WHITMAN SEMINARY AND COLLEGE.
Many institutions of learning have been erected and endowed by the generosity of the rich, but Whitman Seminary and College had its foundation laid in faith and prayer. Viewed from a worldly standpoint, backed only by a poor missionary, whose possessions could be packed upon the back of a mule, the outlook did not seem promising. During all the years of his missionary service in Oregon, none knew better the value of the patriotic Christian service of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, than did the Rev. Dr. Cushing Eells and his good wife. After the massacre, Dr. Eells, and all his co-workers were moved under military escort to the Willamette, but he writes:
"My eyes were constantly turned east of the Cascade Range, a region I have given the best years of my life to."
It was not until 1859 when the country was declared open, that he visited Walla Walla, and stood at the "Great grave of Dr. Whitman and his wife." Standing there upon the consecrated spot, he says:
"I believe that the power of the Highest came upon me." And there he solemnly vowed that he would do something to honor the Christian martyrs whose remains rested in that grave. He says: "I felt as though if Dr. Whitman were alive, he would prefer a high school for the benefit of both sexes, rather than a monument of marble."
He pondered the subject and upon reaching home, sought the advice of the Congregational Association. The subject was carefully canvassed by those who well knew all the sad history, and the following note was entered upon the record:
"In the judgment of this association, the contemplated purpose of Brother C. Eells to remove to Waiilatpui, to establish a Christian school at that place, to be called the Whitman Seminary, in memory of the noble deeds and great works and the fulfillment of the benevolent plans of the late lamented Dr. Whitman and his wife: And his further purpose to act as home missionary in the Walla Walla Valley, meets our cordial approbation and shall receive our earnest support."
Dr. Eells at once resigned from the Tualitin Academy, where he was then teaching, and in 1859 and '60 obtained the charter for the Whitman Seminary. Dr. Eells had hoped to be employed by the Home Missionary Society, but that organization declined, as its object was not to build seminaries and colleges, but to establish churches. He bought from the American Board for $1,000 the farm of 640 acres where Dr. Whitman had toiled for eleven years.
It was Dr. Eells' idea to build a seminary directly upon this consecrated ground, and gather a quiet settlement about the school. But he soon found that it would be better to locate the seminary in the village, at that time made up of five resident families and about one hundred men. It, however, was in sight of the "Great grave."
Here the Eells family settled down upon the farm for hard work to raise the funds necessary to erect the buildings necessary for the seminary. He preached without compensation up and down the valley upon the Sabbath, and like Paul, worked with his hands during the week. His first Summer's work on the farm brought in $700; enough nearly to pay three-fourths of its cost; thus year after year Dr. Eells and his faithful wife labored on and on. He plowed and reaped, and cut cord wood, while she made butter, and raised chickens and saved every dollar for the one grand purpose of doing honor to their noble friends in the "Great grave" always in sight.
Rarely in this world has there been a more beautiful demonstration of loyalty and friendship, than of Dr. and Mrs. Eells. They lived and labored on the farm for ten years, and endured all the privations and isolations common to such a life. An article in the "Congregationalist" says:
"Mother Eells' churn with which she made four hundred pounds of butter for sale, ought to be kept for an honored place in the cabinet of Whitman College."
It was by such sacrifices that the first $4,000 were raised to begin the buildings. Five years had passed after the charter was granted, before the seminary was located, and then only on paper. And this was seven years before the completion of the first school building; the dedication of which occurred on October 13, 1866.
The first principal was the Rev. P. B. Chamberlain, who also organized and was first pastor of the Congregational Church at Walla Walla. In 1880, under the new impulse given to the work by the Rev. Dr. G. H. Atkinson, of Portland, Whitman Seminary developed into Whitman College. This was finally accomplished in 1883. During that year, College Hall was erected at a cost of $16,000. During 1883 and 1884, in the same spirit he had at all times exhibited, Dr. Eells felt it his duty to visit New England in the interest of the institution. He says:
"It was the hardest year's work I ever did, to raise that sixteen thousand dollars."
The old pioneer would much rather have cut cord wood or plowed his fields, if that would have brought in the money for his loved college. The Christian who reads Dr. Eells' diary during the closing years of his life, will easily see how devoted he was to the work of honoring the memory of the occupants of the "Great grave." His diary of May 24, 1890, says:
"The needs of Whitman College cause serious thought. My convictions have been that my efforts in its behalf were in obedience to Divine Will."
June 11, 1890. "During intervals of the night I was exercised in prayer for Whitman College. I am persuaded that my prayers are prevailing. In agony I pray for Whitman College."
October 2d. "Dreamed of Whitman College and awoke with a prayer."
His last entry in his diary was: "I could die for Whitman College."
The grand old man went to his great reward in February, 1893. Will the Christian people of the land allow such a prayer to go unanswered?
In 1884 Mrs. N. F. Cobleigh did some very effective work in canvassing sections of New England in behalf of the college, succeeding in raising $8,000.
Dr. Anderson, after his efficient labors of nine years, with many discouragements, resigned the Presidency in 1891, and the Rev. James F. Eaton, another scholarly earnest man, assumed its duties. In the meantime the struggling village of Walla Walla had grown into the "Garden City," and the demands upon such an institution had increased a hundred fold in the rapid development of the country in every direction. The people began to see the wisdom of the founder, and cast about for means to make the college more efficient. The Union Journal of Walla Walla, said:
"It is our pride. It is the cap sheaf of the educational institutions of Walla Walla, and should be the pride and boast of every good Walla Wallan. It has a corps of exceptionally good instructors, under the guidance of a man possessing breadth of intellect, liberal education and an enthusiastic desire to be successful in his chosen field of labor, with students who rank in natural ability with the best product of any land. But it is deficient in facilities. It lacks room in which to grow. It lacks library and apparatus, the tools of education."
