“Had I possessed at Camp Washington,” says the governor, “information which I gained in six days afterwards at Walla Walla, I should have pushed the party over the Cascades in the present condition of the animals; but Captain McClellan was entitled to weight in his judgment of the route, it being upon the special field of his examination.”
The incidents of the march to Camp Washington are thus narrated:—
During our stay at Colville, we visited McDonald’s camp. Near it there is a mission, under the charge of Père Lewis, whom we visited. The Indians about the mission are well disposed and religious. As we returned to the fort, Mr. Stanley was just going into camp, having made a march of thirty-five miles. In the evening we listened to the thrilling stories and exciting legends of McDonald, with which his memory seems to be well stored. He says intelligence had reached him through the Blackfeet of the coming of my party; that the Blackfeet gave most singular accounts of everything connected with us. For instance, they said that our horses had claws like the grizzly bear; they climbed up the steep rocks and held on by their claws; that their necks were like the new moon; and that their neighing was like the sound of distant thunder. McDonald has, of course, given a free translation of the reports made by Indians. We listened to his accounts of his own thrilling adventures of his mountain life, and a description of an encounter with a party of Blackfeet is well worth relating. At the head of a party of three or four men he was met by a band of these Indians, who showed evidences of hostility. By signs he requested the chief of the Blackfeet to advance and meet him, both being unarmed. When the chief assented, and met him half way between the two parties, McDonald caught him by the hair of the head, and, holding him firmly, exacted from the remaining Indians promises to give up their arms, which they accordingly did, and passed on peaceably. He has lived here many years, and is an upright, intelligent, manly, and energetic man.
October 21. We moved off. McDonald presented us with a keg filled with cognac to cheer the hearts of the members of all the parties, and obliged us also to take a supply of port wine. We passed his gristmill on Mill River, the only one in the neighborhood. A march of twelve miles brought us into camp, McDonald accompanying us. We had a glorious supper of smoking steaks and hot cakes, and the stories added to the relish with which it was eaten. McDonald again charmed us with a recital of his thrilling adventures.
October 22. We got off early, and at Brown’s we stopped to purchase horses, and succeeded in obtaining two, one for McClellan and the other for myself. McDonald accompanied me some distance farther, when, bidding each other adieu, I pushed ahead, and, reaching a small stream, I found that McClellan’s party had taken the left bank, and that the captain had gone on to join them. We took the right, and thus avoided a bad crossing in which McClellan’s party became involved. We encamped upon the borders of the stream. Our train is larger and more heavily laden than heretofore, in consequence of the increased supplies. To-day we have thirteen packs. At night we killed a cow purchased of Brown, and we still have an ox in reserve, to be killed when we meet Donelson. The air is cool and fresh, and our appetites keen. I may say here that two pounds of beef and half a pound of flour per man are not too much for a day’s allowance.
October 23. Snow is falling this morning, and it has cleaned our beef admirably. We journeyed but ten miles, encamping near where we had seen Antoine’s family in going to Colville. The snow ceased falling about noon, with five inches upon the ground. It is light, and we think it will disappear in a few days. The Indians inform me that we shall not probably find it south of the Cœur d’Alene, and from their statements it would seem that this river is a dividing line as regards climate.
October 24. We started this morning with the intention of reaching the appointed place of meeting to-night. McClellan, Minter, Osgood, Stanley, and myself pushed ahead, and at noon we reached the old Chemakane Mission, so called from a spring of that name near by. The mission was occupied by Messrs. Walker and Eells, but in 1849, in consequence of the Cuyuse difficulties, it was abandoned. These gentlemen labored ardently for the good of the Indians. Walker was a good farmer and taught them agriculture, and by them his name is now mentioned with great respect. The house occupied by Walker is still standing, but Eells’s has been burned down. The site of the mission is five miles from the Spokane River, in an extensive open valley, well watered and very rich. Here we met Garry and two hundred Spokanes. Garry has forwarded the letter to Donelson, but has received no intelligence of his arrival in the Cœur d’Alene plain. We therefore concluded to encamp here, and to-morrow McClellan and myself are to accompany Garry to the Spokane House. The Colville or Slawntebus and Chemakane valleys have a productive soil, and are from one to three miles wide, and bordered by low hills, covered with larch, pine, and spruce, and having also a productive soil. In the evening the Indians clustered around our fire, and manifested much pleasure in our treatment of them. I have now seen a great deal of Garry, and am much pleased with him. Beneath a quiet exterior he shows himself to be a man of judgment, forecast, and great reliability, and I could see in my interview with his band the ascendency he possesses over them.
In the Colville valley there is a line of settlements twenty-eight miles long. The settlers are persons formerly connected with the Hudson Bay Company, and they are anxious to become naturalized, and have the lands they now occupy transferred to themselves. I informed them that I could only express my hopes that their case would be met by the passage of a special act. They are extensive farmers, and raise a great deal of wheat.
