  pastor. 
Early  in  his  ministry  a  log  house  was  built  which  answered 
for  school  use  on  week  days  and  church  purposes  on  Sunday. 
In  this  building  what  is  now  Pacific  University  had  its  origin. 
The  second  Congregational  church  organized  was  that  at 
Oregon  City,  in  1844,  with  three  members.  This  was  really 
a  Presbyterian  church,  and  was  first  known  as  "The  First 
Presbyterian  Church  of  Willamette  Falls."  Rev.  Mr.  Clark 
served  the  church  until  1847,  walking  thither  from  Forest 
Grove,  at  every  preaching  service,  a  distance  of  more  than 
twenty  miles.  He  was  followed  by  Rev.  Lewis  Thompson,  a 
Presbyterian  minister,  who  preached  a  few  times.  A  Mr. 


170  GEORGE  H.  HIMES 

Robert  Moore,  the  leading  Presbyterian  member,  having  with- 
drawn to  assist  in  the  organization  of  a  Presbyterian  Church  on 
the  west  side  of  the  river  at  Linn  City,  the  remainder  of  the 
members,  some  time  in  the  latter  part  of  1848,  voted  to  change 
the  name  to  the  "First  Congregational  Church  of  Oregon  City." 

Rev.  George  H.  Atkinson,  of  Massachusetts,  a  graduate  of 
Andover,  the  first  minister  sent  to  the  Pacific  Coast  by  the 
Congregational  Home  Missionary  Society,  arrived  at  Oregon 
City  on  June  23,  1848,  via  Cape  Horn.  His  first  service  was 
held  in  a  private  house,  and  the  membership  of  the  church 
numbered  seven.  Subsequent  services  were  held  in  the  court 
room  and  then  in  the  basement  of  a  house;  but  by  August, 
1850,  a  church  edifice  was  erected  at  a  cost  of  $3,900,  and 
dedicated.  Lumber  was  $80.00  per  thousand;  carpenters' 
wages  ten  dollars  a  day;  windows,  twenty  dollars  apiece;  and 
everything  else  in  proportion.  The  lot  where  the  church  now 
stands  cost  $250.00,  and  it  was  covered  with  heavy  timber, 
most  of  which  was  removed  by  Dr.  Atkinson.  He  did  a  good 
deal  in  aiding  to  build  the  church  in  carrying  lumber,  brick 
and  mortar.  Labor  was  indeed  very  hard  to  get,  as  a  large 
proportion  of  the  population  had  gone  to  the  gold  mines  in 
California.  Out  of  these  two  churches  came  the  organization 
of  the  Congregational  Association  of  Oregon  on  July  13,  1848. 

The  third  Congregational  Church  was  that  at  Milwaukie, 
organized  in  1850  by  Rev.  Horace  Lyman,  with  three  mem- 
bers. At  that  time  it  was  difficult  to  decide  which  was  the 
most  promising  place  for  a  church,  Milwaukie  or  Portland. 
At  length,  however,  it  became  apparent  that  the  latter  place 
would  lead,  hence  all  the  members  at  Milwaukie  moved  away. 

The  fourth  was  the  First  of  Portland,  on  June  15,  1851, 
by  Rev.  Horace  Lyman,  pastor,  with  ten  members,  and  the 
fifth  was  that  of  the  First  Church  of  Salem  on  July  4,  1852, 
by  Rev.  D.  R.  Williams,  who  had  taught  school  at  Forest 
Grove  for  the  greater  part  of  the  previous  year. 

Among  our  Baptist  brethren  the  early  church  organizations 
were  as  follows:  The  church  of  West  Union,  May  25,  1844, 
with  six  members.  That  fall  Rev.  Vincent  Snelling,  the  first 


BEGINNINGS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  IN  OREGON  171 

Baptist  minister  to  reach  Oregon,  arrived  and  served  this 
church  for  a  time.  Its  location  was  a  few  miles  north  of 
Hillsboro,  Washington  County.  Revs.  Ezra  Fisher  and  Heze- 
kiah  Johnson  (1845)  were  the  next  Baptist  ministers  to  arrive, 
and  churches  were  organized  at  Yamhill  and  Rickreall  in  1846, 
at  Oregon  City  in  1847,  at  Clatsop  plains,  near  Astoria,  in 
1848.  These,  with  the  West  Union  church,  had  a  combined 
membership  of  95.  On  June  23  and  24,  1848,  pursuant  to 
a  call  by  the  West  Union  church,  an  association  was  organized, 
each  church  being  represented  by  four  delegates.  It  was 
resolved  that  two  hundred  dollars  be  raised  at  once  to  employ 
a  minister  to  travel  and  preach  within  the  bounds  of  the 
association  for  one  year.  The  church  at  Forest  Grove  was 
organized  on  May  22,  1852,  and  it  was  the  thirteenth  Baptist 
church  organized  in  Oregon. 

In  the  period  under  review  there  was  but  one  Presbyterian 
church  organized,  that  of  Clatsop  Plains,  on  September  19, 
1846,  by  Rev.  Lewis  Thompson,  and  in  the  historical  summary 
of  the  growth  of  the  Presbyterian  denomination  in  Oregon, 
published  by  the  First  Presbyterian  Church  in  Portland  under 
date  of  June  18,  1899,  it  asserted  that  that  "was  the  first 
Presbyterian  Church  on  the  Pacific  Coast."  The  Presbytery 
of  Oregon  was  organized  on  November  19,  1851. 

The  first  service  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the 
original  Oregon  Territory  was  held  at  Vancouver  in  1836,  by 
Rev.  Mr.  Beaver,  the  chaplain  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company. 
He  held  services  at  Cathlamet,  also.  Rev.  St.  M.  Fackler  held 
services  at  Champoeg,  and  possibly  at  Oregon  City.  The 
first  Episcopal  missionary  was  Rev.  William  Richmond,  who 
arrived  in  Portland  in  May,  1851,  and  organized  Trinity  Church 
on  May  18.  On  the  25th  he  organized  St.  Paul's  at  Oregon 
City.  The  first  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  Portland  was  dedi- 
cated Feb.  22,  1852.  By  the  end  of  1854,  the  total  number  of 
Catholics  in  Oregon  Territory  was  303. 

It  is  impossible  to  state  with  any  degree  of  certainty  the 
number  of  professed  Christians  connected  with  Protestant 


172  GEORGE  H.  HIMES 

churches  in  Oregon  at  the  close  of  the  year  1852,  but  it  will  be 
seen  from  the  foregoing  that  the  Methodist,  Congregational, 
Baptist,  Presbyterian  and  Episcopalian  denominations  were 
represented  in  an  organized  form — the  aggregate  of  all  prob- 
ably not  exceeding  1,000  persons.  To  my  knowledge  there 
was  a  goodly  number  of  the  Disciples  of  Christ — sometimes 
known  as  "Campbellites" — in  this  field,  but  I  do  not  think 
there  was  any  regular  organization.  The  total  population  of 
Oregon  at  the  close  of  the  year  1849  was  about  10,000. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON— V. 

By  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE,   Ph.   D. 

CHAPTER  X 
THE  TREATY  OF  1846 

Simultaneously  with  the  congressional  agitation  over  the 
question  of  giving  notice,  the  steps  which  were  to  lead  to  a 
settlement  of  the  controversy  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States  were  being  taken.  The  British  Government,  as 
we  have  seen,  had  not  been  too  pleased  when  Pakenham  rejected 
Folk's  offer  in  the  way  he  did.  After  some  uneasiness  on  the 
part  of  Lord  Aberdeen  as  to  how  the  question  could  be  re- 
opened, since  it  was  obvious  that  England  must  move  first  if 
anything  was  done,  he  authorized  Mr.  Pakenham  once  more  to 
propose  arbitration. 

Already,  while  awaiting  new  instructions  from  his  govern- 
ment, Pakenham  had  talked  matters  over  unofficially  with 
Buchanan,  who  found  the  British  minister  no  less  friendly 
although  more  grave.  In  anticipation  of  these  informal  con- 
ferences Buchanan  had  asked,  at  a  Cabinet  meeting,  what  sort 
of  a  manner  he  should  assume  with  Pakenham;  particularly 
he  desired  power  to  say  that  the  President  would  submit  a 
British  proposition  to  the  Senate.1  But  Polk  said  he  had  not 
yet  determined  upon  this  course  and  under  no  circumstances 
would  he  intimate  that  he  was  thinking  of  it.  Buchanan,  there- 
fore, could  do  no  more  than  he  had  at  previous  times  in  the 
way  of  smoothing  a  path  for  renewed  negotiations.  He  did, 
however,  inquire  of  Pakenham  the  significance  of  the  military 
and  naval  activity  of  Great  Britain,  and  was  assured  that  the 
preparations  had  no  reference  to  the  United  States. 

This  assurance  did  not  satisfy  the  President.  He  had 
Buchanan  ask  McLane  to  bring  the  question  up  with  Aberdeen.2 
In  the  same  dispatch  in  which  this  query  was  sent  Buchanan 

1  Polk  Diary,   I,   119-21. 

2  Buchanan   to  MfcLane,    13   Dec.      Works  of  Buchanan,   VI,   341-2.     Also   pri- 
vate letter  of  same  date,  Ibid. 


174  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

told  the  American  minister,  although  the  President  did  not 
at  first  approve  the  notion,  that  in  all  probability  if  the  British 
government  should  make  a  proposition  for  settling  the  Oregon 
controversy  the  President  would  submit  it  to  the  Senate  for 
advice.  This  hint  was  but  one  of  those  which,  in  the  months 
that  followed,  revealed  the  true  manner  in  which  the  negotia- 
tion was  being  conducted ;  ostensibly  Washington  was  the  scene 
of  action,  with  Pakenham  and  Buchanan  the  principals;  quite 
as  much,  however,  did  the  negotiation  take  place  in  London 
between  Lord  Aberdeen  and  Mr.  McLane.  The  formal  ex- 
changes occurred  in  America;  the  real  dickering  was  done  in 
England.  Buchanan's  communications,  both  to  Pakenham  and 
to  McLane,  were  always  supervised  and  sometimes  dictated 
by  the  President ;  those  to  the  minister  in  London  afforded  the 
material  for  the  campaign  which  finally  brought  the  compro- 
mise offer. 

On  the  twenty-third  of  December  McLane's  hint  that  a  new 
proposal  for  arbitration  might  soon  be  expected  was  received 
by  Buchanan.  It  was  discussed  at  length  by  the  President  and 
his  Cabinet  and  all  agreed  that  arbitration  could  not  be  ac- 
cepted, but  Polk  refused  to  allow  the  Secretary  of  State  to 
tell  Pakenham  that  a  new  proposition  on  which  to  base  nego- 
tiations would  be  respectfully  considered;  this  would  mean 
that  the  United  States  had  taken  the  first  step,  and  Polk  was 
determined  that  Great  Britain  should  move  first.  He  did  say 
definitely  that  if  Pakenham  should  offer  the  United  States  free 
ports  on  the  sea  and  on  the  Straits  of  Fuca  north  of  49  degrees 
he  would  confidentially  consult  three  or  four  Senators  from 
different  parts  of  the  country  and  might  submit  such  a  propo- 
sal to  the  Senate.  So  difficult  did  Buchanan  find  it  to  bring 
himself  to  the  President's  view  as  to  what  constituted  a  proper 
reply  to  Pakenham's  probable  overture  that  Polk  dictated  to 
him  what  he  should  write  :3 

"I  would  refer  him  to  the  correspondence  and  your  last  note 

3  In  part  the  difficulty  Polk  had  with  Buchanan  was  due  to  the  latter's  dis- 
appointment about  an  appointment  in  Pennsylvania;  he  thought  the  President  was 
using  his  patronage  in  such  a  way  as  to  hurt  him  in  his  own  state.  Diary,  I, 
134-6,  143-7. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  175 

of  the  30th  of  August,  and  say,  it  has  been  at  your  option  with 
a  perfect  liberty  to  propose  any  proposition  you  thought  proper, 
and  you  had  no  reason  to  conclude  from  what  had  occurred  here 
that  the  Government  would  not  have  treated  such  a  proposition 
with  respectful  consideration  when  made.  You  have  made  no 
new  proposition,  &  the  question  therefore  stands  in  its  present 
attitude." 

Four  days  later  the  formal  offer  of  arbitration  was  received. 
Buchanan,  when  he  received  the  note,  agreed  with  Pakenham 
that  he  would  like  to  see  the  question  settled;  although  he 
would  present  the  British  proposition  to  the  consideration  of 
the  President  he  must  say  that  both  he  and  the  President 
thought  a  negotiation  appeared  the  better  way  to  go  about 
the  business.  After  learning  that  the  arbitration  proposal 
would  find  little  favor,  P'akenham  proceeded  to  comment  on 
some  of  the  bills  introduced  in  Congress,  particularly  the  ones 
which  would  make  land  grants  to  settlers;  such  measures,  he 
believed,  were  in  contravention  of  the  terms  of  the  convention 
of  1827.  The  proposed  fortification  of  the  Columbia  River 
brought  up  the  subject  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  and 
Buchanan  understood  from  the  drift  of  the  conversation  that 
the  rights  of  this  company  formed  one  of  the  most  serious 
obstacles  to  a  settlement  of  the  question.4 

In  Cabinet  it  was  discovered  that  the  British  proposition 
was  to  submit  to  an  impartial  tribunal  not  the  question  of  title, 
but  of  division  of  the  Oregon  country,  and  all  were  in  accord 
that  it  could  not  be  accepted.  As  Buchanan  wrote  McLane,5 
to  accept  this  basis  would  be  to  acknowledge  that  the  President 
had  been  in  error  in  asserting  the  title  on  the  part  of  the  United 
States,  and  it  would  be  an  admission  that  Great  Britain  had 
good  title  to  some  part  of  the  territory.  On  this  ground,  then, 
Buchanan  notified  Pakenham  that  the  proposition  was  inadmis- 
sible. The  British  minister  this  time  was  not  inclined  to  balk 
at  trifles  and  on  his  own  authority,  subject  to  the  approval  of 

4  Pakenham    to    Buchanan,    S.    Doc.    No.    117,    agth    C.    ist    S. ;    Pakenham    to 
Aberdeen,    29    Dec.,    Br.    &    For.    S.      Papers,    34:-i37-8.      A    Memorandum   to   the 
conversation  is  in   Works  of  Buchanan,  VI,  350-3. 

5  29  Dec.,  Sen.  Doc.  No.  489,  29th  Cong1,    ist.  Sea.     See  Polk,  Diary,  I,  147- 
149. 


176  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

his  government,  he  suggested  a  modification  to  meet  the  objec- 
tion ;  first  let  the  title  be  considered  by  the  arbiter,  then,  if  it 
should  be  found  that  neither  party  had  good  title  to  all  the 
region,  an  equitable  line  of  division  could  be  made.  Further- 
more, since  there  seemed  to  be  some  question  as  to  whether 
there  could  be  found  a  suitable  arbiter,  there  might  be  a  "mixed 
commission  with  an  umpire,  or  a  board  composed  of  the  most 
distinguished  civilians  and  jurists  of  the  time,  appointed  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  bring  all  pending  questions  to  the  decision  of 
the  most  enlightened,  impartial  and  independent  minds."6 

No  immediate  answer  was  returned  to  this  proposal,  not 
because  Polk  intended  to  accept  it,  but,  as  Buchanan  informed 
McLane,7  because  it  was  desired  to  find  out  what  had  been  the 
impression  made  by  the  Annual  Message  upon  the  British  gov- 
ernment and  people.  McLane  was  told  once  more  that  the 
United  States  would  never  accept  any  proposition  which  in- 
volved the  surrender  of  anything  south  of  49  degrees,  and,  in 
view  of  popular  excitement,  state  legislature  resolutions,  and 
the  temper  of  Congress,  "if  the  British  government  intend  to 
make  a  proposition  to  this  givernment  they  have  not  an  hour 
to  lose  if  they  desire  a  peaceful  termination  of  the  controversy." 

While  the  second  arbitration  proposition  was  before  the 
administration  Polk  made  to  his  Cabinet  a  tentative  sugges- 
tion which  would  have  redoubled  the  efforts  of  the  Whigs  in 
Congress  could  they  have  known  of  it.  He  suggested  for  con- 
sideration a  possibility  for  a  new  line  of  approach  to  the  solu- 
tion of  the  question,  since  it  appeared  probable  that  no  division 
of  the  territory  could  be  agreed  upon;  let  there  be  made  a 
treaty  of  commerce,  whereby  each  country  agreed  to  relax 
its  restrictive  tariffs;  Great  Britain  should  lower  her  taxes 
on  American  foodstuffs,  cotton,  tobacco  and  other  articles  to 
a  "moderate  revenue  standard"  and  the  United  States  would 
do  the  same  with  its  duties  on  British  manufactured  articles. 
Such  a  reduction  of  the  United  States  schedule  of  duties  would 

6  Buchanan  to  Pakenham,  3  Jan.,  Sen.  Doc.  No.   117;  Pakenham  to  Buchanan, 
16  Jan.,  Ibid.;  Pakenham'  to  Aberdeen,  Br.  &  For.  St.  Papers,  34:  140,  (20  Jan.) 

7  Buchanan  to  McLane,   29  Jan.      Given  in   full  in   Works  of  Buchanan,   VI, 
366-8.     Only  parts  of  the  letter  were  submitted  to  Congress. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  177 

be  a  great  object  for  England  and  she  might  be  willing  to 
surrender  all  of  Oregon  if  the  United  States  should  pay  a 
round  sum  for  the  improvements  made  by  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company.8  This  suggestion  was  not  enthusiastically  received ; 
Buchanan  for  one  saw  in  it,  if  carried  out,  a  total  loss  of  popu- 
larity in  his  own  state,  for  Pennsylvania  was  not  even  then  a 
good  place  in  which  to  talk  about  lowering  tariffs. 

On  the  fourth  of  February  Buchanan  formally  rejected  the 
British  offer  of  arbitration,  stating  that  if  for  no  other  a  single 
reason  was  sufficient  basis  for  the  rejection;  the  territorial 
rights  of  a  nation  were  not  properly  a  subject  for  arbitration, 
especially  if,  as  in  this  case,  the  amount  involved  was  great.9 
Holding  as  he  did  that  the  title  of  the  United  States  was  best, 
the  President  could  not  jeopardize  all  the  great  interests  in- 
volved with  the  possibility,  however  remote,  of  depriving  the 
United  States  of  all  the  good  harbors  on  the  coast.  The  ter- 
ritory was  not  of  equal  value  to  both  nations,  for  it  could  at 
best  be  but  a  colonial  possession  of  Great  Britain  while  it  would 
be  an  integral  part  of  the  American  Union.  Although  these 
considerations,  said  Buchanan,  had  no  direct  bearing  on  the 
question,  they  were  presented  because  they  would  explain  why 
the  President  refused  to  adopt  any  measure  which  would  with- 
draw the  title  from  the  control  of  the  Government  and  the 
people  of  the  United  States.  With  this  rejection  of  arbitration 
the  negotiation  rested  for  a  time. 

While  it  had  under  consideration  the  answer  to  the  British 
minister  the  Cabinet  had  before  it  the  resolutions  from  both 
houses  asking  for  copies  of  correspondence  between  the  two 
governments  later  than  that  submitted  with  the  Annual  Mes- 
sage. Again  a  carefully  selected  list  was  prepared  and  for- 
warded by  the  President.  It  included  Buchanan's  inquiry  of 
McLane  about  the  warlike  preparations  in  Great  Britain; 

8  J.   Q.   Adams,   when  he   read   of  the  revolution  in   Great  Britain's  commer- 
cial policy  then  taking  place,  wrote  in  his  diary  (Memoirs,  XII,  248)  :     "It  is  evi- 
dent that  the  Oregon   question  will  be  settled  by  the  repeal  of  the  corn  laws  and 
the  sacrifice  of  the  American  tariff;  a  bargain,  both  sides  of  which  will  be  for  the 
benefit  of   England,   and  to   our  disadvantage;    a  purchase   of   peace,   the  value  of 
which  can  only  be  tested  by  time."     The  date  of  the  entry  is  20  February.     Folk's 
suggestion  is  in  his  Diary,  I,  191-2. 

9  Buchanan  to  Pakenham,  Sen.  Doc.   No.    117. 


178  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPER 

McLane's  reply  reporting  the  conversation  with  Lord  Aber- 
deen; and  the  formal  notes  relating  to  the  propositions  for 
arbitration.10 

McLane,  meantime,  had  been  active  in  London,  although 
always  acting  informally.11  He  reported  the  British  disap- 
proval of  Pakenham's  rejection  of  Folk's  offer,  a  disapproval, 
he  said,  which  all  classes  expected  to  have  weight  with  the 
American  government  in  disposing  it  to  a  favorable  reception 
of  further  overtures  which  might  be  made  for  resuming  nego- 
tiations. This  had  been  indicated  in  Parliament12  as  well  as 
in  official  circles  outside.  On  the  basis  of  this  disposition  of 
the  British  Government  McLane  urged  that  the  last  American 
proposition  be  taken  as  the  starting  point  for  a  final  adjust- 
ment, allowing  joint  occupancy  and  free  navigation  of  the 
Columbia  for  a  period  of  from  seven  to  ten  years  longer. 
Better  terms  than  these,  he  thought,  were  not  to  be  obtained. 
To  this  suggestion  Buchanan  was  directed,  after  a  full  Cabinet 
discussion,13  to  reply  to  McLane  that  the  President  would  con- 
sent, though  reluctantly,  to  present  to  the  Senate  for  advice  a 
proposition  on  the  lines  indicated  by  McLane ; — 49  degrees  to 
the  sea  and  then  the  straits,  but  the  matter  of  free  ports  must 
be  omitted  if  the  tip  of  Vancouver's  Island  were  yielded, 
although  they  might  stand  if  49  degrees  without  deviation  were 
adopted.  \  -  ,  ^^TJ 

"There  is  one  point  on  which  it  is  necessary  to  guard, 
whether  the  first  or  the  second  proposition  should  be  submitted 
by  the  British  government.  The  Strait  of  Fuca  is  an  arm  of 
the  sea,  and  under  public  law  all  nations  would  possess  the 
same  right  to  navigate  it,  throughout  its  whole  length,  as  they 
now  have  to  the  navigation  of  the  British  Channel.  Still,  to 
prevent  further  difficulties,  this  ought  to  be  clearly  and  dis- 
tinctly understood." 

These  indications,  sufficiently  plain  to  us  in  studying  the 
period  at  a  later  date,  that  Polk  was  going  to  submit  a  compro- 

10  Globe,  XV,  332.     For  war  preparations  see  Chap.  XI  below, 
it  McLane  to  Buchanan,  3  Feb.,  Sen.  Doc.t  No.  489. 

12  3  Hansard,  83;  9  seq. 

13  Polk,  Diary,  I,  244-5.     Buchanan  to  McLane,  26  Feb.,  Works  of  Buchanan, 
VI,  377-83. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  179 

mise  offer,  if  one  came,  to  the  Senate,  which  would  undoubtedly 
advise  him  to  accept  it,  were  not  upon  the  surface  then.  Even 
members  of  his  Cabinet  were  still  a  little  uncertain  of  the 
situation,  and,  except  for  those  Senators  with  whom  Polk 
talked  freely  and  to  whom  he  had  stated  that  he  would  submit 
a  proposition  to  the  Senate,  Congress  was  wholly  at  sea.  In 
the  Senate  the  debate  on  the  notice  was  going  on ;  in  the  House 
the  topic  was  quiescent  for  the  moment,  although  early  in 
March  it  was  in  the  forefront  again.  The  war  spirit  had  some- 
what subsided,  however.  The  threatened  change  of  ministry 
in  England,  which  would  have  given  Palmerston  the  Foreign 
Office,  had  not  taken  place  and  men  felt  that  Aberdeen  could 
be  counted  on  to  pursue  a  pacific  course  as  long  as  he  was 
given  half  an  opportunity.14  Nevertheless  there  was  general 
unanimity  in  the  belief  that  things  must  go  on  and  be  settled; 
the  problem  must  be  solved  and  giving  notice  was  the  first  step 
on  the  American  side.15 

Before  McLane  received  an  answer  to  his  suggestion  he 
wrote  again,16  following  an  interview  with  Lord  Aberdeen, 
that  the  United  States  could  not  expect  the  British  govern- 
ment to  accept  anything  less  than  49  degrees  to  the  sea  and 
free  navigation  of  the  Columbia  for  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany for  a  period  of  years.  If  it  should  be  found  that  the 
Columbia  was  not  navigable  at  the  point  where  it  was  crossed 
by  the  forty-ninth  parallel  this  point  would  probably  not  be 
insisted  upon.  He  reiterated  his  belief  that  no  proposition 
of  any  sort  would  come  until  the  notice  had  been  acted  upon 
in  Congress.  The  same  day  he  wrote  Calhoun  to  much  the 
same  effect,  although  here  he  stated  that  he  believed  the  British 
government,  despite  repeated  refusals,  still  had  some  notion 
that  the  United  States  would  ultimately  agree  to  arbitration. 

14  For   instance   the   letters   of  Webster,    Calhoun,    Ingersoll   and   others   re- 
flect this  view;  there  would  be  peace,  although  fust  how  they  could  not  tell.     Yet 
J.  R.  Poinsett  wrote  Van  Buren,  2  Mar.,  (Vari  Buren  Papers,  Vol.  53) :     "I  very 
much  fear  our  foreign  relations  are  becoming  too  complicated  for  the  management 
of  those,  who  now  direct  them,  to  be  disentangled  without  war." 

15  Buchanan  analyzed  the  situation  in   a  letter  to  McLane,  26  Feb.,   Works, 
VI,  385-7.  I  ,-:  !  d,  *>dW 

16  To  Buchanan,  3  Mar.,  No.  West  Bound,  Arb.;  to  Calhoun,  Correspondence 
of  Calhoun,  1076-9. 


180  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

The  American  cause,  he  felt,  had  been  hurt  by  the  long  delay 
over  the  notice,  as  well  as  by  the  opinion  of  some  American 
writers  who  belittled  the  pretensions  of  the  United  States.  An 
article  in  the  North  American  Review,  especially,  had  pro- 
duced in  England  the  feeling  that  the  claims  of  the  United 
States  were  not,  even  in  the  minds  of  Americans,  as  good  as 
had  been  stated.17 

Henry  Wheaton,  then  on  his  way  to  Berlin  as  American 
minister  to  Prussia,  had  felt  the  British  pulse  as  he  stopped 
in  London.  From  there  he  wrote  Calhoun18  that  he  did  not 
believe  the  government  or  the  people  were  inclined  to  push 
matters,  nor  did  he  think  that  the  passage  of  the  resolutions 
for  notice  would  be  taken  as  a  hostile  measure.  He  told  the 
"great  mediator"  (his  own  appellation)  that  he  always  let  it 
be  understood  when  anyone  talked  to  him  about  Oregon  that 
49°  must  be  adhered  to  as  the  most  equitable  boundary 
line,  that  there  was  no  possibility  of  modifying  this  basis. 
This  letter,  and  possibly  the  one  from  McLane,  was  in  Cal- 
houn's  possession  when  he  made  his  great  speech  in  March 
and  undoubtedly  added  to  the  conviction  with  which  he  urged 
a  conciliatory  course. 

Arbitration  had  been  and  was  being  urged  in  England  out- 
side official  circles.  In  the  July  (1845)  issue  of  the  Edinburgh 
Review  Senior  had  exhaustively  examined  the  Oregon  ques- 
tion and  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  arbitration  was  the 
only  way  out.  The  newspapers,  when  in  a  conciliatory  mood, 
looked  upon  it  as  a  most  satisfactory  solution.  The  London 
Quarterly  Review,  however,  believed  that  in  the  end  a  line 
following  49°  and  the  Straits  of  Fuca  would  be  selected.19 

"We  are  more  and  more  convinced  by  the  advices  which  we 
have  lately  received,  that  the  American  cabinet  will  not  and — 
if  it  would — could  not  make  any  larger  concession.  It  is,  we 
believe,  all  that  any  American  statesman  could  hope  to  carry, 
and  we  are  equally  satisfied,  that  on  our  part,  after  so  much 
delay  and  complication,  and  considering  it  in  its  future  effect 

17  Bow«n's  article,  Jan.,  1846.     Other  articles  of  the  same  tone  are  found  in 
American  Whig  Review,  Jan.  and  Feb.,  1846. 

1 8  10  Feb.,  Correspondence  of  Calhoun.  1071. 

19  March,  1846,  VoL  XLVTI,  603. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  181 

on  the  tranquility  of  the  district  itself,  it  is  the  best  for  our 
interests  and  sufficient  for  our  honor." 

Among  all  the  other  indications  that  the  British  mind  was 
adjusting  itself  to  49°  is  a  significant  letter  from  Joshua 
Bates,  head  of  the  British  banking  house  of  Baring,  to  a  Bir- 
mingham Quaker,  Sturgis.  Early  in  December  he  wrote  that 
stockjobbers  were  saying  "the  49°  is  about  right  and 
there  can  be  no  difficulty."  This  was  written  before  Congress 
had  received  Folk's  message  so  the  suggestion  of  fuller  terms 
for  a  settlement  are  the  more  suggestive.  The  Hudson's  Bay 
Company,  he  said,  desired  a  settlement  and  might  be  more 
tractable  if  allowed  twenty  years'  occupation  and  the  right 
of  pre-emption  of  the  lands  they  were  then  cultivating,  together 
with  the  right  to  elect  their  allegiance  when  the  United  States 
assumed  full  control.  "This  with  49°  and  the  end  of 
Vancouver's  Island  is  as  much  as  any  American,  be  he  Bos- 
tonian  or  Carolinian,  will,  I  think,  consent  to  give.  If  Great 
Britain  is  not  satisfied  with  that,  let  them  have  war  if  they 
want  it."20  In  April  Bates  wrote  Sturgis  that  the  Oregon 
Question  was  as  good  as  settled.21  "Your  pamphlet  has  done 
more  than  all  the  diplomatic  notes.  I  claim  the  merit  of  sug- 
gesting the  mode  of  getting  rid  of  the  question  of  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company  and  the  navigation  of  the  Columbia,  by  allowing 
the  company  to  enjoy  it  for  a  fixed  number  of  years.  Mr. 
McLane  and  the  Government  had  not  thought  of  it.  In  the 
Quarterly  is  an  article  written  by  Croker  which  completely 
adopts  these  views." 

The  British  government  was,  as  McLane  had  more  than 
once  pointed  out,  waiting  for  Congress  to  act  upon  the  notice 
for  as  soon  as  word  reached  London  that  the  Senate  had 
passed  the  resolutions  and  before  McLane  had  received  in- 
structions, Aberdeen  summoned  him  to  a  long  conversation  and 

20  2  Dec.    In  No.  West  Bound.  Arb.,  42-3. 

21  3  Apr.,  Ibid.     The  Quartely  referred  to  is  the  London  Quarterly  Review 
quoted  above.     J.  Q.  Adams  received  a  copy  of  Sturgis'  pamphlet,  in  which  Bates' 
suggestions  had  been  incorporated,  also  a  letter  from  Sturgis  who  told  him,  Adams, 
that  his  speech  in  Oregon  was  inflaming  his  countrymen  to  war.     Adams  notes  in 
his  diary  (Memoirs,  XII,  256-7),  that  "Sturge"  was  a  Quaker  to  whose  unqualified 
denunciation    of  war  he  could   not  subscribe.      Adams  took  the   trouble   to   write 
Sturgis  explaining  his  own  position  on  the  whole  subject. 


182  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

talked  over  with  him  the  offer  which  he  thought  he  should 
make.  The  proposition  as  outlined  and  as  reported  to  Wash- 
ington by  McLane  included  (  1  )  a  boundary  line  following  49° 
to  the  seat  and  the  Strait  of  Juan  de  Fuca  with  free 
navigation  of  the  Straits  confirmed;  (2)  security  of  British 
and  American  property  rights  north  and  south  of  the  proposed 
boundary;  and  (3)  free  navigation  of  the  Columbia  for  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company,  although  Great  Britain  would  claim 
no  right  to  exercise  any  police  or  other  jurisdiction  for  itself 
or  the  company  ;  the  navigation  rights  would  be  under  exactly 
the  same  conditions  which  should  apply  to  American  citizens. 
"It  is  scarcely  necessary  for  me  to  state,"  added  McLane  by 
way  of  comment,  "that  the  proposition  as  now  submitted  has 
not  received  my  countenance.  ...  I  have  therefore  felt 
it  my  duty  to  discourage  any  expectation  that  it  will  be  accepted 
by  the  President,  or,  if  submitted  to  that  body,  approved  by 
the  Senate."22  The  two  points,  of  free  navigation  of  the 
Columbia  and  the  claim  to  all  Vancouver  by  Great  Britain,  seem 
to  have  impressed  McLane  with  the  fear  that  no  adjustment 
could  be  expected.  He  reported  that  Lord  Aberdeen  seemed 
to  have  the  impression  that  the  Senate  would  advise  the  Presi- 
dent to  accept  these  terms  and  the  latter  would  not  take  the 
responsibility  of  rejecting  them  without  consulting  the  Senate. 
The  same  steamer  which  brought  McLane's  letter  to  the 
United  States  also  bore  instructions  to  Pakenham.  After  a 
careful  review  of  the  course  of  the  British  government  on  the 
Oregon  Question  and  including  a  statement  of  the  situation 
of  the  previous  summer,  Lord  Aberdeen  said  that  Her  Majesty's 
government  would  "feel  themselves  criminal  if  they  permitted 
considerations  of  diplomatic  punctilio  or  etiquette  to  prevent 
them  from  making  every  proper  exertion  to  avert  the  danger 
of  calamities  which  they  were  unwilling  to  contemplate,  but 
the  magnitude  of  which  scarcely  admits  of  exaggeration." 
The  legislature  of  the  United  States,  moreover,  had,  in  com- 
plying with  the  recommendations  of  the  President  to  terminate 


22  To   Buchanan,    18   May,   No.   West  Bound.  Arb.,   49-5».     To  Calhoun  he 
wrote  in  similar  vein.    Correspondence  of  Calhoun,  1073-4. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  183 

the  convention  of  1827,  accompanied  their  decision  with  con- 
ciliatory sentiments.  Therefore  the  British  government  di- 
rected its  minister  in  Washington  to  propose  to  the  American 
government  terms  which  had  been  drawn  up  in  the  form  of  a 
treaty  which  accompanied  the  instructions.  The  relative  con- 
cessions involved  in  the  proposal  were  reviewed  and  compared 
by  Lord  Aberdeen,  but,  said  he,  "I  am  not  disposed  to  weigh 
minutely  the  precise  amount  of  compensation  or  equivalent 
which  may  be  received  by  either  party  .  .  .  but  am  con- 
tent to  leave  such  estimiate  to  be  made  by  reference  to  a 
higher  consideration  than  the  mere  balance  of  territorial  loss 
or  gain.  We  have  sought  peace  in  the  spirit  of  peace."23 

Even  more  conciliatory  was  the  letter  of  private  instructions 
which  accompanied  the  document  intended  to  be  shown  the 
American  Secretary  of  State.24  Pakenham  was  told  to  con- 
clude a  treaty  on  the  terms  outlined,  if  possible,  "since  the 
present  constitution  of  the  Senate  appears  to  offer  a  greater 
chance  of  acquiescence  .  .  .  than  might  be  present  at  any 
future  period.1'  However,  if  the  President  declined  to  accept 
the  proposal,  and  made  a  counter-proposition,  "you  will  ex- 
press regret  that  you  possess  no  power  to  admit  any  such 
modification,  and,  without  absolutely  rejecting  whatever  pro- 
posal may  be  submitted  on  the  part  of  the  United  States,  you 
will  refer  the  whole  matter  to  your  government."  This  time 
there  was  to  be  no  opportunity  for  a  slip  on  the  part  of  the 
minister. 

Before  information  reached  America  of  the  steps  taken  by 
the  British  government,  men  of  the  conciliation  party  felt  that 
it  was  for  the  United  States  to  show  by  some  sign  a  disposition 
to  settle  the  controversy  and  preserve  peace,  for,  not  being 
altogether  in  the  confidence  of  the  President  they  had  not  his 
conviction  that  an  offer  would  be  made  from  the  other  side. 
Senator  McDuffie  thought  that  a  renewal  of  the  offer  of  49° 
should  accompany  the  notice.  Richard  Rush,  who  had 

23  Aberde€n  to  Pakenham,   18  May,  S.  Ex.  Doc.,  I,  pt.  6,  226-8,  42d  Cong. 
3d  S«s. 

24  Ibid.,  228-9. 


184  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

eagerly  watched  the  proceedings  from  the  outside,  wrote  Vice- 
President  Dallas  to  the  same  effect,  and  Dallas  pressed  this 
view  upon  the  President.25  To  them  as  well  as  to  all  others 
who  raised  the  point  Polk  always  returned  the  same  answer; 
the  move  must  come  first  from  the  other  side,  but  he  invariably 
softened  this  statement  by  his  old  formula  that,  in  confidence, 
he  would  say  that  he  intended  to  submit  any  reasonable  offer 
to  the  Senate  for  previous  advice. 

A  more  difficult  situation  faced  the  President  on  account  of 
an  article  in  the  official  organ,  the  Union.  Ritchie,  the  editor, 
had  not  been  taken  into  the  confidence  of  the  man  whose  gen- 
eral views  he  was  supposed  to  spread  broadcast,  so,  when  the 
notice  was  finally  passed  by  Congress,  he  thundered  out  against 
the  Democrats  who  had  combined  with  the  Whigs  to  oppose 
the  President.  A  storm  immediately  arose.  Buchanan  re- 
ported that  there  was  much  dissatisfaction  among  the  Demo- 
crats ;  somebody,  they  said,  ought  to  be  associated  with  Ritchie 
to  make  the  Union  a  strong  paper  and  to  prevent  alienation 
of  members  of  the  party.  Allen,  whose  views  the  condemned 
article  might  have  been  expected  to  represent,  thought  a  man 
like  Francis  P.  Blair  (who  with  Rives  had  formerly  conducted 
the  Union)  ought  to  be  associated  with  Ritchie  who  could 
not  get  five  votes  as  Public  Printer  from  the  Calhoun  faction. 
Polk  himself  agreed  that  although  he  disapproved  the  course 
of  Calhoun  and  his  followers,  the  article  had  been  too  denuncia- 
tory and  severe.  He  talked  it  over  with  Ritchie,  who  was 
much  perturbed  and  excused  himself  by  saying  that  he  had 
prepared  it  late  at  night  and  in  a  hurry.  Thereupon  the  Presi- 
dent gave  him  the  sketch  of  an  article  on  the  matter,  telling 
him  to  "make  out  of  it  what  he  pleased."  "This  is  the  second 
or  third  time  since  I  have  been  President,"  wrote  the  Presi- 
dent in  his  Diary,  "that  I  have  sketched  an  article  for  the  paper. 
I  did  so  in  this  instance  to  allay,  if  possible,  the  excitement 
which  I  learned  the  article  in  yesterday's  Union  had  produced 
among  the  Democratic  members."26 

35  Polk,  Diary,  I,  348-9;  37»- 
26  I,  351  seq. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  185 

Allen  went  so  far  as  to  propose  to  Cass  that  they  take  steps 
to  convert  the  Congressional  Globe  into  a  daily  and,  under 
Blair  and  Rives,  make  it  a  new  Democratic  organ.  Both  Polk 
and  Cass,  who  grasped  the  situation  more  clearly  than  the  Ohio 
Senator,  saw  that  this  would  only  split  the  party  more  since 
the  proposed  sheet  would  probably  be  a  Van  Buren  and  Wright 
paper  and  its  first  issue  would  be  taken  as  the  beginning  of 
the  next  presidential  campaign.  Allen  did  not  press  the  topic 
and  it  was  dropped. 

Throughout  the  country  as  a  whole,  except  in  parts  of  the 
West,  the  passage  of  the  notice  was  looked  upon  as  a  virtual 
settlement  of  the  Oregon  Question,  for  they  were  few  who 
believed  that  then  the  President  would  refuse  to  consider  a 
compromise  which  in  some  way  was  going  to  be  proposed. 
Editorial  advice  was  not  wanting.  For  example  the  Charles- 
ton Mercury  from  the  stronghold  of  Calhoun  said,27 

"We  repeat  that  we  are  glad  the  matter  is  now  in  the  hands 
of  the  President,  with  the  wishes  and  views  of  Congress  and 
the  people  clearly  expressed — we  sincerely  hope  that  he  will 
not  allow  any  mere  notion  of  form  or  etiquette  to  prevent  him 
from  at  once  acting  on  England  for  the  settlement  of  the 
boundary  at  49°.  If  we  were  to  choose  for  ourselves  we  would 
rather  be  the  party  to  make  the  offer  of  49°  than  to  receive 
one  from  the  other  side." 

Confidence  that  there  would  be  no  further  hitch  in  settle- 
ment received  a  severe  blow  when  the  Mexican  situation  was 
brought  before  Congress  and  that  body  was  stampeded  into  a 
declaration  of  war.  Calhoun,  who  tried  to  prevent  the  Presi- 
dent's sending  any  message  on  the  subject,  feared  that  it  would 
affect  the  European  relations  and  arrest  or  possibly  defeat  the 
settlement  of  the  Oregon  Question.  There  would  be,  he 
thought,  a  powerful  incentive  for  England  and  perhaps  France 
to  get  into  the  contest.28  Yet  at  the  same  time  Buchanan  was 
speaking  "publicly  and  confidently  of  a  settlement  at  49°" 
and  adding  that  this  would  not  have  been  obtained  if 

27  Quoted  in  Niles*  Register,  16  May. 

28  See  letters  to  T.  C.  Clemson,  12  and  14  May,  to  J.  E.  Calhoun,  29  May, 
Correspondence  of  Calhoun,  690,  692-4. 


186  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

54  degrees  40  minutes  had  not  been  claimed.  He  asserted  as 
confidently  that  there  would  be  no  war.29  Such  information, 
coming  from  the  Secretary  of  State,  was  taken  to  express  the 
sentiments  of  the  Administration  and  could  not  fail  to  have 
effect.  Nevertheless  it  was  undoubtedly  fortunate  for  the 
United  States  that  the  offer  from  Great  Britain  was  sent  as 
it  was.  A  new  ministry  was  in  office,  with  Lord  Palmerston 
of  imperialistic  tendencies  as  Foreign  Secretary,  when  the 
treaty  as  ratified  in  the  United  States  was  received  in  London ; 
it  would  have  been  passing  strange  if  such  a  ministry  would 
not  have  held  out  for  the  demands  first  formulated  by  Canning 
had  it  seemed  expedient  to  do  so.  As  it  was  the  treaty  had 
been  submitted  to  the  Senate  by  the  time  England  had  received 
news  of  the  outbreak  of  hostilities  with  Mexico. 

On  June  third  Buchanan  received  McLane's  letter  forecast- 
ing the  British  offer.  "If  Mr.  McLane  is  right  in  the  character 
of  the  proposition  which  is  to  be  made,  it  is  certain  that  I  can- 
not accept  it,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  doubt  in  my  mind  whether 
it  be  such  as  I  ought  to  submit  to  the  Senate  for  their  previous 
advice,"  commented  the  President.39  But  he  submitted  the 
letter  to  his  Cabinet  the  next  day.  Buchanan  inclined  to  sub- 
mitting the  offer  to  the  Senate,  for,  as  he  pointed  out,  if  free 
navigation  of  the  Columbia  was  only  for  the  period  of  the 
existing  charter  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  the  point  would 
not  be  vital.  Bancroft,  Marcy  and  Mason  also  thought  it 
should  be  submitted. 

On  June  sixth  the  formal  proposition  from  Pakenham  was 
before  the  Cabinet  where  the  discussion  was  largely  over  the 
proposed  navigation  concession.  Buchanan  had  changed  his 
mind  and  thought  it  doubtful  whether  the  right  would  termi- 
nate in  1859  when  the  existing  charter  of  the  Company  ex- 

^Webster  to  Haven.  28  May.  Speeches  and  Writings,  XVI,  454-  'Neverthe- 
less only  two  weeks  before  this  Buchanan  had  urged  Polk  to  allow  him  to  send 
to  the  ministers  of  the  United  States  in  foreign  countries  along  with  the  announce- 
ment of  the  war  a  statement  that  in  going  to  war  the  object  of  the  United  States 
was  not  to  dismember  Mexico.  When  Polk  refused  Buchanan  said  "You  will 
have  war  with  England  as  well  as  Mexico  and  probably  France,  too,  for  neither 
of  these  powers  will  stand  by  and  see  California  annexed  to  the  United'  States." 
Polk,  Diary,  I,  .397-8. 

30  Polk,  Dutry,  I,  444-8;  451-62  passim. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  187 

pired;  Walker  and  Marcy  agreed  with  Polk  in  thinking  it 
would,  and  they,  together  with  Bancroft  and  Johnson,  said 
offer  should  go  to  the  Senate.  Buchanan  was  still  in  doubt; 
friends  of  54  degrees  40  minutes  were  such  good  friends  of 
the  administration  that  he  wished  no  backing  out  on  the  propo- 
sition. This  volte-face  on  the  part  of  the  Secretary  of  State 
angered  the  President,  although  he  records  that  he  remained 
calm,  and  caused  him  to  explain  that  submission  of  a  proposi- 
tion was  in  line  with  the  Annual  Message,  as  well  as  in 
accord  with  the  acts  of  former  presidents.  Thereupon  Buchanan 
said  he  would  advise  submission  but  declined  to  prepare  the 
message  to  accompany  it.  Privately  the  other  members  of  the 
Cabinet  spoke  to  the  President  expressing  their  astonishment 
at  the  course  of  Buchanan,  and  he  explained  it  in  this  way : 

"My  impression  is  that  Mr.  Buchanan  intends  now  to  shun 
all  responsibility  for  the  submission  of  the  British  proposi- 
tion to  the  Senate,  but  still  he  may  wish  it  done  without  his 
agency,  so  that  if  the  54°  40'  men  shall  complain,  he  may  be 
able  to  say  that  my  message  submitting  it  did  not  receive  his 
sanction.  I  shall  be  disappointed  if  any  message  which  can  be 
drawn  will  receive  his  assent.  He  will  choose  to  dissent  and 
if  it  is  condemned  he  will  escape  all  responsibility.  In  his 
dispatches  to  Mr.  McLane  I  have  more  than  once,  &  in  the 
presence  of  the  Cabinet,  caused  paragraphs  to  be  struck  out 
yielding  as  I  thought  too  much  to  Great  Britain,  and  now  it 
is  most  strange  that  he  should  suddenly,  and  without  assign- 
ment of  any  reason,  take  the  opposite  extreme,  and  talk  as 
he  did  yesterday  of  'backing  out  from  54°  40'." 

A  second  time  Buchanan  was  requested  to  draw  up  the  mes- 
sage and  refused,  saying  he  would  have  no  agency  in  its 
preparation;  he  also  doubted  if  any  of  his  own  or  McLane's 
dispatches  ought  to  be  sent  to  the  Senate,  which  Polk  ex- 
plained to  himself  on  the  ground  that  Buchanan  had  formerly 
urged  49°  and  this  would  be  shown.  He  was,  however,  dis- 
satisfied with  Folk's  draft  of  a  message  and  finally  drew  one 
up  himself,  but  neither  the  President  nor  the  rest  of  the  Cabinet 
thought  it  was  suitable,  while  Bancroft  reminded  his  colleague 
that  he  had  himself  said  a  month  ago  "the  title  of  the  United 


188  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

States  north  of  49°  was  a  shakling  one."  After  some  more 
discussion  Polk,  with  the  assent  of  all  but  Buchanan,  deter- 
mined to  send  only  that  portion  of  his  own  draft  which  sub- 
mitted the  British  offer,  gave  his  own  reasons  for  taking  the 
course,  reiterated  his  opinions  of  the  Annual  Message,  and 
ended  with  a  declaration  that  he  would  be  governed  by  the 
advice  of  the  Senate.31  He  had  already  consulted  several  of 
the  Senators  and  all  had  advised  sending  the  offer  although 
the  54°  40'  men  had  said  that  they  would  vote  against  accept- 
ing it. 

Accordingly  the  proposition  reached  the  Senate  on  June 
tenth,  and  as  that  body  went  into  executive  session  Senator 
Sevier  was  heard  to  say,  "Now,  fifty-four  forties,  come  up  to 
the  scratch."32  This  they  attempted  to  do,  but  numbers  were 
against  them  and  voted  down  every  effort  to  block  immediate 
consideration  of  the  message  and  the  offer.  The  next  day 
Haywood's  resolution  advising  the  President  to  accept  the 
offer  was  adopted  by  a  vote  of  38  to  12,  and  even  an  amend- 
ment proposed  by  Niles  to  fix  the  time  limit  for  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company's  privileges  was  rejected.33 

When  the  treaty  itself  was  before  the  Senate  for  ratification 
Benton  urged  its  acceptance  as  presented,  but  Cass  said  that  it 
was  not  an  ultimatum  but  a  "project"  to  be  met  with  a  counter- 
project,  basing  his  contention  upon  the  correspondence  of  Mc- 
Lane  which  had  accompanied  the  treaty.  Allen  wished  the 
iniquities  of  the  peace  men  to  be  exposed  to  light  by  moving 
the  suspension  of  the  rule  which  closed  the  doors  for  execu- 
tive session,  but  only  a  small  group  of  54°  40'  men  would  sup- 
si  See  Message  in  Richardson,  IV,  449-50.  On  the  day  the  Message  was  sent 
to  the  Senate  Polk  offered  to  Buchanan  to  nominate  him  to  the  vacant  position 
on  the  Supreme  Bench  at  the  next  session  of  Congress.  Buchanan,  who  had 
been  indicating  that  he  would  like  the  place,  seemed  gratified  and,  a  little  later, 
urged  that  his  name  be  sent  immediately.  When  Congress  convened  in  December, 
however,  he  had  changed  his  mind  and  did  not  wish  the  place,  probably  because 
presidential  possibilities  seemed  brighter. 

32  Register,  13  June.     Globe,  XV,  1223.     The  "veil  of  secrecy"  was  removed 
in  July  and  the  proceedings  printed. 

33  The  point  was  brought  to   the   attention   of  Pakenham   by  Buchanan   who 
explained  that  the  United  States  understood  that  the  Company  was  to  enjoy  the 
privilege  only  for  the  duration  of  its  actual  charter.     McLane  was  also  instructed 
to  make  this  (point  clear  to  Lord  Aberdeen.     Buchanan  to  McLane,  13  June,  Sen. 
Doc.  No.  489.     The  treaty  was  signed,   ratified  and  sent  to   England  by   Robert 
Armstrong,  consul  at  Liverpool,  on  the  226.  of  June. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  189 

port  him.  The  alignment  on  ratification  was  the  same  as  that 
when  the  resolutions  for  notice  were  adopted  two  months 
before,  with  the  exception  of  two  votes ;  Evans,  a  Maine  Whig, 
had  voted  against  the  notice  and  now  supported  the  treaty, 
while  Cameron,  a  Pennsylvania  Democrat,  opposed  the  treaty 
although  he  had  voted  for  the  resolutions. 

Some  of  the  Western  Senators  were  not  inclined  to  submit 
to  their  defeat  without  protest.  Allen  resigned  his  position  as 
chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations,  saying  as 
he  did  so  that  his  views  and  those  of  the  majority  of  the  Senate 
were  so  diametrically  opposed  that  he  felt  it  inadvisable 
longer  to  retain  the  position.34  Cass,  whom  Allen  urged  to 
resign  also,  refused  to  do  so  but  would  not  accept  the  chair- 
manship which  would  naturally  come  to  him.  Allen  succeeded 
in  blocking  the  election  of  a  successor  to  himself,  being  sup- 
ported by  Hannegan,  Semple  and  Atchison,  who  had  "lashed 
themselves  into  a  passion"  because  of  the  action  of  the  Senate 
and  who  after  "that  time  voted  and  acted  with  the  Whig 
party."35  They  voted  for  Whigs  for  the  committee  position 
and  refused  "through  many  ballottings  to  vote  for  Senator 
Sevier,  who  was  the  Democratic  candidate,  and  ultimately 
defeated  his  election."  "They  now,"  went  on  Polk  in  describ- 
ing their  conduct,  "vote  against  my  nominations  as  I  suppose 
out  of  spite.  .  .  .  They  oppose  and  embarrass  the  military 
bills  for  the  prosecution  of  the  war  against  Mexico.  They  pro- 
fess to  be  in  a  great  rage  (there  is  certainly  no  reason  for 
their  course)  at  the  settlement  of  the  Oregon  question,  and 
yet  they  can  find  no  just  cause  of  complaint  against  me.  .  .  . 
Their  course  is  that  of  spoiled  children."  Later  on  Senator 
Atchison  told  the  President  that  he  had  been  excited  on  the 
Oregon  Question  but  he  remained  a  personal  and  political 
friend.  Hannegan,  however,  harbored  so  deep  a  resentment 
that  it  was  not  until  the  following  January  that  he  could  bring 
himself  to  call  upon  the  President."36 

34  Globt,  XV,  972. 

35  Polk,  Diary.  I,  472,  477,  486-7. 

36  Ibid.,  II,  78,  348.     Webster  wrote  his  son  that  54°  40'  men  seemed  a  "good 
deal  cast  down."    Van  Tyne,  Letters,  330. 


190  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPER 

Rumors  of  what  was  going  on  found  their  way  into  news- 
papers and  current  discussion.  In  the  House  one  last  attempt 
to  save  the  honor  of  the  country  was  made  by  McDowell 
who  asked  for  a  suspension  of  the  rules  to  allow  him  to  intro- 
duce a  set  of  resolutions  in  which  he  asserted  once  more  the 
"clear  and  unquestionable  title,"  in  spite  of  which  there  had, 
"it  is  believed,  within  a  few  days  past,  (been)  submitted  to  the 
President,  and  through  him  to  the  Senate,  a  proposition  to 
surrender  half  of  Oregon.  In  view  of  the  ignorance  of  the 
people  as  to  what  was  going  on  he  called  upon  the  House  to 
resolve  with  him  that  the  question  ought  to  be  submitted  to 
the  people  for  their  decision,  and  that  if  the  treaty-making 
power  had  been  used  to  settle  a  question  of  such  magnitude 
it  would  "furnish  another  example  of  Senatorial  and  Executive 
supremacy  which  (was)  incompatible  with  the  Constitution  and 
the  rights  of  the  people."  The  House  was  not  of  his  mind 
and  refused  to  suspend  the  rules.  Representative  Sawyer, 
however,  denounced  the  President  for  backing  down  and  the 
Senate  for  deliberately  voting  away  half  the  disputed  terri- 
tory; "If  England  knew  the  character  of  the  treaty-making 
power  as  it  exists  in  the  present  Senate  she  could  ask  anything 
she  wants  and  gets  it.  We  are  degenerate  sons  of  noble  sires."37 

There  remains  the  question,  not  important  perhaps,  but  of 
interest,  as  to  the  real  "savior  of  the  country."  Was  it  Polk, 
Benton,  Calhoun  or  some  other?  On  the  day  that  the  Senate 
advised  the  President  to  accept  the  British  offer  Calhoun 
wrote,  "It  is  to  me  a  great  triumph.  When  I  arrived  here  it 
was  dangerous  to  whisper  49,  and  I  was  thought  to  have  taken 
a  hazardous  step  in  asserting,  that  Mr.  Polk  had  not  disgraced 
the  country  in  offering  it.  Now  a  treaty  is  made  on  it  with 
nearly  the  unanimous  voice  of  the  country.  I  would  have  an 
equal  triumph  on  the  Mexican  question,  now  the  Oregon  is 
settled,  had  an  opportunity  been  afforded  to  discuss  it."38 

Senator  Benton  claimed  that  he  had  proposed  the  course 

37  Globe,  XV,  979.     16  June. 

38  To  T.  C.  Clemson,  n  June;  to  J.  E.  Calhoun  in  the  same  strain,  2  July; 
Correspondence,  697,  698. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  191 

which  led  out  of  the  difficulty,  that  of  submitting  a  British 
offer  to  the  senate.39  The  President,  he  said,  had  been  in  a 
quandry  at  the  reception  by  the  public  of  his  offer  of  49°,  he 
had  quailed  before  the  storm  raised  by  five  hundred  Demo- 
cratic newspapers,  and  he  had  underhandedly  urged  Senators, 
including  Benton  himself,  to  speak  in  favor  of  Forty-nine.40 
Benton  saw  all  the  Whig  Senators  and  found  that  they  intended 
to  act  in  the  best  interests  of  the  country,  patriotically,  in  spite 
of  the  attacks  upon  them  by  the  Administration.  As  for  him- 
self, although  he  was  subjected  to  similar  attacks,  he  pursued 
his  course  depending  neither  upon  the  President  nor  upon 
the  newspapers,  but  guided  by  his  study  of  the  question  for 
twenty-five  years.  Four  years  later,  in  1850,  he  referred  to 
his  course  on  Oregon  as  not  only  having  been  opposed  by 
Greenhow's  book  but  by  those  who  had  made  that  " false  and 
shallow"  document  the  compendium  of  all  knowledge  "When 
I  was  actually  extricating  the  United  States  from  war  by 
exposing  the  truth  (about  49°  as  a  line)  I  was  blackguarded 
in  the  organ,  calling  itself  Democratic,  by  Greenhow."41 

Besides  the  President,  whose  course  will  be  considered  in 
the  next  chapter,  there  may  be  another  claimant  of  the  honor. 
In  1847  a  candidate  for  Parliament  from  Glasgow,  McGregor, 
told  how  he  had  received  a  letter  from  Daniel  Webster  saying 
that  unless  there  was  an  equitable  compromise  at  the  forty- 
ninth  parallel  as  a  basis  there  would  be  trouble  between  the 
two  countries.42 

"Mr.  McGregor  agreeing  entirely  with  Mr.  Webster  in 
the  propriety  of  a  mutual  giving  and  taking  to  avoid  a  rup- 
ture, and  more  especially  as  the  whole  territory  in  dispute  was 
not  worth  20,000  pounds  to  either  power,  while  the  prepara- 
tions alone  for  war  would  cost  a  great  deal  more  before  the 
countries  could  come  into  actual  conflict,  communicated  the 
contents  of  Mr.  Webster's  letter  to  Lord  John  Russell,  who 

39  Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  673  seq. 

40  On  the  third  of  January,  1846,  Preston  King  had  the  House  clerk  read  a 
charge  made  in  the  London   Times  that  Polk  would  rely  upon   the   Whigs  and  a 
few  Democrats  to  block  the  action  of  the  House;   Polk  would  thus  appear  popular 
in  the  West,  by   a  daring  declaration,   while  N«w  England  and  the   South   would 
prevent  fatal  consequences.     Globe,  XV,  131. 


41  Ibid.,  XXI.  Pt.  2,  1662- 
gon 


41    YtHrf..  AA1,   ft.   2,    1 552-3. 

t  London  Examiner,   24  July,   1847,  quoted  in  Marshall,  Acquisition  of  Or€~ 
.  372-3. 


192  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

at  the  time  was  living  in  the  neighborhood  of  Edinburgh,  and 
in  reply  received  a  letter  from  Cord  John,  in  which  he  stated 
his  entire  accordance  with  the  proposal  recommended  by  Mr. 
Webster  and  approved  by  Mr.  McGregor,  and  requested  the 
latter,  as  he  (Lord  John)  was  not  in  a  position  to  do  it  him- 
self, to  intimate  his  opinion  to  Lord  Aberdeen.  Mr.  McGregor, 
through  Lord  Canning,  Under  Secretary  of  the  Foreign  De- 
partment, did  so,  and  the  result  was  that  the  first  packet  that 
left  England  carried  out  to  America  the  proposition  in  accord- 
ance with  the  communication  already  referred  to  on  which  the 
treaty  of  Oregon  was  happily  concluded.  Mr.  McGregor  may 
therefore  be  very  justly  said  to  have  been  the  instrument  of 
preserving  the  peace  of  the  world,  and  for  that  alone,  if  he 
had  no  other  service  to  appeal  to,  he  has  justly  earned  the 
applause  and  admiration  not  of  his  own  countrymen  only,  but 
of  all  men  who  desire  to  promote  the  best  interests  of  the 
human  race." 

Whether  it  was  Mr.  McGregor  or  Mr.  Webster  who  was 
the  "instrument  of  preserving  the  peace  of  the  world,"  or 
whether  a  further  claim  could  be  brought  by  Joshua  Bates 
or  any  other,  it  is  sufficiently  obvious  that  no  one  man  could 
claim  the  merit  of  having  brought  about  the  adjustment.  So 
far  as  the  United  States  was  concerned  it  is  sufficient  to  point 
out  that  events  clearly  showed  that  no  one  man,  President  or 
Senator,  was  in  a  position  to  determine  the  outcome.  The 
North  and  the  South  wanted  no  war,  and  they  were  lukewarm 
about  Oregon.  As  the  Charleston  Mercury  put  it  just  after 
the  notice  had  been  authorized  by  Congress : 

"What  has  Congress  been  doing?  Why  carry  out  western 
measures  under  western  dictation?  Oregon  and  54,  40 — 
with  its  kindred  measures — rifle  regiments,  mounted  and  un- 
mounted— increase  of  the  army — bills  to  protect  settlers  and 
establish  our  laws  in  Oregon — mail  facilities  to  Oregon,  to 
be  followed  soon,  we  suppose,  with  a  grand  railroad  to  Oregon. 
And  then  nearer  home,  their  rivers  and  harbors,  and  that  most 
magnificent  of  all  humbugs,  the  Cumberland  road — a  regular 
wagon  road.  Thanks  to  the  economical  sensibilities  of  the 
Yankees,  this  was  too  much  for  even  their  stomachs,  and  they 
threw  it  up."43 

43  Quoted  in<  NileS  Register,  16  May. 


CHAPTER  XI. 
POLK  AND  OREGON 

The  most  spectacular  as  well  as  the  most  critical  episode  in 
the  history  of  Oregon's  relations  to  the  Federal  government 
of  the  United  States  is  inextricably  bound  up  with  James  K. 
Polk.  Any  study  of  the  Oregon  Question  in  its  last  diplomatic 
stages  necessarily  makes  President  Polk  the  central  figure, 
whether  the  topic  is  viewed  as  an  issue  in  Congress  or  an 
international  controversy  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States.  In  fact,  adequately  to  treat  the  subject  in  the  period 
from  March,  1845,  to  June,  1846,  necessitates  an  attack  from 
three  points ;  the  diplomatic,  the  Congressional — including  the 
Senatorial  action  in  executive  capacity — and  from  the  plans 
of  President  Polk.  The  three  phases  are  so  interwoven  that 
it  is  difficult  to  deal  with  one  and  not  introduce  the  others, 
and  yet  each  has  its  individual  stamp  and  must  be  followed  out 
by  itself  if  a  clear  picture  is  to  be  presented.  Having,  in  the 
foregoing  chapters,  taken  the  Congressional  and  diplomatic 
sides,  it  remains  to  consider  the  problem  of  Folk's  attitude  on 
the  Oregon  Question. 

And  a  problem  it  is.  Polk  has  left  us  his  diary,  which  in 
print  makes  four  good  sized  volumes,  with  an  intimate  account 
of  his  life  while  he  was  President,  with  the  exception  of  the 
period  between  March  and  August,  1845.  The  diary  is  an 
invaluable  document  for  throwing  light  upon  most  sides  of 
national  political  activity  during  one  administration,  and  it 
was  the  Oregon  Question  itself  that  suggested  keeping  such 
a  record,  for,  says  Polk,  in  the  entry  of  26  August,  1846 :! 

"Twelve  months  ago  this  day,  a  very  important  conversation 
took  place  in  Cabinet  between  myself  and  Mr.  Buchanan  on 
the  Oregon  Question.  This  conversation  was  of  so  important 
a  character,  that  I  deemed  it  proper  on  the  same  evening  to 
reduce  the  substance  of  it  to  writing  for  the  purpose  of  re- 
taining it  more  distinctly  in  my  memory.  ...  It  was  this 

1    II,    100-1. 


194  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

circumstance  which  first  suggested  to  me  the  idea,  if  not  the 
necessity,  of  keeping  a  journal  or  diary  of  events  and  trans- 
actions which  might  occur  during  my  presidency." 

The  resolution  was  faithfully  carried  out  and  to  Folk's  care- 
ful transcription  of  each  day's  events  is  due  in  considerable 
part  our  knowledge  of  the  inside  factors  of  the  political  game 
of  that  eventful  period.  Shrewd  comments  on  men  in  public 
life  afford  glimpses  which  illuminate  otherwise  obscure  occur- 
rences. Yet  in  one  respect  the  Diary  is  most  exasperating: 
nowhere  does  Polk  let  us  see  completely  enough  the  workings 
of  his  own  mind  to  ascertain  how  he  came  to  adopt  the  course 
he  followed  with  respect  to  Oregon.  So  far  from  explaining 
his  apparent  volte-face  Polk  assumes  or  seems  to  assume  that 
his  course  from  the  beginning  was  undeviating  and  that  which 
happened,  so  far  as  he  personally  was  concerned,  was  exactly 
what  might  have  been  expected.  Consequently  there  is  no 
help  in  his  definite  statements,  and  it  becomes  necessary  to 
gather  hints  as  they  seem  to  have  been  casually,  perhaps,  un- 
consciously, dropped. 

Three  possible  explanations  of  Polk's  course  naturally  sug- 
gest themselves :  the  declaration  of  the  Baltimore  convention 
was  political  thunder  which  was  intended  to  influence  voters 
in  a  certain  section,  and  Polk's  inaugural  was  in  harmony  with 
it  in  order  to  maintain  the  ruse  for  a  decent  time;  a  second 
possibility  is  that  while  Polk  really  took  the  Baltimore  plat- 
form in  good  faith,  events,  too  strong  for  him  to  resist,  forced 
him  to  depart  from  its  pronouncement;  a  remaining  solution 
would  attribute  to  Polk  a  plan  by  which  he  intended  from 
the  outset  to  accept  a  compromise  at  the  proper  moment. 
Although  leading  to  the  same  end  this  last  explanation  differs 
from  the  first  in  that  a  policy  of  laissez-faire  finds  no  place  in  it. 

It  is  necessary  to  recall  the  words  of  the  Baltimore  con- 
vention respecting  Oregon:  "Resolved,  That  our  title  to  the 
whole  of  the  territory  of  Oregon  is  clear  and  unquestionable ; 
that  no  portion  of  the  same  ought  to  be  ceded  to  England  or 
any  other  power."  Compare  this  with  the  statement  in  Polk's 
Inaugural  Address:  "Nor  will  it  become  in  less  degree  my 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  195 

duty  to  assert  and  maintain,  by  all  constitutional  means,  the 
right  of  the  United  States  to  that  portion  of  our  territory  which 
lies  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Our  title  to  the  country 
of  Oregon  is  'clear  and  unquestionable' ;  and  already  our  people 
are  preparing  to  perfect  that  title  by  occupying  it  with  their 
wives  and  children.  .  .  .  The  world  beholds  the  peaceful 
triumphs  of  the  industry  of  our  emigrants.  To  us  belongs 
the  duty  of  protecting  them  adequately  wherever  they  may  be 
upon  our  soil.  The  jurisdiction  and  the  benefits  of  our  re- 
publican institutions,  should  be  extended  over  them  in  the 
distant  regions  they  have  selected  for  their  homes."  Certainly 
no  one  can  blame  the  westerner  from  reading  in  this  a  con- 
firmation of  his  belief  that  all  of  Oregon  was  to  be  insisted 
upon,  and  all  meant  up  to  54°  40'. 

The  same  impression  was  forced  upon  others,  more  respon- 
sible for  the  declaration  of  the  Democratic  party  at  Baltimore. 
John  C.  Calhoun  as  Secretary  of  State  was  telling  Mr.  Paken- 
ham,  the  British  minister,  that  the  parallel  of  49°  North  Lati- 
tude was  the  lowest  line  the  United  States  would  accept, 
although  he  hinted  that  perhaps  the  United  States  might  not 
insist  upon  the  tip  of  Vancouver's  Island.  At  the  same  time 
the  popular  understanding  in  the  country  at  large  was  that  the 
Democratic  party  would  never  accept  anything  less  than  the 
Russian  line.  Calhoun,  while  not  on  the  surface  an  active 
worker  in  the  preliminaries  of  the  Baltimore  convention,  was 
the  leader  of  his  party  in  the  South  and  was  not  unacquainted 
with  the  causes  which  led  to  the  nomination  of  President  Polk. 
Yet  Calhoun,  in  May,  1845,  when  writing  his  daughter  about 
not  being  in  the  newly-formed  cabinet,  declared  that  with  Folk's 
"imprudent  declaration  in  the  (Inaugural  Address)  in  refer- 
ence to  the  Oregon  question,  I  could  not  have  remained  in  it 
had  he  invited  me.  I  did  my  best  in  a  conversation  I  had  with 
him,  a  week  or  ten  days  before  he  delivered  his  inaugural, 
to  guard  him  against  the  course  he  took  in  reference  to  Oreogn, 
but  it  seems  in  vain."  He  went  on  to  say  that  he  had  had  the 
negotiation  in  such  a  state  that  he  saw  his  way  through  and 
would  have  laid  the  results  before  Congress  at  the  last  session, 


196  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

had  Mr.   Pakenham  received  expected  instructions  from  his 
government  in  time.2 

To  Francis  W.  Pickens3  he  wrote  in  the  same  strain :  "I  fear 
Mr.  Polk  has  taken  a  false  view  of  that  important  question. 
The  remarks  of  the  inaugural  in  reference  to  it,  have  made  it 
impossible  to  settle  it  by  negotiation,  unless  he  retracts,  or  ex- 
plains away  what  he  has  said.  .  .  ." 

"I  saw  the  danger,  and  endeavored  to  guard  Mr.  Polk,  in 
my  first  interview,  against  it ;  but  as  it  seems  in  vain.  I,  also, 
endeavored  to  guard  Mr.  Buchanan,  but  I  know  not  whether 
with  more  success.  A  war  with  England  about  Oregon  would 
be  the  most  fatal  step,  that  can  be  taken ;  and  yet  there  is  great 
danger  that  it  will  come  to  that.  In  my  opinion,  if  prevented, 
it  must  be  by  the  Senate  and  the  South.  The  question  might 
have  been  successfully  managed.  I  saw  my  way  clearly 
through  it,  and  left  it  in  a  good  way.  .  .  ." 

It  is  fairly  clear  that  Calhoun  never  thought  that  any  presi- 
dential candidate  when  he  had  won  the  campaign  and  had  been 
inaugurated  would  ever  take  seriously  the  literal  words  of  a 
campaign  slogan.  Such  was  the  view  of  the  Democracy  of 
the  South  and  of  the  North  for  the  most  part ;  only  in  the 
West,  and  there  were  exceptions  there,  was  Polk  expected  to 
adhere  to  the  plank.  Thomas  Benton  said  that  54°  40'  was 
adopted  as  a  "campaign  message"  and  the  framers  of  the  plat- 
form knew  little  of  the  geographical  situation  or  of  former 
treaties  and  negotiations.4  The  bulk  of  the  Democracy  in  the 
House  of  Representatives,  however,  appeared  to  be  convinced 
that  Folk's  words  meant  what  all  believed  to  be  the  literal 
meaning  of  the  platform,  and  this  view  was  strengthened  when 
his  first  Annual  Message  outlined  what  he  had  done  in  the 
summer  of  1845  and  apparently  reiterated  his  determination 
never  to  surrender  a  foot  of  Oregon.  The  Whigs,  too,  un- 
derstood him  in  the  same  way  and  did;  their  best  to  show  that 
this  meant  war  with  Great  Britain. 

2  22_May,  1845,  Correspondence,  656. 
to  J 


showed  that  his  views  were  shared  by  many  of  his  political  friends. 
4  Thirty  Years'  View,  II.  677. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  197 

The  press,  Whig  and  Democratic,  saw  in  the  Inaugural  what 
Calhoun  had  seen,  for  if  the  Oregon  Question  had  been  pushed 
into  the  background  during  the  presidential  campaign,  it  came 
to  its  own  in  the  publicity  attained  from  the  time  the  Inaugural 
was  pronounced  to  the  Treaty  of  1846.  With  growing  intensity 
the  newspaper  discussion  was  waged,  for  the  most  part  along 
party  lines.  The  Whig  papers  deplored  the  tone  of  the  Presi- 
dent and  brought  forward  arguments  and  assertions  as  to 
why  negotiations  should  be  continued  and  a  compromise 
reached.  On  the  other  hand  the  Democratic  papers,  taking  the 
lead  from  the  new  Administration  paper,  the  Union,  backed 
the  cry  for  all  of  Oregon,  although  some  portions  of  the  South- 
ern press  would  not  take  the  same  stand.  The  Charleston 
Courier,5  for  example,  showed  the  influence  of  Calhoun's  views 
when,  discussing  the  Inaugural,  it  advocated  a  compromise 
"in  which  each  party  may  relinquish  a  part  of  its  extreme  claim, 
with  no  loss  of  honor,  nor  surrender  of  dignity,  or  sacrifice  of 
material  interests."  But  the  New  York  Evening  Post6  had 
gathered  a  large  number  of  leading  articles  from  western  papers 
and  was  gratified  to  see  "the  cordial  unanimity  of  opinion  with 
which  (the  Oregon  Question)  is  taken  up,  and  the  universal 
determination  that  our  rights  to  the  territory  should  be  stoutly 
and  ably  advocated.  There  is  but  one  sentiment  and  one  voice 
on  the  subject.  What  is  clearly  ours  will  be  so  claimed  and 
maintained,  let  Great  Britain  take  offense  as  she  may." 

"Undoubtedly,"  was  the  reply  of  the  National  Intelligencer 
(Whig),  "'what  is  clearly  ours'  ought  to  be  'so  claimed  and 
maintained,'  at  the  proper  time  and  in  a  proper  manner.  But 
the  very  question  at  issue,  in  this  case,  between  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain,  was  deemed  a  fit  subject  for  negotia- 
tions by  all  previous  administrations  of  this  government,  and 
now  admitted  by  the  present  to  be  such,  is,  what  is  clearly  ours  ? 
The  'universal  determination,'  the  Evening  Post  will  grant, 
cannot  determine  a  question  of  right." 

Between  the  National  Intelligencer  and  the  Union  arose  an 

5  p^oted  «»  #•'«*  Register,  31  May,  1845. 