President Eaton and the faculty saw this need and the necessity of a great effort. It was under this pressure, and the united desire of the friends of the college that the Rev. Stephen B. L. Penrose, of the "Yale band" assumed the duties of President in 1894, and began his plans to raise an endowment fund and place the college upon a sound financial basis, as well as to increase its educational facilities and requirements.
It was the misfortune of these educators to enter the field for money at a time of great financial embarrassment, such as has not been experienced in many decades; but it was at the same time their good fortune to enlist the aid of Dr. D. K. Pearsons of Chicago in the grand work with a generous gift of $50,000, provided that others could be induced to add $150,000 to it.
With such a start and with such a man as Dr. Pearsons, there will be no such word as fail. He is a man of faith like Dr. Eells and has long been administering upon his own estate in wise and generous gifts to deserving institutions. With such a man to encourage other liberal givers, the endowment will not stop at $200,000. If Whitman College is to be the Yale and Harvard and Chicago University of the Far West, it must meet with a generous response from liberal givers. Its name alone ought to be worth a million in money. When the people are educated in Whitman history, the money will come and the prayers of Dr. Eells will be answered.
The millions of people love fair play and honest dealing and can appreciate solid work, and they will learn to love the memory of the modest hero, and will be glad to do him honor in so practical a method. It will soon be half a century since Dr. Whitman and his noble wife fell at their post of duty at Waiilatpui. Had Dr. Whitman been a millionaire, a man of noble birth, had he been a military man or a statesman, his praise would have been sung upon historic pages as the praise of others has. But he was only a poor missionary doctor, who lost his life in the vain effort to civilize and Christianize savages, and an army of modern historians seem to have thought, as we have shown in another chapter, that the world would sit quietly by and see and applaud while they robbed him of his richly won honors. In that they have over-reached themselves. The name of Dr. Marcus Whitman will be honored and revered long after the names of his traducers have been obliterated and forgotten.
It is a name with a history, which will grow in honor and importance as the great States he saved to the Union will grow into the grandeur they naturally assume. There is not a clearer page of history in all the books than that Dr. Whitman, under the leading of Providence, saved the States of Oregon, Washington and Idaho to the Union. There is a possibility that by a long and destructive war we might have held them as against the claims of England. There were just two men who prevented that war and those two men were Drs. Whitman and McLoughlin. The latter indirectly by his humane and civilized treatment of the missionaries when he might have crushed them, and the former by his unparalleled heroism in his mid-winter ride to Washington, and his wisdom in piloting the immigrations to Oregon just the year that he did.
History correctly written, will truthfully say, "When Whitman fell at Waiilatpui, one of the grandest heroes of this century went to his great reward." The State of Washington has done well to name a great county to perpetuate his memory; Dr. Eells did a noble act in founding Whitman Seminary, and the time is coming and is near at hand, when the young men and women of the country will prize a diploma inscribed with the magic name of Whitman. Endow the college and endow it generously. Make it worthy of the man whose love of country felt that no task was too difficult and no danger so great as to make him hesitate.
After the endowment is full and complete, a great College Hall should be erected from a patriotic fund, and upon the central pillar should be inscribed: "Sacred to the memory of Dr. Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. While lifting up the banner of the cross in one hand to redeem and save savage souls, they thought it no wrong to carry the flag of the country they loved in the other."
There is no such thing as dividing the honors. They are simply Whitman honors; they lived and labored and achieved together; the bride upon the plains and in the mission home was a heroine scarcely second to the hero who swam icy rivers and climbed the snow-covered mountains in 1842 and 1843, upon his patriotic mission. It is a work that may well engage the patriotic women of America; for true womanhood has never had a more beautiful setting than in the life of Narcissa Whitman. At the death, by drowning, of her only child, that she almost idolized, she bowed humbly and said: "Thy Will be done!" And upon the day of her death, she was mother to eleven helpless adopted children, for whose safety she prayed in her expiring moments.
What an unselfish life she led. In her diary she says, but in no complaining mood: "Situated as we are, our house is the Missionaries' tavern, and we must accommodate more or less all the time. We have no less than seven families in our two houses; we are in peculiar and somewhat trying circumstances; we cannot sell to them because we are missionaries and not traders."
And we see by the record that there were no less than seventy souls in the Whitman family the day of the massacre.
Emerson says: "Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of individual character, and the characteristics of genuine heroism is its persistency."
Where was it ever more strongly marked than in Dr. Whitman? We are told that "History repeats itself." Going back upon the historic pages, one can find the best illustration of Dr. Whitman in faithful old Caleb. Their lives seem to run along similar lines. Both were sent to spy out the land. Both returned and made true and faithful reports. Both were selected for their great physical fitness, and for their fine mental and moral worth; and both proved among the finest specimens of unselfish manhood ever recorded. Turning to the Sacred Record we read that a great honor was ordered for Caleb; not only that he was permitted to enter the promised land, but it was also understood by all, that he should have the choice of all the fair country they were to occupy. His associates sent with him forty years before were terribly afraid of "the giants," and now they had reached "The land of promise," and Joshua had assembled the leaders of Israel to assign them their places. Just notice old Caleb. Standing in view of the meadows and fields and orchards, loaded with their rich clusters of purple grapes, everybody expected he would select the best, for they knew that it was both promised and he deserved it; but Caleb, lifting up his voice so that all could hear, said:
"Lo, I am this day four score and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me; as my strength was then, even so is my strength now for war, both to go out and to come in. Now, therefore, give me this mountain whereof the Lord spoke in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced. If so be, the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said."
Noble, unselfish old Caleb! And how wonderfully like him was our hero thirty-four and a half centuries later. It mattered not that he had saved a great country, twice as large as New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois combined, or thirty-two times as large as Massachusetts. It mattered not that it was accomplished through great peril and trials and sufferings that no man can over-estimate, he never once asked a reward. "Give me this mountain," and he went back to his mission, and resumed his heavy burden, and let others gather the harvest, and "the clusters of purple grapes." There he was found at his post of duty, and met death on that fatal November the 29th, 1847.