October 25. Having left the necessary directions for moving camp to the place of meeting with Donelson, Captain McClellan and myself accompanied Garry to the Spokane House. The road was slippery in consequence of the melting of the snow, and we were obliged frequently to dismount. We found Garry’s family in a comfortable lodge, and he informed us that he always had on hand flour, sugar, and coffee, with which to make his friends comfortable. We then went to our new camp south of the Spokane, which had been established whilst we were visiting Garry’s place. From the Chemakane Mission the train left the river, and, passing through a rolling country covered with open pine woods, in five miles reached the Spokane, and crossing it by a good and winding ford, ascended the plain, and in six miles, the first two of which was through open pine, reached Camp Washington.
October 26, 27, 28, and 29. During these days I was occupied at our camp (Camp Washington) in making the arrangements for moving westward. Lieutenant Donelson arrived on the 28th, and we all sat down to a fine supper prepared for the occasion. All the members of the exploration were in fine spirits; our table was spread under a canopy, and upon it a great variety of dishes appeared, roasted beef, bouillon, steaks, and abundance of hot bread, coffee, sugar, and our friend McDonald’s good cheer. But the best dish was a beef’s head cooked by friend Minter in Texas fashion. It was placed in a hole in the ground on a layer of hot coals, with moss and leaves around it to protect it from the dirt, and then covered up. There it remained for some five or six hours, when, removing it, the skin came off without difficulty, and it presented a very tempting dish, and was enjoyed by every member of the party.
Having given the necessary instructions to McClellan and Donelson to proceed with their parties to the Walla Walla, thence to the Dalles, Vancouver, and Olympia, making careful survey of the country on the route, the governor, with his small party, pushed on ahead, having Garry and his brother as guides. Starting late in the afternoon of the 29th, they journeyed thirteen miles over undulating hills and a high table-land, and encamped upon a small stream called Se-cule-eel-qua, with fine grass and fertile soil.
October 30. We commenced to move at sunrise, and at three P.M. encamped on a small lake twenty-two miles from our place of departure in the morning. In view of this camp were the graves of a number of Spokane Indians, indicated by mounds of stones, designed to protect the bodies from the wolves, and by poles supported in an upright position by the stones. It was the usage until within a few years past, for the Spokanes and other northern tribes towards the Pacific to slay the horses and cattle of the deceased at his grave, and also to sacrifice his other property, but they are gradually relinquishing this pernicious practice, under the influence of the counsels and example of the white man.
October 31. We continued to follow the general course of the stream upon whose banks we were encamped, and after riding eight miles we crossed another small stream, rising in a chain of small lakes south of our last camp. These lakes abound in wild fowl, which at this season are very plentiful, and they are therefore much resorted to by the Spokanes and other Indians. We saw in one of these lakes, surrounded by ducks and geese, a pair of white swans, which remained to challenge our admiration after their companions had been frightened away by our approach.
Garry assures us that there is a remarkable lake called En-chush-chesh-she-luxum, or Never Freezing Water, about thirty miles to the east of this place. It is much larger than any of the lakes just mentioned, and so completely surrounded by high and precipitous rocks that it is impossible to descend to the water. It is said never to freeze, even in the most severe winter. The Indians believe that it is inhabited by buffalo, elk, deer, and all other kinds of game, which, they say, may be seen in the clear, transparent element. He also narrates the story of a superstition respecting a point of painted rock in Pend Oreille Lake, situated near the place now occupied by Michal Ogden. The Indians, he says, do not venture to pass this point, fearing that the Great Spirit may, as related in the legends, create a commotion in the water and cause them to be swallowed up in the waves. The painted rocks are very high, and bear effigies of men and beasts and other characters, made, as the Indians believe, by a race of men who preceded them as inhabitants of the land.
Our route to-day has been through a rocky and broken country, and after a march of thirty-two miles we encamped on a small stream called En-cha-rae-nae, flowing from the lake where we last halted, near a number of natural mounds.
November 1. Our course lay down the valley of the En-cha-rae-nae, a rugged way, beset with deep clefts in the volcanic rocks. We crossed the Pelouse River near the mouth of the former, and near the stream flowing from the never freezing lake, and twelve miles from the mouth of the Pelouse. Four miles from our place of crossing the Pelouse runs through a deep cañon, surrounded by isolated volcanic buttes, to its junction with Snake River. At two P.M. we arrived at the mouth of the Pelouse, and, crossing Snake River, we encamped on its southern bank, several Pelouse Indians accompanying us, and among them a chief from a band but a few miles distant from our camp, Wi-ti-my-hoy-she. He exhibited a medal of Thomas Jefferson, dated 1801, given to his grandfather, as he alleges, by Lewis and Clark.