198  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

editorial  controversy  over  the  tone  of  the  Inaugural.  The 
Intelligencer,  Whig  as  it  was  and  sore  over  the  defeat  of  Clay, 
took  many  occasions  to  point  out  the  defects  of  the  Administra- 
tion's policy,  especially  on  the  most  pressing  matter  of  Oregon. 
One  of  these  articles  reviewed  the  situation  and  concluded 
with  the  opinion  that  the  "case  should  go  forward  to  its  peace- 
ful and  reasonable  decision;  and  we  hope,  as  is  our  public7 
duty,  that  it  will,  in  spite  of  all  blusterers,  cis  or  trans- Atlantic." 
The  response  of  the  Union  to  this  leader  represents  the  views 
of  the  Administration  so  far  as  those  could  be  read  by  the 
public  in  general,  for  Ritchie,  a  strong  Polk  man  in  the  cam- 
paign, had  left  the  Richmond  Enquirer  to  come  to  Washington 
as  editor  of  Folk's  organ.  Ritchie's  answer,  then,  to  Gales  and 
Seaton  may  well  have  been  considered  an  outline  of  Folk's 
desired  interpretation  of  the  Inaugural  and  as  such  is  important 
enough  to  be  liberally  quoted : 

"We  do  not  understand  that  the  executive  of  the  United 
States  have  any  intention  of  closing  the  door  to  any  nego- 
tiation with  Great  Britain  on  the  Oregon  Question,  and,  there- 
fore, we  might  suppose  that  all  the  inferences  which  the 
National  Intelligencer  draws  from  the  supposed  Violent  ground 
that  the  United  States  (for  instance)  will  not  negotiate'  upon 
such  a  course,  leaving  us  the  'alternatives  of  submission  or  war' 
and  all  denunciations  which  it  so  gratuitously  pours  forth  upon 
the  'shocking  absurdity'  and  the  barbarous  doctrine  that  'we 
ought  not  to  negotiate,'  (which  the  National  Intelligencer 
attributes  to  some  of  the  republicans,)  and  thus  we  revive  the 
'old  umpirage  of  private  rights — the  wager  of  battle'  are  en- 
tirely misplaced. 

"We  certainly  do  not  understand  that  the  negotiation  about 
Oregon  is  at  an  end ;  or  that  our  administration  is  determined 
or  willing  to  terminate  it ;  or  that  there  is  no  prospect  of  amic- 
ably adjusting  the  dispute;  or  that  it  must  necessarily  end  in 
breaking  up  the  peace  of  the  two  countries.  .  .  We  yet 
trust  that  the  'case  may  go  forward  to  its  peaceful  and  reason- 
able decision' ;  and  in  spite,  too,  of  all  unnecessary  menaces  of 
the  British  ministers  and  all  the  blusterings  of  the  London 
journals. 

"Instead  of  giving  gratuitous  and  superfluous  advice  to  our 

7  13  May. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  199 

cabinet,  we  should  have  been  better  pleased  to  see  the  National 
Intelligencer  coming  out  with  the  expression  of  its  own 
opinions  on  the  question  itself.  We  should  have  been  better 
satisfied  to  have  seen  the  National  Intelligencer  vindicating 
the  just  claims  of  our  country  against  the  assaults  and  argu- 
ments of  British  tongues  and  British  pens ;  and  we  still  hope 
to  see  that  journal  thus  employed  and  not  again,  as  in  the  case 
of  Texas,  counteracting  the  rights  and  interests  of  our  own 
country." 

To  this  exposition  the  Intelligencer  called  the  attention  of 
its  readers  and  bade  them  mark  the  course  of  the  government 
which  had  had  its  course  thus  outlined  in  a  reputed  organ: 
"We  who  watch  the  power,  can  now  oblige  it  to  speak  out,  and, 
when  it  has  spoken,  can  force  it  to  stand  to  what  it  has  said." 
The  editors  considered  that  the  Administration  had  in  so 
many  words  bound  itself  to  negotiate  on  the  "question  which 
has  spread  so  much  alarm  through  the  moneyed  and  commer- 
cial interests  of  the  country — the  Oregon  question."8 

Most  western  papers  and  many  of  the  northern  papers  of 
Democratic  tendencies  looked  upon  Folk's  pronouncements  as 
unequivocal  in  its  support  of  the  claim  to  54°  40'.  The  Whig 
papers  and  some  of  the  southern  Democratic  papers,  as  noted 
above,  reflected  the  views  shown  in  the  citations  above.  Here 
and  there,  however,  was  sounded  a  note,  bitter  in  the  West 
and  hopeful  in  the  East,  which  indicated  a  shade  of  doubt. 
The  St.  Louis  Republican,  for  instance,  after  printing  a  letter 
in  which  Peter  Burnett  discussed  the  possibility  of  an  inde- 
pendent Oregon,  said:9 

"In  reality  there  is  no  reasonable  prospect  of  a  settlement  of 
the  question  by  negotiation,  for  years  to  come;  and  there  is  an 
influence  in  the  administration  of  Mr.  Polk,  which  will  prevent 
a  resort  to  any  other  means.  Neither  Mr.  Calhoun  nor  any 
of  his  friends,  in  South  Carolina,  nor  any  of  the  mettlesome 
statesmen  of  that  school,  who  were  so  hot  in  the  pursuit  of 
Texas,  will  tolerate  or  permit  a  resort  to  arms  in  defense  of 
our  rightful  claim  to  Oregon.  They  will  have  no  war  with 
Great  Britain,  come  what  else  may;  and  Mr.  Polk  is  not  the 
man  to  defy  them  in  such  a  contingency.  What  is  now  only 

8  The  articles  were  in  the  Intelligencer,  5  and  7  May;  the  Union  articles  a*e 
quoted  in  Niles'  Register  of  10  May. 

9  Of  9  August,  1845,  quoted  in  Register,  ^3  August. 


200  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

in  contemplation  in  Oregon  (i.  e.,  an  independent  establish- 
ment) may,  therefore,  soon  become  absolutely  necessary  to 
their  own  security,  and  all  will  admit  that  there  is  excitement 
enoug"h  in  the  project  of  organization  of  an  independent  gov- 
ernment, and  the  offices  and  honors  which  even  such  a  govern- 
ment would  bring  with  it,  to  make  it  acceptable  to  a  people  so 
far  removed  from  the  United  States  as  that  of  Oregon." 

But  if  the  President  needed  only  moral  support  in  his  pur- 
suit of  a  policy  which  would  prefer  war  to  the  surrender  of  one 
inch  of  Oregon's  soil  that  support  was  forthcoming  in  various 
ways  aside  from  speeches  in  Congress  and  newspaper  articles. 
In  Illinois,  for  instance,  there  was  held  a  State  convention  at 
which  it  was  resolved  "that  the  general  government  were 
bound  to  adhere  to  the  declarations  of  President  Polk,  in  his 
inaugural  speech  in  relation  to  Oregon,  and  to  maintain  and 
defend  our  right  to  every  inch  of  that  territory."10  Governor 
John  H.  Steele,  in  his  message  to  the  New  Hampshire  legis- 
lature in  June  of  1845,  went  into  an  analysis  of  the  situation 
and  asserted  that  previous  offers  of  compromise  had  been 
unfortunate:11 

"I  say  unfortunate,  because  no  people  or  government  ever 
yet  admitted,  or  even  proposed  to  waive  or  yield  any  of  its 
rights  to  the  claims  or  demands  of  Great  Britain,  but  in  the 
end  had  cause  to  repent  of  so  doing."  The  memory  of  the 
disgraceful  proceedings  by  which  "that  haughty  power  ob- 
tained possession  of  a  large  portion  of  the  State  of  Maine" 
ought  to  be  in  people's  minds,  and  warned  by  it  the  administra- 
tion should  not  again  be  coaxed  or  threatened  out  of  just 
rights.  "But  it  is  not  my  desire  or  intention  to  enter  into  a 
discussion  of  that  question.  It  is  in  the  hands  of  an  able  and 
patriotic  administration,  who  will  no  doubt,  use  every  honor- 
able exertion  to  bring  it  to  an  amicable  close.  At  any  rate, 
I  feel  confident  that  no  timid  concession,  no  unmanly  sur- 
render of  clear  rights,  will  be  made ;  and  that  no  truckling  to 
menace  will  again  stain  the  annals  of  our  beloved  country." 

In  one  of  the  counties  of  Pennsylvania  a  meeting  came  to 
the  resolution  that,  "in  regard  to  our  just  claims  to  Oregon, 
we  will  have  no  compromises  but  at  the  cannon's  mouth."  A 

10  In  Niles1  Register,  19  July. 

11  Ibid.,  21  June. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  201 

largely  attended  meeting  in  Marion  County,  Illinois,  declared 
that  the  title  to  54°  40'  was  clear  and  the  joint  occupation 
agreement  should  be  terminated  immediately  and  military  posts 
established  on  the  road  to  Oregon.12  Such  expressions  of 
popular  feeling  are  but  indicative  of  a  sentiment  which  was 
growing  with  rapidity  in  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1845  and 
upon  which  the  conservative  elements  of  the  North  and  South 
looked  with  apprehension. 

Across  the  water  a  similar  popular  clamor  was  rising  as  a 
result  of  the  Inaugural.  The  matter  was  considered  important 
enough  to  elicit  from  Lord  John  Russell  a  question  in  the  House 
of  Commons,13  and  the  answer  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  was  not  of 
a  character  which  would  allay  apprehensions.  The  British 
press  was  stirred  into  renewed  activity  and,  led  by  the  London 
Times,  conducted  a  campaign  of  education  as  to  the  sinister 
designs  of  the  United  States.  The  blunt  statement  of  Presi- 
dent Polk  had  been  a  blow  to  the  amour-propre  of  England  and 
the  feeling  was  everywhere  expressed  that  the  insolent  Yankee 
must  be  taught  to  adopt  a  different  tone.  "There  are  certain 
animals  that  may  be  led,  but  won't  be  driven — Bull  is  one  of 
them,"  is  the  way  Wilmer  &  Smith's  Times  put  it.  "In  his 
intercourse  with  foreigners  he  prides  himself  upon  his  cour- 
tesy, and  he  expects  the  same  courtesy  in  return.  The  new 
president's  peremptory  style  has  stirred  up  his  bile,  and  the 
House  of  Commons  has  scarcely  reassembled  after  the  Easter 
recess,  when  Lord  John  Russell's"  question  brought  up  the 
matter.  This  article  went  on  to  call  attention  to  the  London 
Times'  editorial  which  could  be  considered  an  indication  of 
the  stand  which  the  government  would  take.14 

"We  are  justly  proud"  said  the  Times,  "that  on  the  Oregon 
question  as  well  as  on  that  of  the  northeastern  boundary  the 
British  government  has  uniformly  shown  its  moderation  as 
well  as  its  firmness  on  our  side.  It  is  impossible  not  to  deplore, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  ill  regulated,  overbearing,  and  aggres- 
sive spirit  of  American  democracy,  which  overlooks  the  real 

1.2  Several  such  items  are  in  the  Register  for  9  August 

13  3  Hansard,  79;  178  sea. 

14  Niles'  Register  of  26  April  contains  these  as  well  as  other  quotations  from 
the  press  of  England. 


202  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

present  interests  of  the  two  nations  in  the  Oregon  territory — 
that,  namely,  of  letting  it  alone  for  another  half  century  at 
least,  or  deciding  the  matter  by  arbitration  before  any  local 
interests  have  sprung  up  too  powerful  to  be  so  disposed  of. 

"But,  since  the  Americans,  and  even  the  press  of  the  United 
States,  are  determined  that  the  question  shall  be  allowed  to 
rest  no  longer — since  they  have  rejected  the  proposal  for  an 
arbitration,  and  ostentatiously  announce  claims  and  measures 
utterly  inconsistent  with  the  system  of  joint  occupation,  or  the 
equitable  recognition  of  any  concurrent  rights  at  all,  it  is  fit 
that  they  be  warned  in  the  most  explicit  manner  that  their 
pretensions  amount,  if  acted  upon  to  the  clearest  causa  belli 
which  has  ever  yet  arisen  between  Great  Britain  and  the  Amer- 
ican Union." 

Such  was  the  view  of  the  Times,  and  such  was  the  attitude 
of  the  British  press  in  general,  although  there  were  sugges- 
tions that  the  whole  matter  might  still  be  arranged  if  the  proper 
attitude  on  the  part  of  the  American  government  could  be 
restored.  The  more  moderate  papers  went  so  far  as  to  suggest 
the  modifications  which  might  be  made  on  each  side  to  effect 
a  settlement,  suggestions  which  were  in  the  air  on  both  sides 
of  the  Atlantic  and  which  eventually  found  their  way  into  the 
treaty.  So  the  London  Examiner  after  setting  forth  the  claims 
on  both  sides  claimed  that  it  would  be  madness  for  either  party 
to  claim  its  maximum,  hence  the  only  question  was  what  was 
the  minimum  which  would  be  accepted  by  each;  forty-nine  to 
the  sea  with  all  Vancouver's  Island  for  Great  Britain,  it 
thought,  was  the  basis  for  such  a  mutual  surrender.15  The 
same  proposal  was  made  by  Senior  in  the  Edinburgh  Review, 
much  to  the  disgust  of  the  more  radical  prints.16  The  Exam- 
iner admitted  that  whatever  policy  Lord  Aberdeen  should  adopt 
his  course  would  be  attended  with  difficulty.  "The  American 
negotiator  will  employ  against  him  every  sort  of  misrepresenta- 
tion of  principle  and  facts ;  for  though  the  national  law  of  the 
American  courts  and  legal  writers  is  admirable,  that  of  their 
diplomatists,  and  indeed  of  diplomatists  in  general,  is  usually 
a  tissue  of  sophistry  and  falsehood.  We  trust  that  the  English 

15  25  April,   1845,  quoted  in  Register,  14  June.     Papers  on  both  sides  quoted 
liberally  from  those  of  the  opposite  side. 

16  Of  July.  1845;  Vol.  82:123-37. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  203 

negotiators  will  not  follow  their  example."  It  is  clear  that 
the  editors  of  the  Examiner  had  not  learned  that  American 
diplomacy  differed  from  all  other  in  the  world. 

So  the  war  talk  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean  grew  as  the 
uncompromising  stand  of  Polk  during  1845  prevented  any 
immediate  adjustment.  If  this  stand  was  maintained  in  order 
to  carry  out  in  a  realistic  manner  a  political  game,  a  mere 
keeping  up  of  appearances  with  a  promise  never  intended  to 
be  kept,  then  it  came  dangerously  near  producing  a  tragedy.17 
Yet  those  who  were  close  to  the  President  found  in  his  words 
the  same  meaning  that  the  more  sanguine  westerners  approved, 
and  that  the  British  public  and  conservative  elements  in  Amer- 
ica feared. 

The  Inaugural  had  its  share  in  making  it  difficult  for  the 
President  to  find  a  man  to  his  liking  to  replace  Edward  Everett 
as  minister  to  Great  Britain.  Calhoun,  who  declined  the  honor, 
wrote  Francis  W.  Pickens,  who  had  also  been  approached,18 
"In  addition  to  the  reasons  you  have  assigned,  there  are  others 
connected  with  the  Oregon  question  as  it  stands,  which  I 
fear,  would  make  the  position  of  a  minister  in  England  who 
is  true  to  the  South  embarrassing,  should  he  be  charged  with 
any  duties  connected  with  it."  Martin  Van  Buren  was  sounded 
on  the  subject  and  refused  the  mission  after  he  had  consulted 
with  his  friends.  One  of  these,19  after  talking  the  question  over 
with  Governor  Silas  Wright  of  New  York,  wrote  that  the 
President  had  no  right  to  make  such  a  request  of  an  ex- 
President  unless  he  put  it  on  the  ground  of  a  great  emergency ; 
"if  the  President  would  call  an  extra  session  of  Congress  and 
present  your  name,  then  the  country  would  say  you  ought  not 
to  decline,  "but  the  demand  should  be  so  strong  as  to  take  the 
whole  matter  of  the  Oregon  Question  out  of  the  "hands  of 

17  The  Paris  Journal  des  Debates  and  the  Globe,  both)  Guizot  papers  and  pro- 
British,   held  that  the  American  demands  were  unreasonable,  and  it   was  hinted 
that  a  rupture  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  would  show  the  sym- 
pathy, if  not  actual  intervention,  of  France  would  be  for  England.     (Register,   7 
Jun.)   La  Presse,  hostile  both  to  the  French   ministry  and  to   England,   said  the 
stand  of  the  United  States  "as  to  the  territory  of  Oregon  not  sustainable."     La 
Constitutionel,  Thiers'  organ,  attacked  the  French  tendency  to  lean  toward  Great 
Britain  "to  the  prejudice  of  an  ancient  and  faithful  ally  like  the  United  States." 
(Register,  14  June.) 

18  Correspondence  of  Calhoun,  653. 

19  N.  C.  Flagg  to  Van  Buren*  16  May,  1845.    Van  Buren  Papers,  53. 


204  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

the  Baltimore  conspirators."  Franklin  H.  Elmore  of  South 
Carolina  was  also  invited  to  accept  the  post  but  he  too  de- 
clined it. 

Louis  McLane,  of  Delaware,  finally  consented  to  undertake 
the  task.  Mr.  McLane  had  had  wide  experience  in  public 
service ;  he  had  served  in  both  houses  of  Congress,  had  been  a 
minister  to  Great  Britain,  and  had,  under  Jackson,  been  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury  and  Secretary  of  State.  Nevertheless, 
from  a  party  standpoint,  his  appointment  was  looked  upon  as 
peculiar. 

"I  do  not  understand  the  selection  of  McLane — unless  it 
was  made  under  the  excessive  horror  of  'cliques'  about  which 
poor  old  Mr.  Ritchie  proses  so  much,  and  it  was  thought  that 
it  was  better  to  select  for  so  high  a  mark  of  honour  one  who 
was  no  democrat  at  all  than  any  of  those  who  had  the  mis- 
fortune as  to  be  such  prominent  democrats  as  not  to  escape 
belonging  to  some  clique  or  other — north,  east,  south,  or  west. 
It  has  sometimes  occurred  to  me  that  the  President  and  the 
Secretary  of  State  see  that  in  the  present  public  feeling  about 
Oregon  they  cannot  yield  any  thing  and  that  (notwithstanding 
the  disclaimers)  they  intend  to  let  the  negotiation  be  really 
made  in  London,  and  to  throw  upon  the  minister  there  the 
concession  which  may  be  submitted  to.  I  must  say  I  have 
more  confidence  in  Mr.  McLane's  spirit  and  sagacity  than  I 
have  in  those  of  the  President  or  Secretary  and  think  he  will 
make  an  abler  negotiator  than  either  of  them ;  but  I  can  hardly 
think  of  any  one  whose  acts  will  be  more  jealously  watched 
by  the  democracy  of  every  section  of  the  country."20 

While  Mr.  Gilpin's  surmises  regarding  the  probable  outcome 
were  tinged  with  a  certain  shrewdness  he  was  evidently  un- 
aware of  the  efforts  Polk  had  made  to  obtain  the  services  of 
eminent  democrats  before  he  turned  to  McLane. 

In  the  Cabinet  there  was,  certainly  until  late  in  1845,  a  con- 
viction that  there  would  be  a  break  with  Great  Britain  before 
the  President  would  yield  a  point.  After  the  proposal  of  49° 
had  been  made  and  refused,  and  when  the  question  of  with- 
drawing the  offer  was  being  discussed,  Buchanan  struggled 
hard  to  leave  a  loophole  through  which  the  British  minister 

^~H.  D.  Gilpin  to  Van  Buren,  7  July,  Ibid. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  205 

might  gracefully  bring  back  a  counter-proposition.21  Polk 
was  obdurate ;  he  had  given  much  thought  to  the  question  and 
he  was  glad  the  offer  had  been  rejected;  "it  having  been  re- 
jected he  felt  no  longer  bound  by  it,  &  would  not  now  be 
willing  to  compromise  on  that  boundary."  To  the  Secretary's 
suggestion  that  war  might  follow  the  President  replied,  "If 
we  have  war  it  will  not  be  our  fault."  Buchanan  then  stated 
that  he  supposed  there  would  be  a  war  sometime  but  he  did 
not  think  the  people  of  the  United  States  would  be  willing 
to  sustain  a  war  for  the  country  north  of  49°  and  if  there 
had  to  be  one  he  would  like  to  have  it  for  some  better  cause, — 
"for  some  of  our  rights  of  person  or  property  or  of  National 
honour  violated."  Whereupn  Polk  told  him  that  he  differed  as 
as  to  popular  sentiment  and  he  thought  "we  had  the  strongest 
evidence  that  was  to  be  anywhere  seen  that  the  people  would 
be  prompt  and  ready  to  sustain  the  Government  in  the  course 
which  he  had  proposed  to  pursue." 

Many  a  time  in  the  months  following  (this  conversation 
took  place  in  the  latter  part  of  August)  did  the  Secretary  of 
State  strive  to  secure  some  definite  word  which  he  could  use 
in  his  negotiation  and  to  the  comfort  of  his  own  soul,  to  the 
effect  that  a  compromise  could  be  made,  but  he  was  forced 
reluctantly  to  resign  himself  to  the  belief  that  the  President 
was  bent  on  maintaining  the  stand  of  the  Inaugural  which 
seemed  to  be  "Fifty-Four  Forty  or  Fight."  Such  too  was  the 
opinion  of  the  other  members  of  his  Cabinet  although  no  other 
of  them  found  it  so  hard  to  be  reconciled  as  did  Buchanan. 
And  today,  in  reading  the  record  left  by  President  Polk  him- 
self, it  is  difficult  to  see  how  any  other  view  could  have  been 
reached.  Yet  is  is  to  be  noticed  that  nowhere  did  Polk  record 
that  he  would  make  no  compromise;  nowhere  did  he  say  that 
he  intended  irrevocably  to  insist  on  the  full  claim. 

At  this  point  it  is  interesting  to  note  the  views  of  two  con- 
temporary historians  of  Folk's  administration.  Lucien  B. 
Chase,  a  Tennessee  Democrat  and  a  member  of  both  the 

ai  Polk,  Diary,  I,  4.     This  is  from  an  entry  on  a  separate  sheet  noting  the 
sonrersation  which  was  responsible  for  the  diary. 


206  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

Twenty-ninth  and  Thirtieth  Congresses,  was  a  sympathetic 
biographer,  and  his  work  was  published  in  1851  when  all  the 
events  of  the  period  were  fresh  in  mind;  furthermore  Mr. 
Chase  felt  himself  in  close  touch  with  what  was  going  on  both 
through  members  of  both  houses  of  Congress  and  on  account 
of  his  relations  to  the  President.  Nevertheless  the  following 
excerpt  shows  how  little  he  really  did  know  of  the  situation:22 

"In  connection  with  the  Oregon  Question,  Mr.  Polk  com- 
mitted a  fatal  error,  amounting  to  what  Tallyrand  would  call 
a  'blunder,'  and  which,  having  the  effect  of  alienating  some  of 
his  warmest  friends  greatly  embarrassed  his  administration 
throughout.  In  his  first  communication  to  the  American  peo- 
ple, he  proclaimed  to  the  world,  that  pur  title  to  the  country 
of  the  Oregon  was  'clear  and  unquestionable.'  In  that  asser- 
tion he  was  but  reiterating  the  opinions  of  his  constituents, 
solemnly  expressed  at  the  ballot-box.  The  statement  was  still 
more  solemnly  uttered  in  his  message  to  Congress.  In  the 
same  communication  he  announced  a  principle  which  should 
control  the  Government  of  the  United  States.  If  it  is  the 
unchangeable  policy  of  this  country  to  prevent  Europeans  from 
colonizing  any  portion  of  this  continent,  it  applies  to  a  terri- 
tory to  which  we  have  no  claim,  as  well  as  that  which  belongs 
to  us;  and  if  we  cannot  suffer  them  to  colonize  parts  of  the 
American  continent  to  which  we  have  no  claim,  how  can  we 
surrender  territory  to  which  our  title  is  'clear  and  unques- 
tionable' ? 

"In  this  communication  (i.  e.,  that  asking  the  advice  of  the 
Senate  on  the  British  proposition)  he  committed  himself  to  the 
action  of  the  Senate,  and  it  was  well  understood  at  Washington 
what  advice  that  body  would  give  him.  To  reject  the  pro- 
posal of  the  English  Government  would  have  brought  him 
into  collision  with  a  large  majority  of  the  Senate.  The  nerves 
which  had  remained  unmoved  in  many  political  struggles,  and 
the  firmness  which  had  often  overcome  the  most  fiery  opposi- 
tion, where  the  cheeks  of  the  resolute  and  bold  blanched  with 
terror,  were  shaken  at  the  prospect  of  a  rupture  with  Great 
Britain  unsanctioned  by  one  branch  of  the  legislative  power." 
(pp.  50-1.) 

Another  contemporary  biographer  was  John  S.  Jenkins23 
who  discusses  Folk's  Oregon  activities  in  this  way : 

22  History  of  the  Polk  Administration,  32,  33;  50,  51. 

23  James  Knox  Polk  and  a  History  of  His  Administration  (1851),  233,  4;  235. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  207 

"So  thoroughly  was  Mr.  Polk  convinced,  that  the  American 
title  to  the  whole  of  Oregon  was  'clear  and  unquestionable/ 
that  if  he  alone  had  been  responsible,  he  would  have  instantly 
declined  to  surrender  any  portion  of  the  territory.  But  by 
former  negotiations  the  government  appeared  to  be  committed 
to  an  equitable  division,  and  a  decided  majority  of  Congress 
were  avowedly  favorable  to  a  compromise.  There  was,  too,  a 
new  consideration  connected  with  the  question, — one  of  policy 
and  expediency,  motives  which  always  have,  and  which  always 
should,  with  some  limitations,  control  the  actions  of  nations  and 
individuals.  Upper  Oregon  and  the  Island  of  Vancouver  were 
comparatively  valueless,  except  for  the  excellent  harbors  within 
the  Straits  of  Fuca,  which  were  the  only  safe  and  easily  acces- 
sible one  in  the  whole  territory.  Those  of  the  southern  shore 
of  the  Straits  were,  indeed,  to  belong  to  the  United  States 
under  the  British  proposition ;  but  war  now  existed  with  Mex- 
ico, and  as  that  country  was  largely  indebted  to  American 
citizens,  and  was  confessedly  bankrupt,  Mr.  Polk,  as  a  wise 
and  sagacious  statesman,  could  not  but  have  foreseen  that 
the  contest  would  terminate  with  the  acquisition,  as  a  satis- 
faction for  the  American  claims  and  the  expenses  of  the  war, 
of  a  large  portion  of  contiguous  territory,  in  which  was  em- 
braced the  bay  of  San  Francisco,  the  finest  harbor  on  the  Pacific 
coast." 

"Thus,  by  the  firm  determination  of  Mr.  Polk,  was  this  vexed 
question,  which  at  one  time  threatened  to  interrupt  the  friendly 
relations  subsisting  between  the  two  nations  .  .  .  forever 
settled  in  a  spirit  of  amity  and  concord;  each  party  magnani- 
mously surrendering  part." 

If  two  contemporaries  of  Polk  could  reach  such  diverse  con- 
clusions as  to  Folk's  conduct,  contemporaries  who  supposedly 
were  in  touch  with  the  political  situation,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  the  contemporary  man  on  the  street  was  puzzled.  The 
explanation,  then,  cannot  be  found  in  the  suggestion  that 
Polk  was  keeping  up  a  campaign  bluster  for  effect.  The 
matter  was  overdone;  it  was  not  played  skillfully  to  that  end 
for  it  disrupted  the  Democratic  party.  In  any  case  someone 
besides  Polk  himself  would  have  had  to  know  the  real  situa- 
tion, but  political  friend  and  foe  alike  came  to  the  conclusion 
almost  unanimously  that  Polk  really  intended  to  carry  out  the 
Oregon  plank  of  the  Baltimore  convention. 


206  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

Only  two  other  explanations  offer  themselves :  Polk  took  the 
platform  in  good  faith  until  he  saw  the  course  it  pointed  was 
absolutely  impracticable,  or  he  had  from  the  beginning  a  plan 
which  contained  his  course  on  Oregon  as  one  of  the  main 
threads.  Of  the  two  explanations  the  latter  presents  more  the 
appearance  of  being  the  real  one.  There  was  a  "bluff"  but 
it  was  not  primarily  for  the  benefit  of  Great  Britain;  it  was 
not  a  trick  to  force  Great  Britain  into  yielding  the  territory 
between  the  forty-ninth  parallel  and  the  Columbia,24  but  it 
was  a  portion  of  the  game  whereby  California  and  other  Mexi- 
can territory  was  to  be  secured ;  Oregon  was  a  secondary  con- 
sideration throughout  the  whole  episode.  Friend  and  foe  were 
alike  mystified ;  the  southerner  who  desired  more  territory  to 
the  southwest  was  as  much  bewildered  as  was  the  northerner 
who  saw  in  Folk's  madness  a  course  which  meant  war  and  com- 
mercial disaster. 

Polk  undoubtedly  intended  to  get  as  much  of  Oregon  as  he 
could,  but  that  it  occupied  a  secondary  place  in  his  thoughts 
is  definitely  suggested  by  an  entry  in  his  diary  recording  an 
interview  with  Colonel  Benton.  Before  Congress  convened 
in  December,  1845,  Buchanan  had  shown  Benton  the  corre- 
spondence between  the  British  and  American  governments — 
except  the  instructions  to  McLane — at  Folk's  request.  Then 
Benton  called  to  discuss  the  situation  (October  24,  1845).  He 
doubted  the  completeness  of  the  United  States  claim  when 
Polk  outlined  the  recommendations  which  he  was  going  to  put 
into  his  Annual  Message  (although  he  did  not  tell  Benton  that 
these  were  to  be  a  part  of  that  document).  Polk  further  stated 
that  he  inclined  to  reaffirm  Mr.  Monroe's  doctrine  about  settle- 
ment of  the  American  continents,  whereupon  Benton  said  that 
Great  Britain  possessed  some  sort  of  a  title  to  Eraser's  River, 
the  same  kind  that  the  United  States  did  to  the  Columbia.25 

"The  conversation  then  turned  on  California,"  Polk  wrote, 
"on  which  I  remarked  that  Great  Britain  had  her  eye  on  that 
country  and  intended  to  possess  it  if  she  could,  but  that  the 

24  At  McLaughlin  in  his  Lift  of  Cats  explains  it. 
*f  Diory,  I.  f  «. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  209 

people  of  the  U.  S.  would  not  willingly  permit  California  to 
pass  into  the  possession  of  any  new  colony  planted  by  Great 
Britain  or  any  foreign  monarchy,  and  that  in  reasserting  Mr. 
Monroe's  doctrine,  I  had  California  and  the  fine  bay  of  San 
Fracisco  as  much  in  view  as  Oregon.  Colonel  Benton  agreed 
that  no  foreign  power  ought  to  be  permitted  to  colonize  Cuba. 
As  long  as  Cuba  remained  in  the  possession  of  the  present 
government  we  would  not  object,  but  if  a  powerful  foreign 
power  was  about  to  possess  it,  we  would  not  permit  it.  On 
the  same  footing  we  would  place  California." 

This  conversation  took  place,  it  is  to  be  noted,  in  October, 
nearly  a  year  before  hostilities  with  Mexico  began  and  while 
the  belief  was  growing  that  Mexico  was  going  to  acquiesce 
in  the  loss  of  Texas.  Folk's  plan  was  to  prevent  Great  Britain's 
securing  a  foothold  in  California,  which  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company  coveted.  But  so  long  as  California  was  a  part  of 
Mexico  there  was  always  danger  that  this  province  would 
pass  into  the  possession  of  some  strong  power,  and  its  posses- 
sion by  the  United  States  would  be  the  only  real  security 
against  such  a  contingency.  Mexico,  however,  would  not  cede 
California  to  the  United  States,  therefore  California  must  be 
taken.  In  order  to  do  this  the  United  States  must  fight  Mexico, 
the  people  of  the  country  must  be  brought  to  a  proper  warlike 
pitch,  and  Great  Britain  must  be  kept  busy  so  that  there 
would  be  no  temptation  to  create  a  diversion  to  the  south,  for 
there  was  no  likelihood  that  Great  Britain  would  risk  the 
Northwest,  where  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  had  valuable 
interests,  in  reaching  south  to  California  which  was  as  yet 
only  longed  for.  In  the  United  States  there  was  no  strong 
disposition  to  provoke  hostilities  with  Mexico,  even  in  the 
South,  which  presumably  would  gain  most  from  such  a  move, 
but,  as  we  have  seen,  there  was  a  decidedly  belligerent  tone 
when  Great  Britain  was  under  discussion. 

All  through  the  summer  the  war  talk  had  been  increasing  in 
both  England  and  America ;  this  Polk  knew  very  well.  For 
instance,  shortly  after  his  interview26  with  Benton,  he  was 
called  upon  by  Mr.  Ward,  Boston  representative  of  Baring 

26  Diary,  I.  73-5- 


210  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

Brothers  and  Company,  who  told  the  President  that  he  was  a 
friend  of  the  Administration.  He  said  it  was  of  great  interest 
to  his  firm  to  know  whether  there  would  be  peace  or  war;  he 
had  heard  that  the  President  was  in  favor  of  claiming  all 
Oregon,  in  which  case  there  should  be  danger  of  war.  All 
the  satisfaction  Ward  could  get  was  the  assurance  that  the 
general  policy  of  the  country  was  peace.  Polk  considered  the 
call  from  Ward  as  significant  because  less  than  a  week  before 
Buchanan  had  received  McLane's  letter  in  which  the  govern- 
ment's dissatisfaction  with  the  course  of  Pakenham  had  been 
stated,  and  the  willingness  of  the  British  government  to  listen 
to  a  new  proposition  indicated.  In  spite  of  these  opportunities 
to  allay  the  war  rumors,  and  against  the  advice,  almost  plead- 
ing, of  Buchanan  for  permission  to  show  that  the  United  States 
would  go  part  way  toward  a  compromise,  Polk  insisted  that 
the  burden  of  reopening  the  negotiation  should  be  placed 
wholly  upon  Great  Britain. 

When  the  Annual  Message  was  discussed  in  Cabinet  Polk 
told  Buchanan,  who  was  trying  to  secure  a  modified  tone, 
that  he  had  not  seen  ten  Congressmen  who  were  "not  roused 
on  Oregon  and  willing  to  go  the  whole  length."27  All  the  54°  40' 
men  were  pleased  with  the  message.  It  called  attention  to  the 
accompanying  documents  which  gave  the  details  of  the  offer 
of  49°,  its  rejection  and  then  the  withdraway  of  the  offer.  The 
offer  was  explained  in  this  way : 

"Though  entertaining  the  settled  conviction,  that  the  British 
pretensions  of  title  could  not  be  maintained  to  any  portion  of 
the  Oregon  territory  under  any  principle  of  public  law  recog- 
nized by  nations,  yet,  in  deference  to  what  had  been  done  by 
my  predecessors,  and  especially  in  consideration  that  proposi- 
tions of  compromise  had  been  thrice  made,  by  two  preceding 
administrations,  to  adjust  the  question  on  the  parallel  of  forty- 
nine  degrees,  and  in  two  of  them  yielding  to  Great  Britain 
the  free  navigation  of  the  Columbia,  and  that  the  pending 
negotiation  had  been  commenced  on  the  basis  of  compromise, 
I  deemed  it  my  duty  not  abruptly  to  break  it  off." 

27  "It   was   manifest   to  me   that   in    the   whole   discussion Mr. 

Buchanan  disapproved  the  course  which  he  saw  I  was  inclined  to  take,  and  that 
he  was  laboring  to  prevent  it."    Diary »  I.  81. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  211 

But,  continued  the  Message,  the  spirit  of  moderation  had  not 
been  met  by  a  like  spirit  on  the  part  of  the  British  negotiator. 

"Had  this  been  a  new  question,  coming  under  discussion  for 
the  first  time,  this  proposition  would  not  have  been  made.  The 
extraordinary  and  wholly  inadmissible  demands  of  the  British 
government,  and  the  rejection  of  the  proposition  made  in 
deference  to  my  predecessors,  and  the  implied  obligations  which 
their  acts  seemed  to  impose,  afford  satisfactory  evidence  that 
no  compromise  which  the  United  States  ought  to  accept  can 
be  effected.  With  the  conviction,  the  proposition  of  compro- 
mise which  had  been  made  and  rejected,  was,  under  my  direc- 
tion, subsequently  withdrawn,  and  our  title  to  the  whole  of 
Oregon  asserted,  and,  as  is  believed,  maintained  by  irrefragible 
facts  and  arguments. 

"The  civilized  world  will  see  in  these  proceedings  a  spirit 
of  liberal  concession  on  the  part  of  the  United  States ;  and  this 
government  will  be  relieved  from  all  responsibility  which  may 
follow  the  failure  to  settle  the  controversy." 

Following  this  was  the  list  of  recommendations  respecting 
Oregon,  including  the  request  for  authority  to  terminate  the 
convention  for  joint  occupancy. 

"At  the  end  of  the  year's  notice,  should  Congress  think  it 
proper  to  make  provision  for  giving  that  notice,  we  shall  have 
reached  a  period  when  the  national  rights  in  Oregon  must  either 
be  abandoned  or  firmly  maintained.  That  they  cannot  be 
abandoned  without  a  sacrifice  of  both  national  honor  and  in- 
terest, is  too  clear  to  admit  of  doubt." 

With  a  final  reference  to  the  title  of  the  United  States  the 
President  mentioned  the  best  offer  the  British  had  made  and 
stated  that  a  "trifling  addition  of  detached  territory'"  could 
never  be  considered  by  the  United  States  without  abandoning 
her  rights,  her  self-respect  and  her  national  honor. 

A  few  days  later  Senator  Benton  said  to  Polk,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Judge  Mason,  the  Attorney-General,  "Well,  you  have 
sent  us  the  message.  I  think  we  can  all  go  it  as  we  under- 
stand it."28  And  this  is  exactly  what  took  place.  The  54°  40' 
men  hailed  the  Message  as  fulfilling  their  utmost  desires;  the 

28  So  Polk  records,  Diary,  I,  116.  In  his  Thirty  Years'  View  Benton  states 
that  the  Message  put  the  issue  of  peace  or  war  into  the  hands  of  Congress.  (II, 
658.)  Such  a  view  of  the  situation  would  obviously  be  to  advance  the  reputation 
of  those  who  took  a  prominent  part,  especially  in  the  Senate,  for  moderation. 


212  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

moderates,  like  Benton,  were  not  so  sure  of  it.  Buchanan,  in  a 
letter  marked  "private  &  confidential  and  not  written  as  Secre- 
tary of  State,"  told  McLane,29  "The  message  has  been  better 
received  throughout  the  country  than  any  similar  communica- 
tion to  Congress  in  my  day.  All  moderate  men  are  conciliated 
by  our  offer  of  49° ;  whilst  the  fire-eaters  are  satisfied  with  its 
withdrawal  &  the  assertion  of  our  whole  claim.  This  is  the 
feeling  which  pervades  the  whole  Democratic  party  &  a  very 
large  proportion  of  the  Whigs." 

The  newspapers,  which  during  October  and  November, 
had  been  alternately  predicting  that  war  was  inevitable  and  that 
negotiations  would  succeed,  judged  from  the  Message  that  the 
negotiations  had  failed  and  that  "either  England  or  the  United 
States  must  back  out  of  Oregon,  or  fight  for  it."30  Neverthe- 
less even  the  editors  were  a  little  puzzled ;  while  the  first 
"hasty  reading"  gave  the  impression  that  the  negotiation  was 
ended  further  consideration  seemed  to  cast  doubt  on  this  con- 
clusion.31 The  total  silence  of  the  Message  on  taking  steps 
in  preparation  for  war  seemed  to  mean  that  the  Administra- 
tion did  not  expect  hostilities,  but  a  tumble  in  stocks  which 
came  a  week  later  showed  that  the  market  was  uneasy. 

After  the  Message  the  pendulum  swung  from  war  to  peace, 
and  along  with  popular  speculation  as  to  the  international 
result  the  political  significance  of  the  whole  thing  was  worry- 
ing the  Democratic  party.  While  the  South  could  undoubted- 
ly "save  the  country"  and  prevent  war32  this  would  mean  a 
break  in  the  union  of  the  West  and  South ;  should  southern 
Democracy  prevent  war  and  in  so  doing  allow  the  protective- 
anti-Texas-Oregon  wing  of  the  party  be  in  the  ascendant,  with 
Wright,  Benton  &  Company  wielding  the  sceptre?  Polk,  too, 
was  impressed  with  the  political  capital  which  was  made  out 

29  Works  of  James  Buchanan,  VT,  342. 

30  Mies'  Register,   6  Dec.,    1845.     For  weeks  the  Register  had  gleaned  th« 
papers    for  expressions    of   opinions,    and   had   printed   them   under   the   caption, 
"Peace   or  War.'     The   Message  comment  was   headed,    "Our   worst   anticipations 
have  been  realized."    A  fiery  article  in  the  Union,  just  before  Congress  assembled, 
had  claimed  "All  Oregon  or  none." 

31  Nat.  Intelligencer,  6  Dec. 

33  Charleston  Mercury,  quoted  in  Nat.  Intelligence,  17  Nor. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  213 

of  it  all.33  Calhoun  was  firmly  convinced  that  only  by  the 
efforts  of  southern  Senators  could  war  be  averted,  and  it  was 
on  this  account  that  he  returned  to  the  Senate  in  the  winter 
of  1845-6.34 

To  one  observer  the  Annual  Message  was  not  convincing. 
When  John  Quincy  Adams  was  asked  by  George  Bancroft 
what  he  thought  of  the  document  and  whether  he  disapproved 
of  the  offer  of  49°  he  said  he  did  not  disapprove  the  offer 
although  he  himself  would  not  have  made  it.  He  approved  the 
reference  to  Monroe's  doctrine  and  hoped  that  the  President 
would  adhere  to  it  by  force  of  arms  if  necessary,  but  added 
that  he  "had  not  been  entirely  without  apprehension  that  Mr. 
Polk  would  ultimately  recede  from  it."  Later,  after  Adams 
had  read  the  correspondence  submitted  with  the  Message,  he 
noted  that  the  most  remarkable  thing  about  it  all  was  that 
notwithstanding  Folk's  positive  assertions  he  had  made  the 
offer,  "which  was  formerly  made  under  the  impression  that 
it  would  not  be  accepted."  "My  own  opinion  is  that  this 
offer  should  never  again  be  made,  nor  accepted  if  offered  by 
Great  Britain  herself;  but  it  is  too  clear  to  me  that  Mr.  Polk 
will  finish  by  accepting  it."35 

In  Europe  the  Message  produced  the  same  feeling  that  the 
majority  of  Americans  had,  that  it  uncompromisingly  com- 
mitted the  American  government  and  people  to  demand  all 
Oregon  or  fight,  although  the  press  was  inclined  to  think  some 
way  would  be  found  out  of  the  muddle.36  In  Parliament  there 
was  some  disposition  to  press  the  matter  although  no  formal 
step  was  taken  until  April  when  a  demand  for  papers  was 
refused  by  the  government.37  Aberdeen  stated  that  the  nego- 
tiation was  not  at  an  end,  and,  while  nothing  could  prevent 

33  Diary,  I,  264-5.     See  quotation  in  Chapter  IX. 

34  See  m  Correspondence  of  Calhoun,  letters  to  Clemson  and  to  T.  H    Ham- 
mond, 18  and  28  September,  1845.     See  Globe  XVIII,  878,  for  story  told  by  Holme* 
rbid.,  096.  that  by  Bayly  of  Virginia  how  some  Whig  merchants  of  New  York  re- 
ouested   Holmes   to  use   his   influence   with    Calhoun   to   have   him    return   to   the 
Senate  to  lead  the  49°  forces.     Bayly  refuted  the  statement  made  by  Holmes  that 
until  Calhoun  appeared  in  Washington  no  Democrat  dared  lift  his  voice  for  any- 
thing but  54°  40'. 

35  Memoirs,  XII,  218-221. 

36  Niles*  Register,  of  3  Jan.,  1846,  has  a  summary  of  the  views  of  the  British 
press. 

37  3  Hansard,  79:120-4, 


214  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

the  American  government  from  terminating  joint  occupation, 
England  could  depend  upon  its  government  to  uphold  the  honor 
of  the  country.  An  amicable  settlement  was  to  be  preferred, 
but  should  it  be  otherwise,  "I  can  only  say  we  possess  rights 
which,  in  our  opinion,  are  clear  and  unquestionable;  and,  by 
the  blessing  of  God,  and  with  your  support,  those  rights  we 
are  fully  prepared  to  maintain."  In  the  United  States  it 
was  believed  that  the  Government's  stand  was  emphasized  by 
the  report  of  increased  military  preparation. 

On  all  sides,  then,  Polk  could  see  that  there  was  a  strong 
belief  that  war  was  scarcely  to  be  escaped.  Nevertheless  not 
only  did  he  do  nothing  which  would  remove  this  feeling  but 
he  actually  added  fuel  to  the  flames,  although  alleging  all  the 
time  that  he  believed  there  would  be  no  war.  As  we  have 
seen38  Polk  was  urging  military  and  naval  preparations  at  the 
same  time  he  was  telling  various  Senators,  confidentially,  that 
he  would  submit  a  reasonable  British  proposition  to  the  Senate 
for  its  advice.  By  his  messages,  by  his  conversations  with 
members  of  both  houses,  by  the  activities  of  his  Secretaries 
of  War  and  Navy  with  congressional  committees,  Congress 
was  not  allowed  to  forget  that  trouble  might  come,  even  when 
the  discussion  on  the  notice  had  taken  a  turn  so  that  it  was 
well  known  it  would  be  passed  with  some  sort  of  conciliatory 
sentiments. 

During  the  period  from  the  beginning  of  December  until 
toward  the  last  of  April  the  Mexican  question  occasionally 
came  before  the  Cabinet  in  one  form  or  other,  but  there  was 
no  serious  discussion  of  a  possibility  of  war  from  that  quarter ; 
whenever  the  possibility  of  war  was  up  it  was  always  connected 
with  the  Oregon  Question  and  Great  Britain.  It  was  not  until 
the  middle  of  January  that  it  was  definitely  known  that  Slidell 
would  not  be  received  in  Mexico,  thus  putting  an  end  to  im- 
mediate hope  of  renewing  diplomatic  intercourse.  General 
Taylor  was  ordered  to  take  up  his  position  on  the  north  bank 
of  the  Rio  Grande  in  the  strip  which  Mexico  claimed  did  not 
and  never  had  formed  a  part  of  the  province  of  Texas. 

38  See  Chapters  VIII,  IX,  and  X  above. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  215 

With  some  of  the  Senators  toward  the  end  of  March  and  in 
April  Polk  talked  over  the  Mexican  situation.  He  broached 
the  possibility  of  purchasing  New  Mexico  and  California  to 
Allen,  Benton  and  Calhoun,  and  of  the  latter  asked  if  it  might 
not  be  possible  to  secure  from  Congress  an  appropriation,  such 
as  had  been  given  to  Jefferson  in  1806,  so  that  steps  to  this 
end  might  be  taken.39  Calhoun  cautioned  patience  and  advised 
a  settlement  of  the  Oregon  Question  before  anything  was 
tried  with  Mexico.  After  having  thought  the  matter  over  a 
few  days  Calhoun  said  that  although  he  approved  the  object 
he  believed  it  was  inexpedient  to  bring  it  before  Congress  at 
the  time.  Polk  said  nothing"  more  about  it  for  time,  until  it 
was  evident  that  the  notice  would  be  passed  in  a  conciliatory 
form.  Then,  on  April  eighteenth,  he  spoke  of  it  again  to 
Calhoun ;  he  believed  strong  measures  would  have  to  be  taken 
with  Mexico.  Calhoun,  however,  again  cautioned  the  Presi- 
dent against  a  hasty  course ;  there  were,  he  said,  in  Washing- 
ton ministers  of  several  foreign  countries  who  had  satisfied 
him  of  their  desire  to  act  as  the  common  friend  of  both  parties 
in  the  Oregon  matter,  and  this  question  should  be  settled  before 
there  was  any  thought  of  pressing  the  claims  against  Mexico. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Polk  was  sure,  as  soon  as  the 
British  government  learned  of  the  passage  of  the  notice,  that 
an  offer  on  substantially  the  same  lines  McLane  had  been  urg- 
ing upon  Aberdeen,  with  his  own  tacit  permission,  would  come. 
Such  an  offer  Polk  had  hinted  he  would  submit  to  the  Senate. 
Consequently  he  could  have  little  doubted  the  peaceful  conclu- 
sion of  the  Oregon  controversy  when,  on  the  ninth  of  May, 
he  received  official  notice  that  General  Ampudia  had  ordered 
Taylor  to  retire  with  his  forces  behind  the  Nueces.  He  had, 
therefore,  no  hesitation  in  sending  his  famous  Mexican  Mes- 
sage to  Congress. 

The  Message  fell  upon  willing  ears.  The  war  spirit  which 
had  been  so  carefully  fostered  ever  since  the  opening  of  the 
presidential  campaign  in  1844  responded  nobly  to  the  chal- 
lenge and  legislative  action  necessary  to  provide  forces  for  a 
Mexican  war  fitted  easily  upon  the  steps  already  taken  to  pre- 


216  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPER 

pare  for  possible  hostilities  with  Great  Britain.  Congress,  ac- 
cording to  testimony  even  of  southerners  who  were  not  un- 
willing to  see  the  addition  of  territory  which  might  presumably 
be  to  their  benefit,  were  stampeded  into  a  declaration  of  war. 

That  Polk  intended  to  force  an  issue  with  Mexico  in  order 
to  obtain  California  and  New  Mexico — providing  they  could 
not  be  obtained  in  any  other  way — has  been  brought  out  many 
times;  that  he  never  intended  to  allow  the  Oregon  Question 
to  jeopardize  the  acquisition  of  the  southern  territory  seems 
equally  clear.  He  intended,  no  doubt,  to  get  as  much  of  Oregon 
as  possible  and  was  not  willing  to  have  the  issue  brought 
bluntly  before  the  British  government  to  stir  that  body  into 
action.  But  before  all  he  was  thinking  of  the  Mexican  terri- 
tory and  played  the  British  concern  over  Oregon  along  with 
the  war  spirit  in  his  own  country  to  make  sure  of  that.  No 
doubt  his  course  was  tinged  with  opportunism,  but  the  essen- 
tial game  seems  to  have  been  this.  From  his  own  record  it  is 
sufficiently  clear  that  he  expected  a  peaceful  solution  of  the 
controversy  with  Great  Britain,  a  solution  which  would  never 
have  attained  had  he  continued  to  insist  upon  all  of  Oregon. 
Furthermore  he  was  probably  aware  that  his  real  sentiments 
on  the  tariff  issue  fell  in  with  the  desires  of  the  English  people 
and  he  may  have  counted  on  their  willingness  to  relax  their 
pretensions  in  Oregon  rather  than  to  force  an  issue  and  bring 
a  high-protectionist  party  into  power. 

Some  time  after  the  treaty  was  signed  and  Congress  had 
adjourned  there  came  an  incident  which  emphasizes  the  belief 
that  Polk  intended  to  maintain  that  his  course  throughout  had 
been  marked  with  consistency.  When  McLane  returned  from 
London  in  the  summer  of  1846,  in  answer  to  an  address  from 
the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  New  York,  he  made  certain 
statements  which  were  taken  by  some  of  the  Whig  papers  as 
an  admission  that  the  President's  Annual  Message  and  his 
instructions  to  McLane  were  inconsistent.  Polk  accepted  Mc- 
Lane's  explanation  that,  while  the  President  was  assured  of  the 
soundness  of  the  title  to  54°  40'  as  an  abstract  question,  never- 
theless McLane  was  instructed  to  secure  an  adjustment  on 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  217 

the  basis  of  49°  since  that  line  had  been  offered  in  July  of 
1845.  "The  truth  is,"  says  Polk,  "Mr.  McLane's  language  in 
his  New  York  address  was  susceptible  of  being  misinterpreted, 
and  that  has  given  rise  to  the  whole  controversy.  The  Whig 
press  has  seized  upon  it  for  political  capital,  and  (this)  has 
made  it  necessary  to  set  forth  in  the  Democratic  the  true  state 
of  affairs."39 

Among  other  things  McLane  had  said  in  his  address,  "Hav- 
ing some  knowledge  from  my  official  position  at  that  time  of 
the  policy  and  object  of  the  Convention  of  1827,  I  am  quite 
persuaded  that  its  main  design  was  to  lead  in  a  future  parti- 
tion of  the  territory,  to  the  recognition  of  our  claim  to  the 
country  not  north,  but  south  of  the  49th  parallel,  and  between 
that  and  the  Columbia  River."  When  Richard  Rush  saw  his 
statement  in  print  he  wrote  the  acting  Secretary  of  State  Trist 
to  say  that  this  view  was  all  new  to  him,  for  he  held  that  Adams' 
view  of  the  title  was  the  same  as  he  had  maintained  in  Congress 
the  previous  winter,  to  54°  40'.  Then  Rush  proceeded  to 
comment  on  the  course  of  Polk : 

"For  one,  I  am  unshaken  in  the  belief  that  it  was  the  Presi- 
dent's opening  message  to  the  first  Congress  he  met,  on  the 
second  of  December  last,  that  produced  the  settlement  of  the 
Oregon  difficulty.  It  was  like  a  great  bumb-shell  thrown  into 
the  British  Cabinet.  It  took  them  by  surprise,  and  first  aroused 
them  to  the  unavoidable  necessity  of  a  settlement.  I  thought 
when  it  appeared  that  it  would  lead  to  war,  so  bold  was  it, 
though  every  word  was  just;  whereas  it  lead  [sic]  to  peace."40 

Toward  the  very  end  of  his  Administration  (16  February, 
1849)  there  is  found  in  Polk's  Diary  one  more  reference  to 
his  course  with  Oregon.  Howell  Cobb  and  John  H.  Lumpkin, 
Representatives  in  Congress  from  Georgia,  had  called  on  the 
President  and  in  the  course  of  the  conversation  Oregon  and 
Polk's  relation  to  it  were  mentioned.  Lumpkin  told  of  a 
conversation  he  had  had  with  Allen  who  said,  in  reply  to  a 

39  Polk,  Diary,  I,  313,  317,  37-7  (30  Mar..  3  and  18  April.) 

40  Diary,  II,  136,  139,   167-8,   173-3,  for  this  McLane  episode  and  the  newt- 
payer  controversy. 


218  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPER 

question  as  to  what  the  President  would  do  if  the  British 
offered  49°,  that  (to  use  Folk's  words)41 

"That  was  all  understood,  that  if  such  an  offer  was  made 
that  the  President  should  submit  it  to  the  Senate,  and  that 
two-thirds  of  that  body  would  never  advise  its  acceptance. 
Mr.  Lumpkin  said  that  when  the  contingency  happened  &  I 
took  the  very  course  indicated  he  was  surprised  to  find  that 
Mr.  Allen  disapproved  it,  and,  in  consequence  of  it  resigned 
his  post  as  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations 
of  the  Senate.  My  notes  in  this  Diary  in  relation  to  Senator 
Allen's  course  were  very  full  at  the  time,  they  will  be  found  to 
be  in  accord  with  Mr.  Lumpkin's  statement.  Before  my  annual 
message  of  December,  1845,  was  sent  to  Congress  I  submitted 
it  to  Mr.  Allen,  and  he  advised  me  in  the  event  (Great  Britain) 
returned  my  offer  of  49°  to  me  to  take  the  very  course  I  did, 
and  with  which,  when  I  did  it,  he  found  fault.  By  referring 
to  this  Diary  a  few  days  before  the  meeting  in  Congress  in 
December,  1845,  and  in  the  early  part  of  June,  1846,  what 
occurred  between  Mr.  Allen  and  myself  will  be  found  recorded. 
I  note  Mr.  Lumpkin's  statement  to-night  for  reference  if  the 
subject  should  ever  be  brought  before  the  public  by  Mr.  Allen." 

Whether  Polk  actually  believed  his  course  was  absolutely 
consistent  in  spirit  there  is  nothing  to  show;  that  he  believed 
it  consistent  in  the  letter  is  clear.  Whatever  may  be  one's 
personal  opinion  of  his  policy  it  must  be  admitted  that  he 
showed  himself  a  man  of  much  greater  political  ability  than 
most  of  his  contemporaries  thought  him,  or  than  he  has  been 
pictured  by  most  later  accounts. 

41  Ibid.,  IV,  335-7- 

Professor  R.  L.  Schuyler  (Polk  and  the  Oregon  Compromise,  in  Political 
Science  Quarterly,  XXIV,  443-61),  finds  nothing  to  warrant  an  imputation  of 
double  dealing  in  Folk's  course.  H«  concludes  that  Polk,  finding  the  Senate 
would  not  go  with  him  in  his  stand  on  Oregon,  decided  to  throw  the  whole  issue 
upon  the  Senate  so  that  the  Treaty  of  1846  was  in  reality  a  Senate  Treaty. 


NEWS  AND  COMMENT 

By  LESLIE  M.   SCOTT 

"WHERE  WAS  BLUE  BUCKET?" 

Casual  discovery  of  lumps  of  yellow  metal,  in  the  fall  of 
1845,  in  Central  or  Eastern  Oregon  by  members  of  the  "Meek's 
Cut-off  Party,"  gave  rise  to  the  idea,  after  discovery  of  Cali- 
fornia gold  three  years  later,  that  the  lumps  were  of  the 
precious  metal,  and  ever  since  that  time  the  place  of  the  dis- 
covery has  been  a  subject  of  discussion.  A  quantity  of  the 
lumps,  gathered  in  a  blue  bucket,  gave  rise  to  the  name.  This 
was  probably  the  earliest  discovery  of  gold  on  the  Pacific 
Coast. 

In  March,  1919,  Tyra  Allen,  of  Pendleton,  started  discus- 
sion of  the  subject  by  asking  "Where  was  Blue  Bucket?"  in  a 
letter  printed  in  the  Canyon  City  Eagle.  Numerous  responses 
came  forth  in  several  newspapers,  especially  in  the  Portland 
Oregonian.  George  Irvin,  of  Monument,  Grant  County,  said 
in  an  article  quoted  in  The  Oregonian  of  April  23,  1919,  that 
the  discovery  was  made  in  Spanish  Gulch  of  the  John  Day 
country.  "Son  of  a  Pioneer,"  writing  in  that  newspaper  of 
April  25,  1919,  said  the  discovery  occurred  probably  on  a 
tributary  of  John  Day  River.  He  wrote : 

"The  party  proceeded  for  a  number  of  days,  crossing  a  di- 
vide separating  the  valley  of  the  Malheur  from  either  the 
Silvies  or  the  John  Day  River,  and  somewhere  near  the  end 
of  this  digression  encampment  was  made  on  a  small  stream 
(more  probably  a  tributary  of  the  John  Day  River).  Either 
while  fishing  in  this  stream  or  while  taking  water  therefrom 
for  camp  purposes,  numerous  pieces  of  yellow  metal  were 
found  in  the  stream  bed  or  grass  roots,  the  character  of  which 
was  debated  and  tests  made  by  hammering  the  nuggets  into 
different  forms  on  the  wagon  tires." 

The  father  of  this  writer  was  a  member  of  the  pioneer 
party.  Mrs.  Ruth  Herren  Leonard,  of  Dayton,  Washington, 
whose  father  was  also  a  member  of  the  party,  quoted  him,  in 


220  LESLIE  M.  SCOTT 

The  Oregonian  of  April  26,  1919,  as  giving  the  place  as  in 
Tygh  Valley,  but  this  explanation  lacks  credence  because  the 
party  seems  not  to  have  entered  Tygh  Valley  but  to  have 
turned  northward  to  the  Columbia  River  without  crossing 
the  Deschutes  River.  W.  W.  Oglesby,  of  Cottage  Grove,  Ore- 
gon, wrote  in  The  Oregonian,  May  1,  1919,  that  the  place  of 
discovery  was  in  the  waters  of  John  Day  River.  After  the  dis- 
covery, wrote  Mr.  Oglesby,  the  party  spent  two  days  reaching 
Farewell  Bend  of  the  Deschutes  River,  whence  the  party  turned 
north  to  the  Columbia.  O.  C.  Applegate,  writing  from  Klamath 
Falls,  in  The  Oregonian  of  May  6,  1919,  leaned  to  the  belief 
that  the  discovery  was  made  in  the  region  of  Stein  Mountain. 
The  place  of  the  Blue  Bucket  is  scattered  over  a  wide 
variety  of  opinions,  and  may  never  be  known.  Fifteen  years 
later  the  placer  diggings  of  Eastern  Oregon  began  an  activity 
that  produced  large  findings  of  gold,  especially  in  the  John 
Day  country.  The  frequency  of  gold  nuggets  in  the  beds  of 
streams  makes  the  Blue  Bucket  story  not  merely  credible,  but 
in  connection  with  the  many  authentic  versions  of  the  story, 
places  it  beyond  question  of  doubt. 

NOTE.— It  is  not  easy  to  fix  the  date  when  the  phrase  "Blue  Bucket  Mines" 
came  into  use.  It  certainly  was  as  early  as  1868,  for  it  is  positively  known  that 
Stephen  H.  Meek,  the  leader  of  the  party  of  immigrants  in  1845  over  the  route 
afterwards  referred  to  as  "Meek's  Cut-off,"  conducted  thirty  men  that  year  along 
that  trail  in  search  of  the  mine  of  that  name,  without  success. 

According  to  a  statement  given  me  by  William  F.  Helm  many  years  ago, 
whose  father,  mother,  five  brothers  and  one  sister  and  himself  were  members 
of  the  Meek  party,  the  term  "Blue  Bucket"  originated  in  this  way:  The  Helm 
wagons,  yokes,  and  many  of  the  camp  utensils,  including  several  buckets,  were 
painted  blue.  At  one  camp  on  a  tributary  of  the  John  Day  River  numerous  small 
yellow  pebbles  were  found  along  the  water's  edge  and  among  the  grass  roots.  An 
attempt  was  made  to  catch  some  fish,  but  the  current  being  very  swift,  the  effort 
failed.  Then  Col.  W.  G.  T'Vault,  Thomas  R.  Cornelius  and  James  Terwilliger, 
the  latter  a  blacksmith,  conceived  the  idea  of  pounding  one  of  the  bright  pebbles, 
and,  finding  it/  soft,  pounded  it  thin  and  used  it  as  a  sinker  on  their  fisn  lines. 
Others  did  the  same.  At  one  of  the  camps  where  an  experience  occurred  of  the 
kind  here  related  two  blue  buckets  were  left,  the  Helm  family  having  no  further 
use  for  them. 

None  of  the  company  had  any  idea  of  gold  at  this  time.  Their  minds  were 
fully  occupied  by  the  effort  to  get  out  of  the  wilderness,  as  their  situation  was  a 
very  serious  one.  At  length  the  party  reached  The  Dalles  and  went  down  the 
Columbia  River  on  rafts,  all  settling  in  the  Willamette  Valley. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  gold  was  discovered  in  California  January  24,  1848, 
by  James  W.  Marshall,  an  Oregon  pioneer  of  1844.  News  of  this  discovery  reached 
the  Willamette  Valley  in  July  following.  Soon  afterwards  a  number  of  the  adults 
of  the  Meek  party  of  1845  went  to  the  California  mines,  and  then  they  became 
aware  'that  the  "pebbles"  that  had  been  seen  and  used  as  sinkers  on  fish  lines 
were  gold. 

Mr.  Helm  went  to  the  vicinity  of  Canyon  City  in  1863,  soon  after  the  gold 
discovery  of  that  year,  and  always  insisted  that  there  or  in  the  region  near  there 
was  the  locality  where  the  gold  was  found  in  1845.  That  was  the  opinion  of 
Thomas  R.  Cornelius  also,  who  at  the  time  of  my  first  acquaintance  with  him  in 
1866  was  one  of  the  substantial  citizens  of  Washington  County,  Oregon. — George 
M.  Himcs,  Curator  and  Assistant  Secretary. 


NEWS  AND  COMMENT  221 

PACIFIC  RAILROAD  DATES 

May  10  is  the  anniversary  of  the  completion  of  the  first 
transcontinental  railroad — the  Union  Pacific-Central  Pacific, 
the  "last  spike"  of  which  was  driven  at  Promontory  Point,  53 
miles  northwest  of  Ogden,  in  1869.  The  running  time  of  pas- 
senger trains  between  San  Francisco  and  Chicago  thereafter 
was  six  and  one-half  days.  This  event  is  a  momentous  one 
in  Pacific  Coast  progress.  The  second  transcontinental  rail- 
road, the  Southern  Pacific — Texas  &  Pacific — was  completed 
in  1882 ;  the  third,  the  Northern  Pacific,  in  1883.  The  "last 
spike"  of  the  Northern  Pacific,  September  8,  1883,  was  a  grand 
event  for  the  Pacific  Northwest,  and  great  stores  of  expecta- 
tion and  realization  attach  to  it. 


THE  NAME  OF  MOUNT  RAINIER 

Efforts  to  change  the  name  of  the  snowpeak  from  Rainier 
to  Tacoma  are  continuous  in  the  city  of  Tacoma.  The  Port- 
land Oregonian  ventured  to  adjust  the  trouble  by  suggesting 
Mount  Roosevelt,  but  the  old  name  which  Captain  George 
Vancouver  applied  in  1792  seems  as  firmly  fixed  as  ever. 
Several  years  ago  the  Legislature  of  Oregon  "changed" 
Mount  Pitt  to  Mount  McLoughlin,  an  act  appropriate  enough 
since  Pitt  means  nothing  and  McLoughlin  has  lasting  signifi- 
cance, but  Mount  Pitt  remains  in  everyday  speech  around  the 
peak.  It  is  curious  to  contemplate  the  persistency  of  names 
and  sounds  in  human  speech.  Science  and  history  show  that 
the  sounds  of  words  and  the  notes  of  animals  are  more  dura- 
ble even  than  mountains.  Mount  Tacoma  is  euphonious  and 
appropriate,  but  when  one  contemplates  the  long  list  of  ill- 
fitting  geographical  names  the  thought  occurs,  "Why  stop 
with  Mount  Rainier?"  and  then  the  task  becomes  insurmount- 
able. Common  agreement  would  establish  Mount  Tacoma,  but 
that  seems  just  as  impossible  now  as  during  the  many  past 
years  of  the  effort. 


222  LESLIE  M.  SCOTT 

FREQUENCY  OF  SLIGHT  EARTHQUAKES 

Earthquake  tremblers  are  reported  frequently  from  parts 
of  the  Pacific  Northwest,  and  each  time  cause  speculation  as 
to  the  nature  of  the  disturbances.  Within  the  records  of  the 
white  men,  running  back  eighty  or  ninety  years,  there  never 
has  been  a  general  or  severe  earthquake  in  this  region.  But 
the  reading  of  newspaper  files  shows  that  slight  tremblers 
have  been  felt  every  year  in  some  parts  of  this  large  area.  A 
small  local  disutrbance  was  recorded  at  Seattle,  June  5,  1919. 
The  most  frequent  area  of  disturbance  has  been  the  Puget 
Sound  region.  Probably  the  severest  at  Portland  occurred 
October  12,  1877,  February  29,  1892,  and  February  25,  1895 ; 
at  Puget  Sound,  March  16,  1904.  These  quakes  caused 
walls  to  crack  and  dishes  to  rattle  and  church  bells  to  ring,  but 
did  no  real  damage.  The  geological  youth  of  the  Pacific 
Northwest  and  the  many  fresh  volcanic  vents  indicate  recur- 
rent seismic  activity,  but  written  history  records  no  violence. 

ANNUAL  MEETING  OF  OREGON  PIONEERS 

Members  of  the  Oregon  Pioneer  Association  held  their  an- 
nual meeting  in  the  Portland  Auditorium  June  19,  and  elected 
the  following  officers:  J.  J.  Hunsaker,  of  Yamhill  county, 
pioneer  of  1847,  president;  C.  H.  Caufield,  of  Oregon  City, 
1853,  vice-president ;  George  H.  Himes,  of  Portland,  1853,  sec- 
retary; William  M.  Ladd,  of  Portland,  1855,  treasurer.  Other 
members  of  the  board  of  directors  are :  John  W.  Baker,  1853 ; 
Miss  Ellen  Chamberlain,  1857;  G.  D.  Chitwood,  1853.  The 
pioneers  were  welcomed  by  Mayor  George  L.  Baker,  and  W. 
H.  H.  Dufur,  retiring  president,  delivered  the  response. 
George  W.  Riddle,  1852,  of  Douglas  County,  rendered  the 
annual  address.  Nathan  H.  Bird,  1846,  presided  at  the  after- 
noon session.  The  woman's  auxiliary  of  the  association  served 
dinner  in  the  basement  of  the  Auditorium. 


NEWS  AND  COMMENT  223 

ENCAMPMENT  OF  INDIAN  FIGHTERS 

The  annual  grand  encampment  of  the  Indian  war  veterans 
of  the  North  Pacific  Coast  was  held  at  Portland  June  18.  The 
veterans  adopted  a  memorial  asking  Congress  to  equalize  the 
pensions  of  the  Indian  fighters.  Officers  elected  are:  Cyrus 
H.  Walker,  grand  commander;  C.  W.  Wallace,  vice  grand 
commander ;  Otto  Kleeman,  grand  adj  utant ;  Mrs.  F.  L.  Bene- 
dict, assistant  adjutant;  Charles  H.  Chambreau,  grand  pay- 
master; T.  Brouillette,  grand  chaplain;  W.  R.  McCord,  cap- 
tain of  the  guard. 


THE  BATTLESHIP  OREGON 

Whether  the  battleship  Oregon  shall  be  broken  up  for  junk 
or  whether  the  state  of  Oregon  shall  maintain  the  sea  fighter 
as  a  memorial  is  a  question  that  has  been  active  in  the  news- 
papers since  the  government  has  had  to  supplant  its  old  war 
fleet  with  modern  vessels.  The  annual  cost  of  upkeep  of  the 
Oregon  has  been  estimated  at  $20,000,  a  sum  which  has  dis- 
couraged advocates  of  the  memorial  plan.  The  Oregon  was 
built  at  San  Francisco  and  commissioned  there  in  July,  1896. 
In  1898  the  vessel  made  its  famous  voyage  of  14,000  miles  in 
68  cruising  days  from  San  Francisco  to  Santiago,  Cuba,  to 
participate  in  the  destruction  of  the  Spanish  fleet  July  3,  1898. 
Sister  ships  of  the  Oregon,  the  Iowa,  Massachusetts  and  In- 
diana are  to  be  relegated  and  broken  up,  together  with  the 
Kentucky,  Kearsarge,  Alabama,  Illinois,  Wisconsin,  Ohio, 
Missouri  and  Maine.  These  battleships  made  up  a  very  pow- 
erful fleet  fifteen  years  ago  and  cost  more  than  $90,000,000, 
but  are  obsolete  in  competition  with  newer  vessels.  The  most 
famous  American  battleship  is  the  Oregon,  and  there  is  strong 
sentiment  for  preservation  of  the  vessel,  but  ways  and  means 
for  paying  the  expense  have  not  been  devised. 


224  LESLIE  M.  SCOTT 

AIRPLANE  AND  STAGE  COACH 

The  first  airplane  flight  across  Cascade  Mountains  was  ac- 
complished June  30,  1919,  between  Seattle  and  Ellensburg, 
115  miles,  in  1  hour,  15  minutes,  by  J.  M.  Fetters  and  Ser- 
geant Owen  Kissel,  army  aviators.  Airplane  flights  in  the 
Pacific  Northwest  have  been  frequent  this  year.  In  connec- 
tion with  the  rose  festival  at  Portland,  June  10-13,  airplanes 
made  numerous  trips.  The  most  noteworthy  flights  have  been 
those  between  Portland  and  Sacramento  in  one  of  which  Gov- 
ernor Ben  W.  Olcott  was  a  passenger.  These  speed  journeys, 
at  100  miles  an  hour  or  better,  covering  the  distance  between 
Portland  and  Sacramento  in  less  than  six  hours,  recall  by 
contrast  the  first  speed  test  between  the  two  cities  in  1860,  that 
of  the  pony  express,  which  consumed  seven  days  pf  continuous 
travel  night  and  day  in  covering  the  700  miles,  and  was  hailed 
as  a  triumphant  feat  of  speed  and  endurance.  The  running 
time  in  winter  was  twelve  days. 

MONUMENT  FOR  CAPTAIN  HEMBREE 

The  ambush  and  death  of  Captain  Absalom  J.  Hembree  by 
Indians  in  the  Yakima  War  of  1855-56,  has  been  a  tragic  event 
in  Pacific  Northwest  annals,  and  the  scene  of  the  tragedy  will 
be  marked  with  a  monument  by  the  state  historical  society  of 
Washington.  The  place  where  Captain  Hembree  fell  was 
identified  June  22,  by  W.  D.  Stillwell,  of  Tillamook,  Oregon, 
95  years  of  age,  who  accompanied  Captain  Hembree  at  the 
time  of  the  tragedy.  The  place  is  five  miles  from  Toppenish, 
Washington.  Others  present  on  June  22  were  M.  V.  Stillwell, 
who  is  the  son  of  W.  D.  Stillwell,  W.  P.  Bonney,  secretary  of 
the  state  historical  society  of  Washington,  and  L.  V.  Me- 
Whorter  and  C.  H.  Newell  of  Yakima,  County. 

MR.  TEAL'S  "THE  PIONEER" 

The  Pioneer,  a  memorial  bronze  statue,  the  gift  to  the 
University  of  Oregon  by  Joseph  N.  Teal,  of  Portland,  stands 


NEWS  AND  COMMENT  225 

on  the  university  campus,  where  it  was  unveiled  May  22,  1919, 
by  T.  G.  Hendricks,  of  Eugene,  Oregon.  The  designer,  A. 
Phimister  Proctor,  used  as  his  model,  J.  C.  Cravens,  a  trapper, 
whom  he  found  on  the  ranch  of  William  Hanley,  in  Harney 
County.  Many  pioneers  were  present  at  the  unveiling  cere- 
mony. 

EXAMINATION  OF  NACHESS  TRAIL 

Examination  of  the  Nachess  trail  of  1853,  by  a  party  of 
pioneers,  for  the  purpose  of  choosing  sites  for  markers  of  the 
Washington  State  Historical  Society,  was  accomplished  July 
13-21.  In  the  party  were  George  H.  Himes,  Ezra  Meeker, 
C.  B.  Bagley,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  W.  M.  Woolery,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Elden  M.  Gordon,  W.  P.  Bonney,  Sam  W.  Wall  and  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  David  Longmire.  The  party  traced  the  route  of  the  trail 
on  the  west  side  of  the  mountains  up  to  Bare  Prairie,  some  50 
miles  northeast  of  Tacoma,  and,  on  the  east  side,  ascended 
Nachess  River  as  far  as  automobiles  would  go.  The  old  trail 
through  the  mountains  is  almost  obliterated  and  for  a  dis- 
tance of  fifty  miles  cannot  be  followed  by  automobiles.  The 
party  located  the  site  of  Camp  Montgomery,  southeast  of  Ta- 
coma, the  site  of  the  old  block-house  on  Yelm  River,  and  the 
site  of  the  stockades  on  Chambers'  Prairie. 