When a generous people have made the endowment complete, and built the grand Memorial Hall, they should build a monument at the "Great Grave" at Waiilatpui. Americans are patriotic. They build monuments to their men of science, to their statesmen and to their soldiers. It is right to do so. They are grand object lessons, educating the young in patriotism and virtue and right living. The monument at no grave in all the land will more surely teach all these, than will that at the neglected grave at Waiilatpui. Build the monument and tell your children's children to go and stand uncovered in its shadow, and receive its lessons and breathe in its inspirations of patriotism.
OREGON THEN, AND OREGON, WASHINGTON AND IDAHO NOW.
The beginning of a People, a State or a Nation is always an interesting study, and when the beginning has resulted in a grand success, the interest increases. It is seldom that in the lifetime of the multitudes of living actors, so great a transformation can be seen as that to-day illustrated in the Pacific States. Fifty years ago, the immigrant, after his long journey over arid plains, after swimming rivers and climbing three ranges of mountains, stood upon the last slope, and beheld primeval beauty spread out before him. The millions of acres of green meadows had never been disturbed by a furrow, and in the great forest the sound of the woodman's ax had never been heard.
Coming by way of the great river, as it meets the incoming waves of the Pacific, the scene is still more one of grandeur. Astoria, at that time, had a few straggling huts, and Portland was a village, with its streets so full of stumps as to require a good driver to get through with safety, and was referred to as a town twelve miles below Oregon City.
To the writer nothing has left such an impression of wilderness and solitude as a journey up the Willamette, forty-five years ago, in a birch-bark canoe, paddled by two Indian guides. The wild ducks were scarcely disturbed, and dropped to the water a hundred yards away, and the three-pronged buck, browsing among the lily pads, stopped to look at the unusual invasion of his domain, and went on feeding.
The population of Oregon in that year, 1850, as shown by census, was 13,294, and that included all of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, with a part of Wyoming and Montana.
After years of importunity, Congress had given Oregon a Territorial Government in 1849. Prior to that—from 1843 to 1849—it was an independent American government, for the people and by the people. Notwithstanding the neglect of Oregon by the General Government, and its entire failure to foster or protect, the old pioneers were true and loyal American citizens, and for six years took such care of themselves as they were able, and performed the task so well as to merit the best words of commendation.
The commerce of the country, aside from its furs, was scarcely worth mentioning. The author, in 1851, bought what few salted salmon there were in the market, and shipped them to San Francisco, but wise and prudent advisers regarded it as a risky venture. He would have been considered a wild visionary, indeed, had he even hinted of the shipments of fish now annually made to all parts of the civilized world.
It was then known that the rivers were filled with fish. In the spring of the year, the smaller streams, leading away from the Columbia, were literally blocked with almost solid masses of fish on their way to their spawning grounds. The bears along the Columbia, as well as the Indians, had an unlimited supply of the finest fish in the world, with scarcely an effort to take them. An Indian on the Willamette, at the foot of the falls, could fill his boat in an hour with salmon weighing from twenty to forty pounds.
In the spring of the year, when the salmon are running up the Willamette, they begin to jump from the water a quarter of a mile before reaching the falls. One could sit in a boat and see hundreds of the great fish in the air constantly. Multitudes of them maimed and killed themselves jumping against the rocks at the falls.
The Indian did not wait for "a rise" or "a bite." He had a hook with an eye socket, and a pole ten feet or more long. The hook he fastened to a deer thong, about two feet long, attached to the lower end of the pole. When ready for fishing the pole was inserted into the socket of the hook, and he felt for his fish, and by a sudden jerk caught it in the belly. The hook was pulled from the pole, and the fish had a play of the two feet of deer thong. But the Indian never stops to experiment; he hauled in his prize.
The great forests and prairies were a very paradise for the hunters of large game. Up to the date of 1842-3, of Dr. Whitman's ride, but a single hundred Americans had settled in Oregon, and they seemed to be almost accidental guests. The immigration in 1842 swelled the list, and the caravan of 1843 started the tide, so that in 1850, as we have seen, the first census showed an American population of 13,294.
In 1890, in contrast, the population of Washington was 349,390; Oregon, 313,707; Idaho, 84,385, and five counties in Southwestern Montana and one in Wyoming, originally Oregon territory, had a population of 65,862, making a total of 813,404. Considering the difficulties of reaching these distant States for many years, this change, in less than half a century, is a wonderful transformation. The Indians had held undisputed possession of the land for generations, and yet, as careful a census as could be made, placed their number at below 75,000. In 1892 the Indian Commissioner marks the number at 21,057.
The great changes are seen in the fact that in 1838 there were but thirteen settlements by white men in Oregon, viz.: That at Waiilatpui, at Lapwai, at the Dalles and near Salem, and the Hudson Bay Forts at Walla Walla, Colville, Fort Hall, Boise, Vancouver, Nisqually, Umpqua, Okanogan and the settlement at Astoria. The old missionaries felt thankful when letters reached them within two years after they were written.
Mrs. Whitman's first letter from home was two years and six months reaching the mission. The most sure and safe route was by way of New York or Montreal to London, around the Horn to the Sandwich Islands, from which place a vessel sailed every year for Columbia. The wildest visionaries at that time had not dreamed of being bound to the East by bands of steel, as Senator McDuffie said: "The wealth of the Indies would be insufficient to connect by steam the Columbia River to the States of the East." Uncle Sam seems to have been taking a very sound and peaceful nap. He did not own California, and was even desirous of trading Oregon for the cod fisheries of Newfoundland.