November 2. I have referred in an early stage of this narrative to the condition of my health, and will state that not a day was I on the road from Fort Benton to this point that I did not suffer much. The day I made my long ride to Colville, I was so feeble and exhausted that, on making my noon halt after moving fifteen miles, I was obliged to have my bed spread in order to rest; but the idea of meeting gentlemen so soon, from whom I had been so long separated, enabled me to bear the fatigue of my afternoon fifty miles’ ride to Colville. Although in great suffering, I determined to move with Garry from Snake River to Fort Walla Walla to-day, leaving Mr. Stanley to come on with my party and train in two days. I desired to save a day in order to collect information at Walla Walla, and to visit the Walla Walla valley. Accordingly we set off. It required me three hours to get my courage up to the sticking-point, so that I could bear the pain growing out of traveling at a gait faster than a walk; but, getting warm in the saddle, we increased our speed, and on reaching the Touchet we dismounted for a slight halt. Pushing on a little before two o’clock, we reached Fort Walla Walla at sundown, moving the last twenty-five miles at the rate of about eight miles an hour, and were there hospitably received by Mr. Pembrum, the factor in charge, and after a little conversation I refreshed myself with reading some late papers. On the road my time was much occupied with studying the deportment of the mountain ranges in view, and all the peculiarities of the country about me, to judge something of its winter climate and the probable fall of snow; and on reaching Walla Walla I became satisfied from these things, and especially from a view of the highest spur of the Blue Mountains in sight, that the snows of the Cascades could not be so formidable as they had been represented. I accordingly determined to search thoroughly into this matter at Walla Walla.
November 3–8. I remained in the Walla Walla country during these days, spending two days up the valley and the remainder at the fort. Mr. Stanley, with the train, reached the fort on the 3d, and,
November 4, we started upon the trip through the valley, riding upon our horses. Arriving at the Hudson Bay farm, we exchanged them for fresh ones. This farm is eighteen miles from Walla Walla, and is a fine tract of land, well adapted to grazing or cultivation. It is naturally bounded by streams, and is equivalent to a mile square. There is the richest grass here that we have seen since leaving St. Mary’s. From this we went to McBane’s house, a retired factor of the company, from whence we had a fine view of the southern portion of the valley, which is watered by many tributaries from the Blue Mountains. Thirty miles from Walla Walla, and near McBane’s, lives Father Chirouse, a missionary of the Catholic order, who with two laymen exercises his influence among the surrounding tribes.
November 5. We remained with Mr. McBane overnight, and returned to the fort to-day by way of the Whitman Mission, now occupied by Bumford and Brooke. They were harvesting, and I saw as fine potatoes as ever I beheld, many weighing two pounds, and one five and a half. Their carrots and beets, too, were of extraordinary size. Mr. Whitman must have done a great deal of good for the Indians. His mission was situated upon a fine tract of land, and he had erected a saw and grist mill. From Bumford’s to the mouth of the Touchet are many farms, mostly occupied by the retired employees of the Hudson Bay Company. On our return we met Pu-pu-mox-mox, the Walla Walla chief, known and respected far and wide. He possesses not so much intelligence and energy as Garry, but he has some gifts of which the latter is deprived. He is of dignified manner, and well qualified to manage men. He owns over two thousand horses, besides many cattle, and has a farm near that of the Hudson Bay Company. On the occurrence of the Cuyuse war, he was invited to join them, but steadily refused. After their destruction of the mission, he was asked to share the spoils, and again refused. They then taunted him with being afraid of the whites, to which he replied: “I am not afraid of the whites, nor am I afraid of the Cuyuses. I defy your whole band. I will plant my three lodges on the border of my own territory at the mouth of the Touchet, and there I will meet you if you dare to attack me.” He accordingly moved his lodges to this point, and remained there three or four weeks. Stanley was on his way from Walker and Eells’s Mission to Whitman’s Mission, and indeed was actually within three miles of the latter, when he heard of the terrible tragedy which had been enacted there, and the information was brought to him by an Indian of Pu-pu-mox-mox’s band. Pu-pu-mox-mox has saved up a large amount of money (probably as much as $5000); still he is generous, and frequently gives an ox and other articles of value to the neighbors. Some of his people having made a contract to ferry the emigrants across the river, who crossed the Cascades this year, and then having refused to execute it, he compelled them to carry it out faithfully, and, mounting his horse, he thrashed them until they complied. He has the air of a substantial farmer.
On the 6th Lieutenant Donelson and on the 7th Captain McClellan reached old Fort Walla Walla with the main parties. Governor Stevens was now satisfied, both from his own observations and from information furnished by Pembrum, Pu-pu-mox-mox, and others, among them a voyageur who had actually crossed the Cascades in the month of December, that it was not yet too late to send a party across these mountains. Accordingly he directed Mr. Lander to proceed up the Yakima and over the Nahchess Pass in order to run the line to the Sound.
The governor had a remarkable faculty for getting information from people of every kind and condition, Hudson Bay Company men, settlers, voyageurs, and Indians, and always took great pains to learn all they could impart, while his keen and sound judgment enabled him to distinguish the chaff from the wheat in their reports.