MISCELLANY 

A  pageant  of  Oregon  history,  displayed  at  Salem  during 
commencement  exercises  of  Willamette  University,  early  in 
June,  1919,  was  brilliantly  successful.  The  pageant  was  writ- 
ten by  Professor  Delia  Crowder-Miller,  and  commemorated 
the  75th  anniversary  of  the  university.  The  display  contained 
22  episodes  besides  prologue  and  epilogue. 

Whitman  College,  at  Walla  Walla,  celebrated  its  quarter- 
centennial  in  its  commencement  exercises  in  June. 

Umatilla  County  pioneers  held  a  two  days'  picnic  at  Weston 
early  in  June,  and  elected  the  following  officers :  M.  L.  Wat- 


226  LESLIE  M.  SCOTT 

son,  president;  R.  Alexander,  vice-president;  S.  A.  Barnes, 
secretary;  J.  H.  Price,  treasurer.  The  sons  and  daughters  of 
Umatilla  pioneers  elected  the  following  officers:  Amy  Car- 
gill,  of  Freewater,  president;  Mrs.  William  Reed,  of  Athena, 
vice-president ;  Mrs.  W.  S.  Price,  of  Weston,  treasurer ;  Mar- 
jorie  Bullfinch,  of  Weston,  treasurer. 

The  annual  celebration  at  Champoeg,  to  commemorate  the 
historic  event  of  May  2,  1843 — the  founding  of  tjie  provisional 
government  of  Oregon — was  held  May  3,  1919.  The  attend- 
ance was  1000  persons,  and  was  the  largest  that  has  thus  far 
done  honor  to  the  annual  event. 

The  first  annual  reunion  of  the  descendants  of  Henry  and 
Elizabeth  Hewett,  Oregon  pioneers  of  1843,  was  held  at  the 
old  home  place,  seven  miles  south  of  Dayton,  Oregon,  Satur- 
day, July  12.  Seventy- five  members  of  the  family  were 
present. 

The  McLoughlin  house,  at  Oregon  City,  perpetuated  as  one 
of  the  historic  relics  of  Oregon,  contains  a  growing  collection 
of  valuable  mementoes  of  early  days.  The  annual  meeting  of 
the  McLoughlin  Memorial  Association  was  held  June  30,  1919. 
W.  P.  Hawley,  the  paper  manufacturer,  was  elected  to  hon- 
orary membership.  Mr.  Hawley  gave  the  house  to  the  city, 
which  caused  the  structure  to  be  restored  and  moved  to  a  high 
site  overlooking  the  Willamette  River. 

The  sixtieth  aniversary  of  the  pioneer  banking  house,  Ladd 
&  Tilton,  was  celebrated  at  a  dinner  for  the  employes  at  Mult- 
nomah  Hotel,  Portland,  June  5,  and  afterwards  at  a  theater 
performance  in  Alcazar  Theater.  The  bank  was  opened  June 
1,  1859,  by  William  S.  Ladd  and  Charles  E.  Tilton  at  105 
Front  Street. 

Grays'  Harbor  Pioneer  Association  held  their  annual  picnic 
at  Brady  June  25,  and  elected  the  following  officers:  Presi- 
dent, Elmer  Brady;  vice-presidents,  O.  B.  Newton,  Satsop;  J. 
J.  Carney,  Aberdeen;  Mrs.  H.  W.  Patton,  Hoquiam;  trustee, 


NEWS  AND  COMMENT  227 

W.  E.  Campbell,  Hoquiam ;  secretary,  Mrs.  J.  E.  Calder,  Mon- 
tesano ;  treasurer,  Mrs.  H.  B.  Marcy,  Montesano ;  chaplain, 
Rev.  Charles  McDermoth,  Aberdeen;  historian,  A.  C.  Girard, 
Aberdeen ;  delegate  to  annual  meeting  of  state  society,  M.  J. 
Luark,  Montesano.  W.  P.  Bonney,  of  Tacoma,  secretary  of 
the  State  Historical  Society,  was  the  principal  speaker. 

Twenty  acres  of  land  at  Grand  Mound,  including  the  famous 
"mound,"  have  been  deeded  to  the  state  by  John  R.  James, 
pioneer  settler  of  Southwest  Washington,  and  son  of  Samuel 
James,  the  first  man  to  settle  in  Grand  Mound  prairie.  Other 
heirs  of  the  James  estate,  numbering  approximately  80,  will 
give  money  for  the  beautification  of  the  place,  which  is  now  a 
public  park. 

The  department  of  history  at  the  Oregon  Agricultural  Col- 
lege, under  Professor  J.  B.  Horner,  is  preparing  a  map  locat- 
ing the  prehistoric  mounds  of  Oregon.  This  is  being  done 
partly  as  a  result  of  the  recent  exploration  of  the  prehistoric 
burial  grounds  on  the  Calapooia  by  summer  school  students. 
Two  additional  mounds  were  discovered  on  the  Osburn  farm, 
which  makes  approximately  30  mounds  along  the  banks  of  the 
Calapooia  and  half  as  many  others  on  streams  near  by. 

Douglas  County,  Oregon,  residents  held  a  reunion  at  Port- 
land June  22,  1919,  in  Peninsula  Park,  to  renew  old  acquain- 
tances and  review  events  of  that  part  of  Oregon.  The  speak- 
ers were :  W.  H.  Brackett,  George  H.  Himes,  G.  C.  Love,  A. 
M.  Crawford  and  George  W.  Riddle.  George  C.  Johnson  was 
elected  president ;  Lou  L.  Parker,  secretary,  and  Nancy  Drain 
Singleton,  treasurer. 

Organization  of  local  history  materials  will  be  undertaken 
at  Eugene  by  a  committee  of  a  teachers'  conference  which 
held  session  at  the  University  of  Oregon  the  latter  week  in 
June.  A.  N.  French,  professor  of  education  in  the  university, 
and  J.  C.  Almack,  director  of  the  extension  division,  suggested 
methods  of  organization.  Dr.  H.  D.  Sheldon,  president  of  the 
conference,  was  authorized  to  name  a  committee  for  this  work. 


228  LESLIE  M.  SCOTT 

Sons  and  Daughters  of  Oregon  Pioneers  on  June  18,  1919, 
elected  the  following  officers :  Mrs.  Benton  Killin,  president ; 
H.  G.  Starkweather,  vice-president;  Miss  Lillian  M.  Hackle- 
man,  secretary.  Mr.  Starkweather  narrated  the  history  of  the 
Oregon  state  seal,  and  Robert  A.  Miller  spoke  on  pioneer  fra- 
ternalism.  Cyrus  H.  Walker's  resolution  for  equal  pensions  for 
soldiers  of  the  Civil  and  the  Indian  wars  was  adopted.  The 
meeting  was  in  Library  Hall,  Portland. 

A  memorial  park  near  Hood  River  in  honor  of  the  eight 
soldiers  of  the  county  who  lost  their  lives  in  the  European 
war,  and  the  returning  soldiers  of  that  conflict,  is  to  be  estab- 
lished at  Ruthton  Hill,  where  O.  P.  Dabney  has  given  a  site. 

Linn  County  pioneers  and  their  sons  and  daughters  held  a 
reunion  at  Brownsville  June  18-20.  Speechmaking,  picnicing 
and  athletics  contributed  to  the  festivities. 

Salmon  Brown,  83  years  old,  son  of  John  Brown,  of  civil 
war  fame,  died  at  Portland  May  10,  1919.  He  shot  himself 
with  a  revolver  on  account  of  sickness  and  despondency. 

Mrs.  Eliza  Warren,  daughter  of  the  missionary,  Rev.  H.  H. 
Spalding,  died  at  Coeur  d'Alene,  Idaho,  June  21,  1919,  and 
the  body  was  buried  at  Brownsville,  Oregon,  June  26,  where 
the  remains  of  other  members  of  the  Spalding  family  are  in- 
terred. She  was  born  at  the  Lapwai  mission  in  1837,  and  was 
married  to  Andrew  Warren  in  1859.  Brownsville's  main 
street  is  named  after  the  Spalding  family. 

The  21st  annual  reunion  of  the  Kelly  Clan  was  held  June 
28,  1919,  at  Portland,  at  the  home  of  Mrs.  O.  P.  S.  Plummer 
on  the  Dosch  road.  Interesting  features  of  the  afternoon  pro- 
gramme were  the  reading  of  the  family  history  by  Nellie  Faw- 
cett  and  an  address  by  Father  Hoberg  of  McMinnville,  who 
is  92  years  of  age,  and  who  was  well  acquainted  with  the  four 
Kelly  brothers.  There  are  now  some  200  descendants  in  Mult- 
nomah  County. 

The  Henkle  family,  of  Benton  County,  Oregon,  held  its  an- 
nual reunion  at  the  Wyatt  home,  three  miles  west  of  Cbrvallis, 
June  26,  1919,  with  162  members  of  the  family  present. 


THE   PIONEER 


DEATH  LIST  OF  OREGON  PIONEERS 
APRIL  1— MAY  31, 1919 

Compiled  by  GEORGE  H.  HIMES 

Anderson,   Mrs.  A.  J.,  b.  111.,   1839;  pioneer  of  1852;   d.  The  Dalles,  April 
12,   1919. 

Bailey,  Mrs.  Bridget,  b.  Ireland,  1826;  Or.  1857;  d.  Wedderburn,  May,   1919. 

Brown,  Mrs.  Alice  Virginia,  b.  Or.,  Aug.  5,  1859;  d.  Langell  Valley,  May  9, 
1919. 

*Bettman,  Lazarus,  b.  Ger.,  1835;  pioneer  1856;  d.  Portland,  May  22,  1019. 

Emerson,   Mrs.   Mary  Jane,   b.   111.,    1838;   pioneer   1850;    d.    Cottage  Grove, 
May  9,   1919. 

Fisher,   George,   b.   Or.,   April   20,    1856;   d.   Eugene,  April    17,    1919. 

Fitzpatrick,    Mrs.    Margaret    Elizabeth    McCubbin,    b.    Or.,    Apr.    3,    1855;    d. 
Lostine,  Apr.  3,   1919. 

Ford,  Mrs.  Georgiana  Percival,  b.  Olympia,  Oct.  23,  1856;  d.  Olympia,  April 
15,  1919. 

Gilmore,  Charles  H.,  b.  Or.,  Feb.  10,  1856;  d.  Mt.  Pleasant,  Or.,  May  5,  1919. 

Gouly,  P.  P.,  b.  Mich.,   1846;  Or.,   1846;   d.  Mt.  Pleasant,  Or.,  May  5,   1919. 

Graham,  David,  b.  N.  Y.,  1836;  pioneer  1857;   d.   Seattle,  May   19,   1919. 
Hannum,    Wm.   M.,   b.    Pa.,   Aug.   28,    1832;   pioneer    1851;    d.   Josephine   Co., 
April  19,   1919. 

Hendricks,  Glen  Owen,  b.  Dallas,  Or.,  June  23,   1857;  d.  Portland,  April  17, 
1919. 

Heustis,   Mrs.   Sarah   M.,  b.   Idaho,    1849;   d.   Portland,  Apr.    17,    1919. 
*Hill,  Henry  C.  b.  Mass.,  1835;  pioneer  1847;  d.  Orting,  Wash.,  May  n,  1919. 

Holt,  Dr.  C.   R.,  b.  Or.,   1859;  d.   Portland,  April  26,   1919. 

Howard,   Mrs.   Edna  Jane  Smith,   b.   Mo.,   1841;   Or.,    1852;   d.   Albany,   May 
28,   1919. 

Imbler,   Mrs.  Margaret,  b.  Ohio,  March  4,   1827;  pioneer  1852;   d.   Roseburg, 
April  12,  1919. 

Jameson,  Mrs.  Jane  Lady,  b.  Mo.,  1837;  pioneer  1853;  d.  Vancouver,  Wash., 
May  n,   1919. 

Kandle,  Wm.  A.,  b.  Olympia,  1853;  d.  Ashford,  Wash.,  May  18,  1919. 

Lane,  Mrs.   Simon  E.,  b.  Or.,  1852;  d.  Roseburg,  May  20,   1919. 

Leever,  C.  T.,  b. ;  pioneer  1850;  d.  Lebanon,  April  9,  1919. 

Lewman,  John  Amman,  b.  Ky.,  1834;  Or.,   1852;  d.  Provolt,  March  27,   1919. 


17,   1919. 
Mos 


Lindley,   fames,  b. ;   Or.,   1853;   d.   Lebanon,   Feb.    19,    1919. 

Marks,  Matthew,  b. ;  pioneer  1852;  d.  Yakima,  Apr.  25,  1919. 

Maxwell,    Mrs.    Susan   Christian,   b.    1845;   pioneer    1853;    d.    Noti,    Or.,    May 

Cosier,  Alonzo,  b.  Ind.,   1838;  pioneer   1852;   d.  Oregon  City,  May  26,   1919. 
McGuire,  Mrs.  Maria,  b.  Canada,  1832;  pioneer  1852;  d.  Salem,  Apr.  21,  1919. 
McKinney,  J.  N.,  b.   Iowa,    1838;   pioneer,   1845;   d.   Hillsboro,   May  8,   1919. 
*McNemee,  Adam,  b.  Mo.,  1841;  pioneer  1845;  d.  Portland,  March  29,  1919. 

Nooning,  Mrs.  Susan  Vickers,  b.  Ohio,  1849;  pioneer  1852;  d.  Portland, 
May  7.  1919. 

Payne,  Champion  T.,  b.   Mo. ;   Or.    1852;   d.  Ashland,   Feb.   14,   1919. 

*Pettey,    Manville   B.,   b. 1841;    pioneer    1854;    d.    Jennings    Lodge,    April, 

,  1919. 

*Raffety,  Dr.  Charles,  b.  111.,   1839;  pioneer  1852;   d.   Portland,   May  18   1919. 
Richards  Mrs.  Mary  F.,  b.  Or.,   1846;  d.  near  Oakland,  Or.,  April  30,   1919. 
•Richey,  Wm.   G.,  b.  111.—;   Or.   1852;   d.  Camp  Creek,   Feb.  23,   1919. 

Richardson,  Rebecca  Ann,  b.  Mo.,  1838;  pioneer  1853;  d.  Lane  Co.,  May 
10,  1919. 

Rickard,  John,   b.   England,    1830;   Or.    1852;   d.   Corvallis,   May   10,    1919. 

Robertson,   Mrs.   R.   M.,  b. ;  pioneer   1848;   d.   Spokane,   May  4,    1919. 

"Rowland,   Mrs.    Eliazbeth   M.,   b.   111.,   Apr.   25,    1841;   pioneer   1852;    d.   Apr. 
16,   1919. 

Sieforth,  Mrs.  Polly  G.  Bowen,  b.  Mo.,  Sept.  21,  1842;  pioneer  1853;  d. 
Dallas,  Or.,  Apr.  22,  1919. 

*Stuart,   Alfred   V.,   b.   Or.    1853;    d.    Portland,   Apr.,    1919. 
*Thyng,    Mrs.    Caroline   Bozorth,    b.    Iowa,    1842;    pioneer    1852;    d.    Portland, 
Apr.  17,  1919. 

Wakeman,  Miles,  b.  N.  Y.  1829;  Cal.,  1849;  Or.  pioneer,  1851;  d.  Pleasant 
City,  Apr.  26,  1919. 

Walters,  Mrs.  Rachel  Belknap,  b.  Iowa,  'May  21,  1843;  d.  Portland,  May  14, 
1919. 

Watkins,  J.  C,  b. ;  Or.  1852;  d.  Eugene,  Feb.  12,  1019. 

White,  Marion  Jackson,  b.  Mo.,  1845;  Or.  1852;  d.  Woodburn,  Jan.  29,  1918. 
Whorton,  Mrs.  L.  B.  Veatch,  b.  111.,   1832;  d.  near  Eugene,  Jan.  22,  1919. 
Wilson,   Mrs.   W.   H.,   b.    Mo.;    Or.    1843;   d.   Drain,   May  27,    1919. 

Only  those  marked  *  were  ever  members  of  the  Oregon  Pioneer  Association, 
which  was  organized  in  1873.  All  persons  are  eligible  who  came  to,  or  were  born 
in,  the  original  "Oregon  Country"  at  any  time  prior  to  Dec.  31,  1859,  that  being 
the  year  that  the  State  was  admitted  to  the  Union. 


THE  QUARTERLY 

of  the 

Oregon  Historical  Society 

VOLUME  XX  SEPTEMBER,  1919  NUMBER  3 

Copyright,  1919,  by  the  Oregon  Historical  Society 
The  Quarterly  disavows  responsibility  for  the  positions  taken  by  contributors  to  its  pages. 

ADDRESS    DELIVERED    BY   JOSEPH    N.    TEAL   AT 

EUGENE,  OREGON,  MAY  22,   1919,  ON  THE 

OCCASION  OF  THE  UNVEILING  OF 

THE  PIONEER 

Mr.  President,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen : 

More  than  two  years  have  passed  since  I  wrote  Judge 
Robert  S.  Bean,  President  of  the  Board  of  Regents,  of  my 
desire  to  erect  a  memorial  to  the  Oregon  pioneers  and  to  have 
it  placed  on  the  grounds  of  the  University  of  Oregon.  The 
letter  I  then  wrote  expresses  my  sentiments  and  thought  so 
accurately  that  I  can  do  no  better  than  read  it  to  you  today. 
It  is  as  follows : 

"It  has  long  been  my  earnest  desire  to  express  my  admira- 
tion and  respect  for  the  Oregon  pioneer.  Having  given 
the  subject  much  serious  thought,  I  am  now  addressing 
you  for  the  purpose  of  laying  before  you  and  the  Board  of 
Regents  of  the  University  the  plan  I  have  formulated,  and 
to  obtain  your  consent  and  approval  for  the  carrying  out 
of  my  idea. 

The  pioneer  represents  all  that  is  noblest  and  best  in  our 
history.  The  men  and  women  who  saved  the  west  for  this 
country  were  animated  by  the  highest  motives.  They  made 
untold  sacrifices  and  endured  hardships  of  every  kind  in 
order  that  their  children  might  enjoy  the  fruits  of  their 
labor.  Their  courage,  foresight,  endurance  and  industry 
should]  ever  be  an  inspiration  to  the  youth  of  the  country. 


232  JOSEPH  N.  TEAL 

I  therefore  propose  to  erect  a  memorial,  which  it  seems  to 
me  should  stand  on  the  campus  of  our  great  institution  of 
learning,  the  University  of  Oregon,  where  for  years  to 
come  the  rising  generation  of  Oregon  will  have  before  them 
a  reminder  of  those  to  whom  they  owe  every  opportunity 
they  enjoy. 

Accordingly  I  have  commissioned  Mr.  A.  Phimister 
Proctor,  the  distinguished  American  sculptor,  to  model  a 
statue  typifying  the  real  pioneer  of  the  West.  It  is  my 
sincere  desire  and  hope  that,  as  the  genius  of  Saint  Gaudens 
has  typified  in  imperishable  bronze  The  Puritan,  the  genius 
of  Proctor  will  in  like  degree  typify  The  Pioneer.  Should 
my  plan  meet  with  the  approval  of  yourself  and  the  Board 
of  Regents  of  the  University,  I  would  request  that  at  the 
proper  time  and  in  concurrence  with  Mr.  Proctor,  a  place 
be  designated  on  the  University  grounds  upon  which  the 
monument  may  be  erected." 

This  day  evidences  the  fulfillment  of  this  desire,  and  we 
have  gathered  together  in  honor  of  those  to  perpetuate  whose 
memory  this  statue  was  designed.  While  it  is  a  matter  of 
greater  satisfaction  to  me  than  I  can  express  to  have  the 
opportunity  of  testifying  in  this  way  to  my  affection  for  the 
pioneers  of  Oregon,  it  is  the  genius  of  the  artist  which  makes 
it  possible  to  express  in  enduring  bronze  not  only  the  senti- 
ment, but  the  man.  I  wish  to  express  not  only  my  sincere 
admiration  for  Mr.  Proctor's  genius,  but  the  thankfulness  I 
feel  for  his  unselfish  devotion  to  the  task  and  for  the  zeal 
and  spirit  which  from  the  inception  of  the  idea  to  this  dedica- 
tion have  animated  his  work.  The  sculptor,  not  only  an 
artist  of  rare  genius,  but  a  man  of  nature,  of  the  mountains 
and  plains,  knowing  at  first  hand  the  pioneer  and  his  life, 
his  real  worth  and  what  he  endured  and  sought,  has  created 
a  type  true  to  life — the  real  pioneer  as  we  have  known  him. 

This  statue  is  erected  and  dedicated  to  the  memory  of  all 
Oregon  pioneers.  It  is  in  no  sense  personal  or  individual  and 
it  is  my  earnest  wish  and  hope  that  this  fact  may  ever  be 
kept  in  mind. 

The  reasons  for  selecting  the  University  of  Oregon  as  the 


A.  PH1M1STER  PROCTOR 


THE  OREGON  PIONEERS  233 

home  of  this  memorial  are  many.  It  is  sufficient  to  say  that 
here  the  Willamette  and  Mackenzie  Rivers  join  their  waters 
into  one  grand  channel  and  create  this  beautiful  valley,  the 
paradise  to  which  the  pioneer  struggled  over  great  mountains 
and  across  desert  plains,  to  which  he  first  came  in  numbers, 
and  in  which  he  first  made  his  home.  Here,  too,  the  state 
which  he  created  has  founded  its  great  institution  to  train  its 
young  men  and  women.  No  more  fitting  place  than  the 
campus  of  the  University  of  Oregon  could  be  found  for  the 
memorial.  Here  amid  these  beautiful  surroundings,  in  this 
institution  of  learning,  acting  as  an  inspiration  to  Oregon's 
young  manhood  and  womanhood,  this  pioneer  in  bronze  will 
find  a  hospitable  home  in  the  land  he  loved  so  well.  I  am 
happy  in  the  thought  that  I  have  had  the  opportunity  thus  to 
show  my  love  and  admiration  for  those  whose  life  was  largely 
spent  in  a  work  whose  greatness  and  value  will  be  better 
understood  when  viewed  down  the  perspective  of  time.  The 
greatest  honor  I  have  is  in  honoring  them.  Joaquin  Miller 
thus  painted  the  pioneers: 

"I  only  know  that  when  that  land 
Lay  thick  with  peril,  and  lay  far 

It  seemed  as  some  sea-fallen  star, 
The  weak  men  never  reached  a  hand 

Or  sought  us  out  that  primal  day. 

And  cowards  did  not  come  that  way." 

Mr.  President,  my  share  in  this  very  satisfactory  enterprise 
is  ended:  with  this  memorial,  there  goes  every  good  wish  for 
this  University,  coupled  with  the  sincere  hope  that  those  who 
seek  guidance  and  aid  within  its  classic  walls  will  never  lose 
sight  of  what  they  owe  the  pioneer. 


JOSEPH  N.  TEAL 


QUALITIES  OF  THE  OREGON  PIONEERS 
AN  ADDRESS 

AT  THE  UNVEILING  OF  THE  STATUE  "THE  PlONEER"  ON  THE  CAMPUS  OF 
THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  OREGON,  AT  EUGENE,  OREGON,  MAY  22,  1919, 
BY  FREDERICK  V.  HOLMAN,  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  OREGON  HISTORICAL 
SOCIETY,  AND  FORMER  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  OREGON  PIONEER  ASSOCIA- 
TION AND  OF  THE  SONS  AND  DAUGHTERS  OF  OREGON  PIONEERS. 

Mr.  President,  Mr.  Proctor,  Mr.  Teal,  the  Faculty  and  Students 
of  the  University  of  Oregon,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

I  am  not  on  the  programme  for  an  address,  and  I  was  not 
aware  that  I  should  make  any  remarks  until  my  arrival  in 
Eugene  at  noon  today.  But  since  I  have  been  asked  to  do  so, 
I  cannot  refrain  from  saying  a  few  things  which  I  have  in 
my  mind,  for  I  am  a  native  son  of  Oregon,  and  I  have  been 
for  many  years  President  of  the  Oregon  Historical  Society,  and 
I  am  familiar  with  the  early  history  of  Oregon,  its  settlement, 
its  upbuilding,  and  its  making,  and  the  kind  of  people  the 
Oregon  pioneers  were  and  are. 

Ever  since  its  organization  the  Oregon  Historical  Society 
has  been  engaged  in  determining  the  facts  and  the  truths  of 
history,  particularly  relating  to  the  history  of  Oregon.  It  ex- 
amines traditions  and  folklore.  It  endeavors,  as  it  were,  to 
separate  the  grain  from  the  chaff.  It  studies  the  motives,  the 
ideals,  and  the  acts  of  people  in  regard  to  the  settlement  and 
upbuilding  of  Oregon.  It  seeks  to  know  the  truth.  Mr. 
Proctor  in  this  statue,  typical  of  the  Oregon  pioneers,  has 
portrayed  truth  in  a  way  which  should  give  to  him  the  thanks 
of  every  student  and  lover  of  early  Oregon  history.  This 
statue  is  a  gift  to  the  State  of  Oregon  by  a  son  and  grandson 
of  true  and  worthy  Oregon  pioneers.  Great  credit  is  due  to 
Mr.  Teal  for  his  patriotic  and  unselfish  generosity  in  making 
this  gift. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  race  is  a  branch  of  the  Teutonic  race.  It 
was  and  is  a  liberty-loving  race.  It  believes  in  the  protection  of 
life  and  of  liberty  and  in  the  rights  of  property  and  the  pursuit 


236  FREDERICK  V.  HOLMAN 

of  happiness.  This  race  has  large  powers  of  assimilation,  and 
its  great  ideas  of  liberty  and  of  the  rights  of  mankind  caused 
other  races  to  become  a  part  of  it,  so  it  became  a  people  as 
well  as  a  race.  In  early  historic  times  it  made  its  power  felt 
and  for  centuries  contended  for  the  rights  of  the  people  in 
England,  where  it  had  made  its  home,  and  finally  succeeded 
in  making  England  a  free  country,  as  evidenced  by  the  Revolu- 
tion and  Settlement  of  1688  and  the  policy  of  the  English 
people  ever  since.  Its  instincts  and  traditions  caused  some 
of  its  people  to  come  to  North  America  to  begin  and  to  con- 
tinue its  settlement  and  civilization.  The  first  of  these 
people  came  about  three  centuries  ago.  Many  of  them  came 
thereafter  from  time  to  time.  They  landed  on  the  Atlantic 
Coast  and  pushed  on  westward.  They  soon  adapted  them- 
selves to  conditions  and  learned  self-reliance  and  how  to  over- 
come the  difficulties  of  establishing  themselves  in  a  new  coun- 
try, theretofore  peopled  only  by  Indians.  They  continued  to 
push  on  westward  and  occupied  what  are  now  the  states  of  Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Iowa,  Missouri  and 
other  western  lands,  now  the  Central  States  of  this  country. 
Their  courage,  their  powers,  their  self-reliance  and  their  ideals 
increased  as  they  moved  westward.  They  fought  Indians ;  they 
cut  down  forests;  they  reclaimed  wild  lands;  they  established 
homes,  schools  and  churches.  It  is  of  this  people  that  most  of 
the  early  Oregon  pioneers  are  a  part. 

The  instincts  and  traditions  of  the  Anglo-Saxoni  race  have 
ever  been  to  move  westward.  The  star  it  had  followed,  which 
showed  the  westward  course  of  empire,  at  last  stood  and 
shone  over  Oregon.  Here  was  a  wild  land  to  be  made  useful 
and  become  a  part  of  the  civilized  world.  It  was  about  two 
thousand  miles  west  of  the  forefront  of  civilization  in  the 
United  States  at  that  time.  Between  that  forefront  and  Oregon 
there  are  great  plains,  rugged  mountains  and  large  rivers  to 
be  crossed,  a  road  to  be  established  for  them  and  for  others, 
coming  after  them,  to  travel  successfully  to  Oregon — "the 
land  where  dreams  come  true."  There  were  great  numbers 


QUALITIES  OF  THE  OREGON  PIONEERS  237 

of  savage  Indians  to  be  encountered  and  forced  to  respect  the 
rights  and  property  of  these  immigrants. 

The  lure  of  Oregon  had  appealed  to  many  who  had  settled 
in  the  western  states  and  territories.  In  May,  1843,  without 
preconcert,  but  moved  by  a  common  impulse,  nearly  nine  hun- 
dred men,  women,  and  children  met  at  Independence,  Missouri, 
ready  and  anxious  to  start  on  the  long  trip  to  Oregon.  Some 
were  poorly  equipped  for  so  long,  arduous,  and  perilous  an 
expedition,  for  they  had  few  precedents.  But  they  were  re- 
sourceful and  filled  with  an  abiding  faith  in  their  ability  to 
succeed. 

They  were  courageous  folk,  filled  and  moved  by  great  ideals, 
not  that  they  knew  they  had  ideals,  and  they  probably  would 
have  resented  any  intimation  that  they  had  them.  But  never- 
theless they  had  these  ideals  and  were  influenced  by  them. 
These  pioneer  immigrants  moved  slowly  westward,  driving 
the  oxen  which  pulled  their  wagons  until  they  arrived  at  Fort 
Hall,  about  seven  hundred  miles  east  of  here.  There  they 
were  told  that  it  was  impossible  to  take  their  wagons  to  the 
Columbia  River.  But  they  were  not  frightened  by  this  in- 
formation. The  men  determined  to  go  on  as  far  as  they 
could,  for  they  were  self-reliant,  and  their  wives  and  daughters 
had  every  confidence  in  these  resolute  men.  Loving  arms  went 
around  stalward  necks,  with  cheering  words  and  saying: 
"Where  you  go  we  will  go  with  you  and  help  in  every  way." 

It  was  a  momentous  occasion.  They  could  have  abandoned 
their  intentions  to  go  to  the  Willamette  Valley,  and  by  forced 
marches,  probably,  have  arrived  at  their  starting  point  in 
Missouri  before  traveling  by  wagons  became  impossible  the 
ensuing  winter.  If  they  failed  to  reach  the  Columbia  River 
probably  almost  all  of  the  party  would  have  died  of  starvation 
or  from  exposure.  There  was  little  game  west  of  Fort  Hall. 
They  cut  themselves  off  from  all  sources  of  supply.  If  they 
failed  it  would  probably  have  been  many  years  before  there 
was  another  overland  expedition  of  immigrants  to  Oregon. 
It  was  practically  impossible  to  send  large  numbers  of  immi- 


238  FREDERICK  V.  HOLMAN 

grants  by  sea.  The  government  of  the  United  States  did 
nothing  to  encourage  or  to  assist  the  early  settlement  of 
Oregon.  The  peaceful  settlement  of  the  Oregon  Question, 
especially  by  the  occupation  of  Oregon  by  American  citizens, 
would  probably  have  been  impossible.  It  was  a  daring  deter- 
mination. 

If  they  had  failed!  These  immigrants  of  1843  were 
intrepid,  determined,  resourceful,  and  self-reliant.  They  were 
not  accustomed  to  fail  in  any  enterprise  they  undertook  to 
accomplish. 

And  so,  taking  in  their  own  hands  the  lives  of  themselves  and 
of  their  wives  and  children  and  their  fortunes,  they  accepted 
the  chances,  relying  on  themselves  and  their  ability  to  suc- 
ceed. It  was  a  heroic  resolution  fully  carried  out.  They  sur- 
mounted every  difficulty.  They  made  roads  and  crossed 
great  rivers  and  went  over  seemingly  impassable  mountains 
until  they  came  to  The  Dalles  on  the  Columbia  River,  beyond 
which  travel  with  wagons  was  impossible  at  that  time.  They 
came  down  the  Columbia  River,  rescued  and  succored  and  as- 
sisted to  establish  themselves  in  the  land  they  had  seen  in 
dreams,  the  beautiful  Willamette  Valley,  then  a  fertile  wilder- 
ness, by  that  princely  great  humanitarian,  Dr.  John  Mc- 
Loughlin,  the  Father  of  Oregon.  Thus  the  immigrants  of  '43 
made  and  showed  the  way  to  Oregon  for  others  to  follow. 
This  first  home-building  immigration  was  followed  by  success- 
ful immigrations,  of  the  same  quality  of  people,  in  the  succeed- 
ing years.  The  coming  of  these  immigrants  was  the  cause  of 
the  peaceful  settlement  of  the  Oregon  Question,  which  for 
many  years  had  threatened  to  embroil  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain  in  a  long  and  bloody  war.  The  British  govern- 
ment feared  that  the  whole  Oregon  country  would  be  peopled 
by  immigrants  from  the  United  States. 

And  these  are  the  pioneers  of  Oregon  to  whom  be  ever- 
lasting praise  and  glory.  The  coming  to  Oregon  of  its  pioneers 
is  one  of  the  most  daring  movements  and  one  of  the  most 
interesting  and  romantic  stories  of  the  settlement  and  upbuild- 


QUALITIES  OF  THE  OREGON  PIONEERS  239 

ing  of  any  part  of  the  United  States.  These  pioneers  and 
their  qualities,  characteristics  and  ideals  Mr.  Proctor  has 
exemplified  and  shown  in  this  statue. 

I  have  not  time  to  go  into  details  or  to  show  how  these  pio- 
neers upbuilded  and  made  this  beautiful  Oregon  of  today,  of 
which  we  are  so  proud. 

Many  of  these  pioneers  have  gone  to  the  Great  Beyond 
and  those  now  living  will  soon  follow  to  honored  graves.  It 
is  for  their  descendants  to  take  up  the  work  which  these 
pioneers  left  unfinished.  What  they  did  can  never  be  for- 
gotten. 

But  the  Oregon  pioneers  did  not  comprise  all  of  the  people 
of  Anglo-Saxon  ancestry  and  heredity  in  the  United  States 
nor  all  who  were  influenced  by  its  traditions  and  instincts.  They 
exert  the  great  controlling  influence  in  the  civilization  and  life 
of  this  country.  It  was  their  influence  which  caused  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  to  be  made  andl  the  war  of  the 
American  Revolution  to  be  fought.  They  carry  on  Anglo- 
Saxon  ideas  of  the  rights  of  life,  liberty,  property  and  the  right 
of  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  All  these  have  been  put  to  the  test 
in  the  great  world  war  beginning  in  1914.  The  United  States  is 
a  peaceful  nation.  But  its  people  are  not  pacifists.  There 
was,  at  first,  great  horror  on  account  of  German  atrocities. 
This  nation  was  greatly  stirred  by  the  sinking  of  the  Lusi- 
tania.  But  that  was  a  British  ship  and  its  sinking  was  not 
an  attack  upon  the  United  States,  dastardly  as  was  the  crime 
of  its  destruction  and  the  murder  of  its  passengers.  While 
it  was  an  offense  against  humanity  and  against  civilization,  it 
was  not  a  cause  of  war  for  the  United  States. 

But  there  came  a  time  when  the  rights  and  liberties  of  this 
country  and  of  the  whole  world  and  their  peoples  became 
involved ;  when  as  a  nation,  guided  by  Anglo-Saxon  heredity, 
instincts  and  traditions,  it  was  not  only  proper  but  necessary 
that  this  country  should  be  a  participant  in  the  war;  that 
this  country  should  make  war  so  there  be  world  peace;  and 
that  the  liberty  of  the  whole  world  should  be  made  safe.  And 


240  FREDERICK  V.  HOLMAN 

then  we  did  not  hesitate  to  do  our  duty.  The  nation  was 
united  in  its  determination  that  the  war  should  end  against 
Germany,  and  our  people  pledged  their  all  that  success  might 
be  attained.  The  young  men  gave  themselves  to  fight  its  bat- 
tles. The  older  men  contributed  their  moneys.  The  Govern- 
ment Liberty  loans  and  Victory  loans  were  subscribed  and 
oversubscribed  in  many  parts  of  the  country  by  people  of  all 
classes,  by  men  and  women,  and  even  by  children.  The  young 
women  gave  their  services  as  nurses.  And  all  over  the  country 
women,  old  as  well  as  young,  willingly  and  earnestly  engaged 
in  Red  Cross  work  and  other  desirable  and  necessary  war 
work  and  activities  for  the  support,  comfort,  and  health  of 
the  soldiers  and  sailors  of  America  and  for  the  successful 
conduct  of  the  war.  The  Anglo-Saxons  were  true  to  their 
traditions.  This  universal  response  is  the  glory  of  our  nation. 

When  an  American  general,  at  the  tomb  of  LaFayette, 
stood  at  attention  and  saluted  the  place  where  the  body  of 
America's  great  friend  is  buried,  he  said :  "LaFayette !  we  are 
here."  It  was  an  acknowledgment  that  America  would  pay  a 
debt  of  honor  which  it  owed  to  France.  But  that  was  only  a 
part  of  the  object  of  our  entering  into  the  war.  There  was 
the  world's  liberty  at  stake.  The  assassins  of  free  govern- 
ment were  to  be  conquered  and  to  be  subdued.  And  nobly  did 
our  boys  do  their  part. 

The  armies  of  France  for  nearly  four  years  had  fought 
nobly,  bravely,  gloriously.  But  France  was  almost  bled  white. 
They  had  sworn  to  die  in  the  last  ditch  and  they  were  peril- 
ously near  the  eastern  bank  of  that  ditch.  Although  they 
were  fighting  desperately  they  were  being  slowly  forced  back 
and  were  nearly  overwhelmed.  Their  cry  was :  "When  will 
the  Americans  come?"  And  the  Americans  came  and  nobly 
did  they  act.  They  may  have  lacked  somewhat  in  military 
discipline,  somewhat  in  esprit  de  corps,  but  they  pressed  on  and 
fought  with  a  dash  and  an  intrepidity  which  surprised  the  Ger- 
mans. They  were  not  to  be  denied.  Had  they  been  com- 
manded and  led  by  God's  Archangels  of  Vengeance  and  of 


QUALITIES  OF  THE  OREGON  PIONEERS  241 

Victory;  had  they  been  inspired  by  the  specter  of  Joan  of 
Arc,  clad  in  armor,  with  flashing  sword  in  hand,  mounted  on 
a  spectral  grand  war  horse,  urging  our  boys  on  to  victory,  they 
could  not  have  fought  more  bravely  or  more  effectively.  But 
they  did  not  need  to  be  so  commanded  or  led  or  inspired. 
They  were  actuated  and  impelled  by  centuries,  nay  more,  by 
thousands  of  years  of  Anglo-Saxon  heredity,  instinct,  tradition, 
and  courage.  And  they  had  it  in  their  hearts. 

When  the  Americans  took  part  in  the  war  it  was  the  begin- 
ning of  the  end  of  the  war.  At  Contigny,  at  St.  Mihiel,  at 
Soisson,  at  Chateau  Thierry,  at  Belleau  Wood,  at  Argonne 
forest,  and  elsewhere  they  showed  their  quality  and  their 
desire  and  intention  and  ability  to  succeed. 

The  liberty-loving  branch  of  the  Teutonic  race  overcame 
the  liberty-destroying  and  autocratic  branch  of  that  race.  The 
Hun  met  his  master  and  was  vanquished.  The  world  was 
made  safe  for  democracy. 

And  Oregon  boys  were  there,  and  nobly  did  they  do  their 
part.  Many  of  them  are  worthy  descendants  of  noble  Oregon 
pioneers.  They  were  true  to  the  genius  and  traditions  of  their 
race.  "Oh,  when  will  their  glory  fade!"  Never,  while  the 
history  of  this  war  is  known.  As  the  Oregon  pioneers  showed 
their  peaceful  qualities  in  coming  to  Oregon  and  in  its  settle- 
ment, its  upbuilding,  and  its  making,  so  their  descendants 
showed  their  virtue,  and  their  fighting  and  heroic  qualities  in 
this  war.  Their  actions  show  that  the  race  has  not  degenerated. 

Mr.  Proctor,  with  his  genius,  has  perpetuated  all  these  quali- 
ties in  this  statue,  and  they  will  be  recorded  forever  in  history. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  qualities  and  ideals,  its  traditions  and 
instincts,  its  love  and  support  of  the  rights  of  life,  of  liberty, 
and  of  the  rights  of  mankind  will  survive  even  the  downfall 
of  this  republic  and  will  endure  as  long  as  the  human  race. 

The  human  race  from  its  beginning 'has  always  been  inter- 
ested in  monuments  and  statues  as  work  of  art,  especially 
when  they  typify  great  events  and  manly  qualities.  The  ador- 
ation of  statues  as  deities  is  forbidden.  But  it  is  impossible  to 


242  FREDERICK  V.  HOLMAN 

forbid  the  veneration  of  that  which  moves  or  touches  the 
human  heart.  Could  even  divine  power  prevent  the  venera- 
tion of  the  graves  of  our  ancestors,  our  relatives,  our  friends, 
and  those  of  the  world's  great  men  and  women? 

This  statue  symbolizes  and  immortalizes  in  a  remarkable 
way  the  Oregon  pioneer  and  his  qualities — his  courage,  his 
determination,  his  instincts  and  his  high  ideals  and  those  of 
the  race  or  of  the  people  of  which  the  Oregon  pioneer  is  a 
fine  specimen  and  example.  Let  everyone,  and  especially  the 
young  men  and  young  women  who  are  now  and  who  will  be 
students  of  this  university,  observe  and  study  well  this  statue, 
and  thus  learn  and  appreciate  what  the  Oregon  pioneers — 
the  founders  of  Oregon — were  and  are.  Let  them  strive  to 
emulate  the  qualities  and  virtues  of  the  Oregon  pioneers  and 
to  respect  and  to  venerate  what  they  hoped,  what  they  dared, 
what  they  wrought,  and  what  they  accomplished. 


THE  BRITISH  SIDE  OF  THE  RESTORATION 
OF  FORT  ASTORIA. 

KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON,  M.  A. 

The  object  of  history,  as  the  writer  understands  it,  is  to 
teach  wisdom  for  the  future  from  the  successes  and  mistakes 
of  the  past.  It  is  to  tell  the  facts  of  the  past  so  honestly  as 
to  do  justice  to  both  sides,  and  in  order  to  do  so,  it  is  obvious 
that  the  mistakes  of  one's  own  country  must  sometimes  be 
brought  to  light.  Otherwise,  one  takes  the  German  point  of 
view  that  whatever  one's  own  country  does  is  morally  right. 

The  restoration  of  Astoria  is  a  case  in  point.  With  an 
element  of  the  ludicrous  in  it,  in  the  visit  of  the  Ontario,  there 
is  also  an  exhibition  of  devious,  winding,  political  manoeuvers 
by  John  Quincy  Adams  which  one  would  rather  hide.  Writers 
have  heretofore  taken  the  point  of  view  that  the  restoration 
was  gained  by  American  cleverness  as  against  British  intrigue, 
and  therefore  Adams  is  praised. 

There  is  no  truth  in  that  point  of  view.  Not  one  statement 
could  the  writer  find,  even  in  the  private  notes  of  the  British 
Foreign  Office  officials  to  each  other,  that  would  indicate 
the  slightest  intention  of  outwitting  America  in  the  claim  for 
the  Northwest  Coast  and  the  Columbia  River. 

From  July,  1913,  to  August,  1914,  (being  caught  in  Eng- 
land by  the  war,)  the  writer  went  through  some  seven  hun- 
dred volumes  in  the  British  Public  Record  Office,  including 
diplomatic  correspondence,  Colonial  and  Foreign  Office  re- 
ports, Admiralty  reports,  ships  logs,  and  consular  reports,  from 
1790  until  1867,  which  would  have  a  bearing  on  Oregon 
history. 

This  last  date,  be  it  noted,  is  extraordinary.  The  usual  per- 
mission granted  to  qualified  scholars  closes  with  1837.  When 
the  writer  made  the  remark,  in  a  seminar  in  the  University 
of  London,  that  she  intended  asking  for  extended  permission 
for  the  records  until  1846,  she  was  quickly  assured  by  two 
English  college  professors  of  history  that  such  permission  was 


244  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

more  than  doubtful.  She  made  the  application,  however, 
through  the  correct  channels,  and  permission  was  received  "as 
requested."  But  on  searching  the  volumes  through  the  1840s, 
she  found  that  in  the  San  Juan  controversy,  many  papers 
belonging  to  the  Treaty  of  1846  had  been  taken  out  of  their 
proper  volumes  and  used  as  enclosures  in  later  ones.  Many 
important  records  were  missing  upon  reaching  the  end  of  the 
1846  records.  She,  therefore,  in  trepidation,  asked  permis- 
sion of  the  official  in  charge  of  this  special  "government 
room," — not  the  usual  Round  Room — if  the  permission  from 
the  Foreign  Office  would  allow  her  to  look  through  later 
volumes  for  the  missing  papers  of  the  1840s.  He  answered 
"No,"  very  courteously,  but  very  positively,  adding  he  would 
look  up  the  permit.  With  an  amazed  face  he  then  returned 
and  reported  that  the  Foreign  Office  had  failed  to  set  a  date 
of  limitation  upon  the  permit  and  therefore  I  was  free  to  search 
to  present  date  if  I  chose.  He  added  that  it  was  the  first  time 
he  had  ever  known  the  Foreign  Office  to  make  such  a  mistake 
— but  Oregon  history  will  profit  by  it. 

In  addition  to  these  unusual  privileges,  the  writer  had  the 
permission  of  the  late  Lord  Strathcona,  Governor  of  the  Hud- 
son's Bay  Company,  to  search  the  archives  of  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company,  and  many  a  day  she  spent  in  His  Lordship's 
unoccupied  office  in  Lime  Street,  searching  through  the  rec- 
ords, journals,  reports  and  correspondence,  of  the  famous  old 
English  company.  The  results  given  here  are  rather  more 
as  an  advance  paper  upon  the  history  now  being  written  by 
her,  than  as  a  final  settlement  of  the  whole  question. 

It  must  be  remembered,  in  all  Oregon  history,  that  the 
bitterness  of  America  towards  Great  Britain  was  intense.  Not 
only  was  the  Revolution  fought  on  American  soil,  with  suffer- 
ing unknown  to  the  English  people,  many  of  whom  did  not 
approve  of  this  war  by  their  foreign  king,  but  the  hatred 
following  that  had  not  died  out  before  the  War  of  1812  was 
on,  and  in  this  war,  as  in  the  other,  the  Indians  had  joined 
the  more  tactful  British  rather  than  the  aggressive  Americans 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  245 

who  were  taking  their  lands  away  from  them.  The  Ameri- 
cans tried,  indeed,  although  almost  in  vain,  to  use  the  Indians 
against  the  British ;  but  they  did  not  know  how  to  manage  the 
redskins  chiefly  because  of  their  own  aggressiveness. 

And  that  aggressiveness  showed  itself  continually  towards 
Great  Britain.  British  diplomats  wrote  home,  from  Washing- 
ton, in  despairing  tones,  "The  aggressiveness  of  these  Ameri- 
cans!" But  the  Americans  were  crying, — and  clippings  at- 
tached to  the  diplomatic  letters  prove  it, — "The  aggressive- 
ness of  Great  Britain!"  "Like  father,  like  son."  John  Bull 
and  his  son  Jonathan  were  so  exactly  alike  they  could  not 
possibly  understand  each  other — until  each  had  mellowed,  and 
time  and  distance  had  softened  bitter  feelings. 

And  though  this  may  seem  far  afield,  in  it  lies  the  explana- 
tion; of  much  of  Oregon's  history,  and  the  threat  of  a  third 
war  over  the  Northwest  Coast  of  America. 

In  1804 — the  writer  cannot  locate  the  citation  at  the 
moment,  amongst  a  mass  of  papers, — the  North  West  Com- 
pany wrote  to  the  Colonial  Office,  expressing  their  determina- 
tion to  explore  to  the  Pacific,  and  asking  that  they  be  given 
the  monopoly  of  any  route  found  across  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains and  to  the  western  ocean.  Such  a  monopoly  was  re- 
fused. In  that  same  year,  be  it  noted,  Lewis  and  Clark 
started  across  the  continent,  through  old-time  Louisiana,  and 
the  southern  border  of  the  Oregon  Country  which  lay  beyond. 

In  1807,  David  Thompson,  long  hammering  at  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  Canadian  Rockies,  unsupported  by  his  Indian- 
fearing  voyageurs,  and  actively  opposed  by  surrounding  tribes 
who  feared  their  enemies  west  of  the  Rockies  would  thereby 
gain  trading  goods  and  guns,  suddenly  found  his  way  unop- 
posed. The  Indians,  so  he  states,*  had  gathered  around  the 
"headwaters  of  the  Mississourie,"  expecting  the  return  of  the 
white  men  that  year.  Had  Lewis  and  Clark  returned,  or  other 
white  men  appeared,  doubtless  there  would  have  been  a  battle, 
or  many  gifts  to  avert  one.  So  Thompson  crossed  the  Rockies 
~~*F.  o.  5,  Vol.  441. 


246  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

and  made  his  way  that  year,  and  for  several  following,  around 
the  headwaters  and  upper  reaches  of  the  Columbia,  arriving"  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  in  July,  1811,  a  few  months  after 
the  arrival  of  Astor's  men. 

It  is  clear,  in  studying  fur  trade  history  in  its  entirety,  that 
Astor's  plan  of  an  overland  route,  with  posts  on  the  Columbia 
or  the  Pacific,  was  not  so  new  or  so  brilliant  as  usually  cred- 
ited to  "a  German  person,  named  Oster,"  as  he  is  described 
in  a  letter  of  the  time.  Nor  was  his  outlay  of  money  more 
daring  than  that  of  the  North  West  Company.  Nor  was  his 
plan  of  operation  very  different  in  idea,  though  with  better 
financial  backing,  than  the  plan  of  Captain  John  Meares, 
half-fraud  though  Meares  was.  The  laudation  of  Astor  has 
always  seemed  exaggerated  to  the  writer. 

The  British,  meanwhile,  had  in  their  own  eyes  a  clear  case 
to  the  ownership,  or  possession,  of  the  North  West  Coast. 
They,  aside  from  the  Spanish,  were  the  first  to  explore,  as 
well  as  to  discover ;  and  the  first  to  trade.  America  followed 
more  than  a  boat's  length  behind;  and  American  traders  had 
been  on  the  coast  only  a  year  when  Spanish  claims  were  set- 
tled so  far  as  Great  Britain  was  concerned,  without  protest 
or  question  by  America,  in  the  Nootka  Sound  Convention. 
As  to  the  actual  discovery  of  the  river,  Meares's  record  was 
confusing:  on  approaching  the  "bay,"  he  says  he  "steered 
in," — meaning  "steered  in  towards."  And  upon  beating  a 
retreat,  he  says  he  "steered  out," — he  did,  but  without  steering 
in.  Broughton,  representing  an  official  exploring  party,  in  his 
chagrin  and  attempt  to  rob  Gray  of  the  credit  due  to  the 
first  crossing  of  that  bar,  claimed  that  he  was  the  first  to 
explore  the  "river,"  and  that  added  to  the  confusion.  If  the 
exploration  of  fur  traders  could  count  for  national  claims, 
then  the  British  were  first  through  Meares's  claim  of  having 
"steered  in," — three  years  ahead  of  Gray.  But  if  fur  traders 
did  not  count,  then  Vancouver's  expedition  was  the  first,  and 
here  again  was  Broughton's  claim. 

"The  discovery  of  the  Columbia  is  lost  in  obscurity,"  wrote 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  247 

one  Foreign  Office  official  to  another,  in  a  private  memor- 
andum,— and  it  was.  Gray's  fur-trading  log  was  not  located 
by  the  Government  until  1817, — the  summer  the  Ontario  sailed. 
When  it  was  looked  up  through  the  ship's  owners,  an  affi- 
davit was  made  only  of  that  fortnight  of  entering  and  trading 
in  the  river,  and  the  exit.  The  Government  did  not  even 
claim  the  log, — a  mistake  as  against  Vancouver's  official,  pub- 
lished reports,  sanctioned  and  recognized  by  the  British  Gov- 
ernment. When  in  1837  tension  had  increased,  and  the  Ameri- 
can Government  searched  for  Gray's  log  again,  both  he  and 
his  wife  were  dead,  and  the  niece  to  whom  he  had  left  the 
treasure  had  used  the  log  for  wrapping  paper!  So  far  as 
Government  records  went,  there  was  plenty  of  obscurity,  and 
the  configuration  of  the  coast,  the  shape  of  that  large  bay- 
like  mouth  of  the  river,  and  the  bars,  seem  not  to  have  been 
comprehended  by  either  government  to  any  degree. 

The  sale  of  Fort  Astoria  is  too  well  known  to  need  com- 
ment, aside  from  the  fact  that  almost  invariably  there  is 
omitted  the  statement,  as  given  by  Alexander  Henry,  (in  his 
Journals,  ed.  by  Coues),  that  Wilson  Price  Hunt,  after  an 
investigation  of  the  prices  at  which  the  fort  and  furs  were  sold, 
assented  to  them  and  thus  sanctioned  the  sale.  Without  his 
approval  the  arrangements  made  by  McDougall  for  the  sale 
could  not  have  held;  so  the  charge  of  treachery  seems  quite 
unfounded  for  this,  as  well  as  for  other  reasons. 

But  with  the  war  on,  the  North  West  Company's  nudging 
of  the  British  Government,  asking  for  a  warship  to  capture 
this  post,  brought  the  matter  to  the  attention  of  Colonial 
officials  and  other  British  statesmen.  The  Americans  were 
mere  squatters  on  the  Columbia  from  the  British  point  of 
view,  and  hardly  was  the  fort  sold,  on  the  Columbia  itself, 
and  Captain  Black's  reports  sent  in  cipher  overland  to  Canada, 
and  to  London, — this  being  the  quickest  route, — than  plans 
were  being  made  to  colonize  the  North  West  Coast.  By  dis- 
covery, exploration,  trade  and  contiguity  to  Canada,  the  British 


248  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

considered  it  theirs.  It  only  remained  to  make  America  see 
reason.  Spain's  claim  had  been  practically  settled. 

On  July  4th,  1814,  William  Pitt  sent  some  notes  to  Lord 
Castlereagh1  which  he  called:  "Observations  on  a  pamphlet 
entitled,  'A  Compressed  View  of  the  Points  to  Be  Discussed 
in  Treating  with  the  United  States  of  America,'  with  supple- 
mentary remarks."  In  these  notes  Pitt  suggests  the  desira- 
bility of  a  treaty  with  Russia,  giving  her  all  north  of  58°,  (the 
entrance  to  Cross  Sound),  and  perhaps  Cross  Sound  to  the 
Frozen  Sea,  or  a  line  east  to  Mackenzie  River  from  its  mouth, 
Slave  Lake,  Slave  Lake  to  Athabasca  Lake,  and  due  west 
to  Cross  Sound.  In  this  way,  he  thought,  Russia's  territory 
would  be  convenient  to  her  Asiatic  possessions,  and  the  most 
advantageous  part  of  the  Coast  would  be  secured  to  Great 
Britain  from  58°  to  the  Columbia  at  46  degrees. 

It  has  usually  been  thought  that  the  restoration  of  Astoria 
gave  the  impetus  to  the  Columbia  as  a  line  of  demarkation, 
even  by  a  very  recent  writer.2  But  it  is  clear  that  Pitt,  if  he 
regarded  Great  Britain  as  having  full  claim  to  the  Calif ornian 
line,  did  not  intend  to  exclude  the  Americans  entirely  from 
the  Pacific  coast  line. 

Pitt's  plan  covered  the  following  points :  For  protection 
and  the  advancement  of  commerce,  and  especially  the  fur 
trade,  he  thought  there  should  be  a  line  of  internal  communica- 
tion across  the  continent.  That  there  was  one,  he  seemed  not 
to  know.  The  British  fur  traders  did  not  always  notify  their 
government  of  all  exploration  made  by  them.  At  Nootka 
Sound,  Pitt  would  plant  a  colony  of  "useful  and  industrious 
British  subjects,"  with  a  governor,  supplying  them  from  the 
Sandwich  Islands,  China,  and  New  South  Wales.  These 
colonists  were  to  form  a  Provincial  Corporation,  with  a  small 
naval  force  to  check  piracy.  Clergymen  were  to  be  sent  there 
for  the  settlers  and  missionaries  for  the  Indians.  He  refers 
to  Vancouver's  recommendations  in  Book  4,  Chap.  9.  The 
advantages  would  be:  British  commerce,  the  propagation  of 

1  F.  O.  5,  Vol.   103. 

2  Oreg.   Hist.  Quar.,  Dec.,   1918,  p.  277. 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  249 

Christianity,  and  the  general  civilization  of  extensive  and  un- 
enlightened British  possessions. 

A  week  later,  July  11,  1814,  William  Pitt  sent  a  second 
note  to  Lord  Castlereagh  on  this  matter.3 

The  reduction  of  the  navy  and  army,  he  thought,  would 
give  good  selections  for  colonists.  These  should  be  young 
men  of  the  best  character,  soldiers  and  sailors,  married,  with 
not  more  than  two  children  to  a  family.  Each  should  be 
skilled  in  some  trade  or  calling  useful  to  a  colony.  Care  must 
be  taken  in  the  selection  of  officers  for  defence,  and  for  gen- 
eral policy  of  the  colony, — married  men,  he  thought,  with 
some  property.  The  colonists  were  to  engage  in  trade,  fish- 
eries, and  commerce,  as  well  as  to  explore  the  country  and 
its  resources.  The  precedent  for  such  action  had  been  set  by 
Russia,  after  the  death  of  Peter  the  Great,  in  ascertaining  the 
resources  of  the  country  and  the  people.  Many  hints,  Pitt 
thought,  could  be  obtained  from;  the  Lewis  and  Clark  reports, 
and  from  Miiller's  report  on  the  Russian  people.  The  selec- 
tion of  colonists  should  include  some  men  of  science,  skilled 
in  natural  history,  mineralogy,  etc.  He  suggested  as  a  leader 
a  Mohawk  chief,  educated  in  Scotland,  of  high  character,  well- 
informed,  master  of  the  English  language,  an  Indian,  yet 
warmly  attached  to  Great  Britain.  Pitt  was  sure  Sir  Alex- 
ander Mackenzie,  the  North  West  Company,  and  the  Hud- 
son's Bay  Company,  would  all  aid  in  such  a  scheme. 

There  was  great  overcrowding  in  England  at  that  time,  and 
economic  suffering  was  great.  This  may  have  been  at  the 
bottom  of  Pitt's  plan;  but  nothing  seems  to  have  come  of  it. 
It  is  likely  that  the  Government  felt  more  inclined  to  aid  col- 
onists to  points  in  eastern  Canada,  where  safety  was  greater 
and  expense  much  less. 

The  Treaty  of  Ghent  was  signed  Christmas  Eve,  1814,  at 
the  little  Flemish  town  of  that  name.  The  Columbia  River 
was  not  mentioned  in  the  treaty.  Shortly  after  their  return 
from  Ghent,  Lord  Bathurst  told  Simon  McGillivray,  that  "re- 

3F.   O.   5,  Vol.    103. 


250  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

quiring  from  the  Americans  any  recognition  or  guarantee  of 
His  Majesty's  rights  thereto,  might  tend  to  cast  doubt  upon 
a  title  which  was  already  sufficiently  clear  and  incontestable." 
[See  entire  letter  below.] 

And  James  Monroe,  for  America,  had  written  to  the  pleni- 
potentaries,  under  date  of  22ndi  March,  1814,  "On  no  pretext 
can  the  British  Government  set  up  a  claim  to  territory  south 
of  the  northern  boundary  of  the  United  States.  It  is  not  be- 
lieved that  they  have  any  claim  whatever  to  territory  on  the 
Pacific  Ocean.  You  will,  however,  be  careful,  should  a  defini- 
tion of  the  boundary  be  attempted,  not  to  countenance  in  any 
manner,  or  in  any  quarter,  a  pretension  in  the  British  Govern- 
ment to  territory  south  of  that  line."3* 

So  the  road  to  difficulties  lay  wide  open.  Hardly  was  the 
ink  dry  on  that  Treaty  of  Ghent  than  John  Floyd  of  Virginia 
brought  in,  1815,  the  first  of  his  annual  bills  for  the  occupation 
of  the  Columbia.  The  bill  did  not  reach  a  third  reading.4 

That  same  year,  1815,  Admiral  Porter  was  urging  the  ex- 
ploration of  the  Pacific.5  Two  frigates,  the  Guerriere  and 
the  Java  were  to  have  been  placed  under  Porter  to  explore  the 
Pacific  and  the  North  West  Coast.  This  was  Admiral  Porter's 
own  idea,  outlined  in  a  letter  written 'to  John  Madison,  then 
President.  The  expedition  was  never  sent  out;  the  idea  was 
revived  again  in  the  late  1820s,  a  commander  and  ships  as- 
signed, but  actually  the  scheme  was  carried  out  only  in  1840 
by  Commander  Charles  Wilkes. 

But  the  race  for  the  possession  of  the  North  West  Coast 
had  begun  under  governmental  sanction.  No  longer  was  it 
merely  a  question  of  the  fur  trade. 

On  July  18th,  James  Monroe  sent  a  message  to  Anthony 
St.  John  Baker,  then  British  Charge  d'affaires  at  Washington, 
following  it  up  by  a  letter  evidently  requested  by  Baker : 
[Monroe  to  Baker]6 


3a  Bancroft,  North  West  Coast,  Vol.  2,  pp.  294-5. 
4F.  O.  5,  Vol.  157. 
5  F.  0.  5,  Vol.  157. 


6  F.  O.  5,  Vol.  \ly. 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  251 

"Department  of  State, 

"July  18th,  1815. 
"Sir, 

"It  is  represented  that  an  expedition  which  had  been  sent 
by  your  government  against  the  post  of  the  United  States 
established  on  Columbia  River  had  succeeded  in  taking  pos- 
session of  it.  By  the  first  article  of  the  Treaty  of  peace,  it  is 
stipulated  that  all  territory,  places,  and  possessions  whatso- 
ever taken  by  either  party  from  the  other  during  the  war, 
shall  be  restored  without  delay,  with  the  exception  only  of  the 
islands  on  Passamaquoddy  Bay,  which  should  remain  in  the 
possession  of  the  party  in  whose  occupation  they  then  were, 
subject  to  the  decision  provided  for  in  the  4th  article.  As  the 
post  on  the  Columbia  river  was  taken  during  the  war,  and  is 
not  within  the  exception  stipulated,  the  United  States  are  of 
course  entitled  to  its  restitution;  measures  will  therefore  be 
taken  to  occupy  it  without  delay.  It  is  probable  that  your 
Government  may  have  given  orders  for  its  restitution;  to 
prevent,  however,  any  difficulty  on  the  subject,  I  have  to  re- 
quest that  you  will  have  the  goodness  to  furnish  me  with  a 
letter  to  the  British  Commander  there  to  that  effect. 

"I  have  the  honor  to  be 

&c.,  &c.,  &c., 

James  Monroe. 

"To  Anthony  St.  John  Baker,  Esq., 
&c.,  &c.,  &c., 

The  next  day  Baker  addressed  the  following  letter  to  Lord 
Castlereagh.7 

"Washington,  July  19,  1815. 
"My  Lord— 

"Mr.  Munroe  having  requested  an  interview  with  me  at  the 
Department  of  State,  I  accordingly  waited  upon  him  at  the 
time  appointed. 

"He  stated  he  was  desirous  of  speaking  to  me  upon  one  or 
two  points,  the  first  of  which  related  to  the  establishment 

7  F.  O.  5,  Vol.  107,  No,  24. 


252  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

which  the  United  States  had  possessed  before  the  war  on  the 
Pacific  ocean  at  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  River,  but  which 
had  been  broken  up  by  a  naval  force,  sent  by  the  British  gov- 
ernment for  that  purpose.  He  conceived  that  it  fell  within 
the  meaning  of  the  first  article  of  the  Treaty  of  Ghent,  and 
ought  to  be  restored,  for  otherwise  it  would  have  been  par- 
ticularly excepted  in  the  treaty  as  had  been  the  case  with 
the  Passamaquoddy  Islands,  and  requested  to  know  whether 
I  agreed  in  that  opinion. 

"I  replied  that  I  had  not  considered  the  subject  which  was 
unexpected  by  me;  that  in  fact,  I  did  not  immediately  call  to 
mind  what  was  the  result  of  the  expedition  to  which  he  alluded, 
and  was  not  aware  that  any  persons  whatsoever  had  been  left 
upon  the  spot  who  could  affect  the  restoration  required,  should 
the  case  be  thought  to  come  under  the  treaty,  but  that  I  was 
ignorant  of  any  transaction  between  the  two  Governments 
which  recognized  the  claim  of  the  United  States  to  any  part 
of  the  coast  of  the  Pacific  ocean. 

"He  did  not  state  the  foundation  on  which  the  claim  to  this 
territory  rested  insisting  merely  upon  the  fact  of  its  having 
been  captured  from  the  United  States  during  the  war  which 
brought  it  within  the  Treaty  *  *  *"  [Omission  on  the 
fishery  question.] 

"Mr.  Munroe  *  *  *  led  me  to  expect  that  he  would 
make  a  written  communication  *  *  *  relative  to  the  re- 
storation of  the  settlement  on  the  Columbia  River  *  *  * 
[Omissions  on  fisheries.] 


"P.  S.  Since  writing  the  above,  I  have  received  Mr.  Mun- 
roe's  letter  relative  to  the  restoration  of  the  settlement  on 
Columbia  River,  a  copy  of  which  I  beg  leave  to  enclose.  It 
is  my  intention  in  my  reply  to  refer  him  to  Rear  Admiral 
Dixon,  who  commands  in  those  seas. 

A.  B." 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  253 

Five  days  later,  Baker  sent  the  following  answer  to  Secre- 
tary Munroe:8 

"Washington,  July  23,  1815. 
"Sir: 

"I  have  had  the  honor  to  receive  your  letter  of  the  18th 
instant  acquainting  me  that  it  had  been  represented  to  the 
American  government  that  a  British  force  sent  for  that  pur- 
pose had  succeeded  in  taking  possession  of  the  United  States 
establishments  on  Columbia  River,  and  claiming  its  restora- 
tion under  the  words  of  the  1st  article  of  the  Treaty,  upon 
the  ground  of  its  having  been  captured  during  the  War ;  stat- 
ing likewise  that  His  Majesty's  Government  may  have  given 
orders  for  its  restitution,  but  requesting  with  a  view  to  pre- 
vent any  difficulty  on  the  subject,  that  I  would  furnish  a  letter 
to  that  effect  to  the  British  Commander  there.  As  I  have  re- 
ceived no  communication  on  the  subject  of  these  orders  from 
His  Majesty's  Government,  you  will  readily,  I  am  convinced, 
perceive  the  unpracticability  of  my  forwarding  a  letter  of  this 
nature ;  and  although  it  is  believed  that  the  post  in  question  has 
been  captured  (of  which,  however,  the  American  Government 
does  not  appear  to  have  any  certain  information  on  which  to 
ground  the  claim  of  restitution)  yet  another  point  equally  es- 
sential remains  in  great  uncertainty,  viz :  whether  any  persons 
whatsoever  were  left  to  retain  possession  of  it.  My  impres- 
sion is  that  the  establishment  was  broken  up,  and  the  persons 
found  there  brought  away.  Vice  Admiral  Dixon,  however, 
the  Commander  in  Chief  of  His  Majesty's  Naval  Forces  on 
the  Brazil  Station,  within  whose  command  the  Pacific  Ocean 
is  included,  is  no  doubt  in  possession  of  every  necessary  infor- 
mation in  relation  to  this  post,  and  will  be  able  to  communicate 
on  the  subject  with  any  authorized  agent  on  the  behalf  of  the 
United  States  *  *  *  [Omissions  on  other  subjects.] 

Baker  also  wrote,  on  July  24th,  1815,  to  Vice- Admiral  Man- 
ley  Dixon,  in  charge  of  the  Pacific;  and  another  letter  went 
post  haste  to  Sir  Gordon  Drummond,  Governor  of  Canada, 

8F.  O.  5,  Vol.  107. 


254  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

asking  him  for  information  which  might  be  secured  from  the 
North  West  Company.  The  inquiry  went  to  William  McGil- 
livray,  but  his  brother  Simon  happened  to  be  in  Canada,  hav- 
ing just  arrived  from  England  (see  letter  below,  dated  New 
York,  November  15,  1817,)  and  together  the  Nor'westers 
made  their  answer.  A  copy  (checked  against  the  dateless 
original)  with  a  subsequent  note  from  Simon  McGillivray, 
dated  March  23rd,  1822,  is  used. 

The  explanatory  note  is  given  first,  then  the  report  of  1815  :9 

"Appendix 
"The  Statement  of  which  the  following  is  a  Copy  was  drawn 

up  at  Montreal  in  1815,  at  the  request  of  Sir  Gordon  Drum- 
mond,  who  had  been  applied  to  by  the  British  Charge 
d' Affaires  at  Washington  for  information  on  the  subject  of 
the  settlement  at  the  Columbia  River  for  it  seems  that  even 
at  that  early  period  the  American  Government  took  a  very 
different  view  of  the  case  from  that  which  has  been  expressed 
by  Lord  Bathurst  and  from  the  ulterior  measures  of  Govern- 
ment it  is  evident  that  they  (the  Americans)  have  carried  their 
point  as  far  as  the  restitution  of  Fort  George. 

"The  opinion  given  by  Lord  Bathurst  and  by  Mr.  Gouldburn 
after  the  ratification  of  the  Treaty  of  Ghent  are  perfectly  in 
my  recollection,  but  it  is  of  little  use  now  to  refer  to  them 
further  than  to  show  how  the  American  Government  succeeds 
in  establishing  points  and  obtaining  concessions. 

(Signed)   Simon  McGillivray." 

London,  23rd  March,  1822." 

"Appendix 

"Statement  relative  to  the  Columbia  River  and  adjoining 
Territory  on  the  Western  Coast  of  the  Continent  of  North 
America.  [1815] 

"The  claim  of  Great  Britain  to  the  Sovereignty  of  a  con- 
siderable part  of  the  Northwest  Coast  of  America  was  orig- 


9C.    O.    6.    Vol. 
enclosure,  found  in  F 


6.      Original    was    taken    from    its    place    and    used    as    an 
•  O.  5,  Vol.   123.     Checked  against  the  duplicate  used. 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  25  S 

inally  founded  from  rights  derived  from  the  Discovery  of  the 
Country  by  Sir  Francis  Drake  who  in  the  reign  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  visited  the  Northern  part  of  California  which  coun- 
try he  called  New  Albion,  and  of  which  he  took  possession 
in  the  name  of  his  Sovereign.  Since  that  time  the  claim  has 
never  been  relinquished  although  the  Spaniards  have  been 
allowed  to  encroach  upon  the  country  in  question,  by  extending 
their  settlements  to  the  Northward  of  the  place  whereof  Drake 
had  taken  possession,  yet  still  the  Country  situated  to  the 
Northward  of  the  Spanish  Setlements  was  always  claimed  by 
Great  Britain  and  the  claim  was  tacitly  admitted  if  not  pub- 
lickly  recognized. 

"This  early  right  of  discovery  is,  however,  important  only 
in  a  discussion  of  claims  with  Spain;  for  as  to  any  claim 
which  may  be  set  up  by  the  United  States  of  America,  it  will 
be  easy  to  find  rights  prior  to  theirs  without  going  back  fur- 
ther than  the  Reign  of  his  present  Majesty.  Captain  Cook's 
repeated  visits  to  that  Coast  and  his  taking  renewed  posses- 
sion thereof  in  His  Majesty's  Name  before  the  Americans 
became  an  independent  people,  is  surely  a  sufficient  title 
against  them,  and  the  occurrences  at  Nootka  Sound  in  1789 
and  the  Armament  against  Spain  in  consequence  of  the  ag- 
gressions committed  upon  British  Subjects  on  that  Coast,  af- 
ford ample  proof  that  the  possession  thus  taken  was  not  meant 
to  be  merely  a  nominal  possession  but  it  was  considered  by 
the  Government  of  that  day  a  matter  of  such  importance  as 
to  afford  a  sufficient  cause  for  going  to  war  with  Spain.10 

"Subsequent  rights  of  Discovery,  also  prior  to  any  that  can 
be  claimed  by  the  United  States  may  be  adduced  as  a  further 
confirmation,  if  any  were  wanting,  of  the  Title  of  Great  Britain 
to  the  Territory  in  question.  In  the  year  1792  Sir  Alexander 
McKenzie,  then  a  Partner  of  the  North  West  Company,  ex- 
plored the  Country  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  was  the 
first  who  penetrated  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  He  also  took  pos- 

10  [Note  by  McGillivray] :  Reference  may  be  particularly  had  to  the  negotia- 
tion upon  that  subject  with  the  court  of  Madrid  m  the  year  1790  and  the  con- 
vention of  28th  October  of  that  year,  which  was  the  result  of  these  negotiations 
and  of  the  armament  referred  to. 


256  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

session  of  the  Country  in  the  name  of  his  Sovereign,  and  pre- 
viously, in  1791  [1792],  Captain  Vancouver  had  surveyed  the 
Coast  and  the  River  Columbia  from  its  mouth  to  the  falls, 
which  are  200  Miles  from  the  Sea.  Soon  after  Sir  Alexander 
McKenzie's  Voyages,  the  North  West  Company  established 
Trading  posts  in  the  Country  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains 
and  upon  the  head  Waters  of  the  Columbia  River.  So  that 
besides  the  repeated  Acts  of  taking  formal  possession,  British 
Subjects  have  for  above  Twenty  Years  been  in  actual  posses- 
sion  of  the  Interior  of  the  Country  in  question  and  have 
maintained  the  same  uninterruptedly. 