The debt of gratitude the Americans owe to the men and women who endured the privations of that early day, and educated the Nation into the knowledge of its future glory and greatness, has not been fully appreciated. The settlers of no other States of the frontier encountered such severe tests of courage and loyalty. The Middle States of the Great West, while they had their hardships and trials, were always within reach of the strong arm of the Government, and felt its fostering care, and had many comforts which were wholly beyond the reach of the Oregon pioneers.
Their window glass for years and years was dressed deer skin; their parlor chairs were square blocks of wood; their center tables were made by driving down four sticks and sawing boards by hand for top, the nearest saw mill being four hundred miles off. A ten-penny nail was prized as a jewel, and until Dr. Whitman built his mill, a barrel of flour cost him twenty-four dollars, and in those days that amount of money was equal to a hundred in our times of to-day.
The plows were all wood, and deer thongs took the place of iron in binding the parts together. It was ten years after they began to raise wheat before they had any other implement than the sickle, and for threshing, the wooden flail. It was in the year 1839 the first printing press reached Oregon. It may be marked as among the pioneer civilizers of this now great and prosperous Christian land.
That press has a notable history and is to-day preserved at the State Capital of Oregon as a relic of by-gone days in printing. Long before the civilization of Oregon had begun in 1819, the Congregational Missionaries to the Sandwich Islands had imported this press around the Horn from New England, and from that time up to 1839 it had served an excellent purpose in furnishing Christian literature to the Kanakas. But the Sandwich Islanders had grown beyond it; and being presented with a finer outfit, the First Native Church at Honolulu made a present of the press, ink and paper to the Missions of Waiilatpui, Lapwai and Walker's Plains.
The whole was valued at $450 at that time. The press was located at Lapwai, and used to print portions of Scripture and hymn books in the Nez Perces language, which books were used in all the missions of the American Board. Visitors to these tribes of Indians twenty-five years after the missions had been broken up, and the Indians had been dispersed, found copies of those books still in use and prized as great treasures.
Another interesting event was the building of the first steamer, the Lot Whitcomb, in the Columbia River waters. This steamer was built of Oregon fir and spruce, and was launched December 26th, 1850, at Milwaukee, then a rival of Portland. It was a staunch, well-equipped vessel, one hundred and sixty feet in length; beam, twenty-four feet; depth of hold, six feet ten inches; breadth over all, forty-two feet seven inches; diameter of wheel, nineteen feet; length of bucket, seven feet; dip one foot eight inches, and draft three feet two inches. It was a staunch and elegantly-equipped little vessel; did good service in the early days, making three round trips each week, from Milwaukee to Astoria, touching at Portland and Vancouver, then the only stopping places. The Whitcomb was finally sent to California, made over, named Annie Abernethy, and was used upon the Sacramento River as a pleasure and passenger boat.
These two beginnings, of the printer's art and the steamer, are all the more interesting when compared with the richness and show in the same fields to-day. The palatial ocean traveling steamers and the power presses and papers, scarcely second to any in editorial and news-gathering ability, best tell the wonderful advance from comparatively nothing at that time.
The taxable property of Oregon in 1893 was $168,088,095; in Washington it was $283,110,032; in Idaho, $34,276,000. The manufactories of Oregon in 1893 turned out products to the value of $245,100,267, and Washington, on fisheries alone, yielded a product valued at $915,500. There has been a great falling off, both in Oregon and Washington, in this source of wealth, and the eager desire to make money will cause the annihilation of this great traffic, unless there is better legal protection. Washington, in 1893, reported 227 saw mills and 300 shingle mills and 73 sash and door mills, and a capital invested in the lumber trade of $25,000,000. A wonderful change since Dr. Whitman sawed his boards by hand as late as 1840.
The acres of forest yet undisturbed in Washington are put down at 23,588,512. During President Harrison's term a wooded tract in the Cascade Mountains, thirty-five by forty miles, including Mount Rainier, was withdrawn from entry, and it is expected that Congress will reserve it for a National Park. The statistics relating to wheat, wool and fruits of all kinds fully justify the claim made by Dr. Whitman to President Tyler and Secretary Webster—that "The United States had better by far give all New England for the cod fisheries of Newfoundland than to sacrifice Oregon."
Reading the statistics of wealth of the States comprising the original territory of Oregon, their fisheries, their farm products, their lumber, their mines, yet scarcely begun to be developed, one wonders at the blindness and ignorance of our statesmen fifty or more years ago, who came so near losing the whole great territory. If Secretary Daniel Webster could have stepped into the buildings of Washington, Oregon and Idaho that contained the wonderful exhibit at the World's Fair, he would doubtless have lifted his thoughts with profound gratitude that Dr. Whitman made his winter ride and saved him from making the blunder of all the century.
If old Senator McDuffie who averred that "The wealth of the Indies could not pay for connecting by steam the Columbia River with the States," could now take his place in a palace car of some one of the four great transcontinental lines, and be whirled over "the inaccessible mountains, and the intervening desert wastes," he, too, might be willing to give more than "A pinch of snuff" for our Pacific possessions.
The original boundaries of Oregon contained over 300,000 square miles, which included all the country above latitude 42 degrees and west of the Rocky Mountains. Its climate is mild and delightful, and in great variety, owing to the natural divisions of great ranges of mountains, and the warm ocean currents which impinge upon its shores, with a rapid current from the hot seas of Asia. This causes about seventy per cent of the winds to blow from the southwest, bringing the warmth of the tropics to a land many hundreds of miles north of New York and Boston. It is felt even at Sitka, nearly 2,000 miles further north than Boston, where ice cannot be gathered for summer use, and whose harbor has never yet been obstructed by ice.
The typical features of the climate of Western Oregon are the rains of Winter and a protracted rainless season in Summer. In other words, there are two distinct seasons in Oregon—wet and dry. Snows in Winter and rains in Summer are exceptional. In Eastern Oregon the climate more nearly approaches conditions in Eastern States. There are not the same extremes, but there are the same features of Winter snow, and, in places, of Summer heat. Southern Oregon is more like Eastern than Western Oregon.