Having provided fresh animals for Mr. Lander, given him his written instructions, and in conversation urged upon him the entire feasibility of the survey intrusted to him, the governor, with Mr. Stanley, on November 8 started down the Columbia in a canoe managed by voyageurs, and reached the Dalles on the 12th. Says the governor:—
“We took with us two days’ provisions, and were four days in reaching the Dalles, having been detained nearly two days in camp by a high wind which blew up the river, but we eked out our scanty stores by the salmon generously furnished us by the Indian bands near us. At the principal rapids I got out and observed the movements of the canoe through them, and, from the best examination which I was able to make, I became at once convinced that the river was probably navigable for steamers. I remained at the Dalles on the 13th to make arrangements for the moving forward of the parties and for herding the animals, looking to a resumption of the survey, where I was the guest of Major Rains, and had a most pleasant time, meeting old acquaintances and making new ones with the gentlemen of the post. On the 14th I reached the Cascades, where I passed the night. Here I met several gentlemen—men who had crossed the plains, and who had made farms in several States and in Oregon or Washington—who had carefully examined the Yakima country for new locations, and who impressed me with the importance of it as an agricultural and grazing country. November 15 we went down the river in a canoe, and on the 16th reached Vancouver, where I remained the 17th, 18th, and 19th as the guest of Colonel Bonneville, and where I also became acquainted with the officers of the Hudson Bay Company.
“Leaving Vancouver on the 20th, I reached Olympia on the 25th, where for the first time I saw the waters of Puget Sound. No special incident worthy of remark occurred on the journey, except that I was four days going up the Cowlitz in drenching rains, and two nights had the pleasure of camping out. I will now advise voyageurs in the interior, when they get suddenly into the rains west of the Cascades, to take off their buckskin underclothing. I neglected to do this, and among the many agreeabilities of this trip up the Cowlitz was to have the underclothing of buckskin wet entirely through. I was enabled to examine the country pretty carefully all the way to Olympia, and had with me a very intelligent man, who could point out localities and inform me about the country not in view of the road; and I saw that not only was it entirely practicable for a railroad line to the Sound, but that the work was light, and the material for construction of all kinds entirely inexhaustible.
“After considerable delays at Vancouver, the gentlemen of the parties under Captain McClellan and Lieutenant Donelson arrived at Olympia for office duty, being preceded a few days by Mr. Lander, who for reasons not conclusive to my mind did not persevere in the examination of the Nahchess Pass. One of his reasons for not continuing his examination was that it was not on the railroad line, which did not apply, because that fact was well known to him previously, having been announced to him positively in my written instructions. I did not censure Mr. Lander for not continuing on this duty, as I know the perplexity of mind in which one is placed by the contradictory character of the information gained; but I resolved to get my line to the Sound, and accordingly dispatched an express to the Walla Walla, directing Mr. Tinkham on his arrival at that point to cross to Puget Sound by the Snoqualmie Pass, my object being twofold,—to get at some facts which would decisively settle the question of the depth of snow, in regard to which Captain McClellan and myself differed, as well as really to connect our work with the Sound itself.”
Thus Lander purposely balked the task intrusted to him, and threw away another fine opportunity of achieving credit for himself.
Upon McClellan’s arrival at Olympia, Governor Stevens directed him to take up from the Sound the reconnoissance for a railroad line to the Snoqualmie Pass, connecting with his examination on the eastern side, which had extended three miles across the summit. But again McClellan failed to accomplish the task, deterred as usual by the reports of Indians, and magnified difficulties. Leaving Olympia December 23, with Mr Minter, civil engineer, and four men, he spent five days at Steilacoom in a vain attempt to procure horses and guides for the Snoqualmie Falls, intending to proceed thence on snowshoes. Then he went by canoe down the Sound and up the Snohomish River to the falls, and pushed forward on foot four miles to the prairie just above the falls.
“I found,” he reports, “the prairie to be about as represented,—in places bare, but in others with three or four inches of snow. Leaving my companions at the Indian bivouac to make the best preparations they could for passing the night (for we had neither tent, blanket, nor overcoat), I went forward on the trail with two Indians.
“As soon as we left the prairie the ground became entirely covered with snow; it soon became a foot deep in the shallowest spots, and was constantly increasing. All signs of a trail were obliterated,—the underbrush very thick and loaded with snow,—the snow unfit for snowshoes, according to the Indians. I now turned back to our bivouac, and there awaited the arrival of an Indian who was out hunting, and who was said to possess much information about the country. He soon arrived, and proved to be a very intelligent Yakima, whom I had seen on the other side of the mountains in the summer. He had been hunting in the direction I wished to go, and stated that the snow soon increased to ‘waist-deep’ long before reaching the Nooksai-Nooksai, and that it was positively impracticable to use snowshoes. He also said that the Indians did not pretend to cross over the mountains at this season, but waited till about the end of March, and then took their horses over.