"It  was  only  about  two  years  ago  that  the  Government  of 
the  United  States  began  to  set  up  pretensions11  to  the  North 
West  Coast;  for  until  after  their  purchase  of  Louisiana  from 
Bonaparte  they  had  never  possessed  or  had  even  claimed  any 
Territory  to  the  Westward  of  the  Missisippi ;  but  upon  mak- 
ing the  purchase  of  the  Province  of  Louisiana  and  finding 
that  its  Geographical  Boundaries  to  the  Northward  and  West- 
ward had  never  been  expressly  limited  or  defined,  they  im- 
mediately took  advantage  of  this  circumstance  to  claim  Bound- 
aries as  extensive  and  indefinite  as  possible;  and  without 
waiting  to  have  the  'matter  of  right  investigated  or  ascertained 
they  hastened  to  take  possession  of  the  Country  so  claimed  by 
them,  intending  doubtless  when  they  once  had  taken  posses- 
sion to  maintain  it  whether  right  or  wrong.  With  a  view, 
therefore,  to  extend  their  territorial  claims  across  the  Conti- 
nent to  the  Pacific  Ocean  and  establish  a  communication 
therewith  through  the  Rivers  Mississourie  and  Columbia,  the 
American  Government  in  the  year  1806  [1803]  fitted  out  an 
expedition  to  explore  the  Country  under  the  Command  of 
Captains  Lewis  and  Clarke,  who  proceeded  to  the  head  of  the 
River  Mississourie  thence  across  the  Rocky  Mountains  to 
the  River  Columbia  and  so  down  to  the  mouth  of  that  River 
from  whence  they  returned  [1806]  by  the  same  route. 

ii  Throughout  this  diplomatic  correspondence,  pretensions  is  used  with  the 
meaning  of  claim,  not  with  the  more  sinister  meaning  now  more  usually  at- 
tached to  it. 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  257 

"In  order  to  give  the  Expedition  as  much  as  possible  the 
Air  of  a  Voyage  of  Discovery,  and  to  make  it  appear  as  if 
they  were  exploring  and  taking  possession  of  an  unknown 
Country,  though  in  fact  the  Country  in  the  Interior  was  well 
known  to  the  Traders  from  Canada,  the  Americans  as  they 
went  along,  bestowed  new  Names  on  Rivers,  Mountains,  &c., 
such  as  Jefferson's  River,  Madison's  River,  and  so  forth,  for- 
getting or  affecting  to  forget  that  the  Columbia  River  had 
already  been  surveyed  by  Captain  Vancouver  and  that  a  route 
across  the  Continent  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  had  already  been 
traversed  by  Sir  Alexander  McKenzie,  both  of  whom  as  well 
as  Captain  Cook,  had  taken  possession  of  the  Country  in  the 
name  of  His  Majesty  as  hereinbefore  mentioned. 

"Uniting  this  project  of  the  extension  of  Territory,  with 
another  favorite  object,  the  obtaining  possession  of  the  Fur 
Trade,  and  detaching  the  Indian  Nations  from  their  partiality 
to  the  British  and  Canadian  Traders,  the  American  Govern- 
ment, soon  after  the  return  of  Captains  Lewis  and  Clarke, 
established  a  Chartered  Company  at  New  York  to  prosecute 
the  Fur  Trade  of  this  New  Country  under  the  name  of  the 
Pacific  Fur  Company  at  the  head  of  which  was  Mr.  John 
Jacob  Astor  of  New  York  and  this  Pacific  Fur  Company 
commenced  their  operations  in  the  Summer  of  1810,  when 
Ships  were  sent  to  the  Coast,  a  Fort  Built  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Columbia  River,  the  Country  taken  possession  of  as  Ameri- 
can Territory,  and  named  Astoria  and  the  rights  of  Great 
Britain  disregarded. 

"Representations  upon  this  subject  were  from  time  to  time 
made  to  His  Majesty's  Government  by  the  North  West  Com- 
pany's representatives  in  London.  Upon  this  subject  they 
have  had  the  honor  of  conferring  with  several  of  His  Majesty's 
Ministers12  at  different  times  and  they  all  expressed  their 
opinion  that  the  country  in  question  belongs  of  right  to  Great 
Britain  and  that  the  United  States  had  no  just  claim  whatever 

12  [iMote  by  McGillivray] :  The  ministers  particularly  alluded  to  as  having 
given  decided  opinions  on  the  subject  are  the  Earl  of  Harrowly,  the  Marquis  of 
Wiellesley,  Lord  Viscount  Castlereagh,  Earl  Bathurst,  Mr.  George  Rose,  etc  , 
etc.,  etc. 


258  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

to  the  possession  of  it,  but  still  no  measures  were  for  some 
time  adopted  by  Government  to  interfere  with  their  then  new 
Establishment  at  the  Columbia  River,  and  this  forbearance 
may  be  imputed  to  the  following  causes,  viz.  viz.  1st.  The 
object  was  remote  and  possibly  considered  of  less  importance 
than  it  would  have  been  under  different  circumstances.  The 
Country  was  engaged  in  War  with  numerous  and  powerful 
Enemies  and  Government  was  doubtless  unwilling  to  add  to 
their  number  by  quarrelling  with  America  or  adding  to  the 
causes  of  quarrel  already  existing. 

"The  North  West  Company  had  in  the  meantime  extended 
their  Trading  Posts  across  the  Mountains  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean,  and  it  became  necessary  to  send  their  people  Supplies 
by  Sea  from  England,  but  they  had  previously  applied  to 
Government  for  a  Charter  or  Grant  of  the  Trade  of  the  Coun- 
try to  be  thus  supplied,  and  to  the  East  India  Company  for 
permission  to  carry  its  produce  to  China,  and  thus  Two  Years 
were  occupied  by  these  applications  and  preparatory  arrange- 
ments. 

"This  was  the  state  of  matters  at  the  commencement  of  the 
late  War  with  the  United  States,  when  at  length  Government 
resolved  to  interfere  in  the  matter.  The  American  Company 
was  in  possession  of  a  Fort  or  Trading  Post  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Columbia  river  and  also  of  some  Posts  in  the  Interior. 
The  North  West  Company  had  established  several  Posts  in 
the  Interior,  and  had  sent  a  party  to  proceed  to  the  Coast  in 
the  summer  of  1813,  to  meet  a  Ship  with  Supplies  from  Eng- 
land which  was  fitted  out  in  the  fall  of  1812,  and  which  must 
have  proceeded  on  her  destination  even  without  the  protection 
which  Government  afterwards  granted  but  ultimately  the  pro- 
tection sought  was  obtained. 

"The  Phoebe  frigate  and  the  Cherub  and  Raccoon  Sloops  of 
War  were  sent  around  Cape  Horn  and  the  Raccoon  was  sent 
to  the  Columbia,  to  destroy  the  American  Establishment  and 
to  take  possession  of  the  Country  as  British  Territory.  From 
the  detention  which  had  occurred  in  the  sailing  of  this  Expedi- 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  259 

tion  from  England,  their  arrival  at  the  Columbia  was  much 
later  than  had  been  contemplated,  and  [than]  arranged  with 
the  North  West  Company's  people  who  had  proceeded  to 
meet  them  from  the  Interior  and  who  reached  the  Sea 
in  August,  1913,  while  the  Raccoon  did  not  make  her 
appearance  until  the  month  of  December  following,  and 
the  North  West  Company's  ship  the  Isaac  Todd  not  until  April, 
1814.  The  People  from  the  Interior  therefore  despairing  of 
the  arrival  of  their  expected  Supplies  and  Support  by  Sea, 
found  it  necessary  to  make  the  best  arrangement  in  their 
power  with  the  people  whom  they  found  in  possession  of  the 
Country.  Many  of  these  though  Partners  or  Servants  of  the 
Pacific  Fur  Company  were  British  subjects  and  would  not 
fight  against  their  Country,  and  learning  of  the  American  War 
inclined  them  to  change  sides.  The  Americans  were  not  suf- 
ficiently strong  to  defend  their  Fort  in  the  event  of  this  defec- 
tion taking  place,  and  they  were  under  apprehensions  from 
the  expected  arrival  of  the  Men  of  War.  The  result  was  an 
arrangement  by  which  the  Americans  agreed  to  retire  from 
the  Country  and  to  sell  the  Goods  which  they  had  at  their  Fort 
which  the  North  West  Company's  people  purchased,  and  thus 
when  the  Raccoon  appeared  in  December,  1813,  she  found 
the  place  in  possession  of  Friends  and  her  Officers  were  not 
a  little  disappointed  in  their  hopes  of  prize  Money.  Captain 
Black  of  the  Raccoon  once  more  took  formal  possession  of 
the  Country  in  His  Majesty's  name  and  called  the  principal 
post  Fort  George,  under  which  name  it  is  now  held  by  the 
North  West  Company. 

"It  is  evident  from  this  statement  that  Fort  George  is  not 
a  Conquest  the  restoration  of  which  the  American  Govern- 
ment are  entitled  to  claim  under  the  1st  Article  of  the  late 
Treaty,  nor  could  it  have  been  so  considered  by  the  f ramers  of 
that  Treaty  for  one  of  the  representatives  of  the  North  West 
Company  had  the  honor  of  .an  interview  with  Lord  Bathurst 
on  the  subject  after  the  ratification  of  the  Treaty  was  known 
and  not  long  after  Mr.  Gouldburn's  return  from  Ghent ;  when 
his  Lordship  declared  decidedly  that  the  Country  in  question 


260  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

was  not  considered  as  a  Conquest  to  be  restored  under  the 
Treaty,  but  as  a  British  Territory  to  which  the  Americans  had 
no  just  claim,  and  the  reason  which  his  Lordship  assigned  for 
this  country  not  being  mentioned  in  the  Treaty  was,  that,  re- 
quiring from  the  Americans  any  recognition  or  guarantee  of 
His  Majesty's  rights  thereto  might  tend  to  cast  doubt  upon  a 
Title  which  was  already  sufficiently  clear  and  incontestable." 

The  many  mistakes  in  the  above  report,  both  as  to  facts  and 
dates,  are  no  greater,  if  as  great,  as  those  made  in  speeches  in 
the  American  congress.  On  both  sides  they  indicate  the  lack 
of  knowledge  prevailing  and  the  resulting  confusion. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON— VI 

By  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE,  Ph.D. 

CHAPTER  XII 

TERRITORIAL  ORGANIZATION 

From  all  outward  appearances  there  was  nothing  to  prevent 
the  Twenty-ninth  Congress  from  proceeding  to  the  comple- 
tion of  the  work  for  Oregon  when  it  convened  in  its  second 
session  in  December,  1846.  While  it  was  expected  that  there 
might  be  some  angry  reverberations  from  the  storm  of  the 
previous  session,  no  repetition  of  that  hurricane  could  occur 
for  the  question  of  the  boundary  was  permanently  settled.  It 
now  remained  for  Congress  to  make  those  customary  provi- 
sions for  territorial  organization,  surveys  and  land  disposi- 
tion, Indian  regulation  and  the  like  which  had  so  often  been 
before  Congress  with  other  portions  of  the  public  domain.  To 
this  end  Polk  included  in  his  second  Annual  Message  a  brief 
recommendation  calling  attention  to  the  remaining  needs  of 
Oregon.1  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  also  mentioned  the 
desirability  of  extending  the  revenue  laws  of  the  United  States 
to  Oregon  for,  as  he  pointed  out,  there  might  easily  be  inaug- 
urated an  illegitimate  trade  in  goods  from  the  Orient  and 
elsewhere  which  would  affect  the  more  settled  portions  of  the 
Union.  He  also  adverted  to  the  advisability  of  land  grants ; 
"with  a  system  of  liberal  donation  of  tracts  of  land  in  Oregon 
sufficient  for  farms  to  settlers  and  emigrants,  this  highly  inter- 
esting portion  of  the  Union  would  soon  contain  a  considerable 
population ;  and  near  and  convenient  as  it  is  to  Asia,  its  com- 
merce would  rapidly  increase,  and  large  revenue  accrue  to  the 
Government."2 

The  Indian  Commissioner,  in  his  report  to  the  treasury  de- 
partment, pointed  out  the  exposed  condition  of  the  American 
citizens  in  Oregon.  He  mentioned  the  fact  that  the  trade  rela- 
tions of  these  Indians  of  the  Northwest  were  chiefly  with  the 


1  Globe,  XVI,  10. 

2  Niles  Register,  g  Dec.  1846. 


262  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

Hudson's  Bay  Company,  and  since  there  was  intercourse  be- 
tween the  bands  of  natives  north  and  south  of  49°  it  would 
be  very  easy  for  persons  inimical  to  the  United  States  to 
excite  them  to  hostility  towards  Americans.  In  view  of  con- 
ditions the  department,  soon  after  the  adjournment  of  Con- 
gress the  previous  summer,  had  assumed  the  responsibility  of 
appointing  as  subagent  of  Indian  affairs  an  American  citizen 
resident  in  Oregon.3  This  gentleman  had  been  instructed  to 
visit  the  different  bands  and  endeavor  to  promote  a  feeling  of 
friendship  toward  the  United  States  and  its  citizens. 

President  Polk,  in  framing  his  Message,  had  also  had  in 
mind  a  recommendation  that  Congress  provide  for  the  survey 
and  marking  of  the  boundary  between  the  possessions  of  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States,  but  he  had  stricken  out  this 
paragraph  on  the  advice  of  Buchanan,  who  told  him  it  would 
revive  another  heated  discussion  of  the  international  issue. 
Moreover,  Buchanan  added,  it  was  well  to  recall  the  long 
delay  and  great  expense  of  surveying  the  Northeastern 
boundary,  for  similar  conditions  might  arise  in  the  North- 
west.4 

Folk's  recommendation  for  territorial  organization  was  re- 
ferred to  the  appropriate  committees  of  each  house  and  at 
an  early  date  bills  were  reported.  In  the  Senate,  Breese,  and 
in  the  House,  Douglas,  for  the  Committee  on  Territories, 
brought  in  measures  for  extending  the  laws  of  the  United 
States  over  Oregon  and  for  creating  a  territorial  government. 

The  House  took  action  first,  on  the  eleventh  of  January.5 
The  bill,  in  the  ordinary  form,  was  provocative  of  discussion 
on  two  grounds ;  the  franchise  in  the  territory  and  slavery. 
The  Committee  bill  extended  to  all  free  male  white  inhabitants 
of  Oregon,  over  the  age  of  twenty  years,  who  had  been  resi- 
dents of  the  territory  at  the  time  of  the  passage  of  the  act,  the 
right  to  vote  in  the  first  election  and  to  be  eligible  for  office; 

3  Ibid.,  8  Jan.,   1847.     Elijah  White  had  nreviously  resigned.     See  chapter  IV 
above  and  chapter  XIII  below. 

4  Polk,  Diary,  II,  254.     Walker  thought  this  a  reflection  on  him  as  a  relative  of 
his  had  been  connected  with  the  Maine  survey. 

5  Globe,  XVII,  1 66  seq. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  263 

after  the  election  qualifications  both  for  voting  and  for  office 
holding  were  to  be  fixed  by  the  Legislative  Assembly.  W.  W. 
Campbell,  a  Native  American  of  New  York,  moved  to  insert 
in  the  proper  place  the  words  "who  is  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States."  After  some  discussion  an  amendment  suggested  by 
Douglas  was  adopted  as  clearing  up  the  difficulty:  to  the 
original  provision  was  added  the  proviso,  "that  the  right  of 
suffrage  shall  be  exercised  only  by  citizens  of  the  United 
States  and  those  who  shall  have  declared  on  oath,  before  some 
court  of  record,  their  intention  to  become  such,  and  shall  have 
taken  an  oath  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
and  the  provisions  of  this  act." 

The  slavery  issue  was  not  so  easily  disposed  of.  It  was 
well  understood  that  the  war  with  Mexico  would  not  leave 
the  territorial  situation  of  the  United  States  as  it  had  been 
before  the  outbreak  of  hostilities ;  furthermore,  the  region  be- 
tween the  Rockies  and  the  first  belt  of  States  west  of  the 
Mississippi  was  already  offering  attractions  to  pioneer  spirits 
who  would  carry  with  them  their  accustomed  institutions 
and  ideas.  That  particular  portion  of  the  slavery  discussion 
and  resultant  legislation  which  ended  with  the  Compromise 
measures  of  1850  may  be  said  to  have  started  with  the  debate 
on  the  Oregon  Territory  in  the  winter  of  1846-7.  As  the  bill 
for  Oregon's  organization  was  being  read  to  the  House  James 
Thompson,  a  Pennsylvania  Democrat,  desired  to  know  whether 
an  amendment  suggested  by  him  relative  to  slavery  had  been 
included.  Douglas  read  the  12th  section  which  he  thought 
would  satisfy  the  query : 

"The  inhabitants  of  said  territory  shall  be  entitled  to  enjoy 
all  and  singular  the  rights,  privileges  and  advantages 
granted  and  secured  to  the  people  of  the  territory  of  the 
United  States  northwest  of  the  Ohio  river,  by  the  articles 
of  compact  contained  in  the  ordinance  for  the  government 
of  said  territory,  on  the  13th  day  of  July,  1787;  and  shall 
be  subject  to  all  the  conditions,  and  restrictions,  and  prohibi- 
tions in  said  articles  of  compact  imposed  on  the  people  of 
said  territory." 


264  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

This  provision,  said  Douglas,  was  in  harmony  with  the 
terms  of  the  provisional  constitution  which  the  people  of  Ore- 
gon had  adopted. 

Stevens  Adams  of  Mississippi,  a  Democrat,  when  this  article 
was  under  consideration,  proposed  as  a  proviso: 

"That  nothing  in  relation  to  slavery  in  this  act  shall  be 

construed  as  an  intention  to  interfere  with  the  provisions  or 

spirit  of  the  Missouri  Compromise;  but  the  same  is  hereby 

recognized  as  extending  to  all  territory  which  may  hereafter 

be  acquired  by  the  United  States." 

Objection  was  made  to  this  because  it  applied  to  territory 
other  than  that  under  consideration  in  the  bill.  Hannibal  Ham- 
lin  of  Maine  objected  to  the  introduction  of  the  question  of 
slavery  at  all  while  discussing  the  Oregon  bill.  He  contended 
that  the  Missouri  Compromise  had  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  Oregon;  when  the  matter  of  slavery  had  come  up  with 
the  annexation  of  Texas  Congress  had  been  told  that  the  law 
of  heaven  prevented  slavery  in  part  of  that  State,  yet  when  it 
came  into  the  Union  slavery  existed  in  every  part  of  it.  "It 
was  time  now,"  he  said,  "that  it  should  be  fully  understood; 
that  the  resolution  had  been  taken,  that  there  should  be  no 
more  slave  territory  admitted  into  the  Union  or  suffered  to 
exist  there." 

Adams  withdrew  his  amendment  but  Burt,  of  South  Caro- 
lina, proposed  to  insert  at  the  place  where  there  was  reference 
to  the  slavery  provision  of  the  Northwest  Ordinance  the  words : 
"inasmuch  as  the  whole  of  the  said  territory  lies  north  of 
36°  30'  north  latitude,  known  as  the  line  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise."  He  supported  his  amendment  with  an  examina- 
tion of  the  whole  question  of  the  Northwest  Ordinance  which 
he  said  was  in  violation  of  the  terms  of  the  Virginia  cession, 
the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  the  rights  of  the  South  under 
the  Constitution  to  which  the  Compromise  added  nothing. 
Some  of  his  southern  friends,  he  said,  doubted  the  wisdom  of 
submitting  the  amendment  at  that  moment,  but  if  the  South 
failed  to  raise  her  voice  at  that  time  it  would  never  again 
have  an  opportunity  and  another  precedent  to  her  disadvan- 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  265 

tage  would  have  been  made.  The  language  of  the  gentlemen 
from  the  West  and  from  New  England,  he  continued,  was 
plain  enough  that  the  South  must  move  then  or  not  at  all.7 
Pettit,  of  Indiana,  took  issue  with  him  on  the  power  of  the 
United  States  over  territories  which,  he  contended,  was  sov- 
ereign. The  South  was  not  ready  to  answer  to  Burt's  call; 
the  amendment  was  lost  after  little  discussion  by  a  close  vote. 
Further  consideration  in  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  House 
resulted  in  minor  changes  only,  except  that  the  recommenda- 
tion of  the  Committee  on  Territories  for  a  grant  of  one  section 
per  township  for  educational  purposes  was  increased  to  two. 
When  the  bill  was  reported  to  the  House  it  was  adopted  as  it 
stood  although  Burt  made  another  attempt  to  have  his  amend- 
ment included.  The  final  vote,  however,  had  not  been  taken 
before  the  Wilmot  Proviso  and  all  that  it  implied  had  been 
brought  before  the  House.  Leake  of  Virginia  had  stated  the 
position  of  the  South:  twice  the  South  had  been  cheated  by 
compromises,  once  in  1820  and  again  in  1833  (on  the  tariff), 
and  now  the  House  had  deliberately  rejected  Burt's  amend- 
rent  the  adoption  of  which  would  have  shown  the  good  faith 
of  the  North.  By  refusing  to  allow  all  mention  of  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise  in  the  Oregon  bill  it  was  obvious  that  there 
was  shown  the  same  spirit  which  had  produced  the  Wilmot 
Proviso,  and  it  must  all  be  looked  upon  as  an  Ultimatum,  not 
a  Protocol,  of  the  North.  In  that  case,  said  Leake,  it  was 
well  for  the  North  to  hear  the  Ultimatum  of  the  South :  if  the 
Wilmot  proviso  should  be  engrafted  upon  any  legislation  as  a 
part  of  a  permanent  policy,  "They  (the  Northerners)  will 
have  put  the  South  to  the  exercise  of  those  reserved  rights 
guaranteed  by  the  Constitution,  and  which  have  not  been  and 
which  shall  not  be  wrested  from  us.  We  cannot,  we  will  not, 
we  ought  not,  to  submit  to  it.  You  have  put  us  on  the  de- 
fensive and  we  will  defend!  For  the  fraternal  bond  that  has 
hitherto  connected  us,  you  will  have  substituted  the  chain  of 
despotism:  we  will  sever  it.  By  making  us  feel  the  union  only 

7  Globe,  XVII,   178-9;  Appendix,   116-7. 


266  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

through  its  oppressions,  you  will  have  driven  us  to  the  neces- 
sity of  withdrawing  from  it,  in  order  to  avoid  its  despotism. 
By  interfering  with  the  rights  of  property,  you  will  have  driven 
us  to  the  necessity  of  withdrawing  it  from  your  grasp."8 

Leake  was  supported  by  Rhett  of  South  Carolina  and  was 
opposed  by  Thurman  of  Ohio  who  flatly  stated  the  point  of 
view  of  the  North  as  this :  while  not  agreeing  with  the  abol- 
itionists, both  Whigs  and  Democrats  of  the  North  believed 
that  the  Federal  Government  had  supreme  power  over  the  ter- 
ritories, and  through  that  government  he  and  his  colleagues 
were  going  to  oppose  the  extension  of  slavery.  Hamlin  also 
reiterated  this  sentiment  and  said  that  each  side  might  as  well 
know  where  it  stood;  the  North  proposed  that  no  territory 
then  free,  nor  any  territory  subsequently  added  to  the  Union, 
should  be  slave.  He,  for  one,  was  in  favor  of  a  declaratory 
law  (like  the  Wilmot  Proviso)  to  that  effect. 

The  vote  on  the  passage  of  the  Oregon  bill  was  133  to  35 
in  its  favor.  Of  the  negative  votes  two  came  from  the  North 
(one  Whig  and  one  Native  American)  ;  the  other  thirty- 
three  from  the  South  were  cast  by  twelve  Whigs  and  twenty- 
one  Democrats,  but  a  considerable  number  of  the  southern 
Representatives  would  not  vote.9 

The  Senate  referred  the  House  bill  to  the  Committee  on 
Judiciary  which  retained  it  until  the  twenty-fifth  of  January.10 
It  was  then  reported  out  with  amendments,  and  on  the  twenty- 
ninth  recommitted  that  some  errors  might  be  corrected.  On 
the  last  day  of  the  session  Mr.  Allen  called  up  the  bill,  and, 
when  objection  was  made  on  account  of  the  many  important 
measures  which  would  have  to  be  neglected  if  it  should  be 
taken  up,  declared  that  he  understood  the  scheme.  The  interest 
in  the  Northwest  was  at  that  moment  the  weakest  of  the  three 
interests  in  the  Union;  it  was  overshadowed  by  the  Northeast 
and  the  South,  both  of  which  conspired  to  check  action.  The 


8  Leake  in  Globe,  XVII,  188;  Appen.,   111-3;   Rhett,  Appen.,  214-7;  Thurman, 
188-90;  Hamlin,   195-7. 
9.  Ibid     197. 
10  Ibid.,  199,  246,  283,  570. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  267 

two  old  wings  were  overshadowing  the  new  center,  and  this 
could  be  seen  by  examining  every  vote  taken  since  1820 ;  "the 
old  North  and  the  old  South  dreaded  the  power  of  the  new 
center,  and  so  were  willing  to  let  Oregon  become  independ- 
ent." Allen's  efforts,  however,  could  produce  no  action  and 
after  a  little  desultory  discussion  of  the  House  suffrage  amend- 
ment which  Huntingdon  (Connecticut)  and  Webster  looked 
upon  as  a  dangerous  innovation,  the  bill  was  tabled  and  so 
killed. 

The  vote  on  tabling  was  twenty-six  to  eighteen.  Fifteen 
of  those  who  wished  to  postpone  action  were  from  slave 
States,  while  six  of  the  eighteen  in  favor  of  immediate  action 
also  came  from  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  As  such 
the  vote  does  not  reveal  very  much,  but  if  the  personnel  of 
the  northern  Senators  who  voted  to  table  the  bill  is  considered 
a  little  more  light  is  afforded.  Gilley  (N.  H.)  and  Wood- 
bridge  (Mich.)  were  the  two  northern  Democrats  who  voted 
to  table;  the  Whigs  were  Clayton  (Del.),  Davis  and  Webster 
(Mass.),  Evans  (Me.),  Greene  and  Simmons  (R.  I.),  Hunt- 
ington  (Conn.),  Miller  (N.  Y.),  and  Upham  (Vt.).  When 
one  considers  the  course  of  the  Whigs  during  the  crisis  of 
1848-50,  their  attempt  to  prevent  a  break  by  framing  compro- 
mises, one  can  find  in  this  list  of  names  something  which 
affords  an  explanation  of  their  vote  on  the  Oregon  bill  in 
1847.  All  but  one  of  those  who  voted  against  tabling  were 
Democrats;  this  group  also  included  all  the  western  Senators 
except  Woodbridge  of  Michigian  and  the  two  from  Kentucky. 

The  Senate  action  must  also  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of 
the  resolutions  introduced  by  Calhoun  on  the  nineteenth  of 
February.11  While  these  were  applicable  prospectively  and 
looked  rather  to  the  territory  held  and  about  to  be  acquired 
in  the  Southwest  rather  than  in  Oregon,  it  was  necessary  to 
make  the  principle  apply  to  all  if  it  would  have  any  force; 
and  so,  in  the  light  of  this  declaration  of  principles,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  see  that  the  supporters  of  the  "peculiar  institution" 

ii  Ibid.,   445. 


268  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPER 

were  unwilling  that  a  decisive  step  should  be  taken  with  Ore- 
gon. "The  territories  of  the  United  States  belong  to  the  sev- 
eral States  composing  this  Union,"  read  the  resolutions,  "and 
are  held  in  common  by  them  as  their  joint  and  common  prop- 
erty" ;  no  discrimination  between  the  States  could  be  made  by 
Congress,  their  common  agent,  so  that  any  State  should  be 
deprived  of  its  full  and  equal  rights  in  any  territory,  acquired 
or  to  be  acquired. 

"The  enactment  of  any  law  which  should  directly,  or  by 
its  effects,  deprive  the  citizens  of  any  of  the  States  of  this 
Union  from  emigrating,  with  their  property,  into  any  of  the 
territories  of  the  United  States,  will  make  such  discrimina- 
tion, and  would  therefore  be  a  violation  of  the  Constitution, 
and  the  rights  of  the  States  from  which  such  citizens  emi- 
grated, and  in  derogation  of  that  perfect  equality  which 
belongs  to  them  as  members  of  this  Union,  and  would  tend 
directly  to  subvert  the  Union  itself." 

Moreover,  Calhoun  went  on  to  state  in  his  declaration  of 
faith,  it  was  a  fundamental  principle  of  the  American  political 
creed  that  a  people  has  the  right  to  form  that  sort  of  a  gov- 
ernment which  seems  best  adapted  to  its  needs;  this  principle 
is  embodied  in  the  Constitution,  consequently  any  attempt  on 
the  part  of  Congress  to  place  upon  a  people  any  other  restric- 
tions than  that  its  government  shall  be  republican  would  be 
not  only  against  the  Constitution  but  "in  direct  conflict  with 
the  principle  on  which  out  political  system  rests." 

The  skirmish  of  1846-7,  therefore,  but  presaged  the  bitter 
strife  which  waged  in  1847-8  about  Oregon  and  its  territorial 
organization  but  not  with  reference  to  it  as  such. 

With  such  a  fate  for  the  most  important  measure  recom- 
mended by  the  President  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  minor 
suggestions  were  not  followed  out.  There  was,  to  be  sure, 
some  little  discussion  of  the  Senate  bill  intended  to  provide 
for  a  survey  of  the  lands  in  Oregon  and  to  make  grants  to 
settlers.12  It  did  not  pass,  although  it  reached  the  third  read- 
ing, for  it  was  recommitted  on  account  of  two  features;  no 


12  Globe,    XVII,    219,   255-6,   266,    275-6,   293-4. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  269 

provision  was  made  for  quieting  the  Indian  title,  and  there 
was  no  recognition  of  the  claims  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany and  its  servants.  Congress  had  the  customary  petitions 
for  grants  of  lands ;  the  railroad  question  did  not  come  up 
except  when  the  House  committee  to  which  had  been  referred 
the  memorials  of  the  last  session  asked  to  be  discharged  from 
further  consideration  of  the  same.  Thomasson  of  Kentucky 
introduced  a  resolution  in  the  House  to  inquire  into  the 
expediency  of  setting  apart  a  portion  of  the  country  west  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains  for  the  use  of  the  Indians  of  Oregon 
in  perpetuity,  "in  which  district  no  white  man  shall  settle  with- 
out permission  of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  and 
then  only  for  the  purpose  of  instructing  and  improving  the 
Indians."18 

Colonel  Benton  believed  that  the  defeat  of  the  territorial  bill 
was  the  work  of  pro-slavery  propagandists  and  he  did  not 
fail  to  give  publicity  to  this  opinion.  On  the  twenty-ninth  of 
March,  just  as  he  was  leaving  Washington,  he  went  to  the 
President  with  a  letter,  a  copy  of  which  he  intended  to  send 
to  the  people  of  Oregon  the  next  day  by  the  newly  appointed 
deputy  postmaster  of  Astoria,  Shively.  Polk  urged  him 
strongly  not  to  send  the  letter  as  it  would  inflame  the  inhab- 
itants of  Oregon  where  they  were  so  far  out  of  touch  with 
the  older  portion  of  the  United  States  that  they  would  be 
unable  to  see  the  whole  issue  in  its  proper  perspective. 

*  *  *  "I  think  it  right,"  wrote  Benton,  "to  make  this 
communication  to  you  at  the  present  moment,  when  the 
adjournment  of  Congress,  without  passing  the  bill  for  your 
government  and  protection,  seems  to  have  left  you  in  a 
state  of  abandonment  by  your  mother  country.  You  are 
not  abandoned!  nor  will  you  be  denied  protection  for  not 
agreeing  to  admit  slavery.  I,  a  man  of  the  south  and  a 
slave-holder,  tell  you  this. 

*  *  *  This  will  be  a  great  disappointment  to  you, 
and  a  real  calamity ;  already  five  years  without  law  or  legal 
institution  for  the  protection  of  life,  liberty  and  property! 

1 3  The   lett«r   was   published   in    the   New   Orleans   Mercury,   quoted   in   Niles' 
Register,  8  May.     See  Polk,  Diary,  II,  444  seq. 


270  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

and  now  doomed  to  wait  a  year  longer.  This  is  a  strange 
and  anomalous  condition!  almost  incredible  to  contemplate; 
and  almost  critical  to  endure! — a  colony  of  freeman,  4,000 
miles  from  the  metropolitan  government,  and  without  laws 
or  government  to  preserve  them !  But  do  not  be  alarmed 
or  desperate,,  you  will  not  be  outlawed  for  not  admitting 
slavery.  Your  fundamental  act  against  that  institution  * 
*  *  will  not  be  abrogated !  nor  is  that  the  intention  of  the 
prime  mover  of  the  amendment.  Upon  the  record,  the 
judiciary  committee  of  the  senate  is  the  author  of  the  amend- 
ment ;  but  not  so  the  fact !  That  committee  is  only  the  mid- 
wife to  it.  Its  author  is  the  same  mind  that  generated  the 
'fire-brand'  resolutions  of  which  I  send  you  a  copy,  and  of 
which  the  amendment  is  the  legitimate  derivation.  Oregon 
is  not  the  object.  The  most  rabid  propagandist  of  slavery 
cannot  expect  to  plant  it  on  the  shores  of  the  Pacific,  in  the 
latitude  of  Wisconsin  and  the  Lake  of  the  Woods.  A  home 
agitation,  for  election  and  disunion  purposes,  is  all  that  is 
intended  by  thrusting  this  fire-brand  question  into  your 
bill !  and,  at  the  next  session,  when  it  is  thrust  in  again,  we 
will  scourge  it  out!  and  pass  your  bill  as  it  ought  to  be.  I 
promise  you  this  in  the  name  of  the  south  as  well  as  the 
north ;  and  the  event  will  not  deceive  me."14 

Said  the  President,  "I  disapproved  the  letter,  but  knowing 
his  (Benton's)  domineering  disposition  and  utter  impatience 
of  contradiction  or  difference  of  opinion,  and  knowing  that  I 
could  not  change  his  opinions,  I  contented  myself  with  simply 
stating  my  objections  to  the  letter  and  expressing  my  doubts 
of  sending  such  a  letter."  Nevertheless  the  next  day  Polk 
urged  Benton  to  reconsider  his  decision;  "I  told  him  that 
Oregon  was  a  Northern  Territory  &  that  slavery  could  never 
exist  there,  that  I  condemned  Mr.  Calhoun's  course,  but  this, 
I  feared,  would  not  be  understood  by  the  inhabitants  of  Ore- 
gon, who  were  far  removed  from  newspapers  and  other  sources 
of  information."  It  would  produce  a  mischievous  excitement 
in  Oregon  where  there  would  be  alarm  while,  as  those  in 
Washington  knew,  there  was  no  cause  for  it.  Besides,  said 

14  Benton  voiced  similar  sentiments  when  he  was  notified  that  the  Democracy 
of  Missouri  desired  him  as  their  candidate  for  president.  He  thought  a  northern 
man  should  be  elected.  Regsiter,  7  May,  1847. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  271 

Polk,  only  a  day  or  so  before  the  Secretary  of  State  had  ad- 
dressed a  communication  to.  the  people  of  Oregon,  as  the 
Senator  knew,  giving  them  assurances  that  they  would  be  pro- 
tected by  the  United  States  and  expressing  the  opinion  that  a 
territorial  bill  would  be  enacted  at  the  next  session  of  Con- 
gress. Colonel  Benton  took  the  President's  remarks  under 
consideration — that  the  letter  would  do  less  harm  if  published 
in  an  eastern  paper — but  the  letter  went  on  to  Oregon. 

According  to  Benton,  Calhoun's  object  in  all  his  agitation 
was  to  secure  the  presidency  at  the  next  election,  a  view  in 
which  Polk  concurred,  although  he  did  not  say  so  to  Benton. 
Furthermore,  "in  the  course  of  the  conversation  Gen'l  Benton 
dropped  the  idea  distinctly  that  the  New  York  gentlemen 
(Dickinson  and  Dix  and  the  delegation  in  the  House)  had 
gone  home  from  Congress  with  a  full  record  of  all  the  facts  & 
intended  to  make  an  issue  on  that  question  *  *  *  The 
truth  is  there  is  no  patriotism  in  either  faction  of  the  party. 
Both  desire  to  mount  slavery  as  a  hobby,  and  hope  to  secure 
the  election  of  their  favorite  with  it.  They  will  fail  and  ought 
to  fail." 

The  President,  however,  did  not  confide  to  Benton  nor 
even  to  his  own  diary  that  he  himself  was  in  general  accord 
with  the  general  idea  which  actuated  Calhoun:  i.  e.,  the  erec- 
tion out  of  the  territory  to  be  gained  from  Mexico  of  units  in 
which  there  would  be  no  restriction  on  slavery.  Polk  was  not 
guided  by  the  desire  to  be  president  a  second  term,  for  if  there 
is  in  his  course  any  consistency  to  be  ranked  with  that  with 
which  he  worked  to  obtain  California  and'  New  Mexico,  it  is 
his  unfailing  discouragement  of  all  suggestions  that  he  should 
try  for  a  second  election.  If  it  was  not  to  curry  political  favor 
with  the  South  that  Polk  pursued  his  course,  neither  was  it 
merely  to  provide  for  the  extension  of  territory  where  slaves 
might  be  held  legally ;  he  desired  an  expansion  of  the  territory 
of  the  United  States,  but  more,  he  did  not  wish  his  country 
disrupted  on  the  issue  of  slavery,  and  so  he  strove  to  maintain 
the  balance  between  the  two  sections.  This  is  testified  to  by 


LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

the  fact  that  he  resisted  the  importunities  of  Buchanan  and 
others  in  his  Cabinet  to  secure  all  or  a  much  larger  portion 
of  Mexico  than  he  did,  for  this  would  have  disturbed  the  bal- 
ance as  seriously  in  favor  of  the  South  and  so  equally  have 
threatened  disunion. 

The  letter  written  by  Buchanan,  to  which  Polk  referred, 
was  entrusted  to  Shively.15  It  noted  the  failure  of  the  terri- 
torial bill  but  pointed  to  the  encouragement  to  be  derived 
from  the  large  vote  in  the  House  in  its  favor,  and  contended 
that  this  foretold  a  successful  issue  at  the  next  session.  The 
disposition  of  the  United  States  was,  moreover,  seen  in  the 
passage  of  an  act  extending  postal  facilities  to  the  people  of 
Oregon,  as  well  as  in  that  of  the  last  session  for  a  regiment 
of  riflemen.  The  steadiness  with  which  the  demands  against 
Great  Britain  has  been  maintained  was  also  proof  that  Oregon 
would  never  be  abandoned. 

Good  use  was   made  during  the   summer  and  autumn  of 
1847  of  the  blazing  issues  raised  by  the  Mexican  war  and  the 
prospective  increase  in  territory  for  the  United  States.    In  the 
North  the  principles  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso  received  approval 
and  ten  States,  through  their  legislatures,  formally  endorsed 
the  proposition,16  while  some  of  these  went  further  and  insisted 
that  no  new  States  should  be  admitted  unless  slavery  should 
be  prohibited.    Oregon  was  swallowed  up  in  the  greater  issue 
of  slavery  and  its  extension.    An  interesting,  although  not  im- 
portant, comment  on  the  position  Oregon  was  assuming  even 
in  the  West  is  afforded  by  a  one-time   ardent  pro-Oregon, 
54-40-or-Fight  paper,  the  Missouri  Republican.     After  pub- 
lishing a  letter  from  L.  W.  Boggs?  once  governor  of  Missouri, 
on  the  route  to  Oregon  and  California,  the  Republican  said  :17 
"We  give  place  to  his  instructions  not  because  we  desire 
to  be  understood  as  recommending  any  man  to  go  either 
to  California  or  Oregon     *     *     *     If  we  were  asked  our 
advice  in  this  matter  we  would  tell  any  man  who  has  any- 

15  Works  of  James  Buchanan,  VII,  258-60;   29  March,   1847. 

1 6  Register,    18    Sept.      Ohio,    New    Hampshire    and    Vermont    were    opposed 
to  admission  with  slavery. 

1 7  Quoted   in   Niles  Register,   6   Nov.,    1847. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  273 

thing  to  hope  for  in  any  of  the  states  or  territories  of  this 
union — who  is  not  absolutely  an  outcast  from  society  and 
deprived  of  all  chances  of  maintaining  a  respectable  stand- 
ing— not  to  move  one  foot  towards  either  Oregon  or  Cali- 
fornia. We  have  made  inquiries  from  discreet  and  intelli- 
gent men  who  have  visited  both  countries  and  they  have 
uniformly  concurred — not  an  exception  now  occurs  to  us — 
in  representing  both  territories  as  inferior  in  advantages  to 
those  offered  by  our  own  state,  and  as  representing  no  in- 
ducement to  take  any  respectable  man  there."  And  those 
already  there  would  be  glad  to  get  away  if  they  could. 

The  Thirtieth  Congress  presented  an  example  of  that  mid- 
administration  political  change  which  has  so  often  occurred 
in  our  country.  Instead  of  a  comfortable  majority  of  Demo- 
crats in  both  houses,  Polk  found  the  House  of  Representatives 
in  the  hands  of  the  Whigs  by  a  small  majority.  The  loss  to 
the  administration  forces  had  been  most  serious  in  New  York 
and  Pennsylvania,  although  there  had  been  scattering  defec- 
tions elsewhere  in  the  ranks.  This  disaster  Calhoun  traced  to 
the  "course  of  the  Administration  in  reference  to  the  Oregon 
and  Mexican  questions;"  the  Democratic  party  had  become 
distracted,  disheartened  and  divided,  and  the  Whigs  were  not 
much  better  off.18 

How  much  the  Oregon  situation  played  a  part  in  the  con- 
gressional elections  of  1846  is  open  to  question ;  certainly  it 
was  subordinated  completely  to  the  greater  issues  of  the 
Mexican  war.  On  the  whole,  although  the  Whig  party  tried 
to  make  political  capital  by  holding  up  as  a  horrible  example 
the  course  of  the  President  in  the  Oregon  matter,  it  seems  that 
a  feeling  of  satisfaction — everywhere  except  in  parts  of  the 
West — prevailed;  there  was  satisfaction  that  the  outcome  had 
been  no  worse.19  Besides,  the  President  had  gotten  more 
from  Great  Britain  than  many  expected  that  nation  to  yield 
without  war. 

In  considering  the  action  of  the  Thirtieth  Congress  on  the 

18  Calhoun   to   Lewis   S.   Coryell,   7   Nov.,   Correspondence,   709;   see   also   letter 
to  his  daughter,   21   Nov.,  Ibid.,   713. 

19  This  was  the  note  of  a  speech  by  Webster  at  Philadelphia  on  Dec.  zd,  1847. 
Works   (1854)    II,    320   seq. 


274  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

Oregon  territorial  bill  it  is  constantly  to  be  borne  in  mind  that 
the  whole  struggle  was  but  an  aspect  of  the  greater  question 
of  slavery,  its  extension,  and  its  relation  to  the  fruits  of  the 
Mexican  War.  That  war  having  dragged  through  1847 — 
Mexico  City  was  occupied  by  American  troops  on  September 
14th — had  been  ended  by  the  Treaty  of  Guadalupe-Hidalgo, 
signed  on  the  second  of  February,  1848,  and  ratified  a  month 
later  by  the  Senate.  The  cession  of  Upper  California  and 
New  Mexico  to  the  United  States  had  brought  about  exactly 
the  situation  which  had  in  prospect  stimulated  the  debates  in 
the  previous  session  of  Congress,  consequently  the  Thirtieth 
Congress  dealt  with  existing  conditions  rather  than  with  an 
expected  situation  as  its  predecessor  had.  Nevertheless,  the 
discussion  was  resumed  with  exactly  the  same  spirit  which 
had  animated  the  Twenty-ninth  Congress  although  feeling  ran 
higher  and  a  greater  tenseness  in  the  country  at  large  was 
reflected  in  the  increasing  vehemence  of  partisans  on  both 
sides  of  the  question.  It  is  not  the  purpose  here  to  discuss 
the  greater  issue  in  all  its  ramifications  but  only  the  Oregon 
side  of  the  question. 

The  Third  Annual  Message  of  President  Polk  renewed  the 
recommendations  of  the  former  message,  particularly  laying 
emphasis  upon  the  necessity  of  creating  a  territorial  organiza- 
tion. There  was,  he  told  Congress,  a  demand  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  for  a  legalization  of 
the  Oregon  government  which,  in  its  existing  provisional  form, 
was  "wholly  inadequate  to  protect  (the  inhabitants)  in  their 
rights  of  person  and  property,  or  to  secure  them  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  the  privileges  of  other  citizens,  to  which  they  (were) 
entitled  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States."  They 
should  be  granted  the  right  of  suffrage  and  the  privilege  of 
sending  a  Delegate  to  Congress,  and  should  have  all  the  cus- 
tomary rights  of  the  inhabitants  of  other  portions  of  the  terri- 
tory of  the  United  States.  No  direct  reference,  of  course, 
was  made  to  the  slavery  issue  as  it  touched  this  subject,  al- 
though at  the  end  of  the  Message,  Polk  did  call  to  the  atten- 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  275 

tion  of  Congress  the  words  of  Washington,  where  he  warned 
his  countrymen  against  allowing  sectionalism  to  tinge  their 
deliberations.20 

In  both  houses,  bills  for  the  territorial  government  of  Ore- 
gon were  introduced  early  in  the  session.  In  the  Senate  it 
was  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  who  now  had  left  the  House  and 
was  entering  upon  his  eventful  career  in  the  upper  body,  to 
whom  was  granted  the  honor  of  introducing  the  measure 
which  was  immediately  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Terri- 
tories.21 The  Senate,  however,  did  not  take  up  this-  bill  until 
after  the  House  bill  had  been  under  discussion  for  over  a 
month,  hence,  since  each  House  pursued  its  own  course,  it  is 
with  the  latter  that  we  must  deal  first. 

The  House  Committee  on  Territories  introduced  a  bill  on 
the  ninth  of  February ;  it  was  made  a  special  order  of  the  day 
for  the  fourteenth  of  March  and  on  the  twenty-eighth  of  March 
it  was  called  up  by  Wentworth,  an  Illinois  Democrat,  and  con- 
sidered in  Committee  of  the  Whole.22  The  slavery  debate, 
which  had  to  that  time  fastened  upon  other  topics — the  Loan 
Bill,  the  Deficiency  Appropriation  Bill,  and  nearly  every  other 
measure  before  the  House — now  seized  upon  that  which,  to- 
gether with  the  bills  for  the  organization  of  New  Mexico  and1 
California,  gave  the  most  legitimate  excuse  for  its  consid- 
eration. John  Gayle,  of  Alabama  (Whig),  and  Ephraim  K. 
Smart,  of  Maine  (Democrat),  occupied  the  time  upon  this 
first  day  with  their  views  upon  the  constitutional  power  of 
Congress  in  legislating  for  the  territories.  The  Southerner 
took  the  ground  that  hitherto  legislation  and  decisions  of  the 
Supreme  Court  had  considered  States  and  territories  as  upon 
the  same  legal  footing;  Congress  could  not  legislate  upon 
domestic  affairs  within  the  States,  consequently  it  could  not 
for  the  territories.  Furthermore,  territorial  governments  could 
not  of  themselves  exclude  slavery  for  that  would  infringe 
upon  the  rights  of  citizens  of  certain  States  who  might  desire 

20  Globe,  XVIII,  lo-n.     20  Ibid.,  136. 

21  Ibid.,   136. 

22  Ibid.,   322;    debate  of  28  March,   542-8. 


276  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

to  take  up  their  residence  in  that  which  was  common  property 
of  all  the  States.  Mr.  Smart  took  the  opposite  ground  and 
said  that  Congress  had  legislated  for  territories  from  the 
beginning,  thereby  exercising  an  undoubted  constitutional  pre- 
rogative. Besides,  said  he,  the  opponents  of  the  clause  re- 
stricting Oregon  from  allowing  slavery  admitted  that  the 
climate  there  was  such  that  slavery  could  never  exist;  if  this 
statement  was  spoken  in  sincerity  there  would  be  no  objection 
to  legal  prohibition. 

With  personal  variations  these  sentiments  were  those  which 
charactized  the  debate  throughout;  on  the  part  of  the  op- 
ponents of  the  extension  of  slavery  the  purpose  was  to  have 
included  in  the  bill  a  specific  prohibition  of  it  in  Oregon; 
those  from  the  South  preferred  that  no  reference  whatever 
should  be  made  to  slavery,  thus  upholding  Gayle's  contention 
that  Congress  could  not  legislate  up  the  subject.  If,  however, 
it  should  prove  impossible  to  obtain  this,  the  next  best  thing 
would  be  to  obtain  some  kind  of  a  statement  which  recognized 
the  extension  of  the  line  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  to  the 
Pacific. 

Nothing  further  was  done  with  the  House  bill  until  the  first 
day  of  May  when  there  was  an  attempt  to  have  it  made  a 
special  order.  The  House,  however,  like  the  Senate,  in  addi- 
tion to  have  more  pressing  business  (the  appropriation  bills), 
was  unwilling  to  proceed  seriously  with  this  measure  before  it 
was  apparent  what  general  principle,  if  any,  was  to  be  estab- 
lished with  reference  to  territories,  consequently  it  was  nearly 
a  month  before  any  further  mention  of  the  Oregon  bill  was 
made. 

Meantime  there  had  arrived  in  Washington  one  of  the  two 
messengers  sent  from  Oregon  to  present  the  pleas  of  that 
territory  to  Congress.  J.  Quinn  Thornton  had  arrived  in  May 
with  a  letter  from  Governor  Abernathy  to  Douglas.  On  the 
basis  of  this  letter  Thornton  had  drawn  up  a  memorial,  dated 
May  25th,  wherein  was  a  brief  history  of  the  Oregon  colony, 
and  a  description  of  the  establishment  and  work  of  the  Provis- 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  277 

ional  Government.  It  stated  that  there  had  been  thought  of 
electing  a  Delegate  to  represent  the  territory  in  Congress,  but 
this  had  not  been  done  because  there  was  no  law  authorizing 
such  action,  and  there  had  been  no  time  to  elect  a  Delegate 
and  get  him  away  on  the  only  vessel  which  could  reach  the 
Atlantic  Coast  in  time  to  have  him  of  any  use;  furthermore, 
it  was  not  expedient  to  elect  a  Delegate  with  the  expectation 
that  a  seat  would  be  accorded  by  courtesy.  After  this  intro- 
duction the  memorial  proceeded  to  enumerate  the  desires  of 
Oregon ;  in  the  first  place  there  should  be  a  regular  territorial 
organization,  and  the  law  for  this  should  recognize 
private  contracts,  all  legislative  and  judicial  acts  already  ex- 
isting, and  provide  for  the  transfer  of  suits  to  the  new  courts ; 
then  the  Indian  title  to  the  land  should  be  extinguished ;  grants 
of  land  should  be  made  on  the  basis  of  a  five  years'  residence, 
and  other  grants  for  those  who  might,  during  a  limited  time, 
come  into  Oregon,  as  well  as  grants  for  educational  provision ; 
the  revenue  laws  should  be  extended ;  and  finally  there  should 
be  appropriations  to  pay  the  public  debt,  for  a  library,  to  im- 
prove the  mouth  of  the  Columbia,  employ  pilots,  erect  lights 
and  buoys  and  buy;  a  steam  tug.  A  good  wagon  road  from 
Missouri  to  the  Willamette  valley  with  a  cordon  of  military 
posts  was  much  needed,  and  the  colony  would  benefit  by  an 
appropriation  for  seeds  and  for  agricultural  implements.  After 
this  most  modest  list  of  pressing  needs  the  memorial  concluded 
with  a  final  plea  for  a  good  territorial  act — but  a  bad  one  would 
be  better  than  none.23 

On  the  twenty-ninth  of  May,  Caleb  Smith  of  Indiana,  chair- 
man of  the  House  Committee  on  Territories,  asked  general  con- 
sent to  allow  him  to  offer  a  resolution  making  the  bill  to 
establish  the  Oregon  territorial  government  a  special  order24 
of  the  day  immediately  following  the  passage  of  the  appro- 
priation bills,  except  for  Fridays  and  Saturdays.  McClernand 
(Illinois)  asked  Smith  to  modify  his  resolution  so  that  the 
House  might  at  once  go  into  Committee  of  the  Whole  on  the 

23  Sen.  Misc.  Doc.  No.   143,  3oth  Cong.,  ist  &es. 

24  Glob*,  XVIII,  788  seq. 


278  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

subject  for  he  had  just  received  from  a  resident  of  Oregon 
a  letter  depicting  the  distressing  situation  of  the  colony  where 
the  inhabitants  were  being  harassed  by  the  Indians. 

McClernand's  appeal  for  immediate  action  was  supported 
by  a  message  from  the  President  transmitting  a  memorial  from 
the  legislative  assembly  of  the  Provisional  Government.25  The 
sorry  condition  of  the  people  was  described  and  Congress  was 
urged  to  provide  both  an  organized  government  and  to  send 
men  to  protect  the  whites  in  Oregon  from  the  natives. 

"If  it  be  at  all  the  intention  of  our  honored  parent," 
concluded  the  memorial,  "to  spread  her  guardian  wing  over 
her  sons  and  daughters  in  Oregon,  she  surely  will  not  re- 
fuse to  do  so  now,  when  they  are  struggling  with  all  the 
ills  of  a  weak  and  temporary  government,  and  when  the 
perils  are  daily  thickening  around  them  and  preparing  to 
burst  upon  their  heads.  When  the  ensuing  summer's  sun 
shall  have  dispelled  the  snow  from  the  mountains,  we  shall 
look  with  glowing  hope  and  restless  anxiety  for  the  coming 
of  your  laws  and  your  arms." 

President  Polk  recommended  the  appeal  to  the  earnest  at- 
tention of  Congress  and  advised  provision  for  a  regiment  of 
mounted  men  and  authority  for  the  Oregon  government  to 
raise  a  volunteer  force;  these  together,  he  thought,  would 
be  sufficient  to  deal  with  the  Indian  troubles.  He  pointed  out 
the  necessity  of  prompt  action  if  the  territory  was  to  benefit 
by  it  that  year  for  if  the  laws  were  enacted  too  late  in  the 
summer  the  mountain  passes  would  be  closed  and  it  would 
be  late  in  the  spring  of  1849  before  assistance  could  reach 
the  Columbia  valley. 

Howell  Cobb  of  Georgia  agreed  that  immediate  action  was 
necessary,  but  Collamer  (Maine)  raised  the  question  as  to 
why  the  mounted  riflemen  provided  for  by  the  last  Congress 
had  not  been  used  for  the  protection  of  Oregon.  He  was 
not  satisfied  with  Cobb's  explanation  that  these  men  had  been 
used  in  the  Mexican  War,  since  the  bill  had  made  no  especial 

25  Richardson,  Messages,  IV,  584-6.  Polk,  Diary,  II,  463-4.  The  memorial 
and  papers  were  brought  by  Joseph  Meek,  who  had  been  sent  on  this  mission 
at  about  the  same  time  Thornton  had  left  with  the  Governor's  letter  for  Douglas. 
Two  rival  factions  in  Oregon  were  represented  by  the  two  messengers. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  279 

designation  of  their ,  service ;  he  said  there  was  something 
suspicious  in  Cobb's  eagerness,  it  looked  as  though  there 
might  be  an  attempt,  in  which  the  President  was  implicated, 
to  rush  the  Oregon  territory  bill  through  under  an  emergency 
plea  and  thus  gag  Congress  in  its  discussion  of  the  major  issue. 
Collamer's  suspicions  were  shared  by  others,  consequently  the 
two  measures  were  separated  and  the  question  of  protection 
was  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Military  Affairs.  Nothing, 
however,  came  of  it;  whatever  protection  Oregon  received 
from  Federal  troops  came  from  those  which  the  President 
detailed  for  that  duty  after  their  services  were  no  longer 
needed  for  the  Mexican  situation.  The  territorial  bill  awaited 
its  place  after  the  appropriation  bills,  as  Smith's  resolution 
provided,  and  did  not  appear  again  until  late  in  July. 

So  long  did  other  matters  engage  the  attention  of  Con- 
gress, legislative  and  political — the  presidential  nominations 
had  occurred  and  the  campaign  of  '48  was  well  under  weigh — 
that  the  Senate  had  proceeded  to  take  up,  discuss  and  pass 
its  Oregon  bill  before  the  House  was  in  full  swing  on  the 
debate  over  its  own  measure.26  On  the  thirty-first  of  May, 
two  days  after  the  President's  message  and  the  memorial  were 
received,  the  Senate  postponed  prior  orders  and  took  up  the 
bill  Douglas  had  introduced  four  months  earlier.  Upon 
Benton's  motion  it  was  amended  by  adding  a  section  to  au- 
thorize the  raising  of  volunteers  in  the  territory.  Next  Hale 
(Maine)  proposed  section  12  of  the  last  session's  bill,  ex- 
tending to  Oregon  the  provisions  of  the  Northwest  Ordinance, 
as  an  amendment  to  the  original  measure.  This  raised  a  storm, 
mostly  from  the  southern  Senators;  said  Benton,  if  this 
"pestiferous  question"  had  not  been  raised  Oregon  would  al- 
ready have  had  a  government  and  the  Indian  disturbances 
would  have  been  quelled  at  their  beginning.  Hannegan 
(Indiana)  said  the  amendment  was  not  heeded  because  every- 
body knew  the  Missouri  Compromise  covered  Oregon.  In 
view  of  the  excitement  his  amendment  had  created,  Hale  pro- 

26  Globe,  XVIII,  804  seq.;  Appen.,  684  seq. 


280  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

posed  that  the  question  be  postponed)  a  few  days,  although  he 
said  there  would  be  slaves  in  Oregon  unless  Congress  kept 
them  out.  Westcott  gave  notice  that  he  would  move  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  bill,  the  Senate  bill  of  the  last  session. 

The  next  day  the  bill  was  up  with  the  question  of  Hale's 
amendment  the  immediate  point  of  discussion.  He  withdrew 
it  since  he  had  been  accused  of  casting  a  fire-brand  into  the 
Senate  although  he  announced  that  he  would  renew  it  or  not 
as  circumstances  should  seem  to  direct.  This  action  brought 
up  Westcott't  amendment  (the  substitute  bill)  :  the  personal 
guaranties  of  the  Northwest  Ordinance  should  apply,  and  the 
laws  of  the  Provisional  Government  would  continue  in  force 
until  the  end  of  the  first  session  of  the  legislature  provided  by 
the  bill,  with  this  priviso  :27 

"But  no  provisions  of  such  laws,  or  of  any  act  hereafter 
passed  by  the  Legislative  Assembly  of  said!  Territory  shall 
be  construed  to  restrict  citizens  of  any  of  the  United  States, 
or  of  any  Territories  thereof,  from  immigrating  with  their 
property  to,  and  settling  and  residing  in,  said  Territory,  and 
holding  and  possessing  their  property  therein,  and  fully 
participating  in  all  the  benefits,  advantages,  privileges,  and 
immunities  thereof  as  a  Territory  of  the  United  States,  with 
such  property,  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  citizens  of  any 
of  the  United  States ;  and  all  laws  and  parts  of  laws  which 
shall  operate  in  restraint  of,  or  detriment  to,  the  full  en- 
joyment of  such  rights,  are  hereby  declared  to  be  null  and 
void." 

This  restriction,  which  in  so  many  words  would  allow 
slavery  in  Oregon,  was  in  direct  contravention  of  the  laws  of 
the  Provisional  Government.  While  Hale's  amendment,  which 
might  be  renewed  at  any  time,  presented  the  radical  anti- 
slavery  views,  Westcott's  voiced  the  opinions  of  the  pro-slavery 
men.  Those  who  wished  to  see  the  bill  passed  in  some  form 
joined  with  those  who  desired  to  keep  the  real  issue  submerged 
in  attempting  to  dodge  the  issue  if  possible.  They  were  willing 
to  see  struck  out  of  the  bill  the  12th  section  by  which,  since 
it  continued  the  laws  of  the  temporary  organization,  slavery 

27  Globe,  Append.,  690. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  281 

would  be  actually  prohibited.  However,  when  Bright  (Indi- 
ana), with  the  consent  of  his  friends,  agreed  to  strike  out 
this  section  Hale  threatened  to  renew  his  amendment  if  the 
motion  should  prevail.  Calhoun  held  that  Bright's  proposition 
did  not  touch  the  real  issue,  the  real  difficulty,  which  involved 
three  questions :  the  power  of  Congress  to  interfere  with  per- 
sons emigrating  to  a  territory  which  was  their  property;  the 
power  of  a  territorial  government  to  do  the  same  thing;  and 
the  power  of  Congress  to  vest  this  power  in  a  territorial  gov- 
ernment. Westcott's  amendment  alone,  he  thought,  would 
solve  the  problem.  Hereupon  Dickinson  of  New  York  pro- 
posed that  the  troublesome  section  be  left  out  and  that  the 
people  of  the  territory  be  allowed  to  settle  the  matter  as  they 
should  chose;  in  other  words  he  advocated  the  "squatter 
sovereignty"  which  played  so  prominent  a  part  a  few  years 
later. 

Upon  the  question  of  striking  out  the  12th  section  the  debate 
continued,  its  theme  always  being  the  same.  Houston  of 
Texas  proposed  to  insert  in  this  section,  after  the  provision 
which  continued  such  existing  laws  in  the  territory  as  were 
not  incompatible  with  the  provisions  of  the  act,  the  words, 
"or  in  violation  of  any  rights  by  the  laws  or  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  vested  in  or  secured  to  the  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  or  any  of  them/'28  Such  a  clause  could  be 
interpreted  according  to  the  wish  of  each  party,  and  it  was 
adopted. 

The  third  day  of  the  debate  passed  without  progress.  On 
the  next  day  (June  3d)  Foote  (Mississippi)  proposed  to  in- 
sert after  "existing  laws  now  in  force  in  the  Territory  of 
Oregon"  the  words,  "provided  the  same  shall  be  compatible 
with  the  laws  and  Constitution  of  the  United  States."  To 
this  Westcott  would  not  agree  because  such  a  proposal,  which 
intended  to  leave  the  whole  issue  to  the  decision  of  the  Su- 
preme Court,  would  take  the  question  not  a  step  in  advance; 
the  Court  would  have  no  jurisdiction,  for  the  right  to  take 


282  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

slaves  to  Oregon  rested  upon  the  fact  that  there  was  nothing 
in  the  Constitution  to  prohibit  it.  Badger  (North  Carolina) 
tried  to  get  at  the  problem1  in  another  way  by  submitting  as  a 
substitute  for  Foote's  amendment  the  provision  of  the  Ordi- 
nance of  1787  omitting  the  slavery  clause. 

Here  the  discussion  rested  until  the  twenty-third  of  June 
when  previous  orders  were  again  postponed  to  let  the  bill  come 
up.29  At  that  time  Badger  withdrew  his  amendment,  and 
Berrien,  who  had  previously  renewed  the  amendment  to  strike 
out  section  12,  said  that  his  proposition  put  the  whole  issue 
squarely  before  the  Senate,  the  best  way  to  come  at  the  whole 
question.  Nevertheless,  Jefferson  Davis  presented  an  amend- 
ment, which  he  proposed  should  come  at  the  end  of  the  bill, 
reading : 

"Provided,  That  nothing  contained  in  this  act  shall  be  so 

construed  as  to  authorize  the  prohibition  of  domestic  slavery 

in  said  Territory  whilst  it  remains  in  the  condition  of  a 

territory  of  the  United  States." 

The  whole  measure  appeared  to  be  in  danger  of  meeting 
the  fate  of  its  predecessor  of  the  year  before.  In  desperation 
the  friends  of  the  bill  brought  up  the  question  with  the  Presi- 
dent who  advised  them  to  bring  forward  and  press  the  adoption 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line  to  the  Pacific.30  Hannegan, 
to  whom  Polk  first  made  the  suggestion,  agreed  that  it  was  the 
only  practicable  way  of  settling  the  difficulty;  Breese  (Illinois), 
Bright,  Foote,  and  the  members  of  the  Cabinet,  concurred  in 
the  opinion.  Even  Bradbury,  a  Maine  Democrat,  while  he 
did  not  exhibit  any  enthusiasm  over  the  proposition,  admitted 
that  it  seemed  the  only  way  out  especially  in  view  of  the 
action  of  the  Barnburners  of  New  York,  who  had  bolted  the 
Democratic  platform  as  framed  at  Baltimore.  Accordingly  at 
the  President's  table  Foote  wrote  out,  at  Polk's  dictation,  the 
amendment  which  Bright  copied  and  proposed  on  the  twenty- 
seventh  of  June.31 

29  Ibid.,  871;  Appen.,  861   seq. 

30  Polk,  Diary,  III,  501-4. 

31  Ibid.,   505. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  283 

"That  in  all  the  Territories  owned  by  the  United  States, 
including  Oregon,  New  Mexico  and  Upper  California,  which 
lie  north  of  36°  30'  north  latitude,  slavery  and  involuntary 
servitude,  otherwise  than  in  the  punishment  of  crimes  where- 
of the  party  shall  have  been  duly  convicted,  shall  be  and  is 
hereby  forever  prohibited;  Provided  always,  That  any  per- 
son escaping  into  the  same  whose  labor  or  service  is  law- 
fully claimled  in  any  State  or  Territory  of  the  United  States, 
such  fugitive  may  be  lawfully  reclaimed  and  conveyed  to 
the  person  claiming  his  or  her  labor  or  services  as  afore- 
said."" 

Thus  the  question  of  slavery  and  all  the  territories  of  the 
United  States  came  before  the  Senate  in  the  debate  which 
engaged  the  talents  of  the  most  gifted  men  on  both  sides.  "It 
(the  debate)  has  been,"  wrote  Calhoun,33  "very  able  and  high 
toned  on  the  part  of  the  South,  with  a  great  concurrence  of 
views  between  Whigs  and  the  democratic  members  of  the 
South.  I  do  hope  our  present  danger  will  bring  about  union 
among  ourselves  on  the  most  vital  of  all  questions.  All  other 
questions  ought  to  be  dropped.  In  Union  lies  our  safety." 
To  put  the  matter  even  more  plainly  Underwood  of  Kentucky 
(Whig)  added  to  B  right's  amendment  the  further  proviso:34 

"That  citizens  of  the  United  States  emigrating,  with  their 
slaves,  into  any  of  the  Territories  of  the  United  States  south 
of  said  parallel  of  latitude,  shall  be  protected  in  their  prop- 
erty in  their  slaves  so  long  as  the  Territory  to  which  they 
emigrate  continues  under  a  territorial  government." 

The  struggle  to  eliminate  all  reference  to  slavery,  or  to 
embody  in  the  bill  some  clause  specifically  opening  all  the  new 
territories  to  slavery,  was  thus  tacitly  abandoned,  and  the  con- 
test turned  to  the  next  best  course,  according  to  the  South, 
of  marking  in  definite  terms  a  region  for  the  expansion  of 
their  institutions.  Nevertheless  the  debate  continued  to  thresh 
over  the  question  of  constitutionality  of  Congressional  action, 
as  well  as  to  bring  out  what  the  South  called  the  northern 
desire  to  crush  their  future  political  power. 


32  Globe.  XVIII,  868. 

33  To 

34  Glo 


33  To  T.  ^•,?,^"J10U1?'  9  July>  Correspondence,  759. 
be,  X'" 


284  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

Thus  locked,  unable  to  proceed  because  neither  side  would 
retreat  from  its  stand,  the  question  stood  when  Polk,  on  the 
sixth  of  July,  transmitted  to  both  houses  the  ratified  treaty 
with  Mexico,  and  urged  provision  for  a  territorial  organization 
in  the  region  newly  acquired  by  the  United  States.35  Not  alone 
to  this  public  message  did  the  President  trust  but  he  held  long 
interviews  with  the  Senators  of  his  party  and  impressed  upon 
them  the  necessity  of  settling  the  question  in  order  "to  allay 
excitement,  prevent  the  organization  of  geographical  parties, 
&  preserve  the  harmony  of  the  union."36  Bright  was  a  frequent 
visitor  at  the  White  House  and  was  one  of  those  most  eager 
to  secure  action ;  in  one  of  his  interviews  he  suggested  as  the 
most  satisfactory  solution  the  adoption  of  the  phraseology  of 
the  Texas  Annexation  Resolution  which  extended  36°  30' 
as  the  dividing  line  between  free  and  slave  territory. 

The  preliminary  step  for  a  compromise  was  taken  by  adopt- 
ing Clayton's  (Maryland)  motion  for  a  committee  of  eight, 
two  from  each  party  in  each  section,  following  the  precedent 
set  at  the  time  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  and  the  Comh 
promise  Tariff  of  1833. 37  This  was  seconded  by  Foote. 
Calhoun,  however,  pointed  out  that  the  act  of  1787  was  a 
compromise  but  the  North  had  rendered  it  null  by  refusing  to 
return  fugitive  slaves,  a  charge  which  he  had  previously 
brought,  especially  against  the  people  of  Michigan.  Several 
objected  to  the  scheme  because  the  committee  would  have  the 
Oregon  bill  before  it,  when  it  was  understood  that  slavery 
would  not  be  permitted  there.  Since  no  one  could  suggest 
any  other  solution  the  motion  was  adopted  by  a  vote  of  31 
to  14.  All  the  votes  against  the  compromise  committee  were 
from  the  free  States,  eight  Whigs  and  six  Democrats.  The 
committee,  which  as  selected  by  ballot,  was  composed  of 
Clayton  (Chairman),  Underwood  (Ky.),  Whigs,  and  Calhoun 
and  Atchison  (Mo.),  Democrats,  for  the  south;  Clarke  (R.  I.), 


35  Richadson,  Messrages,  IV,  587-93. 

36  Polk,  Diary,  IV,  9,  12-14.     Cobb,  Houston,  Bowden   (Ala.),  McLane  (Md.), 
Sebastian    (Ark.),    Bright    (Ind.),    and    several    from    the    House   talked    with    the 


President. 

37  Globe,  XVIII,  928  seq.;  Appen.,  914  seq. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  285 

Phelps    (Vt),    Whigs,    and    Bright    (Ind.),    and    Dickinson 
(N.  Y.),  Democrats,  for  the  North. 

The  committee  immjediately  proceeded  to  its  work,  but  it 
found  nearly  as  much  difficulty  in  reaching  a  basis  of  com- 
promise as  had  the  Senate  itself.  In  the  first  place  an  un- 
qualified acceptance  of  the  compromise  line  (36°  30')  was 
rejected,  but  Dickinson  suggested  a  modification  of  what  he 
had  proposed  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  chamber;  that  is, 
non-interference  with  the  question  in  New  Mexico  and  Cali- 
fornia. Upon  this  basis  the  committee  reached  a  tentative 
proposition  of  the  following  nature:  the  existing  land  laws 
which  prohibited  slavery  in  Oregon  were  to  be  left  in  force 
until  altered  by  the  territorial  legislature;  in  California  and 
New  Mexico  the  legislative  power  should  be  vested  in  a 
Governor,  Secretary  and  three  Judges  for  each  territory,  and 
these  men  should  be  restricted  by  Congress  from  legislating 
upon  the  question  of  slavery,  leaving  the  question,  if  it  should 
arise,  to  the  judiciary.  Calhoun,  who  was  brought  to  con- 
ference with  the  President  through  the  mediation  of  Colonel 
Franklin  H.  Elmore  of  Charleston,38  told  Polk,  who  approved 
the  plan,  that  he  would  support  the  proposition ;  much  de- 
pended upon  the  President  who  would  appoint  the  judges  who 
might  be  northern  men  for  Oregon  but  for  the  other  two 
territories  they  must  be  southerners  in  order  that  the  southern 
views  on  slavery  might  be  maintained.  "The  tone  of  his  con- 
versation," wrote  Polk,  "on  this  point  seems  to  be  designed 
to  elicit  a  pledge  from  me  to  this  effect.  I  at  once  felt  the 
delicacy  of  my  situation  &  promptly  replied  that  that  was  a 
subject  upon  which  I  could  not  speak,  that  if  the  laws  passed 
in  the  form  suggested  I  would  do  my  duty,  and  jocosely 
added  that  my  friends,  as  Gen'l  Harrison's  Cincinnati  com- 
mittee in  1844  [1840?]  said  for  him,  must  have  a  'generous 
confidence'  that  I  would  do  so." 


38  Polk,  Diary,  IV,  17-24.  Elmore  had  asked  Polk  to  request  Calhoun  to 
call  (he  had  not  done  so  since  the  Oregon  treaty  of  the  year  before) ;  but  Polk 
said  that  the  Senator  was  an  older  man  and  had  been  longer  ini  public  life, 
and  a  request  of  this  sort  would  make  it  appear  that  he  was  seeking  some  sort 
of  influence  over  him;  he  would,  however,  be  glad  to  see  Calhoun. 


286  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

The  compromise  plan  met  with  one  objection  from  the 
northern  memjbers  of  the  committee;  they  insisted  that  there 
should  be  provision  for  appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  a  modification  which  Calhoun  and  the  two 
other  southern  members  did  not  like.  Calhoun,  in  fact,  sug- 
gested to  the  President  that  the  whole  matter  might  as  well 
be  allowed  to  go  over  to  the  next  session  of  Congress;  that 
is,  until  after  the  election  had  shown  the  sentiments  of  the 
people.  Polk  strongly  objected  to  this.  Finally,  however, 
Calhoun  yielded  the  point  and  a  bill  was  reported  to  the 
Senate  on  the  eighteenth  of  July,  on  the  lines  outlined;  that 
is,  the  original  Oregon  bill  with  added  sections  dealing  with 
New  Mexico  and  California.39 

On  the  twenty-second  the  bill  was  called  up.  There  was 
a  short  discussion  in  which  it  was  contended  that  there  was 
no  connection  between  Oregon  and  California,  the  best  title 
to  Oregon  came  from  the  Louisiana  purchase  so  the  Missouri 
Compromise  applied  under  any  circumstances.  Moreover, 
those  who  were  less  sanguine  than  the  comjmittee  had  appeared 
to  be  felt  that  the  root  of  the  question  had  not  been  touched  at 
all.  Nevertheless  a  test  of  strength  was  taken  on  a  motion 
to  strike  out  all  after  the  20th  section  (i.  e.,  all  except  the  parts 
relating  to  Oregon)  and  but  seventeen  votes  as  against  thirty- 
seven  could  be  mustered  to  defeat  the  compromise  at  that 
point.  Hamlin,  who  said  he  was  admonished  by  whisperings 
that  the  measure  was  to  be  pressed  to  a  decision  then  and  there, 
pointed  out  that  the  power  of  Congress  to  legislate  on  the 
subject  of  slavery  was  contained  in  the  strongest  terms  in  the 
bill ;  he  objected  to  limiting  the  duration  of  the  existing  Oregon 
laws  to  three  months  after  the  meeting  of  the  first  Legislative 
Assembly  because  that  would  bring  the  question  of  slavery 
again  before  Congress.  This  point  was  brought  up  by  others 
and  produced  from  Clarke  (R.  I.)  an  amendment  to  the  sec- 


39  Ibid.,  IV,  24;  Globe  Appen.,  XVIII,  1139-40-  Clayton,  reporting  the  bill, 
outlined  the  course  of  the  discussion  and  added  that  it  was  the  view  of  the 
committee  that  this  bill  _  would  ultimately  settle  the  whole  question.  The  follow- 
ing day  he  stated  that  this  was  not  intended  as  a  report,  but  as  a  personal  opinion; 
the  bill  must  speak  for  itself. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  287 

tion  extending  legislative  powers  to  the  territory  to  the  effect 
"that  no  law  repealing  the  act  of  the  provisional  government 
of  said  Territory,  prohibiting  slavery  or  involuntary  servitude, 
shall  be  valid  until  the  same  shall  be  approved  by  Congress."40 

Like  most  compromises  the  bill  did  not  meet  with  ardent 
support ;  even  those  who  had  been  responsible  for  it  were  dis- 
satisfied, and  Underwood  was  outspoken  in  his  complete  oppo- 
sition to  the  principle  involved :  the  portion  regarding  Oregon, 
said  he,  could  not  be  voted  for  by  any  Senator  without  sur- 
rendering all  constitutional  objections  to  the  power  of  Con- 
gress over  slavery ;  there  ought  to  have  been  a  compromise  on 
36°  30'  but  this  had  been  defeated  by  the  northern  Senators. 
He  urged  his  compatriots  of  the  South  to  migrate  to  Cali- 
fornia and  New  Mexico  and  so  settle  the  question  in  such  a 
way  that  they  would  be  satisfied. 