In Eastern Oregon the temperature is lower in Winter and higher in Summer than in Western. The annual rainfall varies from seven to twenty inches.
The Springs in Oregon are delightful; the Summers very pleasant. They are practically rainless, and almost always without great extremes of heat.
Fall rains usually begin in October. It is a noteworthy feature of Oregon Summers, that nights are always cool and refreshing.
The common valley soil of the State is a rich loam, with a subsoil of clay. Along the streams it is alluvial. The "beaverdam lands" of this class are wonderfully fertile. This soil is made through the work of the beavers who dammed up streams and created lakes. When the water was drained away, the detritus covered the ground. The soil of the uplands is less fertile than that of the bottoms and valleys, and is a red, brown and black loam. It produces an excellent quality of natural grass, and under careful cultivation, produces good crops of grain, fruits and vegetables. East of the Cascade Mountains the soil is a dark loam of great depth, composed of alluvial deposits and decomposed lava, overlying a clay subsoil. The constituents of this soil adapt the land peculiarly to the production of wheat.
All the mineral salts which are necessary to the perfect development of this cereal are abundant, reproducing themselves constantly as the gradual processes of decomposition in this soil of volcanic origin proceeds. The clods are easily broken by the plow, and the ground quickly crumbles on exposure to the atmosphere.
In Northwestern Oregon, adjacent to the Columbia River, although the dry season continues for months, this light porous land retains and absorbs enough moisture from the atmosphere, after the particles have been partly disintegrated, to insure perfect development and full harvests.
In Southeastern Oregon, especially in the vast areas of fertile lands in Malheur and Snake River Valleys, the soils are much like those of the Northeastern Oregon region, but there is less moisture. Except in a very small portion of this region, irrigation is necessary to successful agriculture. The water supply is abundant and easily applied.
We have made no attempt to write a complete history of this great section or its wealth, but only to outline such facts as will make more impressive the value to the whole people of the distinguished services of the pioneers who saved this garden spot of the world to the people of the United States. "The Flag of Beauty and Glory" waves over no fairer land, or over no more intelligent, prosperous and happy people. All this too has been reached within the memory of multitudes of living actors; in fact it can be said the glow of youth is yet upon the brow of the young States.
The lover of romance in reality will scarcely repress a sigh of regret, that with Oregon and Washington, the western limit of pioneering has been reached, after the strides of six thousand years.
The circuit of the globe has been completed and the curtain dropped upon the farther shores of Oregon and Washington, with a history as profoundly interesting and dramatic as that written on any section of the world. "The Stars and Stripes" now wave from ocean to ocean, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf. It is a nation of grand possibilities, whose history would have been marred for all time to come, had any foreign power, however good or great, held possession of the Pacific States. With China open to the world's commerce; with the young giant Japan inciting all the Far East to a new life and energy, the Pacific States of the Republic stand in the very gateway of the world's footsteps, and commerce and wealth. Only when measured in and by the light of such facts, can we fully estimate the value to the whole people of the Nation of the midwinter ride of our hero, and to the brave pioneers of Oregon.
LIFE ON THE GREAT PLAINS IN PIONEER DAYS.
Nothing better shows the rapid advance of civilization in this country, than the fact that multitudes of the actors of those eventful years of pioneer life in Oregon and California yet live to see and enjoy the wonderful transformation. In fact, the pioneer, most of all others, can, in its greatest fullness, take in and grasp the luxuries of modern life.
Taking his section in a palace car in luxurious ease, he travels in six days over the same road which he wearily traveled, forty-five and fifty years ago, in from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and ninety days. The fact is not without interest to him that for more than a thousand miles of the way on the great central routes, he can throw a stone from the car window into his old camping grounds.
The old plainsmen were not bad surveyors. They may not have been advanced in trigonometry or logarithms, but they had keen eyes and ripe practical judgment, which enabled them to master the situation. The trails marked and traveled by the old missionaries, nine times in every ten, proved the best. Many a time did I, and others, by taking what seemed to be inviting "cutoffs," find out to our sorrow that the old trailers of ten years before us had been wiser.
I make this a chapter of personal experience, not for any personal gratification, but because of the desire to make it real and true in every particular, and because the data and incidents of travel of the old missionaries are meager and incomplete.
The experiences in 1836, 1843 and 1850, were much the same, save and except that in 1850 the way was more plainly marked than in 1836, which then was nothing more than an Indian trail, and even that often misleading. Besides that, the pioneer corps had made passable many danger points, and had even left ferries over the most dangerous rivers.
From 1846 to 1856 were ten years of great activity upon the frontier. The starting points for the journey across the plains were many and scattered, from where Kansas City now stands to Fort Leavenworth.
The time of which I write was 1850. Our little company of seven chosen friends, all young and inexperienced in any form of wild life, resolved upon the journey, and began preparations in 1849 and were ready in March, 1850, to take a steamer at Cincinnati for Fort Leavenworth. We had consulted every authority within reach as to our outfit, both for our safety and comfort, and few voyagers ever started upon the long journey who had nearer the essential things, and so few that proved useless.
In one thing we violated the recommendations of all experienced plainsmen, and that was in the purchase of stock. We were advised to buy only mustangs and Mexican mules, but chose to buy in Ohio the largest and finest mules we could find. Our wagons were selected with great care as to every piece of timber and steel in their make-up, and every leather and buckle in the harness was scrutinized.
Instead of a trunk, each carried clothes and valuables in a two-bushel rubber bag, which could be made water-tight or air-tight, if required. Extra shoes were fitted to the feet of each mule and riding horse and one of the number proved to be an expert shoer. The supply of provisions was made a careful study, and we did not have the uncomfortable experience of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, and run out of flour before the journey was half over.