“Next morning, after again questioning the Indian, I reluctantly determined to return, being forced to the conclusion that, if the attempt to reach the pass was not wholly impracticable, it was at least inexpedient under all the circumstances in which I was placed.”[7]
Could any man but McClellan have seriously asserted that “it was positively impracticable to use snowshoes” on snow, and that, too, on the authority of Indians, who were notoriously unreliable, and who, in their jealousy of white exploration, habitually exaggerated the difficulties of the country? This seems the very acme of imaginary obstacles. It was January 10 that McClellan turned back. Had he manfully taken to his snowshoes, he could have reached the summit in three or four days, and connected with his reconnoissance on the eastern side, and this was soon demonstrated to his deep disgust.
Far different was the action and spirit of Tinkham. He had just arrived at Walla Walla from a remarkable and arduous trip, during which he crossed the Rocky Mountains by the Marias Pass, proceeded to Fort Benton, recrossed the mountains by a more southern pass to the Bitter Root valley, and thence crossed the Bitter Root Range on snowshoes by the rugged southern Nez Perces trail, when he received Governor Stevens’s instructions to push to the Sound by way of the Snoqualmie Pass. Starting from Walla Walla on January 7 with two Indians, he proceeded up the Yakima to its head on horseback, and there leaving his animals, he crossed the mountains on snowshoes, and reached Seattle on January 26, seven days after leaving the eastern base of the divide, and twenty days from Walla Walla. He carefully measured the depth of snow and reported:—
“From Lake Kitchelus to the summit, some five miles, and where occurs the deepest snow, the average measurement was about six feet, but frequently running as high as seven feet. Passing on to the west side of the Cascades, the snow rapidly disappears; fourteen miles from the summit there was but eight inches of snow, and thence it gradually faded away as approach was made to the shores of the Sound: for only a few miles was the snow six feet deep; the whole breadth over twelve inches deep was somewhat less than sixty miles in extent.”
Thus Tinkham actually crossed the range and reached the Sound, making the very trip that McClellan pronounced “impracticable” and would not even try, only ten days after the latter’s failure.
But McClellan’s pride was hurt by this incident. He took Governor Stevens’s opinion as to the snow question, and his action in sending Tinkham across the pass, in high dudgeon as a reflection on himself, and, regardless of the true friendship shown him and benefits conferred upon him by the governor, treated him with marked coldness. In his usual generous and magnanimous way, Governor Stevens took no notice of this changed attitude of McClellan, but gave him all possible credit in his reports. Some years afterwards, when Governor Stevens was in Congress, their mutual friend, Captain J.G. Foster, came to him, and said that McClellan wished to meet him again and renew their old friendship. Accordingly they met at Willard’s, and McClellan appeared as cordial and agreeable as of old.
Captain McClellan had been instructed, after completing his reconnoissance of the Snoqualmie Pass, to examine the harbors on the eastern shore of the Sound as far as Bellingham Bay. But he gave up this duty also, after proceeding a single day’s trip in canoes about twenty miles north of the mouth of the Snohomish River to the northern extremity of McDonough or Camano Island, where he encamped for the night, alleging as usual the inclemency of the weather: “During that night six inches of snow fell and a violent gale arose, so that on the next day we were unable to proceed. On the next day (14th), the wind still continuing dead ahead and very violent, I turned back,” etc.
Yet at this very time Governor Stevens was making a complete tour of the Sound in a small open sailboat, regardless of wind and weather.
McClellan also failed to do anything towards opening the military road across the Cascades between Steilacoom and Fort Walla Walla; and Lieutenant Richard Arnold, under the governor’s general supervision, relieved him of the charge of the road, and completed it in 1854.
It will be remembered how Governor Stevens had placed this road in McClellan’s hands, had furnished him with information and correspondence relating to it, and had advised him to consult with the prominent settlers in regard to the best location of it. Of these people the governor remarks in his report:—
“They have crossed the mountains, and made the long distance from the valley of the Mississippi to their homes on the Pacific; they have done so frequently, having to cut out roads as they went, and knowing little of the difficulties before them. They are therefore men of observation, of experience, of enterprise, and men who at home had by industry and frugality secured a competency and the respect of their neighbors; for it must be known that our emigrants travel in parties, and those go together who were acquaintances at home, because they mutually confide in each other. I was struck with the high qualities of the frontier people, and soon learned how to confide in them and gather information from them.”
Contrast with this McClellan’s assertions in his letter to Secretary of War Davis, of September 18, 1853:—
“But the result of my short experience in this country has been that not the slightest faith or confidence is to be placed in information derived from the employees of the Hudson Bay Company, or from the inhabitants of the Territory; in every instance, when I have acted upon information thus obtained, I have been altogether deceived and misled.”
But he was ready enough to adopt the reports of Indians in support of obstacles which existed chiefly in his own imagination.