On  the  morning  of  July  27th  the  bill  was  pushed  to  the 
final  vote  after  a  twenty-one-hour  sitting  of  the  Senate.  Dur- 
ing the  all-night  session  the  bill  had  been  resolutely  attacked 
by  the  more  radical  northerners,  the  Free-Soilers,  who  wished 
to  wear  out  their  colleagues  and  force  an  adjournment  before  a 
vote  could  be  taken.  Senator  Niles  was  interrupted  by  Foote 
who  called  his  attention  to  the  dawning  light. 

"Well,  sir,"  calmly  replied  the  gentleman  from  Connecticut, 
"then  I  shall  proceed  with  my  argument  with  renewed  en- 
ergy. ...  I  have  ten  distinct  heads,  containing  distinct 
grounds  of  objection  to  the  extension  of  slavery  over  those 
Territories,  which  I  propose  to  consider  seriatim.  There  is 
plenty  of  time  before  us,  and  I  shall  proceed  very  deliberately 
in  this  discussion."41 

Dickinson  took  occasion  to  taunt  his  Free-Soil  colleagues 
with  having  given  a  portion  of  Oregon  to  Great  Britain;  the 
"Free-soils"  objected  to  the  bill,  he  said  because  it  gave  the 
people  of  Oregon  the  right  to  legislate  for  themselves ;  they 

40  Appendix  to   Globe,   XVIII,    1141-74,   for  the  discussion. 

41  At  2  A.   M.   Senator  Niles  was  talking  and  only  one   Senator  besides  him- 
self   was   in    sight;    he   moved    an    adjournment,    and    the    sleeping   members    were 
roused    from    sofas    and    chairs    in    the    lobby    and    anterooms    to    vote    down    the 
motion,   32  to   n.     Every  other  attempt  to  adjourn   before  the  bill   was   voted   on 
met  with  the  same  fat*. 


288  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

professed  to  favor  popular  liberty,  yet  were  insisting  that  a 
hasty  and  imperfect  code  of  laws,  designed  to  suit  earlier  days 
and  framed  under  the  influence  of  a  British  corporation,  should 
be  forced  upon  the  people  of  the  Territory  until  it  should 
become  a  State.  "A  baser  system  of  quack  legislation  never 
disfigured  the  records  of  civilized  mjan!  A  blacker  decree  of 
despotism,  in  principle,  was  never  fulminated  since  the  edict 
of  Nantes!" 

During  the  debate  various  amendments  which  were  pro- 
posed in  order  to  nullify  the  compromise  features  were  voted 
down.  Hale,  Davis  (Mass.),  Clarke,  Baldwin  (Conn.)  all 
attempted  in  one  form  or  another  to  defeat  the  purpose  of  the 
clauses  dealing  with  New  Mexico  and  California,  but  with  no 
success.  No  vital  amendment  was  made  and  the  bill  in  essen- 
tially the  form  reported  by  the  com/promise  committee  was 
passed  by  the  Senate  on  a  vote  of  33  to  22.  All  but  three  of 
the  full  membership  responded  to  their  names  when  the  roll 
was  called,  and  one  of  these  three  had  "remained  till  a  late 
hour"  when  he  had  been  "obliged  to  go  home  on  account  of 
fatigue."42  The  twenty- two  votes  against  the  bill  were  all 
from  the  North,  except  for  two  from  Kentucky  and  one  (Bell) 
from  Tennessee.  Nine  Senators  from  the  free  States,  four 
of  them  westerners,  voted  for  the  bill.  Thirteen  Whigs  were 
for  the  measure  while  four  opposed  it. 

The  House  had  just  gotten  started  with  its  Oregon  bill 
when  the  Senate  Compromise  bill  reached  the  Speaker's  desk. 
During  the  Senate  debate,  which  had  been  closely  watched  by 
the  Representatives,  some  Congressmen  had  announced  to 
the  President  their  intention  to  vote  for  it  when  it  should 
reach  them,  but  the  strength  of  the  northern  non-slave  vote 
was  shown  by  the  summary  manner  in  which  it  was  disposed 
of.  Smith  of  Indiana  expressed  the  sentiments  of  most  of  his 
northern  colleagues  when  he  said  that  the  bill  contained  no 
promise  of  settling  the  controversy,  and  Alexander  H. 
Stephens,  of  Georgia,  taking  the  same  ground,  moved,  as  a 

42  Webster   was   not  present,   and   Jones   of  Iowa  did  not  take   his   seat   until 
December,   1848. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  289 

test  of  the  House,  that  it  be  laid  on  the  table.  By  a  vote  of 
112  to  97  this  was  done  and  a  motion  to  table  the  motion  to 
reconsider  was  carried,  114  to  96.43  Thus  in  a  few  minutes 
all  the  work  of  the  Senate  was  undone  and  the  House  pro- 
ceeded with  the  discussion  of  its  own  bill. 

"I  regard  this  vote  of  the  House's  as  most  unfortunate," 
recorded  the  President  in  his  Diary**  "The  majority,  I  learn, 
was  made  up  of  every  Northern  Whig,  of  about  half  the 
Northern  Democrats,  &  of  8  Southern  Whigs.  Those  of  the 
Democratic  party  whose  sympathies  are  with  the  Barnburners 
of  New  York,  or  who  are  timid  &  afraid  to  risk  their  popu- 
larity at  home,  united  with  the  Whigs  to  defeat  the  bill.  *  * 
*  The  political  factions  in  Congress  are  all  at  work  and  they 
seem  to  be  governed  by  no  patriotic  motives,  but  by  the  effect 
which  they  suppose  may  be  produced  upon  the  public  mind 
in  the  pending  Presidential  election.  A  heavy  responsibility 
rests  upon  these,  and  especially  upon  the  8  Southern  Whigs, 
who  have  united  to  defeat  this  mieasure  of  compromise  of  this 
most  delicate  &  vexatious  question.  If  no  Presidential  elec- 
tion had  been  pending  I  cannot  doubt  the  compromise  Bill 
would  have  passed  the  House.  If  it  had  done  so  the  agitation 
would  have  ceased  and  the  question  would  have  been  at  rest." 
He  thought  it  probable  that  the  Northern  candidate  would 
take  more  distinctly  anti-slavery  ground  (i.  e..  Van  Buren, 
who  had  been  nominated  by  the  Democrats  who  were  dis- 
satisfied with  the  Baltimore  platform)  ;  that  no  candidate 
would  have  a  majority  in  the  electoral  college,  and  so  the 
election  would  go  to  the  House.  The  Whig  leaders  in  both 
Houses,  he  learned,  desired  to  adjourn  early  and  so  prevent 
any  action  on  the  territories,  thus  enhancing,  as  they  supposed, 
the  chances  of  General  Taylor,  their  candidate. 

In  addition  to  the  ever-present  slavery  issue,  which  occupied 
most  of  the  attention  of  the  House,  there  was  some  objection 
to  the  particular  form  of  the  land  grant  provisions  and  to  the 
veto  power  given  to  the  governor  in  the  House  bill.  The 

43  Globe,  XVIII,  1006-7.  ^  ,>• 

44  IV,  33-4. 


290  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

measure,  however,  was  reported  to  the  House  by  the  Com- 
mittee of  the  Whole  in  its  original  form,  except  for  a  few 
minor  details  and  the  addition  of  some  sections,  relating  to 
ports  of  entry,  recommended  by  the  Committee  on  Commerce. 
Toward  the  end  of  the  discussion  in  Committee  McClernand 
had  moved  to  strike  out  all  but  the  enacting  clause  and  to 
insert  the  Senate  bill;  he  was  declared  out  of  order,  in  the 
midst  of  great  confusion.  An  appeal  from  the  ruling  was 
taken  but  the  House  upheld  the  chair.  A  similar  fate  over- 
took an  attempt  to  substitute  the  Senate  compromise  for  the 
whole  bill. 

On  the  second  of  August  the  bill  as  reported  from  the 
Committee  of  the  Whole  was  taken  up  in  the  House  and 
disposed  of  with  no  debate.  There  was  no  division  on  the 
amendments  except  that  relating  to  the  governor's  veto,  which 
was  taken  away  by  the  House,  and  that  on  slavery.  In  Com- 
mittee at  a  tim£  when  there  was  a  light  attendance  the  12th 
section  had  been  striken  out,  but  the  House  now  replaced  it 
by  a  vote  of  114  to  88.  The  bill  was  then  ordered  engrossed 
and  passed  (129  to  71).  In  the  division  on  the  slavery  section 
all  the  Congressmen  from  the  slave  States  voted  to  retain  the 
Committee  amendment  with  the  exception  of  fourteen  who 
refused  to  vote ;  ten  northern  Representatives  voted  with  their 
southern  brethren,  they  were  from  Illinois,  Ohio,  Indiana  and 
Pennsylvania.45 

The  defeat  of  the  Senate  measure  in  the  House  had  been 
taken  by  all  as  a  most  unfavorable  omen;  nevertheless  the 
western  Democrats  were  determined  to  save  something  from 
the  wreck  if  possible.  Hannegan,46  on  the  last  day  of  July, 
in  giving  notice  that  he  would  introduce  on  the  following 
Monday  a  bill  for  organizing  the  territories  of  Oregon,  Cali- 
fornia and  New  Mexico,  stated  that  it  was  his  conviction 
that  it  was  vain  for  any  individual  to  attempt  to  adjust  the 
question;  the  defeat  of  the  compromise  measure  had  brought 
to  members  of  both  houses  numerous  requests  from  all  over 


45  Globe,  XVIII,  1027. 

46  Ibid.,  loio,  1016. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  291 

the  country  to  leave  the  matter  open  because  that  would  pro- 
mote the  interests  of  his  (Hannegan's)  favorite  candidate  for 
the  Presidency  (i.  e.  General  Cass).  That,  however,  he  con- 
sidered an  impossible  way  to  view  the  situation,  for  Christen- 
dom would  look  upon  the  United  States  as  on  the  verge  of  civil 
war,  especially  as  talk  of  disunion  was  so  freely  heard  within 
the  Senate  chamber.  It  was  the  duty  of  Congress  to  adopt 
some  measure  to  put  a  stop  to  this  treasonable  talk,  for  it  was 
moral  treason  to  breath  the  word  "disunion."  Benton,  too, 
offered  a  bill,  framed  upon  the  act  of  1806  by  which  the 
people  of  Louisiana  were  to  be  governed  according  to  existing 
law  until  other  provision  should  have  been  made.  He  said 
he  would  call  this  up  later  if  nothing  better  should  be  presented. 

The  House  bill,  however,  came  before  the  Senate  on  August 
third.  Senator  Clayton  was  for  extending  it  the  same  courtesy 
the  Senate  bill  had  received  in  the  House,  but  this  was  refused, 
Clayton  himself  being  the  only  one  to  vote  for  it.  The  bill 
was  referred  to  the  Committee  on  territories  and  by  that  com- 
mittee reported  back  two  days  later  with  two  major  and  two 
minor  amendments ;  the  veto  power  was  restored  to  the  gov- 
ernor, and  in  the  proper  place  were  inserted  the  words,  "In- 
asmuch as  the  said  Territory  is  North  of  the  Parallel  of  36  30, 
usually  known  as  the  Missouri  Compromise." 

On  the  eighth  of  August  the  Senate  took  up  the  bill  and 
modified  the  veto  amendment  so  that  any  act  disapproved  by 
the  governor  should  be  specifically  submitted  to  Congress  in 
such  a  way  as  to  provide  a  Congressional  veto  of  the  gov- 
ernor's veto.  As  to  the  amlendment  touching  the  Missouri 
Compromise  Douglas  stated  that  it  was  the  unanimous  desire 
of  the  committee  that  no  Senator's  vote  should  be  understood 
as  committing  him  for  the  future.  The  northern  radicals, 
however,  refused  to  take  this  view  and  some  of  the  southerners 
(e.  g.,  Butler  of  South  Carolina)  opposed  giving  the  North 
all  the  valuable  territory  north  of  the  compromise  line;  this 
Oregon  bill,  said  Butler,  which  two  years  before  had  been  an 
innocent  measure,  now  masked  a  battery  from  behind  which 


292  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

the  institutions  of  the  South  were  being  attacked.  On  two 
days  the  bill  was  discussed,  but  no  decision  was  reached.  On 
the  tenth  of  August  the  Senate  convened  for  an  evening 
session  and  threshed  over  the  slavery  issue  until  the  final  vote 
was  taken  the  next  morning  at  ten  o'clock.  First  the  com- 
mittee amendment  was  voted  on,  with  the  understanding  that 
if  it  was  lost  a  vote  should  be  taken  on  an  amendment,  sub- 
mitted by  Douglas,  extending  the  Missouri  Compromise  line 
to  the  Pacific  without  reference  to  Oregon.  The  committee 
amendment  was  lost,  52  to  2,  and  the  Missouri  Compromise 
clause  was  inserted  (33  to  21).  The  opposition  to  the  amend- 
ment was  nearly  the  same  as  that  to  the  Compromise  Bill  which 
had  passed  the  Senate  a  couple  of  weeks  before;  Atherton 
(New  Hampshire  Democrat),  Breese  and  Phelps,  who  had 
voted  for  the  Compromise  Bill,  now  voted  against  the  amend- 
ment ;  Atherton  and  Phelps  voted  against  the  bill.  Fitzgerald 
(Michigan)  and  Underwood  had  opposed  the  Compromise  bill 
and  now  voted  for  the  amendment  and  the  bill ;  Calhoun  voted 
for  the  amendment  but  against  the  bill,  which,  he  said,  was 
ambiguous. 

During  the  night  while  the  Senate  discussion  was  in  prog- 
ress the.  House  was  in  great  confusion  so  long  as  it  sat,  and 
the  next  morning  the  excitement  was  even  more  pronounced.47 
When  the  Oregon  bill  was  brought  before  it  for  concurrence 
the  whole  section  dealing  with  the  veto  was  rejected,  for,  it 
may  be  remarked,  the  veto  might  conceivably  be  used  to  pro- 
mote pro-slavery  interests,  since  the  governor  would  be  ap- 
pointed by  a  southern  President.  The  Missouri  Compromise 
line  provision  was  lost,  121  to-  82. 

The  bill  was  now  before  the  Senate  again  (12  August). 
Benton  moved  that  the  Senate  recede  from  its  amendment  and 
spoke  feelingly  for  action  on  the  bill.  He  said  he  had  voted 
reluctantly  for  the  compromise  amendment,  but  now  that  the 
Senate  had  taken  its  stand  enough  had  been  done  for  concilia- 


47  So  stated  the  reporter  of  the  debates,  and  the  President,  who  had  gone  to 
the  Capitol  late  in  the  evening  and  had  stayed  until  11:30  P.  M.  in  order  to 
sign  such  bills  as  should  be  presented  to  him.  Diary,  IV,  79. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  293 

tion;  in  the  meantimle  Oregon  was  in  a  deplorable  condition 
and  it  would  be  criminal  to  adjourn  before  passing  the  bill. 
The  provisional  government,  he  went  on,  had  reached  a  point 
where  it  could  no  longer  handle  the  situation,  and  not  only 
would  there  be  war  between  Indians  and  whites  but  between 
whites  and  whites.  Berrien  begged  his  colleagues  of  the  South 
not  to  let  slip  this  opportunity  for  if  the  Senate  amendment  did 
not  prevail  the  North  would  rule  the  South  with  a  rod  of  iron. 
Calhoun  spoke  with  bitterness  of  the  defeat  which  the  South 
had  experienced ;  he  denounced  any  southerner  who  supported 
this  attempt  of  the  North  to  turn  the  population  of  the  whole 
South  into  slaves,  for  it  had  become  not  a  question  of  terri- 
torial government  but  of  the  existence  of  the  Union  itself. 
Several  attempts  were  made  to  induce  Benton  to  withdraw 
his  motion,  which  had  precedence  under  the  rule,  but  the 
Missouri  Senator  was  adamant ;  he  was  going  to  see  that  bill 
pass  if  it  was  a  human  possibility. 

All  through  the  night  and  until  nine  o'clock  on  Sunday 
morning  the  ground  was  beaten  over  in  the  southern  attempt 
to  prevent  action  but  finally  the  futility  of  the  endeavor  was 
seen.  The  amendments  to  which  the  House  had  refused  its 
concurrence  were  taken  up  one  by  one  and  the  Senate  receded 
from  its  stand.  The  vote  on  the  veto  was  31  to  23  and  that 
on  the  slavery  section  was  29  to  25.  Four  Senators  did  not 
vote;  Clayton  and  Sturgeon  were  absent  and  Atherton  paired 
with  King  of  Alabama,  who  had  left  the  Capitol  exhausted. 
Those  who  voted  to  recede  were  all  from  the  free  States  ex- 
cept Benton  of  Missouri  and  Houston  of  Texas.  Party  lines 
were  forgotten ;  twelve  Whigs  and  seventeen  Democrats  voted 
to  recede,  and  eight  Whigs  and  seventeen  Democrats  voted  not 
to  recede. 

Only  one  recourse  was  now  left  and  to  the  President  went 
Senators  to  urge  him  to  refuse  to  sign  the  measure.  Turney 
of  Tennessee  protested  that  the  President  must  not  sign; 
Calhoun  said  the  bill  must  be  vetoed  on  constitutional  grounds  ; 
Hannegan  said  he  would  sustain  a  veto.48  Polk,  however,  had 

~#  Diary,  IV,  71-3. 


294  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

already  made  up  his  mind  to  approve  the  bill  even  before  the 
Senate  had  acted.  He  had  consulted  his  Cabinet  and  had 
found  its  m/embers  unanimous  for  approval  since  Oregon  was 
north  of  36°  30'.  Then,  asked  he,  should  he  accompany  the 
signed  bill  by  a  message  explaining  that  this  was  the  reason 
for  his  approval?  All  agreed  that  some  explanation  should 
be  made,  although  Buchanan  qualified  his  assent  by  stating 
that  its  effect  upon  Cass'  chances  of  election  should  be  con- 
sidered, and  Walker  inclined  to  think  that  a  statement  in  the 
Union  would  serve  the  purpose  better  than  a  message.  Ac- 
cordingly Polk  requested  Buchanan  and  Walker  to  prepare  a 
draft  which  was  read  and  discussed  in  Cabinet  on  the  twelfth ; 
on  the  thirteenth,  after  the  Senate  had  receded  from  its  amend- 
ments, Polk  revised  the  draft  and  with  the  advice  of  all  his 
official  family,  except  Buchanan,  took  it  with  the  bill  to  the 
Capitol. 

When  he  arrived  at  his  room  there  he  found  the  Senate 
engaged  in  a  discussion  as  to  whether  the  rules  relating  to 
presenting  measures  for  the  president's  signature  on  the  last 
day  of  a  session  should  be  suspended.  Polk  frankly  told  many 
of  the  Senators  that  if  the  rule  should  not  be  suspended  it 
would  defeat  not  only  the  Oregon  bill  but  many  other  impor- 
tant measures,  and  in  that  case  he  would  immediately  issue  a 
proclamation  for  an  extra  session  of  Congress.  This  threat 
was  sufficient  to  cause  the  rules  to  be  suspended,  for  not  only 
had  Congress  been  in  session  more  than  eight  months,  but 
the  presidential  campaign  was  in  full  swing  and  many  fences 
needed  immediate  attention.  Calhoun  made  one  final  appeal 
and  urged  the  President,  if  he  was  bound  to  sign  the  bill,  to 
do  so  in  the  usual  manner  and  not  accompany  the  signature 
with  a  mteasure.  The  request  was  of  no  avail  and  the  President 
signed  both  bill  and  message  and  sent  them  by  his  private 
secretary  to  the  House.49 

In  this  message50  Polk  reviewed  the  course  of  the  statesmen 
of  earlier  days  on  the  slavery  issue  including  the  framing  of 


49  Polk,    Diary,    IV,    76-7.      Globe,    XVIII,    1083-4. 

50  Richardson,   Messages,   IV,  606-10. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  295 

the  Missouri  Compromise  which  calmed  "the  troubled  waters 
and  (restored)  peace  and  good  will  throughout  the  States  of 
the  Union.  A  similar  adjustment,  he  went  on,  would  un- 
doubtedly produce  the  same  happy  results,  for  it  had  been 
successfully  applied  to  Texas  when  that  State  was  admitted. 

"The  Territory  of  Oregon  lies  far  north  of  36°  30',  the 
Missouri  and  Texas  compromise  line.  Its  southern  bound- 
ary is  the  parallel  of  42°,  leaving  the  intermediate  distance 
to  be  330  geographical  miles.  And  it  is  because  the  pro- 
visions of  this  bill  are  not  inconsistent  with  the  laws  of  the 
Missouri  compromise,  if  extended  from  the  Rio  Grande  to 
the  Pacific  Ocean,  that  I  have  not  felt  at  liberty  to  withhold 
my  sanction.  Had  it  embraced  territories  south  of  that 
compromise,  the  question  presented  for  my  consideration 
would  have  been  of  a  far  different  character,  and  my  action 
upon  it  must  have  corresponded  with  my  convictions  *  * 

"Holding  as  a  sacred  trust  the  Executive  authority  for  the 
whole  Union,  and  bound  to  guard  the  rights  of  all,  I  should 
be  constrained  by  a  sense  of  duty  to  withhold  my  official 
sanction  from  any  measure  which  would  conflict  with  these 
important  objects." 

This  blunt  statement  of  the  President's  stand  upon  the  whole 
issue  the  House  refused  to  allow  to  go  before  the  country  as  a 
public  document  and  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  some  Repre- 
sentatives it  was  not  officially  printed  until  the  following  De- 
cember, after  the  election.  It  was  circulated,  however,  in  the 
newspapers,  since  Polk,  with  a  little  difficulty  secured  a  copy 
from  the  Clerk  of  the  House  for  that  purpose. 

Oregon,  having  played  a  major  role  in  international  rela- 
tions, now  completed  its  first  appearance  as  a  leading  figure 
in  the  slavery  drama,  a  part  which  it  took  again  when  the 
question  of  statehood  came  up.  After  being  the  subject  of 
discussion  for  many  years  it  was  furnished,  as  far  as  the  law 
went,  with  the  ordinary  form  of  organic  law,  excepting  that 
its  governor  had  no  veto  power  and  slavery  could  not  legally 
exist  within  its  borders  so  long  as  the  territorial  status  con- 
tinued. 


ON  SIT 

5. 


THE  OREGON 


ATION 


PRESIDENT  UAM  G.  T'VAVLT 

VICE  -  PRESIDENT         JAMES  W  NESMITH 
SECRETARY-  JOHN  E 

TREASURER  -GEORGE  ABERNETHY 

-  - 

ROBERT  NEWELL  fl.COVCH 

JOHN  E.tONG  , 
*  EDITORS  * 

FIRST  »  WILLIAM  G  ,  T  VAV  LI  FOV  fit  H  -  AARON  £.  WAIT 

SECONtt  *  HEHftY  A.  G.  LEE  ,    FIFTH  -.  WILSON  BM1N 

THIRD  *  &EGRGE  LAW  CVRRY  SIXTH  -  D.  J.  SCRNEBLY 


-  C.  L,  GOODEIC 


^IUST  -  JOHN  FUM! 
SECOND  -'N.W.COLV 
— "•-  *"  pf  HVDSO 
"OVRTH  »  S.BENTLY 


PRINTERS 


HAWLEY  WLP  A. 


HISTORICAL  TABLET  AT  OREGON  CITY 

ADDRESS  BY  GEORGE  H.  HIMES,  CURATOR  AND  ASSISTANT  SECRETARY 
OF  THE  OREGON  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY,  AND  SECRETARY  OF  THE  OREGON 
PIONEER  ASSOCIATION,  AT  THE  DEDICATION  OF  THE  TABLET  PREPARED  TO 
MARK  THE  SITE  WHERE  THE  OREGON  SPECTATOR,  THE  FIRST  NEWSPAPER 
WEST  OF  THE  ROCKY  MOUNTAINS,  WAS  PRINTED  ON  FEBRUARY  5,  1846. 

The  unveiling  of  a  tablet  at  Oregon  City  on  August  9th 
to  mark  the  site  where  The  Oregon  Spectator,  the  first  news- 
paper in  American  territory  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains 
was  issued  on  February  5,  1846,  seventy-three  years  and  seven 
months  before,  was  an  interesting  feature  of  the  joint  pro- 
gramme of  the  National  and  State  Editorial  Associations  at 
their  meetings  in  Portland  on  August  8-10,  1919. 

At  the  time  The  Spectator  was  started  the  difficulties  con- 
fronting such  an  enterprise  were  very  great.  Then  Oregon 
City  had  a  population  of  less  than  five  hundred.  The  total 
population  of  the  "Oregon  Country" — meaning  the  area  now 
constituting  the  States  of  Oregon,  Washington,  Idaho,  and 
the  parts  of  Montana  and  Wyoming  west  of  the  summit  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains — did  not  exceed  two  thousand.  The 
total  voting  population  on  June  3,  1845,  was  five  hundred  and 
four.  Yet  the  citizens  in  and  around  Oregon  City  determined 
to  have  a  newspaper.  A  subscription  paper  was  prepared  that 
year  and  enough  pledges  at  ten  dollars  a  share  were  secured  to 
aggregate  approximately  twelve  hundred  dollars.  That  sum 
was  entrusted  to  Gov.  George  Abernethy  and  forwarded  to 
New  York;  and  through  him  a  hand-press,  type,  cases  and 
other  items  needed  in  a  printing  plant,  including  a  supply  of 
paper,  were  purchased  and  sent  to  Oregon  City  via  Cape  Horn 
in  a  sailing  vessel.  Arrangements  were  made  with  John 
Fleming,  a  printer  from  Ohio,  who  came  across  the  plains  to 
Oregon  City  in  1844,  to  do  the  printing.  The  size  of  the 
paper  was  11^  by  15^2  inches,  with  four  pages  of  four  col- 
umns each,  and  it  was  issued  twice  a  month  at  $5.00  a  year. 
Beginning  with  September  12,  1850,  the  paper  was  issued 
weekly  with  D.  J.  Schnebly  as  editor,  and  the  subscription 
price  was  raised  to  $7.00  a  year. 


298  GEORGE  H.  HIMES 

Time  does  not  permit  reference  to  many  other  details  of 
interest;  suffice  it  to  say  that  the  journal  had  a  fitful  existence 
until  the  date  of  suspension  in  March,  1855,  having  been 
edited  by  seven  different  persons,  and  its  mechanical  depart- 
ment operated  by  nine  different  printers.  It  is  likely  that 
there  were  others,  but  no  trace  of  them  can  be  found.  The 
salary  of  the  first  editor,  an  attorney  named  W.  G.  T'Vault, 
was  at  the  rate  of  $300.00  per  year.  He  was  a  native  of  Ken- 
tucky and  was  reported  to  have  had  some  experience  as  an 
editor  in  Tennessee  before  coming  to  Oregon.  His  services 
were  dispensed  with  at  the  end  of  two  months. 

Out  of  the  twenty-two  persons  whose  names  appear  upon 
the  tablet  I  have  had  a  personal  acquaintance  with  thirteen, 
the  first  of  them  being  T.  F.  McElroy,  who  was  associated 
with  James  W.  Wiley  in  publishing  the  Columbian,  the  first 
newspaper  north  of  the  Columbia  river,  the  first  issue  of  which 
was  on  September  11,  1852,  at  Olympia  at  the  head  of  Puget 
Sound.  He  was  master  of  the  first  Masonic  lodge  in  Wash- 
ington— Olympia  No.  1,  in  1853,  and  officiated  at  the  funeral 
of  James  McAllister,  a  member  of  his  lodge,  who  was  killed 
by  Indians  on  October  28,  1855,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Yakima  Indian  war  which  lasted  a  year,  and  was  a  neighbor  of 
my  father's  family.  Acquaintance  with  George  B.  Goudy 
began  soon  afterwards,  as  he  was  a  captain  of  volunteers  dur- 
ing that  Indian  war.  Both  men  became  prominent  in  public 
affairs  in  the  early  days  of  Washington  Territory. 

Other  members  of  The  Spectator  family  achieved  consider- 
able distinction,  notably  James  W.  Nesmith,  as  supreme  judge 
of  the  Provisional  Government,  volunteer  soldier,  Superin- 
tendent of  Indian  Affairs,  United  States  Senator,  and  member 
of  the  House  of  Representatives ;  George  Law  Curry,  as  secre- 
tary of  Oregon  Territory  and  the  last  territorial  governor; 
Wilson  Blain,  as  a  minister  and  educator;  Aaron  E.  Wait,  as 
a  lawyer  and  circuit  judge;  D.  J.  Schneby,  as  a  newspaper 
man  at  Ellensburg,  eastern  Washington. 

My  association  with  the  men  mentioned,  together  with  a 


HISTORICAL  TABLET  AT  OREGON  CITY  299 

growing  consciousness  of  the  importance  of  memorials  to 
perpetuate  the  beginnings  of  various  enterprises  as  well  as 
events  of  historical  importance,  led  me  more  than  forty  years 
ago  to  make  a  thorough  investigation  in  locating  the  site  of  the 
building  where  The  Spectator  was  printed.  Then  this  point  was 
selected  as  the  proper  one  and  the  choice  was  confirmed  by  a 
number  of  persons  then  living  who  had  been  original  subscribers 
to  the  paper,  among  them  the  late  Hiram  Straight,  a  pioneer  of 
1843,  Sidney  W.  Moss,  Medorem  Crawford,  F.  X.  Matthieu, 
and  J.  R.  Robb,  pioneers  of  1842,  W.  Carey  Johnson,  a  pioneer 
of  1845 ;  and  this  choice  had  additional  confirmation  by  Wil- 
liam L.  Adams,  who  bought  the  Spectator  plant  in  April,  1855, 
and  issued  therefrom  the  Oregon  Argus  on  the  21st  of  that 
month,  as  well  as  by  David  W.  Craig,  his  foreman. 

A  number  of  plans  for  securing  a  tablet  to  mark  this  spot 
occurred  to  me  from  time  to  time  during  these  passing  years, 
but  none  seemed  feasible  until  after  this  property  had  been 
acquired  by  its  present  owner,  the  Hawley  Pulp  &  Paper  Com- 
pany. About  eighteen  months  ago  Mr.  Hawley  was  inter- 
viewed and  a  tentative  plan  for  a  tablet  submitted  to  him.  This 
he  accepted  and  I  was  bidden  to  proceed  to  carry  out  the  idea 
suggested.  No  definite  time,  however,  was  agreed  upon  for 
the  fulfillment  of  the  project. 

In  April  of  the  present  year,  after  learning  that  the  National 
Editorial  Association  had  arranged  to  make  a  coast-wide  trip 
in  August,  it  occurred  to  me  that  if  the  contemplated  tablet 
could  be  dedicated  as  a  feature  on  the  joint  programme  of 
the  National  and  State  Editorial  Associations  it  would  be 
well  to  have  the  tablet  ready  for  the  ceremony  of  dedication 
on  the  date  already  alluded  to.  The  matter  was  then  referred 
to  Mr.  Hawley,  and  he  consented  to  all  the  arrangements  that 
I  had  made,  and  the  editorial  associations  alluded  graciously 
gave  the  proposed  dedication  a  place  upon  the  joint  programme. 

And  now,  here  the  tablet  is,  owing  to  the  public  spirit  of 
Mr.  Willard  P.  Hawley,  and  a  photostat  copy  of  No.  2  of  The 
Spectator,  February  19,  1846,  can  be  seen  in  his  office. 


300  GEORGE  H.  HIMES 

This  memorial,  mounted  on  a  huge  bowlder  taken  from  the 
foot  of  the  cliffs  near  by  where  the  five  Indians  who  killed 
Dr.  Marcus  Whitman,  his  wife  and  twelve  others,  on  No- 
vember 29-30,  1847,  were  hung  on  June  3,  1850,  is  to  honor 
the  beginning  of  newspaper  life  on  the  Pacific  Coast.* 

*The  tablet  stands  on;  the  right  hand  or  west  side  of  Main  street,  Oregon  City, 
near  the  office  of  the  Hawky  Pulp  &  Paper  Company.  When  the  buildings  that 
ar«  contemplated  by  this  company  are  erected  a  recess  or  alcove  will  be  provided 
in  order  that  the  tablet  may  be  readily  seen  from  the  street. 


POLK  AND  OREGON,— WITH  A  PAKENHAM 
LETTER 

KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON,  M.  A. 

The  contributions  of  Mr.  Shippee  on  "The  Federal  Rela- 
tions of  Oregon,  V."  in  the  June  Quarterly,  reminded  the 
writer  of  a  rather  interesting  letter  written  during  the  Con- 
gressional debate,  from  Richard  Pakenham,  British  Ambas- 
sador, to  the  Elarl  of  Aberdeen,  the  original  of  which  was 
found  in  the  London  Public  Record  Office.  The  letter  is 
given  below : 

Richard  Pakenham  to  the  Earl  of  Aberdeen. 

"Washington,  March  29,  1846.* 
"My  Lord, 
[Formalities,  and  general  reference  to  the  debates  in  Congress, 

on  the  Oregon  question.] 
*******         * 

"But  a  fact  which  I  must  not  omit  to  point  out  to  Your 
Lordship's  notice,  is,  that  it  seems  to  have  become  a  received 
opinion  among  even  the  most  moderate  members  of  the  Senate, 
that  the  claims  of  the  United  States  extend  fully  to  the  parallel 
of  49,  which  they  consider  ought  to  be  insisted  on  as  the 
basis  of  any  arrangement. 

"So  certain  is  this,  that  the  advocates  of  a  peaceful  settle- 
ment of  the  question  are  now  universally  designated  as  49 
men,  in  contradistinction  to  those  who  go  for  the  whole  of 
Oregon  even  at  the  risk  of  war,  and  are  called  54.40  men. 

"In  the  course  of  this  debate,  a  good  deal  of  interest  was 
excited  by  the  speech  of  Mr.  Haywood  of  North  Carolina, 
(Intelligencers  of  23rd  and  24th  March)**  who  from  the 
intimacy  which  has  long  subsisted  between  him  and  Mr.  Polk 
was  supposed  to  speak,  in  a  certain  degree,  the  President's 
opinions. 

"Mr.  Haywood's  language  was  entirely  in  favor  of  com- 
promise upon  the  basis  of  49,  and  he  gave  it  to  be  understood 

•Foreign  Office,  series  5,  vol.  447,  No.  34. 


302  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

that  those  who  imagined  that  the  President  was  inclined  to 
persist  in  asserting  at  all  risks  a  claim  to  the  whole  of  Oregon, 
or  that  he  felt  bound  by  the  resolution  to  that  effect,  passed 
at  the  Convention  which  nominated  him  to  the  Presidency, 
were  mistakes. 

"This  avowal  was  received  with  violent  indignation  by  the 
advocates  of  extreme  measures.  I  beg  leave  to  request  Your 
Lordship's  attention  to  the  extraordinary  language  made  use 
of  on  the  occasion  by  Mr.  Hannegan  of  Indiana  (Intelligencer 
of  6  March)**  who  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  if  it  was 
true  that  the  President  thus  belied  the  pledge  taken  by  the 
Baltimore  Convention: — 

"  The  story  of  his  infamy  would  be  circulated  from  one 
end  of  the  land  to  the  other,  and  his  perfidious  course  would 
sink  him  in  an  infamy  so  profound,  in  a  damnation  so  deep, 
that  the  hand  of  resurrection  could  never  reach  him, — a 
traitor  to  his  country  so  superlatively  base  need  hope  for  neither 
forgiveness  from  God  nor  mercy  from  man.' 

"This  is  what  the  President  has  brought  upon  himself  by 
the  imprudent  lengths  to  which  he  allowed  himself  to  go  in 
his  inaugural  address,  as  well  as  in  his  Message  of  the  2nd 
December,  and  in  the  correspondence  of  his  Secretary  of  State 
on  the  subject  of  Oregon. 

"Fortunately  for  the  country,  the  party  in  the  Senate  who 
think  with  Mr.  Hannegan,  is  so  insignificant,  not  numbering 
as  it  has  repeatedly  been  asserted  in  the  course  of  the  debate, 
above  a  fourth,  or  as  some  say,  a  fifth,  of  that  body,  that 
Mr.  Polk  need  have  no  fear  that  he  will  not  be  supported 
amply,  both  in  and  out  of  the  Senate,  if  he  should  wisely 
determine  to  adopt  a  moderate  and  pacific  course  of  policy, — 
but  what  his  real  intention  in  this  respect  may  be,  he  has 
given  the  public  no  opportunity  of  judging,  since  the  scene  in 
the  Senate  of  which  I  have  above  spoken."  *  *  * 

(Signed)  Richard  Pakenham. 
To  the  Earl  of  Aberdeen,  K.  T. 

**Citations  by  Mr.  Pakenbam. 


DEATH  LIST  OF  OREGON  PIONEERS 
June  1-September  30,  1919. 

Compiled  by  GEORGE  H.  HIKES. 

Applegate,  Miss  Irene,  b.  Mo.   1839;  Or.  1843;  d.  Yonealla,  July  35. 
Baker,  Melvin,  b.  Tenn.   1836;  Or.   1853;  d.  Sherwood,  Aug.   15. 
•Barger,   Mrs.   Rebecca  Smith,  b.   Ohio  Jan.   i,   1825;   Or.   1847;   d.   Portland,   Sep- 
tember 22.     (Was  crowned  "Mother  Queen"  of  Oregon  Pioneers  in  June,  1917.) 
Beard,  Ambrose,  b.  Or.  1855;  d.  near  Fossil,  July  29. 

Benefiel,  William  Harrison,  b.  : 1857;   Or.   1852;  d.   Portland,  Aug.    15. 

Burns,  James  H.,  b.  Or.  1851;  d.  Bridgeport,  Baker  County,  Aug.  7. 

Burton,  Dixon,  b.  Cal.  1853;  Or.  1882;  d.  Eugene,  June  16. 

Caldwell,  Gerald,  b.  Va.   1827;  Or.   1845;  d.  Williams,  Josephine  County,  Sept.   10. 

Caldwell,  W.  H.,  b.  1849;  Or.  1856;  d.  Aug.  7. 

Caspell,  Mrs.  P.  A.,  b.  Or.  1856;  d.  Salem,  Aug.  22 

Catlin,  James,  b.  111.  1834;  Or.  1848;  d.  Palo  Alto,  Cal.,  June  16. 

Chrisman,  Pret.,  b.  Mo.  1845;  Or.   1851;  d.  Cottage  Grove.  Aug.   18. 

*Clarke,  William  Jessup,  b.  Or.  Feb.  24,  1857;  d.  Portland,  June  20. 

Denver,  Mrs.  Eva,  b.  Or.  1859;  d.  Astoria,  June  19. 

Dunn,  Mrs.  Cecelia  Christian,  b.  111.   1840;  Or.  1852;  d.  Eugene,  June  15. 

Graham,  Walter,  b.   N.  Y.  Oct.   12,   1828;   Or.   1853;  d.   Seattle,   Sept.    15. 

Griggs,  J.  A.,  b.  Holland,   N.  Y.,  May  9,   1834;  Cal.   1852;   Or,   1872;  d.  Cottage 

Grove.  Sept.  20. 

*Haley,  Mrs.  Mary  Ann  W9odcock,  b.  Mo.   1842;  Or.   1844;  d.  Portland,  June  24. 
Hamilton,   Mrs.  Mary  C.  Mires,  b.  Iowa  1842;  Or.   1852;  d.  Fossil,  Sept.   26. 
Harbert,  Joseph  W.,  b.   1835;  Or.   1859;   d.  Walla  Walla,  July  27. 
Heater,  Mrs.   Mary  Jane,  b.  Aug.   30,   1829;  Or.    1850;  d.   near  Newberg,   Sept.  4. 
Hill,  Dr.  J,  L.,  b.   Tenn.  1851;   Or.    1853;   d.  Albany,  Aug.   i. 
Hines,  Cicero,  b.  Mo.  Feb.  4,   1846;   Or.    1848;   d.   Gales  Creek,  Aug.    n. 
*Hodgkin,  Mrs.  Adelaide  Jennings,  b.   Or.  Feb.  6,   1855;  d.  Vancouver,  Sept.  20. 
"Houck,  Mrs.  Leah  J.,  b.  Mo.  Feb.  5,  1842;  Or.  1853;  d.  Portland,  Sept. 
•Hurley,    Mrs.    Mary   A.    McCarver,   b.   111.    1842;    Or.    1843;    d,    Santa   Barbara, 

Cal.,   Aug.    5. 

Johns,  W.  W.,  Or.  1852;  d.  Salem,  Sept.  27. 

*  Jones,  Mrs.  Losia  Amelia,  b.  I1L  1846;  Or.  -850;  d.  Stevenson,  Wash,,  March  6, 
1919. 

Kandle,  Frank  M.,  b.   Ind.   1842;  Or.   1851;  d.  Portland,  Aug.   15. 
Keeney,   Mrs.   M.   R.,  b.   111.    1857;   d.   Kalispell,  Mont.,  June  8 
Kennedy.  Charles,  b  Mo.   1850;  Or.   1852;  d.   Portland,  Oct.  31,   1918. 
LaChapelle,  Mrs.  Adrian,  b.  Oregon  Ter.   1819;  d.   St.   Louis.  Or.,  June  6. 
Laffey,  Mrs,   Bernard,  b.   Mich.   1830;   Or.   1852;   d.   Portland.  Aug.  27. 
Larkins,  Cicero  Nelson,  b.  Or.   1857;   d.   near  Oregon  City,  Aug.   14. 
Lewis.  Mrs.   Mary  Dunn,  b.   Iowa   1853;   Or.  185.;   d.  Astoria,  Aug.    17. 
*Luelling,  Mrs.  Mary  Campbell,  b.  Mass.   1834;  Or.  1849;  home  at  Milwaukie,  Or,. 

for  many  years;  d.   Orofino,  Idaho,  Aug.   23. 
Marquis,   James   W.,    b.    Mb.    1841;    Or.    1850;    d.    Portland,    Sept.    14;    served    in 

First  Or.   Cavalry  in   Civil  War. 

*Meldrum,  John  W.,  b.  Iowa  Dec.  17,  1839;  Or.  1847;  d.  near  Milwaukie,  Sept  23. 
Mercer,  Mrs.  Ann  Stiver,  b.  Eng.   1841;  Or.   1852;  d.  Seattle,  Sept.  30. 
Michals,  Girard  B.,  b.  1839;  Or.  1847;  d.  Sedro-Wooley,  Wash.,  July. 
"Miller,  George  R.  H.,  b.   Ireland   1832;  U.   S.    1854;  enlisted  in  U.   S.  Army  at 

Cincinnati  May  18,  1855;  Or.  that  year;  d.  Oregon  City,  July  2. 
Miller,  Mrs.  Maria  A.  Probst,  b.  Or.  1856;  d.  Knox  Butte,  Lmn  County,  Sept.  n. 
*Moore,    Mrs.    Margaret   Octavia   Meldrum,   b.    111.    1836;    Or.    1845;    d.    Portland 

Sept.    25. 
"Moore,    Mrs.    Mary    Helen    Me  Williams,    b.    Mo.    1830;    Or.    1845;    d.    Hillsboro, 

Aug.  9. 

Moss,  Mrs.  Emiline  Barr,  b.  Mo.  Nov.  27,  1845;  Or.   1853;  d.  Sept.   n. 
McCain,  James,  b.   Ind.   1844;  Or.   1848;  d.   McMinnville,  Aug.   5. 
McKinncy,  John  F,  b.  Mo.  1832;  Calif.  1850;  Or.  1851;  d.  Aug.  i. 
Osborn,  Alexander  R.,  b.  Utah  1847;  Or.  1847;  d.  Bandon,  Dec.  o,   1018 
Owen,  Mrs.  Millie  A.,  b.  Or.   1852;  d.  Nov.  6,   1918. 

Paquette,  Mrs.   Monica,  b.   Canada   1838;   Or.   1841;  d.   Scotts  Mills,  July   n 
Pease,  Archie  L.,  b.  Oregon  City,  1859;  d.  Portland,  Aug.  27. 
Peterson,  Mrs.  Louisa  Cyrene  Denney,  b.  Or.  1853;  d.  Beaverton,  July  6. 
Pettys,  Amanuel  C.,  b.  N.  Y.j   Or.    1854;   d.  lone,  June   18. 
Price,  James  H.,  b.  Oregon  City,  June  8,  1847;  d.  Tacwna,  April  10,  1919. 


304  GEORGE  H.  HIMES 


Robbins,  Mrs.  E.  Ellen  Rees,  b.  Or.  Sept.   18,  1851;  d.  Portland,  Aug.  4. 
Sears,  David  Walker,  b.   Mo. _  18.49;  Or.   1850;  d.   Sherwood,   Sept.  9. 
Shortridge,   Mrs. 
Shrum,  Andrew  _ 
Simons,    Mrs.    Elmira 
June    13. 


alker,   p.   Mo.   1849;  Or.   1850;  a.   anerwooa,   sept.   9. 
.   Amelia,  b.   Ind.    1835;   Or.   1853;   d.   Eugene,  Aug.   i. 
Jackson,  b.  Mo.  1841 ;  Or.  1846;  d.  Boise,  Idaho,  July  23. 
ilmira   Rose   Ann,   b.    111.    May   30,    1844;    Or.    1852;    d.    Lebanon, 


white  child   b.   on 


111119      WC91      Ul      A   UI  tidllUj      8HJ      Iftl       d»     KJILTWIJ. 

Turnidge,  Joseph  Lane,  b.  Scio,  Feb.  3,   1856;  d.  South  Bend,  Wash.,  Aug.   24. 

Van  Atta,  William,  b.    1841;  Or.   1854;   d.  Vance,  Wash.,  Aug.    u. 

*  Warren,  Mrs.  Eliza  Spalding,  b.  Or.  Nov.   15,   1837;  d.   Coeur  d'Alene,  June  21. 

The  second  white  child  born  in  Oregon  Territory. 

Wells,  Lovell  H.,  b.  1834;  Calif.  1855;  Or.  1907;  d.  Portland,  Sept.  i. 
Wilson,   Mrs.   Angie,   b.    1848;   Or.    1852;   d.    Sprague,   Wash.,   Sept.    10. 
Wilson,    Mrs.    Hannah   Dickerson,    b.    N.    J.    1832;    Or.    1847;    d.    Yoncalla,    May 


Wild 


f,7\Vifliam  H.,  b.  N.  Y.   1822;  Or.   1848;  d.  Lostine,  July  20. 


Note — Only  those  marked  *  joined  the  Oregon  Pioneer  Association. 


THE  QUARTERLY 


olthe 


Oregon  Historical  Society 

VOLUME  XX  DECEMBER,  1919  NUMBER  4 

Copyright,  1919,  by  the  Oregon  Historical  Society 
The  Quarterly  disavows  responsibility  for  the  positions  taken  by  contributors  to  its  pases . 


BRITISH  SIDE  OF  THE  RESTORATION  OF 
FORT  ASTORIA— II. 

By  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON,   M.  A. 

(Continued  from  page  260) 

Meanwhile,  the  Nor'westers  had  been  very  uncertain  as 
to  their  rights  and  standing  on  the  North  West  Coast,  not 
only  as  indicated  by  McGillivray's  interview  with  Lord 
Bathurst,  but  by  the  letters  of  Inglis,  Ellis  &  Co.,  to  Henry 
Gouldburn. 

In  one,  dated  London,  July  25th,  1815,13  they  stated  they 
had  fitted  out  for  the  River  Columbia  quantities  of  manufac- 
tured goods,  solely  for  Indian  trade,  but  "We  have  been  very 
much  alarmed  by  reports  circulated  of  other  stipulations  made 
in  a  commercial  treaty  subsequent  to  that  of  Ghent,  by  which 
all  intercourse  of  trade  is  said  to  be  interdicted  between  His 
Majesty's  subjects  and  the  Indian  tribes  residing  within  the 
territories  of  the  United  States."  They  ask  for  information, 
and  whether  the  British  Government  will  protect  them,  espe- 
cially on  the  Columbia,  and  on  the  coast  north  of  it,  should  they 
"be  molested  by  American  citizens  or  the  American  govern- 
ment." "We  are  perfectly  aware,"  they  add,  "that  our  own 
interests  in  this  trade  must  be  sacrificed  by  necessity  to  views 
of  public  policy."  They  insist,  however,  they  must  have  the 

13  C.  O.  42,  Vol.  164. 


306  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

actual  situation  before  investing  more  money  in  the  Columbia. 

Three  days  later,14  the  firm  again  wrote  to  Henry  Gould- 
burn,  28th  July,  1815,  "to  ascertain  whether  we  may  rely  on 
the  protection  of  His  Majesty's  Government  in  our  arduous 
undertaking  of  establishing  a  colony,  (to  carry  on  the  fur 
trade  between  China  and  the  Columbia  River)  on  the  shores 
of  the  Pacific,  which  was  first  discovered  and  taken  possession 
of  by  British  subjects.  .  .  . 

"We  certainly  would  prefer  prosecuting  the  trade  as  British 
subjects,  unconnected  with  citizens  of  any  other  state,  but 
still  from  circumstances  which  have  come  to  our  knowledge, 
it  may  become  absolutely  necessary,  either  to  combine  our 
interests  in  the  trade  with  those  of  American  merchants,  or  to 
abandon  it  entirely,  without  we  have  some  assurance  of  protec- 
tion on  the  part  of  our  government." 

Again  on  2nd  August,  181 5, 1S  in  a  third  letter  to  Gouldburn, 
Inglis,  Ellis  &  Co.  write:  "We  have  established  a  colony  of 
British  subjects  on  the  Columbia  River,  for  the  purpose  of 
carrying  on  the  fur  trade  with  China." 

Three  vessels  in  two  years,  they  stated,  had  been  sent  with 
Indians  goods,  "for  that  trade  [Columbia]  in  which  we  have 
involved  property  exceeding  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
pounds  sterling. 

"We  are  now  assured  that  that  property  is  subjected  to 
the  risk  of  forcible  seizure  by  American  citizens  or  the  Ameri- 
can government,  on  the  plea  that  as  British  subjects  we  have 
no  right  to  carry  on  trade  with  Indians  within  the  territories 
of  the  United  States,  which  are  now  said  to  extend  to  the 
shores  of  the  Pacific." 

The  Nor'westers  again  demand  assurance  of  safety  in  car- 
rying on  their  trade  from  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  to  Rus- 
sian settlements,  and  from  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  the  sea. 
If  the  colony  on  the  Columbia  river  was  on  British  soil,  they 
could  advance  trade;  otherwise  they  must  abandon  it. 

The  other  side  of  this  correspondence  will  never  be  known, 

i4~C.  O.  42,  Vol.  164. 
15  C.  O.  42,  Vol.  164. 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  307 

until  the  long-lost  North  West  Company  documents  are  discov- 
ered,— unless  burned,  or  destroyed, — which  will  probably  be  in 
some  cellar  or  attic  in  Montreal.  They  are  not  in  London, 
nor  have  they  ever  been  in  the  possession  of  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company,  as  stated  by  Edward  Ellice  to  that  Company 
in  a  letter  of  1825,  after  the  two  companies  had  merged  and 
the  English  company  made  inquiry  regarding  the  papers  of 
the  Nor'westers. 

The  year  1815  was  a  busy  one  for  the  Americans,  as  the 
British  saw  it.16  Aside  from  the  economic  problems  involved 
by  the  great  European  wars,  a  rumor  was  out  that  Spain  had 
again  ceded  the  Floridas  to  Great  Britain  in  payment  for 
money  loaned  during  the  war  in  the  Peninsula.  Secretary 
Monroe  was  very  anxious  about  it.  That  year,  also,  there 
was  the  war  with  the  Dey  of  Algiers.  The  Indians  were  also 
on  the  rampage,  on  the  northern  and  western  frontiers,  and  in 
the  Floridas.  The  British  noted  it.  And  the  determination 
seems  to  have  become  stronger  at  Washington  to  have  the 
future  of  the  United  States  troubled  with  as  few  neighbors 
as  possible, — and  that  meant  controlling  a  larger  section  of 
the  North  American  continent.  War  had  broken  out  also  in 
South  America,  where  Spain  was  fighting  her  badly-treated 
colonists. 

A  bill  appeared  again  in  1816;  but  the  public  were  paying 
little  attention  to  the  Columbia,  at  that  moment. 

By  1817,  decisions  seemed  to  have  been  reached,  as  shown 
in  a  letter  from  Sir  James  Lucas  Yeo,  written  from  H.  M.  S. 
Inconstant,  Spithead,  30th  August,  1817,  to  John  Wilson 
Croker,  Secretary  of  the  Admiralty,  London.17 

The  sympathies  of  the  United  States  were  with  the  Spanish 
insurgents,  he  wrote,  especially  in  Florida,  trade  was  at  a 
standstill,  and  Americans  said  to  be  in  close  touch  with  the 
Spanish  insurgents  on  the  Pacific.  The  United  States  were 
"indefatigable  in  training  the  militia  and  have  removed  every 

i6F.  O.  s,  Vol.  106.     Baker  to  Foreign  Office. 
17  F.  O.  s,  Vol.  128. 


308  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

foreigner  from  their  army."  Large  orders  had  recently  been 
given  to  the  cannon  factory,  and  everything  "portends  a  rest- 
less and  hostile  spirit  towards  this  country."  Meanwhile,  in 
the  same  letter,  Sir  James  also  noted  that  the  Ontaria,  a  U.  S. 
sloop  of  war,  was  sailing  around  the  Horn  with  three  com- 
missioners and  two  secretaries  "to  obtain  possession  of  some 
island  or  territory  in  that  quarter,  preparatory  to  their  estab- 
lishing a  very  extensive  commerce  in  those  seas." 

To  omit  the  Ontario  for  a  moment,  a  better  view  is  gained 
of  the  United  States  as  a  whole,  by  continuing  the  British 
comments  on  the  general  trend  of  things.  On  April  16th, 
1818,  James  Buchanan  (a  relative  of  the  President  of  the 
same  name),  then  British  Consul  at  New  York,  wrote  to 
Lord  Castlereagh  :18 

The  acquisition  of  Louisiana,  the  claims  founded  thereon, 
the  seizure  of  and  means  used  to  obtain  the  Floridas,  the 
energetic  increase  of  the  navy,  the  determination  to  rival  the 
naval  and  maritime  power  of  Great  Britain,  the  commercial 
warfare  the  United  States  are  now  carrying  on  towards  Eng- 
land, the  avowed  aim  to  possess  Cuba  and  His  Majesty's 
possession  in  North  America,  which  pervades  all  classes,  sanc- 
tioned by  the  measures  of  the  executive  .  .  .  — well,  it 
made  America  a  rather  difficult  country  for  Great  Britain  to 
deal  with.  And  it  explains  John  Quincy  Adams  and  the  send- 
ing of  the  Ontario. 

On  November  7th,  1817,  Charles  Bagot  wrote  to  Lord  Cas- 
tlereagh, from  his  post  at  Washington:19 

"A  report  has  been  in  circulation  here  that  the  United  States 
sloop  of  war  Ontario  who  has  lately  sailed  from  New  York, 
and  which  is  believed  to  be  destined  to  the  South  Pacific,  has 
received  instructions  to  proceed  also  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Columbia  river,  I  cannot  hope  to  ascertain  positively  whether 
this  report  is  well  founded  or  not,  but  I  thought  it  right  to  com- 
municate it  privately  to  Sir  John  Sherbrooke,  in  order  that 
he  may,  if  he  thinks  proper,  put  the  North  West  Company 

i8~F.  O.  5,  Vol.  135. 
19  F.  O.   5,  Vol.  123. 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  309 

upon  their  guard  against  any  design  which  may  possibly  be 
in  contemplation  of  the  American  government  to  re-establish 
the  settlement  which  they  formerly  attempted  to  make  at  the 
mouth  of  that  river,  and  of  which  your  Lordship  will  see  by 
a  reference  to  Mr.  Baker's  despatch  No.  24,  of  the  year  181 5,20 
that  soon  after  the  peace  they  endeavored  to  claim  the  restitu- 
tion under  the  1st  article  of  the  Treaty  of  Ghent  .  .  ." 

But  Simon  McGillivrary,  down  in  New  York  City,  had  also 
heard  rumors,  and  he  took  prompt  means  to  communicate 
with  the  British  representative  at  Washington,  as  below  :21 

"New  York,  November  15th,  1817. 
"To  his  Excellency, 

the  British  Ambassador. 
"Sir, 

"I  am  induced  to  take  the  liberty  of  addressing  this  letter  to 
your  excellency,  in  consequence  of  information  which  I  have 
obtained,  relative  to  the  destination  of  the  United  States  ship 
Ontario,  which  sailed  about  six  weeks  ago  for  South  America, 
and  which,  according  to  newspaper  report,  is  likely  to  have 
gone  to  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

"I  am  not  at  liberty  to  mention  the  channel  through  which 
I  have  received  the  information  in  question,  but  it  comes  from 
a  source  which  in  my  opinion  entitles  it  to  attention.  Other- 
wise, I  certainly  should  not  have  presumed  to  make  this  appli- 
cation to  your  Excellency  upon  the  subject. 

"My  information  is  that  the  Captain  of  the  Ontario  has 
instructions  to  proceed  ultimately  to  the  Columbia  River,  and 
to  seize  or  destroy  the  establishment  and  trade  of  the  North 
West  Company  upon  that  Coast, — what  pretext  may  hereafter 
be  set  up  to  justify  this  attack  I  really  cannot  imagine  unless  it 
should  be  the  recent  act  of  Congress  prohibiting  foreigners 
from  any  trade  or  intercourse  with  the  Indians  within  the 
territories  of  the  United  States,  and  the  assumption  that  the 
country  bordering  upon  the  Columbia  River  form  a  part  of 

20  Quoted  above. 

21  F.  O.  5,  Vol.   123. 


310  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

their  territories.  This  assumption,  destitute  of  foundation  as 
it  can  easily  be  shown  to  be,  is  one  which  the  American  gov- 
ernment has  aimed  at  setting  up  ever  since  the  purchase  of 
Louisiana,  and  the  attention  which  they  have  always  directed 
towards  that  object  affords  in  my  opinion  a  strong  corrobo ra- 
tion of  the  story  relative  to  the  Ontario. 

"In  the  month  of  July,  1815,  Mr.  Baker,  who  was  then 
Charge  d'Affaires  at  Washington,  applied  to  Sir  Gordon 
Drummond,  who  at  that  time  administered  the  Government  of 
Canada,  for  some  information  relative  to  the  actual  situation 
of  the  country  in  question,  and  Sir  Gordon  Drummond  conse- 
quently applied  to  my  brother,  who,  as  the  principal  director  of 
the  North  West  Company,  was  of  course  the  person  most 
competent  to  speak  to  the  facts.  I  happened  at  the  time  to 
be  in  Canada,  having  recently  arrived  from  England,  where  I 
usually  reside,  and  where  I  had  the  honor  of  seeing  and  con- 
versing with  my  Lord  Bathurst  upon  this  very  subject,  subse- 
quent to  the  ratification  of  the  Treat  of  Ghent.  Having  also 
been  the  person  chiefly  engaged  in  planning  and  fitting  out  the 
North  West  Company's  adventures  to  the  Columbia  River, 
from  the  first  suggestion  of  that  undertaking,  I  necessarily  had 
an  intimate  knowledge  of  the  particulars  which  appeared 
requisite  to  answer  Mr.  Baker's  enquiries,  and  after  due  con- 
sideration and  comparison  of  the  information  thus  possessed 
by  different  individuals  a  statement  was  drawn  up22  and  sent 
to  Sir  Gordon  Drummond,  who  transmitted  it  to  Mr.  Baker, 
and  that  gentleman,  whom  I  had  the  honor  of  seeing  at  Wash- 
ington afterwards,  but  before  your  Excellency's  arrival,  ac- 
knowledged having  received  the  statement,  but  discouraged 
any  discussion  relative  to  it  which  I  attempted  to  introduce. 

"I  heard  no  more  upon  the  subject  until  now,  on  my  way 
from  Canada  to  England,  that  the  information  reached  me 
which  has  caused  this  letter,  and  having  among  my  papers  a 
copy  of  the  statement  in  question,  I  take  the  liberty  to  enclose 
it,  in  case  it  may  be  found  to  contain  any  thing  worthy  of  your 


22  See  McGillivray  statement  above. 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  311 

Excellency's  consideration.  The  state  of  the  country  in  ques- 
tion still  remains  nearly  the  same  as  at  the  time  this  paper 
was  written.  Fort  George  and  various  trading  stations  in 
the  interior  are  held  by  the  North  West  Company,  who  have 
about  three  hundred  persons  permanently  employed  in  the 
trade  of  the  country  between  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the 
Pacifick  Ocean.  We  have  one  vessel  now  on  that  coast  and 
another  sailed  from  England  with  supplies  for  our  people  in 
September  last. 

"I  cannot  presume  to  suggest  to  your  excellency  any  course 
to  be  adopted  on  this  occasion  but  it  appears  to  me  that  the 
question  might  be  put  whether  the  Ontario  had  any  instruc- 
tions to  act  [with]  hostility  towards  the  British  traders  on  the 
North- West  Coast,  and  the  Columbia  River.  This,  however, 
I  merely  venture  to  submit  to  your  Excellency's  judgment,  and 
have  the  honor  to  be,  &c.}  &c. 

SIMON  McGiLLivRAY." 

On  November  21st,  1817,  Sir  Charles  Bagot  received  this 
notice  from  Simon  McGillivray,  that  the  Ontario  was  "to  seize 
or  destroy  the  establishments  and  trade  of  the  North  West 
Company"  on  the  Columbia.  In  a  report  to  Lord  Castlereagh, 
he  wrote:23 

"Upon  receipt  of  this  letter,  I  thought  it  my  duty  to  lose 
no  time  in  endeavouring  to  ascertain  distinctly,  from  the  Amer- 
ican government,  whether  such  a  measure  really  was  in  con- 
templation; and  I  accordingly  asked  for  a  conference  with 
Mr.  Adams,  at  which  I  communicated  to  him  the  information 
I  received,  and  requested  him  to  acquaint  me  whether  it  had 
any  foundation. 

"Mr.  Adams  appeared  to  me  to  be  considerably  embarrassed 
by  my  question,  but  after  a  short  silence,  he  said  that  the 
Ontario  had  certainly  gone  to  the  North  West  Coast  of  Amer- 
ica, but  that  she  had  not  received  any  orders  either  to  destroy 
or  disturb  the  trade  of  the  North  West  Company. 

"He  then  said  that  I  must  be  aware  that  the  United  States 

2$  F.  O.   5,  Vol.   123. 


312  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

had  long  possessed  a  settlement  upon  the  Columbia  River 
which  had  been  captured  during  the  late  war,  and  that  upon 
the  peace,  application  had  been  made  to  Mr.  Baker  for  its 
restoration,  to  which  Mr.  Adams  alleged  that  Mr.  Baker  merely 
replied  that  the  fort  had  been  destroyed,  and  that  he  believed 
that  no  persons  would  be  found  there  who  could  make  restitu- 
tion, and  that  the  object  of  the  voyage  was  to  re-establish 
this  settlement ;  which,  he  rather  seemed  to  imply,  was  already 
in  the  possession  of  the  United  States. 

"Having  ascertained  the  fact  of  which  I  desired  to  be 
assured,  I  made  very  little  observations  upon  Mr.  Adams' 
remarks ;  but  in  the  short  conversation  which  followed,  he  stated 
that  the  Columbia  had  been  first  discovered  by  an  American 
ship  which  sailed  from  Boston  between  the  years  1780  and 
1790.  To  this  I  immediately  replied  that  the  coast  had  been 
uniformly  claimed  by  Great  Britain,  as  might  be  seen  by  refer- 
ence to  the  discussions  which  had  formerly  taken  place  with 
the  Spanish  government,  the  only  government  with  whom  any 
discussion  upon  that  subject  could  arise." 

Further  than  that,  Mr.  Adams  then  "only  observed  that, 
in  his  opinion,  it  would  be  hardly  worth  the  while  of  Great 
Britain  to  have  any  differences  with  the  United  States  on 
account  of  the  occupation  of  any  part  of  so  remote  a  territory." 

But  Sir  Charles  thought  that  a  ship  of  war  sent  to  a  country 
claimed  by  Great  Britain  was  "a  serious  matter."  He  had  sent 
an  express  to  Sir  John  Sherbrooke,  asking  if  they  could  warn 
the  North  West  Company  through  an  express  sent  by  their 
interior  posts,  overland.  The  Ontario,  so  Sir  Charles  noted  in 
a  closing  sentence,  had  on  board  a  Mr.  Tyler  for  Peru. 

But  Sir  John's  answer24  was  that  it  was  too  late  for  an 
express  overland.  The  North  West  Company  would  send  a 
memorial,  to  be  used  as  a  basis  of  representations  to  "the 
United  States  cabinet." 

On  December  23,  1817,25  the  North  West  Company  did 
present  a  petition  to  Sir  John  C.  Sherbrooke,  Governor  of 

5,  Vol.   130. 
5,  Vol.  131. 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  313 

Upper  and  Lower  Canada,  and  Vice  Admiral,  asserting  their 
rights  to  the  North  West  Coast,  stating  that  the  Ontario  "is 
bound  for  the  North  West  Coast  of  America,  with  intentions 
hostile  to  the  trade  and  establishments  of  the  North  West 
Company  in  that  quarter."  She  was  going  to  Fort  George, 
yet  that  was  a  "place  not  having  been  taken  possession  of  by 
right  of  conquest  but  by  a  right  founded  on  the  just  claims  of 
discovery  and  previous  possession  of  the  country  by  His 
Majesty's  subjects." 

On  November  24th,  Sir  Charles  wrote  to  Lord  Castlereagh, 
in  cipher:26 

"My  Lord, 

"I  have  been  this  day  informed  by  Mr.  Adams,  in  answer 
to  an  inquiry  which  I  thought  it  my  duty  to  make  upon  the 
subject  of  the  destination  of  the  United  States  sloop  Ontario, 
commanded  by  Captain  Biddle,  and  rated  at  eighteen  guns 
which  sailed  from  New  York  the  4th  of  last  month  [October] 
that  that  vessel  had  been  ordered  to  proceed  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Columbia  River,  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  the  settlement 
of  which  the  United  States  were  dispossessed  during  the  late 
war. 

"I  have  thought  it  proper  to  lose  no  time  in  giving  Your 
Lordship  this  information. 

"I  shall  write  more  fully  by  the  packet  which  will  sail  in 
a  few  days. 

"I  have  the  honour  to  be  with  great  truth  and  respect, 
"Your  Lordship's  most  humble,  obedient  servant, 

CHARLES  BAGOT." 

Two  days  later,  November  26th,  1817,27  Sir  Charles  wrote 
John  Quincy  Adams  that  the  post  was  not  captured,  but  aban- 
doned by  agreement,  and  "as  it  thus  appears  that  no  claim  for 
the  restitution  of  the  post  can  be  grounded  upon  the  1st  article 
of  the  Treaty  of  Ghent,  and  as  the  territory  itself  was  early 


O.  5,  Vol.   123. 
27  F.  O.  5,  Vol.  123. 


314  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

taken  possession  of  in  His  Majesty's  name,  and  has  been  since 
considered  as  forming  a  part  of  His  Majesty's  dominions,  I 
have  to  request  that  you  will  do  me  the  honour  to  furnish 
me  with  such  explanation  as  you  may  judge  proper  of  the 
object  of  the  voyage  of  the  Ontario,  so  far  as  it  may  relate 
to  establishments  upon  the  territory  to  which  I  refer,  in  order 
that  I  may  be  enabled  to  represent  to  His  Majesty's  govern- 
ment ...  a  measure  in  which  His  Majesty's  rights  and 
interests  appear  to  be  so  materially  involved." 

On  December  1st,  Sir  Charles  wrote  to  Lord  Castlereagh,28 
as  follows: 

"Washington,  December  1,  1817. 
"Sir: 

"In  my  private  letter  of  the  3rd  of  last  month,  I  had  the 
honour  to  acquaint  your  Excellency  with  a  report  which  has 
been  in  circulation  here  respecting  the  destination  of  the  United 
States  sloop-of-war  Ontario.  I  have  since  had  an  opportunity 
of  ascertaining  that  this  report  is  well  founded. 

"At  an  interview  which  I  had  a  few  days  ago  with  the 
Secretary  of  State,  I  communicated  to  him  the  information 
which  I  had  received  upon  this  subject,  and  I  requested  that 
he  would  inform  me  whether  orders  had  been  given  to  the 
Ontario,  to  proceed  to  the  Columbia  River,  for  the  purpose  of 
making  establishments  in  its  vicinity,  or  of  disturbing  in  any 
way  the  trade  of  the  North  West  Company. 

"Mr.  Adams  stated  to  me  in  reply,  that  the  Ontario  had 
certainly  been  directed  to  proceed  to  the  North  West  Coast 
of  America,  and  that  she  had  been  instructed  to  establish  a 
settlement,  which  the  United  States  had  formerly  possessed, 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  River,  and  which  has  not  been 
restored  since  its  capture  in  the  late  war,  but  that  she  has  not 
received  any  orders  to  disturb  or  interrupt  the  trade  of  the 
North  West  Company. 

"It  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  trouble  your  Excellency,  at 
present,  with  any  examination  of  the  arguments  which  the 
American  government  may  design  to  urge,  in  support  of  this 

?JfF.  O.  5,  Vol.   123. 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  315 

measure  which  they  have  thought  proper  to  adopt,  but  a  refer- 
ence to  Sir  Gordon  Drummond's  despatches  to  Mr.  Baker  of 
the  14th  and  31st  of  August,  1815,  will  prove  to  your  Excel- 
lency that  the  settlement  to  which  Mr.  Adams  adverted  was 
not  captured  during  the  war,  consequently  that  its  restitution 
cannot  be  claimed  under  the  1st  article  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace. 

"The  enclosed  copy  of  a  note  which  I  have  addressed  to 
the  American  government,  will  sufficiently  explain  to  your 
Excellency  the  course  which  I  have  thought  it  my  duty  to  take 
in  this  business,  until  I  can  receive  an  answer  to  the  despatches 
which  I  have  forwarded  by  this  mail  to  His  Majesty's  govern- 
ment. 

"I  have  not  yet  received  an  answer  to  this  note,  nor  is  it 
necessary  for  the  immediate  purposes  of  this  letter,  that  I 
should. 

"Whatever  may  be  the  grounds  which  the  American  govern- 
ment may  assign  for  the  step  which  they  have  taken,  it  appears 
to  me  to  me  to  be  in  the  highest  degree  important,  that  the 
Ontario  should  if  possible,  find  upon  her  arrival  at  the  Columbia 
River,  that  the  Territory  is  in  the  actual  possession  of  His 
Majesty's  subjects.  For  this  purpose  I  am  anxious  to  submit 
to  your  Excellency's  consideration,  whether  it  might  not  be 
still  practicable,  through  the  means  of  the  interior  posts  of  the 
North  West  Company,  to  convey  to  such  of  its  traders,  as  may 
happen  to  be  upon  that  Coast,  intelligence  of  the  destination 
and  object  of  the  Ontario,  which  may  reach  them  before  her 
arrival. 

"The  Ontario  sailed  from  New  York  on  the  4th  of  October, 
but  as  she  has  been  directed  to  take  out  Mr.  Tyler,  who  has 
been  charged  with  some  business  on  the  part  of  the  American 
government  in  Peru,  she  will  probably  be  detained  some  time 
upon  the  South  West  Coast  of  South  America. 

"I  am  fully  aware  that  it  will  be  a  matter  of  great  difficulty 
to  make  this  communication,  but  it  will  also  be  a  matter  of 
great  delicacy ;  for  it  appears  to  me  that  unless  Your  Excel- 
lency can  entirely  rely  upon  the  intelligence  of  the  North 


316  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

West  Company  traders  in  that  quarter,  clearly  to  understand, 
that  it  is  only  in  the  event  of  their  being  upon  the  spot  pre- 
viously to  any  attempt  being  made  by  citizens  of  the  United 
States  to  establish  settlements,  that  they  are  to  take  into  their 
own  hands  the  assertion  of  the  territory,  they  may  perhaps  be 
induced  to  dispossess  by  force  American  settlers  whom  they 
may  find  there,  and  by  so  doing  greatly  embarrass  any  negotia- 
tion which  may  hereafter  take  place  upon  the  subject,  if  they 
do  not  occasion  yet  more  serious  consequences. 
"I  have  the  honour  to  be,  &c.,  &c.?  &c., 

CHARLES  BAGOT." 

The  next  day,  Sir  Charles  wrote  again  to  Lord  Castlereagh.29 
The  letter  is  somewhat  confused.  The  three  commissioners 
he  had  mentioned  as  in  the  Ontario,  were  he  said,  presumably 
Mr.  Graham,  late  the  chief  clerk  in  the  Department  of  State, 
Mr.  Rodney,  and  Walter  Jones,  District  Attorney  of  the  United 
States  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  The  Ontario,  he  said, 
was  originally  destined  to  sail  in  the  summer  of  1817  [  which 
explains  the  letter  of  Sir  James  Lucas  Yeo,  given  above]  but 
was  delayed  for  unknown  reasons.  So  that  the  three  com- 
missioners, so  far  as  Sir  Charles  could  make  out — and  he 
seemed  to  have  difficulty  in  getting  exact  information  on  this 
mysterious  Ontario— did  not  sail  on  the  Ontario,  but  went  on 
the  frigate  Chesapeake  to  South  America,  in  a  diplomatic 
capacity. 

On  January  6th,  1818,30  Sir  Charles  reported  to  Lord  Castle- 
reagh that  he  had  received  no  answer  from  Secretary  Adams 
to  his  note  of  November  26th  regarding  the  sailing  of  the 
Ontario. 