There is nothing that develops the manhood of a man, or the lack of it, more quickly than life on the plains. There is many a man surrounded by the sustaining influence of the home and of refined society, who seems very much of a man; and yet when these influences are removed, he wilts and dwarfs. I have seen men who had been religious leaders and exemplary in their lives, come from under all such restraints, and, within two months, "swear like troopers."
Our little company was fortunate in being made up of a manly set of young men, who resolved to stand by each other and each do his part. We soon joined the Mt. Sterling Mining Company, led by Major Fellows and Dr. C. P. Schlater, from Mt. Sterling, Ills. They were an excellent set of men and our company was then large enough for protection from any danger in the Indian country, and we kept together without a jar of any kind.
In the year 1850, the Spring upon the frontier was backward. The grass, a necessity for the campaigner upon the plains, was too slow for us, so we bought an old Government wagon, in addition to our regular wagons, filled it with corn, and upon May 1st, struck out through Kansas. It was then unsettled by white people.
On the 5th day of May, we woke up to find the earth enveloped in five inches of snow, and matters looked discouraging, but the sun soon shone out and the snow disappeared and we began to enter into the spirit and enjoyment of the wild life before us.
The Indians were plentiful and visited us frequently, but they were all friendly that year with the whites throughout the border. A war party of the Cheyenne Indians visited us on their way to fight their enemy, the Pawnees. They were, physically, the finest body of men I ever saw. We treated them hospitably and they would have given up their fight and gone with us on a grand buffalo hunt, had we consented. The chief would hardly take no for an answer.
One of the great comforts of the plains traveling in those days, was order and system. Each man knew his duty each day and each night. One day a man would drive; another he would cook; another he would ride on horseback. When we reached the more dangerous Indian country, our camp was arranged for defense in case of an attack, but we always left our mules picketed out to grass all night, and never left them without a guard.
About the most trying labor of that journey was picket duty over the mules at night, especially when the grass was a long distance from the camp, as it sometimes was. After a long day's travel it was a lonesome, tiresome task to keep up all night, or even half of it. The animals were tethered with a rope eighteen feet long buckled to the fore leg, and the other end attached to an iron pin twelve to eighteen inches long, securely driven into the ground. As the animals fed they were moved so as to keep them upon the best pasture. In spite of the best care they would occasionally cross and the mischief would be to pay, unless promptly relieved.
Our greatest fear was from the danger of a stampede, either from Indians or from wild animals. The Indian regards it as a great accomplishment to steal a horse from a white man. One day a well-dressed and very polite Indian came into camp where we were laying by for a rest. He could talk broken English and mapped out the country in the sand over the route we were to travel—told us all about good water and plenty of grass. He informed us that for some days we would go through the good Indian's country, but then we came to the mountains; and then he began to paw the air with his arms and snap an imaginary whip and shout, "Gee Buck—wo haw, damn ye!" Then says our good Indian, "Look out for hoss thieves." Then he got down in the grass and showed us how the Indian would wiggle along in the grass until he found the picket pin and lead his horse out so slowly that the guard would not notice the change, until he was outside the line, when he would mount and ride away.
That very night two of the best horses of the Mt. Sterling Mining Company were stolen in just that way, and to make the act more grievous, they were picketed so near to the tents as to seem to the guards to be perfectly safe. We may have misjudged our "good Indian" who came into camp, but we have always believed that he was there to see whether there were any horses worth stealing, and then did the stealing himself.
We can bear testimony also, that he was a good geographer. His map made in the sand and transferred to paper was perfect, and when we came to the mountains, his "Gee Buck, wo haw, damn ye!" was heard all up and down that mountain. The Indian had evidently been there and knew what he was saying. They gave us but little trouble except to watch our live stock, as the Indian never takes equal chances. He wants always three chances to one, in his favor. To show you are afraid, is to lose the contest with an Indian. I have many times, by showing a brave front, saved my scalp.
Upon one occasion when I had several loose mules leading, I allowed myself unthinkingly to lag for two miles behind the company through a dangerous district. I was hurrying to amend the wrong by a fast trot, when upon a turn in the road a vicious-looking Indian, with his bow half bent and an arrow on the string, stepped from behind a sage bush to the middle of the road and signaled me to stop when twenty feet away.
I was unarmed and made up my mind at once to show no fear. Upon coming within six or eight feet of him, I drove the spurs into my horse and gave such a yell that the Indian had all he could do to dodge my horse's feet. He was evidently astonished and thought, from the boldness of the move, that I had others near by. My horse and mules went on a dead run and I expected, as I leaned forward, every moment to feel his arrow.
I glanced back when fifty yards away and he was anxiously looking back to see who else was coming and I was out of his reach before he had made up his mind. I was never worse frightened.
Upon another occasion I bluffed an Indian just as effectively. With two companions I went to a Sioux village to buy a pair of moccasins. They were at peace and we felt no danger. Most of the men were absent from the village, leaving only a small guard. I got separated from my companions, but found an Indian making moccasins, and I stood in the door and pointed to a new pair about the size I wanted, that hung on the ridge pole, and showed him a pair of handsome suspenders that I would give him for them. He assented by a nod and a grunt, came to the door, took the suspenders and hung them up, deliberately sat down on the floor and took off a dirty old pair he was wearing and threw them to me. I immediately threw them back, and stepping into the tepee, caught hold of the moccasins I had bought, but by a quick motion he snatched them from me.
I then caught hold of the suspenders and bounded out of the door. When fifty feet away I looked back and he had just emerged from his tepee and began loading his rifle. I had emptied both barrels of my shotgun at a plover just before reaching the village and my gun was fortunately unloaded. It gave us equal chances: I stopped still, threw my gun from the strap and began loading. In those days I was something of an expert and before the Indian withdrew his ramrod, I was putting caps on both barrels and he bounded inside his wigwam, and I lost no time in putting a tepee between us, and finding my friends, when we hastily took leave.