It was indeed a wild country, untouched by civilization, and a scanty white population sparsely sprinkled over the immense area that were awaiting the arrival of Governor Stevens to organize civil government, and shape the destinies of the future. A mere handful of settlers, 3965 all told, were widely scattered over western Washington, between the lower Columbia and the Strait of Fuca. A small hamlet clustered around the military post at Vancouver. A few settlers were spread wide apart along the Columbia, among whom were Columbia Lancaster on Lewis River; Seth Catlin, Dr. Nathaniel Ostrander, and the Huntingtons about the mouth of the Cowlitz; Alexander S. Abernethy at Oak Point; and Judge William Strong at Cathlamet. Some oystermen in Shoalwater Bay were taking shellfish for the San Francisco market. At Cowlitz Landing, thirty miles up that river, were extensive prairies, where farms had been cultivated by the Hudson Bay Company, under the name of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, for fifteen years; and here were a few Americans and a number of Scotch and Canadians, former employees of that company, and now looking forward to becoming American citizens, and settling down upon their own “claims” under the Donation Act, which gave 320 acres to every settler, and as much more to his wife. A score of hardy pioneers had settled upon the scattered prairies between the Cowlitz Farms and the Sound; among them were John R. Jackson, typical English yeoman, on his prairie, ten miles from the Cowlitz; S.S. Saunders, on Saunders’s Bottom, where now stands the town of Chehalis; George Washington, a colored man, on the next prairie, the site of Centralia; Judge Sidney S. Ford on his prairie on the Chehalis River, below the mouth of the Skookumchuck Creek; W.B. Goodell, B.L. Henness, and Stephen Hodgdon on Grand Mound Prairie; A.B. Rabbeson and W.W. Plumb on Mound Prairie. A number of settlers had taken up the prairies about Olympia, the principal of whom were W.O. Bush, Gabriel Jones, William Rutledge, and David Kendrick on Bush Prairie; J.N. Low, Andrew J. Chambers, Nathan Eaton, Stephen D. Ruddell, and Urban E. Hicks on Chambers’s Prairie; David J. Chambers on the prairie of his name. James McAlister and William Packwood were on the Nisqually Bottom, at the mouth of the river, just north of which, on the verge of the Nisqually plains, was situated the Hudson Bay Company post, Fort Nisqually, a parallelogram of log buildings and stockade, under charge of Dr. W.F. Tolmie, a warm-hearted and true Scot. Great herds of Spanish cattle, the property of this company, roamed over the Nisqually plains, little cared for and more than half wild, and, it is to be feared, occasionally fell prey to the rifles of the hungry American emigrants. Two miles below Olympia, on the east side of the bay, was located a Catholic mission under Fathers Ricard and Blanchet, where were a large building, an orchard, and a garden. They had made a number of converts among the Indians.
Towns, each as yet little more than a “claim” and a name, but each in the hope and firm belief of its founders destined to future greatness, were just started at Steilacoom, by Lafayette Balch; at Seattle, by Dr. D. S. Maynard, H.L. Yesler, and the Dennys; at Port Townsend, by F.W. Pettygrove and L.B. Hastings; and at Bellingham Bay, by Henry Roder and Edward Eldridge.
Save the muddy track from the Cowlitz to Olympia and thence to Steilacoom, and a few local trails, roads there were none. Communication was chiefly by water, almost wholly in canoes manned by Indians. The monthly steamer from San Francisco and a little river steamboat plying daily between Vancouver and Portland alone vexed with their keels the mighty Columbia; while it was not until the next year that reckless, harum-scarum Captain Jack Scranton ran the Major Tompkins, a small black steamer, once a week around the Sound, and had no rival. Here was this great wooded country without roads, the unrivaled waterways without steamers, the adventurous, vigorous white population without laws, numerous tribes of Indians without treaties, and the Hudson Bay Company’s rights and possessions without settlement. To add to the difficulties and confusion of the situation, Congress, by the Donation Acts, held out a standing invitation to the American settlers to seize and settle upon any land, surveyed or unsurveyed, without waiting to extinguish the Indian title, or define the lands guaranteed by solemn treaty to the foreign company, and already the Indians and the Hudson Bay Company were growing daily more and more restless and indignant at the encroachments of the pushing settlers upon their choicest spots. Truly a situation fraught with difficulties and dangers, where everything was to be done and nothing yet begun.
It is a great but common mistake to suppose that the early American settlers of Washington were a set of lawless, rough, and ignorant borderers. In fact they compare favorably with the early settlers of any of the States. As a rule they were men of more than average force of character, vigorous, honest, intelligent, law-abiding, and patriotic,—men who had brought their families to carve out homes in the wilderness, and many of them men of education and of standing in their former abodes. Among them could be found the best blood of New England, the sturdy and kindly yeomanry of Virginia and Kentucky, and men from all the States of the Middle West from Ohio to Arkansas. Most of them had slowly wended their way across the great plains, overcoming every obstacle, and suffering untold privations; others had come by sea around Cape Horn, or across the Isthmus. They were all true Americans, patriotic and brave, and filled with sanguine hopes of, and firm faith in, the future growth and greatness of the new country which they had come to make blossom like the rose. Governor Stevens, as has been shown, at once appreciated the character of these people.