On  January  26th,  1818,  Lord  Castlereagh  notified  Lord 
Bathurst  as  follows,  the  draft  of  the  letter  only  being  found 
in  the  Records:31 

29  F.  O.  5,  Vol.   123. 

30  F.  O.  5,  Vol.   130. 

31  F.  O.   5,  Vol.   139. 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  317 

"Draft  "Foreign  Office, 

Jan.  26,  1818. 

"I  have  this  day  addressed  to  the  Lord  Comnirs.  of  the 
Admiralty,  acquainting  their  Ldps  [Lordships]  that  Mr.  Bagot, 
His  Ms  Minister  in  America,  having  transmitted  intelligence 
that  the  U.  S.  sloop  of  war  Ontario  has  been  sent  by  the 
Amn  Govt  to  reestablish  a  Settlement  on  the  Columbia  River, 
held  by  that  state  on  the  breaking  out  of  the  war,  it  is  H  R  H's 
pleasure  that  in  pursuance  of  the  1st  Article  of  the  Treaty  of 
Ghent  (without,  however,  admitting  the  right  of  that  Govt 
to  the  Possession  in  question),  due  Facility  should  be  given  to 
the  Reoccupation  of  the  said  Settlement  by  the  officers  of  the 
United  States,  and  I  am  to  request  that  Your  Lp  will  be  pleased 
to  take  such  steps  in  furtherance  of  that  object,  as  you  may 
judge  expedient." 

[Signed]  CASTLEREAGH. 

That  same  January  Simon  McGillivray  sent  to  Henry  Gould- 
burn  the  letter  in  which  he  states  that  he  had  instructed  Mr. 
Keith,  in  charge  of  Fort  George,  to  obey  any  instructions  given 
him  with  regard  to  giving  up  Fort  George.32 

On  February  4th,  1818,  Lord  Castlereagh  wrote  to  Sir 
Charles  Bagot  as  follows  :33 

"Foreign  Offiice, 

Febr.  4,  1818. 

"You  will  observe,  however,  that  whilst  this  Government  is 
not  disposed  to  contest  with  the  American  gov't  the  point  of 
possession  as  it  stood  in  the  Columbia  River  at  the  moment 
of  the  rupture,  they  are  not  prepared  to  admit  the  validity  of 
the  title  of  the  Govt  of  the  United  States  to  this  Settlement. 
In  signifying  therefore  to  Mr.  Adams  the  full  acquiesence  of 
your  govt  in  the  re-occupation  of  the  limited  Position  which 
the  U.  States  held  in  that  River  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  war, 
you  will  at  the  same  time  assert  in  suitable  terms  the  Claim 
of  Great  Britain  to  that  Territory  upon  which  the  American 

32  F.  O.  5,  Vol.  139.     (Enclosure  by  Gouldburn,  Feb.  2,  1818.) 

33  F.  O.   5,  Vol.  129. 


318  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

Settlement  must  be  considered  as  an  encroachment.  You 
will  at  the  same  time  acquaint  that  Minister,  that  whilst  your 
Govt  could  not  but  view  with  some  surprise  and  regret  the 
departure  of  the  Ontario  for  the  purpose  of  re-occupying  the 
Port  in  question,  without  any  previous  concert  with  yourself, 
for  the  regular  and  amicable  transfer  of  this  possession,  that 
your  Court  have  nevertheless  lost  no  time,  as  will  appear  by 
the  enclosed  instructions,  in  taking  such  steps  as  depended  on 
them,  in  order  to  obviate  any  unpleasant  collision. 

"It  appears  from  your  Despatch  that  Mr.  Adams,  in  con- 
versation, attempted  to  account  for  this  on  grounds  of  a  former 
reference  to  Mr.  Baker,  but  upon  turning  to  the  correspond- 
ence which  then  took  place,  it  does  not  appear  to  this  Govt 
that  anything  which  then  passed  would  justify  the  Govt  of 
the  U.  States  in  taking  such  a  step  without  at  least  some  pre- 
vious communication  with  you. 

"In  adverting  to  this  point  with  the  American  Secretary  of 
State,  which  brings  pointedly  into  view  the  unsettled  nature 
of  the  pretensions  of  the  two  govts  in  the  whole  extent  of  their 
Frontier  to  the  Westward,  from  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  to  the 
Pacific  Ocean,  adverting  also  to  the  omission  in  the  Treaty  of 
Ghent  of  any  provision  for  the  demarcation  of  Limits  beyond 
the  point  above  referred  to,  it  has  appeared  to  the  Prince 
Regent's  Govt  insistent  with  the  friendly  Spirit  of  our  exist- 
ing relations,  to  take  measures  for  settling  our  Boundaries 
with  the  U.  States  throughout  the  whole  of  this  line." 

It  was  easier,  Lord  Castlereagh  stated, — and  this  was  always 
the  position  taken  by  the  British  Government,  right  up  to  the 
Treaty  of  1846 — to  settle  the  boundary  before  the  country 
was  settled  and  while  it  was  little  known,  because  there  were 
fewer  difficulties,  one  way  and  another,  with  settlers.  A  new 
motive  now  was  the  treaty  of  America  with  Spain,  giving  the 
Americans  the  old  Spanish  rights,  such  as  they  were,  and 
Bagot  was  therefore  ordered  to  try  to  settle  the  boundary  ques- 
tion if  he  could. 

The  easiest  way  to  do  this,  Castlereagh  thought,  was  by  a 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  319 

supplement  to  the  Treaty  of  Ghent,  or  by  additional  articles, 
and  the  United  States  was  to  be  requested  to  give  its  Minister 
in  London  power  to  sign  such  article.  And  he  thought  it 
well  to  begin  on  the  Coast. 

Meanwhile  the  Ontario  reached  Valparaiso,  then  blockaded, 
between  January  19th  and  February  1st,  1818.  Commander 
Bowles,34  under  date  of  February  18th,  1818,  reported : 

"The  arrival  of  the  Ontario  at  Valparaiso  caused  much  specu- 
lation. She  carried  out  a  Mr.  Prevost  who  was  said  to  be  high 
in  the  confidence  of  the  present  President  [of  the  U.  S.].  He 
(Prevost)  went  immediately  to  Santiago,  visiting  General 
San  Martin's  quarters  on  his  way." 

Prevost  was  to  remain  in  Chili  a  month  or  six  weeks  at 
least,  while  the  Ontario  was  to  go  to  the  Columbia.  She  sailed 
immediately  after  the  Battle  of  Maypie;  had  returned  in  late 
June. 

Orders  from  the  British  Government  to  the  North  West 
Company  were  received  by  Commander  Bowles,  at  Rio  Janeiro 
on  April  19th,  1818,  enclosed  from  London  in  a  letter  of  Janu- 
ary 27th.  The  Blossom  was  to  be  sent  to  the  'Columbia.  The 
Blossom  reached  Valparaiso  on  16th  of  May.  On  June  1st, 
Earl  Bathurst's  orders  were  sent  to  Captain  Sheriff,  the  Blos- 
som to  be  detached  immediately  for  service  to  the  Columbia. 
The  Blossom  sailed  July  12th,  under  Captain  Hickey,  some 
two  or  three  weeks  after  the  Ontario  had  returned  to  Val- 
paraiso. Prevost  was  fully  empowered  to  receive  possession. 

Meanwhile  on  June  2nd,  Sir  Charles  Bagot  wrote  to  Lord 
Castlereagh  as  follows:35 

Washington,  June  2,  1818. 
"My  Lord : 

"Upon  receipt  of  your  Lordship's  despatch  No.  7,  of  the 
4th  of  February  last,  I  immediately  communicated  to  Mr. 
Adams  the  acquiesence  of  His  Majesty's  Government  in  the 
re-occupation,  by  the  United  States,  of  the  position  held  by 
them  upon  the  Columbia  River  prior  to  the  late  war.  I  stated 

34  Admiralty  :,  Vol.  23. 

35  F.  O.   5,  Vol.   132. 


320  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

to  him  that  His  Majesty's  Government  entertained  no  doubt 
of  the  United  States  being  entitled  under  the  provisions  of  the 
1st  Article  of  the  Treaty  to  resume  possession  of  whatever  was 
held  by  them  at  the  moment  of  rupture  which  was  not  subject 
to  the  exceptions  made  by  the  4th,  5th,  6th,  and  7th  articles; 
and  I  acquainted  him  with  the  orders  which  were  given  to 
prevent  any  interruption  being  offered  to  the  re-establish- 
ment of  the  Post  in  question.  In  conformity,  however,  to 
Your  Lordship's  instructions,  I  did  not  disguise  from  him 
that  His  Majesty's  Government  had  seen  with  some  regret 
the  irregular  mode  in  which  the  United  States  had  seen  fit  to 
resume  possession  of  the  settlement;  and  I  took  the  oppor- 
tunity of  laying  a  general  claim,  on  the  part  of  the  British 
Crown,  to  the  territory  upon  which  it  had  been  made. 

"Mr.  Adams  appeared  to  receive  what  I  said  in  good  part. 
He  stated  that  in  fact  the  American %  government  put  very 
little  value  upon  the  post  of  Astoria.  That  the  Ontario  had 
received  her  orders  before  he  had  entered  upon  the  duties  of 
his  office,  but  that  he  could  assure  me  that  she  had  been  in- 
structed not  to  commit  any  act  of  hostility  or  force  whatever 
and  that  with  regard  to  her  having  been  despatched  without 
previous  concert  with  me,  he  could  take  it  upon  himself  to 
say  that  it  was  entirely  owing  to  the  belief  founded  upon  a 
statement  formerly  made  by  Mr.  Baker,  that  there  was  no 
person  upon  the  spot  by  whom  a  formal  surrender  could  be 
made." 

Sir  Charles  urged  upon  Secretary  Adams  the  settlement  of 
the  whole  question  of  contiguous  boundaries.  And  Secretary 
Adams  agreed,  adding  other  points,  such  as  the  fisheries  ques- 
tion, slaves,  colonial  trade,  etc.  The  letter  continues : 

"Mr.  Adams  informed  me  that  he  had  been  directed  by  the 
President  to  assure  me  that  the  circumstances  of  the  Ontario 
having  been  despatched  to  the  Columbia  River  without  any 
intimation  being  given  to  me  of  her  destination,  was  entirely 
incidental;  that  she  had  received  her  instructions  whilst  he 
was  at  New  York  on  his  tour  to  the  northern  frontier,  and  that 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  321 

in  the  pressure  of  business  there,  he  had  omitted  to  direct  the 
proper  communication  to  be  made  to  me  upon  the  subject."  .  .  . 

But  if  the  Ontario  was  originally  destined  to  sail  in  August, 
one  wonders  whether  this  excuse  was  entirely  truthful. 

Meanwhile,  in  August,  the  Ontario  arrived  at  the  Columbia ; 
and  we  have  reason  to  think  from  other  reports  that  it 
was  one  of  the  soft  summer  days  at  the  mouth  of  the  river, 
when  the  river  flowed  swift  and  wide  and  blue  as  it  does  today, 
on  a  sunny  August  day,  under  a  blue  sky,  though  lashed  to 
gleaming  whiteness  in  the  crashing  breakers  on  the  bar.  James 
Keith  tells  the  story,  two  months  later,  in  October,  and  a 
ludicrous  yarn  it  is,  to  any  one  with  a  sense  of  humor ;  though 
Keith  had  no  intention  of  being  humorous. 

Captain  Frederick  Hickey  of  the  Blossom,  sent  in  his  formal 
request  to  the  fur  trader  :36 

H.  M.  S.  Ship  Blossom, 
Columbia  River, 
Oct.  4,  1818. 
To  James  Keith,  Esq., 

Fort  George. 

Sir:  Upon  the  restitution  of  the  post  and  settlement  of 
Fort  George  to  the  American  Government,  I  request  that  you 
will  have  the  goodness  to  furnish  me  with  an  exact  account 
of  its  state  and  condition,  and  with  such  other  information  as 
you  may  deem  of  importance  should  be  communicated  to  His 
Majesty's  Ministers. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be,  &c.,  &c. 

FREDERICK  HICKEY. 

And  the  fur  trader  promptly  replied,  with  full  details,  and 
then  gave  the  story  of  the  Ontario.  Part  of  this  is  published 
in  the  U.  S.  Government  documents,  but  not  the  Ontario 
episode.37 

36  F.  o.  5,  Vol.  147. 

37  F.  O.  s,  Vol.  147. 


322  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

"Fort  George,  Columbia  River, 
7th  October,  1818. 
"To  Captain  Frederick  Hickey, 

H.  M.  Ship  Blossom. 
"Sir: 

"In  compliance  with  your  request  conveyed  to  me  in  your 
communication  of  the  4th  instant,  of  being  furnished  with  an 
exact  account  of  the  state  and  condition  of  this  settlement  on 
its  restitution,  together  with  such  further  information  as  I 
might  deem  of  importance  to  be  communicated  to  His  Majesty's 
Ministers,  I  shall  first  advert  to  the  number  of  its  inhabitants 
who  (myself  excepted)  were  and  still  are,  under  either  written 
or  verbal  agreements,  as  servants  of  the  North- West  Company  : 
consisting  of  two  gentlemen  clerks,  and  one  surgeon  of  Scotch 
parents,  one  overseer,  seventeen  engagees,  including  mechanics, 
and  mostly  Canadians ;  twenty-six  natives  of  Owhyhee,  and 
one  Indian  boy  (native  of  the  soil)  who  added  to  two  Owhy- 
hees  absent,  and  sixteen  trappers,  Canadians  and  Iroquois 
employed  by  the  Company  among  the  surrounding  tribes  to 
hunt  skins,  form  a  grand  total  of  sixty-six  persons,  exclusive 
of  women  and  children  who  may  properly  be  said  to  belong 
to  the  settlement;  and  with  regard  to  the  minor  establish- 
ments in  the  interior  of  this  River,  supplied  from  and  dependent 
hereon,  the  number  of  people  employed,  the  extent  of  our 
trade,  annual  produce,  prospects,  and  mode  of  conducting  it, 
it  would  too  far  exceed  my  intended  limits  to  detail,  and  other- 
wise I  presume  is  not  altogether  unknown  to  Government. 

"As  to  the  progressive  improvements  and  material  changes 
the  settlement  has  undergone  subsequent  to  our  purchasing 
it  from  the  American  Company  in  October,  1813,  and  which 
have  been  extended  with  immense  labour  and  heavy  expenses, 
you  will  be  enabled  to  form  an  imperfect  idea  from  the  extent 
it  occupied  under  that  concern,  the  nature  and  properties  of 
buildings  raised  with  precipitancy  to  protect  persons  and  prop- 
erties from  the  injuries  of  the  weather,  as  well  as  the  attacks 
of  the  Natives,  and  the  prospects  which  a  five  years  quiet 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  323 

possession  now  open  to  view,  and  which  joined  to  your  own 
observation,  the  minute  sketch  of  one  of  your  officers  I  trust 
will  sufficiently  demonstrate.38 

"With  regard  to  the  transfer,  it  ought  to  have  been  con- 
sidered by  the  party  benefited  thereby,  as  one  of  those  fortunate 
contingencies  seldom  to  be  met  with;  what  the  said  party 
upwards  of  three  months  antecedent  to  such  transfer  had 
otherwise  fully  resolved  to  abandon  by  the  dissolution  of  their 
concern,  as  expressed  at  full  length  in  the  preamble  [of  the 
bill  of  sale  of  Astoria].  But  to  return  to  my  subject;  the 
principal  arms  and  ammunition  we  now  possess  consist  of  two 
long  18-pounders  mounted  in  the  square  of  the  buildings,  six 
6-pounders,  and  four  4-pounders.  Guns ;  two  6-pounder  co- 
horns  and  seven  swivels  stationed  in  the  block  houses  and  on 
the  platforms,  besides  blunderbusses,  muskets,  and  fusils ;  there 
are  upwards  of  eight  hundred  round  and  cannister  shot  for 
the  cartridge  guns,  principally  18  and  6-pounders,  together 
with  a  certain  proportion  of  powder,  ball,  etc.,  part  of  which 
is  indispensable  for  the  trade,  etc.,  and  the  gross  amount  of 
property  (buildings  excluded)  on  a  rough  estimate,  cannot,  I 
conceive  be  over  rated  at  about  £30,000.  The  Natives  are 
very  numerous  and  much  addicted  to  theft,  lying,  and  plunder, 
and  though  with  few  exceptions  we  have  hitherto  kept  smooth 
with  them  without  which  we  must  long  ere  now  have  ceased 
to  be  a  trading  establishment,  we  require  to  be  vigilant,  cir- 
cumspect, and  much  on  our  guard.  These  I  conceive  consti- 
tute the  leading  points  which  your  communication  embraces. 

"One  circumstance,  however,  I  had  almost  omitted.  I  allude 
to  the  manner  of  Captain  Biddle's  last  visit.  By  the  Levant, 
a  Boston  vessel,  freighted  with  part  of  our  annual  supplies, 
and  from  on  board  of  which  were  landed  80  to  90  bags  of 
Spanish  flour  belonging  to  the  Ontario  we  were  informed  by 
verbal  authority,  founded  on  conjectures,  that  the  latter  was 
destined  hither  for  the  purpose  of  taking  possession  either  of 
the  settlement,  or  of  the  country,  but  having  entertained  similar 
suspicions  the  preceding  summer  and  moreover  conceiving  it 

38  Ore.  Hist.  Quarterly,  V.  XIX,  pp.  276-82;  V.  XX,  p.  30,  T.  C.  Elliott. 


324  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

a  mere  piece  of  formality  which  I  had  every  reason  to  think 
the  British  Government  could  not  consistently  wink  at,  I  felt 
perfectly  easy  and  secure  until  the  Ontario  arrived  off  Cape 
Disappointment,  on  the  morning  of  the  19th  of  August,  fol- 
lowed by  Captain  Biddle's  appearance  about  3  p.  m.  Accom- 
panied by  a  strong  party,  including  officers,  in  three  boats, 
apparently  well  armed,  only  Captain  Biddle  and  his  Surgeon 
landed  at  the  settlement,  the  others  being  immediately  ordered 
off,  conducted  by  one  of  my  men  to  Point  George,  to  cut  spars. 
"Exceedingly  social  and  polite,  but  not  the  most  distant 
intimation  of  the  object  of  this  visit  of  which,  as  if  studious  of 
exciting  the  least  suspicion,  he  glossed  over  the  circumstances 
of  the  arms,  etc.,  from  his  apprehensions  of  the  Natives.  With 
much  reluctance  (from  our  having  a  superabundance)  and  not 
till  after  repeated  solicitation,  I  gave  him  bills  on  Canada  for 
the  flour,  and  towards  5  p.  m.  accompanied  by  another  of  my 
men  in  an  Indian  canoe  rowed  by  the  natives,  Captain  Biddle 
and  surgeon  set  off  to  join  their  party,  giving  to  understand 
they  would  proceed  on  board ;  however,  learning  that  they  had 
encamped  where  my  people  left  them,  I  next  morning  de- 
spatched the  same  two  men  with  some  fresh  supplies,  who 
soon  after  returning  with  accounts  of  their  departure,  re- 
ported having  seen  a  board  unusually  painted  and  nailed  upon  a 
tree  in  a  rather  secluded  and  unfrequented  place  on  Point 
George  about  one-half  mile  hence,  whereon  we  found  in- 
scribed in  large  characters: 

Taken  possession  of  in  the  name  and  on 
the  behalf  of  the 

United  States 

By  Captain  James  Biddle,  commanding  the 

United  States  Sloop  of  War,  Ontario 

Columbia  River,  August  1818 

"Such  mysterious  and  unaccountable  proceedings,  of  which 
the  subsequent  reports  of  the  Natives,  joined  to  the  gloomy, 
desponding  conjectures  of  my  own  people  rather  aggravated 
the  unfortunate  impression,  excited  the  most  anxious  and  pain- 
ful sensations  at  what  would  probably  be  the  next  step  and  so 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  325 

far  operated  to  redouble  our  vigilance  that  on  your  arrival  with 
J.  B.  Prevost,  Esqr.,  every  gun  was  shotted  and  small  arms 
ready  for  all  hands.  The  agreeable  contrast  since  experienced 
it  would  be  deemed  flattery  in  me  to  dwell  upon.  Justice, 
however,  demands  that  I  should  bear  testimony  to  the  hand- 
some, unassuming,  yet  dignified  manner  in  which  Mr.  Prevost 
comported  himself,  during  the  late  changes  and  though  much 
disappointed  in  my  expectations  relative  to  the  pledges  of 
security  and  publick  faith,  without  which  no  commercial  body 
can  promote  their  own,  much  less  contribute  to  the  national 
prosperity,  I  attribute  the  cause  solely  to  his  circumscribed 
powers  and  must  act  accordingly.  There  is  nothing  of  a 
public  or  private  matter  connected  with  the  late  change,  of 
which  you  have  not  official  documents,  or  are  perhaps  ac- 
quainted with,  excepting  my  communication  with  Mr.  Prevost 
together  with  his  replies,39  copies  of  which  I  herewith  transmit 
you,  and  as  your  short  stay  precludes  the  possibility  of  my 
completing  the  various  papers  I  intended  forwarding  for  Lon- 
don, as  well  as  Canada,  I  request  that  you  will  be  pleased  to 
hand  the  present  for  the  perusal  of  Mr.  Prevost  to  enable  him 
to  extract  such  materials  for  the  information  of  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States,  as  he  may  think  proper  to  lay 
before  them. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be,  sir,  your  obedt  &  humble  servant, 

JAMES  KEITH. 
"To  Frederick  Hickey,  Esq., 

Captain  H.  M.  S.  Blossom, 
Bakers  Bay." 

Meanwhile,  on  the  other  side  of  the  continent.  British  com- 
missioners and  John  Quincy  Adams  were  debating  a  treaty 
which  should  settle  the  boundary  of  the  North- West  Coast  of 
America.  In  orders  to  F.  Robinson  and  Henry  Gouldburn 
from  Lord  Castlereagh,  dated  London,  August  24th,  1818,  he 
gave  as  a  fifth  point  to  be  considered  in  the  commercial  treaty 
under  consideration  :40 

39  F.  O.  5,  Vol.   147;  also  V.  2,  Miscellaneous  American  State  Papers. 

40  F.  O.  5,  Vol.   138. 


326  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

"5th.  The  position  on  the  Columbia  River  occupied  by  the 
Americans,  and  now  ordered  to  be  restored  to  them  in  pur- 
suance of  the  first  article  of  the  Treaty  of  Ghent,  but  under  a 
protest  as  to  their  right  to  the  same." 

If  actual  douSt  existed  as  to  sovereignty,  the  commissioners 
were  to  consider  a  species  of  stipulation  which  would  serve 
the  rights  of  all  states  from  being  prejudiced  by  a  transaction 
to  which  the  British  government  were  then  parties — so  read 
Castlereagh's  instructions.  He  urged  them  to  adopt  some  prin- 
ciple of  demarkation,  such  as  a  parallel,  to  save  delay  and 
expense  of  survey.  The  question  was  to  be  settled  if  possible 
by  amicable  discussion,  or  referred  for  adjudication  similar  to 
the  4th,  5th  and  6th  articles  of  the  Treaty  of  Ghent. 

During  the  discussion  on  the  North- West  Coast  of  America, 
incident  to  the  joint-occupancy  treaty,  three  subjects:  the 
Columbia  River,  the  North- West  boundary,  and  the  problem 
of  captured  negroes,  the  United  States  refused  to  submit  to 
arbitration,  because  (1),  of  the  difficulty  of  an  impartial  arbi- 
tration, and  (2),  because  the  United  States  preferred  to  keep 
its  own  affairs  to  itself.  So  wrote  Henry  Gouldburn  to  Lord 
Castlereagh,  August  29th,  1818.41 

A  month  later,  September  26th,  1818,  Gouldburn  wrote  to 
Lord  Castlereagh  with  regard  to  the  American  claims  on  the 
North-West  Coast  of  America,  and  one  can  fairly  feel  the  gasp 
of  amazement  in  his  letter.  The  words  in  italics  were  under- 
scored by  him.  He  wrote  :41a 

The  "article  for  settling  the  boundary  to  the  westward  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  claimed  on  the  part  of  the  United  States, 
an  extent  of  territory  beyond  what  had  ever  been  contemplated 
as  belonging  to  them. 

"They  stated  it  generally  to  rest  on  the  right  of  prior  dis- 
covery and  occupation,  but  in  the  statements  which  they  sub- 
sequently made,  they  appeared  rather  to  address  agreements 
in  support  of  their  claim  to  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  River, 
than  to  the  whole  of  the  interior  territory  which  the  terms  of 
their  article  conveyed  to  them." 

41  F    O.   s,  Vol.   138. 
41  a  F.  O.  5,  Vol.  138. 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  327 

The  Treaty  of  1818,  with  one  paragraph  making  the  Oregon 
country  a  joint-occupancy  country  was  the  result.  But  the 
restoration  of  Astoria,  as  a  post,  had  been  secured — a  private 
fur  company's  post,  claimed  after  its  sale,  by  the  American 
government,  as  a  national  possession. 

Under  the  circumstances  one  is  hardly  surprised  at  what 
happened  a  few  years  later. 

Something  of  the  British  view  again,  is  shown  in  a  letter 
from  Lord  Castlereagh  to  Stratford  Canning,  then  British 
Minister  at  Washington,  under  date  of  August  7th,  1820,  in 
response  to  a  worried  letter  from  Canning.  It  was  marked 
"Confidential"  :42 

"The  tendency  of  the  American  government  is  rather  to 
contentious  discussion.  The  ancient  relations  of  the  British 
and  American  nations,  and  the  jealousies  as  yet  imperfectly 
allayed,  incline  the  Govt  of  the  United  States  to  maintain  their 
pretensions  in  discussions  with  us,  perhaps  in  deference  to 
those  prejudices,  in  a  tone  of  greater  harshness  than  towards 
any  other  Government  whatever.  The  American  people  are 
more  easily  excited  against  us,  and  more  disposed  to  strengthen 
the  hands  of  their  Ministers  against  this  than  against  any  other 
state.  Time  has  done  a  good  deal  to  soften  these  dispositions, 
and  the  more  we  can  permit  them  to  subside  by  avoiding  angry 
discussions,  the  less  will  the  American  Govt  be  capable  of 
contesting  unreasonably  those  various  points  which  the  recipro- 
cal interests  of  the  two  countries  may  from  time  to  time  be 
expected  to  present  themselves  for  adjustment." 

Castlereagh  continued  that  he  looked  for  an  "abatement  of 
that  most  unbecoming  acrimony  which  has  generally  been 
prevalent  between  these  two  nations  since  the  period  of  their 
separation." 

Six  months  later  came  an  example  of  this.  On  January  28th, 
1821,  Stratford  Canning  wrote  an  eighteen-page  letter,  on 
heavy  plate  paper,  in  "fair  round  hand,"  to  Lord  Castlereagh : 
but  it  was  the  letter  of  a  startled  statesman.43  Having  heard 

42  F.  O.  5,  Vol.  150. 

43  F.   O.   5,  Vol.   157. 


328  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

much  about  the  occupation  of  the  Columbia — Floyd's  annual 
bills  had  been  appearing  regularly — he  went  to  Mr.  Adams 
about  it.  The  reduction  of  the  army  was  under  debate 
in  Congress,  when  a  member  asked  if  this  was  prudent  when 
the  United  States  were  planning  a  settlement  on  the  Columbia. 
The  bill  to  occupy  the  Columbia  had  been  read  twice.  The 
bill  began  that  "The  President  of  the  United  States  be,  and 
he  is  hereby  authorized  and  required  to  occupy  that  portion 
of  territory  of  the  United  States  on  the  waters  of  the  Columbia 
River  .  .  . "  It  gave  lands  to  settlers  and  prescribed  a  gov- 
ernment. It  was  H.  R.  222,  of  January  25th,  1821.  It  was  read 
twice  and  was  to  come  before  the  Committee  of  the  Whole 
the  day  after  Canning's  letter,  that  is,  January  29th.  He 
enclosed  a  copy,  with  a  newspaper  letter  from  Mr.  Robinson, 
author  of  a  book  on  Mexico. 

Canning  therefore  called  upon  Mr.  Adams,  though  knowing 
the  "peculiarities  of  Mr.  Adams'  character,"  but  with  con- 
fidence, since  their  relations  had  been  "satisfactory  and  con- 
fidential heretofore." 

"Mr.  Adams  replied  in  the  most  determined  and  acrimonious 
tones,  that  the  United  States  did  probably  mean  to  make  a 
new  settlement  on  the  Columbia,  and  that  they  had  a  perfect 
right  to  do  so,  the  territory  being  their  own." 

Being  asked  if  this  answer  could  be  said  to  come  from  the 
Government,  "he  replied,  with  increased  asperity,  in  the  af- 
firmative. He  seemed  determined  to  consider  my  interfer- 
ence respecting  the  Columbia  as  offensive  and  unwarranted." 
In  the  course  of  further  conversation,  he  expressed  "an  em- 
phatic repetition  of  the  right — the  undisputed,  indisputable 
right — of  the  United  States  to  the  territory  of  the  Columbia 
and  an  utter  denial  of  any  right  on  my  part,  as  British  Minister, 
to  interfere  with  their  eventual  arrangements  on  that  head." 

Canning  quoted  Lord  Castlereagh's  remark,  in  a  letter  of 
February  4th,  1818,  to  his  predecessor,  Sir  Charles  Bagot,  that 
"It  is  always  more  easy  to  come  to  an  arrangement  on  such 
subjects  where  the  territory  in  discussion  is  little  known,  or 
little  cultivated,  than  where  enterprise  and  industry  have  led 


RESTORATION  OF  ASTORIA  329 

to  settlements  which  cannot  be  abandoned  without  loss,  and 
cannot  be  ceded  without  the  alienation  of  subjects  owing  al- 
legiance to  one  or  another  state." 

Mr.  Adams  promptly  replied  regarding  Great  Britain's  posi- 
tion in  1818, 

"That  he  considered  the  claim  then  put  forward  as  a  mere 
chicaine  of  the  moment.  What  more,  he  exclaimed,  would 
England  grasp  at  ?  Could  it  be  worth  while  to  make  a  serious 
question  of  an  object  so  trifling  as  the  possession  of  the 
Columbia?  What  would  be  thought  in  England  if  Mr.  Rush 
were  to  address  the  Secretary  of  State  on  the  occasion  of  a 
regiment  being  destined  for  New  South  Wales,  or  the  Shet- 
land Islands?  The  United  States  had  an  undoubted  right  to 
settle  wherever  they  pleased  on  the  shores  of  the  Pacific  with- 
out being  molested  by  the  English  Government  and  he  really 
thought  they  were  at  least  to  be  left  unmolested  on  their  own 
continent  of  North  America." 

Those  eighteen  pages  are  rather  interesting  reading. 

But  Lord  Castlereagh,  determined  to  keep  peaceful  rela- 
tions between  the  two  countries,  wrote  to  Canning,  on  April 
1st,  1821, 44  directing  him  not  to  renew  the  discussion  of  the 
Oregon  question  without  special  instructions  from  the  king. 
He  reminded  him  that  by  article  3  of  the  treaty  of  1818,  "The 
rights  of  both  parties  were  saved  for  subsequent  adjustment, 
but  no  attempt  was  made  either  to  determine  those  rights,  to 
define  what  might  be  regarded  as  the  existing  state  of  occupa- 
tion, or  to  preclude  either  party  from  forming  new  settlements 
within  the  disputed  territory  during  the  period,  viz.,  ten  years 
.  .  .  together  with  the  reservation  of  any  right  which  the 
formation  of  such  settlement  might  either  appear  to  impeach 
or  establish.  Whatever  therefore  may  be  the .  pretensions  of 
Great  Britain  upon  the  Columbia  River,  they  must  be  urged 
on  antecedent  grounds  of  right.  .  .  .  But  it  is  not  His 
Majesty's  intention  under  present  circumstances  to  provoke 
any  discussion  with  the  American  Govt  on  the  final  adjustment 
of  these  claims." 

44  F.   O.   5,  Vol.   156. 


330  KATHARINE  B.  JUDSON 

On  April  27th,  1821,  Minister  Canning  reported  to  Lord 
Castlereagh,  after  another  interview  with  Adams.45 

"Mr.  Adams  went  on  to  say  that  he  hoped  nothing  would 
occur  for  a  long  time  to  weaken  those  mutual  dispositions" 
to  good  will  between  the  two  nations. 

A  little  aside  from  the  above,  and  yet  in  close  connection 
with  it,  is  a  letter  from  Sir  Charles  Bagot  to  Lord  Castle- 
reigh,  dated  Washington,  March  6th,  1819 :46 

"...  A  small  expedition  is  preparing  by  the  Government, 
under  the  command  of  Major  Biddle  of  the  United  States 
army,  for  the  purpose  of  ascending  to  the  source  of  the  Mis- 
souri River.  This  expedition,  which  is  entirely  unconnected 
with  that  of  the  Yellowstone  River,  is  to  be  performed  by  means 
of  a  steam  boat  which  is  to  draw  eighteen  inches  of  water  only. 
Upon  reaching  the  source  of  the  Missouri,  Major  Biddle  hopes 
to  be  able  to  carry  the  steam  machinery  of  the  boat  to  the  other 
side  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  where  he  proposes  to  build 
another  vessel,  in  which  he  will  descend  the  Columbia  River 
to  its  mouth,  where  he  may  expect  to  meet  with  the  Ontario, 
sloop-of-war,  commanded  by  his  brother.  Major  Biddle  ap- 
pears to  be  of  the  opinion  that  this  expedition  will  occupy 
about  two  years.  There  can,  I  think,  be  little  doubt  that  it 
is  connected  with  some  proposed  establishment  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Columbia  which  has  for  its  object  the  double  purpose 
of  securing  the  fur  trade,  and  promoting  the  American  whale 
fishery  in  the  South  Seas." 

THE  END. 

47F.  O.   5,  Vol.   158. 
46  F.  O.  5,  Vol.  142. 


THE  NORTHWEST  BOUNDARIES 
(Some  Hudson's  Bay  Company  Correspondence) 

By  T.  C.  ELLIOTT. 

The  documents  presented  herewith  are  supplemental  to  that 
printed  at  pages  27-34  of  this  volume  of  the  quarterly  and  are 
taken  from  the  same  source  and  very  little  need  be  said  by 
way  of  introductory  comment.  These  are  of  special  interest 
as  showing  the  intimate  connection  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany with  the  British  cabinet  in  1825-26;  Messrs.  Henry  Ad- 
dington  and  William  Huskisson  being  the  two  commissioners 
appointed  by  Secretary  George  Canning  to  discuss  with  repre- 
sentatives of  the  United  States  the  question  of  the  Northwest 
Boundaries.  These  are  also  of  interest  when  compared  with 
our  own  congressional  reports  and  speeches  during  the  period 
of  1821-27,  showing  that  the  British  were  then  concerned  only 
in  the  trade  in  this  Columbia  River  Country  while  the  atten- 
tion of  Americans  was  already  being  directed  toward  occupa- 
tion and  settlements.  It  was  in  1825  that  Senator  Thomas  H. 
Benton  first  uttered  his  oft-quoted  declaration  that  the  ridge 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains  should  forever  remain  as  the  western 
terminus  of  the  government  of  the  United  States ;  an  opinion 
which  he  later  directly  reversed. 

At  the  time  of  reorganization  following  the  coalition  of  the 
North- West  Company  and  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  in  1821 
Mr.  George  Simpson  was  placed  in  charge  of  all  the  properties, 
men  and  business  of  the  last  named  company  in  North  America, 
and  hence  came  to  be  known  as  the  "governor  of  Rupert's 
Land" ;  Mr.  J.  H.  Pelly  of  London  was  governor  of  the  Hud- 
son's Bay  Company.  Two  years,  1822  and  1823,  were  necessary 
to  reconcile  differences  and  reorganize  the  business  East  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  but  after  the  regular  summer  council  meeting 
in  1824  Governor  Simpson  started  from  York  Factory  on  Hud- 
son's Bay  for  his  first  personal  visit  to  the  Columbia  District, 
Dr.  John  McLoughlin  accompanying  him  to  assume  the  duties 


332  T.  C.  ELLIOTT 

of  manager  of  the  district.  The  winter  of  1824-25  was  spent  at 
Fort  George  (Astoria)  and  in  selecting  the  location  for  the  new 
trading  post  to  be  called  Fort  Vancouver  and  Governor  Simpson 
returned  to  the  East  side  of  the  mountains  in  the  spring  of  1825, 
having  personally  visited  all  the  trading  posts  in  the  district 
except  those  at  Thompson  River,  the  Kootenay  river  and 
among  the  Flatheads.  His  knowledge  of  the  Columbia  River 
basin  in  1825  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  complete  but  was 
not  superficial.  His  replies  to  'Messrs.  Addington  and  Huskis- 
son  were  therefore  partizan  rather  than  ignorant. 

These  documents  should  be  read  in  connection  with  that  in 
this  Quarterly  for  March,  1919,  already  cited,  and  also  in  con- 
nection with  the  valuable  contribution  upon  The  Federal 
Relations  of  Oregon  (L.  B.  Shippee)  in  this  Quarterly  for 
September,  1918. 

(DOCUMENTS) 
Journal  721,  p.  261) 

Mr.  Henry  Addington  presents  his  compliments  to  Mr. 
Simpson,  and  having  received  Mr.  Secretary  Canning's  direc- 
tions to  communicate  with  Mr.  Simpson  on  the  subject  of  the 
Columbia  River  and  North-West  Boundaries  with  a  view  to  the 
final  adjustment  of  those  important  questions  with  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  he  is  desirous  of  arranging  an  inter- 
view with  Mr.  Simpson  and  in  so  doing  wishes  to  consult  Mr. 
Simpson's  convenience  equally  with  his  own. 

He  therefore  requests  that  Mr.  Simpson  will  have  the  good- 
ness to  let  him  know  at  what  hour  and  day,  and  where  it  would 
be  most  convenient  to  him  to  favour  Mr.  Addington  with  an 
interview.  ;  ,  >  !  ;  '  >  If  f] 

191  Regents  Street,  28th  Decemb:  1825. 

Mr.  Simpson  presents  respectful  compliments  to  Mr.  Adding- 
ton will  have  much  pleasure  in  communicating  with  and  giving 
him  all  the  information  he  possesses  in  regard  to  the  Columbia 
River  and  North- West  Boundary;  for  which  purpose  Mr. 
Simpson  will  do  himself  the  honour  of  waiting  on  Mr.  Adding- 
ton when  and  where  he  may  be  pleased  to  appoint,  Mr.  Simp- 
son's time  being  quite  at  Mr.  Addington's  disposal. 


THE  NORTHWEST  BOUNDARIES  333 

Hudson's  Bay  House,  29th  Deer.  1825. 

Mr.  Addington  presents  his  compliments  to  Mr.  Simpson, 
and  requests  the  favor  of  a  visit  from  him  agreeably  to  his 
proposal  at  one  o'clock  p.  m.  to-morrow,  if  perfectly  convenient 
to  Mr.  Simpson. 

Thursday  29th  December  1825. 

191  Regent  Street, 
30th  December,  1825. 

Sir:  I  inclose  herewith  the  set  of  queries  on  which  I  wish 
for  more  particular  information. 

The  answers  to  them  may  be  as  concise  as  is  consistent  with 
perfect  perspicuity.  The  more  matter  of  fact  they  are,  the 
better.  That  to  query  IX,  I  wish  to  be  as  strictly  conformable 
to  fact  and  history  as  possible.  I  am,  Sir, 

Your  very  obedt.  humb ;  servt., 

H.  W.  ADDINGTON. 

P.  S. — Be  so  good  as  to  send  your  answer  whenever  it  may 
be  ready  addressed  to  me  at  the  Foreign  Office. 

Mr.  Henry  Addington  requests  that  Mr.  Simpson  will  have 
the  goodness  to  send  in  the  answers  to  Mr.  A's  queries  (when- 
ever they  shall  have  been  finished  at  Mr.  Simpson's  entire 
leisure)  addressed  to  him  at  his  own  lodging  which  he  has 
changed,  instead  of  to  the  Foreign  Office,  194  Regent  Street, 
Jany  4th,  1826. 

Mr.  Simpson  presents  respectful  Compliments  to  Mr.  Ad- 
dington, begs  to  hand  him  answers  to  his  list  of  Queries  like- 
wise a  corrected  chart  of  the  Country  on  both  sides  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains;  should  Mr.  Addington  require  further  in- 
formation on  this  important  subject  Mr.  Simpson  will  do  him- 
self the  honour  to  wait  upon  him  at  any  time  he  may  appoint. 

Hudson's  Bay  House,  5th  Janry,  1826. 

Q.  1.  What  is  the  nature  of  the  soil,  its  capability  of  pro- 
duction, and  general  character  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Columbia 
and  Lewis's1  Rivers  ?  What  the  climate  ? 

A.  The  banks  of  the  Columbia  on  both  sides  the  River  from 
Capes  Disappointment  and  Adams  to  the  Cascade  Portage  a 
distance  of  from  150  to  180  miles  are  covered  with  a  great 
variety  of  fine  large  timber  consisting  of  Pine  of  different 
kinds,  of  Cedar,  Hemlock,  Oak,  Ash,  Alder,  Maple  and  Poplar 

i  Snake  River. 


334  T.  C.  ELLIOTT 

with  many  other  kinds  unknown  to  me.  The  soil  of  the  low 
grounds  is  alluvial  and  found  very  productive,  that  of  the 
high  grounds  a  rich  black  mould,  chiefly  composed  of  decayed 
vegetables.  Some  of  the  points  formed  by  the  windings  of  the 
river  are  extensive  and  beautiful  with  sufficient  timber  for 
use  and  ornament,  and  where  the  plough  may  be  used  imme- 
diately and  the  point  on  which  the  Company's  Establishments 
of  Fort  Vancouver  is  situated  is  from  its  extent  and  from  the 
fertility  of  its  soil  capable  of  producing  large  quantities  of  grain 
of  every  kind  of  pasturing  numerous  herds  of  cattle  and  nutri- 
tious roots  are  so  abundant  that  almost  any  number  of  Hogs 
may  be  reared. 

The  climate  delightfully  temperate  from  the  month  of  April 
until  the  month  of  October,  and  from  November  until  March 
rainy  with  little  or  no  Frost  or  Snow. 

From  the  Cascade  Portage  to  the  entrance  of  Lewis's  River, 
the  banks  are  sterile,  the  Soil  very  Sandy  producing  Stinted 
Grass  and  willows  and  little  or  no  timber.  The  Country  in 
the  vicinity  of  Lewis's  River  I  understand  is  level  and  generally 
fertile  but  I  cannot  speak  with  certainty  on  this  point  not 
having  had  an  opportunity  of  visiting  it  personally  except  at  its 
junction  with  the  River  Columbia. 

Q.  2.  Are  the  natives  on  the  Northern  bank  of  the  Colum- 
bia warlike  or  pacific,  inclined  or  averse  to  intercourse  with  the 
whites  ?  Is  the  Country  between  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the 
Columbia  densely  or  thinly  inhabited  ? 

A.  The  different  Tribes  on  the  banks  of  the  Columbia  are 
generally  bold  and  warlike  as  regards  each  other  and  extremely 
jealous  of  any  encroachments  on  each  others  Territory  or  priv- 
ileges, but  peaceable  and  well  disposed  towards  the  whites  with 
whom  they  are  very  anxious  to  maintain  a  friendly  intercourse. 
Occasional  differences  I  understand  took  place  when  we  first 
entered  the  Country  in  which  some  lives  were  lost  on  both 
sides  but  at  present  the  best  understanding  exists  between  us 
and  them.  The  Country  is  densely  inhabited,  on  account  of 
the  great  abundance  of  its  resources  in  the  way  of  living. 

Q.  3.  Is  there  good  hunting  ground  immediately  on  the 
northern  bank  of  the  Columbia  ? 

A.  The  hunting  grounds  immediately  on  the  Northern 
banks  of  the  Columbia  are  nearly  exhausted  in  respect  to  fur- 
bearing  animals,  but  the  back  country  is  still  productive  and 
Beaver  are  found  in  all  the  small  Rivers  and  Lakes. 

Q.  4.  What,  on  a  rough  calculation  are  the  annual  profits 
of  Trade  in  the  district  of  Columbia  and  do  they  arise  from 


THE  NORTHWEST  BOUNDARIES  335 

the  Northern  or  Southern  portion  of  that  district  principally? 

A.  The  Trade  of  the  Columbia  district  is  yet  in  its  infancy 
and  the  countries  to  the  Northward  and  Southward  produce 
about  an  equal  quantity  of  Furs  amounting  together  in  value 
to  between  30  and  £40,000  pr.  annum. 

Q.  5.  Have  the  Americans  any  Post  or  trapping  parties  on 
the  Columbia  or  to  the  West  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  in  that 
direction  ? 

A.  The  Americans  have  not  had  a  Post  on  the  West  side  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains  since  the  year  1813,  and  I  am  not  aware 
that  they  ever  had  any  Trapping  parties  on  the  West  side  of 
the  Mountains  until  last  year  when  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany's Snake  Country  Expedition  fell  in  with  five  Americans 
who  had  straggled  across  the  sources  of  the  Missouri.2 

Q.  6.  Is  the  Country  Northward  of  the  Columbia  favour- 
able for  Land  and  Water  communication? 

A.  The  Country  to  the  Northward  of  the  Columbia  is  not 
favourable  for  water  communication  with  the  Coast  on  account 
of  the  impetuosity  of  the  current  at  particular  Seasons  in  the 
different  rivers  and  frequent  chains  of  rapids  and  dangerous 
falls,  and  the  Communication  with  the  Coast  by  Land  is  quite 
impracticable  on  account  of  the  mountainous  character  of  the 
Country  which  is  covered  with  almost  impenetrable  forests. 

Q.  7.  For  what  extent  of  Country  does  the  Columbia 
River  furnish  an  outlet  for  Trade?  Specify  this  exactly  and 
according  to  the  latest  and  most  accurate  accounts? 

A.  The  Columbia  is  the  only  navigable  river  to  the  interior 
from  the  Coast  we  are  acquainted  with,  it  is  therefore  the  only 
certain  outlet  for  the  Company's  Trade  west  of  the  Mountains 
comprehending  that  of  thirteen  Establishments  now  occupied  :3 

1.  Ft.  Vancouver.  7.  Kilmany. 

2.  Nez  Perce.  8.  Eraser's  Lake. 

3.  Okanagan.  9.  Ft.  St.  James. 

4.  Colville  House  10.  McLeod's  Fort. 

5.  Flat  Head  11.  Chilcotin  Fort. 

6.  Kootenais.  12.  Thompson's  Fort. 

13.     Alexandria  Fort 

Q.  8.  What  time  is  required  for  communication  between 
Hudson's  Bay  (York  Fort)  and  Fort  Vancouver? 

A.     I  was  last  year  occupied  84  days  traveling  from  York 

a  These  were  Jedediah  Smith  and  others.  See  Or.  Hist.  Quar.,  Vol.   14,  page 
385.     Also  see  The  Ashley-Smith  Explorations  (Dale),  page  97. 
3  See  Note  17  at  page  33,  Vol.  20,  Or.  Hist.  Quar. 


336  T.  C.  ELLIOTT 

Fort,  Hudson's  Bay  to  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia,  but  I 
think  the  journey  can  be  performed  in  the  height  of  the  season : 
in  a  light  canoe,  unincumbered  with  baggage  for  the  water 
communication  and  with  good  horses  for  the  journey  by  Land 
which  may  be  about  1/6  of  the  whole  distance,  in  2  months  or 
65  days  by  a  different  route4  to  that  which  I  took. 

Q.  Upon  what  foundation  does  the  assertion  rest  that 
"British  subjects  had  been  trading  on  the  Coast  in  the  vicinity 
of  the  Columbia,  prior  to  Gray's  voyage  thither  in  1788? 

N.  B. — Consult  every  authority  within  reach  on  this  point 
and  state  the  fact  if  anywhere  positively  ascertained,  accom- 
panied by  date,  and  specification  of  the  point  which  such  per- 
sons opened  an  intercourse  with  the  Natives. 

A.  Both  Meares'  and  Vancouver's  Voyages  confirm  the  as- 
sertion that  "British  subjects  had  been  trading  on  the  coast  in 
the  vicinity  of  the  Columbia  prior  to  Gray's  voyage  thither  in 
1788  Vizt.  In  Meares'  observations  on  the  probable  existence  of 
a  North- West  passage  page  55  it  is  stated  "that  the  Imperial 
Eagle  Captn.  Barclay  sailed  from  Europe  beginning  1787  and 
not  only  arrived  at  Nootka  Sound  in  August  but  explored  the 
Coast  from  Nootka  to  Wacananesh  and  so  on  to  a  Sound  to 
which  he  gave  his  own  name.  The  boat's  crew  was  dispatched 
and  discovered  the  extraordinary  Straits  of  John  de  Fuce,  and 
also  the  coast  as  far  as  "Queenhythe"  within  30  to  40  miles 
of  the  Columbia  River  "when  after  the  fatal  catastrophe  which 
happened  to  some  of  them,  the  ship  quitted  the  Coast  and  pro- 
ceeded to  China  having  performed  the  whole  voyage  in  twelve 
months."  The  following  note  appears  in  Meares'  Journal  page 
124:  "The  Imperial  Eagle  was  a  Ship  employed  to  collect  Furs 
on  the  Coast  of  America,  in  1787,  in  the  course  of  its  business 
the  Captain  dispatched  his  long  boat  from  King  George's  Sound 
on  a  trading  expedition  as  far  as  47  degrees  North.  She  then 
anchored  abreast  of  a  river,  the  shallowness  at  whose  entrance 
prevented  the  long  boat  from  getting  into  it."  A  small  boat 
however,  which  was  attached  to  the  other  was  sent  up  the  River 
with  Mr.  Millar  an  officer  of  the  Imperial  Eagle,  another  young 
Gentleman  and  four  seamen.  They  continued  rowing  till  they 
came  to  a  village  where  they  were  supposed  to  have  been  seized 
and  murdered  by  the  Natives,  as  their  clothes  were  found  after- 
wards stained  with  blood."5 

By  Meares'  Journal  pages  163  to  168  it  appears  that  on  the 

4  In    1841    Gov.    Simpson    followed    this    different   route   and    journeyed    from 
Fort  Garry  on  Red  River  to  Fort  Vancouver  in  less  than  sixty  days. 

fThis  incident  occurred  at  the  mouth  of  Hoh  River  in  the  State  of  Washing- 
ully  100  miles  north  of  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  River. 


THE  NORTHWEST  BOUNDARIES  337 

5th  July  1788  he  traded  with  Natives  of  Cape  Shoalwater  in 
about  Lat.  46,  47  N.  and  on  the  6th  he  named  "Cape  Disap- 
pointment" calling  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  Deception  Bay, 
making  it  by  an  indifferent  observation  in  Lat.  46.10  Lon: 
235.34.  In  page  219  same  Journal  (17th  Septr.  1788)  it  is 
stated  that  Mr.  Gray  in  the  Washington  joined  him  at  Nootka 
Sound,  that  vessel  had  sailed  in  company  with  the  Columbia 
from  Boston  in  August  1787,  they  separated  in  a  gale  of  wind 
in  Lat.  59  South  and  had  not  seen  each  other  up  to  that  time. 
Mr.  Gray  informed  Meares  that  he  had  put  into  a  Harbour  on 
the  Coast  of  New  Albion  where  he  got  on  shore,  and  was  in 
danger  of  being  lost  on  the  Bar,  was  attacked  by  the  Natives 
and  had  one  man  killed  and  one  of  his  officers  wounded.  The 
harbour  could  not  admit  vessels  of  a  very  small  size  and  must 
lie  somewhere  near  Cape  Lookout ;  Meares  in  page  220  further 
says  that  he  (the  Master  of  the  Washington)  "appeared  to  be 
very  sanguine  in  the  superior  advantages  which  his  Country 
Men  from  New  England  might  reap  from  this  track  of  Trade, 
and  was  big  with  mighty  Projects  in  which  we  understand  he 
was  protected  by  the  American  Congress."  It,  therefore,  ap- 
pears evident  that  up  to  this  period,  Gray  knew  nothing  of  the 
Columbia  and  that  the  Americans  were  total  strangers  to  the 
Country  and  Trade  of  the  North- West  Coast  altogether. 

Vancouver's  Voyages  Volume  2  page  53  April  1792  states 
that  the  River  Mr.  Gray  mentioned  should  from  the  situation 
he  assigned  to  it,  have  existed  in  the  Bay,  South  of  Cape  Dis- 
appointment. Mr.  Gray  stated  that  he  had  been  several  days 
attempting  to  enter  it  and  at  length  he  was  unable  to  effect 
it  in  consequence  of  a  strong  outset. 

Page  388  same  Work  October  1792  Vancouver  prepares  to 
examine  the  Coast  of  New  Albion  and  particularly  a  River 
and  Harbour  discovered  by  Mr.  Gray  in  the  (Ship)  Columbia 
between  the  46th  and  47th  degrees  of  North  latitude  of  which 
Senr.  Quadra  had  given  him  a  Sketch. 

Vol :  3  page  124  Decbr.  1792  "The  Discovery  of  this  River 
we  are  given  to  understand  is  claimed  by  the  Spaniards  who 
call  it  Entrada  de  Ceta  after  the  Commander  of  the  Vessel 
who  is  said  to  be  its  first  discoverer,  but  who  never  entered  it, 
he  places  it  in  46  degrees  North  Latitude  ;  it  is  the  same  opening 
that  Mr.  Gray  stated  to  us  in  the  Spring  (1792)  he  had  been 
nine  days  off  the  former  year  (1791)  but  could  not  get  in  in 
consequence  of  the  out  setting  current.  That  in  the  course  of 
the  late  Summer  (1792)  he  had  however  entered  the  River  or 


338  T.  C.  ELLIOTT 

rather  the  Sound  and  had  named  it  after  the  Ship,  he  then 
commanded  (Columbia). 

The  extent,  Mr.  Gray  became  acquainted  with  on  that  occa- 
sion, is  no  further  than  I  have  called  Gray's  Bay  (15  miles 
from  the  mouth  of  the  River)  not  more  than  15  miles  from 
Cape  Disappointment,  though  according  to  Gray's  sketch  it 
measures  36  miles.  By  his  calculation  its  entrance  lies  in  Lat. 
46  degrees  10,  Lon :  237  degrees  18  differing  materially  in  these 
respects  from  our  observations."  From  these  extracts  it  will 
appear  that  Lieut.  Meares  of  the  R.  N.  was  the  first  who  dis- 
covered the  entrance  of  the  Columbia  in  July  1787  naming  the 
head  Land  of  the  Northern  entrance  of  the  River  Cape  Dis- 
appointment which  it  still  bears,  and  that  Captn.  Barclay  of 
the  Imperial  Eagle  had  previously  traded  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
River  and  at  about  half  a  degree  to  the  Northward  lost  a  boat's 
crew  in  the  year  1787. 

Gray's  Bay  is  situated  on  the  North  side  of  the  Sound  about 
half  way  between  Cape  Disappointment  and  the  mouth  of  the 
River  which  he  appears  never  to  have  entered  as  Vancouver's 
Voyages  Vol  3  page  109  says  "Previously  to  his  departure  how- 
ever he  formally  took  possession  of  the  River  and  the  Country 
in  its  vicinity  in  His  Britannic  Majesty's  name  having  every 
reason  to  believe  that  the  subjects  of  no  other  civilized  Nation 
or  State  had  ever  entered  this  River  before ;  in  this  opinion  he 
was  confirmed  by  Mr.  Gray's  sketch  in  which  it  does  not  appear 
that  Mr.  Gray  either  saw  or  was  within  five  leagues  of  its 
entrance."6 

These  extracts  and  remarks  will  I  trust  satisfactory  answer 
query  9. 

Q.  What  comparison  does  Eraser's  River  bear  in  magnitude 
and  capacity  for  the  purposes  of  Trade  with  the  Columbia? 
Is  the  Native  population  on  its  banks  dense  or  not-well-dis- 
posed or  not- warlike  or  pacific? 

A.  Eraser's  River  is  not  so  large  as  the  Columbia  and  not 
to  be  compared  with  it  for  the  purposes  of  Trade,  the  depth 
of  water  found  at  its  entrance  was  about  3  fathoms ;  and  banks 
are  generally  high  and  steep,  covered  with  Timber  and  such 
places  as  are  sufficiently  low  and  clear  for  the  site  of  an  estab- 
lishment bear  marks  of  having  been  over  flown  in  the  Seasons 
of  high  water. 

About  70  miles  from  its  entrance  the  navigation  is  interrupted 
by  Rapids  and  Falls  so  as  to  render  it  nearly  impossible,  and 
according  to  the  best  information  I  have  been  able  to  collect,  the 

6  See  Note  3  at  page  28  of  Vol.  20,  Or.  Hist.  Quar. 


THE  NORTHWEST  BOUNDARIES  339 

banks  of  the  river  about  150  miles  up  form  precipices  where 
the  towing  line  cannot  be  used,  and  the  Current  so  impetuous 
at  certain  Seasons  as  to  render  it  impossible  to  use  either  the 
setting  Pole  or  Paddle,  Canoes  being  the  only  craft  that  can 
attempt  to  stem  the  current  at  any  Season. 

The  Natives  treated  our  party7  with  civility  and  seemed 
anxious  that  we  should  settle  among  them.  They  assembled 
from  the  back  Country  to  the  banks  of  the  River  in  great 
numbers  during  the  fishing  season  (from  April  until  October) 
when  the  population  is  very  great,  and  at  all  Seasons  the 
Country  may  be  said  to  be  densely  peopled,  and  their  character 
much  the  same  as  that  of  those  inhabiting  the  banks  of  the 
Columbia.  I  should  not  however  consider  it  safe  to  form  an 
Establishment  there,  with  a  smaller  force  than  60  to  70  men 
and  officers,  until  we  are  better  acquainted  with  them. 

Q.  Could  the  Fur  produce  to  the  North  of  Eraser's  River 
and  West  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  be  conveniently  transported 
by  means  of  this  river  for  shipment  to  other  Countries? 

A.  From  all  the  information  I  have  been  able  to  collect 
respecting  Fraser's  River,  it  is  not  my  opinion  that  it  affords 
a  communication  by  which  the  interior  Country  can  be  supplied 
from  the  Coast  or  that  it  can  be  depended  on  as  an  outlet  for 
the  returns  of  the  interior.  I  will  further  altho'  unasked  take 
the  liberty  of  giving  it  as  my  opinion,  that  if  the  navigation 
of  the  Columbia  is  not  free  to  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  and 
that  the  territory  to  the  Northward  is  not  secured  to  them, 
they  must  abandon  and  curtail  their  Trade  in  some  parts  and 
probably  be  constrained  to  relinquish  it  on  the  West  side  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains  altogether. 

(Signed)     GEO.  SIMPSON. 

London,  31st  December,  1825. 

Journal  722,  p.  3 

Hudson's  Bay  House, 

London,  25th  July,  1826. 

To  the  Right  Honourable,  Wm.  Huskisson. 

Dear  Sir :  I  have  annexed  to  your  queries  such  answers  as 
the  records  to  which  I  refer  afford:  I  think  that  there  is  suf- 
ficient proof  that  the  Traders  of  the  N.  W.  Company  had 
established  Posts  on  the  Columbia  long  before  the  establish- 

7  See  the  Wash.  Historical  Quarterly,  Vol.  3,  page  198  et  seq.,  for  the  journal 
of  this  expedition. 


340  T.  C.  ELLIOTT 

ment  at  Astoria  in  1811.  Harmon  distinctly  states  that  they 
were  established  in  1806,  the  American  Fur  Company  was  only 
formed  in  1810  and  were  erecting  their  Fort  in  August  1811 
when  Thomson  went  there  from  one  of  the  North-West  Com- 
pany's posts  in  the  Interior. 

Lewis  and  Clarke  had  been  down  the  Columbia  in  1805  and 
returned  in  1806  the  natives  on  their  route  had  many  European 
articles  but  McKenzie  had  crossed  the  mountains  and  pro- 
ceeded to  the  sea  in  1793  and  Thompson  further  south  in  1802 
at  which  time  he  was  I  understand  on  one  of  the  tributary 
streams  of  the  Columbia.  From  Meares'  Memorial  it  appears 
that  certain  merchants  under  the  immediate  protection  of  the 
East  India  Company  fitted  out  ships  in  the  year  1786,  and 
and  traded  with  the  natives  between  the  Lat.  of  60  and  45.30, 
and  obtained  from  the  Chief  of  the  District  surrounding  Port 
Cox  and  Port  Effingham  in  Lat.  45  and  49,  promise  of  free  and 
exclusive  trade  with  leave  to  build  on  the  land,  and  purchased 
from  another  a  tract  of  land. 

I  likewise  inclose  for  your  information  copy  of  a  statement 
relative  to  the  Columbia  River  and  Territories  connected 
therewith  drawn  up  in  1815  at  the  request  of  Sir  Gordon  Drum- 
mond.  It  was  sent  me  in  1822  by  Mr.  Simon  McGillivray ;  if 
there  is  any  other  information  that  you  require  I  shall  be  happy 
to  furnish  it  as  far  as  I  am  able  and  shall  feel  obliged  if  you 
will  allow  me  an  audience  any  morning  either  this  or  the  fol- 
lowing week  except  Thursday. 

I  am,  Dear  Sir,  Your  faithful  &  obedt.  servt. 

(Signed)     J.  H.  PELLY. 

Q.  State  the  date  (the  year  if  possible)  when  any  party  or 
individuals  belonging  to  the  Northern  or  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany first  had  a  station  in  or  near  to  the  Columbia  or  to  any 
of  its  Tributary  Streams  and  the  proof  on  which  such  state- 
ment rests : 

A.  The  first  year  that  any  party  belonging  to  the  North- 
West  Company  had  a  station  on  or  near  to  the  Columbia  was 
in  1806.  Harmon,  an  American  by  birth  who  was  a  clerk 
in  the  North- West  Company's  service  and  afterwards  a  partner 
published  a  Journal  of  Voyages  and  travels  commencing  April 
1800  and  ending  August  1819  says  in  page  282  "That  the 
country  West  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  with  which  I  am  ac- 
quainted has  ever  since  the  North-west  Company  first  made 
an  Establishment  there,  which  was  in  1806  gone  by  the  name  of 
New  Caledonia"  and  in  page  220  he  states  "Monday  April  6th. 


THE  NORTHWEST  BOUNDARIES  341 

Six  Indians  have  arrived  from  Eraser's  Lake  who  delivered 
to  me  a  letter  written  by  Mr.  David  Thompson  which  is  dated 
August  28th  1811  at  Yek-koy-ope  Falls8  on  the  Columbia  River. 
It  informs  me  that  this  Gentleman  accompanied  by  seven 
Canadians  descended  the  Columbia  River  to  the  place  where  it 
entered  the  Pacific  Ocean  where  they  arrived  on  the  16th  day 
of  July.  There  they  found  a  number  of  people  employed  in 
building  a  Fort  for  a  company  of  Americans  who  denominated 
themselves  as  the  Pacific  Fur  Company;  he  also  writes  that 
Mr.  Alexander  McKay  and  others  have  proceed  Northward  in 
the  vessel  that  brought  them  there  on  a  coasting  trade.  Mr. 
Thompson  after  having  remained  seven  days  with  the  American 
people  set  out  on  his  return  to  his  establishments  which  are 
near  the  source  of  the  Columbia  River."  From  this  it  would 
appear  that  Mr.  Thompson  hearing  at  his  Establishment  higher 
up  the  Columbia  of  the  unexpected  arrival  of  the  Americans 
at  the  mouth  of  the  River  went  down  to  reconnoitre  their  pro- 
ceedings, was  with  them  when  they  were  erecting  their  Fort 
and  then  returned  to  his  own  Posts  which  had  been  established 
after  his  first  visit  to  the  Country  from  the  East  of  the  Moun- 
tains in  1803,  herewith  is  sent  a  copy  of  Harmon's  work  and 
in  pages  194,  196,  218,  224,  228,  237,  239,  240,  242,  245,  246, 
will  be  found  remarks  relating  to  the  establishments.9 

Note:  Mr.  Alexander  McKay  has  been  in  the  service  of 
the  North-West  Company  for  several  years,  was  a  British 
subject  and  was  engaged  by  the  Pacific  Fur  Company  from 
the  knowledge  which  he  had  acquired  of  the  trade  while  in 
the  service  of  the  North-West  Company.  There  were  also 
Duncan  McDougall,  Donald  McKenzie,  David  Stuart  and  sev- 
eral other  British  subjects  who  had  all  been  previously  in  the 
service  of  the  North-West  Company  attached  to  the  crew  and 
party  sent  out  in  the  Tonquin  and  who  built  the  American 
Fort  on  the  South  bank  of  the  Columbia  River. 

Q.  When  was  the  Name  of  McGillivray  given  to  the  River 
now  bearing  that  name?  Was  its  course  or  any  considerable 
part  of  it  explored  by  any  person  of  that  name  being  a  subject 
of  His  Majesty  in  the  service  of  the  Company  and  was  there 
any  settlement  or  station  formed  by  him  or  others  acting  with 
him  on  that  River  and  about  what  time? 

A.  In  1803  when  Mr.  Duncan  McGillivray  who  died  in  1807 
set  out  on  an  Expedition  with  David  Thompson  from  the  North- 

8  Ilth-koy-ape,  or  Kettle  Falls,  in  the  State  of  Washington;  see  "David  Thomp- 
son's Narrative  '  (Tyrrell)   for  verification  of  this. 

9  Daniel  Harmon  was  located  at  Lake  Stuart  in,  British  Columbia,  many  miles 
from   the  Columbia   River. 


342  T.  C.  ELLIOTT 

West  Go's  post  in  Saskatchewan  River  to  cross  the  Rocky 
Mountains  to  explore  the  country  and  with  a  view  to  establish 
Trading  posts,  Mr.  McGillivray  was  taken  ill  and  obliged  to 
remain  behind.  Mr.  Thompson  proceeded  with  the  Expedition 
crossed  the  upper  part  of  the  Columbia  and  called  the  first 
River  he  reached  McGillivray  the  next  after  himself.  Mc- 
Gillivray and  Thompson  were  both  partners  in  the  North- West 
Company.  They  traded  with  the  Natives  but  formed  no  Estab- 
lishment at  that  time.10  x 

Q.  Did  McKenzie  explore  and  what  parts  of  the  Columbia 
or  its  Tributary  Branches:  in  what  year  and  was  he  then  in 
the  service  of  the  Company  ? 

A.  Sir  Alexander  McKenzie  did  not  explore  any  part  of 
the  Columbia  or  its  tributary  branches  he  proceed  from  the 
Athapescow  district  by  Peace  river  crossed  the  Mountains  and 
travelled  to  the  Pacific  far  to  the  Northward  both  of  the 
Columbia  and  Thompson  Rivers,  this  was  in  the  year  1793  at 
which  time  he  was  a  partner  in  the  North-West  Company. 

Q.  In  what  year  was  the  first  English  ship  sent  to  the 
Columbia  for  the  purpose  of  collecting  Furs  and  carrying  sup- 
plies to  the  Company's  Agent  sand  trading  with  the  natives  on 
the  Columbia  River?  Has  a  ship  been  sent  every  year  since 
the  first? 

A.  The  Isaac  Todd  which  sailed  from  England  in  1813 
and  arrived  at  the  Columbia  River  in  April  1814;  was  the 
first  ship  that  took  any  Produce  of  the  North-West  Company's 
trade  collected  on  the  West  side  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and 
carried  it  to  China  from  whence  she  brought  a  cargo  of  tea 
to  England  for  account  of  the  East  India  Company;  all  that 
had  been  collected  in  former  years  having  been  sent  by  the 
Interior  to  Canada  but  as  early  as  1786  the  East  India  Compy 
had  vessels  on  the  Coast  and  purchased  Land  of  the  Natives 
as  related  by  Meares  in  his  Memorial  see  States  papers  annual 
Register  1790  page  287.  The  Isaac  Todd  took  at  the  same 
time  all  that  had  ever  been  collected  by  the  American  Fur 
Company  at  the  Establishment  of  Astoria.  The  Americans 
arrived  in  the  Columbia  as  before  observed  Summer  1811,  the 
Furs  that  were  collected  the  following  Winter,  they  were  not 
able  to  send  away  the  ship  that  was  to  have  conveyed  them 

10  These  statements  as  to  the  movements  of  David  Thompson  are  incorrect. 
He  was  on  the  waters  of  Peace  River  nearly  all  that  year.  In  the  year  1800, 
in  company  with  Duncan  McGillivray,  he  made  a  trip  from  Rocky  Mountain  House 
on  the  Saskatchewani  westward  into  the  Rocky  Mountains,  but  neither  of  them 
reached  the  summit,  as  their  survey  notes  clearly  show.  See  "David  Thompson's 
Narrative"  (Tyrrell),  page  8t. 


THE  NORTHWEST  BOUNDARIES  343 

having  been  destroyed  by  the  Natives  on  the  coast  and  the 
whole  of  the  Crew  massacred.  No  ship  arrived  in  1812  and 
in  the  fall  of  1813  it  was  that  the  North- West  Company  pur- 
chased of  the  American  Traders  all  they  had  collected  the  pre- 
ceeding  two  years  therefore  no  American  ship  ever  took  away, 
or  have  the  Americans  ever  taken  any  produce  of  their  Trade 
from  the  Country  and  when  they  established  themselves  in  1811 
on  the  South  side  of  the  River,  they  had  no  establishment  on 
the  North  side,  and  from  the  terms  of  the  Treaty  for  the  pur- 
chase it  appears  that  they  had  one  subsequently  on  Thompson 
River  but  abandoned  it  when  they  left  the  Country  and  they 
have  never  been  there  since. 

In  1814  the  schooner  Columbia  was  sent  out  which  arrived 
at  Fort  George  in  the  spring  of  1815  and  having  delivered  her 
supplies  proceeded  with  skins  to  Canton  from  whence  she 
returned  to  the  Sandwich  Islands  and  to  the  Columbia  River  in 
order  to  carry  the  skins  of  the  following  season  to  Canton. 

The  supplies  sent  from  England  in  1815  and  which  reached 
Fort  George  in  the  Spring  of  1816  were  sent  in  the  Brig 
Colonel  Allen  which  vessel  returned  from  the  Columbia  to 
England. 

All  these  were  British  vessels  belonging  to  and  fitted  out 
by  the  Agents  of  the  North- West  Company  with  supplies  for 
their  Traders  at  the  Columbia  River. 

The  outfits  of  these  vessels  having  been  found  expensive  and 
unproductive  in  consequence  of  the  restriction  of  British  sub- 
jects from  trading  in  China  except  under  License  from  the 
East  India  Company  which  Company  refused  to  permit  the 
Agents  of  the  North-West  Company  to  carry  away  tea  in 
return  for  the  skins  sold  by  them  at  Canton  whilst  American 
ships  and  Traders  not  being  under  similar  restrictions  had 
the  benefit  of  freight  for  the  whole  voyage  to  China  and  back. 
Under  these  circumstances  in  the  year  1815  an  arrangement 
was  made  with  a  house  at  Boston  under  which  the  supplies 
of  British  manufactures  required  for  the  establishments  at  the 
Columbia  were  sent  from  England  to  Boston  from  whence  a 
ship  was  dispatched  to  convey  them  to  the  Columbia  to  take 
the  skins  from  the  Columbia  to  Canton  and  to  carry  the  pro- 
ceeds of  their  sale  in  Teas  and  other  produce  of  China  from 
Canton  to  Boston  where  the  American  house  retained  a  certain 
proportion  of  the  net  proceeds  as  a  compensation  for  the 
freight. 

In  this  manner  annual  supplies  were  sent  to  the  Columbia 
River  in  each  year  from  1816  to  1820  and  in  1821  the  Estab- 


344  T.  C.  ELLIOTT 

lishments  were  transferred  to  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  since 
which  time  the  proceeds  have  been  brought  by  British  ships 
to  England. 

Q.  House  many  posts  and  settlements  has  the  Company 
now  on  or  near  the  Banks  of  the  Columbia  or  its  Tributary 
Branches ;  when  as  nearly  as  can  be  ascertained  were  they  first 
formed  and  how  many  are  North  and  how  many  are  South 
of  the  Rivers  or  of  its  Branches? 

A.  The  Company  have  now  six  settlements  on  the  Columbia 
and  its  Tributary  Branches  exclusive  of  Fort  George  and 
thirteen  settlements  in  the  whole  on  the  North  side  of  the 
River  in  New  Caledonia.  The  Company  have  none  on  the 
south  side  but  parties  have  been  fitted  out  from  Fort  George 
to  hunt  the  Country  on  that  side. 

Q.  When  the  Company  was  formed  on  which  Mr.  Astor 
was  the  head,  of  how  many  partners  did  it  consist,  how  many 
of  that  Company  were  citizens  of  Great  Britain  and  how  many 
citizens  of  the  United  States? 

A.  Formed  in  1810  after  Lewis  and  Clarke's  return,  do 
not  know  their  number  but  several  of  them  were  British  sub- 
jects and  had  been  in  the  service  of  the  North- West  Company. 

Q.  Had  the  Company  any  charter  of  incorporation  or  other 
instrument  of  special  recognition  from  the  State  of  New  York 
or  any  other  authority  in  the  United  States  ? 

A.  Cannot  say  if  they  had  a  charter  of  incorporation,  but 
believe  they  were  recognized  by  the  State  of  New  York. 


THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON— VII 

By  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE,  Pu.D, 

CHAPTER  XIII 
THE  TERRITORY  OF  OREGON 

In  Chapter  IV  there  was  noted  the  establishment  of  the 
Provisional  Government  in  Oregon,  with  its  dependence  on 
voluntary  contributions  and  its  tripartite  executive,  a  gov- 
ernment over  some  six  hundred  souls  of  European  descent  who 
then  found  themselves  within  the  limits  of  the  territory.  If 
the  American  contingent  was  doubled  in  1842,  1843  brought 
nearly  twice  as  many  whites  as  Oregon  had  previously  had, 
for  the  migration  of  that  year  numbered  close  to  a  thousand 
persons  who  came  over  the  Oregon  Trail  with  their  wagons 
and  herds,  from  Missouri  and  the  surrounding  States.  At 
this  point  a  word  in  relation  to  Dr.  Marcus  Whitman's  relation 
to  the  migration  of  that  year  may  not  be  out  of  place.  While 
Whitman  did  go  to  Washington  in  the  winter  of  1842-3,  and 
while  he  talked  with  President  Tyler,  Webster  and  others, 
there  seems  to  be  no  warrant  for  the  "Whitman  Legend"  which 
would  have  it  that  it  was  his  work  that  -saved  Oregon  for  the 
United  States.1  Oregon  was  becoming  well  known,  the  more 
so  because  the  Wilkes  Expedition  and  the  later  exploring 
expedition  led  by  Lieutenant  Fremont  had  resulted  in  ac- 
counts which  were  spread  abroad  in  pamphlets,  books  and  in 
newspaper  reprints. 