Our company took great comfort and pride in our big American mules, trained in civilized Ohio. A pair of the largest, the wheelers in the six-mule team, were as good as setter dogs at night. They neither liked Indians, wolves nor grizzlies; and their scent was so keen they could smell their enemies two hundred yards away, unless the wind was too strong.
When on guard, and in a lonesome, dangerous place, we generally kept close to our long-eared friends, and when they stopped eating and raised their heads and pointed those ponderous ears in any direction, we would drop in the grass and hold ourselves ready for any emergency. They would never resume their feeding until assured that the danger had passed.
And then what faithful fellows to pull! At a word they would plant their feet on a mountain side and never allow the wagon to give back a single foot, no matter how precipitous; and again at the word, they would pull with the precision of a machine.
The off-leader, "Manda," was the handsomest mule ever harnessed. As everybody remarked, "She was as beautiful as a picture." She would pull and stand and hold the wagon as obedient to command as an animal could be, but she was by nature wild and vicious. She was the worst kicker I ever saw. She allowed herself to be shod, seeming to understand that this was a necessity. But no man ever succeeded in riding her. She beat the trick mules in any circus in jumping and kicking.
One night we had a stampede, and one of the flying picket pins struck the mule between the bones of the hind leg, cutting a deep gash, four inches or more long; the swelling of the limb causing the wound to gape open fully two inches. She did not attempt to bear her weight upon the limb, barely touching it to the ground. The flies were very bad, and knowing the animal, and while prizing her so highly, we were all convinced that we must leave her. The train pulled out. It was my duty that morning to bring on the loose stock, and see that nothing of value was overlooked in camp. I was ready to leave, when I went up to the mule that had come with us all the way from home, nearly three thousand miles, and had been a faithful servant, and began petting her, expressing my pity and sorrow that we had to leave her here for the Indians and the wolves. As I rubbed her head and talked to her, the poor dumb brute seemed to understand every word said.
Never before in all the long journey had the famous six-mule team gone without Manda prancing as off leader. She rubbed me with her nose and laid it upon my shoulder, and seemed to beg as eloquently as a dumb beast can, "Don't leave me behind." With it all, there was a kindly look in her eye, I never before had seen. I stood stroking her head for some time, then I patted her neck and walked a little back, but constantly on guard. It was then the animal turned her head and looked at me, and at the same time held up the wounded leg. My friend Moore, who had staid back to assist, was a little distance off, and I called him.
As he came up, I said to him: "This mule has had a change of heart." He put a bridle upon her so that he could hold up her head, and rubbing her side, I finally ventured to take hold of the wounded leg. I rubbed it and fondled it without her showing any symptom of resentment.
I got out instruments, sewed the wound up, and sewed bandages tight about the leg, made a capital dressing and we started, leading Manda. She soon began to bear weight upon the wounded limb, and had no difficulty in keeping up with the train. When the bandages would get misplaced, one could get down in the road with no one to assist, and adjust them. We took Manda all the way, and no handsomer animal ever journeyed across the plains. She was never known to kick afterward.
People call it "instinct in animals," but the more men know and study dumb life, the more they are impressed with their reasoning intelligence. Dr. Whitman's mule, finding camp in the blinding snow storm on the mountains, when the shrewd guide was hopelessly lost; my old horse leading me and my friend in safety through the Mississippi River back water in the great forest of Arkansas, as well as this, which I have told without an embellishment, all teach impressively the duty of kindness that we owe to our dumb friends.
In Mrs. Whitman's diary we frequently find allusion to her faithful pony, and her sympathy with him when the grass is scarce and the work hard, is but an evidence of true nobility in the woman. In a long journey like the one made from Ohio to the Pacific Coast, it is wonderful what an affection grows up between man and his dumb helpers. And there is no mistaking the fact that animals appreciate and reciprocate such kindness. Even our dog was no exception.
As I have started in to introduce my dumb associates, it would be a mistake, especially for my boy readers, to omit Rover. He was a young dog when we started, but he was a dog of thorough education and large experience before he reached the end of his journey. He was no dog with a long pedigree of illustrious ancestors, but was a mixed St. Bernard and Newfoundland, and grew up large, stately and dignified. He was petted, but never spoiled. When he was tired and wanted to ride, he knew how to tell the fact and was never told that he was nothing but a dog.
He was no shirk as a walker, but the hot saleratus dust and sand wore out his feet. We took the fresh skin of an antelope and made boots for him, but when no one was looking at him he would gnaw them off. When the company separated after reaching the coast, Rover, by unanimous consent, went with his favorite master, J. S. Niswander, now a gray-haired, honored citizen of Gilroy, Cal. A few years ago I visited Niswander and Dr. J. Doan, who, with myself, are the only living survivors of our company, and he gave me the history of Rover after I left for Oregon.
Niswander was a famous grizzly bear hunter, and with Rover as a companion, he made journeys prospecting for gold, and hunting, long distances from civilization. When night came the pack mule was picketed near by and a big fire built, with plenty of wood to keep it replenished during the night. Rover laid himself against his master's feet, and in case of danger he would always waken him with a low growl close to his ear, and when this was done, he would lope off in the dark and find out what it was, while Niswander held his gun and revolver ready for use. If the dog came back and lay down he knew at once it was a false alarm and dropped to sleep in perfect security.
At one time he brought among his provisions a small firkin of butter, a great luxury at that time. He took the firkin and set it in the shade of a great red-wood, tumbled off the rest of his goods, picketed his mule, and went off prospecting for gold, telling Rover to take care of the things until he returned. He was gone all day and returned late in the evening, and looking around could not see his firkin of butter. He told me he turned to the old dog and said: "Rover, I never knew you to do such a trick before and I am ashamed of you." The old fellow only hung his head upon being scolded. But soon after Mr. N. noticed a suspicious pile of leaves about the roots of the tree, and when he had turned them aside he found his firkin of butter untouched.