After the arduous and exposed journey up the Cowlitz by canoe,—where the Indian crew had to gain foot by foot against the furious current of the flooded river, oftentimes pulling the frail craft along by the overhanging bushes,—and over the muddy trail by horseback, Governor Stevens reached Olympia on November 25, 1853, just five months and nineteen days since starting from St. Paul. He found here awaiting his arrival the new territorial secretary, Charles M. Mason, brother to his old friend Colonel James Mason, of the engineers, who had just come out by the Isthmus route. Mason was of distinguished appearance and bearing, with fine dark eyes and hair, fair, frank face, and charming but unobtrusive manner. He was highly educated, gifted with unusual ability, and a noble and amiable disposition, and was beloved by all who knew him. The other territorial officers on the ground were: Edward Lander, chief justice, and Victor Monroe, associate justice; J.V. Clendenin, district attorney; J. Patten Anderson, marshal; and Simpson P. Moses, collector of customs.
Among the settlers welcoming their new governor were: Edmund Sylvester, the founder of Olympia; Colonel William Cock, Shirley Ensign, D.R. Bigelow, George A. Barnes, H.A. Goldsborough, John M. Swan, C.H. Hale, Judge B.F. Yantis, Judge Gilmore Hayes, John G. Parker, Quincy A. Brooks, Dr. G.K. Willard, Colonel M. T. Simmons, Captain Clanrick Crosby, Ira Ward, James Biles, Joseph Cushman, S.W. Percival, Edwin Marsh, R.M. Walker, Levi and James Offut, J.C. Head, W. Dobbins, Isaac Hawk, Rev. G.F. Whitworth, Jared S. Hurd, H.R. Woodward, B.F. Brown, and M. Hurd.
The arrival of the governor and his party was the great event for the little town, as well as for the new Territory generally, and warm and hearty was his greeting by the pioneers. And when shortly afterwards, December 19, the governor delivered a lecture, giving a description of his exploration and an exposition of the Northern route, their hopes and expectations were raised to the highest point, and they already saw in the mind’s eye the iron horse speeding across the plains and through the mighty forests, and the full-flowing tide of immigration following its advent.
Without delay the governor issued his proclamation, as empowered by the organic act marking out and establishing election districts, appointing time (January 30) and places for holding the elections, for a delegate in Congress and members of the legislature, and summoning that body to meet in Olympia on the 28th of February.
The Indian service next engaged his attention. He appointed Colonel M.T. Simmons Indian agent for the Puget Sound Indians, with B.F. Shaw and O. Cushman as interpreters and assistants, and sent them to visit the different tribes and bands, to assure them of the protection and guidance of the Great Father in Washington, to urge them to cultivate the soil and “follow the white man’s road,” that is, to adopt the habits of civilized life; and to impress upon them the necessity of making treaties, in order to prevent future trouble and secure them peace and safety. He also appointed A.J. Bolon agent for the Indians east of the Cascades, and William H. Tappan agent for the coast and river Indians on the Chehalis and Columbia rivers, Gray’s Harbor, and Shoalwater Bay.
Governor Stevens deeply commiserated the condition and probable future of the Indians under his charge, and felt the greatest interest and concern in their welfare and improvement. How wise, generous, and beneficent a policy he established in his treaties, with what great kindness, justice, and firmness he uniformly treated them, will be shown later in this work. It is enough to say now that the Indians came to know him as their friend and protector, and to this day hold his memory in reverence; that the treaties he made and the policy he inaugurated have remained in force to the present time, and that under them the Indians of Washington have more fully preserved their rights and improved their condition than the aborigines of any other State.
Having thus started the civil government and Indian service, and set the young men of the exploration hard at work preparing the reports, and, as already related, dispatched McClellan to run the line from the Sound to the Snoqualmie Pass, the governor took the Sarah Stone, a small sailboat, or “plunger,” and, accompanied by Mr. George Gibbs, went down the Sound in person, in order, as he states, “to visit and take a census of the Indian tribes, learn something of the general character of the Sound and its harbors, and to visit Vancouver Island and its principal port, Victoria.
“In this trip I visited Steilacoom, Seattle, Skagit Head, Penn’s Cove, the mouths of the Skagit and Samish rivers, Bellingham Bay, passed up the channel De Rosario and down the channel De Haro to Victoria, and on my return made Port Townsend and several other points on the western shore of the Sound. We examined the coal mines back of Seattle and Bellingham Bay, and saw a large body of Indians of nearly all the tribes. I became greatly impressed with the important advantages of Seattle, and also with the importance of the disputed islands.”