In  1844  still  greater  numbers  sought  the  Coast,  most  of  the 
emigrants  settling  in  the  Willamette  Valley,  although  the 
efforts  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  acting  through  the 
chief  factor.  Dr.  McLoughlin,  to  prevent  their  entrance  into 

i  The  investigations  of  Professor  E.  G.  Bourne  (see  Legend  of  Marcus 
Whitman,  Am.  Hist.  Rev.,  VI,  276-300)  and  Principal  William  I.  Marshall  (his 
Acquisition  of  Oregon,  2  volumes,  contains  the  bulk  of  his  findings)  have  pretty 
thoroughly  exploded  the  theory  that  Whitman's  journey  east  in  the  winter  of 
1842-3  was  due  to  the  fear  that  the  Unied  Sates  was  going  to  abandon  Oregon.  In 
like  manner  these  historians  have  demonstrated  that  the  migrations  of  those  years 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  activities  of  Whitman,  despite  the  assertions  in  such 
works  as  Barrows'  Oregon.  See  also  Letters  and  Times  of  the  Tylers,  II,  438. 


346  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPER 

the  fertile  regions  north  of  the  Columbia  and  about  Puget 
Sound,  served  to  goad  a  few  families  to  find  homes  in  that 
country.  The  stream  of  migration,  started  in  1842,  continued 
unabated  until  the  news  of  gold  in  California  turned  the 
greater  flood  in  that  direction  in  1849  and  the  years  following. 
Such  was  the  volume  of  emigrants  that  in  the  debates  in 
Congress  as  early  as  1845-6  ten  thousand  was  freely  stated 
as  a  conservative  figure  for  the  population  in  Oregon.  A 
memorial  in  1848  said  that  there  were  12,000  American  citizens 
in  the  territory,  and  Governor  Lane's  census  of  1849  showed 
a  population  of  8,785  Americans,  and  at  that  time  the  exodus 
to  California  had  started.  The  first  actual  enumeration,  in 
1850,  showed  a  total  non-Indian  population  of  13,294,  hence 
it  is  probable  that  the  estimate  of  the  Provisional  Government 
in  1848  was  not  more  than  twenty  per  cent,  above  the  actual 
figure. 

The  great  increase  in  population  obliged  the  people  of  Oregon 
to  modify  their  organic  laws.  The  Utopian  scheme  of  a  gov- 
ernment supported  by  voluntary  contributions,  however  well 
it  would  have  continued  to  operate  with  the  original  parties 
to  the  compact,  proved  inadequate  as  soon  as  the  new  comers, 
unfamiliar  with  the  situation,  were  on  the  ground.  In  1844 
the  Legislative  Committee  levied  a  tax  of  one-eighth  of  one 
per  cent,  on  certain  improvements  and  on  some  commodities; 
all  who  refused  to  pay  were  to  have  none  of  the  benefit  of 
the  laws  of  Oregon  and  were  not,-io  vote.2  In  the  revision 
of  the  organic  laws  in  1845  the  legislative  body  was  specifically 
given  power  to  "pass  laws  for  raising  a  revenue,  either  by  the 
levying  and  collecting  of  taxes,  or  the  imposing  licenses  on 
merchandise,  ferries  or  other  objects." 

The  revision  of  the  organic  law  in  1845  also  brought  about 
a  change  which  gave  practically  a  constitution  on  the  lines  of 
the  State  constitutions  of  the  time,  including  the  customary  bill 
of  rights.3  Instead  of  a  Legislative  Committee  there  was  to 
be  a  House  of  Representatives  composed  of  not  less  than 

2  Act  given  in  White's  Ten  Years  in  Oregon,  347-9. 

3  Ibid.,  358-67. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  347 

thirteen  nor  more  than  sixty-one  members.  The  powers  of  this 
body  were  those  "necessary  for  a  legislature  of  a  temporary 
government,  not  in  contravention  with  the  restrictions  imposed 
in  (the)  organic  law/'  Specifically  power  was  given  to  im- 
peach officials,  constitute  districts  and  apportion  representa- 
tives, enact  revenue  laws,  open  roads  and  canals,  regulate  inter- 
course with  the  Indians,4  establish  a  postal  system,  declare  war 
and  suppress  insurrection,  provide  fdr  ia  militia,  regulate 
the  importation,  manufacture  and  sale  of  ardent  spirits,5  regu- 
late the  "currency  and  internal  policy  of  the  country,"  create 
inferior  tribunals  and  offices,  and  "generally,  to  pass  such  laws 
to  promote  the  general  welfare  of  the  people  of  Oregon,  not 
contrary  to  the  spirit  of  this  instrument;  and  all  powers  not 
hereby  expressly  delegated  to  remain  with  the  people/'  A 
judicious  admixture  of  liberal  and  strict  construction  was  thus 
placed  in  the  fundamental  law,  presumably  to  meet  the  oppos- 
ing political  doctrines  of  those  who  came  from  different  por- 
tions of  the  United  States.  For  the  peace  of  mind  of  the 
courts  it  was  no  doubt  fortunate  that  the  Territory  of  Oregon 
was  erected  by  Congressional  act  before  there  came  any  per- 
plexing problems  over  the  interpretation  of  "all  powers  neces- 
sary for  a  legislature  of  a  temporary  government,  not  in  con- 
travention with  the  restrictions  imposed  in  this  organic  law" 
and  the  "general  welfare"  clause,  in  the  light  of  the  restriction 
in  "all  powers  not  nearby  expressly  delegated  to  remain  with 
the  people." 

The  Executive  Committee  was  thrown  over  and  executive 
power  was  vested  in  "one  person,  elected  by  the  qualified 
voters  at  the  annual  election."  The  judiciary  was  to  be  com- 
posed of  a  supreme  court  with  one  judge  and  inferior  tribu- 
nals. That  questions  of  constitutional  import  might  be  decided 
"the  supreme  court  shall  have  power  to  decide  upon  and  annul 
any  laws  contrary  to  the  provisions  of  these  articles  of  compact ; 
and  whenever  called  upon  by  the  house  of  representatives,  the 

4  In    the  bill   it   was   stated   that   "the  utmost   good   faith    (should),  always   be 
observed  towards  the  Indians,"   whose  lands  were  not  to  be  taken    without   their 
consent,    or   rights    invaded    "unless   in    just   and   lawful    wars,    authorized    by   the 
representatives  of  the  people."  . 

5  In  1844  the  Legis.  Com.  had  prohibited  sale  and  importation  of  spirits. 


348  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPER 

supreme  judge  shall  give  his  opinion  touching  the  validity  of 
any  pending  measure."  In  the  land  law,  which  constituted 
one  of  the  articles  of  the  new  compact,  there  was  an  important 
modification  of  the  original  act,  for  the  proviso  which  allowed 
religious  missions  to  pre-empt  a  square  mile  was  omitted. 
As  before,  an  individual  might  take  640  acres,  although  part- 
nerships might  take  up  tracts  of  640  acres  per  member  pro- 
vided no  member  had  a  claim  in  his  own  name. 

There  was  no  thought  that  all  these  provisions  would  be 
other  than  temporary  in  nature;  they  were  merely  to  fill  in 
until  the  United  States  should  have  extended  over  the  territory 
its  protection  and  its  laws.  While  there  was  some  talk  of  an 
independent  establishment,  caused  by  the  delay  in  settling  the 
boundary  and  then  by  the  failure  of  Congress  to  provide  ter- 
ritorial government,  few  thought  seriously  of  that  possibility. 
The  temporary  nature  of  the  organization  had  been  referred 
to  in  the  memorial  which  was  presented  to  Congress  in  1848,6 
as  well  as  in  the  letter  from  Governor  Abernethy  which  formed 
the  basis  of  Thornton's  memorial. 

The  advent,  then,  in  Oregon  of  the  newly  appointed  Federal 
officers  was  hailed  with  joy  as  well  as  relief  in  March,  1849. 
At  the  head  of  the  list  was  General  Joseph  Lane,  of  Indiana, 
who  had  been  appointed  by  Polk  after  the  first  choice,  General 
James  Shields  of  Illinois,  had  declined  the  nomination.7  The 
other  territorial  officials  were  Knitzing  Pritchett  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, secretary;  William  P.  Bryant  of  Indiana,  chief  justice, 
and  James  Turney  of  Illinois  and  Peter  H.  Burnett  of  Oregon 
(one  of  the  promoters  of  organization  in  1843  and  1844), 
associate  justices;  Joseph  L.  Meek,  who  had  brought  the  dis- 
patches from  the  legislature,  marshal ;  Isaac  W.  R.  Bromley 
of  New  York,  district  attorney,  and  John  Adair  of  Kentucky, 
collector  of  the  port.  Burnett  and  Bromley  declined  the  posi- 
tions offered  them  and  these  were  filled  by  William  Strong 
and  Amory  Holbrook,  both  of  Ohio.  It  is  to  be  noticed  that 
the  names  of  only  two  Oregonians  appear  in  this  list  and  that 

6  See  Chapter  XII. 

7  Polk,  Diary,  IV,  91-3. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  349 

neither  of  these  is  that  of  J.  Quinn  Thornton,  who  brought 
Governor  Abernethy's  letter.8  The  memorial  from  the  Legis- 
lature, the  majority  of  which  represented  onie  Oregonian 
clique,  had  practically  requested  the  President  to  give  the  more 
important  positions  to  persons  who  were  not  residents  of  the 
territory  in  order  to  prevent  the  appointment  of  Abernethy, 
who  headed  another  faction,  as  governor. 

While  the  new  officers  were  on  their  way  to  Oregon  the 
President  received  another  appeal  from  Governor  Abernethy 
for  aid  against  the  Indians.9  The  conflict  which  had  broken 
out,  known  as  the  Cayuse  War,  was  the  immediate  result  of 
the  Whitman  massacre  which  occurred  in  the  fall  of  1847. 
Up  to  this  outbreak  there  had  been  comparatively  little  serious 
trouble  with  the  Indians  in  the  Oregon  Territory ;  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company's  influence  over  the  native  tribes  had  long  con- 
tributed to  prevent  hostilities  and  some  little  good  seems  to 
have  been  accomplished  by  Elijah  White,  the  sub-Indian  agent 
appointed  by  President  Tyler,  although  he  had  been  inclined 
to  make  promises  which  he  neither  was  able  nor  attempted  to 
fulfil.  White  had  resigned  his  position  in  1846,  when  Con- 
gress refused  his  petition  for  the  extra  salary  which  he  con- 
sidered due  him,10  and  Charles  E.  Pickett  had  been  appointed 
in  his  place.  After  White  left  Oregon,  however,  the  relations 
between  the  settlers  and  the  Indians  had  been  taken  over  by 
the  Provisional  Government  acting  through  the  Governor. 

When  the  warlike  activities  of  the  Indians  were  reported  to 
Pickett,  then  in  California,  he  had  applied  to  Governor  Mason 
for  forces  with  which  to  go  to  the  assistance  of  the  Oregonians. 
The  Governor  refused  his  request  and  Pickett  remained  in 
California  believing  that  his  mere  presence  would  count  for 
little.  No  assistance  was  received  from  Washington  either, 
for  Congress  had  not'  acted  on  the  measures  reported  in  both 

8  This  factional  situation  is  hinted  at  in  Polk,  Diary,  IV,  81-3,  in  the  account 
of   Thornton's   attempt,    finally   successful,   to   secure   payment   of  his  expenses   in 
going    to    Washington.      The    inner    features   of   the    episode   are   not    indicated   by 
Thornton,  History  of  Oregon  and  California,  II,  249-50.     For  the  whole  affair  see 
Bancroft,  History  of  Oregon,  I,  773,  note,  where  the  account  is  based  on  MSS.  in  the 
Bancroft  collection. 

9  Polk,  Diary,  IV,  144,  10  Oct.,  1848. 

10  White  had  gone  to  Washington  with  the  1845  memorial  and  did  not  return 
to  Oregon  until  1850. 


350  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

houses  for  the  defense  of  the  whites  and  the  regiment  of  rifle- 
men, released  from  service  in  the  Mexican  War,  had  to  be 
recruited  to  full  strength  before  it  could  be  sent  to  Oregon. 
The  situation,  however,  had  been  on  the  President's  mind,  for 
just  before  receiving  the  second  communication  from  Aber- 
nethy  he  had,  after  consultation  with  his  Cabinet,  decided  to 
unite  the  military  districts  of  Oregon  and  California  and  put 
them  under  the  command  of  General  Persifer  F.  Smith.  Gen- 
eral Smith,  who  was  then  in  Washington  (October)  had 
already  been  ordered  to  Oregon  with  the  mounted  riflemen  as 
soon  as  they  should  be  ready  to  leave.11  Abernethy's  plea, 
then,  could  receive  no  other  direct  response,  although  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  was  directed  to  order  the  commander  of 
the  Pacific  squadron  to  proceed  at  once  with  a  part  of  his  force 
to  Oregon  and  to  furnish  the  inhabitants  with  arms  and  am- 
munition and  such  of  his  men  as  he  could  spare.12  Polk  once 
more  took  occasion  to  confide  to  his  diary  what  he  believed  to 
be  the  cause  of  the  misery  of  the  Oregonians;  "the  neglect 
and  inattention  of  Congress"  which  had  failed  to  act  in  accord 
with  his  recommendations,  because  it  had  been  "more  occupied 
at  the  last  session  in  President-making  than  in  attending  to 
public  business." 

Oregon,  therefore,  was  forced  to  defend  herself.  A  volun- 
teer force  was  raised  and  this,  together  with  the  efforts  of 
the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  and  of  the  Catholic  priests  from 
the  missions,  succeeded  in  making  the  allied  tribes  seek  peace. 
Incidentally  the  massacre  which  had  opened  the  strife  was 
made  the  excuse  of  declaring  forfeit  the  lands  of  the  Cayuses 
about  Walla  Walla,  thus  throwing  them  open  to  settlement. 
The  expenses  incurred  by  the  Provisional  Government  in  the 
war  became  the  cause  of  a  long-standing  claim  against  the 
Federal  Government. 

In  his  last  Annual  Message13  Polk  did  not  hesitate  to  speak 
plainly  on  the  Oregon  situation  and  emphasized  his  remarks 
by  sending  to  Congress  the  latest  letter  he  had  received  from 

1 1  Polk,  Diary,  IV,  149. 

1 2  Ibid.,  155-6. 

13  Globe,   XIX,   7. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  351 

Governor  Abernethy.  It  had  always  been  the  policy  of  the 
United  States  to  cultivate  the  good  will  of  the  aborigines,  and 

"that  this  could  have  been  done  with  the  tribes  in  Oregon, 
had  that  Territory  been  brought  under  the  government  of 
our  laws  at  an  earlier  period,  and  had  suitable  measures  been 
adopted  by  Congress  .  .  .  cannot  be  doubted.  Indeed, 
the  immediate  and  only  cause  for  the  existing  hostility  of  the 
Indians  of  Oregon  is  represented  to  have  been  the  long  delay 
of  the  United  States  in  making  them  some  trifling  compensa- 
tion, in  such  articles  as  they  wanted,  for  the  country  now 
occupied  by  our  immigrants." 

This  compensation  had  been  promised  by  the  Provisional 
Government  but  the  fulfilment  had  been  postponed  for  two 
years  while  awaiting  Congressional  action.  Accordingly  Polk 
repeated  his  recommendation  for  laws  to  regulate  intercourse 
with  the  Indians. '  No  further  recommendations  did  he  make 
with  regard  to  Oregon,  although  he  reiterated  his  reasons, 
given  in  the  message  accompanying  the  signed  territorial  bill, 
for  approving  the  act.  He  announced  that  steps  had  been 
taken  to  carry  into  effect  the  act  for  mail  service  between 
Panama  and  Oregon,  and  in  this  connection  mentioned  a 
proposal  for  establishing  a  line  of  steamships  to  New  Orleans 
and  Vera  Cruz  as  potentially  beneficial  to  the  commerce  of 
both  Oregon  and  California. 

But  the  Thirtieth  Congress  had  spent  enough  time  on  Ore- 
gon affairs.  The  whole  question  of  California  and  New 
Mexico,  with  relation  to  slavery  extension,  had  been  left  over 
from  the  first  session,  and,  as  this  was  the  short  session,  there 
was  little  time  to  attend  to  other  than  the  most  pressing  and 
routine  business.  Consequently  all  the  action  taken  to  deal 
with  Oregon  was  the  passage  of  a  resolution  allowing  the  Sec- 
retary of  War  to  furnish  emigrants  to  Oregon,  California  and 
New  Mexico  with  arms  and  ammunition.14  The  greater  ques- 
tion of  removing  the  most  important  source  of  trouble  between 
the  settlers  and  the  natives,  that  of  land  titles,  was  not  touched, 
neither  did  Congress  take  any  steps  to  remove  certain  diffi- 

T^Globe,  XIX,   535,  560,  616. 


3S2  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

culties  in  the  land  situation  which  had  arisen  from  the  Terri- 
torial Act. 

The  first  section  of  the  organic  act  of  1848  had  confirmed 
the  title  of  lands  occupied  as  missionary  stations  to  an  amount 
not  exceeding  640  acres  each,  and  the  fourteenth  section  had 
declared  null  and  void  the  laws  of  the  Provisional  Govern- 
ment making  grants  to  settlers.  The  result  was  that  of  all 
the  people  living  in  Oregon  only  the  missionaries,  and  they 
only  for  their  religious  organizations,  and  persons  whose  "pos- 
sessory rights"  had  been  guaranteed  under  the  Treaty  of  1846, 
had  any  valid  claims  under  the  law.15  The  title  to  all  land,  no 
matter  what  improvements  might  have  been  made  or  how  long 
it  had  been  occupied,  was  in  the  United  States  there  to  remain 
until  Congress  saw  fit  to  pass  an  act  relieving  the  situation. 
Those  already  in  Oregon  and  those  about  to  emigrate  thither 
petitioned  Congress  to  act ;  but  though  several  bills  were  intro- 
duced nothing  was  done  and  it  was  left  to  the  Thirty-first 
Congress,  under  a  new  Administration  to  deal  with  the  re- 
maining problems  which  Oregon  presented  to  the  attention  of 
the  Federal  Government. 

This  new  administration  appeared  to  Polk  to  have  at  its 
head  a  man  with  the  most  astounding  ideas.  When  President 
Taylor  and  ex-President  Polk  were  riding  back  from  the 
inaugural  exercises  the  former  said,  in  reference  to  a  chance 
remark,  that  in  his  opinion  both  Oregon  and  California  were 
too  far  distant  to  become  members  of  the  Union  and  it  would 
be  better  for  them  to  set  up  independent  establishments.  Well 
might  the  man  who  had  made  the  acquisition  of  California 
the  paramount  purpose  of  his  Administration  note  that  these 
were  alarming  sentiments  to  be  heard  spoken  by  a  President  of 
the  United  States.16 


15  See  letter  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  transmitting  the  annual  report 
of  the   Commissioner   of  the   Land   Office,   Ex.  Doc.    (House)    No.    12,   pp.    14-15, 
30th  Cong.,  ad  Ses. 

16  Diary,  IV,  375-6.     He  had  discussed  this  possibility  with  his  cabinet  in  the 
previous   December  and  had   stated  that  he  thought   the  leading  Whigs  would  be 
glad  to  give  up  California  in  order  to  get  rid  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso;  consequently 
Taylor's  remark  must  have  seemed  significant.     If  California  went,  thought  Polk, 
Oregon  would  join  her. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  353 

"I  have  entertained  serious  apprehensions  and  have  expressed 
them  in  this  diary,  that  if  no  Gov(ern)ment  was  provided  for 
California  at  the  late  session  of  Congress  there  was  danger 
that  that  fine  territory  would  be  lost  to  the  Union  by  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  Independent  Government,  Gen'l  Taylor's 
opinions  as  expressed,  I  hope,  have  not  been  well  considered. 
Gen'l  Taylor  is,  I  have  no  doubt,  a  well  meaning  old  man.  He 
is,  however,  uneducated,  exceedingly  ignorant  of  public  affairs, 
and,  I  should  judge  of  very  ordinary  capacity.  He  will  be  in 
the  hands  of  others,  and  must  rely  wholly  upon  his  cabinet  to 
administer  his  Government." 

Circumstances  changed,  however,  and  even  if  President 
Taylor  did  seriously  entertain  the  opinion  he  expressed  to 
Polk,  by  the  end  of  1849  he  would  have  found  few  in  the 
United  States  to  agree  with  him;  the  gold  fields,  if  nothing 
else,  prevented  giving  up  California,  slavery  agitation  or  no 
slavery  agitation.  Nothing  in  the  Annual  Message  which 
Taylor  sent  to  Congress  in  December,  1849,  indicated  that  he 
retained  his  pessimistic  views  on  the  desirability  of  keeping  the 
Coast  territories.17  Railroads  and  canals  across  the  Isthmus, 
and  railroads  across  the  continent,  came  in  for  considerable 
attention;  for,  read  the  Message,  the  mineral  wealth  of  both 
California  and  Oregon  made  it  certain  that  a  large  population 
in  both  of  those  regions  would  demand  speedier  means  of 
transportation  than  those  actually  existing.  For  Oregon  spe- 
cifically he  called  attention  to  the  land  title  situation. 

Congress  took  up  and  disposed  of  most  of  the  issues  con- 
nected with  the  land  question,  although  minor  questions  con- 
tinued to  arise  for  many  years.  The  Indian  title  was  extin- 
guished and  provision  was  made  for  surveys  and  for  disposing 
of  the  public  domain,  and  questions  of  special  grants  as  well 
as  the  status  of  the  holdings  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company 
were  brought  up.  Samuel  R.  Thurston,  the  Delegate  from 
Oregon,  was  sufficiently  active  in  keeping  the  needs  of  his 
constituents  before  the  House.  He  it  was  who  took  the  first 
steps  with  most  of  the  measures  dealing  with  Oregon.  His 
resolution  for  looking  into  the  matter  of  extinguishing  the 

e,  XXII,  Pt.  i,  70-1. 


354  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

Indian  title  to  the  land  west  of  the  Cascades  was  referred  to 
the  Committee  on  Indian  Affairs,  although  a  bill  of  the  cus- 
tomary type  for  this  purpose  was  introduced  in  the  Senate, 
passed  by  that  body  and  adopted  by  the  House. 

Disposing  of  the  public  domain,  however,  gave  rise  to  great 
interest.  After  the  introduction  of  a  resolution  requiring  the 
Committee  on  Public  Lands  to  look  into  the  expediency  of 
creating  a  land  office  and  providing  for  the  survey  of  lands 
in  Oregon,  Thurston,  in  February,  moved  a  set  of  eight  reso- 
lutions. The  Committee  on  Territories  was  to  be  directed 
to  inquire  as  to  the  relative  numbers  of  Americans  and  for- 
eigners in  Oregon,  and  what  proportion  of  the  latter  had  de- 
clared an  .intention  to  become  citizens  of  the  United  States ; 
the  expense  and  time  it  took  to  reach  Oregon;  how  long  the 
people  there  had  managed  for  themselves  without  assistance 
from  the  Federal  Government.18  The  purpose  of  the  resolu- 
tions was,  of  course,  to  point  out  the  duty  of  Congress  to  pro- 
vide liberally  for  those  who  had  undertaken  the  sacrifice  nec- 
essary to  go  to  Oregon.  In  April  a  bill  was  introduced  in 
each  house,  and  in  May  the  House  of  Representatives  took  up 
the  one  on  its  calendar.  Two  questions  arose.  As  reported 
the  bill  would  make  grants  of  land  to  settlers,  but  Bowlin 
wished  to  amend  the  provisions  by  inserting  the  word  "white" 
thus  provoking  a  little  anti-slavery  skirmish  led  by  Giddings, 
who  always  took  every  opportunity  to  deliver  a  blow  at  any- 
thing connected  with  slavery.  The  obnoxious  word  remained 
in  the  bill  as  passed  by  the  House,  for  Thurston  told  the  Con- 
gressmen that  the  people  of  Oregon  were  so  in  dread  of  the 
introduction  of  free  negroes  that  they  had  passed  a  law  pro- 
hibiting their  coming  to  the  territory.  The  second  question 
was  on  the  new  policy  of  giving  away  the  public  lands,  which 
some  opposed. 

A  long  delay  ensued  and  Thurston  began  to  get  uneasy ;  he 
feared  that  the  session  would  end  before  his  land  bill  became 
law  and  so,  at  the  end  of  July,  he  tried  to  introduce  a  resolu- 

iSGlobe,  XXII,  413. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  355 

tion  in  which  he  showed  the  flourishing  condition  of  Oregon 
under  the  Provisional  Government  and  the  chaos  which  had 
resulted  from  the  territorial  organization  which  had  nullified 
all  land  titles.  While  there  was  objection  to  the  reception  of 
this  resolution,  it  had  been  read  and  its  work  accomplished, 
for  a  few  days  later  the  land  bill  was  brought  up,  and  after  a 
few  minor  changes  passed.  In  the  Senate  some  little  question 
was  raised  as  to  whether  a  clause  should  be  inserted  so  that 
lands  designated  by  the  President  for  public  purposes  should 
be  excepted  from  the  provisions  of  the  bill.  Douglas  said 
that  such  a  provision  might  result  in  taking  arbitrarily  the 
improved  land  of  settlers,  that  he  learned  from  the  Delegate 
from  Oregon  that  exactly  that  had  happened  at  Astoria. 
Jefferson  Davis,  who  had  moved  the  amendment,  looked  up 
the  point  and  found  that  no  injury  had  been  done;  he  insisted 
upon  his  amendment,  therefore,  and  the  Senate  adopted  it. 
In  this  way  was  defeated  a  rather  shrewd  attempt  to  make  the 
government  of  the  United  States  pay  for  many  of  the  sites 
which  might  be  desired  for  military  posts  and  the  like. 

The  law  as  it  was  passed  at  the  very  end  of  the  session 
allowed  every  white  man  or  Indiam  half-breed,  citizen  of  the 
United  States  or  having  declared  his  intention  to  become 
such,  to  take  a  half-section  of  land ;  married  men  might  double 
this  quantity.19  This  very  liberal  gift  was  made  only  to  those 
who  were  in  Oregon  and  should  take  advantage  of  it  before 
the  first  of  December,  1851.  Those  who  came  after  this  date 
and  until  the  first  of  December,  1853,  could  receive  a  donation 
half  as  large.  No  one  could  claim  under  the  act  and  the 
treaty.  Special  provisions  granted  two  townships  for  the 
endowment  of  a  university  and  the  so-called  Oregon  City 
claim,  at  the  falls  of  the  Willamette,  was  given  the  territory 
to  be  disposed  of  by  the  Legislature  also  for  the  benefit  of  the 
university.  In  this  gift  two  exceptions  were  made ;  the  island 
in  the  river  was  confirmed  to  the  Willamette  Milling  and 
Trading  Company,  and  the  title  to  all  city  lots  sold  by  Dr. 

19  Globe,  XII,  1846,  1953.  St.  at  L.,  IX,  496-500. 


356  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

McLoughlin  before  the  fourth  of  March,  1849,  was  confirmed 
to  the  purchaser. 

Not  only  was  there  a  departure  from  precedent  in  the  dis- 
posal of  lands  by  donation  rather  than  by  sale  but  no  provision 
whatever  for  sale  of  parts  of  the  public  lands  was  made.  The 
British  claimants  under  the  treaty  presented  problems  for  the 
Land  Office  to  solve,  but  local  officials  were  instructed20  to 
avoid  sectional  or  other  minute  subdivisional  lines  in  confirm- 
ing the  claims  presented.  In  1853  Congress  amended  the  land 
act  by  extending  the  donation  privileges  two  years,  and  by 
allowing  the  settler,  after  an  occupation  of  two  years,  to  com- 
mute the  remainder  of  the  residence  requirement  by  a  payment 
of  $1.25  per  acre.  Joseph  Lane,  then  Delegate  to  Congress, 
attempted  to  have  included  in  the  amendment  a  provision 
whereby  bounty  lands  (which  were  allowed  to  those  who  had 
participated  in  Indian  wars  anywhere  since  1790)  might  be 
located  in  unsurveyed  as  well  as  in  surveyed  regions.  This 
was  opposed  as  a  possible  opening  for  speculation  in  lands. 
Said  one  objector,  Oregon  had  already  been  treated  with  more 
than  ordinary  liberality,  what  with  land  donations,  bounty 
lands,  $100,000  for  the  Cayuse  War,  university  lands  and 
double  school  lands,  and  there  was  no  reason  for  allowing 
great  tracts  to  come  under  the  control  of  small  groups  of 
persons.  The  House  was  inclined  to  this  view  and  Lane  could 
not  secure  his  amendment.  He  did,  however,  have  added  to 
the  general  appropriation  bill  a  sum  of  money  for  extinguish- 
ing the  Indian  title  north  of  the  Columbia  where  emigrants 
were  going  in  constantly  increasing  numbers.21 

The  year  following  these  changes  Lane  came  back  to  Con- 
gress with  further  requests.  Especially  did  he  desire  the  law 
amended  so  that  a  sale  might  be  made  of  a  part  of  a  claim ; 
many  persons,  he  said,  had  taken  claims  for  one  to  three  years 
before  the  original  law  had  been  enacted  so  that  while  the 
law  had  been  complied  with  no  sale  could  take  place  because, 

20  Report  of   Commissioner  of   Land   Office,    26   Nov.,    1851;    Sen.   Ex.   Doc. 
No.  i,  32d  Cong.,  ist  Ses. 

21  Globe,  XXV,  Pt.  i,  627,  1445;  890,  1852. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  357 

in  many  instances,  the  survey  had  not  been  made  and  no 
patent  could  be  issued.  A  640  acre  claim,  with  no  privilege 
of  sale,  made  population  sparse  and  schooling  dear;  many 
young  men  had  gone  to  Oregon  and  they  should  be  allowed  to 
sell  a  portion  of  their  land  in  order  to  be  able  to  return  to  the 
States  for  wives.  Although  the  restriction  was  removed  there 
was  some  opposition;  Letcher  (Virginia)  saw  in  it  another 
evidence  of  the  intention  of  the  North  to  force  population  into 
the  northern  territories  thus  further  destroying  the  balance 
which  had  been  disturbed  by  letting  California  in  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  squatter  sovereignty.  He  urged  men  of  the  South 
to  oppose  all  these  attempts  to  propagate  northern  sentiment 
and  to  multiply  northern  representatives  in  both  house  of 
Congress.22 

Lancaster,  the  Delegate  from  the  newly-created  territory 
of  Washington,  who  was  in  favor  of  Lane's  amendment  as  a 
benefit  to  his  own  constituents,  threw  into  the  discussion  a 
reference  to  one  factor  which  had  proved  troublesome  in  the 
territory  ever  since  1845  and  which  had  persisted  in  coming 
up.  in  Congress  whenever  the  land  question  was  mooted.  He 
charged  Thurston  with  having  secured  the  original  restriction 
on  account  of  fear  that  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  and  the 
Puget's  Sound  Agricultural  Company  would  get  control  of 
large  tracts,  and  that  Dr.  McLoughlin  would  "reap  some  bene- 
fits from  the  labor  and  money  he  bestowed  in  promoting  the 
interests  of  American  citizens." 

The  relation  of  McLoughlin  to  the  land  question  brings  up 
one  of  the  least  pleasant  incidents  of  early  Oregon  history. 
While  it  was  the  almost  universal  testimony  that  the  venerable 
chief  factor  had  treated  with  the  utmost  consideration  and 
liberality  the  early  settlers  in  Oregon,  and  had  united  with 
them  in  all  proper  activities  for  promoting  mutual  interests,  he 
had  incurred  the  enmity  of  some  persons,  notably  of  those 
with  whom  he  came  in  contact  on  account  of  the  claims  at 

22  Globe,  XXIX,  Pt.  2,  1075  seq.  A  provision  prohibiting  the  establishment 
of  donation  claims  on  townsites  and  places  selected  for  the  purposes  of  business 
and  not  of  agriculture  was  adopted  without  opposition.  The  law  also  extended  to 
Oregon  and  Washington  the  provisions  of  the  Preemption  Act  of  1841. 


358  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

Oregon  City,  a  site  valuable  for  manufacturing  and  com- 
merce. The  place  was,  according  to  'McLoughlin's  idea, 
"destined  by  nature  to  be  the  most  important  place  in  the 
country,"  hence  he  had,  in  1829,  taken  a  claim  there  in  the 
name  of  the  Company,  thinking  to  use  a  part  of  it  for  him- 
self when  he  should  have  retired  from  active  service.  He 
knew  that  it  would  be  on  American  soil,  but  he  intended  to 
become  an  American  citizen  when  he  no  longer  was  employed 
by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company.  Furthermore  he  considered 
it  a  good  business  venture  for  the  Company  to  have  a  station 
at  the  Falls.  .  People  connected  with  the  Methodist  mission, 
also,  saw  the  value  of  this  site ;  as  McLoughlin  at  a  later  date 
said:23 

.  .  .  .  "The  Methodist  Mission  wanted  to  possess  them- 
selves of  the  place,  of  which  I  was  informed  in  1840.  But  I 
could  not  believe  that  persons  calling  themselves  Ministers  of 
the  Gospel  would  do  what  their  countrymen  in  the  most  humble 
station  in  life  having  the  least  regard  for  right,  would  con- 
demn." 

In  view  of  the  animosity  toward  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany, fostered  in  some  degree  by  the  Mission,  he  had  made 
improvements  at  the  Falls  in  his  own  name.  Sir  George 
Simpson,  however,  was  not  in  favor  of  this  project,  since  it 
would  eventually  be  located  upon  territory  of  the  United 
States,  consequently  McLoughlin  could  get  no  authorization 
from  the  Company  to  act  either  for  himself  or  for  it.  When, 
thereafter,  attempts  were  made  to  encroach  upon  his  claim  he 
could  but  protest  and  point  to  the  fact  that  he  had  established 
his  claim  many  years  before.  A  rival  mill  was  built  on  the 
island  and,  as  the  emigrants  of  1842  began  to  arrive,  many 
people  sought  lots  at  this  desirable  location. 

".  .  .  .  I  went  so  far  in  my  zeal  as  to  risk  my  private 
means  to  carry  on  the  works  at  Wallamette  Falls  so  as  to 
secure  it  from  persons  who  wanted  to  get  it  in  order  to  use 

23  See  letter  from  McLoughlin  to  Governor,  etc.,  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany, 20  Nov.,  1845,  his  last  official  communication  and  the  one  in  which  he 
announced  his  resignation.  In  Am.  Hist.  Review,  XXI,  110-34.  Incidentally  this 
letter  disposes  of  the  oft  repeated  charge  that  it  was  the  purpose  of  the  Company 
to  drive  Americans  out  of  Oregon. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  359 

the  influence  that  place  would  give  to  the  prejudice  of  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company,  to  which  I  was  also  induced  on  ac- 
count of  the  hostile  feeling  the  immigrants  had  to  the  Com- 
pany, as  I  was  afraid  if  I  did  (not)  give  them  employment, 
that  animated  with  this  feeling  and  urged  by  their  wants,  they 
might  make  an  attack  on  the  property  at  this  place  which 
might  be  destroyed,  and  for  which  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com- 
pany would  never  get  any  indemnification,  and  the  Com- 
pany's business  in  this  department  would  be  ruined.  In 
doing  which,  by  Sir  George  Simpson's  not  writing  me  in 
1843,  to  take  the  place  in  my  own  name,  I  had  to  give  five  acres 
of  the  best  ground  for  building  lots,  and  five  hundred  dollars 
to  Rev.  Mr.  Waller,  and  by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  not 
giving  me  sanction  to  take  it  in  my  own  name  in  time  (which 
they  could  readily  have  done)  I  had  to  pay  three  thousand 
four  hundred  and  twenty  dollars  for  improvements  not  worth 
one  half  the  money  and  one  thousand  nine  hundred  and  eighty 
dollars  for  lots  to  which  they  had  no  claim."24 

Dr.  McLoughlin  resigned  his  position  as  chief  factor  in  1845 
owing  to  disagreement  with  Sir  George  Simpson  on  the  gen- 
eral policy  of  the  Company  in  the  Columbia  district.  He  took 
up  his  residence  at  Oregon  City  where  he  spent  the  remainder 
of  his  days,  expecting  when  the  boundary  question  was  set- 
tled that  there  would  be  little  difficulty  in  straightening  the 
tangle  over  the  title,  for  the  Provisional  Government  had 
made  no  effort  to  adjudicate  between  him  and  his  rivals,  chief 
among  whom  was  Alvan  F.  Waller,  one  of  the  Methodist 
missionaries.  When  the  treaty  was  concluded  the  inhabitants 
of  Oregon  found  that  it  contained  a  clause  which  stated  that 
"the  possessory  rights  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  and  of 
all  British  subjects  who  may  be  already  in  the  occupation  of 
land  or  other  property  lawfully  acquired  within  said  territory, 
shall  be  respected."  This  apparently  gave  to  Dr.  McLoughlin 
a  specific  basis  for  his  claim  for,  in  the  absence  of  laws  recog- 
nized by  the  respective  countries,  priority  of  claim  would  give 
title,  especially  since  the  convention  of  1818  and  1827  placed 
American  citizens  and  British  subjects  in  exactly  the  same 

24  Ibid.,   p.    133.      For   a   discussion   of   the   McLoughlin    affairs,   see   Holman, 
Dr.  John  McLoughlin;  also  Bancroft,  History  of  Oregon,  I,  203  seq.;  II,  113  seq. 


360  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

footing  in  Oregon.  Nevertheless  there  were  many  who  had 
hoped  that  the  treaty  would  not  only  place  the  boundary  at 
54°  40'  but  also  oust  both  British  companies  as  well;  these 
were  much  disappointed  that  they  could  not  immediately  pos- 
sess themselves  of  the  improved  lands  held  by  those  organiza- 
tions. Some  of  the  disaffected  took  revenge  by  squatting  upon 
portions  of  McLoughlin's  Oregon  City,  whereupon  he  brought 
suit  for  trespass  in  the  court  of  Clakamas  county.  Claim- 
jumping,  however,  did  not  meet  with  widespread  approval  for 
once  it  received  sanction  there  would  be  no  security  for  any 
claim  in  the  territory. 

Two  years  passed  by  and  then  the  territorial  act  produced 
even  greater  dissatisfaction  for  it  annulled  the  land  laws  of 
the  Provisional  Government  and  put  none  in  their  place.  The 
only  persons  who  enjoyed  legal  title  to  their  land  claims  were 
the  missions,  in  the  name  of  the  religious  bodies  controlling 
them,  and  those  who  held  under  the  treaty.  One  of  the  most 
important  things,  then,  for  a  territorial  Delegate  to  secure 
from  Congress  was  a  land  law?  and  Samuel  Thurston  took 
advantage  of  the  hostility  to  the  British  Company  and 
everybody  connected  with  them  to  win  popularity  and  an  elec- 
tion. He  began  his  campaign  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives on  February  sixth,  1850,  by  introducing  a  series  of 
resolutions.25  In  the  form  of  an  inquiry  addressed  to  the  Com- 
mittee on  Judiciary  the  resolutions  raised  the  question  of  the 
meaning  of  "possessory  rights";  could  the  United  States,  by 
making  payment,  dispose  of  the  lands  occupied  by  the  British 
Companies  and  British  subjects;  had  any  British  subject  "law- 
fully acquired"  land  at  the  time  the  treaty  was  made;  how 
much  land  could  be  claimed  by  the  Puget's  Sound  Agricultural 
Company ;  and  could  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  import  goods 
free  of  duty  through  the  port  of  Astoria?26 

While  on  the  surface  Thurston  did  not  appear  to  be  taking  an 

25  Globe,  XXII,  295.     This  was  his  second  attempt  to  bring  them  before  the 
House. 

26  The    Company's    right    to    navigate    the    Columbia    was    under    the    same 
restrictions  applying  to  American  citizens,  hence   duty  would  have  to  be  paid   on 
imported  goods,  a  fact  which  had  been  overlooked  by  the  British  when  the  treaty 
was  made. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  361 

active  part  in  framing  the  details  and  pushing  the  land  bill,  ex- 
cept to  urge  its  consideration,  he  had  placed  in  it  certain  appar- 
ently innocuous  clauses  which  would  practically  have  prevented 
every  British  subject  in  Oregon  from  obtaining  a  donation 
grant  as  well  as  have  deprived  Dr.  McLoughlin  of  his  claim. 
To  accomplish  the  first  purpose  the  bill  contained  the  words 
"all  white  American  citizens"  to  designate  those  eligible  to 
secure  land ;  the  Committee  on  Public  Lands  had  considered 
this  a  little  too  strong  and  had  changed  it  to  "all  male  citizens 
of  the  United  States,  or  persons  emigrating  from  the  United 
States,  and  who  shall  have  made  a  declaration  of  intention  to 
become  citizens."  This  amendment  the  House  adopted,  but 
it  meant  that  every  British  subject  in  Oregon,  including  those 
who  had  long  since  established  their  homesteads  along  the 
Willamette,  would  have  to  go  into  some  one  of  the  United 
States  and  "emigrate"  from  there  in  order  to  qualify  for  a 
donation  claim.  The  Senate  struck  this  out,  leaving  it  neces- 
sary only  that  aliens  should  make  a  declaration  of  intention. 
Aliens  still  would  have  to  wait  until  the  process  of  naturaliza- 
tion should  have  been  completed  before  a  patent  for  their  lands 
would  be  issued. 

Dr.  McLoughlin,  however,  was  dealt  with  in  a  section  by 
itself.  This  was  the  more  easily  done  since  Thurston  had 
played  upon  the  ignorance  of  the  members  of  Congress;  he 
had  described  McLoughlin  as  the  enemy  of  Americans  in 
Oregon  and  as  a  menace  to  American  interests  still.  The 
Oregon  City  claim,  except  for  the  lots  sold  or  given  away  by 
the  Doctor  before  the  fourth  of  March,  1849,  was  to  become 
the  property  of  the  territory.  Abernethy's  Island  in  the 
Willamette,  on  which  the  mills  had  been  erected,  was  granted 
to  the  Willamette  Milling  and  Trading  Company  which  had 
bought  up  the  claims  of  the  Methodists.  No  provision  was 
made  to  reserve  to  McLoughlin  any  of  his  original  claim,  and, 
as  he  had  declared  formally  his  intention  to  become  a  citizen 
of  the  United  States,  he  had  lost  his  standing  under  the  treaty. 

When  the  text  of  the  proposed  act  was  received  in  Oregon 


362  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

there  was  much  dissatisfaction;  some  felt  that  McLoughlin 
had  been  treated  unfairly;  others  to  whom  he  had  sold  lots 
after  the  fourth  of  March  were  angry  because  they  had  not 
been  protected,  and  many  of  them  demanded  back  their  pur- 
chase money.  The  latter  class  was  later  appeased  by  an  act 
of  the  territorial  Legislature  which  confirmed  their  titles, 
although  certain  members  protested  that  there  was  no  power 
given  to  rob  the  university  in  this  way.  Before  Thurston 
returned  to  Oregon  some  of  the  dissatisfied  persons  met  and 
drew  up  a  memorial  to  Congress.  They  protested  against  any 
discrimination  among  purchasers  of  the  Oregon  City  lots  and 
prayed  Congress  not  to  pass  the  bill  in  the  proposed  form  since 
it  would  work  a  hardship  upon  them  as  well  as  do  an  injustice 
to  the  county  to  which  Dr.  McLoughlin  had  recently  donated 
some  two  hundred  lots  for  educational,  religious  and  charitable 
purposes.  At  the  following  session  of  Congress  this  memorial 
raised  a  storm  for  Thurston  had  represented  that  his  bill 
would  meet  the  approval  of  most  of  the,  people,  and  all  the 
Americans,  in  Oregon.  Thurston  defended  his  course  in  a 
violent  speech  against  McLoughlin  whom  he  charged  with 
having  made  advances  to  him,  Thurston,  for  his  influence 
respecting  the  claim.27 

The  land  law  was  made  the  main  issue  in  the  campaign  to 
elect  a  successor  to  Thurston,  and  it  is  significant  that  the  sit- 
ting Delegate  was  supported  for  re-election,  although  his  death 
in  April,  1851,  put  an  end  to  his  career.  The  Legislature  did 
not  act  immediately  to  accept  the  gift  for  the  university 
although  eventually  it  did  so,  ( 1856-57). 28  In  1862,  five 
years  after  the  death  of  McLoughlin,  the  Legislature  allowed 
his  heirs  to  purchase  Abernethy  Island  for  the  nominal  sum 
of  one  thousand  dollars.29 


27  Globe,  XXIII,  120.     In  a  similar  manner  Thurston  has  attacked  McLoughlin 
when  his  bill  had  been  up  in  the  previous  session ;  he  had  asserted  that  McLoughlin 
would   not  become   an   American   citizen,    and   that   he   had   always   worked   against 
American    interests.      Most   of   his   statements   were   unfounded,    but   a   letter   from 
Judge  Bryant,  one  of  the  assignees  of  the  Willamette  Milling  and  Trading  Company, 
affirmed  their  truth.      Globe,   XXII,    1079. 

28  In  Feb.,   1856,  the  Oregon  Legislature  memorialized  Congress  to  release  the 
claim  to  McLoughlin,  except  the  island,  and  grant  two  townships  instead.     Nothing 
was  done.     H.  Misc.  Doc.  No.  97,  34th  Cong.,  ist  Ses. 

29  See    document,     found    among    McLoughlin's    papers,    expressing    the    deep 
disappointment  of  his  old  age.     In  Ore.  Pioneer  Ass'n  Transactions,   1880;   also  in 
Marshall,  Acquisition  of  Oregon,  I,  430-40. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  363 

Although  Thurston  had  been  successful  in  ousting  Dr.  Mc- 
Loughlin  from  his  claim,  the  attempts  against  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company  and  the  P'uget  Sound  Agricultural  Company 
were  less  successful.  According  to  the  terms  of  the  treaty 
the  United  States  might  purchase  from  the  latter  company 
its  property  if  "the  situation  of  these  farms  and  lands  should 
be  considered  by  the  United  States  to  be  of  public  and  political 
importance."  It  was  the  expectation  both  of  the  settlers  and 
the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  officials  that  steps  would  be  taken 
immediately  to  act  in  accordance  with  this  permission,  and 
the  Company  was  the  more  willing  to  sell  because  of  the  in- 
definite character  of  its  rights  as  reserved  under  the  treaty. 
Its  desire  to  sell  was  further  increased  after  the  passage  of 
the  donation  land  act  and  the  discovery  of  gold  in  California 
had  made  it  increasingly  difficult  to  retain  its  servants  on  the 
old  terms. 

In  July,  1848,  the  first  offer  of  sale  was  made  through 
George  N.  Sanders,  who  proposed  that  the  United  States  pay 
a  million  dollars  for  all  the  property  and  rights  of  both  com- 
panies, everything,  in  fact,  claimed  south  of  49°. 30  The  Presi- 
dent refused  the  offer  immediately  on  the  ground  that  the 
United  States  would  be  purchasing  something  the  value  of 
which  it  did  not  know ;  furthermore  he  suspected  that  Sanders, 
whom  he  had  characterized  as  unscrupulous  and  unprin- 
cipled, was  acting  for  speculators.31  When  Congress  con- 
vened Sanders  again  made  his  appearance  and  secured  the 
interest  of  some  Senators,  Hannegan  and  Breese  in  the  num- 
ber. They  asked  Polk  if  he  would  enter  into  negotiations  for 
the  purchase  of  the  possessory  rights  of  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company  and  the  privilege  of  navigating  the  Columbia  if  the 
Senate,  in  Executive  Session,  should  pass  a  resolution  re- 
questing him  to  do  so.  The  President  replied  that  he  was 
opposed  to  buying  anything  or  entering  into  negotiations  for 
the  purpose  until  more  specific  information  had  been  received. 

30  The   correspondence    covering    the    period    down    to    Oct.,    1850,    is    in    Sen. 
E.v.  Doc.  No.  20,  3ist  Cong.,   zd  Ses.    Polk  had  submitted  to  the  Senate,  replying 
to  a  resolution,  the  first  offer  of  the  Company;  Richardson,  Messages,  IV,  603. 

31  Polk,  Diary,  IV,  301-?, 


364  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

The  unsatisfactory  situation  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company 
was  emphasized  when  in  1850  a  vessel,  the  Albion,  was  seized 
and  condemned  by  the  revenue  officers  of  the  United  States 
on  the^  charge  of  violating  the  revenue  laws.  Although  the 
Federal  Government  restored  the  seized  property  such  a  thing 
was  likely  to  happen  at  any  time,  as  Sir  John  Pelly  pointed 
out  to  Secretary  of  State  Webster,  when  he  called  attention 
to  an  offer  the  Company  had  made  the  year  before.32  At  that 
time  Sir  John  had  offered  to  sell  all  the  rights  of  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company  for  $700,000  and  all  the  farms  and  property  for 
$150,000  more.  The  Company  had  been  more  impressed 
with  the  lessened  value  of  its  rights  since  free  navigation  of 
the  Columbia  was  accompanied  by  the  necessity  of  paying 
duty  upon  all  goods  brought  in  for  trading  purposes ;  this 
added  cost  cut  further  into  the  profits  which  had  already  begun 
to  decrease  by  the  time  of  the  treaty. 

Nevertheless  Congress  was  unwilling  to  take  the  matter 
seriously,  although  the  lands  claimed  by  the  British  Com- 
panies were  constantly  being  "squatted"  upon  by  Americans 
who  refused  to  recognize  any  prior  rights.  In  December,  1855, 
President  Pierce  called  attention  to  the  situation  and  recom- 
mended a  "cession  of  the  rights  of  both  companies"  as  the 
"readiest  means  of  terminating  all  questions,"  a  cession  which 
he  believed  could  be  obtained  upon  reasonable  terms.33  It 
was  not,  however,  until  1863  that  a  treaty34  was  concluded  by 
which  a  commission  with  an  umpire  was  to  investigate  all 
claims  and  fix  the  purchase  price.  In  1869  the  commissioners 
awarded  to  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  $450,000  and  to  the 
Puget's  Sound  Agricultural  Company,  $200,000,  and  thus 
ended  the  long  controversy. 

If  securing  large  appropriations  from  the  Federal  treasury 
forms  the  basis  of  a  successful  career  as  a  representative  of 
a  State  or  territory,  then  the  first  Delegate  from  Oregon 
deserves  to  be  ranked  high  in  the  regard  of  that  State.  Not 


32  See  Note  30   above. 

33  Richardson,   Messages,   V,   333.     The   same   recommendation   was   made   the 
following  year. 

34  Treaties  and  Conventions,  1871,  402-4. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  365 

only  did  he  secure  the  donation  land  act,  the  essential  idea 
of  which. had  been  in  Dr.  Linn's  bill  many  years  before,  and  a 
bounty  land  law,  but  appropriations  for  paying  the  expenses 
of  the  Cayuse  War,  for  extra  customs  houses,  for  govern- 
ment buildings  and  a  penitentiary  (most  of  which  was  wasted 
so  that  later  $67,000  more  was  appropriated),  for  light  houses, 
for  surveying,  and  for  the  expenses  of  an  extra  session  of  the 
Legislature.  Well  might  he  move  that  a  bill  for  building  roads 
and  bridges  at  an  expense  of  $100,000  be  laid  aside  because 
he  did  not  wish  to  draw  too  heavily  upon  the  treasury  or  upon 
the  good  nature  of  Congress  "who  have  treated  me  with  such 
magnanimity." 

Thurston's  acquisitive  example  was  followed  by  the  second 
Delegate,  Joseph  Lane,  who  had  lost  his  position  of  terri- 
torial governor  when  the  Whig  administration  came  in.35 
Lane  succeeded  in  obtaining  additional  money  to  settle  the 
expenses  of  the  Cayuse  War  and  also  an  act  to  pay  the  ex- 
pense incurred  in  the  Rogue  River  War,  in  which  he  had 
taken  an  active  part  when  governor.  Military  roads  added 
$40,000  to  be  expended  in  the  territory,  although  some  ques- 
tion was  raised  as  to  whether  such  an  appropriation  could 
constitutionally  be  made. 

Military  roads,  however,  were  felt  to  be  a  necessity  in  deal- 
ing with  the  Indian  outbreaks  which  took  place  with  especial 
ferocity  in  the  summer  of  1855  and  had  not  wholly  ended 
until  1857.  The  most  serious  of  the  Indian  wars  in  Oregon 
started  in  the  Rogue  River  country  in  Southern  Oregon  and 
involved  most  of  the  tribes  of  that  region.  Its  story  forms  a 
part  of  the  local  history  of  Oregon  but  it  had  a  side  which 
particularly  brought  in  the  United  States,36  Like  most  of  the 
Indian  wars  it  represented  on  one  side  the  Indian's  determina- 
tion to  keep  the  white  man  from  overrunning  his  hunting 
grounds;  on  the  other  was  the  white  man's  desire  to  clear 

35  Globe,  XXIII,  67;   Lane  was  called  by  Ewing  of  Ohio  (Whig)    one  of  the 
electioneering  office  holders  who  had  so  abused   Taylor   in   the   presidential   cam- 
paign, when  the  question  of  his  removal  from,  office  had  been  brought  up  in  the 
House. 

36  See  Bancroft,  History  of  Oregon,  II,  chapters  12,   15,   16.     Sen.  Ex.  Doc. 
No.  66,  34th  Cong.,  ist  Ses. 


366  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

the  land  of  Indians.  It  did  not  take  long  for  the  struggle  to 
become  one  of  extermination  on  both  sides.  The  Federal  offi- 
cials, in  attempting  to  protect  the  innocent  Indians,  aroused 
the  ire  of  some  of  the  settlers,  and  further  animosity  was  pro- 
duced by  the  lack  of  harmony  between  the  United  States 
officer  in  command  of  the  Federal  troops,  General  John  E. 
Wool,  and  the  territorial  officials  of  Oregon  and  Washington. 
The  territorial  governments  raised  volunteer  forces  to  fight 
the  Indians  and  issued  script  to  pay  them. 

The  whole  affair  came  before  Congress  in  the  form  of 
requests  for  appropriations  to  cover  these  expenses.  The  dis- 
cussion brought  out  the  lack  of  cooperation  between  the  local 
and  Federal  authorities,  and  Congress  was  inclined  to  allow 
some  weight  to  the  statements  of  General  Wool  that  the  whole 
thing  was  nothing  less  than  a  crusade  on  the  part  of  the 
whites  to  rid  the  country  of  the  Indians:  "Oregonians,"  he 
wrote,  in  one  dispatch,  "say  that  war  is  a  God-send  to  the 
country."37  Congress  did,  however,  pass  a  measure  authoriz- 
ing a  commission  to  investigate  the  whole  affair.  At  the  next 
session  (1856-7)  the  Committee  on  Military  Affairs  of  the 
House  asked  to  be  discharged  from  further  consideration  of 
the  bill  which  was  framed  to  pay  the  award  of  the  commis- 
sion. In  spite  of  the  efforts  of  Lane  the  sum  recommended 
by  the  commission  was  cut  down  materially.  Two  years  later, 
after  the  report  of  a  special  commissioner  who  had  been  sent 
to  Oregon,  the  claim  was  allowed,  and  Oregon  claimants  re- 
ceived $424,000  while  those  in  Washington  got  $229,000.38 
This  amount  was  not  considered  by  Oregonians  as  sufficient 
and  the  desire  to  secure  an  additional  appropriation  was  one 
of  the  factors  which  made  them  work  for  statehood. 

The  great  distance  between  the  Mississippi  valley  and  the 
Pacific  Coast  and  the  dangers  attending  the  journey  to  Oregon 
continued  to  come  up  in  Congress  in  one  form  or  another. 
The  regiment  of  mounted  riflemen,  which  had  been  authorized 

37  Globe,  XXXIII,  1135. 

38  H.  Ex.  Doc.   No.    37,   34th   Cong.,   36!   Ses.      Part  of  the  troubles  had   been 
due   to   ,a    failure   of   the    Senate   to   ratify   the   treaties   negotiated   by   the   Indian 
Superintendent.      See    Fillmore's    message,    6    Dec.,    1852,    Richardson,    Messages, 
V,  178, 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON 

and  then  diverted  to  service  in  the  Mexican  War,  was  one 
tangible  evidence  that  Congress  recognized  some  of  the  dan- 
gers. The  regiment,  however,  had  been  of  little  service  to 
Oregon.  In  1852  Lane  brought  in  a  resolution  calling  upon 
the  President  to  inform  the  House  what  steps  had  been  taken 
for  the  protection  of  emigrants,  and  in  case  nothing  had  been 
done  to  request  him  to  order  the  regiment  placed  on  duty 
within  the  Territory  of  Oregon.  The  resolution,  as  was  in- 
tended, did  nothing  more  than  call  attention  to  the  fact  that 
the  regiment  had  been  withdrawn  from  Oregon,  much  de- 
pleted, in  1851. 

At  the  same  session  (July,  1852,)  the  Senate  had  before 
it  a  definite  and  elaborate  measure  for  the  protection  of  emi- 
grants. Douglas  had  brought  in  a  bill  which  would  provide 
three  ten-company  regiments,  with  one  hundred  men  to  the 
company,  to  guard  and  protect  emigrants  on  their  way  to 
Oregon  and  California.  The  bill  also  proposed  to  allow  H. 
O'Reilly  the  privilege  of  erecting  at  his  own  expense  a  tele- 
graph line  along  each  of  the  routes,  to  be  protected,  of  course, 
by  the  troopers.39  In  spite  of  the  numerous  petitions  and 
memorials  which  were  coming  to  Congress  the  bill  found 
support  only  from  one  Senator  besides  Douglas;  opponents 
like  Senator  Butler  looked  upon  it  as  little  more  than  a  bounty 
of  $4,000,000  per  year  granted  to  emigrants  who  were  lured 
away  by  the  promise  of  free  lands  on  the  Pacific  Coast.  Others 
opposed  it  on  the  ground  of  excessive  cost,  and  still  more 
because  such  a  measure  would  tend  to  defeat  any  provision 
for  a  railroad. 

The  project  of  a  railroad  to  the  Pacific  had  long  been  in 
the  air.  It  had  come  up  in  connection  with  the  bills  intro- 
duced by  Dr.  Linn.  At  the  time  of  the  territorial  bill  agitation 
there  were  numerous  petitions  for  rail  communication.40  The 
scheme  most  favorably  mentioned  in  such  appeals  was  that 
which  Eli  Whitney  had  long  had  before  Congress.  Whitney 

39  Globe,    XXV,    1683-6;    1758-60.      As    early    as    1848   Douglas   had    presented 
O'Reilly's   petition    for   telegraphic   communication   between   the   Mississippi   Valley 
and  the  Pacific  Coast. 

40  There  were  memorials  and  petitions  from  the  legislatures  of  Rhode  Island, 
New  York,  Connecticut  and  Pennsylvania. 


368  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

had  succeeded  in  arousing  interest  in  his  plan  both  in  and 
out  of  Congress,  to  such  an  extent  that  even  in  the  crowded 
session  when  the  Territorial  Act  was  passed  there  was  found 
time  to  give  it  brief  consideration.  Senator  Benton  had  been 
skeptical  and  was  astonished  that  any  Senator  would  take 
the  time  of  the  Senate  to  suggest  its  consideration;  he  had 
studied  the  history  of  Oregon  and  California  before  Niles 
(who  had  moved  to  take  up  the  bill)  had  ever  thought  of  it; 
he  would  never  vote  a  million  acres  to  any  man.  It  would  not 
be  surprising,  thought  Benton,  if  Whitney  brought  in  a  bill 
of  damages  to  reimburse  him  for  going  to  the  legislatures  of 
all  the  States  in  the  Union  for  recommendations.  Neverthe- 
less the  notion  that  there  was  something  in  the  scheme  was 
gaining  ground,  for  twenty-one  out  of  the  forty-eight  Senators 
would  have  been  willing  to  consider  the  bill. 

At  the  next  session  not  only  did  Whitney's  bill  reappear,  but 
there  were  requests  from  Timothy  Carver  and  his  associates 
for  a  grant  to  construct  a  railroad  over  the  same  route,  and 
one  requesting  government  aid  in  building  a  railroad  across 
the  Isthmus  of  Panama.  The  last  request  was  from  W.  H. 
Aspinwall  and  others  who  had  secured  a  long-term  contract 
to  carry  the  mails  for  New  Granada.  Benton  favored  this 
idea  and  brought  in  a  bill  to  assist  the  project  but  the  Senate 
was  not  interested.  Another  plan  which  Benton  brought  up 
at  this  session,  and  again  in  the  next,  was  for  a  National  Cen- 
tral Highway ;  he  opposed  the  grants  of  land  to  railroads,  but 
he  would  set  apart  a  strip  of  territory  a  mile  wide  from  the 
Missouri  frontier  to  San  Francisco,  with  a  1000-foot  branch 
to  the  Columbia,  whereon  all  kinds  of  roads  might  be  con- 
structed : — railroads,  plank  roads,  macadamized  roads,  and  even 
one  with  "magnetic  power,  according  to  the  idea  started  by 
Professor  Henry,"  when  that  should  have  ripened  into  prac- 
ticability. Here  everyone  might  travel  without  payment  in  the 
way  he  preferred.41 

By  1850  the  railroad  notion  had  progressed  to  the  point 
where  the  House  Committee  on  Roads  and  Canals  brought  in 

41  Globe,  XIX,  470-4. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  369 

a  report  on  the  Whitney  project  and  a  bill  in  furtherance  of 
it.  The  House  would  not  print  the  report  and  the  matter 
rested  so  far  as  the  Pacific  railroad  was  concerned,  although 
this  was  the  year  in  which  Congress  began  making  land  grants 
in  aid  of  railroad  construction.  The  Senate  had  before  it  a 
bill  for  a  preliminary  survey  of  a  route  to  some  point  on  the 
Pacific  Coast.  This  bill  showed  the  effect  of  agitation  for  a 
southern  route,  as  opposed  to  Whitney's  Northern  Pacific 
route,  and  also  inaugurated  the  struggle  over  the  location  of 
the  eastern  terminus  of  the  proposed  road,  a  struggle  which 
did  not  end  until  during  the  Civil  War. 

In  1852  the  House  Committee  on  Public  Lands  condemned 
the  Whitney  plan  as  presenting  obstacles,  both  as  regards  the 
route  and  the  method  of  financing,  which  could  not  be  over- 
come.42 In  the  Senate  in  the  next  session  Senator  Gwin  of 
California  brought  in  a  bill  which  substituted  San  Francisco 
for  some  point  on  the  Columbia  as  the  western  terminal,  and 
which  would  carry  the  route  from  Memphis,  via  Fulton,  to  the 
Coast.  There  was  still  one  voice,  however,  raised  for  Oregon. 
Salmon  P.  Chase  of  Ohio  proposed  that  the  road  start  at  some 
point  between  Independence,  Missouri,  and  Kanesville,  Iowa, 
on  the  Missouri  River. 

"We  have,"  he  said,  "a  population  in  Oregon.  The  day  is 
not  remote  when  we  shall  have  a  State  in  Oregon.  We  have 
already  a  great  ....  State  south  of  Oregon.  It  is  to 
connect  Oregon  and  California  with  the  Eastern  States,  that 
we  want  this  road  .  .  .  Point  out  to  me  the  shortest  route, 
the  cheapest  route,  and  the  route  which  will  accommodate  the 
greatest  number  of  people,  and  that  route  shall  have  my  sup- 
port, my  earnest  and  persevering  support."  Such  a  route,  he 
maintained,  would  be  northwest  through  South  Pass,  that  is, 
over  the  Oregon  Trail,  then  one  branch  would  go  to  California 
and  another  north  to  Oregon. 

Although  continued  agitation,  mostly  over  an  eastern 
terminus,  kept  the  Pacific  railroad  project  before  Congress 


42  Globe,  XXV,  1274. 

43/btd.,  XXVII,  127,  280-7;  3I4-43;  469  seq. 


370  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

until,  during  the  Civil  War,  a  land  grant  was  finally  made,  it 
was  no  longer  the  road  to  Oregon  but  the  road  to  California. 
Eventually,  after  the  War,  a  line  was  extended  north  to  the 
Columbia  and  Puget  Sound,  but  it  was  many  years  before 
the  first  direct  route,  Whitney's  route,  was  threaded  with 
rails.  Railroad  or  no  railroad,  however,  Oregon's  population 
continued  to  increase  although  not  with  the  rapidity  with 
which  California's  grew.  The  Oregonians  were  beginning  to 
think  not  only  that  it  was  time  to  shufflq  off  the  territorial 
shell  for  the  dignity  of  a  State,  but  that  a  State  would  receive 
much  more  consideration  from  Congress;  ills  would  be  rem- 
edied and  rights  acknowledged  with  greater  readiness  if  a  real 
Representative  sat  in  one  house  of  Congress  and  two  Senators 
in  the  other. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
THE  STATE  OF  OREGON 

The  old  Oregon  Territory  is  divided  into  four  roughly  equal 
parts  by  the  Cascade  Mountains  and  the  Columbia  River;  the 
mountain  range  forms  the  upright  of  a  cross  while  the  river 
is  the  transverse.  Today  Oregon  and  Washington  are  very 
distinctly  divided  into  Eastern  and  Western  parts;  the  "East 
Side"  and  the  "West  Side"  are  understood  by  all,  just  as  "Up 
State"  is  in  New  York.  In  the  Fifties  it  was  all  "West  Side." 
The  Columbia,  however,  was  a  sufficiently  well  defined  bound- 
ary line  between  the  two  sections  into  which  the  bulk  of  the 
migration  had  poured — the  Willamette  valley,  and  the  Puget 
Sound  Country  where  later  emigrants  had  sought  the  fertile 
valleys  marked  at  one  time  by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  as 
its  legitimate  field  of  activity.  Squatters  had  encamped  upon 
the  farms  and  claims  of  the  Puget's  Sound  Agricultural  Com- 
pany ;  some  pioneers,  either  more  scrupulous  or  later  in  arriv- 
ing, had  gone  to  other  portions  of  the  land  west  of  the  Cas- 
cades about  the  indentations  of  the  Sound,  some  even  going 
to  the  islands  which  dot  its  waters.  From  1845,  when  the  first 
American  took  up  his  abode  in  what  is  now  Western  Wash- 
ington, to  1853,  the  stream  of  immigration  grew  in  volume, 
excepting  only  in  1849  when  the  gold  rush  to  California 
temporarily  checked  its  flood.1 

When  the  distances  and  lack  of  roads  are  considered  it  is 
not  necessary  to  search  farther  for  reasons  why  people  of 
the  region  north  of  the  Columbia  soon  began  to  cast  about 
for  means  by  which  they  could  bring  the  machinery  of  govern- 
ment nearer  to  them.  If  one  also  takes  into  consideration  the 
universal  desire  of  Americans  to  have  a  finger  in  governmental 
affairs,  and  to  lift  a  voice  which  may  be  heard,  then  the  agita- 
tion for  separate  organization  is  wholly  explained.  South  of 
the  Columbia  the  population  was  increasing  more  rapidly  than 

i  See  Bancroft,  Washington,  Idaho  and  Montana,  Ch.  i. 


372  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

north,  to  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  a  goodly  population  was 
found  there  before  even  a  handful  lived  north  of  the  river. 
This  meant  that  to  the  disadvantage  of  distant  location  was 
added  the  fatal  defect  of  comparative  paucity  of  representation. 
Consequently  at  a  Fourth  of  July  celebration  in  1851,  after 
the  set  program  of  the  day,  the  first  step  was  taken  to  secure 
a  separate  organization  for  the  "Territory  of  Columbia."  A 
committee  selected  there  called  a  meeting  of  representatives 
from  the  counties  north  of  the  Columbia,  to  be  held  in  August 
on  the  Cowlitz.  Here  twenty-six  delegates,  all  from  Lewis 
County,  met,  discussed  the  situation,  and  drew  up  a  memorial 
to  be  presented  to  Congress  by  the  Oregon  Delegate.  This 
document  represented  the  necessity  for  a  division  of  the  terri- 
tory of  Oregon,  prayed  Congress  to  extend  the  provisions  of 
the  donation  land  act  to  the  northern  district,  and  asked  ap- 
propriations for  divers  objects.  Another  meeting  was  set  for 
the  following  May,  when,  if  Congress  should  not  have  acted  in 
accordance  with  the  memorial,  steps  were  to  be  taken  for 
State  organization,  and  immediate  admission  to  the  Union 
would  be  sought. 

The  congressional  session  of  1851-2  ended  with  no  attention 
to  the  requests  of  the  would-be  territory  of  Columbia.  Neither 
was  the  new  State  organized  in  May.  But  in  September,  1852, 
there  was  held  at  Monticello  a  convention  to  consider  the  sub- 
ject. During  the  past  year  a  little  newspaper,  the  Columbian, 
had  been  established  at  Olympia  in  order  to  agitate  for  sep- 
aration. So  successful  had  its  campaign  been,  in  connection 
with  the  other  motives  urging  separation,  that  the  Monticello 
convention  drew  delegates  even  from  the  region  bordering 
the  Columbia  River  where  it  had  been  feared  there  would  be 
opposition  to  the  movement,  since  those  people  were  not  so 
seriously  inconvenienced  in  their  relations  with  the  govern- 
ment on  the  Willamette  as  were  the  inhabitants  of  the  Sound 
district.  A  committee  drew  up  a  memorial  which  Lane  pre- 
sented to  the  House  of  Representatives  when  the  bill  for  terri- 
torial organization  was  brought  up  in  Committee  of  the  Whole. 
The  memorial  represented  that  Oregon  Territory  was  too 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  373 

large  for  a  single  government;  that  the  region  north  of  the 
Columbia  was  large  enough  for  another  territory  since  it  con- 
tained some  32,000  square  miles;  that  the  northern  region 
was  at  a  disadvantage  on  account  of  its  distance  from  the  seat 
of  government  and  the  preponderance  of  population  in  the 
Willamette  valley ;  and  that  the  local  nature  of  the  laws  enacted 
by  the  Territorial  Legislature  was  against  the  interests  north 
of  the  Columbia. 

While  the  question  was  raised  in  the  House  as  to  whether 
there  was  sufficient  population  north  of  the  Columbia  to 
warrant  the  creation  of  a  new  unit,  no  real  opposition  ap- 
peared. With  "Columbia"  changed  to  "Washington"  the 
House  passed  the  bill.2  In  the  Senate  there  was  even  less 
discussion  than  in  the  House.  "It  is  one  of  the  old-fashioned 
territorial  bills,"  said  some  one,  and  the  measure  was  passed 
without  further  comment.3 

Oregon  territory  was  thus  bisected  by  a  line  which  followed 
the  middle  of  the  Columbia  River  to  a  point,  near  Walla 
Walla,  where  the  forty-sixth  parallel  cuts  the  stream;  this 
parallel  formed  the  line  to  the  summit  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains. Washington  territory  comprised  what  is  now  the  State 
of  Washington  together  with  northern  Idaho  and  the  strip  of 
Montana  which  lies  between  the  main  ridge  of  the  Rockies  and 
the  Bitter  Root  Mountains. 

With  the  division  of  Oregon  came  the  question  of  Statehood. 
While  desultory  discussion  had  raised  the  question  from  time 
to  time,  it  was  not  until  after  Washington  had  been  set  off 
that  the  issue  was  seriously  debated.  During  the  latter  part 
of  1853  and  in  1854  interest  grew.  Answering  this  agitation, 
which  was  fostered  by  the  Democratic  party  in  Oregon,  Lane 
introduced  in  the  House  a  bill  for  an  enabling  act  in  April  of 
1854,  at  a  time  when  the  Kansas-Nebraska  controversy  was 
uppermost.  When  the  measure  came  up  in  Committee  of  the 
Whole  it  was  not  seriously  considered;  the  population  of 
Oregon  had  been  less  than  15,000  at  the  time  of  the  1850  census 

2  The  memorial  is  in  the  Globe,  XXVI,  541.     Passage  of  the  bill,  555. 

3  Ibid.,  1020. 


374  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

and  it  was  thought  impossible  for  it  to  have  increased  suffi- 
ciently in  four  years  to  warrant  statehood.  Lane,  however, 
was  sure  that  the  population  was  at  least  60,000,  certainly 
20,000  greater  than  Illinois'  when  that  State  had  been  ad- 
mitted, and  people  were  pouring  into  the  territory  at  the  rate 
of  five  thousand  a  year.  Besides,  he  said,  the  people  of  Ore- 
gon were  tired  of  being  dependent. 

A  remark  from  Millson  of  Virginia  showed  the  relation  of 
all  question  of  state  admission  to  the  slavery  issue;  he  said  it 
might  be  inferred,  from  the  quarter  whence  proceeded  all  op- 
position to  the  measure  (it  had  been  only  southerners  who 
had  raised  the  population  question),  that  it  was  due  "to  the 
peculiar  relations  existing  between  certain  members  of  the 
Confederacy."  As  for  himself  he  should  view  the  question 
on  its  merits,  and  if  Oregon  should  be  found  entitled  to  ad- 
mission, his  vote  was  for  it ;  nevertheless,  he  could  not  disguise 
the  alarm  with  which  he  looked  upon  the  multiplication  of 
Free  States,  and  he  was  mortified  at  the  apathy  with  which 
the  House  was  allowing  this  measure  to  proceed  without  any 
sufficient  knowledge  upon  which  to  base  action.  Seward  of 
New  York  gave  notice  that  he  would  move  an  additional  sec- 
tion whereby  all  restriction  as  to  slavery  should  be  removed, 
leaving  the  question  to  be  decided  by  the  people  in  the  ter- 
ritory. Before  any  conclusion  had  been  reached  the  com- 
mittee rose  and  the  measure  did  not  come  up  again  that  ses- 
sion. In  the1  following  session  it  was  taken  up,  amended  in 
some  details,  although  Seward's  proposal  was  not  adopted, 
reported  by  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  and  passed  by  the 
House.4 

The  Senate  Committee  on  Territories,  when  asking  consid- 
eration of  the  House  bill,  called  attention  to  the  amendment 
which  it  had  added;  namely,  that  Oregon  should  not  be  ad- 
mitted until  it  had  a  population  of  at  least  60,000.  Owing  to 
the  raising  of  objection  to  its  immediate  consideration  the  bill 
lay  over  until  the  third  of  March.  At  that  time  only  Douglas 

?,  XXVIII,  936,  i it 7  seq.;  XXX,  455. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  375 

and  Seward  would  take  an  active  part  favoring  the  bill. 
Seward  pointed  out  that  already  there  were  indications  that  if 
the  bill  did  not  become  law  Oregon  would  come  in  as  Cali- 
fornia had,  uninvited.  But  the  Senate  showed  little  disposi- 
tion to  act,  and  even  Douglas  would  move  to  table  the  meas- 
ure, although1  he  said  he  was  willing  to  sit  it  out  as  long  as 
there  was  any  hope  (it  was  then  eleven  o'clock  on  the  morning 
of  Sunday,  March  4th).  Douglas  said  there  was  evidently 
a  combination  of  Senators  of  the  extreme  North  and  the  South 
to  defeat  the  bill.  The  vote  to  table,  (27  to  11)  however,  did 
not  reveal  any  ground  for  sustaining  this  accusation.5  Of  the 
eleven  who  voted  against  tabling,  five  were  from  New  Eng- 
land, two  from  Ohio,  and  one  each  from  New  York,  Texas, 
Michigan  and  California. 