The high wind which had arisen had blown the paper cover from the butter and the dog knew it ought to be covered, and with his feet and nose had gathered the leaves for more than a rod around and covered it up.
The Indians finally poisoned the old dog for the purpose of robbing his master. Said he: "When Rover died I shed more tears than I had shed for years."
While reading, as I have, Mrs. Whitman's daily diary of her journey in 1836, I am most astonished at the lack of all complaints and murmurings. I know so well the perils and discomforts she met on the way and see her every day, cheerful and smiling and happy, and filled with thankfulness for blessings received, that she seems for the very absence of any repining, to be a woman of the most exalted character.
I have traveled for days and weeks through saleratus dust that made lips, face and eyes tormentingly sore, while the throat and air tubes seemed to be raw. She barely mentions them. I have camped many a time, as she doubtless did, where the water was poisonous with alkali, and unfit for man or beast. I have been stung by buffalo flies until the sting of a Jersey mosquito would be a positive luxury. She barely mentions the pests. She does once mildly say: "The mosquitoes were so thick that we could hardly breathe," and that "the fleas covered all our garments" and made life a burden until she could get clear of them.
Then there were snakes. As far as I know she never once complained of snakes. This makes it all the more necessary in giving a true picture of pioneering upon the plains, to give a real experience. There is nothing more hateful than a snake. We were introduced to the prairie rattler very early in the journey and some had sport over it. We all wore high, rattlesnake boots; they were heavy and hard on the feet that had been accustomed to softer covering.
One of our gallant boys had received a present of a pair of beautiful embroidered slippers from a loved friend, and after supper he threw off those high snake boots and put on his slippers. Just then he was reminded that it was his duty that night to assist in picketing the mules in fresh pasture. He got hold of two lariats and started off singing "The Girl I Left Behind Me." About one hundred and fifty yards off he heard that ominous rattle near by and he dropped those lariats and came into camp at a speed that elicited cheers from the entire crowd.
Early in the journey an old Indian told me how to keep the snakes from our beds, and that was to get a lariat made from the hair of a buffalo's neck and lay it entirely around the bed. I got the lariat and seldom went to sleep without being inside of its coil. It is a fact that a snake will not willingly crawl over such a rope. The sharp prickly bristles are either uncomfortable to them, or they expect there is danger.
One night of horrors never to be forgotten was when I did not have my Indian lariat. Who of my readers ever had a rattlesnake attempt to make a nest in his hair? The story may hardly be worth telling, but I will relate it just as it occurred.
We had camped on the St. Mary's River and had gone four miles off the road to find good grazing for our animals. Supper was over, our bugler had sounded his last note, and we were preparing for bed when a man came in from a camp a mile off and reported that they had found a man on a small island, who was very sick and they wanted a doctor.
Dr. Schlater, of the Mt. Sterling Mining Company, at once got ready and went with him. Dr. Schlater was one of the grand specimens of manhood. He worked with the sick man all night and at daylight came down and asked me to go up with him. While we were bathing him the company of Michigan packers, who had found the stranger, moved off, and left us alone with the sick man, who was delirious and could give no account of himself.
We found from papers in his pockets that his name was West Williams of Bloomington, Iowa, and he carried a card from the I. O. O. F. of that place. We made him as comfortable as possible and went back to our camp and reported his condition. We found the company all ready to move out, only waiting for us. The man was too sick to travel and it would not do to let him remain there alone, and it was decided that Dr. S. and I should remain with him and try and find his friends or hire some person to take care of him, and then, by forced marches, we could follow on and catch the company.
We raised a purse of one hundred dollars and with such medicines as we needed and other supplies, also kept back a light spring wagon, and brought the sick man to our camp. I suggested to the Doctor that he ride over to the road and put up some written notices, giving the man's name, etc. He wrote out several and posted them on the trees where they would attract attention from passers. While he was doing this, a man with an ox-team came along and proved to be an old friend of the sick man right from the same locality. His name was Van S. Israel. He at once came with the Doctor and took charge of Williams, greatly to our relief.
While the Doctor was upon the road he was called to prescribe for another sick man by the name of Mahan, from Missouri. Learning where we were located, the Mahans moved down to our camp. The sick man was accompanied by his brother, and they had a splendid outfit. We concluded to give the entire day to the sick men and ride across the small desert just ahead during the night. A tent was erected for Mahan, and he walked in and laid down.
An hour or so later I went to the tent door and looking in saw the man lying dead. I spoke to his brother, who went into the tent convulsed with grief. I had scarcely reached my tent before I heard a piercing scream and rushed back, and upon opening the tent flap was horrified to behold the largest rattlesnake I had ever seen, coiled on the opposite side of the dead body and the living brother crowding as far away as possible on the other side to be out of his reach.
As soon as I appeared the snake uncoiled and slipped under the edge of the tent. I caught up a green cottonwood stick and ran around and he at once coiled for a fight. I let him strike the stick. After striking each time he would try to retreat, but a gentle tap with the stick would arouse his anger and he would coil and strike again. At first a full drop of the yellow fluid appeared upon the stick. This gradually diminished, and with it the courage of the reptile, which seemed to lose all fighting propensity. I then killed him.
Just before sunset we were ready to leave our sad associates, and we rode down to the river to give our mules a drink. The St. Mary's is a deep stream running through a level stretch with no banks. The mules had often been caved into the deep water and learned to get down on their knees to drink. For fear of an accident I got off and allowed my mule to kneel and drink. As he got upon his feet I swung into the saddle and started on. I had scarcely got firmly seated when, right under the mule, a rattler sang out. My double-barrel gun was hanging from my shoulder, muzzle down. As quick as a flash I slipped my arm through the strap, cocked the gun at the same time, and the mule shying, brought his snakeship in range, and just as he was in the act of striking, I shot him dead. The only good thing about the rattler is that he always gives the alarm before striking.