In a report to the Secretary of War, written immediately after this trip, he remarks:—
“I was agreeably impressed with Elliott’s Bay, on which are the flourishing towns of Seattle and Alki, and I agree entirely in the opinion of Captain McClellan that it is the best harbor on the Sound, and unless the approach to it from the pass should, on a more minute examination, prove less favorable than to some other point, which is hardly to be expected, that it is the proper terminus of the railroad.”
In his reports Seattle is assumed as the terminus on the Sound, and all the distances measured and calculations of cost, etc., are made with reference to that point as the western end of the route.
The above is a provokingly brief and meagre record of this trip, which occupied the whole month of January, the same month that McClellan, after balking the Snoqualmie survey, turned back from Camano Island and abandoned the examination of the lower Sound in consequence of the inclemency of the weather. The governor’s trip could have been no holiday excursion, in an open sailboat in that stormy, rainy season, and among the swift tides and fierce gales of the lower Sound. But it was fruitful in results. He grasped with the acute and discriminating eye of an engineer the whole system of waters and the several harbors and points of importance, talked with the principal men of each place and gleaned all the information they could furnish, and gained a comprehensive and correct idea of the numbers, distribution, and character of the Indians.
Moreover, he met at Victoria Governor Sir James Douglass and the other officers there of the Hudson Bay Company, and discussed with them their claims within our borders. He had now visited and personally examined all but one (Fort Okanogan) of that company’s posts within his territory, Colville, Walla Walla, Vancouver, Cowlitz Farms, and Nisqually, and had discussed their claims with the officers in charge of them, and with the chief factor, Sir James Douglass. As the result of this investigation he made, on his return to Olympia, an exhaustive report to the Secretary of State, setting forth in detail the actual holdings and improvements of the company at each point. He estimated that their value could not exceed $300,000, and recommended that a commission be appointed to adjudicate the claims, and that such sum be appropriated by Congress to extinguish them. Secretary Marcy adopted his views and recommendations, and transmitted them to Congress, and a bill appointing the commission and making the appropriation passed the Senate the following session, but failed in the House. These claims remained a bone of contention between the countries for many years, until finally Great Britain, by means of a joint commission, and by sticking to the most extravagant demands with true bulldog tenacity, succeeded in wringing nearly a million dollars from the United States.
At the election Columbia Lancaster was chosen delegate in Congress. He was a lawyer by profession, and a man of ability and education.
The legislature assembled on the appointed day, and Governor Stevens delivered his first message. Briefly reviewing the great natural resources of the Territory and its commercial advantages, with its unrivaled harbors and location to control in due time the trade of China and Japan, he recommended the adoption of a code of laws, the organization of the country east of the Cascades into counties, a school system with military training in the higher schools, and the organization of the militia. The latter he declared necessary in view of their remote situation, compelling them to rely upon themselves in case of war, for a time at least, and to enable them to draw arms and ammunition from the general government, which could be issued only to an organized militia force. He dwelt on the importance of extinguishing the Indian title and the claims of the Hudson Bay and Puget Sound Agricultural Companies, and settling the boundary line on British territory, and recommended them to memorialize Congress in behalf of these measures. He informed them that, under instructions from the Secretary of State, he had already notified the foreign Fur Company that it could not be allowed to trade with Indians within the Territory, and would be given until July to wind up their affairs. He also urged them to ask Congress for a surveyor-general and a land office, for more rapid surveys of public land, so that they might be kept in advance of settlement; to amend the land laws by facilitating the acquisition of title, and by placing single women on the same footing with married women; for a grant of lands for a university; for improved mail service; for roads to Walla Walla, to Vancouver, and to Bellingham Bay along the eastern shore of the Sound; and for continuing the geographical and geological surveys already begun. He boldly advocated the construction of three railroads across the continent, undoubtedly the first to foresee the necessity of more than a single line. From this time he always advocated three transcontinental roads.
All these recommendations were promptly adopted by the legislature, except as regarded the militia, concerning which no action was taken; an unfortunate neglect, which left the people almost defenseless when the Indian war broke out less than two years later.
Soon after arriving at Olympia, Governor Stevens writes his friend Halleck announcing his arrival and the successful achievement of the exploration. In this letter he expresses the opinion that the waters of San Francisco Bay and Puget Sound should both have their connections with the States by railroad.
He asks Halleck how lands should be donated and managed for the establishment of a university in Washington Territory, and his views as to a plan, etc.
January 9 he writes Joseph Grinnell & Co., of New York, a great mercantile and shipping and whaling firm, suggesting to them the establishing of a whaling and fishing depot on one of the harbors of the lower Sound.
Halleck writes a cordial letter in reply to the governor’s, and gives him a glimpse “behind the curtain” of California and Southern Democratic politics, which throws light on Jefferson Davis’s action in shutting off the further exploration of the Northern route.