Thus  the  Thirty-third  Congress  came  to  an  end  with  Oregon 
still  in  its  territorial  swaddling  clothes.  In  spite  of  occasional 
echoes  of  the  slavery  contest  over  Kansas,  that  issue  did  not 
appear  in  any  degree  worthy  of  note  in  the  Oregon  discus- 
sion. Many  Senators  were  inclined  to  wait  until  it  was 
affirmatively  shown  that  the  territory  had  a  population  equal 
to  the  ratio  for  one  congressman;  they  were  suspicious  that 
the  assurances  of  Joseph  Lane  were  tempered  by  his  hopes. 
This  was,  indeed,  the  case.  Even  in  1859,  when  the  State  was 
admitted,  the  population  fell  short  by  many  thousands  of  the 
number  Lane  confidently  stated  in  1854. 

The  Thirty-fourth  Congress  found  Oregon  before  it  with  a 
new  bill  for  statehood.6  Late  in  the  first  session  (June,  1856) 
the  measure  came  up  in  the  House  and  again  met  with  opposi- 
tion on  the  population  question.  In  all  the  preliminary  dis- 
cussion of  the  bill  there  were  references  to  the  pending  legis- 
lation on  Kansas.  Galusha  Grow  of  Pennsylvania,  a  Repub- 
lican, said  very  bluntly,  when  controverting  the  proposition 
that  it  depended  on  Congress  whether  or  not  the  people  of 
Oregon  should  form  a  constitution,  that  there  was  no  power 
to  prevent  the  people  of  a  territory,  although  that  organization 

.  .:  .IB.'  %:',Vd  ol^ 

6  Globe,  XXXII,  1443.     The  debate  occurred  23  and  24  June.;  Ibid.,  1443-58. 


376  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

was  a  creature  of  Congress,  from  framing  a  constitution  when- 
ever they  wished.  Later  he  said,  after  several  other  Repre- 
sentatives had  discussed  the  population  topic,  "This  debate 
seems  to  have  been  anticipating  that  which  will  take  place  on 
the  Kansas  bill.  Let  us  dispose  of  this  bill  today."  Those 
who  desired  to  see  Kansas  a  slave  state,  however,  were  trying 
to  establish  a  point  on  the  population  issue  in  the  Oregon  bill. 
Smith  of  Virginia  said  that  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  "to  which 
some  gentlemen  look  as  an  impersonation  of  inspired  wisdom," 
required  60,000  as  the  population  before  the  territory  could  be 
made  a  State,  consequently  by  what  right  could  Oregon  ask  to 
be  represented  in  the  House  with  less  than  the  legal  ratio  for  a 
Congressman.  Giddings  took  issue  with  that  and  said  the 
right  depended  on  the  ability  to  support  a  State  government; 
all  this  objection  about  the  population  ratio  was  a  new  one 
and  not  based  upon  the  Constitution.  The  rule  of  propriety 
alone,  he  maintained,  should  determine  admission,  and  it  was 
proper  to  admit  Oregon.  When  pressed  to  state  definitely 
whether  he  would  vote  to  admit  Oregon  with  or  without  slavery 
Giddings  practically  announced  that  he  would  only  favor  ad- 
mission as  a  free  State,  for  he  said  he  would  not  vote  to  trans- 
gress the  laws  of  God  and  of  nature. 

Proposed  amendments,  confining  the  proposed  State  to  the 
territory  west  of  the  Cascades,  extending  the  suffrage  to  non- 
citizens  (the  territorial  bill  ha'd  given  the  franchise  to  those 
who  had  declared  intention  to  become  citizens),  restricting  the 
right  to  vote  for  delegates  to  the  constitutional  convention  to 
free  white  males  over  twenty-one  years  of  age,  were  all  re- 
jected. Bowie  of  Maryland  discovered  a  possible  opening  for 
woman  suffrage,  and  moved  to  insert  the  word  "male"  in  the 
clause  where  the  vote  was  given  to  "the  people  of  Oregon, 
being  citizens  of  the  United  States."  All  the  discussion  and 
modification,  however,  did  not  get  Oregon  into  the  sisterhood 
of  States.  Congress  adjourned  with  the  bill  still  in  Commit- 
tee of  the  Whole,  and  Mr.  Lane  was  obliged  to  return  to  Ore- 
gon disappointed  both  as  to  statehood  and  the  money  for  the 
Indian  war  expenses  which  his  constituents  had  trusted  him  to 
secure. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  377 

In  the  following  January  the  matter  was  up  again.  An 
enabling  act  for  the  territory  of  Minnesota  had  passed  the 
House  (31  January,  1857),  and  Grow,  chairman  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Territories,  said,  "The  Committee  ....  have 
agreed  upon  a  bill  similar  to  this,  authorizing  the  people  of 
Oregon  to  form  a  State  constitution  and  State  Government; 
but  as  gentlemen  seem  to  be  so  much  averse  to  giving  this 
authority,  which  is  a  mere  form,  (as  the  people  of  the  Territory 
can  meet  in  their  Assemblies  and  form  a  Constitution,  and 
send  it  here,  as  well  without  this  authority  as  with  it),  I  will 
not  therefore  press  this  bill  now."7  The  bill  was,  however, 
called  up  later  in  the  day,  agreed  to  by  the  Committee  of  the 
Whole  and  reported  to  the  House.  Like  its  predecessor  this 
bill  had  not  confined  the  right  of  voting  to  citizens  of  the 
United  States  only,  and  an  attempt  to  insert  that  restriction 
was  narrowly  defeated  (61  to  60)  after  Lane  spoke  against 
it.  Lane,  indeed,  did  not  wish  any  change  in  the  bill,  unless 
it  should  be  in  the  part  fixing  the  eastern  boundary  line  at 
120°  W.  Long.,  whereas,  according  to  the  Oregon  Delegate, 
it  should  have  been  at  118°  W.  Long.  Two  amendments  were 
adopted;  one  restricted  to  citizens  of  the  United  States  the 
privilege  of  voting  for  delegates  to  the  constitution  conven- 
tion ;  the  other  eliminated  a  clause  by  which  delegates  to  the 
convention  were  to  have  voted  on  the  question  whether  the 
people  of  the  territory  desired  to  form  a  State  government 
before  proceeding  with  their  constitution  making.  An  amend- 
ment to  require  the  population  to  equal  the  ratio  for  one  repre- 
sentative (93,420)  was  rejected,  and  also  one  to  strike  out  the 
provision  which  allowed  the  proposed  State  to  have  ten  sec- 
tions of  public  land  for  public  buildings.  Letcher  (Virginia) 
pointed  out  that  Congress  had  been  appropriating  money  for 
Oregon  public  buildings  for  years,  but  his  protest  fell  on 
unheeding  ears.  In  its  modified  form,  the  bill  was  passed  by 
the  House.7 

The  senate  was  more  accommodating  in  the  matter  of  a 

7  Globe,  XXXVI,  519-23. 


378  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPER 

boundary  line,  for  the  Committee  on  Territories  amended  that 
clause  to  accord  with  the  desires  of  Lane,  and  fixed  the  line 
as  it  exists  today  for  the  State  of  Oregon.  Another  amend- 
ment by  the  Committee  put  the  region  south  of  46°  N.  Lat. 
and  east  of  the  Oregon  line  under  the  territorial  jurisdiction 
of  Washington.  The  Senate,  however,  went  no  farther,  and 
the  Thirty-fourth  Congress,  like  its  predecessor,  came  to  an 
end  with  Oregon  still  a  territory.8 

Dissatisfaction  over  the  delay  of  Congress  resulted  in  inde- 
pendent action  by  the  Oregohians.9  Since  1854  the  statehood 
sentiment  had  been  growing  although  it  had  been  opposed  at 
the  beginning  by  the  Whigs  who  pointed  out  the  additional 
expense  which  would  result.  But  the  Whigs  were  few  in 
number  and  not  politically  influential  so  their  opposition  had 
little  significance.  The  dominant  party  had,  by  legislative 
resolutions,  directed  Lane  to  work  for  the  enabling  act,  and 
at  the  same  time  had  made  provision  (1856-7)  for  taking  the 
sense  of  the  people  as  to  whether  a  convention  should  be  held 
and  for  electing  delegates  to  it.  Meanwhile  a  little  of  the 
white-hot  conflict  over  slavery  extension  had  crossed  over  the 
mountains  so  that  anti-  and  pro-slavery  movements  had  gained 
enough  headway  to  make  this  question  the  dominant  one 
before  the  people  during  the  months  preceding  the  election  of 
delegates  to  the  convention.  A  large  majority  of  the  people 
were  descendants  of  those  who  had  lived  in  slave  States; 
many  of  them  had  themselves  been  slave-owners.  Their  four- 
times  elected  Delegate  to  Congress,  Joseph  Lane,  was  not  op- 
posed to  slavery  as  he  demonstrated,  in  1860,  by  accepting 
the  nomination  as  candidate  for  vice-president  from  the 
Breckinridge  wing  of  the  Democratic  party.  Newspapers  and 
public  men  took  up  the  question  and  advanced  arguments  as  to 
why  Oregon  would  benefit  or  receive  injury  from  the  pres- 
ence of  slaves.  The  anti-slavery  agitation  found  a  rallying 
point  in  a  little  group  of  men  who  organized  as  Free-State 
Republicans,  and  who  gained  sufficient  strength  to  have  rep- 

8  Ibid.,    821,   878. 

9  Bancroft,  History  of  Oregon,  II,  chapter  17. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  379 

resentation,  although  little  weight,  in  the  Legislature  in 
1856-7.  The  Democrats  were  divided  over  the  issue,  especially 
after  a  convention,  in  the  spring  of  1857  to  nominate  a  candi- 
date for  Delegate  to  Congress,  had  proclaimed  that  "We  deny 
the  right  of  any  state  to  interfere  with  such  domestic  institu- 
tions of  other  states  as  are  recognized  by  the  constitution." 
The  disruptive  tendencies  of  this  declaration  were  added  to  by 
an  attempt  of  the  dominant  faction  to  gag  all  independent 
action  within  the  party. 

In  August,  1859,  the  constitutional  convention  was  held. 
From  the  first  it  was  decided  that  there  should  be  no  discus- 
sion of  the  slavery  issue  in  the  convention,  but  that  the  question 
should  be  submitted  to  the  people  with  the  constitution  which 
should  be  framed.  Accordingly  two  propositions  went  before 
the  electorate  in  addition  to  the  constitution :  Should  there  be 
slavery  in  Oregon  ?  Should  free  negroes  be  permitted  to  live  in 
Oregon?  The  constitution  itself  provided  that  no  negro, mulatto, 
or  Chinaman  should  be  allowed  to  vote,  neither  could  Chinese, 
immigrating  to  Oregon  after  the  adoption  of  the  constitution, 
hold  land  or  mining  claims,  or  work  the  latter,  and  the  Leg- 
islature was  to  enact  suitable  laws  to  enforce  these  prohibi- 
tions. The  constitution  fixed  the  boundaries  of  the  State  as 
the  Senate  Committee  on  Territories  had,  except  that  for  the 
46th  parallel  eastward  from  the  Columbia  the  line  was  placed 
farther  north  in  order  to  bring  the  Walla  Walla  valley  within 
the  limits  of  Oregon.  A  qualifying  clause  allowed  the  line  to 
be  moved  back  to  46°  if  Congress  should  so  will;  and  Con- 
gress did.  In  its  general  features  the  constitution  was  not 
materially  different  from  most  State  constitutions  framed  in 
that  period ;  one  provision,  however,  is  worthy  of  note,  for  it 
forbade  making  the  property  and  pecuniary  rights  of  women 
liable  for  the  debts  or  contracts  of  their  husbands.  Half  of 
each  donation  claim  taken  by  a  married  man,  then,  was  the 
absolute  property  of  the  wife. 

In  November  the  people  voted  on  the  propositions  and  the 
constitution.  In  a  poll  of  slightly  over  10,000,  slavery  was 
rejected  by  a  majority  of  5,082;  free  negroes  were  debarred 


380  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

by  a  majority  of  7,559;  and  the  constitution  itself  was  adopted 
by  a  majority  of  4,000. 

In  February,  1858,  Lane  presented  an  official  copy  of  the 
constitution  to  the  House  of  Representatives  and  it  was  ordered 
printed  and  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Territories.  Mr. 
Lane,  however,  did  not  press  for  action.  Moreover,  when 
Senator  Gwin  of  California  asked  Douglas  why  the  Oregon 
bill  could  not  be  made  an  amendment  of  the  Minnesota  bill 
then  before  Jthe  Senate,  the  latter  replied  that  he  had  no  offi- 
cial information  of  the  facts  of  the  case ;  Lane  had  told  him  it 
would  be  better  to  let  the  matter  rest  until  after  the  contest 
over  Minnesota  and  Kansas  had  been  ended.  Thus  prodded, 
Mr.  Lane  transmitted  to  Senator  Douglas  a  copy  of  the  con- 
stitution, and  the  Senator,  when  he  presented  it  to  the  Senate, 
remarked  that  he  did  not  desire  to  have  the  impression  go 
forth  that  Mr.  Lane  had  failed  in  his  duty. 

With  the  constitution  in  its  possession  the  Senate  was  in  a 
position  to  proceed  with  the  Oregon  bill,  and  in  May,  when 
the  slavery  controversy  was  in  one  of  its  quiescent  stages, 
the  debate  was  resumed.  The  Dred  Scott  decision  of  the 
previous  year  had  been  a  score  for  those  who  desired  the 
extension  of  slavery;  Kansas'  attitude  on  the  Lecompton  con- 
stitution had  caused  Congress  to  act.  While  the  manner  in 
which  the  constitution  had  been  referred  back  to  the  people  of 
Kansas  had  not  been  just  that  desired  by  the  majority,  it  had 
been  such  that  Kansas  must  become  a  State  where  slavery 
was  legal  or  remain  inj  the  status  of  a  territory.  In  either 
case  the  Southern  wing  of  the  Democratic  party  had  scored 
at  least  a  technical  point.  There  had  never  been  any  real  ques- 
tion about  the  admission  of  Minnesota  because  it  was  in  the  old 
Northwest  Territory,  in  part.  Congress  could,  then,  proceed 
with  Oregon.  Such,  at  any  rate,  was  the  opinion  of  those 
who  advocated  the  doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty,  for  Ore- 
gon had,  in  the  adoption  of  the  constitution,  exemplified  that 
doctrine,  untrammelled  by  such  chicanery  as  had  characterized 
the  Kansas  situation. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  381 

Nevertheless  the  Senate  still  found  objections  to  the  Oregon 
bill.10  Some  of  the  Republicans  thought  that  debarring  free 
negroes  nearly  nullified  the  rejection  of  slavery,  although 
Douglas  pointed  out  that  if  the  clause  should  be  stricken  out 
Oregon  could  insert  it  again  the  day  after  her  admission.  Some 
felt  that  the  same  spirit  which  debarred  negroes  caused  the 
prohibition  of  land  owning  by  negroes,  mulattoes  and  Chinese. 
Moreover,  according  to  Wade,  an  Ohio  Republican,  the 
Chinese  feature  brought  out  a  new  question  and  might  cause 
international  complications  by  placing  the  Chinaman  on  a  level 
with  the  negro.  Some  Republicans  and  many  Southern  Dem- 
ocrats opposed  admission  on  the  old  ground  of  too  small  pop- 
ulation. Brown  of  Mississippi  very  frankly  said  that  he  should 
vote  against  the  bill  for  if  the  Republicans  wished  to  exclude 
a  free  State  it  was  not  for  him  to  interest  himself  particularly 
in  getting  it  in.  If  the  admission,  said  he,  would  be  put  on 
the  ground  that  Kansas  had  come  in  as  a  slave  State  (the 
constitution  had  not  yet  been  rejected  under  the  terms  of  the 
congressional  act  of  1858)  and  a  balancing  free  State  was  de- 
sired, then  he  would  vote  "for  it ;  as  for  the  talk  about  debar- 
ring free  negroes,  it  appeared  to  him  that  Massachusetts,  New 
York  and  other  Northern  States  desired  to  see  an  increase  in 
free  negroes  but  wanted  to  send  them  all  to  Oregon. 

On  the  nineteenth  day  of  May  a  test  vote  was  taken  on  a 
motion  to  postpone  the  bill  until  the  following  December.  The 
motion  was  lost  and  the  passage  of  the  bill  followed,  by  a  vote 
of  35  to  17.  An  analysis  of  the  vote  shows  the  following 
results : 

For  Admission      Against  Admission 
Democrats  22  8 

Republicans  12  6 

Native  Americans  1  3 

Free  State  21  6 

Slave  State  14  11 

~  XXXVI,  2203-9. 


382  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

Neither  party  nor  sectional  lines  offer  any  adequate  ex- 
planation so  far  as  the  Senate  is  concerned.  The  explanation 
of  the  opposition  so  far  as  the  Republican  vote  is  concerned, 
however,  may  be  derived  from  the  action  of  the  House  at 
this  and  the  following  session.  There  were  two  grounds; 
the  less  important  was  that  of  population,  the  more  important 
was  connected  with  the  all-powerful  slavery  issue  in  its 
relation  to  party  politics.  By  allowing  the  Lecompton  consti- 
tution bill  to  go  before  the  people  of  Kansas  again  the  Repub- 
licans had  deviated  somewhat  from  a  consistent  course, — a 
course  they  probably  would  not  have  taken  had  they  not  be- 
lieved the  free  State  population  was  strong  enough  to  defeat 
the  slavery  provisions  of  the  constitution.  In  the  case  of  Ore- 
gon, even  though  slavery  was  not  to  be  allowed,  the  free- 
negro  clause  was  in  conflict  with  their  constitutional  views 
on  the  power  of  any  State  to  exclude  citizens  of  the  United 
States.  Besides  all  this,  and  most  potent  of  all,  was  the  belief 
that  Oregon  was  overwhelmingly  Democratic,  and  her  admis- 
sion would  mean  a  Democratic  delegation  in  both  houses. 
While  one  Democratic  Representative  in  the  lower  house  would 
not  make  much  difference,  two  Democrats  added  to  the  small 
number  of  the  Senate  would  be  maintaining  too  well  the  pre- 
ponderance of  Democracy  in  the  upper  house.  Consequently 
the  Thirty- fifth  Congress  adjourned  its  first  session  without 
final  action  on  Oregon. 

The  people  of  Oregon  felt  sure  that  the  next  session  would 
see  the  fulfillment  of  their  hopes,  hence,  since  the  con- 
stitutional convention  had  provided  for  an  election  of  State  and 
National  officers  in  July  of  1858,  they  proceeded  to  make 
ready  their  governmental  machinery  against  the  day  of  suc- 
cess. The  Republicans  of  the  United  States  could  see  in  the 
result  of  the  elections  what  they  had  feared,  for  three  Demo- 
crats were  to  represent  Oregon  in  Congress.  La  Fayette 
Grover  was  elected  Representative,  and  the  Democratic  Legis- 
lature elected  Joseph  Lane  and  Delazon  Smith  to  the  Senate. 
Lane,  therefore,  went  to  Washington  as  a  Delegate  of  the  ter- 
ritory and  as  a  Senator  from  the  prospective  State.  It  was 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  383 

perhaps  fortunate  for  him  that  it  was  the  Legislature  to  which 
he  presented  himself  as  a  candidate  rather  than  to  the  elector-, 
ate,  for  his  inactivity  in  the  last  session  of  Congress  had 
stirred  up  much  feeling;  some  said  that  he  purposely  put  off 
acting  in  order  that  he  might  draw  the  mileage  of  both  Dele- 
gate and  Senator  at  the  next  session.  It  appears  that  few 
people  in  Oregon  realized  the  bitterness  of  the  contest  which 
was  being  waged  over  Kansas,  or  recognized  the  bearing  of 
that  contest  upon  their  own  interests. 

Kansas  had,  however,  voluntarily  deferred  the  time  of  her 
admission  to  the  Union  by  rejecting  the  Lecompton  constitution 
and  had  to  wait  until  her  population  should  be  numerous 
enough  to  equal  the  number  required  as  a  ratio  for  one  rep- 
resentative. Commenting  on  this  Buchanan,  in  his  Annual 
Message,  said,  "Of  course  it  would  be  unjust  to  give  this  rule 
a  retrospective  application  and  exclude  a  State,  which,  acting 
upon  the  past  practice  of  the  Government,  had  already  formed 
its  constitution,  elected  its  legislature  and  other  officers  and  is 
now  prepared  to  enter  the  Union. "n 

The  President's  opinion,  obviously  prompted  if  not  dictated 
by  party  considerations,  found  a  response  in  the  House  where 
the  Senate  bill  was  waiting.  Alexander  Stephens,  chairman 
of  the  Committee  on  Territories,  stated  (7  January)  in  answer 
to  inquiries  both  in  and  out  of  Congress,  that  he  was  prepared 
to  report  the  Oregon  bill  whenever  his  committee  was  called. 
A  month  later  (9  February)  he  announced  that  the  Committee 
on  Territories  had  been  reached,  saying  that  he  gave  notice  in 
order  that  there  might  be  a  full  attendance  on  the  next  day. 
The  bill  was  reported  (10  February)12  with  a  recommendation 
for  passage  from  the  majority  of  the  committee.  There  had 
been  no  census  since  1855,  when  the  population  was  43,474, 
but  there  was  $18,000,000  worth  of  personal  property  to  tax, 
which,  allowing  for  a  legitimate  increase,  and  using  the  ratio 
in  Ohio,  would  indicate  a  population  of  250,000.  Either  Oregon 


11  Richardson,  Messages,  V,  502. 

12  Globe,  1858-9,  Pt.  i, 
on  February  10,   u,   12,  an 


12  Globe,  1858-9,  Pt.  i,  943  seq.    Crow's  report,  page  946.    The  debate  occurred 
d  the  bill  was  passed  February  12. 


384  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

was  very  wealthy  or  the  population  had  increased  very  rapidly ; 
at  any  rate  there  was  no  question  that  it  was  at  least  some 
90,000  or  the  ratio  for  a  Representative.  It  was  the  solemn 
obligation  of  Congress  to  admit  the  State  since  the  territorial 
act  of  1848  had  included  the  guarantees  of  the  Ordinance  of 
1787,  among  which  was  the  provision  for  admission  whenever 
a  population  of  60,000  should  have  been  attained. 

This  appeal  to  the  Ordinance  of  1787  brought  Grow  to  his 
feet  with  a  protest  that  a  rule  had  been  laid  down  in  the  case 
of  Kansas  requiring  it  to  double  its  population  before  it  could 
be  a  State ;  furthermore,  the  Ordinance  had  imposed  no  obliga- 
tion to  admit  a  State,  no  matter  what  its  population.  He  then 
presented  a  report  from  a  minority  of  the  Committee,  signed 
by  himself,  Amos  P.  Granger  of  New  York  and  Chancey  L. 
Knapp  of  Massachusetts,  all  Republicans.  Up  to  that  time, 
ran  the  report,  Congress  had  followed  no  uniform  rule  for 
the  admission  of  States,  but  Kansas,  with  a  population  large 
enough  to  be  a  slave  State,  must  wait  until  it  had  93,420  people 
before  it  could  come  in  as  a  free  State.  The  President  had 
declared  in  his  Message  that  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  that 
territory  to  form  a  constitution  before  it  had  secured  that 
population  would  be  a  distinct  violation  of  the  law,  and  should 
it  be  attempted  he  would  use  Federal  power  to  prevent  it.  In 
1855  the  population  of  Oregon  was  43,473,  and  the  largest 
vote  ever  cast  there  was  10,121,  while  Kansas  had  polled 
13,089  in  rejecting  the  Lecompton  constitution.  The  minority 
were  unable  to  perceive  any  fairness  in  one  rule  for  Kansas 
and  another  for  Oregon;  both  were  alike  in  having  no  en- 
abling act,  and  the  only  real  difference  was  that  Oregon  had 
a  territorial  government  which  was  disliked,  while  Kansas  had 
an  organization  in  which  political  power  was  wielded  by 
usurpers  and  despots.  Therefore  without  expressing  an 
opinion  as  to  the  propriety  of  a  numerical  ratio,  the  minority 
recommended  a  repeal  of  that  portion  of  the  act  for  the  ad- 
mission of  Kansas  which  provides  "Whenever,  and  not  before, 
it  is  ascertained  by  a  census  duly  and  legally  taken,  that  the 
population  of  said  territory  exceeds  or  equals  the  ratio  of  rep- 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  385 

resentation  required  for  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives .  .  .  ." 

Felix  K.  Zollikoffer  of  Tennessee,  one  of  the  small  number 
of  Know-Nothings  in  the  House,  presented  a  second  minority 
report,  reflecting  the  tenets  of  his  political  organization.  This 
report  solemnly  protested  against  the  provision  in  the  Oregon 
constitution  which  allowed  others  than  citizens  of  the  United 
States  to  vote;  such  a  provision  was  unconstitutional  accord- 
ing to  the  interpretation  of  the  courts  and  the  testimony  of 
the  framers  of  the  United  States  Constitution.  The  report 
also  protested  against  the  admission  of  Oregon  with  its  small 
population. 

Practically  all  the  opposition  on  the  floor  of  the  House 
came  from  Republicans,  although  Millson  opposed  the  bill  as 
he  had  done  before,  on  the  population  question.  Hughes,  an 
Indiana  Democrat,  definitely  charged  that  there  was  a  Repub- 
lican plot  to  keep  Oregon  out,  for,  in  addition  to  their  stated 
reasons,  there  was  the  stronger  one  that  there  must  be  no  new 
Democratic  State  before  the  presidential  election  in  1860. 
Turning  to  the  Republican  side  of  the  House  he  said : 

"Go,  then,  f reedom-shrieker !  Vote  against  Oregon.  But  re- 
member, you  vote  against  the  compact  of  the  ordinance  of 
1787,  expressly  extended  to  that  Territory  by  act  of  Con- 
gress. You  vote  against  'popular  sovereignty,'  and  deny  to 
the  people  of  Oregon  the  'right  to  regulate  their,  domestic  in- 
stitutions in  their  own  way/  You  vote  for  negro  equality, 
and  plant  yourself  in  opposition  to  the  Constitution  of  your 
country,  which  you  have  sworn  to  support.  You  vote  to  deny 
to  the  white  foreigner  what  your  enlarged  philanthropy  claims 
for  the  negro  who  happens  to  be  born  in  the  United  States. 
You  vote  to  keep  a  free  State  out  of  this  Union — a  State  which 
comes  on  our  own  invitation,  and  comes  in  the  most  orderly, 
regular,  and  appropriate  way.  There  are  some  of  you  that  will 
not  do  this  thing  and  some  that  dare  not.  Upon  those  who  do 
I  invoke  the  condemnation  of  an  intelligent  and  patriotic 
people." 

The  charge  brought  by  Mr.  Hughes  was  essentially  sup- 
ported by  the  facts  of  the  case.  The  Republicans  had  deter- 


386  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

mined  to  use  Oregon  as  a  lever  to  bring  Kansas  in ;  if  Kansas 
was  kept  out,  Oregon  must  stay  out.  All  the  strength  of  the 
Republican  organization  was  to  be  used  to  prevent  the  passage 
of  the  Oregon  bill;  Thurlow  Weed  and  Horace  Greeley  went 
to  Washington  to  use  their  influence  to  prevent  any  Repub- 
lican from  getting  out  of  line.13  It  was,  nevertheless,  a  Repub- 
lican who  was  responsible  for  the  passage  of  the  bill.  Eli 
Thayer,  who  had  been  a  member  of  the  New  England  Emi- 
grant Aid  Company  and  who  was  chiefly  responsible  for  the 
Kansas  Crusade,  took  the  stand  that  it  was  unfair  to  make 
Oregon  suffer  for  the  sins  of  others.  As  Mr.  Thayer,  writing 
many  years  later,14  says : 

"I  protested  against  this  policy  (of  the  Republican  caucus), 
saying  that  Oregon  had  been  a  territory  for  ten  years,  that 
the  House  had  passed  an  enabling  act  with  which  she  had 
complied,  and  that  the  Senate  had  voted  to  admit  her  with 
the  aid  of  Republican  votes ;  that  she  now  asks  admission  into 
the  Union  as  a  State,  presenting  for  our  acceptance  a  free- 
State  Constitution.  That  I  would  not  be  bound  by  the  deci- 
sion of  the  caucus ;  that  I  was  strongly  in  favor  of  the  admis- 
sion of  the  new  State,  and  that  I  should  work  for  it,  and  induce 
other  members  of  the  party  to  vote  for  it,  but  that  I  should 
vote  in  favor  of  it  even  if  no  other  Republican  could  be 
found  to  do  so. 

"As  soon  as  the  caucus  was  over  I  went  to  Mr.  Stephens 
and  told  him  that  I  would  work  night  and  day  in  favor  of  his 
report  .  .  .  . 

"I  began  at  once  to  urge  upon  Republicans  the  duty  and 
good  policy  of  admitting  Oregon.  By  persistent  effort  I  se- 
cured sixteen  who  promised  to  vote  for  admission,  and  should 
have  had  others,  but  Greeley  and  Weed  frightened  some  of 
these  away  and  weakened  my  support.  But  on  the  day  of  the 
vote  we  retained  fifteen  who,  with  the  Democrats,  were  able 
to  admit  the  State  by  a  majority  of  eleven.15 

"On  the  day  of  the  passage  of  the  bill  I  gave  my  reasons 

13  See    "Eli    Thayer   and    the   Admission    of    Oregon,"    by   Franklin    P.    Rice, 
in    Proceedings    of    the   Fiftieth   Anniversary    of   the   Admission    of    the   State    of 
Oregon  Into  the  Union   (Salem,   1909),  from  the  Worcester  Magazine  of  Feb.  and 
Mar.,   1906. 

14  In  a  letter  to  Rice. 

15  Either  Mr.  Thayer's  memory  was  treacherous  or  he  counted  as  Republicans 
some  who  were  not  so  considered,  for  the  roll  call  of  the  vote  shows  but  thirteen 
Republican  votes  and  one  Whig  vote  for  the  bill. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  387 

very  fully  for  the  course  I  had  pursued.  It  was  well  known  at 
that  time  that  it  was  due  to  my  work  that  Oregon  became  a 
State,  and  for  a  few  days  I  was  roundly  abused  by  some  of  the 
inferior  Republican  journals  and  the  Tribune.  Soon,  how- 
ever, under  the  lead  of  the  New  York  Evening  Post  and  the 
National  Era,  nearly  all  the  Republican  papers  defended  my 
position. 

"Among  those  whose  confidence  in  their  own  judgment 
Greeley  had  seriously  impaired  was  Schuyler  Colfax,  who  re- 
mained undecided  to  the  day  of  voting.  That  morning  I 
walked  to  the  Capitol  with  him.  On  the  way  he  said :  'I  was 
never  in  such  perplexity  about  my  duty  as  I  am  in  this  Oregon 
matter.'  We  were  just  then  passing  the  office  of  the  National 
Era,  and  I  suggested  that  he  get  Dr.  Bailey's  opinion.  Ac- 
cordingly we  went  in,  and  he  said:  'Dr.  Bailey,  I  do  not 
know  what  to  do  about  Oregon.  Thayer  wants  me  to  vote 
for  admission,  while  Greeley  is  just  as  earnest  the  other  way. 
Now  I  have  come  to  you  for  a  decision.  I  shall  vote  upon  this 
question  as  you  advise.'  Bailey  at  once  replied:  'Vote  with 
Thayer,  for  he  is  right.'  We  proceeded  to  the  Capitol,  and  Mr. 
Colfax  cast  his  vote  in  favor  of  the  bill. 

•"I  had  felt  sure  of  John  Sherman's  vote,  but  he  did  not 
appear  in  the  House  at  all  that  day  .  .  .  ." 

Whether  intentional  or  not,  it  proved  fortunate  for  the  Re- 
publicans that  Oregon  was  admitted  for  otherwise  her  vote 
would  have  been  lost  in  the  Chicago  Convention  of  1860,  and 
the  Senate  in  the  Thirty-seventh  Congress  would  have  had  less 
Republican  strength.  Contrary  to  Republican  fears  in  1859, 
Oregon  did  not  remain  in  the  Democratic  ranks. 

The  bill  was  fought  to  the  very  last  ditch;  a  roll-call  was 
demanded  upon  all  amendments  which  were  offered  (the  chief 
of  which  were  to  require  a  larger  population  and  to  prevent 
non-citizen  suffrage),  and  upon  motions  to  table.  There  were 
six  divisions  by  roll-call  and  one  by  tellers.  On  its  passage 
the  bill  secured  114  affirmative  votes  and  103  were  cast  against 
it.  Thirteen  Republicans  and  one  Whig  saved  the  day  for 
Oregon.  In  the  Democratic  ranks  there  was  no  such  unanim- 
ity as  among  the  Republicans,  nor  did  the  division  within  the 
party  follow  sectional  lines.  Seven  of  the  ten  Virginia  votes 
(one  was  paired),  four  of  the  eight  from  North  Carolina  (one 


388  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

Native  American  voted  against  the  bill),  five  of  the  seven 
from  Georgia,  and  all  from  Mississippi,  Kentucky,  Tennes- 
see, Missouri,  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  and  Florida,  were  cast 
for  the  measure.  Two  of  the  three  Texas  votes  were  for  it. 
The  South  Carolina  and  Alabama  vote  was  solid  against  the 
bill.  Practically  the  whole  of  the  northern  Democracy  was  for 
the  bill,  although  two  from  New  York  and  one  each  from 
Pennsylvania  and  Illinois  were  against  it.  Party  succeeded 
in  overcoming  western  zeal  for  a  new  western  State  in  most 
cases,  for  seven  of  Ohio's  ten  Republicans,  one  of  the  five 
from  Indiana,  all  four  from  Illinois,  two  of  Wisconsin's  three, 
four  from  Michigan,  and  one  from  Missouri  were  against  ad- 
mission. The  Republicans  who  saved  the  day  were  scattered ; 
five  were  from  New  England,  four  from  Indiana,  three  from 
Ohio,  and  one  from  Wisconsin.  The  solitary  Whig  who 
flocked  with  the  majority  on  this  occasion  was  J.  C.  Kunkell 
of  Pennsylvania,  who  both  for  the  Thirty- fourth  and  Thirty- 
fifth  Congresses  ran  as  a  Whig  and  defeated  the  Democratic 
candidate  in  his  district. 

The  feeling  of  Greeley  at  the  passage  of  the  bill  was  indi- 
cated by  an  editorial  in  the  Tribune,  in  February,  I860:16 

"We  hold  that  the  great  body  of  Republicans  voted  just 
right  on  this  question,  and  of  the  course  of  the  fifteen  who 
separated  from,  opposed  and  defeated  them,  did  a  grievous 
wrong  ....  If  Oregon  in  1860,  unbalanced  by  Kansas, 
shall  elect  a  pro-slavery  President,  then  woe  to  those  Repub- 
licans whose  votes  shall  have  enabled  her  to  do  so.  It  is  said 
that  Oregon  is  a  free  State,  but  it  would  vote  for  pro-slavery 
interests.  By  the  express  terms  of  the  Constitution,  any  of 
Mr.  Eli  Thayer's  constituents  and  supporters  guilty  of  having 
African  blood  in  his  veins  who  should  visit  Oregon  with  intent 
to  settle  therein,  is  guilty  of  a  grave  offense  against  the 
majesty  of  that  State,  and  will  be  treated  like  an  outlaw  and  a 
felon  ....  That  border  ruffian  Democrats  should 
sanction  and  give  effect  to  such  cruel  injustice  is  but  natural; 
that  a  few  Republicans  should  be  induced,  no  matter  on  what 
specious  grounds,  to  aid  them,  is  deplorable." 


1 6  Quoted  by  Rice.      Only  thirteen   Republicans  and  one  Whig  are   recorded 
oting  for  the  bill.     See  Poore,  Political  Register;  Note  15  above. 


as  voting 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  389 

The  fight  for  admission  was  over  and  Oregon's  Senators 
and  Representatives  immediately  entered  upon  their  duties  in 
Congress.  Lane  drew  for  the  class  the  term  of  which  expired 
in  1861,  while  Smith  found  himself  in  the  class  which  would 
end  his  term  in  a  few  days,  on  the  third  of  March,  1859. 

Before  the  close  of  the  session  there  was  one  further  echo 
of  the  Kansas-Oregon  population  controversy.  Hale  (New 
Hampshire),  in  moving  as  an  amendment  to  the  appropria- 
tion bill  a  clause  removing  the  restrictive  proviso  from  the 
Kansas  act  called  upon  the  Senators  from  Oregon  to  state 
whether  they  would  do  unto  others  as  they  had  been  done  by ; 
according  to  the  argument  which  had  been  much  used  in 
urging  the  passage  of  the  Oregon  bill  the  public  faith  was 
pledged  to  admit  a  territory  when  the  population  reached 
60,000.  Would  they  vote  to  let  Kansas  in  ?  Both  Lane  and 
Smith  refused  to  commit  themselves,  showing  that  they  could 
work  in  harmony  with  their  Democratic  brethren  of  the  Sen- 
ate, and  both  asserted  that .  Oregon's  population  far  exceeded 
that  of  Kansas ;  in  fact,  Smith  declared  it  was  a  third  greater, 
despite  the  misleading  statements  of  the  Republican  party. 
Oregon  was  in  the  Union,  and  all  questions  of  population  were 
relegated  to  the  realm  of  theoretical  speculation.  Nevertheless 
the  returns  of  the  census  of  1860  are  interesting,  for  it  appeared 
that  Oregon  had  a  population  of  52,465  while  that  of  Kansas 
was  107,206. 

With  statehood  Oregon  felt  herself  in  a  position  to  remedy 
some  of  the  evils  which  had  beset  her ;  no  longer  was  it  nec- 
essary to  tolerate  a  governor  and  other  administrative  officers 
who  were  not  elected  by  Oregonians ;  the  long-standing  griev- 
ance against  the  Federal  Government  over  Indian  war  ex- 
penses might  stand  a  chance  of  redress.  There  were  hopes 
that  the  postal  service,  against  the  inadequacy  of  which  they 
had  complained  long  and  bitterly,  would  be  improved.  They 
felt  that  such  public  lands  as  fell  to  the  State  could  be  much 
more  satisfactorily  managed  than  had  been  the  case  before.  In 
short  the  people  of  Oregon  felt  that  their  time  of  tutelage  had 
lasted  long  enough,  yes,  far  too  long,  and  recognition  of  their 


390  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

ability  to  manage  their  own  affairs  was  no  more  than  their 
just  due. 

Of  international  problems  connected  with  Oregon,  besides 
that  arising  from  the  possessory  rights  of  the  British  Com- 
panies, there  still  remained  in  1859  the  matter  of  marking 
the  boundary.  Although  President  Polk  had  refrained  from 
pressing  this  matter,  events  soon  demonstrated  that  it  would 
have  been  a  wise  act  on  the  part  of  Congress  to  have  imme- 
diately made  appropriations  and  given  authority  whereby  a 
commission  for  the  United  States  could  act  with  a  similar 
body  for  Great  Britain  to  settle  definitively  the  line  indicated 
by  the  treaty.  In  his  first  Annual  Message  (December,  1851) 
President  Fillmore  called  to  the  attention  of  Congress  the 
desire  of  the  British  Government  to  take  this  step,  and  he 
recommended  an  appropriation.17  Nothing  was  done,  how- 
ever; and  subsequent  reminders  proved  as  fruitless. 

President  Pierce,  in  his  second  Annual  Message,18  said, 
"There  is  a  difference  of  opinion  between  the  United  States 
and  Great  Britain  as  to  the  boundary  line  of  the  Territory  of 
Washington  adjoining  the  British  possessions  on  the  Pacific, 
which  has  already  led  to  difficulties  on  the  part  of  the  citizens 
and  local  authorities  of  the  two  governments."  This  difficulty 
arose  over  the  question  of  the  San  Juan  Islands;  the  British 
government  contended  that  the  main  channel  of  the  Strait  of 
Juan  de  Fuca  was  east  of  the  islands,  while  the  United  States 
insisted  that  it  was  west.  Local  disturbances  took  place  both 
over  possession  and  jurisdiction.19  No  action  was  taken  to 
end  the  controversy,  which  was  allowed  to  become  more  acute 
until  it  required,  in  1871-2,  a  court  of  arbitration  to  decide 
that  the  disputed  land  was  American  and  not  British.  Had 
the  line  been  run  before  1850  it  is  probable  that  no  contest 
would  have  arisen  and  great  expense  as  well  as  considerable 
international  friction  would  have  been  avoided. 

1 7  Richardson,  Messages,  V,  119. 

i q  See  report  of  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  Sen.  Ex.  Doc.  No.  i,  33d  Cong., 
2d  (1854);  Sen.  Rep.  No.  251  34th  ist;  H.  Ex.  Doc.  No.  77,  36th  ist.  The  whole 
matter  is  discussed  in  all  its  phases  in  the  papers  presented  to  the  Emperor  William, 
1872,  H.  Ex.  Doc.  No.  i,  4«d  3d. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  391 

A  study  of  the  Federal  relations  of  Oregon  reveals  the  fact 
that,  while  the  Oregon  Question  in  one  form  or  another,  occu- 
pied the  attention  of  the  authorities  of  the  United  States  for 
nearly  half  a  century,  there  was  no  episode  connected  with  it 
which  stood  alone  as  a  paramount  issue.  Such  a  fact  is  the 
more  interesting  when  one  takes  account  of  the  high  degree 
of  excitement  which  accompanied  each  episode.  Three  periods 
stand  out  as  the  most  spectacular  and  probably  the  most 
important;  the  division  of  the  Oregon  Country  with  Great 
Britain,  the  formation  of  the  territory,  and  the  admission  of  the 
State.  In  each  of  these  the  Oregon  Question  was  linked  with 
some  other  national  issue  which  lent  a  fictitious  importance. 
In  the  boundary  controversy  Oregon  was  really  subordinated 
to  Texas  which  was  a  national  issue  in  and  of  itself.  Texas, 
with  all  the  agitation  attending  its  entrance  into  the  Union, 
was  a  vital  factor  in  the  history  of  the  development  of  the 
nation ;  Texas  figured  as  a  decisive  issue  in  the  great  struggle 
which  centered  about  the  question  of  the  nature  of  the  Federal 
Government.  One  is  forced  to  believe  with  the  legislators 
who,  after  1818,  were  willing  to  let  the  Oregon  Question  rest 
and  allow  time  to  determine  the  outcome  that  all  the  furor  of 
1845  and  1846  did  not  vitally  affect  the  outcome.  To  be  sure, 
Great  Britain  has  always  been  willing  to  accept  additions  to 
her  Empire  and  has  not  been  averse  from  making  the  most  of 
favoring  circumstances,  so  there  may  have  been  something 
in  Richard  Rush's  belief  that  the  commotion  of  1846  brought 
England  to  a  desire  to  end  the  controversy  and  to  yield  some- 
thing more  than  had  been  her  previous  intention.  Neverthe- 
less, down  to  the  time  the  hue  and  cry  of  54-40  was  raised, 
and  that  as  a  campaign  issue  and  a  blind,  both  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain  agreed  that  the  other  had  rights  in 
the  Oregon  Country,  and  each  had  shown  a  disposition  to 
make  an  adjustment  on  equitable  lines. 

The  struggle  over  territorial  organization  came  at  a  time 
when  territories  in  general  and  their  actual  and  potential 
meaning  for  the  issues  between  North  and  South  were  upper- 
most. The  heatedly  argued  points  which  were  brought  out 


392  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

in  connection  with  Oregon  were  not  primarily  about  Oregon; 
any  other  territory,  as  the  discussions  of  1848  and  1850  demon- 
strated, would  have  and  did  serve  the  purpose  as  well;  but 
Oregon  was  held  up  on  account  of  the  effect  action  would 
have  on  other  questions.  So  it  was  in  the  statehood  question. 
Oregon  interested  most  legislators  on  account  of  its  bearing 
on  the  rapidly  approaching  crisis  over  the  disputed  nature  of 
the  Union;  for  the  Democrats  as  a  whole  its  admission 
seemed  to  mean  political  strength  and  they  worked  for  its 
admission  on  that  ground.  For  those  who  thought  that  "pop- 
ular sovereignty"  was  the  solution  not  only  of  the  controversy 
about  Federal  and  States'  Rights  but  of  its  by-product  and 
its  cause — slavery  and  its  extension — Oregon  was  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  way  the  doctrine  worked.  Those  who  were  fight- 
ing the  extension  of  slavery  saw  in  the  admission  of  Oregon 
an  obstacle  in  the  path  they  meant  to  follow. 

Even  in  the  West  where  Oregon  found  from  the  beginning 
its  champions,  it  must  be  confessed  that  Oregon's  significance 
for  the  West  as  such  played  a  greater  part  than  did  Oregon 
as  an  entity.  The  westerners,  those  of  the  Mississippi  valley, 
saw  in  the  action  of  their  brothers  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard  a 
disposition  to  subordinate  to  their  own  interests  the  functions 
of  the  government.  Each  additional  territory,  then,  was  a 
potential  State,  and  each  State  meant  votes  in  both  houses  of 
Congress. 

Obviously  this  conclusion  that  the  Oregon  Question  was  for 
the  most  part  a  subordinate  phase  of  some  other  national  issue 
does  not  in  any  way  affect  one's  opinions  of  the  territory  itself, 
its  history  and  its  development.  As  a  matter  of  fact  Oregon 
gained  immensely  by  being  thus  brought  into  prominence;  no 
territory  had  been  so  liberally  advertised  for  so  long  a  period; 
no  territory  was  more  bountifully  treated  in  the  disposal  of  the 
public  domain,  so  that  emigration  thereto  was  vastly  stimulated 
and  the  disadvantage  of  its  distance  from  the  old  settled  por- 
tions of  the  Union  to  a  large  degree  overcome.  And  in  the 
end  Oregon  became  a  State  much  more  easily  than  had  been 
the  case  with  most  territories. 


FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  393 

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Crittenden  Papers,  Library  of  Congress,  Division  of  MSS. 

Debates  in  Congress,  1824-1833. 

Eclectic  Magazine. 

Edinburgh  Review. 

Eraser's  Magazine. 

Foreign  Quarterly  Review. 

Gallatin,  A.,  Writings  of  Albert  Gallatin,  (Ed.  Adams).  (Lippin- 
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Gallatin,  J.,  A  great  peace  maker;  the  diary  of  James  Gallatin, 
secretary  to  Albert  Gallatin,  1813-1827.  (Scribners,  1914.) 

Garrison,  G.  P.,  Texan  Diplomatic  Correspondence.  (Annual  re- 
port of  the  American  Historical  Association,  1908;  Vol.  II, 
parts  1-3.) 


394  LESTER  BURRELL  SHIPPEE 

Colder,  F.  A.,  Russian  Expansion  on  the   Pacific,  1641-1850.     (A. 

C.  Clarke,  1914.) 
Greenhow,  R.,  Memoir,  historical  and  political,  on  the  northwest 

coast  of  North  America.     (U.  S.  1840.) 
Greenhow,    R.,    The    history    of    Oregon    and    California,    4th    ed. 

(Freeman  and  Bolles,  1847.) 
Hansard,   Parliamentary  Debates. 
Hertslet,  Map  of  Europe  by  treaty. 
Holman,  F.  V.,  Dr.  John  McLoughlin.     (Clark,  1907.) 
Jefferson,    T.,    The    works    of    Thomas    Jefferson.      (Ed.    Ford.) 

(Putnam,  1904-5.) 
Jenkins,  J.  S.,  James  Knox  Polk  and  a  history  of  his  administration. 

(1851.) 

Judson,  K.  B.,  Subject  index  to  the  history  of  the  Pacific  north- 
west and  Alaska.     (State  of  Washington,  1913.) 
Lane-Poole,  S.,  The  life   of  the   Right   Honorable  Stratford   Can- 
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(Appleton,  1857.) 
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American  Historical  Association,  1904.) 

McLaughlin,  A.  C.,  Lewis  Cass.     (Houghton,  Mifflin,  1909.) 
Marshall,  W.   I.,   Acquisition   of  Oregon  and   the  long  suppressed 

evidence   about    Marcus   Whitman.      (Lowman    &    Hanford, 

1911.) 

Monroe,  J.,  Writings  of  James  Monroe.     (Putnam,  1898-1903.) 
National  Intelligencer. 
New  England  Magazine. 
Niles'  Weekly  Register. 
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3d  Session.) 

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CMcClurg.  1910.) 

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Poore,   B.    P.,  The  Political   register  and   congressional   directory. 

(Houorhton,  Osgood,  1878.) 
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as    minister,     diplomatist,     and     statesman.      (Ed.    Francis.) 

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presidents.    1789-1887.      (Washington,   1896-99.) 
Richmond  Enquirer. 
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January,  1819.     (Bentley,  1819.>     1st  Ed. 
Rush,   R..   Residence   at   the   court   of   London,   1819-1827.      Carey, 

Lea  fc  Blanchard,  1833.) 
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(Longmans,   1887.) 
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FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF  OREGON  395 

Thornton,  J.  Q.,  Oregon  and  California  in  1848.     (Harpers,  1849.) 

Transactions  of  the  Oregon  Pioneer  Association. 

Treaties  and  Conventions.     (U.  S.  1871.) 

Tyler,  L.  G.,  The  Letters  and  times  of  the  Tylers.  (Whittet  and 
Shepperson,  1884-96.) 

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principally  by  the  New  Hampshire  historical  society.  (Ed. 
Van  Tyne.)  (McClure,  Phillips,  1902.) 

Webster,  D.,  The  writings  and  speeches  of  Daniel  Webster.  (Na- 
tional Ed.)  (Little,  Brown,  1903.) 

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1845.) 


DOCUMENT 

Letter,  Jesse  Applegate  to  W .  H.  Rees,  Secretary  Oregon 
Pioneer  Association. 

Yoncalla,  Oregon,  Dec.  25th,  1874. 
W.  H.  Rees,  Esq., 

Sec.  O.  P.  A. 

Dear  Sir: 

Your  letter  informing  me  that  I  had  been  named  as  a  speaker 
to  your  association  at  the  fair  ground  on  the  15th  June  next 
has  been  received.  I  will  not  be  present. 

Did  my  circumstances  permit,  it  would  afford  me  great 
pleasure  to  meet  my  old  friends  and  neighbors  on  that  happy 
occasion. 

Many  of  them  crossed  the  plains  when  I  did,  and  we  have 
shared  the  toils  and  dangers  of  the  journey,  and  the  privations 
and  hardships  of  settling  a  new  country  together.  May  they 
long  enjoy  in  honor  the  just  fruits  of  their  enterprise. 

It  would  be  a  great  enjoyment  once  more  to  meet  them  and 
present  them  with  an  address.  There  are  many  pleasant  and 
flattering  things  I  could  truthfully  say  to  them,  and  some 
scraps  of  history  in  which  some  of  the  early  settlers  of  Oregon 
deserve  honorable  mention  yet  untold,  which  I  should  like  to 
see  go  on  the  record. 

The  pioneers  of  the  U.  S.  are  of  illustrious  descent.  Their 
forefathers  were  that  band  of  heroes  who  shed  their  blood  for 
the  rights  of  conscience  in  Europe  three  centuries  ago.  And 
rightly  appreciating  the  blessings  of  civil  and  religious  liberty, 
they  ran  all  risks  and  endured  all  hardships  to  plant  these 
precious  seeds  in  a  virgin  soil.  They  have  taken  deep  root, 
and,  watered  with  the  blood  of  patriotism,  they  have  borne 
abundant  fruit. 

From  Plymouth  Rock  to  Cape  Disappointment,  from  Mexico 
to  the  Pole,  all  is  sacred  to  liberty.  Multitudes  of  men  of  all 


398  LETTER  OF  JESSE  APPLEGATE 

races,  colors  and  languages  live  together  in  peace  and  unity, 
each  seeking  happiness  in  his  own  manner,  all  free  and  equal — 
each  worshipping  God  as  seemeth  best  to  himself. 

It  seems  to  the  purpose  of  the  Deity  that  the  human  race 
should  increase  in  knowledge,  virtue  and  happiness,  and  men, 
as  the  physical  forces  of  nature,  are  but  the  instruments  in  His 
hands  to  effect  His  purposes.  When  the  world  is  ready  for 
a  physical  advance,  the  agent  is  found  to  carry  it  into  effect. 
So  in  moral  reform,  the  nation,  race  or  individual  is  always 
found  prepared  to  meet  the  crisis;  and  though  the  physical 
forces  have  existed  through  all  time  precisely  as  they  exist 
today,  they  remain  hidden  in  the  womb  of  nature  until  a  knowl- 
edge of  them  is  a  necessity.  So  of  moral  progress — the  occa- 
sion calls  forth  the  man. 

In  this  view  of  the  case  there  is  little  honor  due  the  human 
more  than  the  physical  agent ;  he  executes  the  purpose  assigned 
him  and  passes  off  the  stage  of  action,  just  as  the  old  machine  is 
superseded  by  a  superior  or  later  invention. 

So  it  is  with  the  race  of  pioneers.  We  were  in  our  day 
precisely  adapted  mentally  and  physically  to  perform  the  part 
assigned  us  in  the  march  of  civilization,  and  no  matter  what 
our  individual  motives  as  individuals,  as  a  class  we  have  well 
executed  the  purposes  of  our  creation.  But  like  the  scythe, 
the  sickle  and  the  shovel  plow,  the  best  of  tools  among  the 
roots  and  stumps  of  a  new  land,  we  will  be  thrown  aside  and 
forgotten  now  our  work  is  done. 

Descended  from  the  old  Puritans  of  England,  the  love  of 
liberty  is  as  natural  to  us  as  the  color  of  our  skins.  A  life  of 
many  generations  on  the  border  between  the  civilized  and  the 
savage  has  not  only  trained  us  to  such  a  life  of  hardship  and 
adventure,  but  fits  us  for  its  enjoyment.  The  pioneer  does 
not  settle  down  to  stay,  he  only  halts — he  can  no  more  bear  to 
be  crowded  into  cities  than  his  half-brother,  the  savage;  while 
the  range  is  good,  firewood  convenient  and  game  plenty  he 
may  remain  until  the  near  approach  of  the  pursuing  multitude. 
When  these  arrive,  with  the  din  of  machinery  and  the  snort  of 


LETTER  OF  JESSE  APPLEGATE  399 

the  engine,  the  pioneer  follows  the  beaver  to  a  more  quiet 
land. 

True,  there  are  some  among  us  who  differ  from  the  rest, 
who  came  to  preach  the  gospel  to  the  heathen.  They  are  enti- 
tled to  honor  for  their  motive,  however  small  their  success. 

But  for  myself  and  those  of  my  class  I  claim  no  higher 
motive  for  coming  here  than  the  inherent  restlessness  of  our 
nature,  and  if  we  have  done  any  praiseworthy  thing  it  has  only 
been  incidental  to  aims  purely  selfish,  and  so  far  from  being 
proud  of  the  years  I  have  been  in  this  country,  I  am  ashamed 
to  confess  the  insufficient  motives  upon  which  I  acted. 

Most  of  us  were  well-to-do  farmers  or,  rather,  graziers,  in 
the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  had  young  and  growing  families 
and  the  means  to  educate  them  up  to  the  requirements  of  civ- 
ilization, which  must  overtake  us  in  the  end.  We  fled  these 
advantages  to  a  land  almost  unknown,  and  to  be  reached  only 
by  a  journey  so  long  and  exhaustive  that  there  was  no  more 
retrieving  it  than  to  return  from  the  grave. 

Yet  we  started  with  slow  moving  ox  teams,  encumbered  with 
our  wives  and  children  and  all  our  worldly  wealth,  to  cross 
a  continent  intersected  by  great  rivers  and  high  mountain 
ranges  and  the  way  beset  by  fierce  and  treacherous  enemies. 

Those  who  came  to  Oregon  in  1843  can  never  forget  the 
toils,  the  dangers,  the  sufferings  of  that  journey,  nor  the  years 
of  want  and  struggle  that  followed  after ! 

True,  our  coming  incidentally  established  or  at  least  has- 
tened the  establishment  of  the  Republic  on  the  shores  of  the 
Pacific.  But  is  even  this  much  of  honor  our  due?  Is  it  not 
rather  the  due  of  Senator  Benton,  whose  far-seeing  statesman- 
ship comprehended  at  that  early  day  the  great  value  of  our 
Pacific  possessions,  and  whose  sagacity  directed  him  to  the 
choice  of  the  proper  instruments  to  secure  them? 

Decree  a  statue  to  the  Hon.  Thos.  H.  Benton,  if  you  choose, 
but  let  his  humble  and  almost  blind  instruments  slip  away  to 
their  unknown  graves.  Very  respectfully, 

JESSE  APPLEGATE. 


NAMING  AND  RESERVATION  OF  THE  OREGON  CAVES. 
From  the  Report  of  the  Oregon  Conservation   Commission, 


"OREGON  CAVES" 

"In  1909  Mr.  C.  B.  Watson,  one  of  the  members  of  the  Com- 
mission,  called  the  attention  of  the  Commission  to  the  beauty 
and  grandeur  of  the  Josephine  County  caves  and  asked  that 
steps  be  taken  to  preserve  and  keep  them  in  their  original 
beauty  as  a  national  monument.  The  Commission  took  up 
the  matter  with  Mr.  Gifford  Pinchot,  then  Forester  of  the 
United  States,  and  on  July  12,  1909,  the  caves  were  by  procla- 
mation of  President  Taft  duly  set  apart  as  a  national  monu- 
ment under  an  act  approved  June  8,  1906,  under  the  name 
'Oregon  Caves/  These  caves  are  under  the  immediate  care 
of  the  Forest  Service,  being  in  a  national  forest.  They  are  of 
great  beauty  and  will  be  preserved  as  a  public  monument 
forever." 


INDEX 


INDEX  TO  VOLUME  XX 


Airplane  and  Stage  Coach,  224. 

Applegate,  Jesse,  views  the  race  of  pio- 
neers as  but  instrumentalities  for 
Deity  in  His  purpose  to  increase 
knowledge,  virtue  and  happiness  of 
human  race,  397-9. 

ASTORIA  FORT,  THE  BRITISH  SIDE  OF  THE 
RESTORATION  OF,  243-260;  305-330; 
new  documentary  sources  prepare  for 
a  true  verdict  on  the  procedures  of 
the  participants  in  the  restoration  of 
Astoria,  243;  opportunities  given 
writer  by  British  Foreign  Office  for 
research  on  this  problem,  243-4; 
characteristic  aggressiveness  common 
to  British  and  Americans  cause  of 
much  of  the  difficulty  in  their  rela- 
tions, 244-5;  parallel  plans  of  North 
West  Company  and  John  Jacob 
Astor,  245-6;  sources  of  confusion 
as  to  relative  priorities  of  explora- 
tions of  British  and  Americans  as 
bases  of  their  respective  claims,  246-7; 
the  English  point  of  view  and  William 
Pitt's  plan  for  colonization  of  this  re- 
gion based  on  it,  247-9;  the  conflict- 
ing views  of  the  Americans  and  their 
different  projects  based  on  them,  250; 
correspondence  through  which  the 
movement  and  procedure  for  restora- 
tion develops,  250-60;  uncertainty  of 
the  Nor'westers  as  to  the  protection 
that  the  British  government  would  af- 
ford them  in  trade  ventures  in  the 
Oregon  Country,  305-7;  the  course  of 
events  touching  the  foreign  relations 
of  the  U.  S.  from  1815-17  of  which 
the  dispatching  of  the  Ontario  was  a 
part,  307-9;  the  report  that  the  On- 
tario was  proceeding  to  the  Columbia 
River  "to  seize  and  destroy  the  es- 
tablishment and  trade  of  the  North 
West  Company  on  that  coast"  caused 
Simon  McGillivray  of  that  concern  to 
institute  inquiries,  309-11;  this  de- 
velops a  line  of  correspondence  which 
provides  that  the  British  government 
shall  not  contest  the  point  of  pos- 
session of  the  Columbia  River  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  war  but  does  not 
admit  the  validity  of  the  title  of  the 
U.  S.  government  to  the  settlement 
atad  in  which  its  irregular  mode  of 
procedure  to  secure  restoration  is 
deprecated,  311-20;  report  on  the  es- 
tablishment constituting  Fort  George, 
and  the  proceedings  of  restoration, 
320-5;  British  commissioners  negoti- 


ating treaty  of  1818  express  amaze- 
ment at  claim  of  priority  of  discovery 
and  occupation  by  U.  S.,  325-6; 
Adams'  response  to  their  views  re- 
garded as  contentious,  326-30. 

B 

Battleship  Oregon,  The,  224. 

Blue  Bucket  Mine,  where  was  it?  219-20. 

BOUNDARY  OF  OREGON,  THE  NORTHERN, 
25-34;  the  more  or  less  consistent 
positions  of  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain  in  their  conflicting 
claims  to  the  Oregon  Country,  25; 
course  of  events  that  led  to  the  dis- 
closure of  the  document  containing 
the  request  that  the  Hudson's  Bay 
Company  remove  its  principal  trading 
post  to  the  north  side  of  the  Columbia, 
25-6;  George  Canning's  attention  di- 
rected to  the  British  interests  in  Ore- 
gon, 26;  primacy  of  economic  motive 
in  impelling  to  interest  in  Oregon,  26; 
current  error  as  to  who  initiated 
movement  to  select  site  of  Fort  Van- 
couver, 27;  Governor  J.  H.  Pelly  out- 
lines basis  for  British  claim  to  Oregon 
Country,  27-33. 

BOUNDARIES,  THE  NORTHWEST,  331-44; 
Sir  George  Simpson  answers  Henry 
Addington's  queries  relating  to  re- 
sources and  history  of  the  Pacnic 
Northwest,  333-95  J-  H.  Pelly  answers 
queries  of  William  Huskisson  relating 
to  resources  and  history  of  the  Pacific 
Northwest,  339-44. 


Canning,  George,  political  service  of,  26. 

CHRISTIANITY,  BEGINNINGS  OF,  IN  ORE- 
GON, 159-72;  religious  influence  of 
early  trappers  and  traders,  160;  Iro- 
quois  deserters  from  the  Hunt  party 
start  movement  culminating  in  dele- 
gation going  to  St.  Louis  on  religious 
mission,  160-1;  Dr.  McLoughlin  con- 
ducts services  at  Fort  Vancouver,  162; 
planting  of  Roman  Catholic  work  in 
Oregon,  162;  knowledge  of  Indian 
trip  to  St.  Louis  rouses  Dr.  Wilbur 
Fisk  and  the  Jason  Lee  party  is  or- 
ganized, 163;  first  sermon  preached  in 
the  Willamette  Valley,  163;  the  great 
reinforcement,  1840,  166;  first  pro- 
testant  church,  167;  American  Board 
commissions  Dr.  Parker,  who  selects 
Dr.  Marcus  Whitman  as  companion, 
1 68;  the  Whitman,  Spalding,  •  Gray 


[403] 


INDEX 


party  and  mission  establishments,  168- 
9;  Reverend  Harvey  Clark  and  John 
S.  Griffin  begin  activities  on  Tualatin 
plain,  169;  Dr.  George  H.  Atkinson 
represents  Congregationalism,  1 70 ; 
Baptists,  Presbyterians  and  Episco- 
palians lay  foundations,  170-2. 
Corvallis  in  1855,  107. 


Earthquakes,  the  frequency  of  slight, 
222. 

F 

FISHER,  REVEREND  EZRA,  CORRESPOND- 
ENCE OF,  95-137;  strength  of  different 
denominations  in  Salem  in  1854,  97; 
beginning  of  organized  activity  of 
Baptist  church  in  Portland,  99;  size 
and  prospects  of  Portland  in  1854,  99. 


Gaston,  Joseph,  participates  in  promo- 
tion of  Dayton-Sheridan  railroad,  145. 

Gold  diggings  excitement  near  Fort  Col- 
ville,  121-123. 

H 

Hembree,   Captain,  monument  for,   224. 


Indian  war  terror,  127-8. 

Indian  fighters,  encampment  of,  223. 

J 

K 
L 

M 

Miscellany  notes,  225-8. 
N 

Nachess  Trail,  examination  of,  225. 


Oregon  Caves,  the  naming  and  reserva- 
tion of,  400. 

OREGON,  THE  FEDERAL  RELATIONS  OF, 
35-93J  173-218;  261-295;  345-3955  Sir 
George  Simpson  gives  British  govern- 
ment information  as  to  situation  in 
Oregon,  35-6;  emphasizes  attitude  of 
H.  B.  Co.  as  to  British  interests  ^n 
the  Oregon  Country,  36-7;  British 
government  presses  overture  American 
delays  acceptance,  37-9;  the  tripartite 
project  including  California,  Texas 
and  Oregon,  39-41 ;  progress  with  the 
Oregon  issue  in  hands  of  Pakenham 
and  his  rejection  of  the  American 
offer,  41-50;  British  attempt  to  re- 
open negotiations,  51-4;  the  Oregon 
question  uppermost  in  Congress  on 


the  phase  of  giving  notice  of  termina- 
tion of  joint  occupation,  55-82;  Ore- 
gon legislative  measures  before  Con- 
gress, 83-93 !  opening  of  negotiations 
that  consummated  treaty  of  1846,  173- 
4;  arbitration  of  issues  proposed  but 
not  accepted,  17.4-8;  proposition  for 
renewal  of  negotiations  and  Folk's  at- 
titude towards  it,  178;  progress 
towards  agreement  on  terms  of  treaty, 
178-86;  Secretary  Buchanan  refuses  to 
draft  message  submitting  it  to  Sen- 
ate, 186-7;  Senate  advises  Polk  to 
accept  and  ratifies  but  not  without 
strenuous  opposition,  187-91;  who  was 
the  "instrument  preserving  the  peace 
of  the  world?"  191-2;  consideration  of 
possible  explanations  of  Folk's  course 
on  the  Oregon  issue,  193-218;  steps 
to  provide  territorial  organization  and 
other  legislative  needs  for  Oregon 
balked  in  Congress  through  injection 
of  slavery  issue,  261-9;  the  Ben  ton 
letter  to  the  people  of  Oregon,  269-71  ; 
Folk's  attitude  on  the  issue  called 
out,  269-71;  Oregon  issue  swal- 
lowed up  in  greater  issue  of 
slavery  and  its  extension,  272-4; 
Oregon  issues  with  slavery  exten- 
sion uppermost  in  the  Senate,  274- 
84;  compromise  committee  provided 
and  its  bill  passed,  384-8;  House 
promptly  defeats  Senate  measure  and 
passes  bill  of  its  own,  288-90;  Oregon 
territorial  organization  act  passed  and 
signed  by  President,  290-95;  increas- 
ing annual  migrations  to  Oregon,  340- 
6;  gradual  modifications  of  its  organic 
law,  346-8;  advent  of  territorial  offi- 
cials in  Oregon,  348-9;  failure  of  fed- 
eral aid  in  Cayuse  war,  349-51; 
astounding  ideas  of  President  Taylor 
as  to  advisable  policy  towards  Oregon 
and  California,  352-3;  land  legislation 
for  Oregon,  3S3-*7:  relation  of  Dr. 
McLoughlin  to  land  question,  357-60; 
Thurston's  manipulations  to  deprive 
Dr.  McLoughlin  of  his  rights,  360-3;  ad- 
justment of  Hudson's  Bay  Company's 
claims,  363-4;  Indian  war  claims,  364- 
6;  protection  of  emigrants,  367;  pro- 
jects for  transcontinental  railway, 
367-70;  growth  of  population  and  ex- 
tension of  settlements  and  carving  of 
hew  territories  out  of  old  Oregon  ter- 
ritory, 370-3;  pressure  for  admission 
as  a  state,  373-9;  issues  in  constitu- 
tional convention,  379-80;  the  Oregon 
constitution  and  question  of  admission 
of  Oregon  before  Congress  becomes 
involved  with  issue  of  slavery  exten- 
sion and  general  party  politics,  380-9; 
marking  of  the  boundary,  390;  a 
summary  of  varying  fortunes  of  the 
Oregon  question,  391-2;  bibliography, 
393-5- 

Oregon  pioneers,  annual  meeting  of,  222. 

Oregon  Spectator,  tablet  marking  site 
of  its  first  issue,  297-300. 


[404] 


INDEX 


Pacific  Railway  dates,  221. 

Pelly,  Governor  J.  H.,  outlines  to 
George  Canning  basis  of  British  claim 
to  Oregon  Country,  27-33. 

PIONEER,  THE,  231-3;  letter  to  Board  of 
Regents  of  University  of  Oregon  re- 
questing designation  of  spot  for  erec- 
tion of  monument  as  memorial  to 
Oregon  pioneers,  231-2;  expression  of 
admiration  of  genius  of  Sculptor  A. 
Phimister  Proctor,  232-3. 

Pioneer,  The,  Mr.  Teal's,  224. 

Pioneers,  Oregon,  death  lists  of,  139, 
229,  303-4- 

PIONEERS,  QUALITIES  OF  THE  OREGON, 
235-242;  experience  and  training  of 
type  of  people  who  became  founders 
of  Oregon,  235-8;  occasions  on  which 
their  qualities  have  been  demonstrated, 
238-41;  the  statue  as  symbolizing  and 
immortalizing  these  qualities,  241-2. 

POLK  AND  OREGON — WITH  A  PAKENHAM 
LETTER,  301-2;  expression  of  the  views 
of  the  "49  men"  and  of  "54°-4o' 
men"  and  the  relative  strength  of 
these  in  Congress,  301-2. 

Portland  and  prospects  in  1854,  99. 


RAILROAD,  HISTORY  OF  THE  NARROW 
GAUGE,  IN  THE  WILLAMETTE  VALLEY, 
141-58;  transportation  situation  in  the 
Willamette  Valley  in  the  latter  705, 
141 ;  plans  for  the  extensions  of  the 
system,  142;  its  transportation  effects, 
fate  under  Villard  and  the  final  dis- 
position of  it,  142;  its  initial  financ- 
ing, bankruptcy,  reorganization  and 
later  finances,  143;  conditions  leading 
to  promotion  of  the  Dayton-Sheridan 
line,  144;  details  of  its  early  finances, 
145;  becomes  property  of  Scotch  buy- 
ers organized  as  Willamette  Valley 
Railroad  Company,  145;  equipment  of 
the  road,  146;  a  progressive  period  of 
railroad  construction  in  the  Pacific 
Northwest,  146;  extensions  of  narrow 
gauge  mileage  on  east  and  west  sides 
in  early  '8os,  148;  lines  of  traffic 
operated,  149;  great  scheme  of  junc- 
tion at  Winnemucca  with  Central  Pa- 
cific line,  149-50;  Villard  wins  con- 
trol to  protect  the  Oregon  and  Cali- 
fornia from  competition,  150-1;  insti- 
tutes policy  to  make  leased  lines  feed- 
ers to  Oregon  and  California  railroad, 
151;  ruined  road  finally  taken  over  by 
Southern  Pacific  Railroad,  151-2;  law 
suits  over  repudiated  lease,  152; 
restoration  of  road  and  Dundee  and 
Portland  extension,  153-4;  gravitation 
to  Southern  Pacific,  154;  Ray's  Land- 
ing bridge  project,  155;  public  levee 
of  Portland  seized  for  terminal,  155; 
Huntington's  large  projects  in  the 
early  '905,  156-7;  financial  transac- 


tions involved  in  the  acquisition  of  the 
narrow  gauge  system  by  him,  157. 

Rainier,  the  name  of  Mount,  221. 

Reid,  William,  heads  company  of 
Scotch  buyers  of  "Yamhill"  railroad, 
145;  large  financial  and  promotion 
activities  of,  in  Oregon,  147. 

s 

School  enterprises  in  Oregon  in  1855, 
109. 

SNAKE  RIVER  IN  HISTORY,  THE,  1-23; 
portrayal  of  conditions  incident  to  its 
discovery  by  Meriwether  Lewis,  1-2; 
William  Clark  names  it  Lewis  River, 
3;  the  name  "Snake,"  that  of  the 
Indians  inhabiting  its  basin,  supplants 
the  name  Lewis,  3;  versions  as  to  why 
the  tribe  was  so  named,  3;  Jefferson's 
statement  of  loss  suffered  in  Lewis' 
death,  4;  the  prehistoric  roads  of  the 
region,  4-5;  David  Thompson  erects 
first  building  in  what  is  now  the  state 
of  Idaho,  6;  Andrew  Henry  estab- 
lished Fort  Henry  on  the  Snake,  6-7; 
adventures  of  three  hunters  in  Henry's 
company,  Edward  Robinson,  John  Ho- 
back  and  Jacob  Rizner,  7-8;  they  lead 
the  Wilson  Price  Hunt  party  through 
to  Fort  Henry,  8-9;  Donald  McKenzie 
sent  out  to  establish  post  among  Nez 
Perces,  9;  John  Reed  returns  to 
cache  at  Caldron  Linn,  10;  Reed's 
second  visit  to  Snake  River  country 
and  first  Indian  masacre  in  the 
Snake  River  valley,  10-11;  scenes  of 
tragedy  on  the  Oregon  trail  along  the 
Snake,  11-14;  complications  from  dif- 
fering marriage  customs  of  white  and 
red  race,  14-15;  history  of  Fort  Boise, 
15-16;  the  massacre  of  the  Vanorman 
train,  16-17;  the  acquisition  of  the 
horse,  the  recession  of  the  buffalo  and 
the  Oregon  trail,  17;  pioneers  and 
gold  seekers  as  state  makers,  18;  the 
new  factor  making  history  in  the 
Snake  River  valley,  19-23. 


The  Cascades,   102,   104,  127. 

The    Dalles,    1854,    103;  mines    on    the 

upper  Columbia  cause  importance  of, 

124. 

u 

University,     Territorial,     removed    from 
Corvallis  to  Jacksonville,   107. 


Villard,  Henry,  large  activity  of,  in 
railway  construction  and  operation  in 
the  Pacific  Northwest,  146. 


Yreka    as    large    as    Portland    in    1855, 
112-3. 


[405] 


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